《Omnipotent Sage》


 Chapter 1: Time-Travel

    Chapter 1: Time-Travel


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was natural to be a time-space traveler. In this world, the ones who traveled far outnumbered those who did not. The question was where to go.


    Sitting on a small stool and wearing open-crotch pants, Wang Bo raised his head and with his eyes blinking, looked vacantly at the old Chinese scholar tree in his yard.


    "Oh my god. Who can tell me what dynasty that I''ve traveled to?"


    "Jin!"


    It was the only information that he received after his time-traveling. In fact, it was already marvelous to know the name of the country as it was a small isolated village.


    Among the over 100 villagers, the blind fortune-teller was the only one who could read. There were rumors that after 30 unsuccessful years of trying to be a scholar, the old man cried all day long and finally became blind. After that, he made a living as a fortune teller.


    Although the villagers did not really believe him, there were some odd customs in this very ancient place. People preferred to comfort themselves at weddings and funerals. Thanks to that, he was able to barely make ends meet, and now and then he might even have a taste of meat when he got it right and received extra rewards from his guests. His life was not so bad.


    He was the only one in this village who could actually write. Wang Bo could tell that the writings on the long white flag in the fortune-teller''s hands were traditional Chinese characters. While the spoken language was hard to understand at first, he grew to understand it. It was Chinese with a strong accent. That was the reason why he thought he had traveled back to ancient China from the very beginning.


    Gradually, however, as he learned from a few words spoken by the villagers, he doubted his judgment. The country they lived was Jin, Great Jin!


    There was no such a dynasty in ancient China, except for the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), which this obviously was not because there was no chance that he could read the writings from that time.


    So, this was not ancient China. He just traveled to a world that was quite similar to it.


    In this small village, the old blind man was the only one who could answer his questions, but he could not ask the old blind man for help. He was still far too young. How could a three-year-old boy wearing open-crotch pants ask something like that?


    Of course, he did not want to be seen as a freak.


    This was not like a fantasy in which it was okay if you were a prodigy and talked like an adult at birth. Just three days ago, some guy in the neighboring village was beaten to death because he was talking crazily and was assumed to be a monster by his villagers. So it was wise to keep a low profile.


    In his previous life, Wang Bo had a Ph.D. degree in Chinese literature and he was well versed in traditional Chinese, too. Furthermore, he had done some research on ancient Chinese history in his free time. So, besides traditional Chinese characters, he was not good at anything.


    Technically, it was a transmigration of the soul rather than time-travel. All he had done was skip the Five-Flavored Tea of Forgetfulness from hell.


    In his previous life, Wang Bo never had a strong body and worked in an office. At the age of 36, he choked on a mouthful of cold water and died. And when he was sober again, he found himself reborn into this world.


    Maybe God was ashamed that Wang Bo lived for nothing and died for nothing in his previous life, so he was given another chance to live.


    After years of adapting, he could finally fit in.


    It was not really a problem of fitting in, as he was merely a newborn baby who could not even take care of himself.


    He was born as one of the Zhou''s and his given name was not Bo. As a matter of fact, he still did not have a name. He was called Little Shiba.


    When you were born in the mountains like this, you would not really mind it. It was perfectly normal for a man reaching his adulthood to be without a name.


    Having a family name was good enough.


    The Zhou''s were native mountain villagers and he was the fourth son in the family. His oldest brother, 18 years old, was an honest hunter and farmer who got married last year. His second oldest brother, 13 years old, who horsed around every day, was a little jerk and a real headache for the family. His third oldest brother was nine years old. And Wang Bo was three years old. The Zhou''s also had a girl, 17 years old, who got engaged at the age of 10, and it was about time for her wedding.


    The Zhou''s oldest son was called Spikey; the second son Houndie; the third son Boxer; and the fourth son, Wang Bo, who should have been called Fourth Doggie. As for the daughter of the Zhou''s, she was automatically overlooked, just as every other disadvantaged girl was back in the old days.


    As the family already had too many little boys to feed, Wang Bo was called Little Shiba, meaning that they were not planning to have another little son.


    The Zhou''s were nothing but a normal family in this village, struggling on the barren fields and hunting. Though they did hunt, old Zhou was barely a skilled enough hunter to bring home much prey, and additionally, even if old Zhou got something, it was always traded for daily necessities. That explained why there was no meat on their table all year round, which nearly killed Wang Bo, who was used to lavish meals in his previous life. Fortunately, he was only suffering minor malnutrition for a three-year-old boy. The corn gruel they had every day kept him from starving and with a little luck, he could even have a taste of meat. That would be like the Spring Festival!


    The mountain villagers were good at survival. Their ability ran through Wang Bo''s veins.


    After three years, he had gotten used to the black Chinese cornbread and the yellow, shit corn gruel which did not make him feel gross anymore. The secret was to close your eyes and get it over with.


    It was the loneliness that bothered him the most, which was not like an internet meme. It was true loneliness.


    Imagine that a 30-year-old soul was trapped in a baby boy''s body for three years, how much loneliness would he bear? He could not say or do anything he liked. He could not even put up a fight when people rubbed his face or flipped his small penis. What a f*cking life, wearing open-crotch pants!


    Luckily, he was not a baby boy anymore. Though still wearing open-crotch pants, he was not getting molested anymore.


    Now in May, the weather was getting warmer. He sat motionless on a small stool in his yard, staring steadily at the old Chinese scholar tree, with his thinking in a mess.


    "Little Shiba, Little Shiba! Come here! Time for dinner." Without knowing how long had passed, he heard someone crying out in a rough but comforting voice. Wang Bo knew it was Little Shiba''s mother. That is to say, the woman that he called "mother" now was calling him for dinner.


    Wang Bo moved his ass from the small cold stool and ran home.


    It was not like the previous life where people had three meals a day. Here they only had two meals: one around 10 in the morning; the other around five or six in the evening, and it was now the latter. These were the good times. When a food crisis occurred, they would have to put up with one meal a day.


    As usual, they had corn gruel and black Chinese cornbread for dinner. They even had a plate of black pickles this time.


    The whole family surrounded the table. Although women were inferior here, the villagers did not have too many rules. The six of them were sitting at the table, except for Wang Bo and his third older brother, who were both too young, eating on a small stool.


    Generally, old Zhou liked Wang Bo, and for no special reasons, just that the little lad behaved well.


    From his birth, this little lad had not brought much trouble to his father, who had five kids. It was true that mountain-born kids were easy to bring up, but still, Little Shiba was one of a kind. So far, he never pissed himself or crapped himself, which was unbelievable especially compared to his nine-year-old brother, Boxer, who had just crapped himself the day before.


    Having something on his mind, Zhou did not say a word during their dinner. That was the reason why no one had the guts to make any noise, adding a heaviness to the table.


    "Blah, Blah, Blah¡­!"


    When hearing that sound, which was a specific movement when old Zhou finished his last bit, Little Shiba was focusing on his half bowl of black cornbread. It was the signal of the end of dinner.


    Old Zhou had finished his meal. It was a rule for the rest of the family to stop eating until he had left the table.


    The odd part today, however, was that he did not leave.


    "Hua-er, Wang Tianlei is back home. We''ll pick a good day for you. You should get ready for your wedding."


    Hua-er, or Zhou Hua, was Little Shiba''s elder sister.


    She was engaged when she was 10. Her fiance, Wang Tianlei, the only son of five consecutive generations of his family, lived in the east end of the village.


    Wang Tianlei was 19 years old. When he was 16, he should have married the 14-year-old Zhou Hua, honoring the customs of their village. However, he had been serving in the army for three years until yesterday.


    "The only son!" Wang''s mother was so obsessed with a grandson that, since the day her son had come back, she wanted her son to marry Zhou Hua as soon as possible.


    Zhou Hua was not stunning, but pretty. Being a 17-year-old girl, she was full of youthful enthusiasm. What would have Little Shiba called it in his previous life?


    Youth. Yeah, that was it.


    What was more, she was diligent and capable and that kind of girl was popular in this village. If she had not gotten engaged at the age of 10, the Zhou''s doorsteps would have been flattened by all those matchmakers.


    Upon hearing this, Zhou Hua blushed right away and her head lowered to her chest. Little Shiba did not have to look at her face to know that her face was as red as roses by now.


    Little Shiba did not have a say on this kind of thing. All he could do was stand by and treat himself to a rich meal when it happened.


    What he did not expect was what a common wedding of two villagers could offer, and how it would bring incredible changes to his future.

 Chapter 2: The Wedding & Legend of a Lone Wolf

    Chapter 2: The Wedding & Legend of a Lone Wolf


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In the early morning, the mist covered the entire mountain village, with trees and houses looming. Occasionally, the intertwined sound of two dogs barking and cocks crowing could be heard, which were ordinarily the only sounds in the village.


    However, that day was totally unusual. A burst of festival drumbeats arose in the village when the sun had just come out. Later, a group of people in red wedding gowns moved from the east of the village to the west, with drums beating and cymbals crashing. In the very front was a tall, strong man, about the age of 20, riding an old horse. He wore a big red flower on his head and a red wedding gown as well, with a joyful smile on his face.


    The horse was not tall and strong, but it was outstanding enough in this small mountain village. Thus, along with the way, it attracted each and every villager to look on, taking one hour to complete a journey of less than one kilometer.


    As usual, Little Shiba was sitting on a small stool in open-crotch pants. But today, this small stool had been moved outside. Behind this small stool was a locked entrance door. This naughty boy smirked at those people with drums beating and cymbals crashing, sitting firmly on his small stool like Mount Tai.


    "Stop!"


    With a sharp yell, the wedding group stopped. A gorgeously dressed matchmaker waved a fan and walked over to Little Shiba cheerfully.


    "Oh, aren''t you the Zhou''s fourth son? Why are you here today? Are you learning from others to block the entrance door? Come on! Here are some candies. Leave the entrance door and enjoy them!" Saying this, she took three or four candies from nowhere and squeezed them into Little Shiba''s hands. At the same time, pulling his sleeves, she tried to take Little Shiba off the stool, silently telling him that he should not block the way!


    "How can it be such an easy thing, to just give some candies? Where are the red envelopes?"


    Screaming, Little Shiba lifted his hands and threw the candies away, with one at the matchmaker''s forehead, just right.


    "My sister said that I can''t leave without enough red envelopes!"


    The people around guffawed, as well as Wang Tianlei on horseback. As he jumped off and walked over to Little Shiba, he pulled out a red envelope and squeezed it into Little Shiba''s hands.


    Little Shiba weighed the heavy envelope in his hands. As he opened it, there were about three or four copper coins. He immediately stood up with satisfaction and moved his small stool aside, watching the bridegroom knocking on the entrance door.


    Blocking the entrance door was actually a trick. Three or four copper coins were a lot to people in the mountains. Moreover, he was a three-year-old boy with a 20 or 30-year-old soul. Continuing the trick would only have made him embarrassed, as he did not intend to create difficulties.


    But behind the entrance door, Boxer, his brother, behaved the other way around. He enjoyably spared no efforts to block the door, so that those people spent more than half an hour there.


    The next things were simple and people just followed the procedures.


    Coming from another world, Little Shiba had never seen an ancient wedding. But obviously, the weddings in this small mountain village were not as complex as those in costume dramas during his previous life, let alone in novels. Instead, it was quite a simple thing here. All the people were reveling as the bride came in and they went to celebrate the wedding in the bridal chamber, which definitely was no longer his business.


    What he anticipated most right now was the meal served at the wedding.


    Except for the period of the Spring Festival, he really had not fully enjoyed even one meal since he was born.


    In fact, the villagers barely tasted any meat in their diets this year, so this was such a rare chance to resume it.


    ...


    ...


    The wedding was very lively and every available villager was there. Each of them took their families as well, with the same plan in mind as Little Shiba.


    Food had not been served yet, but tea had already been on the dining tables, along with some must-have refreshments, such as melon seeds and peanuts. Thus, fellow villagers all sat around one dining table, chatting, cracking jokes, reprimanding their grandsons, or beating up their sons; nothing uncommon. Each and every face lit up with happiness as if the wedding was their own son''s. A joyous atmosphere pervaded everywhere until a scream burst out from the door.


    It was a loud and sonorous scream, and not delighted, but terrified.


    Little Shiba''s heart was suddenly lifted up into his throat when hearing that scream. That was because he knew it was his sister, Zhou Hua''s.


    He was more than 10 years younger than Zhou Hua, and he had been looked after and brought up by her from his birth until now. That was why she was very familiar to him. Similarly, Zhou Hua had a great fondness for her cute youngest brother, for he was much more obedient than that naughty Boxer. Thus, it was not strange that Little Shiba could recognize her voice at first scream.


    Zhou Hua was still in the bridal sedan chair and had not yet moved into Wang Tianlei''s house. Judging from the people''s excitement around, she was nearly approaching the entrance door.


    According to the custom, brides could not utter sounds in bridal sedan chairs, let alone leave them. There must be something unexpected that was happening to elicit this terrified scream.


    Without thinking much, Little Shiba rushed out of Wang Tianlei''s shabby courtyard. He came out with more than one person, as all people in the courtyard ran out. Seeing the circumstances, they were entirely shocked, so was he.


    "What''s that?"


    "A dog or a wolf?"


    "I''ve never seen anything that big!"


    The bridal sedan chair had fallen apart. Fortunately, Zhou Hua was fine, dropping only her red headscarf. On the ground was a puddle of a noticeable, scarlet bloodstain. Among eight sedan carriers, only one was injured, who had left that bloodstain. However, he did not escape but surrounded the initiator of the evil, still with the other sedan carriers in a half-circle.


    Obviously, it was not aware of being besieged and still unhurriedly chewed its acquisition¡ªa large piece of skin and flesh ripped from the left hand of that injured sedan carrier.


    It was a wolf, a big one, whose appearance was the same as those from Little Shiba''s previous life. The only distinction was its size. It was just as big as a Manchurian tiger.


    He had never seen any wolf of this size.


    The wolf was covered by oily, glossy black hair from head to feet, and its left eye was most striking. A big scar covered its left eye and extended to its forehead, which was quite noticeable.


    "The One-eyed Wolf! The One-eyed Wolf in West Mountain has come down!"


    The crowd fell into chaos just after that fearful cry.


    The one-eyed wolf in West Mountain!


    Hearing that, Little Shiba''s heart was in his throat again.


    For people in this mountain village, the One-eyed Wolf in West Mountain was legendary.


    Legend has it that it was the most ferocious beast in West Mountain. The One-eyed Wolf was once the head wolf of a wolf pack. However, it was defeated in a fight and scratched blind by a last-gasp effort of the new head wolf. It was then discarded by the wolf pack and became a lone wolf that had to fend for itself.


    Such a thing was nothing strange, for it happened occasionally in wolf packs. But it was mysterious that two years later, the One-eyed Wolf came back to that wolf pack again and killed that head wolf. And once defeating it, the One-eyed Wolf bit all the wolves in that pack to death within five years. At last, it truly had become a lone wolf.


    It was just a legend of course, something that had circulated throughout this mountain village for nearly a hundred years.


    Little Shiba didn''t even spare a glance at it. "Back to the wolf pack two years later, and it spent another five years killing all the other wolves? Isn''t that the description in the novels? How could you know that it was two years later? And how could you know that it spent five years? The guy who left this legend was following the One-eyed Wolf during those years, wasn''t he?"


    Moreover, the legend has circulated for almost 100 years. If it was true, the one-eyed wolf should be dead by now. After all, a wolf''s life, only 20 years at most, isn''t longer than a human''s. 100 years have passed, and no matter how smart it was, it should be just bones. Could it be that it became a demon?


    It''s ridiculous that until now West Mountain is still considered taboo in this mountain village. Hunters dare not go to West Mountain for fear of breaking the taboo.


    Now, how ridiculous was he being, for he just saw the One-eyed Wolf with his own eyes¡ªa taboo legend that had been circulating in the mountain village for almost 100 years.

 Chapter 3: An Exciting World

    Chapter 3: An Exciting World


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Wang Tianlei jumped in front of Zhou Hua with a sharp knife coming out of nowhere, confronting the One-eyed Wolf.


    At that time, all the guests, most of whom were muscular teens, just came to their sense and grabbed weapons to fight with the One-eyed Wolf. They were all hunters with years of experience and fantastic skills, the combination of which couldn''t be ignored by the One-eyed Wolf.


    The One-eyed Wolf slightly bent his two hind legs and bowed its body. Suddenly, with a mild growl, the monster shot straight towards Wang Tianlei like an arrow. Wang Tianlei showed no fear and swiftly defended against it with his blade.


    Instantly, the wolf and the man were entangled with each other.


    With a murderous look, Wang Tianlei heavily flung his blade towards the wolf. Little Shiba could even clearly see a crimson light circling around the thick blade.


    What was this? Was it Dou Qi or Internal Strength?


    The vicious tussle was quite a scene. Although more and more people were crowding around them, none of them could move forward to help Wang Tianlei because the fight was too fierce and intense.


    Gradually, people could only hear growling coming from a black shadow (the One-eyed Wolf) and roaring from a red gown (Wang Tianlei in his wedding gown). Their speed and strength were so formidable that no one else could get in between them.


    However, it offered people a chance to grab some weapons. When all the muscular teen hunters came back, they were all steadily pulling their strong bows, aiming at the wolf and waiting for the right moment.


    The fight lasted for around 15 minutes. Suddenly, the two of them split up.


    Wang Tianlei bounded back but still was in front of Zhou Hua for her protection. Though his red wedding gown had been torn apart and his bone could be seen from a nasty scratch, he remained in a defensive position, stubbornly holding the blade. It was hard to decipher the red gown from the red blood. Nobody could imagine how much blood he had lost.


    Once they had split up, the muscular teen hunters took their chance and shot straight toward the One-eyed Wolf.


    "Whoosh, whoosh!" A dozen of arrows came straight at the wild animal.


    "Thunk, thunk, thunk!"


    To everybody''s surprise, dozens of arrows couldn''t hurt the One-eyed Wolf at all. They just rebounded with a thunk noise.


    Howling like a thunderstorm, the One-eyed Wolf stretched himself a little bit, scaring the crowd away. As the same size as a tiger, it fled into the mountain and just disappeared in a few blinks.


    Wang Tianlei was pale and shockingly looking at the direction where the wolf ran into, murmuring, "It''s rare to witness such a wild animal forging its bone and tendon as strong as iron and steel."


    It was a while until the crowd finally came around to hurriedly check the injuries of the man. It was such chaos.


    Of course, Little Shiba was pushed aside by the adults.


    Was there something wrong with my eyes? No way, I saw it with my own eyes several times. There was no doubt that there was light flickering on his blade and he was jumping up several meters. There was no way that I saw it wrong. I wondered if it was a world of Martial arts.


    After such a chaotic but thrilling scene, Little Shiba was more excited than nervous, because he found out the new world wasn''t as boring as he had imagined. Maybe it could be a world where people practice martial arts, just like in the novel that he read before.


    If it was true, there would be a great chance to be immortal.


    If not immortal, it was said that those people with Internal Strength could live up to several hundred years old. "Maybe I could be one of them." Little Shiba thought.


    However, right now, nobody cared about what was on a three-year-old kid''s mind or how was he doing. People''s attention had already been drawn to Wang Tianlei.


    It was supposed to be a merry and happy wedding, instead of a chaotic and unfortunate one. But, fortunately, no one died.


    The groom Wang Tianlei soon passed out from his great loss of blood. But due to his burly body, he soon woke up after drinking several bowls of herbal decoction.


    What had happened was something inauspicious, but the mountain villagers now began to chuckle to themselves after the panic from before.


    Especially Zhou Xing, the village chief, who stood beside Wang Tianlei all the time and looked at him gently. The way Zhou Xing looked at Wang Tianlei was like he was looking at a rare treasure.


    Whereas, Little Shiba didn''t pay attention to it. Even if he did, he wouldn''t think it was strange.


    The strength Zhou Wei just showed, though it wasn''t a match for the One-eyed Wolf, was far stronger than the hunters. Even if he was only a chief of a small village, it was still a crown to wear. Just like a proverb from Little Shiba''s past life: A village chief is still a chief.


    He also saw the red light flickering around the robust blade of Wang Tianlei and he knew the meaning behind it.


    The most important thing, and the foundation, to live in the village was to have a strong body and swift movements. All the time, there were ferocious and fierce beasts living on the mountain, including pythons, panthers, and tigers, etc. The One-eyed Wolf was one of the worst. What hunters could catch never went beyond some boar. Most of the time, hunters would run for their lives when they unluckily met with wild animals, because life was far more precious than a meal. There was no reason to trade a hunter for a beast.


    Wang Tianlei made him believe that the villagers could hunt more meat than ever before. With Wang Tianlei''s leadership and extraordinary skills, the village, in the long-term, could become one of the old forest''s strongest groups, with more meat.


    On so many occasions, only one hero, instead of a few, could bring a village to prosperity. So, it was no wonder that he looked at Wang Tianlei in such a gentle way.


    ...


    ...


    After a month or so, the chaos of that wedding finally calmed down. As time passed, the worry that the One-eyed Wolf would come back for revenge also faded away.


    People went back to their positions, including hunting, farming, etc.


    The only difference was when there was spare time, the muscular teen hunters would gather together in the wild lands north of the village and train under Wang Tianlei''s instructions, arranged in rows.


    In Little Shiba''s eyes, it was a lot similar to a scene in a Kungfu film. But the trainer was not Huang Feihong, a well-known Chinese Kungfu master, but his brother-in-law, Wang Tianlei.


    All in all, his brother-in-law was great. There was a tradition that Chinese people tend to blame all the unfortunate things on women, but he didn''t blame all the fuss or blood from the wedding on his wife. The world here, though, wasn''t Little Shiba''s past life in China, but the traditions didn''t change too much. So, family members of Old Zhou were worried that others would turn on Zhou Hua and she would be considered a bane in her parents-in-law''s house.


    However, it turned out they worried too much. As careless as Wang Tianlei might appear, he was always caring for Zhou Hua. Their honeymoon was so sweet that there were few who wouldn''t envy it. It was such a relief for the Zhou''s.


    Though severely injured, Wang Tianlei came back to life vigorously after a few days'' rest. Soon he became the head of the hunters, under the support of Zhou Xing, the village chief.


    He also suggested that the muscular teens should learn feats from Wang Tianlei, and improve themselves in the spare time of winter. Undoubtedly, it was accepted right away by all the hunters, especially the muscular teens, after knowing what Wang Tianlei was capable of. Therefore, there they were, standing in front of him, doing skill training.


    Little Shiba was sitting on a small stool with open-crotch pants, looking carefully at and being excited by the movements that Wang Tianlei was teaching.


    He took a month to make sure that there were martial arts, not just External Strength, but also Internal Strength.


    However, he didn''t know whether the martial arts here were the same as the ones in martial arts novels.

 Chapter 4: Balancing the Inner and Outer Cycle

    Chapter 4: Balancing the Inner and Outer Cycle


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    One month had gone by. Because he was the little brother-in-law of Wang Tianlei and still young, it was natural that Wang Tianlei would have his guard down. In fact, Wang Tianlei never had any intention of being on guard because he knew so little about martial arts and had only learned some basics.


    But the basics were enough for Little Shiba.


    This was a martial arts world.


    However, it was quite different from what he had read about in martial arts novels.


    Here, the martial arts focused on balancing the inner and outer cycles. In a novel, you could gain a hundred years of power just by eating a piece of fruit. But here it was impossible. Even if there were such a magic fruit in this world, if a little childlike Little Shiba ate it then he would blow up like a balloon, turning into a mass of flesh with his blood in a roaring spray, and finally disappearing from this world.


    Wang Tianlei was skilled in the martial arts that he had learned from the army. At the age of 15, he was forced to be a dependable man and joined the army and learned martial arts skills from the army of Jin. But just like those of other countries, the skills taught by the military were the roughest and crudest, but also the most practical.


    The greatest benefit that he had gained from Wang Tianlei was not martial arts skills, but instead simply knowledge. Having been born in a closed off village, Little Shiba knew little about the details of the world.


    And Wang Tianlei, having been a soldier for a few years outside, had been able to bring him a wealth of information. Although the martial arts he had learned were the most rudimentary, his three-year military career had made him become the most knowledgeable man in that tiny village.


    This principle was similar to that of Little Shiba''s previous life. In those remote western mountains, the most knowledgeable villagers were often those demobilized veterans.


    People, who served in the army, came from different places and backgrounds and so each brought with them a diverse collection of trivia. Even though some of their news was exaggerated, Wang Tianlei still had a lot of general knowledge about the world, such as some basic knowledge of geography, the name of the Emperor, the army he had served in, and the martial arts he had practiced.


    Unusual Strength Qigong, Dark Bear Fist, Nine Sword Fighting Styles and Thousand Killing Punching.


    As the roughest meant of internal cultivation, Unusual Strength Qigong could hone his Internal Strength and wield great power when combined with Nine Sword Fighting Styles and Thousand Killing Fist. It was most suitable for a battle array. As for Dark Bear Fist, skin toughening was at the core of this fighting move.


    Internally the warrior worked on his breathing and Qi, while externally worked on his muscles, bones, and skin¡ªthese two maxims were the most widespread in martial arts circles, and also the most fundamental.


    In this world, martial arts sought to balance inner and outer cycle for both Internal Strength and External Strength. Exercising Internal Strength was an inside-out process while exercising External Strength was the reverse. Both were equally important.


    If you practiced External Strength without Internal Strength, you would only toughen your outer skin. And as for the other way round, you would be only a simple Internal Qi, which had no real use in the outside world.


    Training one''s Internal Qi and External Strength was a reciprocal process and each was equally important.


    Internal Qi exercises used Internal Strength such as Unusual Strength Qigong, while External Strength relied on punching skills such as Dark Bear Fist. Both Dark Bear Fist and Unusual Strength Qigong were the standard martial arts skills used by the Jin army.


    Of course, Internal Strength and punching skills were the most basic skills. But how to practice was more complex.


    Taken, for example, External Strength; except for punching skills, you would still need a large number of medicinal herbs to wash and forge your muscles and bones if you wanted to reach the most basic level. However, these herbs were very expensive and impossible for ordinary people to obtain. Even if you could get them, you wouldn''t know the recipe for the medicinal soup for washing and forging. These were all secrets well-kept by well-known rich and powerful families.


    Besides, there were countless medium and small-sized schools in the world who had a good grasp of some punching skills, Internal Strength, herbal potions and so on. Most of their resources were ordinary. Along with such schools, you would be ready to hold your own out in the world, but would not be able to make a name for yourself.


    But, that was enough for him for now.


    Wang Tianlei was totally surprised about his little brother-in-law''s enthusiasm for martial arts, but he did not give it much thought. After all, who would suspect the whims of a little child of three or four years old?


    What was more, in order to ingratiate himself with his new bride, he spared no efforts to teach his little brother-in-law and passing on everything he knew, in order to show his generosity. In fact, he did not expect that a three-year-old child would have the ability to remember everything that he had been teaching him.


    But, Little Shiba could get it.


    He followed Wang Tianlei to practice punching skills and martial arts for a month. Throughout the course of this training, he obtained a sense of Qi and could feel the tendons and vessels in his body. He was only three years old; such a young age was perfectly suitable for practicing internal breathing, which could serve as a strong foundation. At such an age, the strand of Qi from the womb had not totally dissipated and sensibility for the essence of the world was still at a high level. Besides, his soul from another world was marked with memories of a previous life. Therefore, he was able to stride effortlessly over the first barrier of practicing Internal Qi¡ªgathering the pneuma and obtaining a sense of Qi.


    After crossing the first barrier, the following stage of practice was step-by-step cultivation.


    That was true. But, he could not practice casually because he was too young and his body was not fully grown. Generally speaking, children born into well-known families all started to practice their Internal Strength at the age of two or three, to lay the foundation. Then they would begin to practice their punching skills at the age of seven or eight. They would start with skin toughening exercises and continue on the skills of forging bones and changing tendons. At the same time, medicinal soups would be made to wash the entire body. Wang Tianlei mentioned this vaguely in the past, but Little Shiba kept it firmly in mind.


    Of course, besides some of the most basic punching skills of skin toughening, both bone-forging and tendon-changing were secrets of some schools that were forbidden to spread. It was impossible for a man like Little Shiba to grasp if he had no particular chances. So was the ordinary people.


    Fortunately, he had learned Taiji Fist.


    Little Shiba had been a man born and bred in a new and modern age and had an illustrious career as a civil servant in his previous life. As the saying goes, "If a leader sets an example, it will be followed by his subordinates." In his previous life, the division chief of his department, an almost 60-year-old man, had worked all of his life and had few hobbies; although as he grew older, he developed a love for Taiji Fist.


    But, Taiji Fist wasn''t for common people. If you wanted to practice it well, you would better find a paid coach. As the division chief, he had the means and he set up an interesting class for Taiji Fist after encouraging the director to go and find a coach in the name of the department. Each person a gym suit.


    Although only a few people were interested in Taiji Fist in the department, many had attended the class. It was worthwhile just for the free Adidas suit alone.


    Wang Bo, Little Shiba''s name in his previous life, was also a member of the class. Unlike those who tried it for only two or three days, he attended the class every day and studied hard. Within only a few months, he had grasped not only the frame of Taiji Fist, but also the pithy formulas, key points, and a little of every kind of aspects of it. He was even familiar with different schools, as well as the disadvantages and advantages of practicing Taiji Fist.


    It was not that he was really interested in Taiji Fist, and he was just trying to flatter the division chief.

 Chapter 5: Taiji Fist is Kind of a Plug-in

    Chapter 5: Taiji Fist is Kind of a Plug-in


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Suddenly finding himself in such an amazing world, he would not suck up to his leaders anymore. However, he still remembered how to practice Taiji Fist.


    Taiji Fist was also called a punching skill which focused on Qi practice. Little Shiba had a better understanding this time, much better than in his previous life. He had learned nothing useful when he was named Wang Bo.


    This feeling became more distinct when he acquired a sense of Qi in his Unusual Strength Qigong. Every time he practiced Taiji Fist, a thin stream of airflow inside of his body would slowly flow with his movement and breath, without his intention. And the way the airflow flowed was quite different from that of Unusual Strength Qigong.


    To be concise, when he was practicing Taiji Fist, the way this stream of airflow flowed inside of his body was much more complex than that of Unusual Strength Qigong''s. It could be deduced that the more complex the operating procedure was, the higher the level of Internal Strength would be.


    And it was clear that when compared with Unusual Strength Qigong, this internal airflow was operated in a more complex way when Little Shiba practiced Taiji Fist. Surely, that was not all that he had figured out.


    Before acquiring a sense of Qi, everything was normal and he could play out a full set of 18 Movements of Taiji Fist of the Chen (one version of Taiji Fist). While after acquiring the sense of Qi, the Qi would flow with his actions and he could play, at most, to the fifth movement¡ªSingle Whip. Then he would lose his breath. If he refused to stop, he would become woozy and staggered as if he had lost all of his strength.


    At the beginning, Little Shiba was terrified. But after several times, Little Shiba found that although he felt he had lost all his strength at that time, he became more mettlesome when taking rests. There were even some surprising changes appearing in his Internal Qi. It seemed that its quantity did not increase but the Internal Qi was more tenacious than that solely practiced by Unusual Strength Qigong. Surely this was just his personal feeling. With such little quantity of Internal Qi, he could not find out what the real situation was.


    "Could this be the legendary Plug-in?" Junior Leopard, who was called Little Shiba before, was secretly delighted about it. He turned out to be more diligent in practicing Taiji Fist.


    Having practiced 18 Movements of the Chen for some time, Little Shiba decided to make some changes. It was still difficult for him to practice his 18 Movements of Taiji Fist. For a long time, he ceased to advance. It seemed that there was something lacking in the operation of his Internal Qi. Therefore he gave up the 18 Movements of the Chen and turned to practicing the eight simplified Moves of Taiji Fist of Li Deyin.


    The biggest advantage of Taiji Fist was its compatibility. Being widespread and suitable for both the young and the old, Taiji Fist was practiced by all kinds of people, forming various schools. Apart from the authentic Yang, Chen, or Wu, many other kinds of routines were derived for national fitness after liberation. The simplified version of the eight moves of Li Deyin was the most widespread and the most suitable for beginners.


    Little Shiba was not a beginner but the version of eight simplified movements of Taiji Fist only could help him to mellow and connect his Internal Qi after altering several kinds of versions, as practicing Taiji Fist with Internal Qi was his elementary attempt. In other words, only in this way could his poor Internal Qi support him to finish a full set of practicing. He felt really comfortable after such a full practice.


    Days were always leisurely in a small village. The One-eyed Wolf never showed up after the wedding. Time went by with nothing special except for days when Wang Tianlei taught muscular teens martial arts in the village during his spare time in the winter.


    Little Shiba also lived in such a way. In his previous life, Wang Bo was lazy and so was Little Shiba at first. But now, he was very interested in martial arts.


    Practicing Internal Qi was dull and tedious for others, but it greatly interested this bloke who came from a modern China.


    Every day he would unshakably practice Unusual Strength Qigong for four hours and a set of Taiji Fist before he went to bed. Could there be anything cooler than being covered in sweat and completely draining one''s strength before going to sleep?


    Some might say that sleeping with their wife was cooler. But, the problem was that he was too young to have a wife. More importantly, he was not mature enough to do such a thing even if he had a child bride.


    ¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù


    "Hey, hah, hey, hah...!"


    Voices resonated from the north of the village, spreading far, far away, sending back echoes off of the mountains.


    These voices were not strange in the village. Many kids like Little Shiba sat around and watched. They would cheer for brilliant moves as if they were watching a comedy.


    The muscular teens from the village felt shy at first, however, they became accustomed to it as time passed. After all, these kids were their neighbors or even relatives from the same village. How could they drive them away?


    Actually, they hoped that other people would watch them. But, the audience they wanted were girls of a marrying age from the village. You could even hear them bellow at a higher pitch when a girl walked by.


    "How wonderful it is to be young!" Little Shiba sighed softly, sitting on a small stool. He touched his tiny limbs subconsciously and thought, "What a pity that I''m so young. It may take me two or three years join them."


    With time passing by, there were more and more villagers coming to the northern area to practice martial arts in their spare time. At first, the main force was muscular teens but then some middle-aged people and youths also appeared. The youngest one was around seven or eight.


    Little Shiba was eager to join them even though he was really too young. He could only sit off to the side and watch.


    "Little Shiba, your mom is calling you for dinner!"


    Little Shiba was watching excitedly when he heard someone calling him.


    "I got it," Little Shiba responded. He cast a glance at that arena again, stood up, picked up his small stool, and ran back home.


    "Hey, wait for me," Er Ya yelled behind him. She was here to call Little Shiba back. Er Ya was five years old, a little older than Little Shiba. She lived next door and the two families got along well.


    "My mom wants me back home to eat dinner! That''s me, not you, you know. So, don''t chase after me." Little Shiba ran away quickly while lugging his small stool. It was true that he looked very young then, but actually, the soul in his three-year-old body was over 30. He was unwilling to get close to other kids because he himself was not a kid.


    "Little Shiba, you always act like this. Since Er Ya went to get you, you should at least wait for her."


    Little Shiba''s mother just happened to see him running back with his small stool in front of the Zhou''s house, followed by a breathless Er Ya not far behind. She could not help but scold him for it.


    Little Shiba ran into the house without saying a word. He deftly put down his small stool and sat to wait for his meal. His mother sighed helplessly after watching him being so conscienceless.


    We''ve got guests today and it''s not appropriate now to teach this rascal a lesson.


    "Cheers, my brother."


    The smell of a long-lost meat flavor mixed with the wine floated in the air ahead of Little Shiba. He twitched his nose and swallowed a mouthful of saliva.


    Meat! There is meat today! We have guests, so we get meat!


    Sitting on the small stool around the table, Boxer and Little Shiba of the Zhou''s stared at that bowl of braised venison without blinking, and together they started to drool.


    "Come here, Boxer and Little Shiba. I''m your uncle."


    Their guest laughed loudly when he saw the two gluttonous kids, then he snuck several pieces of fat to them.


    "Thank you, uncle,"


    Little Shiba said tactfully. Of course, these words garnered him more praise from his uncle.


    "My dear brother, your Little Shiba is really clever. Very good." Uncle touched Little Shiba''s head and asked again, "What''s your opinion about the things I told you last time?"


    Old Zhou smiled happily at the mention of this. He lifted his wine glass in front of him and took a sip and said, "He is not old enough yet. Just wait a while."


    "That''s true. Is Little Shiba three years old? Hoho, he will be four after the Spring Festival this year. So you agree?"


    "This kid has been clever ever since childhood. He''s pretty well-behaved and I''m relieved with you looking after him for me." Old Zhou laughed.


    Little Shiba was sure that they were talking about his future.


    He continued to listen to their conversation and things were true as expected. This uncle, Old Zhou''s blood brother, made a living in Qingyang Market, 50 miles away from here.


    Little Shiba had heard about Qingyang Market before. It was a town centralization. For people who lived in the mountains, even a small town was comparatively busy. He yearned for a life in a town centralization, similar to the typical wish that people in his previous life had to live in a city.


    His uncle had some interpersonal connections in Qingyang Market. He recommended Old Zhou''s Little Shiba and Boxer to be apprentices in the town centralization with appreciation. That way, they could learn skills to make a living. After all, Old Zhou had four sons. Being an ordinary mountain person, it was difficult for him to raise all four sons with infertile soil and limited prey to hunt.


    Old Zhou had agreed at last, but he would like to wait for them to grow a little older, for they truly were too young. In other words, the decision would be readdressed after they had grown up.


    "Qingyang Market?"Little Shiba ate all his rice and meat. He picked his small stool up again and sat outside the house.


    It made no difference to him if he became an apprentice in Qingyang Market or not. He reincarnated in this new body with his previous life''s memories. Therefore, he had little affection for his family members. It seemed that the relationship between parents and children was different from that of his previous life. More importantly, Old Zhou had so many sons, it did not matter whether he was at home or not. Little Shiba did not keep it in mind because life in this small village and life in Qingyang Market were much the same for him, and he did not need to move right away.


    Consequently, it quickly passed from his mind and he gave all of his attention to building his martial arts skills again.

 Chapter 6: The Role of Plug-in

    Chapter 6: The Role of Plug-in


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The warm sunlight in winter greatly comforted Little Shiba. He was leaning against the wall, basking in the sun, and breathing slightly.


    The mountains in the distance meandered like dragons with gigantic ridges looming up like spikes on their backs. Scenery like this made him convinced that this place could not be Earth. How could it be possible that such towering peaks appeared on our planet?


    Each of them was higher than 10,000 meters, which had never been seen before anywhere in the world.


    Today, Little Shiba wore a brand-new cotton-padded jacket, which was the first new clothes he had received since his birth. He always wore his brothers'' hand-me-downs, Boxer''s or even Houndie''s.


    This year was quite different, Zhou Hua made new cotton-padded jackets for both of her younger brothers. Her life had been much better off than at home since she had gotten married.


    Acknowledged as a man of profound capability, Wang Tianlei was not only known for his strength, but it was certainly the most outstanding part.


    Wang Tianlei was shrewd. Having been back from the army for a few months, he became a natural leader of the hunters and won their admiration. Seeing this, Little Shiba thought of the heroes in online novels. In such novels, the hero traveled to a primitive society and led the villagers to live a better life. He calculated the number of prey in private and found that under Wang Tianlei''s leadership, the number of prey had been five or six times greater than before. To his delight, they now got the chance to eat meat every few days. That was much better than before.


    Wang Tianlei guided the hunters to sell their furs in Qingyang Market. Since they hunted more prey now, the number of beasts that they hunted was largely increasing too. Compared to their individual work in the past, they gained more. In the meantime, they had a higher standard of living.


    A broad open space lay on the north side of the village, which was suitable for Wang Tianlei to teach the hunters to deploy some rough battle arrays and train them to interact with each other. As a result, for a few months, there were more gains and fewer casualties among the hunters. Actually, only several unlucky hunters were injured by their carelessness rather than by the beasts.


    In Little Shiba''s eyes, everything Wang Tianlei had done seemed like it was out of a pastoral time-travel novel in which the hero traveled to a primitive society. Sometimes he even thought that Wang Tianlei was a time-traveler like himself.


    Having such a competent husband, Zhou Hua naturally lived a beatific and blissful life. It was especially true when she was carrying a baby; Wang Tianlei became more considerate and never asked her to do heavy work. To kill time, she began to make cotton-padded coats for her younger brothers. After all, she brought them up and shared a strong bond with them. In particular, Zhou Hua saw Little Shiba as her own, for he was clever and well-behaved as a child.


    At times, Little Shiba frequently gate-crashed as well as sponged off his sister''s food and drink, and, incidentally, would get something valuable from Wang Tianlei''s mouth.


    For a few months, he was completely immersed in the world of martial arts skills. Even the most superficial skills were enough for him to study for a long time.


    His practice of Unusual Strength Qigong had encountered a bottleneck. A three-year-old boy, as expected, was not strong enough to hold too much Internal Qi.


    Yet, he was too young to practice Dark Bear Fist.


    However, recently, when he was practicing Taiji Fist, he accidentally discovered that Taiji seemed to have the function of strengthening the body.


    The reason was that his strength was gradually building up.


    It was similar to the practice of Dark Bear Fist, a skin-toughening punching skill, while the extent of increase was less obvious than Dark Bear Fist.


    In fact, he felt that the increase in strength was from Unusual Strength Qigong rather than Taiji Fist.


    To practice martial arts skills, one has to balance his inner and outer self. The practice of Internal Qi was an inside-out process that could build up your body. Of course, it was a step-by-step process that would appear only when you had strengthened your Internal Qi. Actually, the more profound your Internal Strength was, the healthier you would be. But, Unusual Strength Qigong was just the most superficial Internal Strength that was popularized in the army and would be no good for your body even if your practice went into a profound phase.


    The Internal Qi in Little Shiba''s body was extremely poor now and made little difference. In general, people should consider themselves lucky with such Internal Qi that it had not become a burden to their bodies. Obtaining any benefits from it was wishful thinking.


    In fact, Unusual Strength Qigong in his body began to nourish his body; not merely the muscles, but his skeleton, veins, tendons, and meridians. It would have been a shock to anyone else. It was beyond imagination!


    However, he really made it, not because of his genius, but from Taiji Fist. It seemed that Taiji Fist purified the Internal Qi. Practicing Taiji Fist would reinforce his Internal Strength, and meanwhile, polish it and change some of its nature. Thus, forming an Internal Strength was similar to Unusual Strength Qigong but yet in a completely different way.


    Of course, this kind of Internal Qi equaled Unusual Strength Qigong from the essence. It was just optimized by Taiji Fist.


    Little Shiba slightly moved his body from the wall. Basking in the comfortable sunshine and doing nothing made him feel empty in his heart. It was even harder to be a lazybones after becoming diligent.


    The Zhou family was on the west side of the village, backed up to a small hillside. To the west were scattered a few houses, approaching the edge of the village. Tramping over the hillside, a steep cliff, some thousand feet high, entered into view. With nowhere to borrow force from, you would find it difficult to climb over it. The cliff was filled with bald rocks rather than prey and herbs, thus holding back the villagers. Between the cliff and the slope was a small piece of hollow, covering an area of about 100 square meters and overgrown with dense shrubs. Even the shorter shrubs were a meter high, that was high enough to shelter a child at the age of three or four and protect him from being found by others. Not to mention, nobody would go to such a secluded place.


    That was where he practiced every day.


    Hunkered in the clearing, Little Shiba practiced Unusual Strength Qigong for four hours. As he was awakening from meditation, the sun had moved its way to set in the west. He stood up and practiced Taiji Fist. There were eight types of Taiji Fist and two minutes were enough for him to finish it in his previous life. At present, however, practicing from the commencing type to the fifth type, Wild Horse Parts Its Mane, took him about one hour. In the fifth type, he twined his hands to practice Cloud Hands. At that moment, he felt just like he was holding a big ball weighing over 500 kilograms. The sweat, beading into drops on his forehead, were like pearls under the sunshine. Gradually, he crossed his hands, and transformed into the sixth type, Stork Stand, and accelerated his practice. When getting into the last type, Cross Hands, Little Shiba was soaked with sweat all over and entered into a relaxing state.


    Oh, I''m not sure whether there will be food left, but I''m sure there will be a scolding waiting for me!


    It was getting dark, Little Shiba heaved a great sigh and murmured that the mountain villagers only had two meals a day, and the time of the second meal was exactly when he finished practicing Unusual Strength Qigong. At that time, his Fighting Qi was just completed, so he had to digest it through Taiji Fist, otherwise, the effect would get worse.


    Oh, it''s all Er Ya''s fault! Such a young girl should know better about chasing a boy! She has taken up so much time, now I have to suffer!


    The best time to practice Internal Qi was in the morning. But this theory was only appropriate for advanced Internal Strength. For superficial internal force like Unusual Strength Qigong, it would make no difference.


    The reason was that to practice superficial Internal Strength, one did not need to absorb the pure essence of the world. It was just refined a lot, then blended with the Internal Qi and became sundry.


    When Little Shiba climbed over the hillside, there came the sound of his mother''s shouts. So he trotted home with a bitter smile on his face.


    "Little Shiba! You''re playing around again! How many times have you done this? One more time, and you''ll never come back! If you were carried off by a wolf, no one would save you!"


    Little Shiba stood at the gate with his head bowed and nodded when receiving his mother''s lecture. After teaching him a good lesson, she waved the broom in her hand and gave him a sound beating on his ass, then pointed to the meal and said, "Go eat quickly!"


    Little Shiba sniggered and rushed to the kitchen as if he had been given amnesty.


    "This little bastard is really worrying!" Looking at his figure, she gave a trace of a smile on her face.


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 7: Ignis Skill

    Chapter 7: Ignis Skill


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Slow down, be careful... You won''t starve... Don''t eat with your hands, use chopsticks!"


    Zhou Hua, six or seven months pregnant, was sitting across from Little Shiba and watched him gobble down his meal. She was angry and laughing at the same time. She wondered what had happened to him recently. He was very amenable to previous encounters but became very disobedient in recent months. He aimlessly ran over mountains whenever he had spare time. He came back every time stinking and sweaty. When she asked where he had gone to, his excuse was practicing martial arts, which was absolutely incredible due to his young age. When he went out, he did not even come home for a meal. Alas, what he had done made his mother mad. She told him as long as he was late to come home, food would not be supplied. This way worked at first, but later Little Shiba became so smart that he had meals in his sister''s home when his mother did not supply any food.


    "Yummy! It''s really yummy. Sister, you''re really good at cooking, even better than our mother!" While Little Shiba was eating, he flattered Zhou Hua through muttering. Because of these flatteries, Zhou Hua was very happy and concerned about him all the time, even though she was pregnant.


    "You boy. You''re so young, but smart! Eat your meal and stop saying such beautiful words!" Wang Tianlei sat nearby, holding a thread-bound book and displaying dissatisfaction for the youngest brother.


    "Hey brother, what are you reading?"


    From the first time that he came to his sister''s home to bum meals, he found the book that Wang Tianlei held was titled Ignis Skill .


    Judging strictly from the title, he was certain it was a secret tome of martial arts skill. Compared with his initial elation over the book, he was a lot calmer now.


    It was all because that he had already recited the whole book.


    When he first glanced at the two characters, Little Shiba scurried off with the book. By the characters and pictures on it, he identified it as a secret of Internal Strength. Moreover, it was more abstruse than Unusual Strength Qigong that was taught by Wang Tianlei.


    From then on, he often had dinner away from home. He took eating at his sister''s home as an excuse for reciting and remembering the secrets.


    Although Wang Tianlei deemed it as a treasure and saved it cautiously, he had a habit that after dinner he must pull it out and have a look at it every time, which naturally gave Little Shiba an opportunity to achieve his purpose.


    Naturally, Wang Tianlei could not protect it from him.


    It did not matter if he saw it, for a three-year-old child did not know anything. Because Wang Tianlei was so lax in thinking, Little Shiba recited the pithy formulas of Ignis Skill within a month. The book was thin, with about 20 pages. What was more, this book was written in Chinese characters. Compared to English words that Little Shiba had learned in his previous lifetime, this book was much easier. Little Shiba, however, did not dare to practice, because figures in the book were only partially memorized.


    After practicing Unusual Strength Qigong, naturally he knew that there should be no mistakes in the working flow of Internal Qi. Once there was a deviation, the person would be possessed by the devil, or would die immediately. Little Shiba had the ability to recite texts but did not have the experience to remember figures. He remembered all of the characters little by little but did not dare to ensure that his memory was completely correct.


    Therefore, he seized every chance to have a look, to ensure whether the pictures he remembered were right.


    As for the question, he asked repeatedly, "What are you reading?" His brother-in-law gave the same answer with three words every time.


    "I don''t know!"


    Previously, after hearing that reply, Little Shiba would say, "Oh," and keep silent.


    It was different today, however, because he only had one picture to worry about. Hence, he required a reason to obtain an opportunity to ensure the final process.


    Finishing the last mouthful of his meal, he scooted to Wang Tianlei''s side and stretched his neck to be in front of the book with a pair of sparkling eyes. "Brother-in-law, what''s this? Why do you read it every day?"


    "I''m f*cking illiterate!" Little Shiba''s questions rubbed him raw. He put the book on his knee and said in obvious anger, "If I was educated, I wouldn''t need to read it repeatedly!"


    "What do these pictures mean?" Little Shiba inadvertently took the book which had gotten reversed. When he opened it, it just turned to the last page. Of course, the pictures on the last page came into his sight.


    "These pictures are the working flow of Internal Qi!" Wang Tianlei said to himself without any doubts. "What a pity! These pictures are only able to be fully understood when coordinated with the characters on them!"


    "It doesn''t matter. You can learn it!" Little Shiba focused his eyes on the last page of Ignis Skill and blurted out, "The old blind man can recognize the characters!"


    "Right! Why didn''t I think of it?" Wang Tianlei suddenly made a strange cry and straightened his body from the chair. "The old blind man can see nothing, however, he still can teach us."


    "Yeap! Yeap! I also want to learn it!" Little Shiba said. He cast a last glance at the book and gently put it down. "Brother, can you teach me after you''ve learned it? Is that ok?"


    "Anyway, that old swindler has nothing to do, and he''s not able to support himself. We might as well give him a chance to teach us. It''s not just for me, but for all people in the village. Whoever wants to study, it''s ok. Especially those little kids, troublemakers, all of them should be forced to study. There are also some hunters who are full of energy. After practicing every day, these hunters can learn to recognize words, which could develop their minds and improve their hot tempers. In this way, the old swindler can get rewards, and doesn''t have to pretend to be poor in the village all day!"


    "Is that all right?" There were some doubts flashing on Zhou Hua''s face after she heard that. "Will someone else come to study?"


    "I don''t care whether they come. In this case, they''ll decide on their own. But all village kids like Little Shiba should. Hey, I suffered a lot from being illiterate."


    At that moment, he sighed with a sense of bitterness.


    "You''re just 20 years old, don''t act like an old man."


    Hearing Wang Tianlei''s sigh, Zhou Hua frowned and pinched him unhappily.


    "Teach us?" Little Shiba was stunned by that until he digested what he meant, which made Little Shiba idolize him more. Was that not a campaign to wipe out illiteracy? It was a time when people''s literacy was extremely backward. Like their village, excluding Little Shiba, only the old swindler, incapable of seeing things, was literate.


    Moreover, in this era, at least in the eyes of these villagers, there was no use in improving their literacy. For the villagers, only the gentlemen who lived in the county town could read and write, while their lives were to hunt and farm during the day and to create the next generation with their wives at night.


    What Wang Tianlei planned was much greater than these ordinary mountain villagers. It might, however, be very difficult to carry this matter out.


    "Well, brother, I also want to learn to read. Can you talk to my father about letting me go to school? Can you?!"


    "Of course, it''s beneficial for you to learn at a young age. Hasn''t father-in-law said that you''ll be sent to Qingyang Market as an apprentice? If you learn to read, your prospects are much brighter than ordinary people''s!" Wang Tianlei said with laughter, patting Little Shiba''s little head.


    Little Shiba twisted several times and got his head out of Wang Tianlei''s big hands. "Well, my brother, if the old blind man teaches you, you must tell me!"


    "Don''t call him the old blind man anymore. He''ll be your teacher, so you should respect him!" Suddenly, Wang Tianlei said with a solemn look, "These are rules and principles. You should keep in mind that rules and principles shouldn''t be abandoned at any time!"


    "Yes, brother!" Little Shiba nodded quickly, with an appearance of willingness to accept instructions.


    "Well, boy, you''ve already had your meal, and it''s time for you to go home. Our mother will blame you again if you don''t go home immediately!"


    After Little Shiba heard the words from his brother-in-law, he felt amnesty in his heart and said, "Oh, ok, thank you, my brother. I''m leaving." He then trotted off and left Wang Tianlei''s home.


    This is awesome. Now, the last picture has been ensured, and the fact that I can read will be covered up. Good, really good, my brother-in-law is talented. It''s a pity for him to stay in the village. But if not for his help, however, I wouldn''t be so lucky!


    Little Shiba, Boxer, and Houndie lived in one very large room. Although the Zhou''s were not a rich family, they had enough room. The three brothers lived in one room but were very far away from each other. What was more, they had their own soil bed. Though the soil bed was quite cheesy and inferior, it was very warm and practical.


    Little Shiba''s bed was against the south wall where there was a hole whose size was just enough to let the bright moonlight through the window.


    After he climbed on his bed and covered up with his quilt, he groped around the mattress a few times and took out several pieces of crumpled paper. He then carefully looked at these papers with the dim moonlight through the small hole. A naked figure drawn by charcoal pencils was presented on the paper, and the figure was made up by a few black lines. At the junction of the black lines, acupoints were written down one by one, and it was the pictures that Little Shiba memorized from Ignis Skill. Today he was going to make a final confirmation!

 Chapter 8: Practicing & Qingyang Market

    Chapter 8: Practicing & Qingyang Market


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Carefully hiding the piece of paper under the mattress, Little Shiba covered the quilt and took a deep breath. He then closed his eyes and started to stimulate the working flow of Ignis Skill in his mind.


    It would not have worked back when he had just arrived in this world, even if he got the full script of Ignis Skill and memorized all of it. The reason was that he didn''t know the trick of practicing Internal Qi.


    But things were quite different now with him knowing the trick. Though Unusual Strength Qigong was the easiest one among Internal Strength cultivation methods, it still shared a common trick with others.


    Ignis Skill was obviously much harder than Unusual Strength Qigong, particularly in its details. But their beginning steps were pretty much the same.


    Going through Ignis Skill carefully, Little Shiba managed to have a basic idea of this mental cultivation method. The differences between Ignis Skill and Unusual Strength Qigong lay in the two following parts. Firstly, the working flow of Ignis Skill was much more complex than the other one, which required a higher degree of concentration and controlling ability of Internal Qi. It took a much longer time to complete the working flow of Ignis Skill than it took for Unusual Strength Qigong. Thus, it required better controlling ability. For now, Little Shiba could only sustain two days of concentration. Secondly, the way of absorbing the essence of the world. The so-called Internal Strength was absorbing the essence of the world and then making use of it with a special method. That was the fundamental principle of Internal Strength no matter how superior it could be. Unusual Strength Qigong was the easiest one to swallow but the hardest one to digest, which could do great harm when practicing with heterogeneous pneuma. That was to say, with eating both good and bad food, the inability to digest all of it could only lead to an upset stomach. However, Ignis Skill had its own specific target. It seemed that it only absorbed the pneuma of a certain property and excluded the other properties. The reason why the working flow of Ignis Skill was much complex than the other one was that the process of digesting the pneuma with a certain property was much harder than with heterogeneous pneuma.


    The name of it has already shown that it only absorbs t he pneuma of fire property from the essence of the world.


    Lying on the bed, Little Shiba thought in his mind with his eyes sparkling in the dark."Though Ignis Skill is harder than the other one, it''s still a level-one mind cultivating method. Otherwise, I would not have understood it. Wang Tianlei told me that he got it from the man he killed in the war, so the person who owned this couldn''t be a Kung Fu master with super precious or difficult books. But this method really works for me. It''s not too hard, nor too easy. I guess it''s my lucky day."


    Thinking of this, he giggled and remembered the words his elementary teacher used to say in his past life. The teacher was always telling him to set a goal that suited him and could be achieved by practicing. As he grew up, those words became jokes. Nowadays, in a whole new world, those words came true in another way.


    It was said that building Internal Strength could strengthen one''s body and prolong one''s life, and Wang Bo thought so too when he read Kung Fu fiction in his past life. However, in this world, Little Shiba, who has already practiced Internal Strength, had learned that the rumor was not even half true.


    The truth was that your life could only be prolonged once you''ve already reached the advanced level of bone forging when practicing the External Strength. Otherwise, your life was just shorter with increasing amount of Internal Qi. Let me explain: The body was like a closed container with a limited volume of water, if it was forced to bear what was beyond its capacity, it could easily break. The relationship between the body and Internal Qi was just like that of closed container and water. The only way to bear a large amount of Internal Qi was to strengthen your own body. Pushing it could only lead to an explosion.


    Since one would gain pure Internal Qi with fire property by practicing the fire cultivation method, it required more than Unusual Strength Qigong did, in terms of tendons and vessels.


    Therefore, it was imaginable that the speed of practicing the fire cultivation method was slower than that of practicing the Internal Qi of Unusual Strength Qigong. But before that, Little Shiba did not need to absorb the fire-property pneuma from the essence of the world, instead, he should transfer the impure Internal Qi, which came from practicing Unusual Strength Qigong, into Internal Qi of fire property.


    After knowing what the exact way of practicing Internal Qi was, Little Shiba was more anxious than happy.


    What I''ve gotten were just the simplest methods of strengthening the body and cultivating Internal Strength. But I could infer, just from them, how powerful I could become in the future. Then what about those who have had advanced Internal Strength, mental cultivation methods, and body-strengthening methods? How mighty would they become? This is truly a scary world, and right now, I''m just a hillbilly stuck in a small village. Life is short, and unless I''m the destined hero who can turn every challenge into an opportunity, I should just lay low!


    Hiding in this village will get me nowhere. My old man wanted me to be an apprentice in Qingyang Market¡ªsuch a high hope!


    He lay in the bed, thinking of Qingyang Market. Similarly, someone in Qingyang Market missed the small village.


    Qingyang Market was a small town on the fringe of Yunzhou of Jin, which was close to Misty Mountain. Remote as it was, the town was very prosperous because it served as the most convenient pathway to Misty Mountain, and a transaction site between Shi Wan and Yunzhou.


    Yunzhou was the most remote among the thirteen states of Jin, whereas Misty Mountain was the natural borderline between Jin and Northern Yuan.


    However, Jin and Northern Yuan have confronted each other for hundreds of years, but no war ever broke out at Misty Mountain. This was because Misty Mountain stretched tens of thousands of miles, and it was so-called the "Great Mountain", in which there were countless beasts, snakes and insects, and even powerful evil beasts that could not be resisted by human power. It was less likely, if not impossible, for a master of martial arts to go from Jin to Northern Yuan through Misty Mountain by their superior strength, but it would be a joke to say that someone could cross Misty Mountain with tens of thousands of troops.


    Thus, neither Jin nor Northern Yuan would build fortresses or stock armaments at the periphery of Misty Mountain. But there were some businessmen who were very interested in fur, beast core, and herbs ¡ª this was the reason why Qingyang Market was so booming, even it was not in an advantageous geographical position.


    No matter how prosperous Qingyang Market was, it was just a small town with four big streets, two of which were horizontal and the other two vertical, dividing the whole town into a shape looking like "¾®" (a Chinese character that means "well") . The most bustling part was in the center of "¾®", with a big warehouse. By the way, this kind of formation featured in all towns in Yunzhou, and except for the lane in the center of "¾®" , there were two passageways at the end of east and west streets. In the north was the Yamen (government offices in Feudal China) and in the south were small workshops. All stores and hotels concentrated in the northeastern part of the town since it was close to the entrance of Misty Mountain. The southeastern part was where rich and famous people resided, and vendors and folks lived in the northwestern part. Just like the Yamen in the north, the southwestern part, which was the forbidden zone, was the place where the Black Dragon Triad owned.


    The Black Dragon Triad was a gang of moderate size in Yunzhou, controlling dozens of small towns including Qingyang Market and all the docks in Qingyang Market. Thus, people who imported or exported products needed to turn over a big sum of money to the gang, which was its main source of income.


    Not all society gangs in this world were mafia. In a sense, they were monopoly organizations controlling resources through its power. It was a gang-like, economic entity and the main income of which was not from collecting protection fees, nor from recovering debt like the vulgar errands that Little Shiba had watched on TV before.


    What they had to do was to control the economic artery, such as ships, docks, and workers¡ªwhatever was involved with waterway transportation. What was more, the commodities from Misty Mountain could not be easily bought by the outside merchants. So the prey was mostly sold to the local merchants and the warehouse at Qingyang Market, while all those local merchants were closely intertwined with the Black Dragon Triad, many of whom were members of the Black Dragon Triad itself. Even the largest warehouse in Qingyang Market was controlled by it. In a word, the Black Dragon Triad was the dictator of Qingyang Market. Though it was a fact that the income of the village has been greatly improved with Wang Tianlei''s help, the final price of the commodity was always being constrained by the Black Dragon Triad with little negotiating space ¡ª this was the hidden rule. As for the local authority, they just served as board chairmen and did the tax collecting.


    However, it didn''t mean that the Black Dragon Triad would dare to fight against the Yamen. The local officials were no more than 40 people, a dozen of whom could fight a little, and others were just ordinary. But the Black Dragon Triad wouldn''t mess with anyone from the authority because the latter represented the government, the face of the Jin Dynasty. Being a gang from the Jianghu at the lowest end of society, they weren''t even a match for any authority. It may be true that the gang could turn the local authority upside down within two hours, with the only result being a much worse retaliation within ten minutes.


    Therefore, arrogant as the Black Dragon Triad seemed to be, it still strictly abided by all the set rules for the gangs and kept peace with the Yamen. Let''s put it in another way: The authority and the gang were just ganging up and acting in collusion with each other.


    It was not a strange situation to understand. The officials didn''t have the advantage of numbers, and the head was reappointed every few years. Cooperating with the Black Dragon Triad, who had the actual local influence, was the only way to properly rule the place. Such a phenomenon was everywhere all around the country with everyone''s knowledge. The only difference was that the small villages relied on the low-level gangs while the major cities relied on the specific super-powerful schools, a few of which were even closely related to the royal and distinguished families of Jin.

 Chapter 9: The Black Dragon Triad Rises to Get Inner Elixir, Wang She Enters Misty Mountain

    Chapter 9: The Black Dragon Triad Rises to Get Inner Elixir, Wang She Enters Misty Mountain


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Within the southwestern region of Qingyang Market sat the Black Dragon Triad''s branch altar of Qingyang Market.


    This was a piece of the building complex, nearly covering all parts of the southwestern region and even leaving no road for passers-by. Only through the black building complex could we see how the Black Dragon Triad was oppressive in Qingyang Market.


    The outer wall, about 20 feet high, was stacked up with thick black stones. In the middle of the wall was a thick black iron gate, which was like a small-sized city wall. Inside the wall, tiled roofs and flying angles loomed and pavilions seemed to be hidden. Of course, these only could be seen from the outside.


    Besides members of the Black Dragon Triad, officers of government also lived in Qingyang Market. However, only bureaucrats, private advisors, and the head constable ever stepped over that black iron gate.


    There was a small garden in the northern corner of the branch altar of the Black Dragon Triad. In the garden was a three-storeyed building which was small in size but had a refined shape. On the four-corner upturned eaves hung golden bells, which would produce crisp and melodic "Ring, Ring!" sounds when the wind blew.


    In the night, a dim light shone out from a window on the third floor. It was the only bright spot in the whole building.


    Behind the window was an empty room in which a piece of red carpet lined with a gold border was spread on the floor. The border of the carpet sparkled in the lamplight. On the north side of the wall hung a huge picture on which a black dragon flew in a cloud, with its claws extended and full of momentum.


    Under the gigantic picture was a gold armchair. At that time, a man of about 60 years old sat in the armchair, wearing a suit of gold silk garments with two cuffs embroidered with nine twisting dragons.


    The two sides of the gold armchair were flanked by four silver armchairs. The armchairs were full of men and women, young and old. The youngest was an over-30-year-old woman with a pink face, on which showed a very unflattering Evil Qi.


    There was no sound in the room except the slight and long breathing sounds of the people. In that instant, even if one needle were to fall on the ground, its crisp jingle would surely have been heard.


    "That''s all. Everybody, the news is true. Half a year ago, the One-eyed Wolf in West Mountain showed up in a village beside Qingyang Market but didn''t hurt anyone. Instead, it was repelled by a sergeant named Wang Tianlei. Everyone, what''s your opinion on this matter?"


    After a long time, the old man in the golden armchair broke the silence. His eyes wandered on the faces of the eight people as if he saw through their thoughts just from their expressions.


    "We''ve investigated Wang Tianlei. He was recruited into the army a few years ago, and defended the border of Shenwu city of Yuezhou as a Giroro. As was said, his practice has reached the phase of a Level One fighter only by using Dark Bear Fist and Unusual Strength Qigong. With just one step, he could enter the Bone Forging Realm. It''s just a pity that he has no strong background and even can''t read. Unfortunately, stripped of his military merits, he came back here after his service had expired."


    It was the woman in red with the pink face but evil look who was talking to the others. In a few words, Wang Tianlei''s main experience was told.


    "A Level One fighter?" A middle-aged man, sitting opposite her, frowned. "If the rumor about the One-eyed Wolf is true, it may be a monster. It''s impossible for a Level One fighter to push the monster back, even if he has great strength."


    "Altar Master Tong, are you questioning my intelligence?" The Evil Qi became stronger suddenly on the face of the woman in red.


    "I didn''t mean that. Your intelligence has been always accurate. I just think that we seem to be missing something on this incident with the One-eyed Wolf. After all, it''s an evil beast. Even the lowest-level evil beast can compare with a Level Four or Five fighter. How can a Level Two fighter push it back? It''s somewhat strange!"


    "Yeah, it''s indeed strange. I didn''t believe it at first!" The old man in the gold armchair gently waved his hands and stopped the conflict. "But after multi-verification, it proves that the intelligence is correct. I don''t know why the One-eyed Wolf left suddenly, but I can affirm two facts. Firstly, the news is true and the One-eyed Wolf indeed exists. Secondly, it''s sure that Wang Tianlei pushed it back on his wedding day. From the description of each party, the One-eyed Wolf held the absolute upper hand at that time and even could kill Wang Tianlei at any time. But in the end, it left suddenly. In the eyes of those rough men, it was Wang Tianlei that naturally pushed the One-eyed Wolf back."


    "In other words, the One-eyed Wolf was not pushed back by Wang Tianlei. It''s possible that it left by itself," altar master Tong said.


    "Hum!" The woman in red gave a cold snort and turned her head away.


    "We don''t know why the One-eyed Wolf withdrew voluntarily, we only need to know that it indeed exists."


    "It not only exists, but it''s an evil beast!" When saying "evil beast", a middle-aged man sitting diagonally opposite the woman in red could not help flashing a wildness in his eyes.


    "Little Jin is right. The One-eyed Wolf is an evil beast. This is what is most important!" The old man nodded his head heavily with the same light in his eyes.


    It was an evil beast, that was what was most important.


    As long as it was an evil beast, Inner Elixir would exist in its body. And Inner Elixir of evil beast was the most precious treasure for these people who practiced martial arts and Qi.


    In this world, Inner Elixirs of evil beasts were not the same as those of martial arts novels that Little Shiba had read. Of course, both had many similarities.


    Evil beasts gathered all the spirits and pneuma of the whole body to a place before they died, thus forming Inner Elixirs of evil beasts. Inner Elixirs were different sizes. But generally speaking, no matter how gigantic the evil beast was, the generated Inner Elixir would be as small as a fist. For some smaller ones, Inner Elixirs were just as small as soybeans.


    Inner Elixir was of great use. There was strong vitality in the core of an Inner Elixir, which was of great benefits for those who practiced martial arts. Medicine soup lotion was especially used to wash bones for people. And if you could add the Inner Elixir of the evil beast into medicine soup lotion, the effect would be greatly improved.


    Although the land was boundless and evil beasts existed in the vast mountains and forests such as Misty Mountain, it was difficult to find the Inner Elixir of an evil beast.


    The trouble was that you could not catch any.


    Except for those natural evil beasts. Evil beasts, even the lowest which had just evolved into evil beasts from ordinary wild beasts, had the power that was at least equal to a Level Four or Five fighter. This was not the main excuse. In the world, fighters with a four or five class cultivation were in abundance, but these evil beasts lived in the high mountains and marshlands. In order to find evil beasts, you had to go to places such as the depths of Misty Mountain, in which even inborn fighters could only seek self-insurance. Once he did not have good luck, he would lose his life, let alone be able to hunt evil beasts.


    What was more, there were not just evil beasts, but hordes of them. If you attacked one, others would be alarmed and you would be very miserable in the end.


    In human habitation or crowded places, it was nearly impossible to find an evil beast.


    But now, it seemed that the people of the Black Dragon Triad saw hope.


    The One-eyed Wolf in West Mountain!


    The legend of the One-eyed Wolf had spread for a long time. It had spread for almost 100 years. But the spread was not very wide, just in some mountain villages around Qingyang Market. In the early years, the Black Dragon Triad was not interested in such a legend and just regarded it as a groundless rumor.


    But it was different this time.


    Since a sighting of the One-eyed Wolf had indeed occurred, it was possible that the One-eyed Wolf was an evil beast based on the legend of the surrounding mountain villagers. Besides, it might be the lowest among evil beasts, the kind that was easiest to deal with, and evolved into an evil beast from an ordinary wild beast due to good luck.


    Generally speaking, such wild beasts were not very intelligent. The most important thing was that it showed up in West Mountain.


    For those villagers, West Mountain was in the depths of Misty Mountain. But for fighters, it was just the border of Misty Mountain. In such a place, except for odd animals such as the One-eyed Wolf, it was impossible for evil beasts to exist. From this point, it could be seen that the One-eyed Wolf should have only become an evil beast a short while ago. Otherwise, it would not have so easily exposed itself to others, nor continued to live in a place like West Mountain. But it would not be long before the spiritual intelligence of the One-eyed Wolf was fully matured. After that, it needed to leave West Mountain and enter the depths of Misty Mountain. At that time, even if they tried, they would not succeed.


    "Look at the weather. It''ll soon snow. We must go into the mountain before it begins snowing. As long as we get the Inner Elixir of the One-eyed Wolf, we''ve done a good job."


    "We''re willing to follow you!" answered several people.


    ¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù


    "Well, it does look like it''s going to snow. This damn Yunzhou. It''s snowing in winter. What a pain!"


    The handsome young man stood at the door of a small inn in Qingyang Market, frowning, looking into the gloomy weather, and feeling the chill of the wind from the north. It seemed that something bad had hit his mind. His delicate body could not keep from trembling a few times. "Well, my blood is almost frozen. Where will I find the strength to go into the mountain for medicine?"


    That young man was 17 years old. He had an extremely handsome face. His rosy skin was tender, like soft beancurd, and water seemed to flow out from it with one pinch. He had a pair of big eyes that looked as though they were covered by a layer of mist. He wore a blue gown with a white silk belt at the waist, and a piece of jade hanging on the belt. His long black hair fell behind him, and was casually tied into a horsetail. The corner of his mouth showed a faint smile, as if everything between heaven and earth was a joke in his eyes.


    "Well, it looks like I can''t be lazy. I''d better go into the mountain as soon as possible. It''s best to get medicine before the snow comes. Otherwise, I''ll be trapped in the mountains and suffer from the cold weather. How do the two guys enjoy themselves on the mountain? Why did I come to such a damn place in the cold winter? How miserable!"


    His face twitched two times. Then he turned and walked towards the inn.

 Chapter 10: A Life-threatened Opens Little Shibas Eyes Which tempts Wang She

    Chapter 10: A Life-threatened Opens Little Shiba'' Eyes Which tempts Wang She


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Sister, it''s the Spring Festival!"


    On the edge of the Misty Mountain, the small village was swept up in an atmosphere of joy as the Spring Festival was just around the corner.


    This year marked a turning point for the village. Wang Tianlei had driven the whole village since his return. The gain had doubled several times with fewer casualties, which meant increased income and improved living conditions. In the Spring Festival season, even the old storyteller of the village could treat himself with meat occasionally. Wang Tianlei had found him a job teaching people to read. Young women could buy cloth of different colors to make one or two new padded jackets and even Little Shiba himself got one. Now, with the annual festival around the corner, happiness abounded in the prosperous village.


    Zhou Hua, whose belly was much larger and rounder than it was a month ago, was well protected by the Wangs. Her husband''s parents would not allow her to work at all. All she had to do was eat, sleep and wait for the big moment when she would give birth to a fat baby boy and make them happy grandparents.


    This was killing Zhou Hua, a mountain-born girl who had started helping her family out with everyday chores at the age of four.


    Over a decade''s worth of daily routine made her uncomfortable with such an easy life.


    She could do nothing about it.


    This was the reason Zhou Hua had nothing to do these days but sun-bathe, sitting by the wall of her yard, eyes closed, resting her hand on her big belly. Lately, however, it seemed it would soon snow with the dark sky and fierce north wind. In such terrible weather, she stayed indoors, sitting by the charcoal stove. A thick cotton curtain hung on the door, making it a warm haven.


    Little Shiba visited and talked with his sister regularly for the chance to have a few more peeks at the Ignis Skill. He could not afford the trouble he would get himself into if his memory failed and he misunderstood one of the acupoints.


    Seeing her little brother bounce into the room, Zhou Hua laughed and said, "Yay! It''s almost Spring Festival. Want your lucky money? Don''t worry. You''ll get it."


    "Now that you are married, you have to give me lucky money, too! Hooray!" Little Shiba laughed and said. Actually, in this village, kids were lucky to receive one or two copper coins as their lucky money. He didn''t really care about the money.


    They stayed in the warm room, talking to each other from time to time. Instead of going deep into the mountains, Wang Tianlei was practicing shadow boxing with the young men in an open space in the village. They didn''t go hunting in the woods for two basic reasons. The first being that they already had enough animals for food and other basic daily necessities. The second reason was that with the weather getting cold, the northern winds blowing and the first snow coming, the hunters wouldn''t find anything even if they did go hunting. The cunning beasts in the woods had already stocked enough food to get themselves through the winter. They were hiding in their caves and waiting for the first snow of this winter. The men would rather take advantage of this time and practice boxing and combat tactics, and hope for better harvest when the snow stopped.


    Time flew by peacefully and happily. Little Shiba chatted with his sister for a little while, scanned Wang Tianlei''s Ignis Skill again when he had the chance and would then put it back, fully content. It was almost time to go home as it was starting to get dark outside.


    "It''s too late. Why don''t you stay here tonight and have dinner with us?" Zhou Hua said.


    Little Shiba shook his head immediately and said, "No, thanks. Mom will be upset if I come home late again."


    Zhou Hua laughed and said, "You don''t say! You should be a good boy and not make her worry about you all the time."


    "Sure!" Little Shiba waved his hand impatiently and ran to the door.


    He ran fast because it was getting dark and his mom would definitely be harsh on him if he was late again. As soon as he reached the woodshed and was about to step out of the yard, he heard a loud "Bang" coming from the yard, and then, a scream.


    "Sister?!" Little Shiba suddenly stopped, his heart fluttered. That was Zhou Hua. What happened?


    There was no time for hesitation. He picked up a wood chopping axe from the ground, and headed back to the yard.


    The moment he arrived, Little Shiba saw Zhou Hua stagger from her room, panicked. At the same time, Wang Tianlei''s father heard the big noise, and rushed out from a wing room.


    "What happened?"


    Wang Tianlei''s father was hardly an old man. He was a strong man in his mid-forties. Seeing Zhou Hua flee out in panic, he ran to her aid and helped her stand.


    "B-b-bear! Bear! A bear!"


    ROAR!! A loud roar came from the room, the walls and door collapsed. A black bear, over three meters high, rushed out from the ruins of the destroyed pitiful little house.


    "A bear?!"


    It was actually a bear!


    Little Shiba thought his heart would explode.


    He knew that the worst had come for them.


    Living at the edge of Misty Mountain, he didn''t know much but he had heard about bears hunting down in the village in winter.


    To save enough energy to get themselves though the cold winter, the bears were the fiercest during these days. There were stories of hungry bears that could not find sufficient food and had decided to take their chances downhill, bringing mass casualties to the villagers. The bears wouldn''t leave until they took many human lives. Such catastrophe didn''t happen frequently, but occasionally every few years, which was why the villagers had let their guards down. No one had seen it coming today.


    "Nooooo!"


    Little Shiba heard three screams, one of which belonged to Wang Tianlei''s father, who rushed to protect Zhou Hua when the black bear came to her. It was not so much because he cared about her safety but because he was nervous about the unborn baby. Unfortunately, as strong as he was, he was no match for the gigantic beast. Before he could throw himself against the bear, he was struck on his shoulders and sent flying. He wanted to stand on his feet again but it was in vain.


    The bear had no interest in him, staring at Zhou Hua''s belly instead. It seemed that it was attracted by this strange-looking big-bellied creature.


    Little Shiba took a deep breath and raised his axe. He was so scared, his body trembled and he nearly pissed himself. But when he saw Zhou Hua had stumbled, and fallen to the ground and the black bear swooped down on her, he suddenly found his courage from nowhere. He shouted loudly and ran toward the bear, axe in hand.


    The black bear glanced at the small youth and just ignored him. Although it was a beast, as one of the few mighty ones among the Misty Mountain, the bear could easily tell what its enemy was capable of. The bear saw no threat, as the youth was no bigger than a skinny monkey.


    BAM!


    Not surprisingly, just like Wang Tianlei''s father, he was knocked into the air by the bear''s paw, who clearly didn''t strike gently just because its enemy was a little kid. As Little Shiba weighed less than the last victim, he hit the wall of the yard with a thump.


    "Ah¡ª "


    Little Shiba made a loud noise, his mouth spurted blood and his body crashed into the ground.


    Is it over? Are they done?


    Lying on the ground, Little Shiba was still alert, which surprised him. It was beyond his understanding that he hadn''t passed out after his weak body took such a serious injury.


    He was not a hero who would give his own life to save another. He should have made a run for it right away. He never thought that he would throw himself at the black bear and fight it; now he wished he hadn''t done it. Yet, still, he felt an impulse to stand up and keep fighting.


    It was nothing but an impulse. Although he practiced martial arts, he had taken a serious strike from the beast and fallen forcefully to the ground, totally smashing his body. His eyes were the only thing he could move.


    Little Shiba struggled to open his eyes, seeing the fierce beast open its huge mouth. It was about to bite Zhou Hua. He regained his strength somehow, suddenly pushed the ground with his hands and surprisingly stood on his feet again. Just when he was ready to put up a fight, he felt a shock throughout his body and a sudden, burning headache. He buckled over in pain, holding his head, howling.


    "Nooooooooo!" Howling like a wild animal, Little Shiba startled the bear, which was about to bite Zhou Hua. It raised its head, confused. Looking at the howling youth standing on his feet again, the bear was stunned. In the woods, all it took to kill such a little monkey was a strike from its paw. It had never seen a monkey who could take a punch like he had.


    Little Shiba was stuck in an odd state, not knowing what was wrong with his body. He had a burning headache followed by muscle spasms and twitches, and then all he could see was infinite darkness. No, it was the shade of blood. He tried with great effort to open his eyes but his sight was blocked by blood.


    "What''s happened to my eyes? I can''t see anything!" Little Shiba struggled to open his eyes in severe pain, but still, all he could see was endless blood.


    "Why? Am I blind?" He was extremely scared but the unbearable pain didn''t allow him to think. He wished he could just pass out or die for good, rather than suffer like this. But he didn''t get what he wished for: he was conscious. He was more alert than ever, or at least he felt like it.


    "Nooooooo! Ahhhhhhhh!" Little Shiba was howling again, louder than before. The beast was so irritated that it left Zhou Hua and headed towards Little Shiba, preferring to solve this first before treating himself to his prey.


    The beast didn''t and couldn''t notice that Little Shiba''s eyes glowed supernatural rays of light. In fact, in such a tight space, no one did except for one man.

 Chapter 11: Condensed Defensive Airflow & the Three Realms & the Mysterious Realm

    Chapter 11: Condensed Defensive Airflow & the Three Realms & the Mysterious Realm


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Oh, his eyes... "


    No one knew that a handsome young man had been standing atop the roof. It was the man that had previously appeared in Qingyang Market. He had intended to go deep into Misty Mountain to pluck herbs, but when entering into a small village on the edge of Misty Mountain, he had come across a black bear foraging for food and then followed it here.


    Of course, he was not a man who would do a courageous act for a just cause, and he had no intention to defend the village. He was the sort who always acted according to his feelings, and it was curiosity that drove him to follow the black bear... just to see what would happen. He just wanted to ease the boredom of the journey, and had not expected to witness such an incident.


    When Little Shiba dashed toward the black bear, the handsome young man could not help grinning, laughing at this boy''s audacity. He was very surprised that a boy, only three or four years old, should be able to stand up after suffering such a heavy blow! At least, it seemed that his willpower was certainly excellent. Because of this, he gazed at Little Shiba appreciatively and got ready to give him a hand. Just at that moment, he caught sight of Little Shiba''s eyes.


    Little Shiba roared, and a plume of thick blood appeared in his eyes. It looked just like the clouds of the evening sunset reflecting a red glow across half the sky, clear and bright ruby-red. His pupils darkened against the thick blood. Around his pupils, a faint circle of black veins loomed up, showing some hint of devilishness and mystery.


    It seems just like those eyes from the legends! But it''s said that such eyes have become extinct. How can they appear here? Well, he seems to know a bit about martial arts, although his Internal Qi still seems somewhat superficial and diffused... it''s better than nothing. Let me have a look at the boy with such a pair of legendary eyes and see just how much ability does he have.


    The Younger retracted the index finger of his right hand. With great interest, he fixed his eyes on Little Shiba, who had been standing up staggering when the black bear made a lunge for him.


    "Hey, boy, do not let me down. Otherwise, I''ll eliminate everyone here! Ah ha ha... " The Younger let out a grin, spreading an atmosphere of bleakness with his cold breath.


    The black bear was so fast that it rushed in front of Little Shiba in the blink of an eye. He wielded his colossal paws, slapping Little Shiba.


    Seeing that the black bear was so fast and so close to Little Shiba, Zhou Hua and Wang Tianlei''s parents all covered their eyes. They would never have thought that Little Shiba could escape from such a dangerous situation.


    Ordinarily, there would indeed have been no chance for Little Shiba to escape. But he twisted his body and rolled on the ground just as the black bear launched his attack. A blinding flash of strange light was sparkling in his devilish eyes.


    At that crucial moment, he suddenly saw a world that was totally different from all that he had known before.


    In his eyes, the whole world slowed down, just like in those slow-motion scenes on TV in his previous life. He could even see clearly that the black bear had slowed down when lunging toward his head, thus enabling him to dodge easily.


    So, he gently twisted his body to dodge the black bear and then unintentionally fell into a somersault, rolling toward an axe that he had dropped before. With a quick yank, he pulled it into his hand.


    Failing to knock Little Shiba down, the black bear flew into a rage and swooped down upon him, snarling.


    This was his chance!


    Aware that the black bear was about to pounce on him again, an idea flashed through his mind. He shrank back, turned a somersault, and seized the opportunity to give the bear a fierce slash.


    At that time, the black bear was roaring and did not see that Little Shiba was about to hack at him, so it did not dodge the axe. Little Shiba took this advantage and with all his strength chopped deep into the bear''s throat.


    Hacking at the bear had drained Little Shiba''s strength. He turned over and lay on his side, unconscious.


    "Little Shiba... " Zhou Hua called in a squeaky voice. Then, she felt a burst of pain in her abdomen.


    "What rotten luck! She''s going into labor!"


    The Younger''s face contorted upon seeing Zhou Hua. His figure flashed by and then disappeared from the roof. Almost at the same time, a crowd of people, hearing the cry, flooded into the courtyard. However, they were too late, just like the cops in American TV shows.


    ¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù


    What''s this place? What am I doing here?!


    Little Shiba was aching all over and, as if he had been tied up, he could not move his body. But at least he felt that his mind was still clear.


    But this feels wrong! Did I have a nightmare or something?


    Soon, Little Shiba confirmed that something was wrong. The feeling, which he often encountered in his previous life, was not strange to him. It was a nightmare. A nightmare might be a rare experience for ordinary people, but he had suffered a lot on account of his heart problem. Especially when he was having an afternoon nap, he often felt that there was a ghost on his bed.


    So he was not nervous, but thought gloomily in his mind, "Could it be possible that I have a heart problem in this life too? Perhaps the black bear damaged my heart and so the nightmares from my previous life are beginning to repeat? Oh, what is... My tendons? My veins?"


    Soon, Little Shiba realized what was different about this nightmare. In his previous life, even if he had a sober consciousness, what he saw and heard could be quite obscure. But now, what he saw was extremely clear. He could distinguish every vein, every bone, and even the Internal Qi that was scurrying around in his body.


    This is Unusual Strength Qigong!


    Little Shiba was pondering over whether or not the Internal Qi was actually Unusual Strength Qigong. In the past, he could just feel a tiny current of heat flowing through his tendons and meridians and thought everything was going well. But now, he could see the tendons and meridians of his whole body and could even watch the Internal Qi flowing through them.


    It was really different from what he had imagined.


    He had originally imagined that Unusual Strength Qigong, despite only being the very most superficial Internal Strength to be widely used by the military, could nevertheless be used to practice Internal Qi. It had indeed proved to be a useful skill, but now it seemed that it was not quite useful enough.


    After practicing for about half a year, the Internal Qi of Unusual Strength Qigong was still as weak as the pinkie of a baby. Little Shiba had not expected it to become strong in such a short time. However, his Qi was formless and disorderly, and it felt as though there was a white worm wriggling in his tendons and meridians. And of course, his muscles and his circulation were not worthy of praise.


    Before practicing Internal Qi, Little Shiba was young and his tendons and meridians were not completely closed. Because of this, Wang Tianlei envied him for getting double the results with half the effort and making much more progress than him. Little Shiba was very pleased to hear these words from him. After all, everyone loves to hear praise.


    Looking at his own tendons and meridians, Little Shiba became aware that what Wang Tianlei said was not completely correct. The Internal Qi of Unusual Strength Qigong only went through a few veins, and besides, some veins got blocked to different degrees. All in all, they were not as unimpeded as Want Tianlei had made them out to be.


    Is this the legendary Inner Vision?!


    Little Shiba turned a blind eye to the blockages in his tendons and meridians, now that there was no good way to solve it. The Unusual Strength Qigong was able to go through the unimpeded tendons and meridians, and furthermore, Inner Strength of Fire tripled the course of the Unusual Strength Qigong, so it was obvious that the rest of the veins would be unimpeded after practicing Ignis Skill. Of course, it was too early to think about it. The top priority was to figure out why he suddenly got the Inner Vision.


    Did I regain consciousness before death? Or am I dreaming?


    ¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù


    "That boy must be indestructible!" thought the Younger, who had appeared in Wang Tianlei''s yard before. He was walking against the cold wind toward Misty Mountain one step at a time, with a bitter smile on his face. "That chop had perfect timing and proper speed. It''s even hard for an old hand with over 10 years of training to chop so precisely in such a high pressured situation, let alone a small child. Yet he could pull it off by perfectly combining his limited Internal Qi and muscle strength. Hence, it all must be to the credit of his eyes!"


    Thinking of Little Shiba''s bizarre red eyes, the Younger''s face twitched slightly. "An extinct bloodline? If I take him to the mountains, what would the old fellows think? Would they laugh their heads off? Well, perhaps not. Those three old fellows might kill the boy in secret just like they had done to Yunshan. Huh! Who knows!? They seem to kill me, too!"


    The cold wind, though mounting to a roar, could not stop the Younger. Just about one foot away from him, there seemed to exist an invisible barrier that forced the wind current to split off into two. If a man of perception was watching such a scene, he would have surely gasped in astonishment.


    Protective Gang Qi!


    It must be Protective Gang Qi! Only a man whose cultivation had come up to Level Seven would be able to condense a defensive airflow and cultivate the Protective Gang Qi.


    A Level Seven expert?!


    How many were there in this world?


    Among billions of people in Jin, only a hundred or so experts were at Level Seven. But now, here was one, at such a young age and appearing on this desolate Misty Mountain!


    He seemed like a youth in his twenties. Practicing martial arts skills to a high level could help one retain their youthful looks. That was to say, if you achieved success in your forties, you could retain only the appearance of someone in their forties. And if you did it in your fifties, your appearance could remain that of yourself in your fifties. It was unheard of that a man who achieved success in his forties could turn to 20 overnight. That was impossible unless your strength was above the Level Nine and you had entered the legendary Mysterious Realm.


    The Mysterious Realm...


    The martial arts skills in this world emphasized balancing the Inner and Outside Cycle. Three Realms were included, Skin-Toughening, Bone-Forging, and Tendon-Changing. Aside from this, the three realms were further divided into nine levels.


    Skin Toughening belonged to the lower three levels, the Bone-Forging Realm to the middle, and the Tendon-Changing Realm belonged to the upper third.


    The upper three levels were what people called Copper Skin, Steel Tendons, and Iron Bones. And above these nine levels was the Mysterious Realm.


    Only by passing through these three phases could you get into the Mysterious Realm.


    It was said that some elders in the world''s largest schools were able to get into the Mysterious Realm. But no one had ever witnessed it, so this remained no more than a legend.


    Protective Gang Qi was a sign that someone had entered into Level Seven. Since this man could unleash the Protective Gang Qi, he must be at least an expert in Level Seven. In that case, there were two possibilities: First, his cultivation had reached Level Seven while he was still only in his twenties; Second, he was actually an old man who had reached the Mysterious Realm, and his mastery of cell viability within the body had helped him to rejuvenate himself. Either way, it was enough to know that he possessed extraordinary talent.


    Hum, what''s that sound? How strange it is!


    Accompanying the cold wind, a burst of growling and grinding interweaved through the air, falling into the Younger''s ears.


    "There seems to be some fun to be had in the west!" The Younger chuckled. His figure moved slightly and floated away to West Mountain, liked a leaf floating with the wind.

 Chapter 12: Wang She Coveting the Secret Skill

    Chapter 12: Wang She Coveting the Secret Skill


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was the dead of night and the whole mountain village was in peace and darkness, except for the faint light in the house of the Zhou''s.


    The pale yellow light looked like a small bean, tearing out a piece of brightness in the endless night. Wang Tianlei was laying down on a small table, quietly snoring; it seemed that he had fallen asleep. Mrs. Zhou was sitting in bed lethargically, occasionally wetting a towel in a nearby basin and putting it on the forehead of Little Shiba, sighing every now and then.


    What had happened the day before made her totally scared. Yesterday, a black bear rushed into her daughter''s house, and her son, Little Shiba, came out boldly, holding a hatchet, and directly hacked into the black bear''s throat by some chance just when his sister was about to be swallowed. Little Shiba killed the black bear, and her daughter was rescued. However, Little Shiba himself was injured under the bear''s paw and was unconscious until now with a high fever.


    Her daughter was shocked and almost lost her impending baby. Fortunately, with God blessing, the woman was so lucky that she gave birth to a white and fat boy safely, giving Mrs. Zhou a grandson. Such joys and sorrows occurred in just one day. She did not know whether she was going to be happy or not, but in general, it seemed that happiness held the upper hand.


    A doctor from Qingyang Market had diagnosed Little Shiba, and said that he was a lucky guy. Although he was hit by the bear''s paw, he was not injured seriously, with only some of his bones and muscles hurt and some of his skin scratched. He would be fine after a period of resting. However, it seemed that Little Shiba was frightened yesterday and had caught a fever that night, lasting for a whole day with no evidence of relief. Mrs. Zhou could not think of a better idea than cooling him with a wet towel.


    Her son-in-law, named Wang Tianlei, was a reasonable man. He knew that Little Shiba did not only save his own sister, but also saved his parents and the baby in his wife''s womb, which was a great blessing for the people that lived in the mountains. Therefore, he put his new-born baby aside for that moment and ran around for Little Shiba for two days. He got a doctor from Qingyang Market and took care of Little Shiba in every possible way, without resting for 24 hours. Only when Little Shiba managed to keep the fever down did Wang Tianlei fall asleep on the table gently, feeling relieved.


    "People always say that one who survives a great disaster is destined to good fortune forever, and I''m wondering whether you, my boy, are really so blessed!" Looking at Little Shiba whose face was covered with sweat, Mrs. Zhou sighed in her heart, with a little tender love in her eyes, but actually, more confusion.


    "Uh, uh¡ª!"


    Little Shiba, who remained unconscious over the past days, twitched his face suddenly as Mrs. Zhou was entranced by him. He showed a painful expression, and then suddenly opened his eyes as if shocked by something. The brightness in his eyes dimmed for a second before he sat up from the bed.


    "Little Shiba, you woke up! Are you all right?" Mrs. Zhou quickly grabbed his body and tried to support him, and then asked him with concern. At that moment, Wang Tianlei, who had been sleeping on the table, was awakened by the noise. Seeing Little Shiba sitting in bed, he jumped up all of a sudden.


    "Little Shiba, you woke up. Great! I knew that you were blessed by the gods since you were capable of killing the big black bear. I never believed that you would be defeated!"


    Having just woken up from the long sleep, Little Shiba looked a bit lost in his eyes. He looked around blankly and asked, "Where... where am I?"


    "You are at home!" Mrs. Zhou suddenly hugged Little Shiba in her arms, with tears bursting from her eyes. "You bad boy! You scared me so badly... Hum... Hum...!"


    At that moment, she could not continue her words anymore, clasping Little Shiba with cries of relief, as the heavy burden in her heart began to recede.


    Little Shiba regained his consciousness gradually. Suffering from a dry mouth and with nothing in his stomach, he felt extremely thirsty and hungry.


    "Mom, water... I want some water." He struggled to speak since he was a little out of breath in Mrs. Zhou''s tight hug.


    "Oh, water. Of course you need water."


    Hearing this, Mrs. Zhou quickly let her son go, and suddenly remembered that her son had been in a coma for two days without drinking or eating. She released Little Shiba in a hurry, wiped her tears and said, "Well, stay here for a moment. I''ll get you some porridge."


    "Thank you, mom!" Little Shiba said in a hoarse voice and nodded. At that point, he felt that his throat was smoking.


    Seeing Mrs. Zhou hurry to leave, Wang Tianlei took the opportunity to go over to Little Shiba on the bed and said, "Little Shiba, at this time, I, your brother-in-law, must express my great thanks to you!"


    "My brother-in-law?!" Little Shiba was still in confusion then, but seeing Wang Tianlei, his face changed suddenly as if a certain memory had just resurfaced in his mind. He asked, "Oh, is my sister all right?"


    "Yeah, they are both safe and sound thanks to you."


    "Both?" Little Shiba blanked out for a moment and then immediately realized what his brother-in-law meant. He suddenly cried, "My sister gave birth to a baby? I''m an uncle now!"


    Before his voice had died away, he had a burst of a coughing.


    "Ah, yeah, your sister and the baby are both all right." Wang Tianlei quickly leaned forward toward him and patted his back. "Oh my god, you can''t get so excited. How could I explain to your sister and my parents-in-law if something happened to you again?"


    "Hei, hei... " Little Shiba laughed gently. He did not speak, and actually, he did not dare to speak, since when he did, his throat was so sore as if it was being torn, and he was really uncomfortable. So he just sat there, listening to the words of gratitude from Wang Tianlei, gleaning the information that he wanted to know. From the current situation, he knew that his actions this time could be considered a worthy thing.


    The dead black bear that ran into the village to cause trouble was lying in their yard now. Once the snow had stopped, its skin would fetch quite a lot in Qingyang Market. Although its meat had yet to be treated in the busy past couple of days, Little Shiba knew that the bear''s meat, in addition to the small parts used as gifts for the neighbors and relatives, would mostly be sold in Qingyang Market together with the bear''s skin, leaving only a quite small part at home for food.


    "In this way, my brother-in-law owes me a lot. Hei, hei. It will be much easier next time when I want to gain advantages from him." Looking at the excited Wang Tianlei, Little Shiba was also secretly excited in his heart.


    At that time, Mrs. Zhou pushed the door open and came in with a bowl of porridge in her hands. "Come on, Little Shiba, have some porridge. You''d better not eat too much though, since you haven''t eaten anything for days."


    It was natural for Little Shiba to understand. Then, Wang Tianlei stood up and said, "Mom, now that Little Shiba has awakened, I want to go back, and... "


    "Well, well, go back now. I know that you can''t wait to see your baby son, right? And tell Hua-er that Little Shiba has awakened, and not to worry about him."


    "Okay!" Wang Tianlei quickly replied and then excitedly ran toward his home.


    ¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù


    Misty Mountain, West Mountain Pass¡ª


    The Younger''s body was floating in the wind, traveling at an extremely fast pace, and he arrived at the entrance of West Mountain in seconds. It was a place where the voices of heavy howling and reproach came from.


    The entrance of West Mountain at that moment was already in a mess, with dozens of corpses toppled down on the ground in a disordered fashion. All of them were killed by critical strikes without any opportunities to resist, and each of them had only one mortal wound¡ªthree quick and forceful claws in their throats.


    Looking at the inside area of the mountain pass, there were dozens of people besieging a giant wolf that had only one eye.


    "An evil beast?" Seeing that one-eyed giant wolf, the Younger''s pupils shrank. "Oh my god, it''s an evil beast. I wondered why there was a powerful palpitation when I heard the heavy howling. Well, I never imagined that I could encounter an evil beast in such a remote and backward place."


    The Younger squinted his eyes, the smile on his face was increasingly expanding. Inside of the West Mountain Pass, the one-eyed evil beast was caught in a siege, but it was able to move freely and was not injured when common swords sliced against his body. Even as it was attacked by so many people and swords, the evil beast was still fierce and attacking.


    However, its body was not totally unwounded. There was a sword mark extending from its back to its right hind leg. The bleeding wound affected its movement, and that was the reason why it could not get through the tightly grouped siege, even though it was still agile and its claws were still sharp.


    At the same time, the Younger realized that a small part of the people who were besieging the wolf were Level Three masters of martial arts, among whom one older man was impressively a Level Four fighter. He held a sword, looking forceful, and had a thin streak of blood still left on his blade. The Younger guessed that the wound on the back of the wolf was his masterpiece.


    Such an old man is only a Level Four fighter? He has lived in vain. I think he had no reason to siege the evil beast here, except for coveting the effect of its Inner Elixir. It is possible that he wants to use it to prolong his life or to improve his force. Hum, are you eligible to get it?


    The Younger stood silently in front of the West Mountain Pass, looking at the scene inside with a hint of a sneer visible on his face.


    The people in this battle were the Elder of the Black Dragon Triad and the altar master of its branch altars, together with dozens of elite masters of martial arts from the Black Dragon Triad.


    In order to kill the One-eyed Wolf, the Black Dragon Triad came fully prepared this time. Numerous masters of martial arts were included in the team, and no one among them was a fighter lower than Level Two. However, they still underestimated the strength and wisdom of the One-eyed Wolf. However, the situation was not very optimistic now, even if the one-eyed wolf hurt one leg and had no possibility to escape. All of the people in this battle would be eaten by the One-eyed Wolf when it needed to replenish its energy. God knew how tenacious the vitality of this beast was. It had been over an hour since it was wounded, and its blood should have been exhausted, even if it dripped out drop by drop. However, it seemed that the One-eyed Wolf was not affected and still full of vim and vigor even though the blood on its back was flowing, just the same as it was an hour ago. It was the people who would not be able to holdout.


    "I''m afraid that it''s not the right way, sir. It seems that the beast is endowed with endless strength and energy, and we might be overwhelmed if this continues," Little Jin shouted at him. Among all the people that suffered in the fight, he was the best with his exquisite Lightness Skill and was busy containing the beast, which was the most tiring task.


    "Damn. By my best guess, the blood of ancient animals might exist in this beast''s body, and now, that blood has been awakened. Well, I don''t believe that so many of us can''t exhaust it," the Elder shouted, and suddenly stabbed out with his long sword before his body went back two steps. Seeing this, all the people fighting against the beast revealed a delighted expression as if a certain awareness jumped into their bodies. They also went back a few steps, not far from the center, and surrounded the One-eyed Wolf tightly, giving it no chances to run away.


    "Is this... a secret skill?"


    Seeing that the Elder went back all of a sudden, gathering his whole strength on the sword, the people around felt an overwhelmingly strong and choking sense of death. The Elder held his sword high, directing his Internal Qi violently. Then, the body of the long sword was covered by a black mist, accompanied by bursts of low but forceful screams, as if they were the roars of endless discontent from depressed dead people.


    "It turns out to be a secret skill. Oh my god, it''s really a place where dragons hide and tigers crouch, not only the inheritor of an extinct bloodline, but also people with secret skills. It seems that this secret skill has extreme power, and cannot be matched by common skills. Fortunately, the Elder with this skill doesn''t have enough capacity to give it free reign." The Younger frowned gently and was shocked by the power that burst forth from the Elder.


    Indeed, it was impossible for a Level Four fighter to bring out the full power of that kind of secret skill.


    The so-called secret skill was an independent branch of martial arts skills in the world. Each kind of secret skill basically needed to coordinate with unique ways of using Qi. How to use strength was called Technique as well as how to use Qi was called Mental Cultivation Skill. The essence of secret skills was combining the Internal Qi and strength and use them in special ways. In a sense, it was something like playing arcade games. A compositive technique was the most powerful one.


    Of course, Great Power was only one of the Three Greats of secret skills.


    The Three Greats of secret skills were respectively: Great Power, Great Harm, and Great Consumption.


    Great Power explains itself. A fighter with secret skills would be endowed with the ability to challenge the fighters in a higher level. For example, a Level Four fighter with secret skills might defeat a Level Five without secret skills, and even a Level Six fighter. Of course, it would not be so easy if the opponent had also mastered the same skills.


    Great Harm referred to the use of secret skills that would harm the body. These powerful secret skills would generally cause damage to the body after they had been used, and could not be used again for a long period of time in the future, otherwise, they would hurt the body. If they were forced to be used, they would probably cause a life-long disability.


    Great Consumption, was the same as Great Burden¡ªit would make the Internal Qi of the body exhausted once the secret skill was used. Therefore, generally speaking, no matter what kind of secret skills, there was only one chance to succeed, and if it failed, it was difficult to have enough power to battle again, and even escape would become a luxury. So even a fighter with a certain kind of secret skill would not use it until the last minute.


    And with respect to the secret skills, as the name suggests, they were secret, and each kind of secret skill had its own unique method, and so they were only mastered by a tiny minority. Moreover, the more powerful the secret skill was, the more secret its practice method was, and the more difficult its process of practice was. In addition, in the opinion of the Younger, no one would generally have a secret skill in such a small place near Misty Mountain.


    Well, the Elder in front of him was the one with a secret skill, a very mysterious secret skill. "I don''t know what stroke of luck hit him, but seeing the momentum of his sword, the power of the secret skill must not be small. I wonder whether the evil beast will be overwhelmed or not."


    The One-eyed Wolf was an evil beast and was endowed with a spiritual mind, which could not be matched by human beings. It had already found problems after the fighters around it started to retreat, so it stopped, without trying to drive out of the encirclement. Instead, it shrunk its body, making a gesture of attacking, and the green hair on its whole body stood erect suddenly, looking like steel needles nailed onto its body. The wolf hissed as it exhaled, with two strands of white gas cycling around its nose.


    "Oh¡ª" the Elder suddenly exhaled and shouted, with his long sword stabbing toward the One-eyed Wolf fiercely while the wolf moved at the same time. After its calf-size body moved forward, its previous body was split up into three shadow figures in three directions, roaring and rushing up.


    The middle shadow figure was right on the Sword Qi of the Elder, and was killed in a second by the Sword Qi, and the other two shadows were not affected and rushed up from the left and right sides respectively.


    The Elder was so calm and directed his long sword. It unexpectedly split into two, a black one and a white one, and went to assault the two sides of the One-eyed Wolf respectively. With a mournful screaming, the two fast flows split the shadows before they could pounce on him.


    "Roar¡ª!"


    The Sword Qi dashed against the shadows in one place, and almost disappeared at the same time. After two wolf shadows vanished into thin air, the One-eyed Wolf finally came out in its true body in front of the Elder a foot away, roaring, with blood unwillingly spewing from three deep visible wounds, and its body slowly fell down.


    "Howl¡ª!" Seeing the One-eyed Wolf falling down, the Elder drew in a breath and his body also lowered from midair, collapsing on the ground.


    "Elder!"


    "Leave me alone. Go fast! Kill it and take out his Inner Elixir!"


    The Elder fell down on the ground and cried when he saw the people crowd around him, with black blood flowing out from the seven holes in his head. At the same time, his skin that was exposed on the outside also oozed drops of blood. The final attack just now almost exhausted his entire Internal Qi.


    "Yes!" People replied immediately and rushed toward the One-eyed Wolf, preparing to dissect the wolf and to take its Inner Elixir away.


    "Stop! Stop!"


    A clear voice sounded, then a white shadow flashed out and instantly circled around the crowd in front of the One-eyed Wolf. With a "Puh, Puh!" noise, dozens of the elites, including the five altar masters of the Black Dragon Triad, fell down on their backs while the shadow stood on the ground, each with a finger-sized bloody hole in their forehead.


    "This is a treasure, it is not your turn to kill it!"


    The white shadow stopped. He was the man who had just watched the bustling scene from the sideline. Watching the Elder lying on the ground with a smile, he flicked a finger of his left hand, and a drop of tiny blood flew off.


    "Your secret skill that you used just now is really a good one. I never imagined that someone here had secret skills. Great, great. Give the secret method of practice to me, and I''ll leave you with full corpses!"

 Chapter 13: Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword

    Chapter 13: Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What!"


    It happened so quickly that the old man couldn''t respond at all. From besieging the Younger to being killed, dozens of the Black Dragon Triad elites all lost their defense within one breath.


    On the one hand, this was because his attack was so sudden, but on the other hand, it proved that his mastery of posture and motion was brilliant. Even if he hadn''t taken them by surprise, few of his opponents could have held their ground for long against such skilled movements. With such speed, his level of cultivation must already exceed Level Six.


    Racking his brains, however, the old man couldn''t figure out just who the young man with such wickedly handsome features could be. He wondered when on earth such a youthful expert could have appeared in Yunzhou of Jin.


    "Even if you want to kill me, you should let me know who I am slain, right? And as for the way to practice the Heavenly Sword of Qisha, do you really think that I''ll give it to you without a fight?"


    After decades in the jianghu, he had experienced every kind of storm. It was clear that he couldn''t survive much longer, for the Younger had adopted so many vicious means. So he simply lay on the ground and operated Qi secretly, so as to rupture his heart vessels by himself. But a current of wind from the Younger''s figure had fixed onto his chest before he could operate the only Internal Qi left inside his body. Then, he felt he was stagnated and limp as a noodle. He could no longer direct Qi to rupture the vessels, let alone bite his tongue and commit suicide.


    "Don''t cling to wishful thinking anymore. In front of me, I forbid you from suicide." the Younger squatted beside and edged closer to him, enunciating each word clearly. With a merciless expression in his dark eyes, he continued speaking. "Your behavior dissatisfies me. First I will punish you, and then I''ll interrogate you."


    After saying that, the Younger softly pointed onto the elder''s forehead. The old man suddenly opened his eyes and exuded an expression of extreme hopelessness. He wanted to howl, but no sound came out. In one breath he started to cramp slightly. As time passed by, the extent of the cramp grew greater and greater. All the pores of his body began to bleed, so did his seven apertures. It was even more severe than the pain that could be inflicted by the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    After inflicting this upon him, the Younger left him alone and turned away, walking towards the One-eyed Wolf which lay lingering on the ground.


    The One-eyed Wolf twitched its eyelid weakly. It rolled a glassy eyeball to take one glance at the Younger, and then looked away. It believed that today would be the day it met its final fate. Whether those people or this young man, all seemed to have the wolf in their sights. It had tried its best¡ªit knew that it would not live much longer, even though the first group of people had all been killed. Therefore, it showed no fear in seeing the Younger appear at last, showing only a temperament of indifference, being as unsentimental about death as it was about life.


    "You damn wolf!" In sensing this dying One-eyed Wolf''s sight, the Younger''s eyes twinkled. He squatted in front of the wolf as if he had found a new world. After searching his pocket he brought out a vermeil pill and fed it to the wolf. The wolf felt that vermeil pill immediately burst into a warm flow upon being swallowed. The efficacy of the pill dispersed to all its tendons and vessels, coursing through the wolf''s veins, and started to cure its wounds.


    The One-eyed Wolf ought to have been in a state of desperation. It finally looked back to the Younger, full of confusion.


    "It seems that we have opened a psychic connection. Aside from your inability to speak, your spirit is little different to that of humans, am I right?" the Younger smiled and said, "If you understand, then nod. If you understand but feign confusion, then I''ll nail you on the cliff and let you bleed to death."


    Those words were said with a smile, but the One-eyed Wolf trembled in terror. Looking at the Younger''s icy eyes which contrasted sharply with his smile, the One-eyed Wolf nodded its head hastily, just as it felt a stream of cold air rushing to its head.


    "Good job. I''m different from those who want to harvest your Inner Elixir or plunder your essential blood and flesh. Such things are of no use to me. But, you have the bloodline of an ancient and supernatural beast. Though your bloodline now is faint and of limited strength, its potential is inestimable. At present, I am with no spiritual creatures, so I shall make you this offer: How would you like to make a blood bond with me and pledge loyalty to me?"


    Spiritual Creatures? Blood Bond?


    The One-eyed Wolf didn''t know what these two phrases meant. But it could not help itself from flinching back, and a feeling of unease came over its body.


    Under such circumstances, however, it had no chance at all to resist. The words "you agree" had barely left the lips of the Younger, and before the echo of his voice had died away, he had already cut his finger to draw, in blood, some abstruse rune on the One-eyed Wolf''s forehead, leaving no time for it to respond.


    At the same time, the Younger dripped another drop of blood above the rune.


    Right when the blood mixed with the rune, a glimmer of light flashed out. The glimmer disappeared very quickly, as if it had permeated into the One-eyed Wolf''s forehead. Meanwhile, it felt as though something had burrowed into its consciousness. The wolf tried to concentrate and seize control of whatever it was which had entered its consciousness, but it was no good. At this point, it heard the Younger''s voice from its ears, "Well, stand up now."


    Stand up?


    Though it had taken a strange pill which had largely fixed up its wounds, standing was still difficult. The One-eyed Wolf was about to refuse when it found it had lost control of its body and started standing up gradually, obeying the Younger''s voice. It felt a burst of pain but could do nothing to resist.


    "Not bad, not bad at all!" Seeing the One-eyed Wolf standing up, the Younger felt highly satisfied. "It seems to me that you must be drawing upon your instincts to practice. With such a thin bloodline of ancient supernatural beasts, it is impressive that you can practice to such a high level. Nevertheless, you are less able to step forward if no one directs you. Now that you are my Spiritual Creature, I will never treat you unfairly. I''ll impart to you the authentic way of the Evil Beast to help you in your practice."


    "Owooh... " The One-eyed Wolf howled, as if to confirm that it had understood what The Younger said. It walked toward him and wagged its tail unceasingly, cute and obedient.


    The Younger turned back this time, looking at the elder, whose back was humped like a ripe shrimp''s and who was foaming at the mouth.


    "Now, how about you? Are you ready to reveal the way of the Heavenly Sword of Qisha?"


    The trembling elder nodded ferociously. He had lost all control of his body now. His trembling made it even more difficult for him to nod his head. Some would take his nod as an inertial convulsion if they weren''t paying attention.


    "Are you nodding or shaking?" The joking voice from the Younger came to his ears again. He opened his eyes with difficulty. This handsome youth standing before him seemed to him to be a youth of diabolical evil, as if he had come from the dungeons of hell. How terrible he was!


    The phrase "meat on the chopping block" could serve as a vivid and apt description of the situation he had found himself in.


    He nodded with all his strength this time, with a look of pleading in his eyes. He wished now not for survival, but for a swift death.


    "Well, such great progress. You ought to have acted like this from the start, so that you may have suffered fewer torments. Instead, you chose to puff yourself up at your own cost. After all, we all know it''s not easy to be a hero."


    The Younger shook his head with a smile, pointing at the older''s forehead again, "Now, you can speak out loud."


    The older man breathed heavily. Instead of saying any words, he managed to point to his chest with his right hand.


    The Younger squinted his eyes, raised his hands, and cut open the elder''s shirt-front, revealing his muscular chest.


    "It seems that it was a good idea." the Younger sneered upon seeing the scar. He waved gently and carved out a huge bloody gap above the scar. Casually, he fetched a black scroll which looked like paper and silk.


    The Younger changed his expression all of a sudden. His seemingly perpetual smile disappeared in a flash after he had taken a few glimpses of that scroll.


    "Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword! This is not a secret skill but a Special Technique! I never expected that my assumption would be so wrong!"


    The Younger raised his hand and tucked the scroll into his sleeve. And then with a casual flick of his sleeve, his made the body of the elder spring up through the air, crashing into a pile of jagged rocks several meters away. He spat blood out of his mouth as he fell heavily to the ground. His body sprung up into the air one more time, and after that, no sound could be heard.


    The Younger paid no attention to his death. He flicked his sleeves again, and his body moved like a falling leaf floating in the wind, leaving behind him a ground strewn with corpses and other such residues.


    If little Shiba had been here and had seen what had happened just now, he would have gaped in astonishment¡ªthe ruthless means by which the Younger had captured the One-eyed Wolf showed clearly that the martial arts world was not as he imagined it. At least, it was not a simple world.


    While what happened next proved this further still.

 Chapter 14: Little Shibas Fantasy to the Eyes

    Chapter 14: Little Shiba''s Fantasy to the Eyes


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    West Mountain Entrance, Misty Mountain.


    Scattered corpses lay in a mess.


    The mountain became more and more desolate as a burst of chilly wind blew. In the coldest time of winter, corpses were frozen to become hard objects and any blood that was above the ground was frozen by the chilly wind in just half a day. All of a sudden, a burst of gloomy and cold wind blew over.


    That burst of strange wind was extremely cold. When it blew across the corpses all over the ground, the frozen corpses that were made slight cracking sounds like breaking sticks.


    All of the corpses in the entrance of the West Mountain were cracked by that sudden frigid wind. As the wind blew, the corpses were being eroded. Finally they broke apart.


    While the corpses were eroded by the frigid wind, the body of the Elder which was thrown away by the mysterious youth underwent an amazing change.


    The Elder''s body made cracking sounds as the frigid wind blew over it. But with the last sound, the skull of that body suddenly broke. A puff of black smoke came out of the skull. This black smoke became thicker and thicker and darker and darker until the point that it was about to be coagulated. In the entrance of the mountain, the wind was blowing mightily. The black smoke was nearly blown away into dust. It was carried off by wind for several feet and then seemed to exert a force around it which caused the wind to stop.


    There were blasts of cold wind, blowing back and forth incessantly. Tough as the wind was, it couldn''t resist the unchanging natural force. In this endless cold wind, the black smoke dissipated to a large extent. Finally it rode down the mountain on the cold wind.


    ¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù


    The crack of the morning sun slowly peaked over the towering ridge and shone down on that little village at the foot of Misty Mountain.


    Like a baby''s face, the weather in the mountain changed with uncertainty. Yesterday, dark sky covered everywhere and the wind blew all around. From time to time, there was even a snowflake falling down from the sky, but today''s weather is as if the bright sun is about to rise.


    Little Shiba woke up very early. He had been lying in the bed for many days due to the wound and felt uncomfortable because of not being a martial arts. What unpleasant days!


    Today his fever finally dropped. He felt refreshed after a sound sleep and all constraints were relieved in one moment. Softly Little Shiba got up and went to a vacant space under the cliff in his courtyard to play Taiji Fist.


    Different from the past, he played the simplified Taiji Fist twice, but neither was unhindered. There is an old saying that ''Heart goes with consciousness and consciousness goes with Qi''. Anyhow, he couldn''t combine his consciousness with Qi. It was not because of too many distracting thoughts, but rather because he could clearly feel the Qi and blood flowing in his tendons and vessels when playing.


    In other people''s opinion, Little Shiba was heavily injured with a terrible fever and in a coma. As a matter of fact, he did not sleep at all for two days. His whole spiritual mind and soul was in a wired state which was caused by his eyes.


    When Little Shiba was going to be killed by that black bear, his eyes underwent mysterious and even marvelous changes. He was not able to detect anything special when he was in danger. However, when he was in the coma, he felt like he was in a dreamland. He floated up to a hollow. This place was like a universal image he watched in the previous life which was filled with darkness and emptiness, nothing but one eye.


    Later he realized that this eye was very likely to be his eye.


    A huge eye was floating in the hollow. It was golden. In the bottom of the eye, there were several wisps of strange black lines which emitted golden light. The golden light was the only illumination in the hollow.


    At that time Little Shiba felt like he had become a ball of mist floating in the hollow. He could take control of his ''body''. The body could move at his will to some degree but it could only move around for a bit.


    He had tried to move to that huge eye once. But no matter how hard he tried, the huge eye kept hanging above his head and a constant distance remained. He doubted whether he managed to move at all in the mysterious hollow. The so-called movement was only an illusion in his consciousness.


    Surely there were some kinds of abstruseness which he couldn''t explain. Not knowing how much the time went by, he felt a shock suddenly. Then, the eye disappeared and so did the hollow. He woke up and returned to reality.


    It seemed it had been over. While in the following days he realized some changes had taken place in his eyes.


    When Little Shiba focused his consciousness on the eyes, a series of changes would soon appear. First of all, they would turn to be lightly golden, together with some indistinct black lines which were the same as the huge mysterious eye hanging above his head in the hollow.


    With such eyes, he could see clearly not only things in front of him but also objects behind him. That was to say, when his eyes turned to be light golden, a 360-degree perspective would be formed. There would definitely be no blind spot in his view.


    In addition to this, his vision and insight increased in strength. Now he could see far away objects that were previously vague. The scope of his vision became larger, and so did his sensitivity.


    Above were purely changed in his eyes.


    Except for those two parts, there was one more important thing. He had an Inner Vision now. As long as he turned his eyes to red, he could observe his inner condition clearly. From blood flowing, skeleton constitution, route of Internal Qi in the tendons and vessels to even his metabolism, nothing could escape from his amazing eyes.


    Except for Inner Vision, what he paid more attention to was his multiple times'' improvements in his ability to control his Internal Qi. Now he had fine control over his Internal Qi. In the past, he could only operate his Internal Qi according to a fixed working flow by feeling. To avoid from being possessed by the devil, he did not dare to go a step beyond his prescribed limit. With all under his monitor, he could stop his operating Internal Qi or slow the speed or do some reverse on an acceptable scale at any time. More importantly, this control had great benefits for him to practice Ignis Skill.


    Though fire cultivation method was a little more profound than Unusual Strength Qigong, it was a kind of advanced rudimental method of Internal Strength. There were lots of delicate and intricate points. Especially the point of absorbing a typical attribute of fire from nature into his body and refining it into Internal Qi while expelling attributes of other properties which were absorbed by mistake. So the fire cultivation method had an essential difference from Unusual Strength Qigong which absorbed everything. The progress of refining and expelling nature attributes required a fine control of the Internal Qi. It was just that this ability made it so that Little Shiba could not practice Ignis Skill, even though he had practiced the method for so long. Now, that this challenge was solved.


    Of course, this didn''t mean that Little Shiba wasn''t grateful for the free gifts. He also realized that it was demanding for him to keep such a state. Not only was his spirit consumed, his body also suffered great burden. The maximum his current body could handle would enable him to maintain this state for at most 15 minutes.


    What did maximum mean?


    It meant to be tired out and sluggish. He had fallen into a sound sleep as soon as he went to bed and slept for one day. However, he still hadn''t completely recovered the next day. Subsequently, Little Shiba had never maintained that state for too long at one time after the first experience. He would maintain that state for at most 10 minutes. With this 10 minutes, he could get some knowledge about his inner body and prepare for practicing the fire cultivation method.


    He dared not to practice for lacking enough control on the Internal Qi before. With his newfound adaption and observation, however, he was confident in practicing Ignis Skill safely even if he didn''t maintain that special state. Under such circumstances, he couldn''t wait to practice.


    "Ooo~" Little Shiba exhaled deeply. After playing a set of non-standard Taiji Fist, he felt quite helpless.


    "No wonder people always say that ''the one who knows nothing fears nothing''. I thought I had gotten some achievements in playing Taiji Fist previously. I see now how disappointing it was. I have a deeper knowledge of Internal Qi flowing, Qi, and blood operation now. I suppose I can strive for further improvement but I didn''t expect to create an imbalance between Internal Qi and movements. This isn''t because of Taiji Fist but because of me. I only figured out the operation of Internal Qi, Qi, and blood but haven''t mastered it yet. There''s still a long way to master it and combine it with Taiji Fist''s consciousness. Well, codes of Taiji Fist I recited in the previous life are of significance actually. I used to pay no attention to them, but as I played just now, some reactions inside my body seem to confirm some of the codes. I must write them down before I forget them. Just as the saying goes that ''the palest ink is better than the best memory''. It would be a huge loss if I forget them!"


    Little Shiba stood up straight, thinking about all the things that happened in these past days. He kept exploring functions of his eyes and took few other things into account.


    "My eyes are kind of similar to the Sharingan. Is this a Naruto world that I''ve arrived at after time traveling?" "Nope. There are no Chinese characters in the Naruto world. And there are no ninjas in this world either. Maybe it''s a coincidence. I wonder if this pair of eyes has the capability of copying other''s martial arts?" Thinking of this, Little Shiba couldn''t help licking his dry lips. He was immensely interested in this idea all of a sudden and eager to give it a try.


    But soon after, he was depressed that there was no one for him to test on whether his eyes could copy martial arts or not in this remote village.


    The strongest man in this village was his brother-in-law, Wang Tianlei, from whom Little Shiba had learned all his martial arts. Actually, Little Shiba was more proficient in some details than his brother-in-law. As for other people who were taught by Wang Tianlei, they couldn''t match him at all.


    "Ah...! "


    Suddenly, Little Shiba thought of a man.


    "Wu Qinglong is the best man among those who know archery. It''s said that his father is also skilled in archery. I wonder If it''s true that they''ve practiced ancestral archery. People say they won''t let anyone observe their practice and the only chance to do that is when you''re hunting together with them. It''s really a pity that I''m too young to go hunting with him. Or else I''ll have the chance to observe him shooting."Little Shiba thought in his heart.

 Chapter 15: The Newfound Special Technique

    Chapter 15: The Newfound Special Technique


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    After practicing Taiji Fist for a while, Little Shiba was very disheartened. The practice was not nearly as perfect as he had thought, rather it was quite defective.


    However, even though he was not exactly pleased with the results, it did not worry him because he knew what had gone wrong.


    His lack of control between his own Internal Qi and his Qi and blood could only be fixed with time and practice. It definitely was not a problem that he would be able to handle in a single morning.


    He looked at the sky, guessing that his family was probably awake. "If mom comes in without finding me, then I''m afraid I''ll be beaten badly."


    Thinking of this gave him a strong sense of uneasiness and convinced him that leaving was a wise choice. He turned around and started walking home, unaware that there was black smoke that had been blown here from a nearby cliff.


    It was simply being guided by the wind at first, freely flying in the air. However, as it was less than 100 feet away from Little Shiba, it suddenly flew faster, as if it was attracted by him. Little Shiba was totally unaware of the faint smoke and was unguarded. As such, it did not take long before the black smoke caught up with him and burrowed into his head.


    His body suddenly stiffened and a confused look appeared on his face afterward. "Thump!" His body made a loud sound and fell to the ground.


    One hour later, the anxious Zhou family finally found Little Shiba behind their courtyard, lying on the ground unconscious. This left the family in a state of panic.


    ¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù


    How in the hell did I come back here again?


    He felt himself fall into an infinite void, and atop of him floated a strange eye. Little Shiba felt somewhat dizzy and he figured out that he had really fainted. However, he had no idea why he had fainted. He was only awake for a short time and his body seemed to be recovering quite well. In his strange eyes, he simply could not find anything wrong with his body. If that was so, why did he suffer a blackout like that?


    Soon after, he realized the answer.


    Within this empty void, he caught a glimpse of something that simply did not belong there:


    A cloud of black smoke.


    It was floating not far from him. He could not figure out what it was, but he could sense danger from it. He quickly backed away from it.


    It followed him as he stepped back. His heart nearly skipped a beat when he realized that. In his two lifetimes, he had never seen anything like this. The unknown was always a source of fear for people. Even though Little Shiba had the knowledge of two lifetimes, he still succumbed to fear.


    The extremely strange smoke kept following Little Shiba. He did not know how long he had run for, but he knew that he could not get rid of it. It got closer and closer in an instant. Finally, it suddenly wrapped around his body.


    Nooooo!


    After the smoke had latched itself onto his body, Little Shiba tried to cry out but he could not. He was clueless to the fact that he was the same as that black smoke. The only difference was that he was much denser and thicker than the smoke that was pursuing him. This feeling of screaming was not an actual scream coming from his lungs, but rather, coming from his soul.


    This is¡ª


    After he had felt himself screaming, Little Shiba realized that the situation was not as bad as he had thought. It was not as horrible as the bad spirits he had heard of in folktales, or as terrible as the body-possessing spirits that were depicted in many online novels.


    Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword?!


    The black smoke began to fuse with Little Shiba''s body. All in a single moment, countless memories began to flow into his mind. He stopped running and started digesting all of the new information that was being crammed into his brain.


    "Li Haoran, Elder of the Black Dragon Triad...!"


    That was the first messaged he received.


    "The One-eyed Wolf of West Mountain, evil beast... Inner Elixir...!"


    That was the second message.


    "That devilish Younger...!"


    That was the third message.


    "The wind is really fierce, it''s going to blow my soul away!"


    "... "


    "... "


    "... "


    The last message, which was also the most complete, was


    "Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!"


    This method of practice is quite strange. Its system seems totally different from Inner Force or Sword Qi.


    After he had gotten the message about the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, Little Shiba started to contemplate slowly. From that message, he could understand what had happened.


    It must have been a person''s soul; the soul of a poor guy who was murdered. The only reason why it survived after the body had died was due to some sort of secret skill. It was because of this that he was able to be reborn by possessing others. He could have lived for a second time just like Little Shiba, but he was not so lucky.


    Souls are incredibly weak. Usually, when people died, their souls would depart if there was no accident. And some people with strong will would maintain their souls after death for a while. However, no one could maintain their soul forever. As time went by, their willpower began to weaken and their soul began to fade. The clear exception would be those who had practiced a secret skill and, thus, had strong spiritual power. They could retain their spiritual sense after death and were able to be reborn by possessing others. But how many people could do this?


    Not only that, even if one had practiced some sort of secret skill and his spiritual power was strong enough to possess others, there was a condition. The condition was that one could only possess others without external influences. No matter how strong spiritual power was, it was totally no match for natural power. A gust of wind could easily blow away the soul, let alone when one was out of luck and met some bad weather. Thunder was enough to tear the soul apart.


    Li Haoran had practiced Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Although it was not a secret skill to enhance the soul, it could strengthen the soul as a great special technique. So when the body died, the soul did not depart and neither did its consciousness. However, he had died at West Mountain Pass, which was known to have strong winds. Therefore, the soul was blown away and had no spiritual sense at all in such a terrible condition. All that was left were deep memories in his mind. His memories were blown to the Zhou residence, which was exactly where Little Shiba was practicing.


    The moment the remaining soul had noticed Little Shiba, it rushed toward him, for it instinctively saw him as a possible vessel.


    Without its consciousness, that soul was nothing more than a culmination of memories all formed together. Such an amalgamation could never threaten anything. Hence, it did not take Little Shiba much time and effort to digest all of those memories.


    Li Haoran''s memories were scattered and incomplete. As such, other than the soul''s name and identity, Little Shiba knew nothing about it. Of course, the memory of the Younger, who had slain him, was still very much alive and complete as the soul''s final memory. After receiving all of those memories, Little Shiba was able to understand Li Haoran''s hatred and fear of the Younger.


    How did such an expert end up here? I even don''t know what he comes here for, I just hope he doesn''t start causing trouble!


    Within Little Shiba''s mind, there were fragments of the Younger killing others. The Younger''s whole body emanated an aura that caused Little Shiba''s whole body to shake in fear.


    However, it was not long before Little Shiba started to concentrate on the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Being a warrior, the most profound things in his mind were cultivation methods of martial arts skills. Li Haoran was no exception. That cultivation method was etched into his very mind. Even though he had died and turned into a lonely soul, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, which he got by accident, was still able to drive itself into his mind, completely and entirely.

 Chapter 16: The Four-Year Harvest

    Chapter 16: The Four-Year Harvest


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Come quickly, he''s awake. Little Shiba''s awake!"


    Little Shiba had just regained consciousness. While he was still a little dazed, the loud voice of Wang Tianlei started to ring beside his ears. Later, he heard a "Bang!" noise and then the sound of a door opening before his mother burst into tears and wrapped her arms around him.


    "You little bastard, you could have frightened your mother to death! Oh, my!"


    So hopeless, so dispiriting, and so unlucky.


    It was really very simple. After waking in the morning and discovering that Little Shiba was gone, the Zhou family flew into turmoil searching all over for him. Finally, in a thicket behind the wall of their courtyard, they found him lying unconsciously on the ground. They then hurriedly carried him home, just in time to catch the physician as he was preparing his luggage to leave. After a brief flurry of activity, things were finally settled. However, Little Shiba''s mother fainted because she was so worried and shocked.


    Just as she was carried out, the yell of Wang Tianlei was heard throughout the house, telling everyone that Little Shiba had regained consciousness. She awoke from her coma with a quiver, and then burst into the room, leading to the scene described above.


    But this moving scene did not last for long.


    After seeing that Little Shiba had come to himself with no big problems, everyone started to calm down. But, just as soon as they had settled down, Little Shiba got into trouble.


    Perhaps the so-called "to revenge sooner or later" is a vivid depiction of now.


    With an air of resignation, Little Shiba lay down on a pile of dry wood, with his hands clasped behind his head. With an embittered smile upon his face, he stared up at the mess of dusty old cobwebs drifting in the breeze above him and listened to the sound made by his stomach.


    Only a day had passed since his regaining consciousness when Old Zhou, his father in this life, had shut him away into the woodshed and forbidden him from eating for three days.


    Old Zhou was a true, born and bred mountain villager. He was an expert at hunting in the mountains, but as for raising children, that was not his strong point.


    He believed in a dictum from Little Shiba''s previous life: "Spare the rod and spoil the child". This was indeed a crude and direct style of education. Little Shiba had always been obedient and thus, until now, had given Old Zhou no reason to take action against him. He had never been shut into the woodshed like this before. Normally, it was Boxer.


    But how times had changed. Now, it was Little Shiba who was really in trouble. Just after he had regained consciousness, Old Zhou had decided that he would not tolerate him running about, causing trouble. So he sent him to the woodshed, the same way he used to punish Spikey, Houndie, and Boxer, starving him for three days.


    Over the next few days, Old Zhou was most satisfied with his actions, because after three days of being locked away, the well-behaved and obedient Little Shiba of old was back, and he did not give Old Zhou any further reason to worry.


    How time flew!


    Four years had passed before anyone knew it and Little Shiba was already eight years old.


    Most people see the time between ages four and eight as a rather muddle-headed and simple period, yet also a time of purity and innocence. But to Little Shiba, these four years were the most enriched, so that he wanted to shout out "Hallelujah!".


    Thanks to Wang Tianlei and the old blind man''s combined efforts, in those four years all the younger villagers had learned how to read and write well. Perhaps they were not well-educated, but at least they were literate, and when sending letters to distant relatives they would no longer have to try hard to get someone else to write for them. Of course, it was unavoidable that their writing would still be littered with minor errors here and there.


    But overall, this was a remarkable achievement.


    Little Shiba was not especially interested in this achievement, however, it meant that he no longer needed to painstakingly hide his literacy from others. The children of his age in the village could basically all recognize a few characters, and there were even one or two "prodigies" who could already recite ream after ream of classical poetry and even entire essays of the sages. Parents of these "prodigies", with great impetus, would always push them to go and take part in the preliminary rounds of the imperial examinations.


    He was not a child prodigy and was not very interested in the cultural system of this world, which so strikingly resembled that of ancient China. So long as others knew he was literate, that was enough.


    His practice of the Ignis Skill had gone smoothly, and his eyes began to mutate. After mastering the method of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, he had overcome the most difficult part of the Ignis Skill. He had been able to absorb Fire Attributes from the essence of the world, and by undertaking special mental cultivation methods of Internal Strength, he had transformed the energy of Fire Attributes into a unified Internal Qi and contained it entirely within his body.


    This was the most fundamental principle of most of the Internal Strength throughout this world. Of course, it was not easy to do this at all. Between heaven and earth, there was not only one type of Fire Attribute but countless types. For example, the Fire Attribute pneuma emitted by the sun above our head had hundreds of variations, among which the most well-known was the sun''s fire. Even just a little of this kind of fire was enough to melt steel, so with the exception of characters of legend, there were few that could handle the sun''s fire. Of course, the Ignis Skill was only the most basic mental cultivation method of Internal Strength with a Fire Attribute. Little Shiba did not yet know this, and with his current level of sensitivity to the essence of the world, he was also not able to sense much.


    Due to vigorous training, Little Shiba was able to completely transform Unusual Strength Qigong into Ignis Internal Qi and was able to wield its power. He had merged its force with the Thousand Killing Punching Skill. Aside from this skill''s own inherent power, it was now combined with the power of the burning fist. When fully unleashed, it could have a destructive force many times stronger than the regular Thousand Killing Punching Skill.


    Just then, he realized after his Internal Qi had been slowly transformed into the Ignis Internal Qi by Unusual Strength Qigong, there also seemed to be a strange effect on the inside of his body¡ªhis muscles, bones, tendons, and meridians seemed to be solidified and strengthened. Wang Tianlei had once told him that the "from internal to external" method was correct. Appropriate internal vigor could be beneficial to the strengthening of the body. Internal Strength and External Strength were both parts of the same reciprocating process.


    In a sense, Little Shiba''s punching skill could be said to be at a Basic level. Within the last three years, he was not able to make much progress. If he wanted to forcefully upgrade his abilities, he would have to destroy his own body. It could be said that his Internal and External Strength had already reached the limits of his present age.


    He had just turned eight years old, and the body of an eight-year-old lad was not yet fully grown. It had not even reached puberty yet. His skeleton, Qi, and blood were all too weak. If he forced himself to upgrade now, no matter if he was successful or not, his future achievements may end there. He feared that if he forced to upgrade his strength in his present physical condition, then it could lead him to be stuck in the body of an eight-year-old for his entire life. That would really be a humiliation.


    So for the last three months, he had instead put all of his energy into the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was an astonishing martial art skill. However, within Li Haoran''s memory, he still did not know that this skill was regarded as a special technique.


    As was said before, the standard cultivation method of martial arts skills was to channel the essence of the world into the body, and transform it into a source of Internal Qi through the mental cultivation method of one''s Inner Strength. And then, this Internal Qi flowed along its own course, providing moisture for and carefully nourishing the body''s tendons, meridians, Qi, and blood. This process was known as "from the internal, to the external".


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was a unique martial art skill, one that Little Shiba had never imagined before, and he even thought of it as a martial arts system entirely outside of his knowledge. Of course, this was also a reflection of the fact that his martial arts knowledge was not so extensive, and still merely lingered around Wuxia novels and cartoons.


    If one wanted to practice the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, he should directly take in Evil Qi, make use of a secret method similar to that of the mental cultivation method of one''s Internal Strength, and then smelt the absorbed Evil Qi until it was distilled into Sword Qi without parallel. Finally, stored all of the Sword Qi within his body.


    It sounded as though this was not very different from the art of inhaling and exhaling Internal Qi, but in essence, the difference was really huge.


    He who practiced Internal Strength needed to absorb the essence of the world, and indeed there were countless types of world essences, possessing all kinds of properties. These innumerable types of pneuma could be divided into two main categories; one type was Spiritual Qi, and the other was Evil Qi. The type of Qi that could be absorbed and transformed into internal power was very rare, and this type of easily absorbed and transformed Qi was called Spiritual Qi. Its typical property was mild, and even the essence that could be absorbed and transformed into the pneuma of Fire Attribute through the Ignis Skill was rather mild. However, the essence which could be taken into the body as though drinking water was mostly Spiritual Qi. Evil Qi was that kind of world essence which could not be transformed into Internal Qi. Evil Qi was just like seething hot boiling water which would burn you if you just touched it, not to mention drank it.


    Evil Qi had fierce properties, but at the same time, its power could not be compared to the kind of world essence which was mild; the pneuma of Fire Attribute that Little Shiba absorbed and transformed through Ignis Skill was just one of the common sort. The difference between the power of this pneuma and the sun''s fire was enormous.


    Thus, in order to utilize this fierce essence of the world, a special technique was needed.


    The special technique passed down since antiquity integrated every method and every martial arts skill of each type of Internal Qi. It combined all the traits of Evil Qi to create a kind of secret skill which could transform the fierce Evil Qi that fighters could not safely absorb into a fixed form and contain it within their bodies, tendons, and meridians.


    Because the pneuma that this special technique transformed into was of unparalleled ferocity, it was an almost impossible task to hold it inside one''s body for one''s own use of Internal Qi. But through this special technique, it was possible to solve this annoyance and made it stay in a fixed form within one''s body. For example, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was made by distilling Evil Qi into a peerless Sword Qi, and after being distilled into Sword Qi, the ferocious properties of the Evil Qi were stabilized and transformed into the lethal force of this Sword Qi. However, it was not just any type of Evil Qi that could be refined into the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. No matter what kind of special technique, its requirements of Evil Qi were extremely high. For instance, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword required simultaneously smelting two types of Evil Qi with diametrically opposed characteristics; one extremely yang and the other extremely yin. And even if it was smelted successfully through this secret skill, it could still not be stored in the body to be at your command like true Internal Qi. It could only be fixed into a particular form. As for keeping it contained within one''s tendons and meridians, the key point was that storing Sword Qi within oneself required one''s muscles and vessels to have a far greater degree of tolerance and resistance than ordinary muscles and vessels had.


    Little Shiba had just turned eight, and his bones, muscles, tendons, and meridians were not yet fully developed. So, even if he could find two types of Evil Qi with diametrically opposed characteristics, he still could not store them within his body as his tendons and meridians would not be able to withstand it.


    Such a pity. I thought that I had gotten a life-saving skill!


    Thinking about that point, Little Shiba felt that he was quite laughable. He was an eight-year-old child, growing up in a remote village, but the thoughts in his mind were the same as those adventurers on the outside who wanted to have life-saving skills in their possession at all times. He did not know what kind of mentality that was. Was it because he had read too many Martial arts novels?


    Of course, in four years, he had grasped clearly the nature of the Ignis Skill and the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. In those four years, as far as Little Shiba was concerned, the most useful thing was deciphering the Ignis Skill, and the most interesting thing was practicing the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. But what made those four years a real bumper harvest was his two fantastic eyes.


    After four years of training, he could already keep his eyes in their singular state for about half an hour without seriously weakening himself. Or at least, not weakening himself so much that he would be unable to flee from danger. Naturally, maintaining that state was still a big burden on his health, but after entering that state, his reflexes, vision, control over his body and Internal Qi, as well as his speed and strength all improved by leaps and bounds. His strength was improved by a factor of at least five or six. But the only disappointment was that these, after all, were not the skill-copying eyes, and he did not have the ability to copy other people''s martial arts techniques.


    He had always envied the bow and arrow skills of Wu Qinglong''s family. He still had not studied to their level, although through careful observation he had noted every detail of how Wu Qinglong primed the bow and loaded the arrow, and had benefited considerably from it. So his skill in archery had also seen great improvement, although he still had not really trained to the level of the Wu family.


    I''ve already spent seven years practicing Taiji Fist, so I suppose I''ve learned a few profound points, Haha! When practicing my Unusual Strength Qigong, I found that Taiji can strengthen it. Now I can totally transform Unusual Strength Qigong into Ignis Internal Qi. I had never thought it could be strengthened; not only in this way, but the strengthening effect of Taiji Fist on my body is greater and greater. It''s a type of upgraded super punching skill. How strange, why had I never had this feeling in my previous life?


    After practicing Taiji Fist, Little Shiba''s entire body was dripping with sweat. He felt that his body from top to bottom was bathed as if it were being cleansed by the heat of his Internal Qi. It was an indescribable feeling of comfort.


    Recently my father keeps worrying, it seems like I''m about to become an apprentice. Ha, going out is a good idea, at least much better than being holed up in this remote and desolate place. Although I shall not think about how many achievements I''ll reach in this world, I have a chance to look at this wondrous world. Staying in this place, there might not be many opportunities remaining!


    This was a true depiction of Little Shiba''s thoughts. Although this mountain village was peaceful and quiet, and had already been made by Wang Tianlei into a place suitable for retirement, the eight-year-old Little Shiba did not want to live here any longer. He would not like to go into retirement so early. So, he was very much looking forward to going to Qingyang Market to become an apprentice. Of course, he was not yet to know exactly what kind of opportunity that his uncle had arranged for him.

 Chapter 17: Qingyang Market & the Wu Family

    Chapter 17: Qingyang Market & the Wu Family


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    So, this is Qingyang Market, isn''t it?


    Standing on the street of Qingyang Market and looking at the continuous flow of people, Little Shiba sighed with emotion. It had been a long time since he saw such a scene. Although this Qingyang Market was not even as good as a small town in his past life, he at least felt that he was in a civilized world. Qingyang Market was much better than the small village where he had been staying previously.


    Three days ago, his uncle came to his family and mentioned again that he would like Boxer and Little Shiba to leave the family and start making their own living. Old Zhou agreed.


    Although the family already had been living quite well, he had to agree with what had been proposed since he had four sons after all. Houndie was already at the age of starting his own family, while Boxer and Little Shiba were also getting close to the age where their growing bodies would require more and more food. Boxer was fine, but Little Shiba could be trouble since he could not have meals without eating meat. The Zhou''s would definitely have become poor because of Little Shiba''s appetite if they were not covered by Wang Tianlei''s family.


    It was better to take this opportunity to send him away. Although the family would not require him to help support them, he should be able to at least support himself. With Qingyang Market being not far away, namely 20 to 25 km of mountain roads away from the village, no one would worry too much. After a thorough discussion, Old Zhou agreed with their uncle to take Little Shiba away for him to start making his own living.


    "Haha, this Qingyang Market is probably still under control of the Black Dragon Triad. The Elder just passed away and the Black Dragon Triad''s power was weakened greatly, so they probably have no intention to run this place!"Looking toward that stretch of buildings in the dark on the southwest side, Little Shiba flashed a funny smile. Although he only carried some pieces of memories of Li Haoran, he clearly understood Li Haoran''s feeling for the Black Dragon Triad and this feeling also influenced him. So, he was very interested in the Black Dragon Triad.


    But with his current age and status, the Black Dragon Triad was still unattainable for him. It was also unnecessary for him to be involved in such a Jianghu gang at the moment.


    "Little Shiba, that''s the ironware shop of the Wu Family over there. You''d better behave well and learn a skill after you arrive there. I''ve asked many influential people to set up the connections to get you in there, so you''d better not disappoint me!"


    Little Shiba''s head was about to blow up with his uncle''s unremitting warnings on the way to the iron shop, but he was still being patient. Listening and nodding his head with modest smiles on his face, he had been well-behaved, which was very satisfactory to his uncle.


    "Haha, I almost forgot that you have a real name now, Zhou Bao!" His uncle seemed to recall something and started laughing and touching Little Shiba''s head. "Your dad gave you a really nice name. I can''t call you Little Shiba anymore. From now on, you''ll be Junior Leopard!"


    Little Shiba, no, Junior Leopard gave a wry smile. He was fine with whatever name. However, he was not comfortable at all with people touching his head.


    The Wu''s ironware shop was very famous in Qingyang Market. In fact, the entire Wu Family were very famous in Yunzhou, Jin.


    The Wu Family in Yunzhou were a family well-known for iron making.


    A blacksmith was only an artisan, an ordinary handicraftsman who only had greater strength.


    However, there were various grades and ranks for handicraftsmen. When a blacksmith was able to forge sharp weapons, he would leave the handicraftsman level and be upgraded as a craftsman to live a decent life. When a craftsman was able to create wizard weapons, he would be called master and would no longer need to sweat with bare shoulders, or fight against others for iron bells, or hit metal alone in a shabby blacksmith shop like before. Those masters would be like Gan Jiang and Mo Ye in the ancient legends, becoming honored guests of high officials and noble lords, making specific weapons for particular groups of people using materials that were unimaginable for common blacksmiths. Maybe throughout their lives, they would only need to produce one or two more pieces that would spread their names to the later generations. Those were the so-called masters.


    Families like the Wu Family that possessed a unique and secret technique would have one or two masters every several generations. Those families that were able to generate masters in batches surely had a higher status than regular families did.


    The Wu''s ironware shop in Qingyang Market was only a tiny branch of its family. In Yunzhou, every town had an ironware shop attached to the Wu Family. The Wu Family monopolized 70% of the ironware business that covered from manufacturing swords, bows, and arrows to producing knives and spatulas. Moreover, it undertook 90% of the share of the military ironware in Yunzhou. Meanwhile, the Wu''s ironware was also very popular and accounted for a certain percentage in markets outside of Yunzhou. Therefore, the Wu Family was recognized as one of the four big smelting families in Jin.


    Although the Wu Family were a well-known family, the blacksmiths in it were not entirely its clansmen. Thinking about it, it would be impossible if there were only the Wu''s members that were manufacturing mass amounts of ironware and taking care of all those shops, including providing all of the military ironware. Even if the elders of the family over 70 were still working, the whole Wu family would probably be worked to death.


    Well-known iron-making families like the Wu Family normally recruited disciples widely. For sure, the instructions that these disciples received were just regular smelting techniques. The real sophisticated and secret skills were taken care of by the Wu''s core members and would only be received by a few disciples who were the elites of the entire family.


    At the moment, Zhou Bao was merely a common apprentice who worked in one of the most regular ironware shops of the Wu Family. In Yunzhou, there were countless ironware shops like that where they cultivated regular blacksmiths. Occasionally, those apprentices who had an aptitude for making ironware were discovered and recommended to better ironware shops where they learned more sophisticated ways of making ironware and became real disciples of the Wu Family.


    Becoming the Wu''s disciple meant you had a great opportunity to become a craftsman, which was the highest pursuit of every apprentice in the Wu''s ironware shop. But that was not what Zhou Bao pursued. He had no interest in making ironware and only cared about the remuneration in the Wu''s ironware shop. As they say, those who practice writing are poor while those who practice martial arts are rich. He practiced martial arts and thus he needed lots of meat to supply energy for his practice. That was the reason why he could not have meals without having meat and that caused big trouble for the Zhou''s. However, the iron-making job in the Wu''s ironware shop also consumed humongous amounts of energy and required strong bodies. Thus, even for the small apprentices, there was meat served for every meal. In this way, his problem was solved.


    Most of Qingyang Market''s workshops were in the south of the town, but the Wu''s ironware shop was different. It was located in the center of the town, which was also the most prosperous part of the town.


    This ironware shop consisted of making ironware in the back of the shop and selling it in the front. It was the biggest shop in the entire Qingyang Market.


    Although it was the largest shop in the whole Qingyang Market, Qingyang Market was merely a small place and so the shop was still not big enough for the Wu Family. Standing outside of the ironware shop, Junior Leopard faintly heard the sound of people hitting iron from the back of the shop, and he even pictured a scene in his brain of those fellows sweating like pigs to hit iron in the back of the shop.


    "Hey, Butler Lin, this is my nephew. He may look young but he''s as strong as an ox!"


    Junior Leopard''s uncle was awkwardly smiling in front of a nearly 60-year-old skinny old fellow, dragging Junior Leopard in front of him.


    "Well, not bad!" Butler Lin took a long look at Little Shiba. "It''s not bad to have such a body at your age, quite rare. Let''s go, I think Old Xing will not complain to me anymore!" Butler Lin was talking to himself while dragging Zhou Bao behind him, and then looked up and said to Zhou Bao''s uncle, "You go to Xiao Yunzi to get a contract of apprenticeship and you''re done here. I''m taking him to meet Old Xing. That old fellow is quite grumpy, especially with strangers, so you''d better not come with us!"


    "Right, right!" Zhou Bao''s uncle kept nodding his head and turned to Zhou Bao to warn him again. His warning simply was to ask him to behave well in the ironware shop and to study hard to achieve a promising future. Zhou Bao had gotten tired of these.


    As for Butler Lin, he could not stop smiling because he had seen many such scenes. Since there was still plenty of time, he had no need to rush and so he waited for Little Shiba''s uncle to finish his warning and then walked Little Shiba into the shop.


    Although the Wu Family were a huge family with endless properties, Qingyang Market was a small place after all. Basically, the customers were the townspeople, who did not have strict requirements on ironware. They mainly needed kitchen knives for cutting ingredients, not to mention that they did not have much money or purchasing power for the Wu''s ironware, whose prices were 10 or 20% higher than those of regular blacksmith shops. Therefore, business here was limited.


    Yet, its biggest source of business was the fighters who entered the mountains. Those fighters were using a small town like Qingyang Market as their filling station for a rest. The Wu Family usually dealt with them.


    Of course, the Wu Family also dealt with common customers, but not many shops received those common orders since most of those orders were for the apprentices to practice their skills.


    Following Butler Lin, Little Shiba entered the shop and walked straight to the back. The further back he went, the louder the hitting sound became. In the end, there were no other sounds in his ears except for the rattling sound of iron being hit.


    "Crap, this is just noise!" Zhou Bao was inwardly deeply ashamed. He was a quiet person and the Taiji Fist he practiced was also a silent Kung Fu. Nobody would be able to guarantee that he could live in such a rattling environment all day.


    Butler Lin did not seem to care about what Zhou Bao was thinking. Seeing Zhou Bao slightly knitting his brows, he could not help laughing and asked, "What, are you scared, young boy? You know what, this job is not going to be easy for you. You have to pay a great effort before you find your place here!"


    "Oh, I see!" Zhou Bao was nodding his head seriously with a look of accepting instructions while his mind had traveled to somewhere else.


    "This is the apprentice you recruited this year?"


    After entering the backyard, a blast of strong alcohol smell rushed into Little Shiba''s nose before he started to observe his surroundings. He looked up and happened to see an old fellow with a drunkard''s nose who was holding an alcohol gourd in his hands and staring at him with eyes that were bloodshot.


    This old fellow was about the same age as Butler Lin but his figure was much larger. Probably because of his age or not forging iron for a while, his muscles were a little loose and his Qi and blood were not vigorous. Especially in his right hand, where there was an extremely clear-cut scar that started from his right wrist and ran down to his elbow.


    "Is his hand disabled?" Zhou Bao felt a flicker in his heart by having a look at that scar.


    Although it seemed that the wound had already recovered, it could be easy to figure out by the scar that this old fellow''s tendons were cut off a long time ago and his strength in his hand had also been lost. He might not know how to make iron, but it was as plain as the nose on his face what it looked like when a blacksmith lost his right hand.


    "This is master Xing. He''s a craftsman who will be in charge of teaching you. You''d better try your best and don''t disappoint your uncle!" Butler Lin softly said, patting Little Shiba''s head.


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 18: The Apprentice

    Chapter 18: The Apprentice


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was boring and tiring being an apprentice, for the routine was repetitive and they had to get up at the crack of dawn every morning. First, they would have to practice horse-riding steps for an hour, and then, most of them, had to help out inside the smelting room while the other older apprentices were forging some tools. Apprentices of a young age, such as Junior Leopard, also had to spend the afternoon learning some basic smelting skills, in addition to serving as helpers.


    They would have to work until evening, and then they would clean up the mess made from a busy day in the smelting room.


    "Just as it is written in the book, an apprentice has no human rights!" In the yard, Junior Leopard silently criticised this evil world as he hammered away on a pile of timber that was about the size of a bowl.


    This was the daily routine for every afternoon. In front of the stone table on which there was a pile of bowl-sized timber, they each held a hammer.


    That was right, a pile of bowl-sized timber. What they were supposed to do was to knock on it with the hammer. Of course, there was also the requirement that you must knock at precisely the same point. That was to say, you must hit the exact same place over and over.


    It was not as easy as you''d think. The timber not only had some elasticity but it was also shaped like a semicircle. As you could imagine, it was extraordinarily difficult to knock on.


    "Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat !" This sound spread over the yard like a dull thunder, interplaying with the clunking and chinking of the metals from the smelt.


    "Boys, more concentration please. As long as you pound out a hole during the afternoon, I can teach you what you should do next. If you do not complete it in the next six months, you then must go home!"


    Old Xing strolled in circles in the yard, keeping his eyes on these apprentices. Finally, he noticed Junior Leopard.


    "This kid is young, but his ability to concentrate is impressive. Besides, he had practiced some martial arts before, and thus, has a good build. He''s a very suitable for doing this job!"


    When compared to the other apprentices, Junior Leopard, who had arrived less than ten days ago, was obviously far superior. The strength of his hammering was not too strong but under his control, so that when he hammered down, the hammer would not spring back. His other hand held the wood firmly, so even after a hit on it, he kept it as still as before.


    The only disappointment was that he could not knock it in precisely the same place, although he tried hard to. At last, he had also knocked a bowl-size hole in the piece of wood.


    "Little boy, take it easy. When you hammer, your right hand is not stable. So no matter how steady your left hand is, you''ll not be able to do it!"


    Old Xing suddenly said, after standing by Junior Leopard''s side for a long time.


    "Thanks, teacher!" Junior Leopard gratefully cast his eyes to Old Xing. At that moment, he began hammering slowly, and gradually he started to appreciate and feel the force of the hammer and the movements of his hand.


    "What are you all looking at? If your wits are equal to his, then I''ll also guide you. Practice, quickly now!"


    While Old Xing talked with Junior Leopard, the other apprentices could not help but stop and look over.


    However, before they could have a clear look, Old Xing scolded them and made them all continue their work silently. At times, Junior Leopard could feel the jealous and disgruntled glances they were casting on him, making him feel a little uncomfortable.


    "Damn it! Who cares what they think anyway?"


    Noticing his own emotional fluctuations, Junior Leopard burst into laughter. He, at about 40 years old, had lived two lives and experienced so much that he was already mature. Still, he was surprised to find such a stirring in his heart just now.


    Nobody envied meant that you were a mediocrity!


    In his former life, he was indeed mediocre. He had got a doctorate, but this alone was not enough to be enviable. After graduation, he worked in an office, and before he had had the chance to make his fortune, that life was over. So, he had not experienced the feeling of being envied before.


    To his surprise, in this life, he would be receiving such envy at only eight years old, and not only that but in a "steady" career like forging iron.


    "I wish that these little boys would not bother me... it''s such a pain to deal with!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly and silently. Then he turned all of his attention back to his work.


    There actually is a link between forging iron and my martial arts skills. The key point is of one''s strength, that''s what Old Xing had said anyway, how could this be the same as the punching skill, which Wang Tianlei had taught me?


    While thinking it over, he tried applying what he had learned from the punching skill while hammering at the piece of wood. Slowly, his spirit ascended into a mysterious phase.


    "Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat... Bang! Bang! Bang..." There was a subtle change in the sound of the hammering. The change was so subtle that the other apprentices did not catch it, however, Old Xing did.


    At that moment, he was standing by the side of an apprentice with a lower aptitude than Junior Leopard, and his back toward him. This apprentice''s skill was no match for Junior Leopard, but, to some degree, he had potential. Old Xing was just about to guide him in the same way when an incredible sound rose to his ears.


    At first, he thought he must have misheard. When he turned around, he found Junior Leopard focused on hammering down the piece of wood, one blow after another. At first, he was stunned, then next he was wildly joyful and hurried towards Junior Leopard. As he approached he carefully watched him as Junior Leopard kept a straight face and a blank look. Old Xing consciously stepped back. He moved so quietly as if he was afraid of disrupting Junior Leopard.


    Old Xing''s unusual actions attracted the attention of the other apprentices. They stopped their work and also cast their eyes upon Junior Leopard.


    This time, Old Xing did not scold them, even though their attention drifted from their work.


    Slowly, they started to realize the secret of Junior Leopard''s hammering. They realized that even though his pace was slow and he had little strength, he kept every hit hammering down on the same exact point. After every hit, the point of impact would drop a little more. Above all, Junior Leopard kept every hit at the same frequency and his action became more and more deliberate. His rhythm became smooth and created a harmonious atmosphere.


    Junior Leopard hadn''t noticed that the others were focused on him. Actually, he was totally unaware. His spirit was completely buried in his state of concentration.


    After some time, an unusual sound suddenly broke Junior Leopard''s concentration. His movements suddenly paused, as if he had just awoken from a dream and his face was returning to normal. He found, to his amazement, that he had hammered all the way through the piece of wood, which now had a fist-sized hole in it. The unusual sound that had broken his trance was the sound of his hammer breaking through the wood and hitting the stone table.


    At that moment, he became aware of his surroundings and he was dumbfounded.


    "This is¡ª!"


    "Junior Leopard, follow me. Everyone else, get back to practice¡ª !" Old Xing shouted, barely restraining his delight. Each of the other apprentices all miserably returned to their work.


    Junior Leopard''s behavior indeed had something magical about it. In the eyes of the other apprentices, it was strange and magical. But this group of children, little more than 10 years old, could not understand the meaning. They just regarded it simply as magic.


    However, Old Xing was different from them.


    He understood what state Junior Leopard had ascended to. It was insight, insight, insight! All of a sudden, he had perfectly understood the general principle, and then his understanding of the entire field became adept. This was indeed insight.


    There was no connection between aptitude and insight; it only relied on luck. Some sages were unable to ever achieve insight, while some idiots obtained insight several times throughout their lives and they were able to reach high levels of achievement in some areas.


    Old Xing had never ascended into this kind of state. But, this term "insight" was very widespread, and it was just like the lucky chance in the historical records and stories. Although he had not actually experienced it, at least he could recognize it¡ªsince he had heard of such things.


    And, the state that Junior Leopard had gone into was just like what he had heard of. Yes¡ªit was insight for sure!


    While thinking about this, Old Xing''s heart was full of ups and downs. Then, a look of tenderness came into his eyes, which frightened Junior Leopard.


    "Does this old man have some... peculiar tastes¡­ ?!"


    Fortunately, this old man did not have any peculiar tastes and he just cherished the boy''s talent.


    "Come here and sit down!"


    As they entered the room, Old Xing pointed amiably to a bench by his side.


    Junior Leopard wanted to sit, but after thinking for a moment he decided to stay standing. He said respectfully, "In front of my teacher, how can I sit?"


    "Who''d have thought it, you''re so courteous!" Old Xing glanced at Junior Leopard with surprise. "Not like a typical mountain villager!"


    Junior Leopard smiled, "Although I came from the village, I''ve learned a little and naturally, I understand how to treat others, and how to behave."


    "How long have you been studying?" Old Xing said excitedly, "Can you read a few words?"


    In this world, literate people were quite rare; just as in ancients times, there was a very high rate of illiteracy. Old Xing, standing there, could recognize about 100 characters at most and could only write his name. Being able to read a few characters was very good, especially considering the remote village Junior Leopard lived in. So, it was beyond his expectation that Junior Leopard could read.


    Junior Leopard smiled shyly. "Yes, thanks to my brother-in-law." he said. Then he told Old Xing what Wang Tianlei did in the village. After hearing that, Old Xing felt great admiration for Wang Tianlei.


    "I see, he has such foresight! No wonder, I recently heard that there''s a village near Qingyang Market which is very prosperous. That must be your village."


    At that moment, he glanced over at Junior Leopard with a look of joy on his face, and asked, "How do you feel? Was it magical?"


    "Huh? Oh, well, it was so strange!" Junior Leopard was confused, but then he understood what Old Xing was asking, and said at once, "But¡ª !"


    "But now it''s difficult to get back to that state. You can''t find that feeling again, can you?"


    "Yes!" Junior Leopard nodded quickly.


    "Don''t look at me like that. I haven''t had such luck, so I''ve never experienced insight before. I''ve only heard about it from others!" Old Xing was embarrassed by Junior Leopard''s hopeful eyes. "But, after experiencing it, you''ll now be adept at hammering. It''s a pity that you''re only just an apprentice here. I heard that you''ve also learned some martial arts, is this true?"


    "It''s true, my brother-in-law was in the ranks of the military and I learned a punching skill and how to control my Internal Qi from him." He said with sincerity and a stir in his heart.


    "You''ve practiced the Internal Qi before?!" Old Xing was surprised again. He had heard that Junior Leopard had done some martial arts, but he just thought that it was the normal External Strength. However, the truth was that Junior Leopard had practiced them both.


    "Were you able to practice your Internal Qi successfully?"


    "Yeah, but my practice time was short, so¡ª"


    Before he could get the last word out, Old Xing stretched out his left hand to grasp Junior Leopard''s right hand. Suddenly, a stream of Internal Qi flowed into Junior Leopard''s palm.


    Junior Leopard''s expression suddenly changed. Before he realized what was happening, the Ignis Internal Qi in his body started to fight back.


    "Oh, good boy, this must be the Internal Qi of fire!" After Old Xing sensed the resistance from Junior Leopard''s Qi, he operated his own Internal Qi and broke Junior Leopard''s, with a heavy force.


    But, Junior Leopard had deliberately restrained his Internal Qi. If not for this, he would have been able to resist.

 Chapter 19: The Selection Contest

    Chapter 19: The Selection Contest


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "You said that your brother-in-law was one of the ranks. The ranks practice the unified Unusual Strength Qigong¡ªa most basic Introduction to techniques. How could you own the fire property?"


    These last words were spoken with a ray of solemnity.


    "The Unusual Strength Qigong was where I started, but then my brother-in-law taught me the Ignis Skill after I had gained the sense of Qi."


    "Ignis Skill?" Old Xing became more serious upon hearing the two words. "How can he understand this method?!"


    "He said he got it as a trophy in the battlefield. He searched for it on the body of an enemy that he had killed."


    "That makes sense!" Old Xing nodded and thoughtfully said, "The Ignis Skill, practiced by many disciples of the southern Sect of Flame, is a basic mental cultivation method. The Sect of Flame is the enemy of the court and there are constant conflicts between them. It''s not strange that your brother-in-law got it. But your brother-in-law was so bold that he allowed you to practice it. Shallow as it might be, it''s the basic mental cultivation method in Internal Qi of the Fire after all. It''s even widely known to absorb and transform the pneuma of the fire property, which Unusual Strength Qigong is incomparable to. Doesn''t he worry that you''re possessed by the devil and burned to death?!"


    After hearing Old Xing''s words, Junior Leopard smiled more bitterly in his heart. It was not taught by Wang Tianlei but he stole it. Such a thing could not be spoken out loud, so he just kept silent.


    "Admittedly, that''s good. What you practiced is suitable for our martial arts skills. You''ve built a solid foundation, which will save me lots of pain!"


    Junior Leopard found a sense of delight from Old Xing''s voice. The words he spoke were not like what a blacksmith should have said, but like that of an Elder of a school. Junior Leopard raised his head, stunned.


    "Don''t be surprised. Now that your brother-in-law has taught you martial arts, might he have as well told you something about Jianghu?"


    "Well, yes, but not much, for he didn''t know much after all."


    "That''s not surprising. Things related to Jianghu are so complicated, let alone that he was only among the ranks. It''s normal that he knows little." Old Xing truly believed that.


    "Teacher, aren''t you actually a top expert?" Junior Leopard asked in a low voice. His face was covered by a mysterious air, which amused Old Xing.


    "I''m not a top expert, I''m nothing but an ordinary disciple of the Wu''s."


    "The Wu''s?"


    "Yeah, the Wu''s are the masters of the ironware shop ¡ª the Wu''s of Yunzhou!" When he mentioned this, the vigor of his body suddenly changed and he straightened his bent waist. "Well, let me share something about the Wu''s with you.


    "The Wu''s of Yunzhou, a recognized family devoted to the smelting business, has iron businesses spread all over the realm, wealthier than the court. In fact, in order to protect their wealth, they need powerful martial artists and backers.


    They had both.


    It was necessary to mention the Wu''s background. 500 years ago, the Wu''s forefather was a common blacksmith. Owing to his good aptitude and savvy, he was chosen by the head of Tian Long Taoism to be his disciple at that time.


    Tian Long Taoism was one of the three major schools in Jin. It was one of the best schools in the world, where there were many masters of martial arts. Meanwhile, it was also a potent backer of Jin''s Court.


    After the Wu''s forefather practiced arduously for years, he succeeded in advancing feats, and ascended as a rare Level Nine expert. Later, he founded the Wu''s.


    Speaking of martial arts, the Wu''s had martial arts skills that their forefather passed down and a person who practiced them would be an expert at Level Nine. While speaking of backers, Tian Long Taoism was their supporter. And some of the Wu''s young but outstanding descendants were also sent to Tian Long Taoism. So who dared to offend them?


    Therefore, for these several hundred years, the Wu''s businesses have grown bigger and bigger and gradually grew into their big house of today.


    Some people may wonder why Tian Long Taoism still served as the protector of the Wu''s today, as they were allies 500 years ago.


    The reason could be traced back to business, which was, in other words, money.


    Tian Long Taoism was a top school, where there were many people. Although they were experts of martial arts, they still needed money to buy things such as meals, Magic Drugs, and other resources.


    It was impossible for them to go downhill to find them every day. Even if they could, but the world was so vast that, they could not walk through and find all these things.


    Therefore, the prestigious sects and schools, like Tian Long Taoism, had their own affiliate influences that could help them do it.


    Landlords owned much land and rented most of the land to tenants. However, by the end of every year, what they harvested was always much more than these tenants did. This was the same with Tian Long Taoism.


    The Wu''s was one of the largest affiliate influences and tenants of Tian Long Taoism on earth. On the surface, its business was very prosperous and its fortune was very impressive, but quite a big part of it would be given to Tian Long Taoism. In other words, it was just a disguised protection fee.


    Actually, Tian Long Taoism was solely a nominal backer of the Wu''s. It was unlikely that everything depended on Tian Long Taoism¡ªotherwise, Tian Long Taoism would be extremely busy. Hence, the Wu''s developed their own armed force, which also was a strong one.


    The Wu''s forefather came from Tian Long Taoism, and he practiced the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, which was naturally passed down. In addition to the Fire Technique, the Wu''s owned 81 movements of Wild Hammering Skill, which were created by their forefather after an insight. In the legendary times, it was very mighty. Now, these two became the Wu''s treasure.


    Though the Wu''s influence was very tremendous, its population was small. The number of real descendants plus other related bloodlines was just about a few thousand. Some of them were not talented. By the way, with time passing by, contradiction and trouble followed close to one another, especially between the real descendants and those with related bloodlines. The war between them was likely to break out at any time. Hence, they needed fresh blood to relax the situation. Gradually, they also accepted apprentices, similar to other schools.


    Therefore, to some degree, the Wu''s deserved to be called the "boss of tenants". They farmed their own land, except for the land they rented to others.


    Nobody could be an apprentice all the time. By virtue of the Wu''s fortune and influence, they accepted countless apprentices over the past several hundred years. Among these apprentices, they would pick some with good aptitude and savvy. The apprentices they had picked would practice Introduction to techniques. After a period, they would pick some of the talented ones who had the potential to practice more advanced ones.


    "Those so-called craftsmen were just apprentices who had practiced Introduction to techniques but couldn''t take the next step.


    After practicing Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, they knew a bit about the Fire Power and practiced the first nine movements of Wild Hammering Skills. The Wu''s forefather created them in the smelter, so the hammering skills were closely linked with smelting. As long as someone combined the two, even though his feats were not advanced, he would fair better than other ordinary blacksmiths in smelting.


    These people were the backbone of the Wu''s family. After retirement, they undertook positions as teachers with another mission, to pick out the talented, like Old Xing, and inject them into the Wu''s.


    Junior Leopard, standing in front of him, was a genius with rare talent.


    Eight-year-old Junior Leopard had already developed Internal Qi, even Internal Qi of the Fire, which was the same as the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. When he practiced the basic hammering skill, he even ascended into the insight state. All these indicated that he had extremely high potential in hammering skill. If the Wu''s missed such a talent, it would be their loss.


    Standing silently, Junior Leopard heard what Old Xing said, considering something in his mind.


    From Old Xing''s words, he wants me to join the Wu''s. Well, it''s a good choice. Just as the old saying goes, "the big tree is a good backer". Especially one like the Wu''s, it''s such a good place that I can learn martial arts freely. Wow, wow!


    "Do you understand what I said?"


    As he pondered, the voice of Old Xing flew into his ears.


    "Yes!" Junior Leopard nodded quickly.


    "Okay, what ideas do you have?"


    "It''s up to you, my teacher!" Junior Leopard quickly replied. At this moment, although he had other ideas, he couldn''t say a single word.


    "Excellent!" Old Xing nodded contently. His face turned earnest and said, "You''ve met my demand that the stake has been knocked through. Afterwards, you need not practice with them. You''ve practiced the Ignis Skill and have successfully developed the Ignis Internal Qi. This saves me lots of pains. I''ll teach you Introduction to techniques of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and the Nine-Styled Hammer method. By the way, your brother-in-law is from the ranks, so you should learn this Killing Army practice from him. This Punching skill is heavily bloody. It''s useful in the battle array, but its power will weaken sharply in one-on-one fighting. I''ll teach you another punching skill. As for the punching skill used to build the body¡ª"


    Talking about it, Old Xing was in low spirits. "You should continue practicing the Dark Bear Fist. If in two years you pass the Wu''s selection, you''ll have the opportunity to practice the punching skill of Bone Forging."


    "Punching skill of Bone Forging?" Junior Leopard''s eyes sparkled. Dark Bear Fist was the punching skill used to toughen the skin. He had arrived at the limits of what his body could bear. He was curious about the punching skill of Bone Forging, for he had never heard of it. Although Taiji could also forge bone, its effect was very slow.


    "Teacher, as long as I pass the selection, can I learn the punching skill of Bone Forging?"


    "Well, as long as you pass it, you''ll be a disciple of the inner door. Actually, you''ll have the opportunity to practice the punching skill of Bone Forging."


    "What''s the Selection Contest?"


    "The Selection Contest is a contest that every Wu''s apprentice who reaches ten years old can take part in every year. Its purpose is to pick out elite apprentices. Well, the selection is very strict. Your base is very good, but you cannot be careless. In the next two years, you must practice harder. Do you understand?"


    "I get it," Junior Leopard said respectfully.

 Chapter 20: Bane: Dragon Grass

    Chapter 20: Bane: Dragon Grass


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    With each passing day, Junior Leopard''s status in the Wu''s ironware shop grew.


    While other apprentices still practiced hammering down the wooden stakes repeatedly, he had been a helper in the smelting room and attempted to forge some simple ironware.


    The Wu''s Wild Hammering Skill, with 81 movements, originated from the technique of iron forging. Therefore, all of the Wu''s descendants and disciples were taught to forge iron first, including the Wu''s youngest generation. Only in this way were they able to become adept at the hammering skill and increase their practice speed in cultivation.


    "Bang, Bang, Bang ¡ª !" Ignoring the other apprentices'' envious glances, Junior Leopard wielded his hammer with bare arms. He was constantly pounding at the blade of a kitchen knife that was in front of him. Meanwhile, Old Xing, who used to be a craftsman, was standing beside him. He was observing the position of where he hammered down, the frequency in which he wielded the hammer, and the strength of his hit. Old Xing''s reactions varied, sometimes he nodded, sometimes he shook his head, and sometimes he would teach Junior Leopard some new skills and tricks involving specific movements.


    Don''t speak about the apprentices outside, even young iron-forging teachers in this smelting room cast envious glances.


    "Old Xing, you''re so overly partial. There are so many apprentices, but you only teach Junior Leopard. You know, people will have opinions!"


    In this harmonious atmosphere of "one hammering, another one teaching", a burst of disappointing sound came from behind. Junior Leopard kept forging iron as if nothing happened. Turning around, Old Xing saw Butler Lin walking in, and showed a glimmer of discontent.


    "It''s none of your business. For those boys, I''ll teach them someday, if they can be as good as Junior Leopard. Well, all these years, I''ve stuck to this principle all the time, haven''t I?"


    "Right, right." Butler Lin smiled embarrassedly. Noticing Junior Leopard who was solely focusing on the work, his eyes inevitably revealed a strand of admiration. "Lu City''s great steward Fang is coming. He''s asking for you."


    "Old Fang?!" Hearing that, Old Xing frowned and muttered worriedly, "I wonder why he arrived at such barren hills and turbulent rivers, rather than staying in Lu City."


    "I don''t know. From his mysterious appearance, there must be something important. You''d better go quickly."


    "Ok!" Old Xing nodded and followed. Before leaving the smelting room, he didn''t forget to remind Junior Leopard, "Junior Leopard, you should practice faithfully here, get it?!"


    "You quite appreciate him!"


    Walking a few steps along with Old Xing, Butler Lin said to Old Xing with a laugh.


    "He''s a rare genius. I believe he''ll definitely pass the Selection Contest in two years."


    "At that time, he''ll still be a 10-year-old child. You had better wait another two years!" Great Steward Lin frowned and said, "Just as you said, he''s a genius. Every one of Wu''s apprentices only has three chances to take part in the Selection Contest. If he should fail, it would be such a waste of an opportunity."


    "I believe he won''t fail." Old Xing was full of confidence. "Don''t tell me that Butler Lin you don''t trust my judgment?"


    "No, no, no, of course, I believe you. Your duty is to select and teach apprentices. I only care about my business, I''ll not interfere in anything else!" said Butler Lin.


    Then they stopped talking. After a while, they arrived and greeted the anxious big man dressed in brocade.


    "Old Fang, you''re such a rare visitor!" Old Xing said loudly. After seeing the man dressed in brocade, he finally smiled a little.


    "Old Xing, you this old man," said the big man in brocade, smiling and coming forward.


    "Great steward Fang, sorry to keep you waiting," Butler Lin said, moving forward.


    "It doesn''t matter, it doesn''t matter!" Great steward Fang said, giving Butler Lin a wink.


    Butler Lin understood, and dispatched the other people, including girls who were serving tea. Finally, the three of them were alone in the hall.


    After sitting still, Old Xing asked directly, "Old Fang, for a busy man like you, you must come for a reason. So why are you here today?"


    "It''s about the Second Young Master," said great steward Fang. "I think you all know that Second Young Master has reached 10 years old. He also has begun to use the medicinal bath for Bone Forging!"


    "Medicinal bath?!" Old Xing and Butler Lin nodded. Like the Wu''s, generally speaking, well-known families would collect various Magic Drugs used to produce drugs and soups. Only their own children had the possibility to use them. After a medicinal bath, the drug effect would permeate through their muscles, bones, tendons, and vessels. Its purpose was to wipe out foreign matter, improve the potential, and lay a solid foundation for future practice. If so, they would save half the effort to gain the same result, when they practiced in the future. They would get results easier than ordinary people in both External Strength and Internal Strength.


    But the medicinal bath was also very particular. There were various prescriptions with various effects for different people at different ages. Like martial arts skills, the drug prescriptions were also mastered by well-known families of all schools. It was the secret that common people could not reach. Even if they were lucky to have the access, they did not have the ability to collect all those precious herb materials.


    "Second Young Master is blessed by the gods with excellent aptitude. Now it''s the best time for him to have medicinal baths. What''s wrong?" Old Xing asked, puzzled.


    "Originally there''s no problem, however, the Second Madam wants to add a sort of drug!"


    "Adding a sort of drug?!" Old Xing and Butler Lin shockingly said. The drug could not be added casually. Through countless experiments and trials, forefathers created every drug prescription. It did not work when the amount of herb was more or less, let alone adding a new drug. How ridiculous it was to add a drug!


    "Could it be---!" said Butler Lin. An idea occurred to him and his face turned weird.


    "Yes, that''s it!" Great steward Fang found that Butler Lin has already guessed right about the new drug. He nodded and said, "Dragon Grass!"


    "Dragon Grass?!" cried Old Xing shockingly. He then asked seriously, "Does Second Madam have news about the Dragon Grass?"


    "En!" Great steward Fang nodded and said, "It''s within the Misty Mountain!"


    "Of course there are Dragon Grass within the Misty Mountain, and there are also Evil Beasts. What you are saying is nonsense!" replied Old Xing annoyingly after hearing great steward Fang''s reply. Misty Mountain had vast amounts of countless valuable herbs and beasts. Everybody knew that. Was there a need for him to say that?


    Great steward Fang neglected Old Xing''s complaints and went on, saying, "Second Madam receives the news that there are three stalks of Dragon Grass perching on the edge of Misty Mountain."


    "Really?" Old Xing and Great Steward Fang were startled and stood up at the same time.


    Dragon Grass was a sort of well-known grass in the world. Its sole function was to enhance the effect of the drug. After blending it into the medicinal bath, the drug effect would be increased by five times. For this reason, for hundreds of years, Dragon Grass was almost extinct. Now, it only remained in some deep mountains and forests and isolated places, and was extremely difficult to locate. Hence, it was really unexpected to know the specific location of it.


    "How did Second Madam get the location?" Butler Lin asked.


    "I don''t know, however, you all should be aware that Second Madam is from Tian Long Daoism. She naturally has her secret sources." Great steward Fang threw up his hands helplessly and said.


    "Your meaning is, we''re asked to find Dragon Grass?" Butler Linn asked hesitantly. He was a smart person and was working for Second Madam, but he knew he was not an important one.


    Where was Qingyang Market? It was just a sesame-seed-sized place, whose officer had little power. Compared with the Wu''s, Qingyang Market was nothing, thus he was nobody. Otherwise, he would not be sent here. For today''s thing, it obviously involved the struggle between First Madam and Second Madam ¡ª it was a power fight among the Wu''s core members and it even affected the successor of the Wu''s. Such a complicated thing had no place for him.


    What would happen after he found Dragon Grass for Second Madam? If First Madam knew it, her mere finger would squeeze him to death. At that moment, Second Madam would not fight against First Madam over such a lowest-level butler.


    Coming around to this reason, Butler Lin''s face immediately dropped. So did Old Xing''s. Old Xing was a boor but not a fool, he also did not want to be a part of it.


    Noticing their faces, great steward Fang actually knew their misgivings. In fact, great steward Fang himself also did not want to be a part of it. But they had no choice.


    He lightly shook his head and said, "I know what you''re thinking, but there''s no alternative. It''s crucial for our livelihood. The thing has gone too far and left us no choice."


    The hall fell into silence. Indeed, did they have another choice?


    That was all right when they did not know it before. But now, unfortunately, they knew it, that was to say, they were forced to make a choice between First Madam and Second Madam. It was impossible to keep neutral without offending both sides.


    "Old Fang. Old Fang. Damn, you put me in a bind!" said Old Xing, who raised his head and stared angrily at great steward Fang after a long silence.


    "Do I have another choice?" Great steward Fang''s face was more bitter than theirs. "By the way, this fact is not as horrible as what you imagined. That''s why I ask you two instead of others."


    "Due to what fools we are?" Old Xing bluntly asked.


    "Bullshit, because till now, just four of us knew this thing in all of the entire Wu''s."


    "Four?!"


    "Yeah, four. We three, plus Second Madam. Nobody knows except us. At this time, it appeared that I set off from Lu City and paid a visit to an old friend. But the real purpose lay somewhere else."


    "Why us?"


    "For Qingyang Market is the nearest town to Dragon Grass. You''re leaders here who happened to have a quite close relationship with Second Madam''s party. So you''re the best choice."


    Butler Lin and Old Xing were speechless and silent again.


    "So, what time will we set out?"


    "As soon as possible!" Great steward Fang said. "Just in case anything bad should happen. Second Madam has told me the specific location of Dragon Grass, which is not far away from here. As long as we cooperate together, we''ll find it in three to five days. We''ll definitely get it in our hands!"


    "How does Second Madam know about it?" Butler Lin asked curiously. "She''s never been here before?!"


    "Second Madam didn''t tell me the details. But, don''t forget her background ¡ª !" Great steward Fang whispered.


    After hearing great steward Fang''s words, Butler Lin and Old Xing both revealed expressions of understanding.

 Chapter 21: Tian Long Mystic Mountain

    Chapter 21: Tian Long Mystic Mountain


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In Qianzhou of Great Jin, Tian Long Mystic Mountain was like a giant dragon splitting the entire region in half.


    Tian Long Mystic Mountain stretched thousands of miles. It was the birthplace of Tian Long Taoism, the top school in Jin, and the holy land of martial arts that everybody in Great Jin yearned for.


    The three main streams of martial arts in Jin were Tian Long Taoism, Mingyi School, and the Sect of Flame as the supreme.


    Among those sects, Mingyi School was a strong supporter of Jin Dynasty and had inextricable ties with the Jin royal family. There were even several Mingyi School masters who were descended from the royal family, thus making the sect the strongest backer of Jin royalty. Tian Long Taoism, on the other hand, had a history that stretched far into the past. Even though they were not as close to the Jin Royalty, the sect was closely linked to the aristocratic families of Jin. The sect was considered to have the huge influence over the locals of Jin. Compared with the other two, the Sect of Flame was a pain for the royal family. Their influence was rooted in the grassroots of rural Jin. In history, many rebellions against the Jin Royalty were intricately linked with the Sect of Flame. Hence, the royal family regarded it as a huge threat and constantly tried to suppress it with violence. On the surface, the sect seemed to suffer a heavy blow. But a single spark can start a prairie fire, as a sentence in a book said. In just ten years, the sect would flourish again. It was a never-ending cycle.


    On this day, the sky was clear and cloudless. A couple of birds occasionally soared over the blue sky. Everything appeared harmonious and peaceful.


    At the Sanjue Mountain of Tian Long Mystic Mountain, a green-robed young man sat on a protruding rock with a bloody lamb leg in one hand and a sharp knife in the other. He cut part of the bloody meat now and then, throwing it in front of him.


    A One-eyed Wolf the size of a calf lay on the ground close to him. If Junior Leopard was here, he would have identified it as the One-eyed Wolf of West Mountain in the legend spread in their village for hundreds of years. It was also the same West Mountain wolf he had once seen himself.


    The ferocious One-eyed Wolf was now as well-behaved as a neighborhood dog. The wolf caught the meat the young man threw in its mouth. After chewing and swallowing the meat in huge gulps, the wolf looked at the young man again, eyes full of yearning.


    "What a gluttonous old dog!" the young man scolded with a laugh, before throwing the lamb leg at the wolf. It swiftly caught the leg and relished in the remaining meat.


    A burst of fragrance came from behind the young man, followed by the sound of harsh and hurried footsteps. "Chief, news from Wu family is here!"


    The newcomer was a sultrily-dressed maiden. She wore a veil over her face, but it was so thin that it concealed little of her face. One could still faintly see her refined face, and the veil only added a misty sense of beauty to her.


    The maiden made light steps behind the young man and handed him a note with only a few words. After finishing reading the note, his face revealed an expression of smugness.


    "Good. You can go!" With a flick of his hand, the paper disappeared into the white fog. The maiden bowed and turned around to leave.


    "Chief Lei?!"


    Just as the maiden had turned around, taking just a few steps, she suddenly stopped. There was a man who had just appeared at the corner. She was visibly shocked to see that man and lowered her head.


    "En!" The man was unconcerned about her blunder and just made a slight nod. He walked towards the younger man sitting on the rock. Without saying another word, the maiden left.


    Only when the maiden disappeared amid the woods, did the man speak. "Your cultivation is getting better and better. I had been very careful, but you still noticed me!"


    "The bloody scent from your body is too thick. This time, you killed too many people. I can even sense their vengeful spirits clinging to you!" the young man replied with a smile, unconcerned.


    "Oh, I did kill many people lately!" The man nodded, looking somewhat unhappy.


    The man was tall and robust, looking about 26 or 27 of age. He had bushy eyebrows that framed his wide eyes. He was dressed in a thin practice uniform, with his two sturdy arms unclothed. There were visible beard strands that were not cleanly shaved. His body emitted a frank air that showed he was not one to follow the red tape. In contrast, the young man sitting on the rock had a cold, bleak air to him. His eyes were especially haunting, as if they were vipers hiding in the shadows. People can''t help feeling uneasy seeing those eyes.


    When it came to such a gaze, the man called Chief Lei was not bothered about it. They had known each other for decades. If he could not even bear it, he would rather just smash his head into tofu until he died instead.


    "I think you will be interested in these things that I got from a branch altar of the Sect of Flame!" While speaking, he fished several things resembling books from his chest and handed them to the young man.


    The young man took the books and tucked them into his chest without taking a look.


    "Don''t you think you''re too obsessed with studying secret skills? Be careful that these secret skills will corrupt your true character!"


    "I know my true character best!" said the young man. "You shouldn''t imitate those old fogeys who like to act profoundly. How was it? Did you find anything interesting on your journey?"


    "There''s nothing new at all!" Chief Lei came up and sat directly on the muddy floor. "It was like the usual. Fought a battle, killed someone, then came back!"


    "But the people you killed weren''t ordinary folks. Your name was spread so far that it reached Tian Long Mystic Mountain. The whole sect was discussing you a few days ago. This time, you really scored a big achievement. The next master of Tian Long Taoism can be no one but you." The young man replied coldly.


    Chief Lei was insusceptible to the young man''s tactic. "Don''t hold this issue against me. We both know the truth. I did have a little achievement, but it was those old fogeys who were deliberately making a fuss about it. If you want the position, you can fight for it. If you don''t want it, don''t you dare mock me. Don''t you think that''s too heartless of you? Did you think I want that good-for-nothing position?!"


    "Nevertheless that good-for-nothing position must be filled and it must be someone out of us three!" the young man said. "You know that''s not my ambition. Neither of us wants it, but there are now people who want you in that seat and are helping you. I don''t disagree. But I can''t just let this issue affect me, can I?!"


    "Oh, did it affect you?!" Chief Lei''s expression changed. "What did they do to you?!"


    "Don''t you notice that I''m staying too long on Sanjue Mountain? I suggest you take a walk around the sect and see what the disciples are talking about me. Ah, and send a word to those old fogeys for me. Tell them not to overdo it, or I wouldn''t mind tearing down the plaque of Longyin Summit."


    "Hahahahaha!" Chief Lei finally burst out into hearty laughter. "Fine, fine. I''ll tell them what you said. But I am curious. Since when a brat like you begin caring about your reputation? Did you perhaps found a girl and changed your character for her sake?!"


    "Do you think I''m a womanizer like you?!" The young man rolled his eyes. "I don''t care about my reputation, but I don''t want the people I hate to be happy either. I especially don''t want those people who simply can''t die of old age become smug over tarnishing my good name!"


    "I understand. I''ll inform them!" Chief Lei nodded and suddenly said, "Right. We haven''t seen each other for half a year, have we? How about it? Let''s spar and see what kind of new secret skills you''ve studied!"


    "No. I''ve been under some stress lately. I''m not fit to fight," The young man answered plainly, turning down Chief Lei''s suggestion.


    "How interesting. This is the first time you''ve turned me down in a decade. It seems that the top genius of Tian Long Taoism has found an awesome new secret skill!"


    "Hmph!" The young man snorted. He stood up and disappeared into the thick woodlands with the One-eyed Wolf, leaving Chief Lei sitting alone with a curious smile.


    A cool breeze rose out of the blue, scattering leaves on the ground.


    "Oh, I really don''t understand. If you''re so obsessed with improving your strength, why aren''t you researching special techniques that can communicate with the heaven and earth, but put all your focus into studying secret skills instead?!"

 Chapter 22: Taiji Hammering Skill

    Chapter 22: Taiji Hammering Skill


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Taiji, the mother of Yin and Yang, is born from the infinite. It is about the association of activity and inertia, and although the movement is changeable, this principle is the same.


    Junior Leopard had never understood the secret of Taiji Fist.


    He was an ordinary civil servant in his previous life and naturally did not know martial arts; he learned Taiji just to keep fit and flatter his leader. He knew nothing about martial arts. But to flatter his leader, he had to recite the core punching technique of Taiji. It was as if a four-year-old child memorized Three Character Classic in the way of rote memorization and he did not catch the meaning of the punching technique at all.


    When he came to this world, he met Wang Tianlei and learned some punching skills and internal strength techniques; he also discovered by chance, the great benefits of Taiji. That was a huge stroke of luck, but it was just luck. This didn''t mean that he knew Taiji. It was only because of the Internal Qi that made the real function of Taiji release.


    Though Wang Tianlei had good martial arts, he was equal to a Level Two fighter at most. In other words, a Level Two fighter meant that he had just touched the threshold of martial arts. What Junior Leopard obtained from Wang Tianlei was limited such as the elementary internal strength, mental cultivation and few sets of punching skills; he practiced confusedly and only achieved something significant till now; but the achievements were so superficial that they could be only showed in his strength; he knew how but did not know why; he did not grasp a punching technique.


    But now, he got the guidance of Old Xing. Although Old Xing did not pass the second selection of the Wu Family to become an inner core disciple, he could still be considered as one of the disciples of the Wu Family. In well-known families such as the Wu Family, the strength of an excellent disciple was so high that Wang Tianlei, a dabbler from the ranks, couldn''t compare with.


    Wang Tianlei had only learned several sets of punching skills, but he had never learned the theory behind them. In the Wu Family, some people specialized in teaching punching skills to these excellent disciples. One could say that Old Xing could then be considered as someone who truly stepped through the doors of the pugilist world.


    81 movements Wild Hammering Skill was a rare martial art skill that the ancestors of the Wu Family learned from iron-striking and smelting. Old Xing only knew the first nine styles. Though they were the most basic, they almost contained all the essence of Wild Hammering Skill. In fact, no one would have thought when the Wild Hammering Skill was practiced to the Advance Level, it became the last one style: Skyshatter Hammer. That was the most foundational of the first nine styles.


    Of course, neither Junior Leopard nor the craftsman like Old Xing knew of this right now.


    Now, Nine-styled Hammering Skill brought Junior Leopard two benefits. One was his iron-striking skill: the Wild Hammering Skill was gleaned from iron-forging and smelting and it was natural that his iron-striking skill was improved after practicing the technique; the second was his Taiji Punching Skill.


    Taiji Fist includes four hammering skills: they were parry punch, the punch of draping over the body, punch under the elbow, a punch of hitting the ground and punch of hitting crotch. In the past, Junior Leopard did not understand martial arts, not to say a hammering skill. The biggest benefit from Taiji Fist was equal to those punching skills or the strengthening the body. Besides, it helped him purify the Internal Qi. But that was all.


    But things were different now. After combining the Nine-styled Hammering Skill and Taiji Fist, he could preliminarily attack. That was to say, Taiji Fist was not only limited to exercise but also becoming a way of attack. Of course, the power was still small; however, it was enough for Junior Leopard.


    "Hu!" He slowly finished his practice. It seemed that Junior Leopard had just touched the surface carefully. He recalled the sensation that he had while he was practicing Taiji Fist and the feeling that body and heart blended when practicing the hammering skill. He then he became a little excited.


    "I see. The hammering skill of Taiji evolved from ordinary hammering skills. Therefore, some punching and foot skills of Taiji are also powerful. But I have not understood the fist intent deeply. After some days, if I can integrate the whole set of Taiji, I will improve my strength fast!"


    Each time thinking of this, he couldn''t help being happy. "Who knows when Old Xing returns? He said he would teach me punching skills of forging bone. It''s no wonder that the Wu Family is a renowned family. People at the rank of Old Xing should have the qualification to practice punching skills of forging bone. Although the punching skills of forging bone that he practices are mediocre, it''s better than nothing at all. What''s more, there''s also the punching skills of toughening skin that he grades higher than Dark Bear Fist. But it is a pity that my strength has reached the limit of this age period. It''s useless for me now!" He thought as he looked up his wet cloth and couldn''t help laughing. "Forget it, don''t think so much. Just take a shower and go to sleep!"


    "I couldn''t know what Old Xing is thinking of. Those guys don''t reach the standard at all, but he should accept them!" Junior Leopard thought while walking towards the restroom of apprentices.


    He was the first to use a hammer to get through that pile and therefore, he was also the first to move into the room that was specialized for apprentices.


    It was better than living in the shared house where four people shared a house and a table while each person had a bed; he had been living in the room for two months alone. Looking at the progress of the other apprentices, he thought, the room would still belong to him alone at least a year.


    But he did not expect that Old Xing would accept seven apprentices after leaving for more than two months. Although in this group of apprentices, the performance of the seven apprentices was the best, they did not reach the standard that Old Xing requested after all; Junior Leopard was very puzzled. What happened next made him feel strange.


    When someone else was present, Old Xing treated him equally, and even very strictly. Occasionally, Old Xing found fault with him; but in private, Old Xing often found him, asked him to practice, and guided him very responsibly.


    Junior Leopard felt a little uneasy about this.


    "Why does he behave in this way? Does he get into trouble and want to distance himself from me?!"


    Only this reason can explain why Old Xing treats me differently in public and private places. But Old Xing is a very important person in the Wu''s Ironware Shop in the whole Qingyang Market. In Qingyang Market, few people can find fault with him. Is it Butler Lin?


    It''s impossible. Butler Lin is number one of The Wu''s Ironware Shop in name, but he was only responsible for selling, not the backyard. What''s more, he is also as stressed as Old Xing.


    Did the two guys get into trouble at the same time?!


    The question had wrapped around his heart since Old Xing and Butler Lin returned. But he was barely an open-minded person. He would not continue to think if he could not get it, so he just said a few words in his heart, then he no longer continued.


    After a few steps, he reached the door of the room and opened the door and found his three roommates were all asleep.


    Junior Leopard walked in quietly, fetched a bucket inside, went to the well in the center of the yard and began to take a shower.


    He used to practice Taiji in the house. But since the three men moved into the room, he had to seek another place and found a hidden place of fake rocks in the backyard of the ironware shop.


    During these days, he had grasped some tricks of the Taiji Punching Skill from Wild Hammering Skill. He was quite relaxed and happy, especially when taking a shower. If he had not been afraid of breaking the night''s silence, he would have been able to sing a song.


    "Bang!"


    It was when Junior Leopard, who had lost himself in taking a shower, heard a bang explode in his ear. He gave a quiver suddenly, looked up, shouted, threw off the bucket and turned to run.


    He ran while shouting, "Help, help, someone has been killed, someone has been killed!"


    The shrill cry pierced the air and broke the silence of the whole Qingyang Market.

 Chapter 23: Cover-up

    Chapter 23: Cover-up


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Butler Lin only wore a thin sleeping gown with his bloody body. His body was struck in the front yard, falling into the yard like an artillery shell and rolling two rolls on the ground with no sound.


    It was because of such scene that Junior Leopard screamed with his full strength. He was really scared. He didn''t want to die for no reason here.


    He was screaming while darting into the room. He knew that there was a small rear window in the room. As long as he got out of the rear window, he would be freed from the big threat.


    However, the threat he imagined did not come. He awoke his three roommates when darting into the room and then there was a great disorder. The fire was lit up, the ironware shop began to bustle. After a while, screams could be heard coming from the yard and then it calmed down gradually.


    Junior Leopard did not jump out of the rear window eventually, because the killer was not interested in him at all.


    It was obvious that Butler Lin and Old Xing were targets of the killer and now both of them were killed.


    Old Xing was more miserable than Butler Lin. Old Xing''s corpse was broken into two pieces and he died with a dark iron hammer in his left hand, and his two eyes were wide opened.


    Although Junior Leopard had some bad ideas for the unusual performance of Old Xing in recent months, he had not thought of such a miserable result. Seeing Old Xing''s corpse, Junior Leopard felt a rush of sadness into his heart. Although the time he got along with Old Xing was short, he had treated Old Xing as a mentor unknowingly; Old Xing, like a teacher, had taught him what he knew and learned with a hope that Junior Leopard could pass the selection of the Wu Family and complete his wish. However, before the day came, he died. He died miserably, which made Junior Leopard grieved. As such, Junior Leopard hated the unknown killer.


    "10 years, within 10 years at most, I must find you out and cut you in half like what you did today!"


    Junior Leopard swore in his heart. But then, what happened next made him dare not express his ideas and he did not even reveal a trace of sadness.


    Butler Lin and Old Xing were spokesmen of the Wu Family''s ironware shop in the whole Qingyang Market. Their death might be a hit in Qingyang Market, and created a tremendous buzz. After all, they were members of the Wu Family; it was natural that the local government dared not neglect the accident and took a full investigation. As the first witness on the spot, Junior Leopard was asked to go to the government several times as if they would catch the killer.


    But it was strange that the incident was oppressed quickly and clarified as the act of bandits when new housekeeper and craftsman occurred in Qingyang Market. They even further found out pieces of evidence that Butler Lin and Old Xing embezzled money from the Wu Family''s ironware shop which astonished people. After a period, no one would mention the incident except as after-dinner conversation.


    uch result made Junior Leopard have to be wary, and he smelled a hint of intrigue.


    Generally speaking, in such a well-known family, they would not let the incident go even if the bureaucrat in the local government had a little snub. If not, how to reveal the dignity of the well-known family? It was so abnormal that the Wu Family should throw itself dirty water and push the incident down.


    Why? Only one reason could explain it. That was that the Wu Family wanted to cover up the incident.


    But why would they want to cover it up?


    Junior Leopard did not know and also did not want to know. At least for now, before he could defend himself, he did not want to.


    After some period, the incident calmed down. Junior Leopard went back to quiet life as usual. Since Old Xing had tried hard to distance him, he had no other trouble with the incident except for being asked to answer questions by the local government. In addition, due to good qualifications, he was quite outstanding among the apprentices. He gradually gained the confidence and reuse of the new craftsman.


    Just like the schools of his previous life. Teachers always liked good students, whether it was head teacher or teacher.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard lived a quite comfortable life; different from Old Xing whose right hand was disabled, the new craftsman Qin Xuanlong was a real craftsman and fighter with Level Three cultivation. He was in prime and should be good at using hidden weapons and darts except for unusual martial arts. Junior Leopard had seen that just by shaking darts out, he nailed all three darts to the red heart a hundred meters away.Junior Leopard couldn''t help admiring him.


    The savvy of Junior Leopard was so high that the Nine-styled Hammering Skill and sets of punching skills of toughening skin were too easy for him. Therefore, Qin Xuanlong simply taught Junior Leopard the technique of hidden weapons and darts. After all, this technique was not rare.


    "Do do do¡ª !" Three darts were tightly nailed to the red dot of the dart center.


    "Yeah, good, that''s great!" Qin Xuanlong stood aside, cheered and could not help showing admiration on his face.


    He had been teaching as a craftsman for over ten years, but had never seen an apprentice with so high aptitude and savvy like Junior Leopard. For less than three months exercise, he had been so familiar with all techniques of the dart. He shot with great accuracy and even could hit the bull''s eye when closing eyes at thirty feet. It made Qin Xuanlong happy but also ashamed.


    It was because of only after a dozen years of exercise did he reach the phase of Junior Leopard.


    "It is no wonder that Old Xing treated him differently; everyone will treat such an excellent apprentice differently. He is only eight years old and it is certain that he will have a bright future. The selection will not be a problem for him. He may even be able to pass that final selection and make higher achievements than us. I had better give him some benefits now. When he is talented, I will enjoy a benefit forever as long as he slightly attends me." Thinking of this, Qin Xuanlong taught Junior Leopard more diligently. He told him all he knew and taught him without reserve.


    "Teacher, there are several kitchen knives I forged recently. I''m looking forward to your advice."


    After exercising for the whole day, Junior Leopard fetched several shiny and sharp kitchen knives from the smelting room and took them in front of Qin Xuanlong as if taking treasures. After all, from a certain perspective for these apprentices, martial arts was secondary to smelting work.


    "Oh ¡ª !" Qin Xuanlong also realized this at this time and then took kitchen knives that Junior Leopard gave to him.


    "Eeeh?!" The unconcerned Qin Xuanlong smeared a bright blade inadvertently and lightly; then the finger bounced suddenly, and a wisp of blood oozed out of his fingertips.


    "What a sharp blade!" Qin Xuanlong was surprised, swung his two hands and tested the knife against the wood pile.


    "Shua!" The wood pile was cut into two pieces instantly, making Qin Xuanlong''s eyebrows jump.

 Chapter 24: Days of Satisfaction

    Chapter 24: Days of Satisfaction


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was not a simple kitchen knife. It was obviously a lethal weapon. If he were to try to chop vegetables with it, he feared he would not only chop the vegetables but cut the table in half as well!


    He put the kitchen knife aside, and asked, "Did you make it?!"


    "That''s right!" Junior Leopard nodded, with a self-satisfied smile on his face. Using materials designed to make kitchen knives to forge a high-quality weapon that was even sharper than a kitchen knife, was sufficient evidence to prove his natural talent for metal smelting.


    The Wu''s ironware shop traded in all kinds of metal goods, from hammers and pickaxes for farmers, to scissors and kitchen knives for city folk, and finally to weaponry and armor for the military. It provided civil as well as military service, bringing every metal utensil in the world together under one roof.


    Because of this, the blacksmiths working for the Wu Family were categorized into three groups. One group specialized in the production of military hardware, and another group produced metal utensils for civilian use. The distinction between these two groups was clear, and the status of the military hardware group was much higher than that of the other group.


    After all, smelting military hardware was much more demanding than smelting household utensils, and each item of weaponry or armor that they made was responsible for the life of a soldier. Because of this, the Wu''s ironware shop had to be prudent. The blacksmiths who specialized in military hardware needed to have at least 10 years of related experience, even if they were not fully qualified craftsmen.


    Weaponry was not only needed by the military, but also by people of the Jianghu; and so, the third category of blacksmiths crafted weapons for the Jianghu people. This group was different from the other two groups. Jianghu people were usually non-conformists who lived roaming lives and were not so particular about their weapons. Just so long as they were sharp and durable, this was enough. This type of weapon did not require an expert craftsman to smelt, just a regular blacksmith with sufficient skillful technique, and the Wu''s had no shortage of such persons. There were also some famous people, who had high standards for their weaponry and wanted customized weapons with many demands. These demands were difficult for a regular blacksmith to fulfill, but luckily customers like this were few in number and the Wu''s had enough craftsmen to satisfy their requirements.


    The ironware shop at Qingyang Market was small, one of the Wu''s lowest-ranked outlets. It had just one craftsman who also served as the instructor and often had little work to do. The ironware shop generally sold only ironware of two types: common household utensils and common Jianghu weaponry.


    Correspondingly, there were also two types of iron-forging masters here. The requirements of forging weapons were much greater than those for kitchen knives, and because of this, their salaries were different. One who made weapons was paid almost twice as much as one who made household utensils.


    Apprentices like Junior Leopard were not paid wages at first because the ironware shop provided food, clothing, and education ¡ª was this not enough?


    However, while there were no wages, there were prizes available. If you produced an exceptional piece of work, the ironware shop would reward you, and the amount of the reward corresponded to the value of what you had made. Of course, this also had the purpose of motivating apprentices to study diligently, and forge quality goods. These "quality goods" they aimed to produce were normally household utensils for civilian use. As for weapons, these were made by apprentices who had already qualified. Weapons were only for true blacksmiths. There was a rule in the Wu''s ironware shop: an apprentice could only graduate once he had been able to make a weapon which was fully up to standard, and only then could he become a blacksmith and receive wages.


    Generally speaking, it took an ordinary person at least five years of training to go from being an apprentice to being a blacksmith, yet Junior Leopard had reached this level in just half a year. Qin Xuanlong was amazed. Looking at the kitchen knife in his hand, he could see that Junior Leopard''s metal forging skill was already at the level of crafting weapons. He could also see that Junior Leopard''s prospects were much brighter than his own. If he did a favor to him now, perhaps he would benefit from it in the future.


    As one of the supervisors of the Wu''s ironware shop, he was naturally familiar with Junior Leopard''s experience. He knew that this young lad came from a mountain village, and had come to the Wu''s to serve as an apprentice because his family had too many boys and were not able to raise all of them ¡ª this was their reason for sending him here to act as an apprentice. At the time, nobody would have thought that this lad was blessed with genius.


    However, even if he was a genius, he was still just a child right now, and the achievements he would make were still ahead of him. For now, he was still a poor young boy. This was the opportune time for Qin Xuanlong to lend him a hand. He made his decision. In Qin Xuanlong''s mind, the boy would certainly feel grateful to him. After all, he was only a child of eight.


    Junior Leopard was indeed grateful to him; however, the tears of gratitude that Qin Xuanlong had been imagining did not make an appearance. Naturally, Junior Leopard could have guessed what Qin Xuanlong''s intention was. However, this was a situation in which everyone benefited, and he would have been crazy not to accept.


    ¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù¡ù


    The days flew by quickly, and it had been more than half a year since Junior Leopard had broken free of his apprentice status and become a fully qualified blacksmith.


    Junior Leopard had lived a comfortable life this past half year. The monthly wage of a blacksmith was amongst the best at Qingyang Market, and even though he used a large part of it for household essentials, the remainder was still enough for him to live comfortably, and on top of that he could also win prizes at the Wu''s ironware shop.


    After half a year of settling into the career of metal forging, Junior Leopard had already integrated theory with practice in the art of crafting weaponry and was probably the best or second best among the whole Wu''s ironware shop.


    Qin Xuanlong was startled to see Junior Leopard''s great progress, and so he made a decision similar to that of Old Xing. After Junior Leopard reached 10 years of age, he would be sent to take part in the first stage of the Wu''s selection process. He believed, based on Junior Leopard''s current level, taking part in the selection process would give him a chance to shine. And together with his young age, he was sure to attract the respect of the Wu''s and became one of their core members.


    Junior Leopard understood why his performance had been outstanding. There were two main factors, and the most important one was the state of insight that he had reached while hammering the pieces of wood in the backyard. That moment of insight had helped him gain a perfect understanding of rhythm and force ¡ª and he had made countless attempts to enter that state since then, but each time he was unsuccessful. If it were not for him being able to maintain his eyes in that strange state, he would not even have been able to understand the knowledge he had gained from it completely.


    "It''s a good thing that my eyes are so extraordinary!" Junior Leopard walked along the avenue, breathing in the fresh air, feeling the warm sunlight. The corners of his lips curled into a self-satisfied smile.


    Another factor was the Ignis Skill. This mental cultivation was a skill derived from the fire. Although Junior Leopard''s mastery of it was still at a low level, it had given him a good instinct for judging the temperature of the fire. Compared to a blacksmith who had a good understanding of fire through lengthy experience, Junior Leopard had an advantage ¡ª he could use his Ignis Internal Qi at any time to gauge the fire''s temperature, which was a much more direct method than relying on experience.


    So, he was delighted with his present life.


    How could he not be satisfied? He had enough money to spend, a low workload, and he could study his favorite martial arts. Was there anything greater in this world?


    No, there was not!


    At least, that''s what Junior Leopard believed at the time.

 Chapter 25: The Market

    Chapter 25: The Market


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The blacksmith at the Wu''s ironware shop, who made weapons, didn''t have a hefty workload. After all, weapons sales weren''t exactly booming in this wretched ghost-town. Each blacksmith only had a fixed amount of work every month. As long as you could just produce ten passable weapons to hand in at the end of the month, then that was enough so the boss wouldn''t give you any bother during the rest of the time. To Junior Leopard, this was quite a relaxing pace. He could not only have this work more or less finished in half a month, but the weapons that he made in this time would be of the highest quality too.


    As for his free time, he had it all to himself, so there was plenty of time for him to practice his martial arts.


    For the last six months, however, his thoughts had been mainly focused on understanding Taiji Fist and purifying the Ignis Internal Qi. After all, his body was still too young and couldn''t handle anything more strenuous¡ªafter this year was up he would still only be nine years old, and he didn''t want to do any damage to his body through training too hard.


    Ah, if only I could do as they do in those books and legends, and just dip into some herbal bath and be fixed up right away!


    For the last half a year, apart from practicing his martial arts, the thing he had been doing most was going on a book buying frenzy. He was not short of money here, and books were not expensive either.


    His purpose of buying books was simple: to understand this strange and mysterious world as much as possible.


    The old proverb puts it well, "A scholar goes not out, and yet knows all under heaven."


    Based on what?


    Based on books. On the knowledge gained from books.


    Qingyang Market was a small place, and few people were literate. And so, there were even fewer people selling books, a trade which was a guaranteed loss.


    His only opportunities to buy books were on the 1st and 15th of each month when there was a fair held in Qingyang market attracting people from villages from miles around. This time was the only chance he had to purchase some books.


    Although the books were few, it was still enough for him to gain some concrete understanding of the world around him.


    "Oh, isn''t it Junior Leopard! Back again to buy some more books, are you?"


    The 15th had arrived again. Market day! Every street of Qingyang Market, without exception, was flanked on either side with traveling merchants setting up market stalls. Needless to say, this was also a time for the Qingyang local authorities and the Black Dragon Triad to line their own pockets.


    "Ah, Brother Zhang, so it''s you on duty today!" Seeing this burly fellow grinning as he came to greet him, Junior Leopard smiled back. This was Zhang Yong, a minor leader of the Black Dragon Triad. Almost every month at this time, he appeared on this same street collecting his protection money, just as naturally as the local government collecting their taxes. Since Junior Leopard had also been running about these streets on this day every month for half a year now, he had, of course, made Zhang Yong''s acquaintance.


    Zhang Yong also knew that, although Junior Leopard was young, he was a disciple of the Wu clan with great prospects ahead of him; and in all of Qingyang market, only the local government wielded an influence more fearsome to provoke than that of the Wu clan. He would, therefore, dare not cause any offense. Upon encountering him on the street he simply nodded his head and made a greeting, this was enough to count as friendly relations.


    After taking leave of Zhang Yong, Junior Leopard continued onwards. Walking along the street, he heard the shout of a familiar voice hawking their wares, and he couldn''t stop the hint of a warm smile from flashing across his face. It was the voice of Wang Tianlei, who had brought a group of hunters to the market. Since the spoils of their hunting had been increasing, each family still had plenty left over; even after they had together sold some of their game in bulk to a trading firm. The hunters would then go to the market to sell their personal surplus, under Wang Tianlei''s leadership, of course. But this was not the same as a large firm''s trading, they each sell their own individually, and they merely gathered together to help avoid arriving at any misfortune. After they had sold all their goods, these lads would then take the chance to have a look around the market themselves and perhaps get a sentimental gift for their women back home; this was, after all, only human nature.


    Junior Leopard''s elder brother was amongst them. During these last six months, Junior Leopard made sure his wages were taken back home to help subsidize the household expenses. He did so by finding his brother at this market and passing them on to him.


    "So much? Little Shiba, will there be enough left for yourself?!"


    Junior Leopard''s elder brother looked at the purse that Junior Leopard had passed to him. He thought for a second, and then a shocked look spread across his face; from the weight of this, it must be equal to almost half a year''s wages of his!


    "I have plenty left for myself¡ªI had a lot of luck this month. I made a few weapons more than usual, and so the prize I took was greater too... " Junior Leopard said nonchalantly.


    "Ho-ho, so now Little Shiba is a pillar of the family!" The hunters standing by them were doing good business so they were in a light-hearted mood. Upon hearing the two brothers'' conversation, they began to joke around.


    "That''s right, Junior Leopard, out of our entire village it''s you with the finest prospects! Never mind working here as a blacksmith, how about I do a little match-making for you¡­ my uncle has a young lass about your age, a radiant and vivacious little thing. How about it, eh?!"


    "Never mind your uncle''s family. There''s a young niece of my family who is not bad at all too¡­ !"


    After some time, everyone had said their bit, and Junior Leopard was flushed red with embarrassment.


    "There, there!" Laughter rippled through the crowd, and then Wang Tianlei said, "You are all fully grown men, but here you are now, still teasing this young lad


    "Elder brother Zhou, we''re just having a joke, but what we say is true¡­ Junior Leopard is indeed young, but he can still be betrothed¡­ !"


    "Yeah, that''s right¡­ !"


    The crowd chimed in with their agreement.


    "OK, OK, elder brothers, brother-in-law, everyone, I won''t disturb your business!" With a look of resignation, Junior Leopard cupped his hands to bid farewell to this group of fellows.


    "Little Shiba, do you have any free time lately?!" Seeing that Junior Leopard wanted to leave, Spikey promptly opened his mouth to ask him this question. With him being away for half a year, Junior Leopard''s family had rather missed him. He knew that an apprentice had to follow an apprentice''s rule, and it was common for them to find that they were unable to return home. As New Year''s was approaching, Spikey wanted to know if Junior Leopard still had to serve in the armory. Although Junior Leopard had now broken free from his apprenticeship and had a lot of free time, it was still however quite troublesome for him to leave the armory behind.


    "Oh, now let me see¡­ perhaps next month I''ll have time? I''ll ask for leave when the time arrives, it shouldn''t be a problem!" Junior Leopard said, then hurried away.


    He had been reborn into this world and had a new identity and new parents, but in the end, it was still the memories of his previous life which occupied the dominant place in his thoughts. Although he held deep feelings towards his new family and new parents, he did not want to go back there and play the role of a child again.


    He walked down the road, around the corner, coasted along the well-trodden path, and finally arrived on a street corner where a middle-aged man was setting up an old bookstall. For the past half a year, Junior Leopard had basically bought all of his books from here.


    Just as he was approaching the bookstall, Junior Leopard heard the voice of someone cursing. "You damned wastrel, how dare you rob my stall!? Don''t you realize who it is you have crossed!"


    "Huh¡­ ?!" Junior Leopard''s eyebrows jumped up in surprise. Without needing to look, he recognized the voice of the middle-aged man.


    "This¡­ this place¡­ this place isn''t run by your family! If you can set up a stall then why can''t I set mine up?!" A weak voice called out, and a man of thin stature picked himself up off the ground. Junior Leopard could see more clearly now; it was a youth of about 20 years old, who looked delicate yet handsome ¡ª although his face was smeared with a layer of dust, and had on it a large bruise presumably from where he had just fallen. His robes, which originally would have been a pure white, were also now stained a grayish color. In his hands, he was holding something bundled in blue cloth, and it seemed like inside the bundle was a book. Based on this scene, it appeared that this boy must have wanted to set up a stall to sell books.


    But, he did not know that, although this was a bustling market with all the stalls appearing to be chaotic and disorderly, they, in fact, each had a boss to answer to¡ªeach and every stall had to give payment to the Black Dragon Triad. This payment was divided into two parts¡ªone was protection money to the Triad, and the other was taxation for the local government, which the Triad collected on their behalf. Wang Tianlei and the others were also not exempt; these were the rules of Qingyang Market and were well-established through common practice.


    It was obvious that the younger man had not understood these rules, and had just taken a few books to directly sell at a stall. All things considered, it would have been stranger if he hadn''t been beaten.


    Just behind him stood the very same Zhang Yong of the Black Dragon Triad who Junior Leopard had bumped into on his way here. Zhang Yong''s expression had darkened, and upon hearing the younger man speak these words, he exploded. "You accursed thing! If I don''t run this place, then I suppose you think that you run it? Let me tell you, this place most certainly is run by me, the Black Dragon Triad runs this place! And you little scoundrel, you dare talk back to me?!" As he spoke, he moved forward, raising a foot to kick the boy.

 Chapter 26: Prescription of the Elixir & above Level Nine & the Mysterious Realm

    Chapter 26: Prescription of the Elixir & above Level Nine & the Mysterious Realm


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Brother Zhang, what''s going on!?" Junior Leopard said when seeing Zhang Yong kicking the boy, Su Hua. He used to belong to a well-known family of Qingyang market, but his family had fallen into ruin in recent years. Sun Hua''s father had run a small warehouse in Qingyang Market, but sadly, he died a few months ago, leaving behind his lazy and parasitic son who did not understand how to run the business. Sun Hua had to sell off the warehouse and all the valuables after being swiftly defrauded by a ruthless competitor. Finally, he was left with only a small room and relied on pawning the family''s things to survive. Over a short time, there was nothing valuable left to sell. He would have no choice but to become a beggar.


    It seemed that this time he was so starving, and brought the only possession he had on this market day, aiming to exchange for some money, however, lacking knowledge about the rules of the market provoked his trouble.


    "Oh, it''s Junior Leopard, here to buy books!" Upon seeing Junior Leopard coming over, Zhang Yong immediately broke into a smile, and relaxed the foot that he had raised, softly treading it into Sun Hua''s backside. "Now clear off! If I catch you here again, I''ll give you an exceptional beating!"


    Sun Hua fumed with rage, but he knew he was no match for Zhang Yong. He used a sleeve to wipe his face, which was stained with tears and mucus dribbled from his nostrils. All the on-lookers burst out laughing at this theatrical display.


    "Forget it, Brother Zhang, he is just pitiful!" Junior Leopard sighed and walked towards Sun Hua. "Elder brother Sun, did you come here to sell books?"


    Sun Hua sobbed a little and glanced at Junior Leopard. He could see that he was young, but couldn''t make out anything else, and just nodded his head.


    "I will buy all of your books¡­ here is some silver, please see whether it enough or not!"


    Junior Leopard took out some pieces of silver and passed them into Sun Hua''s hand.


    "It''s enough, enough!" Sun Hua said with a sob.


    Sun Hua had been extremely hungry. He''d only wanted to sell a few old books for some copper coins that he could exchange for some baked sesame cakes. Just one piece of silver that Junior Leopard gave him would be enough to buy several servings. He promptly passed the bundle of books into Junior Leopard''s hands, took the silver, and hurried away before there could be any further incident.


    "Junior Leopard, you have a good heart. But that boy is merely a dissipate wastrel who has squandered his family fortune, that silver will do him no good! Soon the day will come when he has to sell his decrepit little room and beg on the streets!" Zhang Yong said angrily upon seeing Junior Leopard buy the books. He walked off in another direction, continuing his patrol.


    "Heh!" Junior Leopard smiled, said nothing, and carried his pile of books to the front of the bookstall. "How is going? Elder Brother Wang, do you have any new books?"


    The middle-aged man at the stall immediately forced his facial expression into a simple and honest smile. "This time, I have no shortage of good books!" He said, patting the pile of old books on the front of the stall as if showing them off.


    Junior Leopard smiled, chose a few suitable books from the stall, and took out some money to pay for them. He then, turned down the market street to buy something to eat and drink, before returning to the Wu family forge.


    He was now counted as a craftsman. Although he was young, it was recognized that his prospects were surely good, so, he had been granted his own private room.


    At only about 20 square meters, this room was not big by modern standards, but it was enough for him to live by himself.


    The room was simply furnished¡ªthere was a bed, table, and chair, also a little cabinet, which by now was already stuffed full of books¡ªthese books were what he had been working on for the last six months.


    His books were many, and through them, he knew the world better.


    "Strange Tales of Spirits and Devils" was not as fascinating as "Journey to the West" but one day, if he felt an interest, he could make some alterations to "Investiture of the Gods" and "Journey to the West". If he published them, there was a great chance that he could make some money! He flicked through one book, and then put it down to the side. He was no longer like he was at the beginning when he would buy every old book from the stall; these days he would just pick up a few he was interested in, and after he''d finished reading the pile kept at the head of the bed. He opened the bundle that Sun Hua had sold to him. Buying Sun Hua''s book was just something he did on the spur of the moment, out of a sense of pity more than anything. It is said that a pitiful person must also have some detestable traits, but Junior Leopard saw no harm in making this very slight effort.


    "The Dual-form Rhapsody of Heaven and Earth!? Oh my, there is even such a book as this in this world! Maybe I will feel like reading it¡­ several years from now!" Junior Leopard looked at the cover of the first book, furrowed his brow and rammed the book into the last little space in his cabinet. "The Classic of the Green Emperor and the Girl¡­? No wonder the Sun family had gone under, how could they have such books?" Junior Leopard''s eyebrows had already creased into a frown. Although he had often enjoyed such Japanese specialties in his former life, in this life he was too young, only eight or nine years. He feared this kind of book could turn him into a psycho, so he skipped to the third book¡ª Medicinal Soup Recipes?


    My God, I''m a blacksmith, what do I need this for?


    Junior Leopard tossed the book disinterestedly to the side.


    Oh, what''s this?!


    He casually flicked through a few pages of Medicinal Soup Recipes. The first page had on it a mnemonic rhyme for the most basic soup recipe, something called "Soup of Four Wise Men". The soup of four wise men is peaceful and just; Blend Tuckahoe and licorice is what you must! Six noble names, stale from the summer sun, will clear your phlegm, and boost your Qi; add a yang bun. Pinellia plant''s power is strange, that''s true; Now add fragrant salts to cure stomach flu. There was also the "Gentian Slimming Concoction": Slimming gentian with turtle shell, Root of aster, and bones as well! Pinellia, ginseng, radix; we should all be told, to mix these to cure a cold! Junior Leopard did not completely understand this kind of thing, however, he knew this was the sort of book used as a primer for Physicians. When he was in the village, an old blind man had used this kind of book to teach them to read. Because of this, he looked through a few pages and then cast the book aside.


    When the book was in mid-air, a stream of air flipped the pages and an old yellowed page filled with writing gently floated out.


    Junior Leopard was a little curious and stretched out to grab the page. When he looked at what was on it, he was dumbfounded.


    The page was densely filled from top to bottom with someone''s tiny, spidery writing.


    Anesthetic Pill, Bone-Forging Pill, Tendon-Changing Pill, Pulse Steadying Pill, Blood Changing Pill, Marrow Cleansing Pill!


    His facial expression stiffened into a toothy grimace. At the corner of his mouth, a drop of saliva dripped out, and after he had finished reading he abruptly swallowed back a mouthful¡ªhe then discovered, that without realizing, the saliva from his mouth had already dripped into a puddle on the floor! It was fortunate that nobody was around to see him, or he would have been relentlessly mocked.


    "Could it be, this is a case of ''the good will get their reward'', as in legend? No, no it can''t be¡­ !"Junior Leopard gripped this page tightly in his fist¡ªhe wanted to keep it safe in his bosom, and then he wanted to rip open his bed sheets and hide it inside, and just at that moment, there was suddenly something happening without him knowing. "This isn''t a case of ''the good will get their reward'', this is as if I am playing the leading role in a legend, how else could I so easily have come across such a treasure?"


    Never mind the first anesthetic pill, but the other five, to look upon them made Junior Leopard break out into a cold sweat. All these pills, it was really just too exciting.


    He was no longer the simple and crude Leopard holed up in a mountain village, now he was a blacksmith for the Wu''s ironware shop. Although his martial arts were still really nothing much, his understanding of the world of martial arts was much greater than it was six months ago. Six months ago, he only knew from Wang Tianlei that all the true fighters under heaven knew how to balance the inner and outer cycles. This process was divided into three stages, or three realms, Skin Toughening, Bone Forging, and Tendon Changing. Wang Tianlei himself could just about be regarded as a Skin Toughening fighter, but nothing more.


    At the Wu Family, his understanding had become much more detailed than before. At first, he knew the martial arts realm was divided into three phases, and these three phases were known as three realms. He, now, also knew that they could be further divided into nine levels: Three levels of Skin Toughening fighter, three levels of Bone Forging fighter, and three levels of Tendon Changing fighter. His own brother-in-law Wang Tianlei was only a Level One fighter¡ªhe had merely stepped onto the threshold of martial arts.


    All those fighters under heaven who had reached Level Nine could be counted on one''s fingers. The largest scale schools and best-known families would only produce one or two in a thousand years, at present this was a level that he could not even imagine achieving. For example, the strongest elder of the Wu''s had only cultivated himself to Seventh Class. Any family who had someone reached only Level Three already had a powerful deterrent against any attacks on their clan.


    Fighters above Level Three were very rare. First, this was because the road was so arduous, and walking it required such willpower, such wisdom, and such good fortune, that it was hard to persist; second, the required potions were hard to find.


    In this world''s martial arts, the key part of balancing the inner and outer cycles was mutual support between inner and outer. Using the inner to nourish the outer, and using the outer to bear the inner, both equally indispensable. But no matter what tricks you try, the speed of their mutual support is always very slow. For example, you want to use your internal qi to carefully nourish your tendons and vessels, and increase their toughness, strength, and capacity. This usually takes over ten years, and sometimes even decades. Life is so short and bitter, who has time for such things? So, if you want to increase the efficiency of your practice, you must have some potions to assist in strengthening your physique. So, this is why medicinal bath potions emerged, but their effect is not so good, and they cannot utilize the full effect of the potion. Through bathing in the potion one can only get about 30-40% of its effect; however, this 30-40% is still a great help towards strengthening one''s physique, so the big families and martial arts schools would spare no effort searching all over for, and plundering these potions to give to their disciples.


    And according to folk legends, in the martial arts circles long ago it was not these medicinal bath potions which were prevalent, but rather these pills. The amount of potion wasted by the pills was far less than the bath potions, only about 10-20%, and they were also several times more effective. It could utilize about 70-80% of the potion''s power, and if refined well, could even have up to 100% efficiency. But now, these pills belonged only to legend. It is not that the medicinal materials did not exist, but the technique of making the pills and distilling the potion had been lost. The discrepancy between the tablet form and the liquid form was huge. The thing about potions was that even if there was only a single hair wrong, if an ingredient was a bit too much, or a bit too little, that it would not only be ineffective but could also be lethal. Aside from that, the technique and procedure for distilling medicine into pills had long been lost


    Of course, it had not been completely lost. In this world, there still existed one type of pill, the bone-forging pill. This was the only one that had not been lost, however, the method was kept under control by the number one sect under heaven. That is to say, it was in the hands of the Black Sky Orthodox, a sacred ground in martial arts circles. It was inaccessible to ordinary people of the martial arts milieu, and even in Black Sky Orthodox, it was passed down through a tight lineage ¡ª apart from for use within the sect, only very few were allowed to be circulated outside. Every Bone-Forging Pill that did end up outside the sect was sold for sky-high prices. As for pills a level higher than the Bone-Forging Pill, these had been totally lost.


    Not to mention that after the Tendon-Changing Pill, there were still three more types of elixir.


    Pulse Steadying Pill, Blood Changing Pill, Marrow Cleansing Pill!


    Could it be that this is above Level Nine, the legendary elixir of the mysterious realm?!

 Chapter 27: Captivating with One Elixir

    Chapter 27: Captivating with One Elixir


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    This was only an assumption from Junior Leopard. Though there seemed to be one more phase over Level Nine which in the legends was called Tongxuan. But Tongxuan was just a legend in the gathering of martial arts. And the best explanation of that legend was the phrase, "Being in neither the three realms nor the five elements".


    Being in neither three realms nor the five elements!


    Who were those men?


    They must be celestial beings! Only celestial beings could be in neither three realms nor the five elements!


    Junior Leopard didn''t think too much about that. All he thought now was about the elixir prescription in his hand. Five elixir prescriptions were all attached with particular refining techniques. It seemed like the reading notes of Junior Leopard in his previous life which were elaborate, too.


    "This elixir prescription has been in between the pages of The Medicinal Bath Formula all this time. Sun Hua must be a black sheep. Though he is literate, he seems to be only interested in the first two books. As to the book in my hand, I guess he has never read it. Hey, hey... " Junior Leopard sighed, together with continuing to recite the six elixir prescriptions and refining techniques in his mind.


    Reciting was a piece of cake for Junior Leopard who had passed CET-6 and majored in Chinese.


    Though this paper was filled with small and dense fonts, there was only one paper in all. Little time would be taken to recite it. What was more, he had already recited a complete set of Ignis Skill in his present life. He had experience in reciting cheats now.


    Instead of going out, he stayed at The Wu''s ironware shop to forge iron the next day and continued to recite that elixir prescription. By doing so he knew five elixir prescriptions and refining techniques thoroughly by heart in a few days. After affirming it many times, he finally burned that elixir prescription.


    Fascinated by that elixir prescription, he kept reciting even during the time he was forging these days. He cared nothing about ruining several weapons. But Qin Xuanlong, who had half of the responsibility of supervising, had realized Junior Leopard''s absent-mindedness. Several days later Qin asked Junior Leopard whether he had worries during lunch time, for he really destroyed too many weapons in a few days.


    Junior Leopard had already prepared for that question. He said that he was in a poor state these days and wanted to have few days off.


    Qin Xuanlong outright approved Junior Leopard to have three days off on hearing his words.


    After all, according to Junior Leopard''s capability now, there still was abundant time left for him to finish his monthly target.


    After bidding farewell to Qin Xuanlong, Junior Leopard went out of The Wu''s ironware shop. He strolled in the street and went back to the shop several hours later with a number of packets.


    People in the shop who saw him with a number of packets were all confused. Junior Leopard explained to them that those medicines were bought for his parents, therefore people cared no more.


    "Ouch! I am exhausted!" Junior Leopard couldn''t wait to throw all the packets in bed as soon as he got in his house. These packets were medicine for sure, but they were not bought for his parents, but for refining Anesthetic Pills.


    The elixir prescription seemed to be amazing. He had recited it all, too. But the accuracy remained uncertain. He needed to check.


    But how?


    The most proper way to check the accuracy certainly was to refine them out. But he could neither acquire materials for Bone Forging Pills nor materials for Tendon Changing Pills at present. He definitely recited The Medicinal Bath Formula fluently and there were lots of medicinal books at home, also. But the materials to refine those two pills were beyond Junior Leopard''s imagination.


    Junior Leopard had read lots of medicinal books and he could recite the basic The Medicinal Bath Formula. So he was sure that he knew quite a lot of kinds of medicinal materials in the world. But among those six elixir prescriptions, medicinal materials that were needed for refining Bone Forging Pills, Tendon Changing Pills, Pulse Settling Pills, Blood Exchanging Pills, and Marrow Cleansing Pills were extremely strange, and only medicinal materials for the Anesthetic Pill were common. Actually, he was not a stranger to most of Bone Forging Pill''s medicinal materials. Except two, Junior Leopard had heard about the rest and all of them were precious. According to his property, Junior Leopard couldn''t afford them even if he wiped out all his fortune. But it was better than the Tendon Changing Pill, which needed lots of medicinal materials that he never even heard about except a few. As for the Pulse Settling Pill, he had heard about poor kinds which were treasures, even unmatched in this world ¡ª let alone Blood Exchanging Pills and Marrow Cleansing Pills. He had no hope for the last two pills.


    Though the medicinal materials for Bone Forging Pill were precious, there was a possibility to refine them.


    But Junior Leopard had to confirm the accuracy before he refined the Bone Forging Pill, or else it would be a huge loss if he found all the medicinal materials with tremendous effort but the prescription was fictitious.


    Therefore, the Anesthetic Pill on the same elixir prescription, which had medicinal materials that were easy to find, turned out to be his first choice.


    Medicinal materials for the Anesthetic Pill were not precious. As a matter of fact, he had bought most of the medicinal materials easily, except one, called Kuhe, which made him search a few more drugstores. He also bought a small crock-pot to boil herbs in.


    On the elixir prescription, there was not only medicinal material that was needed in refining pills, but also particular refining methods, and the true order of putting in medicinal materials. Actually, so many things needed to be paid attention to. For example, whether the material needed to be crushed, which material needed to keep fresh, to what degree another material could be put in, when and how much water should be added, when to make conflagration and when to make soft fire, what degree the conflagration and soft fire should reach, and so on. It was really intricate. Each process must maintain veracity or else the efficacy would be affected.


    Refining pills were not the same as that in immortality cultivation novels, which needed things like an oven. To refine this Anesthetic Pill a crock-pot was enough. First, put medicinal materials according to the order on the elixir prescription, and add water and make fire and boil them to a paste. Then twist the paste to grains of pills, which are as big as soybeans, and dry in the sun. Then it''s done.


    Most pills in this world were made like this. Things like ovens were used to burn incense in the temple but not refining medicines.


    Refining with the first trail, Junior Leopard was not skilled. As he was wasting all the medicinal material after several times refining, finally achievements were obtained. He decocted a big bowl of gray plaster and then twisted the plaster into pills, which were as big as soybeans. Though those pills were not shaped in standard balls, they looked very good with several dozens put together.


    After being dried in the sun, they became grains of pills. In all, there were 34 granules.


    It was true that pills were made successfully. But they still needed testing.


    The elixir prescription said that the Anesthetic Pill was very powerful. But practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.


    Thanks to so many gate-keeping wolf-dogs in The Wu''s ironware shop, Junior Leopard secretly mixed five Anesthetic Pills in the tank which was used to provide water for dogs. In fact, that tank was a huge size and the Anesthetic Pill seemed so small. For fear of lacking efficacy, Junior Leopard put in five pills in all. As a result, Junior Leopard was shocked.


    The Anesthetic Pill was pretty easy to be melted in water after drying. They became colorless and odorless after melting. Even those wolf-dogs, which were famous for their sensitive nose, had realized nothing unusual. After drinking water, dozens of wolf-dogs at the ironware shop all fell into a deep sleep soon. Not one could be awakened.

 Chapter 28: A Huge Gap Between Skin Toughening Phase and Bone Forging Phase

    Chapter 28: A Huge Gap Between Skin Toughening Phase and Bone Forging Phase


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Thus the matter became significant.


    All wolf-dogs fell into a deep sleep and couldn''t be awakened. People could easily discern that there was something wrong. Those wolf-dogs were raised to guard the entrance. Why would they be dazed? Was there anyone harboring unkind thoughts toward The Wu''s?


    Therefore the Wu Family came into a state of extreme nervousness at their fainting.


    The Wu Family had carried out a double-check on the origin of the fainting. As the resource of drinking water, the tank had already been investigated many times. But half a month went by with no evidence being found. During the investigation, people learned that Junior Leopard had bought medicinal materials outside. But lately, they figured out that all Junior Leopard brought were normal medicinal materials which seemed not to be able to cause such a huge effect. Thus, suspicion of Junior Leopard was quelled.


    Such an investigation lasted half a month. And those dogs slept for half a month and thus died. It was not because the anesthetic pill was poisonous but because they hadn''t eaten or drunk for half a month and their bodies couldn''t support them anymore.


    The strong efficacy was totally beyond Junior Leopard''s expectation.


    The wolf-dogs were dead. The investigation lasted half a month with no result. Finally, the Wu Family ironware shop came back to quiet down little by little as nothing was stolen. Though it was very strange, they were truly helpless. After those dogs'' death, the Wu Family brought in other dozens of wolf-dogs, which were more savage and robust.


    Junior Leopard, the initiator of evil and the biggest beneficiary, was extremely delight for the next one or two months. His handcrafts that were made recently were more elaborate than before. He even forged several excellent weapons which earned him much praise.


    Junior Leopard laughed off the praise. He paid no attention to that.


    The Anesthetic Pill can be melted into the water immediately. With the characteristics of colorlessness and transparency, I can use it to play tricks without being detected. Bravo!


    Junior Leopard ground the rest pills into powder and put it in a china bottle. Then the bottle was carried with him all the time


    Life returned to peace again. The event of the wolf-dogs'' death was of no more significance than being a topic of conversation during people''s leisure.


    Junior Leopard lived as usual, too. Every day he either forged iron or practiced martial arts. He was satisfied with his present life. Each month, Junior Leopard could hand in iron wares that pleased Qin Xuanlong very much. So Qin Xuanlong felt very relieved. At the same time, however, he supervised Junior Leopard quite strictly. He had the same thought as Old Xing of hoping that Junior Leopard would attend The Selection Contest of the Wu Family after he was ten. As long as Junior Leopard was chosen, his status would be promoted as carps jumping over the Dragon Gate. Especially as smart as Junior Leopard was, there was no doubt the leaders of the Wu Family would pay attention to him. What was more, Junior Leopard was very likely to be accepted as an Elder''s disciple and then enter into the high ranks of the Wu Family.


    Therefore Qin Xuanlong cared little about Junior Leopard''s monthly task. On the contrary, he paid more attention to Junior Leopard''s martial arts skills, especially to the practice of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and the Hammering Skill of Nine-styled Hammering Skill.


    Qin Xuanlong would even stand aside to remind Junior Leopard from time to time that he should taste the essence of Nine-styled Hammering Skill with his heart while Junior Leopard was forging irons.


    In regards to this, Junior Leopard needed few aids, for he had had one insight before and integrated the hammering skill into Tai Chi. But Qin Xuanlong felt disappointed because this bloke was so smart that he had become obsolete. How amazing!


    In this way, half a year went by. A half year was neither too long, nor too short. Junior Leopard became more and more accustomed to living in the Wu Family ironware shop. With his strength and technique progress, Junior Leopard now could forge objects with higher quality.


    "Your technique is on a par with common craftsman now! "


    Holding a yataghan which was forged by Junior Leopard just now, Qin Xuanlong split an iron bar, which was as wide as a bowl, into two parts with an arc of the sword. He brought the sword in front of him, and seeing a small gap had appeared in the edge of the blade, said with his brows furrowed, "It seems to be the highest level you can reach such a young age. There still is a year and a half left and you need to practice Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique patiently. You''d better reach a wonderful phase of the Level One of the fighters or even to the edge of the Level Two of the fighter. In this way, you are very likely to be chosen by the Elders."


    "Very likely to be chosen by an Elders?"


    Those words were truly attractive.


    Being a well-known family in forging irons, the Wu Family were much more than a simple family. It was similar to a school-like structure and the only difference from a school was that each generation''s master was surnamed, Wu. While in the Wu Family, there were also numbers of people with other surnames. Those people lived in the Wu Family from the very beginning. Their progenitors were the three disciples of the Wu Family ancestor, who initiated the family property. They were the Ma Family, the Lin Family, and the Xu Family. In the evolution of several hundreds of years, the Ma''s disappeared, the Lin''s declined, while the Xu Family gradually became powerful and prosperous. In this way, masters and the Elders couldn''t limit their disciples to their offspring, for people with other surnames were also brilliant.


    Those experts who had other surnames but rendered their service to the Wu Family were the Elders.


    To be an Elder of the Wu Family was neither simple nor difficult. As long as you achieved a cultivation of the Level Four, then you had the primary qualification.


    The Level Four meant one would break through the Skin-Toughening Realm to the Bone-Forging Realm.


    The Bone-Forging Realm in three realms!


    It sounded not difficult. But among quantities of men in the gathering of martial arts, people who could break through the Skin-Toughening Realm to the Bone-Forging Realm were less than one percent. On the one hand, proper techniques were hard to find; on the other hand, magic drugs were in short supply.


    Only top-level legendary techniques could practice internal qi that could nourish one''s body. In such a way one could be able to break through with Punching Skill of Bone Forging and nourish internal qi but not resort to magic drugs. But how could normal people afford such amazing techniques?


    Therefore, most of the fighters needed not only great efforts but also a countless accumulation of magic drugs, to practice to the Bone-Forging Realm. Or else, at least 50 years was needed if one only practiced Punching Skill of Bone Forging. Time could bring a great change in the world. Who knew whether you were too old to practice after 50 years?


    Actually, it was nearly impossible for common people to obtain magic drugs. Wang Tianlei, for example, had talent in practice. He could practice to the phase of the Level One according to the popular and basic martial arts in the army. With some more decades, he could easily reach the Level Two or Three, but that was all.


    There was a huge gap between the Level Three and the Level Four. And it was the first threshold which all fighters had to face. At the same time, their power could be quite different between the Level Three and the Level Four because of the huge gap. Even those who newly reached the Bone-Forging Realm were ten times stronger in skeleton intensity and tenacity. Thus they could strike out with more strength without using internal qi than those who struck with internal qi. Once they use internal qi, their destructive power would unquestionably be beyond the Level Three fighter''s imagination. So even a fighter who was in the wonderful phase of the Level Three couldn''t bear a fist of a fighter in the Bone-Forging Realm.


    Ashes to ashes with one fist!

 Chapter 29: When the Blade Master Met the Dark Lord

    Chapter 29: When the Blade Master Met the Dark Lord


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    If he wanted to reach the Bone-Forging Realm, was it easier said than done?


    He was afraid that the only way was just as Qin Xuanlong said. If you were chosen by an elder of the Wu family to become their disciple, then you would a chance to encounter the skill of Bone Forging.


    "Now is still a good time to practice the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique !" Junior Leopard said to himself upon arriving at his dwelling.


    Although the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and the Ignis Skill were not exercises of common origin, they were both skills with properties of flame. The spiritual energy one must take in and transform was basically the same for both. The main difference was that the spiritual energy needed by the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique had to be purer, and the process of transformation was more delicate.


    All of this was no problem for Junior Leopard, especially the delicate control and transformation of internal Qi. Even if he had not learned how to activate his fantastical eyes, in the half year he had spent training he had gotten a good grasp on his internal Qi, The difference, therefore, between the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and the Ignis Skill was no problem for him; he was even looking forward to getting a greater understanding of his internal qi by exploring the fine details of their differences.


    The process of transforming Ignis Internal Qi into that which could be used for the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique wasn''t complicated. As for its power, although everything he had learned about it was still quite basic, it was still stronger than the internal qi from the Ignis Skill. That is not to say that the Ignis Skill used by the Sect of Flame was no good. On the contrary, as a comprehensive system of cultivating internal qi, it was still stronger than the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, but Junior Leopard had only been able to get a hold of the introductory notes of a mere disciple of the Sect of the Flame. The notes contained only an incomplete outline of the basics. As for what he had studied of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, it was more complete, if still elementary; additionally, upon consideration of the future, his opportunities to practice the Blaze Technique would be greater than his opportunities to practice the Ignis Skill. With this in mind, he had no hesitation to choose the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique for practice.


    He sat quietly in the room, inhaling and exhaling the surrounding spiritual qi from heaven and earth, taking in wisps of elemental flame into his body, and using the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique to transform this qi into his own internal strength.


    The spiritual qi in this room was not strong, but relative to Junior Leopard''s present ability to absorb qi it was more than enough.


    As Junior Leopard circulated his internal qi, a thin layer of red light began to enshroud his surroundings. He was covered completely in this red light, and as he slowly opened his eyes, he took a sharp intake of breath. The red light wrapped inside his body and split into two separate rays through his nostrils. His eyesight flickered softly for a moment, and then everything returned to normal.


    "This Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique is not bad¡­ if I have the chance to study this in its entirety, that would be perfect!" Junior Leopard could feel the full power of fire within his body, and a satisfied expression appeared upon his face.


    A Level One fighter. He was now already a Level One fighter. Even though within the three realms and nine classes, first class was the lowest, he was still satisfied.


    In the Skin-Toughening Realm, the mark of a Level One fighter was just like what he had just done. He had assimilated his entire body''s internal qi with his skin and flesh and then shot it out. Wang Tianlei was also a fighter, and he could concentrate his internal qi''s powerful Jingang into any blade, giving the sword in his hand extra lethal force. Such were the characteristics of fighters.


    Although a Level One fighter could link up his internal qi with his skin and flesh, they could not control it outside of their body. They could disperse it, but were not able to concentrate it. It was limited to this form. Even though it could strengthen the force of their attack, this also had limits; only by training to second class would he be able to fire out the internal qi he had linked up with his skin and flesh at will. By combining the strength of his body and internal qi, he could command at will this powerful force, and by the stage of a Level Three fighter, he could concentrate the strength of his entire body to its very limit, and with easy, graceful movements link up his internal qi and keep it restrained beneath his skin. Linking it up like this, into this state, his internal qi could not only be used to kill enemies and nourish flesh and blood but at the same time could have a nourishing effect on his skeleton. If he wanted to really reach the bone forging state, he still needed to combine his bone forging fighting technique with a potion bath.


    "It is not only that the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique needs to be comprehensive, it also needs the bone forging technique. Otherwise, even if you master the comprehensive system of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, there will be no way to perfect it!"Junior Leopard got out of his bed, pushed the window open, and gazed out at the sky filled with stars, and the reddish full moon.


    "I don''t know where I am now and the stars in the sky above must also include the earth beneath my feet!"He thought for a moment, and then he laughed at this foolishness and nodded his head. "It is impossible to see the Earth, but so long as I can see the sun that is good enough!"


    Gazing at the stars and thinking of the earth, his mind slowly drifted towards a scene from his previous life, and he quickly fell into a sorrowful train of thought.


    "Junior Leopard, what''s on your mind?!"


    He had been in a trance, when suddenly a voice came from behind him, making him jump in surprise.


    "Hello, Master Qin." Seeing Qin Xuanlong come in, Junior Leopard was a little surprised ¡ª What was he doing barging into his home at so late an hour, without so much as knocking at the door? Was this not poor manners?


    "I''ve been knocking at your door for ages, and after seeing no response I thought something may have happened to you!"


    "Oh, I was just thinking about something, I got a bit lost in thought!" Junior Leopard replied promptly, but his heart blushed in shame. It wasn''t that Master Qin was impolite and it was that he himself had gone into a trance.


    "Thinking about martial arts, eh!" Qin Xuanlong said with a smile and sat down.


    What he was thinking of, Junior Leopard naturally could not tell Qin Xuanlong. He just smiled and nodded.


    "I know that you are very hard working, especially in martial arts! You do not merely have an extraordinary aptitude, but you give it all of your efforts. Your future achievements will be unlimited!"


    "Master Qin, you exaggerate!" Junior Leopard replied cautiously.


    "You needn''t feel nervous! I''ve come today to tell you something. Over these next few days, please do not leave the house, stay in your room and practice in safety!"


    "Why?!" Junior Leopard asked, confused. "What''s going on?!"


    "It is nothing to do with us, but as the saying goes, ''when the city gates burn, the fish in the moat suffer'' ¡ª I am merely afraid of you getting caught up in it!" Qin Xuanlong smiled bitterly. "I have just received news; Xue Wuya, Seventh Dark Lord of the Dark Sect, has been pursued thousands of miles by the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou, and they have already entered the limits of Yunzhou district. From their route, it seems like Xue Wuya aims to hide within the Misty Mountains; these are close to Qingyang Market, if by any chance they pass through here, there may be big trouble!"


    "Xue Wuya, the Seventh Dark Lord of the Dark Sect!" Junior Leopard was shocked. This name reverberated like thunder in his ears.


    As a matter of fact, as Junior Leopard stepped through the main gate of the Wu''s ironware shop, he could just about count as someone part of the martial arts circle, although belonging to the very lowest level.


    To all of those belonging to the lowest level of the martial arts world, it was tough to come across a true expert, but they were all very clear on all the information, anecdotes, and rumors of these experts. Just as ordinary people in Junior Leopard''s previous life treated celebrities. Even if they had never seen them in person, they would still know a lot about this person''s background, perhaps even more than their own. There was a logic to this; even if what they know is not completely true, this didn''t influence their understanding of the legends of the martial arts experts.


    Xue Wuya was the best killer of the Dark Sect and the Blood River Sect. He was the seventh Dark Lord of the Dark Sect, and at 48 years old. He was a strong Level Eight fighter. He had already mastered the Dark Sect''s secret methods, as well as the Bloodfire Power of the Blood River Sect. Relying on the secret skills and special techniques of the Dark Sect, he was regarded as strong even within the ranks of Level Eight experts.


    The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou was the number one expert of the younger generation of the Mingyi School, and one of the few Level Eight experts under all of the heavens. He also had the most outstanding reputation of the last 50 years in martial arts circles. Only at the age of 32, his skill in fencing was sublime. He was acknowledged as one of the under 50s most likely to reach level nine. It is said that his current strength was already at the peak of Level Eight when Xue Wuya bumped into him and with the two of them, both at the heights of level eight, a battle of the Titans was inevitable. Listening to Qin Xuanlong explain carefully, Junior Leopard understood the situation. This time, Xue Wuya was out of luck, and on the way to Yangzhou West Country had been overcome by a fit of madness and slaughtered an entire family. After the massacre was over, he came across Lu Shaoyou, who was in Yangzhou West Country visiting a friend. Lu Shaoyou, outraged at witnessing such brutal conduct, drew his sword from its sheath and engaged in battle with Xue Wuya, who finally fled, only to be relentlessly pursued for thousands of miles, from the nation of Jin''s hinterlands of Yangzhou all the way here to remote Yunzhou, all the way with no easing of his rage.


    Although Lu Shaoyou was a Level Eight expert unmatched anywhere in this world, Xue Wuya was highly proficient in the art of stealth. With a heavy heart in his bosom, he had killed countless unfortunate people along the way. Anyone who came across his path was torn to shreds as he vented the rage in his belly. If it had not been for the fear that Lu Shaoyou may be too hot on his heels, the road from Yangzhou all the way to Yunzhou would have been a river of blood.


    This news had already reached Qingyang market, and it seemed like Xue Wuya was heading in this direction toward the Misty Mountains. So, Qin Xuanlong had come to find Junior Leopard and make sure that he would stay in the Wu''s Forge and not leave, lest he would come across a mishap.


    In fact, aside from the Wu''s ironware shop, the local government of Qingyang Market, as well as the Black Dragon Gang, had also scampered away upon hearing this news for fear of encountering this angel of death, Xue Wuya.


    Hearing Qin Xuanlong talk, Junior Leopard''s heart cursed Lu Shaoyou. It was unwise to provoke anyone, but what was he doing provoking an angel of death like Xue Wuya?


    Yes, that''s right, he cursed Lu Shaoyou.


    If it had not been for Lu Shaoyou meddling in other people''s business, Xue Wuya would not have run all this way to Yunzhou, and would not have carried out such massacres on the way.


    Of course, it was understandable to get involved when arriving at the scene of Xue Wuya''s slaughter, but if he failed to kill him then that should have been the end of it, why the need to pursue him all this way?


    "Unable to accomplish anything, but liable to spoil everything!"


    It was best not to provoke a man like Xue Wuya, and if you did provoke him, you should eliminate him completely. What on earth was Lu Shaoyou doing chasing him like this?


    Junior Leopard cursed Lu Shaoyou silently. Coming across an injustice and raising your sword to help, that was called standing up for justice. But wiping your ass and not wiping it clean, that was called idiocy!


    "Alright then, you rest early and remember what I told you, and for these next few days do not leave the Wu clan''s Forge. Although Xue Wuya''s massacring rampantly, he will not cause trouble with the Wu family without good cause. It is best that you don''t leave our compound, that way you shouldn''t have any trouble!"


    "But my home is within the boundaries of the Misty Mountains, will my families really not have trouble?" Junior Leopard asked, face full of concern.


    "There shouldn''t be any trouble. Xue Wuya is desperate to escape from Lu Shaoyou and intent on hiding in the Misty Mountains. Your home is in this village on the boundary of the mountains, there is no chance that he will stop here!" Qin Xuanlong spoke with total certainty.


    "Good, good!" Junior Leopard said patting the pit of his stomach. "And who knows, perhaps Lu Shaoyou may catch up to Xue Wuya!"


    Although Lu Shaoyou is very formidable, he is not a god. The Misty Mountains stretch for thousands of miles and are covered with thick forest. If Xue Wuya can get the chance, he will delve deep into the old forest; then no matter how exceptional Lu Shaoyou''s methods are, he will never be able to find him!


    "Then that means, all those unfortunate people killed by Xue Wuya on the way died for nothing!"Junior Leopard thought to himself, but his lips dared not say this out loud. He just showed a face of concern.


    "No need to worry, worrying is no use!" Qin Xuanlong said reassuringly, seeing Junior Leopard''s apparently worried face.


    "I understand, thank you, Master Qin!"


    Qin Xuanlong nodded his head, sighed softly, and departed.

 Chapter 30: Weapons

    Chapter 30: Weapons


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Holy crap, that''s the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou!"said Junior Leopard. Seeing Qin Xuanlong disappeared at the corner of the street, Junior Leopard''s face flashed a trace of anger. What was written in the books of the past life was indeed correct.


    Those guys who practiced martial arts thought they were all masters, having a strong sense of justice and ready to help the weak or doing whatever they thought was right. They had no idea at all that how their behavior would enormously affect the common people.


    Chasing or escaping, Lu Shaoyou had been responsible for half of the deaths killed by Xue Wuya to vent his anger on the way.


    Of course, Junior Leopard was no judge, nor was he an upright gentleman that had excessive sense of righteousness. The reason why he was resentful was that Xue Wuya might also be a tremendous threat to his family or himself. It was exactly because they infringed on his personal interest that he detested Lu Shaoyou and Xue Wuya so much.


    Although Junior Leopard greatly despised Lu Shaoyou''s thankless chivalrous acts of conduct, he just kept it to himself.


    In some way, it had nothing to do with him at all.


    In the next days, he could just stay in the ironware shop, practicing martial arts or hitting iron every day. He started to get obsessed with making Anesthetic Pill when he was bored. Since he found out the magical power of Anesthetic Pill, he was also interested in the business of making pills.


    After all, the ingredients for Anesthetic Pill were not expensive and several portions of them could be obtained from circling the streets. Moreover, he got familiar with the technique of making pills by making an Anesthetic Pill, which prepared him for refining Bone-forging Pill in the future. As the ingredients needed for refining Bone-Forging Pill were much more precious than those of Anesthetic Pill, there was no room to waste materials.


    He wasted almost half of the ingredients when he first made Anesthetic Pill, but now he could make as many Anesthetic Pills as the given amount of ingredients. Shortly ten days later, he already stored ten full small porcelain bottles of Drowsy Drug.


    The so-called Drowsy Drug was the powder ground from the completed Anesthetic Pill. Whenever he looked at these porcelain bottles, he always felt like a successful thief.


    As time flew by gradually, the White Blademan and Xue Wuya who were said to be the Level Eight master still only existed in the legends and rumors in Qingyang Market. Just like the rumors of the end of days that existed on Earth, legends are always legends. Even if they were real, common people like Junior Leopard could hardly have the chance to get involved with.


    Legends were nothing but legends after all. After some chaos in Qingyang Market, people realized that nothing had actually happened. The days gradually turned peaceful the nervous atmosphere that originally shrouded all of Qingyang Market dissipated gradually.


    Junior Leopard''s life was peaceful as usual. In these days, he had a free and unfettered life with weapon forging or pill refinement. There were some lonely moments when he sat in front of the windows and stared at the moon, recalling this and that in the past life. It was just like a dream.


    Today, he finished practicing a set of Taiji Fist. After a set of breathing exercises, he picked up a dart beside him and gave a ruminative look.


    "My martial arts cultivation has reached its bottleneck and it seems that it''s time to forge a handy weapon!"


    After such a long period of practicing, his martial arts had reached his age''s extreme. Certainly, it would not be a problem to force himself to improve. However, as a child who hadn''t enter his adolescence, it surely affected his growth or even his potentials in the future if he forced himself to improve his power and the strength of his body in that way. Therefore, at this moment, he just needed to make sure that he maintained his current level and pursued no more unnecessary strengthening. He was indeed a child in other people''s eyes and he was not in danger either, so there was no need to force anything.


    But if there was a handy weapon for him, he could enhance his current fighting power to its maximum, even though at present, he felt that it did not have much effect on him whether he enhanced his fighting power or not.


    As a blacksmith, he had been forging weapons for a long time and thus he was very familiar with weapons. He also hesitated once about what kind of weapon would be suitable for him at the moment, but now he had made up his mind.


    "It would be too eye-catching for my age to have a broadsword or a regular size of a sword. My old man may beat me up if I took such a thing back home. It would be better for me to have a small but exquisite one since I have accomplished some achievements in using concealed weapons. This dart may not aim at the target with one hundred percent accuracy but ninety percent can be assured. Just its function is too simple and myself is not Dagger Lee who can solve all his problems with his fly cutter. How about forging two Kunais!"


    As a fan of Naruto in the past life, he studied quite a lot about kunai which was the most popular and most frequently shown weapon in Naruto. Kunais were approximately 18 centimeters long and it looked like darts but had a lot more functions. Except for the most basic function of throwing, it also had other basic functions of the four long weapons: horizontal cleaving, vertical chopping, slant cutting and straight stabbing. This suited Junior Leopard very well for the moment. Therefore, he decided to make himself two Kunais to carry with for it was indeed useful and could be a memento of his past life.


    Although he worked as a blacksmith in the Wu''s ironware shop, the weapons he made were for the Wu''s and for selling. If he wanted to make his own weapon, he needed to find another way to do it. Of course, he can also forge his Kunais in the Wu''s ironware shop once paying an additional material fee.


    This was the rule.


    Yet, the material fee was quite reasonable for those blacksmiths who were working in the Wu''s ironware shop. They could directly take materials from the storage room and get a bill from old Zhang who was responsible for watching the material storage room. After paying the bill at the counter, they came back to old Zhang again to verify the payment.


    The yard of the Wu''s ironware shop was not very big and thus the storage room was not far away. After lunch, Junior Leopard went straight to the storage room without delay.


    "What! you want to buy materials for forging weapons?!" Old Zhang looked a little bit surprised after knowing Junior Leopard''s purpose. He still opened the storage room''s door without any hesitation. He knew that Junior Leopard needed weapons because he was learning martial arts from Qin Xuanlong now. In the Wu''s ironware shop, there was no such thing as the shortage of weapons. As long as you kept the weapons in the ironware shop, you could use whatever weapons you like and there was no need to forge one for yourself unless you wanted to use it in Jianghu.


    Of course, he didn''t speak to Junior Leopard about that since he was just an old man who was in charge of the storage room and surely Junior Leopard had his own reason for making his own weapons. As long as he paid, he could take anything he liked.


    This was not the first time Junior Leopard entered the storage room and thus the superb collection of various materials in the room were not that attractive to him. He merely walked to piles of materials as he was familiar with the room and started to pick the materials he needed.


    After he finished picking what he needed and was to leave the storage room, old Zhang, however, looked surprised and said, "This amount of material doesn''t look like enough for even a dagger!"


    "I''m not going to make something big. I just want to make a few darts for fun since I have been learning how to use darts recently from Master Qin!" Junior Leopard smiled and said.


    "Well!" Old Zhang showed a look of understanding and then he took out a blank receipt, quickly wrote on it and put the receipt in Junior Leopard''s hand and said, "Go and pay before claiming your materials, no arrears!"


    "Understood!" Junior Leopard took the receipt and left the storage room smiling.

 Chapter 31: Forging Kunai in Hammering and Refining

    Chapter 31: Forging Kunai in Hammering and Refining


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In the next two days, Junior Leopard almost spent nearly all his time in the smelting room.


    Forging Kunai could not daunt Junior Leopard. At his current level of smelting and forging iron, he completed two Kunai just within half a day rather than two days.


    The reason why he took two days to forge them was that he attempted to wield the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique to control fire while in the process of refining and forging.


    Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was the Wu''s treasure, which Junior Leopard did not fully learn. Both Old Xing and Qin Xuanlong appreciated Junior Leopard and thought that he would have a promising prospect, so they had taught him that Technique, but their position at the Wu''s was not high, actually what they have learned was just the basics of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique.


    Nevertheless, craftsmen like Old Xing and Qin Xuanlong, although they only learned the basic technique, they understood how to use it in the process of Refining Weapon.


    In fact, the reason why the Wu''s were so famous in refining weapons, only using 500 years to carve out a great reputation, it was thanks to the added effect of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique on Refining Weapon.


    What the Technique practiced was Internal Qi of the fire as well as what the technique absorbed was Spiritual Qi of the fire between the heaven and earth, the fire made by the ordinary coal was not comparable to it. Despite being one of the best coal in the world, the fire made by it was also heterogeneous and impure. How could it be better than Spiritual Qi of the fire absorbing from the heaven and earth?


    Although it was easy to practice the Internal Qi of the fire, wielding it to refine weapon was an awesome yet insignificant method.


    Why was it awesome? Because whatever weapons were refined by that way, their foreign matters were far less than the weapons made by ordinary fire and not only strength but also tenacity were far better than the weapons made by ordinary fire. Why was it insignificant? Because that way was magical, but the people who really practiced the advanced Internal Qi of the fire did not research it. People who practiced Internal Qi of martial arts skills must concentrate on it. Their desire to break their extremity and achieve more advanced cultivation, so they did not have time to research the knowledge of Refining Weapon. On the contrary, people who practiced common skills had enough time to research the way of Refining Weapon, but the Internal Qi they practiced was heterogeneous, impure and just a bit better than ordinary fire, so it was in vain though they had an insight into that way. But 500 years ago, the Wu''s forefather was a genius. He not only reached Level Nine but had an insight into the way to remove foreign matters and improved the quality of weapons by Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Hence, the Wu''s existed until now.


    However, the intricacy of that way was not inferior to advanced martial arts skills. It was not easy to comprehend that way. What Old Xing and Qin Xuanlong learned was very little, like what they taught Junior Leopard had just learned the superficial introduction to Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. So some time ago, Junior Leopard wore out some weapons, which was related to him applying such way to the smelting process. Although he failed a few times, the experience he gained was equal to the cost he paid.


    "Ding¡ª !" As the crisp sound made by the hammer burst out, Junior Leopard became exhausted as if he had used up all of his efforts. He inhaled deeply and clamped the forged Kunai over the fire of the hot stove. When he saw the surface of Kunai turning red, he drew it out. Then his another hand slowly stretched one inch away from Kunai and sensed the heat of the Kunai. Meanwhile, he operated the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique to his left hand and attempted to blend it with the surrounding heat, in line with what he learned from the way of Refining Weapon. In contrast, the surrounding heat was far more than the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique Junior Leopard practiced but far impurer than his Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. After the Internal Qi and the surrounding heat communicated, the heat flow shook slightly. Later, his Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was slowly led into the hot Kunai.


    "Wow?!"


    When he felt where the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique had gone to, he was very delighted. He knew that his present skills could not send out the Internal Qi, though he used up all of his efforts, what he could do was just to emit hot air on the fist, which only increased strength and lethality. At least level four fighters would be able to send the Internal Qi out, that was the reason why he failed many times. Although he researched that way a lot, he still prepared to fail. But unexpectedly, he was smoothly successful at this time.


    As Junior Leopard sent the Internal Qi into Kunai, the original flame gradually turned dim. At the same time, he received the endless heat power through the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique within the Kunai.


    "Hiss ¡ª¡ª !" The precipitated heat power made Junior Leopard feel as if his left hand was torn by the hot soldering iron. He nearly pulled his hand back at that moment.


    "Good lord, I was lucky that it was only a feeling, not a real heat power. Otherwise, my left hand will not work!" he said to himself. When he prepared to send his last Ignis Internal Qi into Kunai, only to find that whatever efforts he made was in vain.


    "Is it full?!" Junior Leopard''s heart moved, and he suddenly understood and withdrew his left hand. At that moment, the Kunai did not flash the gleaming rays but dark red with devilish light instead.


    Without any hesitation, Junior Leopard directly inserted the Kunai into a barrel filled with cold water.


    "Hiss ¡ª¡ª !"


    A huge rime fog surged out of the barrel, quickly permeating in the smelting room.


    Amid the rime fog, a delighted smile flashed on the Junior Leopard''s face.


    Weapon forgery was a manual labor as well as a technical work.


    Just as the saying from his last life went, it was the combination of strength and wisdom. It was not like Alchemy that just needed the technical one.


    What was the basis for forging a set of weapons?


    Previously, he did not know. But now, his confident answer to the question was four words, namely thousand hammering and hundred smelting!


    No matter what sharp and magic weapons they were, they all were related to the four words. Its shorter one was two words: hammered and smelted.


    The word "hammered" meant "knocked by the hammer"; the word "smelted" meant "putting weapons into the stove fire". Combining them, it was the basis of Refining Weapon.


    If we took Refining Weapon as a tree, the two words were the stem.


    Such were the ways of Refining Weapon as molding shape, forging edge, blood sacrifice, spirit speak and inhibition just were its branches and leaves.


    Being the stem of Refining Weapon, "hammered and smelted" was also methodical.


    "Hammered" did not mean you randomly hammered a material. If so, you would waste a good material. Of course, if you were lucky, you were likely to forge a wizard and sharp weapon though you randomly hammered it. However, such a luck generally only fell onto people like Hongjun Ancestry. It was impossible to fall onto ordinary people.

 Chapter 32: A Long Way back Home

    Chapter 32: A Long Way back Home


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The hammering skill is all about frequency, power, and speed. In this respect, Junior Leopard had some experience. He had a good grasp of the hammering skill. As for the Nine-styled Wild Hammering Skill which he had learned, although it was a martial art skill, one could only comprehend it through the hitting of metal. From his insights, he was now able to fold and forge nine times after each fire, each time in between breaths.After striking nine hammers in succession, each hammer had the same strength. After that it would pass through the fire nine times, striking the hammer a total of 721 times. The weapons forged in this manner were finely composed in structure and the material was evenly spread. The impurities were few, and it extremely sharp.


    Of course, this 729 hits were the most that he could manage in one day. It must be known, although the time needed to hammer to 729 times was not long, however, it was 81 breaths, and it was sufficient to squeeze dry all of his strength within his body. Adding on to the process of going through the fire each time, which was the smelting process, the method needed to control the fire and the energy spent were equivalent to striking the hammer. Although in total only 4-6 hours of time was spent, after this 4-6 hours, all his energy was sapped up, and couldn''t even lift up a hammer.


    He was so meticulous because he was forging the weapons for himself. It wasn''t the case when he was forging other people''s weapons, such as the weapons displayed at the Wu''s ironware shop for sale. In other people''s eyes, the weapons looked extremely sharp and the quality superior but for him all the hammering and striking to forge those weapons was merely just for fun.


    Of course, it was not his fault. Whoever heard of a real authentic master forging many excellent pieces of works. Generally speaking, it would be great if an authentic master could forge a dozen excellent works in their whole lifetime. This was because forging weaponry would severely consume energy and strength. Junior Leopard forged two Nine Forges Kunais and he was already extremely exhausted. For these wizard weapons to forge dozens or even hundreds of them, creators would need a very long time to recover their pneuma.


    Overall, Junior Leopard was very satisfied with the two Kunais that he had forged himself. This was especially the case when he successfully used the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique to direct his pneuma. Even though he did not know how this directing of pneuma would impact the two Kunais which he had forged, he was still very happy about it.


    On the second afternoon, Junior Leopard packed up the second Kunai which he had finished smelting. He left the smelting room with a face full of excessive desire.


    ...


    "Are you heading home?"


    Qin Xuanlong looked at Junior Leopard somewhat surprisingly. However, he realized it very quickly. He was just but a nine-year-old kid. He had come to the Wu Family for about a year and hadn''t returned home once. It would be just the same for anyone else as it was normal for those who became apprentices to not go home for four to five years.


    However, Junior Leopard was not normal. He was no longer an apprentice, but a Blacksmith who could earn money in the ironware shop. Other Blacksmiths who lived nearby had a day or two off each month so for Junior Leopard to stay here for an entire year only went to show that he was a fairly patient guy.


    Thinking about it, he said without hesitating: "Well, the New Year will be here in two months time anyhow. You can go home and come back after the New Year. Do not forget what you have learned."


    Junior Leopard was very happy and thanked him a lot. It was very nice to have a two-month holiday and celebrate the New Year with his family.


    He did not go home right away. Anyway, in a few days time, it would be the new year. It was also Qingyang Market''s market-day. By then he could go back with those hunters who came over from the village to the market. This could save him some trouble.


    The main reason why he asked to go home was that there had always been one thing on his mind.


    That was, the last scene that Li Haoran had left in his memory.


    In fact, Li Haoran left him only a few memories. Apart from the training method for the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, it was his fear of the cyan-clothed young man who took his life away. Another thing was why his soul had left his body.


    Junior Leopard thought one reason was that he practiced Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, so his soul was refined by the sword''s Qi. The other reason was the weird wind blowing suddenly at the West Mountain pass at that time.


    The chilly wind gathered his soul together. Otherwise, based on the strength of his soul, it would have long been blown away by the mountain wind.


    Junior Leopard had always suspected that the gust of strange wind was a kind of Evil Qi.


    There were all kinds of Evil Qi between heaven and earth, but it did not mean that an Evil Qi was easy to find. You can compare it to there being so many beautiful women in the world but you may not be able to sleep with a beautiful woman in this life.


    It requires on to have a good moral standing to find Evil Qi.


    Junior Leopard had desired to practice the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword for a long time, but it was difficult for him.


    It was hard for ordinary people to find an Evil Qi, let alone two opposite kinds of Evil Qi with extreme properties that the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword needed.


    Actually, although Evil Qi really existed at the West Mountain pass, according to Junior Leopard''s current cultivation, he was unable to collect it or practice it. He merely wanted to be prepared for practice in the future.


    Living in the Wu''s for so long, he naturally knew a lot of things in the martial arts world. Of course, he now understood better some special techniques such as Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    As for this kind of method that could condense the heaven and earth Evil Qi that the body was unable to absorb, he was extremely looking forward to it. Hence, no matter what, he wanted to go to the West Mountain and see the Evil Qi there, to actually look at what it was.


    ...


    The sky gradually dampened. Raindrops also started to fall.The chilly wind carried the humid air and blew it in his face. This caused Junior Leopard to somewhat have a chilly mood as well.


    It was a rainy market-day.


    Very few people went to the market. Junior Leopard went to where villagers usually sold things, only to find that none of the villagers were there.


    "Don''t tell me I have to go home alone?" Junior Leopard''s facial muscles twitched slightly. To be honest, the mountainous village where he lived was not far from Qingyang Market and only a 25,000-meter distance. In his previous world, it would only take 20 to 30 minutes by car. However, this current world was totally different. There were no cars but endless mountains. What''s worse, the road was muddy due to the rain. Junior Leopard could imagine how he would look like, when he got home.


    After some hesitation, Junior Leopard decided to go. After all, he had asked for leave and also knew that staying at that remote village was much safer than Qingyang Market.


    Therefore, putting on his coir raincoat and renting a little donkey from the carriages and horses shop of the Ding''s, he left. On such a rainy day it was better to ride than to walk. Because he could not ride a horse, he had no choice but to rent a little donkey that looked like a strong one.


    Riding on the donkey and wearing a coir raincoat, he went towards the mountain village. Walking under the drizzle he felt free without a care in the world.


    "Unexpectedly, the surrounding scenery on such a rainy day is actually very beautiful!"


    Seen from afar, the outside of Qingyang Market was enveloped by the undulating mountains. The mountains were not high, but amid this misty rain, they became more appealing to the beauty of obscurity. Junior Leopard on the donkey looked at them with a carefree mood.


    At that moment, with a burst of lightning and thunder, a fierce gale sprang up and soybean-sized raindrops blew down. It was so violent that the coir cap on Junior Leopard''s head was blown off.


    Without his coir cap, Junior Leopard''s head was exposed to the heavy rains.The rain was too heavy to even open his eyes.


    "Come on! Be quick!" Junior Leopard dared not wonder anymore. There was no shelter all around. Junior Leopard had no choice but to whip his donkey. Naturally, the donkey felt the pain and rushed out randomly. After a quarter of an hour, it gradually stopped raining. The donkey then stopped at a mountain stream.


    The original mountain stream was a mere trickle, which Junior Leopard had to pass through when he went home. In the past, it was easy for people to leap over that mere trickle, and even more so for a donkey. But now, after the heavy rains, the flood currents on the mountain came down and the river banks rose up. The mere trickle stream had turned into a great river, about 10 to 13 meters wide. Because the flood currents rushed down from the top of the mountain, sometimes trunks and animals would be carried downstream, which caused obstacles for him on the way home.


    "It can''t get any worse than this!" looking at the flowing mountain stream, Junior Leopard sighed. Junior Leopard was worriedly pondering how to pass the river, when he heard a light shout over his head. He raised his head and saw a light blood shadow galloping from the southwest. The blood shadow moved so swiftly that it arrived over Junior Leopard''s head in the blink of an eye. At that moment, Junior Leopard saw it clearly, it was a light of mournful blood. When Junior Leopard turned his head, he caught a whiff of evil blood.


    Junior Leopard felt the back of his neck tighten and then he was lifted up about hundreds of meters high by a force. The donkey rushed into the mountain stream. After struggling for sometime, the donkey sank to the bottom of the river and completely vanished.


    "Ah------!" Junior Leopard uttered a brief sound and stopped abruptly. A wave of hot strength entered into his neck and closed all acupoints of his body off. He was forced to watch the raindrops and smoke in the air with eyes wide open, only to find that his body did not belong to him, it was as if he became a ghost that couldn''t feel anything.


    "Eh?" at that moment, although Junior Leopard could not utter a single word, the senses of his eyes and ears remained normal. After the wave of hot strength went through his body, Junior Leopard clearly heard a sound of shock.


    The sound was short but clear. Soon it was silent. The force lifted Junior Leopard''s neck and flew towards the deep ends of the Misty Mountain. Even, during the flying process, the little village he lived in flashed away and disappeared quickly in front of his eyes.


    "Am I flying?" Junior Leopard had finally managed to regain his composure. He could not move anymore, so he was not able to see who had lifted him up.


    "Shit, isn''t this the world of a wuxia? How can he fly? Are those legends about Gang Qi real? Is Gang Qi able to really make people fly?" Full of questions, he did not feel as though he was in a crisis at all. Rather, Junior Leopard felt a sense of excitement.


    After flying for a while, Junior Leopard could see an expansive green. Junior Leopard knew that they were heading deep into the Misty Mountain.


    Misty Mountain, stretched on for tens of thousands of miles. At this time he was lifted up by someone and flying in the sky, yet he saw the routes below, and it was composed of tall mountains and great rivers. A few mountains formed the ridges, as if it was an undulating wave, flying past him as if it was retreating back. Sometimes they would penetrate the cloud area; surrounding him were fine clouds which were smashed apart by the Gang wind. Slowly the soul became dense, it started flying, becoming a ball and being able to be caught by hand.


    "It was clearer than the airplanes in his previous life!" The surrounding clouds shaped like rolls and strips of cotton. "What a pity! I can''t move, otherwise, I could stretch myself out."


    Junior Leopard was pitying himself secretly, when he felt his body sinking down. Soon with a heavy fall, he felt that all the inhibitors in his whole body were being released suddenly. He looked only to find that he was approaching the steep cliffs. A cluster of sharp rocks at the bottom, like the tip of a sword, were facing Junior Leopard. If he fell down, he would definitely die. Soon he was panicking and uttered a weird sound.


    "Hahahaha!"


    When he made the strange sound, he perceived the strong blood evil energy again. Then, there was a pause and he was held by a big hand and fell down slowly.


    "I thought that you were unafraid of anything. I never thought that you would be afraid of death!"


    He heard someone speaking in his ears ruggedly with a thick sense of taunting.


    When this man flew in the air, lifting Junior Leopard, he was curious about why Junior Leopard was not scared. Generally speaking, no matter who met this thing, he or she would be greatly frantic, but this guy who he lifted was abnormal. Hence, the man released Junior Leopard to test his reaction.


    "Only fools are not afraid of death!" Junior Leopard realized that this time he could speak, hence he shouted, "Even the old man in the heavens fears death!"


    "Right! Right! Even the old man in heaven fears death!" The man roared with laughter and rushed into the depths of the mountain forest while carrying Junior Leopard.


    When Junior Leopard was about to land, the man released him. Junior Leopard found that all his strength came back. He was about seven to eight feet above the earth. After a strong breath, Junior Leopard threw his body into reverse, which was just what he had learned in PE in the previous world. After several reverses, he stood steadily, with his feet on the ground and stabilized himself. He found that he did not get injured at all. He raised his head, delighted. Looking at the place that he fell down, he found that it was a little road in the valley. Along the roadside of both cliffs, there were towering trees and old vines. With fine rains and steaming mist, the valley looked like a fairyland.


    Seeing Junior Leopard being intoxicated by the beauty of the valley, the man did not know whether he should be angry or happy. It seemed that this guy did not fear him at all.


    "Little fella, have you seen enough?"


    "Hum!" Junior Leopard was aware that he was in a crisis and turned around immediately.


    "Oh, my god! How can I have such bad luck?"

 Chapter 33: Take Xue Wuya as a Teacher

    Chapter 33: Take Xue Wuya as a Teacher


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The man was tall, about two meters tall. He wore a scarlet robe that had many holes left by a sharp blade. Behind every hole hid cut after cut, some of which had not stopped bleeding and blood were still oozing out. His face was rough and his chin bristled with stubble like a needle. It seemed like he had not shaved for a long time, nor did he care, so he appeared messy. He had a random bun on his head that was held in place with a red wooden hairpin. At the beginning, his face wore an unhealthy blush. But now, his face turned ghastly pale. Although he was still tall and sturdy, he gave one the sense that he was on the verge of collapsing.


    The most eye-catching thing was a very deep sword wound that ran from his right shoulder all the way down to his left rib. The wound was not fully healed, and the blood seeped through the scarlet robe and stained it, making it look even bloodier.


    Junior Leopard thought of the legend of Jianghu that he had recently heard in the Wu''s ironware shop. Looking at the man again, Junior Leopard realized he had met a troublemaker.


    "I just wanted to go home and pay a visit to my parents. How could I have encountered such circumstances? Was it my personality, or was it just my bad luck?"


    "You seem like you are not in the least bit scared!"


    "I am scared. In the beginning, I was so scared to the point of death!" Junior Leopard said, but Junior Leopard had no trace of fear on his face." Later on, I figured if you wanted to kill me, you would have simply thrown me down, there was no need to do anything else!"


    When the man heard this, there was a twinkle in his eye and the man said, "Looks like you are still young, firmly composed, and I still do not know who your teacher is. Through your Internal Qi and your approach, you must be from the Wu Family."


    "You discern well. I am indeed of the Wu''s, however, I am just a beginner blacksmith!" said Junior Leopard. Although the Wu''s were still big predators in Yunzhou, when faced by such a fierce person as Xue Wuya, still there was no deterrence.


    "I see! No wonder you only practiced the basic Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. If you are a green hand, you are not a real Wu''s disciple. Little guy, are you willing to be my apprentice?"


    "Eh?"


    The leap is really too big. Should I acknowledge him as my teacher?


    Is it possible that I was born with a spiritual root, gathering all Spiritual Qi between heaven and earth, a genius born in a thousand years? So when these great men see me they want to make me there apprentice so that they can finally close the gate?!


    Junior Leopard said to himself secretly.


    "I think you have a flexible mind, a calm disposition and you are a rare talent. It would be a pity to kill you. Presently, I am seriously injured and I need a person around!"


    After hearing the man''s words, Junior Leopard had no choice but to accept his proposal. Could he really disagree with the man, acting like the character in the story, with the hope that the man would beg him to agree? According to the man''s personality, he feared that if he said no, he would be killed. So he had to meet the man''s demands. He bowed before the man and addressed him as his teacher.


    The man was very satisfied to see that Junior Leopard was so well-informed and said, "Since you have taken me as your teacher, I can''t treat you unfairly. This coal dagger is my gift to you!"


    After saying that, he raised his hand and tossed Junior Leopard the coal dagger.


    "It is a coal dagger!" As soon as the dagger landed in his hand, Junior leopard felt his hand sink and the slippery coldness of the dagger in his hand made him stare and he drew out the dagger and wiped the thin blade carefully. "It is a fine blade, worthy of being called a wizard''s weapon."


    Junior Leopard knew that he was not capable of forging that superior weapon, but as a blacksmith, he still had the basic ability to discern a product. When he saw it, he was sure that this small dagger in his hand was still undergoing at least a couple of more refinements. Otherwise, it would not have this kind of texture.


    The style of the dagger in his hand was common. It was only 0.33-meter long, black and shiny, with a sharp edge between the blade and metallic handle. Its handle was made of metal materials, different from other parts of the dagger. His hand was so small that he could not grasp the dagger completely.


    Waving the dagger randomly, he was shocked by the tiny and sharp sound the dagger made. "What a sharp thing!"


    "Don''t show it off, put it away!"


    "Yes, sir!" Junior Leopard said hurriedly putting the sword into the sheath. The sheath was extraordinary, made of a kind of unknown hide. The spotted lines on the scabbard looked like crocodile skin, but were much finer than the skin of a crocodile.


    "Teacher, you ¡ª !"


    The man seemed to know what Junior Leopard wanted to ask, but before he had finished, the man said, "I''m Xue Wuya, the master of the Dark Sect, deputy suzerain of the sea of blood, known as the seventh Dark Lord of the Dark Sect. Now I am your teacher, so you are the third-generation disciple of the Dark Sect. In our Dark Sect, you only need to be loyal to the master''s home gate. If you are, you can do what you want to do, and nobody will restrain you. Do you understand?"


    "Yes!" Junior Leopard with a broad grin, secretly thought,"It''s really Xue Wuya! It seems that Jianghu''s legend is true. Indeed, he is being hunted. I wonder where the White Blademaster, Lu Shaoyou, is now. But now, although Lu Shaoyou runs into Misty Mountain, he may not find Xue Wuya. In this way, I am at least safer."


    Xue Wuya did not know what Junior Leopard was thinking now, and said, "Well, now I''m ready to recuperate. You go outside and help me find some living creatures!"


    "Living creatures?" Junior Leopard looked up, puzzled. "What kind of living creatures does the teacher want?"


    "Any kind of bird or beast, as long as it is alive, it will do!" Xue Wuya said, with a paler face. He was so weak that his tall body wobbled. Then without saying a word, he sat down on the ground and regulated his breathing.


    Now, Junior Leopard dared not utter a sound but walked straight out of the valley, not thinking of escaping. He was deep in Misty Mountain, where could he possibly run to? It was better to obediently remain at the master''s side, that was a much safer choice.


    The diameter of the valley was not large. Out of the valley, there was a cluster of a jungle, in which spread towering trees, about 9.9 to 16.5 meters high. It was the time when spring and summer met and fine rains blew. There were numerous branches and leaves interweaving together. It was so thick that people here could not tell whether or not it was daytime.


    Junior Leopard did not dare to go deep. He walked around the periphery of the jungle. Maybe it was his good luck that he met a few rabbits. He was a hunter by nature, and although he had never hunted wild beasts before, from an early age catching rabbits was his specialty. Now that he practiced martial arts, he was able to catch one of those unfortunate rabbits with little effort and brought it to the valley.


    Xue Wuya still sat cross-legged down in the valley. After recuperating, he looked much better than before. Xue Wuya looked at the rabbits Junior Leopard held and frowned, but he did not say anything. He raised the four fingers of his right hand, and Junior Leopard only saw that a bloody light from Xue Wuya''s fingertips cut the rabbits'' necks directly. Xue Wuya sucked the blood of the rabbits into his mouth, just like a whale sucking water.


    "Not enough!" when the blood came into his mouth, he glanced at Junior Leopard and said. "I need more fresh living animals!"


    Junior Leopard dared not ask any more questions. He went back into the thicket, a little deeper than before, and this time he was so lucky that he caught an adult white deer. This white deer was indeed unlucky and, although it ran at a good speed, it still got caught by Junior Leopard''s Kunai indiscriminate eyes while in the thick familiar forest.

 Chapter 34: The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang

    Chapter 34: The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Seeing the white deer dragged over to his side by Junior Leopard, Xue Wuya''s eyes showed a look of pleasant surprise for the first time before he drained the deer''s blood as usual.


    Junior Leopard stayed by the side and did not dare to disturb him. Xue Wuya began to regulate his breathing and activate his Qi after draining the deer. After a little while, he was shrouded in a lurid mist, going up and down and giving off a smell of blood. Junior Leopard could hear the blood rolling like a flowing river inside Xue Wuya''s body. Before long, the lurid mist fluttering around Xue Wuya transformed into two bloody stripes that was inhaled by him, before his complexion changed from pallid to flush. The dying look from before had gone.


    "You''ve done a good job this time!" Xue Wuya opened his eyes showing a satisfaction on his face while looking at Junior Leopard who was well-behaved.


    "Just doing my job!" Junior Leopard seemed a little cautious.


    "Do not be afraid, this time I was seriously injured by that man, Lu Shaoyou, when he broke up my Bloodfire Power. What I need are a great amount of living animals to enhance my blood level so that I can recover. So you must bring me fresh living animals during my convalescence... as many as possible!"


    "Understood!"


    Junior Leopard replied affirmatively, and did not dare to say more. He had figured out that the reason Xue Wuya kidnapped him was because he was badly needed someone to search for living animals. Making him an apprentice was just a way of setting his mind at ease.


    "Perhaps he will teach me some martial arts and give me something of benefit during his convalescence. But once he recovers, that would be my time to die!"


    A man of the Dark Sect was not as righteous as those in the novels. Xue Wuya, because of some trivial thing, exterminated an entire family, including old women and infants ¡ª how could he be a good person?


    A disciple of a martial arts master was always handpicked, but not Junior Leopard. He was grabbed to be a coolie during the escape. To make Junior Leopard less vigilant towards, and more dedicated to Xue Wuya, he had given Junior Leopard some benefits to grease his palm. If Junior Leopard were really a ten-year-old child he would not think about it, but deep in his heart he was an adult, tactful and crafty. Xue Wuya''s tricks could not fool him.


    "If things go on like this, I will have no chance at all, especially once Xue Wuya has rejuvenated himself."


    Junior Leopard thought to himself, as Xue Wuya said, he had been badly injured by Lu Shaoyou. His Bloodfire Power, which had taken a decade of hard training to master, was lost at the same time. There was no possibility that such a heavy injury would heal in a day or two by just drinking the blood of deer. Color had indeed returned to his face, but his faltering footsteps and faint cough from time to time had given away that he was just trying to suppress his injury.


    Just then, his body moved away from the earth to the air, which was different from the grabbing of the collar by Xue Wuya. This time Xue Wuya had done nothing to him. Junior Leopard also figured out what had raised him up. It was a sanguine stripe. When making a closer look, he found that the stripe was condensed by a thick layer of blood, sinking of a bloody Evil Qi.


    "This is my Bloodfire Power, the best way to condensing Evil to Gang!"


    At this point, Junior Leopard was drawn into the Bloodfire Power. Of course, there was no hiding his look of surprise. But Xue Wuya was unwilling to say any more words.


    After flying with Junior Leopard for a little while, Xue Wuya seemed to find something and then after making a surprised sound, descended.


    From the sky, Junior Leopard could see a small valley looming. Before getting a clear look at it, he was thrown down by Xue Wuya.


    A gentle power bounced beneath his body and propped him up before he hit the earth.


    When getting to his feet, Junior Leopard took a second glance, but only to find a dead valley.


    The dead valley was like a bottleneck with cliffs on all sides, shading the valley from sunshine all year round. This soil here was softened by moisture. Upon it was wild smashed peaches and apricots that had fallen into the valley. All of these had made the valley absolutely reek, enough to make people feel like vomiting. Close to the demon hole, there was a cave of about ten feet, leaning against the cliff and rising abruptly out of the ground for ten thousand feet. The cave was bottomless, emitting a black flow. Just then, Junior Leopard saw a wisp of five-colored smoke and heard a sound of snoring. He was dizzy and almost fell on the ground when he took a breath due to the stench that felt as though something was drilling into his forehead.


    "There should be such an insidious place with blood evil that is proper for my rehabilitation! But for you, it is highly toxic... I am thoughtless!"


    Xue Wuya''s words struck Junior Leopard''s ears. Again, he felt his body rising off the ground and rolling out of the valley, moved by the Bloodfire Power.


    "This is... !" Junior Leopard looked at the scenery and was in a daze for a moment. The surrounding was all high mountains and lofty hills. The flying waterfall fell and merged into a limpid stream. Adjacent to the cliff was a large Nan tree, dozens of feet high and a dozen feet wide, with the lower branches covering about three or four mu of land in shade. The cliff was crawling with tendrils and overgrown with unknown exotic flowers and herbs. There appeared to be a small cave hidden behind the moss, about thirty feet above the earth.


    "This is a good place!" Looking around, Xue Wuya was fascinated by the scenery. Junior Leopard looked back and was astonished: Xue Wuya''s complexion should be so pale again in such a short time!


    "But he seemed to feel better than before." Junior Leopard thought.


    "You have practiced the Wu''s Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, which was derived from Tian Long Taoism and is one of its high-ranking martial arts skills. But you just have a smattering of knowledge about it. That is really a pity!"


    "Being an ordinary blacksmith, I am lucky enough to have an opportunity to practice the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique!" Junior Leopard said, his mind was perturbed.


    "What does he mean? Could it be possible that he wants to pass on martial arts to me?" He thought.


    As expected, Xue Wuya continued. "But you have laid a solid foundation and practiced martial arts in fire property. Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, the progenitor of Wu Family, when practiced to an extreme extent can be combined with earth fire, thus condensing nine heavenly dragons, namely the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang. Now, it''s here, and I can give it to you!"


    While talking, he took out a book, throwing it to Junior Leopard.


    "Thank you so much, teacher!" Hearing this, though he was terrified of Xue Wuya, Junior Leopard was wild with joy. That was Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique! When combined with earth-fire, it could practice Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang. Even the lowest level of disciple had heard many times from Qin Xuanlong that Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was the ''Family Treasure'' of Wu Family, mysterious and unconquerable. Even the inner core disciples had no access to the complete technique, except the direct descendant, who was the only one to get the opportunity and be the Family Head of Wu Family. He had never thought he could get the whole set of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, but now he had got it from Xue Wuya.


    Yes, he had passed the entirety of this technique to Junior Leopard, including the method of condensing Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang. Because people like him could not lie to a child, whether it was true or not was immaterial to Junior Leopard. Besides, Junior Leopard was fully aware of the origin of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang, so were the people in Jianghu.


    13 years ago, when Xue Wuya''s cultivation had reached only Level Seven, he ran afoul of Tian Long Taoism. The Elder of Tian Long Taoism, who had a high proficiency of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang had reached Level Eight for many years and came into a firm state. Normally, the outcome would be obvious. However, unexpectedly, Xue Wuya had killed the Elder of Tian Long Taoism!


    The news spread across Jianghu. Xue Wuya also won a name in Jianghu and soon became the seventh Dark Lord of the Dark Sect. Rumors about Xue Wuya were buzzing around Jianghu, saying that Xue Wuya must have mastered a formidable secret skill or Special Technique, otherwise, it was impossible for him to beat such a master in Level Eight.


    After that, Tian Long Taoism and Blood River Sect had a good fight. Finally, Blood River Sect returned the three scriptures to Tian Long Taoism but only after they made copies. And the one in Xue Wuya''s hand was the original copy.


    Though they had suffered a loss, Tian Long Taoism couldn''t speak out about their grievances, and as a result, their good name was tarnished. But a few years later, a talented younger in Tian Long Taoism popped up, wiping the whole Blood River Sect in Jin out with only another two people. They even challenged the progenitor of the Blood River Sect.


    After that, Blood River Sect continued to exist. The three young men emerged unscathed from the fight. Nobody knew who the winner was and who the loser was. Soon the shocking news spread that the copies of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique in Blood River Sect had been destroyed. Besides, Blood River Sect had promised not to leak out this technique and never again would anyone in Blood River Sect practice it.


    Since then, people in the Jianghu all remembered these three names, Lei Xu, Wang She, and Nian Wushuang.


    Suddenly, Junior Leopard seemed to realize something. His body came to a halt.


    "Blood River Sect had promised never to pass the technique on to anyone. But Xue Wuya passed it to me without hesitation. He must be ill-disposed." thought Junior Leopard.


    "Do not be afraid, the old fellow did promise not to pass it to others. Anyway, it was none of my business. He had declared that he would destroy all the copies, but there was one left!" Xue Wuya shot a glance at Junior Leopard as if he could read his mind and said, "You are so young! Don''t make things so complicated!"


    "It''s better if only I had thought too much!" Junior Leopard whispered. But he pretended to be obsequious and dared not reveal his doubts.


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 35: Top Skills: Technique of Cultivating Gang and Flying

    Chapter 35: Top Skills: Technique of Cultivating Gang and Flying


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Now that I''m hurt, I''ll need a daily supply of living animals for my recovery, so you must bring me 10 white deer or other living animals on a daily basis!"


    "10?!" That was a real shocker for Junior Leopard. The danger was creeping at every moment around the Misty Mountain. God knew what danger was waiting deep in the ancient woods. It was true that Junior Leopard got the secret book of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique from him, but how could he count on a little boy to be a Level Seven fighter overnight and hunt 10 living animals a day? He was nothing but a 10-year-old kid!


    "I know this is not that easy, but I have no time waiting for you. As followers of Dark Sect, we worship no gods. We have the guts to challenge impossible missions and rise from ashes like a phoenix. You are my apprentice now, which means you have to pass the test of Dark Sect. You''d better be killed if you can''t do such little things like hunting ten stupid animals!"


    Junior Leopard said with a sad face, "I''ll give my life to fulfill the missions my master assigned, but should your injury got worse because of me, I can''t afford the consequences even if I had a thousand lives!"


    "You sure got a sweet tongue, but I knew what I was doing the moment I gave you the mission. It''s not possible for you to learn the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique overnight. It''ll take some time, so I''ll teach you a mental cultivation method of Lightness Skill. In addition, I''ll teach you a set of moves of concealed weapons because I noticed that you have two darts, so I assume that you are good with concealed weapons. Those two techniques and the dagger I gave you are enough for you to finish the mission. Don''t bother to come back to me if you still can''t do your job well!"


    Junior Leopard said silently, "I wish!"


    Then, Xue Wuya gave Junior Leopard a detailed lecture on a set of mental cultivation method of Lightness Skill and concealed weapons technique for two hours. Xue Wuya, whose face turned as pale as death, rushed to the steep valley to heal himself until Junior Leopard said that he had remembered them all.


    "Oh, that''s it. I have no choice."


    Junior Leopard sighed as Xue Wuya walked away. As if accepted his fate, he looked around, walked to a big tree, climbed to the top of the tree with all his hands and feet, and reached the edge of the mountain alongside a branch. There, in the middle of the cliff, hidden a small cave. He climbed into the cave, sighed again. At least he had found a place to protect himself from rough wind and heavy rain now.


    It was not a big cave, about 10 feet high and 35 feet deep, enough for Junior Leopard to get some rest. It was damp, the earth covered by a thick layer of moss, but none of these stopped Junior Leopard. He put his butt on the floor, legs crossed, and then started to practice the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique.


    He spent the past year studying the basics of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique at the Wu''s. Although now had access to the whole version of the practice method, he still had to take baby steps, kept practicing the basics, which was way more sophisticated than what he had learned at the Wu''s. He benefited a great deal from the precious lessons given by the master of martial arts, Xue Wuya, who taught him the fine parts which a Level Three fighter like Qin Xuanlong could never understand.


    Junior Leopard thought, "Ignis Skill and Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, which are the same by the very nature, are both the foundations of the fire-property internal strength. The difference lies in the former emphasizes the quality of Internal Qi while the latter emphasizes the quantity, which needs accumulating instead of purifying like needed in the Ignis Skill. Each of the two techniques has its unique strength, which probably means unexpected great effects if the purifying process used in the Ignis Skill were combined with the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique." But then he could not help laughing at himself. "What was I thinking? Ignis Skill is not difficult to find, especially for big families like Tian Long Taoism and the Wu''s. If the combination is possible, they would have done it already. Who am I to dream about a big pie? I''m not one of those prodigies in fantasy novels who were born with wisdom."


    Then, he managed to forget about the idea.


    It was not easy to know oneself. He might not have realized it yet but he did know what he was capable of and what he wasn''t. Someday in the future, when the same thought came to his mind again, it would help him a lot in his growth.


    After several full days of practicing the Internal Qi, all of the moss beneath Junior Leopard''s butt was evaporated by his Ignis Internal Qi, and the cave was also drier than before.


    Junior Leopard read the secret book of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique through after he finished practicing his Internal Qi. The more he read, the more he liked it. The small booklet not only included the whole set of the Blaze Technique, but also Xue Wuya''s comments and understanding written at the margin of the pages, which recorded his own thoughts after studying the difference between the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and the Bloodfire Gang. Junior Leopard had benefited a lot from it.


    Condensing Evil to Gang. That''s it. No wonder he could fly, because Gang Qi could be used in this way!


    After finished roughly scanning the Ignis Mysterious Gang, Junior Leopard had answers to all of his doubts.


    Junior Leopard had heard so many rumors about Gang Qi among the Jianghu, which said it meant the lost flying skill and invincibility. In fantasy novels, those Level Seven masters were basically almighty gods, who were too good to be real in Junior Leopard''s opinion. What he didn''t know was that Level Seven masters could condense the Evil Qi in the universe and blend it into the Internal Qi, to refine a new kind of Qi called Gang Qi, by means of some secret methods. Such Gang Qi, produced by masters of martial arts, was used to practice the lost flying skill, just like the cloud or fog by which the gods and monsters used to fly. The fantasies that Junior Leopard once read about had come true!


    The Blood Rainbow that Xue Wuya made was the effect of his Bloodfire Gang. The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang was refined by Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Once succeed, the Blood Rainbow could help Xue Wuya to fly in the sky.


    Of course, apart from flying, Gang Qi could be used in many other ways.


    So, Condensing Evil to Gangg is like gods forging their unique magic weapons. It has the magic effect of attacking, defending, and most importantly, flying. Maybe that''s what makes it popular among the Jianghu. It didn''t betray its title ¡ª the Best of all Special Techniques.


    Junior Leopard closed his booklet of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, heaving a deep sigh. "Xue Wuya was being awfully generous to me. It''s true that he needs me, but he didn''t have to offer me such a big favor. The booklet recorded the refining method of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang and secrets of his cultivation. If the booklet was leaked and fell into the wrong hands, it is likely that Xue Wuya will be easily killed by his enemy who has found his Achilles heel."


    He would be a fool to trust something of vital importance like this to another, but now, it was in Junior Leopard''s hands. Unless¡­


    Apparently, instead of recruiting an apprentice, Xue Wuya''s real intention is to take advantage of me. The day I no longer have any value to him will be the day I die!


    At first, Junior Leopard was taking his chances, hoping that Xue Wuya meant no harm. But now, he was 100 percent sure that Xue Wuya wanted him dead. Such clarity of thoughts put him in a complex mood, which winded up with a helpless sigh. "That''s it. Now that Xue Wuya was terribly hurt, he has to stay put until he gets better even if he wanted to kill me. I''d better bring some living animals to him first, in case that he was dissatisfied and decided to take my life right away!"


    Junior Leopard stood up on his feet, practiced the mental cultivation method of Lightness Skill taught by Xue Wuya, and jumped out of the cave by the cliff.

 Chapter 36: Hunting

    Chapter 36: Hunting


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    He fell onto the ground slowly and softly, like falling leaves.


    "How useful Yanfu Inner Strength is!" Junior Leopard smiled when he touched the ground. He knew nothing about Lightness Skill when he was staying at the Wu''s. In Wu Family''s Ironware Shop, people were good at hammering skills as well as internal and external strength, but they were not experts on Lightness Skill.


    Because of this, his knowledge about Lightness Skill was limited to rumors from the Jianghu. He knew only that Lightness Skill was a general term, and that there were four different types of Lightness Skill. They are Qing, Ling, Zong, and Heng. Yanfu Inner Strength was a type of Lightness Skill that belonged to the Qing branch which used the mental cultivation methods of internal qi to make the body as light as a swallow. Through this method, one could fall softly to the ground like a falling leaf, suffering no injuries. Ling emphasized body movements, guiding the person to evade attacks. The simplest explanation of Zong was that it was powerful and strong, like picking up grass from the dry ground. Eight Movements Chasing Toad and the Floating Technique were kinds of Heng Lightness Skill.


    The Lightness Skill he learned from Wu Family''s ironware shop was the most common one, called the Floating Technique.


    As for the Yanfu Inner Strength he got from Xue Wuya, it was one of the best mental cultivation methods in the Qing branch. This was why he had been able to jump from such a high cliff with no problems, despite still only being a novice in this technique.


    "I have to admit, the scenery here is quite beautiful! If only I wasn''t being a hostage... My martial arts skills progress far more quickly if I could practice here instead of practicing outside the mountains!"


    Junior Leopard greedily took a deep breath and felt intoxicated by the fresh mountain air. Suddenly, excitement flashed on his face as his eyes fixed upon the stream. To his great surprise, there were about a dozen wild beasts below the waterfall and all along the stream, young and old alike. The most eye-catching one was the big wild boar. It was as huge as ordinary cattle, but its body was covered with black fur which was thin like needles and tough like steel. The snow-white fangs sticking out from the corners of its mouth were curly, sharp and shining softly like metal. Perhaps because the other wild beasts knew how fearsome it was, all of them seemed to keep their distance from this wild boar.


    But the wild boar was not careless at all. Although it was drinking water with its head down, its eyes were looking around vigilantly on the look-out for any incident. Maybe this was the instinct of all creatures living in Misty Mountain.


    On seeing the wild boar, Junior Leopard had begun to wonder if Xue Wuya would agree that this wild boar could be counted as two animals when he presented it to him, as nobody could deny that it was a rather good prey.


    But on second thought, he dropped the idea. Since Xue Wuya had ordered him to bring back 10 animals, Junior Leopard would indeed bring back 10 animals before midnight. It was not for Xue Wuya''s sake, but rather for the sake of Junior Leopard himself.


    In his previous life, it had become an instinct of him to fulfill the tasks of the leader. Although he had been reborn into a new world, the instincts from his previous life would serve him well in this particular situation too.


    Xue Wuya was his leader now, and it is widely acknowledged that all leaders love obedient subordinates. Even though Xue Wuya had revealed his murderous motives, the relationship thus far had been mutually beneficial. He had only met Xue Wuya for one day, and had already gotten great benefits from him. Xue Wuya was a strong Level Eight expert. If he could stay with him for a bit longer, the benefits he could get would no doubt be beyond his imagination... That was if Xue Wuya didn''t kill him.


    And naturally, to keep himself from getting killed, he must try his best to please Xue Wuya.


    It might be difficult for some people to butter a leader up. However, in Junior Leopard''s previous life, he had been a civil servant working in the new century and thus pleasing leaders was as natural as eating and drinking.


    So what was the purpose of buttering a leader up? Obviously, the most important thing was to ensure his satisfaction. Then how to ensure that he was satisfied? It was his first day working with Xue Wuya and he had to make a good impression. To leave a good impression, he had to ensure that the assigned task was accomplished perfectly. Or even better, he could exceed expectations.


    Junior Leopard did not dare to be lazy anymore, he shook his hands and took out two Kunais from up his sleeves and gripped them tightly in his hands. Now he was about 10 feet away from the wild boar. 100 feet, 30 meters... it was within his reach. Judging from his accuracy and the size of that wild boar, it would be quite easy for him to take it down.


    For whatever reason, he lost concentration just when he was throwing out his Kunais. The Kunais slipped away from his hands with a weird curve, which was exactly the concealed weapons technique that he had learned from Xue Wuya a short time ago.


    Then things became complicated. The Kunais left his hands and began to buzz around aimlessly like headless flies, not flying toward the wild boar at all. The only thing he had succeeded in was frightening away the wild beasts that were drinking water along the river.


    "Dudu ¡ª !" The sound of two Kunais slamming into two tree trunks echoed back.


    "Shit!" Junior Leopard cursed in disappointment. He took out the coal dagger he had gotten from Xue Wuya and rushed to the wild boar. The wild boar noticed the danger but it didn''t turn to flee... On the contrary, it bared its two sharp fangs at Junior Leopard and dashed to him, focusing on the place where he would fall on the ground when he lost his strength.


    "Bravo!" Junior Leopard sped up on seeing the wild boar dashing nearby. He began to use Yanfu Inner Strength. Suddenly, he jumped up to float in mid-air like a leaf in the wind. The wild boar''s attack failed, but it couldn''t stop immediately. The wild boar stumbled a couple more steps forward, and before it could stand firm it saw the flash of Junior Leopard''s coal dagger.


    "Clang!" With one dagger, both fangs of the wild boar were broken and a sound of metal clanging echoed.


    "Ow ¡ª !"


    The wild boar cried out as its fangs were cut off. Its charge came to a halt and it suddenly turned to flee. Within a second, it had disappeared from Junior Jeopard''s sight.


    "Good boy!" Junior Leopard was expecting the wild boar to fight for its life against him, but to his great surprise, it had turned around and ran immediately. From dashing towards him to escaping, the contrast was so sharp that he was still shocked. It took him a few moments to react, and then he delved into the woods without further hesitation to pursue the wild boar.


    "Beast though it is, it still thinks and acts swiftly!"


    The wild boar was racing ahead. There was no path in this dense forest for the wild boar to follow, but it managed to create a "road" through the shrubbery using its iron skin and huge frame. As for Junior Leopard, this only made his hunt easier. He followed the road that it had created without his feet even touching the ground. The coal dagger shone faintly in his hand, giving it an uncanny appearance in these dark woods. Quick as the wild boar was, it still had to clear the barriers while running, but the only thing Junior Leopard had to do was to follow its path. Moreover, he was not flying slowly. With the wild boar slowly fleeing and Junior Leopard flying quickly, he was edging ever closer to the wild boar. Suddenly, the wild boar''s body tumbled forward through the air as if it had stumbled over something on the ground.


    Junior Leopard felt a bound of joy as the wild boar fell down. Although he was getting closer and closer to it, he had spent much of his strength and internal force on the way. Who knows how much longer he could fly for? Now that the wild boar had fallen down, he was naturally thrilled. But joy begets sorrow, a dark shadow suddenly appeared in the air, blocked his way. He was moving too quickly to stop in time and fell with his head down too.


    "What''s this?!" A fishy smell wafted in the air as he fell down. Junior Leopard was terrified. He shielded himself without hesitation, the coal dagger in his hand.


    "Pu ¡ª !" The dagger stabbed into something thick and soft like old leather. Then a hot flow of blood burst out and sprayed all over Junior Leopard''s face. Only then did he find that a White-scale Python that was longer than ten feet was lying in front of him!


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 37: The Monster Toad

    Chapter 37: The Monster Toad


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Lying just ahead of Junior Leopard was a White-scaled Python over 100 feet long. His greasy scales concealed a dim light which shone out ever so slightly. His hideous head had already been sliced open by Junior Leopard''s sword, and looked even more terrifying with the blood pouring out from its wound.


    "Hiss¡­ !" The snake''s head had been severely wounded by Junior Leopard''s blade. This was clear that it was not the outcome the White-scale Python had been expecting. The force of the impact of Junior Leopard''s sword on his upper body sent shockwaves reverberating all the way down to the tip of its tail. This was Junior Leopard''s chance.


    After quickly assessing the situation, he inhaled sharply and forced his Yanfu Inner Strength into a reverse flow. He succeeded in ceasing advancing. "Argh¡­ !"


    Although Junior Leopard''s tendons and vessels had been strengthened by practicing Taiji Fist, reversing his Internal Qi produced a reaction which made them flare up with incredible pain. It felt like millions of ants were all biting at his insides at the same time. Fortunately, this pain went as quickly as it came. After this sudden burst of agony, he opened his mouth, coughed out a thin cloud of blood, and flipped his body through the air. He landed on the ground and hopped back a few steps, stopping just a few feet away from the White-scale Python.


    Noticing he landed unsteadily, the python arched its body back before pouncing forwards viciously like an arrow fired from a bow. Its body twisted, and the air was thick with the chilling scent of blood and murderous intent.


    Junior Leopard''s forehead and back had broken out in a cold sweat. He longed to turn and run, but he knew he could not run, or even turn around. In this deep forest, there would be no chance of outrunning the python. If he turned to run, it was a one-way ticket to the grave.


    Trying to keep his surging blood levels under control, Junior Leopard struggled with the snake as it coiled around him. Though the white python was very agile, it was not able to stretch out completely within this dense forest. Junior Leopard took advantage of his own nimbler frame to hide in a small space, now and again jumping out to stab at the snake with his coal dagger.


    The coal dagger was extremely sharp, and each time he slashed at the white python, another bloody gash would appear on its body. The white scales which densely covered it seemed not to make any difference.


    After suffering several of these blows, the white python soon became totally terrified of the dagger in Junior Leopard''s hands, and every time he lashed out with it, the python instinctively shrank back, buying Junior Leopard a bit of time.


    After several rounds of this battle between man and snake in the dense forest, the victor had yet to be determined when suddenly, the white python looked at Junior Leopard with an expression of abject helplessness. Suddenly, the scar on the head of the white python, strained by all of this fierce motion, split asunder. Blood oozed horrifyingly out of the wound, and the snake felt an urge to retreat. Before disappearing without a trace into the shadows, it sneezed out a puff of white mist towards Junior Leopard and shrank back into the forest.


    When seeing this strange white mist that the python had sneezed, Junior Leopard backed away, not daring to let any of it touch his body. Sure enough, everything that the mist touched, all the surrounding tendrils and trees, emitted a sizzling noise as though they had been doused with strong sulfuric acid. The vegetation shriveled and decayed, and when the white mist had cleared, the White-scale Python was nowhere to be seen.


    Even so, Junior Leopard did not dare to let his guard down, and slowly activated his mysterious eyes. He scanned the area with the faint and flickering eyes and made sure that there were only him and the sleeping wild pig ahead in the surrounding area. After he had made sure it was safe, he finally relaxed.


    "The wild beasts in these Misty Mountains really are strange¡­ Cunning and wicked demons. Whenever things go wrong, they turn their heads and run, much more cowardly than the animals around our village!" Junior Leopard furrowed his brow and went around the area that had just been enshrouded in the white mist, walking towards the unconscious wild pig.


    "You damned thing, I''ve finally caught you!"


    Said Junior Leopard angrily, while looking at the pig. In one swift motion, he cut down some vines and then used them to bind the pig''s four limbs.


    The wild pig began to stir and awoke from its slumber. It snorted a little but Junior Leopard ignored it. The sky was already beginning to get dark, and he did not have the courage to stay in the forest for much longer. After tying up the wild pig, he traced back the route he had come in by, dragging the pig all the way until he was out of the forest, standing by a crystal clear stream. He put his dagger back in its sheath and used the water of the stream to wash his body clean of blood stains. After resting for a few moments, he looked at the sky, and saw it was already completely dark, and then looked again at the snorting pig lying by his side. He suddenly felt irritated.


    "Curses, this is only the first, there are still nine more to go!" He did not dare to rest for much longer, for he feared being delayed. After this very short rest, he pulled the two Kunai down from the tree, and grasping them in his hand followed the boundary of the forest, searching.


    This time, he did not dare to risk trying any new techniques with the Kunai, and instead earnestly set out to use the Kunai according to the techniques that he had already practiced. Everything was going smoothly and before two hours passed, he had caught four deer, two river deer, a mountain goat, and two beasts that he did not know the name of. He tied them all up and put them on the pig.


    By the time everything was ready, it was already midnight. Junior Leopard didn''t dare to delay and dragged these live animals one by one to the entrance of the steep valley. Just as he was about to enter, the sound of cursing reached his ears.


    Junior Leopard was shocked, and listened carefully... that was Xue Wuya''s voice! He wondered to himself if the legendary White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou had caught up to him. He quickly dropped the animals he was carrying and crept quietly into the valley. He peered ahead and was startled by what he saw.


    Beneath the moonlight, Xue Wuya appeared like a crimson ribbon, whizzing around the caves of this valley locked in battle with a huge and grotesque toad-like creature.


    This grotesque toad was wrapped in a layer of bronze scales and had six feet. Each foot had sharp claws, and each claw was barbed. A faint blue light flashed, and with a glance, you could see that this toad was highly toxic. The terrifying thing was countless warts protruding from its back that every now and then would shoot out a turbid and highly corrosive milky white liquid. Junior Leopard watched as this white liquid sprayed onto a pile of rocks and burned a bowl-sized hole into them.


    But the most terrible object was its tongue which was lightning, fast and very sharp. Each time it sprung out, Xue Wuya was forced to step backward. It seemed that he was terrified of the toad''s tongue.


    "Oh, what on earth is this monster?!"


    Seeing the man and the monster embroiled in battle, Junior Leopard felt cautious. Suddenly, he heard a hissing sound and saw the figure of Xue Wuya leaping up, seemingly as if he wanted to escape. But the toad showed no sign of giving up, and with its two sturdy back legs, it also leaped upwards while warts on its back fired out that turbid white liquid like a vast net heading towards Xue Wuyu.


    "Vile spawn!"


    Xue Wuya''s voice bellowed out, and his body''s blood level suddenly surged and as it surged. It absorbed the toxic liquid fired by the toad. Then, a clear ray of blood blasted its way downwards at the toad, crashing into its tongue.


    Although the toad''s tongue was as formidable and tight as King Kong, it was made up only of flesh and blood. What Xue Wuya had cast down at it was a sharp weapon, and as soon as it made contact, dark black blood immediately started spraying out from the toad''s mouth. The toad let out a pitiful groan as its body tumbled down from mid-air, falling within the caves of the valley, never to re-emerge.


    Xue Wuya hit the ground and staggered a little, and peered into the cave. With a single motion of his hand, he beckoned towards his strange shaped sword and it flew back into his sleeve.


    "What are you doing hiding over there? Come out at once!"

 Chapter 38: A Sword Technique and a Thief

    Chapter 38: A Sword Technique and a Thief


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Xue Wuya abruptly turned his head, and with a quick sweep, maliciously faced Junior Leopard at his hiding place. Junior Leopard was both startled and terrified but he did not dare to stop. He ran into the valley, all the while dragging the creatures with him.


    "Master, this is ¡ª !"


    Before he could finish speaking, he felt an invisible force pushing him out of the way. Soon afterward, he saw Xue Wuya''s fingertip take ten preys and kill them all at once. He then inhaled a mouthful of fresh blood and sat down to catch his breath.


    Junior Leopard did not dare to utter a word. He dutifully waited for two hours when Xue Wuya finally opened his eyes.


    After two hours of regulating breathing, Xue Wuya recovered a bit and his pale face got some color. With bloodshot eyes, he glanced at Junior Leopard and nodded. "Well, you have done well, in such a short period of time you managed to get enough living animals and promptly brought them to me. You have helped an awful lot!"


    "All this is the master''s great fortune!" Junior Leopard quickly replied and caught on that Xue Wuya''s mood did not appear bad, therefore, he mustered up his courage and asked, "Master, what is this monster?"


    "How should I know! There are too many monsters in this world. This time around, had I not woken up in time, I am afraid the waste would have been beyond words!" Xue Wuya appeared rather gloomy.


    "Master, how about changing locations for self-cultivation?"


    "That''s not necessary!" Xue Wuya shook his head and said, "The monster has been deeply injured by me. Its pneuma has already been sapped out. It has to go underground for a while to recover its strength before it can come out again. For the time being there is no threat at all, moreover... !" After saying that, he became conscious of something, but only shook his head and spoke to Junior Leopard. "Today I am worn out. From tomorrow onwards, increase the amount of living animals. Do you understand?"


    "Your disciple understands!" Junior Leopard dared not say more. He lowered his head, but in his mind thoughts were tossing and turning.


    "Is that sword handy?" Xue Wuya asked suddenly. As if in deep thought, he glanced at the big black pig that Junior Leopard had sheared its long, sharp, protruding teeth.


    "Very handy indeed. Had it not been for this sword, I would never have been able to get so many living animals so fast!" Junior Leopard said repeatedly.


    "Handy. That is great!" Xue Wuya nodded his head and said, "I see you have some bruises on your body. How is it that when you were looking for living animals, you had no problem?"


    Junior Leopard''s bodily outlook was overall neat. Only that when he was fighting the big white-scaled python to dodge its attack, he got scratches from tree branches all over his body. Although he wasn''t badly hurt, nevertheless, he had a lot of cuts all over his body. Some of the blood had already solidified, some cuts were rather deep, and still had a bit of blood flowing out of them. He was covered with blood from head to toe, looking as if he had come from the battlefield.


    "The sword that you gave me has a sharpness that is unparalleled, naturally I would not have encountered any problems!"


    "It was an oversight on my part. Yesterday I was anxious and I needed medical attention, therefore, I did not have a serious talk with you but only gave you this coal dagger. Although you used it well, you did not seem to understand sword skills. I have here a sword skill, its movement is powerful, a formidable force made by a Stranger. I have time now and I will teach you the movement of the sword so that you will not have to exert yourself too much when you go hunting. However, its skill is mysterious, even I cannot fully understand it. You have to practice diligently if you are to master the skill of the sword," Xue Wuya said as he stared at Junior Leopard with shimmering eyes.


    "Thank you, master!" Junior Leopard was overjoyed, as if something good had fallen from heaven. There was nothing he had to lose to learn an additional skill. At least Xue Wuya, at the moment, no matter what insidious thoughts he had, Junior Leopard wouldn''t meddle too much. Judging from the current situation, he didn''t need to put too much effort nor take so many turns to kill himself.


    Xue Wuya was also a straightforward person. Now that he had decided, he was unwilling to delay even one moment. He would immediately give the sword skill and mental cultivation methods to Junior Leopard.


    Unfortunately the sword skill was just as what he told Junior Leopard, its movements were quite abstruse. Junior Leopard was no fool, but when faced with such mastery of movement, he who knew nothing about sword skills could not understand any at all ¡ª it was like mumbo jumbo. Xue Wuya continuously taught him for more than an hour. But it was of no use, he understood nothing.


    Xue Wuya was so enraged that he wanted to slap Junior Leopard to death, but in the end, he had no choice. Xue Wuya took two hours to let Junior Leopard cram the movements and mental cultivation methods. He also took some of his experiences and let Junior Leopard recite them to memory. Afterwards, before he broke out, he drove him out of the valley.


    "Add more living animals, saying is easy, how about you come and try!"


    Junior Leopard muttered to himself as he came out of the valley. It was true that an order from a leader would take the apprentice great efforts to fulfill it. Five living animals were miraculously added once he opened his mouth. Was it that Xue Wuya thought it had been particularly easy for him to hunt for living animals? While he was upset, a strange noise came from his belly. In the end he was overcome by weariness, and he walked with a kind of unsteadiness.


    Junior Leopard took hold of the wall beside him and took a breath. "Forget it, I will not think too much. Let''s first go back and rest. It''s been a long day and I''ve put in too much effort."


    Indeed, this day had been longer than usual, longer than a normal day of the year. First, he had braved the rain and, halfway up the road, he was abducted by Xue Wuya. He had been in a tense state throughout, until Xue Wuya took him as his disciple in martial arts. He helped him hunt for living animals and it wasn''t until in the afternoon that he got time to regulate breathing when he was learning the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragons in a small opening on the cliff. He had continually been on edge. Hunting was draining and he had not eaten one morsel of solid food, not to mention taken a sip of water. Right now, the days'' work was done and at the same time there was no danger to speak of. To relax and let loose was only natural. Once he relaxed, an immeasurable weariness overwhelmed him. If he continued as he was, he was afraid his body would cave in.


    "Better to go and get some rest, eat some solid food, drink some water, and get enough sleep!"


    Junior Leopard summoned up his energy and crawled back to the small opening on the half-cliff. He took some dry provisions and sat along the stream. He ate his food hastily with water from the stream and once his belly was full, he crawled back up the cliff. He sat with his legs crossed and quietly began to meditate.


    His meditation lasted through the entire night. When he woke up again, it was already daytime.


    When Junior Leopard woke up, he looked refreshed. A whole night in meditation had dispelled the exhaustion of yesterday and all was left in its place was an empty stomach and he was hungry once more.


    He walked to the mouth of the cave and all around him he saw branches swaying. The distant hills were filled with howling roars of beasts and the flying birds up in the skies passing by from time to time. He had his feet in the stream and the next moment, a flock of wild beasts came to the stream to drink water. Had he looked at them, he would have seen a perfectly beautiful landscape painting, a perfect harmony of nature right before his eyes.


    Sadly, such harmonious scenery could not last long. Out of the thicket darted out a panther who rushed to the stream, grabbing a wild goat by the neck and scattering all the wild beasts who were drinking water. The animals then all took flight in fear.


    Junior Leopard did not stop to think but raised his hand. With one dart, he hit the panther directly in the middle of its left eye. The panther howled loudly, put the wild goat down, and turned back. Junior Leopard was not going to give the panther a chance to run away and he hit it on one of its legs. The panther wailed and fell to the ground. He struggled to get up, but it wasn''t easy.


    Junior Leopard fell down from the cliff and the tip of his foot missed the panther by an inch. He pulled out the nail that was inflicting so much pain from the panther''s eye and cut its throat. When he looked at the goat that had just been seized by the panther, its throat was already gnawed, and although it wasn''t broken, it lay twitching on the ground. It did not have much time left.


    "Saved me the effort!" Junior Leopard smiled. He took both carcasses and put them under the big sycamore tree. He threw the panther aside, tore the goat open, washed it, lit a fire, and set it on top of the rack.


    It was the technique he learnt in the village from Wang Tianlei and other hunters. When he used the same technique today, he thought it was very convenient. His only regret was the lack of salt.


    He lifted up the wild goat and gently controlled the temperature of the fire. Gradually, a faint aroma from the goat roasting on the rack drifted around.


    Looking at the roasting goat and smelling the sweet aroma, the smile on Junior Leopard''s face gradually spread out. He was imagining what it would be like once the goat was done roasting and ready to eat when he suddenly felt as if there was something curving him under his foot.


    He lowered his head and was dumbfounded.


    "What is this thing? A squirrel? A chipmunk? Or some other thing?"


    At that moment, beneath his feet, a fist-sized, stout thing was trying to arch his feet. On closer inspection, it was a chipmunk-like creature. This little monster was covered in grayish-brown fur, with a furry tail dragging behind it and bending itself hard against his feet. He didn''t know what it was arching.


    Junior Leopard frowned, put out a hand, and by its tail, he lifted it upside down.


    "Squeak, squeak, squeak ¡ª !" Junior Leopard lifted it and the little monster was very uncomfortable. His mouth creaked and squeaked. His four claws were scratching in the air. He struggled and struggled to free himself from Junior Leopard''s grasp.


    "What a bold fellow!" Junior Leopard''s heart jolted. After two days of contact, Junior Leopard knew something of the wild beasts in the mountain. They were sneaky and clever, vigilant, and extremely wary of strange things. Whenever there was something amiss, they would scatter and run. Wherever would you encounter such a creature ¡ª whose size was smaller than Junior Leopard''s fist, seemingly without strength, yet to one''s surprise audacious enough to run up to his foot and arch him?


    At this point, Junior Leopard had brought the little monster before him and had finally seen its face. It was a little chipmunk. The only difference from the chipmunks on earth was the silvery fluff on this little one''s forehead. It was very conspicuous and in the sun it had a silvery gleam.


    "Interesting!" Looking at the chipmunk''s eye bone, the little chipmunk''s eyes turned continuously. Its mouth was wide open, its big teeth were bright and white, and it squeaked. Maybe it had moved too much, and its body was spinning in midair.


    Junior Leopard looked at this little monster in fascination and did not let go.


    After a few spins, the little monster stopped struggling.


    "Well, why is it not moving?"


    Junior Leopard was stunned, and at that moment, the little monster was facing him with its back.


    Suddenly, "Poof!" A strange smell from the chipmunk''s body spurt out.


    "What the fuck ¡ª ?!" By the time Junior Leopard realized that something was wrong, he had already inhaled a bit of the smell.


    "This odor ¡ª "


    Although Junior Leopard had a bit of resistance, the smell got into his nose and his stomach began to squirm. The acid in his stomach shot up which led him to relax his grip and the little monster fell to the ground.


    "Blargh ¡ª !" Junior Leopard turned, held his breath, and bent facing towards the stream. He vomited the acid from his stomach in the stream. Had he not held his breath in time, who knew what would have happened.


    "Phew, phew, phew ¡ª !" After Junior Leopard had finished throwing up, he didn''t dare to breathe in that spot. Only after climbing several meters did he take a big breath and waited until he exhaled out all the air. On turning his head, his lungs were within an inch of exploding.


    It is said that the rat pulls the turtle, and now the chipmunk was dragging away his half-roasted goat. Toot, toot, toot. It went off straight to the woods. He didn''t know how so much energy could come from such a small body. Junior Leopard looked back only to see the half-cooked goat. On the edge of the thick forest, it shook for a moment, then it was dragged by the little monster.


    "What the fuck ¡ª !" Junior Leopard flew into a rage. He leaped thirty feet high and rushed straight into the woods, vowing to take the thief by force!

 Chapter 39: An Odd Little Monster

    Chapter 39: An Odd Little Monster


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Feeling that his own mouth stank, Junior Leopard spat hard at the air. He made his body float, and dashed forth into woods, at a speed that was quicker than the little chipmunk. He caught up to it quickly, but didn''t pounce on it, after all, the chipmunk had a special technique which had already got him once, he wasn''t planning to fall for it again.


    He followed closely the little monster through the woods. However, before long his face had turned livid with rage.


    The meatball-like little creature looked incredibly fat, yet was surprisingly agile. Its chubby legs were moving at a rapid pace while its tail pulled the grilled mutton behind.


    Yes, it had two short legs standing upright and running forward, while its two forefeet were waving like human hands. If it were not so small and so clearly a chipmunk, Junior Leopard would have thought the little creature carrying the grilled mutton with its tail was a human.


    It was not hard for Junior Leopard to catch up with it. The real problem, however, was the farts. It farted all along the way, leaving a trail of incredible stink. Junior Leopard was lucky that he was quick and held his breath in the nick of time or he would have been hit again as he had been when he had suffered that little lapse of concentration.


    The little monster farted at regular short intervals and farted its way through the dangerous woods, carrying a half-cooked lamb leg. Everywhere it went, all the other animals ran away in a hurry, while the slower ones that got caught in by farts, ended up in fits of vomiting just like Junior Leopard had experienced before.


    The strange thing was that the leaves of some plants became withered when exposed to the awful stink, as if they knew they would get hurt.


    Nonetheless, the little monster kept showing his skills off, running fearlessly.


    Junior Leopard stuck at it, even though he had already given up hope for the half-roasted mutton, which would be poisonous even if he did take it back.


    He had already developed a grudge against the little monster that had no special skills except farting. Perhaps the nasty fart was the reason why all the animals made way for it. What''s more, it was not worth all the trouble to hunt it for it has very little meat to offer anyway.


    As fleshy as it was, it was merely a fist-sized chipmunk, too small to be a good prey.


    Junior Leopard, however, unlike those animals, was basically inviting trouble. Hit by the nasty fart twice, he had a bone to pick with the little monster. And now that he had come so far and so deep into the woods, there was no going back.


    Having confirmed that it was not a dangerous creature, Junior Leopard decided to get his revenge. He dashed from the bushes and threw himself at the little monster.


    The vigilant creature smelt danger and farted twice. "Puff, puff!" But that little trick could no longer do any harm to Junior Leopard now, for he was already holding his breath.


    Junior Leopard showed no mercy to the little monster, grabbing at it with his hook-like fingers.


    Having seen real danger coming, the little monster squeaked sharply, its hair standing upright. Suddenly, its tail loosened and, incredibly agile for a fat little chipmunk, it jumped ten feet up into the air.


    Seeing this, Junior Leopard smiled coldly. Admittedly, that creature was fast, but he could not forgive himself for letting it escape. He hung in the air, hand stretched upward like a paw, and cupped the little monster within the palm of his hand, as quick as lightning.


    "Let''s see if you can still make a run for it." Junior Leopard smiled, proud of himself. But something strange happened when the little monster was trapped in the palm of his hand.


    The moment it was caught by Junior Leopard''s hand, the little monster suddenly dodged and magically disappeared. Junior Leopard found he had nothing in his hand.


    "What happened?" Junior Leopard was shocked. He landed on the ground, turned his head and unexpectedly saw the little monster on a tree branch. It stared at Junior Leopard confused, wondering why this boy had followed him all the way here.


    The little creature lived a simple life... picking up anything that seemed delicious or interesting and farting its way through any difficulties. What''s more, it was so agile on the field that few were able to chase it this far.


    On the other hand, it never had seen a creature like Junior Leopard before, so it stared at him curiously.


    Junior Leopard, however, took this quizzical expression for a mocking one. It had dodged his attack with ease and was now laughing at him, perched safely on a tree branch. "How dare it!?" Junior Leopard could not stand such brazen humiliation anymore and threw himself once again at it.


    Seeing Junior Leopard''s lunge aroused a flash of intrigue in the little monster''s eyes. It sat still on the branch, waiting for the big hand and seemingly unworried about being caught.


    But Junior Leopard was more careful this time. He trapped the little monster into a tight corner with one hand outstretched and the other swinging quickly.


    "Phew"


    Just at that moment that he was about to grab it, the little monster vanished again, even while the other hand of his was still blocking the space.


    "Teleportation?"


    A strange thought entered his mind when he saw that the little monster had vanished again only to show up from nowhere on another branch behind him.


    "That little monster is able to teleport?!"


    As bizarre as it was, Junior Leopard could not think of any other explanation. If it were not teleportation, he should have felt something, even if the little monster was fast enough to escape from his attack.


    The little monster just vanished into thin air, only to reappear as if from nowhere. There was no better explanation for such bizarre occurrences.


    Although he was astonished, Junior Leopard decided to try a few more times, so he attacked again. "Phew!"


    And again. "Phew!"


    And again. "Phew!"


    And again. "Phew!" What the hell?


    Now Junior Leopard was sure that, if it was not teleportation, it was at least something that he was out of his depth with.


    "But it was definitely messing with me, or it would not have moved within 100 feet every single time! And it can''t carry anything while doing this, or it would have run away with the grilled mutton."


    Junior Leopard was worn out and dripping with sweat after all the chasing and attacking, which made him look like an 80-year-old lady trying to catch a rabbit in the grass.


    Now he knew what the animals around here felt like, because that bloody little thing had farted several times during the dodging, making this a highly toxic environment.


    "There is no way I can catch him... " After several fruitless attempts, Junior Leopard cast a resentful look at the little monster, before deciding to give it a rest, disappearing quickly from the woods.


    Having seen Junior Leopard leave, the little monster looked at the direction where he disappeared to and then looked at the grilled mutton on the ground. It had a happy humanized look on its face.


    "Phew!" It jumped from the branch, rolled its tail to fetch the grilled mutton and went on strutting ahead.


    After a few seconds, Junior Leopard showed up again in the dense woods, hanging behind the little monster from afar.

 Chapter 40: The Magic Weapon

    Chapter 40: The Magic Weapon


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard''s anger had cooled down after following the little monster for about five miles.


    The little monster was amusing. It farted along the way while dragging the grilled mutton. This made all other creatures flee and that was fine. What was more amusing was that after walking a few miles, the little monster had begun to sing. Junior Leopard thought it was breathing heavily initially, but listening again had astonished him. It was actually singing and there was even some rhythm. Each step taken was large, with its hands shaking widely. It was as proud as a peacock. The monster''s fluff fluttered in the gentle wind while a cluster of white fur flew upward. It was just like chipmunks that he had seen in animations during his past life.


    In the wild woods, a chipmunk was dragging food home. The scene was good enough to calm his anger completely.


    "Let''s see where on earth you can run to!"


    As his anger over the little monster diminished, his curiosity increased instead. He followed it for about three more miles, and then suddenly the little monster traveled downward carrying the grilled mutton.


    Junior Leopard looked forward and found that there was a slope at his front. Down the slope, there laid a grass field. Various plants grew in the thick woods, from huge, ancient trees, to short bushes. Vines wound around old trees, forming a huge net that trapped all creatures in. The forest was gloomy and cold, as sunlight was entirely blocked by these huge trees. In some parts of the forest, there wasn''t even beam of light. It would be impossible for ordinary people to walk here if they entered the woods. He would be lost until death, even if he was lucky enough to meet no wild beasts here.


    But Junior Leopard didn''t expect that there was an open space here.


    The shape of this terrain was irregular. Beside it was a steep cliff, the area of which was about 200 to 300 square meters. The ground was all covered by gray soil and seemed normal, but it was entirely barren.


    Since this place was barren, it was the brightest area in this forest. As adequate sunlight was able to enter, the soil was drier than other places that were damp and cold.


    A few creatures were enjoying the sun here. But all of them departed when they saw the little monster coming forth. They weren''t fleeing from a threat, however, they walked peacefully as if they had seen someone they didn''t like and decided to turn away. Even the carnivorous beasts didn''t give a glance at the grilled mutton that was being carried behind the little monster.


    The little monster was used to their reactions, nor did it care about how they would react. It walked directly towards the cliff dragging the grilled mutton.


    Junior Leopard noticed a small cave down the cliff. It was small but spacious enough for a 10-year-old child to enter without bending down.


    The little monster stored that half-cooked goat in the cave before moving its body, "Hiu¡ª" It disappeared. Then it appeared on a branch of an enormous red pine nearby the open space. It picked some pine nuts and disappeared, appearing in the cave again.


    The little monster was having goat meat with pine nuts merrily. Junior Leopard couldn''t understand why it had such a large appetite, considering it was only as big as a man''s fist. It only took the little monster a few moments to eat up half of the goat meat, let alone those pine nuts.


    After finishing, the little monster hiccupped and wandered deeper inside the cave, holding its chubby belly. It lied down on a small piece of cloth and started to sleep.


    The cave was actually shallow, with its length less than four meters. Junior Leopard could have easily seen what was happening in the cave from outside.


    "Cloth? Where does the cloth come from? Could it be possible that a man lived here before?!"Junior Leopard thought curiously. He observed the cave carefully, still in disbelief that someone could have lived there once.


    "How lazy this little monster is!" It had fallen asleep on the cloth when Junior Leopard saw it again.


    "Either the little monster has some unique techniques to protect itself or it is highly alert to danger. Or it is so lucky that coyotes haven''t taken it away when it sleeps defenselessly during daylight."


    Feeling puzzled, Junior Leopard stopped hiding and walked directly towards the cave. As he continued, his footfalls were not quiet. On the contrary, he even used his inner strength, each step heavy like drums. The noise was loud enough to wake up a sleeping pig much less a sensitive chipmunk.


    Despite his expectations, the little monster didn''t notice him at all. Junior Leopard was at the entrance of the cave now, but it was still asleep. What was even more surprising was that it turned its back and yawned as if enjoying the rest to the utmost. There was a faint sound of snoring between its nose and mouth.


    "Damn, the little monster is lazier than a pig! I would like to see what you can rely on that you are so reckless in Misty Mountain!"


    While it was true that Junior Leopard''s anger over the little monster had already disappeared, but he was still discontented when it was sleeping in front of him so recklessly. He reached out to grab the little monster, but to his surprise, a lump of golden lights suddenly stopped him from approaching when he was one foot away. The lights emanated from the yellow cloth.


    "Ah ¡ª "


    The cloth didn''t just stop him. Junior Leopard was off guard when his hand touched the yellow lights, he suddenly felt as if there were dozens of steel needles penetrating his hands. He was overwhelmed by a burst of pain and eventually couldn''t help but scream.


    His cry was loud. The little monster woke suddenly and saw Junior Leopard yelling at the entrance of the cave. It didn''t panic but giggled instead.


    It was fortunate that the pain did not last long. He couldn''t feel any after a while. After his hand escaped the lights, he checked it but everything was normal. The only difference was that his hand was slightly red as if burnt by something hot. While the little monster watched him gleefully, his mood was rather gloomy.


    "Hell, I''d better check the almanac before going out in the future. It''s not worthy to suffer losses for no reason from this little monster!"


    Apart from feeling gloomy, Junior Leopard also felt a sort of rapture.


    Magic weapon, that was a genuine magic weapon!


    He was sure enough that the lights were from the yellow cloth on the little monster''s body. Whatever the yellow cloth was, he knew it must be something unique. And there was no reason to keep calm as a magic weapon had appeared in front of him.


    No longer was he an innocent kid now. While he lived in the slums of Qingyang Market in Jianghu, he had learned naturally that magic weapons existed in the world. During his past life, the supernatural fictions also mentioned magic weapons. But for the real magic weapons in this world, the ways to get them were clear, but the places to find them were much more difficult.


    As noted, the so-called Special Technique was a way that people converted Evil Qi to Qi that was useful for people. Junior Leopard was practicing the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, it was a technique that transformed two forms of Evil Qi to Sword Qi. Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang and Xue Wuya''s Bloodfire Gang both belonged to special techniques. Gangqi was regarded as the top special technique in the world. Except for the ways that directly transformed Evil Qi for personal use, there was another form of special technique. The other technique combined Evil Qi with some unique materials or treasures with a special technique, ultimately the treasure and Evil Qi fused to create a magic weapon.

 Chapter 41: Three Realms Division

    Chapter 41: Three Realms Division


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Compared to the magic weapons he had read about in supernatural fictions before, the number of magic weapons in real life was very small. Since it was hard to acquire Evil Qi, celestial treasures, and mysterious objects and without a way of practicing the Evil Qi, it would be in vain even the three were well prepared. As a result, rumors of magic weapons were popular in Jianghu while the real objects were hardly seen. In fact, most magic weapons were totally unknown, Evil Qi, celestial treasure, and mysterious objects.


    The yellow cloth on the little monster was on the verge of bursting out and it surely was an unknown magic weapon. Seeing this, he couldn''t help laughing because he had never imagined that he could find such a treasure someday.


    However, it looked like that the magic weapon was closely connected with the little monster, and the monster might be an obstacle if he wanted to acquire the weapon.


    The little monster suddenly squeaked when Junior Leopard was lost in thought. His anger was instantly reignited. The little monster was so proud that it was twisting its ass towards Junior Leopard when he looked down at it.


    "You damn tiny son of a bitch!" Junior Leopard was totally outraged. Now that the little monster had looked down upon him, he wanted to scared it and had a real experience of the power of the yellow cloth by the way. So, a Kunai flew out and shot straight towards the little monster, with one of his arms extended.


    The little monster was scared and stopped twisting its ass when it saw something glittering coldly. Then golden light from the yellow cloth occurred once again when the kunai was one foot away. Both met with each other.


    "Bang!" The kunai flew out after a dazzling golden light flashed and was embedded in the stone cave wall. Frightened by what had happened just now, the little monster unexpectedly sat down on the ground dazed.


    It was Junior Leopard''s turn to laugh at the opponent.


    However, the little monster might be xenogeneic and be endowed with intelligence as early as it was born. Realizing it was being laughed at, it squeaked furiously again while making threatening gestures with its forelegs, making fists like a human.


    Junior Leopard was relaxed since he gave into his anger. Now, seeing the little monster waving its fists like a clawing devil, he was not mad at it but felt extreme kinship instead.


    "This little guy is so cute and is smarter than the pets in my past life. It will be a lot of fun if I keep it. But, it is too smart to be caught. How can I succeed?" At his point, a picture suddenly flashed in his mind, when the Wang She captured the One-eyed Wolf at the entrance of West Mountain that year.


    At that time, Li Haoran was suffering from cruel torture when the Wang She killed the One-eyed Wolf, but he was not blind and caught the whole process of this fight. This left him a deep impression before he died. Later, Li Haoran''s memory was absorbed by Junior Leopard and the picture was also implanted deeply into his mind.


    And the eccentric rune that Wang She marked on the head of the One-eyed Wolf was absolutely clear to Junior Leopard. Junior Leopard did not know that technique and had never heard about related rumors in the Jianghu of Qingyang Market. But thinking of the picture in his mind, it was not difficult for him to realize that the rune might be a technique for capturing evil beasts.


    The little monster in front of him, whose spiritual intelligence had been activated, could be considered an evil beast even it was small. And considering its Apparate, Junior Leopard desired to capture it.


    However, the little monster was under the protection of the yellow cloth currently, and Junior Leopard had no idea that could make his dream come true.


    "Well, anyway, I have already found its residence, and I guess it''s impossible for the monster to move for sake of protection since he had the yellow cloth. I have a long time to capture it when I come up with methods in future. It''s afternoon now, and I have to catch 15 living animals. I''d better hurry up and not waste time on it!" Junior Leopard was a little bored when he thought of his task of catching 15 living animals, so he turned around and walked into the cave, aiming to take kunai on the wall back.


    But unexpectedly, he was shocked when he walked near the stone wall.


    Besides the kunai, some runes and images charged into his eyes unexpectedly, distorting his mind. He attentively stared at the contents of the wall and laughed when they were clear to him.


    Do you know what happened?


    The runes on the stone wall were the record of a special technique named Three Realms Division.


    "I once wondered how could you little guy be so powerful and how could you master the Apparate. Oh my god, it turned out to be a special technique."


    Images carved on the stone wall were just the special technique: Three Realms Division, once the technique was mastered. The practitioner could instantaneously move freely in a certain range, something similar to Apparate.


    The runes were only recordings of the special technique. And as for why it was recorded here; the practice method was on the several images above.


    Due to the fact that Three Realms Division was a special technique, Evil Qi was naturally one of its necessities. Well, for practicing this technique, a kind of floating Evil Qi was required.


    This floating Evil Qi was extremely rare in the world and hard to acquire. According to the record, the person who carved the Three Realms Division here merely owned the special technique but lacked Evil Qi to practice it. However, he came here when he wanted to cultivate somewhere quiet in his later years and found that the floating Qi he searched for would occur at noon and midnight respectively here by chance. Therefore, he carved the Three Realms Division by runes and images on the stone wall for the inheritance among later generations.


    Unexpectedly, no one touched this area except for the little monster. The monster was so blessed that it practiced this special technique unconsciously, which became the best way to preserve its life and escape.


    "No wonder I can''t catch this little guy. I had once thought that it was born with some supernatural powers, such as apparition. Although the little monster practiced the special technique by itself, it was even less available than being endowed with supernatural powers by nature. But unfortunately, it was not human after all and did not really understand the way of practicing even if its spiritual intelligence was activated. In fact, people with Three Realms Division could freely move a distance of 1,000 feet (nearly 333 meters) while the little monster could only move 100 feets."


    Thinking of the range that little monster escaped from his capture, Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows, carefully reading the practice method on the wall and imprinted it in his mind while fiddling with his kunai.


    "At this moment, the clock has struck noon but midnight is far on the way, so the floating Evil Qi will not occur in a short time. I''ll come here once again when I have finished my task and make a study of it slowly and thoroughly that time. How powerful the Three Realms Division is! With it, I can freely move in a second within 1,000 feets, which might be a wonderful way to protect myself."

 Chapter 42: Master and Apprentice

    Chapter 42: Master and Apprentice


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard had managed to temper his excitement, as soon as he had got his kunai back he immediately began walking his way out of the jungle. He was overcome with joy when saw a herd of beasts drinking water along a stream. It was a golden opportunity for sure and he had no reason to let them off. Then, he threw his two kunai, injuring the legs of two buffalo that collapsed on the ground near the stream. They were alive but never to rise again.


    The wildfowl and beasts were considered to be animals with the smartest spiritual mind. But while frightened by the murderous kunai, they had all fled in panic. Unfortunately, they were just common animals and were absolutely no match for Junior Leopard, even if some of them had rough skins or agile movements. In addition, Junior Leopard was filled with desire for the Three Realms Division and wanted to finish his task as early as possible so that h this special technique. He had no plans of wasting time here. As a result, he quickly launched the kunai once again and employed a flying body movement. After several rounds of this, a dozen beasts could be seen collapsed on the ground. These beasts were hamstrung like those two buffaloes, hurt but alive. Then Junior Leopard counted the number of the hurt animals after the others had all fled away. There were 16, among whom 15 were for Xue Wuya and one was for himself since he didn''t have anything because of that little monster.


    Bundling them together, Junior Leopard dragged them into the steep valley.


    Nothing out of the ordinary had happened in the valley. Xue Wuya was sitting cross-legged, inhaling and exhaling with his eyes closed while a bloody mist boiled around him. Junior Leopard guessed that this was the critical point of his practice.


    He dared not disturb him, laying the living animals down about 100 feets (nearly 33 meters) away from Xue Wuya and waited quietly.


    An hour later, the bloody mist surrounding Xue Wuya suddenly shook, before beginning to fade and finally be absorbed into his nose in the form of two bloody stripes. At this moment, Xue Wuya opened his eyes. Seeing Junior Leopard, he signaled for the living animals and drank up all the blood of them from their slit throats, just the same as yesterday.


    Xue Wuya''s skin flashed a trace of red for a moment after he had absorbed the 15 living animals. In an instant, his skin became pale again.


    "You''re back!?" Xue Wuya waved at Junior Leopard and said, "So early today... "


    "These beasts were gathered together drinking from a stream, they were easy targets. If I hadn''t slept for such a long time today, I would have been much earlier!"


    "You are very thoughtful!" Xue Wuya nodded, and it seemed that he was quite satisfied with Junior Leopard, "Have you practiced the swordsmanship I taught you yesterday? And how do you feel?"


    Junior Leopard was a little surprised to hear Xue Wuya ask this question, he had never believed that Xue Wuya was serious about teaching him martial arts, he had been busy struggling with the little monster since he woke up this morning. This resulted in very little time to think of the movement Xue Wuya had taught yesterday.


    "I, I haven''t... yet."


    "Humph!" Xue Wuya made a sound coldly and his face turned gloomy as well, "The essence of martial arts skills is practice and even more practice. Even if I taught you only one sword method, that one was abstruse and mysterious enough for you to gain a secret technique from it. But you gave it up! So how can I assign important things to you with any confidence?"


    Junior Leopard''s heart jumped; he felt Xue Wuya had something else to say. Well, now that Xue Wuya didn''t point out his meaning directly, Junior Leopard did not dare to ask. He simply bowed his head and reluctantly said, "Sorry."


    Xue Wuya didn''t want to make him feel too pressured, so he stopped admonishing Junior Leopard after his apologies and instead ordered him to stand aside. He began to explain that movement of the swordsmanship once again.


    Yesterday, Xue Wuya was seriously injured and lost a lot of his pneuma due to the fight with the evil monster toad, so he just explained the movement hastily and simply. Junior Leopard didn''t catch it very clearly.


    Today, Xue Wuya had just finished resting and had feasted on several living animals, and was not bothered by the Evil Monster Toad. Some of his energy had recovered. Because of this, he was calmer and much more patient when he showed the swordsmanship to Junior Leopard and even taught him some basic movements. This not only made Junior Leopard extremely excited but was a great benefit to him too.


    Xue Wuya''s specialty was not the sword and his arteries and veins were damaged by the Sword Qi of the White Blade Master Lu Shaoyou. However, he was still a Level Eight master and his cultivation was extremely deep and rare in the world. While his swordsmanship might not rival Lu Shaoyou who was known as the Blade Master, it was far beyond the abilities of common swordsmen and knights. Junior Leopard was only a Level One greenhorn with no experience, but he had a general and basic understanding of how to use a sword through Xue Wuya''s explanation.


    It took Xue Wuya almost six hours to finish this course. During the explanation, Junior Leopard raised some difficulties he had met in daily practice. To Junior Leopard, these difficulties seemed to be an impassable chasm; to Xue Wuya, they were just tiny puddles, without much to worry about. So Xue Wuya explained them one by one in detail, raising some other points that Junior Leopard ignored before. From this scene, Xue Wuya and Junior Leopard looked like a real master and apprentice pair. One taught carefully and the other learned earnestly.


    Xue Wuya stopped teaching when the thin crescent moon ascended in the night sky and the valley had become totally dark. His face looked rather tired.


    Junior Leopard was the kind of man who was good at knowing how to behave by studying other people''s words and expressions. So upon seeing Xue Wuya''s pale complexion, he decided to bid his master farewell and left the valley. What he had learned today was quite an amount for him to digest.


    "Alas! I haven''t eaten all day again, but somehow I don''t feel as tired as yesterday." Junior Leopard whispered to himself, and couldn''t help laughing bitterly when he saw the dark sky. "I was prepared to study the Three Realms Division, but it seems to be impossible today. I had better review what I learned today, in case of being scolded tomorrow when I fetch the living animals for him."


    Recalling how Xue Wuya had behaved today, Junior Leopard was a bit confused. "What did he mean? He must have some evil intent behind acting as my master, but why did he teach me martial arts with great kindness and patience? Did his conscience awaken? Oh, that''s impossible. This man is so bloody and evil, how could he become so kind? I''m sure that he is secretly plotting some sinister scheme."


    This was not just Junior Leopard''s paranoia. He had inferred this from some clues. Of these clues, the most important one was that Xue Wuya had given his manuscript for the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique to Junior Leopard on the first day that they had met. The manuscript was not a common book like The Heart of Girls , it contained Xue Wuya''s experience and understanding of martial arts skills. It also had records of the comparison of Bloodfire Gang of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. It would be a real threat if the information was leaked, it would be easy for his foes to learn his weaknesses from the manuscript and kill him that way. It was a very secret and dangerous book that ought not to have fallen into the hands of anyone. Not even good people; let alone him, a man of the Dark Sect. In this way, Junior Leopard had inferred that Xue Wuya had decided to kill him when he gave him the manuscript Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique.


    But his performance today was completely beyond Junior Leopard''s expectation. "It''s abnormal. When people taught someone about martial arts skills, the first step was to ask them what they wanted to learn. Well, Xue Wuya gave Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique to me, which was somehow just my taste. But why did he teach me swordsmanship for no reason, and in such detail? I had never learned it before, and what he is skilled in is not swordsmanship, either. Could it be there is some problem with that strange movement he taught me today?"


    Entertaining this thought, Junior Leopard thought of other speculations when he recalled Xue Wuya''s words at the beginning, "How can I assign important things to you with assurance?"

 Chapter 43: Get the Treasure

    Chapter 43: Get the Treasure


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Xue Wuya though that even though Junior Leopard was smart, he was just a 10 years old child. Xue Wuya could keep Junior Leopard in his palm by getting him some benefits and behaving like a good teacher. However, it was Xue Wuya''s greatest miscalculation that he never thought there was a cunning and sophisticated adult soul residing in this child''s body.


    When Junior Leopard stepped out of the valley, he was very hungry and smiled bitterly. He went to the stream where he wanted to roast the little deer that he hunted before. Once he came to the stream, he found that the deer had been eaten by some unknown beasts, leaving only a mass of flesh and pale white bones. The scene was terrifying.


    "Shit!" Junior Leopard cursed in a low voice. Instead of eating the rations like he did the day before, he went straight into the jungle to catch beasts that had come out to search for food at night. A couple moments later, he came out of the jungle with a wild boar in his hand. He went to the stream, then washed and skinned the boar in preparation for roasting on the fire he made. There was no one to bother him as he ate. After enjoying the delicious meat beside the stream, Junior Leopard then went into the half cliff cave for a short rest. He was quite refreshed and thus wasn''t really tired. Thinking of Xue Wuya''s attitude toward him today, he did not want to procrastinate any further. So he began to study the swordsmanship movement that Xue Wuya had passed on to him.


    Since this sword skill was very mysterious, not to mention he had never learned any sword skill before, Junior Leopard wasn''t paying much attention when Xue Wuya showed it to him the day before. He just memorized the sword skill like an elementary school student who simplified a physics question to better understand it. It was actually quite impressive. He had given up on learning every step of the process and its meaning because he knew it was impossible for him to understand.


    However, today Xue Wuya seemed adamant on forcing him to understand the technique in its entirety, even starting from the foundation. Though that was easier said than done.


    Usually, it would take more than 10 years for ordinary people to master the knowledge of the extremely difficult high-energy physics problems when they only knew the multiplication table before. Of course, prodigies were the only exception. But Junior Leopard was by no means a genius, which was painfully clear to both him and Xue Wuya. Despite knowing this, Xue Wuya still passed the sword skill on to him, which either meant he was crazy or he had other aims.


    But it wasn''t important at that time whether Xue Wuya was crazy or had other aims. The only thing Junior Leopard could do was to try to grasp the sword skill movement in accordance with how Xue Wuya was teaching him. Of course, first he needed to master the basics. Otherwise, getting an insight into the sword skill would just be a joke.


    Facts also proved that Zhou Bao was not good at sword skill. When Xue Wuya taught him sword skill, he recorded down a lot of things that Xue Wuya had explained clearly. However, when he practiced himself, he found that he could not really master it. He needed to think about and practice every step of the movement, each basic method of directing the strength, again and again. Even then he barely understood some parts. Two or three hours later, a wave of exhaustion finally hit him. So he simply put the dagger down and fell down where he stood and slept, without thinking about anything else.


    When he woke up, the sun was shining. He walked to the entrance to the cave and his brow slightly wrinkled because the number of beasts that came to drink was much fewer than usual. He looked up and saw a large group of animals and birds gathering about three or four miles away down the stream. Seeing this, he didn''t need any time at all to understand what was wrong. These beasts and birds at Misty Mountain were not fools. Since some animals were killed nearby by him a couple days ago, they all then went to the far side of the stream to drink water in an effort for self-preservation.


    However, it was not so far for Junior Leopard, because he could simply walk over there. But he couldn''t do too much for being feared of scaring away the beasts. If the beasts decided to hunt for food in the jungle, it would make things more dangerous for him.


    Thinking of this, he was not in a hurry to hunt. Anyway, after a couple days, he found out it was no challenge for him at all to hunt ordinary wild beasts. As such, it was no real worry for him. Instead, his mind was once again caught up by the special technique in the jungle.


    Of course, his mind was caught by not only the special technique but also the piece of yellow cloth that the little monster was sitting on.


    The magic weapon was quite intriguing!


    You don''t say. With this thought in mind, Junior Leopard rubbed the small porcelain bottle in his hands, and the corners of his mouth flashed a strange smile.


    Today, his purposes were not only the piece of yellow cloth and Three Realms Division but also the little monster.


    The small porcelain bottle in his arms was filled with Drowsy Drug that he refined before.


    Junior Leopard began to pay attention to this thing after realizing its amazing power. During the half year he had spent at the Wu Family, he bought some medicines to boil Anesthetic Pills from time to time. He would ground them into powders, which became the Drowsy Drug. He refined a dozen bottles of the powders. When he went back home, he brought all the bottles with him just in case they were found by the Wu Family. He didn''t expect that he would be arrested by Xue Wuya.


    As a Level Eight expert, Xue Wuya captured Junior Leopard with other aims. Since Xue Wuya never thought of him owning an odd thing like Drowsy Drug, he, of course, wouldn''t search his body. So the 13 bottles of Drowsy Drug were safe and sound on his body.


    After finding the half-cliff cave, he settled down there for a while. He dug a hole in the cave, where he buried in the 13 bottles of Drowsy Drug in case of accidents. He had planned to hurt Xue Wuya in a trap with the Drowsy Drug in the next couple of days. Seeing the grotesqueness of little monster the day before, he wanted to conquer it. So he dug out a bottle to take with him. He intended to go to the open space where he led the little monster to, then he knocked it out with Drowsy Drug, killing two birds with one stone.


    It wasn''t an honorable way of dealing with the little chipmunk. But at this point, he didn''t really care about the honorable way of doing it. He was not a famous master, and he was just a pitiful creature captured by a devil. So, he didn''t care about whether he acted like a wretch or not.


    Having made the decision, Junior Leopard went directly into the jungle without delay. Since he had just gone through there yesterday, he was already familiar with the area and the way of getting there. It wasn''t that far away. After he walked for about ten miles, he then climbed over a slope to the open space.


    Junior Leopard''s trip there was a smooth one, since he encountered no insects or beasts on the way. When Junior Leopard came to the slope, he saw the piece of yellow cloth in the cave was still on the ground, but without the little chipmunk.


    "Where is that little monster? Dose it go out to search for food?" Junior Leopard pondered, then he heard a slight "pop!" sound.


    In his mind he knew this was not going to end well, so he acted quickly and held his breath as he went back down the slope for about 10 feet before stopping. Junior Leopard looked back in trepidation and saw little monster lying on a branch, making a face at him.


    "You are not afraid of strangers, eh?" Junior Leopard thought, with a wry smile in his heart. Fussing about little monster''s behavior, Junior Leopard rushed to the little monster with a leap. Lying motionlessly on the branch like yesterday, the little monster just waited for Junior Leopard to come and try to catch him. Once Junior Leopard came to little monster, it started Three Realms Division to escape, eyes seemingly filled with excitement. The little monster seemed to think of this as a sort of game.


    However, the little monster didn''t expect that this time Junior Leopard didn''t want to catch him. Almost a foot away from the little monster, Junior Leopard released little colorless and odorless Drowsy Drug.


    The Drowsy Drug was actually all white powders. Hiding a few powders in nails, Junior Leopard vibrated it with internal forces. Then the powders scattered automatically. That was why the Drowsy Drug had neither color nor odor.


    Although the little monster was clever, it was so simple that it believed they were playing a kind of very interesting game. It had never encountered any wretched person like this guy who used the devious means. So, when he was a foot away from him, it was actually unprepared. It still didn''t care when he scattered the sleeping serum to it. Because it only prepared for escaping when he was about to seize him.


    However, he stopped at about half-foot away from the little monster after scattering the powder. Its eyes flashed with a trace of doubt. Suddenly, it felt dizzy and fell still on a branch before falling towards the floor with a "pa" sound.


    There was a smile on his face as his plan had succeeded. He caught it before it hit the ground.


    "Hey, you annoying little thing! You think you are so clever, why don''t you drink my footbath water?" Looking at the fleshy little guy in his palm, he smiled more proudly.


    Junior Leopard flashed into the hole under the rock after two ups and downs. He put the little monster down on the ground gently and retrieved the yellow cloth from the ground.


    Without the little monster''s obstruction, Junior Leopard picked up the yellow cloth easily, just like picking up an ordinary one.


    "Good toughness!" Junior Leopard praised when he held up the yellow cloth and pulled it gently. Although he didn''t pull the cloth very hard, he clearly felt the power from it. He wondered why he could tear it open even with his full strength.


    The thing seemed to be made of cloth, but in fact, it wasn''t. When he held the thing in his hand, he found it was made of a kind of strange and smooth animal skin. However, he had no idea about what kind of skin it belonged, the beast''s skin, a bird''s skin or some other unknown animals'' skin.


    The skin was the size of a handkerchief, which was triangular like a flag. There was a big pattern like a rune or more like a strange pattern engraving in the center of the triangular. Junior Leopard checked the skin over and over again for a long time but he didn''t find anything unusual. He also tried to impart Internal Qi into the skin several times, but nothing special happened. It was still a piece of yellow skin. He had used several methods, and he even used the legendary method of "blood to claim a family connection", like the story he had read in the previous life. However, when he dropped his blood on the skin, the blood just slipped to the ground, like the skin was on a tarp. The yellow skin had no reaction.


    After studying the skin for a long time without any progress, he had no choice but to simply put the skin on his arm. Looking at the little monster still sleeping at the bottom of the hole, he couldn''t help but smile. He came to the cave wall and begun to study the Three Realms Division.

 Chapter 44: Become a Tragedy

    Chapter 44: Become a Tragedy


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    For Junior Leopard, this so-called special technique was a completely strange new proposition, which differed greatly from Internal Qi cultivation. Utilizing such a technique to practice one''s Evil Qi would result in great power, but it would also cause a great deal of stress and damage to the body. It couldn''t be taken into the body as freely as one would take Internal Qi due to the devastation that resulted from the technique. Once it started to enter the body, it would cause damage to the user''s muscles and skeleton. It was for such a reason that the practitioner was required to have reached at least Level Seven before one would attempt to practice techniques like this. Gang Qi was another example of a technique that was different from other normal special techniques. Infused with Internal Qi to the point to where they were one entity, it required both of them to be on the same level of mastery. Only in this way could they circle though tendons and meridians inside the body and be strengthened with the growth of cultivation. If one''s cultivation hadn''t reached Level Seven, there was no benefit even if he practiced successfully by luck.


    Those people in Bottom Three Level of the skin toughening realm who would blindly practice Gang Qi would be blown apart at just the first attempt. Even those who were in the Full Closure of Skin-Toughening Realm were no exception. Those Middle Three Level people of the Bone-Forging Realm may not be blown apart by Gang Qi, but, even gaining some mastery of Gang Qi one still would fall in danger. The Evil-Gang pneuma of the Gang Qi would wear down one''s body bit by bit and cause great burden. At this time, even if one were a martial arts savant with a god-like ability in mastering techniques, he still couldn''t advance in. And the person would be broken down sooner or later. Even a person who was in the Full Closure of Six Level of the Bone-Forging Realm would come to the same end. Only those who had reached the Tendon-Changing Realm could stand the pressure of Gang Qi and take it into his body without any damage.


    Of course, in regards to the limits of cultivation, other techniques were far less severe than Gang Qi. This was because it was not necessary for them to combine all Inner and Evil Qi together. They just need to infuse part of them. After that, other special techniques wouldn''t require the infusion to be taken into body and circle along tendons and meridians as what Gang Qi required. Once the cultivation was complete, it would merely focus itself into one''s acupoints or other places in tendons and meridians. That depended on the functions and differences of various special techniques. For Junior Leopard, rather than infusion, it was better to say that his Internal Qi was vital for training under Three Realms Division.


    Although he didn''t really understand the principle, it was fortunate that there was a helpful pictorial diagram on the wall nearby. When the clock had struck noon, Junior Leopard operated according to the diagram on the cave wall and channeled his Internal Qi, infusing it with the Flickering Light Evil Qi that was floating in the entrance of the cave.


    At that time, Junior Leopard''s accomplishment in understanding the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique showed some merit. According to the way of practicing Three Realms Division, he had to focus his full attention on channeling it. He saw the golden red glow Internal Qi flowed through the tendons and meridians from his Dantian to the palm of his right hand. When it had gotten to the palm of his hand, as if something was obstructing, it started to disperse. However, in a flash, Junior Leopard saw his right hand turn crimson as if it was a red-hot iron.


    When he saw it hit the right degree, he stretched out his red hand towards the silver Flickering Light Evil Qi outside the cave. Immediately he felt great pain. Junior Leopard did not dare to relax but began to control the Internal Qi according to the way carved on the wall nearby. Wisps of red mist surged from laogong acupoint in his palm and formed a small red cyclone. The Flickering Light Evil Qi floating around the cave was influenced by the red cyclone, immediately it began to flow along the red cyclone. There was a tendency of combining at that moment.


    Of course, this was merely the first step. With only a pictorial guide to go by, Junior Leopard had no choice but to study the pictures step by step. He was very careful in order not to make any mistakes.


    He had reminded himself that many people had trouble even getting this far. Combining one''s own Internal Qi with Evil Qi was a challenge that had left many fighters stumped, it required incredible precision and control.


    To a fighter, one just simply needed to understand the cultivation method of Internal Qi and strength would be accumulated with time. Everything could be accomplished with time. As time went by, one certainly could obtain suitable Internal Qi with his body. The controlling force, however, required not only time but also the help of endless training and Apprehension, which was lacked by many fighters.


    Practicing a Special Technique required pure control, which many fighters were unprepared for. They usually didn''t spend 10 or 20 years on polishing their techniques. Even if they were able to truly master Internal Qi, it would still take time to train and practice, which may scatter their energy. With a decade or so, one could strengthen his Internal Qi and body to a large scale as well as his power. So, generally speaking, only a few of the fighters on this world would take time to grasp controlling force. Unfortunately, this also meant that many fighters who wanted to learn these special techniques came short because they lacked controlling force.


    Junior Leopard was just 10 years old, naturally, he couldn''t compare with fighters who had been training for 10 or more years. The only edge he had over other seasoned fighters was his eyes. When his eyes were fixed on a special state, the controlling force of his strength and Internal Qi would increase exponentially. This was the quality that gave him the courage to practice the special technique.


    Because of he was controlling his Internal Qi to combine with the surrounding Flickering Light Evil Qi, Junior Leopard''s eyes turned red like a rabbit. Within some time, the circle generated around the pupil became clearer and clearer.


    Of course, Little Leopard couldn''t notice it. In practicing Three Realms Division, refining the Flickering Light Evil Qi in front of him was merely the first step. Every day around midnight and noon there would always be some Flickering Light Evil Qi appearing. However, it could only last a few minutes. Junior Leopard couldn''t refine all of the Flickering Light Evil Qi, for his Internal Qi was limited. Necessary as the Flickering Light Evil Qi was, Three Realms Division only required a small amount of it. So those few minutes were enough for him.


    Once he was able to combine Evil Qi with Internal Qi, according to the description on the wall, he could control the operation of Internal Qi in his palm. Gradually the Internal Qi that emanated from the palm of his hand started to change color from a crimson red to a dark silver.


    The dark silver mist was emanating a red glow which was not as hot as it was before. Other than that it was still the same as before when the cyclone formed in his palm. The cyclone had two small edges that made it look like the pattern of a hammer. With his eyes back to a normal state, Junior Leopard became really pleased when he saw the change of the mist in his palm. After about 15 minutes, the Flickering Light Evil Qi in the area was already dispelled. He held the dark silver mist as he walked out of the entrance. While walking, he subconsciously snatched a glance of the little monster heavily sleeping in the middle of the cave.


    He had spent a part of the day staring at the wall, not thinking much of the details. He thought if the little monster could practice this Three Realms Division successfully, then so could he. However, today he had found out that the special techniques was not be easy to master. If it were not for his special eyes, he would have been blown up by the Evil Qi floating all around him.


    After he left the entrance, with what the description said on the wall he slowly handled the cyclone in the palm of his hand and operated his Internal Qi. This time he wasn''t trying to balance his Internal Qi with the mist in the cyclone, instead, he was trying to move the Internal Qi to his left hand. Carefully, Junior Leopard took the mist in his left hand and covered the dark silver mist on his right hand with it. The crimson mist started to flow down as if it was a tassel, then it wrapped around the silver mist.


    After it was finished, Junior Leopard opened his mouth widely and swallowed both of the mists into his mouth.


    "Ah ¡ª "


    When mists and the cyclone entered his mouth, he changed his expression. His face suddenly went red and beads of sweat came pouring out of his forehead. After a long while, his face went back to normal and Junior Leopard gave a sigh of relief.


    "Thanks God, I nearly put myself into an early grave!" Junior Leopard said as he wiped the sweat off of his forehead. Suddenly, his face went straight and started to shake. Together with his shaking, all acupoints in his body started spewing off the crimson red mist. If examining a little closer, one would notice that the mist started giving off glimmers of a silver light... What a beautiful scene.


    "Congeal!" Junior Leopard said as the mist started to disperse. He didn''t dare to ignore the mist, so he swallowed a big gulp. Operating with the instructions on the wall, he practiced silently, and started to cultivate Internal Qi. The crimson red mist started to flow with his movements and in such way he was able to collect it all. The mist, still floating around Junior Leopard, then changed from crimson red to dark silver once again.


    He then lifted up both his hands. Looking at the silver mist that had circled around him, he let out a small chuckle. Then, he raised his head and gazed at a pine tree that was nearly 1,000 feet from him. After a little shake, the silver mist began to disappear, together with his body.


    "Whew!"


    "AAH!" he screamed.


    Little Leopard''s body reappeared about 100 feet away from where he disappeared. He hit his head on a giant trunk of a tree and the recoil then launched him far away. Lying on the ground, his face went pale and his whole body was trembling. He was drained of all energy, even the Internal Qi in his Dantian was all used up. His entire body was aching as if he had just spent the last 10 days and 10 nights plowing the fields.


    "I thought moving within 1,000 feet would be no sweat, but how could only 100 feet made me so exhausted?!" He questioned while lying on the floor with his mouth twitching. He had no energy left and couldn''t even muster the strength to sit up.


    Having thought twice about it, he calmed down. Three Realms Division was really unparalleled in its mysteries. He had only just started practicing and all he knew was a simple diagram. He had barely established a foundation, like someone that had just crammed for a test. To master the subject, there was still a long way to go. It was his first attempt, such movements and shifts could be considered pretty good for a first attempt.


    "That was quite a miscalculation! With this special skill, after several decades of practice, I should be able to traverse 1,000 feet freely. Even if I want to move as that little monster does, who can move freely within a radius, I should still spend a couple years practicing. I should remember not to be so greedy and take my time!"


    Thus Little Leopard was relieved, he tried not to implore himself any further. He took a light breath and lay down on the ground without moving an inch. He needed to rest and restore his strength and Internal Qi before leaving this place.


    However, what he just did was quite costly. It would take a considerable amount of time to rejuvenate himself. In fact, he spent all morning recuperating but only recovered a sliver of energy. He was quite lucky that no wild beasts came, if they had, he would have been eaten as breakfast.


    After getting some of his strength back, he was about to stand up when he heard a sigh coming from the distance. A fist size black shadow appeared above his head.


    "Oh my god!" Junior Leopard was extremely astonished. Before he jumped up he heard a boom sound and foul odor suddenly appeared. He became pale out of sick. He sensed churning in his stomach and then threw up with gastric acid and vomitus. Yet with an upturned face he found all vomitus had fallen down back on his face. Again his stomach churning and he went faint.


    The little monster didn''t detest the vomitus. It pulled out the piece of yellow cloth neatly from his chest and then trampled on his face twice. More than that, it farted another time towards his face, then disappeared after venting anger.

 Chapter 45: The Seven Wonderful Techniques

    Chapter 45: The Seven Wonderful Techniques


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard stood naked in the middle of the stream, splashing his face with its water. Every inch of his body seemed to stink, as if he had just emerged from rolling around in a pit of manure.


    It was lucky that the little monster was in a bad mood and farted on him not once, but twice. Otherwise, he would have been knocked out by the first one and perhaps would not have been able to wake up in time. The little monster''s second fart, however, had managed to awake him from this stupor.


    "This must be the most tragic day of my life!" Junior Leopard said to himself, as he climbed with bare buttocks out of the stream. He could not help but grimace, when he saw his clothes hanging beside the stream were still wet.


    Damn, now it looks like I have to use up my internal strength to dry out these clothes, and I still need to find some living animals for Xue Wuya¡­ well, never mind, I cannot run around naked, I will just have to resign myself to this fate. Although there are no people here, I am still a civilized person... not like that little monster, running about from dusk till dawn completely naked!


    Without noticing it, he had equated himself with that little monster.


    Indeed, this was also a kind of tragedy.


    After Junior Leopard had dried his clothes using his internal strength, he prepared about 15 living animals and dragged them at a cumbersome pace into that steep valley. By the time he arrived, he had no strength left at all.


    When Xue Wuya saw Junior Leopard''s face full of disappointment and dejection, as if he had suffered a gross violation, he couldn''t help finding it a little strange.


    "What''s wrong? Have you got into any trouble?!"


    "Just a little bit of trouble!" Junior Leopard said, and as he thought back to the situation he had got himself into, his stomach suddenly churned again and he coughed up some bile right there.


    "It looks like you are not doing so well today!" Xue Wuya let out a rare smile, teasingly. "How on earth did you find something to give yourself trouble in this surrounding area?"


    "No, when I was hunting for living animals, I bumped into a skunk weasel. It accidentally took a bit of my blood when I wasn''t paying attention!"


    "Hahaha!" Hearing this, Xue Wuya immediately erupted with laughter. "What luck you are having!"


    "Yes!" Junior Leopard said through gritted teeth.


    "Well, I see you are in bad mood today. Go back, and come here early tomorrow. I have some businesses for you!"


    "What is it?" The question slipped out of Junior Leopard''s lips.


    "I''ll tell you tomorrow!" Xue Wuya glanced over at Junior Leopard, and his eyes flashed fiercely as if to say "Didn''t I just tell you to come tomorrow?"


    Junior Leopard shivered and said no more, obediently leaving the steep valley and breathing a sigh of relief. He had feared that Xue Wuya would try to test his martial arts again like yesterday, and he really did not have the energy for it right now.


    Next morning Junior Leopard had recovered his energy. He finished collecting the living animals early, and he headed straight for the steep valley.


    He quietly stood aside, waiting for Xue Wuya to finish the living animals and have a brief rest.


    Xue Wuya was very satisfied with Junior Leopard''s respectful behavior.


    "I have something for you to do!"


    "Waiting orders, teacher!" Junior Leopard replied, a modest and polite smile on his face. In this formal situation, Junior Leopard did not want to give Xue Wuya any opportunity to catch him doing the slightest thing wrong. He believed that even if he were to bitterly chop off Xue Wuya''s head with Kunai, he could still keep this modest and polite expression on his face. This reminded him of his previous life. Although a hypocritically modest smile was not part of his nature, he could not deny that this expression, in that moment, was very useful for him.


    "I require some Rootless Grass, Wandering Flower, and Gall Orchids!" Xue Wuya said.


    Junior Leopard raised his head and looked blankly at Xue Wuya. He had never heard of these herbs before. In fact, in the prescription of the elixir, the rootless grass was one of the herbs required for bone-forging pills, and both wandering flower and gall orchid were used in the tendon-changing pills. However, he had only seen their names before but never seen them in real life and he didn''t even know what they looked like.


    What did Xue Wuya want these things for?


    And why did he tell me his need of these herbs?


    I have never seen such herbs before!


    Xue Wuya did not care about Junior Leopard''s thoughts and just pointed to a cliff-face behind him. "The appearances and properties of these three types of herbs I have already illustrated for you on the cliff-face. Although these herbs are rare, they can all be found here in the Misty Mountain. They should not be too hard to be found. I will give you five days. Five days later, you bring these herbs back for me!"


    "Five days?!" Junior Leopard was gob-smacked, and a wry smile immediately appeared on his face. "Master, it is not that I do not wish to serve you, but that is indeed a difficult task to do in only five days!"


    "Difficult?!" Xue Wuya raised his eyebrows and looked with surprise at Junior Leopard''s courteous face. "So you can''t do it?!"


    "I don''t dare to deceive you!" Junior Leopard said. "Whatever task my teacher assigns to me, I will complete even if he will die¡­ but here we are on the Misty Mountain. In the last few days, I have scouted out the surrounding area, and yesterday when I went deeper into the forest, I was nearly eaten by a white-scaled python. Your disciple''s strength is too limited to run far. In addition, this place is also a death-trap with a 10,000 feet precipice behind this valley. Your humble disciple is not able to cross it. From a cave upon the cliff-face, I spied a stream stretching ahead for about 10 miles, and during the daytime, there is a strange fog hanging over it. I have never seen any living creatures enter that fog, so I think it may be some noxious gas. Your disciple is simply not able to pass through there! In the last two days when I was wandering around to hunt for food, I became very familiar with the surrounding area, but as for the herbs that teacher has drawn, your disciple has seen no sign of them at all. However, if I have to scour everywhere out of a hundred mile radius, your disciple''s life is trivial, but that is a gravely serious sin beyond the value of my own life to delay teacher''s business!"


    "My, what an interesting boy you are!" Xue Wuya said after gaping for a while when Junior Leopard finished his words.


    The expression on Junior Leopard''s face did not change, but his heart felt like it was blossoming into a smile.


    This was a technique that he had often used in his previous life. Whenever a leader gave him a task, he would agree to do it. As long as it was a task that the leader has assigned, he would complete it to the letter. No matter what the leader said, it was correct, and whatever the leader required you to do, that was what he should be.


    And before doing such difficult tasks, he would first scheme and plot. Then he would think clearly about the entire process and analyzed any problems or difficulties he might encounter. At last, he would draw up a detailed plan. If he didn''t do this, he could not show how seriously he was taking the task that the leader had assigned, and there would be no way to prove his ability as a subordinate.


    All the difficulties and troubles were shown on the table although the works should be completed whether conditions met the requirement or not. However, the leaders were all quite understanding and wise. Besides, the leaders were so appreciative of the difficulties that their underlings'' face, that they would certainly provide as many conveniences, funds, and manpower for this task as possible!


    As for the leaders who were not good at understanding people and who were unsympathetic to their underlings, it didn''t matter. If there was a mistake made in doing the task, then both he and the leader should hold responsibility for it, after all, he had explained clearly the points of difficulty in advance. And when the annual leader evaluation came, he would give his leader the rating "poor". Since the ratings were anonymous, the leader would certainly know why he got this rating!


    Although Junior Leopard realized the type of trickery from his previous life, it was deeply rooted in his mind. Whenever a situation demanded it, he would find himself involuntarily and unconsciously employing this tactic with no visible signs of artifice.


    As for Xue Wuya, his facial expression clearly turned a little gloomier, like a slightly constipated look.


    Although he really wanted to slap this slippery fellow to death once, he could not deny that what Junior Leopard said was correct. Although this boy was already accomplished in Lightness Skill body movements, he would indeed have to go very deep into the Misty Mountains before he could find the herbs.


    "What you say makes sense. But since I am asking you to do, I have naturally already considered this problem." Xue Wuya said ¡ª as for whether he really had thought of this, God knew. "The Yanfu Inner Strength I have passed on you is the highest level of Lightness Skill and one of the very best in the entire Jianghu. It is only because you have not had enough time to practice and your inner strength is not strong enough to use the body movement to its full force. But if you use it to overcome some wild beasts in this mountain, this should be enough for you."


    "Your disciple understands!" Junior Leopard said. He indeed understood very well the profound power of Yanfu inner strength. But he did not think he could rely on Lightness Skill to help him find the herbs for Xue Wuya. Perhaps if he had another year or two of practicing he would make it. But for now, it''s impossible.


    "This body movement is one of the four secrets of Lightness Skill¡­ it should be enough, it is only a shame that your strength is limited by your age so you cannot realize its full potential. And although the swordplay technique I taught you is mighty, you again cannot fully comprehend it within this short time!"


    Junior Leopard did not say a word, and he looked at Xue Wuya impatiently, with eyebrows raised in expectation. Indeed, these skills that Xue Wuya had passed on to him were powerful, but apart from Yanfu Inner Strength, they were not too practical in this situation; and at present, he was not able to use them well.


    "I will teach you a secret skill now. This skill will concentrate most effectively all your body''s Internal Qi into your fist, so that you can give it an incredibly destructive force. This skill does not demand much of your Internal Qi, but it does demand self-control and a strong body. Considering your current level, you should be able to pull it off. It will massively increase the power of your attack. Besides you have my coal dagger which is also very effective for attacking, you do not lack of others. However, you should only use this movement in desperate life-threatening situations, I hope you will still have enough energy to use it at that time."


    Xue Wuya glanced lightly at Junior Leopard, speaking faintly.


    Junior Leopard was frozen by what he heard. He knew that Xue Wuya''s mood was not good, and he had better not aggravate him any further. He forced his face into a smile of gratitude. "Thank you so much, teacher!"


    Xue Wuya then proceeded to pass on the movement to Junior Leopard, holding nothing back. The teacher taught diligently, and the discipline learned diligently, and the process was complete within two hours.


    "This secret skill mainly relies on mental cultivation methods, and as for movements, it is just a matter of punching your fist. I will allow you an extra day to familiarize yourself with it, and so after six days I hope you return here with those herbs!"


    "Your disciple understands!" Junior Leopard said, nodding his head. "And as for the living animals for these few days, would you like your disciple to get them ready?"


    "No need, I am hardly going to starve to death without few living animals!"


    Junior Leopard dared not to speak anymore, and then he left the valley.


    "Huh, this boy, although he is young, his thinking is more meticulous than an old man. If I had not already given him the handbook on Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, it is inconceivable that I would have spared his life and taken him on as a disciple. It is a pity ¡ª waits until I have gathered together all the herbs, and refined all the Tihu incense, and brought the evil beast out and under my command as spiritual creatures, and then your time will be up!" As he watched Junior Leopard walking away, a cold smile flashed across his lips. Even if he had not been planning to kill Junior Leopard from the very beginning, giving him all these new skills had only increased his determination to wipe him out, so as to silence him.


    No matter if it was Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, or that swordplay technique, or the Yanfu Inner Strength and the secret skill. He had done a lot of thinking on whether or not to pass them on to Junior Leopard. They were necessary to protect his life, so couldn''t refuse to pass them on; and if only for the fact he knew he would not spare his life, he did not fear him divulging these skills to anyone else.


    The question was, could Junior Leopard complete these tasks satisfactorily?


    "Is this... a secret skill?"


    He simulated in his mind the pathways of the Internal Qi for the secret skill that Xue Wuya had just taught him. Junior Leopard furrowed his brow slightly. This type of skill seemed to be very similar to the Tunade''s Extraordinary Strength Fist ¡ª both were about concentrating the Internal Qi within your body into just one point and then releasing it in one flash to create a tremendous destructive force. The difference was that the Tunade''s Extraordinary Strength Fist could concentrate chakras in both hands and feet, while this secret skill was limited to only one fist.


    At the same time, he only needed to clench his fist tightly and release. Because this was not, after all, a manga comic, but this involved the Internal Qi''s route through his body''s complex system of tendons and vessels. Although there were very many techniques of mental cultivation and martial arts in this world, every type of technique had been carefully perfected in the process of being passed on from generation to generation. The Internal Qi had to strictly follow a very particular path, or else only one mistake would result in severe consequences. In mild cases, it would feel as if your tendons and vessels had become possessed by the devil, and they would suffer damages. In severe cases, it would cost your life.


    As for the secret skills, they could be said that they were the peak achievements of transporting Internal Qi. No matter if they were the simplest secret skill, such as the one studied by Junior Leopard just now ¡ª the path they followed along his nerves and vessels was more complicated than that of ordinary methods of mental cultivation. Of course, this would not be a problem for Junior Leopard. He guessed that as soon as he unleashed this skill, there would be a burst of an incredibly destructive force, perhaps ten times stronger than normal. This was also the absolute limit that his tendons and vessels could bear at this present time; if its force was any greater, his body would certainly sustain damage when he unleashed its power.


    The problem now was, just like Xue Wuya had said, that with the coal dagger in his hand there was no need to strengthen the force of his attacks anymore. If his fists were any stronger, then even a kitchen knife would be formidable, to say nothing of this dagger that could cut through iron as if it were mud.


    But then again, he had hoped all along to gain some advantages from Xue Wuya. Anything else was just an excuse.


    "So it turns out that this secret skill is pretty simple to use!"


    Indeed, this secret skill really was simple to put into action. There were two main steps; first, concentrating your Internal Qi, and second, letting it burst out.


    "And, it does not necessarily to burst out all at once!" Junior Leopard''s eyes twinkled, and pale red rays of lights flashed from his pupils. He raised his two hands, clenching them into fists, and began his mental cultivation. After one breath, he could only see that his fists had turned scarlet, emitting a faint golden light.


    Junior Leopard brandished his fist, and brought it smashing down fiercely into a nearby tree. A red light flashed, and then there was the sound of an explosion as his fist overturned the thick tree trunk. And then he spun around, bringing his another fist soaring through the air.


    "Thunk!" A sound of something hollow being hit rang out, and it was as if the air around his fist had been fried by something. A ball of bright golden light flashed from his fist, and after the light faded, his hand returned to normal. However, meanwhile, a searing hot airflow billowed upon his face.


    "Interesting!" Junior Leopard wasn''t done yet. He took one step forward, and the fist which he had just snapped the tree with flashed brilliant rays of gold; and as he punched it out the red light faded, absorbed by his other first. He repeated this action nine times until the light from both his fists had completely extinguished.


    Junior Leopard gasped slightly, and the burning red light in his eyes gradually fade away.


    "This secret skill really does not demand much of one''s Internal Qi. I can get nine punches out of it even with my low level, and I still have energy left. That means although every time I use it with only about 10% of my Internal Qi, I can still display the three or four times stronger than before. And if I let my entire body''s Internal Qi burst out all at once, it will be double grow. However, my hand would perhaps melt off, my tendons and channel can only bear dozen times of power!" Junior Leopard laughed to himself. "But the premise is that I am able to master absolute control over my own Internal Qi!"


    The control of Internal Qi was perhaps his biggest difference from others people. With the help of his eyes, his control over Internal Qi was incredible. As he got older and his strength grew, he believed that this control over his Qi would also get stronger and stronger.


    "Perhaps, I can find another secret skill to practice ¡ª I have heard that secret skills emphasize control of your body''s Internal Qi above all, just like this mental cultivation method for this kind of punch. Luckily for me, this happens to be my forte!" Junior Leopard began to fantasize about what he could achieve, and then laughed self-deprecatingly. "But where in the world can I find such secret skills? Anyone who gets secret skills will keep them secret, how could I find a new one to study so easily? Although it seems I''m lucky right now in encountering secret skills and special techniques, the risk is luck''s close companion, and am I really ready and willing to bear these great risks now?"


    In the steep valley, Xue Wuya was sitting by the cave and gazing up at the starry night sky, his eyes flashing with a glint of insanity, and he muttered to himself, "The Seven Wonderful Techniques¡­ haha, I have even taught him all the Seven Wonderful Techniques, how can I not kill him? Hahaha!"


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 46: Thundering Rain, Rootless Grass, and the Dragon Chimera

    Chapter 46: Thundering Rain, Rootless Grass, and the Dragon Chimera


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "This accursed place!"


    Junior Leopard stood at the head of the stream with an ashen face, gazing out towards the swamp which lay before him. As he watched the rising mist soar over the swamp, he cursed in anger.


    Today, he had put his Floating Technique into full swing, and had spent about six to eight hours doing a lap of the surrounding area. This was a means of surveying the area to help him find the medicinal herbs required by Xue Wuya, by getting a rough idea of the area''s general layout. However, the clearer a picture he had of the area, the worse his mood became.


    At the back of this place was the steep valley where Xue Wuya lived and trained in. At the right was a waterfall, and at the left was a dense forest; although the forest had a silence deep and ominous, the direction of where the little monster lived seemed less forbidding. But just half a kilometer beyond that were countless poisonous insects and terrible snakes. Although there were no evil beasts of formidable power here, and despite Junior Leopard''s special spiritual instincts, there was still no way he could guarantee his safety in this place where venomous snakes were at his feet in every direction, and a ceiling of cobwebs spun by poisonous spiders was above his head at all times. After all he was no expert, and if it had not been for his quick thinking before, he would likely have already been digested as food inside the python''s belly, or became the bodily fluids of poisonous spiders. The only way out was to follow the stream flowing forth from the waterfall. Junior Leopard had pressed on this way for about 5 kilometers, only for his way to be blocked by an enormous swamp which the stream he was followed flowed into.


    The mist rising over the swamp was the same mist that Junior Leopard had seen when surveying the area in the daytime by the mouth of the cave. Every now and then the mist emitted a putrid odor; even the slightest whiff of this fragrance gave him a dizzy episode, so he dared not venture deeper into it.


    "I cannot continue like this, all these roads are dead ends! Now let me think¡­ the only place I can get into is that deep forest... oh, if only I could solve all my problems from inside there!" Junior Leopard said to himself. And with that, he turned and set out to delve into the old forest.


    One day passed.


    "Huh, this damned place really is not fit for human habitation¡­ and it certainly lives up to the name ''Misty Mountain''!"


    Deep in the forest, Junior Leopard put a hand out onto an ancient tree to support himself as his eyes vigilantly scanned his surroundings. His ears pricked up too, and his nerves braced themselves taut.


    He had ventured about 10 kilometers deep into the woods and as far as the eye could see there was nothing but forest after forest, tree after tree, venomous creature after venomous creature.


    Thankfully he was smart enough to use his special eyes to strip out all of the Yanfu Inner Strength out of the forest the day prior, otherwise his walk through the forest would not be such a walk through the park.


    Damn it, it''s already been two days! It''ll be dark in only another 4 hours, and I''ve only found two Gall Orchids, and still no trace of the Wandering Flower or Rootless Grass¡­ five days, where on earth can I find such things in only five days?!


    Junior Leopard sighed and sat down beneath a tree to catch his breath.


    As he prepared to use the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, all he could see was a warm, pale red current gushing into his Dantian, and flowing towards each of his limbs and all of his bones. It flowed steadily, and after about an hour this red current had illuminated the path where the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique had pumped through his tendons and meridians.


    Compared to others, Junior Leopard''s practice of his Internal Qi had a big advantage ¡ª his Inner Vision.


    Only when Internal Qi had reached a deep level of skill could Inner Vision be used; and at the same time, through practicing Inner Vision one could reach an intimate grasp of the circulation of Qi within their body, and gain a deeper understanding of the transformation of Internal Qi. Naturally, this would also mean that one''s strength was greatly improved as well.


    Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi was not yet at that level, and was no match for his fantastical eyes ¡ª it was these which gave him a level of Inner Vision which was, in practice, no lower than that of a Level Nine master. So although his Internal Qi was nothing special, his knowledge of the essence of Internal Qi was far in advance of others of his age.


    This understanding of Qi''s essence was not something which could be explained orally or gotten from a book; it could only be known through direct experience.


    "ThisNine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, combined with Xue Wuya''s explanation is of great value¡­ but I just can''t develop my body to the right level!" Junior Leopard said to himself, feeling vexed. He was surprised to find himself thinking back to when he was a child in his previous life, and wishing that he could grow up faster.


    The Internal Qi of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire was moisturizing his tendons, meridians, muscles and bones, and toughening them up, making them firm. This would enable them to have a greater capacity for Internal Qi; but as they were not yet fully grown, if he strengthened them recklessly now there was a risk that they would grow more slowly, or even that it would be difficult for them to develop at all. He thought of Nezha and the Red Boy, two classic examples of people who had never been able to grow up, and shuddered. Of course, this was not something that Junior Leopard had inferred himself, but rather something which was common knowledge in martial arts circles. It happened once every few years, usually within the larger schools and well-known families; places which had the greatest supply of medicines and potions, and people who were under the most pressure to flourish into dragons. One moment of carelessness, and it was all over for them; people becoming too strong too young and therefore ended up stunting their growth was one of this world''s characteristics.


    Junior Leopard did not want to become like this, and so when he was training he was extremely careful.


    So, now he would only do one exercise each day. The transformation of Internal Qi using the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire had its limits, and in fact martial arts skills in general all had a limit.


    Because such skills had limits, he had no way to unleash his unique way of Yanfu Inner Strength Lightness Skill in all of its might; he would only end up as tired as he was now.


    After catching his breath, Junior Leopard slowly opened his eyes, and quietly savored the feeling of the energy that he had used up gradually returned. He started thinking about his next step, and regretted that in his previous life he had not studied anything about survival outdoors. In this dense wood, he felt like a headless fly, darting to and fro, with no clear goal; and at the same time he was trying to evade the poisonous insects and wild beasts of the wood. All this was starting to really make him feel rather harassed.


    He saw that the ground beneath him was darkened with moisture, and when his foot touched the ground he found that it had turned to mud. He raised his head to see some faint, miserable rays of light shining through the dense mass of branches and twigs. Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows. "This forest really is too dense¡­ further on from here, perhaps gets no sunlight all year long, and so the ground is moist with the rotted leaves and branches accumulated over the years¡­ who knows what is buried within, perhaps it is producing some kind of noxious gas¡­ anyway, there can only be some kinds of moss growing in there, but it is medicinal herbs which I need. There cannot be any inside, and even if there are, there''s no way that I can go any deeper in!"


    He stood up, and just as he was preparing to continue his search elsewhere, his ears suddenly rang with the sound of two muffled thunderclaps. At first it was imperceptible, but then the sound of thunder grew louder and louder, and the faint miserable few rays of light that had been able to penetrate the forest disappeared. Junior Leopard suddenly had an ominous feeling, and indeed, after a brief respite, the thunder claps exploded; a sudden thunder clap one moment, then a slow rumbling the next, all echoing throughout the forest. The sound was cataclysmic, as though the mountain was collapsing the earth was cracking up; this cacophony entered Junior Leopard''s ear and shook him to the core. And to make matters worse, great torrents of rain began lashing down; Junior Leopard was in a state of panic.


    But he had common sense; he knew that, in this type of thunderstorm, hiding under a tree was the worst thing to do, especially the great big tall trees of this forest ¡ª they could all act as lightning rods. He dared not delay, and sprang into action, dashing towards the way out of the forest.


    As he tore through the forest, some lightning bolts hit nearby trees. Electric flashes of light burst through the forest just by his feet ¡ª and although Junior Leopard''s reflexes were fast, they were not fast enough and he was sent flying through the air. Luckily, most of the strength of the lightning had been absorbed by the ground; otherwise, Junior Leopard would certainly have been fried.


    But as he lifted himself back up again, with thunder and lightning exploding over his head, he could no longer recognize the way.


    My God, how can I have such bad luck? I''ve taken a wrong turn again!


    He managed to keep a cool head. He only needed to keep heading in the direction where the trees seemed to grow sparser, that was sure to lead out; and then he just needed to follow the river, which was sure to lead him back to where he came. With this knowledge, he didn''t stop to think too long; he chose the direction which seemed to be the right one then took off, paying no mind to the wind and rain around him.


    The rain was relentless throughout the entire day, and Junior Leopard could not find a single place to shelter on his way. Eventually, just as it got dark, the sound of thunder began to grow fainter, and he seemed to be reaching higher ground. The trees in the forest became sparser and sparser, and the topography of the surrounding area was becoming clearer. Beneath his feet, water from a mountain spring occasionally rushed past. Just as he was traversing the west face of the mountain, all of a sudden the wind quietened, the rain stopped, the clouds dispersed, and the fog began to clear. A bright half-moon hung suspended in the sky, casting down a clear bright light which seemed to bathe the trees covering the mountain in a sleek glossy glow. Mountain springs were bursting forth all over, and the sound of water flowing over rocks merged with the sound of insects chirruping. It was an exceptionally beautiful and serene night scene.


    "What a great location!" Even though Junior Leopard was now drenched from head to foot, he was in good spirits. And laying eyes on this beautiful scene, he could not help but come to a halt and sigh in admiration.


    Just at that moment, he caught a glimpse of some purple grass growing by a crack in the cliff-face, swaying gently in the wind beneath the moonlight.


    "Rootless Grass?" Seeing that familiar sight, Junior Leopard''s heart skipped a beat from joy. This was just like the old saying, "you can wear out iron shoes searching far and wide, and then find it by sheer luck right by your side!" He had searched all day for this Rootless Grass, and had not expected to suddenly stumble across such a large clump. He set off towards it, but as he got towards the cliff-face he heard an awful groaning noise. Even though Junior Leopard did not lack any courage, hearing this awful sound in the deep wild forest made his blood run cold, and he looked all around him to see where it came from. But he could see only the majestic but eerie scenery around him with the lofty mountain peak towering in the background; and all he could hear was the sound of water rushing, merging together with the whispering of the wind through the pine trees. That awful sound seemed like it had come from the mountain gorge close to where the Rootless Grass was growing. His heart jumped, and he thought to himself of how, in legends, spiritual items were always guarded by strange beasts. That could have been the sound of some fearsome creature, and he could not be sure if he would be a match for it. But he did not dare to hesitate any longer; his black pupils emitted their pale red light, and in the red haze hidden black creases became visible. Then in a flash, he entered once again into that strange state.


    Everything around him seemed to slowly come to life, and within a 1,000 foot radius he could see everything, large and small. And the blowing of the wind, the rushing of the water, the insects chirping, the sound of birds wings flapping, and the rhythm of animals breathing, all these arrived at his ears sounding crystal clear. In that moment, Junior Leopard had a strange feeling that all the creatures under heaven were in his hand.


    "What a strange thing!" Finally, under the vision of Junior Leopard''s strange eyes, that creature which had made such an awful noise appeared into his sight.


    "Is that... a mud fish?"

 Chapter 47: The Black Flame Ignites

    Chapter 47: The Black Flame Ignites


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    At the first glance, Junior Leopard thought that this creature which hiding in the rocks and had made such a strange noise must be an earthworm or water-snake, but after looking more closely he realized that it was not.


    This black-colored creature was not very long ¡ª only about 30 centimeters or so ¡ª and its body had a diameter of only two or three centimeters. This peculiar thing was also densely coated in black scales, much thicker than the scales on an earthworm. Under the moonlight, the black scales gave off a faint metallic sheen, what around its neck was a circle of fins. When it made that groaning noise, these fins stretched out, giving the creature an appearance as though it had an umbrella around its neck.


    "So I was frightened by a strange monster just now!" seeing how small this creature was, Junior Leopard had let his guard down a little. It seemed that this may not be an earthworm, but it was something similar. Actually, earthworms in this world looked different to how they did in his previous life. But this was not rare in such an amazing world At worst. It may be a little toxic ¡ª but so long as he didn''t go underwater this was no risk to him.


    On that thought, he relaxed and looked around once more. Apart from this strange creature in the rocks, there was nothing else untoward around. Sensing that the coast was clear, he jumped down and headed toward the rootless grass.


    There was enough rootless grass here. So then, with four days remaining, he needed only to find some wandering flower and then the task was complete.


    In such a good mood, he could not help further letting his guard down. He took a few steps towards the rootless grass, and stretched his hand out to take it ¡ª and then something unexpected happened.


    While Junior Leopard approached the rootless grass, the sound of that strange creature in the rocks became shriller and shriller, but Junior Leopard ignored it. That was just an earthworm. No matter how loudly it screamed, it made no difference to him.


    But, just as his hand was about to reach the rootless grass, the strange creature which had been in the rocks all along suddenly hurled itself through the air, lunging forth with its mouth wide-open, ready to bite down on Junior Leopard''s hand.


    "My God!"


    Junior Leopard let out a terrible yell and pulled his hand back, narrowly dodging the creature. He had never thought that this earthworm would be able to spring out of the water; nor had he thought that it could be so fast or jump so high. The fact that this creature could jump out from the rocks, with its gaping mouth wide open, had really terrified Junior Leopard.


    How could this creature be an earthworm? It was just like a mini monster from the deep sea as what was shown in Alien . When it opened its mouth, the white teeth revealed cold lights row after row. And on the top row, there also were countless sawteeth, emitting a faint pale blue glow. Junior Leopard believed, if he was bitten by this creature, he would most likely lose his life.


    Junior Leopard pulled back quickly and the monster''s bite missed him. Its body twisted round in mid-air, contorting itself into a strange angle so that it dropped down towards Junior Leopard''s foot. After it had fallen, it moved along the ground like a snake and, as fast as lightning, rushed to bite Junior Leopard''s foot.


    "Damn!"


    Junior Leopard was fired up and raised both hands to cast down two Kunai towards his feet.


    "Ding! Ding!" A sound rang out as the two Kunai ricocheted off the creature''s body. Two bright and beautiful sparks shot out, bringing the creature¡¯s momentum to an abrupt halt.


    In those few moments, Junior Leopard activated his Yanfu Inner Strength and leaped up 30 or 40 feet through the air, and almost in the same instant that creature also leaped up, snapping at his feet.


    "What a strange creature!" Junior Leopard went into a deliberate hard fall, falling to the ground and moving smoothly into a roll, and picked up the two Kunai from the ground. He jumped down towards the crevice and grabbed a handful of the rootless grass; he dared not stay any longer, and prepared to use his body movement skills to break free of that strange creature. But all of a sudden, he felt a chill on his back, and then almost every pore on his body felt like they were bursting open.


    "Awful!" Junior Leopard threw his body forward in shock, and fell flat on his face on the ground. The moment when he crashed to the ground, he felt a scorching hot air out rightly brush his face.


    "Is that..."


    Though Junior Leopard had fallen down, he had not stopped moving. He performed another roll, rolling away several meters until he found an opportunity to get back up, and could finally see clearly what had happened just now.


    There was a blaze.


    A black blaze!


    A large black fire was blazing, and the trees ahead of where he had landed before were engulfed in this strange combustion. Dozens of them had already burned down to stumps shorter than one meter, but the fire that had caused this was shrinking.


    He turned his head to look back and saw the earthworm stayed where it had come from, trembling slightly. Junior Leopard''s heart leaped, as he tried to grasp what had happened.


    "My God, a sneeze of that thing''s flame is like me using up an entire dharma of the Three Realms Division. It seems like it shot out from inside its body and completely exhausted its life-force; so turns out that there was no need for me to have rolled away like that!"


    Junior Leopard thought of how he had rolled away and his face contorted into an ugly expression. "While you''re feeling rough, my knife will be enough; I don''t believe you''re really that tough!"


    He jumped over, his right hand reaching down to his waist and with a flash of black light his coal dagger was already in his hand; his right foot stamped fiercely on the ground as he leaped towards the earthworm.


    Just as Junior Leopard had supposed, that strange earthworm-like creature had exhausted its physical strength pursuing him, and after it had spat out that flame, its body had no strength left at all. Although this was an odd creature, it was after all very small, and with low spiritual intelligence. Junior Leopard darted forward quickly. The coal dagger in his hand was also the weapon of choice of Xue Wuya, a Level Eight master. Even though this strange earthworm was as hard as a rock, a hit from Junior Leopard was enough to break it into two before it had a chance to react.


    "Clang!" The dagger chopped, and Junior Leopard''s heart tightened up. It felt like he was using some sharp weapon from the Wu''s ironware shop to cut through metal. Although it was a clean cut, it was somehow not quite smooth, and he could feel a faint aftershock.


    "Oh, what on earth is this monster?!"


    The coal dagger in Junior Leopard''s hand was made from a very high grade, well-tempered steel, and much sharper than the so-called "wizard weapons" in the Jianghu. When Junior Leopard had tried it before, he found that no matter how thick the trees were that he chopped down, it always felt as frictionless as slicing tofu.


    But cutting through this creature cost him a greater effort.


    "No wonder my Kunai had no effect on it, this creature''s body is stronger than steel!"


    However, despite this, it had been cut in two by his dagger.


    Junior Leopard finally relaxed.


    But just as he relaxed, something strange happened.


    His heart leaped.


    "There must be something wrong¡­ The danger has not yet passed!"


    Black colored streamers flew out from the two halves of the earthworm''s corpse, floating in the air, and sparkled serenely in the moonlight.


    "Is this... a blaze?"


    Junior Leopard fixed his gaze upon it, and saw that the black streamers floating in the air formed a black flame. The blaze was small, about the size of a soybean; it congealed together tightly, and although it had the shape of a flame, Junior Leopard could not feel any heat.


    But Junior Leopard did not dare to relax in the slightest. He could not feel any heat now, but in the depths of his heart, he could sense that this thing had sent out a powerful deterrent as if this soybean-sized black fire contained some incredibly destructive power.


    Junior Leopard took a few steps back and looked reluctantly at the creature''s corpse before turning around to leave.


    Things happened today were really strange. And so did the creature he encountered. He did know the corpse of that creature he had cut in half may have great value, but that black flame which appeared before him reminded him that leaving was a wiser choice.

 Chapter 48: The Painful Harvest

    Chapter 48: The Painful Harvest


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was well-known that "Where there is life, there is hope". As long as one was alive, he could obtain lots of treasures in the future. But if one died from greed, there was no use for more treasures.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard decisively decided to leave.


    That flame, however, seemed not to be willing to let him go.


    It was really a short time between seeing that peculiar flame to deciding to leave and starting to get away. And in just such a short time that peculiar flame had reactions. It floated to Junior Leopard, rapidly and hastily. Junior Leopard wanted to escape but he was slower and less flexible than the flame. He was about to operate the Three Realms Division when he found that the sword he had swayed just now had expended all of his strength and Internal Qi. He couldn''t operate the Three Realms Division successfully at all. Thus he just staggered twice and soon was caught by the flame.


    "Ah ¡ª !"


    It would certainly be no good to be caught.


    The moment the flame touched Junior Leopard, he felt a stream of an unparalleled boiling flow rush into his body. Strange to say, however, that after rushing into his body, the boiling flow didn''t burn as he expected. On the contrary, it blended with his Internal Qi.


    When the black flame encountered the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire, it became disintegrated, as if one drop of water dissolving in the sea. But at present, no one could figure out which was the sea and which was the drop of water.


    Junior Leopard was suffering great pain now.


    The black flame entered into his body and became a stream of boiling flow, which blended with his Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire.


    It sounded like an amazing adventure that one gained a hundred years'' inner force freely. At least the force of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire increased greatly.


    Actually?


    Actually, Junior Leopard was on the verge of going crazy.


    He was totally crazy now.


    He imagined that a pot of boiling water was poured into him and was he forced to swallow it soberly!


    Oh, what was this feeling like?


    As a matter of fact, Junior Leopard was more in more pain than if boiling water was being poured into him.


    Every tendons and meridian which flowed with Internal Qi was burnt. He couldn''t bear such a high-intensive strength with his present body condition. But meanwhile, he couldn''t gather this strength into his Dantian, either. Just in this motionless state, he felt great pain. Needless to say, if he reacted at all, he would have approached death!


    Actually, the moment the black flame got into his body, Junior Leopard was brought into a trance condition. His consciousness started to break away from his body and he fell into darkness.


    In other words, he was tortured by pain while in a coma.


    To be more exact, his state now was in a vicious circle that whenever he was going to faint, he would sober up from the torture, then fainted and sobered up again. It turned into a seesaw battle in his mind. Again and again, he was totally in a trance. But what was amazing was that he still had one last thread of sanity. His sense of the presence of time was infinitely enlarged, with one single second seeming to last longer than a century.


    "I''m going to die if I go on like this!"


    That last sanity reminded him of the fact that if he did nothing, he would for sure be roasted like a suckling pig under the impact of the black psycho fire. "Damn it. How could I concern about so many things? Do or die!"


    Bearing a huge torment, Junior Leopard gritted his teeth and got ready to gather the Internal Qi dispersed in the tendons and vessels together into his Dantian. In case something went wrong with this process, Junior Leopard opened his fantastic eye.


    "Eh? Ah ¡ª !"


    When his eyes were glowing with a red light, Junior Leopard was aware of some unusual reactions of the boiling flow inside his body. And then a great howl of pain was let out.


    Before he could use this fantastic eye to research his inside condition, his Internal Qi began to travel as if it was attracted by something. It traveled towards his eyes through the tendons and vessels slowly.


    Once again the boiling torment hit him. He still couldn''t stand it and fell into the fine line between coma and soberness once again.


    But this time, he could see clearly how his Internal Qi operated. It was traveling in a route which never appeared in his eyes.


    With all his Internal Qi gathering in his eyes, the tendons and meridians were no longer fiery or painful. Junior Leopard gradually sobered up. His eyes, however, were swollen as if something was going to explode.


    He couldn''t see the fact that his eyes became totally transparent golden-red. The black pattern around his pupils became more and more clear. The air around his eyes was evaporated by the boiling heat as well.


    None of this was seen by Junior Leopard. And then nothing was worthy of being expected. The Internal Qi inside his body was like waves, rushing up and down. His eyes then turned to be a solid dam. Having failed to strike the dan several times, his Internal Qi traveled back to the tendons and vessels along the original route, leaving Junior Leopard another pleasant bitter feeling.


    The difference was that instead of staying in the tendons and meridians, his Internal Qi finally flowed to the Dantian bit by bit.


    Junior Leopard had not figured something out until all the Internal Qi flowed back to his Dantian.


    There used to be a small eddy made by Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire in the Dantian. Now in the center of this eddy, a tiny piece of black flame appeared. Occupying the center of the Dantian, it was about the size of a grain of rice, which was far different the black flame he saw just now. With its gleaming appearance, you couldn''t even see anything without careful observation.


    But changes did take place to his Internal Qi. The original golden-red Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire turned gloomy after blending with that black flame, and dimly glimmered with a black light. Most important of all, Junior Leopard felt the power of his Internal Qi was strengthened after blending.


    All of this happened in one moment. Because he soon fell into another coma from the torment inside his body.


    He didn''t know that the creature wasn''t born to guard the rootless grass. It had found that rootless grass by chance, and the rootless grass was useful to it, as well. So it stayed there for several days to wait for it to mature, without predicting the possibility of an encounter.


    This creature was a variation remaining from ancient times. Its name was Dragon Chimera, a famous fierce beast which took the dragon as its food. Being a bane of dragons, it had a small body. The biggest one of its race was shorter than 50 centimeters. But it had extremely hard scales, invulnerable and unassailable. Together with its rows of sharp teeth that could tear dragon''s scales and shells apart easily, Dragon Chimeras would slip into a dragon''s scale and into the abdomen and eat its body and drink its blood. At the same time, Dragon Chimeras also spawned inside the dragon, hatching its larvae with the dragon''s endless vitality and nourishment.


    Over the past tens of thousands of years, however, dragons had already died out. And so did the Dragon Chimera. It was truly shrewd, but its survival condition was harsher. Only being hatched inside of a dragon could increase its possibility of survival. If it were hatched in other creatures, it would probably die because the creature had already been drained before the hatching. Therefore, Dragon Chimeras disappeared together with the extinction of dragons.


    Who knew where this Dragon Chimera came from. Sure, Junior Leopard was lucky enough to encounter it. Although this kind of ancient beast was fierce, the one he encountered just now was an offspring that survived by chance. Because of the extinction of dragons, this one was truly undernourished. With a low spiritual intelligence, it could only emanate less than one-tenth of its capability. Thus, it was spifflicated by Junior Leopard easily.


    As for that black flame, it was an inborn technique of Dragon Chimeras. Only inside the body of a Dragon Chimera could this Mysterious Fire be gestated. But this Mysterious Fire could also not let out its power because of its lack of nourishment. As a matter of fact, this Mysterious Fire was only a small kindling inside the Dragon Chimera. And so, it could only spurt a small piece of flame and that would exert all its energy. On the contrary, if it didn''t spurt that piece of flame, it may have continued chasing until now.


    That was the so-called "It only takes one wrong move to end in total defeat".

 Chapter 49: The First Evolution of His Fiery Eyes

    Chapter 49: The First Evolution of His Fiery Eyes


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    All night, Junior Leopard was in a coma in the wildness. If this was not Junior Leopard but someone else, they certainly would have been eaten by wild beasts. Because he absorbed the small kindling of that Mysterious Fire and blended part of the energy with his Internal Qi, Junior Leopard scared those wild beasts away.


    "Am I gaining profits from a misfortune, or does misfortune never come singly to me?"


    Junior Leopard slowly opened his eyes. He gazed somewhere primly and quietly, not moving even slightly while the blocky sunlight shone through the grotesque branches above his head.


    In fact, whenever he wanted to move, he would be submerged in a great lancinating pain.


    Due to that flame, his constitution was greatly undermined yesterday. After checking his internal condition, Junior Leopard found that it was not a big deal. He found that the tingling became more and more obvious with the recovery of his tendons and meridians.


    The weather was fine now. In such a sepulchral forest, the water that rained yesterday remained on the ground. Junior Leopard was lying in the water. It was just as well then that he was in a coma. But now, with great pain lancinating through his tendons and meridians along with the piercing chill invading from outside his body, Junior Leopard could say nothing but keep on suffering.


    Junior Leopard was a bit numb now, and muscles in his face kept twisting anomalously.


    Only by experiencing the hardest hardships can one rise above the ordinary. How hard are the hardships I have experienced? If I can''t rise above the ordinary, then the God must be blind.


    Junior Leopard laughed with an odd voice in his throat.


    All of a sudden, he howled and jumped up from the ground like a carp kipping-up to stand upright.


    "Shhh¡ª " Junior Leopard made a long sibilant. He seemed to have overexerted himself just then, before he rigidly walked a few steps.


    My tendons and meridians were not badly injured and the Internal Qi has nearly recovered. There is a weird object in my Dantian. But it doesn''t seem harmful to me.


    The muscles in Junior Leopard''s face sometimes twisted and sometimes they were stiff. He suddenly operated his Internal Qi as if he was reminded of something. The Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire started operating instantly.


    "Ahhh¡ª! Ahhh¡ª!" The Internal Qi circulated for nearly ten minutes with Junior Leopard shrieking along the whole time. After operating all of his Internal Qi for one round, the muscles in his face returned to their normal state bit by bit.


    Strange to say however, with this operation, the Internal Qi that had blended with the energy of the black flame was not as fiery as it was yesterday. On the contrary, it began to nourish Junior Leopard''s tendons and vessels inch by inch and largely reduced his pain.


    "Luck finally turns after hardship! I''m lucky now. "


    Though Junior Leopard had not yet got rid of the suffering completely, he still could seek joy amid hardship.


    Junior Leopard was blessed with optimism. He never complained too much. From where he stood, the only reason that he suffered so much yesterday was that it happened to fall on an evil day. As the initiator had already been cut into two parts by him and he seemed to gain some profits, in the end, there was no anger left in his heart. Even during the harvest time, all his thoughts were of self-mockery.


    Now that his suffering had been greatly alleviated, he was naturally in a good mood.


    He turned back to look around, and saw the corpse of that peculiar earthworm which was cut into two parts by him. Junior Leopard walked towards it and thought, "This monster can bear the attack of my Kunai. If it were not for my coal dagger, I may not have been able to kill it. Its scale is definitely hard, I might as well strip it off."


    Junior Leopard then did what he said. The monster had already been cut into two parts and it was easy for him to strip the scale off from the fractured section. He gently stroked it and couldn''t help smiling with satisfaction.


    "En, it really is not bad, it looks quite tough!"


    Junior Leopard then looked at the skin and flesh which was left after stripping the scale, feeling a huge sense of hunger. In line with the principle of no wasting, he made a fire on the spot to roast the earthworm.


    Fierce as the earthworm was, its meat tasted delicate and refreshing, with a hint of rare perfume. Having eaten all the meat, Junior Leopard felt a stream of warm flow fused into the black flame inside his Dantian which caused it to become much more active.


    This earthworm was so small that Junior Leopard ate all meat within few minutes but he was still very hungry. After eating the last piece of meat, he looked around with eager eyes hoping there would be something else to eat. It was a pity that all of the wild beasts around were scared away by the spirit of the Mysterious Fire on the last evening. How could there be any living creatures, there was just trees and moss!


    Junior Leopard thought, "Well, I''d better have a rest and get away from this damn place." He gave up the idea to seek food before glimpsing at the bones of that earthworm that remained after his meal.


    Its skull should have been connected with the chine but had fallen off. Junior Leopard''s heart was still fluttering with fear as he recalled the scene when the earthworm opened its mouth and displayed its rows of sharp teeth and so he skipped the head. Consequently, its skull was laid on the ground by itself.


    "I''d like to see how many rows of teeth you have!" Junior Leopard took the skull in hand and gently pulled open its mouth.


    Good heavens! Junior Leopard was really scared after opening its mouth. Obviously roasting it had done no harm to the teeth of this earthworm. Those rows of teeth still gleamed with chilling light and numbed Junior Leopard''s head with fear.


    Both the teeth and the skull were unscathed. The roast seemed to only have an effect on its skin and flesh. Junior Leopard tried to pinch the skull but the latter was absolutely still. It seemed to even contain a connotative retroaction.


    "Maybe it will be useful one day, I''ll keep it." Junior Leopard decided to take it instead of throwing it away.


    "All right, it''s time to work!" Junior Leopard operated his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, drying his clothes with the heat produced by the technique, he patted the dirt clinging to his clothes off and looked around. To take shelter from the rain, he had rushed towards places where the trees were few without taking the time to check which directions he had taken. He totally had no idea about where he was now.


    Out of helplessness, he picked a random direction and walked forwards. Before he walked further ahead he had detected something wrong.


    The further he walked, the fewer trees there were and the muddier the land under his feet became. Finally, he walked to an empty area and couldn''t help but curse.


    Swamp! How could he walk into a swamp?


    Previously he entered the forest from the swamp which was at the end of the river. Little did he think that he would come back again after taking a roundabout way. And obviously he had come to the other side of the swamp after rushing in the rain.


    Now the sun had risen and the vapor pervading the swamp became more and more stout. Even though he was on the edge of the swamp, he could still smell the blast of a strange stench.


    This was a junction that connected the forest and the swamp. The land was swampy here and once people set foot on it, they would be caught in the clay. The trees around were few and far between, looking around, he could only see plants and white fog. A wide range of mist floated under the sunlight and gave off a blast of fishy smell. With a poor physical state, he felt a bit queer after inhaling so much poison gas. He staggered and nearly fell to the ground.


    "I can''t wait any more! I have to get away from here as soon as possible!" Junior Leopard was about to lift his feet when he helplessly found that half of his feet had already been caught into the swamp.


    "Damn it!" Junior Leopard couldn''t help cursing. He forcibly operated Yanfu Inner Strength and struggled out from the swamp. Then he took in a deep breath and fled to the nearest tree, where he hunkered down on a thick and strong branch. His figure twisted like that of an astute ape, neatly and fleetly.


    "Emm¡ª I''d better stay here to have a rest." Junior Leopard hunkered on the branch and got ready to regulate breathing. In such a place where he was submerged with poison gas, he dared not cultivate. He only regulated breathing so that he could recover his stamina.


    After a few minutes, he had renewed his strength a little and decided to walk in the opposite direction with a new route.


    "Shh" before he stood up, an odd whistle came to his ears. He was greatly frightened by what he had heard when he looked down below the branch. A White-scale Python which had reached a length of over 10 feet was entrenched somewhere down the tree. It stared at Junior Leopard with its malicious yellow eyes, flicking its sanguine tongue every now and then.


    How could this python feel so familiar?


    Junior Leopard was speechless due to his astonishment after remembering when he had met this White-scale Python. It definitely was the one he met while chasing that wild boar the day before yesterday.


    What a small world it is!


    Junior Leopard didn''t dare to move. After all, he was born in a village and his family members were hunters, he knew he should not act rashly in these circumstances. As soon as he moved, the python would launch a deadly attack. He would be less scared if he was not in such a poor condition, but his body right now was not suitable for fighting.


    Therefore Junior Leopard stayed still with his eyes staring back at the python''s yellow firece eyes firmly.


    They fell into a stalemate for nearly one hour before the python seemed to realize that the man in front of it shouldn''t be trifled with and cast away the maliciousness from its firece eyes before unfurling its entrenched body. It was about to leave.


    Junior Leopard still staring firmly at the python secretly sighed with relief. All of a sudden, a burst of strong wind blew above him, and a black shadow skimmed overhead.


    "An eagle?"


    Junior Leopard was surprised. He saw a black eagle swoop down towards the White-scale Python, its iron claw grabbed the python''s opened body tightly.


    The White-scale Python twisted with a rush and tried to curl up again, but it was too late. At the moment it unfurled its body, the black eagle seized the python''s moment of weakness with its iron claw. Thick as the white scales were, it couldn''t bear such a scratch. There were six blood stains in the abdomen and some viscera came out.


    "Shhh," the White-scale Python was aware that it couldn''t survive any longer and in a last-ditch effort, constrained the black eagle''s claws before the latter withdrew its claws back. The python then opened its mouth to spray two pieces of greenblack venom from its poison fangs. The venom adhered to the black eagle''s body successfully.


    Not knowing what species this python was, its venom was truly grisly. Once the black eagle was hit, a puff of white smog was emitted from its body. A large area of feathers and skin and fleshs was corroded, even the bones were faintly visible.


    Feeling the pain, the black eagle tightened its grip on the White-scale Python. When nearly half of its body was constricted by the python, the eagle finally tore the python off in two. That two parts writhed and spasmed for a little while before it stopped moving completely. On the other hand, the wound of the black eagle caused by the venom became more and more severe, even though it had gotten rid of the White-scale Python. It scampered on the ground heading toward the corpse of the python. It was trying to peck something from the corpse with its hook-like beak, but it fell down on the ground as it just reached the corpse.


    What a loss-loss game!


    "Ah-ha! I have benefited from this battle! How lucky!" Junior Leopard jumped down from the tree and walked towards the corpse, within a few steps he was beside the abdomen of the snake where the dead black eagle wanted to peck.


    "Excellent, it''s snake gall." Junior Leopard stretched his hand into the abdomen and brought a tepid snake gall. This snake gall was the size of a pigeon egg and appeared dark purple, smelling a light stench. Without thinking further, Junior Leopard threw this snake gall into his mouth.


    Snake galls can brighten eyes.


    Since Junior Leopard found that his eyes had a development tendency like the skill-copy eyes, he became more and more careful about them. He didn''t know anything about how to train the eyes, he had just wanted to brighten the eyes with the snake gall. When he was at home, he often ran into the mountain for snakes. Though he didn''t achieve remarkable results, there was at least no harm. He was familiar with killing snakes and drawing out snake galls. Even if this White-scale Python was different from those snakes he hunted in the mountain, it was impossible for snake gall to have any distinction. He thus swallowed it in a clear way.


    After swallowing the snake gall, Junior Leopard cast his eyes on the corpses of the snake and the eagle.


    How delicious the snake soup! How appetizing the eagle meat!


    Whether the snake or the eagle, they were both big enough for him to eat several times.


    That earthworm didn''t satisfy him at all.


    "Oh, what''s this?!"


    As Junior Leopard was trying to twine their corpses together, he saw that something glinted inside the snake''s head.


    This was pretty strange. Its body had already been cut into two parts from the middle abdomen, and the head was not injured. It was definitely dead.


    "Inside the eyes?!"


    Junior Leopard stared for a while and he was sure that the light came from the python''s eyes. He paid more attention and saw slight red lights reflected by noon from the eyes.


    "Interesting!" Junior Leopard was surprised. That light should not be reflected from the eyes. He turned the head over without hesitation and sliced it in two using the Kunai.


    After dividing the head into two parts, there were red lights being emitted.


    Inner Elixir? What a pity. If it didn''t die here the snake would''ve become a Spirit Beast.


    Junior Leopard took in a deep breath. He knew he had good luck today.


    If this python had Inner Elixir, what about that eagle?


    Junior Leopard wouldn''t feel shameful of spilling the eagle''s corpse with his Kunai. Similarly, he found a cyan Inner Elixir within the head.


    Neither of these two Inner Elixirs was big, they were just the size of soybeans. But Junior Leopard was clear that if he sold the two Inner Elixirs, he would get hundreds of thousands worth of silver.


    "Sure Misty Mountain is as full of treasure as it is renowned for. While it''s a pity that few can enter into the deepest parts." Junior Leopard sighed with emotion in his heart, putting the two Inner Elixirs away. He stood up and was about to bring the two corpses away when a stream of hot flow started rushing towards his eyes from his Dantian.


    "Uh, ah!"


    Instantly, Junior Leopard lost his sight. His eyes seemed to be burning with fire. He covered his eyes and hunched over.


    "Hohool, hohool!" Regardless of the fishy air, he took a deep breath and tried to calm down.


    "Snake gall! It must be the snake gall. Is that snake gall harmful?"


    There was no need to think too much. Junior Leopard was sure that this was a result of the snake gall that he ate just now and felt a bit of regret. Creatures here in the Misty Mountain must be different from the snakes near his house. Though snakes around his house were also poisonous, they were just common snakes and couldn''t compare to these Misty Mountain snakes. How could he be so obtrusive to think of swallowing a snake gall without hesitation? What a misjudgment!


    Junior Leopard dared not to be careless. He operated Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire and was about to eliminate the ''toxin''.


    But after operating Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire, Junior Leopard sensed something surprising. The Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire had no inhibition on blocking that ''toxin'' rushing towards his eyes. Instead, it added fuel to the fire. Just within several breaths, all that hot flow poured into his eyes with a significant sense of tearing. He moved his hand away from his eyes because he felt as though his hand was burnt at the same time.


    "Am... Am I blind?"


    After moving his hands away, he managed to see everything again. This time, all seemed to be normal expect for a slightly blood shadow at the top of his vision.


    "What happened?"


    Junior Leopard found that he wasn''t blind and so he was greatly relieved.


    With a meticulous descriptive quality, everything within a one-kilometer radius was within his sight. But they were covered by a blood shadow.


    Junior Leopard soon realized that his eccentric eyes were opened once again. Thus he could see with a 360-degree perspective. But this time the range of visibility enlarged to one kilometer. That was to say, he could observe a larger range now.


    This must be the efficacy of that snake gall!


    Junior Leopard speculated in his heart. But what was the matter with his hands just now?


    He looked down at his hands, "How could they?"


    His hands were charred now. At a glance, he realized that they were burnt. Bones could even be seen in his hands. Just now he was so astonished that he ignored the pain in his hands. But now, as he looked at his hands, the enormous pain invaded him.


    "Shh!" Junior Leopard sucked in a cold breath. He resisted the pain and tried to recall what happened inside his body just now.


    That hot flow, which he thought was a ''toxin'' at first, should be the efficacy of the snake gall. After the efficacy rushed into his eyes, he felt as though his eyes were torn by a mighty power and enormous pain accompanied. At the same time, something in his eyes seemed to be broken by this efficacy. And then, his hands were burnt.


    Narrowing his eyes, Junior Leopard seemed to figure out the vital point. He started to observe the Internal Qi inside his body.


    "Sure enough!" little Internal Qi remained in his body, he tried harder to recall the state that he had fallen into just now. "My eyes could refine Internal Qi and release it. I should have discovered this point earlier. It happened last night. It was just too painful to realize it. The working flow the heat flux operated just now is the same as my Internal Qi''s working flow. I practice the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon, so the Internal Qi has a strong property of fire. In this way, my eyes will release flame after refining Internal Qi. I''m grateful for my young age and low-grade Internal Qi or else I would''ve been crippled."


    Looking at his burnt hands, Junior Leopard had a one-minute spasm within his mouth, "I guess it is the efficacy of both that python and of the snake galls that I ate before which focus on my eyes. Thanks to those, I have achieved this breakthrough. That is to say... "


    Junior Leopard started to pay all attention to his eyes. Soon afterward, he detected a sense of rotating with his eyes. The Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire that remained also followed this rotation. This Internal Qi converged to one stream and rushed towards his eyes. Junior Leopard sensed another heat in his eyes and the Internal Qi that had converged disappeared all at once as if it never existed. Almost at the same time an arbuscle he stared at when he was operating his Internal Qi was kindled with bright flames. The arbuscle soon became overwhelmed. More than this, it kept burning and didn''t disappear until the muddy land was burnt with a fist-sized pothole.


    "Oh my god, my eyes seem to truly be skill-copy eyes." Junior Leopard had one more spasm before contemplating, "These eyes have many peculiar functions, for example, enlarge eyesight and enhance my control force to Internal Qi and strength. They can even release the Internal Qi after refining it. My technique is Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, so I can burn the arbuscle. If my technique is of cold property, maybe the arbuscle would be frozen. God, how amazing this world is! It even has super powers. No, no no no, this can''t be a superpower. It can only be an enhanced version of dynamic visual acuity without Internal Qi."Junior Leopard pondered in the heart. He calmed down thinking about his eyes, after all, they had given him too much surprise. Despite those amazing martial arts, the fact that Xue Wuya could turn into a bloody light with his technique and that he flew in the sky had gone beyond his expectations. Thus one added function was not surprising anymore.


    Junior Leopard turned his eyes back to their normal state and then sat down on the ground feeling exhausted.


    "Excellent as these eyes are, they do have a huge burden on my body. Releasing flame from eyes can be a unique movement, but I need to be focused and prepare by collecting Internal Qi for a little while. Start slowly, or else I can''t plot against Xue Wuya. Alas..."


    When thinking of something, he suddenly looked pale. "Can this movement of eyes releasing fire be the same as skill-copy eyes? Though it is powerful, it has enormous damage. If I''m blind after some time, then the loss outweighs the gains!"


    So Junior Leopard became bored. He didn''t want to handle with the corpses of the eagle and the python anymore. The stout bloody stench around had already attracted some wild beasts. After regaining both the Internal Qi and strength, with his burnt hands, he tried to find a way back.


    Luckily, he found the Wandering Flower on his way back and therefore had finished the five-day task Xue Wuya announced on the second day.


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 50: Different Purposes for the Ten Days

    Chapter 50: Different Purposes for the Ten Days


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "That was a lot faster than I thought, you are lucky!" Junior Leopard brought the three kinds of herbs into the valley at noon on the third day. This surprised Xue Wuya a little, but it was still within his expectations, "What''s wrong with your hand?!"


    "Oh, an accident. When I picked the wandering flower, I met a monster that can spit fire. That''s what happened!" Junior Leopard understated, not afraid to be exposed. There were countless unusual animals in Misty Mountain, including those that could spit fire. He had already seen several such animals in the last couple of days. Xue Wuya had no reason to doubt his words and so, unconcerned by his interpretation of events, he took out a white porcelain from his body and handed it to Junior Leopard, "This is a superior Jinchuang Medicine. You can paint it in your hand and it will recover in less than two days. Also, there are about 10 days left... You should practice the sword skill and body movement diligently which I have taught you in the last 10 days. After the 10 days, it will be the full-moon night when you should help me conquer the Evil Toad!"


    Junior Leopard''s heart jumped.


    In 10 days, the full-moon night, it will be the time to conquer the Evil Toad.


    "What? Is there a problem?!" Xue Wuya asked, as if he sensed the dissidence in Junior Leopard''s heart.


    "Oh, nothing, just some..."


    "Some fear?!" Xue Wuya looked straight towards Junior Leopard''s heart, laughing wildly and he said, "Do not be afraid, boy! There is nothing to fear. That monster has already been hurt by me. Now it''s hiding in the cave to heal the wound and will not come out! But as long as I use the Tihu Incense, in conjunction with the power of the full-moon, it absolutely can''t resist the temptation. You don''t have to worry, all you''ll need to do is assist me with the array."


    "Yes. Many thanks, teacher!" Junior Leopard did not dare to say more and left the valley.


    "Enticing the Evil Toad out using the Tihu Incense combined with the power of the full moon. This is a good opportunity, ah!"


    Junior Leopard sat cross-legged at the edge of the cave, and his hands were covered with Jinchuang Medicine. Eyes flashing, he was thinking about what Xue Wuya had said. There were 13 bottles of the Drowsy Drug left, the effect of which he was very clear about, "If I put the Drowsy Drug in the living animals that I deliver to Xue Wuya, then the drug would attack him when he fights with the Evil Toad. It''ll be good for me, won''t it?"


    Since all the living animals for Xue Wuya were all provided by him, in addition, the property of the Drowsy Drug was so weird that it would melt immediately upon contact with water, he could melt some Drowsy Drugs into an animal and let Xue Wuya drink the blood down...


    This idea was wonderful, except...


    "Can his words be totally believed? Can the power of the moon and Tihu Incense really entice the Evil Toad to come out? If Xue Wuya were to miscalculate, and I had already melted the anesthetic pill, wouldn''t that be a great misfortune for me?!" Thinking of the possibility of failure, Junior Leopard was shaken. He was a cautious person that cherished his own life. It might be fine if it was anything else. But since it involved his life, he dared not to be careless. Although Xue Wuya said that he could entice the Evil Toad out, what if there was an accident?


    If Junior Leopard had taken arbitrary actions, but the Evil Toad did not come out, he could not imagine what the result would be.


    "As the saying goes, fearing wolves ahead and tigers behind, it reflects my situation exactly!" Junior Leopard laughed at himself, "If this Jinchuang Medicine can cure my hand within three days, in 10 days I''ll be able to wield a sword properly!" Thinking of the movement of sword skill Xue Wuya taught to him, Junior Leopard smiled more wryly.


    "Is this the movement for a normal person?!" Thinking of the crazy requirements for the control of Internal Qi and the strength required in the whole body when practicing, Junior Leopard described the sword skill using only one word, and that was ''psycho''!


    Of course, Xue Wuya did not expect Junior Leopard to be able to learn the movement within such a short time, since this sword skill movement was very sharp and sophisticated. He thought that Junior Leopard who had never learned a sword skill before, would find it incredibly difficult. Although Xue Wuya had explained the sword skill movement to Junior Leopard in detail in the last few days, the sword technique was so broad and profound that Junior Leopard would not understand it from a single explanation. If he could, he would not be Junior Leopard, but the god of the sword.


    Besides, after these two days, since he was not a smart person, he had already forgotten most of the things that Xue Wuya taught him.


    It was extremely hard for Junior Leopard to practice the movements of the sword skill at that time. After trying twice, he decided to give up the meaningless behavior.


    It was impossible for Junior Leopard to master this movement within 10 days.


    "As a knowledgeable and observant man, Xue Wuya should know that it''s impossible for me to master this movement. But why does he still insist on teaching me?" With slight confusion, Junior Leopard put down his sword and sat down cross-legged, "But it seemed so weird when he taught me. I can barely master these aspects he taught as key points. As to that point, I need to build up strength for one hour and operate all of the Internal Qi in my body so that I can make it. Is the mystery this point?" Junior Leopard made an abstruse gesture with his dagger in front of himself. However, after a moment, when he transported his own Internal Qi in according to the mental cultivation methods of sword technique that Xue Wuya had taught to him, a kind of sharp momentum formed gradually on his body to his surprise. The dagger in his hand also sent out a layer of hazy light. Since he was not far from the valley where Xue Wuya stayed, he knew that he had better not use his strange eyes. However, after calming down and focusing his attention, he could clearly feel the movement of the Qi in his tendons and vessels. It was apparent that the Qi of Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon which he obtained after a little practicing was following this mental cultivation methods of sword technique and flowing and moving within his body, producing a slow and gradual change.


    The Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire was a kind of fire attribute. At that time, Junior Leopard could display the power of Internal Qi. However, after being moved by the mental cultivation methods of the sword technique, the fire attribute Internal Qi condensed into a current of air, it condensed more and more tightly, until, at last, it became Sword Qi, as sharp as a needle...


    Sword Qi finally formed!


    Junior Leopard''s body involuntarily moved with the Sword Qi. His left hand holding the dagger moved in a weird arc, his body jumped up swiftly as if there was a spring under his bottom. As the dagger jutted out, he floated down to the ground like in a flow-like state. He rocked twice and took two steps backward so that he could stand firm.


    With the sound of "Peng!", there was a big noise in the air. It was produced by himself when he hit the air with his dagger.


    "What a sharp movement!" The light of the dagger glowed and formed a few faint stars in the air, although they only existed for a flash, he surprisingly slashed nine times. He had impaled the air and made a flower with the dagger. That was the reason for the big noise.


    However, since he was still in a child''s body, his strength was limited. Those nine times had not only used his Internal Qi up, but also all his strength. It was similar to the person who ran 3000 meters when his ability was just 1000 meters. As a result, he nearly collapsed.


    He was barely able to take a breath He felt weak. Suddenly, he vomited a mouthful of blood, before the wounded tendons and meridians spasmed again.


    All of his strength was used up, his tendons and vessels were also affected. After applying one movement, he realized gradually its meaning, "The focus of the sword skill movement is the mental cultivation method. Once the mental cultivation method is applied, it will make the body involuntarily display the movement. But the power of the movement is up to the Internal Qi and strength."


    "No!" Junior Leopard thought with his eyes squinted, "Even if the strength and Internal Qi were enough and both of the mental cultivation method and movement are known, it''s impossible to display the maximum power of the movement. As to the fine part of the movement, it still needs more understanding. I have never learned sword skill before. But, I still can partly display its power with my Internal Qi and strength. The price is all the essence of my blood."


    Thinking of the sword flower he had created, he furrowed his eyebrows, "If so, that should be Xue Wuya''s plan. My power is so weak that I can''t do him any favors when he fights with the Evil Toad. But if I hit the Evil Toad once at the critical moment, there may be some unexpected result. It shall be the last draw for the camel. Is that what Xue Wuya is thinking?!"


    Junior Leopard once again sat down cross-legged. Then he looked at the more than one-foot long dagger in his hand. He touched the delicate blade gently with his right hand, feeling its fine lines and said, "I''m afraid that it won''t be easy for the person if he is stabbed by the dagger, regardless of Internal force, martial arts or the movement. As soon as I''m stabbed, I simply wouldn''t have the power to resist and all of my tendons and vessels will be damaged. Then I will absolutely die if the Evil Toad fights back. This way, Xue Wuya would not even have to kill me personally. After all, as a Level Eight, if he kills me, a Level One rookie, that would be really shameful ah?!" Junior Leopard''s eyes flashed a few times as he gradually saw through Xue Wuya''s plan.


    "That means my value will end 10 days later. Even if I did not die at the hands of the Evil Toad, I would also die at Xue Wuya''s hands. Oh, it seems that I have to fight!" Junior Leopard looked at the bottom of the hole, where he buried the Drowsy Drug and he made up his mind, clenching his fists.


    Junior Leopard had also thought of escaping from here, but even if he could escape from the Misty Mountain, out of the control of Xue Wuya, the village where he had lived for more than 10 years would face some consequences.


    Since Xue Wuya had given so many advantages to Junior Leopard, he would not let him off.


    Xue Wuya caught Junior Leopard at the Qingyang Market. It wasn''t difficult for Xue Wuya to check out his identity. Otherwise, the result would be terrible.


    So all that Junior Leopard could do was to fight!


    "The key point is whether and when the Evil Toad will come out. But since Xue Wuya has prepared for this, he should be very sure. Otherwise, it means he loses face in front of me. Xue Wuya absolutely won''t do this kind of thing, it''s not in his character. So the Tihu Incense should definitely be effective!"


    Junior Leopard comforted himself in his mind. At this time, it seemed that there were no better methods. Even if Xue Wuya had not planned to kill him, he still had to take some measures. He had no time to delay, if he delayed any longer, Xue Wuya would have cured his wound and his chance to kill Xue Wuya would have become slimmer.


    However, Xue Wuya was a Level-Eight master after all, he wasn''t sure about whether he could succeed when he fought with Xue Wuya.


    Although the property of the Anesthetic Pill was serious, it was actually good and without side effects in his previous life. Considering Xue Wuya''s cultivation, even though he might be influenced by the anesthetic pill, he absolutely would not fall down to sleep like ordinary people or wild beasts. As soon as Xue Wuya tried to stay awake, it would be very easy for him to kill Junior Leopard.


    Under these circumstances, Junior Leopard had no more time to think.


    Although Junior Leopard did not want to think further, another problem appeared in his mind. That was whether the pill should be put in one living animal or all the animals. If he put all the pills into all the animals, the danger would be multiplied. Regardless of the possibility of being found and the dispersion of the efficacy, the efficacy of the pill was also not sure to perform its function.


    "If so, the efficacy should absolutely not disperse and all of the Drowsy Drug should be put into only one wild beast so that its efficacy can be fully exerted. I need to guarantee that Xue Wuya takes it all at once¡ª Wait!" A safer idea suddenly came to Junior Leopard.


    "I can''t guarantee whether and when the Evil Toad will show up. But if I plan well, I could set Xue Wuya''s feeding time. Although Xue Wuya can defeat the Evil Toad every time, he also needs to pay big price of exhausting his strength. He needs living animals to recover his strength. If I try to let him eat the animal with Drowsy Drug, don''t my chances improve?"


    Thinking of Xue Wuya''s pale appearance after fighting with the Evil Toad on that day, Junior Leopard was sure that this was indeed a more guaranteed idea. At least, he did not need to worry about so many uncontrolled actors, including whether and when the Evil Toad appeared, whether the Tihu Incense could work effectively and so on. All these risks could be avoided. However, similarly, without the Evil Toad constraining Xue Wuya, it was still easy for Xue Wuya to defeat him. Therefore, it seemed that he had better start the Tihu Incense in the animal in advance. Thus when Xue Wuya fought against the Evil Toad, he would be held back by the pill, which might result in both sides'' suffering a great loss. So the probability of success would be the most.


    Thinking of this, Junior Leopard began to have a headache. He felt disappointed because his life depended upon an unknown fortune in the end.


    It was all because of power. In front of Xue Wuya, all the plans seemed functionless. Even if Xue Wuya fought with the strong Evil Toad with a bad wound in his body which resulted in both sides suffering a great loss and he was also fed with 13 bottles of the Drowsy Drugs, all the above could not make Junior Leopard feel at ease, for he was still at a disadvantage.


    Even though there was only one minor mistake, the result would definitely be dead.


    Junior Leopard sighed helplessly. He was very clear that if Xue Wuya conquered the Evil Toad 10 days later, that would result in a great risk for him. In that condition, Junior Leopard''s value would greatly be reduced and he might be replaced by the Evil Toad to collect living animals for Xue Wuya. That probably meant he would die soon.


    After contacting Xue Wuya these few days, Junior Leopard found that Xue his heart pulse was injured by the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou''s one Sword Qi, and he couldn''t recover in short time. It was because he was hurt too seriously that he was not able to run to further places. He decided to hide in Misty Mountain for his recovery. Even though Lu Shaoyou was very strong, it was impossible for him to search the whole mountain. In addition, if he encountered Lu Shaoyou occasionally, would not Lu Shaoyou choose to contend with him?


    The answer was no.


    Although Xue Wuya''s wound was not cured yet, his pneuma had mostly recovered after these few days of healing. The color on his face had returned after consuming the living animals. Junior Leopard was not sure whether Xue Wuya would be exhausted and need to be fed with many living animals like the first time after fighting with the Evil Toad. All the above was unknown. The last plan seemed guaranteed, but there were also many uncertain factors hiding behind it.


    "There is no choice but to check it out before making a decision!"


    ...


    ...


    "Teacher, what is the subtlety of the Tihu Incense? It will entice the cowardly turtle out?"


    Although there was still some fear in Junior Leopard''s heart when facing Xue Wuya, he was not so constrained like the beginning. So the attitude of Xue Wuya towards him was not that stiff.


    However, the relaxed attitude made Junior Leopard feel more uneasy, the reason which, might be a psychological function or other reasons not known to him. Every time he saw Xue Wuya, he could feel the ambition to kill him hidden in his own body. That made the sense of urgency in his heart stronger.


    If Xue Wuya continued recovering, then Junior Leopard wouldn''t have any chance.


    That was the most authentic feeling of Junior Leopard at that time.


    "This is the Tihu Incense." Xue Wuya said with his palm opening. Junior Leopard saw a pile of grey-yellow powder floating above Xue Wuya''s hand.


    Junior Leopard sniffed, and he smelled a bitter taste. This bitter taste contained a wisp of an eccentric fragrance.


    "The Tihu Incense is specialized for catching monsters. It has a kind of fatal attraction to monsters that have begun to improve mentally and it can confuse their mind. Although this monster has already improved its mental and power, yet if I burn this Tihu Incense at the night of the full-moon, in conjunction with the moon''s power, the Evil Toad won''t be able to resist the attraction!" Xue Wuya said with a cruel smile, "Once it comes out, it definitely won''t escape from me."


    Junior Leopard nodded with a stiff smile on his face.


    "What? You don''t believe in me?"


    Xue Wuya was so experienced that he soon realized Junior Leopard''s abnormal behavior.


    "No, I had just been shocked by the monster last time. So now, I still somehow feel horrible when thinking of it."


    "Aha... you coward! The monster merely has a huge and ugly appearance, actually, it doesn''t have any other power except the severe toxicity on its whole body. But since it has practiced at least hundreds of years, its Inner Elixir might be useful. So I want to kill him and get the Inner Elixir!"


    "I see!" Junoir Leopard answered with his head lowered. His mind was slowly becoming peaceful after seeing Xue Wuya''s confidence. Since Xue Wuya had said it, maybe he indeed had a high success rate. Otherwise, it would be a great shame if the monster didn''t show up after he burned the Tihu Incense on the night of the full-moon.


    "How is your hand?" Xue Wuya suddenly asked when Junior Leopard was lost in his thoughts.


    "It''s fine!" Junior Leopard answered quickly, stretching out his recovered hand, "Teacher''s Jinchuang Medicine is indeed great. It just took a few days to heal my hand. But the Jinchuang Medicine..."


    "It''s just a bottle of Jinchuang Medicine. Never mind!" Xue Wuya said, "How is the sword skill movement? Have you been practicing well?"


    "I''m a fool!" as Xue Wuya spoke of the movement, Junior Leopard bowed soon, "The movement teacher passed on me is too complicated. I have practiced it for few days, but there isn''t any progress. Please, teacher, punish me!"


    Hearing of this, Xue Wuya''s eyes blinked and he asked, "You have no idea? Well, it''s not your fault. Although I have simplified the sword technique as far as possible, since you have never learned sword technique before, it''s indeed too hard for you to practice it successfully. However, this is in connection with my plan, so you have to practice it as well as you can!"


    "But, I..."


    "Fine, I have no business in the following days. Tell me about the problems you encountered during your practicing. I will tell you the answers one by one. But you have to meet my request before the full-moon night."


    "Yes!"


    Since then, Junior Leopard followed Xue Wuya to practice the movement every day. It was within his expectations that Xue Wuya concentrated on how to display the movement most when he was teaching. However, as for the consequences of the movement, Xue Wuya just mentioned it slightly. Xue Wuya also told Junior Leopard that he would help to cure his wound if Junior Leopard was hurt during the fighting.


    So Junior Leopard was clever. Every time he sent the living animals to the valley, he always kept one or two in coma among those animals. At first, Xue Wuya felt it a little weird, but he didn''t say anything because these animals didn''t die and they were still useful to him. Xue Wuya thought that Junior Leopard knocked the animals out to avoid troubles.


    In the last few days, almost half of the living animals Junior Leopard sent to the valley were in the coma. Therefore, when he sent the wild beasts who had fainted due to his anesthetic pill in the valley, Xue Wuya wouldn''t have any doubts about this.


    The days passed by and soon came the 10th day, the full-moon night.


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 51: Spreading the Gospel

    Chapter 51: Spreading the Gospel


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The sky was a deep blue with the full moon hanging in the middle, shining like pearl.


    The steep valley was filled with smog and fog. Junior Leopard took a Detoxicating Pill in his mouth and then sat behind an enormous stone, he was stressed out now. He kept looking at the cave with his eyes wide open and the coal dagger tightly grasped in his hand.


    "Don''t panic, only one month has passed since I injured that monster, it hasn''t recovered yet. In addition, the monster isn''t very smart, and I have the Tihu Incense that can confuse it, it will be dealt with easily!"


    Junior Leopard''s face had a tic, but he managed to force a smile. Only god knew why he was so nervous. He had brought 5 living animals today. He had poured thirteen bottles of the Drowsy Drug in to the blood of a white deer. Speaking of the Drowsy Drug, it was a miracle. Not only could it melt in water but it could also melt in blood. He merely opened a tiny hole in the white deer''s bottom and all of the Drowsy Drug melted in. Even Junior Leopard himself wouldn''t believe it if he hadn''t seen it in person.


    No matter if he believed or not however, things already happened. His heart was in his mouth as he watched the wild beasts lying around Xue Wuya.


    Xue Wuya didn''t start to enjoy the beasts at once after Junior Leopard brought them here today, he lit the Tihu Incense little by little instead.


    A mild dust rose up after the gray ashes were ignited. A short while later, a green fragrance spread out and took up the entire steep valley, then all of the bloody and fishy smells were covered up.


    "The Tihu Incense is secretly extracted using Dark Sect techniques, it is highly effective. I bet the monster won''t be able to hold back after 10 minutes!" Xue Wuya couldn''t hold back his delight when he was taking about the Tihu Incense. He lifted his fingers, the necks of all the beasts were cut open at the same time. Then he sucked the blood greedily, the blood formed a dragon flying towards his mouth, and no doubt the white deer''s blood which was mixed with the Drowsy Drug was also in there.


    "Gudong!"


    Junior Leopard stared at Xue Wuya seeing him sucking the blood dragon into his stomach and he swallowed nervously. When Xue Wuya finished it all and began to adjust his breath, Junior Leopard forced himself to stop staring at him, in case he was noticed.


    Xue Wuya sat cross-legged on a moss-lined stone at the entrance of the cave, around his body there was a layer of bloody lights. The lights flickered like fire, a few lights jumped out of the layer from time to time and vanished in air. This was Xue Wuya''s Bloodfire Gang.


    All of a sudden, Xue Wuya woke up and opened his eyes, he looked at Junior Leopard furiously. Junior Leopard had been looking closely at Xue Wuya since he was adjusting his breath, when Junior Leopard noticed Xue Wuya''s unusual behavior, he jumped like a leopard around 3 feet into the air. In the meantime, Xue Wuya stretched his hands and waved violently at Junior Leopard. Five bright flames were shot out from his fingertips, the flames went down through Junior Leopard''s shoes and destroyed a wall of stones behind Junior Leopard''s back.


    "Pu, Pu, Pu, Pu, Pu!" five slams, five flames, five fist-size holes appeared. The holes were pitch-black, as if they were burnt by fire.


    "You want to escape? It''s not that easy!" Xue Wuya''s face became even more furious after Junior Leopard escaped from his flames. He grabbed towards Junior Leopard before he fell on ground. As Xue Wuya grabbed, Junior Leopard felt a strong magnetism that pulled him closer to Xue Wuya.


    "Be careful!" Junior Leopard spoke to himself as he grabbed the ground to prevent himself flying.


    The magnetism appeared again the moment his feet touched the ground.


    This time, no matter what he grabbed, it wouldn''t make any difference, Junior Leopard''s body was sucked towards Xue Wuya fiercely.


    "I''m in trouble!" Junior Leopard became serious and kept grabbing at the ground using diliberate hard fall to slow down the effect of the magnetism. With his other hand, the coal dagger was grasped tightly. Xue Wuya was even more furious at him, the gesture was exactly the first technique of the incomparable dagger technique that he had taught to Junior Leopard a few days ago. Now Junior Leopard was using it against him, endless anger filled him and Xue Wuya itched to rip Junior Leopard, his betrayer into pieces.


    But Xue Wuya was surprised that after feeling angry, he became extremely dizzy. All he wanted to do was to sleep.


    "Damn, what has Junior Leopard done, it''s so weird!" Xue Wuya shut his mouth fiercely and he bit through his tongue so that the overwhelming pain could wake him up. In the meantime, his Internal Qi circulated quickly through his body trying to drive the thing which made him sick out.


    But no matter how he circled his Internal Qi, there was no other way that he could expel the thing. The only thing that could keep him alert was the heat generated from his body''s bloody fire. He was close to finding the root cause of what made him sleepy, his Internal Qi was only one step away from finding out where the troubling thing was and expelling it. He was only one step away.


    "I wouldn''t give Junior Leopard any chance to beat me if I weren''t deeply injured and my Internal Qi was scattered!" Xue Wuya''s face was blue, he knew Junior Leopard had run out of his control the moment he felt dizzy. "Run, I will give you time to run, I shall see how far you can get!" cursed Xue Wuya.


    He had a feeling that told him what was in his body wasn''t poison but a kind of strong sleeping drug. It only made him dizzy, but wouldn''t affect his health. He would choose to sleep if it was a normal time. But he couldn''t now as the Evil Toad was approaching and Junior Leopard intended to kill him. He was afraid that he would never wake up again if he slept.


    "Hum, Junior Leopard, I''ll take down the Evil Toad first, then it''s time to punish you!"


    Xue Wuya was also a man with many provisions. Although he was furious with Junior Leopard, he knew that he already lost the best chance to kill Junior Leopard when he disappeared behind the cliffs. Xue Wuya didn''t indulge himself in anger. He closed his eyes slowly, kept himself calm and focused. And Internal Qi was running though his body like underground magma, eroding his sleepiness to keep himself awake.


    "It''s about time the Evil Toad shows up!" eyes closed, Xue Wuya frowned softly as he noticed the approaching eccentric spirit coming from a cave."I have to end the battle quickly. Although running my Internal Qi like this can keep me alert, it will do a great damage to my body''s tendons and vessels. And Junior Leopard hasn''t gone far yet, he is still somewhere around staring at me. I have to figure out a way to entice him out, otherwise I won''t last long after the Evil Toad is dead!"


    "Xue Wuya must be thinking of a way to lure me out!" Hidden at the entrance of the valley 100 foot away, was Junior Leopard. He was behind a stone secretly watching what was happening within. He panicked when he found that Xue Wuya wasn''t asleep and had resisted the Anesthetic Pilll''s effects. He also knew there was no way that he could hide from Xue Wuya.


    But... He had died once and was reborn, so his mind was much stronger than an ordinary person''s.


    He calmed down after the panic and then started to think of solutions.


    Junior Leopard could infer Xue Wuya''s thoughts on the whole as if he was standing in his shoes. For starters, the Anesthetic Pill must have had some effect on Xue Wuya. If there wasn''t any effect, Xue Wuya wouldn''t suddenly attack him. Secondly, Xue Wuya hadn''t eliminated the Anesthetic Pill out of his body, which was the reason why he hadn''t followed him. Deeply injured as Xue Wuya was, he was still a Level Eight master, and there was no doubt he could crush Junior Leopard the Level One freshman to ashes with his Internal Qi, even if it was his last gasp.


    Now that the Anesthetic Pill was effective, it was obvious that Xue Wuya was resisting against its effects. He even tried to expel it out of his body, but it wasn''t successful.


    Since he wasn''t successful, there would be troubles.


    He had to deal with the Evil Toad very soon, and he was still injured. At the same time, he was drugged. When the Evil Toad came, he would be in big trouble. He couldn''t fight with the Evil Toad and the Anesthetic Pill at the same time. The Evil Toad wasn''t easy to fight against, although it couldn''t reach Level Eight, it still had the ability of a Level Five or Level Six. Therefore the only way was to kill the toad quickly. But what about after the toad was dead?


    Once Xue Wuya made a big movement and much Internal Qi was consumed, whether he could still resist the Anesthetic Pill or not was a question. What would Junior Leopard do if he was Xue Wuya?


    Junior Leopard came to the conclusion, "He must lure me out when he''s at his best condition, and kill me and the Evil Toad at the same time. Maybe that will be my chance too!"


    There were always two sides for opportunities.


    At the same moment, Junior Leopard noticed a faint earthquake on the ground. A giant figure dashed out of the cave with ear-piercing noises. Dirty mud was scattered all around, it was like mud rain.

 Chapter 52: Dagger Appearing

    Chapter 52: Dagger Appearing


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "It is coming out!" Junior Leopard could feel the trembling beneath his feet and popped his head up quickly to look. Shrinking back behind the rock, he was again completely hidden.


    The monstrous toad''s enormous body rushed out from beneath the crypt, emitting a sharp and piercing sound.


    "Gua¡ª!"


    In the past, Junior Leopard only considered the sound of a frog to be noisy; however, he had never thought a frog could emit a noise that would cause such terrifying damage.


    When his body had shrunk back behind the rock, Junior Leopard immediately covered his ears with both of his hands. Even though he covered them tightly, the sound still leaked through and it felt like something was pulling at his heart, making him feel extremely uncomfortable.


    "Hu¡ª I can''t think like this¡ª!" Junior Leopard quickly activated his internal Qi. A wave of searing hot Qi flowed into to his tendons and vessels, rushing to the top of the head. This greatly dampened the irritating sound. "Such a powerful voice!"


    Junior Leopard''s heart was silently surprised. He shifted his gaze to the side of the crypt. At this moment, the monster toad and Xue Wuya began to battle.


    Xue Wuya''s body formed into a wave of blood light as he battled around the monster toad. His efficiency was extremely high and every time he displayed his skills, he would leave behind a very deep wound mark that sprayed fresh black-green blood. The monster toad, having suffered injuries, shouted wave after wave of roars. Its eyes were blood-shot, revealing an expression of intense insanity.


    Junior Leopard knew this was because the Tihu Incense that had messed with its mind. If not for the incense the creature would have already dove back into the crypt to hide.


    Xue Wuya''s efficiency was very high and Junior Leopard could obviously see that. The power that Xue Wuya was displaying now couldn''t be compared to his level when he had met the monster toad a month ago. If he had the power then that he has now, the monster would have been subdued by him then.


    Surrounding his body, the blood red Gang Qi was emitting an extremely bright flame sun. In his hands, he held no weapon, and instead was fighting the monster toad with his bare fists.


    Despite the monster toad''s massive body, it was still extremely agile. Especially when it was under the influence of the Tihu Incense, it completely fell into a kind of insanity. Its battle prowess was 30% stronger than normal. The spots on its back were constantly spitting out venom. As the venom sprayed onto the earth, rocks, and rock walls, waves of heavy smoke plumed, releasing a smell that was extremely noxious.


    While Xue Wuya''s speed was fast, he was not faster than the blanket of venom that was falling from the sky. However, it didn''t seem to bother him and any of the venom that fell on his Qi quickly evaporated without doing any damage to Xue Wuya.


    As for the monster toad''s attacks, he would always evade during the most critical point of its attack, leaving behind a new and deep wound on the monster toad''s body.


    The monster toad repeatedly roared furiously. Its body trembled and it continuously jumped up and down on the bare earth. This little steep valley was at the mercy of its mighty power and it shook like there was an earthquake happening. As the earth trembled, the rocks from the left and right started falling, instantly creating a huge dust cloud from all sides.


    "You beast, that move is useless like this!" Xue Wuya''s body agilely evaded the monster toad''s attacks. The corner of his lips lifted letting out a strand of cold laughter, "You are a beast indeed. Did you think you could deal with me by using just your instincts? If you hadn''t lured that kid over, I would have finished you off long ago."


    When he thought of Junior Leopard, Xue Wuya''s stomach would develop a ball of fire that he couldn''t get to dissipate. All this time he was scheming against the other, while no one ever schemed against him. The unsuspecting geese he had been hitting all year finally pecked back making him blind. So, he had caught Junior Leopard and brought him to the Misty Mountain, with the intention of using him and then killing him. To his surprise, Junior Leopard had ambushed him instead and this was a situation he had never encountered before.


    He was the seventh Dark Lord of the Dark Sect, Blood River Sect''s second expert, yet he was slapped in the face by an eight or nine-year-old little brat. He couldn''t take this no matter what.


    A dizzy feeling once again attacked his heart and head. Xue Wuya''s eyes flashed with a glint, and his body staggered.


    "Pu¡ª!" As he heard the sound, three long bloody lines appeared on his back where the Monster Toad''s claws had penetrated his defense. The blood red Gang Qi that was surrounding his body trembled tremendously and looked as if it was going to disappear. Turning his body forcefully, in an unnatural position, he was able to slide to the right of the monster and out of its attack range.


    "Gua¡ª!" After landing a hit successfully, the Monster Toad roared loudly. Its huge mouth opened, and a glob the size of a disc of black-green colored slime shot out of its mouth, flying straight at Xue Wuya.


    Xue Wuya flicked all ten of his fingers and ten balls of blood-red firelight shot out of his fingertips, aimed straight at the slime glob.


    "Pu, pu, pu¡ª!" after a few soft sounds, ten fingers of firelight clashed with the slime, creating wave after wave of white smoke. The steep valley''s strange smell got even denser. That slime shrank a lot, however, its speed was not reducing, and it wholly rushed at Xue Wuya.


    Xue Wuya''s was extremely fast and after evading just now, he stuck close to the right side of the rock wall. At this time, if the ten fingers of firelight didn''t erode and finish off the slime, he was trapped. That is when his expression greatly changed. He couldn''t retreat, so he forcefully gathered his Gang Qi and the fire-light around his body enlarged as he faced off against the slime ball.


    "Hong¡ª!" a strange sound occurred when the slime ball made contact with the blood red Gang Qi. The slime ball and the firelight eroded away at each other, creating a stalemate. It was hard to tell who was going to win.


    "Gua¡ª!" The Monster Toad shouted once again. Its big mouth opened and it spit another giant ball of slim which was aiming straight for Xue Wuya.


    Facing off with the second slime ball, Xue Wuya could no longer avoid it, and could only confront it head on.


    The blood light surfaced once again and the surrounding fire light became much brighter when compared to before. It was as if the fire had a bucket of oil poured into it. "Hua¡ª", after a moment, it had absorbed both of the slime balls.


    "Cough¡ª!" With a cough that couldn''t be heard, Xue Wuya''s mouth had a trace of blood in its corner. In front of him, the blood fire real Gang and the slime ball were knitted together and wave after wave of green fog spread. An incomparably malodorous smell permeated the whole steep valley.


    Xue Wuya''s body staggered and he shook one of his fists. The firelight around his body all condensed onto his hand, turning it into a blood-red colored fireball. His body slid to the side, intentionally or unintentionally sliding over to Junior Leopard''s hiding spot. His hand that controlled the blood fireball, was aimed to fight with the slime ball. His other hand was continuously flickering and five pillars of brightly colored fire light shot off towards the Monster Toad. His back was exposed as he was rushing over in Junior Leopard''s direction.


    "Here''s my chance¡ª!" Junior Leopard''s eyebrows twitched.


    Xue Wuya was coming closer and closer, his attention wholly concentrated on the Monster Toad in front, not thinking about what was behind him.


    "It must be difficult for him!" Junior Leopard rose up without thinking. The coal dagger in his hand flashed across the gap with a cold light, aiming straight for Xue Wuya''s back.


    At the moment when the sword light was moving, five streaks of firelight had already hit onto the Monster Toad, burning five holes into the monster''s body. The Monster Toad shrieked loudly, desperately rolling its body on the earth, in an attempt to relieve the pain from the burns.


    "Have you come? I am waiting for you¡ª!" a wave of heavy weariness attacked his heart and head. Xue Wuya inhaled deeply taking in a breath of air. He could sense the dagger coming at him from behind and the corner of his lips lifted into a cold smile.


    He sensed his body rising up, releasing the sword, forming into one with the Qi, this was exactly what Xue Wuya had taught him, a mysterious sword technique. This was also his greatest killing move now.


    This brat''s heart is vicious and meticulous. However, he is still too young, and too soft!


    Feeling the extremely familiar sword technique, Xue Wuya''s body which was falling backward, jerked suddenly. Following that, a wave of invincible Qi was released from his body.


    The sword technique was halted in its tracks and Junior Leopard''s body, which was rising, up was forcefully stopped mid-leap.


    "What is this strength?!" An unseen force was holding Junior Leopard suspended in the sky, forcing him to release the sword.


    "Hand, this seems like a hand?!" He felt a force binding him and it felt as if an invisible hand was holding him. It was just a big, enormous hand, that he couldn''t see, clamping down on him. He felt like the grandson monkey in the Buddha''s hand and no matter which way he flipped there would be no wave.


    A Qi, that was like a mountain, splitting his head and covering his face, bore down on him. An incomparably dense blood smell choked Junior Leopard till his head was in a trance. Xue Wuya''s fierce face appeared in front of him, followed by a big slap.


    "Pa¡ª!" This slap landed on Junior Leopard and he though his head had been sent flying by Xue Wuya''s blow. Blood sprayed from his face and it looked like a condiment shop had been trashed, salty, sour, and hot liquid everywhere. Not giving him a chance to recover another slap came. It sounded like a water parade where chimes and cymbals clanged together. The two slaps rained down on him, knocking him nearly unconscious.


    "You will not die so easily!" Xue Wuya now hated Junior Leopard to an extreme. His hands trembled, as a strand of sharp wind shot out and hit Junior Leopard between his eyebrows. This strand of sharp wind entered his body and it was like a fine needle, following his Qi through his blood, entering his tendons and vessels.


    "You shall first have a taste of this Shiyin Needle. Wait till I have settled this Monster Toad, then I will come back for you!" Xue Wuya viciously stared at Junior Leopard. At this moment Junior Leopard suddenly opened his eyes and a red light shot of them. Xue Wuya blinked once and he felt shocked in his heart. Before he could respond Xue Wuya''s eyes blacked out and Junior Leopard transmitted a wave of intense pain.


    "Ahhh¡ª!!!" Xue Wuya roared and covered both of his eyes. A strand of black air rose up from between them, carrying with it a burning stench.

 Chapter 53: Berserk Xue Wuya

    Chapter 53: Berserk Xue Wuya


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    When Xue Wuya covered both of his eyes, the invisible big hand that was binding Junior Leopard disappeared. Junior Leopard fell on the ground panting heavily. He couldn''t care less about the injuries on his body and quickly squirmed out of the valley. He subconsciously hid in the dark area, wiped his face, and suppressed the nauseating feelings he had. He then turned around and stealthily observed the situation within the valley.


    Using the ability of his eyes to deal the last blow to Xue Wuya was something that he had long planned. Everything that happened today was part of his plan. The only unexpected thing that happened was the Shiyin Needle. However the energy from the Shiyin Needle that entered his tendons and vessels was only for a short a duration, hence it was okay. It did not settle down in time. He expelled it when he was accumulating his Internal Qi and expelling it through his eyes, molding it into his last attack. This made his last attack''s fatal damage increase by several folds.


    Xue Wuya was a Level Eight expert while Junior Leopard was only a Level One rookie. Killing him was easier said than done.


    Even though he had the mysterious Drowsy Drug in his hand, he did not dare assume that it could knock Xue Wuya unconscious. In fact his conjecture was correct.


    The Drowsy Drug would have quite an effect on Xue Wuya, however, Xue Wuya didn''t fall unconscious.


    Naturally it could not be assured that the Xue Wuya who was affected will definitely not be the Monster Toad''s opponent. This was his most fatal weakness. As a Level One rookie, being born in the Jianghu''s lowest strata meant that he had no way of knowing where a Level Eight expert''s strength truly lies. What is a Level Eight expert? How strong is a Level Eight expert? He did not know the answers to these questions, he only knew that Xue Wuya was a Level Eight expert.


    With so little resources behind his foundation, to kill off a Level Eight expert was not feasible at all.


    No matter if it is the Drowsy Drug, or the Monster Toad, he could only use them, and not rely on them.


    The final bet could only be held within his own hands.


    That would be his eyes.


    If it was not because he coincidentally ate the snake ball, allowing his own eyes to evolve, it could be said that he would have to wait for a while before making his move.


    After the eyes went through a transformation, things became different. He had a killing ace. Maybe during ordinary times, this killing ace would not reveal his prowess as it would not create nor pose any threat to Xue Wuya. After all, Xue Wuya already was a Level Eight expert, having the bronze skin and metal bones said only in the legends. Even if he became drenched in fire, there would be nothing happening to him. Even if Junior Leopard exhausts all his Internal Qi from the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire, it would not cause a dent of damage to him.


    To hurt him, he could only use one blow to strike the fatal spot.


    What was the fatal spot?


    Eyes. Everyone knows that the eyes are weak. However to attack a Level Eight expert''s eyes was easier said than done.


    To accomplish this, it must be under the condition where he was totally defenseless.


    How to make him defenseless?


    Junior Leopard would not be serving him until he felt comfortable. To let Xue Wuya make him into a true disciple, even if Junior Leopard becomes his true disciple, Xue Wuya wouldn''t be defenseless. Suspicion could be the Dark Sect''s common trait. He would definitely not change just because there was some respect from you.


    Only in one kind of situation would he be truly defenseless, and that was when Junior Leopard was completely under control.


    A Level Eight strong expert will have a Level Eight expert''s pride and confidence. Deep within the recesses of their hearts, they will definitely not believe that a Level One rookie, after being controlled by them, would still have measures to retaliate!


    This is absolutely impossible. The world will definitely not have such a thing happening. A Level One rookie wanting to kill a Level Eight expert could only rely on assassination or using the most despicable means, or strike from behind. Just like Junior Leopard using the Drowsy Drug on Xue Wuya, at the same time, heaven-defying luck is needed. When both parties face off, a Level One rookie will definitely have no chance. This is an expert''s confidence. It is also the principle that the world recognizes.


    Junior Leopard precisely used this point and created a chance to directly face off with Xue Wuya.


    And when they were facing off against each other, he drugged and assassinated Xue Wuya, doing exactly what a Level One rookie should do. So when he was being controlled, Xue Wuya completely relaxed and dropped his guard, creating a chance for him to face Xue Wuya eye to eye.


    Returning a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye!


    Xue Wuya would never think that Junior Leopard had such a pair of strange eyes, and definitely won''t believe that under his control and with the Shiyin Needle within his body, Junior Leopard could still have any form of retaliation.


    Do not say that he won''t believe it, even the Junior Leopard from a few days ago wouldn''t believe it either.


    He definitely wouldn''t think that Junior Leopard actually has such a weird attacking method, using the eyes to attack!


    What''s more, that the damaging power was so powerful, so fatal.


    Xue Wuya is an expert, this is not false. Having a strong power is also not false. However if it is a normal person and the eyes suddenly suffer from a heavy attack, being burnt by fire and momentarily losing the light, this kind of attack is not endurable by anyone. Even if your mentality and psyche are very strong, it will require a long time to adapt to this kind of pain, an expert is no exception.


    Xue Wuya under no guard, was viciously attacked by Junior Leopard. His eyes were momentarily burned. Furthermore, the power of the Shiyin Needle which he hit into Junior Leopard''s body, was reflected in a moment''s time. Both of his eyes were attacked and this is too sudden, too painful. This made him completely neglectful of the power of the Shiyin Needle. The power of the Shiyin Needle which he just hit out was already embedded within his own tendons and vessels, and settled inside.


    "Ah¡ª!"


    Xue Wuya faced the sky and roared crazily, "Kid, I want you dead¡ª!!!"


    The voice had an incomparable viciousness and poison. Following the enormous explosion sound, the steep valley was wiped into flat ground in an instant.


    "Oh my mama! This is much stronger than..." Junior Leopard who was long in hiding in the valley couldn''t bear but shrink his head. He retreated a few steps, and hid behind an old rock as he watched the destruction of the steep valley. His tongue involuntarily rolled, yet at the same time he was extremely happy.


    This is what''s good about hurting the eyes. After the eyes got crippled, Xue Wuya couldn''t see at all.


    An expert''s spiritual mind and keen sense of awareness? All of this is bullsh*t.


    Given Xue Wuya''s capabilities, his spiritual mind is indeed very powerful. However, to receive such a heavy attack, and with the inability to see, he will not be used to it. Even if he does get used to it, it doesn''t matter. The interior of his body still has the Drowsy Drug, and there''s a Monster Toad watching from one side. That move just now, was indeed incredible. However, to want to kill that Monster Toad, it is still insufficient. In the instance of the explosion, the Monster Toad has already squirmed into the crypt and evaded this fatal blow. Furthermore after the explosion, it squirmed out of the crypt. The Monster Toad''s intelligence is not high, but it is a demon beast after all, naturally it could see that something serious happened to Xue Wuya. Making use of the opportunity when you are sick to take your life, this is a demon beast''s natural instinct.


    After the Bloodfire Gang exploded, the Monster Toad, which was stricken with scars and injuries, squirmed out of the crypt, and pounced towards Xue Wuya.


    Xue Wuya was undoubtedly a Level Eight expert. When he felt that something was not right, he kept the Bloodfire Gang up and protected his whole body.


    "Gua¡ª!" after a furious roar, the humongous body of the Monster Toad collided with the Bloodfire Gang before each retreated backward. What is different is that the Bloodfire Gang surrounding Xue Wuya''s body is now much fainter. Both of his hands were already removed from his eyes. Two blood holes on his face kept leaking out a purplish-black color blood fluid. The blood flowed on a colorless face and was looking extremely ferocious and terrifying.


    Yet from his mouth, flesh was spit out in large chunks. His body swayed as wave after wave of torment tore at his body and soul accompanied by intense drowsy feeling. Previously, those old scars that seemed to be recovering returned to their original form while his spirit was also starting to enter a trance.


    "Am I going to die? Impossible, how could I die? How could I Xue Wuya die? I am the seventh Dark Lord of the Dark Sect, I am the second expert of the Blood River Sect, how could I die in such a place by the hands of an eight year old kid? Impossible, I will not die, not in such a place, I won''t die in such a manner¡ª!"


    Xue Wuya was shouting from the bottom of his heart as he forcefully mustered the Internal Qi within his body. He couldn''t care at all about his own tendons and vessels being burnt by the Bloodfire Gang. He wanted to force out the weird medicinal strength within his body.


    He had already calmed down enough to understand that now the biggest threat to him was not the Monster Toad or Junior Leopard, but that weird medicine within his body. If he doesn''t force out the medicine in time, he would fall unconscious. In the recesses of Misty Mountain and with his whole body covered in blood, there would definitely be no chance of survival. As for the Monster Toad, Junior Leopard and the wounds on his body, as long as he didn''t die, he would have the chance to deal with them.


    At that moment, he made the most correct decision. Death''s shadow enabled him to release his potential. While forcefully mustering his Internal Qi, the bottleneck which hadn''t been broken through for a long time actually showed signs of being broken through.


    However, at this time Xue Wuya couldn''t care about all this.


    "Come out for me!" Xue Wuya roared. The muscles and skin on his body instantly became painfully red. Even his ears and nose began to drip dark black blood. The Drowsy Drug''s medicinal effect was slowly being purged from his body.


    Outside the steep valley, Junior Leopard who saw everything had an ashamed expression, "Mother, even this can''t kill you?!"


    Xue Wuya had already calmed down. Without a doubt, this to him was not a piece of good news.


    "No, I can''t let him continue on like this. If even this can''t kill him, my days ahead will not be good!" Junior Leopard knows in his heart that if he lets Xue Wuya evade this crisis, the one who will be dead will definitely be him.


    However, at this moment, he dared not enter the valley. Previously Xue Wuya used his Bloodfire Gang to create an enormous explosion and the effect still hadn''t subsided. The Bloodfire Gang surrounding his body had paled much in comparison, but heaven knows if he could unleash it again?


    Of course, he at least could use it one more time. If he enters the valley, wouldn''t he be dead meat?


    Biting his teeth, Junior Leopard threw the coal dagger in his hands towards Xue Wuya. The coal dagger transformed into a stream of light, and shot towards Xue Wuya. At the same time, the Monster Toad had also started to move. The toad had retreated at the same time as Xue Wuya when they exchanged blows, however it was very obvious, when comparing with Xue Wuya, its injuries were not as heavy. It was as if one was in heaven and one on earth. Furthermore it hated this fella who barged into its territory and hurt itself. Naturally it wouldn''t let go of him.


    One man one beast, one front one back, attacked Xue Wuya at the same time.


    "Gua¡ª!" at the same time when they pounced over, there was a sound occurring again. Green slime glob was spit out of the Monster Toad''s mouth once again.


    "Zi¡ª!" the slime ball firstly hit the Bloodfire Gang causing it to tremble. Following that, the whole body of the Monster Toad fell on Xue Wuya''s body.


    "Grug¡ª!" Xue Wuya''s body pounced forward. Blood was spit out of his mouth in large volumes. The Bloodfire Gang under the two heavy attacks finally couldn''t sustain it any longer and disappeared into thin air.


    "Pu¡ª!" almost at the same time when the bloodfire Gang vanished, the coal dagger thrown by Junior Leopard arrived. The short sword pierced onto Xue Wuya''s heart vessels until a chill occurred in his heart.


    Time felt as if it almost stopped. At the same time that the short sword pierced Xue Wuya''s heart, the Monster Toad had already pounced over, its sharp claws cleaving Xue Wuya''s brain into two halves.


    "Hong¡ª!" a large sound occurred. Xue Wuya''s body burst apart, blood light scattered in four directions.


    This explosion''s radius paled in comparison compared to when Xue Wuya used the Bloodfire Gang to ignite an explosion. However the power was much stronger. The Evil Toad which leapt forward had its stomach and mandibles blasted apart, leaving a gaping blood hole. The stomach and mandibles are the Evil Toad''s weak points, with the lowest defense. How could it resist Xue Wuya''s self-sacrificial explosion?


    The most troublesome thing was that at the moment when the explosion occurred, Junior Leopard''s keen senses felt a power he was afraid of coming towards him. This kind of power was not very strong, but it was very foreign. Its speed was incredibly fast. Almost at the moment when Xue Wuya exploded, a wave came rushing at Junior Leopard. Following that, his eyes blacked out as if he got hit by a pole. Both of his ears rang and his seven orifices also started to bleed.


    "This is... a mental attack?!"


    Even though he didn''t understand what happened, Junior Leopard was very sure that his body didn''t receive any actual damage. This kind of attack directly attacked the brain, the spirit and the soul. Hence there could only be such an explanation.


    This was a one time mental attack.


    Both of Junior Leopard''s eyes opened. His eyes momentarily turned a fire red color. A faint ring of black surrounded his eyes and slowly rotated. Almost at the same time when both of his eyes were undergoing the change, all of the negative feelings completely vanished.


    The world returned to normal again. No, it should be said that the world had become much clearer compared to before.


    At the moment when he opened his eyes, a streak of faint blood light shot over from the place where Xue Wuya''s body exploded. Almost at the same time, the firelight of Junior Leopard''s eyes blinked. A huge ball of flame instantly surrounded that blood light.


    "Si¡ª!" the blood light emitted a sorrowful sound, as if it was saying that it doesn''t want to be normal. After half a ring, it got instantly refined and dissolved by that ball of flame.


    Junior Leopard''s mood relaxed. A huge wave of weariness filled his whole body. He lay limped on the earth and fainted.


    ...


    ...


    Junior Leopard didn''t stay unconscious for long before he woke up. At most it was not more than an hour.


    He struggled to open his eyes and looking at the starry filled sky, Junior Leopard''s body completely relaxed.


    "Is it over already?"


    Everything had ended!


    Junior Leopard panted heavily. He used his strength to prop himself up from the ground. His whole body felt as if he had just gone through an intense fight. It felt as though, if he moved, the bones in his body would scatter.


    The scene in front of his eyes was somewhat blurry. His eyeballs burned as if it is set aflame by scorching fire. Wave after wave of hot feeling excited Junior Leopard''s nervous system.


    "Damn it, my eyes couldn''t be like the skill-copy eyes,, could they? The more I use them, the more my vision will deteriorate?!"


    Feeling the intense heat transmitting from both of his eyes, Junior Leopard''s face instantly became ugly. The last attack was not within his plan.


    At the moment when Xue Wuya''s body suddenly exploded, that streak of red light flew out and Junior Leopard''s instinct felt that it definitely couldn''t let that red light escape. At that time this kind of will was very strong, resulting in him involuntarily activating the strange power with his own eyes, destroying the streak of red light that flew out.


    After thinking finely, that last attack was really too strange.


    That was not within his plans.


    After his eyes turned abnormal, he could gather the Internal Qi within his body, at the place where his gaze gathered, he was able to produce a fireball. This fireball could be said to have gathered his body''s entire fire-based Internal Qi. Hence the power was extremely huge. However, at the same time, the exhaustion was also great. After releasing it, the power and Internal Qi within his body would be sucked dry and there definitely would not be a second chance.


    "The Internal Qi that I had at that time was already depleted. Even if the eye could gather the remaining strength, it couldn''t possibly create such a big fireball?" Junior Leopard touched his forehead and tried to feel that feeling at the last moment. At that moment, even his own spirit was in a trance. He only saw that streak of red light flying away and got anxious in his heart. After that, after that, after that...


    At that moment, he seemed to have thought of something, his head felt a wave of sharp pain.


    "That last moment, what it drew out was not completely my Internal Qi. There is still my Spiritual Strength. Yes, it must be Spiritual Strength, no wonder it is so illusionary!"


    At that last moment, his feeling was indeed different. Compared to when his whole body''s Internal Qi was completely depleted and his body felt lethargic, this feeling was more of a headache, an intense headache.


    Lifting his eyes to look at the front, in the steep valley, peace has completely returned. Xue Wuya''s body was exploded into a lump of flesh, there was no more hope of living. The blood red color clothing on his body was scattered on in four directions, becoming small pieces of fabric, scattering in the midst of the valley.


    The Monster Toad was also dead. Even though this thing was a demon beast, a Level Eight expert''s self-explosion was not something it could endure. The mandibles and stomach were completely exploded, the internal organs were everywhere. It was dead until it could not be dead anymore.


    Junior Leopard covered his nose and forcefully endured the intense migraine. Step by step, he made his way towards the crypt. Over there was the Evil Toad''s corpse along with a black bag with golden line patterns on it.


    This black bag should be the thing that Xue Wuya carried by his side. After the self-explosion, it didn''t have the slightest damage on it. Just based on this point, he was able to see the extraordinariness of this bag.


    Junior Leopard walked over and picked up the bag. He put it on his hands. It was quite heavy. He was just about to open it when he incidentally saw that in the heart of the exploded Monster Toad, there was a green light moving.


    "Inner Elixir?!" Junior Leopard was stunned. He lowered his body, and carefully observed, "Not right, demon beast''s Inner Elixir will not emit light!"


    He lightly flipped over a pile of rotten flesh and revealed what was underneath.


    It was a piece of green pearl as big as a pigeon''s egg. Under the moonlight, it emitted green light. At first, it seemed like a green rock pearl, but after careful observation, it was actually like a green jade pearl, crystal clear.


    "Is this... a mysterious object?!"

 Chapter 54: Mysterious Object, Reward (I)

    Chapter 54: Mysterious Object, Reward (I)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The existence of the Mysterious Objects was not a secret. This world had a book named Book of Magical Items . It wrote about all sorts of Mysterious Objects that had appeared in the world, including their usage. Even those Mysterious Objects that appeared only in legends, and only heard of in name, never seen before by people, were also in this Book of Magical Items.


    Junior Leopard in Qingyang Market could be said to have read all sorts of books. Naturally, he had read this Book of Magical Itemsbefore, he read it many times, and was very familiar with all the Mysterious Objects described within.


    However, the reason why a Mysterious Object could become a Mysterious Object, the biggest reason was because they were too few. Many people in this world, even during their whole lives, would not know what kind of objects Mysterious Objects were.


    Amongst the Mysterious Objects in this world, the most numerous ones, and most publicly known, were possibly the Spiritual Stones. These Spiritual Stones were actually just pieces of rock. On first look, it was not much different from normal pieces of stone. However, these kinds of stones contained pure Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi. Even among the lowest graded Spiritual Stones, the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi that was contained within was equivalent to the decades of bitter training of a normal person. From a certain perspective, this Spiritual Stone was the same as the 10,000-year-old fruit that Junior Leopard had read from wuxia novels. Eating one would make up for many years of training. Truth be told, this world was not lacking in this kind of fruit, these things were termed as Mysterious Objects.


    However, this world''s cultivation system was, after all, not the same as wuxia novels. What was required was the cultivation of both the outside and inside. The outside and inside had to harmonize and rely on each other, supporting each other. Even if one was holding a Mysterious Object in one''s hands, one would also not dare to swallow it in one''s mouth. If swallowed, the body would certainly explode under the pressure of the Spiritual Qi. Speaking of that, these kinds of Mysterious Objects such as Spiritual Stones that helped to increase one''s strength seemed to be of no use!


    Actually, that was not the case. Spiritual Stones contained pure Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi, which was very easy to absorb. Just like practitioners of Qi, training day and night in inhalation and exhalation, the purpose was to refine the Qi. Inhaling and exhaling the essence of heaven and earth from the vast and immense heaven and earth, absorbing strands of the essence of pneuma, bringing it within the body, and refining it into Internal Qi ¡ª although the method was good, efficiency was too low. It had to be known that in inhalation and exhalation, out of ten parts of the time spent, nine parts were spent on refining the Spiritual Qi. With the Spiritual Stone things would be different. If there was a suitable Spiritual Stone in one''s hands, one wouldn''t be required to practice inhalation and exhalation for over ten years. He only needed to absorb Spiritual Qi directly from the stone and convert it into Internal Qi. What used to take one whole night to accomplish, now could be done with the time that it takes for half a ring. This kind of good deal, who didn''t want it?


    However, a Mysterious Object, they really were too few in numbers. Spiritual Stones, though they were called the world''s most publicly known Mysterious Objects, there were not many either. Sometimes randomly there would be one piece, which had to be fought over till heads broke and blood flowed. Like Junior Leopard, who belonged to the lower strata of the Jianghu, naturally he would only hear of the name, and not see the object itself.


    Apart from Spiritual Stones, the world had another kind of Mysterious Object, and that was the so-called Queer Pearl!


    Queer Pearls ¡ª some were as big as a fist, some were as small as a yellow bean. Most of them came from all sorts of strange and evil beasts. Within the bodies of these strange and evil beasts, often there would be those Queer Pearls.


    The most famous Queer Pearls were the Earth Pearls, Fire Pearls, and Water Pearls. Even though this category of pearl hadn''t been seen by many people, however, in those wilderness history books, they were mentioned often.


    Compared to Spiritual Stones, the numbers of Queer Pearls was even smaller. Spiritual Stones, though they were few, they could always be encountered. In those deep mountains or big swamps where the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi was dense, they could still be found, occasionally could even be revealed to the world. This Queer Pearl, however, was different. Queer Pearls had nothing to do with geography, had nothing to do with Spiritual Qi, and had nothing to do with strange and evil beasts. The only thing that it was linked with was moral standing.


    This was a question of moral standing!


    Legends foretold ¡ª there was once a fisherman, who caught a turtle the size of a bowl. On the turtle''s shell there was something protruding out. It was opened, and what was inside was a bright pearl the size of a pigeon egg. It was extremely dazzling, and was resistant against water and fire. It was an extremely precious pearl. Looking at the turtle, it was just an ordinary one, it was no different from the turtles that were usually caught. There was also once a peerless expert, Yu Dong, who slaughtered a Dragon Turtle in the eastern seas. This Dragon Turtle was extremely powerful, its Inner Elixir was big like a washbasin, with a pressurizing Spiritual Qi. The turtle armor was also tough beyond imagination, it couldn''t be broken by metal nor stone. That expert spent a great deal of effort to sever its limbs and open the shell. Other than the body of flesh and the Inner Elixir, there were no more items. There was a farmer who killed a bull, and discovered on this old yellow bull a piece of Queer Pearl, which was as big a fist, and could actually hurry the growth of grass and wood. That yellow bull didn''t live past ten years old, and had no special traits.


    That was moral standing.


    "Looks like today is really the day where my moral standing has a big explosion!" Junior Leopard bent his back and picked up the green-colored pearl. A cool-as-water feeling passed through his palm, followed his arm, and spread to his whole body. The sharp migraine that he felt earlier was rushed away by this cool and refreshing feeling, and actually, he got much better. The feeling of weariness had also subsided quite a lot.


    Junior Leopard was stunned for a while, and was waiting to carefully observe. Suddenly from afar, there was a beast''s roar. He put the pearl into the bag with golden lines, and then dropped down and searched the Monster Toad''s corpse for a while. Finally, from within the pile of internal organs, he found one Inner Elixir. He conveniently took out a blood-red cloth and wiped the Inner Elixir. Similarly, he placed it into the black bag with gold texture. He turned and exited the steep valley, reaching the cave which he usually rested at. He threw the bag with golden lines to one side, and fell asleep.


    This sleep lasted for one day and two nights. When he woke up, the sun was already high up in the sky.


    "Hu¡ª!" He lazily stretched his waist. Junior Leopard only felt a wave of refreshing feeling. He stood up, and his ears suddenly heard some noise outside of the cave. Junior Leopard''s heart trembled, and hurriedly walked to the cave entrance, dropping down to the side of the cliff. He bent his head and looked down. Under the bright sunlight, there were those that ran and walked, those that flew and jumped, flowers and deer, rabbits, wild boars, and monkeys. He even saw a few fierce tigers and leopards. All of them converged at the bottom of the waterfall by the river, drinking water. It was a peaceful scene.


    "Strange, what is happening? A few days ago they will run far away. Today on the contrary, there are dozens here. Could it be they know that the Evil Toad in the valley is finished?!"


    Junior Leopard was praising within his heart. He stretched and checked his own body. "Well, not bad. My Internal Qi has roughly been recovered. My head is no longer in pain, as well. This effect is definitely not bad!"


    Actually, he didn''t suffer too much damage. He only used too much strength, resulting in him being extremely weary. Just like a person who had done a whole day of work, after being tired, went back home and ate a meal. And after he slept a good deal, whatever weariness he had vanished.


    "Gugugu¡ª!" When he was happy, his stomach produced a strange grumbling sound.


    "Damn, I am really hungry!" Junior Leopard was thinking that he had not eaten any food for a very long time. He helplessly rubbed his stomach. Junior Leopard started laughing. "Okay, don''t call anymore, soon there will be food!"


    Upon speaking, he raised his hand, and down flew two kunai. One shot into the artery of a wild boar, which was drinking by the river. The other pinned a small rabbit to the ground.


    "Okay, the lunch problem is settled!" Junior Leopard jumped down. The surrounding wild beasts that came to drink water all scattered in one go. Even those tigers and fierce beasts were no exception.


    Gathering a few sticks and twigs, starting a fire, he first stripped the rabbit and wild boar, and nestled them on top of the sticks and twigs to roast them. After half a ring, a dense fragrance wafted over his nose. The oil and fat dripped on the burning coal below, releasing crackling sounds. The firelight would dance from time to time, causing splashes of faint strands of fire stars.


    "If only there was a little salt!" Junior Leopard bit on the meat in his hands. It was very fragrant, but it was tasteless. However, for Junior Leopard, who was in a hungry state, it was sufficient.


    After eating and drinking to his fill, Junior Leopard wiped his mouth and raised his head to observe on all fours. In these surroundings, other than him, not even a bird existed.


    Helplessly shaking his head, he leapt up, and returned to the cave by the cliff. With one look, he saw the black bag with golden lines lying in one corner.


    This bag was brought into the cave by him, but he hadn''t had time to take a look at it. Now that he had eaten and drunk to his fill, he naturally couldn''t wait to open the bag.


    Other than the green-colored Queer Pearl and the Inner Elixir of the Evil Toad, the bag still had three things inside, a rock, a book, and a goatskin scroll.


    "Is this the legendary Spiritual Stone?!"


    Junior Leopard picked up the stone in the bag, and held it in his palm. He slightly circulated his Qi, a wave of extremely cold Spiritual Qi followed his hand''s laogong acupoint straight into his Dantian.


    "Si¡ª!" Junior Leopard''s body heavily jerked. His hand swayed, and threw this rock far out of the cave entrance. The stone had left his hand, however, his body was still shivering repeatedly.


    "Spiritual Stone, it really is a Spiritual Stone. Furthermore, inside it contains an extreme Yin Spiritual Qi. I practice fire attribute cultivation, which is totally incompatible!"


    Sitting on the floor, after a full two hours, he then completely refined the strand of cold Qi that entered into his Dantian. He heaved out a long breath.


    Theoretically speaking, the Spiritual Qi contained within a Spiritual Stone could increase one''s powers, waiving away the requirement of the inhalation and exhalation process. However, if the Spiritual Stone contained Spiritual Qi that was incompatible, the effort spent is not any less than just honestly sitting there and going through inhalation and exhalations. Most of the time, the effort was doubled while the results were halved. Like just now, just refining one strand of cold Qi wasted Junior Leopard''s two hours. Yet it didn''t let his own Internal Qi gain any increase.


    "Aye, I thought I picked a treasure. I cannot use this thing, yet it is a pity to throw it away. Bringing it with me will also bring trouble. This is exactly like the legendary golden brand chicken rib!" Junior Leopard had a bitter face. He ran to the bottom of the cave, and picked up that Spiritual Stone and threw it into the bag. He then took out the two books and the ancient looking goatskin scroll.


    " Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist ?! This is a punching skill to forge the bones?"


    As he first flipped open the book, Junior Leopard became surprised. This book was not thick, and what was recorded was actually a punching skill to forge the bones. Looking at this fist method''s title, it should be the Dark Sect''s bone forging punching skill. Junior Leopard looked at it twice, and then returned it into the bag.


    This was a bone forging punching skill that couldn''t even be bought with 10,000 gold. Given his body''s condition now, he would need at least three years before he could practice it, hence, he should keep it first.


    He then flipped open another book. This book was thinner than theBlood Evil Harden Bone Fis t. There were only about a dozen pages, and what was recorded on it was a sword method.


    " Silver Moon Sword Technique ?!" Looking at this sword technique''s title, Junior Leopard''s eyebrows twitched. He then continued flipping, until he flipped to the third page, he then stopped. "Star River Burning Completely?"


    This move "Star River Burning Completely" was what Xue Wuya taught him previously, it was one of Silver Moon Sword Technique ''s three killer moves.


    "Keke, looks like this Xue Wuya didn''t completely comprehend this set of sword techniques. He only flimsily passed it down to me. If not, just based on this sword technique and the coal dagger, killing that Monster Toad would be extremely easy, there will be nothing left for me to do!"


    As the old saying went, "Once human beings think, the Emperor will laugh". What Junior Leopard thought of was only half right. Indeed, this sword technique was what Xue Wuya just obtained. It was also because of this set of sword techniques that he would kill everyone in the Yangzhou West County, incurring the wrath of The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou. However on the other side, Junior Leopard only saw the power ofSilver Moon Sword Technique , it''s extreme sharpness. Yet he didn''t notice that this sword technique''s requirements on the body were perverse. He forgot that Xue Wuya suffered serious injuries, and completely relied on the Bloodfire Gang to fight with the Evil Toad. He couldn''t exert his body movement. Even if he used this set of sword techniques, he couldn''t unleash this sword technique''s true strength. Dealing with the EvilToad, this was still too forced.


    "This set of sword techniques could be practiced. Even though my Internal Qi isn''t enough, it is better to familiarize myself with the movements first!" Junior Leopard''s heart was silently happy. He carefully read through the whole sword technique. His attentive manner was as if he wanted to firmly memorize everything that was within the book.


    After reading intensely for one hour, Junior Leopard finally regained his senses. "Now is not the time to be researching this!"


    He hurriedly put the sword manual into the bag, and opened the goatskin scroll.


    Actually, Junior Leopard couldn''t confirm if this piece of skin was goatskin, it only looked like it. This scroll had been stored for a countless number of years. He didn''t know how many times had it been flipped open by people. It was entirely covered with dust.


    On careful observation, he saw that on the goatskin scroll was a figure of a naked body. On the figure were drawn lots of red lines and black dots. Junior Leopard naturally could recognize that. These red lines and black dots were the body''s tendons and vessels and acupuncture points. On the side of the figure, there were numerous little words. It was like a kind of secret martial arts skill. However, the words on it were something that Junior Leopard could not decipher.

 Chapter 55: Initial Success in Learning Three Realm Division (II)

    Chapter 55: Initial Success in Learning Three Realm Division (II)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Staring at the characters on the leather-bound tome, Junior Leopard felt a little faint for a while. Though these words looked like the seal script of ancient China he still could not identify them.


    He thought there was no need to spend time on identifying these characters and directly stuffed the tome into his bag.


    Afterwards, Junior Leopard suddenly felt like he had nothing to do.


    "It''s time to go back. What''s a f*cking thing, Qin Xuanlong only gave me two months of vacation, now one month has passed, and there might be trouble if I don''t go back!"


    Indeed, there might be trouble. Junior Leopard was always a cautious person, and caution was a must in this strange and dangerous world.


    Moreover, he knew so many secrets now, and any one of which, if leaked out, would overwhelm him. Therefore, he had to think twice before practicing.


    Junior Leopard had disappeared for a month with no reason, then he suddenly came back now without a good explanation. Maybe it was a common thing for ordinary people, but there might be trouble if some sensitive people associated it with the disappearance of Xue Wuya who had also disappeared nearby and without any news around the same time.


    Of course, no one would believe that he-a Level One green hand-had the ability to kill Xue Wuya, who was a Level Eight master. However, fighters of Dark Sect were not reasonable guys, they would kill thousands of criminal suspects lest the real one escaped. At that point, Junior Leopard would be thrown into a dangerous situation.


    Junior Leopard went missing at Qingyang Market a month ago when he was shopping. No one had found out because it was raining heavily that day when he was kidnapped by Xue Wuya. There were very few people shopping due to the bad weather. However, after one month, he was sure that the people from the village had shopped at Qingyang Market at least once as the Spring Festival was approaching. And he was certainly sure that his brother-in-law would visit him at the Wu''s ironware shop to ask about whether he would be home or not for the Spring Festival, which was normal for the family members.


    Junior Leopard had already imagined the picture that his brother-in-law was when he was told that he had left the Wu''s ironware shop for home half month ago by Qin Xuanlong.


    "Maybe different rumors were flying in the air now!" Junior Leopard laughed bitterly in his heart, since he had been trapped in this deserted place, and all those worries were futile.


    Although this was not the very deep area of Misty Mountain, it was still more than 50 kilometers into Misty Mountain, judging from Xue Wuya''s speed and time consumed when he was brought here. Junior Leopard was not sure if he could leave safely.


    "While these secrets are appealing, but none of them are helpful right now. Damn Xue Wuya, why didn''t he give me something useful?"


    Junior Leopard casually threw the black-line bag into the bottom of the hole and began to think about strategies to leave the desolate place, "The only effective way for me to leave here might be my martial arts. Yanfu Inner Strength was amazing but it was not a panacea. For another escape means, I had better practice the Three Realm Division over the coming days."


    Thinking of Three Realm Division, the first thing that came into his mind was the little monster, who made him totally angry.


    Junior Leopard now felt that the little monster was not so bad now, even if he was once bullied by it.


    Junior Leopard was happy now since his greatest threat, Xue Wuya, had been wiped out. At the same time his little resentment toward the little monster had been watered down by joy.


    "I, Zhou Bao, had killed a Level Eight master with my Level One power. I''m not going to lower myself to the level of a little mouse!"


    Although he thought like this, his ambition to capture the little monster had never stopped, "I am going to visit the little thing. Perhaps with my practicing of the Three Realm Division, it can save my life at some critical points."


    Thinking of the power of Three Realm Division, Junior Leopard was a little excited.


    The open ground under the slope together with the hole under the rocks was still there, and the little monster was still lying on the piece of yellow cloth, sleeping soundly. Everything was exactly the same as the day he came here for the first time.


    This time Junior Leopard did not use the Drowsy Drug, which was all consumed on Xue Wuya. This time, his meeting-gift was some grilled lamb that he was holding in his hand.


    Scent of the grilled lamb really had a great attraction to the little monster, it had awaked before Junior Leopard came into the hole. Junior Leopard could even see that its nose sniffed twice, and the white hair on its forehead joggled as if also affected by the fragrance. Then, the little monster stood up from the ground.


    "Creak, creak¡ª!" After confirming the source of the fragrance, the little monster excitedly cried. But its eyes revealed a vigilant look and lifted its forelimbs when it saw Junior Leopard. Then a funny thing happened... the little monster wrapped itself with the yellow cloth as though it was wearing a pair of yellow pants.


    "Ping¡ª!" With this sound, Junior Leopard felt his hand sink a little, then he saw the little monster gnawing the lamb leg held in his hand. Junior Leopard laughed, put the lamb leg down on the ground and walked into the hole to study Three Realm Division.


    The little monster was really a magic species and it had eaten out the whole grilled lamb in just a few seconds. Then it suddenly recalled Junior Leopard. Raising its head, the little monster found Junior Leopard was studying the special technique on the wall, then the little monster blinked its eyes and appeared aside Junior Leopard with a pinging sound. With a sound of "poof", the little monster farted as a joke, and then disappeared once again.


    Junior Leopard just smiled, he neither spitted nor hid, and just held his breath, giving a look that "I''m not the same level as you" before he threw himself into Three Realm Division again.


    It seemed that the little monster was not satisfied with Junior Leopard''s response and so it tried several times again, but Junior Leopard always turned his back upon it. After a while, it felt that this was a little boring and depressingly went back to the hole and fell asleep after glaring at Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard did not care it, he was very magnanimous after Xue Wuya was killed. In addition, he was absorbed in the special technique now and had no time and energy to tangle with a small mouse.


    After once again carefully reading the words and illustrations carved on the rock wall and then conscientiously practicing it as Flickering Light Evil Qi appeared, Junior Leopard managed to master a little of the technique. Compared with the first practice, he was much more skilled when using Three Realm Division.


    However, at the same time, he found a disappointing fact.


    Three Realm Division was a good technique, but with his present cultivation and strength, the distance he could move was limited to ten meters and he could only move once.


    That was to say, he can only move within ten meters for once. And, that''s all.


    One diversion would consume eight percent of his Internal Qi and energy, so he could not move for a second time. This was neither because of his poor comprehension nor the insufficient Flickering Light Evil Qi he collected.


    In fact, the Flickering Light Evil Qi he collected for practicing that technique was already saturated, but because of his limited Internal Qi, the Flickering Light Evil Qi he could use was also limited.


    Within five years, the best I can accomplish is to complete a correct direction within ten meters. If regardless of the direction and only for the purpose of saving my life, I can move to a place 30 meters far away, however, in this case, I can''t steer the direction totally, and will maybe hit trees and stones. So I had better not use it unless it''s an emergency.


    Junior Leopard thought quietly for a moment, and then looked at the little monster lying on the ground with jealousy. He wondered that why the little monster was so lucky, it successfully mastered the Three Realm Division and could freely move with 30 meters. Compared to Junior Leopard''s current situation, the little monster was so cool.


    However, Junior Leopard wasn''t without benefit.


    "Within three meters!"


    Within three meters, he could successfully practice the Three Realm Division for five times.


    Three meters each time and moved for five times totally. It sounded a bit tasteless and useless, but it would be endowed with strong power if combined with other techniques.


    For example, punching skills, sword skills and body movement!


    Exactly, one could move five times within three meters. If this skill was combined with martial arts, it would be terrible.


    Think about that, you and your opponent were fighting and you disappeared when the battle was in full swing before reappearing behind his back, in such circumstances, would he have a way out?


    No, absolutely not!


    What a f*king insidious skill it was!


    Of course, the division of five times occurred under the usual circumstances. In actual battles, together with various factors, Junior Leopard might only move two or three times at most, it would depend on the battle.


    But, division for two or three times was enough for him now.


    Understanding that, Junior Leopard let out a sigh of relief. When he looked down, the little monster had fallen asleep.


    Instead of bothering it, Junior Leopard pulled out his coal dagger and waved it for several times, just for seconds, the illustrations of the special technique carved on the wall of the stone was turned to gray dust and ashes, drifting in the air and then falling on the ground.


    The little monster was awakened by the noise and cried with a squeak sound. It opened his eyes, looked at Junior Leopard, and then angrily wave its forelimbs when saw the broken stone wall. The little monster turned around and farted against Junior Leopard, as if airing its anger and grievances to him.


    Junior Leopard did not care how the little monster responded, "I''m a selfish man in nature! " He bowed himself and smiled at the monster, then he unwillingly glanced at the yellow cloth on the little monster and sighed.


    He had found that the piece of yellow cloth was closely connected with the little monster, and it was extremely difficult to get it from the little monster.


    In this trip to Misty Mountain, I''ve gained a lot of benefits and wasted a lot of time. Now, my technique for practicing Three Realm Division is somewhat skilled and I have a chance to leave here with my current cultivation with the help of Three Realm Division. As for the little monster and its treasure, I could come here again in future!


    Thinking of what he worried before, Junior Leopard could not wait to leave, he didn''t want to waste time here anymore.


    "Well, little monster, do not fart again, I have to go. See you later when I''m free!" Junior Leopard waved his hands at the little monster, then he flew away from the jungle with Yanfu Body Movement.

 Chapter 56: The Wus Selection Contest Begins

    Chapter 56: The Wu''s Selection Contest Begins


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "An ordinary man is free of guilt and fear, but one with wealth has to watch his back!"


    In a cave on the cliff side, Junior Leopard arranged all that Xue Wuya had left behind, and took one last glance at the instructions for the "Silver Moon Sword Technique". Just then, he happened to notice a small mark on it; as he got closer, he could see that it had the words "Yangzhou, He Yun" carved into it.


    The name He Yun reminded him ¡ª wasn''t Xue Wuya pursued by Lu Shaoyou because he had slaughtered a family of the surname He? Could it be that the reason he slaughtered this family had something to do with these instructions?


    Carrying this type of thing around with him would clearly be inviting disaster, but he could simply seal the three Inner Elixirs that he had found in grease, and then put them with the Spiritual Stone and the exotic pearl in a little black bag to bury at the bottom of this cave.


    I certainly shall not take all of these things back with me, lest I come upon any incident; and although I don''t know what material this black bag is made from, it seems like it''s air-tight enough ¡ª if I bury it in this desolate place nobody will ever find it. And if by chance it''s somehow discovered, then that is unfortunate but much better than someone finding it being carried on my person!


    After he had finished burying the black bag, he clapped his hands together to get the dirt off and took one last look around before throwing himself into the air, exiting the cave.


    The speed of the Bloodfire Gang that Xue Wuya had used was extremely fast, and in a short space of time, he was already hundreds of miles deep into the Misty Mountain. It was lucky that Junior Leopard had remembered the direction of Xue Wuya''s retreat, and that he had made big advances in the practice of his Yanfu Inner Strength and Lightness Skill. In the daytime he made use of the sun in the sky, at night time he took advantage of the starlight; and in only five days he was almost out of the Misty Mountain.


    Although it was admittedly quite nerve-wracking, with the sharp coal dagger in his hand and the uniqueness of the Three Realms Division, he knew that he was in no danger.


    After he had left the Misty Mountain, he dared not delay; he just quickly clarified his direction of travel and pressed ahead relentlessly, continuing throughout the night until finally, at dawn, he had reached his home.


    As he entered the courtyard of his home, he felt a sense of relief coming over him.


    Ah, the atmosphere here is so peaceful!


    Junior Leopard hesitated, stroking the pit of his stomach, and did not enter his house; instead, he turned and entered the woodshed, approaching a pile of wood, and pondered carefully.


    Should I pretend that I''ve just got home?


    No, in this village I already have fame¡­ this kind of thing, I cannot keep concealed from other people, just from one look it''s easy to see how much I''ve changed in this last month, I just need to think of a suitable explanation¡­


    Today Old Zhou was in a bad mood, because Junior Leopard had returned.


    As far as Old Zhou was concerned, all his other sons put together were worth less than one Junior Leopard. However, it was obvious that this son''s ability to make trouble and ability to make money was about even. That day he awoke early, and opened the woodshed, only to see someone sleeping inside it. He gasped in surprise, believed himself to have discovered a thief; but no, it was his own son.


    Seeing that his son with the best future prospects had returned, he would normally have been overjoyed by this turn of events; but this way of being reunited was not as he had pictured it. In fact, as soon as he saw his son lying in a pile of wood in the woodshed, he felt like something terrible had happened; and the events which followed proved that this premonition was not in error.


    Of course, Junior Leopard was not able to relate in detail to Old Zhou what had happened to him, he could only briefly summarize it as saying that he had provoked some serious trouble, and he absolutely could not let anyone discover why he had been missing for a month, and needed the family''s help to cover it up. He also spat out some blood at a suitably timed moment, worrying Old Zhou out of his wits.


    Old Zhou was merely a mountain villager and had seen little of the world. His understanding of the pugilist world was limited to rumors, and seeing his son''s downtrodden appearance, he did not need for Junior Leopard to say much to trust him implicitly.


    What most made Junior Leopard feel blessed was that in the last few days it had been raining continuously and the road was impassable; so Wang Tianlei and the others had not been to Qingyang Market. To Junior Leopard, this was very good news; this meant that Wang Tianlei had not been to Qingyang Market in the month since Junior Leopard had left, so the news that he had disappeared would not have reached them. This gave Junior Leopard a much better chance of remedying the situation.


    And it made what Junior Leopard needed to do to remedy things much simpler; he needed only to make up a story.


    "Old Zhou, where are you going, so early in the day?"


    Passers-by who saw Old Zhou on the road, carrying a large pipe and with a small hoe in his hand as he hurried out of the village curiously asked him this question.


    "Oh, I''ve just been digging up some medicine to take back for Little Shiba, the boy has a bit of a chill! He''s having a lie down at home."


    "Little Shiba, didn''t he go to Qingyang Market to become an apprentice? Oh, that''s right, I heard that he''s already a teacher in the blacksmith''s shop, even the people from Black Dragon Triad praise him¡­ he really has a great future!"


    The passers-by spoke with a tone of surprise and admiration.


    "Oh, it''s nothing, he''s a bright little boy who works hard, that''s all!" Old Zhou said, blushing as he waved his hands and quickened his pace.


    "When did he get back?"


    "He''s been back for some time, but he has a cold so he''s just staying at home... he hasn''t been out at all!" Old Zhou said ambiguously. After a few words, he was already out of the village and hurried toward the old forest.


    By the time he re-emerged at noon, he had with him a stack of medicinal herbs. In these mountains, those medicinal herbs were a folk remedy used for treating colds, and on the way back it was unavoidable that he would repeat the same conversation with the villagers he ran into.


    Several days passed like this.


    In the village, almost everybody knew that Little Shiba had already been back from Qingyang Market for several days, but because of a cold had not come outside.


    And it was inevitable that this would become an object of discussion, and through discussion, it had been established as common knowledge that Little Sheba''s worth had been recognized by the boss in the Qingyang Market ironware shop, and so he had been sent to leave Qingyang Market to go on to better things. This would need a long time, so he had been granted one month''s holiday ¡ª but he caught a cold because of unexpected wind and rain on the road, and was now resting at home. He had been resting for a month, and now his health had recovered.


    Along with this story spreading throughout the village, the silhouette of Little Shiba occasionally appeared in the fields at the top of the village. But the moments that he would appear were very strange; every time he went out someone would see him, but the person who saw him, either because they were too busy at that time or too far away, never got the chance to speak to him. It was like this until the beginning of the month when the weather became fine, and Little Shiba and all of the hunters were seen together at the gate of the village, preparing to head to Qingyang Market.


    "Oh, finally I''ve come to that crucial moment!" Upon arriving at Qingyang Market, Junior Leopard treated Wang Tianlei and the others for a meal at the finest restaurant in Qingyang Market. After they departed, Junior Leopard let out a long sigh of relief. This crucial moment, he would have to force himself to face.


    He would return to the Wu family ironware shop, meet Qin Xuanlong, and explain what had happened.


    ...


    ...


    Thus passed another half year; Junior Leopard shut himself up in the Wu family Ironware shop, paying no attention to what was happening out the window and just single-mindedly forging metal, and making big advances in his cultivation. In the blink of an eye, it was already late autumn, less than two months away from the Wu family Selection Contest. As it was nearly 500 kilometers between Qingyang Market and the Wu family''s headquarters in Yunzhou''s Qinlingjun City, he needed to set off in advance.


    Junior Leopard was not the only one from Qingyang Market taking part in this Selection Contest; there were also another two people, who were already in their thirties. Their cultivation was about the same as Junior Leopard''s; they had reached the Level One phase, and their skill in metal-forging was most refined, again about the same as Junior Leopard. But considering their age, the cultivation of Junior Leopard was the thing that people were focusing on. The other two understood this clearly, and although they had some feelings of intermingled jealousy and admiration, they were at an age where they were able to approach the matter with maturity and expressed no hostility toward Junior Leopard. You could even say that on the road they took extra care of him; facing someone with such great potential, they took advantage of this time to get in good stead with him. So, although the journey was long, Junior Leopard traveled happily and comfortably.


    After little over a month, the dusty travel-worn companions finally arrived in the center of Yunzhou, Qinlingjun City.


    Gazing in the distance, they saw black colored city walls towering ahead, hundreds of feet high. Junior Leopard''s eyes could not help flashing with excitement.


    10 years, he had been in this world now for 10 years; and in those 10 years he had always been holed up in the mountain villages ¡ª it was enough to make him choke to death. He could not help from thinking about the big cities of his previous life and their advantages. In these two months on the road, although they passed by some cities on the way, they were relatively small-scale; in his previous life, they would barely pass for small towns. But today, gazing upon such grand and imposing city walls, he suddenly felt a swelling in his chest and his heart soared.


    "So here is Qinlingjun City; no wonder this is the capital of Yunzhou, it indeed lives up to its title!"


    Walking in the city''s wide avenues to take part in the Selection Contest with Junior Leopard was Lin Hailong, a 32-year-old man from Qingyang Market who had been at the Wu family ironware shop for 23 years now, ever since he was nine years old. He was forthright and candid in his dealings with people and appeared to be carefree and casual. In fact this was a common trait with blacksmiths; they put all their minds into their smelting work and were no good at either refined manners or intrigue and scheming. Because of this and the camaraderie they enjoyed on their arduous journey, Junior Leopard had a good relationship with him and Wu Lin, the other participant in the Selection Contest.


    Lin Hailong was the same as Junior Leopard; this was the first time he had seen such a grand city and so many people, and he also couldn''t help himself from gasping in awe.


    "Well, it''s a bit like a bustling county town!" Junior Leopard said, smiling as he looked around his surroundings. "So many people¡­ but in Qingyang Market, you can never see these many people!"


    "Far more than Qingyang Market, on our way here we crossed through several big cities, but none with high city walls like this Qinlingjun City, and none with so many people!" Wu Lin also became excited. "If only we can pass the Selection Contest, then we can stay here!"


    "Not necessarily!" Qin Xuanlong said, pouring cold water on the three companions'' excitement. "Even if you pass the Selection Contest, if they do not consider you to have enough potential they''ll send you off somewhere else. This isn''t me attacking you, but of you three the only one with a chance of staying here is Junior Leopard!"


    "Teacher Qin, you''re joking again!" Junior Leopard''s lips curved slightly into a smile, a look of bashful mirth flashed upon his face. "How can you say I have such ability?"


    "Junior Leopard, you needn''t be so modest! I know, you once had a moment of insight, and you have a great talent for smelting iron! Passing this Selection Contest will be no problem for you; your most important task is to stand out as much as you can during the contest, and attract the attention of the Elders. If you can catch their eye and be taken in, then your future achievements could be without limit!"


    The Elders?


    Thinking of these two words, "the Elders," Junior Leopard''s mind couldn''t help from envisaging a group of old and decrepit men, weak and wizened, with one foot in the grave.


    "I don''t know how powerful these old men are, I wonder if they''re at the same level as Xue Wuya!" Thinking of Xue Wuya''s savage expression as he faced death, Junior Leopard shivered. "My God, why did I suddenly think of such a terrible thing? Impossible, the Elders could not be as strong as Xue Wuya. The strongest in the Wu clan is only Level Seven, and his Gang Qi has not been cleared, how could they be better than Xue Wuya?!"


    After thinking of the advantages he had gained from Xue Wuya, Junior Leopard couldn''t help smiling; Yanfu Inner Strength, Silver Moon Sword Technique, Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist, and the Three Realms Division that he had come across through his own good fortune. Who else here wouldn''t smash the skulls of the other fighters in order to get these things? The Elder, Haha, do I value the title of Elder?


    However, to use the Elders as protection is good enough. The Wu family''s strength is considerable... If I can mingle with the Elders, then I''ll be sure to have a good life!


    He had never been somebody with too much ambition. As for the legendary iron blood of the pugilist world, he did not yearn for the glints and flashes of daggers and swords; he just wanted to train himself to do some martial feats, and these feats would be his capital. To live a steady and comfortable life was his greatest desire ¡ª to take a darling life and several pretty concubines and live a happy life like other men. After all, taking several wives was not illegal in this world.


    But upon further consideration, if he really wanted to be taken in by the Elders, that would be of great benefit to his cultivation. Never mind anything else; he was qualified to enjoy the Bone Forging herbal baths, and although he may not be able to enjoy them often, he did have in his possession a recipe for Bone-Forging Pill!


    The dose that a portion of Bone-Forging Soup needed could be used for making several hundred Bone-Forging Pills, and the efficacy of each pill was about ten times that of a potion. If he could have an opportunity to come across the ingredients for a potion, he would be sure to get more strength than others could from a lifetime of bathing in Bone-Forging Soup; and combined with the Bone Forging punching skills he had learned, he believed that by 20 years old he could have already reached the phase of a Level Four fighter, and perhaps even beyond that.


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 57: The Governor of Yunzhou

    Chapter 57: The Governor of Yunzhou


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    As the ancestral home of the Wu family, the Wu residency in Yunzhou was far from modest. It occupied one-sixth of Qinlingjun City, and apart from this enormous residency, 40% of the estates in the city belonging to the Wu family. Amongst them were dozens of stores selling rice, cloth and other household goods, as well as horses and carts and so on. If the Wu family had a monopoly on steel within the state of Great Jin, then within Qinlingjun City they had a monopoly on everything ¡ª on people''s eating, drinking, s***ting, p***ing, and sleeping. Everything about the lives of the people was intimately connected with the Wu family.


    Apart from one man.


    The Great Jin''s Governor of Yunzhou, Ma Tianchang.


    Ma Tianchang, male, 48 years old, Great Jin''s Governor of Yunzhou, and the close confidant and aide to the current Emperor of Jin. 10 years ago, he had been posted to Yunzhou as governor. He was not only the youngest governor in the history of Jin but also generally acknowledged as the most competent too.


    In those 10 years of service, he had made this strategic county, located on the border with the Northern Yuan, flourish like water flowing endlessly from a spring. And from his second year in office, those horsemen of the Northern Yuan who had so often trampled the grasses and valleys of Yunzhou were never again to be seen.


    10 years ago, Yunzhou was a strategic military town with jurisdiction over several counties and a population of no more than 50,000,000. After only 10 years, there were now 360,000,000 people under the jurisdiction of Yunzhou.


    10 years ago, on the border between Yunzhou and the Northern Yuan, there was only a small fair, with smuggling running rampant. After 10 years, there were already 18 trading routes along with 29 fairs opened between Yunzhou and the Northern Yuan, and the tax income had correspondingly increased enormously, with the amount paid by the county into the imperial coffers being more than 102 times greater than it was 10 years ago.


    Similarly, in these 10 years, the people of Yunzhou, they knew the Governor Mansion but not the imperial court; they knew Governor Ma, but didn''t know the Emperor!


    The Governor Mansion was located at the northernmost point of Qinlingjun City. It was a very large building, and although it could not be compared with the home of the Wu family which occupied one-sixth of the city''s area, it was still one of the largest buildings in Qinlingjun City.


    Deep into the Governor Mansion, into the 18th compartment, was a serene little courtyard. It had a pond, a rockery, a pavilion, trees, plants and flowers; the basic configuration of a typical noble family''s courtyard.


    The pond in the courtyard wasn''t big, the rockery wasn''t anything special, the trees and plants were normal, and as for the pavilion, it was already starting to become dilapidated. It looked like the state of this official residency was a little out of step with its reputation.


    Beneath the pavilion sat a middle-aged man of slender build, with a fair and handsome complexion. Under his chin was a short, straight, jet-black beard, and he sat quietly with a book in his hand, reading at his leisure. He wore a long cyan gown which, although it was clean and made with the finest craftsmanship, looked very old, with some areas a little discolored. At a glance, you could see that this had been worn for not a few years ¡ª to a common person this was no big deal, but to Ma Tianchang, the Governor of Yunzhou''s seven cantons with 300 million people under his jurisdiction, who every year added hundreds of thousands of taels of silver to the national coffers, this was a rather wretched appearance.


    The middle-aged man under the pavilion was indeed Ma Tianchang, Governor of Yunzhou of the Great Jin.


    There was a fragmented sound of footsteps coming, and from the corridor connecting to the pavilion, a maid dressed in pink hurried towards him.


    "Oh!"


    Hearing these footsteps, Ma Tianchang frowned slightly. He did not like to be disturbed when reading; when he looked up at the maidservant''s figure hurrying towards him, there was a look of displeasure in his eyes. However, this expression of dissatisfaction was gone in a flash, before the maidservant could notice it.


    "Your Excellency, Madam has an important matter that she wishes you to attend to!" The maid approached Ma Tianchang, bowing her head and speaking delicately, although with a hint of tension in her voice. Every now and often she would ever so quickly raise her head to take a quick peek, and her gaze was filled with reverence and admiration.


    "What''s it?" This type of little trick could not fool Ma Tianchang, however, he did not plan to do anything about it. He just asked softly in a tone of voice that was mild, yet full of magnetism, like a cleansing spring breeze.


    "Mrs Zhen of Mingyi School has come to see Madam, coming together with Master Ji!"


    "Master Ji?"


    Hearing these two words, Ma Tianchang''s eyes flashed. "''Moral Fighter'' Ji Zhongtang!?"


    "Indeed, Ji Zhongtang, Master Ji!" The maidservant said.


    "What''s he doing here!?" Ma Tianchang furrowed his brow a little tighter. "He and I are total strangers!"


    "As for the details, I''m afraid your humble servant girl doesn''t know!" The maidservant said carefully. "Madam has already invited Mrs Zhen into the residency, and Master Ji is drinking tea in the study room. From his appearance, it seems as though he has something important to discuss with Your Excellency!"


    "I know!" Ma Tianchang said. "You go with Madam to wait upon them!"


    "Certainly!"


    The maidservant replied carefully, and had noticed through her intuition that Ma Tianchang seemed like he was suddenly very unhappy to hear about Ji Zhongtang.


    After the maidservant had left, Ma Tianchang put the book he had in his hand onto the stone table under the pavilion, straightened out his clothes a little, and stepped towards the study room.


    In the study room of the Governor Mansion, a middle-aged man in grey was slowly pacing back and forth, carrying a faint smile on his face as he inspected each row of books on the bookcase. On the table was a cup of half-drunk tea. Suddenly, his footsteps came to a halt, and his faint smile lit up into a wide grin.


    "Master Ji, we''re honored by your presence! Please forgive me for not coming out to meet you, I apologize deeply for my lack of manners!"


    From a distance, he could hear the distinctive magnetism of Ma Tianchang''s voice approaching.


    "Well, well, well, I, Ji Zhongtang, boldly invite myself in, and hope Your Excellency will not mind." Ji Zhongtang turned round, smiling with the familiarity of a relative to welcome Ma Tianchang. The two people greeted each other with the demeanor of old friends, and a child standing to the side promptly topped up their tea.


    They made chit-chat together for an hour or so, before finally reaching the main topic.


    "And may I ask what brings Master Ji to my residency today?"


    "Oh, forgive my inviting myself¡­ I''ve come about something concerning my nephew''s marriage!"


    "Phh¡­ !" Ma Tianchang jolted with a start and snorted half of his tea out from his nostrils, spilling the other half over the chair. The footboy standing by the doorway also stared blankly, and then hurriedly came forward to clean up the mess. Now and then he glanced up at Ji Zhongtang, with a strange expression.


    So, it looks like I''m very bold!


    Looking at this situation, Ji Zhongtang sat to one side smiling wordlessly.


    "Apologies, apologies, I''m lacking in manners!" Ma Tianchang said a little awkwardly, wiping a wet spot from his clothes. "It''s just that what you''ve just said, I don''t quite understand¡­ what has your nephew''s marriage got to do with myself?" From his appearance it seemed like he wanted to say, "But I''m a man, are you sure you meant to say nephew and not niece?!"


    "Your Excellency, you''re so amusing!" Ji Zhongtang said, cupping his fists together in a show of respect. "I''ve heard for a long time that your Excellency''s daughter is of an elegant appearance, and now that she''s of marriageable age, I think she''ll be a good match for my nephew. Therefore¡­ !"


    "You mean Linglong?!" Ma Tianchang raised his eyebrows, and stared right at Ji Zhongtang, and spoke in a stern, measured tone. "Forgive me for speaking frankly. My daughter is indeed of marriageable age, but to betroth her to your nephew¡­ I''m afraid the age gap is too wide."


    "Age is not a problem, and besides, their age gap is no more than 16 years¡­ Shaoyou is just a little over 30, a good match for your precious daughter!" While speaking, he produced a letter from his coat, and with both hands presented it before Ma Tianchang.


    The envelope was completely blank, without a single character. Ma Tianchang looked at Ji Zhongtang in confusion, and opened it, and when he saw the writing on the letter his complexion whitened. He read the letter carefully, and as he read his expression stiffened, and after a while, he let out a long sigh, and carefully folded the letter before placing it back inside the envelope and concealing it in his coat pocket. He raised his head and said, "If this was an ordinary affair, this would be the end of it, but as it is of such great significance¡­. Please allow me some time to think it over!"


    "Of course!" Ji Zhongtang said, "This is a big deal, naturally you must consider it at length. I won''t disturb your Excellency any further ¡ª I''m staying now at Tongfu Inn, courtyard number one. If you''ve come to a decision, please dispatch someone to notify me. I bid thee farewell!"


    "You can see yourself out!" Ma Tianchang sat upright and motionless, and a faint smile had already re-appeared on his face. He picked up the tea by his side and sipped it gently, not looking at Ji Zhongtang.


    A trace of anger flashed for a moment in Ji Zhongtang''s eyes, and then he cupped his hands towards Ma Tianchang before turning to leave.


    Ma Tianchang quietly sipped his tea, and an oppressively tense atmosphere filled the study room. The footboy standing by the doorway arched his back where he was standing, and a look of terror was upon his face. He dared not even exhale.


    After he had drunk his tea, Ma Tianchang slowly raised his head, gazing toward the stone footpath outside the entrance to the study room. His gaze slowly became colder, and he waved his left hand over the table, tapping it gently.


    "What''s his game? Testing me out, pressuring me, trying to make me stand in line¡­ or does he have some other intention? Mingyi School, and the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou, are they very great¡­ hmm¡­ ?"


    Finally, with a cold chuckle, he finished his thinking, stood up, and left the room. His figure seemed to bring a cold wind behind it, causing the footboy by the doorway to shiver.


    His Excellency, the Governor, was angry, so it seemed.

 Chapter 58: The Trend of Events

    Chapter 58: The Trend of Events


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What? The Governor Mansion is about to become relatives with the Mingyi School? Governor Ma''s daughter Ma Linglong will marry the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou?"


    No matter where you are in the world, the spread of rumor always runs neck and neck with the spread of news.


    After entering Qinlingjun City and reporting in at the Wu clan central residency, Junior Leopard''s group went to the Happiness Inn where they were staying. This inn was also part of the Wu''s estate, and in the last month, due to the Wu''s Selection Contest, every inn in Qinlingjun City was fully booked. The Happiness Inn owned by the Wu clan had already ceased doing business to the general public, and was responsible only for receiving disciples of Wu for the Selection Contest; this was the usual custom.


    After returning from registering at the Wu''s central residency, Junior Leopard''s group was exhausted. As they still had 10 days until the Selection Contest began, everyone decided they should have a good rest, so that they could preserve and nurture their strength for the big day.


    They had just arrived at the inn and were yet to finish eating their dinner when they heard this sensational news.


    Junior Leopard usually just smiled at this kind of news. No matter Governor Ma or Mingyi School, they were both too far from his more pressing concerns for him to pay close attention.


    But it was without a doubt that the spread of this sensational news would make waves, causing huge controversy. It would not only make waves amongst those who were directly concerned by it, but also among the lower ranks of the Jianghu, including those staying at the inn with Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard did not care, but this did not mean that his companions shared his disinterest, and so their excited gossip naturally reached his ears too.


    I don''t get it, why do they all care so much about this? It sounds like they''re fascinated by this gossip, but it''s just a marriage after all, how could it have such a big impact?


    Junior Leopard didn''t quite understand. The reaction to the news of the marriage between the Ma family and Mingyi School, whether true or false, had revealed that such an affair was not a straightforward matter. He surmised that this news must reveal something about the general direction of Jin politics, and was worth pondering over.


    Ma Tianchang was the Governor of Yunzhou, and the Emperor''s trusted lieutenant and aide. But it was beyond doubt that even if he did not have this status, he would have still been able to sit stably as Governor of this divided state ¡ª his talent and competence was acknowledged by all, and in 10 short years he had transformed Yunzhou from an impoverished backwater into one of the most prosperous places in the land. He had resisted attacks from the north, opened new trade routes, the tax burden had been reduced and the population had increased dramatically¡­ all of these things showed that he was a man of exceptional ability. But because of this, a series of problems had been set off in a chain reaction.


    "The people of Yunzhou, they know the Governor Mansion but not the imperial court; they know Governor Ma, but do not know the Emperor."


    Three years ago, these words were composed in a memorial written by an imperial official, hoping to use them to impeach Ma Tianchang. The release of this memorial was blocked by the Emperor, but it was mysteriously leaked, and soon spread far and wide. At that time, the Emperor was furious, and banished the official who penned those words to work as a prefectural judge in a remote part of the Northern Mountains. Ma Tianchang reported to the Emperor that he was guilty and had it repressed, however through this incident, people who were paying attention could see that beneath the amiable and united appearance of the Emperor and his officials, the first small crack had started to appear.


    In fact, those who were paying attention knew that this crack must have existed for some time, but that official was merely the first unlucky enough to tumble through this crack. In other words, he was merely a pawn.


    Right from the very beginning of Ma Tianchang taking office, everybody believed that the first thing this close aide of the Emperor had to deal with was Yunzhou''s wealthy family, the Wu clan. The Wu clan had monopolized Yunzhou, including even the Jin''s smelting business; they were not only rich enough to threaten the nation, but they even had the armies of Jin by the throat, as a large part of their standard weaponry and equipment was supplied by them.


    Additionally, the Wu''s acted as a vassal of the Tian Long Taoism.


    Tian Long Taoism, despite being one of Jin''s three great schools, did not have as harmonious a relationship with the imperial court as one might imagine; quite different to Mingyi School. Although they did not have an openly antagonistic relationship with the court like the Sect of Flame, they did not strive to uphold the orthodoxies of the Great Jin imperial court as the Mingyi School did either. Tian Long Taoism had close relationships with the wealthy families throughout the land, and often received tribute from them; these families were never so reverent to the imperial court. Because of this, the Jin court''s enmity toward Tian Long Taoism was, in fact, often even deeper than it was toward the Sect of Flame. Even though the Sect of Flame was openly antagonistic to the imperial court, they could only incite ordinary commoners who were weak, easy to intimidate, and would only revolt as an absolute last resort, and certainly not be willing to risk their lives rising up out of conviction.


    For many years, the Great Jin ¡ª while not having perfect conditions every year ¡ª had not suffered from any major catastrophes, and the last few Emperors were fairly accomplished, or at least competent enough. Because of this, the Sect of Flame had been unable to make any waves. But the Tian Long Taoism had mixed in with the wealthy and influential families, helping them train people of talent; and in recent years, a new generation of talent had emerged who were becoming bolder and more assertive. The well-known families were working together to control areas of land, and officials in some areas, if they did not pay their respects, were rendered unable to govern. There were even a few officials who had harmed the interests of the well-known families and turned up dead; this was not a rare occurrence, and although still in the early stages, if this trend was left to develop unchecked, and if there was an inexperienced Emperor on the throne, then it could reach a point where government decrees were powerless outside the capital city.


    Of course, this was not to say that the well-known families would rise up in revolt, raise armies to sack the capital and make themselves Emperors; such a foolish thing would be only be the work of bastards!


    This world had well-known families with a lineage stretching back millennia, but it was difficult to find imperial dynasties with such long and illustrious lineage!


    True well-known families, would disdain to sit upon such a throne.


    Because although the power of that throne was great, it was also extremely dangerous!


    There had never been a dynastic change, in which the former dynasties'' Royalty had not been eradicated root and branch, and their bloodline brought violently to an end. But nobody had ever heard of a well-known family which had disappeared as the result of a dynastic change. Even if they had backed the wrong side, at most they would just have to keep their heads down for a few decades, and would eventually recover their strength and continue to pass on the family bloodline.


    well-known families were well-known families, and a true well-known family would never conspire for this kind of position, and certainly would never openly oppose the imperial court for the sake of profit; they would only struggle to maximize the family''s benefit within the boundaries of the tacit acceptance of the court. The boundaries of this imperial court''s acceptance were elastic, sometimes big and sometimes small.


    And so a vicious circle had emerged. When Royalty was weak, the well-known families'' influence would expand massively, and they would be able to dominate court administration, even usurping the Emperor''s power as they tried to gain as much advantage as they possibly could; and when Royalty became strong again and was able to monopolize power, the well-known families would become silent and obedient, even sacrificing a lot of wealth in order to reach a compromise with the imperial court, so as to give the court no cause to tackle them.


    Over countless years, there had been many mighty and heroic Emperors possessed of lofty aspirations and high ideals who had tried to repress the well-known families by hook or by crook, to weaken them or even wipe them out. But as soon as they tried to do this, the families would shrink back like tortoises shrinking their heads back into their thick shells, making them impossible to get at.


    There had once been a powerful Emperor who had tried to enact brutal and bloody measures to senselessly put down and massacre these families; but in the end, this Emperor was killed in his own palace, poisoned by his most cherished concubine while eating soup. 20 years later, his court was wiped out, destroyed not by the well-known families but simply by a mob of commoners.


    Nobody knew how strong these families would be if they united, but everyone understood that if all these families decided collectively to be rid of a dynasty, then no matter how heroic and mighty leaders that dynasty commanded, the end of its rule was inevitable.


    The well-known families could tolerate their power being weakened, and could tolerate being suppressed; in their eyes, their power growing and shrinking was just heaven''s law. If Royalty was strong, they would retreat; if Royalty was weak, they would advance. There had never been a dynasty who could guarantee that every Emperor would be mighty, and there had never been a well-known family who could guarantee that every generation had people of talent.


    The general direction of the world was determined by the relationship between Royalty and the well-known families, endlessly pushing forward, as timeless yet unchanging as the stars in the night sky.


    At present, the Kingdom of Jin was at a time in this cycle when Royalty was strong and the influence of well-known families had scaled back. However, although their influence was on a low ebb, this did not mean that they had abandoned their interests, and although the Royal family was strong, this did not mean that they were not working hard to claw back what they had lost.


    Profit, only with strength could it be won!


    The Jin Dynasty presently had the strength to vie for some of the profits which had belonged to those families, but how much could they get hold of was a question yet to be answered.


    Ma Tianchang was a man of the court, who had come to Yunzhou to serve as Governor; naturally, it was expected that he would serve the imperial court in trying to extract a share of the profits of the big local families. As for the Wu family, as one of Yunzhou''s well-known families and a vassal of the Tian Long Taoisms, it was naturally expected to be a target for suppression. So nobody had expected that upon arriving in Yunzhou, Ma Tianchang would do all he could to aid the Wu family. With his strong support, the influence of the Wu clan had skyrocketed over the last 10 years, and their strength had increased several times over, completely contrary to people''s expectations. Because of this, most people believed that Ma Tianchang had already been bought by the well-known families, and this was why he was standing by their side. But what Ma Tianchang did next, astonished everybody; in the process of him joining hands with the Wu Clan, their strength had increased, but at the same time the advantages accrued from Yunzhou by the imperial court exceeded those garnered by the Wu clan. It was not just that the finances of Yunzhou were in good stead, but it had also became a key source of imperial finance, due to the fairs and trade routes which created by Yunzhou and the Northern Yuan. Every year they could contribute to 10,000 high-quality war horses to Jin, and in the last 10 years, the strength of Jin''s cavalry had increased tenfold. Ma Tianchang had, through his actions, strengthened enormously Jin''s military strength; he had served as Yunzhou''s Governor for 10 years, and based on the news of this marriage, he intended to continue serving here.


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 59: The Young Master named Wang She

    Chapter 59: The Young Master named Wang She


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    At this time, the news of the Ma Family uniting through a marriage with Mingyi School was spread all over the town.


    Under the movements of Ma Tianchang, the well-known families in Yunzhou and the imperial court shared benefits, achieving a beautiful equilibrium. Ma Tianchang represented the imperial court''s benefits, the Wu''s represented Tian Long Taoism and the well-known families'' interest. All along there was peace, and there were good days.


    Now, Mingyi School suddenly intervened. Even though it was only a marriage alliance, however everyone knew that Ma Tianchang only had a daughter. He treated her as a treasure. Everybody knew that Mingyi School and Tian Long Taoism did not see each other eye to eye.


    Even though the daughter that was married off was like water that was splashed out, even if it was two families having an alliance, it wouldn''t affect the cooperation between Ma Tianchang and the Wu''s. However in reality, were things really so simple?


    There was little to be said of the Mingyi School''s influence in Yunzhou. However, once Ma Tianchang united the families, the Mingyi school''s influence would finally be able to permeate Yunzhou. Moreover, the groom was the White Blademaster, Lu Shaoyou. He was one of the most fearful and skilled martial experts this pugilist world had seen in the past 50 years. He''d received the title of blade master before he was 30. He was no doubt the jewel of the Mingyi school, and he had even become their youngest deacon. Even though the Mingyi school was known to not be ambitious, others still did not believe that the marriage of Ma Tianchang''s daughter was without ulterior motives.


    It was because of this, that many in Yunzhou and the entire Jin were in a sort of panic. All the eyes of Jin were focused on Yunzhou as well as the Governor Mansion.


    That being said, all seemed peaceful at the Governor Mansion. They had kept their mouths shut on the matter, neither claiming nor denying anything. Governor Ma was even evasive when discussing it with his closest friends, changing the subject whenever necessary. It was said that Governor Ma was difficult to read. He never dropped the peaceful and powerful image that he portrayed to the public. It didn''t matter the situation, he never once showed any sign of distress or concern. No one could get a clear idea of what he was thinking. Just what exactly was going on inside his head?


    "What kind of medicine am I selling in the gourd?! I''m not selling any medicine. I''m waiting for them to formally propose the marriage!" Within the Governor Mansion, Ma Tianchang was smiling slightly and speaking to his wife. That tone, was as if he was talking about something that had no relation to him, "However, my daughter is not someone who is so easily married off!"


    "To wish to marry this old Ma''s daughter is not so easy!"


    In Qinlingjun City, a teen dressed in cyan was rubbing the window on the second story of the Floating Cloud Tower, starting in the direction of the Governor Mansion. With a sneer and a smile, he proclaimed, "Lu Shaoyou will never have her! Haha."


    Standing next to him was a maidservant with a graceful posture. In her eyes, there was hesitation, it appeared as if she wanted to say something but it was stopped at her mouth.


    "What matter, speak!"


    "A message from the mountains, it seems that Chief Lei... !"


    "Don''t talk to me about him! His dad isn''t dead yet, right? There are so many elders that are martial experts within the Lei family. Can none of them control him?" The teen waved his hand impatiently. "Don''t speak about his news, do you have any news from Xue Wuya?"


    "None!" the maidservant responded, "No one has heard anything from him since he entered Misty Mountain, perhaps... !"


    "Damn, this bastard, he dares to stand me up!" The teen''s expression sunk. He was about to say something, then he suddenly exclaimed. His gaze fixed on the big road on the Floating Cloud Tower.


    The Floating Cloud Tower was one of the best three restaurants in Qinlingjun City as well as the only restaurant among them that didn''t belong to the Wu family. It was located in the most bustling part of North Street. Standing on the second floor, it was easy to see the center of Yunzhou, including the Governor Mansion.


    The wide street below the Floating Cloud Tower was the very busiest business street of the city, with many people frequently coming and going. Junior Leopard and other apprentices were strolling about on the busy street. Most of their energy had returned after a couple of days of rest. Qin Xuanlong had also allowed them to take some time off to relax in order to prepare for the Selection Contest, which would be on the day after tomorrow. Of course they were fairly happy, coming to the most bustling part of the city for a walk.


    "Well, well. Didn''t think I would see that little fellow. I just came here to deal with some matters before going to Misty Mountain for a second time. Who would expect that he would come here as well." The young man watched Junior Leopard with interest. "From his clothes, I could tell it that he might be the apprentice of the Wu Family, could it be possible that he''s coming for the Selection Contest?" Squinting his eyes, his sight was focused on where Little Leopard was heading to.


    His cultivation is much more refined in just two years. I can see the leaps and strides he has made. How bizarre it is. How could he have such pure fire attribute Internal Qi within his body? Even if he''s working on the Ignis Skill. Could he master Ignis Internal Qi to this degree without any instruction? Could it be due to his eyes?


    Fiery Eyes, Haha, a rare trait to see in a person. Looking at his attire, it seems that he''s coming for the selection. I want to see just how much more hidden potential could be dug out from this little fellow with Fiery Eyes!


    Little Leopard and other apprentices continued to walk further from his sight, until the teen lost sight of them as they took a turn. The young man''s eyes widened, and he slapped his hand on the bar in the Floating Cloud Tower.


    "I feel really better. Yin-er, bring me as much alcohol as you can now, the more the better!"


    "Yes, Chief!"


    Soon, the maidservant, Yin-er, brought some fragrant alcohol and tasty food to the table.


    The teen in cyan clothes sat at the table near the window, eating and drinking to his content. Suddenly, something else caught his interest.


    Oh? It''s Ji Zhongtang!


    It was just that he hadn''t expected his mood to be soured by another person so quickly.


    Coming in from the street, a group of soldiers walked slowly towards the restaurant. The man in the lead was Ji Zhongtang.


    He was riding on a white stallion, scanning the area. His build and appearance were commonly described as majestic and spirited, much like a hero. His manner was considered so strong, just like a rainbow. Behind him was a young woman riding on a crimson horse whose beauty made people swear that she was born from a painting. She was about 30 and had a warm and gentle temperament. Gazing at Ji Zhongtang, her eyes filled with emotion.


    "Hmph?!"


    The teen in cyan clothes coldly snorted, the corner of his lips revealing a dense sarcastic expression, "The thought that such a stupid woman could exist in this world is inconceivable!"


    "Chief, that is Master Ji, "Moral Fighter" Ji Zhongtang. And behind him must be Mrs Zhen!?"


    "How do you know? Are you familiar with him?" The teen in cyan clothes asked, raising his eyebrows. Seeing his gaze, Yin-er began to blush. The teen gently laughed when seeing her blushing. With a sarcastic tone, he remarked, "I simply can''t tell. What''s so alluring about this old fellow!"


    "Master Ji has such a strong and pure moral character. Besides, he excels in martial arts and is kind to all, not to mention he has a refined stature. How could people not love him!"


    Although one is master and the other is servant, it could be seen from their conversation that Yin-er was not so restrained in front of the teen in cyan clothes.


    "High moral character? Warm and gentle? I haven''t heard a funnier joke in all of the years!" He said, "Do you know what Master Ji hates the most?"


    "No clue", Yin-er replied, shaking her head. She was getting a weird feeling from the teen''s expression.


    "What he hates most are snakes!" he said as he stuck his tongue out like a snake. "He thinks that they are the world''s most evil creatures and should be exterminated from the land!"


    "Ah?!" Yin-er replied, giving the teen an odd stare. She covered her mouth with her hands as if she was startled.


    "And I''m referred to as the Snake King (the name Wang She translated into English), which means that I''m the thing that he hates the most in this world, Hahahahahahaha!"

 Chapter 60: The Selection Contest

    Chapter 60: The Selection Contest


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    There were a few clouds occasionally floating in the blue sky.


    More than 10 kilometers away from Qinlingjun City, there was a manor with a large field. Different from an ordinary manor, this manor had several buildings. Moreover, the layout and design of the manor were similar to the parade''s drill ground, with several hundred stone stoves displayed in the vast open space.


    Indeed, there were several hundred stone stoves. Standing amid the thick crowds, Junior Leopard saw the present situation through the narrow space, reminding him of the scene when he viewed the Olympics opening ceremony in modern society.


    Even though the multitude of stone stoves was numerous, they were composed into a square matrix, arranged in order. At the side of every stove, there was a stone table offering a piece of raw material, a hammer and other tools for forging and smelting. This was the first arena of the Selection Contest.


    At the north of the square matrix was a stone table, like the platform of the drill ground, on which was placed a row of 19 red chairs. Junior Leopard knew that the 19 chairs had been prepared for the Wu''s patriarch, 17 Elders and a remaining seat for the guest of Tian Long Mystic Mountain.


    The Wu''s had an inextricable relationship with the Tian Long Mystic Mountain. Therefore, the Wu''s would invite the expert of the Tian Long Taoism to view the Selection Contest. To outsiders, the Wu''s was wealthy and powerful. However, to Tian Long Taoism, it was just one of their peripheral influence affiliates. It meant nothing to them that the Wu''s only had an Elder with Level Seven cultivation. But for their satisfaction with the tribute that Wu Family paid each year, they would not condescend to attend the contest.


    Yet even so, in the past the Wu''s only invited some leisurely Elders at most. Much to everybody''s surprise, the Wang She, one of the Tian Long Taoism''s three Chiefs, attended the Selection Contest. This caused all the Wu family members to be overjoyed.


    Of course, beyond that, there was a rumor that the Chief, Wang She would receive Wu Yunlong, the Wu''s Second Young Master, as a disciple, due to his inherent intelligence and imposing appearance.


    This news made an even bigger stir than the Wang She coming to observe the competition.


    Who was Wang She?


    He was one of three Chiefs of Tian Long Taoism and one of the most superior of the young generation in Great Jin''s pugilist world. He was as young as the White Blademaster, Lu Shaoyou. Although they had never fought with each other, they had both achieved the mark of their own sect over the past decade, so they had equivalent fame, strength and status.


    He was only thirty years old, and a Level Eight expert.


    This was an exciting fact indeed.


    When combined with the recent rumor that the White Blademaster, Lu Shaoyou had made a proposal to Ma Tianchang, Yunzhou''s Governor, the true purpose, that the Mingyi School wanted to expand their influence to Yunzhou, was set to be unveiled. Wang She had gone down the mountain and to attend this insignificant Selection Contest in Yunzhou''s Qinlingjun City. Weren''t these two things likely to be connected?


    Could it be that the Wang She was there because of the Wu''s Second Young Master?


    These were the questions people had. Guesses varied tremendously. Therefore, the influence of the Wu''s Selection Contest far exceeded previous contests.


    Yunzhou''s Qinlingjun City was packed with people. Not only were all the inns full, but also civil houses were not available to be offered.


    Originally, the Selection Contest and the Ma''s marriage had been totally unrelated. Now they were connected because of Jianghu''s rumors.


    Of course, none of this mattered to Junior Leopard. He was just a nobody taking part in the Selection Contest. His first goal was to be the Wu''s disciple and his final goal was to gain the Elders'' recognition and be received as an apprentice. As for everything else, he did not care.


    DONG! DONG! DONG!


    Two bass drums were played loudly in the surrounding arena. On the stage, a dozen Elders dressed in black robes with golden rims stepped up slowly and orderly and stood next to their chairs. Later on, Wu Yansheng, the Wu''s present patriarch, and Lu Yiyue, the Wu''s First Elder with Level Seven cultivation, escorted a young man dressed in cyan towards the stage.


    Is that Wang She?


    Junior Leopard did not know Wang She. However, from looking at the Wang She''s appearance, he seemed to be too young.


    He was a youth, about 17 or 18 years old, with an evil smile, which made people feel at ease.


    "He''s also a Level Eight expert?!" Junior Leopard thought of Xue Wuya who was killed by him. For some reason, a smile crept onto his face. Just when he was feeling smug with himself, he suddenly felt a chill. A streak of substantial line of sight was glued on his face.


    Wang She?


    Under the escort of the Wu''s patriarch and the First Elder, Wang She turned and fixed his eyes on Junior Leopard. Junior Leopard happened to meet his sight.


    Now, Junior Leopard had excellent eyesight. Although he did not open the Fiery Eyes, on this sunny day, full of flowers and grass, anything within a hundred meters away from him was unlikely to escape his eyes.


    Huge as the arena was, it felt like only a few dozen feet. Junior Leopard could see Wang She''s actions clearly. The sudden attention from Wang She was so weird. He smiled towards Junior Leopard and even gave a negligible nod, as if he had recognized Junior Leopard before this.


    Junior Leopard was suddenly frozen. A stream of gloomy Qi rushed into his brain from his Dantian. Fixing his eyes, he found that Wang She and the two escorts had stepped onto the high stage and sat down.


    After a series of rituals, the Selection Contest formally began.


    The first step of the Selection Contest was the Wu''s root: Weapon forgery.


    A total of 572 of the Wu''s disciples, from various regions of Great Jin, participated in the Selection Contest. In the arena there were 900 stone stoves.


    Those who came for the Selection Contest included youth who were over 10 years old and seniors who were already 30 something. There were the tall and the short contestants. However, seniors formed the majority, those who were 17-18 years old had already grown up. There were only two people who looked like Junior Leopard, only 10 years old.


    Those two people, should be the youngest in this year''s Selection Contest!


    On the platform, Wu Yansheng pointed at Junior Leopard and the other young contestant and said, "It''s so unexpected that such young disciples should attend the Selection Contest this year. I wonder how their abilities are!"


    "I''m afraid they''re just here to please the crowd!" The Elder beside Wu Yansheng said sarcastically, "It''s difficult for a ten-year-old child to forge a good weapon, talented as they are. In regards to refining a weapon, talent alone is also unlikely to refine a decent weapon anyhow!"


    "Right, right, these guys are just eager for quick success and instant benefits!" other Elders echoed. They clearly knew what Wu Yansheng was thinking about.


    For the Wu''s, the Selection Contest was not the most important. The most important thing to them was that their second son would become Wang She''s apprentice. The Selection Contest was held once every few years while the opportunity to become Wang She''s apprentice was rare. Although Wu Yansheng was very confident that Wang She would receive his second son as an apprentice, he still feared that there would appear to be a talent more potent than his son. Then, he would be embarrassed.


    Hence, the sight of the two children in the arena was irritating for Wu Yansheng.


    At this, Wang She only smiled. He clearly knew what the Elders on the stage were thinking about, but he didn''t care. He was thinking about how he could receive Junior Leopard as a disciple. As for the Wu''s Second Young Master, he was just part of the trading price indeed. Even if he really was a talent, did it matter?


    There were many talents, one more or one less wouldn''t make any difference to him. However, talent endowed with the magic bloodline, such as Junior Leopard, was nearly extinct. He would seldom encounter a talent like this in the future.


    However, was the present a good opportunity?


    While Wang She pondered, the Selection Contest began, with 572 stone stoves firing. The test of the Selection Contest was very simple. It ruled that, within six hours, you needed to forge a weapon that you were satisfied with. Everybody had the same materials and conditions to work with. Therefore, everybody would show their full strength.

 Chapter 61: The Snake-like Breath Holding Skill of Seven Wonderful Techniques

    Chapter 61: The Snake-like Breath Holding Skill of Seven Wonderful Techniques


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Strength, Junior Leopard had never lacked it!


    He adroitly set up a fire and put a piece of Embryonic Metal into the furnace. As for what weapon he was going to forge, Junior Leopard had already thought of it.


    He wanted to forge a plain saber. With his standard now, he could easily forge Nine Forges. Nine Forges were the things that ordinary craftsmen can forge. To be able to craft a weapon of the Nine Forges, he definitely could be selected as an inner core disciple. As for better things...


    "Outstanding people are always envied or those who are in a high position are liable to be attacked. If I perform too outstandingly, it''s definitely not a good thing. Besides, isn''t that Wang She accepting the Wu Family''s Second Young Master? If I accidentally get into the bad books of this young master, then my days ahead definitely won''t be nice!"


    Thinking about this point, Junior Leopard began to dismiss the idea of showing off. He held the Embryonic Metal in his hands. He had some reservations, but others didn''t. On the one hand, there was another kid about 10 cauldrons away from him whose age and height were not that different from Junior Leopard. Yet he was much brawnier than Junior Leopard. The big hammer that weighs dozens of catty was held in his hand as if he was holding grass. The hammer was like raindrops smashing onto the Embryonic Metal. The speed was fast and accurate. Even though it was not as uniform as Junior Leopard''s, however, he couldn''t compare with that kid''s monstrous strength. He can only pitter patter. After a wave of loud smashing sounds, he was not even halfway to the point of what people had hit, he quickly put the Embryonic Metal back into the furnace to refine, then took it out once again to hit.


    As if he was wholeheartedly trying to show off himself, every time he smashes, the sound was much louder than others. The smashing sound occurred across the whole parade square, arousing the attention of people. Similarly, this also affected the state of mind of everyone else.


    On this parade square, everyone was hitting metal. One by one began to hit their metal louder and louder. They were all tough men, how could they be satisfied that their limelight was stolen by a small kid? Hence, they all uncontrollably smashed the hammer harder and harder. In a moment''s time, there were loud noises from all across the parade square. It was so loud that the spectators, as well as those sitting on the platform, began furrowing their eyebrows.


    Wang She on the platform couldn''t bear it either and started laughing.


    However in that smile, was a mocking intention that couldn''t be hidden. It made Wu Yansheng and the group of Elders feel extremely embarrassed.


    "I''m sorry to let you see this!" Wu Yansheng replied somewhat embarrassedly.


    "That kid is not bad and it seems like he has an inborn divine strength!" Wang She smiled lightly while pointing at that sturdy kid. "There''s strength in hammer after hammer. Even though the strength is not uniform, but after striking with so much strength, the weapon he forged should not be bad!"


    "Yes, this kid has some abnormal strength, he only needs some guidance, my Wu Family will definitely have another talent!" the First Elder Lyu Yiyue who has been all smiles and silent suddenly said, "with this kid''s aptitude, he''s suitable to practice my Mountain Shattering Palm, not bad, not bad!"


    "Your intention is ¡ª !"


    "If the Family Head has no objections, I am willing to accept him as my disciple!"


    "It''s good this way!" Wu Yansheng nodded repeatedly and said, "However, with him creating such a scene, I''m afraid there are only a few that can pass the test!"


    "Yes, the most important thing in the way of forging and refining weapons is in the rhythm. Once the rhythm is messed up, even if one has abnormal strength, it will be all for naught!" Lyu Yiyue nodded and said, "This parade, most of the people have had their tempo already messed up by him... Aye!"


    "First Elder, any discovery?!"


    "Look at that kid!" Lyu Yiyue raised his hand and pointed at Junior Leopard, "He can actually maintain his own tempo and rhythm, that is rare to see!"


    "Not bad, his strength can''t be compared to that kid, however when it comes to talent in the way of forging, he is way ahead. It''s rare that under this kind of situation, he still can calm his heart and maintain his peace. He is a piece of good material!" the Elder sitting third from the right seat suddenly interrupted.


    "Why, is Elder Xu interested in him?!"


    Lyu Yiyue smiled and asked.


    "He''s a piece of good material, so if the Family Head agrees... !"


    "This is a good thing. It''s rare that both Elders are willing to accept disciples. This is a joyous occasion!"


    "These two old fellas are quick with their hands!" The corner of Wang She''s mouth revealed a strand of a cold smile, yet he didn''t say anything.


    There was silence on the platform. Only the sounds of hammers forging from the parade square could be heard. Junior Leopard and the rest were the same and their sweat poured like rain while their hammers hit against the Embryonic Metal. Under his forging, a saber''s image started to gradually take shape.


    Everything was very smooth. The only hearty thing was that the ears could hear the never-ending loud sound. Even though he wasn''t affected, hearing it was still irritating.


    Damn, this is obviously to stir the mental state of other people. Who knows what he''s thinking. He hasn''t even entered the inner core, yet he has already started forming enmity with other people, is his head spoilt?


    Indeed, with Junior Leopard''s actual emotional age, he naturally couldn''t understand a 10-year-old child''s mentality and thoughts.


    Weapons forgery was an extremely arduous task, at the same time it was something that was extremely time-consuming. Six hours quickly passed. The results were nothing to be fascinated nor shocked about. The person who obtained the first place was that kid who hammered ferociously producing loud sounds. His name was Shi Jing, 11 years old, Yunzhou Lelang County. Even though his control was not that fantastic, yet just depending on his innate divine strength he managed to create an Eleven Forges steel knife. This made Junior Leopard impressed. Junior Leopard obtained the second spot. That Nine Forges saber of his also touched the hearts of people. He was accepted as a disciple by the Elder sitting third from the right on the spot. Of course, Shi Jing was also accepted by the Wu Family''s First Elder.


    Apart from the two of them, among the other Wu Family disciples who attended the selection, only 10 passed.


    572 people, only 12 passed. This ratio was way out of expectations. However, when thinking about the scene during the selection, the public felt relieved. And the remaining 560 people looked at Shi Jing with unfriendly expressions. When faced with this kind of hostility, Shi Jing treated it as if he didn''t notice. On the contrary, he had a smug expression and this made people hate him till they bit their teeth.


    However thinking carefully, even if they bit their teeth there was no use. Shi Jing had already been accepted by First Elder Lyu Yiyue. This was not as simple as becoming an inner core disciple of the Wu Family. With Shi Jing''s potential, it could be possible that he would inherit Lyu Yiyue''s status, becoming the Wu Family''s Elder. This bunch of people who couldn''t even pass the selection and thus they were destined in this life to never compare with Shi Jing. Unless a miracle could happen.


    In this world, even though there were many legends about miracles, only few could truly happen.


    Of course, for Junior Leopard and these Wu Family disciples who came from Qingyang Market, what happened today could be considered a miracle already.


    Nobody would think that Junior Leopard would actually really be accepted by a Wu Family Elder.


    Originally, according to traditions from past years, this selection would have two rounds. The remaining round would be divide into groups and they would compete with martial arts. After all, this Wu Family could be considered a well-known family with a tight connection to the pugilist world. This could let those who didn''t have any talent in forging weapons, but had talent in practicing martial arts had a chance to shine. Now all was good, after this first round only 12 people were left. Furthermore from the situation, apart from Shi Jing, those 11 who could complete the task under the interruption of Shi Jing, and still forge satisfactory weapons, just based on this point, they had sufficient qualifications to enter the Wu Family inner core.


    What was more, two of them had been spotted by the Elders and accepted to be inner core disciples. This was already a satisfactory result.


    To add on, Wu Yansheng who was watching this match, was really afraid that amongst these people there would be one or two fellas with extremely outstanding performances, that outshone his own son''s limelight. In that case, his face would really not look good.


    After the selection ended, Qin Xuanlong''s attitude towards Junior Leopard became much more courteous. As for the others, they had fawning expressions. Of course, Junior Leopard believed that if it was not because of the face, Qin Xuanlong would be just like the rest, trying to gain his favor.


    For his position now was already different. He was no longer just a normal inner core disciple. Strictly speaking, he was now Wu Family''s inner core disciple and he had an identifiable teacher who was an Elder. Not like normal inner core disciples who were with no identifiable teacher. This could be described as jumping rank twice, similar to how a fish jumped over a dragon''s gate.


    "Great! This is too great Junior Leopard. This time around you''ve viciously gained glory for us who came from Qingyang Market!" On the way back, Qin Xuanlong excitedly rubbed his hands. "Junior... Zhou Bao, now that you''ve been recieved by Elder Xu. In three days you''ll be officially acknowledging him as your teacher. Do you know the formalities for acknowledging a teacher?"


    He definitely thought that there was a possibility that Junior Leopard would be looked upon by some Elder. However, that was only a wish in his heart. Now the wish had materialized, contrary to his wish, he became somewhat unable to accept it.


    Junior Leopard was slightly stunned. He suddenly got called by his family name, he was unable to adapt to it. "I really am not clear about the formalities for acknowledging teachers, so please let Teacher Qin direct me!"


    "I don''t dare, I don''t dare, now your identity is different and I can''t bear this word ''Teacher''!" Qin Xuanlong hurriedly said.


    "Teacher Qin, you''re so modest! Without you, there would not be a Junior Leopard today, how can you not bear it!" Junior Leopard said, revealing a horrified expression.


    "Okay, okay!" Qin Xuanlong nodded his head repeatedly, "It''s enough with your words. However, this word ''Teacher'', you definitely cannot say it in the future!"


    Seeing that Junior Leopard still wanted to say more about it, Qin Xuanlong hurriedly said, "Okay okay, let''s not talk about this. Now I''ll talk to you about the formalities for acknowledging your teacher... !"


    The formalities for acknowledging a teacher was actually not complicated. Qin Xuanlong only guided with a few sentences, and Junior Leopard kept it in his heart. After returning to the inn, the excited Qin Xuanlong paid a lot to treat the people from Qingyang Market to a big meal and show celebration. Everyone was very happy and excited. However, the person who should be happy was quiet instead. After downing one bucket of wine, apart from Junior Leopard who was still awake, they were all unconscious by the end in midnight.


    "Aye, I don''t know if this step is right or wrong!" After carrying a few unconscious people back into their suites, Junior Leopard had no sleepy feeling. Hence he walked to the balcony of the inn.


    The moonlight was clear and cool like water. After being blown by the night wind, Junior Leopard who was originally a bit tipsy, was wide awake.


    Slowly moving to the stone table by the balcony, Junior Leopard sat down. His fingers slowly tapped on the stone table and began to organize his messy thoughts.


    "Wu Family is an extremely good place to go. However, this big family has its own rules. There are pros and cons. Compared to Qingyang Market, this is the Wu Family headquarters. There are numerous experts. I have to proceed carefully. If in any case, I reveal my bottom line, it''ll be a disaster. Luckily, nowadays, I took into consideration my own body, only purifying the Internal Qi within my body. My cultivation as compared to my peers, even though it''s not bad, it''s not that terrifying a stage. Other attention-seeking stuff is also not on my body, I think there won''t be any weaknesses exposed!"


    "Little friend, what are you thinking?!"


    An unexpected voice was transmitted. Junior Leopard was caught by surprise. He jerked and swerved his body, making a guarded stance.


    "Why are you so nervous? From your look, the stress that you have inside of you is not small. What secret are you hiding exactly?"


    In the voice, there was teasing. A green figure, under the gaze of Junior Leopard, sat down on the stone bench in front of the stone table. "Is it, that strange eye of yours that makes you nervous?"


    "Who... Are you... ?"


    Until the green figure sat down, Junior Leopard could then tell, the person was actually Wang She who sat in the center of the platform.


    "Wang, Chief Wang, you... !"


    Looking at Wang She, Junior Leopard was in tumbles. Not only did this person suddenly appear, there were also the words he just said.


    "I was really worried that you would exert the power of the Fiery Eyes to catch the limelight!" Wang She seemed to not be bothered about Junior Leopard''s strange gaze. He said, "I haven''t seen you for a few years and you grew so fast. Though it doesn''t leave me dazed. With your age and maturity, it''s rare!"


    "We, have we met before?!"


    Looking at this green clothed young man in front of him, Junior Leopard''s heart gradually calmed down. He doubtfully asked.


    "Of course you haven''t seen me before. However, I''ve seen you before. The previous time I entered Misty Mountain, I saw you struggling with a black bear. Keke, you just opened your secret eyes. I never thought that now, you would have already grown to such an extent!"


    Black bear?!


    Speaking of this, Junior Leopard suddenly recalled it.


    "So you were there as well?!"


    "Yes, I was present. If not, how will I know that you possess the Fiery Eyes?!" Wang She raised his eyes to look at Junior Leopard. Seeing his surprised expression, Wang She laughed. "Don''t be so nervous, little friend. This is just a private conversation between us, it won''t be heard by others!"


    "Oh!" Junior Leopard was a bit stunned, he said, "My eyes are called Fiery Eyes? I didn''t know that!"


    "Of course you don''t know. The people in this world who know about the Fiery Eyes are few. Even if they know, they''re... !" Speaking till here, Wang She stopped. "Forget it, since you''ve already entered the Wu Family, and are about to become that old fella''s disciple. Regarding the Fiery Eye''s situation, you''ll know sooner or later. The reason I came here today is to remind you, you must be careful in the Wu Family. Never ever, no matter the circumstances, reveal the Fiery Eyes. If anyone finds out, you must kill and silence them. If not, big trouble will arise. Not only for you, for your family, and those who have any blood ties to you will have no place to be buried!"


    "What?!"


    Junior Leopard was extremely shocked. He never thought that Wang She came here just to tell him all this!


    "Don''t be so alarmed. The matter of the Fiery Eye is something you will know sooner or later!"


    "I''ll mark Chief Wang''s words in my head, but I don''t understand why do you want to tell me this?!" Since he had already said it, Junior Leopard naturally was not afraid. This Wang She by coming here to look for him was obviously having intentions on it. Just like Xue Wuya of the old days. No matter what, Junior Leopard was someone who had blasted a Level Eight expert. Facing this kind of expert like Wang She, he still had some form of resistance and fighting power. After the initial shock, his heart stabilized and calmed down, and he had looked at Wang She and asked.


    "I''m different from that bunch of people. They want to destroy a miraculous bloodline like yours. Me on the other hand, I can''t wait to have more and more people like you!" Wang She laughed. He looked at Junior Leopard, with an eye that seems to have seen a rare mysterious treasure. "Kid, such a person like you with Fiery Eyes can''t be easily killed by other people, do you want me to teach you a method or two to preserve your life?!"


    Junior Leopard''s gaze lit up. He immediately smiled fervently. "That... Naturally is something that I yearn for. I hope you''ll be magnanimous in teaching me!"


    "You do know how to hit the snake and follow the pole. This is just as well. The reason why I came here today, is to teach you a mental cultivation method. Fella, listen closely, this Snake-like Breath Holding Skill is one of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. It looks normal, yet it has endless uses to it. If you have the chance to obtain one of the other six techniques and infuse them, it''s power will be multiplied by tens. A pity¡ª!" Speaking till here, he seemed to have thought of something. The corner of his mouth twitched twice, and he said, "Okay, it''s pointless to think about this. I''ll now tell you the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. This skill is easy to learn and easy to master. It''s easy to memorize. Hence, I''ll only say once, you must remember it with your heart!"


    Speaking till here, not waiting for Junior Leopard to reply, he began speaking out a long line of pithy formula from his mouth. He spoke for a full incense worth of time.


    Junior Leopard did not dare to relax, hence he firmly remembered it in his heart.


    "Okay, my little friend, the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill''s mental cultivation method has been passed down to you. After you cultivate it, you''ll naturally know this Breath Holding Skill''s wondrous use. Someone is coming, I won''t speak much with you, remember my words... !"


    "But... !" Junior Leopard was just about to open his mouth, Wang She''s figure disappeared right in front of him. Just like how he appeared just now, extremely sudden. As if he was never there.


    The night wind blew. Junior Leopard sat lonely by the side of the stone table and he couldn''t figure out head nor tail.


    "Fella, remember my words, I''m doing this for your own good, Keke ¡ª !"


    Wang She''s voice rang in his ears, slowly getting further, till it disappeared.


    Following that, a wave of messy footsteps rang. It was actually Qin Xuanlong who woke up from his drunken slumber. He came out to go to the toilet. He saw Junior Leopard standing within the balcony, and started laughing, "Junior Leopard, it''s so late, still not sleeping? Or are you too excited to sleep!"


    "Yes, I couldn''t sleep while lying down, hence I came out to catch some wind!" Junior Leopard turned his body and smiled, yet his heart was still musing over the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill.


    "Strange, this Snake-like Breath Holding Skill''s mental cultivation method has similar areas with that of the Extraordinary Strength Fist passed down by Xue Wuya?!"


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 62: Moon-evil Painted Skin & Blood Demon Forged Bone

    Chapter 62: Moon-evil Painted Skin & Blood Demon Forged Bone


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    After the selection, the Wu Family continued to host a banquet. They prepared an extremely magnificent rite for formally acknowledging the teacher of their Second Young Master. Those people who came around to attend the selection in Qinglinjun City, no matter whether they passed or not, all stayed behind. Only after the acknowledging ceremony was over, then could they leave.


    Compared to the Second Young Master acknowledging Wang She as a teacher, the process was much simpler of the formalities for Junior Leopard and Shi Jing acknowledging the two Wu Family Elders.


    After the ceremony, Qin Xuanlong and the rest were going to leave. Compared to Junior Leopard, the other two from Qingyang Market were a bit disappointed.


    There was some sorrow in such a meal to commemorate the leaving.


    On the second day of the meal, Junior Leopard and other Wu Family disciples who passed the selection officially entered into the Wu Family''s manor.


    Chopping the chicken head and burning the yellow paper, they knocked their heads a few times in front of the Wu Family''s Ancestral Hall and then all separated.


    Disciples entering was considered nothing in a family like the Wu.


    What was different from the others who squeezed together, Junior Leopard and Shi Jing were each brought away by their own teachers and stay with their own teachers.


    Junior Leopard''s teacher''s surname was Xu, named Xu Yong. His ancestor was the first disciple of the founding ancestor of the Wu Family. Xu Family was also once the strongest in the entire vein of the Wu Family. During its prime, the Xu Family occupied two-thirds of the Elders'' seats within the Wu Family. However, now they had receded and diminished greatly. This Xu Yong was now the Xu Family''s only Elder within the Wu Family. He had just stepped into Level Five.


    Just like the other Elders, Xu Yong owned an independent small courtyard in the manor of the Wu Family which was very big with ten over rooms and apart from Xu Yong''s residential quarters.


    When Xu Yong and Junior Leopard entered the courtyard, the ten over remaining rooms were already cleaned.


    "From now on, you''ll stay here!" Xu Yong led the way to the rooms on the west side and said, "I''ve already ordered them to arrange the place, over at that side is a study room. However, there aren''t many books. If you want to read books, then come to my study room. I heard that you can read!"


    "I used to learn from the mister in the village!"


    "En, it''s good that you''ve learned before!" Xu Yong was very satisfied with the fact that Junior Leopard recognized words. "Follow me!"


    Junior Leopard followed behind Xu Yong, and he felt somewhat nervous. His teacher, from the ceremony till now, hadn''t spoken more than 10 sentences to him. Furthermore, he didn''t seem to be the sort that liked to speak judging from his face. To live together from now on, he had to be more careful.


    "Sit------!" After entering the living room, Xu Yong sat down and pointed at the chair by the side for Junior Leopard to sit down. As soon as Junior Leopard just sat down, a green-clothed footboy came in with tea and spoke in a low voice, "Please drink the tea!"


    "This feeling is not bad!" Until this moment, Junior Leopard finally had a feeling of fish jumping through the dragon''s gate. Now he had become a Wu Family Elder''s disciple, and he also became a Wu Family inner core disciple. Compared to other Wu Family disciples, his position had a substantial increase. Apart from the few young masters from the Wu Family''s main family, it was as if he was the only one inner core disciple.


    "Thank you!" Junior Leopard nodded slightly, and made a reply to his gesture. That footboy never expected for Junior Leopard to say thanks, and looked at him in surprise. He bowed his head and left through the door.


    "Zhou Bao, now that you''re my disciple. You don''t need to be so restricted in front of me. I''m not a voluble man, and haven''t taught any disciple before. Hence, in the future when I teach you, if you have any suspicions, feel free to speak out and don''t have any reservations. Understand?"


    "Yes, I understand!" Upon hearing this, Junior Leopard relaxed. His teacher seemed like an honest person and he liked to deal with honest people like him.


    "I observed your cultivation and found that you''re a Level One fighter. No matter the strength of your body or cultivation in the Internal Qi, you''ve already reached an astonishing realm. To be able to do so in a place like Qingyang Market, it seems that you''re not a simple character!"


    "Full credit must go to my teachers including teacher Qin. I merely followed the instructions of them!" Junior Leopard hurriedly lowered his head and said.


    "Them?!" Xu Yong smiled and his face revealed an unconvinced expression. "If they''re really so capable, our Wu Family would have conquered the Great Jin long ago. Why would we still be like today, guarding Yunzhou!"


    Junior Leopard''s gaze lit up. From Xu Yong''s words, he heard something. However looking at his cold smile and sighing manner, Junior Leopard found as if Xu Yong was speaking to himself. He naturally didn''t dare to ask more, only waiting for Xu Yong to continue speaking.


    "I already know about your past. I heard that before you entered my Wu Family, you''ve cultivated in the Ignis Skill of the Sect of Flame. Is that right?!"


    "Yes, I have. However, those were entry-level mental cultivation methods!"


    "En, entry-level mental cultivation methods are not bad. Based on your age at that time, you were able to practice the Ignis Skill. This shows that you have a very high aptitude and that''s why before I teach you, you have to make a choice!"


    "Choice? What choice?!" Junior Leopard asked strangely.


    "My Wu Family, though it''s a well-known family in the martial arts world, after all, it''s core is based on forging and smelting weapons. Hence, the disciples of my Wu Family, have to learn the art of forging and smelting weapons. Of course, apart from forging and smelting weapons, the cultivation of martial arts is also an important factor. No matter whether to learn the art of forging and smelting or to cultivate in martial arts, you have to be involved. To hold a balance on both, and reach the pinnacle in both areas are impossible. As for those who are normal, that means nothing, because even if they focus on one area only, it''s hard for them to have any achievements. However, for people like you, it''s different. As long as you focus on one area and put in the effort, it''s very possible to break through what others are not able to break through in, achieving unbelievable results. Hence, you need to make a choice, as to whether to pursue the art of forging and smelting or to cultivate in martial arts!"


    "I wish to cultivate in martial arts!" Junior Leopard didn''t think carefully at all, and he blurted out.


    "It''s indeed the case!" Xu Yong''s eyes revealed a strand of disappointment, however, he smiled next. "That''s good, since you''ve already chosen to cultivate in martial arts, in the future, you have to put all your heart and will in it. To forge your tendons and bones, to condense your Internal Qi. In the path of martial arts, it''s like a boat that goes against a current, if you don''t go forward you''ll go backward. Hence you can''t slack even the slightest, do you understand!"


    "I understand!"


    "I heard that you used to cultivate in the Dark Bear Fist for Skin Toughening. Even though this punching skill is good to learn, however, its effects are so-so. I do not know how you trained, to actually cultivate to this level!" Xu Yong looked at Junior Leopard and his face revealed some shock. "However, to think about it you''ve already squeezed dry the benefits of learning the Dark Bear Fist. Now, this Dark Bear Fist''s effects won''t be obvious as compared when you first trained in it. It''ll also slow down your cultivation speed!"


    Talking about this, he glanced at Junior Leopard. "Do you feel now that your body''s toughness and cultivating potential have already reached your age''s limit? That if you continue to train, it''ll hurt your tendons and bones, and affect your body in the future?"


    Junior Leopard hurriedly nodded his head. "Yes, I feel that my own cultivation has already reached a bottleneck and I cannot carry on training!"


    "That is because the Dark Bear Fist''s limit has been reached!" Xu Yong said, "I''ll now impart a punching skill for your Skin Toughening. Next time you should use this set of punching skill to train your body. Wait till your cultivation enters the Level Two, I''ll teach you a set of punching skill for Bone Forging!"


    "Thank you, teacher... !"


    The days next ahead were peaceful and fulfilling.


    Under Xu Yong''s guidance, Junior Leopard''s prowess slowly and steadily rose. Xu Yong was an honest person. Even though his words were few, however when it came to teaching Junior Leopard, he put in a lot of effort. Junior Leopard thus received many benefits.


    After all, Xu Yong was an expert of the Bone-Forging Realm. In cultivation, he had numerous experiences that were invaluable. Especially on the cultivation of the punching skill for Skin Toughening, this made Junior Leopard save a lot of bent roads.


    Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill. This was what Xu Yong imparted to Junior Leopard. Just upon hearing this name, Junior Leopard''s heart involuntarily palpitated.


    Moon-evil Painted Skin, Blood Demon Forged Bone!


    Why were the names so similar?


    This was what he thought in his mind. Now his biggest mission was to honestly practice his fist, and not delve into and contemplate the meaning of these two sets of punching skills.


    With Xu Yong''s guidance, Junior Leopard naturally understood that he nearly cultivated till he stepped into an error area.


    "There are actually so many tricks in cultivation. Punching skills for Strengthening Body have such diverse differences!"


    Since he was young, he had been cultivating in the Dark Bear Fist that was commonly practiced within the army. Also, borrowing Taiji Fist and Fiery Eye''s additional effects, he had in a short few years entered into the Level One realm. This kind of effect was not much different from those young masters from well-known families practicing in high-level Skin Toughening punching skills. This was a miracle.


    Practicing a shallow Skin Toughening punching skill produced the effect of a high-level Skin Toughening punching skill. This kind of potential was what Xu Yong emphasized on, hence he accepted Junior Leopard as his disciple.


    In the past, Junior Leopard only knew that the martial world was divided into three realms and nine levels.


    However, his level was too low. Just like in his past life, he understood the principles behind the functioning of the atomic bomb. However even if he was given enough materials and requirements, he wouldn''t be able to create an atomic bomb.


    The Skin-Toughening Realm was divided into three bottom levels. When you had cultivated into the peak of the Level Three, you would have the requisite to break through into the Bone-Forging Realm.


    It was easy to speak of this, however, there were countless practitioners who were stuck at this level. Even if they were lucky enough to step into the Bone-Forging Realm, usually they would be stopped in their tracks.


    Why?


    Because their growth potential had already reached its end.


    Growth potential was linked to aptitude. However, the really decisive factors were still the foundation, the Skin Toughening punching skill and when they enter into the Bone-Forging Realm, the realm which they reached.


    Yes, realm.


    This was a beautiful yet mysterious catchphrase.


    The realms in the three realms and nine levels were referring to the realm. However, this realm was a big realm. Apart from this big realm, in every realm, there was a small state.


    Ordinarily speaking, as long as one was not rotten trash or overly lazy and had a set of good Skin Toughening punching skill, he could raise his strength to the Level Three in twenty years.


    However, to rush into the Level Four, it would have to depend on your small realm and luck.


    Typically speaking, after being a Level Three fighter, one would not have the requisite to break through into the Bone-Forging Realm. To break through the Bone-Forging Realm, one must be at the Basic level of the Skin-Toughening Realm. However, for most people, they would fall at this stage. As for the reason, it was still because the foundation was not solid enough.


    This was just like building buildings. If one wants to build high, then a solid foundation must be built. Foundation is a building''s standard. You can''t use just one foundation to build a 20-storey high building.


    However, no matter if it was a normal building''s foundation, or a 20-storey building''s foundation, in substance they were the same. The difference between two Level Three fighters was all about the foundation.


    Similarly, all were in Level Three. Some Level Three fighters were the foundation of normal buildings while others were that of 20-storey buildings. There were even some whose foundations were that of a skyscraper.


    How to build a solid foundation?


    It depended on how deep you have dug, how many poles you have built, what materials did you use for the foundation and lastly the method you used for building a foundation.


    Among punching skills of Strengthening Body, this would be the levels of the punching skill, the practitioner''s hardworking and his ability to comprehend the cultivation method.


    Junior Leopard was able to cultivate the Dark Bear Fist to this extent. This was equal to strengthen a foundation that was only enough for a normal building to one for a ten-storey building. This was sufficient for Xu Yong to be surprised. However, this was not enough, far far not enough.


    What Xu Yong needed was not a ten-storey building, but a real skyscraper.


    Hence, he then wished to use this set of cultivation method which he obtained three years ago, the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill that was able to build a skyscraper, to be imparted to Junior Leopard.


    Of course, this sounded complicated. In actuality, fighters were all rough and boorish men none of who would wish to do such complicated calculation?


    So, there was the term realm.


    In the three realms, every realm was divided into three small states, namely Basic Level, Advanced Level and Full Closure.


    Taking the Skin-Toughening Realm for example, when you had reached the Basic Level Realm of the Skin-Toughening Realm, in theory, you could break through to the Level Four Bone-Forging Realm.


    The Basic Level of Skin-Toughening Realm was the lowest requirement to break through into the Bone-Forging Realm. In actuality, no matter what realm, if you could not reach the Basic Level Realm, you would have no qualifications to break through to the next realm!


    But for the Basic Level Realm to break through to the next realm, in reality, it was more difficult. Most depended on heavenly material and luck. Basic Level Realm, even if one luckily broke into the next realm, he already had no potential to reach the peak. It would be severely difficult to continue improving.


    In this world, most of the Skin Toughening punching skills'' maximum potential, were only Skin-Toughening Realm''s Basic Level only.


    There were people who could cultivate a higher level Skin Toughening punching skills. They then had the qualification to enter the Advanced Level Realm. For the Advanced Level Realm to break through to the next realm, the chances were much bigger than Basic Level. As for entering the next realm, there were also great potential to develop. In other words, this building could have more storeys to be added to it. As for how high, it would depend on the level of the punching skill that one was practicing to forge bones and at last one would reach whether the Basic Level or Advanced Level of Bone Forging!


    As for the Full Closure Realm, it was another realm that made people go crazy.


    If you can reach the Full Closure stage, then, cultivating into the next realm is a matter set in stone. Furthermore, when it comes to cultivation in the future, it will be smooth sailing. Because this is a foundation for skyscrapers.


    Those legendary figures in the martial arts world, all of who cultivated till the Full Closure stage before breaking through into the other realm. The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou was such, Wang She was such, Xue Wuya was also such.


    However, it was easier said than done to reach the Full Closure stage.


    To reach the Full Closure stage there was an extremely tough bar, and that was a top level punching skill to strengthen the body.


    Not high level, but top level.


    This kind of punching skill normally was controlled in the upper-tier figures of various big sects and well-known families. For those sects and families which were slightly smaller, there were only those punching skills that could help one cultivate into the Advance Level Realm only.


    The Wu Family was also such the case. It seemed almighty in Yunzhou, monopolizing half of Great Jin''s metal weaponry business. However, if looking at its foundation, it could only barely manage to be a middle-class well-known family only. It was just the sidekick of Tian Long Taoism and impossible to have such a top-level cultivation method to strengthen the body. This was also the reason that Wu Yansheng tried various means to make his own son be a disciple of Wang She.


    Of course, there were some incidents happened, which allowed some person to obtain a top-level cultivation method.


    Just like Xu Yong at this moment, he incidentally obtained this set of Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill three years ago, which was a top-level punching skill for Skin Toughening. However, he was aging in years and had already stepped into the Level Five of Bone-Forging Realm. Even if he practiced it there would not be much effect.


    However, he didn''t turn in this to the Wu Family. After all, he obtained it by himself and it was his private property. Even if the Wu Family''s Head and the First Elder knew about it, there was also no reason for them to take it from him. Furthermore, they did not know yet.


    In this way, Junior Leopard began his cultivating career in the Wu Family. The ten-year-old Junior Leopard had already been puberty and his body was quickly growing. The bones and muscles were also growing towards a stabilizing manner. Especially under the double effect of Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill and the Taiji Fist, his body had a very strong potential!

 Chapter 63: In the World

    Chapter 63: In the World


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Great Jin, Qianzhou, West Capital


    Qianzhou was situated slightly west on the Great Jin map. Its original name was Xidu, in the end, it was named West Capital City.


    West Capital was the capital of the Great Jin and the most important manor under the Emperor!


    Naturally, it was extravagant beyond measure. Every day the roads were full of carts and passengers which were incessant. It was the heart of Great Jin.


    West Capital City walls were 180 feet high. It was entirely made up of sturdy green rocks. Between rock and rock, it was very difficult to squeeze through even using an awl. It was the world top one fortress.


    The Great Jin Royal Capital was within the West Capital City. It occupied one-quarter of the whole West Capital City''s surface area. It was lofty and heavily guarded; insufferably arrogant.


    In the Royal Capital Palace, there was an extremely quiet courtyard. It was situated on a man-made lake, an island that was like spring all year round with flowers and birds.


    The courtyard was not big but abnormally exquisite.


    Two guards in black clothes and black armor were standing at the entrance of the courtyard as if they were the door-god. Their faces were entirely covered by the metal armor and no one could tell what was underneath the masks.


    On this small island in the middle of the lake, other than the two guards in black clothes and black armor standing at the entrance of the courtyard, there seemed to be no one else. As for the courtyard behind them, it became much more mysterious.


    "Hey, do you think he will agree?!"


    In the middle of the courtyard, there was a quiet room. It was shabbily patched, yet exuding a great force. In front of a short desk, there was a middle-aged man holding a memorial to the throne. An accidental smile revealed on his handsome face. "What a strange reaction! I thought Duke Ma would fight me with his life?!"


    This middle-aged man was in a bright yellow robe with a gray colored silk belt on his waist. A pigeon egg-sized white jade ball was engraved in the middle of the belt. From top to bottom he exuded a Qi Power of quiet majesty, it was awe-inspiring. Within this force, was an intention that wanted to swallow the whole world, with hands controlling fate.


    This gentleman, even if he wore casual clothes, would look incomparably awesome. He was the Great Jin''s Emperor, Ji Yingshen.


    "You don''t think he will?!"


    It was also the voice of a middle-aged man, but the voice was slightly shrill and soft.The owner of this voice was wearing a moon-white clothes. He was tall, yet looked extremely thin as if a gust of wind would be able to blow him down. Below his jaws were three strands of long beard, slowly moving like a sage.


    "He came to ask if that letter is real!"


    "Whether it is real or not, don''t you know that by doing this, he is only trying to give you a way out. You know his temper. Perhaps if you don''t compromise he will go crazy and chase away the Mingyi School people who came to propose marriage. This is not impossible!"


    "That''s true. Once this fella goes crazy, not many could stop him. However, for this kind of insanity, if I ask his daughter to marry into the north to build a relationship, he''ll erupt. Now, I found him a son-in-law that is a rarely seen talent. He''ll not go crazy in such a situation!"


    "The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou, is indeed a talent rarely seen, and he''s someone from the Mingyi School. Even if Duke Ma is unwilling, he has to consider the impact this will have. However, regarding the Tian Long Mystic Mountain...!"


    "Tian Long Mystic Mountain?!" Ji Yingshen smiled, "Tian Long Mystic Mountain can manage the heaven and earth, do they really want to meddle in other people''s marriage?"


    "If this is successful, Your Majesty, this will be extremely beneficial to our plan!"


    "Our plan?!" Ji Yingshen gave him a look, "Brother Yuesheng, the mission has a long way to go!"


    "The whole land belongs to Your Majesty and the people who manage the land are the officials of Your Majesty!" Ming Yuesheng said softly. When he spoke these two sentences, his skinny body immediately straightened. His gaze was sharp, like a sharp sword staring at Ji Yingshen. "Your Majesty, I strongly believe, this is the Great Jin''s future!"


    ...


    ...


    "The whole land belongs to Your Majesty and the people who manage the land are Your Majesty''s officials! Go to hell!"


    Great Jin, Yunzhou, Qinlingjun City, Yunzhou Governor Ma Tianchang were also ruminating these words. His face surfaced a strand of cool intention and he laughed. "Forget it, I''ll let the two deal with each other. I really want to see, what will happen!"


    "His Excellency, His Excellency...!"


    He was deep in thought, when a maidservant frantically rushed in from outside with fear on her face.


    "What are you frantic about?!" Ma Tianchang''s eyebrows furrowed. Even though he was not a strict person and the Governor Mansion''s rules were not too strict, to rush in in such a manner was extremely disrespectful.


    "Mi-Miss...!"


    "What''s she crying about?!"


    The moment the maidservant mentioned "Miss", Ma Tianchang instantly became helpless.


    "Miss wants to exit the manor!"


    "Leave the manor?!" Ma Tianchang''s eyebrows sharpened. "You mean she wants to leave the house and escape?!"


    "Yes-yes, she wants to escape from the house!"


    "Then let her go. I want to see if she''s able to leave Qinlingjun City!"


    "Ah?!" The pitiful maidservant was stunned by Governor Ma. She stood there looking at Ma Tianchang, not knowing what to say.


    "What are you standing there for? She wants to leave, you should help her pack her stuff. Tell her, to come back before the marriage!" Ma Tianchang said loudly.


    "Peng--!" Outside the door came a sound produced by the crashing of a heavy object. A red figure flashed by, carrying a wave of anger.


    "Hehe, this damn little girl, to actually dare to play with me!" Ma Tianchang looked at that maidservant and smiled, "You go back and tell her not to play with me. She should obediently stay at home. If that Lu Shaoyou really has the capability to marry her, then she should stay at home and wait to get married."


    "Yes, yes--!" The maidservant''s face was ashen. She fearfully glanced at Ma Tianchang, bowed, and hurriedly left.


    "Aye, this little girl, will really not let me be settled!" Ma Tianchang looked at the maidservant hurriedly leaving, and softly sighed. "Ming Yuesheng, you bastard, this bad idea must come from you. You all can make noise on your side, but why must you pull me in. Can I really be treated as a soft blanket to be pinched?"


    Ma Tianchang fondled his short beard beneath his jaw, and walked to and fro in the study room. "Hmph, I''ve already done what you all required of me.So what if I agree with this marriage? Whether that Lu Shaoyou has the capability to marry my daughter, that will depend on his own ability!"


    "Hmph, if his ability is big enough, you''ll really marry off our daughter?"


    A cold laughter came from outside the study room.


    "Dear, why are you here?!"


    "How can I not come!"


    Dressed in a white skirt, the extremely beautiful young woman walked into the study room. She looked at Governor Ma walking to and fro within the room, and she suddenly smiled. "If you have no confidence, then I''ll go and kill this Lu Shaoyou!"


    "You, go kill Lu Shaoyou?" Ma Tianchang frowned slightly. "Yu-er, it''s already messy enough. Don''t add to the trouble!"


    "Sure, no problem. As long as you don''t push our daughter into the fire pit, I won''t cause more trouble for you!"


    "This matter is not as simple as you think it is!"


    "I have no interest in the politics between you men, nor am I in the mood to listen to your explanation. In short, this matter is settled. You either help to halt this marriage, or else...!"


    "Don''t do this to me. I''ve already agreed on the marriage, with no intention of breaking it off...!"


    "You''ve agreed, but I have not------!"


    "Listen to me!" Ma Tianchang spoke in a deep voice. "Three days later, Lu Shaoyou will come to officially ask for marriage. In this period between asking for marriage till the marriage, you better keep a low profile and do not make noise!"


    "You want me to think of an idea to interrupt the marriage? I like--" The young woman listened, and immediately smiled and laughed.


    Ma Tianchang''s face was full of a cold sweat. "Yu-er, this is your daughter''s wedding, they''re here to offer you tea and why do you want to create a fracas during the marriage? Listen to me well, my daughter is going to marry. No matter who she''s going to marry, there has to be a large sedan chair carried by eight people carrying her over the door. After leaving this Governor''s Mansion, it''ll be Lu Shaoyou''s business!"


    "You want me to steal my daughter during the marriage?!" At this moment, the young woman was no longer as furious as before. On the contrary, she was excitedly looking at Ma Tianchang and her eyes were full of hope.


    "It''s not for you to take action!" Ma Tianchang, with a head full of black lines, said grumpily.


    "What, someone dares to steal my daughter?!" The young woman finally heard the meaning in Ma Tianchang''s words. Her eyebrows immediately straightened. A wave of Evil Qi erupted from her. "This is too much, too much. Who has the audacity, to actually dare to have ideas on my daughter?!"


    "You don''t need to care about this, you just wait and see the show. I am almost sure that Lu Shaoyou will be unable to cross this hurdle. However, if he manages to luckily pass this round, then you can happy kill him!" Ma Tianchang said, and smiled and looked at the young woman. "However, there''s something that I have to remind you. Lu Shaoyou is a Level Eight expert whose sword technique is at the pinnacle. Can you be able to kill him?!"


    "No matter how profound his sword skill is, he''s just a boorish man!" The young woman smiled. "Now I''m interested in who will kidnap the bride!"


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 64: Cyan Fan Gone Rogue

    Chapter 64: Cyan Fan Gone Rogue


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Early autumn in the 12th year of Jin dynasty.


    It was a hot day, with dry wind blowing.


    It was bustling as ever at the city gate of Qinlingjun City.


    The Wu''s Selection Contest had come to an end, but the city was swept with another wave of breaking news.


    The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou had personally went to the Governor Mansion to propose a marriage.


    That was far bigger an event than the Wu''s Selection Contest!


    Lu Shaoyou was a Level Eight fighter, one of the strongest fighters among the young generation of Jin''s martial arts world, as well as the youngest deacon in Mingyi School. He was a true-blue eligible bachelor.


    And he was about to propose to Governor Ma''s daughter.


    Never mind the dirty deals behind this political marriage, his name alone was enough to draw the attention of the whole country.


    The official road to Qinlingjun City was crowded with people and carriages as always. The only difference was that the pedestrians all seemed absent-minded. Since this morning after the city gate had opened, they would take a short walk, stop for a little while, and look behind them from time to time, as if they were expecting something to happen.


    Under the afternoon sun, rattling noises came from afar along the official route. A line of carriages was seen at the end of the road, moving forward slowly. Having seen this, the pedestrians stopped and stepped aside consciously. They held their heads up to look at the entourage with looks of admiration, curiosity, and envy¡­


    It seemed as if all the emotions in the world were expressed in the eyes of these onlookers, be it positive, neutral, or negative.


    "Crap! Why didn''t I take a cold wash yesterday? Why didn''t I''m sick and unable to get up this morning? Why am I stupid enough to want to watch the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou go to the Governor''s Mansion to propose? Why didn''t I just break my leg yesterday?!"


    Wang Fu was on duty today as the leader of the guards at the city gate. It made him excited and happy until this moment. It was an open secret that the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou was about to propose personally at the Governor Mansion. Not only could he see the legendary hero in the flesh while on duty, but more importantly, he could get some handsome tips. Though he was just a guard, he was a staff at the Governor Mansion after all. With Mingyi School being as rich as it was, the White Blademaster would not pass by without tipping the guard, would he?


    What was more, this would be another good tale to tell for some time while drinking with his buddies.


    Not everyone was as lucky as he was. If not for his powerful backer, he would not have the opportunity to be on duty today and guard the city gate.


    But he now stood at the city gate, trembling as he held a spear. He felt so cold inside that he wanted to cry.


    On the straight road, a figure dressed in cyan robe was shaking a small fan in his hand as he strolled towards the city gate. Unlike the entourage led by the White Blademaster, he was walking out of the city.


    It was okay if he wanted to get out of the city. Wang Fu was not going to stop him. But why the hell did he have to stand in front of the city gate?


    Yeah, why was he doing that?


    That very question confused not only Wang Fu, but everyone gathered at the city gate.


    A man in a cyan robe with a small fan, wearing a hair bun fastened with a white jade hairpin.


    He stood still in the middle of the road in front of the city gate.


    Nonetheless, there was still enough room for pedestrians and even carriages, except the fact that they all had to take a little detour around him to pass.


    Everyone else would choose the detour, but Wang Fu knew Lu Shaoyou and his carriages would never do so.


    Neither the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou nor Mingyi School would allow such a thing happen on such a special day. Never mind the fact that Lu Shaoyou and his entourage seeking a marriage alliance had taken up the entire route, making it impossible for anyone to stand in the middle of the road to the city gate.


    "Who is it?! How dare he!"


    The sight of cyan-robed man leisurely standing in the middle of the road drew everyone''s immediate attention.


    This man had the balls! That was the first thought that came to their heads, but of course, they were just nobodies. The ones who actually knew something got excited at this point.


    Yes, how could they not be excited?


    At that moment, many martial arts masters were gathered at Qinlingjun City. Most of them had made the trip here to witness this unprecedented proposal.


    Some of them came with ulterior motives, but most of them were from nearby areas who came just to satisfy their curiosity and need for gossip.


    Gossip was never lacking in Jianghu and naturally, there were no lacking of those who loved them.


    They may not be masters of martial arts, but they were definitely masters of gossip.


    On their way here, they were still thinking about the reaction of Tian Long Mystic Mountain. To their surprise, the marriage-seeking entourage has not even made it inside the city.


    The countermeasure by Tian Long Mystic Mountain had arrived.


    It was Wang She!


    The man standing in front of the city gate was Wang She himself!


    Few of the gossips had ever seen Chief Wang in the flesh.


    Nevertheless, there were tons of rumors about him.


    Cyan robe with a small fan; hair bun with a white jade hairpin!


    That was the outfit that Wang She made popular in the Jianghu.


    Of course, the man''s outfit could easily be a replica. When Wang She made his name several years ago, cyan robes, small fans, and white jade hairpins were almost sold out in the Jianghu, lining the pockets of some shrewd merchants.


    Even today, a few young fighters in the Jianghu still wore such outfits.


    Given the circumstances, having the balls to stand with ease in the middle of the official road of Qinlingjun City, he must be Wang She.


    Who else could it be?


    "Good, Tian Long Taoism is being explicit this time. They must be really pissed about Mingyi School attempting to intervene in the Yunzhou business. Usually, they would make the deal in private, but now, they brought their confrontation in the public. How strange!"


    "This move by Tian Long Mystic Mountain isn''t too wise!"


    Some old birds among the Jianghu thought to themselves.


    Indeed, many would agree that it was not wise for Tian Long Taoism to do so.


    Today was the day Lu Shaoyou would make his proposal. He could not afford any mistakes. If anything went wrong, he would be losing a lot of face.


    In this world, what was the greatest reason for enmity?


    Killing one''s father.


    And what hatred went the deepest?


    Taking one''s wife!


    Should Wang She succeed in his interception, then¡­


    Lu Shaoyou''s fame in the Jianghu, gained over the past 10 years, would all be gone.


    As for Tian Long Mystic Mountain, it was a different story. Why should they care whether Lu Shaoyou succeed or not?


    It was simply because the girl being proposed to was the Governor''s daughter, who in a sense was under the protection of Tian Long Mystic Mountain. That was why it appeared to be a sensitive subject.


    However, sensitive subject was one thing.


    When the news broke, Mingyi School was forced into a disadvantaged position, for there was no where for them to retreat. On the other hand, people would believe the two parties had reached an agreement in private, even if Tian Long Mystic Mountain made no outward response. That was why Tian Long Mystic Mountain had not intervened.


    But now Wang She had made a high-profile appearance at the city gate of Qinlingjun City. What did it mean?


    The message was that Tian Long Mystic Mountain had made a stand against Mingyi School, a completely antagonistic stance.


    That was to say, the temporary truce between them was over.


    The winner would either be Lu Shaoyou or Wang She. There was no third option.


    They were put in a tight corner.


    Wang She stood at the entrance to the city and looked at the entourage of carriages coming at him. He smiled as he waved his fan, relaxed as he completely disregarded the astonishment, eagerness, or indifference in the crowd''s eyes.


    I haven''t felt this way for a long time. When was the last time? The night 26 years ago? Or earlier?


    A smile lingered on his face yet his eyes narrowed, as if he was irritated by some unpleasant memories.


    "Captain!"


    A man near Wang Fu sneaked up to him and pointed at Wang She. "Captain, look! Maybe we should check it out. It''s a big day. What if¡­"


    Wang Fu smacked the guard on the face so hard that his butt kissed the ground. He said in a ferocious voice, "Do you have a death wish? Be good and stay here!"


    He did not have the chance to continue yelling, as the entourage of Mingyi School had arrived at the city gate.


    The horses'' hoofs clattered, but the chaos faded before long.


    The carriages of Mingyi School stopped.


    They stopped 10 meters away from the city gate.


    They were headed by three people: "Moral Fighter" Ji Zhongtang, the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou, and Mrs Zhen.


    Ji Zhongtang and Mrs Zhen had been to Qinlingjun City, so they were no strangers to the onlookers. What caught everyone''s eye was the white-robed young man riding a horse in between them.


    Wang She was handsome, yet his pretty face had a kind of feminine charm. Unlike him, the young man in white had bright black eyes, long eyebrows, and a prominent nose. His smile was heartwarming, but solemn.


    "Oh, I was wondering who is it to come to Qinlingjun City with a large entourage early in the morning. It''s you, our blessed boy! Hahaha!"


    Wang She mocked him, clearly without the intention to be polite.


    "Who are you? Why are you standing in our way?"


    Without giving Lu Shaoyou the chance to say anything, Ji Zhongtang slashed his horse and came close to Wang She. He stared down Wang She''s face, as if he wanted to kill the young man with his eyes.


    "Master Ji, why bother faking your ignorance? How could you not know who am I? What a joke!" Wang She folded his fan and sneered. "You Mingyi School people are all f*cking hypocrites."


    "You!"


    Ji Zhongtang was on the edge of losing his temper, but he held it. "Oh, there are more thieves than I can count in this world. How could I recognize them all? Hurry up and get out of our way, or I''ll make you regret it!"


    "All roads lead to Rome. The official road is broad enough for you to come through. Why should it have anything to do with me?" Wang She opened his folding fan again, making a big noise as he waved it. "You Mingyi School people are so bossy!"


    "Yeah, we are bossy. But that''s better than you betraying your promise!" Ji Zhongtang said in a plain voice, sitting straight as he looked down from his high horse, sarcasm in his eyes.


    "You''re saying that you had bribed the old guys on the mountains in return for no trouble from them today?" Wang She laughed and stopped waving his fan. "But, you see. I''m not looking for trouble, neither will I stop you. You all can enter the city as you want!"


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 65: The Encounter Of Two Warriors

    Chapter 65: The Encounter Of Two Warriors


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The atmosphere was strange!


    Ji Zhongtang suddenly had an impulse to kill Wang She.


    The deal between the two schools was done privately. But who would have thought that Wang She would stand in front of so many people and call out loudly, seemingly afraid that other people would not know.


    Or rather, he was not afraid of others knowing.


    "Haha! What a big grudge ah. It looks like I said something that I shouldn''t have said!" Wang She hid his lips and chuckled as his eyes gleamed with pride. "But I don''t really have the idea to break you elders trading. If you want to go, then go. I won''t stop you!"


    "Pop!" With a bang, Wang She folded his fan and pointed the road on both his sides. "You see, the road is still wide enough for your chariots to pass. You only need to get your team back together!"


    It was a very casual way of showing his inherent contempt. It was obvious to the discerning eye.


    Ji Zhongtang''s face flushed red and his body shook. He was ready to make the first move.


    At this time, a gentle voice came from behind.


    "Uncle. Hand it over to me!"


    Ji Zhongtang controlled the pressure of pent up fury, sighed deeply and looked at Wang She ruthlessly. He did not speak anything but turned the horse around.


    "You haven''t gone crazy today?"


    Lu Shaoyou patted his horse as it stopped just 10 feet from Wang She, as if he knew him well. "Do you really want to break off relations with the old guys in the mountain and defected from the sect?!"


    "Food can be eaten indiscriminately as well as wives can be taken indiscriminately, but words can''t be uttered indiscriminately!" Wang She said with a smile. "I, Wang She, was born a person of Tian Long Taosim. In death I''ll become a ghost of Tian Long Taoism. How can I betray the sect?!"


    "Alright, cut the crap. What the hell do you want?" Lu Shaoyou asked straightforwardly, "I don''t have the time to hang around here with you!"


    "I heard that you''re messing around with Xue Wuya. Is it true?!" Wang She asked with great interest. "You even banished him to the Ten Thousand Huge Mountains where nobody knows whether he''s alive or dead. Is it true?!"


    "It''s true!" Lu Shaoyou answered. "What, do you want to avenge for him?!"


    "I won''t go as far as to avenge for him. Well, I just want to know, where is he now?"


    "Where he is?! Lu Shaoyou frowned. "I don''t know that. I just drove him into the Misty Mountain, nothing more. As far as where he''s hiding, I didn''t have time to search for him, but my blade injured his artery. Without five to six years worth of effort, he''ll not regain his pneuma. If you''re really in a hurry to find him, you better go to the Misty Mountain and have a look, maybe you''ll be rewarded!"


    "I won''t go up the Misty Mountain, and anyway I don''t have any urgent matter up there. Xue Wuya is really strong. Amongst at the Level Eight, he was labeled as superior, it''s not easy to hunt him down. I really want to see how powerful he is, the man who can hunt him down for thousands of miles and banish him is indeed a powerful man!"


    "Is that so?!" Lu Shaoyou gently raised his chin. He narrowed his eyes and his pupils contracted to the size of a sharp needle as he fixed his eyes on Wang She''s face. "If I understand you correctly, you''re challenging me?"


    "You could see it that way!" Wang She snapped shut the fan, and firmly pat it on his left palm as he sinisterly spoke. "Then, White Blademaster, Lu Shaoyou, do you dare to accept my challenge?"


    "Ridiculous!"


    At this moment, a cold loud shout came from behind Lu Shaoyou. It was the voice of "Moral Fighter" Ji Zhongtang. "Wang She, today is the big day of Shaoyou, how could you challenge him as you please? If you''re really tired of living, I can give you a lift!"


    "Give me a lift, just you?" Wang She roared with laughter. "''Moral Fighter'' Ji Zhongtang. hahaha, will you also indulge me? 20 years ago you might have, but now your Mysterious Sky Nine has rusted. Can you really bring it out and put it to use now?"


    "You!"


    To forgive was Ji Zhongtang''s strength. However, upon hearing Wang She''s sarcastic words, he could not help but get angry and he was about to flare up on the spot.


    "Uncle, leave the matter to me, your nephew!"


    Lu Shaoyou took a deep breath. He sat stiffly straight on the horse''s back and his eyes that looked like they were from a painting suddenly lighting up.


    As the essence of the Sword Qi headed straight towards Wang She, the nephew spoke. "Wang She, I don''t know what you want to do, but you should not insult my uncle. Either apologize ¡ª"


    "Or fight!"


    Wang She interrupted Lu Shaoyou''s speech. The fan in his hand shook out a fine whirlwind. The whirlwind had a substantial feeling to it. In a moment, Wang She''s body was surrounded by it and it kept out the Sword Qi that had a substantial feeling. "If you want to fight, then fight. Why all the nonsense ah?"


    "You have a point!" Lu Shaoyou put two fingers together and he lifted his hand and an invisible Sword Qi broke through the air pouncing towards Wang She''s face.


    "Invisible Sword Qi? Lu Shaoyou, you better not bring out the ugly stuff!" As he spoke, his two fingers were pinched together. A cold Sword Qi energy went straight out and collided with Shaoyou''s invisible Sword Qi.


    "Pow!" The sound of the two Swords Qi colliding. Lu Shaoyou''s invisible Sword Qi immediately dispersed without a trace.


    The cold Sword Qi''s force had not diminished. It rushed straight to Lu Shaoyou.


    Lu Shaoyou''s face changed. He never thought that Wang She would be so strong, but he did not dare to slow down. Using his legs, he pranced from his horse and unsheathed his sword from under the white cloth. But just as he saw the flash and heard the swashing sound, the sword was struck by cold Sword Qi.


    "Burst!" The coldness of the Sword Qi had a substance-like feeling. It was crushed by Lu Shaoyou''s sword, flying in all directions.


    And after the blow, Lu Shaoyou sat back on horse''s back. He put the sword back into its sheath as if nothing had happened.


    "Good sword!" Wang She''s left hand grabbed the empty air. The Sword Qi that was scattered by Lu Shaoyou, converged together by an invisible force, concentrating on the fingertips of Wang She.


    The cold Sword Qi converged in Wang She''s fingertips. It condensed into an entity and sent out a dazzling cold light. At the same time, an incomparable cold Qi from the cluster that condensed into a mass of Sword Qi spread out.


    The crowd of onlookers, the Mingyi School troops seeking a marriage alliance and the soldiers behind the wall all felt a chilly wind of Qi blowing towards them. With the exception of a few able-bodied men and warriors, everyone else could not help retreating. The Mingyi School troops were no exception. Their numbers were large, therefore, they appeared to be a bit disorderly.


    Ji Zhongtang was dissatisfied with this situation. With a pale face, he wanted to reprimand them. Before he had spoken a word, he was stopped by Mrs. Zhen.


    A cold grunt followed. He gave a sweeping glance at the troops behind him as if he was trying to keep in mind all the people who had just retreated.


    At the sight of such state of affairs, Mrs. Zhen could not help but laugh bitterly. Ji Zhongtang did everything right, but his problem was that he took everything too seriously. To the extent that sometimes he didn''t understand how to adapt. This was truly an unpleasant character that he had, but then again, but if his character of being serious, how then could he have become a "Moral Fighter"?


    "What an odd sword!" Feeling the cold force emitted from the Sword Qi, Lu Shaoyou was also surprised. "You don''t practice Sword Qi, this should be a special technique!"


    "You have a good eye. You truly are the Blade Master. Could it be that you couldn''t even handle a little bit of my Sword Qi?!" Wang She grinned, straightened his fingertip and the surge of Sword Qi poured out. It formed a black strip and then rushed towards Lu Shaoyou with it all the sharpness of the cutting edge of Qi.


    "It''s not bad, but it''s a shame you only managed to form its shape!" Lu Shaoyou glanced at the Sword Qi that was rushing towards him. He pointed out his finger.


    "Poof!" After the Sword Qi and the fingertip touched, the former was like a punctured balloon and it cracked little by little. Under the force of a finger, the black sword qi fell to the ground like powdered ice crystals and at the same time, the cold Qi around here was as if winter had suddenly descended.


    "Good!" Wang She''s eyes glowed. He didn''t care that his movement had been blocked. A cyan body shape flickered and then turned into a virtual shadow before it disappeared.


    "What a turning the real into the virtual!" Lu Shaoyou laughed while still on horse''s back, firm and unmoved. His imposing manner nevertheless, changed.


    The whole being of Lu Shaoyou was as if he transformed into an incomparably sharp sword, its sharpness revealing.


    "Clank!" There was a soft sound. This exceptionally sharp sword seemed like hitting something. A blue shadow bounced rapidly from Lu Shaoyou''s body. The horse that he was riding on disappeared, at the same time, he retreated a few paces.


    "Haha, good! For the person and sword to merge as one. No wonder Xue Wuya suffered a lot from you!" Wang She burst into a fit of laughter and said, "But, I''m not that piece of trash Xue Wuya. Relying on your sword to fight me is far from enough!"


    With Wang She''s furious chatter, the cyan ripples were distributed around the center of his body. The ripples were very gentle, just like the thin ripples emanated by dropping a stone on a calm lake. However, they were as smooth as fine gauze. By only swinging once, they covered the circumference of a radius of 100 feet and stopped within 100 feet. After reaching 100 feet, the outermost circle of ripples seemed to have encountered some invisible resistance and they returned back, meeting the second ripples and diverging from each other.


    "Gang Qi, damn it, Wang She, are you crazy?"


    Seeing the cyan ripples spreading out, Lu Shaoyou''s gentle face finally covered with frost. "What on earth do you want to do?"


    "I''m going to fight you, huh, fool, you don''t really think I''m just here to say hello, do you?!" When Wang She''s triumphant laughter reached Lu Shaoyou''s ears, he became one with the surrounding cyan Gang Qi. The whole area within 100 feet seemed to become one, trapping all the people in it.


    "You''re crazy!" Lu Shaoyou finally changed his expression, the white robe on his body was blown by a strong wind and puffed up. "Well, let me see what sort of power one of the three Chief of Tian Long Taoism has!"


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 66: Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword & Jade Original Power Gang

    Chapter 66: Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword & Jade Original Power Gang


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, that''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!"


    Junior Leopard almost yelled when he saw Wang She shoot a black stripe from his fingertip.


    That was exactly the power of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!


    Even though he had not completed it, nor had he practiced it successfully, Junior Leopard was sure the black stripe was exactly the Extreme Yin Sword Qi of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    He was not surprised that Wang She was practicing Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Junior Leopard learned from Li Haoran''s memory that Wang She had taken away the practicing guide of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword from Li Haoran who was the unlucky elder of the Black Dragon Triad.


    This also puzzled Junior Leopard. If Li Haoran had known everything about Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, what was the point of keeping the practicing guide with him? He was getting himself into unnecessary trouble.


    Junior Leopard could not find the answer from Li Haoran''s memory.


    Junior Leopard was actually envious about the power of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, and he had intended to practice it once. Unfortunately, he could not find a suitable Evil Qi. He did find something similar when he went home last time and got to West Mountain. But not all Yin Evil Qi was suitable for practicing Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, and even a suitable Evil Qi did not mean one could practice Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword successfully.


    The Evil Qi at the entrance of West Mountain was impossible for practicing. A person would be frozen by its coldness, let alone practicing there. More importantly, it seemed as if there was some kind of strange power in this Evil Qi, which could affect a human''s spirit. Considering how Li Haoran''s memory could get into his mind, Junior Leopard gave up trying to practice the weird Evil Qi at that time.


    He also put the thought of practicing Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword all behind.


    Unexpectedly, he saw someone demonstrating Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword outside the Qinlingjun City.


    "Good, excellent, bravo! No wonder you''re the White Blademaster!" Wang She''s voice sounded again. The white robe on Lu Shaoyou began to dance in the air, as if it was blown by the wind.


    His white robe swayed in the air, stirring the cyan Gang Qi around his body. It was as if the tranquility of a lake had been broken by the stirring of a stick, putting all cyan Gang Qi into chaos. Lu Shaoyou''s white robe had become an invincible sharp sword, his Sword Qi brewing. Its power was devastating, breaking the 100-foot wide Gang Qi into pieces.


    "Wang She, do you think you get an advantage by attacking me first? You''re wrong. I''ve invincible Sword Qi!"


    "Invincible? Nonsense!" Wang She replied as if he had heard a big joke. The damaged Gang Qi now shrank immediately. "Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword!"


    A black stripe rose up from the cyan Gang Qi as Wang She exclaimed, lashing at Lu Shaoyou from all directions.


    "Little slivers of light, setting off brilliant fireworks!" Lu Shaoyou laughed coldly, his hands forming a gesture backward. "Utter Sword Skill, Sword Qi matrix!"


    Innumerous intangible Sword Qi radiated from his body, creating a dense cross strikes all around. The temperature also decreased sharply.


    "The Utter Sword Skill from Golden Lights Cave is just so-so!" said Wang She, his cyan Gang Qi curling fiercely. "I''ll show you how I break your Utter Sword Skill! Jade Original Power Gang, break!"


    Within 100 feet, cyan ripples boiled and bubbled.


    The bubbling and boiling generated a sound of spring, rolling towards Lu Shaoyou in waves. The intangible Gang Qi became tangible waves. It formed a cyan vortex around Lu Shaoyou at first, before devouring his Sword Qi and destroying it, turning it into nothing.


    Waves and waves of power that could tear Lu Shaoyou apart attacked him, seeming to destroy him the same way his Sword Qi was destroyed.


    Lu Shaoyou emitted surging Sword Qi from his body. His Sword Qi had condensed all around, forming three shadows of blades of 10-feet length. It looked just like real blades. The blades began circling around him, but its direction was the opposite of Wang She''s cyan Gang Qi. A burst of ear-splitting noises followed and all the cyan vortex was consumed by the blades.


    "Three blades though the sky, reverse the heaven and earth, break!"


    Lu Shaoyou shouted in a low voice. The three blades fiercely combined into before exploding, crashing the Gang Qi 30 feet around him. That was not the end. Lu Shaoyou put his hand together and pointed to the sky. The Sword Qi condensed around his fingers again. He waved down his Sword Qi and said, "One blade, all heaven and earth to be destroyed!"


    "Bang!"


    The cyan Gang Qi trembled. In a second, Wang She''s Jade Original Power Gang was cut in half by Lu Shaoyou''s invincible Sword Qi.


    "Ah!" Wang She groaned in a low voice and his cyan figure jumping out of the Gang Qi. Gang Qi''s ripples surrounded him, cling to his cyan cloth with silk-like moves.


    Instead of retreating, Wang She jumped in the air and pointed his hand fan directly at Lu Shaoyou.


    "Heng!" A cold light flickered from Lu Shaoyou''s waist, followed by his long sword. It met head-to-head with Wang She''s small fan.


    The Sword Qi and cyan shadows were flying all around in a second. Nobody could tell where the cyan hand fan was and where the silver blade was. What could be seen was that both of them mixed together. The two figures had the briefest contact before parting with each other in a glimpse, clashing with each other on the official road outside the Qinlingjun City.


    "Hong, hong, hong, dong, dong, dong!"


    Ear-splitting noise and booms came from the place they were fighting. It was so loud that one could go deaf hearing it.


    "Is this the actual strength of a Level Eight expert?"


    The audience were all numb from seeing the two figures clashing and parting.


    It was impossible not to get numb, right?


    Actually, the Gang Qi was not entirely let out. Their Gang Qi were all kept within 100 feet when they were fighting. This made most people unable to understand the meaning of fighting with Gang Qi, as these people were not true experts in martial arts.


    All they could understand was that Wang She was suffering a little from Lu Shaoyou''s attacks, as his Gang Qi was destroyed by Lu Shaoyou''s Sword Qi.


    As for who would actually win, nobody could tell.


    Now that the Gang Qi was destroyed. Their fight became melee attacks. What could not be seen before was clear now? The place where Lu Shaoyou''s Sword Qi cracked Wang She''s Jade Original Power Gang had become a hole of 30 square meters. With a depth of 100 feet, the hole had a freezing wind in it.


    Lu Shaoyou''s Sword Qi swiped across the ground when it devastated Wang She''s Gang Qi, creating a 10-foot deep and two-foot wide dent. Just by merely looking at it, it was enough to make anybody freak out and break out in cold sweat.


    An ordinary person would probably have disappeared from this world if he was attacked by such a strong Sword Qi.


    What was more important was both of them had obviously not shown all their capabilities. Wang She''s Gang Qi covered a width of 100 feet, but it only destroyed things within a 30-foot width of Lu Shaoyou. There were only two living creatures remaining in that area: Lu Shaoyou and his horse in the destroyed area. Of course, his horse had now disappeared.


    That Ferghana horse had become a piece of minced meat in the deep hole under their Gang Qi fighting. Since it was freezingly cold in the hole, the horse meat was frozen up like frost, as if the horse did not exist.


    Now their battle was even more difficult for an ordinary person to understand. Perhaps, it was more accurate to say that, most people only saw two figures clashing together from time to time, one cyan and one white. The exceptions were the few people who truly understood the nature of the fight.


    Junior Leopard belonged to the minority who did. His eyes were like two shining red crystals, deep and beautiful. On his eyeballs, a faint black pattern flickered. He studied the battle outside the Qinlingjun City carefully, trying his best to carve everything in his mind.


    "How exquisite these movements are! No wonder they''re Level Eight experts. Both Lu Shaoyou''s swordsmanship and Wang She''s hand fan are moving so perfectly! They make a well-matched adversary!" Junior Leopard stared at their movements greedily. "However, why does it seem as if they''re not fighting seriously?!"


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 67: Asura Destroyer Pole & the Benefits of Junior Leopard

    Chapter 67: Asura Destroyer Pole & the Benefits of Junior Leopard


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Were they play-fighting?


    No!


    They were sounding out each other''s intentions!


    "What on earth do these two guys take Qinlingjun City for?!" Ma Tianchang asked. He was the Governor of Yunzhou who stood on the top of the high City Arrow Tower in Qinlingjun City and watched the two men fighting below, with the corner of his mouth twitching.


    "This official route was only repaired last year. If it goes on like this, two or three hundred thousand taels of silver won''t be enough to repair it. Lu Shaoyou''s sword qi is so sharp it could divide the iron gate in one move. This gate is worth a million taels of silver. It was permeated and smelted with Taiyi adamantine from the seabed of the Farthest North Sea." Ma Tianchang counted with his fingers, murmuring and thinking. A bent old man stood nearby, watching the fighting of two Level Eight experts below with interest. His eyes shone with awe and appreciation. Unexpectedly, on hearing Ma Tianchang mumble and grumble, he was so appalled that his face suddenly changed. He could feel cool and he broke out into a cold sweat on his back, which hadn''t happened in several years.


    The official route in front of the city gate really had been repaired last year, but they had only added a layer of sand, costing them less than 2000 taels of silver. Now Ma Tianchang was saying it was worth two to three thousand tales of silver. The gate of Qinlingjun City was just a wooden gate wrapped with iron with no such Taiyi adamantine. However, he had said it was worth one million tales of silver!


    "What a damn bloodsucking night hunt! Are you a crook? Even if your daughter is sold out, she isn''t worth that much money. Not to mention Wang She. Lu Shaoyou sincerely propose a marriage to your daughter. How can you ask for so much?!"


    "Old brother Gui, what do you think of two people below?"


    "I have no idea. I''m too old and I''ve just entered the Level Eight. I can''t compare with them. They''re so talented. Young as they are, they''ve achieved so much." Old brother Gui sighed lightly, with a sense of self-mockery. "These two may have already stepped into the state of Level Nine. How can I see through these two people?"


    "Yeah, Wang She and Lu Shaoyou are both rare and unique!" Ma Tianchang gave an odd laughed. "Even if they''re peerless geniuses, they should compensate for my destroyed route and gate."


    "Yeah, yeah, that''s for sure. A Debt Paid in Full is regarded as God''s truth!" Old brother Gui wiped the cold sweat on his head, turning away from the topic. "Governor, how long do you think the fight will last?"


    "It won''t be long. After the competition of Gang Qi, they''re almost worn out. Now it''s just a contest on movements!"


    "Their movements really are wonderful. But they''re just sounding each other out. What a pity! If they were to really slug it out, it would be even more incredible than it is now!"


    "In the competition of Gang Qi, it seemed Lu Shaoyou''s sword power had a competitive edge over Wang She. Lu cracked Wang She''s Jade Original Power Gang, but he was more worn out than Wang She. Now they have sound movements. The Wang She has gained the upper hand. Hey, though they are challenging each other, this guy just used the Asura Destroyer Pole technique. He could easily change tentative movements into killing ones at the earliest opportunity!"


    "They might not go that far." Old brother Gui said, with an expression of hesitation. "After all both of them come from famous factions!"


    "Lu Shaoyou will not, but Wang She might. Well, do you think the old ghosts of Tian Long Taoism can control him? Don''t you wonder where the Asura Destroyer Pole he uses comes from?"


    "You mean... "


    It seemed that something came to old brother Gui''s mind. He was rather amazed. He seemed to say something, but then he bit his lip.


    "Well, I''m too old. Now the young men are bolder and bolder. Governor, when this thing is settled, let me return to my native town!"


    Ma Tianchang looked at old brother Gui nodding and laughed. "Old brother Gui, how about my advise I told you before? "


    "This world is no longer belong to us old people." Old brother Gui said, shaking his hand. "Drop it! Drop it!"


    Upon hearing his words, Ma Tianchang laughed lightly but didn''t persuade him any further. Both of them turned to the combat in front of the gate. As the contention between the two became more fierce, the area of destruction expanded as well. Ma Tianchang was very delighted and started to count on his fingers in order to calculate how much money he would get.


    DING! DING! DING! A sound that was as clear as dropping pearls fell into the jade plate rang out. A beam of glaring silver sword light suddenly appeared. The cold sword qi was overflowing. At this moment, the destructive sword qi seemed to hang between heaven and earth. All the men below Level Eight felt extremely despair.


    Of course, the sense of despair existed only for a moment.


    A silver light burst out; after that, a stifled and miserable groan. The tangled people in green and white suddenly separated.


    Wang She was like a piece of green foliage, drifting about hundreds of feet and then swirling lightly with blood spurting from his mouth. With Lu Shaoyou''s sword, the previously mottled ground became clean and fair just like a mirror. It was as cold as ice. He dropped to the ground and stopped a moment. His body shook and leaned forward; then he stood steadily, but his face was pale and dispirited.


    "The Destroyer of Heaven Three Wonder Sword is unmatched. It enjoys a well-deserved reputation. So does the White Blademaster. Heh heh!"


    Wang She laughed and coughed intensely. He covered his mouth and the blood came from his fingers, causing panic among the onlookers.


    Lu Shaoyou, however, stood leisurely after the fight. Aside from his pale face, he looked normal.


    It seemed that the winner had been determined.


    "The Asura Destroyer Pole!" Lu Shaoyou stared at Wang She. "I didn''t expect that you would do such a thing!"


    "None of... cough-cough-cough. None of your business!" Wang She removed the hand covering his mouth. The corners of his mouth were full of blood which was pretty ferocious.


    Lu Shaoyou raised his eyebrows and seemed to say something, but he held back. He raised his chin and stared at Wang She coldly.


    Wang She stood still in the middle of the road with his body bending.


    The official route had been damaged beyond recognition by the two of them and there was nobody around. Now it was not a good thing for him to stand here.


    "Wang She, you''ve failed. Retreat quickly. Don''t you want to stay alive?!" "Moral Fighter" Ji Zhongtang shouted at Wang She. Then he used his legs to clamp his horse''s abdomen and his horse leaped forward, keeping abreast of Lu Shaoyou.


    Wang She disregarded him, he didn''t even look at him. "Lu Shaoyou, why don''t you spit blood? If you don''t spit, I won''t go!"


    What?


    The people present looked different suddenly because they had thought that Lu Shaoyou had won. After all, the present states of Lu Shaoyou and Wang She were sharply different. Anyone could see that Wang She was suffering a serious injury. Yet he had suffered a serious injury, he stood still in the middle of the road to block the people of Mingyi School. Nobody understood that and even though that Wang She was shameless to acknowledge his failure. But when they heard what he said, all the people stared at Lu Shaoyou.


    Lu Shaoyou''s pale face flushed suddenly. He frowned and said nothing.


    "Spit. Spit it out. You''ll feel good after you spit it out. It''s not easy to resolve the force of Asura Destroyer Pole. You may be hurt fundamentally if you don''t spit the blood. It''s not beneficial for you to practice afterwards otherwise. I don''t think you want to become a pulp in one move after seeing me again in just one year!"


    Wang She said this with persuasion and contrivance, smiling, like a weird uncle taking a little girl to see the goldfish.


    "Pu--!" Lu Shaoyou spit blood from his mouth. The flush on his face faded and then his face became pale as white paper. Then he staggered and stumbled. If it wasn''t for Ji Zhongtang holding him up right now, he would have fallen straight onto the ground.


    "That''s right. Do you think you''re unrestrained?" Wang She said with satisfaction. "It looked like I really lost to you!" He unfolded the fan in his hand quickly, turned around and walked towards the gate of Qinlingjun City.


    "OK, Lu Shaoyou, you''ve sought marriage successfully. As soon as you see your bride, we''ll fight again. Well, I haven''t enjoyed myself this much in a fight and it was more interesting than going to the whorehouse. How comfortable!" Wang She stretched himself, ignored the blood at the edge of his mouth, and entered Qinlingjun City with satisfaction. He acted as if he had just come out from a whorehouse!


    "Pu--!" Lu Shaoyou finally relieved himself. After hearing this, he spit the blood out and almost passed out.


    "Little Snake, a cracked bell can never sound well." Ma Tianchang who was on the Arrow Tower smashed the arrow mound in front of him; apparently, when he heard the words, he didn''t know whether he should cry or laugh.


    "As is known to all, Wang She is very mean. Governor, why do you bother yourself arguing with him? Since the Asura Destroyer Pole technique appeared in his hand, the mystery case with no clues obviously drops on him. This guy will have trouble soon!"


    "Yes, he will. But who can guarantee this is not the outcome he wants?" Ma Tianchang said thoughtfully, touching his mustache.


    "Maybe!" Old brother Gui just smiled and said nothing.


    ...


    ...


    Junior Leopard silently watched as the people of the Mingyi School came into the city and all the people around scattered. He waited another four to six hours and then slowly climbed down from the tree.


    "The Snake-like Breath Holding Skill is really marvelous. When using it, you''ll be fused with the tree if you''re on the tree. Nobody will discover you!" Junior Leopard was delighted and proud of himself after climbing down from the tree. He patted the rotten leaves and said, "I didn''t expect that I would obtain and remember the pole and sword techniques. I just wanted to be a spectator. My eyes are really odd!"


    Junior Leopard involuntarily touched his eyes and they returned to normal. "What a pity! I can just barely remember the movements but not the mental cultivation methods. But that''s enough. Lu Shaoyou enjoys the title Blade Master. His achievements in swordsmanship are really divine. It''s helpful to watch him perform with a sword. It looks like I should do some closed door training. I don''t know if my teacher will promise!"

 Chapter 68: Snake-like Breath Holding Skill & Moon-evil Painted Skin & Level Two

    Chapter 68: Snake-like Breath Holding Skill & Moon-evil Painted Skin & Level Two


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Chapter 68 Snake-like Breath Holding Skill & Moon-evil Painted Skin & Level Two


    The Snake-like Breath Holding Skill!


    It could be told from its name that it was a style of breathing.


    Once it was used by someone, his whole breath would be constrained. No matter how you transported your Internal Qi, and what actions you did, your breath wouldn''t emit. Even the wind brought by your action would also be constrained, and it could hardly be noticed by people with a strong spiritual mind.


    "It''s so weird! There''s actually such a weird secret skill in the world!"


    As Junior Leopard came back to Wu Family, he practiced by himself and once again he applied the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, the effectiveness of which still surprised him like before. The Snake-like Breath Holding Skill was used like the Extraordinary Strength Fist that Xue Wuya had passed on to him. The common point lay in their not conflicting with other martial arts skills when both the different skills were being applied.


    Besides, this martial arts skill had special characteristics, which was simply the best way to attack people from behind. If this skill was incorporated with the Extraordinary Strength Fist that Xue Wuya had taught him and Three Realm Division, Junior Leopard could punch out his fist without any sound but with very strong power, which would surprise the enemy. Just thinking of this, he felt sweat upon his back.


    Now it was already midnight. A bright moon hung in the sky, whose light looked like water pouring upon the earth and the whole yard revealed a quiet atmosphere.


    Xu Yong was still busy in the Refining Weapon room. It was said that the Wu Family had received an order from the North West Tianshan school to make a suitable weapon for their little master. Only Xu Yong, who excelled in refining weapons, could complete this kind of order.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard now became the new owner of this small yard.


    In fact, there were no important people here and only the two footboys in green clothing.


    The two footboys were responsible for household chores like serving tea or water.


    Junior Leopard was the only descendant of Xu Yong, so he had a high status within the Wu Family. Apart from the two or three direct descendants of Wu Family, he had an equal status with other juniors.


    However, Junior Leopard was very low-profile in accordance with Xu Yong, and he seldom showed off. Even when he faced the footboys in the yard, he was always very welcome and polite, not like Shi Jing who was full of arrogance. So he had a good relationship with the fellow core disciples, even with the ordinary inner core disciples.


    Frankly, he was good at communicating with other people.


    The inner core disciples in the Wu Family were divided into two categories: one group specialized in feats, and the other specialized in refining weapons.


    Disciples from the both could get money while the question was more or less.


    The inner core disciples who specialized in feat earned only a monthly stipend, which was not much, amounting to only two to three taels. As the important inner core disciple, Junior Leopard could get five taels.


    Inner core disciples who specialized in refining weapons could get more money than the other group. Except the monthly stipend, they could get a commission from the weapons they refined each month. If they were lucky, they could obtain dozens of taels in one month.


    Therefore, the disciples who specialized in refining weapon were much wealthier than those who specialized in feats.


    Besides, the Wu Family majored in refining weapons, so they encouraged their disciples to practice the refining skill. After all, it was too hard to make breakthroughs in martial art skills alone. Even if you had the unusual genius, without enough opportunity, willpower and the help of treasures around the world, the Bone-Forging Realm was the highest level you could reach. Only the big sects with profound culture like Tian Long Taoism and the Mingyi School were able to cultivate these geniuses who could reach Level Eight by the age of 30, like the Wang She and Lu Shaoyou. It was absolutely impossible for the Wu Family who was only a small well-known family. Even though the Wu Family had produced one genius, he merely brought pride to the family and wouldn''t play a role in changing the trend. Therefore, the Wu Family preferred to focus their whole attention to refining weapons.


    Refining weapons was the fundamental business of the Wu Family.


    As the saying went, you couldn''t avoid being hurt if you were lingering in the Jianghu.


    Although the Tian Long Taoism could protect the Wu Family, they would not be understanding if the Wu Family were asking for help all the time. In addition, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and the Wild Hammering Skill with 81 movements were all high-class skills. It could also be used by a Level Nine expert. The Wu Family had not had another Level Nine expert, since their founding ancestor. However, there was still this hope.


    Therefore, the Wu Family wanted to cultivate Junior Leopard whose body and savvy were quite outstanding. It was better to have a hatchet man in their own family.


    In conclusion, in the Wu Family, the core disciples who specialized in martial arts and refining weapons were equal in status, only different in how much money they possessed.


    However, it did not mean that the inner core disciples specializing in feats had no chance to make money.


    Since the Wu Family was a great family, there were all kinds of things that needed to be dealt with. They were in the Jianghu, so many of the things were related to dispute.


    Therefore, when the inner core disciples specializing in feats achieved a certain extent, they would have the chance to choose various tasks to complete.


    This was also considered to be a kind of training. After these inner core disciples had experienced various tasks, they became familiar with things in the Jianghu. Most of them would later be sent to the Wu Family branches in different places to hold positions, like Qin Xuanlong. The positions were decided by disciples'' feats and places they were to serve. Generally, if ordinary inner core disciples were sent to big places, they could only hold middle and lower positions. But it was better for them to fight slowly from the bottom. As for the important inner core disciples like Junior Leopard, they could have the opportunity to choose what place they wanted to go. When they arrived there, they would also hold slightly higher positions. However, wherever they were sent, their main responsibility was to work as hatchet men.


    The only difference was the distinction between the ordinary and the strong.


    Similarly, when the disciples who specialized in refining weapons could complete their tasks without the help of the teacher, they would also be sent to different branches to improve the Wu Family''s power in refining weapons.


    These were too numerous to be discussed in the present.


    Before the inner core disciples specializing in feats finished their apprenticeship, except for the monthly stipend, most of their income was from various tasks. These tasks usually were paid well, meanwhile all the costs along the way were paid for by the Wu Family. From Junior Leopard''s point of view, this was just like traveling for free. Of course, it was based on your completing the task.


    Junior Leopard had not been qualified to complete tasks yet. Although he was the important inner core disciple, he had to learn from his teacher for two or three years so that his martial arts reached the Basic levell. Then, once the teachers permitted him to do so, he could go out for different tasks.


    The Wu Family did not request that the inner core disciples go strictly for tasks in their age and power range. Because there were various tasks in the Wu Family, even a Level One disciple could find tasks which suited him. As for the important inner core disciples, like Junior Leopard, the only condition for going out for tasks was his teacher''s permission.


    Their teachers were after all the Elders of the Wu Family, and disciples obeying teachers'' orders was the basic respect for them.


    Even if Junior Leopard had wanted to go out for tasks now, Xu Yong would not agree.


    Junior Leopard did not care about the money. Five taels per month were more than enough for him to support all his expenses. In comparison with the condition of the Zhou''s in the mountain village, it was much better. During his years in the village, it could be called a good harvest year if they earned five or six taels before his brother-in-law came back.


    Since his attention was completely focused on practicing the martial arts skills, he had no time to go out and spend money.


    Transporting the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, Junior Leopard practiced the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill. After finishing the series of the punching skill, his body was so painful that he just wanted to put all his bones into hot water to wash several times. He had thought that his body had reached its limit, but now his body was improved again with both tendons, meridians and his muscles getting a little stronger.


    When good luck came, Junior Leopard seemed to realize good ideas. Thus, he displayed the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill once again, bearing the pain throughout his entire body. However, this time the movement was much slower, and he did not use the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill either. He chose to gradually display the punching skill. As he moved, all his muscles bulged and compressed now and then, and there seemed to be friction sound from his skeleton. At last, with a long inhalation, a fiery red light surged from his body, the result of the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire seeping into his muscles.


    "Haha..." Suddenly, Junior Leopard made a sound with a rush. Red Internal Qi flooded from tens of thousands of his pores, and his clothes burned instantly. However, Junior Leopard did not care about this, and he stuck to finishing the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill.


    After practicing, he was completely surrounded by the red internal Qi. Entering his room with a leap, he was standing there naked when the red inside breath vanished.


    "Damn! What a shame. Luckily, there''s nobody here. Inside breath emerges out and migrates on my skin. I should break into the Level Two now. Good! Good!"


    His cultivation had broken the phase of Level Two with the help of Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill.


    The internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire in his body could migrate freely between his skin and muscles, and release from all his pores.


    The system of practicing in this world was very different from the novels he''d read in the past. In this world, the inside breath could not only be transported in tendons and meridians, but also be released into the skin, skeletons and veins. He had just entered Skin-Toughening Realm, and he barely arrived at the Level Two. He did not know how to constrain the fire strength of his inside breath, so his clothes had all burned.


    "My goodness! One level promotion can strengthen my body 10 times both in power and strength. Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill deserves to be the top player in Skin Toughening punching skill. As for the ordinary punching skills, Level Two is usually three or four times stronger in power and strength than Level One and only by continuing practicing, can Level Two be fixed and improved gradually. It couldn''t make people become 10 times stronger immediately like me now."


    "How lucky I am to have this teacher!"


    Junior Leopard changed into another set of clothes with a satisfied smile, "I have to apply for a new suit tomorrow, Aha!"


    ...

 Chapter 69: Xu Yongs Personal Goods, Thirteen Punches of Desolation

    Chapter 69: Xu Yong''s Personal Goods, Thirteen Punches of Desolation


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    While Junior Leopard was advancing his martial arts realm leisurely in the Wu Family, the entire city of Qinlingjun and the whole martial arts world made a stir about the battle that was occurring just outside of the city''s borders.


    How could that have not been a big deal? Wang She and Lu Shaoyou started fighting against each other, resulting in the destruction of the city''s main gate. The nearby streets were barely recognizable due to these two Level Eight martial artists fighting. But neither of them won.


    It was evident that no one had anything to gain from that battle.


    The most surprising part of this entire encounter was that, even though the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou was badly hurt, he was still determined to get into the city to formally propose. Unfortunately, it was not Lu Shaoyu''s lucky day, as he did not even know how the word had gotten out. They said that in this battle Lu Shaoyu sustained life-threatening wounds, which resulted in him being shut down in bed rest for about three years.


    In other words, his ascent to a son-in-law would have to wait another three years.


    "Ma Tianzhang''s daughter is already 16. By the time Lu Shaoyu could propose, she will already be past her prime!"


    "However, there is a certain flare to older women!"


    ...


    ...


    Soon after, a wave of lewd laughs could be heard.


    In a typical teahouse within Qinlingjun City, which was well known for having a lot of talkers coming with a lot of information, the people inside were discussing the latest, hottest news. And now, the hottest news was naturally the clash between the two Level Eight experts as well as the inside story about what had actually happened.


    "You are all acting like gossiping old ladies. How dare you talk about Miss Ma behind her back!?" Coldly said from distance, two men walked down from the second floor of the teahouse. To silence the area, they destroyed an empty table, with pieces of the table and tea leaves flying everywhere. Two unfortunate drinkers were struck in the mouth and fell to the floor, screaming in pain.


    "Uncle Lin is here! Hello, Uncle Lin!" the drinkers said warmly after the awkward silence that followed the abrupt interruption.


    He looked to be about in his mid-forties, wearing white clothing. On his face showed a hideous scar that most resembled a red centipede, which stretched from the corner of his left eye to his mouth, looking extremely ferocious.


    This person was called Lin Sheng, otherwise known as the local bully. His main job was as a constable. But at ordinary times, he spent his time with all kinds of people in the town, making him quite an influential figure.


    As someone from the government, it was natural to protect the governor''s interests. As such, he would need to strike down any negative words made against Miss Ma.


    However, when the compliments came rolling in, Lin Sheng just responded to them with a smile, for he did not care about that too much. Compared with these nobodies here, the young man who he was going to meet had boundless prospects. That was the one he needed to curry favor with.


    "Old Zhen, reserve me a private room on the third floor. I have an important client coming in today and I would prefer to not be interrupted!" Lin Sheng said to the shopkeeper behind him.


    "Of course, right away!" Old Zhen said while continuously nodding his head. He turned and went straight to reserve the room. Not much later, he came back and led Lin Sheng to the now-reserved room on the third floor, where Old Zhen prepared some tea. He bowed to Lin Sheng and then left, closing the door while on his way out.


    After an incense worth of time, Old Cang, a man who was probably just past his sixties, came into the Tea House Inn with a youngster who was probably about 11 years old. Old Cang signaled the worker at the bar and they were pointed to the private room on the third floor.


    By that point, Lin Sheng had already been waiting respectfully for some time. Once they came in, Lin Sheng quickly went to the youngster and exclaimed, "Hello, Master Shi, you finally came!"


    The youngster was Shi Jing. He had grown a bit since he was chosen by the Wu Family, but his face still showed a strong sense of pride and arrogance.


    "Did you ask about the news clearly?" Shi Jin inquired.


    Shi Jing shot a gaze at Lin Sheng, and then calmly went to sit down. Lin Sheng, while putting on his most pleased face, poured some tea.


    "Yes, we got the message. The Zhao''s carriages will arrive the day after tomorrow. However, the thing that you asked for is not on the list!" Lin Sheng replied.


    Shi Jing angrily retorted, "What do you mean it isn''t?!"


    Anyone could see that he was absolutely livid, and his sudden change in manner started to scare Lin Sheng. Lin Sheng consoled him. "Well, you see, your item is with Zhao. The last time Master Zhao went back, he had the item in his possession. He never let it out of his sight, so..."


    Hearing this, Shi Jing went from mad to gloomy and replied, "So he had it all along. Then do you know where he has put it?"


    "We already know!" Lin Sheng said with a pleased look on his face. Today that piece of information became his saving grace.


    As expected, Shi was quite pleased hearing this.


    "Great. Well done!" Shi repeatedly said while standing up with glee. He beckoned Old Cang with a look and the old servant put a bulging bag on the table.


    "Now, this matter has been settled. It would be best that you keep quiet about the recent events that have been going on. Forgetting that anything occurred would definitely be to your benefit. I hope I have made myself clear!" Shi Jing cautiously stated.


    "Of course, Master Shi. Thank you, Master Shi," Lin Sheng said while continuously nodding in assurance, sending them out of the teahouse at the same time.


    "He knows too much about this, sir. Do you want me to... " Old Cang asked Shi Jing while leaving the teahouse.


    "What is there to be afraid of? We both know that he wouldn''t dare betray our trust," Shi Jing stated while nodding his head out of indifference. "In any case, it would be better for us not to cause any unnecessary trouble. Do I make myself clear?"


    "Yes. Wise choice, young master," Old Cang respectfully replied.


    Hearing the praise and acknowledgment of Old Cang forced a little smile out of Shi Jing.


    "I didn''t expect that the Zhao fellow would be trying to hide the item in his room. It isn''t exactly easy for us to move around, particularly because he resides in the Wu family residence. We must get help from someone to get the item out," Shi Jing said.


    ...


    ...


    "Has he already reached Level Two?!"


    In the center of the Wu family''s small courtyard was a smiling Xu Yong, gazing at Junior Leopard. No matter where you looked, for teachers like Xu Yong, nothing made them happier than seeing their disciples having so much potential, like the potential that resided in Junior Leopard. Teachers in all scholarships tended to favor students of higher marks, even if that teacher was instructing 200 students.


    However, Xu Yong did not have 200 disciples, all he had was Junior Leopard to pass on his wisdom and skills to. Achieving Level Two in such a short time was no doubt a feat worthy of praise. "Excellent work! In just six months you have achieved great marks. Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill is mystical, but it also requires your hard work and training," Xu Yong said to his disciple.


    "It is fortunate that I have you here to pass these skills on to me. Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill is both unique and mysterious. I would not break through so quickly without this."


    "I know, no need bringing it up! Now, what is your progress on the 81 movements of Wild Hammering Skill?"


    "I still need your guidance!" Junior Leopard exclaimed while taking out two small silver hammers from his waist. They were connected by an adamantine silver chain. Both of the hammers were oval shaped and were always with Junior Leopard. They were both concealed in his waistband for convenient usage.


    They were specially made for him by Xu Yong. Xu Yong was a master of crafting weapons that were far stronger than anything his disciple could muster up. Although it did not go a hundred rounds of refinement, it was still put through refinement 49 times.


    While it might have appeared to be small, it was by no means light. The hammer required monster-like strength to swing as it weighted almost 81 Jin (about 89 pounds).


    As for the technique, Xu Yong already taught part of it to Junior Leopard, 72 movements to be exact.


    Hammering Skills was the specialty of the Wu family. However, even though Xu Yong was considered an elder, he only knew 72 of the 81 movements¡ªfor the last nine moves were considered as the killing movements, and not even the First Elder Lu Yiyue knew the last nine movements.


    That being said, even though the technique was incomplete, it was still considered quite formidable. Moreover, Junior Leopard learned this technique without too much difficulty thanks to his insight.


    Junior Leopard really wanted to show off in front of his teacher, using the two hammers as if they were extensions of himself. The hammers flowed through the wind so quickly that they left behind a pleasing sound. The power channeled through them so that they rendered a shining silver light wherever they went until the entire area of the hammers became a silver light show. The lights were near and far, separate and together, in an instant and everlasting.


    In the blink of an eye, the whooshing hammers caught the leaves in the courtyard and led them in a dance. The clashing sounds of the hammers also made a rare appearance, leaving the two servant footboys of the courtyard in awe as they stared at the performance being shown to them.


    Even Xu Yong was shocked when he saw this and forgot to move his body.


    "Great hammer skills! This is no doubt the Wild Hammering Skill. So beautifully done that even I could not do better. I have no doubt chosen a worthy apprentice," Xu Yong thought, then showed a face of disappointment. "It is truly unfortunate that the last nine movements could not be taught to such a worthy disciple. If he could learn them, then he would be known as the leading expert in the Wild Hammering Skill. That being said, this level is already quite good."


    Xu Yong pondered as he saw the flashing silver light surrounding his disciple. The entire sky suddenly flashed with a silver light as the leaves continued to dance, and both the cloud and the wind disappeared. However, through all of this, Junior Leopard was calm and composed, with only a smile revealing the hero that was slowly being formed.


    "Quite good!" Xu Yong said as he was very much pleased with the effort and result that came from his little disciple. "You have finally grasped the essence of the Wild Hammering Skill technique. Now it is only a matter of refinement to a higher degree. Unfortunately, this is where my assistance can no longer aid you. You can strengthen what you know, but you will still be short the final nine movements. Unless of course, you can learn them by yourself, otherwise, this is the plateau for you. Don''t waste your time on this, focus your efforts on more techniques, like the Thirteen Punches of Desolation. That technique was even passed down from your grandfather. It is just as much, if not more mystical and powerful than that hammering technique."

 Chapter 70: Initial Sign of the Fiery Eye

    Chapter 70: Initial Sign of the Fiery Eye


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Personal property!


    Bare naked personal property!


    After hearing Xu Yong''s words, Junior Leopard''s heart immediately set on fire.


    Very obviously, this set of Thirteen Punches of Desolation was the same as the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill. They were both Xu Yong''s personal property.


    It was already mentioned previously that in a well-known family like the Wu Family, other than the family itself gathering all sorts of martial arts, Elders like Xu Yong would have their own personal property. These were all gained based on their own methods and lucky chances, not with the aid of the family''s power. Therefore, those main veins of the family did not have any reason to ask them to hand the personal property over. This was Jianghu''s officially recognized rule. It could be considered a kind of shallow rule.


    Who in this world did not have their own little secrets?


    These were personal properties.


    What the clans and families required was that you serve the family only, they did not want to deprive you of everything. This was just like how a wife could not be shared with other people once they were married in. To most of the practitioners in the martial arts world, these martial skills were much more important than wives were. They depended on themselves and their own chance encounters to obtain martial skills. How could they be willing to give that to someone else?


    Various well-known families and sects also silently acknowledged this rule, and even if they had eyes on those personal properties, they would not openly snatch them and intimidate. If they had, the hearts of the people in the families and great sects would have scattered long ago.


    Xu Yong, as the Elder of the Wu Family, had inherited several generations of branch veins, so it was impossible for him to not to have personal property.


    During this half year, Xu Yong had only taught Junior Leopard a few things. Besides the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill, he had taught him the 72 movements Wild Hammering Skill.


    Putting the 72 movements of Hammer Skill aside, this Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill did not originate from the Wu Family. It was inadvertently obtained by Xu Yong and, although it was his personal property, apart from Junior Leopard, no one knew about it now. Therefore, when Xu Yong imparted it to Junior Leopard, he spoke gravely to him. This set of skin toughening punching skills could never be leaked to outsiders. So when Junior Leopard was cultivating, he was always extremely careful. Just like with Taiji Fist, only when there was no one around could he then practice.


    But now, the Thirteen Punches of Desolation that he was going to impart to Junior Leopard was different.


    This punching skill set was the personal property of Xu Yong, but this was personal property that was known by everyone.


    In the past, Xu Yong''s uncle depended on this punching skill set to create an awe-inspiring name for himself in Jianghu. Therefore, it could not be said that the Wu Family, or even the entire Jianghu, also knew that their branch also possessed such a strong fist punching skill.


    This punching skill set was not a punching skill for strengthening the body, but a set of real martial art skills. It was divided into 13 movements. When executed, it was quaint and displayed simple vicissitudes, not angry nor terrified. Yet it possessed hardness and softness and it was fine and packed. It naturally had its own majestic feeling, an indomitable feeling that transcended the six unities.


    Of course, when imparting it to him, that was all Xu Yong had told Junior Leopard about the realm that he would reach after perfecting his mastery over this skill.


    Although Junior Leopard was young, his experiences were bountiful. From a martial perspective, he naturally was uncommon. The martial skills that he knew all belonged to the world''s top tier martial skills. Looking now at Xu Yong displaying this set of Thirteen Punches of Desolation, who was teaching the essence of the skill as he displayed it, he naturally understood the profoundness of this. It was not beneath the Wild Hammering Skill. It was not even beneath the Wang She''s Asura Destroyer Pole and Lu Shaoyou''s Fallen Heaven Ultimate Sword. It may even be above them.


    This led Junior Leopard to involuntarily feel a mix of emotions. Xu Yong was the pride of the Wu Family when it came to smelting, and his smelting standard was ranked number two among the Wu Family''s Elders. Many divine weapons and sharp crafts in Jianghu came out from his hands. However, in martial arts cultivation, he was not outstanding among the Elders. Who would have thought that he could actually get such a precious personal property?


    "I am just but a rookie now. My teacher is a Level Five expert. Who cares if he specializes in smelting or in martial arts! He is more than sufficient to teach me. I don''t care where he comes from!" Junior Leopard laughed at himself.


    For Junior Leopard, apart from the 72 movements Wild Hammering Skill, he did not have any martial art skills that he could show off. Those few that he knew, basically could not be displayed in the light. Therefore, faced with this kind of extremely powerful yet clean background skill, Junior Leopard naturally put his heart into it. He went into it more during the process of training, when he melded his own Taiji Fist intent into it and then molded the Extraordinary Strength Fist''s method of summoning strength into it. There was a different level of understanding that came out of it.


    From then on, Junior Leopard practiced bitterly in the punching skill every day. His speed of progress was extremely fast. In the blink of an eye, one month had passed.


    On this day, Junior Leopard was practicing his fist in the courtyard, when suddenly, outside of the courtyard some hurried footsteps sounded.


    "Young Master, Young Master Shi is back!"


    Outside the door was the sound of a green-clothed footboy''s voice.


    "Shi Jing? What is he doing here?" Junior Leopard was stunned. He immediately stood up, walked to the door, and opened it. "Senior Shi, you are a rare guest!"


    "What a rare guest!!" Shi Jing was not courteous and immediately walked into Junior Leopard''s room. With one butt-cheek, he sat on the chair. "Mainly it is because you train from day to night and don''t see any people. I was scared that you will produce fungus, so I came over to have a look. No matter what, we came into the Wu Family together, so of course, we have to look out for each other, isn''t that right?"


    Listening to Shi Jing faking and speaking presumptuously, Junior Leopard smiled weakly. He nodded toward the green-clothed footboy by the door and said, "Go boil some tea."


    The footboy acknowledged and left, after which, he closed the door of the room. "That''s true, of course. We came into the Wu Family together and indeed we should look out for each other. Why, what happened?"


    "It is nothing big, just that damned Zhao Fei. Damn, he looks for trouble with me day and night. I want to ask you a favor, to teach him a lesson!"


    "Zhao Fei?" Junior Leopard''s eyebrows furrowed. "Forget it, he is your legitimate Senior, and also the First Elder''s disciple. Why did you go and make trouble with him for nothing?"


    "I''m not looking for trouble with him, he is looking for trouble with me!" Shi Jing''s face revealed hate. "He just entered a few years earlier than me, that''s all."


    "His strength has already reached the peak of Level Two. In one year at most, he can enter into the realm of Level Three!"


    "I''m not asking you to go and fight him. This time I come to look for you to¡ª!"


    At that point, a knocking sound occurred, which was the green-clothed footboy carrying the tea and entering.


    Upon seeing someone enter, Shi Jing stopped his words. His eyebrows slightly frowned while he looked at the footboy, who was arranging the tea and then walked out, before continuing. "This time I came to look for you to share good stuff with you. You think that I am really so foolish as to take Zhao Fei head-on?!"


    Junior Leopard glanced at him, and in his heart, silently cursed, "You certainly are a fool. First, you strained the relationships with all the Seniors, and then offended all of the Inner Core disciples that entered into the Wu Family at the same time. If this is not foolish, then what is?!"


    His heart was feeling dissatisfied, yet his mouth said, "There are benefits to share with me? What benefits?"


    "Hehe, Junior Leopard, have you heard of Fiery Eyes?"


    Shi Jing stealthily sneaked in front of Junior Leopard, and softly spoke.


    "Fiery Eyes?!" Junior Leopard violently jerked. "No, I never heard of it before. What is that?"


    "I also do not know. But, anyway, it must be definitely very important!"


    "Why?" Upon hearing Shi Jing''s words, Junior Leopard had a feeling of neither crying nor laughing


    because Shi Jing did not know what Fiery Eye was. He only eavesdropped on something that other people had talked about.


    Shi Jing was someone who entered the Inner Core disciples with him. Only the two of them were lucky enough to be accepted as disciples by the Elders. Both of them were also so young. Therefore, between the two of them, there would, more or less, be brotherly feelings, even though Junior Leopard was extremely displeased with him.


    In contrast to Xu Yong, Lyu Yiyue did not only have Shi Jing as his one disciple. As the Wu Family First Elder, he had many disciples, six in total. Shi Jing was only the sixth.


    Due to First Elder Lyu Yiyue''s age, the ages of his six disciples were very disparate. The first disciple, Wu Yihang, was the Wu Family''s main disciple and was nearly 40. He had long left the Wu Family headquarters, and was in charge of all the business in the Yangzhou Wu Family. He was the Yangzhou Head Supervisor. The second, third, and fourth disciples were the same as him. The youngest was also in his twenties, becoming one of the supervisors in the Wu Family. He only kept the fifth disciple, Zhao Fei, by his side, who had not yet stepped out. Some time later, he accepted a new sixth disciple, Shi Jing.


    To be able to enter the First Elder''s favored eyes and be accepted as a disciple meant that, naturally, he was no simple character. Zhao Fei, no matter his aptitude or family background, did not pale in comparison to Shi Jing. He might have even been superior. In the past in the Wu Family, he was the First Elder''s disciple and his position was not necessarily greater than the Wu Family''s two young masters. However, among the core disciples, he was either ranked first or second. Unexpectedly this time, his teacher accepted another, Shi Jing, and he focused heavily on him. Not counting this, the biggest problem was that this fellow called Shi Jing was overly arrogant. Just entering through the door, he wanted to challenge his authority. He really did not know how high heaven or how thick the earth was.


    It was because of this very reason that resulted in his and Shi Jing''s relationship becoming very strained. They even had a few conflicts. Obviously in those few conflicts, it was always Shi Jing suffering a disadvantage in the end. If it was other core disciples, he would long have been crippled by him. That was all because Shi Jing was so young. If he really fussed over this little kid, it would make him seem too petty. He would also not be able to raise his head high in front of his teacher. Therfore, even though Shi Jing had suffered a few disadvantages, he did not suffer any harm. However, this kind of disadvantage made Shi Jing unable to accept it. From youth until now, he had never suffered this kind of disadvantage before, so his hatred for Zhao Fei grew.


    He always thought of finding a chance to teach that Senior of his a good lesson. As for this battle between the two disciples that was neither obvious nor hidden, the First Elder Lyu Yiyue treated it as if he never saw it. They were still young and this kind of conflict compared to what they were going to experience was a minor case. If, as a teacher, he were to intervene in this kind of matter, he would be too tired.


    As for this battle between the two disciples, Junior Leopard naturally knew about it. However, he was standing on the sidelines all along. Ever since he entered the Wu Family, he had kept an extremely low profile. Usually, unless there was something going on, he would never step out of the courtyard. He did not want to fight with other people and, even toward the footboys, he would be extremely courteous and amiable. The difference between him and Shi Jing lay in that his teacher, Xu Yong, only had him as a disciple. Therefore, he did not have Shi Jing''s troubles.


    Therefore, compared to Shi Jing, among the Inner Core disciples, his reputation was far better than Shi Jing''s.

 Chapter 71: Opportunity?!

    Chapter 71: Opportunity?!


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In the battle with Zhao Fei, Shi Jing had always been at a disadvantage. He was dissatisfied about that and always looked for a chance for revenge. However, Zhao Fei''s cultivation and martial skills were far above his. In addition, Zhao Fei was also a disciple of the First Elder Lyu Yiyue and his position was not any lower than Shi Jing''s. Seeking revenge was not an easy matter.


    A child was a child, after all. Shi Jing understood that he was unable to resist Zhao Fei in a head-on collision. He then began to insidiously think of doing something in the dark to teach Zhao Fei a good lesson. Furthermore, in his heart, he had this faint thought of whether he could grab Zhao Fei''s weaknesses in the dark to deal him a blow. Therefore, during the daily routines, he became very attentive to Zhao Fei''s actions.


    A few days before, a few people from the Zhao Family in Suzhou came to the Wu Family to meet up with Zhao Fei. This was taken note of by Shi Jing.


    Zhao Fei was born in the Suzhou Zhao Family, and the family had a lot of power in Suzhou. It could barely be considered a well-known family, but its power and influence were far from being comparable to the colossal Wu Family. It was just that the Zhao Family had good relations with the Wu Family for generations. Many of their family members and disciples went through the doors of the Wu Family. There were Outer Core disciples and Inner Core disciples. This looked like nothing to the Wu Family, but to Junior Leopard and Shi Jing, those Wu Family disciples could be considered as figures that had some degree of strength.


    Zhao Fei was the Wu Family First Elder Lyu Yiyue''s disciple. Therefore, those that became the Outer or Inner Core disciples of the Wu Family treated him as a leader and paragon to follow.


    Being disciples in the Wu Family, especially like those who were Inner Core disciples, they naturally did not need to worry about money and grain, neither did they have to worry about food and lodging. However, that was just a little money. Just like Zhao Fei''s background, apart from a little money, the family would send over some materials every once in a while. That was for the purpose of building relationships. To speak plainly, that was to let them buy the hearts of the people within the Wu Family, to make some friends, and to build up their own power. It was also to pay respects to the Wu Family''s influential figures and to prepare for future use.


    This time around, because Lyu Yiyue''s 70th birthday was coming soon, as a disciple, Zhao Fei naturally needed to do something.


    In fact, for the sake of celebrating Lyu Yiyue''s birthday, the Zhao Family had started preparing a long time ago. Due to the fact that the gift was extremely precious, the Zhao Family heavily emphasized on it. The people who came to Qinlingjun City a few days ago were all here to rally themselves. In the end, they were fixed upon by Shi Jing.


    These people did not stay with the Wu Family, but they stayed at the city inn.


    These few people, after discussing matters with Zhao Fei, had a relaxing time. After a few bottles of alcohol was down their stomachs, whatever ought to be said and what ought not to be said were all spoken out loud. From their view, this was just a room whereby those who knew the matters were discussed, yet they did not know that there were ears hearing them outside. So what they said was all heard by Lyu Sheng.


    To speak of Lyu Sheng, he was just a normal local bully in Qinlingjun City. After Shi Jing knew where the Suzhou Zhao Family people stayed, he bribed the local bully Lyu Sheng to let him collect information. The contact person was Old Cang that appeared at the inn.


    Shi Jing heard that they were here to send gifts to Lyu Yiyue. Thinking that Lyu Yiyue''s fondness toward Zhao Fei was not less than toward himself, once the gifts were sent, Zhao Fei would be more favored by Lyu Yiyue. The following days would be difficult for him to live with. Even though his Shi Family also had some kind of reserves, it was, however, just a normal family that he came from. How would he prepare such a heavy gift like the Zhao Family had?


    Therefore, he began to have thoughts to disrupt the Zhao Family''s gifts. He then got to know from a few servants in the Zhao Family that in this batch of gifts from the Zhao Family, the most precious one was an item known as Fiery Eyes. However, what kind of thing this Fiery Eyes was, those Zhao Family servants had no idea as well. He also did not dare to inquire of anyone to ask about it.


    Certainly, he was not foolish enough to rob this batch of gifts. The preciousness of these gifts would be considered extremely good stuff even if ranked in the Jianghu. A typical bandit couldn''t even have the strength to possess the gift, let alone a ten-year-old kid?


    His target was only the Fiery Eyes.


    Even though he did not know what the Fiery Eyes was, however, he could confirm two points: firstly, this Fiery Eyes was the most precious gift among this batch of gifts; and secondly, this Fiery Eyes was much easier to obtain compared to other things. Because it was hiding in Zhao Fei''s room.


    Hidden in Zhao Fei''s room?!


    Not only the Fiery Eyes, but there were also a few precious items that were brought along with it by the people and handed directly to Zhao Fei. He was only waiting for Lyu Yiyue''s birthday to come and he would present it and gain Lyu Yiyue''s favor. As for the batch of gifts that followed, they were not that important anymore.


    This Shi Jing was a small person but he was very gutsy. Or maybe because of his young age, he did not know the benefit and harm in the relationship. That Old Cang was merely an old servant in the Shi Family who had followed at Shi Jing''s side for a long time. He could barely be considered a supervisor, with some martial skills at Level One. He didn''t have many worldly views either, but just wholeheartedly considered his young master. He couldn''t understand how deep the Wu Family was, therefore, he foolishly followed Shi Jing.


    After hearing Shi Jing''s explanation so carefully, Junior Leopard involuntarily felt some respect for this kid. His age was young, but he was a scheming person. Within a short time, he actually gained an accurate picture of Zhao Fei''s hidden treasures. Even though this was partly due to Zhao Fei''s negligence, he would not think that within the inner quarters of the Wu Family there would be someone with the balls to eye his goods.


    "You want me to help you steal Zhao Fei''s stuff?!"


    Upon hearing Shi Jing''s words, Junior Leopard had a sunken face. He revealed an uneasy expression. "I guess it''s not a good way?!"


    "What is there not good about it. That fella is really too arrogant. If he manages to win the big prize this time, our days ahead won''t be good!" Shi Jing said loudly. His eyes unblinkingly looked at Junior Leopard. He wanted to know Junior Leopard''s true intentions and thoughts by his face. "Besides, I won''t treat you unfairly. There is more than one good thing in his room!"


    Junior Leopard''s gaze shifted, and his eyebrows frowned. However, his heavy breathing was obvious and it sold him out. "Oh, let me think about it!"


    "Okay, but we don''t have much time left. In half a month, my teacher''s birthday will arrive!"


    "Ah!" Junior Leopard nodded his head. "Let me add things up!"


    "Okay, you can slowly do so. I will go first. By the way, you also know this matter...!"


    "Relax, your secret is safe with me. There will definitely not be a third person knowing about this!"


    Shi Jing nodded his head satisfactorily, then he left the courtyard. From Junior Leopard''s reaction, he already had a general understanding about that. This lucky fella who came from a lowly background would not be able to withstand the temptation. As long as he agreed, he would be in the same boat as he was. Junior Leopard was a disciple of Xu Yong, who had an average standing among the Elders. However, his Refining Weapon skills were supreme and nobody dared to look down on that. Junior Leopard was his only disciple. He would have additional help pulling Junior Leopard over to his side. In the future, he would have an easier time in the Wu Family.


    "Fu*k, how do kids grow up nowadays, why do they have so many schemes?!" After Shi Jing left, Junior Leopard changed from his worried expression, his face revealing an uncontrollable smile. Even though Shi Jing''s thoughts were fine and he knew how to calculate, however, exactly what he was planning was unable to be hidden from Junior Leopard''s eyes.


    He had no intention to take the rap. Very obviously, during this period of time where he laid low and not competing for anything with others made Shi Jing think that he was a coward. Shi Jing actually ran over here to discuss this kind of matter with himself, Shi Jing obviously didn''t know his stuff.


    If it was during normal times, he would definitely tell these things first hand to Xu Yong, or even tell Zhao Fei directly, to step on the feet of that Inner Core disciple who entered at the same time as he did, making him unable to stand up again.


    However, this matter concerned the Fiery Eyes, which meant that he needed to ruminate over it again.


    Because, if he remembered correctly, his own eyes were also called Fiery Eyes. Could this eye also be treated as a gift?


    Thinking about that night again and the words that Wang She had spoken to him, no matter what, he could not reveal the specialness of his eyes to other people. At that time, he had already thought that there were other words within his words. Considering the Fiery Eyes of the Zhao Family, which was to be presented as a gift to Lyu Yiyue, everything indicated the uniqueness of these Fiery Eyes.


    Fiery Eyes, it was Fiery Eyes again!


    If it was not Fiery Eyes but some other thing, he would have already told the matter to his teacher. However, because of these two words "Fiery Eyes", he had to carefully think again.


    Using the Fiery Eyes as a present?


    In his past life, when he read about a disaster that a clan experienced in the comics, coincidentally the clan''s eyes were also called Fiery Eyes. No matter the title, or the shape of their eyes, it was not much different from his own eyes.


    "The thing is there with Zhao Fei, and from Shi Jing''s words, the hiding place shouldn''t be heavily guarded. However, this is the Wu Family''s headquarters and it is also a gift to the First Elder, so it doesn''t need to be so heavily guarded!" Junior Leopard thought in his heart, "Should I get the stuff by tonight? This stuff is easy to get from Zhao Fei''s hands, however, once it lands into the First Elder''s hands, it will be extremely difficult to obtain! Eye of Eternity? What kind of secret does this eye of mine have?!" Junior Leopard fell into deep thought.


    Even though his cultivation was only at Level One, Junior Leopard believed with his means now that he could rob that gift from Zhao Fei without anybody knowing, so it was not a problem. The problem was, this news was told to him by Shi Jing. If he acted first, even if other people did not know, Shi Jing would definitely know how he obtained it. At that time, even if they could not find any evidence, his own position within the Wu Family would also not be good. It would definitely attract the attention of others. Furthermore, he had too many bodily secrets. To be noticed by others would definitely not be a good thing, and it might even bring disaster.


    He could not take this risk now.


    Of course, the best solution now was to tell this piece of news to his own teacher, which would destroy his curiosity towards the Fiery Eyes. He should let Zhao Fei send the gift to the First Elder. As for the Fiery Eyes, he could make a plot for it in the future. This was the method that carried the least risk. However, to do this, he had to suppress his own desires and curiosity toward the Fiery Eyes!


    It was difficult!


    Extremely difficult!


    Curiosity kills the cat!


    Furthermore, this was not just a question of curiosity, but it was linked to the secret of his own eyes. For such a long time, he began to gradually discover that his own eyes carried an extremely big secret. Also, there were many functions that had yet to be unearthed. And this kind of matter could not be divulged to other people. He could only complete it by himself. And now, he was faced with an opportunity.


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 72: Correct Decision and Extinct Bloodline

    Chapter 72: Correct Decision and Extinct Bloodline


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "This is a good chance, but the risk is too high!"


    It was not difficult to get it from Zhao Fei, but the trouble was what would happen after it was obtained and what he would face.


    Here was the headquarter of the Wu Family, which was one of the wealthy families in Yunzhou. First Elder had a strong influence within the Wu family and so it would be disgraceful if his birthday present was lost at the Wu''s headquarter. The Wu family would investigate it and would not let it go.


    After one night of weighing, Junior Leopard made his decision.


    "All right. I have just settled down in Wu Family. With what I have possessd now, I believe that I will certainly overreach Skin-Toughening Realm to Bone-Forging Realm in ten years as long as I go ahead steadily. Before that, I''d better not to be that rash."


    "Greediness is really one of people''s original sins, which is so difficult to surmount. Since I have no ability to get that item, I''ll not let Shi Jing drag me into this. What I can only do is to report him. It''s really a pity to strike the boy with such a bright future down."


    Junior Leopard took a deep breath and after a light movement, felt the cold air on his skin. After he made his decision, he realized that he had unconsciously been drenched with a cold sweat.


    By the time it was daybreak, Junior Leopard had taken a bath and changed his clothes. He then went out to find his teacher.


    ...


    ...


    "What? He wants to steal First Elder Lyu''s birthday present?!"


    After he heard what Junior Leopard had said, Xu Yong stood up with his hands shaking. Then Xu Yong said, "That boy is audacious to the extreme."


    After walking back and forth, he asked Junior Leopard, "who else knows about this matter?"


    "Only us two know this, unless he told someone else."


    "He''s too impudent and unscrupulous at such a young age." Xu Yong condemned, "To think he went so far as to ask you to do such things with him? He''s really a scoundrel!"


    Xu Yong got even more indignant about it. He unconsciously struck the table with Internal Qi, causing the table to fly apart with a crash and the room was full of bits of wood. Junior Leopard was intimidated by his teacher.


    "Teacher, what should we do?"


    "It can either be serious or not. His folly was in telling you." Xu said and looked at Junior Leopard with satisfaction, "You''re not getting involved and that''s very good."


    "I dare not do that," Junior Leopard said.


    "It''s no use to have such guts. He''s a disciple of the First Elder. Let us go and tell him directly. He can handle this matter."


    "All right." Junior Leopard nodded in agreement.


    ...


    "Really?"


    At the Room of Refining, within the Wu Family.


    Lyu Yiyue sat on his old-fashioned wooden armchair with his eyes slightly closed and eyebrows subtly shaking. No one knew what he was thinking.


    Xu Yong sat down on the foremost chair while Junior Leopard stood behind him.


    "I''ll deal with it. Thanks for your informing me, Elder Xu." Lyu Yiyue said, he seemed to quickly make a decision.


    "You''re welcome, Elder Lyu. I should tell you and your birthday is really important."


    "Thank you, Elder Xu." Lyu Yiyue nodded his head satisfactorily and looked at Junior Leopard, "Your name is Zhou Bao?"


    "I''m a disciple of Elder Xu, Zhou Bao, pay my respect to Elder Lyu!"


    "You did better than that bastard." Lyu Yiyue said and held his teacup.


    "Well, we shall leave now Elder Lyu!" Xu Yong stood up and then left the room with Junior Leopard.


    After seeing they left the Room of Refining, Lyu Yiyue struck the tea table and threw the teacup.


    "Bring Shi Jing here!"


    ...


    ...


    "Master, what are Fiery Eyes? They seem to be really valuable."


    "Fiery Eyes are not a thing. They''re the eyes of some people with a special bloodline."


    Xu Yong seemed to be a little nervous when Junior Leopard asked. "This bloodline died out 3,000 years ago."


    Junior Leopard was shocked and said, "Since the bloodline died out 3,000 years ago, how can the eyes be kept for such a long time."


    "Fiery Eyes are also known as Eternal Eyes. They''ll change into a firm, eye-shaped crystal after being moved from a body and won''t get damaged in 3,000 years or even in 10,000 years." Xu Yong said,"It''s said that people with Fiery Eyes have a strong talent for martial arts." He stopped for a minute and continued, "It''s also said that these people are no more than ordinary people and that the Fiery Eyes will be stimulated only by their own desire. Once the Fiery Eyes are stimulated, those people will possess strong senses and spiritual minds, and for people who practice martial arts, their ability to control Internal Qi will also be high. They''ll also possess some other particular abilities with the improvement of their cultivation. But we don''t know what these abilities are as the bloodline died out so long ago. I also heard some other rumors about the Fiery Eyes."


    Junior Leopard''s face showed that he was interested about the subject and so Xu Yong said, "The reason for the extinction of the Fiery Eyes race was that all of the people of the world came together to besiege them. Even now, prestigious sects and schools and millennium families in the martial arts world have a tacit agreement that if the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes reappears, they''ll join together again to destroy it."


    Junior Leopard felt a chill down his spine from Xu Yong''s words.


    A union of prestigious sects and schools and millennium families with the purpose of destroying the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes.


    What had the Fiery Eyes race done in those years to warrant such suffering?


    Xu Yong continued, "There are no people of the Fiery Eyes bloodline left in this world. The preserved Fiery Eyes are so rare and priceless that they can cause great blood-shed!"


    "Why?" Junior Leopard asked in trepidation.


    "Because Fiery Eyes are the best carriers of practicing External Elixir."


    "External Elixir?" Junior Leopard asked in confusion, "What''s that?"


    "Practicing martial arts need to balance the inner and outside cycle. I believe that you understand the Internal Qi must be compatible with body''s strength. If not, it''ll cause many problems. Physical cultivation is far more difficult than Internal Qi cultivation and there aren''t many shortcuts. Even with the best punching skill and magic medicinal herbs, it requires a long time. Slack off in the slightest and it may have an adverse effect. Regardless of body''s strength, if one has a brilliant cultivation method for their Internal Qi, the improvement of their cultivation will be extremely fast. And as for the Gang Qi, it doesn''t require too much Internal Qi. It only requires suitable mental cultivation methods and Evil Qi along with the control and comprehension of one''s Internal Qi. Generally speaking, people with a cultivation of Level Five can do this, but if the body''s strength can''t reach Level Seven, one cannot condense their Evil Qi into Gang Qi."


    Junior Leopard started to understand and said, "You mean that people with External Elixir can practice Gang Qi?"


    "Emmm... The most important effect of External Elixir is to reserve Internal Qi. This means that any Internal Qi that your body can not bear would be stored up and then restocked whenever your body needed it. Fiery Eyes are the best material for making External Elixir. They can not only store plenty of Internal Qi, but the method and conditions for making External Elixir are also very easy. They also have a few possibilities to stimulate the particular abilities of Fiery Eyes."


    "So that''s how it is, no wonder they''re so precious!" Junior Leopard regained his calm mood and nodded.


    "This may be the reason for the genocide of the Fiery Eyes race!"


    Junior Leopard felt a chill and recalled what Wang She said that day.


    "No wonder he told me not show my eyes to other people. But he does not seem to be a kind man, why would he tell me this?"


    Junior Leopard felt weak when thinking of Wang She.


    His strength was much greater than Junior Leopard''s and Xue Wuya''s. Junior Leopard was not stupid enough to think that he could kill Wang She just like he did Xue Wuya.


    That was impossible.


    Junior Leopard could kill Xue Wuya who was seriously hurt with great fortune, but how could he kill Wang She?


    "He seems to have some other purpose but won''t unravel my secrets." Junior Leopard thought," he taught me the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, not because of my moral standing but because of my Fiery Eyes. He knows there exist many potentialities and he''s making an investment. Interesting!"


    Thinking of the evil smile of Wang She, Junior Leopard sighed. Wang She was an expert of Level Eight at about 30, and Junior Leopard, a 10-year-old boy, had a psychological age of about 40. He knew much about worldly wisdom, the way of the world and the heart of a human being. He could guess some of Wang She''s intentions.


    Wang She, who was the most promising young master in the martial arts world, a famous expert of Level Eight and one of the three Chiefs of Tian Long Taoism, taught a 10-year-old boy Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. Was it really because of the good character of this child?


    No, absolutely not!

 Chapter 73: Wang Shes Intention and Punching Skill Cultivation

    Chapter 73: Wang She''s Intention and Punching Skill Cultivation


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    There are many children with good aptitude in the world, so why does he prefer me? Are my Fiery Eyes the only reason?


    Junior Leopard did not know the origin of the Fiery Eyes before and was therefore unable think through this matter.


    Junior Leopard considered Xu Yong''s words. Indeed, Wang She invested in Zhou Bao(Junior Leopard) for his future. Not only for his skills and abilities, but also for the Fiery Eyes that went missing 3,000 years ago from the major bloodline that was being hidden. Wang She had quite possibly known his weakness.


    If they were enemies, he would not even need to take Junior Leopard out personally, he could just leak the news of the Fiery Eyes and countless people would come to hunt Junior Leopard down.


    "If it''s an investment in the future, he''ll have to hemorrhage first. Giving me the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill can be considered a good start. Expert like Wang She overrunning the whole world could not have small ambitions. This skill won''t be his only investment. Therefore, in the future, he will give me more." Junior Leopard calculated the gains and losses in secret. He concluded that Wang She definitely had a future plan which could benefit him.


    Junior Leopard felt relieved upon thinking of this point.


    For now, he was only a puppet and, moreover, he was a useless one.


    Looking on the bright side, Wang She invested for the future. But in other words, he had no expectation about what he could do in the future.


    Junior Leopard felt reassured upon thinking this. He calmed down and practiced the Thirteen Punches of Desolation. He was more low-key than before. As for the Fiery Eyes, he didn''t study them now. Even though no one was around, he wouldn''t open them in order to avoid unnecessary troubles.


    ...


    ...


    Peaceful days resumed and there were no major changes in Junior Leopard''s life.


    He leisurely practiced Taiji Fist and begun to ponder the infusion of the Taiji Fist''s tenderness into the Thirteen Punches of Desolation. This was not his first try, but it was what he was studying during those days.


    Although he was not a genius, he still found that there was something that both skills shared in common. Junior Leopard''s skills in the practicing of the Thirteen Punches of Desolation quickly improved thanks to his formula of Taiji Fist from his former life.


    Certainly, to his amazement, the reason that he started to practice punching skills was the Extraordinary Strength Fist that he learned from Xue Wuya.


    Even though he suffered, he was thinking that his stay in Misty Mountain was bountiful. He gained the evolution of his Fiery Eyes, and furthermore, his Dantian had an eccentric black flame. Heaven knows if that was good or bad.


    And those wonderful techniques¡ªthe Three Realms Division, that set of brilliant sword technique, the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist, Yanfu Inner Strength, the whole set of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, and the Extraordinary Strength Fist¡ªthey were all his now.


    Extraordinary Strength Fist technique!


    He would always call it the Extraordinary Strength Fist technique, because Xue Wuya did not tell him this secret skill''s name. After seeing this secret skill, Junior Leopard thought that it was perhaps the most simple and functional at the same time.


    This was said to be simple, because Xue Wuya''s mental cultivation method was extremely easy to learn for only those who knew how to use the Internal Qi. It was also functional, because this skill could merge with almost all punching skills. Prior to Junior Leopard''s acknowledgment, it was an impossible thing.


    No matter what kind of punching skill they were, all of them had distinct mental cultivation methods. The more powerful, the higher the level, and the more profound the punching skill, the harder it was to practice. Talking the Thirteen Punches of Desolation for example, Xu Yong did not practice its essential character. When passing that on to Junior Leopard, he simply gave the mental cultivation methods, pithy formulas and movements to him and let him understand it on his own.


    This was simply a fantasy, like wanting to mix other profound mysterious mental cultivation methods. But Junior Leopard did it. He could easily blend the mental cultivation methods of Extraordinary Strength Fist with the Thirteen Punches of Desolation. That would not affect its power but each fist would display ultimate power. Thinking about it, the Extraordinary Strength Fist could increase the power of his punches several times.


    This was not due to his high savey. It was because the mental cultivation method of Extraordinary Strength Fist was unusual and so could gently be merged with other punching skills.


    It''s said that this Extraordinary Strength Fist can be easily merged with mental cultivation methods of other punching skills. And then no matter what I''m using, it would bring out a multiplication of its original power. If I wait to polish this technique thoroughly, I''ll have the maximum advantage.


    Pondering that, he thought of another kind of secret skill, the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill!


    The two secret skills, the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and the Extraordinary Strength Fist, apparently were not related. Their approaches to practice have something in common. They were equally simple, easy, and marvelous.


    If I''m able to merge the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill with this punching skill, my fist will not only be heavy, but it won''t make any sound of wind. Indeed, this is the best way to strike a person unexpectedly!


    Junior Leopard became happier as he was thinking. The smile on his face slowly became treacherous.


    ...


    ...


    Unwittingly, he was already at Wu Family for a year. His days were very peaceful, but he also knew that it would end.


    It was because Shi Jing was going to finish his closed door training and would be free soon.


    Junior Leopard would have thought that he surely cracked down on Shi Jing for stealing the Fiery Eyes. But who knew what was wrong with Lyu Yiyue. Shi Jing was being detained just for three months, besides, it was a closed door training which was considered a penalty. From Junior Leopard''s point of view, such punishment was too light.


    The penalty was obviously too little to Junior Leopard, but that was not how Shi Jing saw it. In Shi Jing''s eyes, he was being betrayed by Junior Leopard and was detained for three months. He was humiliated in front of the people. Junior Leopard was the cause of all those troubles, so Shi Jing''s plan was to take revenge by means of redeeming the loss.


    Junior Leopard could not be young and aggressive like Shi Jing. He understood, compared to other important inner cores disciples, he had no profound background. Furthermore, he had many secrets that were annoying, but had no competence to be arrogant.


    Therefore, he always scrupulously abided by the low-key principle. Every day, aside from training, he almost never left.


    But at the same time, he also understood another principle. A kind-hearted person would be bullied by other people; a tamed horse would be ridden by other people.


    Especially those inner core disciples that got together. They were proud and arrogant and unwilling to follow directions.


    Junior Leopard did not want to tease others. He also did not wish anyone to think of him as a push-over which could be bullied now and then. Besides, even if he was a disciple of the Wu family, if he didn''t have one or two strong points in a competitive environment like the Wu family, he would always be looked down upon by others, and even risked being eliminated.


    Therefore, he still wanted to show some remarkable points occasionally while he was keeping a low-profile. Only in this way could he deserve the identity of being an important inner core disciple. Otherwise, don''t mention other important inner core disciples, even the ordinary inner core disciples would find a way in which they could find chances to frame him, humiliate him, and expel him out of the Wu Family.


    At the moment, Shi Jing was clearly aiming for Junior Leopard. If he did not say anything and continued to shrink, people would only look down upon him. Now, all he could do was to confront him face to face.


    Junior Leopard did not want to be very involved with Shi Jing, so he decided to pressure him once, traumatize him, and make him frightened. On one hand, he could show his tricks; on the other hand, he could avoid Shi Jing''s dissension in the future.


    Thinking of this, Junior Leopard decided to take the initiative.


    His so-called "take the initiative" was that he would no longer practice in the Wu''s residence, rather he was to move away from that place and give Shi Jing a chance to find trouble with him.


    Soon after he went out, he was blocked by Shi Jing. Not just him, but also several inner core disciples ranging from 11 to 12 years old. Their family backgrounds were the best, and so they did not need to undergo the selection process to enter the Wu Family.


    The Wu family''s influences were tremendous. Its internal influences were complicated and very tricky, having all sorts of people.


    No matter the influential or the insignificant people, as long as they had some authority and relations, they would sent their nephews to Wu Family by any possible means, hoping that they would become outstanding, receive favor from the Elders, and to be accepted as disciples. But this was very unlikely. Aside from the few genuine outstanding guys, the rest of these people, many of them were simply pleasing to the eyes of some big potatoes in the Wu Family. They were only accepted as registered disciples.


    So they were jealous of people like Junior Leaperd, who, by way of the selection, had been personally recruited by the Eldesr.


    With their family background, they couldn''t provoke those senior important inner core disciples. However, Junior Leopard was a newbie, not to mention that his teacher, Xu Yong, was a low-profile Elder of the Wu family, whose reputation was not prominent. Because of all these, they didn''t afraid of Junior Leopard. Thus, they followed Shi Jing and were pleased to see Junior Leopard make a fool of himself.


    "You bastard. Lyu Yiyue covered it up and prevent you from being punished heavily. Yet you didn''t want to repent. Instead, your anger toward me was like I''ve violated your mother."


    ...


    .


    .

 Chapter 74: K.O.

    Chapter 74: K.O.


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard saw Shi Jing blocking in front and his gaze emitted a strand of ridicule. "Oh, isn''t senior brother Shi. What happened? The closed-door training has ended, and this retreat lasted for three whole months. You look not bad. Looks like your martial arts have progressed significantly!"


    "Hmph...!" Shi Jing angrily looked at Junior Leopard. It seemed that his eyes were going to spit out flames.


    This time, if it was not Junior Leopard who informed against him, how would he be punished by his teacher to reflect his own mistakes for three months?


    Even though he only had to face the wall and contemplate for three months, he could obviously feel that his own teacher no longer doted on him as before. This was the fatal blow.


    At this time in his heart, Junior Leopard was already his number one enemy. He even hated Junior Leopard more than he hated his senior brother. Hence, when he just came out, he would ask for trouble with Junior Leopard without a doubt. However, Junior Leopard had always kept a low profile for he normally wouldn''t get out of the courtyard. Even if he left the courtyard, he would be at the Wu Family''s headquarter. There was really no good chance at all.


    Today was the best chance. Even if he crippled Junior Leopard, he could insult him in front of so many inner core disciples, making him hard to raise his head ever again in the Wu Family.


    Shi Jing was very confident. At least in martial skills, he had absolute confidence in himself. Among the similar aged in the Wu Family, no one could compete with him. What was more, Junior Leopard was younger than him by one year.


    "It seemed that you have thought really hard in order to ask for trouble with me!" Junior Leopard looked at Shi Jing''s eyes, admiring the angry emotions flowing out from his eyes. The corner of his lips curled. Then, he shifted his gaze to the few Wu Family inner core disciples in the surroundings, "You really have the balls. How dare you ask for trouble with me with this little idiot. Don''t you know that even if you beat me down today, you''ll get no good after you came back!"


    Junior Leopard spoke very slowly. His voice was extremely calm. Every word knocked on the hearts of these inner core disciples. Those few fellas'' face whitened. They looked at each other, and their eyes revealed some kind of struggle and fear.


    Yes, even if they beat down Junior Leopard today, there wouldn''t be any good after they went back. Junior Leopard was the Wu Family Elder''s disciple, but they were only inner core disciples.


    "This matter has nothing to do with them. We only came out together and bumped into you. It was only an accident. The person asking for trouble with you is me. Will I need others to lend a hand just for dealing with you?!"


    Shi Jing coldly laughed. His words calmed the others down.


    "You think that you are able to beat me down alone?!" Junior Leopard''s eyes narrowed. When he narrowed his eyes, his face would unconsciously reveal a peaceful slight smile which was very alluring.


    "Hmph!" Shi Jing humped again, his face turning green. He jerked and took one step forward, "Zhou Bao, I don''t have so much time to argue with you. Today, I am here to teach you a lesson!"


    With one step forward, his body lunged forward, meanwhile, he executed a stroke of Black Tiger Grabbing the Heart ferociously towards the chest of Junior Leopard.


    "Dumbass!" Junior Leopard coldly smiled. He didn''t move an inch. When Shi Jing''s fist was half a foot away from his chest, his body slightly moved to the side. With one turn, his left elbow struck towards Shi Jing''s armpit.


    Shi Jing thought that his own speed was already very fast. But how would he know that in Junior Leopard''s eyes, the speed which he was proud of was just but a joke. Even if he didn''t use his own power from the Fiery Eyes, Junior Leopard was able to deduce the direction of Shi Jing''s fist and the possible strokes after that just with his normal eyes.


    Junior Leopard naturally wouldn''t give him any chance. When Shi Jing''s force was almost over, Junior Leopard''s elbow struck his armpit at the second of all the force launching. Shi Jing would never think that Junior Leopard''s speed was so fast, and his movements were so vicious.


    It must be known that the armpit was not only his movement''s weakness, it was also a vital spot for a human. Junior Leopard originally wanted to teach him a lesson, his hands would not be soft. One elbow struck him till he flew off. This was not enough, when Shi Jing was sent flying, Junior Leopard''s body stuck closed, and his right hand forcefully struck Shi Jing''s chest. Shi Jing fell down to the ground.


    "Peng------!" A sound occurred. Shi Jing hummed, his face became flushed red. There wasn''t even a sound coming out of his mouth. His eyes whitened, and he fainted.


    Everything happened in an instant, like a spark created from friction between stones.


    From Shi Jing''s move till he got slammed onto the ground by Junior Leopard and fainted, it wasn''t even a breath''s worth of time. Those inner core disciples aside didn''t even see clearly what was happening, and the two in front of them were one still standing but the other lying down.


    "Carry him back, and tell him as well, if he comes to ask for trouble with me again, I don''t mind stripping him naked and hanging him upon the door of the city gate!"


    Junior Leopard pointed at a far away path.


    A few disciples looked over, and involuntarily shrank their necks. That place was the most prosperous area in regional City. If anybody was stripped naked there, then he would never raise his head again in the future.


    When they turned their heads back, Junior Leopard had already left.


    ...


    ...


    "I heard that you injured Shi Jing?!"


    Junior Leopard knew that the conflict between him and Shi Jing couldn''t be hidden. Even if Shi Jing didn''t say, those inner core disciples would tell others. Hence, although Xu Yong came to ask Junior Leopard about this matter once he came back, he didn''t feel surprised.


    "Yes, he came to ask for trouble with me, and I gave him a lesson!"


    "En, you''ve done well. Though Shi Jing is young, his cultivation has already reached the Full Closure state of the Level One. It was said that he was going to break through to the Level Two state. Nobody has thought that he should didn''t complete one movement in your hand!"


    "It all thanks to Teacher''s guidance!" Junior Leopard said, "That set of Thirteen Punches of Desolation is so mysterious and powerful!"


    "The Thirteen Punches of Desolation?!" Xu Yong nodded his head, "This set of punching skill does have its own ways. I have already practiced it for a full twenty years, yet I only comprehend a bit of it. It could be said that I barely managed to practice it only.


    Besides I do not know whether I understand it correctly. Your aptitude in martial arts far surpasses me. Hence, I won''t give you any guidance in this set of punching skill. Because by doing that, it will only restrict your future growth. I am also very clear about Shi Jing''s cultivation. You could defeat him so easily. It proves that my decision is not wrong!"


    Junior Leopard''s expression changed slightly, revealing a grateful expression, "I don''t dare to receive Teacher''s praise. All is because of Teacher!"


    "This is your biggest weakness. You are too worldly. What is yours is yours, I''m mostly clear about whether it has anything to do with me. I don''t know how you grew this character, however, you got to change it. In this Wu Family, to be too smooth is not a good thing, so is your Teacher!!"


    When Junior Leopard heard this, he became slightly embarrassed. Compared to people of the same age, he definitely did appear to be too smooth and sophisticated. This had something to do with his profession in his previous life.


    "I will be careful next time!"


    "En, you have stayed here for about half a year. Pack up your things, I want to go out!"


    "Going out?"


    Junior Leopard looked at his teacher strangely. During the half year in the Wu Family, out of ten days he would spend nine days in the Refining Weapon room like researching something. Now he should want to go out.


    "This time I am going to visit an old friend. As my disciple, you should come along and visit!" Xu Yong said.


    "Old friend?!" Junior Leopard understood, his gaze revealing surprise, "Okay, Teacher, I will go and prepare now. When do we set off?!"


    "Half a month later. You prepare first, I still have some things to settle at home. Go!"


    Coming out from Xu Yong''s room, Junior Leopard was unable to hide the excited feeling in his heart.


    He had reasons to be excited.


    What was the most important thing when people come out for a living, no matter in the Jianghu or in the martial arts world?


    Connections, connections were the most important.


    Position in Jianghu, reputation in the martial arts world, they were not built up entirely by fighting. They needed to be managed.


    The seventh Dark Lord Xue Wuya was used to killing. His name was resounding. However, the real reason why his reputation reached the peak was not that he killed a lot of people, but he was the seventh Dark Lord.


    The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou was chivalrous, and did many good deeds. However, what people really cared about was that he was a Golden Lights Cave disciple, the great deacon of Mingyi School.


    The whole Jianghu was just like a big net. In the net lived many and endless human power, object power and power itself.


    No matter how strong the human power was, it was still limited. Those influences that stretched through the whole world had infinite strength, which was also what made people fear.


    Of course, influence, this was a great influence. It was not easily moved by one or two people. It also couldn''t be assembled by one or two people.


    For those that roam the pugilist world, not everyone had those big powers, having such a strong backer behind their backs.


    However, walking in the Jianghu, who doesn''t have a few friends?


    As it was said, one fence there would be three poles, and one good man there would be helped by three people.


    In many situations, those friends would be the only people you could rely on in times of crisis.


    How to make friends in the Jianghu?


    Feeling like old friends at the first meeting and opening hearts to each other, they become life and death buddies after having a drink. How would they willing to do anyting for his buddies?


    This kind of situation existed, but it was extremely few!


    The real friends were those who knew each other well. Many played together since childhood. Their previous generations were friends, and the friendship passed on. Both parties knew each other well enough. This kind of people was able to become friends.


    The other kind of friends originated from teacher-disciple relationships. This could be considered another form of friendship. The original Seniors and Juniors, Teacher-Uncles and their disciples were also able to become friends after interaction and finding each other pleasing to the eye.


    Those friends who meet by chance were extremely few, they belong to the minority. And these minority usually experienced numerous life and death encounters before becoming friends. This kind of friendships, on the contrary, was the strongest.


    Xu Yong, the elders of Wu Family, his position in the Jianghu as well as his status was high. Even though he kept a low profile, yet he was no lack of friends. Furthermore, those friends of him in the Jianghu had some weight, and not necessarily lower than his.


    This was also what Junior Leopard lacked most. Born in the village, if he never had anyone to direct, no matter how hard he tried to manage it, it would be extremely hard for him to solidify his footing in the Jianghu without a few decades.


    Now things were different. As the disciple of a Wu Family Elder, suddenly, he possessed a massive net of connections. Half of the connection belonged to the Wu Family, thus he was hard to use it. However, a portion of it was Xu Yong''s private network. This was also the biggest wealth Xu Yong could give him. Now Xu Yong was going to take him to gather this sum of fortune. Of course, it was only looking. Whether there was the capability to touch it would depend on Junior Leopard''s own strength and the approval of Xu Yong''s friends.


    If he could not gain recognition, even if he was Xu Yong''s disciple, he could at most make some ordinary friends, who nod their heads to each other only.


    Maybe this was the reason why Xu Yong reminded him that the way he handled affairs were too sophisticated and smooth.


    Although sophisticated and smooth people would not suffer from disadvantages, yet this was an unpleasant personality. What''s more, Junior Leopard was so young yet he displayed so sophisticatedly. This would make people be on their guard.


    "Aye, I never thought that I myself will actually bother about my own personality. However, there is no choice. I bought the personality with me from the past life, hence, it is not easy for me to change. If I can''t change it, then I can only pretend. Keke, the legendary pretense will not work. I''d better think about what should I pretend to be?!"


    After Xu Yong left, Junior Leopard helplessly thought about it.


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 75: First Step into Jianghu

    Chapter 75: First Step into Jianghu


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The sun came out and several wisps of cloud liked silk were floating in the blue sky.


    "This sky, this air, this beautiful scenery, how comfortable it is!"


    It was an ordinary morning. Riding on the horse, Junior Leopard dressed in black, enjoying the primitive and refreshing environment. Not far away from his front was his teacher Xu Yong. This time, Xu Yong took him out to visit friends, which meant that he would be officially introduced to Xu Yong''s friends. It was also a way to make some positive ties in Jianghu.


    Junior Leopard came to this world over a decade ago, but the places he had really been to were not many. For example, last time he went to Yunzhou''s Qinlingjun City from Qingyang Market. It might look like a very long journey, however, in that trip, most of his time was spent with the seniors squatting within the carriage. He only came out for meals and shelter, acting just like those young missies who would never go out from their rooms. How could it be compared to now, riding on a high horse and dressed in gallant clothes? Even though his clothes were all black, the material was of good quality and the cutting fitted.


    "This may be the so-called fine clothes and well-groomed horses. Alas, it''s a pity that I''m too young. If not, I may pick up several girls with this outfit, hehe!" Junior Leopard chuckled. He then looked at Xu Yong who was riding slowly ahead. "It is not bad having a teacher. No doubt that he''s been so nice to me. Even though his cultivation and strength aren''t as good as Xue Wuya''s, he''s much better than Xue Wuya in other areas !"


    "Junior Leopard, Baiyun Town is just ahead. Hurry up, we can have a rest there. Then after two days riding along the official road, we'' ll reach the Ningzhou City in Moyang County !"


    "Yes, Teacher!" Junior Leopard respectfully answered. His hands tightened and his white horse immediately ran in small steps.


    Their destination was Moyang County''s Ningzhou City where Xu Yong''s old friends lived.


    Though Junior Leopard was told that it was just a visit, he felt that things were not that simple.


    Looking at Xu Yong''s manner, it seemed that he was going there not just to visit but for other purposes. As for what the purpose was, Junior Leopard had no way to know.


    Baiyun Town is a small town centralization whose size was roughly the same as that of Qingyang Market, but it was much more prosperous. This was normal. Bordered by Misty Mountains, Qingyang Market was situated at the edge of Yunzhou with a sparse population, while Baiyun Town was situated in the hinterland of Yunzhou. Lying between the busy commercial routes, its prosperity could be compared to a small city.


    The streets were busy with people passing by. Xu Yong and Junior Leopard reached the town before noon. This town also had a short city wall similar to a gate, and there were two to three soldiers guarding by the entrance. These soldiers had good eyesight. when they saw the two''s clothes and horses, they naturally knew that they couldn''t let them suffer any hardships. Hence, without even asking, they let them in.


    Of course, they couldn''t run wildly in Baiyun Town. Besides, this town was not very big, after riding for an incense worth of time, Xu Yong stopped by an inn.


    "Let''s eat something here first!"


    Junior Leopard naturally had no objection. Following Xu Yong, he got down from the horse and entered the inn. Before he walked in, he glanced up and a sense of smile flashed across his eyes.


    Do you know why?


    It turned out that on the plaque of the inn wrote "Happiness Inn" lively and vigorously. These words made Junior Leopard almost feel that he was acting in a martial arts film.


    Although the name "Happiness Inn" was a bit dull and old-fashioned, it was one of the best inns in Baiyun Town with classic dishes and a unique taste.


    The two of them took their seats next to the window. They ordered a few dishes and a jar of liquor, and ate slowly.


    They admired the landscape near the street while eating. Meanwhile, Xu Yong was explaining to Junior Leopard about matters needing attention and rules in Jianghu from time to time.


    For example, who could be offended and who couldn''t; what kind of things should he intervene and what shouldn''t; What kind of people he had to go around and what kind of things he had to keep his hands off, etc.


    During this trip, Junior Leopard learned a lot of tricks when roaming in the Jianghu from Xu Yong.


    Xu Yong knew a lot about the Jianghu. What he taught Junior Leopard was his experience accumulated in the past decades. Every drop was the essence. Hence, Junior Leopard listened closely, afraid of missing a word.


    One was speaking, and the other listening. Just when they were in sync with each other, they suddenly heard some noise downstairs. Then it was sound of tables and benches falling and people shouting. In between, they could also hear the screaming and shouting of the shopkeeper and waiters of the inn, one after another.


    "It must be someone making trouble downstairs. When faced with such situation, just stand aside and watch. Don''t intervene too much, as there''re many things that cannot be put in black and white here!" Xu Yong raised his cup and said to Junior Leopard.


    Voice hardly ever, "Bang!" They heard the sound and saw two figures fly out from the inn''s main door, falling on the street and rolling. Both of them seemed to be injured as they didn''t climb up after struggling for a long time. Junior Leopard noticed that their dressing had some similarities to people from the Black Dragon Triad in Qingyang Market.


    "They are part of the local gang, the lowest level gang in the Jianghu. The person who beat them out should be a martial artist passing by. This is called a strong dragon pressing over the local bully. These local bullies weren''t smart enough and offended people they shouldn''t offend!"


    Xu Yong smiled and said, "However these guys are also too vicious to cripple legs of this two fellas. I''m afraid this couldn''t be settled amicably. If the person who beat them is not in a hurry to leave, then, we can watch another show!"


    Xu Yong watched the scene below and made the running commentary. Junior Leopard listened with relish at one side, as if he was watching a great show.


    As expected, when the two guys were struggling on the ground, their companions had gone back to report the situation.


    Within a quarter of an hour, dozens of men in the similar outfit to people downstairs were seen rushing toward the Happiness Inn, carrying sabers, swords, and cudgels.


    The person leading them was big and tall with bright eyes. He had a protruding temple and tight muscles. With a glimpse of him, one would know that he was a martial artist.


    "This guy''s cultivation is not bad. He has almost reached the peak of Level One. Not easy!"


    "Peak of Level One? I''ve already reached Level Two!" Junior Leopard mumbled to himself. His eyes slightly squinted, "Teacher, what will happen next?"


    "Next, they will test each other, and state their backgrounds!" Xu Yong said, "This kind of conflict is just a small case. If those guys who started the fight come from respectable backgrounds, it should be this fella paying apologies. If not, there will be another fight!"


    As expected, when the leading man walked to the front of the inn, the innkeeper had already waited here, "Oh, Chief Hu, you finally come, you see this matter is in a... "


    Chief Hu glanced at the innkeeper, and ignored him. He walked to the door of the inn, cupped his fists and said, "I''m Chief Hu Yebin from Baiyun branch of Tsing Lung Hall. My men weren''t sensible and offended friends inside. If there was any offence, I plead pardon to these friends!"


    "This is the so-called greeting first and then marshaling the army. You''d better lower your position when you don''t know who''s inside. In this case, no matter who it is, you are in the initiative position. If the person inside is an expert, he might not be hard on you for your good attitude. If it''s just a rookie, this kind of behavior will also show your magnanimity!" Xu Yong continued explaining to Junior Leopard.


    "What if the person inside is a bastard?!" Junior Leopard suddenly asked.


    "Haha¡ª¡ª"


    Hearing Junior Leopard''s sudden question, Xu Yong laughed out, "If the person inside is a bastard, then there will be a fight!"


    And they laughed together.


    "Hmph, a small Tsing Lung Hall! How dare you show off in front of me!"


    A cold voice came out from the inn, "Scram quickly! If you disturb my mood, I''ll turn this Tsing Lung Hall to a Dead Snake Hall!" [TL: Tsing Lung is Green Dragon]


    These words were said too viciously. Hu Yebin''s face changed drastically. No matter who was inside, to publicly denounce the Tsing Lung Hall in this manner, as the Branch Hall Chief, he definitely had to do something.


    "This is called the dangerous beauty. Maybe the lady inside was quite pretty, so those few unlucky guys from Tsing Lung Hall went to cause trouble and thus broke their legs. However, now that this lady said things like this, Hu Yebin couldn''t make a settlement anymore even if he has an intention to. This is called trouble coming out of mouth!" Xu Yong leisurely said on the second floor, "The next will be a full-scale battle!"


    "Your lady has a tough tone. I Hu Yebin would like to see what you''ve got!"


    "This Hu Yebin is a rather steady person!"


    Upon hearing Hu Yebin''s words, Xu Yong''s face revealed admiration, "When one walks in the Jianghu, he cannot treat himself as something. There will always be someone stronger than you, so it''ll only do you good to lower your position!"


    "Yes, I remember!" Junior Leopard sounded.


    Just in between their conversation, Hu Yebin had already entered the inn''s door. Afterwards, "Ping-pang ping-pang" sounds could be heard.


    The sound of weapons clashing, tables and chairs flipping, people screaming and shouting and a woman''s chiding was heard all in once, which was extraordinarily lively.


    Junior Leopard was tempted to go down and see what was going on, but he was pulled back by Xu Yong.


    "Just sit and listen. The people downstairs are not considered experts. It''ll do you no good to see them battling personally. At a time like this, if you don''t want to get into trouble, then you must be calm and wait patiently. Do you know how many people sacrificed their lives for curiosity every year in this Jianghu?"


    "Yeah!" Junior Leopard had no choice but sit down and calm down, waiting quietly for the result to come out.


    Suddenly, a scream echoed downstairs, and then it was Hu Yebin''s rough laughter.


    "So just a little brat! How dare you be arrogant in the territory of my Tsing Lung Hall¡ª!" With the rough and arrogant laughter, Hu Yebin carried a white-clothed girl over his shoulders, and walked in big strides out of the inn. That white-clothed girl''s body was stiff. Obviously, her acupoints were sealed, thus she was unable to move.


    "Go, let''s return, and give this little cunt a good lesson!"


    "It seems like I''ve really overestimated him!" seeing Hu Yebin''s satisfied and proud smile, Xu Yong frowned and said, "Okay, Junior Leopard, now it''s your turn."


    "Me?!" Junior Leopard who was watching the show was stunned. He raised his head and looked at Xu Yong, "What should I do?!"


    "Be a hero and save the beauty!" Xu Yong pouted his lips and smiled, "This Hu Yebin''s cultivation is merely at the peak of Level One, and you''ve reached Level Two. This kind of opportunity is rare!"


    Junior Leopard blinked and somewhat understood Xu Yong''s intentions. He laughed, and jumped down through the window. He loudly shouted, "That man, how dare you rob a woman in broad daylight. What crime do you deserve, shouldn''t you quickly put that woman down!"


    "Pu------!" Xu Yong spat out the mouthful of old liquor he just drank.

 Chapter 76: Miss Ma

    Chapter 76: Miss Ma


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Hu Yebin was really unlucky today.


    As a person who was the Hall Chief of one branch of Tsing Lung Hall, his daily life was originally happy and unfettered.


    Although Tsing Lung Hall was only a small gang listed at the bottom of Jianghu, it was in charge of several town centralizations after all. Baiyun Town was one of them, and it was one of the richest towns that Tsing Lung Hall controlled.


    To be a Hall Chief here, if nothing else, one could easily get access to delicious cuisine. Another important point was that unlike other places, this place was entirely controlled by Tsing Lung Hall, so no other gangs in Jianghu dared to compete here. Therefore, life here was also easy.


    He only planned to have a delightful drink at Prunus Tower and play with a couple of girls at lunchtime today. He had never thought that his pleasure would end so quickly. There was not enough time for him to enjoy all of his bottles before a few servants came into Prunus Tower, hastily describing somebody making trouble at the Happiness Inn.


    There was no way to stay out of this matter as a Hall Chief of Tsing Lung Hall''s branch here.


    He had no choice, but he held back all of his anger and followed the servants to the Happiness Inn. They were here to find out what kind of background the troublemaker had in the way of Jianghu.


    He also did not expect the troublemaker to be a novice who knew nothing about Jianghu''s rules, and that was fine. In this era, many young guys made a living in Jianghu only mastering one or two techniques. The world would not seem more crowded with one more novice.


    But the troublemaker was even more annoying. It was before he could finish his words that she blustered in Tsing Lung Hall without scruples. As he was the Hall Chief of Tsing Lung Hall, he intended to settle this matter in peace, but what she was doing had prevented him from doing so.


    He was also lucky, the troublemaker had some techniques but was only a rookie after all. Her cultivation was only at Level One. With a few movements, she was stopped by him through acupoints. It was only then that he had the time to see her carefully, and no doubt she was beautiful and cute. He immediately wanted to bring her with him and had not thought about the future. What would the future have been? It would have depended on the girl''s backer. If she was not born in a high class, he would not mind being their son-in-law.


    Another surprise followed. He was about to leave when another voice caught his attention and required him to stop, and that person was a novice too!


    That was a novice indeed. It was easy to know he was still new to Jianghu judging from his age, let alone his cultivation. The young man was no more than 13 years old, nice looking from head to toe, and innocence filled his eyes, but his comments were rather irritating.


    The young boy jumped down from a window of this building''s second floor, he reckoned. Nobody was there anymore when he raised his head upwards and checked the window. He was well impressed.


    "Good boy, you are still too young to understand what happened. This young girl is insulting our Tsing Lung Hall, in such a public place, of course I have the right to ask clearly about her reasons. It''s none of your business. Now, listen to me, leave this place as soon as possible to avoid getting yourself into trouble. You won''t have the chance to regret it if you don''t take my suggestions!"


    Junior Leopard rolled his eyes, looking down at this guy as if he was an idiot. "Unfortunately, I happen to be very upset today. When I''m upset, I can''t bear a moment of what isn''t right. Release the girl quickly, or I won''t give you any mercy!"


    Junior Leopard thrust out his chest, trying very hard to create an imposing Qi Power.


    But he was too young, and his gesture appeared rather funny. Everybody supporting Tsing Lung Hall could not resist laughing at him.


    "You damn boy! You go so far as to challenge our Hall Chief. It''s your choice to learn the hard way, let me teach you a lesson!"


    A member of Tsing Lung Hall yelled and leaped forward, and within a second he was at Junior Leopard''s front. He reached out his hand to catch Junior Leopard without any hesitation.


    Seeing this guy attacking him, Junior Leopard was not nice to him anymore. His body moved lightly and his feet pointed to the ground, then his two fists quickly presented the movement of Black Tiger Grabbing the Heart. When his fists touched the guy''s shoulders, the guy was immediately thrown away more than 30 feet, lying on the ground and twisting his body, groaning painfully.


    At that moment, an iron token fell off of a window from the second floor. Hu Yebin caught it unconsciously and it was truly heavy. He lowered his head to check it and was frightened to see what was carved into it. The iron token was smaller than a man''s palm, with its entire body black, and one word, "Wu", flashed in shining silver.


    Tiny as the Tsing Lung Sect was in Jianghu, they still could identify the Wu family''s token with just one glimpse. And as the word was in silver color, it became easily understood that the elders from the Wu family''s had arrived.


    Baiyun Town was Yunzhou''s hinterland, so it was the hub of the Wu family''s. Gangs like the Tsing Lung Sect surely did not dare to offend them. That was why Hu Yebin''s face turned white immediately as soon as he saw that token. Now he only prayed the elder he met today had a good temper. Should this elder be irritable, his life would end today.


    "I... I don''t know which elder is visiting Baiyun Town today. Please accept my apologies for not greeting you in the first place!"


    Hu Yebin held the token with both hands, speaking upwards respectfully.


    "I have nothing to do with you guys from the Tsing Lung Sect and, therefore, don''t need your greetings." Xu Yong reached out his head from the second floor and glanced at the first floor, saying, "Junior Leopard, take the young lady here. You guys may leave now."


    "As... as you wish!" Hearing Xu Yong was letting them go, Hu Yebin nodded his head as if beating a drum. He handed the token to Junior Leopard with full respect and led all his people away, fleeing like the wind.


    Junior Leopard went closer to the young lady and unblocked her acupoints. Her face was then clear to him.


    She was pretty. Even though she was not beautiful enough to overthrow cities or ruin states, she was, in fact, pretty enough to be the first or second beauty in this town. She was around 16 or 17, and her temperament appeared rather unreasonable.


    The lady was grateful to Junior Leopard for freeing her from the acupoints. But she was surprised by how young he was. Her acupoints had been blocked and she was carried on someone''s shoulder previously, so she could not see his face. Now seeing that her rescuer was 11 or 12 years old, she was reasonably astonished.


    "Little brother, was it you who just saved me?!"


    No sooner had she spoken than Junior Leopard was pissed off.


    "You are a little brother, everybody in your family is a little brother!" cursed Junior Leopard in his mind. Then he said, " No, it wasn''t me. What I did was only fight with those guys. It''s my master who actually saved you!"


    "Well, where is your master?" The young girl asked curiously.


    "Upstairs. Follow me." Junior Leopard did not want to talk much. The lady had no choice but to follow him to the inn.


    Junior Leopard handed the token back to Xu Yong after they arrived at the second floor. The lady''s face beamed with delight when she saw the token. "The word Wu is in silver, you must be an elder of the Wu family!"


    Xu Yong looked at the lady with surprise and nodded, "You are right, I''m an elder in the Wu family''s. You have some insight!"


    "Sure I have!" The young lady was delighted hearing Xu Yong praising her. "Since you are an elder of the Wu''s, you must know how to go to Tian Long Mystic Mountain, don''t you?"


    "What?" Xu Yong was astonished.


    Tian Long Mystic Mountain?


    No doubt he knew that place. He had been there one or two times as an elder of the Wu family''s. But it was eccentric that the question came from a young lady who was alone out here.


    "I am quite lucky and have been there several times," Xu Yong replied. "Why do you ask me this question?"


    "That''s awesome! Ma.. master, could you lead me to Tian Long Mystic Mountain? I can pay for your help!" Hearing Xu Yong saying that he had been there, the young lady was filled with great joy. She searched all over her body for quite a while and found a few gold leaves and silver ingots. But on second thought, she took back the money in a shy manner, as an elder of the Wu family''s would not be attracted by money. Then she took out a pure black pearl from a pocket at her waist.


    The pearl was as big as a longan, with its body round and soft, it was as black as ink. An enchanting sheen flashed when it was basked in sunlight.


    Xu Yong was also surprised at that black pearl. He glanced at the young lady with his mouth wide open.


    "What do you think? I will give you the pearl as remuneration for taking me there."


    " Why do you want to go to Tian Long Mystic Mountain?" Xu Yong took a light breath and was calm again. " You have to know that Tian Long Mystic Mountain is Tian Long Dao''s sect. Not any ordinary person can go there. Even for me as an elder from the Wu family, I can''t go there without Tian Long Taoism''s permission."


    "That doesn''t matter. I can go there, so I can take you guys there. The only problem is that I don''t know the way." The young lady was smiling and satisfied.


    "I haven''t known your name."


    "My family name is Ma, oh sorry, Lei. You can call me Lei... Lei Ma."


    "Cough, cough, cough¡ª!"


    Standing beside them, Junior Leopard could not catch his breath and coughed non-stop. The name was too fake even for such a name made up in a second. "What kind of parents would name their child so stupidly?"


    "Lei Ma, Lei Ma. Who knows which family she comes from. Is it that her mistress name is Lei so she calls herself Lei Ma?" Junior Leopard was stroking his chin and thinking lecherously.


    "Well, Miss Ma, oh no, Miss Lei, since you want to go to Tian Long Mystic Mountain, I invite you to go with us. But before going there, I have to deal with something at Huayang City. It may take a while, would you mind waiting?"


    "Huayang City?" The young lady was in a trance then replied, "No problem, no problem. I have never been to Huayang City. Rumor has it that the kites there are the best in the world. I can buy a few when I get there and play at Tian Long Mystic Mountain."


    Junior Leopard shivered hearing their conversation, he was sure that the young lady''s background was not simple. And Xu Yong seemed to have known her, which was why he agreed to go to Tian Long Mystic Mountain with her.


    But do we really have to go there? Our destination this time is only Huayang City. Could it be that master is dealing with her courteously, but without sincerity?


    Junior Leopard was doubtful, but no doubt had manifested on his face.


    Just as Junior Leopard expected, Xu Yong let him book three upper rooms when they finished talking after tea. Xu Yong explained to the young lady that they were tired of being always on the move and wanted some rest tonight. The young lady was not doubtful and agreed.


    Xu Yong returned to his room and locked the door after all things were settled. Junior Leopard was not sure about his plans. Seeing the young lady also going back to her room, he shook his head, feeling puzzled, and returned to his room too.


    Xu Yong got in his room one hour later and handed him a newly written letter, telling him to forward it to the Wu family''s Ironware Shop in Baiyun Town and informing them to give the letter to Wu Yansheng, the Family Head, at the Wu''s headquarters as soon as possible.


    Junior Leopard learned about the lady''s identity at the same time.


    She was the daughter of Ma Tianchang, governor of Yunzhou, and the fiance of the white blademaster Lu Shaoyou. Her name was Ma Linglong!

 Chapter 77: Little Brother and Big Brother

    Chapter 77: Little Brother and Big Brother


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Little brother, look. What''s that?"


    "Little brother, your martial arts are really good. Can you help me beat a guy?"


    "Little brother, do you know how far should we go to arrive in Huayang City?"


    "Little brother, how old are you?"


    Junior Leopard rode his horse with a poker face. But if you watched him carefully, you would see his facial muscles twitching faintly.


    After he met Ma Linglong yesterday, Junior Leopard was bombarded by her.


    In particular, every time she called Junior Leopard, she always added "little brother". It was driving Junior Leopard totally crazy.


    "I''ve told you, please do not call me little brother!"


    "Why not? You''re a little brother. Although you''re tall and strong, you''re only 11 years old. I''m 17 years old. Why can''t I call you little brother?"


    Junior Leopard was speechless. In a strict sense, Ma Linglong was right. But "little brother" reminded him its connotation in his previous life, which made him want to kick her in the face.


    Well, maybe he really would have kicked her if she was really named Lei Ma. What a pity! He didn''t dare to do that because she had another name called Ma Linglong, who was the daughter of Governor Ma.


    Then he shook his head and made a very dismissive appearance. Unexpectedly, what he did provoked her desire to tease him. So Junior Leopard was bombarded again.


    Xu Yong rode his horse in front of them, but he knew everything that happened behind him. He thought, "Junior Leopard is really lucky. He met Miss Ma just after he came from Qinlingjun City. Moreover, they got along well with each other. As long as Junior Leopard gets along well with her, he''ll have a great future with the help of her."


    Xu Yong frowned and continued thinking, "I don''t know if it''s right to send a letter to my Family Head. Maybe she''ll regard Junior Leopard as her brother if she spends more time with Junior Leopard. But her identity is too sensitive. If something bad happens to her during this period, my Family Head can''t be responsible, let alone me. Because Ma Tianchang is a real madman and he could do anything for his daughter!"


    When Ma Tianchang came to his mind, Xu Yong seemed as if he had thought of something unpleasant, shivering for absolutely no reason. "Damn it! What''s wrong with me to play a trick on him. I''d better do nothing or I''ll go to hell one day for no reason."


    While he was thinking, the other two bickered. It was a relaxing trip for them before they suddenly heard some clops, closer and closer.


    The three all turned around and saw dozens of cavalries coming at them, kicking up some dust. The clops were like thunder. When they turned their heads, they were still several miles away. After they saw it clearly, these cavalries were just one mile away from them, which could be seen clearly.


    "Shit! Ma Tai-an and the Golden Wolf Cavalry!"


    Ma Linglong recognized those who were coming right now, so she immediately turned her horse and tried to escape. However, her horse was about to move when several of them came from behind and rushed in front of them and turned their horses.


    "Lady, our Governor wanted you to go home!"


    Dozens of strong black steeds acted uniformly, as a single unit.


    "Are they coming here for killing us?"


    Sitting on the horse''s back, Junior Leopard fixed his eyes on them.


    The dozens of knights emitted the smell of blood, which had totally permeated into the bones of these knights. It seemed that they were born to kill.


    "The Golden Wolf Cavalry of Yunzhou?" Junior Leopard murmured.


    They were dressed in black iron armor and golden capes. Between the chest and abdomen of the black armor was tattooed a golden wolf head. They were the Golden Wolf Cavalry of Yunzhou and they were the greatest killing weapons of Governor Ma Tianchang.


    The leader of these cavalries is so fierce and malicious. His cultivation is at least at Level Four. The cultivations of the people behind him are at least at Level Three. Damn it! The cavalrymen have reached such a high level and then how powerful the Governor Mansion in Yunzhou can be?


    Knowing the identity of these people and connecting them to Ma Linglong, Junior Leopard clearly knew what they would do. Naturally, he would not be in a panic. In fact, he was the one who told them about where Ma Linglong was.


    "Damn it! Ma Tai-an, why are you here?"


    Ma Linglong screamed out and pointed at the leading knight, Ma Tai-an, shivering.


    "Lady, here is Yunzhou. Nothing can be kept from our Governor. Our Governor has known that you contended with others in Baiyun Town yesterday."


    Although Ma Tai-an was cruel, he spoke tenderly. He explained to Ma Linglong patiently and saw her with love and care. "Lady, please come home with me. If you don''t go back, I''m afraid Madam will kill us!"


    "My Mom¡ª!" Ma Linglong was amazed and shook her head. "No, I can''t go back with you. I don''t want to get married to Lu Shaoyou. I''m going to Tian Long Mystic Mountain to look for my big brother!"


    "Lady, please don''t make it difficult for us. The Governor and Madam have already ordered us to bring you back. We dare not go against their order!"


    "Well!" Ma Linglong saw Ma Tai-an, then Xu Yong and Junior Leopard. She saw that Xu Yong and Junior Leopard had remained unmoved and she realized what happened. She said fiercely to Junior Leopard, "Little brother, do you know who I am early before?"


    Although she looked cruel, she didn''t intimidate anybody at all. Junior Leopard rolled his eyes, while Xu Yong said, "Miss Ma, since you took out the pearl of black jade, I''ve guessed who you are, so I tried to send the information. This is none of my apprentice''s business!"


    "Then aren''t you all going to Tian Long Mystic Mountain?!"


    "Yes, Miss Ma. We really just want to go to Tian Long Mystic Mountain!" Xu Yong smiled. Ma Linglong truly hated this honest man when he was playing some tricks. She wanted to kick him in the face ferociously.


    "Then why did you cheat me?"


    "I just wanted you to stay with us. The Governor took control of Yunzhou. I''m a member of Yunzhou and it''s my responsibility to share the Governor''s burdens. If you have some trouble, it would be a terrible blow to both the Governor and Yunzhou. So I''m brazen to cheat you. If you''re angry about that, please blame me."


    "Hum¡ª!" Ma Linglong said coldly and was about to say something, but Ma Tai-an beside her cupped his fist in his other hand.


    "Thank you very much. Thanks for your information, we can find our lady quickly. Our Governor is very grateful for that, and our lady won''t scold you. Before I came, our Governor allowed me to tell you about the fair in Linqing City, we''ll follow your Family Head''s suggestion. Please let him know."


    "Then thanks to the Governor!" Xu Yong was delighted when he heard that.


    It was a good thing that we returned favors. So why not do that?


    Now Xu Yong was glad for making such a good decision.


    Hearing what they said, Ma Linglong was dissatisfied and said unpleasantly, "Hum, it turned out I was just worth a fair!"


    Xu Yong flushed and speechless. Frankly, this was good for Ma Linglong, but it was his fault to cheat a little girl.


    "Little brother, come here. Can you do me a favor?"


    Ma Linglong was straightforward. After she complained about this, she seemed to understand that it couldn''t be reversed. So, she didn''t look at Xu Yong, but smiled weirdly at Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard shrank subconsciously. "I''m only a little kid. You can ask for help to these knights if you have some trouble. They''re powerful and strong than me."


    "This has nothing to do with their skills. Moreover, they''re Golden Wolf Cavalry who are under the charge of my father and they can''t come out of Yunzhou at will!"


    Go out of Yunzhou? Junior Leopard suddenly remembered her destination and a bad feeling arose. "We are going to Huayang this time and we won''t go to Tian Long Mystic Mountain!"


    "It doesn''t matter. I don''t want you to go there right now. I''ll need to wait another two years to get married!" Miss Ma took a jade from her bosom and gave it to Junior Leopard. "You just need to give this jade to my big brother, Lei Xu of Tian Long Taoism, one month before I get married. You tell him that I don''t want to get married to Lu Shaoyou. With this jade, you can go around Tian Long Mystic Mountain!"


    "Ah?!" Junior Leopard was aware of nothing while Xu Yong felt bitter and his hand that took the reins shivering suddenly.


    Xu Yong recognized Ma Linglong. He wanted to take this opportunity to show his favor to the Governor, and then the Governor would be grateful to him. In fact, he was right. Junior Leopard didn''t understand how many benefits Ma Linglong would bring to him and the Wu Family, but Xu Yong was very clear. However, if the benefits were associated with the marriage of Ma Linglong and Lu Shaoyou, then the states of the whole world would be affected. Then he''d better give up these benefits.


    However, Ma Linglong had spoken to them and all of them heard what she said. Then it was difficult to explain.


    Even if Xu Yong was an old man with rich experience, he didn''t expect that Ma Linglong would ask for such help from Junior Leopard. He never thought that Ma Linglong was closely related to the Chief of Tian Long Taoism¡ªLei Xu.


    When he thought of what Wang She had done when Lu Shaoyou had sought marriage, he suddenly felt a terrible headache.


    Although he was the Elder of the Wu Family, he never wanted to offend the people who were involved in this thing.


    However, they were already involved in this matter.

 Chapter 78: The Wen Family in Ningzhou

    Chapter 78: The Wen Family in Ningzhou


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Run!" Just when he was vexed, the initiator Ma Linglong chuckled. She turned the horse around and left.


    "General Ma, this..." Xu Yong awkwardly looked at Ma Tai-an, his gaze revealing an intention of requesting for help.


    "What?" Ma Tai-an grinned, yet he didn''t reply. He only watched the back of Ma Linglong and shouted, "Aha, Miss is returning. You idiots quickly go and protect Miss. Don''t let her get hurt again!"


    Before his voice had died away, dozens of Metal Horse Carriage from behind followed Ma Linglong and they were as fast as lightning. In a blink, there were only Xu Yong, Junior Leopard and Ma Tai-an on the wide official road.


    "Elder Xu, thank you for the matter of today. I have to leave now. We didn''t hear anything at all just now, haha..."


    "You!" Xu Yong raised his hand and wanted to say something, but Ma Tai-an had already left like a rush of the wind.


    Passively putting down the raised right hand, Xu Yong looked at Junior Leopard and laughed bitterly, "Disciple, now we''re in trouble that cannot get rid of!"


    Junior Leopard''s eyelids twitched. He also sighed heavily. Ma Linglong''s words caused them, who wanted to take some advantages of others, to get into great trouble.


    It was as if they ate half a green worm and they wanted to spit it out but couldn''t.


    Both men were very gloomy. The whole world was watching the marriage between the Governor Mansion of Yunzhou and the Mingyi School. Besides, according to sources, the imperial court of Jin was also involved in the matter. This was the reason that Ma Tianchang agreed to the marriage, even though Lu Shaoyou encountered obstacles when he proposed.


    Once this was settled, there was no room for Ma Linglong to reject. She had no right to reject in this matter.


    Wang She did make a scene, but it was not because of Ma Linglong, because of the Tian Long Taoism. It was to show the position of the Tian Long Taoism. All the world thought so, and no one would think of Ma Linglong having a relationship with the Chief of the Tian Long Taoism. After all, this Governor Mansion had nothing to do with the Tian Long Taoism at all.


    Today, however, Ma Linglong''s words had complicated this matter.


    Ma Linglong definitely was by no means just the Governor''s daughter. At least she was not what people thought that she was nothing but the Governor''s daughter.


    She and the Tian Long Taoism had a strange relationship. Otherwise, she wouldn''t request to go to the Tian Long Mystic Mountain with Xu Yong and Junior Leopard. After being interrupted halfway, she even asked Junior Leopard to send a message to Lei Xu who was in the Tian Long Mystic Mountain. What was more, she gave Junior Leopard a jade pendant that allowed Junior Leopard free access to the Tian Long Mystic Mountain.


    Furthermore, she called Lei Xu "big brother Lei Xu"!


    What an affectionate and ambiguous address!


    By comparison, "little brother Zhou Bao" was paled much!


    Who was Lei Xu?


    He was one of the three Chiefs in the Tian Long Taoism. His position was the same as Wang She, but in the eyes of the people in the martial arts world, he carried much more weight than Wang She.


    Wang She was only a Chief of the Tian Long Taoism. However, Lei Xu was not only a Chief of the Tian Long Taoism, but also the legitimate son of the Lei Family, one of the three families of the Tian Long Taoism. He owned heaven-sent bloodline, and was the most popular choice of the Tian Long Taoism''s next suzerain.


    They could not afford to offend such a person.


    "Big brother."


    Thinking of this address,


    both Xu Yong and Junior Leopard couldn''t help shivering and sweating.


    Both of them thought of the seriousness of the matter at the same time.


    To send a message?


    If Lei Xu really had a dubious relationship with Ma Linglong and fought with Lu Shaoyou with Wang She at his wedding, then it would be a big deal.


    The Mingyi School, Lu Shaoyou, even the imperial court of Jin could do nothing towards the Chief of Tian Long Taoism. However, they could deal with Xu Yong and Junior Leopard, who sent message to Lei Xu, at will.


    What if they were not going to send the message?


    Lei Xu won''t spare them!


    If Ma Linglong got married to Lu Shayou, everyone seemed to be happy. However, Ma Linglong was not happy. She may say that she married Lu Shaoyou instead of her big brother Lei Xu since they didn''t send her message. Then she may egg Lei Xu on to deal with Xu Yong and Junior Leopard!


    If Lei Xu was a character that liked to vent his anger on others, then they would also get into trouble!


    "Teacher! You''ve been in Jianghu for years. Is chivalry really so hard in Jianghu?"


    "This isn''t a matter of chivalry, nor is it a matter of being in the Jianghu. This''s unlucky and it cannot blame the Jianghu!" Xu Yong said with an expressionless face.


    "Then what do we do now?"


    "What do we do? I have no idea!" Xu Yong helplessly said. He slapped the horse with his legs, "Let''s go. Huayang City is in front. After Huayang City, it''s more than 50 kilometers from Ningzhou City. Let me think about it. Anyway, there are still two years left!"


    "Yes!" Junior Leopard softly replied.


    "Jianghu is really unfathomable. We''ve only been walking hundreds of kilometers, and we''re getting into trouble. This''s really unfortunate!"


    ...


    They were silent all the way. They looked sullen because of the matter in their hearts.


    After resting for one night at Huayang City, they rode straight for Ningzhou City.


    Ningzhou City was the second largest city in Moyang County. It was not as big as Qinlingjun City, but its atmosphere was extraordinary, with a different taste from that of Qinlingjun City.


    Its geogrIts geographical position was very special, situating in the midst of a mountain concave. It was originally just a small village, with only a narrow winding trail. It was just that when Jin was founded, people coincidentally discovered that there was actually a shortcut from the rural areas of Yunzhou crossing into the heartlands of Jin. Thus it became a city and the trail was widened. Slowly the present Ningzhou City was formed. Because of the special geographical position, the climate here was also special. And here abounded in fragrant trees. The tree was evergreen. There was a fantastic fragrance in the bark, which could help calm the mind. People here grinded the bark into powder and made all kinds of spices. It was also the main industry of Ningzhou City. Hence, there were many fragrant trees outside the city.


    On both sides of the official road to Ningzhou City were rows of neat fragrant trees just like the border trees that Junior Leopard saw in his previous life. Riding on horses, they could smell the fragrance from a distance. Gradually, the trouble began to fade away.


    "This Ningzhou City really is not bad. Who knows if these fragrant trees can be planted anywhere else!"


    "Stop dreaming! The fragrant tree is a specialty of Ningzhou City. When Jin was founded, the founding Emperor tried to transplant the fragrant tree to another place, but it did not succeed. For hundreds of years, other people have tried this, but they all failed. Hence, later, people gradually dismissed the idea!"


    Xu Yong knew the thoughts of his own disciple, so he smiled lightly and said, "So you sould stop dreaming!"


    "I didn''t!" Junior Leopard said, "I only felt something in my heart. Teacher, the city in front is Ningzhou City, right?"


    "Yes!" Looking at the city wall and moat not far ahead, Xu Yong finally smiled, "We''ll be there soon. Your Uncle Wen''s men are already waiting at the city gate!"


    Uncle Wen Huayang was their target of their visit this time.


    Wen Huayang was a Level Four master. He was from the Wen Family in Ningzhou City. Wen Family was small and had no position in the martial arts world. However, in Ningzhou City, it was one of the three great families in Ningzhou City, controlling the whole city''s salt and iron business, having a good partnership with the Wu Family.


    Wen Huayang was the present patriarch of the Wen Family. When he was young he got to know Xu Yong. He and Xu Yong had known each other since they were young. Then they wandered in Jianghu together, so they had a good relationship.


    Xu Yong and Junior Leopard breezed into Ningzhou City. After crossing a few streets, they stopped in front of an extravagant manor. Then there was someone to report.


    "Dull Xu, you''re finally here. I thought you were going to be a few days late!"


    Soon after the gatekeeper entered, a forthright laugh came from the manor. Then the gate was opened and a sturdy man of 50 came to welcome them.


    "This is your newly accepted disciple. Looks pretty good!"


    Wen Huayang was forthright. Seeing Xu Yong took Junior Leopard over, he was stunned for a while and then laughed, "He is so young and so strong. Looks like you have a successor!"


    "He is still young. He still needs your care in the Jianghu!" Xu Yong smiled, and let Junior Leopard pay his respects to the Uncle.


    "That''s what I should do. Your disciple is also my disciple. Don''t be so polite!" Wen Huayang lifted Junior Leopard up and said warmly, "Your name is Zhou Bao? This name sounds fearsome. We are meeting for the first time and I don''t have anything good to give you. This thumb ring is not bad, just take it as a meeting gift!"


    As speaking, he took a jet thumb ring off his left thumb, and passed it to Junior Leopard''s hand!


    "This!"


    Junior Leopard was scared. Even though he did not know the thumb ring well, it seemed that the material of jade was delicate like mutton fat. Besides, Wen Huayang kept it on his left thumb. With one look, Junior Leopard knew it wasn''t an ordinary item. It had to cost at least a few thousand of silver. Wen Huayang wanted to give it to him for the first time. Was it that Wen Huayang was extremely rich, or he respected Xu Yong very much? He wanted to accept it, but dared not. After rejecting a few times, he looked at Xu Yong for help.


    "Since your Uncle wants to give it to you, you should accept it!" Xu Yong smiled, "Don''t be courteous to him!"


    Junior Leopard then accepted it. He dared not put it on his finger immediately. Instead he gingerly kept it within his inner pocket.


    "Your disciple is also dull, even duller than the you in the past!" Looking at Junior Leopard''s response, Wen Huayang said to Xu Yong.


    "Cut the crap. Let''s go inside. Do you want to stand here and talk to me all the time?" Xu Yong asked.


    ...


    ...


    "This''s my eldest grandson, Wen Biao. Little Biao, this''s your Uncle!"


    "Uncle!"


    "This''s my second grandson, Wen Qing. Wen Qing, call Uncle"


    "Uncle!"


    "This''s my third grandson..."

 Chapter 79: Hard to Seek an External Elixir

    Chapter 79: Hard to Seek an External Elixir


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Soon after entering the Wen Mansion, Junior Leopard began to sweat on his forehead. It was because that this bunch of teenagers came to him and called him Uncle one by one under the command of Wen Huayang.


    At this time, people got married early. Wen Huayang got married at 15 and had a son at 16. His son also had a son at 16. Now he was almost 60, and he had great-grandsons.


    Then Junior Leopard absurdly became many people''s Uncle.


    Fortunately, he did not need to give meeting gifts to these children like Wen Huayang. Otherwise, maybe he did not have any underwear left!


    After the greetings and introduction, it was a feast.


    Even though Junior Leopard was young, Xu Yong did not prohibit him from drinking. The Wen Family''s younger generation was very interested in this young Uncle whose status was not small. Hence, after drinking with everybody here for several cups, Junior Leopard gloriously got drunk. In the end he was carried back to a guest room.


    Having drunk so much wine, the two old guys looked fine, apart from being blushing.


    ...


    ...


    Being carried back to the guest room, Junior Leopard was placed on the bed. Then some maidservants carefully undressed him and wiped his body with warm water. By the time he was in bed again, he was fresh.


    "Hu!"


    After the maidservants had left and closed the door a quarter of an hour, Junior Leopard who was already lying on the bed finally let out a sigh of relief. Then he suddenly sat up from the bed and looked at his own body with a very strange look, "Damn, this''s so embarrassing! I almost got an erection in front of those maidservants. Luckily, I am smart. I immediately thought of sister Feng. Otherwise, I''ll lose my face. However, this kind of things can''t be done frequently. If not, maybe I''ll be impotent!"


    It turned out that Junior Leopard did drink a lot, but he wasn''t drunk.


    He also knew that this time in Ningzhou City, in addition to visiting friends, Xu Yong must have other purposes. Even though Junior Leopard was his disciple, since Xu Yong didn''t mention this matter to him, he naturally could only pretend to be deaf. He not only pretended to be deaf, he even acted drunk.


    However, he didn''t realize that the Wen Family would actually have such a service: to let these beautiful girls help him change clothes, and even wipe his body. If it were not for his timely fantasy of Sister Feng to control himself, he could really be embarrassing himself.


    "Forget it, drink less next time. Who knows how long will teacher stay here. If it is going to be like this daily, I really cannot take it!"


    It was a long sleepless night!


    When he exhaled just now, he actually puked out most of the alcohol within his body with the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Now he was very alert, yet the house was permeated with the intense smell of alcohol that he spat out. It smelled terrible.


    Getting out of bed, he opened the window. Instantly, the moonlight came in the room like water. The unique fragrance of Ningzhou City was blown into the room. Half a minute, the smell of alcohol was dispelled.


    Bored, he wanted to go out and practice punching. However, after thinking about it he decided not to. After all, this was someone else''s house. It was not his own courtyard, where he could practice at will.


    "Forget it. I''d better try my best to practice the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Ever since my cultivation advanced to Level Two, that weird black flame seems to have some changes!"


    Thinking of this, he sat cross-legged and brought his senses deep into his Dantian.


    The black flame silently floated within his Dantian.


    Compared to when he was in the Misty Mountain, this black flame looked as if it didn''t change.


    Only Junior Leopard knew that this black flame was much bigger than two years ago.


    It was because he knew why the black flame grew big.


    The reason was that it kept absorbing the essence of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi within his body.


    Over these two years, due to practicing the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill, Junior Leopard''s body had a significant increase in strength. However, this practice of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi couldn''t keep up with the speed of his body strengthening.


    This seemed almost impossible to others.


    Because compared with the physical strength, the Internal Qi was much easier to practice, and the speed would be much faster.


    The reason for such a situation was because of the soybean-sized black flame within his Dantian.


    This black flame was similar to a person practicing Internal Qi. It made use of the spiritual qi from heaven and earth, absorbing it and transforming, just that the target of absorption had changed.


    What Junior Leopard absorbed was Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth, transforming it into his own Internal Qi. While this black flame absorbed Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi and transforming it into itself.


    When his cultivation was at Level One, this flame only absorbed the essence of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi within his body and transformed it into itself. Maybe the black flame''s demands were too high, and the Level One Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi could not satisfy it. It only absorbed the last strand of the essence after Junior Leopard''s practice finished, and transformed it into black flame.


    However, things had changed ever since Junior Leopard''s cultivation advanced into Level Two.


    After his cultivation entered Level Two, Junior Leopard discovered there were some substantial changes in his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi. It was because of the changes that allowed the Internal Qi run smoothly in his body. However, it was also because of this change, that every time he finished regulating breathing, and transferring all the Internal Qi into the Dantian, this strange black flame would jump up fiercely and completely swallow the Internal Qi within his Dantian.


    Even if Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi was completely engulfed by this ball of black flame, the black flame didn''t get bigger, as if it was an endless black hole.


    In the beginning, he was extremely horrified. Because when his Internal Qi was completely engulfed, his body would be empty without any Internal Qi.


    He seemed to be sucked dry. Apart from having a body that was stronger than ordinary people, he was an ordinary person.


    Fortunately, it didn''t last long. His Internal Qi was then spat out from that ball of black flame, going back to his Dantian.


    Gradually, Junior Leopard discovered its mystery.


    Every time, when his Internal Qi was engulfed and was spat out again, it was like inhalation and exhalation when practicing Internal Qi. The Internal Qi would become purer by a bit, but its amount got a quarter less. At the same time, he could feel that the black flame within his Dantian would solidify by a bit.


    As for how much it solidified, he didn''t know, because this was purely a feeling.


    It was an extremely mysterious feeling.


    As time went on, things became more and more mysterious. With the increase of the number of the engulfing and spitting, the black flame and Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi became increasingly connected. Junior Leopard even felt that there were signs of them merging together.


    He believed when his cultivation reached Level Three, perhaps this ball of black flame would completely merge with his Internal Qi, becoming a part of his Internal Qi.


    By that time, he didn''t know what would happen.


    However, he knew what happened now.


    The present situation is only good for him, no harm.


    This black flame grew by engulfing his Internal Qi, and at the same time it would purify the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi. Hence, even though when practicing the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, he would be slower than ordinary people, there was a limit. And the purified Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was more powerful. Most importantly, he realized that when he felt that its power was not enough, he could seep a strand of black flame into his Internal Qi. Then its power would be increased dramatically. However, his body would also be affected by the violent explosion of Internal Qi.


    "If only I have an External Elixir!"


    He always thought so, whenever he tried to seep the black flame''s power into his Internal Qi, feeling a sharp pain from the high temperature emitted within his tendons and vessels.


    An External Elixir!


    That would be a super plug-in.


    It could store the enormous Internal Qi that the body was unable to withstand.


    External Elixirs were usually strengthened by Evil Qi and handled by Special Techniques. The amount of Internal Qi it could store was often more than dozens of times more that of the body.


    Some External Elixirs that were made of abnormal materials could store Internal Qi that was hundred of times more than the body. And the External Elixir made of the Fiery Eyes could store Internal Qi that was hundreds of times at least. Hence, Fiery Eyes were so precious.


    Of course, apart from storing huge amounts of Internal Qi, Fiery Eyes had a significant advantage: it was hard to spoil.


    Fiery Eyes were also known as Eyes of Eternity. It was among the first ten solid Mysterious Objects.


    It was easy to refine, solid, with extremely high Internal Qi storage.


    With these three characteristics, the Fiery Eyes were universally recognized as the best material for refining External Elixirs.


    Junior Leopard had Fiery Eyes too, but he could not use it to refine External Elixirs.


    Because he was not dead yet.


    Only when Fiery Eyes were out of the body could them become solid, and could them hold large amount of Internal Qi. As for Junior Leopard, unless he was willing to dig out one of his eyeballs, he could not refine an External Elixir with his own eye. However, he now obviously did not have this intention.


    To dig out his own eyes? He was not a fool!


    However, it didn''t mean that he didn''t want to refine an External Elixir!


    External Elixir was a good thing!


    For the first time that he heard of this thing, he understood that this was the best way to enhance his strength greatly within a short period of time.


    Of course, to refine an External Elixir was not easy.


    Others were not fools. He could see it at a glance, and so could others.


    However, the materials of External Elixirs were hard to find!


    Firstly, the material was extremely rare in this world. For example, Fiery Eyes were a bloodline that was cut off for over 3,000 years. It was 3,000 years!


    It was just like the Junior Leopard in his previous life wanting to find a chamber pot that a specific person used during the Spring and Autumn Period. Where could you find it?


    Fiery Eyes were so, and so were the other materials that could be used to refine the External Elixir. Even if they were not as precious as Fiery Eyes, it was not far from it. How could such things be widely used?


    Secondarily, to refine the Fiery Eyes required a special refinement method. The ones in control of these refinement methods were not many and they would also not leak it out.


    Hence, even if you could luckily obtain the materials, and yet you maybe don''t know the refinement method. On the other hand, even if you knew the refinement method you maybe don''t have suitable materials.


    It was for this reason that there were few people in the world owning External Elixirs.

 Chapter 80: Robbing Tian Luo Dark Gold

    Chapter 80: Robbing Tian Luo Dark Gold


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    However, if he had no confidence, Junior Leopard would never hit on the External Elixir''s idea.


    He now had one item, as if it could be used to refine an External Elixer. That was the bone of the strange earthworm which he killed in the Misty Mountain.


    Two years ago, in the Misty Mountain, he killed a strange earthworm and obtained two items. One was contained within his Dantian, the black flame that was merging with his Internal Qi. The other item was that earthworm''s skull.


    Back then, he didn''t know anything. He only discovered that that bone was hard like metal, and he felt that it was not an ordinary item, so he kept it. Two years had passed, and that bone had something mysterious happened to it. It had shrunk.


    It shrunk till it was only the size of a thumb. The originally pale white color turned into white color.


    It felt like goat fat and warm jade upon touch. Looking at it, one couldn''t tell that it was an animal''s bone. It looked more like an item that was refined from warm jade and formed into a special shape.


    Junior Leopard once heard Xu Yong mention about it. The reason why the materials for creating an External Elixir were so precious and few were that Internal Qi needed to be stored in it and recycled.


    There were many Mysterious Objects in the world, and the most famous one was Spiritual Stone. Spiritual Stones were able to store large amounts of Spiritual Qi. However, apart from extremely few Spiritual Stones, most of the Spiritual Stones were unable to be used to refine External Elixirs. The main reason was that they were only able to contain, but Spiritual Qi and Internal Qi couldn''t be interchanged. The moment it was circulated, either the Spiritual Qi leaks or the Spiritual Stone would shatter.


    Xu Yong didn''t know the method to refine External Elixirs, however, he knew how to judge whether a certain item fits the basic requirement to be refined into an External Elixir.


    Junior Leopard naturally learned such a method. After testing, he realized, this bone which turned into the size of a thumb indeed could be used as material to refine as External Elixir.


    "It''s a pity I don''t know the concise method, otherwise, I''ll be able to refine my own External Elixir!" Junior Leopard touched the bone in his bosom and sighed in his heart.


    Rubbing his head, Junior Leopard kept his troubling thoughts and practiced his Qi for a while. He was preparing to go to sleep but he actually failed to fall into a deep sleep after he heard the backyard transmitting a loud noise as well as a few violent shouts!


    "Teacher!" Junior Leopard''s heart violently shook. He jumped up.


    Sitting on the bed, and listening closely for a while, he felt that things were not right. He took up the twin hammers from the bedside and rushed out of the house.


    At this moment, the sound at the backyard also alerted the whole Wen manor.


    The Wen manor was Ningzhou''s big clan. Apart from making big business, the house nurtured several experts defending the manor. It could be considered a pugilist family, having great influence and wielded power. Otherwise, it wouldn''t be able to solidify its footing in Ningzhou.


    Therefore, when Junior Leopard rushed out of the door, he saw that the whole courtyard was full of torches. Dozens of figures flew towards the backyard. The servants of the Wen manor also carried swords, sabers, and torches, rushing towards the backyard.


    "What happened?"


    Junior Leopard grabbed one servant by his side and asked.


    "There is an alarm in the backyard!" After finishing speaking, the servant shrugged free of Junior Leopard, carried his saber and rushed towards the backyard.


    "What great strength!" Junior Leopard didn''t expect this skinny servant to have so much strength. "This fella''s strength should be at least of Level One. He''s just a servant, and it looks like even a servant''s strength cannot be underestimated!"


    Junior Leopard silently praised in his heart. Without speaking more, he carried his hammers and followed people to rush into the backyard.


    In the backyard, lights and fire were everywhere. A large group of people was rushing into the backyard. There were noises everywhere.


    After a moment, the sound gradually softened, growing smaller and smaller. Finally, the whole courtyard became quiet. The only things that could be heard were the crowd''s breathing and the crackling sound of the torches.


    Junior Leopard stood amongst the crowd and had already looked clearly the situation within the courtyard. His two lines of eyebrows were deeply locked together.


    "It doesn''t look like we can resolve this matter!"


    Yes, in fact, this was not something that could be easily fixed.


    In the center of the backyard, there were three people. Two were standing, and one was lifted in mid-air.


    The one lifted in mid-air was the Family Head of the Wen Family, Wen Huayang. As for those two standing, one was Junior Leopard''s teacher Xu Yong. Now Xu Yong''s face was ashen-white, with no blood color at all. The corner of his mouth hung some traces of blood. Even though he was standing there, and in his hand was a large black metal hammer, he was visibly not standing steadily. Obviously, he suffered a severe injury.


    The other one standing was a stranger. He was wearing a black cloak. That cloak was very familiar to Junior Leopard as if he had seen it somewhere else. After thinking for some time, he then realized, this cloak was similar to the cloaks of the Jedi masters that he had seen in movies. The only difference was that behind the cloak, there was a screeching large rooster which was sewn by golden strings. This large rooster opened its wings, looking very awe-inspiring.


    As a matter of fact, this person was also awe-inspiring. His body was tightly wrapped around in the cloak. Even his face was covered by a green-bronze mask, leaving his face hidden from others.


    With his left hand lifting high up, he held onto the Family Head of Wen Family, Wen Huayang. He lifted him in the mid-air, with both legs leaving the floor. Wen Huayang had no strength to resist at all.


    It was because they saw this kind of weird situation, which the people who rushed into the backyard did not dare to act rashly. They were afraid that if they spoke another sentence, it would harm their head''s life.


    Hence, the servants, defenders, and even the experts nurtured by the Wen Family were all carrying their weapons standing in the backyard. They surrounded the three of them, yet not daring to move an inch forward.


    "May I know who you are, why are you pitting yourself against the Wen Family!"


    After a moment, Wen Huayang''s eldest son, who was the First Young Master of the Wen Family, Wen Zhan, held a huge saber. The tip of the saber pointed at that mysterious figure, and he angrily asked.


    "Hand over the Tianluo Dark Gold, and I''ll release him!"


    The mysterious person used a hoarse voice, and said to Xu Yong who seemed like falling down, "You are aware of my strength. None of you could ever dream of stopping me!"


    "Cough, cough! Xu Yong wanted to speak, but those words were stopped at his throat. He violently coughed and coughed out a piece of blood. He then spoke, "The thing belongs to the Wen Family. I''m only here to help and I can''t make the decision. Those that are present here can neither call the shots. The only one who can make that decision is the Wen Huayang that you are grabbing in your hand!"


    When the black-cloaked man heard it, he seemed to be moved by Xu Yong''s words. He turned his head and looked at the Wen Huayang whom he was holding in his hands. The face behind the mask revealed a strand of smile, "What you said makes sense. If so, I''ll let go of him!"


    In between speaking, his hand released, and really threw Wen Huayang down on the floor. Almost at the same time, his body shook, and in a blink reached the front of Wen Zhan. He extended his hand, did the same as before, and carried Wen Zhan off the ground.


    "Hey, take this hammer of mine!" Xu Yong saw the black-cloaked man''s movement, and the big hammer in his hand started waving. Using his mighty power, he hammered it towards his body!


    That hammer of his was not like the small hammers of Junior Leopard. It originally weighed more than 50 kilograms. The force that he exerted was more than 500 kilograms, and its target was the back of the black-cloaked person.


    "Hmph!" That person''s stance didn''t change. His left hand grabbed Wen Zhan. Wen Zhan was after all a Level Three expert. Under his grab, he didn''t have an ounce of resistance at all. In a moment his neck was grabbed, just like grabbing a small chicken. At the same time, his right hand moved and gently flicked against the hammer that Xu Yong hammered over.


    "Ding------!"


    The finger flicked out collided with Xu Yong''s big hammer, producing a clear crisp sound of the collision.


    With Junior Leopard''s eyesight, he could clearly see it. When it collided with the metal hammer, his finger flashed a streak of light.


    That person''s fingers moved, following that it shrank back slightly. Xu Yong, on the other hand, was flew out as if he suffered a huge blow. The hammer in his hand was also out of control, falling on the ground. He twitched twice on the floor, and silently not moving.


    "Teacher!" Junior Leopard saw Xu Yong being struck, his heart moved, and his body jumped out from the crowd. He waved the twin hammers in his hands and rushed towards the black-cloaked man.


    This time around, the black-cloaked man didn''t even turn his head and didn''t even look at Junior Leopard. He wilfully let Junior Leopard throw his twin hammers towards his back.


    Junior Leopard saw that he didn''t evade nor dodge, and knew in his heart this was bad. However, now he had no way to back down. His body maintained a forward posture, with the hammer in his hand smashing at the black-cloaked man.


    "Poof!"


    Carried with Junior Leopard''s whole strength, the hammer stood still when it was half a foot from the black-cloaked man''s back. Junior Leopard felt that his hammer smashed into an extremely soft wall of Qi. However, this was in his thoughts.


    "Not good!" This thought just flashed, and then a wave of trembling transmitted from the twin hammers. This trembling was extremely weak, but its frequency was extremely high. Junior Leopard only felt that both of his hands numbed, and the strength in his hands completely disappeared. The twin hammers fell on the ground, yet that soft and thin trembling didn''t stop. It followed the hammers and went straight into Junior Leopard''s hands.


    "Gang Qi. It''s bad!"


    For an instant, Junior Leopard felt that the weak and soft trembling began to destroy the internal structure within both of his hands. Even though there seemed to be no change on the outside, but beneath the skin and flesh, his tendons and vessels, as well as his cells seemed to be destroyed till it couldn''t be recognized in an instant. At the same time, his heart started beating ferociously, as if it was going to jump out of his chest. A wave of warm blood rushed out from his heart vessels, transmitting to his whole body. His face was also flushed red. Based on this speed, before he could land on the ground, his body would be completely destroyed by this strange trembling, leaving only a layer of outer flesh.


    "What vicious Gang Qi!"


    Junior Leopard''s heart silently scolded. He suppressed the beating of his heart and did a flip in mid-air. His shoulders lightly brushed and then began to extend out, just like a pile of cotton. When shrinking and releasing, he was trying to force out the strange force within his body.


    "Hum!"


    With his body''s shrinking and releasing, a strange hooting sound emitted from his surroundings, as if there was someone playing the strings and producing the sounds like bees.


    "Grug!"


    When he fell on the ground, his body was just expanding. This time, he no longer had the strength to resist. He only felt his body trembled. "Wah" a mouthful of blood spat out.


    "Aye?!"

 Chapter 81: Returning in Defeat

    Chapter 81: Returning in Defeat


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Seeing Junior Leopard falling to the ground and puking blood made the black-cloaked figure make a soft sound. The face underneath the mask slightly revealed a surprised expression.


    "Stop!"


    Wen Huayang''s voice sounded like that he seemed extremely tired.


    From the moment Xu Yong suddenly rushed forwards till Junior Leopard was sent flying, it was just a matter that took the time of two breaths.


    Most of the present Wen manor''s disciples, servants and defenders didn''t make it clear of the events. They only saw Young Master Wen Zhan being lifted off the ground by the black-cloaked man, and the Xu Yong teacher-disciple duo being sent flying. Then their Family Head Wen Huayang stood up feebly.


    "Stop, I''ll give you the Tianluo Dark Gold!"


    Wen Huayang''s face was extremely pale, and both of his eyes had no spirit within. When he spoke these words, it was as if he had used his last ounce of strength. His whole spirit seemed to have relaxed. He slowly entered the house behind him, and after a while, he carried a black box and walked out.


    "This is the Tianluo Dark Gold!"


    Wen Huayang said as he opened the box cover, revealing inside a piece of faint yellowish gold block.


    The black-cloaked man didn''t say anything and he just raised his free right hand to contain the box. His gaze swept into the box with one look, and he nodded, "You are smart enough!"


    He used a hoarse voice and said. His hands relaxed and he threw Wen Zhan down on the floor as if he was throwing a worn out sack. He then covered the box and swept his gaze through the surroundings.


    All those who received his gaze all cowardly turned away. No one dared to meet him face to face.


    "Hmph, What a bunch of cowards!" He then coldly laughed and kept the box within his spacious sleeve. His body flashed as a streak of black light, disappearing from the scene.


    A moment of silence followed.


    In the backyard, no one made a sound, as if someone had paused them.


    After a few breaths, "Boom" a sound occurred. The backyard once again descended into a scene of chaos.


    "Old Master, Old Master, are you alright...!"


    "First Young Master, wake up! Be quick! Someone bring some water!"


    ...


    ........


    It was a scene of utter chaos!


    "F*ck, next time I won''t act like a hero anymore!"


    This was the last thought Junior Leopard had before descending into unconsciousness.


    Of course, the behavior of him acting like a hero today did not go without the thought of repercussion. It was not barbaric. When the black-cloaked man''s finger touched Xu Yong''s metal hammer, even though Xu Yong was sent flying, Junior Leopard similarly saw clearly that the black-cloaked man''s finger retracted. Though it was only a light retraction, at that moment, Junior Leopard could conclude that his internal breathing was disturbed. Junior Leopard wanted to take this moment to attack and gain some advantage.


    Who would''ve thought that, this moment was not long enough to bring him an advantage, but instead led to his downfall.


    That black-cloaked man actually successfully practiced Gang Qi, possessing the strength of a man at Level Seven.


    An expert at Level Seven?!


    If he should have known earlier that the man''s strength had reached this standard, he wouldn''t get into this matter for anything. This time, if he did not manage to use the resistance of Taiji in time to force out the Gang Qi''s power, now, he would have been good as dead.


    Similarly, Wen Huayang also saw that the opponent''s strength had reached at least Level Seven, thus, he simply handed the box over to him.


    A Level Seven expert alone could dominate the whole Wen Family, and even the entire Ningzhou City.


    A Level Seven expert who possessed Gang Qi would neither be afraid of surrounding attacks nor exhaustion, let alone be blocked. In a situation where there were no experts of a similar level, when faced with pugilists, a Level Seven expert basically could kill people that were below Level Seven in seconds, which led him to fear no one.


    Only when the strength had reached Level Seven, then one would have the qualification to be called an expert!


    The difference in the realm between Level Seven and Level Six was even greater and more unimaginable than that of in realm between Level Three and Level Four.


    "Physician, is he okay?!"


    In the room of the Wen Family, Xu Yong was lying on the bed with an ashen face. Junior Leopard, whose breathing was irregular, was anxiously looking at the physician who was checking the pulse, and asked.


    "His internal organs, as well as his tendons, and blood vessels suffered some damage. He needs to rest for a good while. Fortunately, he has a strong body and a good foundation, so it isn''t that serious. He just needs to rest for some time, and in two to three months, he can return back to normal!"


    "Thank you so much!"


    Xu Yong''s eyebrows relaxed. His gaze turned to the Junior Leopard who was in a daze, revealing a strand of admiration on his face.


    Today, the reason Junior Leopard would rush out was the black-cloaked man sent him flying. Junior Leopard was anxious and wanted to save his teacher. This comforted him. He could see that, though this little guy was somewhat rough around the edges, however, he deeply respected his teacher. He would not have attacked such a skilled opponent otherwise.


    Even though his reckless behavior was infuriating, however, when he thought of the intentions behind his actions, Xu Yong''s heart felt warm.


    This kind of disciple was worth keeping!


    At the same time, his heart was relieved, "Fortunately only the internal organs suffered damage, if his foundation was hurt, that would not be good!"


    Junior Leopard''s savey was good as well as his aptitude, and he was sensible. Adding to the loyalty that he displayed today, he became a very suitable successor. If this matter hurt Junior Leopard''s foundation that would make him be regretful beyond redemption.


    Such an outstanding disciple only came once in a lifetime.


    "Wooden Xu, this time, I, Wen Huayang has implicated you!"


    Seeing Xu Yong''s face of bitterness and relief, Wen Huayang also heaved a sigh of relief. If Xu Yong and his disciple really met with some sort of unfortunate ending in his Wen Family, he wouldn''t have any face to meet people in the future.


    "What are you saying!"


    Seeing that Junior Leopard was fine, Xu Yong''s mood also gradually lightened up. "We don''t need to talk about this. By the way, how are you holding up? Has the damaged slowed you down any?!"


    "What problem could I have?" Wen Huayang smiled bitterly. "His intention was the Tianluo Dark Gold, not killing people. Who knew where he came from? He was an actual Level Seven expert. Could it be that experts now are worthless? Even a place like Ningzhou City would have one appearing!"


    Ningzhou was only a moderately-sized city. To find an expert who had reached Level Five here would require an entire lifetime''s luck. A Level Seven Tendon-Changing Realm expert was used to dominate an area by the well-known family and clan like Wu''s, just like the First Elder Lu Yiyue!


    To illy speak, an expert at the Tendon-Changing Realm was equivalent to the existence of a nuclear weapon in the entire pugilist world, which was used for maintaining equilibrium. There wouldn''t be a Level Seven expert like the one last night, rushing into people''s house to rob. This was something that was unbelievable.


    However, in this pugilist world, what one scared most was this kind of expert that was not afraid to stoop to lowly things, just like the Xue Wuya from a few years ago.


    Someone like this would be free to do anything as they please, unless someone of equal strength and merit would oppose them.


    Even if big clan that dominated Ningzhou City like the Wen Family used up all of their clan''s strength, they wouldn''t be able to resist. Hence, when Wen Huayang realized that the opponent was a Level Seven expert, he immediately gave up.


    This was the only wise decision he could make.


    In this world, though there were forces that could act as restrictions against a Tendon-Changing Realm expert, upon some kind of meaning, this kind of restriction could be extremely powerful. However, small dins like this could not be considered as offending some kind of taboo. Don''t mention that the opponent didn''t kill anyone. Even if the opponent killed the whole Wen Family till the blood flowed like a river, there wouldn''t be anyone stood up for the Wen Family.


    This time around, visiting a friend was only one of the unimportant reasons that Xu Yong came to Ningzhou City. The most important reason was Wen Huayang''s Tianluo Dark Gold.


    The Tianluo Dark Gold could be ranked amongst the world''s Mysterious Objects. It had miraculous directing effects on internal breathing. It was extremely compatible material for creating divine weapons and sharp crafts. As long as a little of it was added onto a normal weapon, whether its toughness degree or the sharpness degree would increase exponentially. Of course, this was just one of its functions.


    The reason why it could be called a Mysterious Object was that the Tianluo Dark Gold could store and change Evil Qi, and it was a material for refining Celestial Treasures.


    In this world, the so-called Celestial Treasure was the combination of Mysterious Object and Special Techniques.


    Making use of Evil Qi to refine certain Mysterious Object and letting it possess various forms of miraculous functions that was the Celestial Treasure.


    Celestial Treasures were divided into two kinds: Wizard Weapons and Celestial Devices.


    Wizard Weapon, as the name suggested, was a kind of weapon that contained mysterious power. Like swords, sabers etc, apart from the normal function of a weapon, these Wizard Weapons carried an additional mysterious power. This power was formed basically by making use of Special Techniques to refine the Evil Qi into the weapons.


    As for Celestial Devices, it was similar to what Junior Leopard saw in wuxia novels, the same as Celestial Treasures, with different functions.


    It was because Mysterious Objects were hard to come by, Evil Qi was difficult to seek, and Special Techniques were hard to cultivate that this world''s Celestial Treasures were extremely few.


    And Tianluo Dark Gold was one of the best materials to create Wizard Weapons.


    The Wen Family obtained the Tianluo Dark Gold and wanted to make use of the opportunity to refine a Wizard Weapon. However, the Tianluo Dark Gold was a Mysterious Object in its original form; as a result, it was extremely hard to refine it. Hence, Wen Huayang thought of his good friend Xu Yong, asked him over to melt this Tianluo Dark Gold first, and forge the embryonic form of the Wizard Weapon. No one would expect that the news got leaked. Before Xu Yong could do anything, the robber came already as the two of them were discussing what weapon would they refine from the Tianluo Dark Gold.


    Junior Leopard stayed and recuperated in the Wen Family for ten whole days until his pneuma gradually went away.


    In this ten days, ginseng, velvet, lingzhi, yellow essence and all sorts of precious tonics and supplements were sent into Junior Leopard''s room as if they didn''t cost much.


    It made even Junior Leopard, who was a cheeky person, embarrassed.


    After another few days, Junior Leopard''s pneuma was recovered more or less. Xu Yong then bade farewell, bringing along Junior Leopard. Even though Wen Huayang tried to keep him, however, Xu Yong''s heart was set on leaving. Junior Leopard also didn''t want to stay and enjoy an Old Master sort of treatment. Hence, Wen Huayang didn''t manage to keep them.


    Compared to traveling to Ningzhou City from Qinlingjun City, the road back was much more boring. At least they didn''t meet up with the incident of the Governor''s Miss. When they passed by Baiyun Town, they did hear that the Tsing Lung Sect was already gone case.


    "They were unlucky. Who would have thought that in a small town like Baiyun Town, the Governor''s Big Miss would actually appear?" Hearing this piece of news, Xu Yong plainly said. He earnestly spoke to Junior Leopard, "When roaming in the Jianghu, what one afraid most is bad luck. Once your luck is bad, no matter how high your martial skills are, you won''t have any good ending. Just like us, when we reached Baiyun Town, we stained back luck. Hence, when we reached Ningzhou City, we were not stable. Things couldn''t be done and we even almost lost our lives there. Hence, in the future, when you roam in the Jianghu, the moment you discover that something is not right, you should hurry to find a spot to hide. Don''t bother about anything, lest you''ll lose your life for no reason!"


    "Just like Xue Wuya!" Junior Leopard added one more sentence to his heart. When he thought of Xue Wuya''s mishap, he thought Xu Yong''s words were more reasonable.


    That Xue Wuya was a Level Eight expert, just because of his bad luck, he met Lu Shaoyou, and his luck continued to be worse. In the end, he got finished off by a Level One rookie like him.


    This was no doubt the saddest thing in the world!

 Chapter 82: Gossiping About the Future

    Chapter 82: Gossiping About the Future


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Truth to be told, luck was a kind of unseen and untouchable thing. Even if one really met with something unfortunate, often it would be after suffering a lot then one would notice. Hence, in the end, the conclusion that Xu Yong came up with was that, when one was in the Jianghu, one must be careful. To be extra careful at all times. Another thing was not to treat oneself as someone very important and one shouldn''t think that one could be something just because one knew a bit of martial arts with a decent background.


    There was always a person above another or a mountain higher than another. This world was too big; there was no one who could truly walk around without fear.


    "Teacher, do you know how to refine and smelt a magic weapon?!"


    Riding on the horse, Junior Leopard asked. He knew the real reason that Xu Yong came to Ningzhou City and he became curious. This teacher of his was indeed a master in smelting. However, this refinement of magic weapon was a completely different matter from smelting.


    "I only know some method to forge a wizard weapon!" Xu Yong said. "There are many methods to forge a wizard weapon. I only know this kind which was passed down from the Wu''s. It could be considered as a method however it was not the best. If there were suitable materials and Evil Qi, combining with this method, a decent wizard weapon could be forged. However, materials were hard to seek, so was Evil Qi. I only know the method but I don''t have the chance to smelt it. Originally I thought that this time I would be able to fulfill my wish. Who would''ve thought that?"


    Speaking till here, Xu Yong stopped, revealing a bitter smile.


    "Teacher, you don''t need to be discouraged. There will be chances!" Junior Leopard comforted. As for whether there would be other chances, only God knew.


    Xu Yong obviously knew that Junior Leopard was comforting him and didn''t want to get entangled in the topic. "Okay, let''s not talk so much about it. Let''s return to the Wu Family first. Your body hasn''t completely healed and you need a certain period of time to rest!" Speaking of which, he seemed to have thought of something and suddenly asked, "Junior Leopard, what plans do you have when you return to your home?!"


    Plans?!


    Junior Leopard was stunned by the question. He didn''t quite understand what he was saying.


    "Now you can be considered to be a little wealthy. Even though it can''t be considered having lots of riches, but you can buy some property within Qinlingjun City!" Xu Yong plainly said.


    After hearing his saying, Junior Leopard instantly understood.


    This time, Xu Yong didn''t gain any benefit but Junior Leopard''s rewards were not small.


    Since he was hurt in the Wen Family when he was staying there, Wen Huayang felt very sorry about it. Therefore, when he recuperated in the Wen Family, not only did he receive large amounts of medicinal herbs to heal his injuries, but also given a bank note of 50,000 taels of silver before he left.


    Junior Leopard originally didn''t dare to accept it but Xu Yong would make the decision for him and accept it.


    Even though he had doubts that couldn''t be resolved in his heart, it wasn''t appropriate to ask so much either. Now that Xu Yong suddenly asked with such a question, Junior Leopard didn''t know how to answer.


    Looking at Junior Leopard, Xu Yong smiled. "Junior Leopard, you are already 12 years old. Even though that is not considered very old, you need to make your own decisions. 50,000 taels are not much; however it is enough to set up a business in Qinlingjun City!"


    Business?


    Junior Leopard had never thought about these things.


    In his past life, he was born and raised under the red flag. He was also a civil servant. The so-called business was only a block of a house and a car only. After entering into this world, he was born in the village, only hoping that his stomach could be filled in those few years. Later he learned martial arts and in his heart, he only thought about practicing the martial arts well. As for building his own business, it seemed to be a very far away phrase.


    "You may be the Wu''s Inner Core disciple. However, you will only get a monthly stipend. You will have to wait until when before you can marry a wife? Even if you take over the family''s missions, with your age, it is not possible to gain any mission with large remuneration. Why not just set up a business outside, in the future, there will be a retreat route as well!"


    "This¡­!"


    Junior Leopard looked at Xu Yong with a wooden expression. He really didn''t know how to respond to that. In the legend of Jianghu, didn''t a man lead a wandering life, only living for gratitude or revenge?


    How could he start to think of setting up a family business and leading his small own life just after obtaining 50,000 taels of little money?


    Seeing Junior Leopard''s confused expression, Xu Yong suddenly laughed. He pointed at Junior Leopard, half laughing and half scoldingly said, "Young boy, did you read too many books in the tea houses and lost your direction? Do you really think that those who come to the martial arts world and be in Jianghu would just be like what was said in the books, running through the whole world day and night and eating meat in large chunks and drinking wine in large gulps?"


    Junior Leopard became somewhat embarrassed as he listened to what his master said.


    "This world is just like a big sea of suffering. People like us are always stranded in this sea. The differences are that some people are on the boat while the others are floating in the sea. The boat is like power. As there are big powers and small powers, there are naturally big boats and small boats. Just like the Jin Royalty now, it is the biggest boat in the sea but there are still Tian Long Taoism, Mingyi School and those millennium families etc which are all smaller but still big boats. The Wu''s is also a boat where we are on board. Although we temporarily get away from this sea of suffering, what if it sinks one day, or in other ways, you need to leave this big boat and do your own things?" At that moment, you will need a place to settle yourself down. If not, you will be just like those who are in the Jianghu, flowing with the tide, following where there is peace, which is not good and the risks are too big. Unless, your strength could reach the level of that black-cloak, the level of the Tendon-Changing Realm. Reaching that level, let''s not talk about escaping the sea of suffering; at least you can swim freely in this sea of suffering. Just in this world, only a few can reach the stage of the Tendon-Changing Realm. So you''d better listen to me. As you are still young, build a boat for yourself with the capital that youth grants you. The boat need not be big, as long as it is sturdy and firm!"


    "I have received your teachings!"


    "Don''t ever talk about receiving whatever teachings. I am your teacher and I should let you know things you ought to know!" Xu Yong smiled and said, "You are my disciple and people like me who have a bit of achievements in the martial arts world will always want to find a suitable successor for themselves to impart their teachings gained through their whole lives to the successor. This is just like people wanting to have a son to continue the inheritance of the family. The purpose is just for the sake of impartation and inheritance only!"


    Speaking of which, he softly sighed, "Junior Leopard, your aptitude is extremely good and your personality is not bad, moreover you are extremely hardworking when practicing. That''s why you have a great progress. However, I would like to ask you a question. Do you really think that you can break through the Bone Forging Realm and step into the Tendon-Changing Realm in this life?"


    "Ah?!" Junior Leopard didn''t know how to reply.


    In his heart, he had never doubted this. What he learned from Xue Wuya was not only benefits, there was also absolute confidence.


    Not to mention that he still had those few pieces of prescription of the elixir. In his opinion, reaching the Tendon-Changing Realm was a matter that was set in stone.


    "Actually I also understand what you are thinking. All the people in the martial arts world at your age also had all sorts of fantasies. In their imaginations, Tendon-Changing Realm was just a springboard. If they are given the chance, they could even cultivate themselves to reach the Mysterious Realm. Hehe, thinking about the past, when I was just about your age, I also thought in that way. However, you may take a look at this world, there are so many men in Jianghu but rarely reached the Tendon-Changing Realm. For most of the men in Jianghu, apart from those with amazing and outstanding talent, their real reason for existing is only to impart!"


    "Impartation?!"


    "Yes, impartation. To reach the Tendon-Changing Realm was really difficult. Regardless, the medicine that was used for the medicated bath while cultivating could not be obtained by ordinary people. Even if in the Wu Family, only those few direct descendants were granted to take the medicated bath to cultivate and strengthen their whole body once in a while. The vital Inner Core disciples like you can only get the amount of herb water when there is a chance. However, the herb water wouldn''t work if it''s only used for once or twice since it required persistence. Hence, if there''s no special chance, among the batch of core disciples, only Second Young Master can reach the Tendon-Changing Realm!"


    Second Young Master!


    Junior Leopard thought that handsome and slightly skinny figure, the young man who was accepted by Wang She.


    "Hence, I won''t require much from you. As long as you can break through and reach the Bone-Forging Realm to obtain an Elder position, the vein of mine will not break in the Wu''s. That is enough!"


    Junior Leopard was speechless. After a second thought, he seemed to understand the possibility. There are thousands of people in Jianghu. How was it possible for everyone to reach the Tendon-Changing Realm?


    Look at big influences like the Wu Family, there was only one Elder who reached Tendon-Changing Realm. One could become an Elder after cultivating oneself to reach the Bone-Forging Realm, which revealed how difficult it was to reach the Tendon-Changing Realm.


    Of course, Xu Yong didn''t know Junior Leopard''s experience before. He didn''t even know that he possessed a few eccentric prescription of the elixir. Otherwise, he definitely wouldn''t say it this way.


    Junior Leopard surely wouldn''t tell him about the prescription of the elixir.


    "Teacher, what about the External Elixir. If one can cultivate the External Elixir, the Internal Qi''s cultivation could also increase even if the body did not meet the requirement of the Tendon-Changing Realm?!"


    "External Elixir?!" Xu Yong said to Junior Leopard with an eccentric look, "Kid, don''t tell me you are planning on the First Elder''s Fiery Eye. You have to understand that it is harder to find the materials used to refine an External Elixir than the medicinal herbs used for washing the body. Besides, even if you have the right materials, it would be a waste without proper refinement methods. External Elixir is not like the human body. Refining the External Elixir requires a special cultivating method. This kind of method doesn''t exist even in the Wu''s. It only exists in the prestigious sects and schools like Tian Long Taoism. Hence, you''d better not to plan on that!"


    "I am only asking, only asking!" Junior Leopard answered awkwardly but he started planning actually.


    The Wu Family did not have it. That was fine. Tian Long Taoism had it.


    Anyway now he had something to do with Tian Long Taoism. Not mentioning Wang She, there was another Leader Lei Xu. He seemed to have sufficient reason to go to Tian Long Taoism to look for him.


    Similarly, this kind of thinking could only be buried deep in his heart. What was involved with Ma Linglong and Lei Xu were beyond his imagination? Hence, whether or not to go to Tian Long Taoism and send a message to Ma Linglong wasn''t a decision that he could make.


    A few days later, they returned to the headquarters of the Wu''s in Qinlingjun City. Upon entering the house, Xu Yong got carried away by the Family Head and a few elders to discuss matters. As for Junior Leopard, he returned to that small courtyard and began ruminating on whatever Xu Yong had spoken to him during the trip.


    "What my teacher said really makes sense. This is not like reading a novel. This is the real world. No matter who, to live a better life in this world, one will need money. Old Wen is a generous person. I suffered a bit of injury in his house, and he gave me 50,000 taels. Although he is generous, the 50,000 taels could be considered as nothing in families like that. The Wen Family is only a small clan reigning supreme in Ningzhou City. Then, what kind of power do those big families have?!"


    "As the old saying goes, looking at the leopard through a tube could barely see the spots. The current me couldn''t even see one spot clearly!"

 Chapter 83: Bottleneck in Cultivation & Punching Spirits Divine Thoughts

    Chapter 83: Bottleneck in Cultivation & Punching Spirit''s Divine Thoughts


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    He had already been back from Ningzhou City for half a year.


    Within the half a year, he used the money that Wen Huayang gave him to purchase a small courtyard in Qinlingjun City, as instructed by his teacher Xu Yong.


    This world was very realistic. Like him, now he was the Wu''s inner core disciple and had a certain position within the Wu''s. As compared to those inner core disciples, or the outer core discipless, it was much better. However, this also could be compared the other way.


    Every month the monthly stipend was only a few money. It was enough for a small kid like him. However, as he grew older he would need more.


    There were many missions for the disciples to execute. On one hand, it could train them. On the other hand, it could enable them to earn more money. However, in the final analysis, it was working for someone else. As for the normal inner core disciples, it could be so. However, for vital inner core disciples like him, the road seemed to be a bit narrow.


    Furthermore, there were many inner core disciples from rich families. Outside of the Wu Family, they had a lot of estates.


    If he didn''t make preparations for himself, he would just be an Elder like Xu Yong in the future. He would just be a very good thug merely. Who knew in the future if there was a life and death battle, he would even be thrown out as cannon fodder. That was not the ending that he wanted.


    Although he did not want to be rich, nor did he wish for the power to rule the world.


    However, at least he must live safe and have a comfortable life. In this case, he needed his own estates.


    As for this point, the Wu Family didn''t reject it. In fact, they were happy to see that their own family members having a new influence emerge.


    With every additional strength, the Wu''s strength would also correspondingly increase.


    Just like the Tian Long Taoism, for the Wu Family which was born from the Tian Long Taoism''s power, they would naturally support it without reserve. Because when the Wu Family became stronger, it was equivalent to the Tian Long Taoism becoming stronger. The same for the Wu Family, under the power of it, there existed many smaller well-known families and influences. When they strengthened, so did the Wu Family.


    As for those small influences underneath the big influences expanding, becoming stronger, would they betray the main family? That didn''t need to be worried about.


    Easier said than done!


    Building an influence from the beginning to prosperity usually needed an accumulation of work from a few generations. Just like the Wu Family, after developing for 500-600 years, it still had developed until this stage with the helping of Tian Long Taoism. Junior Leopard was a bumpkin coming from a mountain village, serving under the Wu''s. How could he build an influence that would threaten the Wu''s?


    Furthermore, Junior Leopard was not building an influence. He was only buying a few estates, merely leaving a backup plan. That was natural for humans to do so.


    As such, Junior Leopard bought a courtyard, and settled down here. After buying this small courtyard, he only lived here for a few days sometimes. Most of the time, he still practiced the martial arts skills in the Wu Family, and listened to Xu Yong''s guidance.


    After all he was still the Wu''s core disciple who hadn''t finished his apprenticeship.


    These few days, Xu Yong once again began to forge weapons, staying within the Wu''s smelting chamber all the time. Junior Leopard had nothing to do here. Therefore, he came to the courtyard which he arranged for himself and stayed for a few days.


    This courtyard, apart from him, there was only an old servant, Old Cang.


    This courtyard which he bought in Qinlingjun City was considered slightly far from the city center. Originally, it belonged to a merchant. But the merchant was losing money. He could only sell his property to pay off the debts. Junior Leopard saw that it was peaceful here, so he decided to buy this place.


    Old Cang was originally that merchant''s servant. Without son and daughter, after this merchant sold the courtyard, he had nowhere to go. Junior Leopard saw that he was old and familiar with the surroundings, so he kept him to take care of the courtyard in his stead. The few times that Junior Leopard came here, he found that this courtyard was cleaned. Even though the servant was old, he had nimble hands. The dishes he cooked were good. Hence, Junior Leopard was extremely satisfied.


    ...


    ...


    One punch, one kick


    The figure moved slowly and silently in a small room, making no sound.


    His fists were tightly clenched from the beginning until the end. There were moments it was raised, and moments it was down. Sometimes it moved forward, and sometimes it retreated.


    Every fist would leave a semi-circle route in the air, floating, seemingly far. It was as steady as a mountain, as quiet as an abyss!


    Every time the ground beneath his feet would follow his stamp, as if there was an earthquake.


    Every movement was so clear and perfect!


    Following the display of his fist trend, a kind of quaint, desolate fist intent followed his movement and permeated through the small room.


    It was merely the fist intent.


    His movements did not even stir up the air.


    This was the result of incorporating the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill into the punching skill. Not only the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, the Extraordinary Strength Fist, the Taiji Punching Skill, the Wild Hammering Skill were also slowly merged into this Thirteen Punches of Desolation. That was what made this fist intent.


    The Thirteen Punches of Desolation was profound and mysterious. It was a set of punching skill passed down from the antiquity times. Naturally, it was not something that a rookie like Junior Leopard could use freely as he wanted. However, during the process of training the fist, Junior Leopard also had some revelations of his own. Especially when he realized that within the Thirteen Punches of Desolation, the way of using strength and its Punching technique were similar to the Taiji Fist. He then tried to incorporate some of the fist intent within Taiji Fist into it. He accidentally discovered that this had tremendous benefits towards his cultivation of the Thirteen Punches of Desolation. Junior Leopard couldn''t understand some hard punching techniques of the Thirteen Punches of Desolation. However, when he compared the punching techniques and Tai-Chi Quan, he understood those hard parts.


    Of course, those were the parts the two sets of punching skills had in common. The Taiji Fist was profound and mysterious, and so was the Thirteen Punches of Desolation. Two of them shone on each other. The progress would of course be fast. However, to really merge the them into one, that was definitely impossible.


    Even though that was the case, now Junior Leopard''s punching skill had a big increment. His understanding towards the Thirteen Punches of Desolation was no longer beneath Xu Yong.


    "Well, I said it. This guy really has potential!"


    Junior Leopard was practicing within the room and had no idea that every movement within the room was seen by others.


    "Is he the interesting fella you talked about?"


    Outside the window, two men dressed in black cloaks were standing on a big tree in the courtyard and their bodies melded with the darkness. One of them was actually the mysterious black-cloaked man who snatched the Tianluo Dark Gold from the Wen Family in Ningzhou City and injured Junior Leopard. The other man was dressed as he was. The only difference was the pattern embroidered on the back of their black cloaks. The man who appeared in Ningzhou City had a soaring big rooster pattern in his cloak; the pattern on the other man''s cloak was a python whose head was held high. Their gazes shot through the window, and closely followed Junior Leopard who was practicing his fist in the room.


    "Half a year ago, I met this kid in the Wen Family. He tried to sneak attack me, and was thrown off by my Gang Qi!"


    "Oh?" The other black-cloaked man''s gaze flashed slightly, "Be thrown off by your Gang Qi, you reserved your strength?"


    "No, he dispelled the strength of my Gang Qi which scared me on the spot!"


    "He was able to dispel the strength of your Gang Qi?" The man who had a python pattern on his back was very shocked, "You''re not joking, are you?"


    "You look at me, do I look like I''m joking?" The black-cloaked man who had a rooster pattern on his back said, "Look at his punching skills. Even though it was slightly immature, however, it already has contained punching essence. In time to come, if he realizes the fist intent and divine thoughts, it''s not hard to reach the Advanced Level!"


    "It''s a pity that he is just a Wu''s disciple. To reach the Tendon-Changing Realm will be extremely difficult!" The man who had a python pattern on his back laughed, "Even if he could realize the fist intent and divine thoughts, it would be for naught!"


    "What difficulty is there, as long as you and I..."


    "Don''t get me involved.


    It''s none of my business. This boy is indeed not bad, but he was too young. Even if we agree, the higher-up won''t agree. Let''s put the matter aside for the time being, okay?"


    "Well, I just worried that a long delay may cause trouble" The black-cloaked man fell into deep thought for a while, and nodded.


    "A long delay may cause trouble? There''s nothing to worry about!" The young man who had a python pattern on his back said, "he''s a Wu''s disciple now, Elder''s disciple. For the time being, no one will notice him. Golden Rooster, now it''s troubled times. It''s better to save trouble. Besides, it''s not the time to recruit followers. Wait till all is calm, and if the boy displays any more special abilities, then, it won''t be too late to find him!"


    "Yeah, that''s all we can do now!" The black-cloaked man nodded, "Snake Head, do you have confidence in that matter!"


    "There is no whether there is confidence or not, but only doing my duty to my best of ability. What we can only add fuel to the fire. Success is good. Even if we fail, it''s just an additional experience and lesson. There won''t be too much loss. Let''s go, we still have things to do. It''s a waste of time to take me here to see a boy!"


    "It''s a waste of time? Is it not good to show you a young genius"


    "It''s not up to you. It takes time to test!"


    "..."


    In the night sky, two shadows went further and further, disappearing into the black scenery.


    "Hu!"


    Within the room, Junior Leopard breathed a sigh of relief. After he breathe out the last bit of turbid air from within his body and withdrew his fists, his face revealed a suspicious expression.


    "Hum, not bad, lately my punching skills improved very quickly, but why did I always feel that there''s a little bit stagnant? Now that my punching skills are natural and smooth, there shouldn''t be any stagnant? It''s weird. Is this the legendary practice bottleneck? No, I have never heard of a Level Two cultivation meeting the bottleneck. My inside breath has been expanding, and my physical strength can bear the Internal Qi of Level Three. There shouldn''t be any problems!"


    Junior Leopard sat back on his bed and quietly began to ruminate.


    What he didn''t know was that he merged the Taiji Fist and Thirteen Punches of Desolation together to practice. Its effects were far more obvious than what he originally thought. As for now, he could already push his punching skills into a higher state. Only one step, he could realize his own fist intent and divine thoughts. However, his cultivation was too low, only at Level Two.


    It had to be known that most practicers could realize the mysterious workings of divine thoughts when they were at Level Six and were going to break through to Level Seven. Hence, when he was practicing his punches, he felt a feeling of stagnation.

 Chapter 84: First Task

    Chapter 84: First Task


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Time slipped by swiftly as usual.


    Another half a year flowed away just like water.


    Junior Leopard had gradually established a foothold among the important inner core disciples of the Wu Family.


    In fact, after defeating Shi Jing in one movement last time, he had established his reputation, though at the same time he made Shi Jing his enemy.


    But he wasn''t afraid, as his cultivation had already reached Level Two a year ago, ranking top among those important inner core disciples.


    Among the whole Wu Family, only 17 people reached the Bone-Forging Realm and they were all Elders. Others were all below Level Four.


    Besides the First Elder Lyu Yiyue and Xu Yong, only three or four of the Elders took disciples. Together with some immediate relatives of these Elders, the total number of important inner core disciples was only a dozen. Only four or five of them were of the same age as Junior Leopard.


    And only one of them was Junior Leopard''s enemy, and that was Shi Jing. Even so, he couldn''t deny that Shi Jing had great talent in cultivation, as he had broken through Level One and entered Level Two.


    Shi Jing had quite a good cultivation base. It was precisely because of such cultivation aptitude and savvy that Lyu Yiyue tolerated him.


    After the lesson of the Fiery Eyes and Junior Leopard, Shi Jing backed down a little and he got along quite well with other disciples, except for Junior Leopard and his senior.


    More than that, with generous character and high status, he got acquainted with a group of inner core disciples who would follow his lead. The shadow left by Junior Leopard faded as time went by, and he became haughty again.


    As for Junior Leopard!


    He was a quite mysterious person in the eyes of other inner core disciples, just like his master Xu Yong. Though seldom be seen in public, he was gentle and nice to all the inner core disciples. He had reached Level Two and stood out among all the inner core disciples. But that was all.


    No one knew his real strength.


    ...


    ...


    "You summoned me, teacher?"


    It was a sunny day. Junior Leopard was practicing when he was called into the house by Xu Yong.


    "You''ve been here for two years, right?" Xu Yong asked thoughtfully, stroking the short beard on his chin.


    "Yeah. Already more than two years," Junior Leopard answered.


    "Yeah. You were still a child when you came here more than two years ago. Now you''ve become a young man and made rapid progress in martial arts cultivation. It seems that I''ve made the right decision!"


    Xu Yong smiled with satisfaction, looking at the young man standing before him.


    In the past two years, with one teaching without reservation and the other learning by heart, Junior Leopard had made rapid progress in martial arts, and also accumulated a deep affection for his master.


    Xu Yong was a low-key, humble, and steady man, having a character to Junior Leopard''s liking. And he spared no efforts in teaching Junior Leopard, for which Junior Leopard was deeply grateful. Junior Leopard knew he must have important things to say by summoning him here, as he was quite familiar with his disposition.


    Not surprisingly, after sighing, Xu Yong raised his head and said, "You''ve been here for two years. That''s not a short time. And you''ve made great progress in martial arts. But you spent the whole two years here and seldom went out, nor engaged in any task, so you lack experience. Now that your cultivation has been consolidated at Level Two, it''s time for you to take on some tasks. What do you think?"


    Junior Leopard understood immediately. He''d been virtually too obsessed with martial arts in the past two years. Others might get bored cultivating in the same way as his. But he had too many secrets and things to study, and also great interest in martial arts, so he nearly forgot that as an important inner core disciple, he had access to many tasks.


    In fact, in Xu Yong''s opinion, he could have finished his apprenticeship long ago with his present cultivation base and his understanding of martial arts. Two years ago, Xu Yong had already taught him all he could, even including his experience of breaking through the Skin-Toughening Realm and entering the Bone-Forging Realm. So it was really all about Little Leopard himself in the rest of the study.


    Teachers open the door and you enter by yourself. Now what Junior Leopard needed was the grinding and toughening of time.


    So Xu Yong had long been waiting for Junior Leopard to come to him, asking for tasks to experience. But Junior Leopard was too emerged into the vast ocean of martial arts to notice his intention. In the end, Xu Yong even doubted that, if not reminded, he might spend his lifetime cultivating martial arts in this yard.


    He had no choice but to summon Junior Leopard and ask him about the tasks.


    The reason why he chose now was that he found a task perfectly suitable to Junior Leopard.


    "A batch of goods of our Wu Family had been robbed at Black Shakou in zhonghe Prefecture several days ago, but the robber was not found yet. Here''s a task of finding out the robber, and your senior brother Jin undertook it. He''s calling up some inner core disciples to come with him. You should go."


    "Yes, teacher!" Junior Leopard nodded, raising no objection.


    "Well then, go find your senior brother Jin. I''ve already talked to him about that. You need to obey his order along the way. He has nearly finished his apprenticeship and he has more social experience than you. Remember to ask questions when you don''t understand, and don''t do anything he doesn''t let you¡ª"


    Xu Yong continued endlessly for a long time, carefully instructing him on matters that needed attention for the time it took several incense sticks to burn. Though bored, Junior Leopard was still deeply moved and dared not to retort, but nod in agreement.


    "By the way, zhonghe Prefecture is not far away from Tian Long Mystic Mountain. If there''s a chance, go there and finish that matter."


    When Junior Leopard was going out, Xu Yong said suddenly, "Go if there''s a chance; drop the matter if not. In any case, keep it secret!"


    "I understand!"


    ...


    ...


    "Senior Jin, are you really taking that Zhou Bao with us?"


    Not far away from the yard where Junior Leopard and Xu Yong lived, there was a larger yard where a group of young men gathered now.


    The leader was 17 or 18 years old and six-feet tall. With a mole the size of sesame between his eyebrows, his narrow eyes gleamed. He had a long face, to be honest, a horse face. Quite a common face. Actually, he could have been easily forgotten and ignored if not for his mole.


    This was Jin Nanqing, who undertook the task of Black Shakou. He was one of the important inner core disciples of the Wu Family and a direct disciple of Elder Hu Yi.


    At that time, he glanced at the asker who was also aged 17 or 18, then laughed and said, "Elder Xu talked to me about this in person, of course I can''t turn him down. Besides, despite his young age, junior brother Zhou learned excellent martial arts from Elder Xu, especially the Thirteen Punches of Desolation. I heard that he mastered it quite well, and his cultivation had reached Level Two. He''s not even weaker than me. It should be a good thing that we go together."


    "But senior brother Jin... "


    "Zhou Zhengming, that''s enough. I know you and Shi Jing are friends, but that''s your own business, not mine. I advise you not to get involved in that. That''s old scores between two core disciples. You''re just a common inner core disciple, just mind your own business!"


    Zhou Zhengming''s face turned white and he swallowed what he wanted to say.


    "OK, everyone, I know what you''re worrying about. You''re worrying that the remuneration will be difficult to distribute after the task once Zhou joins us, right? No need to worry. Elder Xu has already told me that junior brother Zhou would not compete for remuneration with us. He wants experience only."


    Upon hearing this, everyone felt relaxed.


    There were rules about taking on tasks in the Wu Family.


    For example, the remuneration of this task was abundant, almost half the value of the lost goods. But it was also difficult for one person to fulfill it because the scene of the accident was thousands of miles away from Qinlingjun City and the specific details were not clear. In cases like this, a person would take on the task and then call up some inner core disciples as assistants. As for the number of the people involved and the way of distributing remuneration, that needed to be settled beforehand.


    The amount of remuneration was fixed. One more participant meant fewer remuneration for everyone, so it was natural that those inner core disciples were not happy about it.


    They were just unwilling to say that in public, as Junior Leopard was an important inner core disciple.


    Nobody wanted to offend young but promising inner core disciples like Junior Leopard. Only Zhou Zhengming, who got along well with Shi Jing and knew they were incompatible, dared to raise the question. But he also received a retort from Jin Nanqing soon upon finishing the question.


    Now hearing Jin Nanqing say that Junior Leopard won''t compete for the remuneration, they wouldn''t raise any objection anymore. Instead, they began to be curious about Junior Leopard, and were eager to see what thisinner core disciple has got.


    ...


    ...


    The goods were robbed, how embarrassing! Don''t know what they''re thinking. Why not let the escort agency to do the delivering? Now that things turned wrong, they themselves need to be responsible for that. What a group of idiots!


    Back to his room, Junior Leopard stroked his chin, pondering on what Xu Yong said, and his expression turned weird.


    There were also escort agencies in this world. The Wu Family was a huge family monopolizing the iron business and it was always short of labor. Therefore, they would always ask a familiar escort agency to help them with the shipment. Actually, that was what escort agencies did.


    However, this zhonghe Prefecture was quite special. The manager of the Wu Family here also had a family name of Wu and it was a branch of the Wu''s.


    The Wu Family had developed for many years and there were countless main and branch veins. Some had already collapsed, while others were still in power¡ªthe Wu Family in zhonghe Prefecture was one of them.


    The branch vein of the Wu Family in zhonghe Prefecture was virtually one generation older than the main vein. Now the person in charge was Wu Yuntian, whose cultivation had reached the Advanced Level of Level Three, and was said to break through the Bone-Forging Realm soon. He was an arrogant man and had trained quite a large group of followers. Though not competing with the main vein, he had totally controlled the Wu Family in zhonghe Prefecture. That was why he was so flamboyant, and believed that no one dared to offend the Wu Family in the whole zhonghe Prefecture. Therefore, he never employed escort agencies to deliver goods. And nothing bad had happened until this time.

 Chapter 85: Investigation

    Chapter 85: Investigation


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    From a point of value, this batch of goods was not of great value. However, the Wu Family couldn''t lose their face. Hence, they released a mission in the Wu Family. The remuneration alone accounted for 70% of the value of the goods. Adding to the cost of meals and dressing for the disciples carrying out this mission, the Wu''s cost was over the value of this batch of goods.


    "Zhonghe Prefecture? It belongs to Qianzhou. It takes at least 10 days to walk there. Could this be considered as traveling in the world? The feeling is quite refreshing. Even though Jin Nanqing is one of the ugliest amongst the inner core disciples, he definitely is either number one or two in terms of cunningness. I have to be extremely careful on the road not to be betrayed by him!"


    Junior Leopard was thinking in his heart. Jin Nanqing was a character amongst the inner core disciples. He had met him some times. When meeting, both of them were very kind, but nobody knew what he was thinking about.


    ...


    ...


    Wu Yuntian had a bad temper recently.


    No matter who was robbed of a batch of goods, he would be irritable. Furthermore, if this batch of goods contained his secret that couldn''t be spoken of, then that irritableness was tinged with a little fear.


    "Damn it, who the hell did it? You''ve been investigating for so long. Is there any news?"


    Wu Yuntian roared furiously, saliva flying everywhere. The table in front of him had already been smashed to pieces by him. From another perspective, it also revealed his outstanding palm technique.


    "Sorry, I am useless and I deserve to die. Until now there''re still no clues, but there''s one point which has been confirmed!"


    The first one among the five or six the Wu''s disciples who knelt on the ground answered carefully.


    "What have you confirmed?"


    "This has no link with the few heads of Dong Ling. When it happened, they were drinking at Prunus Tower!"


    "I know that, they invited me!" Wu Yuntian roared, "Apart from that, what else have you investigated?"


    "No, no, nothing else."


    The first man kneeling on the ground shook hands and wiped the sweat from his forehead.


    He thought, "Of course I know that you were drinking with them at that time. It''s just that I can''t find out any other information!"


    "Butler, what about reporting to the government?"


    "Clatter!" Wu Yuntian kicked the table that he smashed and made it flying. The splinters of the table flew everywhere, just like raindrops falling on the people kneeling on the ground.


    "Bastard, do you think that the government doesn''t know about this matter? Report it? Don''t tell me that you wish for the whole Zhonghe Prefecture to see me make a fool of myself? Useless things, get out, get out!"


    The few people did not dare to speak anymore, they all scrambled and ran out of the living room and disappeared in seconds.


    "I really raised this group of useless things for nothing. At the critical moment, no one can help me!" Upon seeing those people scrambling to escape, Wu Yuntian was raged. Raising his hand to slap the table, he then realized that the table had been kicked away by him. Thus he could only viciously slap his thigh with a face full of hatred.


    "Butler Wu, Butler Wu!"


    With those few people having left for only a short while, a person outside the door was scrambling and rushing in.


    "What are you panicking for? I am not dead yet!" When Wu Yuntian saw the frantic expression of that person, his face became solemn all of a sudden, and he shouted sternly.


    "No, no, it... it''s..." That person was out of breath. After a long time, he couldn''t manage to speak a single sentence.


    "What is it?"


    "My name is Jin Nanqing. Following the orders of the Family Head, I''ve come here to be assigned by Butler Wu!"


    Before the man answered, there was a clear voice outside. It was Jin Nanqing.


    The moment Wu Yuntian heard this voice, his expression immediately changed. He warmly went up and invited him, "It''s nephew Jin. You''re rare visitor. Why didn''t you tell me about your visit beforehand?"


    "Butler Wu is too courteous. This time I am under the orders of the Family Head to come here to be assigned by you. The situation is serious, if I make any mistakes, please forgive me!"


    Following the words, Jin Nanqing, Junior Leopard and the rest walked in.


    After meeting Wu Yuntian, there was inevitably some chit-chat and introductions made to each other.


    After knowing that Junior Leopard was Xu Yong''s disciple, Wu Yuntian was much more enthusiastic. However, in this enthusiasm, Junior Leopard felt more wary.


    "Hehe, although this is the Wu''s branch, in fact, it has already become Wu Yuntian''s independent kingdom. It seems that Wu Yuntian doesn''t want us to interfere in this matter!"


    During the conversation, Junior Leopard observed the movements and expressions, he saw through the estrangement and wary behind the harmony between Jin Nanqing and Wu Yuntian.


    "Where there are people, there is the Jianghu!"


    Junior Leopard sighed privately. He didn''t care about anything else on the table, only drinking.


    After some rounds of drinking, he felt drunk and was carried back by people.


    The second day when he woke up, it was already late in the morning.


    "Junior brother, you finally woke up. I thought you were going to sleep till afternoon!"


    Seeing that Junior Leopard woke up, Jin Nanqing couldn''t help making fun of him.


    After a month of staying together, he had realized that this junior brother was quite interesting. Or to speak another way, he was quite honest. Just like his teacher, he was an honest man. Along the road, he followed his lead. He did everything he asked and never did anything he forbade. This made Jin Nanqing free from worry. Hence Jin Nanqing wanted to befriend Junior Leopard.


    "Senior brother, I wasn''t embarrassed last night, right?" Junior Leopard anxiously asked.


    "No, no, you only drank a bit too much. Junior brother, you are a gentle drinker. After drunk, you slept. There''s nothing to be ashamed of. Quickly get up and wash your face. In the afternoon we''ll go to Black Shakou!"


    "Yes!" Junior Leopard hurriedly flipped his body and got down from the bed.


    ...


    ...


    "Senior brother, are there any clues to this matter?" On the road, Junior Leopard couldn''t help asking Jin Nanqing. Zhonghe City was quite a distance from Black Shakou. Even if they were riding horses, it would require a journey of two to three days.


    "Nothing. Wu Yuntian is an idiot. After investigating for so long, he hasn''t found any clues."


    Jin Nanqing unhappily said, "Last night he still talked aimlessly. He said if there was anything that I required, I should speak out. But everything changed in the morning. Damn, he thinks that I don''t know what he is thinking? He is afraid that we''ll solve this thing and he''ll lose face. He doesn''t realize that if this matter can''t be solved, he''ll lose even more face!"


    "Maybe he wants to settle it himself." Junior Leopard said.


    "If he could settle it by himself, we wouldn''t be coming here." Jin Nanqing said, "Forget it, we shall go to Black Shakou first. Along the road, we must take notice and see whether there are any suspicious characters!"


    Going outside of Zhonghe City and walking for a distance, they gradually left the official road and walked onto mountain small roads.


    Amongst them, the oldest one was only 17 or 18, the youngest was Junior Leopard, who was only 12 or 13. They were at a carefree age, so after a few complaints, they were attracted by the surrounding scenery.


    Qianzhou had many mountains. With a terrain of ups and downs, the scenery was not bad. This group of youngsters walked and observed the scenery. It was not a lonely journey.


    Now that the world was at peace, Qianzhou was the hinterland of Jin and the security was not bad. Even if the road had some bandits, upon seeing that this group of youngsters was riding horses and possessed weapons, naturally they would be able to see that they come from one of the well-known families and could not be provoked. Hence, from the regional city to Black Shakou, it was smooth and there wasn''t any danger. They even did a few chivalrous acts along the road and were called "chivalrous heroes" by some persons.


    "Black Shakou is in front. After Black Shakou, it''s where the goods was robbed. We have checked that in the vicinity of Black Shakou, there are a total of seven groups of bandits. Amongst them, four groups don''t have the strength to rob the goods. Those three groups, with the strength, have a good relationship with Wu Yuntian. One of them was having dinner with Wu Yuntian at Prunus Tower at that time, so there''s no suspicious."


    "Then, there''re only two groups of suspects left?" Zhou Zhengming followed up and asked.


    "Those two groups of bandits have been checked by us as well. One is Beard Ma whose saber techniques are not bad. He has 100 to 200 underlings. However, when the thing happened, they cut themselves clear from this responsibility, showing that they are not the ones who did it. There is another group whose leader is called Black Three Lady. They has done the same and let an intermediary bring the news. After the Family Head and other Elders analyzed it, they thought that the possibility of them doing it is not big!"


    "Why?" Zhou Zhengming didn''t understand and asked.


    "These goods are ordered by Guard Ding of Zhonghe Prefecture. They make a living by being bandits in Zhonghe Prefecture. The last person they could offend is Guard Ding. Unless they don''t wish to make a living here, otherwise, they definitely won''t do this. Besides, the relationship between different influences here is very complicated. The news always spreads, if it was really done by them, the news would have spread. It wouldn''t be like now, not leaked without a word!" Jin Nanqing calmly analyzed. In truth, what he said was analyzed by the Wu''s Elders. He merely repeated the judgment that he obtained from the higher-ups in the Wu''s.


    "Then how shall we investigate it?" Zhou Zhengming asked. He was clearly the number two figure in this group, "Should we enter through sales channels?"


    "If that''s the case, we won''t come to Black Shakou." Jin Nanqing said in a deep voice, "The family, long before this thing happened, has already started to closely monitor various sales channels. However, they got nothing. Plainly, that batch of goods hasn''t been sold yet."


    "These goods are all top tier weapons and the quantity is not small either. If they don''t sell it, it means they need a place to store it. After the thing happened, even though Wu Yuntian didn''t report it, the government has been shadowing and monitoring the situation as well. After all, this batch of weapons was ordered by Guard Ding. It was to equip the soldiers in Zhonghe Prefecture. However, they didn''t discover any suspicious people entering and exiting Zhonghe Prefecture or any other cities."


    "Since they didn''t sell it and didn''t transport it away, don''t tell me this batch of goods is still in the vicinity of Black Shakou?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "The possibility is very high, but the surrounding of Black Shakou covers a few hundred miles. If we want to find it, it will be very difficult." Jin Nanqing looked around at the wind and sand and frowned.


    They, at present, still did not know that they were about to get involved in a big problem.

 Chapter 86: Enemys Tracks Appearing

    Chapter 86: Enemy''s Tracks Appearing


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In a place where it was quiet and not many people were appearing, there was a small building.


    The interior of the building was elegant and had a refreshing style.


    There was a room within the building, sitting within was a young man wearing a gallant garment along with a grey-clothed old man.


    The magnificently dressed man had a charismatic disposition, his whole body was exuding an air of inherent nobility. As for that grey-clothed old man, he had a long beard and a withered face. There was a rotting smell that permeated his whole body, showing a striking contrast with the young man.


    "Is everything prepared?" The magnificently dressed man asked.


    "Yes, Master, everything is prepared already. However, I heard that the Wu''s had already taken note of this matter. A batch of disciples have received the mission and gone to Zhonghe prefecture to investigate!"


    "The Wu Family, hmph, just a bunch of Blacksmiths. What can they do?" the magnificently dressed man''s fingers lightly tapped on the wooden table. He pondered for a moment, "Isn''t Liu Si there, let him finish off the batch of people from the Wu''s!"


    "Liu Si?!" The old man''s eyebrows twitched and his face revealed a difficult expression, "What if he is not willing? After all, he is not restricted by us. This time he just dropped by, in case..."


    "There is no in case. He had already intervened in this matter. Whether he is willing or not is not up to him. Could it be that he wishes to come and go as he pleases?" The magnificently dressed man laughed coldly, "It is not so easy to get money from me!"


    The old man''s eyebrows twitched slightly. He then lowered his head and said, "Yes, I will go and inform him now!"


    "Oh right, how is the Wu''s strength this time around?"


    "They thought that this was just a normal robbery, hence they didn''t put much attention onto it. They only sent a few inner core disciples to investigate. Their cultivations are not high. The highest one is only at the standard of Level Two to Three!"


    "Level Two to Three? Then there isn''t much to worry about. The Wu Family, hehe, all these years they''ve relied on the backing of Tian Long Taoism, their actions are becoming more and more reckless. Qianzhou is not Yunzhou. He thinks that by sending a few disciples they can investigate this matter thoroughly?"


    "The Wu Family is just a dog of Tian Long Taoism. There isn''t much to worry about!" The grey-clothed old man said, "The problem now is Zhonghe prefecture. No matter what, it is a prefecture of Qianzhou. If something really happens here, Tian Long Taoism and those renowned families will not stand by and do nothing!"


    "What big matters could there be?" The man in gallant garment laughed. "This was not a big deal originally. It is just normal strife in Jianghu that the Wu''s goods were robbed. Those that are sent to investigate will all be killed!"


    "Master, you are right. This is just a normal dispute in Jianghu!" The grey-clothed man said, he then turned around, pushed open the door and left.


    "Liu Si, do not disappoint me!" Seeing the old man close the door, the man curled the corner of his lips, revealing a strand of a playful smile.


    ...


    ...


    "Senior, this place is too big. If we search at this speed, I''m afraid we will find out nothing even if we are given a month!" Looking at the ups and downs of this mountainous region, Junior Leopard spoke to Jin Nanqing with a bitter smile. Personally speaking, Junior Leopard was not that interested in this mission. He just wanted to come out and take a walk. But now that they have come to the damned Black Shakou to search for the stolen goods with a bunch of youngsters, maybe there could be dangers as well. He didn''t want to be involved.


    "What you said makes sense. However, there is no choice. No matter how long it takes, we still have to check. This matter concerns the reputation of the Wu Family, we definitely cannot give up!" Jin Nanqing resolutely said.


    "Housekeeper Wu didn''t check here before?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "I have asked before. They have investigated here before, however, they only checked the surroundings for one to two days before leaving. Housekeeper Wu thought that there was nothing to check in Black Shakou since the thieves wouldn''t be so silly as to put the goods in the vicinity after robbing them!" Jin Nanqing looked at the surroundings and the corner of his mouth revealed a cynical smile, "I do not know what Housekeeper Wu is thinking. Could so many goods fly away under the tight lockdown?"


    "Of course not, but maybe there''s another possibility!"


    Junior Leopard thought to himself but didn''t speak out. After all, this possibility was too strange. If it was real, then this matter would not just be a simple robbery. Even if his guess was correct, he wouldn''t rush to the fore!


    Just when the two of them were searching around aimlessly, the east sky suddenly flashed a strand of bright light. A ''bang'' sound traveled here from afar and the echo vibrated amidst the wilderness.


    "It''s Zhou Zhengming. They discovered something!"


    Jin Nanqing pulled the bridle, turning the horse around and speaking to Junior Leopard.


    After coming to Black Shakou, they split into four teams to search for clues and each team contained two people. In Junior Leopard''s eyes, this was unproductive, yet it had returns. This made him be very surprised.


    That strand of bright light and loud sound in the sky were the signals agreed between them. Whoever discovered any news would send this signal out. It''s unexpected that Zhou Zhengming would have made a discovery within two hours.


    Jin Nanqing and Junior Leopard rode crazily on their horses, not caring about the difficulties of traveling on the mountainous road. After running for a distance, they saw the others'' horses running over as well. The six of them gathered together and rushed towards the east.


    "Ya, ah!"


    "Stop!"


    "You dare to..."


    "Qiang, qiang, qiang, clang, clang, clang!"


    After traveling a short distance, they heard sounds of metal colliding and shouting. Looking up, they saw Zhou Zhengming fighting with a group of people. Looking at the back of the trees, they could vaguely see the outlines of a few big carriages which had been covered by tree branches and leaves to conceal something.


    "Oh, God! We really found it! Wu Yuntian''s men are all good-for-nothing!"


    Junior Leopard felt surprised and then immediately drew out the two silver hammers from behind his waist and joined the fighting.


    Originally the Wu Family only had Zhou Zhengming and another Wu disciple. There were five to six opponents. Even though their strength was stronger than that of those five to six people, the opponents had more hands. Hence the two of them only had the strength to defend and not counterattack.


    They were wholeheartedly defending, only hoping to not have any mishaps. Now that their own side had their forces bolstered, the spirits of the two of them had a boost, turning from defense into attack. In unison with the rest who came, they started pressuring their opponents.


    Junior Leopard held two hammers in his hands, facing off against one of them. That man was roughly twenty and was wielding twin sabers. He was skilled with his saber, but his martial cultivation was too low, only at Level One. How could he defend himself against Junior Leopard''s hammer? With the brandishing of the silver hammers and bursting of the two balls of silver light, Junior Leopard displayed the Wild Hammering Skill, smashing against the fella recklessly.


    That person held both sabers in his hands. Seeing Junior Leopard''s hammers smashing down, he hurriedly used his saber to resist.


    ''Bang!'' The saber and hammer collided. The posture from the twin sabers got smashed apart by Junior Leopard. That person only felt that both of his hands were struck by lightning and he could not keep a firm grip on his twin sabers. When the second hammer came, he could only evade. Junior Leopard didn''t let him go. The two balls of silver light in his hands roared and smashed against his opponent, causing him to retreat a few steps.


    The forces splattered on all four sides, stirring waves of dust.


    The two balls of silver light were just like two big lanterns rushing forward.


    "Bang, bang, bang!"


    "Ah, ah, ah!"


    The person fighting against Junior Leopard finally got defeated. His body flew back, his back crashing against the trunk of an enormous tree. He stopped there and then slowly slid down.


    "He really can''t endure a beating!" The corner of Junior Leopard''s mouth curled. He looked back and found the situation was beneficial to the Wu''s disciples. Apart from the black-clothed man whose cultivation was high and made one inner core disciple lose the strength to attack back, the five remaining people were all driven to desperation by the Wu''s disciples.


    "Senior Lou, let me help you!" Junior Leopard cried out in a deep voice and rushed towards the black-clothed man whose cultivation reached Level Two.


    "Good fella!"


    That man gained the upper hand and naturally saw the situation in the fights. He saw Junior Leopard sending his underling flying. Now that Junior Leopard was lifting his hammer and coming over, his face involuntarily changed. He faked a move, forcing Senior Lou to back off, and rushed towards the outside of the battlefield.


    "Want to escape, was it that easy?"


    Junior Leopard saw his posture and knew that he wanted to run away. How could he let him make it? He circulated his Yanfu Inner Strength with his toes touching the earth, and just like an arrow released from a bow, he blocked the path of the black-clothed man.


    The black-clothed man didn''t expect that Junior Leopard''s speed would be so fast. After retreating for a few steps, his movements had not been displayed, but he felt a ball of silver light flash past him.


    "Hu!" A mountainous force rushed out from that silver light. The airflow, as if it had substance, came pressuring over. He was horrified and retreated a few steps. The twin maces in his hands didn''t dare to come into contact with Junior Leopard''s hammers and he intended to escape using his nimble movements.


    "You are unable to escape!" Junior Leopard said coldly. Once this Wild Hammering Skill was activated, it was like the autumn wind sweeping the falling leaves groundlessly. Once wrapped up by the figure of the hammer, apart from facing it head on, there was no way out.


    The double golden maces in the black-clothed man''s hands were considered heavy weapons. However, when compared to Junior Leopard''s hammers, the hammers were much worse. Having retreated a few steps, the two balls of silver light in Junior Leopard''s hands merged into one and completely wrapped the black-clothed man.


    Once he got wrapped in the silver light, there would be a sad ending!


    "Bang, Bang, Bang!"


    Numerous ear-piercing sounds of metal colliding followed the sparks that flew out in all four directions and mingled with a few extremely miserable voices.


    Suddenly, that ball of silver light that was as big as a washbasin disappeared. The black-clothed man''s figure flew out from that ball of silver light, followed by the pair of awe-inspiring twin maces. Now the pair of maces were distorted, dropped on the ground and no longer moved.


    As for that black-clothed big man, the black clothes on him were already dyed red by blood. He was lying on the floor and twitching. The blood was no longer flowing out from just his mouth, but from every pore on his body. His whole body was dyed blood red by the blood that oozed out from his body.


    "Big Brother! Ah!"


    When the big man who was fighting with Jin Nanqing saw this scene, he shouted out loudly and revealed a flaw. Jin Nanqing grabbed this chance to deliver a hard kick to his chest. At this time, the other few battles also ended and the six bandits were all defeated.

 Chapter 87: Accidental Discovery — the Ten Carriages of Medicinal Herbs

    Chapter 87: Accidental Discovery ¡ª the Ten Carriages of Medicinal Herbs


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    A faint stench of blood fog permeated the surroundings. The Wu''s disciples had gained a victory this time, taking down the few people besides the stolen carriages. Even though some of them were injured, they felt very happy in their hearts.


    Thinking about Wu Yuntian who sought for so many days but ended in no clue, the fact that they got such kind of rewards when they just reached Black Shakou made them feel more excited. They even found the goods that were robbed, what an undeniable achievement!


    "Haha, good, good, everybody has done a good job!" Jin Nanqing laughed happily and said to everyone. However, when his gaze landed on Junior Leopard, it stopped for a while. He went forward and patted on his shoulders, "Junior Leopard, you really have kept your own counsel!"


    Other people''s face became eccentric immediately.


    Their gazes involuntarily shifted to the black-clothed big man who was lying on one side, not knowing if he was dead or alive.


    Even though everyone was in the midst of fighting, the wielding of the hammer of Junior Leopard''s was noticed by them. Even if they did not notice at that time, when they saw the black-clothed big man''s miserable state and the golden maces that turned into a mess now, they couldn''t resist but inhale deep breaths of air.


    Violent, it really was too violent!


    The black-clothed big man was still alive. But everyone believed he would rather die. That was because his bones should already be broken more than half and his internal organs should also be smashed. Yet he still had a breath, hanging on to his life. His gaze seemed somewhat hazy, revealing a despair and fear. Even though everyone was his enemies, they wanted to help him to end that kind of misery.


    "Junior Leopard, finish him. He''s quite pitiful!" Jin Nanqing said.


    "Ah?!" What was unexpected was, Junior Leopard''s eyes flipped and his face actually revealed a difficult expression. "Ugh, Senior, actually I, I have never killed anyone before!" At the same time with his voice, Junior Leopard''s expression had some changes. His face was ashen white and his forehead was perspiring cold sweat. The pair of hands holding the hammer also trembled. Then, as if there was some kind of resolute decision being made, he violently jerked his head and said, "No, I can''t, I don''t want to kill anyone!"


    "You beat him till he was limp, yet you said you wouldn''t kill people!"


    Those who from the Wu Family had a few strands of black lines hung on their faces. This fella, wasn''t he too much of a joke?


    Junior Leopard looked at Jin Nanqing fearful but actually in his heart he was mocking, "Yes, I am pretending. I am pretending, so what?! In other people''s eyes, I am just a 12-year-old kid. In the battle just now I didn''t know how heavy my hand was so I smashed that person till he had a serious injury that was still passable. But if I follow Jin Nanqing''s orders, and end this guy with my hammer, then that would be overboard. I am just a kid, not a cold-blooded demon king who speaks about killing and does it. If this spreads out, wouldn''t my reputation be gone?!"


    Jin Nanqing was somewhat dissatisfied. Ever since coming out from Qinlingjun City, Junior Leopard had never rejected his orders. However, after thinking twice, he knew what Junior Leopard said did make sense. He was just a 12-13-year-old kid and killing someone definitely was harsh for him.


    "Well, Little Lou, you make the move this time. If I remember correctly, this person should be your opponent!"


    Little Lou''s face flushed red. Without saying a word, he went forward and slit the black-clothed big man''s throat with one sword.


    "Thank you, Senior Lou. Let''s drink when we go back!" Junior Leopard secretly heaved a sigh of relief. He was not completely faking it either. Though he had killed a Level Eight expert before, he did so for his self-preservation. It couldn''t be compared with today''s situation. That black-clothed big man had already lost all his resistance. To let Junior Leopard go and smash him with one hammer, he really couldn''t execute the move.


    After packing up the scene and tying up the few survivors onto a tree, Jin Nanqing and the rest walked to the side of the carriage which was covered by tree sticks and leaves.


    "Senior Jin, this carriage is empty!"


    Someone anxiously pulling away from the dried up sticks from the carriage, then he immediately called out.


    "What, empty?!" Jin Nanqing''s face changed. He rushed forward to have the see, and it was really empty.


    "Senior, there is one discovery here!"


    The person on the other side shouted. The rest of them rushed forward to see, and their faces became strange.


    Actually, what had discovered on the carriage was not Wu''s goods but medicinal herbs. There were ten carriages which were full of medicinal herbs in total!


    "These are herbs needed in the Bone-Forging Soup for washing and refining the body!" After musing for half a ring, someone finally opened his mouth.


    The atmosphere became strange instantly.


    Ten carriages'' medicinal herbs needed in the Bone-Forging Soup to wash the body, what did these mean?


    This meant at least one Bone-Forging Realm expert could be produced.


    Using medicinal baths to wash the body was a matter that consumed time and effort. Furthermore, it needed perseverance. One could not hope the body to be washed once or twice and the matter was concluded. The direct descendants of those well-known families, before the age of five, would begin to use medicinal baths to wash their bodies till they were 20 years old. For the first few years, they only need to wash three times per year. However, when they were 10, they would need to wash once per month. Only by doing so, did they have the confidence that they would break through to the Bone Forging Realm before 20 years old.


    Of course, if you couldn''t break through when you have reached 20 years old, then you were not important anymore because your potential was too weak. Even if a thousand-year wealthy family would not pay attention to you.


    From five to 20, a whole 15 years. All the medicinal ingredients needed were at most ten carriages. As what was shown in front of them.


    Ten carriages'' medicine may look few. However, it was well known that medicinal herbs were hard to find. Even the one carriage cost more than all the value of the Wu Family lost goods, let alone ten carriages.


    Because of this, the atmosphere became a bit weird.


    People here were all Wu''s inner core disciples. Jin Nanqing and Junior Leopard were the Wu''s vital inner core disciples. Even though, they were unable to enjoy the benefits of Bone-Forging Soup. In the Wu Family, only three people could enjoy the Bone-Forging Soup. Those three people were the direct descendants of the Wu''s.


    "God, I wonder why is Wu Yuntian so weird. He has done such stuff behind the scenes!" Jin Nanqing''s eyes almost spat out a fire. So much medicinal herbs, if it could be given to him how much benefits would that be. With these medicines, he would have enough confidence to break through to the Bone-Forging Realm.


    Entering the Bone-Forging Realm and he could become a Wu''s Elder. That progress could be said as rising on a rocket.


    Not only him, those few people present had a fire in their eyes, so did Junior Leopard.


    "Senior Jin, this¡­!


    Zhou Zhengming''s breath was somewhat rough and he turned his head to look at Jin Nanqing, full of aspiring.


    "What''s your opinion?!" Jin Nanqing waved his hand, indicating for Zhou Zhengming to not speak any further. He swept his gaze among the crowd and received everyone''s expressions within his eye. His had made some plans in his heart.


    The crowd all looked with desire. After Jin Nanqing''s gaze landed on them, they shrunk back, with their gaze still staring at the carriages of medicinal herbs, not speaking a word.


    At last, Jin Nanqing''s gaze landed on Junior Leopard, and smiled slightly, "Little Junior, just now you were the one who killed the leader. From your point of view, how should we handle this matter?!"


    Junior Leopard scolded in his heart, "Are you thinking I am good enough to bully or ignorant enough to cheat?" He thought a lot, and then said, "Everything is up to you, Senior Jin!"


    "OK!" Jin Nanqing nodded his head, "Since that is the case, I shouldn''t say crap. I know what everyone is thinking. I am also plotting about this thing. These herbs, are not Wu''s goods. Thinking about the truth it was Seneschal Wu transporting his private things in the name of sending goods, the Wu''s benefits won''t be hurt even if we take it ourselves. However, you all know these herbs are extremely precious. To us, it is also extremely important. With these herbs to braise the Bone-Forging Soup, I believe, we all have the confidence to step into the Bone-Forging Realm and become Elders!"


    When speaking about the two terms of Bone-Forging Realm and Elders, everyone''s eyes became much brighter.


    "However, this batch of herbs though doesn''t belong to the Wu''s. They were transported by the Seneschal Wu. Thinking about it, it has great connections with Seneschal Wu. The person who can use this batch of medicinal herbs will naturally not have a small background. If we just retrieve it like this, in the future there may be some problems!"


    "If the heavens do not retrieve it, it will definitely suffer a backlash!"


    Zhou Zhengming by the side couldn''t endure it anymore, and jumped in, "Wu Yuntian that useless faggot couldn''t check anything out after checking for so long. As long as we do a clean job out of this matter, he won''t get any evidence. Do you agree!"


    "This idiot also learned how to fan the flames!" Junior Leopard heard Zhou Zhengming''s words and laughed.


    Zhou Zhengming''s words struck a chord with the people present. People in the pugilist world all wish for their martial arts to be a little bit higher, all wish for them to break through their bottlenecks a little earlier, and gain glory for oneself!


    Hence, when they heard Zhou Zhengming''s words, they also agreed in unison.


    "Well. Since everyone is on the same page, I have nothing much to say as well. However, I will put the harsh words in the front. Today''s matter can only be known by the eight of us. We definitely cannot let this leak out!" While saying these words, he walked in big steps to those tied-up bandits on the side of the big tree. His hands raised the saber and chopped those few remaining survivors to death. He turned around, his face was stained with the blood of those few slain bandits, appearing somewhat ferocious.


    "There are ten carriages in total. I take two, Junior Leopard takes two, the others take one each, anyone has any objections?!"


    "No, none!" The rest six people shook their heads in unison.


    "One carriage is enough for me!" Junior Leopard said. Indeed, one carriage was excessive. He had the recipes of Bone-Forging Pill. Even if there was only a half carriage, it was enough for him to refine the Bone-Forging Pill. Let alone one carriage. Many herbs were no use to him, it couldn''t be eaten as rice.


    "Little Junior, even if we have one carriage we wouldn''t use all at our ages. Even if we use too much it would have a reverse effect. You are different, you are still young, and your potential is abnormal. With two carriages worth of herbs, it is extremely beneficial towards you. Hence you shouldn''t reject it!" Jin Nanqing waved his hand and said, "However Junior, you must remember, today''s matter, definitely cannot be known by other people. Even if it was Elder Xu, you cannot speak a word of it, do you understand?!"


    Junior Leopard nodded his head with a face full of determination, "Even if you beat me to death I won''t say!"


    "Keke, who dares to beat you up!"


    Seeing Junior Leopard being so perceptive, Jin Nanqing laughed. He was also able to realize, though Junior Leopard was young, he had a scheming heart. Besides, even if Junior Leopard revealed this matter to Xu Yong, he wouldn''t be afraid.


    Xu Yong only had Junior Leopard as his direct disciple; he could be extremely attentive towards Junior Leopard. When met with this kind of good thing, why would he spread it out? As for letting Junior Leopard not telling Xu Yong, it was just an added insurance.


    "Since that is the case, it is decided. However this mission, we have indeed failed. The remuneration ¡ª!


    "What remuneration, Senior Jin, you have looked down on us. With these herbs, why would we still want those rewards?"


    Zhou Zhengming''s words made the people present laugh. Looking at those ten carriages of medicinal herbs, their gazes became fiercer!

 Chapter 88: Black Eating Black

    Chapter 88: Black Eating Black


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "This Jin Nanqing has made a calculated move!"


    Looking at several seniors hurriedly nodding their heads as well as the Jin Nanqing whose face was shining with happiness, Junior Leopard began to laugh.


    If this time we could really muddle through, then, Jin Nanqing''s rewards were not solely the two carriages of medicinal herbs. Because of these 10 carriages of herbs, the eight shared a common interest. Added to that, the interest was under the table, which would inevitably make their relationships be even tighter and closer knitted than ordinary Wu''s disciples.


    Adding to Jin Nanqing''s identity and strength, when they returned to the Wu Family, these people would act like how they did for this mission, regarding Jin Nanqing as their leader. As for this interest relationship, it was hard for people to break it apart. A new interest group was born just like that.


    Maybe this interest group had very few numbers whose ages were young as well, having no influence or impact in the Wu''s. However, what about 10 years later? 20 years later?


    With this batch of herbs, the eight would definitely have a meteoric rise. Even not all of them would break through the Bone-Forging Realm, only three to four who managed to do that, which would be a force to be reckoned with.


    Having those few people within his control, then in the future, Jin Nanqing would find it extremely easy to get a higher position!


    Maybe, this was Jin Nanqing''s final purpose?


    Thinking till here, Junior Leopard smiled and rubbed his forehead, "Those robbers really aren''t able to identify the value of these goods. These medicinal herbs are much more precious than the weapons, and they actually left it behind, instead of taking the weapons with them. God knows how they transported it away. They even left the carriages behind. Could it be that they carried the weapons by themselves?!"


    "It is somewhat strange!"


    After hearing this, Jin Nanqing''s passionate emotions got stirred back. He gave a glance at the surroundings, "Since we''ve already decided not to meddle in these affairs, then, we don''t need to think much about how they got away with the weapons. Now we should see how to transport this batch of herbs away. Here there''re people defending it, which show that these bandits didn''t give up on this batch of herbs. Placing the medicinal herbs here are not safe!"


    The other people also thought of this point, and their faces revealing a difficult expression.


    Indeed, these are not other ordinary objects, but a whole 10 carriage of herbs. Because of the Wu''s robbery case, the nearby states and counties had been locked down. Once the herbs were revealed, such obvious objects with the Wu''s insignia on the carriage would immediately be recognized.


    Having thought about this situation, the bandits had to keep the herbs on the same spot.


    "Find a place to hide these herbs first and we cannot keep them here anymore. Zhou Zhengming, your Qinggong is not bad. Go search the surroundings, and see where is suitable for hiding. Lou, you and Zheng Long are responsible for tying the horse and carriage together. The herbs are not heavy, let your horse and mine to drag two carriages. Wait till Zhengming had made clear of the directions, then we drive the carriages there. The others should erase the marks left here. Especially the leader, burn his corpse. In no case have people recognize that he was smashed to death by a hammer!" Speaking till here, he looked at Junior Leopard. Thinking about the horrible scene where he waved his hammer and smashed, his heart involuntarily shivered a little.


    As a Wu''s disciple, he was familiar with the 81 movements Wild Hammering Skill. However, like Junior Leopard, they were all disciples who chose the path of martial arts. In the Wu Family, apart from this hammer skill, there were all kinds of martial arts. Every vein there would be some private property. Hence, unlike Junior Leopard who specialized in Wild Hammering Skill, not too many disciples who specialized in martial arts would want to focus on the Wild Hammering Skill. Adding on to the fact that Junior Leopard was an inner core disciple, the normal core disciples, even if they want to learn, they could only learn 36 movements. Thus, most people gave up on this martial skill. Even Jin Nanqing felt that, only learning 72 movements, and losing the essence of the 9 movements, were not perfect enough, and not being able to reveal its true strength. In the end, he did not seriously learn this skill either, and put all his energy and effort onto the saber way instead.


    He didn''t expect to see Junior Leopard using those mid-sized silver hammers to unleash a power that was way beyond his imagination. His heart birthed forth pangs of regret.


    However, it was not the time to regret over his own foresight. The clearing up work here had to be done exquisitely. They had to clear it in such a way that they were not seen through by other people that things were done by them, although this was very difficult.


    The good thing was other than the leading black-clothed big man, the other bodies were all saber and sword injuries, with nothing special. Among ten pugilists, there would be nine carrying such weapons. Not like Junior Leopard who caused the hammer injuries, it made people link it to Yunzhou Wu''s with just one sight.


    The few of them worked at it for 2 hours and cleaned up the scene. Zhou Zhengming also came back and he looked somewhat exhausted, yet he was very excited. He told the crowd that he discovered a secretive valley not far away. In the valley, there was a cave, which was big enough to contain all 10 carriages of medicinal herbs.


    When the crowd heard it, they were elated and wanted to drive the carriages there. However Zhou Zhengming said, although the valley was secretive, and the cave was big, they had to cross over a rapid river. The river was not wide and it was passable by humans, however, these carriages cannot pass through.


    When the crowd heard it they couldn''t wait to slap him to death.


    "You shall lead the way first. We''ll decide it when we reached the place. It''s just a few carriages of medicinal herbs. Using manual labor to move the herbs across the river is no big deal. We still have time. It''s ok if we get a little tired for these herbs!"


    The crowd nodded their heads in agreement. Indeed, they just had to exhaust a little bit for this batch of medicinal herbs, and it was no big deal.


    As expected, it was just like Zhou Zhengming had said. A rapid river was horizontally placed there. The river surface was wide about 10 over feet, however, it was not considered too deep. They tested a bit and realized that though the river flow was very fierce, it was not too deep. A normal horse could pass through. That way, they were not anxious anymore. They brought down the 10 carriages of medicinal herbs and used the horse to transport it over little by little. Even though it looked a little like an ant moving house, and the method was a bit stupid, however, it was advantageous in that it was effective. These few fellas had the patience as well. Actually, when met with this kind of issue, anybody would become patient, and use their strength. After all this concerned with their future achievements.


    The eight of them literally spent a day and a night''s worth of effort to finally carry the 10 carriages of herbs over and kept them all in the valley cave that Zhou Zhengming discovered.


    That cave was just like what Zhou Zhengming said. It was very big, just like the nest of the bandits in the movies that Junior Leopard saw in his past life. Don''t mention it was only 10 carriages of medicinal herbs, even if it was 100 carriages worth of herbs, it could be hidden here as well.


    "Zhengming, you''ve found a good place!"


    Jin Nanqing looked at the pile after pile of medicinal herbs in the hole. Even though he was extremely tired, his spirit was raring to go. These piles of herbs were the foundation for their future. This was their support to break through their bottlenecks. As for Jin Nanqing himself, he held the main position amongst this group of people. In the future, in this small group, he would also continue holding the leader position. When that moment comes, his position and influence within the Wu Family...


    When he thought of this, his heart began to set on fire.


    "Keke, I''m just lucky, just lucky!"


    Zhou Zhengming was praised by Jin Nanqing and he was naturally very satisfied with himself.


    "We''ll first put the herbs here. Wait till after a period of time, when the commotion has died down, then we''ll think of a way to transport these herbs out!" Speaking till here, he glanced at the crowd, "I know that everybody is very hungry for these herbs, and I also know that everyone wants to use it immediately. However there''s no choice, now we''re situated in the crest of the tide. We cannot be anxious, and we still have to endure it even if we cannot. They don''t only concern about our future but also concern about our family wealth and lives. If there''s anyone who doesn''t know what''s good or bad, and doesn''t weigh the consequences and bring us trouble, then don''t blame me for being merciless!"


    When he spoke the last sentence, his words were ice cold. The Wolf Teeth Saber in his hands flashed a cold sword glint, "Everybody, you all have listened carefully!"


    "We''re waiting for Senior''s orders!" The few people''s heart grew cold, and said in unison.


    Only Junior Leopard didn''t say any word. Both of his hands lightly touched the hammer''s grips and his eyes were squinting into a line, "Senior Jin, if there''s anyone who doesn''t listen to you, just tell me. I''ll help you hammer him 300 times, and let''s see if anybody still dares to not listen to!"


    "Hahaha, good, good!" Jin Nanqing patted Junior Leopard''s shoulders. His laughter grew increasingly arrogant.


    "At such an early age and you already know black eating black. You really don''t know your place. I don''t know how the Wu Family taught people like you!"


    The sudden voice let the Wu''s disciples within this cave had a shock in their hearts. They all drew out their weapons one by one and got into a fighting stance.


    "Who are you. Come out!" Jin Nanqing''s Wolf Teeth Sword was placed in front and his face looked somewhat ferocious. His stared at the entrance of the cave. What was the feeling of dropping from heaven to earth? Maybe that was what this bunch of Wu''s disciples was feeling then.


    Of course, they possibly did not completely drop into hell. They were only bitterly struggling in heaven.


    However, as Wu''s disciples, none of them were fools.They wouldn''t think that the opponent had no confidence and yet suddenly spoke out. Since he spoke out, which meant that he didn''t place these people in his eyes.


    A figure slowly walked to the cave entrance and stopped at a place that was three feet away from them. By the moonlight and the torch fire in the cave, the crowd saw the person clearly. It was a thirty-something skinny man in purple. He looked like a sect''s lower member or the defender or guard of some sort of entertainment casino or brothel with one sight. This person came with bare fists with only a golden bangle on his left wrist.


    "Who are you?!"


    Jin Nanqing spoke out, however, one could hear the trace of fear within his outwardly loud voice.


    "My surname is Liu, and people call me Liu Si!"


    The skinny man who was called Liu Si smiled and his gaze turned towards the medicinal herbs behind the few people, "Your actions are quite fast. I just left for a day, and you''ve already killed people and snatched the goods!"


    "Hmph, these things were what you robbed from the Wu''s only!"


    "Didn''t you all not plan to return the stuff to the Wu''s?!" Liu Si laughed, "This is the so-called black eating black. Since it''s black eating black, then don''t speak logic with me, we shall see the strength difference through our fists!"


    "Good. Let''s see it through our fists!" Junior Leopard shouted. The twin hammers in his hand created two balls of silver light, and he rushed towards Liu Si.


    "The Wu''s Wild Hammering Skill? I really want to see it for myself!" While he was saying, he actually raised his hands to meet Junior Leopard''s hammers. He actually wanted to use his bare hands to take Junior Leopard''s twin hammers!

 Chapter 89: Breakthrough under Heavy Pressure

    Chapter 89: Breakthrough under Heavy Pressure


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Seeing Junior Leopard wielding the hammer over, the purple-clothed skinny man did not seem to bother, and used his bare hands to catch it.


    "Dang, Dang, Dang!"


    The fists collided with the silver hammers, as if they were beating on a drum. The sound was so loud that it could make one go deaf. Jin Nanqing and other Wu''s disciples also couldn''t endure it. They retreated in steps under the loud sounds.


    Looking at the scene, their faces changed greatly. Using his bare hands to catch Junior Leopard''s silver hammers, he was someone they could not resist.


    "A Bone-Forging Realm expert!"


    Only Bone-Forging Realm experts could train their flesh till this kind of degree.


    "Bone-Forging Realm''s strength really can''t be imagined by us in the Skin-Toughening Realm!"


    Junior Leopard smashed a total of 18 times, while the opponent returned 18 palms and retreated 9 steps. However, Junior Leopard also depleted his strength at the same time.


    After feinting one move, he retreated a few steps, and confronted Liu Si in a manner and posture.


    Liu Si retreated 9 steps, and left 9 very deep footprints on the ground. He was retreating to the entrance of the cave when his gaze revealed some shock. Even though it didn''t look like he suffered any injuries, but the sleeves on his two arms were shattered by the strong force, revealing two muscular arms.


    "Everybody rushes out!" When two of them just stabilized, Jin Nanqing roared loudly. The Wolf Teeth Saber in his hands drew a sharp arc and was chopping straight towards Liu Si. At the same time, the other six were stunned at first, but in an instant, they understood and rushed out while shouting.


    This world had no fools. These people were elites because they were able to become Wu''s inner core disciples and meanwhile, they could also follow Jin Nanqing out on a mission. Even if they were mesmerized by the medicinal herbs, however now, after the shout by Jin Nanqing, they all suddenly woke up.


    Liu Si was a Bone-Forging Realm expert. Even if his cultivation had just stepped into Level Four, the 8 of them still couldn''t win him. A battle to the end would only mean that they would meet a tragic end. Even though the medicinal herbs were good, but the premise was that they must have the life to enjoy it. Without life, even if the Nine Turning Golden Pill would be of no use. They might as well rush out in one force, scatter and run away. There would still be a chance to escape.


    Anyway apart from the 8 of them, only Liu Si knew that they had thoughts of possessing the herbs themselves. And Liu Si was an enemy. At that time, as long as their corroborations were all the same, and agree to the same point till death. Then, even if they couldn''t get the herbs, they were able to source out the secret of the bandits and the secret plotting by Wu Yuntian. It would be an achievement nonetheless. At the Wu Family, they would be able to obtain benefits.


    As for who could rush out, and who couldn''t, that would be decided by the heavens.


    Seeing the group''s movements, Liu Si silently praised in his heart. No wonder the Wu Family had such a prestige and strength. Just based on these disciples, each of them was smart and wise. At the moment between gain and loss, they were able to grasp it very accurately. Their actions were also so decisive.


    However, praise was just praise. Things had already developed to such a state. How would he just let these people escape?


    Seeing their attacking, he laughed and his arm violently trembled. With a sound of "buzz", the golden bangle on his arm left the hand and came out. Once the golden bangle left the arm, it rushed towards the people who were rushing forward.


    The golden bangle''s speed was extremely fast. Before Jin Nanqing and the other six had reached closely, the bangle had rushed in front of them. Jin Nanqing was extremely shocked. The short saber in his hand violently hacked down towards the top of the golden bangle.


    "Ding!" A crisp sound. Jin Nanqing felt a strong force sweep over him and the body had already flown horizontally out.


    The golden bangle got a knife while its strength didn''t diminish. It went again towards Zhou Zhengming. Zhou Zhengming couldn''t dodge in time, thus he used his weapon to block. Similar to Jin Nanqing, he was thrown out. The other five Wu''s disciples also met the same fate.


    This golden bangle turned around and flew for one round in the cave in just a blink of an eye, sending those few Wu''s disciples flying out. Each had serious injuries. There were a few weapons which were blown off by this strong force, falling on the ground. The fate of the disciples was unknown as to whether they were dead or alive.


    "You all originally shouldn''t have come. It''s a pity to kill you all, however I have no other choice!"


    The golden bangle circled for one round, and returned to Liu Si''s arm. The corner of his mouth revealed a strand of a cold smile. He glanced at the seven Wu''s disciples who fell down, and he looked at Junior Leopard, "Kid, you have great strength. I am giving you a chance, as long as you submit to me, I will spare your life, and there will only be your benefits in the future. Just like the herbs here in this cave, you can take how much you want. How is it?!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t say a word, and just crossed his hammers horizontally in front of him. "Dong!" With a fierce clash, a sound occurred. The twin hammers'' clashing sound was not lower than that of their fighting sound just now. His body shook, and attacked Liu Si once again.


    "You can''t tell good from bad!" Liu Si''s face went cold. This time, he didn''t meet head-on with his bare fists. He only shook out the golden bangle and received Junior Leopard.


    "Dang, Dang, Dang!" The two balls of silver light in Junior Leopard''s hands collided with the golden bangle. With only one strike, Junior Leopard felt a large force rushing into him. His body was almost not steady, and his face involuntarily sunk. He violently clenched his teeth, followed the force of the silver hammers, viciously smashing three hammers, and finally forced the golden bangle to retreat. However at the same time, Junior Leopard''s figure which was rushing forward stopped, and even retreated a few steps. His throat had something sweet, and the Qi and blood within him was churning.


    "What great strength!" Seeing his own golden bangle get forced back, Liu Si felt somewhat surprised. He then looked at Junior Leopard, and said, "Kid, I''ll give you one more chance!"


    "Go die¡­!" Junior Leopard shouted loudly, his figure rising again. However this time around, he was not like last time, hitting and smashing crazily. Instead he expanded his movements, and unleashed the Wild Hammering Style. Each of his strokes did not leave the vital spots of Liu Si, and began fighting against Liu Si.


    He was also unable to see; previously Liu Si used his bare hands to take his silver hammers. Even though nothing could be seen on the surface, on second thought it must have felt uncomfortable. Even if he was a Bone-Forging Realm expert, using his bare hands to fight with Junior Leopard''s silver hammers to gain any advantage was not possible.


    If not, he wouldn''t have used the golden bangle on his arm to stop Jin Nanqing and the rest.


    As expected, this time when he attacked, Liu Si no longer used his bare hands to receive, but held that golden bangle instead.


    After all, this golden bangle was a lightweight weapon. It couldn''t be compared to the twin hammers on Junior Leopard''s hands, which were truly heavyweight weapons. It might look awe-inspiring just now; actually it was because Liu Si used his independent secret method Trembling Bangle Force. Now subdued by Junior Leopard, he was unable to use the Trembling Bangle Force even if he was holding the golden bangle on his hand. After the golden bangle clashed with the silver hammer for a few times, with his Bone-Forging Realm body, his arms were still shaken till it was numb even though there was no injury. He silently scolded Junior Leopard''s perverse strength.


    As for this Wild Hammering Skill, the reason why it was called wild was because once it was executed, even water couldn''t enter, and wind couldn''t get out. It was just like crazy wind and thunderstorm. Unless there was an absolute strength countervailing it, or it would be very hard to break it.


    Liu Si''s strength was much greater than Junior Leopard and with his cultivation he could forcefully break this hammer skill. However this would consume and deplete his pneuma. The Junior Leopard in front of him was merely a Level Two cultivation. He would lose his face if he hurt his pneuma because of him, even if nobody would see it.


    Hence, he might as well don''t collide head on with Junior Leopard. Wait till Junior Leopard had finished the hammer skill, and lost his Qi. Then he could slowly deal with him.


    It was because of this, he let Junior Leopard''s hammering skill be successfully displayed.


    When the Wild Hammering Skill was executed till there were 20+ moves, Junior Leopard also saw through his plan. However now he couldn''t control himself, and he couldn''t back down. The ball of silver light in his hands already transformed into a ball, and he completely entered into a state of extreme excitement.


    "Hula, Hu, Shua Shua Shua¡­!"


    Every hammer, he used all of his strength. Every hammer''s power was stronger than the previous one by a few points. A hammer followed the next. Compared to the previous hammer, every hammer''s trajectory was even more perfect by a few points.


    While displaying it, a kind of relaxed feeling spread the whole body. When he was practicing in the Wu Family, he was only practicing by himself. Even if he practiced the skill with somebody, the person was Xu Yong. How could he act without scruple like now, displaying killing intent and battle intent and displaying the whole set of the hammering skill?


    Following the tide of time, Junior Leopard felt that the Internal Qi flowing within his body became smoother. The slowly flowed Internal Qi was slowly gathered together, like a big river gushing forth. The Qi and blood within his body became more and more vigorous. A killing intent that had a substance was seeping out from his body. The flow of the air in the surroundings of his body also became hotter.


    The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire''s Internal Qi was seeping out from his body, permeating the surroundings of his body.


    In this world, the inner and outer formed the body. Amongst the three realms, every realm would have three levels of cultivation. Junior Leopard now was in his Skin-Toughening Realm. While his Internal Qi cultivation had reached the Level Two. His Qi was able to flow freely within his skin and flesh. When fighting, the Internal Qi would merge with the skin and flesh, increasing its power. This was just like the previous life, using an empty fist to hit people compared to using a brick to hit people. The same fist was used; however the destructive strength in the fist was totally different.


    The so-called mental cultivation method was when you were displaying different sets of moves, the Internal Qi within the body moved in a certain fashion along a route. When you executed the move, how to let the internal breathing and body and flesh attain the most perfect combination as well as release the greatest power was the meaning of mental cultivation methods.


    Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi originally followed the Wild Hammering Skill''s mental cultivation method, in which his Internal Qi was released in between the skin and flesh and gathered on the twin hammers. However following the tide of time, the Internal Qi within his body flowed faster and faster, becoming intensely rumbling. Slowly he was unable to control it, or in other terms, he didn''t wish to control it.


    Only when facing strong opponents, the potential of this kind of state would be unleashed. When practicing normally with no stress, how could it be felt?


    Hence, the intensely rumbling Internal Qi began to seep out from his pores, and stirred up strands of fire Qi. The hammers in his hands were executed at a faster speed. In a sudden, his movements stilled.


    After all, Liu Si was a Bone-Forging Realm expert; he had seen a lot of things. When he saw that Junior Leopard suddenly stopped his motions, he knew it was bad.


    However it was too late.


    Junior Leopard paused for a while, and it was only for a while. In that moment, which was about a thought flashing time, Junior Leopard''s hammer moved once again when Liu Si''s thoughts turned.


    Compared to the former time, this around was several times faster.

 Chapter 90: The Fist Intent Condensed Eventually

    Chapter 90: The Fist Intent Condensed Eventually


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    At the same time, Junior Leopard felt as if there was something exploding within his body. With a boom in his head, he instantly became clear-headed. His skeleton produced some crackling sounds and his body actually rose by a few notches up. The balls of silver light formed from the two silver hammers in his hands also had grown a bit suddenly.


    At the same time, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi that was emitting out of his body began to converge, and all returned to Junior Leopard''s body. The hot feeling in the surroundings vanished instantly. Instead a strange kind of heavy feeling generated.


    As the hot Internal Qi returned to his body, Junior Leopard only felt that his body was light. The Internal Qi that was originally flowing like airflow actually had signs of solidifying and it was closer to being fluid instead, flowing within his body. The speed was also faster than before. Under the flowing of the Internal Qi, Junior Leopard only felt an unexplainable good feeling. The limit of his thoughts had been stretched to the maximum. As he was beating, he couldn''t control it and started shouting. His voice shook the wilderness.


    "Level Three!"


    As soon as Jin Nanqing who was struggling to stand up saw the scene, he knew what was going on.


    Junior Leopard broke through just now, breaking through from Level Two to Level Three. He broke through to Level Three at this moment!


    Even though he could be considered a rare genius, it was not an earth-shaking matter to attain Level Three at 12 years old.


    This kind of things happened occasionally in Jianghu.


    However, thinking carefully, normally speaking, those people who broke through to Level Three at the age of 12 were all the direct descendant of well-known families, and had soaked in the Bone-Forging Soup and the Skin Toughening Soup from childhood.


    To be like Junior Leopard, based on his own hard work and depending on no rare and precious plants or minerals, he reached Level Three at the age of 12. This could only explain one thing that his aptitude was definitely extraordinary, and it was extremely extraordinary.


    Now he had broken through to Level Three in this case, and then with the help of the Magic Drugs in this cave, it would take five to six years for him to break through the Level Three of Skin-Toughening Realm and enter into the Bone-Forging Realm.


    By then, the Wu Family would have one more Elder.


    Thinking till here, Jin Nanqing gazed at Junior Leopard a little more complicatedly. Actually, it was not only him, the other Wu''s disciples in the cave also thought the same thing.


    "Stop. At this point, why do I think of these? I must be tired of living. Now the main thing is to leave this place alive. The stronger Junior Leopard is, the better it is. How could I be jealous at this moment? It seems that my mental cultivation state is not enough!" Jin Nanqing secretly scolded himself. He forced himself up with one breath. Wielding the Wolf Teeth Saber, he pounced towards Liu Si.


    Junior Leopard indeed had broken through. Furthermore, his momentum was powerful. The ball of silver light in his hands grew explosively as if it could split the heaven and earth apart. However, this was just how it looked like.


    Liu Si was a master of Bone-Forging Realm while Junior Leopard was only a rookie who broke through to Level Three just now. So it was impossible to pin their hopes on him to defeat Liu Si. Now the only possible plan was to work together. Then there would be a chance to live.


    Jin Nanqing understood and so did others. Without saying any unnecessary words, those who could stand up followed him, raising their weapons and rushing forward.


    "Hmph!" Seeing that Jin Nanqing and the others rushed forward, Liu Si''s expression remained unchanged, yet he felt great hatred in his heart. Originally dealing with a few rookies of Skin-Toughening Realm was an easy matter. He didn''t expect to meet Junior Leopard this strange being. Besides the twin hammers'' prowess in Junior Leopard''s hands, he even broke through in the middle of the battle. In just a moment, his momentum expanded. He didn''t want his body to have many injuries. Hence, to take down these people in a short time was difficult.


    Sh*t, things like this only happened in traditional operas. Why would it happen in reality?


    Liu Si complained within his heart. He flashed the golden bangle within his hand and his body violently trembled. "Kids, since you all want to play, I will play with you all to my heart''s content !"


    In just a moment, the golden bangle in his hands buzzed. This sound was extremely piercing. The people who rushed forward were blocked by his golden bangle, and once again sent flying. This time they didn''t have the good luck of the previous round. Once the weapons touched that golden bangle, they felt a high-frequency wave trembling to their bodies from the weapons. This tremble was very minute, but its frequency was extremely high. When they sensed that something was wrong, half of their bodies had gone numb already. The weapons in their hands had long flown to nowhere.


    Only Junior Leopard stood. Since he was holding a pair of heavy hammers in his hands, the impact he felt was very small. In addition, he had seen this kind of feeling before. In the Wen Family, the black-cloaked man whom he met also displayed such a trembling similar to this golden bangle. However, compared to the trembling now, the black-cloaked man''s strength was greater by thousands and hundreds of times. With just one finger, he caused his pneuma to be seriously injured. He secretly circulated the Taiji Fist to disperse the energy.


    Once again sending Jin Nanqing and the others flying, Liu Si seemed not to want to play games with Junior Leopard anymore. The golden bangle in his hands trembled, producing thousands of illusions. In an instant, he enshrouded Junior Leopard and the silver hammers within it.


    "Not good!" When Junior Leopard saw the scenario, he shouted in his heart. The hammers in his hands instantly vanished and he turned from attack to defense, forming a tight defense.


    "Bang, bang, bang..."


    Numerous collision forces sounded. The golden bangle in Liu Si''s hands reversed the dodging situation from just now and continuously clashed with the silver hammers in Junior Leopard''s hands. However, it was not a head-on collision. Every time it clashed, it would change an angle. It all hit on Junior Leopard when his strength had been exhausted and not yet recovered.


    This time, it made Junior Leopard suffer a lot. He only felt his arms becoming gradually numb. With every strike, his body would be stunned. The force was so great that it made him extremely uncomfortable and want to throw the hammers and turn around and run.


    However, it was impossible to escape!


    Junior Leopard understood it in his heart. If he really threw his weapons off and ran now, there would not be a chance to escape from cruel Liu Si. It was not so easy to make up for the ravine between Bone-Forging Realm and Skin-Toughening Realm.


    However, if he really wanted to escape, there was still a chance. In fact, it was very easy. As long as he used the Three Realm Division, he could easily leave. But, in this way, the trouble would be big.


    This was not the Misty Mountains. He should consider so much. He couldn''t reveal all his bluff up his sleeve. To reveal his bluff, even if he could escape, there would be endless repercussions.


    "Forget it. Let me fight for one more time. If I really cannot kill him, then I can only escape!" Junior Leopard was trapped by the shadow of golden bangle and his face revealed some uncertainty. At last, he violently clenched his teeth. The twin hammers in his hands were waved forcefully; but after a release, the twin hammers were just like arrows leaving the bow, leaving the hands and went smashing straight towards Liu Si.


    This was completely out of Liu Si''s expectations. He would never have thought that Junior Leopard dared to do that.


    Junior Leopard wielded the hammers till it was roaring, gaining an advantage with the weight and power of this pair of heavy weapons. He naturally thought that Junior Leopard depended entirely on the twin hammers. Now Junior Leopard had suddenly released his hands as if he was betting his all on smashing him with those hammers. This made him somewhat clumsy.


    This hammer was fiercely wielding by Junior Leopard. The accumulated strength was more than thousand catty. Once it left the hands, there were sounds of metal clashing. The hammers broke through the golden bangle and came rushing for him. Even if he had a Bone-Forging Realm body and cultivation, he did not dare to meet it directly. With a wave he seized the golden bangle. His body twisted. With a plank, he managed to forcefully dodge this twin hammers.


    "Boom, boom!"


    Two large sounds occurred. The twin hammers smashed into the cave wall, producing two large sounds. The earth trembled for a while. The two hammers forced its way into the hard rock walls.


    Without waiting for Liu Si to stabilize himself, Junior Leopard went forward and waved his fists rushing towards Liu Si.


    The Thirteen Punches of Desolation!


    The golden bangle in Liu Si''s hands turned, and depended on the ring''s trajectory, he evaded those two fists. His expression, however, became strange.


    The power of the two fists and the twin hammers was quite different. It even could not reach the twin hammers''s power of 1%, but it gave Liu Si an extremely dangerous feeling.


    However, before he could think it over, Junior Leopard already rushed forward and wielded his fists to hit.


    Now he had just broken through to Level Three. The Internal Qi which he depleted previously when breaking through not only recovered but advanced by quite a bit. Originally he wanted to depend on this group of Wu''s disciples'' strength to rush out. However, when he saw that these senior brothers couldn''t even take a punch and were sent flying by the golden bangle, he knew that he could only depend on himself today.


    The opponent was in the Bone-Forging Realm. He couldn''t be his opponent, so he could only try his best. What he was best in was not the hammers but the punching skills. Hence, he decisively threw out the hammers and grabbed onto the chance. He wanted to display his most powerful force using this chance to throw in one last gamble. If he really failed this time, he didn''t need to consider so much anymore, and he would just use the Three Realm Division to escape.


    When Liu Si was dodging the twin hammers, he caught the opportunity. He naturally wouldn''t let go of it, so he rushed forward, displaying the Thirteen Punches of Desolation.


    This punching skill was passed down from antiquity times. Once it was displayed, it would have an ancient desolation feeling. Of course, most importantly, Junior Leopard incorporated the punching technique of the Taiji Fist and the way of the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and the Extraordinary Strength Fist into it. Hence, when circulated and used, it would appear to be extremely strange.


    Once one of his fists went out, it looked extremely heavy without any noise. Seeing it, Liu Si felt that his Bone-Forging Realm''s strength would be able to send Junior Leopard flying. However, deep in his subconsciousness, he didn''t dare to collide, as if his fist was extremely dangerous.


    In addition, Junior Leopard gained the upper hand, so his mind was somewhat chaotic. In the beginning, he was forced into a clumsy state by Junior Leopard.


    However, he was a Bone-Forging Realm master after all. After a few movements, he began to calm down.


    No matter how weird Junior Leopard''s punching skill was, it was just bare hands. He had the golden bangle in his hands. As long as Junior Leopard''s fists came over, he would use the golden bangle in his hands to block. Junior Leopard naturally wouldn''t be so foolish as to think that he could use his bare hands to block the golden bangle. Naturally, he evaded, but his heart couldn''t help scolding. This bastard was too shameless, a master of Bone-Forging Realm using weapons to deal with a rookie of Level Three Skin-Toughening Realm. This was too low.


    However, Junior Leopard was not afraid. Fearful of the golden bangle, he just need to not touch it. To keep clear of the enemy''s main force and strike at his weak points was the meaning behind the Taiji Fist. Hence, as long as he saw the opponent''s golden bangle coming over, his fists would evade. However, this evading was without any sort of patterns.


    Slowly, Liu Si began to see some hints. Junior Leopard''s two fists drew a strange circle in his surroundings. With every circle being drawn, there would be a strand of strange force remaining. Even though this force was extremely minute, it began to be numerous following the increase in circles drawn. This force began to multiply and actually formed an airflow vortex around Junior Leopard. To break the airflow vortex was not difficult, but it was extremely bothersome. This caused him to no longer be able to use the golden bangle as freely as before.


    And following the tide of time, he discovered that the problem was becoming bigger and bigger. Junior Leopard''s fists produced a fist strength that was thin like cloth. One by one the airflow vortex actually merged towards a direction, forming a strange and finely formed strength net around his body. This strength net was ''sewed'' on by the strength left behind by the fists of Junior Leopard. His attacking power, including the attack power of the golden bangle, most of it was dissolved by those finely strength. And behind the finely strength, Junior Leopard''s Qi Power was becoming more and more rampant. Liu Si even felt that behind his strength, there was a desolate great beast that was slowly forming that could devour everything.


    At that point, he suddenly understood what was going on. His expression became extremely sullen.


    "Fist intent! Damnit, he''s condensing his fist intent. How could this be possible? He just broke through to Level Three; how could he comprehend the fist intent?"

 Chapter 91: Simulation of the Universe, Crushing Vacuum (I)

    Chapter 91: Simulation of the Universe, Crushing Vacuum (I)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    What is consciousness? And what is substance?


    That was a problem of philosophy in Junior Leopard''s previous life, but now it reverted to a realistic problem in this new world.


    When everything returned to reality, there would be only one question left: "What is consciousness and what is divine thought?"


    Frankly speaking, divine thoughts meant that you were strong enough to feel your consciousness.


    But the explanation was too simple and it could not describe precisely what divine thoughts meant.


    And there was another concept before learning about divine thoughts, which was Qi Power.


    In Junior Leopard''s previous life, people would always say that somebody had a strong Qi Power, and in fiction, the authors would also write that the character had a kind of Aura that made him or her well respected. And one thing for sure was that these descriptions were all used for shaping experts and high-level officials.


    But what about things in reality?


    Junior Leopard had also met with countless officials in his previous life, including province governors and party secretaries. He actually could not feel any kind of Qi Power however when they stood face to face in front of him. So he concluded that the so-called Qi Power was merely an attitude that they had gotten used to as they had been in the boss''s position for too long. Qi Power, in Junior Leopard''s eyes, was more like something made up in fiction. It was a figure of speech, an exaggeration. It was nonsense that some people could particularly develop an exceptional Qi Power while others could not. We were all human after all.


    When he came to this brand new world, Junior Leopard got to know martial arts skills. Gradually, he had an understanding of martial arts. After delving further, Junior Leopard understood that this thing, Qi Power, existed in this world.


    Anybody practicing martial arts would have Qi Power at the same time when he or she had practiced Internal Qi successfully. The only thing was that Qi Power was tiny, to begin with. It was similar to a small flame, which could also affect the airflow all around. It was difficult to be noticed unless you sensed it by heart.


    Once one''s cultivation had reached a certain state, his or her Internal Qi circulating in the body would be able to affect the airflow around even though Internal Qi was not let out. The surroundings would be changed accordingly. It was just like what was happening on Junior Leopard at present. As the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was activated, the air would also be heated, as if warmed up by an everlasting flame.


    But this was not Qi Power, or it should be put as this was not the real Qi Power!


    The real Qi Power would also mix some consciousness inside while Internal Qi was in function.


    And consciousness was also an abstruse concept, it was not visible nor was it tangible, but it existed in the world. A simple example could explain that. Those were the days when revolution swept across China and both heroes and anti-heroes arose. But why were there both of them?


    When faced with the same punishment, some would survive, while some could not. This was a matter of willpower. As some had a strong willpower, while some did not.


    But in Junior Leopard previous life, what was willpower would simply remain as willpower however strong it was, invisible and intangible.


    In this world, however, things were different. The moment one had practiced his first string of Internal Qi, it would be imprinted with his own consciousness.


    And why was that?


    Just think what Internal Qi relied on to circulate in your body. It relied on your consciousness.


    Qi moved with consciousness and also left with it. Qi was an inseparable part of one''s consciousness at the beginning when it was born.


    The process of practicing was, in itself, actually difficult. Either enhancing one''s body or condensing one''s Internal Qi was all a process that tested one''s willpower. Even for Junior Leopard, what he had accomplished so far also originated from hundreds of thousands of pains and bitterness.


    Therefore, the better one''s cultivation was and the stronger one''s consciousness was, so was one''s willpower stronger.


    When one''s willpower was strong enough to a certain phase it would undergo a quantitative change.


    And the change was that divine thoughts would be born!


    It was an illusory concept--the nature of divine thoughts was consciousness. When one noticed the existence of this intangible and invisible consciousness and could also control it, it would become divine thoughts.


    Then as divine thoughts successfully got combined with one''s Internal Qi, another mysterious concept would be born.


    Fist Intent


    Sword Intent


    Saber Intent


    Cudgel Intent!


    The so-called intent was, in fact, materialized Qi Power.


    A bigger qualitative change would be undergone as divine thoughts combined with a very strong Internal Qi. At that time, one''s Qi Power would be materialized and intent would be born.


    Intent was mysterious and odd at the same time.


    Not only did it require divine thoughts, but it also relied on one''s luck and savey. A good fortune was also indispensable.


    Even a Level Nine expert could not own "intent" without having good chance and savey. He could own magnificent Qi Power like mountains, mighty Qi Power like oceans, and devastating Qi Power like earthquakes, but "intent" was not something he could easily obtain.


    Intent meant one had to strike a balance between divine thoughts and Internal Qi while figuring out some insights.


    Insights!


    That was another amazingly mysterious concept!


    Junior Leopard got his insights once. But that was not enough for him to understand their essence.


    The only thing he knew was that just like right now, he was somehow familiar with being in the state of getting insights.


    The feeling was odd.


    He had never encountered such feelings when he practiced fist martial arts.


    But he had never forgotten the similar feeling when he was first admitted to the Wu Family. He was chopping wood with a small hammer then and the feeling was the same as what he could feel now.


    Lost, he felt entirely lost!


    Among his lost feelings, something was shining in his mind and his Internal Qi underwent a mysterious change in the meantime as if beckoned by a supernatural force.


    "Could it be that I have gotten insights again?" As weird as Junior Leopard felt, he could still control something, and that was his movement. He was still in a battle right now and surely would not neglect the punching skills he was using against the enemy.


    The better he deployed his punching skill, the stronger his feeling was. He then gradually picked up the feeling and realized that it was affected by his punching skill. When he had a deeper understanding of the Thirteen Punches of Desolation, his feeling would grow stronger, while the feeling would become weaker as his understanding waned.


    "This is what I couldn''t feel before when I was practicing the punching skills. I have always felt as if there was something incomplete. It turns out that the strange feeling is what was missing!"Junior Leopard ''s doubt was brightened, and his fist did not get weaker. On the contrary, the Qi Power was growing more cleared from his body, and it was becoming more dangerous.


    Everybody''s intent was different, as each person was different.


    A basic explanation for that was simple. Intent was materialized from Qi Power, it was formed when divine thoughts and Internal Qi reached a subtle balance. Channeled directly to one''s heart, intent was different, since each one''s thoughts were not the same.


    To some extent, intent reflected the practicer''s character a great deal.


    But that was not 100% precise because too many factors affected intent. However, the cultivation method that was practiced and divine thoughts were the two most important factors.


    Junior Leopard was actually a loser in his previous life. He had a good educational background in his pevious life, but throughout his life, nothing was accomplished. He chased after what was beneficial to him and avoided unfavorable conditions. He was merely an ordinary man, a little bit cowardly, greedy, and salacious.


    However, it was exactly the same group of people that were ordinary in life who would also be amazingly wild in the mind. Their imaginations had no limits. People named them as concealed coquettish.


    Now that he was in this new world, his social status, identity, and even the world were absolutely different. But his character was still the same. Since he had more memories and social experience, he was reasonably smarter than average and possessed some knowledge which might not be useful here. Therefore, the only difference was he was more concealed coquettish.


    His knowledge was not very handy in this new world. Only Taiji Fist that he had mastered was helpful aside from his worldly wisdom.


    Normally, a person of his kind would not practice any outstanding consciousness even if he was lucky enough to understand the essence of it.


    Things were different again when it was happening to Junior Leopard.


    He grasped the secret of intent unintentionally. His body congealed the fist intent and until this intent knew the secret deep inside his heart, the fist intent was stable.


    And most importantly, consciousness would always simulate the strongest object from one''s mind while it was being practiced. So what was the strongest object in Junior Leopard''s mind?


    Any other person could not know. But in his mind, what was strongest definitely would not be any sort of primitive or heavenly beasts, nor would it be animals at all, but only the universe!


    The universe was almighty. Science was well developed in his previous life. Radio telescopes could detect places millions of light years away. He would, of course, know that each galaxy formed its own world. However strong a creature was, it could not get away from the rules of the universe and had to live and regenerate in it.


    The universe was called heaven and earth here.


    But no practicer in this world would dare to create his own world.


    Nor would Junior Leopard have this thought.


    While he did not have delusions, he did have illusions. The greatest benefit he got from possessing memories from his previous life was that his ideas were less restrained.


    What was the universe?


    In his mind, it was grand and ultimate on the one hand and was his illusory target on the other.


    This was similar to those beauties and stars from his previous life¡ªyou could not marry her, but you could imagine that you had married her. They could not control your imagination.


    You could not touch the big universe, but you could form a smaller one.


    There was a saying that one''s body was a little universe. And was that not the reason why there was a cockroach?


    It was exactly because he had those illusions in mind that his intent had begun to clear accordingly.


    Simulating the universe, evolving the world!

 Chapter 92: Simulation of the Universe, Crushing Vacuum (II)

    Chapter 92: Simulation of the Universe, Crushing Vacuum (II)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    To a man in the martial arts world, everything was impossible to happen.


    Even if they were really like Junior Leopard, being extremely arrogant in their hearts, thinking that they could transform into the universe and evolve the world, yet they did not know how to evolve.


    How could they be compared to Junior Leopard? In Junior Leopard''s previous life, science was highly developed. People calculated perfectly and clearly the stars'' rotation and the evolution of universe. They found that universe originally was a singularity, with no time and no space. All of a sudden it exploded and the universe was formed.


    Although this Big-Bang theory was just one of many theories explaining the birth of the universe, it was the most acceptable theory. Besides, Junior Leopard had seen the stars'' rotation, the birth process of the planets and the formation of the galaxy on TV in his previous life. Even though he could not remember it clearly now, yet the information still existed deep in his mind. Now, when the intent was formed, it was pointing straight at the heart, picking out the last secret of his inner heart that was long forgotten, and now it began evolving.


    And the first step to evolving was to form a singularity.


    What was a singularity?


    Junior Leopard did not know. Only within the subconscious, this thing was able to explode so it had to be a thing that was compressed to the maximum. Hence, his Qi Power also began to compress.


    This world actually had another term for the compression of Qi Power. It was building up strength.


    During the process of Junior Leopard''s insights, he had been building up strength. It was also because of the Qi Power''s unusual fluctuations that gained Liu Si''s attention. Liu Si discovered that this kid could have comprehended something and started to condense the fist intent.


    Once the fist intent was formed, it was no doubt that Junior Leopard''s strength would increase dramatically. Most importantly, even the newly formed intent had the effect of "breaking the force". Moreover, it could create harm on a mental level. Damage on a mental level was not like injury on the bodily flesh. It could not recover so quickly. The higher and deeper the cultivation level, the more important was the maintenance of the spirit. Once it suffered damage, to put it in another way, it was to break the heart of the Dao. Once the heart of the Dao was broken, a light punishment would be that the cultivation stopped progressing forward. A heavy punishment would be that the martial arts would all be crippled, and there would even be a risk of life. This principle, Junior Leopard did not understand it, yet Liu Si understood it clearly. Adding to the fact that the fist intent that Junior Leopard was condensing was too strange, this building up of strength was too soul-shocking, which made Liu Si fearsome.


    "This definitely cannot go on. If I continue letting his Qi Power to condense, it could be said that today I will be killed here!" Feeling that the Qi Power from Junior Leopard was getting stranger, Liu Si thought. He was so shocked that he wanted to take the chance to break the fist intent before it was fully formed. Naturally, he dared not leave thing to chance and displayed his true strength.


    He put the golden bangle in his hand, and shouted explosively. The shout was like a thunder. With a bang, Jin Nanqing and the rest felt dizzy. Those who didn''t faint, was shocked unconscious, with bleeding from their nose, mouth and ears. In the present scene, other than the two people fighting the only person awake was Jin Nanqing alone.


    After Liu Si shouted, the golden bangle in his hand turned crazily. The golden light flashed as if it was solidifying. At the same time, he placed the golden bangle in front of his chest horizontally and opened both hands simultaneously. The golden bangle actually hovered in front of his chest. The golden light that seemed to be solidifying formed a layer of weird light film.


    "Go to hell!" Liu Si shouted angrily. Both of his fists formed into one, and shot through the golden light in front of him, aiming straight to Junior Leopard''s chest.


    The fist went through the golden bangle. The golden film that was formed from the golden light in the golden bangle was stirred up by his fist, merging, and actually peeled off from the golden bangle.


    It must be known that this golden bangle was an abnormal treasure. It was Liu Qi Taoist who refined it from a piece of congenital golden metal essence found in an extreme cold place in the Western Sea that melted within the essence of cold iron. It shouldn''t be a weapon anymore, but a wizard weapon or a celestial device.


    This punch was the strongest killing movement of this celestial device. It even could destroy the heavens and the earth, which formed with his own cultivation to merge with the golden bangle''s strand of golden metal essence.


    That golden light was dragged out of the golden bangle. The golden bangle instantly became dull and revealed a black color. It was the cold iron''s body after the golden metal essence was extracted from it.


    Liu Si''s fist was thrown out, attacking straight to vital part of Junior Leopard''s chest.


    "Oh, it is indeed extraordinary!"


    After the punch went out, Liu Si felt that this punch was as if it hit a ball of wet cotton. If it was not because he used a secret skill just now and the punch strength contained sufficient golden metal Qi, even if this fist hit solidly, the lethality would leave 10 percent at best.


    Even now, merging with the golden metal Qi, the vortex formed from the punch strength that was placed horizontally in front of Junior Leopard did not have any use on him. Without any block, the fist went through, and the power didn''t show signs of weakening at all.


    At this moment, Junior Leopard also reached a critical moment. His Qi Power was accumulated till the extreme, and condensing in one spot. It was just like a dead object, not moving at all. With the condensing of the Qi Power, Junior Leopard felt that his own thoughts were also completely frozen up. When Liu Si''s fist came, Junior Leopard''s consciousness was still present, and he could still control his own body. Unconsciously, he gave a blow to Liu Si. However, when this fist went halfway, it completely condensed.


    What was a singularity?


    A singularity was an eccentric thing without any time or any space. Junior Leopard ridiculously compressed the Qi Power, condensing the fist intent, and really condensed the Qi force into a singularity.


    No time, no space, naturally there wouldn''t be anything, and naturally, he wouldn''t be able to move.


    Hence, this fist went halfway and was frozen by his own Qi Power.


    Even the thoughts would be frozen in its tracks, just like when the universe was born.


    If there wasn''t anything to break it, then it would forever be in this state. Heaven knew when it would explode.


    However, when this singularity just stabilized, Liu Si''s fist came. If it was just a normal punch, it wouldn''t be able to shake Junior Leopard''s state. Who knew when he threw out this punch, whether he would be like Junior Leopard, being affected by the Qi Power, and being frozen?


    However, this fist contained the Qi of the congenital golden metal essence. With such a foreign force introduced, things were different.


    \Almost at that moment when Junior Leopard''s consciousness got frozen, Liu Si''s fist came, clashing with Junior Leopard''s fist.


    Because the speed was too fast, Liu Si did not notice anything abnormal at all. As for Junior Leopard, he only felt that his brain short-circuited for a moment. Following that, as if there was something in his brain exploding. As for his fist, it habitually went forward.


    Then he did not know when his fist had been struck with his fist. The golden light on Liu Si''s fist shimmered and then disappeared. Junior Leopard''s brain flashed past a strand of understanding. The strong Qi Power condensed together and was compressed into his fist. Following that, he lightly moved his fist forward.


    When the fist collided, there was no sound or vibration. Yet, Junior Leopard felt that his punch even could destroy the heavens and the earth.


    This fist pressed forward, yet it destroyed everything, including space.


    This fist, was just like the big bang when the universe was born, destroying everything, and creating everything in the meantime.


    Heaven and earth, time and space, life and death!


    It was described fully by this fist.


    Pitiful Liu Si hadn''t even understood what was going on, and his consciousness went blank.


    Faintly, a strange sound that was like glass breaking apart rang out. The airflow around suddenly roared. Following the trajectory of Junior Leopard''s fist, the hollow was tore out a big black hole. In front of Junior Leopard, the golden bangle and Liu Si exploded at the same time. There was no blood and flesh flying around, or fragments scattered. There was only dust and particles which were the essence. Then they were sucked into the black hole, disappearing into the hollow, completely going back to the essence.


    It was the crushing vacuum!


    Jin Nanqing''s eyes suddenly widen.


    This was the legendary crushing vacuum!


    In legends, those extremely strong experts could use their own fists to crush vacuum. He always thought that it was just a myth. Yet today he actually saw it for himself, and it was acted by Junior Leopard who was only a small boy.


    It made him involuntarily feel like he was in a dream.


    Following the punching, a wave of surging and mysterious Qi Power spread out from his body, and momentarily shrouding the whole cave.


    Under the shroud of the mysterious Qi Power, Jin Nanqing even hallucinated. He felt as if he was in a never-ending galaxy. It was just that this galaxy didn''t have a star, and could only be considered a hollow.


    "Hiss...!" Junior Leopard violently inhaled. A red light flashed in his eyes. He stretched out his arms and embraced heaven and earth. A sense of mastery suddenly struke him and then vanished.


    That feeling, only existed for a moment.


    Both Junior Leopard and Jin Nanqing were stunned. Then all kinds of weird signs completely vanished. The whole cave was cool and empty as if nothing had happened.


    The only thing that was different was that Liu Si vanished and the black hollow hole that was created from Junior Leopard''s fist also disappeared. But Jin Nanqing''s expression had changed when he looked at Junior Leopard. There was no longer that air of superiority, nor the pretentious care that he displayed previously. What was there instead was an endless respect and uneasy.


    Even though he didn''t know what happened, just based on the punch that crushed the hollow, he did not have any competitive desires anymore.


    Junior Leopard didn''t know what happened as well. He only knew that his own Qi Power had experienced a weird change. As for what that change was, he really didn''t know.


    Not only him, Jin Nanqing couldn''t figure it out either.


    Although they were Wu''s disciples and were core disciples, because their cultivation was too low. "Intent" was too mysterious and strange for them. Of course, it was hard for him to comprehend. Normally speaking, only those whose cultivation had reached Level Six to Seven could have the qualifications to feel the own consciousness. They could then use and groped their divine thoughts and thereby had a chance to comprehend the "intent".


    Others simply did not even think about that one would be like Junior Leopard who just broke through to Level Three, and at the same time comprehend the "intent", there was literally no precedent for that.


    It was precisely because of this that it was only when the disciples'' cultivation broke through to the Bone-Forging realm, feeling that they were promising persons, that they would tell them about the existence of the intent. This was to save them from too much thinking at the low cultivation, falling behind. Then they may loss the lucky chance of comprehension. Most importantly, if they delayed their cultivation progress, that would be a loss more than gain.

 Chapter 93: Division of Punching Spirit, Appearance of the Black Sun

    Chapter 93: Division of Punching Spirit, Appearance of the Black Sun


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Hence, these two people did not know what happened exactly.


    As for why Jin Nanqing would have a mentality of fear towards Junior Leopard, it mainly was because of Junior Leopard''s fist and the following heaven-shaking Qi Power.


    What he didn''t know was, just now the fist that Junior Leopard executed, was completely under chance and luck. It was only like then, to compress the Qi Power in the body into a singularity, and having the external intervention of a force to break it, to produce a universal Big-Bang effect, then could such a result be achieved.


    Now that Junior Leopard''s fist intent was formed, his Qi Power also produced a substantial change. Even if he entered into that kind of insight state again, he couldn''t compress the Qi Power together once again. He wouldn''t be able to throw out the second punch neither.


    However this matter, even if Junior Leopard was clear about it and explained it to Jin Nanqing, Jin Nanqing wouldn''t believe him, not to mention he didn''t understand.


    "Senior brothers, are you all alright?"


    After experiencing a momentary absent-minded, Junior Leopard reacted the quickest. He hurriedly walked to Jin Nanqing and asked.


    "Alright, alright, thanks to junior brother Zhou!" Jin Nanqing said. The gaze which he looked at Junior Leopard began to have signs of shrinking.


    "Lucky, I am merely lucky!" Thinking about that situation just now, Junior Leopard''s doubts in his heart were even more than his. Even he didn''t believe, that fist just now was thrown by himself. It was also because of so, Junior Leopard didn''t want to mention this matter. After some vague words, he went to rescue and wake up the other six senior brothers.


    A good thing was although they all fainted, except the only one was heavily injured, the others were not heavily injured, so he began to relax as well.


    Having escaped from death, they woke up and did not understand what was going on. Although they had questions in their hearts, yet seeing Junior Leopard and Jin Nanqing not willing to talk about it, naturally they didn''t dare to ask more. This saved Junior Leopard a lot of trouble.


    Later on, they heard that Liu Si had died. And those medicinal herbs were still here. Even though they were injured, they felt excited. Looking at the medicinal herbs stacked up in the cave, them seemed that they were seeing a bright future. As for how Junior Leopard and Jin Nanqing killed Liu Si, they kept his curiosity in their heart.


    This was the benefit of living in this world!


    People living in this world, who don''t have their own secrets?


    Junior Leopard in his previous life lived in a communicative society. The amount of information was too huge and people gossiped a lot. Whatever secret there was it couldn''t be kept. However, in this world, things were different. The information flow was not smooth, and it was a world which prioritized martial arts. As for other people''s secrets, nobody wished to recklessly scout it out. Even if they scouted it out, they wouldn''t dare to speak carelessly, so as not to get into trouble.


    Adding on to that, Junior Leopard and Jin Nanqing were inner core disciples. Comparing to Zhou Zhengming and those normal inner core disciples, their positions were a little higher. These normal inner core disciples naturally wouldn''t dare to scout out their secrets. Thus no one mentioned it anymore.


    After recuperating for a few days, other than the unlucky fella who was seriously injured, the rest had recovered much.


    These few days, Junior Leopard naturally spent most of his time on practicing. His Internal Qi had just broken through to Level Three, thus he needed to solidify the phase. As for the changes in his Qi Power, similarly, he needed to comprehend it.


    Jin Nanqing certainly did not dare to disturb him, leaving Junior Leopard alone to practice in the cave.


    Junior Leopard''s fist intent had been formed. However, he did not know that. He only knew that his own Qi Power had become eccentric. Previously when he trained his fists there were obstructions, which were now all of a sudden cleared up.


    Not only it was cleared up, but also when he began to practice the Thirteen Punches of Desolation, he could still feel that his own Qi Power had changed, changed to become weird. When he began to carefully practice his fist, he realized that he was as if existing in a piece of independent hollow.


    In this hollow, nothing was substantial. It was very empty, and he did not know its use. At the same time, he also knew that this hollow was only a feeling of his. He was still in the depths of the cave, his position didn''t change at all. It was just that when he put in the effort to practice his punching skills, a kind of strange change would happen in the surroundings, just like the Qi Power in the past. However, this kind of change was much more eccentric than his Qi Power.


    "Could this be the legendary Region?"


    Wasn''t there a saying that illiteracy was terrible?


    Illiteracy only knew to think blindly.


    He thought of the mysterious Regions that he had seen in so many fantasy novels.


    However, he couldn''t be blamed for this. After all he didn''t know there was "intent" in this world.


    "That''s not good. If everytime I practice fist, this thing permeates out. That''s too ostentatious!"


    Every time he practiced his fist, the fist intent would be brought out. This indeed didn''t suit Junior Leopard life principle of low profile.


    Hence, he started to try to put away this strange Qi Power. After trying for a few times, he finally succeeded.


    "Interesting, there''s really some meaning related to the Region, but it felt like there''s something missing!" Junior Leopard put away his own fist intent and thought to himself. Even though he didn''t know what it was, but he could really feel the benefits that the intent had brought to him.


    As for crushing vacuum, he didn''t even want to think it over. That was because he knew it was purely out of luck. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t launch it. Therefore, he simply did not think.


    And when he calmed down, he realized that he could easily sense that strange hollow, which also meant how his fist intent produced.


    When he began to circulate his Internal Qi and focused all his spirit in the circulation of the Internal Qi, he could sense that hollow.


    And gradually, he discovered something strange.


    His fist intent was a completely hollow as if there was nothing at all. However, at the same time, it seemed to have everything, possessing endless possibilities, only waiting for him to fill it up.


    How to fill it up?


    Junior Leopard did not know!


    "Aye, what''s this?"


    Closing his eyes, silently sensing, suddenly, he found a bit of golden light within this hollow.


    That bit of golden light suddenly appeared in the endless hollow, as if it generated out of thin air.


    That bit of golden light was the golden metal essence formed from the golden bangle.


    This bit of golden metal essence was the reason of Junior Leopard being able to launch the crushing vacuum before.


    Hence, very naturally, at the moment Junior Leopard launched the crushing vacuum, this little bit of golden metal essence was merged into his fist intent.


    The intent was the merging of divine thoughts and Internal Qi, and it could be formed when the two reached a mysterious equilibrium.


    That little bit of golden metal essence broke the singularity, in the most critical moment of Junior Leopard condensing his fist intent. It naturally couldn''t escape being absorbed by Junior Leopard''s fist intent, becoming the initial pneuma when his fist intent was simulating the universe.


    Junior Leopard''s fist intent sounded extremely arrogant. It could simulate the universe!


    What did it mean? The world was within the fist!


    However, in fact, it was pleasant to the eye but of no use.


    For intent, the most demanding was completeness. If the fist intent was not complete, it would have flaws. With flaws, it would be easily dissolved by other people.


    The universe was so big that it surpassed everyone''s imaginations. To let this kind of fist intent to be complete, the whole universe must be completed. Only in this way could we exert all the power of the fist intent, which was perfect.


    It was impossible to complete the universe.


    Now Junior Leopard did not know this. If he knew early about the various obstacles in forming the fist intent, he naturally wouldn''t be so naive to turn his fist intent into such a manner.


    Originally, his fist intent was a lump of hollow, deep and dark, yet it was still a hollow, without any real substantial power.


    Just that when the little bit of golden metal essence was merged into it, things took a turn.


    Junior Leopard settled down to quietly sense the black flame within his Dantian. It slightly moved, as if it was attracted by something. A strand of it was extracted out from the Dantian, and merged into his fist intent.


    The fist intent in a piece of hollow instantly changed.


    That strand of the golden metal essence, strictly speaking, was a foreign object. For it to appear within the fist intent, it disturbed the changes of the fist intent. However, Junior Leopard''s fist intent naturally did not weak. His Internal Qi contained an extremely strong Mysterious Fire power. Upon sensing that there was something wrong in his fist intent that Mysterious Fire naturally appeared.


    The five elements promoted each other and restricted each other!


    Fire restricted gold!


    That strand of Mysterious Fire that came out of the Dantian entered into Junior Leopard''s fist intent, and rushed straight for that golden light, instantly enveloping it. In an instant, it refined that strand of golden metal Qi.


    When refining, a strand of faint golden gas was dispersed within the hollow. And that strand of Mysterious Fire showed no signs of returning, unexpectedly forming a fireball in the hollow, becoming bigger and bigger.


    Junior Leopard suddenly had a string of mysterious insight. Both of his eyes violently opened, the Fiery Eyes had activated. Both of his eyes were like blood and a circle of black line flashed a demonic black light. It rushed out from the eyes, and spurt forward for a foot.


    Then the black line violently turned. Following the turning of the black line, the circulation of Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi also began to have some mysterious changes. With the change, his fist intent in the hollow was stirred. As the black line turned, gradually it condensed into a fist intent vortex. Then the fist intent vortex was slowly pulled into Junior Leopard''s eyes.


    The black lines in the eyes turned faster and faster, the fist intent in Junior Leopard''s surroundings became more and more eccentric. At last, the fist intent in a piece of hollow was completely pulled into Junior Leopard''s eyes.


    The black lines within the eyes vanished. The fiery red pupils also vanished. The two eyes looked deep as if it was two black deep ravines, and it was like a deep and vast hollow.


    However, Junior Leopard''s fist intent did not completely disappear. In Junior Leopard''s surroundings, a flaming black fireball slowly formed.


    Junior Leopard who was sitting cross-legged involuntarily stood up, and began practicing the Thirteen Punches of Desolation.


    Following the route of the punching skill and the circulation of the Internal Qi, the scorching fireball behind him gradually condensed and took form. In this process, it was as if the fist intent was condensed for the second time. However, the condensation this time around, as compared to the first time, was much simpler. The fist intent was very normal as well.


    When he completed the Thirteen Punches of Desolation, this new fist intent was completely formed. It looked like a black sun, hanging behind Junior Leopard, burning fiercely.


    The air in the surrounding began to heat up under the surge of his fist intent.


    Junior Leopard stayed at the depths of the cave, and both of his eyes were like hollows. He kept calm, as if he was sensing something, thinking about something.


    Suddenly, he deeply breathed like whale sucked water. Then he slowly closed his eyes. The fist intent began to weaken and scatter. Almost as he closed his eyes, the fist intent was completely gone.


    When he opened his eyes again, the hollow within his eyes was still there, but it was no longer empty without an object. There was a burning black fireball in each eye.


    After a few breaths, the fireball vanished, and so did the hollow within the eyes. Only a pair of ordinary eyes was left.

 Chapter 94: Bandit

    Chapter 94: Bandit


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Damn, what exactly happened to me? How could it be so inexplicable?"


    After so long time, this less educated boy still hadn''t made clear what exactly happened.


    He only knew that his Qi Power experienced some strange changes, and it changed twice. The first change was useless; the second change was because of being stimulated by his pair of Fiery Eyes, and the change was mysterious, turning into a black fireball.


    "Bah, bah, it''s obviously a sun, a black sun. It seemed that the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique also changed. The Internal Qi circulation routes seemed to have some subtle changes as well. It seemed to be even more perfect. Should I continue practicing this route? If that''s the case, then it should be called Black Sun Magic instead of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, haha!"


    Junior Leopard had no idea what had happened to him. He only knew that this kind of change had only benefits and no harm towards him. Upon careful observation of his own body, he didn''t discover anything surprising. The physical strength didn''t change, still at Skin-Toughening Realm. His cultivation also just stabilized at Level Three. This was something worth being happy about.


    "The idea that fighting is the fastest way to improve strength is right. Only under really heavy pressure, facing a life and death struggle, the speed of advancement is the fastest. Others are all fake. However, it''s too dangerous and doesn''t suit me!"


    Junior Leopard subconsciously shrank his neck. Suddenly he felt his stomach growling and the feeling of hungry struck. He involuntarily touched his stomach, "Who knows how long I have been sitting here. My stomach is so hungry that it began to growl. Can this be called forgetting myself for the sake of practice?" Junior Leopard laughed, and walked towards the outside of the cave.


    "Junior brother Zhou, you have come out!" Looking at Junior Leopard walking out of the depths of the cave, Jin Nanqing invited him with a bright smile. His enthusiastic attitude made Junior Leopard do not know how to react.


    "Senior brother, are there any flowers on my face? Your stare made me embarrassed!"


    "Hee hee, no, no, your cultivation experienced leaps and bounds. As your senior brother I am very happy for you!" Jin Nanqing hurriedly said, "Junior brother, after this battle, not only you have broken through to Level Three, it seemed that you have some other gains!"


    "I don''t know whether it''s a gain or not!" Junior Leopard bitterly smiled, "I still need to ask my teacher!"


    "Yeah, yeah, in the path of martial arts skills, there is no end to learning. In many things, without someone teaching, it will be very easy to take unnecessary routes!" Jin Nanqing nodded repeatedly, and said to Junior Leopard, "Junior brother, this time around, we''ve gained a lot!"


    Junior Leopard''s gaze flashed, and he looked at Jin Nanqing, realizing his intentions, "Yes, we indeed gained a lot. Thanks to senior brother''s plan. Oh, right, how about senior brother Wang?"


    "Alas, after a day and a night, he was hopeless!" Upon mentioning senior brother Wang, Jin Nanqing''s gaze dampened. It was not because he felt sorry for his death, but because his death made this matter not be easily settled.


    Originally in his plan, they kept these medicinal herbs to themselves. Then they told the outsiders that after checking for a few days, they didn''t find any clues, treating it as a failed mission. However, now that one person had died, it was hard to explain. They had to think of some way to have a closure to this lie.


    In the Wu Family, the big thing was not people''s death on a mission but that they kept this batch of medicinal herbs to themselves. The lie in this matter had to have a full closure.


    Junior Leopard was not a fool and he naturally knew about the consequences in the matter. "You said that you all had checked for a few days and didn''t find anything, then why a person died?"


    "What happened to you?"


    Although Wang Ji''s cultivation was not high, he had already reached Level Two. It was not possible for him to die so easily. Even if he really died, there needed to be some explanations.


    "What do you intend to do?" Junior Leopard asked. Anyway, this time around Jin Nanqing was the one calling the shots, so this kind of thing should be settled by Jin Nanqing. The position that he had set for himself now was a thug. Then there was no need for him to worry so much.


    "I have already thought through this matter!" Jin Nanqing said, "I am going to..."


    "Senior brother, do you have some things to eat? I am really hungry now!"


    "Yes, of course. Sorry, I have forgotten that you have already abstained from food for three days. Come on, let''s talk while eating!"


    Junior Leopard followed Jin Nanqing out of the cave. Outside there was a bonfire. The rest of the Wu''s disciples were all hurt with very pitiful appearance. He was confused. Had they clashed with other people?


    Seeing that Junior Leopard was puzzled, Jin Nanqing smiled. "Junior brother Zhou, this is my way of resolving the issue!"


    When speaking, he tore down a piece of lamb leg from the frame and passed it to Junior Leopard. Then he began to speak out his ideas.


    This time around they left the Wu Family on a mission to track the stolen goods. Since it was tracking, then, there had to be some actions. Even if they gained nothing, there was a process.


    Besides, now that one person died, it was impossible not to alert people. Since that was the case, Jin Nanqing decided to blow things out of proportion. Weren''t they going to track the bandits?


    Who was the biggest suspect? Of course, it was the bandits. There were quite a few batches of bandits nearby the Black Shakou.


    Wu Yuntian had checked before, but it was none of their business. Jin Nanqing was not Wu Yuntian. Maybe Wu Yuntian was shielding those bandits. Hence, to hide the truth, he decided to pin it down on the bandits, and create a conflict. Once there was a conflict, there would be injuries and death. Thus Wang Ji''s death could be covered in this manner.


    As for that batch of bandits that were maligned, who would have the time to care about them? Those bandits killed people and snatched goods for a long time. They had done numerous evil deeds. Even if all of them were killed, it was also a form of executing justice and getting rid of evils for the people, not to mention maligning them. Would there be any opposition to them?


    "A few days ago we went to find Beard Ma''s trouble, and killed a few of his followers, engaging in a conflict with them. Unexpectedly, Beard Ma''s followers were so strong that we suffered a bit. However, this is good and they have the capability to kill junior brother Wang!"


    Listening till here, Junior Leopard understood. Jin Nanqing was intending to push all the blame onto Beard Ma''s group of bandits.


    "Now what do we do?"


    "Beard Ma has underlings of more than 200, and they are divided into four small teams, each team 50 people. There is a Captain for each team. These Captains aren''t weak. They are all masters at Level Two. Furthermore, they have 50 people on each team. Although their strength is not high, each one of them is trained and even practiced the battle array of unison technique. They''re very difficult to deal with!"


    "You mean..."


    "I mean we should just ambush one small team, and kill off their Captain, and then kill some more bandits. Then we can say that junior brother Wang was killed in the battle with the bandits!"


    "That''s a good idea!" Junior Leopard nodded.


    In the process of tracking down the bandits, they found some clues, which could possibly be connected to Beard Ma. When investigating, they suffered clashes with these bandits. In the end, they killed Beard Ma''s Captain and dozens of bandits. However, due to careless, Wang Ji got struck by the bandits, and died from a heavy injury.


    As for whether the things were snatched by Beard Ma, that wasn''t important, because they were only investigating, and did not come to a conclusion.


    By doing this, there would be a closure to the lie!


    Once he understood this point, Junior Leopard naturally agreed. Jin Nanqing''s martial arts might not amount to much, but he was smart.


    "Then please, tell me what to do next!" Junior Leopard chewed on the last lamb leg and cupped together his oily hands.


    "Beard Ma''s bandits'' battle array is somewhat troublesome. By then please use your twin hammers to smash apart their battle array!"


    "That''s easy for me!" Junior Leopard said, "They are just a few non-established bandits, leave them to me!"


    "Good!"


    ...


    ...


    The wind in Black Shakou became stronger and stronger as if it never stopped.


    A wave of carriage noise traveled from far away.At the end of the official road, there was a black dot. Slowly, that black dot became bigger and bigger, closer and closer. It was actually a small merchant group.


    There were not many people in the merchant group. They had six carriages, and two of the carriages were used to carry people not goods.


    There were a dozen rides guarding the group around the carriages. Besides, there were dozens of men armed with swords and sabers. One would know that they were the bodyguards at a glance.


    Looking again at the riders on the horses and the black clothes of the armed men, you found there was a tiger with wings sewn on their clothes. On the top of the five to six carriages, there were also triangular flags with a similar flying tiger on it.


    This was one of the four big escort agencies Zhonghe Prefecture, Flying Tiger Escort Agency.


    "Third Master, they seem to be the Flying Tiger Escort Agency. There might be some trouble!"


    In the woods not far away from the official road, there were dozens of men and horses lying in ambush. These dozens pair of eyes were greedily looking at the goods on the official road. These people were all dressed in green-grey combat clothes with a yellow band on their heads. The one leading them was skinny, with dry skin. He looked wretched, and his eyes like mung beans were flashing with greed and cunning.


    "Flying Tiger Escort Agency? Indeed it is somewhat troublesome. However, there''s no choice. Who asks them to bump into our hands? Get the brothers to be ready, we must kill them all. Also, tell those few lechers, this time around we want the goods. No matter men or women, young or old, we kill them all. There isn''t a time for them to enjoy the women!"


    "Yes!"


    Third Master''s eyes stared deadly at the merchant group on the official road, "If there''s anyone to blame, blame yourselves. You just show up in a wrong time!"


    Because of the robbery of the Wu Family, now the situation was extremely tight. These few bandits in Black Shakou wanted to avoid suspicion, and not invite troubles on themselves. They almost restrained themselves and did not dare make trouble.


    However, bandits were also human. They needed to eat which all needed money. If they didn''t rob, what would they eat?


    Because the news was tight, and there were tight controls. Big transactions couldn''t be done. However, they had to do the small transactions.


    This merchant group only had few men. Although they invited the Flying Tiger Escort Agency, there were only a dozen of normal escorts. With one look, you would know they did not have much background. Of course, the spoils would not be much.


    However, at this time, they couldn''t care that much. No matter how small the sparrow was, it was still meat, wasn''t it?


    This group of bandits was a small team under Beard Ma. That Third Master was a favorite subordinate of Beard Ma whose name was Jin Yubao, nicknamed Qing Feng''er. He was very cunning and vicious. This time around, he brought men and horses to hide in the woods, and watch the official official road. He didn''t dare to rob big merchant groups. However, when faced with this small merchant group, he would show no mercy.

 Chapter 95: Fighting against the Bandits

    Chapter 95: Fighting against the Bandits


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The smell of blood floated in the air and there were nearly 100 corpses on the official road in various positions. No suspense, the battle was over.


    Under the attack of the 50 bandits, the whole merchant group and the Flying Tiger Escort were destroyed. Not a single one of them managed to escape. Of course, the bandits also suffered some losses. As a result of the fighting back of the armed-escorts of the Flying Tiger Escort before dying, many people were wounded and a dozen people were killed.


    "Come on, come on, and let¡¯s get these corpses out of here. Don''t leave any clues. Don''t let someone grab the handle." The Green Hornet Jin Yubao was riding on the horse, shouting at the bandits, "Zhang Xiaomao, Wang Mazi, still take some brothers to move the merchandise away. Hurry, don''t waste time!"


    The group of bandits was well-trained. They began to work according to the instructions of Jin Yubao. In a short while, the corpses of the bandits were all thrown into the van, and the more seriously injured bandits were put in the carriage and driven away.


    It only lasted the duration of a burning joss stick from the moment of the bandits'' appearance to their departure. Now the weather was windy, and the sandy official road was deserted. About an hour later after everything had been finished, another group came and was greatly frightened to see the corpses on the official road. They turned their horses around and went to the city to report to the authorities.


    After the bandits robbed the wagons, the gang of bandits went west for four to five miles, but they did not use the official road, and instead made a detour on a narrow path which was only enough to let a car pass.


    When they reached the path and walked for miles, Jin Yubao who walked in front of the horse suddenly raised his right hand and motioned them to stop.


    "Third Master, what''s wrong?!"


    "Something was wrong!" said Jin Yubao. Although his cultivation was not very high, he was born with agility, especially when it came to danger he had a special telepathic connection. Relying on this talent, he had been in Jianghu for so many years. There was more scared than hurt, so he lived well.


    Just now, he had a sudden burst of emotion, and a great shock came over him. According to past experience, this was a very bad omen. When he braved death, he would not have been as excited as now. He dared not to be put off, stopped the horses and chariots and began to observe carefully.


    The bandits behind him, who had been with him for many years, knew what he was capable of. Seeing he suddenly motioned for them to stop, they raised the weapons in their hands as if enemies were coming.


    Jin Yubao controlled his mind and was preparing to carefully look around when the wind whistle in his ears. Then he saw a silver light from 100 feet heading towards him of. In a blink of an eye, it came to him. Fortunately, his Lightness Skill sublimed, and there was a fierce shot under the horse leveraging upward. Almost at the moment of his flight, the silver light smashed the back of the horse with a poof. The horse even did not make a whining noise as it smashed into two pieces. It was at this time that Jin Yubao saw clearly that the silver light was unexpectedly a silver hammer. It had not only smashed the horse''s back but also it fell into earth without even a sound, which meant how strong the strength was.


    "Array!"


    At this moment, he finally had the chance to roar.


    From the appearance of the silver light, to his rising, to the silver hammer to the ground, it took only one breath of time.


    The bandits did not completely react, but they heard Jin Yubao''s voice. Instinctively, they arrayed according to the way they familiar with. In a blink, there was a battle array appeared in the vicinity. Just landing on the ground, Jin Yubao was surrounded. The flash of the sword and the fierceness of the Sword Qi were daunting.


    "These bandits were not bad in martial arts!"


    On seeing the speed of the array and the momentum, Junior Leopard was a bit surprised, but he did not care. He had already appeared in front of the bandits.


    "Who is it?" Jin Yubao asked in a stern voice when he saw a person emerging. Though it was a teen of about twelve or thirteen years, he did not dare to underestimate him. The teen had an air of danger around him, with a silver hammer in his hand, exactly like the one which had just struck him. Obviously, he was the one who had just struck him with the hammer.


    Hearing Jin Yubao''s asking, Junior Leopard only grinned. Without answer, he turned the silver hammer and dragged it towards the bandits.


    Watching Junior Leopard coming towards him at a faster and faster rate. Jin Yubao felt that he would suddenly collapse. At the beginning, Junior Leopard was not fast, but each time he stepped forward his Qi Power became stronger. By the time he came down a dozen paces, his whole Qi Power had been extremely condensed like mountains and even the air around him was pushed forward. When the Qi Power was at its peak, Junior Leopard''s speed began to rise and started to rush.


    "Bang!"


    Before the person arrived, the Qi Power came first. The enormous Qi Power like a landslide came down.


    What were the most exciting and the most powerful thing for the two armies that confronted each other on the battlefield?


    It was the rushing!


    In the face of thousands of troops, I alone, armed with a long spear and a sword, entered and came out many times during the war, to take the head of the general in millions of army. It was the highest.


    And the most suitable weapon for rushing was a hammer, Wolf Teeth Club, and such heavy weapons. So, the legendary men of war were carrying such weapons and had never heard of carrying a long sword to fight.


    Although compared with the legendary rushing of the men, Junior Leopard''s rushing was nothing on the scale. However, it was still a rushing, wasn''t it?


    I took a hammer and rushed towards the bandit''s battle array. It was an act of enforcing justice on behalf of the Heavens. It was also an exercise that never enjoyed in the office before.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard became more and more excited as he ran. His Qi Power became stronger and stronger as well.


    Jin Yubao''s face was suddenly pale, without a trace of blood. More than 40 bandits formed a battle array. The Qi Power created by the recent killing and stabbing in front of the boy was almost impossible to withstand, and was crushed and toppled to the ground.


    "Run!"


    Before Junior Leopard could get to the front of the battle array, the bandits could not be able to stand the Qi Power like mountains. They run back one after the other. In the blink of an eye, the battle array that had just formed had fallen apart and Junior Leopard had already rushed into the array.


    These bandits, though not a ragtag group, were utterly overwhelmed by Junior Leopard. They began to disintegrate without any will to resist. Except for a few unfortunate slow runners who had been whisked away with the hammer by Junior Leopard, the rest had long since fled in all directions.


    "Damn it, I shouldn''t have let this guy rush to the middle of array!"


    Jin Nanqing and the others hid and waited. Looking at the situation in the field, they looked extreme dissatisfaction. Originally they let him fight first to shock on the opponents because Junior Leopard was actually strong. But they never thought that Junior Leopard was so strong that he almost broke up the battle array. The bandits all scattered and fled. More than 40 bandits were all riding horses while Jin Nanqing only had six people. This made them rush out from the shadows to kill the bandits.


    As he was busy killing, Jin Nanqing shouted, "Junior brother Zhou, don''t let that bandit chief get away!"


    "Got it!" Junior Leopard smiled, and with a few hammers he ran up to Jin Yubao. He forced Jin Yubao warded off the blows but did not fight back with the silver light dancing in his hands as if it were a silver lantern.


    "Stop! Stop! Who are you?"


    Poor Jin Yubao didn''t know what was going on. He shouted, trying to stop him. He wanted Junior Leopard to let him go first. Even if Junior Leopard wanted to kill him, he''d have to tell him how exactly he had offended him. Who on earth were these people and why they wanted him to die?


    However, Junior Leopard did not care what he said. The hammer in his hand was quite magnificent that he forced Jin Yubao to go near the corpse of the horse. The he took another hammer in his left hand. Now there were two silver hammers dealing with Jin Yubao. They hit him so hard that Jin Yubao suffered unspeakably. After another couple of rounds, Jin Yubao''s Big Ring Sabre flew off.


    "No!" When the Big Ring Sabre in his hand was struck by the two hammers held by Junior Leopard, Jin Yubao knew it was terrible.


    But he was a nature cunning man. He knew what the outcome would be when he was cornered by Junior Leopard. When the Big Ring Sabre flew away, he rolled back more than 100 feet like a mouse with oil, slipped into the bush with his limbs.


    The bush was connected with a pine forest, which covered a considerable area of several hundred fields.


    Junior Leopard had not expected that this person would be so slippery. He had carelessly let him roll into the pine forest. The cooked duck suddenly flew away. Junior Leopard was furious. Without giving it much thought, he bumped the twin hammers and leaped into the pine forest.


    "Junior brother, don''t...!"


    Jin Nanqing also noticed the situation on this side. On seeing that Junior Leopard chased into the forest, he feared that something would happen and he stopped loudly. Before he finished his last word, Junior Leopard had already disappeared in the pine forest. He only shook his head with a sigh.


    "Senior brother Jin, shall we go in and have a look?" At this point, the fighting in the field had ended and the group of bandits was completely overwhelmed by Junior Leopard''s Qi Power. When they found Junior Leopard had an ambush here, they had no balls to fight.


    Although Jin Nanqing and other Wu'' disciples were good hands, they still could stop these bandits from escaping. After killed dozens of them, they found there was no one left here. Zhou Zhengming only killed a bandit just now. When he saw Junior Leopard rush into the forest, he came over to inquire.


    "No need. Junior brother Zhou is highly skilled and resourceful. Nothing will happen. Let''s first take care of things here." While he spoke, he cast his eyes among the carts, and his eyes gleamed with interest.


    Looking at Jin Nanqing, Zhou Zhengming''s heart skipped a beat. He walked forward, "Senior brother, these ¡ª"!


    "This batch of goods belongs to the Flying Tiger Escort. They were robbed while on the official road. We attacked and killed the bandits. We shall return the goods back to them." Jin Nanqing had to control the covetous thoughts in his heart. Although Zhou Zhengming did not want to give it back, he thought for a moment and understood what Jin Nanqing meant. Then he gave a secret nod.

 Chapter 96: Demon Devil Needles

    Chapter 96: Demon Devil Needles


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What do you want to say?" Junior Leopard didn''t have the heart to kill him. He originally didn''t intend to kill him and only wanted to present him to Jin Nanqing.


    However, Jin Yubao''s techniques were more of a joke to Junior Leopard. He tied twin hammers to his waist and twisted his body before floating into the air as if he was a leaf. His Yanfu Inner Strength was functioning to the utmost. It took the time for a jump and to land to catch up on Jin Yubao. Now he was right above him.


    "Still have the intention to flee? Heh heh, you really think that you can run away from me?!"


    Junior Leopard giggled coldly looking down at Jin Yubao fleeing like a mouse on the ground. He didn''t give him any more time and pounced on him fiercely.


    "Please don''t kill me!" As Junior Leopard was already in front of him, Jin Yubao cried desperately. He used all of his strength to shout. He kneeled before Junior Leopard and had given up running away and said, "I have something to tell you, something to tell you!"


    "What do you want to say?" Junior Leopard didn''t have the heart to kill him. He originally didn''t intend to kill him and only wanted to present him to Jin Nanhei.


    "I have something to tell you, something to tell you!" Jin Yubao was disorderly as he spoke as if he was freaked out by Junior Leopard.


    "Tell me what you want to say immediately! Else I will beat you to death with my hammer!" Junior Leopard shouted impatiently.


    "Okay okay okay!" Jin Yubao nodded his head continuously, "I have a treasure, a treasure for you!"


    "A treasure?!" Junior Leopard was stunned for a second before 10 black lights flew out of Jin Yubao''s head right towards Junior Leopard.


    "Hell!" Junior Leopard was greatly surprised by Jin Yubao. He was too close and the black lights were so fast that they were right in front of his face in a glimpse. But Junior Leopard disappeared with a glimmer of silver light.


    Three Realms Division!


    Shoot!


    The dozens of black lights missed their target and were pinned on several pine trees behind Junior Leopard. And they didn''t stop there, they continued on through more than 10 more trees until finally they were stopped by an ancient pine tree.


    "That was close!"


    Junior Leopard appeared again behind Jin Yubao as he escaped from the black lights. He didn''t dare to talk with him anymore and punched Jin Yubao''s heart. This destroyed Jin Yubao''s heart and vessels. When he looked up again, the scenery was chilling. It only took a second for the black lights to kill dozens of pine trees. The dead pine needles were yellow and dry, all falling down to the earth like rain.


    "Look at how sinister the concealed weapon is! I would have been dead if not for my Three Realms Division!"


    Junior Leopard calmed his heart but felt a lingering fear. He waited until all pine needles had fallen down and then walked over to the crime scene. Forty-nine black needles were scattered all over the old pine tree''s trunk.


    The needles were tiny like cow hair, all of which were dark black from front to end. As he approached, he could sense the coldness given out from them.


    "Evil Qi?!" Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows as he discovered the unusual Qi upon the needles, " It''s surprising that these needles have been refined by Evil Qi. That explains why they are so insidious. But this guy is only a bandit; his level is no more than Level Two. How come he has such things? Even if he knows places for Evil Qi, he doesn''t have the ability to refine them!"


    Thinking of this, Junior Leopard returned to Jin Yubao''s corpse and started to search it.


    There weren''t many things on Jin Yubao''s body. Apart from a few silver coins, there was only a black bag. It was an ordinary money bag. Within it, Junior Leopard found a small yellow parchment. He looked at the parchment for a moment before storing it in his chest.


    "Demon Devil Needles. This guy is so lucky that he has found a place that has Mysterious Yin Evil Qi stratum to cultivate needles. Pity that I killed him too early. It would be even better if I could know where the earth vein is. But I suppose that this guy is not so useful. As I did, he probably got it. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It''s your destiny, don''t blame me!"


    It turned out that the parchment recorded the refining method and method to use a magic weapon called the Demon Devil Needles. Just as what Demon Devil Needles inferred, the needles were robbed from the warehouse of a rich family by Jin Yubao. It wasn''t practiced by him.


    The needles were so powerful but his cultivation was too shallow. Jin Yubao couldn''t fully utilize these needles. He couldn''t even make use of its most basic function and had to use them as concealed weapons stored in his hair. It was a waste of such a good celestial device.


    Yes, celestial device.


    Demon Devil Needles were made of black gold from deep down in the earth. The black gold could only be found underground in Mysterious Yin Evil Qi. It was a ramification from the earth vein. Mysterious Yin Evil Qi was already scarce. Black gold was reasonably even scarcer, which was seldom seen in more than ten millions of years.


    Since black gold was born with Mysterious Yin Evil Qi, it naturally had inherited the ability to transform, cultivate and store Mysterious Yin Evil Qi. Black gold could perfectly absorb yin Evil Qi. Hence it was the ideal material to cultivate a celestial device.


    Those forty-nine Demon Devil Needles were exactly a celestial device made of black gold that had absorbed Mysterious Yin Evil Qi.


    Since it was a celestial device, how to use it would no doubt be different from ordinary concealed weapons. A celestial device with Evil Qi could be cultivated by one''s essence and blood and thus be connected with one''s mind. Demon Devil Needles was a kind of celestial device, tiny and insidious, but once successfully refined by blood, it would become a powerful weapon which would kill people unnoticed.


    However, celestial devices were not easy to refine.


    Refining with one''s essence and blood didn''t literally mean one should drip his blood on the weapon. The basic purpose was to get the celestial device familiar with your blood and identity. And its key process was to imprint your divine thoughts into the celestial device.


    The brand of your divine thoughts was like a key. With it, the celestial device was alive. Without it, the device would be a dead subject.


    Then what were divine thoughts?


    To put it simply, divine thoughts were consciousness. But normally only when one''s cultivation was higher than Level Six could his consciousness be regarded as divine thoughts. Because at that stage, they could sense the existence of consciousness and preliminarily control it.


    Hence in this world, the people who had celestial devices could also use them as they wished. That''s most experts between Level Six and Level Eight that had reached the Tendon-Changing realm.


    As for those within the Skin Toughening realm, they still had a long way to go before they could use celestial devices.


    A guy who was in the Skin Toughening realm couldn''t control a celestial device at all, even if he had a celestial device and knew the way to cultivate it; he still couldn''t as he couldn''t feel his consciousness''s existence yet.


    Junior Leopard did not know all of this!


    He didn''t know about consciousness or divine thoughts.


    And on the parchment, nothing was mentioned about divine thoughts. The only things recorded were how to refine the weapon.


    Although Junior Leopard was still in the Skin Toughening realm, he already had his divine thoughts. After reading what was recorded on the parchment he was sure that he could do it. Since he knew that the process wouldn''t be difficult for him, the benefit was obvious. For such an obvious benefit, the best method was sure to get it as quickly as possible.


    Before refining the needles successfully, Junior Leopard dared not touch them as they were full of Mysterious Yin Evil Qi. He followed the instructions on parchment, bit open his finger, squeezed out some blood, flipped his blood in the air, and then blew them suddenly. All of the blood turned into a mist, encircling all of the Demon Devil Needles.


    The first step was finished. He then branded his divine thoughts onto the needles following the parchment''s instructions. This process was enchanting and wonderful. Now the Demon Devil Needles were more like a part of Junior Leopard''s body. He could feel the horrifying Mysterious Yin Evil Qi without touching the needles. He tried to control the needles with his thoughts. All of the needles flew quickly to him from the old pine tree.


    "Wow!" Junior Leopard screamed. He shrank his neck quickly and defended himself with his hands. The needles flew in front of his head and floated in air quietly. When he raised his head again, it seemed that the needles were flying per his thoughts.


    "Don''t move, don''t move, and don¡¯t move!" Junior Leopard reached out his right hand protecting himself against the Demon Devil Needles in front of him worriedly, just like Neo in Matrix when he was stopping the bullets.


    Although Junior Leopard had refined the needles with the method recorded in parchment, his divine thoughts were already imprinted on needles and he was still new to this. He couldn''t control them fluently at all.


    "Moving objects with mental power, isn''t this mind control?" Junior Leopard was in wonder as he tried to let the floating needles to move a little. The effect was similar to what he saw in supernatural movies in his previous life, where men could move objects with mental power. The difference was that he could only move things that were branded with his divine thoughts.


    "The current situation shows me that to use them fluently, I have to refine it a couple more times. If I '' m not successful, the needles will fly like flies without heads, in all directions. I may end up injuring myself before I can use it to hurt others!"


    Thinking of this, Junior Leopard put all of his concentration on the needles and directed them to fly into his sleeves. It was another painful process. Like a child that had just started toddling, it took him quite a while to direct all of the needles to the right place.


    All of the Demon Devil Needles were collected. Junior Leopard looked around and then beat all of the dead pine trees that were killed by the Demon Devil Needles down with his fists. He used his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique to burn all those dead trees to ashes. When all of the trees were burnt out, he rolled Jin Yubao''s body into the ashes and brought the body out of the forest.


    Outside of the forest, Jin Nanqing and other guys had cleared up the crime scene. They waited for Junior Leopard for a while and noticed that there was a fire in the forest. Feeling worried, Jin Nanqing went with Zhou Zhengming to check what was happening in the forest. On the way, they met Junior Leopard who told them that Jin Yubao was hiding in the forest and couldn''t be found, causing him to light a fire to force him out and that was why the body was wrapped by ashes. Jin Nanqing and Zhou Zhengming didn''t ask much, they took the bodies of the bandits and a few freight carts, never mentioning the issue again.

 Chapter 97: Back to the City and Launching

    Chapter 97: Back to the City and Launching


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Flying Tiger Escort Agency inspected the goods and made sure nothing was missing. They found that even the sealing strip was still on the goods. Everybody was excited because of the achievement.


    The agency dispatched some people to investigate at the crime scene and deal with the corpses while the owner of the goods invited the whole party of the Wu Family back to the city to thank them.


    All of their reactions were what the Wu Family disciples wanted.


    The atmosphere was subdued when they heard that one of the Wu Family disciples had died at the hand of the bandits.


    People cursed those bandits and tried to comfort the gloomy Wu Family disciples. The Chief Escort of Flying Tiger Escort Agency even promised to cover all of the expenses of Wang Ji''s after his death. Jin Nanqing naturally refused their proposal. Wang Ji was a disciple of the Wu Family, his afterlife affairs would, of course, be dealt with by the Wu Family. There wasn''t anything the Flying Tiger Escort Agency could do.


    But it could be imagined that the Flying Tiger Escort Agency would no doubt spend a lot on this issue. No matter whether it was to thank them for escorting the goods or to exact revenge for their dead fellows, the agency''s appreciation was incumbent.


    When they returned to their regional city, the Flying Tiger Escort Agency dispatched some people to the Wu Family to invite Wu Yuntian. They booked the best room in the best restaurant, Red Phoenix Restaurant, aiming to entertain Jin Nanqing and his fellows.


    Jin Nanqing and other guys all gratefully welcomed the agency''s service. They had slept and eaten outdoors for days, all of them had been highly alert for a long time. It was the right time to have a good rest. On Jin Nanqing''s side, everybody was happy to go to the Red Phoenix Restaurant. But on Wu Yuntian''s side, things were not so satisfying.


    "What? They slaughtered bandits, escorted the goods back to the Wu Family and then went to the Red Phoenix Restaurant?!"


    Upon hearing the news, Wu Yuntian was furious and couldn''t help but kick out the fellows from the Flying Tiger Escort Agency. He cursed in mind, "You are meant to investigate in stolen escorted goods, not be chivalrous men and rescue people!"


    Angry as he was, he still had to give a face to the Flying Tiger Escort Agency. Although the agency''s social status was not as high as the Wu Family in Yunzhou, as one of the three biggest escort agencies in Zhonghe prefecture, their power wasn''t weaker than the Wu Family branch head.


    Everybody was having a good time at the Red Phoenix Restaurant. The Flying Tiger Escort Agency had regained their lost goods and were obviously very happy. The disciples from the Wu Family had been treated as chivalrous young men for the first time; everybody was praising them at the table. They felt as if they had really become chivalrous men like Lu Shaoyou.


    This was exactly what Jin Nanqing and his fellows wanted. They took advantage of the chance to explain Wang Ji''s death. At the same time, they had unexpectedly met the Flying Tiger Escort Agency, which could help them gain infamy as well as spread the lie all around.


    "That is to say, you have found at Black Shakou that the robbery of the Wu Family had something to do with Beard Ma. I also know about him, but does he really have so much courage?"


    It was Qin Feibao from the Flying Tiger Escort Agency speaking. He was the younger brother of Qin Feihu, Chief Escort at the Flying Tiger Escort Agency. Word spread that he was good at martial arts and had a good relationship with many people in Jianghu. So he was also quite familiar with Beard Ma.


    Therefore, after hearing what Jin Nanqing said, he was doubtful about the story. Beard Ma did have some ability; his fellows were all well trained too, with good martial arts. But even for them it was unreasonable to rob on the Wu Family. All bandits at Black Shakou gathered together wouldn''t dare to rob the Wu Family, let alone Beard Ma alone.


    "It is only our doubts!"


    Jin Nanqing already had an idea of how to deal with these doubts, he raised his glass and smiled, "Actually, it wasn''t only Beard Ma; there were a few more groups of bandits from Black Shakou. We all think that they are the biggest suspects. Who will have the ability to do such things at Black Shakou except for them after all?"


    "That''s true!" Chief Escort Sun Feihu from the Flying Tiger Escort Agency nodded his head nonstop, "Since it is an investigation, it is natural to look into the most suspected groups. Also it will be unreasonable not to look into them just because they shouldn''t have the courage to undertake such actions. Maybe there will be more hidden information!"


    "That''s right, that''s right!" A white-clothed Elder nodded his head stroking his beard. He was a famous expert named Liu Yihe in Zhonghe City, who was also well known in Jianghu. For what happened in Jianghu, he also had his own opinions, "The matter that happened this time was already weird. There are many bandits who have the nerve to rob the goods of the Wu Family. But bandits at the Black Shakou surely don''t dare do it. However, people do some crazy things for money. They are bandits after all, always making a living with violence; their eyes might have been blinded by the fortune. Or this batch of goods from the Wu Family may be of great significance to them."


    Wu Yuntian''s hand trembled drastically; he put on a faint smile and commented, "Mr. Liu must be telling a joke. This batch of goods contained weapons and swords for Guard Ding. They are quite ordinary. As for these bandits, well, how to say it... I suppose, even though they don''t have respect for me, they should have some respect for Guard Ding. It is surprising, surprising, alas..."


    He sighed, drank up the liquor in hand, and then shook his head without any more words.


    "Yes, you''re right. They are only bandits after all. How can you expect them to have wisdom? Maybe it occurred to them that they wanted to rob the goods so they did it!" Qin Feihu noticed Wu Yuntian''s gloomy face, doubting that there might really be something of the Wu Family or Wu Yuntian had some secrets. He didn''t intend to get involved, so decided to raise his bottle quickly, "For today, the Flying Tiger Escort Agency has to thank the chivalrous young men from the Wu Family. If not for you guys our goods would have been long lost and nobody would be able avenge our fellows of the escort agency!"


    "Not at all. It is our duty to defend the weak against the strong. How can we ask for gratitude?" In high spirits, Jin Nanqing raised his glass too. In a minute, the atmosphere was enlighted again.


    Sitting right beside Jin Nanqing, Junior Leopard observed them coldly and sneered in mind.


    They had reached their purpose. After tonight, all in Jianghu would know a few disciples from the Wu Family had conflict with the bandits of Beard Ma when they were investigating the Wu Family lost goods. Disciples from the Wu Family defeated Beard Ma, gaining back the Flying Tiger Escort Agency''s escorted goods incidentally. During their conflict, the Green Hornet Jin Yubao, bandit of Black Shakou and member of Beard Ma''s group was killed. And that one of disciple from the Wu Family also died. The dog-eat-dog issue was settled. So they squirreled away ten carts of medicinal herbs successfully.


    But was this matter really that simple?


    "The robbers must be from a very powerful organization. They can easily dispatch a bone-forging expert. Even the Wu Family can''t do that so randomly. Moreover, it is doubtful as to why they had taken weapons away and left all the medicinal herbs behind. These herbs are much more expensive than the goods. Most importantly, how had they transported 30 carts of weapons away? All of the weapons were gone, but the carts were still there. Could it be they know Five Ghost Transporting Magic, or..."


    Suddenly an idea struck Junior Leopard''s mind. He trembled violently and was nearly scared by his thoughts.


    "No way, no way. I can''t use my imagination, I can''t use my imagination!"


    He reminded himself secretly, but the idea lingered in his mind, "Hell, now we will get in trouble, real trouble!"


    He poured the whole glass of liquor down his throat and coughed fiercely.


    "Junior Zhou, are you all alright?"


    "I choked on liquor as I drank too much just now!" Junior Leopard replied, and then started to cough again.


    "You don''t look good. Anything wrong when you practice?!" Jin Nanqing asked with concern. Now that they were in the same boat, he also knew Junior Leopard''s ability and potential. Especially as he had seen Junior Leopard using the crushing vacuum that had crushed Bone-Forging experts. This made him more respectful towards Junior Leopard, thus he became more concerned about him.


    "It''s not a big deal. Only that I have just improved one level and will need time to consolidate my new phase!" Junior Leopard''s answer was right for Jin Nanqing, he added, "It probably will take quite a while, so..."


    "That''s not a big deal. The upcoming affairs are all sorts of casual things. You may stay in the regional city!" Jin Nanqing comforted understandingly.


    Junior Leopard nodded his head; he didn''t say any more words. In fact, he didn''t need time to consolidate his phase at all. He was sparing time to refine the 49 Demon Devil Needles. For him, the needles were extraordinarily powerful and inconspicuous. Especially when at night, nobody could see those black lights, which made it the best weapon to protect himself. For every day they were left unrefined, Junior Leopard''s heart would be unsettled.


    After the banquet, Qin Feihu cordially invited Jin Nanqing and his fellows to visit the Flying Tiger Escort Agency, but the offer was declined by Jin Nanqing. It was only when Jin Nanqing explained they had an important assignment to do and that they would visit the agency after things were settled that Qin Feihu stopped asking them.


    But thank you gifts were indispensable. All of the chivalrous young men including Wang Ji who had already been killed had gotten valuable gifts from the agency. Of course, the most important thing was that they had earned some reputation in Zhonghe City. Now each one of them could also be called a "chivalrous heroes"!


    "Chivalrous heroes, aha, anybody in this Jianghu who looks young is a damn chivalrous hero!" Back to the Wu Family branch at Zhonghe City, Junior Leopard went directly to his room, closed the door, and began to circulate the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi in his body. A puff of alcoholic smell emitted out his body. He didn''t drink much at the banquet since he was very young. But his seniors were toasting him one after another; it was only out of their kindness, fearing that he would feel neglected by the agency. Junior Leopard couldn''t decline them and blow their face off; therefore he had drunk a lot.


    After dispelling the alcohol out his body, Junior Leopard sat on his bed. He took out the 49 Demon Devil Needles and started to practice them.


    ...


    ...


    "What? Liu Si is missing?!" It was still the room quiet and elegant, within were two guys, the man in the gallant garments frowned, " Is it really that there is no news?"


    "Yes, Master. No news at all!" The grey-clothed old man''s face was also bitter, "There''s another issue, that batch of medicinal herbs was also lost. The bodyguard has been found. The wounds on the body were all ordinary sword wounds. There''s nothing worthy of suspects!"

 Chapter 98: Complete Mastery of the Demon Devil Needles and Fire

    Chapter 98: Complete Mastery of the Demon Devil Needles and Fire


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Normal sword wound!" the magnificently dressed man looked at the grey-clothed old man, "What do you mean by there''s no area worthing being suspicious about?"


    "The biggest possibility is that the neighboring bandits discovered them, hence it''s the dog-eat-dog!" The grey-clothed old man smiled bitterly, "If not, under these circumstances, nobody has the strength to move these ten carriages of medicinal herbs. It could only be the bandits themselves dragging it to hide in their nests!"


    "Could it be..." The magnificently dressed man stilled for a while, "Will this be made by the guys of the Wu Family?"


    "I''ve checked those guys from the Wu Family. The one with the highest cultivation is called Jin Nanqing whose cultivation is only at the peak of Level Two. The few of them added together, would only be as strong as the guards. Even if they could win, they must suffer a lot. It''s impossible for them to be so neat. Furthermore, they do not have the ability to transport those medicinal herbs away!" The grey-clothed old man said, "Besides, they thought that this matter is done by the bandits at Black Shakou. They even had skirmishes with them, and killed a group of bandits, helping the Flying Tiger Escort Agency reclaim their lost goods. They gained some reputation within Zhonghe City. However, they also lost one man!"


    "Those bandits were all a ragtag group, not worth being mentioned!" The magnificently dressed man waved his hand, and said, "In your opinion, could it be Liu Si keeping these goods to himself?"


    "This is less likely. As Liu Si is a Level Five master, that batch of medicinal herbs is of little use to him. He is under Liu Qi Taoist whose rules are very strict, so he dared not to do that!"


    "Could it be..." The magnificently dressed man seemed to have thought of something but then felt that it was somewhat impossible, "Forget it, be it so. He is a Level Five master, so no matter how much the medicinal herbs were, it won''t be of much use to him. Oh right, has he finished his work?"


    "Apart from the guys from the Wu Family, all the other things have been dealt with!"


    "Good, forget those medicinal herbs first. Anyway, those medicinal herbs aren''t in our plan. Let the bandits rob it. When this matter is done, we''ll investigate it then!"


    "Yes!"


    "When can we move out?!"


    "Half a month later!"


    "Alright, then we set off in half a month''s time!" The man in gallant garment''s face revealed a strand of anticipation, "Then let me see, to what extent they can do this on earth!"


    ...


    ...


    Half a month, passed in an instant!


    A lot of things happened in this half a month in the Wu Family in Zhonghe City.


    The Wu''s robbery case was getting bigger and bigger. A few guys from the Wu''s headquarter who came to investigate began to target a few groups of bandits from Black Shakou. The one who bore the brunt was Beard Ma. His right hand man Jin Yubao was killed, and he even lost a team. If it was normal times, he naturally wouldn''t endure it. However, now the news was tight, Beard Ma could only endure it, and not come out. This caused the few ''chivalrous heroes'' from the Wu''s to unable to target him.


    However, these ''chivalrous heroes'' who had schemes in their hearts originally did not want to explore the goods. They only wanted to mess up the matter. Adding on to the fact that they realized Wu Yuntian''s secret, they acted without too many misgivings. Apart from Beard Ma, as long as they were making a living in the vicinity of Black Shakou, like Black Three Lady and Golden Old Saber etc, they became this group of ''chivalrous heroes'' suspicious targets. The originally tense atmosphere on the road had worsened. On the other hand, the Wu''s branch suffered. Many people at this time came over to ask for their debts to be returned. Even though these were all done in secret, many people came. Things naturally couldn''t be hidden. Up till this moment, people then realized that Wu Yuntian owed so much debt outside. And these debts were far over what he could bear. In fact, it was even over what some mid-sized well-known families could bear.


    Once this piece of news was released, instantly it attracted all sorts of guesses. Within a moment, gossips spread, there were even some people who said that this batch of Wu''s goods that was stolen was stolen by Wu Yuntian.


    Guarding the theft!


    "Dang!"


    In the Wu''s branch study room, there were sounds of "ping ping, pang pang". Outside the room there were a few servants, looking at each other. Their faces were full of bitterness, yet no one dared to enter.


    "Bastard, bastard, bastard, they were all bastards. They didn''t think that, these few decades, but for me, how could their business be run till it was so big. They didn''t think that, but for me, but for me¡ª!"


    Wu Yuntian was pale. He was much skinnier than half a month ago. Originally black hair had become a little gray.


    The room inside was a mess!


    The cabinet fell on the floor and all sorts of books were scattered on the floor. Precious pottery and items were scattered everywhere. Wu Yuntian was somewhat angry, viciously smashing everything that could be smashed into the room.


    "I suspect that he has already gone crazy!" Jin Nanqing and the rest looked at the study room from afar and mocked Wu Yuntian. They could hear the roaring sound from inside.


    "That is, this fella is too bold. He borrowed so much money to procure these medicinal herbs. However, he didn''t expect that this batch of goods would be robbed!"


    "Often walking by the river, how can the shoes not be wet?" Jin Nanqing held his elbow and sneered. They had almost figured the matter out. Wu Yuntian, for the sake of procuring these ten carriages of medicinal herbs, borrowed a lot of money and wanted to earn a sum from it. However, he didn''t expect that this batch of goods was robbed right under his eyes. Both men and fortune were lost. The debts incurred previously were not what he could bear either. Hence, in these few days, the people who came to the Wu''s branch to ask for their money were incessant.


    "Senior brother, what should we do now?"


    "Don''t do anything. This matter has already been exposed. The robbery is even more complicated than before. We know that Wu Yuntian will never embezzle. However, others don''t know it, and so do the Family Head and the rest. So we have to pretend we don''t know!"


    "Then, do we still need to pretend that we are carrying out the investigation?"


    "There''s no need. Just wait for news. I believe that very quickly people in Yunzhou will send news to get us back!" Jin Nanqing said.


    Things had come to this point and it was no longer a matter that these Wu''s disciples could handle. Amongst Wu Yuntian''s debts, there were several large sums. The creditors were from influential families. The news should have spread to Yunzhou. Because of this, the Wu''s would at least send a few Elders to handle it. They would only need to watch the show from aside.


    "Zhengming, go tell brothers to rest well these few days. Everybody is deadly tired these days. However, there is one point to make clear to them. No one is allowed to drink, lest there be errors after drinking. Coming to this stage, it''s the same as that we bet our families and lives on it. There cannot be any carelessness!"


    "Yes, senior brother Jin, I will get them to take note!" Zhou Zhengming nodded, "Oh right, Junior Leopard..."


    "He is still practicing!" Upon mentioning Junior Leopard, Jin Nanqing''s face revealed a strand of strange expression.


    The fact that Junior Leopard advanced in his cultivation to Level Three, was all strictly kept a secret by them.


    After all, he was only 12, not depending on any help from Magic Drugs and automatically entering into Level Three. This kind of thing, even in major sects, was something that was rarely seen. And in Wu''s this kind of mid-sized renowned family, it was definitely an unprecedented thing. Once this matter was known by others, it would definitely attract a lot of attention. As for the details of Junior Leopard entering into Level Three, it would become the focal point of others. As for why Junior Leopard could enter Level Three, no one was clearer than them. This reason was a secret they couldn''t speak about.


    Even though Junior Leopard''s cultivation was high, his aptitude was also extremely good, but after all, he was just a 12-year-old teen. He had no experience of life. In case there was anything wrong, and the news got leaked out. For these Wu''s disciples, it would be a major disaster.


    Hence, this matter which could let Junior Leopard achieve fame was carefully concealed by them.


    About this, Junior Leopard was willing to instead of standing out. Now that there was somebody taking the initiative to cover for him, he naturally agreed.


    "The headquarter should send an Elder now!"


    Similar to Jin Nanqing''s thinking, Junior Leopard also predicted that since this thing had came to this point, the Wu Family in Yunzhou should make clear their stance. On the other side, the goods which Guard Ding had ordered needed to be replenished as well. After all, he had paid for it, and the goods were lost in the Wu''s hands.


    This matter was originally controlled by Wu Yuntian. However, now it was impossible to ask him to take responsibility for it. Therefore, the rest was simple. Headquarter would send an Elder to take over the responsibility and clear up the mess.


    "No matter who they send, quickly come over. In this way, I can leave this troubled water earlier!" Junior Leopard sat cross-legged on the bed, slightly closing both of his eyes. The 49 Demon Devil Needles were circling around him, following his intention and moving around.


    "As expected, celestial devices are indeed different. With these 49 Demon Devil Needles, my safety has a big guarantee. Hehe, even if there''s a Bone-Forging Realm master, I won''t need to rely on my luck. As long as it is not an expert of the Tendon-Changing Realm, even if I cannot win, I will have the confidence to retreat in full. This Mysterious Yin Evil Qi is indeed very insidious!"


    As soon as Junior Leopard''s sleeves curled, the Demon Devil Needles flew into his sleeves and were hidden. After 15 days of practicing, he had already completely mastered the Demon Devil Needles. When he controlled them, there was no longer the obstructive feeling of half a month ago. When he displayed them, they were as easy as moving his fingers. Especially when he opened his Fiery Eyes, those 49 needles were as if a part of his body, obeying his instructions. This kind of feeling was extremely mysterious. Hence, it looked like an extremely boring practice in others'' eyes, but in his own eyes, this was extremely interesting. In the process of practicing, he even made poses which he had seen before on TV. He really enjoyed himself.


    After taking back the Demon Devil Needles, Junior Leopard got up from the bed and opened four windows. Looking out of the window at the falling sun, he took a deep breath. Just when he was going to wear his clothes and exit the door, he suddenly heard a disturbance outside.


    "Help, it is on fire!"


    Bursts of exclamations came from far and near. Junior Leopard was startled. As he looked at the rising smoke all around, his expression became bitter.


    "Ultimately, we can''t avoid it!"

 Chapter 99: Sect of Flame Troublemakers and Black Three Lady

    Chapter 99: Sect of Flame Troublemakers and Black Three Lady


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    When the fire started, it was evening.


    Almost at the same time when Junior Leopard opened the windows, the fire started.


    First, it was a loud piercing shout, tearing at people''s eardrums. Zhonghe City''s Wu''s branch began to be in a mess.


    The study room was on fire. Wu Yuntian lit up the study room, a billow of thick smoke came out of the study room. Within a short period of time, the whole study room became a sea of flame.


    Junior Leopard heard the shocked cries outside "It''s on fire...!" He softly sighed. From his position of view, not only the Wu''s, but also a lot of places of the entire Zhonghe City were billowing thick smoke.


    He walked to the side of the bed, and arranged his clothes neatly. The twin silver hammers were hunging on both sides of his waist. Then he approached the big bronze mirror inside the room and arranged himself, then left out of the door.


    At this moment, the Wu''s branch in Zhonghe City was already in a complete mess. Servants and craftsmen were shouting and running to and fro. A group of people in servants¡¯ clothes were carrying pails and basins, and even everything that could hold water.


    The well at the courtyard already was enveloped by a group of people. There were also some people who ran to the back of the yard. There was a pond there. Junior Leopard meandered through the chaotic crowd of people. Without much time, he reached the entrance of the study room. At this time, there was already a big group of people standing at the entrance of the study room.


    "Junior Zhou, you have come!" seeing Junior Leopard appear, Jin Nanqing''s eyes flashed, revealing his smile.


    "Senior Brother, what happened?!" Junior Leopard asked.


    "I am not too sure either. It looks like it was Seneschal Wu himself setting the study room on fire. I don''t know what he put inside, perhaps some form of fire catalyst. In a blink of an eye, it was burnt till it was this serious. Even if we want to douse the fire we can''t!"


    "So it''s this case!" Junior Leopard nodded. He noticed that even though Jin Nanqing was talking to him, he somewhat did not put his heart into the conversation and his attention was focused on the other side.


    The surroundings were very noisy. Once the fire started, naturally there were a lot of people. There were people who saved the fire, and there were those who saved people. Hence, when they came to the entrance of the study room, Junior Leopard''s ears were filled with sounds. The only thing he could do was to pretend that he heard nothing.


    However, when he realized Jin Nanqing''s state was not right, and that his attention was diverted to other places, his gaze wandered around for a while. He realized there were a few women lying on the ground in front of the entrance of the study room. They were crying very miserably. Junior Leopard recognized these few women who were the family members of Wu Yuntian.


    This world was just like ancient China. Men marrying three to four wives was a very common thing. With Wu Yuntian''s identity, apart from the first wife, he still had several concubines, lying on the floor now.


    Jin Nanqing''s target naturally was not them, but a 15-16 year old young woman. Speaking of 15-16 year old women, there were many of them. Wu Yuntian''s youngest concubine had married half a year ago, just reaching 15 years old.


    "Wu Yuzhu?!" Junior Leopard''s gaze shifted. He understood Wu Yuzhu was Wu Yuntian''s only daughter. She looked pretty and was educated since young. She was a model renowned family heiress. Of course, the most important thing was that her surname was Wu.


    From this period of interaction, Junior Leopard was able to tell, that Jin Nanqing was an ambitious person. However, his position in the Wu''s was not considered to be very high. Even though he was an inner core disciple that was only compared to the normal Wu''s inner core disciples only.


    With his aptitude and cultivation, in this lifetime in the Wu Family, at most he could only take up an Elder position. Just like Xu Yong, he would wield some special power, but he would never have control of the real authority in the Wu Family.


    Wu''s real authority had always been in the hands and control of Wu''s own descendants. Now the Wu''s had a big family and big business. However, those resources which really concerned the fate of the Wu Family, the branches, those who were Seneschals, were all Wu''s immediate descendants or disciples from their collateral families.


    Wu Yuntian in Zhonghe City was an example.


    In the Wu Family, unless you were like Lyu Yiyue, cultivation reaching the Tendon-Changing Realm, Level Seven, only then would you possess a power that was near to the Wu''s Family Head. Even the Wu''s Family Head would be extremely respectful towards you.


    However, this kind of power could only be possessed by yourself. Maybe when you were still around, your disciples would possess some special powers that normal inner core disciples and even Wu''s direct descendants would not have. However, these special powers, when you were dead, would disappear.


    Unless, among your disciples, there would be another Tendon-Changing Realm expert. This was almost impossible. No one could ensure that within one vein, there would repeatedly appear Tendon-Changing Realm experts.


    What Lyu Yiyue couldn''t do, Jin Nanqing''s teacher would not be able to do either. Jin Nanqing was a person who had an ambition and was extremely unwilling to be lonely. He naturally would not be willing, when he was done training with his teacher, to stay at the Wu''s headquarters to be a high-level fighter. Or that he would be posted to an unimportant place to be a supervisor. This kind of position was yearned for by the Wu''s disciples. However, to Jin Nanqing it might not amount to much in his eyes.


    Hence, he needed a chance to change this situation. He needed a ladder on which he could step upon to rightfully claim the Wu''s power. To do this it was not easy, but it wasn''t without solutions either.


    He couldn''t be a descendant of the Wu''s or his cultivation couldn''t reach Level Seven that was fine. There was another route that was to become a son-in-law of the Wu''s.


    Even if it was a branch of the Wu Family, as long as the surname was Wu, then, your chances would be much more than normal Wu''s disciples.


    However, this was easier said than done?


    This was not an easy matter. Most of Wu''s daughters at birth, or even when they were not even born, they engaged. There was no chance for outsiders to intervene at all.


    However now, there was a chance lying in front of Jin Nanqing.


    Wu Yuzhu.


    He didn''t know if Wu Yuzhu engaged with another person, however, he knew, even if there was a marriage agreement, after the thing caused by Wu Yuntian, the marriage agreement would be nulled.


    In the pugilist world, what was the most important? Reputation was an extremely important thing.


    Wu Yuntian landed himself huge debts and was forced to death by the creditors. This reputation was then finished. No one would be willing to marry with this kind of person. Apart from owing debts, the goods that were lost by the Wu''s this time, had some faint connection with him. It was concerned with him colluding with bandits, biting the hand that fed him. The scheme to rob his own goods was already spread to all fours.


    These two reasons added together, there wasn''t even a need to think carefully. Junior Leopard believed, very quickly, there would be someone rejecting the marriage proposal with Wu Yuzhu. In this world, the reality was much more than ideals.


    In this kind of political marriage, originally it was birthed forth from benefits. Without benefits, who would want to marry for no reason?


    This was Wu Yuzhu''s misfortune, yet it was Jin Nanqing''s luck.


    If he could take this chance to have some relationship with Wu Yuzhu, then, his position in the Wu''s would be different.


    Wu Yuntian made a mistake and the gossips in the pugilist world were flying all around. However, Junior Leopard believed, those who really had brains in Wu''s would not believe those rumors. They would definitely not believe that the batch of goods was colluded and robbed by Wu Yuntian. Such a brainless thing, who would do it?


    If it was really done by him, then why would he be forced to death by the debts?


    To the Wu Family, Wu Yuntian at most amounted to an unfilial disciple that racked up a lot of debts outside. No matter how unfilial he was, he was still a Wu''s person. In this era where the bloodline was extremely important, no matter what kind of mistakes he committed, he was already dead. Then, as the clan, it would take up the responsibility of taking care of his descendants.


    Hence, even though Wu Yuntian had died, Wu Yuzhu would still receive the care of the Wu Family. There wouldn''t be anyone denying that the Wu''s bloodline flows in her. Even though her position would no longer be like what it was in the past, even though she might be reduced from a noble lady to an adopted daughter from the branch family. There was still one point that would never change, and that her surname was still Wu.


    This was Jin Nanqing''s chance!


    Looking at the big fire that was burning fiercer and fiercer, and looking at the family members of Wu''s that cried till they fainted on the floor, Junior Leopard lightly sighed. He said, "Senior Zhou, things do not look right!"


    "Ah, urgh, what, not right, what is not right?!"


    Very obviously, Jin Nanqing seemed to be distracted. He seemed to have realized his own manners and said embarrassingly.


    Junior Leopard''s heart softly sighed, and said, "I have observed, the Wu''s is not the only place on fire!"


    "Not only the Wu''s?!" Jin Nanqing still couldn''t understand in a while.


    "I observed, apart from our Wu''s branch family, the city had many areas that were set on fire. North South East West all four directions there were. When I came over, I could faintly hear sounds of killing. I mean, could there be something happening in this city?!"


    Jin Nanqing''s expression finally changed. Not speaking a word, he concentrated on listening, his expression slowly sunk. "It seems like there is something happening...!"


    His words haven''t finished, hurried footsteps could be heard from outside of the courtyard.


    "Help, Sect of Flame, Sect of Flame troublemakers attacked the city---!"


    The cries could not cover the extreme panic within it. A few Wu''s servants came in droves from outside. Their mouths were shouting loudly, but they were rough all the same meaning.


    The Sect of Flame troublemakers attacked the city and set fire to kill people everywhere. Now they were headed to the Wu Residence.


    "What did you say, they are heading for us? Who they are, what are they here for?!" Jin Nanqing''s face changed, and violently lifted the collar of a servant and asked.


    "I..I don''t know. I.. I only saw a group of men and horses coming towards our Wu Family. Hence I hurriedly came back to report the news. The others, I don''t know anything!"


    "Useless thing!" Jin Nanqing''s face flashed across some seriousness. He threw the servant on the ground, and then said to Junior Leopard, "Junior, looks like things are really not right. We should go out to take a look!"


    Junior Leopard nodded, yet he didn''t speak. He followed behind Jin Nanqing.


    However, within his eyes, it vaguely revealed some excitement.


    The Sect of Flame troublemakers, which was also Sect of Flame, was the greatest resistance force that hid within Great Jin''s people. It was just like the White Lotus City from Junior Leopard''s previous life. They always liked to stir people up to rebel. In the government''s mouths, they were Sect of Flame troublemakers. However, in the lower strata of society, they were the Holy Sect of Flame.


    However, the Sect of Flame was not fools. Even if they wanted to rebel, they had to choose a good timing. They could only have a chance of stirring things up when there were a big desolation and a big disaster, army disaster and uncomfortable lives for the people!


    Now at this timing, the classic peaceful times, there were no reasons to rebel against them. They even attacked Zhonghe City. This Zhonghe City in Qianzhou was considered a city that was slightly rural. However, in the whole Great Jin, it was the hinterlands. Why were they attacking here?


    Junior Leopard now couldn''t figure out what was going on. However obviously, now was not the time to dwell on this problem? When they reached the Wu''s manor door, they could see a group of horses and men coming from afar, stirring up waves of dust.


    "That is, damn it, it''s Beard Ma!" Looking afar at that group of horses and men, they could see a big man full of beard sitting on a big horse. Junior Leopard and Jin Nanqing''s hearts sunk.


    "No, he is not Beard Ma, he, he is, he is Black Three Lady!"


    A servant who was holding a saber beside the two of them said.

 Chapter 100: Warfare

    Chapter 100: Warfare


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What? Who is he?!"


    Listening to the words of the servant beside them, Junior Leopard and Jin Nangqing felt somewhat incredulous.


    When they saw the person who was riding crazily on the horseback with a face full of beard, these two people thought he must be the horse thief called Beard Ma around the Black Shakou because of the guilty consciences.


    They didn''t expect, that the servant at the side said that he was Black Three Lady.


    "He is Black Three Lady!" A person continued, "Amongst the few groups of bandits in Black Shakou, he is the most mysterious, similarly his strength is also the strongest. Who would''ve thought that he is actually someone from the Sect of Flame!"


    The two of them turned around and saw the supervisor of the Wu Residence.


    "Butler Yu, why did you come out?!"


    Although Wu''s branch in Zhonghe City was hoodwinked by Wu Yuntian, it was just a branch sharing the same personnel structure with other places. Wu Yuntian was the Head Supervisor, and this middle-aged man without a beard was the supervisor. He didn''t have any martial arts, yet he still controlled the entire businesses in the Zhonghe City''s Wu''s branch. He was considered as someone from the Wu''s headquarter. Another man from the Wu''s headquarter was the blacksmith. It was just that Zhonghe City was much bigger than Qingyang Market. Different from Qingyang Market, Wu''s branch enjoyed a separate smelting place.


    As a matter of fact, apart from the smelting place, there was also the merchant shop of the Wu Family, which was at a different place from the Wu''s branch. Now they were at the Wu''s branch, namely, Wu Residence. Speaking plainly it was the private residence of Wu Yuntian.


    Normally speaking, Butler Yu would be at the Wu''s merchant shop, managing the business of the Wu Family. He would seldom come to the Wu Residence. The two of them didn''t expect that they would actually meet him here.


    "Why am I here?!" Butler Yu smiled bitterly, "Since a few days ago, there have been several creditors coming to the shop to reclaim their debts. They even held the Wu''s written pledge and even the seal of the Wu''s. However, I have never seen those monies before. It was not in the accounts too. Furthermore, the sum is too big. Even if I count all the cash flow in the shop, it was not enough to pay. After resisting for a few days, I finally couldn''t manage, and can only come to find Housekeeper Wu. But I never thought that such a thing would occur!"


    While speaking, that batch of men already reached the Wu Residence.


    "Who are you! How dare you trespass to the Wu Residence?!"


    In front of the Wu Residence, a person stepped forward and stopped that batch of men. He shouted fiercely. Even though there was a thread of fear and trembling within the voice, this made Junior Leopard and Jin Nanqing admire his boldness.


    "Yu Yu Yu Yu Yu...!" [TL: this is the person riding on the horse giving command to the horse]


    The leading black-clothed big man, who was Black Three Lady, ordered his horse to rush towards the front of that person. The front hooves rose up high, violently stomping at that person.


    "Hmph¡ª!" Junior Leopard coldly snorted. His left hand flashed, and picked up the silver hammer on his left waist, and smashed towards that horse.


    If the horse hooves stomped on that person, then, similarly, Junior Leopard''s hammer would also smash onto the horse.


    "Good fella!" Black Three Lady''s eyes flashed a ferocious glint. He grabbed onto the horse collar and narrowly evaded Junior Leopard''s hammer. The whip in his hands turned into a black shadow and came rushing forward.


    Crack! The whip hit the man blocking the road, and sent him flying.


    "Big Head Yan, you are just a Chief Protector. There is no need to work yourself to the bone!"


    After sending a person flying with the whip, Black Three Lady said teasingly, yet his gaze still fixed onto Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard''s attack failed, but he didn''t attack again. He tightened his hand grip on the silver hammer and kept the silver hammer which he smashed. He looked at Black Three Lady and only coldly smiled. His heart was secretly in awe. The Black Three Lady was actually a Level Three expert. The hand holding the hammer involuntarily tightened.


    "Black Three Lady, this is the Wu Residence, it is not the place for you to be arrogant!"


    Big Head Yan who fell on the floor climbed up. That whip wasn''t light, it ripped open his flesh on the arm. A deep blood stain was revealed. If it was just a bit heavier, then his bones would have cracked.


    "You, how do you know me?!" Big Head Yan''s injury from that whip was not light. He looked at Black Three Lady with his eyes revealing a fearful expression.


    "Of course I know you. Not only do I know you, under this whole Wu Residence, there isn''t one that I don''t know!"


    Black Three Lady said, revealing a combination of hatred and happiness on his face. His gaze fell on Junior Leopard and Jin Nanqing, "Of course, this includes the two of you!"


    "I don''t care who are you, and I don''t care if you all are from the Sect of Flame. But I think that you should understand, even if you all have conquered the whole of Zhonghe City, this isn''t a place where you can barge in as you please!" Jin Nanqing said plainly.


    "Indeed, you are right; I will not barge into the Wu Residence unnecessarily. However that is for other people, to me, there isn''t much to be concerned about. You are called Jin Nanqing right? You came from Yunzhou. This isn''t a place for you to make a decision. How about Wu Yuntian, get him to come out!"


    "Seneschal Wu is not coming out!"


    Butler Yu said helplessly at the side.


    "What, why? Does he run away?!" Black Three Lady raised his eyebrows and glanced at Butler Yu.


    "Seneschal Wu''s study room was set on fire, he was inside, and couldn''t escape in time!" Butler Yu sighed. Wu Yuntian was chased by so many creditors that he set himself ablaze. He naturally won''t speak out such kind of matter in front of so many people.


    However, Black Three Lady was a smart person. After hearing this, his expression stiffened, "What, what did you say, didn''t come out in time, he died?!"


    Nobody replied. Even though everyone here knew that Wu Yuntian was more or less dead. However, without seeing the corpse, nobody dared to speak anyhow.


    "Then now, who can call the shots in the Wu Residence?!"


    There was no one answering.


    In Zhonghe City, Wu Yuntian''s words counted. As for the people below him, no matter Butler Yu, or the supervisor in the smelting room, they just did jobs. Now Wu Yuntian was dead, without the Wu''s headquarter sending a new supervisor to Zhonghe City, the branch''s authority level was really empty. There wasn''t someone to fill in the gap that Wu Yuntian had left.


    Black Three Lady obviously didn''t think that such a thing would happen. "Okay, I don''t care if Wu Yuntian is dead or alive, and I don''t care who the one in charge here is. Now I want to go in, you all won''t stop me, will you?!"


    Black Three Lady said and his gaze shifted on Junior Leopard, "Boy, you won''t stop me, will you?!"


    "What do you say?!" Junior Leopard''s eyes went cold; his twin silver hammers were held in his hands.


    "At such a young age, your temper is quite bad?!" Black Three Lady''s eyes squinted, with his cold gaze stared at Junior Leopard, "You has reached Level Three at such a young age. I really don''t understand how could the guys at the Wu''s trust you and let you come out!"


    "I also don''t understand, you are obviously a man, why are you called a lady. Could it be that your little brother has gone, and the beard on your face was posted on?!" Junior Leopard curled his lips and laughed.


    "You are a dead man!"


    "Same to you!"


    While talking, the twin hammers and the whip were already entangled together.


    "Go...!"


    "Rush forward...!"


    At the same time when the two of them started fighting, the servants of the Wu Residence and Black Three Lady''s underlings all raised their weapons and started fighting together.

 Chapter 101: Trapped City

    Chapter 101: Trapped City


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Black Three Lady was a nickname. His real name was Hei Sanliang. A decade ago, he became an outlaw in Black Shakou, gathering a gang of men and being renowned for his remarkable feats and forthright personhood. His origin was unknown. What was known in Jianghu was that he was proficient in using whips and was the ever-victorious one during the several fights he had with the bandits near Black Shakou.


    Although being a bandit, Black Three Lady kept a low profile in Black Shakou and rarely showed up. Therefore, few people knew that he was actually a bruiser.


    Moreover, another bandit called Beard Ma was also settled in Black Shakou, no wonder Junior Leopard and Jin Nanqing mistook Black Three Lady for Beard Ma at the beginning.


    Not a bit of femininity was seen from him, though he was called Black Three Lady. His whipping skills had reached the apex of perfection.


    Junior Leopard raised himself up and fought with Black Three Lady. He learned that Black Three Lady''s whipping was airtight, which enabled the shadow of the withy whip to form an exquisite wall in front of him that his silver hammer couldn''t penetrate.


    "Just like a woman?! Even the weapon is for the female!" Junior Leopard scoffed. He brandished his silver hammer faster and faster and one hand was hitting the horse and another was hitting people.


    Despite having a good command of martial arts, Black Three Lady was unable to stand up to Junior Leopard''s attack. He let out a yell, rose from the horse and fought with Junior Leopard.


    The two of them were locked in a fierce struggle while a cloud of black shadow from the whip was wrapping around the two streaks of silver light, attempting to suppress them. However, unable to restrain the inconsistent silver light, the dark cloud was ripped, showing a tide of dispersion.


    The fissions and fusions of the dark cloud were interwoven with the flickering twin hammers.


    Junior Leopard had given a full display of his Wild Hammering Skill. The hammers in his hands were like two lanterns in a grass cage without any weighs. However, Black Three Lady was in the tense, on the defense.


    Although his whipping method was superb, he followed a way of overcoming firmness by gentleness. In the meanwhile, encountering a strongman was fatal to him.


    Though strong and sturdy, Black Three Lady''s strength was not much stronger than that of Junior Leopard. Junior Leopard, younger than Black Three Lady, had achieved the same level as the latter. The practice of the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill had strengthened his body and lifted his strength level. What''s more, Wild Hammering Skill was gleaned from an insight in forging iron, which highlighted strength. The two hammers in Junior Leopard''s hands were not that big but were heavy enough. Given all these factors, Junior Leopard was superior to Black Three Lady.


    Black Three Lady was down on his luck. Being a Level Three master, he was supposed to be a man of rank in Black Shakou or the Sect of Flame, but was banished to Black Shakou to be a bandit for offending the elders along with his lack of strong backing.


    Being a troublemaker here and now, the Sect of Flame must be scheming something that was unknowable for Black Three Lady, who spearheaded the scheme. He pined for doing a deed of merit to return to the Sect of Flame, thus taking aim at the Wu Family upon arrival at the city.


    During his stay in Zhonghe Prefecture for a decade, he had gotten a clear picture of both the underworld and the White Force, knowing where to reap some profit and where to render a merit.


    The Wu''s branch in Zhonghe Prefecture was under the charge of Wu Yuntian, who must have reaped much profit. But this made no sense to Black Three Lady. He knew there was a secret warehouse within the Wu Family, storing a batch of admirable weapons that were accumulated by Wu Yuntian during his charge of the city.


    More importantly, all these weapons were embezzled by Wu Yuntian. In other words, the Wu Family would not say a word if the weapons were looted. As for the arsenal in the Wu''s Ironware Shop, even placed in front of his eyes, Black Three Lady dared not to covet them. Otherwise, if the Wu''s were infuriated and suspended the trade contracts, myriad deaths were not enough for him.


    The Sect of Flame was badly in need of weapons. Weapons for 3,000 people were all robbed from Wu family.


    Only by robbing the Wu''s weapons could everyone get a knife or a sword. In the past, they merely had sticks, hoes, and sickles as their weapons, thus lowering their fighting capacity.


    It had been a meritorious deed to unmarkedly loot the Wu''s cart and grab weapons for 3,000 people. Now, Wu Yuntian''s private-collection of weapons were enough to equip thousands of people. That would promote him to be a Hall Chief, which would be much better than being a bandit and living on air in Black Shakou.


    Moreover, he had heard a little about the Wu''s strength. Only Wu Yuntian was a Level Three master that could contend with him, the rest were not worth mentioning.


    Zhonghe was the hinterland of Jin and close to Tian Long Mystic Mountain. It was impossible for Wu Family to deploy too much force here.


    Therefore, he thought a number of 300 people were enough to usurp the Wu Residence. Then he would restrain Wu Yuntian and the rest of the men would rush in and control everyone else. Wu Yuntian would then bow his head.


    He never thought he would run into such a thorn at the Wu''s gate.


    He knew that the headquarters of the Wu Family had sent people to investigate this incident, all of whom were young disciples coming to Zhonghe Prefecture to gain experience. Even the most powerful one just had reached Level Two. Actually, he had heard that they annihilated Beard Ma''s men and killed Green Hornet Jin Yubao, but he had no eye for it. He thought that if they really were so powerful, Jin Yubao''s men would not get away. It must be Jin Yubao''s bad luck and underestimation of the enemy that courted death.


    However, what he had seen today was beyond his expectation. The boy standing in the doorway was just around 12 or 13 but had a Level Three cultivation, nearly the same as himself. It was enough to surprise him, but what surprised him, even more, was that the teen not only had high cultivation but also had a surprising skill with his hands. A pair of silver hammers in his hands were sublime. If he didin''t have a real skill, he would be hammered to death today.


    What''s worse, his men were locked in the battle. Though the number of his men exceeded that of the Wu Residence, all the teens were at Level Two, each of whom was powerful enough to beat 10. Besides, he himself was controlled by this eccentric teen and couldn''t extricate himself. Anxiety was gnawing him while being controlled by the eccentric teen.


    Being more and more irritable, his hands and feet lost control. After several rounds, because of distraction, the trace of his whip was frequently torn by Junior Leopard''s twin hammers, even his body was nearly hit by a silver hammer. He was frightened into a cold sweat. He feinted a few movements and retreated. Then came the troubles.


    Junior Leopard was not easy to deal with, neither were his hammers. He loved to forge ahead and cause others to retreat, for this could make his hammering skill remarkably smooth. Junior Leopard''s speed was so fast that Black Three Lady failed to escape from the range of his hammer even with all strength. The trace of his whip had been torn as early as his first retreat. In a flash, he was enveloped in the silver light from Junior Leopard.


    "Hey, Black Three Lady! How dare you to be a bandit without a real skill? You are courting death!" Junior Leopard jeered at Black Three Lady while fighting.


    "Boy, don''t be perky too early!" Black Three Lady was provoked by Junior Leopard''s words and his blood raised and his swarthy complexion turned to blue. He made his whip withstand the twin hammers and gasped a few words, "There is no chance for you to beat me in a short time, even so, what''s the use? Now the entire city has been captured by our sacred sect. Do you think that you can escape unscathed just by relying on your Level Three cultivation? You''d better get out of here. Maybe you want to get stuck in this city?"


    "What a good conspiracy!" Junior Leopard scorned. "But what does it do if you capture this town? Do you dare to massacre all of the people here? Do you dare to offend the Wu Family? If you do, do you think you, a ragtag group can resist me?!"


    "Of course, we have no intention to do that. But boy, do you think you can run amuck in the city by virtue of your Level Three cultivation? The ones that captured the city were masters in the Bone-Forging Realm, including three protectors and the core disciples of the Sect Master. Do you think you can resist them merely with a pair of silver hammers? We don''t want to offend the Wu Family but have to do that. You may not know that the Wu Residence was an underground place hiding a great number of armor, which was accumulated by Wu Yuntian for a decade. The sacred sect won''t give up on them. Even if you can resist me, how about the protectors?"


    "That''s true, a master of the Bone-Forging Realm is not one that we can resist!" Junior Leopard said, his eyes showing some coldness.


    Although their voice was low, the words reached the crowd.


    Especially Jin Nanqing and others. Their expression changed on hearing the conversation so their movements naturally slowed somewhat.


    "Senior, what should we do now?"


    Zhou Zhengming fiercely killed two disciples of the Sect of Flame, rushed to Jin Nanqing''s side and said, "This city has already been trapped. Let''s get out of here. Anyway, their goal is the Wu''s rather than the storehouse of the branch. And¡ª"


    Hardly was the word spoken before he heard a pounding of hooves ahead. The floating dust showed a large number of people were approaching. Jin Nanqing made several fierce attacks, forced back his opponent, and leaped back saying, "It''s not wise to stay here any longer! Let''s rush out!" After that, he retreated to the Wu Residence, so did the rest along with the family servants.


    Junior Leopard made several onslaughts to force back Black Three Lady and laughed. "You''re smart and save a lot of strength, but unfortunately, you can not get the topmost merit!" Junior Leopard said, rising his body and rushing to the side instead of to the Wu Residence.

 Chapter 102: Target: Tian Long Mystic Mountain

    Chapter 102: Target: Tian Long Mystic Mountain


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Sect of Flame attacked Zhonghe City and there were smokes rising all around at this moment. Most of the Sect of Flame''s followers were just a bunch of nobodies. After entering the city, they were just like hungry wolves chasing sheep herds. They burnt, killed, stole and rob everywhere, which could not be controlled. Apart from the areas that the Sect of Flame had ordered not to recklessly charge in, the other half has been in a complete mess, and especially those wealthy big families which were the first places to be ransacked.


    Junior Leopard left the Wu Residence and went south. He evaded most of the followers of Sect of Flame and smashed follower who acted individually to death with one hammer. He had now reached Level Three cultivation. In this city, he could be considered number one or two. Except for several Bone-Forging Realm experts of Sect of Flame in the city, nobody else could be his opponent.


    "Alas, it was really troublesome. It was just a batch of goods, how could it lead to such a troublesome matter?!" Junior Leopard kicked away the corpse which was filled with blood with bad expression. Even though he had already expected that there could be a big trouble, he was not acclimatized to the massacre.


    He had killed some people before. However, who he had killed before were all his enemies. Now, though Sect of Flame''s behavior was not destroying the city, they burnt, killed, robbed and stole everywhere with no military discipline. As a big city, Zhonghe City had densely-population and people there lived plentifully. The city was just like a hell with corpses everywhere and someone who was hacked beyond recognition when it fell into enemy hands. Junior Leopard had never seen this kind of scene before. He wanted to escape from the city at first, but he could not look on with folded arms when seeing the cruel scene. He had already killed dozens of Sect of Flame followers imperceptibly. He wanted to rescue people but didn''t know how to do it. There were followers everywhere in the city, how could he save so many?


    "Hong¡ª!" He kicked away the corpses and ran for a few more steps. He saw a few thieves surrounding a young girl, and they were about to rape her. The young woman kept crying and shouting, but how could she resist the thieves who were like wolves and tigers?


    Junior Leopard couldn''t turn a blind eye to it, so he smashed all these fellas to death. When the young girl could react, he already left and disappeared without a trace.


    "Shit. I would not enter the city if I knew this." Junior Leopard killed for another round in the city. He felt so bad with Yin Qi covering the tip, which could not be expressed. He left the city and felt a wave of helplessness with the bloody silver hammer in his hand when looking at the rolling smoke and hearing the crying in the city.


    Apart from him, there were some people rushing into the city. Some of them were smart and ran out of the city at the beginning and some were people with some martial arts. The thieves couldn''t resist them; hence they also came out of the city.


    For those who ran out of the city, the rebels in the city didn''t pursue them. In fact, Zhonghe City had a total of 4 big doors and 12 small doors. The sect of Flame rebels didn''t completely control them, and there had some resisting soldiers. Hence, they couldn''t care about those that escaped the city.


    There were several seniors and people of Flying Tiger Escort Agency who escaped the city. They went out together with the womenfolk of a family. Amongst them, the Wu''s family members were also included. It seemed that they had engaged in a bout of killing, and drenched in blood. They somehow managed to rush out.


    Then he realized that not everyone was there. Amongst his few seniors, there was only Jin Nanqing, Zhou Zhengming and other one here. The other three were nowhere to be seen. They must have been separated when rushing out of the city. Amongst Wu Yuntian''s family members, there was only Wu Yuzhu and her mother who were escorted out. As for Wu Yuntian''s other concubines, there was none to be seen.


    Junior Leopard thought for a while and didn''t meet up with them. He wanted to take this opportunity to go to Tian Long Mystic Mountain and finish the matter that Miss Ma had handed over to him, which was also Xu Yong''s idea. Now, since everyone was separated by the rebels, and it just took several days to go from here to Tian Long Mystic Mountain. He was not afraid that anyone would suspect for now that there were soldiers and danger everywhere.


    Thinking clearly about this point, he didn''t delay any longer. He snatched a horse and galloped towards the south.


    ...


    ...


    Qianzhou, Tian Long Mystic Mountain


    Tian Long Taoism


    The rain was very heavy as the entire mountain was enshrouded in a cloud of fog.


    As for the atmosphere in Tian Long Mystic Mountain, it was similar to the weather, which was unclear, and carried a dense feeling.


    Tian Long Mystic Mountain was very big, with a circumference of over tens of thousands of miles. Tian Long Taoism''s entrances were only occupying a few mountains. In this continuous group of mountains, there were vaguely present many courtyards, temples, caves, and wonderlands.


    There were many infrastructures that didn''t belong to Tian Long Taoism. It belonged to some experts in hiding. No matter how strong the power of Tian Long Taoism was, it was impossible for them to completely dominate the whole of Tian Long Mystic Mountain.


    Of course, Tian Long Taoism was quite sly. They were unable to completely dominate it. However, since the beginning of the sect, it had been thousands of years. They were always encouraging the disciples in the sect to establish their roots within Tian Long Mystic Mountain. Today one would occupy a slope, tomorrow the other one would occupy a swamp, and then they would occupy another area of the mountain together.


    Now, even though Tian Long Mystic Mountain did not entirely belong to Tian Long Taoism, however, the experts hiding within this area would have some form of connections with Tian Long Taoism. Hence, even though Tian Long Taoism didn''t occupy the whole Tiang Long Mystic Mountain in name, in actuality, the entire mountain range was within their control.


    This was a courtyard that was situated in the deep recesses of Tian Long Mystic Mountain which was very big, occupying a whole mountain head. The entire courtyard was rising up and falling down according to the mountain''s direction and to be a part of the mountain. The pavilions within the courtyard had flying horns on it. When one looked from far away in the midst of the rain, with the fog shrouding, it was as if there was an immortal palace there.


    In the deep of the courtyard, there was a villa. Within the villa, there was a small pavilion. There was a 28, 29 years old young man sitting quietly without looking sideways, facing the small pond in the villa.


    On his side, there were two old people and a middle-aged man shouting at him ferociously.


    "You are a bastard! You are imbecile! Unfilial thing!"


    The middle-aged man was well dressed. However, at this time, he was extremely without manners. He was shouting at the man sitting in the middle of the pavilion, "A woman, just because of a woman, you can not care about everything? For a woman, you have forsaken the benefits of the clan at one side, for a woman...!"


    "Enough...!" An old man with white beard and hair broke the middle-aged man''s saliva filled shouting. His expression was extremely ugly, "Lei Xu, I will ask you one more time, are you going or not?!"


    "I will not!"


    Lei Xu, who was sitting in the pavilion, didn''t open his eyes and he spat out those words.


    "You...!" The middle-aged man was about to unleash his anger, yet his brain was slapped by the white beard old man. "It was all because you have given birth to such a good son, to throw away all the face of the Lei Family!"The old man said.


    The middle-aged man climbed up from the floor. He didn''t dare say much and his face was full of fury. He was about to punch Lei Xu who was sitting and not moving. Just at this moment, the old man with white hair and black beard softly coughed.


    "Ke, ugh, both of you, Chief Lei had matters to do, hence he can''t go for it. There is no way to do it. As for us, we shouldn''t force it upon him. We have to get going!" When speaking, he cupped his fists towards the two people and was about to leave.


    "Wait, wait, Elder Yu, we should give the matter further thought!"


    "Stop planning, I will definitely not go!" Lei Xu opened his eyes and swept his gaze over them. At last, he said to Elder Yu, "Elder Yu, let Chief Wang or Chief Nian go. Prince Xiaoming of the Sect of Flame had personally gone there. I''m afraid he lusts for much. Only the two of them could hold the line!"


    "It can only be so!" Elder Yu sighed softly. He looked at Lei Xu, with a weird expression flashing in his eyes, "Chief Lei, you are the most suitable candidate for this matter!"


    Lei Xu smiled instead of an answer. That middle-aged man and the white-haired white-beard old man were waiting for Elder Yu to say something, yet that he had already smiled bitterly and left. The two of them hurriedly gave chase, and before leaving they gave Lei Xu a cold hard stare. They helplessly stomped their feet, and waved their sleeves and left.


    "You are not afraid of driving your father dead?!"


    After the three of them leaving far, a figure appeared from the rain. He had cyan clothes, and no rain fell on him. He slowly traveled towards the pavilion. "It is a good time to gain credits!"


    "You don''t wish to go?!" Lei Xu smiled and asked.


    "Even if I want to go, it will not be my time. They may look for Wushuang!" Wang She said helplessly.


    "Wushuang will also not go!" Lei Xu said.


    Wang She furrowed his eyebrows, and was somewhat apprehensive, "She is also not going, why?!"


    "It seems that she has some private matters, and she didn''t talk about it clearly with me!" Lei Xu shook his head and said, "Oh right, have you had any news on that matter?"


    "This time, Mingyi School is set on obtaining it. You have trouble!"


    "Oh, is it?!"


    "I know you are very confident, and also strong. However from the news that I have obtained, on the day of marriage, not only the experts of Mingyi School will go, people from the Golden Light Cave will appear as well!"


    "Golden Light Cave, who?!" Hearing Golden Light Cave these three words, Lei Xu''s eyes flashed. His voice also became much denser.


    "Gao Yulou!"


    "Why he come?!"


    "Lu Shaoyou is the favorite disciple of the old monster in Golden Light Cave. The old monster would not let him meet with any accidents at his wedding party. Hey, do you want me to go and kill Gao Yulou first?!"


    "If you really want to help me, please find a way to get Linglong out that is the correct way!"


    "Are you crazy? Go to Duke Ma''s house to look for trouble. Do you think that I have a third-eye?" Wang She said, and opened the fan in his hand, "I''d rather wait for Lu Shaoyou to carry the person out of Ma Manor before causing mayhem. This is better than going to rush to the Ma Manor! However, those few old things in your family are watching you strictly, are you sure you are able to extricate yourself?"


    "I will find my way!" Lei Xu shut his eyes once again, "I really don''t understand, why you are unwilling to kill Lu Shaoyou. If you kill him, things would be resolved. You are not killing him, and you don''t let me kill him. Now that things have developed to this stage, it will only alert the nest by killing Gao Yulou, and make things much more complicated!"


    "I owe you in this matter. Even if you cannot extricate yourself at that moment, I promise to save your girl!" Wang She folded his fan, and violently slapped it onto his palm, "However, unless the situation really calls for it, we still cannot quarrel openly. I will borrow the chance to go out, and find a few good hands!"

 Chapter 103: Meeting Wang She & Fist Intent

    Chapter 103: Meeting Wang She & Fist Intent


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Tian Long Mystic Mountain was big, with a circumference of over tens of thousands of miles. However, there was only one entrance to Tian Long Taoism named Sole Dragon Valley.


    Junior Leopard came out of Zhonghe City. After riding through the wind and dust for a few days, he finally arrived at the bottom of the mountain of Tian Long Taoism. Moving till here, he dared not let his horse gallop crazily. He stopped his horse at a market town about three or four miles away from Sole Dragon Valley.


    This market town was only a normal market town where was small and its population wasn''t huge. There was only one inn, surviving on business from the Sole Dragon Valley. Junior Leopard got a room there and deposited his horse. After that he walked towards the Sole Dragon Valley.


    Upon reaching the mouth of the valley, he took out the jade pendant that Ma Linglong gave him. This was to keep him from any trouble. These years, there were many incidents of people from prestigious sects and schools being beaten to death. He didn''t want to become a wandering ghost.


    Holding the jade pendant, and clutching it tightly in his palms, he walked another few more steps. He was just about to enter the Sole Dragon Valley when suddenly there was a figure flashing in front of the valley entrance. A person walked out.


    "Aye?!"


    "Ah?!"


    Seeing the person clearly, Junior Leopard was stunned. The person who walked out of the valley entrance was Tian Long Taoism''s Wang She. He was still dressed in cyan clothes, with a hand-held fan. He was dashing.


    Seeing Junior Leopard, he was also slightly stunned. He exclaimed, "Kid, why are you here?"


    Junior Leopard smiled bitterly and bowed, "Hello, Chief Wang!"


    Wang She folded his fan. "Alright, you are not from Tian Long Taoism. Don''t call me Chief?" While talking, he looked at Junior Leopard with some interest, "What are you doing coming here?!"


    "Ugh, I...!"


    The thing was sudden, so Junior Leopard didn''t know how to react or what to say at the moment. He came to Tian Long Taoism bringing Ma Linglong''s words to Lei Xu. Even though this person in front of him was Tian Long Taoism''s Chief, however, he was not Lei Xu. He wasn''t sure whether he was able to speak about this matter.


    "There is no matter that cannot be said to people, kid!" Wang She saw that Junior Leopard had an expression of apprehension, and his face revealed an excited expression. His gaze flashed when he saw the jade pendant in Junior Leopard''s hands. He raised his hand, and Junior Leopard felt an invisible force appearing within his hand. Before he could react, the jade pendant had already flown from his hands into Wang She''s hands.


    "You...!" Junior Leopard wanted to say something, but after thinking about it he let it go. Anyway, this jade pendant had to be shown to others, if not he wouldn''t be able to enter Tian Long Taoism. Wang She was Tian Long Taoism''s Chief and it was okay to let him see it.


    "When did you start having a relationship with Ma Linglong?!" Wang She looked at the jade pendant a few times, and his expression became weird. He then returned the jade pendant to him, "Since you come to Tian Long Taoism with the jade pendant. you must be looking for that bastard, Lei Xu, right?!"


    "I have received Miss Ma''s request, to bring a word to Tian Long Taoism''s Chief Lei!"


    Seeing that Wang She was able to tell the origins of this jade pendant in one glance, Junior Leopard dared not hide anything. He then spoke in detail to Wang She about the matter of him meeting Ma Linglong on the road to Ningzhou, including her wanting him to bring a message to Tian Long Taoism.


    "Big brother Lei Xu?!" Wang She blinked his eyes, and shivered, "Since it is like this, fortunately, you bumped into me. If not, even if you bring the jade pendant to Tian Long Taoism you wouldn''t be able to find Lei Xu. Who knows you may even die at the hands of those old fogeys from the Lei Family!"


    "Ah?!"


    When Junior Leopard heard that, his heart trembled. He didn''t know what to say at the moment.


    "Alright, let me help you. You don''t go in anymore, follow me!" after speaking, he waved his hand at Junior Leopard, indicating him to follow him.


    Junior Leopard did not dare to disobey. He followed behind Wang She and they returned to the old path.


    Returning to the town market, Wang She also entered the inn. When the inn''s shopkeeper saw Wang She entering, he immediately came to receive him.


    "Prepare me some ink, paper, and brush. I also want a clean upper room. Be quick!"


    Wang She said leisurely.


    Two waiters led them to a clean upper room. Without waiting for long, the brush, ink, and paper arrived. Wang She had the waiters go out. He closed the door and lifted the brush. He then wrote down in detail all that Junior Leopard had told him. After he finished writing, he carefully blew dry the ink. He then took the jade pendant in Junior Leopard''s hands and stuffed it into the envelope. He then called the waiter, to deliver the letter to Sole Dragon Valley.


    Seeing the waiter leave, Wang She patted his hands, "Okay, done!"


    Junior Leopard was somewhat suspicious, "Would this letter really be delivered into the hands of Chief Lei?!"


    "What? You don''t believe me?"


    "I don''t!" Junior Leopard hurriedly said.


    "It is good that you don''t dare!" said Wang She, "Ma Linglong is really full of it. Is the trouble she created not enough? She actually let a little kid deliver a letter. If anything was to really happen, and that guy was offended, this matter would not be settled amicably. By the way lad, how is the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill I taught you?!"


    "I didn''t dare to delay even for a day!" Junior Leopard said, "However, this Snake-like Breath Holding Skill is so mysterious that even though I had some insights, I am unable to see the whole picture!"


    "To hell with the big picture!" Wang She frowned. He looked at Junior Leopard, "You little brat, don''t play around with me. This Snake-like Breath Holding Skill is famous for being both useful and practical. As to its mysteriousness, hehe, unless you learn the whole Wonderful Technique of the Seven Treasures, if not, hehe...!"


    "Wonderful Technique of the Seven Treasures?!" Junior Leopard''s heart moved with his face revealing some doubt.


    "The so-called Wonderful Technique of Seven Treasures are referring to 7 types of mysterious secret skills. Combined together, it was named as the Wonderful Technique of Seven Treasures. This Snake-like Breath Holding Skill is only one of it; there are six other secret skills. These six secret skills are all different, but they have one similarity, that is their effects are extremely huge. It is also easy to master it. Just like the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, as long as it is someone who knows some martial arts, they will be able to use it. When using it, the effects are extremely obvious. Don''t you think so?!"


    "In this case, this Snake-like Breath Holding Skill is really mysterious!" Junior Leopard said but in his heart he thought of another secret skill. That is the Extraordinary Strength Fist that he obtained from Xue Wuya. This Extraordinary Strength Fist was the same as the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, it was extremely easy to practice, and its effects were extremely mysterious. Could the Extraordinary Strength Fist be one of the Wonderful Technique of Seven Treasures?


    "Apart from the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, what are the 6 other secret skills?!" Junior Leopard asked with a curious face.


    "That I am not clear. I only know that the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill is one of them!" Wang She laughed, "It is said that the reason why these seven secret skills are called the Wonderful Technique of Seven Treasures, was because these seven secret skills could be used at the same time and it was not necessary for the seven treasures to be used all together. Even if you use two of the secret skills at the same time, it will have miraculous effects. A pity, after so many years, I have not yet heard of anyone who could use assemble 2 of these seven secret skills!"


    Speaking till here, his face revealed a tinge of regret. His heart, however, cursed, "This damned Xue Wuya, could the fella really be dead? We had an agreement that we were going to exchange the Wonderful Technique of Seven Treasures. However, a few years have passed, and there is no news at all. If it was not because these old fellows had strict control, I would have rushed to Blood River Sect a long time ago!"


    "Using two at the same time will have miraculous effects?" Junior Leopard didn''t notice Wang She''s expression, yet his heart began to have to understand, "Then that is similar to the green colored equipment in the Great Polo. Apart from the body''s properties, there are additional properties. If that Extraordinary Strength Fist is one of the seven secret skills, I really have to examine and research it in detail, to see if I can come out with some miraculous effects!"


    "Kid, your Qi seemed to have some changes!"


    While he was deep in thought, Wang She''s voice suddenly rang in his ears. He raised his head and saw Wang She looking at him in shock.


    "This Qi of yours is as if you have condensed the fist intent. Kid, have you condensed the fist intent?!"


    "Fist intent?" Junior Leopard''s face revealed some doubt, "Could Senior be referring to this weird Qi Power?!"


    In between words, his Internal Qi circulated. His divine thoughts moved slightly, and a wave of fiery hot Qi Power exploded from within his body. The surrounding air also felt this Qi Power''s heat, and instantly rose up by tens of degrees. This fiery hot Qi Power expanded out, and shrouded the entire inn.


    This inn was situated at the mountain entrance of Tian Long Taoism, and had an inextricable relationship with Tian Long Taoism. Those who entered and exited were all pugilists. Once Junior Leopard''s fist intent was unleashed, his Qi Power expanded. It definitely aroused the attention of everybody.


    "Oh, what''s this?!"


    "What happened?"


    "What a strong Qi Power. Who has such boldness, to actually dare to create trouble right outside of Tian Long Taoism?!"


    Instantly, the whole inn became a mess.


    It was only the shopkeeper who was not in a hurry. Being affected by that hot Qi, he held an abacus and slowly walked out of the door. After exiting the area of influence of the fist intent, he then sat down under a big tree, and slowly calculated the accounts.


    Seeing the shopkeeper in such a manner, the rest of them were not fools either. They could guess that the person releasing his force in the inn should be someone from Tian Long Taoism. It could even be someone from the upper tier in Tian Long Taoism. Who knows that person could have gained insight while practicing martial arts. One by one they all exited the inn, and silently waited for the Qi Power to scatter.


    "You couldn''t be?!"


    Wang She looked at the rising black color fireball behind Junior Leopard, and his facial muscles twitched intensely, "K...Kid, don''t tell me, that thing behind you is the sun?!"


    "The Sun?!" Junior Leopard nodded, "It should be!"


    "You''re awesome, just fucking awesome!" Hearing Junior Leopard''s confident reply, Wang She weakly smiled, "Even if it was someone acting big and almighty, he wouldn''t be like you. To actually condense fist intent that was like the sun. And moreover, it is black. Kid, how did you manage to do that?!"


    "I also don''t know!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly. He slowly kept his own a fist intent, and then spoke in detail to Wang She about what happened to him, "Chief Wang, truth to be told, if you hadn''t told me, I wouldn''t have known that this thing is called a fist intent."


    "You are really ignorant, however, to turn it another way, only an ignorant person like you would have the guts to condense such a fist intent!"

 Chapter 104: External Elixir & Level Six within One Year

    Chapter 104: External Elixir & Level Six within One Year


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What exactly is the fist intent, and how did I manage to condense it?!" Junior Leopard asked, puzzled, with an expression of yearning to learn more.


    "The fist intent is a kind of powerful and special Qi Power, a materialized Qi Power!" Wang She indicated for Junior Leopard to sit down. He said slowly, "Generally speaking, in a school, only those whose cultivation had reached Level Five Bone-Forging Realm, will then be told the presence of fist intent. It is because only when one''s cultivation has reached that realm, the cultivation in the heart is then sufficient to feel the body''s own divine thoughts. Only then can one try to condense fist intent...!"


    Wang She didn''t hide anything, and told some information regarding fist intent to him. He slowly explained to Junior Leopard. Junior Leopard also raised up several points which he didn''t understand. They talked straight through the day, till the moon hung in the sky. The two of them then realized, unwittingly, half a day had already passed.


    "Aye, you are a good disciple with high aptitude and good savey as well who are also born with a heaven-sent bloodline. You can understand me with just one point, much better than that stupid disciple of mine!" Wang She sighed deeply. He then stood up, "Should I go to Wu Yansheng and ask if you can just come to Tian Long Mystic Mountain to cultivate!"


    "Ah?!" Junior Leopard was stunned. He hurriedly said, "Chief, you must be jesting. I have a good life in the Wu Family, and my teacher is good as well. I temporarily don''t wish to change environment!"


    "That is fine as well. The Wu Family is better. As recently Tian Long Taoism has a lot of messy issues, I have been irritated by it the past few days. I indeed don''t have the time to take care of you. Oh right, you said that you came from Zhonghe City. How is the situation there?"


    At the mention of Zhonghe City, Junior Leopard''s expression darkened, "It is not good at all. When I came out, the Sect of Flame troublemakers already attacked the city. Only a few people managed to escape from the city. After so many days, the whole Zhonghejun City should have been controlled by those Sect of Flame troublemakers!"


    "Tell me the details!" Wang She said. He then seemed to have thought of something. He walked out of the door and asked the waiter to prepare some dishes. He said, "We will discuss as we eat. You should tell me as more detail as you can and I feel that there is something in this matter!"


    When Junior Leopard heard it, his heart moved, "Chief wants to go to Zhonghe City?!"


    "No choice. Who knows what happened to Sect of Flame. They attacked Zhonghe City suddenly, and even Prince Xiaoming has come. The imperial court''s army went to attack, however upon meeting a Level Eight expert, no matter how many men there are it is useless!" Wang She seemed to be somewhat helpless and said. However, in between words, he revealed an excited expression.


    "Prince Xiaoming?!" Junior Leopard said lightly, "He is a Level Eight expert?!"


    "Yes, Level Eight expert. Hehe, the Sect of Flame''s youngest Venerable. Ten years ago we had a fight and neither one won nor lost. Who knows if he had any advancement after ten years?"


    "This is something I don''t understand. Why will the Sect of Flame choose this timing and this place, and even sent such a strong expert. It doesn''t make sense?!"


    "They never do anything without reason. Even if they did it, then, there is definitely a reason. Just outsiders like us do not know. Just like the Wu''s batch of goods, suddenly being robbed at Black Shakou. In the beginning, there didn''t seem to have any reason? Now...?"


    "Now I understand!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly. He picked up some vegetables. "No wonder there wasn''t even a single person alive. They were only dozens of Wu''s normal disciples while those coming to rob had at least a thousand people, and there were quite a few Level Three experts. Unless the cultivation had reached the Bone-Forging Realm, if not, it was very hard to escape!"


    "That is right. They robbed the goods because of weapons. With those 30 carriages weapons, it could be used to arm 3000 men. 3000 men fully armed, under a situation where there is no preparation, they can easily attack and occupy the whole Zhonghe City. Then, what will they do after attacking the whole Zhonghe City?" Wang She smiled, "Nobody knows, I went there this time for the purpose of investigating this matter. However, I''m very sure the Sect of Flame and Prince Xiaoming won''t stay in Zhonghe City very long. Hence, the time for you to gain benefits has come!"


    "What benefits?!" Junior Leopard asked without knowing why.


    "Of course, you will obtain benefits. Anyway this Zhonghe City must be taken back by the imperial court. If you gain some credits this time around, your benefits would be endless. With your cultivation now, to do this, it is very simple. Just depending on the two silver hammers behind your buttocks, it is enough to set great feats. After retaking Zhonghe City, and meting out the rewards, your benefits will not run away!"


    Junior Leopard''s eyes brightened, "Oh right, this is a good opportunity. Anyway I has already fought once when I exited the city. Few people in Sect of Flame troublemakers can beat me. This can be a great opportunity for me to set feats and get some benefits!"


    At this moment he said, "Many thanks for the Chief''s guidance!"


    "Don''t be so courteous with me. You think that I will give you benefits for nothing?!" Wang She smiled, "Do I look like someone so nice?!"


    "Indeed you don''t look like!" Junior Leopard said in his heart. He then smiled, "What do you want from me?!"


    Wang She looked at Junior Leopard. He frowned, as if he was thinking of something. After a while he then said, "No, your cultivation is too low. Even though you have condensed your fist intent. Kid, if you can reach Level Six or Seven within a year that will be good. No, the best is Level Seven. This way the chances are greater!"


    "Level Six, Level Seven?!"


    When Wang She spoke those words, Junior Leopard was picking an egg and was going to eat it. Hearing it, he nearly bit his own tongue. To reach Level Six or Seven in a year, who do you think I am?


    How was this possible?


    "Are you kidding me? You think that I''m an immortal? It is difficult to reach the Bone-Forging Realm in ten years, let along in one year. Not even mentioning the Tendon-Changing Realm. That is the target I set for myself after 50 years!"


    "Don''t be so void of ambition, kid. You have the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes. Now you have also condensed your fist intent, furthermore it is such scary and strange fist intent. This means that your savey and aptitude for martial arts is one in ten thousand. As for why it is hard to enter the Bone-Forging Realm, it is because you don''t have suitable cultivation condition. Your cultivation now has reached Level Three. As for my idiotic disciple, he has been swimming in the Bone-Forging Soup from childhood, and it was a Bone-Forging Soup with extra ingredients. Now his cultivation is only Level Three. He is a trash!"


    "Since he is a trash, why will you accept him as a disciple?!" Junior Leopard asked.


    Wang She rolled his eyes, "Kid, why are you acting foolish. It''s just like the engagement between Lu Shaoyou and Ma Linglong? This is a transaction. Or, why will I accept a trash as my disciple?!"


    "There is no choice!" Junior Leopard shrugged his shoulders, "Just like what Chief said, I don''t have the conditions or ability to reach the Bone-Forging Realm within a year!"


    "Who asked you to cultivate till the Bone-Forging Realm? I mean you should cultivate your Internal Qi to Level Six, not your cultivation reach the Bone-Forging Realm!"


    Wang She said, "Internal Qi cultivation reaching Level Six and Bone-Forging Realm are two different things!"


    "However if my body could not reach the Bone-Forging Realm, how could my cultivation reach Level Six?!" Junior Leopard''s heart flashed a trace of happiness and his face revealing bitterness, "I don''t want explode and die!"


    "Kid, you should have heard of External Elixir?!"


    "External Elixir?!" Junior Leopard nodded, "My teacher has spoken to me before. However, this External Elixir''s materials are much harder to seek than Bone-Forging Realm''s ingredients. Furthermore I don''t have the method to refine an External Elixir. Even if I have the materials and the method to refine it, that to reach Level Six within a year is very difficult. After all, I am only at the cultivation of Level Three!"


    "External Elixir''s materials are not hard to find, furthermore I have the refinement method!" Wang She raised his head and said, "As for whether one year is too short, that is your problem. I used three years to raise my cultivation from Level Three to Level Six when I refined an External Elixir. Your aptitude is better than mine, so one year shouldn''t be a problem. Anyway no matter what cultivation you reached then, you have to help me with my business!"


    Speaking till here, Wang She smiled, "According to my calculations, only if you have reached the cultivation of Level Six, then you would have a chance of survival in this matter!"


    "Damn it!" Junior Leopard cussed in his heart. His face was full of smiles, "Ugh, then, Chief, my cultivation is too low. I think we should forget about this matter. You would better look for other people!"


    "No way of choosing other ways. It could only be you!" Wang She shaked his head, "Kid, since you have already embroiled yourself into this matter, then don''t hide anymore!"


    "What exactly is it? How come I don''t know?!"


    "One year later, what do you think will happen? What did you come to Tian Long Mystic Mountain for this time?"


    "You are saying---!" Junior Leopard had a shock.


    "When that time comes, we will definitely go and snatch the bride. However there is not enough manpower. Hence, you must go. You think about it. When that time comes, and your cultivation has not reached Level Six, will you have a chance to live?!"


    "Even if my cultivation reaches Level Six, I won''t have the chance to live!" Junior Leopard exclaimed, "You have high positions and great power, and naturally you all won''t be afraid. I am just a disciple of the Wu Family. If I get involved in the mess here, when people come to settle the accounts, wouldn''t I be in bad luck?!"


    "That is a problem!" Wang She''s mouth quirked. He touched his chin, squinted his eyes and patted Junior Leopard''s shoulders, "Kid, there is no choice. Sorry. At that time you should get a black cloth and cover your face!"


    Junior Leopard was speechless!


    Words had already been put forth till this stage. There was no power to resist at this moment.


    "Alright, since there is still a year, I shall try. However, what about the External Elixir''s materials and refinement method?"


    "The materials for cultivating External Elixir is ready-made. That old fogey Lyu Yiyue have a Fiery Eye, right? Your teacher must have told you that the Fiery Eye is the best material for refining an External Elixir?!"


    Upon mentioning the Fiery Eye, Junior Leopard''s expression froze. He smiled, "Yes, he have. However, will Elder Lyu agree?!"


    "Obviously he won''t agree. However there isn''t a need for him to agree. Didn''t I teach you the Snake Breath Holding Skill? Just think of a way to steal it! Anyway he is going to die soon, it is useless for him!"


    "I don''t know where that stuff is, so how do I steal it? Furthermore, it will attract trouble!"


    "One who intends to achieve great things does not care about trifles. How can you do big things when you are always treading as on eggs!"


    "I have never thought of doing anything big!" Junior Leopard said. Unknowingly, he and Wang She had grown accustomed to each other. He wasn''t so restricted as before. And Wang She''s request was out of the world, which made him resentful.


    "Then there is no choice. Unless, you have other materials to refine the External Elixir. If not, you can only steal the Fiery Eye!" Speaking till here, he looked at Junior Leopard, "You really knows how to endure. I thought that upon having news about the Fiery Eye you will take action. After all, that is the same eye that you have. Oh right, there is another solution. You should just gouge out one of your eyes to be the External Elixir!"


    When Junior Leopard heard that, he nearly slapped Wang She. "I gouged out my eye to be an External Elixir. Do you think I am a fool?!"


    "I have something here but I don''t know if it can be an External Elixir''s material!" Junior Leopard said with some doubts.


    "Oh, do you?!" Wang She''s eyes flashed a strange excitement, "Materials to refine an External Elixir is hard to find. Are you sure?!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t say anything. He only took out that piece of bone that was completely black and put it in front of Wang She.

 Chapter 105: The Idea of Peerlessness External Elixir

    Chapter 105: The Idea of Peerlessness External Elixir


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Where the hell did you get this thing from?"


    Wang She saw that skull, and his eyes flashed a trace of weird expression. He held it in his hand, and touched it for a while, "I have never seen this thing before. But you are right. It can be used to make an External Elixir. The Internal Qi is flowing extremely smoothly inside. Keke, even if it cannot be compared to that Fiery Eye, at least it is a top grade material for refining an External Elixir. It is much better than mine!"


    "So Chief actually has refined an External Elixir as well!" Junior Leopard asked somewhat surprisingly.


    "If I don''t refine an External Elixir, how could my cultivation rise so quickly? You think that I am Lei Xu who has been bathing in the medicinal soup since young?!" Wang She laughed coldly, "To refine an External Elixir, first, you need to raise the cultivation of Internal Qi. After cultivation has reached Level Six, the Bone-Forging Soup is no longer a big problem to us. Returning back to increase cultivation of the body is also considered a path. It''s a pity that External Elixirs are hard to find. Apart from you and me having such good luck, amongst 10,000 in the pugilist world, if one who could succeed it is not bad already!"


    Without saying much more, he then told Junior Leopard the refinement method for an External Elixir in detail.


    "Forget it. I will be a good person until the end. Since I want you to gamble your life in a year''s time, I must have some sort of expression. What you are cultivating is the Wu''s Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. When you use it, it is just like your fist intent. It attracts too much attention. There may be some trouble. Anyway, this External Elixir''s cultivation needs to be restarted. I will impart the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill to you. This cultivation method''s power is not beneath the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon. Most importantly, I know of an earth vein Evil Qi, which is suitable to cultivate the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit. This will save the trouble of going around looking for earth vein Evil Qi when you have reached the cultivation of Level Six. Oh right, I still have two Spiritual Stones with me. It can greatly boost your cultivation!"


    "...!"


    When Junior Leopard heard that, his heart trembled. He didn''t know what to say at the moment and was stunned there.


    "Kid, relax. I am not your father. The reason why I am giving you so many benefits firstly is your Fiery Eyes. I am very interested in it. Secondly, it is because in the future I definitely need your help in some areas. The stronger your strength is, the greater the help it will be to me. Hence, you should not be happy too soon!"


    "It is alright to be happy a little, isn''t it?" Junior Leopard smiled, "Isn''t Chief scared that these benefits will just be like using a meat bun to hit a dog, which will only go but not return?!"


    "Using a meat bun to hit the dog. An interesting way to speak. However even if I use a meat bun to smash, I can also smash it to death!" Wang She laughed coldly, without refuting towards Junior Leopard''s words. He took out two strange-shaped stones from the pocket that he brought along. "These are two Spiritual Stones. With their help, I think, to reach Level Six within a year is not a problem!"


    "Deal!" Junior Leopard grabbed the Spiritual Stones as if he was afraid that Wang She would go back on his words, "Oh right, when do we move to Zhonghe City?!"


    "Not us, it is me. I do not want others to see us traveling together!" Wang She said plainly.


    "But we just entered the inn!"


    "You are someone from the Wu Family, a junior. My disciple is also from the Wu Family. Suddenly appearing at the foot of Tian Long Mystic Mountain and having you and I traveling together is not a big deal. However, if we keep going to Zhonghe City, there will be problems. This time when I go to Zhonghe City I have a lot of secret missions. I cannot stay with you. I will leave immediately. You will leave tomorrow morning. Remember, you must go back to Zhonghe City. Only then will you gain maximum benefits. Oh right, the inn''s expenses have to be paid by you. This is the rule, I can''t change it!"


    "I understand!" Junior Leopard lightly nodded. When he raised his head, Wang She in front had already vanished.


    Junior Leopard was also not surprised. A Level Eight expert''s strength was something that could be deduced by a Level Three rookie like him. Looking again at his front, there was an old and tattered book. Looking carefully, there was Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill these five words written on it.


    "This Jade Original Power Gang Spirit seemed to be broken by Lu Shaoyou''s sword Gang before. Who knows if it is really like what he said, to be as powerful as the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon!" Junior Leopard silently said in the heart. At the same time his heart was itching and it was hard to bear it. He flipped open the secret manual of Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill and began reading it in detail. After looking at it for a while, he then took out the skull. He held it in his hand as if he was thinking of something. After more than two hours, he then put this skull of the Dragon Chimera in front of himself. He then followed what Wang She taught, and refine the External Elixir.


    External Elixir was extremely mysterious. Of course, it wasn''t something that could be refined successfully in just a night.


    In substance, External Elixir was something that was apart from the martial artist. It was a system of Internal Qi circulation. This Internal Qi circulation system did not have any difference from the martial artist''s Internal Qi cultivation. The method of cultivation wasn''t very much different. It was using the heaven and earth Qi as its own. However due to the materials for creating the External Elixir was a dead object. To do this point, firstly there had to be a meridian passageway created from the External Elixir''s materials. This sounded extremely difficult, but it was actually not so.


    External Elixir was not the same as a human body. A human body''s meridians were formed from birth. It was closely connected to life and blood circulation. A little bit more, or a little bit less, or just a little leakage, would be fatal. However, an External Elixir was different. The materials were dead objects, and it didn''t have a sense of pain. It also didn''t have any fatal spots. If a mistake occurred, it would be ok to just try again. That was why, to refine an External Elixir, the most important stage was finding the right materials. A normal material didn''t have the basic requirement of molding the meridians. Only extremely few Mysterious Objects that were born in heaven and earth, or special parts on demonic beasts, would have these function. For example the Fiery Eye or the Dragon Chimera''s skull. These were all top grade materials for creating an External Elixir.


    The process of molding the meridians was extremely difficult. However, after all, Junior Leopard was a practitioner of martial arts. And because of the Fiery Eyes, his understanding towards the meridians in his body was extremely deep. Hence, without much effort, he created a perfect meridian route within this skull.


    Then the second step was to make the bone and his own body''s Internal Qi circulation compatible. This was the most important. Even though this External Elixir''s cultivation would be the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill, this was after all his External Elixir. To use it freely as he wished, he had to link it to his own body. If not, how to cultivate a dead object just like that?


    Junior Leopard placed the skull to his front, and with lightly blow a strand of fiery red Internal Qi squirmed in between the holes of the eyes of that skull and then disappeared. Following that, the eyes of the Dragon Chimera violently flashed, as if it had a life.


    A black skull was flashing a demonic red light in this darkness. Even though Junior Leopard was refining the External Elixir, he was extremely unsettled by that. However, that was good, following the directing of Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi, that initial Internal Qi that was circulating within the skull, followed the route of the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill. It slowly refined the fiery attribute of that Internal Qi into the Internal Qi of the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill.


    This took more than 2 hours. And in this process of redirecting, Junior Leopard''s eyes became red slowly. The Fiery Eye was activated. After a good while, the red light in his eyes dimmed. Junior Leopard was still sitting there, refining his Internal Qi. It was until when the sky outside became white. That strand of Internal Qi was refined and changed. Junior Leopard''s sweat caused his whole body to be extremely wet.


    "This is really not an easy task?!" circulating the Internal Qi within the External Elixir sounded extremely easy. However, that was, after all, a meridian route that was created. It was vastly different from a body''s meridians. It was very particular about the circulation of Internal Qi. Hence, when refining External Elixir another important point was that it was the first time the Internal Qi circulating within the External Elixir. For all practitioners who were refining External Elixirs, this was an extremely painful process. There was none who succeeded before times of failure. Of course, there were more who didn''t succeed.


    Even if it was Junior Leopard who had an advantage due to his Fiery Eyes, he only succeeded after failing three times.


    "Urgh, I''m so tired!" Junior Leopard stretched himself, and looked at the sky outside, "well, I shall rest for a while. Even though Snake King allowed me to go Zhonghe County, this troubled water seems deep. I shall be more relaxed!"


    Thinking of this, he immediately laid down and kept the skull beside his pillow. He closed his eyes and prepared to sleep for a good while.


    The biggest advantage of External Elixir was that it didn''t need to consider how much Internal Qi the material could bear. Hence, when cultivating, it was many times faster than cultivating the own body''s Internal Qi. There was no difference between Level Three and Four, neither was there a bottleneck like the human body. Furthermore, there was no distracting thoughts or hesitation. Its cultivation speed was necessarily much faster than an ordinary person''s cultivation. That Snake King wanted Junior Leopard''s cultivation to rise to Level Six within a year was not for no reason.


    It was weird that just now he was extremely tired but after lying on the bed, he couldn''t fall into sleep. He only felt that every time he breathed, it would be connected to the External Elixir. What was surfaced in his mind was all the circulation of the Internal Qi within the External Elixir?


    Wait!


    Suddenly, a crazy and strange idea floated into his mind.


    "This External Elixir was just like a human body that only knows cultivating. If I have a plan to let it practice for 24 hours non-stop, then, this External Elixir will become an eternal machine cultivating Internal Qi. Furthermore, it is a dead object and doesn''t know what fatigue is. As long as heaven and earth Qi exists, it will not stop cultivating, day and night. Wouldn''t I gain a huge advantage?!"


    This thought, to others, was a fantasy, a dream, and a wish that couldn''t be fulfilled. Even if there was someone who was thinking far-fetched like him, it wouldn''t be fulfilled. Just like the strange fist intent which he condensed. However, to Junior Leopard, it was something that had a chance of succeeding!


    To achieve this, the most difficult thing was how to let the Internal Qi within the External Elixir circulate non-stop. Just like cultivating Internal Qi, this required inhalation, and exhalation. It was not breathing. Cultivating Internal Qi required a calm mind, and following the cultivation method of Internal Qi to progress step by step. Even till now, Junior Leopard had completed the initial refinement of External Elixir. However, for the External Elixir to work, it required his own Internal Qi directing. Without Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi directing, this Internal Qi within the External Elixir would be like sinking into the Dantian, and spread out within the bones. It won''t circulate.


    And now what Junior Leopard was thinking of was to let the External Elixir circulate on its own. This was not easy!


    If it was someone else, with this kind of thinking, they would only laugh about it.


    What about Junior Leopard?


    He thought of the mysterious black fire that was the size of a yellow bean within his Dantian. This thing seemed to be able to circulate on its own, inhaling and exhaling the heaven and earth Qi. Oh, wrong, it should be inhaling and exhaling Junior Leopard''s own pneuma.


    "If I could figure out the rules of circulation of this black flame... oh, no, I don''t need to complicate matters. I just need to input a strand of this black flame into this External Elixir! Isn''t that just like my fist intent with a strand of black flame as well? Anyway, this thing was originally from that weird loach''s body?!"

 Chapter 106: Formation of External Elixir & Initial Understanding of Fist Intent

    Chapter 106: Formation of External Elixir & Initial Understanding of Fist Intent


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard started immediately. Though not a person who moved with drive and sweep, Junior Leopard was always very decisive when faced with matters obviously of great benefit to himself.


    Hence, once this thought was formed, he started trying regardless of his fatigue and weariness.


    Initially, it didn''t go well. He was not used to it as his External Elixir was newly refined and he just directed the circulation of the Internal Qi within the External Elixir. However, the black flame within the Dantian was easily extracted. As for the reason, Junior Leopard knew that it was because the Mysterious Fire was originally part of the External Elixir, so when attracted by the External Elixir, it was easily extracted.


    In fact, if it was not because Junior Leopard''s cultivation had advanced to Level Three, his External Elixir could''ve been sucked away by the black flame within his Dantian.


    After the strand of Mysterious Fire entering the External Elixir, this External Elixir moved and its color had a strange change. The originally shiny black appearance became dimmer with the luster of it vanishing. The whole External Elixir seemed to become an infinite black hole, absorbing the surrounding light, making even the moonlight weaker. The surroundings became a black color space. It was much more attractive than the previously dazzling bright light.


    "This cannot work. With one look, I know it is a good thing!" Upon seeing this scene, Junior Leopard became a little anxious. However, no matter how hard he tried, he was unable to make the black flame within the External Elixir circulate like how it did within his Dantian.


    After trying several times, Junior Leopard finally decided to give up temporarily. "Forget it, let''s wait a while more. This requires the perfect master of the circulation of Internal Qi, which is quite difficult without the help of the Fiery Eye!"


    Thinking till here, he simply put the External Elixir away and then fell into deep sleep till the second morning when the sun hung high over the sky.


    He didn''t wake up by himself, but by the waiter outside the door.


    As things had developed till here, Junior Leopard wasn''t in a hurry to go back to Zhonghe City. Even if he could go back, he couldn''t calm himself down as there was something clogging his mind.


    He then asked the waiter to clear away the dishes that he had with Wang She yesterday and called another round of dishes with a few taels of silver, asking him to buy a set of clean clothes in the town centralization and prepare some warm water. After eating to his fill, he had a bath and changed clothes. He felt his whole body undergo a refreshing change, replenishing all the energy he lost while refining the External Elixir yesterday. After the waiter cleared away the dishes, he closed the door and continued to study his External Elixir.


    This time, it was different from last night. After a good sleep, he could finally use the Fiery Eye again. As he put it in his own words, after the cooling period of the Fiery Eye, it could be activated once again.


    With help of the Fiery Eye, the effects naturally couldn''t be compared. This External Elixir originally had an inextricable relationship with him. It could be said to be one body. It was the same as him having a doppelganger. Hence, his inner vision quickly penetrated through the External Elixir.


    At this moment, he could see clearly that the strand of black flame separated from the Mysterious Fire in the Dantian stopped between the eye sockets of the External Elixir. It was the same position as in between the eyebrows.


    Just like the Mysterious Fire in his Dantian, it was slightly trembling. The strand of Internal Qi refined by the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill was also affected by the Qi of the Mysterious Fire, just like Junior Leopard''s own Internal Qi. Obviously, this strand of Internal Qi had been refined by this strand of Mysterious Fire, the same as Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi. The only difference was that unlike the Internal Qi within Junior Leopard''s Dantian, this strand of Mysterious Fire didn''t slowly inhale and exhale.


    Suddenly, Junior Leopard''s heart moved. A kind of special feeling passed through his heart. Even though it was only for a split second, his Internal Qi had already subconsciously started to move. His fingertip trembled; a strand of Internal Qi entered the External Elixir through his fingertip, and pounced straight toward the Mysterious Fire.


    "Hiss ¡ª!"


    He heard a light sound. That ball of Mysterious Fire was accidentally scattered by his strand of Internal Qi. Following that, it scattered just like raindrops and merged into the External Elixir.


    This External Elixir was a piece of skull. After the Mysterious Fire merged into the External Elixir, it disappeared without a trace just like a drop of water emerging into cotton. The External Elixir seemed to have gotten heavier. The originally black feeling on the surface disappeared, yet it seemed to be much more obscure. It looked like a wooden statue that was put on the shelf for dozens of years. Even though it didn''t look fascinating, you could feel an extremely dense feeling after careful observation.


    Upon the Mysterious Fire merging into the External Elixir, the Internal Qi stored within the External Elixir started to circulate. Even though it was very slow, it did definitely start to circulate without the direction of Junior Leopard.


    After the essence of the world was slowly absorbed by the External Elixir, Junior Leopard made it circulating for a full day and then transformed it into the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi.


    "I made it!" Junior Leopard heaved a sigh of relief. A wave of crazy happiness shot through his head. Was there anything more satisfying than this? It was an External Elixir able to cultivate day and night, functioning like a perpetual motion machine. With such an External Elixir, and the two Spiritual Stones from Wang She, don''t say Level Six, he was confident that he could even reach Level Eight within a year.


    Oh, wait, it seemed impossible.


    There was an obstacle to Internal Qi between Level Three and Four. Though Junior Leopard had the confidence to overcome this obstacle if there was nobody restriction, there was another obstacle to overcome from Level Six to Seven. This one was much more difficult. It couldn''t be solved by accumulating Internal Qi through the passage of time. This was a process of changing the substance.


    "Forget it, don''t think so much. Level Six is OK!" Junior Leopard said to himself. He raised his hand and took the External Elixir back to his embrace.


    This taking back ruined what he got.


    The External Elixir immediately stopped circulating.


    "What happened?!" Junior Leopard''s heart tightened. He then took out the External Elixir again. Once the External Elixir was taken out, it then began circulating again. When it was kept back, it stopped.


    After playing with it for a full 2 hours, Junior Leopard finally found out the problem.


    It was because if this External Elixir was going to direct it''s own Internal Qi and circulate on its own, it needed to be able to sense Junior Leopard''s breathing. In other words, it had to be connected to Junior Leopard''s breathing. Just now when it was placed outside, it was naturally able to sense Junior Leopard''s breathing, so the circulation was normal. Once it was kept in the embrace, it wouldn''t be able to sense the breathing and the circulation then stopped. In other words, his breathing was the medium for starting this External Elixir''s circulation.


    "No way, to have such a big problem!" But after careful thinking, he understood. No matter what happened, this External Elixir was part of his body. If it could circulate on its own after leaving himself, then wouldn''t it be able to be used by anybody?


    If that was really the case, then he would have trouble. An External Elixir that could keep circulating forever may be more eye-catching than his eyes!


    "That''s to say, I have to think of a method to let it connect with my breathing. Such a big thing, aye...!"


    Thinking till here, his brain surfaced a strange picture. "Who cares, anyway there are many weirdly-dressed people in this world. It is just an earring. Luckily this thing is less eye-catching after merging with the black fire. If not, it wouldn''t be so easily settled!"


    Within his thoughts, he already decided to disguise this External Elixir as an earring and worn on his ears. This might seem a bit strange, but the strange people in this world were many. As compared to the benefits he could gain, the awkward gaze of other was nothing.


    Solving the problem of the External Elixir, his heart relaxed. Junior Leopard then thought of another matter, which was his fist intent.


    Because after he met Wang She, his suspicion towards fist intent was dispelled. Put it another way, Junior Leopard realized the reason for what happened in his battle with Liu Si. However, in the conversation with Wang She, he had lots of information. After Wang She left he began refining the External Elixir, hence there wasn''t any time to delve into the problem of his fist intent. Now that he was lying on the bed with nothing to do, and he wanted to reduce the impact the External Elixir had towards himself, he began thinking about his fist intent.


    Wang She thought that his fist intent was a sun, but he knew very well what it really was. That wasn''t a sun, but a small universe, a simulation of a universe.


    Wang She had explained the fist intent very clearly to him so he knew the reason why his fist intent would simulate the universe. That was because when the fist intent was formed, it was rooted in his heart. And within the recesses of his heart, the strongest was the universe. Furthermore, he possessed a lot of information and knowledge about the universe, so he was able to condense such unbelievable fist intent.


    But though this fist intent was finally condensed, it wasn''t perfect.


    Wang She had made it clear to him that Spirit was a mysterious realm in martial arts. Once it was formed, it would have an unbelievable function and equally obvious weakness, because Spirit was not only connected closely to Internal Qi, it was related to the divine thoughts as well. Once it was broken, the damage to the body was extremely big.


    After condensing the Spirit, it still needed to be perfect. Only by shaping and perfecting it, wouldn''t it be easily broken by others. In Wang She''s opinion, even though Junior Leopard''s fist intent was strong, it would be easily broken if faced with another Spirit.


    But it wasn''t a big problem; after all, Junior Leopard''s fist intent was just formed. There was still time to perfect his fist intent. Of course, this was only Wang She''s thoughts.


    Junior Leopard was very clear in his heart, that ridiculous fist intent of his could never be perfected. It was a universe!


    "Don''t tell me I have to create one planet after the next and assemble a galaxy after the next? Apart from planets and galaxies, there''re lots of weird things in this universe. How could I perfect it?! Furthermore, such huge fist intent, I could only execute it but not keep it. If I''m not careful, it will merge with my consciousness, and turn into empty space. At that time even if my body doesn''t die, it will be no different from dying, just like a person in a vegetative state!" Junior Leopard''s facial muscles twitched, "Fortunately, I have a pair of Fiery Eyes. When my fist intent was forming into empty space it actually locked down on it, leaving only a fireball that was left behind by the black flame. This let me gain blessings in the midst of trouble, gaining insight on how to use it!"


    Junior Leopard seemed to have thought of something, and his eyes began to slowly squint.


    "This black color fireball is complete fist intent. It was formed after the universe fist intent absorbed the strength of the golden metal Qi and the black fire. Like the first planetary body formed in the universe, it is complete. In the future, if I absorb other Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth within it, it will form various universe planetary bodies just like the creation of the universe. Then couldn''t I have different kinds of fist intent? I could even incorporate some heavenly Qi within it and refine it. In other words, I could simulate the universe at one side, and create other styles of fist intent at the same time!"


    This was another strange and unlawful idea and to attain it would be extremely difficult. He also understood himself, that he could form the fist intent only due to luck and fate. Most importantly, Spirit was a property that exhausted Qi badly. His fist intent now was what could be attained in the extreme. What he needed to do next was to continue perfecting it, rather than to seek for more mysterious stuff. Otherwise, even if he could luckily attain the what-ifs, he had not enough energy to perfect it one by one. And fist intent that was not completed was very easily broken.


    To break Spirit by other Spirit, that was something extremely damaging to the pneuma. He would never do such a foolish thing.


    "I should just perfect my current fist intent. Hehe, with my state and speed now, I need at least 5 years to perfect it. How do I have the time to mess around with other stuff?"


    Thinking till this level, he gave up the fantasy that seemed dreamy. He wholeheartedly began to condense his own fist intent.

 Chapter 107: Military Camp

    Chapter 107: Military Camp


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Wang She asked Junior Leopard to leave the day after he left. However, Junior Leopard stayed at the small town centralization under the Tian Long Mystic Mountain for three whole days before he moved towards Zhonghe Prefecture.


    He had two reasons. Firstly, he needed to consolidate his state, including his fist intent, the External Elixer and his Level Three cultivation. After reaching Level Three, the Mysterious Fire within his Dantian had completely merged with his Internal Qi. This made his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi very corrosive. At first, he didn''t adapt to these changes. Secondly, it was because of his little pride. He privately exclaimed, "Why should I do what you ask? I''ll stay for a few days. Then what can you do to me?"


    Indeed, he stayed for three whole days. Wang She didn''t do anything to him. However, he felt a little bored and was afraid of delaying things, so when he felt a psychological balance, he set off on his horse.


    On the way, it was much more lively than when he came. There were people who escaped from Zhonghe City, and goverment army and people equipped with sabers and swords going towards Zhonghe City.


    In this world, the value of martial arts was so high that a master of martial arts should not be overlooked. Most of the time, even the imperial court and the armies needed their help.


    Compared to a normal army, people in the martial arts world were hard to manage. However, after so many years, a set of effective mechanisms to arrange these martial artists who came to fight was gradually formed in the world.


    First, to reward them. To reward those who gained merit was an unalterable principle. Even if they really wanted to serve their country and never wanted to be rewarded, the imperial court must reward them. Otherwise, It would disappoint these patriots. In the future, who would help you defend against the enemy''s martial artists? Hence, the imperial court would reward them, and it would be a handsome reward.


    Second, concentrated management. People in the martial arts world were not like armies, who practiced disciplines and knew what was the time to progress or retreat. They were used to being lazy. Maybe their martial arts was high, but they had no discipline. Yet discipline was considered the army''s most important factor. An army without discipline was without fighting capacity. Hence, in this world, as long as these people in the martial arts world were willing to go to the battlefront, they would be arranged and concentrated together in another camp, known as "Military Camp".


    In every country''s armies, there would be a Military Camp, full of people in the martial arts world.


    The Military Camp''s members were not fixed. Many of them would leave when a war ended and many people in the martial arts world would join the camp when a war began. As the saying, "the military camp is fixed like iron and the soldiers are not fixed like running water" was an apt description for this Military Camp. These people within the military camp were just like mercenaries. Each had a different purpose. Very few were patriots and most were there to make a name for themselves. There was special group of people who were the imperial court''s wanted men, infamous robbers, orchid thieves, chief bandits, etc. These people joined the Military Camp for the purpose of cleaning their records.


    This was another special function of the Military Camp. As long as they could rack up enough military achievements, they could strike out whatever they did in the past. Many people who wanted to retire also used this method to draw a line with their past. According to this unwritten rule, once the records were successfully cleaned in the Military Camp, nobody would investigate the past. This was a latent rule in the whole martial arts world, which was acquiesced by almost all the prestigious sects and schools in the martial arts world.


    Of course, what was referred to here was that no one would officially chase down the matter and seek revenge in public. As for how things were done in secret, that would depend on the person''s own ability. There were some people who were assassinated by other people after they had successfully cleaned their records. However, after you had successfully cleaned in the Military Camp, even if you hid in the deepest recesses like a rat before, you could now walk straight and hold your head high.


    And in this military camp, the only one with an official position to direct and control them was the Camp Supervisor. Every Camp Supervisor was fixed. They were from the imperial court or the army. These people''s backgrounds were complicated. Some of them came from prestigious sects and schools or were martial artists who succefully cleaned their records, or were masters sent from the army. There were all sorts of people from all walks of life. However, one thing was for sure: the Camp Supervisor''s cultivation must reach the Bone-Forging Realm. In other words, they must have reach at least Level Four in cultivation.


    Only with such strength, could they then suppress these unruly people in the martial arts world.


    After all, essentially Jianghu was a world that prioritized strength. If your strength wasn''t enough, even if you could suppress these people with your official rank, they would be dissatisfied in their hearts and would give you all sorts of trouble publicly and privately. For example, if two people fought in the camp, and you told them to stop but they won''t, then what to do? Of course, you would force them to separate, but what if their strength was higher than yours?


    You could only stand by anxiously. In that case, even if other people didn''t say anything, you can''t stay in the Military Camp. Hence, what was different from other places was that Camp Supervisors in the Military Camp had to be someone with a strong martial background. They couldn''t be a tactician.


    Of course, most importantly, no matter how strong a Camp Supervisor in the camp was, and how big the camp was, none of them had the right to lead the whole army. You could only obey the Chief Commander''s instructions. Occasionally the Chief Commander would give you the right to make decisions, but normally he wouldn''t give you too much freedom to act.


    Now that Zhonghe City was occupied by the Sect of Flame. As a prefecture of Qianzhou that situated in the hinterland of Jin, in any case, it was something that could not be tolerated. Therefore, when Zhonghe City was occupied, the whole Jin acted. On the third day when Zhonghe City was occupied, it was surrounded by the Jin''s troops layer by layer, forming an impregnable defense.


    Originally, from Jin''s point of view, even though Zhonghe City wasn''t small and it was situated inland. It wasn''t some fortress, and it didn''t even have a moat. There were not many troops either. In all respects, there could only be 5,000 men inside. According to such a situation, it would be attacked down in a few skirmishes.


    Unexpectedly, after attacking for several days, the Jin''s troops suffered heavy losses. Zhonghe City was still under the control of the Sect of Flame.


    Of course, there were gains as well. The greatest gain was to know that there weren''t so many enemy troops in the city. However, there were a lot of martial artists. Dozens of them had reached Level Three. Aside from that, the youngest Venerable Prince Xiaoming of the Sect of Flame was also in the city, and he was a Level Eight expert!


    When someone reached Level Eight, he could completely ignore the advantage in numbers.


    Hence, when this information was confirmed, the Jin''s Chief Commander Li Yuan decisively retreated, and only ordered the armies to tightly surround Zhonghe City. They were silently waiting for reinforcements. At the same time, they sent people to ask for aid from the imperial court. He was the army''s Chief Commander with bodyguards, so if the Level Eight expert in the city wanted to assassinate him, it wasn''t something difficult. Thus, when waiting for reinforcements these few days, he was in an extremely bad mood. He passed a day as if it was a year. Fortunately, on the fifth day, the reinforcements arrived. It was also his life''s biggest insurance, Wang She.


    Junior Leopard had already obtained all of this information from the people in the martial arts world on the way to Zhonghe City.


    "What the hell are these Sect of Flame members trying to do by suddenly occupying Zhonghe City for no reason. It''s neither a stronghold nor a fortress. They occupied it for 10 days and got so many masters to guard it. All of these signs expressly shows that they are looking for something!"


    ...


    ...


    "They''re really looking for something, something very important. If not, the Sect of Flame won''t suffer such losses to occupy such a place at this time!"


    In the Camp of Jin Army, Chief Commander Li Yuan was looking at the city defense map of Zhonghe City. He firmly said, "Hence, we cannot wait any longer. Every day we wait, they''ll get closer to their target. If this continues, even if we manage to take down Zhonghe City, we will get no credit but errors!" speaking till here, his gaze swept over the row of generals. Lastly, it landed on Wang She who sat beside his seat and was fanning lightly, "Chief Wang, how do you see it?"


    Wang She smiled, and closed the folding fan in his hand, "This time, I only came to listen to General''s orders. If there''s something, just say it. I''ll go all out to help General and serve Jin!"


    "How will I dare to order you!" Li Yuan silently cursed. Even though he was extremely dissatisfied with this bunch of lazy people in the martial arts world, Wang She was not an ordinary man. Aside from his Level Eight strength, his identity as the Tian Long Taoism''s Chief would not be lower than him, a Chief Commander leading 100,000 troops.


    Thus, all the time, Li Yuan was in a conundrum. He was hoping he would quickly come to ensure his safety. On the other hand, he was scared that after Wang She came, he would disobey his orders and interfered with his actions relying on his position and martial arts. Now that seemed willing to cooperate, whether he was sincere or fake, Li Yuan was very comfortable.


    "Your words are too serious. How can I have the caliber to order you. Tomorrow, I will order the army to attack. At that time, will Chief please stay in the center army and wait for Prince Xiaoming to appear. After all, apart from Chief Wang, nobody here can deal with an expert like Prince Xiaoming!"


    Wang She nodded, stood up, and slightly bowed towards Li Yuan, "Yes, sir!"

 Chapter 108: Fight for the First-class Merit

    Chapter 108: Fight for the First-class Merit


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    While everybody in the Camp of Jin Army was busy allocating missions, Junior Leopard flew all the way from Tian Long Mystic Mountain to Zhonghe City. He arrived to find the siege was at its climax.


    There was a saying that a troop of 10,000 was boundless, and a troop of 100,000 was devastating.


    Originally there shouldn''t be a big stir in Zhonghe City. There were only some disciples from the Sect of Flame rising in rebellion. The solution for this should have been simple too. They could be suppressed easily by soldiers. But nobody expected that the imperial court would send out 100,000 troops to besiege them. What was even more surprising was that the troops would be defeated a few times. The losses were costly and retreat was a disgrace.


    All of that was unexpected.


    But none of that was Junior Leopard''s business. He was immediately introduced into the Military Camp as soon as he was right outside Zhonghe City. It happened that disciples of the Wu family who originally came to Zhonghe City together with him didn''t leave there. All of them joined the Military Camp instead.


    Outside Zhonghe Prefecture the Military Camp had set up a reception station.


    The reception station was actually four pillars standing beside the road with mats made of reed tiled on ceiling. Coming out to welcome Junior Leopard was Lou who also was a disciple of the Wu family. Previously, they were all meant to solve the stolen goods issue. Lou was overjoyed seeing Junior Leopard. He led Junior Leopard directly through the military group and met Wu Family disciple together. They explained that after dashing out of Zhonghe prefecture, all of them couldn''t find Junior Leopard. Eventually they had no choice but to go back to Yunzhou. While they were on their way back, they came across the Great Jin''s troops surrounding the city. Everybody agreed that this would be a good chance to become well known in Jianghu and obtain some benefits. So they decided to join the Military Camp at once. A couple of escorts from the Flying Tiger Escort Agency also joined the Military Camp.


    This group of Wu Family disciples was with prestigious backgrounds and they also had enough feats. All of them devoted a lot to the siege several times and gained contributions and the Camp Supervisor was satisfied with them. As time went by, more and more jianghu people were coming to join the Military Camp. The environment outside Zhonghe prefecture gradually became sophisticated and order was distorted with the crowd. To solve this issue, the Military Camp set up a few reception stations to welcome and guide these men in Jianghu.


    Lou was injured during their last siege and was still recovering. So he was assigned here to do easy work in order to recover better. What he didn''t expect was he would meet Junior Leopard here.


    After Junior Leopard was led into the Military Camp, all of the Wu family''s disciples were overjoyed. Jin Nanqing was even more excited who thumped his chest heavily and blamed, "You bastard, where have you been? I was so worried about you!"


    Judging from Jin Nanqing''s facial expressions, Junior Leopard could tell he wasn''t pretending. He threw out the excuse he already made up before coming, "I met an expert and got hurt when I left the city. Then I had to find a quiet place to heal my wounds. But it is surprising that when I got back, the troop had surrounded the city. If I didn''t bump into Senior Brother Lou, I''m afraid that I would have gone back to Yunzhou already!"


    "You were injured? Where is the wound, is it serious?"


    Jin Nanqing''s face became gloomy when heard that Junior Leopard was injured. Everybody didn''t know what Junior Leopard was capable of but Jin Nanqing knew. Jin Nanqing had heavily overestimated Junior Leopard''s capabilities ever since he saw Junior Leopard make a crushing vacuum fist and kill Liu Si in an instant. In Jin Nanqing''s eyes, nobody could hurt Junior Leopard unless the enemy was a Tendon-Changing realm expert. Now that Junior Leopard had been wounded outside of the city, could it be that he met an expert over Level Seven?


    Who would it be?


    Although there were countless enemies in the city, there was only one expert over Level Seven. That was Prince Xiaoming. Had Junior Leopard met Prince Xiaoming?


    "It wasn''t a big deal. I only have some tiny wounds. The reason I was defeated was that I had just improved one level and my cultivation wasn''t stable yet. So the enemy found my weak point."


    "So now you are alright, and your phase is stable?" Jin Nanqing asked.


    "Of course!" Junior Leopard nodded, "If I haven''t recovered, I would not have the thought to come back and take my revenge!" Junior Leopard''s eyes were cold and sharp when he mentioned ''revenge''. A chilling blast of killing intent spread out as he spoke.


    Jin Nanqing shivered under Junior Leopard''s authentic killing intent and he squeezed out a smile on his face, "Long time no see, your strength has improved once again. Congratulations!"


    "It''s no improvement, only that my current phase is stabilized!" Junior Leopard laughed.


    He continued to pass his greetings to the Wu family disciples for a while.


    "Well, let me show you the way to Mr. Zhao, the Camp Supervisor!" Jin Nanqing suddenly said before he started to lead Junior Leopard deeper into the Military Camp. But before he could move a few more steps, they heard a burst of drumbeats.


    "DONG! DONG! DONG!"


    The drumbeats rolled like thunder and could upturn heaven. Jin Nanqing smiled bitterly as he heard the drumbeats, "Damn it, we are out of time, it''s our turn to attack. Junior Leopard, when the attack begins, stay behind me, be careful and don''t panic. Although the siege appears dangerous, your ability has reached Level Three. Nobody can be an actual threat to kill you except that Prince Xiaoming in this Zhonghe City!"


    Junior Leopard nodded his head and followed up. He was indeed confident in his capability, but it was still his first time on the battlefield, a real battle. Moreover, the siege was the most catastrophic battle. Anybody would feel timid amongst so many troops, even if he was extremely confident.


    It was a once in a lifetime big scene!


    Camp Supervisor Zhao was called Zhao Ting in his 40''s, who was born in a well-known military family. He was tall and his cultivation had reached Level Five. Now he was the one who had the finest martial arts cultivation in this Military Camp. The way he dealt with issues was also fair and brilliant. Hence, hundreds of fellows in Jianghu all listened to his instructions willingly.


    The first roll of the siege had ended. Soldiers surged up to the city''s rampart and then they were all defeated by Sect of Flame troublemakers. However, the assault didn''t end here. The second roll of the siege started. According to the normal practice, it was the Military Camp''s turn to besiege and attack the city.


    People in the Military Camp didn''t have much sense of discipline, but their advantage was obvious as each of them excelled in martial arts. This feature made them the most suitable for intensive and labor consuming sieges and scuffles. Especially for inland cities such as Zhonghe City which didn''t have any geographical advantage against the enemy, with a comparatively short city wall, martial artists who had good Lightness Skill could easily get on to the wall without any help from ladders and tools. Those whose Lightness Skill were not good enough could also get on to the wall by leveraging a few shoulders of soldiers.


    What could make people concerned were these experts from the Sect of Flame, who were defending on the city wall. Although their discipline couldn''t be compared with well-trained soldiers, their organization was much better than the men of Jianghu randomly gathered here in the Military Camp. What made them more difficult to defeat was their unique unison technique. Often was the case, when two or three people were standing together and forming a matrix, the wall was like it was made of iron. No matter how many guys went upward, they had to return with wounds and disappointment.


    "God knows how many people in Jianghu can survive from this battle!"


    Standing on a gentle slope near the city wall, Zhao Ting gazed at the Great Jin''s soldiers fighting and retreating as the impatient and cluttered people in the Military Camp were itching to try, he smiled bitterly.


    Soaked in the thunderstorm like drumbeats, one after another, the army''s assault began.


    Along with 5,000 soldiers, Junior Leopard dashed towards Zhonghe City right behind Jin Nanqing with his two silver hammers already in hand. Because they were the quickest group, the Military Camp was at the front. Everybody was utilizing their body movement to the utmost. With a few ups and downs, they were already at the front of the city wall. The Lightness Skill experts flew directly on to the city wall. Other experts couldn''t fly directly onto the wall, but they had their own ways too. Some brought hooks and ropes. Some formed a group, stopped 100 feet away from the city wall, waited for the soldiers behind them to catch up and then used their abilities again to step on these soldiers'' heads. The soldiers were already used to these circumstances. They quivered a little when stepped on by the martial artists and then continued to dash towards the enemy.


    Both Junior Leopard and Jin Nanqing belonged to the former type. Junior Leopard was especially eye-catching. He was originally behind Jin Nanqing, but the longer he ran, the more nervous he was. As he neared the city wall, he could see huge stones, hot oil, and even excrement pouring down from the wall. He was scared and excited. So much so that he unconsciously used Yanfu Inner Strength madly. "Sou!" His body soared up into the air and he was soon in front of Jin Nanqing, twin hammers weaving a compact web around the body.


    "Dong, dang, hua, pu!" All sorts of sounds popped like a symphony on top of one''s head. Thanks to his Level Three cultivation plus Yanfu Inner Strength, in a second, he was already on top of the city wall with his clothes still spotlessly clean.


    The Sect of Flame soldiers were astonished by his speed and they didn''t know that he could climb up the wall so quickly and so all their minds were blank. Junior Leopard was absent minded too. After a while, both parties realized what happened. The soldiers discarded their oil pots, drew their swords and then dashed towards Junior Leopard. On the other hand, Junior Leopard was not easy to bully. He threw out his twin hammers and the soldiers in front of him were all stroked away. In the meantime, more soldiers came along.


    Junior Leopard was entirely conscious now. He didn''t dare to think more about anything else. Instead, he waved his silver hammer up and down, blowing away all of the soldiers whose cultivation was not high enough. Now he had taken over a corner of the city wall.


    Junior Leopard wasn''t proud after occupying the top corner. He defended this spot securely as agreed before with Jin Nanqing. In the meantime, he tried his best to sweep down the Sect of Flame soldiers in order to wait for more people from his team.


    On the other hand, the Sect of Flame diciples had noticed something abnormal happening here. Although Junior Leopard was young, the Sect of Flame followers on this city wall were all experienced soldiers. Even though they had seen his two flying silver hammers, they had all decided to go and fight against him. They only cursed in a very light voice.


    Junior Leopard defended the corner and no loophole could be found by the enemy. He didn''t fight for any credits but rather fought with the aim of not making a mistake. The hammers in his hand were heavy weapons. Hence, the soldiers couldn''t do anything against him in a short amount of time. Junior Leopard had successfully repelled a few people. Right now, Jin Nanqing also arrived. Seeing that Junior Leopard had already taken a corner of the city wall, Jin Nanqing was quite happy in his heart. He didn''t speak much and went nearer beside Junior Leopard with his weapon. They were fighting against the enemy together. Now that Junior Leopard wasn''t alone, and since the intensive fight he experienced just now could not hurt him, his status became more stable. The two silver lights in his hand became more fluent, his movements also became more flexible. All of his hammering skills were demonstrated well now. It was well known that heavy weapons like hammers were born to defend against enemies and take up spots. Junior Leopard pointed his hand to the east and the hammer would strike the west, as he pointed to the south his hammer would strike the north. With his invincible hammer, the Sect of Flame''s disciples were gradually beaten backwards. It did not take long before a relatively spacious place was cleared out. While he could defend this place securely, more and more people could climb up here. Soon the Great Jin''s people began dominating a number of the Sect of Flame''s disciples.


    "This lad is doing pretty well!" Seated in the Camp of the Jin Army and observing the situation on the city wall, Wang She smiled satisfactorily.


    "Chief Wang, do you know that teen?" Hearing Wang She''s comments, Li Yuan''s face twitched as he asked.


    "I met him once last time when I was at the Wu family. He is a disciple of an elder there. He''s named Zhou Bao. Look at the twin hammers in his hands, hehe; he has entirely exerted the essence of Wu family''s Wild Hammering Skill!" Wang She said.


    "Yes, that is excellent. If we can occupy the city this roll, I should reward him a first-class merit!" Li Yuan praised.

 Chapter 109: Breakthrough

    Chapter 109: Breakthrough


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard had also heard rumors about battlefields. Such as hearing that love was like a battlefield and that business was like a battlefield. But when he was really on a battlefield, he felt as though those metaphors were all nonsense. A battlefield was a battlefield. Except for a battlefield itself, nothing was comparable with it. Could so many people die except for in battlefields?


    Let us just talk about the situation here. In a short time, his twin hammers had struck dead more than 20 people. Those that were injured by him were even more numerable. In fact, the number was so big that he didn''t even want to count it.


    Right now on Zhonghe City''s city wall, all of the people were engaged in the battle. Except for the corner that Junior Leopard occupied, the other spots were somewhat at a disadvantage against the enemy.


    There were also experts of Sect of Flame protecting the city wall besides the soldiers. Even though Great Jin''s troop also had martial artists, they were surrounded by the enemies with two or three people together. Under their joint attack, Great Jin''s people couldn''t get away.


    Then the Sect of Flame''s disciples had found things were not right at Junior Leopard''s side. A few Sect of Flame''s disciples in white cloth directly came towards Junior Leopard. The leader''s cultivation was Level Two, while others had Level One''s cultivation.


    In fact, Level One looked weak, but people with this level were already called experts.


    Even if it was in the army, only the best soldiers in a troop could reach Level One, just like Junior Leopard''s brother-in-law.


    Level One, was the highest level that 99 percent of soldiers and even junior officers could reach.


    When one''s cultivation reached Level Two, he would no longer be a soldier. At least he would be a Lieutenant-Colonel. When one''s cultivation reached Level Three, he could be called an elite Lieutenant-Colonel. In fact, there were a majority of Generals whose cultivation were still in Level Three.


    Those in the Military Camp with the highest cultivation were only in Level Three. Bone-Forging Realm experts wouldn''t proactively join Military Camp unless the situation was special.


    An official army was like this, let alone the ragtag group of the Sect of Flame. That was why they appeared so vulnerable to Junior Leopard''s attack. Obviously, these five white clothed sect followers were the elites in this group.


    They dashed toward Junior Leopard. The leader at his front with a thick backed long saber, while the others flanked him, forming a matrix to surround Junior Leopard in a circle.


    As the matrix formed, Junior Leopard once again found himself under an enormous amount of pressure.


    Then he realized why Great Jin''s army couldn''t take up the city wall after besieging it for such long time.


    Once the five white clothed sect followers had formed an alliance and circled their enemy using their weapons, their power would be equivalent to more than five people. Chilling light radiated from their weapons. Some were defending while some were attacking and Junior Leopard was surrounded by all sorts of weapons in an instant. Endless attacks assaulted him. What was even more important was that their Internal Qi was like it connected. Junior Leopard intended to break through their siege in a hard way by using his strength. Unfortunately, when he did that, their Internal Qi would quickly gather into the leader''s body. This would temporarily improve the leader''s cultivation to Level Three, and with Level Three''s cultivation, the leader could just withstand Junior Leopard''s attacks.


    A few round of attacks had passed by and Junior Leopard''s mind gradually calmed down. He was on a higher level of cultivation compared to the sect followers after all. Now with his twin hammers moving and stopping regularly, he was able to cruise through the battle freely.


    "This situation is not good. I have defeated several groups of enemies. But if the situation continues and other Sect of Flame''s disciples will have time to fight against me. I can deal with one or two people or even around eight people. But when their number is more than eight, I might not be able to deal with them anymore!" Seeing the situation around him, which was developing against him, Junior Leopard gradually became worried.


    He turned around to see Jin Nanqing and his fellows. The situation for them was also not good. They had all been held by the Sect of Flame''s disciples and appeared not able to deal with their enemies for much longer either.


    "I don''t believe it!" Junior Leopard looked around reckoning the situation silently in mind. Then he flashed his twin hammers suddenly with two silver lights beaming out. The five Sect of Flame''s disciples were soon shocked backward. He turned around and flew to the inner city quickly.


    "What is he doing?!" Neither the sect followers nor Jin Nanqing and his fellows who were still in battle had realized what happened.


    Only when they realized, Junior Leopard had already made his body movement. Now he was flying like an eagle towards the inner city.


    "Watch out, junior brother!" Jin Nanqing shouted hastily. Just as he finished shouting, a burst of arrows flying sound followed, "Shua shua shua!"


    Arrows continuously rained aiming at Junior Leopard in the air.


    Junior Leopard rotated his twin hammers around his body and the arrows were all hit in other directions. He leaned forward while flying in the air. With the twin hammers raised transversely, his body was rotating like a spinning top.


    There were also Sect of Flame''s disciples inside the city. Compared to the soldiers on top of the city wall, their capacity was not so good. Moreover, they didn''t expect that there would be an enemy dashing down the wall when they still had an advantage. Wasn''t he playing with fire?


    Of course, some people had fallen down to the inner city before Junior Leopard while they were still in the battle. Some of them had fallen down because they were in a hurry when fighting and couldn''t find a way to retreat, some were kicked off the city wall and some were just corpses.


    Hence for a long, the sect followers in the inner city hadn''t paid much attention to enemies coming from the city wall.


    At this time, however, things were obviously different. Junior Leopard rotated his body at a high speed in the air and was soon landing in the inner city. Noticing that things weren''t right, the sect followers couldn''t get themselves ready. They had to take up their weapons to face Junior Leopard with one dash.


    "Papapa!"


    A burst of metal was striking together with long spears, sabers, blades and swords all around. Junior Leopard was surrounded by a huge bluff of silver light; he turned his body lightly then dashed down at the crowd. All people were dispersed in a second. As his silver light disappeared, not a single Sect of Flame''s disciple could still stand within 50 feet of him. All those guys were unlucky disciples lying on the ground whose their tendons and bones deeply injured.


    But the scenery did not last long. More people emerged from in a glimpse. While at the same time, the five white clothed sect followers who had fought against Junior Leopard on the wall had also jumped down the city wall.


    Only now the situation had dramatically changed as Junior Leopard was already in the middle of the Sect of Flame''s disciples. With his twin hammers flying much quicker in the air and his body moving much more freely, he took only a few jumps to reach the city gate.


    Zhonghe City was the hinterland of Great Jin, so it wasn''t a city hard to besiege. Nor was the city gate high and huge. Right now, both parties were at an important stage of fighting for the siege and there was also a chaos under the city gate. Outside the gate, Great Jin''s troop was striking at the gate with a cartridge trying to break through the door. Inside the gate, different stuff had been piled up in front of the gate and had entirely blocked it. Judging from this situation, even if Great Jin could destroy the gate, the army wouldn''t get inside in a short time.


    The sect of Flame''s disciples guarding the gate didn''t panic at all seeing an enemy coming forth.


    Over these days, there were a few Military Camp''s disciples that had reached here, but unfortunately, none of them had survived.


    "Young lad, how brave you are?!"


    The gate guarder shouted surprisedly at Junior Leopard when he saw who he was. Junior Leopard also observed his enemy carefully and was also surprised. The guy was Black Three Lady.


    Junior Leopard had fought with him before, at the gate of the Wu Residence. He knew the Black Three Lady''s capabilities. So he immediately held up his hammers to face the Black Three Lady. Black Three Lady also knew what Junior Leopard was capable of, seeing that Junior Leopard running towards him, he shouted loudly, "He is hard to defeat. Come on guys, let''s fight together!"


    The sect of Flame''s disciples didn''t dare to neglect he and all ran towards Junior Leopard with their weapons in hands.


    Junior Leopard wasn''t afraid at all. He fully deployed his Wild Hammering Skill and soon was fighting with them.


    Right now, Black Three Lady had the advantage. Junior Leopard was by himself while a dozen enemies were surrounded him. More Sect of Flame''s disciples were also charging nearer to this place to fight. Black Three Lady was quite satisfied with this situation, "You bastard, do you really want to die here? Look at what place it is, how can you come here straightforwardly? Do you really believe that you can destroy this city gate all alone?!"


    "I know I can open this gate!" Junior Leopard laughed coldly. The silver light on his twin hammers darkened, then a dry heat spread out from his hammers.


    Black Three Lady trembled. A dangerous feeling quickly filled his body and he felt as though his fine hair had erected because of the fear. He glanced at Junior Leopard and was shocked by the sight of a dark red streamer flashing across his twin hammers.


    "This is..."


    Black Three Lady formed a compact web in front of with himself with his long whip without thinking. At the same time, he retreated at the best speed he could.


    "Black Three Lady, look at my Critical Hit!"


    Junior Leopard laughed loudly as he saw Black Three Lady retreating. He suddenly jumped up from the crowd. Almost at the same time, the five white clothed sect followers who were standing behind him also went forth trying to encircle him.


    Junior Leopard surely wouldn''t give them any chance to besiege him, so he swiftly lifted his hammer in his left hand. When he did that, the leader of those sect followers tried to protect people behind him, but his face soon wore an expression that looked as if he was being tortured. A heavy hit came right at him from Junior Leopard''s hammer, he could tell the strike this time was definitely much heavier than the one he withstood when they were on top of the city wall.


    "Boom!" His weapon was knocked out of his hand at once with an ear-deafening sound; the leader spit out a mouthful blood and then fell down into the crowd. His body moved like a sack, nobody knew whether he was still alive.


    The rest of the people were also hit down by Junior Leopard. Although their injuries were not as severe as the leader, their cultivation was far lower than his. So these people also went unconscious after a hit by his hammer and were thrown away from the scene.


    On the other hand, Junior Leopard had thrown his right hammer directly at Black Three Lady.


    Now the hammer was covered in a mass of silver light. It broke through Black Three Lady''s protection web in a glimpse, but it didn''t stop there. Instead, the hammer kept flying forth and at last hit Black Three Lady''s head fiercely.


    Black Three Lady knew the situation was not good for him as he had seen his protection web was devastated. He squatted down using all his strength and escaped from the deadly hammer just before the hammer could hit his head.


    While he could escape, the city gate couldn''t. Junior Leopard''s silver hammer hit right on the gate after he squatted down.


    An ear deafening sound followed, then a hollow made by his hammer soon appeared on the iron gate. Outside, Great Jin''s army was still striking the gate with the trolley and was astonished by such a hollow in the gate. When they realized what happened, the city gate was giving out a continuous ear deafening sound. The sound was so frequent that in a while the gate was hit more than 10 times. Everybody was dizzied by the crazy noise. "Hong!" The last sound broke out as if there was thunder. To their surprise, the gate was entirely damaged now.


    A figure showed up promptly out of the city gate, "Watch out, lower your heads, they are shooting arrows!" Then a lump of silver light appeared, blocking out most of the arrows.


    "The city is conquered!!!"


    After a weird short period of silence, Great Jin''s army outside the gate began to shout merrily. Morale became high.

 Chapter 110: Critical Hit & First-class Merit

    Chapter 110: Critical Hit & First-class Merit


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The city was conquered! They conquered the city!


    Looking at the soldiers with high morale, Li Yuan just helplessly shook his head. Then he rode his horse without hesitation, drawing his sword and raising it high. He shouted loudly,


    "We''ve broken the city gate. Come on! Follow me and kill the enemy!"


    Then he slapped his horse''s abdomen with his legs and pushed forward. The guards beside him also pushed forward without hesitation.


    However, Wang She still leaned against a tree and watched Junior Leopard wielding his twin hammers at the city gate with an even bigger smile. "Good boy! He does have something on the ball. Unexpectedly, He is able to break through the city gate!"


    In fact, Li Yuan had given up any hope of conquering the city due to the fact that the Sect of Flame''s disciples in the city were so strong and they had made careful preparations for defending the city. Unexpectedly, the city gate of Zhonghe City was inexplicably broken through when he was about to order his soldiers to retreat.


    This had a major influence on the soldiers'' morale.


    The city gate was broken through. Even if a lot of obstacles were stacked in the city gate hole and the Sect of Flame''s disciples had gained an upper hand on the top of the city wall. The trend was now reversed.


    As was known to all, the Jin army had more soldiers, so they held all the trumps. They just couldn''t find a breaking point before, but now the city gate was broken through, and the Jin army flooded into the city. Although there were obstacles in the city gate hole, they couldn''t hold back the strong Jin army which had a huge advantage in quantity. So the winner had been settled when the obstacles were cleared.


    "Good boy! Good job!" Junior Leopard raised his twin hammers and watched the soldiers passing him by. He suddenly relaxed. At this moment, a green figure flashed by like a breeze and he faintly heard some praises.


    "Is it Wang She?" Junior Leopard only saw a green figure flashing in front of the city wall and then the figure jumped into the city from the city wall.


    "It was really good this time. I can release 17 Critical Hits now. Yeah, I''m a little tired, but it was really worth it!"


    Wang She disappeared. Junior Leopard didn''t care about him at all, rather he recalled how the city gate was broken through.


    He named the last punches as the Critical Hits. That was because he used the skills of Extraordinary Strength Fist at last.


    The Extraordinary Strength Fist was mysterious which could multiply the attack force, but the attack force was limited to his fists and body. Just like the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, the Extraordinary Strength Fist could be only utilized in his own body.


    He could utilize the mental cultivation methods of the Extraordinary Strength Fist when utilizing the punching skill, and then the fist''s destructive power could multiply. Moreover, the Internal Qi wouldn''t be consumed much. It did not even burden the body too much.


    ince it had so many advantages, Junior Leopard had always wanted to incorporate the force methods into his hammering skill to boost his hammering skill. The hammers were his weapon, but they didn''t belong to his body. It was difficult to utilize the Extraordinary Strength Fist. Most of the time the force could just be transmitted to the hands with hammers but not the actual hammers. He was even controlled by the force several times. But he never gave up, because he would benefit a lot. So after he devoted himself to the study for a period of time, he eventually found some knacks to apply the ways of the Extraordinary Strength Fist to his twin hammers. The pity was that his hammers couldn''t be used as freely as his fists. There was a limit to the times and weight of the hammers. The heavier the hammers were, the fewer times the hammers would be used. When Junior Leopard''s cultivation was at Level Two, the power of his hammers would be nine times stronger and he could just use the hammers for 15 times at most. He was almost worn out when using it. Thus he named the hammering skill as Critical Hit.


    When his cultivation was at Level Three, he didn''t try the Critical Hit. Today he used the Critical Hit for the first time. Unexpectedly, he unleashed 19 hammers and the power of every hammer was 20 or 30 times stronger than that of the bare fists. So he could smash the iron gate that was more than 5,000 kg and he still had some power left after he broke through the gate.


    Junior Leopard stood there for a while and took a breath. When seeing the Jin army flooding into the city, he thought to himself, "Well, this was an accident. I''d never thought of breaking through the city gate by myself."


    "Junior brother, you''ll be famous!" He heard an excited and surprised voice. After turning around, he saw Jin Nanqing and several junior brothers. They watched him in surprise. What was uncomfortable for Junior Leopard was that they didn''t see him like before. Particularly, Zhou Zhengming who was not only jealous and surprised but was stuttering a little and upset.


    "Senior brother, what''s wrong?" Although Junior Leopard understood what Jin Nanqing said, he pretended to be puzzled.


    "What? Don''t you know? Junior Leopard, you''ll be famous. It is you that conquered Zhonghe City. You have rendered meritorious service this time!" Jin Nanqing slapped Junior Leopard on the shoulder and found Junior Leopard stumped. Then he glanced at his twin silver hammers in his hands. Jin Nanqing thought to himself that he was too stupid to not choose the iron hammers as his weapon in the early years. If he made that choice, it was he that would have rendered meritorious service today.


    He smiled more radiantly. He patted Junior Leopard on the shoulder and stammered. "Sorry, I was wrong. It''s the first-class merit, the first-class merit! He, he, he, he!"


    Junior Leopard just smiled. It seemed that what Jin Nanqing said had nothing to do with him.


    "Senior brother Jin, should we go into the city?"


    "Yes, of course!" Jin Nanqing waved his hand and said, "Some defeated disciples of the Sect of Flame must be in the city. Junior Leopard, you have gotten the first-class merit. All of us want to make some contributions. Junior Leopard, will you compete with us?"


    Junior Leopard just giggled and nodded. "Senior brother, I''ll follow what you said!"


    Hearing this, Jin Nanqing was so satisfied. Then he waved his hand and high-spiritedly led the disciples of the Wu''s to Zhonghe City.


    Zhonghe City was more dilapidated than before.


    It wasn''t prosperous anymore. The mansions were burned to ruins except for several big ones. The ground was covered with many corpses. Some corpses had lain on the ground for a long time. The city was full of the smell of carrion, blood and singe. When Junior Leopard, Jin Nanqing and the others went into the city, they couldn''t help but covering their noses.


    "Damn it! What f*cking smell! How many people were killed?"


    "Since the Sect of Flame was cruel and bloodthirsty, the people in the city couldn''t survive once the city was conquered!" said one of the disciples of the Wu''s named Wang Shouyi while standing beside Jin Nanqing. His cultivation was at Level Two. He accompanied Junior Leopard to investigate the case of robbed goods. Since he often kept a low profile and followed Jin Nanqing''s order, he didn''t catch others'' attention.


    However, Wang Shouyi was the angriest when the Sect of Flame attacked the city suddenly. He killed the Sect of Flame''s disciples so cruelly and mercilessly. Obviously, he had some disputes with the Sect of Flame.


    "Yeah, it was so immoderate for the Sect of Flame to attack Zhonghe City all of a sudden. What on earth were they thinking about?" Zhou Zhengming was touched and said.


    "I guess we''ll know what they thought about soon!" said Jin Nanqing. At this moment, the Sect of Flame''s disciples in the city were being eliminated. In the city, there were several experts of the Sect of Flame, but surprisingly they didn''t appear anymore. The cultivation of the others was about Level Three, so once they were surrounded by the Military Camp, they wouldn''t escape, let alone the Jin army. They had no room for rebellion.


    Although Jin Nanqing and others wanted to render meritorious service, they watched the Jin army surround them all and had no chances to render meritorious service. They had to give up.


    Li Yuan led his personal guards into the Guard County Manor in Zhonghe prefecture.


    The mayor of Zhonghe prefecture was killed by the Sect of Flame''s disciples when the city was conquered, so there was nobody in the Guard County Manor though the city was recaptured. Then Li Yuan lived in the Guard County Manor.


    Though Li Yuan won the battle and conquered the city, he wasn''t delighted. This was because Prince Xiaoming of the Sect of Flame and the masters who should have been in the city disappeared. What did this suggest?


    This suggested that their purpose to attack Zhonghe City had been achieved. Since the purpose was achieved, it was unnecessary for them to occupy such an inland city with no strategic significance. If this was the case, even if they had recaptured Zhonghe City, they had made mistakes rather than contributions. 100,000 soldiers just conquered such a regional city with less than 10,000 defenders after the city was surrounded for almost 20 days. In addition, the chief culprit escaped. This was so ridiculous and couldn''t be explained reasonably.


    However, he couldn''t say that frankly. After all, the city was recaptured through several bloody battles. The soldiers who fought enemies bravely would deserve a reward, while someone would deserve punishment. Unfortunately, General Li wasn''t very happy and so the ones who deserved punishment would hit a bad patch.


    "Are you Junior Leopard?"


    At this moment, Junior Leopard and Jin Nanqing were already led into the Guard County Manor. Today hundreds of thousands of soldiers saw Junior Leopard mounted the city gate and broak through it. If they were awarded according to their contributions, Junior Leopard should be the first to get the reward. While Jin Nanqing and others didn''t make such significant contributions, they also fought the enemies on the city wall. All of the soldiers also saw that. Moreover, they and Junior Leopard were brothers, so they would also get some rewards.


    "Are you Zhou Bao? The disciple of the Wu Family?"


    Sitting on the mayor''s big chair, Li Yuan asked him in a deep voice.


    "Yes!" Junior Leopard dared not to speak much in such a situation.


    "Good! Good! Good!" Li Yuan said with appreciation. "It turns out that heroes come from youngsters. Today you render meritorious service. What reward would you like?"


    Junior Leopard didn''t know how to answer his question. "Just give me the reward directly. Why did you ask me? I don''t know what reward I''d like!" He muttered in his mind.


    At this moment, a sound came into the room. "General, you should put off the thing about how to reward them. I have investigated where Prince Xiaoming went and what their purpose for attacking Zhonghe City was. I''m afraid this may be a little troublesome!"

 Chapter 111: Underground Fire Vein

    Chapter 111: Underground Fire Vein


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The deep and bottomless cave spiraled down to the underground. Junior Leopard, Jin Nanqing and the other Wu disciples closely followed Zhao Ting, heading towards the deep bottom.


    At the very front of the marching team was Wang She, beside whom were four experts of the Bone-Forging Realm. Two were from Mingyi School, while the other two were experts of Tian Long Taoism.


    Zhao Ting trod on the heels of them and followed by Junior Leopard and the other people.


    The look of Wang She was kind of dark, as was Junior Leopard''s, who grasped the twin hammers tightly, looking serious, as if he was a little bit nervous.


    Jin Nanqing and other people''s expressions, however, were more of excitement than nervousness.


    It was an underground fire vein!


    It was unexpected that there should be an underground fire vein down below Zhonghe City!


    What was in front of Jin Nanqing made him excited, for an underground fire vein was the place that gathered the most original energy of fire in the world. It was the Cave Paradise from legend for those who practiced Internal Qi of fire, which could help them almost skip the most troublesome step.


    The first step of practicing Internal Qi of fire is to bring original energy inside of the body. This means it needs to first inhale the original energy of the world and then, by using Internal Strength to disintegrate the pneuma, only absorb the original energy of fire while exhaling others. This is called ''Inhale and Exhale''.


    But this step can be skipped if you practice the Fire Way Method in the fire vein because all of the original energy in the fire vein is an original energy of fire. You only need to bring that original energy inside of your body, which will greatly improve your practice efficiency. Spending one day practicing here equals to one or more months outside.


    Regardless of physical strength, practicing the Fire Way Method here can promote Internal Qi cultivation to Level Six in the shortest time.


    Because of this, Junior Leopard seemed pissed off. "If I had known this, I shouldn''t have listened to Wang She, and let my External Elixir practice Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique instead. If so, shouldn''t practicing here rocket my External Elixir cultivation?"


    Sadly, there was no use crying over spilled milk.


    "Besides, Wang She didn''t force me to practice. What he did was just give me advice. I practiced after he left. So Wang She is not the one to blame, but rather I should blame myself." Junior Leopard could only accept this.


    And of course, this is only one function of the underground fire vein, a very small one.


    After all, there are numerous cultivation methods in the world, among which, the Five Way Method is only one kind of Internal Qi cultivation methods, while the Fire Way Method was only one kind of Five Way Method. It might need more practice, but not that much. Moreover, the underground fire vein could not simply be used by anyone. Like the Ignis Skill which Junior Leopard used to practice, if he practiced it here in the underground fire vein, the powerful original energy of fire might cause his death in just a few days.


    The underground fire vein was most useful to the Wu Family.


    The smelting families like that of the Wu Family forged different kinds of weapons. The less the foreign matter that existed within, the better the wizard weapon was. The heat became the key to reduce the amount of foreign matter in the weapons. Even within smelting families like the Wu Family, the ability to control the heat was limited. At best they would put some spiritual stone of fire attribute in the oven to raise the temperature and reduce foreign matter when forging some of the wizard weapons.


    Despite the preciousness of the fire attribute spiritual stone, even if they actually used the spiritual stone, the temperature of the boiler water would not raise that much. For a long time, smelting families like the Wu Family had been working on how to raise the furnace temperature. The reason why the ancestors of the Wu Family could build this family was that they not only depended on their efforts and abilities but more importantly, they had this fuel which could greatly raise the furnace temperature. It helped them seize the initiative compared with other smelting families at the beginning.


    However, after 500 years, the Wu Family had suffered times of tribulation. The exclusive fuel was not exclusive anymore because the recipe of it had been disclosed.


    Although it was not popularized, smelt stores of a certain scale had started to use the exclusive fuel fifty years ago, which brought the smelt level of Jin to a higher grade. But for the Wu Family, it was not a thing worth celebrating.


    Their biggest advantage was gone.


    Fortunately, they still had the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique.


    This Internal Qi cultivation method handed down from Tian Long Taoism could not be touched by anybody. No one was stupid enough to have designs on that. Obviously, it was the same effect of reducing the foreign matter in the metal. That was how the Wu''s weathered the most difficult times after the beginning.


    This was off-topic.


    The topic was that the fire attribute original energy from the underground fire vein was extremely powerful and even capable of reaching the underground lava. If anyone could build a smelting room here, then the weapon forged would be three levels higher than those from elsewhere. If properly operated, even Secondary Heavenly Weapons could be produced in bulk.


    Yes, Secondary Heavenly Weapons!


    A wizard weapon was not a thing you could ask for. Without good luck and real mysterious objects and materials, wizard weapons could not be forged.


    But Secondary Heavenly Weapon was different. Although not as magical as a wizard weapon, the sharpness and tenacity ranked only second to the wizard weapon.


    Most importantly, a Secondary Heavenly Weapon was easier to forge. As long as the materials and smelt conditions were superior, top craftsman was able to forge one.


    For example, Xu Yong, the teacher of Junior Leopard, as a top blacksmith, could quickly forge a Secondary Heavenly Weapon if he was provided with a smelter in the geocentric fire vein and some top class materials.


    Therefore, if the Wu Family got the underground fire vein, their overall strength would be raised to a new level, becoming the number one smelting family in the world.


    This was just a fantasy of course. Jin Nanqing was no fool, neither was the Jin imperial court. How could they give such a place to the Wu Family?


    Another benefit of the underground fire vein was that the spiritual stone of fire property might be produced here.


    Earth veins could not be taken, but spiritual stones could. Although spiritual stones were called the most abundant mysterious objects, as a mysterious object, no matter how abundant it was, it could not be sold as cheap cabbages. Let alone that more spiritual stones were usually found closer to the underground rock flows, where ordinary people would find it impossible to reach.


    People that could actually get close to the underground lava were at least a Level Seven and had Gang Qi protecting them. But with such abilities, spiritual stones were less attractive to them. What was more, could it be possible that a Level Seven was willing to be your miner?


    That was impossible. So no matter how abundant the spiritual stone was in the earth vein, they were still inaccessible treasures.


    However, except for places near the underground lava, other places in the fire vein might also have spiritual stones of fire attribute. Undoubtedly, the amount would be small, so it depended on your luck.


    The Spiritual Energy of Fire, earth fire, and spiritual stone were the three most attractive benefits of the fire vein.


    Of course, there were other benefits of the underground fire vein, though they only benefited a few people.


    The Wu Family was one of those few people.


    Generally speaking, fire veins with underground lava were also associated with earth vein Evil Qi, which was fatal to ordinary people and even martial artists. But for those who practiced the Fire Way Method and reached Level Six cultivation, this was a priceless place. Because they could condense the Evil Qi to Gang Qi. This was what the Wu Family had benefited from the fire vein.


    Condensing Evil to Gang!


    As a smelting family, every generation of the Wu Family would have a Level Seven expert. Therefore, the Wu Family knew places where earth vein Evil Qi gathered for the Elders to practice Gang Qi. But such an earth vein Evil Qi had either existed for too long, was used by too many people or was not enough in quantity. The result of condensing Gang Qi was not ideal. Sometimes because the Evil Qi was heterogeneous, dangerous things would happen in the process of condensing.


    That was why in recent years, some of the elders in the Wu Family that had reached Level Seven cultivation, was seldom Condensing Evil to Gang. They were afraid of accidents. Lyu Yiyue was the same. With Level Seven cultivation, he didn''t condense Gang Qi. So when faced with another strong person, he would always feel inferior.


    But now, the earth vein Evil Qi from this underground fire vein was much better than those that the Wu Family used to know, both in quality and quantity. If Lyu Yiyue could condense Evil to Gang, it was believed that he was 70% sure of the success.


    This was why Jin Nanqing was most happy and also what he was concerned about.


    This time they left Yunzhou, originally only to trace the whereabouts of a number of goods, which was a tiny thing for the great Wu''s. But unexpectedly, they should have encountered so many crazy things and in the end, they found the underground fire vein in Zhonghe City!


    The underground fire vein was in Zhonghe City. It definitely belonged to Jin and could not be touched by other well-known families. But, undoubtedly, Jin court would consider the influence and ability of those well-known families to effectively utilize this fire vein. It was known that although the craftsmen were working in the Jin''s Ministry of Works, they were also from these well-known families. Real skills were mastered by these well-known families instead of the court. Despite that the court would send people to learn from these families at regular intervals, these families were not fools. No one would teach real skills to people from the court. Therefore, to effectively utilize this fire vein, these well-known families needed to get involved.


    How to get involved and how to distribute the benefits, this would bring a fight. Both Jin Nanqing and Junior Leopard were small ants who could easily be stepped on before those big shots. The difference was that, for now, the small ants from the Wu''s somehow took the advantages.


    If they could seize the initiative for the Wu Family, that would be a huge contribution. Even for nothing else, if they could help Lyu Yiyue get a chance to condense Evil to Gang here, they would be so proud of the Wu Family, at least before Lyu Yiyue died.


    Of course, this was just another fantasy of his. Small ants like them would never change their status. At best they could fight for some advantages which the other families could not get.


    But even with such a little advantage, these would bear enormous benefits for their future.


    So, Jin Nanqing was very excited.

 Chapter 112: The Agitated Mysterious Fire

    Chapter 112: The Agitated Mysterious Fire


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Jin Nanqing felt excited, for he had found an opportunity to make contributions and get promotions. On the other hand, Junior Leopard was full of tension.


    Because as he went deeper and deeper, the temperature became higher and higher, as did the Spiritual Energy of Fire.


    It should have been nothing for those who practiced the Fire Way Method. This was a holy place for practicing. The place was so valuable that delight should have filled all his heart.


    But as he went deeper, he found that something wrong. The unusual feeling came from not him but the black flame inside his Dantian.


    Now, this black flame had already blended with his Internal Qi and transformed his Internal Qi of Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Ninth Dragon, which was totally unrecognizable. Although the Internal Qi still had the shape of the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon, its power was greatly strengthened. Junior Leopard dared not to use it randomly in case he was exposed when he met someone experienced.


    But with the change of that Spiritual Energy of Fire, the Mysterious Fire became agitated. It absorbed the pure original energy of fire by itself without Junior Leopard''s operation. Previously this Mysterious Fire had divided into two parts, one blended with Junior Leopard''s Punching Spirit and the other entered into his External Elixir.


    In a sense, it suffered some wear and tear, but of course, it was recovering due to Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi. As the amount of Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi was increasing, the Mysterious Fire recovered faster and faster thanks to Junior Leopoard entering into Level Three. Though it was still not as fresh as it was in the beginning.


    However, with the spewing of Spiritual Energy of Fire around, it kept absorbing and infusing pure pneuma and should get back to peak form in few minutes.


    More than this, as it got closer to peak form, it absorbed the pneuma faster, like an endless black hole. And it also drove the Internal Qi inside Junior Leopard''s body to absorb Spiritual Energy of Fire. The Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon was operating slowly now.


    As soon as Junior Leopard noticed the operation of his Internal Qi, he had felt something wrong. He began to clamp down his Internal Qi forcibly. Though he achieved some progress in the beginning, it was harder and harder for him to do so as he walked down, because the pneuma became denser, and the Mysterious Fire in his Dantian absorbed faster. The faster it absorbed, the more it affected Junior Leopard.


    "Hey guy, what are you doing? Operating in such circumstances, you wanna die?"


    Wang She was the first one to detect this situation. Though he walked in the forefront, he paid great attention to changes of pneuma around. Just now he found that all of the Spiritual Energy of Fire around gathered towards Junior Leopard. His subtle instincts reminded him of the fact that Junior Leopard was operating to absorb Spiritual Energy of Fire. Being shocked, he couldn''t help to warn Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard could say nothing but smile bitterly as he heard what Wang She said. He jumped to the front with the operating Internal Qi.


    "How dare you?"


    The Military Camp had its rules, and so did the Jianghu.


    For the reason of the first-class merit he made in recapturing Zhonghejun City and being paid special regard by the general Li Yuan, together with the fact that he had achieved Level Three, he could follow Zhao Ting to enter this place with no one competing with him.


    Therefore the people in the Military Camp could not stop him when he followed Zhao Ting with a group of the Wu''s disciples.


    But now, he jumped over not only Zhao Ting but also the four Bone-Forging Realm experts of Mingyi School''s and Tian Long Taoism''s, that must be unreasonable. The four Bone-Forging Realm experts wouldn''t allow such a child to challenge their authority, so they attacked Junior Leopard at almost the same time.


    How powerful should these Bone-Forging Realm experts be! They were about to attack this assuming bloke with mighty power when Wang She held them back with a cold hum.


    "Stop!"


    Four hands stopped in the air and then were taken back while Junior Leopard had flashed to Wang She.


    "Yes, Chief!"


    "It is me who asked him to come," said Wang She. "As the paths of the underground fire vein are complicated, I need someone to explore the way for me. You walk ahead and notify me if you find anything special."


    "Yes." Junior Leopard nodded his head in a rush. He knew Wang She was seeking an excuse to let him leave alone and solve the problem. He sped up and disappeared in few leaps without lingering.


    Both Jin Nanqing and Zhao Ting wanted to prevent him but they had no right to say anything.


    The only one who could make decisions at this moment was Wang She. And Wang She was a rare Level Eight expert. They dared not to doubt whether this decision made by Wang She could lead Junior Leopard to death.


    Junior Leopard disappeared in few leaps. He was so fast and that they could only do wishes for him and pray for his luck and fortune saving him out of the underground fire vein.


    On the other hand, Junior Leopard jumped out alone and giddapped. This underground fire vein in a general was a huge underground passageway that led to underground lava directly. This passageway was a natural formation. There was possibly an active volcano tens or even hundreds of thousands years ago. Thus the passageway was formed.


    But this passageway had always been covered by the city above ground for the past thousand years. Somehow the Sect of Flame had found this place and turned it on.


    Likewise, no one knew how long this passageway was and how deep it led to. In addition, they were afraid of being ambushed, so they moved slowly and cautiously. The Sect of Flame had been here for half a month and it was possible for them to arrange tight dragnets with such long time.


    But Junior Leopard was not afraid of this. Even if there were some traps, they were not arranged for him. Furthermore, he was jumping out to solve the problem inside his body and not to explore the way as what Wang She had said.


    Except for this main passageway of which the thickest part was 100 feet and the slimmest part was 20 to 30 feet and the highest part was 30 feet, there were lots of branch passageways. These passageways seemed like small doors opened in the main passageway and lead to unknown destinations. But Junior Leopard was sure that all of these passageways must lead to the underground lava in the end.


    These passageways were indeed very narrow and most of them only allowed one person to pass at a time. Only a few big passageways could allow two to three people to pass at the same time. And some smaller passageways didn''t allow any adult to pass at all.


    Those who could enter Zhonghe City alive were smart enough and they wouldn''t go into such small passageways. If so, they could do nothing but wait when they got in trouble. How terrible!


    Junior Leopard''s target was those small caves. For this main passageway went down in a spiral way. And that was the point which confused Junior Leopard a lot. The magma must flow in a straight way, there was no reason for a crater which had formed tens of thousands of years ago to be in a spiral like this. How could this crater be as spiral as spiral escalators in a skyscraper?


    This passageway was surely not a spiral escalator. But it gave Junior Leopard the chance to get rid of those people. When Junior Leopard was sure to not be seen, he entered into a small branch passageway with a flash.


    Though this passageway couldn''t match with the main one, it is width reached 10 feet and it''s height reached two meters. Junior Leopard was only a young man, this width and height were big enough for him to move if he got into troubles.


    This passageway was the same as the main which crooked with a radian. And in the cave wall around there were also many smaller branch passageways, some of them could allow Junior Leopard to get in.


    Surely Junior Leopard wouldn''t be foolish enough to get in one of those small passageways. Who knew whether he would lose his way if he kept turning? He ran further into this passageway for nearly three to four miles. Suddenly, the Internal Qi inside his body operated faster and faster as if it was stimulated, so he stopped here to regulate his breathing without hesitation. At the time, he opened his Fiery Eyes just in case.


    The temperature around was really high. According to the standard in his previous life, the temperature here was almost 60¡æ, which he couldn''t stand on all accounts previously, but now was now.


    As soon as he sat down to regulate his breathing, the Mysterious Fire in the deep Dantian beat with excitement and its speed in absorbing Spiritual Energy of Fire was accelerated by several times.


    "Oh, god! No! If it continues absorbing like this, my Dantian will be blown up! "


    The more Spiritual Energy of Fire it absorbed, the more inflated his Dantian became, like a balloon that was filled with gas. It seemed as though it would blow up soon.


    But Junior Leopard couldn''t control that Mysterious Fire''s independent operation. At the same time, Junior Leopard found that his External Elixir was absorbing the Spiritual Energy of Fire too. But the latter was not as obvious as the former.


    "I''m undone!"


    Junior Leopard''s Dantian became more and more inflated. He felt as if something wanted to be drained. He couldn''t maintain his sitting position anymore. He jumped up suddenly and shook his arms and a dark red breath was shot out. Junior Leopard started to practice punching skills.


    Under such circumstances, once the Thirteen Punches of Desolation was practiced, the powerful Spiritual Energy of Fire which caused great pressure on his body was drained out naturally. His Dantian got some relief.


    However, this relief was impermanent. The Mysterious Fire moved faster and faster. The speed to drain out the extra Spiritual Energy of Fire with punching skills could hardly catch up with the speed it absorbed. The only thing Junior Leopard could do now was to accelerate his fist speed and his Internal Qi operating speed. While in this way, the passageway was overloaded. Not surprisingly, it collapsed in few breaths.


    All the clay and stones were moved 20 feet away by Junior Leopard''s punching skills. But Junior Leopard paid no attention to those. Little by little, as he became more and more concentrated and his punching skill became more and more fluent, the air around him appeared to undergo amazing changes. As the temperature grew higher, a black fireball appeared behind him gleamingly, emitting a baking-hot spirit like a black sun, which was uncanny and overbearing.

 Chapter 113: Full Closure of Skin-Toughening Realm

    Chapter 113: Full Closure of Skin-Toughening Realm


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In the beginning, Junior Leopard''s execution of the fist was extremely fast, because he wanted to expel the powerful Spiritual Energy of Fire within his body. However, following the appearance of the fist intent, his speed gradually slowed down.


    His fist intent was formed from the merger of the divine thoughts and Internal Qi. Within this Internal Qi, it contained a trace of Mysterious Fire. In this place filled with the Spiritual Energy of Fire, the strand of Mysterious Fire within the fist intent was also nourished by the surrounding Spiritual Energy of Fire. The fire Qi became denser and denser, and the temperature kept on rising. When that strand of Mysterious Fire absorbed the Spiritual Energy of Fire till it reached its peak, it produced a resonance with the Mysterious Fire within Junior Leopard. The speed of absorption of Spiritual Energy of Fire began to slow down and produced an equilibrium force which Junior Leopard thought strange. This kind of equilibrium was based on two different levels of Mysterious Fire going against each other. Even though his fist intent had similarly absorbed excessive amounts of Spiritual Energy of Fire, it couldn''t be compared to the Mysterious Fire within his Dantian.


    Junior Leopard even felt that the Mysterious Fire within his own body already soaked through all of his Internal Qi and was rushing towards his fist intent, as if it wanted to devour the fist intent.


    The fist intent was burning fiercely and was resisting with all its might, yet it didn''t have too much of an effect. The Mysterious Fire within Junior Leopard''s body was too strong. Just when the fist intent was about to be completely devoured by the Internal Qi coming out of Junior Leopard''s body, the External Elixir which was hiding in Junior Leopard suddenly moved.


    Just like his fist intent, his External Elixir similarly split a strand of Mysterious Fire out, and even melted the Mysterious Fire.


    Speaking to the bottom of the matter, the reason why the Mysterious Fire would split out two strands from Junior Leopard''s Dantian was not made out of choice. When it first split, it was because when Junior Leopard''s fist intent was initially formed, it was affected by the golden metal essence, hence, it split out. Unexpectedly, once it split, it was hard to get it back. Junior Leopard''s fist intent was a simulation of the universe, so when the strand of fire entered it, it was dreaming to want to get it back.


    The second time was because Junior Leopard suddenly had an inspiration. Originally, Junior Leopard didn''t have the ability to control the Mysterious Fire which he hadn''t completely mastered, but this External Elixir''s material happened to be the Dragon Chimera''s skull. This Mysterious Fire was birthed forth from within the Dragon Chimera''s body. Under the double pressure of Junior Leopard''s will and the Dragon Chimera skull, this Mysterious Fire then unwillingly let out a strand and merged into the External Elixir. The so-called person living under a roof had to bow his head was the same principle.


    However now, after absorbing copious amounts of Spiritual Energy of Fire, the Mysterious Fire''s exhaustion of pneuma was finally recovered. It was even more than its prime condition. Naturally, it would want to turn to attack. Adding on that Junior Leopard''s fist intent had undergone a change, it was no longer a simulation of the universe that let the Mysterious Fire feel despair. Instead, it was a black color fireball that the Mysterious Fire had directed to. Such a fist intent could scare humans, but to the Mysterious Fire, it was just a piece of cake. Even though the black fireball had received the benefits of the Spiritual Energy of Fire, however, how could it withstand the Mysterious Fire at its peak?


    Hence, even though Junior Leopard''s fist intent was resisting with it''s all strength, it was all for naught. However, at this moment, the External Elixir from Junior Leopard suddenly jumped out. This External Elixir, which had been silently absorbing the Spiritual Energy of Fire floated in front of Junior Leopard and was emitting green light. Just at that moment when his fist intent was about to be absorbed by the Mysterious Fire, it produced a resonance with the fist intent, and firmly guarded the fist intent. It joined hands to deal with the devouring of the Mysterious Fire within Junior Leopard''s body. Having the external assistance, the fist intent finally stabilized at the last moment.


    Fist intent, External Elixir, Mysterious Fire.


    The three entities formed a triangular force at this moment. No one could deal with each other, no one could control anyone!


    As for the owner of these three entities!


    Junior Leopard was put in extreme torture here.


    Placed within the three entities, Junior Leopard''s pressure rose, as if the weight of the surroundings multiplied by tens. The most troublesome thing was, these three entities were still absorbing Spiritual Energy of Fire, and his actions under the heavy pressure slowed down. To depend on the punching skill to exhaust the stuff inside his body was impossible.


    "It cannot go on like this. My Dantian will explode. I have to think of something!"


    Feeling that the Thirteen Punches of Desolation began to slow down under the heavy pressure, Junior Leopard''s fist stance changed, and started to slow down. Every action was as if it was carrying a heavy object. It looked strange, yet in this strangeness there was a beauty!


    Taiji Fist?!


    No, at first he wanted to execute the Taiji Fist, however, very quickly, he changed his idea.


    He changed and started displaying Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill!


    Since he couldn''t expel it out, neither could he let this rich pneuma explode within him, then, there was only one solution, which was to absorb.


    At the moment when Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill was executed, the crazy Spiritual Energy of Fire was gushing forward like a huge wave, crashing against the flesh of Junior Leopard. Originally because of the high temperature and heavy pressure of the surroundings, Junior Leopard was long drenched in sweat. The skin on his body was also flushed red. However, experiencing the inhalation and exhalation of the Mysterious Fire, the Spiritual Energy of Fire that was changed completely rushed into the skin and flesh. His skin momentarily dimmed, and his body was enshrouded in a piece of dark-red fog.


    This was blood!


    The strong pneuma momentarily burst apart all the blood vessels within his body. The blood fluid merged with the Spiritual Energy of Fire spurt out from his orifices, forming a dark-red fog around his body. The bloody stench attacked the nose. As if thousands of ants were biting his whole body.


    The facial muscles of Junior Leopard twitched crazily. His body also trembled slightly, as if he would explode on the spot.


    What was the result of exploding? He was very clear about it!


    He was someone who was afraid of death; hence, he did not want to die here temporarily.


    Therefore, he could only endure. At the same time, he also had to think of an idea to alleviate his suffering. Hence, the Fiery Eye''s vision was circulated to the maximum. Every strand of Spiritual Energy of Fire within the flesh, every broken blood vessel, and every strand of blood fog that could cause pain, was all within his eyes. After that, he began to display Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill to the maximum. He accurately controlled the Spiritual Energy of Fire that was going crazy in his flesh, and gathered them at one point, and redirected them to move through the path of Moon-evil Mask Fist.


    It had to be known since the beginning, he was unable to control the Mysterious Fire''s strength within the Dantian. Hence, he allowed it to rush into his body. The only thing he could control was the strand of pneuma. Following the display of the Fiery Eye''s vision, the only strand of Internal Qi he was controlling began to swim within his flesh. After absorbing several strands of pneuma that was scattered within his flesh, it began to build up, as if it was like the Yellow River. It began to form an artery-like pneuma. The rest of the pneuma followed through. No matter how far it was away from the artery-like pneuma, it would form some sort of connection, and gather to that artery-like pneuma at last.


    "Hualala, hualala, hualala¡ª!"


    Gradually, Junior Leopard''s body emitted sounds of waves of flowing water. This sound originally was not uniform; however, following the passage of time, it became more and more uniform. At last, it was like a big river, ever flowing and not stopping.


    Junior Leopard''s skin began to have a slow change under the sound. It changed till it was jade-like. The red light within his eyes gradually vanished. The Fiery Eye''s effects also vanished. However, similarly, the pneuma charging within his body gradually became under control.


    Another wave of sound was heard.


    The Spiritual Energy of Fire containing the power of the Mysterious Fire kept washing and cleansing Junior Leopard''s skin and flesh. It evaporated the impurities and toxins into his body and was then purged out through his pores. At this moment, it formed another layer of grey fog surrounding his body.


    This kind of fog did not last for long. When the grey fog vanished, Junior Leopard''s fist stance changed from the original Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill to the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist.


    This Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist was obtained from the hands of Xue Wuya. Junior Leopard knew that this was a good stuff, but he had never thought of cultivating this fist method.


    That was because his cultivation was too low; he didn''t have the qualifications to practice this fist method. However now, under this kind of circumstances, he discovered that after displaying Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill for a period of time, his flesh and skin had already trained to a limit. If he continued training it, it would increase the toughness of his skin and flesh, but it would kill off any growth potential. He then decisively practiced the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist.


    Suffering once again descended.


    The suffering this time around was not as gigantic as the previous one. However, when compared in terms of degree, it was much more painful than the time his blood vessels exploded.


    After all, his cultivation had already reached Level Three and practiced Skin-Toughening fist methods for a long time. This made his flesh and skin strong to a certain extent, following the Internal Qi that had reached Level Three cultivation. However, his skeletal structure was different.


    His skeleton wasn''t as tough as his skin and flesh which had gone through long periods of tempering. It was a little bit stronger as compared to normal people. Adding on to the accumulation from Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill, the pneuma in the body that was scattered was now like a big river, condensing into one. Under this rampant assault, his whole body''s bones were compressed into lines by the huge waves of pneuma, almost breaking down.


    The shattering of bones!


    How could a normal person withstand such pain at this moment?


    Junior Leopard violently hummed. He bit his teeth. A trace of blood seeped out from the corner of his mouth. Both of his eyes flashed light, "F*ck, you bastard, go to hell, you bastard, ***...!"


    A string of vulgarities streamed out from his mouth. It was hurried and fast. He scolded the immortals in heaven and the demons in hell. This scolding continued on for one whole hour. Just when he was about to give in, the situation in his body had some changes. After that pneuma crushed all of his bones in his body, the function of tempering bones of the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist was finally in use. It began to repair the skeleton. This was a hardening process, crushing all the bones in the body and reassembling them. This made the body much stronger and sturdier than before. At last, it was strengthened to an unbelievable degree. This was the Bone-Forging fist method''s most fundamental effect.


    However, there were few in this world that was as tough as Junior Leopard.


    Indeed, this was barbaric. Normal people did not have such strong pneuma like Junior Leopard to do this matter. They could only rely on the Bone-Forging fist method to strengthen little by little. Those with qualifications would then think of using all kinds of soup to strengthen the bones, to aid in the cultivation and finally reaching the Bone-Forging Realm.


    Of course, now that Junior Leopard''s skeleton was crushed and then completely reassembled, it didn''t mean that his body''s toughness reached the Bone-Forging realm. It could be said that he only left a very strong foundation for stepping into the Bone-Forging Realm. He had accomplished the first step of bone forging. However, at the same time, this was also the hardest step. In future practice, he only needed to keep practicing using the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist, even without the help of any soup, he would be able to reach the Bone-Forging Realm within five years.


    As for now, he was in a realm that many pugilists wished for: Skin-Toughening Realm Full Closure!

 Chapter 114: Birth of a New Fist Intent: Black Hole

    Chapter 114: Birth of a New Fist Intent: Black Hole


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Full Closure of Skin-Toughening Realm!


    When he reached the Full Closure of Skin-Toughening Realm, he also completed the most important step of Bone Forging. It could be said that even though Junior Leopard had suffered unimaginable pain today, his had gained a lot.


    However, with the repeated quenching of the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist, Junior Leopard met the same problem when he was displaying the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill. His skeleton had reached the limit. If he continued practicing, his skeleton would be like jade, tight like gold. He would reach the initial stages of Bone-Forging Realm. However, in this manner, he would become a monster, just like Nezha and Red Boy, being a child for prolonged periods. He didn''t want to become a spring chicken without sexual life!


    Hence, he could only helplessly change his punching skills. Different from the previous few occasions, he reached the Full Closure of Skin-Toughening Realm. At the same time, the pneuma in his body got together. Even though his fist intent, External Elixir and the Mysterious Fire in his Dantian were still endlessly absorbing the Spiritual Energy of Fire, the pneuma could already be controlled. It was not messy and uncontrollable like before. Under these circumstances, he changed his fist trend and chose the Tai Chi Punching Skill.


    The punching skill was displayed and the surrounding spirit changed. Under the guidance of the Tai Chi Fist, the unruly Spiritual Energy of Fire began to slow down. Under Junior Leopard''s actions, it was slowly being guided. As for the enormous pneuma that was endlessly absorbed into his body by his External Elixir, fist intent and Mysterious Fire was also slowly released by Junior Leopard. It merged with the surrounding Spiritual Energy of Fire. A wonderful thing happened.


    After surviving in this world and having practiced the Tai Chi Fist for so many years, Junior Leopard could be considered as having some insights into the way of the Tai Chi Fist. The so-called "Tai Chi power is passed down through generations. In the movement of a circle, it''s flexible with endless hardness with softness". It was then said, "Tai Chi''s main idea is the circle.


    No matter the movement of inside or outside, up and down, left and right, it never leave the circle". The openning and closing, real or feint, rise, and fall, swirling in its every action were all formed from a circle. Once there was action there would be a circle. Within this circle, it contained two kinds of energies of Yin and Yang. It had softness and hardness, reality and feint. The softness and hardness complemented each other, the real and the feint penetrated each other. This was the Tai Chi Fist''s profoundness, and a performance of deep understanding.


    Over these few years, Junior Leopard had slowly comprehended the essence of the circle. Therefore, once he displayed the Tai Chi Fist, which expelled the enormous amount of pneuma, he also trapped the pneuma within a circle. Following the accumulation of the pneuma, the pneuma within this circle also started to absorb the surrounding Spiritual Energy of Fire. It started competing for Spiritual Energy of Fire with the External Elixir, fist intent and the Mysterious Fire within his Dantian.


    In the beginning, it naturally couldn''t compete with them. However, not forgetting one point, no matter if it was the External Elixir, or fist intent, or the Mysterious Fire within his Dantian, after absorbing the pneuma, it would be poured into Junior Leopard''s body. It would then be expelled out by Junior Leopard''s Tai Chi Punching Skill, and merge within the circle. This was equivalent to an unfair competition. An unfair competition would naturally have unfair results.


    The more he practiced, the more the circle in front of Junior Leopard had a huge increase in power. It had turned from originally faint red into golden red. In the middle of it there was actually an egg-like object, emitting a frighteningly high temperature.


    At this moment, no matter if it was his fist intent or his External Elixir, or the Mysterious Fire within his Dantian, it could no longer absorb any more Spiritual Energy of Fire. The golden red "egg" in the center of the circle had already changed into an eccentric black hole, absorbing all the Spiritual Energy of Fire around.


    And this kind of behavior, once again put Junior Leopard into a difficult position.


    Junior Leopard only felt that he was extremely unlucky to suffer so much hardship. However, the Spiritual Energy of Fire here was just like a passing game, passing from one place to another, yet it would not extricate itself from the Tai Chi Fist. Instead, it became even more troublesome!


    "Do I destine that I will be played to death by this Spiritual Energy of Fire today?"


    Junior Leopard was getting impatient. Somehow he felt a sense of despair.


    This strand of despair was like a fuse, catalyzing a revulsion.


    His fist intent suddenly collapsed!


    A despair of collapse!


    His fist intent infused with divine thoughts and Internal Qi.


    Divine thoughts were human consciousness and thoughts. Hence, the form of the fist intent was connected to the consciousness and thoughts. Junior Leopard''s fist intent was a simulation of the universe. In essence, it was extremely strong. It was so strong that it could contain everything, but, it was so unreal that it was unable to be controlled.


    Luckily he had the Fiery Eyes, a secretive bloodline that had been extinct for 3,000 years. Then he could unblock the fist intent, only leaving the fist intent like a black fireball, which he could barely control.


    This black fireball fist intent was originally formed from his simulation of the universe. It was formed from a strand of the golden metal essence and the Mysterious Fire''s energy, according to the process of formation of stars that he knew deep in his heart. In essence, it was a star, a sun. And due to the Mysterious Fire, it was black. Then it was a black sun. Hence, there was no wrong in calling it Black Sun Fist Intent.


    The intent and mental state were connected. Only someone with strong willpower could clear intent. And once the belief was shaken, then, the intent would disappear as well.


    Now, Junior Leopard was in despair. The fist intent changed and collapsed. To a fighter who managed to clear fist intent, that was the greatest loss. Once the belief collapsed, and the fist intent disappeared, it would be almost impossible to condense it again. The cultivation would be greatly reduced. The Internal Qi might even automatically vanish.


    Junior Leopard was now in such a precarious state.


    However, this fella was an abnormality, an inborn abnormality.


    Since the collapsed fist intent was not the fist intent that simulated the universe, but the Black Sun Fist Intent. Hence, even if the Black Sun Fist Intent had completely collapsed, to Junior Leopard, there was still a chance of survival.


    His fist intent was collapsing. The "black fireball" behind him was just like a fire that ran out of fuel, slowly falling.


    There wasn''t a strand of light within his eyes, it turned into a hollow. A wave of incomparably vast intent inundated Junior Leopard''s consciousness. His consciousness was limitlessly expanded. In the process of the "fireball" falling, it didn''t scatter. Instead, it was floating in a vast hollow and was slowly changing.


    In the center of the circle, the golden red "egg" began to absorb the fist intent, devouring the Internal Qi and divine thoughts within his fist intent. Yet his fist intent was still strongly floating, scattered amongst the hollow. In this way, the "egg" within the circle was competing with Junior Leopard''s fist intent in his hollow. They were tearing at each other, forming a seesaw competition.


    As for the final winner, naturally, it would be his fist intent that simulated the universe.


    Even though he felt despair, he still had common sense. Deep within his heart, the universe was still mighty. It was a modern man''s common knowledge, which turned into a kind of belief. And the belief began to pull the surrounding Spiritual Energy of Fire that formed the circle into the hollow fist intent.


    At this time, the black sun didn''t completely collapse. All of a sudden there was so much pneuma. It forcefully exploded as if hot oil poured into cold water. A dazzling light formed around Junior Leopard, and then completely disappeared.


    Everything vanished, including the surrounding Spiritual Energy of Fire, the black sun, the hollow within Junior Leopard''s eyes. Even the actions of Junior Leopard''s punches also disappeared. He was quietly maintaining a posture of Tai Chi Fist.


    Everything around quieted down. It was as if time had stopped.


    After a time, Junior Leopard who seemed to be solidified suddenly blinked. Following this action, everything returned to normal.


    Boom!


    The soundless pressure was over everything. Around Junior Leopard, a demonic "visual field" appeared and then slowly began to turn. It was like a huge black hole in the hollow, involving everything around it, including the Spiritual Energy of Fire, rocks, dust, air. Eeverything changed. Some small special objects began to float and were absorbed into this "visual field".


    What was different, was that the pneuma of heaven and earth was completely shredded and engulfed by the "visual field", without slightest evidence of existence.


    As for those substances, they were circling around Junior Leopard, slowly moving, floating and was slowly grinded by invisible gravity.


    Junior Leopard also began to slowly float up.


    Black hole, this was a black hole!


    Junior Leopard blinked and his action of holding a circle was obviously stagnant. After he finished his fist trend, his eyes flashed a glint of light. He then exhaled gently.


    "Black hole? A new kind of fist intent?" The corners of his mouth twitched. Feeling the change of space and time around him, he didn''t know what to say.


    Space around was obviously distorted. The gravity weakened. Even the gravity surrounding him also disappeared. That was why he floated. He could also feel that the time in his surroundings had slowed down. This was a typical black hole.


    "This is to say, unknowingly, my fist intent once again developed a change which turned from a sun into a black hole!"


    Since the changing of the fist intent was a coincidence, just like last time, this uncultured boy didn''t know the reason and process of the change. He only knew that his own fist intent had changed.


    Suddenly, Junior Leopard''s gaze flashed. The "visual field" disappeared. The black hole also disappeared. Everything that was floating, including Junior Leopard, all dropped on the floor at the same time. Everything around was back. The unruly Spiritual Energy of Fire once again filled the entire room. However, it was unable to cause any disturbance to him. Because at this time, the Mysterious Fire within his Dantianbecame honest. And the External Elixir also became honest, cold to the Spiritual Energy of Fire. He once again gained control of the Internal Qi within his body.


    "Interesting!" With a move of his mind, a black sun once again appeared around him, fiercely burning. And moving again, the black sun disappeared and the black hole appeared. After a few times, he became familiar from obscurity. Then he slowly kept the Internal Qi within his Dantian.


    "Two kinds of fist intent can be converted at will. Heehee, now, it''s really fun!"

 Chapter 115: Newly Entering into Level Nine: Prince Xiaoming

    Chapter 115: Newly Entering into Level Nine: Prince Xiaoming


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In life, there would inevitably be ups and downs. Junior Leopard felt that he was in a high-tide period now.


    In the deep passage of the underground fire vein, Junior Leopard''s toes only needed to tap lightly, and he would fly dozens of feet in front, like a rotten leaf without carrying a strand of smoke. The Internal Qi in his body was flowing smoothly, and there was no longer a sense of obstruction. His skeleton was just like jade. His body from head to toe seemed to carry boundless energy. After experiencing a bout of pain in hell, he finally reached heaven.


    He managed to successfully control the Mysterious Fire within his Dantian. After completely controlling the Internal Qi within his body, even though his strength had soared, he had become extremely weary. He had nothing to complain of, in particular, hence he immediately regulated his breathing within the passageway. He then forcefully slept, until he was woken up by a sudden violent tremble.


    "Earthquake?!" This was Junior Leopard''s first thought. However, very quickly, this kind of possibility was erased. If it was really an earthquake, he would not be able to live anymore. Here was the underground fire vein. Just a small earthquake would be able to cause the lava to flow from underground. If that was the case, neither the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon nor the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill would help him, nor there was only death waiting for him.


    Furthermore, this trembling came in waves. First, it was a wave of the earth shaking, dust scattering all over. Following that was a piece of quiet as if nothing had happened just now.


    Being woken up, he also didn''t know how long he had slept. After thinking for a while, he followed the original path to return to the main passageway. He displayed his Lightness Skill, moving forward.


    This was because his cultivation just rose, and his mental and spiritual energy was at its peak., so his confidence abounded. Naturally, his speed was much faster than before. After sprinting for 4-6 hours, he only felt that the color of the wall on the passageway became darker and darker as well as the temperature was getting higher and higher. Very soon, he met a person who fell.


    This over-confident idiot!


    Seeing that person lying there, Junior Leopard hurriedly moved forward and checked his breathing. But he immediately found it had already disappeared and the corpse had been solidified.


    Looking at his posture, it should be because he couldn''t withstand the temperature in front, then he retreated from his team. He originally wanted to return to the original route, however, when he reached here, he couldn''t withstand it anymore.


    "There is fire toxin here!" Feeling the Evil Qi flowing in the atmosphere, Junior Leopard lightly frowned.


    The so-called fire toxin was the Evil Qi of a fire attribute. However the amount of this Evil Qi was too little. It was scattered in the air and unable to be used. But it was extremely harmful to human body, hence it was termed fire toxin.


    There was the first person who fell down. Naturally, there would be the second one. Seeing that people had died, Junior Leopard didn''t bother much. He thought that he would bring the bodies out on the way out. At least there would be a proper burial for them. He then continued going forward. After moving for dozens of feet, he then discovered a second batch of corpses. Yes, the second batch, and it was not just one person, but five or more. Just like before, they couldn''t withstand the high temperature and was struck by the fire toxin.


    After meeting a few more batches of corpses, afterward, he finally met alive people. And they were familiar people.


    "Seniors, what''s the matter?"


    He saw Jin Nanqing sitting down with his whole body sweating profusely. He was trying hard to circulate his Qi to expel the fire toxin. As for the other Wu Family''s disciples, they were lying on the floor in a near death state; they seemed to have little breath left.


    Seeing Junior Leopard, Jin Nanqing who was circulating his Qi finally revealed a strand of happiness.


    "Junior Leopard, come to get us out of here. The fire toxin here is too powerful---!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t dare to delay for long. He stacked up the unlucky few seniors on top of himself like Luohans. He summoned the strength in his legs and rushed outwards.


    He ran all the way.


    These few people''s weight was about 500 kg. If Junior Leopard had not achieved a breakthrough just now, after carrying them on his back and running swiftly, he would definitely fall down. Even though he didn''t collapse, it was still very difficult for him.


    "Okay, here, put us down!" After running for 5-6 miles, Jin Nanqing on his back suddenly spoke, "There is no longer any fire toxin. Put us down!"


    Junior Leopard was still somewhat worried so he carried them more 1-2 miles before putting everybody down.


    "Senior, what happened exactly?!"


    "Aye, what else can it be? It is us having too much confidence in our strength!" Jin Nanqing sighed, "This underground fire vein, the further you go, the higher the temperature is. There is also fire attribute Evil Qi accompanying it. The deeper one goes, the denser the fire toxin. The people within the military camp didn''t detect it in time. Only when we were poisoned then we realized. When we wanted to go back, we didn''t have enough time. Fortunately, the few of us had practiced the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon. Our resistance is thus stronger than others. If not, we would have become corpses just like the rest of them."


    When Junior Leopard heard it, he also sighed. It was not a surprising thing for this underground fire vein to be dangerous. Although the high temperature, fire poison etc were within expectations, people thought they were lucky enough to follow all the way through.


    "That is to say, if we don''t go down, there won''t be anything?!" Junior Leopard asked suddenly.


    "Those who could go down to fish the benefits all went down!" Jin Nanqing smiled bitterly, "Those who cannot follow, almost all died on the way. However, from my point of view, within the Military Camp, those who could reach the fire vein will not amount to more than 5!"


    Speaking, he then looked at Junior Leopard, "Junior Leopard, according to your strength, the fire toxin shouldn''t have much of an effect on you. Are you really not going down?!"


    His words haven''t been finished when the earth trembled again. Vaguely, the bottom of the cave emitted countless cries and shouts.


    "This is...!" Junior Leopard''s expression changed. He seemed to have understood something. This was not some kind of earthquake. This was obviously the sound produced from the fight between two high level experts in the fire vein!


    "Senior Jin, please look after these seniors and I will go down to check out!"


    "En, Junior Leopard, be careful. It is obviously good if there are benefits. However, if the situation is not right, don''t force it!" Jin Nanqing reminded him.


    "I understand!" Junior Leopard nodded and replied.


    In fact, at this time, they were not far away from the geocentric fire vein. Displaying his Lightness Skill, he went forward for a good one hour hurriedly. He finally reached the end of the passageway, where there was a piece of shining red light. Seeing from faraway, it was like an entrance. With every step forward, the temperature would soar manifestly. After walking to a place 100 feet away from the entrance, he found the surrounding air had long evaporated. It formed pieces of bends; the whole body seemed to be placed in boiling hot water.


    This temperature was extremely harmful to others. However, it affected Junior Leopard less. When nearing the entrance of the cave, Junior Leopard activated the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. His whole body was scratched against the walls of the passageway. He bent his waist and speedily moved towards the bottom of the cave.


    "Hahahaha ¡ª! Wang She, Chief Wang, you shouldn''t resist anymore. I admit that your strength is above mine. However, in this fire vein, you don''t have any chances of winning?" Without moving for a few steps, he then heard the ferocious shouting from the bottom of the cave.


    Moving to the cave entrance, he prone on a stone. Junior Leopard looked inside and his heart involuntarily tightened. Outside the cave entrance was a big empty space. The cave bottom was dozens of feet high. A river of lava that was tens of feet wide was flowing in the middle of the cave. It was flashing golden red light, emitting a hot flow. The whole space was as if it was a lake formed from the flow of the lava. Within that lake, there were dozens of pieces of land that had not been devoured by the rock flows. Wang She and the rest were standing on the red mud that hadn''t been flowed over by the magma.


    With only one look, Junior Leopard understood, those from the military camp who followed Wang She, including Camp Supervisor Zhao Ting, were completely annihilated.


    These people were able to reach this spot depending on their extraordinary cultivation and strong body. Now, apart from Wang She, all were unconscious on the floor who were extremely close to the rock flows. There was even one half of whose body was in the rock flows, being consumed by the rock flows till he was unrecognizable.


    Those few who didn''t get embroiled in the rock flows didn''t do well. The skins on their bodies already had blisters resulted from the high temperature of the air. The expressions on their faces were painful. Even if they were unconscious, they still were in extreme pain.


    Wang She''s situation was not optimistic as well. His cyan clothes were already torn in half without the left sleeve and his hair was also messy. His left arm was revealing an extremely deep gash. His flesh was turned out and his blood long evaporated by the surrounding hot air. He looked extremely ferocious.


    However, even if the situation seemed to be extremely disadvantageous for him, his expression was still as calm as before. The fan in his right hand was already opened. He was lightly shaking his head and his gaze locked on the person in front, revealing a cold glint.


    "This fella is Prince Xiaoming? The youngest Venerable in Sect of Flame!"


    Junior Leopard also saw clearly the man opposing Wang She who was wearing a long red robe. Under the reflection of the lava, it was looking alive. He was roughly 20 years old, with fine features, just like a beautiful lady. His whole body exuded a charm that belonged to women. However, Junior Leopard didn''t think that this fella would be weak. Looking at Wang She''s haggard look, and looking at his calm demeanor, he could tell who gained the advantage here easily.


    "Are you sure that you could beat me today?" Wang She''s gaze locked onto Prince Xiaoming and his lips curled, revealing a strand of an ugly smile.


    "In other time and other places, I definitely can''t beat you. However at this time, on this day, you no longer have the capital to resist me. Wang She, don''t play with your fan anymore. Your Jade Original Power Gang Spirit has already been broken by my Distant Fire Mysterious Gang. Even if you continue to fan, you wouldn''t be able to conjure some treasure!"


    When Junior Leopard heard it, he became depressed. The Jade Original Power Gang Spirit was broken again. This was the second time he saw the Jade Original Power Gang being broken. Jade Original Power Gang Spirit was considered a rare find in this world, but how would it keep being broken? Was there any flaw, if he had known it, Junior Leopard wouldn''t learn the Jade Original Power Gang.


    "Jade Original Power Gang Spirit is indeed broken by you, however, you used your Level Nine cultivation to break my Level Eight Gang Qi, this was nothing to be praiseworthy of!" Wang She folded his fan and lightly said, "I really didn''t expect, in just a few short days, you have actually raised your cultivation to Level Nine!"


    Level Nine?!!


    Junior Leopard who was hiding at the cave entrance trembled in his heart. Level Nine!


    Even if in the whole world, this Level Nine expert could be counted on one hand. It was unexpected that he could see one here!

 Chapter 116: Nancy Boy Standing behind You

    Chapter 116: Nancy Boy Standing behind You


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "With the nourishment of the geocentric fire vein, if I still could not practice my Distant Fire Mysterious Gang to Level Nine, I would crash myself to death with a piece of bean curd!"


    Speaking of his cultivation, Prince Xiaoming was full of pride, "Well Wang She, stop wasting my time. Anyway, you cannot run away now, even if you want to!" Meanwhile, Prince Xiaoming opened his arms, stretching the long sleeves of his robe. The rock flows around started to seethe following his moves.


    With huge crashing sounds, surging rock flows were pushed as though by an invisible force. 10 streaks of magma burst out, which turned into snakes, roaring and rushing towards Wang She.


    "Interesting." Wang She sneered at him and sped up fanning. Every move of his fan would cause a strong airflow. After a few moves, whirlwinds were formed around him, in which the magma snakes and airflows were tangling but could not defeat each other.


    "Combine!" As Prince Xiaoming clasped his hands together, the flying magma snakes combined together suddenly forming a huge 10-foot wide Flame Dragon that got rid of Wang She''s airflow after only a few twists and then rushed towards Wang She.


    Wang She raised his hands and then a plain cyan transparent light cover appeared before his hands.


    "Boom!" The Flame Dragon flashed on the light cover and the magma scattered everywhere. Wang She''s face turned white and he took a step back. The plain cyan light cover flashed a little as well, but it successfully defended against the attack from the Flame Dragon in the end.


    "You can succeed the first time, but can you succeed the second time?"


    Prince Xiaoming flashed his eyes and the Flame Dragon flew up again. Meanwhile, more magma surged from the rock flows and merged with the Flame Dragon. Within the time of a few breaths, the size of the Flame Dragon doubled.


    "POWER! This is absolute power!"


    Prince Xiaoming manipulated the rock flows so easily. After witnessing this, Junior Leopard was surprised. Under such attacks, Wang She could defend, but Junior Leopard could not.


    Black Sun Fist Intent, Black Hole Fist Intent, External Elixir, Inner Elixir and any other skills were all useless facing such overwhelming power.


    Even if you wanted to flee, there would be nowhere to flee to.


    "Level Nine expert, haha, this isn''t the full power of a Level Nine expert!" At this time, Junior Leopard inexplicably thought about Xue Wuya who was killed by himself, gloating and feeling scared in mind. Wang She defended against the last attack due to his Level Eight cultivation. Xue Wuya was also Level Eight that he could defend against that attack too. But this powerful man was killed by him, Junior Leopard! How could he not be scared now?


    Seeing the Flame Dragon rushing towards him again, Wang She didn''t prepare to defend directly. Instead, he closed his folding fan and turned into a black shadow rushing towards Prince Xiaoming. For strong people like them, the rock flows in between them posed no real threat.


    "Good!" When Prince Xiaoming saw Wang She''s move, he turned his hands to show a pair of daggers, using them to defend himself.


    "Dang!" They crashed into each other in no time. Prince Xiaoming stood still yet Wang She retreated three steps, during which Wang She used Asura Destroyer Pole. Suddenly, Prince Xiaoming was covered in fan shadows all over the sky.


    "Asura Destroyer Pole, what a big name! But it is just so so!" From under the shadows came the ironic shouts of Prince Xiaoming. With the flashes of two Sinssy, he broke out of the shadow instantly. "Wang She! Here comes my Twin Dragon Kill!"


    Twin Dragon Kill!


    Two shadows of chilling light suddenly broke Wang She''s defense. Meanwhile, the Flame Dragon also started to move, following Twin Dragon Kill and rushing towards Wang She.


    "Now, Wang She is in big trouble."


    Junior Leopard looked at the raging Flame Dragon with his face turning white. Wang She''s last defense towards that small Flame Dragon had cost so much power. Now coupled with Prince Xiaoming''s attack, could he survive it?


    But things were always out of expectations. Prince Xiaoming''s daggers were quick and sharp, like two shadows of lightning. However, Wang She was faster, bending and twisting his body, narrowly escaping the Twin Dragon Kill and Flame Dragon. As Prince Xiaoming was no weak person, when Wang She escaped, he continued attacking, bumping into Wang She like a ghost with two shadows of chilling light.


    They were so close and Prince Xiaoming was so quick. Only when Prince Xiaoming was in front of him did Wang She realize the situation. He narrowed his eyes, feeling a strange change in his body.


    Standing at the entrance to the cave, Junior Leopard saw that the slim body of Wang She twisted like noodles, making Prince Xiaoming''s determined attack fail.


    After two failures, Prince Xiaoming seemed to be a little angry and his body burst out a red light. At this time, Wang She had nowhere to hide. No matter how soft his body was, he could not escape the sudden Gang Qi burst from Prince Xiaoming''s body. After a low groan, Wang She was like a broken rag-bag which flew away and fell down along with the flushing rock flows. Of course, Prince Xiaoming was not satisfied with this. After bumping away Wang She, he moved his right hand, calling the Flame Dragon to surge again and rush towards Wang She.


    "This time he should end it, right?" Junior Leopard asked himself secretly.


    Like it could hear Junior Leopard, the Flame Dragon crashed into Wang She''s body as he fell, pushing him fiercely into the rock flows below.


    "Boom!"


    The Flame Dragon''s body pushed large waves in the rock flows. Surging billows formed by magma flew into the sky of dozen feet high.


    "A complete fiasco!"


    Seeing Wang She was pushed into the rock flows, Junior Leopard felt desperate and didn''t dare to breathe. He could only use Snake-like Breath Holding Skill while retreating.


    "Your martial arts are almighty and this time you not only achieved Level Nine but killed Wang She from Tian Long Taoism. What a big contribution!"


    Two silhouettes came out through the passageway of the cave walls. Both of them, who were experts in Bone-Forging Realm, were great people outside. But as they appeared in front of Prince Xiaoming, a Level Nine expert, Junior Leopard only felt more insignificant.


    "Humph!" Prince Xiaoming sniffed, with a gloating face, which soon turned into pity. "Although Wang She has confronted me for many years, it is so unexpected that he would fall like this today. What a pity!"


    "He did not know what he was doing and overestimated his own power. His delusion of confronting your Venerable doesn''t deserve our pity!" one of the two men went near to Prince Xiaoming, fawningly, "your venerable excellency, you are now a Level Nine expert. There is no doubt that we will be able to call you Hierarch soon!"


    "I have just achieved Level Nine and I need time to consolidate the state. I was thinking about spending a few more days here, but this seems impossible now. Once the underground fire vein is exposed, there will be countless people coming here for benefits . I won''t be able to stay here as well. Those useless people, after planning for so long, can''t just keep the secret for such a short time." Mentioning this, Prince Xiaoming could not help getting angry. But what''s done is done, there was no use to stay angry. Looking back at the surging rock flows, he said, "Do you actually think that Wang She is dead?"


    "Wang She has been beaten like that and fell down into the magma. Even if he has 10 lives, he should be dead now."


    "Really? I don''t think so." Prince Xiaoming looked at the flowing rock flows as if he was searching for something. After a while, finding nothing, he then gave up and said, "Forget it. Let''s go."


    "Yes!"


    They nodded again and again, probably because although their cultivation enabled them to get into the Bone-Forging Realm, they still found it hard to bear the pressure in this geocentric fire vein.


    Junior Leopard was tightly shrunk in the shadow of a huge stone of 10 feet high next to the cave entrance. Snake-like Breath Holding Skill was crazily operating in his body which made it seem as if he had become part of the stone. Prince Xiaoming and his two followers were moving so fast and in just a few seconds, they were dozens of feet away, without noticing a man hiding behind the huge rock at all.


    Although they didn''t notice him, Junior Leopard could not relax even a little. He waited behind the stone for over one hour. While he was struggling inside, a voice sounded, "Who are you hiding from? They have long gone! Come out now!"


    "Chief Wang!" Hearing the familiar sound, Junior Leopard was so happy, peaking his head from behind the stone. He saw Wang She''s body was floating from the bottom of the underground rock flows, still with his messy hair and embarrassed look. He was covered in cyan light. Except for the mess, there were no other injuries.


    After making sure that Wang She was not dead and had been found out by Chief Wang, Junior Leopard stopped hiding and came out, "Disciple Zhou Bao here to meet Chief Wang!"


    "You boy did nothing to save me. Now you dare to come out?" Looking at Junior Leopard, Wang She was full of irony.


    "It was just Prince Xiaoming, a Nancy Boy. How could he get you?!" Junior Leopard said obsequiously, "Besides, under such circumstances, even if I helped, there should be only one result for me... Death. It is better to know that where there is life, there is hope. If something happened to you, at least there is a person to help avenge you."


    "You little boy!" Wang She kicked Junior Leopard from dozens of feet away, making Junior Leopard fly, "What happened to you. You seem like you''re benefiting from it again! Isn''t it a Full Closure for the Skin-Toughening Realm?"


    "You have such a pair of sharp eyes! Disciple admires you so much!" Falling on the ground, Junior Leopard sat on the ground with a silly smile.


    "Stop flattering me. I am not the little girl Concubine Ming. I don''t buy this!"


    "Concubine Ming?"


    "It''s Prince Xiaoming, the Nancy Boy standing right behind you!" Wang She said with a gloating smile.

 Chapter 117: Earth Fire Yuan Essence, Filling My Fist Intent

    Chapter 117: Earth Fire Yuan Essence, Filling My Fist Intent


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "The nancy boy behind you?!" Wang She hadn''t been finished, Junior Leopard felt a chill from his Dantian into his brain. His body violently shot forward as he held the two silver hammers in his hands.


    "You want to go?" As soon as Junior Leopard''s body rose up, he felt a hot feeling on the top of his head. No matter how he tried, he was unable to evade the pressuring palm on his head.


    "He is that kid that you talked about?"


    Junior Leopard squirmed his body and moved forward for tens of feet. However, Prince Xiaoming who was behind him only lightly extended his hand which immediately pressed Junior Leopard''s head, as if his hand broke through space. He then receded and forcefully pressed Junior Leopard''s body on the floor. He then kicked his buttocks before standing up and this time, the strike was much more solid than Wang She''s kick.


    "Right, that is him. He is not bad right?" Wang She squinted his eyes and smiled. Junior Leopard struggled to climb up from the ground and then he saw clearly Prince Xiaoming who was behind him.


    She was still in the same clothing. What was different was that her hair was much looser than before which seemed to cover her beautiful face. Because of that, Junior Leopard was able to see a really pretty lady. However truth to be told, this Prince Xiaoming could be considered handsome. There was a kind of charisma revealed between her brows. Yet, if she was a man, the charisma would be weak. Hence when she dressed like a man, she looked somewhat weak. On the contrary, now that her hairstyle has changed into a woman''s, this charisma of hers became much denser. It revealed a kind of unisex appeal.


    Unisex appeal!


    Hehe.


    Junior Leopard laughed in his heart and his facial expression appeared somewhat wretched which was a typical lustful man''s expression.


    "Kid, what are you thinking about?"


    Even though Prince Xiaoming was an expert who just entered Level Nine, when she saw that wretched lustful expression on Junior Leopard''s face, her heart involuntarily had the shivers.


    "Stop laughing!" She raised her leg to kick poor Junior Leopard and sent him flying.


    "Where did you find such a kid? One look and I know he''s not good!"


    Prince Xiaoming''s face revealed a blameful expression as she asked Wang She.


    "Don''t belittle him. If not for him, I would need at least 3 days to find this place. He used that pair of small hammers to smash open the big gate of Zhonghe City!" Wang She laughed and replied.


    "Really?!" Prince Xiaoming''s eyes became more unkind when she looked at Junior Leopard, "You have to understand, I have the confidence to condense the Spirit here in three days. Now that you have come to interrupt, and I have lost this chance. Tell me, how are you going to compensate me?"


    Junior Leopard was speechless. Even though he was extremely dissatisfied with this person who only started to condense Spirit when her cultivation had entered Level Nine, he couldn''t speak out and express his feelings in the heart.


    "He is looking down on you. Despite this kid''s cultivation of only Level Three, he had already condensed his own fist intent. When compared to him, you are very late!" Wang She seemed to have seen through Junior Leopard''s thoughts and added the trimmings.


    "Really? I didn''t know he is a little genius!" Prince Xiaoming seemed to be agitated by Wang She''s words. She swayed to Junior Leopard''s side and said, "Little friend. Tell me, how should I punish you?"


    "Adultery, pure adultery!" Looking at these two people, in between words, they seemed to be against each other. However, upon careful listening, there seemed to be a dense ambiguous feeling. The tone and words used were completely like when he was a secretary in the previous life, flirting with a naked customer service officer on the bed.


    Hence, Junior Leopard blinked his eyes. The corner of his mouth revealed a strange smile, "Please, when the two of you are flirting, please don''t drag me into it!"


    "Uh!"


    Prince Xiaoming''s expression solidified as well as Wang She was also stunned, with his smiling expression frozen on his face.


    "Kid, what are you blabbering about. Are you sick of living?"


    Within a breath''s time, Prince Xiaoming couldn''t help being embarrassed and her face flushed red. It was because they were in the underground fire vein that her face didn''t appear overtly strange. She extended her hand and lifted Junior Leopard up, her eyes revealing a ferocious glare.


    "This time, you are more heroic!" Junior Leopard''s mouth curled and laughed, "Back then when my sister and brother-in-law were not married and squabbling, they were just like the both of you. Later, my brother told me that was lovers quarreling in love. Isn''t that the case?"


    Prince Xiaoming''s face became even redder. She lifted Junior Leopard, neither scolding nor hitting him. She didn''t throw him either. She was frozen on the spot, extremely embarrassed.


    "What a troublesome fella!" Wang She finally couldn''t bear seeing it any longer. He used the folding fan to lightly knock on his own forehead and helplessly exhaled. He raised his hand and a wave of invisible force was produced, grabbing Junior Leopard through the space.


    "Kid, you don''t know how to write the word ''death''? I gave you face and you want to push it further. You dare to say and joke about anything. You really are sick of living!"


    A wave of dense killing intent spread out from his body, as if it had come from the mysterious ice from the depths of the nine hells, it instantly invaded Junior Leopard''s body. Junior Leopard only felt that his body instantly froze. He couldn''t even muster an ounce of resistance.


    Subconsciously, he even thought of using the Three Realm Division to evade. Now that his Three Realm Division was already cultivated perfectly, he only needed a thought and a shift of an eye and then he could squirm away. However now that Wang She had revealed such a cool substance-like killing intent, he couldn''t even muster that small little thought.


    "Okay, don''t scare this kid!"


    Prince Xiaoming lightly sighed and said to Wang She, "Let''s talk about the important matters. I need three days to condense my Spirit, hence..."


    "I understand!" Wang She nodded.


    Wang She raised his hand and then threw Junior Leopard to the cave entrance of the underground fire vein, "Junior Leopard, I am giving you a chance to redeem yourself. Stay at the cave entrance for three days. Even if the king of hell comes, don''t let them come in. After three days, there will naturally be your benefits!"


    "Hiss!" Junior Leopard breathed a cool air as he finally shrugged off Wang She''s murderous intent. He flipped halfway in the air and firmly stood at the cave entrance. Originally he wanted to sit down there according to Wang She''s intentions. However upon thinking, he was somewhat unconvinced. Under Wang She''s pressure, he didn''t have the slightest form of resistance. If he really followed Wang She''s instructions and ran to the cave entrance to sit, then in the future when he met Wang She, he would have a felt that he slighted himself psychologically. This was not good. Even though Wang She was a Level Eight expert, he was a little cockroach that exploded a Level Eight expert before!


    Thinking of this, Junior Leopard twisted his neck. Internal Qi circulated once round around his body and he felt more assured in his heart. He slowly turned around, walked into the underground fire vein and sheepishly said, "First Seat Wang, you cannot blame this matter on me. Back then you were the one who ordered us to attack the city!"


    "Hmm?!" Wang She slowly turned his head around. For some reason, when Junior Leopard saw the action of Wang She turning his head, it looked extremely like a cobra turning its head, revealing an extremely strange spirit. Following that, the cold killing intent once again descended.


    "Steady, steady!" Junior Leopard violently sucked in a breath. This time around, he was mentally prepared. When his Internal Qi circulated, his body similarly exuded a wave of extremely hot spirit, forcefully resisting Snake King''s killing intent.


    Wang She''s killing intent was cold beyond comparison. However Junior Leopard''s fist intent was a black fireball. Even though now he was only releasing Qi force and not condensing it into a fist intent, however under these conditions, with Junior Leopard being prepared, when Wang She''s killing intent touched Junior Leopard, it would be like the snow melting in the sun and evaporating.


    "Hmph, interesting fella!"


    Prince Xiaoming similarly felt the endlessly vast power coming out of Junior Leopard''s body. Her gaze slightly flickered, revealing a curious expression, "This is your fist intent? Not right, this is your Qi Power. Keke, just your Qi Power alone and it is so strong. Then what exactly is your fist intent about?"


    Junior Leopard didn''t say anything, but his forehead started to perspire. Even though his Qi Power was strong, as compared to Wang She, it was still lacking in power by tens of times. This cold killing intent was rushing forward fiercely. After the first setback, it was like an endless wave. Very quickly, the second and third waves came and violently collided with Junior Leopard''s Qi Power.


    Hence, Junior Leopard''s forehead perspired and he silently scolded in his heart, "I could understand you wanting to show off in front of a woman, however , is there a need to exterminate me? Is it a glorious thing for a Level Eight expert to bully a Level Three?"


    Junior Leopard violently heaved a few breaths. He felt the killing intent like endless waves that were going to break through his Qi Power, but he couldn''t care any less, he clenched his teeth and the Qi Power in his body rose up. At the same time, a black sun suddenly appeared.


    Once the fist intent was formed, his Qi Power solidified. Wang She''s killing intent took the opportunity to come rushing in endless angry waves as Junior Leopard''s Qi Power was receding.


    The corner of Junior Leopard''s mouth curled. His Internal Qi began to circulate and the Mysterious Fire within his Dantian violently jumped. The originally calm black fireball behind his back was stimulated. "Hong!" A sound occurred. It began burning fiercely. It was just like a black sun, emitting endless fire waves. The cold killing intent that was like angry waves was instantly evaporated by this endless heat energy.


    Almost at the same time Junior Leopard''s fist intent began burning, there seemed to be some mysterious power that was activated by Junior Leopard in this underground fire vein. The originally peaceful rock flows suddenly started moving.


    "En?!" Wang She that was originally standing in the rock flows, suddenly felt that the temperature of the surrounding rock flows increased by tens of times. That layer of green light covering his body seemed to show signs of not being able to resist. He hurriedly jumped out of the rock flows and the surrounding killing intent instantly vanished.


    Losing the pressure of the killing intent, Junior Leopard''s fist intent was released and couldn''t be controlled. It surprisingly swelled and scared Junior Leopard.


    "Again?!" Junior Leopard exclaimed. He wanted to control his own fist intent, but how could he do it in a moment''s time? This is the central quarters of the underground fire vein. There was not only the pneuma but also Evil Qi. Junior Leopard''s fist intent was also of the extreme Yang property. This time around it latched on to the underground fire vein, which was not a good thing.


    The description of dry wood and fierce fire couldn''t be more apt to describe the current situation.


    The surrounding fire Qi violently pounced towards Junior Leopard. The lava flow underground also began to churn out pieces of golden red bubbles. After that, the bubbles burst, revealing strands of golden red Qi rushing out of the bubbles. It rushed towards Junior Leopard''s surroundings, and it all went into Junior Leopard''s fist intent.


    "Earth Fire Yuan Essence?!" Seeing more and more of this golden red airflow, Prince Xiaoming suddenly exclaimed, "This is Earth Fire Yuan Essence. Dammit. This fella, leave some for me!"

 Chapter 118: One Man Holding the Pass

    Chapter 118: One Man Holding the Pass


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    What was Earth Fire Yuan Essence? Junior Leopard didn''t know. Junior Leopard knew, however, that he had made trouble again!


    Within the underground fire vein, the rock flows had already stopped churning. It became calm. It didn''t mean, however, that everything was ok. Within the rock flows, there were more and more golden red palm-sized bubbles. Some of them had burst. After they burst, however, there would rapidly be many more bubbles surfacing. Not long after, the underground rock flows were just like the back of a huge toad. They were filled with golden red bubbles.


    The bubbles continuously burst apart. The golden red airflow kept increasing. Very quickly it permeated the whole underground cave. In this cave, the temperature had already risen many times before. Even Wang She involuntarily frowned. He created a thick green Qi cover around himself for protection. Prince Xiaoming seemed to have thought of something and stopped shouting. She immediately sat down and circulated the Ignis Mysterious Gang. The whole area was permeating with Earth Fire Yuan Essence. Junior Leopard was eating meat, it was fine for her to follow behind and drink the soup. The soup was enough to fill her until death.


    "This monster''s Fist Intent is actually able to attract the Earth Fire Yuan Essence!" Wang She''s face was filled with helplessness. He lightly sighed, slowly walked to the cave entrance, and sat down. Whatever happened in this cave couldn''t be seen by other people.


    Junior Leopard was now put in a difficult situation. Compared to before, however, when his Fist Intent undergoing a change in the passageway, the situation now was much better. That was because he didn''t feel any suffering. He only felt conflicted about whether he should keep his Fist Intent or not. Furthermore, after a period of change, he already knew what was happening.


    Quite obviously, his Fist Intent was in the midst of being perfected.


    Speaking of substance, his Fist Intent was the first star that was birthed forth in the simulation of the universe. It was the sun!


    All along, however, this sun couldn''t be called the true sun because it was still not perfect.


    It was exceptionally imperfect because it was the product of a Mysterious Fire strand merging with the divine thoughts within Junior Leopard''s body. That Mysterious Fire was able to increase the damaging power of his Fist Intent, but it could never reach the perverse state of the sun.


    Sun!


    Sun!


    What kind of a concept was that?! No matter how self-confident Junior Leopard was, how haughty he was, he couldn''t really think that his own Fist Intent would turn into a universe, that the small fireball behind him could become a real sun. He couldn''t deny, however, that his Fist Intent possessed the characteristic of a sun. It just didn''t have enough energy to fill it up. Now, in this underground fire vein, it was filled with fire attribute pneuma. Although it couldn''t strengthen his Fist Intent to be strong as a sun, at least it could increase its power to a large extent.


    The Fist Intent, to a large degree, was controlled by his consciousness. It was, to say, that he could let his own Fist Intent disappear at any time, stopping this kind of behavior of sucking in the surrounding Earth Fire Yuan Essence.


    He, however, didn''t dare!


    Because he knew that, once he kept his Fist Intent, the Earth Fire Yuan Essence that he sucked over might disappear. Or in another instance, it could explode. No matter which situation occurred, Prince Xiaoming, who was practicing nearby, would not let him go.


    No matter how much he disliked Prince Xiaoming, the situation did not call for that. He had to lower his head. Apart from offending Wang She, he wouldn''t kill him so easily. If he really did, however, offend Prince Xiaoming and spoil her plans, at that time when she really wanted to kill him, Wang She might not stand up for him.


    Forget it, Junior Leopard helplessly sighed upon thinking about the adulterous look on that pair. He should just hang on, and wait for her to absorb her fill!


    Prince Xiaoming was cultivating a fire attribute method. It was also the Sect of Flame''s foundational skill, the Ignis Mysterious Skill!


    Furthermore, she had already entered into the Level Nine realm. The Distant Fire Mysterious Gang was already successfully formed. Her cultivation could be said to shock the heavens and earth. In this world, only treasures like the Earth Fire Yuan Essence could have benefits to her cultivation. Hence when she saw the Earth Fire Yuan Essence appear, she didn''t give a second thought and began to cultivate. It is worth noting that the chances were few!


    Earth Fire Yuan Essence only existed within the underground fire vein. Even in the most outstanding underground fire veins, however, it was extremely difficult to find Earth Fire Yuan Essence. It was because the Earth Fire Yuan Essence existed in the depths of the underground fire. Even if your Gang Qi cultivation was extremely strong and able to protect the whole body, it was useless upon entering the lava. Firstly, you didn''t know how deep the magma ran. Secondly, the further one went down the rock flows, the temperature would increase. Even if she was a Level Nine expert, with an invincible Gang Qi, she wouldn''t be able to endure for long. Besides, even if you really could retrieve the Earth Fire Yuan Essence from the bottom of the rock flows, once it reached the surface, if it was not absorbed in time, it would gradually disappear into nothing. It would transform into the fire attribute pneuma. You couldn''t possibly absorb the Earth Fire Yuan Essence at the bottom of the magma. You could only come out. Which was to say, everytime you retrieve a strand of Earth Fire Yuan Essence, you would have to come out of the magma. If you want a second strand, you would have to go down again. Even if you were immortal you wouldn''t be able to withstand such torture!


    Wait...


    Suddenly, Prince Xiaoming thought of something!


    Who said that it couldn''t be more!


    How did this Earth Fire Yuan Essence come out? It was due to the attraction of Junior Leopard''s Fist Intent. Wouldn''t it mean then, if this fella was put in the middle of the underground fire vein, he would be able to attract more Earth Fire Yuan Essence?


    Suddenly, Prince Xiaoming violently opened both of her eyes. Two pillars of golden red light shot out from both of her eyes for half a foot before disappearing.


    "Your name is Zhou Bao, right?!" Prince Xiaoming stopped cultivating. She let the surroundings permeate. The Earth Fire Yuan Essence that was deemed precious by others floated away and slowly became common original energy. She didn''t have the look of heartache.


    After she looked at Junior Leopard, he involuntarily shivered. He kept his own Fist Intent and laughed. He seemed somewhat restricted and politely said, "This disciple Zhou Bao, pays his respect to Prince Xiaoming!"


    "You''re Wu''s disciple. Wu''s is just a small ironware shop. What good is it to stay there? To stay in that kind of place is to bury your talent. Why not come back to the Sect of Flame with me? Not speaking about the rest, after a few years, making you a Venerable would be no problem!"


    Junior Leopard only lightly smiled.


    Venerable?! In the Sect of Flame, that was a position second to only the Sect Master and Hierarch. This Sect of Flame''s Sect Masters and Hierarchs could be counted with five fingers. The position was extremely high.


    Junior Leopard, however, didn''t have any good vibes about this kind of evil sect. In addition to the fact that the Sect of Flame conquered Zhonghe City and began a big massacre. It was only to hide the underground fire vein found here and make Prince Xiaoming''s training convenient. Junior Leopard''s opinion only paled.


    In front of such an expert like Prince Xiaoming, he naturally didn''t dare reveal his own thoughts. This didn''t mean that he rejected it in his heart. It could be said that he extremely detested it. Hence, he could only respond in silence.


    "Hey, are you going to agree or not?!"


    Seeing that Junior Leopard did not answer for long, Prince Xiaoming asked again. This time around her tone was much gentler. Junior Leopard could even hear a tinge of playfulness in it.


    Hearing it in his ears, he heaved a breath of cool air. He nearly heaved himself to death. Just when he didn''t know how to reply, Wang She couldn''t continue looking on.


    "It''s better for this kid to stay in the Wu''s!" Wang She''s sentence broke Prince Xiaoming''s thoughts, "There is so much Earth Fire Yuan Essence here for you to absorb. If there isn''t enough, you can always invite him to go over next time. There isn''t a need to get him into the Sect of Flame!"


    "When is there a need to ask me to go over?!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t hear the other words clearly, yet he heard this sentence in extreme detail. His brain involuntarily shrunk. What kind of words was Wang She saying?


    He was, however, able to hear through it. Prince Xiaoming had fancied the special usage of his Fist Intent. This fella practices a fire attribute cultivation method. His Fist Intent was able to attract the Earth Fire Yuan Essence, which was what she needed. To her, even though the underground fire veins were few in numbers, it could still be found. The Sect of Flame wasn''t like the Wu''s, they were one of the Great Jin''s three great sects. They also emphasized on the Fire Way Method. Junior Leopard definitely didn''t believe their hands didn''t have any underground fire veins.


    Prince Xiaoming''s cultivation just entered into Level Nine, her position in Sect of Flame swelled as a result. To think about it, soon she would be promoted from Venerable into Hierarch. Entering the underground fire vein to cultivate was something that was taken for granted!


    "Very well, next time when I have a need, I will send someone over to him. You, however, have to promise me that he will not be rejected!"


    "I cannot guarantee this!" Wang She shook his head, "This kid has an ambitious heart like a wolf. I can guarantee you that he will still listen to you when his strength is beneath yours. When his strength surpasses you, he won''t heed your call anymore. Junior Leopard, what do you say?!"


    "Till his strength is above mine, I will not be so foolish as to look for him!" not waiting for Junior Leopard to reply, Prince Xiaoming began to laugh coldly, "You are right. This world depends on strength to speak. Junior Leopard, I think that you won''t be clear on this point?!"


    "Once His Excellency Prince Xiaoming has ordered, this disciple naturally doesn''t dare disobey!" Junior Leopard said, "However, my cultivation recently had reached a certain level. When I go back I will have to undertake a closed-door training. I am afraid I''m unable to assist you then!"


    "You are really an uppity kid. You still don''t have the strength to talk terms with me. Relax, I have already absorbed enough Earth Fire Yuan Essence. At least in the next five years, I wouldn''t need your help. Oh right, you won''t take five years to train, right?!"


    "Of course not!" upon hearing the five-year duration, Junior Leopard silently heaved a sigh of relief. He saw the both of them and said, "Two seniors, if there isn''t anything else, this junior will take his leave!"


    "Don''t run! What are you running for, are we too scary?!" Wang She frowned. He turned his head and said to Prince Xiaoming, "Ming, little girl, you have absorbed so much Earth Fire Yuan Essence. You won''t be able to digest it in time. I think, however, it will be extremely beneficial to your Spirit condensing. You might as well strike the iron while it''s hot, and condense your Spirit here. This Earth Fire Yuan Essence also has benefits for me as well. I too need some time to digest it. I need roughly three days. Junior Leopard, you go to the cave entrance to guard it for three days. Within t?ose three days, don''t allow anyone to come in. Those who disobey, kill them without exception!"


    "Ah?!"


    Junior Leopard''s face revealed a difficult expression.


    "What, you are not willing?!"


    "That is not necessarily the case. It is an honor for me to work for you. Those who could reach here, however, have a cultivation, above me. I''m afraid I cannot block them!"


    "You don''t need to belittle yourself. Your current cultivation has reached the Full Closure of the Skin-Toughening Realm. In this hundred mile radius, you could be considered a number one figure. Adding to the fact that your Fist Intent is extremely compatible with the surroundings, to execute it under this environment will increase its power by manifolds. You already won''t lose to a normal Bone-Forging Realm expert. Today the city was just broken. No matter how fast the news spread, the people who could come in won''t be many. Within a hundred mile radius, it is not bad to have a few Bone-Forging Realm experts. Even if they have come, there isn''t a need for you to clash with them. Just tell them that I am cultivating here, and I need three days to cultivate. Within this three days, I cannot have anybody disturbing me. In this case, there may not be people wanting to fight!"


    "What if they don''t believe me?!"


    "Then there is a reason for them to die. If I''m practicing and they dare to interrupt, no one cares if I kill them. You shouldn''t reserve your strength!" Wang She said plainly, "Don''t worry, I won''t let you labor for nothing. Three days will benefit you!"


    "How can I ask for benefits when working for you?!" Junior Leopard hurriedly said, "Since you have asked for this, I won''t dare to shirk away!"


    After speaking, not waiting for the two of them to waste any breath, he exited the cave. He then walked a hundred feet outwards and sat down in a somewhat narrow area. Looking at the passageway spiraling upward, his heart birthed forth some pride, "The so-called one man holding the pass should be like me now?!"

 Chapter 119: Against Ten Thousand Enemies

    Chapter 119: Against Ten Thousand Enemies


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Pei Zheng''s expression was serious. His lips were tightly closed. His steps flurried. His burly figure moved around the passageway like an agile cat, progressing forward quickly.


    The spiral passageway was like a never-ending maze. It was plain and boring.


    After turning round after round, Pei Zheng''s face was still like a stone sculpture. Even if the surrounding temperature had risen to a level that normal people couldn''t endure, even if his clothes had already been fried by the high-temperature Qi flow till it curled up, his expression was still the same. In the deepest recesses of his heart surrounded by the extremely cold expression, it had already been boiling. It was just like the lava flow in the underground fire vein, churning repeatedly.


    This was an underground fire vein!


    The immensity of the value didn''t need to be stated by him. The Great Jin''s four smelting families, the Wu, the Pei, the Luo and the Jian, each had its own distinctive personality. Each of them had their own backers. In the several hundreds of years of battles and compromises, there was an unstable equilibrium formed. Among the four families, some were strong and some were weak, but the difference was not much. No family could have the confidence to say that they could definitely destroy the other families. They couldn''t even completely suppress each other. Even the underground fire vein itself couldn''t change all that.


    Among the four families, none of them truly possessed an underground fire vein. As for this underground fire vein, it couldn''t be possessed by any of the four families. Jin Nanqing saw this point very clearly, as did Pei Zheng.


    Even if that was the case, he still had to come. Not for other reasons, but for the slightest chance to obtain the fire attribute Spiritual Stones. It was worth it for him to come. The news that Zhonghe City had discovered an underground fire vein had spread for four days. The Zhonghe City that was lost was just returned to the imperial court''s hands. Given the usual efficiency of the imperial court, four days was not enough for them to react. Now, this underground fire vein was on an empty period. Everyone could go in there and obtain benefits therein.


    The only thing he was worried about, was that he came too late.


    To the imperial court, four days were just a matter of breath. To the greedy pugilists, however, it was already enough to do a lot of things.


    Though he was anxious, there was also news that made him heartened. For example, the passageway deep into the underground fire vein was permeating with fire poison. Only if one''s cultivation level was at or beyond Three could he get in successfully, if not, then he could only die.


    This was a piece of good news. Within the thousand miles radius of Zhonghe City, those who reached Level Three were few. Even if they reached Level Three, at most they would only be interested in the Fire Way Spiritual Stones. Even if they were lucky enough to find the Spiritual Stones, they would sell them in the end. The Pei Family didn''t lack money.


    Besides, even if their cultivation had reached Level Three, even Level Four, or Five, they may not dare to enter.


    That was because he heard a piece of laughable news today. Prince Xiaoming of the Sect of Flame had just entered Level Nine with the underground fire vein and killed Tian Long Taoism''s Wang She inside. For a while, there were talks all around. Of course, that was only restricted to Zhonghe City. And the news was just spread out yesterday.


    Ordinarily, people would laugh at this piece of strange news. The situation now, however, was different. This underground fire vein was discovered by the Sect of Flame. That was why they would plan a rebellion that seemed foolish to high IQ people to occupy the Great Jin''s heartlands, Zhonghe City. But now, the news of the underground fire vein had spread. A lot of people were confused. Because the Sect of Flame didn''t lack underground fire veins at all. Prince Xiaoming was the Sect''s youngest Venerable and was the expert with the brightest future. Why must she raise her own cultivation by an underground fire vein in the Great Jin''s heartlands?


    In this way, the loss must outweigh the gain! Although the value of an underground fire vein was great, it couldn''t make up the Sect of Flame''s losses this time. Because it was all known that once this fire vein was discovered, it would ultimately belong to the imperial court. The Sect of Flame''s actions were tantamount to spending a huge sum of money to make bridal clothes for the imperial court. This was an obvious case of a trade that incurred losses. Some may even define the Sect of Flame and the Jin as one family!


    Pei Zheng surely couldn''t care less. He wasn''t interested in the Sect of Flame''s motives!


    There was, however, a truth he couldn''t ignore. Wang She brought a group of people from the military camp to the underground fire vein. He still hadn''t come out yet.


    This was the crux of the problem. These last few days there were people continuously entering the fire vein''s huge passageway, and people continuously came out. The situation regarding the fire vein was getting brighter. Because the inside was filled with fire poison, the people who initially entered with Wang She were all dead. Their bodies were lying along the passageway. Only a few who were recognized by people were carried out. As for the other corpses, it couldn''t be handled until the imperial court made the decision!


    This was a pugilist''s life. It was filled with contradictions. On one hand, once one''s strength was strong enough, they could depend on their strength to build their own empire and gain endless wealth. On the other hand, if one''s strength was not strong enough, they would have to face the helplessness and the sorrow of dying in a misfortunate event.


    Wang She was a problem. Pei Zheng didn''t wish to invite this trouble. As an Elder of the Pei Family, however, who was the closest to the fire vein, he had to come. Even if it was just for show, he had to come!


    The quiet passageway suddenly transmitted some slight trembling. This trembling was so light that it was hard to detect.


    Pei Zheng''s thick eyebrows frowned. He was a Level Five expert, his five senses had already reached an extremely sensitive stage. No matter how slight the abnormality within the surrounding air was, it wouldn''t escape him.


    "It seems that someone is injured!"


    His heart flashed a thought. The body advancing forward stopped slightly. It gradually shifted to a hiding spot inside the passageway. Within an instant, two figures came out from the passageway inside.


    "Jian Yulei?!" borrowing the faint light inside the passageway, Pei Zheng saw the figures clearly. A man in his thirties was carrying an old man in his fifties and struggling to walk outwards.


    "There is Jian Yu as well. He is actually injured. Who injured them? Could it be Wang She!"


    Watching the two figures leaving slowly, Pei Zheng''s eyebrows furrowed.


    Jian Yulei and Jian Yu were people from the Jian family. The Jian Family was the same as the Pei Family and the Wu Family, they belonged to the Great Jin''s four smelting families.


    Jian Yulei was the Jian Family''s Elder. His cultivation was lower than him by one level, at the peak of Level Four. Jian Yu, who was supporting him, was the Jian Family''s expert in the younger generation. He was young yet he had already reached a cultivation of Level Three. It was said that he could reach the Bone-Forging Realm very quickly.


    The two peoples'' situations, however, showed a fact that it was very obvious that they were beaten off.


    "Could it really be that Wang She was still inside, and was occupying the whole underground fire vein?!" Pei Zheng''s mind flashed across an unlucky omen. After the two people from the Jian Family disappeared at the bend, he came out from the hiding spot inside the passageway. He hummed for a while and continued moving forward. No matter what was in front, he had to go forward. It wasn''t a dangerous place anyway. Since the two people from the Jian Family were able to make it out alive, he naturally wouldn''t have any problems.


    After walking for an hour, he saw a few more people walking out from the deep parts of the passageway. Their faces were equally defeated, and they were all wounded as well. There was even an Elder from the Luo Family.


    "The Pei, the Luo, the Jian and the Wu; including me, there are already people from three families out of the four. What about the Wu''s?" It was said that they were in a military camp right from the start. There was even a kid who had a first-class merit in conquering the city. Who knew if he had survived in this fire vein? A 13-year-old Level Three expert, how amazing. If it was not the few kids from the Wu''s bragging fragrantly, then the family which had gained the greatest benefit this time around would be the Wu''s!"


    Pei Zheng''s heart flashed across various news that he had heard the past few days. He had some feelings in his heart. Before his feelings came to an end, however, his steps stopped.


    This was another bend in the underground passage. It was very narrow, much narrower than the thick passageway. It was only big enough for two to three people to go through. In the center of the passageway, there was a person sitting. He was very young, 12-13 years old. His face was very refined and his smile was very warm.


    He was sitting in the middle of the passageway. There were two silver hammers placed in front of him. His hair was somewhat messy. His Qi flow wasn''t very calm. He had a strange expression and laughing to himself. The most important thing was that this young man''s cultivation was at Level Three!


    "Are you... Zhou Bao?!"


    Pei Zheng very easily retrieved the information from his mind about this young man. After all, this kid''s performance in conquering Zhonghe City was too attention-grabbing. His age and his strength were amazing enough to be gossiped about in the pugilist world. Furthermore this Zhonghe City was just conquered not long ago, this topic was still hot.


    "Zhou Bao, the Wu''s disciple, pays his respects to Senior!" Junior Leopard smiled slightly. He was not surprised that this imposing middle-aged man in front of him knew about him. Among the people who came here the past two days, half of them already knew who he was with one look. It was obvious that he was very famous outside. Unfortunately, he was kept a prisoner in this damned passageway. If not, he wouldn''t mind going out to enjoy the treatment of a chivalrous young hero.


    "You are so young and your cultivation has already reached such a high stage. I am beneath you!" Pei Zheng said, "Since the Wu''s have a talent like you, instead of keeping you in the headquarters, they let you come out to make a din, either Wu Yansheng''s brain is damaged, or he wants to dispose of you!"


    Junior Leopard smiled. He didn''t mind being faced with these kinds of remarks. Actually, it was not the Wu Family who asked him to come out to execute the task but his teacher who won it over for him. The purpose couldn''t be revealed to anyone, but it was definitely not to dispose of himself.


    "Who are you?!" Junior Leopard asked, his tone extremely warm.


    "Pei Zheng of the Pei Family!"


    Junior Leopard nodded slightly. He pointed at the back, "You wish to go over?!"


    "This definitely is my purpose!"


    "Finish me, and you can enter!"


    "Little friend, I admit that you are very outstanding and strong. You have reached Level Three at such a young age. You are not, however, strong enough to block me!"


    "Then... you may have a try!" Junior Leopard said warmly. Following his warm voice, he exploded suddenly and pounced forward towards Pei Zheng like an angry wave of the sea.

 Chapter 120: The Alarming Trick in Overcoming Disparity

    Chapter 120: The Alarming Trick in Overcoming Disparity


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    What a strong Qi Power!


    Pei Zheng stood still even when Junior Leopard''s turbulent Qi Power was rushing toward him, just like a black reef in the rough sea, standing firm despite the wind and rain.


    However, he could not help frowning when the blaze of Qi Power actually hit him.


    The temperature. The temperature that caused him to be surprised.


    As an expert at Level Five, he certainly knew what Qi Power was, and he himself had his own Qi Power too. That was why he knew Junior Leopard did not simply depend on his Qi Power to achieve what he did.


    Pei Zheng advanced half a step. Qi Power as heavy as a mountain rushed out from his body, trying to compete with Junior Leopard''s.


    "It''s not right?!"


    "It''s not right!" Seeing that Pei Zheng had also released his Qi Power, Junior Leopard laughed and grabbed his twin hammers at the speed of lightning. At the same time, his body bounced off the ground. "Your biggest mistake is competing Qi Power with me at such a place!"


    While speaking, his hammers were constantly smashing at Pei Zheng. As Pei Zheng was an expert at Level Five and yet he was only at Level Three, Junior Leopard took the initiative if he wanted to win.


    "Hu, hu, hu...!" With a series of wind-breaking sound, Junior Leopard continuously swung his hammers, hitting 18 times in a row. Though he missed his target each time, Pei Zheng was not in an easy position either.


    He looked a little pale and he only barely avoided Junior Leopard''s hammers by drawing back 18 steps. Most importantly, he found that he had fallen into a trap after releasing his Qi Power.


    He did not know how this kid did, but Junior Leopard somehow merged his Qi Power with the underground fire vein!


    "How could this happen? How could such a thing happen?"


    "How could the Qi Power of an ordinary person be merged and even integrated with the underground fire vein?"


    This had completely surpassed Pei Zheng''s cognitive range. "Unless..."


    An odd idea flashed across his mind.


    "It''s impossible! He''s only at Level Three. How can he condense his spirit? I can''t grasp my spirit even though I''m already at Level Five..."


    Pei Zheng was still in astonishment when something even more unbelievable happened. Though Junior Leopard failed to hit Pei Zheng, he had gained a preemptive opportunity. In this case, he should have followed up his success by attacking, but he unexpectedly retreated. More importantly, his fiery Qi Power that was merged with the underground fire vein was withdrawn like it had never existed.


    "Is it there''s a time limit for the Qi Power merged with the underground fire vein?" This was his first thought that came to mind. Before he could think of anything else, his Qi Power that had been suppressed by Junior Leopard broke out.


    His Qi Power surged like a spring that had been badly suppressed and finally exploded when the external pressure was lifted. Pei Zheng neither had the time to stop nor thought it was necessary to stop.


    Since Junior Leopard''s Qi Power explosion was limited and he had lost his chance, Pei Zheng would be a fool if he did not grab this opportunity.


    A brief moment later, Pei Zheng realized he was a true fool.


    But he no longer had time to regret or comprehend the profound question of whether he was a fool.


    Junior Leopard''s Qi Power did not disappear. Instead, it was condensed into something unbelievable. In front of him, Pei Zheng''s mountain-like Qi Power was easily dispersed without any ability to fight back.


    "Ah!"


    The strong power, mingled with heat so strong it could melt gold, destroyed his Qi Power in a flash and invaded his body following the Internal Qi in the Qi Power. Pei Zheng could only grunt as he flew back with his Internal Qi. The heat flow invaded him through the Internal Qi passageway on his right hand. It nearly destroyed the tendons and vessels of his hand in an instant. But he did not care. He simply stared at Junior Leopard and the shimmering black fireball around him.


    "Spirit!"


    Yes, it was a spirit!


    The cruel reality subverted his mind again. He could not believe a kid at Level Three could own a spirit. Furthermore, it was such a strange spirit that not even experts at Level Nine could condense!


    So he lost. He had lost in an utterly aggrieved and helpless manner.


    This was all pre-planned. In the beginning, Junior Leopard released his Qi Power and used the underground fire vein to suppress Pei Zheng. He attacked quickly so as to gain the preemptive opportunity. When his enemy''s Qi Power was suppressed to the extreme, he withdrew his Qi Power and condensed it. When his enemy''s Qi Power exploded without external pressure, he used his powerful spirit to force the heat flow into his enemy''s body through the Internal Qi passageway. This way, he could win the battle despite the cultivation gap between them.


    Of course, with his cultivation at Level Three, this was the best result he could achieve. The so-called elimination of cultivation gap was only good for experts at Level Five. It was unlike Pei Zheng whose fighting strength that had been halved by the damage. If his enemy was in Level Six, his body could resist Junior Leopard''s invading heat flow.


    Though Pei Zheng was an expert at Level Five, it was nearly impossible for him to win against a monster who could condense spirit at Level Three with his fighting halved.


    So, Pei Zheng could only retreat!


    He finally found his footing after dropping back 30 feet. With his right hand dropping, he looked up and stared in bewilderment at Junior Leopard who had hunkered down like before. With his hammers scattered before him, he looked pale and tired.


    "This senior, I really don''t have a choice. I''m not the one who won''t let you in. There''s a guy inside who told me to stand guard here for three days. He''s too powerful. I can''t risk his anger so I can only obey him. If you really want to go inside, you can wait here for a bit. The three days have long passed. Even if he breaks his promises, he should really be coming out by today!"


    Pei Zheng was preparing to leave, just like those people from Jian Family and Luo Family that he met when he came. He did not expect to hear this. He smiled bitterly. "Forget it. I''m not going inside. There''s no use for me to go in this way. Young man, you''re very strong, unexpectedly strong. Can you tell me who''s inside? Is it Chief Wang from the Tian Long Taoism?"


    "Who else could it be except that bastard!" Junior Leopard spluttered with rage. His answer sounded like a complaint.


    "Bastard?!"


    The muscle on Pei Zheng''s face twitched, somewhat shocked. Just as he was about to speak, he heard a lazy voice.


    "Brat, even if I owe you a favor, you shouldn''t scold me behind my back!"


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 121: The Affected Nerve

    Chapter 121: The Affected Nerve


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "You came out!" Junior Leopard smiled oddly, glancing at Wang She''s back. "I thought you wouldn''t be coming out anymore!"


    "If I don''t come out, where will you get your benefits?!" Wang She smiled coldly, throwing him a bag. "This is compensation for your hard work these few days."


    "This is...!" When Junior Leopard took the bag from him, he could feel its heaviness.


    "They''re spiritual stones of Fire Attribute, all 19 of them!" Wang She said wryly, raising his head to look at Pei Zheng. He said to Junior Leopard, "Okay, boy, your mission is over. Are you going inside to have a look or leaving with me?"


    "Of course I''ll leave with you. I''ve been starving for three days!" Relieved, Junior Leopard stood up. There was nothing about the underground fire vein that kept him there. He had planned on not going in anyway, especially since there was someone who he very much disliked inside.


    So he followed after Wang She without hesitation. He gestured for Pei Zheng, who looked pale, to go in as he left. "I''m sorry, this senior. Help yourself!"


    What he basically meant that he had done his job and Pei Zheng was free to go in if he wanted. Pei Zheng sighed as he watched Wang She and Junior Leopard''s retreating figures. He turned to look down at the entrance to the underground fire vein. It was emitting strange red light like it was the large mouth of a monster. He stared at the entrance for a while, before shaking his head and leaving stoutly.


    The conversation between Junior Leopard and Wang She earlier made him feel uneasy. If he did not misunderstand them, there should be another person in the fire vein underground.


    He did not have the mood to care who the person was, if Wang She brought him in, or the relationship between them. He had met too many accidents today. Besides, he had already made it here so he knew what was actually going on. Even he went back now, he would be able to explain it. The information he had received from the two persons earlier was enough for him to call it a day.


    ...


    ...


    The atmosphere was somewhat depressing and strange.


    This building was the branch of the Wu Family in Zhonghe Prefecture and also one of the few architectures left unransacked by the Sect of Flame.


    As one of the four smelting families in Great Jin, the Wu Family enjoyed privileges not only in Great Jin, but also before the Sect of Flame.


    Thus, except Supervisor Wu''s residence, all the Wu Family estates in Zhonghe Prefecture were safe. The storehouse filled with weapons was also untouched, safe and sound without losing even one kitchen knife.


    There was a table in the hall. Some people were sitting around it, while others were standing.


    They were Jin Nanqing, Zhou Zhengming, Little Lou, and the other three disciples who left with Junior Leopard.


    "So, Zhou Bao has reached Level Three!"


    The old man sitting at the table gave a light sigh, breaking the long and uncomfortable silence.


    "Yes!" Jin Nanqing raised his head to look at the old man, a flash of helpless in his eyes. "I saw him breaking into Level Three from Level Two during the fight!"


    "And he cleared the Punching Spirit!" The old man said quietly to himself, glancing at the other old man beside him. The latter was sipping the tea, looking leisurely and at peace. But he knew that old thing probably got excited about this event to even remember his name. He asked, "He saved you from the underground fire vein and then returned there. Are you sure he''s still alive?"


    "His cultivation is already beyond our imagination. I don''t think the underground fire vein can defeat him!" Jin Nanqing said seriously, with the kind of conviction that surprised even himself.


    The old man did not question any further and the hall fell into an uncomfortable silence once again.


    It was the fifth day since Zhonghe City was captured. The underground fire vein was no longer a secret. None of the four smelting families could ignore such a big event. After all, no one knew better than them what it could bring them.


    However, Zhonghe City was located in Qianzhou, too far away from Yunzhou. So it was difficult for the Wu Family to seek profit from the underground fire vein. Therefore, when they first learned this information, they were rather conflicted. Though they had no great hope, they still sent some elders to see if they could reap some profit out of it. They did not realize they had somehow gained a lead in this event until they arrived in the city. They owed this to the investigation task they sent in advance.


    As an Inner Core disciple who had never left the sect, Junior Leopard won the first-class merit in the siege by being the first to break the city gate. He then entered the underground fire vein with Wang She from Tian Long Taoism and even saved the lives of other disciples. His experience seemed like something out of an unofficial novel. However the other disciples of the Wu family proved it true. Therefore they changed their minds and started making a new plan to get even more profit from the underground fire vein. But various news spread like wildfire before they could do anything.


    Knowing the situation in the underground fire vein, the other three melting families would definitely not stand idly. With their geographical advantage, their elders and experts arrived in the city much earlier than the people from Wu Family. So they entered the fire vein earlier. That was why the Elders of Wu family, who had been happy earlier, received an even more unbelievable piece of news.


    To everyone''s surprise, Junior Leopard was sitting in a narrow passageway to stop anyone from entering the underground fire vein. He did this because Wang She from Tian Long Taoism was wounded after defeating Prince Xiaoming from Sect of Flame and needed to heal himself in the geocentric fire vein. Nobody was allowed to disturb him or they will have to pay the price with their lives.


    Before this news became known, everyone in Zhonghe Prefecture had heard that Prince Xiaoming from Sect of Flame broke into Level Nine and killed not only the people from Military Camp, but also Wang She, the leader of Tian Long Taoism in the underground fire vein.


    This news was also ridiculous. It was not that easy to kill an expert on Level Eight. Even if Prince Xiaoming had indeed reached Level Nine, it was still not easy for him to kill Wang She.


    Besides, it was said that Sect of Flame spread this news. Most people did not believe it because they thought it was just a way for the sect to hide their failure.


    However the previous news was different. It came from Luo Family and Jian Family. When they heard people from Wu Family had arrived in the city, they even sent their people to determine the accuracy of the news. Based on the descriptions of the boy who stopped them, they were sure it was Junior Leopard. Now the two families had gone to General Li Yuan to accuse Wu Family of dominating the entire profit of the underground fire vein with cunning intentions.


    This charge was of course groundless. Even if Wu Family did send Junior Leopard, at most he was trying to gain the biggest share of the profits for his Family. Only idiots would think of dominating the entire profits of the underground fire vein.


    Thus Li Yuan gained a favorable impression of Junior Leopard and dismissed the charge without hesitation. He said that the underground fire vein was a property of the imperial court and belonged to Great Jin. He would not interfere before the imperial court demonstrated a clear stance or issue any commands.


    The helpless two families began arguing back and forth with Wu Family. The elders could not bear the pressure so they chose to go to the fire vein and see for themselves. When they walked to the entrance to the fire vein, they saw a wounded Pei Zheng coming out of it. When he learned of their intentions, he smiled bitterly and told them what he saw and heard in the passage.


    This way, Wu Family could rid of the accusation, since they all knew Zhou Bao was working under Wang She''s orders. Even if they were displeased, the two families would not dare to offend him.


    Not to mention, it was shameful for a boy with Level Three cultivation to force an elder like him out of the passage and even wound him. Since he was destined to be humiliated in front of Wu Family, he might as well admit everything. There would be chances to redeem his pride in the future.


    Most importantly, Junior Leopard and Wang She had already left the underground fire vein and there were no obstacles in the passageway. There was no better time to enter than now.


    The Elders of Wu Family no longer had any interest in poking their noses into this business.


    It had been over a month since Sect of Flame found the underground fire vein. After the sect''s extortion over such a long period, nothing valuable was left in the underground fire vein, except for spiritual stones of Fire Attribute.


    If Pei Zheng was telling the truth, there should be basically no spiritual stones left as Wang She had given 19 of them to Junior Leopard at once. Even in the biggest underground fire vein found in Great Jin, there were only 57 spiritual stones of Fire Attribute. Considering the 19 stones Wang She had given away, including his own and those Sect of Flame had taken, one would be lucky to find even one or two if they go in right now. Since Wu Family had already gained the best part, they did not need to fight with the two families for unworthy benefits.


    The biggest problem now was the lack of news about Junior Leopard and Wang She since leaving the cave yesterday.


    This was the most important.


    "Brother Xu, Zhou Bao is your disciple. What do you think?"


    "What should I think?" Xu Yong smiled lightly. "He''s indeed my disciple, but he''s taken away by Chief Wang. Going by Pei Zheng''s words, Chief Wang wouldn''t hurt him. As to when he''ll return, it''ll certainly depend on Chief Wang''s mood."

 Chapter 122: Letters from Marshal Li

    Chapter 122: Letters from Marshal Li


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Xu Yong had the reason to be excited as his disciple had heightened his reputation. Though he had certain authorities in the Wu''s, his personality made him stay away from family affairs. He was only interested in researching various smelting skills and forging weapons that were as high-end as possible.


    The sole reason he traveled all the way here from Yunzhou this time was his disciple. He was concerned about his only disciple. He did not expect such a big surprise from Junior Leopard when he had just arrived in Zhonghe Prefecture. Though he had not seen him yet, rumors about him had spread all over.


    Among those rumors, some were confirmed to be true. Others were unproven. But just from those confirmed rumors alone, it was enough to tell him his disciple had gained a lot out of his task this time.


    He was upgraded to Level Three and had condensed his fist intent!


    He had no idea how Junior Leopard did it. Could he really be one of those legendary one-of-a-kind talents people could barely meet once in a thousand years, like Wang She from Tian Long Dao?


    Right, Wang She. That was the most surprising part to him. How did his disciple become involved with Wang She?


    Although the Wu Family was a subordinate to the Tian Long Dao, those two were supposed to have no connection with one being the leader of Tian Long Dao and the other a mere disciple of the Wu''s.


    Naturally, they were not going to guess what Wang She was thinking. The willpower of a Level Eight expert was much more powerful than all the Wu''s combined. The only thing they could do was admire Junior Leopard''s luck and think about the chain reaction and benefits they could get from the current situation.


    This was the reallocation of benefits!


    There was no doubt that the faction led by Xu Yong, unknown to public for dozens of years, seemed to have brought up a fantastic disciple who achieved Level Three and condensed his fist intent at just 13 years old. Such a talented person had never existed in the hundreds years of Wu''s history. Even if the striking Wu''s Patriarch also achieved Level Three at a similar age, he did not condense his fist intent until he was 60 or 70!


    When they considered this, they could not help changing their perception of Xu Yong and regretted not taking in this psycho Junior Leopard in their own factions on the disciple-selecting day in the Wu Family.


    Silence returned to the lobby once again until urgent footsteps were heard. The expression of several elders changed at the same time as they looked outside.


    "Disciple Zhou Bao greets teacher and the Elders!" As soon as Junior Leopard saw Xu Yong, he quickly walked into the lobby and bowed to his teacher with a smile.


    "There''s no need!" Xu Yong immediately held up Junior Leopard and took a deep look at his disciple. "Good boy! You''ve totally remodeled yourself in two months!" Xu Yong said, both surprised and elated.


    Junior Leopard only stood there, smiling. He suddenly thought of something. Taking out a bag from the back of his waist, he handed it Xu Yong. "Teacher, these are from Chief Wang. The 19 fire attribute Spiritual Stones!"


    "What..."


    The expression of all the Elders around changed. They were aware that Junior Leopard''s bag inside contained things that would make them jealous. They had even wondered several times how could they get some of those things from him. Should they ask with the principle of right and wrong or should they ask for the Wu''s benefit? Whatever way was fine as long as they could get one or two Spiritual Stones. But they never thought Junior Leopard would take the most direct way and showed all the 19 Spiritual Stones at the same time.


    There were various rules in this world, especially for well-known families like the Wu''s. Though the Spiritual Stones in Junior Leopard''s hands were his private things, he was supposed to submit 30% of them to the Wu''s according to the rules. This was because he had gained such benefits as one of the Wu''s. After submitting them, the rest of the stones were completely at his disposal.


    However, as the elders were not part of Xu Yong''s faction, they were not qualified to ask Xu Yong for the stones. They could have thought of another way if these stones were in Junior Leopard''s hands. Now they no longer had the guts to do so after the stones were so publically handed over to Xu Yong.


    Xu Yong was a veteran and he naturally understood the rules well. In the beginning, he was rather worried Junior Leopard might be greedy and get himself into trouble. He was prepared to remind him of the rules. He did not expect Junior Leopard''s frankness in showing everything without any reminders. Of course he was satisfied with this disciple.


    "Chief Wang gave them to you so you can keep them. But remember you''re one of the Wu''s disciples. 30% goes to the Wu Family, which means you have to submit six of the stones!" Xu Yong said. He opened the bag and took out six Spiritual Stones that glowed with a magical golden red light.


    Everyone was stunned and their eyes shined when they saw the stones taken out of the bag. Those were some good things, real good things!


    They all practiced the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, which meant they were sensitive to the Spiritual Energy of Fire. When the Spiritual Stones were taken out, the density of the Spiritual Energy of Fire in the lobby instantly had increased at least five times.


    Five times!


    That was only from showing the stones for a few seconds in the lobby. What if they really took in the energy from the stones? What would that be like?


    Though martial arts skills were about balancing the inner and external cycle, a Fire Way Spiritual Stone could save them copious time for inhaling and exhaling. That was the most time consuming process in practicing martial arts. No one else understood this better than these Elders whose cultivation had reached Level Four. When one''s cultivation had reached a certain level, the difficulty of taking in Spiritual Energy of Fire from the essence of the world only increased.


    For those who had reached Level Four, their body growth rate was two to three times higher than their inner cultivation growth speed. In other words, their practice would be at least two to three times faster if they could get a Spiritual Stone.


    Unfortunately, what they could do was only to stare at the stones blankly at the moment.


    Xu Yong took six Spiritual Stones out of the bag and placed them into another bag he retrieved from an inner pocket. The surrounding Spiritual Energy of Fire gradually dissipated as the Spiritual Energy of Fires was put away.


    Xu Yong''s bag was made from materials which contained snow silk from Tianshan Mountain and had the special function of insulating spiritual energy. It was a rare item, but was not that precious for a well-known family like the Wu''s.


    Due to the discovery of the underground fire vein, the Wu Family gave one to every Elder who came to Zhonghe Prefecture.


    Putting the bag back inside his inner pocket, Xu Yong handed the rest of Spiritual Stones to Junior Leopard with a smile. "You''re still young. There are many chances in the future to use these Spiritual Stones for your practice. Keep them yourself!"


    "But..."


    "What? Chief Wang gave them to you. Are you afraid of being robbed?"


    "I don''t mean that!" Junior Leopard smiled. He thought for a while and once again passed the bag to Xu Yong. "I''ve received a lot from Chief Wang and these Spiritual Stones are not that useful to me at the moment. In addition, I''m a scatterbrain and I don''t have the habit of keeping stuff. Why don''t you keep them for me? They''ll be perfectly safe!"


    Xu Yong muttered to himself and nodded. He took the Spiritual Stones in front of these jealous Elders. "That''s fine too. I''ll keep them for you. You can come to me whenever you need them!"


    "Please do keep them for me, teacher!" Junior Leopard excitedly replied.


    "Right, I heard that you came out of the underground fire vein with Chief Wang yesterday. Why are you back now?" Xu Yong asked.


    Junior Leopard looked displeased when this topic was brought up. "I''ve been sitting on the fire vein passageway for three days and nights without eating or drinking. I almost starved to death after a few fights and fainted once I got out of there. So Chief Wang took me to the General Mansion, which is the Guard County Manor, for a rest. When I had just awakened, I heard you''re here, so I came here to meet you!" Junior Leopard said. "Oh, right! General Li asked me to hand you two letters. One is for you and the other is for the Family Head!" He took two letters out of his inner pocket and handed them over with both hands.


    "Letters?"


    Xu Yong''s expression shifted. He had heard about General Li Yuan, but that was it. He had no connections to him, not to mention a fellowship. Moreover, he had nothing to do with the Wu Family. Why would he write to him and the Family Head for no reason?


    Opening the envelope, he took out the letter and took a glance. He looked surprised and could not help looking up at Junior Leopard before returning his attention to the letter. He read the letter carefully from the beginning to the end.


    Everybody watched his facial expression change from surprised to complicated, from cheerful to excite. Finally he calmed down and put down the letter slowly, but lost in thought.


    "Elder Xu, what exactly is the letter about?"


    Eventually, one Elder asked curiously.


    Xu Yong did not try to hide anything and passed the letter to the Elder.


    The Elder took over the letter and held it up to show the other Elders. The faces of those Elders were as capricious as Xu Yong was. They unexpectedly sighed in unison, all of them looking at Junior Leopard with a deeply conflicted expression.


    "Elder Xu, you really do have an excellent disciple!"


    The oldest Elder, also the most qualified one, sighed deeply as he patted Xu Yong on the shoulder and returned the letter to him. He did not say anything else.


    There were two major points in the letter. First, General Li Yuan greatly admired Junior Leopard''s courage and wanted him as his personal guard. Second, General Li Li will be the new Admiral of Zhonghe Prefecture. Though there no official letter of appointment yet, he had received the news from other sources. With his new role, he would assume military power with a permanent presence in Zhonghe City. Then he would have a substantial say in the underground fire vein.


    This was a temptation, an undisguised temptation!


    The Admiral of Zhonghe Prefecture had a strong say on the underground fire vein. If Junior Leopard really became his personal guard, would it not be easy for the Wu Family to benefit tremendously from the fire vein through him?


    Though Yunzhou was far away from Zhonghe Prefecture, the benefits the Wu''s could acquire would not be a penny lesser than any of the other three families. Instead, it would much more than what they could get.


    As for the letter for the Family Head Wu Yansheng, it was totally out of respect. Anyway Junior Leopard came from the Wu Family, so he had better talk to the Family Head.


    Of course both Li Yuan and Xu Yong clearly knew that Wu Yansheng would not reject such an offer.

 Chapter 123: The Six Month Plan and that Dog

    Chapter 123: The Six Month Plan and that Dog


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    As someone involved, Junior Leopard surely would benefit a lot from it.


    From a common disciple of the Wu Family to a Level Three officer of the imperial court and a personal guard of the Admiral, though his level in the army was low, taking his young age and Li Yuan''s attitude to him into consideration, he would boast a promising prospect.


    At least his current position was brighter than that of before in the Wu Family, when he was a core disciple of the Inner Core. In addition, this underground fire vein brought him more opportunity to grow up as a dazzling star, which made the Elders of the Wu Family excited.


    But, now, this dazzling star seemed to be too ignorant to figure out what had happened. He just looked back at the Elders who were staring at him in the same way, not knowing why they did so.


    "Junior Leopard, do you know that Marshal Li wants you to be on his personal guard?!"


    Xu Yong asked Junior Leopard.


    "Me? The personal guard?" Junior Leopard was distracted for a while and then he answered, "I had no idea. The general hasn''t told me yet."


    "Then you may have a look." Xu Yong gave the letter to Junior Leopard. He read the letter carefully and his expression was not as unpredictable as other people''s and he remained surprised. Then he calmed down.


    After reading the letter, he gave it back to Xu Yong and asked, "Teacher, what''s your opinion?"


    "What about you? Would you like to be his personal guard? "


    "I''d love to. But, I haven''t finished my apprenticeship yet !" Junior Leopard felt a little embarrassed, "What''s more, I''m a disciple of the Wu Family."


    "Hahaha!" Xu Yong laughed, "Junior Leopard, I declare that you have finished your apprenticeship!"


    "Ah!" Junior Leopard couldn''t believe it, looking at Xu Yong blankly.


    "Don''t be so surprised," said Xu Yong. "Your power and cultivation are both beyond my expectation. Actually, I have nothing left to teach you. You just need to keep practicing. The remaining depends on what you learn on your own. As for your identity of being a disciple of the Wu Family, it doesn''t matter at all. Every year many disciples of the Wu Family will devote themselves to the army to gain fame. Your starting line is higher than theirs. "


    "Yeah, that''s right¡­ !"


    Junior Leopard was definitely more successful than those common disciples who joined the ranks. Not all people could begin their army life as a personal guard of a Level Three Admiral. Some may make arduous efforts all their life but remain struggling at the lowest level. The senior officer, who they could see, was no more than a commander.


    "As long as you are willing to, this thing is nearly over. What we need now is the Family Head''s agreement. But, I know he won''t have a different opinion." Xu Yong said.


    "Does that mean I will have to stay at Zhonghe City from then on ?"


    "That''s for sure. Marshal Li defends here, so, as you are his personal guard, naturally you will also stay here."


    "Well," Junior Leopard scratched his head shyly, "So I will be farther away from my home. My teacher, I want to go home to see my family. And, I also need to finish something first."


    Xu Yong nodded his head in agreement, "After being a disciple of the Wu Family, you haven''t gone back in years. And, it will be more difficult for you to go home if you become a personal guard of Marshal Li. You really need to go home. But, there''s no need to worry and your family is well supported by the Wu Family."


    "Thanks a million, my teacher!" Junior Leopard said with excitement.


    "But, you need to inform Marshal Li. After all, it is impolite to provide no response after receiving a letter of invitation to be his personal guard."


    "Yes, teacher!"


    The following was very smooth. Li Yuan met Junior Leopard''s requirements and Junior Leopard was told that it was all right, but only if he came back and reported in six months. And, the reply letter from Wu Yansheng, Family Head of the Wu Family, arrived within five days. He agreed to Li Yuan''s requirement, too. But, Wu Yansheng also wanted Junior Leopard to go with Xu Yong to Qinlingjun City, Yunzhou. That was just to reconcile with Junior Leopard''s wish and he could do both at the same time.


    Now was the time to rush. There were a lot of details that needed discussing and they needed to make a plan that would benefit the Wu Family. As for Junior Leopard, he only needed to be a performer.


    After returning to the Wu Family, Wu Yansheng greeted Junior Leopard, together with most of the Elders. Except for Lyu Yiyue, he seemed to be away for closed-door training again.


    The treat was as Junior Leopard predicted, from encouraging and praising at full blast to promising a number of benefits, including some arrangements including his family. Junior Leopard had no objections to these things. This was the most effective and common way to draw in excellent disciples. Junior Leopard showed no scorn or mock on his face but instead expressed his loyalty to Wu Family. He promised he would safeguard the Wu Family''s interests with all his efforts in Zhonghe city.


    And, this response earned him more praise from Wu Yansheng and the Elders.


    It took Junior Leopard three days to make all of this progress. He advanced towards the small village down through the Misty Mountain in just three days. He was on his second return after he left out of that village.


    Compared to the first time, this return journey could only be described as mundane. There was no trouble along the way. This time Junior Leopard''s return home was glorious. He had some servants and several carriages, all of which was a treat from Wu Family.


    Junior Leopard, who was followed by a large crowd, returned in a massive manner, and broke the quietness of this small village. All of the villagers were excited and they celebrated for three days before finally calming down. But, Junior Leopard didn''t relax, until he had sent the Wu family''s people away, so he could carefully discuss things with his family, for several days.


    Because Li Yuan had asked Junior Leopard to return in six months, he still had over five months'' of freedom. He definitely didn''t want to go back to Qinlingjun City. Thinking of that eccentric Miss Ma and the thing that Wang She had told him would happen after a year, Junior Leopard became more restless. That place was no more than a hell to him now and he wished he could get far away from there.


    However, Junior Leopard didn''t want to idle away his precious half a year, either so he had a plan for practicing.


    Over the last few years, his progress with his cultivation was quite fast. Especially in the past two months, since he reached the Full Closure of Level Three from Level Two. His speed was so fast that he felt it went beyond his limits. This may obviously lead to an unstable foundation. In order to solve this problem, he decided to spend a lot of time in solidifying his foundation. In addition to this, he had paid attention to his practice of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. If possible, he wanted to learn the skill of Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword in the next five months. As to the Evil Qi of fire in the earth vein that was needed for practicing the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword, if he became the personal guard of Li Yuan, there would be inexhaustible Evil Qi in the underground fire vein for him in Zhonghejun City.


    There was still another thing that he was deeply concerned about, the little monster in the deep Misty Mountain. He wondered how that kiddy which loved farting and twisting ass was now. But, according to its temperament, it must live well now.


    The Three Realms Division it learned inexplicable could help it live chicly and freely in the Misty Mountain. Even if he had the ability to take that kiddy away from the Misty Mountain now, he was not willing to bother it if it lived well.


    Junior Leopard was neither an environmentalist nor a wild animal protector in his previous life. But, this kiddy was so intelligent that he couldn''t help but treat it as an equal. On account of this equal status, Junior Leopard wouldn''t make a decision to catching it as a pet.


    "Hey, what are you thinking about? Your mind is wandering." A teasing tone suddenly appeared behind him. "Being a Level Three expert, how could you not detect my approach, until I was near you? Are you missing someone? Were you thinking of them just now? You are old enough to long for love. Which girl are you missing? Should I propose marriage for you?"


    "You hid under that stone for an hour, then moved one hundred feet towards me, like a tortoise, and covered your body behind the tree. Then you walked out after hearing my sigh." Junior Leopard sighed again while saying these words, "What do you wanna do, my brother-in-law?"


    "I wanna go with you!" Said Wang Tianlei with excitement. "I don''t want to die in such a remote village where even a bird won''t crap. I told you that at the very beginning."


    "On the contrary, I want to live forever in this remote village." Junior Leopard sighed helplessly, he turned his head back and said, "my brother-in-law, I have also told you that I am only a common soldier and I don''t even have an official appointment yet. You won''t gain anything by going with me!"


    "Not everyone can become a guard of an Admiral like you. You are very young and your future must be promising. I am your brother-in-law, and you are my wife''s younger brother, of course I can benefit from associating with you," Wang Tianlei said, shamelessly. "But, now, interestingly, I can wait. Though I''m older than you, I''m also a young man. Haha haha... "


    "You really want to go to Zhonghejun City?" Junior Leopard looked at him, "you must know that I intend to purchase some estates in the Qingyang Market. My parents are too old to make any deal themselves and I would feel more comfortable if you would accompany them."


    "Your status may not be high in some places, but, here in the Qingyang Market, nobody would treat our parents badly, even without me," Said Wang Tianlei. "What''s more, your older brothers are all here, there are no problems. And, Houndie and Boxer both have their own opinions now. They all long for this opportunity like me, but they dare not to say it."


    "I''m about to be a guard. But, actually, I''m just a common person in Jianghu. And, what''s more, I''m just a newbie. No one begins their life with a whole family. Because, that would mean that there is no difference to seeking death. In this case, you''d better let my two brothers stay at Yunzhou tamely. As to you, my brother-in-law, it''s all up to you if you really want to go to Zhonghejun City. But, you know my situation, so..."


    "I know what you mean and I know what to do." Wang Tianlei said and laughed.


    Junior Leopard laughed helplessly, "Are you sure that the villagers will let you go? You know it''s you who help them to become richer and richer. What''s more, I remember that you are supposed to be the village chief now."


    "All things of village are currently on track. More than half of the villagers are educated, which is a great improvement, and they will be able to live better even if I am not around."


    "OK, it''s all up to you. You are my brother-in-law and I have no right to stop you. Ah, what''s the matter with that dog?"


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 124: The Damned Dog

    Chapter 124: The Damned Dog


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "That dog!" Wang Tianlei froze for a moment, and replied with a wry smile, "Do you recognize it?"


    "Do you think anything can be concealed in this god-forsaken place? Though it did happen a few years ago."


    Wang Tianlei also laughed, "Right, there can be no real secrets in this small place!"


    While saying this, he uttered a slight sigh, somewhat showing a helplessness. "Do you remember what happened at my wedding?"


    "Of course! The one-eyed wolf had run down the mountain and came into our village that year. How could I forget? If it wasn''t for that thing, I would never have realized that you should be a martial artist!" Junior Leopard said, half-jokingly. "It has been nearly ten years, right?"


    Of course, he wouldn''t forget it. That was the year he saw Wang Tianlei''s supernormal power while dueling with that one-eyed wolf. At the same time, he believed that martial arts, for sure, existed in this world. In a sense, his whole life, after reincarnation, had changed, because of what happened that day.


    "Yes, it has been ten years! Even my son is able to deal with something common!" Wang Tianlei said, "You know that the one-eyed wolf has stayed in West Mountain Pass for a century, and it seldom came down except for some special reasons. However, that year, he came down and seemed to do nothing but fight with me, which had me bewildered at the time."


    "What happened after that?!"


    "You know what happened after. A great many bitches in our village were killed that year!"


    Junior Leopard seemed to figure out something. "His purpose was to breed?"


    "It appeared to be so. But, even the most robust bitch in our village was unable to satisfy the one-eyed wolf."


    "Then how was the dog conceived?"


    "It''s the Old Blind''s dog. How surprising! Old Blind was a good-for-nothing at that time, and his dog was as thin as a pole. At the end of that year, that bitch gave birth to the pup."


    "Anything abnormal at the time?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "At that time you were still in the village, how could you not know if there was anything abnormal?" Wang Tianlei asked.


    Junior Leopard felt speechless. Since the one-eyed wolf left, he had indulged in martial arts wholeheartedly and he even managed to secretly learn something from Wang Tianlei. What kind of pup the bitch had bred was none of his business. He never rendered assistance to it!


    Seeing changes in Junior Leopard''s expression, Wang Tianlei hastened to reply, "Actually, at the very beginning, the pup showed no sign, at all, that he was different from other pups. Though living a tough life, Old Blind never mistreated the pup, the pup just grew more slowly than ordinary dogs. His appearance had remained the same after he was one or two years old, that''s when you went to Qingyang Market."


    "What does it have to do with my going to Qingyang Market?" Junior Leopard thought with depression but he continued to listen.


    "The first oddity happened that second year you went to Qingyang Market. After that point, the family that cared for livestock keep losing them in the night. We all thought that it was a thief, so we gathered together and waited, but we remained clueless. So, we thought that it had to have been a passer-by."


    "Passer-by?" Hearing this, Junior Leopard could not help but laugh. It reminded him of a movie called "A Journey to the West" in his previous life. There was a scene called "Monkey Hit Lady White Bone Thrice", in which Sun Wukong said: "Maybe the monster is just a passer-by!"


    The two were so similar.


    "Do not laugh. I was not the only one who thought so at the time!" Seeing Junior Leopard''s smile, Wang Tianlei''s face showed some embarrassment.


    "What happened then?"


    "What happened later was erratic. We guarded the livestock for several nights, but we never even caught a rat, let alone a thief. And, still, the animals keep disappearing, as soon as we called off the surveillance!"


    "You had to realize it was an inside job." Junior Leopard pointed out while laughing.


    "Yes, we thought that and investigated, for quite awhile, but any trail always grew cold."


    "It must be a rough time, right?"


    "Absolutely! Everyone in my eyes was a potential thief in those days." Wang Tianlei snapped, "We tore the village apart to only find nothing and we offended a lot of people for no reason, which instigated a few fights."


    "Then how did you find out the truth?"


    "An animal, no matter how smart, is only an animal. It was shrewd while stealing but he was unable to hide his rapid growth. His size had tripled in just three months, and his body reeked of blood. Finally, he caught our attention!"


    "How did you prepare to deal with him?"


    "We failed," said Wang Tianlei. "Fortunately, he had not yet fully grown. Otherwise, he would not have been wounded at all. Hehe, that time was quite thrilling!"


    "But, I never heard anything about it when I was in Qingyang Market, why?"


    "You rarely came back from the Qingyang Market. If I have it right, you only came back once, and it was weird!"


    Junior Leopard was silent for a moment when his return from Qingyang Market was mentioned. "Brother, everything went well at that time, right?!"


    "Yes, everything went very well. Though, it was strange for you to catch a cold and be bedridden for a long time."


    What Wang Tianlei said finally satisfied Junior Leopard. "Brother, you should know that some words from your lips could kill you!"


    "I got it!" Wang Tianlei nodded with a quiver in his heart when he saw Junior Leopard''s composed expression.


    Junior Leopard was also not willing to continue this topic, so he asked, "Then, what? The dog ran away?"


    "Yes, he ran into the woods on the hill!"


    "Has anyone seen it since?"


    "Yes, several times! But, we dare not go deep into the woods. It seems to be living a comfortable life."


    While saying this, Wang Tianlei''s eyes expressed a sense of reluctance.


    He was a very conceited man. However, for some despicable reason, he was forced to leave the army and he returned to this damned place, marrying a wife and having a son. But, he was reluctant to yield. Even in this damned place, he was out for something big, and, as it turned out, he had done a good job. In just a few years, he turned the starving village into a well-known wealthy village. In his previous life, he must be a pioneer.


    However, this achievement did not meet his ambition. This place was too small to develop a proper career. As for Wang Tianlei, who had seen some of the world, dreamed to leave this place and do great things. Just because he knew there was more to the outside world than there was to a small village, with just hundreds of people, hiding on the Misty Mountain. He would have to pay more than he did in this village, of this he was confident, but not arrogant.


    Therefore, he had always known his place and stayed in the small village, until, Junior Leopard created a string of marvels, which won his great exclamation.


    Junior Leopard was the Inner Core Disciple of the Wu Family, a thirteen-year-old with third-level cultivation, and the bodyguard of the Admiral in the Zhonghe prefecture. In this small village, no one was more aware of the meaning of these titles than he was.


    He noticed the signs of a rising star and he saw his chance, a chance he just couldn''t pass up.


    Because, of this, he was desperate to go to Zhonghejun City with Junior Leopard. Besides, he even conceded to serve as a handyman for Junior Leopard.


    While he secretly exulted in achieving his goal, Junior Leopard changed the subject, to another subject, that made him feel a tremendous sense of depression and shame.


    "Where did you see the dog in the old woods?" Junior Leopard did not notice Wang Tianlei''s unnatural expression. In fact, all his thoughts were put onto the dog.


    He had returned to the village for a couple of days. It seemed that he was honorable and decent, but, in fact, he was so tired that he had to seek quiet under the pretext of practicing martial arts and doing closed door training. Even so, he had to meet with some people, such as a few elders and some playmates from his childhood. Naturally, they would talk about something eccentric, since there was nothing left to talk about in this small village. What they already knew was similar to the years before, with the addition of a few more scandals and the sequel to the one-eyed wolf story.


    He had seen through the eyes of the Elders in Black Dragon Triad that the one-eyed wolf had left here. But, the sequel of this story aroused his interest.


    Just as Wang Tianlei said, the one-eyed wolf''s ultimate purpose was mating and breeding, thus killing a number of bitches in the village. Though ridiculous, it was not without effect. The one-eyed wolf got an offspring at least.


    The pup was as cruel as the one-eyed wolf but seemed more cunning than him. The hearsay had reminded him of how the one-eyed wolf was subdued by Wang She, and more importantly, the eccentric rune he had left on the wolf''s forehead.


    He was aware that his present strength was much worse than that of the Wang She at that time. But, this dog was not the one-eyed wolf. The age of the pup seemed to be younger than himself. If he could not deal with the pup, he had lived in vain these years.


    Though he had never used such an eccentric rune before, he thought it must have something to do with his divine thoughts. He had gained the Punching Spirit with the third-level cultivation, and Wang She also told him that his divine thoughts were no less than the ordinary seventh-level master, so he may have a chance to succeed, right?


    ...


    ......


    ...

 Chapter 125: Two Madams

    Chapter 125: Two Madams


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In the Wu Residence of Qinlingjun City in Yunzhou.


    Deep in the residence, the disciples and servants shuttled back and forth across the courtyard. For them, this was the daily routine which had lasted for hundreds of years. It seemed that everything was in order.


    However, deep in the old residence laid a deep and quiet courtyard, the atmosphere was not the same as usual.


    "Where did Zhou Bao come from? I''ve never heard of him before. How could he do such big things when he just went out once?" A gorgeous 30-year-old lady dressed up said in a tender but majestical tone.


    The lady was mature and beautiful. What were noticeable were her arched eyebrows, but there was a little faint evil spirit in them.


    "First Madam, Zhou Bao came from Qingyang Market. Right now he is just 13 years old..."


    A 60-year-old servant stood beside her. He looked obedient, but there was a hint of sagacity in his eyes. He just kept his head down and slowly described Junior Leopard''s experiences in Qingyang Market, Qinlingjun City and even in Zhonghe City. His description was detailed without any omission.


    "Qingyang Market?" The First Madam seemed to think of something unpleasant, frowning slightly. "You mean, at the beginning, he was introduced into the Wu Family by Old Xing?"


    "Yes, in other words, Old Xing was his first teacher. Zhou Bao was a brilliant talent. I heard that when he worked as an apprenticeapprentice in Qingyang Market, he had an insight and gained an ingenious insight on hammering skills!"


    "What about the relationship between him and Old Xing?"


    "Sorry, madam. I have no information about that!" The old servant bowed his head and continued, "But I think he was a little kid at that time, he didn''t stay with Old Xing for long, so maybe they weren''t very close!"


    "Yeah, you said it!" The Madam heard what he said and revealed a relaxed expression on her face. "I heard that Zhou Bao and Chief Wang were close?"


    "I''m afraid nobody knows the relationship between him and Chief Wang except General Li!"


    The old servant thought it over for a while and said scrupulously.


    "In the underground fire vein, Chief Wang gave him 19 Fire Way Spiritual Stones. Judged from this point, their relationship was really close. You know, the stupid Second Young Master is the disciple of Chief Wang and has been in the Tian Long Mystic Mountain for many years, but I never heard that Chief Wang has given him something valuable!"


    The old servant said nothing.


    "Forget it. I won''t make things difficult for you. Go!" The First Madam shook her hand. Then the old servant bent to salute and went out of the courtyard.


    Watching the old servant disappearing, the First Madam smiled complacently. "19 Fire Attribute Spiritual Stones! He he, Wang She was really generous. However, normally speaking, these Spiritual Stones should belong to Second Young Master. If that woman hears this information, who know whether she''ll die with anger!"


    ...


    ...


    "Bang, bang, ping, ping!"


    The crackling sound continued to come out of the room. Five maidservants dressed in pink stood at the door with a pale face and as mute as a mouse. They were afraid to disturb the Madam which had flown off the handle; otherwise, they would be killed.


    "Zhou Bao, Zhou Bao, where did Zhou Bao come from?"


    Some sounds indistinctly came out of the room. What she said was completely the same as the First Madam said in the courtyard.


    Then some noises and chaos came out. The five maidservants just stood still at the door, with their hands hanging down. However, they were more fearful than just now.


    Sound after sound of chaos came out. Then the sounds died away. It was totally silent. After the time of an Incense Stick to burn, the door was opened. A gorgeous lady dressed in jade green attire stood at the door with a sullen expression. She glanced at the five maidservants standing beside the door and coldly said, "Go to clean up!"


    "Yes!" The five maidservants said in chorus and went into the room in a hurry, just like busy butterflies, and then carefully cleaned up the room.


    The Second Madam left the room with anger, across the parlor, into a twisting corridor, through an archway, and then went into a tiny courtyard.


    The courtyard was very small, but it was very clean. In fact, there was nothing to clean up, because except for the lawn, there was only one small temple that gave out a light sandalwood smell. The smell was hanging over the whole courtyard, which made the courtyard particularly quiet and peaceful.


    The Second Madam went into the courtyard still with a sullen expression. Then she went into the temple, taking a deep breath, kneeling to the Buddha statue with her hands in a zen gesture and her eyes closed. She seemed in a peaceful mind and started to sincerely pray.


    "Madam, you haven''t been here for a long time!"


    After a while, a hoarse voice came out from behind the Buddha statue.


    "Mother Wu, how are you? How about your health?"


    "I feel much better!"


    Mother Wu was an old woman. She slowly walked out from behind the Buddha statue and into the temple with a walking stick. The shadow in the room shaded most of her face. Judging from the face we could see, Mother Wu was at least 70 years old. Her coarse skin was like the 1,000 years old tree in the Misty Mountain, revealing what she experienced in the past years.


    "Little Ying, you didn''t visit me for a long time. What happened to you?"


    "Yes, Mother Wu. For this time, I''m asking you to help me!"


    "OK, tell me. See if I can help you with such and old age!"


    "Yes!" The bullying Second Madam of the Wu Family was so obedient. She was just like the five maidservants standing at the door when she was faced with this old woman that was in her declining years, as if a wind would blow her to the ground.


    "I visit you this time mainly for Xuan''er!"


    "Xuan''er? Didn''t he come into the Tian Long Taoism? Does he have some trouble?"


    "No, he didn''t get into trouble. Recently a person that would threaten Xuan''er''s position appeared!" The Second Madam said in a low voice and told the old woman about Junior Leopard''s appearance and experiences in detail, just like what the previous old servant said to the First Madam in another courtyard. The Second Madam also investigated clearly the ins and outs of Junior Leopard.


    "He is so young, but his cultivation has reached Level Three and he has condensed the Qi Power like substance. This is extraordinary!" After Mother Wu heard what she said, Mother Wu''s expression changed and became eccentric. "We don''t mention his cultivation. But when it comes to the Qi Power like substance, I''ve just groped for some arcana these years. Is he able to do that as a teenager?"


    "The information has been confirmed. It''s absolutely true. It''s said that the Elders of the Jian''s and the Luo''s failed because of his strange Qi Power!" The Second Madam said with a bad complexion.


    "It looks that this kid can''t be looked down upon. But why do you visit me? He is a disciple of the Wu Family. He made such great achievements. As the Second Madam of the Wu Family, you should be happy. It seems that you aren''t happy. Otherwise, you won''t turn to me!" Mother Wu grinned. "Just now you said he was a threat to Xuan''er. Then you visit me to let me help you eliminate this threat, right?"


    "Yes!" The Second Madam said in a low voice. She did not seem very confident, and even was a little shamed.


    "He he!" Mother Wu gave a hollow laugh. "For the sake of your son''s position and honor, you would eliminate all the potential threats? It sounds really familiar. Little Zhu, am I right?"


    The Second Madam bowed her head to her chest with her face flushing.


    Mother Wu still stared at her in mockery and softly said, "Are you sure that you want do that? Little Zhu?"


    "I... I... I''m sure!" The Second Madam suddenly raised her head and the muscles on her flushed face twitched with excitement. "I''m sure I want to do this. I must do this for Xuan''er!"


    "Well, I''ll go!" Staring at the Second Madam, Mother Wu showed nothing different from just now on her face. She just slightly sighed. "I have no ways if you said so."


    ...


    ...


    In any corner of the world, the profit was relatively steady, whether the amount of profit or the benefited groups. Due to the steady, if a benefited group added one member, everyone''s profit in the group would change. In theory, the more people there were, the fewer profits each one would get. This was the simplest principle.


    The Wu Family was a big profit group. Since the profit was big, it was not strange if one more people came to share it. Normally speaking, nobody would pay attention to that. Ever since Junior Leopard became Xu Yong''s disciple, he was doomed to share a part of the big profit. Nobody would think it inappropriate, because he deserved the profit.


    However, what happened in Zhonghe City changed everything. Everything that he did, the attitude Wang She showed towards him and the information that he would serve as Li Yuan''s personal guard, these made things complicated. This meant that Junior Leopard not only had a bright future, but also shared the profits of the Wu Family, which were bigger than what all the people expected.


    Originally, he was just an ordinary Inner Core Disciple and his cultivation might reach Level Four at most one day or he just inherited Xu Yong''s lineage. But now it changed. Obviously, the profit he would share was not Xu Yong''s fraction. His cultivation had reached Level Three at 13 years old, so he was doomed to become an Elder of the Wu Family. Besides, he was going to be a personal guard of Li Yuan in Zhonghe City which had a newly found underground fire vein.


    Just depending on this point, Junior Leopard''s power would surpass the other Elders of the Wu Family after Junior Leopard became an Elder. At that time, only the Family Head and the First Elder could rival him.


    If things went just like this, the Second Madam didn''t care about anything, because this was the thing that the Elders of the Wu Family should concern about. This had nothing to do with her. What made her worry was the 19 Fire Attribute Spiritual Stones. Why did Wang She give all of the 19 Fire Attribute Spiritual Stones to him?


    Did Wang She want to take him on as his disciple because of his aptitude?


    This was the thing that the Second Madam was most worried about.

 Chapter 126: The Killing Intent in West Mountain Pass

    Chapter 126: The Killing Intent in West Mountain Pass


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Although Junior Leopard was the disciple of Xu Yong, if the Chief of Tian Long Taoism wanted to have him as a disciple, it should take no more than a word.


    She tried every efforts to make her son a disciple of Wang She. Why? Because she wanted her son to practice under the instruction of Wang She, the world recognized martial arts skill genius, and follow in his footsteps. There was no need to become a Chief like Wang She, but at least let him become outstanding enough to be more qualified to succeed the family head of the Wu''s.


    Once a guy like Junior Leopard became Wang She''s disciple, then with his talent, Junior Leopard could quickly defeat her son and take what should have belonged to her son, just like the 19 fire attribute spiritual stone that Junior Leopard got from Wang She. If there was no Junior Leopard, her son, as the only disciple of Wang She, should at least have half of the profit. But now, what happened?


    According to her son, he got nothing. Wang She became more and more aloof to him as if he was useless. This brought a great sense of danger to her heart. She wanted to get rid of Junior Leopard--this unknown problem, which suddenly popped up from nowhere, as soon as possible. That was why she came here today.


    To visit Mother Wu who she never wanted to see!


    Mother Wu had left, after she was sure about her decision, she secluded herself behind that Buddha statue and remained silent. However, Second Madam, kneeling quietly in front of the Buddha statue, looked at the statue with dull eyes and a pale face. Her mind went back to the rainy night 30 years ago.


    "Buddha, please forgive me. I did this for unavoidable reasons. If Buddha won''t forgive me, I would like to go down to the 18 floors of hell and never go back."


    Finally, on her hands and knees, she sighed heavily and then became silent for a long time.


    ...


    ...


    West Mountain Entrance, Misty Mountain.


    Coming to this familiar place again made Junior Leopard a little bit sentimental. He stood at the mountain pass feeling the wind passing through, as if all the troubles were blown away by the wind.


    If anyone else knew his feelings now, they would say that Junior Leopard was a drama queen. His martial arts had been increasing steadily, and in front of him, there was a broad road to the bright future. Why on earth should he have troubles?


    Yeah, a broad bright road. But how could he walk on that broad bright road?


    The Fiery Eyes were a heavy stone in his heart, what would happen in Qinlingjun City a year later? Would it be troublesome to him?


    Let alone the target that Wang She gave him.


    To achieve Level Six cultivation!


    He sighed, raised his hand and touched the External Elixir dangling from his left ear. He did not know whether to cry or laugh.


    That skull, in other words, the external Elixir was hanging on his left ear as an earring after he woke up in the General Mansion of Li Yuan. Although Li Yuan felt odd about this behavior, he said nothing.


    There were so many people wearing strange things, and adding Junior Leopard made no difference, much less only an earring on his left ear. Although Wang She knew it was the External Elixir of Junior Leopard, he still thought it was odd. But he just made some jokes to him instead of asking more.


    He thought Junior Leopard was only strengthening the connection between the External Elixir and himself.


    Unlike his Dantian, as part of body, he needed to have the External Elixir close to his body like Inner Elixir to better master it. This could not be achieved in one night. The External Elixir and the body needed a long time to familiarize themselves with each other. Therefore, every person who practiced the External Elixir would try different ways to strengthen the connection. People like Junior Leopard, who hung External Elixir on their body were not that weird. So he just made fun of him and did not take it seriously.


    "Haha, is it true that a strong person like Wang She doesn''t see anything unusual with my External Elixir? Anyway, it''s not bad to try and change a look in order to make this thing not that obvious."


    Junior Leopard said to himself secretly, fumbling his External Elixir.


    Through days of practice, his assumption was completely proved right. After feeling his breath, he started to practice with the External Elixir every minute and never stopped. His cultivation of Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill was rising as well. The result of the practice, in a couple of days almost equaled to practicing half a year on his own. This made him so excited.


    Indeed, practicing External Elixir 24 hours a day for 10 days was a thing worth being excited about. He, Zhou Bao, spent 10 years to practice and went through times of difficulties and adventures to gradually accumulate his Internal Qi step by step, in which way he achieved his Level Two cultivation. But now, the speed of his External Elixir practice within a month might catch up with his 10 years of cultivation. The great pleasure brought by his cultivation rocketing could only be felt by himself, not others.


    Suddenly, an extremely cold wind blew in, causing him to feel a chill. His excitement went away, "Well, stop being narcissistic here. Here comes the Evil Qi!"


    The Evil Qi of the earth vein from West Mountain Pass had been discovered by him for a long time. He also knew it was a good thing. But all this time, he didn''t have the ability to use it. Therefore he waited till now, as he started to have a bit of confidence.


    Going forward, he reached the Evil place of the earth vein, where Li Haoran collapsed after being killed by Wang She.


    After so many years, the scattered skeletons of the Black Dragon Triad were carried away by the wild beasts from the mountain a long time ago. The West Mountain Pass now was like anywhere else. Thanks to some memories Junior Leopard got from Li Haoran, he found this place.


    As Junior Leopard started getting close to that place, he started to feel the coldness getting deeper and heavier.


    The coldness was not only cold, but soft and mysterious, like a large piece of smooth silk whose texture became thicker over time, and in the end, it was like a real existence. The bitter cold made Junior Leopard feel like he was covered in deep snow, naked. The smooth and thick Evil Qi was everywhere, infiltrating into his body through every pore.


    Junior Leopard sat cross-legged on the ground, used Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique to let his Internal Qi circulate between his skin and flesh and tried to keep the Evil Qi out of his body. This made him be covered with a layer of soft red light.


    In the meantime, during the circulation of the Internal Qi, Junior Leopard started the way of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword to feel the cold Evil Qi spreading around, familiarizing its characteristics to get prepared for the upcoming practice.


    Gradually, the red light disappeared, which gave the Evil Qi the chance to get in.


    "Hiss!"


    A slight of coldness broke the defense of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and reached Junior Leopard''s body which made him gasp. Although it was only a slight bit of coldness, his body was almost frozen.


    "There was something wrong. What kind of Evil Qi can be so cold? Not to mention that I haven''t entered the bone-forging realm, even if I do, I am afraid that my body cannot weather the coldness!" Junior Leopard was surprised at the cold degree of the earth vein Evil Qi, which was far beyond his imagination.


    "Oh, no!" With the infiltration of the Evil Qi, Junior Leopard was distracted for a second. As a result, he could not control Internal Qi as freely as before. This enabled more Evil Qi to infiltrate his body, which was too much for him to bear. Without thinking, he moved his body out with Three Realm Division.


    "That was incredible. How fierce the Evil Qi is!" After getting away from the Evil Qi, he spent one full hour to warm himself through Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Finally the numbness disappeared and his body could move freely.


    "I was almost frozen! The power of the Evil Qi is so amazing!" Junior Leopard stood up, stretched himself, and thought with the fear that remained in his mind, "It seems that the time for practicing Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword has not come yet. What a pity. I will try again after entering the bone-forging realm."


    Thinking about the bone-forging realm, Junior Leopard could not help narrowing his eyes. He remembered of the 10 carriages of medicinal herbs which were robbed by him, Jin Nanqing and other people. According to what they agreed on, he should have two carriages, with which he could produce a lot of Bone-forging Pills, allowing him to enter the bone-forging realm without a doubt.


    Even without Bone-forging Pills, it was an easy job to enter the bone-forging realm with Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist and a body strong enough to achieve Full Closure of the Skin-Toughening Realm. But Bone-forging Pills would help save much time and energy. Adding that the materials were off-the-peg, he would definitely use those.


    However, for him, two carriages of medicinal herbs were too many. Who knew how many Bone-forging Pills could be made from those. Besides his own use, he could probably use these Bone-forging Pills to mess up the world!


    "Hehe, when I can produce the Bone-forging Pill, I will swallow a bottle and then dump the other one." He thought arrogantly, wandering out of the West Mountain Pass.


    "Em, if I could not master the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword, why not go to Misty Mountain someday to retrieve what I buried there? There are so many good things that I was afraid of accidents. But not anymore, there is no need to retrieve them all, maybe those spiritual stones, I don''t mind carrying more. And the Inner Elixir of the Evil Beast, which is good for me to improve my strength. I didn''t know how to use and when to use them before, but now they are useful as well as a good choice for my improvement. Don''t leave the Silver Moon Sword Technique behind, which needs to practice too. Afterall I put myself in this situation, which makes me unable to run away from what will happen a year later. When that time comes, I cannot use those broken hammers to help Wang She do bride kidnapping. Am I going to find trouble for myself?"


    Junior Leopard thought about his half-year plan while walking. Suddenly he felt a mysterious murderous intent from an ancient tree not far away.

 Chapter 127: The Brawl and Killing

    Chapter 127: The Brawl and Killing


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    As a man who had condensed fist intent, he was definitely sensitive to murderous intent, killing intent and Qi Power, which were closely related to divine thoughts.


    Although this strand of killing intent was very slight, it couldn''t dodge his spiritual mind.


    He didn''t have a second thought before his hand reached for his silver hammer and shot out a silver light toward that ancient tree behind him with a sound.


    "Bang!"


    After a huge loud bang sound, the ancient tree was cut into two halves. Junior Leopard lifted his hand with a gesture of receiving and then the silver hammer returned to his hand again. At the same time, he lifted his right hand, wielding a ball of silver light in front of himself. After he heared two short sounds of metal crashing together, a black shadow stepped down, confronting Junior Leopard 100 feet away.


    "What a powerful spiritual mind!"


    As a husky voice sounded, Junior Leopard looked at the thin figure wrapped in black nightwear with a sneer all over his face.


    "You are not bad either. Your responses are quick enough to not let me smash you to death!"


    The black-clothed man didn''t speak with his left hand slightly lifted. Under the moonlight Junior Leopard clearly saw a weapon that looked like a long and thin sword in the black-clothed man''s hand. He thought of it as a sword-shaped weapon because Junior Leopard couldn''t tell whether it was a sword or not due to its body which was as long as four and a half feet and two fingers wide. Generally speaking, a sword had two blades but the sword-shaped weapon in the man''s hand looked peculiar as one side of it was the sharp blade while the other side was wavy. You couldn''t really tell its function from its look.


    Although Junior Leopard looked confused, he knew that the weapon was vitally dangerous. Therefore, without asking too much, he leaned forward abruptly after speaking a short sentence and in a second. The distance of 100 feet disappeared from between them and two balls of silver lights were shown in his hands and struck towards the black-clothed man.


    The black-clothed man was a little bit surprised at Junior Leopard''s reaction. He never thought that this young man could be so violent as to aim hard with the attitude of killing him in an instance without saying something. The black-clothed man certainly dared not to look down upon it and greeted it by turning over his sword-shaped weapon straightly without dodging. There was a burst sound of metal crashing against each other with fire sparks everywhere.


    Junior Leopard''s Wild Hammering Skill was indeed incomparable. Adding on to his talent of hammering skills, two balls of silver lights were displayed like mercury splashing on the ground. One hammer followed the next hammer; there were barely any gaps between the hammerings. There were over 30 hammerings with one heavier than the other between two breaths.


    If it were someone else, he would probably have lost his temper already due to Junior Leopard''s succession of hammering. However, the black-clothed man who was right in front of Junior Leopard looked relaxed under that stormy attack. Right, he looked exactly relaxed.


    Although the long and thin weapon in his hand seemed to be easily destroyed by one hammering from Junior Leopard, it still looked good without any damage after being hit by Junior Leopard for a total of dozens of times. What depressed Junior Leopard most was that the black-clothed man seemed to be quite familiar with the Wild Hammering Skill. Therefore, facing such a rival made him super uncomfortable though he had achieved a high state of understanding towards the hammering skill.


    The eccentric sword in his hand could always catch the tiny gap between the hammerings. Even though he believed that he had been striving to display the hammering skill perfectly, he couldn''t tackle the problem that someone else was familiar with his hammering skill. He was fast, even faster than the black-clothed man. But the black-clothed man knew where his hammer was going to fall and picked the best protection and even countered Junior Leopard a hit of the sword. There was no doubt that Junior Leopard''s Wild Hammering Skill was affected. And thus, although those two balls of silver lights looked perfect in Junior Leopard''s hand, he was in second place and had to step back from being the first attacker after a breath.


    His stepping back caused him big trouble as the black-clothed man followed to attack just like what he did to the black-clothed man. The black-clothed man surely wouldn''t let go of any chance to take advantage. The Odd-shaped Long Sword in the black-clothed man''s hand struck quirky lines in the night and aimed straightly at Junior Leopard''s three crucial parts, his heart, genitals and between the eyebrows.


    The speed of wielding the sword, the vicious means and the insidious Qi contained in the Odd-shaped Long Sword caused Junior Leopard to be in a flurry. Two balls of silver lights dancing in front of him and barely resisted the Odd-shaped Long Sword while Junior Leopard had been retreating till 200 feet away and managed to stabilize himself with a style of Hammer Moving the Heavens and Earth.


    "You are from the Wu Family!" Junior Leopard stabilized his steps and took three steps back. With the twin hammers laid across his chest, Junior Leopard stared at the black-clothed man with a horrified look.


    He had to be from the Wu Family since he was so familiar with the hammering skill and was able to take the first action under the stormy attack.


    "Boy, you are doomed to be a dopey in this life!" The black-clothed man didn''t answer his question. The Odd-shaped Sword in his hand was directed at Zhou Bao. An extremely sharp Sword Qi stabbed out at Junior Leopard''s face.


    Junior Leopard dared not neglect it. Wiggling his body, he almost failed to dodge the danger. The coldness and sharpness of Sword Qi passed in front of Junior Leopard''s face, leaving a long blood stain. After a strike, the sword in the black-clothed man''s hand broke out sparkles. The Sword Qi was as delicate as cotton and formed an invisible but devastating net, descending onto Junior Leopard.


    With a sullen expression, Junior Leopard''s body flashed golden red lights as the Internal Qi of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire rushed out to protect him and the twin hammers also formed a silver light curtain. Then he retreated dramatically.


    "Brush! Brush! Brush!"


    "Ding! Ding! Dang! Dang!"


    "Boom!"


    The Sword Qi broke through space. Firstly, it collided with the silver light curtain that was formed by the twin hammers in front of Junior Leopard. However, in an instant, it broke the defense of the twin hammers as Junior Leopard felt his hands go numb. The strong force from the Sword Qi made him retreat. After he withdrew his twin hammers, the soaring red lights around his body unexpectedly came out and condensed into real shapes. A vaguely dragon shaped red stripe formed and collided with the Sword Qi. Then the Sword Qi''s domineering force was stalled.


    "What?" The black-clothed man felt something wrong and sighed suprisingly. The sharp unsurpassed Sword Qi even tangled with Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire. The Sword Qi net was also crashed against that red stripe and looked like a fishing net that was severely damaged, leaving a hole in it. Although the net still existed, the fish inside already sprang out from that hole.


    The fish was Junior Leopard. His body rushed out with that red dragon-shaped stripe and got through the black-clothed man''s Sword Qi net.


    "The second state of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique! Boy, you really surprised me ah!" As soon as the black-clothed man saw the dragon-shaped stripe, his hazy eyes were turned on. Now the way he looked at Junior Leopard was with a little bit more appreciation. "You are the first person at Level Three that I have ever met that was able to use the second state of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique!"


    Junior Leopard did not speak. He might look full of momentum when he just broke that fine-grained Sword Qi net, but in fact, he had been injured internally. The Sword Qi that was as delicate and dense as a cotton cut through his Internal Qi, directly eroding his body and wreaking havoc on his tendons and vessels inside. Fortunately, the mysterious fire that had been restored to its heyday in his Dantian refined the Sword Qi once it entered his body.


    Otherwise, Junior Leopard might have lost half of his combat capability immediately and should have vomited blood.


    Junior Leopard did not vomit blood. Instead, he crossed the twin hammers in front and showed a defensive gesture.


    "It looked pretty powerful that you use the the second state of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique with your Level Three cultivation. But I don''t think your body is able to bear it, right?"


    "Just like you?" Moving his eyes, Junior Leopard looked at the black-clothed man with a sneer. "Your cultivation is at least Level Six. A Level Six master had to spend so much effort to deal with me a Level Three boy. It suggested that you''re mad or your body has been so badly hurt that you can''t bear the cultivation of Level Six. That''s why you are so cautious!"


    Junior Leopard waved his hand and the dragon-shaped stripe started to wander around him like a snake or a dragon. "In my opinion, you wanted to decrease your cultivation to Level Four to kill me at the beginning, but you failed. Your sword skill is pretty powerful and the Sword Qi is also very insidious. Unfortunately, it''s not realistic to beat me with Level Four cultivation!"


    "You''re right. I have indeed underestimated you!" The black-clothed man''s eyes flickered, "I''m curious how you know my level of cultivation?"


    "You''re supposed to beat me with your Level Four cultivation and strong physical strength of the Bone-Forging Realm. However, there seemed to be problems with your body, thus your level of cultivation was affected when you were attacking. To avoid a close fight, you were super cautious. A real master of the Bone-Forging Realm won''t be so cautious when he fights against me a Level Three boy. Instead, he would like to fight closely so that he can totally subdue me with his Bone-Forging Realm body!"


    Standing in front of the black-clothed man, Junior Leopard continued, "That''s why I concluded that your body was injured so that you dared not to let me get close to you. But still, with such a physical condition, you''re able to apply Level Four cultivation fluently, which means that your cultivation absolutely surpassed Level Four. Otherwise, you would not cause me such big trouble!"


    "So you think I have reached Level Six?"


    "You can''t be an expert over Level Seven. Above Level Four, there''s only Level Five and Level Six. Then you''ll be Level Five or Level Six, which is not difficult to guess at all!" Junior Leopard answered.


    "Sounds correct!" the black-clothed man laughed at himself, crossing the Odd-shaped Long Sword in front of his chest. "Since the cultivation of the Level Four cannot beat you, then what about Level Five!"


    As soon as the black-clothed man finished his talking, there was a sudden Qi Power in his body, and his Sword Qi soared. Under the influence of the Sword Qi, the Odd-shaped Long Sword in his hand issued a buzzing sound and the air around vibrated together with the sound. Junior Leopard''s pupils contracted abruptly and there was a strong feeling of danger that arose from the bottom of his heart. Red lights flashed indistinctly in his eyes. At this moment, he actually unconsciously turned on his Fiery Eyes.


    The red light flashed and the world around got clear. Junior Leopard clearly saw the air around the wavy blade of the Odd-shaped Long Sword in the black-clothed man''s hand vibrating at an extremely high frequency. The strange buzzing sound was also due to this high-frequency vibration.


    "This is... not good!" Although Junior Leopard didn''t know what had happened, he saw the air form a lump of invisible ripples with the vibration of the blade. The invisible ripples spread toward him. Although it didn''t spread fast, he couldn''t see it at all if his Fiery Eyes were not turned on. And the edge of the ripples was just one foot away from him.


    Junior Leopard retreated dramatically.


    "Rustle!" The ripples swung away and touched the trees and rocks around Junior Leopard. Those trees, rocks and the other objects that were tangible also vibrated speedily.


    With a burst of bang, those vibrating rocks all turned into powder, disappearing into the air in a breath.

 Chapter 128: Infinite Trembling Contemplation

    Chapter 128: Infinite Trembling Contemplation


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It happened so quickly. It was just a moment of breath from the time that Junior Leopard opened his Fiery Eyes and found the mysterious vibrating ripple and then stepped back to the time that the ripple had blasted everything around into dust.


    "What an evil means!" A shocked thought flashed through Junior Leopard''s mind. Floating in the air, looking around, he felt lucky that he had the Fiery Eyes which made his eyesight too good, otherwise he would not know what had happened even if he died.


    Seeing that Junior Leopard had suddenly flashed before being struck, the black-clothed man was shocked. His attacking stance was to confuse Junior Leopard and to make him think that he was building up strength so that he could relax his vigilance while the unexpected attack had actually already begun. Unexpectedly, Junior Leopard still dodged.


    He was more surprised that there was a flash of red light in Junior Leopard''s eyes when he was dodging. The mysterious red light passed quickly by. Hiding in the Wu Family for years, he knew that it was not the result of the Internal Qi of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire.


    "There is something secret about your eyes!"


    The black-clothed man said. He moved with lightning speed to pounce on Junior Leopard. Now that the plan had failed, it was better to make a quick victory. The boy was very clever and had a lot of means. It would be difficult to find an opportunity like today if he escaped!


    It was better to kill him at one fling.


    "There is something secret about your eyes!"


    Hearing this, Junior Leopard who had not stopped felt a shiver. Then he shot the 49 Demon Devil Needles at the black-clothed man without thinking.


    He had been trying to fight with the black-clothed man to get some information. But now that the opponent suddenly mentioned his eyes, thinking of the legend of Fiery Eyes, he could not neglect it and did his best.


    The black-clothed man never thought that knee-jerk reaction would bring him to an immediate fatal disaster. His cultivation had reached Level Five, so he went to kill Junior Leopard at an amazing speed. In the blink of an eye, he was already in front of Junior Leopard. Then he chopped at Junior Leopard with his Odd-shaped Long Sword whose Sword Qi had soared. Junior Leopard pointed to the front and the dragon-shaped stripe, wrapped around his body and went up to the black-clothed man''s sword light.


    "Hem!" Seeing the dragon-shaped stripe, the black-clothed man just sneered in the air. The second state of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was marvelous. It could turn your whole Internal Qi into a Fire Dragon to attack and it create nine powerful Fire Dragons if it reached the strongest state. But Junior Leopard''s cultivation was too low, only Level Three, even if he forced his Internal Qi to create a fire dragon, the black-clothed man would think nothing of it. Because his sword was condensed with his cultivation of Level Five and it had Sword Qi. The Fire Dragon in front of him could not stop him. While the boy didn''t dodge, did he really think that the Fire Dragon could stop his Sword Qi?


    neering in his heart, the black-clothed man suddenly felt a chill as if a cold rain fell on his body, dozens of extremely thin cold air unexpectedly rushed into his body.


    "What?!?"


    The final thought froze at a point, his eyes were scattered immediately without any light. The Sword Qi that he had lost control of, vanished in front of Junior Leopard. The body of the black-clothed man became rigid in the air and collided with the dragon-shaped stripe. "Boom," they burst into a strong fire.


    "Bang!" The Odd-shaped Long Sword fell at the feet of Junior Leopard and the black-clothed man was burnt into a great lump of coke by the dragon-shaped stripe, which fell to the ground and fell apart, without a trace of human-shape. A gust of wind blew and turned it into black dust, dispersing into the air of the mountain.


    Junior Leopard raised his hand, the 49 Demon Devil Needles went back into his sleeve and the dragon-shaped stripe came back to him. He drew in his breath sharply and then the stripe turned into two red lights, which were inhaled by him and disappeared.


    He picked up the Odd-shaped Long Sword under his feet. Immediately he felt a cool breath coming from his hand, straight through his heart and then he calmed down.


    He gently stroked the waved blade of the sword and thought back to the strange, shattering shock.


    "Vibrate, crush!" These two words were resounding in Junior Leopard''s mind. He felt as though he had learned this knowledge in physics classes in his previous life. Unfortunately, as a glorious liberal art student, he recited English in half of his physics classes and he had forgotten about physics decades ago. So how could he remember?


    Subconsciously, he injected his Internal Qi into the sword. The Internal Qi went smoothly into the sword and gave out a blear red light on the sword body.


    "Good sword!"


    Feeling that his Internal Qi was unimpeded in this sword, Junior Leopard couldn''t help but praise it in his heart. As an apprentice to the Wu Family, though he hadn''t forged weapons for a long time, he was still an expert in the identification of weapons and knew good weapons. The weapons he forged in Qingyang Market were already elaborate works in Jianghu. They were so sharp that they could be said to cut hair blowing in the wind. He was very pleased with them, but he knew that they were only elaborate works.


    It''s okay for an ordinary man in Jianghu to use them to frighten people, but it might not be good enough to show to a true master of martial arts.


    Martial artists, especially the ones whose cultivation of Internal Qi had reached a certain degree, required their weapons to not only to be sharp, but also could have Internal Qi injected into them. Such weapons could be used as freely as their fingers, and the longer they were used, the more deeply they were connected to their masters. Over time, there will be a little mysterious telepathic connection and a kind of flesh and blood link between men and their weapons. Finally, the weapon would be like a part of the body. This was called raising weapons!


    Therefore, a true martial artist would never change his weapon casually. Many people would choose a fixed weapon, carried it with them for a lifetime after the success of their martial art. The sharpness of the weapon, in contrast, was secondary.


    The weapons made by the Wu Family were known for their sharpness. However, the craftsman-level Great Master would focus on the forging process instead of deliberately pursuing weapon''s sharpness during forging. In general, only the weapon over 40 forges, which contained few impurities, could have Internal Qi injected into them. Of course, if you used some Mysterious Objects and minerals as the material, a mold might have Internal Qi injected into it. After all, there were few Mysterious Objects in the world. In the end, it would test your ability of Refining Weapons as well.


    The weapon which could have Internal Qi injected into it would be called a Genuine Weapon.


    The two Kunais, Junior Leopard forged for himself, could be barely called Genuine Weapons. However, their levels were so low that they could only have a small part of the Internal Qi injected into them. Even so, they were worth at least 100 taels.


    As for this Odd-shaped Long Sword, when Junior Leopard injected his Internal Qi into it, it received it freely as if the Internal Qi was in his own body. It was a rare Genuine Weapon.


    "It''s a good thing, but it''s not for me. Besides, I don''t know the black-clothed man and God knows his background. If I take the sword out, I might get into some trouble!" Said Junior Leopard in his heart. He prepared to go to Misty Mountain in a few days and leave the sword there to avoid trouble.


    Just as he was about to take his Internal Qi back, something strange happened. He felt his Internal Qi suddenly seemed to be attracted by something and began to circulate in a fixed line while passing through the waved part of the weapon. It was just like the Internal Qi flowing through his tendons and vessels.


    "Strange!" Junior Leopard felt a flicker. He resisted his surprise, took a gentle breath and then felt the Internal Qi running in the sword.


    "Hum!" A low hum came from the long sword. At this point, Junior Leopard felt that the Internal Qi in the sword began to vibrate rapidly as if being pulled by some force. Then, he only heard a gentle wave sound, the reddish ripples spread out of the waved blade, and all that was touched was shattered. But the extent influenced by the ripples from the sword this time seemed much smaller than that of the black-clothed man using it.


    "It is?" Junior Leopard''s countenance had changed, thinking about the trajectory of his Internal Qi in the sword. "It''s a secret skill, just being solidified in this weapon. Damn it, it''s Jian Family''s craftsmanship, and he''s from the Jian Family?!"


    To solidify the secret skill in the weapon, the secret skill could be displayed without the user using it by himself. The user only needed to inject his Internal Qi into the weapon. The power might not be as powerful as the user using it by himself, but there were many benefits. Firstly to reduce the loss of Internal Qi and secondly, it did not require accurate control of the Internal Qi, so the Genuine Weapons of Jian Family were very popular. The craftsmanship of the Genuine Weapon was passed down from generation to generation in the Jian Family and never passed on to outsiders.


    "Was it that I hurt their Elder in underground fire vein last time, so the Jian Family came for revenge? Maybe. Jian Family is a rival to the Wu Family and they have deeply studied the Wu Family''s Wild Hammering Skill. Which is why the black-clothed man was able to preempt my attack. But they should know that I am about to become the personal guard of Li Yuan and that I hurt their Elder because of Wang She . Aren''t they afraid of getting themselves into trouble?"


    Junior Leopard never considered himself to be a particularly important person, but now he was concerned with the Wu Family, the Admiral of Zhonghe Prefecture and the Chief of Tian Long Taoism. Therefore, it was not a good time to find trouble and to kill him.


    Junior Leopard thought for a long time, but didn''t come up with a clue. He sighed helplessly, "Forget it, the power of the secret skill hidden in the sword is really terrible. It should be the legendary Infinite Trembling Contemplation. I can study it if I have the chance. Shit, why do I think half a year is not enough?"

 Chapter 129: The Phantom Silver Wolf

    Chapter 129: The Phantom Silver Wolf


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard felt extremely bad after he realized that the destructive vibration was the legendary Infinite Trembling Contemplation.


    The Infinite Trembling Contemplation was a well-known secret skill. It was even considered the most powerful secret skill, but it was also considered a boondoggle.


    Because this secret skill almost had enlarged the disadvantages of secret skills boundlessly.


    It especially required such strong control over Internal Strength, that it was nearly impossible. Just like what Junior Leopard felt from the Odd-shaped Long Sword just now, the Internal Qi flowed at a high speed. Not only did it require strong control, but also consumed tendons and vessels so severely that even a master of Level Nine couldn''t unleash it safely and soundly.


    Thus, although the Jian Family in Luling had a history of 1,500 years and the secret skill was their house treasure, nobody was known to practice the secret skill successfully.


    But it didn''t mean that this secret skill didn''t exist, it was very famous for the Jian Family owned exclusive craftsmanship which could engrave it into Genuine Weapons.


    Though the success rate wasn''t high and it was much more difficult to engrave more advanced secret skills into the Genuine Weapons, there were successful examples.


    In the Jian Family''s history, there were three times that they had successfully engraved the Infinite Trembling Contemplation into Genuine Weapons. Three world-renowned weapons came out, the Shaking the Heavens, the Earth Shaking, the Breaking Through Space.


    The value of the weapons was not under the ordinary Secondary Heavenly Weapon, it was even higher than it.


    Except the Shaking the Heavens that was still left in the Jian Family''s arsenal, the other two weapons (the Earth Shaking and the Breaking Through Space) had been missing for a long time.


    Junior Leopard had never thought that he would get one.


    "Is it the Earth Shaking? Or the Breaking Through Space?"


    Thinking of its origin, Junior Leopard began to have an interest in it. He took up the Odd-shaped Long Sword again and carefully observed it. Finally, after a series of groping, he couldn''t take his eyes off an eccentric graph on the sword blade. He thought it was a decoration at first, but after taking a close look at it, he found that it was some ancient characters that read Breaking Through Space!


    "It''s really the Sky Splitting Sword!" Junior Leopard smiled weirdly, while his heart grew heavy for no reason.


    Who would feel relaxed when he suddenly found out that there was a powerful and well-known family which wanted to fight against him?


    Maybe it''s not the Jian Family, but somebody else wants to kill me with the Sky Splitting Sword, which could be possible too. I heard that the Jian Family only keeps the Shaking the Heavens among the three weapons, while the other two were missing. Nevertheless, whoever he is, he''s not ordinary, for he can kill me with the Sky Splitting Sword.


    quinting his eyes into a line, Junior Leopard gave a second look at the Sky Splitting Sword. "No matter who is the one behind this, he would know that his man was killed by me if he finds out that I''m still alive while his man didn''t come back. Then, the Sky Splitting Sword is in my hands naturally and I have no reason to hide it too. Humm, I get the sword from the killer, of course, it belongs to me. I''ll sell it. No, I''ll give it to my teacher as a birthday gift after I figure out the Infinite Trembling Contemplation in it. Well, my teacher is about to celebrate his birthday, though it''s not a big one, I should show some filial piety to him. I didn''t do well as a disciple these years. I might as well give him the sword as a gift. It doesn''t seem to be any worse than the Fiery Eye that Shi Jing gave to Lyu Yiyue last time. Perhaps I can do the Wu Family a special favor!"


    After thinking it clearly, Junior Leopard took the Sky Splitting Sword and leisurely strolled home.


    No words overnight, but early the next day, he made his farewells to his family and headed for the Misty Mountain.


    He was very special at home now. Though he was the youngest, all of the family members followed his lead. Old Zhou was no exception. He smiled from ear to ear after knowing that his son had become a personal guard of the general. In addition, his son brought him a handsome sum of money, which was almost astronomical wealth in their eyes. This made him wake up from his sleep and laugh at the same time. He definitely would not intervene too much in his son''s actions.


    Everything was the same after he left the Misty Mountain last time. Deep and remote, the mountain was unpredictably high. Looking up, there were remote hills, steep valleys, battered stones and old trees, all of these hid tons of secrets and dangers. Junior Leopard went into the mountain and without going into the deep mountains directly, he came to an old forest. In a sense, it was the margin of the mountain in which the hunters in the surrounding villages could go to but were unable to move past. Nobody would move past this point except for some genuine martial artists and those that strayed.


    It was also the place where Wang Tianlei and the other hunters met that puppy. Since then, they never went into this forest after they found out that the puppy haunted there.


    Stepping on the thick dead leaves gently, Junior Leopard felt it was fairly soft under his feet. No one knew how many decayed leaves had piled up, but once he stood on it, his whole foot would be immerged in it, giving out a misty and damp smell.


    Junior Leopard slightly frowned and held his breath. He looked around to better understand the surroundings here. The trees were so tall, and with the cover of their branches and leaves, sunlight found it hard to reach into the deep part of the forest. Thus, darkness was the dominant hue here. It was very quiet, sometimes you could hear a rustling when several hares rushed out from the bushes, or the sound of a pheasant fluttering its wings. All these brought some vitality to this peaceful and quiet forest.


    "This forest seemed quite big, hence, it''s not easy for me to find the puppy." Junior Leopard thought in his heart. Walking towards the forest, his spiritual mind diffused like a radar.


    This was what he got after he successfully practiced the divine thoughts. He could detect the surroundings by diffusing his spiritual mind towards all directions.


    After walking for some time, Junior Leopard was a little upset. Except for some ordinary wild beasts, he didn''t find a wolf, let alone the puppy.


    Should I still go deeper into the forest? There is a deep valley outside the forest. Could it be possible that the puppy is there?


    While he was thinking, suddenly, a warning signal flashed through his mind. His spiritual mind could feel that there was something strange in the air behind him.


    This was a very strange feeling. It seemed to exist but you couldn''t catch it.


    Tiptoe, his body suddenly flashed to one side. A silver shadow came up empty, and then disappeared.


    "Is... Is this the puppy?" Although the silver shadow''s speed was quite fast, it still moved no faster than the spiritual mind of Junior Leopard. He opened his Fiery Eyes when he noticed something was wrong. He saw it clearly with his eyesight, which could see 360 degrees without any blind spots.


    A Silver Wolf the size of a calf suddenly appeared behind him and then it jumped at him. When he was dodging it, it came up empty and disappeared, as if it never existed.


    "It''s a phantom!" Junior Leopard thought in his mind. He thought of Li Haoran''s memory. In order to get the one-eyed wolf''s Inner Elixir, Li Haoran had a fight with it in the West Mountain Pass. If it were not for Wang She, the one-eyed wolf would have been killed by them. At the most critical moment, the one-eyed wolf seemed to flash three phantoms too, just like the puppy. But it seemed that this puppy was more familiar with this move than his father. It didn''t even need to show its body.


    "Interesting, but you have exposed your hiding place as well!" A strange scarlet light flashed through Junior Leopard''s eyes. Rushing backward, with silver light flashed on the twin hammers continuously, he violently smashed towards a huge tree that could be hugged by two people.


    "Bang!"


    With dust swirling in the air as well as branches and leaves flying about, the tree was knocked down by the hammer. A silver light immediately came out from the trunk and barely evaded the hammer of Junior Leopard with great effort. It stopped for a while, and then jumped at him directly.


    "What a high speed this is!" Junior Leopard quickly moved his body, wielding a light curtain in front of him with the twin hammers in his hands.


    "Thunk, thunk, thunk!"


    As the silver hammer collided with the dewclaw of the wolf, sparks radiated towards different directions, giving out a sound of a metal collision. The great impact force made Junior Leopard repeatedly retreat. Of course, the puppy was no better than him. After colliding for several times, it seemed to realize the strength of Junior Leopard and retreated 10 more feet before it began to confront him.


    The two acted in opposition. Suddenly, the wolf looked up.


    The wolf gave out a mournful howling which was sharp enough to slice the forest, as if shooting a stone into the water. One could see that the air rippled and diffused towards four directions from its head.


    The whole forest vibrated and churned with the sound, it lasted for a long time.


    Junior Leopard rolled and pitched with each wave like a tiny boat on the stormy sea.


    "Puff!"


    The sound of trees colliding and breaking was heard everywhere. Furled by the wind like a leaf, the huge tree was quickly swept away by the hurricane behind it.


    The Silver Wolf jumped up as he was crying. It actually turned out six phantoms, and jumped at Junior Leopard again.


    He gently stretched his body in the air and took away the great impact force around him. Looking at the six phantoms rushing towards him, he wore a sly smile and a light flashed through his eyes. He pricked his index finger with his thumb and then looked at the wolf without evading.


    "Puff!" At the same time, the six wolf shadows opened their bloody mouths and circled him.


    "Swish!" They nearly jumped at Junior Leopard all at once, but they all came up empty. Among them, five wolf shadows disappeared. At this moment, Junior Leopard appeared in front of the only wolf, pushing his bloody finger on the forehead of it and drew a complicated talisman in between his eyebrows at a lightning speed.


    "Ow!"


    The Silver Wolf gave out a short cry and stopped. A glimmer of loss flashed through its eyes. It was not fierce any more. Meanwhile, Junior Leopard could feel that an abstruse feeling rose from his heart and contacted the wolf with him as he drew the talisman.

 Chapter 130: Subdue

    Chapter 130: Subdue


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was a complete mess in front. There was a pothole that stretched for a hundred feet in the old forest. The surrounding trees were slanting towards the opposite direction of the pothole. Junior Leopard was standing in the middle of the pothole with the Silver Wolf. His fingers were pointing in between the Silver Wolf''s eyebrows. The talisman drawn by blood disappeared in between the brows. The sense of loss within the Silver Wolf''s eyes also gradually disappeared. At the same time, the demonic red light in Junior Leopard''s eyes became brighter.


    "A very weird feeling!"


    His divine thoughts had already formed. Hence he could clearly feel that after drawing the talisman, his own divine thoughts rippled. That strand of divine thoughts that was extended out merged with the thoughts of the Silver Wolf. It produced a little ripple. At the same time, his eyes seemed to have been affected.


    The black lines around the pupil began to slowly move. An unknown power, with the moving of the black lines, followed the secret passageway formed from the intermingling of the divine thoughts and the Silver Wolf''s thoughts and poured into the spot between the Silver Wolf''s eyebrows.


    Almost at the same time, the Silver Wolf''s eyes flashed a strand of a faint red light. Junior Leopard felt his own eyes tremble. The scene in front of him produced a weird double figure.


    "What happened?!"


    Once the double-figure appeared, Junior Leopard was shocked. He activated the Fiery Eyes. Now he had 360 degrees vision. His vision didn''t have any blind spots at all. The surrounding objects were also very clear. How could there be a double-figure all of a sudden?


    After blinking a few times, the double figure gradually disappeared. It merged into one.


    "This is, the Silver Wolf''s vision?!"


    Junior Leopard suddenly understood. He looked at the Silver Wolf. Silver Wolf''s thoughts seemed to be under restriction, and his eyes still had an expression of loss. However, Junior Leopard saw a faint red light from his eyes.


    "It is definitely the case. Now I am sharing my vision with this wolf!" Junior Leopard exclaimed in his heart. He lightly closed his eyes and when he opened them again, the red light in his eyes had vanished. However, the red light in the Silver Wolf''s eyes still remained. After a long while, that red light gradually merged within the Silver Wolf''s eyes.


    A portion of the scene gradually disappeared and melted in front of his eyes. When it was disappearing, Junior Leopard''s eyes flashed. His divine thoughts moved slightly. The scene that disappeared once again appeared in front of his eyes.


    "The talisman seemed to have activated some power of the Fiery Eye. This allowed me to share a vision with the wolf, even if I didn''t activate the Fiery Eyes!"Junior Leopard patted the Silver Wolf''s head. He knew that the Silver Wolf was in a miraculous state.


    Indeed, the Silver Wolf was in a similarly strange state as him.


    The sharing of vision just now was merely a precursor.


    Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts and the Silver Wolf''s psywave connected together. There was a moment that Junior Leopard even felt that the Silver Wolf beside him was a part of him. He even became the Silver Wolf, controlling its action and making it do anything. He had already completely controlled the Silver Wolf. However, soon, a strong unwillingness and resistance in the psywave rushed out and attacked Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts, trying to get rid of his thoughts. It even wanted to cut off the psywave ignited by the talisman.


    Wave after wave of psywave was just like a huge wave attacking the mental connection. There were even a few times when Junior Leopard felt that he couldn''t endure it anymore. At the same time, the blood talisman which disappeared between the eyebrows of the Silver Wolf also faintly surfaced. However, when it reached such a time, Junior Leopard''s eyes'' red light would flash and suppress the psywave of the Silver Wolf.


    After a few times, that strong psywave slowly calmed down.


    When the Silver Wolf''s psywave was suppressed, Junior Leopard''s heart had a miraculous feeling. It was as if the huge trouble that the psywave gave him was not worth mentioning. He believed that no matter how unwilling and unyielding the Silver Wolf was, it would be suppressed by his eyes.


    After the Silver Wolf''s psywave was completely suppressed, the loss in its eyes gradually disappeared. Both of its eyes began to move brightly again. His head also began to shake, and it was observing its surroundings. At this time, Junior Leopard realised that the Silver Wolf''s vision was extremely broad. It was much wider than his vision when the Fiery Eyes were not activated. It was able to observe all the details in a 180 degrees field. Even if the sky gradually darkened and the sunlight couldn''t filter through, the surroundings would still be like daylight, being extremely clear.


    At the same time, Junior Leopard had some understanding. He slowly adjusted to the feeling of being mentally connected to the Silver Wolf. His thoughts moved, and the proud Silver Wolf was obedient like a small dog. It began to make rounds around his legs. However, its build was really too big just like a calf. Its silver back already reached the shoulders of Junior Leopard. Such a huge Silver Wolf behaving like a dog seemed to be a bit weird.


    "You, dog brat. Even though you''re young, you have quite a lot of thoughts!" Junior Leopard patted the Silver Wolf''s back and scolded heartily. Having connected mentally to the Silver Wolf, he naturally understood the Silver Wolf. At least he knew that this Silver Wolf was much smarter than he thought. Of course, this intelligence was in comparison to other beasts. Its IQ was that of a 4-5 year old kid. It had a sense of inborn pride and viciousness. However,this pride and viciousness were completely suppressed by Junior Leopard, becoming extremely docile.


    "I have miscalculated. This talisman not only needed blood, but it needed a Spiritual Strength that was much stronger than the Evil Beast. Although my cultivation is high, I had only just comprehended my divine thoughts. My Spiritual Strength is not great. Furthermore, this fella is inborn intelligent and is ferocious. Its Spiritual Strength was like a huge wave of sea, extremely mysterious even if his IQ is not high. If I didn''t have the Fiery Eyes, it could have cut my mental connection. Not speaking about losing control, my Spirit would suffer. Even the divine thoughts which I had comprehended may disappear as well. It is really dangerous. Next time I can''t be like that anymore. Think twice to avoid trouble!" Junior Leopard thought about the process just now and pinched a bead of cold sweat. Stay alert in his heart. Did everything go so smoothly recently that he was a little carried away? That was not good.


    "Okay, dog brat, follow me. I assure you there''ll be good stuff for you to drink and eat. I won''t mistreat you!" Junior Leopard patted the Silver Wolf''s back, "You are the son of that one-eyed wolf. En, let me see. Right, you are that one-eyed wolf''s son!"


    Junior Leopard bent down and confirmed the Silver Wolf''s sex. He laughed. "From now on, I will call you Little Sole Eye. No, you are not one-eyed. Forget it, from now on I''ll call you Little Du!" [TL: Du is Sole]


    "Wu, wu...!" Silver Wolf seemed to have understood Junior Leopard''s words. Its mouth continuously shouted ''wu wu''. Its big head nodded continuously, as if it was very satisfied with the name that Junior Leopard gave it.


    "It is good that you understand!" Junior Leopard smiled. He looked at that Silver Wolf with unkind intentions, and flipped, landing on its back. "Let''s go Little Du, I have benefits to give you!"


    Little Du didn''t resist and followed Junior Leopard''s intentions. It entered the deep parts of the old forest. This old forest was dense, yet this Silver Wolf meandered through it with ease. Only a while, they already went past the old forest, and reached a dangerous valley. Junior Leopard''s thoughts shifted slightly. Under the mental connection, there wasn''t any sound at all, and Little Du understood Junior Leopard''s intentions. It growled and leapt towards the valley. This valley was steep, and the slopes were filled with sharp stones. However,Little Du rushed down it as if it was on the ground. Its speed was fast like lightning, causing Junior Leopard who was sitting on it to keep shouting praise.


    Upon rushing to the bottom of the valley, Junior Leopard realised that this place was actually a mountain stream. The stream flowed fiercely, as if it came flowing down from a waterfall. From time to time there were some one-foot long white fish jumping out of the stream. This made Junior Leopard very hungry. He uncontrollably rushed to the stream and caught dozens of fish. He then picked up some branches by the side of the stream and made a pile. He removed the fish scales using the Kunai and began barbequing it. He began to eat voraciously together with Little Due. After eating a few, he thought that this fish was an exceptional delicacy. Even though it had no salt on it, its taste was good. Junior Leopard and wolf ate happily. While eating, Junior Leopard discovered that the strand of unwillingness within Little Du''s heart, the psywave that was suppressed, was actually shaved off by quite a bit. His heart involuntarily exclaimed shock.


    "Unexpected. I spent so much effort to suppress it, yet a meal of fish had settled this root problem so quickly. Then I have to give it a few more good meals, and it''ll be absolutely loyal to me. En, not bad, who knows if this method could lure the little monster as well!"


    He was ruminating, and Little Du by his side ate the rest of the fish. It looked satisfied. From time to time it stuck its tongue out and licked the fish bones which made it look not like a special silver wolf, but a hungry kitten.


    "Alright, Little Du. Now that you''ve eaten let''s be on our way. There will be many benefits following me!" Junior Leopard flipped and rode on the wolf''s back. Little Du growled and expanded its movements. It transformed into a silver light and followed the stream and rushed towards the northeast direction.


    After three days, they finally reached the place. It was the valley that Xue Wuya had captured and brought him to.


    A few years had passed. This valley was still like before, permeating with poisonous gas. Staying for a while, Little Du couldn''t endure it, retreating to outside of the valley. And then there was turmoil. This beast, having seen the beasts drinking by the river, began chasing after them with loud roars.


    This naturally couldn''t escape Junior Leopard who had a mental connection with it. Of course, Junior Leopard would not care about such things. He only laughed lightly, "I really reminisce this damned place Forget it, when I retire from Jianghu, I''ll construct a manor here for retirement. From time to time I would revise the glorious times when I exploded a Level Eight expert with my Level One cultivation!"


    Within the cave outside of the valley, everything seemed to be the same. The wet moss seemed to have made a comeback. He dug out the black-line bag which he buried in the cave. Upon seeing that nothing was missing, he smiled. He picked up a few items and put it in another bag that he had prepared. He then thought deeply for a while. He buried this black-line bag. This bag belonged to Xue Wuya. He didn''t want anyone to see it. Furthermore, it was safer to put these things here!


    "Okay, Little Du, let''s go. Follow me to see your little brother!" Junior Leopard packed up his things, and rose up. He brought Little Du and entered the forest, rushing straight for the little monster''s hideout.

 Chapter 131: Silver Moon Sword Technique

    Chapter 131: Silver Moon Sword Technique


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard retrieved the items from the cave and went straight to the forest with Little Du. The forest was the same as usual and extremely peaceful. It didn''t have drastically change from the time when Junior Leopard left. He brought Little Du to roam around the forest and soon he found the place where he practiced the Three Realms Division.


    "Aye, the little monster is not around?" Looking at the empty cave, Junior Leopard felt strange in his heart. He walked into the cave and found that the wall scratches that he left when he left here years ago were still there. Only the ground was filled with dust.


    "The little monster has left?" Junior Leopard lightly raised his brows. Very obviously, there had been no man or animal here for a very long time. Even though he hadn''t thought of bringing the little monster away, not seeing the little monster, Junior Leopard still felt some disappointment in his heart.


    Just when Junior Leopard was exiting with disappointment, he suddenly stopped. His eyes flashed a sharp light and he hurriedly walked to a tree. This tree was roughly as big as two people hugging together. It was originally very tall as well, but now it had been cut in half by a force. The broken area was smooth as a mirror. Even though a long time had passed, it looked wet and humid. When Junior Leopard touched it, he could still feel the strands of cold lingering over the broken area.


    "What a quick swordsmanship! What a strong killing intent!" Junior Leopard sucked in a breath of air. Some worry arose in his heart. Even though the little monster had the ability of Three Realms Division, if it really met an expert, it might not necessarily get away. Looking back at the empty cave, he found that it was confirming his unlucky thoughts.


    "Hope that little monster is okay!" Junior Leopard sighed. Feeling somewhat depressed, he brought Little Du out of that place.


    Returning to the cliff beside the waterfall, just like a few years ago, he returned to the cave within the cliff to cultivate. At the same time, he got Little Du to go hunt a few beasts as dinner. Little Du was intelligent by nature and was subdued by Junior Leopard, producing a mental connection. This kind of simple matter did not need Junior Leopard''s instructions. He only needed to bow his head and it rushed towards the riverside.


    Standing in the cave and suppressing the uneasiness in his heart, he began to practice his punching.


    His cultivation had already reached the peak of Level Three, he was only waiting for his own body''s toughness to reach the Bone-Forging Realm before raising his cultivation. Hence, theoretically speaking, having reached this step, he didn''t need to cultivate his Internal Qi, however Junior Leopard didn''t think so. His Internal Qi was different from a normal person''s and it wasn''t the true Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi. Now his Internal Qi had seemed to reach the peak of Level Three, if not reaching Bone-Forging Realm, his Internal Qi would not raise if he continued practicing. The most important thing was that he knew Taiji Fist.


    However, Taiji Fist had the usage of purifying Internal Qi. Everytime he practiced, it would purify his Internal Qi. Everytime it was purified, the amount of Internal Qi would be decreased a little. In this manner, he needed time to cultivate and replenish the Internal Qi that was lost. He would then purify it again and then cultivate again. Repeating in this manner, although his Internal Qi was only at the peak of Level Three, its substance had reached a perverse state. That was the reason why he was able to form the second state of the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon with just his Level Three cultivation.


    After executing a set of Taiji Fist, Junior Leopard sat down and began practicing the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. He once again replenished the Internal Qi that was exhausted. Then following on was the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist. After a round of hard work, it was completely dark outside of the cave.


    Little Du lay down under the tree below the cliff, slowly gnawing on a cow''s leg. There was a dead deer beside it which had clearly died not long ago as its blood hadn''t run dry. Junior Leopard knew that it was for him.


    "You do have some conscience!" Junior Leopard jumped down from the cliff entrance. He patted Little Du''s head, took out the Kunai to peel the skin and cut the bones. After that, he set up a fire and began barbequing.


    He was turning and flipping the roasted deer on the fire at with one hand while taking out a small bag with the other. He took out a small black thing and threw it in front of Little Du, "Little dog brat, this is for you!"


    Little Du who was gnawing on the cow leg became excited. Its eyes were staring at the black thing that was tumbling about. At the beginning, it didn''t move, as if it was confirming something. It raised its head to look at Junior Leopard from time to time, as if it wanted to confirm with him. After a while, it then extended its head in front of that black thing, stuck its tongue out and swallowed it with an incomparable speed.


    "You snorty guy, will I vie with you for it?"


    Junior Leopard scolded while laughing.


    After eating an Inner Elixer, at the beginning, Little Du didn''t show any signs of change. It only slowly laid down on the earth as if it was going to sleep. After a while, when the deer was nearly roasted to perfection, its body suddenly trembled. It trembled harder and harder as if it was a sieve that was trembling repeatedly.


    A strand of faint black gas came out from Little Du''s silver fur. Very quickly, it had signs of it corroding its whole body. Because Junior Leopard had a unique connection with Little Du, he was also able to feel that there was a tremendous power rippling through Little Du''s insides as if it was a human body''s Internal Qi. However it was different from normal Internal Qi, this was a kind of violent and completely untamed power. If it was put into a human body, within a short time, the meridians in the body would be completely destroyed. However, within Little Du''s body, there was another power trying to negate this wave of violent energy. This was the demonic power essence in Little Du.


    Demonic power was a unique power of demonic beasts.


    Demonic beasts were called demonic beasts because of two reasons. The first, they had spiritual intelligence. The second, they had demonic power.


    This was a sign of a combination of two. Because a beast that had intelligence would definitely have demonic power. This was a law written in heaven. There wasn''t a demonic beast that could be an exception to the rule.


    Demonic power was similar to Internal Qi, however, it had great differences.


    Demonic power could be controlled at birth, that was definite. When a demonic beast first had spiritual intelligence, its IQ wouldn''t be high. Just like Little Du now, it had some little cleverness, but in substance its an intelligence of a young child. It was impossible to pin hopes on them to comprehend the circulation route of demonic power. Hence, being able to control demonic power at birth was the instinct of demonic beasts. It wasn''t like Internal Qi which needed a fixed circulation route and cultivation method. Another point was that demonic power was extremely violent. There were countless people in history who wanted to directly absorb a demonic beast''s Inner Elixer to increase their Internal Qi. In the end, they all died due to craziness. There wasn''t an exception. Hence until now, even though demonic beast''s Inner Elixers were still highly sought after, most people would only use it to blend into medicine. There were extremely few people who used special treatment methods to directly absorb it.


    Men were unable to directly use demonic beast''s Inner Elixer to increase their strength, but demonic beasts could.


    Demonic beasts could control demonic power since birth. Hence they could directly consume other demonic beast''s Inner Elixer to increase their strength just like Little Du. However, this time Little Du seemed to have eaten too much. In other words, the Inner Elixer which Junior Leopard gave it belonged to an Evil Beast that was several levels higher than Little Du, that was why there was such a sight.


    Junior Leopard gave Little Du the Inner Elixer of the snake that fought with the eagle. Thinking about the precarious situation he was put in, Junior Leopard had to pinch his cold sweat. That eagle and snake were both demonic beast class. From Junior Leopard''s perspective, their levels weren''t very high. However looking back now, he must have seen wrongly back then. At the very least, those two beasts'' levels were much higher than Little Du.


    He didn''t notice it in time, and Little Du was too greedy. Hence there was trouble.


    "Hehe, poor fella. It seems that I can''t help you this time. You can slowly suppress it. Anyway even though this demonic power is violent, it doesn''t have an overwhelming advantage. You''ll suffer a little bit at most, yet you''ll have immense benefits in the end!" After carefully observing for a while, Junior Leopard confirmed that Little Du would not have many obstructions, but it had to suffer. Thinking about the pain he suffered, Junior Leopard relaxed and let Little Du deal with it itself.


    After gnawing on the roasted deer in his hands, Junior Leopard felt somewhat full. Many years of cultivation, reaching Level Three, and having a body at the Skin Toughening Full Closure Realm, he was able to suppress it even if he didn''t eat or drink for 10 days to half a month. Furthermore, he ate much less as compared to before. Usually, he would be full after a few mouthfuls. Junior Leopard understood that it was because his own body was able to absorb the heaven and earth pneuma and transform it into energy for himself. However, he didn''t reach the legendary state. Adding on to the fact that he was a hungry kitten himself, hence when he reached a foreign place, he would still reminisce, eating wild flavors from time to time.


    However, no matter how greedy he was now, he only had a taste and was full after a few bites.


    Wiping his lips, looking at Little Du lying on the floor and trembling, he didn''t disturb it. He jumped and reached the cave in the cliff. Then he took out a book from the bag and began reading.


    Silver Moon Sword Technique!


    This set of sword technique was what Xue Wuya obtained from the Yangzhou He Family. It was able to get Xue Wuya a Level Eight expert to dote on it and not care about exterminating the whole family for this sword technique. It was definitely not an ordinary item.


    This point could be seen through Junior Leopard''s initial mastery of the move Star River Set Ablaze.


    It was a pity that these years Junior Leopard had been focusing on his own cultivation and realm. Furthermore, he left this book in the deep recesses of Misty Mountain. Hence he didn''t do any research on sword techniques.


    Now there was a reason that he took out this set of sword techniques. It was all for the big show happening in Qinlingjun City one year from now. He was unable to miss this big show no matter what. However, this didn''t mean that Junior Leopard was willing to reveal his own identity. What Wang She knew was what Wang She knew. Wang She knew a lot of things. He was able to cause a din in Mingyi School''s wedding. He can create trouble in the wedding of Governor Ma''s daughter. That was because he was Wang She who had the qualification. What about Junior Leopard? How could he compare with him? Could Junior Leopard do what Wang She do? Even if it was Wang She forcing him to do so, if he could cover it up in front of one person he would do it.


    Hence, he already thought it through. At that time he would wear a mask and carry a sword to join in the fun. Thinking up to here, there shouldn''t be anyone thinking of him? Thus, he decided to learn the Silver Moon Sword Technique now.

 Chapter 132: Bright Moon Deifying & Perfect Disguise

    Chapter 132: Bright Moon Deifying & Perfect Disguise


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Silver Moon Sword Technique was an extremely unfathomable sword technique. Junior Leopard thought that with his current foundation, practicing it would be an extremely relaxing matter. However, the truth was not so.


    "It seems that I underestimated this sword technique!"


    Within the cave, the coal dagger in Junior Leopard''s hands slowly remained. There was an extremely cold and strange spirit that was flowing, surrounding his body.


    Shutting his eyes, Junior Leopard quietly sensed this strange spirit flow in the surroundings. "I didn''t think that this sword technique can actually change the spirit surrounding a person. This is exactly what I need. When I join it with my Black Hole Fist Intent, maybe even Wang She won''t be able to recognize me!"


    Junior Leopard silently calculated the gains and losses of this matter. "Compared to the Wild Hammering Skill''s flamboyant style, this sword technique is dark and mysterious. It made people unable to guard against it. The mental cultivation method going along with it is even more mysterious. It is actually able to change the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon Internal Qi within my body to a gentle and Yin nature. It is the complete opposite of violence. No wonder Xue Wuya would steal this. With the Bloodfire Gang that he practices, if coordinated with this mental cultivation method of the Silver Moon Sword Technique, without taking too long, he will be able to remove the Fire Qi within his Internal Qi, and completely control the violent nature of the fire attribute Internal Qi. This could result in the Internal Qi Gang Qi condensing even more perfectly. His power would increase exponentially!"


    Thinking through this point, Junior Leopard was even more curious about this sword technique. "I don''t know what kind of background the He Family in Yangzhou has to actually possess such a mysterious sword technique. It seems that their ancestor must be a character!"


    But he did not know that the He Family in Yangzhou was famous in this world 10,000 years ago. However, at that point in time, it was not the He Family, but the Silver Moon Sword Sect. This Silver Moon Sword Technique was the foundation of the Silver Moon Sword Sect. And the mental cultivation method going along with the sword technique was the Bright Moon Deifying Technique.


    This Bright Moon Deifying Technique had the similar effect as Taiji Fist in condensing Internal Qi. However, what was different was that Taiji Fist was focused on purifying Internal Qi, condensing was just a side effect. But the Bright Moon Deifying Technique was completely focused on condensing Internal Qi. No matter how overbearing the Internal Qi was, after the circulation of the Bright Moon Deifying Technique, it would become finer, and in the end, it would reach the state of being fine like silk.


    The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was no exception.


    Of course, this only had pros and no cons toward Junior Leopard. The more condensed that the Internal Qi was, the stronger that the power unleashed would be, especially for Junior Leopard, who cultivated the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. The deeper the cultivation, the more effort that had to be spent to suppress the violent Fire Qi within the Internal Qi. It would only add to their difficulty of condensing Evil Qi into Gang Qi. This Bright Moon Deifying Technique seemed to have solved this problem. This allowed him to train without worries. Just based on this point, it was enough for people to kill each other to vie for it.


    "Urgh...!"


    Outside of the cave, there was suddenly the howl of a wolf. Junior Leopard smiled and walked to the cave entrance. He looked outside, and his face revealed a look of surprise. He saw Little Du standing on the riverside. Underneath its feet was a wild lamb corpse. It was facing off against three fierce tigers.


    "This brat dog!" Junior Leopard sat outside of the cave entrance and was prepared to watch a show.


    However, there was not much fun in watching the show. Even though Little Du was a mixed blood of wolf and dog, it had a keen sense since birth, and was a demonic beast with intelligence. Adding on to the fact that it ate the Inner Elixer that Junior Leopard had given it, after suffering for a period of time, its power increased. It only howled once and it was able to shock and scare those three fierce tigers. After shouting once more, those three tigers did not dare to continue battling. After facing off for a while, they ran away. This made Junior Leopard somewhat disappointed.


    Ever since Little Du ate that demonic beast''s Inner Elixer, its strength had increased, but its outer appearance had a drastic change. The originally silver fur''s luster had completely vanished. It became silver grey. There was no difference from a normal wolf. Its big size had become smaller as well, the same size as an adult wolf. This was a matter that made Junior Leopard completely dissatisfied because he could no longer ride on it.


    However, no matter if it was speed or strength, or even Little Du''s original strength, it had a major increase. Little Du now only needed to run a few steps and could produce nine phantoms. It was a major improvement compared to the six phantoms when it first met Junior Leopard. The most important thing was that its intelligence seemed to have increased. It was smarter than before. Junior Leopard only needed to move his thoughts slightly, and it would carry out whatever requests without committing any errors.


    "What a pity! I can''t bring it out to show off!" Junior Leopard sighed. He turned around into the cave and continued practicing.


    Within the mountains, there was neither day nor night.


    Unknowingly, he had already stayed in Misty Mountains for four whole months. Within these months, he had an obvious increase in understanding the Silver Moon Sword Technique. When he executed it, there was power in it. His relationship with Little Du also became intimate. The initial proud and violent psywave was also slowly eradicated by him. The most important thing was that after half a year of continuously circulating his External Elixer, the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill had already reached a stage that Junior Leopard did not dare to believe.


    Level Five!


    It had completely surpassed his body''s cultivation. When circulating, a strong Green Jade Internal Qi flowed within the External Elixer and communicated with the body. Even though he could not absorb the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill within his body, it was still extremely smooth when he used it.


    For the past month, he had been practicing the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill to be compatible with the Silver Moon Sword Technique. Under the effects of the Bright Moon Deifying Technique, his Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill became more and more condensed. In truth, if it was not for him circulating the Bright Moon Deifying Technique, now his External Elixer would have reached Level Six, which was the requirement and target that Wang She had set out for him.


    "The Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill, the Bright Moon Deifying Technique, and adding on the Silver Moon Sword Technique¡ªthis is the perfect disguise. There shouldn''t be anybody thinking that I am the same person!" Junior Leopard thought in his heart. He left the Misty Mountains with a tinge of regret.


    Indeed, regret. The only regret was that he did not see the little monster. That tree which was cut apart made him worried that the little monster had encountered an accident.


    It was just within the past four months that he had searched the surroundings thoroughly, but he did not find any traces of the little monster. If it was further in, it would have exceeded Junior Leopard''s capability. Hence, he had to give up.


    Leaving Misty Mountains, he stayed for a few more days in the village. He bought some property for his family in Qingyang Market. He settled his parents in, and pleaded with Qin Xuanlong who was in charge of the Wu''s Ironware Shop in Qingyang Market to take care of his parents. Qin Xuanlong naturally agreed to do so, and patted his own chest to promise. Junior Leopard then relaxed and went toward Qinlingjun City.


    In another few days it would be Xu Yong''s birthday, so he had to arrive in Qinlingjun City before that day.


    ...


    ...


    "What? Zhou Bao came back, and even prepared the Sky Splitting Sword as a gift for Elder Xu?!"


    Deep within the Wu''s headquarters, in a house there was a shout of surprise. Following that was the sound of a teacup dropping on the floor. A white porcelain teacup dropped on the floor, and was smashed into pieces. The tea splashed all around the floor, emitting a faint white steam.


    "Yes, yes. I heard that he met an assassin in Misty Mountains. That sword was obtained from that assassin!" a pink-clothed maidservant bowed her head and replied. She really could not understand why the Second Madam, upon hearing this news, would have lost her composure, even smashing her favorite teacup. However, at moments like this, she did not dare to raise her head.


    "What about that assassin? What happened to that assassin!" The Second Madam''s voice had changed. However, she seemed to have sensed her loss of composure. She took a deep breath and asked calmly, "Has he caught that assassin?"


    "I heard Zhou Bao killed him!" the maidservant replied.


    "He was killed?!" The Second Madam moved slightly. She retreated a step and sat on the chair. Both of her hands were tightly holding onto the armrests. She then stabilized her body. "Are you sure?!"


    "I, I heard that he burnt him into ash, only leaving the Sky Splitting Sword!" the maidservant said carefully. Her tone seemed to be trembling. She could very obviously feel that the temperature in the surroundings had decreased by a few degrees.


    "Burnt into ash, only leaving the Sky Splitting Sword!" The Second Madam was at a loss. Her eyes were loosely fixed in front, and her mouth seemed to be muttering something. She raised her hand to signal the maidservant to leave.


    That maidservant did not dare to stay long, so she bowed her head and quickly left the house. Only the Second Madam was left there, sitting on the chair, dazed.


    "Burnt into ash. That is impossible, impossible. Mother Wu has reached Level Six and has the Sky Splitting Sword. How can she fail? How is this possible?!" her mouth was muttering. Her tone contained signs of disbelief. "Not possible. Definitely impossible. I want to go and see for myself whether that is the Sky Splitting Sword!"


    A wave of hot air hit her brain. She violently stood up and rushed to the door. She just rushed out of the door and suddenly stopped.


    "No, I can''t just go like that. It is too lacking in propriety!" she thought in her heart. Then she slowly sat back in her chair and sighed deeply. "Aye, Zhou Bao, Zhou Bao, what kind of a deity are you?"


    ...


    ...


    Zhou Bao was not a deity. He was only a normal hunter that came out of the village. Of course, he was the guard of Li Yuan, Zhonghe City''s admiral, who had not reported yet.


    On Xu Yong''s birthday, Junior Leopard presented the Sky Splitting Sword. It ignited a lot of commotion.


    Also as a smelting family, the Wu Family had lusted after the Jian Family''s ability to craft weapons. It was a pity that after researching for hundreds of years, they still could not figure it out. And the mysterious weapons that the Jian Family had leaked outside were not many. Most of them had owners. It was thus difficult to research it. Who would have thought that Junior Leopard would inexplicably bring out one of the three great swords of the Jian Family, the Sky Splitting Sword? How could the Wu Family not be happy about this?


    As for who really wanted to kill Junior Leopard, the Wu''s were too lazy to dwell on it.


    Now Junior Leopard was no longer the unknown person from back then. He used the hammers to destroy the city gate at Zhonghe City, and kept guard in the underground fire vein for four days. He defeated quite a few Bone-Forging Realm experts. In the end, he had some ties with Tian Long Taoism''s Wang She. All of this caused his reputation to soar. Amongst the Wu''s younger generation, there was not another like him. Even the two sons of the family head had their reputation robbed by him.


    In this way, it was not a strange thing for people to want to kill him. Which martial artists in their meteoric rise to fame had not met this kind of situation before? In a martial artists'' rise, it meant that there were a lot of experts falling at his hands, to become his stepping stones. This obviously incited hatred in people.


    It would be normal that he would be killed by more than one assassin. This assassin''s hands actually had one of the three great treasures of the Jian Family. This would obviously attract the deep thoughts of people. However, those were only deep thoughts. This sword was the Sky Splitting, not the Shaking Heaven, so there was not really a point to dwell upon it.

 Chapter 133: General Personal Guard & Assassin

    Chapter 133: General Personal Guard & Assassin


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    A strange black fish-scale soft armor, with a cyan robe over it¡ªthis was the standard equipment of the Admiral of Zhonghe Prefecture, General Li Yuan''s personal guard.


    As Admiral of Zhonghe Prefecture, Li Yuan had 36 personal guards and he established a personal guard camp.


    Junior Leopard had already been Li Yuan''s personal guard for a month. Life had been very comfortable. In fact, as a general''s personal guard, life couldn''t be more comfortable.


    The so-called personal guard, plainly speaking, was bodyguard, Li Yuan''s bodyguard.


    Li Yuan was the Admiral, Commander in Chief and also Military Counselor of Zhonghe Prefecture. That meant, he was at least as great as the military commander of the local region in Junior Leopard''s previous life. But compared to Junior Leopard''s world, he was a little more powerful in this world. In theory, a personal guard like Junior Leopard had to follow Li Yuan on his trips to protect him. When Marshal Li went out, having a personal guard camp with him was not a big issue. But it wasn''t necessary to bring 36 personal guards all the time with him.


    That was too ostentatious.


    Li Yuan was not an ostentatious person. So on normal days, he only had six personal guards at his side. The 36 people in the personal guard camp changed shifts every six days. This way, they were more relaxed.


    Of course, if you weren''t guarding, you weren''t out of the picture either. In the days when it wasn''t your turn, the personal guard camp was in training most of the time.


    Li Yuan was a Level Three court official, a General. Naturally, his men could not act like ordinary Jianghu characters and the rebellious in the martial arts world who would attack casually when confronted with enemies. Especially his personal guard camp, what they focused most was coordination. Junior Leopard was, however, not very good at coordinating with the others.


    He would always be a loner. So at the beginning, he found it hard to adjust.


    After a month, he was finally able to fit in.


    The personal guard camp had two principal officers, one chief, and one deputy. They were both experts in Bone-Forging Realm. The chief in charge was called Wang Lei who was a Level Five expert and good at using the long spear. The deputy chief was Qi Fei. He was a Level Four expert who employed the double Dragon Fangs Halberd.


    All the other 34 people, including Junior Leopard himself, were all at Level Three.


    There was a separate barrack in the personal guard camp, which was located in the Admiral Manor''s courtyard. Junior Leopard and the other members of the personal guard camp would practice various kinds of battle array coordination when they were not busy. He also benefited greatly.


    The personal guards had a good attitude towards Junior Leopard, and there was no evidence of the old soldiers'' bullying the newcomers as it was often portrayed in American movies. This was because the guards here were the entire General''s close confidants, having all gone through Li Yuan''s careful selection. Naturally, they understood the severity of the matter and had a profound understanding. Secondly, when Junior Leopard took Zhonghe City, the guards observed all the formidable attack force and strength that he emerged. It went without saying that they wouldn''t be so stupid as to go looking for trouble from such a talented assassin and they simply wouldn''t bring trouble to themselves.


    As a result, they welcomed Junior Leopard to join the team. After all, a strong comrade meant they would be more secure.


    Hence when it came to instructing Junior Leopard, they were all doing their best.


    As a result, Junior Leopard received a lot of benefits.


    What surprised him the most was that while he was in the personal guard camp, he even got a complete hammering skill with a power which was on par with the Wu Family''s Wild Hammering Skill?


    Flipping Sky Hammer!


    This Flipping Sky Hammer originally was a martial arts skill in the imperial family''s armory of Great Jin. 300 years ago, it was awarded to General Zhou Ang by Emperor Wu. Since then, it was introduced into the army. However, the hammering skill was in reality too unfathomable and it was demanding for cultivators. For 300 years, except General Zhou Ang, no one had succeeded in practicing it. Gradually, no one had bothered to inquire.


    On second thought it made more sense. The saber was the principal weapon in the army. It not only was the easiest weapon to master but also the most lethal weapon at the early stage. Therefore, the saber was one of the standard army weapons. But, originally, a hammer was an unpopular weapon and the requirements placed on the user were high. Therefore, a common soldier wouldn''t use a hammer.


    In the army, the only people who could really choose their own weapons were the generals.


    A high-ranking military officer could only come from three backgrounds: a well-known family or the imperial court, which was a high quality background; an ordinary soldier''s background, which was also regarded as a high quality background; born in Jianghu or a Military Camp, which was the last background an officer may have.


    Since a hammer was a type of unpopular weapon, those generals who came from the imperial court or well-known families wouldn''t use it. As for ordinary soldiers, they were already accustomed to holding the sabers and swords, how could they change to use the hammer?


    A man in Jianghu whose background was the Military Camp, wouldn''t use it either because the weapon was too unpopular. Even if he had used this type of weapon, he generally wouldn''t have lived to see the day when he achieved meteoric success in his career. Moreover, this Flying Sky Hammer was an unfathomable hammering skill. Although it had been circulated in the military, it was not clear to everyone. Only those generals who had strong backgrounds could have access to it, like Li Yuan.


    This Li Yuan was born in Pingzhou and was of the Li Family. The Li Family was very valiant and was deeply rooted in the military. If the Li Family wanted to acquire the cultivation method of Flipping Sky Hammer, it wasn''t difficult. But until now, they hadn''t found the right person to pass the hammering skill over. However, it was worthy of an investment to pass it to Junior Leopard. Li Yuan attracted a personal guard with boundless prospects by using a cultivation method that was of no use to him. In any case, this could be regarded as a very cost-effective thing.


    Junior Leopard was naturally very grateful, at least on the surface.


    Although the time used in practicing martial arts at the personal guard camp was a lot, it did not take up all the guards'' time. Because they took turns being on duty for every six days, so they naturally had a lot of time to relax. It was during this time that Junior Leopard could freely govern. At the beginning, he was very busy, but after a month, he was idle now.


    When he first came to Zhonghe Prefecture, in addition to reporting to the Admiral Manor, he also made a schedule for the Wang Tianlei family. His brother-in-law really followed him to Zhonghe Prefecture.


    Junior Leopard naturally wanted to help him settle down. Fortunately, Wang Tianlei was a very independent person; he did not need Junior Leopard to worry about him but only needed him to provide the funds.


    Wang Tianlei soon found a house in Zhonghe City. He took with him Junior Leopard''s elder sister and his little nephew to move into the house.


    On the other hand, Jin Nanqing also secretly sent over Junior Leopard''s medicinal herbs. The two carts of medicinal herbs were disguised as grain and sent into the city. This was all thanks to Wang Tianlei who used the silver coins that Junior Leopard gave him to open a grain store in Zhonghe Prefecture. Hence, this flaw was yet to be discovered.


    As for why Wang Tianlei wanted to open a grain store, it was a long story. Simply put, in the past, there was a fellow officer whose family were grain merchants. Moreover, it was the Qianzhou grain chaos that made Wang Tianlei find a resource. He used the funds that Junior Leopard provided and opened a not so big grain store in Zhonghe City.


    As for being outlanders in the city, whether they would have any difficulty in opening a grain shop in Zhonghe City and whether the local thugs in Zhonghe Prefecture would come to collect protection fees, Wang Tianlei had not thought of such issues. Half a year ago, Zhonghe City had just been overrun by the sect of flame and had been under siege for ten days. Apart from a few shops such as the Wu Family''s Ironware Shop, others were burned to the ground. Now all business in Zhonghe City had declined, and only very few merchants were left. The mayor of Zhonghe Prefecture was now like local governers in Junior Leopard''s previous life, desperate to improve the local GDP. As for Wang Tianlei the new merchant, the mayor would no doubt warmly welcome. In addition, Junior Leopard was Li Yuan''s personal guard, one of the people who recaptured Zhonghe City with first-class merit. Once all these factors were put together, they gave Wang Tianlei a huge advantage. Wang Tianlei could safely do his grain business in Zhonghe City. At the same time, Junior Leopard would have a home in Zhonghe City and in his free time, he didn''t have to stay at the Admiral Manor where he never felt free. Moreover, he now had two carts of medicinal herbs and his strength had reached the boundary of the Full Closure of the Skin-Toughening Realm. Naturally, he was eager to refine the Bone-Forging Pills as soon as possible and quickly forge the bones. He had been living in the general''s house but he never got the opportunity.


    "Little Shiba, you grow up. Haven''t you considered looking for a wife?" Sitting by the fire, pregnant Zhou Hua''er was sitting by the fire sewing and chatting with Junior Leopard. "Before coming out this time, mother warned repeatedly, that I must find you a good wife!"


    Junior Leopard laughed mischievously and in his heart scolded himself as to why he thought to come and visit his sister. His visit had only resulted in his being his sister''s target. What a miscalculation!


    "Okay Hua-er, don''t speak about it anymore. Every time Junior Leopard comes back, you continuously nag him. Be careful your nagging scares him away and next time he won''t come back."


    "How would he dare?" Zhou Hua scornfully glanced at Wang Tianlei and ferociously looked at Junior Leopard, "Don''t think that just because you now have a promising future, you can disobey me!"


    "No, of course not, I wouldn''t dare!" Junior Leopard quickly responded, "By the way, sister, I still have things to do, so I can''t stay here and keep you company!"


    "All right, go ahead. I know you''re tired of me!"


    "Hah hah.." Junior Leopard chuckled and pulled Wang Tianlei out of the house in a hurry.


    "It looks like I''ll have to limit my visits or else I''ll receive my sister''s nagging every time I come by!"


    "If you don''t want to hear her babbles, just listen to her and get a wife, then I bet she won''t nag!"


    "I don''t have time right now!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly and shook his head." By the way, General Li is going to the drill ground tomorrow. I don''t think I''ll be back for a few days, so do take care of Little Du for me."


    "It''s all right, business is more urgent!" Wang Tianlei said, "I''ll take care of the home. Besides, does it matter whether you come back or not?"


    They both laughed.


    ...


    ......


    Doing arms drill on the drill ground was a tradition since ancient times. In fact, it was similar to the army review of later generations and it wasn''t worth observing. However, this arms drill was different from usual. All personal guards of the personal guard Camp had to present to show the General''s dignity.


    Among Li Yuan''s personal guards, Junior Leopard was the smallest and the shortest, therefore, he was at the very edge of the whole personal guard camp queue. Two silver hammers were hung on the horse''s back, and in addition to the black fish scales and the green robe that covered his body, there was a black helmet on his head. Riding on the horse, he looked quite magisterial.


    It wasn''t too far from the Admiral Manor to the drill ground. One was in the east of the city; the other was in the west. There were many pedestrians on the road since it was in the morning. This group of people were all riding horses and occupying a large part of the road. Therefore, although he was riding on horseback, his speed was not fast.


    Having attended the arms drill a couple of times before, Junior Leopard was not surprised to see this. While they were about to take a break, he suddenly felt the warning sign in his heart.


    "Why?!" Junior Leopard''s muscles stiffened slightly and he loosed his left hand which was grabbing the rein and moved near to the hammer''s handle on the horseback.


    Suddenly, Junior Leopard heard a faint vibration of the bow string.


    "Phew--!"


    A silvery light with a whistling sound broke through space.


    The target headed straight at Li Yuan.

 Chapter 134: Three Bandits... The Mask… Li Family in Pingzhou

    Chapter 134: Three Bandits... The Mask¡­ Li Family in Pingzhou


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Assassin!"


    The chilling light pierced the air. The other personal guards finally reacted, but it was a little too late. The arrow in the darkness almost shot Li Yuan in the face.


    Clang! The sparks flew. Junior Leopard hammered the flying arrow when it was three inches from Li Yuan''s face. He felt a tremor in his hand and it was rebounding off the arrow. The arrow was hammered down, but his hand was bounced back. Two more arrows targeted them without a sound.


    The two arrows were flying faster than the speed of sound, one following the other. Junior Leopard''s hand had been shaken, making it impossible for him to hammer the arrows again.


    However, he had bought Li Yuan some time. Almost at the moment when the arrow was hammered down, Li Yuan shouted and rolled over to the ground from his horse without jumping.


    Everything happened so quickly from Junior Leopard hammering down the first arrow, Li Yuan rolling over on the ground from his horse, to the horse getting shot down.


    After the three arrows, everything returned to tranquility.


    There was a moment of silence before the uproar began.


    They had automatically split into three teams. One team searched along the direction of the arrow, one cordoned off the street, and the last one, Junior Leopard''s team, surrounded Li Yuan to protect him.


    "Junior Leopard, well done!" Li Yuan was pale and shocked after dodging the three arrows, but he still smiled. He patted Junior Leopard on the shoulder and said affectionately, "Thanks to you, I didn''t die here today!"


    "It''s my duty!" Junior Leopard said respectfully without any arrogance or complacency for his great credit.


    "Good, very good! Very good!" Li Yuan said with satisfaction, turning over to Qi Fei. "Tell them to come back. The archer is gone because he only has the power to shoot three times. The three arrows didn''t succeed, so he can only escape!"


    After answering him, Qi Fei left.


    "General, did you know who was it?" Junior Leopard asked curiously.


    "It''s an old friend!" Li Yuan forced a smile and waved at the personal guards. "You can disperse. It''s fine now. Let them go after him. We''ll head to the drill ground now!"


    "We''re still going?"


    "Why not? We''ve already decided on it. If I return to Admiral Manor just because of these arrows, then wouldn''t I lose face?" In a few words, Li Yuan had returned to normal. His horse had been shot dead, but there were many horses around. He pulled on a horse and climbed on it. "Come on, guys. Let''s go to the drill ground!"


    "Yes!" Once again, the group of people rushed to the drill ground in the east of the city, yet they were much faster this time.


    Junior Leopard gradually realized Li Yuan did not continue the arms drill because he found it important, but rather to preserve his ego. He knew this because Li Yuan was absent-minded during the entire arms drill. Halfway through, Wang Lei returned with the team that went after the enemy without any findings. Wang Lei looked a little depressed and asked for Li Yuan''s pardon as soon as he arrived at the drill ground. Li Yuan did not make things difficult for him and even encouraged him. Thus ended the arms drill.


    Junior Leopard''s status in the personal guard camp seemed to rise a few notches after this incident. Never mind other reasons, him hammering down the arrow and saving Li Yuan alone were equivalent to saving the lives of all the guards in the camp. As guards, they enjoyed higher status and better treatment than ordinary soldiers. At the same time, they also bore heavier responsibilities. If Li Yuan was assassinated, the blame was on them. Even if they did not have to kill themselves as an apology, they would not be able to stay in the army anymore, leaving a bleak future ahead of them.


    For these personal guards with promising futures, the fate might even worse than death. Junior Leopard not only saved Li Yuan but also brought their futures back. How could they not be grateful?


    Of course, Junior Leopard did not refuse their many shows of kindness. As a former honorable civil servant, he knew what it meant to get along well with people around him. Of course, there was no difficulty in dealing with these guards.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard''s life was getting better and better in the personal guard camp.


    As for the assassin who appeared and disappeared out of nowhere, putting the personal guard camp into big trouble, Junior Leopard gradually found out his identity.


    Clear Breeze Stronghold, in Mount Wuyang.


    Yun Luo, the Third Valley Chief.


    Yun Luo held a deep grudge against Li Yuan. 30 years ago, Yun Luo was nearly killed by Li Yuan and escaped desperately. Li Yuan did not regard Yun Luo seriously, but unexpectedly, 10 years ago, Yun Luo suddenly appeared to assassinate Li Yuan for the first time. Though he failed, Li Yuan was frightened with a cold sweat. Yun Luo owned a powerful Secondary Heavenly Weapon, the Chill Moon Bow. Back then, he had only the power to shoot once and he had just received it. Eager to get his revenge, he did not practice enough before trying to kill Li Yuan. Of course, he failed. Over the next 10 years, Yun Luo continued to look for opportunities to assassinate Li Yuan. He could shoot three arrows now, much more powerful than before. However, Li Yuan had strengthened his defense after the first assassination. He also climbed higher and higher in his career and grew into an Admiral from a humble leader. Therefore, it was even more difficult to assassinate him.


    "In other words, Yun Luo must be General''s nemesis. Why didn''t he arrest him?" Junior Leopard asked, confused.


    Under the great power of Jin, it was a felony to assassinate an officer of the imperial court. Even if Li Yuan let him go, the law of Jin would not. It had been ten years. How could he live so comfortably and assassinate Li Yuan as he pleased?


    "It''s easier said than done!" Sitting across from Junior Leopard with a cup of wine, Qi Fei''s expression was bitter.


    "Yun Luo is the Third Valley Chief of Clear Breeze Stronghold in Mount Wuyang. Clear Breeze Stronghold is one of the biggest bandit groups in Jin. The imperial court has sent armies to destroy it numerous times, but they all failed. Let alone us!"


    The three biggest bandit groups?


    Hearing this, Junior Leopard burst out laughing. The three biggest bandit groups each occupied one place, like the Liangshan Moor. The court was very much troubled by them, but was incapable of destroying them. They could only try every effort to suppress those bandits. Clear Breeze Stronghold in Mount Wuyang was one of them. Therefore, Li Yuan must be very confused and depressed.


    "Alright, Camp Supervisor Qi. Forget about it. It''s the personal enmity between General and Yun Luo. We just need to ensure General''s safety!"


    "You''re right. Though Yun Luo was skilled, he had never succeeded and was almost caught two times in 10 years. This time was the most suspenseful one. But fortunately you were there to hammer down his arrow. Now the whole camp is grateful to you!"


    "We''re all brothers in the same camp. There''s no need to say this!" Junior Leopard laughed. "Come on, Brother Qi! Drink up!"


    "Okay! Cheers!"


    ...


    ...


    Time passed and before anyone realized, another month had passed. After the assassination in the street, the personal guards did not encounter anything similar. So their lives become more leisurely. But Junior Leopard had been busier and busier. Except his daily practice, he had no time to sit down and relax.


    That was because the people of Wu Family''s ironware shop was already in place.


    Wu Yuntian had not only died, he also went with a dreadful reputation. Yet that did not mean the influence of Wu Family in Zhonghe City was gone. Wu Yuntian was arrogant and domineering, but he was simply a local supervisor of the family. Being a descendant of Wu Family, he became more arrogant than the other supervisors. Now that he was dead, the Wu Family theoretically only needed to replace him with another supervisor.


    It was just that the selection of the supervisor gave the whole Wu Family a headache.


    That was because Zhonghe Prefecture was now a crucial area to the Wu Family, with the existence of an underground fire vein.


    It was precisely due to the unground fire vein that Zhonghe City, on the edge of the Wu Family''s power, now became a delicious slice of cake. However, it was also something troublesome. If you took over and managed it well, your status in the Wu Family would improve dramatically and the benefits you would receive would be endless. But if you did poorly, you would become a sinner and your status in the family would plummet. Therefore, everyone was very cautious with this chance. After going through a bloody battle unprecedented within the Wu Family, they finally decided the supervisor and the Great Master. Of course, they did not forget Junior Leopard, the key figure for them to get the benefit from the underground fire vein. So, they gave him a foreign affairs supervisor position to handle the affairs between Wu Residence and Admiral Manor in Zhonghe prefecture.


    This time, the supervisor sent to Zhonghe Prefecture was an Elder, Xu Andong. He had once visited with Xu Yong and had a good relationship with Xu Yong. Most of all, he was a free Elder and had no basis in Wu Family. He became an Elder only due to his Level Four cultivation. Before becoming an Elder, he was just a common inner core disciple, not a core disciple. That was why he did not inherit the position of a certain vein in the Wu Family like Xu Yong.


    His position was not very high among the Elders of the family. Yet he was very detached and this fitted the interests of every veins of Wu Family. So he was sent here as a supervisor. On the first day he arrived in Zhonghe Prefecture, he invited Junior Leopard to discuss the underground fire vein.


    Thus he disturbed Junior Leopard a fair bit these few days.


    But the underground fire vein was of great importance. Even the imperial court of Jin dared not neglect it, let alone the Wu Family. The court had begun to build a smelting chamber in the underground fire vein and the management right was in the hand of Li Yuan, the mayor and admiral of Zhonghe Prefecture. At the same time, negotiation and interest distribution at higher levels had begun. However, in Zhonghe City, when it came to operation, the Wu Family had a big advantage because of Junior Leopard.


    For example, the day before yesterday, Junior Leopard took a bunch of soldiers to block the craftsmen of Jian Family for four hours. The old man, the head of the Jian Family, almost tried to kill them with saber.


    "This Zhou Bao is too much! He even dares to do everything relying on a little bit of credit! Our Jian Family has spent many efforts on fighting for the right to use the underground fire vein. He, just a personal guard, dared to keep us out!"


    In Jian Residence, Zhonghe Prefecture, Jian Ruyun was throwing a tantrum and shouting. He was the supervisor of the Jian Family in Zhonghe Prefecture. The prefecture had also been the Jian''s traditional sphere of influence. With the discovery of the underground fire vein, they should be the ones to reap the most benefit by right. They did not expect the appearance of Junior Leopard. Not only did he made the Jian Family lose their advantages in Zhonghe Prefecture, but he even got in the way. Even though Jian Ruyun was always even-tempered, he could not help being furious with Junior Leopard''s atrocious methods.


    "Teacher, Zhou Bao is Li Yuan''s golden boy now. He saved Li Yuan''s life a month ago and the entire personal guard camp was grateful to him. As long as he doesn''t exceed the bottom line of the officials, they wouldn''t stop him."


    "Then, what do you suggest?" This disciple of his had always been resourceful, so that was why Jian Ruyun asked as such.


    "Endure and bid for time," Yu Dong said lightly. "Zhou Bao is now borrowing the authority of the officials and he has Snake King backing him. We don''t know what he has to do with Snake King. It is impossible to win to confront him directly. We''re better off waiting and seeing what will happen. Teacher, don''t forget the Pei Family and the Luo Family have also been eyeing up the underground fire vein like us. Let''s see if Zhou Bao only stops us or if he''ll even stop the other two. If he also stops them, then we don''t have to worry about him anymore."


    "What if he doesn''t stop them?"


    "Then that would be a problem!" Yu Dong said, frowning.


    ...


    ...


    "I''m going crazy! There are four biggest smelting families, and you ask me to stop three of them?" In Wu Residence, Zhonghe City, Junior Leopard was looking at Xu Andong without flinching, as if he was looking an idiot. "It''s bad enough to make enemy out of one family, but you want me to bother the other three! I''m still not mad!"


    "Isn''t it because I can''t think of a better idea?" Xu Andong looked at Junior Leopard in a troubled face. Young as Junior Leopard was, his position was not beneath than Xu Andong, so he could only speak with patience. "The family heads are talking about this, but they''re locked in a stalemate. We need to give them more bargaining chips!"


    "I don''t care, and it''s not up to me to care!" Junior Leopard shook his head. "General has spoken to me about this yesterday. The Jian Family had already gone to him and he didn''t want the Pei Family and the Luo Family to go to him as well!"


    "Something like this happened?!"


    Instead of answering him, Junior Leopard said, "Elder Xu, that''s all I can do now. I''ll be leaving the rest to you!"


    "But...!" Xu Andong wanted to say something more, but Junior Leopard had already left, without giving him any time to talk.


    "This brat!" Xu Andong scolded helplessly. But he had no other methods. As for Junior Leopard''s words, he was not stupid to go to Li Yuan to verify the truth. "Fine, fine. It''s good enough to make trouble for the Jian Family. They''re the most powerful family in Zonghe Prefecture. We''ll gain a lot by suppressing them. There''s no need to demand so much!"


    ...


    ...


    Having refused Xu Andong''s request, Junior Leopard was still unhappy. He only wanted to practice peacefully in Zhonghe City without getting involved in so many things. But he was now stuck in it, unable to extricate himself.


    "Sh*t, no way. There are only three months before I''m leaving for Qinlingjun City. If I get involved again, I won''t have time to practice!" Junior Leopard was distressed himself. "I must solve it. The damned underground fire vein is just trouble for me!"


    Walking on the street of Zhonghe City, Junior Leopard looked somewhat seedy. He turned a few curves and came to a marketplace.


    It had been months since Jin recaptured Zhonghe City. The new mayor was also a rare capable official. Under his ruling, Zhonghe Prefecture began to flourish from the former dilapidation in a few short months.


    This was the largest marketplace in Zhonghe City, similar to the petty commodity markets in Junior Leopard''s previous life, stocked with all kinds of goods.


    As soon as he turned into the street, he saw a crowd of people. The sound of selling, bargaining, quarreling, crying, and whining were mixed up into an unending loud noise.


    Unconcerned, Junior Leopard walked slowly into the depths of the street. Most of the merchants on this street sold things by the roadside. He looked around as he moved forward, as if he was searching for something. After a while, he finally stopped in front of a small stall.


    "What can I do for you, laddie?"


    Junior Leopard had just come out of Wu Residence in a casual outfit, so it was normal for the street peddler not to recognize him. He was also young, so it was appropriate to be called a laddie.


    "What are your masks made of?" Junior Leopard crouched down and picked up a mask, knocking on it. "Wood?"


    "Oh, most of them are made of vellum and wood. How about it, laddie? Will you get one?"


    Putting down the mask, he looked over masks on the ground and pointed to one of them. "Show me that one!"


    Looking at the mask Junior Leopard pointed, the peddler immediately smiled and handed the mask over. "Laddie, the mask is good and breathable. You can wear it for a long time!"


    Junior Leopard looked at the mask over and over and tried it on. He then placed it down and said, "Can you customize a mask for me?"


    "Customize?" The peddler raised his head with puzzlement to look at Junior Leopard. He had been doing this for years, but no one had ever asked this of him.


    Without another word, Junior Leopard took a piece of cloth from his pocket. The cloth was painted with an odd face and marked the color of each pattern. "Can you make a mask according to this pattern? I need it to have good breathability. Is there any problem?"


    "No problem!" Glancing at the mask, the peddler laughed. "This face is really good. But laddie, if you want to customize it, the price may...!"


    "Money isn''t an issue. I''ll pick it up the day after tomorrow, is that fine?" He took out ten wen and handed them to the peddler. The peddler grinned because the most expensive mask was only five wen.


    He simply wanted to raise the price, but not more than eight wen. It was a small business and he did not expect Junior Leopard would give him ten wen.


    "This is only half of it. I''ll give you 10 more after I get it. Is that enough?"


    "Enough! Enough!" The peddler nodded quickly. "Don''t worry. I assure you''ll be satisfied with the mask when you get it the day after tomorrow, lad!"


    "Good!" Junior Leopard nodded, stood up, and left the stall. He strolled along the street for another hour and went home after buying a large bag of stuff like sugar men, perfume and cosmetics, and gadgets.


    These were for Zhou Hua''er and her children. After all, he was an uncle to the little ones.


    Coming home with a bag of things led to a lot of grumbling. Zhou Hua''er told Junior Leopard not to waste money and to put it towards his savings or something. It gave him a headache. She had become a landlady, but she still did not allow others to waste money as she had done in the mountain village in the past.


    Another nagging came. This time it was about the External Elixir hanging in Junior Leopard''s ear. Of course, Zhou Hua''er did not know it was an External Elixir, so she disliked the thing that resembled an earring. Once again, Junior Leopard ran away.


    "God, it''s my External Elixir. I''ll rely on it to survive in a few months. How can I live without it!" Junior Leopard muttered to himself when he was back in his room.


    It was his house, so his room was the largest one situated in a small, separate courtyard.


    Entering the yard, Junior Leopard stopped after a few steps.


    Looking around with vigilance and shifting his facial expression, he opened his spiritual mind completely. After three breaths, the corner of his mouth twitched and he locked his eyes on the front of the stone table ahead.


    "I don''t know which method you''re using to turn yourself invisible to me, but you''d better come out yourself or I''ll hit you with a hammer!"


    "Good spiritual mind! You''re much better than I thought!"


    Knowing that he was discovered, the man slowly emerged from hiding without hesitation.


    At this point, Junior Leopard realized the person''s appearance was like a chameleon that could merge with his surroundings. Even his spirit was consistent with the nature around him. This was why Junior Leopard did not immediately discover him when he entered the yard, but felt something was off. He did not find the man''s trail until he used his spiritual mind.


    "Who are you? What are you doing here?" asked Junior Leopard.


    The man before him was not old. To be precise, he was very young. He looked about 14 years old, like Junior Leopard. He was handsome and boyish, but there was a hint of pride in his boyishness. His pride did not contain hubris, but rather was a kind of extreme confidence coming from the bottom of his heart. From Junior Leopard''s experience in his two lives, this young man should come from a very good family and have considerable strength.


    So that was why Junior Leopard was so confused why such a youngster would come to his house.


    "I''m Li Xiu from Pingzhou. I came here to see your hammering skill!"


    "Pingzhou, Li...?" Junior Leopard frowned. "You''re here to see my hammering skill? But I don''t think I know you."


    "Uncle Yuan praised you to be one of the best among the young generation. I was curious to see how good you''d be to receive Uncle Yuan''s compliment, so I ventured here. Please don''t be alarmed."


    "Sh*t!" Junior Leopard cursed mentally, seemingly understanding what was going on. This youngster was here to challenge him. In the past six months, Junior Leopard had done a lot of things, and any one of those things was enough to propel him to fame in martial arts world. This was his way to be famous. In martial arts world, many people wanted to be famous. The best way to achieve fame was defeating celebrities. Junior Leopard was now a celebrity. It was just that he was too young and seemed to be a hard nut to crack with a good background, so no one came to bother him.


    There was no one before, but there was one now.


    This youngster was evidently unsatisfied that Junior Leopard was famous at his young age. What gave Junior Leopard the most trouble was that Li Xiu seemed to come from a prominent family. Li family in Pingzhou was a very famous family with power and influence in the world. Junior Leopard''s immediate superior, Li Yuan, the Admiral of Zhonghe Prefecture, came from a branch of Li family. The youngster addressed Li Yuan as Uncle Yuan. Evidently, he had a deep relationship with Li Yuan. There were scruples in Junior Leopard''s mind. Even if they competed, he would not dare to go all out.


    Hence, Junior Leopard had a headache hearing Li Xiu''s words.


    "You said you''re going to hit me with a hammer. But you don''t have it on you!" It was clear that Li Xiu was not as complicated as Junior Leopard thought and he just looked at Junior Leopard. "I didn''t expect you would go around without your weapon on you at all times!"


    As he talked, he held his sword on his waist tighter, as if he was afraid his sword would disappear. Almost at the same time, a sharp Qi force emanated from his body.


    "Hiss!" Junior Leopard was so shocked that all his hair stood up under this morale. He moved slightly and made a small step back. He frowned even more. The youngster was very young, but he had made great achievements in swordsmanship. His cultivation seemed similar to Junior Leopard''s, merely the Top of Level Three, but his Qi Power had been condensed into substance. His whole body was like a sword drawn out of its sheath and the sword intent had already taken shape.


    The sword intent!


    How could Li Xiu pull off such a difficult thing at such a young age? He had cleared sword intent with his Level Three cultivation! How could that be?


    Such a thought flashed through his mind. Now, he kind of understood the horrors of the Elders of Jian Family, Pei Family, and Luo Family after watching him condensed fist intent in the underground fire vein that day.


    It was because he had already condensed fist intent that he knew the difficulties better than anyone else. He condensed the fist intent because of his magic eyes. He would have never been able to do it without them. But unexpectedly, this boy about his age also condensed his intent. Did he also have the Fiery Eyes?


    "What''s wrong? Am I not worth your time?"


    After explaining his Qi Power, Junior Leopard looked initially shocked with uncertain expression, but there was no sign of the action. This irritated Li Xiu a little.


    "No, no. You''re the strongest opponent I have ever met!" Junior Leopard shook his head. "But you should know that it''s impolite and uneducated to rush into someone''s home for a challenge!"


    "Well...!" Li Xiu''s Qi Power suddenly dissipated.


    Li Xiu''s Qi Power died after hearing Junior Leopard''s words. As a future star from a millennium family, he had been receiving a good education since young. He was burdened with high expectations. His every move represented the Li family in Pingzhou, and all his words and actions should conform to the norms that the children of his family should have. He should not be the one rushing into someone''s house and pointed at someone with his sword and forced him to compete. It was rude as per Junior Leopard''s words.


    He had initially come to Zhonghe City to relieve boredom. He unexpectedly overheard Li Yuan praising Zhou Bao, as if there was no other talent among the younger generation. Angered, he rushed over without even thinking if his behavior would have a bad effect on him or his family.


    There would definitely be some bad effects.


    As the young master of Li family in Pingzhou, he suddenly came to the house of a rough youngster from a mountain village and pointed at his nose with a sword to ask him to compete. If it were to spread, Li family''s and his face would be lost. Whether he won or lost their fight, he had lost.


    These thoughts turned around in his mind, and after thinking through them, his expression became unpleasant.


    Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows and laughed in heart. He had a lot of experience in the previous life dealing with such a face-saving man from a well-known family. Seeing the change of Li Xiu''s expression, he naturally realized that his words had worked. While Li Xiu was distracted, he added, "But if you came here by chance because you weren''t familiar with the place and accidentally encountered me, then itched to compete with me, it''s innocuous."


    Li Xiu''s eyes suddenly lit up, "oh, yes! Yes, that''s it! I was wandering the streets and accidentally met you. And y-you were graceful w-w-with heroic spirit, so...!"


    "That''s enough!" Hearing him stammer, Junior Leopard''s mind was a little confused and he interrupted him. "It''s not that I can''t compete with you, but it''s a little boring to just compete."


    "Then, what do you have in mind?"


    "Why don''t we bet on something?"


    "Stake? What do you want to bet?" Now that Li Xiu had recovered his peace of mind, he calmed down. He was in a panic earlier after Junior Leopard brought up his mistakes. Seeing that Junior Leopard did not make a fuss and seemed willing to compete with him, his mind was naturally clear.


    "I need a sword, an upper class Genuine Weapon. If I win, you''re need to get me a good sword of Genuine Weapon class and you can''t tell anyone. Of course, I won''t put you at an disadvantage. If I lose, I''ll give you five Spiritual Stones of fire property. You should know they''re not worth less than a Genuine Weapon!"


    "Deal!" Li Xiu''s eyes lit up.


    The Spiritual Stones.


    Though he was the young master of the Li family in Pingzhou, Spiritual Stones would not multiply because of his precious position. It was hard even for him to encounter a Spiritual Stone. Now there were five of them at stake. They were better than a Genuine Weapon. Therefore, he consented readily.


    ...


    .

 Chapter 135: The Old Man in Chen Manor in Capital City

    Chapter 135: The Old Man in Chen Manor in Capital City


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The sky in the capital city was full of coolness, and the cool autumn was in a steady state. The streets were covered with yellow leaves and there came a rustling as soon as you stepped on it. Hearing the sound, it felt even bleaker.


    There were not many people on the road. The sky was not overcast, but gloomy. Cold winds blowing from time to time made people feel a sense of coolness.


    There was a street within the capital city called Longhu Street. The biggest difference between it and other streets in the capital city was that it was curved like a snake, winding its way from the side of the straight avenue of Qingyang Gate to Gelao Alley.


    Gelao Alley''s original name was Zhongting Lane. The people who lived in this alley were all important officials of Jin. There were three Gelao from the Cabinet, so it was called Gelao Alley. Because of this, the high security of Gelao Alley in the capital city was second only to the Royal Capital. The people who came and went were high officials and noble lords. Officials under fifth grade were rarely qualified to come here.


    There were lots of Grand Mansion Gates in Gelao Alley. One of them was in the first right corner of the alley and its doorhead was not prominent, but the heavy red door''s plaque said "Chen Manor" on the doorhead, showing the extraordinariness of the owner of this manor.


    Of course, the two words had no demonic power, but the words "Gu Yue Immortal" in the small print beside the two big words were really deterrent.


    "Gu Yue Immortal" was the alias of Jin''s former Emperor. In other words, the plaque was written by the current Emperor''s father. Hence this plaque had such a heavy importance.


    Because of this unusual weight, the owner of this house was entitled to order in the Cabinet, and subsequently was emboldened to denounce national politics. He was the Prime Minister, Chen Yihua, an old minister of three dynasties, known as "the Literary Master of the World", his literary name was Chen Zhulao.


    Chen Yihua had been a Cabinet Minister for 20 years and a Prime Minister for 10 years. No one in the imperial court had ever been able to shake his position or even had this idea. Four of the current five Cabinet Ministers were his students, the last one also regarded him as a teacher.


    In fact, Chen Manor was not big and was only a medium-sized house among a dozen Grand Mansion Gates in Gelao Alley. But the authority it represented was more than the rest of the Grand Mansion Gates combined.


    Because of this, the entrance guard of Chen Manor was very strict. The door of the house looked old and dappled, and there was only an old and frail gatekeeper. However, if you want to pass through this door, hmph!


    It was hard!


    If you were an official under fourth grade, the old gatekeeper was not willing to care for you, nor would he let you in. He would only be willing to greet ministers of third grade or above.


    But today was different. Though the old gatekeeper was slouching as usual, he looked out of the alley with the pale eyes every now and then. Especially when he heard footsteps and hooves, he would look up and from time to time show disdain upon his face.


    It was not until noon when there was a sound of footsteps in the entrance to the alley, that once again the old gatekeeper looked up with hope and finally saw the man he had been waiting for.


    "Oh, my little ancestor, you''re back at last. Come on, go in. The Prime Minister has been waiting for you in the study room!"


    "He is so busy every day. Why would he wait for me!" The man didn''t care about it at all. He looked at the old gatekeeper, "You old man, you can also bluff!"


    "Oh, my Lord, how dare I bluff you! The Prime Minister seemed to have something important for you to do, he knew you would be back today and told me to wait for you at the gate from early in the morning. He said that as soon as you get back, I should send you straight to the study room!"


    "Oh, well!" The man looked a little surprised, but the old gatekeeper didn''t seem to be lying, "See me in such a hurry? That''s interesting. Then I must check it out!" Then he went into Chen Manor, shaking his head behind the old gatekeeper.


    Chen Manor covered an enormous area. They entered the manor and walked a long way before reaching the destination. It was a quiet study room.


    "The Prime Minister is inside!" The old gatekeeper stopped at the door of the study room and said to the man, "please!"


    The man smiled and walked straight into the study room without knocking at the door.


    In the study room, he saw an old man in a green robe, half-white hair casually in a bun, with his back facing towards him.


    The old man was the Prime Minister, Chen Yifu.


    "Second Uncle, I''m back!" He said gently. Though from the outside of the manor he looked unconcerned, as soon as he entered the room, facing the owner of the room, his momentum was lost.


    "Good. I thought you should be back in a few days!"


    "Second Uncle, you were so anxious to ask me here. What''s the matter?"


    "Put down everything you have on hand now. I have something I want you to do!"


    "What''s it?" The man was startled, and a slight uneasiness came over him. Now he had several things on hand, which were all very important. Now that he was asked to put them down, it must not be an easy thing this time.


    "Actually, nothing big!" Chen Yifu said. Then he pulled out a book from the bookshelf in front of him and sat down at the desk, "It''s about an annoying marriage!"


    "An annoying marriage?" He was surprised as if he thought of something, "you mean the Mingyi School and Ma family?"


    "Yes, it''s a hassle!"


    "I know it''s a hassle, but what does this have to do with you?"


    "It''s not just with me. It''s with you, with everyone in Jin!" Chen Yifu said, "do you think this is really just an ordinary marriage?"


    "If it was the Tian Long Taoism and Governor Ma''s daughter, I would find it strange. But it was the Mingyi School and Governor Ma''s daughter. I don''t think it''s a big deal. The Mingyi School had always advocated for the enhancement of the imperial power, while Governor Ma was the direct line of the emperor. Isn''t it a happy marriage?"


    "You know it. Don''t pretend! You are a man of the martial arts world, but you spoke of things from an official point of view. Was it interesting to do so? Yunzhou has always been the territory of the Tian Long Taoism. Now that the Mingyi School wanted to take this opportunity to be a part of it, which is intended to humiliate the Tian Long Taoism, do you think the Tian Long Taoism will agree?"


    "Second Uncle, although I''m a man in Jianghu, I can see something clearly. How could this be successful if both sides have not had to make big compromises? If something happens, it must have happened already. It won''t wait until now. Even if Tian Long Taoism objected, they would only resist at the very beginning. Now it has decided. If they were to stop, they would not only offend the Mingyi School and the imperial court, but also Governor Ma!"


    "Yes, and Governor Ma!" Chen Yifu gave him a deep look, "didn''t you say that Governor Ma was a direct descendant of the Emperor? Why did you separate him from the imperial court now? Isn''t Governor Ma and the imperial court the same thing in your mind?"


    "No!" The man smiled awkwardly, "I just felt that Governor Ma was too independent. In contrast, the majesty of the imperial court in Yunzhou was much weaker than his. Therefore, I unconsciously separated the imperial court from Governor Ma."


    "Yes, he''s too independent. And he performed so strongly that it isn''t easy for the Emperor to replace him in Yunzhou!"


    "The Emperor wants to replace the Governor of Yunzhou?" The man heard the overtones and his body shook as if he didn''t believe it, "How could that be?"


    "How could that be? Everything is possible in this world!" Chen Yifu said, "It was because everyone thought it was impossible that the Emperor wanted to replace him. But I asked you here not for this. It''s not your turn even replacing the governor. I want you to go to Yunzhou to look after the wedding. If there''s no accident, let it be, but if there''s an accident, you might as well mix it up darkly. It''s better to find chances to make the guys in Mingyi School suffer!"


    "The Mingyi School?" The bearer smiled, looked up and said, "Second Uncle, I heard that Wang Chengyun of Mingyi School was entering the Cabinet. Is it true?"


    "Wang Chengyun? He is just a scholar, not worth worrying about!"


    At the mention of Wang Chengyun, Chen Yifu''s expression slightly changed and then immediately returned to normal, "he is only thirty-six years old. It''s not easy for him to enter the Cabinet!"


    "But I heard that Wang Chengyun is very pushy recently!"


    "Being pushy is not always good!" Chen Yifu shook his head and glared at him, "you too. Don''t get too pushy, and get down to business!"


    "What''s the matter with me?"


    "You are like Wang Chengyun. You''re about the same age. He is a scholar, and you are a man in Jianghu. Both of you are very pushy!" Chen Yifu said, "Although Wang Chengyun looks brilliant now, I can tell you right now that he can''t get into the Cabinet or become a Senior Scholar. He won''t be brilliant for a few days!"


    The man raised his eyebrows, he did not ask and did not say anything else. He knew that his Second Uncle always kept his word. Since he said Wang Chengyun could not be brilliant for a few days, then Wang Chengyun would not be brilliant for a few days. Since he said Wang Chengyun could not enter the Cabinet, then Wang Chengyun would not enter the cabinet.


    As for becoming a Senior Scholar, Wang Chengyun was learned, but if he wanted to put a "Senior" before "Scholar", he would have to get Second Uncle''s consent.


    "Go to Yunzhou. Don''t let anyone know or see you. Take a chance to teach the Mingyi School a lesson, but don''t force it. I don''t think it will be smooth!" Chen Yifu gently stroked the short beard under his chin and smiled slightly.


    ...


    .

 Chapter 136: Extreme of the Sword, Limit of the Hammer

    Chapter 136: Extreme of the Sword, Limit of the Hammer


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The sword was just like a bright star, sprinkling dots of light.


    Strands of Sword Qi were tightly packed as they flew in the air, instantly shrouded Junior Leopard within.


    What a strong sword technique!


    Junior Leopard moved his twin hammers. The silver light met the Sword Qi, releasing a ''chi-chi'' sound. Every time a sound was produced, Junior Leopard would feel his hands trembling before a wave of huge power followed up. After that was the fierce Sword Qi.


    Even if Junior Leopard thought that his defense had already been very tight and that the opponent''s Sword Qi was blocked by him, Sword Qi that was blocked could still deal damage to him after scattering.


    Junior Leopard had seen sword users before. He had even seen the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou''s skills. Lu Shaoyou''s sword was full of chilling light, its Sword Qi would pierce through the heavens and had an intent that could erase everything. Li Xiu, on the other hand, could only be described with one word,


    Pure!


    It was extremely pure. Apart from the sword, there was nothing else.


    This was the purest sword technique and also the purest sword intent.


    The long sword that Li Xiu unsheathed didn''t have Lu Shaoyou''s Sword Qi that could pierce the skies. Neither did it have the Silver Moon Sword Technique''s gentleness and mysteriousness. It only had a pure sword form, tearing apart everything and destroying everything.


    Junior Leopard paled in comparison.


    His hammering skills were also extremely excellent. Wild Hammering Skill and Flipping Sky Hammer Method, both of them were world class hammer skills hard to seek. He had also comprehended hammer skills. He was extremely clear on the way of the hammer, hence, he was very confident in his talent in the hammer skills.


    However now, when faced with this sword, no matter how he wielded his hammers, no matter how excellent his hammer skills were, he was unable to destroy Li Xiu''s sword lights, Sword Qi, sword intent.


    In the beginning, the two of them were still on par with each other. However following the tide of time, Li Xiu seemed to have entered into a mysterious state. The sword and person merged as one. The long sword on him was as if he was a goat with its horns. There were no mistakes to fault him for. In a moment, Junior Leopard was slashed by Li Xiu''s Sword Qi twice. The sharp Sword Qi contained a sword intent that could destroy everything. It nearly made him collapse.


    It was fortunate that Li Xiu was still young. His sword intent was still immature and incomplete. If not, Junior Leopard believed that he would be dead with regret and hatred on the spot.


    "Damn, where did this monster come from? I only have this level of cultivation due to my Plug-in. Could it be this kid also has a Plug-in similar to me? No that is not right..."


    Junior Leopard''s gaze shifted. He was thinking of a strategy while observing Li Xiu at the same time. The more he looked, the more depressed he got. Ever since the long sword came out of Li Xiu''s sheath, his facial expression hadn''t changed. Even the expression in his eyes didn''t change. It was quiet, gentle, the heart was calm and didn''t have a shred of feeling. It was as if an immortal came down to look at the mortals. This sent shivers through Junior Leopard.


    "Clang, clang!"


    Two light sounds. Junior Leopard lost his senses for one moment and his twin hammers were completely knocked back. His chest was left wide open. Li Xiu''s sword was like the rainbow, going straight towards Junior Leopard''s chest. The sword intent reached before the Sword Qi.


    The sharp sword intent shredded apart Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi and was heading straight for Junior Leopard''s heart.


    Junior Leopard felt that he was a dried up sponge and Li Xiu''s sword intent was just like water, soaking into every corner of his body and spreading. It was only waiting to spread into his heart and it could completely destroy him, even kill him.


    "Not good!" Junior Leopard''s heart trembled. The pair of hands that were knocked away drafted an arc. A red light burst forth as a wave of burning power burst forth from within Junior Leopard''s body.


    "Hong!"


    With two loud sounds, a black fireball carrying a temperature that could melt iron and metal spread out in the surroundings.


    "Aye?" Li Xiu''s passive expression finally moved. He felt that his own sword was pushed back by a fierce force and then collapsed.


    This had never happened before!


    Looking again at the powerful Qi from that fella, he withdrew his sword with his sword light being drawn back.


    Junior Leopard managed to heave a sigh of relief. However, it was only a sigh.


    Li Xiu''s sword light disappeared, but it didn''t mean that he had retreated. In fact, in Junior Leopard''s eyes, the Li Xiu now was even more dangerous. He previously was like a long-lost mysterious weapon that was unsheathed. Its sharpness was incomparable. Now, it was just like a reed that was continuously compressed and kept. What was kept was not just the sword light, but his Internal Qi and sword intent. Even all of the force within his body was kept. It was waiting until it was compressed to the maximum before it violently exploded. Junior Leopard was very sure that at that time, his explosive force would be several times stronger than what he was previously displaying.


    A pure sword intent that was focused on destroying. When it was condensed to the maximum and exploded...


    When Junior Leopard thought of this his heart shivered. However, now there was no choice. He had ridden the tiger and it was hard to get down. After Li Xiu kept his sword force, Junior Leopard held the advantage on the battlefield. However, he dared not to have any signs of relaxing. That was because he understood that the strong reed that was repressed need not wait until it was completely suppressed before it would explode. As long as he relaxed, Li Xiu would erupt forth.


    It was because of this reason that Junior Leopard wielded the twin hammers. He did not display the Wild Hammering Skill nor the Flipping Sky Hammer, but the Thirteen Punches of Desolation.


    Hammer as fist!


    Hammer, in essence, was an enlarged fist. Junior Leopard all along wanted to incorporate the essence of the hammer skills into the fist skills. However ever since his fist intent was formed, he realized that there weren''t many differences in substance between punching skills and hammering skills. Either one could be melted into the other. Fist skills were hammer skills. Fist Intent was hammer intent. Twin hammers were twin fists. Twin fists were twin hammers.


    The fist intent was burning fiercely. When the Thirteen Punches of Desolation were displayed, a wave of desolate feeling spread forth. The two balls of silver lights in his hands merged into one. It became bigger and bigger. Very quickly, it shrouded Liu Xiu and his sword within.


    "You have sword intent, and I have fist intent!"


    "My fist intent is more mature, mysterious and bigger than your will of the sword. Hence I am not afraid of your will of the sword."


    "My cultivation is not inferior to yours and the hammers in my hands are heavier than yours!"


    "Hence I gain the advantage!"


    The more Junior Leopard fought, the calmer his heart became. His steps grew more stable!


    The hammers were stable and thus they were heavy!


    Without knowing, the essence of the strokes of the Wild Hammering Skill and Flipping Sky Hammer Method flashed across his mind like flowing water. It melted into the Thirteen Punches of Desolation. The mental cultivation method of Extraordinary Strength Fist also started to circulate.


    The mental cultivation method of the Extraordinary Strength Fist was mysterious. All along Junior Leopard wanted to use this mental cultivation method on the hammering skills and make his own hammering skills more forceful. After repeating several times of usage, he had an accidental discovery. When this Extraordinary Strength Fist was used on both fists, it could increase the strength and power of the fists. When it was used on hammers, it could strangely increase the weight of the hammers.


    Junior Leopard''s twin hammers were around 50 kg. However, after circulating the Extraordinary Strength Fist mental cultivation method, Junior Leopard would feel his hands sinking. It was extremely tiring to wield the hammers. After trying it out on the scales, when he used the Extraordinary Strength Fist mental cultivation method, even if the hammers were detached from his hands, within one hour, its weight would increase by 100%. That was when he didn''t exert his full strength. There was once a time where he pushed his limit of the Extraordinary Strength Fist mental cultivation method. Upon testing, that hammer was heavier by 300%.


    The most important point was that this Extraordinary Strength Fist mental cultivation method''s effect was multiplication. With a 5 kg hammer on your hands, no matter how you circulate the Internal Qi, within one hour it would be 20 kg. However, if it was a 50 kg hammer, then the weight upon multiplication would be 200 kg. Theorising this way, the heavier the hammer, the bigger the effect of multiplication.


    Junior Leopard once fantasized carrying a pair of 500 kg hammers and dancing. That was so captivating!


    A pity, with his capabilities now, to carry 500 kg, he could only barely wield it. If he used the mental cultivation method of the Extraordinary Strength Fist, he would definitely pull his back. To wield and wave the hammers now like they were lanterns, he still would have to wait a period of time.


    Originally his cultivation reached Level Three and also reached the Skin-Toughening Realm Full Closure stage. The twin hammers in his hands became somewhat lighter. However, upon the push of the Extraordinary Strength Fist, the hammers became somewhat heavier. He became high upon wielding it like dancing.


    Junior Leopard became high, but Li Xiu was suffering. Just like him previously, Junior Leopard had completely entered into his state. The hammers in his hands were very heavy!


    Almost everytime he clashed, he could feel the remnant strength pouring forth like a tidal wave. This was similar to the state of Junior Leopard back then. At that time, Junior Leopard wasn''t used to his Sword Qi. Almost everytime the weapons clashed Junior Leopard would be hurt by the Sword Qi, it was extremely uncomfortable.


    Now he also felt the same feeling. The difference was that Junior Leopard felt the Sword Qi, and what he felt was an incomparably large force.


    Power, incomparable power. An unruly strength.


    This was the purest form of strength, not having any other attribute.


    Even the fist intent Junior Leopard liked best gradually displayed the power that was brought from his twin silver melon hammers. It was making it hard for Li Xiu to bear. His hands and tendons were numb.


    Even though now he was compressing and defending, like a spring that was continuously repressed, if the pressure was too big, the spring would also collapse before exploding.


    Now what Junior Leopard hoped for was for the spring to collapse before exploding, or to make him unable to endure it and explode prematurely and thus decrease the damage of the opponent.


    However, Junior Leopard was also clear that it wasn''t that simple to make this fella collapse. The biggest possibility was to force him to an extreme and not waiting for the reserve strength to be accumulated before exploding.


    The truth wasn''t so much different from what he expected.


    When Junior Leopard struck continuously for 30-40 hammers, Li Xiu finally couldn''t endure it anymore. Or to put in another way, he didn''t want to endure it anymore. The Qi Power that was condensing shook. The figure that was retreating also stopped. His eyes squinting until they were like fine needles.


    A streak of cold light flashed across and the empty space trembled.


    "What I want is this!" Junior Leopard''s eyes violently stared, his face revealing a ferocious smile. The twin hammers in his hands formed a huge ball of silver light, carrying a mighty power that contained the sound of wind and thunder. It flew towards and knocked the sword light.


    "Hong!"

 Chapter 137: Win or Loss

    Chapter 137: Win or Loss


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Boom!"


    The sound of the clash between hammer and sword appeared extremely dull. However, within the dullness, it had a power that could tear through everything.


    At the moment the hammer and sword clashed, the whole world seemed to be dim.


    The cold and dense spirit permeated the surroundings. The air seemed to fill with lead, it was suddenly extremely heavy. The last hammer of Junior Leopard caused the air around to drag and be solidified. It was heavily compressed, and increased the power of his hammer. The air was compressed and condensed into one point. It was pierced by the Sword Qi that came sneaking over, forming an extreme explosion. Yet the Sword Qi didn''t seem to diminish with the big explosion and Junior Leopard''s hammer also didn''t seem to reduce in strength due to the explosion either.


    What remained was the contest between the sword and hammer.


    The point of contact between the sword and hammer flashed. Junior Leopard and Li Xiu''s body flew back at the same time. Junior Leopard''s hand lightened. He saw the twin silver hammers, crafted personally by his teacher, couldn''t withstand such a strong force and were completely crushed.


    "Damn it!" he scolded in his heart. His body stretched in the air. He was just like a big bird that was slowly floating down. He stabilized his figure in the air and landed on the floor. His face paled. Within the Dantian, there was a rush of a hot wave, flowing through his limbs and bones, slowly repairing the areas of the body that was injured by the impact.


    In this round of collision, Junior Leopard''s twin hammers got destroyed and he suffered light injuries.


    What about Li Xiu?


    The long sword was still intact without damage. It was as if it had come out of the furnace, emitting a sharp Qi force, which stunned Junior Leopard.


    However, what balanced Junior Leopard''s heart was that this guy''s state wasn''t that good. His face was pale and his mouth had a trace of fresh red on it. His gaze was lost and without spirit, as if he had just suffered a huge setback. His whole spirit seemed to be drawn away.


    His robe was full of holes as well, which was hurt by the Sword Qi that was scattered by Junior Leopard. But he was not injured. However, from a rich gentleman''s appearance, he had a beggar''s look. The difference was too big.


    Between the two of them was a 30 feet wide and 10 feet deep mud pit. There was broken twigs and rotten leaves around the pit. It followed one direction, forming a strange pattern, which looked like a radio-wave that was spreading around. It was striking.


    Junior Leopard''s expression stiffened. His figure rushed forward, and he threw out a punch. It didn''t carry a trace of wind, however, this fist was extremely heavy, carrying the momentum that could destroy everything towards Li Xiu. Li Xiu''s lost expression violently trembled, as if he regained composure at the last moment. However, it was too late. Junior Leopard''s fist was already in front of him.


    "My life is going to end here!"


    A wave of despair flooded into his heart. Subconsciously, he closed his eyes.


    However, after waiting for very long, his expected death never arrived. Li Xiu''s heart trembled, and he opened his eyes.


    "You have lost!" Junior Leopard kept his fist, "You owe me a sword!"


    "I lost!" Li Xiu vaguely nodded. Before coming here, he had never thought that he would lose, and to lose so terribly. His Internal Qi was wrought until it became a mess, and his meridians were damaged. Now when he wanted to summon his Internal Qi, his body''s meridians would be struck by numerous pins, extremely painful.


    As for his opponent, apart from losing his twin hammers, he didn''t suffer many injuries.


    All of this indicated that he lost, thoroughly.


    He struggled to stand up from the ground and he forcefully endured the pain through his whole body and he returned the long sword into the sheath. He wanted to say something, but he felt everything go black. His eyes rolled backward, and he passed out on the ground.


    "No!" Junior Leopard blinked his eyes. He looked at Li Xiu who fainted on the ground and looked very embarrassed. "Aye, this playboy gives me so much trouble. Damn it, don''t tell me you are faking ignorance and not holding up to your deal!"


    He could only helplessly carry the fainted Li Xiu back.


    ...


    ...


    "Where is this place?"


    Li Xiu slowly opened his eyes. He only felt that there was pain and numbness all over his body. His eyes were bloodshot, and his mouth was dry. However, he forcefully endured his thirst and weakly asked.


    Without hearing a reply, a warm bowl was put to his lips.


    "Gulp, gulp!"


    Li Xiu instinctively opened his mouth and began drinking. He had never thought that plain water could be so nice to drink. However, he only drank two gulps before that bowl was taken away.


    "You just woke up, you should drink less. It is harmful to your body if you drink too much!" A familiar voice appeared beside him. He raised his eyes and saw Junior Leopard sitting on the edge of the bed. He put that bowl of water on the table beside the bed.


    "It is you!"


    "It is me!" Junior Leopard said, "I say, this is just a sparring match. Is there a need to stake your life? With the value of your life, I don''t want to offend Pingzhou''s Li Clan!"


    Upon hearing Junior Leopard''s words, Li Xiu''s face became hot. In that last hit, for the sake of winning, he didn''t care about using a secret technique to increase his own potential, forcing the Sword Qi that hadn''t been compressed into the strongest realm. However, he didn''t expect that he would still lose.


    ...


    ...


    "How long have I been unconscious for?" He looked at his surroundings and asked.


    "Relax, it is not long. Just a couple of hours!" Junior Leopard said, "In that last hit you hurt your meridians, but it is not serious. You just have to go back and rest for a while!"


    "Oh, then, thanks!" Li Xiu looked at Junior Leopard. He didn''t know what to say at the moment. His head was hot. He rushed into Junior Leopard''s house to issue a challenge. In the end, he was beaten up and nearly died on the spot. Furthermore, he was rescued by him. This was too embarrassing and too awkward. As the Li Young Master, how did he meet with such a situation?


    This was a situation he had never expected!


    "Hey, don''t faint. You should get up. Even though you have hurt your meridians, if you persist, you should be able to move freely. If you don''t go back now, are you thinking of staying over at my house?"


    "Ah? Oh... Ouch!" Hearing Junior Leopard''s words, Li Xiu suddenly sat up. Following that was a loud cry. Obviously, his movements were too big, aggravating his injury.


    "Aye, I can''t figure it out!" Junior Leopard bowed his head and repeatedly shook, showing an expression of ''I lost to you''. He picked up a suit from the side and shoved it in front of him, "Your clothes are already in tatters. Wear mine first. Next time return it together with the sword!"


    "Sword?" Li Xiu raised his head, confused.


    "Hey, don''t be like this. We bet on this. Don''t tell me you want to break your words now?"


    This time around, Li Xiu finally remembered and said, "Oh, I didn''t mean that. However, now I am in Zhonghe City and not at home, I can only retrieve the sword when I reach home, so..."


    "Go back home? How long will it take?" Junior Leopard frowned. He had neglected this point. Previously he only wanted to get a good sword and he had forgotten about this point. Now it was only three months away from that wedding in Yunzhou. That fella wanted to go home to retrieve the sword, but heaven knows how long it would take. Pingzhou was much further than Yunzhou!


    "Are you in a hurry?" Seeing Junior Leopard frown, Li Xiu''s heart rose. He was the Li Family''s Young Master. Even though he was defeated, this was a just and honorable match. Those who were willing to bet had to be satisfied with losing. He didn''t wish Junior Leopard to think that he was a person that went back on his promises. Hence he said, "I have a Genuine Weapon with me now. Its quality is extremely good. However it is a bit short, I''m afraid it is not suitable for you!"


    "Dagger?"


    Junior Leopard''s eyes flashed. He thought of the coal dagger of Xue Wuya''s. That dagger was very good and practical. However it was Xue Wuya''s, so Junior Leopard did not dare to take it out. Hence when he saw Li Xiu and knew that he came from the Li Family, he thus had the idea of getting one from him. He never thought that this fella thought he wanted a sword not a dagger.


    "A dagger is fine. However, you have to keep the secret for me. Don''t tell anyone. And, if I use it, there shouldn''t be anyone being able to see through this sword''s background right?"


    "Definitely not. This was gifted to me by a senior when I was 10. He passed away last year, no one has seen it. Hence, there won''t be anyone seeing through this dagger''s background!" speaking until here, Li Xiu''s expression became strange, "Why do you have to be so secretive? Are you using the dagger to do bad things?"


    "That is none of your business. Why are you asking so much?" Junior Leopard unkindly said.


    "I don''t think your injury is serious. Go back now. Can you pass me that dagger in two days?"


    "No problem, I can pass it to you tomorrow!" Li Xiu said simply. He looked at Junior Leopard and suddenly had some apprehension as he said, "There is a matter that I have to ask!"


    "What?"


    "Ugh, that, how are my feats and sword techniques?"


    "Hum?" Junior Leopard said strangely, "Your feats and sword techniques are not bad. Why are you asking this?"


    "Only not bad?" hearing Junior Leopard''s words, Li Xiu seemed relieved. However, at the same time his tone carried a sense of disappointment. You knew that people praised him for being a genius once seen every hundred years, his insight into sword techniques reaching the epitome and his future promising, which made him feel extremely good.


    However, in Junior Leopard''s eyes, they were only not bad. Subconsciously he felt somewhat dejected.


    Of course, he wouldn''t think that Junior Leopard was belittling himself. Afterall they were about the same age, yet he openly defeated by Junior Leopard. In terms of strength, he had the qualifications to assess him.


    "Of course it is not bad!" Junior Leopard saw his dissatisfied look and smiled, "With your age, this should be not bad. I haven''t met someone of your age who is so powerful!"


    "Aren''t you stronger than me?"


    "That is because I have the advantage in the usage of weapons! Your fighting experience is not enough. I had deliberately lured you into my tempo. If not, it is difficult to say who would win or lose!" Junior Leopard comforted him. Even though he had 100% confidence that he could smash Li Xiu to death, however, it was okay to say pretty words now.


    "Not enough experience?"


    "Yes, your battle experience is too little. You held a sword to clash head-on with my hammers. Isn''t that looking for trouble? However, you are strong enough to actually use your blade Qi to smash my hammers!" Junior Leopard said.


    Upon hearing Junior Leopard''s words, Li Xiu looked better.


    "This fella''s experience is too little. I gave you a hammer first before complimenting you. There shouldn''t be any hatred!" Junior Leopard said in his heart, "Who knows how his dagger is, can it be compared to Xue Wuya''s coal dagger!"

 Chapter 138: Reveal

    Chapter 138: Reveal


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    A green sharkskin sheath, sharp tip, and an extremely comfortable sword handle. All these made Junior Leopard extremely satisfied.


    The sword was 1.3 feet. The sword body was glistening, and the grain of the forging process could be vaguely seen. In the eye of an expert like Junior Leopard, he could tell the quality of the forging grain with one glance.


    "Hundred Forged Genuine Weapon. This is a good dagger that was smelted at least 150 times. The Internal Qi can pass through without obstruction. I just have to summon up a little bit of Qi, and it goes out through the dagger tip. The dagger body is not thick, nor is it heavy, but it is condensed. The level of forging of this dagger is perhaps a level higher than my Teacher. There are even words on it!" Junior Leopard carefully flipped over the dagger in his hands. The smile on his face became even broader, "Green Pearl?! Interesting. This is obviously a lethal weapon, yet such a docile name is given to it. I cannot see how this dagger has any relation to Green Pearl?!"


    When the treasured dagger reached his hands, Junior Leopard was excited, as if he got a new toy. The name of the dagger was Green Pearl. It was the spoils of a bet that Li Xiu had lost to him. On the second day, Li Xiu as per the arrangement sent the treasure dagger over. He handed it to Junior Leopard on the spot. Seeing that he was so generous, Junior Leopard was somewhat regretful in his heart. Had he known that this kid was so easy to cheat, he would have bargained for more things. It was known that his twin hammers had been forcefully blown apart. Now he had nothing that he was accustomed to using as weapons.


    However, Li Xiu hadn''t left for long before Li Yuan sent someone over to ask him to go to the Admiral Manor.


    At that moment Junior Leopard thought, "This Li Xiu and Li Yuan seemed to have some connections. Could it be that he is backstabbing me?!"


    He held a trace of fear as he entered the Admiral Manor until he received a piece of surprising news and a mission.


    "Accompany Li Xiu to walk around Zhonghe City for a few days!"


    It was only until then that he knew Li Xiu''s real identity. He was actually the successor to the Pingzhou Li Clan. He was also Pingzhou Li Clan''s martial arts genius that only appeared once every hundred years. This time around he came to Zhonghe City to accompany his mother to visit her family. In the end, he came into conflict with his few cousins in his grandfather''s house, beating all of them into a pulp. He then ran out of his grandfather''s house and came to Li Yuan to relax.


    Li Yuan was born in Pingzhou Li Clan. Even though he was from the branch family of the Li Clan, his capabilities were awesome, and he held the military power in Zhonghe City. In the Li Clan, he was considered a renowned figure. He had an extremely close relationship with the current family head, Li Cong, who was Li Xiu''s father. He was extremely familiar with Li Xiu as well. Hence, when Li Xiu came over to relax, this was an extremely normal thing.


    It was just a few days ago when Li Xiu heard Li Yuan praising Junior Leopard in front of him. It stirred up the passion of the youth within his heart. Without telling Li Yuan, he came over to look for Junior Leopard and fought with him. He was beaten up miserably. A loss was a loss. He who was willing to bet had to be satisfied with losing. He then recognized the debt and sent the dagger over to Junior Leopard.


    However, he dared not mention to Li Yuan about such an embarrassing matter. He only told Li Yuan that he was very interested in this young man who was always praised by Li Yuan. He wanted to know him. Li Yuan naturally didn''t have any opinions on it, hence he got Junior Leopard over and introduced them to each other. He then announced that over these few days, Junior Leopard need not come on duty at the Manor. He was then to walk around with Li Xiu.


    Regarding this, Junior Leopard felt that it was somewhat troublesome. However, Li Xiu seemed to be very happy.


    ...


    ...


    "Hey, Little Li, this stuff is used for eating, not for seeing!"


    "I know, I know...!" His left hand was holding sugarcoated haws, right hand holding another sugar man. He watched around curiously. From time to time he would attract the attention of passersby which made Junior Leopard extremely embarrassed. However, Li Xiu seemed to be enjoying himself.


    "Hey, you didn''t eat sugercoated haws and walked the streets before?"


    "Nope!" Li Xiu shook his head, "In the past, I just practiced my sword at home. Sometimes I would come out to relax, but I never hung out!"


    "What a boring life!" Junior Leopard shook his head. He pitifully glanced at Li Xiu. No wonder he had such an astonishing accomplishment in swordsmanship at such a young age. He had been practicing for a dozen years!


    However, thinking about it, isn''t it the same for him?


    After seeing the existence of martial arts from Wang Tianlei, since then, he had stepped into the endless sea of martial arts. Speaking of hanging out, apart from those few years at Qingyang Market where he would go to the market twice every month, there wasn''t much experience of that.


    "Aye! We are people in the same boat. How could I laugh at others!" Thinking through this point, Junior Leopard weirdly shook his head. He saw Li Xiu in a different light now.


    They were similar in age and similar in strength. Between the two of them, this was considered a sort of connection.


    "Oh right, don''t call me Little Li from now on. It sounds weird!"


    "Where? Your surname is Li, and you are younger than me. You can''t defeat me. If I don''t call you Little Li, do I have to call you Big Brother?!" Junior Leopard said. These two days, they could be considered to be familiar with each other. He was also able to see that this Li Xiu was an extremely pure person. Even though he was born in the Li Clan, a renowned family, his interactions with the world were not much. His whole heart was in pursuing the cultivation of the sword. He neither knew too much about the interactions in society hence, it was not weird that he beat up his cousins when he was in his grandfather''s house.


    It was precisely because of his purity and innocence, when he met with an old fox like Junior Leopard, he was surely to be taken advantage of.


    "No, I only felt that Little Li is an awful name!"


    "There''s no such thing. Don''t people often call me Junior Leopard? We are all little fellas, the difference is not big!" Junior Leopard said, "However, I am really curious why such an honest guy like you will become the successor to the family head?!"


    "I am not the Family Head''s successor, I am the Clan Official''s successor!" Li Xiu shook his head, "The Family head and the Clan Official are different. The next Family Head should be my brother. He isn''t so strong but he is very cunning!"


    Thinking of his brother, Li Xiu seemed to have thought of something nasty. His face sunk, looking at Junior Leopard, "He is similar to you, just that his strength is far beneath yours!"


    "Your meaning is that I am very cunning?!" Junior Leopard said.


    "It can''t be put that way?!" Li Xiu''s face was unkind as he looked at Junior Leopard, and his tone somewhat unstable, "But I always feel that the two of you are very similar. Especially when you were making a bet with me, that tone was extremely similar to when he tried to cheat me of my lucky money!"


    Junior Leopard was stumped by Li Xiu''s words and couldn''t speak a word for a while.


    "Look, what''s that? It seemed to be very lively!" Li Xiu suddenly paused and asked.


    "What?!" Junior Leopard was stunned. He looked towards the direction that Li Xiu was pointing, and his face instantly became weird, "That is a brothel. What, are you interested?!"


    "Brothel?!" Li Xiu''s face became red from embarrassment. Even though he had never gone to a brothel, he had heard what kind of a place a brothel is. Originally his skin was thin. Adding on to the ridicule of Junior Leopard, he didn''t have the intention to continue walking around. He went back to the Admiral Manor with a red face.


    ...


    ...


    "He really is a curious baby who doesn''t know anything and wishes to know about everything. I nearly became an auntie of a nursery these days!" Junior Leopard brought Li Xiu to walk around the whole Zhonghejun City for a whole day. He felt that it was more tiring than fighting a battle. When he reached home, he didn''t even practice his fist. Ordering servants to fetch a tub of hot water, he bathed and then lay down on the bed.


    "Even though Little Li comes from a renowned family, his personality is pure. He is worth befriending, but he is just too irritating!" Junior Leopard thought. He suddenly sat up from the bed, "Peh peh peh! What am I doing? Thinking about a man lying on the bed. Could it be that I became perverse after a long time. There is no reason, because that kid is not the legendary transgender type. He is just a man! I have no interest towards men!"


    "Junior Leopard?!"


    A voice came from outside the window.


    "F**k, could it be that I am hallucinating? Or that I really became a pervert?" Hearing this voice, Junior Leopard nearly fell off from his bed.


    "Junior Leopard, it''s me!"


    This time around, Junior Leopard finally confirmed that it was not because he was perverse and hallucinating. It was Li Xiu standing outside his window and waving at him.


    "What are you doing? It is late. What are you doing here?"


    "I have one matter that I need your help with!"


    "If there is something, talk about it tomorrow. What time is it now!" Junior Leopard was irritated.


    "No, this matter is very urgent. I only just heard of it!"


    "What is it? What did you hear?!" Junior Leopard asked.


    "Have you heard of the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou?!"


    "Lu Shaoyou?" Junior Leopard''s eyes flashed. He knew Lu Shaoyou, and he was very familar with him. Of course, it was only him who was familiar with him. Lu Shaoyou didn''t know him at all.


    "What''s up with Lu Shaoyou?!"


    "Lu Shaoyou is going to marry Yunzhou Governor Ma''s daughter. You know about that?!"


    "Everybody knows about this matter. Say important things! Don''t speak about useless things!" Junior Leopard said. After these few days of hanging out together, he didn''t have much restrictions with Li Xiu. He spoke carefreely in front of him.


    "There is someone who wants to spoil this marriage!"


    "Ah?!" Junior Leopard''s gaze flashed. Looking at Li Xiu, he found that his expression did not change, as if he really was sharing a piece of news with a friend.


    No, he was not sharing news with a friend. He was here to ask for help.


    "It couldn''t be. Who has the courage to do such a thing!" Junior Leopard looked shocked and astonished.


    "It couldn''t be wrong. I accidentally heard Uncle Yuan talking to someone in the study room. I even know who it is!" Li Xiu spoke mysteriously. He didn''t know that Junior Leopard''s heart was already in a mess.


    "Dammit, this Wang She is too careless. Could such a thing spread out by itself?!" Junior Leopard scolded in his heart.


    ...


    .

 Chapter 139: Refusing

    Chapter 139: Refusing


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The news which Li Xiu brought shocked Junior Leopard. It was not because someone was going to mess up Lu Shaoyou''s wedding, but because the troublemaker was not the one that Junior Leopard knew.


    "Who is Chen Ning?"


    "The nephew of the oldest tortoise in Jin!" When it came to Chen Ning''s background, Li Xiu''s face became a bit graver, "his cultivation is not high. He''s only a master of the Bone-Forging Realm of Level Five, but he is delicate and scheming, an annoying guy!"


    "Delicate and scheming?" Junior Leopard raised an eyebrow gently, "I don''t think so. Everybody knows what he is going to do when it hasn''t even started. I don''t think he is scheming!"


    "Except for Uncle Yuan, only I know it!" Li Xiu said, "Chen Ning sent someone to tell Uncle Yuan about it and I overheard their conversation outside!"


    "Overheard their conversation?"


    Junior Leopard looked up and looked strangely at Li Xiu, "Little Li, you think I''m a fool? I''ve also been to the Admiral''s study room. I stood there for several days, right at the door, but I never heard the voices of the people inside. Could it be that your cultivation has improved dramatically these past few days?"


    "Well, no, I really overheard it!" Li Xiu was really embarrassed by what he said, "I know that guy, so I followed him secretly, trying to see what he was up to. I didn''t expect to hear such a thing!"


    Knowing that Li Xiu did not want to talk about this, Junior Leopard naturally would not entangle himself too much in it.


    "Then what does that have to do with you? Are you familiar with Lu Shaoyou?"


    "I''m not familiar with him. But he is the expert that I hope to challenge the most!"


    Li Xiu showed the expression of a martial mania again when he mentioned Lu Shaoyou. But actually he was very similar to Lu Shaoyou in temperament, tone, even in acting style.


    No, it should be said that Lu Shaoyou was very similar to him.


    Junior Leopard had not seen it before he met Li Xiu. After getting familiar with Li Xiu, he felt that Lu Shaoyou''s temperament of aloof and unworldly was somewhat hypocritical. Maybe Li Xiu''s momentum was not as strong as Lu Shaoyou''s now, but Junior Leopard believed that once Li Xiu broke through the Bone-Forging Realm and entered the Tendon-Changing Realm, he could absolutely suppress Lu Shaoyou''s temperament.


    "Even if you want to challenge him, it has nothing to do with this stuff!" Junior Leopard said, "do you want to take advantage of this opportunity to go with Chen Ning and challenge Lu Shaoyou?"


    "Of course not! I''m not a fool! Lu Shaoyou''s cultivation is Level Eight, and mine hasn''t even reached the Bone-Forging Realm. How do I challenge him?


    "What about Chen Ning?"


    Junior Leopard asked in confusion, "do you have a grudge against him?"


    "No, but I despise people like him who likes to resort to dirty tricks and nasty plans!"


    Watching Li Xiu''s somewhat twisted face, Junior Leopard could not help laughing, "given your expression, do you expect me to believe it?"


    "No... Really!" Li Xiu''s face flushed with his eyes wandering. He dared not look at Junior Leopard, but his mouth was very tough.


    "Enough. I don''t want to ask about your relationship. You just said you wanted me to deal with Chen Ning, but how?"


    "He sent someone to Uncle Yuan because he was afraid of trouble and wanted to keep his options open in case he fails. He knew that Uncle Yuan didn''t like being used, so he told Uncle Yuan about it beforehand!"


    "This is even more troubling. He asked the General to find alternatives for him and told the General about such a big deal. That means their relationship is special. If I help you to deal with Chen Ning, and the General learns of it, it will be terrible!"


    "Their relationship is not so good. It''s just that Uncle Yuan owed him a favor from long ago and hasn''t paid it back yet. So even if his request is too much, Uncle Yuan can''t put it off. But he just came here to find an alternative, and there was no other thing. Therefore, even if Uncle Yuan know we''re going to bother him, he won''t mind!"


    "I still don''t understand why you want to cause him trouble. And even if you''re going to cause him trouble, it''s none of my business. I don''t want to get involved in it!"


    "Just by myself, I don''t have the confidence!"


    Seeing Junior Leopard was unwilling to do it, Li Xiu was anxious, "he is a Level Five master of martial arts. I have some difficulties dealing with him!"


    "But I can''t just muddle around and go with you to ambush a Level Five master of martial arts. Besides, I don''t even know the master. Little Li, I''m different from you. You''re the young master of Li Family, the General Political Department in the future. Even if you do get into trouble, you can go back to Pingzhou, and then no one can do anything to you. But I''m not you, I have parents, nephews, and no foundation. If I get into trouble, it''s not just about me!"


    "This..." Hearing Junior Leopard''s words, Li Xiu fell silent as if he was thinking about something. After a while, he scratched his head and embarrassedly said, "I didn''t think about all of this!"


    "It''s not that you didn''t think about it, but you never have to think of it!" Junior Leopard said with a wry smile, "Your family has determined that you won''t have too many scruples. No matter how much trouble you get into, your family will help you solve it, so you can be unscrupulous and do whatever you want. But there are only a few people like you in this world. I''m just a wild boy from a mountain village. I can''t be like you!"


    "I was wrong!" Li Xiu seemed to realize something. He nodded and said, "sorry, it''s my thoughtlessness that caused you to be put in a difficult position!"


    "It''s not about who is wrong or what. It''s just that we are in different positions, so we see things differently," Junior Leopard said, "but I''m still curious as to why do you have to deal with Chen Ning? And who is the old tortoise in Jin that you just mentioned?"


    "It''s Chen Yifu, the present Prime Minister, the absolute Chen Zhulao!" Li Xiu said, "as for Chen Ning, I dislike him and I want to give him a lesson!"


    "If you really want to give him a lesson, you don''t have to use martial arts. Just let everyone know what he''s going to do, and let his plan fail."


    "I''ve thought about it, but I don''t think it''s aboveboard. And it may bring trouble to Uncle Yuan!" Li Xiu said in a dilemma.


    "Then I have no idea, but I think you''d better not cause him trouble!"


    "Why?"


    "It''s not worth it!" Junior Leopard began slowly ticking off points on his fingers and said, "firstly, you don''t have a grudge against him and you merely dislike him, so it''s an optional thing for you. But he dares to destroy Lu Shaoyou''s wedding, so apparently it''s very important to him. If you destroy his plan, you will have a real feud. Secondly, he is a Level Five master of martial arts, and your cultivation has only reached Level Three. You have cleared your sword intent and your sword skill is wonderful, so you are qualified to challenge bypassing ranks, but it does not mean that you can win. What if you fail? And even if you win, I think it''s just a bad win. Moreover, what would be the benefit of destroying his plan for you? Obviously, it''s good to Lu Shaoyou but worse for you. Thirdly, Chen Ning may not just represent himself. You just said he is scheming, so he won''t destroy Lu Shaoyou''s wedding just because he dislikes him, which is not like you. The hatred of a wife being wrestled away is similar to the murder of a father. Even if he has a grudge against Lu Shaoyou, he would not retaliate in this way. He may have been instructed by someone like the old tortoise, the present Prime Minister you just mentioned. If you cause him trouble, you might get into trouble with a bunch of people who are hard to deal with, just like poking a hornet''s nest. So I think you have to think about whether you can do it or not!"


    After hearing the words, lying at Junior Leopard''s window, Li Xiu paused for a while before coming to his senses. He took a long breath and looked at Junior Leopard with an eccentric look, "what you said is quite right. Why didn''t I think of that before?"


    "Because you never thought about it, so you can never think of it!" Junior Leopard patted him on the shoulder and looked very earnest, "well, Little Li, it''s getting late. Go home and have a rest. I can''t help you, and I advise you not to go!"


    "Alright, I''ll go back and think about it!"


    ...


    ...


    "What a troublesome young master!"


    Li Xiu left, but Junior Leopard was bothered. It was not because of the stuff Li Xiu wanted to do, but the news that Li Xiu told him.


    "Chen Ning, the nephew of the present Prime Minister, a Level Five master of martial arts, is going to destroy Lu Shaoyou''s wedding!" Junior Leopard did not know the stakes, so he did not know the reason, "Is Miss Ma extremely beautiful? No, I have met her. She is beautiful, but not to the point of disaster. Is the moral standing of Lu Shaoyou bad, has he offended too many people? No, even if Lu Shaoyou really is a bastard, his wedding is related to the Mingyi School and the Governor Mansion of Yunzhou, which are hard to cope with. Then there is only one reason!"


    Interests, naked interests.


    About interests, it could make someone happy and make someone upset. If one side got it, naturally the other side would lose it.


    Just like the Wu Family in Yunzhou, Tian Long Taoism had nothing to do with the matter on the surface. In fact, they were the side that lost the interests. Therefore, secretly, Tian Long Taoism had games with Mingyi School several times and had taken a lot of benefits from Mingyi School to compensate. That was why things looked harmonious on the surface right now.


    However, how much interest is hidden behind harmony?


    Junior Leopard did not know. What he knew was the Wu Family and Tian Long Taoism. But the Wu Family and Tian Long Taoism were just a corner of the vast network of interests. There were more interest entities to be influenced by the wedding. Some of them were looking forward to the wedding, but some of them were not.


    The complexity of it was certainly not what Junior Leopard could speculate now.


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 140: Final Preparation & Back to Yunzhou

    Chapter 140: Final Preparation & Back to Yunzhou


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Eventually, Lin Xiu did not go to find trouble with Chen Ning.


    It did not mean that Junior Leopard''s persuasion worked. It was because Madam Li came to Zhonghe City suddenly the next day, which naturally made Li Xiu well-behaved. Madam Li only spent a day in Zhonghe City, taking a little break before she went back to Pingzhou with Li Xiu.


    Before leaving, Li Xiu seemed to be a little reluctant to say goodbye to Junior Leopard, which caused Junior Leopard to tease him. There was no distressed scene like the Pavilion of Farewell, while Li Xiu gave Junior Leopard a jade card and told him that he could take the jade card to Li Manor to find him without obstructions in Pingzhou. Junior Leopard searched in his pocket and found nothing worth giving. Even if there was, it could not be shown to someone. Finally, he took out three Spiritual Stones from his pocket and gave them to Li Xiu with some reluctance, yet those stones made Li Xiu extremely happy.


    There was no change in Junior Leopard''s life after Li Xiu''s departure. In addition to going on duty for Li Yuan, he had been practicing at home. The greatest gain was that he had refined many Bone-forging Pills. He took a few and felt the effectiveness. Although he suffered at the beginning, the improvement speed of his physical strength and skeleton hardness were indeed several times faster than when he practiced Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist only. Therefore, he took the suffering.


    According to his present speed, he was confident that his cultivation would reach Bone-Forging Realm in half a year.


    By then, he would not only be Li Yuan''s personal guard and a core disciple of the Wu Family, but he would be qualified to be an Elder of the Wu Family.


    There was a rule that was set down when the Wu Family set up: a disciple of the Wu Family would become an Elder automatically as long as his cultivation had reached the Bone-Forging Realm.


    Junior Leopard came from the Wu Family and was a core disciple, so the rule was applicable to him.


    Nevertheless, Junior Leopard did not want to be an Elder of the Wu Family so early. First of all, people were sure to doubt his achievement of Bone-Forging Realm with Level Four cultivation, since he was so young, practiced late and had no assist of decoction for bone forging. Besides, although some Elders were idle while others were in power, there was interest distribution involved in many issues eventually. He did not want to rush into the core circle of the Wu Family''s interest. He had nothing to worry about in terms of food and drink, and his status was not low. There was no need to get involved in the interests of the family so early. Therefore, half a year later, he would not tell anyone when his cultivation reached Bone-Forging Realm. Anyway, he had the wonderful secret skill of Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. It would be very easy to hide his spirit and cultivation.


    With each passing day Junior Leopard became more and more nervous. Instead of practicing the hammering skill, he practiced his sword technique every day. He was extremely skilled at the movements of Silver Moon Sword Technique. His understanding of sword technique had also made a big step, especially in the few days with Li Xiu, and he benefited a lot from asking Li Xiu some questions about sword technique from time to time.


    The cultivation of his External Elixir had reached Level Six as expected. Thanks to the Bright Moon Deifying Technique, the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi in the External Elixir was extremely clear and like a part of the External Elixir itself as though it had been practiced for 10 years. Furthermore, it was not only the power of the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi, but also the refining power of the Mysterious Fire that infiltrated into the External Elixir seemed to be absorbed into the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi and made his Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi produce some strange changes. For example, the color of the Internal Qi began to darken and show a trace of fire, which made the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi more lethal.


    If he started the External Elixir and wore a mask, holding a dagger in hand to exert the Silver Moon Sword Technique, even Xu Yong could not recognize him.


    He had gotten the mask from the peddler. Honestly, the peddler''s craftmanship was really good. The mask was almost identical to his painting. Of course, it was not very complicated.


    The pattern of the mask came from some of his odd interests. It was the mask from the comics Death he read in his previous life. It was not complicated, but it looked so weird that if you went out wearing it and a black cloak in the middle night, it could certainly frighten people to death.


    "There is still one month, but Yunzhou seems far from Zhonghe Prefecture. What shall I say to Admiral? Your Excellency, I''m going to destroy Lu Shaoyou''s wedding and I want to take a few days off? No!"


    It was complete bullshit!


    However, this trouble was solved soon. He received an invitation card from Yunzhou, which was the wedding invitation card of Jin Nanqing and Wu Yuzhu, the daughter of Wu Yuntian.


    It was reasonable but unexpected to Junior Leopard. He thought it would take at least a year before it happened, since in this world, people observed a mourning period after their parents passed away. Why was she getting married only half a year after her father died?


    Junior Leopard was confused, but didn''t think much about it. He took the invitation card directly to Li Yuan for leave. Unexpectedly, Li Yuan gave him permission immediately, without so much as taking a glance at him or his card.


    However, looking at his expression, Junior Leopard had a suspicion in his heart.


    "Shit, he gave me permission so readily. Did Wang She tell him about it?" Li Yuan''s eccentric smile appeared in Junior Leopard''s mind.


    "Forget it. If Wang She has told him, it means they have a deep relationship. It''s good for me. Alas, what a nuisance! Wang She is holding my greatest weakness and I can not do a thing about it. Although he seems to be harmless to me now, the future is uncertain. It''s really a nuisance!"


    After asking for leave, Junior Leopard did not delay. He left for Yunzhou after a quick pack-up and talked about his family affairs with Wang Tianlei, but actually there was nothing to talk about.


    There was another purpose for him to go to Yunzhou this time, which was to ask Xu Yong to forge a pair of hammers for him. His hammers were ruined by Li Xiu and not having a proper weapon was a troublesome.


    It was a safe journey from Zhonghe Prefecture to Yunzhou. In fact, there was nothing that could threat him. There were some bandits who were all desperate farmers with poor ability to fight, but Junior Leopard didn''t want hard on them, so he let them go after teaching them a lesson.


    Seven days later, he arrived in Qinlingjun City in Yunzhou.


    Qinlingjun City had changed little after he left, which was normal. After all, he had only been away for half a year. The only change was that citizens here seemed to be somewhat excited, as if they were waiting for something good.


    After inquiring, he found out that the citizens were excited about the marriage of Miss Ma. It was not because they were eager to see her marry, but because they thought it was a big joyful event. The marriage of Governor Ma''s daughter was not only a matter of Governor Ma himself, but of the whole Yunzhou.


    "Hem, it''s not their own daughter''s wedding. Why are they so excited?" Sitting on the upstairs of a restaurant, Junior Leopard looked at the beaming passersby out the window with disdain and puzzlement.


    "Junior brother, you were born in a mountain village close to Misty Mountain, so you do not know the governor''s prestige in Yunzhou. You know, without the Governor, Yunzhou would still be a small place in the frontier threatened by Northern Yuan every year. Wars and calamities would occur every year. Since the arrival of Governor Ma, people here live and work in peace and contentment, they don''t have to worry any more. Even the number of beggars has been reduced. It can be said that Yunzhou is pacific now. How could they not thank Governor Ma? In the eyes of the citizens of Yunzhou, Governor Ma is their second parent. So how could they not be excited about the wedding of Governor Ma''s daughter!?" Sitting opposite Junior Leopard, Lou filled his glass with wine and said.


    Junior Leopard smiled and did not say anything. Indeed, in Yunzhou, the influence and prestige of Ma Tianchang was unsurpassed, even if the imperial court did not have such a good reputation. That''s why someone said that people in Yunzhou only knew Governor Ma and not the imperial court.


    "Oh, what happened to senior brother Jin? Why are you getting married now? Wu Yuntian just died half a year, and it''s still the filial piety period, isn''t it?"


    "I also feel strange about it, so does senior brother Jin!" When it came to this, Jin Nanqing showed a very strange look, "I heard it seemed to be the arrangement of the leaders. We don''t know either!"


    "That''s weird!" Junior Leopard said to them and muttered in his heart, "Could it be that Wang She arranged this in order to help me find an excuse to leave Zhonghe City? Yeah, definitely, or how could their wedding day be just the day after Lu Shaoyou''s wedding? Hehe, the bastard Chief of the Tian Long Taoism. In name, the Tian Long Taoism is the backer of the Wu Family, but he could even influence the private affairs within the Wu Family. And he pushed through all this without people knowing it, and gave me an excuse to go back to Yunzhou. Awesome!"


    In the past, he just thought that Wang She excelled in feats and acted strangely. Now, he was surprised to find that in addition to his feats he also held a strong influence throughout the entirety of Tian Long Taoism including the subordinate families.


    Taking a sip of wine silently, Junior Leopard stretched his furrowed brow slightly, "senior brother Lou, where did my teacher go? Do you have any news?"


    "How could I have news? Not only Elder Xu but the other three Elders went together!" At this point, a mysterious look appeared on his face, and he slowly leaned toward Junior Leopard and said, "But I heard that they went to Pingzhou!"


    "Pingzhou?!" Junior Leopard asked, somewhat unexpected, "what are they doing there?"


    "It seems that Li Family in Pingzhou acquired Meteorite Metal with excellent quality, they want to forge a Secondary Heavenly Weapon, so they invited our Elders who are professional in iron smelting to Pingzhou, not only our Elders, but also the Elders of the Jian''s, Luo''s and Pei''s, who excel in Refining Weapons!"


    "Li Family in Pingzhou, Secondary Heavenly Weapon?" Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows and laughed, "unbelievable, that they should all go together!"

 Chapter 141: My Name Is... Xiao

    Chapter 141: My Name Is... Xiao


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Qinlingjun City, Yunzhou, Great Jin. This was an inn outside Qinlingjun City. Although it was situated outside the city, it enjoyed large passenger volume, especially when the wedding ceremony of the Governor''s daughter was only several days away. All the inns inside Qinlingjun City had been packed with people having various purposes. Residents who had extra rooms rented them out as well to earn some extra money.


    As the inns inside the city had all been occupied, those who still had nowhere to go could only settle down in some villages and town centers outside of Qinlingjun City, or even in the little village inns along the road.


    It was in the afternoon when Junior Leopard received Wang She''s message saying that he had arrived outside of Qinlingjun City.


    Junior Leopard didn''t hurry to join him. He leisurely finished his dinner inside the city. It wasn''t until it grew dark did he sneak away from the Wu Family, and ran straight out of the city.


    As an Inner Core disciple of the Wu Family, on the road back to Qinlingjun City, of course, he wouldn''t stay in just any inn. Instead, he lived in the small yard belonging to him and Xu Yong in the Wu Residence.


    His position in the Wu Family was very special now. Though he was considered not to be that high or powerful, no one from the Wu Family except Xu Yong could or would manage him.


    Among the Core Authority circle led by the Wu Family Head, no one cared about his presence. He was only summoned once by Wu Yansheng, the Wu Family Head on the first day he came back. Wu Yansheng symbolically asked him about the situation of the underground fire vein in Zhonghejun City, and then gave him some encouragement. After that, he was left alone.


    He owned a small yard in the Wu Family property. He could act freely when Xu Yong wasn''t there.


    After coming back to the Wu Family, he met with some familiar disciples first and then went to congratulate Jin Nanqing. Together with disciples who took on the same task in Zhonghejun City, he ripped off Jin Nanqing. The bustling atmosphere lasted for several days and gradually calmed down as the wedding drew near.


    Junior Leopard was having a leisurely time, as Xu Yong wasn''t there. That was until he received Wang She''s message.


    He took down the External Elixir on his ear and hung it on his chest. After putting on the mask, he covered himself with a black robe and placed the Emerald Pearl sword on his waist. Activating the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, he snuck out of the Wu Residence unnoticed and headed straight for the meeting spot outside of Qinlingjun City. Though the city gate had already been closed, the high wall couldn''t stop him.


    "Who are you?!"


    Even Wang She was surprised at the first sight of Junior Leopard. The man standing before him was all covered in a black robe and surrounded by an extremely mysterious spirit. On his face, there was a white mask with a weird smile and squinted eyes circled by red lines. It was quite scary, especially since it was now late at night.


    "Chief Wang, I''m Zhou Bao!" Junior Leopard had nothing to hide from Wang She, so he took off his mask, bowed and smiled.


    "It''s you?" Wang She seemed a little surprised seeing it was Junior Leopard. "You''ve grown a lot in the past year!"


    "At my age, it''s high time to grow up. It''s been a year. It''d be really weird if I hadn''t grown!"


    Junior Leopard smiled and put on his mask again.


    He was already 14. In the past years, he had good food to eat and comfortable place to live in. Besides, he had been working hard on the practice of martial arts skills. His body also grew very fast, so now he looked almost like an adult. If measured by the standard of the world he came from, he was almost 1.8 meters tall. With the mask and the long black robe, no one could tell that he was actually a 14-year-old boy.


    "Why are you dressed like this??!"


    "I don''t want others to know who I really am!" Junior Leopard answered dryly, "I suppose no one can recognize me in this?!"


    "Of course not!" Wang She said and shook his head. He then looked Junior Leopard up and down and asked, "What about the cultivation of your External Elixir? Have you reached Level Six?!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t answer. The External Elixir that was hung on his chest began to circulate. Cyan Internal Qi blended with Junior Leopard''s body, then condensed, and a clear and peaceful spirit could be seen rotating around Junior Leopard. His black robe was lifted gently and a breeze was felt.


    Wang She finally showed his surprise, "The peak of Level Six! Oh boy, how did you make it! Wait, something is wrong with your Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill...!"


    "Chief Wang does have a bright eye. The Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill is so marvelous that it''s impossible for me to get the insights in a year. Fortunately, when I was practicing, I accidentally opened my Firey Eyes so some wonderful changes happened and it helped improve my cultivation to Level Six in a short period. But Your Highness must know that my improvement is so fast that my foundation is quite weak. Therefore, you''d better not trust me with too complicated tasks!"


    Wang She stared at Junior Leopard and said, "Boy, you know, I''ve never expected that you could actually improve the cultivation of your External Elixir to Level Six in one year. Thank God if you''re able to reach Level Four. It''s really amazing, you really made it!"


    "You know I''m really scared of death. You said that if I couldn''t reach Level Six, it could be very dangerous, so I''ve tried every means to reach Level Six in one year!"


    "I should have said Level Nine!"


    "Then you wouldn''t see me, as I''d already have run away!"


    "You crafty boy!" Wang She laughed and he didn''t ask in detail the reason why Junior Leopard had improved so quickly. "Well, follow me. I''ll take you to see several guys. We need to arrange his action carefully. It''s a tough call!"


    "Why?!" Junior Leopard asked following Wang She.


    "This really is a tough call!" Wang She said in a serious manner that he seldom revealed. "We''ve underestimated the resolution of the Mingyi School. Of course, our enemy won''t just be the Mingyi School."


    "You mean Governor Ma?!"


    "Him? No, this is basically none of his business except that he needs to send his daughter out!" Wang She didn''t look natural mentioning Ma Tianchang, the Governor of Yunzhou. "Otherwise, we won''t decide to move!"


    "It''s his daughter. How will he stand aside?!"


    "He didn''t want his daughter to marry Lu Shaoyou at all. He agreed on the marriage only under pressure from various parties!"


    "Who could give him pressure with his status?" Junior Leopard gasped, "Though the Mingyi School is powerful, it''s not powerful enough to do this, is it?"


    "In the team escorting the bride this time, except Lu Shaoyou and Gao Yulou, the other six are all from the imperial court and they''re all martial experts at Level Four!"


    "Imperial court martial expert?" Junior Leopard stopped and asked unconsciously, "What''s this matter to do with the imperial court?!"


    "You tell me?!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t speak. After a second thought, he seemed excited, "You mean, Governor Ma agreed on this marriage only under the pressure of the imperial court?!"


    "Not the imperial court, but the one seated in the hall!" Wang She said with a grim smile, "If not, as a Governor of Yunzhou, he would agree to marry into the Mingyi School? Nonsense!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t ask any further. He just secretly thought about the relationships among the imperial court of Jin, the Mingyi School, and the Tian Long Taoism. It was not that Junior Leopard knew nothing. In fact, he knew a lot and he had always kept himself away from this complicated relationship business.


    Hearing this, he would naturally stop questioning. He only asked, "Chief Wang, you''ve never talked about me with anyone, right?!"


    "I''m going to!" Wang She laughed, "But if you don''t want others to know, then I won''t say!"


    "That''ll be great, I don''t want to get into more trouble!"


    "I assure you after this is done, I won''t get you into trouble anymore!" Wang She said, "As for your secrets, I won''t tell anyone. You''re much more careful than I expected. This is better. Careful people always live longer!"


    "My best advantage is that I am scared of death, so I won''t do things that are too dangerous!"


    "Oh, you don''t think this is dangerous?"


    "Though it''s a little dangerous, I''m confident that I can make a safe retreat!" Junior Leopard answered, "Otherwise, I wouldn''t come!"


    "You''re quite confident in yourself. I like it!" Wang She laughed and said, "Well, we''re almost there. If you want to hide your identity, you''d better be careful. Those guys inside are stronger than you!"


    "Stronger than me??!"Junior Leopard was a little shocked. He had been an expert at Level Six. If they were all as good as him, it meant that they were all at least at Level Six. He couldn''t help asking, "It seems that you''re fully prepared this time!"


    "They''re all friends of Lei Xu. The biggest mistake of those old guys in the Holy Mountain and the Lei Family is that they think everything would be fine if Lei Xu was trapped on the mountain. Aha... OK, we''re here!"


    "Why are you so late?!" As soon as Wang She finished, Junior Leopard saw a figure flash and heard a cold voice. When he saw clearly, he was stunned.


    Such a beautiful woman!


    The appearance, the figure, and the face are all perfect. Even though Junior Leopard had seen a lot of beauties on Baidu in his previous life, he was still stunned by the sudden appearance of such a beauty in ancient costume.


    "Long Bug, is he the little friend you''ve mentioned?!" The beauty seemed used to others'' reaction at the first sight of her. She stared at Junior Leopard''s mask for two seconds. She seemed a little surprised and said, "He seems like a mysterious figure!"


    "Wu Shuang, why are you here?!" Wang She was also surprised at the presence of the beauty. "Why don''t you stay on the mountain? What are you doing here?!"


    Hearing the name Wu Shuang, Junior Leopard knew who the beauty was. "Nian Wushuang, like Wang She and Lei Xu, is one of the three Chiefs of the Tian Long Taoism."


    "You can come, why can''t I come?!" Nian Wushuang glanced at Wang She with a grim smile, "Relax. I know who''s your target. He''s yours!"


    Wang She gave an embarrassed smile, " Are they all here?"


    "We''re all waiting for you! Nian Wushuang answered. "Your little friend should at least have a name?!"


    "Oh, I forgot to introduce you, this is Xiao...!"


    "Xiao, my name is Xiao, Xiao meaning dawn!" Hearing that Wang She was about to say "Xiao Baozi", Junior Leopard hurried to interrupt him and made up a name randomly. And then, he froze, "Shit, if I know this, then I should have brought a set of Black Cover Fire Cloud Clothes!"


    ...


    ...


    The inn wasn''t large, in fact, it was quite small. It was a village inn located alongside the official road outside of Qinlingjun City.


    Wang She ordered several ordinary guest rooms and the biggest one was only about 20 square meters. Upon entering the room, Junior Leopard was greeted by a sour odor. He raised his hand and waved, "What are you doing? Why do you choose here!"


    "We have no choice. This is the only hidden place!" answered Wang She.


    The room was not as packed as Junior Leopard had expected. There were only three of them, sitting on chairs, motionless under the dim light. Everyone seemed to be out of ordinary.


    "OK, now that everyone is here, let''s get to know each other!" Wang She drummed on the table and said after entering the room.


    "Your friend seems mysterious. Level Six... Hehe, Long Bug, where do you find him?!"


    A small middle-aged man, the oldest among the three, glanced at Junior Leopard, felt the spirit around him, smiled and said, "Is he reliable? This is not funny. If he is not reliable, just leave him here!"


    "I''m not sure about others, but he must be more reliable than you old Brat!" Wang She looked at him and said hazily, "This is my friend Xiao, Xiao meaning the dawn!" Then he leaned over to make Junior Leopard seen. He pointed at the man who spoke just now and said, "Xiao, this is Tu Sen, also known as Brat. He''s a bandit!"


    "Tu Sen?!" Junior Leopard gasped with surprise. He had heard of this man. As one of the three famous bandits in the Great Jin and the Vice Gang Chief of the King of Hell Mountain Stronghold, he was one of the biggest headaches for the imperial court of Jin. Waving his Turbid Iron Rod, also known as Mixing Yuan One Breath Rod, he was invincible and famous for being an expert at Level Six.


    As for the other two, Junior Leopard had never heard of them. The tall old man was called Peng Gongliang while the woman was White Lotus. She was about 40 years old. She looked plain, just like an ordinary housewife, while actually, she was an expert at Level Six.


    Same as Tu Sen, they were both friends of Lei Xu''s.


    After introductions, they nodded to each other to show courtesy.


    Two experts at Level Six, one at Level Seven. Junior Leopard was at Level Six and Wang She and Nian Wushuang were both at Level Eight.


    It wouldn''t be an exaggeration to say that these six people together could completely destroy a middle-scale school, including the Wu Family in Yunzhou.


    "As we''re all here and we now know each other, let''s have a discussion on how to carry out the task on Lu Shaoyou''s wedding!" said Wang She. "Wu Shuang, what''s your take on it?"


    "It''s simple. You go and challenge Lu Shaoyou one on one again, so we can rob the bride!" answered Nian Wushuang.


    "This is a good idea, but it may be difficult to achieve. I can handle Lu Shaoyou, but it won''t just be him, there''ll at least be Gao Yulou. Though he''s not as strong as Lu Shaoyou, he''s not that weak. Beside them, the Mingyi School must also send other members. If I go straight to Lu Shaoyou, I might be stopped by others. In this case, if Lu refuses to fight with me, he''ll have a good reason. If we push it too far, then it''ll be us who are being aggressive. That''s bad for our image!"


    "Shit, who cares about image then! We''re going to rob another''s wife OK?!" Junior Leopard found it ironic. "What kind of people are these guys?"


    "Then in your opinion, how should we do this?!" said Nian Wushuang. "Lei Xu has left this matter to you. I''m only a fighter!"


    "Then what about you three? Peng Gongliang, what''s your opinion?"


    "I''ll do whatever you say!" Peng Gongliang stroked his beard and answered, "I''m here because I owe one to Lei Xu. I''ll do my part then!"


    The other two also had no opinion.


    "What about you?" Wang She asked Junior Leopard after others were all asked.


    "I have no opinion and I''ll do whatever you say!" Junior Leopard answered. His face was all covered by the mask so his emotion couldn''t be seen, neither could any emotion fluctuation be told from his tone.


    "Well then. Since you all trust me so much, I''ll do the arrangement!" Wang She nodded. When he was speaking, he walked toward the table, took a scroll out of nowhere, and spread it out.


    "This''s the topographic map of Qinlingjun City. And that''s the map of Lu Mansion!"


    Wang She unfolded the two maps. Junior Leopard could see on the map of Qinlingjun City various buildings and streets were thickly marked. Every place had detailed annotations. Junior Leopard was shocked to find there was even the patrol timetable of the army. This was definitely a detailed military map, and it couldn''t have been drawn by the imperial court of Jin, but most likely by the spy from the Northern Yuan.


    "This is the special map from the Sinan Institute of the Northern Yuan, right? Where did you get it?!"


    Others were also shocked at the sight of this map. Such a detailed city map with all the necessary information. All the weak points of the city were carefully marked. Who else could draw this except for the Sinan Institute of the Northern Yuan?


    "It is indeed drawn by the Sinan Institute of the Northern Yuan. It took me a lot of work to get it!" answered Wang She. "Look, Qinlingjun City covers a broad area. It has nine city gates and 18 main streets from which more than one hundred various small streets extend. There''re also countless alleys. This terrain is perfect for us to retreat and hide!"


    "Plan for defeat rather than victory. You''re really an ambitious man!" White Lotus smirked.


    "Even if we win, we need to run and hide. In fact, the most dangerous moment is when we get the bride!" Wang She said dryly, "As once we make it, Governor Ma will have sufficient reasons to take his daughter back!"


    "Isn''t it a set up already? Lei Xu will handle Governor Ma. What, all we need to do is to rob the bride?!" Tu Sen''s face fell after hearing Wang She. "Lei Xu has told me that Ma Tianchang wouldn''t butt in. Right?"


    "He won''t butt in when we''re robing because that''s the business of the Mingyi School and the imperial court. But once we succeed, as the father of Miss Ma, he''ll definitely deploy forces to run after us. Even if Lei Xu has good reasons, he can''t persuade him in such a short period. So we must be well prepared, in case...!"


    "There is no ''in case''. Once we succeed, I''ll leave at once!" Tu Sen interrupted Wang She and said.


    "It''s up to you. I won''t stop you if only you can run out!" said Wang She coldly. "Actually, once we start, the whole Qinlingjun City will be blocked. At that time, even I, let alone you, can''t get out of the city. Thus, we need an escape route!"


    Tu Sen didn''t speak again, but he looked dreadful.


    Not just him, Peng Gongliang and White Lotus also looked pale.


    "Chief Wang, since you mentioned this, you must have found a good plan, right?" asked Peng Gongliang.


    "I can''t say it''s good, but I do have an idea!"


    "Our purpose is only to disturb this wedding and stop Lei Xu''s girlfriend from marrying others. If we can defeat Lu Shaoyou and take Miss Ma away, then the wedding can''t continue. We don''t need to really kidnap Miss Ma, so we can let her go after that. You''ve said that Governor Ma also hated this marriage. In this way, everyone will get what he wants. I believe Governor Ma won''t be too hard on us?!"


    "Don''t be so naive. Even if Governor Ma and I have linked hearts and we cooperate to act this out, we need to make it look authentic. This is not just a game. It''s serious. Even if we let Miss Ma go, we can''t guarantee that Governor Ma will let us off easily. Anyway, Yunzhou is governed by him. He needs to give the imperial court and the people an explanation!"


    "Then what should we do? Though I''m confident of my cultivation, I''ve got no chance once Governor Ma butts in. And the same for all of you!"


    Tu Sen seemed kind of terrified and said, "Damn it. I wouldn''t have come if I''d have known Governor Ma would butt in!"


    "Are you that scared of Ma Tianchang?" Nian Wushuang said as her eyes blazed lightly. Governor Ma was indeed very famous, but Yunzhou had been flourishing for more than a decade during which Ma Tianchang seldom appeared in public. He spent most of his time in the Governor Mansion, except that he needed to report on his work in the capital city once a year. He didn''t go out much, so few people really knew about him.


    Nian Wushuang had been famous for about 20 years, but she seldom interacted with Ma Tianchang, so she didn''t know much about him.


    "Yeah, I''m almost scared to death. Don''t laugh at me. It''s not just me. You can ask Peng Gongliang and White Lotus whether they''re afraid or not?!" Tu Sen smirked. But Junior Leopard heard a sound of teeth grinding under his laughter, not from hatred but from fear.


    "No matter how scared we are, we have no other option now. But I can assure you though Ma Tianchang is very powerful, he can only guard in Yunzhou. If we can run out of Yunzhou city, he can''t do anything to us. At worst, we won''t come back to Yunzhou anymore!" said Wang She.


    "Ah, forget it. That''s the only way out. Chief Wang, please tell us your plan!"


    Peng Gongliang who had been silent all the time finally sighed and said to Wang She.


    ...


    .

 Chapter 142: Junior Leopards Condition - Fiery Eyes

    Chapter 142: Junior Leopard''s Condition - Fiery Eyes


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Although there are many streets in Qinlingjun City, there is only one way for Lu Shaoyou to welcome his bride to the wedding."


    Wang She pointed at the map on the desk. As he spoke, he marked a line along the longest and widest street from the Wuyang Gate to the Governor Mansion. Wuyang Gate was the front entrance of Qinlingjun City. The Governor Mansion and the Wuyang Gate were the exact ends of the straight street.


    "When Lu Shaoyou comes to welcome his bride, there is no doubt he has to go from Wuyang Door Street. Once he has the bride''s palanquin, he will definitely choose Zhenyang Door Street to return. The reason is obvious, both streets are the widest in Qinlingjun City. In the meantime, the two streets are Qinlingjun City''s official routes. You see, the Lu Family was very picky in choosing the Mansion''s location. It is quite near to these two streets. Therefore, either going out or into the city is very convenient. The road won''t be long!"


    "You are right. The Lu Mansion is not far from the Governor Mansion. If anything goes wrong, the Governor Mansion can take action quickly. But this makes our plan difficult, I don''t want to lose my life here!"


    It was Tu Sen who was complaining again. It was as if he had already freaked out since hearing the Governor Mansion would interfere with the issue. He first complained that Lei Xu didn''t have any sense of honor among friends, that he had pushed his friends to the fiery pit, then thought he should simply quit and return back to his King of Hell Mountain Stronghold. But after a while he proposed a question asking whether Ma Tianchang would really interfere with the matter.


    It was fine that he had so many doubts, but Junior Leopard couldn''t stand him asking whether Ma Tianchang would actually interfere. He had been imagining that Ma Tianchang wouldn''t do anything.


    His illusion made Junior Leopard feel both amused and annoyed. Who was Ma Tianchang? He was Yunzhou''s governor, and Miss Ma''s father. Would he really sit on the bench when his daughter was robbed during her wedding? Even if he didn''t really want his daughter to marry Lu Shaoyou, he would at least pretend. Moreover, how could he know who had kidnapped his daughter? To keep his daughter safe, he would no doubt search all over the city.


    But Tu Sen was under the illusion that Ma Tianchang wouldn''t interfere with this matter. Junior Leopard couldn''t tell whether he was stupid or scared of Ma Tianchang.


    After learning about Tu Sen''s illusions, Junior Leopard was in even more awe of Governor Ma. It was a name that scared the second man in charge of the King of Hell Mountain Stronghold, one of the three famous bandits in Great Jin. It showed how Ma Tianchang had ability and prestige.


    "It is because we are too close to the Governor Mansion that we have to take actions so quickly. We need to be swift and ruthless. And of course, we need to have a plan. Our plan has to be very thorough!"


    Wang She continued, "Now, let''s see what the biggest problems are with our plan. There are basically three problems. The first one is Lu Shaoyou. I will deal with him myself. The second one is Gao Yulou!" His face turned gloomy when he mentioned Gao Yulou, "Gao Yulou is a disciple of the Golden Lights Cave, Lu Shaoyou''s Senior. He became the deacon at Mingyi School half a year ago. It is obvious that he is coming to protect his junior brother. Although his cultivation is one level lower than Lu Shaoyou, he is still a Level Seven expert. So he already has a sword Gang to protect him and fight against enemies. WuShuang, can you deal with him?"


    "You want me to deal with Gao Yulou?!" Nian Wushuang squinted, her eyes were like two crescent moons. She replied directly, "I won''t do it!"


    "Why?" Wang She became nervous as he noticed Nian Wushuang''s facial expression. He knew she wasn''t joking. "There is nobody here who can deal with him except for you!"


    "I don''t care. How about I ambush the bridal chamber at the Lu Mansion? When the bride enters, I can bring her out. Why do we have to make things so complicated?!"


    "That''s a nice try. But it''s only after the bride and groom have bowed to Heaven and Earth as part of a wedding ceremony that the bride will be sent to the bridal chamber. Once they have bowed to Heaven and Earth, they will become a couple. Even if we can kidnap the bride, the Mingyi School and the Lu Family will have something to gossip about. It''s also not good for Governor Ma''s reputation. Hence, we have to take action before they perform the wedding ceremony!"


    "Well, how about I deal with Lu Shaoyou?!" Nian Wushuang suggested with a smile. Then she suddenly changed the subject as if something had occurred to her, "Oops, sorry, I forgot that Lu Shaoyou is your target. Look at you! Your face is turning blue! Take it easy, take it easy. I will deal with someone else. I heard a few imperial court martial arts experts and experts from the Mingyi School are also coming. Let me deal with them. What do you think?"


    "And then Mr. Peng, White Lotus and Old Brat, you guys can deal with Gao Yulou together. What do you think?"


    The other three didn''t reply right away. They exchanged glances instead. In the end, Peng Gongliang sighed lightly, "If it is the last resort, we will accept it. But you have to realize that even though I am a Level Seven expert, I don''t have Gang Qi after all. On the contrary, Golden Lights Cave is famous for its sword Gang. Even if the three of us collaborate together, we have no chance of defeating Gao Yulou!"


    He hadn''t refused Wushuang''s idea directly, but he had analyzed the facts and explained the reasons. And most importantly, his analysis was irrefutable. Judging from the three''s abilities, it was true they could barely win against Gao Yulou. So it wasn''t a matter of winning or losing the battle, but that it would be a big hassle if the task failed.


    "Wang She, why does it have to be me? You didn''t know I was coming today. But Gao Yulou''s presence was quite certain. You should have already had a plan to cope with him. Why do you have to drag me in?" "I''m here to help. Not here to take the blame for others!" Nian Wushuang laughed coldly as she saw Wang She''s embarrassed face.


    Junior Leopard who was sitting beside them felt a flicker in his heart and reckoned in his mind. Why hadn''t he thought of that? Wang She hadn''t known Nian Wushuang would come. As a matter of fact, he''d been quite astonished to see Nian Wushuang appear. Since he hadn''t known she was coming, she hadn''t existed in his original plan. Now that she was here, he''d allocated her with the second most difficult guy to be dealt with, aside from Lu Shaoyou. Considering Gao Yulou''s background carefully, it seemed as if the Wang She was actually making her a scapegoat.


    "Why do you have to be so smart as a woman. You deserve to have been single for so long!" Wang She grumbled. It looked like he was complaining to himself, but everybody could hear his words.


    Peng Gongliang and the other two inhaled a mouthful of cold air and pretended to be deaf, lowering their heads. As for Junior Leopard, nobody could see his face because he had a mask. But he also turned his head sideways. He stared at a cockroach on the wall, as if he could kill it with his gaze.


    "Are you so happy that I am single?!" Nian Wushuang glanced at Wang She coldly, "Believe it or not, I will find trouble with Lu Shaoyou right now. I will burn the Lu Mansion to ashes and kill that so called ''Moral Fighter'' guy with my dagger!"


    "Uh--!" Wang She''s forehead started to sweat upon hearing her words. He smiled apologetically, "Sister Wu Shuang, it''s my fault, it''s my fault. I was only joking with you. A lion doesn''t catch mice, don''t make yourself angry with people like me. Alright?"


    "What''s this ''don''t be angry with people like you''? How do I dare to do that!" Nian Wushuang smiled grimly, "Long bug, there''s one thing that you have to be clear about. I''m not here to help you this time. I''m here because I want to help Lei keep an eye on you. I don''t care what old scores you have with Lu Shaoyou or ''Moral Fighter''. But if you screw up Lei''s matter because of your own old scores, don''t blame me when I turn against you!"


    "Helping Lei and me at the same time is two birds with one stone. You may rest assured that I won''t mess things up!" Wang She said, "Yes, I had a way to deal with Gao Yulou, but it wasn''t so just and honorable!"


    "Not just and honorable? What do you mean?"


    "He has a mistress in Qinlingjun City who is pregnant with his child. I was planning to kidnap this woman and let Mr. Peng deal with him. Gao Yulou wouldn''t dare use all his strength if his woman was there. Then the threat of Gao Yulou would be diminished. But to my surprise, you have come. Reasonably you won''t agree with me using such an insidious method, so only you can deal with him. However, you don''t want to do it. What am I to do!?"


    "You bastard, to even think such vile things. To kidnap a pregnant woman, how could you do such a thing? It seems that I overestimated you before. You are actually a jerk!"


    "Well well, I am a jerk. But that''s only because I don''t have any other solutions. I could not have been a jerk with you here. Unfortunately, you won''t agree. So I have to be a jerk again!"


    "How dare you!" Nian Wushuang shouted, "As long as I am here, you will never do such a vile thing!"


    "Then you will deal with Gao Yulou?"


    "No!"


    "Then I have to be a jerk!"


    "You can''t!"


    "Then you will go!"


    "Never!"


    ...


    ...


    The two of them were as if they were arguing for the sake of arguing, talking one after the other. It was always the same words back and forth. It lasted over an hour. And in the end, there was still no result.


    "Let me go!"


    Junior Leopard said suddenly when they were arguing ardently.


    They both stopped at once and turned their head to look at him. Not just them, but also Tu Sen, Peng Gongliang and White Lotus. They all stopped and stared.


    Their gazes revealed astonishment and wonder.


    "You?!" Nian Wushuang scrutinized Junior Leopard from head to toe. "Your cultivation is merely Level Six. Put in the martial arts world you can be a famous expert. However, when it comes to dealing with Gao Yulou, I think it can''t be easy!"


    Junior Leopard was covered in a black robe and wore a mask on his face. But when he faced Nian Wushuang, who was a Level Eight expert, it was impossible for him to hide his cultivation. Moreover, he didn''t intend to hide his cultivation in front of these guys.


    It wasn''t the time to pretend to be stupid. It was time to defeat a stronger enemy.


    "We only need to hold Gao Yulou tomorrow. We don''t have to defeat him at all. Yes, he is a Level Seven expert. But I have some faith in myself being able to hold him!"


    "It can''t be ''some faith'', it needs to be 100% sure. If you can''t do it, everything will be screwed up. Junior... Xiao, are you sure you can do it?!"


    "I have to promise that I can deal with him?" Junior Leopard thought for a second, "It''s not impossible. I will have to risk my life, and that is not in my plan...!"


    "So, if you risk your life, you can really hold him?!"


    "I won''t play jokes on my life!"


    "Okay, then you will go and deal with Gao Yulou!" Wang She was determined.


    "Then?!" Junior Leopard questioned, "I told you before coming that I''m not here to risk my life!"


    "What do you want?"


    Junior Leopard smiled quietly and didn''t say it out loud. He used the Secret Acoustic techniques instead and passed his requirements through Wang She''s ears.


    "No problem. Deal!" Wang She replied readily. He didn''t say anything when he learned his words. And of course, that was within Junior Leopard''s expectations. It was because he only wanted the birthday present that Zhao Fei had given to Lyu Yiyue, the First Elder in Wu Family a few years ago. It was the Fiery Eyes. For Wang She, it wouldn''t be difficult.


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 143: Junior Leopards Idea

    Chapter 143: Junior Leopard''s Idea


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard possessed the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes and had gained many benefits from this mysterious bloodline.


    It was arguable that, without his Fiery Eyes, Zhou Bao could possibly be dead or, at least, not live as freely as he currently did.


    All of this was due to the Fiery Eyes. Therefore, he never dared to stop researching the Fiery Eyes.


    The Fiery Eyes had many great functions. However, most of its functions manifested as assistance. It could not only make Junior Leopard get Inner Vision in subtle grade, but it could also help him to control the Internal Qi and strength so well that he could break into a psycho grade in controlling the two things. In addition, the Fiery Eyes also provided a 360¡ã perspective, which allowed him to see everything around himself without any blind spots. It also provided him with the ability to see the most subtle things a mile away. Besides that, it closed totally irrelevant punching spirits and decomposed the useful parts for him, and so on...


    However, the point that Junior Leopard liked best was that it was able to gather all of his Internal Qi and then release it. To him, that was so cool.


    Thus, after he found this function, he often practiced it. He tried to figure out the working flow of the Internal Qi when the Fiery Eyes gathered it. He tried to copy its working law and studied it carefully. He imagined that it probably had become his other new secret skill.


    After researching and testing it for a while, he gloomily found that it was just a delusion. When the Fiery Eyes gathered the Internal Qi, its working flow was not complicated, hence it could not be called a secret skill. It was only a kind of brilliant skill that gathered pnuema. The only complicated point was that the nature of his wholly condensed Internal Qi would be changed before being sent out. This change occurred completely inside of the Fiery Eyes and could only be achieved with the Fiery Eyes. The nature of the Internal Qi sent out by the Fiery Eyes was changed.


    Simply speaking, as for Junior Leopard''s cultivation and his pure Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Ninth Dragon Internal Qi with Level Three cultivation, there would be a dark red "fireball", which was at least two meters in diameter, when his Internal Qi was condensed into one point. He had proven this point by himself using the working flow of the Fiery Eyes to gather his Internal Qi, which resulted in the "fireball" being sent out by his hands, not his eyes.


    It was just like the Internal Qi that was sent out through his hands.


    The effect at that time surprised him greatly. The "fireball" not only burned a big hole in front of him, but it also burned everything within 10 meters around him. It was at that time that Junior Leopard obtained the second state of the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Ninth Dragon Internal Qi. However, that flame was much different from the Fiery Eyes''.


    If the condensed Internal Qi was sent out through the Fiery Eyes instead of the hands, the fireball would not be that big, just the size of a fist. The higher his cultivation, the darker the fireball''s color. The power of the black fireball was definitely stronger than the big fireball sent out through the hands, not only in temperature and persistence, but also in execution. The big fireball was able to deal with ordinary people in the martial arts world. But when the enemy was stronger with Gang Qi or with a cultivation above Level Seven, the big flame would not be effective. As for the black fireball that was sent out through the Fiery Eyes, Junior Leopard believed that it could still burn the Gang Qi.


    Because the black flame was very similar to the Mysterious Fire in his Dantian, they both seemed to be able to destroy everything. Now the Mysterious Fire in his Dantian had already been well-trained to stay in his Dantian, and it had been blended with his Internal Qi, helping him to purify his Internal Qi all the time. However, the Internal Qi could not be turned into a flame, like the big fireball he cleared. The fire property Internal Qi could not completely turn to flame, it merely had an extremely high temperature. The big fireball was actually not a fireball, however, it was a product made from his Internal Qi. But the fireball sent out through his Fiery Eyes was totally different. It was an extremely pure flame without any Internal Qi, which was very similar to the Mysterious Fire that Junior Leopard had gotten from Dragon Chimera that year.


    Of course, Junior Leopard was also not able to recognize whether the two flames were the same and what the differences between them were. All that he knew was that the flame could kill almost everything, which was enough for him.


    However, at the same time, another problem arose.


    There was something wrong with his eyes.


    After using the skill many times due to excitement, he then painfully found that his strength had decreased. At last, he realized that the skill was harmful to his eyes. Now his vision had been terribly diminished. His Fiery Eyes could see everything one mile away before, but now, that decreased to half a mile. Furthermore, his own vision seemed to be damaged as well, which greatly annoyed him.


    After researching for a while, Junior Leopard finally confirmed the reason why his eyes were damaged. It was neither because of the condensed Internal Qi nor the transformation from Internal Qi to flame, but because of the timing of the flame that was sent out. The flame did damage to his eyes at that time.


    Meanwhile, thanks to the Fiery Eyes, it brought him the ability of Inner Vision.


    The flame damaged his eyes at the moment it was sent out through his eyes, which was similar to his hands being damaged when his condensed Internal Qi was sent out through his hands. However, the difference was that the recovery ability of his hands was much stronger than his eyes''. Although his eyes were also recovering, the process and speed of that recovery were both countless times more complicated and slower than his hands''.


    And he did not want to abandon this kind of surprising and powerful attacking method. Thus, he put his attention on the Fiery Eyes of Lu Yiyue.


    "It is only the Fiery Eyes that can transform the Internal Qi into the flame and send it out. If I owned another Fiery Eyes, I could use that as a passageway for release. Then there would be no damage to my eyes."


    That was the idea deep in his heart. But as to how to deal with the Fiery Eyes after he obtained it, he had no idea about that.


    "No matter what kind of method I use, I have to try it. Maybe after I get the Fiery Eyes, some ideas will come to my mind."


    That was another irresponsible idea.


    But anyway, the desire to obtain another Fiery Eyes was getting stronger and stronger.


    It was because of this idea that he began to consider how to get those Fiery Eyes.


    He knew that Lu Yiyue wanted to refine the Fiery Eyes into an External Elixir after getting it. He also had the cultivation method of refining External Elixirs. However, the problem was that his cultivation method was ordinary and not top-notch, which made him feel uneasy. As a completist, since he had gotten the excellent material Fiery Eyes to refine the External Elixir, he certainly wanted to possess a high-grade cultivation method. Thus, the power of the External Elixir would be increased, as well as his strength. In fact, it was not only the cultivation method to refine External Elixirs, but also the cultivation method to practice the External Elixirs.


    Since he wanted to possess a high-grade cultivation method, the refining time had to be delayed again and again. Recently, he seemed to have the time to refine the External Elixir. But he encountered Governor Ma marrying off his daughter. As the First Elder of the Wu family, who was also famous in Qinlingjun City, he had to attend the wedding. Therefore, he delayed the time again and considered doing closed-door training after this wedding.


    The news was a secret to other people, but it was easily known by him because he had the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, and he was an Inner Core disciple of the Wu family.


    However, although he had the confidence to snatch the Fiery Eyes from Lu Yiyue, it was quite hard for him to take the eyes without being doubted by others. Thus, he wanted Wang She to give him a hand, but he did not know how to speak about it. By the square, he saw that Wang She and Nian Wushuang were quarreling about who would deal with Gao Yulou. Thus, he decided to take the chance of selecting Gao Yulou, so that he could force Wang She to seek the Fiery Eyes from Lu Yiyue.


    ...


    ...


    "Boy, Gao Yulou isn''t an ordinary person. Are you confident that you can deal with him? For just the Fiery Eyes, it isn''t worth it!" Wang She told him with his Secret Acoustics voice skill, "This time I prepared an easy task for you. You just needed to deal with several guys at Level Four or Five. But you choose a Level Seven powerhouse. Do you want to die?"


    "I appreciate Chief''s concern. But, I do indeed have the confidence. And the Fiery Eyes is so important for me, I have to get it!"


    "In that case, I have nothing to say." Wang She seemed to be a little helpless, and he raised his head suddenly, saying, "Fine, everybody, the matter of Gao Yulou is done. Xiao is responsible for this. Do you agree?"


    "Level Six fights against Level Seven. There is almost no chance to win. However, since Xiao is Chief''s friend and the leader agrees with this, I think that Chief won''t be wrong!" Twisting the beard on his chin, Peng Gongliang looked deeply at Junior Leopard covered in the black robe, and he turned to Wang She, saying, "Since the matter of Gao Yulou is resolved, then Chief Wang, what should we do?"


    "Very simple! Lu Shaoyou is mine, and Gao Yulou is Xiao''s. Those that remain are not hard to deal with. The only problem is their numbers. There are at least 12 experts whose cultivation are above Level Four in the Mingyi School and the Imperial Court. And we needn''t care about the other people whose cultivations are under Level Four. So, the 12 experts and the other people with low-level cultivation are the responsibility of you three. Is that ok?"


    "I''m good at bullying the weak and fearing the strong. Since you have picked the tough guys, those remaining who are easy to deal with have to be ours, or we would lose face!" Tu Sen said with a laugh, "But, I have to announce that if the Governor''s Mansion interferes in this thing at that time, I will immediately turn on my heels!"


    "No problem! I can promise you that the Governor''s Mansion won''t interfere before we succeed!" Wang She said, "Wu Shuang, Miss Ma is in your care. Since you have come here, I don''t need to worry about this. After you capture her, just get out of the city directly. Nobody in Qinlingjun City will be able to stop you. Thus, our pressure will be lessened."

 Chapter 144: The Plan Was Settled

    Chapter 144: The Plan Was Settled


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "As for the timing to act!" Wang She looked around, "Of course, it''s better before Lu Shaoyou enters the Governor Mansion. Or we can say, before he takes the bride out of the mansion. In that case, the people in the Governor Mansion won''t react too much, or they react nothing at all. But that''s impossible!"


    "Without a bride, it can''t be called bride kidnapping!" Tu Sen said loudly.


    "Don''t be loud! Do you want to be found out by others?" White Lotus scolded him and then turned her head to Wang She, "We understand this point. So, where do you think is the best place to act?"


    "Lu Mansion!" Wang She raised his finger and pointed on the other map, "It''s not far from the Governor Mansion to Lu Mansion. It''s only 10 miles around. We can imagine that there will be a huge crowd on this road that day. The people who fetch the bride will definitely be very cautious. If we attack on the road, there will certainly be in chaos, we may even hurt others. Governor Ma will be unsatisfied with us, which will do no good for our actions. Besides, if we take action on the road, the Governor Mansion will also have a reason to interfere. Thus, it''s best for us to take action in Lu Mansion. On this condition, from the point view of Mingyi School, they won''t allow the Governor Mansion to interfere for their own reputation.


    "That means we''ll kidnap Lu Shaoyou''s wife during the wedding. Hah, then we will be his great enemies. I like this!" Tu Sen seemed to have already forgotten his wretched face when he was frightened by Ma Tianchang... He began to be excited.


    "Lu Shaoyou is mine. It''s only me who can become their enemy. One thing I need to remind you guys of, is that it doesn''t matter how you kill them and how many people you kill, but there''s just one person you definitely are not allowed to kill."


    "Who?"


    "''Moral Fighter'' Ji Zhongtang!" Wang She said with bright light flashing in his eyes, "No matter who injures him, I''ll kill him!"


    Although Wang She spoke peacefully, his words made the other people tremble helplessly, including Junior Leopard.


    "I''ll pay attention to this matter!" Nian Wushuang looked at Wang She deeply, "But, you know, the relationship between Ji Zhongtang and Lu Shaoyou is like father and son. If we take action, he absolutely will do him a favor. He''s not weak. So, if we act with concern, we may get in trouble!"


    "What''s your opinion?"


    "I''ll try to control him at first, but..."


    "No, he needs to be kept clear-headed!" Wang She interrupted Nian Wushuang''s words.


    "I can keep him clear-headed to see the whole thing from the very beginning to the end!" Nian Wushuang said coldly, "You can kill two birds with one stone. You can not only help Lei but also vent your anger. But you can''t require us to be so perfect."


    "I understand, but, don''t hurt him!" Wang She seemed to hesitate when saying these words, whose eyes looking at Nian Wushuang was surprisingly showing some helplessness and begging.


    "Don''t worry. I don''t want to be your enemy!" Nian Wushuang said.


    "Fine, then, let''s see how to retreat after achieving success!" Wang She changed this topic, "I''ve said before, once we start to attack, the Governor Mansion will blockade the whole Qinlingjun City straight away, even though they may not interfere directly in this event. We all know Governor Ma''s means, if he blockades the city, no one will be able to get out, not even a fly. So we need to hide in the city for some time. The only one who has the chance to leave Qinlingjun City is Wu Shuang. She has enough cultivation and strength to get out before the city is blockaded. As for us, we need to find places to hide."


    "I think you should have already selected the places!"


    "Yes. The place is decided. Here!" Wang She pointed lightly at one complicated living area in the topographic map of Qinlingjun City, "Although Governor Ma is very mighty, he loves the people like his own children, which is good for us. If we hide in this living area, even he would need a long time to find us. In this period of time, I think Lei should have finished the relevant things."


    "How long shall we hide?"


    "Five days are enough!" Wang She said, "What''s your opinion?"


    "There''s no better choice!" The others nodded.


    "Then the plan is settled. Everybody should stay here for these few days. Keep calm and don''t be found by others. I guess that these days, both Mingyi School and the Governor Mansion will be quite cautious, therefore, we shall be careful and not give ourselves away!"


    Everybody said yes together.


    ...


    ...


    "That''s all?!" Following Wang She to get out of the room, Junior Leopard seemed to be a little surprised. In his opinion, the bride kidnapping was definitely a big thing for most people, but they had settled the plan with only a few words.


    "It''s not complicated. In fact, there''s no need to make this thing complicated. Fetch the bride, kidnap her and escape. It''s a simple process. Although Mingyi School has prepared very well, and the imperial court also attaches importance to this thing, they won''t imagine that there should be anyone to commit such a big event with so many experts. Their strength seems strong but it''s actually weak." Speaking of this, he glanced at Junior Leopard, "Boy, are you really confident in dealing with Gao Yulou? You know, I''ve planned to let Wu Shuang deal with him."


    "You know that she''ll definitely come here?" Junior Leopard asked with some doubts.


    "Of course, she''ll come here. I''ve been her classmate for so many years. I surely know her character!"


    "So, Gao Yulou has no mistress in Qinlingjun City?"


    "Of course not. Gao Yulou''s aptitude is lower than Lu Shaoyou. But his pursuit of sword technique is no weaker than Lu Shaoyou. So he won''t play around with women. The words I said are merely to stimulate Wu Shuang to deal with Gao Yulou. I didn''t imagine that you should stand out in the way."


    "You know the reason why she''s not willing to deal with Gao Yulou?"


    "Women''s minds are like needles in the sea. How could I get to know that!" Wang She said, shaking his head, "You... You should be cautious. Gao Yulou is not an ordinary Level Seven expert... He has received the sword Gang. He is the genius of swordsmanship who is only worse than Lu Shaoyou in the generation of Golden Lights Cave. You need to be very careful. Once you think you can''t bear it, you should just run. Gao Yulou is not able to change the result!"


    "I''ll try my best!" Junior Leopard smiled, raising his eyebrow slightly.


    "Hah, it''s all because you are living in the Wu Residence that you are the only person who fears nothing. If you take off the whole outfit, nobody would think of you as a person joining in the bride kidnapping. You could hide in the crowd and go back to the Wu Residence freely."


    "Sure! You think I''ll hide in the mouse hole with you? Aha!" Junior Leopard laughed, "But there''s one thing I need Chief to help with."


    "You want me to take the Fiery Eye for you tonight?"


    "No. You said just now, Gao Yulou is not easy to deal with. I''m not familiar with him. So, I want to get his exact details from Chief."


    "Gao Yulou is Lu Shaoyou''s senior brother. His cultivation is extraordinary. He''s about 50 years old, perhaps not that old. He''s sinister and his sword technique is also ruthless. He majors in practicing the Golden Lights Cave''s Three Yin Illusion Divine Sword, which is weaker than Fallen Heaven Ultimate Sword''s. But it''s much more insidious. As is his sword Gang. Although your cultivation now is at the top of Level Six, you''d better choose to retreat when meeting his sword power. Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill indeed is mysterious, but you can''t display its strongest power before you attain the Gang Qi. Thus in front of his sword power, your Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill will collapse at the first blow. All that you can rely on is your fist intent. But your fist intent is known by people, once you use it in the fighting, the next day, the whole Qinlingjun City will know that you have taken part in this thing. And you can''t use fiery eyes either, otherwise, I believe that all the well-known families in the world will search thoroughly through the whole world. In that case, our Tian Long Taoism will bear huge pressure, then you won''t be able to depend on me keeping your secret. So, your fiery eyes are not allowed either. I really want to know what your bluff is?"


    "Hah, in fact there''s no bluff. It''s just because I''ve learned something from practicing the Fiery Eyes recently."


    "I said, your Fiery Eyes are not allowed!"


    "I didn''t mean that. I mean my fiery eyes seem to influence my fist intent. Now I have two fist intents!" While speaking, a slightly weird spirit emitted from his body and gravitation began to condense into him in traces and wisps.


    Standing aside, Wang She''s expression changed and his eyes flashed constantly, feeling the eccentric strength under his feet. When he looked at Junior Leopard, the eyes under the mask were emitting a green light like a jade, which was the performance of the best applying of the Internal Qi of Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill. That was definitely not the Fiery Eyes.


    At that time, the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi had already totally merged with Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts, forming a weird force field around his body. At the moment of Wang She''s loosening his mind, Junior Leopard''s fist intent had already been formed. At the same time, the space around him seemed to collapse and the body covered by the black suit surprisingly floated up three inches above the ground. It seemed to be evil-looking.


    What surprised Wang She mostly was that no matter how hard he tried and how he used his eyesight, he could not find Junior Leopard''s fist intent. The floating Junior Leopard was completely covered by a kind of deep and endless spirit which could absorb everything. Although Wang She had a high enough cultivation, he still felt a little cold and incomprehensible.


    "Humph! Break!"


    Wang She was a master after all. After the initial astonishment, he also understood that he was trapped in Junior Leopard''s trick. He let out a sound which was like a thunder from his tongue and it rolled to Junior Leopard as if it was a substantial sound wave .


    It seemed that Junior Leopard''s body was somehow drifting but he didn''t escape. Then another much more surprising thing occurred, which was that the closer the sound wave he sent to Junior Leopard, the slower of its speed. Meanwhile, the sound wave was condensed into one place by an invisible power around Junior Leopard. In the end, Junior Leopard merely raised his feet, and he succeeded in avoiding the attack of the sound wave which was so powerful after being condensed by his fist intent.


    "This is?" Wang She squinted his eyes, realizing some astonishing power in Junior Leopard''s fist intent.


    "This is my new fist intent. I name it Black Hole. As you see from when I launched it, the speed of the time around me will become slow. So, I have the confidence to defeat any attack!"

 Chapter 145: The sBluffs

    Chapter 145: The "Bluff"


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Block any attack? You think it''s that easy, boy?"


    Despite being astonished at Junior Leopard''s amazing fist intent, Wang She couldn''t help sneering when he heard Junior Leopard''s last words. "You must avoid this first!" As he said this, his fingers moved slightly and a black and white streamer shot out from his fingertips, flying straight at Junior Leopard''s face.


    "It''s... the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!" Junior Leopard blinked and the surrounding gravity suddenly rose. Immediately, all the objects within 100 feet floated as if they had no weight, slowly drifting towards Junior Leopard.


    But the speed of black and white streamer surprised Junior Leopard. Under the shadow of fist intent, it did not slow down but broke the fist intent. Moreover, it made a passageway in the black hole and suddenly shot to Junior Leopard''s face.


    The horrible and sharp sword qi stung the face of Junior Leopard. A threat of death ran through his head and he launched the Three Realms Division almost without thinking.


    "Swish", he disappeared on the spot.


    And at the same time that he appeared opposite to Wang She, the bizarre fist intent had gone.


    "Gee? It''s..." This time Wang She was shocked, astoundment showed in his eyes, "body movement? No, it''s not. Body movement can''t be so fast! It''s... It''s hollow travel... The special technique of hollow travel!"


    "It''s Three Realms Division. A special technique I acquired by accident!" Junior Leopard said with a little frustration. Actually, he regretted it the moment he launched the Three Realms Division. He knew that Wang She would not kill him and that the murderous intent and despair came from the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, but he subconsciously used the unique skill of survival, which he kept as a secret, because he was scared by the destructive sword qi.


    All of this was seen by Wang She.


    "Three Realms Division? A special technique of hollow travel? There''s such a special technique in the world?" Wang She was amazed, which could be found from his voice. He looked at Junior Leopard with burning eyes.


    "There''s such a special technique in the world!" Taking a deep breath, Junior Leopard disappeared again and then appeared.


    This time he appeared behind Wang She, "Chief Wang, isn''t this special technique good?"


    "Good, really good!" Wang She turned his head to look at Junior Leopard. The fever in his eyes had disappeared and he had regained his incomparable composure, "no wonder you''re so confident! With this special technique, you can be invincible. Even in the face of a real Level Nine expert, you''ll have the chance to escape, let alone in the face of Gao Yulou!"


    "Exactly! Otherwise, do you think I''m a fool to face a Level Seven expert?" Junior Leopard said with a smile and then he began to relax. Now that it had happened, it could not be changed. His fist intent would slow the time around him, but could not turn back the clock. Since the things that shouldn''t be seen have been seen by others, then what remains was the question of bargaining.


    ...


    ...


    "You''re ready to bargain with me now, and you''re thinking about how you can use this to benefit from me, right?"


    Reading Junior Leopard''s mind immediately, Wang She laughed and looked at Junior Leopard with a hint of amusement. "Alas, if you were to show me this a year ago, you might benefit a lot from me. But now, the Three Realms Division is amazing, but it''s useless to me!"


    "It''s useless to you?" There was a strange look on Junior Leopard''s face. The Three Realms Division was marvelous. Even a Level Eight expert could at least double his strength if he got this Special Technique, let alone Wang She, a Level Nine expert. How could it be useless to him?


    "Indeed, it''s a wonderful special technique. However, all special techniques need to clear Evil Qi, but now my body can''t do any more of it!" Wang She said with a bitter smile.


    "Oh, you''re dying?" Junior Leopard blurted out. It sounded like Wang She''s body was in poor health and it just looked good on the surface.


    "Of course not! I''m great. I can live to be a hundred. No, I''ll be immortal. I mean I''ve practiced nine different special techniques, which have reached the limit. Unless I''m able to break through to the Mysterious Realm, I''m not going to be able to practice even the most unremarkable special technique!"


    "There''s a limit to practice special techniques?" Junior Leopard was hearing this for the first time and had a strange expression on his face.


    "Of course there''s a limit. Even a Level Nine expert of the Mysterious Realm, his body is just flesh. The Evil Qi is very damaging to the body. It''s impossible to practice special techniques endlessly despite the Evil Qi being refined. Even if you have reached the Mysterious Realm, you can''t practice more than nine special techniques. Otherwise, you''ll explode to death. I''ve practiced nine special techniques, so I can''t practice any more although I really want to practice the Three Realms Division."


    "That will be the best!" Junior Leopard heaved a sigh of relief, "I also think it''s better for me to master it alone!"


    "I think so. Then your chances of survival are greater. But in the future, you''d better think clearly when you''re going to practice a special technique. You won''t always have such good luck to get a such great special technique at the beginning!"


    "I''ve always had good luck!" Junior Leopard smiled, and his eyes flashed, "what about it? Isn''t it a special technique you just used to deal with me?"


    "Yes, it''s the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, one of the most powerful special techniques in the world. Do you know that it requires the infusion of two kinds of very opposite Evil Qi? It''s really hard to practice!"


    "Two kinds of very opposite Evil Qi? Is it the equivalent of two special techniques?"


    "No, no, no. The special technique and Evil Qi are two completely different concepts. They''re not equal in number. You know, there are odd special techniques that require the infusion of three or four different kinds of Evil Qi. The guy who created that kind of special techniques must be a fool!" Wang She continued, "what? Interested in the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword? Alas, you know, the value of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword is not lower than your Three Realms Division. If it was a year ago, you would still have the chance to get it, but now. Hehe, I think you understand that I need something as the unique skill of survival!"


    "I understand it!" Junior Leopard smiled, "it''s just a wish. Such a special technique is hard to practice, right?"


    "Hard, of course, it''s hard. It''s hard just to find two kinds of top Earth Vein Evil Qi that are opposite in nature. But I''m a lucky dog!"


    "Well, congratulations on your good luck!" Junior Leopard said, "if there''s nothing else, I''m off."


    "Okay, you may go. Just don''t forget about it!"


    "Of course not!" Junior Leopard answered with a smile.

 Chapter 146: Gao Yulou, Your Mother Called You Home for Dinner

    Chapter 146: Gao Yulou, Your Mother Called You Home for Dinner


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    September 9th, by the lunar calendar, was good for getting married but traveling should be avoided.


    Getting up early in the morning, Junior Leopard tore an almanac page off in front of the bed and looked at it, which read: "Good for getting married but avoid traveling". He became sullen at once.


    He was a staunch communist and an atheist in his previous life, but he became somewhat superstitious after his soul had experienced time-travel. He would check out the almanac before he was going to do something.


    Today''s almanac made him very uneasy.


    In a sense, they who had set their hearts on bride kidnapping were traveling. The word "avoid" on the almanac was a taboo to Junior Leopard.


    "Nothing is a taboo! Nothing is a taboo!" He muttered, crossed his fingers and bowed in all directions. Then he picked out a big parcel from under the bed and went out.


    Today was the wedding day of Governor Ma''s daughter. For Qinlingjun City, even for the whole Yunzhou, there was no difference between the wedding of Governor Ma''s daughter and the Emperor''s daughter. Today''s wedding was even grander. After all, the wedding of the emperor''s daughter had nothing to do with the people of Yunzhou. However, Governor Ma, who brought security, prosperity, and hope to them, was different. Although the official did not ask the people of Yunzhou to do anything, now every family in Qinlingjun City was decorated with lanterns and streamers spontaneously, and big red lanterns had been hung on the whole street. The pedestrians were beaming with joy, especially the middle-aged women, as if it was their son was going to be married.


    Just at dawn in the early morning, Wuyang Door Street was bustling. A large procession from there was marching toward the Governor Mansion. Lu Shaoyou was dressed in wedding clothes, with a big red flower on his chest. His face was white, and it was clear that he had painted it slightly with pink powder. So now he was just like a toy boy with pink cheeks and white teeth.


    He rode on a tall chestnut horse, and behind the horse there was a large sedan chair carried by eight people. A few rows of people were banging away around the sedan chair, and the sound of the trumpets almost spread through half of Qinlingjun City. Dozens of people, who carried a variety of gifts, wobbled and followed the sedan chair, which stretched hundreds of feet. Beside them, on both sides of the line, there were several knights dressed in black clothes, with a touch of deterrence. Some nosy men in the crowd were excited to be closer. However, before they had come half a step nearer, they were turned back by these knights which made them turn pale and frightened. They had to be honest in the crowd and dared not to behave excessively.


    In addition to the bearers, the ones who carried the gifts, and others who played music, there was a man who followed the sedan chair.


    The man looked about 40. His red dress looked jubilant as well, but all the jubilation was dispelled by his sinister expression. The most exaggerated part being that he held a long sword in his arms. He saw everything with cold eyes, and was incompatible with the surroundings. What was more, he had an air of gloominess, which made the strong man who picked the gift next to him subconsciously keep away from him.


    "Gao Yulou is still the same. I don''t understand why you don''t want to fight with him. Was it because he had courted you?"


    On the second floor of Yunlai Building about a mile from Wuyang Gate, Wang She and Nian Wushuang were standing in front of the window and looking at the procession, which was marching on the Governor Mansion. Wang She''s appearance did not change, while Nian Wushuang was covered with a filmy veil, which added a mysterious beauty to her, and made her more remarkable.


    "If I don''t want to fight with him, I have a reason, but there''s no need to report to you!" Nian Wushuang answered dryly. "You are very quiet today. There''re so many mice around, but you ignore them!"


    "Yeah, mice!" Wang She''s mouth corners bent back a little. "Today is a great day. I don''t want to get too much blood!"


    "A great day!" Nian Wushuang looked thoughtfully at Wang She and then set her eyes on the other side of Wuyang Gate at a large mansion. "That must be Lu Mansion?"


    "Yes, it''s Lu Mansion. In Yunzhou, in addition to the Governor Mansion and the Wu Residence, only the Lu Mansion is so imposing. It seems that the Mingyi School really wants to regard Lu Shaoyou as a nail and stick him in Yunzhou!" Wang She sighed. His voice was not low, and not only did Nian Wushuang hear it clearly, but the diners in Yunlai Building heard it clearly. Hearing the conversation, several diners who had some evil ulterior motives changed their expressions. At a table near the corner, a young man in green stood up quietly and went downstairs, but he stopped when his feet had not yet set on the first steps. Then, with a "bang!" his body burst like a broken watermelon. The blood was mixed with bones and meat, and it was splashed not only on the floor and table, but also in cups and bowls...


    After a short period of silence, a scream burst out from the second floor of Yunlai Building.


    "Don''t cry. It''s no use!"


    In the chaos, the insipid voice of Wang She came into everyone''s ears. "Just stay here. No one is allowed to leave before we leave, including the three mice on the beam and four on the roof. If you move, I''ll kill you!"


    Nian Wushuang frowned gently as if she had something to say, but ultimately, she did not say a word.


    There was silence on the second floor. Everyone silently endured the flesh and blood, returned to their seats, and sat down. Some of the hapless were spattered with flesh and blood, and they were the ones who had shouted the most, but now they were the most honest. They looked for a quiet and remote location to sit down, and even dared not to wipe the disgusting flesh and blood from their body. They were motionless as if they were rabbits that were about to be pampered for the first time.


    After saying this, Wang She did not make a sound, but once again set his eyes on the direction of Lu Mansion. As he looked at the stacked buildings, the cold smile on his face deepened. At last, it turned into a somber air, and his eyes became cloudy.


    "I never understood why you would be so hostile to Lu Shaoyou. And Ji Zhongtang, your attitude toward him really confused us!"


    Nian Wushuang said. There was an invisible barrier around her as she spoke, which gathered up her diffused sounds, and kept the sound from leaking out.


    "I just wanted to get back something that was supposed to belong to me. In addition, I want to shatter a person''s lifelong belief!"


    "A person''s lifelong belief, you mean Ji Zhongtang?"


    "Yes, him, Ji Zhongtang!" Wang She said with a nod. Then he paused, "why do you care about my affairs?"


    "I don''t care, just curious!" Nian Wushuang shook her head and answered. "That''s why you made a very simple thing so complicated!"


    "Simple? It''s not as simple as you think!"


    "No, although the Elders and Mingyi School reached an agreement on this, if you, Lei, and I were against it at the beginning of this agreement, those old guys would have had to attach importance to it, and then the agreement would have been hard to achieve. But you didn''t do it, and instead, as the agreement was established, you ran to Lei, pushed him, and force him to take a stand. And...!"


    "You''re wrong. I didn''t push him or force him. He''s never going to give up on this. We all know this. As for what you said just now, you have a point. I''m being selfish. However, my selfishness will not hinder your interests, including Lei. Without me, we, the three Chiefs, would disagree with one another, and then we couldn''t stop the agreement. But you should know that Lei has his interests, and I have my interests. I can get interests in this matter and take care of Lei''s interests, so why don''t I do this? Don''t you think it would be unfair to me if we only care about Lei''s business and delay my affairs?"


    "It''s hard to say what''s fair or unfair. You make things so big. It''s unfair to the Elders. This will give them a reputation for treachery!"


    "Then why didn''t you stop me?" Wang She said with a sneer, "after all, it''s good for you, isn''t it? I''ve heard that some of the old guys on the mountain seem to think it''s better to marry you off. And now they''ll have scruples about what they''re going to do. You don''t have to be annoying, right?"


    "So, you care about me as well!" Nian Wushuang chuckled, "but you''re right. We all have our own interests. As for the Elders, hum, as long as our interests are saved, so are their interests. As for reputation, let the old men worry about it. It was used to prevent them from being too idle and thinking about the messy mismatch!"


    "Hahaha...!" After listening to this, Wang She closed his fan, clapping his hands fiercely with it, and laughed. "Yes, yes. We should get them something to do to keep them from making fantasies all day long. Hahaha...!"


    ...


    ...


    The procession went very smooth, and soon came to the Governor Mansion. Lu Shaoyou entered the Governor Mansion surrounded by the crowd, and began the game of picking up the bride. It did not last a long time, and it seemed that Governor Ma did not pay much attention to the custom of picking up the bride. Besides, he had no trouble with the bridegroom. Almost an hour later, the bride was taken out, and entered into a large sedan chair carried by eight people, and the sedan chair carried her toward the direction of Lu Mansion.


    This time, they walked on Zhengyang Boulevard instead of the previous Wuyang Boulevard, which was similar to the custom of Junior Leopard''s previous life. There was no turning back on picking up the bride.


    It was closer from Zhengyang Boulevard to Lu Mansion than it was to Wuyang Boulevard. But the procession just walked slowly. In fact, it was ridiculous. No one thought picking up the bride would be so smooth. Now, it was not yet noon and still early to go into the house, which was not keeping the tradition. Even at the door of Lu Mansion, they would have to wait a long time. It was not good to wait too long, so they wasted time on the road.


    Along the way, the procession had been banging away and set off firecrackers loudly. After an entire four hours, the sedan chair was finally carried to the door of Lu Mansion. When Lu Shaoyou had not yet kicked the door of the sedan chair, there came a clear voice, "Gao Yulou, your mother called you home for dinner!" ...

 Chapter 147: Action

    Chapter 147: Action


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Gao Yulou, your mother is calling you for lunch!"


    A clear voice with a teasing tone drowned out all of the noise of the large wedding procession. The expression of Lu Shaoyou, who got down from a horse just now and was ready to kick the door of the sedan chair, changed immediately. He looked up and saw someone standing in the corner of the street.


    That slender man was covered by a dark robe and a mask that was decorated with a wacky smile. He stood in the corner of the street, looking at the festive party quietly.


    "Who is that guy? Why does he stand over there? Why haven''t I noticed him until just now?"


    The appearance of Junior Leopard shocked all those who had confidence in their cultivation. Even though the scene was really noisy, those who had special tasks all received more than one warning in advance that some people may cause trouble here. Therefore they had maintained their vigilance the whole time. But this man appeared in the corner without being detected. How impressive his hiding technique was!


    Junior Leopard was provoking Gao Yulou, but the latter was not impulsive. He held the sword, staring at Junior Leopard firmly. His treacherous expression made Junior Leopard uncomfortable. "Only a competition in Qi Power, I don''t care!"Junior Leopard thought.


    "Who are you and what''s your aim?"


    As Junior Leopard was about to release his Qi Power to confront with Gao Yulou, a woman came out from the crowd. She was a little fat, wearing red clothes and holding a red feather fan. She must been have made up with lots of cosmetics, which fell down with her each movement. That was the woman matchmaker of the Lu Mansion.


    The one who should come forward to take the charge in such circumstances should be a woman matchmaker. Though the Lu Mansion knew it was a bit strange to do so, they were not willing to break the rules. What was more, that woman matchmaker was not weak, she was a famous woman in Jianghu, too.


    Otherwise, she couldn''t have the qualification to be their woman matchmaker.


    Junior Leopard also knew it. Wang She had told him all these things in advance. But he knew that woman wouldn''t be a hindrance to his task, because he was not here for Lu Shaoyou.


    "Who are you? Why are you standing in my way?"


    "My name is Wu Shangying, a woman matchmaker of the Lu Mansion and the Ma Mansion. Today is a good day for these two families, if you''re here for a wedding feast, we appreciate it. But if you''re here for trouble-making, then you must pay for it." said Wu Shangying, trying to smile with her powdered face. At the same time, a strong Qi Power was emitted from her. The imposing manner, together with her fat body, was truly a bit threatening. But Junior Leopard was not nobody. He knitted his brows slightly in the face of such power and that Qi Power just disappeared 10 feet away from his body.


    "It''s none of your business, nor the Ma Mansion''s or the Lu Mansion''s, so you shouldn''t threaten me with those two families. I''m just here for Gao Yulou. Gao Yulou, your mother asked you to go back and eat lunch. Don''t you understand?"


    Gao Yulou was extremely annoyed. He made a cold snort and walked one step forward with his sword. Lu Shaoyou also sent forth a strong sense of sword''s will with a gloomy face. It seemed that he wanted to teach Junior Leopard a lesson prior to Gao Yulou.


    "Wait, wait, wait! Today is a good day. You''re the bridegroom, you can''t fight casually." seeing Lu Shaoyou was about to fight, Wu Shangying rushed to prevent him. At the same time, she got in the way of Gao Yulou.


    "Since you''re coming for Gao Yulou, I shouldn''t have held you back. But Gao Yulou is our vital guest today. If you have any grudge with him, could you please put it off and handle it another day, just for the sake of the Lu Mansion."


    "But why?" Junior Leopard sneered, "Handle it another day? How ridiculous. Should he be the bridegroom and have to enter the bridal chamber? Is there any difference in handling it today or another day? As to the Lu Mansion, why should I respect you?"


    "How dare you?"


    Even Wu Shangying who was trying to patch up the quarrel became a little angry now. She was keeping a low profile only to avoid troubles. If it was not today, she definitely would fight with Junior Leopard immediately. How could Junior Leopard be so annoying?!


    However, she kept her temper once again. She realized that Junior Leopard was here to make trouble. It was very possible that he was here to disturb the wedding. As to the reason why he came for Gao Yulou but not Lu Shaoyou, it was obvious. There was no one with a higher cultivation or more threatening than Gao Yulou in the team which was conveying the wedding. The mysterious man in front of her must aim at drawing Gao Yulou away, so it was imaginable that more trouble would appear if Gao Yulou was drawn away.


    Thinking of this, Wu Shangying felt much more whiny. People who have the confidence to make trouble in the marriage between the Lu Mansion and the Ma Mansion must have huge backgrounds.


    How dare one be so risky if he had no strength?


    "If you stick to playing with fire, I''ll help you!" Lu Shaoyou couldn''t bear it any more. Anyhow, today was his wedding. Though he had no enthusiasm for this political marriage, he couldn''t endure such a huge shame. It was unbearable for anyone to stand this disgrace, let alone a Level Eight expert.


    "You?" Junior Leopard was a bit hesitant when seeing Lu Shaoyou put himself forward, "But I''m not here for you, I want Gao Yulou."


    "You want Senior Gao but I want you! If you want to fight with Senior Gao, you must fight with me first." Lu Shaoyou said, gloomily. His tone made people feel scared.


    "No." Junior Leopard nodded his head and said, "I''d like to kill you and then kill Gao Yulou. But you''re the son-in-law of Governor Ma now, I can''t take the risk of offending the Ma Mansion. Of course, you may break off the engagement with Governor Ma, since you''re so intent on giving Gao Yulou a hand. How about that?"


    "Shut up!" Lu Shaoyou changed his face sharply. How he wished he could beat Junior Leopard to death. How dare he speak those words out! Junior Leopard really pushed it too far.


    If this could be tolerated, what could not?


    "Junior fellow, just let me handle him now since he''s determined to be killed by me. You''d better come in quickly. Don''t miss the auspicious timing."


    Gao Yulou, who stood behind Lu Shaoyou, smiled after he felt great anger. He walked pass Lu Shaoyou and stood in front of Junior Leopard.


    "So, guy, let''s discuss your death now."


    "Hah, even if I''ll die, I''d like die in another place. This area is surrounded by so many people and someone will get married here. It''ll be so unlucky if it''s tainted with blood."


    "All right!" Though Gao Yulou knew Junior Leopard was aiming to draw him away, he agreed with pride. He detected the fact that this guy had high cultivation. But he was only on Level Six. A Level Six cultivation was nothing for a Level Seven expert. Gao Yulou was confident that he would win no matter where.


    "It seems that he''s only a scrap. To draw me away, a Level Six cultivation is really not worth mentioning. But he dares to provoke me, he must be confident in his hiding and escaping techniques. Well, it''s so naive of him to have such confidence. He won''t be able to get out of my control! Even if someone will cause trouble here, he won''t succeed in a few minutes. It won''t be late if I go back after killing him and working off my anger. Hah hah."


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 148: Actually I Am Level Nine

    Chapter 148: Actually I Am Level Nine


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Gao Yulou had been totally provoked by Junior Leopard. He had just cleared his sword Gang the other day and had long been planning to find someone to try its power. But it wasn''t easy as he couldn''t choose his acquaintances. Anyway, it was inappropriate to beat them severely just to try out his sword Gang. Intentionally or not, he would try to control himself, so that was pointless. But what about a stranger?


    It was also difficult. As an expert at Level Seven, he was only a newcomer, let alone the fact that his Gang Qi had just come into being. If he battled with someone stronger, he might lose. Therefore, the best option was to find an expert at Level Six and try his Gang Qi on him.


    However, experts at Level Six weren''t that many, even compared with those at Level Seven. Most of them had powerful backgrounds and high status. It would be OK if he competed with them to learn from each other, but he definitely couldn''t kill them of his own will.


    Now this Junior Leopard, an expert at Level Six, suddenly came out as his enemy. Of course, he would not throw away this chance.


    So when Junior Leopard proposed to leave here and find another place, he readily agreed. Following Junior Leopard, he disappeared in a few blinks.


    The crowd gasped!


    The matchmaker Wu Shangying exchanged a worried glance with Lu Shaoyou.


    "Sir, the auspicious timing has come. Let''s get inside!"


    Though worried, they still need to get down to business. Junior Leopard''s appearance had wasted a lot of time and the auspicious timing had come. Wu Shangying hurried to ask people inside to open the door and welcome the bride and groom.


    The festive atmosphere gradually calmed down a lot. After a routine, the bride and groom entered the house and were going to bow to Heaven and Earth.


    In the hall, "Moral Fighter" Ji Zhongtang was sitting in the center, beaming with delight. However, if you looked closely, you could see the slight worry in the delight.


    What Junior Leopard had done outside could not escape his eyes. He knew clearly that Junior Leopard''s appearance was just a start. Something was going to happen next.


    However, at this point, all he could do was roll with the punches. He had full confidence in the strength of the Lu Mansion. Experts from the Mingyi School were all over the place, let alone those imperial court martial experts. Besides, Lu Shaoyou was an expert at Level Eight and was about to break into Level Nine. With Lu here, he believed there wouldn''t be any big problems.


    The only person he worried about was Wang She from the Tian Long Mystic Mountain.


    This morning, he received a message saying that Wang She had shown up in Qinlingjun City.


    Last time when Lu Shaoyou proposed, Wang She came and created a disturbance, so he was quite worried about that. But when he thought again, he knew the Mingyi School had done a lot of work for this marriage. Suzerain of the Tian Long Taoism had also made it clear that he agreed with it. As a chief of the Tian Long Taoism, no matter how powerful and arrogant Wang She was, he should not defy the order of the suzerain. Besides, this marriage was not only supported by the suzerain, but also other elders of the Tian Long Taoism. Bold as he was, he dare not set himself against his own sect, unless he was a fool.


    "Besides, what does it matter if he really jumps out?"


    "He alone is not a big threat. Didn''t he take any advantages last time?"


    Thinking of this, Ji Zhongtang was slightly relieved.


    He raised his head and stared at the new couple dressed in red. At that time, he was filled with various emotions.


    He finally finished what his friends entrusted to him and raised Lu Shaoyou up.


    When he saw this, he felt that all the pain and suffering was worthwhile.


    "Bow to the Heaven and Earth¡ª!"


    The master of ceremony let out a long shout when the auspicious timing had come and the bride and groom were ready.


    The voice meant that the new couple should begin the ritual.


    "Wait! You can''t bow. There will be trouble¡ª!"


    Before the couple bent down, they heard a lazy voice and then yell and scold. A dozen figures appeared from the crowd and surrounded the owner of the voice.


    "You, want to stop me? Are you seeking death?"


    Wang She was still dressed in a green robe with a small fan. His eyes gleamed with coldness. The sneer on his face became more intense when he saw those experts gather around him.


    "Chief Wang, please don''t put us on the spot like this!" The leader among them had a white face with no beard. He had reached the peak of Level Six and was one step closer to Level Seven. He stepped up, bowed to Wang She and said, "This is very important. I hope you can understand us!"


    "I didn''t expect you, Seneschal Wan, would be here. It''s really a surprise for me. But you think you can stop me?!"


    "Of course we can''t. But it''ll be OK if we can stall you here!" Seneschal Wan said in a deadpan voice.


    In the hall, Lu Shaoyou had almost foamed at the mouth, but he finally controlled himself at the hint of Ji Zhongtang.


    "Bow to the Heaven and Earth first!"


    Ji Zhongtang shouted coldly. He had made up his mind. No matter what happened, he would finish this ritual after which Ma Linglong would nominally become Lu Shaoyou''s wife. It would make all of the other problems much easier to solve.


    "Eh. I''ve told you that you can''t bow. Why don''t you listen to me?" Wang She sighed lightly and walked ahead waving his fan.


    "Stop him!" Seneschal Wan''s face fell and he shouted coldly. At the same time, he flashed forward to stop Wang She. But then three figures jumped out from amongst the guests and rushed toward him. One of them moved at a speed of light and was ready to pounce on Seneschal Wan.


    "Who? How dare you!" Seneschal Wan bellowed angrily seeing people rushing from amongst the guests. He had no time to stop Wang She and turned around to try to stop the attacking fists with his hands.


    "Hong!" When their fists met, Seneschal Wan could not resist and he finally found his footing after drawing back three steps.


    At this moment, the master''s voice came from the hall, "Bow to the Heaven and¡ª Pu¡ª!"


    Before uttering the "Earth", the master had turned into a pool of blood splashing all around. Though Ji Zhongtang and Lu Shaoyou were both experts and they could keep the splashing flesh and blood from them with their strength, it was too cruel to tolerate.


    This was going too far, too far!


    "Wang She, you¡ª!" Bristling with anger, Ji Zhongtang pointed at Wang She and shouted, "How dare you!"


    "I''ve always had a lot of guts. It''s just you don''t know!" Still waving his fan, Wang She slowly stepped up from the guests. Behind him, Peng Gongliang and the other two were fighting with experts from the Mingyi School and the imperial court. Though there were only three of them, they fought shoulder by shoulder and integrated both attack and defense. In this way, they stalled all those experts who were in large number amongst the guests.


    The guests were all shocked. They had never expected this to happen at such an event, basically the grandest in Yunzhou.


    As the grandest event in Yunzhou, naturally, all those invited were important people in Yunzhou and even the whole Great Jin. There were over 30 tables set in total to treat all those martial arts experts and important guests with high status, good reputation and strong power. For example, Wu Yansheng, the Head of the Wu Family and Lyu Yiyue, the First Elder, were both invited. An elder from the Tian Long Taoism also sat at the seat of honor on behalf of the Tian Long Taoism. Beside them, heads of different families in Yuzhou, suzerains or elders from different great powers of the Great Jin all came and sent their gifts to express congratulations.


    The Mingyi School and the Golden Lights Cave also sent important representatives. The Mingyi School sent a deputy dean while the Golden Lights Cave''s delegation was led by Gao Yulou.


    Now all those people were staring at Wang She and some also cast a strange look at the elder from the Tian Long Taoism sitting in the seat of honor.


    "What happened? Brother Yan?"


    Deputy dean of the Mingyi School asked gently.


    "I... I..." Elder Yan turned red. He also had no idea about what was going on. He knew that Lei Xu was in a relationship with Ma Linglong, but what did it matter to Wang She?


    The Tian Long Taoism had already pressured the Lei Family and asked them to ground Lei Xu in case he should come and make troubles. No one expected that Wang She would come. What was this all about?


    As it had happened and Ji Zhongtang was shouting angrily, he had no choice but to say something.


    "Chief Wang, what are you doing?"


    Wang She glanced at him and answered, "Yo, it''s Elder Yan. Why are you here?"


    "You know why. Stop messing up and leave right away. Are you going to set the Mingyi School against the Tian Long Taoism?!"


    "What if I really want to?!" Wang She''s face fell and said, "I''m setting the Mingyi School against the Tian Long Taoism. What can you do?"


    "You!" Elder Yan pounded the table angrily, making the soup splash. He pointed at Wang She and bellowed, "How dare you!"


    "I''ve no time to waffle with you. If you''re smart enough, you should stand aside and watch. This is none of your business. If you want to flaunt your superiority, I don''t mind vanquishing you. But do you really want others to see that there''s internal conflict in our Tian Long Taoism?"


    "You!" Elder Yan groaned angrily. He almost fell down on the table. "Very well, very well, Chief Wang. You¡ª Very well!" The old man pointed at Wang She and his fingers were trembling with anger. But he was helpless before Wang She even if he was an elder.


    "Well... Alas..." He heaved a deep sigh and put his arms down dejected. He bowed to Ji Zhongtang and the deputy dean of the Mingyi School with shame on his face and said, "Master Ji, Deputy Dean Li, I''m sorry. I''m so sorry!"


    After that, he left, with shame and bitterness on his face, leaving no chance for others to speak.


    "This crafty old fox!"


    The others scolded secretly.


    As Elder Yan had left, everyone''s attention was naturally drawn back to the hall.


    Wang She seemed calm, still waving his fan. He paid no attention to Ji Zhongtang''s scolding but said, "Brother Shaoyou, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Why are you so stubborn about Miss Ma?"


    "Let''s battle!" Surrounded by piercing sword intent, Lu Shaoyou looked sullen. He said calmly, "This time, we shall fight until someone dies!"


    Lu Shaoyou was outraged now. No one could tolerate this if it happened at their wedding.


    Fight until someone dies!


    He had fully expressed his confidence and his killing intent.


    However, Wang She didn''t think so.


    "Brother Lu, you mistook me again. Why would I kill you? I''m just coming to rob the bride. You don''t need to get so serious. But..."


    Before his voice died away, there came the Sword Qi. Quick as a flash, the cyan sword light pierced through Wang She''s body.


    "Wow! This one is much better than the last one!"


    The body hit by the sword light was split into two halves instantly and fell on the ground gently. Only then did everyone see that it wasn''t a body but a green robe.


    "An eye trick. Well done!" Lu Shaoyou commented and the sword light in his hand continued to stab toward the crossbeam.


    "You''re not bad yourself, knowing that you can create a diversion!"


    "Qiang Qiang!" They separated and in a moment they battled again. Others could see the sword light and fan shadow mingled together.


    As experts at Level Eight, it seemed that they both didn''t mean to influence others, so they controlled their power to a limited area while battling. Still, the audience were all shivering to see such a violent battle.


    Though it seemed that they didn''t stir up a spanking wind when fighting, one might die immediately if touched by one of them accidentally, without a complete body.


    But in fact, they battled temperately. It seemed that Lu Shaoyou had gained the upper hand as Wang She''s fan shadow was totally covered by his sword light. At this moment, a white figure flashed out and the crowd let out a gasp.


    "Who? How dare you!"


    A cold shout came from the hall. Ji Zhongtang who sat at the host seat pounced at the white figure, but it was too late.


    Like a burst of wild wind, that white figure suddenly appeared, whirled away from the bride in red and then disappeared without a trace. All this happened in the blink of an eye. Though Ji Zhongtang had noticed that something happened, he didn''t expect there was another expert at Level Eight waiting in the dark beside Wang She. Though he himself could be counted as an expert, when facing the sudden action of a Level Eight expert like Nian Wushuang, he could only stand there and watch Nian Wushuang taking away Miss Ma with eyes wide open.


    Outside the hall, Lu Shaoyou was yelling and cursing. It seemed that he was trying to get rid of Wang She, but Wang She''s fan shadow was too closely woven to be shaken off, even his sword technique was miraculous.


    "OK. We made it. You may leave first!" While battling, Wang She didn''t forget his partners who were fighting against experts from the Mingyi School and the imperial court. Seeing that Nian Wushuang had taken the bride, he asked his partners to leave in case that they might be stuck here. After all, unlike him and Nian Wushuang, they hadn''t reached the peak of Level Seven yet.


    The other three were not fools. Hearing his words, they all showed their best skills and stuck together to force back the enemies. Then they slunk away so fast that those experts couldn''t chase after them. In fact, no one wanted to chase them as they were all highly skilled in martial arts and hard to deal with. As a result of the joint efforts of everyone, they were merely trapped just now. So it might not be worth chasing them.


    Besides, for those experts, though their task was to escort the bride, this was ultimately none of their business. Therefore, they didn''t really need to risk their lives.


    Outside the hall, Lu Shaoyou saw that Ma Linglong had been robbed and he himself was still trapped by Wang She. He couldn''t keep calm anymore. He let out a bellow and then a violent Sword Qi burst out from him.


    "Wang She, you asked for it!"


    The Sword Qi cut through the air and thrust at Wang She at a breathtaking speed.


    "Oops!" Wang She let out a strange sound. He waved his fan suddenly and then he was surrounded by a blast of cyan airflow.


    "Fallen Heaven Ultimate Sword. Immeasurable Sword Qi!"


    The miraculous Sword Qi bursting out from Lu Shaoyou''s body was condensed into a gust and broke up the cyan airflow. Wang She backed off again and again. His fan was smashed into pieces and fell down.


    "That''s the marvelous Fallen Heaven Ultimate Sword! He is definitely the Blade Master!"


    Wang She''s figure danced in the air like a dead leaf.


    "Wang She, you can''t escape this time!" Lu Shaoyou bellowed. He jumped off and swung his sword. At that moment, the Sword qi was condensed and Wang She''s escape routes were all blocked.


    "Pu Pu Pu!"


    The cyan Sword Qi beat on Wang She. But unexpectedly, Wang She was not beaten into a sieve.


    The muffled sound frightened everyone. The piercing Sword Qi stabbed at the green robe and caused ripples, as a stone hit the water. But besides ripples, there was no other change.


    "This is¡ª!" Seeing that his Sword Qi can''t hurt Wang She and the change of the green robe, Lu Shaoyou seemed to realize something, and then his face turned terrible.


    "This is, Level Nine!" Wang She smiled and finished Lu Shaoyou''s words. His green robe lifted again and a light layer of green veil floated on it. It was this green veil that blocked Lu Shaoyou''s Sword Qi just now.


    "Sorry, Blade Master Lu. I forgot to tell you!" Wang She smiled. His figure floating in the air released great pressure that hung over the whole Lu Mansion. "In fact, I''m Level Nine!"

 Chapter 149: Level Nine Deterrence

    Chapter 149: Level Nine Deterrence


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Actually, I''m at level Nine!"


    With this light sign, a great radiant power from Wang She, enveloped the entire Lu Mansion.


    Level Nine, a Level Nine expert!


    Wang She was a Level Nine expert!


    All the guests in the hall were completely still. Each of them fixed their eyes on Wang She floating in the air, as if they were looking at a monster.


    Level Eight and Level Nine!


    Although the gap between the two was only a level, the status of the two was dramatically different.


    The cultivation of Level Nine was the peak power in this world, at least was the peak power publicly.


    Even in Jin, the number of the Level Nine experts were less than ten, ranging from all schools to all well-known families. If the Level Seven experts were the ones with the most powerful military capabilities of every well-known family and school, the Level Nine experts had the most deterrent power.


    What was deterrent power?


    It did not need any act, but specialized to scare people.


    Of course, this sort of deterrence was equivalent to the nuclear weapon of every country in Junior Leopard''s previous world where people scrupled with the countries possessing nuclear weapons of equal level. However, in the current world, what people scrupled with were millennium families and barons. In fact, in Jin, Level Nine experts were extremely rare. One existed in Tian Long Taoism, one at the Jin court---the national division, and there were other several experts in the well-known families and schools, such as Sect of Flame, Mingyi School. But the latter ones hid for such a long time that people in the martial arts world had forgotten about their existence, or people forgot these experts on purpose, because it was impossible for these Level Nine experts to appear in front of people. Besides, even if these experts appeared, none of the people recognized them.


    In fact, it had been at least 50 years since the last Level Nine expert appeared in the martial arts world. Therefore, Level Eight experts did lord it over others, such as Xue Wuya, Lu Shaoyou and three First Seat of the Tian Long Taoism. Hence, the cultivation of Level Nine, for people in the current martial arts world, was a legend and a remote event.


    Although Lu Shaoyou, Wang She, Nian Wushuang and Prince Xiaoming of the Sect of Flame were known as the most powerful genius in the recent hundred years and they had more potential to ascend into the state of Level Nine. Although they were yet to ascended into the phase of Level Nine, they were still counted as the the strongest and received the status and respect that Level Nine experts deserved.


    Moreover, it was difficult to ascend to the Level Nine. People did not know how many talented figures struggled their whole life but failed at the last step of ascending into the Level Nine. Most of these figures were not worse than those Level Eight experts who had been referred to in the aptitude, they were actually even better than them. These figures received fame earlier than them and at a younger age than they were when their cultivation ascended into the phase of Level Eight. Nevertheless, people whose cultivation was able to ascend to Level Nine were very rare.


    In the eyes of most people, the likes of Wang She, Lu Shaoyou, Xue Wuya, and Prince Xiaoming, their cultivation could ascend to Level Nine, it was an amazing thing that god had blessed them with.


    If two of them ascended into Level Nine in cultivation, it would be a miracle. Although they could make it, it would probably happen in the next 20 or 30 years. But now, in front of them, Wang She suddenly showed his Level Nine strength. Faced with the authentic and unrivaled strength of Level Nine, how could people not be frightened and shocked?


    Presently, no one was concerned about the kidnapping of the bride. Was it not just a bride kidnapping? What was the big deal?


    For a Level Nine expert, let alone kidnapping a bride, even though he kidnapped the empress, Jin''s Emperor was either likely to follow it or fail to chase him for scores of years and be killed by him finally. This ridiculous event had happened earlier on in history.


    Presently, when Wang She revealed his true strength, the hall was abruptly silent. Those who were originally indignant, righteous, disruptive, sinister and idle men all shut their mouths.


    People who were standing, sitting, shocked or terrified, at this moment, released all their external expressions and innermost feelings in the Lu Mansion.


    "Level Nine, your cultivation has already ascended into Level Nine!"


    Lu Shaoyou''s dull expression turned into shock and extreme shock at that. The eyes fixed on Wang She were inconceivable, as if in a dream.


    Blade Qi had been totally defused and undermined by Wang She. Even though Lu Shaoyou did not believe it was true, in front of the truth, he had to admit it. Except for people with the cultivation of Level Nine, nobody could defuse the attack of Fallen Heaven Ultimate Sword so easily.


    In the world, only Level Nine experts were able to easily defuse Fallen Heaven Ultimate Sword wielded by a Level Eight expert.


    "I''m at level Nine indeed. I''ve been for a long time!" Wang She''s right hand moved quietly. The debris of the small fan shattered by Lu Shaoyou scattered on the floor, floating slowly from the floor and gathering as a ball. When the debris was blended with Wang She''s front green yarn, an intact folding fan appeared in Wang She''s hand.


    "Swish¡ª¡ª !" Wang She opened the folding fan, smiling to Lu Shaoyou, "What about it? Blade Master Lu, do we continue?"


    Lu Shaoyou''s face turned into a burst of green and then white. He wanted to continue fighting, but he understood that he would lose in any case. However, if he refused the fight, he would lose the fame he had gained.


    A complete fiasco!


    What day was it today?


    It was his wedding day. However, when he was performing the formal wedding ceremony, his bride was kidnapped in public. No matter who he was, it was a great insult. Especially as a person in the martial arts world, who valued his face more than his life, therefore, compared with his life, the face was a more important thing. If he bent now, a Level Eight expert as he was, he would be the greatest laughing stock for decades. At the same time, it would be a shame for Lu Shaoyou to show up in Jianghu. Amid the martial arts world, his struggle would be in vain for decades.


    Hence, he was hesitant. He did not know what to do.


    He seldom had this feeling to bite his nails. Had it already been over twenty years? It had been many years since he was apprenticed to Golden Lights Cave and practiced Fallen Heaven Ultimate Sword.


    But now, confronted by Wang She who fully overwhelmed him, he was biting his nails again when his bride was kidnapped in front of guests.


    "Moral Fighter" Ji Zhongtang seemed to notice Lu Shaoyou''s awkward situation and stepped forward to shout, "Wang She, although you''re a Level Nine expert, so what? Do you believe you can be unruly? In the governance of Jin''s Yunzhou, just because you''re a Level Nine expert, that doesn''t mean you can act wildly against law!"


    "Alright, under Jin''s governance, even though I''m a Level Nine expert and I reach the Mysterious Realm, I must obey the law!" Wang She threw a glance at Ji Zhongtang and cast a relaxed smile, "But I do want to act wildly. So what?"


    "Now that you insist on it, today I''m willing to risk my life to seek justice in front of you and the entire Tian Long Taoism!" Ji Zhongtang burst into rage. He straightened his back and the wedding gown which he wore fell on the floor. There was a fierce vigor radiating from his body. It seemed that he would really fight Wang She.


    Flashing his eyes, Wang She folded his small fan and lightly patted it on his left-hand palm. He looked at Lu Shaoyou mockingly, "Blade Master Lu, your uncle of the elder generation is so warmhearted that he dares to fight with me. His strength is far worse than yours. Do you indeed want him to fight with me?"


    Obviously, he made fun of Lu Shaoyou. Wang She was a Level Nine expert while Ji Zhongtang was an master of martial arts of Bone-Forging Realm. They were not on the same level. The outcome of their fight was so predictable.


    Furthermore, Ji Zhongtang was superior to Lu Shaoyou. Without Ji Zhongtang''s silent efforts and assistance, Lu Shaoyou wouldn''t have gained such achievements. Other than that, all people in the martial arts world knew Ji Zhongtang was his benefactor and he rendered him the grace of rebirth. Although Lu Shaoyou spent his whole life returning the kindness, he never returned it fully. Now if Ji Zhongtang was beaten to death here as Lu Shaoyou stood aside and watched, he would be shamed and humiliated for a lifetime. Even if he would ascend to Level Nine or the Mysterious Realm one day and slapped Wang She to death, he couldn''t wash off the disgrace and mundane contempt.


    His reputation was partly built from his cultivation, but mostly from his moral standing.


    Since his debut, he had a strong sense of justice and helped the weak. Because of his numerous chivalrous deeds, he turned a chivalrous hero into chivalrous man, and finally into the present Blade Master.


    After painstaking efforts and sweat, he won his current status and reputation.


    But now, he stood on the edge of a cliff or rather he was forced to stand here by Wang She. It was possible that he would be kicked over the cliff and never recover.


    Now, Wang She had stretched one foot to kick Lu Shaoyou.


    If he followed Ji Zhongtang''s will and took Ji Zhongtang as his shield, he would undoubtedly fall down.


    Although Ji Zhongtang helped him, Ji Zhongtang could not change anything. After Wang She dealt with Ji Zhongtang, what would he do later?


    He would not risk his life for a woman, but for Ji Zhongtang he would risk it all.


    Wang She''s smile radiated an air of complacency. It was as if a sharp dagger had been stabbed into Lu Shaoyou''s heart. Seeing that evil smile, Lu Shaoyou was anxious to tear Wang She''s face into pieces. However, he dared not and could not.


    Under Wang She''s coercion, he, a Level Eight expert, did not have the courage to fight.


    "Uncle Ji, I''ll handle it!" He took a long breath, and compressed down his innermost helplessness and fear. Over the years, everything had gone smoothly. But now that he countered this situation, he did not know how to handle it. Nevertheless, he clearly knew what he ought to do.


    "No, you step back. Leave it to me!" Ji Zhongtang said, with a burst of chill, "He''s a Level Nine expert, you''re bound to fail anyway. Wang She, until this point, I have no words against it. Today, I admit defeat. But someone else can''t bully our Lu Mansion. I would like to ask for advice from First Seat Wang!"


    "Uncle Ji...!" When Lu Shaoyou heard what Ji Zhongtang said, he blurted out.


    "Shut up. I have my own ideas!" Ji Zhongtang shouted.


    "Well, now that you know the truth that your strength is worse than mine, there''s no need!" Wang She said, shaking his head, "We come here only to kidnap the bride. This has nothing to do with you Master Ji, besides, your cultivation is so low that even though I defeat you, I won''t be proud. Lu Shaoyou, in order to save your kind Uncle Ji''s face, I''ll make any trouble. If you''re unsatisfied, I''m waiting for you on the Tian Long Mystic Mountain."


    Wang She said, moving his eyes and glancing at all the guests in the hall. His gaze was so substantial that when stared down by it, the guests felt that he saw through them. They subconsciously blocked it fearing that the moment they looked at it, they would be hurt.


    Wang She sighed slightly as if he felt it was somewhat boring. At last, his eyes were fixed on a pair of red candles in the hall. He laughed thoughtfully, "Alright, that''s all. It''s time to go now. Goodbye! Goodbye!"


    Saying that, he arched his hands towards the hall, as if to bid farewell to Lu Shaoyou. However, only he understood that he arched towards the pair of red candles. Waving his sleeves and stretching his figure, he disappeared from the guests in the blink of an eye.


    When Wang She left, Lu Shaoyou was subtly relieved but at the same time, his expression turned gloomy, extremely gloomy, and he went off in a huff, without any greeting words.


    "Alas¡ª¡ª!" Seeing his departure, Ji Zhongtang sighed and respectfully arched towards all guests in the hall, "All martial arts world fellows and Jianghu''s heroes, I''m so sorry. It''s a terrible thing that disappoints you all..."


    "No, it''s nothing. Master Ji you needn''t say that. Nobody wants it to happen anyhow!" All guests in the hall arched back and said. Though they were excited that they had watched a free drama just now and had encountered a new Level Nine expert. This was not the moment for them to reveal their true expressions.


    "Alas, right, it was out of our hands and nobody could have predicted such a thing! It was doomed!" Ji Zhongtang was a sly fox and thus the comforting words of the crowd continued. In their hearts, they laughed at the cunning man but nobody was willing to offend Ji Zhongtang and Lu Mansion at this moment. If they irritated such a moody man, and he did something irrational, there would be trouble.


    Without the bride, the wedding ceremony could not naturally go on. After conveying their comfort, all guests bid him farewell. They were itching to have a couple of wings and spread the news that a Level Nine expert had showed up. Meanwhile, they would gather together to discuss it. It had been a long time since the last dramatic news in Jianghu.


    A Level Nine expert rushed to kidnap the bride. It was so rare to hear such a thing, let alone to see it. But they saw it in person today, it was a great topic to talk about. Some of these very unreasonable points, apart from causing some thoughtless speculation, had been covered up in the noise of the agitation.


    Carrying a Level Nine expert''s halo, Wang She left with great merit. His body turned into a cyan streamer and flashed out of Lu Mansion, flying straight to the periphery of Qinlingjun City. His swift speed stunned people who saw him.


    However, when he flew in front of the high city wall of Qinlingjun City, he stopped abruptly. The place that he stopped was an alley 300 feet away from the city wall.


    When he was landing, the whole alley was enveloped by a strong air. Although he was a Level Nine expert, his expression couldn''t help changing, "Wang She pays respects to Governor Ma!"


    At this moment, Wang She did not have the sort of dignity that a Level Nine expert should have, and he instead saluted the middle-aged man standing straight in the alley as if he was an ordinary junior. Wearing an embroidered robe, a purple and gold hat, and a pair of cloudy shoes, the man''s face was dignified. The man was Ma Changtian, a Governor of Yunzhou of Great Jin.


    "Where do you prepare to take my daughter?" Ma Changtian said in a low voice, coldly and imperially.


    "It''s not me but Sister Wu Shuang. I only came to trouble Lu Shaoyou that''s all!" Wang She said with a smile, folding the fan.


    "Really?" Ma Changtian laughed coldly, "In Yunzhou City, on my daughter''s Wedding, you kidnap her in public. You''re so arrogant that you look down on me Ma Tianchang!"


    "Governor Ma, you overstate it. It''s completely not related to Tian Long Dao but was done by Sister Wu Shuang and me. As for the reason why we did it, I think, Lei Xu has talked clearly with you about it. Otherwise, you wouldn''t allow Wu Shuang to kidnap your daughter, would you?"


    "Hum, this marriage is a big deal. I''m also cautious and jittery. You, several youngsters, are so fearless. Do you really believe that your strength can challenge the dignity of that man?"


    "Of course not, we were not stupid to challenge him. He''s Jin''s Emperor who dominates the whole world. We didn''t provoke him. We need some people to know that we don''t steal other''s profit, but if one grabs our profits, it will be an eye for an eye!"


    "You mean that you took my daughter as your spoil of war?"


    "No, she''s your daughter, Lei''s wife and the future sister-in-law of Wu Shuang and me. Therefore, her profit is also our profit. Breaking her and Lei up also damages our common profit!"


    "You''re a sweet talker!"


    "In front of Governor Ma, if I''m not particular about my words, I worry that I''ll be bombarded to death on the spot!" Wang She laughed in a low voice. After hearing Ma Tianchang''s words, he was secretly relieved.


    "There''s another thing, that youngster in a mask, is he with you?"


    "Yeah, we''re together. If Governor wants to ask about his background, I have nothing to say!"


    "I don''t care his background. His cultivation is good and what he had practiced is Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill, so I''m curious about him!" Ma Tianchang said, "At this time, how many comers are there? Just several? Anyone else?"


    "Anyone else? Nobody, just us!" Wang She shook his head, with curious eyes, " Is there anyone else doing it?"


    "There are several guys peeping at us. With your spirtual mind, you should perceive it."


    "They?" Wang She burst into laughter, "Just several puny mice. Maybe they wanted to make a profit in chaos. But when they found out that my cultivation had ascended to Level Nine, they gave it up. It''s no big deal. This marriage is too intricate, involving not only our several families'' interests, so it''s not surprising that others are interested in it!"


    "It''s normal that others come here. The old man of the Chen''s also seems to send men here!" Ma Tianchang said.


    Wang She raised his eyebrow, "It''s also not strange that you marry into Mingyi School, conflicting with his profits!"


    "Nor should he come here. Although it doesn''t accord with his profits, he should not come here, either. And the man he sent is Chen Ning!" Ma Tianchang said firmly, "There''s a problem here!"


    "I don''t know things about the imperial court. Today I came here to help your true future son-in-law, so, you don''t need to thank me!"


    "You kidnapped my daughter. How can I thank you?" Ma Tianchang laughed in rage, "You really believe that I have no way to deal with you when you''re a Level Nine expert?"


    "Between us, there''s no problem of who deals with who. That you come to find me is not just because of your daughter. Governor Ma, go ahead. What''s it?"


    "Northern Yuan''s Wali Khan died. His three sons, Chadu, Ali Hun and Tie Mu are struggling for the regal power. Northern Yuan will be in chaos for a period of time. I have an opportunity to weaken Northern Yuan."


    "What do I need to do?"


    "I need you to stir the civil strife of Northern Yuan. You''d better kill all of them; Chadu, Ali Hun, and Tie Mu."


    "The matter is thorny. My strength has been exposed. If I go to Northern Yuan, it will be troublesome. I believe that as long as I show up, Living Buddha Ba Siba, Dark Lord Mie Chen, Kunlun Master will conspire to kill me. Three of them are all Level Nine experts!"


    "It depends on your capability!" Ma Tianchang smiled and said, "As long as you kill Wali Khan''s three sons, what has happened today will be written off."


    "Don''t you fear that if I kill Wali Khan''s three sons, the three evil ones will rush to Yunzhou at all costs?"


    "If they dare come here, I''ll dare to kill them. I''ll be sure to destroy the entire Northern Yuan on the condition that I kill one of them. If so, let them perish."


    While speaking, Evil Qi became thicker and thicker. A strong bloody slaughter substantially surged around. Wang She''s face turned pale and white. He suddenly took a step back, "OK, I promise! I''ll try my best! By the way, as for the guy in the mask, what happened to him?"


    "I don''t know, he and Gao Yulou are chasing each other. I just cast a glance at them when I came here!"

 Chapter 150: Drink Till Alls Blue

    Chapter 150: Drink Till All''s Blue


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was weird!


    Junior Leopard felt ill now, extremely ill.


    Although he knew that Gao Yulou was a Level Seven expert and owned Sword Gang, because of his Black Hole Fist Intent, he did not believe that he would be threatened unless he met a stronger expert like Lu Shaoyou.


    However, when he was really facing off against Gao Yulou who put in all of his efforts, he understood what a stronger expert Gao Yulou was and how great a reputation Gao Yulou had earned.


    The Sword Gang of the Three Yin Illusion Divine Sword was not so weak as Junior Leopard had expected.


    As a matter of fact, the Sword Gang of the Three Yin Illusion Divine Sword totally smashed Junior Leopard''s former cognitions on Gang Qi.


    For Junior Leopard, Gang Qi, now that it was refined by Evil Qi and Internal Qi, naturally revolved around Junior Leopard''s body to protect him like a barrier. The difference between them was just intention and property, like Wang She''s Jade Original Power Gang that he had seen before. But now he understood that Gang Qi changed in variety and was not just a defending strength and Qi wall.


    Gao Yulou''s Sword Gang was not the strength, but blade Qi that was like numerous fine needles which were surrounding him. Once he spread it, Gao Yulou looked like a hedgehog. At this moment, he could not only attack but also guard. Junior Leopard, whose cultivation just reached the peak of Level Six, though a Level Eight expert fought with him, he would be fine.


    The Sword Gang of the Three Yin Illusion Divine Sword was very grotesque indeed.


    The Blade Qi, like fine needles, was pillowy and tough. Without any attacks, Junior Leopard could feel that no matter how hardworking he was, how aggressive he was, he would be unable to attack Gao Yulou, for his attack force would be shed by the dense needle-shaped Sword Gang. On the contrary, when Gao Yulou launched an attack, countless fine needles would fly together and cover the sky. By contrast, his 49 Demon Devil needles were inferior. The Demon Devil needles were nothing in front of Gao Yulou''s Sword Gang.


    "Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" Junior Leopard bawled secretly. The weird force field formed by his fist intent had reached its limit, leaving only that intangible darksome needle-shaped strength that rushed at him like raindrops. Without the force field, he would be pierced to be a sieve by this eccentric Gang Qi. But now, this Sword Gang formed a weird phenomenon around him, as soon as the needle-shaped strength got within 10 feet away from him, it would move sharply at over three times speed. With this extremely fast speed, there was a weird phenomenon in Gao Yulou''s eye, his Sword Gang turned uncontrollable, as if it was trapped in a slippery region. It was as though he ran at a top speed and then his feet stepped on a puddle of oil. It was as though he suddenly slipped and fell down to the ground when running. His Sword Gang seemed to slip into an endless space at a surprisingly fast speed. It seemed as though he would hit Junior Leopard in a blink.


    However, this distance was also extremely large. No matter how hard this Sword Gangs went forward, it still did not reach Junior Leopard.


    In Gao Yulou''s eye, it was such a weird and eccentric scene where his own Sword Gang rushed in and never came back out. He was one foot away from Junior Leopard, but this short distance seemed to separate the skyline and never reach its end. Therefore, though he wanted to withdraw his Sword Gang, he found it hard to do it.


    "No wonder you are so brave that you, a Level Six expert, should dare to challenge me. I never thought that you had practiced such a weird fist intent. But how long can you persist?" Gao Yulou laughed coldly and took a few steps backward. He was, in fact, somewhat fearful of Junior Leopard''s weird spirit.


    However, fearful as he was, he had now taken an advantage. Though Junior Leopard''s spirit was weird, the situation had become a war of attrition. He had his own Sword Gang, so what he did not fear was attrition. By contrast, he believed that if Junior Leopard wanted to maintain his spirit, he had to clench his teeth, for his attrition was great. He believed that as long as he stood still and waited for Junior Leopard to consume all of his energy, he would capture Junior Leopard at last.


    After going through a struggle, Gao Yulou had calmed down. With his rich experience in fighting, he had found Junior Leopard''s plight, so he directly waited at ease until the enemy was exhausted. His needle-shaped Sword Gang was endless. If an exact number must be given, there would be hundreds of thousands of needles. At the beginning, in order to promptly end the fight, he operated several thousand needles of Sword Gang against Junior Leopard and they were all trapped in Junior Leopard''s spirit. The Sword Gang still existed and owned the lethality, but they did not attack Junior Leopard''s body. But now, Junior Leopard was totally surrounded by Sword Gang. Hence, he went nowhere. Although he was able to control the weird fist intent force field and change the direction of Sword Gang, Junior Leopard could not wipe his Sword Gang out. Being ambushed on all sides by Sword Gang, though he could change one or several directions of Sword Gang, he was still powerless.


    Therefore, from the beginning, the war situation had been adverse to him.


    In the meantime, Junior Leopard had noticed the mistake that he had committed.


    Fron the beginning, he was wrong.


    "If I knew that his sword Gang was so weird earlier, I would never use fist intent!" Junior Leopard whined in his heart. What he had practiced before, the Silver Moon Sword Technique and the Emerald Pearl sword was unuseful at present. At the beginning, when he was fighting with Gao Yulou, he could do nothing but trigger his own Internal Qi and tighten his tension like a straightened steel wire. But meanwhile, he also knew that if the steel wire was kept taught all the time, it would break off.


    "I must find a way out. His Sword Gang is too insidious. Damn it! The fine needles are more insidious than my Asura Yin Evil Needles. Wait a minute, Asura Yin Evil Needles..."


    Junior Leopard''s heart flickered. His Punching Spirit fully opened and with gritted teeth and murderous eyes, the sheath of Emerald Pearl sword was pulled out, "There''s no way out. I must hit it. Damn it. Gao Yulou, that''s a risk you take!"


    The surrounding fist intent, which permeated 30 feet, disappeared at once.


    When Gao Yulou lost the constraint of Junior Leopard''s fist intent, his Sword Gang shook violently.


    "Swish!" Amid the vibration of the whole air, an overwhelming needle rain sprinkled towards Junior Leopard. Now, that there was no fist intent surrounding Junior Leopard to defend him. The Sword Gang lost its greatest constraint and gathered together far and near to seal him off.


    "Doesn''t he want to live?" That Junior Leopard suddenly withdrew his fist intent at this point was beyond Gao Yulou''s expectations, at the same time, an alert was raised from his heart.


    "Phew! Phew!"


    With two abnormal sounds, Junior Leopard parceled by Sword Gang promptly disappeared, as if he never existed. The second sound came from Gao Yulou''s Sword Gang as it bumped against itself.


    It was too late to take back his Sword Gang, thus, it collided with itself. Fortunately, it did not give rise to any trouble. But, Gao Yulou got into trouble.


    At the moment of Junior Leopard''s disappearance, he realized something bad would happen. With his fighting instinct, he turned around swiftly and operated his sword to attack Junior Leopard again.


    "DANG! DANG! DANG!" With three successive hits, his sword bumped into Junior Leopard''s Emerald Pearl.


    Three Realms Division!


    When Gao Yulou was most careless, Junior Leopard moved behind him through Three Realm Division and brandished his sword to attack Gao Yulou directly.


    At the moment when Gao Yulou attacked Junior Leopard, there was a space left behind him at a part of Gao Yulou''s Sword Gang. What''s more, seeing Junior Leopard being trapped, he relaxed his vigilance. Thus, Junior Leopard had an opportunity to approach him. If not, as Junior Leopard grasped Three Realm Division, on condition that he was protected by Sword Gang all the time, by no means was Junior Leopard likely to close in on him.


    Due to his carelessness, Junior Leopard assaulted him and won a near success!


    Gao Yulou was shamed into anger. For years, except for his lost to Lu Shaoyou, he had never suffered such losses. His mind twirled and his surrounding Sword Gang swarmed. A tight dragnet was once more formed around him. At the same time, Junior Leopard jumped out, slightly shaking his wide dark sleeves, as if his sleeves were blown by a wind. His figure flew out and disappeared away swiftly, "Hehe, chivalrous man Gao, your Sword Gang is so awesome that I won''t accompany you!"


    As his figure disappeared, a faintly joking voice came into Gao Yulou''s ears.


    "F**k!" When Junior Leopard suddenly disappeared, his spirits also disappeared. The cooked duck flew away. How couldn''t he be furious and wrathful? Gao Yulou was arduous to lead Junior Leopard to this place and was about to seize him. However, Junior Leopard ran away. Besides, he ran away when Gao Yulou had the absolute advantage, which irritated him. He waved his hands fiercely and his Sword Gang fell down around him. Only leaving a string of crackling sounds. The surrounding trees, rocks, and houses broke into pieces lifelessly, as though they were bananas blown by rain.


    "Hum, you''d better meet me next time, Otherwise, er..." Gao Yulou burst into rage. When scolding Junior Leopard, he halted suddenly with a fury. His eyes were extremely startled and his mouth open. Scattered Sword Gang curled violently and rushed to him wildly. They drilled into his body from his eyes, mouth, and ears. His expression changed acutely. His surface skin sometimes concaved and sometimes convexed, as if there were numerous worms walking under his skin. It looked gruesome.


    Gradually, his body froze, his shocked eyes turned terrified and then, at last, they turned hopeless.


    "Phew!" When a hint of slight sound rang out, a fine needle as thin as cow-hair drilled out of his eyebrows with faint blood. Gao Yulou''s eyes became vacant.


    "PENG!" There was one more thud. The Sword Gang he had absorbed broke out from his body and turned a clump of blood fog. Gao Yulou fell against the ground and lost his spirit.


    "Alas, my sin, my sin!" Junior Leopard appeared from behind an abandoned wall that Gao Yulou destroyed. He rolled back his dark sleeve and 49 Demon Devil needles flew in from out Gao Yulou''s body.


    Junior Leopard walked before Gao Yulou''s corpse. From behind his thick mask, he uttered a heavy sigh. He looked at Gao Yulou''s corpse and said, "Don''t blame me. Only blame that you met me! Hum!"


    Shaking his head, Junior Leopard did not examine Gao Yulou''s corpse. When he raised his hand, a fiery stripe slipped out of his hand and fell upon Gao Yulou''s corpse. After several breaths, his corpse had burned to ashes. Junior Leopard turned away.


    After an hour, Wang She appeared. Like Junior Leopard, he walked before the corpse and began to sigh.


    "This little maniac, that he should kill him?! I underestimate him. In assorted Gang Qi, the sword Gang of Three Yin Illusion Divine Sword was known for its fantastic power. To my surprise, he managed to break such an awesome Gang Qi!" Snake King said to himself. Wang She took a few steps back and forth, with his hand gesticulating, said, "I''m guessing that he used his strange fist intent so that Sword Gang couldn''t approach him. He attacked Zhou Bao with his Sword Gang and then relaxed his surrounding protection, so Zhou Bao had an opportunity to draw near him and he was unprepared to respond. However, even so, with cultivation and sword techniques, Gao Yulou was unlikely to be killed. Otherwise, Gao Yulou couldn''t be alive, that bloke must have used other methods that I don''t know of."


    He quietly guessed what happened here and listed the whole process. But he couldn''t infer how Junior Leopard managed to kill Gao Yulou.


    "Did he use the strength of Fiery Eyes to kill Gao Yulou?" Wang She narrowed his eyes, "This is quite possible. It''s the only possible method. The strength of Fiery Eyes is enigmatic. If he really used Fiery Eyes, he would be likely to kill Gao Yulou. But why do I think this event is not so simple?"


    Wang She''s cultivation was so high that people would think he possessed a mysterious telepathic connection. Many things did not need eyes to see and ears to hear. Only using the spiritual mind, would things be certain.


    It was not a big deal to him that Junior Leopard killed Gao Yulou. With his present Level Nine identity, though he really rushed to Mingyi School and killed several Level Seven experts, Mingyi School would not utter a single word. What he worried about was the way Junior Leopard killed Gao Yulou. After killing Gao Yulou, Junior Leopard burned the corpse. Although Wang She intended to figure it out, it was useless. Therefore, Wang She valued Junior Leopard more. In the world, not every Level Six expert was able to kill a Level Seven expert, not everyone had Fiery Eyes, and not everyone could spend one year practicing External Elixir to reach the peak of Level Six. All this indicated that Junior Leopard had dramatic value. The more he was familiarised with Junior Leopard, the more he treasured Junior Leopard.


    "Hoho, this bloke, always brings all kinds of surprises to me!" AfterWang She thought for a long time but was unable to arrive at a specific conclusion, he finally shook his head and gave up, "When I see him next time, I will ask him about it. This time we ruined Lu Shaoyou''s Wedding and killed Gao Yulou. Mingyi School won''t let it go. Although Mingyi School is unable to strike back, there must be a verbal battle for a long time. Something troublesome will come later."


    But that something troublesome would happen later had nothing to do with Junior Leopard.


    After killing Gao Yulou, he got into an alley at once. In an abandoned house, he burnt his dark robe and mask and put the External Elixir on the ear, then he employed several Three Realm Division in succession and returned to Zhenyang Door Street.


    It had been two hours since Wang She had kidnapped the bride. At this moment, the whole Qinlingjun City was immersed in incomparable shock, including the Wu Family. In such days, of course, there was no one looking into the fact that Junior Leopard had missed four hours, so Junior Leopard naturally snuck into the Wu Family, then openly went out of that yard and integrated into the Wu''s discussion tide.


    But soon, he did not laugh out.


    "Level Nine? Wang She is a Level Nine expert who overwhelms Lu Shaoyou in Lu Mansion, that disgraces the whole Lu Mansion and even Mingyi School. What does he find us for?"


    Although it was somewhat difficult that a Level Nine expert directly rushed in Lu Mansion to kidnap the bride, it was not too difficult. The fact had proved that as long as he revealed that he was a Level Nine expert, no matter who it was, they didn''t dare to wildly move!


    Unexpectedly, Wang She should draw Gao Yulou away in person, Peng Gongliang and the others should entangle those experts of Lu Mansion and finally, Nian Wushuang should kidnap Ma Linglong. Nobody knew his true purpose.


    "Junior Zhou, you have come back! I didn''t see you so long that I thought that you were not here!"


    As Junior Leopard was thinking, he heard a sound. Then Junior Leopard turned round and saw that the incomer was Lou. He couldn''t help laughing, "Senior brother Lou, I ''ve been to the street to seek the fun!"


    "Oh, all of the people went there, so it deserves a look!" Lou laughed and said, "But it''s our turn to get busy!"


    Junior Leopard was confused for a moment and promptly understood, "Right! Right! Tomorrow senior brother Jin will get married. We''ll be responsible for welcoming the bride and other issues. What a busy day!"


    "Of course! The Family Head has ordered us to perform it in a simple way, however, it''s a most important event in their life after all, so it''s unlikely to be too simple!"


    "Sure, it''s the most important event of their life. By the way, tomorrow senior brother Jin will also draw near this street?"


    "Yeah, it''s the street ahead. Senior brother Jin also purchased a courtyard in Qinlingjun City which is a bridal chamber. However, since such a bad accident has happened to Lu Mansion, I fear that there will be trouble when welcoming the bride tomorrow!"


    When Junior Leopard saw soldiers on horses come and go, he couldn''t help nodding his head. Governor Ma''s daughter had been kidnapped at the wedding. The Governor Mansion was sure to echo this matter, otherwise, the Governor Mansion of Yunzhou would lose face! Of course, his actions would be performed in with fanfare.


    But those with discerning eyes all knew that he just was pretending. It was the two Chiefs of Tian Long Taoism, one with Level Eight and another with Level Nine that kidnapped the bride. How could you seize them? As for the several other participants, they were worthless. It was nonsensical to catch them.


    On the other hand, Yunzhou''s Wu Family was something of subtle in its status. It was known to all that the Wu Family depended on Tian Long Taoism. Now that Tian Long Taoists had kidnapped Governor''s daughter, it had embarrassed the Wu Family in Yunzhou.


    What surprised everyone was that the Wu Family also held a Wedding tomorrow. In this way, except for shocks brought by this event, the Wu Family was propelled into the teeth of the storm accidentally.


    Junior Leopard and Lou didn''t know that when both of them were debating the next day''s wedding, the Wu''s top leaders had made a decision that the Wedding was canceled.


    Although this decision somewhat lost them face, compared with offending Governor Ma, it was deserved. Today his daughter had been kidnapped at the wedding, but the next day the Wu Family would get his daughter married with a great fanfare, that sought trouble indeed.


    ...


    ...


    "What? Senior brother, the Wedding has been canceled?" Elated Junior Leopard followed Lou and they moved to the courtyard Jin Nanqing had purchased. When they met Jin Nanqing, before they said congratulations to him, a bitter Jin Nanqing told them that the course of the events which had cast a chill over them.


    "How can it be so? The wedding that was fixed earlier should be canceled, just because Governor Ma''s daughter has been kidnapped!" Lou appeared to be compassionate and complained disappointedly.


    "There''s no other way. Our Wu Family has a close relationship with Tian Long Taoism. It''s apparent that the event was done by Tian Long Taoism. At this time, we''d better not seek trouble."


    "But!"


    "Senior brother Lou is right. It doesn''t matter that senior brother can''t get married today, but senior brother can do it tomorrow or on any day. The result remains the same. What senior brothersaid is right. At this time, we''d better not seek troubles!" Junior Leopard patted Lou on the shoulder and said, "But anyway, now that the wedding has been canceled, senior brother, the good alcohol you have prepared should be taken out, shouldn''t it?"


    "Right! Right! I''ll take it out, take it out!" Jin Nanqing laughed and said, "But just us three here are too few. Call them together. Let''s drink till we drop?"


    "Sure, let''s drink until we drop!" Junior Leopard echoed aloud.


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 151: The Beginning of Chaos and the Second Evolution of Fiery Eyes

    Chapter 151: The Beginning of Chaos and the Second Evolution of Fiery Eyes


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was not an auspicious day!


    Junior Leopard felt a surge of anger coming from the Dantian the moment he saw this Fiery Eye.


    It was a Fiery Eye, a perfect Fiery Eye. Junior Leopard even believed it was the same as what it was when it had just been excised.


    An Eternal Eye!


    A Fiery Eye would become An Eternal Eye after being excised from his owner. Water, fire, knives and guns could not harm it, and it would not decay as time went by, so it was called an Eternal Eye.


    To kill a man was to cut off his head and leave it on the ground, so it was not a big deal to cut out one''s eyes. It was the spoils of war. It had been like this since ancient times. Even in the present age of Jin, there was a military rule that took credit according to the number of enemy you beheaded. But judging by the size of this Fiery Eye, its owner was not an adult, not even a teenager. Apparently it belonged to a child.


    The magnificent scarlet in the eyeball was somewhat faint, but it suffused a thick bloody smell. There was also a strange atmosphere around it, cold and gloomy. But only Junior Leopard could sense it. Wang She, a Level Nine expert, had no response to it.


    "See! This is the fate of owning Fiery Eyes!"


    From Junior Leopard''s expression, Wang She could easily feel the anger in his deep heart. "It not only happened in the past, but it also still happens now. Once the other person knows that you have Fiery Eyes, I can ensure you that everyone who is related to you will be killed overnight. All of their eyes will be cut out, including your two little nephews!"


    "Why? What is the reason?" asked Junior Leopard, looking up. "Now that you are a Level Nine expert, I think that you should be qualified to come into contact with these legendary secrets?"


    "Yes, but not now, and you can''t be in a hurry!" said Wang She softly. "I have things to do. Besides, it might not be good for you if I uncover these secrets. Maybe when I see the secrets and learn the truth, I will change my mind and try to kill you. There''s a possibility!"


    "Maybe you are right!" Junior Leopard nodded. "Who knows what the truth is, but even if the person who has the Fiery Eyes has done something, should it have anything to do with children like this one?"


    "Yeah! Although this is the case, not everyone can do what they say!" said Wang She. "Fiery Eyes are amazing. If you possess one, you can use it to make External Elixirs and magic weapons, so of course they won''t care who they kill. They only know that killing you is good for them. If not, why are there so few evil beasts in the world? Isn''t it because every part of the evil beast is a treasure?"


    Junior Leopard just sneered and closed the box, "OK, I have done what you asked me to do. You did what I asked you to do, too. We are quits on this matter!"


    "Yeah, we are quits!" answered Wang She with a nod. "Just one more thing, I think I''d better tell you first..."


    "What?"


    "After this thing is over, will you go back to Zhonghe Prefecture?"


    "Of course! I''m a personal guard of Admiral Li. This time I asked for leave!" answered Junior Leopard.


    "That''s fine. Zhonghe Prefecture is the hinterland of Jin. Li Yuan has a strong background as well. To work for him, you should be fine!"


    "What''s going on?" Wang She''s words caught Junior Leopard''s attention as he heard something unusual from the words.


    "The whole world is going to be in chaos!" Wang She simply said.


    "The whole world is going to be in chaos?" Junior Leopard was completely bewildered by his words. What did he mean? The present situation of Jin was very complicated. All sorts of relationships were connected, such as the imperial court and the well-known families, the well-known families and the martial arts world, the martial arts world and the imperial court. But they not only had confrontations but also cooperations. At present, the Emperor was unhappy with the millennium families and the schools and was struggling for power with them, but this had lasted for tens of thousands of years. There was a set of rules and nothing unusual. Furthermore, these struggles were mainly concentrated in the upper echelons and rarely affected ordinary people. In the past hundred years, Jin had been in favorable weather since generations of emperors were wise, especially the present Divine Son. Since he inherited the throne, he had made great efforts to make the country prosperous and thus he enabled all kinds of talents close to the sages and alienated despicable people. The country was well governed and got a bumper grain harvest every year. Even if there was a disaster, the disaster relief could be in place timely. Junior Leopard noticed it all. Even the people at the bottom were not to the point of rebellion.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard was puzzled by what Wang She said.


    "Boy, don''t think so much. Just remember what I said. Go back to Zhonghejun City, stay there and observe the changes of the world. Now that Jin is at its peak, decline must be right after flourishing. If I were you, I would take advantage of this opportunity to make more capital and strengthen for the future!"


    Since Wang She had said that, Junior Leopard could not ask any more questions, but nodded silently, "thank you for your reminder!"


    "Well, that''s it. Be careful! About the extinction of Fiery Eyes'' bloodline, I won''t try to figure it out. When you have strength in the future, you can investigate yourself!" said Wang She, disappearing in front of Junior Leopard.


    "I will!" Junior Leopard softly said, but Wang She had left before his words.


    "Why is it getting more and more complicated!" Junior Leopard slowly frowned and put away the black box in his hand. The Fiery Eye is wonderful, but when he knew that it was from a child, he was completely in a bad mood. Now his mood was certainly not conducive to the study of the Fiery Eye. What''s more, it would take some time for the Fiery Eye to be used. It could not be used as he wanted. He was still in the Wu Residence, and so was the owner. The Fiery Eye was ''booty''. If Junior Leopard used it and was found, he would be caught with the booty. He was not that stupid, and there was plenty of time after going back to Zhonghejun City anyway. Although he was impatient, he knew the priorities.


    Since the First Elder lost something so important in the Wu Residence, the place was plunged into chaos. But no one ever suspected that the Fiery Eye was in the hand of Junior Leopard, because when the Fiery Eye was lost, he was drinking in the restaurant with a gang of the other disciples.


    Moreover, his strength, though strong, could only be praised among the disciples of the younger generation. No one would believe that he could sneak into the retreat of Lyu Yiyue and steal the Fiery Eye. Recently, because of the marriage of Ma Mansion and Lu Mansion, a lot of people of the martial arts world that had evil intentions came to Qinlingjun City, Yunzhou, including many experts. If some of them came here for the Fiery Eye, it would be hardly preventable. After all, the news that Lyu Yiyue got the Fiery Eye had been deliberately concealed by the Wu Family, but it could not be hidden from anyone who really wanted it.


    It was not a real secret.


    Besides, Junior Leopard had the perfect alibi, so no one suspected him.


    After a while in Qinlingjun City, the matter quietened down. But no news came from his teacher, perhaps it was delayed by things. Junior Leopard did not want to stay in the regional city any more, so he went straight back to Zhonghejun City.


    After all, strictly speaking, that was his place now.


    Back in Zhonghejun City, Junior Leopard did not return to work immediately. As with the custom for civil servants in the previous life, how could he go back to work before the holidays were over?


    So he secretly returned to Zhonghejun City, went back to his house, and told Wang Tianlei and his wife not to tell anyone. Of course, Wang Tianlei and Zhou Hua''er would follow him.


    In these days, he would study the mystery of the Fiery Eye.


    On his way back to Qinlingjun City, he did not take out the Fiery Eye and study it due to caution. However, over time he increasingly felt his eyes seemed to have a fancy connection with the Fiery Eye in the box. Several times when he was having midnight dreams, he found himself in a mysterious space in his mind and could not directly awaken.


    It was a mysterious, deep call from the depths of the bloodline that he could not prevent or control. As time went on, his Fiery Eyes would work on their own, which worried him very much. Once, he tried to put the Fiery Eye away from him for a while, but then there was a stabbing pain which came from not only his eyes, but also his heart, as if he lost something very important in his life and was no longer complete.


    It was then that he understood that from the moment Wang She brought the Fiery Eye to him, he could not break away from the Eternal Eye which did not belong to him, but shared the same bloodline as him.


    It would never be good for him to take it with him for a long time without studying it thoroughly, or even refining it. He did not want his Fiery Eyes to get out of control, or let the world know that he had the taboo heaven-sent bloodline that had been severed for thousands of years. It was not something that deserved to be bragged about.


    It was too dangerous. Junior Leopard had to solve it as soon as possible, and that was why he secretly came back. In fact, he regretted it. If this had been discovered earlier, he would have gone to Misty Mountain to practice for a few days. But now, it was also a good choice to hide back in Zhonghejun City.


    The house Junior Leopard bought was not that large. Wang Tianlei had bought two more houses as his business grew.


    More importantly, one of the two houses that Wang Tianlei had bought had a huge basement.


    Many people would dig tunnels at home, especially those who had some valuable property, thus they all had some cellars, secret chambers and so on. But it was the first time that Junior Leopard had seen such a large basement.


    Most of all, this basement was a typical practice room with four walls and the ground made of huge bluestones. Pieces of bluestones were sliced into rectangles, creating an underground practice field of nearly 1000 square meters. The practice field which was made of bluestones was very grand and simple. Apart from the bluestone walls and ground, there was only a luminous pearl hanging in the middle of the stone room.


    The luminous pearl was performing its most primitive function, illumination!


    The luminous pearl was not very big, like the size of a pigeon egg, but its soft light shone through the basement and made the room clear.


    This was a good place, a rare good place. Although there was nothing but bluestone in the basement, ordinary people could never build it. It would take a lot of money, resources, and manpower to incise the bluestone. One must get these stones into Zhonghejun City, dig a large place under the house, and trim the bottom. It was a big project, probably no less inferior than the grandest building, Guard County Manor, in Zhonghe Prefecture.


    This surprised not only Junior Leopard but also Wang Tianlei. After inquiring, they knew the ancestor of the house''s original owner was a famous martial artist, a Level Eight expert, whose family had a monopoly on the food business in the whole Zhonghejun City in its heyday. With wealth, power and excellent feats, naturally he could do whatever he wanted. In fact, hundreds of years ago, several streets here all belonged to the family.


    But then the family gradually declined, some of the houses were sold, and some were mortgaged, only the main house was left. In the end, the head of the family died in the Sect of Flame Rebellion, leaving some orphans and widows that had survived. They could not go on living in Zhonghejun City, so they sold the house, took the money and went to their relatives, which let Wang Tianlei and Junior Leopard take advantage of them.


    Wang Tianlei was smart. After discovering the underground practice field, he left the whole house empty and kept it for Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard was quite satisfied with it. He certainly did not hesitate to come in.


    Such a secret place, of course, was the best place to study the Fiery Eye.


    There was a thick red mahogany table and chair set below the luminous pearl. Junior Leopard sat in the chair. In front of him there was a desk, where the Fiery Eye, which was stolen from Lyu Yiyue by Snake King was placed.


    Since Wang She gave it to him, he had only seen it once, and that was when Wang She gave it to him in the Wu Residence. He had not opened the box since that night.


    It was the second time.


    This time, compared with the first time, he looked more carefully. The original anger had disappeared, perhaps it was suppressed by a powerful calm.


    The Fiery Eye had been on him for so long. Though he had not seen it, it had a mysterious connection with his own eyes. Today, he was trying to find the mysterious connection and do his best to make it his own.


    The magnificent eyeball in scarlet!


    Different from Junior Leopard''s Fiery Eyes, the Fiery Eye was pure faint scarlet and there was no boundary between the pupil, eye white and eye''s core. From afar, it looked like a scarlet crystal ball.


    Junior Leopard''s Fiery Eyes were different when he started them. His eyes would become scarlet, but the boundaries were still clear. His eye white would turn scarlet, and his pupils were still as black as ink, just like two unfathomable black holes. His eye''s core was golden red, and around the scarlet part, there was a ring of black, like a mysterious ring covered his eyes. This was the state of his Fiery Eyes.


    He started his own Fiery Eyes and then quietly looked at the Fiery Eye in front of him. He felt the mysterious connection from the Fiery Eye on the table and he knew that he didn''t need to do anything else, just stare at the Fiery Eye on the table.


    Obviously, there was a link between different Fiery Eyes.


    The Fiery Eye on the table, under the gaze of Junior Leopard, changed. The faint scarlet Fiery Eye moved.


    Yes, it moved. It was like the scene of dropping a drop of red ink on a glass filled with water and slowly stirring it. Of course, this was the reverse of the process. The scarlet of the Fiery Eye filled the space, and under the gaze of Junior Leopard, the color stirred. At the same time, Junior Leopard clearly felt his eyes'' change... The mysterious black lines that swirled around his pupils were also stirring.


    Change was interactive, but what really led to the change was Junior Leopard''s eyes. With the rotating of black lines of his eyes, the change of the Fiery Eye on the table began to regulate. The stirring scarlet seemed to have been manipulated by an invisible hand and began to move in a fixed line. Slowly, the scarlet crystal ball became an eyeball.


    Yes, an eyeball.


    It changed from an original completely scarlet crystal ball into a human eyeball. The eye white, pupil and eye''s core were clear.


    It was an eyeball, cut out from a man.


    It had almost the same structure as Junior Leopard''s eyeballs, scarlet eye white, black pupil and red eye''s core. Only two things are different. First, Junior Leopard''s eye''s core were golden red, but the eye''s core of the Fiery Eye in front of Junior Leopard was a dark red. Second, there was a ring of black around Junior Leopard''s pupil. Though there was black line around the pupil of the Fiery Eye on the table, the black line was not a perfect ring around the pupil like Junior Leopard''s eyes, but three black lines that stretched out 120 degrees from the black pupil. The weirdest thing was that Junior Leopard found that the length of the black line was just as long as the distance from the black line to the pupil in his eyes.


    Could this be a coincidence?


    Junior Leopard thought to himself and came up with a strange idea.


    "Could it be that the Fiery Eyes can mutually absorb the eye strength to evolve just like the skill-copy eyes in comics?"


    He could not get rid of the idea. It kept going round and round in his head. At the same time, his eyes were more closely connected with the Fiery Eye in front of him.


    "Bang", there was a loud bang in Junior Leopard''s head. After that, he was helpless to find that he was once again drawn into that mysterious space by his Fiery Eyes.


    In the hollow, the eyeball that was hanging in the air started turning slowly. He felt that the hollow now was different from the one he had come to before, which seemed to be filled with an ambiguous energy. The ambiguous energy gave him a familiar feeling as if it were the power of his own Fiery Eyes.


    "Am I really absorbing the power of that Fiery Eye? It has been 3,000 years. Can it really work?"


    Junior Leopard was thinking about such a possibility. Indeed, the eye of the man who lived three thousand years ago was an Eternal Eye, but was it really as eternal as it was stated in the legend?


    It turned out that all he thought was superfluous and unhelpful. Just as he was thinking, the Fiery Eye hanging in the air changed. The three black lines, stretching from the eyeball at an angle of 120 degrees, were connecting to the black line of his eyes.


    This connection made him suddenly feel extremely dizzy as if he had drunk a lot of wine. The whole hollow seemed to revolve around the dangling huge eyeball and condense.


    Condense, completely condense. In the mysterious space, Junior Leopard could even feel the process and the cause of the hollow condensing. It was completely crushed by a tremendous power which he had felt before in this mysterious space, the ambiguous but familiar power. When the black line stretched from the pupil completely connected with the power, the gentle power broke out immediately. The entire space was crushed into fragments, just like the earth cracking.


    But it was not over. After the destruction, there was reborn, after the earth cracking, there was an Evolve the World.


    In the process of Evolving the World, Junior Leopard had felt it at the beginning of his fist intent coming into being. He created a crushing vacuum because of it.


    Though the feeling flashed and vanished in a second, the flash and memory were preserved and remained in the deepest part of his memory. In the moment of the collapse of the space, the memory of the moment was miraculously transferred out, there was no need for him to deliberately pursue it. In that instant, the Fiery Eye hanging in midair shook violently. A strong power that was homogeneous with the power which thrust into space was coming out. The Evolvement of the World began again.


    All of this was done in a flash, but in Junior Leopard''s mind, it seemed to last a lifetime. When his mind returned again, the hollow had been reorganized. Before he could carefully sense the space after the reorganization, his thoughts were forced out of the space and back to reality.


    Then he felt a stab in his head as if his head was torn.


    The faint scarlet in the Fiery Eye on the red mahogany table in front of him disappeared, the black line that stretched out from the eyeball also disappeared. The only object left was a seemingly ordinary eye, quiet on the table. The blood red in the eye also slowly faded away and disappeared.


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 152: No Title

    Chapter 152: No Title


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The eyeball, quietly lying there, had become ordinary and plain, a far cry from its original magnificence.


    At this point, Junior Leopard returned to reality. With a single glance, he suddenly felt the world he saw around him had changed.


    Everything was clear, extremely clear. Even the dust was visible!


    This was everything he could see before he''d unsealed his Fiery Eyes, but now, everything visible in this clear dusty space seemed to have changed. Junior Leopard wasn''t just able to see visible things, but also the invisible changes in airflow. Nothing could escape his eyes!


    He could see the flow of air, even the subtlest vibrations. Most importantly, when he used his eyes to look deep within, he could control his Internal Qi with a finer touch, and even deploy it more subtly. Naturally, the same applied to his body, all his muscles and skeletons were under his control.


    That did not sound very helpful. But in fact, when you possessed complete control over your muscles and skeletons, you had an extremely strong advantage over others.


    The punching skill of the Strengthening Body required good bodily control. Therefore, the more control you had over the body''s skeletons and muscles, the more you could meet the demands of the punching skill, making it all the more effective. With this, you could achieve unexpected results with half the effort.


    The Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill and Blood-evil Bones Quan practiced by Junior Leopard were both top Strengthening Body punching skills, with correspondingly higher control requirements for the muscles and skeletons. Now though, Junior Leopard''s new level of muscles and skeletons control would be greatly helpful for practicing Strengthening Body punching skills in the future.


    Of course, this was only the most obvious present gain, the first thing he felt after coming back to reality. Once he completely calmed down, he discovered another thing that made him feel surprised and strange.


    He discovered that his mind was connected to the Fiery Eye on the table, which now looked no different from an ordinary eyeball. Especially, he discovered that the eye''s function was restored. He could even see things through the eye on the table just as well as with his own eyes.


    It was a weird feeling. He already had a 360-degree viewpoint due to his Fiery Eyes, and now he suddenly had a new, discomforting field of vision.


    Of course, this wasn''t the main reason for his discomfort, he could slowly adapt to this new vision with time. Right now, the trouble was that he couldn''t sever the connection between him and the Fiery Eye on the table. As a matter of fact, he could already feel his divine thoughts merging with some of the most essential things inside it.


    Consequently, when his thoughts stirred, the Fiery Eye on the Table floated up, as if he was manipulating his Demon Devil Needles. But he had complete control over the Demon Devil Needles and completely lacked control over the Fiery Eye. The Fiery Eye left the table and flew straight up to his face, an act that startled him.


    "Whoa! What''s going on" Junior Leopard let out a strange cry and tried to dodge¡ªunsuccessfully. The Fiery Eye seemed to have the spiritual intelligence of its own that anticipated his movements. As soon as he dodged, it changed course, intercepting his route every way he went. As he tried to dodge, he felt another stabbing pain in the head.


    As the pain struck, Junior Leopard paused for an obvious instant. In that moment of hesitation, the Fiery Eye closed the gap in a flash and stuck to his face, right between the eyebrows. A cool feeling swept over him, spreading out from between the eyebrows. Then a sharp pain came. Junior Leopard clearly ''saw'' the Fiery Eye burrowing into the space between his eyebrows, carving out a hole as if it sought to sink right in.


    "S**t, no!"


    At that moment, Junior Leopard, with no time to think, reached out and tried to pluck the Eye out from between his eyebrows. But how could it be that easy?


    The moment his hand touched the Fiery Eye and prepared to pull, his Internal Qi began to work on its own. At the same time, the black pattern made from the three black lines started moving more rapidly. Junior Leopard knew everything there was to know about the Internal Qi circulation concentrated in his eyes. It was clearly condensing several times faster than before.


    "No!" Junior Leopard''s heart began pounding as if he''d come to a realization. He yanked his hand away from the Fiery Eye. In the same instant, with a ''whoosh'', a black flame shot out from the Fiery Eye embedded between his brows and burned a huge hole in the stone wall across from him.


    "What a potent flame!"Junior Leopard gasped. This time, the flame from the Fiery Eye was stronger and more powerful than before, burning through the bluestone wall instantly. It was at that moment of distraction that the Fiery Eye finished burrowing into the spot between Junior Leopard''s eyebrows. Blood, drop by drop, trickled down from that spot. Whatever idea he might have had at that time was of no use, because between the moment that the Fiery Eye sank between his brows and the moment he went to touch the blood, the change was complete.


    Flesh and blood blended together, completely blended together. The Fiery Eye merged with him, becoming an inseparable part of his body.


    Junior Leopard simply sat down, closed his eyes, and quietly examined the sensations from the Fiery Eye as it proceeded to merge with himself, while simultaneously recovering the Internal Qi he had just lost.


    After sinking between his eyebrows and blending with Junior Leopard''s blood, the Fiery Eye continued to take root, generating countless filaments of blood vessels that spread through the inside of Junior Leopard''s skull, linking to his brain just like his natural eyes were. At the same time, numerous blood vessels linked to his pair of Fiery Eyes, forming a physical connection.


    The Fiery Eye finally stopped moving once it completely embedded itself between the eyebrows. The hole between the brows gradually closed as the wound began to heal itself. Before long, everything returned to its original form, as if nothing had happened.


    This calm outward appearance did not reflect the turbulence inside. The Fiery Eye in-between his eyebrows was slowly growing and further improving. After quite a long while, Junior Leopard could no longer notice any structural differences between his grafted eye and his original eyes when he looked with his inner vision.


    As the Fiery Eye''s structure was perfected, everything seemed to start quieting down.


    With a moment''s thought, Junior Leopard circulated his recovered Internal Qi through his tendons and vessels, channeling it along the mysterious new pathways. As the Internal Qi began to move, it finally transformed into a black flame within his eyes and was released violently.


    "As expected, I can use its power to release the transformed flame after it takes shape without passing throught my eyes. Then my eyes won''t be hurt. Hee hee, interesting! I was thinking about how to do this, and didn''t expect this trinket would be so helpful! I didn''t need to worry at all. What a surprise!"


    "The Fiery Eye is too amazing. It even sent out flame without burning the outside of my scalp!" Junior Leopard felt a bit of heat slowly build between his eyebrows. "However, though I''ve gained a lot, I should be careful. Right now, my Fiery Eyes are hard to control. It almost feels like they have their own consciousness or a hidden instinct that can resist my will. This really is too incredible and weird. I''d really better be careful. Otherwise, I''ll definitively get into big trouble if I''m exposed by my Fiery Eyes'' instincts!"


    The instincts of the Fiery Eyes were very special and confusing. There were lots of secrets that Junior Leopard needed to dig up. But before digging deeper, Junior Leopard needed to reacquaint himself with the power of his Fiery Eyes.


    At the very least, he would gain complete control over the current form of his Fiery Eyes.


    His decision made, Junior Leopard proceed to the second step, he slowly injected his Internal Qi into the Fiery Eye between his eyebrows and circulated it according to the refining method of the External Elixir.


    It went smoothly, very smoothly, you could even say it went unprecedentedly smoothly. After injecting the Internal Qi of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique into the Fiery Eye, he was surprised to discover he didn''t need to construct a new Internal Qi working flow like the one in the skull of the Mud Dragon Loach. This was because after injecting the Internal Qi, the Fiery Eye automatically began to build an internal passageway for the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire, which was more perfect, more direct and more efficient than the pathway Junior Leopard built.


    Before long, the Fiery Eye finished generating a perfect passageway for the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire. After constructing this passageway, the Mysterious Fire deep within his Dantian leaped up, quite naturally splitting into wisps that flowed into the Fiery Eye. After that, the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire automatically activated. There was no need for Junior Leopard to do anything.


    "Such Amazing Eyes! These Fiery Eyes have so many advantages. No wonder so many people want them! If my guess is right, the cultivation method for External Elixirs was derived from the characteristics of Fiery Eyes. Fiery Eyes aren''t the best materials for an External Elixir, but a naturally occurring External Elixir. The guy who created the way of the External Elixir surely must have been a Fiery Eyes scion like me. He must have naturally had the blood vessels of the Fiery Eyes, but not the Fiery Eyes themselves, so his only recourse was to give birth to the way of the External Elixir. This damn bloodline! It''s not just others that want it: even people from the same bloodline want these eyes! No wonder it went extinct!"


    Junior Leopard scolded these people in his heart. However, on reflection, he had also claimed and used another person''s Fiery Eye, so he wasn''t really qualified to scold others!


    Whatever the thoughts of Junior Leopard, he''d completed the second phase. Now it was time for the third step.


    His first idea was to awaken the mysterious capability of his newly acquired Fiery Eye to transform Internal Qi without hurting his own eyes. His second idea was to refine the Fiery Eye into his own External Elixir, after all, this was the Mysterious Object spoken of in legend, the best material for Refining External Elixirs? No one could have too many External Elixirs, right?


    Now that his second idea had been realized, all that remained was the third idea, based on what had happened at the beginning. His eyes absorbed some power from this Fiery Eye, seeming to change or evolve in the process. This evolution didn''t just make his vision better and allow more subtle control over his Internal Qi and body, there must be other changes or functions.


    With that in mind, he reactivated his Fiery Eyes. As the black lines in his eyes slowly twirled, something strange happened. As the black lines rotated, Junior Leopard seemed to feel his strength increase. Yes, his strength was increasing from head to toe. He seemed to be full of power. Unconsciously raising his hand, Junior Leopard was surprised at how fast it moved, almost too quickly for him to control.


    "Damn it! I almost hit myself with my own raised hand. How embarrassing!" Junior Leopard laughed at himself and set his hand down. "Poof!" With a light sound, the hand he lowered sank deep into the bluestone floor as if it was made of bean curd, the steely bluestone was broken easily with the lightest use of strength.


    "Wow! So abnormal!" Junior Leopard shouted in his heart. Standing gingerly, he now understood that his speed and strength could be greatly enhanced when his Fiery Eyes began to rotate. They were enhanced so far beyond his imagination that he could not control himself.


    That was why he stood very gingerly to avoid losing control of his body. After standing, he suddenly gathered his strength and flung it out.


    "Swish, boom-boom-boom!" A light sound was followed by three violent sonic booms. In the wake of these three sonic booms, Junior Leopard''s fist completely tore apart the surrounding air, a strike that created a pocket of vacuum. Even after that, he sensed something mysterious as well.


    Space, yes. His three continuous, swift, extremely powerful fists were able to touch the fabric of space. He even felt that if his fists were a little faster and heavier, he''d be able to pose a threat to space, maybe even break it.


    Crushing vacuum!


    Suddenly, Junior Leopard''s heart got hot. Just now his three punches, relying solely on physical strength, shook the fabric of space. What if he punched with his Internal Qi? Could his fist strike and crush the vacuum of space using his Extraordinary Strength Fist and enhanced body?


    No wonder they called him impatient as well as a go-getter! Once he had this idea, he proceeded to directly put it into practice without thinking it through. He called up his Internal Qi, activated the mental cultivation methods of Extraordinary Strength Fist and punched sharply.


    "Bang!"


    There was an expected loud noise¡­ and then silence.


    No, not just silence. Halfway through his punching motion, Junior Leopard''s body froze in place. Blood gushed from his pores like a fountain and swirled all around his body like a whirlwind. During this eruption, the black lines in his eyes stopped rotating, as if something had interrupted them.


    Extreme fatigue washed over him, fatigue that made Junior Leopard as limp as a noodle. It was like he had made love eight times, carried a hammer into battle against a master of martial arts for three hundred rounds, and then made love eight more times. He was utterly exhausted.


    With such sudden exhaustion, he couldn''t lift himself up with his flabby hands and feet. He could only lie on the ground like a dead dog, gasping for breath. In the wake of the blood flow, his skin beaded with sweat that mingled with the blood and flowed all over his body. Now he was drenched with blood and foam was dribbling from the corners of his mouth. He was extremely disheveled.


    "A miscalculation. I miscalculated, damn it! How could I forget? The Fiery Eyes augment my strength and speed based on my physical strength. I''m a rookie whose cultivation has not yet entered the Bone-Forging Realm, and I wanted to acquire crushing vacuum, a feat that''s impossible even for experts of the Tendon-Changing Realm. I was so greedy, and the greedy are struck down by lightning. This lightning strike was heavy, so heavy!"


    Even as he lay groaning on the ground, fatigued to the point of death, his mind kept thinking, "Improvement. I need to improve it. No, no, no, familiarization. I need to become familiar with it! Those first few punches were good. At least they came out!"


    At this point, he was completely unable to move. Those punches not only hurt his skin and flesh but also damaged his muscles and bones, even his viscera felt hurt. To punch over his limit was totally irresponsible.


    Normally, Junior Leopard wouldn''t do such a thing, but he was so excited that he forgot the limits of his body, to his utter misfortune.


    Lying and groaning on the ground for a long time, he got up once he felt he had regained a bit of strength. It was so hard for him to crawl up, he felt like an 120-year old man, trying to lift himself up when he was about to die. It was the same kind of pain, the same helplessness. Fortunately, he managed to sit up.


    After sitting up, his first priority was to regulate his breathing and recover his strength. But as soon as he sat up, a wave of dizziness struck, hypoxia.


    In this situation, he dared not do anything else but lie back and gasp.


    As he lay there, he stopped trying to regulate his breathing and just did what ordinary people often do when they''re tired. He gasped for breath, wide-mouthed gasps, a sensation he had not experienced for a long time.


    In this moment, he seemed to turn back into an ordinary person who had never practiced martial arts. A very amazing and strange feeling swept over his whole body. Suddenly his eyes flickered and the black lines in his eyes began to rotate again, but in the opposite direction this time. Junior Leopard started to feel this spinning sensation extend to his body and surroundings, but not like the spinning in his spiritual mind. If he activated his spiritual mind, with a single glance he could see things within hundreds of feet, even the flying flowers and leaves within a mile could not hide from his gaze. But now it felt like his vision was overflowing like water, wherever his perception stretched, Junior Leopard was astonished to discover that every point of space felt like an extension of himself, or at least was under his complete control.


    This sense of absolute control trailed off at a distance of 30 feet. Outside of this 30 feet range, Junior Leopard couldn''t extend his senses a centimeter or millimeter out, even if he strained himself.


    Within that 30 feet range of absolute control, there was another change that surprised Junior Leopard.


    There was a black beetle within the 30 feet range. In fact, this beetle had been happily crawling and jumping across the bluestone, unaffected by its surroundings until Junior Leopard''s perception flowed over it. Then its movements stopped. At the same time, Junior Leopard became aware of a connection, a link between the beetle''s mind and his senses.


    This feeling was weirder than any state he had ever been in before. He was linked to the beetle''s mind, but he could not control the beetle, just sense the beetle''s simple thoughts to some degree. In fact, the beetle had no thoughts worth a damn, just a feeling similar to fear, a feeling that Junior Leopard could not comprehend.


    "Since I could not control it, what use does it have?"


    This was worth thinking through. Based on past experience, although the enigmatic features and strange functions of the Fiery Eyes were difficult to conceptualize, they were never useless, as his situation made evidently.


    He was lying on the ground, unable to move, because the Fiery Eyes had depleted his physical power instead of augmenting his strength and speed. In a fight with an enemy, an ordinary person thrust into this situation would basically lose if their enemy hadn''t yet been dispatched. But what if this was similar to how the Region thing worked?


    What if it had a special effect?


    Could this effect be able to kill the enemy at the same time, an irreversible type of death? Examining the present situation, instead of augmenting strength and speed, the Fiery Eyes currently seemed to boost the spirit. What function would that have?


    Junior Leopard faced the beetle, intent on researching the phenomenon though he still did not understand it. There was a ready-made sample for study, right before his eyes.


    He started by trying to control the beetle with his divine thoughts. He had experience controlling certain objects with divine thoughts thanks to the Demon Devil Needles he owned. Except for the Demon Devil Needles he had refined himself, his divine thoughts couldn''t even propel a piece of paper.


    But now, things were different. It was not a piece of paper in front of him, but a life within his range of perception, a life under his influence.


    He sought to use his divine thoughts to move the beetle, but as he activated his divine thoughts, the black beetle suddenly shivered and continued to march on its original course. Its body did not move according to his divine thoughts, but Junior Leopard clearly felt that his divine thoughts seemed to have absorbed something strange from the beetle, something like a divine light or piece of spirit. After this strange thing was captured, it mysteriously dissipated into his zone of ''absolute control''. Unconsciously, Junior Leopard seemed to feel one more thing within his ''absolute control'' zone.


    He felt a shadow, a very light shadow coming from the beetle, which appeared in Junior Leopard''s perception for only a moment and then dissipated. That brief, mere moment roused a storm in Junior Leopard''s heart.


    He knew what his divine thoughts had absorbed from the beetle.


    He had taken its soul!

 Chapter 153: The Possibility of Practicing the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword

    Chapter 153: The Possibility of Practicing the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It had been three days since Junior Leopard got out of the underground practice field.


    The sight of him coming out the door bloodied and exhausted startled Wang Tianlei. Junior Leopard merely said something went wrong with his practice, though that was now solved. He only needed rest now. It was what Wang Tianlei had been expecting, so he told the servants to heat up bathwater for Junior Leopard and prepare fresh clothes for him.


    Junior Leopard finally calmed his nerves after washing up. He had benefited greatly from his three-day experience in the underground practice field, but he was also more depressed because of it.


    "Had I known I would make such gains, I''d have gone straight to Misty Mountain!"


    If he had gone to Misty Mountain earlier, he would not have had to make a second visit. Once he returned, he could straightaway enter the underground fire vein to practice the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    His body could not withstand the extreme cold Evil Qi in West Mountain Pass, but was it possible if he used External Elixirs to melt the extreme cold Evil Qi into the Fiery Eye between his eyebrows?


    "I''ll try it on the underground fire vein first. If it works, I''ll find a way back to Misty Mountain to practice the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!" Junior Leopard mentally decided.


    Having washed up, he examined his forehead carefully in the bronze mirror. In the point where the Fiery Eye entered his body, there was a faint red mark. It was not visible if not carefully looked at. This relieved him greatly. Though he had an additional eye now, he was fine with it as long as others did not know. But it would be troublesome if people begin to notice because he was not the kind of person who fancied inviting trouble.


    His freshly washed hair was wet and scattered, but it dried almost immediately when he used the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. He was about to knot his hair into his usual bun atop his head, but looking at the red mark between his eyebrows, a wicked idea came to him. He gathered his hair into the hairstyle of the first appearance of Chrollo, the head of the Phantom Troupe in the comic HUNTER¡ÁHUNTER which Junior Leopard had read in his previous life. When he looked in the mirror again, he felt a sudden shame. The hairstyle had seemed pretty cool in the comics, but it was mere slicked-back hair. Though he was clean-cut, the hairstyle was too old-fashioned for him. Junior Leopard roughed up his hair, cut it short, and fashioned it to mimic the head''s easy high school student hairstyle. The outcome satisfied him.


    "That''s more like it. I''m now at the age of high school students. Should I also tie a piece of white cloth over my forehead to cover the red mark to avoid suspicion?" Junior Leopard thought with his head tilted. "Forget it! It might get in my way. Besides, it''s just a red mark. People would think it''s a birthmark. Who would pay attention to it? When I go running around with two hammers in the future, it''d interfere with my actions!"


    No matter how he imagined a high school student with a pure, handsome appearance carrying a pair of hammers to smash people everywhere, he found it a little strange.


    But there was no other way. If he looked strange, then so be it. Besides, he depended not on his face but his strength to survive.


    After adding final touches, he opened his door and found Wang Tianlei was waiting outside. Seeing Junior Leopard''s new hairstyle, Wang Tianlei was dumbfounded before he burst out into laughter. "Junior Leopard, you look handsome like this. You should consider your sister''s suggestion to marry someone!"


    "Brother-in-law, you don''t have the talent to be a lobbyist!" Junior Leopard laughed, coming out of his room. "Did you hear any news?"


    "There''s a lot. Rumors are going all around, but there''s some information that I can affirm. The Chief of Tian Long Taoism, Wang She''s cultivation has reached Level Nine. He has also kidnaped White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou''s wife and killed the Golden Lights Cave disciple, the new deacon of Mingyi School, Gao Yulou!"


    "Gao Yulou? Wang She killed Gao Yulou?"


    "The Mingyi School has confirmed his death. I heard it wasn''t Wang She who killed him, but a mysterious figure named Xiao. But since he belonged to Wang She''s bride-kidnapping entourage, the blame naturally fell onto Wang She. The Mingyi School and the Tian Long Mystic Mountain are now at loggerheads, the former wanting an explanation from the latter. The Golden Lights Cave has also responded to the incident. A large number of their disciples are now devoted to the Mingyi School, greatly enhancing their strength!"


    "What''s the use of going against Wang She? He''s now a Level Nine expert. Whether it''s position or strength-wise, the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou and Gao Yulou are not his matches. Do you think the Mingyi School would really start a war against the Tian Long Mystic Mountain for Gao Yulou when their rival has a Level Nine expert?"


    "It''s not just a matter of Lu Shaoyou!" Wang Tianlei smirked. "Don''t forget that it''s the people from the Tian Long Mystic Mountain that snatched Lu Shaoyou''s wife away in the full view of other people!"


    "So what? For Lu Shaoyou to have his wife kidnapped, it can only show his uselessness! It''s one thing if Wang She didn''t enter Level Nine, but now that he''s one, the Mingyi School would just disgrace themselves if they use this incident to fight the Tian Long Mystic Mountain. Besides, Ma Linglong was kidnaped before their wedding was completed, so she technically isn''t Lu Shaoyou''s wife yet. The one who should really respond is the Governor Mansion of Yunzhou, Governor Ma!"


    "This is also the weirdest thing about the whole incident. If we go by Governor Ma''s temper, he would have long harassed Wang She and the Tian Long Taoism about it. But he didn''t do anything! That''s completely out of everyone''s expectations!" Wang Tianlei was once a soldier in Yunzhou, so he had a lot of admiration for Ma Tianchang.


    "Hehe. Inaction is the best kind of action. Perhaps Governor Ma is making clear of his stance to someone!" Junior Leopard sneered. He was not clear about the relationship between Ma Tianchang and the imperial court, but while participating in the bride-kidnapping, he learned something from Wang She''s words. Considering Ma Tianchang''s status in Yunzhou as well as the anomalies in this marriage, he had quite a good guess of everything that was going on.


    "Governor Ma is making clear of his stance to someone? What does that mean?" His words aroused Wang Tianlei''s curiosity, but he did not want to explain himself.


    "Brother-in-law, it''s not something we can poke our nose into. Let''s just focus on our business in this city and ignore other things!"


    "Right, right. We should not poke our nose into these things!" Wang Tianlei nodded repeatedly.


    ...


    ...


    Junior Leopard was a man of asset and he was confident about this. The truth was, he really did own many assets, whether it was the cultivation method of martial arts skills he knew or his heaven-sent bloodline. These assets, with the addition of time, were enough to help him reach the peak of this world.


    But then again, he had plenty of assets, but not much time. He was now 14 to 15 years old. Even if he had many assets, he could not make the most out of them. Sometimes, he even had to come up with ways to hide his assets in case men more powerful than him would covet what he had and killed him mercilessly. That had always been the way Junior Leopard did things. Before taking a step, he would cautiously examine the three steps ahead. Sometimes, he would take one step forward, only to go two steps backward. This was the only way for him to keep himself and his family safe.


    From reading between the lines of Snake King''s words, as well as witnessing the string of consequences of the union of Ma Family and Lu Family, he came to understand the relationship between the Governor Mansion of Yunzhou and the whole Jin. But that was just mere understanding. He was not stupid enough to get involved. That was neither his field nor expertise. He would definitely not do this insane and obviously troublesome thing.


    Now that he had gained his fame and received his benefits, the best thing to do was for him to keep a low-profile in Zhonghejun City and slowly digest his benefits. The key was to turn these benefits into his own, let them become part of his accumulation, and build up his strength step by step.


    Snake King had told him the world will be thrown into chaos. Though he could not see any impending signs of that yet, it was never wrong to empower himself.


    ...


    ...


    After changing his hairstyle and leaving his yard, Junior Leopard first visited his sister, Hua-er, and endured a round of her nagging. He then went to the Admiral Manor to cancel his leave, but he was stopped at the door by a couple of gossipy personal guards. They forced him to drink, prodding him to tell them what happened. After all, they were far away in Zhonghejun City and only heard rumors. First, those rumors may not be true. Second, it was not satisfying enough. Rumors were nowhere near as credible as Junior Leopard who was actually at the scene at that time.


    Junior Leopard was helpless when he heard their questions. He was, in fact, there and was involved, but he could not possibly tell them that. With a bitter smile, he had to explain that he was not entitled to attend the banquet in Lu Mansion. He himself only heard rumors, but those came from first-hand sources, so they ought to be more credible than theirs.


    "What did you say? Lu Shaoyou didn''t make a move at all? Didn''t they say he fought Wang She with his sword for dozens of rounds before getting defeated in the end?"


    "Wang She didn''t fight either? I heard he collapsed half of Lu Mansion!"


    "Rumors had it that Wang She and Miss Ma have been in love for a long time. Now that Lu Shaoyou was going to snatch Miss Ma, of course, Wang She would be angered. Don''t forget he fought Lu Shaoyou earlier when Lu Shaoyou went to ask for Miss Ma''s hand in marriage. Who knew he''s a Level Nine expert? This Lu Shaoyou is just bloody unlucky!"


    "..."


    "..."


    Junior Leopard sweated profusely as he listened. The rumors even went as far as to say Wang She and Miss Ma had an affair.


    "That''s an exaggeration. Wang She is a Level Nine expert. Lu Shaoyou and the Mingyi School aren''t idiots to openly go against a Level Nine expert. Even if they''re killed, they would''ve deserved it. Do you think they''re that stupid?"


    "You''re right! They''re not that stupid!" These personal guards were not fools either. Earlier they were confused by the explosive gossip, but they had regained a calmer mind after being reminded by Junior Leopard.


    It was true. Forcibly challenging a Level Nine expert was akin to seeking death.


    Level Nine experts had their own dignities. It was like when an ordinary master dared to challenge an expert at the Tendon-Changing Realm. Whoever dared to challenge the expert''s dignity, he could strike back. Even killing the challenger was well within his right. There was no reason, also the unspoken rule of the world. Lu Shaoyou was the first genius of Mingyi School in hundreds of years, also the one most likely to achieve Level Nine in a hundred years. He was their treasure. It was precisely because of this that the Mingyi School would not let him fight Wang She. Who knew if Wang She would take this opportunity to stamp out their future star?


    "No matter how you put it, the Mingyi School and Lu Shaoyou really disgraced themselves. Hehe, Lu Shaoyou really got cuckolded bad this time!"


    "It''s fine if he was just cuckolded. There are so many women in this world and Miss Ma isn''t the only one. But more importantly, he couldn''t directly challenge Wang She after what had happened. It may affect his mood in the future, perhaps making it difficult for him to take his cultivation any further!" said Qi Fei, the Captain of the personal guards. He was a Level Five master. Having achieved his current cultivation, it was very difficult for him to move forward. In his current situation, he had a certain understanding of the relationship between the mood and cultivation. That was why he said these words.


    Junior Leopard fully agreed with Qi Fei. Adding insult to injury, he said, "I think that''s possible. Though it''s only because of a woman, it''s not easy to think positive when such things happen!"


    "Exactly! How can it be so easy to think this through?" Everyone agreed wholeheartedly.


    This was the truth. Witnessing one''s bride being kidnapped on their wedding day, yet being unable to challenge the kidnapper out of fear of his strength, would greatly affect those who cultivate. This was especially true for Lu Shaoyou, a Level Eight expert who had been put on a pedestal for many years. How could he feel positive after taking in such a harsh blow?


    "Oh, right. Junior Leopard, we''ve sorted the work duties for this month. Since your leave ends in the middle of the month, I''m worried you''ll be delayed so I put you on duty at the end of the month. Since you''re just back, you must be tired. Take a few days off at home."


    "Okay. Thank you, Camp Supervisor!"


    "We''re like brothers. You''re too polite!" Qi Fei laughed. "You''re young and promising. Who knows, you may need to take care of us in the future!"


    "What kind of words are these!" said Junior Leopard in a hurry. "Camp Supervisor, if you say that again, I''ll really have to punish you to drink three cups of wine!"


    "Yeah! Drink wine, drink wine!" Several personal guards next to Junior Leopard echoed his words, turning the environment lively once again.


    "Eh?"


    Amidst the happily drinking personal guards, one of them who sat by the window made a surprised noise.


    "Dong Chen, what''s wrong?"


    The question came from Qi Fei.


    "Camp Supervisor, look! Isn''t that Teacher Hu of the Guard County Manor? It''s already so late. What''s he doing, sneaking around?"


    "Teacher Hu?" Qi Fei paused and poked his head out the window. "It''s Teacher Hu, no doubt. What is he doing?"


    "Camp Supervisor, Brother Dong, what happened?" Junior Leopard came up to them, breath full of the smell of alcohol.


    "It''s the Teacher of Guard County Manor. Look at him!"


    Looking at the direction Dong Chen pointed, Junior Leopard saw a thin man in his fifties, like a weak scholar. Carrying a green parcel in his hand, the man scurried into a back alley not far from the restaurant.


    It was already late into the night. Though this was a regional city, it was not as brightly lit as the gleaming modern city in Junior Leopard''s previous life. In fact, every corner of the regional city except brothels and taverns would be basked in darkness when evening came. There were the occasional patrolling soldiers who would arrest anyone who looked suspicious. Under such circumstances, most people would not leave home at night. This naturally excluded those looking for fun and those like Junior Leopard and the guards who came out to drink and chat. Those who came out for fun or drinks were almost always congregated in an area. For Teacher Hu to hold a green parcel and go sneaking into the back alley, something must be up. Something was truly fishy here.


    If it was someone else, the personal guards would just turn a blind eye. They were not going to lower themselves to do the garrison''s work. But that man was the Grand-master of the mayor, making it a completely different scenario.


    For a long time after Zhonghejun City was recovered, the city was under the control of Li Yuan''s army. The power was only shifted when the imperial court sent a new mayor. It was also their present mayor, Wan An.


    Li Yuan and his control over the city was not altogether inexcusable. After all, Zhonghejun City was the hinterland of Jin. Li Yuan had no choice but to govern the city and he and his soldiers had zero intention of becoming warlords. Therefore, when Wan An arrived in the city, Li Yuan readily handed over all the government affairs.


    Unexpectedly, Wan An must be missing a screw in his head. After taking over the government affairs, he even tried to intervene in the military affairs and criticize Li Yuan''s every behavior. This was pure nonsense. The mayor and the Admiral managed government affairs and military affairs respectively, which were two completely separate systems. If there was an occasional mishap in the government, the army would help keep the peace. They would be considered to have done their jobs. But what Wan An wanted was not just the surface work, but also the essence of the army itself.


    Zhonghejun City was the hinterland of Jin and bordered not only Qianzhou, but also Haozhou. It was a city that sat at the junction of these three states and was surrounded by many lawless, unclaimed places. Prior to the Sect of Flame capturing the city, it was a dangerous place crawling with bandits. After it was recaptured by Jin, the city stabilized for a period of time. That was because the famous bandits like Black Three Lady and Beard Ma were involved in the Sect of Flame''s rebellion. When the sect was defeated, the bandits they led naturally disappeared with them. But peace did not last long. Bandits were an ancient profession existing since the beginning of human society, much like prostitutes. In recent times, several bandits had appeared in the city. Not only did they pose a great threat to small towns and villages, but they also harassed people on the trade route to the city. This had seriously affected the economic recovery and prosperity of the city. Mayor Wan often used this as a reason for Li Yuan to send his troops to kill the bandits. After he was turned down several times, he changed his tactic. This time, he would ask to borrow Li Yuan''s soldiers.


    His mentality was this: if Li Yuan would not go, then he would. But since he did not have enough troops, Li Yuan had to lend him some!


    In the beginning, Li Yuan tried to save his face and lent Wan An a thousand soldiers, including many officers led by a lieutenant-colonel. Three days later, only 700 returned. Of those survivors, more than 100 were wounded and 300 were left in those lawless, unclaimed areas. Li Yuan almost fainted with anger. He flared up at once after questioning the lieutenant-colonel in charge of the troops.


    It turned out that the mayor hijacked the lieutenant-colonel''s military command from the start, scattering Li Yuan''s soldiers into his own ranks. The lieutenant-colonel tried to oppose, but due to his lower status, he was not qualified to speak to the mayor at all. After the troops were scattered, the mayor took them for granted and positioned them in the front, middle, and back lines. When he commanded the army to march to the bandits'' place, they were ambushed by the cunning bandits. Dozens of soldiers were killed or wounded, forced to retreat with tails between their legs.


    Li Yuan was naturally furious to hear this. He took four personal guards with him to the Guard County Manor to question the mayor. The mayor himself was also infuriated by the defeat and turned around to question Li Yuan''s capability to lead his army. Li Yuan was so angry that he did not have the mood to argue with him. He slapped the mayor twice and kicked him to the ground, before leaving with his personal guards.


    Wan An was truly offended this time. Not even Wang Tianlei''s grain store was safe from his ire. In the beginning, it was thanks to Junior Leopard that the grain store was well cared for. Following the insulting incident with Li Yuan, Wan disliked the grain store related to Li Yuan''s personal guard. However, it was not easy to deal with Wang Tianlei now. Firstly, Wang Tianlei''s business had expanded to become popular among the public. Secondly, even when Junior Leopard was not around, there were his fellow officers of the personal guard camp paying attention to the grain store. These people were the epitome of unreasonable old soldiers. The people of Guard County Manor dared not offend them. A few attempts later, Wan An had no choice but let the grain store be. After all, if he had to resort to tactics to deal with the grain store, he would truly be a failure of a mayor.


    Though Guard County Manor and Admiral Manor could not be considered as mortal enemies following this incident, they had the tendency to keep away from one another. The troops of both parties did not like each other and wanted to trouble each other every now and then. However, those from Admiral Manor were all soldiers and Li Yuan hailed from the Li family in Pingzhou. Thus, they had the upper hand in several of their civil disputes.


    Of course, Li Yuan was a smart person and abided by his duty scrupulously. Though he had the upper hand, he never overstepped the line or initiated any dispute. So Zhonghejun City was considered peaceful.


    Though it was peaceful and the superiors were also restraining themselves, what about the people below them?


    The small arguments and fights had never stopped. Now that they saw the Grandmaster of Guard County Manor sneaking around in the middle of the night, these personal guards were naturally excited. Teacher Hu was Wan An''s trusted subordinate. From the looks of it, he seemed to be doing something evil in secret. If they could catch his Achilles'' heel and hand it over to Li Yuan, then the Admiral would be able to strike down Wan An. Everyone would also be better off in Zhonghejun City.


    Thinking of this, Qi Fei squinted his eyes and exchanged a glance with Junior Leopard and Dong Chen. He quietly went down the stairs, sneaked into the back alley, and closely followed Teacher Hu.

 Chapter 154: Like It or Not, the World Changes

    Chapter 154: Like It or Not, the World Changes


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Teacher Hu was in a complete panic, tightly hugging the parcel to himself. It was as if he was holding onto a bomb that would blow him to smithereens if he let go.


    He was the Mayor Wan''s Grand-master. Though he did not have a specific rank, it was not too much to say he was second only to the mayor of the city.


    Thus he had been living particularly well. If not for today, he believed he would continue to enjoy a good life. But then that day came.


    However, some things were inevitable. No man''s will was capable of changing them. Things that were meant to be would eventually happen. It was not something one could stop by sheer force of will.


    It was just like the letter he had stumbled upon in the mayor''s study room this evening. It was not something that could be changed by his will. He really did not want to see such things, but there was no other way. The letter had appeared before him, and out of a very subtle curiosity, he opened and read it.


    That was how he ended up this way. Carrying his parcel, he left Guard County Manor at the fastest speed like a stray dog. He did not even dare to return home.


    Home. When he thought of his home, pain gnawed at his heart. He no longer had a home. Mayor Wan must have captured his mother, wife, and children by now. Soon, his family would be executed or used as a bait to lure him out before getting killed.


    So he must run and leave Zhonghejun City as soon as possible, vanishing among the people. That was the only way for him to escape Wan An''s pursuit and keep the hope of avenging his family in the future.


    This was his only thought now, also what he had been forcing himself to think.


    "Oh, isn''t this Teacher Hu? Where are you rushing to this late at night? What are you going to do? Are you going behind your wife''s back to meet your lover?"


    The voice behind him nearly terrified him to death. He shivered violently all over and turned around as he trembled, finding three lightly-armored men smelling of alcohol and spitefully sneering at him.


    "Li Yuan''s personal guards!"


    Only one battalion of soldiers was qualified to wear this kind of soft, scaly armor in this city: Li Yuan''s personal guard camp. What was more, one of them was Qi Fei, the Camp Supervisor. Though he was not familiar with Qi Fei, they had once met. He had not met one of Qi Fei''s two companions, but recognized the other as the young personal guard who earned first-class merit in the recapturing of Zhonghejun City, named Zhou Bao.


    He relaxed a fair bit when he saw them. An idea immediately came to his mind and he threw himself at Qi Fei''s feet.


    "Camp Supervisor Qi, I want to inform against! I want to inform against! Mayor Wan is colluding with the bandits! I want to inform against!"


    "What?"


    The three of them froze for a moment, sharing the same odd expression. "What are you saying? Is mayor Wan rebelling? Explain yourself!" Qi Fei seized Teacher Hu by the collar, lifting him off the ground after he rushed at him. "You''d better make it clear. If you''re lying, I''ll cut you down with my sword!"


    "I dare not lie! I dare not act as a spy!" Teacher Hu repeated as he handed the parcel in his arms to Qi Fei. "Look, Camp Supervisor Qi, this is the evidence. I escaped because I accidentally stumbled upon the letter. Pity my poor mother, wife, and children! Perhaps they''ve already died in the hands of the traitor!"


    Teacher Hu began to squall.


    When Qi Fei opened the parcel, he saw there was indeed a letter among some valuables. As he was about to open the letter, he became irritated by Teacher Hu''s cries. He winked at Junior Leopard.


    Understanding what his supervisor wanted, Junior Leopard chopped Teacher Hu in the back with hand-knife and knocked him unconscious. Relieved, Qi Fei opened the letter and slowly began reading.


    As soon as he read the letter, his expression changed into a terrible, dark one.


    "Brother Qi, what''s wrong?" Junior Leopard and Dong Chen leaned over curiously, wanting to read the contents of the letter.


    "There''s nothing!" Seeing that they had leaned over, Qi Fei immediately put the letter back in its envelope.


    "This is an issue of great importance. I need to see the Admiral right away!" He glanced at Teacher Hu who had fainted on the ground. "Little Dong, Junior Leopard, kill him and make it look like a robbery. Return to the restaurant afterward and act as if nothing happened! Do you understand?"


    "But!" Dong Chen wanted to say more, but Junior Leopard tugged at him. "Brother Qi, just leave it to us. Go and see the general."


    "Good!" Qi Fei nodded, giving Junior Leopard a praising look. He did not dare to delay this any longer and ran to Governor Mansion at full speed.


    Just then, Dong Chen noticed his mistake and smiled with some embarrassment. "Junior Leopard, thanks a lot for stopping me earlier!"


    "Don''t mention it. Brother Qi must have his reasons to stop us from reading that letter. Brother Dong, hurry up and kill Teacher Hu in case any more problems crop up!"


    "Okay!" Dong Chen nodded. He looked around for a second and went to a dark corner. He returned with a thick stick and went up to Teacher Hu. "Teacher Hu, you can''t blame me for this. It''s because you''ve seen something you shouldn''t. If I don''t kill you, you may drag my brothers and I down with you. You''ll have to suffer some grievance. Don''t worry, I promise I won''t let you feel any pain!" He hit Teacher Hu on the back of the head with the stick. Teacher Hu''s brain immediately burst, blood overflowing from the wound.


    The pitiful Teacher Hu died without being able to make a single noise.


    "Let''s go!" Junior Leopard and Dong Chen exchanged a glance. Without even turning their heads, they left the back alley and returned to the restaurant.


    They naturally had no desire to drink after encountering such a thing. After downing a few more cups of wine, they went back to the camp with their brothers.


    Fortunately, this group of personal guards had drunk a fair amount of wine this evening and the three of them had left only for a short moment. The guards thought they had gone to the washroom, so they did not alert anyone to their disappearance.


    An hour later, four figures appeared in the alley where Teacher Hu died.


    "Hurry up and come! He''s here. Looks like something''s gone wrong!"


    The four people were all dressed in black, wearing black masks that hid their appearances. All of them had good cultivations. Seeing Teacher Hu''s body, they quickly gathered around him.


    "What''s wrong? Old Fourth, is it him?"


    "It''s him, but he''s completely dead!" the masked man called Old Fourth said helplessly. "Someone took the thing away. Looks like he was robbed!"


    "Robbed?" The one who asked the question earlier sneered. "Who''ll commit robbery in such a desolate place? Not to mention nobody comes here in the evening. Even if there''s someone, what can the robber get from his victim?"


    "Then you mean..."


    "The thing was definitely stolen, but not due to robbery. Look around and see if you can find any clues. Old Third, bring the body back and tell His Excellency to be careful and take preventive measures. It''s likely the thing has ended up in Li Yuan''s hands!"


    "Li Yuan? How could that be?" The Old Fourth said in surprise. "Has he noticed what we''ve been doing?"


    "No, no, it should be a coincidence. Damn it! Didn''t we see Li Yuan''s personal guards drinking when we passed by earlier? Teacher Hu was running from that direction. I guess the personal guards noticed him as he was passing the back alley of the restaurant. They tracked him down to the dead end and took the thing. Worried about others'' suspicion, they made things look like a robbery!"


    "Then what should we do now?" asked Old Third.


    "Go back now. Bring the body back first and inform His Excellency. He''ll naturally tell you his orders."


    "Yes!" Old Third dared not delay matters. He quickly picked up the body without worrying about getting bloodstains and rushed to Guard County Manor.


    "Brother, what about us?"


    "Let''s look around and see if we can find any clues or if we can see who robbed it. There were so many personal guards in the restaurant; they can''t all be involved. We should see if we can mend the current situation!"


    "Yes!" the other two black-clothed men answered. The three of them shattered the night sky, running towards Admiral Manor.


    ...


    ...


    "You guys were only out for some drinks; how could you get involved in such a thing?" In the study room of Admiral Manor, Li Yuan was pacing about with his hands behind him in apparent anger. He was holding a letter, the one from Teacher Hu. Qi Fei was standing on the side, not daring to stay another word. His expression was full of remorse.


    "We were just curious. We thought that Teacher Hu stole something from his superior and was running away. We wanted to capture him and see if we can get hold of Wan An''s Achilles'' heel. We didn''t expect Teacher Hu would reveal such a shocking matter. We were really shocked too!"


    "Who else knows about this?"


    "Only me!"


    "Only you? Humph. With your personality, would you follow Teacher Hu alone?" said Li Yuan, smiling coldly.


    "I''m really the only one. Though Zhou Bao and Dong Chen were with me, I didn''t let them read the letter!"


    "Just because they didn''t read this letter, do you think they''ll be safe? I believe you, but will others?" Li Yuan''s face was full of sarcasm. "It''s the three of you who caused this problem. If they found out, you all can''t escape this! No one cares who read or didn''t read this letter. Tell the two to keep this a secret. If this leaks out, not even I can keep you alive!"


    "Yes!" Qi Fei saluted and left the study room.


    Seeing Qi Fei closing the door behind him, Li Yuan looked at the letter in his hand. He slammed the table and sighed deeply. "Alas. Whether we like it or not, the world changes."


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 155: The Practice in the Fire Vein

    Chapter 155: The Practice in the Fire Vein


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "I seem to have provoked the wrong thing!"


    Li Yuan frowned in the Admiral Manor, and so did Junior Leopard when he went home. From today''s event, he sensed a sign of danger and recalled what Wang She had told him.


    "The whole world is going to be in chaos!"


    Despite that it had been in favorable weather, there were surging waves in secret.


    Wan An was the new mayor of Zhonghe Prefecture. He had only been in office for few months before he met with the mishap. Junior Leopard never suspected that Teacher Hu would lie, because he did not need to lie. From Qi Fei''s expression after reading the letter, Junior Leopard had complete faith in Teacher Hu''s words. Likewise, he knew that Wan An was scheming something more complex than rebellion.


    If the mayor, Wan did have any intention of rebellion, Qi Fei would not prevent him and Dong Chen from reading the letter. Nor would he let them kill the hapless Teacher Hu and disguise it as a robbery. Since he was a witness, it was not necessary to kill him.


    Similarly, a rebellion? Would it be so easy to rebel against the imperial court?


    Even if one wanted to rebel against it, nobody else would do it except for the Governor of the border prefecture like Yunzhou. What was the deal with Wan An?


    Although Wan An was a third grade official, governing the government affairs of a city, it was only government affairs, and the military power was all in Li Yuan''s hands. Moreover, Li Yuan and Wan An were on bad terms, which was already known to the world, therefore, if Wan An dared to put an anti-flag in the Guard County Manor, Li Yuan would be able to chop off his head within an hour.


    He would not be that stupid.


    Since he was not stupid, why would he rebel?


    Most importantly, a rebellion was not just a matter of finding a few people with weapons. There were different ways of doing it. First, a direct rebellion, which Wan An would never do because it meant death. Then there was only the second possibility, he was involved in a rebellion, but he was only a part of it. The letter just proved that he was involved, but Junior Leopard did not know that who the chief conspirator was, when was it began or how many people and how many forces were involved.


    Perhaps, after reading the letter he would know, but he couldn''t read that letter.


    Qi Fei''s reaction after reading the letter had been able to convince Junior Leopard that his speculation was correct. The question now was that of what he should do?


    Last night, Qi Fei came to him again and once again advised him, with a bitter face, that he should never tell anyone of the event that happened last night.


    It was then that Junior Leopard realized that the event was very serious. Apparently, the second reminder was under Li Yuan''s instructions. Then it meant that even Li Yuan who had some strength, had to be careful and cautious to face this force, let alone him.


    "Alas, it really is that once you are in a spell of bad luck, even water will plug your teeth. Am I born to be a troublemaker? I just came back and bumped into this event right away. No, I''m going to enter the underground fire vein for closed door training, I won''t come back until I master the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword. I''ll never get involved in such a thing again!" Junior Leopard secretly determined.


    It was still half a month before he was on duty. He originally intended to relax, but now he didn''t dare to run around anymore. He had better practice in the underground fire vein honestly and not come out until he mastered the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword.


    Having made up his mind, he went to Wang Tianlei and told him his decision.


    "What? You''re gonna the underground fire vein for practice, and it will last half a month?"


    "Yeah, what''s up? What''s the matter with you?"


    "I''m okay. It''s your sister. You just came back, and now you want to do closed door training. How about talking to her yourself?"


    "I have to talk to her? Come on, I don''t want to be unhappy!" Junior Leopard said, shaking his head repeatedly, "Brother-in-law, this is your specialty. Just go for it. I''m leaving!"


    Seeing Junior Leopard turn around, Wang Tianlei immediately stopped him, "hey, wait! Are you going there without making any preparations? At least take some food!"


    "There''s no need to prepare!" said Junior Leopard. "About food, I''ll solve it myself. Anyway, there are people in the underground fire vein!" then he hurriedly rushed to the underground fire vein.


    It was the Sect of Flame that found the underground fire vein in Zhonghejun City first. They even captured the entire Zhonghejun City for it. Having occupied it for a few months, it was fair to say that they had taken all the benefits they could get on the surface.


    All they left to Jin was a fire vein. But in a sense, the value of the fire vein was far more than what the Sect of Flame had got.


    After regaining Zhonghejun City, Jin took a series of measures to manage the fire vein, hoping to exert its utmost efficiency.


    The first thing was management. At first, the fire vein was under Li Yuan''s charge, but it did not last long. After the mayor, Wan An, took office in the county, there was also a director of bureaus of fifth grade from the Ministry of Works coming to office, named Lu Jin. Lu Jin took over the whole underground fire vein. But he did not bring many people, most of whom were basically craftsmen from the Ministry of Works. Other people did specific things like defense, which was done by Li Yuan''s and Wan An''s men. Li Yuan''s men were mainly responsible for the security of the whole underground fire vein. And Wan An''s men were mainly responsible for reforming the surrounding areas, who divided the surrounding area of the entrance within 1,500m into a separate area and built a massive wall.


    Now, the whole underground fire vein had already taken shape, the surrounding land leveled, the wall built, a row of smelting rooms constructed inside the wall and the houses of the craftsmen in place. Now there only lacked a smelter, a huge smelter, which was deep in the underground fire vein and beside the magma.


    The smelter was the embodiment of the value of the underground fire vein. But how could this smelter be made so easily?


    Apart from anything else, just talking about the builders. Everywhere at the deep underground fire vein passageway bottom was filled with endless fire toxin. It was impossible for those whose cultivation was under Level Three to get close to the ultimate lava cave, but how could people whose cultivation had reached Level Three be willing to build the huge smelter?


    There were some with talents, but not many. Only four major smelting families in Jin, the Jian Family, the Pei Family, the Luo Family and the Wu Family, had such talents, so the construction work of the smelter fell to the four families. After profits distribution and bargaining, the four finally reached an agreement with the imperial court. They each sent out their own manpower and material to start the work. Moreover, because of Junior Leopard, the Wu Family, who was originally in the most unfavorable situation, gained the biggest benefits, holding the advantage over the other three families.


    With the smelter being ready, the four families benefited from it according to the original agreement and Lu Jin also strictly executed the agreement. Everything appeared to be in order. Except that Junior Leopard had been troubled sometimes by the instructions of the Wu Family at the beginning, the four and the imperial court basically had no conflict.


    In accordance with the agreement, there were strict time limits for the four smelting families to enter into the underground fire vein to use the smelter. Junior Leopard was a disciple of the Wu Family, so he was also restricted in principle. However, he had another identity, Li Yuan''s personal guard. The people who were on guard in the underground fire vein were all Li Yuan''s guards and would definitely not stop him. Thus, he had always entered like he was entering his garden. The other families, though they were somewhat disagreeable, got accustomed to it. After all, Junior Leopard was arrogant, but he still was reasonable. He entered the underground fire vein just for practice, but never used the smelter and would not disturb anyone who was using the smelter. In fact, every time he entered the underground fire vein, he would make his way along the magma river and go deeper into the fire vein where it had a higher temperature and produced an even more severe fire toxin. Even an expert of Level Four, Five or Six from the well-known families could not stand the high temperature there.


    But to Junior Leopard, it was like walking on flat ground, which made the other families feel very helpless. With the cultivation of Level Three, the strength he showed was far more than Level Three. Most people attributed this to his peculiar fist intent and thought it was the high-handed fist intent that protected him and allowed him to move freely in the underground fire vein.


    While admiring the Wu Family for having a good disciple, they also thought of stopping Junior Leopard. But Junior Leopard''s fist intent was too odd, the power he showed in the underground fire vein was totally beyond their imagination. Moreover, Junior Leopard had a special relationship with Wang She, the Chief of Tian Long Taoism. Besides, Wang She once said in front of others that he owed Junior Leopard a favor. Junior Leopard spent three days in the underground passageway to prohibit others from disturbing Wang She''s practice. After Wang She came out, his cultivation had reached Level Nine, perhaps he achieved it just in the underground fire vein. If so, the favor was so big that the other three smelting families dared not to stop Junior Leopard. As for whether Wang She''s cultivation achieved Level Nine in the underground fire vein or not, no one knew. However, no one could deny the possibility.


    Hence, even if Junior Leopard monopolized the smelter for a few days, the other smelting families would not say a word, let alone that he was just entering into the underground fire vein at will.


    Walking into the huge wall slowly, he greeted the gatekeeper with a few words, and went straight to the entrance of the underground fire vein.


    At the entrance, there were two soldiers standing on either side of the entrance with a long spear in their hand. Unlike before, on the right side of the entrance, there was a table in front of the soldier, and a man sat in front of the table, who was also in martial roles. He looked like a Lieutenant-Colonel, more than 20 years old.


    Junior Leopard did not know him and had never seen him before. Knowing that he was new, he smiled at him without paying more attention to him and went straight to the underground fire vein.


    Unexpectedly, as soon as he reached the entrance, he heard a cold and strict voice, "Stop!"

 Chapter 156: The Purpose of Entering the Fire Vein

    Chapter 156: The Purpose of Entering the Fire Vein


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Hearing the voice, Junior Leopard turned around in confusion and found that the man who had called him to stop was the Lieutenant Colonel who sat in front of the table and he did not know.


    The Lieutenant Colonel sneered with his head high and disdainfully looked at Junior Leopard, "who are you? You dare to trespass in this important place. Somebody, arrest him!"


    Junior Leopard frowned slightly. The two soldiers standing at the entrance were anxious and frightened. One of them rushed forward and said, "Inspector Qi, this is personal guard Zhou. He is..."


    "I''m Zhou Bao, a disciple of the Wu Family!" Thinking of something, Junior Leopard took one step ahead and said, folding his hands to the young Lieutenant Colonel, "May I have your name, please?"


    "I''m Qi Ying, the Inspector of the Guard County Manor!" The young Lieutenant Colonel still held his head high with his eyes growing unkind, "even if you''re a disciple of the Wu Family, you cannot trespass on the underground fire vein. Somebody, arrest him!"


    "Wait!" With a wave of his hand, the smile on Junior Leopard''s face became more and more brilliant, "Inspector, didn''t you listen to me? I''m the Wu Family''s disciple. Although the fire vein is of the imperial court, it is also open to the Wu Family. As a disciple of the Wu Family, how could you say I''m trespassing?"


    "Bah! The underground fire vein is indeed open to the Wu Family, but it is from the 2nd day to the 7th day of every lunar month. Today is the 17th day! You''re just being unreasonable! Somebody!"


    "What are you talking about? Who says that today is the 17th day? Isn''t it the 6th day?" shouted Junior Leopard, "damn it! I just saw the almanac when I went out. How can it be the 17th day?"


    At this time, a crowd had gathered round them, who were attracted by their voice, including the people from the Guard County Manor, the Admiral Manor, the Pei Family and the Ministry of Works.


    Today was the 17th day and it was the Pei Family''s turn to use the smelter. These people had their own affairs, but they were attracted by the sound from the entrance. Some people really did not know what had happened. Some people knew what had happened and paid attention to them from the moment that Junior Leopard arrived at the entrance to the underground fire vein, and it was as they had expected. Junior Leopard had been blocked outside, so they came over with a scoop mentality.


    So, having heard Junior Leopard say, "I just saw the almanac when I went out. How could it be the 17th", the people around were stunned and then they laughed. Only a few people''s facial muscles twitched, cursing secretly, "What a cunning boy!"


    Hearing his words, Qi Ying sneered, "Today is indeed the 17th day. If you don''t know the almanac, you can ask your Master''s wife to teach you!"


    "Damn you!" Junior Leopard gave a sneer and followed it up with a blow.


    Qi Ying did not expect Junior Leopard to hit him. Seeing the punch coming, he dodged, but Junior Leopard''s punch was not easy to avoid. It suddenly turned to another direction and instantly blocked his escape route.


    "Bang!" Qi Ying was not a weak man; he raised his arms in time to prevent himself from being punched in the face. His face was saved, but he was pushed back more than 10 feet, the sleeves bursting, revealing a pair of silver wrist guards.


    "You''re so weak! Is your martial arts taught by your Master''s wife?" Seeing that he had not fallen, Junior Leopard praised in his heart, but his mouth did not admit it, he acridly said, "Why don''t you call her here? How about I let her teach you after I finish teaching her?"


    "Shut up!" shouted Qi Ying with anger. He jumped up with his hand at his waist, and then there was a silver flash. A silver soft sword was in his hand, which streaked through the air in a strange, wavy radian, stabbing toward Junior Leopard!


    Junior Leopard lifted his hand and threw his sleeve in the air to roll over the soft sword.


    "You court death!" Qi Ying shouted coldly, the soft sword in his hand shook and the sharp Sword Qi began spreading.


    "Puff!" There was a gentle sound like a pan of hot oil pouring into water. "Zi", the sleeve had completely covered the soft sword. It expanded like a blower, affected by the Sword Qi. But, even so, his thin sleeve wasn''t damaged; instead, it held the soft sword tightly. No matter how hard he pulled, he could not pull it out.


    "Was I right? Your Master''s wife didn''t teach you well!" Junior Leopard sneered while pulling his sleeve, which made Qi Ying stumble. Then he raised his foot and kicked Qi Ying in the stomach, loosening his sleeve. Qi Ying flew out with his sword for more than 100 feet before falling to the ground.


    Qi Ying tried to lift himself up from the ground with his hands, but his strength seemed to have been kicked off by the insidious kick of Junior Leopard, which made him unable to lift himself up.


    Kicking him away, Junior Leopard did not look at him, but muttered with a confused look, "the 17th day? Nonsense! I just saw the almanac when I went out. Today is the 6th day. It is the 6th day!" Muttered as he walked to the entrance of the underground fire vein. This time, no one dared to stop him and they just watched him disappear at the entrance.


    "St-st-sto-stop him!" Stammering, Qi Ying struggled to lift himself up and stretched out his hand to the front, pointing in the direction of Junior Leopard. After one sentence, his body suddenly froze and he fainted on the ground as if he had died.


    A few people from the Guard County Manor, after a pause, hastily rushed forward, picked Qi Ying up and shouted, "doctor, call the doctor! Inspector Qi is injured. Call the doctor!"


    Amid the noise, the farce ended.


    ...


    ...


    "The Inspector of Guard County Manor? He is just a leading bird! He wanted to deal with me. Don''t underestimate me!" Slowly walking in the passageway to the underground fire vein, Junior Leopard sneered in his heart.


    He did not know where he came from and did not want to know. He was just a leading bird. It seemed that someone knew he often entered the underground fire vein as he liked and arranged for a man to cause him trouble, giving himself a charge, and even bringing Li Yuan in. Therefore, at the entrance, when the soldier, who was unclear about it, called him personal guard Zhou, he took one step ahead and faced Qi Ying as the Wu Family''s disciple.


    However, even if he was a disciple of the Wu Family, today was the 17th day, which was not the turn of the Wu Family, so it was sure that he would be caught. Junior Leopard used his quick wits to deliberately distort the facts and deliberately said that today was the 6th day. Qi Ying''s experience was so shallow that he was caught in his trap and began to laugh at him, which decreased a lot of trouble for him. Junior Leopard had been thinking of provoking this guy, but unexpectedly, he said something irritating directly without provocation.


    "Is it taught by your Master''s wife?"


    This sentence was considered extremely insulting language in Jianghu, just like the meaning of "Get back to your mother''s arms and drink the milk!" It was this sentence that gave Junior Leopard a reason to be mad and so he hit him with a blow without thinking. Whether or not he would fight back, the matter was changed from trespassing to a common dispute. With Li Yuan''s hide, the property of this matter was changed. Even if Li Yuan had to deal with him in consideration of the opponent''s face and background, there would be grounds for mitigating the punishment. After all, it was the opponent who abused first, Junior Leopard just fought back.


    As for the fact that he had entered the underground fire vein now, he could still pretend that he entered here on the 6th day. What could someone do with him?


    He believed that when he came out of the underground fire vein, his strength would have been improved a lot. Then he would be bolder and would not care who Qi Ying was!


    He had weighed that kick which was not heavy or light. But if Qi Ying wanted to recover, he would have to stay in bed for at least a month or two. Besides, two months later, it would have been a long time already, and things would be easy to deal with.


    "I don''t know which influence sent the leading bird. After getting out, I''ll check it out and see who''s out of luck, trying to cause me trouble. If I find out, I''ll get back at them!" Junior Leopard thought angrily. Only a few days after he came back, he ran into a series of things, which made him extremely unhappy and made him have an impulse to hammer. But now he had no hammer and was not well versed in the sword, so he had to put the seductive mind down and improve his strength in the underground fire vein.


    The passageway of the underground fire vein was still the same as before. Although it was very dark, the cave walls around slightly shone with red lights. In addition, most people that could arrive here, had achieved more than Level Three in their cultivation, so they would not go the wrong way due to the dim light.


    Junior Leopard went straight forward, stopping at the center of the underground fire vein which was about 1000 feet away from the smelter. Then he turned into a branch beside the cave wall.


    This branch was discovered by him before. The entrance was not high, it was about five feet and with his current height, he had to stoop down to enter. In the passageway, there were many branches like this one, which was not conspicuous. However, Junior Leopard unintentionally found that the entrance of this branch was short, but after entering it and moving forward for about 100 feet, it would be spacious. Above all, this branch led to a very secluded earth vein of Evil Qi. The Evil Qi was extremely high in quality here. It was very suitable for him to practice the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    This was the ultimate purpose of his entry into the underground fire vein this time.

 Chapter 157: The Lion of the Nine Dragons

    Chapter 157: The Lion of the Nine Dragons


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Walking along this branch for about 3000 feet, it was much further than where the so called geocentric fire vein was. In fact, for Junior Leopard, the place was actually not the hub of this fire vein. It was only a spacious underground magma pool formed from a wide passageway.


    It was actually a passageway that the underground magma would pass through. And its surrounding branches would lead to deeper places of the entire underground fire vein. Junior Leopard even inferred that each branch in the passageway could lead to the same earth vein evil qi. Only that those passageways were too narrow, so none of the explorers who could reach here wanted to go further to explore the branches.


    There were also inevitable reasons why nobody would explore them. In the four smelting families, only a few people''s cultivation could reach Level Seven. The Wu Family was an example: only Lyu Yiyue''s cultivation was Level Seven. A person of this kind had almost practiced gang qi, and he usually didn''t know any good Special Techniques. Hence, the person normally wouldn''t care much about things like evil qi. Or it could be put that even if he was interested, it made no difference either. Because the underground fire vein here was evil qi of fire, even though it was an evil qi. In this world, Special Techniques and gang qi that really needed evil qi of fire to be cultivated were in fact very scarce.


    For famous techniques that would require evil qi of fire while practising, there was only Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique possessed by the Wu Family and Distant Fire Mysterious Skill studied by the Sect of Flame.


    When one''s cultivation was over Level Seven, he wouldn''t need the evil qi here. While the experts whose cultivation was under Level Seven they wouldn''t have the ability to explore the branches here. Therefore, although earth vein evil qi existed in the underground fire vein, people who both had the ability and desire to explore here were few.


    And Junior Leopard was one of the minorities. He was also the only person who could make full use of the evil qi here.


    Junior Leopard continued to walk forward following the branch. He walked for about 3000 feet, and then reached a corner that led to a deeper place. He then went on slowly. Now, the surrounding fire toxin, which was also called evil qi of fire, was also getting thick. If it was in the past, Junior Leopard would no longer be able to endure it and would have had to exert his internal qi or fist intent to balance out the fire toxins of evil qi here, but things were different this time.


    He had been to the underground fire vein a couple of times already, but it was different this time because he had another External Elixir.


    Now he had two External Elixirs. One was the bone of Dragon Chimera attached to his ear, which practiced Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill he learned from Snake King. At present, its cultivation was Level Six. The other was the Fiery Eye he newly obtained, which was embedded between his eyebrows.


    What was different from other people''s External Elixirs was that both of his were practicing automatically. That meant even if Junior Leopard didn''t practice them, they would practice day and night in the way he had previously set them up. It was exactly for this reason that his first External Elixir''s cultivation could reach Level Six in such a short time.


    And why could he do that? The major reason was still the Mysterious Fire in his Dantian that he inherited from Dragon Chimera.


    While his first External Elixir was affected by the Mysterious Fire, his second External Elixir, the Fiery Eye, was originally practicing the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. And within his body the Mysterious Fire in Dantian had already melted into his internal qi, so even if Junior Leopard didn''t split the Mysterious Fire out of his Dantian, it had been connected to his internal qi.


    It was beyond his expectations but was also within his expectations.


    He had noticed this matter when he was practicing in his underground practice field home. In the meantime, it also occurred to him that Xu Yong once told him about the function of External Elixir, which was to store the excessive internal qi that the body couldn''t. It was not used to practice another cultivation method like what Snake King did, as one had to start everything from scratch again.


    Junior Leopard felt lucky that he had figured it out. He would regret so much if he didn''t possess the Plug-in of the Mysterious Fire.


    To start everything from scratch would not be that easy.


    And now his second External Elixir, the Fiery Eye, was practicing the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique that his body was also practicing. The Fiery Eye could even practice nonstop for 24 hours a day. Only a few days had passed, and Junior Leopard had already felt the internal qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique in his Fiery Eyes had improved dramatically. Compared to his own body''s practicing speed, it was even ten times faster. And most important was that the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique in this External Elixir could merge with the internal qi in his body harmoniously. Or it could be said that it was born to be connected to his body. So his External Elixir''s cultivation reached Level Nine equaled to his own body''s Level Nine cultivation. Junior Leopard was thrilled by merely thinking of how fast his External Elixir could practice.


    It was this feeling of excitement that pushed him to enter the underground fire vein. It was also because he entered the underground fire vein that his External Elixir started to make trouble.


    Now both his two External Elixirs, the one between the eyebrows and the one attached to one of his ears, were practicing day and night according to their own internal qi operation routes. Frankly speaking, practicing internal qi was inhaling and exhaling. It was to inhale external spiritual qi and transform it into the body''s internal qi. Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill was not a cultivation method that had the property of fire, although it already possessed some fiery characteristic it couldn''t inhale the fiery spiritual qi from the vein here and its operation speed was therefore much slower than when it was outside. But the Fiery Eye embedded between his eyebrows was different. It practiced an authentic Fire Way Method which was called Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. In this underground fire vein spiritual energy of Fire was ample, therefore, the Fiery Eye began to function abnormally the moment it entered the fire vein. Or we could explain that it began to practice aggressively. Its cultivating speed was a hundred times faster than usual that it had now turned into an endless swirl absorbing all fiery spiritual qi from around. It would then circulate the Qi for around and turn it into internal qi of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique.


    Junior Leopard was walking slower and slower as he felt things were becoming abnormal in his External Elixir embedded between his eyebrows. The Fiery Eye was becoming hotter and hotter. He had only walked one hundred feet or so but the cultivation of his External Elixir had surged from Level One to Level Three. That was fine as it was an External Elixir. It was an External Elixir of the highest quality. Nothing dangerous would happen to the External Elixir even its cultivation would surge to Level Nine. However, things were complicated as the External Elixir was between his eyebrows. The internal qi in the Fiery Eye had melted into the black flame in his Dantian. The black flame made the Fiery Eye to practice all day and also made it closely connected to Junior Leopard''s own body. This connection was much closer than any other kind of ordinary External Elixirs in the world. Hence, what wouldn''t happen to an ordinary External Elixir would happen to the External Elixir that was between his eyebrows.


    As the External Elixir''s cultivation accumulated, its influence on Junior Leopard''s internal qi was also strengthening, and now it had begun to drag the internal qi in his body. Meanwhile, the powerful internal qi then began to go through Junior Leopard''s entire body following the passageway of the Mysterious Fire. This was unbearable for Junior Leopard. No matter how strong he was, his body''s cultivation was merely on Level Three and his body''s intensity was newly reaching Bone-Forging Realm Full Closure. He could endure the powerful internal qi that was transmitting into his body for a while, but if the time was prolonged and the internal qi''s cultivation in the Fiery Eyes reached Level Four, he would be in great trouble.


    So what Junior Leopard had to do now was to stop his External Elixir from practising as soon as possible and consolidate his current phase carefully. The External Elixir''s internal qi transmitting into Junior Leopard''s body was mainly because the External Elixir''s cultivation was improving dramatically while its state wasn''t stable yet. Hence, only by consolidating the current phase and infusing the newly formed Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Ninth Dragon internal qi and Mysterious Fire could the transmitting process be terminated.


    However, saying it was easy but doing it was difficult.


    First, he had to implant his divine thoughts into the Fiery Eyes. Observing the sea of fire within the Fiery Eyes he saw a faint trace of black flow. The black flow was very clear and was exceedingly active as well, which was why Fiery Eyes could inhale and exhale without stopping to practice. The spiritual qi of fire was too abundant and it was because of this environment that the Fiery Eye''s inhaling and exhaling speed was too quick. Although it could turn spiritual qi into Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Ninth Dragon''s internal qi, it didn''t have enough time to merge internal qi with Mysterious Fire''s energy. This was the cause of the trouble. And Junior Leopard had to settle this issue now.


    After stopping the External Elixir from practicing greedily, he then needed to control the black flow and Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Ninth Dragon''s internal qi and let them infuse gradually. As the internal qi in his body was the product of the infusion, Junior Leopard was familiar enough to do it. He slowly led the internal qi and Mysterious Fire''s energy inside the External Elixir and a dense and soft swirl rolled up. Two energies with similar properties began to tangle, engulf and at last merged together. The swirl engulfed the whole space in External Elixir and was soon stabilized after a vibration. The energies turned into a dark golden internal qi and were once again circulating with the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. This time, as the External Elixir absorbed spiritual qi of fire outside and the Qi entered the External Elixir, the Qi was turned into the same kind of dark golden internal qi. It no longer transmitted into Junior Leopard''s body as the two forms of energies was incompatible.


    Junior Leopard sighed with relief and was to take back his divine thoughts. But at that moment, the internal qi in his External Elixir changed again. It was just stabilized; the intensively cleared internal qi shrank fiercely and stopped absorbing spiritual qi of fire from outside as if it met a bottleneck in this phase. While in contrast, the immersive internal qi exploded in the External Elixir, circulating faster and faster along the working flow of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique forming a sea of fire. The External Elixir started to crazily absorb external spiritual qi again and the speed was at least ten times faster than before, which made Junior Leopard grasp more cold air and he worried again.


    He was now in the center of the underground fire vein. The original energy of fire could be described as limitless. However, under the crazily absorbing effect of his External Elixir, the spiritual qi was rendered empty forming a vortex of spiritual qi of fire. Junior Leopard was right in the center of the vortex. Seeing immense spiritual qi being cleared into liquid form by his External Elixir, he didn''t even dare to move a little fearing that the so-called eye of eternity would explode, shattering his entire body.


    "Bang, bang¡ª!"


    The internal qi of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire in his External Elixir rolled up death-dealing waves, like a tsunami trampling over mountains. A quantitative change had reached the limit, and qualitative change was about to begin.


    Junior Leopard sat down cross-legged with his eyes closed, focusing on the fire sea between his eyebrows using his divine thoughts.


    "Hu, hua¡ª!" With endless spiritual qi of fire''s nourishment, the intangible fire sea crashed like a sound of waves, overwhelming the heaven and earth and mesmerizing man''s mind.


    Eventually, when the fierce wave of the fire sea reached its limit, a faint sound of a dragon started to grow. The sound was gradually developing, becoming stronger and foaming at the hub of the fire sea as if it was to break out any minute and emit an earth and heaven destroying power.


    "Boom¡ª!" A Fire Dragon soared up into the air with an ear-deafening sound, flying directly to the heaven. It was actually a real Fire Dragon with claws, horns, body and even elaborate scales purely made of flame. The dragon formed this time was much more authentic and more ingenious than the one Junior Leopard cleared.


    At this moment, Junior Leopard''s heart also couldn''t help startling because the dragon born from the fire sea was quite similar to the one he imagined. But after scrutinizing it, he found a few differences: its body was actually bigger than an ordinary dragon; its tail wasn''t a tale of a dragon but was rather similar to a wolf''s tail.


    Its appearance was odd, but it was lively and energetic especially its eyes. They were so bright and it was as if it had its own thoughts.


    "This is...!" Junior Leopard''s heart trembled, "Collapsing Mountain, one of the nine dragons. This is the form of the dragon that appears when the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique clears to the most perfect phase. Lion!"

 Chapter 158: Blood Essence Evil Yuan

    Chapter 158: Blood Essence Evil Yuan


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Rumor had it that the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique had three forms. One was the ordinary form of Internal Qi with pure fire property. It had amazing lethality, but nothing special. The second form was a Fire Dragon which Junior Leopard had cultivated. Fire Dragon was the entity of Internal Qi with fire property. Compared to the first form, its power was several times stronger. Even if it met with steel, it could melt it in an instant. Beyond that, it could be used flexibly. If it was controlled by divine thoughts, one could easily kill an opponent over 100 feet away with great facility even if he attacked the opponent with the Fire Dragon separated from his body. When the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was cultivated to a perfect form, it could form nine Fire Dragons. In fact, the second form was needed to cultivate Gang Qi of this technique. One could converge Evil Qi and make it into Gang Qi only when his Internal Qi reached the second form. Many other people immediately began to cultivate Gang Qi after they reached the second form. The reason was that, generally speaking, one should reach the Bone-Forging Realm as well as Level Five cultivation and then could form the Fire Dragon which would make his Internal Qi a better quality. At the time the second form was stable which meant that his cultivation nearly reached the peak of Level Six, he then could begin to condense Gang Qi.


    When the Gang Qi of this technique was successfully cultivated, one could continue to practice the Fire Dragon with at most nine Fire Dragons. These nine dragons together with Gang Qi of this technique would integrate as a whole which would make the power of the Gang Qi of this technique rise strikingly. A power that could destroy everything!


    However, things were not that easy. Nine Fire Dragons were hard to cultivate.


    With the improvement of cultivation, especially the completion of practicing Gang Qi, the Internal Qi was getting clearer and connected closer with the body. But it needed Internal Qi with quality several times higher than the first level to cultivate the second Fire Dragon. Besides, the third one was more demanding than the second one. The quality of Internal Qi that nine Fire Dragons needed was beyond the imagination of ordinary people. As a mater of fact, gifted as the Patriarch of the Wu Family, he only practiced four Fire Dragons. With such a cultivation, he could overrun the whole world and go anywhere as he pleased. No one could defeat him!


    As for the third form of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, it only existed in the legends. In the earliest record, when one''s insight toward the technique reached a mysterious state, or we could say, when one nearly possessed infinite Spiritual Qi with fire property by luck, then he probably could successfully cultivate the third form of this technique. It was the most perfect form, Nine Forms of Real Dragon.


    Nine Forms of Real Dragon demonstrated nine forms of the real dragon. Every form had its special use and tremendous power. More importantly, the real dragon with forms of the nine dragons would not be just the incarnation of your Internal Qi but they could even have spiritual intelligence. Of course, this was merely a legend.


    It was a consensus that the Nine Forms of Real Dragon was a legend, while the record of the last one who successfully cultivated the Nine Forms of Real Dragon was about 10,000 years ago. Furthermore, the record was not detailed. He only knew the names of these nine forms and their basic forms. Just like the one he possessed called Lion.


    Junior Leopard never dreamed of successfully cultivating the third form of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, Nine Forms of Real Dragon, in this place and under these circumstances.


    But thinking about it carefully, it could happen here. This place was full of strong Spiritual Qi of fire property, which was almost infinite. Therefore, it was the first condition needed for the real dragon form to take shape. What was more, the Internal Qi in his External Elixir moved at a pretty high speed. It never stopped and went without any error. In a sense, his External Elixir''s comprehension toward the wonderful usage of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was totally beyond his body. As a result, it became the second condition of forming the nine forms of the real dragon. Hence, he successfully and inexplicably cultivated this legendary form.


    "Nine Forms of Real Dragon, the Lion of nine dragons!" Junior Leopard slowly opened his eyes and a rare animal surrounded by a flame that looked like a dragon as well as a lion flew out from between his eyebrows. It hovered around him for several circles. Junior Leopard''s mind moved and he rose up his hand. The Lion suddenly raised its head and its body transformed into several golden flames. It dashed forward towards the direction that Junior Leopard pointed.


    Several sounds of thunder were heard. The earth was trembling and the mountain was swaying. Gravels over his head with hot flames flew everywhere, looking like both an earth dragon turned over and a magma burst.


    After it was all over, it became quiet again. Looking at the situation of the whole passageway, Junior Leopard was totally shocked. There was a giant pothole in the passageway before him which he made with great force. Tons of gravel had fallen down to fill it, yet it was not filled up. The pothole exposed outside was over 10 feet deep with a diameter which was more than 50 feet. Golden red magma burst out from the ground and filled up the empty hole very quickly. Then a giant lava pit was formed.


    The golden red fireball did not disappear; instead, it came back to Junior Leopard''s side and floated around him. Gradually, it became the shape of a Lion and went in between Junior Leopard''s eyebrows.


    The Lion of the nine dragons was shaped like a lion and was fond of spitting fire.


    "Oh my god, it was more powerful than the Extraordinary Strength Fist together with the silver hammer executed. Most important of all, it doesn''t exhaust any Internal Qi. The third form of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique indeed as expected lived up to its reputation. This is just the first dragon. How about the second one, the third...?!"


    Thinking about that, Junior Leopard was excited. But in view of the demanding requirement of practicing the second and the third dragon, he would abandon his idea of continuing to practice the next dragon.


    Keeping the Lion in his body, Junior Leopard continued to move forward. He had come here for one of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword, and not to clear the Nine Forms of Real Dragon. The Heavenly Sword of Two Forms was a special technique that he had got earlier on and also one that the Wang She called the most powerful ones in the world. No matter what special technique it was, it was definitely worth practicing if it got the praise of Wang She who had already become an expert of Level Nine.


    Moreover, Wang She himself also practiced the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Judging by his status, how could he practice it if the power was not as strong?


    With light and active steps, Junior Leopard gently and quickly moved forward to cross over the giant lava pit that the Lion had just made. He rose up his hand again; three golden fireballs suddenly appeared on his fingertips. He gently waved his hand, and both the earth and stone in the pothole were blasted away. Then, three fireballs flew back to his hand and rotated around his wrist.


    The passageway was clear, but Junior Leopard didn''t move forward immediately because the destination was not far away from him. He could clearly see it even if he stood here.


    The so called Earth Vein Evil Qi did not refer to a specific place. It had many patterns. Take two examples that Junior Leopard had seen long before. One was the Flickering Light Evil Qi that could practice the Three Realms Division, while another one was the Evil Qi with cold property in the West Mountain Pass. The former one was a flat ground, however, the latter was in the mountain pass underneath a pile of rubbles. Whereas in the underground fire vein, fire toxin namely Evil Qi with fire property pervaded everywhere. Though the fire toxin was pretty much everywhere, the categories of Evil Qi were numerous. The fire toxin was lethal for ordinary people, but it was too thin and heterogeneous for people who wanted to practice special technique with Evil Qi like Junior Leopard. It couldn''t meet the requirement of practicing special technique, so he needed to look for it.


    It was extremely hard to look for suitable Earth Vein Evil Qi in other places, yet it was not a big deal in this underground fire vein.


    It was when Lu Shaoyou proposed marriage to Ma Linglong that Junior Leopard first saw Wang She using the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. However, what he used was the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword. Later, he saw Wang She using the whole set of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. It may be assumed that the Evil Qi he used to practice the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword came from this underground fire vein.


    This Evil Qi with fire property that Junior Leopard found was in good quality. It was a small pit which was originally located in an extremely confined space. The last time he explored the Evil Qi along this branch, he incidentally felt that inside the stone wall of it was a strange as well as an amazing coercion. Besides, the temperature there was much lower than its surroundings. He felt pretty cool when he passed there, thus, it drew his attention. He broke through the wall of the passageway and then found this small pit, in which there was dark red viscous liquid that looked like blood.


    It was impossible to tell what the liquid was and what made it special by just observing it. He could not even be sure that the coolness he had felt while he passed the passageway was caused by it.


    Junior Leopard intuitively felt that this pit of liquid was very dangerous, but he could not tell where the danger was.


    However, when he gently kicked a piece of rubble toward the pit, it instantly evaporated when it was about four inches away from the dark red liquid. Junior Leopard was very surprised, and he then tried several times with rubbles, metal and various kinds of things of all sizes, but without exception, all of them evaporated at a distance of four inches away from the liquid. He threw a stone toward the pit with all his strength, and it also evaporated at the same distance. The stone really evaporated, though it was hard to believe. With all his strength, the stone carried great force and rushed to the liquid, finally making a wave on the surface of it. This assured him that the liquid was cohered by the Earth Vein Evil Qi, and four inches above it was filled with Evil Qi at a breathtaking high temperature. Meanwhile, it was the very best material that the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword needed.


    If Wang She was here, looking at the Evil Qi which already became liquid in the pit, he would go crazy. The Evil Qi here was the most powerful Evil Qi with fire property and also the most destructive one, the Blood Essence Evil Yuan.

 Chapter 159: The Successful Forgery of the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword

    Chapter 159: The Successful Forgery of the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    A dark red airflow circulated around Junior Leopard, covering every inch of his skin. It made an even stranger sight when a piece of pink airflow became detached from the dark red airflow and floated to the space between his eyebrows.


    The pit full of dark red mucus, the airflow entwining Junior Leopard, as well as the pink airflow detaching from its dark red counterpart were three different forms that Blood Essence Evil Yuan presented around Junior Leopard. This was an inevitable step for him if he wanted to practice the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword. He first needed to dilute the liquidated Evil Qi from the Blood Essence Evil Yuan and turned it into gas. However, it was not easy to use the Blood Essence Evil Yuan at such concentration even if it was in gas form. He still needed to dilute the highly concentrated dark red airflow before he could begin refining his sword.


    It was a tedious process, but once everything was put in order, Junior Leopard realized it was not a difficult task at all.


    Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword truly deserved its reputation as a mighty Special Technique. It was particularly good at the fusion and isomerization of Evil Qi. Of course, he also owed thanks to his Fiery Eyes. No matter how powerful the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was, his body would not be strong enough to take on the violent Evil Qi of the Blood Essence Evil Yuan without his pair of so-called legendary Eternal Eyes.


    After the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword isomerized the Blood Essence Evil Yuan, it was absorbed. It was then fused with the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire in Junior Leopard''s External Elixir. It was cleared by the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, forming pieces of sharp sword wires. Those red sword wires wandered the abstruse way of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword from the space between Junior Leopard''s eyebrows. But like water and oil, it did not merge with the Internal Qi in the External Elixir.


    While still seated cross-legged, there was a sudden shift in Junior Leopard''s placid expression. His face flushed heavily and he abruptly opened his eyes, revealing red lights in his irises. The black lines in his irises rotated and the Blood Essence Evil Yuan in the pit in front surged as if it was stimulated by something.


    Junior Leopard had remained seated in place for three whole days. On the first day, he tried to absorb the Evil Qi in the pit with his External Elixir. He did well thanks to the way of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. In just two days, he had refined a whole layer of Blood Essence Evil Yuan in the pit. He had also successfully refined the External Elixir between his eyebrows into an all-conquering red sword wire. If he further refined the Blood Essence Evil Yuan, he would be able to forge the first piece of the Sword Qi.


    But surprisingly, his External Elixir suddenly vibrated as if it was attacked just as his first piece of Sword Qi was about to be shaped. The speed of absorbing Evil Qi rose unexpectedly and in a very short time, all red pneuma around him was absorbed into the space between his eyebrows. It also resulted in an unusual action of the Blood Essence Evil Yuan, completely messing his plans for practice. Noticing the strangeness, he opened his Fiery Eyes at once and used its inner vision to examine the condition of the External Elixir between his eyebrows.


    "This is the power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!" As he watched a large amount of Blood Essence Evil Yuan being absorbed into the External Elixir between his eyebrows, the black lines on his irises rotated faster and faster. He estimated his control of divine thoughts to the Blood Essence Evil Yuan in the External Elixir between his eyebrows was now ten times better.


    The high amount of activity in his brain allowed him to enter a mysterious, wonderful state where all was forgotten. Almost madly, he isomerized the Blood Essence Evil Yuan to be absorbed into his Fiery Eyes. At the same time, he kept his eyes on the fusion of the sword wires with his External Elixir to forge the Sword Qi.


    After an unknown period of time had passed, the red glow in Junior Leopard''s wide-open eyes gradually dimmed. The rotation of the black lines on his irises became slower and it finally stopped.


    The miraculous glow in his eyes disappeared as well and his eyes appeared clouded. Slowly, his eyes closed and his head drooped, having lost consciousness.


    He was knocked out for three whole days. When he opened his eyes again, he felt only a splitting headache and an exhaustion that pushed him to the limits. He felt like immensely lethargic as if he could sleep for another three days.


    "It looks like I''ve completely exhausted my Fiery Eyes." Junior Leopard examined his body, finding no damage. But he had expended his Fiery Eyes so much that his mind was overwhelmed and he was extremely exhausted. When he looked at the pit in front of him, he saw that it was completely empty of Blood Essence Evil Yuan. Not even the slightest trace of it was left.


    "Let''s check how powerful my Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword is now!" With a slight shift of his thoughts, the space between his eyebrows flashed red and shot a sanguine sword light, impaling it in the stone wall in front of him without any sound. The red light disappeared, leaving a thumb-like round hole in the wall.


    Junior Leopard blinked, quietly inhaling a breath of air.


    "Damn! What a terrifying attack force!"


    He looked a bit pale when staring at the hole.


    That was because he could see clearly that the Sword Qi had penetrated several hundreds of feet underground in a flash, despite the silence of his attack earlier. What was worse was the fact that the attack was accompanied by a terrible heat coming from the Blood Essence Evil Yuan. In his view, his attack was akin to a small High Heat Particle Gun. It was something that existed only in science fiction. It may even be even stronger than a Particle Gun. Compared with a High Heat Particle Gun, his attack even carried the extremely lethal sharp Sword Qi.


    "No wonder Snake King holds the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword in such high esteem. If the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword alone is so powerful, how awesome will it be if I put the two forms together? But if I want to store such Sword Qi inside my body, I''ll need a lot of physical strength!"


    Considering physical strength, Junior Leopard was suddenly reminded of a problem.


    "Wang She once mentioned that a person can only withstand nine Special Techniques no matter who he is and how advanced his cultivation is. But what if he has an External Elixir?"


    What would happen if the inclusion of an External Elixir was taken into consideration?


    An External Elixir could be considered as another body with its an integrated and independent internal Qi operating system. What would the outcome be if the External Elixir was used as a medium to store the Special Techniques?


    It was akin to how Junior Leopard was storing the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword in the External Elixir between his eyebrows. Would it be counted as one storing out of the nine Special Techniques?


    "Maybe it''s because External Elixirs are rare and not all are as sturdy as the eternal Fiery Eyes. That may be the reason why they''re not taken into consideration."


    Junior Leopard thought of this possibility, so he put this thought aside.


    With his hand pressed against the ground, he propped himself up from his sitting posture. In a moment of inattentiveness, he nearly stumbled before he could stand firm on his feet.


    "I didn''t think it''s still possible for me to experience sores after sitting for so long. My body now is in the Full Closure of Skin-Toughening Realm. There shouldn''t be any problem like this! I must really have overused my Spiritual Strength. Seems like I better take a rest and recover before I leave this place!"


    Junior Leopard was about to leave when he recalled Qi Ying, the Lieutenant-Colonel he met in the entrance of underground fire vein. His heart sank. He was not afraid of Qi Ying, but he was truly in poor condition at this moment. If he left now and met Qi Ying or any of his companions, he may suffer in their hands. Before he had entered this place, he had taught Qi Ying a lesson. If he was treated the same way by Qi Ying''s companions on his way out, that would be too depressing.


    Considering this, Junior Leopard did not try to rush matters. He sat down and prepared to regulate his breathing and nurse his spirit.


    ...


    ...


    Guard County Manor, Zhonghejun City.


    The Mayor Wan An was inside the guest room wearing a gloomy expression. He stood in front of the bed, staring at the Qi Ying who drifted in and out of consciousness.


    "Doctor Ming, how is Inspector Qin now? Why does he remain in such condition for the past few days? Even when he''s awake, he seems to be very confused!"


    "Alas. His injuries are too heavy." Doctor Ming was a man in his sixties. Helplessness marked his wrinkled face, which was covered with a flowing white beard. "The one who injured him landed him with a very calculated kick. Though it''s not lethal, the kick still hurt his viscera heavily. He needs to recover for a very long time."


    "Will it affect him in any way in the future?"


    "His condition isn''t that bad. Though his viscera suffer serious injuries, it won''t hurt his foundation. But he''ll be in a lot of pain during the recovery process. He has learned martial arts for so many years, so his body is stronger than ordinary people. He''ll soon recover if he''s carefully nursed and nourished by quality medicinal herbs. However, it''s best if he doesn''t practice any martial arts or Qi within a year''s time. It''ll help him recover sooner."


    "One whole year?!"


    "This is the most optimistic estimation." Doctor Ming smiled bitterly. "The one who attacked him didn''t go over the line but was insidious. He can''t be an ordinary person!"


    "Humph!" Wan An snorted in anger and had someone send Doctor Ming out of the Guard County Manor. He stared at Qi Ying, his expression becoming uncertain.


    "Your Excellency, Constable Li is back!"


    While Wan An was basking in anger, the footboy''s voice came from outside the door.


    "Tell him to wait in the study!"


    "Yes!"


    As the sound of the footsteps gradually dimmed, Wan An slowly took a seat at the table. He looked solemn as he fell into deep thought.


    After an hour, he finally sighed and left the guest room for the study.


    "Your Excellency, you''re here!"


    Inside the study, a man dressed in sackcloth rushed forward when he saw Wan An and saluted him respectfully. "I''m your humble servant, Li Sihai. I pay my respects to Your Excellency!"


    "Do away with the courtesy!" Wan An waved impatiently. "How is the investigation I ordered you to do?"


    "I''ve found out the truth," Li Sihai said in a hurry. "That night, there were a total of 14 people from the Personal Guard Camp drinking in the restaurant. They were mainly there to welcome Zhou Bao''s return. Only three left the restaurant in that time and they even left at the same time."


    "Oh. Which three?"


    "Camp Supervisor Qi Fei and personal guards Zhou Bao and Dong Chen."


    "Zhou Bao! Why Zhou Bao appeared again!" Wan An exploded in anger when he heard Zhou Bao''s name.


    "Your Excellency, Zhou Bao''s sister and brother-in-law both live in the city. Should I...?"


    "Shut up! I have my plan!" Wan An reprimanded him coldly. "Don''t you make a move on your own!"


    "Yes!"

 Chapter 160: The Navy Commander of Jiang City

    Chapter 160: The Navy Commander of Jiang City


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    When Junior Leopard exited the underground fire vein, he did not meet the person he was worried about. Without any obstacles, he left straight out of the entrance. The table he had seen before was gone and there were two new guards, but still under Li Yuan.


    The two guards were ecstatic to see Junior Leopard. "Officer Zhou, you''re finally out!"


    "Why? Is anyone looking for me?" Asked Junior Leopard, frowning at their enthusiasm.


    "Admiral has given orders that you see him as soon as you come out," one of the guards answered, approaching Junior Leopard cautiously. "Officer Zhou, you need to be careful. The Qi Ying you hurt last time isn''t a nobody. The mayor had argued with our general for this, but there''s no result until now. I heard the general is furious!"


    "I know what I should do. Thank you!" Junior Leopard said, taking out two pieces of silver.


    The guard grinned and accepted the silvers, sharing it with his partner. They thanked Junior Leopard and went back to guard the entrance.


    Junior Leopard understood the life philosophy that money makes the world go round. Now that he did not lack any money, he would not be stingy when generosity was needed. After all, he was a frequent visitor to the underground fire vein. Though the guards never stopped him, he still had to give them some benefits. There was no disadvantage in expanding his network.


    He dared not delay now that he knew Li Yuan wanted to see him. He went straight to Admiral Manor after leaving the underground fire vein. Upon seeing him, the guards did not bother announcing his arrival and led him directly to Li Yuan''s study.


    "Your subordinate, Zhou Bao, is here to visit Your Excellency!" said Junior Leopard, half kneeling on the ground. Once he entered the study, he saw that Li Yuan was reading something.


    Li Yuan raised his head and looked at the kneeling Junior Leopard. "There''s no need for courtesy. Get up."


    "Thank you, Your Excellency!"


    "You seem refreshed. Looks like you''ve got a huge harvest in the fire vein!" Li Yuan said.


    "I won''t say I''ve got a huge harvest, just some benefits. I managed to stabilize my state!"


    Li Yuan nodded, making a sound of approval. "Chief Wang used to say you''re a martial arts genius, but I didn''t believe him until now. According to your cultivation, you should probably be preparing for the Bone-Forging Realm?"


    "Yes, I''m preparing for that."


    "Did you meet any difficulties?" asked Li Yuan. "It''s not an easy matter entering the Bone-Forging Realm. You not only have to depend on yourself but also rely on many medicinal herbs. Have you prepared for that?"


    "I''m pretty much prepared!" Junior Leopard answered.


    "Good! That''s good!" Something flickered in Li Yuan''s eyes, but he did not continue to ask. He nodded and said, "I heard you''ve got into a conflict with Qi Ying from the Guard County Manor and you even injured him!"


    "Yes!" Junior Leopard nodded.


    "You''ve got quite the guts! You should know that Qi Ying is Wan An''s trusted subordinate that he purposely relocated from the capital. It has only been several days but you''ve already injured him badly enough that he can''t leave his bed! Zhou Bao, you''re really making things difficult for me!"


    "This problem stems from my actions. If I brought you trouble, I ask for my punishment."


    "It takes two hands to clap. I''ve already heard of what happened. It was Qi Ying who started it, so I won''t punish you. But you''ve injured him too severely. Though you didn''t disable him, you left him stuck on the bed and immobile. I need to give Guard County Manor an explanation for this."


    "Please give me your orders!"


    "You have two choices. Option one: You''ll visit Guard County Manor and apologize for what you did, saving Qi Ying''s face. This will then pass without incident. How about it?"


    "And the second?"


    "I knew you wouldn''t choose the first option!" Li Yuan laughed. "Option two: Momentarily leave Zhonghe City. Head to Jiang City, where is currently infested with water bandits. I''ll name you Navy Commander and you help me suppress the water bandits. How about it?"


    "Yes, sir!" Junior Leopard replied loudly.


    "Good. You can leave. Get some rest; you''ll leave for Jiang City in three days and be Navy Commander there!"


    ...


    ...


    Jiang City was a small county of Zhonghe prefecture, far away from its center. It was about more than 80 kilometers away. Luo River, a branch of Cangyun River, the third longest river in Great Jin, was across the city. Thus it was named Jiang City.


    Therefore, the city became an important water transport fortress despite its distance. There were more than ten named major docks alone, never mind the other nameless minor and illegal docks. Compared to other cities in Zhonghe prefecture, this place was far more prosperous.


    Yet the city had also invited many troubles being a prosperous water fortress. Arguments and fights often broke out among the lowly gangs in their bid to take over the docks, throwing the city into chaos. On the river, it was water bandits who ruled. After Zhonghe City was attacked by The Sect of Flameand recaptured by Great Jin, those living on the river became heartless water bandits. They became fearless, to the point where they would even rob and plunder in daylight. At night, they were even worse. They were fearless enough to go up to the land, causing everyone in Zhonghe City to live in panic. When the sun went down each day, every family shut themselves in, not daring to leave their homes.


    This issue not only affected the stability of Jiang City, but its water transport as well. Water transport was crucial to the entire Zhonghe prefecture. Discounting everything else, 60 percent of food in Zhonghe City had to go through Jiang City. If the water transport encountered any problems, it was not too much to say half of Zhonghe City would be paralyzed.


    Both Mayor Wan An or Admiral Li Yuan attached great importance to Jiang City. But the water bandits had been mushrooming all over and became difficult to suppress. The situation in the city as a whole was complicated with many different power players with their own plans. The officials had tried to suppress the bandits several times, but not only did they not eliminate them, it even resulted in the bandits growing larger than ever before.


    The former Navy Commander, Gao Gong, even died at the hands of the bandits. He was killed by arrows in a battle against the bandits a month ago. Without their leader, the navy was defeated and forced to retreat. If Li Yuan had not sent help in time, the whole city would have fallen under the bandits. If that happened, it would end up being the biggest joke in the world.


    Junior Leopard was Li Yuan''s personal guard and accompanied him always. He was neither interested in nor cared about politics and military affairs. Since he had just returned recently, he was unfamiliar with the situation in Jiang City. He had accepted easily when Li Yuan offered him a post in the navy to suppress the bandits. He thought they were just a handful of water bandits with a nest next to a small river. He expected that he alone would be enough to exterminate them without the need for an army. How many experts could there be among those bandits? If they were a couple that was in Level Three, that would already be far better than he had expected. But once he found out what was going on, he felt a serious headache.


    ...


    ...


    "It''s not about the few water bandits in Jiang City alone; it involves a string of complicated issues. I''ve been there several times and I''ve traveled across the river and met some of the bandits. They''re not ordinary bandits. They have leaders and operate under strict discipline. Though they''re bandits, they appear more like an army. I even suspect if these bandits are members of the navy under disguise. Looks like it''ll be a troublesome visit to Jiang City for you this time."


    Wang Tianlei frowned when he heard Junior Leopard was to head to Jiang City and suppress bandits as Navy Commander. "Besides, it''s so strange for Admiral Li to send you there. Just think about it. Though you''re skilled, you''re still a teen and you don''t have any experience leading an army. Jiang City is located in a fortress, where the defense is critical. Isn''t he treating this like a joke sending you there?"


    "Yes!" Junior Leopard found it strange as well after hearing what Wang Tianlei said. No matter how good his martial arts was, no matter how much potential he had, he was still a teen without any experience in leading an army. If he was to use his strength to suppress a gang of ordinary bandits, that would still make some sense. But Li Yuan, as Admiral, ought to know the situation in Jiang City. The city needed an expert, or better yet, a talented commander-in-chief. At the very least, the city needed a talented field commander. As for him, he was a vanguard if he put things nicely, but a mere pawn if he put it in a bad way. It was too illogical to send him to Jiang City.


    "Brother-in-law, what do you think Admiral''s intention is by doing this?"


    "We won''t be able to guess Admiral''s intention, but there''s no reason for you to turn this down now that you''ve accepted it. I think Admiral has no intention of harming you. Based on your current cultivation, you can still protect yourself even if you can''t suppress the bandits. What do you think?"


    "I hope so!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly.


    "I was planning on starting a grain store in Jiang City, but I was worried it''s too far away and things may go wrong due to the many conflicts there. But since you''re going there to be Navy Commander, then it''s killing two birds with one stone!"


    "You really know how to take advantage of the situation!" Junior Leopard said. "But you''ll have to wait until I''m familiar with the situation there. Who knows if I''ll be forced to come home after a few days? Your grain store will be left without protection then!"


    "How could that be! Others may not know you, but how will I not? With your ability, you''ll still be able to plant a firm foothold there even if you fail to suppress the bandits!" Wang Tianlei said. "But don''t elaborate too much about the situation in Jiang City to your sister. She''ll get worried. You''re going there to be Navy Commander; you can be considered as being given a promotion. You can just say you''re promoted and make her happy!"


    "That''s right. But there''s one good thing about going to Jiang City. I won''t have to her nagging anymore!"


    "You can''t be too sure. Who knows your sister will have already decided on your marriage by the time you return?" Wang Tianlei laughed. "But don''t worry. I''ll definitely help you choose. If the girl is too ugly, I''ll be the first to help you turn it down!"


    "I''ll thank you first, brother-in-law!" Junior Leopard saluted with folded hands. "Please keep an eye for me lest I marry an ugly wife!"


    "No problem! No problem!" Wang Tianlei said repeatedly. They went out, rubbing each other''s shoulders and making fun of each other.

 Chapter 161: Going to Jiang City for the Assignment

    Chapter 161: Going to Jiang City for the Assignment


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The sky cleared after a light rain, leaving the moist and fresh air.


    Early in the morning the shabby city gate of Jiang City was already open. As soon as the gate was open, oxcarts crowded out of the city with all sorts of sounds mixed together. Some were shouting to drive the carts. Some were yelling to rush out of the way, and some were cursing for their dropped commodities. Some were greeting their acquaintances with laughter.


    It was the tapestry of each early morning in Jiang City. As the most important water transport dock of Zhonghe Prefecture, Jiang City had a prosperous business. It was the biggest commodity distributing center in Zhonghe Prefecture. Each day it was flooded by countless horses and carts, especially in the early morning, it was just like the morning rush hours of Junior Leopard''s previous life. Nobody knew how many goods needed to be carried out. When they were out of the city, the carts would move a dozen miles along the official route. As they reached a crossroad, different merchandisers would separate and head to their destinations respectively.


    Rain had wet the ground yesterday. Although it was the official route, as an official route situated outside a small county, it wasn''t well constructed. Numerous carts crossing the route had caused the damp road to become a mess in less than one hour. Mud and stones were thrown in the air, water accumulated on the soil, causing it to flow everywhere.


    Stretching his body, Su Ergou walked out of the city gate with a big broom in hand. It was nearly noon now, merchandisers that had awoken early had long been out of the city, so it was no longer busy here. Those who were walking were all ordinary people. Some were heading towards the city, some were heading towards the rural areas. All were scattered around.


    Su Ergou began to sweep the ground with his broom from the city gate to the road pointing away of the city. He cleared all the mud and accumulated water off the road, but his purpose was not to keep the road 100% clean, the goal was merely to make sure the ground wasn''t too messy and was flat enough.


    This was his daily work. Having lived in the Jiang City for 56 years and doing this job for 40 years, he was half admitted as the civil servant here. Life could also be called easy.


    Words had it that it wasn''t safe in Jiang City recently. But however messy this place was, it wouldn''t influence Su Ergou''s life. What trouble would a cleaner get into after all?


    Therefore, contrarily, he was having a better time compared to those full-time civil servants.


    Su Ergou swept the floor once in a while. It was obvious that he was absent-minded now. He had many things to think about on his mind!


    His neighbor, Old Huang''s family was ruined. He was such an idiot. He could make an enemy of anybody, but had chosen to make Sergeant Wu his enemy. Just by relying on the cloth store, he thought he was powerful, but he did not expect he would be charged of colluding with the water bandits by Sergeant Wu. Now his store had been ransacked and he was thrown into the jail. The cries were miserable when the County Administration''s yamen runner went to his house and caught him.


    "Old Huang''s daughter is pretty and well educated. Now that their family has been ruined, I can probably seek a chance to get her. If I succeeded, then..." A pleasant smile climbed on Su Ergou''s face as he was thinking of the matter. Just as he was feeling the best, he suddenly felt that something wasn''t right. He raised his head, but a strange yelling followed, then the broom that was previously in his hand was thrown afar. He moved backwards continuously and only when he had walked 30 to 40 feet did he stop. As he stopped, he immediately slumped onto the ground.


    "You, you, you, who are you?"


    Sitting on the ground, Su Ergou stumbled, pointing at the figure as if he had seen a ghost. Standing in front of him was a man and a beast.


    The man looked normal. He was young, tall and appeared powerful. But in these days, many people appeared powerful, because anyone who had practiced martial arts had an unconscious Qi Power all over their body. Having swept the floor in this Jiang City for such a long time, Su Ergou had surely seen such people before.


    But what terrified him wasn''t the man, it was the huge silver dog. No, it was a wolf. No, it was...


    No matter if it was a dog or a wolf, it was one of them. He had seen a lot at the age of 56, but frankly speaking, it was the first time that he saw such a huge dog. It was even bigger than a calf. As it stood there, its height could reach his shoulder. Covered in shiny and silvery fur, the dog was incomparably magisterial. It stood facing the wind and was staring at him with two cyan eyes as if he was its dinner. Su Ergou immediately felt desperate.


    The tall lad who was standing beside the silver wolf did not answer Su Ergou''s question. He gently patted at the wolf''s head, "Little Du, I''ve told you many times. Don''t randomly scare people!"


    The lad then turned his head and smiled at Su Ergou, "Excuse me, there must be Jiang City, right?"


    "Yes, here is Jiang City!" Su Ergou nodded non-stop. He glanced at the Silver Wolf and stepped back unconsciously, "Are... Are you getting in the city?"


    "Yeah!" The tall lad nodded his head and patted the Silver Wolf''s back. It roared in a low voice glaring at Su Ergou as if letting off its dissatisfaction. Then it followed behind the lad towards the county.


    The young lad and the wolf, were Junior Leopard and his Evil Beast, Little Du.


    Little Du had been following Junior Leopard since it surrendered. Only that Little Du''s figure was too eye-attracting, when Junior Leopard was in Zhonghe City, he didn''t let it accompany him all day. It was actually doing whatever it wanted most of the time. When living in the mountains and forests outside the city it was feeding itself. Except for that it wasn''t allowed to eat people, there wasn''t any other rules, so Little Du lived happily.


    But this time, Junior Leopard had been assigned to Jiang City whose situation was complicated. He wasn''t sure what would happen, so he decided to bring Little Du with him to intimidate people.


    No matter what, it was an Evil Beast, and in this world, an Evil Beast''s deterrence could be much more than that of a person.


    That was why he decided to bring Little Du to Jiang City. But Little Du wasn''t happy with his decision, as it couldn''t have a free and easy life. However, no matter how unhappy it was, it couldn''t resist Junior Leopard''s willpower as it had surrendered to Junior Leopard. Hence it followed Junior Leopard for over 50 km reluctantly to this Jiang City.


    It was because it wasn''t in a good mood that whoever it saw would be gazed upon with malice in its eyes. Su Ergou was only a cleaner and he had not seen this before. So only the lad and the wolf had walked away, Su Ergou noticed that his sweat had wet his clothes unconsciously. What was more bizarre was that his crutch was also wet.


    "Who, who are you?"


    In fact, not only Su Ergou was terrified, but the idle soldiers who were joking with each other were also scared. These soldiers'' leader was more sensible than Su Ergou. Su Ergou did not know what the wolf was, but the leader did. He was pretty sure that the Silver Wolf might be an Evil Beast.


    Evil Beasts were rare nowadays. Although he had not seen it before, no matter if it was in the world of ordinary people or martial arts, it was the synonym of power, rebellion, brutality, blood and terror.


    To fight against an Evil Beast wasn''t what the leader of soldiers at the city gate could do. He therefore emboldened himself and asked the question at the tall lad who was walking near the Evil Beast.


    The lad was tall and strong with a humble and gentle smile on his face, it was incongruous for him to walk side by side with such an Evil Beast. However, a person who could walk with an Evil Beast and looked peaceful wouldn''t be an ordinary person. The gentle smile had finally given him courage to ask the lad the question.


    The lad smiled and drew out an official seal from his chest. The seal was thrown directly into his hand, "I''m Zhou Bao, the newly assigned Commander of Navy of Jiang City. I''m here to take the assignment ordered by Li Yuan, Admiral Li."


    "Oh! You''re the Commander!"


    In Zhonghe City, a Navy Commander of Jiang City was nobody. But in this Jiang City, a Navy Commander''s rank was much higher than the leader of the soldiers guarding the city gate. Hearing what Junior Leopard had said, all of the soldiers knelt on the floor.


    "Please rise!" Seeing that the leader of the soldiers had finished reading the official seal, Junior Leopard pointed at him and said, "You, okay just you, bring me into the city. It''s my first time in Jiang City and I''m not familiar with the things here. I hope you can show me the way to the Garrison Mansion."


    "Yes!" The head of soldiers didn''t dare to speak more, he kowtowed at Junior Leopard respectfully, handed back the official seal to Junior Leopard with two hands and then obediently led Junior Leopard into the city.


    Just as what Wang Tianlei had told Junior Leopard. Jiang City wasn''t big, but it was unusually prosperous. It was also because of its prosperity that there were incidents.


    The leader of the soldiers led Junior Leopard around, wandering the streets. It was near lunch time and the people on the streets were continuously coming forth and away. Little Du''s figure was too attractive, in a moment, nearly everybody stopped and was looking at them. It didn''t take a long time before the street was crowded with curious people. Nonetheless, none of them dared to come closer. They were merely whispering to one another and pointing at them.


    If the crowd wasn''t big, then the whispering wouldn''t be bothersome. But there were too many people here, everybody was whispering, so the sound was as loud as the exciting shouts during a world cup. A continuous humming sound surrounded Little Du like hundreds of flies. It was pretty annoying.


    Little Du had long lived in the mountain. It was brutal by nature, plus it hadn''t been in a city where there were so many people, so naturally it was its first time to hear such annoying voices. It didn''t understand what people were talking about though, but it felt as if it wasn''t something good. It was naturally getting impatient. A roaring sound came out from its throat.


    The roar was originally used to scare away wild beasts in the mountains. Low as its voice was, it was very terrifying. The people on the streets couldn''t hear it, but the leader of the soldiers could. As its roar lingered in his ear, he unconsciously fell onto the ground with endless fear rising from his heart.


    Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows and looked at Little Du unsatisfied. He was just planning to lift the leader of the soldiers up and heard a yell, "Demon, where are you from? How dare you to collude with an Evil Beast in broad daylight and commit crimes here. Take him down!"

 Chapter 162: Set on Establishing Might

    Chapter 162: Set on Establishing Might


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "You demon! Committing a crime together with an Evil Beast in bright daylight! Bring them down!"


    After the loud shout, there were hurried footsteps. Dozens of soldiers scattered the crowd. Holding swords and sabers in their hands, they surrounded Junior Leopard and Little Du. Additionally, there were dozens of archers surrounding the outer perimeter. The arrows were strung on the bow and were pointing at Junior Leopard and Little Du. Looking at this situation, the arrows would fly if they made any movement.


    There was still a smile plastered on Junior Leopard''s face. His eyes flashed a cold glint. He extended his hands and lightly patted the somewhat agitated Little Du to calm it down.


    "Da, da, da...!"


    The sound of horse hooves rang. Junior Leopard lifted up his head and saw a majestic Black Awl Horse. On the horse was a young master whose face was like jade. He snobbishly looked down on the person and the wolf. When his eyes landed on Little Du, his eyes were unable to conceal the excitement and greed.


    "Mis, mistake! It''s a mistake!" The soldier who was laying limp on the floor suddenly climbed up and raised both his hands, "Third Young Master, Third Young Master, it''s really a mistake, a mistake...!"


    "Mistake?" The Third Young Master''s eyebrows furrowed, "What mistake?"


    "Third Young Master, it''s a mistake!" The soldier said frantically, "This is the new Navy Commander, His Excellency Zhou. He''s here to assume his post in Jiang City!"


    "Newly appointed Navy Commander?!" Third Young Master frowned. The tense atmosphere in the surrounding also eased a little. However, this Third Young Master seemed to be unconvinced and he stared at Junior Leopard, "Him, the new Navy Commander? Ma Laizi, are you deceived by him?"


    "No, no, Third Young Master. His Excellency Zhou has the official seal from Admiral Li. It can''t be wrong!"


    "What official seal? Show it to me!"


    "This...!" Ma Laizi''s face revealed a troubled expression. He had just returned the official seal to Junior Leopard. Now that the Third Young Master wanted to see it, he could only turn around with a grimace and ask Junior Leopard, "Your Excellency Zhou, you see...!"


    Junior Leopard lifted his head and looked at the Third Young Master with some interest. Even though this person was haughty and arrogant, his cultivation was not bad. At an age of 16-17, he had already reached Level Three. Even though he could not match Junior Leopard, he could be considered the top amongst his peers. Looking at him, his position must not be small in Jiang City. He probably was the son of Garrison in the province. If not, he could not have the military might to command these soldiers. All these soldiers were from the military background and had been trained. They were much stronger than the yamen runners in the County Administration and those at the city gate. There were even two of them who emitted bloodlust. They obviously had gone on the battlefield and killed people before.


    When Third Young Master saw Junior Leopard looking over, he stared back in defiance, "Where is the official seal? Bring it over!"


    "Who are you?!" Junior Leopard steadily stood there and asked softly.


    Hearing this question, Third Young Master gave no reply but a cold snort. Following his cold snort, a wave of strong Qi force came sweeping over from his body.


    "A joke!" Junior Leopard felt his Qi Power and coldly smiled. He didn''t make any movement. His heart moved and Little Du who had originally been calmed down by him jerked forward. Its Qi Power exploded and it raised its head, "Howl---!"


    A wolf howl rang out, as if there was a jolt of lightning striking from above the sky. It shook the surroundings. This howl not only blocked the Third Young Master''s Qi Power completely, but also shocked the people till they fell over and the horses flipped. The soldiers were also stunned by the howl. Each of them dropped their weapons because their limbs went limp. Even those soldiers who had gone to the battlefield to kill before were no exception. The surrounding archers were even worse. It was because their arrows had been fully strung when Little Du howled, and they were shocked to the point that they let loose their hands. Dozens of arrows flew from the string and went straight for Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard only smiled coldly. He remained impassive. Little Du''s silver fur expanded and easily shielded Junior Leopard. All the arrows hit its body. This Little Du had an ancient bloodline and had long gained a body of bronze skin and steel bones. Even wizard weapons and sharp weapons were unable to cause any damage to it, let alone a few ordinary arrows. Those arrows produced metal clanging sounds when hitting its body. Arrows with greater force created sparks, while those without strength only touched its fur before dropping to the floor.


    "You dare to openly attack the imperial court''s official in broad daylight. Furthermore, we''re within the city, you''re wearing the clothing of officers and soldiers and wielding the army''s weapons. Who gave you all such balls? Are you all planning on revolting?!"


    Junior Leopard coldly snorted. Little Du was connected in heart and soul with him. Junior Leopard hadn''t even completed his words when it went forward pouncing towards Third Young Master.


    The horse that Third Young Master was sitting on was a rare breed. If not, it would have flipped over when Little Du howled. Even though it didn''t flip, it was also scared stiff. It was on tenterhooks and when it saw Little Du pouncing forward, it was shocked. It neighed and lifted its front hooves. Half of its body straightened up.


    The Third Young Master''s expression changed. He was young and had reached Level Three. He could be considered the cream of the crop among his peers. However, this Level Three, put in plain language, was created through medicine. Though his aptitude was not bad, he had never been to the battlefield before nor seen grand atmospheres before. That little bit of Qi force was condensed through his cultivation. It couldn match Little Du''s. When Little Du howled, he was scared stiff as well. The Qi Power and sharpness he had long disappeared. At this moment the horse he was sitting on was frightened and the wolf that was as big as a monster came pouncing over. In frenzy, he shouted weirdly and pushed off his body from the back of the horse. He jumped back for dozens of feet and landed on the floor. After landing, he retreated a few steps. His face was ghastly white. His hands reached for his waist and brought out a long saber that was emitting a chilling light. He took on a defensive posture.


    Who would have thought that Little Du would not entangle him? Instead it went for that black horse''s neck. This horse was considered a king in the northwest. When it was in front of Little Du, however, it didn''t have an ounce of resistance. It was bitten at the vital spot and went crashing down. It tried to struggle but half of its head was bitten off by Little Du and there was no more life in it.


    Little Du was suppressed these past few days. Now that Junior Leopard had intentions to reveal his might, he didn''t keep its fierceness in check. Little Du naturally wouldn''t let go of this opportunity. It then started biting the horse in front of these soldiers within the city. In a moment there was flesh and blood flying all around. The crowd looking at it was scared stiff.


    Little Du indeed had a ferocious personality, a primitive breed. In just a few breaths, it chewed the black horse till there was nothing left. Even the bones were half gone. It even licked the blood off the ground and then satisfiedly returned to Junior Leopard''s side. It was only at this moment that Third Young Master had some reaction. He looked at half of the bones on the floor. The traces of the mighty horse he was riding on had been wiped off. When thinking about how Little Du leaped forward just now and his embarrassing stunt, he was instantly angry. He didn''t care about anything else. He waved the long sword in his hands and a wave of green saber light flashed. It went pouncing towards Little Du directly. He shouted angrily, "You evil beast! I''ll go all out with you!"


    "Hu!" When Little Du saw Third Young Master rushing over, its gaze flashed a strand of cold light. Its body slightly shook, as if it wanted to pounce over. However Junior Leopard pressed its head and his body floated to the front. Seeing the Third Young Master''s posture, he raised his leg and kicked his abdomen. Third Young Master''s martial arts were not bad and he had some capabilities. However, in front of Junior Leopard, it wasn''t enough. Junior Leopard''s kick was fast and rushed. He couldn''t escape it in time. His sword hadn''t even struck Junior Leopard and he was sent flying out and landed on the floor in unconsciousness.


    Junior Leopard felt extremely comfortable after this kick. For some reason, ever since he sent Qi Ying flying with a kick that day, he felt extremely comfortable with using the leg to kick people. Now that there was someone who sent himself over, he naturally wouldn''t refuse the offer and sent him flying with a kick.


    After kicking, Junior Leopard coldly swept around. Even though a smile was plastered on his face, there wasn''t anyone who dared to meet his gaze. Wherever he swept his gaze, they would bow their heads and quiet down.


    "You''re called Ma Laizi?!" Junior Leopard finally fixed his gaze on the soldier who led him here.


    "Yes, my surname is Ma. Because I was born with a skin disease, hence I got this nickname!"


    Ma Laizi carefully answered. He was afraid that if he said something wrong and offended the person in front of him, he would be eaten by the wolf.


    "You''re the guard of the city gate, and also a soldier, is that right?!"


    "Yes!" Ma Laizi didn''t dare to say anything more and only nodded.


    "These people tried to rob and kill an imperial court''s official in the street of the city. You call some people over and tie them up then send them to the County Administration!"


    "Ah?!" When Ma Laizi heard that, he hurriedly said, "Mistake, this is a mistake! This young master is the third son of Garrison Ding. All these soldiers are from Jiang City''s garrison. They''re soldiers, not rebels!"


    "Not rebels?!" Junior Leopard coldly laughed. His feet flicked an arrow up from the floor and kicked it to Ma Laizi''s front, "What''s this? Where does this come from? If my pet didn''t have some intelligence, I would have become a bee''s nest! If this is not called revolting, then what is considered as a revolt? So what if he''s the Third Young Master of Garrison? Does he have an official title on him?"


    "This¡­!"


    "Since he doesn''t have any official title, how could he command these imperial court soldiers?" Junior Leopard asked sternly, "Hurry up and go, or are you thinking of shielding the rebel?!"


    Words spoken had already reached this point. Ma Laizi couldn''t do anything either. He could only climb up and run towards the city gate. He was just a small soldier guarding the city gate. The only people he could command were those few soldiers at the city gate. Now that such a thing had happened, he could only look for his own subordinates.


    Junior Leopard saw that his actions were slow and he knew that he was stalling for time. He only coldly smiled and patted Little Du. Little Du roared and its body ran forward and chased after Ma Laizi''s buttocks. Ma Laizi didn''t dare to play any tricks. He shouted weirdly and rushed for the city gate. He actually ran faster than a rabbit being chased by a dog!

 Chapter 163: The Navy Barrack

    Chapter 163: The Navy Barrack


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What did you say? That new commander knocked out Guard Ding''s son and sent him to the County Administration? He even charged him with rebellion?"


    Jiang City, Navy barracks. These barracks situated by the side of the Luo River had all of its lights lit up. Within the main barrack, the few leaders of the Jiang City Navy were sitting around a light. Under the flickering lights, their expressions were not good.


    Of course it would not be good. The Navy of Jiang City was their territory. Especially the Vice Commander, Wang Cheng, who was sitting in as captain. He originally thought that after Gao Gong had died, he would naturally become the commander of the Navy of Jiang City. He never thought that Li Yuan from the faraway Zhonghe City would send a commander over and spoil their plans completely.


    "Zhou Bao. Is he the fellow who defeated the Elders from the Pei and Luo families in Zhonghe City and also did a favour to Tian Long Taoism''s Wang She?"


    Wang Cheng was a forty something well-built man. His cultivation was only at Level Three; however he was a military man who rose from the bottom level to where he was now in the Navy of Jiang City. He had a lot of say in the Navy. There were four others gathered together with him. Sitting closest to him was a man in his thirties, even though he was wearing a military outfit. He had an air of literacy around him. His name was Jiang Xiao, a captain in the Navy of Jiang City. Among the rest of the three of them, there were two who were captains and the last one was a quartermaster.


    Even though Jiang City was situated in a strategic location, it was a small city. The Magistrate was just a Level Seven official. The Garrison was also only sub Level Seven. A Navy Commander like Junior Leopard may sound prestigious. However he was just only a Level Eight official. [TL: The officials'' ranks are different from the level system of martial artists]


    The Navy barracks did not have many people. Including the flag bearers, those burning fire and those rearing horses, adding everyone up, they would amount to 500 people. As for those that could really be used in battle, there were just over 300 people who were divided into 3 teams and were respectively led by those 3 captains.


    "Who cares where he''s from? This is Jiang City, not Zhonghe City. When he''s here, even if he''s a dragon, he''ll become a worm!"


    "Zhu Ba, don''t speak nonsense!" When Jiang Xiao heard him, his expression changed and he shouted in a low voice.


    "Why, Gigolo? That person hasn''t reached yet and you''re so eager to suck up to the new master!" The man called Zhu Ba squeaked weirdly.


    "You should just shut up when I want you to. Let''s listen to what Jiang Xiao has to say!" Wang Cheng said, "Jiang Xiao, speak. How should we handle this matter?"


    Wang Cheng trusted Jiang Xiao very implicitly. Even though this Jiang Xiao was born through the ranks, he was different from the other boorish men. His father was a scholar and he learned how to read from his father. He had studied before, however being a scholar meant that it was easy to read but hard to raise a family, his family was extremely poor. His scholar father died because of an accident. Though he can read books, he didn''t have the ability to score in the imperial exams. For the sake of making a living, he joined the army.


    It was unexpected that after he joined the army, his luck turned better. He was clever and had a good aptitude. Even though what he learnt in the army was Military Martial Arts, his progress was extremely fast. Adding on to the fact that he knew how to read, he knew alot more than the average soldier. He was far-sighted and had many ideas. He was admired by the superiors, hence within a few short years. He was promoted to be a team captain from a small soldier. He was also a trusted subordinate of the previous Navy Commander Gao Gong. He could barely be considered an advisor. As for the soldiers he brought, everytime he led them to battle, even though he could not be said to rank the highest merits, the casualties were definitely the least. Hence, he was deeply cherished by his subordinates and kept being promoted to become one of the three captains within the Navy of Jiang City.


    At the same time he knew how to act. His relationship with the higher-ups was good and his relationship with the few captains was good as well. It could be said that it was very comprehensive. In the whole Navy of Jiang City, apart from Zhu Ba, his relationship with the rest was extremely harmonious.


    As for Zhu Ba, he was reputed to be the bravest man in the Navy of Jiang City. His cultivation had also reached Level Three. His surname was Zhu and his left cheek had a red saber scar stretching to his jaw, hence, even when he was just a foot soldier, he was nicknamed as Zhu Ba. Until now, no one was able to recall what his real name was.


    "I guess everyone has heard of this Zhou Bao''s name. He did many big things in Zhonghe City. Even when placed in the whole pugilist world, amongst the younger generation, only those few youngsters that are nurtured by the major families and big sects could compare with him!" Jiang Xiao spoke, his gaze revealing a jealous and complicated look.


    "No matter how powerful he is, he''s just a kid. No matter how strong his martial arts are, his cultivation is only at Level Three. He''s unable to flip the sky here!" When Zhu Ba heard Jiang Xiao praising Junior Leopard, he was somewhat dissatisfied.


    "Martial arts are only one factor!" Jiang Xiao smiled bitterly and shook his head. "Ever since the news came here, I''ve been searching for information on this Zhou Bao. He''s very famous now; hence it''s easy to search. From what I''ve obtained, this Zhou Bao is extremely troublesome. He''s not someone we can deal with. Hence, I suggest that during this period of time, we''d better be more honest and stick to our rules!" Speaking till here, he helplessly looked at Wang Cheng, "Commander, what do you say?"


    "Gigolo, you only know how to extend other''s strength and diminish ourselves. How come I can''t see how troublesome is he?"


    "You think that he''s very easy to deal with?" Jiang Xiao smiled, his finger lightly tapping on the table, "I can tell you that this Zhou Bao is the most troublesome person to deal with. If you don''t believe me, you can try!"


    "I shall try then! It''s just a brat who doesn''t know how high the sky is and how thick the earth is. There''s nothing great about him!" Zhu Ba said with resentment and anger on his face.


    "Zhu Ba, shut your mouth!" Wang Cheng shouted coldly. He stared at Zhu Ba who talked until his saliva spat everywhere.


    "Jiang Xiao, continue. Tell us in detail about how he is difficult to handle!"


    "Yes!" Jiang Xiao nodded, "Firstly, his feats are powerful. Even though it''s said that he''s only at Level Three and is similar to everyone sitting here, don''t forget that when he was in the underground fire vein in Zhonghe City, he blocked many experts who were at Level Four or above. This is not just gossip, it has been completely validated. Hence it can be said that his battle prowess has long surpassed Level Three. To speak bluntly, I''m afraid that even if everyone sitting here were to go at him together, we''ll still not be his match!"


    "Nonsense!"


    "I''m not speaking nonsense!" Jiang Xiao coldly smiled, "He''s a disciple of the Wu''s and cultivates Tian Long Taoism''s unfathomable martial arts. We''re just normal soldiers cultivating the army''s military martial arts. Can this be compared? Let''s say for example that he''s holding a fine metal blade, and that we''re holding a wooden blade with a layer of silver paint smeared on it, even though the appearance is the same, could the wooden blade in your hands resist that metal blade of his?"


    The crowd was silent. Even though Jiang Xiao was exaggerating, the facts were placed in front of them. These people practiced martial arts, there was no reason for them to not know this.


    Cultivating the army''s military martial arts, no matter how high one''s aptitude and capability were, one would only reach Level Three. The reason was due to the army''s military martial arts being extremely inefficient and ineffective in purifying the Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth. Even if one cultivated it for life, one could forget about making a name for himself.


    Seeing the crowd became silent, Jiang Xiao spoke again. "Martial arts is only one factor. Looking at his heritage, he''s a Wu''s disciple and not a normal Inner Core disciple. He''s a Wu''s Elder''s sole disciple, a core disciple. He''s the one with the brightest future within the Wu''s younger generation. He''s also the only one in the last 200 years to become a Wu''s Elder before 20 years old. Even though his cultivation hasn''t reached Level Four, however he has racked up a lot of merits for the Wu''s in Zhonghe City. He''s the Seneschal of the Wu''s in Zhonghe. Even though this seneschal is just in name, who can neglect it? The Wu''s have their branch in Jiang City as well. Look at our Magistrate, Guard Ding. When they meet with the supervisor of the Wu''s, they have to be extremely polite. Zhou Bao as the Seneschal has a much higher position than the supervisor in Jiang City. From this perspective, this newly appointed eighth-grade commander has a much more solid background than our Magistrate and Guard Ding!"


    Jiang Xiao leisurely and slowly analyzed, "This is only the second factor. Thirdly, he has money. He''s very rich. With him in Zhonghe, the Wu''s can fish benefits from the underground fire vein that the other 3 families are unable to fish. As for him being the key character in all of this, do you all think that the Wu''s will mistreat him? With the Wu''s financial strength, as long as they split a few of the interests on the underground fire vein, it''ll be an enormous amount of wealth in others'' eyes. Not to mention the fact that he has gotten 19 Fire Way Spiritual Stones from Wang She. These Spiritual Stones, even if you take just one out to sell, it''ll be more valuable than the wealth of everyone combined here!"


    The crowd in the barracks was silent once again.


    What Jiang Xiao said was right. They had only heard of Spiritual Stones. To them, this was a thing of the legends. Even if they were grouped together to sell themselves, they were not even worth the value of a Spiritual Stone.


    "He''s young and has strong martial arts. We cannot compare to that. He has fame in Jianghu and has a strong background. We cannot compare to that. He has enormous wealth and heavenly treasures. We cannot compare to that as well. What do we have to fight him with?" Jiang Xiao said relaxedly, his tone carrying a tinge of helplessness.


    "Then, we really have no solution?" After Zhu Ba heard Jiang Xiao''s analysis, he finally started to fear.


    "What is called having a solution? What is called having no solution?" Jiang Xiao asked. He glanced at Wang Cheng, "This matter may not necessarily be a bad thing to us. Instead it can be an opportunity!"


    "Your intention is to join this fella?" Wang Cheng was a smart person. Upon thinking about it, he understood Jiang Xiao''s intention.


    "Commander of the Navy of Jiang City may be a fat lamb to us. However, it''s a joke to a person like him!" These words were somewhat heavy and the expressions of the crowd were not good, but they didn''t speak out any opinion. That was because they knew that even if the words were unpleasant to hear, it was a fact.


    "He''s so young. The position to him is just a very small stepping stone. Who knows, he may not even view this position seriously. He cannot just disobey the Admiral''s order. Even if he''s here, I estimate that he won''t do anything unnecessary!"


    "Then what is he here for?"


    "To rack up achievements and strategize a plan!" Jiang Xiao said.

 Chapter 164: A Freak Commander

    Chapter 164: A Freak Commander


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Racking up achievements, seeking capital!


    Hitting the nail on the head!


    Jiang Xiao revealed Junior Leopard''s thoughts in a sentence.


    He came to the Navy barracks of Jiang City for this reason. As for the complicated relationships within Jiang City and the behind-the-scenes of various influences, he was in no mood to deal with all that.


    He came here to destroy and kill the water bandits so as to gain merit.


    That was all.


    So as soon as he entered the city, he showed a domineering stance and without hesitation, he beat Guard Ding''s third son until he was half dead and even tied him up and brought him to the County Administration. He charged him for rebellion. Although this charge was not valid, he wanted to make a point to the influences in Jiang City that he had arrived and that his temper wasn''t good. They weren''t to mess with him, or he would release the dog!


    Just like what Jiang Xiao had said, Junior Leopard took no notice of the Magistrate and Garrison. Even if his rank was lower by one tier, it hadn''t occurred to him that his rank was actually lower.


    After beating his son half to death, he went to the Garrison Mansion to make a report and even brought a charge against the unlucky Third Young Master.


    Guard Ding was a clever man. He didn''t dare to offend this malefic. He was also afraid that something would happen to his baby boy. Hence in helplessness, he contacted the supervisor of the Wu Family in Jiang City. He treated Junior Leopard and the Magistrate to dinner in the most expensive restaurant in Jiang City and offered apologies on behalf of his son and pleaded for Junior Leopard to let him off the hook.


    Junior Leopard was also someone who could go with the tide. Thinking that he was new here and had just assumed his position and formally Guard Ding was also his own superior, he couldn''t let their relationship become too strained. Adding on to the fact that the supervisor of the Wu Family and the Magistrate were both in attendances pleading for Guard Ding''s son, Junior Leopard decided to follow the tide. After a round of drinks, everybody was happy and they all got the things that they wanted.


    After having had their fill of wine and rice, Junior Leopard drank a few more cups and took a rest at the branch of the Wu Family till the next morning. He then led Little Du to the navy barracks under the guidance of the servants of the Wu Family.


    "I''m Wang Cheng, leading the Navy of Jiang City to pay respect to the Commander!"


    What surprised Junior Leopard was that when he reached the Navy barracks, the Deputy Commander Wang Cheng had already led the officers and soldiers of the navy to wait outside the barracks. When they saw him coming, they paid their respect in unison. This shocked him.


    Looking carefully at those leaders in front, they were all extremely respectful. This caused Junior Leopard to be somewhat suspicious. He had long heard that this Jiang City Navy barracks was full of untamed people and they also colluded with the water bandits here and committed transactions that could not be known in the light. Since when did they become so docile? Could the sun really rise from the west?


    hocked as he was, he couldn''t ignore the hundreds of people kneeling on the floor. He hurriedly said, "Fellow brothers you don''t need to be so formal. Zhou Bao has just arrived, and I''m young and inexperienced. In the future I''ll need everybody''s help in many areas. Such formalities cause Zhou Bao to feel ashamed!"


    As he spoke, he stepped forward and lifted up the officers who were kneeling.


    As a result, the process of taking over the Navy barracks was surprisingly smooth. In the beginning, Junior Leopard was somewhat suspicious of whether these few old sly men were creating a trap for him. However, when the Vice Commander Wang Cheng brought him into the barracks and brought three captains and one quartermaster to narrate in detail about the workings of the whole Navy of Jiang City, Junior Leopard was able to conclude that this group of people did not seem to have any resistance towards him. On the contrary, they were extremely cooperative.


    This was quite unexpected to him, but at the same time, it calmed him and he relaxed.


    Although Jiang City was small, and the rank of a Navy Commander was not high (after all he led an army himself), his power within the barracks was great. It was a completely separate concept from being an Admiral''s personal guard. If he wanted to produce results here and complete Li Yuan''s mission, without the cooperation of these local bullies, it would be difficult.


    Originally he was scared of this group of old soldiers and local bullies being uncooperative and plotting against him. He thought of a few ways to suppress them hence, when he was in the city, he unforgivingly sought out Guard Ding''s Third Young Master. This was seen as a way of establishing his might and showing his determination towards all the forces in Jiang City.


    This was a fluke but aslo his first show of action. Now that he had reached the Navy barracks, he was preparing to reveal his capabilities when he realized that everything he had prepared was useless. The whole navy barracks was extremely respectful and their attitude expressed that they were willing to let him take over without qualms.


    While it was all smooth sailing he had some regret deep in his heart because he was not able to show his capabilities to this group of subordinates. Of course, that excluded the shock that Little Du had given them.


    "Commander, these are this months Navy''s income and expenses. Please check it out!" Right when he was busy entertaining silly ideas in his head, the quartermaster Wang Datong brought a thick account book and placed it on the table before Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard frowned as he looked at the thick book, "Excellency Wang, these matters are always handled by you. You should continue being in charge. When I see this I get a headache!"


    "That can''t be done!" Hearing Junior Leopard''s words, Wang Datong''s face lit up with joy,"You are the new Navy Commander. You must be very clear about our barracks'' expenses; otherwise I can''t tell you what will happen if something goes wrong in the future.


    "Something goes wrong? What could possibly go wrong?" Junior Leopard was somewhat confused, his face was earnest. "Excellency Wang, the reason why I came here is because of the Admiral''s order, to lead the army to fight a war. As for the rest, I really have no idea about matters of provision and money. Even if you show it to me, I won''t be able to understand. Why are you making things difficult for me?!"


    "This...!" Wang Datong didn''t expect Junior Leopard to be so frank, to straightforwardly say that he didn''t know anything. It looked like he would act as he saw fit. Everything he originally wanted to say escaped him and for the moment he stood there dazed and dumbfounded.


    "Your Excellency, you''re the Navy Comander. There are some things you should be aware of. Even if you don''t look at the account book, you should at the very least have some understanding of the Navy barracks expenses!" Wang Cheng spoke out at this moment and he said to Wang Datong, "Datong, you should keep this book and tell His Excellency the rough figures."


    "Yes!" Wang Datong nodded, "Your Excellency, this Navy has 496 people in total. There are three captains and 30 team captains. Every big team has 100 people and a small team has 10. There are 400 normal soldiers. The Commander and Vice Commander each lead one group of men and horses. Each team has 50 people. Furthermore those looking after the horses and miscellaneous stuff add up to 93 people. A soldier''s salary every month is 500 bucks, a team captain 800 bucks, the captain and quartermaster 1000 bucks each. The total salary every month is 51,000 bucks. Adding on to both of the Commanders'' salary, every month we require 55,000, which is 55 taels of silver!"


    "55 taels of silver?!" Junior Leopard said softly, "55 a month, then per year it is 660 taels. Are there any problems?"


    "Uh, yes. Our navy barracks'' salary is allocated once a year. Originally the set standard was 800 men...!"


    "800 men?!" Junior Leopard was stunned for a while. He then understood and nodded, "En, since it''s pegged to the standard of 800 men, there shouldn''t be any shortage?!"


    "Logically speaking, with the standard of 800 men, we''ll at least get 1000 taels every year. However, for the past few years, whenever the money has been distributed to us, there always is at most 500 taels. Hence, there are some inconsistencies!" Wang Datong said somewhat embarrassed.


    "Why is it so little?!"


    "Ugh, I don''t know. Although this salary is distributed by the military,it gets cut with every tier it goes through. Heaven knows how much those bastards have gobbled up!"


    "You should just directly tell me that you are short of money. Why go through all this bullshit?!" Junior Leopard smiled, "Since you are short of money every year, how do you all manage?!"


    "We take from one side to fill the other side. After trying to make it work for the last few years, I have run out of any more ideas!"


    "What a coincidence. You guys are fine for the past few years, but when I assume office, you''re unable to do it anymore!"


    "This is a problem that''s unavoidable. A few years ago, even though the salaries were not enough, we could still earn some extra money on the Luo River. We could receive protection fees from the merchants. Life was still passable. However, during this period, the water bandits on the river become more and more powerful. We were completely out of their league. After going a few times, not only did we not fish benefits, but we also spoiled the merchant goods. It had been a long time since anyone had come to hand over protection fees. Due to this matter, Commander Gao personally led the troops to kill the bandits. In the end, he paid for it with his life! Aye!" At this point, Wang Datong heaved a long sigh. The atmosphere within the barracks all of a sudden became sullen.


    "So that is the case?!" Junior Leopard finally understood. He really didn''t know all these before his arrival. This was too strange. This group of Navy soldiers didn''t collude with the water bandits. They were beaten till they hid in the barracks and didn''t dare to come out.


    This was vastly different from what he thought. However, this was only Wang Datong''s version of events. Even though it sounded credible, wouldn''t it be a shame if these guys were to band together to play him and he fell for it?


    Thinking about it, Junior Leopard turned his gaze unto Wang Cheng, "Commander Wang, you''re the old folk here in the barracks. How should we handle this matter in your opinion?!"


    Wang Cheng smiled bitterly, "Do we have any other choice? We either beat down the water bandits by the Luo River, or we starve together. There is no other way!"


    "I see!" Junior Leopard nodded, "Since Commander Wang has said so, we can only do as he says. I personally don''t like using my brains. I don''t wish to make trouble. Even though I''m a Commander, I''m used to charging at the fore of the ranks. Everyone here is my senior. If you have any ideas please put them forward. When the time comes, I''ll just be in charge of charging at the fore!"


    "How can this be, you''re the Navy Commander! Besides...!"


    "Of course it''s possible. I''m the Navy Commander conferred by the Admiral. I have to respond to this cause. However, if I''m to lead the soldiers to fight, I''ll screw it up. I''m myself am not afraid however, this concerns the life of the other soldiers, hence we should be more careful on how we deal with this matter!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly, "Okay, let''s settle this. You guys come up with the plan to deal with the water bandits. I''ll listen to you all. Just think about it slowly. Let me know when you get the results, and I won''t give you any trouble!" Junior Leopard then cupped his fists and left the barracks. This caused the few people in the barracks to stare at each other and smile bitterly.


    When had they ever met a commander with such a personality before?


    Each of them sighed in their hearts. They didn''t know whether it was a blessing or a curse to meet such a fellow!

 Chapter 165: The Broken Dragon Beach

    Chapter 165: The Broken Dragon Beach


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The river wind was like water.


    Several naval warships sailed along the broad Luo River and the water flowed gently. The one headed was slightly larger than the rest, which was the largest warship in the whole Navy of Jiang City. It was Navy Commander Junior Leopard''s ship. Originally, there was a larger warship, but while suppressing bandits; it had sunk to the river bottom along with Gao Gong.


    The Navy of Jiang City originally had 15 warships in different sizes. However, after wrestling with the water bandits on the river this period of time, they suffered significant losses and only 10 warships remained. Excluding the one Junior Leopard was on now and two other slightly larger ones, the other seven, in Junior Leopard''s view, were not so much warships as small sailboards. Their hulls were so small that could not even carry 10 men.


    Junior Leopard was utterly dissatisfied with this configuration, but there was no way. The Navy of Jiang City was short of funds after all.


    Half a month after coming to Jiang City, he had a very deep understanding of the Navy of Jiang City. He also knew that what the naval leaders had told him was true. Currently, the Navy of Jiang City was truly having a hard time. It was because that the water bandits were rampant, and the navy failed to suppress them and even the former Navy Commander died in the hands of the water bandits. All this left the Navy humiliated. The officers and soldiers in the Water Army Camp were so frightened by the water bandits that they did not dare to lift their head. As a result, the navy was more despised. In the past, all the merchants and docks in Jiang City had to pay protection fees to the navy on time, but now they were doing everything they could to delay, even to refuse to pay. Moreover, Guard Ding was getting more and more serious in underpaying the navy. It was conceivable how hard the Navy of Jiang City had been living now!


    After taking on the position of Navy Commander, Junior Leopard finally understood the difficulty of commanding an army. It was not like what was described in the novels that as long as you were a time traveler, you could be very powerful if you were a soldier and you could make achievements the time you went to the battlefield, and then heroes would scramble to bow down at your feet awaiting your orders¡ªall these described in books were deceiving.


    Even though the commanders of the navy had a low profile at the time of his arrival, it was their own business whether they kept low-key or deferential. He had to make decisions himself about all affairs.


    Actually, a few days ago, several merchant ships were hijacked on the river and many people were killed. These merchants all ran to the County Administration and the Garrison Mansion to ask the navy to suppress bandits without delay. The County Administration and the Garrison Mansion could not handle the enormous pressure, so they called Junior Leopard to discuss countermeasures.


    The two men were polite to Junior Leopard, but the hidden meaning behind their words was that they wanted Junior Leopard to take his men to suppress bandits.


    The ultimate purpose of Junior Leopard''s coming here was to suppress bandits, so he would not refuse it. However, likewise he asked Guard Ding to pay the navy a year''s wages to pacify them.


    As Junior Leopard had the handle of Guard Ding''s son, Guard Ding dared not refuse, albeit he did not want to. Immediately, he reluctantly scribed a note that allowed Junior Leopard to transfer money from the Garrison Mansion.


    Getting the wages, Junior Leopard returned to the barrack and immediately gave all the money to the quartermaster Wang Datong, asking him to distribute to the soldiers. Besides, he decided to send out army to suppress bandits three days later.


    Several leaders, including the Vice Commander, disagreed with his decision. They had two reasons. First, it was so hasty that they may not prepare adequately. Second, those water bandits were cunning and had a lot of finger men in Jiang City and even in the navy barrack, so each and every move of the navy barrack could not hide from them. Thus, if they rashly took action, they would suffer a lot.


    Junior Leopard did not care about this at all.


    It was because that he did not need to care about this.


    Half a month was enough for him to know these water bandits. In terms of the Navy of Jiang City, these water bandits were very powerful.


    Actually, the water bandits in Jiang City were not a gang, but several gangs. Two of the biggest were on the Broken Dragon Branch and the Multiple Chain Dock. The two water bandits gangs not only had a certain amount of leaders whose cultivations had reached Level Three, but both the two bandit chiefs were Level Four masters, the most powerful in each gangs.


    However, there were a few differences between the two water bandits gangs. The bandit chief of the water bandits on the Broken Dragon Beach was Li Sanbao whose martial arts began with muscles practice, and now he was invulnerable. Although his Internal Qi''s cultivation was only Level Four, the toughness of his body was no less than a Level Five master''s.


    He was peremptory and cruel. There were more than 20 small ships in his gang, all of which operated at ultra-high speed just like the wind. Once his men robbed, they gave no quarter and basically never left any survivors. After the robbery, they set fire to the scene, and only a few lucky ones escaped. Whereas, the water bandits on the Multiple Chain Dock were completely different from them. They were more reasonable and just wanted money but not killing. As long as you obediently gave them money, they would not kill you.


    However, compared to the water bandits on the Broken Dragon Beach or even the other water bandits on the Luo River, none were more cunning than the water bandits on the Multiple Chain Dock. Even now, nobody knew who their bandit chief was, just knowing that the chief was a Level Four master. Moreover, the water bandits on the Multiple Chain Dock did not usually act and only acted on real big deals.


    While in Junior Leopard''s opinion, they were not real water bandits but more like water tyrants. Because they were connected to several large wealthy merchants in Jiang City. Each year the wealthy merchants paid a considerable fee to the Multiple Chain Dock to keep them unimpeded on the Luo River. Only those who did not know what was good for themselves would directly pass Jiang City without visiting the dock. What was more; they only robbed ships with goods of great value. Therefore, although they did not often commit crimes, their cases were all big deals that would be sensational.


    The Wu family was among those wealthy merchants that handed over protection fees every year.


    Sitting in the chair that he ordered people to carry to the prow, stroking the long hair of Little Du on his side, Junior Leopard looked rather leisurely. However, the Vice Commander of the navy Wang Cheng behind him dared not have the slightest ease, but was very nervous.


    "Your Excellency, we can''t proceed any further. The Broken Dragon Branch is in front!" He said with an anxious face, pointing forward, "if we move forward, we will be attacked by Li Sanbao!"


    "He''s a water bandit. I''m a navy. Why should I fear his attack?" Junior Leopard replied with a sneer, "Vice Commander Wang, aren''t you too timid?"


    "I''m too timid?" Wang Cheng was choked by Junior Leopard''s words and nearly leaped up. "Your Excellency, I''m for the sake of brethren. Li Sanbao is very strict about the control of ships passing around the Broken Dragon Beach. Besides, his men were everywhere there. So there''s heavily guarded. It''s too dangerous to boldly sail there with brethren like this! Your Excellency, you are powerful, so you don''t fear. But brethren have no such good feats!"


    Junior Leopard''s eyebrows twitched. He heard the hidden meaning behind Wang Cheng''s words: If you want to be a hero, you can go, but don''t bring anyone else in!


    "You''re right. If we encounter an ambush here, I don''t fear, but brethren in the rear may be hurt. It''s my thoughtlessness. Thanks to your reminding, otherwise, we''ll be in trouble!" Junior Leopard did not blame Wang Cheng for his apparent irreverence. Instead, he accepted his proposal.


    This made Wang Cheng a little embarrassed.


    "Vice Commander Wang, you go and ask brethren in the rear to stop and wait here!"


    "But..." Junior Leopard''s acceptances of his proposal made Wang Cheng hesitate. He didn''t expect the new leader to be so easy-going. Considering the fact that he had been with Junior Leopard for half a month, he realized that not only did the Commander not manage the affairs, but he acted in a very casual way. He did not have the consciousness of being a Navy Commander at all but was not different from an ordinary teenager. It was just that his martial arts were more powerful and he had more authority.


    "Ah, is it a tragedy or a blessing to have such a commander!"Wang Cheng sighed privately. Without delay, he rushed to the side of the ship and ordered the soldier in charge of the flag signal to give ships in the rear the tip to stop.


    "Look, Your Excellency Jiang! The commander''s ordering us to stop!" Like Junior Leopard, Jiang Xiao was standing on the prow of another slightly larger ship, staring at the direction of the Broken Dragon Beach with a strained expression. As he heard the sound near his ears, he looked up and saw the flag signal from Junior Leopard, and at once he relieved. Then he immediately ordered the ship to stop, but soon, his expression changed sharply. "Why doesn''t the commander''s ship stop?"


    "I don''t know!" The soldier shook his head and said, "Perhaps it''s because the command''s ship is so big that it has to sail for a while before stopping!"


    "Rubbish!" Jiang Xiao scolded. "That''s the size of that ship. After a short sail, it''ll enter the Broken Dragon Beach!"


    The soldier lowered his head, not daring to speak. Jiang Xiao looked around and found that both Zhu Ba''s ship and another captain''s ship had stopped, and so did the small ships in the rear, which were more than a dozen. Only the commander''s ship was going forward and was about to rush into the Broken Dragon Beach.


    With a gleam in his gaze, Jiang Xiao ordered, "tell Old Song not to stop! Keep up with the commander''s ship!"


    Old Song was the ship''s Shipmaster.


    "What? Not to stop? Your Excellency, the Broken Dragon Beach is just in front!"


    "That''s why we should move on!" Jiang Xiao coldly replied. Then he turned his head to stare at the soldier with a strange twinkle in his gaze, "Little Kun, perhaps today you are lucky enough to see the big spectacle that you never saw in your life!"


    "Your Excellency! Jiang Xiao''s ship is catching up!" Wang Cheng went to Junior Leopard and said.


    "Oh!" Leaning back in the chair, Junior Leopard nodded slightly with his eyes closed and gently stroked Little Du''s soft silvery fur. "We''ll soon be in the Broken Dragon Beach, right?"


    "Yes, it''s 500 feet away from the Broken Dragon Beach. Your Excellency, that''s the area where Li Sanbao expressly forbade all ships from entering!" Looking at the ship slowly turning in the direction of a bend in the river, once again Wang Cheng looked worried.


    "Commander Wang, tell brethren to return to the boat hold. The current here is very fast. The ship should not need to operate too much!"


    "This..."


    "Don''t dawdle, just do it!"


    "Yes!" Wang Cheng obeyed to ask everyone to hide in the boat hold. After his task was complete, he returned to stand behind Junior Leopard.


    "Your Excellency, brethren have all gone in!"


    "Good!" Little Leopard nodded and opened his eyes. At this point, the ship had already moved along the fierce current and entered a curve which was formed by River Heart Island and the river bank, and the speed suddenly became fast. Looking at the open river beach on River Heart Island, Junior Leopard slowly narrowed his eyes, "is that the Broken Dragon Beach?"


    "Yes, Your Excellency, that''s the Broken Dragon Beach!" Wang Cheng also fixed his gaze on that vast expanse river beach and his gaze became cold and stern.

 Chapter 166: Today, I Come Here to Kill

    Chapter 166: Today, I Come Here to Kill


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Li Sanbao was quite annoyed lately, extremely annoyed.


    His practice of Cross Training Diamond Body had runned into bottlenecks. No matter how many methods he had tried, this year, he didn''t make any progress with his Diamond Body. As for his cultivation, he had reached Level Four 10 years ago. No matter how he tried, he just could not break into Level Five. This all bothered him a lot.


    He believed, however, that soon he would not worry about this at all. In recent years, while leading a band of brothers, he obtained a lot from running amuck and committing robberies in the Luo River; including many medicinal herbs. Some of these herbs were able to be used for processing Bone-Forging Soup. Besides that, he scraped some herbs together for processing Tendon-Changing Soup, among, which the quantity of some medicinal herbs was too small.


    Compared to the ones needed for Bone-Forging Soup, the medicinal herbs for Tendon-Changing Soup were more elusive. Some of the herbs were especially hard to find, even for those barons. He obtained the herbs by accident in one robbery. Although the quantity was not enough, if processed with other medicinal herbs, the effect of these herbs would be much better than without them.


    He was a sensible man and knew that he had no chance of entering the Tendon-Changing Realm and Level Seven. He, therefore, preferred to use up these medicinal herbs, so that his body could be improved to bear the Level Five cultivation.


    The Cross Training Diamond Body was indeed very amazing, it could improve his body several folds, including the strength of his viscera, tendons, and vessels. With this strength, both of his attack force and defensive power would be improved several times. This kind of improvement, however, was temporary.


    When applying Cross Training Diamond Body, his body strength improved so much that he could bear the Internal Qi of Level Five or even Level Six cultivation. Once he released Diamond Body, however, his body strength would quickly reduce to the first level of Bone-Forging Realm, which was the Level Four standard.


    It meant that he could improve his body strength to Level Five or Six in a short time, but his Internal Qi cultivation was still in Level Four, which was mismatched.


    Of course, there was no need to match them. In the small Jiang City, Level Four experts with Cross Training Diamond Body''s addition to their body strength were quite rare, which provided him more conditions to be rude. Otherwise, he could not run wild around the Luo River for so long.


    "Forget it. I shouldn''t think so much. I''m just a water bandit from a small city, and I shouldn''t live in vain hoping to be a legendary expert. I''d do better to stay here as freely as I can!" When Li Sanbao figured out this point, a smile appeared on his ferocious face. " Level Five. As long as my cultivation is able to reach Level Five, then I can practice the secret skill. With the Cross Training Diamond Body and the secret skill, I should be able to compete with the guy from the Multiple Chain Dock. Hem, that guy has suppressed me for so many years. I''m extremely reluctant. Once I succeed in practicing...!"


    He was sitting in a chair, closing his eyes and imagining the good thing, as hasty voice woke him up. "Big Master, Big Master...!"


    "Why are you so loud? Even if the people of Multiple Chain Dock came here to trouble us, you need not to be so loud!"


    Imagining the good thing, Li Sanbao shouted angrily.


    "No, Big Master. It''s not the Multiple Chain Dock but the Navy of Jiang City. Their fleet is approaching Broken Dragon Beach. They seem to be sailing toward us!"


    "Navy of Jiang City?!" Li Sanbao stood up harshly, with a confused face, "Why are they coming here?"


    "They seem to...!" The person was around 20 years old, and he had a piece of white cloth on his head, who was considered to be strong. Hearing Li Sanbao''s question, he answered with a little hesitation, "They seem to come to suppress bandits. Oh, no, suppress us!"


    "Suppress us?!" Li Sanbao seemed incredulous as if hearing a big joke, "The Navy of Jiang City is coming to suppress us. Do they have reinforcements now?!"


    "No. It''s still the dozen ships like last time. The number is smaller. It''s said that the new Navy Commander was executing command of the Jiang City Guard to come to Broken Dragon Beach!"


    "The new Navy Commander in Jiang City. You mean the boy named Zhou Bao?!"


    "Yes!"


    "I see. You can withdraw. Let the brothers prepare for this and keep an eye on the Broken Dragon Beach. And make sure these guys pluck up and gain courage. Damn! I don''t care who they are. As long as they dare to enter Broken Dragon Beach, then they break the rule, and you will hit them. Understand?"


    "Yes!" The water bandit said, and ran out in a hurry.


    "Zhou Bao. What does the boy want to do?!" After the water bandit ran out, Li Sanbao became serious. He was the head of the water bandits in Jiang City, and he was a typical man in Jianghu who was always first to recieve information. Thus, he was very familiar with Junior Leopard, who was the younger in his heyday in Zhonghe City during this period.


    Junior Leopard, the personal guard of Zhonghe Prefecture Admiral Li Yuan, was 14 years old, with a Level Three cultivation and a fighting strength stronger than Level Four experts, who also had a first-class merit in recapturing Zhonghe City and was highly appreciated by the new Level Nine expert Wang She from Tian Long Taoism.


    These were the most basic and truest bits of information about Junior Leopard. In the beginning, Li Sanbao was a little surprised at his assuming office in Jiang City; meanwhile he was cautious about it. Li Sanbao was rude and cruel, but he was not stupid. He was afraid of Junior Leopard, not because of his strength but his background, including Li Yuan, the Wu Family, and Wang She. None of them did he dare provoke. Therefore, during the half month when Junior Leopard assumed office, both he and his Broken Dragon Beach Navy were well-behaved without any excessive movements. He wanted to observe Junior Leopard''s habits and characteristics to see what kind of figure he was.


    But according to the information Li Sanbao got from his planted agent in the navy, the boy was just a teen knowing nothing but owing great feats. All the stuff in the navy was still managed by these former officers including Wang Cheng. Junior Leopard seldom went to the barracks if there was no big event. He always stayed in his room to practice. So Li Sanbao gradually set his mind at rest, and thought Junior Leopard came to the Jiang City Navy merely for credentials. Since he had not been out for dozen days, and he had lost many earnings, therefore, two days ago, he went out several times to commit robbery with his fellows.


    It was rewarding.


    Unexpectedly, they hadn''t imagined that Junior Leopard would come to bother them with the Jiang City Navy before they had time to inspect the spoils of war.


    This was really a surprise to him.


    Li Sanbao, however, was not a timid guy. It was said that"There is always a solution to a problem". The Broken Dragon Beach was his place. Even if Junior Leopard was a real dragon, at the Broken Dragon Beach, he still had to be humble and reduce his morale.


    Thinking of this, Li Sanbao revealed a hush Evil Qi in his ferocious face, and he turned around to walk out of the room.


    ...


    ...


    "Your Excellency, we now arrive at Broken Dragon Beach!"


    In one convolution of an agitated flow of water, Junior Leopard''s warships finally entered into the river between River Heart Island and the bank. Marshland on the River Heart Island was clear, allowing good visability.


    "Do those ships in the front all belong to Li Sanbao?"


    "Yes!"


    The three little boats were in the rapid stream, sailing quite fast in their sights, as if they shuttled from the river directly, "Stop! This is Broken Dragon Beach. One more step, then we will attack!"


    There were only a dozen people altogether on the three little boats. But all of them were holding bows with arrows, which all aimed at Junior Leopard''s warships.


    "Your Excellency!" Seeing the posture of the people on the three boats, Wang Cheng couldn''t help but change his expression, and prepare to say something. At this time, a flash of fire light appeared on the marshland, and dozens of people showed up there, the head of whom was captain of water bandits in Broken Dragon Beach, Li Sanbao. Wearing a black cloak, the tall man Li Sanbao had a fierce look on his face. He looked at them with a sneer in the fire light. There was a crowd of archers surrounding Li Sanbao. The difference from the archers on the little boats was that these archers used fire arrows instead of ordinary ones.


    "Commander Wang, I have no business with your Navy of Jiang City. Why do you come here?" Li Sanbao smiled grimely, at that time; Junior Leopard''s warships were merely 300 feet from the beachhead. This distance was enough for a Level Three or Four experts to clearly see the enemy''s expression.


    Li Sanbao looked at Wang Cheng with a faint sneer. When he glanced at Junior Leopard and the Little Du beside him, a faint unnatural look flashed across his face.


    "Commander Wang, you seem to be very familiar with Li Sanbao?"


    "Familiar is not the correct term. We''ve simply dealt with each other before." Wang Cheng said stably.


    "One more question. If I kill him, will I become your enemy?"


    "Of course not!" Wang Cheng''s eyes brightened, "His Excellency is to kill Li Sanbao?!"


    "Not only him!" Junior Leopard stood up from the chair. Although he was very young, his body had basically developed into an adult''s shape. He was much taller than Wang Cheng beside him. At the same time, Little Du also stood up with him. A surge of frenzied Qi Power scattered from the man and the wolf, which totally covered the whole of the warships and the surrounding water. Nobody knew whether this was intentional or not.


    "Whoosh, la la la!" A strange scorching wind suddenly blew on the water''s surface and then dispersed.


    The wind was scorching and dry, which was just like the dust of the desert. It fiercely pushed the water away. This surprised Li Sanbao standing on the beachhead.


    "Damn, the boy''s strength is much higher than Level Three!" Feeling Junior Leopard''s Qi Power and seeing the evil Silver Wolf beside him, Li Sanbao''s expression went bitter.


    "Shoot!" He ordered, following which the dozens of archers in the three little boats shot their arrows to Junior Leopard''s warships at the same time.


    "Whoosh, wu-" Little Du growled and his body moved forwards with a rush to the beachhead dodging the archers'' arrows. Junior Leopard also laughed coldly at the arrows. Once he raised his left hand, three fist-sized flames suddenly showed up and then rotated around his wrist, flashing dazzling golden light.


    "Commander Wang, you just stay here and watch!"


    Junior Leopard glanced faintly at Wang Cheng who had been forced to the ship''s side by his Qi Power, "Today, I come here to kill!"

 Chapter 167: The Black Pearl

    Chapter 167: The Black Pearl


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Today, Junior Leopard was here to kill!


    After having an in-depth understanding of the bandits around Jiang City, Junior Leopard decided to find a gang to fight with in order to wear down the arrogance of these bandits, in case that they thought the new Navy Commander was a jelly fish.


    Of course, Junior Leopard also knew that there must be spies among his navy that would leak the information about suppressing bandits.


    But he didn''t care, and there was no need to care.


    He never thought about having these navy soldiers help him suppress bandits. The reason why he brought them was to let them watch while he was killing.


    Working with Little Du, he had the confidence to take down a Level Seven expert let alone those domineering county bandits. Even the legendary bandit chief Li Sanbao could not draw his attention.


    As expected, when they entered in Broken Dragon Beach, those bandits were well prepared and gave them a warning by shooting numerous arrows at them.


    Yet before the warning finished, Little Du jumped from the boat and flew towards Broken Dragon Beach, as though the 300 feet water was nothing to him. A shadow appeared in the sky and then it was at the beach, it made those fire arrows from Broken Dragon Beach seem like a joke.


    All of the fire arrows were blocked by the shadow of Little Du, whom had already reached the beach before everyone realized it.


    "Damn it!" Li Sanbao cursed, he knew that things would go wrong when he saw the flying shadow of Little Du. Seeing Little Du approaching; he leaned forward his body and used Cross Training Diamond Body, pushing out a fist.


    Sky Savage Fist Method!


    One Fist Shatters Bone!


    This fist itself was powerful, yet with the Cross Training Diamond Body that Li Sanbao used, this fist was powerful enough to crack stones.


    However, Little Du never had the intention to fight with Li Sanbao head to head, for its advantage was speed, very fast speed, fast enough to amaze Junior Leopard, which could never be understood by people like Li Sanbao.


    The fist with mighty power suddenly hit empty space. Before Li Sanbao could change his movement, he felt coldness on his neck, followed by a sharp pain directly sensed by his brain.


    "Ah!"


    He only had the time for one muffled word before Little Du bit his head off.


    The warm blood was spurting everywhere.


    Little Du didn''t stop after biting off Li Sanbao''s head; instead, it turned around, jumping towards the crowd of bandits.


    Everything happened so fast that nobody except Junior Leopard had a clear sight of what happened, especially for those bandits, their boss died before they could realize.


    Two breaths, at most it happened within two breaths.


    Those who came up later, like the whole navy on Junior Leopard''s warship and people on Jiang Xiao''s ship, only saw a flash of silver light. The silver light blocked out all the fire arrows shooting towards warships and then rushed onto the Broken Dragon Beach, causing a mess of flesh and blood. When everything was over, no living person was on the Broken Dragon Beach.


    "What!" Everyone on the ship took a deep breath and then suddenly heard a huge sound. It was caused by three golden fireballs that Junior Leopard had launched to hit the three little boats.


    The three fireballs were only expected to crack some holes in the hull of the boats. However, as soon as the fireballs touched the boats, they exploded and blew everything into the sky without giving the people on the boat a chance to escape.


    From beginning to end, everything happened within a few breaths. Those elite water bandits on the Broken Dragon Beach who were rampant for more than 10 years were eliminated by this man and a wolf.


    "Water bandits on Broken Dragon Beach¡­ Is this all they can do?" Junior Leopard asked coolly, with his feet slightly knocking the deck. Wang Cheng finally came to realize what happened. He was going to speak when he noticed some eccentricity of the deck Junior Leopard knocked. Listening carefully, his look changed instantly, "They''re drilling the ship!"


    Water bandits were drilling the ship!


    When Junior Leopard and his men arrived at Broken Dragon Beach, some of the water bandits who were good at water skills and responsible for drilling ships had been waiting under water for a long time. As soon as Junior Leopard''s warships entered the Broken Dragon Beach, they dived below, swam to the bottom of the warship and started to drill. They never thought that their boss and those elite bandits could be wiped out in such a short time by only a man and a wolf.


    After Little Du killed everyone on the Broken Dragon Beach, they were still drilling the ships tirelessly, which made Junior Leopard feel annoyed. After Junior Leopard knocking the deck with his feet, invisible Internal Qi passed down below the warship.


    Ripples suddenly appeared around the ship and was followed by streams of blood coming from underwater. Then three bodies surfaced, all of whom died due to broken viscera because of Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi.


    "There should be more rats underwater, your Excellency Wang. As members of navy, you should all be able to handle it, right?"


    "Of course!" Wang Cheng answered loudly. It would be a joke if they could not handle the rest of the water rats when Junior Leopard had already wiped out the most powerful water bandits at Broken Dragon Beach. If they couldn''t, they could never raise their head in front of Junior Leopard.


    After he ordered some soldiers who were good at water skills to jump off the ship, he made people give a flag signal to Jiang Xiao, who apparently dared not to consider this a slight. Following a few sounds of "pit-a-pat", more navy soldiers jumped into the water to fight with those water rats of Broken Dragon Beach.


    "Other warships can come now. Let''s go ashore and clean up the rest." Junior Leopard said, lifting his foot and flying towards the Broken Dragon Beach like a leaf in the wind.


    Wang Cheng was about to open his mouth to remind Junior Leopoard of the danger and tell him to wait until everyone came here, but he quickly came to realize that according to the ability of him and his wolf, no one could be their competitor and so there was no need to worry about their safety. He then smiled and beckoned his man to give another flag signal, letting the rest 13 ships enter the Broken Dragon Beach.


    ...


    ...


    "Your Excellency, look! His Excellency Jiang is calling us to enter the Broken Dragon Beach!"


    On the surface of Luo River, 12 Navy ships of Jiang City were waiting silently. Their captains, led by Zhu Ba were anxious, walking back and forth on the deck of their ships and looking at the direction of Broken Dragon Beach. Apparently they were worrying about something.


    "It''s Jiang Xiao. What does he mean?" Zhu Ba frowned, looking at the flag signal from Jiang Xiao''s ship, "What are they saying?"


    "They are saying¡­ They are saying..."


    The soldier next to him looked at the flag signal. His expression gradually became weird and began to stammer.


    "Quickly! What is he saying?" Zhu Ba asked impatiently.


    "They''re saying that Commander has already killed Li Sanbao and his men. They''re calling for us to enter Broken Dragon Beach to clean up the rest of the water bandits with His Excellency!"


    "What? In such a short time?" Zhu Ba asked surprisingly, "Are you sure that you''re reading it right? Check carefully!"


    "Yes, His Excellency. They have repeated it many times. There''s nothing wrong!" The soldier said with a sense of grievance.


    "Well!" Zhu Ba put his hand under his chin and the muscle at the corner of his eyes twitched twice. The red scar was like a living earthworm, making his not-so-good looking face more hideous, "Damn it, treasure comes from danger. Whether it''s true or fake, let''s go!"


    "Yes sir!" The soldier left with this order.


    "How could he kill Li Sanbao and his elites so quickly?" Zhu Ba touched his stubbly chin and wondered, "If so, it seems that we won''t suffer losses when we follow him!"


    During his pondering, the warship was restarted, heading towards the Broken Dragon Beach.


    ...


    ...


    "Your Excellency, look at this ship!"


    River Heart Island was situated in the middle of Luo River, with an area of more than 30 square meters and a flat terrain. The water flow of Luo River was divided into two parts here by it, one part of which was connected to the Broken Dragon Beach on the north shore while the other part was Narrow River Path.


    Since Li Sanbao took up the River Heart Island, he blocked the side of the Broken Dragon Beach, leaving only the other side for ships to pass along the Narrow River Path. The side which was left was reformed into a dock and a port by those bandits. They also set up military forces at surroundings, the size of which was almost the same as the navy barracks besides the riverside of Jiang City.


    Junior Leopard led Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao and some other Navy Commanders and arrived at the port where they were suddenly attracted by a ship stopping there.


    Compared with Junior Leopard''s warship, this ship was five times bigger. It was over 300 feet long and 50 to 60 feet wide. Three tall masts were aloft on the streamlined boat body. How prestigious!


    "This is Li Sanbao''s ship, right?" Looking at this ship, Junior Leopard was excited inside, for this ship was so similar to the Black Pearl in Pirates of the Caribbean. He wanted to take it right now.


    "Yes, it is. It''s called the Black Tornado!"


    "Black Tornado? Why doesn''t he call it Li Kui? Such a bad taste." Junior Leopard murmured, "From now on, it''s called the Black Pearl!"


    "Black Pearl?!" Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao and other people looked at each other speechlessly. They didn''t think it looked like a pearl.


    But now that Junior Leopard called it as Black Pearl, it should be called as Black Pearl. After seeing Junior Leopard and his wolf kill all those men, Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao could never think about disobedience. After all, in front of such absolute power, the small conspiracy in their mind could not work at all.


    "Your Excellency! Your Excellency! We''ve found it! We''ve found it!" At that time, Zhu Ba ran from far away ecstatically and shouted, "Your Excellency! We''ve found it! We''re going to be rich! We''re going to be rich!"

 Chapter 168: Flipping Sky Seal & Water Bandits Treasures

    Chapter 168: Flipping Sky Seal & Water Bandit''s Treasures


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    They indeed had gotten it.


    Upon reaching River Heart Island, Junior Leopard let Little Du follow behind the navy to clear the remaining forces on the island. Though they were the remaining forces, their numbers were not small. Li Sanbao and his personally groomed underlings were all dead so that although the remaining water bandits were numerous, they had no heart to battle. Adding on to the fact that Little Du was following nearby, after an hour, most were killed and the rest were captured, apart from a lucky few who escaped. Approximately 100 bandits were tied up and brought to Broken Dragon Beach.


    Junior Leopard was in no mood to see them. His thoughts were on the spoils of war.


    He reached the bank of the shore with Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao. Zhu Ba had brought a team to look for Li Sanhe''s property.


    As one of the water bandits with the biggest forces in Luo River, Junior Leopard believed that Li Sanbao would have had immense wealth. In fact, most of the navy thought so.


    There was a group of captives, and though none of them were Li Sanbao''s trusted subordinates, it was very easy to find Li Sanbao''s treasure vault.


    When Junior Leopard followed Zhu Ba into Li Sanbao''s treasure vault, his eyes were momentarily blinded by the wealth of gold and silver. No wonder people wanted to be water bandits. This kind of business was just too profitable.


    The silver and gold alone would amount to over 20,000 taels, not to mention the rest. Adding on the accessories, jewelry, precious stones and pearls, the value would be magnified many times over.


    Apart from these, there were also many weapons and some armor. The weapons and armor were nothing in Junior Leopard''s eyes, but it was extremely valuable to Wang Cheng and the rest. The armor was much stronger than the standard ones of the Jiang City Navy. Even though it was not enough to equip the whole navy, it could equip the elites. This alone would raise the fighting capacity of the navy by more than 50%.


    "Your Excellency, look at this!" When Junior Leopard was inspecting carefully, when he heard an excited voice. He raised his head and saw Zhu Ba touching some type of mechanism. He opened a secret door within the treasure vault. Behind the secret door was a passageway, however, the passageway was not long. One glimpse and one could see the end. Below the treasure vault was a natural cave. The cave was not big, only 30 meters in circumference. It was chilly inside. Upon closer inspection, inside the cave were rows of shelves. These shelves were all filled with medicinal ingredients, as if it was a medicine shop.


    Zhu Ba, Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao were the first to enter the passageway. Junior Leopard followed behind.


    Zhu Ba was the fastest. Upon entering the passageway, he opened a drawer on the shelf and took out the medicinal ingredients inside to smell. His face immediately revealed an excited expression, "Your Excellency, these are¡­!"


    "I know! They are medicinal herbs for strengthening the body!" Junior Leopard interrupted his words and casually opened a drawer. He clawed a bunch of medicinal herbs and sniffed them, "Why, are you interested?!"


    "What? Why would you say that? I''m not interested in these!" Zhu Ba said hurriedly rolling his eyes, "I''m only interested in the things outside!"


    Those present were all clever people. They all understood that they were not fated with these medicinal herbs. Among these three, even Jiang Xiao who was the youngest was 33 years old. Their cultivation remained at Level Three and what they cultivated was not the proper Internal Qi way. Even if they had medicinal soup for strengthening the body placed in front of them, it would not be beneficial for them. Even if these medicinal ingredients were placed in their hands, they would ultimately choose to sell them and earn some money and not really use them to strengthen the body. Now that Junior Leopard was present, they would naturally express their attitude within the first few moments.


    "The things outside!"


    Thinking about the silver and gold outside, Junior Leopard smiled. "Today the brothers have worked hard. They should be properly rewarded. When Wang Datong comes, let him distribute the spoils outside to everyone. As for the way of distribution, I leave it up to you guys!"


    "Thank you Your Excellency!" The three of them expressed their gratitude repeatedly. Especially Zhu Ba, his face was full of merry. He opened his mouth wide, revealing his big yellow teeth and emitting a strong smell, which caused Junior Leopard to frown.


    "Your Excellency, shouldn''t we get some brothers to bring all these back to the barracks?!" Wang Cheng asked.


    "Back to the barracks?!" Junior Leopard frowned. He seemed to have thought of something. "Commander Wang, don''t you think that our navy barracks are a little too small?!"


    "Too small?!" Wang Cheng was stunned for a while before understanding, "You mean...!"


    "River Heart Island is not bad. In the future we should set up our navy barracks here. Commander Wang, you are someone rooted in the navy. This shouldn''t be a problem?!"


    "Not a problem!" Wang Cheng thought for a while, "Although the barracks position is fixed by the rule, we can set up a training ground here. Anyway, River Heart Island has always been occupied by Li Sanbao. Jiang City has never interfered with it. Now that we have conquered it, it would be a pity if we didn''t grab it in our hands. However, there are some connections that need to be established...!"


    Speaking till here, Wang Cheng''s face became somewhat hesitant.


    "Then I will leave this task to you to handle. Don''t be afraid of spending money. When this matter is settled, we will have lots of money!" Junior Leopard said, "As for how it works, I will leave it to you. I have no experience in this area!"


    "Your Excellency please relaxes. I will definitely do a proper job of this matter. However, in front of the Magistrate and Garrison you may be needed to say some words!"


    "No problem!" Junior Leopard said, "I believe the Magistrate and the Garrison will give me some face!"


    "Your Excellency, we have a discovery here!"


    There was suddenly an excited voice from above.


    What did you discover?!" Jiang Xiao asked.


    "It seems to be a manual about martial arts!" The voice upstairs replied. It was one of the navy captains, Yuan Long.


    The small group of people in the cave looked at each other. Their eyes revealed surprise and excitement as they exited the secret cave.


    Your Excellency, look!" Yuan Long saw Junior Leopard coming out, and he hurriedly placed a half-opened wooden box in front of him.


    Junior Leopard was not courteous. He took it away to examine. There were two books. One was yellow, with the words ''Cross Training Diamond Body''. This was the martial arts that Li Sanbao had relied upon to dominate Luo River. The other book was black. It was made from some unknown animal''s skin. On it was a drawing of a naked person. There were all sorts of lines drawn on the figure and there were annotations all around it. Junior Leopard was someone who had seen lots of good stuff, but when he saw the things recorded in this book, his expression changed greatly.


    "Flipping Sky Seal!"


    Flipping Sky Seal. This was a secret skill. Even though he didn''t know how powerful it was, just based on the complicated Internal Qi circulation changes introduced in this book, Junior Leopard understood that it was a high level secret skill.


    Seeing Junior Leopard''s expression change, Yuan Long''s heart tightened. He silently regretted having excitedly opened the box.


    It must be known that in the Jianghu, there were certain rules to follow.


    In conflicts among gangs in martial arts world, when one sect destroyed another sect and received the spoils of war, the biggest spoils were usually received by the winner''s leader. Especially this kind of martial arts manual, elixirs and medicine etc. Not only did the leader have to be the one receiving it, he had to personally receive it. This was in case too many people knew about it and leaked it out, inviting trouble.


    Like previously, when he¡¯d discovered the wooden box, he should have delivered it to Junior Leopard firsthand. He shouldn''t have opened it and seen what things were inside before calling Junior Leopard. This was taboo.


    "It''s just two martial arts skills. It''s not a big deal!" Junior Leopard said. He casually flipped through it and read the whole Cross Training Diamond Body from head to toe. He then took it out from the box and passed it to Wang Cheng, "Commander Wang, I will leave this book to you. Choose some people with good aptitude and teach them this martial arts skill."


    "Ah?!" The people present were all stunned. They were extremely surprised by Junior Leopard''s decision. It was not a special thing to pass down martial arts, however normally. They would pass it down to the trusted subordinates. Who else, other than Junior Leopard, would casually take out a manual and let people handle it anyway they want. It was too surprising to let him choose people with good aptitude and pass it down to them.


    Had he really come to the Jiang City Navy just to fish for benefits? He seemed like a person who wished to create trusted subordinates in Jiang City and dominate the whole region.


    Wang Cheng didn''t say anything, and happily received the Cross Training Diamond Body manual. It was a priceless treasure to Wang Cheng and the rest. Li Sanbao had relied on this cultivation method to dominate the Luo River for over ten years. Its power was something evident to them. The navy had suffered a lot from this type of martial arts. When the navy was at its strongest, there were over 50 battleships attacking Broken Dragon Beach. Li Sanbao had relied on this cultivation method to block them at Broken Dragon Beach and he had resisted them until the other bandits from Multiple Chain Dock arrived to assist them. They had fought a brilliant battle on the beach, beating the navy to a pulp. The Jiang City Navy had deteriorated from the encounter.


    Hence, the leaders in the navy were extremely familiar with this cultivation method. Of course they were hungry for it. Originally, they had been thinking of employing some means to get Junior Leopard to teach it to them. Who knew that they didn¡¯t need to say a word and Junior Leopard would directly let them handle the book. Hence, Wang Cheng was extremely happy.


    Only Jiang Xiao''s gaze shifted. He looked at Junior Leopard. He began to delve deep into thought. Nobody knew what he was thinking.


    "There''s also another secret skill. Even though it''s very powerful, it requires one''s Internal Qi cultivation to reach Level Five before one can cultivate it. When your cultivation has reached such a level, I''ll naturally teach it to you all!"


    "Your Excellency is too heavy with your words. We are all satisfied with this Cross Training Diamond Body. We don''t dare to covet the secret skill!" Wang Cheng exclaimed hurriedly.


    "Hmm, then that''s all for today. Jiang Xiao, Wang Datong, keep stock of everything here. Commander Wang, we should go out first. Tomorrow we go back to Jiang City at first light!"


    "Yes!" The crowd responded in unison. This time around, their voices were extremely magnificent.

 Chapter 169: Level Four — Bone Forging Realm

    Chapter 169: Level Four ¡ª Bone Forging Realm


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The first ray of morning sunshine shot through the high slopes of Jiang City, shining on the navy barracks. Junior Leopard was practicing his fist technique there.


    "Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist!"


    Since last night, he was training repeatedly in front of his room. He had not stopped yet.


    His sweat had already drenched his whole body, as if he had just gotten out of the water. This was a pure body exercise. Only at the most critical moment would he operate the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon''s Internal Qi to wash and refine his own skeleton. Every step and action had been practiced to perfection. There was no difference in the requirements of the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist. This was the peak performance of a punching skill to temper the bones.


    There were already some people standing outside the courtyard. They were Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao, Zhu Ba, and the rest. Originally, there were some other navy soldiers; however, they were chased away by Yuan Long and Wang Datong.


    After midnight last night, Wang Cheng angrily stomped back into the navy barracks, and asked Jiang Xiao and the rest to enter into Junior Leopard''s room. Little did they expect to see Junior Leopard practicing his fists in front of his room. Daring not to interrupt, they could only wait until Junior Leopard had finished practicing. As a result, Junior Leopard did not stop practicing but lasted through the whole night. The longer that time went by, the more they did not dare to disturb him, as they were scared of interrupting Junior Leopard''s practice.


    As a matter of fact, they could not interrupt Junior Leopard practicing his fists at all. That was because Little Du was prowling at the door entrance, whose green eyes were alertly looking outside of the courtyard. No matter who he was, once he entered near the courtyard, he would hear its warning growl. Naturally, no one dared to enter the courtyard.


    "Your Excellency Wang, how long will the practice last?" Zhu Ba, who was tired of waiting, could not wait to speak. This was the fifth time that he asked the same question since midnight.


    "I don''t know!" Wang Cheng replied with the same answer.


    At that moment, waves of strange crackling sounds could be heard from Junior Leopard''s bones. The sound was not loud, it was just like leaves and twigs falling in the forest, slight yet obvious.


    "Pipa, Pipa, Pipa¡ª!"


    One sound followed the next. Initially, it happened after a few breaths, but slowly, it could be heard with every breath. After another short while, the sounds gradually connected together and it became louder and louder. It was just like beans spluttering in hot oil.


    "Is that¡ª!"


    With this strange sound being heard, Junior Leopard''s body muscles twitched rhythmically, and his actions began to slow down. In the end, it seemed that every action would use up all of his strength. The perspiration came out of his body like rain, along with traces of blood and some weird black sticky substance.


    "His Excellency is entering into the Bone Forging Realm!" Wang Cheng said agitatedly. Entering the Bone Forging Realm from the Skin Toughening Realm was something impossible to them. They might all have a cultivation of Level Three and were only one step away from the Bone Forging Realm, however, the cultivation method they were practicing was too poor. That was why even if they had accumulated Internal Qi to the maximum, they could not reach the Full Closure state of Level Three, let alone enter into the Bone Forging Realm.


    The Bone Forging Realm to them was just a legend.


    In Jianghu, there were many people who trained hard and raised their own cultivation to Level Three. However, after reaching Level Three, their progress was halted. That was because the cultivation methods they were practicing were not profound enough, or because they did not have the power and wealth to buy medicinal ingredients to wash their body, or maybe they did not have a good set of Bone Forging fist methods. Actually, most Jianghu people lacked in all three areas. Hence, they could never enter into the Bone Forging Realm.


    And that was why even in mid-sized, well-known families like the Wu family, once a disciple''s cultivation had reached Level Four and entered into the Bone Forging Realm, they would become an Elder. The gap between Level Three and Level Four was called "small differences can have huge consequences".


    "What? Entering into the Bone Forging Realm? Wasn''t His Excellency already a Bone Forging Realm expert?"


    Zhu Ba did not realize that fact until this moment. "Then how did he kill Li Sanbao that night? After all, Li Sanbao is a Level Four expert and he had the Cross Training Diamond Body!"


    "Keep your voice down!" Wang Cheng chided him and pointed at Little Du, who was guarding near the entrance.


    "Li Sanbao died in its mouth!"


    "Oh, that''s it. Wait, how His Excellency could tame this silver wolf?!"


    "Shut up!" Jiang Xiao shouted coldly. "Zhu Ba, it is better not to speculate on His Excellency''s matters, in case of attracting trouble!"


    "Ugh!" Zhu Ba was somewhat dissatisfied. He wanted to say something still, but Wang Cheng gave him a stare. He then swallowed the words that were about to come out of his mouth.


    Within the square, the spluttering bean sound finally ceased. Junior Leopard''s actions began to quicken.


    "Hu, he, hu, he ¡ª!"


    The sound of his breathing became louder and louder. With every breath, he inhaled and exhaled a large quantity of air. The airflow which he exhaled had an extremely high temperature, causing the temperature of his surroundings to rise.


    In a very short time, the temperature in the yard rose by over 10 degrees. The water that was within the air also evaporated and the whole yard became very dry. Wang Cheng and the others who were waiting outside felt as if they were placed in the middle of a desert.


    "Is this His Excellency''s Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragons? It is said to be the foundational martial arts of the Wu family in Yunzhou. Only a few Inner Core Disciples can have the qualifications to learn it. Seeing it today, it definitely deserves the reputation that it enjoys!" Wang Datong said off to the side.


    "Wait, are you jealous?!" Zhu Ba laughed. "His Excellency is an Inner Core Disciple in the Wu family. He is about to enter the Bone Forging Realm. At that time, he will be one of the Elders in the Wu family. Then, looking at you, just a quartermaster within the navy¡ªwhat are you being jealous for!"


    "Shut up!" Wang Cheng said coldly, "His Excellency''s cultivation has reached a critical moment. We should all keep quiet and refrain from interrupting His Excellency. If we don''t, we all have to die!"


    All of them shut up at the same time. Wang Cheng''s words were true. If their laughing and joking had interrupted Junior Leopard''s training and caused him to fail to advance, then they would not be able to survive anymore. Maybe the moon tonight was the last scene that they would see.


    In the ragged breathing sounds of Junior Leopard, a strand of fiery red airflow began to come out from his nostrils and mouth, condensing around him. It slowly formed into airflow of a fiery red dragon. After nine breaths, it began to revolve around him. Following that was another nine breaths. The second dragon form airflow was born. After that was a third, a fourth, a fifth...


    After breathing 81 times, 9 dragon form airflows were completely formed and revolving around him.


    Suddenly, Junior Leopard''s actions halted and he shouted in a low voice. An undefeatable Qi strength exuded from his body and caused the clothes on him to be torn apart. Nine dragon form airflows strangely went through his body, as if they were piercing through a layer of shadow that had no form or substance. Every time they pierced through, Junior Leopard''s skeleton would produce a crisp crackling sound. There were nine dragon form airflows, and each of them pierced through 9 times, 81 times in total. It almost enshrouded Junior Leopard''s whole body. Finally, they slowly scattered and disappeared.


    "He¡ª!"


    Junior Leopard''s throat produced a low growl, as deep as thunder. It exploded in the ears of those few people, as if lightning had struck in the middle of the sunny day, and caused them to be giddy. Following that there was a wave of explosive sound, which then became a chain. It was much clearer than the beans spluttering and lasted for a whole incense worth of time.


    Waiting till all the sounds had died down, through the 9 dragon form airflows that surrounded Junior Leopard, the few people saw that Junior Leopard''s actions had stopped. His figure seemed to be taller than it was previously.


    Without waiting for the crowd outside the yard to clearly ascertain what was going on, the dragon form airflows surrounding Junior Leopard flashed and disappeared in an instant.


    Outside the yard, everyone looked at each other as they did not know what had happened. Little Du was still guarding outside the yard and its alertness had not diminished, so they did not dare to enter the yard haphazardly.


    After a short while, Junior Leopard leisurely walked out of the house. He changed into a cyan robe and also arranged his messy hair. When Junior Leopard came out, Little Du then stood up and rushed out of the door. Who knew where it ran off to.


    "I''m sorry to let all of you wait for so long!" Junior Leopard said apologetically and invited them into the yard.


    "We wouldn''t dare. Your Excellency''s cultivation has improved. This is a blessing to the navy!" Wang Cheng hurriedly said.


    "Nothing serious, I just broke through a barrier that bothered me for a long time!" Junior Leopard smiled. His face was plastered with smiles. It was only a moment ago that his body''s toughness had broken through from the Skin Toughening Realm into the Bone Forging Realm. If it were not for the few people outside the yard who had waited for the whole night, he would have gone into a retreat to stabilize his own state.


    "Commander Wang, if my memory serves me right, you guys have been here since midnight. What happened, why are you all in such a rush?"


    "It''s¡ª!"


    After seeing Junior Leopard practicing and break through a realm, they nearly forgot about their original purpose for coming. Now that they had heard Junior Leopard mention it, their faces revealed embarrassed expressions.


    "We are incapable. We let Your Excellency down. Please punish us!" Wang Cheng said. His bent his knees and then knelt down, as did the rest of them.


    "Don''t do that!" Junior Leopard raised his hands, and a wave of hot, yet gentle, force lifted the few of them up. "Commander Wang, what is it exactly? What important thing did I entrust you with? I must have forgotten it."


    "It''s ugh¡ª!" Wang Cheng''s face reddened and he said, "It is regarding our drilling ground on River Heart Island. The Magistrate and Guard Ding don''t agree. Moreover, they even gave the dock at the island to the Yellow Dragon Gang. I argued with them for half a day but couldn''t manage to change their minds!"


    "Is that true?" Junior Leopard heard that and frowned, his eyes flashing a bit of Evil Qi.

 Chapter 170: The Attribution of River Heart Island

    Chapter 170: The Attribution of River Heart Island


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    On that day, Junior Leopard led the navy to destroy the water bandits at the Broken Dragon Beach and brought back the spoils of war. Apart from the treasures accumulated by the water bandits, there were still over 20 boats. These boats were a little smaller than the boats of the navy; however their quality was much better. Their design was also extremely compatible. When they ran on the Luo River, they were two to three times faster than the navy''s warships. Just based on these warships, it was able to fill the gap in the navy''s lack of warships. The navy''s power had gone up another level. Still, of course what was most eye-catching was Junior Leopard''s new ride, the "Black Pearl".


    Riding on the Black Pearl, the navy brought the water bandits as captives and the head of the bandit chief Li Sanbao with them. They went back full of spoils. The moment they entered the dock, they aroused the attention of the whole of Jiang City.


    Li Sanbao had been dominating the Luo River for over 10 years and he was gone just like that. This was out of the expectations of the whole Jiang City, including the Magistrate and Guard Ding.


    However, the truth was placed before them. They had to believe it. Li Sanbao had dominated the Luo River for so many years. There were plenty of people who recognized him. So did the Magistrate and Guard Ding.


    After seeing the decapitated head, the two of them were happy. They sent this information to the imperial court to ask for merits and hung Li Sanbao''s head on the port''s entrance for three days as a warning to others.


    The whole Jiang City was in a buzz because of Li Sanbao''s death. Everybody was happy, especially the businessmen within the city. On the second day after the subjugation, the people of Jiang City manufactured an Umbrella of Thousand People and sent it to the navy barracks. At the same time there were countless invitation cards to thank the navy for removing a big harm in Jiang City. They wanted to invite Junior Leopard and the soldiers.


    Junior Leopard had a headache upon seeing this. Apart from what the Magistrate and Guard Ding had organized, he did not participate in one of them.


    In actual fact, when he came back from the island, his mind was on those medicinal herbs. The medicine was enough to create dozens of Bone-Forging Pills. Furthermore, there were enough ingredients to create Tendon-Changing Pills.


    Yes, sufficient. An immensely sufficient amount of ingredients.


    If these ingredients were used to create the Tendon-Changing Soup to wash the body, it was far from enough. However Junior Leopard did not need to use them to wash his body. He only needed to create Tendon-Changing Pills. The ingredients from the River Heart Island were at least enough to create 20 Tendon-Changing Pills. Its effect was the same as washing in the Tendon-Changing Soup 100 times. What kind of concept was this?


    Even if it was those barons, millennium families and 10,000 years schools, it was an impossible thing to let a Bone-Forging Realm disciple wash in the Tendon-Changing Soup 100 times.


    Junior Leopard believed that when he had refined all these ingredients, it was only a matter of time before he would step into the Tendon-Changing Realm. It would be faster by five years compared to his previously estimated time. This would of course get him excited.


    It was also because of this reason that he decided to increase his training and step into the Bone Forging Realm earlier.


    In actual fact, before this, he already had sufficient accumulation to enter into the Bone Forging Realm.


    He had consumed 18 Bone-Forging Pills, which was the same as washing his body in the Bone-Forging Soup over 80 times. His Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique cultivation had reached the Full Closure state. Both of his External Elixir''s cultivation had reached Level Six.


    Especially his Fiery Eye which was the same as the Internal Qi within his body. At the same time that it was exerting a large amount of stress on his body, it was also washing and refining his skeleton. It could be said that his body''s toughness had already reached a certain degree and he was ready to enter into the Bone Forging Realm anytime.


    In the past he was unwilling to step into the Bone Forging Realm because he was afraid of the suspicion he would incur if he was to progress too quickly. But now it was different, he had a whole batch of ingredients from the River Heart Island. He could openly wash his muscles and bones and step into the Bone Forging Realm.


    Hence, when he came back from the River Heart Island, apart from going to a jointly organized banquet by the Magistrate and Guard Ding, he did not go out at all. He practiced his martial arts, while all the matters within the navy were as they were in the past, being handled by Wang Cheng.


    Of course, the most important thing in the navy now was to build a drill ground at River Heart Island. In this period of time, Wang Cheng had been running everywhere for this matter.


    Junior Leopard also thought that this matter was nailed-on and that there shouldn''t be any problems. It came as a shock when Wang Cheng had told him that it couldn''t be done. This was grossly out of his expectations.


    "Why did the Magistrate and Guard Ding not agree to it?"


    "It''s because of the Yellow Dragon Gang. They have their eyes on the Broken Dragon Beach. The river there is deep and the bank is wide. It''s also placed strategically. Now that Li Sanbao has died and his underlings have been cut down by us, the entire Broken Dragon Beach is open for travel again. The benefits here are immense. To give the River Heart Island to us is akin to giving us this new route!" Speaking till here, Wang Cheng''s face revealed an expression of regret and hatred. "I''m to be blamed. I thought of this too simply and didn''t think of this!"


    "Yellow Dragon Gang?" It was not the first time that Junior Leopard had heard of this name. This Yellow Dragon Gang was the same as Qingyang Market''s Black Dragon Society. They were of the same nature, similar to the Jiang City County Administration''s power. What was different was that Qingyang Market only had one Black Dragon Society. Jiang City was much bigger than Qingyang Market and was more complicated. There were five to six gangs like the Yellow Dragon Gang. Jiang City''s docks were occupied by these gangs and ran by them. They had a lot of power in Jiang City.


    "The River Heart Island is so big, could it be that all of it has been given to the Yellow Dragon Gang?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "Of course not. The Magistrate and Guard Ding agreed to demarcate the place of the bandits on the Broken Dragon Beach for us to build a drill ground. The island is too big and the terrain is flat. Just that piece of land is enough for our soldiers to train on. It''s because of this reason that I''m not able to say anything more!"


    Wang Cheng said depressingly.


    "En, let''s not bother about the port first. We''ll set up the drill ground first. This matter can''t be blamed on you. I''m also at fault for not thinking it through. I only thought of getting the island in my hands but didn''t think that the place was too big and couldn''t be swallowed by us. Oh right, have the things in the treasure vault all been carried back?"


    "It''s all transported. The rewards are also meted up. Those fellows are all very grateful and they''re praising your goodness!" Wang Datong hurriedly said, the smile on his face becoming increasingly radiant. In truth, as a navy quartermaster, he had never been this generous before.


    "En, good. The brothers have worked hard and they shouldn''t be doing that for nothing!" Junior Leopard nodded, "Excellency Wang, go and find people to build a barracks on the island. Although the original camp on the Broken Dragon Beach is not bad, it belonged to the bandits. It''s not good to use it straightaway. It''s better for someone to repair!"


    "Yes!"


    "Besides, when occupying the land, put more effort in. Occupy as much as you can, the bigger the better!"


    "Yes!"


    "Excellency Jiang, you remain. The rest should go!"


    "Yes!" Wang Cheng and the others glanced at Junior Leopard, then at Jiang Xiao who was surprised. They did not dare say much and retreated.


    "Excellency Jiang, sit!"


    After the four people left, Junior Leopard pointed at the chair within the house and said to Jiang Xiao.


    "I don''t dare!"


    "If I want you to sit then you should sit. Why all this bullshit!" Junior Leopard said irritatedly, "There''s something I want to talk to you about!"


    "Yes!" Knowing that he couldn''t refuse, Jiang Xiao sat down.


    "Your Excellency, you got me to remain, is there anything for me to do?"


    "Regarding the island, how do you see it?"


    Jiang Xiao''s gaze flashed. He thought for a while before raising his head and said, "What Your Excellency said is true. We thought too simply of this matter. The island is really too big. If it''s anyone else, it''s impossible to give it wholly to the navy. It''s not bad that they allowed us to set up a camp there!"


    "Is it that we think of it too simply or that you didn''t remind me because you saw that I''m too happy?"


    "Ugh?" Jiang Xiao''s heart trembled, his back instantly drenched by his sweat, "Your Excellency must be joking!"


    "I''m not joking!" Junior Leopard said, "Within the navy, only you can see through this point. You merely didn''t say it. I don''t have the intention of blaming you; I only want you to know that regarding future matters, you should just say it straightaway. This is to prevent me from being heated up and losing my face like now!"


    "Yes!"


    Jiang Xiao responded in a low voice. Now that words were placed in front of him, what else could he say?


    What Junior Leopard said was all true. On the island when he heard Junior Leopard''s words, he knew it was very hard to realize it. It was only that Junior Leopard was excited then and it was not good for him to say anything. After all, he was in a subordinate relationship. They were not familiar with each other. If Junior Leopard''s excitement got killed off and he went into a rampage, he would be unable to take it.


    "Okay, let''s not talk about useless things. Excellency Jiang, you had stayed in Jiang City for a long time, so you are more familiar with the situation in Jiang City than me. On this island, how can we gain the biggest benefits?"


    "That''ll depend on what kind of benefits Your Excellency is looking at!"


    "I''m the Navy Commander. Naturally I''m concerned about the navy''s benefits. Additionally, the Admiral wanted me to come to Jiang City to firstly clear the bandits and secondly to ensure that the sea routes are smooth. These two matters may sound like the same issue but in my opinion they''re different. There seems to be other problems to the Jiang City''s water routes!"


    Jiang Xiao didn''t speak. Junior Leopard''s words were vague. He was unable to deduce Junior Leopard''s real intentions. However, since words were spoken till here, there was no benefit for him to reveal anything.


    "Your Excellency had only just visited Jiang City and you''re not familiar with it. Hence you don''t know about the pros and cons of the relationships. Since you trust me so much, then I shall be bold to analyze for you!"


    "I am all ears!" Junior Leopard smiled.


    Jiang Xiao came before Junior Leopard and without courtesy, he used his hands to dab on the water within the teacup. He began drawing on the table, "Look, here is the Luo River, and here is Jiang City. Here is the River Heart Island. The island is 30 km away from Jiang CIty. Hence it''s nearer to Flower Town. It should be the territory of Flower Town!"


    "Then why does it belong to Jiang City now?"


    "It had never belonged to Jiang City in the first place. Neither does it belong to Flower Town. Due to this island''s dangerous position, it had always been occupied by all sorts of bandits!" Speaking till here, Jiang Xiao''s face revealed a smile, "The reason why it belongs to Jiang City now is because you have snatched the island. You''re the Navy Commander of Jiang City, so naturally this belongs to Jiang City. Adding on to its sensitive status and position, this island could be said to be on the throat of Jiang City. Hence, it can only belong to Jiang City!"

 Chapter 171: The Value of River Heart Island

    Chapter 171: The Value of River Heart Island


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Could it only belong to Jiang City?


    Seeing the picture drew with tea on the table, Junior Leopard seemed lost in thought. He nodded his head, "continue!"


    "When the water of Luo River flows to the River Heart Island, it''ll be divided into two channels. One is the Broken Dragon Beach, and the other is the Narrow River Path. The water bandits, be it Li Sanbao or others who occupy the River Heart Island, they''ll block the Broken Dragon Beach and let go of the Narrow River Path. The reason being that, as for the Narrow River Path, its channel is narrow and its water is shallow thus, no huge boat can go through it. Compared to the Narrow River Path, the water of the Broken Dragon Beach is turbulent; the terrain here is strategically situated hence difficult to access. Meanwhile, the water surface is broad and the water is deep, 500 feet north of the Broken Dragon Beach is a natural harbor and all that is needed is to build a dock!"


    "It''s the harbor of River Heart Island!"


    "Right, it''s the harbor!" Jiang Xiao nodded and said, "The water surface of the Broken Dragon Beach is three times broad than that of the Narrow River Path. Thus, all huge boats can only go through the Broken Dragon Beach if they want to leave for Jiang City. In fact, all huge boats do so. Their masters have great influence, even if it is Li Sanbao, he''ll not dare to bother them. Nevertheless, no matter how celebrated they are, they can only successfully pass through the Broken Dragon Beach if they hand in a handsome sum of road toll. No boat can pass through the beach without it!"


    "Just like Multiple Chain Dock?!"


    "It''s just a compromise between Li Sanbao and some influential families in the city. The former doesn''t want to fall out with the latter; while the latter intends to suppress other families by the strength of the Broken Dragon Beach!" Saying this, an eccentric smile showed on Jiang Xiao''s face, "But now, Your Excellency captured the River Heart Island and it returned to Jiang City again. Thus, it''s a tricky matter on who should control the Broken Dragon Beach. I believe that in this matter, not only did the Magistrate and Guard Ding assist us, some rich and influential families in the city also fanned the fire. The Yellow Dragon Gang is merely the product of compromise!"


    "What do you know about the Yellow Dragon Gang?"


    "Not that much, but I know that it''s one of the strongest gangs in Jiang City and it controls several docks, small and large. Most importantly, it maintains a good relationship with all influences of the city. It has no other enemies except several gangs which have conflicts of interest with them!"


    "Then, have the Yellow Dragon Gang colluded with water bandits?!" Junior Leopard asked softly.


    "Ah?!" Jiang Xiao was dumbfounded at first, and then his expression changed and became complicated. "Well, to be honest, every influence in Jiang City has a connection with water bandits. Even us, the Navy of Jiang City, have contact with some water bandits on Luo River too!"


    "Are there some people still alive among the water bandits that we captured from the River Heart Island?!"


    "They''re in our hands!" It seemed that Jiang Xiao had figured out what Junior Leopard wanted to do. He felt pretty excited. Of course, he was a little nervous too.


    "Take two men to convict the Yellow Dragon Gang of sin, and then take our men to siege it. Just say that you are here to avenge Commander Gao!"


    "Ah¡­?!" Hearing Junior Leopard''s words, Jiang Xiao slightly hesitated. He did know what Junior Leopard would do, but he never thought that he was so straightforward and ruthless. "Your Excellency, that may not be such a good idea. The Yellow Dragon Gang is one of the biggest gangs in Jiang City and its underground influences are complicated. If we surround them so blatantly, it maybe has the opposite effect!"


    "Opposite effect, what opposite effect?!"


    "I''m worried about someone stopping us!"


    "Then let them try!" Junior Leopard said coldly, "I''ll just let the people of Jiang City see and understand what they can vie for and what they can''t. Not only do I want the campsite of River Heart Island, but also the harbor. No matter who it is, if he wants to contend with me, then he''d better prepare to be tramped to death by me. You shall prepare a confession and find a water bandit to sign it. No, you should prepare several confessions and make more people to sign it. Even if somebody regrets at that time, we still have substitutions. Three days, three days later, you shall take our men to siege the Yellow Dragon Gang!"


    "Yes!" Jiang Xiao nodded gently and didn''t dare to persuade him anymore. He just said, "Your Excellency, I''m afraid that if we make it bigger, the Magistrate and Guard Ding will have an excuse to attack Your Excellency!"


    "They have some dirty secrets too!" Junior Leopard laughed coldly, "Take it easy, I''ve already got them on tape. They''d better wise up, or else I won''t mind to drive them away from here!"


    "Their secrets?! Jiang Xiao felt fairly shocked and looked at Junior Leopard in confusion. Junior Leopard had just come here for a month and he nearly did not go out of the navy barracks except while suppressing the water bandits of the Broken Dragon Beach last time. How could he know the secrets of the Magistrate and Guard Ding?


    "Don''t be so stunned. I surely haven''t lived in Jiang City. However, I still have other men here except the Jiang City navy!" Junior Leopard laughed, "Don¡¯t forget, I''m one of the Seneschals of the Wu Family in Zhonghe City, although I have no real power!"


    Jiang Xiao immediately wore a smile of understanding. Yeah, the teen before him was not only a Navy Commander of Jiang City, but also a Seneschal of Wu Family in Zhonghe Prefecture. Meanwhile, he had reached the Bone-Forging Realm today and became a Level Four expert. It may be assumed that he would be the Elder of the Wu Family before long.


    Wu Family in Yunzhou, one of the four smelting families in Great Jin, was backed up by Tian Long Taoism. Although it couldn''t compare with those real millennial barons, well-known families as well as the wealthy families, it was more tightly connected to the whole bottom strata of Jianghu. People in the bottom strata could clearly feel its direct influence.


    Though Jiang City''s position was quite crucial in Zhonghe Prefecture, after all, it was a small county that couldn''t compare with those regional cities, capital cities and other big cities. People who made a living in this county were all in the bottom strata of Jianghu. In their eyes, the Wu Family''s influence was no weaker than those wealthy families and big clans. They even did not know much about real wealthy families and well-known families. What was more, they had no idea about what was going on.


    Just because of this, the branch of the Wu Family in Jiang City was the most influential and most powerful merchant here.


    Suddenly, Jiang Xiao seemed to understand something. The Wu Family was a well-known smelting family, and the materials it needed were not only in great numbers but also heavy. So, they needed big boats if they wanted to ship them into Jiang City. The branch of Wu Family in Jiang City was one of the merchants who sent the most money to the Multiple Chain Dock and the Broken Dragon Beach before. Their huge shipping boats could only enter the city by sea through the Broken Dragon Beach. But now, the Navy of Jiang City captured the River Heart Island and the Navy Commander was the Seneschal of Wu Family''s branch here. Then, what would happen next was naturally self-explanatory.


    Jiang Xiao felt relaxed when he thought of Junior Leopard''s identity.


    The branch of Wu Family in Jiang City was one of the biggest merchants here athough their influence wasn''t so strong. This was mainly because the Wu Family focused on doing business and there was no need to deploy too many warriors in such a small place. Even if it didn''t have strong warriors, no one could make trouble here. The water bandits would show some respect for it too. After all, they were living in the same Jianghu and well-known families like Wu Family who had spread its business all around would obey the rules too. If you didn''t go too far, the Wu Family would hand in the money it ought to. Therefore, the influence of the Wu Family''s branch here was absolutely no less than those powerful influences and even higher. Why?


    Because they had money after all!


    Money could make the mare go and vice versa!


    For an insignificant leader of the navy like him, it was difficult to meet the supervisor of the Wu Family in Jiang City before because they had totally different status. Most of the time, if the Wu Family needed help from the Navy of Jiang City, it just casually sent a man to tell them and the navy would fawn on it, busying finishing tasks that are given to them with passion. Then they could get a reward in return.


    How about now?


    Things were different now. Several days before, the supervisor as well as the Great Master of Wu Family in Jiang City paid a visit to Junior Leopard. On seeing them, such negligible people, they laughed contentedly, just like the spring flowers in full bloom. They tried hard to put money in their pockets and were afraid when they did not take it. Such treatment was far from the norm.


    Of course, it did stray away from the point, but there was one point that Jiang Xiao understood. The dock of River Heart Island was of equal importance to the Wu Family. If the navy could occupy it, then the one who benefited most would be the Wu Family. Perhaps this was the most important reason for Junior Leopard to capture the River Heart Island. After all, he was a part of the Wu Family and also its future Elder. He would definitely take account of such things that could greatly benefit the Wu Family.


    It was no wonder that he would have such an idea. In this world, the influences of well-known families and the wealthy families are powerful. In many people''s eyes, family and school''s interest were above anything else. As for the interest of Jin, Junior Leopard had put it aside. He was an official of the imperial court, and meanwhile, he was a disciple of a well-known family too. Taking advantage of his authority on the court to help his family was unquestionable and fairly normal.


    After thinking through it, Jiang Xiao had no more worries, "Your Excellency, I''ll do it right away and properly settle it!"


    "H''m, then just do it that way!"


    Jiang Xiao knew that Junior Leopard had the intent to send him away, so, he didn''t dare to stay any longer. He saluted Junior Leopard and turned away.


    "The dock of River Heart Island, hey hey, no wonder the Wu Family sent people to beg me to take control of it in my hand. Its location is so important. Controlling this dock equals to taking Jiang City by the throat. Maybe before long, there''ll be a letter from Old Ma of Zhonghe Prefecture. Now, the Wu Family is having terrible battles with the Pei Family in Zhonghe Prefecture. If I can control this dock, then I can help the Wu Family gain a greater advantage. The Wu Family is a visible and tangible big tree for me. At the same time, I''m an inner core disciple of the Wu Family and my cultivation has reached Level Four too. I believe I''ll become the Elder of it in a short time. I must do it because it can help the Wu Family, which means I''ll also bebefit from it."


    Jiang Xiao was right. At first, Junior Leopard was merely seized by a whim to the ownership of the River Heart Island, but after he came back, the supervisor and the Great Master of the Wu Family in Jiang City paid him a visit, hoping that he could take this chance to capture the dock of River Heart Island. He just said that it was of vital importance to the Wu Family and it could make both the Wu Family and Junior Leopard benefit a lot from it. However, he didn''t clearly say what benefit it was. But today, Jiang Xiao had stated the connection of it before him, which made him more determined to occupy it.

 Chapter 172: Strategize!

    Chapter 172: Strategize!


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It has been 15 years since he arrived in this world. Junior Leopard did not have a particular goal all this time, or more accurately, his goal kept changing and was not set in stone.


    When he first reincarnated in that small village, he only thought about how he could live on properly. That was the most basic aspect of his survival need. Later on, he Wang Tianlei and One-Eyed Wolf and came to understand the difference in this world. He began to thirst for martial arts. However, that thirst and thoughts back then were built on a foundational level, spurred by his many years of reading about martial arts heroes in novels. It was an instinctive curiosity of something only existing in legends as well as a basic thirst for power. Of course, deep within the recesses of his heart, he wanted to practice martial arts so his longevity could be extended and his abilities could be greatly enhanced.


    That was a shallow and singular objective. Martial arts was a simply a premise for achieving that goal.


    He succeeded. He succeeded in learning martial arts. However, everything had changed ever since he entered the world of martial arts. Maybe he was influenced by the novels he had read. He actually started having a keen interest in learning martial arts. He spent a long time in the world of martial arts, unable to detach himself from it. During that time, he even thought he would spend his whole life researching martial arts until he died of old age.


    Yet, two things happened in between. Back then, the incidents did not feel like much. In retrospect, however, they had caused a lasting impact on himself. The first was him entering the Wu''s and becoming their Outer Core disciple. He got in touch with a deeper level of martial arts and it allowed him an initial understanding of this world. His obsession with martial arts began then. However, he realized things were not so simple after delving into it for some time. This world was complicated and the biggest blow to him was Old Xing''s death. His death showed him the cruelty of this world. Peace was impossible in the world of martial arts. He had to continue cultivating and continuously strengthen himself. Only then would he save himself from Old Xing''s fate. The second was naturally the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes that he possessed. It was right for him to gingerly conceal this fact, proving that he had foresight. If he did not do so, others would have long carved out his miraculous eyes to be refined into an External Elixir. The bloodline of the Fiery Eyes allowed him to progress further in the face of danger. His heart developed a strong thirst for power. He wanted it not for other things, only his safety.


    From that moment on, he developed a strong passion for power. That was why he would collude with Jin Nanqing in Zhonghe City to rob the precious medicinal ingredients that Wu Yuntian had secretly tried to sell off. That was why he would obey Wang She''s every word and do things for him. All was to put him in a safer situation.


    He also came to understand something else. Besides his strength, he also needed a powerful backer to survive in this world and live a good life. In this world, those who made a name for themselves all had a strong force acting as their support.


    Wang She was a Chief of Tian Long Taoism and his backer was Tian Long Taoism. Lu Shaoyou was the deacon of Mingyi School and his sect backed him. There were also others, such as Prince Xiaoming and Xue Wuya. They were famous experts and powerful influences at the same time. The merging of a strong body and a powerful backer was capable of unleashing the greatest effect and power. The stronger the influence, the safer the person. Vice versa, the stronger the body, the more powerful the backing became.


    Ever since Tian Long Taoism had Wang She, a Level Nine expert, their position within Great Jin had transformed.


    This was a matter of both sides influencing and benefiting each other.


    After understanding this point, Junior Leopard naturally began to consider his own predicament.


    When it came to his strength, he had nothing to worry about as he had accumulated too much: two External Elixers, the Fiery Eyes, a few prescriptions of the elixirs, and the various benefits he obtained from Xue Wuya. All that alone was enough push him towards the path of an expert. What concerned him was his backing, the Wu''s in Yunzhou.


    Born in a small mountain village without any foundation, all his achievements today was the result of him depending on his own potential and aptitude to barge into the Wu''s.


    For him, the Wu''s was a big tree strong enough to shelter him from the wind and rain. All he had to do was to stick closely to this tree. As he helped the tree to grow, he also had to absorb its nutrients to strengthen himself.


    The Wu''s in Yunzhou was an enormous existence for most people, too big for them to dare resist. This was far from enough for him.


    There was only a Level Seven expert holding the fort and that person had not yet condensed his Gang Qi. Such a force was nothing in front of Junior Leopard. That was because he believed he would enter the realm of Level Seven within 10 years. He also had the absolute confidence that he could condense his Gang Qi. He was far stronger than Elder Lyu Yiyue of the Wu''s. In actual fact, he even had the confidence to finish off Lyu Yiyue in a direct confrontation.


    However, all these were future issues. His current strength was clearly only at Level Four. As long as he could present a value the Wu''s would recognize, then they would naturally value him and support him in ways that he could not obtain in other places.


    Apart from the Wu''s, there were two other trees he could depend upon. One was Zhonghe City''s Admiral, Li Yuan. The other was Wang She.


    However, these two trees were not as reliable as the Wu''s. He was only Li Yuan''s personal guard. Li Yuan was only from the branch family of Li Family in Pingzhou and his power was rooted in Jin''s imperial court. His influence was slightly more widespread in Zhonghe City. Outside of the city, he was nothing. Wang She, on the other hand, had a ridiculous strength and an extremely strong backing. However, he was unreliable. Put nicely, his ways were unfathomable. Frankly speaking, he was just inexplicable. Junior Leopard might as well depend on himself than Wang She!


    After much deliberation, the only tree he could rely on for immense benefits was the Wu''s.


    From another perspective, the benefits of the Wu''s were his. That was why he was so hung up on the ownership of River Heart Island.


    Apart from this consideration, he had a new idea after arriving in Jiang City. This idea only surfaced after he became the Navy Commander.


    He wanted to stay in this city and grow his own influence. That was something he had never considered doing. In actual fact, he did not have the qualifications to even consider it before.


    Whether it was Zhonghe City or Qinlingjun City, both were too big and there were many experts. He was only an ordinary youngster. No matter how good his aptitude or future was, he could not control too much. In Zhonghe City, though he was a personal guard and a seneschal in the Wu''s, he was only responsible for guarding the Admiral and did not have actual power. His position in the Wu''s was only in name without power. He was unable to come up with anything.


    Jiang City was different. It was a small place without too many major influences. In the eyes of the people there, an influential person was at most spokesmen for a bigger influence. It was nothing in his eyes. The most important thing was that he was the Navy Commander of Jiang City. Though the position only ranked Grade Eight and not worth a mention in Great Jin, it was something substantial here. Furthermore, he had soldiers, warships, and weapons. From a certain standpoint, he was one of the leaders of the biggest influence in Jiang City.


    There was still the Wu''s behind him. He believed they also hoped that he would stand his ground in Jiang City and control the most important city in the entire Zhonghe City. At least he could control its water route. It would not be easy for others, but not to him.


    Now, the only thing he had to do was demonstrating his strength to the Wu''s and showing his ability to control the water route of Luo River in Jiang City. If he could do this, he believed the Wu''s would spare nothing to sit him firmly on the Navy Commander throne.


    With such a position where he could show his ability, he could safely remain in a half-dormant stance, hide, and cultivate. He could leisurely watch everything going on within Zhonghe City and even the entire Jin.


    ...


    Jiang City was peaceful today. Nothing worth paying attention to had happened since the morning.


    Half a month ago, the newly appointed Navy Commander had led his troops to conquer the water bandits at Broken Dragon Beach and returned with the head of the bandit leader, Li Sanbao. They even took over River Heart Island that had always been occupied by bandits, creating the hottest news the city had heard in a decade. For half a month, the entire city was immersed in a weird burning atmosphere where Junior Leopard was the focal point. There were also those concerned about the ownership of the island.


    The damned place was really too important. It would mean great advantages to whoever who controlled it. Hence, ever since Junior Leopard had taken over the island, various forces in the city and the influences behind them began to vie for the rights to the island. To be more specific, they were battling in the dark for the right to the island''s harbor. In the end, Yellow Dragon Gang emerged as the ultimate winner.

 Chapter 173: Exterminating the Yellow Dragon Gang (I)

    Chapter 173: Exterminating the Yellow Dragon Gang (I)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Buzz...


    As if they were buoyed by the wind, the hooves of horses rumbled like thunder as they tore into the serenity of Jiang City.


    Early risers walking along the widest street of the city frantically jumped to the other side when they saw horses charging through the street.


    "Who are these people? Why are they rushing around so early in the morning? Are they rushing to go and get reincarnated?"


    A passenger who could not step aside in time was dirtied by the dust. Angered, he shouted uncouth words.


    "Shh, lower your voice. Can''t you see they''re government soldiers? To scold them on the open street! Don''t you want your life anymore?" The man''s acquaintances tugged at him, warning him in a low voice.


    That person instantly shut up. Caught up in the heat of the moment, he had spoken unrestrainedly. Now that he saw clearly that the riders all wore soldier uniforms, he no longer had the courage. He lowered his head, squirmed into the crowd, and disappeared.


    "Where are those soldiers from, running about so early in the morning? Are the Sect of Flame traitors about to attack?"


    "What are you saying? Those traitors were all defeated. How could they come here? I recognize those soldiers. They''re from the Navy. The one who ran over is my neighbor''s third son who just entered the Navy five years ago. He even came home a few days ago. There''s no mistaking it!"


    "The Navy? Why are these people running around this early in the morning?"


    "Who knows? Based on the direction they''re heading, I think they''re headed for the Yellow Dragon Gang. Down this street is the headquarter!"


    "Yellow Dragon Gang? What are they doing going there?!"


    The crowd once again descended into discussions.


    ...


    ...


    "What did you say? Zhou Bao got his men to surround the headquarter of the Yellow Dragon Gang?!"


    In the County Administration, the Magistrate had just left the bed he shared with his favorite seventh concubine. He had not even washed up when he heard a commotion outside. He then saw a government runner rushing to the back of the manor and report news that gave him a headache.


    "Why is he doing that?!" the Magistrate asked.


    "The Navy has over 300 people and they have an airtight siege of the Yellow Dragon Gan. They''re saying..." A complex expression crossed the runner''s face.


    "What did they say? Speak!" the Magistrate said. When he saw the runner stuttering, he wanted to kick him to death.


    "They''re saying they want to avenge Commander Gao Gong!"


    "What? Avenge Gao Gong?!" The Magistrate''s eyes widened and he shouted fiercely, "Rubbish! Gao Gong was killed by the water bandits. What does it have to do with the Yellow Dragon Gang? Their Gang Master was sworn brothers with Gao Gong. They had received so many advantages thanks to him, why would they kill him?!"


    The runner finally regained his calm and answered, "The Navy said that the Yellow Dragon Gang and the water bandits colluded with each other and leaked the news of Commander Gao''s plan to destroy the bandits to them. Hence, Gao Gong was ambushed!"


    "Rubbish! The person who betrayed Gao Gong was a spy planted in Water Army Camp by the bandits. Who doesn''t know about this matter?!" The Magistrate was a sensible person. After walking to and fro, he said, "I understand. It must be because the Yellow Dragon Gang has obtained the River Heart Island''s dock. That is why Zhou Bao is doing this. Damn it. He dares to do such a heinous deed in broad daylight! How dare him!"


    "Your Excellency, the Navy is now facing off the Yellow Dragon Gang at their headquarter. They''ll attack once their words do not coincide with each other. This isn''t a small matter. Both sides number in the hundreds. If they really start attacking in the city, we''ll be in big trouble!"


    The Magistrate went pale. "Guard Ding? Where is he? He''s the Garrison of Jiang City and in charge of the Navy Commander. Where is he?!"


    "As soon as this happened, Constable Xing sent us to inform you and Guard Ding. He should''ve heard by now!"


    "Where''s Constable Xing?"


    "He''s negotiating with the Navy at the headquarter. However, the newly appointed Navy Commander seems to be uncooperative!"


    "Of course he won''t listen!" the Magistrate said. "He''s looking for trouble this time, plain and simple. Hurry up and bring me there!"


    "Yes!" The runner''s expression became odd. "Y-Your Excellency!"


    "What''s wrong? We should hurry!"


    "You haven''t changed your clothes!" The runner looked at the Magistrate who was wearing a white robe with a complicated expression, holding back his laughter.


    ...


    ...


    "Good, very good! Zhou Bao is a dog that bites. He didn''t even show up a few days ago, only sending Wang Cheng to negotiate, and now he''s here to trouble me. Has he no regard for the law? For me, the Garrison?"


    Guard Ding had received the news in the Guard Manor. Unlike the Magistrate, he had instantly exploded in anger.


    "Old Master, Zhou Bao has been disregarding you since coming here. Once he entered the city, he beat Third Young Master until he''s bedridden. He even charged him with rebellion, making you bow your head to him. Since ancient times, where is there such logic?"


    Unlike the Magistrate, Guard Ding was more restricted. He only had two wives. The beautiful madam beside him was Madam Li, mother to the Third Young Master whom Junior Leopard had beaten up. She had not forgotten for even one day about the man who caused her son''s suffering. Now that a chance had presented itself, she certainly would not let it go. She began persuading Guard Ding to retaliate.


    "You know nothing!" Guard Ding did not seem to agree and he glared at his wife. "If not for your foolish son, do I need to lose so much face in front of my colleagues? You still dare bring up that good-for-nothing!"


    "Old Master!"


    Madam Li did not expect her husband to berate her as soon as she opened her mouth. She paled and started sobbing.


    Guard Ding scoffed, not giving Madam Li a second look. He turned to the servant and shouted, "Ding Lei, let''s go to the barrack! I want to see how far Zhou Bao wants to go!"


    ...


    ...


    Jixian Street, the Yellow Dragon Gang headquarter.


    Riding a black horse, Junior Leopard looked relaxed and his mouth carried a sarcastic, cold smile. He fixed a cold stare at the gate to the Yellow Dragon Gang headquarter.


    300 of his men had surrounded the headquarter. Almost simultaneously, 100 heads had bobbed up from behind the walls of the headquarter. The people inside were stringing arrows onto their bows and standing off against the Navy. The gate then opened and another 100 gang members charged out. The first one was tall, with a scowl on his face.


    "Commander Zhou, why do you bring men to my headquarter this early in the morning?"


    Junior Leopard did not reply. He only glanced at the man and turned his gaze to the walls. The big man was furious and he stepped forward, wanting to question once again. Little Du who stood before Junior Leopard''s horse sprung forward, releasing a wave of strong Qi force. The big man who had gone through many street fights and battles could only retreat in the face of Little Du''s prowess.


    Little Du rushed forward and the big man''s heart turned cold, his legs numbing. He retreated dozens of steps and stumbled, landing his butt on the front gate of Yellow Dragon Gang. He lost much face.


    When the rest of Navy saw this, they burst into laughter and the big man''s face flushed. He looked at the laughing crowd and then behind him. The Yellow Dragon Gang might not dare to laugh, but each wore smiling expressions. If they did not forcefully suppress their emotions, they would have erupted in laughter.


    "Zhou Bao, you''re a bully!"


    A Jianghu man, especially gang members like him who thronged the streets, cared about their reputation. He would not let the Navy go after losing so much face in front of so many people. Shouted angrily, he drew his saber and viciously hacked at Little Du.


    Junior Leopard did not even glance at the man. His eyes remained on the gate.


    Just as the big man''s saber was about to cut into Little Du, a cold voice came from within the courtyard.


    "Stop!"


    "Howl!"


    "Ah!"


    Within the series of exclamation, the roaring sound followed the cold scream. When the dust had settled, the big man had turned pale and was kneeling on the ground. The arm holding the saber was gone. A chewing sound resounded throughout, sending shivers down the spine. Little Du was chewing on the man''s arm in front of everyone and completely swallowed it in minutes. Only the palm grasping the saber was left on the floor.


    As if nothing had happened, Little Du returned to where it was previously standing with a bloody mouth.


    "Commander Zhou, you got your men to besiege my headquarter and allowed this beast to commit a crime. Do you really not put the Yellow Dragon Gang in your eyes?!"


    A skinny man person walked out of the gate exuded a wave of essential spirit. There was a sharp, chilly glint in his eyes. He wore a yellow robe and his face was full of anger.


    "Of course I didn''t put the Yellow Dragon Gang in my eyes!" Junior Leopard''s gaze landed on this person and he lifted his chin. "Otherwise, I wouldn''t be here today!"


    "You!" That person did not expect Junior Leopard to be so direct and leave him no face. His expression darkened and he took a deep breath before walking forward. "Since you don''t put us in your eyes, then what do you want by coming here today?!"


    "If I''m not mistaken, you''re the gang master of the Yellow Dragon Gang, Qian Mufan the Cloud-Passing Falcon!"


    "That would be me!" Qian Mufan cupped his fist, giving a haphazard respect that indicated his dissatisfaction.


    "You''re the one I''m looking for. You colluded with the water bandits on Luo River and harmed the Navy, causing the previous commander to be ambushed and die. I''m here today with my brothers to settle the score with you!"


    Junior Leopard looked confident when he said these, his entire being exuding a Qi force that was of grief and anger.


    "You¡­ you''re slandering me!" Qian Mufan was anxious to hear this. He was surprised Junior Leopard would be so brazen to lie so confidently in broad daylight. How could one be this shameless?


    "Make way! Everyone, make way!"


    Just when he was struck dumb and speechless by Junior Leopard, a commotion unfolded outside the square. A few hundred government soldiers rushed over and surrounded Junior Leopard''s navies.


    "Zhou Bao, you''d secretly assembled the government troops to cause chaos in the city and attempted to rebel. Come and receive your punishment!"

 Chapter 174: Exterminating the Yellow Dragon Gang (II)

    Chapter 174: Exterminating the Yellow Dragon Gang (II)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Receive punishment?


    Raising an eyebrow, Junior Leopard turned around and saw the Garrison Camp soldiers surrounding them. He seemed unconcerned as he turned his gaze in the other direction. The smile on his face widened. The Magistrate was panting as he rode the donkey, rushing over without getting properly dressed. He was shouting, "Stop! Everyone, stop!"


    In such an urgent moment, the Magistrate who was usually docile was shouting in such a booming voice. He waved as he sat atop the donkey, his shouts muffling all other voices. It was still quiet until he came rushing here on his donkey.


    Wheeze, wheeze, wheeze...


    Having wrestled in the bedroom with his seventh wife the entire night, later receiving such a big shock this morning, the Magistrate was panting like a tired bull when he approached them. His wheezing was akin to sounds that came out of a windbox. That frail-looking body seemed like it would topple over at any moment.


    "Halt! Halt, all of you!" The stuttering Magistrate scrambled off the donkey''s back and rushed to insert himself in between both sides. "W-Weapons away! P-Put the weapons away! W-We''re all officials of Jin! How can you all be so ridiculous to cause this chaos?"


    The three opposing factions did not make a single move.


    The Yellow Dragon Gang now stood in the middle, surrounded by the Navy. On their periphery were the Garrison Camp soldiers. It seemed as if the Navy was in a dire situation, but nobody would really think that they would not put up even an ounce of resistance. Their commander and the wolf alone were enough to frighten others. With their Level Four fighting power, they were definitely the strongest present.


    That was precisely why no one from the gang and Garrison Camp dared to move.


    "Put your weapons away! Since the Magistrate had already spoken, what are you all doing standing there? Put your damned weapons away!"


    The Magistrate had been shouting for a good while, but no one listened to him. Everyone was still holding onto the weapons in their hands. Junior Leopard could not bear watching any longer and he gave an irritated wave, motioning his subordinates to put down their weapons. "You think there''s any use raising your swords and sabers? All of you, put it away!"


    Clanking sounds followed as the Navy, including the archers, put away their swords and sabers.


    "Confiscate their weapons!"


    Seeing the Water Army Camp soldiers put their weapons away, Guard Ding thought that Junior Leopard was going to surrender. He became more and more arrogant and actually ordered the Garrison Camp soldiers to take over the Water Army Camp soldiers'' weapons.


    "Yes!"


    Shouting in unison, the soldiers from Garrison Camp started to move forward. Just then, they heard Junior Leopard growled, "Do you want to die?!"


    His sound was not loud as if it was brought through a cold laughter. However, in the ear of the soldiers of the Garrison Camp and Guard Ding, it was like an explosion of lightning and thunder. Those soldiers about to confiscate the weapons from the Navy stopped in their tracks.


    Even Guard Ding trembled when he heard Junior Leopard''s threat. His limbs went numb and his face paled.


    "Misunderstanding! It''s all a misunderstanding!" The Magistrate was a cunning person. Grabbing the opportunity, he waved and stopped the soldiers from moving forward. "Everyone, calm down. Just a misunderstanding!"


    Standing by the gate, Qian Mufan shouted, "Bullshit! Zhou Bao besieged my headquarter early morning without making sense of right and wrong! He even accused me of collusion with the water bandits. He wanted to exterminate my gang. Everyone here heard him! Your Excellency, how could this be a misunderstanding?"


    "Of course not. I have witnesses and material evidence. Guard Ding, if you order any of your men to move forward, I don''t mind allowing my wolf a meal!"


    In between words, Little Du turned its head over. Its green eyes stared at Guard Ding till his scalp went tingling. He dared not have any more actions and indicated for his subordinates to stood still.


    "Witness? Material evidence? Prove it!" Qian Mufan had ample confidence because he knew this had nothing to do with him. Hence, he was extremely angry.


    With a wave of Junior Leopard''s hand, Zhu Ba brought a skinny man in tattered clothes into the square. He pushed the man in front of Little Du. That man squealed and wanted to escape, but immediately stopped when his gaze met Little Du''s fierce eyes. Face twisting with fear, he curled on the spot and trembled. This man was a water bandit at Broken Dragon Beach. On the day Junior Leopard and his men attacked the island, he captured over 100 bandits. This man was one of them. He was scared to death by Little Du''s fierceness. Ever since he was caught, he had recurring dreams about Little Du''s savageness. He would wake up in cold sweat at night. Now that he was in front of Little Du, he dared not have any weird movements. He could only curl up and tremble.


    "This person is one of the water bandits at Broken Dragon Beach. This is his confession. We also have the official seal you used to communicate with Li Sanbao. Witness and evidence are both present. Are you still trying to deny it?" Junior Leopard said. With a sweep of his hand, stationery flew out from his sleeves and slowly floated before Qian Mufan.


    Qian Mufan subconsciously extended his arms to receive it. Just when the stationary landed on his palms, an unexpected wave of force came surged from one of them. His expression changed, thinking Junior Leopard was trying to ambush him. He turned his hands and circulated his Internal Qi, wanting to resist the force contained in the letter. Unexpectedly, once he exerted strength, it landed onto empty space. All that remained were a muffled sound and a wave of shocked gasps.


    When he realized what was going on, the two items in his hands were completely shredded by his Internal Qi.


    He was not a fool. He instantly understood what was going on and he paled. He pointed at Junior Leopard and said, "You!"


    "You have the audacity to destroy the evidence in front of so many people! But so what if you destroy the seal and confession? I have more than just one set of evidence!" Junior Leopard waved again and Zhu Ba brought in another person, fishing out a set of confession to be passed onto Junior Leopard. This time around, Junior Leopard did not hand Qian Mufan the confession. Instead, he climbed down his horse, walked to the Magistrate, and handed him the confession. "Your Excellency, this is the confessions of the water bandits. Please read it carefully!"


    This Magistrate did not believe Junior Leopard at first. That was because he understood the Yellow Dragon Gang well and had some idea about Gao Gong''s ambush. However, he did not know martial arts. Even if he did, it was impossible for him to see through the tiny movements Junior Leopard made on the official seal. Seeing Qian Mufan shred the official seal into pieces, he could not help doubting him. The confession was written very well, even detailing the discussion between Qian Mufan and Li Sanbao. He began to believe in Junior Leopard''s words.


    Qian Mufan could see the shift in his expression. This Gang Master of Yellow Dragon Gang had networked with the Magistrate for many years, so he knew what it meant. "Your Excellency, he''s slandering me! The official seal is fake, so is the confession! He did something to it!"


    "I did something?" Junior Leopard sneered. "Gang Master Qian, you used your Internal Strength to destroy the evidence in front of so many people. And you dare say I did something? Who''s the one doing the slandering? Do you think everyone here is blind and stupid?"


    "You!"


    Qian Mufan pointed at Junior Leopard, anger rushing straight to his head and rendering him speechless.


    "Look, Your Excellency. There''s undeniable proof of Qian Mufan''s collusion with the bandits. It''s my fault that he destroyed the most important evidence. I ask that you order me to capture this person and redeem myself!"


    "This..."


    The turn of events was beyond the Magistrate''s expectations and he did not know to handle such a situation.


    "Your Excellency, don''t listen to his nonsense. He isn''t here to avenge Commander Gao, but for the port of River Heart Island. It''s because you allowed the Yellow Dragon Gang to manage the port and the Navy didn''t get any benefits from it. That''s why they came up with such an excuse and slandered me. Please be wise about this!"


    These words dispelled the doubts clouding the Magistrate''s mind. Earlier, he was indeed puzzled. How could he forget this? Qian Mufan and Gao Gong were sworn brothers who once even shared the same pair of pants! How could he cause Gao Gong''s death?


    Even so, the present situation was dire for the Yellow Dragon Gang!


    The Magistrate raised his head and slowly kept the confession within his sleeves. "Commander Zhou, this issue has some complications to it. It''s better not to make a conclusion so soon. Gang Master Qian has always abided by the rules and is one of the biggest gentries in the city. We''ll look further into this issue later. Send your brothers from the Navy back first. How about that?"


    "Your Excellency, then this will be your fault. Is there anything wrong with the brothers from the navy wanting to avenge Commander Gao? There''s no such thing as complications. We have both a witness and material evidence. This guy even destroyed the evidence on the spot. Everyone here can testify to that. Under such circumstances, I''m afraid others won''t agree even if I agree we should look into this case further!"


    Zhu Ba shouted at the top of his voice, "We don''t agree!"


    The Navy began shouting, "We don''t agree! We don''t agree! We don''t agree...!"


    Their voices reverberated everywhere, drowning the entire city in those words!

 Chapter 175: Exterminating the Yellow Dragon Gang (III)

    Chapter 175: Exterminating the Yellow Dragon Gang (III)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Tsunami-like cheers shook the wild.


    Guard Ding''s expression grew extremely dark. His martial arts were not so good, only just breaking through to Level Three. But as a man who had experienced the war, he knew the importance of morale for the army. Having been in Jiang City for so many years, he knew the Navy of Jiang City well. Since they were beaten down by the water bandits on the Luo River, their morale had been low. Both their fighting capacity and cohesion had plummeted. They feared the water bandits and had become a group of stragglers that could not compare with his Garrison Camp. If it was a month ago, he would have been sure that he was able to beat the entire navy barracks with the soldiers of his 20 Garrison Camps. Therefore, he never cared about the navy and set aside its interests when dividing River Heart Island. In fact, he would not even have given Junior Leopard the camp on River Heart Island if he had not been afraid of his martial arts. He would have even pocketed the huge treasure that the navy acquired from the water bandits on the Broken Dragon Beach. During this time, for River Heart Island, the money that Wang Cheng gave him and the Magistrate with had reached a considerable amount, but people were always greedy. While Wang Cheng gave them, they were wondering that the Water Army Camp must have reaped much more than this on the Broken Dragon Beach since they could give them so much money. Thus, psychologically speaking, he was rebellious and jealous of the actions of the Water Army Camp and that made him build up a sense of rejection to the navy.


    But now, the united cheers of the Water Army Camp soldiers were clearly showing that their morale had reached the peak. There was no trace of them being stragglers or the ragtag group they were a month ago. In just one month, how did the guy do this?


    Actually, Junior Leopard did nothing.


    For a month, he had been hiding in the depths of the barracks. Except for suppressing the bandits on the Broken Dragon Beach, all the affairs of the camp were handled by Wang Cheng.


    There were two reasons for this change. One was that he showed great strength in suppressing bandits, which convinced the navy. The other was that he was always generous to give rewards. Not only did he help the navy get back their arrears, but after suppressing bandits on the Broken Dragon Beach, he took out a large part of the seized belongings and gave them to the soldiers. This was equivalent to the sum of three years'' salary. Therefore, everyone satisfied. As the saying goes, rewards allure men to brave danger. Although just following Junior Leopard for a month, everyone felt their life had hope. Moreover, Wang Cheng had a great way of leading soldiers; otherwise, he would not have been promoted from the bottom to become the Vice Commander. In addition, he took nearly 100 qualified soldiers and imparted the Cross Training Diamond Body technique taken from the water bandits to them, which made the soldiers more grateful. With feats, money, hope, morale, and a good officer, in just one month, the whole navy had undergone earth-shaking changes. But Junior Leopard did not know anything about it. If Guard Ding knew it, he would be angry enough to vomit blood.


    The smile on Junior Leopard''s face became more and more brilliant as the surrounding voices grew louder. Perhaps sensing that the momentum was enough, he raised his right hand, and then pressed it down. Breathing deeply with flushed faces, the soldiers held their weapons tightly and restrained the vigor to swallow up their enemies. It seemed that they would exterminate the whole Yellow Dragon Gang at the command of Junior Leopard.


    "Your Excellency Magistrate, look, if the Yellow Dragon Gang doesn''t give us an explanation today, we won''t stop!"


    "This..." The Magistrate was just a scholar who had never seen such a scene. Thus he had been frightened by the soldiers of the Water Army Camp. His face was pale, his legs were trembling and he almost peed in his pants.


    Now hearing Junior Leopard''s question, though Junior Leopard smiled nicely, in the Magistrate''s eye, he was as evil as the devil. Suddenly he shuddered, subconsciously stepping back two steps. At the same time, he gave Guard Ding an appealing look, feeling that this matter was better to give to the professional.


    Guard Ding scowled, scolding the Magistrate secretly. In this situation, he was extremely reluctant to come forward. But since the Magistrate had cast his eyes on him, he had no choice.


    He groaned in his heart and said, "Commander Zhou, there''s evidence in your hand, but no one else has seen it except you. It''s a serious matter. I think..."


    "Do you mean that this guy ruined the evidence, but I was blamed for it?" Junior Leopard asked enigmatically.


    Guard Ding was angry. "Of course you are to blame. Who knows what you''re throwing. Even if it''s the official seal, you should give it to the Magistrate instead of throwing it directly to Qian Mufan. It was in your hands. You threw it to Qian Mufan and Qian Mufan shattered it. You are definitely to blame!"


    But for now, he did not want to bother the powerful Junior Leopard, so he had to bite the bullet and said, "Commander Zhou, you must be joking. Now, apart from these water bandits'' confession, you really haven''t any evidence, so..."


    "So you can shield the Yellow Dragon Gang blatantly?" Junior Leopard sneered.


    "You..." Hearing Junior Leopard''s undisguised words, even if Guard Ding had decided to lower his posture, he could not stand it. At the same time, he understood that Junior Leopard was here to find fault today. Whether there was evidence or not, he would suppress the Yellow Dragon Gang. Therefore, now he had a very good reason to doubt the truth of the evidence presented by Junior Leopard,


    He even began to suspect the matter that Qian Mufan shattered the official seal. Anyway, his cultivation had reached Level Three, he could be called a little expert. Naturally, he knew that if you could control your Internal Qi well enough, it was not difficult to do that.


    But the more he thought of it, the more frightened he became. He was afraid of Junior Leopard now. Now that Junior Leopard had used scoundrel means in his determination to deal with the Yellow Dragon Gang, if he stopped Junior Leopard, he would not necessarily have a good result.


    So he forced down his rage that was going to erupt. Knowing that Junior Leopard was determined, no amount of persuasion would work. He sighed gently and asked, "Well, Commander Zhou, what are you going to do?"


    "It''s easy. I''m going to bring Gang Master Qian back to the barrack. And them..." Junior Leopard suddenly pointed to a dozen of the Yellow Dragon Gang''s members that were armed on top of the wall and the members holding weapons in front of the gate, "they''re too aggressive! It was just a small gang that dared to defy the imperial court''s officers and soldiers. I''m wondering who gave him so much courage. I''m going to take them all back and interrogate them!"


    "That depends on whether you have the strength!" Qian Mufan shouted angrily. As he shouted, his Qi Power suddenly sank and the gang members on the wall and in front of the gate also shouted.


    The Yellow Dragon Gang had got a lot of Qi Power.


    "Interesting!" Junior Leopard pulled up the corners of his mouth with a laugh, and Little Du beside him made a roar too. Their Qi Power was connected, in an instant, centered on them, a violent wind created.


    "Hoo! Woo!"


    Though the wind didn''t stir up, somehow, everyone around them seemed to see a huge, invisible wind suddenly appear between Junior Leopard and the wolf, which went straight to the Yellow Dragon Gang.


    "No!" Qian Mufan looked terrible. His cultivation was high, for it had reached the peak of Level Three. His body strength had reached the peak of Skin-Toughening Realm, which was only one foot from the Bone-Forging Realm. Naturally, he knew more than ordinary people.


    Seeing that Junior Leopard''s Qi Power was rising, he tried to confront him with his own Qi Power. Of course, he knew that it was unwise, because the Qi Power that Junior Leopard just released was way beyond his imagination. Therefore, he thought of a way. A way to take advantage of other''s Qi Power!


    He wanted to take advantage of the gang members'' Qi Power, and connected his Qi Power with their morale to confront Junior Leopard.


    It was easy for him. But because it was easy, he immediately regretted it.


    Taking advantage of the gang members'' Qi Power could enhance his strength, but it meant that they must bear the pressure from Junior Leopard. How could it be so easy to bear Junior Leopard''s pressure?


    Both sides'' Qi Power was rising and soon they clashed. The difference was that Qian Mufan looked more and paler, the sweat on his face dropped down like rain, while Junior Leopard was relaxed with the smile on his face getting brighter.


    In terms of speed and pressure, Junior Leopard''s Qi Power was more powerful than the Yellow Dragon Gang''s. As Junior Leopard''s Qi Power was about to reach its climax, the gang members behind Qian Mufan finally could not bear the pressure.


    They were either holding knives and swords or bows and arrows. If the man holding knives and swords could not bear the pressure, the weapons would fall on the ground. But if it were the men standing on the walls, the arrows would be shot out. It was not only one or two, but dozens of arrows shot outside the wall together.


    Under the heavy pressure, the arrows in the hand of these gang members had lost their accuracy. As they loosened their hands, dozens of arrows shot down the field. Standing in the field was the poor Magistrate who was but a weak scholar that had never seen this kind of scene. He screamed and attempted to hide everywhere, but his butt was shot by an arrow. If Junior Leopard had not stretched his hand rapidly, perhaps the Magistrate would have been shot enough times to turn into a hedgehog.


    "Yellow Dragon Gang, how dare you assassinate the imperial court''s official? It''s almost lawlessness! Somebody, rush in and exterminate the Yellow Dragon Gang!" Junior Leopard shouted grimly and waved his hand. The soldiers of the Water Army Camp behind him, under the guidance of Zhu Ba and others, scrambled forward one by one. In front of the gate of the Yellow Dragon Gang, except the Gang Master, Qian Mufan, the other people were groggy and unable to resist under Junior Leopard''s influence, they were all knocked down as though they were vegetables by the fierce navy.


    The blood flowed like a river, and the smell filled the air.


    In a moment, they rushed into the gate and immediately screams came out from inside. They met with resistance inside the Yellow Dragon Gang, but it was just a small gang with a few experts. In addition, it was a raid. A large amount of the effective strength of the gang was scattered in other parts of the city. Some were even exploring River Heart Island. Although those who remained in the gang were elites, the most elite gang members were suppressed by Junior Leopard''s powerful Qi Power outside and on the wall. Therefore, neither in quantity nor quality could they match the soldiers of the Water Army Camp. After the initial battle-cry, the sound gradually came to an end and the soldiers gradually controlled the situation.


    Almost as soon as the soldiers rushed to kill the gang members beside him, Qian Mufan knew things were bad. He shouted and went to cut off the soldiers'' path with his long saber.


    Of course Junior Leopard would not stand idly by, because this guy''s cultivation was high. If he really let him go on for a while, the Water Army Camp would be badly damaged.


    Seeing that he was about to fight, Junior Leopard went straight to him and with his bare hands, fought with Qian Mufan who was holding a saber.


    Qian Mufan was the Gang Master of the Yellow Dragon Gang. With excellent feats, he was the top two in the gangs of Jiang City. Moreover, he held a Genuine Weapon which gave him some additional power. A set of Golden Dragon Roaring to Heaven was used by him with great vigor. It flashed chilling light and enveloped Junior Leopard in the saber-light.


    Junior Leopard''s fist was not easy to deal with. Seeing the saber-light coming, Junior Leopard punched Qian Mufan at the most awkward place. His fist, not quickly nor heavy, it looked very ordinary, but in the eyes of Qian Mufan, if he did not take back the saber to protect himself, Junior Leopard would hit his chest before he cut Junior Leopard. Although the fist seemed to be light, god knew how powerful it was. Only a fool would let Junior Leopard hit his chest, so he had to take back his saber.


    He had beautiful postures. Golden Dragon Roaring to Heaven was admirable for its broad opening and closing along with its magnificent movements. Withdrawing the saber was defensive, but it looked like an attack. So to ordinary people, Junior Leopard was enveloped in the saber-light without punching anything and could not hurt Qian Mufan. But to discerning people, as Junior Leopard''s fist punched out, one by one, Qian Mufan''s saber movements were more and more magnificent and broad; meanwhile, he was slowly retreating. When Qian Mufan realized this, he found that he had retreated to the wall. Facing Junior Leopard''s punches, he had nowhere to dodge. It was almost impossible to withdraw back the saber to protect himself. He could only look at Junior Leopard''s fist coming closer.


    "Bang!" There was a muffled sound followed by a slight crunch of bone. Junior Leopard punched Qian Mufan on the chest and the punch strength passed through his body, breaking the wall behind him. His body flew more than 100 feet in the air atop the wall before landing on the ground.


    Qian Mufan fell to the ground but did not die, nor did he lose consciousness. He seemed to struggle to sit up, but he disappointedly found that he had no strength. He then tried to gather his Internal Qi, which was a bigger blow to him this time, because he was shocked to find that all of his Internal Qi was gone.


    He suddenly thought of the feeling when he was hit by Junior Leopard. The punch cracked his sternum, but there was not much pain. However, the powerful hot strength that came with the punch had entered his body and was scattered towards his tendons and vessels, striking his tendons, vessels and bones. He did not feel it because he moved too fast. Now, being knocked down, he calmed down and realized that his tendons and vessels had been completely ruined by Junior Leopard''s strength. His cultivation was all ruined as well.


    "You!" He glared at Junior Leopard, trying to point at him, but he could not raise his hand because there was no strength.


    "Hum!" Junior Leopard responded with a sneer, and instead of looking at Qian Mufan, he turned and smiled at Guard Ding, "Your Excellency Garrison, Qian Mufan deliberately shot the imperial court official in the street. Your Excellency Magistrate has already been shot with an arrow. You have seen it. Now my soldiers have rushed in. Your Excellency Garrison, don''t you have anything to say?"


    "Ah?"


    It was too sudden. The fight between Junior Leopard and Qian Mufan was only a couple of dozen movements, and only lasted a few breaths of time. Hearing Junior Leopard''s words, he realized at once that Junior Leopard was being friendly. The Yellow Dragon Gang had been in this city for many years, their property would not be less than Li Sanbao in the Broken Dragon Beach. Most of their property should be here within their headquarters. Now the situation was very clear, the Yellow Dragon Gang would be wiped out. Apart from anything else, on the basis of the fact that they shot an arrow at the Magistrate''s bottom, their criminal charge of rebellion was confirmed. In such circumstances, it would be foolish and he even ran the risk of being implicated if he continued to protect them. But if he was on the side of Junior Leopard, to strike the Yellow Dragon Gang, he would benefit a lot. Even a fool could figure out such a simple arithmetic, let alone him, a Garrison commander. Hence, he turned dignified and waved his hand, "Brethren, follow me, exterminate the rebel bandits!" Saying this, he rushed forward first.


    "You, you!" Seeing this, Qian Mufan opened his eyes wide, glancing at Guard Ding bitterly. He gave out a cry, tossed his head back, and made no more sound. The poor Gang Master of Yellow Dragon Gang, with cultivation at the peak of Level Three, was not beaten to death by Junior Leopard, but he was put to death by the banditry of Junior Leopard and Guard Ding.


    As for His Excellency Magistrate, at this time, he had already fainted because of pain. He was unable to care about what had happened.


    In this battle, the Yellow Dragon Gang, who had been in Jiang City for many years, that had a good relationship with the County Administration and the Garrison Mansion, was exterminated by the Navy of Jiang City and the Garrison Mansion because they colluded with the water bandits and tried to rebel. The soldiers seized plenty of goods, and also found evidence of Yellow Dragon Gang colluding with the water bandits, which made the Yellow Dragon Gang no room to turn around.


    The remnants of the Yellow Dragon Gang outside were also exterminated by the soldiers from Garrison Mansion and the navy, which included the gang members that were exploring River Heart Island.


    With the fall of the Yellow Dragon Gang, the ownership of River Heart Island''s port had become a new topic in Jiang City. Once again, every influence was ready to please the County Administration and the Garrison Mansion with all their efforts to fight for it. But almost at the same time, the Seneschal, the Great Master and several supervisors of the Wu Family''s branch in Jiang City, took action to visit the biggest influences, the docks and the merchants in Jiang City. Their actions had silenced the battle for River Heart Island''s port. Besides, these influences also recommended that, for security''s sake, River Heart Island should be directly governed by the Navy of Jiang City, because the water bandits were rampant on the Luo River, and although Li Sanbao was dead, there were still a dozen gangs. What was more, River Heart Island pinched the throat of Jiang City.


    These actions made Guard Ding, along with the Magistrate, who was still lying prone on the bed, so angry that they could not say anything.


    They were informed, so they knew the action of the Wu Family''s branch in Jiang City. But what could they do? They were just helpless!


    Various influences in Jiang City may have had some ideas for River Heart Island, but with the example of the Yellow Dragon Gang, no one could be sure whether Junior Leopard would suppress them after they got it. Moreover, the condition that Junior Leopard gave them was not the best, yet it could be regarded as a win-win situation. In the world, whether businessmen, or the men in Jianghu, people drew on advantages and avoided disadvantages. Who would take big risks for a little profit?


    "How about just let soldiers of the Garrison Mansion station there?"


    "No!"


    The drill ground of the navy was near the port. He heard that Junior Leopard had moved his barrack there. If there was any conflict, the soldiers of the Garrison Camp would suffer great losses. Guard Ding would not bring trouble down on himself. Therefore, after a round of haggling, the Navy of Jiang City got River Heart Island''s port.


    As soon as it was decided, through the Wu Family''s branch in this city, Junior Leopard announced to every influence in the city that the Navy of Jiang City was responsible for the security of River Heart Island''s port and would crack down on the water bandits and maintain the order of the Broken Dragon Beach. Besides, for the vessels of all parties to pass through River Heart Island, the Navy of Jiang City would not block them or charge additional fees.


    For this reason alone, the merchants in the city cheered and praised Junior Leopard. Instantly, Zhou Bao was famous throughout the city.

 Chapter 176: The Goods Yard

    Chapter 176: The Goods Yard


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Your Excellency, are we really not charging?" On River Heart Island, Junior Leopard was sitting in the camp of the navy''s new barrack leisurely drinking tea. Now that his cultivation had completely reached Level Four, his body had achieved the Bone-Forging Realm. This meant that his state had been completely stabilized.


    The news that his cultivation reached Level Four was sent back to the Wu Family by the branch supervisor in the city. Thus, he was very relaxed these days, waiting for the response from the Wu Family. He was sure that the Wu Family would be happy to have such a young Outer Core Elder that had seized certain strength.


    Yes, an Outer Core Elder!


    There were two kinds of Elders in the Wu Family, the Outer Core Elders and the Inner Core Elders.


    Different from the distinction of the Outer Core disciples and the Inner Core disciples, the two Elders were equal in position. The difference was that the Inner Core Elders took on duties in the Wu Family''s estate and were responsible for the affairs of the Wu Family, while the Outer Core Elders were outside the Wu Family, such as being an officer in the imperial court, owning certain estates or influential as a local bully, seldom meddling in the affairs of the Wu Family.


    This situation existed not only in the Wu Family, but also in the well-known families and schools. In a sense, the Outer Core Elders were freer than the Inner Core Elders, but they had less say in the inner affairs than the Inner Core Elders.


    However, the Outer Core Elders generally did not care about the say, because they had their own estates, influence and authority outside of the family. One would become an Outer Core Elder of the Wu Family if he was from the Wu Family, his martial arts skills were also learnt from the Wu Family or he wore the Wu''s brand, like the Wu Family to Tian Long Taoism. Besides, although these Outer Core Elders had their own estate and influence, they could not compare with the Wu Family and even relied on the Wu''s strength in many ways.


    As a result, the Outer Core Elders of the Wu Family formed a mutually beneficial relationship with the Wu Family, which was the same principle as the Wu Family and Tian Long Taoism.


    Generally speaking, once the cultivation of a Wu''s disciple reached Level Four, he would be automatically promoted to Elder and enjoy an Elder''s treatment. If he had no estate and influence outside, he would naturally become an Inner Core Elder, and the family would arrange duties and work for him. Of course, if he wanted to go out to have a try, the Wu Family would not stop him. But in general, a man whose cultivation reached Level Four was no longer young and free of ambition; he would prefer not to go out to fight. But, if he had an estate and influence outside, he would automatically become an Outer Core Elder. Likewise, if he wanted to be an Inner Core Elder, the Wu Family would also arrange everything for him. Though, in regards to his own estate, the Wu Family would not take care of it.


    At the age of Junior Leopard, it was much unexpected to reach Level Four in cultivation. The disciples of the Wu Family were still learning techniques at this age and few of them came out. Even if someone came out, he would be with his teacher. As for their estates and influence, unless they came from small families with a good background, there was no problem.


    Hence, Junior Leopard should be an Inner Core Elder of the Wu Family. Even if he was still Li Yuan''s personal guard, the Wu family would persuade Li Yuan to allow him to go back to the Wu Family, give him a well-paid job and let him practice securely. In this way, there would be an Inner Core Elder in the Wu Family that was inclined to be an expert of Level Seven. Lyu Yiyue was a case in point that was also a wizard in practice. He was just an ordinary Inner Core disciple of the Wu Family at first, but before the age of thirty, his cultivation broke through to Level Four by relying on his efforts instead of ancillary drugs, thus he became a key trainee of the Wu Family. Therefore, he was now the Wu''s present First Elder.


    Compared with him, Junior Leopard was younger, better in aptitude and more promising.


    However, things had changed now. Instead of Li Yuan''s personal guard, Junior Leopard was the Navy Commander in Jiang City. The grade was not high, but his authority was enough to interest the Wu Family.


    Controlling River Heart Island meant controlling 60% of the water transport to Jiang City, which was equivalent to 40% of the water transport amounts of the whole Zhonghe Prefecture. What did it mean?


    Zhonghe Prefecture was a county of Qianzhou that was situated in the central state of Jin. Though a bit remote, it was located in the center of the country. The place had been under the control of the Pei Family, one of the four major smelting families, but their control was not strong. If the Wu Family wanted to scale up and strengthen their own power, they must expand into the hinterland of Jin. This place of weak control was an excellent place to breakthrough. The presence of a man like Junior Leopard here was the equivalent of placing a nail in the realm of the Pei Family''s influence sphere, which was quite conducive to the development of the Wu Family. Therefore, the Wu Family would not call him back to be an Inner Core Elder at this time. Instead, they would do everything they could to strengthen his power in the Navy of Jiang City and extend his tenure as the Naval Commander.


    Junior Leopard could see it very well and even Jiang Xiao knew it vaguely, so he followed Junior Leopard wholeheartedly, not to mention the old foxes of the Wu Family.


    As Junior Leopard waited for the news leisurely, the new camp and port on River Heart Island was built in full swing. Everything went smoothly, but this morning, Zhu Ba rushed in and shouted loudly, "Commander, why don''t we take the money? Now that River Heart Island is in our hands and both the Narrow River Path and the Broken Dragon Beach are in our control too, it would be too nice to let those merchant ships pass by as they wish. You know, they had to pay money to pass River Heart Island before!"


    Speaking of the merchant ships passing by Broken Dragon Beach, Zhu Ba looked distressed, as if they were not merchant ships, but ships of gold and silver.


    "We''re the navy, not bandits! Our salary is from the imperial court. There''s no reason to charge a toll!" Junior Leopard simply replied, "what, you don''t have enough money?"


    "No, I have enough money. Commander, you led us twice..."


    "What are you saying? What''s twice?" Junior Leopard frowned discontentedly.


    "Oh, oh, oh, I was wrong. It''s dispatching troops twice. I''ve got a lot of benefits. The money was enough, but looking at the ships on the river, I''m not happy!"


    "What''s wrong with that? Or, you can be a water bandit!" Junior Leopard gave him a stern look, "look at you. You''re disheveled! You must have just got up from a prostitute''s belly and rushed here from the brothel. Thinking about money and women all day! Can''t you f*uking do something serious?"


    Then, Junior Leopard suddenly smashed Zhu Ba with the teacup in his hand.


    "Oh"


    "Clicking!"


    Zhu Ba ducked and avoided the teacup which fell to the ground. It shattered with no suspense and the tea spilt over the floor.


    "Hee hee, Commander, I came here for something serious!"


    "Nonsense! It must be the case of the Prunus Tower wanting to build a brothel on the island. Out of the question!" Junior Leopard knew Zhu Ba''s temper now. He fought bravely with good feats, but he was hot-tempered and moronic, daring to say anything. Two days ago he got drunk and ran here to speak for the Prunus Tower, a brothel in Jiang City. He said that the Prunus Tower wanted to open a brothel on River Heart Island, which made Junior Leopard so angry that he nearly kicked him to death.


    Now the drill ground of the navy''s barracks was not finished yet, but he wanted to open a brothel. Who knew what he was thinking.


    "No, no. Of course not!" Hearing what Junior Leopard said, Zhu Ba hastened to explain, "Oh, my Commander, I was drunk that day and was fooled by the prostitutes. I didn''t expect to say that. It''s serious this time!"


    "Just say it. Don''t refer to the toll again!"


    "Yes. Yes!" Zhu Ba nodded repeatedly, and came up to Junior Leopard, "Your Excellency, and look, how about we open a goods yard on River Heart Island?"


    "A goods yard?" Junior Leopard raised his brows and looked at him with a faint smile, "that''s a good idea. There are a lot of merchant ships on Luo River. Although there are many ports in Jiang City, only a few have their own goods yards. As long as the flood season passes, the goods are piled up into mountains, and there''s no place to put them. If we open a goods yard on River Heart Island, it''s hard to avoid making money!"


    "Yes, yes!" Seeing Junior Leopard agreed with him, Zhu Ba got excited and moved a little closer to Junior Leopard, "Commander, how about it? Let''s do it!"


    "Do what?" Junior Leopard rolled his eyes, "is this your idea?"


    "Yes, it is. Of course it''s my idea!" Then, Zhu Ba held his head up, "I thought of it first. Yesterday, I came out from the Prunus... er... When I passed a few docks, I saw piles of goods on the docks and the merchant ships on the river were stuffed full. So I thought if we were to build a goods yard here, we would probably make a lot of money!"


    "It''s really your idea?" Junior Leopard was really surprised, and gave him some glances, "well, now that you think of it, it''s up to you. Anyway, now we occupy such a big place. Many spaces are standing idle!"


    "OK, yes!" With the approval of Junior Leopard, Zhu Ba got excited and turned away at once.


    "Wait!"


    However, before taking a step, he was stopped by Junior Leopard, "what''s the rush? I''m not finished yet. Bring me Commander Wang and His Excellency Jiang!"


    "Your Excellency, what''s up?"


    "Don''t talk nonsense. Just do it!" As Junior Leopard stared, Zhu Ba was quiet and left.


    "This guy is a bit crass," said Junior Leopard secretly, "but he has a lot of ideas!" Reaching for the teacup, he found that he had broken it, which made him shake his head with a wry smile.

 Chapter 177: Raising Bandits to Increase Our Value

    Chapter 177: Raising Bandits to Increase Our Value


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Wang Cheng (Jiang Xiao) pays respect to His Excellency!"


    Soon, Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao came to Junior Leopard.


    "Take a seat!" Junior Leopard said.


    They thanked him and sat down.


    The arrival of Junior Leopard not only enhanced the combat capacity of the Water Army Camp, but also brought a lot of benefits and advantages. In addition, he led them to occupy the entire River Heart Island. Therefore, after a period of adjustment, the Water Army Camp soldiers could be said to be united as one, especially generals like Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao. They had been much warmer and more respectful to him than before and really accepted him as their superior.


    Junior Leopard had also managed to win over their hearts. Therefore, during this period he and the Navy of Jiang City got along very well, like a couple going on a honeymoon. He believed that the honeymoon period would continue.


    "You all know that Zhu Ba is going to build a goods yard, right?"


    "Yes, he''s a big mouth. What can he hide?" Wang Cheng laughed and cursed, "But that''s a really good idea. I had the same idea and was ready to tell Your Excellency. I didn''t expect him to beat me to the punch!"


    Junior Leopard smiled. But Jiang Xiao who sat beside pulled the corners of his mouth and thought that it would have been a shame for Wang Cheng to take the credit that belonged to the moronic Zhu Ba for himself. He definitely was more and more stupid.


    "To build a goods yard is a good idea, but I don''t trust Zhu Ba to take charge of it. He''s a lustful and outspoken guy that is addicted to alcohol. Even if you''re content to let him manage the money, I''m not. The first thing I want you to do today is to help me to see who can be responsible for the goods yard after it is built."


    "This!"


    Neither of them was prepared. They did not know what Junior Leopard was thinking. After all, building a goods yard on River Heart Island could bring huge benefits.


    The terrain of River Heart Island was flat and very suitable for building a goods yard. Although, in nominal terms, the Navy of Jiang City only owned the port of River Heart Island and the drill ground, there was no clear standard. Just a little extension of the navy''s drill ground and camp would be enough to build the largest goods yard in Jiang City. As soon as the goods yard was established, River Heart Island would soon develop into a cargo hub of the entire Jiang City, even the whole Zhonghe City.


    Therefore, the people who managed the goods yard could naturally benefit enormously from it.


    That was why they looked at each other and did not knew what to say.


    "Forget it. I don''t think you''re ready. Think about it after you go back!" Looking at their embarrassing appearances, Junior Leopard knew their thoughts. He just waved his hand and said, "Speaking of the goods yard, there''s one other thing I''m worried about!"


    "Your Excellency, go ahead, please!"


    "The location of River Heart Island is too important and too sensitive. Although this time we got all the ports of River Heart Island, it doesn''t mean that the island is ours. In fact, I think you all know that it''s impossible for Jiang City to give us the whole River Heart Island. It''s good enough to be able to maintain the status quo. I believe that neither His Excellency Magistrate nor His Excellency Garrison won''t be indifferent to the fact that we are going to build a goods yard here!"


    "Do they dare to stop Your Excellency?"


    "They won''t stop, but they can also build goods yards here!" Junior Leopard smiled, "River Heart Island is so big, and the terrain is flat. You can build a goods yard as large as you want. We can build and so can they. After all, the River Heart Island belongs to Jiang City. I believe that in a few days, His Excellency Magistrate will send someone to measure the land to determine our territory!"


    Hearing this, Wang Cheng''s face grew darker. But Jiang Xiao was relaxed, with a smile on his face, he said, "Your Excellency must have a countermeasure, right?"


    "I don''t have any countermeasure. The only chance is to take as much ground as possible when measuring, especially around the port. In this way, even if they also build a goods yard here in the future, our goods yard is the closest place to the port!"


    "Your Excellency, have you ever thought about occupying the entire River Heart Island?" Jiang Xiao asked with a smile.


    "Yes, I have. But it''s not the time. Right now it''s a foolish thing to occupy the entire River Heart Island!" Junior Leopard said and glanced at Jiang Xiao meaningfully, "Your Excellency Jiang, you know, sometimes it''s not always a good thing to get too fast!"


    The smile was frozen on Jiang Xiao''s face. He forced a smile and said, "Your Excellency is right!"


    "It''s just that we can''t rest easy now. I believe His Excellency Magistrate and His Excellency Garrison are trying to drive me out of Jiang City!"


    "How dare they!"


    Wang Cheng heard the implication. His expression changed and his eyes widened, "They don''t have the ability!"


    "They do have the ability!" Said Junior Leopard, "I was transferred by the Admiral, and my main purpose was to suppress bandits. Now that the water bandits on the Broken Dragon Beach are a rare occurance and the water bandits on the Luo River have almost died out, I''m sure the Admiral will summon me back soon!"


    "This!" They looked at each other, vaguely guessing what Junior Leopard wanted to say. If Junior Leopard did not say it first, they did not dare to mention it. After a long while, Jiang Xiao asked, sounding a bit helpless, "Your Excellency, what do you mean?"


    Junior Leopard glanced at him and smiled, "I mean, of course, we need to raise bandits to increase our value. As for the Admiral, the Wu Family will help me to deal with him. He definitely won''t make the Wu Family look bad. I only worry that the Magistrate and the Garrison will make an issue of my age and qualification. In addition, there are some merchants and influences in Jiang City who do not want me to stay here. I came here to fight the water bandits, so this appointment was not hindered much. If the water bandits on the Luo River really disappear, and someone is interested in the importance of River Heart Island, even if the Admiral has the intention to leave me here, he will not be able to bear the pressure."


    Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao were silent again.


    The first time that they were silent, it was because Junior Leopard did not speak clearly and they dared not speak. Now it was because Junior Leopard said it too clearly. He clearly said that they needed to raise bandits to increase their value, which made them a little embarrassed to answer.


    How could the navy really be irreconcilable with water bandits?


    At best there was enmity with one or two influence of the water bandits, and the enmity would not be too deep. They were all living on this Luo River, if there were no water bandits, which merchant would be willing to provide money for the navy?


    If there were no navy that helped the water bandits on the Luo River, how could it be the situation that the navy was rendered ineffective by these water bandits?


    As a veteran of the Navy of Jiang City, Wang Cheng, the Vice Commander, was indeed somewhat regretful for the navy''s connivance to the water bandits. Of course, even so, he did not think they needed to take the harshest attitude against the water bandits on the Luo River.


    For the water bandits, the navy''s attitude was always to control them within a controllable range. They could not be completely destroyed or overindulged. There should be a degree. Let them be used for the navy, but not challenge the power of the navy. The Navy Commander before the former was not able to grasp the degree, so the water bandits of the Luo River became too many to attack. The former commander, Gao Gong, was so incompetent that the water bandits of the Luo River had become a big nuisance.


    After Junior Leopard came here, things seemed to be turning around. He quickly suppressed one of the two biggest water bandits gangs on the Luo River. This greatly stunned the other water bandits on the Luo River and made the river calm for a long time. Then by making the false accusation, he destroyed the influence that contended with the navy in Jiang City, which helped the navy re-establish its prestige. Now they stood firm and powerful.


    In such circumstances, both Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao believed that it was necessary now to suggest Junior Leopard to re-establish the order of the Luo River. However, before they put forward it, Junior Leopard had said it.


    To raise bandits to increase their value. Wasn''t it the typical portrayal of the time when the navy of the Luo River was in their heyday?


    Suddenly, the two people, with a bellyful of words, did not know what to say.


    At last they could only say four words, "Your Excellency is wise!"


    "Whether I''m wise or not is not up to you!" Junior Leopard smiled, "you''ve been on the Luo River for a long time and have all kinds of resources. To raise bandits to increase our value needs you to come up with a concrete implementation. Who do you think should be raised and who should be suppressed?"


    Jiang Xiao and Wang Cheng looked at each other and saw the smile in each other''s eyes, so they no longer hid.


    "Your Excellency, the Multiple Chain Dock and the Broken Dragon Beach were the most powerful groups of water bandits on the Luo River. Now, Li Sanbao of the Broken Dragon Beach was killed by you, so there is only the Multiple Chain Dock. For the Multiple Chain Dock, I suggest that we should focus on rising, and take the suppression as a supplement!"


    "I''ve known them for a long time and I heard that they''re more disciplined than Li Sanbao!"


    "The Multiple Chain Dock always behaves well. They''re not so much water bandits as a gang on the water, who charged protection fees. It''s just that they''re too mysterious, so very few people know about them!"


    "Very few people know about them? How about you?"


    "I''m ashamed!" They both said, embarrassed.


    "Don''t contact them at all?"


    "Yes, but that was before. We have been out of touch with them since Commander Gao took office. Moreover, as the navy weakened in the last few years, they disdained to get in touch with us!"


    "Oh!" Junior Leopard nodded, "we still have to contact the Multiple Chain Dock. Think of a way to get in touch with them. It''s better to sit down and talk. Commander Wang, you''re the most senior person in the navy, so I leave this to you. Okay?"


    "I''ll do my best!" Wang Cheng''s words were not absolute; Junior Leopard did not ask but continued, "in addition to the dock, there are a dozen gangs of water bandits. Tell me about them one by one!"


    "Yes!"

 Chapter 178: Three Letters

    Chapter 178: Three Letters


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    After the Navy of Jiang City destroyed the Yellow Dragon Gang, peace returned to Jiang City, but only for a few days. The people of Jiang City barely had time to catch their breath before bloodshed once again arrived at Luo River.


    The water bandits had kept a low profile after Broken Dragon Beach was conquered. After a short period of peace, they became active again. Overnight, they had robbed eight merchant ships sailing on the Luo River. When the navy arrived, they could only catch the bandits who were covering the retreat of their companions. Zhou Bao, the Navy Commander, was so furious that he launched the navy and destroyed two of the bandits'' nests in a row. Unfortunately, the navy was lacking in soldiers and boats. Furthermore, the Luo River was extremely large in area. While they did deliver a huge blow to the water bandits, they were unable to vanquish them entirely.


    As a result, the water bandits and the Navy ended up in a stalemate on the surface of the Luo River, but what differed from before was that this time, the navy had an advantage over the water bandits.


    Apart from the uprising of the bandits at Luo River again, the alarming news that a goods yard would be constructed at River Heart Island had exploded like a bomb within the tiny Jiang City.


    The people living beside the river of Jiang City lived off the river. Their lives were closely tied to the Luo River, so it was natural that they knew how important the Luo River was. Ever since the Zhonghe Prefecture had been built, the goods yards in Jiang City had never met the demand. Jiang City had a large population for a small space and it was located between the river and the mountains. It was already difficult to ensure that everyone had a place to live. There was simply no spare land available to construct goods yards.


    As for the only stock yards and warehouses of the few ports they had, they had been forcefully taken from the people years back, when the then Magistrate of Jiang City benefited a lot from a few large influences. During that period, the entire city was filled with hate and anger. People whose land had been dispossessed were so indignant that they even led the water bandits into the city. In the end, the goods yard was constructed, but the entire family of the Magistrate was murdered in the backyard of the County Administration by the invading water bandits. As for those whose land had been taken away from them, later they too joined the water bandits.


    With this lesson, the next Magistrates never dared to do the same and the goods yards had never been expanded again.


    With the development of Zhonghe City, the marine transport of Jiang City gained importance. During peak periods, merchandise would pile up like mountains within the port. Since there was insufficient space to store the inventory, the storage fees of the goods yard would drastically increase.


    Ever since River Heart Island was recaptured, a few clever merchants and influences had started to try to take advantage of it. One example was the unlucky Yellow Dragon Gang. They wanted to control River Heart Island and construct a stock yard there. Before, when River Heart Island was within the control of water bandits, trying to do this was like making bricks without straw. But now, River Heart Island had been taken back by Junior Leopard; they had the straw, and what was left to do was to see how they would turn the straw into bricks.


    Therefore, when the news that a goods yard was going to be built in River Heart Island was released, the entire Jiang City was in uproar. Even the significance of the reappearance of water bandits in Luo River was dimmed.


    Momentarily, the whole Jiang City was raging like a storm and the situation had become complex once again. On the other hand, the River Heart Island navy had a rare opportunity to rest and relax.


    Junior Leopard had achieved his goal of raising his influence by keeping the opponent''s influence in the past few chaotic days. He received three letters from the Wu Family in Jiang City. One was from the Wu Family''s headquarters, written to him personally by the Family Head, Wu Yansheng. In this letter, Wu Yansheng first congratulated Junior Leopard on cultivating to Level Four, and told him that he had been promoted to be one of the Wu Family''s Outer Core Elders. After hearing that the situation in Jiang City had just returned to his control, Wu Yansheng advised that Junior Leopard still needed to stay in Jiang City to oversee the situation; temporarily, he could not return to Yunzhou for the ceremony that would officially make him an Elder of the Wu family. It was better to return once the situation became more stable. The letter also reassured Junior Leopard that all the nitty gritty details had been settled. Now, he could stand firmly in his position as commander of the Jiang City Navy. The Wu family had taken care of all the dirty tricks the Magistrate and Guard Ding were trying to play on him. What accompanied the letter was an official seal for Outer Core Elder, which meant that he was indeed the Outer Core Elder, the moment he received that letter. The ceremony had not yet been held, but the Wu Family had dispersed this piece of news. Not only did the various branches of the Wu Family receive it, but also many well-known martial families in the Jianghu as well: fifteen year old Zhou Bao had become the new Elder in the Wu Family.


    This news, neither significant nor insignificant, stirred up a ripple within Jianghu. That the Wu Family had an additional Elder was not something unexpected, but the Elder was only fifteen years old, so this would catch anyone''s attention.


    Fifteen years old; Level Four cultivation; Bone-Forging Realm!


    Even within sects like Tian Long Taoism which had lasted for tens of thousands of years, the appearance of such a prodigy was very rare!


    A talent had appeared from the Wu Family. No wonder it caused uproar.


    After this incident, Junior Leopard started getting noticed by the prestigious sects and schools within Jianghu; he had become something of a character and gained some reputation for himself in the martial arts world of Great Jin.


    Apart from Wu Yansheng''s letter, the supervisor of Jiang City''s Wu Family gave him another two letters. Both were a pleasant surprise for him.


    This was because one was from his teacher Xu Yong, and the other was from Li Xiu of the Li Family in Pingzhou.


    Xu Yong expressed his excitement towards Junior Leopard''s improvement, and gave a few words of encouragement. Obviously, he had not known that Junior Leopard''s cultivation had already reached Level Four. Therefore, when he wrote, he told Junior Leopard to continue practicing hard to improve his cultivation to Level Four. Other than this, he also mentioned that everything was well for himself in Pingzhou, except that he had not finished his task, so he needed to stay there for an extended period of time. After he completed his task in Pingzhou, he would go to Jiang City and bring Junior Leopard a surprise; he did not say what it was.


    As for Li Xiu''s letter, in addition to congratulating Junior Leopard, he challenged him to a duel for the next time they met, and boasted that he would not be defeated as easily as the previous time. Junior Leopard did not take Li Xiu''s impulsive words to heart. Moreover, there was also some chat about what had happened after their separation. Lastly, he mentioned that since Junior Leopard was now the Navy Commander of Jiang City, he made a request for Junior Leopard to take care of the Li family''s ships when they passed through Jiang City''s waters.


    Three letters. Three persons. Three messages.


    None of the letters carried bad news. After Junior Leopard received these three letters, all his worries were gone. Afterwards, he delegated the responsibility of managing day-to-day tasks in the navy to Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao and his other subordinates.


    Junior Leopard''s cultivation had already reached Level Four, and his foundation was fully consolidated. With a cultivation of this level, his was already at the top among those at the same age.


    However Junior Leopard understood deep in his heart, that his own internal Qi and the External Elixir''s internal Qi were not integrated entirely.


    Currently, Junior Leopard owned two External Elixirs, but regarding the function of an External Elixir, he only understood completely after he obtained the second one.


    This was because the second External Elixir was used to practice the same cultivation method as his own: Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique.


    It was precisely because the two cultivation methods were the same, that his power was greatly increased. The Internal Qi that his body couldn''t hold was fully taken up by the External Elixir. Once his body''s own Internal Qi was exhausted, the External Elixir would be able to supplement him with Internal Qi. When the External Elixir''s Internal Qi was used up, of course, which was almost impossible, but if it did happen, his body''s Internal Qi would be filled up entirely. In this way, an endlessly continuing Internal Qi cycle would form. Junior Leopard was now a Level Four expert of the Bone-Forging Realm, but if another Level Four expert fought with him, the person would be defeated within seconds.


    For Junior Leopard, the properties of his External Elixir¡¯s Internal Qi were indeed the same as that of his own body. The difference was that the former was too intense. The cultivation level of his External Elixir''s Internal Qi was at Level Six; and to that extent a Lion, as one of the Nine Dragons, could be produced. Both the purity and the power of the External Elixir''s Internal Qi were a few grades higher than that of his body''s. Thus, transformation was not smooth. The Internal Qi in his body and the External Elixir''s Internal Qi interacted, which had no effect on the External Elixir but led to a result that the body itself couldn''t bear. Even if it didn''t matter during his daily practice, it would be his Achilles'' heel if he met a strong opponent.


    Therefore, the toughness of his body was not enough as far as he was concerned; he needed to improve his body''s toughness, at least at least to a level at which his body could entirely withstand the heat and purity of the External Elixir''s Internal Qi. Once again, he settled down to practice.


    Anyway, now he had as many medicinal herbs as he wanted; multiple batches of them were carried into his room. Everyone else thought he was using them to wash and purify his body, so no one dared to disturb him. Nobody knew was that he had spent ten days converting the medicinal herbs into Bone Forging and Tendon-Changing Pills. Now that he had these pills, together with the purifying effect of Taiji Fist and Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist, the toughness of his body increased drastically. While he still could not withstand Level Five Internal Qi, his body and the External Elixir became fully integrated.


    After integrating with his External Elixir, the enormous changes in his body''s power became apparent to Junior Leopard.


    It was the power of the physical body.


    The reason was not that he was in the Bone-Forging Realm. After he entered the Bone-Forging Realm, his strength became five times as much as when he was still in the Skin-Toughening Realm, and this was only regarding his strength. Along with the toughening of his physical body and skeleton, he was absolutely sure that, with only one punch, he could annihilate a person within the Skin-Toughening Realm.


    And this was just his physical strength after he entered the Bone-Forging Realm.


    Thanks to the integration and intensification of his Internal Qi, his body was quenched once more by the integrated Internal Qi of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire. His strength also became twice that of when he''d first stepped into the Bone-Forging Realm. Now, his strength was already ten times as strong as it had been in the Skin-Toughening Realm.


    Which meant that he was now able to lift twin hammers ten times heavier than before.


    He hadn''t considered this previously, but now when he thought about it, he felt frightened.


    The hammers exceeded five hundred kilograms, much heavier than the legendary hammers belonging to Li Yuanba. Once he could use them properly, the slightest hit from the hammer would severely injure someone. However, where could he find hammers heavier than five hundred kilograms? Worse, he wanted a pair of them!


    This was difficult because the forging of such hammers not only required skill on the blacksmith''s part, but also required raw materials of high quality.


    Junior Leopard could easily find a highly skilled blacksmith. As an Elder of the Wu Family, as long as he asked, there would be many craftsmen ready at his command. But what about the raw materials?


    A highly skilled craftsman could do as much as he could to compress and purify the material, but could not increase the quality of the material. Since the item to be made was a weapon, it must not be too big in size, even for a hammer. Otherwise, even if he was able to use it, he could not carry it with him!


    The good thing was that he was now an Elder of the Wu Sect, so he had access to their materials. Since he had this right, he was going to make full use of it.


    As he thought about this, he laughed, "Haha, this Elder title really is useful!"

 Chapter 179: The Enclosure Movement of River Heart Island

    Chapter 179: The Enclosure Movement of River Heart Island


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What is he going to do?"


    Wu Family, Yunzhou


    Wu Yansheng sat calmly in front of his desk, looking at the stationery before him while holding some stationery on the hand. At the same time, the muscles in his face uncontrollably writhed and a faint expression of alarm shone in his eyes. This was caused by the pattern drawn on the stationery.


    This was a letter of reply from Junior Leopard to him. In the reply letter, Junior Leopard first thanked the Wu Family for the foster and assistance that he had received and expressed profound gratitude towards being an Outer Core Elder of the Wu Family. Furthermore he promised to be a part of the Wu Family whether he was alive or dead, he would continue to try his best to work for the Wu Family. Those words were like a work summary that he used to write in the previous life as a civil servant. Though he hadn''t written one for a dozen years, he could write it as fluently as riding bicycles, which could never be forgotten once one had learnt. Those words were not only touching, but also sincere, which made Wu Yansheng, the cunning man, also feel moved. But at the end of the letter, he talked about one more thing. It was about his weapon which was destroyed during the martial arts competition with Li Xiu, the descendant of Li Clan in Pingzhou. He had no handy weapon now so he wanted to ask for the family''s help, that was, to make a new hammer for him!


    Making weapons was the duty of Wu Family, and by rights, it wouldn''t be a problem. However, seeing the blueprint, Wu Yansheng turned his face immediately.


    "What is he going to do? Can it just be a weapon? It might as well be called as lethal weapon! Moreover, you should ask for two?! How can I find so much Wrought Gold and Fine Iron for you?"


    On the second piece of stationery, Junior Leopard drew a pattern of a big hammer which had nothing special. It was an ordinary appearance of a single handed hammer. It was the notice which was added beside the pattern that made Wu Yansheng tremble with fear.


    "It is better to be more than 1.8 kg, 2 kg is also fine. At least it can''t weigh less than 1.3kg!"


    These few sentences shocked Wu Yansheng for a while, he couldn''t even look away.


    Being the Family Head of Wu Family, he could be said to have experienced a lot in the world and seen many heavy weapons. He had also forged some heavy weapons on his own. But those so-called heavy weapons weighed at most zero points kilograms. If one weighed over 0.5 kg then it must be the maximum. There was no one else asking for one weapon that weighed 1.8kg, let alone 2kg! Didn''t he know how much the Wrought Gold and Fine Iron would cost for such heavy weapons?


    Could he hold this heavy weapon for long? Even if he could hold it, could he wave it?


    Even if he could wave it, wouldn''t he feel tired?


    "What if he doesn''t feel tired?" Suddenly this question came into Wu Yansheng''s mind. He couldn''t help shuddering again. An expression of hesitation was revealed from his eyes. At last, he gritted his teeth, slapped on the stationery with a grisly look and then shouted loudly, "Wu Fu, invite Master Wang for me now!"


    Again he picked that stationery up and read it carefully; finally he couldn''t help but cursing, "What a pervert!"


    ...


    ...


    "Your Excellency, we''ve got news from Multiple Chain Dock!"


    Another morning, Junior Leopard sat in the courtyard after practicing his martial arts, feeling bored. Zhu Ba rushed in again, full of excitement, "Your Excellency, some people from Multiple Chain Dock want to talk with us!"


    "We talk with them but not they talk with us!" Junior Leopard corrected him. He looked up at Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao, who came in soon afterwards, laughed, "I guess the conditions are all clear!"


    "Yes, they are almost confirmed," Jiang Xiao nodded his head and said before putting a pile of money in front of Junior Leopard, "but people from Multiple Chain Dock insist on meeting you and confirming it finally."


    Junior Leopard turned over the paper casually, with a satisfied expression in his eyes. He said then, "There''s no need to meet. I mean both me and you guys, don''t meet them randomly. If it is confirmed, let it be. Don''t be brazen; let''s just follow the established rules."


    "But what if they violate the rules?" Zhu Ba asked, "I think we''d better sit down and..."


    "If they do want to violate the rules, can a meeting solve all of the problems?" Junior Leopard glared at Zhu Ba coldly and forced Zhu Ba retracted his head. "If they dare to violate the rules, then I''d like to teach them a lesson. We need to guarantee the safety of the ships which go to and fro along Luo River and the smooth of the water channel. We do not need to act evilly, in collusion with water bandits. By the way, have you dealt with your own business well? I remember you are in charge of the goods yard, what are you doing here?"


    "Hum, it''s uh... I''m not making troubles, Your Excellency. I have some fellowship with people in Multiple Chain Dock, so I..."


    "Damn you!" Junior Leopard threw a cup towards Zhu Ba as soon as he heard those words, "Whatever fellowship you talk of is rubbish. Remember you are a solider and he is only a bandit. What rubbish fellowship can you have!"


    "No, no, no, we don''t have any fellowship. I just... I just have made some contact with them. That''s it!" Zhu Ba said with great caution.


    Junior Leopard glared at Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao and said, "You two are really imprudent. Is there no one else in the navy? How can you deliver such a thing to him? From morning to night, nothing can prevent him from speaking. No matter how small the thing is, he will let it all out to the whole world!"


    They both became ablush and cursed Zhu Ba fiercely in their hearts, bending their heads without saying any words.


    "All right, forget it. This thing is done now. You just need to ask other people to do specific affairs. Don''t do things in person! Your Excellency Wang, would you please pay more attention to goods yard and ensure they don''t give rise to any accidents?"


    "Yes!"


    "Your Excellency Jiang, I''ve already seen some people there measuring the land of River Heart Island. How is everything going?"


    "They behave themselves and are pretty polite to our brothers." Said Jiang Xiao, "However, it seems that the Garrison Camp also wants to build a drill ground on the island besides just measuring land."


    "The Garrison Camp?!" Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows, "Guard Ding?"


    "Yes!" Lowering his head, Jiang Xiao cast a glimpse at Junior Leopard with split vision, as if he were trying to find something unusual upon Junior Leopard''s face.


    But Junior Leopard didn''t change his expression, he just answered with slight voice. "This way, all right! Ho ho... River Heart Island belongs to Jiang City but not us. If Jiang City agrees, there''s nothing we can do, even if he brings the Garrison barracks here. Just let it be!"


    "Yes!"


    Jiang Xiao answered, but he still felt a bit hesitatant, "Your Excellency, I''m afraid that once the soldiers of the Garrison Camp come ashore, they may clash with us. Then what can we do?"


    "Clash? What Clash?" Junior Leopard was surprised, "There is nothing more than ports, goods yards and two drill grounds on River Heart Island, even birds don''t want to defecate here. What clash can there be?"


    "I mean, what if people of the Garrison Camp provoke us?"


    "How dare he!" Junior Leopard sneered, "That Guard Ding won''t be so brave. As for the common soldiers of the Garrison Camp, I''m not afraid of them actively provoking us, but you can instigate your subordinates to provoke them and drive them away!"


    "Hum..." Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba were all in cold sweat now and had no words to say.


    They did have such plan in the beginning.


    Though River Heart Island was big, it was occupied by many influences of Jiang City. There were two camps in a small area, so naturally they would feel uneasy. Especially it was well-known that the Garrison Camp didn''t get along well with the navy. When they built drill grounds here suddenly, they must be aimed at monitoring the navy. Therefore, they were thinking of whether there would be any methods to drive the Garrison Camp away. This time they were here to ask for some information from Junior Leopard. Little did they think that Junior Leopard would prevent them as soon as their words came out.


    "Don''t wake any sleeping dogs. It is good for us to have the Garrison Camp on the island. Since neither of you want to rise in rebellion, why are you so scared? By the way, double the salary and food standard of our brothers from next month."


    "What? Double again? Your Excellency, we have already doubled it these few months." Cried Zhu Ba.


    "Do we lack money?" Junior Leopard glared at Zhu Ba, "With so much money in our barracks, if we don''t dispense it to our brothers, what can we do with it?"


    "Your Excellency, once your behaviors are spread to someone with high aspirations and determination, you will be accused of hatching a sinister plot or drawing others over to your side!" Said Jiang Xiao.


    "What rubbish! In all, there are less than 1000 people in these barracks. How can I hatch a sinister plot with so few people?" Junior Leopard laughed and said, "Those words may cause people to laugh their heads off!"


    "Hey hey. Yes, yes, you are right!" Jiang Xiao laughed.


    "Moreover, last time, due to the affair of Yellow Dragon Gang, we had some conflicts with the Garrison Camp''s people. Go back and tell our brothers that we must be polite when we come across the Garrison Camp''s people. Remember that we are not enemies! Just drink wine and eat meat together, it won''t cost us much!" As he came to this point, Junior Leopard paused and had a look at Jiang Xiao, "Your Excellency Jiang, find some clever brothers and let them build relationships with the Garrison Camp. If money is lacking, come to me. We are all soldiers in Jiang City and must be as dear to each other as members of one family. Do you understand?"


    "Yes, sir. I get it!" A thought flickered through Jiang Xiao''s mind and he figured out what Junior Leopard was planning, he became excited at once. But as he looked up at Junior Leopard''s young face, he shook with fear. "How young you are and you should be so scheming. Still saying that you don''t want to hatch any sinister plot. In my opinion, you are trying to draw all the Garrison Camp over to your side! Well, that''s fine. Following such a captain, my future will be very promising! At least things like salaries couldn''t be given out on time won''t happen again."


    "OK, since everything is done, you can leave now. Zhu Ba stays here."


    "Yes!" The three answered in unison. Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao left at the same time, but an envious expression was revealed from their eyes when they looked at Zhu Ba.


    After all, it was Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao that shared the highest authority of the leaders in the Navy of Jiang City. Because one was the Vice Commander and the other was famous for his resourcefulness.


    But Zhu Ba was well-known for his bad temper. Few would like to build relationships with him. Even the little Captains who were in his charge only had fear towards him rather than awe.


    However, when Junior Leopard came here, the conditions were changed. Junior Leopard seemed to have great interest in this rude guy. Though he often beat him and cursed him without saving him any face, he got more and more close to him. More importantly, Junior Leopard would personally guide his feat.

 Chapter 180: Zhu Bas Bloodline: the Reason for Remaining Dormant

    Chapter 180: Zhu Ba''s Bloodline: the Reason for Remaining Dormant


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Frankly speaking, in the innermost depths of his heart, Junior Leopard detested Zhu Ba for his vulgar, rude, brutal, greedy, and obscene disposition. All of the defects that men possessed seemed to be present in him.


    If others had possessed those defects, Junior Leopard would pay little attention to them.


    Yet much to Junior Leopard''s surprise, he found that this Zhu Ba was endowed with a special one, the heaven-sent bloodline that ordinary people did not have.


    This was as special as Junior Leopard''s Fiery Eyes. With the ancient bloodline, Zhu Ba enjoyed the Divine Sense of this ancient bloodline. However, Zhu Ba seldom knew this point and still believed that Junior Leopard regarded him with special respect on account of his excellent aptitude and sincere attitude.


    When Junior Leopard began to know his Fiery Eyes, he was apt to notice the aspect of the heaven-sent bloodline. Over these years, he had read quite a few books, thus, he somewhat understood the heaven-sent bloodline in this world. In other words, the Divine Sense of the heaven-sent bloodline was similar to the Bloodline Limit in cartoons. Only when existing in a specific clan could it be passed down in the form of a bloodline. So could the Fiery Eyes. So could the Thunder Spirit Body of the Lei Family of Tian Long Taoism. So could Zhu Ba''s inborn Divine Sense, though his talent had not awakened.


    There were a few people with the heaven-sent bloodline, but among which, very few people were able to wake the power of the bloodline up.


    Few families had the ability to activate the heaven-sent bloodline from generation to generation, like the Lei Family of Tian Long Taoism. There were two families with this ability in the entire Jin. Although the range extended to the whole world, there were only about 10 families with this ability. As for most of the other people, it was impossible to know this ability, let alone to wake it up.


    Like Zhu Ba, he did not even know that he had possessed the heaven-sent bloodline. Yet as time elapsed, on the condition that his power of the heaven-sent bloodline was not activated, the power lingering over people would be weaker and weaker and doomed to disappear forever finally.


    Zhu Ba himself was ignorant of his innate bloodline, while Junior Leopard noticed Zhu Ba''s abnormity through his Fiery Eyes.


    Zhu Ba was an exceedingly rude fellow. He often visited Junior Leopard before the doorkeepers had told Junior Leopard. Instead, he always intruded into the cortile directly. On one occasion, Junior Leopard was practicing his own Fiery Eyes when that guy intruded there directly. At that very time, with Fiery Eyes fully open, Junior Leopard found that Zhu Ba''s eyes concealed a sort of magical strength.


    Much to Junior Leopard''s surprise, he found that the strength of his Fiery Eyes exerted a dramatic effect on himself.


    "Greed! Extreme greed!"


    In that instant, an idea occurred to him that he wanted to engulf the strength of Zhu Ba''s eyes. It was a strong possessiveness and most primitive greed.


    This greed came from the true intention, without a trace of restraint. However, according to Junior Leopard''s disposition, he could not resist this greed from his innermost heart. But what he could do, in accordance with its natural tendency, was to rob Zhu Ba''s strength in the safest and most unremarkable way.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard''s attitude towards Zhu Ba was different from others. He even dispersed news that Zhu Ba, with his high aptitude, satisfied him, so he would give a priority in cultivating Zhu Ba. Although there was nothing to do, he still asked Zhu Ba to come here and viewed Zhu Ba''s progress of martial arts. In fact, exactly like that, each time he left Zhu Ba alone, Junior Leopard would inspect his progress of martial arts.


    He defeated River Heart Island and captured everything of Broken Dragon Beach, naturally including the way of Cross Training Diamond Body on which Li Sanbao depended to run wild in the Luo River. After Junior Leopard kept Zhu Ba, Junior Leopard acted as a teacher to teach his disciple; he taught him this method and answered all questions he had met during the course of the practice.


    Hence, among people who practiced Cross Training Diamond Body in River Heart Island, Zhu Ba was the one who most quickly improved. Now, in the Water Camp, Zhu Ba''s martial arts ranked second only to Junior Leopard, or in other words, he became the first expert aside from Zhou Bao.


    For this reason, others were jealous of him.


    Young as Junior Leopard was, everyone knew that he was endowed with the talent for martial arts. Furthermore, he came from an honorable family with the cultivation of Level Four at a very early age. How dreadful his combat capability was! By virtue of his rate of growth, he had a great potential to ascend into the phase of Level Seven.


    For those rash people of the navy, being conducted by Junior Leopard to learn skills was an extremely lucky thing.


    Therefore, never did anybody question that Junior Leopard was too young to teach others to learn martial arts skills. All of the navy people wished that Junior Leopard would take a fancy to them and give them some directions.


    Ordinary soldiers had little opportunity to contact Junior Leopard. Though they met Junior Leopard, they dared not to seek advice from him. As for Wang Cheng and other elders, they were too senior to pull down their face and ask for advice. Naturally, in their eyes, Zhu Ba was a lucky dog.


    Yet this lucky guy did not always cherish this hard-earned opportunity. Every time after he came back he would complain that the requirements of Commander were too particular and he could not bear it. Then he enumerated the tasks that Junior Leopard assigned for him and he did not understand what Junior Leopard talked about. Every time after hearing that, someone else would be extremely jealous and have the desire to kick and kill him.


    Consequently, when Junior Leopard embarrassed Zhu Ba in public, they would take pleasure in his misfortune and never intercede for him.


    Although Zhu Ba was rude and a scoundrel, he was still smart. He knew that when Junior Leopard put him in an important position, he would gain great benefits. Even if he often complained, he did his utmost to safeguard Junior Leopard''s interests. It was OK that he complained about Junior Leopard, but if someone else was bitching about Junior Leopard in front of him, he must be the first one to rush forward and beat this "someone else".


    "Your Excellency, the tasks you assigned have been completed!" Following Junior Leopard to the backyard, Zhu Ba showed an ingratiating smile on his face and narrowed his eyes into a slit. "Are there any good things to teach me?"


    "It is a good thing indeed! Don''t mention it to others!" Junior Leopard laughed and said, holding a parcel from the house, "These medicinal herbs are used to purify the body during the bath. They are of no use to me. Take them away! There are enough for you to use four times, which will bring a great advantage to enhance your physical strength!"


    "This¡ª!"


    Zhu Ba suddenly froze there, staring at the parcel in Junior Leopard''s hands, with his eyes fixed and his mouth open. For a long time, he raised his head and just looked up. Much to Junior Leopard''s astonishment, tears flooded Zhu Ba''s eyes.


    Then he uttered a weird scream and knelt down suddenly.


    "Your, Your Excellency...!" Zhu Ba uttered in a quivery and excited voice, looking at Junior Leopard with a vague and passionate look. "You are like a second parent to me. I am unable to make any recompense, but I will not hesitate to spare all efforts to do everything for you in the future!"


    "Er¡ª!" Junior Leopard felt a sudden shudder. Shaking his head a few times, he intended to stretch his hands and help him up, but he felt a sense of a chill when extending his hands.


    "Er, that, in fact it is nothing. You possess the highest talent to practice martial arts, so you are most hopeful to have a bright future in martial arts skills. Of course I think highly of you. The higher your martial arts is, the stronger my strength will be. Furthermore, it is unhelpful for me to use these medicinal herbs. You are the only one who deserves them. Therefore, don''t say something useless! Just practice martial arts hard. The important thing is to improve your strength!"


    "Yeah! I will try my best to practice and I certainly won''t let you down!" Zhu Ba exclaimed. Due to his excitement, his voice trembled.


    "Alright! Don''t speak so loudly. If you speak a bit louder, you will be heard by all of the people in the Water Army Camp!"


    "Well!" Zhu Ba''s face remained still for a while and he lowered his head. Taking the parcel from Junior Leopard, he bent himself to bow and left silently.


    "This guy is really a promising person with great potential! But I don''t know that after I deprive his strength whether he will be still alive or not!" After a few deep breaths, Junior Leopard removed his uncomfortable feeling, looking in the direction of the door with a cold smile.


    The Bone-Forging Pills and Tendon-Changing Pills he had made were enough to deal with his cultivation ascending into the Tendon-Changing Realm. There even were pills remaining. Therefore, these medicinal herbs were useless to Junior Leopard. These could be sold in exchange for a big sum of money, but Junior Leopard did not care about money now.


    He held the lifeblood of Jiang City''s water transport. Meanwhile, he colluded and exchanged the needed goods mutually with the water bandit of the Luo River, plus the goods yard at River Heart Island. Certainly, his fortune was rolling in from all sides. What he lacked now was strength, not money.


    A Level Four expert!


    He could do what he wanted to do in most of the places of this world. However, for Junior Leopard, it was far from enough. He was in danger and had the highest vigilance because of his troublesome bloodline.


    It stood to reason that, as a Level Four expert, what he should do was to go around to gain bigger fame and hone his techniques in Jianghu at his current age. Only in this way, could his strength be improved. But now, he stayed in Jiang City to intently manage his own influence, which made a portion of the people surprised and feel regret. However, regardless of their surprise and regret, Junior Leopard''s decision could not be influenced.


    He also wanted to leave home. However, after he refined the second External Elixir, he evidently felt that the strength of the second External Elixir was absorbed by his eyes, which made his eyes unstable. With excitement and overexertion, his Fiery Eyes would automatically open out of his control. Under this circumstance, if Junior Leopard fought with others in Jianghu, he believed that very soon all the people would know of the fact that he owned Fiery Eyes. Thus, he would have to prepare to be chased by everyone!


    Hence, he chose to remain dormant in Jiang City, a small area at a good geographical location, where he managed his own influence as he stabilized his eyes. After solving the problem of his eyes, then he would fight with others for fame!

 Chapter 181: The Ebb and Flow of Jianghu: the Aftershock of the Bride Kidnapping

    Chapter 181: The Ebb and Flow of Jianghu: the Aftershock of the Bride Kidnapping


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In the recent months, River Heart Island had been gradually bustling. A blanket of land had been opened up and many boats gathered at the port.There were all sorts of influences in Jiang City, including the influences of other places of zhonghe Prefecture. They all wanted the River Heart Island, a field of fortune, so that Broken Dragon Beach, where it was difficult to see a merchant ship for about half a month originally, was crowded with people.


    Since the Navy of Jiang City captured River Heart Island and Broken Dragon Beach, and announced that the waters of Broken Dragon Beach were now open without any condition. There were incessant merchant ships passing through every day, but these days, the majority of merchant ships were jammed at Broken Dragon Beach. Looking at a long line of ships, it was helpless.


    However, except felt helpless, there was nothing else they could do.They couldn''t even vent out their resentment. Previously when ships couldn''t sail here, they could blame it on the navy''s incompetence. But now, it was none of the navy''s business. It was because everything had been completely huddled together, including the materials, labor, and resources that were needed in building goods yards at River Heart Island, that the navy of River Heart Island opened up several temporary ports, in order to disperse these ships, but they failed to prevent people from all directions from coming here and alleviate the pressure of water transport. That was the reason why cargo ships of the whole Broken Dragon Beach stretched as far as three miles away. The number of ships was increasing, which looked spectacular, like a long dragon.


    "How spectacular it is!" said Junior Leopard seated on a high cliff beside River Heart Island. Looking at that dragon-shaped line of ships and stroking soft silvery mane of Little Du groveling next to him, he laughed, "Little Du, if I set a fire now, can it equate to the legend of the Red Cliff?"


    "Purr, whirr, whirr, whirr, chirp, chirp!" Little Du only concentrated on gnawing the bone in front of it, without any reaction to Junior Leopard''s words.


    "Commercialization! That is Commercialization!" Junior Leopard narrowed his eyes, and an eccentric idea flashed in his heart. In that world, the military force had taken the priority, but what really dominated that world was authority and money rather than martial arts, which was the same as his previous world.


    Military force could make people fearful, but super martial arts was only a deterrence, unlike influence and money which could master the whole world.


    Therefore, many fighters with aptitude and talent, possessed an extremely high achievement in martial arts skills at such a young age, like Junior Leopard who ascended into Bone-Forging Realm when he was more than 20 years old. Junior Leopard was counted as an expert in the martial arts world, and he had a high status in his own family or school. After having influence and money, some people may gradually get lost and be deterred by the influence and money. Then, they would be no longer as hardworking as before, only to find it difficult to ascend into the phase of Level Seven in their life time.


    Now Junior Leopard''s performance was similar to those people, but such a choice couldn''t be counted as a fault. When his cultivation ascended into Bone-Forging Realm, there was a long bottleneck. Even though he broke through Level Four and ascended into Level Five and Level Six, he would also face the same threshold before ascending to Level Seven. But to surmount this threshold he needed not only the aptitude and talent but also luck. Hence, after ascending into Bone-Forging Realm, some people knew that it was hopeless to ascend to Level Seven, so it was acceptable that they distract their attention.


    Though Junior Leopard was young in age and had a high cultivation, people in the martial arts world for the better part believed that he was unable to reach Level Seven because his backer was the Wu Family. In the whole Wu Family, there was only one Level Seven expert. The next hopeful Level Seven expert was not Junior Leopard but the Second Young Master of the Wu Family, because he was the young master of the Wu Family, and more importantly, he was a disciple of Wang She, the Level Nine expert. It was said that his cultivation and strength had now also ascended into the Level Four phase, so he had the most potential in the Wu Family. As for Junior Leopard, he just appeared by accident. In the foreseeable future, it was possible for Junior Leopard to occupy a crucial position in the Wu Family and to gain enormous power. Considering his family background, it was obvious that the Wu Family wouldn''t focus on training him.


    As for the relationship between him and Wang She, nineteen Spiritual Stones of Fire Attribute were enough to pay for the three days he had spent guarding outside the underground fire vein. Of course, if Wang She ascended into Level Nine in the underground fire vein at that time, it would be different.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard was only a potential stock now, and was a platelet of potential stock rather than a large blue-chip. Although it was worth investing, it was unsuited to hold for long.


    Junior Leopard naturally understood this point, therefore, he performed as a platelet of potential stock with a relevant value, in order to gain some merits.


    Opening grain stores in Zhonghe City and Jiang City, purchasing estates and waterways in Jiang City manipulated by him and the water bandits, managing his own influence, all these could be regarded as a colossal fortune in the eyes of ordinary people, but in the eyes of the true aristocratic families, it was nothing, because the treatment they rendered to Level Four experts was just like that.


    This was what helped Junior Leopard survive in that world for so many years.


    He occasionally showed his outstanding points to draw other''s attention, but avoided arousing other''s suspicion and envy due to his excessively outstanding ability.


    For example, he chose to remain dormant in River Heart Island. One important reason was that he was excessively outstanding in Jiang City some time back and had stirred up many things, thus some people needed time to completely digest it all. Therefore, it was advantageous for him to wait till it all subsided.


    In the period when he remained dormant in River Heart Island, many sensational things happened in Jianghu, and there were waves of information. The most sensational one was Wang She.


    In Qinlingjun City, there were two events: bride kidnapping and ascending into Level Nine. No matter how long the time had passed, they were always taken as hot topics in Jianghu.


    Especially when a Level Nine expert was involved in stirring up disputes, with Jianghu''s gossip embedded in it, immediately it would become like snowflakes flying in the sky. No one would know where it came from, or how long it lasted and how many kinds of snowflakes existed.


    On that matter, Mingyi School suffered great losses and lost face. Naturally, the School was unwilling to let it go. Be it falling out with Tian Long Taoism or pretending to do so, the fame must be reshaped.


    And this time, sending only several Level Eight experts would not win them back their pride.


    Fu Fengzi, a Level Nine expert of Mingyi School, declared a war with Wang She immediately when he exited training. At the same time, Golden Lights Cave, Lu Shaoyou''s master''s homegate, also suffered losses in this matter. The master of Golden Lights Cave, a Sword Master with Level Nine, declared a war with Wang She as well.


    Meanwhile, all casinos of Jianghu made a bet whether these three Level Nine experts would fight or not. If they really started a fight, Wang She would choose who to fight with first. After the fight, what would be the result? Immediately, the business surged like tidal water and Junior Leopard couldn''t help betting on a hundred silver.


    However, there would be no fire, because the two families were just pretending!


    Especially Golden Lights Cave, it had an illustrious reputation, but there was only one Level Nine expert, Sword Master. If any unexpected misfortune befell Sword Master when fighting with Wang She, Golden Lights Cave wouldn''t have an expert to protect its domain. Then all the painstaking efforts that Sword Master had made for decades were in vain. So it was unrealistic for Sword Master to risk his life and seek justice for his disciples.


    In Jianghu, Golden Lights Cave was a special school. It was not a traditional wealthy family. Though lacking in such powerful strength, it was also not a common small school with some historical deposition, and its strength was far stronger than that of middle and small well-known martial families. Because this emerging school was established by a Level Nine expert, it could even easily destroy a well-known martial family with a history of hundreds of years.


    Schools in Jianghu were like ocean bubbles. There was a general tendency that new schools would appear as schools died out at every moment.


    In assorted emerging schools, the most eccentric and promising school was Golden Lights Cave, which was built by a Level Nine expert.


    There were very few Level Nine experts in the world, and less of them would establish a school independently. Such figures were located at the top of the pyramid of strength, so no matter what country or school they participated in, they would be extremely valued. It could be said that as long as you sincerely took part in the school, you would almost obtain an equal position and authority as the most influential Elders of the school immediately.


    Most of such experts would choose to join a country or school, accept a price, and then choose a suitable successor to carry on their education.


    But some Level Nine experts had different ideas. They would start a new school by themselves and widely receive disciples, who would form a new school. Although they did not have a sound foundation, such new schools could still attract more disciples to join them, merely because the leader was a Level Nine expert. Except for real prestigious sects and schools and millennium families, nowhere else did Level Nine experts exist.


    Because of the fame of Level Nine experts, at the very beginning, plenty of people wanted to join them, and this developed a great influence, but this influence was relatively loose. Moreover, Level Nine experts were also unlikely to take all participants as disciples. Generally, they would select some people with good aptitude as their own disciples. Then according to the basic structure of the school in Jianghu, they took these disciples as the core to set up the structure of the school.


    Like the present Golden Lights Cave.


    In order to build a school with better development and a good environment, these experts also reached a compromise with those millennium families and prestigious sects and schools for mutual benefits. They assisted these schools to train a portion of experts and disciples, and even let their own disciples take part in these schools to tie the knot, like the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou who became a deacon of Mingyi School. In this way, two sides kept the relationship like allies, so that they both could reap the benefits from it. With the support of these large schools, the school made remarkable development.


    But how many people could really be Level Nine experts in the world?


    Therefore, most of such schools would vanish in Jianghu, like a flash in the pan. When founders were alive, schools enjoyed great popularity and no one dared compete with them. But when founders with Level Nine passed away, schools that were operated well and had strong cohesion would continue to survive, but schools that lacked this, fell apart overnight.


    Furthermore, the number of Level Nine experts was too low. And such a school was even unlikely to appear in one or two hundred years. Now, Golden Lights Cave was the only school with a Level Nine expert in Jianghu. Thanks to the Level Nine experts, Sword Master as well as Lu Shaoyou, the Level Eight expert, Golden Lights Cave could now enjoy an influential fame in Jianghu.


    But now, Golden Lights Cave had just lost a Level Eight expert. As long as people were rational, they didn''t believe that their backbone would fight with Wang She.


    Junior Leopard was sure that he knew a little about Wang She, who only cared about his own interests. If he lacked confidence, there was no way he could fight with other Level Nine experts. Though he was willing to, Tian Long Taoism was unlikely to say "yes".


    Moreover, a few days afterward, this case of the bride kidnapping distracted everyone''s attention from focusing on Wang She.

 Chapter 182: Laughing at the Sight of Calamity…Wang Shes Posthumous Affairs

    Chapter 182: Laughing at the Sight of Calamity¡­Wang She''s Posthumous Affairs


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    There were many different opinions on the bride kidnapping in Jianghu. Still, one thing was beyond doubt: It was a woman who kidnapped this bride. Besides, the woman was strikingly similar in appearance and dress to one of the Chiefs of the Tian Long Taoism, Nian Wushuang, a Level Eight expert.


    This way, the problem was more serious than Wang She kidnapped the bride himself. If it only involved Wang She, the Tian Long Taoism could argue that it was a personal conduct. But now there were two Chiefs involved. This meant that the Tian Long Taoism deliberately made things difficult for the Mingyi School.


    Thus the Mingyi School launched queries on these grounds. But before the Tian Long Taoism responded, news broke out. The other Chief of the three Chiefs of Tian Long Taoism, Lei Xu from the Lei Family suddenly came to Qinlingjun City and carried incomparably generous presents for Ma Changtian in hoped of marrying his daughter. Lei Xu said he was the mastermind of this bride kidnapping. And he and Miss Ma had known each other for years and loved each other. However, since he had been practicing and delayed the time to proposal, Lu Shaoyou beat him to the punch. It was because of the success of Lu Shaoyou''s early proposal that the Mingyi School reached an agreement with the Tian Long Taoism. Therefore, Lei Xu had been confined atop Tian Long Mystic Mountain by the experts from his family and the Tian Long Taoism. Stripped of the freedom to act, he could only ask both of his sworn friends for help ruin the wedding. He declared that he would accept all means of revenge, whether they were from the Mingyi School or the Golden Lights Cave.


    As what he said, on the day before he proposed, Nian Wushuang sent Ma Linglong to the Governor Mansion herself. At the mansion, Nian Wushuang talked with the Governor''s wife behind the scenes for half a day and no one knew what they had talked about.


    It was a pity that Lei Xu''s proposal did not go smoothly and he was driven out of the Governor Mansion that day. According to witnesses, Lei Xu came out with a bloody, bruised face, as if he had taken one hell of a beating. Even the betrothal gifts were also thrown at the door of the Governor Mansion, dazzling the crowds of passersby. Most people had never seen such treasure and said they had lived in vain.


    What most excited and surprised the passersby was that Lei Xu walked away regardless of the betrothal gifts on the ground. Then idle passersby made a small fortune.


    This incident complicated the entire affair, but naturally also made the entire affair clearer.


    With the entire affair revealed to all from beginning to end, it became clear why Junior Leopard kidnapped the bride, why Nian Wushuang, a lofty and detached woman took part in this deed and why these two had the self-assurance to defy the original agreement reached between the Tian Long Taoism and the Mingyi School.


    This was why we said that the entire affair was clearer, but this had complicated the entire affair in turn.


    With the appearance of Lei Xu, the three Chiefs of the Tian Long Taoism were completely implicated in this affair. Once the actions of these three and the facts all came to light, people in Jianghu all came to believe what Lei Xu said. If he and Miss Ma did not love each other and pledge to marry without parental consent, then who else would have taken such drastic actions for the sake of a woman? But who were the three? They were the three Chiefs, three pillars and the backbone of the Tian Long Taoism. One was a Level Eight expert from the Lei Family; another was a newly Level Nine expert, and the third, Nian Wushuang, whose background was even more mysterious. Rumor had it that Nian Wushuang''s background was no lower than Lei Xu. The three worked together to commit such an act. Then would the Tian Long Taoism ignore this? Would they dare to ignore this? Could they free from it?


    Under these circumstances, there was no possibility of launching an attack. Therefore, Junior Leopard won 100 taels of silver at a casino.


    With military force not an option, the oral conflict heated up. To those with discerning eyes, the Tian Long Taoism should resolve this matter by making a concession and returning the profits they had received previously from the Mingyi School; specifically, they should pay reparations to the Mingyi School as a compensation for the losses caused by breaking their word to the Ming Yi School and the Golden Light Cave. As for whether Lei Xu or Lu Shaoyou could finally marry Ma Linglong, that would depend on their capability.


    Nevertheless, judging by the Mingyi School''s style, this marriage was already over and no one else would mention it again. What remained was personal enmity of White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou and the three Chiefs of Tian Long Taoism. However, it seemed that Lu Shaoyou stood no chance of success. At least, he had to swallow the insult for the time being.


    For this marriage, both the Mingyi School and the Tian Long Taoism were the losers.


    The Mingyi School had thoroughly lost face. They had hoped the newly promoted Level Eight expert, the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou, could take charge of the overall situation in the future, but his wife was kidnapped in public at the wedding. No matter how strong he was, or how high status he possessed, Lu Shaoyu would feel shame for a couple of years in Jianghu unless he would win back his dignity.


    As for the Tian Long Taoism, they seemed to be the winner of this farce, and gained great fame and prestige since Wang She had become a Level Nine expert. But at the same time people saw the other side: The pillars of Tian Long Taoism, the three Chiefs with cultivation of over Level Eight, violated their sect''s orders. No, they were not violating, but trampling! The agreement reached between their sect and the Mingyi School, which would benefit their sect enormously, had been torn to shreds. Besides, the Mingyi School had to clean up the mess at the expense of sect''s profit.


    What did this mean?


    It meant that there had been a huge contradiction between the strongest of this generation and the real power holder in the Tian Long Taoism. The strongest could not alter the power holder''s decisions in authority, but he could break the decisions in strength.


    In a way, this was a strong signal from the strongest of this generation in Tian Long Taoism. They were no longer satisfied with flaunting their strength to the world; they wanted to utter their own voices and make their own decisions in the Tian Long Taoism. This joint action of the three Chiefs may actually act for their senior brother, because they were all disciples of the Tian Long Taoism, grew up together and had a great relationship. On the other hand, there should be a demonstration against the power holder of the Tian Long Taoism. They may want to tell the power holder that they were no longer content to be just a thug, simply fighting for the Tian Long Taoism.


    Therefore, for some busybodies in Jianghu, this was undoubtedly a wonderful and exciting story. They were dazzled and exhilarated.


    For Junior Leopard, who was remaining dormant on the River Heart Island, it was like watching a play. He often drank tea, ate dessert and listened to the rumors in Jianghu in a tea house in Jiang City. From time to time, he interjected his own speculations without any consciousness of being a participant. You knew, he was personally involved in the bride kidnapping and even killed a Level Eight expert.


    "You live quite comfortably!"


    When Junior Leopard was looking at the long dragon composed of ships of all sizes on the Luo River, wondering what to do to maximize his benefits, a familiar, feminine voice suddenly came to his ears.


    He sprang up with a startle from the rock he was sitting on, while Little Du beside him was more alert and jumped out of the cliff with a whoosh. It was just that the moment when it jumped up, it felt a sinking in its forehead. Then it was pinned to the ground by a tremendous force.


    Little Du was naturally bright. It instantly realized it couldn''t match the person in front of it. It dared not to resist, obediently motionless on the ground.


    Junior Leopard could not help admiring Wang She who had completely overpowered Little Du with only one finger on its forehead. However, he suddenly thought that Wang She was a Level Nine expert, and then his expression immediately changed.


    "Chief Wang, you are so awesome! Is it great that a Level Nine expert bullies my Little Du?"


    "Your evil beast is very interesting. I feel a familiar spirit in it!" Wang She slightly raised his eyebrows and retracted his finger, a flicker of confusion in his eyes.


    Suddenly, Junior Leopard recalled that Little Du was one-eyed wolf''s son and one-eyed wolf was tamed by the guy in front of him. Because of blood lineage, it was natural that their spirit was very similar.


    However, he could not tell Wang She this thing. Hence, Junior Leopard just said, "I discovered Little Du by accident in the Misty Mountain. Have Chief seen him before?"


    "I also have an evil beast that is very similar to it. Maybe they''re the same kind!" Wang She lightly answered.


    "Good, how about getting them together sometime?"


    "Maybe later!" Wang She replied and turned his attention away from Little Du. Junior Leopard patted Little Du and motioned it away. Then Little Du, as if it was amnestied, looked at Wang She for a moment and jumped out, disappearing within a few jumps. It seemed that it was really freaked out by Wang She.


    "Chief, you are not here to frighten my evil beast, right?"


    "What do you say?" Wang She laughed, following Junior Leopard''s gaze. "Boy, you''re really smart. You''ve occupied a good place. Having made a lot of money these days, right?"


    "No, just barely enough to live on!" Junior Leopard answered with a smile. "It''s you, Your Excellency Chief. You''ve become a Level Nine expert. You''re the focus of the world now!"


    "I''m going to Northern Yuan!"


    "Ah?"


    Junior Leopard lost in thought suddenly. "He''s going to Northern Yuan. What does he go to Northern Yuan for? No, it''s none of my business. Why he told me?"


    "I may run into some trouble on this trip to Northern Yuan. Even if I were able to come back alive, I would probably not appear in public over a period of days!" Junior Leopard''s heart sank a little.


    "What exactly does he go to Northern Yuan for?"


    As a Level Nine expert, at the peak of the world''s pyramid of strength, how could he not be sure to come back alive from Northern Yuan?


    You knew, there were no more than three to four Level Nine experts in Northern Yuan. Perhaps a Level Nine expert could not beat three to four Level Nine experts. However, it was hard to kill a Level Nine expert even if 10 Level Nine experts worked together.


    "You don''t need to care what I do in Northern Yuan? But if I can''t come back, I want you to do one thing for me!"


    "Chief, command me please!" Junior Leopard replied respectfully.


    "Give this to Ji Zhongtang of the Mingyi School!" Wang She handed a parcel of green cloth to Junior Leopard. Receiving the parcel, Junior Leopard felt it was light and did not seem to contain anything valuable.


    "Besides, there''s a letter inside. It''s for you. If you get the news of my real death, you should do me a favor to open it and follow the instructions in the letter. And if I''m still alive, you should act as if nothing happened!"


    "Yes!" Junior Leopard looked hesitant. He was somewhat frightened, because Wang She''s words sounded like the last words!

 Chapter 183: sMoral Fighters

    Chapter 183: "Moral Fighter"


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Okay, what''s that look on your face? I did this just in case; you look as if I''m meant to be dead! I don''t believe anyone in this world can kill me!" "With your cultivation and strength, few people in the world can beat you, right?"


    "Of course!" Wang She smiled. "But if those old ones don''t play fair and join together, I''ll be badly hurt at least!" He gave a sigh, "well, that''s all, this thing depends on you. Remember, that everything I asked you to do must be done after confirming my death!"


    "Chief Wang, rest assured. I''ll be sure to help you to do it properly!"


    Wang She nodded, quite satisfied with Junior Leopard''s reaction. He said, "OK, you should be careful, too. I have told you that the world was gonna change. Staying here is a good choice, but if I were you, I would try my best to control the whole Luo River. Thus affecting all of Zhonghe City."


    "This..."


    Junior Leopard was about to answer him, but he only saw a flash of green shadow. Wang She had gone.


    "What a quick body movement! It''s almost equal to my Three Realm Division! He''s indeed a Level Nine expert. Even though he just ascended into it, a nobody like me can''t compare to him!" Junior Leopard admired in his head and then looked at the parcel in his hand smiling hopelessly, "Well, I''ll keep it for him and wait till he comes back. I don''t believe he''ll die in Northern Yuan!"


    Junior Leopard thought of it. Picking up the parcel and exerting his body movements, he went back to his room. Hiding the parcel, he felt relieved.


    Lying in bed, Junior Leopard''s curiosity came up.


    "Why did he ask me to hand it over to Ji Zhongtang? I didn''t hear they had any special relationship!"


    "Moral Fighter" Ji Zhongtang could only be called a master of martial arts, though his cultivation was not the top in Jianghu, his reputation was no less and even better than that of any expert in Jianghu. The reason was that he was very loyal to friends.


    There were many people who were loyal to their friends in this world, but there was only one person who could be called "Moral Fighter". That was Ji Zhongtang.


    He was called "Moral Fighter" because of an old-fashioned, yet true story about gratitude and resentment in Jianghu.


    It happened 30 years ago, Ji Zhongtang was not known as "Moral Fighter" then but known as Guanxi Sworn Brothers with Lu Bei, the father of the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou. They had been sworn brothers.


    30 years ago, the two brothers were both young and both of them reached Level Three in cultivation. They were only ordinary people among all mortal beings in Jianghu. The difference was that the Lu Family was a thriving family in Guanxi, which although was not a well-known family, still ranked as a powerful family, while Ji Zhongtang''s family was very ordinary.


    He met Lu Bei in Jianghu, and they became sworn brothers because they were congenial with each other. Then they spent several years together in Jianghu. They had a reputation in Guanxi, although they had not made a go of it. They then married and had children respectively. Lu Bei''s child was the present White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou. However, peace did not last long. When Lu Shaoyou was not yet five years old, the Lu Family encountered a big change. Somehow, the Family offended Yin Killing Sect, a branch of Dark Sect.


    A powerful family like the Lu Family was still far from the strength of the Yin Killing Sect, though it had already declined. Add to that the vicious style inherited from the Dark Sect. Overnight, they killed the entire Lu Family, along with Lu Bei killed at home. Only Lu Shaoyou and his mother, who was visiting the parental home, escaped.


    It was just that the Dark Sect was always killing all of the targets, they had figured out the Lu Family before they started. How could it be possible to forget about Lu Shaoyou, the family''s most immediate lineage?


    Not finding him in the Lu Family, they continued to chase. Getting the news, Lu Shaoyou''s mother was afraid that her mother''s family would be involved, so she fled with Lu Shaoyou overnight. Unfortunately, it did not save the family.


    The Yin Killing Sect did this event very neat and swift completely wiping out the whole influence of the Lu Family in Guanxi. By the time Ji Zhongtang heard the news, it was too late.


    His sworn brother was already dead. Fortunately, the son of his sworn brother was still alive with his mother. In order to save Lu Bei''s only child, he ignored his family''s advice and went to rescue him. Thanks to his timely rescue, he saved Lu Shaoyou before the Yin Killing Sect killed him, but Lu Shaoyou''s mother was at her last gasp.


    Lu Shaoyou''s mother did not know feats, so the killers sent by the Yin Killing Sect only reached Level Two or Three in cultivation, not masters. Besides, there were not many killers. However, Ji Zhongtang was at the peak of Level Three in cultivation and was raging at that time. Naturally, the killers could not beat him and were all killed by him.


    Nonetheless, the trouble did not end; Ji Zhongtang became the Yin Killing Sect''s target. He was born ordinary; the powerful Lu Family was destroyed, not to mention him.


    Fortunately, it was because of his modest backgrounds and his parents'' early death that there were not many people involved. In addition, he lived in a secret place, so for a time, the Yin Killing Sect could only send masters to pursue. Later, when the masters got closer, Ji Zhongtang had no choice but to make up his mind to lead them to his own home.


    It was this behavior that made him the name of "Moral Fighter" and illustrated his cruelty.


    At home, he hid Lu Shaoyou in the cellar first, and then hugged his son to replace Lu Shaoyou. Anyway, they were five or six-year-old boys, and the man who hunted them had never seen Lu Shaoyou. This was like "the Orphan of Zhao" in the history of Junior Leopard''s previous life. The difference was that Ji Zhongtang was more ruthless than Cheng Ying. In order to save Lu Shaoyou, he not only made his son a scapegoat but also killed his wife who tried to stop him.


    It was also quite legendary for Ji Zhongtang to survive. Holding his own son, he was forced to the edge of a cliff by three masters of the Yin Killing Sect. With no way to escape, he jumped off the cliff. Fortunately, he survived by a vine in the cliff. However, his son accidentally fell from his hand in midair to the bottom of the cliff, with nothing left.


    After hiding under the cliff for three days, he dared to climb up and found Lu Shaoyou in the cellar. Lu Shaoyou had never dared to make a sound and was nearly starved to death. They went into hiding and left Guanxi afterwards. It was not until 15 years later Lu Shaoyou, the disciple of Golden Lights Cave and the deacon of Mingyi School, the youngest Level Seven expert in the world, appeared in the martial arts world. He went to Guanxi and killed the entire Yin Killing Sect himself with his sword, which amazed people in Jianghu that this event was exposed. That Ji Zhongtang was the "Moral Fighter" also spread around the Jianghu and became an instructive anecdote.


    It was indeed an instructive anecdote. No one would be always smooth sailing in Jianghu. If there was a loyal friend like Ji Zhongtang, even if something bad happened, there was no need to worry about the family.


    However, ask yourself. Perhaps no one could do that except Ji Zhongtang who had done it.


    Therefore, there was only one person who could be called "Moral Fighter" and there was only one Ji Zhongtang as well.


    "What is exactly the relationship between Wang She and Ji Zhongtang? I''ve never heard that they had any connection. But they had a conversation when Wang She had a fight with Lu Shaoyou... Wait!"


    With the change of his expression, Junior Leopard''s eyes began to flash with a passion for gossip. After all, he had read so many fantasy novels in his previous life, so his mind was quite divergent.


    "Now that the story of this Master Ji is so dramatic, it''s not surprising that there''s a dramatic end. Is Wang She the son of Ji Zhongtang, who fell off the cliff? Yes, it''s possible, at least in terms of age. If so, everything is reasonable. No wonder Wang She always had trouble with Lu Shaoyou and even kidnapped his bride. It explains the matter!"


    He did not think about that he was involved in the bride kidnapping as well, but he had no grudge against Lu Shaoyou and Ji Zhongtang.


    But for such things, simply thinking was useless. It required evidence.


    The best way to know the answer was to open the parcel and read the letter. However, even if he were brazen, he would not dare to do so!


    If Junior Leopard were to open the letter now and knew Wang She''s secret when Wang She just left and Wang She came back alive at last, Junior Leopard would really be in danger.


    Therefore, though the fire of gossip in his chest burned strongly, he held back, lest he should get into trouble.


    "Your Excellency, Your Excellency! Something''s wrong! Something''s wrong!"


    While still gossiping in the heart, Junior Leopard heard an exclamation outside. His face grew darker, "what are you yelling for? Has the sky fallen?"


    "No, no, not the sky!" The man who rushed into the room, gasping for breath, was tongue-tied, "no, no, it''s, it''s, it''s that some brothers were beaten!"


    "The brothers were beaten?" Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows and there was a looming cool light in his eyes. It was the River Heart Island, which was his territory, at least for now. Now someone came here to hit his men. Then either the navy had done something too much, or this person just found fault with him on purpose. The first reason was basically impossible. Although Junior Leopard normally did not care about these Water Army Camp soldiers, he had clearly asked Wang Cheng to take military discipline seriously. In addition, he also dealt with some unruly soldiers who made trouble with the owners of passing ships. Therefore, it was possible before, but it was almost impossible now.


    Then, there was only the second possibility. Someone was going to make trouble for him, Zhou Bao.


    "Where''s Commander Wang and the others?"


    "They have already gone there, but the person is so powerful that His Excellency Jiang and His Excellency Zhu have been defeated!"


    "Take me there!" Junior Leopard said in a grave voice and instinctively felt that it was not so simple.

 Chapter 184: The Tsundere Girls Debut

    Chapter 184: The Tsundere Girl''s Debut


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard was a little nervous, which was reasonable.


    Leaving aside Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao, Zhu Ba had been practicing under his teaching these days. Since Zhu Ba''s aptitude was good, his martial arts improved tremendously every day. Although his cultivation was still at Level Three, his strength and combat capability were at least three or four times stronger. He could only manage a draw against Jiang Xiao before, but now, even if Jiang Xiao and Wang Cheng joined together, they could not beat him. Among the masters of Level Three in Jianghu, his present combat capability was of a high level.


    But now, his man told him that Zhu Ba had also been defeated.


    At least it meant that the person''s cultivation had reached the peak of Level Three, even Level Four or Level Five.


    Only Junior Leopard''s cultivation had reached Level Four in the whole Jiang City. Now there was another one on River Heart Island. Obviously, the person was going to cause trouble for him.


    Junior Leopard was nervous and irritable at the thought. "I just want to live a peaceful life here. Did I offend anyone? Why make trouble for me?"


    With a bleak expression, he followed the soldier to the spot.


    "At the port?"


    "Yes, Your Excellency. That woman began to make trouble as soon as she got off the ship!"


    "A woman?


    It''s a woman!"


    "Yes, it''s a woman, and..." When it came to the woman who made trouble, the soldier''s expression was a little eccentric, "Your Excellency, you''ll know once you arrive there!"


    Junior Leopard did not ask much, but from the soldier''s expression, he knew that this woman was not going to be easy to be deal with.


    In fact, arriving at the spot, Junior Leopard found that he was right, this woman was not only hard to be deal with, but she was also a geek.


    The event happened on the new road that led from the port to the new goods yard. It was built in consideration of transporting a large number of goods. Thus the road was very solid and was more than 100 feet wide. Now, the wide road was already mobbed.


    "Here comes His Excellency! Here comes His Excellency!"


    When Junior Leopard and the soldier came, the crowd of onlookers made a noise. People consciously made a passageway, including the soldiers of the Water Army Camp, the businessmen who watched the fun, and the people with ulterior motives.


    "Your Excellency, I''m ashamed!" Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao walked to Junior Leopard from the crowd with an ashamed look and apologised to him.


    Junior Leopard just waved his hand, "where''s Zhu Ba?"


    "Well... He''s still lying there!" Jiang Xiao said in a low voice. At the same time he peeked at Junior Leopard''s expression from the corner of his eye, very carefully.


    "I would like to see who is so bold as to act boorishly on River Heart Island!" There was a flash of anger on Junior Leopard''s face before he passed them to go straight towards the center of the field.


    As he walked a few steps, his expression became eccentric and his eye muscles twitched. Although he had not quite reached the scene, he clearly saw the situation in the field with his powerful eyesight. Zhu Ba was lying on the ground moaning in a very undignified manner, which made Junior Leopard want to hit him. Additionally, the girl standing in front of Zhu Ba was not what Junior Leopard had imagined.


    A woman!


    There were not many famous women in Jianghu, especially those whose martial arts had reached over Level Three. Of these famous women, there were even fewer that were interested in causing trouble for him. Therefore, he thought that the woman might be a guard who was secretly trained by a clan or a powerful influence and never appeared in Jianghu. Unexpectedly, this one in the field was a tsundere girl.


    She was tsundere, really tsundere!


    She was like the girls in comics that odd Wang Bo, Junior Leopard''s identity in his previous life, searched on the Internet for when he had the interest. The girl who beat his three men looked exactly like the tsundere girls that he had seen in the comics.


    The exquisite figure, delicate and beautiful features, a pair of crystal-clear pupils suffused with coldness, occasionally flickering a bit of fierceness and stubbornness. She looked cool. She wasn''t smiling, but it seemed that she was pretending. Besides, she was thin and weak. Junior Leopard guessed that she was only about 1.5m tall. Her long black hair went straight down her back to the lovely pink dress she dressed in. But alas, all the gorgeousness was ruined by some oil stains on the front of her dress. Of course, only Junior Leopard was still paying attention to the oil stains on her dress, the others were focusing on the big saber that she was leaning on.


    The length of the saber was similar to her height. Moreover, the back of the saber was very wide, full of a fierce bloodthirst from beginning to end, which was unmatched with the girl. It looked extremely strange to be held in her hands, but there was a faint sense of harmony hiding in the strangeness.


    The girl''s eyes gradually lit up as Junior Leopard approached slowly. Her hearing was amazing. Though she did not see him across the crowd, she was thrilled to hear the steady, scalp tingling sound of his footsteps approaching.


    The crowd, at last, was completely separated and this allowed the girl in the field to see Junior Leopard''s appearance, which was obviously beyond her expectation.


    "You''re Zhou Bao?"


    The girl''s eyes flashed a little doubt, but she asked first, "you''re the Wu''s disciple who was supposed to die in the underground fire vein?"


    "Hiss!" The muscles in Junior Leopard''s face twitched suddenly and he inwardly cursed, "She''s really tsundere. What a sharp statement! What is the Wu''s disciple who was supposed to die in the underground fire vein? Was I supposed to die?"


    "I''m Zhou Bao, but I don''t think I should die in the underground fire vein. But you, miss, you came to River Heart Island and injured the Water Army Camp soldiers for no reason. What are you trying to do?"


    "These big men have lived all these years in vain. They can''t even take my one movement. How can you speak for them without being shy?"


    Hearing this, Junior Leopard had an impulse to stuff his dirty socks into her mouth. At this point, Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao, on the side, wished to disappear. "Yes, you win, but why should you talk so viciously?"


    However, Junior Leopard did not entangle himself in this issue. According to his experience from comics in his previous life, there was no point in reasoning with tsundere girls. If he bickered with her, he would die of anger. Hence, he had better get straight to the point.


    "You''re right, miss. They are so old, but they can''t take your three movements. They do have to reflect. Anyway, they''re my men. Since you hurt my men, I have to save their face, right? Besides, this is the port of River Heart Island, you must give me an explanation for your causing trouble here, OK?"


    "Unless you win my saber!" The girl responded with a sneer, and her eyes became sharp. Then she put the giant saber in her hand in front of her. According to the size and material of the saber, it weighed at least 50kg. However, she seemed to take it with little effort as if she was waving a juncus effusus. Combining with her thin and slender body, it looked weird.


    "Well, since you knocked them down with three movements, you are very strong. As their commander, I must have a try!" Then Junior Leopard gently pulled his left foot back, clenched his hands and placed a defensive fist in front of him.


    "Wait, where are your hammers?" The girl asked coldly, "do you want to fight me empty-handed?"


    "Two fists will do against you. There''s no need to use weapons!" Junior Leopard jeered, with flirting eyes, "Little sister, come on, let brother give you a good lesson!"


    "You!!!"


    Obviously, she had never received such treatment or heard such a sardonic tone that even had a hint of flirting before.


    "That depends on whether you have the ability!"


    Junior Leopard evidently underestimated the girl''s mind. After a moment of turmoil, she soon regained her composure.


    "She is a girl, hard to handle!"


    Junior Leopard sighed in his heart, having already felt the cold from the giant saber in her hand.


    "How could such a thing happen to me?" Junior Leopard groaned secretly. Then he fiercely lifted his Qi and a hot spirit came out from him like the eruption of a volcano. Almost instantaneously, the surroundings were enveloped in a searing heat.


    "Great!" The girl coldly praised before suddenly wielding the long saber. A huge half-moon saber-light directly struck at Junior Leopard. With a jump, he dodged the saber-light and then his left fist with a searing heat, aimed straight to the girl.


    Thirteen Punches of Desolation!


    The girl waved the long saber easily without a sign of weakness. The long saber was surrounded by a sharp light and struck towards Junior Leopard. They began a close fight.


    Junior Leopard finally gauged her strength. To be exact, it was the strength of her long saber. He hit the back of the saber with three punches which could smash two fists printing on pig iron and stainless steel, but it did not have any other effect aside from shaking the saber. Instead, his fist was hurt by the anti-shock from the saber.


    "Damn it! This saber is at least a Genuine Weapon! No, no, even if it''s a Genuine Weapon, it couldn''t be intact after my two blows. It''s a Secondary Heavenly Weapon!"


    Yes, a Secondary Heavenly Weapon!


    With his present fist strength, using the Extraordinary Strength Fist, along with the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire after several condenses and his physical strength, even if it was a Genuine Weapon, it would show signs of melting under his fists. Perhaps only the Secondary Heavenly Weapon could be as undamaged as it was now.


    "Damn it! Who is the little girl? Running around with a Secondary Heavenly Weapon!" Junior Leopard cursed secretly.

 Chapter 185: The Tsundere Girl VS the Pure High School Student

    Chapter 185: The Tsundere Girl VS the Pure High School Student


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard felt bad, and so did the tsundere girl.


    Junior Leopard''s fist strength made her uncomfortable, which were not only filled with power, but also scorching strength. If the spirit Junior Leopard released just now made her feel as though she was in a harsh desert, now she felt as if she was in a forge, due to the scorching airflow from his fists.


    Indeed, with each of his punch, a streak of golden red strength would naturally form around his fist. The strength was on the verge of liquid and its temperature was no lower than the flame in the forge of the smithy. Besides, it even gave her a feeling of molten iron, which made her afraid to receive it; she could only take advantage of her weapon to cope with Junior Leopard''s movements one by one.


    Her reaction was exactly what Junior Leopard wanted. The fist intent of the Thirteen Punches of Desolation had a broad opening and closing, primitive and boundless. It needed a lot of space to exert its greatest power. If Junior Leopard coped with the opponent''s movements one by one, he would be in a passive situation. Now that the girl was passive, he certainly wouldn''t show mercy. Junior Leopard gave full play to the essence of the Thirteen Punches of Desolation. Now that the girl was at a disadvantage, she felt Junior Leopard''s fists from all directions, with each one revealing a sense of desolation that made her despair about the fist strength which could melt gold and iron. Worst of all, there was another eccentric force in the punching skill, after each punch, there was always a streak of limp strength like silk in its route. She did not notice it at first, but when his fists were all around her and she was desperate to find a way out, she felt that the space around seemed more and more clinging. The silky fist strength that Junior Leopard''s punches left had unwittingly woven a fine and whippy net that tightly stuck to her. She was unable to move.


    This Loli had never felt such an awkward feeling. In fact, she had never been in such a passive state. Thus, she began to bustle about.


    Junior Leopard seized the opportunity to further suppress her. Several punches actually rubbed her body, lifted and melted her pink dress. But to the disappointment of Junior Leopard, his fist strength didn''t leave the tsundere girl exposed. After parts of her dress melted away, he found that she was wearing an Inner Armor under her clothes.


    The Inner Armor had fine scales and delicate workmanship. Moreover, in contact with Junior Leopard''s fist strength, there was a flash of a light yellow halo to completely resolve the attack. These all showed this light yellow Inner Armor, which the girl wore next to her skin, unique.


    "Damn it, I can''t go on! She is relying completely on her outfit!" Junior Leopard cursed in his heart. If the little girl hadn''t worn the Inner Armor, he would have won by now.


    The little girl''s strength was good. Her combat capability had already surpassed Level Three and entered the state of a master. Along with the giant saber at a level of the Secondary Heavenly Weapon in her hand, she could beat a Level Five master without too much effort. Besides, taking into account the addition of her Inner Armor, if she met a Level Six master, she would be able to retreat unscathed, even if she could not win.


    However, being rubbed by Junior Leopard''s fist strength, she felt awful. The Inner Armor resolved the punches'' scorching strength and power, but she was still affected by a very small part of fist strength. She was pale and slightly unsteady. In the fist''s shadow, she successively stepped back two steps.


    The two steps back were very bad for her.


    You knew, now the situation was completely under the control of Junior Leopard. The little girl was in a passive state, resisting with effort. Under the fist strength, there was a flaw in her defense, a gap in her left. Junior Leopard certainly would not give up the chance. He changed his fist strength and hit her on the left. At this point, a faint sneer flickered across his lips, "Inner Armor, is it great to have an Inner Armor? As long as I punch it, even if your Inner Armor is a Secondary Heavenly Weapon, it''ll be destroyed!"


    Junior Leopard insidiously thought about it.


    Just as his fist was about to hit it, he heard a cold snort all of a sudden.


    The sound was so abrupt that Junior Leopard couldn''t prepare for it. It struck him in the ears like a heavy hammer, making him dizzy. He could not help staggering and the punch missed.


    "Damn it!"


    Junior Leopard cursed secretly. Fortunately, he was tenacious, so after hearing the cold snort from the opponent, he still maintained a clear mind. He only lost his mind for a moment and immediately recovered. However, he had missed the best chance to defeat the girl and even lost his advantage.


    In a fight between masters of martial arts, the outcome was often decided in a flash. If you gained an advantage, you had to hunt down the opponent. Otherwise, you couldn''t kill the tiger, but would rather be the one to get hurt.


    Now, Junior Leopard was in the situation of failing to kill the tiger. Though he was only momentarily shocked, the girl seized the opportunity and steadied herself. Then with the saber-light flashing, she began to fight back.


    The little girl was not good at defending, but she was very aggressive when she attacked.


    The long saber in her hand, driven by her Internal Qi, radiated a saber-light that was nearly a foot long. The saber-light was so sharp that it cut all the fine and whippy Qi web that Junior Leopard had just placed around. Therefore, he dared not go directly against it with his fists and had to dodge.


    After cutting off the Qi web, the saber-light was flourishing and enveloped Junior Leopard''s whole body. The saber shadows began to cover the sky endlessly.


    However, Junior Leopard was not like her, good at attacking but weak in defending. He had practiced Taiji Fist for so many years and already had a profound understanding of its principle. His defense was watertight and he even started building a thin net around her again. Although most of the strength was cut by the saber-light as soon as it placed, he kept weaving like a tireless spider.


    Gradually, the situation began to reverse. The long saber in the girl''s hand was so sharp that it cut off a lot of Qi silk, but every time, there would be one or two that stuck to the saber. At first, the net did not affect the girl, but later, she felt that the saber was heavier and heavier and more and more sluggish. Eventually, even the saber-light became somewhat unclear.


    Meanwhile, Junior Leopard''s defense was more and more relaxed as he placed a thin strength net over his surrounding. Now that the little girl''s target was not him, but the wide strength net which was finer, thicker and increasing. She completely got stuck in the net mire and he hid in the middle of the big net, like a spider waiting for a prey, ready to reach out his fangs to capture it.


    Of course, the capture of prey was just his beautiful imagination, a fantasy.


    From the cold snort that made him want to die just now, Junior Leopard had understood that it was impossible to get justice from the girl, even though he defeated her.


    He did not know that where the girl came. However, from her super outfit, powerful strength and attack mode at this age, he could easily judge that she must come from a well-known family. Moreover, she was taken seriously and had been cultivated by her family, school or teacher since she was a child. And due to her amazing aptitude, she developed powerful martial arts at a young age. In her growth, she should not have been beaten, so she was proud. This time, she should be sneaking out to enter Jianghu. Of course, this so-called sneaking out should be driven by someone. She seemed to be alone, but a nurse of expert followed her in the dark, which she did not know.


    In this way, she could get enough exercises and be safe, which was the best of both worlds.


    However, it was absolutely not a good thing for Junior Leopard.


    It meant that even if he did gain an advantage, he could not boldly attack. There was an expert eyeing him up in the dark after all.


    How did Junior Leopard confirm that an expert was secretly protecting the little girl in the dark?


    Because of the cold snort.


    Junior Leopard would prefer being beaten to death than believe that the cultivation of the man whose cold snort made him faint had not reached Level Seven.


    Hence, Junior Leopard felt unlucky and awkward.


    However, he was the last man in the world that lived at the mercy of others. An expert? No big deal!


    "I''ve killed two experts of Level Eight. Will I still care about you who are hiding in the dark? I''m not gonna kill this little girl or make her suffer too much, but I''m gonna break your wishful thinking. You want this little girl to enter Jianghu and be honed. Well, I''ll force you out. You underestimate me too much if you want to suppress me without showing up."


    As the Qi silk became thicker and thicker, the speed of the saber in the girl''s hand was slower and slower, her attacks also slowed down.


    "No! I''m going to lose if it goes on like this!"


    The girl also knew her bad situation, but it was difficult to attack Junior Leopard''s watertight defense.


    She gritted her teeth together. Apart from her elders, she had never met such an enigmatic opponent that drove her to this point with only his fists. While she admired Junior Leopard, her desire to win became stronger. The flow of her Internal Qi quickened suddenly and the saber-light rose sharply, in which a purple light loomed up.


    The purple light was magic, full of a chilling smell.


    The first movement of the Universal Three-chop Sword, the World Shaking Saber!


    "Phew!"


    The long saber gave out a shrill and the saber-light turned into a purple stripe of about 10 feet long heading straight to Junior Leopard. The purple light was so horrendous that it could make an army retreat.

 Chapter 186: The Old Woman of Level Seven

    Chapter 186: The Old Woman of Level Seven


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "The Universal Three-chop Sword? The Meng Family in Ningzhou!"


    The purple saber-light came to his face, which made Junior Leopard''s expression to change rapidly. His hands were scurrying in front of him, streaks of strength like gossamer coming from his fingertips, twining in front of him, trying to stop the attack.


    It was almost in vain because the saber-light was almost invincible. Before Junior Leopard''s Qi silk was completely laid, it would be destroyed. The only thing Junior Leopard could do was to dodge it. However, he soon found that it was hard to dodge as well. It was because of the Qi Power!


    In an instant, the powerful sharp and boundless Qi Power enveloped him. He had to spend a great deal of effort to retreat.


    "Is this the legendary Universal Three-chop Sword? Its strength is unmatched. Besides, the murderous intent triggered by its strength can influence the enemy''s mind and judgment, making the enemy wince inwardly. With a weak mind, the enemy will be unable to move, allowing the saber strength to kill. With a strong mind, the enemy can force his way out of the killing intent, but he''ll also be affected: His body movement, speed and judgment will decrease. The scariest thing about the saber-light is its unfixed route. It will not only change the route with its owner''s will, but also will disperse a number of tiny saber-lights from the original huge saber-light. It''s really awesome."


    However, it was only the first movement of Universal Three-chop Sword.


    If the girl''s opponent was not Junior Leopard but another Level Four master, she would basically win and would even kill her opponent by soley relying on the first movement, the World Shaking Saber. Unfortunately, her opponent was Junior Leopard.


    From the standpoint of willpower, Junior Leopard was much stronger than the girl.


    The girl''s strong Qi Power and killing intent were all from her meticulous, step-by-step practice. Despite her high aptitude, rapid progress and famous teacher''s guide, she had not experienced a real life and death fight. Therefore, though her mind was strong, she was not as rock-solid as Junior Leopard was. In addition, Junior Leopard had understood the meaning of Intent. What was more, although the girl was talented, she was only powerful in Qi Power, but her Qi Power was never honed. Thus she was not on the same level as Junior Leopard. When Junior Leopard found that he was locked in by her killing intent, he just felt a chill in his heart. Then a great torrent of fiery Qi Power leapt from him, and in the blink of an eye it wiped out the girl''s killing intent, and then he seized upon the young woman, bearing down upon her.


    The girl''s expression changed sharply. Her face became pale, without any trace of blood. She only felt a surge of blood rushing to her throat.


    "Hum!" She gave a low hum and forcibly swallowed the blood. Then there was a faint abnorml red color on her face. When she found Junior Leopard had dodged the saber-light, a chill of light flashed in her eyes and she cried out. Suddenly, the huge saber-light was divided into a myriad of tiny purple saber-lights and once more, it enveloped Junior Leopard.


    "It doesn''t work!" Sighing, Junior Leopard ducked the saber-light like a fish. In a moment of breath, he rushed up to the girl against the countless purple saber-lights, and raised his hand to strike the girl on the face.


    His fist was not very quick nor was it close to the girl, but after Junior Leopard punched her, the girl''s face looked terrible. It was because the punch seemed to be slow, but it carried a kind of extremely desolate Qi Power, locking her whole body. Unable to move, she could only watch the fist coming closer and closer to her face, feeling death drawing closer and closer, despair rose in her heart.


    "Hum!"


    There was another cold snort. It was more powerful and deterrent than the previous one, but it did not have the same effect.


    Junior Leopard had prepared for it, or rather he had been waiting for it.


    He clearly knew that the sound was not only a cold snort, but also a combined special cultivation method to inject the Internal Qi into the sound waves, thus it could shatter people''s heart and soul.


    At the second ring in his ears, Junior Leopard''s fist was half a foot from the girl''s face. At the same time, a swift chill crossed his face.


    "Hum, what the hell are you humming?"


    A violent Qi Power suddenly emanated from his body. He did not slow down but opened his fist to reach forward. Immediately, he caught the girl who was closing her eyes to wait for death, with the thumb, index finger and middle finger of his left hand holding her delicate neck. With just a bit of effort, he could twist it.


    Of course, Junior Leopard just pretended to break the girl''s neck. With three fingers on the neck, feeling the tender touch from the fingertips, his smile grew wider and wider. His fingertips were slightly pressed to pretend to twist.


    "Boy, how dare you?" Here came a roar. Almost at the same time, a black figure rose from behind Junior Leopard, holding a strange weapon in the hand and struck Junior Leopard straight in the head.


    The hit was extremely sharp and clear. Almost all the power was gathered at the top of her strange weapon, with no sign of a leakage.


    "It''s you!" With a cold smile, the surrounding violent Qi Power suddenly surged. Junior Leopard loosened his fingers, throwing away the girl, and turned abruptly to meet the strange weapon. Meanwhile, he shouted, "Little Du, go!"


    Silver light appeared in the crowd''s sight at an incredible speed, and pounced on the black figure. At the same time, Junior Leopard quickly moved forward, avoiding the weapon and struck the black figure with his punch.


    "Hum, what the hell are you humming?"


    Junior Leopard shouted. Then his violent Qi Power filled the surrounding space, and his punches struck the black figure like raindrops.


    Little Du''s first attack did not succeed. Then it shook and changed magically creating five phantoms to coordinate the attack. At this time, there appeared a scene of one person and six wolves attacking at the same time, which dazzled and appealed the surrounding crowd who was watching the fight and had retreated far away.


    The black figure was surprised at the speed and intensity of their joint attack. Their speed greatly exceeded her expectations. Subconsciously, she took the long weapon in her hand to defend herself, and waving it quickly to make her defense airtight.


    However, as a Level Seven expert, unlike that girl, she had a rich experience in fighting. In only a few rounds, she stabilized and adapted to the joint attack of a man and a wolf.


    At this time, everyone around saw the black figure''s appearance. It was an old woman, dressed in black, about 60. The strange weapon in her hand was a golden Dragon Head Crutch, which seemed to be heavy, but was vigorous and forceful brandished by her, as if it was weightless.


    She easily defused their attacks. However, there was not a hint of joy on her face; instead, she was full of anger. Because Junior Leopard''s words were too hurtful. For so many years, even among her sworn enemies, no one dared to abuse her like this.


    She saw that Junior Leopard was obviously from the bottom of Jianghu. His first words were dirty words, which made her angry and she wanted to beat him to death.


    "Boy, you are dead meat today!" After stabilizing, the old woman looked at Little Du''s five phantoms. A strange light flashed in her eyes.


    "I''m dead meat? Hehe, why don''t you die? You old thing climbed out of the coffin to bring shame on yourself. How about I take you straight to the coffin?"


    Junior Leopard laughed grimly. He was not impressed with the old woman who was covered in a black dress. In particular, her expression was so domineering, as if everything was in her hands. This made Junior Leopard angry for no reason.


    Even Junior Leopard himself could not figure out why he was suddenly so angry. All in all, seeing the old woman''s domineering expression, he had an impulse to kick her in the face so that his words were more and wicked.


    The old woman was so angry with Junior Leopard that she looked black and her lips trembled. The Dragon Head Crutch in her hand became sharper, causing the surrounding air to whirl. At the beginning, Junior Leopard and Little Du did not realize that something was wrong.


    Gradually, however, their attacks began to slow down. It turned out that the airflow caused by the old woman''s Dragon Head Crutch was quite lethal, like a sharp blade.


    The old woman was defending, but in a sense she was also attacking.


    As their attacks slowed down, the old woman seized the opportunity to attack. After a cold shout, she immediately attacked. Then a large whirlwind caused by the Dragon Head Crutch instantly enveloped Junior Leopard and Little Du.


    "Howl!" Caught in the whirlwind, Little Du fiercely gave a long roar. Its silvery hair was upright, and the five phantoms around were instantly merged with it, tearing the whirlwind off and it jumped on the old woman.


    "The little beast is quite powerful!" The old woman sneered at Little Du in front of her, and then her dry chicken claw-like right hand changed magically to a number of claw shadows. Once again, Little Du was enveloped. It rushed about in all directions, trying to get out, but it did not help. After all, the old woman was a Level Seven expert. Although Little Du was an Evil Beast with great talent, it was so young, even a few years younger than Junior Leopard, that it could not handle her. She clasped Little Du on the top of its head, and somehow patted it on the forehead. Then Little Du rolled its eyes and fell to the ground.


    "Boy, for the sake of your Evil Beast''s face, I''ll leave you a whole body!"


    After knocking Little Du down, the old woman tempestuously attacked Junior Leopard with the Dragon Head Crutch in her hand.

 Chapter 187: Nothing Remarkable About Level Seven

    Chapter 187: Nothing Remarkable About Level Seven


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "You old hag! If I don''t teach you a lesson today, I won''t be called Zhou!" Junior Leopard was outraged to see Little Du defeated. His body, enveloped by the moving shadows of the crutch, straightened and he repeatedly struck out with his fists, trying to break through the range of the Dragon Head Crutch.


    But the old woman was not that easy to deal with.


    "Young lad, you can''t escape me!" She gave her Dragon Head Crutch a swirl and a surge of spirit emerged from it. Junior Leopard could feel the range of the crutch shrinking, encircling him into a very narrow field.


    "What a joke!" Sneering, Junior Leopard circulated the Internal Qi in his body and dramatically raised his Qi Power. The originally turbulent Qi Power became scorching. Terrified of being casualties of their battle, their spectators had long retreated a hundred miles away. Though they had already kept their distance, they were still pushed further and further backward by the unexpected heat waves.


    Hong! With a striking sound, Junior Leopard broke through the blockade formed by the old woman''s Dragon Head Crutch using brute strength. An unexpected peculiar black ripple also appeared.


    "No!" The old woman''s expression changed and she immediately retreated ten steps backward. She stood firmly only with the help of her Dragon Head Crutch. She stared at Junior Leopard in disbelief.


    "Fist intent!" Astonishment colored the old woman''s eyes. She was dumbfounded to see Junior Leopard enveloped by Qi Power that was already crystallized into form.


    "Fist intent! You managed to cultivate fist intent?!"


    Though she had heard how Junior Leopard had defeated many Level Four experts with fist intent in the underground fire vein, everyone thought he was merely making use of the intensive Spiritual Energy of Fire there to form a Qi Power similar to fist intent. But they were now in River Heart Island. The Spiritual Energy of Fire here was weaker than most places, never mind those in the underground fire vein. Since the island was located in the center of the river, there was mostly Spiritual Energy of Water here.


    In such a disadvantageous environment, Junior Leopard had surprisingly released such intensive and scorching spirit. When it came down to it, it all meant the old woman had underestimated his capability. But what confused her most was why such a young lad like him could materialize fist intent with mere Level Four cultivation.


    Or perhaps, she should say that he had managed to materialize Qi Power similar to fist intent.


    At the moment, she could not determine if the seemingly tangible Qi Power enveloping Junior Leopard was fist intent.


    This was because she had not materialized fist intent herself. This meant that her divine thoughts were not intense and alert enough. Unlike Snake King and Nian Wushuang who had already achieved it, she could not easily see through Junior Leopard''s fist intent. She could only feel a burst of powerful spirit coming off his body and it made her nervous.


    "Great observation!" Junior Leopard sneered and raised his hands slowly toward the sky. Golden red light flashed between his hands and two visible Fire Dragons flew out of his palms, dancing and circling around his body. The sight left everyone shocked.


    That was the second state of the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon. After his cultivation reached Level Four, he could materialize two Fire Dragons. Compared to his first Fire Dragons, the dragons formed this time were more exquisite. Their sizes were smaller but more realistic. From the beards, scales, claws, horns, to the eyes, they were strangely lifelike.


    An expert with fist intent observing the battle would have been surprised to find the two Fire Dragons were not actually flying around Junior Leopard. They were encircling the black fireball behind him as if they were playing with a pearl.


    "Looks like I have still underestimated you in the end. But so what if you have materialized your fist intent?" The old woman calmed down after her initial astonishment. Though she now looked more serious, her fear and surprise had disappeared. Her killing intent was thriving. "You have not only materialized your fist intent but also cultivated your Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon to this extent. The second state of the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon! I suppose even Lyu Yiyue from the Wu Family isn''t capable of this!"


    "Humph! Elder Lyu is the best expert in the Wu Family. His cultivation is not something an old hag like you can estimate. You might as well worry about how you will leave this place alive!" Junior Leopard laughed coldly and unleashed his two Fire Dragons to attack the old woman.


    "Too arrogant, kid!" the old woman shouted, placing her Dragon Head Crutch horizontally before her body and confronted the two Fire Dragons dashing straight at her. Junior Leopard smiled coldly, watching the two dragons fight the old woman. Three golden fire balls appeared from his wrist, circling around it. On the other side, a cyan vortex had emerged from the old woman''s Dragon Head Crutch and clashed with the dragons. The outcome was surprising and they had reached a stalemate for the moment.


    Junior Leopard only smiled coldly. When he raised his hands, six golden fire balls charged at the old woman and the two dragons.


    "Dragon Granny, watch out!"


    The young girl Junior Leopard had knocked out and thrown aside had regained consciousness. Watching the scene unfolding before her, her expression froze with shock and she could help screaming.


    "Don''t worry, my lady!" The old woman called Dragon Granny tried to comfort her. She took three steps backward and struck the ground heavily with her Dragon Head Crutch. Something odd happened. A greenish translucent light visible to the naked eye had completely enveloped her, protecting her. The Fire Dragons slammed into the light cover but were rebounded far away, unable to break through.


    Dragon Granny''s expression turned smug as she looked at the golden fire balls meant for her and the Fire Dragons flying around her barrier. "It''s true I have underestimated your capability, but do you really think you can win me with merely Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon?"


    "Then just watch and see!" Junior Leopard sneered, suddenly running at the old woman.


    Hong! Hong! Hong! The six fire balls slammed into her light cover one after another emitting ear-deafening humming sounds.


    "Young lad, stop dreaming! My Green Spiritual Glass Cover is¡­ What?!"


    Before she could finish her cocky words, she felt a blast of scorching airflow enter the Green Spiritual Glass Cover and aim at her Dragon Head Crutch. She raised her head and became shocked by what she saw. The six fire balls continued burning the light cover even when they could not break through it in a clean hit. Under the golden flame, the light cover began to melt. Dragon Granny began to panic. She had never seen such an uncanny thing happen since she started practicing the secret skill of Green Spiritual Glass Cover. She had never heard such a thing could happen. It was unexpected that there was a flame capable of melting the harder-than-iron light cover formed by Internal Qi through the secret skill.


    "Green Spiritual Glass Cover? So what if you know how to use a secret skill?" Junior Leopard laughed coldly. He had long approached the light cover, punching through it without much thought.


    Junior Leopard''s fist was tough, plus he was fueled by his Qi Power and fist intent. It took him only three punches or so before the light cover that was Dragon Granny''s pride began cracking.


    "Impossible...!" Dragon Granny made a strangled cry as if she had seen the most unbelievable thing in the world.


    Universal Three-chop Sword and Green Spiritual Glass Cover were two of the three secret techniques of the Meng Family in Ningzhou. They formed the basis for the Meng Family''s confidence for surviving in Jianghu. After thousands of years, these techniques earned prestige for the family.


    The Green Spiritual Glass Cover was recognized as one of the strongest defense secret skills in the world.


    It was said that even an expert with cultivation below Level Seven and no knowledge of protective Qi could have a defensive power equivalent to Gang Qi when using this skill. Those who have already practiced Gang Qi, on the other hand, would have even more terrifying defensive power when using it.


    Dragon Granny had Level Seven cultivation and her Internal Qi was essentially unique and far stronger than those with cultivation beneath her despite her lack of success with Gang Qi. The defensive power of the Green Spiritual Glass Cover she demonstrated with her Internal Qi ought to be greater than the Protective Gang Qi by a new expert. But she did not expect the secret skill would be cracked so easily by the young lad in front of her. Everything happened too easily and inexplicably.


    What she did not know was the six fire balls Junior Leopard hurled at her earlier were incidentally transformed by the Lion, which was created when the Internal Qi of the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon was refined to the extreme.


    Besides, Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi was not just any ordinary flame. It contained the power from Mysterious Fire of the Dragon Chimera. As great as the Green Spiritual Glass Cover was, it was merely molded through ordinary Internal Qi. It obviously could not endure the power of a real dragon!


    Moreover, Junior Leopard had a wickedly powerful fist. The Green Spiritual Glass Cover that was famous throughout the martial arts world finally cracked under the dual pressure.


    A series of clear and melodious chimes rang in everyone''s ears as if pearls were falling down on a plate. Dragon Granny leaned on her crutch with a pale face and took a step back. The cyan light cover crashed to the ground like broken glass and, with the loss of her Internal Qi, soon disappeared like cyan smoke.


    "You...!"


    Dragon Granny''s morale was now completely gone. Her once neat hair hung down like messy curtains. With her pale, wrinkled face combined with her loose hair made her look quite like a ghost. She trembled in the wind with her walking stick, making her look desolate. Nobody could see the spirit of a Level Seven expert on her.


    The newly-constructed road was also ruined by their battle. Deep traces made by saber were scattered all over the ground. Potholes caused by the Internal Qi vibration were everywhere. Junior Leopard''s heated Internal Qi had melted the stones and mud. There was no trace of a new road remaining.


    Junior Leopard sneered and stepped toward Dragon Granny.


    "Level Seven? Haha! There is really nothing remarkable about it!"

 Chapter 188: Bombard to Death and Slay to Slag

    Chapter 188: Bombard to Death and Slay to Slag


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Level Seven? Just so so!"


    As Junior Leopard''s words coming out, he walked toward Dragon Granny, each step accompanied by increasingly greater Qi Power. Flame of the black fireballs invisible to ordinary people burnt fiercer and fiercer. The Fire Dragons entwined Junior Leopard, tinting his surroundings red.


    At this time, surrounding people were all stricken dumb with amazement.


    River Heart Island was located in the center of Luo River, with vehicles shuttling back and forth each day. Though there were few masters of martial arts in the audience, many were old cons who had been in the Jianghu for many years. They may be not good at practicing but they still had the eyesight for good martial arts.


    They could not figure out who would win the battle at first. The battle was too dazzling and both performed exceptionally well. Once Dragon Granny took out her Dragon Head Crutch and revealed her face, those who had roamed the Jianghu for many years and well-informed ones immediately recognized her identity. After all, there were only few Level Seven experts around. When it came to Level Seven experts, there were no secrets.


    And Dragon Granny was particularly famous among them.


    That was because she had a strange background.


    She was a family servant of the Meng Family in Ningzhou. There were few Level Seven experts in the world and only one with the identity of a servant. Even in millennium family or prestigious sects and schools, those who were born in servant households typically would not consider themselves as servants if they had the opportunity to cultivate and became a Level Seven expert. At least, it was simple enough for them to be an Elder in the sects. This was a form of respect not only for them but also for other Level Seven experts in the world.


    Dragon Granny of the Meng Family in Ningzhou was quite different.


    She was a private handmaid who joined the household when her mistress married into the Meng family. She had a decent cultivation but to her gender and status as a servant, she had few opportunities to learn even more unfathomable martial arts skills. Then, for reasons unknown, she came across happy encounters again and again after joining the household. She climbed from mere Level Two to Level Six in the past decades. But that was beside the point. The Meng Family in Ningzhou was a wealthy family and influential clan in the world with abundant resources. With Dragon Granny''s great aptitude, it was nothing surprising for her to reach Level Six.


    When Dragon Granny reached Level Six, she became an even more trusted subordinate to the mistress of Meng Family. An expert that was so close to the family was a very rare find.


    Theoretically, Dragon Granny''s cultivation would not increase anymore. After all, there was an unbridgeable huge gap between Level Six and Level Seven for many in the martial arts world. She was, in fact, satisfied with her current condition. Though she was a family servant in the household, she was more like a trusted subordinate to the mistress. With her high cultivation, she lived a comfortable life even in a well-known household like the Meng Family.


    But she truly deserved all this luck.


    The Meng Family was one of the most well-known clans in the world. Just as fame tended to cause trouble for an individual, so did prosperity for a famous clan. The power struggles within the clan meant endless conspiracies. The danger of living within the household was no less than that in the Royalty. Though the branch of the Meng family that Dragon Granny served belonged to the direct line of descent, there were still enemies. And their enemies were not just any weaklings.


    A Level Six expert roaming the Jianghu could be considered as a true danger but considered merely acceptable to an aristocratic family like the Meng Family.


    The turning point came when the power struggles in the Meng Family reached to a boiling point. The only thing she could do was staying beside her mistress and protecting her from any suspicious threats. One of those tasks was testing the food for poison.


    As a matter of fact, she did not need to do poison testing personally because there were exclusive servants for the job in the household. It happened that the mistress'' daughter-in-law, the young master''s wife, met complications while giving birth. She had to take medicines because she could not deliver the baby. In the chaotic situation, they could not find the food taster and was about to forgot it. It was Dragon Granny who became suspicious of the food taster''s disappearance. She decided to test the medicine and, as expected, there was a problem with it.


    The medicine was laced with Meridian Heartbroken Soup.


    It was a commonly-used poisonous drug in Jianghu with a deadly toxicity. It would take only minutes for a person to die after taking it. The only disadvantages were its strong taste and pungent odor. Even ordinary people could smell tang from a distance, let alone Jianghu folks. Thus, few people would use it now.


    No one in the household ever thought someone would use this poison against them.


    But someone did and he did it in a very smart way. There was a miraculous medicinal usher in the medicine named Heavenly Lotus Seed. It was a nontoxic ingredient for benefiting Qi and activating blood circulation. Besides, it was effective for covering the tang of the Meridian Heartbroken Soup, neutralizing the poison to be colorless and flavorless.


    Perhaps God was muddleheaded that day. Dragon Granny was quickly poisoned after taking the Meridian Heartbroken Soup. As a martial artist, her first response was to practice and drive the poison out. But this response earned her an amazing result. The Meridian Heartbroken Soup and the Heavenly Lotus Seed should cause an incredible chemical reaction inside her body, unexpectedly strengthening her Internal Qi several times over. She grew into a Level Seven expert from a Level Six expert inexplicably. One level means an immeasurably vast difference.


    Considering her strength and loyalty, the Meng Family naturally would not treat her as a family servant anymore. They decided to promote her as a Family Elder and were ready to return her indenture signed decades before. But she stubbornly insisted she was her mistress'' servant for life and there was no logic for a servant to become a Family Elder.


    The Meng Family, including the mistress, tried to persuade her but when it did not work, they let her be.


    Thus Dragon Granny remained a servant in the Meng family even if she was a Level Seven expert. The news caused a sensation in the Jianghu. Some thought she was foolish but others regarded her as loyal. While more envied the good fortune of the family for coming across such a fine person.


    She may be a family servant but her position and treatment in the household were comparable to that of a Family Elder. The servant status was only in name.


    Thanks to this, Dragon Granny became famous throughout Jianghu.


    Though she was a Level Seven expert, she seldom appeared in Jianghu. As a family servant, she spent most of her time accompanying her mistress. She was always dressed in a set of black clothes and held the Dragon head Crutch in her hand. Few in Jianghu had seen her real appearance.


    But there was no need for them to see her. The rumors were enough. After all, most stories in Jianghu were hearsay.


    When the girl used the Universal Three-chop Sword, some long-time Jianghu dwellers had figured out she was a member of the Meng Family in Ningzhou. They also somewhat guessed Dragon Granny''s identity when she showed up. When they heard the girl shout, they finally confirmed her identity.


    Thus, their eyes were wide open in disbelief as they watched Junior Leopard forcing a Level Seven expert into such situation with his strength alone.


    Wasn''t Zhou Bao a Level Four expert?


    Did he not just reach Level Four few months ago?


    Since when could a Level Four expert not only compete with a Level Seven expert but also gain the upper hand after a fierce battle?


    Was this even possible?


    When a Level Seven expert makes her move, she would squash people beneath her level. Was there not such a saying?


    Why was the current situation so different? Why was the Level Seven expert being forced into such a pathetic position?


    Was Zhou Bao hiding his power all the time? Was he actually a Level Seven expert, too?


    How old was he again?


    16? Had he even turned 16?


    Even if he was 16, he was still a 16-year-old Level Seven expert!


    What did this mean?


    Some people with high aspirations were already looking at Junior Leopard differently. While more people revealed deep feeling through their burning eyes. The Water Army Camp soldiers in River Heart Island, in particular, seemed capable of melting Junior Leopard with the intensity burning in their eyes.


    An expert!


    A Level Seven expert! Our boss was a Level Seven expert!


    They were soldiers in the lowest of ranks. It was difficult enough for them to meet a Level Four expert, let alone a Level Seven expert.


    A Level Seven expert in their eyes was no less than an immortal. The former may even have more deterrence than the latter. After all, no one knew if immortals truly existed in this world but a Level Seven expert was real and tangible.


    Now they were abruptly told that their boss, the commander of the Navy, was a Level Seven expert, or at least an expert that could hold his ground against a Level Seven expert. They couldn''t help expressing their mad joy. It was because those soldiers in the lowest ranks knew clearly that the stronger their boss was, the fewer people who would dare bully them. There would be more benefits for them too.


    In the past few months, thanks to Junior Leopard''s powerful strength, the navy in Jiang City that was crushed psychologically and feeling hopeless was revived. It wasn''t a mere path of survival of them. Junior Leopard had also led them to occupy Broken Dragon Beach and wipe out the Yellow Dragon Gang. The outcome of these two incidents made them profits equivalent to several years¡¯ worth of income. In addition, they had complete control over the Broken Dragon Beach port and were about to build a goods yard near the port under Junior Leopard''s supervision. No one understood the meaning of these acts more than those who made a living in Luo River!


    It meant a stable and abundant income. They could easily finance the operations of the entire Water Army Camp with only the goods yard and port.


    Where did all these come from?


    All these came from Junior Leopard''s power. The foundation to all these was his power. Now that they found out that Junior Leopard''s power was even stronger than what they had imagined, how could they not be ecstatic?


    Dragon Granny was downhearted, very much so. She had never expected a newbie who had reached Level Four not long ago could force her into such a pathetic situation.


    Was he really a Level Four expert?


    As a Level Seven expert, she could easily see through the cultivation of a person beneath her level.


    Junior Leopard''s cultivation was absolutely clear to her. He was in Level Four and a newbie at that. It ought to be a piece of cake for her to handle him. But what was the fact now?


    She was surprised to find she couldn''t figure out Junior Leopard''s strength.


    Just put the six golden flames he used earlier aside first, the amount of Internal Qi these two Fire Dragons entwining him alone need required him to be at least a Level Six expert.


    His Internal Qi was even clearer than that of a Level Seven expert. This was completely beyond her expectations and surprised her a lot.


    It was easy to explain his clear Internal Qi. Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon was a cultivation method famous even in Great Jin. It was not a secret to people, especially a Level Seven expert like her, that the method had two forms. Naturally, they knew that when a person had a profound and abstruse knowledge about the method, it was possible for him to practice the second state. That meant using Internal Qi to form a true Fire Dragon! This Fire Dragon was molded purely by Internal Qi. Even it was formed by someone under Level Seven, its quality would not be worse than the cultivation of Internal Qi of a Level Seven Expert. If the Fire Dragon was formed by an expert over Level Seven, its power would be more stunning.


    Therefore, she was surprised but not astounded when she saw Junior Leopard''s two Fire Dragons. Considering he had reached Level Four at such young age, he must be a genius. There was nothing truly shocking about a genius being able to comprehend the second state of the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon that few could do in hundreds of years.


    But in her fierce battle with Junior Leopard, she had been distracted by the power of the Fire Dragons. Till now, she just realized she had ignored something.


    The amount of his Internal Qi!


    The quality and quantity of Internal Qi were the decisive factors in one''s cultivation. Quantity was the crucial quality to someone under Level Seven. In other words, the stock of Internal Qi in one''s body.


    Junior Leopard had only Level Four cultivation and was not a Level Seven expert''s match no matter in terms of quality or quantity. But from her tussle with the Fire Dragons, she was distinctly aware that the amount of Internal Qi required by them was beyond Level Six cultivation! That was to say Junior Leopard had the cultivation of someone beyond Level Six while still in Level Four. That was what amazed Dragon Granny.


    No matter observing from his physical strength or cultivation of Internal Qi, Junior Leopard appeared to be a Level Four expert. How could he consume so much Internal Qi in his attacks?


    And what were those six balls of eccentric flame? They could melt her Green Spiritual Glass Cover! The Internal Qi of Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon was certainly incapable of such feat. She had never heard of any cultivation methods capable of it. Her first thought was he was using a secret skill. Those fireballs must be an amazing secret skill like her Green Spiritual Glass Cover. Then her second thought was that this guy must have an External Elixir!


    Yes, External Elixir! Only External Elixir could help him to use Internal Qi with a mismatched cultivation and physical strength.


    But that was an External Elixir!


    That was an incredibly rare thing. There were few materials in the world that could be used to make one. Even in her age, she had only heard about it but never seen it. Even in prestigious sects and schools like the Meng Family, it was said that only a certain powerful, cloistered Family Elder owned one. Could this young man have one too? If he did, he was too incredibly lucky!


    Considering the possibility that Junior Leopard may own an External Elixir, she certainly needed to be cautious. She stood there with her walking stick, gasping for breath as she set her sight on him. She stared at him as his Qi Power intensified with each step he took. Her expression remained unchanged. Finally, her eyes landed on the eccentric osseous earring on his left ear.


    "External Elixir!"


    She gently blurted out the two words. By then, Junior Leopard was only five feet away from her.


    "External Elixir!"


    Startled, Junior Leopard momentarily staggered. His Qi Power, huge as a mountain, also halted. At that moment, Dragon Granny found a gap in the power that had suppressed her earlier. She roared and abruptly raised her Dragon Head Crutch, thrusting at him.


    This thrust was flashy like a shooting star, quick like lightning.


    Junior Leopard raised his hands and two Fire Dragons immediately flew toward Dragon Granny''s walking stick.


    Hiss!


    An ear-splitting sound rang out as if cold water was poured into a hot pot. With a hiss, the impetus of Dragon Head Crutch was alleviated. Junior Leopard turned his body and evaded her crutch. With a wave of his hand, he sent the three golden fireballs toward her.


    Dragon Granny wasn''t a weakling. When her attack failed, she stepped back rapidly and dogged again and again until she narrowly escaped the fireballs. They hit a building in the port instead, where an awful rumbling reverberated. The building was bombed to smithereens, leaving none of its structure behind.


    After dodging this attack, Dragon Granny pressed toward Junior Leopard with her ghostlike figure.


    "Kid, I don''t believe there is no limit to your secret skill!"


    She said this eerily, waving the Dragon Head Crutch in front of her. It made her look like a golden tornado as she charged at Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard smiled because he had finally figured out Dragon Granny''s real power. She was most definitely a Level Seven expert, but he believed she must be the weakest one among her peers.


    Despite being pushed to Level Seven for some inexplicable reason, she had few great techniques she could use. Perhaps Green Spiritual Glass Cover could be considered one, but that was only a defensive secret skill. There was no offensive function to it at all. What was more, it was firmly suppressed by his Lion and could not be used any further.


    She had no other offensive tricks besides her cultivation, which was superior to his own by one level. Her skill with her Dragon Head Crutch was decent, but merely so. He did not have a high regard for it.


    He was now proficient in Thirteen Punches of Desolation. He also had a profound comprehension of martial art skills. Dragon Granny''s skills would not do anything to him at all.


    Indeed it could be said as full of flaws.


    What he feared was no more than her Level Seven cultivation.


    Seeing Dragon Granny and her walking stick approaching, Junior Leopard stepped forward and sent his two Fire Dragons flying toward the golden tornado. Simultaneously, he slammed a fist into the golden tornado.


    Hong! Hong! Hong!


    The spectators heard only the clash and hurriedly covered their ears. They felt as if numerous people were beating drums and gongs beside their ears. It was noisy enough to wake the dead. Among these sounds, they could also hear Dragon Granny''s reproach.


    Golden red lights flashed everywhere. Neither Junior Leopard nor Dragon Granny was willing to step back. They both confronted each other with their own power without compromising.


    Dragon Granny was Level Seven while Junior Leopard was Level Four, their gap was huge. Generally speaking, the only result of this "diamond cut diamond" situation was Dragon Granny destroying Junior Leopard to smithereens.


    But what happened was Junior Leopard breaking Dragon Granny''s tendons and meridians with his fists.


    Extraordinary Strength Fist, Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, Black Sun Fist Intent, the mutated Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire cleared by Mysterious Fire, as well as the two Fire Dragons!


    The combined five factors were enough to help Junior Leopard kill half the Level Seven experts in the world.


    Those factors aside, the mental cultivation method of Extraordinary Strength Fist alone could increase the power of Junior Leopard''s fist by dozens of times. More importantly, Junior Leopard found that unexpected effects would be generated when combining Snake-like Breath Holding Skill with Extraordinary Strength Fist.


    Snake King had mentioned Snake-like Breath Holding Skill was one of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. As for the mysterious Extraordinary Strength Fist, he received it from Xue Wuya.


    In the past, Junior Leopard had attempted the combination of the two secret skills'' mental cultivation methods to great results. But he had never given it his all to contend against a Level Seven expert like he did today.


    Gradually, these two mental cultivation of secret skills generated an amazing reaction as he put them into use. The reaction was indescribably subtle. Then he felt the mental cultivation method of Extraordinary Strength Fist was almost combined with that of Snake-like Breath Holding Skill.


    Hong! Hong!


    He slammed his fist on Dragon Granny''s Dragon Head Crutch, creating an unexpected result. Dragon Granny, who had been relying on her cultivation and Dragon Head Crutch, was thrown more than ten feet away by his fist. A crack appeared on the walking stick. He had actually cracked the crutch with his attack!


    After this fist, Junior Leopard''s eyes gleamed. He finally sensed it.


    The only difference with this punch compared all previous ones was that this punch was ten times stronger.


    His power became ten times stronger again! After his punch being enhanced by the Extraordinary Strength Fist, it was already ten times stronger than usual without any additional cost. At the moment, the eccentric punch he threw earlier was a hundred times stronger than normal using the same amount of energy.


    What did this mean?


    It meant he had the power to destroy a Level Six expert!


    Junior Leopard was sure that the strength of his fist was capable of destroying Level Six expert to smithereens!


    But his current opponent was a Level Seven expert.


    A Level Seven expert not only excelled a Level Six expert because of his higher Internal Qi of cultivation but also due to his body entering a new phase called the Tendon-Changing Realm.


    Junior Leopard had just entered the Bone-Forging Realm from Skin-Toughening Realm and he understood the change particularly well. Each time a person''s body entered a new phase, his body would be strengthened at least ten times over. Thanks to the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and the Lion, Junior Leopard was able to contend with and later prevail against Dragon Granny. He also used unique moves like Extraordinary Strength Fist and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill in hand-to-hand combat to retain his upper hand. Dragon Granny may look weak and emaciated but he believed her physical strength to be forty times stronger than his. That was why she could fight recklessly against him with her Dragon Head Crutch. Most importantly, she was able to prevent a complete breakdown after taking on his eccentric punch. Only her walking stick was damaged and she was forced several steps backward.


    Dragon Granny felt something surged within her, sending her blood boiling. Her Qi suddenly moved in retrograde motion and she nearly spat blood and fainted.


    But she was a Level Seven expert after all. In the end, she suppressed her pain and shoulder on.


    She took a deep breath and struck her walking stick hard on the ground. Surprisingly, she managed to chuckle. "Not bad, kid. You are just too ambitious for quick success. Do you still have any strength left after that powerful punch? Do you really think you can defeat me in one round? You underestimate me too much!"


    Junior Leopard''s mouth twitched. He wanted to laugh but stopped himself.


    It was not strange that Dragon Granny would think so. Junior Leopard''s punch earlier was so powerful that it looked like it would consume all his strength. Therefore, she would consider it his most powerful attack that he used to defeat her in one go. She thought he would not be able to deliver any stronger attacks because he had already worn himself out with that punch.


    Junior Leopard was delighted that she thought in this way. He hoped she would persevere in their fight a little longer so he could try that punch again. Thus he said nothing and pressed on with his fists aimed at Dragon Granny, beginning another bombard.


    Dragon Granny became confused when she saw Junior Leopard approaching again. She raised her cracked Dragon Head Crutch and defended against him once again. After countering several punches, her face paled. Junior Leopard''s punches were not weakening at all. Though they were not as strong as the first, each was fierce enough.


    Before she suffered Junior Leopard''s powerful fist, she could take them. But the fist had resulted in her Qi and blood surging, internal injuries, and a cracked Dragon Head Crutch broken. In her current state, it was really difficult for her to combat Junior Leopard''s iron fists.


    People could once again hear the sound of crash in the field. What was new was that Dragon Granny kept stepping back.


    Naturally, Junior Leopard didn''t care about any of that. All his attention was on experiencing the mental cultivation methods of Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and Extraordinary Strength Fist. As he gauged the power in his every punch, he sensed the connection between their mental cultivation methods and gradually discovered something. His eyes gleamed after he threw his 20th punch as if he had a brilliant idea.


    "Explode!" he growled, throwing a punch. Dragon Granny retreated for a few steps and successfully withstood the punch in the end. Junior Leopard''s smile stretched wider.


    "Explode! Explode! F*cking explode!"


    He roared and directed his punches fiercely toward Dragon Granny.


    One after another, over and over, his fists rained on Dragon Granny''s walking stick waving in front of her. The sounds of clashing lingered on incessantly.


    "Explode! Explode! Explode!"


    Clang!


    Bang!


    A thunder-like crash rang out besides people''s ears. Even when they were covering their ears firmly, they could still hear the sound caused by the strike.


    Junior Leopard performed that amazing punch once again!


    "Ugh!" muffled groans escaped Dragon Granny''s lips. She was finally unable to bear the attacks and her body was hurled away. Her Dragon Head Crutch broken into pieces and was scattered everywhere. Her body was in Tendon-Changing Realm but half of her bones shattered as if she was hit by a huge hammer. Blood was spewing from her seven orifices. Her body was like a shabby cloth sack as she fell from the sky, with all her vitality gone.


    "I got it! Haha! I got it!" Junior Leopard was enveloped in a berserk Qi Power, emitting a sun-like bright spirit. He stood there with blood dripping from his fists. He smiled joyfully, changing from an innocent high school student to a bloody butcher.


    He waved his hands in the sky, without holding back his excitement.


    "I got it! Hahaha! I got it! I finally got it!" bursting into maniac laughter, he ignored both the frightened girl on the ground and Dragon Granny who he had just killed. He left the place with the unconscious Little Du. The stupefied audience only left a minute later, recalling the dreamlike battle earlier.


    ...


    ...


    "84 punches!"


    A man in his forties in the crowd muttered to himself, staring at Junior Leopard with amazement.


    84 punches! There were 84 punches in total!


    A Level Four newbie fought a Level Seven expert with 84 punches and prevailed!


    This was something no one had ever heard of, let alone witnessing!


    But Junior Leopard did it. He fought against the crutch with his fists and used 84 punches to bombard a Level Seven expert to death in front of hundreds of people!


    "Am I dreaming?" the man murmured, looking at Junior Leopard''s disappearing figure. "Who and where did this guy come from?"

 Chapter 189: Mysterious Fire Training Bone

    Chapter 189: Mysterious Fire Training Bone


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Probability, this was purely a matter of probability!


    After making that terrifying punch once again, Junior Leopard gained a deep apprehension regarding how to hit with such strength. Yes, it was apprehension!


    He apprehended the conditions needed to make such a terrible fist.


    The key lay in the mental cultivation methods of the Extraordinary Strength Fist and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill.


    Junior Leopard could not explain it in detail, but he understood why it happened.


    The mental cultivation methods of the Extraordinary Strength Fist and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill were like two waves with two different frequencies. While running, they ran at different frequencies. Since the waves had different frequencies, both their peaks and troughs were different as well.


    But this did not mean that the two would not overlap. Different frequencies meant different peaks and troughs. However, when the two waves reached a certain extent, there was a probability that they would overlap. When the peaks overlapped, the fist strength would be as terrifying as the two punches he made when he battled with Dragon Granny. Junior Leopard called this a "Critical Hit".


    This was the effect when the wave peaks overlapped, then what about when the troughs overlapped?


    Junior Leopard wasn''t sure. He needed time to experiment, a lot of time.


    From his experience of the previous two punches, the probability of a Critical Hit appearing was one in fifty. As for the probability of wave troughs overlapping, it was even smaller. He made eighty four fists, and that did not happen even once.


    What depressed him most was that the probability did not seem to improve. Since he could not alter the mental cultivation methods of the two secret skills, he was unable to alter their frequencies, thus, he could not control the frequency of the waves overlapping. This meant that the only thing he could do was to improve his punching speed and the operation speed of the two mental cultivation methods, so as to make a Critical Hit within the time he needed.


    "Critical Hit, haha, it truly is what it is, a one in fifty probability. It seems that my next step is to improve the speed of punching!" Junior Leopard thought to himself, feeling a little pleased, but a little helpless at the same time.


    If the probability of this Critical Hit could be increased a little more, he would truly have the confidence to face a Level Seven expert, even while his body had only Level Four cultivation.


    Everything depended on how much power you had! Absolute power!


    With his Extraordinary Strength Fist''s mental cultivation methods, his fist strength could completely rival a full-forced blow from a Level Seven expert, and could even be much stronger. Moreover, when he integrated his Black Sun Fist Intent into his fist strength and combined with the changed Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi, his fist strength once again increased dramatically, surpassing that of a full-forced blow from a normal Level Seven expert. And after the Critical Hit appeared, his fist strength became 10 times that of a Level Seven expert.


    The only thing he needed to worry about was his physical strength which was not robust enough. This was his only weakness; without a robust body, if he fought with a Level Seven expert with the same power, the only possible outcome for him was death.


    Similar to his previous fight with Dragon Granny, while it looked like he had the advantage, his fist and even his body were greatly damaged. Without the protection of his fist intent, he could at most only deal 10 punches in his fight with her. After a consecutive eighty four fists and taking Dragon Granny''s life with the last blow, he left without a second thought, precisely because he needed the time and space to recover.


    Otherwise, if he had really killed Dragon Granny that easily, then the gap in power between the Level Four master and the Level Seven expert would be too small.


    Carrying Little Du back to his courtyard, and, waking him up with a slap, in his heart he instructed him to guard the entrance and to kill anyone who dared to enter his courtyard. Then, he hurriedly went into his room and started to regulate his breathing to heal himself.


    Through this fight, the rewards Junior Leopard gained were enormous, but at the same time, his muscles and bones were injured. He sat cross-legged on the bed, took out a tiny ceramic bottle, and poured out two pills. These two pills were the Bone-Forging Pills he made.


    He tilted his head up, swallowing the two pills, and ran his martial arts to let the pills take effect.


    A warmth started to spread from his stomach, slowly spreading into every single corner of his body. Then, within his Inner Vision, he found that his entire skeleton was full of thin cracks. If it weren''t for his special eyes which gave him Inner Vision, he would not have been able to discover the cracks. The healing effect of the pills spreading out from his stomach gradually repaired the cracks, but Junior Leopard found that they weren''t healed thoroughly. The cracks were only hidden from the outside, while the damage deep inside was overlooked.


    "This is not good!"


    Junior Leopard said to himself.


    The principle behind taking the pills to repair the damage on his skeleton was simple. Since the effectiveness of the Bone-Forging Pill was much too strong, he only needed to ingest them into his stomach and use his Internal Qi to trigger the pills to release their healing power. The healing power that was triggered would naturally start to strengthen his skeleton. If this was combined with bone forging punching skills, the effect would be even better. In reality, this was the method he used all the time. After taking Bone-Forging Pills and triggering their healing power, he would practise the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist and Tai Chi Fist at the same time to increase the speed of healing.


    However, this was the first time that he used Bone-Forging Pills to repair injuries. The reason he thought of using Bone-Forging Pills to repair injuries, was that it was clearly written on the prescription of the elixir that Bone-Forging Pills could be used for not only bone forging but also skeleton injuries.


    But to repair injuries was different from training his punches. Now, if he were to practice the Bone Forging punching skill without regard for his injuries, it would increase the burden on his skeleton. Who knew if it would worsen the damage.


    Therefore, he only used his Internal Qi to trigger Bone-Forging Pills'' healing power, allowing it to work on his skeleton.


    This way, as expected, it was effective, but according to his Inner Vision, the effect was not perfect. In other words, allowing the healing power to work itself did not give full play to their healing power. Not only was there an excessive amount of wastage, the effectiveness of the repair was suboptimal. Hence, Junior Leopard tried using the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique Internal Qi to trigger the healing power.


    He used the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi to transfer Bone-Forging Pills'' healing power to the site of injuries, then used the strong heat of Internal Qi to unleash the full extent of the healing power, working alongside his Internal Qi within his skeleton. Then, a wonderful reaction happened.


    It was something he had never thought of, nor did he think it would ever happen.


    His Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi, in the process of repairing his skeleton, was beginning to refine his skeleton!


    After the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi and the healing power of the Bone-Forging Pills fully united, they started to refine his skeleton. It wasn''t ordinary refining; foreign matters were purged from within his skeleton.


    The golden red Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi covered his skeleton. First it vaporized the healing power, which penetrated into the skeleton and repaired the damage. Then, under the effect of Internal Qi, layers of a pale white mist emerged from within his skeleton.


    This mist, was basically the impurities within Junior Leopard''s skeleton. When he was practicing the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist, these impurities flowed out from his skeleton as well, but that was not as obvious as now, neither was it directly vaporized like now.


    While this was happening, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi was further solidifying Junior Leopard''s skeleton. Now, Junior Leopard''s skeleton was just like iron in a furnace, after being exposed to the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi, it became stronger and stronger.


    Gradually, a fantastic scene appeared. Within Junior Leopard''s Inner Vision, he watched as the cracks covering most of his skeleton began to disappear. After the surface of the cracks was healed, the internal cracks were disappearing as well. At the same time, after being exposed to Internal Qi, his skeleton was shrinking in a very subtle way along the cracks. He did not know how long it had been when the shrinking of the entire skeleton stopped. He could feel that his skeleton was a little smaller than before, but was many times tougher than before. His skeleton actually started to glimmer with a golden light, and even acquired the texture of metal.


    "How lucky I am!" Junior Leopard took in a deep breath, and his eyes flew open. Within his eyes, an unnatural red light glimmered and black lines loomed. He recalled what had just happened, and he knew that he was a lucky bastard.


    "What a coincidence!"


    If not for the battle with Dragon Granny, his skeleton would not have sustained that kind of injuries. It was just because of these injuries, which created cracks covering the surface of his skeleton, that it was so simple to purge the foreign matters.


    In fact, for his current physical strength, his skeleton''s hardness was already comparable to steel. The higher the level of cultivation, the tougher the body became, and the more difficult it was to continue improving. Junior Leopard''s skeleton went through so much, that the opening for the impurities was created unintentionally. As for those cracks, they contributed to laying the foundation for furthur strengthening of his skeleton, not only making his skeleton more easy to cultivate, but they also allowed the special effects of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique''s Mysterious Fire and the healing effect of Bone-Forging Pills to penetrate the skeleton fully. That way, his skeleton was successfully strengthened.


    Also, after this success, the nature of his skeleton changed subtly, and the compatibility with his Internal Qi, especially the Mysterious Fire, became even higher. The next time he practised, the effectiveness of using the power of Mysterious Fire within his Internal Qi to refine his skeleton would be greatly increased. For Junior Leopard, this was a truly unexpected occurrence.


    Once again closing his eyes, feeling the skeleton glimmering with golden light within his body, Junior Leopard slowly clenched his fist and swung it fiercely.


    "Woo!" A sound was heard, and then a sonic boom happened.


    "Wow, even without using the Extraordinary Strength Fist''s mental cultivation methods, my fist strength is three times more powerful than before, and this is only a random punch. But now, my body seems unfamiliar with this level of toughness. It looks like I still need some time to adapt!"

 Chapter 190: Confronting the Meng Family

    Chapter 190: Confronting the Meng Family


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Storm clouds gathered darkly, the sound of thunder rolling, coming closer and closer. In the center of the dusky clouds and at the edge of it burst white lights flashing once in a while.


    Gathering, dank winds grew stronger by the minute and the entire River Heart Island was surrounded by this depressing environment.


    Contrarily, the navy barrack at River Heart Island was indulging in joy and celebration.


    The soldiers and officers drank liquor and ate meat while they sang and danced. The sounds of their excessive excitement could be heard halfway across the River Heart Island.


    The day had been a good one and the goods yard for the River Heart Island had been completed. Which also meant their commander Zhou Bao had exit training.


    Two months earlier, the young lady Meng Qingrong from the Meng Family in Ningzhou suddenly appeared at River Heart Island and collided with the Navy here. She defeated the Navy''s experts including Wang Cheng the Vice Commander, Zhu Ba the captain, and Jiang Xiao. Zhou Bao, who was the Navy Commander, confronted her in person.


    The battle Zhou Bao participated in had become an event in Jianghu. As he not only defeated the youngest genius Meng Qingrong from the Meng Family in Ningzhou but he also fought with the Dragon Granny, who was a Level Seven expert from the Meng Family in Ningzhou. He astonishingly bombarded her to death in front of hundreds of people, shocking the world!


    Obviously, the world had been shocked!


    This was the first time that a Level Four expert bombarded a Level Seven expert to death. The battle had overturned people''s previous perceptions about phase gaps.


    It was common enough for a Level Four expert to defeat a Level Five expert. Sometimes, the guy happened to be fortunate enough to use special techniques and defeat a Level Six expert, and his prestige would spread across Jianghu.


    However, why would a Level Four expert bother to take on a Level Seven expert?


    Ultimately it was fine that he challenged the expert, but going so far as to bombard his rival to death, with his bare fists against her cane, in front of so many people.


    How could such a thing happen?


    However, it did happen. Zhou Bao used his powerful fists to compensate for the vast gap between Level Four and Level Seven and it turned out to be the most shocking act Jianghu had seen in a hundred years.


    After that, Commander Zhou Bao of the Jiang City Navy had become world famous!


    Those that had witnessed the event recounted the battle as being of epic proportions. Especially Junior Leopard''s rivalry with Dragon Granny that had evoked booming explosions from his fists. The repercussion from it caused one-third of the spectators to faint and almost decimated the near-to-completion goods yard, leaving it devastated as if an earthquake had hit it.


    Of course, this was all hearsay in Jianghu and it was normal that most people doubted the rumors.


    Which made sense since the rumors had been too outrageous to align with most people''s perceptions.


    However, two days after the battle, the word spread that the Meng Family in Ningzhou had confirmed that the rumors were indeed true and Jianghu burst into an uproar. As they were astonished that a Level Four expert could actually defeat a Level Seven expert, they also anxiously waited to see how the Meng Family in Ningzhou would respond.


    After all, this particular family in Ningzhou was a millennium family. Their power was greater than the Wu Family in Yunzhou that had only risen a few hundred years ago. Now that a Level Seven expert had been killed, nobody believed the Meng Family would just let it go. Even though the Level Seven expert had been defeated in a justified contest.


    So, naturally, nobody wanted to believe it. In this world, no matter the status of the school, a Level Seven expert would have an important position in it. Experts were considered significant criteria for identifying a clan''s power. How many Level Seven experts a clan or a school had would basically determine their level of power.


    Now that a Level Seven expert had lost her life at the River Heart Island, in such a disgraceful manner, could the Meng Family drop the matter peacefully?


    No, definitely not. They would no doubt find a way to regain face, and the best way to do that was to kill Zhou Bao, the freak.


    Would it really be that easy?


    Except for being anouter core elder in the Wu Family, Junior Leopard also had another identity: the commander of the Navy of Jiang City. The reason why Junior Leopard had collided with Dragon Granny, including the process of the conflict, had also been made clear.


    Dragon Granny ambushed Junior Leopard and this forced him to fight her.


    As powerful as the Meng Family was they couldn''t do things in an obviously unreasonable manner. The conflict had been caused by the Meng Family. It was already pathetic enough for a Level Seven expert to attack a Level Four expert. Unfortunately, the fact that the conflict took place at the River Heart Island, that was governed by Junior Leopard, placed him the favorable position in public opinion.


    In addition to Junior Leopard''s dual roles. He was also the outer core elder of the Wu Family. Although the Wu Family in Yunzhou couldn''t compare to the Meng Family, they weren''t a family that just anybody could trample on. Not to mention, the incident in question had involved the youngest and most promising genius in the family''s history. Meanwhile, Junior Leopard''s identity as the commander of the Jiang City Navy had encouraged the Meng Family to be more scrupulous. Attacking an official of the imperial court, at the place they governed, was considered taboo.


    That''s why, even though Junior Leopard easily bombard Dragon Granny to death, the Meng Family wouldn''t be able to find a good excuse to retaliate.


    However, just because they didn''t have a good excuse didn''t mean the Meng Family would drop this matter easily. Since they had lost face because of Dragon Granny, it would be impossible to take back and they would only be able to save face in other ways.


    A good way to save face was by killing Junior Leopard.


    Regrettably, killing Junior Leopard would be difficult because of the aforementioned reasons and there would be little chance for them to scheme. They had to kill him in a reasonable way.


    Which meant, they had to kill him in a contest, just like the one in which he killed Dragon Granny.


    However, it would be nearly impossible to do it in such a way!


    In a face-to-face fight, Junior Leopard could take down a Level Seven expert. Which meant they would need to find a fighter that was stronger than Dragon Granny, otherwise it would just be a waste of a person''s life.


    Ultimately, the only way to rid themselves of Junior Leopard was to dispatch an expert that exceeded a Level Seven.


    Even so, it would still be humiliating. It would be obvious they were targeting Junior Leopard if they challenged him with anyone above a Level Four.


    Moreover, they had already lost a Level Seven expert. The Meng Family''s thousand-year prestige would be ruined if another dispatched Level Seven expert also died by Junior Leopard''s hands. Although unlikely, it had already happened once, and the Meng Family undoubtedly wouldn''t let it happen again.


    Therefore, the best solution was to dispatch a Level Eight expert!


    Was that realistic?


    To dispatch a Level Eight expert to challenge a Level Four expert?


    Did the Meng Family have enough face to issue another challenge?


    Even if they had enough face to dispatch a Level Eight expert, what if Zhou Bao wouldn''t accept their challenge? Could the expert then attack, engaging by force?


    God observes what people do and it was not an easy task for a millennium family to establish their prestige. Therefore they had to be more cautious than the ordinary man from Jianghu. They feared doing something that could be used against them later. So, they were thinking twice before taking action over the incident.


    Hence, the Meng Family''s decision to release the news that confirmed the death of Dragon Granny by Junior Leopard''s hands. They were relying on the accompanying news to help them save some face. Which was Meng Qingrong, who was defeated in the River Heart Island, had sent a challenge to Junior Leopard. The only catch was the challenge was for later in time.


    Meng Qingrong challenged Junior Leopard to a battle at the River Heart Island, in three years time, to end the resentment.


    The whole incident ended with the challenge. As for the final result, it was going to have to wait three years.


    The biggest beneficiary of this battle wasn''t Junior Leopard. Even though he had earned his name in Jianghu through fighting, being famous wasn''t always a good thing, especially at his current age and ability.


    The actual beneficiaries were the Wu Family and the Jiang City Navy.


    The Wu Family gained another powerful outer core elder and their control improved in Jianghu. Their influence across the entire Zhonghe City would now increase because of Junior Leopard, taking up more developing rooms of their rivals.


    As for the Jiang City Navy, they had the largest gain. After Junior Leopard''s show of strength, no one would dare to challenge the navy. Plus, the navy was now in charge of Broken Dragon Beach, the port for River Heart Island. This was a huge benefit for the navy. This meant that they could get from the port without the greedy stares. Most of the gains went to the navy and the Jiang City Navy had become really powerful.


    So, in celebration of the goods yard''s completion and Junior Leopard''s training finishing, the Vice Commander Wang Cheng decided to give the navy members one day off, in the hopes they would have a good time.


    One purpose was to celebrate the completion of the goods yard, another was to welcome Junior Leopard.


    The feast started at lunch and ran past midnight, with no one leaving. Junior Leopard and Jiang Xiao were the only ones still conscious and standing at the party.


    "Your Excellency, let me toast you again!" Carrying a liquor crock, Zhu Ba lurched into Junior Leopard, spilling alcohol down his body. "Your Excellency, I wish you...!" His eyes rotated before the words finished and then his body crumpled at Junior Leopard''s feet. Junior Leopard couldn''t help but frown.


    "Your Excellency, please don''t be offended, everybody is simply too excited!" Jiang Xiao smiled and meditated. He wasn''t entirely drunk, but right now he was also flushed red, spirit high with liquor.


    "I know that everybody is happy. The goods yard is ready for use and we will have another fiscal resource!" Junior Leopard laughed. "Your Excellency Jiang, you''re really a good drinker. You have had a lot to drink and yet you are still sober!"


    "Compared to Your Excellency, I am nothing. All the soldiers in our camp have toasted you, but your face hasn''t even gotten red!"


    "I used techniques to force most of the alcohol out of my body," Junior Leopard replied frankly.


    "Ah ha! That is Your Excellency''s clever technique!" Jiang Xiao said enviously, "anyone else, he would not have the capability to force the alcohol out!"


    "You''re really developing a way with words." Smiled Junior Leopard, "But, it''s good that you are not drunk, I have a matter that needs your help."


    "Your Excellency please go ahead. Any assignment, I will fulfill it no matter what!" Jiang Xiao spoke in an impassioned way.


    "It seems that you have also had a lot to drink." Junior Leopard whispered merrily, close to Jiang Xiao''s ear. Jiang Xiao''s face changed immediately.

 Chapter 191: Winds Arising in Northern Yuan

    Chapter 191: Winds Arising in Northern Yuan


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Yunzhou, Great Jin.


    The Governor Mansion.


    Ever since Ma Tianchang''s daughter suffered the bride kidnapping, an eccentric air had pervaded the Governor Mansion until now.


    That kidnapping caused a great sensation throughout Jianghu and cultivated Wang She''s fame as well. However, it was absolutely not a good deed; rather it was a disgraceful one for the Governor''s Mansion. In fact, the marriage between the Governor Mansion and Mingyi School had turned out to be a joke throughout Jianghu, as one of the people concerned, Ma Tianchang, Governor of Yunzhou, was absolutely humiliated and his mood never recovered, especially after the relationship between Lei Xu of Tian Long Taoism and Ma Linglong was exposed.


    He pulled a long face towards everyone, as if they owed him a million coins. Thus, no one dared to get involved in his bad luck, except one person.


    "Old Master! Aren''t you tired with your straight face?"


    As the smooth and lovely voice arose, Ma Tianchang turned around a little bit helplessly and said, "Is that my wish? Isn''t it your daughter''s fault? If I''m not pretending, perhaps tomorrow, that guy will know my real thoughts."


    "Now that there are so many spies in our mansion, why don''t you clear them all out?"


    The Evil Qi could be seen in Madam Ma''s eyes when she said that. "I told you already that it wasn''t wise to keep them here!".


    "What else can I do?" He said with a forced smile, "A governor''s mansion with no spies? Save it! We need them to keep us safe. He might distrust us if we clear them all out."


    "What are you afraid of?" Dare he kick you from the position of the Governor of Yunzhou?"


    "He can''t make a move right now, but that doesn''t mean he won''t!" Ma Tianchang said calmly, "That guy is too ambitious. What''s more, with a wretch who likes making trouble beside him, he is determined to be the greatest sage by turning into a demon!"


    "You are right, he''s almost a demon! He was such a good man, how could he turn into what he is right now?" Madam Ma sighed. Suddenly her eyes flickered and she said, "Tianchang, from the way you see it, will he succeed?"


    "God knows!" An eccentric smile appeared on Ma Tianchang''s face. "Keke! The greatest sage. How could that wretch come up with this title?"


    "He is absolutely licking his own boots!" Madam Ma sneered. "Anyway, Tianchang, leave these matters alone. You can''t keep this on anymore. Just look for a chance to agree to Lei Xu''s marriage. Hopefully, he and Linglong fall for each other; Lei Xu is sincere after all!"


    "Lei Xu is good, of course, but he is from the Lei family, Tian Long Taoism. The marriage will still trigger his fear if it is decided without a hitch!"


    "Are you that afraid of him?" Madam Ma asked discontentedly.


    "It isn''t my fear of him. I just don''t want any conflicts with him during this period!" Ma Tianchang answered calmly, "I''m not willing to reach a deadlock with him at the moment. As you well know."


    "I understand, but we have our daughter Linglong suffering due to this!" Madam Ma sighed.


    "She made this choice herself! She needs to bear the consequences of course!" Ma Tianchang said, "She isn''t a child anymore. She should make a compromise sometimes!"


    "She shouldn''t compromise on her marriage!" Complained Madam Ma, "Fortunately, Lei Xu is brave. If that wasn''t the case, you might try to marry our daughter to Lu Shaoyou."


    "Of couse not!" Ma Tianchang said, "Am I a foolish man in your mind?"


    As they were talking, a tumult arose from the outside all of a sudden and then Ma Tianchang frowned. This place was the backyard of the Governor Mansion, only trusted subordinates were allowed here. They knew the consequences if they made noise here.


    "Would it be..." Ma Tianchang winked at Madam Ma suddenly as if he knew something, and after that, she nodded and went into the room.


    "Who made the noise?"


    Ma Tianchang gave a little cough and asked loudly.


    "Your Excellency, bad news!"


    A strong man in armor ran straight into the backyard followed by the servants of the Governor Mansion who failed to stop him.


    "Yu Gang, Why are you in a fluster? You are misbehaving!" Seeing the man, Ma Tianchang scolded him loudly with his face darkening.


    The man knelt hurriedly before Ma Tianchang and said, "Your Excellency, Seven Troops of Southern Yard in Northern Yuan were united yesterday. They seem to have mobilized south. Massive patrolling cavalry has arrived in Yuyang, Hukou County and Dragon Mouth Gorge. All of our strength is on alert, but it isn''t enough. We are waiting for your command!"


    "Is that true?" Ma Tianchang was shocked. A light flashed in his eyes and then vanished.


    "Emmm...You should go and rest. I have my plan for this matter!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" The strong man named Yu Gang answered and left.


    "It''s done! I guess" Madam Ma moved out after that and said.


    "It''s supposed to be, otherwise Northern Yuan won''t behave in this way!" She nodded.


    "What about your plan?"


    "Of course!" Smiling confidently she said, "If I wasn''t sure, I wouldn''t tell you!"


    "That is to say, Northern Yuan will have a very hard time this winter!"


    "They will face the coldest winter with the heaviest snowstorm of this century" Madam Ma sneered, "Thus, without that incident and your command of Yunzhou, Northern Yuan will go down all the same!"


    "Emm... then for when do you predict the snowfall?"


    "Three months later according to astronomical phenomenon. Why do you care so much about my plan? Haven''t you prepared for it since a half year ago?"


    "Yes, I have!" An extremely cold smile hung on Ma Tianchang''s face. He shouted all of a sudden, "Ming Ying!"


    "Yes! General!" A guard in white came in.


    "Go and inform An Le that we''ll be closing a third of the markets each month from now on. Meanwhile, I''m not willing to see any rice or salt traded into Northern Yuan in the coming three months. Until December 17th in the lunar calendar, the markets should all be closed! No exception!"


    "Ah?" Apparently Ming Ying got stunned. He raised his head looking at Ma Tianchang.


    "Haven''t you heard the order?" Ma Tianchang shouted angrily when seeing Ming Ying''s reaction.


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" Answering so, Ming Ying withdrew with a bowed head.


    "Isn''t it too self-evident?"


    "The measures are reasonable anyway since the Seven Troops of Southern Yard have mobilized!" Saying so, Ma Tianchang sneered, "What''s more, news about Wang She would spread tomorrow or the day after tomorrow at the latest. No one would believe the markets closed only because of the united troops of Northern Yuan!"


    "But those merchants!"


    "Those profiteers? I will deal with them!" Ma Tianchang said.


    "That''s great! Everything is ready!"


    "We have everything going our way except a snowstorm. By the way, I''ll head to Yuyang tomorrow and check out the situation."


    "Yuyang? Do you really think the Seven Troops of Southern Yard will declare a war?"


    "The Seven Troops of Southern Yard won''t play for keeps, but they aren''t fools ignoring the profits here. Now that they have sent a patrolling cavalry here, they will run the risk of being swallowed up by me. I''m not a milksop at all!"


    "Save it! You just want slaughter! Those reasons are rubbish!" Madam Ma gave him a look, "Get on your way, but do remember, it is necessary to avoid the killing. Too much blood is unfavorable to our future undertaking!"


    "I know," Ma Tianchang smiled and fondled his wife''s fair and delicate face, "Only a fool will get into trouble for temporary anger? I''m leaving!"


    "Come back early!"


    ...


    ...


    "How is it, did those fellas wake up?"


    River Heart Island, Zhonghe City. In the early morning, Junior Leopard stood by the river looking at the orange red sun rising on the horizon. In the mist of moist air, he smiled punkishly.


    "Get them all up!" Jiang Xiao said with a little laughter, "They are looking for their clothes!"


    "Haha, relax! The goods yard was finished yesterday, now our money will roll in. Let them cheer!" Junior Leopard smiled and said.


    "It''s our good fortune to be your subordinates, Your Excellency!" Jiang Xiao said.


    The navy barracks celebrated the accomplishment of the goods yard and Junior Leopard''s exit from training last night. Food and drink were supplied unlimitedly. By the end, nearly everyone, except Junior Leopard, Jiang Xiao and some others were drunk. Junior Leopard drunk a little and then a sudden thought hit him. He called out Jiang Xiao and the sober ones to take all the clothes of the drunk naval soldiers and put ten taels in the clothes. They were all fussing when they found out that their clothes were gone. However, after finding their clothes, and with ten taels more, they shouted with delight!


    Ten taels of silver!


    The navy''s pay had been increased a lot since Junior Leopard came to power, but ten taels was the pay of one and a half years. How could they not be happy!


    After the disappointment and happiness, the navy''s gratitude towards Junior Leopard naturally increased and the bursts of cheers were the evidence.


    Standing beside Junior Leopard, Jiang Xiao looked at his smiling face. He couldn''t believe that this guy, at such a tender age, had such a mature handling of political affairs. The navy''s morale was now under Junior Leopard''s control. Besides that, his own strength was daunting enough to control the soldiers. Thus, his prestige in the navy was influential and rock-firm.


    "Excuse me! Your Excellency! Big news!" Wang Datong puffed and blew, "Something is terribly wrong!"


    He rushed over from a distance, jumping and shouting. As he approached, everyone knew that he was Wang Datong, the quartermaster of the Navy of Jiang City. His anxiety and shouting were a sign of rotten luck to Junior Leopard.


    "What the hell are you shouting? Is the sky collapsing?" Junior Leopard asked discontentedly.


    "Excuse me, Your Excellency, it''s not!" Wang Datong puffed and blew, "But something is terribly wrong!"


    "What makes you so panicky?" He puzzled with raised eyebrows and thought, "Wang Datong is such a calm man, but what worries him today?"


    "Your Excellency, I have just heard that Chief Wang of Tian Long Taoism... He, he, he...!"


    "Wang She?" Junior Leopard was shocked a little, "What''s wrong with him?"


    "He killed Wali Khan''s three sons!"


    "Wali Khan of Northern Yuan? His three sons?!" Junior Leopard became absent-minded at first. He couldn''t believe it!


    Because he knew that Wali Khan''s status was equivalent to the status of the Emperor of Great Jin. He was the chief commander of all troops of Northern Yuan. He had died a half year ago.


    Wali Khan died all of a sudden and didn''t pass his position on to any son. However, his three sons, Chadu, Ali Hun and Tie Mu were real handfuls. They gathered their forces and vied for the Khan position as soon as their father died.


    If it had been the Great Jin suffering that, it would have been disrupted, but it was another thing in Northern Yuan.


    Actually Northern Yuan was just a collective title. People of Northern Yuan were nomadic. The same as those living in Junior Leopard''s previous life. There were plenty of independent tribes in the northern prairie. However, they declared wars to each other for water, grass, cattle and sheep as what nomadic people did in Junior Leopard''s previous life. Every several hundred years, a prosperous tribe dominated the prairie and established its Khan country, and after that, they united all tribes and deterred the Central Plains until a great man ended those 10,000 years ago. It was because the man that changed it, that the dominance was broken. From that moment on, a prairie alliance had been handed down for generations.


    A grand meeting was held every 100 years in the prairie. A dominant tribe was elected as well. The king of the tribe was then crowned as Khan!


    The establishment of the alliance greatly reduced conflicts among tribes and the strongest tribe couldn''t bully the weakest. Thus, an existence similar to an empire was formed and then became the embryo stage of Northern Yuan.


    Despite of the reduction of conflicts among tribes, another problem that often happened in imperial power replacement arose consequently. Fights for the throne of the leading tribe had become the focus since then, but they were far tenderer compared with those conflicts where a whole tribe might be slaughtered.


    During these 100 years, the leading tribe was the Meng tribe, one of the four biggest tribes in the prairie, whose king was Wali Khan.


    His three sons were all eligible to inherit the power since Wali Khan didn''t appoint any successor to the throne. Therefore, the dispute started there.


    Thanks to the alliance, the dispute had yet to become extensive. Conflicts only happened among tribes under their control and were stopped by the alliance in a very short time.


    Leading the prairie, Meng tribe''s king possessed an authority just a little short of the emperors of the Central Plains but that was just ''a little short of''.


    Khan''s authority was restricted by the Elders of the alliance and kings of other tribes to some degree. But recently Wali Khan died without a successor, for which the Elders became the most powerful ones. In-fighting wasn''t their wish of course, so they arranged a meeting in the alliance for the three princes after stopping the conflicts. The Khan would be elected by the Elders and kings of the other tribes.


    It was an event as great as the alliance meeting that was held every 100 years.


    However, beyond everyone''s expectation, such an incredible incident happened while the meeting was being prepared.


    Three princes were all killed on the way to the meeting by the new expert of Level Nine Wang She, the chief of Tian Long Taoism of the Great Jin.


    Thus, a real storm had brewed with those three princes'' deaths.


    There would be no Khan in the prairie for a long time, so the cohesion would be broken after that. The prairie would turn into a heap of loose sands. The grand meeting held every 100 years was consequently moved forward, which had never happened since the alliance was formed.


    The founding of the alliance united the forces within the prairie, which avoided the loss of strength in interior fights. However, one could not make an omelet without breaking eggs. The alliance triggered some troubles as well, such as low efficiency and intense mutual influence. What''s more, aggressive people would covet the position for concentrated authority once it was vacant, and at the same time, an effective joint force couldn''t be made without a leader to make quick decisions, even if the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan were present.


    This time the prairie was totally out of order. Everyone was shocked and the three Grandmasters were furious!


    The three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan


    Living Buddha Ba Siba, Dark Lord Mie Chen and Kunlun Master


    For the first time in 100 years, the three of them joint hands to begin their pursuit of Wang She.


    They had been well-known experts of Level Nine since 100 years ago. Now it was said that they all had reached the Mysterious Realm like those old, secluded monsters whose cultivation was unknown in Great Jin. What''s more, even if they only owned cultivation of Level Nine and hadn''t reached the Mysterious Realm,


    Cultivation differed within Level Nine as well!


    The three Grandmasters had been of Level Nine since 100 years ago while Wang She hadn''t come to this world at that time. He just reached Level Nine recently, which couldn''t be mentioned in the same breath.


    So Wang She got himself in trouble! A thumping one!


    Meanwhile, they made an announcement that Wang She would surely die and that no one must shield him, even the Tian Long Taoism. They even said that they would muster all of their forces and pay off all the debts of revenge if Tian Long Taoism got involved.


    The public burst into an uproar!


    Tian Long Taoism was one of the three sects in Great Jin, but under three Grandmasters'' pressure, they had to make a concession. They announced that Wang She did that personally, it was independent of Tian Long Taoism and that they would not shield him at all.


    Tian Long Taoism had taken a stand that Wang She''s behavior was personal and the three Grandmasters could avenge it themselves, which was none of Tian Long Taoism''s business.


    The three Grandmasters disdained to force those words upon Tian Long Taoism of course. Although Wang She was a new expert of Level Nine, they were absolutely confident of killing him, if not so, he was probably a monster!


    As a result, Wang She didn''t become a monster but disappeared. He vanished and no one had seen him ever since. Nevertheless, it was said that he was chased and blocked by the three Grandmasters in the prairie. No one knew whether he was dead or not.


    The Joint Alliance of Northern Yuan also took their action meanwhile. As the people of Great Jin, Wang She killed the princes of Northern Yuan, which definitely indicated that he was under the Great Jin''s instigation.


    They neither had the confidence of the Grandmasters nor needed it.


    They made a punitive expedition against Great Jin as the killing happened. Approaching the northern borders of Great Jin, Seven Troops of Southern Yard first assembled in Yuyang, Hukou County and Dragon Mouth Gorge at a stalemate with the Great Jin defenders. Additionally emissaries were sent to Great Jin for accusing, demanding Great Jin''s responsibility to hand Wang She over.


    The Great Jin always presented itself as the great kingdom, so they wouldn''t manage it as the Tian Long Taoism did. That would be shameful. Following the emissaries'' suggestion, they marked Wang She as an infamous robber with a high bounty and sent money as well as goods to Northern Yuan to put the matter to rest.


    For the Great Jin''s stand, Junior Leopard wasn''t pleased, but he couldn''t give any criticism. Nevertheless, what happened next agitated him a little bit. One could say that it agitated him a lot!

 Chapter 192: Chaotic Windy...I Make You Sick

    Chapter 192: Chaotic Windy...I Make You Sick


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The imperial court in Great Jin determined Wang She as a thief. If it was just for show and to comfort North Yuan, the response of the Mingyi School made Junior Leopard feel that they were bastards.


    Since the imperial court had declared Wang She as a bandit criminal who was pursued by the imperial order, the Mingyi School instantly announced to Jianghu that Wang She was nefarious. He had killed the princes of Northern Yuan and provoked conflicts at the border, severely influencing the formerly favorable relationship between the two countries and also bringing war disasters to Great Jin. His crimes were too wicked to be pardoned, so he was not tolerated by the righteous people in the martial arts world. The Mingyi School was quite ashamed to rub shoulders with such a person. Meanwhile, to maintain the friendly relationship between the two countries and avoid continuous war disasters, the Mingyi School would build a team to launch an attack against Wang She. The team consisted of righteous people in the martial arts world in Great Jin.


    Certainly, all the people understood that the so-called attack team could not recklessly fight with Wang She face to face because he was a Level Nine expert. After all, the number of people in Great Jin who were qualified to fight with Wang She could barely be counted on the fingers of one hand. Besides, there was no possibility for those people to join this team. The reason for Mingyi School''s such an action was to show their standing on the one hand and push the Tian Long Taoism into a passive position on the other hand.


    In this situation, the Tian Long Taoism could neither oppose the Mingyi School openly nor speak for a person who had been declared as a criminal by the imperial court, even if this person was a Level Nine expert.


    The attack team which was set up by the Mingyi School could not fight against Wang She directly, but it could act auxiliarily. If Wang She escaped to Great Jin because of being hunted by the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan, this team would play an important role. Moreover, if Wang She were to be harmed in the pursuit, perhaps he would suffer defeat at their hands. Of course, it was an extremely ideal situation.


    As one of the respectable schools with a great reputation in Great Jin''s martial arts realm, the Mingyi School had much more influence than the Tian Long Taoism. The building of this team called on activities in the name of justice. In addition, the Mingyi School also offered great rewards, such as a secret books on martial arts, medicinal herbs and medicinal soups, just to name a few. These things were excessively attractive to people in the martial arts world. After the appeal had been published, men in Jianghu flooded in. In a short time, a net covering the whole Jianghu had formed.


    The worst part was that the net was not only huge but also concealed. The Mingyi School did not released a name list containing men in Jianghu who had joined the team, so people did not need to worry about suppression and retaliation from the Tian Long Taoism.


    Thus, even Junior Leopard had to admit that the Mingyi School had played a wonderful trick by suppressing the Tian Long Taoism and Wang She with this perfectly justifiable reason. However, on the other hand, Junior Leopard despised their action.


    This boy had been a young cynic in his previous life. What he disdained most was the act of being nice outside while putting pressure inside. The Mingyi School had let the Tian Long Taoism swallow their own grievances in silence in the name of the imperial court.


    Because of this, Junior Leopard could clearly see the Mingyi School''s style in handling things. Their style was similar to that of the ancient Chinese Confucianist, but not the real Confucianist; the Confucianist here was the one that had been modified by the Emperor Wu of the Han. Both were exactly the same. This was what Junior Leopard mostly frowned upon. In addition, he had a good relationship with Wang She. Consequently, he was in a foul mood.


    However, it did not mean there had been no good news.


    The tone had been set in the imperial court. The world was full of vituperation. Words and excitement ran through here and there among people. When the Tian Long Taoism remained silent, Yunzhou Governor Ma Tianchang of Great Jin suddenly submitted a report saying that in recent days the forces of the Seven Troops of the Southern Yard from Northern Yuan had been concentrating and watching for their chance to go south. Patrolling cavalries showed up at passes in Yunzhou. In this situation, the Yunzhou army had already made the decision to go back home. They took the initiative and launched an attack, which not only exterminated the patrolling cavalries at the line of Yuyang but also destroyed four tribes at Southern Yard by going deep into the prairie. Frightening the Seven Troops of Southern Yard with tough measures made them restrain themselves.


    After the report, Ma Tianchang switched the conversation to another topic and began to comment on Wang She''s behavior. His words did not match with the tone set by the imperial court. On the contrary, he spoke highly of Wang She''s behavior. He called him the first chivalrous person of all ages and asked the imperial court to cancel the arrest order. He also stated that it was not a big deal because Wang She had only killed several sons of b*tches of Northern Yuan. If the imperial court arrested Wang She for this reason, then it was too cowardly. There was also a suspicion that the arrest would boost other people''s morale and reduce their courage. As for the army of Northern Yuan, it was not necessary to worry about it. No matter how many people would come, he could exterminate them outside Yunzhou. There was no possibility for them to enter Yunzhou.


    That was the content of the report. In addition to the report with the fierce words above, Ma Tianchang also spread word to the public. For anyone from Northern Yuan, no matter who he was, even including the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan, if he set his foot in Yunzhou, Ma Tianchang would be bound to expel him out of Yunzhou in a strong way. His responsibility was to defend the territory. Meanwhile, he would also motion the army to advance north and wage a life-and-death struggle with the Metal Horse Carriage of Northern Yuan. That was the first point. Second, he admonished to the public that the Mingyi School was brazen. He claimed that he had been blind when he had once agreed to let his daughter marry Lu Shaoyou. Fortunately, that marriage had failed. Otherwise, he would have been angry to die by way of those cowardly people who behaved like turtles and were afraid to stick their necks out. He plainly stated that he thanked Wang She and Nian Wushuang for rescuing his daughter from an abyss of suffering. To show his thanks, he would do his best to provide help for Wang She. As long as Wang She came to Yunzhou, he would go to all lengths to ensure his safety. Third, considering what the Mingyi School had done, from now on, their forces were not welcome in Yunzhou. All their forces and industries must now vacate the city. In half a month, if they had not cleared out, he would exert military force and expel them forcibly. Not even a patch of floor or a piece of tile would be left for the Mingyi School. Meanwhile, he declared that all those who had joined the attack team set up by the Mingyi School were dregs. That was a shame for Great Jin. If he found one of them in Yunzhou, he would arrest and kill him.


    After the declaration, the public burst into an uproar!


    He had set himself against the imperial court!


    In Great Jin, this was the first time in several hundred years that a governor had exuded such behavior in questioning a decision from the imperial court in an open way. He was replying defiantly to the imperial court by disregarding the law and discipline!


    Such a thing was indeed too abominable.


    What was more; such a thing had happened to Yunzhou Governor Ma Tianchang before!


    In the earlier years, a censor had submitted an impeachment that Ma Tianchang acted in an arbitrary fashion, ignored the imperial court and built Yunzhou into his own independent Kingdom with concealed intentions. He should be punished by the imperial court immediately. That impeachment was controlled by the incumbent Emperor. However, how could such a thing happen? Impeachments about Ma Tianchang had been like snow, swirling into the Inner Court. Without exception, all the impeachments were about requiring the imperial court to convict Ma Tianchang of a crime: great disrespect to the imperial court.


    In their eyes, there had been two reasons for the imperial court not to convict Ma Tianchang. One reason was that Ma Tianchang had not acted against the imperial court in such an outright way as he did today. The other reason lied in the tight tension in Yunzhou. A person like Ma Tianchang was really needed to control the unrest.


    Nevertheless, with what Ma Tianchang had done now, could he still complete his critical position and reassure people?


    He also had an ambition of marching troops toward the north and fighting the Metal Horse Carriage of Northern Yuan to the death. Did Ma Tianchang regard the army as his own family? Did it have the surname Ma?


    The army belonged to the imperial court. It was the army of the imperial court. Even if he was the Yunzhou Governor, without the tiger-shaped tally, the number of army soldiers that he could mobilize was only five thousand!


    Had his influence in Yun Zhou expanded to a state in which he could mobilize the whole army without the tiger-shaped tally?


    If so, then he should be put to death.


    All the people thought this way. The imperial court would respond in a short time by either warning Ma Tianchang seriously about his behavior or depriving his authority as Yun Zhou Governor.


    Beyond expectation, once the impeachment reports were put on the Emperor''s desk, they were like stones sinking into the sea. No response. No instructions. No reply. It seemed that nothing had happened.


    Just as everybody had become weary of waiting, a decree was released from the Inner Court. Yunzhou Governor Ma Tianchang had been working in dedication and due diligence for many years and had made great contributions in defending the territory. Therefore, to reward his loyalty, the imperial court had promoted him to be the Minister of War and Yunzhou Governor. All the matters in Yunzhou would be at his discretion without reporting to the imperial court in advance.


    This decree resulted in an even greater shock!


    For a while, everybody was confused. They had no idea why the imperial court had issued such a decree!


    However, another piece of news came soon. It was said that the news was from the Inner Court and that the Emperor was not happy because Northern Yuan had sent an ambassador to question. For the overall interests, he had only shown his attitude based on Northern Yuan. Anyway, it was just an attitude. Had they seen any other action from the imperial court aside from this attitude?


    The Mingyi School ran around on sinister errands, which made the Emperor quite unsatisfied. Even though Ma Tianchang''s report and the news released were obviously against the imperial court, his behavior catered to the Emperor. Moreover, he was the Emperor''s trusted subordinate. Therefore, the Emperor took this opportunity to show his support to the public. Even Ma Tianchang''s report and the released news were likely to be inspired by the Emperor himself.


    The message spread as fast as it could. Whether the news was from the real Inner Court could not be investigated any more.


    Even so, the response of the imperial court indicated one thing. The wind had changed its direction overnight!


    Some people who had criticized that Wang She triggered conflicts started calling him a chivalrous person. People''s voice about blaming Ma Tianchang for looking down upon the imperial court also trailed away. However, more people were secretly discussing the possible result of the whole thing and the influence it would have on the future.


    The Mingyi School did not claim to oppose Wang She in a big way, but it kept maneuvering!


    The thing was evolving toward a calm trend, just as the calm before the storm! It was the most horrible calm!


    ...


    ...


    It was a moonlit night!


    A large harvest moon hung in the sky, emitting bright light. The moonlight looked like water. The whole world was bathed in it and cloaked in a magnificent jade-like color.


    In the dead of night, River Heart Island was not that quiet. The newly-built goods yard was crowded. The dock was brilliantly illuminated throughout the night. Different ships berthed at the dock. Goods were unloaded from the ships and carried to the carriages, to the back of the coolies and finally transported to the newly-built goods yard. On the way from the dock to the new yard, special people were maintaining the order. They were soldiers from the Navy of Jiang City. Every night they worked here incessantly. Although it was a little bit toilsome for them, the subsidy from maintaining order for a night was equal to half-a-month salary. Thus, for that money, nobody complained about being tired or exhausted.


    Of course, during the order maintenance, some unfortunate events would often occur. In particular, the guys under Zhu Ba''s control were all characterized by bandits, so some extortion occurred. When Junior Leopard heard about it, he asked Zhu Ba to come to him. In front of the Navy soldiers, he condemned Zhu Ba mercilessly. He also asked several soldiers who extorted businessmen to come to him. He neither beat nor scolded them. He merely told Zhu Ba not to let his guys do such things in the future. Junior Leopard was very angry, so Zhu Ba dared not to do anything. He only nodded.


    After they were backing home, Zhu Ba gave them a lesson and put them in limbo. They had made him lose face. Since then, they didn''t get profitable jobs. All the other soldiers in the Navy department saw the outcome and immediately cleaned up their act. Life was getting better day after day; they had something to expect. However, those unlucky guys made the Commander and His Excellencies unpleasant for that little money. If they followed suit, the loss absolutely outweighed the gain.


    After a period, the military discipline in the Navy cleaned up. Suddenly, the Navy became the best behaved army in Jiang City. It was beyond both Junior Leopard and the Navy Commanders'' expectation.


    "What an unexpected surprise! Our Navy could come to such a situation today!" Wang Datong stood on a protruding rock, watching the dock and yard in full swing. He signed spontaneously with emotion. "His Excellency is really amazing!"


    "Isn''t he? Before His Excellency came here, what did you say about him?" Jiang Xiao asked, watching in the direction of the dock and yard with satisfied eyes. "I remember that you were saying something like ''He was a bullsh*t. How can he be a leader in our Jiang City Navy? It''s a daydream.'' Those are your words, if I''m not mistaken!"


    "Haha!" Wang Datong gave a hollow laugh and was a little bit embarrassed. "At that time His Excellency hadn''t been here yet. You really had no other thoughts before he assumed office, huh?!"


    "Yeah. Appointing a teenage boy as the head of our army ruffian was quite a bold decision from the Admiral!" Jiang Xiao said in a sigh. "However, the Admiral had never expected that the Commander didn''t want to leave Jiang City after he had came here!"


    Wang Datong was in a daze and then understood what Jiang Xiao said. Both laughed heartily. "You¡¯re right. Our Admiral had never predicted that it would develop into such a situation!"


    "Well. Don¡¯t say such useless words. Datong, have you settled the thing arranged by the Commander?"


    "I''ve already talked with the people at the Multiple Chain Dock!" When mentioning the thing that Junior Leopard had asked Wang Datong to do, Wang Datong''s facial expression changed slightly; he showed a little bit of hesitation. "However, Your Excellency Jiang, you did that. It''s okay?"


    "Even if it isn''t okay, it''s none of our business!" Jiang Xiao said, glancing at him. "Datong, don''t think too much. We are in the same boat with His Excellency. The only thing we can do is to pull together in times of trouble. Do you have other ideas?"


    "No. Of course no¡ª!" Wang Datong shook his head. "I don''t have other ideas certainly. I just worry His Excellency might get into trouble!"


    "Trouble? What trouble?" Jiang Xiao asked, his face showing a glimmer of coldness. "We are the Navy of Jiang City, not the bandits in the Multiple Chain Dock. Even though they are robbed, who cares? As for the yard, that''s our possession. We can lend it to anyone or refuse as we see fit. It''s our own business. Nobody can make carping comments about it. Don''t you understand such a simple thing!"


    "I understand, truly. However, if something goes really wrong, who can explain?"


    "You are responsible only for the army provisions. Even if nobody can explain, you are not the person who shall explain, right?" Jiang Xiao said, squinting at him.


    "Yes. Yes¡ª!" Wang Datong was astonished. He could say no more.


    At this moment, a great noise came from afar in the direction of the dock.


    "It''s starting now!" Jiang Xiao showed a faint smile as he watched what was happening on a distant dock. He stared at the big boat lying at the dock. He asked, "Is that the Southern Bay Warehouse ship?"


    "Yes. Southern Bay Warehouse is a branch of the Mingyi School." Wang Datong said with a nod. "From now on, regarding all the merchant ships and goods relating to the Mingyi School, if they stop at the dock in River Heart Island and use our goods yard, we will purposely make things difficult for them!"


    "It''s the order from His Excellency. We just execute it!" Jiang Xiao nodded. "Anyway, I have to warn you, we are now on the Commander''s boat!"


    "I know, I know!"


    ...


    ...


    "Whew, whew¡ª!" On the water at a distance of 10 kilometers from River Heart Island, a figure in black was blinking continuously. The figure disappeared from its place after every flicker; at almost the same time, it appeared more than 300 meters away from the previous position. After doing this several times, the figure was already five kilometers or so away from the original position.


    "Hu, hu, hu, hu, hu...!" In a marshland, nine kilometers away, the figure of Junior Leopard suddenly appeared. He bent down, panting severely and looking rather pale. He thought, "Oh my god, it''s really not easy to grasp the Three Realms Division. It''s not big a deal to move over a short distance. However, once I want to move over a long distance, it''s not easy to balance the Internal Qi and the pressure consumed by the body. Based on my body''s current strength, I can only hold for nine kilometers!"


    Bending over a riverside rock, Junior Leopard''s eyes flashed. He watched the blood dripping from his arm. "It seems that my skin and flesh cannot bear it, but my skeleton can bear several times more!" Junior Leopard said in his heart.


    Yes, his skeleton could still bear it.


    Since the last recuperation, he found that the strength of his skeleton had increased sharply. His skeleton had come into a state far exceeding that of the Bone-Forging Realm. He even doubted whether the current strength of his skeleton had reached the strength of the Tendon-Changing Realm. Regretfully, his body strength was not in coordination with that of the skeleton. Without the support of the flesh and blood, it would be useless no matter how strong the skeleton it was. That was the reality, a cruel reality.


    "Considering I got seriously hurt, I could probably move more than 15 kilometers in 10 seconds. That may be the maximum!" Junior Leopard thought.


    More than 15 kilometers in 10 seconds!


    That was a terrible amount. Even for an expert at Level Nine, it was impossible to fully play mental cultivation methods. This was where Junior Leopard''s confidence lied in. When facing an expert at any level, even if he could not win, he could flee away. Therefore, in some sense, he was fearless.


    After resting against a rock, Junior Leopard felt that he had recovered. He stood upright, looking far off in the direction of River Heart Island and watching the glim in the distance. A slight smile appeared on his face. This was his domain. It was quite a small and simple area now, but he already had a small base at least. Of course, he knew this base was not reliable. It belonged to that petty Navy Commander. Although the River Hear Island was prospering, a decree from the imperial court could transfer him to a completely different place. He had no ability to stand up to that. Under those circumstances, if he still wanted to have River Heart Island at his disposal, he would have only one choice: He could give up his status to control River Heart Island as a water bandit, just as Li Sanbao had done. However, he would not make such a choice at any rate.


    Therefore, now that he had made some achievements at River Heart Island, he was always cautious. Things had not changed until he knew that Wang She killed three princes of Northern Yuan and heard the following information.


    As for the attitude toward the imperial court, Junior Leopard did not care. They were just words for show. Nobody took it seriously. However, the Mingyi School''s response and behavior triggered his disdain and defiance. It was this disdain and defiance that made him increasingly dislike the Mingyi School. It was not only a matter of averseness. He also felt resentful and more negative towards the Mingyi School. Finally, it affected his practice. When the negativity was released, he could continue to practice at ease. After weighing the odds carefully, he came up with a dumb idea.


    Purposely create difficulties!


    Junior Leopard thought, "I will neither challenge the Mingyi School''s influence as Yun Zhou Governor Ma Tianchang did nor will I obviously cause trouble for you. I can make things difficult for you." Anyhow, the military discipline of the Navy of Jiang City had been not good. It was much better now after his improvement. In spite of that, Junior Leopard was not convinced that those guys who had been army riffraff became the Eighth Route Army overnight. Hence, he thought that he could deliberately place obstacles in the Mingyi School''s way with reasonable excuses when their ships berthed, or when the goods were delivered, or when they encountered the water bandits. Even though he could not trash them, he could make them sick. As a civil servant in his previous life, Junior Leopard was very good at playing tricks.

 Chapter 193: Immortal Palace Appeared

    Chapter 193: Immortal Palace Appeared


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Why did this happen?


    After several attempts, Junior Leopard made a great deal of progress in utilizing the Three Realms Division. At the same time, he found a problem. Though his skeleton strength surpassed the standards of the Bone-Forging Realm, his body strength remained in the Bone-Forging Realm. Thereafter during his later practices, he purposefully enhanced practices on his skin and flesh. He now practiced Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill much more often than Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist to strengthen his skin and flesh.


    However, as he further practiced, strengthening his skin and flesh significantly, the nature of his Internal Qi also changed.


    Under the influence of Mysterious Fire, his Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire had totally bled into one. In addition, it was continually condensed by Bright Moon Deifying Technique. Thus in terms of quality, his Internal Qi was more translucent than that of ordinary experts of the Bone-Forging Realm and even stronger than that of experts above Level Seven.


    However, a surprise came along with that. After fighting with Dragon Granny, his skeleton was hurt. Surprisingly, when he healed himself with Bone-Forging Pills and Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist, they not only cured him of internal injuries but also strengthened his skeleton to a higher level.


    At first, he was quite happy with it. But now he found that the strengthening of his skeleton was gradually impacting his Internal Qi. When the strength of his skin and flesh matched with his skeleton strength through his madly practice, the impaction was much stronger. The strengthening of his body also impacted the nature of his Internal Qi. In recent days, when applying his Internal Qi, to his surprise, he found that his Internal Qi was also flashing with a golden light like his skeleton.


    This was astounding to him.


    The nature of Internal Qi was determined by two aspects: one was your own body constitution, and the other was the mental cultivation method of your Internal Qi. For most people, the first aspect could be completely neglected because the influence of the body constitution on practicing Internal Qi would gradually show up only when their cultivation reached Level Seven. Most people in the martial arts world had no chance to experience this influence at all.


    Though Junior Leopard''s cultivation was merely at Level Four, yet his two External Elixirs had already reached Level Six. However, he still could not feel any influence from his body constitution on his Internal Qi.


    His Internal Qi cultivation method was another decisive factor in the nature of his Internal Qi. He was a special case. The nature of his Internal Qi was also influenced by Mysterious Fire and the Bright Moon Deifying Technique. Therefore, his Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire greatly surpassed that of other people who had practiced the same cultivation methods, both in quality and power.


    But for Junior Leopard, that was enough. He never thought that his Internal Qi would be influenced by his body constitution when his cultivation was only at Level Four. Although the influence was very little now, he believed that in the future the influence would grow. Therefore, now he was sure that it must be good for him.


    The biggest difference between Level Seven and Level Six was the condensed degrees and properties of their Internal Qi. When one''s cultivation reached Level Seven or higher, their Internal Qi would be influenced by their body constitution, which would result in various properties.


    Junior Leopard did not know about the others, but he clearly sensed the property of Dragon Granny''s Internal Qi when he fought with her before. As Dragon Granny reached only Level Seven by lucky coincidence, her Internal Qi had started to generate its own property that was far from mature. It also could not be applied to real combat. Otherwise, it would have been extremely hard for Junior Leopard to fight against her with only his body.


    The property now appeared when his Internal Qi cultivation was only at Level Four, which surprised him, but he gradually calmed down after pondering about it for a while.


    The fact that his Internal Qi generated property was surprising, but it happened for a good reason.


    His Internal Qi had been condensed to an extreme degree, which was not weaker than the Level Seven experts''. After he was healed last time, his skeleton strength had reached the Tendon-Changing Realm. With these two factors, his Internal Qi would naturally generate property.


    "I don''t know what property my Internal Qi is. Though it feels good, there are so many things that seem good but are actually useless." A hidden trace of worry arose in Junior Leopard''s heart but soon vanished. The final property was decided by one''s own body constitution. Like one''s appearance, it was inherently given and could not be changed.


    Since it could not be changed, he did not need to worry about it, but should just allow nature to take its course.


    The golden light hidden in his Internal Qi could only be seen by his abnormal eyes when his Internal Qi was transformed in his body. Besides himself, nobody could find out that his Internal Qi had already formed its own property, not even experts at Level Nine, like Wang She.


    After circulating the Qi, he exhaled slightly. His Internal Qi was gathered into his Dantian and hid in his bones, and his complexion returned to normal.


    "Jiang Xiao, Zhu Ba, come in!"


    After the words were finished, the door opened. Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba walked in and said, "Commander!"


    "You two have stood there for a while. What''s the matter?"


    "Shopkeeper Ding of Southern Bay Warehouse wants to meet Your Excellency. He asks Zhu Ba and me for help," answered Jiang Xiao.


    "Southern Bay Warehouse?" A trace of a cold smile flashed over Junior Leopard''s face, and his gaze turned to Zhu Ba. "Zhu Ba, how much money did you get this time?"


    "Hehe, Your Excellency. Not much! Not much!" Zhu Ba gave a hollow laugh. After such a long time, he had become familiar with Junior Leopard and was not that reserved. "The money is at the door. How could I refuse it?"


    "Yeah. How can you refuse it? Just wait till you are killed by money!" Junior Leopard scolded him with a smile. "I won''t see him!"


    "Won''t see him?" Zhu Ba went blank, and his expression became one of embarrassment. "Your Excellency, you see, I have already accepted the money, you¡­"


    "It''s settled. I won''t see him. I know why he comes!" Junior Leopard waved his hands slightly, as if he was dispersing flies. "Zhu Ba, I''ve told you so many times. You''d better do this thing naturally. It must be that you only spited them so they came to me. Is that right?"


    "We brothers only dare to spite them, Your Excellency!" Zhu Ba smiled bitterly. "Without your permission, we dare not to spite others!"


    "So, you mean it''s my mistake?!" Junior Leopard''s face was changed and he scolded.


    "No, no, no¡­!" Zhu Ba immediately waved his hands and said, "I mean that we brothers have become better-behaved. We don''t dare to act recklessly like before."


    "I''m not asking you to act recklessly. I''m saying you should use your brain!" Junior Leopard was quite speechless, "Excellency Jiang, he has no brain, so he acts recklessly. But why do you also kick up a row with him?"


    "It''s because they also ask me for help," Jiang Xiao answered with a bitter smile. "There is a supervisor in Southern Bay Warehouse who is a relative of my wife. He went to my home to badger me for a long time last night. I had no choice but to accept!"


    "Then you tell me, what should I do now?"


    "If you don''t want to see him, then just don''t see him. It''s not a big deal!" Jiang Xiao said. "He is only a shopkeeper of a Warehouse. But your Excellency, I''m afraid we should be cautious about other things. Something strange is happening in Jianghu."


    "Yeah, I know." Junior Leopard nodded, "I don''t care what''s happening in Jianghu, but we should pay close attention to what''s happening in Jiang City!"


    "That''s for sure!" Jiang Xiao nodded. "Since Your Excellency doesn''t want to see him, I''ll go and send him away to save your trouble!"


    "OK. Go ahead!" Jiang Xiao then turned to leave. Zhu Ba shrunk his head and wanted to follow Jiang Xiao, but he was stopped by Junior Leopard.


    "Zhu Ba, did I allow you to leave?"


    "I don''t dare!" Zhu Ba hurriedly said.


    "I heard that you have become a celebrity in Prunus Tower lately." Junior Leopard smiled coldly. Once he got money and time, Zhu Ba would linger in those red-light districts in Jiang City. He even fought with others there several times. Recently, under the guidance of Junior Leopard, he cultivated diligently, so he made great progress. Therefore, he continually won the fighting, which improved his reputation a lot. And it finally came to Junior Leopard''s attention.


    "Eh, that... Hehe, Your Excellency. Don''t believe those words. It''s total nonsense. I''m quite well-behaved recently!"


    "Well-behaved? You''ve never been to Prunus Tower?" Junior Leopard smiled.


    "I did go there. Of course I did!" Speaking of this, Zhu Ba became somewhat embarrassed. "Your Excellency, I go to Prunus Tower not for playing with women. In fact, I have a lover there so I often go there."


    "I also heard that. Her name is... Yuzhu, right?"


    "Yes, it''s Yuzhu!" Speaking of Yuzhu, Zhu Ba nodded repeatedly. "I had planned to buy her freedom, but I don''t have enough money, so¡­"


    "You want to buy her freedom?!" Junior Leopard was surprised this time. He thought Zhu Ba went there just to play with women, but it turned out that he had been played by women!


    "Yes. I want to buy her freedom!" Zhu Ba lowered his head.


    "How much money do you need?"


    "About... 300 or 400 taels of silver!" Hearing Junior Leopard''s question, Zhu Ba''s eyes suddenly lit up and he stared at Junior Leopard in amazement.


    "What are you thinking? Are you expecting me to give you money so you can buy your lover''s freedom?" Junior Leopard was so angry that he almost kicked him.


    "It''s all my fault, my fault!"


    "Well. Don''t make a fool of yourself here. Isn''t there a person outside begging you for something? Haven''t you ever thought about squeezing anything out of him?"


    "Him? Shopkeeper Ding?" Zhu Ba seemed perplexed at first, and soon he became happy. "Your Excellency means¡­"


    "Get out!"


    Zhu Ba stopped asking questions and hurriedly ran out with a satisfied smile.


    "What an asshole!"


    Junior Leopard could do nothing to him but helplessly scold him.


    "You are actually quite considerate to your followers!"


    After scolding Zhu Ba, Junior Leopard prepared to go out. At this moment, he suddenly heard a quiet sigh. He stopped and a trace of fear arose in his eyes. He turned his head and saw a man in black standing behind him silently. He had no idea about when the man had come in.


    "Who are you?!" Junior Leopard felt the man''s figure was somewhat familiar, but he could not remember where he had seen the man.


    "What? You don''t remember me? But I remember you." The man had a sallow complexion, and a mouthful of yellow teeth showed up when he grinned. His appearance was very ordinary. However, a strength which made Junior Leopard feel frightened was hidden under this ordinary appearance.


    "Have we met before?" Junior Leopard asked slightly. Although his feelings told him that he had seen the man before, he was not sure about that and could not remember, either.


    "Four years ago. Ningzhou City. At that time, you were still a little boy¡ªa fearless boy. Do you remember?"


    The man''s words reminded Junior Leopard of that memory.


    Yeah, it was this man. It was the first time he followed Xu Yong to be in Jianghu. They planned to go to the Wen Family in Ningzhou City as the Wen Family had one Tianluo Dark Gold. However, before they had stayed there for one night, a man in black intruded into the Wen Family and robbed the Tianluo Dark Gold. Thus, they could only leave with disappointment. And this guy standing before him was actually that man!


    The figure was the same. The only difference was at that time the man wore a strange robe and a weird mask while now the man was in an ordinary green robe without any mask.


    This was a Level-Seven expert!


    Junior Leopard stepped back one step with his heart flashing a trace of fear. He made an alert stance, and his Internal Qi began to circulate.


    "Don''t be so nervous. I''m not your enemy!" The man smiled. "Wang She sent me here to find you."


    "Wang She?" Junior Leopard''s expression changed a little, and he looked at the man curiously. He could not believe that the man had any relationship with Wang She.


    However, before he asked any questions, the man said, "Wang She said that you have extraordinary strength and you are able to fight with a Level-Seven expert. I didn''t believe that at first and planned to test you in fighting. But you killed the old woman from the Meng Family that day. It proved your strength. So, I come here today!"


    "You said Wang She sent you here. Do you think I will believe that?" Junior Leopard smiled coldly.


    "Yeah, if I were you, I wouldn''t believe it either. But Wang She wanted me tell you that when you killed that bear at home you did a good job!"


    Junior Leopard''s gaze fixed for a moment, and a chilly spirit exuded from his body but vanished soon after.


    The bear I killed at home?


    Of course he remembered that. At that time, he was at a crucial time of life and death and his Fiery Eyes awakened. Wang She saw the whole process, and he was the only person that knew that.


    Only Wang She understood what it meant to kill the bear.


    However, since Wang She only wanted the man to say I did a great job in killing the bear, it meant that this man only knew that I killed a bear and didn''t know that my Fiery Eyes awakened.


    Thinking of this, he set his mind at ease.


    "Well, I see. Chief Wang is really a thoughtful man. I am wondering why Chief Wang sent you here?"


    "Wang She has been in trouble recently. He suggested that you replace him before he comes back." Seeing that Junior Leopard believed his words, the man did not question further but said darkly, "It seems that your fellowship is very deep. No wonder he advises you to replace him."


    "Replace him? Replace what?" Junior Leopard was shocked and he did not understand the man''s meaning. Wang She indeed came to see him before he went to Northern Yuan. But, he did not mention this that time!


    Thinking of this, Junior Leopard said, "I don''t quite understand what Your Excellency means. Chief Wang didn''t mention this when he left here!"


    "Of course he didn''t mention it, because at that time he didn''t know he would have a mission. I believe that he didn''t expect that the mission would come to him so soon." The man smiled.


    "Mission?" Junior Leopard was curious and asked, "Your Excellency is from Tian Long Taoism?"


    "I have nothing to do with Tian Long Taoism!" the man answered and he looked at Junior Leopard with a look of interest. "You needn''t fish for information about me. Since Wang She decided to let you replace him, then I will certainly tell you everything as much as I possibly can!"


    "I don''t understand!" Junior Leopard said, but he had his own speculation already. Wang She was the Chief of Tian Long Taoism. Even if he did have some mission, the mission should be relevant to Tian Long Taoism. But this man said he had nothing to do with Tian Long Taoism. Thinking of the man''s mysterious clothing that year when he robbed the Tianluo Dark Gold, Junior Leopard was shocked in his heart. "Did Wang She secretly join in some terrorist organization?"


    "Fine, little friend. Don''t think too much. Just follow me!"


    Junior Leopard said, "Wait!"


    "What? You don''t believe me?"


    "Not exactly!" Junior Leopard shook his head and said. "I have nothing to say about Chief Wang wanting me to replace him temporarily. But I am wondering if I can refuse the mission that you''ve just mentioned!"


    "Of course you can. But if I were you, I wouldn''t refuse it!" the man said with a smile.


    "I also believe that Chief Wang won''t do something bad to me," Junior Leopard said, and he seemed somewhat embarrassed. "But you also know that I''m the Navy Commander in Jiang City. I have much business to deal with. Even if I go with you, I need to hand over the business first. Could you tell me how long this mission will take?"


    "One month at least, or half a year at most. You''re right, you should hand over your business," the man said, glancing at Junior Leopard, "I will wait for you in Jiang City. After you handle your business, you can come and find me at Pengcheng Lodge in Jiang City."


    "Okay!" Junior Leopard nodded and said. The man flashed his body, went out through the window, and disappeared in several flashes and falls.


    Junior Leopard saw the man off, and gradually, his complexion sank, scolding Wang She in his heart.


    If you want to die or make trouble, then just go. Why do you involve me in this matter?


    You''re even letting me replace your position. Who knows what kind of organization you joined? If you joined a terrorist organization which fights against the whole world, you are definitely killing me.


    Thinking of the weird clothing of the man that day in Ningzhou City, Junior Leopard knew that the organization Wang She joined was probably not a good one.


    However, he thought of the members.


    Although Junior Leopard only knew two of them, one was a Level-Nine expert and the other was a Level-Seven expert. This showed that this organization should not be weak. In fact, concerning Wang She''s character, it was impossible for him to join an ordinary organization.


    "It seems that Wang She has planned to involve me in this from the very beginning. But he hadn''t gotten a chance to until now. This time he wants to carry out his plan when he is in trouble. That really is a good idea," Junior Leopard thought this over in his heart. "But now, it seems that I have no choice but to follow his intentions."


    Indeed, Junior Leopard had no choice.


    He had no idea how to get rid of the whole thing that Wang She had arranged for him.


    "Forget it. Take one step at a time. I''d like to see what Wang She is plotting!"


    He thought this over with anger in his heart.


    The next day, he gathered his followers in the Navy of Jiang City together, including Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao, and handed everything over to them with the reason of closed door training once again. In fact, everything in the Navy had been dealt with by them the entire time. All Junior Leopard needed to do was to tell them that he would not show up in River Heart Island during the next half a year. No matter what happened, they were permitted to decide by themselves without informing him, the Commander of the Navy of Jiang City. Of course, if there was something that they could not resolve, they should not be anxious and just wait for him to come back to deal with it.


    Hearing that Junior Leopard was about to start another closed door training, the followers had different reactions. Wang Cheng, Wang Datong, and Yuan Long were quite glad to hear that. Although Junior Leopard almost never interfered with them before, they could not do things freely because of the supervisor. In Junior Leopard''s previous life, he always wished his leader to be away on official business, so that he could freely do whatever he wanted.


    Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba, who usually got the most advantages from Junior Leopard, were somewhat loath to part with him.


    "Your Excellency, you''ve just finished one closed door training. Why do you begin another?"


    "I''m a genius. I often get insights and need closed door training. Can''t I?" Junior Leopard said impatiently.


    "But... Your Excellency, I am just preparing to buy Yuzhu''s freedom and marry her. If you are not here, how can I do this?" Zhu Ba asked.


    "You really want to buy your lover''s freedom from Prunus Tower?" Junior Leopard went blank for a minute, looking Zhu Ba up and down. "It seems that you have cheated Shopkeeper Ding badly yesterday!"


    "Hehe!" Zhu Ba laughed, his hand touching his head. "Your Excellency, you see, could you wait for a few days?"


    "No. I have to commit to closed-door training while my feeling still exists. Or when the feeling disappears, it would be useless even if I keep training till my death!" Junior Leopard shook his head. "Don''t worry about me. You just marry her. Don''t miss the lucky day. I''m too busy now, and I haven''t the mood to prepare a present for you. But don''t worry, when I finish the closed-door training, I will give you a big one."


    "Then, thanks a lot, Your Excellency!" Once Zhu Ba heard Junior Leopard would give him a big present, he immediately laughed.


    "You''re happy now?" Junior Leopard scolded him with a smile. "You asshole. You are waiting for my present in your heart, aren''t you?"


    "Of course not!" Zhu Ba denied that in a laugh, but the happy expression on his face totally sold out his true thoughts.


    ...


    ...


    At night, in room No.2 of the West Yard in Pengcheng Lodge in Jiang City, two figures rushed out from the room, and disappeared into the boundless night. One was Junior Leopard, and the other was the mysterious man.


    Junior Leopard followed the man. Even though he had already fully used his body movement, he still fell behind farther and farther. After running for dozens of miles, Junior Leopard stared at the man''s back which now had almost become a black dot. He suddenly stopped, and did not use his Lightness Skill. Instead, he walked at a normal person''s speed. While walking, he shouted, "Why are you running so fast? For reincarnation?"


    The black dot in front of him suddenly staggered and nearly toppled over.


    The rapid figure also stopped.


    "Boy, hurry up! My patience is limited!"


    "It''s not me who doesn''t want to be fast, but you''re a Level-Seven expert, while I''m only a Level-Four rookie. How can I run at your speed?" Learning the man''s manner, Junior Leopard complained. His voice was condensed into one thread and transformed far away.


    "You have External Elixir!" The man said rudely, "Boy, don''t think about keeping your strength in front of me. I''m not malicious toward you!"


    "What though I have External Elixir? My cultivation is still at Level Six. How do you expect me to keep up with your speed?" Junior Leopard breathed heavily, his face full of anger.


    "Hehe, sure enough. It''s just like what Wang She had told me. Although you''re young, you''re much steadier than your peers. Unlike other boys, you are not eager to win. This is your biggest advantage, but also your biggest shortcoming. It''s a pity that your cultivation is strong but you lack the morale that you deserve!"


    "Morale isn''t food. Why do I need morale?" Junior Leopard seemed to be somewhat impatient. He walked slowly toward the front of the man, looking carefully up and down at him, and said, "Senior, can we discuss one thing?"


    "What?!"


    "Tell me the destination that we are heading for now, and we''ll go there separately, okay? I know you''re in a hurry. You can go there first with your unique Lightness Skill. And I''ll wait here till the next morning. I will find a market to buy a horse, good or bad, so that I can arrive there at the fastest speed. What do you think that?"


    "What if I don''t agree?!"


    "You don''t agree? Why? Senior, it''s useless to force me like this. I really can''t run fast. Besides, nowadays, why do we apply Lightness Skills instead of riding a horse?" Junior Leopard said and sat on a roadside stone, showing a firm appearance of not going.


    The man smiled and said, "It''s not far away. Hold on for a little longer, we are almost there. There is a foothold nearby belonging to our Immortal Palace."


    "Immortal Palace?!"

 Chapter 194: Rainy Road in Shu, Golden Goose Cup

    Chapter 194: Rainy Road in Shu, Golden Goose Cup


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Immortal Palace!


    This was the first time this man mentioning the name of their organization, a very weird name.


    "Immortal Palace?!"


    "Hey, lad, don''t be so surprised! Our organization is called Immortal Palace. What do you think of it? Not a bad name, right?"


    "Its indeed very interesting!" Junior Leopard nodded, "How far is the foothold?"


    "At most 30 miles. Do you still have any energy left to go on?"


    Junior Leopard nodded, but never said anything more. That was because they only had 30 miles left to go. There was no need to complain, or else he would become the laughingstock. On the remaining journey, this man was not like before, where he used his body''s movement to dump Junior Leopard far behind. Instead, he was keeping up with Junior Leopard''s speed, keeping a certain distant of about 5 feet. Although Junior Leopard was not using his full body movement, he was still maintained a fast speed and finished the journey within an hour.


    "It''s here?" Junior Leopard looked at what was in front of him with a dark face.


    "Yes, it''s here." The man laughed, "What, not satisfied?"


    "It''s a mortuary!" Junior Leopard gave a bitter smile.


    The mortuary was actually a public morgue, where people who met a mysterious death, died uncleared of a false charge or whose body was unclaimed would be sent to.


    In this world, a mortuary was usually built by organizations like yamen, temple or Taoist temple. Of course, the imperial court provided the most capital to show its righteousness and justice. What was more, building a mortuary didn''t need much money. It was no more than finding an empty place, building a big house and finding a lonely jinx to guard it.


    The cost was really low.


    Junior Leopard had heard of this mortuary, for it was not far from Jiang City and founded by County Administration of Jiang City.


    However, he would never think that this was the foothold of the Immortal Palace.


    "This place is spacious, secluded, hardly being visited by people, and even if there is someone here, it is the best foothold. Is it wrong to choose this place?!"


    "Yes, spacious and people rarely come here. Even if someone would come, they would be dead, right?"


    "You are afraid of dead people?!"


    "Of course I am! I am so afraid of death! This place is so ominous!"


    While they were speaking, the door of the mortuary opened.


    A little old man in gray came out. He was trembling. From his short stature, it was clear that he was not far from being dead. His light footsteps showed that he had no martial art skills. His eyes were covered in dirty sleep, which was almost blinding his eyes, making Junior Leopard feel so uncomfortable.


    The door of the mortuary was opened. The chilly wind was blowing from the inside, fanning the horrible smell of corpse.


    Despite Junior Leopard''s martial arts, he still could not help shivering on such a weird night in such a weird place.


    The old man raised his head and looked at these two people. When he looked at the man in front of Junior Leopard, a bright light flashed in his blurry eyes. However, the bright light was not because of a certain level of Internal Strength practice, it was the pure surprise of an ordinary person.


    "You are...!"


    The man raised his right hand, waving the black ring on his fourth finger to the old man, who then stopped talking, lowered his head and led the two people into the mortuary.


    "Hey! We are actually staying here tonight?!"


    "Or why did you think I brought you here?"


    Following the old man, they passed through the lobby of the mortuary''s dead morgue, then a yard full of reeds and coffins and entered into the backyard of the mortuary through a round door.


    The backyard was not large, yet there were plenty of rooms, well-cleaned and with neat bed sheets. It seemed that the old man did a lot, however, did the old man know that they would come here today?


    Having seemed to sense the doubts of Junior Leopard, the man laughed, "It''s regularly cleaned in here!"


    "No wonder!" Junior Leopard nodded, and his eyes shifted to the man''s ring on his left hand. He was a blacksmith, which could be recognized naturally by seeing the ring, whose texture was very common, only created by ordinary black iron.Yet, what drew the attention of Junior Leopard was the big rooster carved on the surface of the ring, the same one that had been embroidered on the back of his eccentric robe when he arrived at the backyard of the Wen Family.


    When he first saw this man, he did not have this ring on his finger and Junior Leopard did not know when he put it on.


    Seeing Junior Leopard looking at the ring on his hand, the man smiled, waving the ring in front of him, "This thing is of no use, but a little thing for identification in our organization!"


    "For identification!" Junior Leopard smiled, "Having met for so long, I still don''t know your name!"


    "Oh, I thought you would not ask!" He said, "My name is Jin Yuquan, and people call me Golden Rooster!"


    "Golden Rooster?!" Junior Leopard laughed, "This is a good name!"


    "If it''s good, you can call me Golden Rooster!" Jin Yuquan said.


    "So, can you tell me, what our t...task is?!"


    "We are going to South Yuezhou State to solve a problem!"


    "South Yuezhou State?!" Junior Leopard eyes were suddenly wide open, "It is thousands of miles from Qianzhou!"


    "I know!"Jinyu Quan nodded, "after resting for one night, we will arrive at Wuzhou City tomorrow, and there will be someone who will prepare horses and money for us!"


    "I was scared to death! I thought we''d go on foot!"


    "Going thousands of miles on foot! You''ll be dead!" "Jin Yuquan patted Junior Leopard''s shoulder," Well, don''t think so much. Take a good rest tonight, and tomorrow I will explain to you in detail! "


    Immortal Palace was an underground organization. This was the only thing Junior Leopard knew after setting out the next day.


    Of course it was an underground organization! If not, this name would have long been famous in the world.


    Although, in his heart, Junior Leopard was cursing this Golden Rooster who was infront of him, the mouth of Golden Rooster was as though locked by an oversized iron lock. No matter how Junior Leopard asked again and again, he no longer spoke a word.


    Although he didn''t talk about the secret of Immortal Palace, he explained clearly the task at hand. Governor of South Yuezhou State Ruan Ming had gotten a treasure recently, which was the target of their mission, to take back this treasure.


    "Just as you took Tianluo Dark Gold the other year?!"


    "No, I robbed the Tianluo Dark Gold because I needed it to build a weapon. It''s personal. But this time, it''s an order from the organization!"


    "What kind of treasure is worth the organization going to all this trouble to get it?"


    "A luminous pearl, but not a normal one. It is a Blue Moon Pearl from the body of a Blue Moon Octopus which lives at the bottom of the sea. It''s a very precious Mysterious Object which can be used to make External Elixir!" Speaking of this, he looked at Junior Leopard, "I heard from Wang She that you have already made your External Elixir. Is it the earring dangling on your ear? Where is it now? Show me!"


    "HeHe!" Junior Leopard cursed Wang She in his heart again and unwillingly took out the Dragon Chimera skull which was hanging on his neck and handed it to Jin Yuquan, "This was picked up by the river accidentally when I was young. I thought it was interesting so I kept it with me, not knowing that it was the perfect material for making External Elixir!"


    "What a good thing!"


    Golden Rooster held the External Elixir, feeling the surging Internal Qi in it, and showing slight envy in his eyes, "It''s such a good thing. I never expected to see such an eccentric External Elixir. The texture is top class even among External Elixirs! Eeeh? This External Elixir''s Internal Qi is not the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, is it?"


    "It''s the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill that I inherited from Chief Wang!" Junior Leopard said.


    "Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill?!" Golden Rooster was stunned, his face was puzzled, "Why do you need Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill? If you successfully practiced Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, then the External Elixir can support you with Internal Qi every minute. Although your cultivation is only at Level Four, with the addition of the External Elixir, you can achieve the strength of Level Six cultivation!"


    "It''s Chief Wang''s suggestion. He not only told me that this is the perfect material for making External Elixir but also imparted the knowledge of how to make External Elixir as well as passing me the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill, which is very suitable for the External Elixir."


    "Bullshit! Your body practices the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique while your External Elixir practices Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill? It''s impossible to manage that!" Golden Rooster said, "I don''t know what was in Wang She''s mind. Even if he wants to pass on the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill, he can''t do this! Indeed there is a precedent and you can use External Elixir to practice different Internal Strength, but the result is not better than practicing the same Internal Qi which is very profitable because the biggest function of External Elixir is to store the extra Internal Qi which cannot be stored in your own body. However, you are practicing two kinds of Internal Strength. It will distract you! You should be careful that it doesn''t hold you back!"


    "I know about this. So I stopped practicing when my External Elixir achieved Level Six cultivation." Junior Leopard said, took back his External Elixir and wore it on his neck, "Anyhow, it''s better than nothing! And this is an External Elixir of Level Six cultivation, which may save my life one day!"


    "Haha, you are pretty philosophical about it!"


    "Oh, what should I do? What''s done is done. I can''t start again right?" Junior Leopard laughed bitterly.


    Golden Rooster shook his head, "There are always no rules when Wang She does things. It''s his specialty to make fun of others. For what he says, you should just listen and forget it. Never take it seriously; otherwise you''ll be the one suffering."


    "Thanks for your advice!"


    The sky was so blue, with only a few white clouds like balls of white cotton stretching over the green hills.


    It was getting hotter as they moved south, the cold in Jiang City gradually disappearing.


    The sun in the sky was like fire. There were no traces of wind, grass lowering down and even the beasts were reluctant to come out, curling up in their caves and waiting for the arrival of the night.


    The sun gradually moved over to the ridges on the other side of the mountain. Suddenly, a large black cloud floated from the far away horizon on the northwestern part covering the sun which was radiating endless heat.


    Black clouds swept over, piece by piece, like a marquees covering the vast sky, making the entire land become gray and dark in a very short time.


    Suddenly, a dazzling lightning flashed across the sky, followed by thunder resounding through the earth.


    Meanwhile, raindrops like soybeans poured down from the sky, fast and urgent, hitting the ground, the stones and the branches, crackling like someone was cooking beans. From the distant mountain to the stream nearby, everything was lost in a vast expanse. The earth was in a vast white, yet rocks and forests could still be seen in the dark.


    At this time, from the other side of the mountain came two people who rode horses along the mountain road. The two horses were running fast. However, as the heavy rain fell, the speed of the already extremely fast horse dropped rapidly. It was Golden Rooster and Junior Leopard who were rushing to the South Yuezhou State. They changed the good horses in Wuzhou City and then began to gallop all the way south, using only five or six days to finish a thousand miles journey and entering into the territory of Shuzhou, the place full of mountains. Although the two horses were top class, they were unsuitable for the mountain roads. The worst thing was that weather here was unpredictable, where the bright sun might be followed by pouring rain in a very short time and without notice. In the mountain, it was hard to find shelter, thus they could only move forward until they found a huge rock protruding from the mountain which formed a shelter.


    "Oh what kind of weather is this!" Hiding under the rock with their horses, Junior Leopard kept on cursing, "Damn, only a few miles and I''m deadly exhausted!"


    "Your cultivation is not bad if you can hold on till now!" Golden Rooster laughed, "I am surprised that your Internal Qi of Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill has been practiced to this degree!"


    "Enough! You have Gang Qi to protect yourself, so stop laughing at me!" Junior Leopard said angrily.


    They were both reluctant to get wet in the rain, thus they both used Internal Qi to protect themselves. Junior Leopard''s body practiced Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique which was incompatible with water. He was not stupid to not know this. So he used Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill in his External Elixir which barely protected him and his horse.


    However, he hadn''t practiced Gang Qi after all. Only that depending on Internal Qi of his External Elixir cost him a lot more energy. On the contrary, Golden Rooster was a Level Seven expert, whose Gang Qi could defend against hailstones let alone rain. Therefore, he was relaxed, paying no attention to whether they could find shelter or where to find shelter.


    "With your qualification and current strength, to achieve Level Seven cultivation only needs a short time. There is no need to envy me. Now that Wang She has passed Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill to you, I suppose that he told you about how to condense the Jade Original Power Gang!"


    "He also told me where to condense Jade Original Power Gang!"


    "So he really told you all everything!"


    "Almost everything, except for this!" Junior Leopard said, "I did not know that he was one of your Immortal Palace''s members!"


    "He recommended you to be his successor, but he didn''t know if he needed one!" Jin Yuquan laughed, "He caused big trouble, yet no matter how big the trouble is, there will always be a way to deal with it!"


    " Big trouble? He is one of yours! Why don''t you help him?"


    "Living Buddha with Golden Body, Dark Lord Mie Chen and Kunlun Master. These three people are not easily provocated as you think!" Golden Rooster laughed bitterly, "The Immortal Palace is now in a dark place. Once we take part in this, we will expose ourselves."


    "But you are going to rob the treasure of Yuezhou Governor! Aren''t you afraid of being exposed?"


    "It won''t be a problem." Jin Yuquan said, "There are no real experts. Even if there is, we are able to handle them. Just as last time in Ningzhou City, I robbed Tianluo Dark Gold of Wen Family; do you know the existence of Immortal Palace?


    Speaking of this, he sighed, "Wang She''s movement this time is so big that three masters of Northern Yuan are now hunting him. If we truly want to help him, then we need most of our power. Only one or two people like us appearing is ok, but if a large number of unfamiliar experts of Level Seven, Level Eight or even Level Nine would appear, what do you think would happen?"


    After hearing this, Junior Leopard stopped talking.


    Jin Yuquan was right. The sudden appearance of one or two experts would only puzzle a few people but if a lot of experts suddenly showed up, it would arouse the vigilance of the martial arts world and even cause panic. All influences would launch their own power to find this mysterious influence. At that time, no matter how deep the Immortal Palace hid, it would be discovered.


    "But there is no need to worry so much. I know Wang She well. If he doesn''t have enough confidence, he would not do it. Although the three masters are fierce, Wang She is not easy to bully. With Level Nine cultivation, even if he can''t fight with them, he has no problem running away."


    "I''m not worried about him!" Junior Leopard curled his lip, "I am now worried that what he did might cause a great storm!"


    "You sure know how to worry about the nation!" Hearing what Junior Leopard had said, Jin laughed.


    "I am an official in the court after all. I need to care about certain things, right?"


    "Well, do not show your bureaucracy in front of me. I am not your boss, so there is no use for this bureaucracy. The rain has almost stopped, time to set off!"


    "The rain has stopped, but the road is hard to walk on!" Junior Leopard said, and Jin Yuquan looked down at the direction that Junior Leopard''s finger was pointing at, with the same depressed look showing on his face too. The road was already muddy because of the heavy rain, and full of crushed stones that had rolled down from the hillside. What was more; they were both riding horses, which made it even harder for them.


    "Forget it, we won''t ride there. We can just walk there and then find two horses at town centralization!" Jin Yuquan said and suddenly rushed out. The figure darted out, and between several ups and downs, disappeared into the ridge.


    "Damn!" He''s Lightness Skill is just a little bit better than mine, every time his speed is so fast!" Junior Leopard complained in his heart and followed up with some flashes.


    It was said that it was easier to climb to heaven than to take the Shuzhou road. It was true. Although the cultivation of these two people had reached a high level and they both had Lightness Skills, they were still greatly influenced by the muddy Shuzhou road and their speed had slowed down considerably. After spending more than four hours, they still could not see the end of their journey.


    This time, even Jin Yuquan was too tired to continue. He stopped.


    "Damn, I have heard about how difficult it is to walk on Shuzhou road, but I would not believe it. Now it gives me real big trouble!"


    Junior Leopard just laughed, "We have been walking for a long time, so it should not be too far away. Is this the first time you''re coming here?"


    "Of course it''s the first time. Once you''ve been there once, will you come back a second time?!" Jin Yuquan said with slight anger. During their talk, they both stopped, finding a trace of the color of surprise and doubt in each other''s eyes.


    They both heard the shouting and the clashing sound of gold and iron coming from not far away.


    "Interesting, I never thought that we could actually watch a good show here!" Jin Yuquan laughed, took out a Bronze Mask and put it on. Junior Leopard took out the Smiling-face Mask just as Jin Yuquan did.


    Now he was wearing the same outfit as what he wore on the day when he went Lu Mansion during the bride kidnapping with Wang She, only without the mask. But he always brought the mask with him, just in case.


    At this time, the distant sound of shouting and fighting was getting closer. After wearing masks, they ran toward the sound. Turning over a small shallow slope, the situation was revealed. Five or six men in different clothes who were holding different weapons were storming around one person who was a strong man in green with a thick sword in his hands. A determined Qi Power appeared with every movement of his wave. However, the people who besieged him were not mediocre. They worked together and tightly trapped him in a very small range. They didn''t pursue personal gains but slowly consumed his physical strength, only to wait until he was exhausted, giving them the chance to go forward and subdue him.


    Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan did not appear. They were just standing on a hill a thousand feet away and watching this fight quietly. These people''s cultivation was not so high, at most Level Three. Therefore, there was no way that they could discover Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan, whose eyesight easily enabled them to watch the whole thing.


    "Li Jianxin, if you are wise enough, you should hand over the thing quickly. Then we will consider setting you free!"


    During the fight, one man shouted.


    "Hmph, Huang Deguang, everyone knows about your infamy in Jianghu! You think I can believe you?!"


    After hearing this, Huang Deguang''s look suddenly became fierce, "Li Jianxin, now that you wish to die, I will give you what you want!" While speaking, his attack suddenly became tight, pushing towards Li Jianxin.


    Seeing this, the other people who seemed like they were taking orders from Huang Deguang stepped up their attack as well. Suddenly, Li Jianxin was in big trouble which he could hardly deal with.


    After a few rounds, suddenly there was a flash of the sword. With a sound of stuffy hum, Li Jianxin waved the sword and barely blocked the attack. His left hand jerked the blue bag from his back and put it in the front as a defense.


    Everyone stopped the attack after seeing this, withdrawing their weapons. No one dared to touch this bag. Suddenly they were in a deadlock.


    "Huang Deguang! If you dare to come closer, I will smash this Golden Goose Cup!"


    "Golden Goose Cup?!" After hearing this name, Golden Rooster''s eyes started to flash, and a sense of excitement appeared in his voice, "Junior Leopard! It looks like we are going to be very rich today!"

 Chapter 195: The Legend of the Golden Goose Cup & Golden Roosters Choice

    Chapter 195: The Legend of the Golden Goose Cup & Golden Rooster''s Choice


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "The Golden Goose Cup?"


    Hearing the name, even Junior Leopard could not help being excited.


    After being in this world for so many years, he was very familiar with the allusions in Jianghu. Most of them were too exaggerated to be credible, and a lot of them were just as incredible as fantasy novels. However, some of them were real, such as the Golden Goose Cup.


    The origin of the Golden Goose Cup was not known, but it was well-known for its function.


    That was that an ordinary person''s life could be prolonged for 100 years, as long as he drank a cup of wine from the Golden Goose Cup!


    If a man who knew martial arts and had practiced Internal Qi had drank the wine, it would not only prolong his life for 100 years, but also make a wonderful change in the nature of his Internal Strength, making his Internal Qi produce a kind of intelligence!


    The intelligence from the Internal Qi!


    This was a fabled phase, different from the unique property produced from Internal Qi. The generating of the unique property was because when your Internal Qi had reached Level Seven, it was increasingly connected with your body and then was influenced by your body. Generally speaking, as long as your Internal Qi had reached Level Seven, it could produce the property.


    Intelligence on the other hand was different.


    It required a lucky chance. Actually, in the Jianghu rumors, the lucky chance laid in the Golden Goose Cup.


    Pour wine or water into the Golden Goose Cup, let it soak for an hour and then it would become amber, whether it was wine or water. Once you drink it, your life would be prolonged for 100 years. Likewise, your Internal Qi would generate powerful intelligence.


    However, there were limits for the use of the Golden Goose Cup.


    A man could only use it once in his life.


    Besides, the Golden Goose Cup could only generate three cups of such amazing wine every 100 years. In other words, after three times, it would be 100 years before the Golden Goose Cup could be reused.


    Why did people say that the Golden Goose Cup showed up?


    Because its function was too amazing, and the number of use was too limited.


    It could only be used three times in 100 years. How about after three times?


    You could only put it away as a decoration. But could such a thing really be a decoration?


    No!


    Ordinary people could not wait for 100 years, but the people in the martial arts world could, especially the experts whose martial arts skills had reached the Tendon-Changing Realm, who lived much longer than ordinary people. An expert of Level Nine could live for 300 years, so in his lifetime, the Golden Goose Cup would work at least twice.


    Who didn''t want to live a few more years in the world?


    In particular, experts whose cultivation had practiced to the Tendon-Changing Realm, if you gave them another 100 years and let their Internal Qi fill with intelligence; they would have the opportunity to elevate their cultivation to the Mysterious Realm. In that case, their lives would be extended by 200 years to 500 years.


    That was too wonderful. Maybe even a saint couldn''t resist the temptation, let alone people in the martial arts world.


    Besides these people in the martial arts world, there was a man who was most eager for it.


    Who?


    The Emperor!


    However, unfortunately, in history, no emperor had the fortune to use the Golden Goose Cup. Not a single one.


    It was because if you wanted to compete for the Golden Goose Cup, you could only rely on your martial arts, but most of the emperors did not know martial arts. Even if he had practiced martial arts, he would not be very powerful in it. Therefore, he could only rely on his subordinates, but how many people could resist the lure of the Golden Goose Cup in this world?


    History proved that there was none!


    The emperors sent the imperial court martial experts to snatch the Golden Goose Cup, but they either failed or disappeared. No one could ever really bring it to the emperor.


    Every time the Golden Goose Cup appeared, there would be a bloody war in Jianghu. In the beginning, it appeared frequently, but later on, it appeared less and less. Because everyone knew that they could not tell anyone after they got it, but could only hide it. After they got the benefits, they would send the treasure out to avoid disaster for themselves and their families.


    In this way, the Golden Goose Cup appeared in the martial arts world less and less. It was basically every 100 years or so. Even then it was mostly unusable, because it had been used before it was sent out.


    Even so, its emergence would still cause a bruising contest, because each person could use the Golden Goose Cup only once in a lifetime, and not many people would share it with others. To avoid trouble, most people would like to throw it away as if it were a tricky thing after they used it. Therefore, in many cases, when the Golden Goose Cup showed up, it could be used once or twice.


    In addition, each time it appeared, the competition was extremely fierce. The course was very short, because no one would be willing to disclose such information. When people got it, they tended to find a place, fill it with water and wait for an hour. After drinking a mouthful, they would think of giving the cup away.


    Why would people want to give it away instead of throwing it away?


    Because they were afraid of being suspicious!


    There was nothing like an absolute secret. Even if no one really knew that you once got the Golden Goose Cup, you would certainly use your Internal Qi in Jianghu in the future, which, full of intelligence, was quite different when compared to others. Thus, could not the others find it?


    Therefore, people would think that the Golden Goose Cup was in your hands, even if you did not have it any more. Then it would invite a disaster.


    Thus, you might as well try to put the Golden Goose Cup in the light and let the men in Jianghu compete for it. Whoever got it finally had nothing to do with you.


    It had been 150 years since the Golden Goose Cup showed up last time.


    The Golden Goose Cup had become a legend in Jianghu. Even the Leaders and Elders of the prestigious sects and schools in the martial arts world had never thought of getting it, not to mention Junior Leopard. Gradually, in the entire martial arts world, the issue of getting the Golden Goose Cup became a lucky chance.


    As the saying goes, the natural fetish belongs to predestined one.


    If it was not meant to be yours, you would not get it, no matter how high your cultivation was. On the contrary, if it was meant to be yours, you would get it, no matter how low your cultivation was.


    The question lay in your destiny and its fate.


    Li Jianxin was a man of destiny. It was just that the fate of him and the Golden Goose Cup was too shallow.


    After he got the Golden Goose Cup, he was found out before he could warm it up.


    What if someone chased after him?


    Run away!


    Where should he run to?


    Run to the mountains. As long as he could shake them off an hour, he would succeed. It was a pity that he overestimated his Lightness Skill too much.


    He was blocked in this place.


    "Li Jianxin, don''t be silly. Just hand over the Golden Goose Cup!"


    Seeing Li Jianxin raising his parcel high, Huang Deguang''s face grew darker, "Do you want to become a public enemy of the martial arts world?"


    "Damn it! My life is worth nothing. I''ll have to die, whether you catch me or I break it, if I can''t use it, nor can you. I''m not gonna make you happy!" The muscles on Li Jianxin''s face twitched and he showed a very resolute look.


    "Well, Li Jianxin, don''t be impulsive. Let''s talk it over. As long as you hand over the Golden Goose Cup, we promise not to kill you. What do you think?" This time the speaker was an old man. He looked kind, graceful and had an elder''s demeanor. But when he spoke, his eyes were fixed on Li Jianxin''s cyan parcel, which showed his greed.


    "Hum, it''s not that easy. There are two other chances to use the Golden Goose Cup. When I''m done with it, I''ll naturally hand over it!"


    "Li Jianxin, stop dreaming!" Hearing Li Jianxin''s words, Huang Deguang was in a hurry, "Such a treasure should belong to a man of virtue. Who are you? That you got it was just a fluke! That was lucky enough, but you want to keep it!" Before he had finished his words, his face suddenly stiffened. His mouth that kept talking just now was still open, but he could not say a word. The spirit of his eyes died away and the strength of his body began to fade away as well. He fell to the ground with a splash and died quietly.


    "This... Who?"


    After two breaths of eerie silence, the crowd that laid siege to Li Jianxin finally reacted. Looking at Huang Deguang who died without any sound, everyone could not help but step back two steps with heart tremble. This was a good opportunity for Li Jianxin who was surrounded. As soon as he saw the crowd retreating, he was ready to break the siege. Unexpectedly, he had just raised his saber when it froze in the air. He was as lifeless as Huang Deguang was. His body fell to the ground along with the parcel that held the Golden Goose Cup.


    Having witnessed that the two men die strangely, everyone around dared not take any further action.


    Suddenly, a black figure flashed past at a tremendous speed, like an invisible wind. Before they had time to react, the parcel in Li Jianxin''s hand was gone. Almost simultaneously, another black figure jumped up and they vanished after a few of ups and downs.


    The people who laid siege to Li Jianxin looked at each other and saw the horror in each other''s eyes. They had only heard of such Lightness Skills and the means of killing in the Jianghu rumors. They never thought of meeting such experts. After the horror, they felt lost, incomparably lost, because they knew that the Golden Goose Cup in the legend was completely out of their sight after that presence. They could handle neither of the two black figures. Even if they could handle them, they could not catch up with them.


    "Alas, let''s go. Come on!" The old man who spoke to Li Jianxin sighed heavily, "Huang Deguang was right. ''Such a treasure should belong to a man of virtue.'' We only have the chance to have a glimpse of it!"


    "Have a glimpse? I didn''t even see it!" A man beside him sharply cursed and thrust the long saber in his hand into the ground before turning away.


    ...


    ...


    "Hey, Golden Rooster, you can''t monopolize this treasure!" Junior Leopard made full use of his legs strength to rush to the front, with the Yanfu Inner Strength running crazily. About 300 feet away from him, Golden Rooster Jin Yuquan was also exerting his body movement and rushing forward like the wind.


    Their chasing lasted for four hours before Golden Rooster finally slowed down and stopped. For Junior Leopard, 300 feet were only the distance of two ups and downs.


    "Hey, Golden Rooster, you''re too f**king much! We found it at the same time. And I killed them. You got it and wanted to run away?" Junior Leopard cried fiercely as he rushed to Jin Yuquan.


    "Boy, isn''t your Lightness Skill too good? My speed was at least twice as fast as that night, and you followed me unhurriedly. You really impress me!" Golden Rooster said, a little breathless. Apparently, it was not easy for him to run for four hours.


    "Stop talking nonsense and get it out!" Junior Leopard exclaimed. "It''s a tricky thing. We should get things done quickly and then leave. I want to let sleeping dogs lie!"


    "Well!" There was a bitter smile under his Bronze Mask. Jin Yuquan opened the parcel in his hand and there was a small sandalwood box within. He and Junior Leopard glanced at each other and felt each other''s tension.


    In the face of treasures like the Golden Goose Cup, no one could be as steady as usual.


    Jin Yuquan gently opened the box and then they saw a fist size cup with a simple shape.


    The cup was about the same size and style as a teacup. However, its porcelain body was extremely thin; the outside had a layer of azure enamel and the inside was pure white without any impurities. Beyond that, it was nothing special.


    "Is this the legendary Golden Goose Cup?" With a slight sigh, Jin Yuquan picked up the Golden Goose Cup, slowly turned it over and there were two golden words at the bottom that read ''Golden Goose''.


    "It''s indeed the Golden Goose Cup. It''s exactly the same as the legend described. Golden Rooster, don''t procrastinate. I don''t know who you want to share it with, but I tell you that I won''t give up!"


    "Is there no room for negotiation?"


    "Do you think I''m that stupid?" Junior Leopard sneered, "Even a saint may not be able to stay calm when he sees it. Moreover, I''m not a saint. How could I give up such a chance?"


    Jin Yuquan gave two hollow laughs sounding a little helpless, "Then I need to ask you a favor!"


    "What is it?"


    "Keep this secret for me!" Jin Yuquan said gently, "Li Jianxin just said that there are two other chances, but it''s not confirmed. If after it is used once and it doesn''t work when the second time, I use it. I will have to wait another 100 years. That would be terrible!"


    "You want to keep this cup?"


    "Yes, I''ll give you the first chance to use it, but you have to promise to keep the secret for me for 100 years!"


    "100 years?" Junior Leopard exclaimed, "It''s a bit of a hassle, I can''t guarantee it!"


    "You have to promise, and swear, or I''ll crush this cup right now!" Jin Yuquan''s voice was soft, but it showed he was resolute. At the same time, his Gang Qi worked, covering his body. "You can kill them silently, but you can''t do it to me!"


    "I must swear, then!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly, "Okay, today I, Zhou Bao, swear that no matter when and what happens, I won''t reveal the secret that the Golden Goose Cup was in Jin Yuquan''s hands. If I break it... if I break it, the... the..."


    "If you break it, your tendons and vessels must be broken. Your martial arts must be destroyed!" Said Jin Yuquan in a very cold voice.


    "Now, Golden Rooster, why are you so wicked?"


    "Hmph, if it were not wicked, would you obey it?" Jin Yuquan sneered.


    "Well, okay, as you say, if I break it, my tendons and vessels must be broken, and my martial arts must be destroyed! Well, are you satisfied this time?"


    "Yes, I''m satisfied!" Golden Rooster nodedd and the Gang Qi around him was gone. Then he placed the Golden Goose Cup in Junior Leopard''s hands, "Now, you can use it. I hope it won''t disappoint you!"


    "I don''t think it''ll disappoint me!" Taking the Golden Goose Cup, Junior Leopard glanced at Golden Rooster, smiled, stopped talking, turned around to take a cup of water from the nearby stream and put it in front of himself.


    They sat on the ground and waited quietly. As time went on, the water in the cup began to change gradually, from the original crystal clear to pale golden color. Then, the pale golden color gradually deepened, turned yellow, then slowly deepened again, and finally turned into thick dark amber.


    "Sure enough, it''s the legendary Golden Goose Cup. It''s real!" Looking at the amber liquid faintly shining, Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan could not help but breathing rapidly.


    "What? Golden Rooster, you want to change your mind?" Junior Leopard laughed grimly, "It isn''t too late to change your mind!"


    "Drink it! Then we will leave here to avoid creating new issues!" Jin Yuquan took a deep breath and fought down the greed in his heart, "Or, how about you listen to my condition?"


    "No need!" Junior Leopard answered. He then raised the Golden Goose Cup and emptied it.


    A slightly hot liquid passed through Junior Leopard''s throat and fell straight into his abdomen. Then it became an amber gas and was incorporated into his limbs and Internal Qi. Then, there was no more change.


    "Well, how do you feel?" Jin Yuquan had been observing Junior Leopard''s reaction. However, Junior Leopard was wearing a weird Smiling-face Mask and he could not see his expression.


    Junior Leopard did not reply him, but closed his eyes and began to circulate his Internal Qi.


    "There seems to be some differences!"


    Yes, he felt some changes in his physical and Internal Qi, but the changes were not obvious, especially the physical changes. In addition to feeling that his body was once again full of energy, the tiredness of the chase was completely driven away. There was nothing else to be surprised about. As for his Internal Qi, there were more changes, but the changes were somewhat ambiguous.


    Ambiguity was exactly what Junior Leopard was feeling right now, but he did not do any further research.


    "I can''t figure out what this difference is. It might take some time!" In the tone of Junior Leopard, there was some helplessness. Then he handed the Golden Goose Cup to Jin Yuquan, "Now, here you are. It''s your turn!"


    Jin Yuquan took the cup, did not speak, and did not hold the water as Junior Leopard did. Instead, he put the cup back in the box and pulled a piece of black cloth from his pocket to wrap the box and hung it on his body.


    "You are not trying?"


    "100 years later!" Jin Yuquan stood up, "Okay, let''s go. It''s getting late. If we don''t hurry up, we will have to spend the night in the mountains!"


    "Are you really not trying?" Junior Leopard gave him an incredible look, "Don''t tell me you want to give the chance to someone else?"


    "I don''t need it for the time being. I can wait 100 years!" After saying this, Jin Yuquan stopped talking. Once again, he exerted his body movement and went away.


    "A strange guy!" Junior Leopard shook his head in disapproval. But he wasn''t in the habit of forcibly changing other people''s ideas. He wanted to keep this tricky thing and Junior Leopard had no obligation to persuade him otherwise.


    Just now when they were fleeing, they ran into the mountains of the Shu. They ran over 50 km in four hours. Although Junior Leopard looked relaxed when he caught up with Jin Yuquan, the fact was that he had already exerted his Yanfu Inner Strength to the extreme, which consumed lots of his Internal Qi. Without his External Elixir, he would not have persisted. For this reason, the Internal Qi of the External Elixir between the eyebrows consumed a lot as well. Though he had a rest, it was not easy to recover.


    As a result of such a thing, even Jin Yuquan, a Level Seven expert, had to be careful and did not want to go back the same way. Therefore, along the way, they were walking in the wild mountains, secret forests and beast trails. By the time they were out of the mountains, it was five days later.


    Junior Leopard felt exhausted.


    "Alas, finally out of this damn mountain!"


    In a small town centralization at the foot of Cave Palace Mountain, fatigued Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan entered the only inn here. As soon as they entered the inn, Junior Leopard sat down and did not want to get up again!


    "You''ll rest at the inn and I''ll go to the market and see if there are any horses." Jin Yuquan told Junior Leopard a few words and went out of the inn.


    "Jianghu, Jianghu, this is how an itinerant lives? It''s really tiring!" After Jin Yuquan went out, Junior Leopard asked the waiter to quickly burn a tub of hot water for him. Taking a hot bath and changing his clothes, he immediately felt refreshed.


    "There seems to be some strange changes in my body and Internal Qi lately. Maybe the Golden Goose Cup has worked, but its hard to be clear. Why not take advantage of this opportunity to practice and see what kind of benefits the Golden Goose Cup will bring me?"

 Chapter 196: Parted Ways... Poisonous Insects in South China

    Chapter 196: Parted Ways... Poisonous Insects in South China


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was Junior Leopard''s first official practice after using the Golden Goose Cup. These days, although he regulated his breathing every day while he galloped in the mountains of Central Shu, the effect of the cup was not obvious. He just felt that the energy of his body was greatly enhanced and that the change of his Internal Qi was quite subtle simultaneously. The so-called subtle was that he could feel the change. But it was difficult and even impossible to clearly and completely specify the change, not to mention to catch the key to this change. While his Internal Qi was running through his body, he concentrated all the spirit to capture the intelligence that was flickering in his Internal Qi. After such a long period of fusion, this intelligence was now fully integrated with his Internal Qi. The one that had been most affected, of course, was the Mysterious Fire stored in his Dantian. The Mysterious Fire was a Mysterious Object full of intelligence which led to a ray of intelligence in his Internal Qi after their fusion. However, Junior Leopard did not know this. It was only when he used the Golden Goose Cup that he was aware that his own Internal Qi had already possessed intelligence. Additionally, the cup doubled the original intelligence in his Internal Qi. Even so, it took him a lot of effort to feel a strange intelligence. He felt it, yet the way to use it became a problem in his mind. In fact, for Junior Leopard, he preferred not to feel it, for he felt a pang of disappointment when he discovered that the so-called intelligence was the marvelous feeling that he felt from the Mysterious Fire. Who knew what this so-called intelligence could do! Anyway, he did not know. Whereas, the fact that the Golden Goose Cup transformed his body gave him some unexpected joy. It was not that his body was being reinforced, but it was the energy that made his body more developable. In other words, the Golden Goose Cup could not only prolong human life but also enhance the human body''s potential.


    Since his body''s potential had been increased, then, in theory, his future achievements would be much higher than before using the Golden Goose Cup. However, whether he could get to this point, depended on his good fortune. After regulating his breathing for a while, he did not find a way to use the intelligence in his Internal Qi effectively. He had to bitterly withdraw his Internal Qi and he opened his eyes depressingly.


    At this moment, a jumble of footsteps came from outside the door, Junior Leopard slightly frowned. He could hear that these were from Golden Rooster, Jin Yuquan. "It''s strange. Why are this guy''s footsteps so disordered? Was the Golden Goose Cup robbed? It''s not right. In such a small marketplace, will there be an expert whose cultivation is over Level Seven?" Junior Leopard pondered privately.


    The door clanked open. Jin Yuquan entered the room with an angry look on his face. He was not wearing the mask.


    "What''s wrong? Golden Rooster, you''re so angry. What happened?"


    "Damn it, the news of the Golden Goose Cup has leaked out. King Yuanqing of Shu has begun to question all suspicious persons nearby!"


    "King Yuanqing of Shu? He''s not easy to deal with!" Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows and there was a hint of worry on his face. "Where did you get the news?"


    "As soon as I went out, I was targeted by two yamen runners. Then I guided them to a secret place and obtained the news!" Jin Yuquan replied with a hint of sulking in the tone. "If we had known this, we should have killed all those people!"


    "It can''t be helped. You schemed against me first. You wanted to get rid of me and monopolize this stuff, so we didn''t have time to kill them. Now you can only blame yourself for this!" Junior Leopard had schadenfreude on his face.


    "Oh, now it''s my fault?"


    "Of course it''s your fault! Is it mine?" Junior Leopard asked coldly. "If I were you, I''d be wise to hand over the cup and get rid of it!"


    "Boy, do you want to break the vow?"


    "No, I''m just giving you the best advice. As to whether you accept it, it''s not my business. But from now on, I won''t go with you anymore!"


    "What do you mean?"


    "I mean since you''re getting into terrible, I''m not going to go along with you to bear it. I won''t tell anybody though. I''ll go to South Yuezhou State first, and we''ll meet in the prefecture," said Junior Leopard. "I think with your cultivation, you should be able to escape unscathed without my drag!"


    "Is that what you think?"


    "I think that''s the best way!" Junior Leopard continued, "I''ll keep it a secret, but I won''t get myself into trouble!"


    "Dressed like this?" Looking at Junior Leopard''s dress, Jin Yuquan said with a sneer, "You''re bound to be intercepted within less than 50 kilometers!"


    Except for the absence of his mask, Junior Leopard was now dressed as he did when he was kidnapping the bride with Wang She. As soon as he was seen, he would be identified.


    Now that the news of the Golden Goose Cup had leaked out, no matter whether the cup had been used or not, it would not take long before the people in the martial arts world came to Shuzhou to find the lucky chance. With Junior Leopard''s current clothes, he would definitely be targeted. What was more, he showed up in these clothes when Wang She kidnapped the bride. Therefore, as long as he appeared in this way, the Mingyi School and the Golden Lights Cave were sure to get the message. Then they would not let him off no matter whether the Golden Goose Cup was in his hands or not.


    Junior Leopard smiled, "There should be a lot of people in the martial arts world who are going to Shuzhou now, including all sorts of bad characters!"


    "So What?"


    "Although I''m only a small commander of the Navy of Jiang City, it''s natural that I come here to get such a lucky chance. No one should doubt it!"


    "You mean..."


    "I will appear as my true identity in Shuzhou and stay here for 10 days! Afterwards, I''ll leave for South Yuezhou State!" Junior Leopard told him his plan. "I don''t think you will object, right?"


    "Your plan is really wishful thinking!" Jin Yuquan sneered. "What if I object?"


    "It''s none of my business!" Junior Leopard answered. "Your cultivation is higher than mine, but my Lightness Skill is no weaker than yours. You''re unable to stop me!"


    "I can''t believe you are so young, but you''re so confident in yourself!"


    "My confidence is based on my strength!" Junior Leopard laughed. "If you don''t believe me, you can try!"


    "Well, just do what you said. That''s the best way!" Jin Yuquan helplessly sighed. "Then, we''ll meet in South Yuezhou State a month later. I haven''t been to Yuezhou, but I know there''s a Flyingcrane Restaurant in its regional city. We''ll meet there then!"


    "Flyingcrane Restaurant, got it!" Junior Leopard nodded and then his expression suddenly changed. "Well, there seems to be some visitors. I''m leaving first to avoid getting into trouble!" He said with a smile. Then he picked up his parcel and jumped out of the window. With a couple of ups and downs, he went out of the town centralization and disappeared into the mountains.


    "This damn slippery fellow!" Looking at the back of Junior Leopard''s hasty retreat, Jin Yuquan gave a reluctant sigh. Then he straightened his back and a breath of cold spirit emanated from him. Raising his hand to his face to wear the Bronze Mask, he went to the door of the inn. By the time he reached the door, a dozen armed yamen runners had entered the inn. Several of them went straight to the counter and asked the shopkeeper and waiters if there were any suspicious people living in the inn. Others started the first round of search with sabers in the backyard. For a moment, the entire inn was hopping and boisterous.


    Junior Leopard was moving very fast as well. Plus he did not want to get into trouble, so after going out of the inn, he started the Yanfu Inner Strength and soon he was in the mountains of the Central Shu. Running for two days in the mountains, he came across and shunned several batches of masters of martial arts that were searching. He made his way around the mountain and came to a county town that he had been to before with Jin Yuquan. Then he changed his appearance and appeared in the county with the original face of Zhou Bao. Besides, he looked for a horse and pretended to be on the way to the depths of the Central Shu with fatigue.


    In the meantime, Junior Leopard also encountered some masters of martial arts and even fought with them several times. He had neither benefited nor suffered much. Since his moving direction was the same as Shuzhou, there were not many people who suspected that the Golden Goose Cup was in his hands.


    Junior Leopard walked smoothly all the way in the next few days. He was not reassured until once again he arrived at the town centralization where they had previously stayed.


    It turned out that soon after he left, Golden Rooster caused a great sensation in the town centralization. Not only did he kill all the yamen runners who searched the inn, but he also killed several masters who were sent by King Yuanqing of Shu to search for the Golden Goose Cup. What was more, his dress was very flamboyant, so he became the target of the martial arts practitioners. Almost everyone believed that the Golden Goose Cup was in his hands. Therefore, they tracked and hunted him. For this, King Yuanqing of Shu even sent his most powerful man Sun Bufan, an expert of Level Seven, to participate in the pursuit. In such circumstances, naturally, no one suspected Junior Leopard.


    As for his appearance in Shuzhou, he did not mind the news getting out. Because of the Golden Goose Cup, Shuzhou had become the focus of the whole of Jianghu. Jianghu was filled with enough dreamers. Even if their cultivation was not good, they dreamt of being the destiny man, not to mention the young Junior Leopard, a teen hero with good skills.


    Yes, a teen hero!


    After bombarding Dragon Granny of the Meng Family to death with 84 fists, Junior Leopard became one of the most famous teen heroes in Jianghu. Like the chivalrous heroes he saw in Martial arts hero novels before, he was a real teen hero.


    Likewise, he enjoyed the treatment of the chivalrous heroes. After he showed up in Shuzhou with his original identity, a lot of people came to make friends with him and invited him to dinner. Somebody even wanted to marry their daughter to him.


    Although their families were not the real well-known families in the martial arts world or powerful family, they were the wealthy families in a state or a prefecture. Therefore, Junior Leopard was quite surprised by the treatment.


    Out of 10 days, he was at the feast for five days. As for Golden Rooster, he had already fought several times for the Golden Goose Cup and even killed Sun Bufan, the most powerful man under the King of Shu, which confirmed that the Golden Goose Cup was in his hands. For a while, Shu was shocked, and more experts converged here. Then a higher level of the contest began.


    At the same time, Junior Leopard thought it was time to go, so even though the middle and lower classes in Jianghu in Shu tried to enthusiastically retain him, he left there. Since then, no one would link him to the Golden Goose Cup.


    After pretending, Junior Leopard changed his costume again and went to South Yuezhou State overnight as Xiao.


    "Now is the best time. Everyone in Jianghu is focusing on Shuzhou. Doing something in Yuezhou will never get too much attention. I might as well take a chance to get the Blue Moon Pearl. It should be hard for Golden Rooster to get away anyway."


    He considered it in this way. However, when he arrived in Yuezhou, he changed his mind.


    It was because the situation in Yuezhou was more complicated than he thought.


    The Governor Mansion of South Yuezhou State was in Goldenrim Commandery in Yuezhou. The regional city''s city wall of Goldenrim Commandery was much shorter than Qinlingjun City''s. Compared with tall mountain-like walls of Qinlingjun City''s, it was just like a fortified village. However, Junior Leopard felt a sense of extreme danger. Greenblack moss covered the city walls seemed like no big deal, but there was a faint fishy smell in the air, which made Junior Leopard uncomfortable.


    No, it should be said that it made him extremely comfortable.


    As a matter of fact, as soon as he approached the city walls, his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique had a telepathic connection. It worked and vaporized the smell which he breathed in his belly.


    At this point, Junior Leopard realized that the city walls had been emitting poison gas. Every man who entered Goldenrim Commandery would inhale a bellyful of poison gas.


    "What the hell is this place? Why are such things on the city walls? Isn''t that deliberately killing people?" Junior Leopard queried in his heart.


    Looking at the people around him, he was amazed. The people inside and outside the regional city looked rosy and refreshed without a hint of poisoning.


    Not to mention the officers and soldiers who guarded the city gate. They were in high spirits.


    "It''s weird. This is clearly poisonous. Why are these people so energetic?" Junior Leopard swaggered toward the gate of Yuezhou as he marveled privately.


    His present attire was exactly what he was dressed up in for the day of bride kidnapping. But he didn''t wear the mask because he was afraid of getting into trouble. However, he had done a lot of work on his face to make himself look a decade older than he was. Hence no one could see his true identity.


    Besides, he was obviously dressed up like a man in the martial arts world. The officers and soldiers at the city gate were all discerning. When he came with a cold air, leading a horse, they naturally dared not provoke him, but they secretly memorized his appearance. By the time he entered the city, they had reported to the Garrison Mansion, reminding the officers, soldiers, and guards of the regional city to pay more attention to him.


    Actually, it was the most applicable method all over the world.


    The gatekeepers of the city gate were mere finger men. For those who were dressed in strange attire and were hard to deal with, the official did not want to provoke them, let alone the gatekeepers. Every city had a tolerant attitude towards people in the martial arts world. You could come and live in the city, but you could not make trouble here.


    As long as you didn''t make trouble here, the city would never mess with you. They would make you comfortable here until you went away.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard did not have any trouble along the way.


    In the city, he went around and soon easily found Flyingcrane Restaurant, because it was a very famous restaurant in Goldenrim Commandery City, which should be a five-star hotel in his previous life.


    After ordering a room in Flyingcrane Restaurant, he settled down there and waited for Golden Rooster.


    Although he just came to Goldenrim Commandery City, he could clearly tell its differences from Zhonghe City and Qinlingjun City.


    There was a strange smell everywhere. It was extremely faint. If he did not have strong five senses beyond those of ordinary people, he would not have felt it. This strange smell came from tiny insects floating in the air.


    After entering the city, an instinctive sense of danger had almost made his Fiery Eyes automatically open again. Forcing down the impulse, he opened his Fiery Eyes after settling down in Flyingcrane Restaurant.


    As soon as he opened the Fiery Eyes, he was stunned by what he saw.


    There were insects permeating the air everywhere. The insects were twice as small as the dust in the air and their bodies were grey. If you didn''t look carefully, you would not feel them and might even treat them as ordinary dust.


    Junior Leopard didn''t know the origin of these insects, but he knew that the insects that filled the air were not good.


    "It''s weird. How could this be? I have heard that South China was humid and sultry, full of poisonous insects and beasts, but not as exaggerated as this! The insects are small, but they can''t hide from martial artists. With a close look, they can discover them and soon the news will spread across the world. But why is there never such a rumor in Jianghu? Have these insects just come up recently?"


    Junior Leopard was full of confusion, but he didn''t dare to neglect it. You knew, in the midst of these tiny insects, even if he was not hurt, he felt sick and numb on the scalp. Then, he poured out the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire in his body to remove all the insects in his room.


    It was at this time that Junior Leopard discovered some characteristics of these insects. It seemed that they were afraid of fire. As long as the temperature exceeded 70 degrees centigrade, they would be steamed, and even if inhaled, they would die soon. It was just that they would leave a trail of faint odor. The odor was too weak, and they were too small, so the smell was weak even if thousands of them accumulated together. Moreover, the climate here was humid and sultry, and the air was very smelly. Thus it was hard to notice.


    "Even if the smell is extremely weak, it can''t hide from masters'' and experts'' spiritual mind!" Wondering in his mind, Junior Leopard placed the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique in his Dantian. After his cleaning, there were no tiny poisonous insects in the whole room. However, his doubts deepened.


    At this moment, he felt a heat in his arms and something seemed to be reacting.


    "This is..." Reaching into his arms, his expression suddenly became strange. It was the Emerald Pearl which he acquired from the Monster Toad in a deep pool in Misty Mountain.


    Getting the bead and after a trial, Junior Leopard discovered its function, detoxification.


    It was a Detoxicating Bead.


    Although he did not know that how many kinds of poisons it could detoxicate, it detoxicated all poisons that Junior Leopard had experimented with.


    That was in Junior Leopard''s expectation. The Monster Toad was a giant poisonous monster, so the bead it cultured was naturally linked to poison. It was either going to be toxic or detoxifying.


    Junior Leopard had already heard that this place was full of miasma, poisonous insects, and beasts, so he stayed vigilant. He took the bead with him when he left in case of an accident.


    Junior Leopard almost forgot about it because there were no poisonous insects or anything like that along the journey. Unexpectedly, it reacted at this time.


    Taking the Detoxicating Bead in his hand, Junior Leopard felt a gust of heat emanating from it. The heat emanated regularly like the pulse of the human body. With the pulse, there was a very deep light from within the Emerald Pearl.


    "It''s interesting. Is it not a Detoxicating Bead but an egg?" Junior Leopard thought to himself. The thought that if this was an egg, it would probably hatch a strange Monster Toad, made him involuntarily shiver and he dared not think of it anymore.


    Before he could figure it out, something more bizarre happened. The frequency of the bead''s heat rose sharply to pulse several times every second from original to pulse once every three or four seconds as if it was summoning something. With the pulsation, the door and windows, which had been tightly closed began to rustle.


    Junior Leopard''s expression made a sharp change. Through the cracks of the door and windows, a lot of gray fog darted to the Detoxicating Bead in his hand like a moth to the fire. Junior Leopard saw clearly that the fog was made up of the tiny poisonous insects that had just been all over the air. At first, the fog was wisps and rays, but soon it formed a huge pile and went straight to the Detoxicating Bead.


    After these gathered poisonous insects rushed to the Detoxicating Bead, the Detoxicating Bead suddenly lit up as if something in it was aroused. It was emitting a kind of soft green light, and then naturally, the pulse disappeared.


    As more and more poisonous insects rushed to the Detoxicating Bead, the radiance of the bead was growing. Gradually, Junior Leopard was wrapped in it. At his feet, the poisonous insect carcasses began to pile up.

 Chapter 197: Poison-absorbing Green Bead

    Chapter 197: Poison-absorbing Green Bead


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It took just a moment''s time for the whole room to be full of insect carcasses. Junior Leopard had to move and start thinking about the aftermath.


    Could he not think about it?


    No! Obviously, he underestimated the effect of this Detoxicating Bead. Now he knew that the Detoxicating Bead was attracting all the poisonous insects around, absorbing their toxins, and then kicking them away. It was not attracting one or two but thousands.


    The more toxins it absorbed, the brighter the Detoxicating Bead got. Enveloped in the green light, Junior Leopard began to fall into a marvelous state.


    The boundless toxins seemed to awaken some strange things in the Detoxicating Bead, and the awakened strange things were strangely associating with his Internal Qi.


    "Intelligence, it''s intelligence!"


    Suddenly, Junior Leopard thought of this strange thing being intelligence. If he had not used the Golden Goose Cup, his intelligence of Internal Qi would not have sensed it, but now he had experienced the intelligence that the Golden Goose Cup brought to his body and Internal Qi. He had not been aware of the function of intelligence, but he was perfectly sure of its function in such circumstances.


    The strange thing he sensed in the Detoxicating Bead was intelligence. The intelligence in his Internal Qi began to stir due to the attraction of the Detoxicating Bead''s intelligence.


    "You''re just a goddamn green bead! Is it not boring to attract things all day long?" Junior Leopard silently cursed, but he could not prevent these two kinds of intelligence from attracting each other.


    Yes, he could not prevent them.


    He had some knowledge of intelligence after regulating his breathing just now. He found out that the intelligence was controllable, but to control it, you had to realize your divine thoughts.


    In other words, if you could realize your divine thoughts, then you could control the intelligence of your Internal Qi through divine thoughts.


    Junior Leopard was not lacking in divine thoughts. In fact, at this time, he lacked nothing but knowledge.


    He didn''t understand what was going on. However, he knew what to do.


    Both divine thoughts and intelligence were intangible things. Strange changes would occur when they mixed together. Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts had been mixed with the intelligence of his Internal Qi, but unlike the others, there was one more thing in his divine thoughts and intelligence. It was the Detoxicating Bead''s intelligence.


    Therefore, he didn''t do anything with his divine thoughts, but he felt and watched until he confirmed one thing.


    His Internal Qi''s intelligence had been thoroughly mixed with and entangled in the Detoxicating Bead''s intelligence. They bit at each other just like an adulterous couple, and there was a tendency to infuse. As the infusion took place, Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts were slowly rolled in and a slightly familiar feeling followed. He once had this feeling when he was refining the 49 Demon Devil Needles. It was the feeling of refining magic weapons.


    "Am I refining a magic weapon? Is the Detoxicating Bead a celestial device? No, no, it''s not. Should it be a magic weapon?" He wondered in his mind.


    Only he could think so much at this time. If Wang She knew, he would jealously slap him until shit came out.


    The Detoxicating Bead was indeed a magic weapon, and it was an unusual magic weapon. A magic weapon with its own intelligence.


    A celestial device was qualified to be called a magic weapon only when it had intelligence. For example, Junior Leopard''s Demon Devil Needles were only a celestial device, though they were powerful.


    The method of refining the celestial device was quite simple. One only needed to drop essence and blood on the magic weapon and then work your divine thoughts according to principle. After a period of practice, you could master it.


    However, the magic weapon was different due to its intelligence. If you wanted to refine and drive a magic weapon, one more step must be added before refining your divine thoughts. That was intelligence integration.


    Only by integrating your own intelligence with the magic weapon''s, and with the essence and blood as a guide, could you succeed in refining it. If you could not feel intelligence, then, even if it was the most powerful magic weapon in the world in front of you and you had the detailed usage instructions, you could not refine it, let alone drive it.


    There were many people that had Internal Qi and practiced it to a certain level, as well as people that had condensed Evil Qi to Gang Qi. However, there were few people whose Internal Qi could produce intelligence and could feel it. In this way, the Golden Goose Cup was especially valuable, especially for those experts whose cultivation had reached Level Eight or Nine, but had no intelligence. This group of people had a very high status in the world and occupied a huge amount of resources. Everyone had a few good things, including magic weapons, but as previously mentioned, if you had no intelligence in your Internal Qi, you could do nothing but look on. At most, you could only use them as a brick to smash people with and waste.


    Junior Leopard was ignorant of this, but owing to his good luck, the two kinds of intelligence merged. The two kinds of intelligence were intangible, but his divine thoughts could clearly feel that innumerable invisible tentacles reached out of his Internal Qi. Likewise, there were also countless invisible tentacles reaching out of the green light of the Detoxicating Bead. They were all tangled up together and finally merged.


    "This is the last batch!" Seeing that the outstretched intelligence tentacles had completely merged into the intelligence of his Internal Qi, Junior Leopard felt a flicker and then waved his hand to cut his fingertip without thinking. A drop of blood was forced out, dripping onto the Detoxicating Bead.


    Almost at the same time, he felt a roar in the head. Nearly in a moment, the divine thoughts infuse into the intelligence that had been fused in one place and a sense of harmony emerged.


    At this moment, the Detoxicating Bead seemed to be part of his body. This was a wonderful feeling.


    It was quite wonderful. He could even feel the breath of the Detoxicating Bead. Of course, there was only the inhalation without exhalation. He seemed to be able to hear the extremely pleasurable roar of the Detoxicating Bead when it absorbed toxins from the surrounding poisonous insects as if he could feel an extreme delight. What was more, he seemed to incarnate as the Detoxicating Bead to absorb the surrounding toxins.


    "Hiss, hiss, hiss!" Unwittingly, Junior Leopard began to make a long sighing sound. As his breathing grew louder, the pulse of the Detoxicating Bead began to slow. Eventually, it matched the frequency of his breathing.


    "What am I doing, taking drugs?"


    Junior Leopard suddenly shuddered as if he felt something and he exited out of the state of ''taking drugs''. Though his thoughts were back, the Detoxicating Bead still pulsed at the frequency of his breathing.


    Only then did he realize that his hand, which had been holding the Detoxicating Bead, had unconsciously released it. Now, the Detoxicating Bead was not in front of him but floating on the top of his head. The green light curtain fell down from the Detoxicating Bead and enveloped his whole body. At this time this light curtain had become completely green and luxuriant. It was especially beautiful. While in the eyes of Junior Leopard, the very beautiful green light curtain contained the danger of heart palpitations.


    The whole room had become a sea of insects. Two windows and one door had already been burst open. All the insects that had filled the air in the city flooded in, filling up space as if they had stimulants. If he had not been enveloped by the green light curtain, Junior Leopard believed that he would now, like the rest of the things in the house, be overwhelmed by the sea of insects.


    However, despite the protection of the green light curtain, Junior Leopard felt a rush of panic when he saw the poisonous insects all over the air.


    All of a sudden, Junior Leopard did some quick thinking. He stretched out his hand, took out the Smiling-face Mask and put it on his face. He felt that the smell of a few strands of spirit was coming towards him from Goldenrim Commandery City. Apparently, they were alerted by the change here.


    In fact, all of the people in Goldenrim Commandery City had been alarmed by the change.


    Goldenrim Commandery City was indeed full of poisonous insects. Since it was widespread, and the poisonous insects were small, people didn''t even notice at all and took them as ordinary dust. However, now, with the attraction of the Detoxicating Bead, all the poisonous insects in the city were gathering at the inn where Junior Leopard had settled down. They had formed a large black cloud and covered the whole inn from above. Out of the dark cloud, three strands of insects flows flowed into Junior Leopard''s house and were like three tiny tornadoes making a rustling sound.


    The astonished guests at the inn were already in a daze staring at it, but no one dared to make a sound, lest the odd dark cloud would engulf them. Most guests were busy packing their bags and running out of the inn as fast as they could after seeing it.


    Seven or eight figures, which appeared from all over the city, came to the inn. The largest number of figures, of course, was from the Governor Mansion of South Yuezhou State, a total of four figures rushing to the inn.


    "Teacher, what''s going on? Why are the saint worm losing control?"


    Two of the four rushing people were Level Six masters of martial arts. They were dressed in the same blue, gilt-edged suit, with the other two sandwiched between them. One of the two men in the middle was an old man in a gray robe, looking more than 70 years old and very pale. His grey eyes were cloudy with a breath of decay.


    The man at the old man''s side was the one who just asked. He was a young man, about 23 or 24 years old and with a handsome face, but now his handsome face was filled with anxiety and trepidation. His eyes flashed a cruel light now and again.


    "The saint insects are being attracted by a powerful force. To my guess, the source of this power should be the legendary Poison-absorbing Green Bead!"


    The old man''s voice, as well as his face, was so full of decay that it seemed as if he might fall down at any moment. However, when he mentioned the name of Poison-absorbing Green Bead, his eyes flickered with greed that was not commensurate with his age.


    "The Poison-absorbing Green Bead?"


    After he heard the name, there was more rapaciousness in the young man''s eyes than his teacher''s. There was also an overbearing lust.


    "Really? Teacher, didn''t you say that..."


    "I indeed said that this thing has not appeared for thousands of years." The old man interrupted. "But I didn''t say that it would not appear again!"


    "Yes!" The young man bowed his head and stopped talking.


    Suddenly, the old man gently lifted his head as if he felt something. A faint light glimmered through his head of a few hairs, and then a misty grey mist appeared beside him and enveloped the youth and the two Level Six masters.


    Gang Qi, this was Gang Qi that only a Level Seven expert was capable of possessing.


    The old man, who looked as if his whole body had been buried in the earth except his head, was an expert!


    The surging gray Gang Qi pulled the four men, who were launching their body movements to curvet onto the roof, flying up into the air. The old man took the four men with his Gang Qi and with a shrill roar, they flew to the inn, more than 10 times faster than before.


    The roar of flying in the air went far away and soon spread throughout the whole Goldenrim Commandery City.


    Hearing the roar, the figures that appeared in the city paused. Looking at the direction of the inn, they all sighed and left.


    "Hum, a bunch of guys who overestimate their abilities!"


    Having noticed the other figures, the young man gave a cold snort and the cruelty on his face was heavier.


    "Young Master, they''re masters from each family in Goldenrim Commandery City. This time I can scare them away, but it''s up to you in the future!"


    "Teacher, rest assured. I don''t put them in my eyes!" The young man replied while glancing at the two men beside him. "Besides, there are two of them. Then those masters dare not be wanton in this Goldenrim City!"


    The old man did not speak anymore but pushed his Gang Qi to fly towards Flyingcrane Restaurant.


    Flyingcrane Restaurant had been completely surrounded by poisonous insects. Along with the three men, the old man stopped at about 100 feet from the inn and somewhat hesitated.


    "Teacher, let''s go in. I''d like to see who dares to break my neck in Goldenrim Commandery City!" Seeing the thick ''dark cloud'' above the inn, the young man viciously said.


    "Young Master, don''t act rashly! If the opposite side really has the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, we will suffer a disadvantage by rushing in!" The old man''s gaze was fixed on the insect cloud above the inn and the insect flows extending from the insect cloud.


    "If it''s really the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, Teacher, you..."


    "Young Master, don''t worry. Even if it''s the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, it''s not very useful for my cultivation!" The old man looked at the young man deeply. "Now the question is how to get in!"


    "That''s simple, teacher. We go straight in. With your cultivation and the three of us here, even if he has the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, it won''t help!"


    The young man became excited when he heard the old man''s words. His eyes flickered with greed as if he were about to rush in and take the Detoxicating Bead from Junior Leopard.


    "It can''t be rushed, can''t be rushed!" The old man shook his head. "If it''s really the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, the one who could drive it should be at least Level Six in cultivation, even higher. In addition, the Poison-absorbing Green Bead is in his hands, so if we rush in, we''re sure to lose!"


    "Then what should we do now?" asked the young man urgently.


    "Wait!"


    "Wait? Until when? How can we watch him take all of these saint worms?"


    "The virulence of the saint worms has been fully activated by the Poison-absorbing Green Bead. Look at the surroundings of the insect cloud!" The old man pointed at the surroundings of the insect cloud. The three stared at it and found that there were faint violet lights shining through the surrounding of the insect cloud, so weak that you would not notice it if you did not gaze.


    "This is the result of the saint worms'' virulence that has been completely stimulated. So many saint insects are together and the toxicity can poison an old monster of the Mysterious Realm, not to mention us. If we go in now, we''ll be dead!"


    "But if we wait until he''s completely refined the saint worms'' virulence..."


    "He can''t do it!" The old man interrupted him. "If the insect cloud disappears, all of the toxicity will have been absorbed by the Poison-absorbing Green Bead. It will take a very long time for the Poison-absorbing Green Bead to digest and fuse the toxicity. During this time, the Poison-absorbing Green Bead is not available for use... Then it''ll be our chance!"


    Hearing the old man''s words, the young man was relieved, but he looked at the Flyingcrane Restaurant with an unreconciled gaze. Suddenly, he asked, "Who the hell is inside? Have you found out?"


    "Young Master, early this morning, the gatekeeper of the city gate had reported that an eccentric black-clothed man entered the city and lodged in Flyingcrane Restaurant. The Garrison Mansion thought that he was just a passer-by from the martial arts world, so they only sent people to watch at the inn''s door. Unexpectedly, this person caused such a big ruckus!"


    "Dammit, why are all the Garrison Manor''s soldiers so useless?" Asked the young man angrily.


    "It''s not the Garrison Mansion''s fault. Every day people come and go. No one can guarantee that no man in the martial arts world will come to Yuezhou. They have been careful and watched all suspicious people. Right, do you know what the black-clothed man looks like?"


    "It''s said to be a middle-aged man, his figure..."


    The Level Six master standing beside the Young Master began to describe the characteristics of Junior Leopard. The description was very detailed and was similar to Junior Leopard''s appearance.


    As he listened, the young man''s face grew darker, "Did he wear a weird Smiling-face Mask?"


    The Level Six master froze, and then his expression also changed, "No, he didn''t. If he came to the city wearing a mask, the gatekeeper would not be able to see his age and would not only send two men to watch him in the Flyingcrane Restaurant!"


    "Wearing a mask? What, you know this guy?" Hearing their dialogue, the old man raised his eyebrows slightly.


    "No, but his dress reminds us of a man!" The Young Master''s face took on a ghastly expression.


    "The guy seems to be famous. Who is he?"


    "Master, you have been in closed-door training these years, so you don''t know him. He only showed up once in Jianghu, but he did a big thing!" The Young Master replied wearing a grave expression, "His name is Xiao. A year ago, Wang She, one of the three Chiefs of the Tian Long Taoism, kidnapped a bride in Qinlingjun City, Yunzhou, and he was one of the participants. According to people presented at the time, Xiao was at most a Level Six master, but he challenged Gao Yulou of the Golden Lights Cave, who had just ascended into Level Seven, and led him away. Since then, Gao Yulou hasn''t appeared. According to internal news from the Mingyi School and the Golden Lights Cave, Gao Yulou has gone without a trace. At the same time, Xiao also disappeared. It''s estimated that both sides were injured. Unexpectedly, it''s only a year before he appeared again!"


    It would surprise Junior Leopard if he heard this. He only appeared once in Jianghu as Xiao, but he was remembered.


    He did not know that as Xiao, though he only appeared once, dealing with a Level Seven expert was a big deal. It was just that this event was overshadowed by the two more sensational events of Wang She ascending into Level Nine and the bride kidnapping. Therefore, ordinary men in Jianghu did not pay much attention to it.


    While the men in Jianghu did not pay attention to it, it did not mean that no one cared. A guy, who could make a Level Seven expert disappear without a trace, of course, was definitely someone to watch for major influences. Xiao, this name, had already been listed on the attention list of well-known families in the martial arts world, wealthy families, and barons. It was just that he did not know. He did not even know that Zhou Bao was also listed on this list.


    The young man was from the Governor Mansion of Yuezhou. He was Ruan Xiuwen, the eldest son of Yuezhou''s Governor, Ruan Ming. The Ruan Family was not just the Governor of Yuezhou. For thousands of years, the Ruan Family was the largest headman in Yuezhou before Jin and even the earlier dynasty was established. Therefore, the family was deeply entrenched here. It was based on this fact that since Yuezhou was incorporated into the territory of Jin, the Governor of Yuezhou had been the person from the Ruan Family. It could be said that the Ruan Family was the local emperor of Yuezhou. They were so powerful here that they were stronger than Ma Tianchang of Yunzhou. The family could be said to be an extremely powerful well-known family of Jin. Such a family needed to pay attention to not only the matters in the court but also the things in Jianghu.


    That what kind of masters or experts appeared in Jianghu, his background, identity, advantages, level of martial arts, whether could be provoked or not were all in the range of their intelligence to be referenced for the children of the family. They naturally knew people like Xiao, a strange man who only appeared once but killed a Level Seven expert. Not only did they know him, but the intelligence gathered the detailed features of Xiao and were all clear for the children of the family, in order to let them be careful, and not provoke him if they met him in Jianghu in the future when they were training in Jianghu.


    As the eldest son of the Ruan Family, the most powerful contender of the future Governor of Yuezhou, Ruan Xiuwen definitely knew Xiao.


    However, they were already involved in this matter.

 Chapter 198: Devil Needles Showing Might, Gang Qi Being Ferocious

    Chapter 198: Devil Needles Showing Might, Gang Qi Being Ferocious


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The insect cloud above the inn began to fade. Meanwhile, the tiny insect carcasses in the room had stacked up to Junior Leopard''s knees. Only the place where Junior Leopard was standing was not affected due to the green light''s cover.


    "What a weird bead!" Junior Leopard, who had fully recovered his mind, looked at the scene in his room and marveled privately. It never occurred to him that when he got the bead, it could cause such a stir.


    Moreover, it was so fantastic as well.


    The green light around him did not lighten anymore, but the amount of toxins the bead absorbed was far from its limit.


    Junior Leopard used his divine thoughts to sense that though these toxins now almost filled the whole bead, there was always a tiny bit of unfilled space. Moreover, that tiny bit of unfilled space was absorbed by this Emerald Pearl, which Junior Leopard saw carefully.


    The more toxins that the Emerald Pearl absorbed, the greener it became.


    "It''s almost over. The guys outside should be ready to do it!" Sensing that the bead absorbed more and more toxins and that there were more and more insect carcasses, with a slight movement of his sleeve, Junior Leopard had taken out the 49 Demon Devil Needles.


    The cultivation of the four people outside was good. There were two Level Six masters and the worst was a Level Four master. As for the last person, Junior Leopard could only feel his spirit and could not detect his cultivation, but he was at least a Level Seven expert.


    Although Junior Leopard was arrogant, he never thought that he would be at an advantage over such an excellent team with so many masters.


    However, honestly, he didn''t worry too much, because he had the Three Realms Division, which was an incredible special technique. Even if he could not beat them, he could run away.


    With the Three Realms Division and the Yanfu Inner Strength, he would have the chance to run away, even if he encountered a Level Nine expert.


    Was there any Level Nine expert in the small South Yuezhou State?


    Junior Leopard would never believe this.


    When the last ray of the poison gas was absorbed by the Detoxicating Bead, Junior Leopard subconsciously opened his mouth and then the bead flew into his mouth. Oddly enough, after entering his mouth, the bead disappeared without a trace, as if it had never existed.


    At the same time, in the mysterious space between his eyes, a green bead appeared just below the eyeball in the middle of the air, one big and one small, adding radiance and beauty to each other.


    Exhaling a long breath, instead of staying in this mysterious space, since he felt that the four outside had come in, Junior Leopard returned his divine thoughts to his body.


    They moved cautiously, with the two Level Six masters in front and the Level Four master along with the mysterious expert behind. They walked straight to Junior Leopard''s room and stopped.


    "May I ask who''s in the room? I''m Ruan Xiuwen from the Governor Mansion of Yuezhou, begging for an audience!"


    At the front of the room, Ruan Xiuwen asked in a clear loud voice, cupping his hands.


    "Ruan Xiuwen?" Junior Leopard focused his gaze on a single point. He had heard the name. Ruan Xiuwen was the legitimate son of the Governor in Yuezhou, and one of the celebrities of the younger generation. It was heard that he was practicing under a mysterious expert in South China and that his cultivation had reached Level Four.


    "Is the mysterious expert outside the door his teacher?" Junior Leopard considered in his heart. "It''s Young Master Ruan. What does Young Master Ruan want to see me about?"


    His voice was calm and neutral with a trace of cold as if he was dismissive of this Young Master who was a bully and was a great deterrent in South Yuezhou State.


    A chill flash pasted Ruan Xiuwen''s eyes, "You just caused an anomaly in the inn. How can I turn a blind eye to it?"


    "Now the anomaly has gone, so you can go!" It was the same kind of cold, repellent tone.


    "How dare you?"


    The two Level Six masters in front rebuked with one voice, and one of them entered the room.


    The door and windows had been destroyed by the endless insects and the room''s status was obscured by a thick layer of insect carcasses. At this point, the insect carcasses in the room had already piled up to shoulder height. The four men stood outside looking at the insect carcasses, all with a dark expression, except for the old man.


    As the Level Six master that entered the door fiercely stepped forward, his Internal Qi was galloping like a wild wind that swept the insect carcasses in front of him to two sides.


    From this process, you could see his strong control of Internal Qi. In common places, the wind must blow up the sand, however, the Internal Qi under his control did not raise a little bit of the surrounding insect carcasses that were tinier than dust, but rather simply moved them toward both sides. In the blink of an eye, a passageway was swept out.


    Almost at the same time, the grey-clothed old man suddenly moved like lightning and darted toward the room.


    Junior Leopard just sneered, and with a wave of his sleeve, the 49 Demon Devil Needles shot towards the old man.


    "Oh, no!" With the help and protection of the Gang Qi, the old man moved fast and didn''t care much about Junior Leopard. Only when the 49 Demon Devil Needles shot at his Gang Qi did he then begin to react. His expression instantly grew dark.


    Gang Qi was a unique skill of attack and defense. Once your cultivation reached Level Seven and you had condensed Gang Qi, ordinary weapons couldn''t harm you. It was not an exaggeration to say that you were invulnerable. Even if thousands of armies surrounded you tightly, ordinary weapons could not break the Gang Qi''s defense. It would not be easy to kill thousands of soldiers in order to win, but it would be easy to get rid of the battle array and kill the general.


    Therefore, once your Gang Qi had condensed, when you face an expert whose cultivation was under Level Seven, you were almost invincible. It was just because of this reason that the grey-robed old man circulated his Gang Qi and undauntedly rushed towards Junior Leopard.


    He rushed until his Gang Qi came into contact with the Demon Devil Needles. Feeling the insidious maliciousness burst out from the needles, his body suddenly froze in the air and then he shouted with a low voice, which almost used all his strength. His body huddled up and he summoned the biggest defense function of Gang Qi, barely blocking the 49 Demon Devil Needles. However, they were not completely blocked and the Demon Devil Needles were still firmly on their way towards his Gang Qi, which had condensed so much that they almost become a substance.


    "Come on, do it. Kill him! Be careful of his needle-shaped celestial device!" The grey-robed old man hissed. He knew it was the best chance.


    He was caught flat-footed by Junior Leopard, and likewise, Junior Leopard''s Demon Devil Needles were trapped by his Gang Qi. Although the Demon Devil Needles were very powerful and were still piercing through his Gang Qi, they could not cause any real injury to him for a short time. Their biggest advantage was their weight of numbers. As long as the other three people attacked him, Junior Leopard was bound to get caught up in a dilemma.


    Junior Leopard was considering whether to continue to attack the old man with the Demon Devil Needles under the control of his divine thoughts or to be distracted and get entangled with the other three. Once he was entangled with them, he would not be able to control the Demon Devil Needles. Junior Leopard was not confident that he could handle two Level Six masters and a Level Four master easily. They were bound to get into a fight. By that time he would have no time to control the Demon Devil Needles. Then the needles would inevitably fall into the hands of the old man.


    This was why the old man, even though his Gang Qi had not completely trapped Junior Leopard''s needle-shaped celestial device, asked the three men to kill Junior Leopard.


    It was a celestial device!


    Who wouldn''t want it?


    In particular, these kinds of insidious celestial devices that could imperceptibly kill people. Once he refined them successfully, his strength would be more than doubled.


    Therefore, when he discovered that Junior Leopard was using the Demon Devil Needles, he immediately wanted to seize them and no longer preserved his strength.


    Hearing the old man''s shout, the three masters, including Ruan Xiuwen, rushed in without thinking, straight at Junior Leopard.


    "Hum!" Junior Leopard''s expression suddenly changed. In a moment, he had understood the old man''s intention. However, he was not a rookie that could be bullied by everyone. The old man only trapped 41 Demon Devil Needles, and he could use the rest of the eight needles, which were outside of the old man''s Gang Qi, at will.


    These eight Demon Devil Needles were the key to victory.


    In such circumstances, Junior Leopard was naturally not hesitant. With a sharp wave of his sleeve, the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi in his External Elixir rolled up a whirlwind and a roomful of insect carcasses was blown up without the control of the airflow.


    The whole room was shrouded when the insect carcasses, which were tinier than dust were blown about. Under its cover, the remaining eight Demon Devil Needles galloped off.


    The three were not weak. As soon as they saw that Junior Leopard rolled up the insect carcasses, they thought of the old man''s warning and they knew it was bad. They then immediately waved the weapons in their hands to tightly protect themselves.


    There were a few tiny tinklings of gold iron collisions. Six Demon Devil Needles were bounced off of their weapons and were caught up in Junior Leopard''s sleeve. The other two, however, went through the gaps of the weapons of the two Level Six masters and hit them in between the eyebrows directly.


    This was the difference between a celestial device and a normal weapon. A celestial device could move with the will of its master. Even if it had left its master, it could be controlled at will by its master''s divine thoughts, especially needle-shaped celestial devices like the Demon Devil Needles which were especially insidious.


    The two men were the best among the Level Six masters, their cultivation was no lower than that of Junior Leopard''s. However, faced with the uncanny needle-shaped celestial device, they were totally unable to fight back.


    Their line of sight was blocked by the boundless insect carcasses that Junior Leopard stirred up, and their spiritual minds had been greatly reduced due to the influence. Though they had been covered with weapons, how could they be well protected under such circumstances?


    Therefore, in an instant, between their eyebrows were pierced by Junior Leopard''s Demon Devil Needles. They just felt a chill between their eyebrows, and their brains were suddenly frozen and destroyed by Evil Qi. But due to inertia, they continued to wave their weapons a few times, then stopped, and fell to the ground unable to stand up again, stirring up a layer of insect carcasses.


    This was the evil of the Demon Devil Needles. The needles had very deep Evil Qi. Even if you were only pierced by one needle, you would be attacked by the Evil Qi and die within a short time. It was hard to treat. If you were hit in the vital part of your body such as between the eyebrows, or in the heart, you were going to die on the spot with no chance of treatment, just like the two Level Six masters.


    As for Ruan Xiuwen, he dared not move. Because there was another Demon Devil Needle just against his forehead and the Evil Qi emanating from the needle was attacking him. His handsome face had already become pale and his body also stiffened. He no longer dared to make any action.


    After having killed the two Level Six masters with the Demon Devil Needles and pinning down Ruan Xiuwen, Junior Leopard could finally handle the grey-robed old man.


    Everything in the room could be hidden from others, but could not be hidden from the grey-robed old man who was a Level Seven expert after all. Having seen that Junior Leopard killed the two Level Six masters with the Demon Devil Needles and pinned down a Level Four master, his expression sharply changed and there was a horrified look in his eyes.


    Although he knew that a suitable celestial device could greatly improve the individual''s combat capability, it was the first time for him to see a person to kill two Level Six masters and pin down a Level Four master in such an easy way. Therefore, the greed in his heart was even worse.


    "A Level Six master has such a power with this celestial device. Now, my cultivation has reached to Level Seven and my Gang Qi has been refined. There''s no reason for me to be inferior to him!"


    With this thought, he did not know that he was worse than Junior Leopard indeed.


    It was only by his divine thoughts that Junior Leopard could bring the power of the Demon Devil Needles into such a state. After many encounters, his divine thoughts were not weaker than a Level Seven or Level Eight expert''s. However, as an ordinary Level Seven expert, the old man''s divine thoughts were much weaker than Junior Leopard''s. Therefore, even if he got the Demon Devil Needles, he could not give them more utility than Junior Leopard did.


    Of course, he wouldn''t believe it if he didn''t experience it personally. The divine thoughts of a Level Seven expert were weaker than that of a Level Six master? That was a joke in his opinion.


    "Let the Young Master off, leave the Poison-absorbing Green Bead and this set of the celestial device. Then I''ll leave you alive!"


    Said the old man to Junior Leopard in a hoarse voice, without looking at the two Level Six masters on the ground.


    "The bead is called ''Poison-absorbing Green Bead''!" Junior Leopard said in his heart and there was a sneer on his face, "Is a Level Seven expert that great?"


    He hastened his divine thoughts and the speed of the Demon Devil Needles, which were trapped by the old man''s Gang Qi and were slowly moving, quickened, "You have to pass through my test first!"


    "You don''t know the immensity of heaven and earth!" The old man gave a snort, and then the grey Gang Qi fiercely surged and a foul odor from his Gang Qi filled the air.


    As soon as he smelled the odor, Junior Leopard had a slight giddy spell. "No!" he shouted privately. However, before he could respond, the Poison-absorbing Green Bead in the space between his eyes, flashed and a cyan chill covered his body. The feeling of giddiness and the foul odor around him disappeared.


    However, the poison gas was only the old man''s first attack. While surging, the grey Gang Qi was divided into three strands. One of them continued to trap Junior Leopard, while the other two fell into two grey whips to whip at Junior Leopard violently.


    There was a blast of odor rolling up in the whip.


    Junior Leopard''s face became grim. He pulled out the Emerald Pearl Sword and fought back with no weakness. The Silver Moon Sword Technique was launched immediately, shining brightly in the room and entangling the old man''s Gang Qi.


    Honestly, Junior Leopard was not afraid of the old man''s Gang Qi, because the old man''s Gang Qi was not on the same level of Xue Wuya''s and Wang She''s. Besides, the Emerald Pearl Sword in his hand was not ordinary and the Silver Moon Sword Technique was a superb sword technique as well. The Sword Qi cleared by the Bright Moon Deifying Technique was not necessarily better than the Gang Qi, but it wasn''t that worse off.


    Two grey whips with Gang Qi were surging and churning like two huge grey snakes, while the silver splendor generated from the silver sword was like a light curtain. Though the silver splendor could not kill the two grey snakes, the snakes could not break into his sword light, which turned the exchange into a war of attrition.


    "This guy is crazy! He wages a war of attrition with me who possesses Gang Qi!"


    Seeing that the situation was in a war of attrition, the grey-robed old man was not anxious and was even relieved. To fight with a Level Six master, a Level Seven expert was most fearless about consumption. While the Internal Qi would be exhausted, the Gang Qi was not afraid of exhaustion.


    As it was now, the fight would end when Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi was exhausted.


    Junior Leopard knew that, too, but he had plans. He didn''t want to spend time with a Level Seven expert. He did not have Gang Qi, but he had fist intent.


    Gradually, the two sides were in a stalemate. The sword light from the sword in Junior Leopard''s hand grew brighter and brighter, but the old man was keenly aware of the slower and slower movements of the Demon Devil Needles in his Gang Qi.


    Finally, they showed a sign of stagnation.


    He was pleased, but he observed it carefully out of caution and did not move immediately. Then he looked at Junior Leopard who was entangled with his Gang Qi and confirmed that he did not have any spare energy. With a wave of his sleeve, instead of rolling the Demon Devil Needles in front of him, he split a stream of airflow to rush towards Ruan Xiuwen.


    The airflow instantly removed the Demon Devil Needle against Ruan Xiuwen''s forehead, and after that, it produced a suction, that rolled the Demon Devil Needle up.


    He was relieved to have succeeded in getting this Demon Devil Needle into his sleeve.


    "It seems that he has no spare energy to control the celestial device!"


    Ruan Xiuwen, still standing, dared not move again. He was frightened by Junior Leopard.


    He was totally frightened.


    His cultivation was good. A Level Four master in his twenties that was numbered in the world. However, he was from a privileged background and the greater part of his cultivation depended on magic drugs. During normal times, there were some people to practice with him, but he never encountered a life and death fight, not to mention real mortal danger.


    The two Level Six masters who were killed by Junior Leopard were the ones that protected him. He took them whenever he went out. What danger would he encounter?


    Hence, he never felt the threat of death.


    It was the first time that he faced death and felt that death was so close to him that he was totally frightened.


    Even if Junior Leopard could not threaten him, he didn''t dare to take rash actions. He took two steps back with a pale face and walked out of the room, standing at the door, looking at the contest between the old man and Junior Leopard.


    "A sissy!" There was a flicker of discontent in the grey-robed old man''s eyes when he saw Ruan Xiuwen withdraw. He no longer cared about him and tightened and collected his Gang Qi. The 41 Demon Devil Needles constrained by him were rolled up. There was no reaction to the 41 Demon Devil Needles, which was just the same as the one he rolled up just now. Apparently, Junior Leopard had completely abandoned his control of the celestial device.


    The old man dared not take it lightly. After all, the celestial device was connected to Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts. Junior Leopard did not control it at this point, but it did not mean that he could not control it. In case he got over it, he could regain control with a little movement of his divine thoughts. This was the advantage of a celestial device that was refined and the most coveted point for the old man.


    Daring not to neglect, he took a little black box out of his arms, and carefully placed the 42 Demon Devil Needles into the box. He was extremely careful during the process, for fear that the 42 small Demon Devil Needles would suddenly run riot.


    The 42 Demon Devil Needles were very obedient and were well placed in the box. Then he was reassured.


    After he put away the Demon Devil Needles, he felt as though a load was off of his mind.


    Without the threat of the Demon Devil Needles, he could focus all his energy on Junior Leopard.


    He straightened his back. His skeleton fiercely sounded like beans which were cooking, and his body suddenly became taller. With a gentle shake of his grey robe, the two grey whips of Gang Qi which were entangled with Junior Leopard returned to him and reintegrated with the Gang Qi that trapped Junior Leopard''s Demon Devil Needles just now. His body was covered in a grey mist and his grey robe began to flutter in the wind and produced a noise.


    "Bloke, what else can you do? Now your time is up!" He put his hand on his waist and pulled out a real long whip as he spoke. His body was fixed and he pounced on Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard''s eyes became grim. He knew that the old man was serious now.


    A Level Seven expert with Gang Qi''s protection and holding a weapon was rushing towards a Level Six master. What would happen?


    You could think about it and would know the result.


    The old man and Dragon Granny both were Level Seven experts, but his strength was stronger than Dragon Granny by several times. Therefore, Junior Leopard had to spend all of his efforts to deal with him.


    Raising his Emerald Pearl Sword, Junior Leopard fought with him closely. This time around, Junior Leopard fell to absolute disadvantage as soon as the fight began. The old man obviously practiced the long whip for years and his skills had reached the acme of perfection in it. He only attacked and did not defend. In the eyes of others, his movements seemed as though he wanted to die with Junior Leopard. Anyway, he had Gang Qi which could protect him. Even if Junior Leopard found his flaws, he could not break through his Gang Qi.


    That a Level Seven expert fought with a Level Six master in this way, it was obvious that he depended on his advantage of Gang Qi to bully the Level Six master.


    Faced with such attacks, Junior Leopard seemed to be at a loss as to what to do.

 Chapter 199: Kill

    Chapter 199: Kill


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard had completely fallen into a passive situation.


    This was a common problem faced by everyone whose level was below Level Seven when dueling with an expert who had cultivated Gang Qi. They were unable to break through the protective Gang Qi of those experts. Hence, they were helpless under the crazy attacks of these experts.


    An expert who had cultivated Gang Qi, whether in the cultivation of Internal Qi or in the toughness of the body, could not be compared with a person below Level Seven. Even in an extremely fair battle, a Bone-Forging Realm expert was unable to stand more than 5 moves with a Tendon-Changing Realm expert. What''s more, when the opponent used Gang Qi to protect themselves, they could just attack without thinking about defense. On the other hand one had to keep defending, if not, he would definitely be beaten to a pulp. Junior Leopard was able to rely on his Emerald Pearl sword to survive 10 moves. That in its self was quite amazing.


    "Lad, your tenaciousness is beyond my expectations. Your strength is among the best in experts of Level Six. What a pity that you don''t know the real facts!"


    The grey-cloaked old man was able to feel that Junior Leopard was slowly crumbling under the pressure of his attacks. It was only a matter of time before he won.


    Thinking of all the benefits he could get from Junior Leopard, he became involuntarily excited. Besides the extremely powerful celestial device, there was also the Poison-absorbing Green Bead. With that bead, he needed not spend so much time bootlicking the Yuan Family and could instead make use of their resources. He only needed to undertake a retreat in a seclusive place and make use of the Poison-absorbing Green Bead''s magical properties to increase his own strength. He believed that in 20 years he would be able to break through to Level Eight. Once he broke through to that level, he would then be one of the select few experts in this world. His status would also rise a hundred times more.


    The upper 3 levels.


    Level Seven, Level Eight and Level Nine.


    The difference among the levels was akin to the Skin-Toughening Realm breaking into the Bone-Forging Realm, or the Bone-Forging Realm breaking through to the Tendon-Changing Realm.


    The difference between each level was the same.


    In the 3 lower levels and the 3 middle levels, it was possible for two different levels to rival each other. However, when it reached the upper 3 levels, there was no possibility for one level to be on par with another level.


    The gap between Level Seven and Level Eight was even greater than that between Level Six and Level Seven. Not to mention the gap between Level Eight and Nine.


    That was also the reason why in kidnapping the bride, once Snake King revealed his Level Nine cultivation, the Mingyi School had no choice but to swallow their pride.


    Originally, this old man''s greatest wish was to enter into the Tendon-Changing Realm. However, once he reached Level Seven, his thoughts changed.


    By just looking at him he looked very old by. However, he knew clearly that he still had sufficient time to enter into Level Eight.


    That was why he accepted the invitation of the Yuan Family and made Yuan Xiuwen his disciple, becoming the only Level Seven expert in South Yuezhou State, Goldenrim Commandery. The reason why he did so was to make use of the Yuezhou''s overlord to collect his own resources for his future use.


    Things had been going on smoothly. The Yuan Family was indeed Yuezhou''s first family. They answered every request made by this Level Seven expert.


    However, it was because of this that his hopes of advancing to a higher level became gradually dim.


    He realized that the higher his cultivation went, the further away he was from Level Eight.


    Ever since advancing into Level Seven 10 years ago, he had deeply understood that if he hadn''t any lucky chance, it was just a beautiful dream to enter into Level Eight.


    Yet right now, the lucky chance was right in front of him.


    That celestial device was able to raise his own fighting strength, however, that Poison-absorbing Green Bead was the key to his advancing to Level Eight, or even to Level Nine possibly.


    Faced with such a lucky chance, how could he not be excited?


    Now that success was imminent, he really didn''t see how Junior Leopard would be able to turn the table. In his excitement, he no longer thought Junior Leopard a nuisance. That is why he said what he said.


    The Emerald-Green Pearl flashed a dazzling whitish moonlight. It tightly guarded his whole body. Junior Leopard didn''t say anything, however, his gaze was deadly fixed on that old man.


    Observing his expression and hearing his tone, Junior Leopard who seemed to have expended all his energy suddenly smiled.


    This smile was so devious and strange. Even if he had complete confidence, the old man''s heart still felt a chill.


    In an instant, Junior Leopard''s Qi force changed into something demonically strange.


    The old man who was crazily attacking felt that there was a weird pulling force in Junior Leopard''s surroundings.


    Centering on him, this centrifugal force enshrouded a 30-foot surrounding area.


    Following the appearance of the suction force, it became more difficult for his attacks to land on Junior Leopard.


    The suction force was just like a black hole, absorbing everything within a 30-foot radius, including the worm corpses that were as numerous as dust.


    The intense battle between two of them scattered the bug corpses within the room. The room was permeated with these bug corpses. Now, under the influence of Junior Leopard''s black hole, these bugs that were like dust began to follow a pattern and slowly whirl towards Junior Leopard.


    "Spirit?!"


    The old man was a Level Seven expert. After being surprised initially, he immediately understood what he just met.


    It is Spirit!


    "You actually comprehended Spirit!"


    The old man said surprisingly. Junior Leopard didn''t reply. The speed of the Emerald Green sword in his hands became much faster and it went straight to the old man.


    "This is not sword intent. This is fist intent. You actually didn''t specialize in sword?!"


    Feeling the fist intent exude from Junior Leopard, the old man had already categorized him as a monster and a demonic person.


    A Level Six expert who had comprehended fist intent was actually using a sword to duel with a Level Seven expert. What was he actually thinking?


    The old man didn''t know of Junior Leopard''s thoughts. However, he no longer dared to belittle his opponent. The attacks which had slowed down became intense again. He disregarded the sword that Junior Leopard pierced at him. Even if Junior Leopard had already comprehended fist intent, he didn''t believe that his opponent''s short sword was able to easily break through his own Gang Qi. Most importantly, the speed of his long whip was not slower than that of Junior Leopard. He had absolute confidence in killing Junior Leopard before his sword could reach him.


    He miscalculated.


    The Emerald Pearl sword was emitting a strange green light and violently pierced through his Gang Qi. It easily broke through his Gang Qi and stabbed onto his left shoulder.


    That happened when he discovered that the situation was not favorable and evaded it quickly. If not, that sword would''ve pierced through his chest.


    The old man''s eyes stared fiercely at Junior Leopard. He forcefully endured the pain and retreated. The reason why he retreated was not that he was injured, but because he couldn''t believe the situation he was facing.


    Junior Leopard''s sword actually pierced through his body before his whip could land on Junior Leopard.


    The bug corpses that were attracted to the gravitational field caused by Junior Leopard''s fist intent was going towards Junior Leopard at a faster speed. At the same time his long whip was also attracted to the suction force. The speed was also getting faster to his surprise.


    Especially within 1 foot near Junior Leopard, the speed crazily increased.


    The whip was flying and it seemed as though it would hit Junior Leopard to a pulp. However, this short distance of only 1 foot seemed like an endless journey.


    The scene he was looking at was the complete opposite of reality. At this moment, he didn''t believe the truth that was in front of him. After a few breaths, the Emerald Pearl sword in Junior Leopard''s hands had already attacked him numerous times. Apart from being struck when he was caught off guard, he evaded the rest of the attacks.


    However, his whip hadn''t yet struck Junior Leopard''s body.


    The distance of 1 foot was as wide as the distance between heaven and earth!


    What was even worse was that he couldn''t retrieve his whip anymore. Upon realizing that something wasn''t right, he wanted to retrieve his own whip. He naturally tugged at it, felt it then, and it also slowly shrank back following his trajectory. However, a problem surfaced; it seemed as if his whip had extended endlessly. After tugging at it a few times, he didn''t completely retrieve it.


    "Why is there such a weird fist intent in this world?!"


    After trying for a few times, he couldn''t retrieve his whip. He also couldn''t land a hit on Junior Leopard. Under Junior Leopard''s attacks, he could only think of retreating.


    Retreat!


    How could he not retreat?


    Although the Poison-absorbing Green Bead was good, he still needed his life if he was to enjoy it. He had met countless enemies in his life and experienced countless battles. However, it was his first time meeting an enemy like Junior Leopard.


    His cultivation was obviously at Level Six, however, the cards he had up his sleeves were endless. He actually forced a Level Seven expert to be on the defensive. The most important thing was that his fist intent was demonic. Under such a situation, he decided to retreat temporarily. It was a wise decision.


    Once he had decided, he no longer hesitated. He released his hands and let go of the whip. He no longer cared about it and retreated like a lightning flash.


    There were his considerations in choosing to retreat now. His retreating right now didn''t mean that he gave up on the Poison-absorbing Green Bead. On the contrary, he wanted to have a better chance to obtain it.


    He was an extremely cautious person. After exchanging blows with Junior Leopard for so long, he already understood that he had completely underestimated his strength. From the start he let Junior Leopard gain the advantage by killing 2 Level Six experts with one blow. That was his greatest mistake.


    If those 2 Level Six experts were still around, he wouldn''t fall into such a situation. Now that two people on his side had died and one was scared stiff, the only fighting strength was himself. He had also fallen into a bitter fight. Facing the unfathomable fist intent and the fist methods which Junior Leopard hadn''t revealed, if he decided to clash head-on, even if he won he would have to pay a huge price for it. In the end, he was paving the way for someone else. Instead of letting things develop this way, he might as well retreat now and wait for an opportunity. Anyway, he had a celestial device on his hands. With the value of this device, the opponent wouldn''t let go of it easily. He would think of ways to get back this celestial device. At that time, the timing and location wouldn''t be chosen by Junior Leopard. Just like today, Junior Leopard made use of the terrain to kill the 2 Level Six experts in a flash. Next time, he could use a terrain that was advantageous to himself.


    In Yuezhou''s Governors Mansion, apart from him who was at Level Seven, there were 6 other Level Six experts. Now that two had died, there were still 4 left. Making use of the terrain, and adding 4 Level Six experts had caused the celestial device to lose half of its strength. Even if Junior Leopard possessed a weird fist intent, he had the confidence to subdue him.


    After all, until then he hadn''t held any precaution towards the fist intent displayed by Junior Leopard. However, he wouldn''t make the same mistake the next time around.


    As a Level Seven expert, if he couldn''t even accomplish this, then he wasn''t worthy of being a Level Seven expert.


    Hence, he began to retreat.


    Junior Leopard obviously wouldn''t let him retreat so easily.


    He also understood the old man''s selfish calculations. Furthermore, everything was going on well in his plan. How could he let the opponent escape when things were going in his favor?


    Even the opponent''s retreat was within his calculations.


    Under the Black Hole Fist Intent, it wasn''t easy to retreat.


    It was only the opponent''s decisiveness that was out of Junior Leopard''s expectations. He actually threw aside his weapon and only focused on retreating.


    "You no longer have any path for retreating!" Junior Leopard coldly smiled. His body squirmed forward and shot towards the old man like an arrow leaving a strung bow.


    "It is just a Genuine Weapon. Do you really think it could break my Gang Qi!"


    When the old man saw Junior Leopard rushing over, his face had a trace of anger. Just now he was caught off guard and he let Junior Leopard pierce through his Gang Qi and injure his shoulder. This led him to believe that Junior Leopard was holding a Secondary Heavenly Weapon. However, after clashing with the Emerald Pearl sword a few more times, he gradually calmed down. This was not a Secondary Heavenly Weapon at all.


    The first time he got injured was because he wasn''t mentally prepared. Furthermore, Junior Leopard''s sword contained an extremely hot and destructive energy. That was why the Gang Qi broke apart.


    In the ensuing attacks, the destructive heat disappeared, causing the old man to speculate.


    "Perhaps he could only release that kind of terrifying hot attack a few times only?"


    This kind of thinking, of course, could be right. Junior Leopard was a Level Six expert. Even if he had extremely surprised him in the course of the battle, a Level Six expert was after all just a Level Six expert. Even if he had a method to break through the Gang Qi, it was impossible for him to use it continuously. If not, the difference between Level Six and Seven wouldn''t be so big.


    Now Junior Leopard came rushing forward. He then began to be cautious again. Maybe Junior Leopard would use that destructive hot attack again. Subconsciously, he began to circulate his own Gang Qi to fend off Junior Leopard''s sword. Now that he was prepared, he vaguely looked forward to seeing whether Junior Leopard''s sword would be able to pierce through his Gang Qi or not.


    Seeing the approaching Gang Qi become dense with a gray colour, Junior Leopard''s eyes flashed a hint of mockery.


    His right hand holding onto the sword released it and he actually threw the Emerald Pearl sword away.


    The old man''s eyes violently shrunk. His pupils shrank to the size of a needle. An endless fear permeated through his whole body.


    "Oh shit!"


    Junior Leopard''s sword left his hand and was rushing towards his Gang Qi. It was deflected off with no doubt by the Gang Qi, not dealing any damage at all to it.


    After his short sword left, Junior Leopard flipped his hands. His both palms slammed forward. At the same time, the green light enlarged in front of his chest. However it was covered by his black cloak, thus the old man was unable to see clearly the situation.


    Both his palms violently clashed with the Gang Qi. He had nowhere to run to.


    "Pu---!" A dull sound was heard. The palms collided with the Gang Qi. Both of their bodies became still. At the same time, Junior Leopard''s fist intent disappeared. The bugs on the corpses lost control and started flying everywhere. The whole house was once again enshrouded in a haze.


    Within this haze, a green light lit up and then faded. Junior Leopard''s palms were forcefully pressed onto the Gang Qi. He felt as if both of his hands had been stabbed by thousands of needles. The corner of his mouth twitched and he yelped. However, he didn''t take his hands away.


    The vibrating ripples that were dense like jade poured out from his palms. At the same time both of his hands, beginning from the elbows, began to spurt out blood from every pore. A thin cloud of blood was wrapped around both of his hands.


    The green ripples led the gray colour Gang Qi, and within just a moment, the gray Gang Qi followed the green ripples and started vibrating. This vibration quickly affected the old man''s whole body.


    The old man''s facial expression stiffened. His eyes flashed a surprised expression. His body violently trembled, and his mouth opened slightly as if he wanted to shout something out. However, he didn''t manage it in the end.


    Infinite Trembling Contemplation!


    The old man''s body vibrated with the cyan ripples and was trembling at a high speed as if he was standing on a vibrating wooden board. However, this did not last for too long.


    In a breath''s moment, the Gang Qi collapsed under the vibration. The old man''s body was also smashed into pieces. A dense blood fog splattered in all directions and cleansed the air of the bugs from the corpses. The interior of the room became cleaner. In the crispness, there was a dense bloody scent permeating the air.


    Using the Infinite Trembling Contemplation to kill the old man in one strike, Junior Leopard wasn''t well either. Both of his hands were trembling. Even though the entire secret skill''s circulation was completed in the Dragon Chimera skull External Elixir, it still had to be transmitted through his palms and released. Just the last step alone caused both of his hands to suffer serious injuries.


    However, it was worth the price as he had just killed a Level Seven expert.


    It was indeed worth it.


    "My estimations are not wrong. This Infinite Trembling Contemplation can scatter Gang Qi. It can even make use of the Gang Qi to connect to the opponent''s body and kill him as a result!" Junior Leopard looked at the pile of flesh in front of him and he smiled. Using the tip of his foot, he kicked a black box with his real force. Hence, when the box was flying up it shattered to pieces. The 42 Demon Devil Needles that were confiscated by the old man were once again under Junior Leopard''s control.


    "Don''t kill me. I beg you, don''t kill me. I will give you whatever you want. I can give you anything!" Junior Leopard''s gaze turned to Ruan Xiuwen as he regained control of the needles. Ruan Xiuwen then woke up from the shock and began crying out loud.


    The old man''s death dealt him an extremely big blow. A Level Seven expert died so easily without an intact corpse in the hands of this strange black-cloaked man.


    Yes, his corpse was non-existent!


    This made him think of Gao Yulou. At this time, he was able to confirm that this black-cloaked man akin to a devil was the same person Xiao who kidnapped the bride at Qinlingjun City.


    That time, he also caused a Level Seven expert to die without remains.


    "Stop shouting anymore. If I want to kill you, it is pointless to shout!" Junior Leopard slowly walked to the front of Ruan Xiuwen.


    Ruan Xiuwen''s face had quite a lot of the old man''s blood splattered on it. He didn''t wipe it off. In other words, he hadn''t realized it at all. He cautiously looked at Junior Leopard who was walking towards him. With every step that Junior Leopard took, he would retreat a step.


    He retreated till he was at the door. His leg stepped on empty air and he fell backward and landed with his buttocks on the floor.


    "Please, please, no, don''t come over. Don''t come over!"


    Even if he was already planted on the floor, he still used both of his hands to support the back. Both his legs were kicking on the floor for retreating.


    "Once you move again, I will kill you!"


    Junior Leopard spoke softly as he walked towards him. His speed was neither slow nor fast.


    Ruan Xiuwen''s movements stopped. He didn''t dare to move. He sat on the floor and looked at Junior Leopard with an imploring look on his face.


    "Don''t be afraid. I don''t want to kill you, but you must cooperate with me!"


    "Yes yes yes, I will!" Ruan Xiuwen hurriedly nodded.


    As Junior Leopard looked at his surroundings, his brows slightly furrowed. At this moment the inn was empty, however, there was still a little presence within the inn''s surroundings. Their cultivation was not bad, at least at Level Four or Five. Even though the old man had scared a few people off, there were still those who wanted to fish some benefits and hid around here.


    "I have something to ask you, however it is not suitable to ask here!" In between words, Junior Leopard lifted Ruan Xiuwen''s collar and then his body up. At the same time, his right hand transmitted a fiery pain, which caused him to breathe in cool air.


    "This Infinite Trembling Contemplation really causes great damage to bodies. No wonder it is a secret skill. Its power is great, however, no one is able to fully unleash it!" Junior Leopard said to himself. He raised his hand and lifted Ruan Xiuwen up. He circulated the Floating Geese Body Movement and ran out of the inn.


    Those experts waiting outside ready to jump on an opportunity hadn''t reacted in time and they just saw a person dragging a half-dead person out. His speed flabbergasted them.


    They hid in the dark and didn''t give a chase because almost all of them clearly saw what the people looked like.


    What they saw was that the person being dragged was Young Master Ruan Xiuwen. This Young Master was being dragged in midair and no one from the inn was giving chase. What did that represent?


    It meant that the mysterious person who caused such a ruckus in the inn had already defeated the four men including Elder Yun, the Level Seven expert. He forcefully abducted Ruan Xiuwen, but what happened to the other three? That was what they were most concerned about.


    About thirty minutes after Junior Leopard brought Ruan Xiuwen away, numerous figures rushed into the inn. In an instant, shocked cries erupted. Following that, the soldiers from the Garrison Mansion also rushed over. After 1 hour, the entire Goldenrim Commandery entered into an emergency state. As for all of these, it seemed to have no connection to Junior Leopard.


    At a place about 300 feet away from Flyingcrane Restaurant, an old man who was opening a small store gazed at Flyingcrane Restaurant with a doubtful expression.


    "What is this lad doing? he, however, caused such a ruckus, but I got off easy!"


    His fingers lightly tapped on the small store that he was carrying on his shoulder. On his thumb, there was a ring that had a golden chicken engraved on it and was flashing a mesmerizing golden light under the bright sun.

 Chapter 200: Poison Cold Shield

    Chapter 200: Poison Cold Shield


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Don''t kill me, don''t kill me!" Junior Leopard expanded his body movement, carrying Ruan Xiuwen all the way. Along the way, Ruan Xiuwen kept making noise and saying, "Don''t kill me, don''t kill me" as if he was chanting a curse, afraid that if he stopped chanting, he would lose his life.


    "Don''t make any more noise. If you shout again, I will really kill you!" Junior Leopard had already landed from the rooftop and was squirming through the alleys of the Goldenrim Commandery streets.


    The people in the regional city had long been scared stiff by the ball of gray cloud in Flyingcrane Restaurant. They shut all their doors and windows. The originally crowded and boisterous streets didn''t have a single person on them, much less the small alleys.


    Ruan Xiuwen was scared by Junior Leopard and he immediately shut his mouth and let Junior Leopard carry him.


    "How far away is the place that you speak of?!"


    "Not far away. It''s just in front, just make a turn!" Ruan Xiuwen said hurriedly.


    "I hope that you are not bluffing!" Junior Leopard laughed coldly. According to Ruan Xiuwen''s directions, he turned into a small street and squirmed into a very small alley.


    The alley was not long, around 300-400 feet. There were 6 small courtyards facing each other.


    "Over there, the third house from the left, that''s mine!" Ruan Xiuwen pointed at a small courtyard and said.


    Junior Leopard expanded his body movements. In a flash, he carried Ruan Xiuwen and jumped into this small courtyard.


    "Ah..."


    The moment they entered the courtyard, they heard a shrill cry.


    The cry was sharp and pierced the ears and although Junior Leopard was skilled in martial arts, he was also shocked.


    "Don''t cry, if you do I will kill you in one chop!"


    Dressed in a black cloak and wearing a strange Smiling-face Mask, a deadly disguise, especially when his cold gaze stared at the person who cried out.


    The man turned cold and goosebumps rose from head to foot, feeling as if he had been targeted by a venomous snake.


    There were two people standing in the courtyard. Both of them were young women. The older one was 17 years old or so, and the smaller one around 14. Looking at their attire, it seemed like one was the master and the other a servant.


    The older girl was dressed in pink. She had a pretty face. The younger one was also quite easy on the eyes.


    The person who let out the cry was the lady in pink. At this moment, she was covering her mouth. Her face was full of shock and fear as she saw Junior Leopard flip over the wall. The little girl who was dressed like a servant stood in front of the girl in pink as if protecting her. Although her face was also full of shock and fear, Junior Leopard could see a trace of determination in her eyes.


    "Don''t be scared. I don''t have the intention to hurt you. It is this guy who wanted me to come here!" Junior Leopard lifted Ruan Xiuwen and let them both see his face clearly.


    "Ah, husband!" Upon seeing Ruan Xiuwen''s face, the lady''s expression was full of fear. She plucked up her courage and said, "Who are you, why did you kidnap my husband? Do you know who my husband is!"


    "So this is actually your abode, no wonder it''s in such a secluded place!" Junior Leopard instantly understood, "Relax, I''ll not do anything to Young Master Ruan. Of course, that is only if he is willing to cooperate!"


    After speaking he lifted Ruan Xiuwen into the building and no longer bothered with the two of them.


    This master and servant exchanged winks. Even though they felt fear in their hearts, they managed to suppress their fears and followed Junior Leopard into the house. They even obediently closed the door behind them.


    "Okay, help me find a quiet room. Additionally, get me something to eat!" Junior Leopard made a casual order.


    The lady in pink took the order and got the maid to prepare the dishes. She then led Junior Leopard to a room that was not big.


    "Sir, this room here is the quietest!" The lady in pink paid her respects and softly said, "I beseech you sir to please spare my husband!"


    "Get out, there is no business for you here!" Junior Leopard didn''t wish to be entangled with her anymore. He waved his sleeves. Instantly, the lady in pink was pushed out of the room by an unknown force and the door also shut at the same time.


    "The mistress of the house is not bad, she has guts!" Closing the door, Junior Leopard threw Ruan Xiuwen on the floor and said half-jokingly.


    "I wouldn''t dare, I wouldn''t dare!"


    This fella was already scared out of his wits. How dare he question Junior Leopard''s words? This made Junior Leopard somewhat helpless.


    "Young Master Ruan, you must understand that I don''t have any intentions of becoming enemies with the Yuezhou Ruan Family!" Junior Leopard tried to soften his tone as he talked to Ruan Xiuwen.


    "Yes yes yes!" Ruan Xiuwen only nodded.


    "However, if you remain like this and do not cooperate, I will stump you to death with one foot!"


    At the turn of the conversation, his voice suddenly took on a sterner tone.


    "Yes...ugh..." Ruan Xiuwen raised his head and fearfully looked at Junior Leopard, "May I ask what kind of orders you have for me?"


    "The reason why I came to Yuezhou is to track down a person. He is not related to the Yuezhou Ruan Family at all. I didn''t think that the moment I entered the Goldenrim Commandery, I''d discover that this city was filled with these eccentric poisonous gases and insects. I happened to have the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, therefore this situation arose!"


    Junior Leopard originally wanted to say "Detoxicating Bead", however, he remembered the elder''s words and changed the Detoxicating Bead to Poison-absorbing Green Bead.


    "I understand, I understand!" Junior Leopard''s words caused Ruan Xiuwen to relax a lot. His courage also came back. Just now he was scared stiff but now he had recovered his wits and his mind became much clearer.


    He was able to hear from Junior Leopard''s tone that though his cultivation was extremely high, he still had some reservations towards the Ruan Family. He didn''t wish to get entangled in a blood feud. That was why he used such a light and gentle tone to talk to him. Of course, it didn''t mean that just because the opponent''s words were now smoother that he was safe. Even though the other party had some reservations towards the Ruan Family''s influence, he was also someone not afraid of trouble. If he was really afraid of trouble, he wouldn''t have killed Gao Yulou. Now he had already confirmed that the black-cloaked man standing in front of him was the mysterious expert that appeared in Qinlingjun City and disappeared in a flash, master of martial arts, Xiao.


    Hence, he carefully said, "Of course, this is a mistake, a mistake!"


    "It is a misunderstanding. However, I still have a few questions. I hope that you can reply truthfully. If I am satisfied with your answers, then I will release you. If you dare to play any tricks..."


    "No no, I''ll not play any tricks. I definitely won''t, please go ahead and ask!" Ruan Xiuwen hurriedly said, his face was earnest.


    "Okay, let me ask you. What''s up with the poisonous insects in the city? Did they exist all along, or did they just appear recently?"


    "They, they were reared by us!" Ruan Xiuwen didn''t dare to hide anything and replied truthfully, "It was our teacher who asked us to breed them!"


    "Bred?!" Junior Leopard didn''t quite understand, "You guys reared so many poisonous insects within the city?"


    "This is an Invisible Bug, it is the saint worm of the South China Hundred Poisons Sect!" Ruan Xiuwen said, "The Invisible Bug''s body is extremely small, even smaller than dust. Its poison is also not lethal. Hence when reared in the city, it''ll not poison people to death. We only needed ten days before the insects could absorb enough essence and blood!"


    "Absorbing essence and blood?" Junior Leopard''s gaze turned cold, "You got these insects to absorb people''s essence and blood?!"


    "They won''t hurt people!" Feeling the cold Qi emanating from Junior Leopard''s body, "The Invisible Bug won''t hurt people at this stage. The poison gas also won''t harm people. Only by absorbing enough essence and blood, fighting amongst themselves and concentrating all the poison from the insects into one spot, will there emerge a King of Invisible Bug."


    "This is to say that you treat the people in the city as fertilizer for these insects, am I right?"


    "Yes!" Ruan Xiuwen hesitated and finally nodded. He then hurriedly said: "The Invisible Bug''s poison is harmless to humans at the beginning. In fact, they are beneficial. They''ll absorb the toxins in the human''s blood and essence. Only by absorbing enough human'' essence and blood will their poison undergo change!"


    "They''ll then kill each other, finally leaving only one, which is the King of the Invisible Bug, am I right?"


    "Yes!"


    "You''re not afraid of anyone finding out about this?"


    "They won''t discover it. Although these insects are numerous, they''re not much different from dust. Those with an Internal Qi cultivation below Level Seven will not feel it at all. As for those experts above Level Seven, they''ll not come to this city within this period of time. Even if they come, they won''t be too many. These insects that I rear only need 10 days to absorb enough essence and blood, thus we are not worried!"


    "Those below Level Seven won''t detect it?!" Junior Leopard''s heart moved. His own cultivation hadn''t reached Level Seven, yet he detected it the moment he entered the city. Could it be that the pair of eyes was activating?


    Junior Leopard threw this train of thought to the back of his head and asked again, "Is this King of Invisible Bug very powerful?!"


    "The Invisible Bug is the saint worm of the South China Hundred Poisons Sect. It contains poison from numerous insects. Its poison is incredibly toxic. Those below Level Seven will die from one touch. As for those above Level Seven, even Level Eight, after touching it, they will only die due to the lack of a cure!"


    "It''s that powerful?!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t quite believe it. Forgot about those below Level Seven, the body toughness of those above Level Seven could be said to be terrifying, not only in physical strength, but also in other areas. Poison resistance was one of the areas. As for those who reached Level Eight, they could even have a meal with poisonous drugs. This King of Invisible Bug could actually poison to death a Level Eight expert? This was a bit too incredulous, wasn''t it ?


    "If what you say is true that this poison could kill a Level Eight expert then, this South China Hundred Poisons Sect would already be famous across the whole world. If so why have I not heard of them before?!"


    "Although its poison is unmatched, it is extremely difficult to breed. After the King appears, it''ll need 50 years before it can hatch eggs. For these eggs to incubate, it''ll need at least 10 years. Furthermore, while the King is still alive, it won''t allow any similar species to exist within a thousand miles. Hence, once the King appears, there won''t be another one like it for the next 60 years. Even if the Invisible Bug''s eggs are incubated and fertilized, they may not survive. Even if they do survive, not every King can produce enough eggs. If the numbers are not great enough, it cannot produce a King, hence...!" At this point, Ruan Xiuwen''s face revealed a trace of bitterness, " The Invisible King had not appeared in the world for more than 500 years!"


    "This time, you all have got great fortune?"


    "No, it is you who has picked up a treasure. You have the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, absorbing all the toxins within the insects. The poison property is only greater and not weaker than the King of Invisible Bug!"


    "Poison-absorbing Green Bead?!" Junior Leopard smiled, "I haven''t had it for long, can you tell me about its effects?"


    "Legend has it that the Poison-absorbing Green Bead is birthed from the world''s most poisonous evil beast. Not only was it resistant to all kinds of poison, it was also able to absorb all kinds of poison. He who is in possession of it, no longer needs to be afraid of any poisonous objects. Once it has successfully been refined, it will be the nemesis of all poisonous things. Furthermore, if the bead is able to absorb enough poison and merge together with something that has a property of extreme cold, it can also turn into a Poison Cold Shield. Once such an object is refined, one could rule the world!"


    "Poison Cold Shield, what is that?!" Junior Leopard frowned slightly and asked.


    Things had already developed to this stage. Ruan Xiuwen naturally said everything that he knew.


    "Poison Cold Shield is the South China Hundred Poisons Sect''s magic weapon that was secretly passed down. It is something that is made from tens of thousands of poisonous objects, possessing an extreme cold Evil Qi. When not in use it is just a ball of rainbow color hue. When it is released it can spread up to hundreds of feet. When this weapon enshrouds a person, his Qi and blood will solidify and he will solidify, becoming clear water and then die."


    Ruan Xiuwen spoke, and his eyes revealed a trace of jealousy: "However, such a treasure is extremely hard to refine. It is even harder than rearing the King of Invisible Bug. That is because in the process of refining, one must merge tens of thousands of toxins. An object that contains such vast amounts of toxin is necessary. Even a poisonous person from the Hundred Poisons Sect couldn''t accomplish this. The Poison-absorbing Green Bead , however, can accomplish this!"


    Such a good thing actually exists?!


    Junior Leopard saw that Ruan Xiuwen didn''t seem to be lying. His heart involuntarily exclaimed in happiness. From what he said, once this Poison Cold Shield was refined, his own strength would increase to a whole new level.


    "This Poison Cold Shield that you spoke of is so powerful. Hence, even if it is refined, one has to be careful. If not, the poison could backfire on you?!"


    "Such a thing will definitely not happen. A magic weapon has intelligence. Once it is refined successfully, the magic weapon''s intelligence will merge with the Internal Qi and it can no longer be differentiated. It will not backfire!"


    Intelligence?


    Junior Leopard nodded. He understood what he learned, "Then, do you know the cultivation method for this Poison Cold Shield?!"


    "I do, I do!" Ruan Xiuwen hurriedly nodded, revealing a smile, "Master once taught me the refining method for the Poison Cold Shield. It is just that I haven''t had an opportunity to do it. You possess the Poison-absorbing Green Bead and have absorbed a lot of poison from the Invisible Bug. It is more than sufficient to refine the Poison Cold Shield!"


    "Apart from the Poison Cold Shield, what other special uses does the Poison-absorbing Green Bead have? Can it be used to refine an External Elixer?!"


    "External Elixir?!"


    Hearing these two words, Ruan Xiuwen''s facial muscles involuntarily twitched, "No, it can''t be done. The Poison-absorbing Green Bead''s main function is on poison, it cannot be a used to refine an External Elixer!"


    When Junior Leopard heard that, he felt disappointment. He then continued asking, "What about other uses?"


    "It can turn all the poison in the world into Green Principal Qi!"


    "Green Principal Qi? What is that?!"


    "I don''t know. The teacher didn''t speak in details about this to me. I only know if Master has the bead, he can enter into Level Eight within 20 years!"


    "Level Eight?!" Junior Leopard coldly laughed, "wait till next life!"


    Thinking about his own teacher''s tragic death, Ruan Xiuwen involuntarily shuddered. His head bowed and he no longer dared to look at Junior Leopard. At this moment, there was a knock from outside.


    "Your Excellency, the dishes are ready. Should I bring them in?!" A soft voice was heard from the outside. Junior Leopard lifted his hands and the door automatically opened, "Bring it in, your husband and I are both hungry!"


    "Yes!" The lady in pink replied softly. She entered together with the maid and brought the dishes in.


    At the same time, Goldenrim Commandery had already descended into chaos. The Flyingcrane Restaurant incident had caused all factions to be on alert. In the beginning, Ruan Xiuwen and Elder Yun wanted to forcefully intervene as the other powers in the city could only observe from afar.That was until Junior Leopard brought Ruan Xiuwen out. When Junior Leopard left, the people who reacted the fastest entered the restaurant to check. When they saw what was in front of their eyes, they were shocked.


    Not to mention the pile of dead insects, but to see the bodies of two Level Six experts and a pile of flesh in the room, they were horrified, especially by that pile of flesh and blood, which, though long dead, its shirt had not been destroyed. Those who understood things could recognize that these were the clothes of the Level Seven expert Elder Yun of the Governor Mansion of Yuezhou. Linking it to the two figures that ran out of the restaurant, the answer seemed to be clear.


    The mysterious black-cloaked person killed Elder Yun and the two Level Six experts from the Governor Mansion, abducting Young Master Ruan and leaving the world behind in a cloud of dust.


    The purpose was not clear, but the truth was out.


    The news spread with extreme speed and the whole Yuezhou began to move.


    Although for all the influences in Yuezhou such truth was hard to swallow, none of them was willing to face a person who had single-handedly killed a Level Seven expert and two Level Six experts. But they couldn''t just ignore it, could they?


    Whether they were willing or not, the influences in Goldenrim Commandery had all dispatched people, together with the Garrison Mansion, the Governor Mansion, and they started to cast a net over the city to search. Although everyone understood that this was just for show. Could they really expect these people at Level Two-Three to keep up with a Level Seven or even a higher level expert?


    Of course, it had to be a Level Seven or above expert. This was obvious. If not, how could he kill a Level Seven expert and two Level Six experts within such a short time?!


    "This was really easy!"


    When the whole city was in a state of panic, within the Yuezhou Governor Mansion''s secret room, Golden Rooster Jin Yuquan was playing with a pearl that was about the size of a pigeon egg and was flashing an eccentric blue light. His face revealed that he was completely attracted to it.


    "Even though I don''t know what that kid did, but he has helped me greatly!"


    He forcefully composed himself and shifted his gaze away from the Blue Moon Pearl. He put the pearl into a jade box which he had long prepared. Jin Yuquan exhaled softly and raised his eyes to look at the Governor Mansion''s guard who was not far away from him. He seemed puzzled.


    "Didn''t this Yuezhou Governor Mansion have a Level Seven expert? How come I didn''t see him? Could he be scared of me?"


    Taking advantage of the chaos in the city, he successfully infiltrated into the Governor''s Mansion. Without expending much effort, he obtained from a servant the information about the whereabouts of the Governor Ruan Ming''s courtyard. At this time Ruan Ming was busy like hell within the Governor''s Mansion. He didn''t wish to trouble him, thus he seized Ruan Ming''s wife, found the entrance to the secret passageway from her, and killed some of the guards. At that moment, the high-level experts in the mansion were taken away by Ruan Ming. It was the time when its defense was the weakest. How could they fend against the Golden Rooster who was like a wolf and a tiger? Within a short time, he reached his purpose. It was so easy that he found he couldn''t believe it.


    He had gotten the Blue Moon Pearl, therefore, he did not wish to continue staying there long lest he invites trouble. He knocked the wife of Ruan Ming and the others unconscious and exited the Governor Mansion. It was dark and under the cover of the night sky, he was able to easily leave the city. On the other side, Junior Leopard also left the city.Coincidentally, both parties bumped into each other.


    On a desolate slope about 50 miles away from the city, the both of them were wearing black cloaks and masks. Facing each other, they felt that the atmosphere was strange and didn''t know what to say.


    After a long silence, Junior Leopard finally broke the uncomfortable silence: "Have you completed your task?"


    "I completed it!" Golden Rooster nodded, "What did you do to attract the attention of the entire Governor Mansion?!"


    "I merely killed a few people!" Junior Leopard said, "Of course, I also kidnapped the Young Master of Governor Ruan Ming. I believe that I made it quite convenient for you?"


    "Yes, extremely convenient. The mansion''s defenses fell down in one swoop!"


    "Great, looks like I have helped in some way after all!"


    "You have helped a great deal!" Jin Yuquan dryly laughed.


    "Then what should we do next? Should I go back with you?"


    "Go back where?" Jin Yuquan chuckled, "Everything is ready. I only need to hand this thing over when we get to the nearest resting stop and the mission will be completed!"


    "The nearest resting spot?"


    "Yes, the nearest resting spot. We need to personally take this thing to its destination.That is the rule!"


    "Does that mean that I can return to Jiang City?"


    "Of course that is up to you. However, before you go back, you should first receive your rewards!"


    "Rewards?!"


    "Of course, rewards. You think that this task was done for free? Our Immortal Palace doesn''t mistreat people!" Jin Yuquan smiled, "Follow me, when you have received your reward you can go back!"


    "What is the reward?"


    "Money! For every mission, the prices will be different. This time around our mission is the Blue Moon Pearl. This thing is an invaluable object in the martial arts world thus, the money we receive will be higher. The money we get will be roughly 300,000 taels. Of course, you are not an official member of the Immortal Palace, hence you''ll receive a little less. About 200,000 taels!"


    "200,000 taels?!" Junior Leopard nearly fainted. One trip and he would have 200,000 taels. This was too easy.


    "What, do you think it''s too little?"


    "Oh, no. It is enough. I never thought that I would earn this much from this trip!"


    "Our Immortal Palace never does business at a loss. If the pay is low, we''ll not accept it!"


    Junior Leopard''s heart leaped and he asked: "Could this Blue Moon Pearl be something that someone inside the Immortal Palace needs?"


    "No, our mission this time is for someone else!" Golden Rooster didn''t conceal anything, "The Immortal Palace has received the task and we complete the mission and take the money. That''s all!"

 Chapter 201: The Big Iron Hammer

    Chapter 201: The Big Iron Hammer


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard began to understand. Immortal Palace was a paramilitary organization of some sort. If clients requested a task or mission to be completed, which price was reasonable, Immortal Palace would accept the mission and receive the payment after completion.


    "What kind of organization is Immortal Palace, really? Even a Level Nine expert like Wang She has become its member!" Clutching the notes worth twenty-three thousand silver in his arms, Junior Leopard rode an old, thin black horse. From the information he obtained from Jin Yuquan, Junior Leopard judged that this organization did not restrict the freedom of its members much. It only served as an intermediary, responsible for gathering and designating missions.


    Yet the so-called members, in fact, were participants.


    What differed from other paramilitary organizations was that this Immortal Palace had many experts whose cultivation all was over Level Seven. That was to say, only people whose cultivation was at least Level Seven could qualify to become one of its members.


    Any member of Immortal Palace could take on a mission if they felt that the price was reasonable, and they could accept what they were required to do. This was the first type of mission. The second type was assigned missions. Either the difficulty in completing the mission was so high that only a few people within Immortal Palace could handle it, or the time frame in which to complete the mission was too tight, in which case, there would not be time to release the task formally, so the mission would be thrown to anyone available. Of course, the reward from an assigned mission was much greater than that of a normal mission. The mission they received, to travel to South Yuezhou state to seize the Blue Moon Pearl, was an example of an assigned mission: time was tight, the responsibility was great, and manpower was lacking. Jin Yuquan, therefore, grabbed Junior Leopard to be his helper.


    As for the acceptance of new members, Immortal Palace differed from normal paramilitary organizations in that every new member was subjected to high requirements, and this very process was very secretive. Furthermore, prospective new members had to be recommended by official members of Immortal Palace.


    For example, Junior Leopard was recommended by Wang She, but for now, Junior Leopard was not yet an official member.


    On the other hand, from the words of Jin Yuquan, Junior Leopard became aware that members of Immortal Palace were divided into different classes. He knew of at least two. The first consisted of people like himself, recommended by an official member and temporarily called upon to complete a certain mission, in other words, probationary members under observation by the organization. The second was official members of Immortal Palace, consisting of people like Jin Yuquan and Wang She. Their cultivation was all above Level Seven and could benefit from Immortal Palace''s resources. They could freely accept missions they wanted or reject those they did not.


    Of course, they could not reject every single mission. Each year, every member had to accept at least one mission. If there weren''t any missions that a member wanted, Immortal Palace would assign a mission to them. This way, they could retain their position as an official member and enjoy their right to freely take advantage of Immortal Palace''s resources.


    The organization''s resources!


    This was what Junior Leopard valued the most right now.


    Immortal Palace, while it was a secretive and seemingly young organization, Junior Leopard discovered in shock that the organization''s hidden strength far exceeded what he had imagined after a few days of correspondence with them.


    Considering only their contact points, they scattered across the entire Great Jin. The mortuary on the outskirts of Jiang City of Zhonghe Prefecture of Qianzhou, a small temple within the mountains of Shuzhou, a warehouse within Goldenrim Commandery of Yuezhou - these places all belonged to Immortal Palace. As for the place Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan obtained their payment from, it was one of the three largest money manors of Great Jin, Tongji Money Manor.


    Who knew what the relationship between the money manor and Immortal Palace was like?


    Junior Leopard was only a temporary member then, so Jin Yuquan did not reveal too much to him. From the little bit of information he did reveal, Junior Leopard saw the tip of the iceberg that was the colossal amount of resources of which the organization controlled.


    "If I became an official member, I would have the right to take advantage of Immortal Palace''s various resources!" Junior Leopard thought, and his interest in the mysterious Immortal Palace greatly increased.


    "Should I make a visit back to Yunzhou, and see if I could finish practicing Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword? APoison Cold Shield also needs the Evil Qi to infuse the poison!"


    Setting aside Immortal Palace''s affairs, Junior Leopard started to think about the benefits he gained from this journey. From his departure from Jiang City until the completion of the mission, including time spent on travel, slightly more than two months were used. He had told his subordinates that he would have closed-door training for half a year, which meant that he still had more than two months to himself.


    "Never mind, this place is too far from Yunzhou. A journey to and fro would need a couple of months. If I were to include the time I need to practice as well, it''s obvious that I don''t have enough time! Moreover, after so many incidents recently, I really should settle down and return to Jiang City!"


    He thought back to the chaos he and Golden Rooster caused within Jianghu these two months: it was a complete mess they created.


    Of course, this was mainly because of Golden Goose Cup''s appearance.


    Golden Goose Cup had appeared in the world once again causing a huge commotion. It was eventually obtained by a mysterious black-cloaked person who never appeared again. The entire Wulin was furiously searching everyone for this character, trying to guess his identity, and even Junior Leopard''s alternative identity was one of their guesses.


    In order to remove any trace of his connection with this matter, Junior Leopard utilized his abilities to the greatest extent on this journey. After separating from Jin Yuquan, he started to make use of Three Realms Division without any regard for his injuries. Every time he used it, he only rested for half a day before he traveled on a horse at an incredible speed and then used it once more when his body recovered. Through his efforts, he managed to travel two thousand li within four days. He slowed down only after he returned to Qianzhou of Great Jin, parading on the road riding his horse, not bothering to cover his tracks at all.


    This way, no one would connect Golden Goose Cup and the events at Goldenrim Commandery with Junior Leopard.


    Because he had appeared in Shuzhou once, the time was just about right for him to travel from Jiang City to Shuzhou and back to Jiang City again. No one would think that he went to Yuezhou during this period because there simply wasn''t enough time!


    In the eyes of others, Junior Leopard''s movements were obvious and easy to understand. Originally, he intended to have closed-door training. When the news of the Golden Goose Cup''s appearance emerged, as a person of Wulin, his interest in it was natural. He decided to travel to Shuzhou to try his luck. Because of the Golden Goose Cup, there were countless hopeful people just like him.


    In the end, just like anyone else, Junior Leopard did not get lucky and could only return home with empty hands.


    There was nothing, absolutely nothing, left for others to suspect.


    ......


    ......


    "Your Excellency, you''ve ended your closed-door training?!"


    Sitting on the first ship heading towards River Heart Island, Junior Leopard was received by Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao, Zhu Ba, and a few others who came up as soon as he alighted.


    "Are you making fun of me for having made this trip in vain?" Junior Leopard looked at him, a glimmer of anger in his eyes.


    "No, I wouldn''t dare to say that!" Zhu Ba said, but not a sliver of panic showed on his face.


    Standing at one side, Jiang Xiao and the others shook their heads silently. They really could not understand why Junior Leopard got along so well with that bastard.


    "Your Excellency, it''s great that you have returned. It has been quite eventful recently. Without you, we really have no idea what to do!" Jiang Xiao stepped forward and said respectfully.


    "Well, there sure have been many important events within Jianghu recently. Has anything significant happened in Jiang City as well?" Junior Leopard asked inadvertently.


    "A new Garrison came!"


    "What, a new Garrison?"Junior Leopard''s eyes shone,"Who is he? What''s his background?"


    "We don''t know, but he is quite young, just above thirty, and it looks like he won''t be easy to handle," Jiang Xiao said quietly, following behind Junior Leopard as they walked back to River Heart Island''s barrack, "Furthermore---!"


    "Well, what?" Seeing that Jiang Xiao was reluctant to speak, Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows, "If you want to say something, say it! Don''t be a sissy!"


    "When this Garrison first arrived, he gathered everyone for a discussion. Your Excellency wasn''t here, so he said that you are too arrogant, and therefore, your position needs to be replaced!" As he finished speaking, he glanced at Junior Leopard out of the corner of his eye; he could not help but fear that Junior Leopard might suddenly let out his anger after hearing his words.


    Junior Leopard''s expression remained unchanged as he listened quietly. After he was done, Junior Leopard smiled and asked, "What else?"


    "What else¡­?!"


    Seeing that Junior Leopard''s expression did not change, Jiang Xiao''s worries were mostly gone, and he praised Junior Leopard silently in his heart. "Though he looks young and frivolous, he has a calm and mature personality that does not match his young age. It is as if nothing in the world will bother him." These thoughts made Jiang Xiao feel ashamed.


    "The Garrison has a great interest in River Heart Island. It seems that he is unsatisfied with just building a drill ground here. He might want to interfere with our matters!"


    "Interfere with us? Well, first he has to deal with me. During this period, he has tried to cause trouble for us, hasn''t he?"


    "Yes!" Jiang Xiao smiled wryly, "This Garrison has come to River Heart Island many times trying to tell us what to do."


    "Even if he is Jiang City''s Garrison, the navy of Jiang City and the Guard of Jiang City have always had a policy of non-interference. Furthermore, he is new here. What reason does he have to challenge us?"


    "Well, it''s all because of Shopkeeper Ding of Southern Bay Warehouse. He went to the Garrison Mansion to complain about us, saying that the navy was undisciplined, eliciting money from passing merchants. All those with the family name Ding are effing bastards!"


    "Really?!" Hearing the words "Southern Bay Inn", Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows, "Alright, I understand. Jiang Xiao, send someone to invite the Wu Family ironware shop''s supervisor onto the island!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" Jiang Xiao''s eyes shone for a moment as he understood Junior Leopard''s intention. "Right, I almost forgot, Your Excellency, three days ago, the Wu Family delivered a gift for you!"


    "A gift?!" Junior Leopard glanced at Jiang Xiao and found that when he mentioned the word "gift", he and the others'' expressions became very weird. "Take me to see it!"


    The gift from Wu Family had been sent to the courtyard Junior Leopard was living in. Though he hadn''t lived there for two months, it was still very tidy.


    As soon as they arrived within the courtyard, a flash of silver suddenly appeared, and Little Du sprinted out from within the courtyard, its tongue hanging out of its mouth. It looked extremely happy.


    "Haha, the little guy has grown larger!" Stroking Little Du''s smooth silver fur, Junior Leopard smiled, "Zhu Ba, it looks like you have taken good care of it!"


    "Your Excellency, I''m afraid I didn''t do anything much. Little Du is extremely intelligent. When you left, he didn''t stay on the island for long. He caused much trouble for the wild beasts outside Jiang City!" Zhu Ba laughed and said. While Junior Leopard did instruct him to take care of Little Du when he left, Little Du, a beast with high intelligence and great power, didn''t need anyone to take care of it at all. Therefore, Zhu Ba didn''t dare take the credit for himself.


    "Haha. Oh right, have you married your wife already?!"


    "No, of course not. I was waiting for Your Excellency to exit training!" Zhu Ba said. "I''ve already waited such a long time, so it doesn''t matter if I wait a while more. But, Your Excellency, this time you won''t leave us again, right?!"


    "What do you mean by that?!"


    Although he knew that Zhu Ba didn''t have any bad intentions, what he said really did sound strange to his ears.


    "Your Excellency, it is here!"


    The four of them had already arrived at the eastern room without realizing it. The eastern room was a guest room, and Junior Leopard had never stayed there before. Now, an additional huge chest was present in a corner of the guest room.


    "This is the thing?!"


    Upon seeing the chest, Junior Leopard vaguely knew what was in it!


    "Yes, Your Excellency, this is it!" Jiang Xiao said, walking over to the chest and lifting the cover, "Your Excellency, please take a look!"


    "Hmm, nice!" Junior Leopard nodded with satisfaction in his eyes.


    Within the chest was an Iron Hammer. This hammer, forged from steel, was enormous. Entirely black, it emanated a certain ferocious spirit.


    This was precisely the request he had expressed in his reply to Wu Family Head, Wu Yansheng''s, letter when he became an elder of the Wu Family: he needed a new weapon.


    While the hammer looked ordinary, the materials used to forge it were all extremely high quality. Even with the resources of the Wu Family, only a single hammer could be made!


    Why was this the case?


    Because Junior Leopard''s requirements for the hammer''s weight was much too high -- more than five hundred kilograms!


    Within this world, the number of things exceeding five hundred kilograms was not small, but it was rare to have a weapon that heavy. It could even be said that there wouldn''t be one made in a few hundred years. A weapon is meant to be used by people, so it had to be light enough to be held. Of course, that didn''t mean that someone couldn''t lift such a heavy weapon. In this world, the martial arts skills cultivated both the inner qi and the outer physical strength of a person. Someone at Level Three or Four could lift five hundred kilograms without difficulty. The problem was that, for someone to use the weapon, its size couldn''t be too large. The hammer, while it was meant to be substantial, still couldn''t be too big. Besides, who would want to lift a one-meter diameter hammer?


    In fact, even if the diameter was one meter, and it was completely made of raw metal, the weight may not be able to fulfill Junior Leopard''s requirements. Junior Leopard clearly stated in his letter to Wu Yansheng his requirements for the hammer. To fulfill Junior Leopard''s requirement for weight while limiting the size was a matter that caused much consternation. Only the Wu Family, well-known for its weapon-smelting, could gather all the materials and find suitable craftsmen in such a short time. Even so, in a letter addressed to Junior Leopard delivered together with the hammer, Wu Yansheng covertly expressed his complaints. This time, Wu Family had exhausted their means in creating this hammer for him, which implied that Wu Family expected Junior Leopard to contribute to Wu Family when they needed his help.


    After reading the letter, Junior Leopard''s only reaction was to smile for a moment. He folded the letter, put it back into his envelope, and slid it into his chest pocket. He then turned his attention to the hammer.


    "Well, all my requirements have basically been fulfilled," Junior Leopard said softly, his hand reaching towards the chest, grasping the handle of the hammer.


    A hammer weighing more than five hundred kilograms, 862.5 kilograms, to be precise. While the Wu Family did their best to limit the size, it was still an enormous object. The handle was as thick as a child''s arm, with carvings covering its surface. Junior Leopard greatly enjoyed the feeling of the hammer in his hand. In a single movement, the hammer was lifted into the air.


    "Sss----!" Junior Leopard lifted the hammer and swung it around a few times. Though he was only doing so lightly, the wind created by the movement caused Wang Cheng and the others to take a few steps backward. Seeing Junior Leopard swing it around as if it was as light as a piece of grass, they breathed in sharply.


    After the hammer was delivered, they had all tried their hands on it out of curiosity. They had cultivation at Level Three and had enough power to lift it up, but none of them were able to swing it around.


    The weight of the hammer exceeded five hundred kilograms, but if someone wanted to swing it, the strength requirement on one''s body was much more than five hundred, or even a thousand kilograms. Within the three of them, Zhu Ba had the most strength, but even he could only lift it up and swing it slightly to the side. After that, his entire body was exhausted, and he almost sprained his back remaining in this state for an entire two days.


    Now, they watched Junior Leopard lift the hammer and swing it around like a piece of grass. A five hundred kilogram heavy hammer in Junior Leopard''s hands looked like it weighed nothing at all. The wind brought out by the hammer clearly told them that the thing in Junior Leopard''s hands was not a piece of grass. It was a deadly weapon that was almost a thousand kilograms heavy.


    Just thinking about the consequences of getting hit by such a weapon, the three of them shivered. When they glanced at Junior Leopard again, there was a newfound fear in their eyes. They had even more respect and fear for him, and it was difficult for them to have any thoughts about going against Junior Leopard anymore.


    "What a great hammer this is!" He grasped the hammer feeling its weight in his hands, "It''s been a long time since I last used them. That bastard Li Xiu, how dare he destroy my hammers that time!!"


    Hammers were his weapon. They were the first weapon he came into contact with and also the first weapon he practiced. He even gained insight into hammers once.


    It is said that gaining insight was something that rarely happened. If a person had a chance to gain insight once in his life, they should thank the heavens. Junior Leopard didn''t believe this previously.


    Maybe it was because his insight came to him too easily when he was too young, so in his unconscious mind, he had a ridiculous thought. He thought that since he was a time-traveler, he was the protagonist. Gaining insight was something that was difficult for others but was very common and natural for himself.


    Of course, when he had this thought, he was still young and did not have an understanding of how the world works. After all these years of experience, he finally understood that gaining insight was an experience that he should treasure. He hadn''t even utilized fully the benefits he gained from that time. Especially, when his cultivation increased above Level Three, every time he practiced his punching skill, the feeling when he gained insight many years back appeared in his mind. Every time he had this feeling, his understanding of punching and hammering skills would deepen.


    Only with his cultivation increasing daily, he had fewer and fewer opportunities to experience that feeling. Ever since the twin hammers were destroyed by Li Xiu, this was the first time he held a hammer. And when his right hand lifted the hammer, the familiar feeling returned once again.


    After he swung the black Iron Hammer a couple of times, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique began to circulate within his body. A reddish gold light traveled from his arm directly into the hammer, and a reddish gold image of a dragon was intertwined above the hammer.


    "Is that¡ª! "


    Before Wang Cheng and the others could react, the Iron Hammer in Junior Leopard''s hands swung vertically upwards.


    "Hong!" With a huge sound, the roof of the eastern room was blown to pieces. Junior Leopard let out a roar, his body rising suddenly, releasing huge amounts of Qi Power around him. As he rose higher and higher, the Qi Power became more and more intense. Before long, the tiny courtyard was enveloped in his scorching Fist Intent.


    "Leave! Now!"


    Among the three, Zhu Ba had the highest cultivation level and also the broadest horizons. When he saw the situation turn, he dragged Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao outside the courtyard as fast as he could.


    The moment they stepped out of the courtyard, they heard a huge "whoosh" behind them. What they saw when they turned back frightened them out of their wits. They ran dozens of feet away before stopping.


    The courtyard Junior Leopard lived in was already encased in a black tornado. The courtyard was mostly in pieces. Large sections of it were sucked into the tornado. Within the raging winds, a reddish golden glow appeared. Three Fire Dragons were intertwined around the tornado. They danced with the wind, screeching and baring their claws.


    Within the tornado, sounds of laughter could be heard, growing louder and louder. The intensity of the winds increased with the volume of the laughter, and the reddish golden glow became brighter as well. The three Fire Dragons shot skywards until they were more than a hundred feet high. The ground below them shook.


    "Oh my heavens, what is His Excellency doing?!"


    Jiang Xiao sucked in a breath sharply, watching the black raging winds in the courtyard that looked like it was going to destroy everything as he murmured to himself.


    "I think he is practicing his hammer. But, this, is way too much!"

 Chapter 202: Consolidation of the Hammer Spirit--The Neutralizing Change

    Chapter 202: Consolidation of the Hammer Spirit--The Neutralizing Change


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Good! It''s incredibly powerful!"


    Junior Leopard sank into a strange state the moment he swung his metal hammer. The 81 movements of Wild Hammering Skill, the Flipping Sky Hammering Skill, the Thirteen Punches of Desolation, and the Tai Chi Fist flowed like a stream across his mind, gradually merging together. His Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi gushed out of his body and formed a glowing, golden red screen that enveloped him. When he breathed out, two red snake-like stripes of light appeared from his nostrils. The light fed into the glowing screen, forming an endless cycle.


    Without realizing it, his Black Sun Fist Intent was released. It surged explosively from the black winds like a volcano eruption. The three Fire dragons intertwining the black winds let out a blinding glow and merged to form an enormous stripe before suddenly diving into the raging winds.


    "Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...!"


    The sound of the raging winds traveled across the entire River Heart Island. It was no longer the desolate island overrun with water bandits anymore. It was now a crucial location where goods were gathered. The people who thronged the ports, docks, goods yards, drill grounds, new inns, along with merchants and workers made up more than 10,000 people. Alarmed by the eccentric winds, they gathered and moved toward Junior Leopard''s year.


    Wang Cheng had been staring at the black raging winds in front of him with a shocked expression on his face. Realization suddenly dawned on him. He turned and ordered Zhu Ba and Jiang Xiao in a severe tone, "Quick! Tell all your subordinates to clear the scene. No one is to approach within 1,000 feet of the courtyard. If anyone ignores this command, execute them immediately!"


    "Yes!" Zhu Ba and Jiang Xiao came to their senses. Glancing at the winds within the yard, they turned and left without a second look. They soon led a huge crowd of soldiers and formed a barrier that surrounded the courtyard 10,000 feet away.


    "His Excellency is practicing. No one is to enter within 10,000 feet! Anyone who disturbs his cultivation will be executed immediately!"


    Zhu Ba swung the large saber in his hands, loudly giving orders with a severe expression. The scar on his face twisted like a centipede as his face contorted and a violent spirit decorated his expression.


    ...


    "So Zhou Bao is back! No wonder there''s such a commotion!"


    "Really? I heard Zhou Bao is only a Level Four expert. No way he created such commotion!"


    "Look, Zhao Bao isn''t just an ordinary Level Four expert. He once killed a Level Seven expert in a one-on-one fight! I was there and I saw it clearly!"


    When the person who spoke recalled what happened that day, he could not help the fearful expression on his face. Looking at the black raging winds and remembering the power Junior Leopard displayed when he struck down Dragon Nanny, he said, "Oh God, this is even worse than the time he killed a Level Seven expert!"


    "Well, of course! He''s the Commander after all!"


    The person who spoke was a soldier preventing the crowd from getting past him. His face was so full of pride. It was as if he was the one who caused the current situation.


    "You guys have really gotten lucky this time, getting such a powerful person as your Commander!" A soldier of the Garrison Mansion was also within the crowd, looking enviously at the soldiers forming the barricade and maintaining order. For an ordinary soldier concerned with earning their keep like him, it was a blessing to have a leader like Junior Leopard. He was not only powerful but also forthright with his subordinates.


    The crowd kept a 10,000-feet distance away shuffled noisily as if they were watching an entertaining performance. Within the yard, Junior Leopard was oblivious to all this. He was doing his best to control his Black Sun Fist Intent.


    When the three Fire Dragons merged and swooped into the raging winds, a subtle change happened to his Black Sun Fist Intent.


    The Fire Dragon dived into the fist intent and the Black Sun Fist Intent abruptly exploded with full force. Tall flames of fire instantly enveloped the raging winds. The raging winds, originally hundreds of feet tall, became intertwined with the Black Sun Fist Intent. Its speed declined and, amid all this, a peculiar gravity emerged.


    Within the winds, Junior Leopard held the metal hammer in his hands. He gathered the few types of hammering and punching skills he knew and integrated them. When he used a move similar to one from Tai Chi Fist, the fist intent and the winds interacted. The movement of the black hammer within his hands slowed the same way a slow-motion scene in a video did. A strange but wonderful spirit emerged from his hands and from within the hammer.


    "Ooooh!"


    A silent wind blew across. The surging Black Sun Fist Intent became calm and reserved after the explosion. The hammer in his hands traveled in a strange trajectory and Junior Leopard felt a sudden jolt in his mind. As if time had come to a stop, he sank into a strangely abstruse state. The fierce Qi Power, previously strongly affected by the Black Sun Fist Intent, became calm as well. The aura transitioned into an eccentric phase and seemed to continue infinitely.


    "Hammer Spirit?!"


    When time seemed to have disappeared completely, Junior Leopard felt himself being completely one with the black hammer in his hands. The Qi Power surrounding him also merged with the hammer, including the Black Sun Fist Intent.


    This was the Hammer Spirit!


    The fist had a Fist Intent of its own, the sword its Sword Intent. The hammer, too, had its Hammer Spirit!


    He apprehended the feeling he had when he first gained insight of the hammering skill and comprehended the Hammer Spirit!


    Or perhaps he should say, he had expanded the function of the fist intent a little further beyond what he had comprehended the last time!


    Technically, his Black Sun Fist Intent and his newly comprehended Hammer Spirit could not be considered independent intents. They were merely evolved from his primitive fist intent, the imitation universe.


    The imitation universe started to release large amounts of energy, bringing him unparalleled benefits.


    With his current abilities, or in other words, even if he exhausted his entire life, it was almost impossible for him to utilize entirely the Fist Intent of his imitation universe. But as time went by, he gained power continuously, so he became able to make use of more and more parts of the imitation universe. First, the Black Sun Fist Intent, followed by the Black Hole Fist Intent, and lastly the Hammer Spirit he comprehended that day. All of these intents merely made up a tiny part of the imitation universe.


    The black sun rotated slowly, releasing endless amounts of light and heat. Apart from the black sun, a black metal sphere revolved around the black sun with a fixed frequency.


    This was a galaxy!


    A planetary system with only a star and galaxy.


    This was the simplest kind of system within the universe.


    The Fist Intent he had comprehended was a galaxy.


    Of course, within this simple system, the interactions between the star and the planet were not only things that existed. In fact, what was really operating was the huge gravity covering the entire planet.


    The fist intent that Junior Leopard had comprehended this time was different from the previous two. It not only integrated with his Internal Qi but his Divine Awareness and weapon as well.


    The black planet in orbit was formed by the trajectory of his metal hammer in motion. Within the huge gravity within the galaxy, it contained the very essence of the Tai Chi Fist.


    The metal hammer in his hands was put into motion again. This time around, he did not use the Wild Hammering Skill nor the Thirteen Punches of Desolation or the Tai Chi Fist. The hammer moved along with the gravity of the galaxy, slowly adapting to the feeling. Within the Hammer Spirit, the trajectory of the planet was changing slightly as well. Both his hammering skill and Hammer Spirit were probing each other, adapting to each other, and slowly moving toward the single final trajectory!


    "Hong!"


    The metal hammer looked as it was moving slowly, but was vibrating at high speed in actuality. The barely perceptible vibration caused the hammer to fall into its final and perfect trajectory. The foundation of the Fist Intent was thus strengthened.


    "The time is now!" Junior Leopard felt his Fist Intent solidify entirely and let out a long and deep breath. The Fist Intent had completely exceeded his expectations this time. He had only wanted to test out the hammer. He did not expect to comprehend his own Hammer Spirit out of the blue.


    With the completion of his Hammer Spirit, he was now in complete control of it!


    With such a thought, Junior Leopard made the Hammer Spirit disappear in the blink of an eye. When everything returned to normal, Junior Leopard could not help baring his teeth and cursing under his breath.


    His courtyard had been annihilated and the land he was standing on was completely flattened without a single rock intact. Everything had been reduced to dust by the raging wind, the dust on the ground forming a peculiar image surrounding him. Junior Leopard could tell the image was that of the galaxy formed by his Fist Intent, obviously formed due to the gravity from within it.


    Without thinking, Junior Leopard lifted his foot and brought it down hard. A wave of energy traveled in all directions and erased the image on the ground.


    He tried to hang the hammer on his belt behind his back but found that he could not. The hammer was no longer the pair of silver hammers he had previously. Smiling wryly, he carried the hammer in his hand and walked slowly out of the courtyard.


    He was pretty exhausted after such vigorous movements.


    "Your Excellency, you have come out!" Seeing Junior Leopard, Zhu Ba hurriedly rushed to his side. The courtyard was already destroyed, so technically there was nothing to go into or come out of. Zhu Ba only said this out of habit.


    Glancing at Zhu Ba, and then at the crowd a thousand feet away, Junior Leopard said, "What are all those people doing there? Watching a circus? Disperse them! Make them all leave!"


    "Yes, yes, yes¡­!" Zhu Ba immediately ran, waving his arms at the crowd. "Everyone, please leave! Go back to whatever you were doing. Haven''t you seen an expert before? Please leave now!"


    The crowd rapidly dispersed, with most people could not help glancing at Junior Leopard a few times as they left. It was as if they wanted to see what kind of a fearsome monster the Navy Commander of Jiang City was.


    ...


    "I''m not some fearsome monster. I have only comprehended something when I received this hammer today!" Junior Leopard patted the handle of the hammer, his face turning an odd shade. The power of this hammer was great, but it was too heavy. The weight was not a problem; the problem was finding a place to store the hammer. If he put it on a table, well, there were not many tables that could support its thousand kilogram weight. If he put it on the ground, it would most likely create a large pit on the ground. There was already a shallow pit beside his chair.


    Even with his decent cultivation level, it would still be a massive burden if he held the hammer in his hands all the time. He also had to get an excellent horse, or else he would not be able to ride a horse when he wanted to travel. He could not ask a bunch of soldiers to carry his hammer and follow him every time he wanted to go out, could he?


    That was obviously out of the question.


    For the first time since his return, Junior Leopard settled down inside the tent of the navy. He looked at his subordinates with a warm smile on his face.


    "You have all worked hard in the past few months!"


    "We have just done what we are supposed to do, sir! We are not tired!"


    "I have largely understood what is going on here. Apart from the change in the Guard of Jiang City creating some trouble for us, everything else has been handled very well. Zhu Ba, why don''t you marry your wife as soon as possible?"


    "Ah? Yes!"


    Zhu Ba did not expect that Junior Leopard would suddenly turn the focus on him. Furthermore, Junior Leopard was expressing concern about his personal matters and he was immensely grateful for it.


    "Your Excellency, it''s been so long. Supervisor Zhao should have arrived by now!"


    ''Supervisor Zhao is waiting outside the tent!" Jiang Xiao reported.


    "Let him enter!"


    "Yes!"


    The Wu Family supervisor of Jiang City, Zhao Cheng entered the tent not long after.


    "Zhao Cheng of Jiang City pays his respect to Elder Zhou!" After he entered, he bowed to Junior Leopard. However, he addressed him as an Elder instead of commander.


    The Wu Family had great power and influence which the Navy of Jiang City could never measure up to. As the supervisor of the Wu Family in Jiang City, he was of equal prestige with the city magistrate. He paid his respects to Junior Leopard only because of his position as an Elder, not for his position as navy commander.


    "I have already received the present you sent me. It''s great. I''m very happy with it!" Junior Leopard slapped the hammer beside his hand and it gave off shock waves that everyone could feel.


    "I don''t dare to claim credit for it. The Family Head ordered the present. I was only in charge of delivering it!" Zhao Cheng immediately said. In the Wu Family, he was only a lowly supervisor. For things like these, he only contributed some manual labor at most and nothing he could truly claim credit for.


    "Okay, let''s not talk about these meaningless matters. I have a question for you. Who exactly is the new Garrison? Guard Ding hadn''t even completed his term. How could he be replaced so easily? And there was no hint of the change beforehand!"


    "This..." Supervisor Zhao hesitated, glancing at the various members of the Navy of Jiang City who were watching.


    Wang Cheng and the rest were all men with years of experience. They naturally understood what he meant.


    "Your Excellency, we..."


    Wang Cheng stood up and brought his hands into a fist, wanting to excuse himself when Junior Leopard gestured for him to sit.


    "Supervisor Zhao, everyone here is my trusted subordinates. You can speak your mind here!"


    "Yes!" Since Junior Leopard had spoken, Supervisor Zhao did as asked. "The surname of the new garrison is Zheng. He was originally a guard of the Prince Ning Mansion!"


    "A guard of Prince Ning Mansion?" Junior Leopard''s eyes became focused and the expressions of the seated navy leaders became unpleasant.


    Prince Ning was the seventh prince of the current Emperor and the most outstanding and well-known of them all. He yielded a great deal of power and influence in the imperial court.


    It must be admitted that the Emperor of Qian was not only a wise person but also good at producing heirs. With sons alone, he had 18 of them. Including his daughters of all ranks, he had more than 30 children.


    The princesses were not much of an issue since they had to be married off eventually. But when there were too many sons, it was definitely troublesome.


    This was especially true in a royal family. The more the number of sons, the more the trouble. The Qian Royalty was not an exception.


    Seven of the princes had already come of age and Emperor Qian had arranged various positions for them, where they had a certain amount of authority. As they completed the tasks assigned to them, each continuously tried to expand their influence at the same time. The Crown Prince may have been long determined, but how many of those who ascended thrones were previously Crown Princes? Even the current Emperor was only a regular prince in his time. The future was unpredictable. The river may flow east for thirty years but flow west for the next thirty. These years, as the princes grew up, the struggle for power, whether covertly or overtly, happened continuously.


    None of the princes were easy to deal with. All did everything in their power to place their collaborators in important positions. Trusted subordinates had their places, servants had theirs as well. The new garrison, Zheng Xi, was Prince Ning''s guard.


    Everyone''s expression turned odd when they heard that Garrison Zheng was from the Prince Ning Mansion. The men all knew their limits. With their current power, it was impossible for the Navy of Jiang City to go against Prince Ning Mansion. They could destroy the navy with only a fraction of their power.


    "What''s a guard from the Prince Ning Mansion doing in Jiang City?"


    Supervisor Zhao smiled wryly for a brief moment as if he had some opinion about Prince Ning himself. "Looks like Prince Ning has set his eyes on Zhonghe Prefecture. Since Jiang City is the most important part of Zhonghe Prefecture, he sent Zheng Xi here to test the waters."


    "He wants to test the depth of waters here in Jiang City?"


    "Zhonghe Prefecture as well," Supervisor Zhao said. "Besides Zheng Xi, 14 other men from the Prince Ning Mansion have entered Zhonghe Prefecture. Their positions aren''t high, but like Zheng Xi, they are all placed in crucial places. I also heard that the imperial court wants to replace Admiral Li!"


    "Replace Admiral Li?" Junior Leopard could not longer keep a straight face. He started out as Li Yuan''s personal guard and his current position was thanks to him. On the surface, Li Yuan could be regarded as his backer. If Li Yuan left, he would be left without a backer. He had no friends, connections, nor understanding of the local culture in Zhonghe Prefecture. Besides, he had been rude to the Magistrate in the beginning. Once Li Yuan was gone, it would be a piece of cake for anyone to deal with him.


    "Is this news dependable?"


    "It''s very likely."


    "Damn! This is really troublesome!" Junior Leopard furrowed his brow and cursed under his breath. "Supervisor Zhao, you have a certain influence within Jiang City. Have you met Garrison Zheng? How is he?"


    "He''s much stronger than Guard Ding and quite the figure. He''s no weakling either. I heard he''s a Level Five expert!"


    "A Level Five expert coming to Jiang City to be a Garrison?" Junior Leopard was stunned, finding it unbelievable. Experts of Bone-Forging Realm were a rarity, never mind a Level Five Expert coming from Prince Ning Mansion. Garrison Zheng had more than enough qualification to be the admiral of some faraway prefecture! Why would he be assigned here to be some lowly garrison?


    "This is what we haven''t been able to understand. Zheng Xi''s cultivation level is not the highest. Among the other 14 men, even the weakest was at the peak of Level Three. The strongest was at Level Six, yet he was assigned to a lowly position in Jibei City!"


    "Interesting!" Junior Leopard rubbed his chin. He thought for a moment and asked, "What about Guard Ding? What happened to him?"


    "He has been transferred to Yun City. His position is now one level higher, but he no longer has any real power!"


    "I see!" Junior Leopard nodded.


    This time, even he could tell that Prince Ning had his schemes about Zhonghe Prefecture. But even if he had these plans, he should not have been so obvious. Was he not afraid of being discovered to make his scheme so conspicuous by sending so many experts here?


    Noticing the tense atmosphere, Zhu Ba could not help opening his mouth. "Your Excellency, we don''t have to fear him. Even if he is the Garrison of Jiang City, he has no power to take you down, does he?"


    "That''s true. But if the Admiral Li really leaves Zhonghe Prefecture and the new Admiral wants to get rid of me, he can do so in a single order!" Junior Leopard said slowly, his fingers tapping the handle of his hammer.


    "Then what should we do?" Zhu Ba asked worriedly. The expression of the leaders of the navy, including Wang Cheng, changed as well. They understood very well that they owed Junior Leopard for the position and power of the navy today. It would not be easy to get another leader who was both powerful and generous like Junior Leopard. Once he was transferred away, the navy would lose everything even with their control over River Heart Island. They would not be able to get any benefits from it and they could just forget about the docks and goods yards as well. Even if Wang Cheng became the new Navy Commander, it would be impossible to retain their control over these places.


    Therefore, they became panicked when they heard this.


    "If the Admiral leaves, who will replace him?"


    "The general of the imperial army, Wang Zheng. He''s Prince Ning''s brother-in-law!" Zhao Cheng said.


    "Looks like Prince Ning is determined to take control of Zhonghe Prefecture!" Junior Leopard smiled wryly. "Supervisor, what do you think? If the Admiral is really replaced, would Prince Ning''s men let me continue as the Navy of Jiang City of Jiang City?"


    "Of course not. Jiang City is located in a crucial position and River Heart Island is its throat. If Prince Ning really wants to exert his influence in Zhonghe Prefecture, he will never give up River Heart Island!" Zhao Cheng said.


    "This is your speculation?"


    "No, it''s the Family Head''s speculation!"

 Chapter 203: Assassination Through Poison

    Chapter 203: Assassination Through Poison


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The moon glowed faintly in the cool night.


    The lamps were all lit inside the Garrison Mansion of Jiang City, turning the surroundings as bright as daytime.


    Eminent guests occupied every corner of the Garrison''s banquet hall, making a show of happiness and prosperity. The guests toasted and goaded each other with wine, laughing cheerfully as they engaged in drinking games. This was a banquet at its most intense.


    Junior Leopard gently shook the golden cup in his hand. The aureate liquor inside the cup flickered with a golden glow, giving off a mellow scent. When it reached his nose, every facet of that scent seemed to penetrate deeply into his heart and lungs. "What on earth is this Zheng Xi thinking about?"


    The discussion last night bore no fruit. Besides Zhu Ba harping on how he wanted to teach Zheng Xi a lesson, the rest of them, including himself, had no good ideas to suggest.


    They were all aware that they were no more than an insignificant piece of the puzzle in the eyes of the high and lofty eminences. Never mind replacing a commander, it would take more than a mere word to dismantle the entire Navy of Jiang City.


    Since this matter was implicitly related to the struggle for the throne, they had no solutions no matter how they wanted to help.


    None of them were idiots. They would naturally run as far as they can from such life-threatening endeavors.


    What was beyond Junior Leopard''s expectations was the banquet invitation from the new Garrison of Jiang City after hearing about his return the next day. The other heads of the Navy, such as Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao, were also invited.


    Since he was back, there was no way for him to refuse the invitation. Therefore, he decided to attend the banquet on time. He wanted to see what kind of person this new Garrison was.


    Unexpectedly, he only managed a word and salute with Zheng Xi. The Garrison then left him aside to greet the other guests, not showing him any face.


    Junior Leopard was already prepared for this to happen. Though Zheng Xi had only been promoted not too long ago, his domineering side was apparent. He not only wanted to control the entire Army of Jiang City, but also the Navy. However, Junior Leopard was a unique existence in the Navy, making it difficult for him to do so.


    Putting aside his fearsome cultivation, Junior Leopard had brought a string of benefits to the Navy after assuming the office. That was enough to earn the loyalty of the entire Water Army Camp.


    Hence, if one wanted to control the Navy, he must first control Junior Leopard. But was Junior Leopard the kind to be so easily controlled?


    Junior Leopard understood himself best. Even if Zheng Xi''s was ranked one level higher, he wouldn''t hand over the Navy without a fight. This was especially true for the River Heart Island that he had laboriously captured. Therefore, there was completely no way for the two of them to ease their conflicting views.


    ince that was impossible, there was no need to put a show of goodwill.


    Zheng Xi didn''t plan to take any surface acting. He even wanted to suppress Junior Leopard by this dinner party. Junior Leopard naturally wouldn''t play up to Zheng Xi. Therefore, he just sat there quietly all the time, waiting for Zheng Xi to say something. Though Zhu Ba, Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao wanted to propose him a toast, they were held back by Junior Leopard''s eye expression. At last, they could only sit in the chair and drink in a gloomy mood.


    If someone wanted to make things difficult for him, they still ought to come up with an excuse, no?


    The minute Junior Leopard entered the hall, he knew what excuse Zheng Xi was going to use. That answer was Shopkeeper Ding of the Southern Bay Warehouse being seated across him, looking astonished.


    Junior Leopard had a good eyesight with a 360-degree angle of view. Therefore, though it seemed he was drinking gloomily alone, he could see everything happening in the banquet. Until now, Zheng Xi had refused to talk to him but he clearly saw Zheng Xi stealing glances at him several times. During the banquet, Zheng Xi also made eye contact with the Shopkeeper Ding from time to time. But since Junior Leopard remained quiet and didn''t toast anyone, he couldn''t find an opportunity.


    Junior Leopard secretly sneered to himself. If Zheng Xi won''t open his mouth, he would really sit here and drink from the beginning to the end. The new Garrison better not expect him to talk. He wanted to see how Zheng Xi would deal with him.


    That was his plan.


    But the problem must, in the end, be solved.


    After everyone had made a round of toasts, the dancing girls excused themselves. Shopkeeper Ding picked up his cup and staggered toward Junior Leopard.


    "Here he comes!" Junior Leopard thought.


    "Commander Zhou, don''t sit there drinking alone. Come, I''ll toast you!"


    Ding Deshui dragged his fat body before Junior Leopard, smelling strongly of alcohol. "Your honor, you must look after our warehouse properly from now on! You can''t give us a hard time as you did before!"


    Junior Leopard smiled and picked up his cup. Their cups touched and he downed his wine. He still said nothing and didn''t even look at Shopkeeper Ding.


    Ding Deshui was an experienced man. Facing such a situation, he merely chuckled and finished the wine in his cup. He returned to his seat without another word.


    "Hold on, please. What did you say just now. Shopkeeper Ding? Why I haven''t heard about any news that someone dares to obstruct you in Jiang City?"


    The minute Zheng Xi''s voice rang, the noisy hall fell into silence. Those who received invitations were all well-known people in Jiang City. They were, of course, no less well-informed than Junior Leopard. They naturally understood the power struggle between Junior Leopard and Zheng Xi. Besides, it was only to be expected that a new official would implement strict new policies. Zheng Xi was Junior Leopard''s immediate superior and before he even gained a firm foothold in Jiang City, he already had threatened to withdraw Junior Leopard''s authority in public several times. Even an idiot could tell there was a great conflict of profit between them.


    The only reason the conflict had not reared its ugly head was Junior Leopard''s absence. The minute he returned, Zheng Xi threw a banquet and invited so many influential people in the city. Besides fame, those people had another thing in common: They had planned to occupy the port of the River Heart Island once. They had, more or less, conflicts of interest with Junior Leopard. But due to his strength, few dared to provoke him.


    Now Zheng Xi was here and even invited them to this banquet. He obviously wanted to support them and crack down on Junior Leopard. If not, why didn''t he invite Supervisor Zhao of the Wu Family?


    When they saw Shopkeeper Ding standing up, they knew the climax of the show was coming. Unexpectedly, Junior Leopard didn''t answer at all. While they were feeling disappointed, the new Garrison held up the end of the conversation. How could anyone still be ignorant of Zheng Xi''s intention? He wanted to take this opportunity to suppress Zhou Bao.


    When he heard Zheng Xi''s question, Shopkeeper Ding immediately answered with a bow, "Oh, it''s just a small understanding! I wouldn''t dare bother Your Excellency with such affairs."


    "What kind of words are those? Small or large, misunderstandings are still misunderstandings. We should clear them up. I''m the Garrison of Jiang City. All military affairs within the city are in my jurisdiction, including the Navy. You can tell me about the misunderstanding. Perhaps I can solve it for you."


    "Er..." When Shopkeeper Ding heard this, a conflicted expression crossed his face and he turned to Junior Leopard with a pleading look.


    Could this two-man show get any more obvious? Junior Leopard sneered. He then saluted Zheng Xi and said, "Your Excellency, I''m afraid it won''t be easy to clear up this misunderstanding!"


    "Oh? Not easy? Are there any misunderstandings in Jiang City that will be too difficult for you?" Zheng Zi''s face turned joyful when he heard Junior Leopard answering as if he had succeeded in a trickery.


    "Of course! I suspect the Southern Bay Warehouse is colluding with the water bandits in Luo River, so I ordered my brothers to examine them carefully every time. I didn''t think the guilty party will come complaining to Your Excellency first. How evil!"


    Ding! A crisp sound reverberated in the hall. Within the banquet, someone couldn''t hold onto his cup and accidentally dropped it. The sound of the cup hitting the ground became the only noise audible in the hall.


    Everyone looked at each other in speechless despair. No one expected these words to come out of Junior Leopard.


    That included Zheng Xi and Shopkeeper Ding. Their smiles froze on their face and neither knew how to respond.


    Shopkeeper Ding didn''t react until several minutes later. "I''m innocent, Your Excellency. That''s not true! How can we collude with water bandits? You really do me wrong! Mr. Zhou, please don''t frame me. We at the Southern Bay Warehouse do a clean and proper business with our conscience. You accuse us of collusion with the water bandits, but do you have any evidence? If you don''t, we won''t leave the matter at that."


    "Shopkeeper Ding, you should listen carefully. I said I suspected, not that I was certain. It''s exactly because I have no evidence that I tolerated your warehouse. If I have evidence, do you think you will have a chance to speak here?"


    "You... !"


    Experienced as he was, Junior Leopard''s fallacious argument made Shopkeeper Ding tremble with anger. He stared at Junior Leopard, speechless for quite a while.


    Junior Leopard sneered even more openly. He gently picked up his cup and drank from it. He turned to Zheng Xi and said, "This wine is truly delicate! Here''s to you, Your Excellency."


    Zheng Xi''s expression darkened but he still raised his cup and drank. "Mr. Zhou, I accept your toast. But we must solve the problem. You''re the Navy Commander of Jiang City, so your words represent not only yourself but also the whole Navy. You said you suspect the Southern Bay Warehouse of collusion with the water bandits. We can''t take your word alone for such an accusation. Like what Shopkeeper Ding said earlier, you need evidence! If you don''t have any, you can''t say nonsense. If it''s just a suspicion, investigate it first. When you have evidence, then we can talk!"


    "It''s not me who brought this up. It''s Shopkeeper Ding who forced me to speak, no? He said my navy brothers obstructed him and Your Excellency also asked. You''re the Garrison. How dare I refuse to answer or lie to you?"


    Junior Leopard smiled, skilfully deflecting Zheng Xi''s words. Zheng Xi''s expression shifted and his grip on his cup tightened. He raised his hand, about to smash the cup.


    "Your Excellency!" Seeing Zheng Xi''s impending rage, the guests had a change in expression. The one sitting beside Zheng Xi immediately stood up, wanting to stop him. But he had barely said two words when someone interrupted him.


    "What''s wrong, Your Excellency?" Junior Leopard''s expression shifted and he stood up. He didn''t move, but he stared in Zheng Xi in astonishment. The other guests also sensed something was off. They could see Zheng Xi remained still with his hand raised and anger frozen on his face. Yet the brightness in his eyes had gradually dissipated and turning inane. Dark red blood was spewing from the seven apertures of his head, emitting bursts of fishy odor.


    Junior Leopard''s expression shifted sharply and he immediately covered his nose with his sleeve. "Everyone, stop breathing! There''s poison in the air!"


    People were stricken dumb with a series of shocks. They didn''t realize the urgent situation until they sniffed the fishy odor and their heads began to spin. Only then did they cover their noses and mouths. Some were so frightened that they left their seats and was about to run out of the hall.


    "Men, block the hall! Don''t let anyone leave!''


    When he saw people escaping, Junior Leopard barked his order with Internal Qi. It made his voice sound thunderous.


    A group of soldiers rushed in from outside the hall. In the beginning, they didn''t realize what was going on but their expressions turned sharp when they saw the scene inside. With their unsheathed saber emitting chilling light, they stood in a line and blocked the entrance.


    The guests who wanted to flee were forced to return to their seats, no matter how scared they were.


    "P...Poison! There''s poison here!"


    The poison came from Mr. Zheng''s blood. It''s not that strong! We''ll be alright!" said the man who tried to stop Zheng Xi from smashing his cup earlier. He covered his nose and stood beside Zheng Xi''s corpse with a deadpan face.


    "I''m really so sorry. It happened all of a sudden and Mr. Zheng has been killed. I''m afraid you all must stay in the Garrison Mansion tonight."


    Zhu Ba stood up with a rush and bellowed, "What did you say?!"


    "Sit down!" Junior Leopard reprimanded Zhu Ba, glaring at him. Zhu Ba felt a stream of chill rushing to his head from his spine. He immediately sat down, not daring to say another word.


    "Thanks a lot, Mr. Zhou!"


    "Never mind, it''s my duty." Junior Leopard saluted him. He learned from Jiang Xiao that he was called Cao Wenxiang. He came with Zheng Xi from the capital city. He was probably something like an assistant to Zheng Xi, who apparently greatly trusted him and allowed him to handle all affairs in the Garrison Mansion.


    "Men, immediately gather all the cooks, maids, servants, and other related personnel from the kitchen and bring them to the backyard. And those dancing girls too! Leave no one behind!"


    Yes!" Several soldiers rushed toward the kitchen.


    "Everyone, please relax. I''m Cao Wenxiang and I''m not trying to make things difficult for anyone. But our Garrison has just been killed and we''re all witnesses. To put it crudely, everyone, including me, can be the suspect. I kept everyone here so we can prove your innocence as soon as possible!"


    "Yes, it should be so!" Shopkeeper Ding of Southern Bay Warehouse answered repeatedly. He still covered his nose with his hands and dared not to take them away. So did people around him. They were all afraid that once they loosened their hands, they would be killed by the poison gas.


    The hall then fell into a silent atmosphere. After a while, a soldier of the Garrison Mansion came in and walked up to Cao Wenxiang. He wrapped his fist with his other hand and said, "Your Excellency, everybody has been detained in the backyard. Please give us your order!"


    Cao Wenxiang waved his hands and said feebly, "Invite the Magistrate here!"


    People gradually came to their senses. Some returned to the seats, while others gathered together and started whispering. Everyone appeared gloomy, some even exasperated. None of them were idiots and they naturally understood what the present situation meant. An imperial court official had been assassinated by poison in his own banquet. How terrifying! They were the unfortunate people caught in the wrong place.


    It was impossible for them to rid themselves of the suspicion. They had no idea what the outcome of the investigation would be. They could only submit to the will of the heaven.


    Junior Leopard remained seated where he was, his face gruesome. Chilling light glinted in his eyes as he glanced at people from time to time as if he was selecting someone to devour. Everyone who found themselves in his glance trembled. They felt as if his glance saw through them and they had no feeling of security left.


    Luckily, this condition didn''t last long. They heard a flurry of noise when the Magistrate came in.


    "How could this happen? He was just fine during the day!"


    When the Magistrate entered the hall, the blood spewing from the seven apertures in Zheng Xi''s head had all dried up. The dried blood stuck to his face, forming pieces of red stain. It made him look even more ferocious and terrifying.


    The Magistrate was a scholar. He rarely saw dead animals, let alone dead people. When he suddenly saw Zheng Xi''s horrible appearance, he couldn''t help quivering and taking a few steps backward. He slowly approached the corpse, muttering under his breath like he was chanting scriptures.


    "Your Excellency, our Garrison was abruptly poisoned to death. There are many suspicious aspects in this affair. Please help us come to a conclusion!" Seeing the Magistrate was here, Cao Wenxiang dared not to slight him and stepped forward to give salute him.


    "I know, I know! I''ll help you come to a conclusion!" The Magistrate didn''t actually have any ideas when confronted with such a circumstance. When he noticed Junior Leopard, he acted like he found his savior. "Commander Zhou! Thank God, you''re here! Thank God! What do you think happened here?"


    Junior Leopard couldn''t help rolling his eyes. What kind of words were those coming from a Magistrate?


    Nevertheless, he stepped forward with a wry smile. "Your Excellency, I''m also confused about what happened earlier. Today, the Garrison held a banquet to entertain the guests here. Everything was fine until His Excellency''s sudden death. We didn''t expect he''d be poisoned and die before finishing his words. We''re all feeling at a loss now!"


    "If you''re feeling at a loss, then what are you still doing here and not investigating? Hurry up and go!"


    "What? You want me to investigate?" Junior Leopard was truly surprised. "Your Excellency, this..."


    Cao Wenxiang interrupted in a panic, "Your Excellency. this isn''t appropriate!"


    "Inappropriate? Why?"


    The Magistrate was frowning.


    "This..." Cao Wenxiang looked at the Magistrate with a conflicted expression, before glancing at the stony-faced Junior Leopard. "Your Excellency, everyone''s a suspect here in the Garrison''s sudden death. If you get Commander Zhou to investigate, I think, well, that''s not very appropriate?"


    "You effeminate scoundrel, what are you implying?!" Zhu Ba immediately jumped up in anger and pointed at Cao Wenxiang when he heard these words. He was about to punch him.


    Thud! Before he could throw his punch, he has knocked away.


    "Sit there quietly!" Junior Leopard said coldly. Zhu Ba picked himself up from the ground and harumph. He then stayed quietly behind Junior Leopard. Though he said nothing, he shot Cao Wenxiang the occasional dirty look.


    "Your Excellency, I think Mr. Cao has his point. Since the Garrison came to a violent death, everyone present is a suspect. It''s therefore inappropriate for me to do the investigation. Your Excellency, please appoint some other people!"


    "This..." The Magistrate hesitated, but immediately laughed as an idea came to him. "Commander Zhou, you worry too much. You''re an imperial court official and the Navy Commander. How can you poison the Garrison? I think..."


    "This is really inappropriate!" Junior Leopard replied resolutely. "I''m only a Navy Commander. Investigations are none of my business, let alone the fact that I''m a suspect for now. If I take charge now, it may be impossible for me to prove my innocence!"


    There was nothing else the Magistrate could say when Junior Leopard was being so resolute, so he said, "Then, how do you think we should handle this?"


    Junior Leopard really wanted to kick this Magistrate to death. He was so obviously trying to stay out of this matter but the Magistrate kept pushing it to him!


    Junior Leopard fought back his urge to kick the Magistrate and replied in a voice as gentle as possible, "Your Excellency, this happened so suddenly that I don''t have any ideas either."


    "Your Excellency, why don''t we ask everyone to move to the backyard first? We can have the people from the County Administration to investigate everyone until we find the murderer!" Cao Wenxiang suggested.


    "What if you can''t find the murderer? Then are we supposed to stay in your backyard forever?!"


    Someone from within the crowd raised an opposing opinion and continued, "Your Excellency, since the Garrison was poisoned to death, the problem must come from the wine and food. What''s more, all of us ate the same food and drank the same wine, yet only he was poisoned. If I speculate correctly, the servants who served his wine or the cooks are the most suspicious. We didn''t even have the chance to leave our seats, so how can we have the opportunity to poison him? I hope Your Excellency will consider this!"


    The one who spoke had an imposing aura and impressive appearance. He had a small beard under his chin and handsome facial features. Junior Leopard smiled inwardly when he recognized it to be Wang Peng, the brother-in-law of the Magistrate. His younger sister was the Magistrate''s favorite concubine. Relying on the Magistrate''s influence, he opened up several cloth shops and silk goods shops. The businessmen in the city all tolerated him for the Magistrate''s sake, so his business went very well in recent years and he gradually made a name for himself.


    "No, it couldn''t be!"


    "His deduction is reasonable!"


    Cao Wenxiang and Junior Leopard started talking at almost the same time, but their words were complete opposites. They stared at each other.


    "Mr. Cao, I think Mr. Wang''s words really made sense. Why couldn''t it be?" Junior Leopard was smiling yet his killing intent was glinting in the deep of his gentle and warm gaze.

 Chapter 204: Respond Leisurely

    Chapter 204: Respond Leisurely


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Everything is gone after death!


    Zheng Xi''s death was beyond everyone''s expectation. That included not only the fact of his death, but also the reason of his death.


    A Garrison of the city was poisoned to death within three months of him taking office!


    It was a rare fantastic story in even the whole Great Jin, let alone in Jiang City.


    "Terrifying! Really terrifying! How can an imperial court official be killed like that in just three months! Where is the justice? Where is the fair?"


    Prince Ning Mansion, the Capital City.


    The angry growl spread all over the Prince''s Mansion. All of the servants and maids shrunk and lowered their heads, they even didn''t dare to breathe heavily but murmured in their hearts, "I wonder which unlucky guy has irritated His Royal Highness. It seems that His Royal Highness is going to kill him. How terrible!"


    "Your Royal Highness, that''s really odd. I think we''d better give the matter some further thought and discuss it later!"


    "Give the matter some further thought and discuss it later? Since Zheng Xi has already been killed, is there any sense in giving further thoughts and discussing it later?"


    Prince Ning had a handsome face and was of a great stature. Even when he was calm, an august temperament would be revealed from his eyes and brows. However, now that he was angry, that temperament became more and more imposing. The entire lobby was covered by a surgent rage. The people in the lobby could only keep quiet out of fear.


    But that intellectual in white who suggested Prince Ning give the matter some further thought and to discuss it later was perfectly calm and collected. He turned a blind eye and coldly looked on until Prince Ning gradually cooled down, "Your Royal Highness, Zheng Xi has been poisoned to death by a peculiar venom. Even if we want to investigate right now, we have no way to start!"


    "Have no way to start? Do you think I''m that stupid? The one who will earn the most profit from Zheng Xi''s death has is the most suspicious. Go and arrest those who are most likely to earn a profit and investigate them one by one. I don''t believe I still won''t obtain any results!"


    "It''s infeasible to do so!"


    "Infeasible? Why?" Prince Ning roared, like an irritated male lion.


    "Zheng Xi''s death benefits Zhou Bao, the commander of the Navy of Jiang City, the most. But it''s difficult for us to cope with him.


    "Well, he''s just a commander of the Navy of Jiang City, how hard can he be to cope with?"


    "Your Royal Highness, Zhou Bao is not only a commander of the Navy of Jiang City but also an Outer Core Elder of the Wu Family in Yunzhou. What''s more, he has a close relationship with Wang She." the intellectual in white said gently, "Most important of all, his own strength is no weaker than a common Level Seven expert. The Level Seven expert Dragon Granny of the Meng Family in Ningzhou was bombarded to death by him in public. Your Royal Highness may have heard about it before."


    "It''s him!" Prince Ning changed his expression, then he astringed his flaming Qi Power, "Yeah, I remember, it''s him, the commander of the Navy of Jiang City."


    Junior Leopard didn''t have many opportunities to push himself forward in Jianghu. To be exact, the only resounding affair he made was to slay Dragon Granny with a Level Four cultivation when he came to Jiang City. Such an example had never been heard of in the martial arts world, thus he was famous in Jianghu till now. However, a man in Jianghu would remember more firmly that he was an Elder of the Wu Family and had a close relationship with Wang She. As for his identification of a commander of the Navy of Jiang City, people used to ignore it as it was really not worth mentioning.


    And so did Prince Ning. But he was reminded by his scholar who named Yuanzhi.


    "So Yuanzhi, in your opinion, Zheng Xi''s death benefits Zhou Bao the most. Will he be the murderer?"


    "In a sense, he has enough reason to kill Zheng Xi due to his profit being rooted so deeply in Jiang City. The Navy of Jiang City has already been in his control. He has occupied 60% of the whole profit in Luo River. Zheng Xi''s office violated much of his interest. Yet he still has little possibility to be the murderer."


    "What''s the reason?"


    "According to our information, Zhou Bao wasn''t in Jiang City when Zheng Xi took his office. He left for Shuzhou and didn''t come back until the day prior to Zheng Xi''s death. When he came back, he didn''t even know that the Garrison of Jiang City had been changed."


    "Shuzhou?" Prince Ning raised his eyebrows, "Did he go to Shuzhou for the Golden Goose Cup?"


    "I suppose yes. But he returned without accomplishing anything, just like most people."


    "To get to Yuezhou from Zhonghe City, Shuzhou is the only way. Do you think..."


    "That''s impossible. It takes at least 6 months when someone goes to Shuzhou from Zhonghe City and then goes to South Yuezhou State from Shuzhou. But he only left two months before, that''s just enough to go to Shuzhou from Zhonghe Prefecture and then go back."


    "What if he has a swift horse or possesses an advanced Lightness Skill? Don''t forget, though he''s only Level Four, he has killed a Level Seven expert before."


    From Yuezhou to Zhonghe Prefecture, only two horses in Great Jin can finish such a tour in just two months. It''s impossible for us to not know anything if there''s one more such horse in the world. As for Lightness Skills..." Yuanzhi paused and smiled, "Your Royal Highness, you yourself as an expert, are clearer than me that Lightness Skills have a limit. In those days when Xue Wuya was chased by Lu Shaoyou to thousands of miles away, he spent three months escaping to Yunzhou from the West County of Yangzhou. The distance between South Yuezhou State and Zhonghe Prefecture is even longer than that. It''s impossible for him to do so."


    "So in your opinion, what happened in Yuezhou is none of his business?"


    "What happened in Yuezhou is definitely none of his business. Moreover, I think, neither does Zheng Xi''s death."


    "Why are you so sure?"


    "I''ve said that he had just been back the night before. Even if he schemed immediately, there was not enough time. What''s more, generally speaking, when faced with a new superior, no matter how he seems to be, you definitely will try to contact him first, right? Granted that he has a prejudice against you, you should try to alleviate the disparities. At last, if you find it''s impossible for you to ease your relation, you should spend time weighing the gains and losses and scheme carefully. How should he kill Zheng Xi directly, even before their further communication? More importantly, Zheng Xi was poisoned to death. Though Zhou Bao has some weird martial arts, I''ve never heard that he has skills in poisoning." "The Wu Family in Yunzhou has kept their foothold in the world for 500 years, yet they have no expert with skills in poisoning. Additionally, Zheng Xi is a Level Five expert, the common venom cannot catch him. The venom Zheng Xi suffered is extremely rare and even Physician Sun couldn''t distinguish it. If he didn''t scheme it for long and deliberately planned, how could he find such rare venom?"


    "Schemed it for long? Deliberately planned?" Prince Ning stared somewhere in the lobby, the intention to kill surged in his eyes, "You mean, it''s none of Jiang City''s business."


    "A small place like Jiang City cannot arrange such a composition!" Yuanzhi shook his head, "Neither could Zhou Bao, therefore..."


    "Therefore, it''s one of my several nice brothers who did it!"


    "Besides them, there''s no one else," Yuanzhi said softly.


    "Which one is the most likely to do so?"


    "Everyone!"


    "Should I just let it go?"


    "Of course not! Since it has already involved other Royal Highnesses, we have no choice but to give the matter some further thought and discuss it later. Your Royal Highness, our urgent affairs are not to find out the identity of the murderer, but to focus on Zhonghe City. Zheng Xi is just a nobody and the imperial court will take charge of his death. As for the position, we can send another person there, it''s not a big deal. What matters is the overall situation, Your Royal Highness. We can''t procrastinate on it."


    "Yes, your words make sense. What matters is the overall situation! We can''t procrastinate on the overall situation because of Zheng Xi. How rubbish he is!" Prince Ning nodded his head, "So Yuanzhi, in your opinion, is it possible for us to draw Zhou Bao over?"


    "It was possible one year ago. But now, Zhou Bao has become an Outer Core Elder of Wu Family, and his identity is a bit sensitive. So we''d better not to have designs on him."


    "Well, there is nothing else we can do." Prince Ning sighed softly, "So who should be sent to Jiang City this time?"


    "With so many followers, I''m sure Your Royal Highness must have your consideration of the most suitable person... So, Yuanzhi asks for my leave."


    Yuanzhi made an obeisance and then left.


    "Your Royal Highness!" The other people in the lobby didn''t regain control of themselves until they saw Yuanzhi come out and disappear in the flowering shrub of the yard, "Your Royal Highness, Chen Yuanzhi..."


    "His words make sense. Just do as he said." Prince Ning waved his hands softly. He seemed to be a little tired.


    ...


    ...


    "Your Excellency, how unexpected that Zheng Xi should die easily. His death profits us a lot!"


    The navy barrack, Jiang City.


    There was the excited voice of Zhu Ba.


    It had been two months since Zheng Xi had died from poisoning. After the initial shock and various kinds of conjecture, all went quiet.


    A Garrison appointed by the imperial court was poisoned to death in three months, that definitely would become a resounding affair. Zheng Xi was not only a subordinate of Prince Ning, he was also an imperial court official. Such accidents really shamed the imperial court. Therefore the ministry of penalty organized the smartest official team of Investigative Bureau to investigate the matter in Jiang City.


    As the one who won the most benefit from Zheng Xi''s death, Junior Leopard was regarded as a key suspect. But as what Chen Yuanzhi had analyzed before in Prince Ning''s Mansion, the Investigative Bureau disregarded Junior Leopard after the investigation and analysis.


    So Junior Leopard was free to solve the problem of River Heart Island.


    He had a presentiment that he may lose the position of being a commander of the Navy of Jiang City before long. Though Zheng Xi had died, the imperial court would send someone else to take the office. Moreover, from the full fury when Prince Ning broke in, he must be going to send another person to replace Zheng Xi. Now that Li Yuan had been transferred, it was impossible for him to be a commander of the Navy of Jiang City since he had lost his backer in Jiang City.


    But it didn''t mean that he would just give up his interest in River Heart Island.


    Zheng Xi''s death earned him precious time to manipulate everything.


    At first, the permanent status of the dock of Broken Dragon Beach in River Heart Island has put on the agenda again. Previously, because of Junior Leopard''s might, no one dared to have any such designs on the dock. However, they had always cast their covetous eyes on it.


    When he came back from the Garrison Mansion, Junior Leopard began to loosen his control on the dock. He also asked the shopkeeper Zhao to add fuel to the fire. Therefore within one day, all of the well-informed people in Jiang City knew that Junior Leopard and the Navy of Jiang City were about to give up the dock.


    Actually, it wasn''t beyond people''s expectations. Prince Ning''s mighty intervention informed them all that Junior Leopard couldn''t remain here for long. Since it was so, he''d better rake it in before he left.


    But little did they expect that while Junior Leopard loosened control, he didn''t give up the benefit, rather he took complete charge of River Heart Island another way.


    The right of controlling River Heart Island''s dock was delivered to the chamber of commerce in Jiang City from the Navy of Jiang City. The chamber of commerce in Jiang City bought a centurial right to use the dock, as is done in the other docks of Jiang City. The only difference was that a new name, Anyuan Store, appeared in the core member list of the chamber of commerce in Jiang City.


    Anyuan Store!


    It was named by Junior Leopard. In the third day after Zheng Xi''s death, a small warehouse was quietly opened in Jiang City. It started the business without any sound and no one knew it was Junior Leopard that opened it. Additionally, no one knew that the owners were all of the soldiers of the Navy of Jiang City. In this small warehouse, Junior Leopard had a 15% share, the leaders of the Navy of Jiang City, such as Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao, Zhu Ba, Wang Datong and Yuan Long, each occupied a 5% share, and the rest share belonged to other soldiers of the Navy of Jiang City. As a matter of fact, except for Junior Leopard, Wang Cheng and the rest of the leaders, no one knew about it, including all of the soldiers of the Navy of Jiang City.


    This news was not announced until Zhu Ba got married five days later when each of the influencers in Jiang City began to learn that there was one more competitor vying for a share of Jiang City''s huge interest. More importantly, this competitor was much stronger than most. And till now, they figured out why Junior Leopard would willingly loosen his control towards the dock of River Heart Island and even towards the warehouse. Basically, he had just transferred the interest to the right hand from the left.


    And this transfer changed the whole situation a lot.


    Anyuan Store was only a warehouse and shop, just the same as any other shop which gained benefit from Jiang City''s River Heart Island. Compared with before, the only difference lay on the proportion. Previously, the Navy of Jiang City occupied the profit on their own, but now all shops could share the profit. After transferring, Junior Leopard had shared his joys and sorrows with several of the most powerful shops in Jiang City. They became a community of shared interests.


    Being members of the Chamber of Commerce in Jiang City, they were all glad to have such a powerful partner. Since Anyuan Store was closely bound up to the Navy of Jiang City, which took control of the shipping and was faintly in connection with some powerful water bandits on Luo River, the Chamber of Commerce in Jiang City would definitely like to accept it. What a ready-made protective umbrella the Anyuan Store was.


    What was more, Anyuan Store belonged not to Junior Leopard himself, but the whole Navy of Jiang City. A Navy Commander could be changed, but how could the people of the Navy of Jiang City all be changed?


    Could it be possible?


    Since that was the case, even if Junior Leopard wasn''t a commander of the Navy of Jiang City any longer, all of the navy in Jiang City would never let this situation be changed for the sake of their own benefits.


    Thus accepting Anyuan Store meant adding insurance on Luo River for both themselves and the Chamber of Commerce in Jiang City. In this way, fear of attacks from behind would never appear when ships of the Chamber of Commerce went to and from the docks to the warehouses of River Heart Island on Luo River.


    That was the reason why Zhu Ba cried out in excitement in the barrack of the Navy of Jiang City. After all, after everything was done and affirmed, the people all earned huge benefits.


    Additionally, Zhu Ba happened to be a bridegroom when he earned a great estate, of course, he became very excited.


    "Shut up! I have told you untold times not to mention Zheng Xi. Zheng Xi''s death is none of our business!" Junior Leopard scolded him, but could not hide the smile on his face.


    Because Zheng Xi was dead and the new Guard of Jiang City hadn''t assumed office yet, Junior Leopard had enough time to handle all of the affairs. If Zheng Xi had remained there, he wouldn''t be able to carry it on successfully. After all, being a Garrison of Jiang City, Zheng Xi did have a voice in the proprietorial right of the dock. What was more, he had come to Jiang City with Prince Ning''s mission. Taking control of River Heart Island would have helped Prince Ning''s mission a lot. But now, Zheng Xi had died and Junior Leopard could easily draw each powerful influence in Jiang City over and tie them up with profit. In this way, even if the new Garrison was here, he would lose his bearings.


    Basically, a Garrison is only a military supervisor. If he butted too much into local affairs, he would violate a taboo.


    "Your Excellency, you''re really going away?"


    Though being scolded by Junior Leopard, Zhu Ba didn''t feel upset. On the contrary, his face was filled with a flattering smile.


    "Your Admiral has written to me that he must leave Zhonghe Prefecture. He has asked me to leave with him." When referring to this affair, Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows. He actually also felt very unsatisfied about it. But under such circumstances, he had no other choice. As soon as the new Admiral arrived here, the commander of the Navy of Jiang City had to be changed. There was no sense for him to prop up here. It was better to go back to follow Li Yuan than being a featherbed after the new arrival. With a mighty Admiral supporting him, the prospects would be brighter."


    "Then I''ll go with you, Your Excellency!" Zhu Ba shouted. It was not long since Junior Leopard came to Jiang City, but he gained the maximum benefits. All the time Junior Leopard regarded him with special attention. Even though he was reckless, he wasn''t an idiot. Junior Leopard was young, but his future was promising. There wasn''t any harm but some benefits for Zhu Ba to follow him. At least it was better than staying in Jiang City.


    Who knew what the new Navy Commander looked like! If he couldn''t get along well with him, he''d better leave here as early as possible.


    "What the hell are you talking about? You know the heaven is high and the Emperor is far away in Jiang City. If I serve the general by his side, I''m only a common guard. There are so many people above me while few under me. You will earn no benefit if you follow me!" Junior Leopard glared at him and cursed, "Just stay in Jiang City honestly and help Commander Wang to take charge of this area. I promise that you''ll gain a lot."


    "Gain a lot? What kind of profit?" Hearing that he could gain a lot, Zhu Ba became very excited. He had become more and more ambitious because of Junior Leopard''s generosity, and wouldn''t be satisfied with ordinary goods as such.


    "Shut up! Don''t make a fool of yourself here!" Junior Leopard waved his hand and said to Wang Cheng and the rest when he turned back. "Affairs in Jiang City are neither complex nor simple. We need to get along well with the bosses of the Chamber of Commerce in Jiang City and our county leader. As long as we obey the rules and don''t violate the laws in Jin, no one can run against us. As for those county leaders in Multiple Chain Dock, you''re more familiar with them than me. Therefore if the new commander does want to look for trouble, you know what to do!"


    Wang Cheng and the rest all laughed tacitly, they answered together, "Brilliant, Your Excellency."


    ...


    The turbulent weather crashed its way through Luo River. It had rained for several days and that led to a flood tide. The water-level rose sharply. The water beside the River Heart Island rose almost to the port. These days, because of the turbulent river, the whole water transport in Jiang City was in a state of emergency. So there were many shipwrecks on Broken Dragon Beach. The ports on River Heart Island were all in a mess. But they were no longer Junior Leopard''s business now.


    The Navy Commander would take office tomorrow, and he was going to leave today.


    He wasn''t willing to associate with the new commander. Actually, there was little he could change. The specific affairs of the Navy of Jiang City were in Wang Cheng''s charge. He was innocent.


    He remembered clearly that Zheng Xi was poisoned by him, with the Demon Devil Needles and invisible venom.


    ...


    It seemed to be complex while it was simple.


    Junior Leopard didn''t want to give up his profit, neither did he want to clash with Zheng Xi. Therefore he employed a way which was the most extreme and direct, and, at the same time, the least suspicious.


    Just as what Chen Yuanzhi analyzed in Prince Ning Mansion, no one thought he would kill his boss on the first day when he returned. That was illogical.


    But Junior Leopard did. He did such a totally illogical thing. This earned him precious time to peel out his profit from the position of Navy Commander to the satisfaction of all.


    Since what happened in Jiang City had come to a conclusion, there was no need for him to stay here, in case of new problems cropped up unexpectedly.


    Li Yuan stated clearly in the letter to Junior Leopard that his transfer from Zhonghe City was not a flat regulation transfer but a promotion, he needed helpers. Junior Leopard performed well in Jiang City and presented formidable competence and leadership. More importantly, Junior Leopard''s power was equal to a Level Seven expert now, so he appreciated Junior Leopard very much. Only if Junior Leopard went to follow him, would he definitely put Junior Leopard in an important position?


    To that, Junior Leopard just dismissed it with a laugh. Though he was only Level Four, he had proved to the world that he could bombard a Level Seven expert to death, with a bitter fact.


    No one would refuse to make a Level Seven expert his subordinate, no matter who he was. Li Yuan was no exception.


    Actually, except for Li Yuan, he also received several secret letters, all of which were aimed at canvassing him. Although he was an Outer Core Elder of the Wu Family, all of the influences which sent letters to canvas him were stronger than the Wu Family. They also provided better treatment than the Wu Family.


    But Junior Leopard was not satisfied with it. The treatment and advantage they promised were indeed better and more than what the Wu Family provided. But if he deserted the Wu Family and swore allegiance to other schools for such petty favors, his reputation in Jianghu would be ruined. What was more, with Anyuan Store in his hand, he could gain more and more benefit in the future. Hence he didn''t care about their invitations at all.


    "Well, Little Du, we''d better go to find Admiral Li to see if he''ll give me a surprise!"


    Staring at the rushing river, Junior Leopard softly touched the silvery fur on Little Du''s neck and said.

 Chapter 205: Everlasting Merit

    Chapter 205: Everlasting Merit


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "How do you feel? You''ve been the Navy Commander for a few months, holding the fates of hundreds of men in your hands and controlling the entire water route. Do you feel like you have an entire empire within your grasp?"


    "It''s nice to have authority, but it''s something given and can be withdrawn at any moment no matter how great it is. I feel very anxious holding it." Junior Leopard looked at a smiling Li Yuan and returned with a wry smile. "Thank you, Your Excellency, for giving me this chance to train myself. During my time in Jiang City, I didn''t only broaden my horizon but also nourished my soul. Authority is an illusion, only personal strength is the most substantial!"


    "Good!" Li Yuan said repeatedly. "Zhou Bao, it''s great that you have such a thought. After doing so many things in Jiang City and gaining so many benefits, I''m afraid you''ll be lost in your pursuit of power and hinder your own cultivation!" He paused to have a small sigh. "Back then, I didn''t consider this properly. In the end, all I did benefitted some other people instead of myself!"


    "You''re now the Conquering West General in charge of military affairs of an entire state. You have great power in your hands. You''re unlike me, who''s a lowly Navy Commander!"


    "Hahaha! This brat, after all that talk, you still think your power is too small!"


    "You must be kidding, Your Excellency. I''ve already decided to cultivate in martial arts after my trip to Jiang City. The path of a fighter is what I should be walking on, instead of getting myself involved in court politics. I don''t have the ability nor the capital to fight with others!"


    "That''s not a bad choice. You''re already a Level Seven expert at your age. If you put your heart into it, your future will be immeasurable!"


    "You exaggerate, Your Excellency. I''m only at Level Four cultivation!"


    "A Level Four cultivation, with the battle prowess of Level Seven. With your wolf beside you, I''m afraid any other Level Seven expert will run when they see you."


    Li Yuan''s words carried a hint of respect, making Junior Leopard extremely comfortable. Yet he said, "I''ll never be an expert unless I reach Level Seven cultivation. I wouldn''t have won so easily against Dragon Granny if she hadn''t underestimated her opponent!"


    "Whether it''s a strong person or an expert, I won''t argue with you. Either way, you''re now the strongest asset in my hands. Therefore, you should also receive the best treatment. Now that I''m in charge of the military affairs of the state, I have several good positions. You''re still young so it''s impossible for me to make you an Admiral. But you can be the Garrison in various counties!"


    "Thanks for your gift, Your Excellency. However, if you don''t mind, let me stay beside you and serve in your personal guard camp, just like the old times!"


    "Won''t I be disgracing you to let you stay there?!" Li Yuan laughed helplessly. "You''re someone with the battle prowess of a Level Seven expert!"


    "You must be joking. It''s not humiliating to serve beside you!" Junior Leopard laughed. "Besides, being your personal guard means I''ll have plenty of free time. These few years are the crucial period for cultivating martial arts. I need large amounts of personal time to cultivate. If you give me a heavy responsibility, my cultivation will be hindered. Hence, Your Excellency, please do a good deed and allow me to return to the personal guard camp!"


    "You, this brat...!" Li Yuan helplessly waved his hand. "If that''s the case, then come back. It so happens that I released Wang Lei recently and made Qi Fei the Camp Supervisor. He doesn''t have a deputy yet. Since you''ll come back, then you can take the position!"


    "No way! Your Excellency, just let me be a personal guard. A deputy needs to manage a lot of things!"


    "We''ll just decide as such. The personal guard camp isn''t all that different from the Jianghu; one''s strength determines his position. Your battle prowess is first in the camp. You only lack experience. If you stay by my side for a few more years, I''ll make you the Camp Supervisor. I''ll give you three days, but three days later, assume your post immediately!"


    "Yes!" Seeing there were no stopping things from developing in that direction, Junior Leopard helplessly accepted the reality.


    Over the next three days, Junior Leopard was basically soaking in the wine jar.


    Those from the personal guard camp wouldn''t miss such a chance and dragged him to the wine bar every day. They were saying that now Commander Zhou had hit the jackpot and was even promoted, he shouldn''t forget about his old brothers. He ate meat, so he had to at least give his brothers some soup to drink.


    After being tormented for three days, Junior Leopard finally assumed his position with a groggy head.


    Being a personal guard, he was treated well and given plenty of free time.


    Things were different now and he was the new deputy, so logically he should be managing some affairs. But he simply couldn''t be bothered and pushed all his responsibilities to Qi Fei. He became a Deputy Supervisor only in name. Unable to do anything against him, Qi Fei could only shoulder everything from the small to the big responsibilities that Junior Leopard should be doing.


    ...


    ...


    This time around, Li Yuan''s new role was the Conquering West General with the responsibility of managing military affairs in Qing Province.


    In Jin, Qing Province was not considered a large state but its geographical location made it crucial. Furthermore, it shared a border with Yunzhou and was northwest of Jin.


    Yunzhou was Jin''s northernmost state, directly facing Northern Yuan. It could be said to be the frontlines in the war against Northern Yuan. Qing Province was the equivalent to the backup base of Yunzhou, the heartland connecting Yunzhou to the Jin empire. In the past few hundreds of years, Qing Province was at the throat of Yunzhou. Though it was now under the governance of Ma Tianchang, Yunzhou had substantially changed in nature. It was capable of providing for its people, no longer needing the assistance and support of the Jin empire. However, those were ordinary times.


    Things were different now. Northern Yuan and Jin had drawn their swords and bows against each other. There were no major conflicts, but minor conflicts were incessant. It could be said both countries were partially at war. Under such a situation, the position of Qing Province became marvelous.


    When Junior Leopard was in Zhonghejun City, he had never paid any attention to reports from the north because he was in the hinterland of Jin. Now that he was in Qing Province, he could feel the tense atmosphere.


    That atmosphere was thanks to two people: Ma Tianchang and Wang She.


    Wang She had murdered the three princes who could be the next Khan. Not only was the three Grandmasters from the Northern Yuan hunting him down, he also aroused the anger of the entire country. Northern Yuan held Jin accountable for his actions. On the other hand, the Seven Troops of Southern Yard went south and congregated military forces at the border of two countries. There were patrolling calvaries everywhere.


    Wang She was the catalyst for everything. As for the Governor of Yunzhou in charge of its military affairs, he added numerous firepower in the firestarter.


    Under the circumstances whereby the Seven Troops of Southern Yard was testing the waters without actually attacking, he used the provocation of Northern Yuan as an excuse and led his thousand calvaries. Not only did he kill all the patrolling cavalry that the Seven Troops of Southern Yard had sent out, he even went deep into the grasslands and eradicated all the tribes within 50 miles of the border of the two countries. His methods were extremely vicious. This aroused the strong rebound from the Seven Troops of Southern Yard. Both sides battled it out for three rounds. After three rounds, the main forces of the Seven Troops of Southern Yard were exhausted. Three out of the seven troops fled. The other four leaders, together with 3,000 of their calvaries, had their heads chopped off by Ma Tianchang and hung in the borders.


    There was a plan behind this!


    After a few rounds of battle, everyone could see there was a plan behind this. Ma Tianchang had long prepared for this, setting up a trap. It was as if he knew a year earlier that the Seven Troops of Southern Yard would attack. Hence he wasn''t tired when he fought them. It could be said he made an easy work out of them.


    When Northern Yuan suffered such a setback, they were forced to slow down. They were furious at Jin but had to rest to recover their lost face.


    What they didn''t expect was an unprecedented storm of a hundred years to cover the entire grasslands. Countless people and livestock were frozen to death. Even the large tribes within Northern Yuan were struggling, let alone the small ones.


    It was only then that Northern Yuan discover Ma Tianchang had already planned to close off the fairs in Northern Yuan a few months prior. Before the fairs were completely closed off, tens of thousands of dan of grains would enter the country. Now, not even a single grain could pass through.


    Without anything to eat or wear, the whole Northern Yuan was in a state of extreme frost.


    Historically, the only solution to this problem was a southern invasion.


    They were taught that if they had nothing to eat, they should go south and rob them; if there was nothing to wear, go south and rob them; if their people were frozen to death, go south and rob them. The solution to their problems was always to go south and to burn, kill, and rob them.


    This year, they realized this method didn''t seem to be working.


    The Seven Troops of Southern Yard, for a few hundred years, had always been the vanguard when Northern Yuan invaded the south. It was also the tribe most familiar with heading down the south. However, these seven tribes had been completely wasted by Ma Tianchang. They now held no zero battle power. Without the Seven Troops of Southern Yard leading them, the calvaries wanting to go south was akin to having lost their pair of eyes.


    It was one thing to have their Seven Troops of Southern Yard to lose their power, but the most crucial issue was that Northern Yuan had lost their Khan.


    Wali Khan was dead, so was all his three princes with the right to succeed him. All the major tribes were on the move, eyeing the Khan position. It was basically impossible to choose a new Khan within a short period of time.


    Without the Khan, the various tribes of the Northern Yuan were just like a pile of loose sand, unable to unify into a powerful force. Though the prairie alliance still existed, it was akin to company meetings in Junior Leopard''s past life. There were too many elders with their own benefits and interests. No one wished to submit to another. The First Elder with the highest authority in the alliance was only occupying an empty position, unable to quell the other Elders.


    At this moment, the three people with the greatest say in matters were the Three Grandmasters. They were all on the hunt for Wang She and unreachable on such a short notice.


    These different factors collectively resulted in the outcome whereby the various tribes in Northern Yuan fought for themselves. They were chanced upon by Ma Tianchang and got ruthlessly slaughtered. The losses they suffered were heavy. Though they later realized something was wrong and purposefully evaded Yunzhou, they took the long way to ambush a few of the prefecture within the borders of Northern Yuan. Firstly, they were already exhausted. Secondly, the various prefectures in Jin were already prepared for them. Hence their spoils were limited. The spoils they had obtained by going south were not even enough to compensate for the losses they had suffered!


    It was only after a month ago when the Kunlun Master returned and appeared in the prairie alliance that things began improving.


    Under the Kunlun Master''s leadership, the remaining forces in Northern Yuan began to gather. They were all the elite Metal Horse Carriage of Northern Yuan with their weapons pointed at Yunzhou.


    Why Yunzhou?


    Yunzhou may be a hard-to-chew bone, it was the flattest land between the intersection of the two countries. It was an open field. Most importantly, the open field was the best possible option for a cavalry charge. That was also the reason why the situation in Yunzhou was so dire before Ma Tianchang became the Governor.


    Northern Yuan may have suffered a serious defeat, but they had after all dominated the grasslands for tens of thousands of years. Their foundation still existed. Once the few large tribes gathered and formed a huge force, the metal flow began to roll. They rushed to the various prefectures between the borders of Northern Yuan and Yunzhou. Even though Yunzhou was strong, their troops were limited. Their battle lines were long as well. If not Ma Tianchang, the entire Yunzhou would have fallen. Those in Qing Province, that backed Yunzhou, naturally felt some tense atmosphere. However, Junior Leopard was not deeply affected as a mere deputy in the personal guard camp of the General of Qing Province. His duty was just to protect Li Yuan and, at the moment, he didn''t know anyone who would give Li Yuan trouble.


    Hence, he spent his days in relaxation. Besides practicing martial arts, he was focused on the fact that one of the three Grandmasters had returned to Northern Yuan. Then, as for the other two, would they still pose a threat to Snake King? uld they still pose a threat to Wang She?


    As an observer, Junior Leopard smelled a heavy sense of plot from observing how the entire matter developed.


    Yes, a plot!


    Northern Yuan had been pushed to such an extent, where they gathered 100,000 Metal Horse Carriages. It looked formidable and unblockable. These carriages may be a big threat to Yunzhou, but not so against entire Jin. The population in Jin was in the billions, with a few million soldiers. As long as Jin finished off these carriages, or simply, blocking them for a few months, the carriages would naturally collapse without support. Once they collapsed, that was the end of the entire Northern Yuan. Jin might take advantage of the opportunity to unify the grasslands and encompass the prairies amongst its rule. Now there were only three people preventing that from happening.


    Junior Leopard was the only who thought of this. It was at this moment that Governor Ma Tianchang of Yunzhou submitted a heaven-shaking report. It was this report that would disturb Junior Leopard''s peaceful life.


    Petition to request the extermination of the Three Great Thieves of Northern Yuan.


    The target was the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan.


    This report not only stirred the entire Jin imperial court, but also the Jianghu.


    Who were the Northern Yuan Three Grandmasters?


    They were the most famous Level Nine experts in the world. They had ruled for over a hundred years without any adversary. They had been the national pillars of Northern Yuan all this while, while simultaneously being unfathomable existences in the Jianghu. It was truly unbelievable for Governor Ma Tianchang to submit a petition to kill these immortal-like beings. Something like this had never happened in the Jianghu.


    Level Nine expert was the term for the strongest in this world. Their destructive power was beyond the imagination of an ordinary person. From a certain perspective, such an expert was just like the nuclear weapon from Junior Leopard''s past life. It completely had a deterrent effect. They rarely interfered in the wars between countries. In between the wars, no one took into account the presence of these Level Nine experts.


    However, the Governor of Yunzhou of Jin wanted to kill these experts. This complicated the problem at hand.


    The relationship between Jianghu and the imperial court became marvelous. Similarly, this report simplified the situation between the two countries. Things became more optimistic. The last line in Ma Tianchang''s report particularly stirred the people''s blood: "Success in this endeavor will be an everlasting merit."


    Indeed, things had become more optimistic. It became completely optimistic. As long as the Three Grandmasters were eliminated, the soldiers would destroy the 100,000 Metal Horse Carriages in Yunzhou. Then, there would no longer be any resistance in the prairies. The future of Jin was bright!


    Once the Northern Yuan prairies were absorbed into Jin, the imperial court would be unprecedentedly strong. More importantly, it didn''t matter what dynasty it was, Ma Tianchang''s report would come true. It was an endeavor with everlasting merit!


    Everlasting merit!


    The Northern Yuan prairies had historically been the nemesis of the Central Plains. In the few tens of thousands of years, the southern Central Plains were always placed in a defensive stance. Occasionally once every thousand years, an ambitious ruler would emerge from the Central Plains who would attack the north and damage Northern Yuan enough to make them submit. For a few hundred years, Northern Yuan would not have the strength to conquer south. But this was extremely difficult to achieve. One would be considered a divine emperor if successful. The last divine emperor anyone knew of was 10,000 years ago.


    Ever since the prairie alliance had emerged to unify all the forces in the grasslands, there wasn''t anyone in the Central Plains who could make Northern Yuan submit. Furthermore, following the strengthening of the forces in the prairies, its pneuma was rich. In the past 1,000 years, they already had thoughts of conquering the Central Plains. The Shang dynasty before Jin had its pneuma suffer a great loss when the Northern Yuan invaded them on a massive scale. Though they managed to defeat the Metal Horse Carriages of Northern Yuan, their strength was severely diminished and allow the founder of Jin the opportunity to hijack the dynasty.


    What about now?


    Besides the four people, how things developed was beyond expectations.


    Nobody thought a sudden incident and a rarely met storm would cause the entire Northern Yuan to face extermination.


    This really was extermination!


    10,000 years ago, the ambitious ruler in the prairies formed the prairie alliance system. He would never have imagined the same system that brought 10,000 years of glory to the prairies would also cause the end of the entire grasslands.


    10,000 years was a long time to change a lot of things. The carriages of the prairies had already long been used to hearing a single command and used to battle under the banner of Northern Yuan. Though the various big tribes were sauntering about in the prairies, their carriages were no longer able to kill and swallow each other like it used to. This helped to buffer the pneuma of the prairie and also helped remove the bloody stench of the grasslands. When everyone in the prairie was of the same mind, and tens of thousands of carriages were of the same heart, this kind of effect would completely be blocked. There was the spiritual support of the Three Grandmasters and the command of the Wali Khan. There were the Elders of the alliance governing the various tribes. With the addition of the tens of thousands of carriages awaiting command, people only saw the greatness of the prairie army. This kind of worry was completely overlooked.


    But now?


    An unprecedented snowstorm had frozen countless cows, goats, and horses to death without warning. It was one thing for the cows and goats to die. The most important were the horses. They were the horses that go to battle, the same horses that formed the mighty Metal Horse Carriages.


    What did the Metal Horse Carriage depend on?


    It depended on the horses. Though the Northern Yuan soldiers were ferocious, their force was reduced by at least half without their horses. Turning from a cavalry into a foot soldier, how could they take on the few million armored soldiers from Jin no matter how ferocious they were?


    The cruelest thing Ma Tianchang did was cutting off the grain supply to the prairie. Even if Northern Yuan was able to feed on frozen cows and goats to survive the freezing winter, what would happen after?


    Without cows, goats, and grains, could they survive on grass?


    Hence, when faced with such a natural disaster, the only correct choice Northern Yuan could make was conquering the south. To go southward and rob for wealth, people, and food. This was the only way they could help Northern Yuan survive. The next summer was even harder to live through than the severe winter.


    However, only when they were preparing to conquer south, did they realize their country had already fallen into a complete disadvantage without their knowledge.


    Since autumn, Ma Tianchang had already begun his merciless killing of the Seven Troops of Southern Yard. Out of the 100,000 troops, only about 10,000 remained. As for the other tribes, they began to plot and fight against each other after the death of Wali Khan''s three sons. Their losses were not small. Additionally, their energy was all spent on vying for the Khan''s position. They were completely unprepared for the winter. Hence when the winter came, the entire Northern Yuan could only come up with 150,000 calvaries. These calvaries also had to go through the prairies that were now a frozen wasteland. When they reached the borders of Yunzhou, there were only 100,000 men left.


    100,000 calvaries were enough to spark a great war, but the only desolation awaited them in the face of Yunzhou and Ma Tianchang.


    If the Kunlun Master didn''t give up hunting Snake King and returning, those 100,000 calvaries might have collapsed without even fighting.


    This was the current situation of Northern Yuan. This was also the best chance the Jin dynasty had in the countless number of years.


    Perhaps, in the past, there were few who could recognize this opportunity. However, after Ma Tianchang submitted the report, the entire Jin court was in a flurry. Like a tidal wave, the entire scene was heated up.


    This was a divine opportunity!


    However, it required consideration and rumination to take advantage of this opportunity.


    Everyone in Jin had their attention focused on the imperial court, waiting to see what actions the court would take and when.


    Tian Long Dao didn''t wait for the court before making their response.


    Amongst the three First Chief, Lei Xu and Nian Wushuang brought a batch of experts down the mountains and headed for Northern Yuan. Firstly, they wanted to rescue Snake King who was being hunted by the two Grandmasters. Secondly, they wanted to look for an opportunity to snuff the Northern Yuan experts. They claimed to do their part for the everlasting merit of the Jin dynasty. Apart from sending experts to Northern Yuan, Tian Long Taoism also rallied the Jin pugilists to massacre the Northern Yuan pugilists. They also claimed they would send several of their Level Nine Elders to enter Northern Yuan to kill the Three Grandmasters!


    This was earthshaking!

 Chapter 206: Earth-Flipping Hammer

    Chapter 206: Earth-Flipping Hammer


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Bastard, a bunch of bastards without foresight!"


    In Qingzhou General Mansion, Li Yuan violently hit the table, "Pa-pa-pa!" The tea set on the table was sent flying.


    "His Excellency, they are just a bunch of flunkies who don''t have foresight. There''s no point in getting angry with them!"


    "No need to get angry with them?!" Li Yuan squinted. His face revealed some cruelty, "The Northern Yuan has threatened our Central Plains for tens of thousands of years. Now that it is time to conquer them in one sweep and establish merit that will last forever, this group of bastards actually talk about being compassionate. They are even worse than pigs and dogs!"


    "A bunch of dogs who merely want to carry favor!" Mu Yuqing stroked his beard lightly, "The divine ruler now has ambition and wants to be the unprecedented ruler. Obviously, he wouldn''t miss out on this chance to become famous for years to come. If this war can bring down the Northern Yuan and absorb the whole prairie into our Great Jin, just based on this earth-shaking merit, it is enough to overshadow the works of all the previous emperors. The emperor will not let go of this chance!"


    Mu Yuqing was Li Yuan''s leading strategist, he was also the smartest man around. He had an accurate grasp on issues. Everyone including Li Yuan was extremely convinced by him.


    "I understand what you mean. They are trying to carry favor. However, I''m extremely displeased with these fellas. On the surface they look like a gentleman and they keep talking about big principles here and there yet, we are fighting till our deaths on the frontlines, and they are criticizing us behind our backs saying that our killings are too excessive and that we have no kindness. One day I''ll kidnap some of them and bring them to the Northern Yuan. I wonder if they will still be compassionate then?!"


    "Let them say what they will, we do our own work!" Mu Yuqing smiled. He didn''t reply to Li Yuan''s fits of anger. "Now Yunzhou has already started fighting. Our Qingzhou is Yunzhou''s backup. All the precautions must be in place. Even though Governor Ma''s army forces are not many, but with his strength, holding on till the Jin imperial army reaches is an extremely easy matter!"


    "Before the imperial army marches in, we must first solve the problem of grain and fodder. Before the army moves, the army and horses must go ahead. That''s the most basic principle!" Li Yuan''s temper seemed to have receded a little. He raised his gaze and landed on Junior Leopard, "Zhou Bao, a few days ago you mentioned to me that you wish to go to Northern Yuan?!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency. To go to Northern Yuan to kill the prairie master of martial arts will be extremely beneficial to my progress in martial arts cultivation," Junior Leopard said.


    "Then you''ll have to wait a while!" Li Yuan smiled, "Soon there''ll be a batch of rations going to Yunzhou Danyang County for handover. I have news that someone may lay their hands on this batch of rations. Hence, I plan to send half of the personal guard camp to escort it. You are my camp''s number one expert, and also the personal guard camp''s Vice Commander so, this time you can''t escape. However, you need not worry. As long as this handover is smooth, I''ll let you go. However, if something crops up, Zhou Bao, I don''t think that you should come back either!"


    Junior Leopard''s heart trembled. His body stood erect and he said loudly, "Yes Sir!"


    "All right, go back and get ready. We''re leaving in three days!!"


    ...


    ...


    The rations move before the army!


    Due to this being a real war of annihilation, under the pressure of the situation, the people who held the attitude of benevolence and forgiveness were a minority. The Jin imperial court on all levels attached great importance to the war and was passionate about it. Soldiers from all over the country kept pouring in marching toward the border between Great Jin and the North Yuan.


    Some of these countless officers and soldiers were headed to Yunzhou while others were headed to other places. In the north, the borders between Jin and Northern Yuan spanned for thousands of miles. There were numerous states intersecting in-between. Yunzhou was chosen by the Northern Yuan as the main battlefield because of its flat land making it easy for the cavalry to attack. Apart from this main battlefield, in other provinces, Great Jin didn''t dare to drop its guard. Afterall the Northern Yuan was experiencing total annihilation, God knew how crazy they could get.


    It was precisely because of the times that one had to be more careful.


    If because of a small mistake they allowed the Northern Yuan to turn the tide around, this merit that would last forever would become a joke for centuries to come.


    "Now Jin''s advantage is overwhelming. It isn''t something that can be changed by a person or a few people. Even the three Grandmasters are unable to do anything in this situation. Great Jin only needs to use its strength openly and steadily pressurize the Northern Yuan and at the same time use Jin''s own experts to curb the Northern Yuan''s experts. Then, things will be solved in a matter of time. At most, it''ll take half a year, and the Northern Yuan that dominated the prairie for tens of thousands of years will no longer exist."


    On the way back, Junior Leopard thought about it carefully. His heart unconsciously felt funny. Unknowingly, he had delved into the most important historical event that ever happened. It was a pity that although now he had some strength, it wasn''t at a standard where it could influence the tide of events. The best solution was to go with the flow and let himself embroil in the greatest wheel of history and move forward.


    "Hehe, to escort the rations, that isn''t bad, I can put my hammers in the carriage. The horse should be able to move?!" Junior Leopard calculated in his heart.


    This new weapon of his caused him a big headache. It really was too heavy.


    When wielding the black hammer, he was unable to ride the horse. Furthermore, holding a hammer that was close to 2000 pounds, the Lightness Skill couldn''t be exerted well. Although Junior Leopard was now a Bone-Forging Realm expert, and his strength and body were much stronger than an ordinary Bone-Forging Realm expert, there was still a limit to it. To exert the Yanfu Inner Strength while carrying the black hammer to ride like the wind was only a beautiful dream.


    Just like when he was the Jiang City Navy Commander, when he reached the camp, Junior Leopard abdicated all his responsibilities and handed the matter over to his subordinates to deal with it. He went back to his own room to rest.


    "Three days to transport the rations. There''s news that someone wants to make a move on these rations. Looks like trouble abounds!" Junior Leopard sighed in his heart, "From how I see it, I should diligently practice during this 3 days lest I meet a real expert and my strength is not sufficient. I''ll be handled according to military regulations. That''ll be shameful!"


    Although he had a new weapon and he had extreme confidence in himself, confidence was a subjective notion. It was a good thing to have confidence in oneself, but blind confidence was stupid. Junior Leopard wasn''t a fool. He knew what he was capable of and what he was not.


    Since Li Yuan said that there was news that someone wanted to make a move on these rations, then there definitely would be someone. As for who was making a move on it, no one knew.


    Now the enemy was in the dark while they were in the light.


    That was the most dangerous position to be in.


    "Fortunately I still have my bluff!" Junior Leopard''s sleeves folded slightly. 49 Demon Devil Needles flew out and floated around him. After such a long time, Junior Leopard had complete mastery over these needles.


    It could be said that Junior Leopard and the needles already had a bloodline connection and merged into one. These Demon Devil Needles already became a part of his body. The needles moved according to his will and there wasn''t the slightest bit of resistance.


    49 black needles were floating in front of Junior Leopard, following his will to form different kinds of pictures and change into different positions. One moment it would form a circle, another moment it would line up, and other moments it would form a straight line. It moved according to his will without exception.


    "Hu--!" Junior Leopard''s sleeves rolled up. 49 Demon Devil Needles disappeared. Junior Leopard sat on the chair and seemed to be thinking about something.


    "With my control over the Demon Devil Needles, it is no problem to form a formation with it. However, it is unknown what kind of power it''ll have!"


    Back then, when he was carefully studying the usage of the needles on the scroll, there was a formation recorded on it. The entire formation was formed from the 49 needles. It was said that the power was tremendous. As to its extent, he had never tried it before.


    Even though his heart had yearned for it since time in memorial, his control over the needles was still imperfect. There wasn''t a feeling of connection with the bloodline. Hence, even though he could control these 49 needles into a formation, he wasn''t able to control the details of it and would spoil the plans instead but now it was different.


    Now, the needles had already merged with his bloodline. Even the minutest details could be controlled freely by him.


    "It is time to practice this formation. 3 days is sufficient time to do so. It can greatly increase my fighting power. If I meet any special circumstances, there wouldn''t be too many bluffs revealed!"


    ...


    ...


    3 days passed in a flash. When Junior Leopard had practiced till he had complete mastery over the Demon Devil Needles than the day to set off arrived. Due to the fact that Junior Leopard had abdicated his responsibility and didn''t even look at the carriages carrying the rations when he carried his black hammer and entered into the camp, he drew a breath of cool air.


    "Si---, oh my god, so many carts?!"


    Indeed, there were many carts!


    The entire camp was filled to the brim. In each cart, the small ones were pulled by 4 strong bulls, while the big ones were pulled by over 10 bulls.


    As for the carriages that were pulled by horses, they were few in number. Horses were good for their speed and strength, however, in terms of endurance, they couldn''t be compared to the bulls. The most important thing was that these bulls were not only a brute force to pull the carts, but after they were transported to the front, they were also one of the sources of rations.


    Looking at this camp, there were hundreds of carriages, meaning there were thousands of bulls. It was enough food for tens of thousands of troops for a period of time.


    "This is only the first batch, and also the most important batch!" At Junior Leopard''s side, Li Yuan looked at these rations with a sigh. "There are a total of 682 carts. All are yours to handle. Apart from half of the personal guard camp, I''ve even given you 3000 troops. Are you satisfied?"


    "Satisfied, of course, I''m satisfied. His Excellency has thought it through very well!" Junior Leopard nodded, "However, His Excellency, I heard you mention that there may be someone making a move on these rations. May I know who is it exactly?"


    "This is only a piece of gossip. It may be connected to the Northern Yuan. Now that they are in a dire situation, anything can happen. To send an expert to infiltrate and rob these rations is a possibility!"


    "Rob this batch of rations?!" Junior Leopard felt somewhat incredulous. "Even if they are able to rob this amount of rations, they will be unable to transport it out!"


    "They will possibly burn it on the spot. In this manner, it''ll disrupt the morale of our troops!" Li Yuan said, "Hence, you must be careful. The opponent having failed once can always retreat, however, you can''t. You must protect the safety of these rations. Hence I assigned to you half of the personal guard camp and 3000 soldiers. Furthermore, the provinces along the way will help you. Those fellows that have ill intentions may be able to infiltrate but their numbers won''t be great. Your troops are enough!"


    "This I understand!" Junior Leopard raised his head and looked at the camp full of rations. His heart felt heavy.


    A cart followed the next, pulling a cart full of rations and traveling on the spacious official roads. Surrounding it were 3000 well-armed soldiers. A dense murderous intent was in the air.


    Junior Leopard rode a big horse and walked in the forefront of the team. A big saber was tied around his waist. Those who knew him understood that the saber was just for looks. His real methods were not in the saber.


    At the side of his horse was a Silver Wolf. This Silver Wolf was big and fearsome. Although its body size was not comparable to the big horse that was carefully selected, it was not much different from the bulls that were pulling the carts. Hence it attracted a lot of gazes along the way.


    It was already 5 days. They had left Qingzhou 5 days ago. They were still very far away from their destination, Yunzhou Danyang County. If Junior Leopard was alone on a fast horse, with the fastest speed, at most he would only need 2 days but now they had to transport this much rations, it greatly delayed their traveling speed. Of course, they had ample time. They were given one month.


    Anyway, the imperial court''s army hadn''t finished gathering. Even if they had gathered, it would still take some time to reach Yunzhou. Hence, a month''s time was not considered too long.


    With these 3000 soldiers that were filled with a dense murderous intent, adding on to the cooperation of the various government houses along the way, this trip was extremely smooth. There wasn''t any person without eyes to come and touch his tiger backside.


    One should not touch the buttock of a tiger, especially at this moment. Even though there were a few bandits with significant influence along the way, they didn''t have the guts to touch the tiger''s buttock.


    "Your Excellency, following this official road for another day and we will reach the Maojiang Prefecture!"


    When on route, a fast horse caught up from behind and carefully evaded Little Du and loudly said:


    "Maojiang Prefecture?!" Junior Leopard''s eyes flickered, "Is it to say that we are reaching Maojiang soon?!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency, Maojiang is in front!"


    "Have you sent scouts to go ahead?!"


    "We already sent them in the morning. They should be back soon!"


    "Good!" Junior Leopard''s face had no expression as he nodded. His facial expression became solemn.


    Maojiang Prefecture was situated within Qing Province''s borders. It was remote and it got its name from a river there.


    This Maojiang was just like Zhonghejun City''s Luojiang. On the river there were a lot of water bandits. Compared to Luojiang, its terrain was much more complicated because it was much more remote compared to Zhonghejun City.


    The most important thing was Maojiang was situated in the western north. Its terrain was high in the west and low in the east, the difference was extremely great. The river flow was rushing. Only those fishermen who were born on the side of Maojiang could safely navigate it. Without such a technical skill, it was impossible to make a living off this river.


    This was also the most difficult task that Junior Leopard faced this time around. Ever since he had news that someone might be making a move on these rations, Junior Leopard had all the dangerous points on this route analysed. At last he came to a conclusion that Maojiang was the best place for the enemy to take action.


    Due to the rushing flow of the river, there wasn''t much produce, furthermore there were water bandits, hence this riverside didn''t have many residents. It was extremely desolate.


    Ordinarily speaking, from Qing Province to Yunzhou Danyang County, people were not willing to choose this route as they would have to go through the place where the river flow was the strongest. However, Junior Leopard had no choice. In the entire Maojiang, only this place had a bridge. The other places needed ships to cross the river. This wasn''t Junior Leopard''s previous life where there were enormous ships that could solve the problem. There were only little boats on the river. With so much rations, to transport it using the litttle boats would take an enormous amount of time.


    What''s more, using one boat after another to ferry things would easily cause problems. All that people needed to do was tamper with the bottom of the boats. Although Junior Leopard''s martial arts was high, he didn''t have many limbs. He couldn''t look after so many boats on the water.


    What if they did a roundabout around Maojiang? Then it would be far. A month''s time wouldn''t be enough. Hence his only chance was to cross the bridge in Maojiang. Long before he set off, he already dispatched half of the personal guard camp over there and under the cooperation of the Maojiang Prefecture, they built two barracks on the sides of the bridge.


    Yes, two barracks!


    Junior Leopard didn''t wish to give his opponents any chance, nor did they have the chance. Two barracks were established and were just by the sides of the bridge. There were Garrison soldiers from the Maojiang Prefecture camping at each side. On the river, there was the Maojiang Navy. Basically, they could ensure the safety of the bridge before they arrived.


    No matter who it was that wanted to take a hit on this batch of rations, after seeing the forces at the riverside, they would have to seriously reconsider.


    "Let''s hope that they are not so foolish as to knock onto my gun!" Junior Leopard thought in his heart. His heart felt somewhat reassured. They were within the borders of Great Jin. Even if Northern Yuan sent people to infiltrate, their forces wouldn''t be too many. They wouldn''t be able to stir up any storm.


    Just as he was thinking, the sound of a horse''s hooves was heard in front of him, and a swift horse came running.


    "Your Excellency, it is our scout!"


    "Bring him over!"


    "Yes!" That man patted the horse to receive the scout that was coming from the other direction and led him to the front of Junior Leopard.


    "What is the situation at Maojiang? Are there any abnormalities?!"


    " Your Excellency, there are no strange signs. The barracks are very safe on both sides. The Maojiang Prefecture had already locked down 300 miles of the place. There aren''t any outsiders that can come close. His Excellency can pass through with ease."


    "Very good, let''s hope that I can pass through with ease!" Junior Leopard smiled and slapped his horse to go forward.


    After traveling for a period, there was the sound of rushing water from the side. At first it was very slight, but it became louder and louder. Looking at the big camp by the riverside, the sound of flowing water was just like thunder.


    "Why is the sound of the water so loud?!" Junior Leopard frowned. Although he had long heard that the river flew rapidly in Maojiang, he was surprised that this river was actually able to produce such a loud sound.


    "Your Excellency, from west to east, there are many rocks between this 10 miles of river, and the drop height is nearly 200 feet, hence the sound of the water is a bit loud!" A soldier who was familiar with the terrain explained.


    Junior Leopard nodded and didn''t say anything. He only hurried the horse. The carts and bulls behind him followed and slowly moved towards the direction of the barrack.


    At the same time, there were a few riders appearing from within the camp. They were the soldiers from the personal guard camp who he had sent out beforehand.


    Two horses galloped to the front of Junior Leopard. The riders got off the horses, "Paying our respects to His Excellency!"


    "We''re all brothers from the same family, don''t be so courteous!" Junior Leopard smiled. He got off the horse to help the two of them up, "How is it, is the situation good?!"


    "Everything is normal!" One of the personal guards said, "His Excellency please don''t worry. There are so many of us. I don''t believe that there''ll be someone who will dare to mess with us---!"


    "Growl---!"


    His words hadn''t finished, and Little Du in the front of Junior Leopard''s horse suddenly raised its head and growled in a low voice.


    Junior Leopard''s expression changed drastically. Little Du and he had a spiritual connection, hence when Little Du discovered an abnormality, his heart also moved. A dangerous feeling surfaced in his heart.


    His body stood erect. His eyes had a sharp glint. He coldly roared, "Who is trying to sneak around? Come out!"


    "Hua la la---!"


    Following Junior Leopard''s cold roar, the soldiers in the surroundings all drew their weapons, the chilling light shining in all directions.


    It was dead silence.


    Apart from the river flow that was like thunder and the sound of wind blowing, there wasn''t anyone else emitting any form of sound.


    After a short while, there still wasn''t any movement. Those soldiers who drew their weapons and were silently waiting all revealed strange expressions. They looked at Junior Leopard and thought that he must be blind.


    "You are indeed very powerful. The spirit in your whole body is completely covered. If it wasn''t for Little Du I''ll really not be able to find you!" After waiting for a while and seeing nobody speaking, the corner of Junior Leopard''s lips curled into a cold smile. He said loudly and raised his hands and grabbed towards the carriage behind him.


    The surrounding air stilled. Within the carriage, a black figure slowly rose up. It was Junior Leopard''s new weapon, the black metal hammer.


    The 2000 pound black hammer floated in midair and slowly flew towards Junior Leopard. Even if its speed was not fast and its body size was not exaggeratedly big, just based on its weight, it was able to give off a pressurizing feeling.


    "Since you don''t wish to reveal yourself, then I don''t mind getting you out!" The black hammer flew to Junior Leopard''s hands and he firmly grabbed it.


    "Hu--!"


    After Junior Leopard held onto the black hammer, his wrist slightly moved and stirred up a ferocious wind.


    "Hu, pi-li-pa-la---!" The clothes moved with the wind and kept producing sounds.


    When the wind disappeared, Junior Leopard''s body also disappeared, then he was dozens of feet high up in the air. The black hammer was lifted high, carrying a spirit of ruling the earth with it. It went towards the direction of an open field and smashed towards it.


    "Flipping Sky Three Hammers, Earth-flipping Hammer!"

 Chapter 207: Level Eight Expert, A Steellike Internal Qi

    Chapter 207: Level Eight Expert, A Steellike Internal Qi


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    After the hammer hit, huge pressure caused by the black hammer unexpectedly covered a circumference of about thirty meters around. As a result, the space became frozen and stagnant.


    At this moment, it seemed as if a huge mountain had suddenly capsized and deliberately damaged about thirty meters of the circumference.


    "Aye?!"


    Under the cover of the black hammer, a surprised voice appeared abruptly. A figure in the shadows stood within that circumference. Facing the powerful hammer, there wasn''t much panic on his face but just a little surprise.


    The quintessence of Junior Leopard''s hammering just now was the Earth-flipping Hammer, one of the three strongest movements of the Flipping Sky Hammering Skill. Along with the mental cultivation methods and Internal Qi of Extraordinary Strength Fist, it carried an impact force of almost five thousand kilograms covering a circumference of thirty meters. However, after the appearance of that guy, all of the force united and poured into him immediately.


    Junior Leopard knew that the guy was definitely an expert, yet he was still confident that under his hammering the guy would suffer and his muscles and tendons would break and he would be disabled from all the fractures even if he was at Level Seven.


    "Break!"


    A clear word was shouted out. Except being a little surprised, the guy didn''t have any fear of the hammer falling straight from the sky, and he just reached out his fist instead.


    He went so far as to face Junior Leopard''s hammer head-on with his own fist.


    His fist bumped into the hammer.


    "Bang...!"


    It was a muffle, not loud but breath-taking. They bumped with a spreading wave. With bursts of big noises, one could see about ten carts around being overturned. Several carts close to them with cattle were even shoved into the air by the wave and fell on the ground heavily causing a turmoil.


    "Damn it!" Junior Leopard growled. His facial expression changed suddenly as he felt a huge force coming from the opponent''s fist.


    "A Level Eight expert?!"


    When Junior Leopard''s hammer collided with the fist, his whole body was thrown down by a strong force and he fell down thirty feet away with another three steps further.


    "What a strong hammer!"


    The figure had not budged under Junior Leopard''s hammer but on closer inspection, one would have found that his feet were about three centimeters into the ground.


    "Pang...!" There was a muffled sound at his feet, and the ground around his feet was all cracked, and two shallow pits were formed around his feet.


    "Lad, you are awesome! It''s been a long time since anyone has been able to put so much pressure on me!"


    As the surroundings fell into silence, the man revealed his true face.


    He had a healthy complexion and a clear-cut contoured face. His short hair was like steel needles and just like his whiskers was a shade of black and white. He was strong and in the age between forty-five to fifty. He wore a simple leather robe which was common for men in Northern Yuan.


    With a saber around his waist, at a glance he looked like the head of an ordinary family in Northern Yuan. He remained calm and peaceful with no exceptional personality even after clashing with Junior Leopard.


    "A Level Eight expert! Haha! It was completely beyond my expectation. Northern Yuan does look up to me!"


    Settling his Qi and blood, Junior Leopard clasped his hammer and tightened his grip a little bit and stared fixedly at the man saying "Lu Laihong! Wan Bo! I''ll hold him off. Escort the army provisions across the bridge and head to Yunzhou as fast as possible!"


    Lu Laihong and Wan Bo were Li Yuan''s personal guards who had just gone to meet him. They were Level Three experts and enjoyed a good prestige in the personal guard camp. Hearing Junior Leopard''s command, they both got shocked and said "Your Excellency...!"


    "Shut up and do as I say!" Junior Leopard stared at the two men and then he turned all his attention to the man in front of him and slowly laid the hammer in front of him.


    "You are very brave, lad, but do you really think that they can run away?!"


    "Cut the crap!" Junior Leopard shouted. He lifted his hammer, tilted it and then rushed towards the guy with the violent wind caused by his iron hammer.


    "It''s no use trying so hard!" The man sighed and stepped forward, throwing his fist at Junior Leopard''s hammer.There was a yellow glow in his fist. "I believe you''ve got the power to kill a Level Seven expert," he said.


    Boom!" There was another loud noise. Junior Leopard did not turn over this time, but he took a dozen steps back. Just then, blood seeped out from the corner of his mouth and the color of his face turned pale. Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was running madly inside his body, dissolving the saber-sharp punch of his fist intent that had just penetrated his body through the force of the hammer.


    It seemed that his opponent didn''t want to wait any longer. Seeing Junior Leopard''s concentration on his inner strength, he jumped up and headed to him swiftly like a goshawk.


    "Humph...!" Giving a light snort, Junior Leopard moved his body suddenly shooting out several arrows of blood. He discharged his remaining Internal Qi by force regardless of his internal injury. Meanwhile, Qi Power came out with scalding heat and a strong Hammer Spirit was formed in an instant, which covered a circumference of about thirty meters under its fist intent.


    "Hum?!"


    Feeling the change in the surroundings, the guy in midair displayed surprise in his eyes and said "It''s the Hammer Spirit. Lad, you are really beyond my expectation!"


    He spoke but he had yet to slow down his movements. Instead, the yellow light on his fist was much brighter and was directed at Junior Leopard. A violent and deadly atmosphere was gathered in his fists and spread as if he was determined to tear Junior Leopard''s Hammer Spirit by his one punch.


    "A wanton thought!" Junior Leopard was clear of the guy''s intent and sneered in his mind. He raised his iron hammer and all of a sudden, in a monstrous trace and with a sound "Hu", the surrounding space fell into emptiness.


    Within the emptiness, a black fireball was blazing and a metal bead was moving around it in an eternally immutable trace.


    "This is my real Hammer Spirit!" Junior Leopard said gently but his body had already disappeared.


    The guy rushed over to reach his one fist out but failed to touch Junior Leopard. He found that it seemed impossible to retreat his fist after that.


    It was like being caught in a huge jumble of mud, with his body bound up by a seemingly weak, yet dense Internal Qi and he was unable to move.


    What''s worse was that after he fell into the eccentric hollow, the metal bead that had been following its own track abruptly changed its direction and rushed towards him.


    "Open!"


    Fixing his gaze, the guy growled lightly. His Gang Qi in light yellow covered his body from head to toe and broke Junior Leopard''s strength, which helped him escape his attack at a crucial moment.


    "Whoosh...!"


    He jumped into the void with a massive yellow light. A huge wolf rushed out from his body and filled almost the whole void. Carrying a huge Qi Power, the wolf rolled directly to the black sun, the center of the void.


    "Your Hammer Spirit is marvelous. Let''s see how long it will stay under my fist intent!"


    Hiding in the void, Junior Leopard took several breaths heavily. He realized that the galaxy formed by his Hammer Spirit was at the verge of breaking down soon after that huge yellow wolf appeared. The spirit and intent were both the compound of divine thoughts and Internal Qi, and that guy''s fist intent which was almost a perfect entity was much clearer than his Hammer Spirit which had just recently been created and made from his Internal Qi of Level Six.


    Indeed, it was made from his cultivation of Level Six. His body''s cultivation was at Level Four, but the External Elixir between the eyebrows already had a peak cultivation of Level Six, which could supply continuous Internal Qi for his body. In this way, regardless of his cultivation, he had exceeded those lower top experts of Level Six in terms of endurance.


    Unfortunately, the opponent he confronted was a Level Eight expert.


    Level Eight!


    Zhou Bao had seen a lot in the world in his life and among Level Seven experts, he had killed two; he had killed one Level Eight expert and he had even met a Level Nine expert, ranking among the top in the world.


    However, when he was confronted and attacked by a Level Eight expert, he became a bit desperate.


    Level Eight and Level Seven were two completely different concepts.


    Level Seven was just a stage where Internal Qi was compacted to a high degree. It was first like water and then was cultivated into Gang Qi, with which Level Seven experts could give out power more than he could. What then of Level Eight?


    Their Internal Qi was as solid as steel!


    It was as solid as steel instead of Gang!


    On reaching Level Eight, one could have his Internal Qi highly compacted, just like stainless steels.


    He could tear the Internal Qi of any expert under Level Eight with only one punch, just like cutting Tofu with a knife without any difficulty.


    Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi was very condensed but the degree of compactness was barely enough to reach Level Seven. His Hammer Spirit was invincible compared with those at his level, and no matter how many Level Four, Level Five or even Level Six experts fell into his Hammer Spirit, they were rendered immobile and couldn''t move even one step, let alone resist it. To Level Seven experts, Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi would be big trouble.


    Unfortunately, the opponent he confronted was a Level Eight expert.


    Facing Internal Qi as solid as stainless steel, Junior Leopard''s threadlike strength spread in the void and turned into a joke. Whether in Internal Qi''s practice, clearness, or control of divine thoughts, Junior Leopard was greatly inferior to his opponent. Naturally, when the opponent''s fist intent was employed, his Hammer Spirit was in danger.


    Considering the current situation, he was still in good spirits.


    If it had been someone else, the Hammer Spirit would have broken down in an instant and backfired on them. In the end, they would have burst to death.


    "Dong, dong , dong...!"


    Three times in a row, the running Metal Planet slammed into the Yellow Wolf, but it didn''t budge. The Metal Planet, that is, the hammer in Junior Leopard''s hand bounced back, and he felt that the three hammer movements had completely smashed into a huge mountain of adamantine and steel and were unable to hurt it at all.


    "Aouuu...!" With its body occupying almost the whole galaxy, the huge yellow wolf howled fierily, stirring up bursts of clamour.


    With this howl, immense clamour broke Junior Leopard''s fist intent violently like a soil shifter.


    "Boom...!"


    As the Hammer Spirit was broken down, Junior Leopard was shot out of the void with his iron hammer like a shell. His body bounded twice on the ground like a rubber ball , leaving behind two shallow pits, and then he finally stopped.


    "Auooo...!"


    Another wolf howl came, however, it was not from that mysterious guy in prairie but Little Du. It jumped out with an illusion of six wolves and swooped down on that guy.


    "The Ancient Silver Wolf?!" When he saw Little Du coming, the man''s eyes lit up with a hint of surprise. Then he looked at Little Du''s unique appearance, but saw nothing special, and thought that he was just a common Silver Wolf. This kind of silver wolf, although not many on the prairie, but each big tribe had a head or two. But when the little wolf conjured up six figures, his face immediately showed a surprised look.


    It wasn''t merely a common Silver Wolf but one with ancient blood. It hadn''t grown up, yet it had already shown the distinction in its bloodline. Most importantly, with this ancient bloodline, Little Du could enjoy a great potential by which he could probably improve his cultivation further if he subdued it. That''s the reason why he was so delighted.


    "This divine animal is Grassland God''s gift which should belong to our prairie heroes!" He said loudly and reached out his finger onto Little Du''s forehead to break Little Du''s illusion. "Staying in Central Plains is a big waste !"


    "Damn you!"


    Jumping up all of a sudden with a loop, Junior Leopard raised his hammer that he had just fetched from the ground with strength and rushed towards the guy.


    With another flick, Little Du moved tens of feet away and fainted onto the ground.


    "It is a fool''s errand, lad. You are such an awesome talent but you may still need another ten years to rival me. It is too early for you right now! "


    Junior Leopard gave him the cold shoulder, and between his breaths, three Fire Dragons coiled around his iron hammer. With a wild wind rolling caused by his hammer, he moved forward with an indomitable spirit.


    "Since you are so stubborn, I don''t mind sending you to Grassland God''s front!"


    Saying that softly, a fist intent of a huge yellow wolf that hid behind the guy rushed over Junior Leopard violently.


    "Boom, boom, boom...!"


    Junior Leopard burst out howls. His hammering employed Wild Hammering Skill. At the same time, the Extraordinary Strength Fist along with Snake-like Breath Holding Skill ran perfectly. In a very short time he hammered nine times and all of them landed on that steel-like huge yellow wolf.


    "Bang, bang, bang...!"


    After nine attacks, the Critical Hit that Junior Leopard expected didn''t appear but the combination of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique with other two mysterious mental cultivation methods still managed to create an enormous power that was not a failure like the confrontation of his Hammer Spirit with the guy''s fist intent. Under Junior Leopard''s continuous attacks, that huge yellow wolf retreated one step after another giving out a deep and fiery howl.


    "Great! Lad." The fist intent and the man were one. After seeing that huge yellow wolf retreat, he finally became afraid. He moved quickly with his fists stretching out and immediately integrated into his fist intent.


    "Roar...!"


    The huge yellow wolf finally stabilized his form, and his claws flickered with chilling light. Taking advantage of the intervals of Junior Leopard''s hammering, it reached Junior Leopard''s body and caught it with a quick movement.


    "Bang...!" It was too late for Junior Leopard to dodge. He could only raise his black hammer in front of his body, which protected him from this critical scratch.


    Unfortunately, the hammer in his hands was once again knocked down by this formidable power. This time, it was tens of feet away that Junior Leopard couldn''t get it back, although he wanted to.


    My goodness! The Internal Qi and divine thoughts were both as hard as steel. With those two compacted, the fist intent was definitely sharp!


    Pondering over that deadly scratch, there was a chill in Junior Leopard''s heart. If it landed on his body, his half-life would have been gone.


    By this time, his mind was already thinking about when to employ Three Realms Division so that he could escape.


    He now had to admit that he had over underestimated the strength of a Level Eight expert.


    Maybe it was because he had once killed a Level Eight expert. Although he knew that they were stronger than him in cultivation, he still didn''t think they were invincible. What''s more, taking his three experiences of defeating Level Seven experts into consideration, he was too confident in himself.


    Enough to make him feel ridiculous now.


    "It appeared that Xue Wuya was badly injured by Lu Shaoyou at the time, otherwise he wouldn''t have been killed by me that easily. Thinking about it now, I wronged him!"


    Junior Leopard''s mouth twitched a little. He was thinking that he may not even have known how he died, if Xue Wuya''s Internal Qi was at that time kept steel-like.


    "Whoosh...!"


    Another sharp sound was heard. Junior Leopard got shocked all of a sudden with his body retreating instinctively. That huge wolf''s sharp claws ripped the front part of his clothes leaving four blood stains.


    "Bravo! Lad! You''ve got some nerve being absent-minded right now?" that guy sneered and said. The huge yellow wolf sprang at Junior Leopard with harsh roars and its movements were as quick as lightning that although Junior Leopard dodged him left and right he still bore plenty of scars.


    What was worse was that through continuous attacks, the claws pierced into his body right to the tendons and meridians as if steel knives were damaging his viscus, which caused him tremendous harm.


    Gradually that huge yellow wolf turned into a ball of yellow light moving around Junior Leopard.The attacks were so swift that Junior Leopard could only retreat with no counterattack.


    "Damn it, I will definitely be dead if this goes on!"


    Forced by the opponent''s constant attacks, Junior Leopard retreated five hundred meters back and then a golden red light flashed between his two hands which were busy with defending his front.


    Six golden red fireballs appeared unexpectedly around his wrists heading directly for that huge yellow wolf.


    "Aye?!"


    At first, the yellow wolf ignored the fireballs and didn''t even bother to resist but kept the rhythm of its attacks.


    But when those golden red fireballs touched the huge wolf''s body, things totally changed.


    The huge wolf stopped his attacks all of a sudden and quickly moved several steps backward. Junior Leopard saw clearly that those golden fireballs he gave out were attached to its body. They were neither burning fiercely nor were they dying out either. Out of curiosity, the huge wolf didn''t try to put them out but let them burn as if it wondered what specialties those eccentric flames enjoyed.


    "Hum, since you are curious enough, I''m more than happy to show you more!" Observing the scene, Junior Leopard waved his hands without thinking and then about ten fireballs appeared around his wrists which were about to attack that huge yellow wolf fiercely.


    Those fireballs were totally different from the previous six which were given out carelessly when he was in desperation. Thirteen fireballs were full of strength like bullets shooting out when he exerted his utmost effort.


    Almost at the same time, the huge yellow wolf seemed to know that he was in trouble with those eccentric flames. It dodged left and right and started to put out the flames burning on his body.


    However, it wasn''t that easy to rid itself of the flames under the control of Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts. Seeing the opponent''s dodges, Junior Leopard separated the fireballs that were once very close by opening his fingers and blocked all the directions that the yellow wolf was going towards.


    "Whoosh¡ª!" That huge yellow wolf muffled. Unexpectedly, it stopped dodging and rushed head-on directly towards Junior Leopard ignoring those fireballs.


    "Uh-oh!" Junior Leopard fell into a panic and found out for real that the opponent didn''t aim to escape from his fireballs but to separate them, because in this way once it was hit, its injury wouldn''t be as serious as that caused by the overall thirteen fireballs.


    "That slippery old devil!" Watching three fireballs covered with golden red flames hit the huge wolf, Junior Leopard swore in secret.He raised both hands and three Fire Dragons appeared in the air, moving around his body.


    "The second state of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique? It doesn''t work!"


    That huge yellow wolf talked like a human being. Bearing the golden red flames, it broke Junior Leopard''s three Fire Dragons'' defense in a moment.


    As the Yanfu Inner Strength was employed, Junior Leopard floated about one hundred feet up in the air via his invincible impact force. He stretched his hands with golden red light floating around and a huge dragon of a strange shape appeared indistinctly. "Now that the second state of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique doesn''t work, what about the third state?"


    "Real dragon, the third state of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique!"


    The Lion, one of the real dragons, whose body was thirty feet long roared and rushed down fiercely with all of Junior Leopard''s strength.


    "Great!" the huge yellow wolf straightened up with golden red flame burning on its body growled angrily and rushed to the Lion head-on.

 Chapter 208: Omnipotent Yang Dragon Riding Flight Technique

    Chapter 208: Omnipotent Yang Dragon Riding Flight Technique


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Bang, bang¡ª!"


    Ear-deafening sounds echoed through the sky as the enormous Lion flanking Junior Leopard tackled and grappled the yellow wolf. It seemed they wouldn''t be separated anytime soon.


    This was the first time that Junior Leopard fully unleashed the strength of the Lion. After releasing the Lion, he felt all his Internal Qi dry up. The Lion drained the Internal Qi in his body and from the External Elixir embedded between his eyebrows.


    "That''s suprising. Though my Internal Qi created this Lion, it has a powerful fighting force all its own. Where does its marvelous fighting techniques come from?"


    At first, Junior Leopard thought the second or third states of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique would both be shaped by his Internal Qi practice once it reached a certain phase. In reality, these states were manifestations of his Internal Qi, so he needed more self-control to wield their strength.


    He certainly didn''t expect to loose control over the Lion upon releasing it. All he could do was allow the Lion to go fight the huge yellow wolf. Thanks to this decision, he discovered something surprising; one of the nine real dragons purified by his Internal Qi possessed consciousness and fighting instincts of its own. The dragon actually enjoyed the battle and seemed to have strength that could prevail over the wolf. The huge wolf that had made Junior Leopard suffer was now being pushed back by the Lion''s attacks.


    "How utterly bizarre. Could the ninth form of the real dragon be self-aware?"


    Junior Leopard was impressed. "Had I known this earlier," he thought, "I would have already released the Lion. Now I don''t need to fight the wolf!"


    As his mind churned with ideas, Junior Leopard saw a black shadow detach from the huge wolf and streak straight towards him. Junior Leopard cried out in alarm and flung himself back.


    Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi was all dried up. All he could do was grind his teeth as he saw the incoming attack. The External Elixir attached to his ear started trembling violently, a signal that the wolf had launched an Infinite Trembling Contemplation attack. Junior Leopard quickly strategized: if he couldn''t take this man down, he would have to escape by launching the Three Realms Division.


    As he prepared to evade, the Lion fighting the huge yellow wolf suddenly let out a mighty roar. Leaping off the yellow wolf, its body dissolved into nine big golden red fireballs that flew towards the dark shadow with astonishing speed.


    "About time!"


    The man groaned, golden light spilling from every pore in his body. His charge towards Junior Leopard slowed down slightly. Junior Leopard was about to seize this chance to escape when to everyone''s surprise, the brilliant golden-red flames swooped past the man and collided with Junior Leopard himself.


    "Hiss!"


    Junior Leopard took a deep breath, red-hot strength infusing his body. An abstract idea came to Junior Leopard''s mind, an idea inspired by the flames. Unconsciously, Junior Leopard assumed it was a new Internal Strength mental cultivation method, one he didn''t have the time to figure out.


    Once the man noticed he wasn''t the target of the fireball, he accelerated again. He felt a strange sense of unease: his cultivation may be higher, but the lad he fought seemed to have endless techniques. Against all odds, this boy had acquired the third form of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, an art no one had practiced for ten thousand years. This art was so much more powerful than he could have imagined; the boy could actually use this third form to counter his fist intent. Moreover, this weird third form seemed to have a special battle technique and a devastating heat aura which could damage his previously unconquered fist intent.


    Panic crept over him: he needed to kill Junior Leopard quickly, before this eccentric lad surprised him with more amazing techniques.


    "I was wrong this whole time!"


    As he felt Internal Qi flow though his body again and sensed black fire flickering merrily in his Dantian, Junior Leopard was filled with joy. "I shouldn''t have countered him with my Hammer Spirit at all," he thought, "or even thought about using the Hammer Spirit to defeat him. His Internal Qi is much more dense and clarified than mine. I was countering his strong points with my weak points. What a fool I was!"


    Junior Leopard threw back his head and laughed. As he noticed the man''s figure drawing closer, he waved his hands and condensed three more golden-red Fire Dragons that swirled around his body.


    Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique: the Second State!


    If the man had observed the Fire Dragon carefully, he would have realized the boy had condensed a different one from last time. This newly condensed Fire Dragon''s skin was a darker red than before. Unfortunately, the man didn''t look closely enough.


    "Your Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique can''t stop me, boy!" he shrieked. "Not even if you use the second state!"


    "Just wait and see," Junior Leopard sneered. "This won''t be anything like last time!"


    His Internal Qi gave him an advantage. Having endured numerous primal fire energy eccentricities, his Internal Qi, cleansed of fiery Evil Qi, had acquired devastating force. This force far exceeded the power of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique.


    Within his Internal Qi hummed the black fire power, along with the Earth Fire Yuan Essence and Blood Essence Evil Yuan powers he''d gained from the underground fire vein. Combined with his well-practiced Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, these four strengths had long since merged into an inseparable whole.


    What was Earth Fire Yuan Essence?


    Hidden in the deepest crevices of the geocentric fire veins, Earth Fire Yuan Essence was the most powerful primal fire energy in the world. For Fire Way Methods such as Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, it was a tonic that could eliminate all impurities from Internal Qi, leaving only the property of fire. After being purified by Earth Fire Yuan Essence, Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi had actually become a mass of fiery spiritual qi, purified of all foreign matter. This was why he could clear the second state of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique so easily. But what about the third state, Blood Essence Evil Yuan?


    This state was one of the most domineering, devastating forms of fiery Evil Qi in the world. If Junior Leopard hadn''t been lucky enough to know the practice methods of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, he would never have been able to refine Blood Essence Evil Yuan.


    Though he had successfully practiced with the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword technique, Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi still inevitably bore traces of that devastating Evil Qi energy. Because the Lion was one of the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon, it could turn from gold to golden-red.


    As for the Mysterious Fire in his Dantian, it was a kindling born in primitive times that had gained intelligence as it was passed from wielder to wielder. This fire could improve the power of his fiery Internal Qi exponentially.


    By combining these three factors, he had finally formed Internal Qi for the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, his greatest edge yet.


    The only problem was, he hadn''t realized this yet.


    Unconsciously, he had still treated his legendary fist intent and Gang Qi as strongest technqiues and spared no thought towards his Internal Qi.


    But now he understood.


    Junior Leopard knew right away when he released the Lion and saw its power.


    "This is actually my biggest advantage! Your Internal Qi may be more intense and clear, but my Internal Qi burns hotter and has a devastating power!"


    With a wicked glee in his heart, Junior Leopard waved the three Fire Dragons towards the man''s approaching body.


    "Break for me!"


    The man let out a harsh cry. The yellow light surrounding his body grew more intense. He quickly raised his hand and tried to brush the three Fire Dragons away. The last time he used this movement it was quite effective; this time, though¨C¨C


    "Ah!"


    The man''s body movements suddenly slowed. The three Fire Dragons wound around his body and arms like snakes, squeezing him tight like a python trapping its prey.


    And then¨C¨C!


    ¨C¨Cthey constricted.


    His couldn''t move his body. Fear crept across the man''s face. He realized that the three Fire Dragons were not just binding him, but also burning up his Gang Qi.


    Can Gang Qi even burn?


    How is this possible?


    Why is my Gang Qi burning?


    The man couldn''t answer these questions. Junior Leopard didn''t understand it either; he didn''t even know the reason for his current confidence. He''d unleashed the three Fire Dragons without moving his body, as if he had already known his Fire Dragons could stop this man.


    As man struggled fiercely against his bindings, the huge yellow wolf rose up behind his back. The wolf had originally intended to charge Junior Leopard, but now it threw itself at the man and fused with his aura of yellow Gang Qi.


    Dazzling yellow light immediately poured forth from the man''s body. This light gradually started to melt Junior Leopard''s three Fire Dragons.


    In terms of density and clearness, Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi could not compare to that man. Still, even though the man had successfully practiced Gang Qi and condensed his fist intent, he could not compare with Junior Leopard''s powers of destruction.


    As a result, Junior Leopard''s three Fire Dragons and the man''s Gang Qi were now in a stalemate.


    It soon became obvious that Junior Leopard was the disadvantaged party.


    Faced with such a rival, the most important thing was to finish the battle quickly. The yellow aura of light was forcing the glow of the three Fire Dragons to fade. However, Junior Leopard also noticed that the man''s face was growing pale. Two of the three Fire Dragons had wound tightly around his neck. The third wrapped around his Dantian. Although he had shielded all these points with his Gang Qi, as the Fire Dragons burned away his Gang Qi, Evil Qi from the Blood Essence Evil Yuan started seeping into his body. He had to be feeling lousy at this point.


    If the Fire Dragons could hold on long enough to infect his body with Evil Qi, even his Internal Qi would be burned to ashes. However, Junior Leopard didn''t have much time left.


    No, he was out of time. Once his rival escaped his trap, he would be in serious trouble. For this reason, Junior Leopard decided to take a risk while he still held the advantage!


    Junior Leopard clenched his teeth and rolled up his sleeves. He deployed the 49 Demon Devil needles, hurling them straight at the man. He separated the needles into 7 groups, each aiming for one of the man''s death acupoints.


    Acupoints were always the weakest parts of a man''s body. Even when one had cultivated Gang Qi to protect the body, that protection was still the weakest around the acupoints. The man had concentrated all his Gang Qi''s power against Junior Leopard''s three Fire Dragons in order to burn them away, so this was the best time for Junior Leopard to attack.


    The man''s face twitched as he saw the 49 black needles fly from Junior Leopard''s sleeves. The light from his Gang Qi immediately dimmed as he stopped trying to burn away the three Fire Dragons.


    "Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding...!" Ringing like chimes, the 49 Demon Devil Needles all pierced the man''s seven death acupoints.


    "You have celestial devices too! No wonder you became so famous in the Central Plains!" Constrained by three Fire Dragons, unable to move, the man could only smile coldly. Less than half of the 49 Demon Devil needles pierced through his Gang Qi and frozen him in place. He couldn''t even twitch a single muscle. The other needles were repelled by his Gang Qi and gathered back up in Junior Leopard''s sleeves.


    "I''m far more than just a celestial device wielder!" Junior Leopard replied with a matching sneer. With a sudden motion, he closed the distance between him and the man. Now face to face, the man could see a glimmer of cruelty shine in the boy''s eyes. Junior Leopard opened his hands with a smile. Dazzling golden-red light rose off his body. This blinding, sun-bright light enveloped the man within seconds. Nobody could see what transpired inside this gleaming shroud.


    "You snuck into the Central Plains to steal our grain!"


    "You tried to kill me!"


    "You tried to solve your country''s problems by destroying Northern Yuan!"


    "You sought to rain destruction on the hinterlands of the Central Plains!"


    "Keep on day-dreaming!"


    "Keep on dying!"


    Junior Leopard roared. Shimmering with boundless light, he swayed forward and head-butted the man right on the forehead. Red Sword Qi shot from his forehead at the point of impact and pierced his enemy''s skull.


    The man ducked his head, unconsciously sensing the incoming attack. However, his move came too late.


    Because they were so close, and because Junior Leopard''s Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword was too quick, it was simply too late for him to dodge.


    Keening Sword Qi struck his forehead, boring a small round hole in his yellow Gang Qi. The Sword Qi drilled a similar hole through his forehead, shattering his skull and his Gang Qi in the same instant.


    His advanced Gang Qi level and iron-like Internal Qi were worthless against the invincible power of the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword.


    Surprisingly, the man didn''t die immediately. He stared at Junior Leopard with wide, incredulous eyes, blood pouring from the hole in his head. "This is impossible!"


    Junior Leopard let out a cold chuckle. Suddenly, his face turned blue with shock. He quickly leapt backwards. Unfortunately, his evasion came too late.


    ...


    "I''m taking you with me...!" the man growled, voicing the last words of his life.


    "Swoosh--!" There was a faint cracking noise, a sound like a watermelon crushed by a fist. Blood sprayed everywhere, shooting forth like a rain of arrows.


    "D*mn!" Junior Leopard stepped back and threw up his sleeves. The Demon Devil Needles in and outside of his sleeves flew forth at lightning speed, forming a finely woven barrier in front of him. The needles blocked most of the blood arrows, but a few broke through Junior Leopard''s defenses and struck his left side.


    "Shnk, shnk, shnk--!" With a continual slicing sound, he felt the blood arrows pierce his arm, thigh and shoulder. This explosion was the Level Eight expert''s final blow, so these blood arrows were more than just powerful projectiles: they carried a strong sense of killing intent and deadly Qi.


    Pierced by the arrows, the killing intent and deadly Qi of this final attack began to invade his tendons and meridians, destroying his body from the inside. Junior Leopard was forced to immediately seal off his nine important acupoints. Even then, he only stopped the deadly Qi and killing intent from spreading further through his body.


    As for the bystanders, some were lucky enough to be far away from the battle. The curious onlookers and soldiers concerned about Junior Leopard''s safety had no way to escape from this final attack. They died on the spot, pierced by the raining blood arrows.


    "No¨C¨C!"


    "Help¨C¨C!"


    "This isn''t right; run¨C¨C!"


    "Ah¨C¨C!"


    Panicked voices echoed across the field in a babbling chorus.


    "D*mn it! We''ve lost so many!"


    Although Junior Leopard managed to contain the deadly Qi and killing intent by sealing his vital acupoints, he also sealed off the circulation route for his own Internal Qi. The instant his circulating channels were cut off, his body stopped moving through the air. He fell to the ground like a rock. He briefly struggled on the ground, but soon fainted from the sheer pain.


    ...


    ...


    Ride the dragon, steer the Qi. Spiral up to the Heavens Nine...


    A carefree mind can bind the wind. Through this Way, soar to the Sky, ...


    ...


    ...


    As this pithy formula appeared in Junior Leopard''s mind, the Internal Qi in his body began to circulate in accordance with this mental cultivation method. This Qi gradually began to resonate and merge with his Yanfu Inner Strength, all on an unconscious level.


    "Your Excellency! Excellency! His Excellency Zhou is awake! His Excellency Zhou is awake!" Junior Leopard, his thoughts still muddled, heard short snippets of a pleasantly surprised voice.


    "C''mon, hurry up, doctor! His Excellency is awake! Get over here!"


    ...


    ...


    Junior Leopard felt the fingers of a wizened hand touch his wrist. Moments later, Junior Leopard heard some people whispering inaudibly.


    He felt really, truly awful.


    The moment his consciousness returned, he felt the deadly Qi and killing intent curdle inside him.


    After that man self-destructed, Junior Leopard had sealed away the deadly Qi and killing intent from the blood arrows that pierced his body. Even though the killing intent hadn''t spread further, it had eaten into his injured tendons, meridians, muscles and bones.


    Whenever his faint Internal Qi flowed through these injured places, the resulting fierce pain made his muscles spasm.


    "Hack! Cough, cough, cough¡ª!"


    He took a deep breath of cold air to deal with the acute pain. The cold air trickled down his throat but went no further. Junior Leopard started coughing violently. As he coughed, a painful pressure built in his lungs and chest like the bellows of a forge.


    "Your Excellency! Thank heavens you''re awake!"


    Junior Leopard opened his eyes and saw Lu Laihong, his comrade from the personal guard camp. Lu Laihong''s face was filled with joy. He helped Junior Leopard sit up on the bed, babbling nonstop all the while.


    "Rest assured, I ¨C *cough, cough* ¨C I won''t die so easily!" Junior Leopard croaked. After a few coughs, his breath came more smoothly and his eyesight cleared up. He seemed to be resting in a guest room of some government house. The room was crowded with people who stared at him like a group of excited panda-watchers. Junior Leopard felt embarrassed by their attention.


    Beside his bed, a man dressed like a doctor touched Junior Leopard''s wrist to read his pulse. The doctor frowned in thought.


    "How long have I been out?" Junior Leopard asked in a whisper. He spoke softly not out of a desire to be gentle, but because he felt an awful, tearing pain each time he raised his voice.


    "Five days, Your Excellency. You were unconscious for five whole days!" Lu Laihong replied.


    "Five days?" Junior Leopard exclaimed. A growling noise came from his stomach: after five days without food, he was definitively hungry.


    "Hurry up! Fetch us some porridge, quickly!" Lu Laihong said, waving at the others.


    ...


    ...


    After some chatting, Junior Leopard finally sank back into the bed again. He had learned much about what happened over the past few days. He was staying in the government house of Maojiang Prefecture. Five days had passed since he killed the Level Eight expert at Maojiang. He had been unconscious for all five of these days.


    To save time, Lu Laihong had sent most of the soldiers on their way after letting them to stay in Maojiang for three days. After Maojiang Prefecture, almost all the roads to Danyang County were officially administered. With the help of the prefectures, there wouldn''t be any problems during the trip.


    Even if big problems did arise, they had no other options.


    Junior Leopard was severely injured and nobody knew when he could wake up. If they all had to wait for him at Maojiang Prefecture, nobody knew how long this would take.


    Junior Leopard, meanwhile, had no pressing concerns.


    Though he''d been injured escorting a mere supply shipment, he had fended off the ambush of a Level Eight expert. He not only protected the shipment, but also blew the attacking expert to smithereens. He''d already accomplished a great deal; even if the shipment was robbed on its way to Danyang County, he was no longer responsible.


    Even the biggest twits of the imperial court couldn''t blame him for being disabled by a monster with the combat prowess of a Level Eight expert.


    He had also learned the identity of his attacker, a Level Eight Expert with a reputation 30-years old. He was one of the Four Prairie Wolves, the senior guard to the golden camp of Northern Yuan by the name of Buyan Gerel!


    The Four Prairie Wolves referred to the top Level Eight experts led by three Grandmasters of the Northern Prairie. Their status was on par with the common tribal chiefs, particularly when coupled with their status as Alliance Elders. As promising experts who would most likely inherit the status of Grandmaster in the martial arts world of the prairie, they enjoyed the highest prestige in Northern Yuan.


    Against all expectations, an expert like this had snuck into the Central Plains to personally destroy the supply shipments of Great Jin. This move clearly demonstrated how desperate Northern Yuan had become.


    What really nettled the people of Northern Yuan was that their Level Eight expert had died to the likes of Junior Leopard. Their champion only managed to kill a few of the soldiers escorting the shipment, destroyed dozens of grain parcels and severely injured the leader in charge of protecting the grain.


    A mere Level Four expert had obliterated their Level Eight expert!


    Once more, Junior Leopard''s name was on the lips of everyone in the Jianghu. Clearly, the awe he inspired in people''s hearts was stronger than before. One could even say that Junior Leopard was now the most famous star in the Jianghu after this unparalleled display of arms.


    This was the reality of his current situation.


    During the five days Junior Leopard was unconscious, the entire Jianghu had fallen into disarray.


    Junior Leopard couldn''t control what the people of the Jianghu gossiped about, nor did he have the energy to think about it.


    All his thoughts were focused on the time he spent unconscious. Although he was half-conscious when he heard that pithy Internal Qi formula, he still remembered the words well. The formula was so clear in his mind it may as well have been carved in his heart. The Internal Qi in his body was actually circulating in perfect accordance with this pithy formula.


    The Dragon Flying Technique! (To be continued. If you want to know what happens next, please visit ''www.qidian.com'' to read more chapters and support the author!)

 Chapter 209: Seven Heart Golden Scorpion Poison, Disciples of the Lyu Family

    Chapter 209: Seven Heart Golden Scorpion Poison, Disciples of the Lyu Family


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Because of losing all consciousness, he didn''t feel much pain especially when the pithy formula united with the Yanfu Inner Strength. This enabled Yanfu Inner Strength to be much smoother. Internal Qi was flowing through the whole body. When it flowed to the parts where the meridians were damaged, it slowed down, bringing himself waves of searing pain.


    Though the speed slowed down gradually, it didn''t stop. It progressed as slowly as a turtle and almost made one crazy, at the same time, repairing the tendons and meridians and muscles and bones in his body. The effect was extremely great. As long as this Internal Qi circulated through the whole body, it would very quickly force out the Dead Qi and killing intent that Buyan Gerel had left in his body. It would also finish repairing all his tendons and meridians that were damaged.


    It needed time, however, and the only thing that Junior Leopard could do was to wait silently.


    Based on his estimation, it required 10 days. After 10 days, the injuries in his body would completely heal. It was better for him to be more well-behaved during this period.


    "Okay, you all should go down first. Laihong, let the doctor return as well. I''ll mind my own business!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" Even though Junior Leopard''s face was still pale, his spirit turned much better, so Lu Laihong agreed. Ever since he saw Junior Leopard killing Buyan Gerel, he had borne a kind of blind confidence in Junior Leopard.


    Such confidence was natural. In this world, apart from Junior Leopard the monster, no one would possess such strength at the age of 15. Who else could, with a Level Four cultivation, force a Level Eight expert to explode in a one-on-one situation?


    None!


    It had never been heard of before!


    Ever since Junior Leopard had killed Buyan Gerel in public, this group of soldiers, who escorted the rations with him, had developed an extreme kind of blind worship towards Junior Leopard.


    It could be said that in the eyes of some of them, Junior Leopard had become the term for invincibility.


    "Laihong, my injuries are not too serious. However, I do need time to rest. Get them to prepare a quiet room for me. I want to go on closed-door training for 10 days!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!"


    Junior Leopard went on closed-door training in Maojiang for 10 days to quietly recuperate.


    In Jianghu, when he challenged bypassing rank successfully and killed Dragon Granny, a Level Seven expert, some people would still say he was lucky. After all, Dragon Granny''s strength was at the lowest tier among Level Seven. Though it was surprising that she would be carelessly killed by Junior Leopard, such a thing was not unbelievable.


    Regardless, Buyan Gerel''s death belonged in the category that the people found unacceptable.


    A Level Four expert who was only 15 years old actually killed one of the Four Wolves in the prairies who had been famous for 30 years!


    That was unbelievable!


    Buyan Gerel was not an expert who luckily advanced to a level like Dragon Granny. Depending on his own strength and unparalleled talent, he became a Level Eight expert at the age of 30. Even in the entire Jianghu, he could be considered as one of the best. But now, he ridiculously died in Junior Leopard''s hands.


    Zhou Bao must have a celestial device with strong attack force or know an extremely powerful secret technique!


    After going through an entire ruckus, almost all of Jianghu came to such a conclusion.


    In actual fact, there could only be one such explanation!


    As long as it was someone with a brain, he would understand that based purely on his own strength, it was impossible for Junior Leopard to defeat Buyan Gerel. He must have resorted to some external force. What kind of external force could it be?


    A celestial device or secret technique!


    The former option was more possible. After all, secret techniques had a very harsh requirement on the cultivator. With Junior Leopard''s Level Four cultivation and body toughness, it was impossible for him to cultivate a powerful secret technique. A celestial device must be the best explanation.


    Only celestial devices with a strong attack force could possibly help him kill bypassing ranks.


    In this way, another problem arose.


    "Since Zhou Bao could use a celestial device to kill a Level Eight expert, then why couldn''t I do the same?"


    "If I had one such celestial device, then I could do it as well. I could be famous in the Jianghu, too. I could become one of the tops in the younger generation!"


    Under these circumstances, before things being confirmed, Junior Leopard had already been targeted by numerous greedy eyes.


    "Truly there are no fools in the world. Can a Level Four expert kill a Level Eight expert? It is weird not to have anything fishy going on here!"


    After 10 days, Junior Leopard''s injuries were completely healed. He stood refreshed in front of everybody and then learned first hand of the Jianghu rumor.


    A celestial device, special technique, and secret skill!


    Only when he possessed one of the three could he possibly kill a Level Eight expert.


    Special techniques and secret skills would impose a heavy burden on the body. With his current cultivation, even if he could display a special technique or secret skill at that level, there would be dealing damage to him. It was impossible to say if he could recover in 10 days. Since that was the case, there was only one possibility!


    "Your Excellency, recently a lot of suspicious pugilists have been to Maojiang. I think they are aiming for you!" Lu Laihong carefully looked at Junior Leopard. He wanted to fish out some information from Junior Leopard.


    He was disappointed. Junior Leopard smiled as if he just exited the quiet room, "Enough, Laihong, don''t speak about that useless stuff. I haven''t eaten a good meal these few days. Since you have been in Maojiang Prefecture, you must know where there is good stuff to eat!"


    "Of course!" Hearing Junior Leopard mention about eating, Lu Laihong was pretty joyful. This fella was famous for being a foodie in the personal guard camp. His hobby was to eat. No matter where we went, within three days, he would be able to have a good grasp where were the nice places to eat -- Where the good restaurants were, where the famous one was, he would be able to state it all.


    Maojiang was a small place. Its position was also not optimal; hence, it had always been desolate.


    For the past few days, this originally desolate city had become boisterous. From time to time, there would be pugilists armed with swords and sabers appearing. Most of them were at the cultivation of Level Two to Three. There would also be a few whose cultivation had entered into the Bone-Forging Realm. For a Bone-Forging Realm expert, presence in such a small town was an extremely rare thing.


    Junior Leopard and Lu Laihong changed their clothes and came out. Lu Laihong was about 30 years old. His face seemed younger as if he was just 20 years old. Junior Leopard''s age was even younger. When they walked on the road, they were just like a pair of normal brothers. They didn''t attract anybody''s attention.


    Under Lu Laihong''s direction, they arrived at a restaurant. "Your Excellency, this restaurant''s dog meat is extremely tasty. It is said that the skills are passed down from their ancestor. Your Excellency must try it!"


    "Since you, Lu Laihong, has recommended it, I naturally have to try it!" Junior Leopard smiled. Lu Laihong''s smile was almost as flattering as that of Zhu Ba, impressing Junior Leopard.


    Some changes happened unknowingly.


    Lu Laihong was a veteran in the personal guard camp. His skills were also not bad. As a personal guard, he naturally had some arrogance. Although Junior Leopard was the Vice Commander of the personal guard camp and owned high cultivation at the same time, he was still a newcomer. Even if he squeezed into the personal guard camp by virtue of his cultivation and convinced the entire crowd, there was no need for them to flatter him in such way. Ever since Junior Leopard reached Jiang City and performed a few great feats, for example, killing a Level Seven expert Dragon Granny, his position became different.


    Being a Level Seven expert with a cultivation like that, if he was not under Li Yuan but under the imperial court, he could at least be an Admiral. Of course, it was possible for him to be invited to the capital and become one of the members of the Heavenly Dragon Society in Palace Guards.


    Heavenly Dragon Society in Palace Guards was an especially good place for the imperial court to search for the world''s experts. Those who could enter the society had a cultivation of at least Level Five. The highest was Level Eight.


    Although the experts in Heavenly Dragon Society''s owned little power, their treatment and rank were extremely high. Each of them had a position higher than common Admiral.


    Although Junior Leopard only had a cultivation of Level Four, with his combat capability, it was sufficient to join Heavenly Dragon Society.


    That was also the reason why, when Junior Leopard returned to Li Yuan''s personal guard camp, no one protested even if he was promoted to be the Vice Camp Supervisor.


    This time, Lu Laihong personally witnessed the duel between Junior Leopard and Buyan Gerel. The time was not long, but the impact it left was unprecedented.


    In this world, those whose cultivation above Level Seven were extremely few. Each of them was a precious treasure and was rare to encounter by ordinary people. Lu Laihong had lived for 30 years more, and his martial arts were of a famous origin. And yet, he had only seen a Level Seven expert twice. One was Wang She, whom he met when attacking Zhonghejun City. The other was Buyan Gerel, who dueled with Junior Leopard half a month ago.


    When Junior Leopard dueled with Buyan Gerel, the time was not long, but the force was immense especially when their hammer spirit and fist intent started to collide. Lu Laihong and the others'' cultivation were not high enough, and they didn''t have divine thoughts. They couldn''t see the spirit with just their naked eyes. What he saw was two people standing and facing each other, not moving at all. Both of them were enshrouded in a mysterious light. Yet their surroundings had lightning flashing like tides. Within 300 feet of the space where two of them were standing, there was nothing. It seemed to be extremely powerful, and all caused a chill in him. He then understood that Junior Leopard''s cultivation had exceeded their imagination. He was different from what he had been before. He thought since Junior Leopard was only 15 to 16 years old, and he already had such achievements, his future must be limitless. Hence, his attitude towards Junior Leopard made a subtle change. He began to take notice of the little details when hanging out, and unknowingly these little details turned into flattery.


    Facing this, Junior Leopard was helpless. He didn''t want to change anything at all. In the path of cultivation, strength was everything. When your strength had reached a stage where it was difficult for others to catch up, others would naturally be respectful and afraid of you. Lu Laihong was not the first. Of course, he wouldn''t be the last. The most important thing was that he could hold his own desire.


    The surface area of the restaurant was not big, yet it was extremely boisterous. Just standing at the door, one could smell the fragrance of the meat.


    That must be the so-called "Dog meat rolled thrice and the immortal wasn''t able to sit still."


    What was more, this restaurant''s secret recipe to cook dog meat was passed down through generations, differing greatly from other places. That fragrance was impressive enough to attract all. Even though Junior Leopard was not a foodie like Lu Laihong, he could also be considered as a greedy person. Once he smelled it, he couldn''t restrain his appetite. He lifted his steps and walked into the restaurant.


    The restaurant''s business was extremely good. Even though it wasn''t lunch time yet, rooms were all filled up. There was only a little space in the corner left.


    Junior Leopard and Lu Laihong were not picky people. They found an empty space and sat down. They called the waiter and ordered their dishes. They also ordered two plates of peanuts. Although the dog meat wasn''t ready yet, it was somewhat carefree to eat peanuts while drinking wine.


    Lu Laihong was initially a bit restricted in front of Junior Leopard, but after downing a few cups of wine, those feelings slowly disappeared. At first, Junior Leopard''s expression was positive. After drinking a few cups, however, he seemed to have discovered something that made him uncomfortable, and he started to become gloomy.


    "Your Excellency, what''s wrong?!"


    "Nothing, just a fella that doesn''t know his place," Junior Leopard said gently and indicated to Lu Laihong to continue drinking.


    Lu Laihong had doubts in his heart. Seeing Junior Leopard''s expression, he didn''t dare say much but only lowered his head and kept drinking.


    After a while, the servant came with a big bowl of dog meat.


    "Two guests, please enjoy your food!"


    "So fragrant!" Seeing the dog meat, Lu Laihong didn''t want to restrain anymore. He picked up one piece and shoved the meat into his mouth at once without caring whether it was hot or not. He didn''t realize that Junior Leopard hadn''t moved his chopsticks until swallowing the meat. For a while, he felt embarrassed.


    "Alright, you and I are brothers, don''t be so formal," Junior Leopard said. He also snitched a piece of meat and swallowed it. Once the meat entered his mouth, the corner of his lips flashed a trace of a cold smile.


    There was poison in the meat!


    Fatal poison!


    Slow fatal poison!


    Junior Leopard had the Poison-absorbing Green Bead with him. During his stay in South Yuezhou State, he had absorbed countless Invisible Bug poisons. Finding a kind of extreme cold Evil Qi, he would have the chance to refine the Poison Cold Shield. Although the poison on this dog meat was superior, it was impossible to do anything to Junior Leopard. Once the poison entered his mouth, it was absorbed by the Poison-absorbing Green Bead as nutrients.


    "This Poison-absorbing Green Bead is really powerful. After it is kept by me, I''m almost immune to poison now. I wonder who this guy is and how dare he use poison against me! Although this poison is fatal, it won''t act up in a short while. If I haven''t guessed wrongly, the time it should act up is in the evening. The person who used the poison will appear at that time to steal my celestial device. Hehe, that is interesting. My Asura Yin Evil Needles have never been revealed in front of living people, and no one knows what my celestial device is. Just because of a conjecture, so many people appear in Maojiang. This scene is the same as those days when the Golden Goose Cup surfaced in the world. It seems this world has so many greedy people!" Junior Leopard thought in his heart.


    The restaurant had many people, all of them were men in Jianghu, discussing matters of the Jianghu.


    What was the most resounding news in Jianghu now?


    It wasn''t the war between Northern Yuan and Jin. It wasn''t the two Grandmasters chasing after Wang She. It also wasn''t the imperial court using rewards to entice pugilists to enter Northern Yuan to reduce the power of the grasslands pugilist world.


    It was about the vice Camp Supervisor in the personal guard camp of Li Yuan, the General in Qing Province, killing Buyan Gerel, one of the four Great Wolves in the grasslands, when he was escorting the rations to Yunzhou.


    It was earth-shaking!


    And people in Jianghu were naturally also affected. Hence, in this restaurant, as long as he was a person, he would be discussing this matter. Junior Leopard''s image in the hearts of these Jianghu people was sometimes big, sometimes ferocious, sometimes mystical, sometimes strange. Anyway, there wasn''t any description that really fit him.


    Although the Jianghu rumor might sound interesting at first, it gradually became boring later on.


    "Your Excellency, what about leaving now? The Jianghu rumor is too pointless!" Lu Laihong said, seeing Junior Leopard''s face change.


    "Just some Jianghu rumor, never mind, but I have heard enough today!" Junior Leopard said. He didn''t say much but settled the bill and left the restaurant.


    When they left, the second floor of the restaurant had one window opened. A head slowly emerged and watched them leave. His face revealed a satisfied smile.


    "It is really fancy finding by sheer luck what I have searched for far and wide. Zhou Bao should come here to eat! Since he is poisoned by my Seven Heart Golden Scorpion Poison, he will definitely die this time!"


    What he didn''t know was that from the moment he popped his head out from the window, he was already seen clearly by Junior Leopard. Even his mutter was unable to escape Junior Leopard''s sharp senses.


    "God knows what background that guy has. How should he possess such potent poison!" Junior Leopard didn''t realize that the poison within the dog meat was completely outside of his expectations until he walked for another while.


    He had refined the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, and now the Bead was already one entirety with him. What movements the Bead had, he knew clearly.


    When he had the first bite, he sensed the abnormality in the Bead. He then knew the dog meat had poison in it.


    Initially, he only thought that it was normal poison. Hence when eating, he not only absorbed all the poison in that wok of dog meat but also circulated the Bead''s energy to absorb the poison in Lu Laihong''s body.


    Until now, he had just realized when being absorbed by the Bead, the poison continued boiling within the Bead. It seemed to be more overbearing than the Invisible Bug he absorbed in Yuezhou that day. The Poison-absorbing Green Bead actually spent a longer time than the Invisible Bug in refining this special poison into one entirety.


    After successful refining, there was a luster on the Bead''s surface. Its color was jade green and extremely fresh.


    "I''d better return to Yunzhou in one day and try to master the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and Poison Cold Shield!"


    Junior Leopard once again thought of the earth vein of Evil Qi in the West Mountain Pass. His heart itched.


    ...


    ...


    The sky was dark hiding the moon. Between the heavens and earth was a pitch black.


    Within the Maojiang Prefecture, it was very quiet. Apart from the occasional patrol passing by, there wasn''t any sound at all.


    A black figure under the cover of the night sky, like a piece of rotten leaf, easily passed over the high walls and silently landed on the roof of a room at the back of the government house.


    The black figure twisted his body and landed on the eaves. His eyes slowly got closer to the window. He licked his right thumb and softly pierced through the white paper of the window. His head moved even closer. He wanted to have a clearer look at the inside.


    He saw a smiling face!


    A cold smiling face!


    "Jesus!" He cried lowly. He wanted to borrow the pushing force by waving body to get away, but Junior Leopard''s hands already passed through the window and locked onto his face.


    "My friend, since you have already come, don''t rush to go away. Otherwise, people will say that I don''t know how to treat guests well!"


    Junior Leopard''s cold laughter rang in his ears, and strong force enveloped and dragged his entire body into the room.


    The window''s broken wooden batten produced popping sounds.


    Although the sound was not loud, it was extremely clear when put in this peaceful night. Instantly, the whole courtyard awakened.


    "Nothing serious, it''s just a thief. I''ll handle it myself. All of you go back to sleep!" Junior Leopard''s voice rang out and spread across the whole courtyard.


    "How brave this thief is. He must be foolish enough to try to steal from our Excellency!"


    "I guess this fellow must suffer great pain then!"


    "He is just a rotten egg!"


    ...


    ...


    After discussion, the noisy courtyard gradually returned to its quietness.


    Junior Leopard pulled the person into the room. His Internal Qi went through his body and instantly sealed several vital acupoints of the person causing him to be immobile.


    He then threw him down on the floor.


    "You are pretty fearless! You didn''t even cover your face when coming to me. Do you really think I''m dead?!" Junior Leopard glared at the young man lying on the floor. He coldly laughed and said, "Tell me, who are you and why did you poison me? Why have you sneakily come into my room in the night?"


    Though the young man on the floor was sealed by Junior Leopard, he didn''t have any frantic expressions. However, when he was charged to use poison, his expression stiffened.


    "Camp Supervisor Zhou, you must speak with proof. When did I poison you? If I really poisoned you, how could you still talk to me here? I only heard that Camp Supervisor Zhou''s martial arts are powerful and have killed a grassland expert. You are a famous hero, hence, I have a sense of admiration. I happened to pass by Maojiang Prefecture, so I want to seize the opportunity to visit you!"


    Junior Leopard was surprised to see this emboldened young man.


    "Visit me? Is there anyone paying such a visit?"


    "I know what I did is not suitable. However, Your Excellency is a famous Level Eight expert. I''m just at Level Three. Even if I visit you in this way, I won''t trouble you so much."


    "Damn you!" Junior Leopard didn''t want to talk rubbish with him anymore. He stamped onto his face.


    "Ah, you, you, you, so daring!"


    The young man, whose face was stamped by Junior Leopard, shouted, "Do you know who I am? To actually be so disrespectful towards me? Hurry, take away your foot!"


    Junior Leopard''s eyebrows furrowed. This man''s words and tone caused Junior Leopard to dislike him. From his tone, he seemed to be someone from a strong background.


    "I obviously don''t know who you are. You didn''t tell me!" Junior Leopard smiled, his feet adding more strength. The man howled painfully.


    "Quickly, quickly, take it away. You, you dare! I, I, I am a Lyu Family disciple! Quickly take your foot away!"


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 210: Riding the Wind Through the Skies, A Stranger in the Lightning

    Chapter 210: Riding the Wind Through the Skies, A Stranger in the Lightning


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Lyu Family?


    Junior Leopard''s eyebrows furrowed slightly, the corner of his mouth revealing a strand of cold smile.


    In the present world, the well-known families ruled. The big ones were the Pingzhou Li Family, the Qingzhou Liang Family, the Hedong Cui Family etc. They were all well-known families. Their legacies ran for thousands of years and they had a strong foundation. Even the royal family of Jin had to give leeway to them. Their strength was enough to compare with the large thousand year old sects like the Mingyi School and the Tian Long Taoism. The talents in their tribes were numerous. Normally they would not reveal themselves. However, if there were big events or dangers, these families would explode with terrifying strength. Nobody would forget how 800 years ago, when the world was in chaos, the Northern Yuan had conquered the south. The Pingzhou Li Family, the Hedong Cui Family, the Qingzhou Liang Family and a few other well-known families had joined hands to resist the enemy, displaying their awesome might.


    Within a night, the world had 6 Level Nine experts, 14 Level Eight experts, 29 Level Seven experts and hundreds of Bone-Forging Realm experts. They had helped the Marquis Wu to stabilize the Central Plains. In just half a year, they managed to chase the Northern Yuan army back to the north. In half a year Marquis Wu had also unified the Central Plains and established the Wu Dynasty. After the dynasty had been established, these experts that had come out of nowhere disappeared almost overnight, as if they had never appeared.


    This was the only time in the past thousand years that the few well-known families had displayed their strength. In the eight hundred years since, even though there were years of war, and the Northern Yuan had conquered the south numerous times, they did not reach to such an extent. The well-known families with their frightening foundations very rarely appeared in the world to reveal their true strength.


    However, although a few hundred years had passed, the deterrent strength of the families were deeply embedded in people''s hearts. This was the case even though they kept a very low-profile.


    The Lyu Family was also a well-known family. However, compared with the millennial families of power and influence like the Pingzhou Li Family, the Qingzhou Liang Family, the Tian Long Taoism and the Mingyi School, the Lyu Family was only a mid-sized family. Their influence only spanned one province.


    Qingzhou''s Silvercity Province was under the rule of the Lyu Family.


    The Silvercity Province was very close to Maojiang. Hence, the Lyu Family had a lot of status in this area.


    However, what did this have to do with Junior Leopard?


    In his eyes, the Lyu Family was merely a wealthy family in the area. They had actually dared to use lethal poison to harm him and schemed to obtain his celestial device. This was just as well. All this could be attributed to greed. However, when the poisoner was caught, he didn''t submit. In addition to that, he even used the Lyu Family to pressure him, as if the Lyu Family was anything great.


    This was an idiot who didn''t know how high the heavens were or how thick the earth was!


    Seeing the idiot struggling and crying beneath his feet, Junior Leopard once again raised his legs and stomped on his elbow.


    "Ka-cha!"


    "Ah¡ª!"


    There was a sound of bone crushing, followed by a shriek as if a pig had been killed. All the guests in the backyard of the Governor''s Mansion were startled.


    However, this time around, they knew that a small thief who did not know his limits had been caught by His Excellency. Naturally they would not clamorously rush to the front of the door.


    A few miserable cries came out from the room, followed by a "Hu" sound. A black body flew out from Junior Leopard''s room, like a broken bag. "Laihong, find some place and bury his corpse!"


    "Yes!" Lu Laihong responded. He asked a few soldiers to carry away the corpse whose brain had been smashed in by Junior Leopard.


    A silent night!


    It was just that Junior Leopard was unable to fall asleep.


    The fellow he had killed held a position in the Lyu Family. No, it should be said that he held a superior status. If not, he would not have built such a personality where he was pampered and not scared of anything.


    When faced with someone who had used poison against him in a scheme to rob the celestial device, Junior Leopard naturally would not show mercy. However, Maojiang was very close to Silvercity Province. Junior Leopard did not want to incur a huge enmity. Hence, he smashed the man''s head to prevent people from recognizing who he was. He then settled him like a normal thief. In this way, even if the Lyu Family had suspicions, they did not have any proof.


    The problem now was the information that he had obtained from this Lyu Jianyun.


    "Damn it. The situation is even more troublesome than I thought. I assumed that only a few greedy Jianghu people would come looking for trouble. Who would have thought that these mid and small-sized families also want my Asura Yin Evil Needles. F**k, this group of bastards ought to die. They don''t even know what my celestial device is, yet they believe that I have a celestial device that allows me to fight across levels. Since that is the case, I might as well put the Demon Devil Needle out in the open. I have already completely refined these needles anyway. I can even form the formation. Who is scared of it?!"


    Junior Leopard thought for a while. His heart was beating rapidly. Lyu Jianyun was a useless douchebag. Junior Leopard had obtained a lot of information from him. Originally Junior Leopard hadn''t planned to kill him. It was a pity that the information he revealed cost him his life.


    The poison he''d used to harm Junior Leopard and Lu Laihong was called Seven Heart Golden Scorpion Poison. It was one of the Nine Great Poisons. It was refined from the poison of the Seven Heart Golden Scorpion mixed with other lethal poison. Apart from the unique antidote, only the legendary Poison-absorbing Green Bead could counter such a poison. This poison had been obtained by the Lyu Family by chance and it was considered a treasure. It was kept in the treasure vault and wasn''t used easily. Lyu Jianyun was the ancestress'' favorite grandson in the Lyu Family. It was also because he was doted by the ancestress that he had such a personality. When Lyu Jianyun had heard the Jianghu rumours that Zhou Bao was relying on a celestial device to kill the Northern Yuan Level Eight expert and shocked the world, he became envious.


    If it was during normal times, he would not have had such thoughts. However, these Jianghu rumors came one after another. They said that Junior Leopard was heavily injured because of this and was going to die soon. There were also rumors that countless people were heading for Maojiang to try to steal his celestial device.


    As a Young Master in the Lyu Family, he also vaguely knew that apart from the ordinary Jianghu people, a few well-known families whose strength was on par with the Lyu Family had also secretly sent people to Maojiang to look for an opportunity to steal the celestial device from Junior Leopard. Hence, he was jealous. Since others could go, why couldn''t he go as well?


    Furthermore, Maojiang was not far away from Silvercity. The Lyu Family had some influence in that area. He obtained the Seven Heart Golden Scorpion Poison from the Lyu Family''s ancestress so that he could bring it with him and seek opportunity within Maojiang.


    Unexpectedly, two days after his arrival at Maojiang, he bumped into Junior Leopard and Lu Laihong roaming the streets. Others might not have recognized Junior Leopard, but he did.


    Even though he was a douchebag, he was not someone who did not prepare for battles. Before coming, he''d gotten drawings of Junior Leopard. He came across Junior Leopard, and seized the opportunity. He then calculated the time and secretly poisoned their food. He had been prepared to see their bodies that night.


    He had extremely confidence in this Seven Heart Golden Scorpion Poison. He also knew that in this world, besides the unique antidote, only the Poison-absorbing Green Bead could neutralize this poison. Therefore, when he saw Junior Leopard and Lu Laihong eat the meat, he thought that things were done. After all, the Poison-absorbing Green Bead had not shown up in the world for hundreds of years. Even if it appeared, Junior Leopard would not have had it.


    But he had miscalculated!


    When Junior Leopard heard that this Seven Heart Golden Scorpion Poison could only be neutralized by a unique antidote or the Poison-absorbing Green Bead and that Lyu Jianyun firmly believed that he had swallowed this poison, he did not react in time. If he let Lyu Jianyun go, Lyu Jianyun, making a connection, would absolutely think that the Poison-absorbing Green Bead was in his hands. If other people then linked the bead to what had happened in South Yuezhou State and continued making the connections¡­. Junior Leopard himself would break into a cold sweat when thinking about it, let alone other people.


    Jianghu lacked everything, however it did not lack imagination. The boorish men in Jianghu were all fertile in imagination. They could make up 70-80 sources for even a truly groundless rumor, what would they say about such a well-founded matter?


    Thus, Junior Leopard took cruel action viciously and destroyed the corpse and evidence.


    "The Lyu Family doesn''t have evidence. Even if they have doubts, they can''t do anything to me. However, the matter that Lyu Jianyun talked about is very interesting."


    Lyu Jianyun had already been beaten up viciously by Junior Leopard. He did not have a shred of arrogance left in him. He told him everything that he should and should not be have. He was the Lyu Family''s Young Master and also the apple of the ancestress'' eye. He knew many secrets. During normal times, his lips were sealed. However, when meeting with the ferocious Junior Leopard, he did not dare to conceal anymore. He told him all the things that should have been kept secret. A few matters that were considered utmost secrets were also revealed to Junior Leopard.


    "The Lyu Family has actually discovered an excellent refined iron vein in Yunzhou. They wanted to hide it from others. Interesting!"


    Yunzhou was the Wu''s territory. Especially the refined iron veins, they were basically under the control of the Wu Family. Furthermore, amongst the disciples of Wu, if anybody discovered such an iron vein and reported it to the Wu Family, not only would he gain a huge reward, he could even gain a percentage of the profits from it. As for how much would be distributed to him, it would depend on his position in the Wu Family!


    With Junior Leopard''s strength and his position as an Outer Core Elder in the Wu Family, he should be able to gain a huge sum of benefits.


    Furthermore, he didn''t need to act at all. He only needed to transmit the information to the Wu Family. In this way he didn''t even need to exert his strength and he could gain a huge profit. He might as well do it!


    "Silvercity Lyu City, hmph, don''t blame me. You can only blame yourselves for being unlucky and wanting to find trouble with me!" Junior Leopard laughed in his heart coldly. He sat down on the bed and threw all these matters out of his head. He began to think about his own official tasks.


    "My injuries are mostly healed. I should set off. I''ve been delaying here for about fifteen days. In another few days, the rations should arrive at the destination. If I rush during these few days, I should be able to hand them over in time. Even though it is unlikely something will happen along the way now, it is better for things to have a beginning and an end. However, if I am to hurry there, I cannot bring the hammer. It is way too heavy, even for me. I can''t use my Lightness Skill on it!"


    Thinking of this, a few eccentric pithy formulas suddenly crossed his mind.


    Riding the dragon and the air, relying on the nine heavens, ...


    ...


    Way of the wind, a priority of being carefree, ...


    ...


    Dragon Flying Technique!


    Every sentence of the concise formula flashed through his heart. Unknowingly, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique Internal Qi began to circulate. The Qi flow began to rush in the surroundings. Numerous fine airflows, under the guidance of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, began to flow into his body from the acupuncture points and then flow through his whole body. It only took an instant for Junior Leopard to feel that the Internal Qi was within his body. His body weight seemed to disappear.


    Subconsciously, he slapped the bed and his body began to float.


    "Huh?!" His figure went through the broken window and went up several meters in midair. His feet stepped on empty air. Yanfu Inner Strength began to circulate unknowingly. He waved both of his hands horizontally and went up once more. There was no resistance at all.


    "Pu, pu, pu¡ª!" His feet stepped on empty air. Step by step, Junior Leopard made for the empty sky. Gravity no longer seemed to work on his body. His huge sleeves fluttered in the air. He looked like an immortal.


    "Dragon Flying Technique!"


    Junior Leopard had a weak smile on his face. His figure had already rose up to 30 meters in the air. He stopped going further up. His steps, however, did not stop. He strode forward step by step. Every step he took spanned several meters. Just these two points alone showed the extent of the power of this Lightness Skill''s four sentence mantra.


    Dragon Flying Technique was an extremely profound Lightness Skill mental cultivation method. It was different from normal mental cultivation methods and even from most other mental cultivation methods. It not only circulated the body''s Internal Qi but also borrowed the airflow from the surroundings and absorbed the airflow between the heavens and earth into the body. It then borrowed the force of the airflow to channel the Internal Qi within the body into different meridians, causing the speed of the flow of Internal Qi to increase dramatically. The airflow around his body circulated in the acupoints, turning itself to be a part of the airflow in nature. Finally, one could use the airflow''s strength to fly upwards. That was the essence of the Dragon Flying Technique.


    "This mental cultivation method is really strange. I''ve never heard before of any mental cultivation or secret skills that could make use of the surrounding energy!" Junior Leopard thought to himself. This Dragon Flying Technique unleashed the limit of the Lightness Skill. There wasn''t any other Lightness Skill that could surpass it.


    "With this Dragon Flying Technique, even if I fail to cultivate Gang Qi, I could fly anywhere in the world!" Junior Leopard''s body was floating in the air. He was slowly coming down from up above. "It is a pity that this mental cultivation method needs to consume a certain amount of Internal Qi. If the Internal Qi is not enough, then it could only be used in the low sky. Unlike those who have cultivated Gang Qi, they can fly without worrying for thousands of miles!" Junior Leopard sighed in his heart. He landed on the floor. However, he did not completely land on the ground. He stepped onto Maojiang.


    Yes, in this short period of time, Junior Leopard had reached Maojiang. He stepped upon the rushing water as if stepping upon flat ground, not sinking at all.


    "It isn''t bad to use it to walk on water. With the buoyancy of the water and this mental cultivation method, it is basically the same as walking on the flat land. However, this Dragon Flying Technique''s cultivation method seems to not only apply to the Lightness Skill!" Feeling that this mental cultivation method was swimming about in his body, Junior Leopard seemed to think of something. His heart moved slightly. Between his eyebrows, a red light flashed and appeared. A streak of red Sword Qi appeared on his fingers. He pointed his finger. A rock by the riverside was pierced by this red sword light.


    "Haha, it really is so. My thinking is right!" Junior Leopard was happy in his heart. The greatest benefit of the Dragon Flying Technique was that it allowed airflow to flow freely within the tendons and meridians. This mental cultivation was not only useful for his Internal Qi but also for his practice of the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword.


    It must be known that the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword had been refined from the extreme Yang Blood Essence Evil Yuan. Even though its power was immense, it would cause extreme harm to the meridians in his body. Normally he could only keep it within the External Elixir in between his eyebrows. If he wanted to use it, he had to make it go through the Fiery Eye between his eyebrows. This greatly limited his usage of this powerful secret skill. The most important thing was that this Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was not only a powerful Sword Qi, there was a sword manual that went along with it. According to the sword manual, the greatest destructive power came only when it was released through the hands. It was a pity that his body was only at the toughness of a Level Four Bone-Forging Realm. If the Sword Qi of the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword was put into his body and circulated half way through his meridians, he would lose his life.


    However, with the Dragon Flying Technique, things were different. This mental cultivation method would not increase the Internal Qi density, nor would it help to condense and purify it, but it provided people with a way to circulate the Internal Qi. It made use of the normal airflow that was breathed in to quickly send the Internal Qi to different acupoints in the body. It could make use of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique Internal Qi. Similarly, it could also utilize the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword''s Sword Qi.


    The only trouble was that he could not expel all of the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword''s Sword Qi in one go. Junior Leopard did not need to do that.


    Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword''s destructive force was immeasurable. A mere strand could take a person''s life. One didn''t need much. The most important thing was that using the Dragon Flying Technique could allow him to easily display the sword manual of the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword.


    By making use of the airflow to wrap around the strands of Sword Qi, one did not need to worry about the Sword Qi flowing through the meridians and injuring it. That was because there was a large amount of airflow surrounding the Sword Qi.


    The airflow was equivalent to adding a thick layer of protection inside his meridians. It allowed him to safely use the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword''s destructive sword qi. It could allow the destructive sword qi to flow freely like Internal Qi within the meridians.


    The most important thing was that this was not only suitable for Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword, but also for other kinds of special techniques.


    "With this Dragon Flying Technique, my combat capability has increased by at least three-fold. It is just that this mental cultivation''s origin is too strange!"


    Upon thinking about this mental cultivation method''s origin, Junior Leopard lapsed into silence. This cultivation method had been imparted into his brain after the Lion''s return. In other words, this cultivation method had been passed to him by the Lion. It was very mysterious.


    The Lion was the third form of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, one of the Nine Forms of Real Dragon. It sounded quite mysterious. However, at the bottom, it was merely condensed from his Internal Qi. It was the Qi that he inhaled and exhaled, turning the spiritual Qi into Internal Qi. No matter how powerful it was, it was just Internal Qi, not a living creature. How could it have consciousness and impart such a mysterious cultivation method to Junior Leopard?


    In the past few days, he had been checking his body for any abnormalities within his Internal Qi. He couldn''t find anything. He even condensed the Lion once again and released it from his body. After observing it for a few hours, he still drew a blank.


    It was as if nothing had happened before.


    However, Junior Leopard clearly knew in his heart that everything really had happened, and it happened so mysteriously. It happened in such a way that it was hard for him to understand.


    "This matter is unexplainable and could never be conveyed to people. It looks like my understanding of this world is not as deep as I thought. There are many things that I do not yet know. Maybe Tian Long Taoism will help. After all this cultivation method is from Tian Long Taoism. I have to find a chance to source it out from Wang She. Who knows whether this guy is even still alive? It is not fun to be chased by the two old Level Nine experts!"


    A mocking intent flashed over Junior Leopard''s face. Suddenly thunder rumbled. Junior Leopard looked up to the sky where dark clouds were gathering. The wind had also gradually become chilly. Within the clouds, lightning was churning, and thunder was crashing. The humidity in the air was gradually growing.


    "Damn it. It seems that it''s going to rain soon. I''d better go back earlier. Tomorrow I''ll set off and chase for the rations to be delivered...!"


    Junior Leopard''s mouth suddenly split apart. He stared at the clouds ahead. The clouds in the sky had already formed. He gazed in the direction where the lightning and thunder had gathered the most. With rumbling thunder, a bright color flashed around the clouds, illuminating everything. Even though it was only for an instant, with Junior Leopard''s eyes, he could still see very clearly.


    There was a person!


    Within the clouds, a person sat there!


    Although it was very far away, Junior Leopard was still able to see clearly. Someone was definitely sitting there. He sat in the empty air. His hands were on his knees, forming two barriers.


    A sound of thunder arose. A flash of lightning struck the person. He did not show any intention to resist it and let the thick lightning bolt strike his body.


    "Hong, pi pa¡ª!"


    After the lightning and thunder, the person did not move an inch. Even his clothes remained untouched.


    "Gulp!" Junior Leopard stood blankly on the water. He violently gulped down his saliva. He raised his hands and rubbed his eyes. He then raised his head to look up again. The person was still there. He had seen correctly. Another streak of lightning struck him.


    Junior Leopard trembled violently, as if the lightning bolt had hit his own body. His Internal Qi leaked, and he fell into the river. The Maojiang river was rapidly flowing. One wave came up and pushed him several meters away. When Junior Leopard recovered his breath, and floated up to the surface, he was unable to distinguish where he was.


    Almost at the same time when Junior Leopard sank into the water, the man sitting in the clouds opened his eyes. Two streaks of light shot out one meter from his eyes. He turned his head and looked in Junior Leopard''s direction. He seemed to have detected that someone had been spying on him. However, coincidentally, Junior Leopard was sinking in the water. Even though the person''s cultivation had reached an omnipotent stage, he was unable to see through the rushing flow of the river. His face had a trace of a lost look. "Could it be an illusion?!" He closed his eyes. His body was swallowed by the endless clouds and countless lightning bolts came rushing towards him!

 Chapter 211: The Stranger... The Big and Small Three Realms

    Chapter 211: The Stranger... The Big and Small Three Realms


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Hu, hu, hu, hu...!"


    Junior Leopard panted heavily, feeling as if his lungs were ripping at his heart with every breath he took. It was not that he was very tired, but that he had been given quite a scare by the figure in the clouds.


    Zhou Bao, a person with a wealth of experience, had a deep understanding of how the world operated. In fact, he had seen two worlds in his two lifetimes, so naturally he knew how much power thunder had.


    He had learnt from science class in middle school that thunderbolts could generally reach 100 million volts. As for the extremely powerful ones, they were at least a hundred billion volts, or even a trillion volts and higher.


    This was the power of thunderbolts!


    Though this world was different from his previous, some basic physical laws regarding lightning were the same. In his previous life, he had heard stories of people who had survived a lightning strike. But that was totally nonsensical in this world. One could not be more dead after being struck by lightning no matter how high his cultivation was. This showed that the thunderbolt in this world was much more powerful. But what about now?


    He was watching a guy, standing in the air, right beside the dark clouds, still being struck by the thunderbolts. Oh, no! The guy was blocked by the dark clouds. He wasn''t able to see clearly what was happening inside. But even so, he had seen with his own eyes that this man had been struck by two flashes of lightning.


    He was really freaked out!


    "Are there actually Immortals in this world?!" Junior Leopard''s heart was beating fast and the words "Pulse-Fixating, Blood-Changing, Marrow-Cleansing" kept flashing through his mind.


    Everyone knew cultivation could be divided into three realms: Skin Toughening, Bone Forging and Tendon Changing!


    Every realm had three levels so there were nine levels in total. Above Level Nine, there was the legendary Mysterious Realm!


    But what was the Mysterious Realm actually like?


    Few people knew!


    In fact, among people Junior Leopard knew, no one would know except Wang She whose cultivation had already reached Level Nine!


    But Junior Leopard somehow knew in his heart that this Mysterious Realm above Level Nine must have something to do with Pulse-Fixating, Blood-Changing and Marrow-Cleansing. Even more likely, these were the dividing standards of the Mysterious Realm.


    "Forget it. I''ll just let it be, it''s no use thinking about Level Nine or The Mysterious Realm now. I''ll think about it when I reach Level Seven!" Junior Leopard said to himself. He raised his head and looked at the dark clouds which covered the sky. Listening to the roaring thunder, he sighed softly and turned to leave.


    No matter who it was in the sky, it was none of his business. He didn''t want to have anything to do with him now, either.


    "Ah¡ª!"


    Just as he turned around, he cried out in alarm and retreated backwards 10 meters. With Internal Qi circulating inside his body, he stared straight ahead in horror.


    In front of him, or behind him, stood a man. Even with his cultivation, Junior Leopard could not figure out when the man had appeared there.


    "There is indeed someone watching me. But I didn''t expect a boy like you!"


    The man wore a golden robe; he had a plain face and bright eyes. Junior Leopard could see clearly that he was the Stranger who had been struck by the thunderbolts just now. The man raised his hands moving to seize Junior Leopard.


    Of course, Junior Leopard would not stand there and await his doom. Seeing the man''s hands coming, Junior Leopard bellowed and his feet pushed into the ground as he prepared to step back again.


    ...


    ...


    "Oh no!"


    When his feet moved, Junior Leopard felt something was wrong. The two big hands which seemed to move freely shrouded everything like a huge cover. No matter in which direction Junior Leopard retreated, he could not avoid the hands. Shocked, both his hands pushed forward suddenly. He didn''t dare to hold back his strength anymore. With red light glowing, three Fire Dragons flew out from his body and headed for the big hand.


    "Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire! You are a disciple of Tian Long Taoism?!" Seeing Junior Leopard release three Fire Dragons, the man seemed slightly surprised, but he didn''t stop. Instead he grasped the Fire Dragons in his hands. To Junior Leopard''s horror, the man crushed the Fire Dragons with little effort. At the same time, an invisible power arose and constrained Junior Leopard''s movements. His expression changed. A red light flashed between Junior Leopard''s eyebrows and then a red sword Qi shot toward the mysterious man.


    "Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword?!"


    The man''s expression turned somewhat strange, but he was still cautious about the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword that shot toward him. His golden robe sleeve closed slightly and the powerful Qi of the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword was gathered to one side.


    POOF! A red light flashed. A thin sword Qi pierced through his golden robe and then disappeared, making him raise his eyebrows.


    "This is indeed Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword condensed by Qi of Blood Essence Evil Yuan! There is also a single Fiery Eye used as External Elixir! Oh, no, you have one more External Elixir - the skull of Dragon Chimera from primitive times. And you have even refined the kindling of the Dragon Chimera! Interesting. This is quite interesting!"


    He took one glance and his expression became weird. After all, few people in this world could have had the same luck as Junior Leopard did. Besides, Junior Leopard had two External Elixirs which were both of the highest quality.


    Seeing that the man could know so much about himself with only a glance, Junior Leopard''s face turned white. Except for his Fiery Eyes, the man had known everything else about him, even things he didn''t know. The so-called Dragon Chimera from primitive times must be the strange earthworm he had met in Misty Mountain.


    At the sight of Junior Leopard''s white face, the man laughed unexpectedly. He said, "Don''t be so nervous. I don''t have much intention to do harm to you!"


    Don''t have much intention to do me harm? That means there is at least a little intention. Though it was just a little, Junior Leopard was not willing to bear any from such a powerful person.


    "I disturbed your practice without knowing it. I''m so sorry. Please forgive me!"


    "At first I was just curious about how you could see me from such a distance. Now I understand, seeing that you have a Fiery Eye as External Elixir. It must be that your eyes have absorbed some powers from Fiery Eye. Though not as good as the Fiery Eye, you can see farther than common people. It is no wonder that you could see me!"


    "You are absolutely right!" Hearing his words, Junior Leopard breathed a secret sigh of relief. Though this man had an eagle eye, he hadn''t discovered that he had the bloodline of Fiery Eyes. Maybe the External Elixir between Junior Leopard''s eyebrows had thrown him off. Thinking of this, Junior Leopard became even more cautious.


    "Your cultivation is only at Level Four, but you''ve already practiced the second state of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and even condensed the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword with Qi of Blood Essence Evil Yuan. That''s quite an amazing achievement!"


    "It''s just luck!" Junior Leopard said hastily. Under these circumstances, he dared not speak even one extra word.


    "Luck is also part of cultivation. It''s also because of luck that I have the cultivation I have now!" The man thought for a moment and said, "It seems that you have inherited the whole Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Are you a disciple from Tian Long Taoism?"


    "I came from the Wu Family. And what I learned is indeed Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique!" Junior Leopard didn''t dare to lie before such a person, so he told the truth. "Chief Wang She from Tian Long Taoism taught me the complete Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique method!"


    "Wu Family?" The man frowned slightly. It seemed that he had never heard of it. Then he asked, "How did this Wu Family you mentioned know the secret method of Tian Long Taoism?!"


    "Uh?!" Junior Leopard broke into a sweat. He smiled wryly and said, "What the ancestor of the Wu Family who came from Tian Long Taoism practiced was exactly this Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique method."


    "Well, that makes sense!" The man nodded and said, "I''ve been away from the world for years and know little about what has happened in Jianghu. I''d never thought that Tian Long Taoism would let others learn the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique!"


    Away from the world for years?


    Junior Leopard sucked in a breath quietly. The ancestor of the Wu Family had built up his reputation and established the foundation of the Wu Family 500 years ago. How could this man have not heard of it? If this was true, then he must be from over 500 years ago. Though Junior Leopard had heard that your lifespan would increase dramatically once your cultivation reached a certain extent, it was totally different to actually see it. In his previous life, he had heard that UFOs would appear in many places, but he was dubious about it as he had never seen it happen.


    But now he was seeing it in person! A strange thought came to his mind. He said to himself, "I wonder how much I need to cultivate to reach his level!"


    He didn''t suspect the man''s words. He knew the man had no need to lie to him.


    Judging from the grasp he''d made just now, Junior Leopard was sure that his cultivation must far exceed Level Nine. He must have reached the legendary Mysterious Realm.


    Though Junior Leopard''s cultivation was only Level Four, he had fought against experts at Level Eight face to face and even bombarded them to death with his skills. Even experts at Level Eight could not resist the devastating power of the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword. But this man had destroyed the devastating sword Qi of the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword with a slight roll of his robe sleeves and extinguished three Fire Dragons with a gentle grasp! An expert at Level Nine was not able to do this, let alone that at Level Eight. What was more, he had also seen this man sitting in the cloud being struck by thunderbolts. Of course, this did not mean that the man was tired of living.


    A man like this had no reason to lie to him.


    He had no need to, either.


    "Since the Wu Family was established by a disciple from Tian Long Taoism, and you''ve come from the Wu Family and even gained instruction from the chief of Tian Long Taoism as well, you can also be considered a disciple of Tian Long Taoism!" The man said after a thought. He didn''t notice Junior Leopard''s expression.


    "Uh... That makes sense."


    "Well, I owe Jadedragon Granny a favor and I''ve never found a good chance to pay it back for so many years. Now that I''ve met you today, maybe I can settle a wish of mine. The method of general principles of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique from Tian Long Taoism was lost 5000 years ago. 300 years ago, I inherited the complete method of this technique by coincidence when I was outside of the East Sea. I will now entrust you to bring this back to Tian Long Taoism, so that I can return Jadedragon Granny''s favor!" Before his words were finished, his finger touched Junior Leopard''s forehead. Then an abstruse concise formula was transferred to Junior Leopard''s mind. The feeling was quite similar to the time he received the Dragon Flying Technique.


    "Wow, am I really so lucky? How could such a good thing happen to me?!"


    After getting the pithy formula of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, Junior Leopard still felt as if he was dreaming. He knew this Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique was the most advanced technique of Tian Long Taoism. The technique had marvellous power. For centuries, this technique could only be inherited by the Leader. How did he inexplicably get it today?


    Suddenly his expression changed. Indeed, this Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique could only be practiced by Leader of Tian Long Taoism. As he was only a disciple of the Wu Family and not even a formal disciple of Tian Long Taoism, he could not bring the technique back like this. Though it was complete, it would still get him into trouble because Tian Long Taoism would never let a disciple of the Wu Family master this highest technique.


    "You don''t need to worry. What I passed you just now was only the lost part of the formula, not the whole method. You aren''t naive enough to think that with that part of the pithy formula, you can cultivate the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, are you?"


    The man said with a smile. It seemed that he had seen through Junior Leopard.


    After hearing this, Junior Leopard''s anxiety lessened, knowing that he was thinking too much. Of course, it was impossible. How could the highest technique of Tian Long Taoism have only the one section of pithy formula? The formula he had received, though it was just one section, was quite profound and difficult to master. With one glance, he knew there contained in it infinite principles which would benefit his cultivation a lot. The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique he practiced belonged to the same system as the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. These two techniques integrated together would undoubtedly be beneficial to him.


    "With the general principles of Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, you will make great progress in practicing the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. As you have condensed the second state now, it won''t be hard for you to condense the third state!" The mysterious man stopped briefly at this. "Once the Nine Forms of Real Dragon are condensed, the power of this Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique won''t be weaker than that of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. So I''d like to ask you a favor. Would you do it for me, please?"


    "Huh?" Junior Leopard froze for a moment and then he said hastily, "You don''t need to say that. I''m honored to have the chance to serve you. Just tell me what you need me to do. As long as I can do it, I''ll try my best to do it for you!"


    "Haha. You''re such a sweet talker. When you have finished cultivating the Nine Forms of Real Dragon, you''ll have the chance to get a secret mental cultivation method of the Ancient Dragon tribe. If you do get that, could you share it with me? I''ll surely return this favor to you."


    "Secret mental cultivation method of the Ancient Dragon tribe?" Junior Leopard was stunned. He thought of the mental cultivation method of the Dragon Flying Technique. Then he looked up at the stern-faced man whose eyes seemed to have seen through him.


    "I don''t dare to keep this from you, sir. Several months ago, when I condensed the third state of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, I was lucky enough to get a mental cultivation method whose name was Dragon Flying Technique. I wonder whether it''s the secret method of the Dragon tribe you mentioned?"


    "Really?"


    This time, the man''s countenance changed visibly. He said, "You have really condensed the third state and got a mental cultivation method?"


    "Yeah!"


    "Great! Excellent!"


    The man seemed quite excited and said, "Tell me about the Dragon Flying Technique!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t hide anything and told him the entire mental cultivation method of the Dragon Flying Technique. The man listened with radiant eyes.


    "So that''s it. That''s it. That''s the secret mental cultivation method of the Dragon tribe. I got it, I got it¡ª!" The man shouted repeatedly. His voice was so loud that it caused tremors in all directions. It seemed that he was filled with ecstasy. His golden robe danced with the wind and his face was covered with an air of madness.


    Junior Leopard was frightened secretly and thought to himself, "Is this guy mad? It''s just a mental cultivation method. Even if it''s the legendary method of the Dragon tribe, what''s the big deal? It''s just a method of controlling the wind. Though there is something marvelous about its operation, it can''t enhance or condense Internal Qi. Why is he so excited?"


    The man laughed madly for a while. When he stopped, his face was not expressionless anymore but full of joy instead. "I can''t believe that I have encountered such a good thing, when I''ve only been out for a while! Haha. Body of Nature, now that I can also condense the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints with the secret method of the Dragon tribe, I''d like to see how you can beat me this time!"


    Junior Leopard lowered his head, pretending he had heard nothing.


    "Boy, I still don''t know what your name is?!"


    "My name is Zhou Bao."


    "Zhou Bao. Though this name is a little tacky, it sounds quite awesome!" The man nodded and continued, "Zhou Bao, since you passed me the Dragon Flying Technique, which did me a great favor, I will definitely pay it back to you. But you have great luck. The method you practiced, the special techniques and External Elixirs you own are all the best. Even what I''ve practiced is not better than yours. So I don''t know what I can give to you. What do you want now? I''ll satisfy you if I can."


    "That''s really kind of you!" Junior Leopard was glad, but then he scolded secretly, "How the hell do I know what you can do. But since you let me, then I won''t hesitate. I won''t let you get My Dragon Flying Technique for nothing!"


    So he answered, "My cultivation is quite shallow now, so I dare not ask for too much. What I need is some body-strengthening punching skills. Even if I''m lucky enough to reach Tendon-Changing Realm, I don''t know how to strengthen my body!"


    "Body-strengthening punching skills?!" The man frowned and said, "Just for this, I can''t. Well, I could pass you the punching skills, but their value is far below that of the Dragon Flying Technique. I would still owe you a favor. That''s not right. Think again. What else do you want to learn?"


    Junior Leopard was indeed very glad, but he dared not show it. After thinking carefully, he found that he didn''t know what else he needed to learn. It seemed that except body-strengthening punching skills, he had enough mental cultivation methods for practicing and condensing Internal Qi, special techniques and even secret skills. Moreover, he hadn''t mastered what he was practicing yet. More techniques and skills might not necessarily improve his combat capability. There might be a chance that they would disrupt his practice. So he said, "I really have no other needs. But I lack knowledge and experience. I wonder if I could ask you things about cultivation when you''re free. I only know there are three realms and nine levels. Above Level Nine, there is the Mysterious Realm of which I have only heard but know nothing of. Could you tell me about it?"


    "These are all trifles!" The man said, "But now your cultivation is only at Level Four, you don''t need to know that much. Besides, as an inheritor of Tian Long Taoism, someone will tell you all you need to know when you reach Level Seven. If you can''t reach Level Nine, then all this knowledge is useless. I''d better not take someone else''s job, or there will be gossip!"


    "Gossip?!" Hearing this, Junior Leopard almost kicked out. He thought to himself, "My master''s cultivation is about the same as mine, below Level Seven. As for the First Elder, the most powerful person in the Wu Family, he has only reached Level Seven. He hasn''t even condensed Gang Qi and might not be able to beat Dragon Granny. If he doesn''t know this himself, how could he tell me?!"


    So he smiled wryly and said, "You may not know, but the Wu Family I come from is just a branch of Tian Long Taoism. If I hadn''t accidentally done a favor for Chief Wang, I might not have been able to inherit the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Even if I''m lucky enough to reach Level Seven, I''m afraid no one will tell me, so..."


    "Well, OK. I have no time to discuss it with you now. In that case, I''ll teach you a method which is of the same value as Dragon Flying Technique. I''ll also give you some common knowledge about matters above Level Seven. This way, I''m not taking advantage of you!" While speaking, his fingers touched Junior Leopard''s forehead like before. So much information flooded into Junior Leopard''s mind that he had no time to absorb it. After receiving all the information, he opened his eye before he had time to go through everything carefully. Then he found that the sun had risen, and the man had disappeared into thin air. If not for the information in his head, he would have suspected that he had just had a dream.


    Indeed it was like a dream!


    "Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill... Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist... I never expected that these two body-strengthening punching skills are actually high-level skills. I wonder where the master got the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill!" Junior Leopard was absorbing the massive amount of information in his head. At the same time, he could not help thinking that Xu Yong, though an Elder in the Wu Family, had no way to get such high-level skills with a cultivation at Level Four or Five.


    But this question only flashed through his mind once because the mysterious man had left too much information in his head. There were dozens of body-strengthening punching skills led by the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill and the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist he practiced.


    "It turns out that body-strengthening punching skills only need to be practiced into Bone-Forging Realm. Once I reach Tendon-Changing Realm, I need to strengthen my body by circulating Internal Qi, which is the so-called Inner Building Technique. And my Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire is one of the best types of Internal Qi to strengthen body. I just didn''t know it before!"


    Thinking of this, Junior Leopard''s smile became even wryer. It was true that cultivation required chance and luck. If he hadn''t practiced Dragon Flying Technique accidentally today, he wouldn''t have met the mysterious man whose cultivation was far above Level Nine. In that case, he wouldn''t have known how to walk the path in front of him. He used to think that Level Nine was the peak and once he entered the Mysterious Realm, he would be Immortal.


    "Outside of Three Realms. there is another Three Realms. Skin Toughening, Bone Forging and Tendon Changing are only the small Three Realms. Pulse-Fixating, Blood-Changing and Marrow-Cleansing are the big Three Realms. Only after going beyond these big Three Realms, can one say that he has jumped out of the three realms!"

 Chapter 213: Mysterious Turtle Sage, Whitemoon Tribe

    Chapter 213: Mysterious Turtle Sage, Whitemoon Tribe


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    ...


    The dragon traveled across the skies without fear of anything!


    Northern Yuan, which once ruled the world with 100,000 Metal Horse Carriages, had now delved into a terrible and precarious situation.


    The endless snowstorm was continuing. More than 80% of the beasts in the grasslands had been frozen to death. 100,000 Metal Horse Carriages were blocked in Yunzhou cities. They could not move an inch. It could be foreseen that if Jin remained in such an advantage and continued locking down the prairies, as long as this winter passed, at least half of Northern Yuan would die of hunger. The remaining half would also be slaughtered by the imperial troops.


    This was a war between nations, and it was to exterminate a nation. In this struggle between these nations that had come to such a situation, there was not any reason to speak of.


    The Jin had already made a clear stance that they wanted to exterminate Northern Yuan!


    Apart from the lockdown of the entire Northern Yuan borders, numerous martial artists poured into the grasslands, and their targets were the warriors of the various tribes.


    Those warriors who had not entered the frontlines but remained behind to protect the various tribes were hunted down and killed one by one!


    Yes, hunted!


    These Jin martial artists would not give you a fair chance to battle at all. They set up different sorts of traps and methods. Following these martial artists were the Jin imperial cavalry. Once the tribe''s fighting strength was killed, then the cavalry would enter and exterminate the entire tribe. Following behind the cavalry were the merchant groups. Slaves, merchants, strong young women, and girls and boys were all captured. Those males who were taller than carriage wheels were all killed. The tribes were engulfed in flames, leaving behind old people in this snowstorm to die a lingering death.


    The Jin came prepared this time around. They were not only there to exterminate a nation, but to exterminate the tribes as well!


    "This time around, Northern Yuan is finished. The various big tribes in the prairie had their pneuma severely injured. The Metal Horse Carriages in Yunzhou don''t amount to anything much. We only have to wait for spring to come next year and for the Jin army to enter. Northern Yuan doesn''t have a chance at all!"


    In Yunzhou, within Qinlingjun City, the past few months saw an increase in human traffic. The inns were all packed. All sorts of pugilists were gathered there, only waiting for a chance to enter Northern Yuan from Qinlingjun City. They wanted to be part of the last push that would topple this big building.


    Northern Yuan and the hinterlands of the Central Plains had faced off for thousands of years and killed countless people. This enmity had long been formed as deep as the sea. In these few thousand years, even though there was a sage spreading his teachings within the hinterlands of the Central Plains, and that there were some changes in attitude towards the Northern Yuan, those changes happened only within the educated and the scholars. Those illiterates would not understand the compassionate teachings of the sage.


    How could those martial artists who floated around in Jianghu and wiped the blood off their weapons understand the teachings of the sage?


    On the contrary, for these few thousand years, Northern Yuan kept plundering the Central Plains. Even hundreds of those treasures that had specific names were stolen. Furthermore, in recent years, the Northern Yuan Metal Horse Carriages had obtained enormous wealth from plundering. Which tribe had not stolen treasures, jewelry, gold, and silver from the Central Plains?


    In Jin, robbery was a crime. One would become a bandit and be hunted down by the imperial court. However, that would not happen in Northern Yuan!


    If you either had the capability or your martial arts were powerful, then nobody would blame you if you went to Northern Yuan to steal. They would even applaud you as a hero. Only a fool would not go for it!


    A month ago, Evil Twin Guanxi rushed into a small tribe to challenge a warrior there. They cooperated to kill that warrior with a cultivation of Level Three. They robbed a Moon Jade Horse from this tribe. It was a treasure from the previous dynasty and it was worth tens of thousands of gold. The moment they returned to Qinlingjun City, it stirred up a commotion.


    This horse was purchased by a merchant for 300,000 gold. This allowed the Evil Twins Guanxi to strike it rich. At the same time, the imperial court had removed the notice against them. They even congratulated them and commended them for doing something for the nation, and that they were role models for the nation.


    Once this example had been set up, the entire Jianghu went crazy!


    For those meddling in Jianghu, who had not killed one or two people? Everyone was stained with blood. Things were good this time around. As long as one went to Northern Yuan to set fire and kill people, one''s records would be washed clean. Even a fool would do it!


    After a few days, more shocking news came. The Southern Sea Heavenly Thunder found a celestial device in a tribe and refined it successfully. With the celestial device, he killed 4 prairie warriors of the same level and also a few of his great enemies.


    The news further stimulated the entire Central Plains martial arts world.


    In a short half month, people from the martial arts world who entered into Northern Yuan to kill the prairie experts already increased by double.


    Northern Yuan''s fate was shaky at this very moment!


    "Northern Yuan is finished!" In the restaurants, guests abounded. Everybody, apart from talking about Northern Yuan, was still talking about Northern Yuan. Even the major incident of Junior Leopard killing a Level Eight expert had already died down. As long as one was not a fool, they could see with a glance that Northern Yuan was already hopeless. The Jin''s everlasting regime had basically been halfway set in stone.


    As long as the 100,000 Metal Horse Carriages outside of Yunzhou could be dragged down and destroyed, the Jin imperial army would be able to pierce through without any resistance.


    This was an era where the world was chaotic!


    Things had already developed to such a stage. Even those well-known families from the Central Plains could hardly sit still.


    All of them sent the experts from their families to head towards the prairie in an extremely flamboyant manner.


    To seek the honor that belonged to themselves!


    "Northern Yuan can no longer withstand it!" Within the Yunlai Building in Qinlingjun City, in a certain room, there was a middle-aged man with a face full of a satisfied smile. His hand was waving a fan and he was listening to the discussion outside the room. His face was carefree, not caring about the weather that could even freeze the urine when one was peeing.


    If people who recognized him saw him in this manner, their mouths would be left gaping wide. The always strict and imposing Governor Ma Tianchang had suddenly become so amiable, just like a scholar.


    "I''ll see how long you can be so arrogant. This matter hasn''t concluded yet!" Sitting beside him was a lady in white clothes. This lady looked like she was in her 20s. She looked extremely beautiful, and her eyes flashed a bright light. "If the old thing in the north decides to interfere, then what will happen?!"


    "You think that he can interfere?!" Ma Tianchang said, smiling. The fan in his hand was no longer waving. "Furthermore, even if he really intervenes, I''m not afraid. Don''t you have that thing?!"


    "That thing is powerful. However, if met with such an old monster..." The lady''s eyebrows slightly furrowed. "You''d better not pin too much hope on it!"


    "Okay okay, I''m just joking. Will that old monster really dare to intervene in this matter?" Ma Tianchang''s face was full of smiles. "Look, now the situation has already reached such a stage. Is there any news about him?!"


    "If you aren''t worried about him, why are you not sending your troops up north?!" The lady''s eyes flashed a hint of mockery. "Aren''t you waiting for news also? You are scared that once you send your troops up north, that old monster will not care about anything and intervene...!"


    "Yes, I''m waiting. I''m waiting for concrete news!" Ma Tianchang slowly raised his chin, his face revealing a bitter smile. "Similarly, I''m scared of that old monster. I''m scared that he''ll intervene without caring about everything and spoil our plans. However, based on the situation now, I don''t need to worry!"


    "Any good news?!"


    "It couldn''t be considered good news. Living Buddha Ba Siba has given up chasing after Wang She. He headed north to the snow. Looks like he''s going to seek help!"


    "Then aren''t you worried!"


    "Hmph, Ba Siba is not around. That means Wang She is completely released. Dark Lord Mie Chen can only wish to come to the frontlines. We just need to deal with Kunlun Master. As for that old monster in the snow plains, there''ll naturally be someone dealing with him!"


    "Who?!"


    "You really want to know?!" Ma Tianchang looked at his wife and his eyes flashed a trace of happiness. "Three months ago, the Mysterious Turtle Sage achieved the Thunder Tribulation Golden Body. Now he has gone to find the old monster to play chess!"


    "Pu¡ª" The white-clothed lady spat out a mouthful of water directly in Ma Tianchang''s eyes. She exclaimed, "Three months ago? You already knew it three months ago?!"


    "No, I only knew it this morning!" Ma Tianchang said, "Hence, I came out to take a walk!"


    "You are going to make a move?!"


    "I''ll take action tonight!" Ma Tianchang rose up, his eyes having an intense hot glare. "Northern Yuan is finished!"


    ...


    ...


    Northern Yuan was already on the rocks!


    Junior Leopard sighed. He was carrying a human head and left the tribe in the everlasting snowstorm. In his surroundings were a tribe of old people with hateful and fearful gazes. Junior Leopard did not like such gazes. However, he would not kill them just because of those hateful gazes.


    These Northern Yuan people did not have the strength nor the courage to make a move against him. All of their energy was spent on dealing with this snowstorm.


    This was the ninth Northern Yuan expert that he had killed. He entered Northern Yuan straight from Yunzhou. Along the north way, he met a few scattered tribes and went to challenge them. Within a short two months, he challenged 23 small tribes and killed nearly a hundred warriors that stayed behind to protect the tribes. There were nine of them whose cultivation had exceeded Level Three and already reached the Bone-Forging Realm. All these people were the leaders of the warriors in the tribes. Junior Leopard naturally would not show any mercy toward them.


    However, after killing these people, Junior Leopard no longer had the interest to enter deep into the prairies. That was because he realized that, right now, experts that were below Level Seven could no longer pose any threat to him.


    Even if he did not use the Demon Devil Needles, nor the black hammer, nor the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword, he could easily kill a Level Six opponent using his fists.


    He came to the prairie to hone his martial arts, not to start a massacre.


    He wanted to polish his martial arts under steel and blood. He then helplessly discovered that the Northern Yuan experts had no longer brought him too much stress. Killing experts was like butchering dogs!


    There was not a trace of joy nor was there any meaning to it!


    "Wait a while!"


    Just when Junior Leopard was leaving carrying their leader''s head, there was a shout from behind. The voice was very old. Junior Leopard''s eyebrows lifted up. That was because he saw that behind him there was an extremely old man kneeling in the snow.


    "What''s up?!"


    Junior Leopard turned around and asked. He was behind enemy lines, and he did not have any good inclinations toward the Northern Yuan people¡ªactually, he hated the Northern Yuan. Hence, he approved the Jin''s extermination campaign. He even delved right into it to come to Northern Yuan to kill off experts.


    However, killing was killing. He was uninterested in these normal people that did not know martial arts. Now he even felt meaningless about killing the experts, let alone killing normal people.


    "I''m Wuli Ji, I plead with Your Excellency to save our tribe!" After speaking, he buried his head deep within the snow, his body repeatedly trembling.


    "I didn''t hear wrongly, did I? I just killed one of your warriors and now you want me to save your tribe?!" Junior Leopard said somewhat unexpectedly. He already felt that this old fellow must have had his brain frozen by the snowstorm.


    "Yes, Buhe is our tribe''s number one warrior. However, he has fallen in battle and died. It''s natural for him to die at the hands of a warrior. That''s also the fate of our tribe. We can''t blame anyone!"


    "Even if you all don''t hate me, I''ve no reason to save you all!"


    "I don''t seek for Your Excellency to save our whole tribe. I only wish that you bring away the minors. They''re the last hope of our tribe!" The old man raised his head from the snow. The snow was all over his beard. There was an unspeakable grief. "They are the last seeds of our tribe, I don''t wish for them to die here!"


    "Minors?!" Junior Leopard said, smiling coldly. "The snowstorm is intense. Do you think that I can bring these kids out of the prairie?!"


    The old man did not speak. He only stood up trembling. "There are not many children in our tribe. Including the newborns and the boys and girls, there are only seven of them. Your Excellency need not take care of them. As long as they could be brought out of the prairie and allowed to live!"


    "Seven?!" Junior Leopard''s gaze condensed. Although this tribe was not big, it had several thousands of people. How come there were only seven kids?!


    Raising his eyes to look, half of the tents within the tribe had already been collapsed by the snowstorm. Cows and lambs were frozen to death. Those luckily living people were also fighting with hunger and the cold. The entire tribe was enshrouded in despair. This was a tribe facing extinction. Even if he had not killed their warrior, they would not be able to survive the winter, much less the Jin army that would head north.


    Maybe because of this, the old man would make such an action?!


    When there was an illness, one hurried to find any doctor he could. Maybe that was the rationale behind this.


    "Our Whitemoon tribe was the ruler of the prairies 10,000 years ago. We faced immense pressure then because we were against the establishment of the prairie alliance. Consequently, we are reduced to such a state. Our Whitemoon tribe has suffered countless pillages over the years. The number one tribe no longer exists. However¡ª!"


    When saying "however", the old man''s eyes flashed a colorful light. "My Whitemoon tribe still kept two copies of martial arts manuals that we obtained from the Central Plains. If Your Excellency agrees to save these pitiful kids, I''m willing to give you those manuals!"


    "Martial arts manuals?!" Junior Leopard said with a laugh. "This is rare. If those manuals are really that powerful, then how did your number one warrior die so easily?!"


    "Buhe was not suited to practice those martial arts!" Wuli Ji said, smiling bitterly. "Your Excellency is a martial arts expert, hence you should understand naturally that to cultivate martial arts, one can''t be an expert just based on one martial arts manual. Buhe was our Whitemoon tribe''s number one warrior. It''s a pity that he didn''t have a teacher, hence he couldn''t cultivate the martial arts within. He could only pick those superficial skills to learn!"


    "Oh¡ª!" Junior Leopard''s heart slightly moved. When he exchanged blows with Buhe, he already felt that the martial arts that Buhe used were different from the other prairie warriors. It was just that he had not honed them to perfection. Junior Leopard did not bother about it either. Now that Wuli Ji had mentioned it, Junior Leopard felt somewhat interested.


    "You are saying that the weird martial arts he used were snatched from the Central Plains?!"


    "Yes. The two martial arts manuals preserved by our Whitemoon tribe were stolen from the imperial palace!" Speaking of which, the old man''s face revealed a prideful look. "Back then, our Whitemoon tribe ruled the Central Plains. We even attacked the Royal Capital!"


    "Yes, you even attacked the Royal Capital, but now there are only seven kids left!" Junior Leopard laughed coldly and interrupted the old man''s beautiful memories.


    The old man''s expression stiffened. He sighed and dared not speak another sentence.


    "Aren''t you scared that I''ll steal them after you''ve told me these things?!"


    "Yes, of course I''m scared. However, it is what it is now. There''s no solution, even if I''m scared!" Wuli Ji said with a bitter smile. "If Your Excellency doesn''t agree to bring these kids away, then our Whitemoon tribe can only last for 10 more days before we are exterminated. Even though those two martial arts manuals might be powerful, they won''t have any meaning!"


    "Hence you are trying to make a bet on me!"


    "You only killed Buhe and a few warriors and didn''t harm the others," Wuli Ji said. "Hence, I made this bet. As for whether I can win, it only depends on Heaven''s will!"


    "Alright, now you''ve won half. Bring me the things and let me have a look. If they''re useful for me, I''ll take them away!" Junior Leopard said, "I won''t agree to any other conditions, so...!"


    "I''ll also not put forth any more requests," said the old man. He shook his head to a middle-aged lady by his side. That woman turned her body and entered a tent. After a while, she came out with two wooden boxes and respectfully passed them to the old man. The old man received them and passed them to Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard received the wooden box with no expression. He opened it up and his eyes shot out two bright lights!


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 215: Heavenly Dragon Wang She and Dark Lord Mie Chen

    Chapter 215: Heavenly Dragon Wang She and Dark Lord Mie Chen


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    About 40 miles south of the Whitemoon tribe, there stood Devil Valley. In the distance, a sorrowful sound could be heard from the valley. Inside a grotto in the lee of the valley, Junior Leopard cleared a plot of empty land and fried the ground around it with Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Then Junior Leopard sat on the ground along with a few children. Two fires were lit, one for roasting a blood wolf that he killed on the road and the other for heating water. Therefore, small though the grotto was, a thick warmth still emanated out of it.


    Several kids sat on the ground without a single word. But from their expressions, they were distinctly relieved and even revealed their comfort. After stepping out of Whitemoon tribe, under the suffering of wind and snow, they walked on for 40 miles. Although Junior Leopard had the protection of his Internal Qi, for them, at the such a young age, the trip was seething with hardships and pains. If they continued to walk, there would be someone that couldn''t endure it.


    The blood wolf on the support had been grilled through. Drops of golden grease trickled down from the support from the blood wolf with a crackling sound. Some drops splashed against the body and face of several kids. Even if they racked with the burning tingling, they didn''t care at all. After going through the disastrous severe winter, these kids that had already survived, couldn''t cower just because of a little bit of scorching grease. Except for that bloke that had been punished by Junior Leopard, they rushed to the roasted wolf, staring greedily at Junior Leopard. He was fixing his malicious eyes on Junior Leopard, but his hungry belly had already exposed his real thoughts.


    "Boy, don''t force yourself. Though you want to take revenge on me, you need a meal first!" Junior Leopard laughed. He tore a chunk of wolf meat and threw it to that bloke. Whereafter, the wolf was divided into several parts and Junior Leopard distributed them to the kids. At last, he began to gnaw a wolf leg.


    As though it was endless, the blizzard still went on. Hailstones impacted against the surrounding rocks at full tilt, leaving incessant whomps. The grotto Junior Leopard stayed in was comparatively narrow with one or two chunks of hailstones coming in from time to time.


    "I say, have you ever seen such a severe blizzard before?" Junior Leopard asked inadvertently, gnawing the wolf leg.


    "Never!" The speaker was that girl who held her daughter. Junior Leopard knew her name, Tana. In Great Jin''s language, the name''s meaning was "pearl".


    Among these kids, only she was somewhat familiar with Junior Leopard and dare to talk a little in front of Junior Leopard. The other kids, except that Tana''s fiance, were still afraid of Junior Leopard. In fact, at their age, they were confused about what happened and why their parents demanded that they follow this strange person to leave their tribe.


    "It seems that it was really providence!" Junior Leopard said with a wry smile. All the way from Great Jin to Northern Yuan, they heard plenty of rumors and legends. When all kinds of rumors, legends, clues and foreshadowings were interweaved into a string, Junior Leopard awkwardly found that this war between Great Jin and Northern Yuan seemed to be premeditated by Great Jin, at least by Yunzhou''s Governor, Ma Tianchang. Only by interweaving all things into a line to form a conspiracy, could you find an explanation. But he didn''t know what he needed in order to interweave all the things, clues, legends and rumors into a line.


    "If all of these really really lead to a conspiracy, Yunzhou''s Governor, Ma Tianchang is indeed too horrible. On one hand, he cracks down on the behavior of the Northern Yuan, preventing them from pillaging folk''s fortunes and grains, as well as the robbery of Nothern Yuan''s rangers. While on the other hand, he opens fairs in quantity, the number of which far outnumbers what common people think, in order to make Nothern yuan gain what they want without any military force and the cost is far better than what they would have to spend if they used military force. Hence, the people of Northern Yuan can produce by themselves and depend on the imported goods from the fairs since Jin''s commodities are of a better quality, priced lower and there are more varieties. That is to say, during Ma Tianchang''s over ten year tenure in office, he''s used his time to establish a stranglehold on Northern Yuan''s lifeline via the fairs and has been waiting for an opportunity to take complete control over Northern Yuan thoroughly!"


    His mouth gnawing the wolf leg and his finger slowly drawing on the ground, Junior Leopard pondered the course of event, "This opportunity appeared very suddenly but was actually quite normal. This event was the death of Wali Khan. Over tens of thousands of years, numerous kings of the prairie had passed away. However, only this time when Wali Khan died, did Ma Tianchang begin to close fairs and restrict the import of the commodities to prairie. In the meantime, Wang She killed several princes all at once, which incurred the chaos of the whole prairie and provoked the three Grandmasters. Such a sensational event naturally conceals Ma Tianchang''s insidious means. After this unprecedented tempest, Northern Yuan is set to find that they had nothing at all!"


    "If it is really as I think, then this is a conspiracy, Ma Tianchang must possess two conditions. First, he foresaw this tempest a year in advance and even the death of Wali Khan is also part of his meticulous plan. Second, he can command Wang She. If he truly had the ability to reach these two demands, he is either a monster or a demon!"


    A soft sound wakened Junior Leopard from his contemplation and stirred several of the kids sitting beside him. Junior Leopard was in a trance and looking outside the grotto where one would be ensanguined as if they were a bloody gourd.


    Evidently, that person also looked at Junior Leopard and then changed his expression. He didn''t expect that he would encounter Junior Leopard here. They looked at each other in consternation.


    "Wang... Chief Wang, why are you here?"


    This person was really unable to bear his nag, especially like Wang She. After his nag, Wang She abruptly appeared in front of him, which was unduly weird. And he felt it was not true.


    "Zhou Bao? Why are you here?"


    Chief Wang, apparently, found it to very strange to come across Zhou Bao here. Moreover, there were seven or eight kids, sitting beside Zhou Bao. Seeing their attire, Wang She could deduce that these kids came from the tribes of the prairie. But it seemed that they had no relations with Junior Leopard.


    However, before he could voice his confusion, he voilently fell to the ground. With one hand used to support his body, his facial muscles began twitching and mouthfuls of blood began squirting out from his mouth. The sight of which made Junior Leopard''s heart palpitate.


    "Chief Wang, are you OK?"


    Junior Leopard didn''t dare to think a lot. He hastily helped Wang She into the grotto and checked on his injuries.


    "It''s unnecessary! I have suffered from that old devil''s Star-shattering Hand. It will take me three years to recover!" Waving his hand arduously, Wang She pushed Junior Leopard away and sat with his legs crossed on the ground, "Put the fire out! That old devil is chasing me. If he sees the flame, something bad will happen!"


    As soon as Junior Leopard heard those words, he flicked his sleeve to put the piles of fire out without any delay. The small grotto descended into darkness at once.


    "I heard that Kunlun Master has left and only Dark Lord Mie Chen and Living Buddha with Golden Body are chasing you?"


    "Ba Siba has left, too. But I was wounded by Kunlun Master and Ba Siba before. Furthermore, the cultivation of Mie Chen is higher than mine by a lot, so I have suffered such a big loss!" Wang She said quietly, "What did you come to Northern Yuan for?"


    "Chief Wang, you are in Northern Yuan all the time, I''m afraid that you don''t see the current situation. Now the whole world is turbulent and Northern Yuan will come to its end soon. I believe that, very soon, the whole prairie will belong to Great Jin, so many people are vying to pick bargains in the prairie!"


    "That is to say, that guy''s plot has been achieved?" Although the fire has been put out, Junior Leopard still clearly saw a cold smile flashing through Wang She''s face. "So you have also come here to pick bargains, boy. But why did you just pick these kids?"


    "I picked bargains indeed, unluckily!" Junior Leopard said, wearing a bitter smile. Junior Leopard, honestly told him the event from beginning to end.


    "Did that really happen? It is so interesting that the Whitemoon tribe should collect something valuable. I wonder what profits you received, that you would actually assent to their condition?"


    Keeping silent, Junior Leopard pulled out that box and delivered it to Wang She. Like Junior Leopard, even though Wang She was amid the darkness, his vision remained normal as before.


    "Eh, how interesting! It would be worthy to care for 70 or 700 kids for these two valuables, let alone only seven kids!"


    "It''s not worth shit!" Junior Leopard secretly scolded in his heart. Junior Leopard said in his heart that if Wang She took secrets, he was bound to kill these kids the moment they left the tribe.


    "But you really are an idiot. For such a thing, you can rob them directly, there''s no need to care for so many redundant kids! You just seek trouble for yourself!"


    As expected, Wang She''s next sentence began to deride him, "You, such a boy, have a high cultivation and many grotesques, but you don''t understand the perils of Jianghu, and you have a tender heart. They may look pathetic now, but they will likely kill you in the future. You''d better end their lives!"


    The grotto was so dark that these kids were unable to see their expressions, but darkness couldn''t prevent sound from flowing into the kids'' ears. So they heard Wang She''s words clearly. The kids were so innocent that they lacked a sense of crisis. Though the words frightened them, only Tana and that eldest boy, were shocked with fear, a burst of chill suddenly spread out from his head to his caudal vertebra.


    "I am an angel, so I can''t do such a wicked thing!" Junior Leopard replied, "They''ve been entrusted to me by the people, so I have to be faithful to the people. It is my business, you needn''t worry about it!" Junior Leopard said with discontent. When Junior Leopard spoke the words "I''m an angel", Wang She was astounded.


    Nonetheless, Wang She realized Junior Leopard''s meaning from his words, so he didn''t linger on this matter. Wang She closed the wooden box and returned it to Junior Leopard, "You''re calm and your breathing is peaceful, so I guess your cultivation has reached Level Five?"


    "I ascended to Level Five some time ago!" Junior Leopard said, "I wonder what advice you will give me?"


    "No advice for you, I only want to warn you that Dark Lord Mie Chen had remained nearby. If only we two are here, we won''t need to worry that he''ll find us, but with the addition of these kids, it is difficult to hide the trace of us!"


    Junior Leopard understood what Wang She meant. Both of them mastered the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. On such a stormy night beset with hailstones, if they hid here, even if Dark Lord Mie Chen really stepped into the Mysterious Realm, he would find it hard to find their trace, let alone an expert of the peak of Level Nine. But these several kids here were ordinary people, if they were staying with them, it would be too easy to find their trace.


    "There''s no way. I have an idea. This grotto is so huge that I can help you seek a safer shelter!" Junior Leopard said.


    "This could work! But as I''m regulating my breathing and have severe injuries, I can''t move my body for long!"


    "Then, Chief Wang, do you have any trump cards?" Junior Leopard asked quietly, with a ghastly killing intent in his tone. "Chief Wang clearly knows what abilities I have. If you have some awesome celestial device, I think, I should still have a chance to win, even if Mie Chen is an expert of the peak of Level Nine!"


    "Your confidence has grown since we first met. I wonder what''s giving you so much confidence! Though you are equipped with External Elixir, which is equal to the cultivation of Level Six, Mie Chen has dominated the prairie for about 100 years and is counted as one of the most powerful men. Do you think you can kill him with petty tricks? If he was that easy to be killed, he wouldn''t be one of three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan!" Wang She said coldly, "I admit, you have some ability, but it is just a scoff in front of a Level Nine expert!"


    "So, how about if I join hands with you?" Junior Leopard asked quietly, "You are also a Level Nine expert. Moreover, you are besieged by three Grandmasters and you''ve managed to survive until now, you must be more brilliant than Dark Lord Mie Chen. The reason why you are in a tight corner is mainly due to you being outnumbered. You are hurt now, but I believe that you must have a trump card. So how about joining hands with me to kill this Supreme of Demons and give up on this life of running away in fear?"


    "Hum, as I said, you''re too confident. I don''t really understand why you are so confident." Wang She sneered, "I do have a trump card, but it''s the last one. I will use it to perish together with him. You can wait and profit from the spoils after he and I are both seriously injured!"


    "I have faith in you!" Junior Leopard said with laughter, "In addition, recently I have had a bit of insight in the way of practice and have practiced a few new means which don''t pose any threat against a Level Nine expert when one to one. However if I do them off base, I also believe that they have some lethality!"


    "I''d like to see what makes you so confident! Did you learn those two secrets that the Whitemoon tribe gave you? Even if you have, with your present cultivation, you are unlikely to be able to fully display their power!"


    "Poison Cold Shield, Asura Yin Evil Needles, Infinite Trembling Contemplation, Three Realms Division!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t say anything, but he wrote four means down on the ground using his finger. Among them, except for the Three Realms Division, although the Asura Yin Evil Needles were brilliant, they were nothing for a Level Nine expert. But Poison Cold Shield and Infinite Trembling Contemplation astounded Wang She.


    Poison Cold Shield couldn''t poison a Level Nine expert, but could consume their Gang Qi effectively. For Infinite Trembling Contemplation, it was a secret skill that nobody practiced successfully. How could he make it?


    "Can you execute these moves?"


    Wang She didn''t ask Junior Leopard where these means came from. He just asked, pointing at words "Infinite Trembling Contemplation".


    "Of course not, however, it can!" Junior Leopard chuckled, pointing the External Elixir beside his ears.


    "If that is the case, we may have a chance!"


    Wang She squinted his eyes slightly. Seeing the four means that Junior Leopard wrote down on the ground, his heart moved. Though Dark Lord Mie Chen was excellent and had chased him tens of thousands of miles on the prairie as though he was a homeless dog, he could get away at this time. In his current physical condition, he couldn''t recover without a year. Under these circumstances, he was doomed to be chased by Dark Lord Mie Chen, so he might as well risk his life to fight with Dark Lord Mie Chen.


    "Notwithstanding his excellent power, Mie Chen didn''t exceed the peak of Level Nine and ascend into The Mysterious Realm. Though his cultivation is higher than mine, I wasn''t easy to be bullied, furthermore, Junior Leopard is such a freak!"


    He had seen it, too. Albeit with only Level Five cultivation, his cultivation of two External Elixirs had reached Level Six, so he was on the brink of entering the gate of Level Seven, with the combat capability of Level Seven. Most importantly, the four means he wrote were all lethal.


    Moreover Dark Lord Mie Chen was chasing after him. He had no precautions towards Junior Leopard. As long as the execution was right, they might be able to get one of the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan to remain here forever.


    Wang She wasn''t an indecisive person. If he was, he wouldn''t have assented to Ma Tianchang''s request to step into prairie and to snuff the three princes out. He wouldn''t be in such situation where he was been chased by the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan. He wouldn''t be able to survive until now.


    As Junior Leopard said, he also had a trump card. If he fought with Dark Lord Mie Chen alone, he was unlikely to succeed, but if adding Junior Leopard''s means, the result would be different.


    Thinking till here, his mind also turned vivacious.


    "Ok, now that you have such means, it will be a pity if this chance slipped away!" Wang She said, taking out a dark red elixir from his bosom and placing it into his mouth. "I will go out to attract Mie Chen''s attention right away. You''ll come up from behind. Pick a optimum time and we can take action in unison. I believe that you wouldn''t let me down with your means!"


    Junior Leopard just smiled and nodded.


    Wang She wiped the blood off his face and stood up. Except for his pale complexion, nobody could tell that he was seriously injured.


    "Boy, you can''t imagine how mighty a person at the peak of Level Nine is! Be careful!" After talking, with a slight shout, he rushed out of the grotto and headed into the blistering blizzard.


    "You stay here. Don''t move! I will be back quickly. If I can''t come back, well, good luck!" Junior Leopard talked with these kids, with a flit, he followed Wang She and left the grotto.


    The winds were still wailing. However, when Junior Leopard applied Dragon Flying Technique, he felt different, totally different!


    Violent wind power was absorbed into Junior Leopard''s acupoints and he rotated it. Therefore, Junior Leopard wasn''t blown away amid the violent snowstorm. Instead his speed became faster and faster and his steps bigger and bigger, almost every step was more than one hundred feet. He followed Wang She closely, not affected by the gap of their cultivation.


    He ran in the wind, stretching his arms and unconsciously revealed the Change of Great Roc of Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds.


    It was said that Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds was a peerless martial arts of ancient times in which there were all-embracing skills, so it was unlikely to be comprehended in a short time. Because these skills were created through imitating nine heavenly birds of ancient times, there was a special mental cultivation method.


    Taking the Change of Great Roc for example, it was said that the Roc soared up to 90,000 miles into the sky. In the legend, for a great Roc, this heavenly bird of antiquity times, its wings seemed to touch the clouds of the sky. When water hit 3,000 miles, a Great Roc skyrocketed 90,000 miles, inhaling the cloud spirit and bearing the blue sky, it was carefree and unfettered.


    Recently, Junior Leopard practiced the Carefree Skill, being enlightened, and applied the Dragon Flying Technique. This violent blizzard met the condition of "Great Roc flying along with wind", so his speed soared severalfold. Between breaths, he surpassed Wang She ahead of him. His hands vibrated again, disappearing from the sight of Wang She with a sound, which stunned Wang She.


    "Wow, where did this bloke learn such an aggressive body movement?"


    So aggressive!


    When the Dragon Flying Technique was applied with the Change of Great Roc, it was indeed... "aggressive".


    Though Wang She was injured so heavily that he could only draw out 70 or 80% of the power of his normal body movement, to see Junior Leopard suddenly do so before him... At that moment, he felt that though he was in his heyday, if he didn''t use Gang Qi but only his body movement techniques, he feared that he would be inferior to this bloke!


    "How does this bloke practice the martial arts? Why am I finding it difficult to ascertain it?" Wang She pondered in the heart. But quickly, he didn''t have time to think that. In the distance, he saw a dark shade rushing towards him like fleeting thunder and lightning. That shade arrived before him in the blink of an eye.


    "Dark Lord Mie Chen! Damn it! Didn''t he get hurt too? How did he catch up with me so quickly?" Wang She muttered in his heart. With a sink of his figure, he fell down into the valley. Now that Dark Lord Mie Chen had found his trace, there was no point in running forward.


    "This is Dark Lord Mie Chen of three Grandmasters in Northern Yuan!"


    He was hidden in the darkness, seeing black smoke coming in torrents. The overwhelming power that could destroy the darkness enveloped the whole Devil Valley momentarily.


    "Wang She, you can''t escape. Come out and accept your death immediately!"


    His roaring rolled in like thunder. His aggressive and domineering sense penetrated into people''s heart. Junior Leopard couldn''t help but feeling a sense of chill. There was an impulsion to escape, rising up in the depth of his heart,.

 Chapter 216: Heavenly Devil Real Body, Demi-Mysterious Realm

    Chapter 216: Heavenly Devil Real Body, Demi-Mysterious Realm


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Black smoke billowed!


    Mie Chen, Lord of the Northern Dark Sect, was an expert above Level Nine. With his incomparable Dark martial arts, he had remained unbeaten for centuries in Jianghu. He was known as one of the Grandmasters of Northern Yuan, together with Kunlun Master and Living Buddha Ba Siba.


    The Yin Evil Blackdragon Smoke was what had made him unbeatable!


    It should be called the Nine Yin Blackdragon Smoke Gang!


    The seething black smoke billowed, and his furious roar bellowed like thunder.


    "Please, Dark Lord Mie Chen, you''re somehow known as a Grandmaster. Aren''t you ashamed to shout so loudly?"


    Wang She''s lazy voice came from the wind and snow. "Shouting loudly doesn''t necessarily make you right!"


    "Wang She, this is your last hour, yet you are still boasting. When you''re dead, I''ll cut out your tongue and send it back to the Tian Long Mystic Mountain. Then you can boast as long as you like!"


    The thick black smoke surged again and then it condensed into the figure of a strong man. He descended from the sky and landed in the valley. He displayed a majestic expression and gestures.


    "Hit by my Star-shattering Hand, your insides have been half destroyed. Even with your cultivation of Level Nine, you needed two or three years to recover. At this point, instead of planning to escape, you dare to meet me here. You must be plotting something!"


    Dark Lord Mie Chen was nearly ten feet tall and strong like a bull. Though his Qi Power was completely under restraint, he still gave off an intense physical force.


    Evil light flashed in his eyes.


    He looked at Wang She covered in green light and sneered. "It seems that you''re quite alive now. Could it be that you have taken the Heavenly Dragon Divine Elixir from your Tian Long Taoism?"


    "Why should I tell you?"


    "It makes no difference. Even if you did take the Elixir to suppress your injury and improve your cultivation temporarily, you could only raise your cultivation to just above Level Nine, the exact same as mine." Mie Chen laughed grimly. Black smoke billowed from his body again and a big hand flashing with silver light suddenly appeared, moving straight towards Wang She''s face!


    "Star-shattering Hand?" Wang She''s sleeves lifted and cyan Gang Qi surged. PENG! Wang She hit the big hand head-on. With a dull thud, the ground under their feet shook and then cracked. Stones rolled down from the nearby mountains and scattered everywhere.


    Wang She took two steps backward. There was a glimmer of blood at the corner of his mouth, but he smiled even more widely and said in a low voice, "This Heavenly Dragon Divine Elixir is actually of very high value. That old thing didn''t fool me. Mie Chen, it seems that this time my power is equal to yours!"


    "Being a Divine Pill, the Divine Dragon Pill of course has a divine effect. But if you think that by improving your cultivation to my level with this pill, you can compete with me, then you''re being naive!" Mie Chen''s black smoke expanded and encircled Wang She instantly. "Young man, enjoy my Nine Yin Blackdragon Smoke Gang! Though you may have the same cultivation as me, your Gang Qi has only elementarily reached Level Nine. It''s not wise for you to show off in front of me!"


    "Damn it!" The thick black smoke enveloped Wang She''s body. A hissing sound could be heard as the Nine Yin Blackdragon Smoke Gang and the Jade Original Power Gang converged. The black smoke turned into a rivulet of thin black snakes that tried desperately to penetrate the Gang Qi.


    The Jade Original Power Gang first gave out a bright cyan light. But then the light gradually died away with the penetrating of the black smoke. Wang She''s face darkened.


    Mie Chen was right. The Elixir could indeed improve his cultivation temporarily. As for the Gang Qi battle, he was only new to Level Nine while Mie Chen had been a famous expert at Level Nine for hundreds of years. What was worse, Mie Chen''s Yin Evil Blackdragon Smoke had already been cultivated into Nine Yin Blackdragon Smoke Gang which resisted his Jade Original Power Gang.


    "Jade Original Power Gang. What a great fame! Break!" Mie Chen sneered. The black smoke surrounding him suddenly sent out nine cold blasts of Qi and froze the Jade Original Power Gang in an instant.


    Then the black smoke began to shrink.


    With a crackling sound, the Jade Original Power Gang was completely crushed instantaneously!


    Wang She drew back hastily. Cold light flashed in his eyes. HU! A huge cyan snake surged from his body, covering him and blocking all the black smoke outside.


    SHUA!


    The enormous cyan snake scurried out into the surging black smoke. Before long, the snake was completely swallowed up by the smoke. Wang She did seem the least bit surprised. Then the Nine Yin Blackdragon Smoke Gang stirred from inside. Wang She pulled out a long purple bamboo stick from his sleeve. With a stir, purple light flashed and blocked all the black smoke pouring toward Wang She.


    "Asura Destroyer Pole!"


    The purple stick in Wang She''s hand, like a purple viper, tore all the black smoke apart and pushed it away. Wang She leaned forward.


    ROAR!


    A shrill roar came out of the black smoke and the huge cyan snake which had come in to stir the Smoke Gang just now was popped out as if it had taken a blow. Though Wang She was charging forward and seemed unstoppable, after seeing the snake get blocked by a powerful strength he looked terrified. A look of horror flashed in his eyes. He used the stick to weave a dense purple net of light and the cyan snake was integrated into his body. He drew back hastily and ran out of the enveloping black smoke circle.


    "Hahahaha!" A cackle of triumphant laughter rang out above the roar of the wind and snow. The black smoke surged fiercely and a huge demon god shimmered within. The only thing that could be seen clearly was the wicked red light flashing in the eyes of the god. It looked frightening on such a cold stormy night.


    "Heavenly Devil Real Body! You actually condensed the Heavenly Devil Real Body?!"


    Wang She retreated quickly in the wind and snow with astonishment he was unable to conceal. "You''ve already entered the Mysterious Realm!"


    "Hahahaha!" A majestic figure flashed out from the black smoke. Dark Lord Mie Chen was standing in the air surrounded by swirling black smoke. Above his head, a hideous demon god about 10 feet high showed itself.


    "You''ve got a good eye. However, you''re wrong about one thing. I''m still one step away from the Mysterious Realm!" Mie Chen advanced toward Wang She who was drawing back rapidly step by step. It seemed that Mie Chen was slow, but in fact he strode out hundreds of feet in one step, at a speed faster than Wang She''s. "Only when I can integrate this Heavenly Devil Real Body to my own body, can I finally enter the Mysterious Realm!"


    The distance between Mie Chen and Wang She was shortened in half.


    "Perpetual Purple Bamboo of the South Sea. Tian Long Taoism is actually a big sect since you can get this. This Bamboo is known for being able to destroy all evil. I wonder whether it can destroy my Nine Yin Blackdragon Smoke Gang?!"


    Mie Chen said with a voice of ridicule. "Ask your hidden friend to show himself so you can have company on your way to hell!" He stretched his hand toward the purple bamboo in Wang She''s hand as if the distance between them didn''t exist.


    "Hmph!"


    Wang She snorted coldly. The purple stick in his hand gave off a bright purple streamer and struck Mie Chen''s hand.


    It was a simple fight. One tried to grasp by the hand while the other struck with the stick.


    It was like two kids fighting and it lasted only for a second. But to Junior Leopard, that second seemed like several hours.


    In the process of stretching, Mie Chen''s hand had made hundreds of changes and he tried dozens of clawing skills to grasp Wang She''s bamboo stick. But Wang She''s stick was so agile and quick that it shifted with Mie Chen''s claw. Both of them wanted to seize each other''s weakest point while hiding their own.


    "Is this the battle between real experts?"


    Junior Leopard, who was hiding in the dark, couldn''t help feeling aghast. Compared to them, the experts he had bombard to death, like Dragon Granny and that guy from the South Yuezhou State, were far weaker. He was afraid that only Buyan Gerel had held a cultivation anywhere near theirs. But Buyan Gerel had been too confident which was why he had been trapped and unable to give full play of his real strength.


    SWISH!


    A slight rumbling echoed in the wind and snow. Wang She''s stick and Mie Chen''s hand finally connected, with the tip of the stick directly pointed towards Mie Chen''s palm. It seemed that Wang She had gained the upper hand. Using only a little strength the tip of the stick could pierce Mie Chen''s palm. But, was it really that easy?


    One could tell from the reflection on Wang She''s face that instead of emitting out, the light of the purple stick was completely engulfed by the black light.


    Mie Chen''s palm was not his weakest point. It was his strongest!


    Heavenly Devil Roaring Bomb!


    A huge roar came out from Mie Chen''s palm like thunder. It was so loud that even Junior Leopard who hid 300 feet away felt panic. Black light roared out from his palm. The light on Wang She''s stick was fought back. Wang She''s face fell. He waved his stick continuously to protect his weakest point. With blood squirting from his mouth, he fell to the valley like a bloody gourd.


    Mie Chen watched Wang She fall, blank and motionless. A hint of purple-black blood dripped from his palm. With a flick of the hand, he shook the blood off. If it weren''t for Junior Leopard''s extraordinary eyesight from his Fiery Eyes, he wouldn''t have seen that Wang She''s attack also caused considerable damage to Mie Chen.


    "What fierce Sword Qi!" Mie Chen kept his hand inside his sleeve. A black light flashed in his eyes. "It''s the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. It must be the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword! Only this special technique has such a destructive power that it could break up my Nine Yin Blackdragon Smoke Gang. I''d never expected this special technique would be controlled by Tian Long Taoism and he has even mastered it!"


    Thinking of this, terror showed on his face.


    The fact that Wang She had mastered the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was not a good thing for him. He started to hesitate.


    Junior Leopard was a time-traveler with comparatively weak cultivation, so he knew little about the secret stories in this world.


    But Mie Chen was different. As one of the Three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan, he had traveled freely in this world for hundreds of years. With his identity, status, power and all that he had inherited from the Northern Dark Sect, he knew almost all the secrets in this world.


    So he knew the power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!


    This special technique, even in the era when experts of the Mysterious Realm were seen as frequently as dogs, was known as the most destructive and devastating.


    The so-called "Supreme Swordplay" came from it.


    In this world, "Supreme Swordplay" meant that once one''s sword skill was cultivated to the highest state, then with one sword, he could be unbeatable alone, without any Gang Qi, celestial device or other secret skills or special techniques. For swordsmen aiming to reach the highest sword state, these extra devices and skills should not be used. They were all burdens and hindered their progress.


    Nowadays, this kind of swordsman was rare but there were still a few. For example, the leader of the Golden Lights Cave was a typical representative.


    But in a previous era, tens of thousands of years ago, the "Supreme Swordplay" referred only to the Sword Qi of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was the Supreme Swordplay!


    These two expressions together referred not to the sword skill, but to Sword Qi and sword intent which could destroy and separate everything.


    At the same time, Mie Chen also knew that Wang She had just newly cultivated the Qi of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and he hadn''t gotten the insights of the intent of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword yet. If he had, Mie Chen''s hand would definitely have been crushed.


    He began to hesitate. Wang She had used the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    If the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was part of Wang She''s private collection, it was not a big deal. He could just kill him. But if this technique had been controlled by the Tian Long Taoism, then he had to think twice.


    Tian Long Taoism was of the same status and power as the Palace of Destruction Demon in the Northern Dark Sect. Both sects had their own outstanding secret Arts and several old masters whose cultivation had reached the Mysterious Realm. Neither could really prevail over the other. But this Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword might break the balance.


    He had now cultivated the Heavenly Devil Real Body. But tens of thousands of years ago, a saint in the Dark Sect who had accomplished the Highest Heavenly Devil had been split by the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, never mind his Heavenly Devil Real Body.


    He was not only one of the three Grandmasters in Northern Yuan, but also the leader of the Northern Dark Sect and head of the Palace of Destruction Demon. He must think carefully before acting. Though since its birth, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword had only been fully cultivated by one person, who could guarantee that there would not be a second one? Besides, just as not all people could fully cultivate the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, there were many who could not fully cultivate the Highest Heavenly Devil, either.


    The Qi of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was originally an unethical Sword Qi which would destroy whatever it came across.


    Now, I have good reason for killing Wang She here and Tian Long Taoism can say nothing about this. But what about in the future?


    After the Northern Dark Sect migrated to the prairie 30,000 years ago, it had always been a powerful backing for the whole area while receiving support from the prairie. But now it seemed that it was all over.


    He knew clearly that Northern Yuan was over. The reason why he furiously hunted Wang She down had not just been to express his anger. In fact, he believed that even though Northern Yuan was really finished, the Great Jin couldn''t do anything to the Palace of Destruction Demon considering the strength of the Palace. The most possible result might be that the Great Jin expanded Northern Yuan and then the Palace of the Destruction Demon would become an existence like the Tian Long Taoism or the Mingyi School. Even if the Great Jin wanted to do something to the Palace, they didn''t have enough power. Just look at the Sect of Flame: If the Great Jin really had enough power, the Sect of Flame should have been destroyed ages ago.


    Therefore, he was not afraid of the Great Jin. Neither did he worry that Northern Yuan would be swallowed up by the Great Jin. But he was indeed afraid of Tian Long Taoism!


    He might not have been afraid of it before, but now he was. "What if this Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword really is controlled by the Tian Long Taoism? What if someone actually masters the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword in the future? What if that someone happens to be an unreasonable guy?"


    Tian Long Taoism was reasonable, but it was good at training unreasonable guys who, once they''d mastered the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, might go and try their swords on the Palace of Destruction Demon. That would be the real trouble!


    "What''s wrong with this old dog?"


    Seeing that Mie Chen was just standing in the air thinking rather than going to chase Wang She, Junior Leopard was confused. He had knocked Wang She out of the sky and given him a crippling strike. It was a great opportunity for him. As long as he continued, it was very likely that he could keep Wang She in the valley forever. But why had he stopped?


    As Junior Leopard thought too simply, he couldn''t understand Mie Chen''s distant concern.


    "Could this guy have also been injured heavily by Wang She? Wang She was a tough opponent. Maybe he was recovering. But since Mie Chen isn''t going to continue, this is a good chance for me!"


    It was indeed a good chance!


    If Mie Chen was indeed badly injured and regulating his breathing in the air, it was definitely the perfect chance for Junior Leopard. Though the Heavenly Devil Real Body was still above Mie Chen and he was surrounded by the Nine Yin Blackdragon Smoke Gang, Junior Leopard was not afraid. It was useless to be afraid.


    No matter what Mie Chen was thinking or why he remained still, it was a perfect opportunity. Mie Chen would not expect him to take action now.


    Now, while Mie Chen had his eyes closed! This was the moment!


    Once Mie Chen regained his presence of mind, Junior Leopard would have no chance.


    Mie Chen''s strength had far exceeded his and Wang She''s expectation. Wang She had long regarded Mie Chen as an upper Level Nine expert whose cultivation was only at the peak of Level Nine even though he had been famous for so many years. Wang She had believed that even though he might not beat Mie Chen, he wouldn''t lose too heavily. Besides, with the help of the Heavenly Dragon Divine Elixir, he could reach the same cultivation as Mie Chen''s temporarily. Consequently, he had agreed with Junior Leopard''s idea after knowing what Junior Leopard could do.


    But to his surprise, Mie Chen hadn''t shown his real strength when hunting him. The three Grandmasters in Northern Yuan, though often referred to together, were not really a united group. There were some old scores among them, and Mie Chen didn''t want the other two to know what he really had.


    Therefore, Wang She had also underestimated Mie Chen and paid a steep price for it.


    Under these circumstances when Mie Chen had shown overwhelming power, even Wang She wouldn''t believe that Junior Leopard could kill him with his limited techniques.


    Having seen Mie Chen''s power, only idiots would try to touch on his nerves. Normal people would stay where they were and wait until he left.


    Though Mie Chen had asked Wang She''s partner to come out, with the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, Junior Leopard was hiding in a secret place in the valley like a common stone. He was without breath, heartbeat, temperature or any other characteristics of a living thing. If not for his thoughts, he wouldn''t even feel his own existence. Junior Leopard was confident that Mie Chen could not find him.


    So what he needed to do was to stay hidden and not worry about being found.


    If he was anyone else, he might have just stayed hidden.


    But he was Junior Leopard!


    He came from a different world and had a kind of risk-taking mentality that common people didn''t have.


    Seeing Mie Chen standing motionless in the air, he thought that it was a great opportunity and he wanted to grasp it.


    So he started moving.


    QIU! There was a slight sound. But it would easily be covered in the wind and snow.


    "What?!" Mie Chen''s ear moved slightly. A rare expression of suspicion was seen on his face. Yes, suspicion. When Junior Leopard''s hand had reached his back, what he had on his face was still suspicion


    WENG! A tightly-woven vibration emitted from Junior Leopard''s palm and extended to Mie Chen''s.


    Black smoke was swirling. Junior Leopard snorted coldly and then disappeared.


    "Die!"


    It wasn''t until this point that Mie Chen''s shouting exploded and spread far.


    "That was close!" Junior Leopard deployed his Three Realms Division twice, moving over 300 meters each time. Even though the cultivation of his body had reached Level Five, he felt the fierce movement of his blood and Qi and he couldn''t help shivering.


    That was indeed very close!


    Junior Leopard had fully prepared. He had prepared for the second use of the Three Realms Division before he deployed the first one and before that he had also protected himself with the Poison Cold Shield. Otherwise, he could have been fanned down from the air like Wang She. Without the cultivation and body of Level Nine like Wang She, it was very likely that would have died if the black smoke touched him.


    Careful as he was, his Poison Cold Shield was still hit by the black smoke. It made his blood and Qi move irregularly and the Poison Cold Shield tremble. With just that one hit, the insidious Gang Qi had nearly passed through the Poison Cold Shield and made him suffer.


    But he wasn''t suffering. It was Mie Chen who suffered a great deal.


    But obviously, the power of the Infinite Trembling Contemplation was not as strong as he had imagined.


    The black smoke surrounding Mie Chen in the air suddenly became intense and the Heavenly Devil Real Body above him roared fiercely. Invisible waves spread everywhere and turned everything within a thousand feet into powder!


    This was:


    The power of the Infinite Trembling Contemplation!

 Chapter 217: Mauling Mie Chen with the Deity Rebelling Eyes

    Chapter 217: Mauling Mie Chen with the Deity Rebelling Eyes


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard could understand some parts of the theory of Infinite Trembling Contemplation.


    It was actually a way to break down the structures of materials using a high-frequency vibration. When the vibration frequency reached a certain extent, the connection between molecules inside the material would begin to break down. Once broken down, they would be decomposed to their most original state.


    This was the theory of Infinite Trembling Contemplation. Although Junior Leopard didn''t major in science in his previous life, he had read a lot of science fictions. So it was natural that he knew this theory.


    But it was obvious that the power of Infinite Trembling Contemplation was related to the frequency of the vibration. That was to say, the higher the frequency was, the more devastating the power would be.


    Junior Leopard had tried his best to perform the power of Infinite Trembling Contemplation to the utmost using the External Elixir made of the Dragon Chimera''s skull. It was always invincible according to his previous experiences, but today he finally found out that he had overestimated its power.


    For the experts whose cultivation had surpassed the peak of Level Nine, they were only half step away from The Mysterious Realm.


    So the capability of Mie Chen was far beyond his imagination.


    The martial artists in this world could all balance the inner and outside cycles of their cultivation. The higher one''s cultivation was, the stronger the body would be. Right now, Junior Leopard''s cultivation was Level Five, but the density of his body had already reached an incredible state that also surprised him. Ordinary sabers and swords could no longer do harm to his body, and when he was on the battlefield, the sabers, spears, swords, and hammers from ordinary soldiers even couldn''t hurt him either. The attacks from them only felt as though he was being tickled. Since he could have such a strong body at Level Five, then what about a man with Level Nine cultivation?


    When one''s cultivation reached the same phase as Mie Chen''s, he would not only have an iron body, but his viscera would also be as tough as iron. In other words, the body, both inside and out, was incredibly difficult to destroy.


    Junior Leopard''s Infinite Trembling Contemplation has a very powerful strength. Once he performed it, nearly all the things within 1,000 feet around him could be reduced to ashes under the devastating shock wave of it. He also knew that while he could easily reduce things like stones, trees, creatures and even some soldiers into ashes, the limit of the weapon meant that he could use it less than 30 times.


    Once the weapon was used more than 30 times, he would only be able to harm with it instead of destroying with it and reducing things into ashes, like those that had been targeted with it less than 30 times.


    If the weapon was used more than 100 of times, its surface couldn''t even be damaged by his Infinite Trembling Contemplation at all. In that way, the shock wave could at most, only harm the inside of the weapon.


    Now that Mie Chen''s cultivation had reached such a state, it was obvious that his body had been hit more than 100 times. With such a body, how could he be easily knocked down by Infinite Trembling Contemplation?


    Even though Mie Chen was undefended when he endured this attack, he only, at most, incurred some injuries in the viscera from the power of Infinite Trembling Contemplation that Junior Leopard could create at present.


    Junior Leopard hadn''t thought that Mie Chen might think of a way to entirely get rid of the power of Infinite Trembling Contemplation. It was surprising that the power hadn''t stayed in his body for a single minute at all. Actually, Mie Chen successfully dispelled the shock wave with merely one roar of the Heavenly Devil Real Body.


    So at this point, Junior Leopard couldn''t think of more ideas. He immediately used Three Realms Division three times and escaped from the place to three miles away. He then found a small grotto and activated Snake-like Breath Holding Skill for fear of letting out a heavy breath.


    "Wang She, is that your backup plan? Is it Infinite Trembling Contemplation? Hehe, nothing remarkable!" Mie Chen''s voice lingered around and was spread afar for miles. "Do you have any other new techniques? Go ahead, show me them all at once. Otherwise, you won''t have the chance to do it for the rest of your life!"


    There was no response. It was fine that Junior Leopard had no response to it because he had turned into a faint-hearted turtle and never thought he would walk out of the cave that he was now hiding in. But it wasn''t normal that Wang She also kept quiet. Junior Leopard couldn''t tell whether he was knocked unconscious by Mie Chen just now or had hidden away just as Junior Leopard did.


    After shouting for a few more times with no response from the two at all, a cold smile flashed from Mie Chen''s face. "It is too naive for you two to hide from me if you think hiding can settle this matter!"


    He then raised his right hand gently in the air and put it down. A silver light suddenly shot out from his body and hit the bottom of the valley straightforwardly.


    "Bang, bang!"


    With the earth quaking and mountain shaking, the entire Devil Valley was in chaos under the heavy snow. It was as if an earthquake with a magnitude of 10 just broke out.


    In a moment, the rocks from the mountain were flying everywhere and the earth cracked.


    The Devil Valley was on the verge of being crushed under his attack, while Junior Leopard, who was hiding in a cave of the valley, felt the wave of an earthquake under his feet. Afterward, the entire cave collapsed and was going to bury him. He couldn''t stay there anymore, so he immediately flashed out of it. Thanks to the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill which was performed non-stop, he didn''t let out any spirit at all while he flashed here and there under the mountain rocks and dust. But after flashing a few more times, he noticed that it didn''t make any difference. Because the Devil Valley had already been controlled by Mie Chen. If he couldn''t destroy the valley with one hit, he could do it twice, or even four times. It was only a matter of time until the Devil Valley would be totally destroyed under Mie Chen''s silver hand.


    Hence, Junior Leopard didn''t dare to stay in the valley any longer. Focusing on one direction, he performed Three Realms Division again and flashed non-stop until he was 30 miles away. Only then did his heart settled down. He then hid in the grass carefully and looked up at the direction of Devil Valley.


    Junior Leopard was now 30 miles away from there. But in the open prairie, with bare eyes, everything he could see was crystal clear.


    He found that Mie Chen had disappeared.


    He was performing Three Realms Division and couldn''t spare his concentration on what Mie Chen was doing. As for now, when he had finally settled down, Mie Chen had disappeared.


    His heart immediately felt a tick and he felt a severe sense of danger soon afterward.


    "Gosh!" A thought went through his heart and then he decided to perform Three Realms Division again. But things didn''t work out this time.


    A huge hand had cut into the hollow by force and grabbed his neck. He was immediately dragged out of the hollow.


    "Interesting! It surprises me that you can do hollow travel!"


    The voice of Mie Chen struck Junior Leopard''s ear. Junior Leopard was panicked and wanted to circulate his internal Qi to perform martial arts, but he found he couldn''t do it at all. While he was carried by the neck by Mie Chen, he also felt a cold Internal Qi that sealed all of the acupoints in his body. As his acupoints were sealed, the Internal Qi could no longer circulate. His body turned soft and powerless.


    He was actually picked up by Mie Chen like a nerd. "So you are Wang She''s partner? You are so young!"


    What kind of person was the Dark Lord Mie Chen?


    He could know that Junior Leopard was younger than he could imagine by merely penetrating his Internal Qi into Junior Leopard''s body and picking him up. "Interesting. You are younger than 20 years old, right? But it is really amazing that you already have a cultivation of Level Five. Moreover, your External Elixir''s cultivation has reached Level Six. You even know how to travel through the hollow and you also know how to perform Infinite Trembling Contemplation. If I left you growing for one or two years, even I couldn''t control you anymore, could I?"


    As Mie Chen was speaking, black smoke had surrounded his body. His killing intent became obvious, "It would be big trouble for me to leave a guy like you alive. I''d better kill you right now."


    "Go to hell!" Feeling powerless from head to toe, Junior Leopard closed his eyes tightly. But he had secretly activated his Fiery Eyes.


    Red lights beamed from his eyes, and Junior Leopard was immediately in an eccentric state.


    There were three black lines in his fiery eyes, which now began to move fiercely.


    Although the movement only lasted for a second, it was as if aeons had passed.


    As for Mie Chen, he was a man with provisions and could decide things quickly. It was his first time to meet Junior Leopard, but he had noticed that Junior Leopard was special. For instance, he could hollow travel, he had a cultivation of Level Five, and he knew Infinite Trembling Contemplation. Moreover, he was younger than 20 years old. There were probably more things special about him. But he didn''t care because he could predict the huge threat by merely adding the above factors together.


    He also believed that Junior Leopard had other secrets. If put in daily life, he might be curious about him and might leave Junior Leopard alive so he could see what other secrets he had.


    But now he didn''t have the interest to know what other secrets Junior Leopard had. Nothing could attract him anymore.


    He had cleared Heavenly Devil Real Body successfully and was only a half step away from The Mysterious Realm. Therefore, his temper was as cold as ice. The reason why he didn''t chase Wang She at once was, that it might have an adverse effect for the future since Tian Long Taoism had a dramatically improved attack force after they got Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. As for the reason why he decided to kill Junior Leopard immediately, that was because he had seen the limitless potential in him. He could predict that Junior Leopard might garner high achievements in the future, and would pose a threat to Palace of Destruction Demon. So he had to eliminate the threat before it came true, leaving no chances to Junior Leopard.


    It was right because of the above reasons that Dark Lord Mie Chen''s eyes were filled with killing intent. He didn''t think twice before he raised his hand towards Junior Leopard''s forehead. If he was successful, no matter what marvelous techniques Junior Leopard had, it would be a dead end for him. Hence, it was quite certain that Junior Leopard would die.


    But Junior Leopard had a life of fortune. He was not only lucky, but he also had a good moral standing. So the moment he was picked up by Mie Chen, he had a strong sense of danger. Therefore he unconsciously activated his Fiery Eyes.


    It was exactly this immediate response that saved his ass.


    Black lines were circling in his eyes, leading his thoughts to a strange state. His thoughts spread like water and the realm was merged with his body as if the space within 30 feet around was dominated by him. It was a still and eccentric world.


    The eccentric world included the overwhelming wind, snow, and hail as well as Dark Lord Mie Chen as well as Mie Chen''s palm that was to slash his forehead.


    Mie Chen''s huge palm, however, stopped two feet away from Junior Leopard''s forehead.


    "Hong!" Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts collided with Mie Chen''s thoughts naturally. The situation was like he unconsciously channeled the bug''s thoughts. But the difference was that his target was Dark Lord Mie Chen instead of the little bug.


    Last time he could invade into the little bug''s mind very easily and he didn''t spend too much effort to take out the bug''s soul. But this time, it was as if the divine thoughts had met an enormous black glacier.


    The glacier was cold, huge and invincible. So divine thoughts were bounced back with nothing obtained as if they had hit the glacier on a little boat.


    But it was fortunate that the glacier had no response.


    However, he also knew it wouldn''t last long for the glacier to be still.


    His Fiery Eyes couldn''t last long.


    "Shit, I will just let it go!"


    Feeling the deadly threat in his forehead, Junior Leopard didn''t have more time to think.


    "Isn''t it just a glacier?"


    "If I can''t break it with one hit, then I will hit it twice!"


    "Even though I can''t take your entire soul out, can''t I knock down one part of it?"


    "It''s fine for a glacier to lose a block. But your soul is only similar to a glacier, it is in fact not a real one. With one part missing, I don''t believe it couldn''t affect you!"


    Junior Leopard thought it ferociously. Hence he concentrated his divine thoughts and hit them towards the glacier that seemed the weakest with all his strength.


    "Hong!"


    A shock of dazzling thoughts and information pounded his divine thoughts fiercely, leaving him no time to comprehend them.


    "Oh, the Fiery Eyes have reached their limit!" Feeling a puff of pain striking him from his eyes, Junior Leopard couldn''t think too much. He swallowed the sharp pain and shrank his head suddenly, escaping from Mie Chen''s palm. In the meantime, he circulated his Internal Qi swiftly. The black Mysterious Fire was flickering in his Dantian, giving out waves of heat. The heat was clearing Mie Chen''s Internal Qi that had penetrated into his body and sealed his acupoints.


    It was weird. There was not much of the Dark Lord Mie Chen''s Internal Qi which had sealed his acupoints, but it was exquisite and pure beyond imagination. His Internal Qi had sealed Junior Leopard''s acupoints very easily. As the acupoints were sealed, Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi couldn''t circulate in his body and he couldn''t perform any skills.


    But when Junior Leopard activated his Fiery Eyes, he found that the Mysterious Fire in Dantian seemed affected as well. The Mysterious Fire that had long been absorbed by him, was now a part of his body and finally began to flicker. It then started to engulf Mie Chen''s exquisite and pure Internal Qi. The process was quite easy. For Junior Leopard, the Internal Qi was thin but very conducive though. After Mie Chen''s Internal Qi was engulfed by Mysterious Fire, its essence was immediately digested. Junior Leopard now even felt that his own Internal Qi was also more exquisite and pure with a string of mysterious spirit.


    But for now, he couldn''t take much into consideration.


    With his deadly painful eyes, Junior Leopard performed Dragon Flying Technique dramatically with his eyes tightly closed. Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword Qi that had been ready in the External Elixir between his eyebrows followed the passageway established by the Dragon Flying Technique and was eventually concentrated on his right index finger. Without thinking twice, he raised his hand and pointed his finger straight at Mie Chen''s left eye.


    The red light on his fingertip soon became glaring, pointing right at Mie Chen''s left eye.


    Dark Lord Mie Chen''s cultivation was already at the peak of Level Nine. So his body was already stronger than iron. Even his eyes were stronger than iron, he was faced with Junior Leopard''s Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword. Although Junior Leopard hadn''t cultivated Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword successfully, his Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword Qi was cleared by Blood Essence Evil Yuan. Hence, its power was extremely amazing. Even iron could be destroyed with only one hit. So Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword Qi penetrated Dark Lord Mie Chen''s left eye with no obstacles encountered and hit into his head straightforwardly.


    If it were others, Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword Qi would have gone through the head. But this time, Junior Leopard''s Sword Qi had only injured his eyeball and a part of his head. It then was bounced back by the skull.


    It was surprising that Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword couldn''t break through the other part of Mie Chen''s skull.


    It wasn''t a bad thing for Junior Leopard, however, because compared to the skull, the brain was the organ that was more vulnerable.


    While the Sword Qi rattled around Mie Chen''s skull, Junior Leopard could still feel the sharp pain in his eyes. His Fiery Eyes were about to reach their limit.


    "Wang She, it''s your turn!" Junior Leopard shouted desperately. His voice was hoarse and loud.


    He launched Three Realms Division at the same time and disappeared.


    In fact, Junior Leopard wasn''t sure whether Wang She was still alive or not. But he would rather believe Wang She was alive and was hiding as he was just now to wait for a chance. Moreover, here came the chance.


    From the time Dark Lord Mie Chen seized Junior Leopard to the time Junior Leopard launched Fiery Eyes and formed the 100 feet region that only Junior Leopard could control, it was only a glimpse of time. Everything happened swiftly.


    The Fiery Eyes were quenching while Junior Leopard activated Three Realms Division. So the absolute control region disappeared. After activating Three Realms Division for four times, Junior Leopard fell down to the ground in an unpleasant manner. He rolled on the ground while crazy roars lingered his ears. The voice was from Dark Lord Mie Chen.


    Junior Leopard believed his Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword had heavily injured Dark Lord Mie Chen. But he didn''t believe Mie Chen would lose all his power under his only attack. Therefore, he didn''t dare to think too much. After rolling on the ground for a while, he immediately utilized Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and laid peacefully as if he was dead.


    So he didn''t witness Dark Lord Mie Chen''s Heavenly Devil Real Body start to disappear after he left. If he could''ve held a while longer, he would have discovered that Dark Lord Mie Chen''s soul, which was like a black glacier, began to collapse.


    Mie Chen was merely a Level Nine expert after all. No matter how strong his divine thoughts were and how solid his soul was, they had to depend on his brain. So once his brain was destroyed, the powerful divine thoughts would immediately lose the subject they were dependent on. Then it was natural that there could be a loophole. So chances were high that it would collapse.


    He could have gotten unimaginable benefits from Mie Chen if he could''ve only held on a moment longer. He even could''ve even really destroyed Mie Chen!


    But he didn''t have the nerve. Nor had he thought of it.


    At that moment, the only right thing he did was to shout.


    Wang She rose from the ground as soon as Junior Leopard shouted. His body was like a bloody bottle gourd covered by blue lightning all over. The lightning was like snakes, winding his body and emitting cracking sounds.


    When his body first appeared, the lightning was as tiny as snakes. But when he was in front of Dark Lord Mie Chen, the lightning had become as thick as legs. Now he was wrapped in an enormous lightning ball, bombarding Dark Lord Mie Chen.


    As for Mie Chen, he was in a bad way.


    Originally he was to kill Junior Leopard who had limitless potential and huge secrets. But unfortunately, he felt a red light flashing before him, then a sharp pain attacked his brain. He had spent so much effort to cultivate Heavenly Devil Real Body, but the body collapsed. Additionally, his divine thoughts began acting weirdly, as if they were to leave his body. Moreover, his mind was not in a good state either. Because he was absent-minded for a second, his mind became vacant. So he could only roar furiously with instinct until lightning covered Wang She fiercely hit on his iron body.


    Divine Yuan Yang Godly Thunder Seal!


    "Bang!"


    Dark Lord Mie Chen''s body was bounced back thousands of feet away like a cannon. He roared from far away again and then turned into black smoke disappearing into the air.


    "We have earned a lot. This time, we have earned a lot!" Wang She''s body stayed in the air for half a second or so before it fell to the ground like a dead stone. He bounced twice on the ground and gave a weird laughter with lips twitching.


    Just now, he could sense clearly that his Divine Yuan Yang Godly Thunder Seal hit right at Dark Lord Mie Chen''s body and the hit wasn''t stopped by the Nine Yin Blackdragon Smoke Gang. In this way, the joke was big.


    Even if Mie Chen was really in The Mysterious Realm, he wouldn''t feel good after enduring such an attack. Not to mention that he was still a half step away!


    "What has that lad doing? How could he lure Mie Chen into a trap?"


    Just as what Junior Leopard thought, Wang She also performed Snake-like Breath Holding Skill after being knocked down by Mie Chen. He was also waiting for a chance. Originally, he didn''t intend to gain an extra advantage either.


    Because Wang She knew he couldn''t gain any advantage since he saw Dark Lord Mie Chen had cleared Heavenly Devil Real Body and was only a half step away from The Mysterious Realm.


    Junior Leopard was a rookie and didn''t know how powerful an expert was when he was in the Demi-Mysterious Realm. But Wang She knew it by heart.


    Hence the only thing he could think of was how to escape the hand of Mie Chen.


    But Mie Chen unexpectedly suffered such a big loss inexplicably. So he still felt amazing now.


    It was indeed amazing. He couldn''t think this through. Why did Dark Lord suddenly stop when Mie Chen was about to kill Junior Leopard? Undoubtedly Junior Leopard had lost all of his strength. How did he overturn the disadvantage?


    "Is this the power of Fiery Eyes?"


    Wang She''s lips twitched while he was lying on the ground. He was semi-conscious. Although he was a Level Nine expert, he had been severely injured. Moreover, he took Tian Long Dan to activate his potential. He had improved the power of Divine Yuan Yang Godly Thunder Seal to the utmost in a nearly masochistic manner. Hence he was entirely worn out now.


    "Fiery Eyes. If it is really the Fiery Eyes, then... then his po... potential..."Wang She fainted with his head moving sideways.


    ...


    "Hey, hey, Chief, Chief Wang, are you alright? Come on and wake up!"


    After a while, Junior Leopard struggled to the place where Wang She fell down. He checked Wang She''s breath and had an eccentric feeling.


    Junior Leopard wasn''t in a good state either, though he looked alright, he had used the Fiery Eyes too much, leaving enormous hidden injuries in his body. The hidden injuries looked normal, but if it was left as what it was, it would have an irreparable influence on his body. It may affect his future practice, which would impose huge negative effects on his future development.


    Junior Leopard wasn''t an idiot and he knew things by heart. So he didn''t dare to take more actions after discovering Wang She was unconscious. Neither did he use his own Internal Qi to help Wang She circulate the blood. Instead, he searched on Wang She''s body and found a few ceramic bottles. Without thinking too much, he poured a few pills out of the bottle, then put them into Wang She''s mouth.


    The pills melted in Wang She''s mouth at once. After Junior Leopard observed Wang She nervously for a while, Wang She seemed to have gained some faint breath. Only then was Junior Leopard put at ease. So he sat cross-legged by his side and began to regulate his own breathing.


    An hour later, Wang She opened his eyes suddenly and got up from the ground. His face was red and looked healthy, but was also puzzled. Afterward, he suddenly discovered the ceramic bottles thrown aside by Junior Leopard. With trembling hands, he picked up one of the bottles and observed it. Then his expression suddenly changed. Pointing at Junior Leopard who was sitting cross-legged by the side, he was flustered and exasperated, cursing, "You bastard. Who let you give me Heavenly Dragon Divine Elixirs!"


    But his voice stopped quickly and his body was straight again. "Pu!" a puff of purple blood burst out of his mouth and covered Junior Leopard''s head and face. His body then fell to the ground straight.

 Chapter 218: The First Appearance of the Ancient Treasure, the Clear Glass Jade Bottle

    Chapter 218: The First Appearance of the Ancient Treasure, the Clear Glass Jade Bottle


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    A rout was like a landslide!


    On the broad prairie, the defeated army was like ants. Tens of thousands of Northern Yuan''s Metal Horse Carriages were like headless flies flying about and running for their lives. There were 500,000 soldiers of the Jin army behind them. Among them, there were 200,000 cavalrymen. Their horses were fast as lightning, running like tidal waves.


    Northern Yuan was defeated, completely defeated!


    Under Ma Tianchang''s sudden assault, the 100,000 Metal Horse Carriages had suffered severe losses. The 500,000 Jin reinforcements that followed behind had completely crushed their will to resist. Originally, perhaps they still had a bit of fighting spirit. However, this fighting spirit was completely extinguished following the appearance of Living Buddha Ba Siba.


    To stabilize the morale of the troops, one of the three Grandmasters, Kunlun Master, had long arrived at the frontlines. However, the Jin had long prepared. Tian Long Taoism sent for two Elders, and the Mingyi School also sent for one Elder to garrison Yunzhou. They were all Level Nine experts. They did nothing else but keep an eye on Kunlun Master.


    Hence, under Ma Tianchang''s sudden assault and the attack of the Jin army, Kunlun Master did not have any effect. Then Living Buddha Ba Siba came here, stepping on a lotus platform. There was a golden body 60 feet tall on his head, with golden light shooting everywhere. All of these indicated that his cultivation had already stepped into the Mysterious Realm. At that time, he stunned everyone.


    By just relying on his own strength, he had blocked the Jin army of 500,000 and stopped their pursuit.


    He even ignited the morale of the Metal Horse Carriages. Some brave soldiers even turned their horses and started to counterattack the Jin army.


    However, all of this was just like a flower blooming only for an instant. Ba Siba, who had stepped into the Mysterious Realm, did not even have a chance to show off his might and was subdued.


    Yes, he was subdued.


    Nobody would have thought that such a thing would happen. Living Buddha Ba Siba had just appeared, and before he had time to exert his power, there was a low shout coming from the formation: "Ba Siba!"


    Ba Siba subconsciously responded. There was a bright white light shining from the formation that instantly enshrouded Ba Siba. The golden light on his body was also restricted. There was not any chance for him to react as this white light curled and brought him and his golden body into the formation. He disappeared and did not reappear again.


    Only those at the heart of the Jin army could see that the white light was emitted from the Yunzhou Governor Ma Tianchang''s battle formation.


    Within the heart of the Jin army, there was a small carriage. Beside the carriage, Ma Tianchang was riding an awe-inspiring war-horse with a smirk. In the carriage, a white-clothed lady was holding a White Jade Vase. A white light flashed in the opening of the vase and eventually faded away.


    "The Mysterious Realm. Originally, I wanted to subdue a Level Nine expert. I didn''t expect this baldy to breakthrough to the Mysterious Realm. This is outside of my expectations. Tianchang, could it be the mischief of that old monster from the Thunder Dragon Palace?"


    "Is there a need to ask that? The old monster was blocked by the Mysterious Turtle Sage and can''t come out. He thus could only act on this guy. From what I know, 100 years ago, that old monster obtained the Heavenly Dragon Divine Elixir from Tian Long Taoism. If I didn''t guess wrong, he should''ve given that elixir to Ba Siba. That was why he broke through to the Mysterious Realm in such a short time!"


    "The Heavenly Dragon Divine Elixir?" The white-clothed lady''s gaze grew dense. "Eating that thing will make a person''s cultivation rise sharply. It could even strengthen the body within a short period of time. However, once the medicinal effects wear off, the body will collapse due to the sharply rising cultivation!"


    "Yes, not to mention reaching the Mysterious Realm cultivation. This monk clearly doesn''t intend to live. He only wanted to stake his life to protect Northern Yuan!" Ma Tianchang said softly with a sigh, "What a pity!"


    "A pity? You''re shedding crocodile tears here. However, this time around, without me, those Level Nine Elders that you brought are not enough to deal with them!"


    "Yes, you have done something meritorious indeed. When we go back, I''ll definitely thank you for it!" Ma Tianchang smiled, but there were some flirtatious meanings in his words.


    The lady''s face that was covered by a white veil slightly reddened. She lightly spat at him, "Once the matter here is over, you should settle our daughter''s matter!"


    "Linglong is also my daughter. If she can''t get married, I''m even more anxious than you!" Ma Tianchang said with a laugh, "But this time, since your White Jade Vase showed up, there might be some trouble!"


    "That''s your business. If it wasn''t for you, I wouldn''t bring it out!" The white-clothed lady laughed lightly.


    "Yes, it''s my business!" Ma Tianchang smiled bitterly. Both of his legs tightened to hurry the horse as he wielded his saber and shouted ferociously.


    "Brothers, go!"


    A roar shocked the wild!


    The Jin soldiers had high morale, while those of Northern Yuan were the opposite. A saviour that dropped down from the sky had been subdued by the enemy. This was fatal to their confidence, and the thoughts of resisting had disappeared. Now their minds only had a word: escape. To escape to a place where nobody could chase them.


    In a moment''s time, on the broad prairie outside of Yunzhou, there were close to 600,000 people. They were chasing after each other. It was a mass of black as people were everywhere.


    The snow storm had already stopped.


    The accumulated snow on the prairie was over 3 meters. This had a huge impact on both the escape and the pursuit.


    However, neither side cared about the impact. One side was anxious to escape, which the other was eager to succeed. Thus, they would not stop because of the accumulated snow.


    However, Junior Leopard was badly affected by the snow.


    He was carrying Wang She on his back, followed by five kids. They staggered from the depths of the prairie. Along the way, they met a few remnant soldiers. Junior Leopard stole some horses from them. The kids that grew up in the prairies had been able to ride horses since they could walk. Hence, riding was not a problem for these young kids. However, in the end, Junior Leopard realized that riding would cause trouble, especially when they were near Yunzhou. The Jin army of 500,000 soldiers did all kinds of atrocious deeds in the prairie, like killing, burning, and robbing. This group of people was not old in age, especially those kids. They were all wearing prairie clothing that was extremely eye-catching. Furthermore, they were on horses. They would easily be spotted by the soldiers. Hence, when they were 25 kilometers from the border of Yunzhou, they gave up their horses and walked barefoot toward Yunzhou.


    Originally, he brought seven boys from the Whitemoon Tribe. One of them was a baby, Tana''s little brother, who was in Tana''s embrace. Now there was one missing¡ªTana''s ex-fiance, the fierce-looking boy.


    It was not that Junior Leopard killed him. He disappeared on his own.


    Under the Dark Lord Mie Chen''s Star-shattering Hand, Devil Valley had collapsed by half. It was a great blessing for these kids to save their lives in the midst of chaos. Junior Leopard also spent a great deal of time before finding the five kids. As for that fierce looking kid, Junior Leopard did not mind leaving him in the valley. Who cared whether he was dead or alive!


    Furthermore, Junior Leopard was carrying an unlucky Wang She by his side.


    First he carried him with his horse, and then he carried him by himself. Junior Leopard led this group of people from Devil Valley to the outskirts of Yunzhou City. Along the way, Wang She only woke up a few times. He had a high fever that would not recede for a few days. If it was not for Junior Leopard''s spirit having recovered a bit, and helping him to force the blood vessels to warm up, Wang She would have exploded under the Internal Qi that was rushing about like molten lava.


    After expending so much effort, Junior Leopard had finally stabilized his condition and calmed down the Internal Qi churning within his body. He then avoided having to carry a corpse back to Yunzhou.


    Due to the war, the entire Yunzhou had been engulfed in a tense atmosphere. However, to Junior Leopard this was nothing. They reached a small marketplace in the intersection between Yunzhou and Northern Yuan. He revealed his identity and found a Captain guarding the place.


    Both Wang She and Junior Leopard were now renowned figures in the world.


    That Captain was only a normal officer at the cultivation of Level Two. When he saw Junior Leopard''s stance, he was scared stiff. He hurriedly arranged a place for them to stay and settled everything.


    Until this time, Junior Leopard was still somewhat unsettled. He then found the person in charge of the Wu Family''s ironware shop and asked him to send an urgent letter straight to Qinlingjun City. Two days later, the Wu''s Family Head Wu Yansheng and First Elder Lyu Yiyue hurried on their horses and reached the small marketplace from Qinlingjun City. Junior Leopard then heaved a sigh of relief and properly rested for a night.


    He did not remain in this marketplace. On the second day, he brought those kids to return to Qinlingjun City together with Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue.


    Along the way, Junior Leopard could obviously feel that these two people who had the highest position in the Wu''s had a marked change in their attitude toward him. They were extremely courteous and warm!


    This caused Junior Leopard to be somewhat uncomfortable.


    However, this was something within expectations.


    His cultivation now had already reached Level Five. His combat capability was enough to fight on par with a Level Eight expert, or he could even win. With this strength, no matter which family or sect, they would value him highly. Furthermore, even though the power of the Wu Family was not little, it was just a mid-sized well-known family. Previously, Lyu Yiyue had the strongest combat capability in the family, but his cultivation was Level Seven and he had not cultivated his Gang Qi yet.


    Now that Junior Leopard had suddenly appeared, he would naturally become Wu Yansheng''s target of affection.


    A disciple like Junior Leopard, who had a clean background and originated from the Wu''s, was a scarce resource that every sect would wish to have but was unable to obtain!


    Although now that Junior Leopard had some estates outside of the Wu Family, in their eyes it was just some minor stuff. The most important thing was that Junior Leopard was in control of a huge benefit in the Wu Family. It was this huge benefit that caused both parties to be tightly melded together.


    When the Wu''s were doing well, Junior Leopard would be able to obtain more benefits. The stronger Junior Leopard became, the stronger the Wu Family was. This was a win-win situation. In addition, now Junior Leopard had brought Wang She back from the prairie.


    This caused the two leaders in the Wu''s to look at him in a different light.


    Who was Wang She?


    He was one of the three Chiefs of Tian Long Taoism, a rare Level Nine expert, who managed to preserve his life while being chased by the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan. His value far outweighed the Wu Family. Even though he had suffered heavy injuries now, everybody knew that for a peerless expert like him, every time he survived a battle with someone at the same level, it would be extremely beneficial to their cultivation.


    Now that Wang She had survived the chasing and killing of the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan, his achievements would go another step in the future. What was the next step after Level Nine?


    There was not a need to even think about it.


    Now Junior Leopard became his benefactor. No matter if it was Wang She or Tian Long Taoism, they would not mistreat Junior Leopard. He would gain huge amounts of benefits from this matter. As for the Wu Family, as long as they settled this matter properly, they would be able to gain a portion of the benefits. If you eat meat, then I''ll eat soup. Tian Long Taoism''s soup had always been extremely delicious!


    Furthermore, now that things were changing in this world, the Northern Yuan army had already collapsed. Next, the Jin would absorb the whole prairie under its jurisdiction. The fight for benefits would enter a white-hot state. If the Wu Family wanted to obtain more benefits from this, they had to borrow Tian Long Taoism''s strength. And right now, that was the best opportunity.


    Hence, both Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue showed great enthusiasm for Junior Leopard.


    ...


    "Elder Zhou, it has been hard on you!"


    "Family Head, just call me Junior Leopard, I can''t bear being called Elder. I was terrified!" Junior Leopard lifted the cup in his hands and poured it into his mouth. Instantly, there was a hot flow rushing from his Dantian upwards that was extremely comfortable.


    "Haha, haha, Elder Zhou is joking. You are now an Elder of our family. You also racked up such an achievement!" Lyu Yiyue smiled.


    "First Elder, you are joking with me. I merely got this Elder position by chance. When others address me, I''ll just be happy in my heart. However, when the two of you call me that, I really can''t bear it!" Junior Leopard said somewhat earnestly.


    "Alright, we won''t call you that. We''ll call you Junior Leopard!" Wu Yansheng smiled and nodded. In actual fact, when he was addressing "Elder Zhou" he might have appeared extremely warm. However, deep in his heart, he was twitching. After all, Junior Leopard was just a kid that was 15-16 years old. Although his cultivation was extremely high, he was a character that emerged from the Wu''s Inner Core disciples. A few years ago when he saw him, he had to bow his head and pay his respects. In the blink of an eye, he was on the same level as him. He even had to be careful around him. This made him uncomfortable in his heart. Now that Junior Leopard was so understanding, he naturally could not yearn more for it. He thus had taken a better liking to Junior Leopard.


    Yesterday, when they arrived here, Junior Leopard looked extremely tired, and only asked them to take care of Wang She and those kids before he went to rest. Therefore, they did not dare to interrupt him. Now they were in the carriage and were on their way to Qinlingjun City. After keeping it to themselves for one night, when on their way today, they then opened their mouths to ask Junior Leopard what happened to him and Wang She.


    It must be known that they were extremely curious why Junior Leopard would carry Wang She back from the prairie. Could it be that the two of them had arranged it between themselves? Could there be some unspeakable relationship between the both of them?


    However, Junior Leopard''s response made them somewhat disappointed.


    "I''m the same as any other person in the martial arts world that entered the prairies. I went to kill those prairie experts. I didn''t expect to meet Chief Wang in Devil Valley being chased by Dark Lord Mie Chen. He had heavy injuries. I then combined strength with him and chased Mie Chen away. However, Chief Wang suffered serious injuries when executing the last blow, and then he became unconscious. I really had no solution, and could only carry him back!"


    Everything that happened was summarized in one sentence. This caused the two of them to be dumbfounded. At the same time, they were petrified.


    What did he say?


    To ally with Wang She to chase away Mie Chen?


    What was an alliance?


    A Level Five expert allying with a Level Nine expert?


    Do you have those qualifications?


    If these words were said by another Level Five expert, that would be a joke. However, when Junior Leopard said it, they had to believe it. That was because Junior Leopard was not just a Level Five expert, for he had once killed a Level Seven expert and a Level Eight expert. His combat capability was without a doubt!


    That was not saying that he had fought a Level Nine expert, however, to ally with a Level Nine expert to resist another Level Nine expert was possible.


    At the very least, these two, whose cultivations were at Level Six or Seven, would not understand the gulf of difference between Wang She, who just entered Level Nine, and Dark Lord Mie Chen, who had stepped into Level Nine one hundred years ago, and that he was only half a foot away from the Mysterious Realm.


    "Did you bring those kids from the prairie?"


    Hearing that Junior Leopard had summarized everything in one sentence, it was not nice for them to ask further, even though they knew that there were many secrets. Thus, Lyu Yiyue changed the topic to the six kids that Junior Leopard brought along with him.


    "They were wandering kids that I found in the prairie. I found them pitiful, so I brought them along!" Junior Leopard said it casually. He did not want people to know what had happened with the Whitemoon Tribe.


    Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue exchanged glances. Although they had long guessed that such a scenario would happen, what Junior Leopard said made them somewhat surprised.


    Alas, after all, he is too young. Although his cultivation is amazing, he is still somewhat softhearted!


    They read this in each other''s eyes.


    However, the two, who were as sly as foxes, certainly would not say anything about trivial matters like this. They were just kids who were unable to stir up any storm. Neither did they have any spare effort to bother about these small matters.


    "Oh right. Family Head, First Elder, when I came back, I saw that the prairie was desolate and there were so many of the defeated Northern Yuan army. Could it be that we won!"


    "Yes, of course!" Upon mentioning this matter, Wu Yansheng could not help being excited. "Not only did we win, we also won astoundingly!"


    Seeing Wu Yansheng''s excited manner, Junior Leopard only smiled. He was preparing to say something when his expression changed. Almost at the same time, Lyu Yiyue and Wu Yansheng looked outside of the carriage.


    "Family Head and two Elders, Chief Wang has already woken up. He wants to see the three of you!"


    "We know!" Wu Yansheng said.


    "That''s strange. I carried him for so many days and he didn''t wake up. Once he got in the carriage he woke up!" Junior Leopard curled his lips, revealing a trace of a sneer. "Could it be that he was pretending to faint the past few days?"


    "Junior Leopard, be careful with your words!" Wu Yansheng hurriedly said. Although he was the Family Head of the Wu''s, no matter from status or strength, he was a long way from Wang She. When he heard Junior Leopard making fun of Wang She, he was obviously stunned. Lyu Yiyue, on the other hand, revealed a joking expression.


    From the words that Junior Leopard said when he was talking about Wang She, he could obviously feel the close relationship between Junior Leopard and Wang She. This kind of close relation was definitely not like what the world knew¡ªthat Junior Leopard once helped Wang She guard a place and allowed Wang She to advance to Level Nine. It was not as simple as Wang She owing Junior Leopard a favor.


    Very obviously, the two of them had a deeper connection. However, as for what really happened, that could not be asked by him now.


    Wu Yansheng was first stunned before he finally reacted in time. His face was full of surprise as he looked at Junior Leopard.


    Wang She looked good and there was even some redness in his face. However, there was an unhealthy bright red within it.


    "Chief Wang!" seeing Wang She sitting on the bed, Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue hurriedly said respectfully.


    Wang She only slightly nodded before shifting his gaze on Junior Leopard. "What did you do to Mie Chen?!"


    Junior Leopard was stunned for a while before he smiled bitterly. "What else could I do? I gouged out one of his eyes!"


    "Thump!"


    Wu Yansheng behind him softened his knees, he actually sat on the bench uncontrollably. Seeing that the three of their gazes landed on him, he flushed and stood up again. Even though he stood up, his heart was already churning like waves. As was Lyu Yiyue''s beside him.


    What did they mean?


    What was called "gouging out one of his eyes"?


    Aren''t you alive? You are still alive and kicking here. Whose eye did you gouge out?


    Dark Lord Mie Chen!


    He was one of the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan. Even in the eyes of a mid-sized well-known family, he was an unreachable figure. However, now Junior Leopard, who was alive and kicking here, said that he fought with him and gouged out an eye. He was really unable to bear it. Lyu Yiyue was the same. However, since he was older and his cultivation was deeper, he was able to hold his ground, unlike Wu Yansheng.


    "Hehe, no wonder my last hit was so easy. But it''s a pity. If I hadn''t been hurt, I might have left him!"


    Junior Leopard smirked and did not continue his words.


    Wang She then asked, "I heard in the prairie that the Jin and Northern Yuan had clashed. What''s the result?"


    This time around, he was not asking Junior Leopard, but the other two people.


    This was also something that Wu Yansheng wanted to tell Junior Leopard in the carriage.


    "We won. We whupped them!"


    ...


    ...


    "Someone called his name, and there was a white light, subduing him and his golden body!"


    Hearing the whole process, Wang She mumbled. The matter that happened between the two armies had long spread across the whole world. Such a thing had never happened before.


    Never ever!


    Thinking about it, an expert who stepped into the Mysterious Realm was subdued just like that. He disappeared and never resurfaced. No one knew if he lived or died. This was a matter that struck a chord in people''s hearts. At the very least it was something that affected practitioners very much.


    After spending so much effort to step into such a realm, he was subdued after someone called his name. This was too hurtful toward a practitioner''s pride. How could such a thing happen in this world?


    "Does the world really have such a magic weapon?!"


    "It''s the Clear Glass Jade Bottle!" Wang She seemed to have recalled something. His eyes revealed a trace of mockery. "From what I know, this world has two magic weapons with such a might. One is the Clear Glass Jade Bottle. The other is the Purple Golden Gourd. Since it was a bright white light that was released, then naturally it''s the Clear Glass Jade Bottle. Hehe, the might of these two magic weapons is unparalleled. As long as one calls you and you respond, then unless your cultivation had reached the Human Immortal stage, you will be subdued even if you have omnipotent abilities. Under the inhibition, within a short while, one will definitely become a pile of bloody water!"


    Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue were also hearing this kind of matter for the first time. Their faces revealed a shocked expression.


    "That magic weapon is really so powerful?"


    "It can only get more powerful!" Wang She softly sighed, his eyes revealing a glint of cold light.


    Junior Leopard''s heart, on the other hand, was rapidly beating. Why did this thing sound so much like the plot in A Journey to the West ? As long as you responded to the call you would be subdued and become water in a moment? How could there be such a strange thing on this earth?


    Ever since he came to this world, Junior Leopard had been conscientiously studying and observing. It had been 16 years. The conclusion he got was that this world contained powers that did not exist in his previous world. However, it followed a fixed rule. Power was built layer by layer. Especially the cultivation system of balancing the inner and outside cycle that had already exterminated a person''s dream of reaching the sky in one step. However, now suddenly there was a computer bug like the Clear Glass Jade Bottle appearing.


    Also, what was the Human Immortal Realm?


    Could it be above the Mysterious Realm? When one reached the Human Immortal Realm, one could resist the Clear Glass Jade Bottle?


    In a moment''s time, Junior Leopard''s mind was filled with questions.


    "Since the Clear Glass Jade Bottle has appeared, then the Purple Golden Gourd should also appear soon. Hehe, magic weapons. The magic weapons now, when compared to the ancient ones, could only be considered as celestial devices!" Wang She''s face revealed an uncanny expression. He said to Junior Leopard, "Boy, what I said last time was right. This world is growing chaotic. As long as you aren''t careful, you''ll be killed any moment!"


    "My luck shouldn''t be that bad!" Junior Leopard smiled. "However, I''m interested in the magic weapons and Human Immortal Realm. Could Chief elaborate for me?"


    "You wish to know? No problem. When you have cultivated to Level Seven and condensed the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang, I''ll naturally tell you!" Wang She said, "Oh right, is your body okay?"


    "So-so. I need about 2-3 months to fully recover!"


    "That''s good. I''m in bad shape. When I go back, I''ll have to do closed-door training for 3 years before I can recover my pneuma!" Wang She''s face twitched. "Damnit, I didn''t get killed by Mie Chen, but I was nearly poisoned to death by my own pills. Aye!"


    Junior Leopard was speechless. He vaguely knew that this was possibly connected to those pills that he fed Wang She. However, he had better not tell him now.


    "Oh right, I have a matter that needs your help!" Wang She raised his head and looked at Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue. His mouth flashed, revealing snow-white teeth. "Wu Family Head, Elder Lyu, I have something to discuss with this boy privately, so...!"


    Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue hurriedly stood up and bade farewell, leaving only Junior Leopard and Wang She staring at each other.


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 219: Wang She Speaking about Ancient Stories

    Chapter 219: Wang She Speaking about Ancient Stories


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The so-called Ancient Treasure!


    As the name suggested!


    It was a magic weapon in ancient times!


    Ancient times referred to the past. However, it was different from Junior Leopard''s previous life. This world had a clearer demarcation toward its ancient people. The period 100,000 years ago was referred to as the antiquity ages. Between 100,000 years and 10,000 years ago was referred to as the medieval period. From 10,000 to 1,000 years ago, it was referred to as the late antiquity ages. As for 1,000 years ago till now, heaven knew that in this world where the strong ruled, there might be someone from 1,000 years ago still living. How could they be considered ancient?


    In this world, ancient treasures were referred to as magic weapons from the antiquity ages!


    In the antiquity times, 100,000 years ago, it was a completely different world from now. In that world, the essence of the world was filled to the brim. There were treasures of heaven and earth everywhere. The mysterious objects now, and the rarely seen treasures, were all normal playthings in that era. Back then, something that you casually kicked away might be a mysterious metal gold essence that was now sought after with great difficulty and money. A Level One martial artist might become a Level Four expert after he accidentally fell into a river and went ashore. The water back then not only increased your power, it could even wash your body and strengthen the muscles and body. It was much better than the medicinal soups and baths now.


    That was the antiquity times. The experts were numerous like cow hair. People in the Metaphysic Realm were everywhere. Higher level experts were numerous like dogs. From the eyes of people in the present world, that was a crazy era where endless imagination existed. A five-year-old could become an expert, and reach the Metaphysic Realm at just 10, and it was not something rarely seen.


    However, compared to personal cultivation, what could stir up the imagination of the people was another object¡ªmagic weapons.


    In the antiquity times, experts were numerous like cow hair, and people in the Metaphysic Realm were walking everywhere. Those with an even higher cultivation could be picked up in bunches. However, when they really fought, the decisive factor in winning the fight was magic weapons.


    Magic weapons condensed the world''s mysterious objects and all sorts of Evil Qi and pneuma together. From within, there would be a treasure birthed forth with a miraculous function. In the antiquity times, a fellow who had not even reached Level One could easily finish off a Metaphysic Realm expert with a heaven-defying magic weapon. This was not a joke. This was a reality. This was the power of the magic weapons in the antiquity times.


    In the antiquity times, the magic weapons were made from the most powerful Mysterious Objects that had existed when the earth was formed. That was why they could be called magic weapons. They originally had some laws of the heavens and earth within, as well as the law of the Tao. They had the effect of defying the heavens. For example, there was a magic weapon called Palm-leaf Fan. Its palm leaf was from a holy root that was birthed when the earth was created. Ever since the earth was created, the palm leaf had begun condensing a wind essence. After experiencing countless years of accumulation, at last it formed the Three Senses Divine Wind. When such an object was obtained, there was not any need to refine it. As long as you could hold it and wave it, there would be a wave of crazy wind rushing forth. If your cultivation was not bad and could activate the Three Senses Divine Wind, then congratulations. Even if you could only squeeze out a trace of the Three Senses Divine Wind, it would be earth-shaking and it would swat away everything in your path. Not speaking only about someone in the Metaphysic Realm, but even if it was a mountain in front of you, it would be shattered. If such a thing was refined into a magic weapon, how powerful would it be?


    Even though such a heaven-defying thing was not commonly seen in the antiquity times, there were still many more than the mysterious objects existing now. After being harvested by ancient practitioners, there were quite a lot that were refined into magic weapons. How could such a magic weapon be resisted by normal people? Even if one had reached the Mysterious Realm, when faced with such an object, he could only run as far away as possible!


    However, even though such heaven-defying materials were not few in the antiquity times, they could not withstand the harvesting by the ancient people. Hence, with the passage of time, they grew fewer and fewer. In the end, they faced extinction, leaving only their name behind.


    Someone would inevitably ask, since these magic weapons were so powerful, then why would the ancient people need to practice? As long as they had a powerful magic weapon, they could be invincible!


    Those were words from a perspective of strength. However, upon careful thinking, such words were false. Although these magic weapons were powerful, they could not make you immortal!


    To be immortal was the ultimate objective of practice. As for power, it was merely an accessory.


    Furthermore, the more powerful an ancient treasure was, the more difficult it would be to maximize its potential. Without unfathomable cultivation, one could not even lift it up. Then it was useless.


    Besides, without cultivation, one could not refine the ancient treasure. Without refining, even though the ancient treasure was strong, others would be eyeing it!


    An innocent man would get into trouble because of his wealth. This logic was known since ancient times!


    In short, without cultivation, one would not be able to use the power of the ancient treasure. Without the ability to use the treasure, it would bring you disaster instead of benefits!


    That was the simple truth.


    However, the environment of the antiquity times was very good. It was much easier to practice then than now. In a world where the essence of the heaven and earth was filled to the brim, even comprehension and insight, which seemed like once in a lifetime opportunities now, were as common as eating candy sweets back then. As long as it was someone who did not have bad luck, one would have insight once or twice a year. All these were caused by the essence of heaven and earth. The denser the essence, the longer period of time the insight was, and one would thus grow closer to the laws of heaven and earth. The chances of insight were naturally much greater.


    Hence, even if they did not have these ancient treasures, the practitioner in the antiquity times had powerful divine senses. They just had to raise their hands or lift their legs to cause the sky and earth to split. Their consciousness moved and they could steer the vast quantity of energy to use for themselves. Therefore, the ancient people focused on cultivation, and not on martial arts, as well as on using magic weapons to pressure people.


    Special techniques also appeared at that time. During the ancient times, there existed all sorts of Evil Qi and pneuma. When the ancient people practiced, they had ample resources for them to use and experiment. That was why they managed to create all sorts of special techniques. However, these techniques had been passed down, while Evil Qi was hard to find. Thus, this world''s collection of special techniques was not much different from waste paper.


    This kind of situation started to change 100,000 years ago.


    That was because the essence of the world started to thin.


    Practitioners could no longer be like the practitioners in the antiquity times, absorbing the essence of heaven and earth recklessly and treating Evil Qi as a plaything.


    At the same time, the antique cultivation methods began to decline. That was because the cultivation method of recklessly absorbing the heaven and earth''s pnuema was no longer suitable for the conditions at that time. The antique cultivation methods had great power. However, it was just like a Hummer whose speed was fast, but it consumed a lot of fuel as well.


    Without sufficient fuel, even if you brought an airplane home, it would just be a piece of scrap metal.


    Furthermore, even if this kind of predatory cultivation method could successfully absorb the essence of the world, a sufficiently strong body was needed to carry it. In the medieval period, the magic drugs that could strengthen the body had long been completely plucked by the practitioners from the antiquity times.


    Hence, starting from the medieval period, the practitioners'' cultivation methods changed. In other words, they had no choice but to change. The cultivation methods started to emphasize more on control of the essence of the world. More emphasis was placed on training one''s body. At the same time, they were also researching other ways to strengthen their body. The prescription of the elixir that Junior Leopard obtained was produced during that period of time. Meanwhile, all sorts of punching skills that strengthened the body were developed.


    Simultaneously, due to the loss of the essence of the world, the practitioners in the medieval period were unable to be like the practitioners in the antiquity times, gaining insights into the essence of the world and insight into the laws of heaven and earth. The kind of power that allowed one to move heaven and earth could no longer be used. Hence, they turned to researching all sorts of strokes to curb their enemy and gain victory. They researched how to use limited power to unleash maximum potential. Then all sorts of martial arts appeared. All sorts of secret skills also started to appear.


    "That is to say, ancient treasures and special techniques were formed by practitioners in the antiquity times, and secret skills and all sorts of martial arts were created by practitioners in the medieval period!"


    Junior Leopard quietly listened to Wang She''s narrative. "However, due to the passage of time, apart from this bunch of people, very few people know about these matters!"


    "Even if they know, it is of no use!" Wang She smiled bitterly. "All these can only be Jianghu''s interesting stories to tell. How the secret skills were produced, or when the special techniques appeared aren''t useful for the cultivators. If the Clear Jade Glass Bottle didn''t appear, I wouldn''t tell you all this!"


    "Then, such a powerful ancient treasure has never appeared before? Why does it suddenly appear now?"


    "Legend has it that they appeared in large numbers in the initial stage of the medieval period. But each''s appearance caused all sorts of power struggles and stirred up a bloody storm. Out of the 10 biggest schools, eight of them were exterminated because of the ancient treasure. They gradually lost in the long struggle. Some really are missing, while some are collected by some smart people and never show up again. Then, for hundreds of years, there would not be one!"


    "Then what are the consequences of the reappearance of the ancient treasure at this time?"


    "You care too much. Boy, are you very familiar with him? Ma Tianchang is a cunning bastard. Since he dares to flash out the Clear Glass Jade Bottle, that shows that he already has plans. You don''t need to fret over his matters!"


    "I didn''t think of worrying about him. I''m just curious!" Junior Leopard smiled. "An ancient treasure that can suck a Metaphysic Realm expert in¡ªthat definitely causes one to be greedy!"


    "Don''t tell me you are getting an idea about him?"


    "Do you think I dare?"


    "Alright, the matter of the ancient treasure stops here!" Wang She waved his hands. From his actions, it seemed that he was very feeble. "Did people from the Immortal Palace come to see you?"


    "Yes, of course they did. If they hadn''t found me, I wouldn''t know that Chief had already sold me out!"


    Junior Leopard smiled, but there was a tinge of complaint in his tone.


    "Don''t blame me. For you, the Immortal Palace is a strong backing. It''s the same for me!" Wang She said.


    "Backing?" Junior Leopard did not seem to understand. "You need backing?"


    "Hmm, I don''t really need it. However, it''s better to have backing than not!" Wang She said, "Especially for you, boy. The Wu Family is really too small and it''s impossible for me to get you into Tian Long Taoism. Hence, you might as well join the Immortal Palace. It''s good for both you and the Immortal Palace!"


    "Why can''t I join Tian Long Taoism?" Junior Leopard asked in curiosity. "I''m a Wu''s disciple. The Wu Family is Tian Long Taoism''s vassal. Even if I join Tian Long Taoism, the Wu''s won''t say anything, right?"


    "You want to join Tian Long Taoism?"


    "I''m just asking!"


    "Alright. With your cultivation and background, it''s easy for you to join Tian Long Taoism. However, it''s hard to exit. Although Tian Long Taoism is one of the three greatest schools in the Jin, there are some matters which are not as simple as they look. Even I was somewhat helpless within the school before my cultivation reached Level Nine!"


    "Now that you have entered Level Nine, you shouldn''t have so many scruples?"


    "Hmph!" Wang She laughed grimly, without answering. He just said, "You shouldn''t care too much about my matters. With you current cultivation, you should be the number one figure within the Wu''s. What plans do you have?"


    "Plans? What plans can I have?" Junior Leopard smiled. "Anyway, now I''m a Wu Elder and I don''t want to be the Family Head. I can only be like this!"


    "It''s the best. With your strength, as long as you don''t irritate people, people wouldn''t look for trouble with you. However, if there''s really someone who doesn''t have eyes and comes to look for trouble, you don''t need to be polite!"


    "What if your disciple comes to find trouble with me?" Junior Leopard smiled. "You are really unbefitting of a teacher. After accepting a disciple, you don''t even meet up with him for these few years, not to mention imparting martial arts!"


    "You know quite a lot!"


    "Don''t forget that I''m a Wu Elder. I have some position within the family. Your matters aren''t considered a secret. Now everybody is saying that you accepting the Second Young Master as a disciple is only a political transaction. It is to cause the relationship of the Wu''s and Tian Long Taoism to be closer. It isn''t to impart to him some high-level martial arts!"


    "Bullshit, who said I didn''t teach him high-level martial arts? I already imparted the whole set of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique to him. I even pointed out many key points. I even taught him the essence of the 81 movements Wild Hammering Skill. Who could he blame when he can''t practice it?"


    "That may be the case, but others don''t know the truth. It is normal that they have doubts!"


    "I couldn''t care less about that useless guy. He used so many magic drugs to purify. And I taught him so many martial arts. His cultivation is still at Level Three. He didn''t even reach the Advanced Level of Level Three. Do I have to forcefully impart to him? Even if I did so, his body wouldn''t be able to take it!" Upon mentioning his own disciple, Wang She became somewhat furious.


    "Hehe, that''s the case!" Junior Leopard said, "Let''s not talk about these unimportant matters. You said that there''s something for me to do, what is it?"


    "It''s about the Immortal Palace. You know about my injuries. I need a long time to recuperate. Last time when I left I didn''t talk about it clearly to you. Since you''re already in touch with the Immortal Palace, it saved me a lot of saliva. During the time when I''m recuperating and nursing my injuries, my position in the palace will formally be transferred to you!" In between words, he retrieved a black metal ring from his arms. This ring was similar to the one that Golden Rooster was wearing. The only difference was that Golden Rooster''s ring had a flying chicken, while the one that Wang She passed to Junior Leopard had an engraving of a cobra that was ready to strike!


    "Hehe, the Immortal Palace''s token. You really think highly of me!"


    Junior Leopard smiled and received it. He did not wear it but instead placed it within his sleeves. "I can do this matter. Your injuries are not light, so rest well. If not, it would be troublesome sending a corpse back to Tian Long Taoism!"


    "This guy...!" Wang She laughed and scolded. Then he closed his eyes and no longer spoke.


    Junior Leopard lightly retreated. The moment he exited, he saw the two leaders of the Wu''s were waiting there.


    "Junior Leopard, how was it?"


    "Chief Wang''s injuries aren''t light. Now he''s resting!" Junior Leopard said, "We should hurry and send him back to Tian Long Taoism. His body needs huge amounts of magic drugs to recuperate. We don''t have such stuff. Only a big school like Tian Long Taoism can afford it!"


    "You''re right!" Wu Yansheng nodded. "We set off tomorrow. We already contacted Tian Long Taoism. I believe there''ll be someone receiving him soon. It''s always wise to play it safe!"


    "Right!" Junior Leopard responded, his expression somewhat grave.


    It was always wise to play it safe!


    The news that Wang She was heavily injured was spread out at the same time as the news of him returning from the prairie. That fellow had offended a lot of people in the past. When he was in his prime, nobody dared to provoke him. However, now he had suffered serious injuries. There would be some enemies that would have thoughts of harming him. And these enemies that did not die after forming an enmity with Wang She were renowned figures in Jianghu.


    In case there was someone who wanted to find trouble, the Wu''s would not be able to receive it. If Wang She really met with a misfortune, the Wu''s would not be able to bear it. Hence, it was safer to contact someone from Tian Long Taoism to receive him.


    "Oh right, Junior Leopard, what plans do you have after this matter?" Lyu Yiyue asked casually, "Are you going back to Marshal Li?"


    "No, I''ll write a resignation letter to Marshal Li. I believe he''ll understand. Chief Wang has something for me to do. But it isn''t urgent. I plan to go back to Qinlingjun City to see my teacher and then closed-door train. During this period in the prairie, though I''ve become somewhat shabby, I managed to gain quite a lot. I need time to digest!"


    Hearing that Junior Leopard wanted to do closed-door training, Lyu Yiyue''s gaze had a glint of bright light. "Hehe, no wonder your martial arts have improved so fast. No one is more diligent than you in our Wu Family!"


    "Achievement is founded on diligence and wasted upon recklessness. In the path of martial arts, it is just like a boat going against the current. One either progresses or regresses. First Elder, don''t forget that in more than a year, I have a duel. Do you really think that the Ningzhou Meng Family is so easy to deal with?!"


    "The Meng Family is a millennial family. It has deep foundations. It''s not easy to deal with. However, she''s just a girl. Your cultivation now has reached Level Five and your combat capability is even more astounding. A girl like her can''t play any tricks within these 3 years!"


    "If it was before, I would also think likewise. However, what if the Meng Family has an ancient treasure?" Junior Leopard said, "Even Ba Siba in the Mysterious Realm fell to the ancient treasure. I only reached Level Five, how could I resist it?"


    "Ancient treasure?"


    Lyu Yiyue and Wu Yansheng were speechless instantly. Even though such a possibility was low, it could not be said to not exist. In case the brat from the Meng Family brings out an ancient treasure to battle, then Junior Leopard could not even find a place to cry!


    "You have methods to deal with ancient treasures?"


    "If I had them, I wouldn''t be so troubled. Now I can only raise my own capability and then pray that the Meng Family doesn''t have any powerful ancient treasure!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly. "If they really have one, then I can only see how it goes!"


    ...


    ...


    In Yunzhou, Qinlingjun City¡ª


    Now it was wartime. However, the victory on the frontlines took away the tense atmosphere in Qinlingjun City.


    The big victory on the frontlines caused Qinlingjun City to be in a festive mood. Aside from being happy, numerous people from the countryside came rushing here to look for opportunities.


    The victory over Northern Yuan was already a matter set in stone. The next thing was how to divide the spoils of war.


    The soldiers from the frontlines brought back all kinds of spoils. How to divide them was a problem. The merchants were there to solve the problem!


    Hence, within Qinlingjun City, the number of merchants that had come from all places to hurry northward had multiplied 5-6 times over. All the inns were exploding. Even the houses of the citizens were rented out.


    Every day on the road, one would see the noisy crowd. All kinds of information flew in the air. There were business opportunities, military information, gossip, etc.


    Walking on this chaotic pathway, a sense of familiarity invaded him.


    "How is it, Junior Leopard, that this city is so boisterous now!" Wu Yasheng smiled while sitting in the carriage, looking at the squeezing crowd.


    "It''s too boisterous!" Junior Leopard said, "It is a few times more boisterous than before!"


    The Wu''s carriage had a very obvious symbol. There were very few people in Qinlingjun City who did not recognize the symbol. Hence, even though it was very crowded, people who saw the carriage knew they were the Wu''s, and they all took the initiative to make way for them. Thus, the carriage ran quickly.


    "Oh right, Family Head, my Teacher hasn''t returned yet?"


    "No, this time around the Li Family in Pingzhou has really obtained a treasure. The other time your teacher sent a letter saying that he needed another 3 months before he could come back. There''s also a letter for you. Since you hadn''t come back, it was kept with me. I''ll give it to you once we return!"


    "Alright!" Junior Leopard said, "Then I''ll have to trouble the Family Head!"


    "What trouble is there!" Wu Yansheng stroked his beard and laughed. In an instant, the carriage suddenly jerked and stopped. The groom steering the carriage shouted, "Who are you? How dare you to stop the Wu''s carriage!"

 Chapter 220: Stake your Life on your Blade, Sever Heads a Thousand Miles off with your Flying Sword

    Chapter 220: Stake your Life on your Blade, Sever Heads a Thousand Miles off with your Flying Sword


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "I am Yu Tianyang, a disciple of Golden Lights Cave. I''ve known of you for quite some time, Elder Zhou of the Wu Family. Today, I''ve come to ask you for advice."


    His voice was sonorous and forceful. He didn''t beat about the bush, but immediately explained the purpose of his visit.


    The whip in the hands of the Wu family''s stable groom stopped in midair.


    As the stable groom of the Wu Family, he naturally had an discerning eye and knew a lot about the goings-on within the Jianghu. When he heard that the man standing before him was a disciple of the Golden Lights Cave, he could not follow through on his whip strike.


    A Golden Lights Cave disciple?


    Junior Leopard frowned slightly. So did Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue. They never expected to meet a disciple from the Golden Lights Cave in Qinlingjun City, let alone a disciple that would blatantly stand in their way.


    These three people were fairly clever. With just a moment of thought, they all realized the cause of their current situation.


    The Mingyi School and Golden Lights Cave had greatly suffered under Wang She''s hands and definitively wanted to reclaim their former turf. However much they wished to reclaim their turf, though, accomplishing it was no easy task.


    Setting aside the fact that Wang She was already a Level Nine expert, his actions that day had set off the extermination of Northern Yuan and earned him great fame.


    No matter how his actions were viewed before, people from all walks of life in Great Jin were now forced to admit that Great Jin had only exterminated Northern Yuan thanks to Wang She''s contribution. On top of that, the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan had joined forces to hunt him down and rumors had spread across half the Jianghu that Junior Leopard had carried the then-severely injured Wang She on his back. Currently, troubling Wang She was not wise.


    If they couldn''t make trouble for Wang She but also couldn''t let their grievances go, who else could they bother?


    Zhou Bao!


    No one could figure out the exact nature of the relationship between Zhou Bao and Wang She, but everyone knew they had an intimate bond. Otherwise, Wang She would never have given Junior Leopard 19 Spiritual Stones and Junior Leopard wouldn''t have carried Wang She on his back.


    Though they couldn''t make trouble for Wang She, they could vent all their frustrations on Zhou Bao.


    This was known as "pinching the soft persimmon", i.e. bullying a pushover.


    "Interesting. I am being treated like a soft persimmon!" Junior Leopard thought, laughing in his heart. Lifting the curtain of the carriage, he poked his head out and said, "You''ve come to ask me for advice? Sorry, but I don''t take disciples!"


    "Pffft---!" Behind him, Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue both burst out laughing.


    "Ask you for advice" had several meaning in this world. Usually when people in the martial arts world encountered each other, this phrase meant "to challenge you to a duel" rather than "to seek education".


    Yu Tianyang was a handsome fellow roughly 17 or 18 years old. He had a face that gave off an air of pure indifference and a body honed like a sword. He stood ramrod-straight in the middle of the road, radiating an attitude of arrogance and refinement. At first glance, Junior Leopard thought he had met another Lu Shaoyou, but Yu Tianyang had a much sharper attitude.


    A Level Four cultivation?


    Junior Leopard obviously had no interest in this interloper''s temperament. What did interest him was Yu Tianyang''s cultivation, which had only reached Level Four.


    The man dares to challenge me with just a Level Four cultivation?


    It was important to remember that Junior Leopard had bombarded a Level Seven and Level Eight expert to death. In the current martial arts world, even an ordinary Level Seven expert wasn''t guaranteed to win against Junior Leopard, let alone a Level Four warrior.


    Even though he had seen Yu Tianyang''s cultivation, Junior Leopard was no less cautious. Somebody who dared to challenge him with only a Level Four cultivation must have some kind of trick up their sleeves.


    "Yu Tianyang, disciple of the Golden Lights Cave, pays his respects to Elder Zhou!"


    Yu Tianyang cupped his hand and fist together to show respect, ignoring Junior Leopard''s facetious words. Junior Leopard''s mood quickly grew serious as he sensed the incomparably sharp Qi Power emanating from Yu Tianyang''s body.


    In that moment, Junior Leopard began to have doubts. The man before him seemed less like a human and more like a sword that had just been unsheathed.


    A faint feeling of danger stirred in Junior Leopard''s heart, urging him to keep his guard up. He slowly disembarked from the carriage and faced Yu Tianyang.


    He smiled softly and said, "It seems you''re not here to become my student, are you?"


    "Don''t play dumb, Chief!" Yu Tianyang said with a snort. "You know what I''ve come here for!"


    "True!" Junior Leopard said, lips curling as he lost the last of his respect for this humorless stick in the mud.


    "If you''re so interesting in ''asking me for advice'', get on with it and attack," he said in a seemingly casual tone.


    Yu Tianyang raised his brows. "If that''s the case, pardon me for giving offense!"


    A stream of searing white light suddenly shot from his fingertips towards Junior Leopard''s face, an attack so swift that Junior Leopard barely reacted in time.


    "What the h*ll is this?"


    Junior Leopard made a strange sound and jerked his head back, awkwardly evading the blast of white light. Before he could regain his bearings, he felt the sharp, cold pressure of Sword Qi shooting towards his back.


    "D*mn! It''s a Flying Sword!"


    In that instant, Junior Leopard finally figured out what his opponent was using against him.


    He spread his arms and darted into the air, body soaring like an arrow flying away from the bowstring. He cursed himself for not bringing his Big Iron Hammer along.


    A Flying Sword!


    This type of weapon may as well have been an enigma to the people of this martial arts world. Even if they''d heard about Flying Swords, they paid no mind to them.


    This term was very obscure. If he hadn''t just heard about the concept from Wang She, Junior Leopard would have never guessed that Yu Tianyang had refined a Flying Sword.


    In the early period of the middle ages, sword practitioners had dominated the whole world. At that time, the precious talents and treasures from the times of antiquity had already vanished, while the rich essence of the world was growing sparse. Some practitioners were forced to abandon the ancient ways of practice. They sought out alternative practice styles, which led to the appearance of various celestial devices.


    Unlike those magic weapons from the times of antiquity, most celestial devices from the middle ages could only be used after being refined and fused with divine thoughts. For that matter, their power could not be compared to the strange magic weapons forged before recorded history.


    The Flying Sword was the most infamous of these celestial devices.


    In the early period of the middle ages, various schools focused on the mastery of sword practice, supplemented by other celestial devices. They focused all their cultivation efforts on the sword, for the Flying Sword was powerful and swift. However, as time passed, they ran into the same problems the people from the times of antiquity had encountered with their magic weapons and cultivation methods.


    They suffered a shortage of the mineral veins needed to create Flying Swords.


    It is said that during the golden age of sword practitioners, Flying Swords soared across the sky in droves. Each warrior could fly around on a Reining Sword as soon as they cultivated to Level Four. The biggest schools of sword practice, such as Shushan and Emei, had over 10,000 disciples, each of which possessed a Flying Sword. As time elapsed, though, their resources were exhausted. Worst of all, other people would seek to refine these Flying Swords if their previous owners died, expending a large amount of energy and mineral ore to remove the brands on these inherited swords. As a result, the number of swords and sword practitioners gradually declined over the next 10,000 years, leading to the loss of various sword formulas. In later ages, even those who acquired a Flying Sword and its formulas would only use it as an ordinary auxiliary celestial device. They would no longer invest their life and cultivation energy into their sword like the sword practitioners of the Middle Ages did.


    Celestial devices led to a new peak of prosperity. For the cultivators of the current martial arts world, there was little difference between magic weapons and many of the powerful celestial devices from the middle ages.


    Whether your cultivation was high or low, or your status a Grandmaster or a beggar, you abided by universal rules. Celestial devices and Flying Swords were no different; both required world essence and various kinds of materials to refine them. After the boom in sword practitioners, all the materials required to forge Flying Swords were exhausted. The materials to forge celestial devices were also exhausted after more than 10,000 years of popularity. How could people deal with such an absolute lack of resources?


    All they could do was strengthen their body!


    In Junior Leopard''s era, even the most ordinary celestial devices of the Middle Ages had become wildly popular items...and a Flying Sword was far from ordinary.


    Enough digressions!


    In truth, celestial devices were rarely seen in this era, let alone Flying Swords.


    Junior Leopard never thought that Yu Tianyang would possess a Flying Sword. More precisely, he never thought this guy would be a sword practitioner!


    A sword practitioner!


    Such a thing had not been seen since the Middle Ages...until now.


    Without a doubt, sword practitioners did not decline due to a lack of power but due to a lack of swords.


    No one could deny the might of sword practitioners. They were cultivators who staked all their cultivation and faith on the sword. With a good sword in hand, they could show you miracles.


    Sword Practitioners were most admired for their ability to challenge people higher than them in rank. A Level Three Sword Practitioner with a good sword and a set of brilliant formulas could challenge warriors several ranks higher than them. In the medieval period, many disciples among the supreme schools would rampage all over the place, hacking and slashing with the unique and brilliant swords they bore. Even Elders of the small schools who had reached the Mysterious Realm could not run or hide from the mighty attack force of the Flying Sword. No matter how strong you were, merely reinforcing your body wouldn''t protect you from the lethality of a Flying Sword.


    This was the power Yu Tianyang had at his disposal.


    Junior Leopard had managed to kill a Level Eight expert despite having only cultivated to Level Four at the time. With the Flying Sword in his hands, Yu Tianyang was confident he could replicate Junior Leopard''s feat and kill him with just his Level Four cultivation.


    "The Golden Lights Cave has actually reared a sword practitioner!" Junior Leopard thought, bitterness swelling in his heart. The frightening part about Flying Swords was how they merged with the divine thoughts of their sword practitioner. It could be said that no matter where the cultivator''s thoughts went, their sword followed.


    Though Junior Leopard''s body movements were swift, he was scratched twice by the incoming sword light. An incomparably penetrating Sword Qi suddenly seeped into Junior Leopard''s body and began attacking his tendons and meridians.


    "Go forth!" Junior Leopard dared not conceal his strength any more. With a wave of his sleeves, he deployed his 49 Demon Devil needles, 49 tiny streaks of black light that collided with the white sword light.


    "Ding, ding, ding, ding---!"


    Silvery chiming sounds echoed through the air as Demon Devil needles collided with the sword light, stopping the energy dead in its tracks. Junior Leopard seized this opportunity and dashed towards Yu Tianyang.


    Yu Tianyang let out a loud roar. The white sword light trembled and suddenly broke through the blockading Demon Devil needles. The sword light rushed towards Junior Leopard''s back again, moving several times faster than Junior Leopard''s physical body. Sharp Sword Qi moved ahead of the sword light and brushed against the small of Junior Leopard''s back. Junior Leopard had no choice but to dodge again.


    "I don''t believe it!" Junior Leopard blurted out, waving his hands back and forth. His Demon Devil needles danced in sync with his motions, being celestial devices similar to the Flying Sword. Junior Leopard now used his Demon Devil needles like a Flying Sword, shifting his divine thoughts so that three needles attacked three vital points on Yu Tianyang''s body while the remaining 46 needles fended off the white sword light.


    "Humph! If you''re going to use celestial devices again me, I won''t hold back against you!" Junior Leopard thought with a snort.


    Yu Tianyang''s expression finally changed as he saw the three Demon Devil needles rushing towards him. He displayed deft footwork and fell back.


    "Retreating? I''ll track you down no matter where you flee!" Junior Leopard said, laughing out loud as he evaded the white sword light. He continued to hold the sword light back with his Demon Devil needles while sending the other three needles after Yu Tianyang.


    From an outside perspective, this was a very comical scene. Instead of crossing blades, these two warriors were both running away from their enemy''s celestial devices. Junior Leopard was in no position to display his formidable cultivation skills, a situation that hadn''t occurred in many years.


    After all, not many rich people with celestial devices had the opportunity to cross paths these days!


    Yu Tianying grew impatient; no matter how many times he dodged, the three Demon Devil needles were always right on his tail. He made a sharp gesture with his hand and roared. The white sword light entangled with the Demon Devil needles split in two; one portion of the sword light rushed towards Yu Tianying, knocking the three needles aside as it flew forward.


    "Sword light division?" Junior Leopard exclaimed, eyes widening. He never expected a youth with such low cultivation to actually acquire a Flying Sword technique like this.


    What happened next shocked Junior Leopard even more. The split portion of sword light held back the three Demon Devil needles. Then, as Yu Tianying let out another roar, the sword light entangled with the other 46 Demon Devil needles turned into countless little streaks of light that far outnumbered the Demon Devil needles.


    "Ding, ding, ding, ding---!"


    In a chorus of clear ringing noises, Junior Leopard''s Demon Devil needles were all instantly blasted away. The streaks of Sword Qi formed into a huge net that swooped down upon Junior Leopard.


    "Who on earth is this freak?


    Feeling the sharpness of the Sword Qi, Junior Leopard frantically waved his hands around, nearly deploying his Poison Cold Shield on reflex.


    The Sword Qi had turned into streaks!


    "D*mn it! If his sword technique has reached such a state, no wonder this guy had the guts to make trouble for me!" Junior Leopard thought with a curse; he dared not conceal his true strength any longer. He waved his hands through the air. The Demon Devil needles that were knocked off course now all returned to his side. Instead of attacking or defending, they each took their place in a bizarre formation.


    Asura''s Dark Fiend Formation!


    This was the first time Junior Leopard had used this newly refined formation against one of his enemies. He hadn''t even used it in his fight against the Level Eight fighter, Buyan Gerel.


    Once the formation took shape, the Evil Qi on these 49 Demon Devil needles instantly merged together. The temperature plummeted in a 100 feet radius around Junior Leopard.


    The Cold Evil Qi surrounded Junior Leopard like fog, forming a black shield around him. The net-like streaks of Sword Qi darkened as they touched the black shield.


    Junior Leopard''s throat rumbled. The range of the Asura''s Dark Fiend Formation suddenly expanded and engulfed all of the sword light.


    The white sword light rampaged throughout the formation like a swift dragon, but no matter where it rushed, it could not escape the blockade of the Demon Devil needles.


    Once the formation took shape, the Demon Devil needles grew 100 times more powerful than they were when used individually. Now that the power of all 49 black needles had merged into a cohesive whole, touching one needle meant fighting against all 49 needles and the Evil Qi that pulsed through their formation.


    Yu Tianyang was a genius when it came to sword practice. At just the Fourth Level of cultivation, he was already able to employ two styles of high-level sword practitioner movements -- "sword light division" and "turn sword qi into streaks". But no matter how high-level these movements were, he was still performing them with a Level Four cultivation. Junior Leopard, however, was different. He had a trump card -- with his two External Elixirs, he could expend the considerable amounts of Qi needed to use such profound sword techniques to their full potential.


    Furthermore, a warrior needed divine thoughts to control a Flying Sword. As the formation took shape, it began to interfere with Yu Tianyang''s divine thoughts. After several collisions with the Demon Devil needles, Yu Tianyang lost control of his Flying Sword, which proceeded to fly around randomly within the formation.


    Yu Tianyang''s expression shifted as he realized how much trouble he was in. He leapt right towards Junior Leopard.


    Yu Tianyang charged straight into the black fog of Evil Qi surrounding Junior Leopard, an act no different from walking into a trap. Even if he could break into the Asura''s Dark Fiend Formation, what was the point?


    He thought that if he broke into the formation, he would be able to control his Flying Sword again.


    With the Supreme Swordplay, ten thousand skills gathered into one sword!


    This was the realm that all sword practitioners spent their lives pursuing!


    Yu Tianyang sought the exact same realm as these practitioners, but he had not reached their level yet. Even if he could retake control of his Flying Sword, he could not break the Asura''s Dark Fiend Formation that Junior Leopard had deployed. Even if he could enter this formation, he would not be able to connect his divine thoughts with his Flying Sword.


    Naturally, Junior Leopard was not foolish enough to even let him try.


    As he rushed into the formation, Yu Tianyang felt like he had stepped from a warm, sunny day into a frozen wasteland. Wracked with shivers, he saw that his sword light had been reduced to its component elements by multiple Demon Devil Needles and that his divine thoughts were frozen inside this formation with no way to break free. Realizing how bad the situation was, Yu Tianyang''s mind turned towards escape. Junior Leopard, however, would not let him leave so easily.


    With a flick of his fingers, Junior Leopard drove two Demon Devil Needles right through Yu Tianyang''s thigh. Though the piercing attack avoided his bones and main arteries, the Evil Qi within in these needles instantly froze all his tendons and meridians in his legs. But for Junior Leopard''s mercy, Yu Tianyang''s legs would have been crippled.


    "I''ll let you go this time, seeing as you''re a disciple of the Golden Lights Cave!"


    Junior Leopard''s five fingers curled like claws around the hilt of the Flying Sword.


    This claw grip seemed simple, but actually employed the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds technique from the Heavenly Eagle Claw. This energy completely shrouded the Flying Sword, blocking Yu Tianyang from controlling the blade with his divine thoughts.


    The Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds was a way of practice passed down from ancient times. It was a marvelous and changeable art, filled with multiple methods to counter celestial devices like Flying Swords that required divine thoughts to be controlled.


    After grabbing the Flying Sword, Junior Leopard gathered the 49 Demon Devil Needles back into his sleeve and landed on the ground.


    Yu Tianyang fell to the ground, immobilized but still conscious. When he saw Junior Leopard withdraw his formation, his eyes gleamed with a sharp light, as he tried to seize control of his Flying Sword once more. Unfortunately, when he sent out his divine thoughts, they vanished like a raindrop in the ocean, never to return.


    "Humph! You really think you can control your Flying Sword once it''s fallen into my grasp?" Junior Leopard said with a snort. He cast the Flying Sword down before Yu Tianyang''s feet. "I have no need for your sword," Junior Leopard said, "but this is your first and last warning: If you or any disciples from the Golden Lights Cave dare to bother me again, you won''t get off so easily!"


    Having said his peace, Junior Leopard boarded the carriage of the Wu Family and pulled down the curtain. The Wu Family''s groom was filled with delight, looking down his nose at Yu Tianyang as he whipped the horse.


    "Yah--!"


    The shout rang through the air, and the carriage of the Wu Family proceeded onwards toward the Wu Family Residence without stopping.


    Yu Tianyang was left there in the dust, livid and helpless, his eyes filled with fury.


    ...


    ...


    "Weren''t you acting a bit reckless just now, Junior Leopard? After all, Yu Tianyang is a disciple and sword practitioner from the Golden Lights Cave. How are you going to explain disabling Yu Tianyang''s legs to his master?"


    Lyu Yiyue, seated in the carriage, spoke these words with concern.


    The master of Golden Lights Cave was a Level Nine expert. Furthermore, he also seemed to be one of the sword practitioners that had grown so rare and precious in the world over the years. Since Yu Tianyang could rein a Flying Sword, he must be a disciple that his master was proud of; if he had indeed been crippled, his master would not let this incident slide.


    "Take it easy, First Elder! I have some sense of propriety," Junior Leopard said with a laugh. "His legs will recover after a year or so of bed rest!"


    "That''s a relief!" Lyu Yiyue said, nodding and settling down. "On a side note, was the weapon you just used the celestial device that''s caused such a ruckus in the Jianghu?"


    "These Demon Devil Needles? I fished them off the body of a bandit!" Junior Leopard said, not bothering to hide the truth. He shook out his sleeve and deployed his 49 Demon Devil Needles, which floated in the air before Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue.


    All 49 black needles glimmered with a strange black radiance. Both Lyu Yiyue and Wu Yansheng felt their breath quicken. But for their composure and inability to neutralize the person sitting in front of them, they would have stolen the needles from Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard smiled and paid their reactions no mind. With a flick of his fingers, he withdrew the 49 Demon Devil needles back into his sleeve. "These needles helped me a lot," he said. "Without them, I would have died at the hands of that wretched Buyan Gerel!"


    These two passengers both suppressed their instinctive reactions, took deep breaths and forced smiles onto their faces.


    "Yeah, you were really lucky!" Wu Yansheng said, prudently deciding to avoid any line of questions about which bandit Junior Leopard looted the needles from. "Junior Leopard, now that you''re an Elder of the Wu Family, I''ve made arrangements to place you in your own courtyard right next to your teacher''s. Look for yourself and tell me if anything is not to your satisfaction!"


    "You must be joking, Family Head!. Surely I''ll be satisfied with your arrangements!" Junior Leopard replied, mind already wandering to other matters as he spoke.


    "Stake your life on your Blade and sever heads a thousand miles off with your Flying Sword! There is some merit to this art of sword practice. The Silver Moon Sword Technique also has a method for reining the sword, but I never tried to practice it. It seems I should devote some time towards carefully researching this method!"

 Chapter 221: Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Heaven and Earth in Sleeves

    Chapter 221: Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Heaven and Earth in Sleeves


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Using one''s life to practice swordsmanship, a Flying Sword was able to behead a person from thousands of miles away.


    This was the most appropriate description of a sword practicer!


    Junior Leopard didn''t want to be a sword practicer. However, he changed his mind when he recognized from Yu Tianyang, a sword practicer''s powerful attack force.


    The Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword was powerful, but he had not reached an Advanced Level in it yet, and it would bring him trouble if it came to light. Wang She could use the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, because he was a Level Nine expert and had the backing of Tian Long Taoism. Even if someone coveted it, he could do nothing to Wang She.


    However, Junior Leopard was different from him.


    If he were to use the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword in public, it would be targeted by someone, just like his Demon Devil Needles.


    This time it was not a bad thing for him to expose the Demon Devil Needles while using Yu Tianyang''s trouble making as an opportunity. In the past he was weak and could only hide it, however, now he had a certain position in Jianghu and had a good relationship with Wang She from Tian Long Taoism. No one would be willing to offend Tian Long Taoism and Wang She, a Level Nine expert, for the Demon Devil Needles. Besides, Junior Leopard was not a pushover.


    The revelation of the Demon Devil Needles solved the confusion of most people in Jianghu. It also barely explained why Junior Leopard''s combat capability was so powerful and why he was able to kill a Level Eight expert.


    Since the Demon Devil Needles had been exposed. Although its power had not changed, when Junior Leopard fought with people in the future, the enemy would certainly be cautious. Thus it would be difficult for them to have the same impact as before.


    "Now that the Demon Devil Needles were revealed in broad daylight, it has taken a load off of my mind!"


    Junior Leopard thought privately. Then his fingers moved gently and a green light flew from his waist. It was the Emerald Pearl Sword he got from Li Xiu.


    "Unexpectedly, the grade of this sword isn''t high, but the sword embryo is full of intelligence. It''s a good material for forging a Flying Sword!"


    Materials used to forge Flying Swords were in high demand. It was different from the ordinary weapon forging. The materials needed to be filled with intelligence.


    Yes, the intelligence!


    It was the intelligence after Junior Leopard drank the water in the Golden Goose Cup.


    The Golden Goose Cup could add intelligence to your Internal Qi, while Flying Swords required the material to have intelligence.


    "What a pity, it''s a weapon forged hundreds of times!" Looking at the Emerald Pearl Sword, Junior Leopard gently sighed. Then two golden sparks flew from his fingertips and circled around the Emerald Pearl Sword. The whole sword body melted into drops of molten iron and fell to the ground. In the end, there was only a half-foot long green sword body, suspended in mid-air.


    The green sword body glowed with azure light. Junior Leopard had inspired all its intelligence this time.


    The Dragon Chimera''s skull in his ear also slowly floated up. Then it opened its gloomy small mouth and a green light sprayed over the green sword body.


    A streamer flashed and the green light of the sword body dimmed.


    This External Elixir practiced the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill. Because of Junior Leopard''s brilliant idea, it was able to practice day and night without stopping. For years, it had accumulated a tremendous amount of Internal Qi and its cultivation had reached Level Six.


    But it was only Level Six.


    There was a threshold between Level Six and Level Seven. Junior Leopard finally understood how big the threshold was. Over the past few years, the External Elixir not only refined the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill, but also constantly used the Bright Moon Deifying Technique to purify its Internal Qi, which made the originally violent Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi consummate. There was only a fine line before the Internal Qi would be smooth like water.


    There was only a fine line!


    Junior Leopard''s current idea was simple. The so-called Flying Sword purpose, in essence, was to integrate his Internal Qi and divine thoughts with the Flying Sword''s Sword Qi and sword intent.


    Now, Junior Leopard had two External Elixirs and two mental cultivation methods. However, there were too many mysteries in the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. He only condensed one of the nine real dragons. If he used this cultivation method to practice a Flying Sword, it could harm his practice in the future. Therefore, he chose the External Elixir made of the Dragon Chimera''s skull.


    For Junior Leopard, the External Elixir Dragon Chimera''s skull had little value. He had the External Elixir made of a Fiery Eye. It refined the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique whose mysteries were not less than the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill. Besides, its cultivation had reached Level Six as well and there was only a step required for it to ascend into Level Seven.


    The most important thing was that the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was compatible with his body, which made it very easy to use. Then the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill paled in comparison. If Junior Leopard couldn''t defeat the enemy with the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, then he couldn''t defeat the enemy with the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill.


    It could only be used when Junior Leopard appeared as Xiao.


    However, when he appeared as Xiao, his partner was Golden Rooster whose cultivation was Level Seven. Therefore, the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill was still not very useful. It was better to merge it with the Flying Sword and turn the Dragon Chimera''s skull into the weapon of a sword practicer.


    What was more, a sword practicer had one advantage, which was reining a sword to fly!


    For the practicers of this world, there was only one way to get the lost flying skill, and that was to improve their cultivation to Level Seven. Then, driven by the Gang Qi, you could condense your Gang Qi and fly just like a legendary immortal. In addition, although there were other methods, these methods were rare and demanding, only a few people could do it.


    For example, Junior Leopard''s Dragon Flying Technique could help him rein the wind to fly. But it was not just anyone who could get martial arts skills with mysterious origins like the Dragon Flying Technique. In addition to the Dragon Flying Technique, his Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds could help him to fly like the ancient god birds when a certain level was achieved. Likewise, its origin was mysterious as well. It was just that Junior Leopard was a lucky dog. Other people would not get it even if they lived a few lifetimes.


    Moreover, to use the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds, you would consume your Internal Qi, so it would not last a long time. As for the Dragon Flying Technique, to use it was cool as well as too ostentatious. This kind of body movement was unique. After he used it, he could not use it as Xiao, otherwise, he would be suspected.


    If Xiao became a sword practicer, no one would suspect that he was Junior Leopard. Thus, he decided to practice the Flying Sword with the External Elixir made of the Dragon Chimera''s skull.


    The Dragon Chimera squirted over the green sword body and the green light from the sword body dimmed. A bright green fire light and a puff of sharp Sword Qi rose from the sword body and even Junior Leopard felt pain in his skin.


    "It seems that Xue Wuya fancied the practice method of Flying Swords in the Silver Moon Sword Technique, or he absolutely would not kill the entire He Family in Yangzhou just for the Silver Moon Sword Technique." Junior Leopard thought in his mind. Now he was grown up and his knowledge had been widened, he had his own opinion about what Xue Wuya had done.


    Xue Wuya, who was from the Dark Sect, never lacked powerful martial arts skill masterpieces. As a Level Eight expert, it was not difficult for him to find a rare sword skill. The Silver Moon Sword Technique was marvelous, but he would never have wanted it. He did not specialize in sword skills like Lu Shaoyou, so it was useless to him.


    Perhaps it was because of the complete Flying Swords practice method in this sword skill that Xue Wuya wanted to have it.


    With a gentle move of his fingertips, there was a soft groan from the bright green sword body. Then, Junior Leopard began to affect the Internal Qi in the whole External Elixir made of the Dragon Chimera''s skull according to the mental cultivation methods of Silver Moon Sword Technique.


    The sword body slammed into the Dragon Chimera''s Internal Qi emitting a hissing sound like the sound of a snake sticking out its tongue and the sound of hot metal in cold water.


    Junior Leopard frantically operated the Reining Sword method in the Silver Moon Sword Technique as if he did not hear the sound, integrating the bright green sword body with the Dragon Chimera''s Internal Qi and transforming the Dragon Chimera''s Internal Qi into the Sword Qi.


    Gradually, a whirring sound like gasps came out from the Dragon Chimera''s skull. Some blue electric stripes began to flash, and an ultramarine light appeared between the External Elixir and the sword body, slowly enveloping Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard slightly opened his eyes and a smile appeared on his face. The Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill was an extremely manly way to practice that had the extremely rare thunder property.


    When cultivated to the extreme, your Internal Qi would have a powerful electric energy like the movement which Wang She used to defeat Dark Lord Mie Chen on the prairie.


    It was extremely manly and extremely advanced!


    But one bad thing about it was that its property, at Advanced Level, was rather soft. That was why there was "Green Jade" before "Qian Yuan" in the name.


    Jade was a mild natural thing, without a trace of fire. Only with jade to train thunder, would it be smooth in the process of practice. Otherwise, if the cultivation method was so violent at the beginning, the practicer would be torn apart by the violent force contained in the Internal Qi before he achieved the Basic level.


    Now, there was a sign of reaching Advanced Level for the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill which had been accumulating cultivation in the Dragon Chimera. Under the purifying of the Bright Moon Deifying Technique and the drive of the sword technique, the violent Internal Qi of thunder property finally revealed its grim face!


    There was a slight crackle and Junior Leopard gently frowned. At some point, the Dragon Chimera''s skull unknowingly bore a thin split.


    Where there was the first one, there were the second one, the third one and the fourth one!


    Within a very short time, the Inner Elixir made of the Dragon Chimera''s skull was completely split.


    Junior Leopard was startled and then laughed, because he felt the wisps of Mysterious Fire that seeped out of those cracks.


    The Mysterious Fire was from the Dragon Chimera. After the Dragon Chimera''s skull was infused with the Mysterious Fire, a wisp of fire property generated. Now the Dragon Chimera''s skull was no longer able to withstand the double pressure from the Internal Qi and the Sword Qi, and it began to break. But for Junior Leopard, it was not a bad thing, because through the Mysterious Fire, the Dragon Chimera''s Internal Qi was more closely related to his Internal Qi.


    Although their mental cultivation methods of Internal Qi were different, they were already homologous after being assimilated by the Mysterious Fire.


    "Crash!"


    Suddenly a dazzling ultramarine light appeared and the whole skull was shattered and suspended in mid-air like dust. At the same time, an ultramarine light ball which was as mellow as jade, was also suspended in front of Junior Leopard.


    A good idea occurred to Junior Leopard. With a change of his expression, the powder of the skull, floating in midair, suddenly flew to the ultramarine light ball.


    After absorbing the powder of the Dragon Chimera''s skull, the ultramarine light ball became more and more transparent. Within the sphere which was like jade, there was a faint ray of lightning.


    With a gentle whistle, the light ball that was like green jade and the green sword body became one. Junior Leopard affected it with the sword technique in his hand and the ultramarine light flashed, intertwining and filling the entire room.


    After four full hours, Junior Leopard looked tired. The ultramarine light that flashed in the air was completely purified by the Silvermoon Swordplay and the Bright Moon Deifying Technique. It became a half-foot long green sword, quietly floating in the air.


    "I just wanted to have a try. Unexpectedly, it was so smooth!"


    With a wave, the small green sword fell into his hand. Its hilt was indigo. If you looked carefully, you could find that the Dragon Chimera''s skull had appeared on the hilt and that the sword body was flashing a faint sword-light like lightning. This was the phenomenon that all Internal Qi of Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill was converted into Sword Qi.


    Junior Leopard opened his mouth and the green sword light flew into his mouth and disappeared. At the same time, there were two cyan lights in his eyes.


    Taking a deep breath, Junior Leopard focused again and began to incorporate the cyan sword into his Dantian, condensing it with the Mysterious Fire in order to merge it into himself.


    "Lucky me. The sword embryo of Emerald Pearl Sword that Li Xiu gave me has intelligence. Moreover, the Dragon Chimera''s skull is homologous with the Mysterious Fire in my Dantian. Besides, its own cultivation has reached the peak of Level Six and it''s consistent with Silvermoon Swordplay after years of purification by the Bright Moon Deifying Technique. That''s why it worked out so well that I managed to practice the Flying Sword overnight. Compared to other sword practicers, I have attained the highest level in one step, but it isn''t enough. Yu Tianyang practiced his sword at a young age. My sword technique is far behind his. I''ll study the sword technique well in future in case I can rein a sword to fly. But my sword technique is worse than a beginner, that''ll be a shame!"


    Thinking of reining a sword to fly, Junior Leopard really wanted to have a try, but he soon resisted the impulse to do that. Currently he was in the Wu Residence, not on his own turf. Although he was now very important here, god knew how many eyes were on him.


    Taking a deep breath, he resisted the impulse to try and began to take stock of the gains and losses of his trip to Northern Yuan.


    "The profit was beyond my expectations. To become a sword practicer is a surprise. The most important gains were from the Whitemoon tribe. Of course, I also got a lot of benefits from Mie Chen!"


    In the battle against Dark Lord Mie Chen, Junior Leopard bombarded the weakest point of Mie Chen''s soul with the extraordinary talent of his Fiery Eyes. Thus, he had a chance of surviving. At the same time, he acquired a small part of Mie Chen''s memories.


    These memories were very messy and very few. Only one thing was useful, Mie Chen''s experience of ascending into the Mysterious Realm.


    It was only half a step before Mie Chen reached the Mysterious Realm. His insight of getting into the Mysterious Realm from Level Nine was still fresh and not very stable, so Junior Leopard found his weakness to attack. This part of the memories were not useful to Junior Leopard now, but it would save him years of groping time when his cultivation ascended into Level Nine.


    Therefore, in a sense, he got more benefits from Mie Chen than from the Whitemoon tribe this time.


    However, the gain from the Whitemoon tribe was more realistic.


    He got two rare books from the Whitemoon tribe. One was the Seven Spiral Cut practiced by their Number One Warrior. The Seven Spiral Cut was a superb saber technique. It was only limited to his aptitude. The Number One Warrior of the Whitemoon tribe did not reach the Advanced Level, so he didn''t pose a threat to Junior Leopard, and just caused a little trouble. However, if he completely mastered this saber technique, at the very least, he could have played several rounds with Junior Leopard. The other was what Junior Leopard valued most. It was not a martial art book, but a formation map!


    It was the formation map of Yin and Yang Dust Formation!


    Formations flourished in the medieval period, but consumed more materials than Flying Swords. For example, there was an extremely strong killing formation with murderous intent all around, it was named the Grand Sumeru Formation of Positive and Negative Nine Houses. However, to place this formation, you needed 81 excellent Flying Swords, and the nine Flying Swords as the Formation Eye were more demanding.


    How did you get 81 Flying Swords in a world where a Flying Sword was hard to find?


    So did the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation was more powerful than the Grand Sumeru Formation of Positive and Negative Nine, known as the First Killing Formation in the medieval period. It had six entrances, namely life, death, obscurity, brightness, illusion and destruction. As long as one did not enter the illusion entrance and destroy entrance, the life and death were the result of his own thought. When the formation was completed, it could turn the minuscule place into the primitive universe. Therefore, people described it as such, lives would vanish like soap bubbles and both worlds were like dust.


    It would be a joke to have Junior Leopard place such a big formation. The detailed methods and principles of placing the formation listed on the map were very helpful to Junior Leopard, not only on his understanding of the formation, but also in his practice.


    The Yin and Yang Dust, the Yin and Yang Dust, blind to the "Dust", and just care about "Yin and Yang".


    There was "Yin and Yang" in both the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, so they must have a great connection. In interpreting the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Junior Leopard got a great impression of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Most of all, he could not completely place the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, but with the help of the Sword Qi of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, it was possible for him to place a part of the formation.


    For example, now he could divide the Sword Qi of his Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword with the Dragon Flying Technique and placed two entrances of life and death around him to increase the power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword tenfold.


    This was why Wang She repeatedly said it was worth it when he saw the formation map. He had mastered the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. If he carefully studied the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, his combat capability could easily increase dozens of times. Then even if he met an expert reaching the Mysterious Realm, he could have a fight with him.


    "The Mysterious Realm, the Mysterious Realm, alas, what''s the use of reaching the Mysterious Realm? What if I were as unlucky as Living Buddha Ba Siba, who met a magic weapon from antiquity times and died before achieving his goal!"


    All of a sudden, thinking of the encounter of Ba Siba, Junior Leopard only felt discouraged. He did not know that the man who beat Living Buddha Ba Siba was also vexed now!


    ...


    ...


    "Tianchang, we can''t go on like this! I almost can''t suppress this bottle!"


    In the central camp of Jin in the prairie, Northern Yuan.


    A woman dressed in white looked solemn. The famous Clear Glass Jade Bottle, which was discussed animatedly in Jianghu, was emitting a white light while being suspended in front of her.


    The light was very soft. It was less than three inches long, but this whole three-inch space showed a very eerie crack!


    The light seemed to be a very thin needle, thrust into the space. The invisible space, in the presence of the light, like bean curd, was pierced. It was only at this moment that the hollow brought its mysterious face to the world.


    It was dark and deep!


    The pierced space which was connected to the hollow, emitted a faint suction that sucked in the smoke that was floating around in the air. It was just the beginning.


    As time went on, the space cracks that were pierced by the light grew larger and larger, and began to absorb more things. In the whole central camp, the airflow also began to accelerate, forming a gust of cold wind, making people thrilled.


    Behind his back, facing a huge map, Ma Tianchang was pondering. Hearing the woman''s voice, he gave a bitter smile, "Now that you can''t suppress it, don''t suppress it any more. Such a magic weapon should not have appeared in this world. It''s okay not to use it. Once you use it, its power will be stimulated. Then it''ll be hard to suppress it!"


    "I don''t care! If it''s for you... otherwise I won''t use it!" The woman in white was deaf to his advice. "Come on, help me suppress it! If it does run away, I can''t explain it to Teacher, and you''ll get involved," cried the woman in white, with a gentle trembling. "Tianchang, hurry up, or it''ll be too late!"


    "Alas!" Giving a sigh, Ma Tianchang looked a little helpless. "Well, if it''s because of me!" He turned and walked up to the woman in white as he spoke. A golden light flashed through his eyes and he stretched his wide sleeve and drew it in. The Clear Glass Jade Bottle was already in his sleeve. The space cracks that had been created by the bottle also disappeared. However, a faint glow crossed Ma Tianchang''s face and his body shook slightly.


    "Tianchang, are you all alright?"


    "I''m fine. I''m just getting used to it since I haven''t used it for a long time!"


    "The Heaven and Earth in Sleeves is equal to its reputation!" The woman in white praised in a low voice. "Next time when I use it again..."


    "There is no next time! The Heaven and Earth in Sleeves consumed too much of my pneuma. It seemed that it was easy, but without three years, my pneuma won''t recover!" Ma Tianchang replied helplessly.

 Chapter 222: The Second Big Hammer

    Chapter 222: The Second Big Hammer


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Teacher, you''re back!"


    Seeing Xu Yong, Junior Leopard could not help calling out in surprise.


    He hadn''t seen Xu Yong for a long time. Although it should be safe for Xu Yong and the Elders from the other smelting families to go to the Li family in Pingzhou, Junior Leopard was still worried. Now seeing that Xu Yong had come back, his worry naturally disappeared and it turned to joy.


    "Hehe, I''m back!" Xu Yong felt comforted by the sight of Junior Leopard''s glad appearance. Even though he had been in the Li family in Pingzhou these days, he had heard of what his disciple had done in Jianghu. As long as he thought of this guy''s achievements at such a young age, as his teacher, he felt happy. He only had one disciple, and the Xu family had no outstanding characters in the young generation. It would be okay while he was still alive. However, when he passed away in the future, the Xu family might have to be taken care of by his proud disciple!


    "Teacher, were you okay in the Li family?"


    "Yes, I''m okay. I didn''t expect you to have a good relationship with the young master of the Li family. I got the best service among the group of people. I benefited from your good relationship!"


    "Li Xiu!" Hearing the words and thinking of the Emerald Pearl Sword that Li Xiu gave him, Junior Leopard couldn''t help laughing, "He''s a nice guy. It''s just that he was too aggressive!"


    "If he hadn''t told me, I wouldn''t know that your original twin hammers had been destroyed!"


    "Hehe, I have one again now!" Junior Leopard answered with a smile, pointing at the oppressive black hammer in front of the house.


    "Hum, good!" Walking to the black hammer, Xu Yong looked it up and down and reached out to lift the iron hammer. The hammer was nearly 1000 kilograms, but it would not take much effort for Xu Yong, who was a Level Five expert, to lift up it. However, it might be a little difficult for him to wield it.


    "Good hammer, great strength!" Lifting up the hammer, he looked at it carefully, "It seems that the old guys have done their best for your hammer. It has cost the family a lot of good materials!"


    "Yes, it was not easy to forge the hammer!" Junior Leopard laughed.


    "Look at what I brought for you first!" Xu Yong said. Then he gently clapped his hands, and four strong men outside the door, huffing and puffing, came into the yard carrying a huge iron hammer.


    "It''s made of the unused Meteorite Metal material of the Li family. I asked some old guys of the Jian Family to help me to forge it. See if it works for you!"


    Junior Leopard took a gentle breath and raised his hand lifting up the Big Iron Hammer that was carried by four strong men.


    "Well, good, about 1000 kilograms. It fits me!" He took the other iron hammer from Xu Yong as he said this. The two iron hammers were about the same size and weight, but the feeling with one hammer in the hand was quite different from the feeling with two hammers in his hands.


    It was a weird sense of balance, and in this weird sense, Junior Leopard seemed to have sensed something. With one swing of his hammers, a gust of wind suddenly swept through the courtyard.


    "Stop, Junior Leopard. This is the Wu Residence. If you swing the hammers, you''ll hit half of the Residence!" Seeing Junior Leopard''s unusual delight, Xu Yong hurriedly stopped him.


    Junior Leopard smiled awkwardly. He put down the two hammers and asked in puzzlement, "Teacher, the Li family laboriously got the Meteorite Metal. Why did they give you these materials to forge a hammer for me?"


    "This is something they don''t use!" Xu Yong answered with a smile, "This piece of Meteorite Metal is all in one. It''s not big, but it weighs 1000 kilograms, so it''s hard to separate or forge. Look, isn''t the shape very ugly? There was no way to do it. The Jian''s old guys and I put a handle on it with all our might. It was no use for the Li family, so they decided to give it to you as a favor. Junior Leopard, you have to return the favor in the future!"


    "I understand!" Junior Leopard replied. He gently waved the twin hammers and felt a little pity in his heart, "Its strength is strong and it''s powerful. With the two hammers, even the Flying Sword can''t break my defense. But it''s too big to carry around. Damn it, If only I had some space equipment!"


    Frustrated, Junior Leopard thought of the novels he had seen in his previous life. Those time-travellers could easily get a couple of space rings, magic weapon bags or things like that. Why hadn''t he come across this kind of thing in all these years?


    Obviously, Xu Yong had seen Junior Leopard''s confusion and patted him on the shoulder with a laugh, "Junior Leopard, be content with it. Although these two hammers are inconvenient to carry, as long as you hold them in your hands to wield them, I believe you won''t lose to a Level Eight expert in strength!"


    "It''s not just strength!" Junior Leopard praised in his heart, "If I''d had the two hammers, it would not have been so troublesome when I met Dragon Granny. I could have directly put her to death with the hammers. Besides, I wouldn''t have been in so much danger when I met Buyan Gerel!" Even if Buyan Gerel''s Internal Qi was as hard as steel, he could''ve broken it with the two iron hammers.


    All in all, whether an expert of Level Seven or Level Eight, he was stronger in the following aspects. One was the strength of his body, one was the condensing degree of his Internal Qi, and the other was his Gang Qi which could protect him.


    However, the strength of the body, the condensing degree of Internal Qi, and the Gang Qi all had a limit. Once your cultivation reached Level Seven, your body would be as strong as iron, your Internal Qi would be hard as steel, and your Gang Qi would combine attack and defense with hardness and softness. However, what if the attack force exceeded their limits?


    Just like now, if Junior Leopard took the two iron hammers weighing up to 1000 kilograms respectively, and swung them with his Internal Qi and the mental cultivation method of Extraordinary Strength Fist, the hammers could smash everything that was mentioned above.


    This was the suppression effect of absolute power!


    Why were sword practicers known as the most powerful group in attack force?


    It was just because they had the suppression effect of absolute power. Perhaps they were not like Junior Leopard who could wave two Big Iron Hammers weighing 1000 kilograms respectively like waving Juncus Effusus. But their Sword Qi could produce a powerful destructive force on a very small scale and destroy an area from one point. Then they could seriously injure a man whose cultivation was above them.


    Besides, if you got a good Flying Sword in your hand, it was more lethal.


    "Okay, don''t show off here!" Seeing that Junior Leopard was delighted and thoughtful, Xu Yong went forward and patted him, "Put the hammers away. Don''t you feel tired with them?"


    "Oh, yes!" Junior Leopard laughed, putting the twin hammers together. With a big bang, the twin hammers had been directly thrown out of the door, deep into the mud.


    The two hammers were so heavy that he did not worry about them being stolen.


    As they entered the room, the servants naturally came in to make tea.


    "What about it? Are you used to living here?"


    Entering the room, Xu Yong looked up and down the room and asked with a laugh.


    "Yes, the Family Head and the First Elder did go through great pains!"


    Junior Leopard answered. Indeed, this courtyard was connected to the courtyard of Xu Yong, and they were about the same size. Although Junior Leopard''s strength and reputation were far ahead of Xu Yong''s, and both of them were the Elders of the Wu Family, he was Xu Yong''s disciple. So he could not be treated better than Xu Yong, but Xu Yong was unassuming amongst the Elders in the Wu Family, and had not made many demands for his own treatment. That caused the Wu Family to be put in a difficult position.


    Now that Xu Yong''s yard and several rooms were just like Junior Leopard''s. It was just a little more elegant, which fit his taste and satisfied him very much.


    "Of course they would take great pains! In 500 years, there has only been one disciple like you!" Xu Yong took a sip of tea and said smugly.


    "Teacher, I''m flattered!"


    "I''m not flattering. I''m telling the truth! Not only in the Wu Family, but also in Jin, there are few excellent young people like you. But you''re too young. Success may not be a good thing right now!"


    Junior Leopard answered with a nod, "Teacher, you''re right. But I haven''t achieved success yet. I''ve just won some fame by fluke!"


    "If only everyone had your fluke!" Xu Yong said, "I was worried that you were going too fast and that some people would be jealous. Now, it seems my worries are needless. What you have achieved now, is something those who are jealous of you will never catch up to. Therefore, their original jealousy has turned into awe!"


    "Then let them spend their whole lives in awe!" Junior Leopard picked up the cup, took a sip, and said with confidence.


    "What do you intend to do next? To be an Outer Core Elder in the Wu Family, or is there any other plan? I heard that you have some estates outside!"


    "No estate can earn more than what the refined iron mine earns in a year!" Junior Leopard laughed. "My estates outside are mainly used to settle my families. You know I have a big family!"


    "Right, but you don''t have to worry too much. There are rules in Jianghu and the grudges that happened in Jianghu must end in Jianghu. It has nothing to do with the family. This is the iron law that has been passed down over thousands of years. No fool dares to break it!"


    "Not necessarily. Did not Xue Wuya kill the whole He Family in Yangzhou?"


    "That''s not the same. Xue Wuya killing the whole He Family in Yangzhou was not for the grudge happened in Jianghu. In addition, there was no one in the He Family who could threaten him. But you''re different. You''re powerful and have the ability to retaliate, so..."


    "So this so-called iron law is actually supported by people''s strength, right?" Junior Leopard chuckled.


    "Right, all the interests in the world are dependent on strength. Having been in Jianghu for so long, you should know it clearly!" Xu Yong nodded. "Well, I''m not going to bother you any more. I''m really tired since I just came back. I''m gonna rest. You should rest well too. Stay more days here and communicate with your Senior and Junior Brothers!"


    "I know!" Junior Leopard nodded and sent Xu Yong out of the yard.


    In the following days, he ate, drank and chatted with Jin Nanqing and some other familiar disciples of the Wu Family according to Xu Yong''s words. These disciples were the accomplices of the 10 carriages of medicinal herbs when they went out to perform tasks together. With them, Junior Leopard did not need to act as an Elder.


    A few years later, these disciples formed a small circle within the Wu Family.


    As the saying goes, what''s the best relationship in the world?


    To be a classmate, to visit prostitutes together, and to face danger together!


    In short, it was a partnership of doing immoral things. Only when everyone knew each other was it easy to get along. Although Junior Leopard''s cultivation had already surpassed them by a lot, there was nothing strange when they met again. With a smile, a lot of things were saved.


    Led by Jin Nanqing, they had secretly embezzled 10 carriages of medicinal herbs. Everyone had benefited a lot from those herbs. Their cultivation grew extremely fast. Although their cultivation was not as good as Junior Leopard, who was a freak, they were the top in the inner core disciples of the Wu Family. Especially Jin Nanqing whose cultivation had reached the peak of the Skin-Toughening Realm and was only one step away from the Bone-Forging Realm. If he took that step, there would be one more Elder in the Wu Family. In addition, considering his relationship with Wu Yuzhu, in the future, even if he could not become a core person of the Wu Family, he would be sent to take charge of a local real power. Therefore, he was welcomed in the Wu Family now. Naturally, their circle was the most powerful among the inner core disciples of the Wu Family.


    Now, even the eldest son of the Wu Family had to be respectful of them.


    Junior Leopard was in no mood for caring about the Wu Family''s affairs, and he also did not care about the grudges inside the family. However, he was still very friendly with the disciples who were dog-eat-dog with him in those days. They mingled together and organized feasts from time to time, really having a good time.


    Of course, while Junior Leopard was hanging out with these disciples in the Wu Family, he had been watching the war between the Jin and Northern Yuan.


    The situation of the war was as expected. Northern Yuan was all washed up. Half a million troops of Jin swept across the prairie. Not only did they wipe out the royal court of Northern Yuan, which certainly had no king, but they also wiped out the Elders of the Tribe Alliance which had been passed down for 10,000 years.


    Northern Yuan had no ability to resist. Ba Siba was killed. Mie Chen was badly hurt. Seeing that the situation was unfavorable, Kunlun Master returned to the Kunlun Mountain, announcing that he would cut himself off from the outside world and no longer care about the outside affairs. Northern Yuan morale had hit rock bottom. Experts of Northern Yuan also fell apart in the joint suppression of the men in martial arts world from Jin. Three Level Eight experts, known as the Four Wolves in the Prairie, along with Buyan Gerel, all died under the siege of the experts from the Mingyi School and Tian Long Taoism. This time, each school and well-known family in the martial arts world from Jin were out in full force, rushing to the prairie to rob money, articles and women, which was a devastating blow to Northern Yuan. The population of every tribe in the prairie was very badly damaged. Most importantly, this time, Jin did not show any mercy. In the later stages, the army dragged away people they saw instead of killing the people they saw, as they did in the earlier stage. Between 70 and 80 percent of the population of the prairie was taken to the central plains and handed over to the traffickers to sell to other countries. At this point, Jin announced its ownership of the prairie for the first time.


    Then there was the tedious finishing work. It included the distribution of interests to the big families and schools, as well as the medium-sized, well-known families like the Wu Family that wanted a share of the spoils.


    Of course, Junior Leopard''s Anyuan Store also took this opportunity to make a fortune. Now it was managed by the Navy of Jiang City, still controlling the waterways of Luo River. The new Navy Commander had no control over the navy that had been spoiled by Junior Leopard and was in league with water bandits. Relying on the Luo River, Anyuan Store made a huge fortune. Of course, Wang Tianlei also made a fortune. He was the representative of Junior Leopard in Anyuan Store, and also ran the food business. Now, his grain store was one of the biggest grain stores in Jiang City, and it was even a little famous in the whole Zhonghe Prefecture.


    Though many people were angry, no one dared to offend him. After all, behind the grain store, there was an expert whose combat capability was Level Eight. Only a fool and a living impatient man would offend him for the business in a small county.


    Therefore, Wang Tianlei''s business went smoothly as well. He had even begun to think of a way to extend his business to Yunzhou. He wanted to send grain to the prairie through Yunzhou. Yunzhou was the gateway to the prairie, and had the most fairs in the past. It was definitely going to be profitable to bring grain to the prairie through Yunzhou. Moreover, for Wang Tianlei, it was a very easy thing.


    Because Junior Leopard was an Elder of the Wu Family in Yunzhou, and the Wu Family was the biggest well-known family in Yunzhou, owning an extremely mature business road and a huge network.


    It was not a hard thing for Junior Leopard. In fact, it was quite simple. He did not even need to show up for himself, just giving it to Jin Nanqing. It was very simple to get this done by Jin Nanqing with his present position in the Wu Family.


    The end of Northern Yuan was a foregone conclusion. The whole Jin was immersed in an almost frenzied mood. The chaos of thousands of years was so easily destroyed. For all of the people, from the old to the children, from the emperor to the common people, it felt like a dream.


    No one could have imagined that the immortal achievements described in legend would have been achieved so soon.


    Then there was no doubt that the present Jin Emperor, whether on reputation or position, had far exceeded the sage-emperor of each dynasty in history. In a sense, the better part of his lifelong wish had now been fulfilled. As for the remaining, it all depended on how he ended.


    In the eyes of Junior Leopard, it was hard to deal with the end. Because the mess was too big. The prairie of Northern Yuan was vast and boundless, and its area was several times that of Jin. It was good enough for Jin to manage such a large territory with the present system of Jin. It was a big problem, seeing whether Jin could manage such a vast area of Northern Yuan. If the disposal was not good, it may even cause the whole of Jin to decline. It was not difficult to turn Jin from being extreme flourishing to being extremely weak.


    In this case, Junior Leopard found his chance. It was just that this chance was not for the present, but for the future. He needed to watch and wait.


    After mixing with Jin Nanqing and the other disciples in the Wu Family for a while, and arranging what Wang Tianlei asked him to do, Junior Leopard began to think about the next step.


    He was a very indifferent person by nature. His only and greatest ambition was to live longer and to do the things he was interested in.


    For now, he was most interested in martial arts. As for longevity, he was confident that he could live for hundreds of years, even if he did not drink the water which could prolong his life from the Golden Goose Cup.


    In a sense, the 16-year-old Junior Leopard had achieved all his goals in life, and the only thing he could pursue now, was to get more power.


    This was, of course, the ideal state, but it was not as simple as he thought it would be.


    Just like the martial arts world, it was not what he usually heard. You could not do what you wanted in Jianghu. Now that you had stepped into the water of Jianghu, you needed to go with the stream, and to be careful of both open and covert attacks. It was not that you could be unmatched in the world as long as your cultivation was powerful.


    His cultivation was great in the eyes of ordinary people. However, Junior Leopard knew that thanks to his strange eyes and unparalleled luck, he had achieved fantastic records with his current cultivation. His eyes should not be known to others, and his luck would run out one day. How would he protect himself and his family at that time?


    At this moment, Junior Leopard finally had a deep understanding of the sentence "You could not do what you wanted in Jianghu".


    If nothing else, now there was a pressing matter. It was the appointment of three years with Meng Qingrong, the lady of the Meng Family. Although there was still more than a year left, that was what Junior Leopard was worried about.


    It was too long. Now the Meng Family had learned that he had bombarded a Level Eight expert to death and he had the Demon Devil Needles. It could be said that they knew one of the bluffs that he used to protect his life, and they had a year to prepare.


    For an aristocratic family like the Meng Family, a year was enough to do many things. For the sake of saving face and regardless of risks, they could even turn Meng Qingrong into a fighting monster with combat capability above Level Eight or Level Nine. Even if they did not take the risk, they were able to get one or two powerful celestial devices to Meng Qingrong, which was his biggest headache.


    "Well, that''s enough. I have two big hammers anyway. Once I master them, I will have the absolute power. Then I''ll hammer it, no matter what a celestial device or a magic weapon it is. I don''t believe this delicate girl can stand it!" Junior Leopard thought bitterly in his heart.

 Chapter 223: Scheming to obtain the Ancient Treasure

    Chapter 223: Scheming to obtain the Ancient Treasure


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Extreme north ice field, Dragon Thunder Palace.


    In front of the large palace door, Thunder Dragon Venerable and the golden-robed man stood shoulder to shoulder, their eyes closed, and their faces tilted slightly trying to sense something. After a long while, the golden-robed man said, "Venerable, how is it?"


    "That magic weapon''s spirit has already vanished. Looks like it has been completely suppressed!"


    "The method to be able to suppress a magic weapon like the Clear Glass Jade Bottle is indeed extraordinary." Thunder Dragon Venerable softly sighed.


    "Actually, it is nothing much. Ma Tianchang''s background is mysterious. I suspect that he''s a disciple of the Five Manor View," the golden-robed man said plainly.


    "Five Manor View?" Thunder Dragon Venerable furrowed his eyebrows. He seemed surprised. "The Five Manor View has not been active in the world for a long time. How could there be disciples running around?"


    "Dragon Thunder Palace has been like this for a long time. Why would there be a hero that emerged 10,000 years ago to unify the prairies?" The golden-robed man laughed coldly. "Venerable, don''t think that the others are fools. You groomed a disciple to unify the prairies, and then the others groomed a disciple to destroy the Northern Yuan. This can be considered an interaction."


    "My Dragon Thunder Palace has no feuds with the Five Manor View. There isn''t a need for them to take action 10,000 years later. Old turtle, don''t try to spoil the relationship between our two parties."


    "Oh, I''m not inciting anything. I merely spoke my views. As for how you think, that is beyond my control. In this world, if there''s really a method to easily suppress the Clear Glass Jade Bottle, it''ll only be the Five Manor View''s Heaven and Earth in Sleeves."


    "Heaven and Earth in Sleeves?" Thunder Dragon Venerable was stunned and said, "If he really is a forsaken disciple of the Five Manor View, do you think that he can master the Heaven and Earth in Sleeves?"


    "Who knows, just like 10,000 years ago, a forsaken disciple of Dragon Thunder Palace had that kind of strength? Wasn''t that way beyond people''s expectations?"


    "Don''t dwell on the past. The Northern Yuan is finished. Your objective here is completed as well. Isn''t it time for you to leave? My Dragon Thunder Palace is too small to accommodate you, old turtle."


    "Aye aye aye. I know where the limits are. I shouldn''t stay around to make you angry, old fella. I know that you feel like slapping me to death right now. I should leave as soon as possible!" Still, he made no movement. Instead, his body turned into a ray of golden light, broke through the heavens, and he disappeared in the blink of an eye in front of the vision of the Thunder Dragon Venerable.


    "That damned old turtle!" Seeing the direction that the Mysterious Turtle Sage disappeared, Thunder Dragon Venerable scolded in a low voice. He seemed helpless. The Dragon Thunder Palace was a special existence like the legendary Five Manor View. As the owner of the palace, he might have omnipotent abilities; yet, he couldn''t interfere in the matters of the world. Even if Northern Yuan was destroyed, he could only play some tricks. This time, these tricks were thwarted by the appearance of the Mysterious Turtle Sage. He could only give Ba Siba the Heavenly Dragon Divine Elixir. Who knew that Ma Tianchang''s camp actually possessed a heaven-defying treasure like the Clear Glass Jade Bottle. Even if Ba Siba ate the Heavenly Dragon Divine Elixir and pushed his cultivation through to the Metaphysic Realm, in front of the ancient treasure, it had no use at all. He was absorbed in an instant. This caused the Thunder Dragon Venerable to be extremely depressed.


    Now that things had progressed to such a stage, he also had no solutions.


    "Palace Leader, from where you see it, should we...?"


    "We don''t do anything, and we don''t care about anything. The world is changing. All sorts of changes will happen. The Dragon Thunder Palace shall wait silently and watch the changes." Thunder Dragon Venerable waved his hands and entered the palace. Two huge palace doors slowly closed and completely sealed the palace from the outside world. There was no longer any liveliness nor activity.


    ...


    ...


    "What? Robbing the Clear Glass Jade Bottle?" Junior Leopard exclaimed jumping up from his chair. Following that, he violently sat down again and covered his mouth. He stared at Golden Rooster in front of him with a strange expression. "Are you crazy? The Golden Goose Cup hasn''t been settled, and now you''re hitting on this ancient treasure!"


    He was frightened to see Golden Rooster''s appearance.


    Ever since they had parted ways in South Yuezhou State, Junior Leopard hadn''t seen this fellow. He thought that he went into hiding. Who knew that he would suddenly appear in front of him?


    "The matter of the Golden Goose Cup had been settled," Golden Rooster said.


    "Settled?" Junior Leopard was confused. "I heard that the Golden Goose Cup appeared in Shuzhou a few months ago. The one that held the cup, quite looking like you, was slaughtered. The cup was also stolen."


    "The men were sent out by the Immortal Palace. It was a hoax that the cup was robbed. Everything was just for show," Golden Rooster said.


    Junior Leopard nodded. "I thought that you wouldn''t be satisfied so easily. So that''s what it is. The Immortal Palace is very magnanimous to give away a treasure like the cup for free!"


    "This wasn''t the palace being generous. The cup is a priceless treasure to the common people. To the palace, it has no value. Other than a few outer circle people in the palace, who doesn''t have a cultivation of Level Seven and beyond? An extended life of 100 years is not enough for them to risk their lives. As for the intelligence, everybody''s cultivation is different. Naturally, they will have different choices. They wouldn''t offend me just for a cup!"


    "That''s true." Junior Leopard smiled. "Anyway, that thing can only be used once."


    "Alright, let''s cut the nonsense and go straight to what matters. The Clear Glass Jade Bottle is now in Ma Tianchang''s camp!"


    Junior Leopard interrupted him and said, "With all due respect, Golden Rooster, I didn''t agree to do this."


    "I won''t let you do it for nothing."


    "It is not a problem of doing it for free. The problem is the huge risk involved," Junior Leopard said. "A monster at the Metaphysic Realm can''t even withstand it for one time. You are asking me to die."


    "An ancient treasure like this couldn''t be used casually. Each use comes at a great cost," Jin Yuquan said. "Last time, it was used by Ma Tianchang to absorb a Metaphysic Realm expert. It''s not easy to use it again."


    "So what? Ma Tianchang is not an easy character," Junior Leopard said coldly. "You think that this extermination of Northern Yuan was a coincidence?"


    "This time, the person asking the Immortal Palace to lend its hand is the Jin Emperor."


    "What?"


    "The Great Jin''s emperor asked our palace to take action," Jin Yuquan said. "Don''t worry about Ma Tianchang. There''ll naturally be someone handling that. Our task is very simple: to infiltrate the camp, find the Clear Glass Jade Bottle, and then steal it."


    "In other words, we are going to be thieves?"


    "If you have to perceive it that way, then I''ve got nothing to say," Jin Yuquan smiled bitterly and said. "This matter''s risk is not great as long as we search carefully inside the camp, and that''ll be it."


    "What if we can''t find it after searching carefully?"


    "If we can''t find it, then we come back," Jin Yuquan said. "It is said that the thing is in the big tent. We only need to search within the big tent. If it''s not there, then it''s not our problem."


    "Are you sure that you want to be embroiled in this matter?" Junior Leopard asked with some doubts.


    "This matter might sound simple, to just search within the tent. However, it is never simple when considering both parties. One side was the Great Jin''s emperor, whose merits have long surpassed his predecessors. The other side was the Yunzhou Governor with unfathomable power and background. To get involved in the battle between these two parties is not a simple matter. The repercussions are endless!"


    "It is not us but the Immortal Palace getting involved. We''re merely following orders. Relax, the palace won''t sacrifice us," Jin Yuquan said.


    "I''m still worried," Junior Leopard said. "This is too big. Let me consider it for a few days."


    "Are you a coward?"


    "It''s because I''m a scaredy cat that I could live till today and possess such strength," Junior Leopard said. He didn''t have anything he couldn''t say in front of Jin Yuquan. "If not, I would be like Wang She. He ridiculously went to the prairies. If I hadn''t met him accidentally, he would''ve died there."


    "Wang She''s balls are too damn big. However, he benefited a lot from that. After such a battle that risked his life, it had benefits for him entering into the Metaphysic Realm," Jin Yuquan said. "People like us, to put it nicely, are to pursue the limits of martial arts and life. To put it badly, it is to defy the way the world works. To defy the world, if we don''t have viciousness and bloodlust, we can''t possibly progress."


    "That makes sense; however, I still think that the risks are too great."


    "Don''t you wish to hear about the rewards?"


    "I don''t!" Junior Leopard shook his head repeatedly and said, "Come tomorrow. I''ll give you a reply then."


    "Alright, then tomorrow. Kid, you replaced Wang She''s position. Now, the two of us are tied together. If you aren''t willing to go, I won''t go either. I''ll have to heap those losses on your head!"


    "Alright, who knows maybe I''m saving your life by not going. Who''s going to repay this benefactor''s deeds?" Junior Leopard asked.


    Jin Yuquan didn''t bother to answer and left immediately leaving Junior Leopard in deep thought.


    This is tricky. I was just about to prepare to go into a retreat and completely digest the benefits I gained from the trip to the prairie. I didn''t expect to meet with such a matter. To steal the Clear Glass Jade Bottle? There is something wrong about this. How did the Great Jin Emperor know about the existence of the Immortal Palace? Why would he employ the palace to do it? Golden Rooster didn''t want me to think of it as too complicated. However, if I don''t, I would be even more anxious.


    Junior Leopard touched his chin, furrowed his eyebrows, and moved back and forth within the room weighing the pros and cons of the matter.


    What if he didn''t go?


    The palace would never coerce a person. If he didn''t go, and instead looked for a place to undertake a retreat and digest the benefits from the prairies, he might even push his own cultivation to Level Six. This was undoubtedly the best choice. He wouldn''t suffer any losses this way as well.


    However, he was not reassured. What Jin Yuquan said was right. On the path of cultivation, it was a heaven-defying matter. He had to have a vicious stance and not simply rely on luck.


    Ever since he learned martial arts, Junior Leopard encountered danger along the way. In general, the way was still smooth. He had always been blessed. In a short period of time, he had gained immeasurable power. Even though he had experienced quite a few life and death moments, he was always prepared. He relied on the many cards he had in the fighting. He knew what would happen during the fight to some degree. This time was completely different.


    He had no clue.


    it was the exact reason why he didn''t dare to easily make a decision. Deep in his heart, he desired to make the attempt.


    Yunzhou Governor Ma Tianchang had always been a mysterious figure. Even though Junior Leopard had never met him, his means of doing things had caused him to be in awe. From his point of view, the extermination of Northern Yuan had long been planned to coerce the Northern Yuan one step at a time. As for this treacherous weather, it was the chance that he had been waiting for. It was precisely because he had sufficient preparations that he viciously grabbed the opportunity. He caused the Northern Yuan, which had stood in the prairies for 10,000 years, to dissolve and face extinction.


    With regards to such a character, Junior Leopard not only had respect, he was also curious.


    "Maybe it''s not a bad thing to witness the Governor''s style."


    Junior Leopard''s heart flashed at such a thought suddenly stopping in his tracks. "This might be a good chance to learn more about the background of the Immortal Palace and the ancient treasure...!"


    ...


    ...


    "I thought that you wouldn''t come!"


    Against the dark sky, Jin Yuquan silently stood beneath the high walls of Qinlingjun City. Seeing Junior Leopard slowly walking towards him, his eyes flashed a trace of a smile. Seeing the ring on Junior Leopard''s finger, he said, "Wang She has even given you the ring. Looks like his injuries are not minor."


    "Maybe he would stepped into the Metaphysic Realm after discovery." Junior Leopard said. "Cut the bullshit. Let''s go. I want to witness this legendary ancient treasure!"


    "Interesting. Yesterday you seemed so unwilling. Now, you are itching to go. What is it exactly that caused you to change so much overnight?"


    "I merely thought it through. What you said is right. On the path of cultivation, it''s something that is heaven-defying. If I didn''t have the courage or viciousness, how could I walk to the end of this path? This time around I''m not doing it for the rewards nor the ancient treasure. It''s solely to train my spirit and soul."


    "Good. Wang She indeed is not blind," Jin Yuquan laughed heartily. "Then let''s go. There are a few hundred miles before us." As he spoke, he moved like an arrow shot from a bow, instantly melding into the dark sky.


    Junior Leopard smiled. A green light flashed on his body, a sword light shooting forth. "Shua!" The light shot through a few miles and shrugged off the Golden Rooster.


    "Traveling on the reigning sword?" Golden Rooster, maximizing his Lightness Skill, felt a ghastly chill through his body as the green sword light flashed past and soared through the skies into the thick clouds.


    "Golden Rooster, don''t use that Lightness Skill. There''re a few hundred miles to cover." From far away, Junior Leopard''s voice condensed into a line and transmitted into the Golden Rooster''s ears. He then recovered, "Good lad, I''ve underestimated you. You''ve actually become a sword practicer!"


    Jin Yuquan''s body emitted a golden light without moving as he flew in the air. "I want to see if a sword practicer traveling with the reigning sword is as fast as the legends say."


    He mumbled to himself, and his body transformed into a golden light. Just like Junior Leopard, he melded into the clouds and tightly followed the green sword light.


    This was the second time that Junior Leopard was really flying.


    The first time he was still small. It was when Xue Wuya was kidnapping him and using his blood Gang to travel. Back then, he was just a kid who didn''t know anything. Even though he acted calmly, his felt terrified inside. As for the Dragon Flying Technique, with his current strength and understanding towards this cultivation method, he could at most fly for 90 feet. He was still far from achieving the level of traveling through the nine skies. How could he now be traveling with the reigning sword at the speed of light?


    In the beginning, Junior Leopard was not used to it. Compared with traveling with the reigning sword, the Dragon Flying Technique was much lower in both speed and height.


    "Kid, what a monster you are! How did you become a sword practicer so suddenly?" Jin Yuquan was riding behind on a golden light and rushing forth.


    "Hmm, that''s where you are wrong. I''ve always been a sword practicer." Junior Leopard laughed. "It was only that I couldn''t travel with the reigning sword."


    "What bullshit you are talking! Who in the Jianghu doesn''t know that you use hammers!" Jin Yuquan scolded in a low voice. Junior Leopard was considered a renowned figure in the Jianghu now. There were many rumors about him. Everybody knew that this Zhou Bao used metal hammers and specialized in punching skills. He had already condensed his fist intent. There was also an extremely powerful magic weapon on him. Nobody had ever heard that he could use a sword. He was a sword practicer such as had not existed for tens of thousands of years.


    "That is Zhou Bao. I''m not Zhou Bao now. I''m Xiao," Junior Leopard said plainly. The strange smiling mask covered the strange smile on his face. "I''m the Immortal Palace''s Xiao, not the Wu''s Zhou Bao."


    Jin Yuquan was dumbfounded. Thinking about that, it''s really the case. Ever since Junior Leopard transformed into Xiao, he was wielding an emerald sword, and his sword techniques were not bad.


    Seeing that Jin Yuquan was speechless, Junior Leopard said, "Golden Rooster, why don''t we compete with each other? Let''s see if your Gang Qi is faster than my reigning sword."


    "What''s the point of competing? A sword practicer''s attack power and speed are incomparable," Jin Yuquan said grudgingly. "I see that your sword light is unstable. You must have attained the reigning sword only recently. You should take the opportunity to become familiar with your sword light. Don''t bother with all that ridiculously boring stuff."


    Junior Leopard felt downcast to be rebutted with one sentence. His sword light intensified, and his speed increased by at least 30% leaving Jin Yuquan in the dust.


    "Aye, young fellow is really impulsive. Even if he was traveling with the reigning sword, he must exhaust his cultivation. Even if you reach the place, you''ll need to recover your Qi and delay the timing." Jin Yuquan smiled helplessly and quickly forgot about him.


    As expected, Junior Leopard''s sword light flew for another ten miles before he slowed down. He didn''t look as well as before. Jin Yuquan soon caught up. "Alright, little friend, don''t play any more tricks. After flying for another 100 miles we''ll reach the army camp. Let''s be careful not to reveal ourselves!"


    The golden light on his body converged. He chose a route where there were thick clouds to cover their tracks.


    Junior Leopard thought for a while. The green sword light on his body also converged, and he followed Jin Yuquan. They deftly traveled towards the depths of the prairies.


    From high in the sky, the wide grasslands were in plain view.


    Even though the snow storm had stopped for a long time, the accumulations in the grasslands had not melted. It was white everywhere, and on the white prairies, there were countless white tents in rows extending all the way into the depths of the prairies.


    This was the Great Jin''s army camp.


    The snow in the prairies stopped the fast attack of the Great Jin army. Under such conditions, it was not practical to carry light and chase the enemies. Hence, Ma Tianchang adopted a method of winning step by step. He divided the 500,000-man army into ten groups. These groups extended all the way down to the prairie borders. Not to mention that the Metal Horse Carriages had already lost their sharpness and boldness. Even if they still had the guts, under a situation where they were all scattered, it wasn''t possible for them to summon enough horses and men to begin a resistance. The most important factor now was that the snow not only restricted the Jin army, it also restricted the prairie warriors. On such snow-covered grasslands, the Northern Yuan Metal Horse Carriages were unable to exert its advantage. No matter how fast the horses, the ice made it impossible for them to slip and to regain their footing.


    Now, the only thing that the surviving horse carriages could do was to run towards the depths of the prairies. The further they ran, the better it was. Those tribes were not so lucky. They didn''t have the army''s speed. The only thing they could do was to wait for death, to wait for the Jin army to attack their tribes, and kill all the males and kidnap all the females and children. They would sell them to the slave traders and merchants following the armies, and they would set the whole tribe on fire.


    Standing in the skies, they could clearly see dozens of fires. Those were the tribes that were being destroyed.


    Jin Yuquan and Junior Leopard''s speed gradually reduced. At last, they stopped thousands of feet up in the air.


    "There is Ma Tianchang''s central army camp!" Jin Yuquan pointed at the numerous camps.


    "Northern Yuan is finished just like this!" Junior Leopard didn''t reply but instead looked at the neverending prairies and sighed.


    "Yes, finished just like that!" Jin Yuquan saw Junior Leopard''s mannerism and laughed involuntarily. "Why, can''t you bear such result?"


    "No, I just feel that things are happening too quickly. It is incredible!" Junior Leopard self-mockingly smiled and said, "Alright, let''s not talk about it and start thinking about our next move."


    "What time is it now?"


    "It is almost the Yin Shi!"


    "Wait a while longer. The person giving the imperial order will come soon. At the same time, there''ll be a newly appointed supervisor. At that time, Ma Tianchang will survey the camp with him. That''s our shot!"

 Chapter 224: The Free Will Demonic Smoke and the Poison Cold Shield

    Chapter 224: The Free Will Demonic Smoke and the Poison Cold Shield


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In the sky, Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan could clearly see a group of uniformed horses and men running straight to Ma Tianchang''s central camp from afar. They took out the decree in front of the tent. After a while, Ma Tianchang brought a group of people out of the central camp to tour the army.


    "They are really prepared this time," Junior Leopard said in a low voice glancing at Jin Yuquan.


    "Let''s go down." Jin Yuquan laughed and patted Junior Leopard. The golden light was pressed down, and his body was like a meteor falling straight from the sky. The target was Jin''s central camp. Junior Leopard activated the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and the Magic Crane Change of the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds. He floated down leaving no trace of earthly air.


    The weather was gloomy. Ma Tianchang''s central camp had some experts at Level Four-Five surrounding it. The strongest was Level Six. They couldn''t possibly detect Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan.


    They successfully entered the central camp.


    Due to Ma Tianchang''s leaving, there were only four personal guards at Level Five in the tent.


    The surface area of Ma Tianchang''s central camp was several times larger than the other camps. However, its design was simple. There was a large fire basin in the middle of the camp. A small table was placed near the north side of the tent. The north wall had a detailed and complete topographic map of Northern Yuan. Beyond that, there wasn''t even an additional chair.


    In this central camp, apart from Ma Tianchang, no one else was able to sit down.


    The four personal guards were easy to settle. Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan dealt with two each. Very quickly, they sealed off their acupoints without making a noise. The four personal guards stood as usual like four door-gods without any abnormality.


    Without a doubt, this time around, the Immortal Palace''s preparations were sufficient. Jin''s imperial court was also very cooperative.


    This batch of personal guards took over the shift when the imperial court''s troops came. They had to stand watch until dawn. Hence, the newly appointed supervisor would delay Ma Tianchang until dawn.


    During this time, the entire central camp''s defenses were weakest.


    "How could Ma Tianchang leave an ancient treasure like the Clear Glass Jade Bottle in the central camp? Logically, he should be bringing it with him," Junior Leopard asked.


    Jin Yuquan replied, "If it is on him and we don''t find it in the tent, we will still receive the remuneration. Other matters don''t involve us. However, he won''t bring the treasure with him."


    Jin Yuquan seemed very sure of this. Although Junior Leopard didn''t quite understand, he didn''t ask anymore.


    They entered the tent. Though it was a large tent, its simplicity made it easy to take everything in at a glance. There wasn''t anywhere to hide an object.


    "Crash!"


    Junior Leopard smashed Ma Tianchang''s table. Apart from wood shreddings, there was nothing else. Following that, he smashed the chair in front of the table to bits.


    "Hey, go easy!"


    "Don''t worry, it''s an ancient treasure that could subdue a Mysterious Realm expert. It''s impossible that it can''t even withstand a strike," Junior Leopard replied in an indifferent tone.


    Jin Yuquan was speechless. Indeed, an ancient treasure of this level, how could it be smashed to bits by Junior Leopard''s palm?


    "I meant you should keep the sound down,"


    Jin Yuquan said helplessly. At the same time, Junior Leopard had already kicked the fire basin to one side. The ashes in the basin scattered on the floor. He picked up the basin and carefully looked at it for a while, but he didn''t find anything.


    "Ma Tianchang won''t put it in the fire basin." Seeing that Junior Leopard was researching it for a long while, Jin Yuquan began to grow impatient.


    "Then what do we do? Dig the ground?" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly.


    "It doesn''t... what are you doing?"


    Jin Yuquan exclaimed. As soon as Junior Leopard threw away the fire basin, his body exploded with a green sword light.


    The sword light shot like rain in all directions. Like small daggers, the sharp Sword Qi shredded everything in the vicinity.


    "Are you crazy? This is the central camp!" Jin Yuquan was shocked and shouted.


    "Star river burning, break!"


    Junior Leopard ignored Jin Yuquan, holding an emerald dagger. The sword light was unruly like stars painting a river. In an instant, the entire tent was enshrouded in dazzling starlight.


    "This is---!" Jin Yuquan''s eyes flashed in wonderment. Though he was a Level Seven expert and had cultivated Gang Qi, things were happening too fast. Junior Leopard suddenly exploded using one of the three killing movements of the Silver Moon Sword Technique. Jin Yuquan didn''t have time to prepare, but since Junior Leopard wasn''t targeting him, he didn''t move.


    Drops of dazzling starlight enveloped the entire central camp. Following that, it all violently burst apart.


    "Boom, boom, boom...!"


    When every drop exploded, it was at least the degree of a Level Six expert attacking with full force. Thousands of starlight drops exploded at the same time producing a power that was not below that of a Level Eight expert''s full force.


    "You are god damn cra...!" Jin Yuquan exclaimed. Instead of yelling out the last word, he looked around with a stony face.


    After this round of explosions caused by the Sword Qi, everything began to dim. The central camp''s interior had not changed from before.


    The four restricted personal guards were still standing there. The table and chair were still in bits, stacking there. The huge Northern Yuan map was shredded to pieces and landed on the floor. The basin was flipped and the ashes were scattered everywhere. Everything seemed so familiar, yet foreign.


    Instantly, Jin Yuquan''s expression darkened.


    "This is¡ª! "


    "Illusion," Junior Leopard said gravely. "The moment we entered, we were caught in the opponent''s illusion. It''s so realistic that we were not aware of it!"


    "Damn it, I was too careless!" Jin Yuquan''s face flashed regretfully.


    He was the main lead for this operation, the senior in the Immortal Palace, with Level Seven cultivation, and much older than Junior Leopard. Now, Junior Leopard was the first one to discover that something was wrong. If Junior Leopard didn''t discover it, like an idiot, he would be searching for it within the central camp, and he might even have dug into the ground. If that was really the case, he would have lost face.


    His shame quickly turned to anger.


    He violently pressed upon his body numerous times with his hands. Waves of intense pain assaulted his brain. This was the most stupid way of breaking through an illusion, but it was also the most effective.


    Although this method brought pain, it didn''t have any other effects.


    "It looks like a formation. We are caught in a formation!" Seeing Jin Yuquan''s actions, Junior Leopard nearly laughed.


    "Formation?" Jin Yuquan curled his lips and coldly laughed. "So what if it is a formation?"


    In between words, golden light exploded from his body. A golden rooster appeared within the golden light. Both of its wings flapping, a pair of claws appeared and followed Jin Yuquan''s stance, clawing at the ground.


    Four Golden Claw.


    The first move.


    Shredding the ground!


    Shining with golden light, the claws violently struck the ground, shredding it from both sides.


    The claw''s effects were just like its name. Under two claws, the ground trembled. Junior Leopard felt a tremendous amount of energy flowing beneath his feet. He subconsciously moved his body and actually jumped up into the air. Beneath his feet was a piece of green light. He was Reining Sword. Looking at Jin Yuquan, under his claw, the ground was forcefully torn apart.


    "Hu---!"


    At the instant the ground was shredded, a wave of white smoke flowed out from the hole. It didn''t even take a breath''s time to cover the entire central camp.


    "Let''s get out!" Junior Leopard shouted. The green light flashed, rushing towards the exit of the central camp. Jin Yuquan didn''t dare to hesitate. Enveloping his entire body in a layer of golden light, he rushed out of the tent.


    "Giggle, giggle, you two, since you have come here, are you in a hurry to leave without sitting for a while? You aren''t giving face to me!"


    A coy laughter sounded out at this moment. At the same time, Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan rebounded back into the central camp by a soft power. The tent became enshrouded in a thin layer of green gas.


    "If you aren''t satisfied with the environment here, I can take you elsewhere and treat both of you!"


    As the words sounded, the fog began to scatter. They were was no longer standing in the central camp. Instead, they were in a place with mountains and rivers, a beautiful sight to behold.


    A tall mountain in the distance with its peaks and the rivers were like a painting!


    A round moon hung in the sky scattering its endless silver light upon the earth.


    In a small pavilion at the peak of a mountain, there was a lady in white clothes with a green veil covering her face. She was silently sitting on the pavilion''s stone table holding a wine pot. "Esteemed guests from afar, if you don''t drink at least two cups of wine, and it gets out, people will say that I don''t treat my guests properly. Please!"


    Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan shockingly looked at each other.


    Surprised and unaware, they were caught in a magic matrix, turning their shock into fear.


    Yes, fear!


    The surroundings though real appeared like a dream. They could detect no traces of illusion. They could even feel the moonlight emanating from the bright moon above without any trace of abnormality.


    As for the small pavilion in the mountain, it was at least 100 feet away from them far exceeding the size of the central camp. With the distance so far away, there seemed no point in trying to escape.


    "What, any concerns?"


    "Since Madam has invited, we don''t dare to disobey!" Jin Yuquan straightened his back and lifted his legs to move towards her.


    Junior Leopard didn''t say a word and followed.


    When they started walking, they realized there was a stone path appearing beneath their feet extending slowly towards the pavilion on the mountain. On the way, they encountered no obstacles and successfully reached the pavilion.


    "Both of you, please sit." The white-clothed lady smiled and pointed at the two stone benches in front of the stone table. "To visit so late at night, I wonder what is it for?"


    "May I know who you are?" Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster didn''t sit down. After being tricked for half a day, their mood wasn''t that good.


    The white-clothed lady laughed again, "Who am I? A woman to appear in the central camp, who else could she be?"


    "Dancer?" Junior Leopard blurted out.


    "Swish!" A white light appeared.


    "Ouch!"


    Junior Leopard exclaimed. He retreated 30 feet and tried to rush out of the pavilion. His legs in a mess, he stepped onto the small path outside. The previously soft power that caused him to rebound back into the tent appeared once again. This time, he wasn''t so lucky. It lifted him high up over 100 feet in the air. A layer of faint white fog pressed down from the sky towards the peak of the mountain.


    "Bang---!" A dull thud occurred. Junior Leopard smashed into the pavilion like a broken sack. His face turned pale, a layer of faint green light surrounded his body, and his eyes flashed a ghastly trace. If he hadn''t reacted in time activating the Poison Cold Shield to protect his body, he might have been seriously injured.


    "Aye, the Poison Cold Shield, you actually refined this!"


    Once the Poison Cold Shield was released, it was just like a faint layer of green mist. Within the mist, there was a beautiful light faintly shimmering. Seeing that Junior Leopard had refined the Poison Cold Shield, the lady seemed surprised. She extended her hand to reach towards Junior Leopard''s Poison Cold Shield.


    Junior Leopard''s expression changed. He lifted his finger, and drops of sword light rained down like star drops immediately enveloping the lady within.


    He didn''t like to suffer disadvantages, but he suffered greatly under the lady just now. To not get back at her was not his style.


    "A pure sword practicer, interesting!"


    Being enveloped by the sword light, the white-clothed lady didn''t seem surprised. Instead, she puffed into smoke. No matter how the sword light passed through, she wasn''t hurt at all.


    The sword light passed through her white-clothed body as she completely transformed into white smoke. After the sword light vanished, the white smoke condensed, and she returned to form. Still smiling, she offered them two full cups of wine.


    "It is curious, Little Fire Snake, how did you manage to see through the flaw?"


    Little Fire Snake?!


    Junior Leopard was stunned into silence before realizing that she was addressing him. "The fire basin''s temperature wasn''t right. Perhaps you didn''t know how hot it should be. Even though it was very hot, it was still easy to spot the mistake. Furthermore, I''m Xiao, not Little Fire Snake!"


    "Oh?" The white-clothed lady seemed surprised. She saw the ring that Wang She gave Junior Leopard. "Could there be an additional snake within the Immortal Palace?"


    "Madam, you know that we are from the Immortal Palace?" Golden Rooster took the initiative and asked.


    "Obviously. You guys haven''t changed your uniforms for hundreds of years. It''s a wonder I would not recognize you!" Even though her face was covered by a white veil, Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan could still feel that underneath the veil, she was curling her lips and looking at them with disdain. "The Immortal Palace now is really in shambles. You even commit acts of theft for rewards!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t feel any attachment towards Immortal Palace, so he felt nothing. However, Jin Yuquan flushed, "Madam must be joking. We are not thieving around!"


    "Not thieving around? The two of you sneaked in from the outside and made a mess of everything. What are you doing if you aren''t thieving?" She laughed. "Could it be that you are here to catch thieves?"


    "You!" Jin Yuquan was agitated by her, and his face began to boil.


    "Golden Rooster, be careful. Your mood seems to be very unstable," Junior Leopard said coldly. He used internal strength in his words, which was exploding in Jin Yuquan''s ears like thunder. He was waking up as if a pail of cold water was thrown on him. In an instant, his mind cleared. He quickly retreated two steps, and golden light shrouded his body. "Be careful, the air has problems!"


    "Hehe, boy, to think that you are so young yet you have so many methods up your sleeves!" The white-clothed lady looked at Junior Leopard surprisingly. "You have the Poison Cold Shield protecting you. You shouldn''t be afraid of my Free Will Demonic Smoke!"


    "The Free Will Demonic Smoke, you are Moon Vixen of Heart!"


    Pointing at the lady with an incredulous look on his face, Jin Yuquan exclaimed, "This is impossible, how could you be..."


    "How could I be Moon Vixen of Heart?" The lady laughed. "Looks like the Immortal Palace has another Moon Vixen of Heart, correct?"


    Hearing her speak in such a manner, Jin Yuquan thought of something. His facial became respectful. His eyes flashed a helpless smile. "Unexpectedly, we would meet Senior here. The family doesn''t recognize fellow family members. Had we long known that Senior is here, we wouldn''t be afraid to come."


    "Don''t tell me that you are here to improve your relations with me? I don''t wish to grow closer to either of you!" The white-clothed lady''s voice instantly became cold. "Now, I don''t have any relationship with Immortal Palace. Today, you came here for my Clear Glass Jade Bottle. There''s only the Great Jin Emperor who could ask the Immortal Palace to do this. I can tell you that the bottle is in my hands. If you want it, then take it. I want to see if you have the ability to take it away from me!"


    "You must be joking. Since you are a Senior from the palace, no matter whether you are right now, there isn''t any sense in us robbing you. Today''s matter is a misunderstanding. If there''s any offence on you, Golden Rooster pays his apologies right now!"


    "So we are one family!" After listening to her words, Junior Leopard immediately exclaimed. Now that they were ridiculously trapped in such a weird illusion, his heart was also in tenterhooks. Now that he heard that the opponent was actually someone from the palace, or least was once from, his heart relaxed, "Hehe, I was really foolish just now. I didn''t know Senior was from the palace. I''ll also pay my apologies here!"


    "You two are really sly!" The white-clothed lady laughed coldly. "Do you know what the greatest mistake you have made today?"


    When they heard this, their hearts dulled, and they felt a premonition.


    "Senior here, Senior there. Do I look very old?"


    The lady''s tone carried an endless resentment. She violently slapped the stone table, and the table instantly turned into a ball of white smoke.


    "Be careful!" Junior Leopard said in a low voice. The green mist instantly covered both him and Golden Rooster. At the same time, the surroundings instantly changed. The mountains disappeared, as did the water, moon, and pavilion. What remained was a completely empty space surrounded by the white smoke.


    Endless white smoke came crashing down from all directions with a heavy weight onto the Poison Cold Shield.


    Under the heavy pressure, the shield began to tremble.


    The smoke connected to Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts transmitting a huge pressure. "Golden Rooster, what''s this Free Will Demonic Smoke? Why is it so strange?"


    "I don''t know!" Golden Rooster said.


    "What, you don''t know?!" Junior Leopard exclaimed. "How could you not know? Isn''t she from the Immortal Palace? Didn''t you speak of her origins? How could you not know?!"


    "I really don''t know!" Golden Rooster said bitterly. "I only know the Free Will Demonic Smoke is the method of Moon Vixen of Heart. As for what power it has, I really don''t know!"


    "F**k, really unlucky," Junior Leopard scolded in a low voice. He exerted the Poison Cold Shield to the maximum. At the same time, he brought Golden Rooster to search for the road.


    They became entangled in a hollow of layered green smoke with white smoke surrounding it. Though the white smoke was vast and powerful, Junior Leopard guarded himself tightly so that white smoke was unable to harm him. Slowly, he began to adjust to the pressure brought about by the white smoke. Gradually, he could even expand his shield. The pressurizing cold feeling spread in all directions. Occasionally, it would cause the white smoke to solidify. Even though this lasted for only a short while, it was outside of the white-clothed lady''s expectations.


    "What Evil Qi did you use to refine your Poison Cold Shield? It has such a dense cold feeling to solidify my Free Will Demonic Smoke!" her voice rang from within the white smoke.


    "I don''t know either. I found it by accident. It''s amount wasn''t much but enough to refine the Poison Cold Shield." Junior Leopard smiled. "Senior, no, Madam, you see that this smoke of yours isn''t very effective. We can''t find you. Why not just let this be? You release your Free Will Demonic Smoke and keep your Clear Glass Jade Bottle. Let''s peacefully end things, shall we?"


    "Cunning little fellow. You have the shield protecting you so I can''t do anything to you, but don''t forget that your shield is only for protection. Can you find the exit? As long as I keep you remain trapped, when the general returns, you can''t leave. Do you really think that you can escape under my Clear Glass Jade Bottle?"


    "Since that is the case, there''s no choice. I can only offend, Madam," Junior Leopard''s said helplessly. Suddenly, his whole body emitted a wave of extremely fierce Qi Power.

 Chapter 225: The 28 Constellations in the Immortal Palace

    Chapter 225: The 28 Constellations in the Immortal Palace


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard radiated an overwhelmingly cruel and fierce spirit. Green sword light exploded from his body and surrounded him instead of bursting outward. In the same moment, his endless killing intent spread all over the place.


    "This is¡ª!"


    As Golden Rooster stood beside Junior Leopard, he felt the unmistakable sensation of Junior''s Leopard''s physical presence disappearing in a flash. His body instantly vanished, cloaked by the Free Will Demonic Smoke, while the green light surrounding Junior Leopard seemed to isolate him from the outside world. If Junior Leopard''s Poison Cold Shield had not been protecting Golden Rooster, the Junior Leopard before his eyes would have seemed to be nothing more than a phantom left behind by the real person.


    "What''s this? A sword formation?"


    The lady in white silently admired Junior Leopard''s prowess as she hid in an out-of-the-way location. She was astonished by the amazing scene before her eyes, an astonishment stirred by Junior Leopard''s sword light. Her eyesight was superior to Golden Rooster''s, so she immediately recognized that the sword light emitted by Junior Leopard had formed into a forward-facing formation. However, she failed to identify the formation type.


    Of course, she could not analyze this formation. Junior Leopard had formed his Yin and Yang Dust Formation out of Sword Qi. With his current cultivation and understanding of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, he could only deploy the Death Gate portion of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation was a kind of formation that combined attack and defense but only manifested its real power when completely deployed. Presently, Junior Leopard had only deployed the Death Gate, which merely intensified the attack force of his Sword Qi.


    This, however, was all he needed.


    Within the Death Gate, the Sword Qi of his Silver Moon Sword Technique and his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword flowed together as one.


    The Dragon Flying Technique surged through his body like a maelstrom and ripped apart the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi within the External Elixir between his eyebrows. His Sword Qi was shredded into countless tiny sword threads that merged bit by bit with the Sword Qi of the Silver Moon. As this additional energy augmented the Death Gate in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, the sword light around Junior Leopard grew indistinct. His green sword light took on a blood-red hue, emitting a piercing cold filled with inexhaustible ferocity. His entire body resembled a giant bomb that was about to explode.


    The lady in white let out a cold laugh as she seemed to perceive the danger. Clouds of pale mist condensed out of every nook and cranny; this time, she called on all her strength to demonstrate the true power of the Free Will Demonic Smoke. The smoke formed into a big white ball less than ten feet in diameter, centered on Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster. Outside the smoke ball, Ma Tianchang''s central camp remained intact and undisturbed.


    The Poison Cold Shield could not hold for long under the great pressure of the Free Will Demonic Smoke. Even though Junior Leopard had built his practice of the Poison Cold Shield around the Poison-absorbing Green Bead to create a Shield that emitted a breathtaking quality of poison... he had only recently completed this practice. Junior Leopard and his Poison Cold Shield were not perfectly integrated yet. What''s more, the lady''s Free Will Demonic Smoke technique was not inferior to the Poison Cold Shield, and her cultivation was superior to Junior Leopard''s. As a result, Junior Leopard''s Poison Cold Shield was crumbling under his opponent''s pressure.


    "Help me, Golden Rooster! Make a hole in the smoke!" Junior Leopard shouted, his face burning red beneath his mask.


    "Got it!"


    Jin Yuquan replied in a low voice, eyes flashing as he realized how critical this moment was. He raised his hands as Gang Qi burst forth from his body in a shower of golden light.


    Four Golden Claw.


    The second Excellency:


    Split the Sky.


    "Rustle¡ª"


    There was a sound like silk cloth ripping in half. Jin Yuquan grimaced and bared his teeth. Even though his Gang Qi protected his body, he could not bear the great pressure imposed by the Free Will Demonic Smoke without the shelter of Junior Leopard''s Poison Cold Shield. More importantly, it felt like he was ripping up steel and iron whenever he slashed at the surrounding white smoke with his golden light-wreathed claws. Even the glowing haze of the Free Will Demonic Smoke was harder than iron when it condensed into one place.


    Although Jin Yuquan''s Four Golden Claw technique had matured, he struggled to rip through the pale, seemingly translucent smoke. His fingertips throbbed with pain, but since crying out would be humiliating, he clenched his teeth and kept going until he had ripped many small tears in the surrounding Free Will Demonic Smoke.


    This was the exact opportunity Junior Leopard was waiting for.


    Once Jin Yuquan had ripped gaps in the Free Will Demonic Smoke, Junior Leopard let out a deep-throated yell. Greenlight burst from his body. The green sword light around him suddenly condensed into a single point. With a mournful cry and a glimpse of blood-red swordsmanship, the gathered energy shot towards the fissures torn by Jin Yuquan.


    "Puff, puff, puff¡ª!" The swift, fierce sword light pierced the Free Will Demonic Smoke with a soft sound. Junior Leopard''s Sword Qi perforated the steel-like Free Will Demonic Smoke in an instant.


    "Go now!" After Junior Leopard''s thrusting attack, he pulled Jin Yuquan along with him. Jin Yuquan responded quickly and focused his golden light. As he followed Junior Leopard, his light transformed into a golden streamer as thin as a paper that coated his skin.


    Junior Leopard also condensed his Poison Cold Shield into a thin, skintight layer, and then rushed out through the hole he pierced with his sword light.


    The Free Will Demonic Smoke had currently grown extremely dense, forming a big smoke ball only ten feet in diameter centered on Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan. Junior Leopard only needs to stab through a distance of five feet with the Sword Qi he had suddenly unleashed.


    This was a trifle for Junior Leopard''s Sword Qi.


    Although the Free Will Demonic Smoke could regenerate itself, this process took time!


    Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan followed closely behind the outrushing sword light and dashed out of the Free Will Demonic Smoke. With their protective layers of Gang Qi and Poison Cold Shield along with their swift speed, they covered that five-foot gap in an instant. The big hole in the smoke ball did seal shut until they ran well clear of the Free Will Demonic Smoke.


    "Damn it!" The lady in white swore under her breath. She hadn''t expected Junior Leopard to release such a great power so suddenly. In moments, her white smoke exploded outward and moved to cover her two enemies again.


    "Come on!" Jin Yuquan hissed, having little time to think. His figure transformed into a golden light that flew out of the central camp. Junior Leopard''s sword light followed close behind.


    They fled more blatantly than they had when they first slipped into the camp.


    A golden light and green light rushed straight out of the central camp, ripping the camp into pieces as they passed and startling the master of martial arts among the troops. The barrack was instantly thrown into disarray. Dozens of shadowy figures swarmed out of the barracks, seemingly intending to chase after Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan. Once they saw those two lights shooting thousands of feet up into the clouds, however, they gave up one by one.


    The highest-level masters among them had only cultivated to Level Six. In order to pursue those two lights into the cloud, they would need the good eyesight and the lost flying skill that only came from successfully practicing Gang Qi ¨C both of which required cultivating to Level Seven. Though they were competent masters, there was no way they could catch these two people.


    For this reason, the masters abandoned their chase one after another and returned to camp. As they drifted back into the central camp, they realized that the barracks had been thrown into chaos.


    "Pah, pah, pah, pah, pah...!" A miserable Junior Leopard stood on top of his own sword light, an eerie expression on his snow-pale face. The sword light trembled under his feet, seemingly on the brink of destabilizing.


    His sword light was indeed unstable; it would be strange if it wasn''t.


    That final, seemingly easy attack had nearly consumed all the Internal Qi from Junior Leopard''s Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill. The last dregs of his Internal Qi were just barely supporting the sword light beneath his feet.


    The Death Gate of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation had many functions, one of which was to greatly increase a warrior''s sword attack force. Junior Leopard had only just mastered this ability, using this feature of the Death Gate to break free of the restraining Free Will Demonic Smoke.


    However, though the Death Gate of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation amplified one''s abilities, it did so by consuming Sword Qi at an astonishing rate. Junior Leopard had already known he would not be able to activate the Death Gate with just his peak Level Six Cultivation and his Sword Qi altered by the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit. He had to mix his Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword and Jade Original Power Gang Spirit Sword Qi together in order to even use the Death Gate at its lowest level.


    Even after taking all these measures, Junior Leopard only acquired enough power for one attack.


    A single, measly attack.


    After that attack, Junior Leopard had to devote the remnants of his Internal Qi towards supporting his Reining Sword Gang flight technique. If he ran into any more powerful opponents, he would have to fight them using pure physical strength.


    In light of this, Junior Leopard finally, truly understood why it was so handy to carry External Elixirs.


    Possessing an External Elixir effectively meant possessing another Dantian, which, practically speaking, would double your combat capabilities.


    For most ordinary people, refining an External Elixir was a waste of time. This was no problem for Junior Leopard; his External Elixir could refine by itself for 24 hours straight, giving him a nigh-insurmountable advantage.


    "It seems I made the right choice using my External Elixir to practice a second mental cultivation method!" Junior Leopard thought, feeling a surge of both pride and regret. If he could not practice the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill using the External Elixir, how could he feel at ease when disguising himself as another person?


    The current issue was that Xiao, his secret identity, was supposed to be a sword practitioner. Even the most imaginative and clever people in the martial arts world would never guess that Zhou Bao, who swung around two big iron hammers all day long, was also a sword practitioner with great attack force.


    These two identities could not be connected to each other under any circumstances.


    " I have to keep practicing the Silver Moon Sword Technique for the time being. My secret sword practitioner identity gives me a valuable edge!" Junior Leopard thought.


    "What''s going on? Are you all alright?"


    Upon noticing Junior Leopard''s deathly pale face, Jin Yuquan started looking queasy as well.


    He had come here today to rob an ancient treasure. Contrary to his expectations, he had failed to steal the artifact and wound up getting nothing but a sore nose for his troubles. Even worse, he had to endure the humiliation of being rescued by Junior Leopard. Jin Yuquan was Wang She''s partner. Junior Leopard was supposed to be a temporary replacement while Wang She healed from his severe injuries. Jin Yuquan was supposed to be the leader in this impromptu partnership.


    What happened instead?


    His performance today had fallen far behind Junior Leopard. If Junior Leopard had not unleashed that final blast, they both probably would have died in that smoke ball. This realization made Jin Yuquan gloomy.


    "I''m fine. I just consumed too much power!" Junior Leopard said with a shake of his head. As he slowly calmed down, the green-glowing sword light under his feet started resynchronizing with the pulse of his Dantian. He started to recover his strength.


    Yes. He was recovering his pneuma.


    Although Junior Leopard''s Dragon Chimera skull was currently broken, he could fashion a functional equivalent to an External Elixir by combining his crushed skull with his Flying Sword Infusion. This improvised Elixir would inherit all the properties of the Dragon Chimera''s External Elixir, including the self-practicing Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill, which could provide him with the equivalent to 24-hours of non-stop practice.


    The only difference between this jury-rigged Elixir and the Dragon Chimera''s Inner Elixir was that the Flying Sword offered an additional procedure: it could transform the Internal Qi of the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill into Silver Moon Sword Qi.


    Practicing with this jury-rigged Flying Sword infused Elixir would take longer than with the pure Dragon Chimera''s External Elixir, but this was neither here nor now.


    "Would you like to head down there again, Golden Rooster?!"


    "No way," Golden Rooster said, shaking his head. He brushed away some of the cloud vapor near him and glanced down through the gap. "Look for yourself," he said. "All of the barracks are on high alert and Ma Tianchang had already returned to the central camp. We wouldn''t stand a chance!"


    "It seems you''re quite scared of Ma Tianchang!" Junior Leopard asked with some curiosity. "He may be the Governor of Yunzhou, but he''s just a Governor. There are few masters of martial arts around him. Aren''t you...!"


    "He''s a Level Nine expert!" Golden Rooster said, interrupting Junior Leopard. With a brittle laugh, he continued: "Ma Tianchang had a master with a mysterious background. His cultivation has already reached the peak of Level Nine, the same level as the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan. Why do you think the three Grandmasters are too afraid of the risks involved in killing Ma Tianchang?!"


    This was the first time that Junior Leopard had heard about this.


    The Yunzhou Governor in Great Jin was actually a Level Nine expert!


    All this time, he had assumed a Level Nine expert was assisting Ma Tianchang; he never thought that Ma Tianchang himself was the Level Nine expert. No wonder he was able to cause such a ruckus in Yunzhou over the years with nary a peep of opposition!


    Seeing the surprise on Junior Leopard''s face, Golden Rooster said, "Actually, you don''t need to worry. Though we failed to steal the Clear Glass Jade Bottle, we did learn that Ma Tianchang''s wife was the Moon Vixen of Heart. That''s more than enough for our purposes!"


    "I have a question about that: are you sure that lady was from your Immortal Palace?!"


    "She must be the previous Moon Vixen of Heart from the Immortal Palace!" Golden Rooster said. "I know the current Moon Vixen of Heart; she has a high cultivation, but hasn''t yet mastered the Free Will Demonic Smoke, let alone to the level of proficiency we saw!"


    "Is ''Moon Vixen of Heart'' just her code name, then?!"


    "Correct. ''Moon Vixen of Heart'' is just a code name. Every member of the Immortal Palace has a code name; mine is ''Sun Rooster of Hairy Head'', while Wang She''s code name is ''Winged Fire Snake''. The Moon Vixen of Heart called you ''Little Fire Snake'' because she noticed the ring Wang She had lent you!"


    "Moon Vixen of Heart, Sun Rooster of Hairy Head and Wing Fire Snake. They are all part of¡ª"


    "¨C¨Cthe 28 Constellations!" Golden Rooster replied. "However, there are currently openings among the 28 Constellations. Your strength and skill qualify you to be one of the 28 Constellations; you could become a full member of the Immortal Palace whenever you wished!"


    "Do you have to join the 28 Constellations in order to be counted as a full member?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "Yes. To be regarded as a full member of the Immortal Palace, you must join the 28 Constellations. However, members of the 28 Constellations must have at least a Level Seven cultivation!"


    "I haven''t reached Level Seven yet!"


    "As a sword practitioner, your attack force is far beyond that of an ordinary Level Seven expert, and you have your Poison Cold Shield to protect your body. You''ve already surpassed the power of an average 28 Constellation member; even I don''t know whether I could vanquish you in a fair fight. If you aren''t qualified, then neither am I!"


    "You''re too modest!" Junior Leopard said with a laugh, staring down at the ground. "So, your Immortal Palace actually does want to recruit me. If they weren''t, you wouldn''t be saying all this, would you?"


    "Certainly. Any organization worth their salt would want an expert like you, and we know a bit more about you than others!" Golden Rooster said with a grin. Indeed, the Immortal Palace knew one thing the other organizations did not; they knew Junior Leopard''s second identity, Xiao.


    They knew Junior Leopard''s true value and cherished him all the more for it.


    "There are still 14 vacancies left among the 28 Constellations; you can take your pick!"


    "Take your pick? What do you mean?" Junior Leopard asked with some confusion. "What difference is there between the vacant Constellations?"


    "Each Constellation is associated with different martial arts, secret skills, special techniques and celestial devices. Inheriting one Constellation position may grant you access to a special martial art, while others let you inherit secret skills, special techniques or celestial devices. Take me for instance: my constellation, Sun Rooster of Hairy Head, corresponds to the Four Golden Claw art; Moon Vixen of Heart corresponds to celestial devices such as the Free Will Demonic Smoke. As Flying Fire Snake, Wang She practices the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, one of the Seven Wonderful Techniques."


    "And the other constellations?" Junior Leopard asked. "What do the remaining 14 constellations correspond to?"


    "Those are secrets of the Immortal Palace that I cannot reveal. However, if you''re willing to join the Immortal Palace, they will no longer be secrets!"


    Temptation. This was a naked act of temptation!


    The Immortal Palace enticed experts to join them with the lure of martial arts and secret skills!


    If anyone else was so invited, they would have joined up without a second thought. Only Junior Leopard, a person who knew several secret skills and special techniques already, had a resistance to these kinds of lures.


    "Ha-ha, Golden Rooster. I need more time to consider such a big decision!"


    "What''s there to consider? There''s no downside to joining the Immortal Palace! The management in the Immortal Palace is hands-off. The privacy of members is respected. We have few restrictions in times of peace and offer decent wages. If you wind up regretting your choice, you can resign any time you please. Members can come and go as they wish, just like the Moon Vixen of Heart did. There''s no better organization out there!"


    "As I please?!" Junior Leopard asked, giving Golden Rooster a weird look. "Just to be clear, I can come and go as I please? I can quit the Immortal Palace even if I wind up training in their martial arts?"


    "Oh, that wouldn''t do at all!" Golden Rooster promptly explained. "You see, after entering the Immortal Palace, you can only resign if you pay a price equal to the gifts you gain from the Immortal Palace. For example, I learned to practice the Four Golden Claw from the Immortal Palace; if I wanted to resign, I would have to offer something the Immortal Palace does not yet possess -- for instance, a martial arts skill or celestial device no less valuable than the Four Golden Claw."


    "Are there any other benefits? For instance, rewards for taking on assignments?"


    "Of course there are!" Golden Rooster said, "Oh, one more thing: if you joined, you would be forbidden to reveal the secrets of the Immortal Palace!"


    "What about the martial arts skills I learn in the Immortal Palace? Can I pass them on to others?" Junior Leopard asked, thinking of the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill that Wang She had bequeathed to him.


    "Beyond a few exceptions, you can if you want to!" Golden Rooster replied.


    "Really?" Junior asked, feeling surprised.


    "Would you share your hard-earned, unfathomable martial arts skills with other so easily?" Golden Rooster asked with a scornful laugh. "People in this world are selfish; they cling to their riches, hunger for even more advantages, and pay no mind to others!"


    Hearing this, Junior Leopard had a moment of enlightenment. He himself knew many profound martial arts skills. He had just recently imparted the Seven Swirl Hack Skill he had learned in the prairie to Wang Tianlei, his brother-in-law; he had kept all his other martial arts skills secret from the world.


    "It seems that the Immortal Palace preys on people''s weaknesses, luring in experts to join them by offering such favorable terms!" Junior Leopard thought. Through the information gained from his chat with Golden Rooster, Junior Leopard had figured out the basic methodology of the Immortal Palace. The more he understood, the more he came to admire them.


    To a certain degree, the Immortal Palace was a loosely structured service organization. Its purpose was to bring experts together in the pursuit of profit and thereby assemble a great deal of power.


    Even if someone wished to resign from the Immortal Palace, they would not lightly share the benefits they''d gained there with others.


    In an organization like the Immortal Palace, an injury to the profit of the organization was an injury to everyone''s profit; the rank and file of the Palace would rebuke any individual member who deprived their organization of profit. What''s more, there was no strict class division in this loosely structured service organization. Even the superiors of the 28 Constellations probably only received and assigned missions and did not directly manage the 28 Constellations. As a result, conflicts and power struggles would rarely arise between members of the Immortal Palace.


    They had no positions of authority to claw after, so any profit they acquired would be through their own strength.


    More importantly, the Immortal Palace provided various kinds of services to assist members with their various affairs.


    Once these experts got accustomed to the services provided by the Immortal Palace, they would grow more dependent on their organization. In this way, this seemingly lax organization maintained a cohesion stronger and more unbreakable than the authority some barons could maintain among their families.


    It was a mutual-aid fraternity for experts above Level Seven, filled with a powerful vitality and explosive force. There were no downsides to joining!


    Once he figured this out, the decision was easy.


    Junior Leopard realized he could not resist this temptation.


    "Well then," he said to Golden Rooster with a smile, "Now that you''ve told me so much, I have no more reservations. Count me in!"

 Chapter 226: Heavenly Jade Technique

    Chapter 226: Heavenly Jade Technique


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Moon Bird of Net, Wood Insect of Dipper, Fire Monkey of Turtle Beak, Water Ape of Alnilam, Sun Rat of Emptiness, Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket, Golden Dragon of Neck, Golden Sheep of Ghost...!" Junior Leopard looked at the information in his hand, frowning his brows slightly. "Didn''t you say yesterday that there were 14 vacancies in the 28 constellations? Why are there 15 vacancies now?"


    "Wood Insect of Dipper!" Jin Yuquan pointed to one and said, "There are indeed 14 vacancies. But we recently confirmed that Wood Insect of Dipper has died, so there is one more vacancy!"


    "Wood Insect of Dipper has died?" Junior Leopard cast a slight gaze at the words "Wood Insect of Dipper", "Heavenly Jade Technique" and the note below, which read "one of the Seven Wonderful Techniques".


    "How could he die? Isn''t everyone in the 28 constellations an expert over Level Seven? If one of them really died, it would stir the world!"


    "Wood Insect of Dipper is Xue Wuya of the Blood River Sect of Dark Sect. Maybe you haven''t heard about him. A decade ago, he was quite famous. He was one of the rare few Level Eight experts in the entire world, but he was chased by the White Blademaster, Lu Shaoyou for he had killed the He family of Yangzhou. He was missing till he fled to the Misty Mountain. Since then, he has not been found and no one knew his whereabouts. Though the Immortal Palace tried their best to seek him, it was to no avail. As of ten days ago, it has been ten years since his disappearance. According to the Immortal Palace''s rule, though alive he may be, he had to automatically quit, so his position is vacant!"


    Junior Leopard''s expression under the mask became fantastic. Nobody would be looking for Xue Wuya anymore. It was ten years ago that he had killed Xue Wuya.


    Ten years ago!


    Ten years!


    Junior Leopard suddenly came to realize that, from the moment he''d been dragged away by Xue Wuya to now, a whole decade had elapsed unwittingly.


    "What do you think? Have you thought it over?"


    "Oh, not yet! Let me see!" Junior Leopard suddenly recovered from his reverie. Pointing to "Heavenly Jade Technique" beside "Wood Insect of Dipper" he asked, "Is this the cultivation method that Xue Wuya has chosen?"


    "Yeah, the Heavenly Jade Technique and Wang She''s Snake-like Breath Holding Skill are examples of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. It is said that the Seven Wonderful Techniques have a magical effect. It''s a pity that our Immortal Palace only has these two methods!"


    "The Seven Wonderful Techniques?" Junior Leopard smiled. He had conjectured the mental cultivation methods of Extraordinary Strength Fist before, but now he knew for certain. This way was actually called Heavenly Jade Technique, and Xue Wuya had taught it to him. It was one of the Seven Wonderful Techniques.


    "How fortunate!" He thought to himself. "At the time, Xue Wuya didn''t think I would survive. He was so generous. Unfortunately for him, it is he who didn''t make it out alive!"


    ...


    ...


    It was an ordinary inn in Yuyang City, one of the gateways in Jin. It had been almost twenty or thirty thousand years since the founding of the city, and it had been in a tense atmosphere recently. It was because nobody could be sure when the Metal Horse Carriages of the northern prairie would go down south, attack the city and pillage the grains. If the dynasty of the Central Plains didn''t migrate inhabitants from the border area here year after year, it would be desolate now.


    But now, this tense atmosphere had disappeared. Now, it was not only full of peace and happiness, of course, but also of boisterousness and excitement.


    Northern Yuan had been exterminated, without negotiation or surrender; through slaughter and pillage. In some pedants'' eyes, Jin''s behavior had violated the practice of benevolence and kindness. Some who lived in the Central Plains saw these behaviors as cruel acts. In the eyes of the inhabitants who had settled in the border area of Yuyang, it was a welcome deed.


    At any given time, one could see intoxicated men lying at the roadside or roaming the streets of Yuyang; one could hear the sounds of drums, gongs, and scream. The atmosphere was even more lively and enthusiastic than Spring Festival.


    After Junior Leopard and Jin Yuquan were defeated in Ma Tianchang''s central camp, they fled and flew all the way to Yuyang. They arrived at dawn.


    Yuyang was really bustling. There were various people of the martial arts world, people who were heading towards the north or returning to the south. Even though the two of them were dressed oddly, nobody paid heed to them. More oddly dressed men could be found everywhere,


    After confirming Junior Leopard''s participation in the Immortal Palace, Golden Rooster''s attitude towards him became more enthusiastic. He contacted the Immortal Palace at once. Within four hours, Golden Rooster had arrived, carrying a pamphlet that showed all of the 28 constellations vacancies with details.


    Junior Leopard could choose anyone from the pamphlet at will.


    That was why the scene happened before.


    "I have to remind you, Junior Leopard, the earlier you join the Immortal Palace, the more benefits you will gain. Just look, there are 15 vacancies in stock that you can choose. If you wait a few years to join us, there may only be a few positions remaining. If all the positions are occupied, even though you want to join the Immortal Palace, you won''t have the chance!"


    "Well, Golden Rooster, can you stop talking. I have decided to join you; you don''t need to boast!" Junior Leopard swung his hands, "There are 15 vacancies left. I need to think it over. I will tell you tomorrow!"


    "That''s OK. Choose carefully! Not tomorrow. I remember that I took three days to decide. Hehe, when you''re done, I will take you to the Immortal Palace. Once you receive your token, you will be one of us!" After speaking, he left.


    "The Immortal Palace has such a solid foundation. It''s so difficult to choose!" Seeing all 15 constellations in the pamphlet, Junior Leopard was caught in a dilemma. "By no means will I choose Wood Insect of Dipper. I have already learned the Heavenly Jade Technique!"


    An eccentric and nonsensical idea occurred to him, "Damn it, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, the Heavenly Jade Technique and Xiao. Perhaps I can be called Ultra Magnus afterward? Er, if there is a chance, it''s perfect. I can play Mahjong with Optimus Prime, Deception, and Starscream!"


    Junior Leopard shook his head and threw his absurd thought away. He fixed his attention on the pamphlet.


    Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket!


    When Junior Leopard looked at the pamphlet, he quickly noticed this name, simply because it contained "Leopard". His real name was Zhou Bao, while intimate people called him Junior Leopard. This Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket included "Leopard" as well. It seemed like a coincidence to him.


    Hence, from the very beginning, he was inclined to the name Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket. On account of this inclination, when he looked at other constellations, he wasn''t interested.


    Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket, the last of the oriental stars, a whirlwind triggered by dragon''s tail, belonged to the Water Sign.


    Junior Leopard racked his brain for information about Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket''s, but couldn''t think of anything Anyhow, in the Immortal Palace, the name was only a code. As for whether the code had a profound meaning, Junior Leopard didn''t know.


    Certainly, now he wanted to join the Immortal Palace, but it didn''t mean that he wanted to stay in the Immortal Palace for his whole life. He didn''t belong to this world. He hadn''t even had much sense of belonging to the Zhou Family where he was born and had grown up. Never mind the Immortal Palace, an organization.


    What he wanted was to reap the benefits of the Immortal Palace. When the time was ripe, he would quit. He had never lacked for cultivation methods.


    He also understood that this organization gathered a crowd of above Level Seven experts who were obstinate and unruly. It was impossible to control these experts, including himself.


    As a matter of fact, the reason why he chose the Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket, was so that he could obtain the relevant method to refine the celestial device.


    It was not a special technique, secret skill, mental cultivation method, martial arts skill or unique skill. It was a way to refine a celestial device: Air-frozen Bead!


    Air-frozen Bead!


    Looking at the name, Junior Leopard laughed.


    Unfortunately, of the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace, Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket could only gain a way to refine Air-frozen Bead, so none chose this constellation as the code name.


    Junior Leopard didn''t care. The Air-frozen Bead appeared to be useless, but Junior Leopard didn''t think it was so simple.


    The 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace were composed of experts with cultivation above Level Seven. How could it be possible to distribute evenly?


    Other masters didn''t know, but Junior Leopard had a thorough understanding of the two secret skills, the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and the Heavenly Jade Technique; their power was breathtaking. There was no reason that what Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket of the 28 constellations equipped should be a seemingly mediocre Air-frozen Bead!


    Besides, even if the Air-frozen Bead had a monotonous effect, so what?


    He had mastered cultivation methods, secret skills and special techniques of all sorts, including defensive and offensive movements. What these 28 constellations could provide wasn''t much, but he wasn''t in dire need of other cultivation methods or secret skills. He wasn''t completely proficient in what he already possessed, and he also knew he shouldn''t bite off more than he could chew.


    So, after much deliberation, he still chose Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket.


    However, his decision surprised Golden Rooster somewhat.


    "Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket? Are you sure? You should know that, in the Immortal Palace''s history, this Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket has always remained empty. You''d better think again! The Air-frozen Bead is really useless!"


    "Of course! Otherwise, I wouldn''t choose it!" Junior Leopard waved his hands. "Moreover, I think the Air-frozen Bead isn''t simple as it seems!"


    "I have heard people who hopelessly chose this constellation before say the same words. It''s merely self-consolation!" Golden Rooster laughed. "I think that you should think it over in case you regret it later!"


    "Nope, I don''t need to think about it. It''s Leopard. And, I''m Junior Leopard, it is just right!"


    Junior Leopard''s attitude was so firm that Golden Rooster did not try to persuade him further. "Well, since you insist, I don''t care. Were two days of rest enough? If you feel good, we will set out to the Immortal Palace tomorrow!"


    "Tomorrow?" Junior Leopard was a bit stunned. "Isn''t that a bit rushed?"


    "What''s up?"


    "Nothing, but I am preparing to seek a good place to practice. You know that I will soon have a battle with the little girl of the Meng Family!"


    "There''s no need to worry about that little girl. You must know, not all people in this world are like you. Her strength will never surpass yours even in three years!" Golden Rooster said.


    "What I worry about is, what if a millennium family like the Mengs in Ningzhou, bring out an Ancient Treasure like the Clear Glass Jade Bottle?"


    "It''s impossible! The Meng Family doesn''t have any Ancient Treasures!" The Golden Rooster shook his head. "You think Ancient Treasure is like a cabbage that can be found anywhere?"


    "Just in case!"


    "No case! I am telling you, most Ancient Treasures, such as Clear Glass Jade Bottle, have their own master. Though there are a few Ancient Treasures that don''t have owners, they are unlikely to be in Meng Family. If the Meng Family were fortunate enough to have one, they wouldn''t dare take it out!"


    "Why? I don''t think the Meng Family is afraid of anything!"


    "Not everyone is as fearless as Ma Tianchang!" Jin Yuquan sighed slightly and patted Junior Leopard on the shoulder. "If the Meng Family really have a high-level Ancient Treasure, they can''t take it out for such a little girl. Your current cultivation is high, so the Meng Family will deal with you by any means necessary. But little do you know, that because of your fast advancement and well-known combat gains that, even if you defeat the girl, the Meng Family won''t lose too much face. Don''t you understand? Plus, from what I''ve heard of the bets in Jianghu, your odds of winning are much higher than hers!"


    "Damn! There are people gambling!" Junior Leopard scolded in a low voice.


    "Such a sensational thing naturally attracts a lot of attention!" Golden Rooster laughed.


    ...


    ...


    In the central camp in the prairie.


    The camp Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster had broken had been fully renovated. At the moment, it was silent and quiet, so silent that a pin could be heard clearly if it was dropped on the floor.


    Ma Tianchang sat in front of a table. His face was as calm as water, yet his eyes were sharp as a knife. He gazed over the officers and soldiers who stood in the camp.


    Among them, was a newly-appointed supervisor in the army, as well as a eunuch who delivered an imperial decree.


    The new supervisor was Wang Han. He was born of a civil official and had a reputation for talent. As for the eunuch, he was a close servant of the inner court. He had suffered great fatigue in order to deliver the imperial decree, but he benefited a lot from it.


    The whole atmosphere had originally been harmonious but had now turned rather outlandish after last night''s stir.


    "I''m incompetent. The bandits had the chance to harass the central camp. I''m really ashamed!" After a silence, Ma Tianchang promptly said in a gentle voice, without any emotional fluctuations.


    "The Subordinate was incompetent!"


    Ma Tianchang''s voice had barely faded away when the personal guards from the camp kneeled down and exclaimed in unison.


    "It''s none of your business! Two of them were experts above Level Seven. Of course, you couldn''t resist!" Ma Tianchang waved his hand, "Leave!"


    "Yes!"


    Ma Tianchang''s personal guards were trained as a whole. They were loyal to him and went out without any suspicion.


    The central camp which had originally been crammed with people now contained five people; Ma Tianchang, Wang Han; the eunuch; and the two personal guards who stood at the door on duty.


    "General, I''m a supervisor in the army. Amid this central camp, there should be a seat available?"


    Wang Han said this after the departure of a swarm of personal guards. In the imperial court, though he was only a civil official without real power, he was at Level Three. Though he was inferior to Ma Tianchang, a government officer, and local emperor, wherever he went, he would be offered a seat.


    But now, he had stood in the central camp for a while and there was no seat for him. He had some complaints in his mind. There had been many people around before, so he had been embarrassed to say anything. But now the people had left, he couldn''t resist speaking up.


    Ma Tianchang glanced at him slightly and laughed. "Well, sorry, Your Excellency Wang, I have been negligent! Here is a chair for you!"


    Finishing the words, Ma Tianchang turned to the eunuch and asked, "Eunuch Fei, may I offer you another chair?"


    "The General is just joking. How dare I get a seat before you!" Eunuch Fei laughed. Wrinkled skin climbed over his face like blooming chrysanthemum and his eyes were narrowed into slits with pleasure.


    A personal guard carried a wooden armchair. He placed it before the desk, and then went out.


    "Your Excellency Wang, please!"


    "General, thank you very much!" After holding his fist in the other hand as a salute, Wang Han went bluntly towards the wooden armchair and sat down.


    Ma Tianchang didn''t say anything. But Eunuch Fei''s eyes twitched. "Wang Han is so foolish. He dares to put on airs before Ma Tianchang!"


    However, thinking again, he felt relieved. He was secluded in the inner court, so naturally, he knew the relationship between Ma Tianchang and the current emperor. But Wang Han was a civil official without real power. Though his literary fame resounded through the world, considering his roots, it was rather shallow. How could he know the stakes?


    "General, the imperial court of Northern Yuan has collapsed, and all the tribes have been sapped of their vitality. Nobody in the whole prairie can resist our Jin''s Metal Horse Carriages. I don''t know what you will plan next!"


    Wang Han asked the moment Wang Han sat down, holding his hands in a fist.


    "Your Excellency Wang, you are wrong! It isn''t my plan; it''s what will our emperor plan. My mission is done!" Ma Tianchang''s mood seemed to improve somewhat. He stroked his beard, "Northern Yuan has been eliminated, the remaining aftermath is for our emperor and the imperial court to deal with. The only thing I can do now is to stabilize the 500,000 armed forces, to shake the remnants of North Yuan, and ensure the smooth implementation of the imperial court''s orders. As for what to do next, it''s not me who is leading the troops!"


    Wang Han nodded, in deep thought. "Well, what you say is reasonable. By the way, do you have any information about the creeps who snuck into the camp yesterday?"


    "Nope!" Ma Tianchang revealed a remorseful look. "Their strength was too strong to stop them, though my men tried their best. However, their cultivation was so high, I assume they are remnants of Northern Yuan and intended to kill me secretly. But they didn''t expect that I would be out accompanying the supervisor to tour the barrack!"


    A gleam of light flashed in Ma Tianchang''s eyes, "Your Excellency Wang, Eunuch Fei, thanks to both of you! If it weren''t for the two of you, the two creeps would have gotten away with it, thank you very, very much!"


    He stood up and saluted them.


    They promptly replied that they couldn''t dare to. After chatting for a while, they bade farewell to Ma Tianchang.


    Ma Tianchang sent them out of the central camp. He turned around, a hint of the bleak smile flashing on his face. A layer of light mist flashed across and he vanished instantly.


    "It seems that they don''t know details!"


    Moon Vixen of Heart''s voice rang out amid the mist, "Otherwise, they wouldn''t be so stupid as to ask about this matter!"


    "Maybe they really are that stupid!" Ma Tianchang laughed. "Wang Han is an idiot. He reads so much that he is brainless. How dare he test me!"


    "You mean Wang Han doesn''t know?!" Moon Vixen of Heart said in astonishment.


    "Of course not! Why do you think the first holy emperor of all ages sent such an idiot here?"


    "Who knows? Maybe your first holy emperor of all ages has actually gone crazy!"


    "He''s gone mad indeed!" Ma Tianchang laughed coldly. "To this degree, it''s time for him to consider how to end now. I don''t think that he should desire for my treasure. How silly he is!"


    "That''s true! We beat Northern Yuan, but how to finish this is a big thing!" A ray of inspiration flashed in Moon Vixen''s eyes. She quietly walked to Ma Tianchang. She leaned against his body, and said faintly, "Tianchang, you have said that as long as Northern Yuan is eliminated, you would lead a hermetic life with me, no longer bothering about the right and wrong of the world. Now Northern Yuan has no way to survive. Are you going to fulfill your previous promise?"


    "Of course!" Ma Tianchang nodded with a smile, "When this matter is over, I will hide away with you! Of course, before this happens, I must marry off our daughter Linglong!"


    "Hum, Lei Xu is a bargain without pains!"


    "Forget it! Lei Xu is not bad!" Moon Vixen of Heart snuggled into Ma Tianchang''s arms, "I am worried about it. I worry that if she fails to get married, there will be lots of trouble afterward!"


    "Trouble? What do mean?"


    "Wasn''t I just talking about it? The first holy emperor of all ages has many sons!"


    "You think he will target my daughter?" Moon Vixen of Heart screamed, "I''ll kill him!"


    "You can''t kill him!" Ma Tianchang patted her on the back. "That bloke is at his peak. Even if you wielded a Clear Glass Jade Bottle against him, you still couldn''t deal with him, at least for now you couldn''t. Therefore, we''d better have our daughter married off early!"


    "It''s up to you! She is also your daughter. Lei Xu is not bad. Most importantly, our daughter loves him!" Moon Vixen of Heart sighed slightly. "In fact, I still think that Wang She would be more suitable for her!"


    "Him?" Ma Tianchang laughed, "He has too much to bear. He is hardly free and easy. If our daughter marries him it will be just as when you married me. It will take them many years to lead a hermetic life and they will have a lot of trouble. Don''t you have any misgivings?"


    Moon Vixen of Heart raised her head and fixed her eyes on Ma Tianchang. A word for word she said, "No, I don''t!"


    They embraced each other with a smile!

 Chapter 227: Immortal Palace, Heavenly Peach Wood

    Chapter 227: Immortal Palace, Heavenly Peach Wood


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "This is the Immortal Palace?!"


    Junior Leopard was looking at a distance, eyes filled with confusion.


    There was no palace before him at all, but a piece of ancient Chinese landscape painting.


    The towering black mountains in the horizon stretched endlessly, shrouded by clouds and mist. Birds could be seen flitting through the mist now and then.


    A few simple pavilions were scattered on the mountains, carving a secret path within. One could feel a burst of refreshing breeze traveling down the path.


    This was the Immortal Palace!


    "Out of your expectations, isn''t it? The Immortal Palace is actually such a shabby place!"


    "Shabby? I don''t think so. It''s pretty good actually!" Looking around, Junior Leopard''s smile was sincere.


    They were standing opposite the mountains. They stayed in the small village at the foot of the mountain.


    The village was similar to the village Junior Leopard was born in, underneath the Misty Mountain, yet was also quite different.


    It was as harmonious and innocent as the village he was born in. The only difference was that everyone here knew martial arts and had Internal Qi Even even if not all of them had a good cultivation.


    For instance, the farmer carrying the two buckets of manure also had a Level Three cultivation. The man ploughing the land had a Level Five cultivation of Level Five. The farmwife feeding pigs by the hedge also turned out to be a Level Four expert in the Bone-Forging Realm. What surprised Junior Leopard most was that the farmwife was using a technique of concealed weapons to feed the pigs.


    "Stop looking around. Everybody here has practiced martial arts since young, but they don''t do it to compete with others like those in the martial arts world. They only practice to keep fit!"


    "So all these people are from the Immortal Palace?"


    "Correct. They''re all from the Immortal Palace!" Jin Yuquan smiled. "In the beginning, the Immortal Palace was just this tiny village. Right now, those staying here were all relatives to members of the Immortal Palace. I grew up here as well."


    As Jin Yuquan talked, he heard someone calling him. "Junior Quan, why did you leave so long this time? You even missed your father''s birthday! I bet a good chiding is awaiting you at home."


    Junior Leopard could feel the speaker was gloating over what awaited Jin Yuquan ahead. He raised his head toward the source of the voice and saw two elders seated before a simple stone desk under a huge tree at the village entrance, playing chess. With the game coming to its climax, many villagers had gathered around the elders to watch. The speaker was a middle-aged man who smiled merrily at Jin Yuquan, with a hoe in hand.


    Upon closer inspection, Junior Leopard found the man to also have a Level Three cultivation.


    "There''s too many things to do outside so I''ll be obviously busy. How can I be as relaxed as you?" Golden Rooster cursed, laughing. "Is Elder Qing at home?"


    "Yes. He has already prepared a golden rooster for you when he heard you''ll be back soon. Hahahaha!"


    Laughter reverberated from where the man stood.


    Golden Rooster flushed in the face and cursed in a low voice, but didn''t argue. Instead, he smiled to Junior Leopard in embarrassment and said, "Leave them as they are. None of them are nice people!"


    Junior Leopard smiled without replying, only following Golden Rooster straight toward a house situated west of the village.


    The farmer''s house was quite ordinary, just like other house in the village. The yard appeared even smaller than others. In the yard, a few chickens and ducks were wandering around, looking for worms to eat. Gold Rooster and Junior Leopard''s arrival spoked them and they flew away. In a moment, sounds of flapping wings filled the yard and their escape finally alerted the person inside the house.


    "Is it Yuquan? Come in!"


    The voice seemed aged but full of energy and pleasing to the ear.


    "Elder Qing, I brought Zhou Bao here!" Junior Leopard followed Jin Yuquan into the house. With full respect, he greeted the old man who was appreciating tea and enjoying sunflower seeds.


    The old man nodded gently before turning his focus to Junior Leopard. He smiled satisfactorily and said, "You''re awesome, young lad. You''ve achieved so much at such a young age. What a promising lad!"


    Being in his 60s, the elder''s eyesight was poor. His cultivation was surprisingly low for someone who looked strong like him. He only had a Level Two cultivation.


    Placed in Jianghu, a man with a Level Two cultivation wouldn''t have any status at all. He would merely be an ordinary guy. But Jin Yuquan, a Level Seven expert, was being very respectful to him. Most importantly, when he looked at Junior Leopard, Junior Leopard''s initial curiosity and impatience soon became tranquil. Junior Leopard was now feeling much better.


    His heart soon felt a tick and he immediately understood that the elder wasn''t as useless as he appeared to be. Realizing the fact, he hastily saluted the elder after Jin Yuquan.


    "Don''t feel so unfamiliar. Since you''ve decided to join the Immortal Palace, we''re now a family. My name is Fang Qing and they call me Elder Qing because I''m a few years older than them. And of course, you may also call me Lao Fang."


    "My name is Zhou Bao. Those close to me always call me Junior Leopard. From now on, I''ll have many things to learn from you!" replied Junior Leopard.


    "Junior Leopard? Hehe. Is it because there''s the word ''Leopard'' in your name that you chose the Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket?"


    "One of the reasons!" Junior Leopard nodded and answered, "Frankly speaking, I hadn''t thought that much then. It is only because I think the name of Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket sounds good to me."


    "According to the rules, you''ll get the item belonging to the constellation you choose. There haven''t been any exceptions since the establishment of the Immortal Palace." His eyes revealed signs of surprise as he spoke when he looked at Junior Leopard again. "Different constellations have different items including secret skills, special techniques, martial arts, mental cultivation methods, and celestial device cultivating methods. Normally, if the constellation you choose has a celestial device, we''ll usually prepare all the necessary materials ready for you. But..."


    "But what?" asked Junior Leopard.


    "But because no one has chosen the Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket in the past 50,000 years, we didn''t prepare the materials for cultivating the Air-frozen Bead. I can only tell you the way to refine it and the materials you need."


    "What?!" Junior Leopard was shocked for a while, his face turning blue. Before he learned about this, Golden Rooster clearly told him the Immortal Palace would not only tell him the way to cultivate the celestial device but also provide enough materials for him if the constellation he chose has a gift of a celestial device. Now that he was here, they didn''t give what they promised? His expression soon turned gloomy.


    Jin Yuquan wasn''t happy either. Though it was Wang She who recommended Junior Leopard, he himself found the young man to have great potential after meeting him several times. Therefore, he had used all complimentary words he knew to praise the Immortal Palace to get Junior Leopard to join them. He never expected things would go awry as soon as they arrived. Now he felt like he had lost his face. It was as if it was him who had cheated Junior Leopard.


    "Elder Qing, why would this happen? Didn''t you say...!"


    "But I didn''t expect you to choose the Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket!" Elder Qing sighed. "You also know there''s an unwritten rule in our Immortal Palace. If the constellation is related to cultivating a celestial device, then the person who chooses that has the obligation to collect the materials needed for a celestial device after successfully refining the celestial device. It''s prepared for the descendants, but unfortunately, 50,000 years have passed and we still haven''t gathered all the 28 constellations. And no Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket has shown up during that time. The last one we know of can be traced back to 50,000 years ago. It''s such a long time that everything has changed. Even if the last one didn''t collect all the materials, we can''t find where they are now!"


    "This...!"


    Golden Rooster had no more to say after hearing that. Elder Qing was right. Though the Immortal Palace had lasted for so long, they still couldn''t make sure things from thousands of years ago were well stored. Hence, he looked at Junior Leopard feeling embarrassed and said, "Junior Leopard, I''m truly sorry for the hassle, because I have never thought of this issue. How about you choosing another constellation?"


    "Choose a new one? Can I?" Junior Leopard was astonished.


    "We typically don''t allow anyone to change it, but your situation is unique. Of course, you can maintain your choice. I''ll tell you how to practice the Air-frozen Bead and give you another celestial device that doesn''t belong to the 28 constellations as a way to make up for your loss."


    "Ah? There''s something that nice?" Junior Leopard was gloomy earlier, but he once again regained his high spirits.


    "You''re one of the 28 constellations. Surely you deserve treatment as such!" Elder Qing smiled. "In our millions of years of history, we''ve never allowed our own people to suffer any loss. There are also many of our things accumulated during the years. They''re of no use even if I leave them here. By the way, I heard you''re a sword practicer and have successfully cultivated a Flying Sword?"


    "That''s right. I''m a sword practicer but it''s only pure luck that I managed to cultivate a Flying Sword," replied Junior Leopard. He didn''t intend to hide this and there wasn''t any reason to either. Therefore, he took out his Emerald Pearl Flying Sword and said, "This sword was originally a Genuine Weapon refined over 100 times, but I incidentally discovered its material had some intelligence. I happen to know a little bit about the refining method of a Flying Sword, so I tried to cultivate it. I''m surprised I succeeded as well!"


    "It''s really a good Flying Sword!" Elder Qing said, scrutinizing the sword. "During the Middle Ages, it''s common to practice swordsmanship but it''s also during that time that sword practitioners almost used up all the materials that could be used for refining a Flying Sword. Naturally, the practice finally decayed after its popularity over thousands of years. But it surprised me that you can obtain a Genuine Weapon refined by a material with inborn intelligence. And you''re lucky enough to cultivate it into a Flying Sword!"


    "Yes, I''ve always enjoyed good luck!" said Junior Leopard.


    "It seems your sword practicing method is pretty good. This sword is good enough even in the medieval period, let alone now!" Elder Qing glanced at Junior Leopard''s Emerald Pearl sword with a smile. "When sword practitioners prevailed, Flying Swords were once categorized into four levels: Heaven, Earth, Mysterious, and Yellow. Though your sword was refined preliminarily, you knew well about how to refine swords and thus this one can be considered a Yellow Level Flying Sword."


    "Only Yellow Level?!" Junior Leopard blurted out, dissatisfied.


    "That''s already quite an achievement, boy. When swordsmanship prevailed, there were more than 80,000 Flying Swords, but only less than 10,000 can be included in the four levels!" said Elder Qing. "Take back your sword. I''ve prepared the refining method of the Air-frozen Bead for you."


    "Thank you very much!" Junior Leopard took back his sword and walked into the inner room after Elder Qing with Golden Rooster.


    The inner room was as simple as the outer one. It was a small study room with a desk and a footstool. Some books were stacked randomly on a bookshelf behind the footstool. Nothing was eye-catching there. An old scroll sat on the desk.


    "Eh?" Junior Leopard was surprised to see the old scroll as it reminded him of the one he received from Xue Wuya. He couldn''t understand this.


    "This is the way to refine the Air-frozen Bead!" Not knowing Junior Leopard''s thoughts, Elder Qing walked straight to the desk and passed him the scroll.


    Junior Leopard took the scroll and unfolded it. He was once again astonished for the characters on it were the same as those in the scroll from Xue Wuya. He could understand none of it.


    "Elder Qing, the words..."


    "They''re all characters from the medieval period!" Elder Qing smiled. "Few people can read these now, rest assured we''ll make sure you can comprehend them since we''ve given you the scroll. However, it takes time to do it. And you have two options. One, you can learn how to read the characters yourself or, two, we can translate it for you. But there''ll be a second person who knows how to refine the Air-frozen Bead if you choose the second option."


    "I think I''d better learn it." Junior Leopard smiled bitterly but was thrilled deep inside. He had obtained the scroll from Xue Wuya a decade ago and had also looked up countless materials, but he had never found out what was written on the scroll. Now the Immortal Palace had immediately solved the problem that had troubled him for ages.


    "That''d be best!" Elder Qing seemed to be agreeing with Junior Leopard. "Come to the third house near mine tomorrow. There lives an old teacher who is proficient in all kinds of characters from the Antiquity Ages to the Middle Ages. You can learn from him. The words look difficult, but they''re actually not complicated. With your aptitude, it''ll take you at most three months to master it!"


    "Thank you, Elder Qing!"


    "Here''s the other thing!" Elder Qing took out a pea green wood and handed it to Junior Leopard. "This is the Wood Core of the Heavenly Peach Wood, formed when the Heavenly Peach Wood was struck by the Heavenly Thunder for thousands of times. Thus it''s named the Heavenly Peach Wood. Hard and solid, even wizard weapons can''t break it down. Now it already has some intelligence with a string of the Heavenly Thunder Genuine Soul. Hence, it''s the ideal material to refine a Flying Sword. Maybe it can be merged with a Flying Sword to improve the level of the sword. I know that you''re a sword practitioner who has cultivated the Jade Original Power technique. Therefore, the power of your sword will improve dramatically if you successfully merge it with the Heavenly Peach Wood. So will its level. After it reaches the Mysterious Level, it''ll probably be refined into the Heaven Level."


    "It seems you do have a profound study of sword practitioners, Elder Qing." Lowering his head, Junior Leopard asked the question casually.


    "I won''t call myself well-versed. I just like reading all sorts of books. The Immortal Palace had lasted for millions of years. If nothing else, it has left us plenty of books." Elder Qing smiled warmly.


    "I see. If so, I wonder if I can get some advice from you about sword practicing. I''m not afraid you may laugh at me. Frankly speaking, I only picked up a sword practicing technique unintentionally and practiced it without much thought. It''s merely luck that I''m a sword practitioner. But I know nothing about sword practicing in fact!"


    "I''d love to." Elder Qing smiled. "It already surprises me that you''ve achieved so much by merely following a sword refining technique without any guidance from a master. Nonetheless, just like you, I only learned my knowledge from the books. So I can only guide you on your problems based on common sense. For other problems, I''d better not mislead you."


    "That''s good enough!" said Junior Leopard. He didn''t plan on becoming purely a sword practitioner in the first place. It was simply because it would be safer for him to be a sword practitioner now that he was using the Xiao identity, or more precisely, Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket. If he managed to improve his cultivation through hard work, that would be even better.


    However, the fact was 10,000 years had passed and no sword practitioner existed in the world anymore. It was a rare occupation. Besides the Silver Moon Sword Technique, he had to discover all practices himself. Hence, it would be difficult for him to practice swordsmanship. Though he had some achievements, those weren''t enough to satisfy him. Now that he found Elder Qing who seemed adept at swordsmanship, he naturally wanted to learn from him.


    Elder Qing didn''t decline Junior Leopard''s genuine request for help. He immediately began to talk about it with Golden Rooster around, though the latter appeared uninterested and bade them goodbye. He went on to prepare food, while Junior Leopard listened attentively to the new knowledge.


    Swordsmanship was rather simple. The only difference was the sword refining technique.


    A Flying Sword, in essence, was a kind of celestial device. Many martial artists focused on practicing this sword because it was easy to use and also powerful. After putting in the effort to practice the sword for generations, the Immortal Palace finally managed to enhance and glorify the celestial device. Then their line could compare with traditional martial artists. In certain situations, their way of practicing even prevailed traditional ones.


    There were two essentials for sword practitioner: the sword refining techniques and the Flying Sword.


    The so-called sword refining technique wasn''t a sword skill. There were also non-sword practitioners who wielded the sword and some even possessed sophisticated sword techniques. There were also cases where the sword techniques of the non-sword practitioners proved to be even more sophisticated. Sword refining technique was actually a way to transform the Internal Qi belonging to ordinary practitioners into sword qi and make use of it.


    That was the sword refining technique.


    What was Sword Qi then?


    Though Sword Qi and Internal Qi sounded like two separate things, they were, in fact, one and the same. Sword Qi was only a unique form of Internal Qi. It was just like Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi and Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi that Junior Leopard practiced and Bloodfire Gang Xue Wuya practiced.


    The difference lied in that Sword Qi could only exert its greatest power when combined with a Flying Sword. And of course, things would be different if a person''s cultivation reached Level Seven and Sword Gang was formed. However, even a person with Sword Gang would be defeated in the hands of a person with lower cultivation but held a perfect Flying Sword.


    Sword Gang''s advantage lied in its offensive force. When it came to defensive power, it was much weaker than other Gang Qi. But the offensive force of a perfect Flying Sword would be strong enough to break Sword Gang and other Gang Qi.


    Hence, to some extent, nearly half of the power of a sword practitioner lied in his sword.


    That was why sword practitioners had many rules. Words had it that they existed when the sword existed. They were merged with the sword and had their sword in mind though not in hand. Anything could be a sword or the Supreme Swordplay. All these things were made up by sword practitioners.


    And its essence was the sword!


    Who could declare himself a sword practitioner without his sword?


    And it was precisely because of this that sword practitioners paid so much attention to the celestial device of the sword. It was also the reason why they categorized swords into four levels of Heaven, Earth, Mysterious, and Yellow. Swords outside of these levels were all considered rubbish.


    There were mainly three standards for categorizing the Flying Swords. The first was its offensive force, the second was solidity, while the third was speed.


    This was also the biggest advantage for sword practitioners compared to ordinary martial artists. Not only was its offensive force powerful but its attacking and flying speeds were also very impressive. In the medieval period, an ordinary sword practitioner would be able to fly with his sword when his cultivation reached Level Four in the Bone-Forging Realm. Meanwhile, other artists could only have the chance to cultivate Gang when their cultivation reached Level Seven. Even if they managed to cultivate Gang successfully, their flying speed was only half of that of a Level Four sword practitioner. On top of that, their Gang Qi could be easily broken if their opponent possessed a quality sword. Therefore, what was the point of spending so much effort achieving a Level Seven cultivation?


    Naturally, everybody flocked to refine the Flying Swords to be sword practitioners when materials for the refinement of the swords were sufficient. It didn''t mean the sword practitioners in the early Middle Ages were all short-sighted. It was a result of having no other choices. Everybody practiced martial arts or refined Qi to live for eternity. However, once one began to practice martial arts, they invited endless fights too. So capability was also important, or one without techniques would be easily killed even if he was an immortal. That was why people all scampered to be sword practitioners.


    Everyone finally became at ease after the materials for swords refinement, along with the swords practitioners, disappeared. After all, they could still achieve immortality through other cultivation methods.


    Meanwhile, Junior Leopard also discovered the huge gap between him and the sword practitioners in the Middle Ages. He may have inherited a complete set of swordsmanship and a decent Flying Sword, he was much weaker compared to his peers in the past.


    "When it comes to the sword, you only yield it to use it. That means you only know how to refine the sword and treat it as a mere weapon. You''re like those ordinary martial artists who practice swords skills. And now you''re even trying to try using the Flying Sword with sword skills! If you were studying in the school of sword practitioners in the Middle Ages, you would''ve been long kicked out!"


    Elder Qing smiled, amused by Junior Leopard''s show of sword refinement. "Junior Leopard, you must remember the sword technique is only useful when you hold the sword in your hand. Once it''s out of your hand, the principle to command it is to be quick, precise, and ruthless. Only when two sword practitioners fight together and the speed and power of their Flying Swords are equal will they compare sword techniques with their Flying Swords in hand. Typically, they wouldn''t need to fight with their sword techniques at all!"


    "Thank you for your guidance!" Junior Leopard was suddenly terribly embarrassed when he thought about how proud he had looked when he flew upward with his sword and used his Silver Moon Sword Technique. His face burned red and he only wanted to find a hole in the ground to hide.

 Chapter 228: The Liquification of Level Seven Thunder Yuan and the Completion of the Blue Sword

    Chapter 228: The Liquification of Level Seven Thunder Yuan and the Completion of the Blue Sword


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The light green Heavenly Peach Wood suspended in midair in front of Junior Leopard; it glowed with a faint green light.


    He sucked in a deep breath and concentrated completely on the half-meter piece of peach wood.


    A rich, pure spirit of life emanated from it, causing him to feel that the thing in front of him was not a piece of wood taken from the heart of a tree trunk, but rather an entire tree, one that had considerable vitality.


    He could also sense the power of the wisp of Thunder Yuan within it, weak but full of life!


    It was the power of Thunder Yuan!


    Heavenly Peach woods which had been struck by Heavenly Thunder more than a thousand times within ten thousand years contained a small amount of Thunder Yuan.


    Thunder Yuan was different from the energy of regular thunderbolts. It was the source from which thunderbolts were created; it was the seed of the power of thunderbolts. Like the Mysterious Fire kindling Junior Leopard had acquired from the Dragon Chimera, thunderbolt was like the seed of a plant: As soon as it chanced upon a favorable environment, it would germinate.


    Of course, if it was left untouched for too long, or if it wasn''t properly nurtured, the Thunder Yuan would gradually lose its potential and fade away.


    But as of now, the Thunder Yuan within the piece of Heavenly Peach wood was still alive and vigorous.


    He was going to integrate the piece of Heavenly Peach wood with his Emerald Pearl Sword. The combination would level up the power of his Flying Sword.


    In fact, even during the Middle Ages, the Heavenly Peach wood had been a top-quality material for forging Flying Sword. As long as the wisp of Thunder Yuan in the Heavenly Peach wood was dealt with well, it would not only greatly increase the attack force of the Flying Sword but also have a crucial influence on the sword''s speed. After all, there were not too many things in the world that could travel faster than thunderbolts.


    The Silver Moon Sword Technique was a complete system of practice; it included methods for creating Flying Sword. Of course, if it weren''t for this Junior Leopard would not have successfully made the Emerald Pearl Sword into a Flying Sword.


    But compared to the process of creating his first Flying Sword, the move to integrate the Heavenly Peach wood into the Flying Sword was still highly risky. A wrong move would destroy the Flying Sword and the invaluable Wood as well.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard could not help but be extremely cautious!


    Fortunately, before he made the Flying Sword, Junior Leopard had consulted Elder Qing thoroughly on this matter; he had knowledge about every single detail of the process of practicing the Flying Sword. He knew the matters that needed attention and the possible mishaps that could occur. He was choosing to do this only because he knew he had a 60 to 70 percent chance of success.


    For someone like Junior Leopard who liked to take risks, these odds were good enough for him.


    He flicked his finger lightly, and a single drop of blood flew out. It shot straight into the Heavenly Peach wood. His gaze tightened; a small part of his divine thoughts had been transferred into the Wood along with the drop of blood.


    HISS!


    A pleasurable feeling was transmitted to him from the Heavenly Peach wood, and his peering eyes suddenly opened wide.


    He felt great, really great. This was a wonderful feeling that arose from the depths of his mind.


    Peaceful and harmonious. Pure, without a single speck of impurity, and full of vitality!


    After Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts had attached to the Heavenly Peach wood, his entire being seemed to become purified from the inside out from an extraordinary energy. His mind was immensely clear, and his thoughts flowed smoothly inside his mind. He felt that even his divine thoughts had been purified; many intricate details had been integrated harmoniously.


    "Huh? This is¡ª!"


    At that precise moment, Junior Leopard''s expression became weird, as if he had discovered something strange.


    "Why is it like this? Why do I feel like I can infuse all of my divine thoughts into the Heavenly Peach wood!?" He felt surprised. A bizarre thought flashed through his mind.


    The way of Reining Sword was split into two types. The first type was to use Qi. The second one, which was also the higher level method, was to use Divine.


    To use Qi meant using one''s internal Qi to rein the sword; to use Divine meant to use the power of divine thoughts to rein the sword. Because Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts were extremely powerful, his method of Reining the Sword was to use his divine thoughts.


    Unlike Junior Leopard, the sword practitioners of the Middle Ages had not been able to sense the presence of divine thoughts. Their cultivation was below Level Seven.


    Therefore, the sword practitioners of the Middle Ages who had cultivation below Level Four used Qi for Reining Swords. When their cultivation reached Level Four, the Bone-Forging Realm, their spirit and willpower strengthened. While they still could not sense divine thoughts, they had devised another method of using their own essence and blood to nurture the sword. This allowed the Flying Sword to combine with the soul, reaching a state where the human and the soul became one. From there, they could progress to the level where they could use divine thoughts for Reining Swords.


    Therefore, for a real sword practicer, the Flying Sword in their hands would usually be the first Flying Sword they had nurtured using their essence and blood. The Flying Sword was deeply connected with their spirit. When it was destroyed, their spirit would be damaged as well.


    When their cultivation reached Level Seven, they would be able to sense the presence of divine thoughts. Only when they were able to attach a strand of divine thoughts to the Flying Sword, could they be said to have completed their Flying Sword and to truly use Divine for Reining a Sword.


    However, that meant that only a single strand of divine thoughts could be attached to the Flying Sword, like what Junior Leopard was experiencing right now. But he discovered that the Heavenly Peach wood could not only contain that strand of divine thoughts, it could accommodate the entirety of his divine thoughts.


    In other words, he could transfer all of his spirits into the Heavenly Peach wood and use it as an additional physical body!


    "It''s a pity that my spirit cannot leave my body completely!" Junior Leopard smiled wryly inside. In this world, with the start of cultivation, a key principle was the external and internal cultivation. The way of the external and internal cultivation firstly meant cultivation of the Internal Qi and the body together. After the cultivation reached Level Four, the spirit gradually changed and was unknowingly moisturized by the body and the Internal Qi during the cultivation. It expanded continuously. Meanwhile, during the expansion, the spirit became more and more closely connected with the body. Finally, they became inextricable; the spirit would never free itself from the body. Even if the spirit could actually leave the body, nobody dared to do that. There was a reason. Theoretically, once the spirit separated from the body, it would bring the essence out of the body. Thus, the body that one had strenuously practiced would die. Without the support and nourishment of the body, the spirit would also slowly disappear from the world.


    Therefore, spirits were inseparable from the physical body.


    "While I cannot transfer the spirit into the Wood, I can still transfer a relatively large amount of divine thoughts. Then I could manipulate it more easily!"


    The relationship between divine thoughts and spirit was actually very simple: If the spirit was a complete physical body, the divine thoughts would be appendages extending from the body.


    The stronger the spirit, the higher the number of appendages. When the spirit was practiced to a certain extent, the divine thoughts could even materialize, having a physical form with strong attack power.


    The usage of a celestial device depended on the divine thoughts. The more divine thoughts attached to a celestial device, the more powerful it would become, and the easier it would be for its owner to manipulate it.


    However, not everything in the world was able to absorb divine thoughts.


    Objects that were able to absorb divine thoughts needed to have intelligence. This was also why intelligent materials were required to forge Flying Swords.


    However, the intelligence of an object was hard to define, and the amount of intelligence within many kinds of materials differed greatly. Those with high intelligence were able to absorb more divine thoughts, and vice versa. In other words, the intelligence of the materials determined the quality of the Flying Sword or celestial device.


    For example, Demon Devil Needles had high intelligence, so Junior Leopard was able to infuse his divine thoughts into them completely. This allowed him to manipulate them as if they were his very own hands. Ultimately, however, the size of the Demon Devil Needles was much too small. Even if they were easy to manipulate, when 49 Demon Devil Needles were gathered, the total volume did not exceed that of his little finger.


    It was different for the Flying Sword. Its size was hundreds, even thousands of times larger than that of the Demon Devil Needles. Therefore, it was millions of times harder to manipulate it.


    While the relationship between intelligence and divine thoughts seemed abstruse, it was basically a matter of volume and capacity.


    The smaller the size of the celestial device, the more the divine thoughts were able to fill up the entire volume, allowing the user to manipulate it according to his will. However, if the size of the celestial device was large, the requirement for the level of intelligence of the materials would be very high. Because of this, in the Middle Ages, the Flying Swords were mostly the size of daggers and long swords were rare. This principle applied to celestial devices as well. Many large celestial devices existed in legend, but they mostly required a coordinating formation to be manipulated.


    The materials of Junior Leopard''s Emerald Pearl Sword would have been considered excellent, especially during the Middle Ages. This was why it was so easy for him to forge it into a Flying Sword. Furthermore, it had sufficient intelligence; Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts could wield the sword as if he was holding it. The sword''s weight was comparable to the strength of his hand, but even his hand would tire after a long period. Junior Leopard would not be able to infuse his divine thoughts entirely into the sword.


    The Heavenly Peach wood was different!


    Its intelligence level was so high that even if Junior Leopard transferred all his divine thoughts into it, it still could not be completely filled up. Thus, it would be as if he was holding a piece of dough in his hand. He could do whatever he wanted with it.


    "This is the first time I''ve seen something with such a high level of intelligence. I wonder what will happen when it integrates with my Emerald Pearl Sword?! You know, my sword isn''t just a Flying Sword!"


    Of course, the Emerald Pearl Sword was not just a Flying Sword; it was also one of Junior Leopard''s External Elixirs!


    It was an External Elixir that could practice independently and had cultivation at the peak of Level Six!


    Even though the Sword had been made into an External Elixir, it was nurtured in Junior Leopard''s Dantian. It had already merged with Junior Leopard himself. Their lives were tied together.


    "Here''s hoping I''ll succeed! If it fails, my External Elixir will be destroyed!" Junior Leopard fixated his gaze on the light green piece of Heavenly Peach wood in front of him, as he made his decision firmly.


    He opened his mouth. A ray of green light shot out and enveloped the entire piece of Heavenly Peach wood. The divine thoughts that had entered the Wood started to interact with the intelligence, causing it to integrate with the surrounding green light.


    At first, everything went smoothly, and nothing was out of place. The spiritual Qi within the Heavenly Peach wood readily infused with the Sword Qi. As the infusion went a step further, the light green Wood started to dissolve into dust, like the skull of Dragon Chimera had previously, and fused with the green light.


    "Great, everything is going well!"


    Through his divine thoughts, Junior Leopard felt the spiritual Qi of the Heavenly Peach wood integrate with the Green Jade Qian Element little by little; Junior Leopard was delighted.


    "Great! The Heavenly Peach wood has abundant spiritual Qi. After it fuses with my Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi, I''ll practice it using Bright Moon Deifying Technique. Then, the quality of my Flying Sword will increase at least one level. When that time comes...!"


    At that moment, just when he thought everything was going well, something happened.


    The Heavenly Peach wood, under the control of his divine thoughts, had completely broken down. At that instant, a small but immensely destructive power suddenly appeared.


    This power was so small yet so terrifying, that when it appeared, it dealt a huge blow onto his divine thoughts, causing them (they had long acquired a physical form) to shatter. The blow not only disrupted the divine thoughts within the Heavenly Peach wood; even his divine thoughts within the Emerald Pearl Sword were affected. It almost caused him to lose control of the sword.


    SZZZZ! Junior Leopards'' cross-legged form trembled violently for a moment, as if he had been electrocuted. He ground his teeth hard and forced his remaining divine thoughts to gather in one spot. Only then was he able to withstand the terrifying power.


    "Eff, this is Thunder Yuan!" Junior Leopard cursed quietly. Heavenly Peach wood contained Thunder Yuan. That he knew, but he had never thought that Thunder Yuan would be so violent, almost disintegrating his divine thoughts with a single blow and nearly affecting the spirit in his original body.


    However, after he had managed to withstand this single blow, an even stranger thing happened.


    The cyan sword light suddenly began to glow intensely. He had no chance to react before the Thunder Yuan within the Wood and the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi collided violently, creating an explosive reaction.


    WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!


    The cyan light from the sword started to circulate, and the dust from the Heavenly Peach wood began to gather into the light. A green starlight vortex was forming in front of Junior Leopard.


    "Psst, psst, clap, clap¡ª!"


    The vortex began to spin faster and faster. Tiny strands of hair-like blue lights appeared within the vortex, gradually filling it up.


    "I get it! The power of thunder in the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi is fusing with the Thunder Yuan!" Junior Leopard''s eyes flashed red. He understood everything.


    The Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill was an immensely powerful and rare cultivation method that had the properties of thunder. However, the properties of thunder were too violent. At the start of practice, if the inner body was not strong enough, it would not be able to withstand it. Therefore, the cultivation method had ways to suppress the violent nature of the Internal Qi''s thunder properties; it also only absorbed spiritual Qi with thunder properties from the surrounding air. Each time, only a small amount would be absorbed. The principle was to take it slowly, strengthening the person''s body and increasing its compatibility with thunder-propertied Internal Qi one step at a time. Only when the body was strengthened to a certain extent and the cultivation method was completed to a certain extent, would the absorption of thunder-propertied spiritual Qi gradually increase.


    Junior Leopard had used his External Elixir to practice this cultivation method, so he didn''t need to consider his body''s ability to bear the Internal Qi''s thunder properties. In addition, the External Elixir could practice independently 24/7. Therefore, it was natural that its Internal Qi would contain the power of thunderbolts.


    While the power of thunderbolts was strong, it was only formed from the thunder-propertied spiritual Qi that he had absorbed. Like a tree without roots, it did not have any foundation, so there was a certain limit to its power.


    However, Thunder Yuan was contained within the Heavenly Peach wood. While it was only a small amount, it was the source of the power of thunderbolts. As long as it was nourished carefully, it could produce the power of thunderbolts infinitely. Except that the wisp of Thunder Yuan was much too weak. It was extremely difficult to nurture it when it was within the Heavenly Peach wood. Now, the Wood had been removed from its roots. While it contained abundant vitality spirit and pneuma, it had become impossible for it to grow. In ten thousand years, when the vitality pneuma dissipated, it would die out as well.


    However, this situation was different. Within Junior Leopard''s Emerald Pearl Sword, the abundant power of thunderbolts was just right for nurturing the wisp of Thunder Yuan. Similarly, after gaining the Thunder Yuan, the Sword would be able to absorb the power of thunderbolts within the air more easily, and the absorbed power would be purer. The two complemented each other very well.


    Of course, it was impossible to see these benefits now. What could be seen was that the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill''s power of thunderbolts had been completely purified. This affected the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi once more. Under the influence of many sources of power, the vortex began to glow more brilliantly.


    As for the divine thoughts that had just been almost destroyed, Junior Leopard gathered them and transferred them into the vortex.


    "It seems that the nature of the Internal Qi is changing!" Receiving this information from his divine thoughts, Junior Leopard focused his gaze for a moment, and then he became overjoyed. "Yes, the nature of the Internal Qi is starting to change. This is a sign! It is progressing from Level Six to Level Seven!"


    Every practitioner knew there was a huge barrier between Level Six and Level Seven. To overcome this barrier, there were two tests that one needed to pass!


    The first was regarding the nature of Internal Qi; between Level Three and Four, the Internal Qi would transition from a scattered to an orderly state. This gaseous state was deeply complex. Much like a person''s spirit, it would not diffuse. Between Level Six and Seven, the Internal Qi would transition from a gaseous to a liquid state; this was the stuff of legends. The second was about the toughness of the physical body. The liquid Internal Qi required a body whose toughness was many times higher than before. Only when a groundbreaking change happened to the body and when the skeleton became as strong as steel, would the body be just barely able to withstand the Internal Qi.


    These two tests were tremendously difficult to pass.


    Therefore, those at Level Six, could only be called masters of martial arts; only those at Level Seven and above could be called experts!


    Since ancient times, these two tests had stumped countless talented people.


    But it was precisely because of these talented people that an alternative method, the practice of External Elixirs, was discovered. It allowed them to avoid the toughness of the body test.


    Later, these people found that the External Elixirs method could not only be used to pass this test, it had many other uses as well, causing the usage of External Elixirs to become extremely popular. Afterward, something similar to the antiquity times and the medieval period happened again: all of the materials available for the practice of External Elixirs were snatched up. Therefore, the materials for the practice of External Elixirs were extremely rare.


    Of course, this was not a concern for Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard had practiced the External Elixir for several years. Besides, he had also had the ingenious idea to let it practice independently and continuously. Its cultivation had long reached the peak of Level Six, and the Internal Qi had become extremely rich and intense.


    Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi had not only reached the gaseous state; under the purifying effects of Bright Moon Deifying Technique, it had become extremely pure and dense. While it was still in the gaseous state, it was much more powerful than normal gaseous Internal Qi. This was why Junior Leopard had the confidence to duel with experts at Level Seven and above.


    Except that, however rich and dense the Internal Qi was, if it did not undergo a qualitative change, it would not be able to step into Level Seven.


    He needed an opportunity, one that allowed him to step into Level Seven. Well, that opportunity was here now.


    The thunder-propertied power of the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill integrated with the Thunder Yuan. Finally, a change happened, causing his inside breath to begin to circulate.


    WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!


    POP! POP! POP!


    In the vortex, the green starlights and the mysterious blue electric lights interacted harmoniously, occasionally creating spark-like sound effects.


    KRR!


    WHOOSH! WHOOSH!


    When the rotation speed of the vortex reached a peak, its center suddenly froze, and a thin layer of green light started to extend in all directions. While this was a slow process, its effects were very obvious.


    Seeing with his eyes and feeling with his divine thoughts, he clearly sensed that wherever the green light reached, the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi had changed to the liquid state. In addition to the Internal Qi, the strands of electricity flashing within the vortex had become liquid as well, slowly gathering at its center.


    "Wow, this is amazing. I didn''t know that the violent thunder could also be gentle like water. It''s peaceful, like an undisturbed pond!" Junior Leopard expressed his amazement, while his hands focused on the task.


    His Internal Qi had upgraded to Level Seven, but at the same time, he was practicing his Flying Sword. He could not afford to neglect either of these processes.


    Gathering his divine thoughts once more, Junior Leopard''s fingers moved as he started to practice his Flying Sword.


    The cyan vortex slowly stopped rotating because the Internal Qi had turned into water. When the last drop of liquid thunder reached the vortex center, the rotation stopped automatically.


    POOF!


    There was a light sound, and then the cyan vortex exploded into dozens of liquid droplets.


    These droplets floated in front of Junior Leopard. There were eighty-one in total. Each droplet was identical in size and they glowed faintly like green crystals. Along with the glow, the occasional mysterious blue light would flash.


    "Gather!" Junior Leopard ordered coldly, his finger pointing forward. The eighty-one droplets merged into a green sphere the size of a kidney bean. However, this sphere was not liquid; it was solid with a metallic glow to it.


    "Haha, Sword Orb! I''ve created a Sword Orb without realizing it!" Junior Leopard''s face shone with delight. He raised his right index finger and tapped the Sword Orb. Automatically, it split into two rays of green light, twisting like two snakes around his fingertip. At last, they settled around his finger and solidified into a green-colored ring.


    "From now on, I won''t call you Emerald Pearl anymore. I''ll call you Biyou instead!"

 Chapter 230: Birth of the Purple Light, Separation of Two Realms

    Chapter 230: Birth of the Purple Light, Separation of Two Realms


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The purple lightning was extremely eye-catching within the clouds and the night sky. It was very normal for lightning to burst forth and disappear within the clouds. Everywhere there were strange blue lights. They were long or short, big or small. Each burst carried with it an extremely destructive spirit. Junior Leopard was already used to it.


    Yes, he was already used to it.


    However, when he saw this streak of purple lightning flash past, he felt a tug in his heart.


    He didn''t know why. He didn''t even know what the purple thunderbolt represented.


    This was just like when a baby was born, and he wanted to drink milk, to cry, and to make noise. It was an instinctive ability that he couldn''t sense.


    The feelings that Junior Leopard had for the purple thunderbolt were the same. When he didn''t see it, he didn''t know what it was. After seeing it, an ability that was hidden within his DNA told him to quickly obtain this purple thunderbolt in his hands. That was regardless of whether he knew how.


    The Nine Heaven Thunder Qi of the Blue Sword had long surpassed the requirements of cultivating the Jade Original Power Gang. The most important thing was that he ridiculously cultivated the second phase of the Carefree Skill. The Divine Rush Object and divine thoughts were also purified by the lightning power until it was extremely pure.


    "Could it be that I must use the Blue Sword to absorb this purple thunderbolt? That can''t be done. Now the Blue Sword''s Nine Heaven Thunder Qi is already brimming full. If it is not for the Peach divine wood sustaining it, it would''ve long exploded. If it entices the purple thunderbolt, it will definitely explode!"


    Junior Leopard thought in his heart, "Could it be that I must separate out my divine thoughts? Eh, that can be done!"


    Carefree Skill was a way to cultivate the spirit passed down from antiquity. It was miraculous. The first state, Guarding Spirit between Heaven and Earth, was repeatedly training and grinding the divine thoughts, allowing one''s divine thoughts to be pure and thick. No matter how thick and pure they were, divine thoughts were still tightly connected to the spirit. They couldn''t be separated. Just like the body and the limbs were connected. You can travel through air on a reigning sword celestial device through your divine thoughts. That was because theoretically speaking, divine thoughts could be extended endlessly. For example, these divine thoughts were basically one''s thoughts. Those who were rich in imagination could reach out to the galaxies billions of light years away. However, these thoughts were still inside the brain. No matter how far this reigning sword celestial device traveled, divine thoughts were still connected to the spirit. When one reached the second state, Divine Rush Object, the situation was different. It could allow the divine thoughts to completely separate, cutting off the connection between divine thoughts and the spirit. One''s individual thoughts had already attained an independent existence. Even if it was destroyed and completely collapsed, it would not affect one''s spirit.


    Even though this might be the case, he had never done so before.


    He stayed within the thunderclouds, and the divine thoughts were repeatedly purified by the thunder Evil Qi. His spirit was almost shattered by the lightning. Subconsciously, he had reached the state of Divine Rush Object. It was difficult to immediately ask him to separate out his divine thoughts to entice the purple thunderbolt that was nestled within the numerous lightnings.


    "Wealth is pursued in danger. When I separate out my divine thoughts, it''s unable to affect my spirit. It can''t even affect my Blue Sword. I should just try it!"


    The Blue Sword was filled with the power of his spirit. When a trace of thoughts split out, it wasn''t a difficult thing for him.


    With this decision, he naturally had to go all the way with it. Within this thundercloud, there wasn''t room for a shred of hesitation.


    Nine stalks of faint green light floated out from the Blue Sword. It floated and twice circled around the Blue Sword.


    These nine stalks of light were Junior Leopard''s thoughts.


    Divine Rush Object. Only when he reached this state and separated out his divine thoughts, Junior Leopard then suddenly realized that these divine thoughts were in stalks. They were like the green light emitted by fireflies. It was ghostly green like ghost fire. Actually, these were ghost fires.


    Damn, it was ghost fire!


    Junior Leopard scolded in his heart. Nine stalks of ghost fire. Oh, no, these nine thoughts circled around the Blue Sword for a few more rounds. He finally was used to letting the thoughts move according to his will.


    "Hong---!"


    A thunderbolt rang by the side. The nine thoughts were lost, and instantly it disappeared into nothing within this thunderbolt.


    "F**k!"


    Junior Leopard scolded loudly. There were again nine stalks of thoughts flying out from the Blue Sword. This was the greatest number of thoughts that he could separate out. This time around, he didn''t practice flying it. The nine thoughts clumsily floated towards the middle area of the thunderclouds.


    This road was not good to walk on.


    The thunderclouds were filled with thunder Evil Qi. If it was anyone else, just the dense Nine Heaven Thunder Qi was enough to destroy their thoughts. Junior Leopard cultivated the Divine Rush Object within the wrapping of the Nine Heaven Thunder Qi. Hence, just the Nine Heaven Thunder Qi was unable to destroy his thoughts.


    What worried him was the thunderbolts within the thunderclouds.


    "Kacha, kacha---!"


    A few thunderbolts roared and cut off the route of his thoughts. The speed of the nine thoughts slowed down tremendously. On the side, there was another thunderbolt which exploded destroying four of the thoughts.


    "Damn it! I spent so much effort just to let that thunderbolt strike me!" Junior Leopard scolded in his heart. Now that things had developed to such a point, whether the purple thunderbolt would destroy him or not, he had to try.


    The remaining five stalks hurried towards the center of the thunderclouds. There were another few thunderbolts ringing. Junior Leopard''s luck wasn''t bad. When the last thunderbolt rang, he still had one stalk of thought left. It rushed towards the vicinity of the purple thunderbolt.


    "Then, now, what do I do?!"


    The last thought rushed to the side of the purple thunderbolt. Junior Leopard didn''t know what to do.


    Do I rush in and get struck by lightning? If I don''t go forward, then what did I come here for?


    To research this purple thunderbolt?


    Please, I''m now only a mere thought!


    Yes, now the Junior Leopard by the side of the purple thunderbolt was only a thought. It was not his complete spirit. It wasn''t his divine thoughts either. It was just a thought split out from his divine thoughts. Junior Leopard''s instructions for this thought was to merely get close to the purple thunderbolt. As for what it should do once it got near, Junior Leopard hadn''t thought it through.


    When this thought neared the purple thunderbolt, it stopped. It followed by the side of the purple thunderbolt and didn''t rush forward. It didn''t leave either.


    Slowly, Junior Leopard discovered the mysteriousness of this purple thunderbolt.


    In the surroundings of the purple thunderbolt, everything became strange. It was swimming around the thunderclouds. In these clouds where lightning birthed and disappeared endlessly, the purple lightning was a unique existence. No matter where it swam, the thunderbolts near it would automatically cease. Even if they were just born, after the purple thunderbolt swam near it, it would disappear immediately. This purple thunderbolt was the king amongst the thunderbolts. No matter where it surveyed, the thunderbolts would surrender and no longer birth forth.


    As for Junior Leopard''s stalk of thought following near the purple thunderbolt, there wouldn''t be any danger of it being struck. That was because, in the surrounding of the purple thunderbolt, there wouldn''t be any chance of any lightning produced.


    "Kacha, kacha---!"


    A streak of lightning burst forth. However, it wasn''t near the thought. It was near the Blue Sword. The Blue Sword trembled and instantly moved towards the center of the thunderbolts towards where the purple thunderbolt was moving.


    "Oh no!"


    Junior Leopard was greatly shocked. The clouds'' surface area wasn''t big. Under the trembling of the thunderbolt, the purple thunderbolt was going to clash with the Blue Sword. Even though the purple thunderbolt''s route was haphazard, it was very obvious that it didn''t have the habit of giving way to things. As for Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts, they suffered a tremendous impact due to the lightning strike. They were unable to control the Blue Sword in a short moment''s time.


    "Let''s listen to heaven''s will!"


    Since things had developed to such a state, it could only be so.


    Let''s listen to heaven''s will!


    The thought that was following beside the purple thunderbolt suddenly rushed towards it like a moth pouncing at a fire.


    "Hong---!" The last stalk of thought thoroughly rushed into the purple thunderbolt. The purple thunderbolt that was moving closer to the Blue Sword suddenly stopped and brushed past the Blue Sword. At the same time, Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts regained normal operation. They began to control the path the Blue Sword took.


    "Pu---!" A weird sound rang. The stalk of thought that rushed into the purple thunderbolt didn''t get destroyed. Instead, it was spat out by the purple thunderbolt. At the same time, the purple thunderbolt squirmed into the thunderclouds and vanished.


    "What is happening exactly?!" Junior Leopard didn''t seem to understand at first. Suddenly, he felt that the stalk of thought that was spat out had a strange change. It was no longer green; it was more like a purple crystal shimmering with strands of purple light. As this purple crystal swam about the thunderclouds, it could actually produce the same effect as the purple thunderbolt.


    "Good fella!" Junior Leopard was excited. His divine thoughts extended out from the Blue Sword and instantly kept this purple thought.


    "Hong---!"


    If Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts were water, this thought that was split out had already turned into a drop of hot oil. Once it landed into the water, it instantly exploded within the divine thoughts. Numerous thin and fine purple lightning strands were released from this stalk of thought.


    "Gulp, gulp!"


    The Blue Sword trembled violently. The Thunder Yuan within the sword interacted with the purple lightning strands. There was a feeling of bloatedness. The Thunder Yuan was about to explode!


    "Return!"


    After that stalk of thought released the purple lightning strands, it stabilized within Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts. However, it had an oil-water relationship with his divine thoughts. Although it was still under his control, it was unable to merge with his divine thoughts. It could only have an independent existence.


    Just when the Thunder Yuan was about to explode from the lightning strands, that stalk of crystal thought moved. The remaining purple lightning strands were kept.


    The pressure on the Thunder Yuan was reduced. It began to digest the remaining lightning strands.


    Although this strand of purple lightning was very small, this Thunder Yuan appeared to Junior Leopard like an ant eating an elephant. Without ten days to half a month, it wasn''t possible to digest this purple lightning strand.


    He managed to heave a sigh of relief.


    After absorbing this stalk of thought, the Blue Sword could make a full retreat from within the thunderclouds.


    Although these thunderclouds were accumulating, with the presence of that purple thunderbolt, the lightning within the clouds was unable to harm Junior Leopard''s Blue Sword. The Blue Sword instantly split open the clouds and transformed into a blue rainbow in the sky returning into Junior Leopard''s fingertips.


    After keeping the Blue Sword, Junior Leopard heaved another sigh of relief. There was a whirl surrounding him. His body shook, and his face was like golden paper. At this moment, no matter if it was Elder Qing or Golden Rooster, they didn''t dare to go near him.


    After a long while!


    Junior Leopard finally recovered from the trembling. His back straightened. The weird whirl that appeared around his body had also vanished. He felt as weak as a person who just recovered from a major illness.


    "Junior Leopard, are you all alright?"


    "I''m fine. I just need some time to digest the rewards this time around!" Junior Leopard turned his head. The Smiling-face Mask on his face appeared even more intriguing at this moment.


    "You have loads of time!" Elder Qing smiled. Even though he didn''t know what Junior Leopard''s rewards were, he understood from the way the Blue Sword trembled that Junior Leopard had at least gathered enough Nine Heaven Thunder Qi for him to cultivate his Gang Qi.


    ...


    ...


    After a month, the rain had cleared the sky. The rain continued for several days causing the village grounds to become extremely muddy. Even though everyone has some abilities in the Immortal Palace, it was rare to use Lightness Skill. Even if the sky was clear, the people rarely went out. That was apart from Elder Qing, Junior Leopard, and Golden Rooster.


    "This damned treacherous weather is finally over," Junior Leopard looked at the endless clear sky and said.


    "Yes, finally it''s over, but you leaving so quickly is outside of my expectations. I thought that you would wait till your Jade Original Power Gang Spirit is completely stabilized."


    "There''s no need. I have already cultivated the Jade Original Power Gang. Now, I just need to solidify my realm," Junior Leopard said. "I couldn''t stay in Immortal Palace the whole day either. Afterall, there''s a load of things for me to do."


    "Yes, that''s my mistake," Elder Qing said. "I heard from the old man that you have learned quite a bit of the ancient language. You can already understand the collection from the medieval period."


    "The old man is overpraising me. I only learned to read a few words." Junior Leopard smiled. "The old man teaches well. If not, I wouldn''t learn so quickly. It''s a pity..."


    "There''s no pity. You are now one of the 28 Mansions in Immortal Palace. It''s propriety that he taught you. There are very few youngsters like you who are so hardworking and willing to learn the knowledge passed down from ancient times." Elder Qing helplessly shook his head. A look of pity was all over his face. "You could learn so much from him and have such achievements. I think the happiest person should be him and not you."


    Junior Leopard smiled and tilted his head. "No matter what, I still want to thank the old man!"


    "This old man had holed up in Immortal Palace for so many years. The thing he yearned for was to pass down all that he knew. If he could spread his teachings far and wide, that''ll be the greatest gratitude towards him." Elder Qing patted Junior Leopard. "During these times, the materials for Air-frozen Bead are not easy to find."


    "Yes, not easy to find, but as long as I''m willing, there''s a chance," Junior Leopard said.


    "Eh, the time is nigh. This old fella shan''t delay you any further. Yuquan, help me to send off Junior Leopard."


    "Yes!" Golden Rooster said.


    "Why, are you not going to leave with me?"


    "There''s no mission. Why am I leaving?" Golden Rooster smiled. "This is my house; I stay here!"


    "I understand." Junior Leopard raised his head. "No matter what, I still have to thank you. The benefits that I gained are much more than you all think."


    "Immortal Palace won''t care about how many benefits you got." Golden Rooster smiled. "We just need to know that you are one of us, that''s all."


    Junior Leopard''s gaze shifted slightly, "Keke, that''s reasonable!"


    "Then I shan''t send you." Golden Rooster sent Junior Leopard to the entrance of the village. "I have already spoken to you once about the way to enter Immortal Palace and its route. Do you need me to repeat?"


    "No need, I already remembered it," Junior Leopard said.


    ...


    ...


    Immortal Palace was situated within the Continuous Clouds Mountain Vein, a small mountain in Great Jin Qingzhou State. It was not a famous mountain, nor was it eye-catching. Much less needed to be said about its property.


    Those were the thoughts Junior Leopard had before entering.


    Following behind Golden Rooster into the palace, Junior Leopard realized that the Continuous Clouds Mountain Vein was not any smaller than the Misty Mountain. There was someone who used his Divine Sense to separate this huge mountain from the world and form a realm of its own. It only left behind a few small mountain peaks as the entrance and barriers only.


    This was the Space Division Skill!


    To use Divine Sense to cut out a portion of space to form a realm, this was the Divine Sense from antiquity times. It was very famous then. Junior Leopard also knew about such stuff. From the goat-skin scroll that he obtained from Xue Wuya, there was such a Divine Sense recorded. This kind of Divine Sense was similar to the comics in his past life, yet also somehow different.


    The Space Division Skill had two kinds of effects. The first was to temporarily cause a specified space to become independent from the world. This was no different from a barrier. The other kind was to separate it permanently to cause a world to be born.


    The former was easy to accomplish. The other effect was very difficult. That was because to permanently cut out a piece of land, not only a huge power was needed, another thing was required: Flickering Light Evil Qi!


    Yes, Flickering Light Evil Qi. The same thing that Junior Leopard used to cultivate the Three Realms Division.


    Space had its own way of healing itself. Junior Leopard once understood it, but not the way he understood it now. Just like a person''s body, after it was cut up, it will heal after a while. The speed at which space healed was much faster. Flickering Light Evil Qi could slow down the healing speed. Just like when Junior Leopard was activating the Three Realms Division, if there wasn''t Flickering Light Evil Qi, he would be shredded into meat chunks in a short instant by the space.


    Similarly, when using the Space Division Skill, to permanently cut off a space to be independent, Flickering Light Evil Qi must be used to cause a cut-out space to be independent from the original space. Space was then divided into two which would grow independently into two different spaces.


    After entering the palace, he looked back to see that gateway had vanished. Only a huge rock remained at the foot of the Continuous Clouds Mountain Vein.


    "To cut out a space in the Continuous Clouds Mountain Vein that is as big as the Misty Mountains requires an enormous Divine Sense!"


    Seeing the few mountain peaks behind him, Junior Leopard sighed. He was impressed and fearful, "No matter what, I have finally settled the problem of my twin hammers. I''m unable to cut out the entire mountain, but I know where there is Flickering Light Evil Qi. I also know about the method to cut out a space to fit my twin hammers. The benefits that I gained from the palace this time around are too much!"


    When thinking about the rewards he reaped this time, Junior Leopard couldn''t control himself. He deeply breathed in and heaved out a long breath.


    He refined the Blue Sword. His External Elixer''s cultivation broke through Level Six. He absorbed the Nine Heaven Thunder Qi and formed the Green Jade Qian Element Original Gang. His Carefree Skill had been cultivated to the state of Divine Rush Object. Furthermore, there was that stalk of thought that had been purified by the purple thunderbolt. Now, there were the refining methods of the Space Division Skill and the Air-frozen Bead.


    Junior Leopard had been aware of none of these before coming to the palace.


    Of course, to Junior Leopard, the biggest rewards were not breaking through Level Seven, nor the formation of Gang Qi, nor even the Space Division Skill. It was the thought that had been purified by the purple thunderbolt.


    Even though Junior Leopard didn''t know what was its special purpose, when that thought was in the Blue Sword, the lightning strands that had been spilled out were now completely merged with the Thunder Yuan. It could be said to be completely dissolved. At the same time, where it greatly increased the power of the Thunder Yuan, it also changed the substantive nature of the Thunder Yuan. It could be said to be like the Mysterious Fire within Junior Leopard''s Dantian changing his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi. When the Thunder Yuan absorbed the purple lightning strands, it began to flash some purple intent. Junior Leopard could feel that as long as the Thunder Yuan completely dissolved the strand of purple lightning, the pneuma birthed forth from the Thunder Yuan would be much more powerful than a normal thunderbolt, even if it wasn''t like the purple lightning snake.


    "I have really gained much this time around!" Junior Leopard raised his head to look at the sky. The corner of his lips underneath the mask flashed a satisfying smile. "Space Division Realm. Looks like I have to take a trip!"

 Chapter 231: Taixuan Thunder Saber and Awards from the Imperial Court

    Chapter 231: Taixuan Thunder Saber and Awards from the Imperial Court


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was a silent and moonless night with only scattered stars, forming a brilliant starry river across the sky. The way it gleamed gave the impression of countless blinking eyes overlooking the heaven and earth.


    Junior Leopard stood in the deep valley where Xue Wuya once captured him, wearing a complicated expression.


    "Is this the starry river I saw in my previous life?"


    This was a bit of a funny thing to him. In his previous life, he often heard of the Milky Way as a child, but he had never seen what it was exactly.


    Mostly, what he saw was the Big Dipper. Whenever he was bored in the evening, he would look up to the sky and fixed his eyes on the Big Dipper.


    He hadn''t seen the Big Dipper since coming to this world. Without the asterism, the sky here wasn''t vastly different from the sky in his previous life. Perhaps, he didn''t notice any besides the starry river that spanned the sky.


    "Interesting. This world also has the 28 constellations and the same names as the earth, but there''s no Big Dipper. Wonder how they classify the constellations. Now I''ve also become one of constellations in the sky!"


    Junior Leopard lied in the valley in Misty Mountain, the exact same place where he killed Xue Wuya.


    10 years had passed by. Junior Leopard didn''t think he would still have a connection with Xue Wuya after killing him and leaving this godforsaken place as well as gaining profits from him.


    Everything was beyond his expectations. He didn''t expect to form a connection with Xue Wuya after 10 exact years.


    Xue Wuya was also one of the 28 constellations in the Immortal Palace.


    Wang She, the Chief of the Tian Long Taoism, was one. So was Xue Wuya, the expert in Blood River Sect of the Dark Sect.


    Based on these two aspects, it was obvious how much power lied behind this unknown Immortal Palace.


    However, this was not what he should be thinking about right now. He was collecting the Flickering Light Evil Qi. After practicing the Space Division Skill, a sudden interest brought him here. Those two places were close to each other. Based on his current power, he could arrive in several days. The surrounding poisonous insects and fierce beast wouldn''t be an issue to him.


    The only thing that disappointed him was he still didn''t get to see that little thing this time.


    The Space Division Skill was incredibly powerful and formidable but also gave rise to thoughts of cutting more spaces.


    He could achieve the first effect of the Space Division Skill, though the space covered would only be within a 1,000-feet circumference. If he wanted to maintain it, he would have to consume much of his energy, making it a great burden to him. If he didn''t have to worry about energy consumption, he could form a small barrier within a 10-feet radius. It could be useful to scare off others but useless in actual combat.


    The second effect was what he valued most. It was actually his idea to cut a patch from real space to be his own independent space. After practicing the Space Division Skill, he could divide real space as much as he liked. After all, space could recover by itself and it didn''t matter how much space he could take.


    His idea was too simple and he was also being too greedy. The truth was the successful practice of the Space Division Skill still didn''t give him the ability to divide space without restraint.


    That was because the divided space needed to connect with the spirit. It was the only way it could be controlled and used. Otherwise, even if he could divide space into many pieces, they would disperse in the endless hollow like hydrogen balloons.


    Moreover, space should connect with the spirit instead of the divine thoughts. If his divine thoughts could be connected, he could divide some and even send out his thoughts because his Carefree Skill had been practiced into a Divine Rush Object state. At most, he could divide 18 thoughts. What was more, even if those thoughts were destroyed, he could produce new thoughts again after his divine thoughts recovered. If the divine thoughts didn''t reproduce, the thoughts wouldn''t die. Meanwhile, the stronger his divine thoughts became, the more thoughts he could divide. When he could divide 81 thoughts, he could reach the next state of the Carefree Skill. It was certainly beyond his imagination now. Being capable of diving 18 thoughts while in the initial phase of the Divine Rush Object, his divine thoughts were far stronger than that of ordinary experts. In the future, even if he wanted to increase another thought, he needed to accumulate much more powerful divine thoughts.


    It was a pity that the space divided using the Space Division Skill didn''t connect with his divine thoughts but directly bound to his spirit. Divine thoughts were only a key to the space.


    Thus, even though Junior Leopard had much stronger divine thoughts and large numbers of thoughts, they could only act as keys. Their bond with his spirit meant he couldn''t divide additional space. He could only increase his cultivation and wait until his spirit become stronger to expand the capacity of his existing space.


    Now, the size of his space was just enough to contain his two large hammers.


    There was no more space for other things.


    But that was enough to satisfy Junior Leopard, very much so.


    At least, he didn''t need to be vexed about those two large hammers any longer. He could just bring them wherever he went.


    "Now that I''m carrying the two hammers with me, who would still dare to cause trouble for me? Isn''t that right, Little Du?"


    Junior Leopard patted Little Du''s head with a smile.


    "Hu, hu!" Little Du stuck out its tongue, licking Junior Leopard''s hand intimately. Its eyes flickered, looking more intelligent than before. Of course, its body was also much smaller.


    That was right. In the past, it was as big as a calf, but it was now the size of a small Pekingese dog. Its silver skin was clean and shining. When it bared its fangs, it gave off a chilling light. If it didn''t widen the mouth, nobody would believe it to be an evil beast of spiritual intelligence.


    Little Du could indeed be regarded as an evil beast. Its drastic change started from that Buyan Gerel.


    Once, when Junior Leopard fought Buyan Gerel, the latter knocked Little Du unconscious. That caused Junior Leopard to bombard the unfortunate Buyan Gerel to death. Surprisingly, its fist intent neither faded nor vanished completely. Instead, most of it was absorbed by the comatose Little Du. Little Du fell into a deeper sleep and wouldn''t wake. If not for Junior Leopard''s deep connection with Little Du in their hearts telling him that, he would have worried about it for a long time.


    Because Little Du was deeply asleep, Junior Leopard had to visit the remote prairie by himself. He was planning to bring Little Du with him so it could grow through fighting in the prairie.


    Now Junior Leopard thought it was fortunate he didn''t bring Little Du there. Otherwise, perhaps it would just be a burden to him after encountering Dark Lord Mie Chen in the Devil Valley.


    There wasn''t any use bringing up all these now. It just came to him when he saw Little Du.


    It had been three months after he returned from the Immortal Palace. In that time, besides going home once, he spent almost all his time here to practice the Space Division Skill.


    The wide-awake Little Du was his companion. While he practiced, it became the tyrant of the place and was also reponsible for supplying him with food.


    After absorbing Buyan Gerel''s fist intent, Little Du was stronger and smarter than before. In Junior Leopard''s eyes, it was now akin to a 12-year-old child except it didn''t have the ability to talk. With its companionship, he didn''t feel fretful.


    "Little Du, what do you think about this place?"


    "Wu, wu, wu!"


    "Haha! You think it''s good? I think so too!" Junior Leopard patted Little Du''s head and sat up. "This place is really nice. If I feel tired someday, I''d go clean up the cave outside and live inside. That should be pretty nice!"


    "Wu, wu, wu!"


    "You also want to live inside? Okay, I''ll build a lair for you and have you stay with me!"


    "Wu, wu, wu!"


    "Okay, okay, okay. Your lair will be a good one without a leaking roof," Junior Leopard said, smiling.


    With the increase of Little Du''s spiritual intelligence and his spirit, their connection became closer and stronger, and their relationship better than before. When he had nothing to do, he would chat with Little Du. Thanks to their spiritual connection, it could express its feeling through a voice understandable to him even though it couldn''t talk. The three months they spent here sharply improved the friendship between the man and the wolf.


    "That''s enough. Little Du, stop thinking about that. Your master has many things to deal with. How can I live in seclusion here leisurely?" Junior Leopard patted Little Du''s head. "Sleep now. We''ll be returning tomorrow I''ll be preparing for my duel with that little girl!"


    He didn''t take the duel against the girl from the Meng Family seriously at first. Meng Qingrong may be a talent rarely seen in over 100 years in the Meng Family in Ningzhou, but she was nobody compared to Junior Leopard.


    As the madman who dared to mess with Dark Lord Mie Chen and also escaped unscathed, he had the confidence to face any foe in this world.


    However, that didn''t include the stranger in the thunder he saw the other day. He wasn''t a person on the ground but in the heaven.


    Meng Qingrong may be a talent and the Meng Family in Ningzhou may exert great influence, but they couldn''t be stronger than Dark Lord Mie Chen and their force couldn''t surpass the Palace of Destruction Demon.


    However, he couldn''t help raising his guard after receiving a particular news recently.


    The duel this time had attracted great deal of attention in the martial arts world. Now, things were set over in the northern area. The numbers of martial arts masters in Northern Yuan had been dwindling, either killed by experts from the Central Plains or seeking refuge with other influences in the Palace of Destruction Demon and the Kun Lun Gilding Roof. The two greatest schools had obviously reached a certain tacit agreement and made compromises. There was no problem for the Northern Yuan masters to get to the territories of both schools for protection. They were taken in on the premise that they wouldn''t go against Great Jin anymore, even assisting Great Jin when it was to conquer the prairie.


    Two-thirds of those in the martial arts world had acquiesced helplessly while the remaining became horse thieves and bandits in the prairie. They became mere horse thieves and bandits after losing the backup force of Northern Yuan troops for their schools.


    With the fame and influence of Northern Yuan, some well-known experts like the Four Wolves were hunted down by the experts Great Jin sent. Some were killed, while others escaped. It would be hard for them to see daylight again. Therefore, such horse thieves and bandits could only provoke small troubles and nothing major. At the same time, they were a lot less attractive to those of the martial arts world in Great Jin. They were just like homeless dogs, so it was unnecessary to dedicate too much energy to deal with them.


    Thus, the martial arts world in Great Jin had long turned their focus away from Northern Yuan toward something else.


    It was the duel between Zhou Bao, an Elder of the Wu Family, and Meng Qingrong, the young master of the Meng Family in Ningzhou!


    It was a duel that had been agreed on two and a half years ago. Meng Qingrong, the most outstanding martial arts master in a hundred year in the Meng Family in Ningzhou, had left home to gain experience and met Zhou Bao, who was the Navy Commander of Jiang City. A fire sparked between them, leading to a violent fight that started a thousand-year legend in Jianghu.


    In that fight, Zhou Bao, who had Level Four cultivation, not only defeated Meng Qingrong but also killed a Level Seven expert sent by the Meng Family to protect her in secret.


    The fact that a Level Four person killed a Level Seven person pushed him to stardom, making him a true legend in Jianghu.


    Later, Zhou Bao of the Wu Sect showed his excellent performance in the war against Northern Yuan. Though he didn''t make many achievements, each battle he took part in was breathtaking and unbelievable.


    While escorting the food and fodder, he killed the Level Eight expert Buyan Gerel, one of the Four Wolves of the prairie. He went deep into the prairie and returned with a half-dead Wang She, the chief of the Tian Long Taoism who was hunted down by Wan Li, one of the three Grandmasters.


    Rumors had it that Junior Leopard rescued Wang She from Dark Lord Mie Chen and also cooperated with Wang She to injure Mie Chen severely, even digging out one of Mie Chen''s eyes.


    Though Junior Leopard''s previous exploits were amazing, this rumored fight was enough to dwarf them all.


    The martial arts world and Jianghu were always filled with rumors and what the pugilists often said was there was no smoke without fire.


    Even Junior Leopard hadn''t really taken out Mie Chen''s eye, but it was Wang She who admitted that Junior Leopard had saved him. Thanks to that, the Tian Long Taoism owed Junior Leopard a great favor.


    Thus, there was little suspense about the fight.


    No one would think Meng Qingrong would win. Junior Leopard''s strength was there for everyone to see. With the celestial device, he could fight directly with a Level Eight expert and bombard him to death.


    As for Meng Qingrong?


    Even if she was a genius who had the Meng Family, a powerful thousand-year family, backing her up, she couldn''t close the gap in their strength.


    Moreover, Junior Leopard wasn''t a mere disciple who only had the Wu Sect in Yunzhou as his backer anymore. There was also the Tian Long Taoism.


    Having saved Wang She''s life, the Tian Long Taoism had publicly shown their support to him. With this, the Meng Family could only battle it out with Junior Leopard through a real duel rather than pressuring him using their family influence.


    Now, Junior Leopard''s victory was considered a sure bet in Jianghu. Of course, there were also several people with a fluke mind betting on Meng Qingrong.


    Junior Leopard wasn''t concerned about all these rumors in Jianghu. Neither success or failure meant much to him. Besides, he was even willing to throw the game if the Meng Family offered favorable enough conditions. Regretfully, as a result of the support of the Tian Long Taoism, the Meng Family didn''t dare to bribe him. He was rather disappointed about this.


    Junior Leopard wasn''t a person who paid much attention to the outcome. He cared only about his cultivation and practice in the future. He didn''t want to be too concerned about worldly things like victories and defeats.


    Even so, there were others who did. The Wu Family, in particular, were very concerned and looked for information through various channels. All these naturally was relayed back to Junior Leopard.


    Now, Junior Leopard knew Meng Qingrong like the palm of his own hand. He knew everything including when she was born, the number of meals she had a day, her favorite color, the clothes she liked the most, the martial arts she had once learned, those that she was good at, her dueling experiences, her opponents, as well as the movement that caused her victory or defeat.


    What shocked him the most was the intel on the number of times Meng Qingrong went to the bath and restroom. These were all provided to him by the Wu Family. But he believed they weren''t capable of getting such detailed information based on their influence. The Tian Long Taoism must have secretly backed them up.


    If one knew the enemy and knew himself, one need not fear the result of a hundred battles. It was somewhat nonsensical to learn about such details.


    Even so, he didn''t stop them from collecting such information. Being in Jianghu, there was nothing he could do. His position wasn''t the same as several years ago. He couldn''t change such wicked behavior, only adapt himself to the dusty world.


    Recently, a particular intel had caused him to be vigilant. It was a piece of information the Wu Family had always wanted to find out but failed to so.


    It was information about Meng Qingrong''s celestial device.


    Junior Leopard had the strength to bombard experts to death, rescued Wang She from Dark Lord Mie Chen, and also possessed a celestial device.


    With all his advantages, Meng Qingrong should inevitably have one or two impressive tools if she wanted to duel with Junior Leopard.


    Her ability?


    With these three years, if the Meng Family had spared no expense, they would have fostered her into a Level Seven expert. But was a mere Leven Seven expert enough to fight with the monster-like Junior Leopard?


    Wasn''t Dragon Granny a Level Seven expert? Three years ago, Junior Leopard had bombarded her to death. He even killed Buyan Gerel, a Level Eight expert, and fed his opponent''s fist intent to his pet.


    Under such circumstances, was there any use even if the Meng Family pushed Meng Qingrong to the Level Nine realm at all cost?


    What about pushing her to Level Eight?


    The Meng Family didn''t have such an ability.


    The Meng Family could promote a Level Four expert to Level Seven if they spared no cost and wasted the expert''s future prospects. But fostering a Level Eight expert was not something an influential family like they could do. It wasn''t something the Tian Long Taoism could do either, nor the Sect of Flame, the Mingyi School, the Lone Kill Palace, and the Kunlun Golden Roof in Northern Yuan.


    It was a recognized fact that a Level Seven expert couldn''t defeat Zhou Bao. Even if Meng Qingrong was forcibly promoted to be a Level Eight expert, she had little chance of winning.


    Hence, a defeat wasn''t too big of a deal. If the Meng Family didn''t want to lose so badly, they only needed to put some effort in other aspects.


    What other aspects?


    A celestial device! They could bring out even a magic weapon or an Ancient Treasure!


    In the war against Northern Yuan, there were two things that shocked the world. The first was the annihilation of Northern Yuan. The country had a history spanning over 10,000 years and had a firm presence in the northern prairie. It had advanced shoulder-to-shoulder with the Central Plains, occasionally bullying the tribesmen from the Central Plains. What was undoubtedly shocking was its defeat and loss of its nation and people. The second was the force of the Ancient Treasure.


    Not even unparalleled experts in the Mysterious Realm had the power to retaliate under the force released by the Ancient Treasure. It was believed that anyone from the martial arts world witnessing scene would have received a great shock, giving rise to a strong frustration and helplessness. They also became so dispirited that their cultivation had no progress. Though some didn''t see it for themselves, they shared the same feeling after hearing about it.


    The Clear Glass Jade Bottle, an Ancient Treasure, brought too great a shock to those from the martial arts world. Naturally, not many knew much about the ancient treasure.


    An Ancient Treasure was also used to easily subdue an expert in the Mysterious Realm. Then there was Junior Leopard who continuously killed two Level Seven experts using a celestial device. What if Meng Qingrong also had a celestial device of her own?


    Then that meant she hadn''t lost total hope for victory.


    In terms of family origin and background, Junior Leopard was far beneath Meng Qingrong. If he was lucky enough to gain a celestial device, why couldn''t the young master of Meng Family get one?


    It was a common assumption that Meng Qingrong would use her celestial device in the duel, but no one knew what would the device be.


    Even with the influential Tian Long Taoism trying their hardest to learn about Meng Qingrong''s celestial device, they got nothing. They barely found out that it was a celestial device with great power.


    That was right. The Tian Long Taoism had confirmed that Meng Qingrong owned a celestial device three months ago. It was said to have strong offensive force, but the intel didn''t specify how powerful it was.


    That was what Junior Leopard''s main concern. It was one big deal to lose, but losing his life would be too heavy a loss.


    "How troublesome! The Meng Family is a large household. Even if it''s hard, it''s not impossible for them to get a celestial device. If they really want to kill me and get two more devices for the girl, wouldn''t that mean I''m out of luck? Forget it. I can''t control the Meng Family, but I can improve myself. I still have some time. Maybe I should try and get promoted to one level higher!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t know the opponent''s strength and could only improve his ability. Through his experiences in Jianghu, he came to learn an important lesson. There was no use for benevolence and righteousness in Jianghu, only ability. Since that he could not control his opponent''s strength, he could only enhance his own.


    ¡­


    ...


    Tiger City, Bohai County, Ningzhou City.


    The Ningzhou Governor Mansion was in the regional city of the Tai City in Nanyang County, not in the Bohai County.


    Compared to solemness of the Nanyang County, the Bohai County was booming with commercial development. It was also home to the thousand-year Meng Family, also the first family in Ningzhou City. The Tiger City was also the home to their ancestors.


    The Meng Family in Ningzhou was one of the biggest families with power and influence, with a legacy of 3,000 years inherited by its current generation. 3,000 years ago, the family gained fame in the Tiger City, though the city wasn''t named that at that time. It was just an ordinary centralized town then, like the Qingyang Market in Yunzhou or worse. It was just a street about hundreds of meters long with several small shops. It was thus called the Small Shop Street and villagers called it the Little Shop.


    Nobody would have expected the town to evolve into a city 3,000 years later. Though it was neither the biggest nor richest in Ningzhou City, it was the most significant city of them all: the Tiger City!


    The city named after the patriarch of the Meng Family named Tiger Meng. He had been an attendant in a grocery store in the Small Shop Street.


    The city was now a thousand times larger compared to 3,000 years ago. Only one thing remained unchanging: the city was always tranquil and elegant because Tiger Meng liked tranquility.


    The city was located by a river connected to the Bohai Sea at the foot of Mountain Ya. The city was a seaside city.


    "Shi''an, is this really fine for Qingrong? I''m worried she won''t be able to take it!"


    25,000 meters away from the old Meng Family residence, a gentle and soft voice rang out in a yard. Over the course of the past half year, the voice had asked this question many times but each time the reply was the same: only a sigh.


    This time, there was something else the person received in reply besides a sigh.


    "I know you''re concerned about Qingrong but there''s nothing we can do. There''s only half a year left until the three-year agreement. If she fails to master the Taixuan Thunder Saber in this time she won''t have any chances of winning the duel six months later!"


    "Why must she win? Does it matter if she loses?" The person''s soft voice became agitated. "You''re well aware of the strength of Zhou Bao of the Wu Sect. Never mind a Level Eight expert, even Dark Lord Mie Chen suffered great loss in his hands! So what if Qingrong loses? Why must Qingrong master the Taixuan Thunder Saber? Why must she defeat Zhou Bao? And even if she succeeds in mastering the Taixuan Thunder Saber, it doesn''t mean she can kill Zhou Bao!"


    "You''re right. Even though she succeeds, she doesn''t have much of a hope to win. But even if she loses, she shouldn''t bring shame to our family. If you want to blame someone, then blame Qingrong for being unfortunate enough to be born in our Meng Family and to encounter that monster Zhou Bao while gaining experience outside."


    "But...!"


    "That''s enough!" The voice suddenly became firm. "It''s almost time for the imperial court to offer their awards. It''s a once-in-a-thousand-year opportunity to destroy Northern Yuan and every influential family intends to make a fortune out of it. If we want to get enough fortune, we must show our complete strength. Martial arts masters and experts from our family had already made great contributions and won enough honor, promising us better awards than other families. But if Qingrong fails to show our family''s strength in this duel, it''ll most likely affect the imperial court''s evaluation of us and our benefits. I can''t let it happen as the head of the Meng Family!"


    "You''re the Family Head but you''re also Qingrong''s father!"


    "That''s enough talk. Ruyu, go back and have a rest. I believe Qingrong will successfully master the Taixuan Thunder Saber."


    ...


    ...


    Taixuan Thunder Saber?


    Awards from the imperial court?


    Zhou Mansion, Qingyang Market.


    In the newly established hall, Junior Leopard crushed the letter he had just received to smithereens.


    He had received the letter as soon as he came back from the Misty Mountain. The letter detailed how the Meng Family in Ningzhou had Meng Qingrong refine the wizard weapon, the Taixuan Thunder Saber, so she could win.


    It was a wizard weapon, not a celestial device.


    Though, in essence, the wizard weapon was a kind of celestial device, but those from the martial arts world tend to regard it as an independent system, like the Flying Sword.


    Like a celestial device, a wizard weapon could also be refined and controlled. Based on Meng Qingrong''s ability, she could refine by blood at most and barely reach a level where she could control the weapon. It may be amazing to ordinary folks in the martial arts world, but not worth a mention forJunior Leopard.


    After all, his other identity was none other than a sword practitioner, and a strong sword practitioner with a Flying Sword of Earthly Rank who had entered the Immortal Place at that.


    Therefore, he was somewhat relieved after receiving the intel. Fortunately, it was a wizard weapon instead of some eccentric celestial device. Even if this Taixuan Thunder Saber possessed a strong power, he had no fear and believed he could handle it with ease.


    The second news was what intrigued him the most.


    The imperial court would reward those who had made contributions to the war conquering Northern Yuan.


    The conquest of Northern Yuan wasn''t only the work of the imperial court of Great Jin. It was also the result of the concerted effort from the influential families and the entire martial arts world. As a smart imperial court, it wouldn''t miss the opportunity to reward and win hearts.


    The rewarding should have happened even earlier but was delayed due to a large number of contributors. But everyone knew it would also be the largest rewarding in history once it happened.


    Junior Leopard also understood the reward would also include him, and a large portion at that.


    Though he didn''t make many moves this time, only twice, but it was enough to surpass the merits of most people.


    Not everyone could defeat a Level Eight expert in the prairie and deliver the rations and forage to the front line safely. Not everyone could go deep to the front line and rescue a Level Nine expert with perceptible breathing from Dark Lord Mie Chen, one of the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan.


    Initially, he didn''t care for the reward but couldn''t help becoming intrigued after reading the intel. That was because his award wouldn''t be ordinary. He would also be given a land besides an official position and wealth.


    This time, the imperial court was actually awarding him the fief!


    ...


    Eight thousand words.

 Chapter 232: Enfeoff Lands, Closed-Door Training

    Chapter 232: Enfeoff Lands, Closed-Door Training


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The imperial court wanted to enfeoff lands.


    They wanted to divide the northern prairies into numerous pieces and bestow them to people with merits.


    This was the final act to close the curtains of the Great Jin''s extermination of Northern Yuan.


    However, this news was still secret and had not yet been released. Even the Wu Family and Tian Long Taoism didn''t know about it. Just as they didn''t know what kind of celestial device the Meng Family in Ningzhou gave to Meng Qingrong.


    The intelligence was sent by the Immortal Palace.


    "Who would''ve thought that the Immortal Palace would actually plant spies within the Great Jin? They can even obtain such information!"


    The matter of the enfeoff was only known by the Emperor and a few trusted subordinates who discussed it privately. Not just the details, even the broader issues were not known. For example, to whom should it be distributed, what were the benchmarks for distribution, or how much each person could obtain? These required long periods of discussion and research. Maybe this was just a concept between the Emperor and a few trusted subordinates. There must have been a slip of the tongue somewhere because, even though Tian Long Taoism hadn''t sourced it out, the Immortal Palace already knew.


    "Forget it. No matter how the Immortal Palace knows is none of my business. I only need to go with the flow. I have racked up some great achievements in this extermination war. Even if my merits aren''t the greatest, I''ll definitely have the qualifications for the fief. Could it be that I have to go to Northern Yuan to be a landowner?"


    Junior Leopard was disturbed to think about the repercussions of the enfeoff this time. This might not be the best method, but it was the most efficient one.


    The Great Jin''s land system was structured around states and counties. This was similar to Junior Leopard''s past life. A high degree of control around the central power was required.


    Under such a system, the lands were privatized. If you had money, you could buy fields or even a whole mountain. It could be passed down for a thousand or even ten thousand years. You could build a house on your own land, plant fields, and raise pigs and chickens. You could even let the lands be used for nothing, to play golf or kick soccer. No one would care. However, you had to pay taxes. You couldn''t own an army. You would be restricted by the local administration. If there was a murder, you needed to report it to the local administration. No matter how much land you owned, they still belonged to the soil of the Great Jin. It was managed by the Great Jin. Even if a whole county belonged to you, you would still only be a landowner. When you saw the Magistrate, you still had to bow down.


    There is neither any inch of land doesn''t belong to the Emperor, nor any people living in the land beyond the Emperor''s control. That was the meaning.


    The fief system was different. After the enfeoff, you would be the absolute owner of the land. You had the power to receive taxes and grow an army. Besides from the fact that the land was outside of the Great Jin, your scope of powers was similar to the Great Jin''s Emperor. No matter if you were only bestowed with a county, you would be the emperor in that county. You could freely kill the citizens within that county. You could freely rob and rape. Nobody would care not even the Great Jin Emperor.


    It was believed that no matter who it was that obtained this piece of information, the entire Great Jin would stir up a huge wave of passion to enter into the Northern Yuan prairies to kill the bandits.


    Who wouldn''t want to obtain a piece of land where he could be an overlord? This was just like cultivating martial arts. When one''s prowess was trained to the extreme, with an enormous strength, even a nation''s power was unable to threaten you anymore. Not only could you enjoy longevity, you could also have freedom. If one could obtain a piece of land in the Northern Yuan, there was no need to train one''s martial arts to the pinnacle. One could still be free.


    "Enfeoff is a solution that is not a solution. If it is properly done, the Great Jin will not need to worry about the instability of the Northern Yuan for at least a thousand years."


    Junior Leopard carefully thought about the Northern Yuan powers and the consequences of the enfeoff. He felt in his heart that the Emperor and his subordinates must have really thought this through.


    The area of Northern Yuan was immense and it was several folds bigger than the Great Jin. Destroy and conquer was not such a big deal while implementing an effective management was pretty tough, especially when the Great Jin had already begun large-scale immigration. The immigration wasn''t to move the Jin people up north, but to impose prairie people as slaves, captives and then sold them to the south.


    Over tens of thousands of years, the Northern Yuan nomads liked to rob and steal from the people in Central Plains. The Jin imperial court was vicious. They wanted to cut off their roots. Northern Yuan had always been sparse in population within such a vast land. After experiencing a heavy snowstorm and an extermination war, the population had dwindled beyond comparison, especially the fit males: 90% of them were gone. There were few remaining old and sick people. After experiencing the Great Jin''s plundering, there wasn''t anyone left other than a few groups of bandits. It had become an empty wasteland.


    In name, the prairies belonged to the Great Jin but without the manpower to manage it. This desolate place was tens of thousands of miles away from the Central Plains. Transport was inaccessible. If a state/county system was really implemented, it would take at least half a year to reach the north from the central area.


    Someone was going to wonder if there were enough experts and strong people. They could fly thousands of miles a day. Even treasure horses could do that. They could deliver messages!


    The problem was that they are too few in numbers!


    It was not possible to ask a Level Seven expert to be a postman, was it?


    Occasionally, when there were urgent matters, these experts could be used to issue imperial decrees. However, if they really instituted a state province system, the imperial court had only so many government orders every year. If they sent it out piece by piece, how could there be enough experts to deliver the message? How could there be so many treasured horses?


    To institute a system of provinces in the prairies would only result in the Great Jin having looser and weaker control over the northern prairies. In the end, it might even lead to a loss of complete control. The Central Plains would then once again descend into a passive stance.


    It was different with an enfeoff. To bestow the land to numerous people was the same as dividing a unified Northern Yuan into numerous smaller powers just like the warring eras from Junior Leopard''s past life. Looking from the angle that the Northern Yuan was so huge and that there were numerous people who racked up achievements in this war, as long as the benchmark for the enfeoff was lowered a bit, the Northern Yuan could be divided into numerous independent kingdoms by the fief. It would no longer form a unified front.


    The fact that the land was large and sparse in people was similar to ancient China''s warring era. After going through so many changes, an unusual situation may occur where they asked people to seize a city.


    In that way, the Central Plains would be worry-free.


    Think about it: a few hundred or even a thousand fiefs. Even if there was some unparalleled hero who wanted to unify the prairies, it was impossible to do it in a thousand years. How could this kind of messy situation cause any threat to the Great Jin Dynasty?


    Furthermore, these lands were fief by the Central Plains imperial court. Those fellows who were qualified to obtain the fief in Northern Yuan wouldn''t bear to leave the colorful world in the Central Plains!


    At most, they would send a few people to manage it, especially those barons and big sects. In this battle, where the Northern Yuan was exterminated, they racked huge achievements. They would definitely carve out a huge piece of land in Northern Yuan, and those sects and barons with a deep foundation in the Central Plains would never leave.


    At least not in the next few hundred years. Junior Leopard thought that after this matter had evolved, the northern prairies would slowly develop into something like the European medieval period. In name, it belonged to the central office and the Great Jin, but the central office wouldn''t have the direct authority to intervene. Those masters who oversaw these lands were officials with different positions in the imperial court. The fiefs to them were just another source of income.


    Of course, it could evolve into something like the Tang Dynasty''s outlying towns. There would be thousands of outlying towns fighting with each other. Within a few hundred years, there wouldn''t be any way for them to unify. It would become an issue whether the Great Jin would still exist.


    In other words, this Great Jin fief strategy would delay a huge problem for a few hundred years, or even a thousand years. What was exchanged was the entire Central Plains'' glory and prosperity. At least, that is what it looked like at the moment.


    To the Central Plains dynasty, a thousand years later, that was something of a headache. To the current Great Jin, it was undoubtedly the quickest way to settle the issue of the Northern Yuan.


    Junior Leopard wasn''t that interested in the politics of the Great Jin, but he was extremely interested in the enfeoff system.


    "To be a local emperor was a dream of mine back then. A pity, even though I''m still an adult now, I wasn''t that interested in such a meaningful matter. What a headache!"


    Junior Leopard stood up and set aside these thoughts. "Right now, it is too late to think about this. I should settle the matter of the duel first. Taixuan Thunder Saber. Hehe, Taixuan Thunder Saber is merely a wizard weapon. I''ve already cultivated the Flying Sword, and you are using a wizard weapon to deal with me. You''re looking for death!"


    Wizard weapons and Flying Swords were all celestial devices which is why sword practicers in the medieval era were able to rule the earth and become the mainstream cultivation. Why were those who possessed wizard weapons unable to prosper?


    Perhaps because Flying Sword, compared with other wizard weapons, had an absolute advantage. After tens of thousands of years of development, the sword practicer''s cultivation method was perfected surpassing all other wizard weapons.


    A wizard weapon like the Taixuan Thunder Saber could at most be compatible with a cultivation method only. It might scare away other people, but it wouldn''t frighten Junior Leopard.


    This brat''s cultivation was put there for all to see. She didn''t have the ability yet to use a wizard weapon like the Taixuan Thunder Saber. She could barely refine it.


    Such a result definitely would have a lot of loopholes. Even if Junior Leopard wasn''t able to use the methods of a sword practicer, he possessed the keen eyesight and experience of one. Why should he be afraid?


    "This pitiful doll. She seems to have been led on. She actually is using a wizard weapon against me!" Junior Leopard''s heart calmed down. "This time around, I can peacefully cultivate my punching skills, keke!"


    Junior Leopard had never stopped in his cultivation of punching skills. The cultivation of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique had never stopped before as well.


    From the battle with Dragon Granny, until the battle with Buyan Gerel, and ultimately meeting the Dark Lord Mie Chen, these three experts gave him different pressures. The rewards were all different as well. The greatest reward, of course, came during the battle with Buyan Gerel. He had also gained much from toughing it out with Dragon Granny and experiencing a life and death battle with Dark Lord Mie Chen.


    "My fist intent is formed as is my hammer spirit. I feel there is some area that I can''t fluidly display. Hammer is fist, and fist is hammer. If I could merge the two cultivation methods together, my strength would definitely soar to a whole new level!"


    A weapon like the hammer originally evolved from the fist. It was an extension of the fist. Hence, the two were one.


    To do well with the hammer, one must be well versed in the fist.


    This was a strange logic in the pugilist world. Junior Leopard already had a very deep understanding of fist intent. All along he had practiced fist and hammer separately. From there, he cultivated a fist intent and a hammer spirit. Even though both were carved from the imitation universe fist intent of Junior Leopard, if he wasn''t able to merge them together, fist would still be fist, and hammer would still be hammer. Junior Leopard''s consciousness of martial arts would also be continuous as a result.


    Walking out from the room, the sky was already dark. The cold wind from the night sky cooled down the brewing hot thoughts of Junior Leopard.


    The courtyard was immense. The Zhou Mansion was the largest in Qingyang Market, at least twice that of the Black Dragon Triad.


    No one dared to say anything. The Black Dragon Triad''s power couldn''t compare with the Zhou Family''s in Qingyang Market. The Zhou Family wasn''t some tyrant. On the contrary, under the purposeful push of Wang Tianlei, the Zhou Family had already bought close to two-thirds of Qingyang Market. They even shelled out money to build a path that went straight to the province. They became the biggest business in Qingyang Market. Junior Leopard''s brothers had also become bosses of a few stalls.


    Even though little time had passed, those with good eyes could see that the rise of the Zhou Family was something inevitable.


    Junior Leopard wasn''t concerned. As long as his own strength kept rising and his position within the pugilist world and imperial court remained stable, the Zhou Family''s position in Qingyang Market would be stable as well. It was still just a small market.


    Ever since his return, he didn''t bother about the family matters. As for Old Zhou, having given birth to such a splendid son, he was naturally satisfied. In this satisfaction, there was a tinge of foreignness, which was what Junior Leopard wanted to see.


    His mom hadn''t changed any. She told him to get a wife and occasionally brought girls to matchmake, giving him a headache.


    The night wind felt like water. Junior Leopard walked along a small path in the courtyard. He wasn''t thinking about anything, nor doing anything, nor looking at anything. He was simply enjoying the quietness and peacefulness of the night.


    Suddenly, Junior Leopard stopped and turned his head.


    "Big brother. It''s so late, why did you come?"


    It was Junior Leopard''s eldest brother. Originally a hunter in the mountains, at 30 years of age, he had leaped to become the wealthiest and most important person in the entire village and Qingyang Market. Not used to facing such a dreamy situation nor the person creating it, he was naturally respectful and in awe of Junior Leopard. Even though he raised Junior Leopard from childhood, he was no longer able to link the past Junior Leopard and the present one together.


    At one time, he was called Spikey, but he now had a new name, Zhou Dahu.


    Hearing Junior Leopard''s question, his face revealed an awkward expression.


    "Big brother, if you have something to say, just say it. We are brothers, there''s no need to be so courteous!"


    "Yes, yes...!" Big brother said, but his facial expression remained awkward. "Actually, I came here to seek your help!"


    "Help? What can I help you with?" Junior Leopard smiled. "Just say it. As long as I can do it, I''ll definitely help, brother!"


    "Alright!" Zhou Dahu was very excited. He went to one side of Junior Leopard and said, "I, I wish to take in a concubine!"


    Zhou Dahu seemed to have used all of his energy to say these words. His expression gave Junior Leopard a headache.


    "You want to get a concubine, why is there a need to be so shy about it?"


    Instantly, he crushed this impulse.


    ...


    "Big brother, what did you say? You want to get a concubine?"


    "Yes, I wish to!"


    "You should speak about it with Dad and Mom. Why tell me?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "No, there''s no problem with Dad and Mom. The main problem is with your sister-in-law."


    "Sister-in-law!" Junior Leopard heaved. He scratched his head instantly recognizing the problem.


    His sister-in-law was a powerful character, extremely clever and capable. She kept the house spick and span and very comfortable, but she had a terrible temper and frequently scolded Zhou Dahu.


    As for Zhou Dahu, he always let her win. Afterall, she was his wife. Marriage wasn''t easy. If he could let things be, he did so.


    "Big brother, this matter isn''t governed by me. I think you should go and discuss properly with sister-in-law!"


    "Ah?!" Zhou Dahu was dumbstruck. It was precisely because he couldn''t discuss it properly with her that he came looking for Junior Leopard.


    "Junior Leopard, you see...!"


    "Big brother, these are your family matters. You are also the boss of the Zhou Family. How could a little brother like me intervene? You are confusing the procedure and hierarchy here. If I wanted to take in a concubine in the future and couldn''t convince my wife, it would be appropriate to look for you, but you seeking my help puts things in the wrong order!"


    Junior Leopard patted Zhou Dahu''s shoulders, smiled, and pointed him out of the courtyard. "Why not try this? Go back and discuss the matter with Dad and Mom again. When you are done, then try convincing sister-in-law. What about it?"


    "But...!"


    He wanted to say something more, but Junior Leopard ignored his rambling. He nudged him out of the courtyard and then returned to his room and refused to come out. Zhou Dahu departed helplessly.


    Once men had money, they turned naughty!


    Thinking about the past, Zhou Dahu was an honest villager.


    What about now?


    Now, he wanted to take in a concubine!


    Junior Leopard shook his head and smiled bitterly.


    As the saying went, "A clean official had difficulties taking care of his own family matters." What''s more, it was his eldest brother''s matters. He didn''t want to get involved.


    "Forget it, I''ll go to Zhonghe City tomorrow and train my punching skills in the underground fire vein. I should grind my spirit and strive to let my body breakthrough to Level Seven. As for those family matters, I should let them take care of it. The less I get involved the better it is!"


    Originally, he wanted to stay at home for a few more days and enjoy the peaceful life. After Zhou Dahu came wrecking, he no longer had the mood for it!


    ¡­


    ...


    After three days, Zhonghe City, geocentric fire vein!


    Li Yuan had already left Zhonghe City. Now, the owner of Zhonghe City and the geocentric fire vein had changed. The Wu''s, after losing Junior Leopard''s influence, had already shrunk their power over the fire vein. They were on par with the Pei''s, Luo''s, and Jian''s. They might even be worse.


    Afterall, this Zhonghe City wasn''t within the jurisdiction of the Wu Family.


    If Junior Leopard wanted to go into the fire vein to train, it wouldn''t be so easy like last time when he could walk in with big strides.


    Junior Leopard didn''t plan to do so. This fire vein''s defenses looked very tight. To an expert like Junior Leopard, it was as if it didn''t exist. After knocking a few guards unconscious, he entered in big strides. He was very familiar with the fire vein in Zhonghe City.


    After dealing with the guards, Junior Leopard entered the passageway of the fire vein. The familiar hot airflow rushed against his face. Junior Leopard''s Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi became excited and began to devour these copious amounts of fire spiritual Qi.


    "Who are you! How dare you trespass the geocentric fire vein!"


    He had only walked two steps, and there was a shout from within the cave, and then a wind assaulted him.


    "Aye?!" Junior Leopard was slightly stunned. It was clear that the passageway was filled with experts from the four smelting families. He didn''t think that it was coincidental that he would meet a Wu Family expert on duty. Wasn''t the person rushing forward the Wu''s Big Iron Hammer?!


    Since he met a Wu''s expert, Junior Leopard wouldn''t be vicious. His body slightly shook and evaded the attack. He extended his hand and caught the hammer hilt. At the same time, his body slanted and evaded the body that came rushing forward. His knees bent and pushed onto the opponent''s knees.


    This series of movements were smooth as flowing water. The person exclaimed and knelt on the floor.


    "Don''t fret. I''m Zhou Bao. I came here to train," Junior Leopard said in a low voice. His voice exploded in the person''s ears. Although he originally wanted to call for help, he immediately shut his mouth. Climbing up from the floor and raising his head, he could clearly see Junior Leopard''s figure and hurriedly paid his respects.


    "Disciple Wu Lei pays his respects to Elder Zhou!"


    "There''s no need for formalities. Why the past few days now belong to our Wu Family to use the fire vein?!"


    "Yes, we still can use it for three months. Elder Mu is now forging weapons in the smelting room. Elder Zhou are you---?"


    "No need. I came here for a retreat. I don''t wish to alarm others. It''s sufficient that only you know about this." Seeing others coming, he passed the hammer to Wu Lei. "You shouldn''t have any trouble."


    "No." Wu Lei shook his head and smiled. "This fire vein''s crossroads are aplenty. All along, it has attracted a lot of experts. The soldiers outside are just there for show. Those of us guarding the passageway are only preventing them from entering the smelting rooms. As for which passageway they take to cultivate is not something we can manage."


    "It''s best if they don''t give you trouble." Junior Leopard nodded. "I''m going. You should act as if nothing happened."


    "I understand."


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 233: The Mysterious Object in the Rock Flows

    Chapter 233: The Mysterious Object in the Rock Flows


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The geocentric fire vein was actually expansive, and the direct passageway to the Underground Rock River was just one of the countless ways that led to the fire vein. But it was the largest and longest, and also led to a spacious area that made it suitable for the building of a smelting chamber.


    Besides this main and spacious passageway, there were also other large and small ones pressed against each other like a honeycomb. But they were either too narrow or led to an area with heavy Evil Qi and high temperature, thus becoming obsolete.


    There were two important functions to the geocentric fire vein. First, smelting families like the Wu Family could forge Secondary Heavenly Weapons with the help of the rock flows here. Second, those like Junior Leopard who practiced the Fire Way Method to condense Evil into Gang and raise their cultivation here.


    Only a handful of powers who had the right to build a smelting chamber in the geocentric fire vein; there were only four in Great Jin and they had already conquered the fire vein. And though there were many who practiced the Fire Way Method and needed the Spiritual Spiritual Energy of Fire, few had the right to enter the fire vein. Even if they were granted the right, they would be killed by fire toxin here if they didn''t have at least a Level Three cultivation.


    Yet those whose cultivation was over Level Three and wanted to strengthen their cultivation in the geocentric fire vein didn''t have the right to enter. Thus, a phenomenon appeared whereby there were those like Junior Leopard who would sneak in.


    But those people were few and far in between. After all, Great Jin and the four smelting families weren''t easy to handle. Besides the guards stationed outside the entrance, experts from the four families also patrolled the main passageway. Even Junior Leopard struck down the guards, it was impossible for him to go far into the passageway.


    After all, there were few who had achieved Level Seven and even fewer were those who had that cultivation while practicing the Fire Way Method. Those who did were generally taken in by Jin and other powers, never having to worry about lack of access to geocentric fire veins. Thus the four smelting families only had to send some ordinary experts to do the patrolling.


    Based on Junior Leopard''s current identity and position, he could just mention it to the Wu Family if he wanted to practice inside the geocentric fire vein and they would make the proper arrangements. It wasn''t simply because he was an Elder, he was also the strongest fighter in the family. They all believed that his combat capability had long surpassed the First Elder of the family, Lyu Yiyue. Him wanting to have a closed-door training was something that fitted their wishes precisely.


    But Junior Leopard didn''t think of doing so, nor did he want to bother the family for this. So he came to the underground fire vein just like that but unexpectedly encountered disciples from the family on patrolling duty.


    He walked deeper inside along the main passageway and, after a while, found a branch on the wall with the thickest Spiritual Energy of Fire and drilled inside.


    This particular passageway was cramped and only as tall as his shoulder. It was only wide as his body, so he could drill through once he entered it.


    He drilled into the passageway like a mouse and when he made it across, he felt strong Spiritual Energy of Fire, along with fire toxin, hitting him squarely in the face.


    He marveled at the strong energy, patting himself on the back for choosing the right place this time. The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique inside his body began to turn, coming to life. He saw a thin red stripe wandering around his body, engulfing the dense Spiritual Energy of Fire.


    That was the second state of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Besides some hermit Elders from the Tian Long Taoism, perhaps there was no one else who could use this technique to this extent except him.


    For most people, this fire toxin would lead them to death. For Junior Leopard, the Spiritual Energy of Fire around him was an incredibly nourishing substance.


    The entrance to the passageway was extremely narrow. Junior Leopard was ready to be a mouse, but after a while, the passageway opened up and became increasingly wide. Very soon, he was able to straighten his body and walk along the passageway.


    He walked for some distance, feeling the temperature around him rising. There were now three golden red stripes around him, but he could still feel the heat coming from around him.


    "I think I''m very close to the main passageway where the Underground Rock River is!"


    Junior Leopard quietly estimated his current location.


    The passageway he was taking was straight and steep, yet he never slowed. He estimated he had already entered deep into the underground, but frowned when he looked at unending and deep passageway. "All passageways to the Underground Rock River are supposed to be connected, but why can''t I see any sign of it until now?"


    He mainly came here this time to find the Underground Rock River because he needed the Earth Fire Yuan Essence in it to cultivate his muscles and bones, unite his fist intent, and refine his Internal Qi.


    To others, the Earth Fire Yuan Essence was something exceedingly rare because they were hidden deep under the rock flows of the geocentric fire vein. Ordinary martial artists, even Level Nine experts, weren''t capable of collecting such Spiritual Energy of Fire under the rock flows. It was only by chance and in very special places that they could find such quality Spiritual Energy of Fire.


    But it was never a problem for Junior Leopard. Using his Black Sun Fist Intent, he could easily draw the Earth Fire Yuan Essence under the rock flows to him. He just needed an area with rock flow to obtain plenty of the essence and guide it into his body using the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. That way, he would be able to strengthen his body, increase his Qi, and practice his fist intent. That was the plan, but unexpectedly he couldn''t even find any trace of the Underground Rock River until now. This turn of events made him somewhat dejected.


    "Damn it! If I remember correctly, the book I''ve once read said all passageways inside the geocentric fire vein lead to the underground lava." It was for this reason that he chose a passageway with the densest Spiritual Energy of Fire. He thought such a passageway would naturally be much closer to the rock flows. Why else would the fire be so fierce here?


    Yet sadly, it wasn''t the closest route to the rock flows. It might even be the furthest way.


    "No, something''s not right. If this is the furthest way, why is there such dense Spiritual Energy of Fire here? I''ve already materialized five Fire Dragons by now, I''m afraid even my Fire Dragons will be roasted if I don''t arrive at the rock flows soon!"


    Junior Leopard may have a high cultivation, but he was still human. He was finding it hard to shoulder on as the Spiritual Energy of Fire in this passageway became thicker. He was probably the only one who could. Even a Level Seven expert with Gang Qi would feel tortured being in this place.


    Suddenly inspired, a layer of green light enveloped him. He performed the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit he learned not too long ago. His Blue Sword transformed into a lush green anima surrounding him, preventing the unending hot gas from getting near him.


    He was here to practice, not to suffer. The three Fire Dragons dancing around him seemed to have absorbed enough Spiritual Energy of Fire and were gleaming in golden-red gloss. Their scales, horns, whiskers, and five claws have become increasingly clear. They didn''t look any different from true dragons. It would be hard for people to believe it was Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi that created these Fire Dragons.


    With green light looming up around him, Junior Leopard continued to walk for about six hours. His expression suddenly shifted when he noticed the direction of the passageway changing not far ahead. He couldn''t see anything beyond the corner standing where he was, but he could feel a stream of dense, invincible pneuma surging in the entrance of the corner where he detected large amounts of the Earth Fire Yuan Essence.


    "Seriously? Can this passageway be the one that leads directly underneath the rock flows? This is the only place with the Earth Fire Yuan Essence. Did I really get this lucky?" There was only one place containing natural Earth Fire Yuan Essence: the bottom of the geocentric rock flows.


    The earth''s core, with its mysteries and splendidness, were not in any way less beautiful than scenes under the sea. Most rock flows led directly to the earth''s core, but sometimes there could be voids underneath. In Junior Leopard''s previous life, these voids were similar to river-crossing or subsea tunnels. People could go through these tunnels, but they were also filled with terrible fire toxin. It was hard for even a Level Eight or Level Nine expert to survive here.


    So Junior Leopard halted his footsteps.


    The green light around him flourished. before disappearing after an idea came to him. He raised his hands and the five golden-red Fire Dragons flew past him toward the void hiding behind the corner. Simultaneously, he combined the three pieces of golden flames into a Lion that pounced at the corner as well.


    With the five Fire Dragons and one Lion rushing toward the corner, Junior Leopard howled and felt a stream of hot flow being absorbed by his body through his creations. The Mysterious Fire in his Dantian jumped suddenly, and his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and Bright Moon Deifying Technique started acting. He began absorbing the enormous energy here in a mad manner.


    After a while, his creations flew back from the corner and entered his body. A piece of golden-red light emerged from his skin and began wandering around.


    Junior Leopard''s eyes opened wide. He took out a little china-white bottle and poured three white pills out of it, swallowing them all.


    Tendon-Changing Pills!


    These were the Tendon-Changing Pills!


    As Junior Leopard''s strength rose, so did his position in the Wu Family and the number of gains he received. What was more, Anyuan Store had been expanding at an alarming rate thanks to him. They now not only controlled the shipping across Luo River but also began to dabble in the medicinal herb business.


    Though herbs needed for the Tendon-Changing Pills were rare and hard to find, Junior Leopard didn''t need much as he was making pills, not decoctions. Therefore, though it hadn''t been easy, Anyuan Store scraped together all the necessary medicinal herbs by the time he returned from the northern prairie. Even if there was only very little of some of the rarer herbs, it was enough to make a bottle of Tendon-Changing Pills.


    After swallowing three pills, Junior Leopard immediately practiced his martial arts to absorb its effects. Three streams of cold energy combined and began to wander along his tendons, meridians, and skeleton. The energy felt like icicles piercing his tendons, meridians, muscles, and bones, almost freezing them.


    He was under the rock flows where an incessant heat was overflowing, yet it still wasn''t enough to offset the severe coldness he felt.


    He stood up with a rush and spread his legs, adjusting into position. His bones cracked as he moved, making a dull noise similar to what it sounded like when hard shoes stepped on an iced floor.


    Soon after, the dull cracking of his bones adopted a mellower sound.


    Clank, clank, clank¨D Rattle, rattle¨D Jingle, jingle¨D


    The sounds changed as Junior Leopard made his moves, interchanging between fast and slow. First, he used the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill, then the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist, and finally, the Tai Chi Quan.


    His moves gradually slowed and, judging by his speed, he seemed to be carefully practicing Tai Chi. But his moves were fused with the ways of the Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist and the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill.


    The sounds coming from his bones became quieter yet clearer.


    Jingle, jingle, jingle¨D


    It sounded like pearls falling on a plate of jade, clear and melodic.


    Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh¨D


    Suddenly, blasts of sound like tidewater appeared in this clear and melodic sound.


    Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh¨D


    At first, it was low and incoherent, very hard to hear. Yet as the time went by, Junior Leopard''s speed of punching became slower and slower, and the sound became louder and louder and more and more regular, just like the ebb and flow.


    Wheeze, wheeze, wheeze¨D


    At the moment, Junior Leopard seemed like he was being injected with mercury in his entire body. Every move he made seemed accompanied by the surge of his qi and blood.


    At this point, he had immersed himself in an abstruse state. The Blood Evil Harden Bone Fist, the Moon-evil Painted Skin Punching Skill, as well as the other punching skills the stranger in the thunder taught him merged into one, where it was unclear where one began and the other ended. What held them together was Tai Chi Quan.


    Boom, boom, boom¨D


    He had no idea how much time has passed when a thunderous sound came out from his body. The slower his movements were, the louder the sound became.


    "Ah, I can''t take it anymore! But I only have a little more to go!"


    Junior Leopard''s moves became abruptly faster and he spread his arms like a gibbon. He made a somersault in the air as if he had no control over his body and fell with a stagger.


    He straightened his body and squinted before walking toward the corner of the passageway without hesitation.


    "It''s not enough. Though there''s a lot of Earth Fire Yuan Essence here, it''s not enough to satisfy me. If I force myself to breakthrough into the Bone-Forging Realm here, it''ll affect my future prospects. I need even more and even clearer Earth Fire Yuan Essence. I need to travel deeper down this passageway!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t relax his steps and directly turned at the corner of the passageway.


    Whoosh!


    A burning heat flow ambushed him, nearly sweeping Junior Leopard off his feet. He gritted his teeth and rushed in under the protection of the golden-red light.


    "This is definitely it!"


    Finally, he felt like a heavy burden was lifted off him after he turned the corner and passed the scorching subterranean tunnel.


    He was truly lucky as the tunnel was a short one. After going through the tunnel, the passageway began head upward where the scorching heat gradually dissipated, reducing the impact on Junior Leopard. He had to turn several more corners before finally finding his target: the geocentric rock flows.


    The billowing lava was as dense as pulp, exuding an overwhelming heat. Its golden-red light lit up the entire underground cavity.


    This was a void underneath the stream of geocentric rock flows, smaller than the void in the main passageway leading to the geocentric fire vein but with denser heat.


    Compared to tunnel earlier cramped with dense heat coming off the Earth Fire Yuan Essence, this was much better.


    "I made it! I made it! I just need to¨DWhat''s this?"


    The overjoyed Junior Leopard was planning on using this area as his practicing spot when he suddenly stopped, stunned.


    He saw something weird; there was a rock inside the rock flows!


    The geocentric rock flows were like rivers on the ground. The only difference was that water flowed in rivers while magma flowed in rock flows.


    Therefore, rock flows would also come across barriers. Matters that constituted magma were diverse from each other, where some may pile up with the flow like sandstones in rivers. As time passed, small islands or pebbles would also be formed in rock flows.


    These islands or pebbles generally wouldn''t last. No matter how hard they were, they were worn down by the rock flows day after day, year after year.


    This stream of rock flow in front of Junior Leopard was narrow and its flow was also smooth. What was unusual was the small island within it. Strictly speaking, it can''t be considered an island. At most, it was just a large rock and a barrier.


    It was precisely this barrier that surprised him, for he sensed intelligence coming from this black and common stone.


    Such intelligence! From the looks of it, this stone wasn''t a dead thing at all. It must be alive! Such intelligence was denser than even the material he used to make Emerald Pearl Sword, as well as his Demon Devil Needles.


    He couldn''t help fawning over what a marvelous material the stone would make for refining celestial devices. If he gave the stone another thousand of years, it may develop spiritual intelligence and give birth to another Monkey King. But for the moment, it was merely a remarkable material for the celestial devices refinement.


    He didn''t know how long this stone had remained here, how many special materials it gained from the rock flows, or how many years it had suffered from the washing of the rock flows to cultivate such high intelligence.


    Having come across such a great treasure, he surely wouldn''t be soft-hearted and let it go. He raised his figures and a piece of sword qi of Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword shot out, charging at the rock flow. The sword qi violently incised on the part of the stone where he thought its intelligence first formed.


    Swaaaa¨D


    A strange sound came from where his sword qi cut the stone. He then sensed a stream of extremely overbearing power rebounding from the root of the stone, charging toward the Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword. If it was any other sword, it would have already be smashed into pieces by that overwhelmingly strong power.


    "It''s not a stone!"


    Through this attack, Junior Leopard was sure there was an object with the high intelligence hiding inside the stone. It didn''t come from the black stone itself.


    His Extreme Yang Through Sky Sword was incredibly sharp and successfully cut the root of the stone despite the setback. A dazzling golden-red light emerged from the bottom of rock flows. The stone submerged in the magma and disappeared without a trace.


    There was no better place than the rock flows for a stone to hide. At this time, the root of the stone had already been cut. Once it sank inside the magma, it would swim with the tide like pebbles in the river. God knew where it would be then.


    Of course, Junior Leopard wouldn''t allow this to happen. When he saw the stone sank into the bottom of the rock flow, he transformed his hand into a saber and slashed at where the golden-red light was gleaming inside the magma.


    He used his Space Division Skill!


    In a flash, that space was divided apart. Now that it was independent of its surrounding, the stone naturally had nowhere to hide.


    Junior Leopard abruptly flicked his sleeves. A stone gleaming with golden-right flew out from the divided rock flows and headed in his direction. He used his sleeves flick the stone and it ripped from the surface, revealing its golden inner material with immense intelligence.


    An irregularly-shaped, golden-red material, made neither of gold nor stone, emerged in front of him.


    Without hesitation, he pointed with his finger and a piece of thought flickering like a will-o''-the-wisp flew toward the strange material.


    That was Junior Leopard''s piece of thought.


    Junior Leopard was very clear that a Mysterious Object of this grade ought to be psychic, just lacking the final step. If it were given another thousand of years, it would surely develop the ability to think. But now, he had truly benefited from this.


    Such a Mysterious Object that was close to developing the ability to think held no barriers against his thought. In fact, it could even be said that the object was waiting for him. As soon as his thought went in, they were in complete harmony and in sync.


    Under his control, the light of the object gradually dimmed, revealing its hard shell. Its size also shrank and finally became a black, fist-sized ''stone'' similar to an insensate stone.


    "This is definitely good stuff but the problem is I don''t know how to use it. Oh well, I''ll just let it be." The small size of the stone meant it wouldn''t take up much space, so he put it away in the space he reserved for his two hammers.


    Though the hammers were large enough to fill out the space, it was still enough to store a fist-sized stone.


    Junior Leopard sighed with relief when everything was done. He released the Space Division Skill he performed just now and the Black Sun Fist Intent appeared behind him. Then a fist-sized bubble popped up from the bottom of the rock flows.


    "Okay, it''s time to practice. Let''s see if I can make a breakthrough this time!"


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 234: Refining the Fist Intent to Level Seven

    Chapter 234: Refining the Fist Intent to Level Seven


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Zhonghe City, geocentric fire vein.


    Junior Leopard stood above the rock flows. His shoes had already melted from the scorching hot lava, leaving him barefoot. But it was strange. The lava flows that surged forward detoured voluntarily when they were two centimeters away from him as if blocked by a mysterious force.


    Junior Leopard moved slowly on the rock flows. He stretched one of his hands, clenched the other and then stretched his body. With this movement, the coverage of his fist intent became wider and wider.


    The gigantic black sun was burning fiercely. Surrounding the sun, the black ball that shone with metallic luster was twice as big as it was before.


    This was his Hammer Spirit and also his fist intent.


    Three months. He had stayed three whole months in the underground basalt chambers practicing his fist. After a great deal of contemplation, practice, infusion, and effort, he finally fused his Hammer Spirit and fist intent together. Meanwhile, his punching skill and hammering skill worked as a whole too. Now, there was no difference between fist and hammer.


    His fist was a small hammer and his hammer was a huge fist!


    The two were combined as one, so their power increased greatly.


    His one hand was half-closed in an abstruse angle as if it covered all the other stars and galaxies besides his own fist intent galaxy. His fingertips moved slightly and it looked like he was plucking a string.


    Beyond the galaxy was a dark hollow. Perhaps it was because Junior Leopard was too weak to deduce more stars in his own fist intent. However, innumerable stars which did not exist shone in his mind so that his eyes flashed with bright starlight.


    Numberless stars, galaxies, black holes and star cloud...


    All kinds of celestial bodies appeared in his mind, destroyed, reborn and destroyed again. At first, Junior Leopard could not adapt to this condition; he could not comprehend why there was such a result after he fused his Hammer Spirit together with fist intent. But once a couple of days passed, he gradually adjusted and understood it. What appeared in his mind was probably the complete fist intent that he had created through imitating the universe. It was a pity that his intact fist intent was too horrible and groundless for him to interpret outside his body.


    It was great progress for him to see his complete fist intent in his mind. However, he soon found a problem. His fist intent was very messy.


    It was extremely disorderly.


    All the celestial bodies in the universe moved along their own orbits, day after day, year after year, unchanging all the time. However, when their life came to an end, they would be destroyed. In the same way, when the condition was right, a new celestial body would be born.


    But the universe in Junior Leopard''s mind was disordered. These celestial bodies had their own orbits, but these orbits were not very clear. Thus, a collision between two celestial bodies'' was inevitable every now and then.


    It was very normal for the orbits of celestial bodies to converge in the same place and thus two planets would collide. But the chances were too high in the universe of Junior Leopard''s mind. Even in a small celestial system like the solar system the collision between planets occurred. Sometimes, a planet in this celestial system would be thrown out by a great force and fall into another system, making a big bang and causing a great mess.


    In the beginning, Junior Leopard was unaware of the reason. But gradually, he realized it was his own fault.


    His fist intent had been formed by accident. Meanwhile, the formwork he had used to make the fist intent was from a scene that he had seen in popular science reading and documentaries in his previous life. He only had a general view of the birth of the universe. As for the orbits that celestial bodies moved in, he knew what they were like, but not how they moved. After all, he had learned Chinese instead of astrophysics in his previous life. He knew nothing about the angles, gravity, or gravitation between celestial bodies, or celestial mechanics. Hence, such a condition would appear.


    Generally speaking, his fist intent was complicated and horrible. Although it had formed successfully, it was extremely disordered and needed adjustment.


    But how could he adjust it?


    Through punching skill!


    The fist intent in Junior Leopard''s mind was a total mess and it was closely connected to his punching skill. It didn''t matter that he knew nothing about astrophysics; it would be ok if he knew punching skill.


    The fist intent emerged in his mind when he was practicing fist and fusing all kinds of punching skills together. Equally, the evolution of his fist intent was also controlled by his punching skill.


    In these three months, he had gradually figured out the rules and found the solution to it.


    He could use his punching skill to adjust it. With one hand holding the galaxies in his mind and the other smashing the disordered celestial bodies, Junior Leopard felt that there was an unchanging rule guiding his fist. He didn''t know the correct orbits of these celestial bodies, but after he smashed these celestial bodies several times and adjusted these orbits to some degree, he would feel that his fist intent had disappeared completely. After that, no matter what method he used, he could no longer change their orbits. When this happened, he knew that these orbits were correct and meanwhile, his punching skill gradually began to take shape.


    BOOM, BOOM, BOOM...


    Junior Leopard''s relaxing movement suddenly changed and grew fierce. His half-closed hand clenched tightly and the other hand which had been clenched into a fist before stretched leisurely now.


    Junior Leopard''s imposing manner suddenly changed through this movement. The formerly moderate adjustment became a violent destruction.


    Each time a fist struck out, a star in his mind was shattered.


    Affected by his fist intent, the Earth Fire Yuan Essence around him surged fiercely and violently poured into his body.


    Junior Leopard''s face suddenly flushed. But he paid no attention to it and continued to strike out his fists one by one. He did this every day for 10 days.


    Fierce, aggressive, ruthless and destructive!


    These were the best four words to describe Junior Leopard''s fist.


    The nature of punching skill was destruction!


    Though he couldn''t destroy real stars now, with his fists destroying stars in his mind one by one, his fist strength, fist wind and fist intent all carried an artistic conception that could destroy everything.


    The fist was used to destroy everything!


    In order to survive and go against the might of heaven and earth, people of the ancient times had held weapons and created various kinds of techniques and Divine Sense. But they had used their fists in the beginning. They had made a living and survived with their fists. However, for others, fists represented destruction.


    Because only in this way could these people have survived.


    Thus, the nature of punching skill was an art of destruction!


    Junior Leopard finally comprehended this point after destroying numerous stars.


    Destructive punching skill, devastating spirit!


    This was the true meaning of Junior Leopard''s punching skill and also the target that he would pursue his whole lifetime.


    Taking Tai Chi Fist as the framework and foundation; Thirteen Punches of Desolation as flesh and blood; Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and Heavenly Jade Technique as meridians; and Flipping Sky Hammering Skill and Wild Hammering Skill as the reference; Junior Leopard interpreted the universe in his mind. After three months, he finally had a comprehensive understanding of punching skill and successfully practiced a punching skill that belonged solely to him.


    When he displayed his martial arts again, there was no difference between Tai Chi Fist and Thirteen Punches of Desolation, no distinction between Flipping Sky Hammering Skill and Wild Hammering Skill, and he no longer utilized Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and Heavenly Jade Technique deliberately. He had deduced and fused all these into his new punching skill.


    This punching skill was far from complete, however. It had just reached the Basic level!


    Junior Leopard even thought that it was impossible to practice his punching skill for completeness. Because his fist intent was so gigantic, it was unlikely he could adjust all the mess in his fist intent and smash all the disordered stars.


    But on the other hand, it also demonstrated that his punching skill still had infinite possibilities to evolve.


    Infinite evolution was the very advantage of this punching skill.


    But Junior Leopard didn''t think too much. He just wanted to combine all the fist intent and Hammer Spirit that he knew together as one and that was ok.


    In the three months, he absorbed the Earth Fire Yuan Essence and practiced his punching skills. He suffered considerably from the Earth Fire Yuan Essence day by day. By doing so, he tempered his muscles and bones. And he used up a bottle of Tendon-Changing Pills. Luckily, all the pain was worth it.


    Once he achieved mastery through a comprehensive study of his punching skill, the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire in his body finally transformed into liquid and wandered through his tendons and meridians. This meant he had reached the Advanced Level of Level Seven!


    Eventually, his actions stopped. The fierce and aggressive Qi Power that he had just unleashed suddenly withdrew and all the starlight in his eyes disappeared. He stepped out and left the rock flows.


    Phew! It''s been almost three months. Living in this damn place for three months, with only dry provisions to eat. Even drinking water was troublesome. Now he can finally leave this place.


    Junior Leopard was secretly glad. In these three months, he had lost a lot of weight and also grown taller. He had only eaten dry provisions. Thanks to the Wu Family using the underground fire vein during this period, he hadn''t needed to exit the fire vein to get water. Otherwise, he would have had to leave every few days and wouldn''t have been able to concentrate completely on his punching skills.


    I owe that guy a favor for this. I better return it!


    In these three months, Wu Lei had helped him a lot. He would definitely not forget. Through these three months, he also came to realize why many experts who already had quite high cultivation still kept registered assistants in certain organizations. That was because practice also needed logistics.


    If you wanted to do a closed-door training alone to break through a phase, which lasted for three months, half a year or possibly even a year, could you go the whole time without eating or drinking?


    Impossible!


    Even if you could endure the hunger, you still needed to drink water. Unless, of course, you found a place where there were food and water to do the closed-door training.


    However, when people cultivated to the phase Junior Leopard was at, the site requirements for doing closed-door training were demanding. Many pieces of training required extreme conditions. Like Junior Leopard, he had needed to practice in the geocentric fire vein to increase his chances of breaking through. Others needed to break through in a world of ice and snow. In addition, every breakthrough had high requirements against body conditions, so ample energy storage was needed. Without enough preparation, you might starve to death before breaking through any phase.


    Junior Leopard hadn''t realized this until now. The closed-door training he had done before was all done in a better environment. But now, in the geocentric fire vein, he truly realized that an expert, except for in extreme conditions, could definitely not be a sole being.


    And perhaps this was the reason why the Immortal Palace had such a powerful influence!


    He went out of the fire vein without disturbing anyone. He morphed into a cyan streamer, flying toward the sky.


    Great changes had taken place during the closed-door training. He had merged and refreshed all the punching skills he knew, except for Dragon Flying Technique and Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds.


    Dragon Flying Technique was not a punching skill. It was a mysterious mental cultivation method. Hence it could not be merged in the punching skills, at least he was unable to do it for now.


    As for Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds, it was not a punching skill either. It had been a complete Unique Technique in antiquity times and included abstruse mental cultivation methods and movements, which he was unable to practice. He hadn''t learnt it thoroughly, so there was no reason to merge it in his punching skills and fist intent. He would do it later, once he had studied it thoroughly.


    The problem now is finding an earth vein to cultivate Gang. Damn! Actually, Blood Essence Evil Yuan is the best Evil Qi to cultivate Gang, but I totally used it up. I exhausted almost all the Earth Fire Evil Yuan in the geocentric fire vein to greatly refine my Internal Qi, but it also affected the quality of this fire vein. I can no longer find Evil Qi the same quality as Blood Essence Evil Yuan to practice. How troublesome it is!


    Junior Leopard displayed Dragon Flying Technique. He stretched his arms and stepped into the air, rushing out of Zhonghe City and heading to Jiang City at an extremely fast speed.


    Three years earlier, the duel location agreed upon had been River Heart Island in Jiang City.


    ...


    ...


    June 6th of the lunar calendar, the sun appeared after a rain.


    Zhonghe Prefecture, Jiang City.


    As a border city, Zhonghe Prefecture was not that eye-catching. But today, it drew the attention of more than half of Jianghu. Zhou Bao, the Elder of the Wu Family, and Meng Qingrong, a young master of the Meng Family in Ningzhou, would have a duel in River Heart Island of Jiang City. With Junior Leopard''s military exploits, reputation and prestige, the duel arranged three years previous drew more and more attention.


    "Who do you think will win this time?"


    "Of course it will be Zhou Bao. He''s a monster! He slew a Level Eight expert!"


    "Well, that depends. Perhaps the Meng Family has some magic weapons. Just like the magic weapon that killed Ba Siba, an expert at the Mysterious Realm. Never mind Zhou Bao!"


    "Yeah, right. Are you joking? Do you think that kind of magic weapon is common as a cabbage?"


    "Even if it can''t be obtained easily, the Meng Family might still have one. It''s a well-known family and they have existed for several thousand years. How could it not have something valuable!"


    "It makes sense!"


    "No way! Even if they had one, they won''t show it. Aren''t they afraid of getting robbed?"


    "Nonsense! Who would steal it? Who would dare to rob the Meng Family?"


    "Not necessarily. If the Meng Family actually took that kind of magic weapon out, there would be someone willing to take the risk!"


    A month earlier, all the inns in Jiang City had been completely booked up. People even dwelt in the houses of local residents.


    Three days earlier, countless martial arts practitioners had swarmed to River Heart Island and they hadn''t left since. Now, the whole Island was jam-packed with hordes of people.


    In the center of the island, a spacious area had already been cleared out. Originally, people had wanted to build an arena here, however, they were stopped fiercely by Zhu Ba and gave up the idea.


    "Do you consider our Commander as a monkey who will perform here for you?"


    He dampened the enthusiasm of everyone with one sentence.


    Junior Leopard didn''t want others to see him as a monkey, but plenty of people came here to watch him.


    Meng Shian, Family Head of the Meng Family in Ningzhou as well as father of Meng Qingrong, and the most powerful man of the Meng Family, Level Eight expert Meng Haichen, had both come. At the same time, Wu Yansheng, Family Head of the Wu Family, and Lyu Yiyue, the most powerful man in the Wu Family, had come here too. In addition to these two well-known families, members of other well-known families and big schools were also here. They wanted to witness Zhou Bao, the so-called first genius in the martial arts world for 1,000 years and discover his special talent.


    The first genius in the martial arts world for 1,000 years!


    This was the new title that Junior Leopard had received when he came back from Northern Yuan. The first genius in 1,000 years!


    But what about 1,000 years ago?


    In 1,000 years, no one could fight against a Level Seven expert at Level Four cultivation, cope with a Level Eight expert at Level Five cultivation, deal with a Level Nine expert at Level Six cultivation and keep sound and safe, except Junior Leopard. But whether there were other geniuses that had appeared a millennium ago, no one knew for sure!


    There are so many people. Are they really here to watch my performance?


    Junior Leopard didn''t look well from 10 days earlier.


    Seeing all the martial arts people coming here continuously from Jiang City to River Heart Island, Junior Leopard had an impulse to kill people.


    "Junior Leopard, don''t think too much. People in the martial arts world like to watch entertaining and amusing things. Besides, you''ve attracted so many people''s attention. Thus, there are lots of people, as was expected."


    Wu Yansheng stood by Junior Leopard. He had been there for a long time and naturally knew that Junior Leopard was very unhappy to be treated as an object of amusement. What was more, he had wanted to close River Heart Island, but he also understood that River Heart Island was not a forbidden area. If he forcefully prevented these idle men in Jianghu from entering, God knew what would happen!


    Besides, Junior Leopard was no longer the Navy commander of Jiang City. He had gotten a sinecure from Li Yuan and Li Yuan was not responsible for Zhonghe Prefecture. Therefore, if Junior Leopard released an order to close the island, it would sound unjustified.


    It was the crucial time for the imperial court to reward officials. If he was tripped by some insidious people in the imperial court and lost his reward because of this matter¡­ It was not wise.


    Though they didn''t know what the reward would be, Junior Leopard''s merit was considerably larger than the whole Wu Family combined. Moreover, Junior Leopard was the Elder of the Wu Family. If he received benefits, the Wu Family would naturally benefit from him too. Hence, Wu Yansheng didn''t want to affect Junior Leopard''s reward over this matter.


    Different from Wu Yansheng, Junior Leopard knew the truth of this reward from the imperial court. He was avid for the fief, so he adopted Wu Yansheng''s suggestion. But upon seeing the huge crowd after he went out, he felt somewhat unpleasant.


    Junior Leopard followed Wu Yansheng and lagged a bit behind Lyu Yiyue. Though his strength had far surpassed the Family Head of the Wu Family and the First Elder Lyu Yiyue, he was just an Elder whose status was a little lower than the two. He was a member of the Wu Family. He could not look down upon them just because he had powerful strength. Even if he wanted to do so, he couldn''t do it in public. It was just like his previous life. As a civil servant, though he had disdained his leader, he had to behave well and be obedient before his leader.


    ...


    ...


    "Here he comes. Here he comes. Zhou Bao is coming...!"


    "Where? Where? Which one is Zhou Bao?"


    "Where is he? Why haven''t I seen him? Are you playing me?"


    "Of course not. Look, the one in black!"


    Junior Leopard wore a black cloak today. Aside from this cloak, he appeared the same as any well-behaved high school student. But he was a little taller and thinner than before, and the eccentric skull earring that hung on his ear before had disappeared. He folded his hands at his back with no expression on his face. Looking indifferent, he entered the center of the vacant land slowly.


    "Is that Zhou Bao? How young he is!"


    "Are you stupid? Don''t you know that Zhou Bao is only 17 years old? Otherwise, he wouldn''t be so famous!"


    "Yeah, yeah. He''s the first master of martial arts of the young generation, understand? If he was 40 to 50 years old, could he be so famous?"


    "He is really good-looking!"


    "I heard that he isn''t married yet. Your sister still has hope."


    Such discussions pervaded the whole spot. Junior Leopard looked up and exhaled gently. He had meant to show some respect to Meng Qingrong and the Meng Family by fighting for a longer duration with her, but now all his good mood was ruined.


    Is she here? Oh, good. Let me finish this and leave earlier!


    A trace of a smile flashed across his face. The crowd divided into two and a girl in purple with a strange long saber in her hand came forward.


    A Level Eight expert and a Level Six expert together with 30 Level Five masters. The Meng Family members here today are enough to wipe the entire Wu Family out. Hehe, the Meng Family in Ningzhou does enjoy a well-deserved reputation!


    Junior Leopard secretly thought. He turned his gaze to the girl in purple.


    Three years had passed. She was also tsundere. Her figure hadn''t changed much, neither had her visage. But her eyes had become sharper.


    Just like Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue, the Family Head of the Meng Family and their experts didn''t follow Meng Qingrong to enter the arena, instead, they retreated to the side. The surrounding people moved aside for them, leaving them enough space.


    This was a fight, a duel. According to the rules of the martial arts world, a notary was needed. However, no one, not the Wu Family, the Meng Family, Junior Leopard or Meng Qingrong; none of them mentioned it.


    Thus, a strange scene occurred. The huge space was crowded with people without any order. But people were very particular about the positions they stood in; people with powerful strength stood in front while those with weaker power stood behind. There were two people whose cultivation was higher than Level Seven among the crowd; one was Meng Haichen, Level Eight expert of the Meng Family and the other was Lyu Yiyue, Level Seven expert of the Wu Family. They and the two families'' Family Heads naturally stood in the first row with the best positions. Following were several leaders of the Navy of Jiang City, including the incumbent commander of the Navy. Others stood according to their strength from the inside to outside. Thousands of eyes stared at the two people in the arena.


    Nothing unusual could be found on these two people. Junior Leopard didn''t care about all this while Meng Qingrong, the one in front of him, except for being tsundere, was somewhat innocent, ignoring all the burning eyes.


    They didn''t talk to each other. Meng Qingrong glanced at Junior Leopard to ensure that he was her true opponent. While Junior Leopard gently took a glimpse at Meng Qingrong and nodded his head. They took all these as greetings.


    In others'' eyes, Junior Leopard''s indifference could be regarded as contempt. Meng Shian and Meng Haichen''s faces revealed anger. But Meng Qingrong, the one confronting Junior Leopard, had no special feelings. After assuring her opponent, she didn''t take on an attack posture. Instead slashed directly towards Junior Leopard with the odd long saber in her hand.


    Huh?"


    All the people on the spot exclaimed except Junior Leopard. Meng Qingrong made this movement without any sign and her speed was so fast that among all the people here, only Meng Haichen reacted.


    This could almost be considered a sneak attack!


    The odd long saber was about to slash Junior Leopard. Everyone was shocked, but after a second look, they exclaimed in surprise.


    What Meng Qingrong''s saber hit was a shadow. Her saber was fast, but Junior Leopard was even faster. It was totally beyond the crowd''s imagination.


    In the face of this sneak attack, Junior Leopard didn''t show any discontent. He continually wore an indifferent expression and folded his hands behind him. He didn''t make any attack. He was waiting for Meng Qingrong to execute the power of Taixuan Thunder Saber.


    ..


    The audience was in chaos.


    "Zhou Bao is so fast!"


    "He''s too arrogant. How can he fold his hands behind him like that? Isn''t he afraid of being hurt by the saber?"


    "He is too good at pretending!"


    ¡­


    ...


    Discussions fell incessantly on everyone''s ears. Meng Shian frowned tightly, while Meng Haichen''s countenance became serious and solemn. Judging by Junior Leopard''s speed and his state now, Meng Haichen was sure that Junior Leopard''s strength now far surpassed that of Meng Qingrong. Zhou Bao had become a Level Seven expert now. Even if Meng Qingrong had Taixuan Thunder Saber with her, she had no chance of winning, unless she could display the power of Taixuan Thunder Saber when Zhou Bao was off guard.


    In the arena, Junior Leopard and Meng Qingrong fought fiercely. Meng Qingrong was extremely swift. After she failed to slash Junior Leopard the first time, she began executing other movements incessantly. In a few breaths, Junior Leopard was caught in the surging silver light.


    "It''s useless. Your saber technique and speed are not bad, but the strength gap between us is huge. Your speed and saber can''t close the gap!"


    Meng Qingrong''s strength had advanced considerably in these three years and she had reached Level Five. She could be regarded as a rarely-seen genius. But in Junior Leopard''s eyes, Level Five cultivation was somewhat weak. Thus, there was no need for him to fight with her any longer.


    But Meng Qingrong didn''t say a word. She wielded the saber in her hand a little faster.


    "I told you, it''s useless!" Junior Leopard sighed gently. His left hand which had been folded behind, stretched out, flicking gently.


    DING!


    A melodious sound rang. Though Junior Leopard''s finger seemed slow, it flicked the blade of Meng Qingrong''s saber precisely. Meng Qingrong only felt a strong force coming towards her and the Taixuan Thunder Saber in her hand almost fell on the ground. Looking like a lost kite, she stepped back more than 10 steps and then stood firmly.


    Junior Leopard folded his right hand behind him. He put his left hand down and stood leisurely.


    Meng Qingrong gritted her teeth. Strands of blue light surged violently on the long saber.


    PIPA, PIPA!


    The mysterious blue light and the "pipa" sound made everyone tremble in their heart.


    As the precious and priceless magic weapon of the Meng Family, Taixuan Thunder Saber contained the power of the Thunder of Ninth Heaven. It was invincible when it combined with the Universe Saber that had passed down from generation to generation in the Meng Family.


    Meng Qingrong was the first genius in the young generation of Meng Family, and also the daughter of the Family Head. Although she had been defeated by Junior Leopard once, she wasn''t discouraged, rather, she seemed to have a goal for her practice. In these three years, she had practiced hard and finally successfully refined the Taixuan Thunder Saber. Only a Level Seven expert could fully display its power. Now, she could execute 70 percent of its power.


    And 70 percent of its power was enough.


    The only shortcoming was that her strength was too weak. In order to fully display the 70 percent power, she needed a long time to store up the power.


    A deep blue electric arc was flashing. Several lightning balls the size of tennis balls formed, encircling the Taixuan Thunder Saber.


    "What is Zhou Bao doing?"


    "Now is the chance!"


    "Right. Why doesn''t he rush over her? If he lets her finish storing up power, it''ll be troublesome!"


    "Zhou Bao is so arrogant! How can he sit and wait for his opponent to store up power?!"


    ...


    ¡­


    Amidst the fierce and chaotic discussions, Meng Qingrong finished storing up the power. She pushed her long saber forward and grasped its handle tightly. The surging lightning shot everywhere and covered her body immediately.


    Fierce and violent saber intent carrying countless thunderbolts shot towards Junior Leopard.


    Universe Thunder Saber, fierce thunder rushed into the Ninth Heaven!


    BOOM!


    It sounded like thunder in the Ninth Heaven. The flash of thunderbolts whizzed and arrived in front of Junior Leopard instantly.


    Soon after, everything stopped!


    Yes, stopped!


    Meng Qingrong was surrounded by a layer of lightning from head to toe. Her body was in the air and her hands held the saber, keeping the posture of thrusting forward with the saber point pointed between Junior Leopard''s eyebrows.


    But now, there was a hand in front of the saber point!


    It was Junior Leopard''s left hand.


    He closed his hand. It was his palm that faced the point of Taixuan Thunder Saber. A sliver of blue lightning condensed between his palm and the saber point and grew bigger gradually, while the lightning that covered Meng Qingrong and the long saber slowly shrunk, weakened and disappeared.


    A strange strength emitted from Junior Leopard''s half-closed left hand. It withdrew all the power from Meng Qingrong and the saber to space between his palm and the saber point.


    Soon, ping-pong ball sized, but more condensed and clear blue lightning sphere appeared between his palm and the saber point.


    This electric sphere was different from the one surrounding the long saber. The latter had strands of electric arcs encircling it and made a "pipa" sound. The former was deep blue, just like a water ball. Wisps of streamers flashed around it, but no electric arc overflowed.


    The other spectators naturally didn''t understand but experienced Meng Haichen saw through it. Simply put, Junior Leopard had withdrawn and condensed Meng Qingrong and the Taixuan Thunder Saber''s power. Easily, with one palm.


    Meng Haichen''s body shook fiercely and he took one step forward.


    "Senior, what...!"


    Meng Shian, who stood aside suddenly asked Meng Haichen what he was doing. But Meng Haichen raised his hand and stopped Meng Shian from finishing his words.


    Not far away from here, Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue looked at each other with panic in their eyes.


    Meng Haichen was a Level Eight expert. If he wanted to intervene in the fight, no one could stop him.


    But what made them rest assured was that Meng Haichen only took one step forward without taking any further action. His gaze fixed on Junior Leopard as if he wanted to engrave the figure of Junior Leopard in his heart.


    Junior Leopard''s grasp seemed casual, but in his eyes, he could sense that Junior Leopard''s half-closed palm could cover the whole heaven and earth with an infinite artistic conception.


    This kind of artistic conception was only perceived by him, an expert who had cleared and condensed saber intent.


    Thus, he could only take one step forward. He dared not to move forward continuously.


    He knew that the whole situation was under Junior Leopard''s control. No matter if it was Meng Qingrong or the Taixuan Thunder Saber, nothing was a threat to him. Junior Leopard could even spare a hand to cope with him.


    Under these circumstances, he didn''t even care about his reputation. The Meng Family couldn''t afford the loss of their prestige.


    Moreover, though Junior Leopard was powerful, he didn''t show any killing intent. Therefore, he stopped and waited for the cat to jump.


    ¡­


    ...


    "Then, let me finish this farce!" Junior Leopard said softly. He suddenly jerked his left hand backward. Meng Qingrong and his saber were dragged behind him by his force.


    "Aagh!" Meng Qingrong lost control of her saber. She rolled away and stopped 15 meters away, behind Junior Leopard. She no longer had the strength to stand up. Taixuan Thunder Saber and the blue thunderbolt were in front of Junior Leopard''s palm. But now, the saber had lost some of its lusters.


    Junior Leopard stretched out his right hand which had been folded behind him this whole time. He grasped the handle of the Taixuan Thunder Saber and separated it with the thunderbolt. Then, he threw the saber forward and thrust it into the earth right in front of Meng Qingrong, leaving only a handle.


    With his left hand holding the blue thunderbolt, a trace of smile flashed across his face.


    What a wretched girl she is! How dare she use the thunderbolt to deal with me? I''ve experienced more dangerous situations before, so this was nothing to me.


    Junior Leopard snorted and suddenly withdrew his left hand. He released the blue thunderbolt, and it flew to the most crowded place instantly.


    "Oh, no...!"


    "Help!"


    "What are you doing?!"


    Shrek screams rang in the crowd. Though they didn''t know how powerful the blue ball was, just by looking at the process of its formation, many people were trembling in fear and dared not to touch it.


    All of a sudden, wails could be heard in the crowd. All the people were in a panic.


    SWISH!


    The blue thunderbolt changed its route when it was six centimeters away from the crowd. It swept 100 meters upward. Then, Junior Leopard made it explode with his left hand.


    In a flash, a glaring light flickered through the sky. It even covered the light of the sun and took a long time to disperse.


    "Both the saber and your martial arts skills are good, but your cultivation is not high enough!" After the light disappeared, Junior Leopard turned around and spoke to the tsundere girl who had stood up. "Maybe in several years, you can fully display the power of this saber. And at that time, you may pose a threat to me!"


    "She has lost the fight and it''s a fact. There''s no other probability!" Meng Haichen''s voice rang behind Junior Leopard. He walked to Meng Qingrong''s front, picked up the Taixuan Thunder Saber from the earth and handed it to her.


    "What do you mean, First Elder Meng?"


    "This time, it''s us, the Meng Family who lose the fight!" Meng Haichen said in a sonorous voice as if he was not a loser but a winner. "Elder Zhou has excellent martial arts, I respect him a lot. If we, the Meng Family did something wrong and impolite before, I''m here to pray for your pardon!"


    "First Elder Meng, you''re too courteous. This affair was brought about by mistake and it has come to an end today. There''s no need for me to pardon anyone."


    Junior Leopard saluted with folded hands and smiled.


    "Right. It''s all over." Meng Haichen also saluted in the same manner. He brought Meng Qingrong and the rest of the Meng Family away. He did it quickly without causing a mess.


    "This old man has quite a discerning eye. How smart he is!" Junior Leopard thought in his mind. He nodded at Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue and they left together.


    Only the numerous stunned people of Jianghu remained. They came to themselves after a long time and then left.


    The long-awaited duel had come to an end two years later with Junior Leopard''s complete win.


    Zhou Bao, Elder of Wu Sect had shown an overwhelming advantage in this duel. Thus, no one on the spot saw through his strength.


    Several days later, River Heart Island and Jiang City calmed down from the chaos. Meanwhile, Junior Leopard received the document from the imperial court which required him to arrive at the capital city to accept the reward in a month!


    Many people in Jianghu also received the same document, for they were the ones who had made contributions in the battle of destroying Northern Yuan.

 Chapter 235: The Wuyang County Governor, a 300 km Radius Fief

    Chapter 235: The Wuyang County Governor, a 300 km Radius Fief


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Zhou Bao, the loyal and devoted general of Qing Province and highly skilled in feats, took credit for killing the enemy to protect grain. Now, I appoint you as the Wuyang County Governor. You will enjoy 3,000 hectolitres of food per year and a fief with a 300 km radius at Blackstone Valley. The official position is hereditary. By the emperor!"


    The shrill voice of the eunuch resounded in Junior Leopard''s ears. He suddenly shivered and then bowed his head lower.


    He did not lift his head until the shrill voice had ended. Then he loudly said, "Thanks to the emperor, Long Live Our Emperor!"


    "Please stand up, County Governor Zhou!"


    Hearing the appellation and the eunuch''s intonation, Junior Leopard got goose bumps.


    He had been in the capital city for 13 days. The news that the imperial court was going to enfeoff officials had spread all over the world.


    The news excited the whole world.


    To enfeoff?


    Maybe some smart people had thought of this before. However, when the imperial court actually implemented it, they still felt that it was incredible.


    The imperial court was going to carry out an enfeoffment system. The system of provinces and commanderies, which had lasted more than 10,000 years, had finally revealed its limits. Now, the old system from 10,000 years ago was needed to remedy the limits.


    Most people were excited about getting a piece of land that belonged entirely to them, while a few people saw much farther and deeper.


    This time a lot of people were enfeoffed. After all, Northern Yuan was so large that the system of provinces and commanderies was totally inappropriate under the circumstances.


    The Jin had only established three new states in Seven Troops of the Southern Yard of Northern Yuan. The rest of the place was enfeoffed.


    Perhaps even the emperor did not know how much land was enfeoffed. He only knew the territories of major well-known families and schools,


    such as the Li Family in Pingzhou, the Meng Family in Ningzhou, the Liu Family in Yuzhou...


    and so on.


    The 12 largest well-known families in the Jin got the most fiefs. Their fiefs were the most fertile and largest areas on the prairie. The most interesting thing was that their fiefs were so close together that they almost overlapped. Moreover, whether the emperor did this intentionally or not, the boundaries of these fiefs were not clear. Then the emperor''s intentions were obvious.


    The Wu Family also got a fief with a 300 km radius, the same size as Junior Leopard''s. But the two fiefs were far away; one in the east and the other in the west, thousands of miles apart.


    In the imperial palace, the huge map of Northern Yuan was separated into countless small pieces. One should not look down on these small pieces as their actual areas were all hundreds of square kilometers.


    "2,352 fiefs, Emperor, you do have good means!"


    Looking at the northern prairie, which was like a large cake that was cut into so many small pieces, the old man in green was smiling brightly. "Apart from the fact that there are almost no people on the prairie now, even if there were people, it would be impossible to unify the prairie without a long period of time!"


    "This isn''t my means, it''s yours!" The Jin Emperor was complacent as well, smiling and stroking a tuft of whiskers under his chin. Hundreds of years since the founding of the Jin, the dynasties of the Central Plains had experienced tens of thousands of years, and he was the first monarch to conquer the northern prairie. By virtue of this alone, it was enough for him to surpass all those previous wise emperors and sage-emperors.


    "I just made a little suggestion. Without Your Majesty''s invincible might, all of this is just a joke!"


    "Well, let''s not flatter each other! Have you seen the resignation of Ma Tianchang?"


    "Yes, I have." When it came to this, their smiling faces grew somber.


    "What do you think he really wants to do?"


    "He wants out!" The man in green answered coolly, "He doesn''t want to be involved in the mess any longer!"


    "Mess? Is it a mess? It''s a world event! It''s the big picture of the whole world! It''s an immortal achievement! Do you think it''s a mess?" The Jin Emperor''s voice rose sharply, and his dissatisfaction was palpable.


    "No, I don''t think so! It''s him. He thinks all achievements are a mess. We all know that if it were not for revenge, he would not have helped Your Majesty to take the throne, nor would he have helped you to guard the northern regions for so many years. Now that Northern Yuan was destroyed and his wish has been fulfilled, it''s normal to want out!"


    "It''s normal? Hmm, his wish has come true, but what about mine?" The Jin Emperor shouted angrily, "Over the years, I asked him to guard the northern regions, giving him great power to help me keep eyes on Northern Yuan. Now, Northern Yuan is destroyed, and he''s leaving. What does he take me for?"


    The man in green did not speak. In fact, he did not want to speak.


    He and Ma Tianchang followed the Jin Emperor before the Jin Emperor''s succession to the throne. 80 percent of the credit for helping the Jin Emperor to become the emperor went to them. After the Jin Emperor ascended the throne, they were entrusted with heavy responsibility and trust. One of them was a feudal official in the northern regions and one was working in the Cabinet. The grade of working in the Cabinet was not very high, but his authority was so powerful that it was almost identical to that of Chen Yifu, who lived on Longhu Street. And if one considered the weight of his words in the presence of the Jin Emperor, in many cases the man in green had more authority than Old Master Chen.


    Thus, they knew each other well. He knew exactly why the Jin Emperor was angry, and he also knew that he had better not cut in when the Jin Emperor was roaring like a dissatisfied housewife.


    "Do you think I should approve the resignation?"


    Hearing the question, he raised his head, with a wry smile, saying, "Your Majesty, with all due respect, whether you approve it or not, the result is the same. Even if you don''t approve it, the bastard will surely go. So you might as well approve it!"


    "Approve it? It lets him off lightly!" The Jin Emperor roared.


    "Not really! This time he has made a great contribution to suppress Northern Yuan. It''s no exaggeration to say that he achieved the first-class merit. There are still a few large territories which haven''t been divided. Your Majesty can give him a large piece of land and let him go to the north. Even if he wants out, he needs a place to live anyway. The fief you give him is a great place to live. He has no reason to refuse!"


    "But...!"


    "Your Majesty, you don''t have to worry about this bastard. After all these years, can''t you see that he is a man without any ambition? And he has no son, only a daughter who has married. Give him a large, environmentally friendly fief. That he goes there is the equivalent of helping you keep watch on that group of local moneybags. Even if he didn''t mean it, those local moneybags would see it that way!"


    "Will he go?"


    "He''ll go as long as you give him a good place with beautiful scenery!" The man in green laughed.


    "Then do as you said!" The Jin Emperor nodded. Although he had just had a great outburst and called Ma Tianchang a bastard, he certainly knew Ma Tianchang''s character after all these years. If he did not really approve the resignation, the bastard would definitely resign and leave. By that time, he would lose face. It was better to give him a good fief and let him go. If this guy accepted his favor, he might actually help him keep watch on that group of local moneybags!


    Local moneybags were what they called the land owners who had just received fiefs. Once these people were enfeoffed, they must become local emperors. However, it was not appropriate to call them local emperors in front of the Jin Emperor. Therefore, the man in green called them local moneybags. Over time, they got used to it.


    "About that Clear Glass Jade Bottle, is it really hopeless?" Suddenly, the Jin Emperor changed the topic.


    "Yes, there''s no way. The Immortal Palace has returned the payment, plus 10 times for compensation. They also said they won''t take over the matter again!"


    "Then is there any other..."


    "Other organizations certainly can''t do something which the Immortal Palace can''t do!" The man in green replied with a forced smile, "Your Majesty, forget it! The Clear Glass Jade Bottle should not have appeared in the world. This time Ma Tianchang exposed it, and I reckon he''ll be in big trouble!"


    "The others don''t know Ma Tianchang''s background. But we know it clearly. He has the Five Manor View to support him. Thus, even if he''s in trouble, it won''t be too big!"


    "That''s it. Your Majesty, the Clear Glass Jade Bottle is much safer in his hands than in your hands!"


    "Hmph! He, as the Governor of Yunzhou, has such a magic weapon which can control fate, while the Jin only has a Pure Yang Weapon. Don''t you think it''s inappropriate?"


    "The Clear Glass Jade Bottle can indeed control fate. However, it''s not the antiquity times anymore. We no longer need that kind of magic weapon to control fate. Your Majesty, excess is just as bad as deficiency!"


    "How can I not understand what you said? But when I think of that bastard, I can''t help getting angry!"


    "This shows that Your Majesty is a man of real character!" The man in green laughed.


    The Jin Emperor raised his head and glanced at him. "Really?"


    "Yes, Your Majesty!"


    They both laughed.


    "Well, let''s see which place is better for Governor Ma!"


    ...


    ...


    "Congratulations, Elder Zhou!"


    Taking the benefit Junior Leopard put in his hand, the eunuch who announced the imperial edict left with a beaming countenance. Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue, who had been in the house, came out together and began to congratulate him with one voice.


    A fief with a 300 km radius!


    This area was quite the same as that of the Wu Family. The Wuyang County Governor is a Rank Five nobility, which was equal to that of the Wu''s Family Head, Wu Yansheng. Among personal rewards, Junior Leopard was handsomely rewarded.


    "Thank you!" Junior Leopard hurriedly said, "I don''t even know where Blackstone Valley is!"


    "Who knows!" Wu Yansheng also laughed bitterly. "This time the imperial court made a sudden decision. Northern Yuan is too large. Our Wu Family was also enfeoffed a fief with a radius of 300 km. Last night, Elder Lyu and I searched on the map for a long time. God, it borders the East Sea, nearly 5,000 kilometers from Yunzhou. I reckon there''s not a person there now!"


    Lyu Yiyue nodded in agreement beside them, but Junior Leopard could see the envy and bitterness in his eyes.


    He was the Wu''s First Elder. Although the Wu Family played a great role in the war of the destruction of Northern Yuan, as the strongest combat capability of the Family, he mainly protected the Wu Family. Therefore, he did not take credit on the battlefield and did not get a reward. As for some of his nephews, though they went off to the war, their cultivation was too low to take credit for fiefs. Thus it was awkward for him to see Junior Leopard and Wu Yansheng talking about the fiefs.


    Both Wu Yansheng and Junior Leopard were shrewd men, so how could they not know what he was thinking? But there was nothing they could do about it. Neither Junior Leopard nor Wu Yansheng would cede a piece of land of the fief to him, though it was permissible in Jin''s law that was newly enacted.


    Hence, they had a very tacit understanding to end their discussion on this topic.


    Over the next few days, Junior Leopard wandered through the capital city of the Jin. Although the war had just passed, in the hinterland of Qianzhou, the center of the Central Plains, the capital city of the Jin, there was no trace of war. On the contrary, after the fall of Northern Yuan, the capital city was immersed in extreme fanaticism.


    Yes, it was fanaticism. The destruction of Northern Yuan not only made the capital city of the Jin, but also various places of the Jin completely immersed in fanaticism.


    Everyone wanted to get a piece of land and to be a vassal.


    This was difficult in the past. Only if you had great credit and a strong influence could you be a governor of a state of the Jin and be called a vassal, like Ma Tianchang.


    However, everyone knew it was just a compliment. Because you were not really a vassal, but a controlled imperial court official.


    The word "vassal" came from the medieval period. It referred to the lords and nobles who had been enfeoffed land. In other words, only the lords and nobles who had been enfeoffed land could be called vassals.


    Now, after more than 10,000 years of its disappearance, the system of enfeoffment finally appeared again. Likewise, after they disappeared for more than 10,000 years, vassals once again appeared in the world.


    The families and individuals who were enfeoffed were the real vassals, whether the fiefs were large or small, fertile or barren.


    And what was the first impression of vassals?


    They were local emperors!


    What about the second impression?


    Striving for hegemony!


    Vassals strived for hegemony, and heroes came forth in large numbers.


    This was an idiom in the Jin, which had existed around for tens of thousands of years.


    More than 2,000 vassals occupied the desolate northern prairie. How chaotic it would be!


    This may be exactly what the Jin Emperor wanted to see.


    ...


    ...


    "Hehe, Commander, where shall we go today?"


    Walking leisurely on the street, Little Du happily followed behind Junior Leopard. And behind Little Du was Zhu Ba.


    Zhu Ba''s strength had improved rapidly in the past three years. Now his cultivation was Level Four, the Bone-Forging Realm. He was an expert as well. Even in a medium-sized well-known family like the Wu Family, he could be an Elder.


    Ever since Junior Leopard came to River Heart Island again, he followed Junior Leopard, and even wanted to quit his current position. As a matter of fact, not only he, but also several other people had the same idea, including the leaders of the Navy of Jiang City, like Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao.


    For three years, though a new Navy Commander had come, he did not have much real power. Because the navy had held together, Jiang Xiao was wise and Zhu Ba was skilled at martial arts. In addition, they had the financial support that Anyuan Store had given them. All this made it impossible for the new Navy Commander to interfere in the power of the navy.


    Fortunately, they were smart people, and would not embarrass the Navy Commander too much. They got along well with this new Navy Commander on the surface. If he asked the navy to do something, the navy would obey as long as it did not violate their interests. So they lived in peace for three years.


    In the past three years, with the medicinal herbs Junior Leopard gave him and subsequent accumulation, Zhu Ba''s cultivation finally broke through to Level Four and became the most powerful expert in the Navy of Jiang City. But he was no longer interested in the affairs of the Navy of Jiang City.


    This should be something that the people in the martial arts world could understand. When you possessed great power, you did not have much interest in worldly things.


    At the same time, he also found that his progress slowed after his cultivation had reached Level Four. Without the guidance of a true expert, he would not make any further progress with his foundation. In this world, only Junior Leopard could really help him. Hence, after Junior Leopard went back to River Heart Island, he was dead set on following him, and did not want to go back.


    As for the other people, like Wang Cheng, they saw Junior Leopard''s bright future.


    In the small Jiang City, even if they had a lot of money, it would be of no use.


    Now the imperial court had destroyed Northern Yuan and was frenziedly enfeoffing now. A new era was coming. At this point, to follow Junior Leopard and to step on a bigger, broader stage was what they should do.


    Although they were not young, they were in the prime of their lives, still far from retiring. They had great ambition and aspirations, but they never had a chance before. Now, the chance was out there. They certainly would not let it go.


    For Junior Leopard, he really needed some subordinates like them.


    He was not a man of management. When he was the Commander, he gave everything to Wang Cheng. Later, he left the position and returned to Li Yuan to be the Deputy Camp Supervisor of the personal guard camp. To be honest, there was no need for him to manage, he just needed to contribute labor.


    Now it was different. He had a rank of nobility and a fief. Whether the fief was large or small, fertile or barren, worth using or not, he could not take it lightly. Even if he did not use it, it was good to leave it to his family. The land needed to be managed. And it was clear that the Zhou family, which came from a mountain village, had no such talents. Of course he wanted a ready-made management team like Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao to follow him.


    Similarly, he did not want to give up River Heart Island and Anyuan Store. Then, for the first time, he felt a tremendous lack of manpower.


    Fortunately, Jiang Xiao helped him to solve the problem in River Heart Island and Anyuan Store.


    "Your Excellency, rest assured. The Navy of River Heart Island is full of our men. The strength of the Captains is good and they''re capable. When we leave, they''ll naturally take our place. The whole Navy of Jiang City is full of our men. Even if we leave, no one can deal with them. Don''t forget that we have a relationship with the water bandits on the Luo River. The relationship is now solid, and both sides can benefit a lot. Once things go wrong in the Navy of Jiang City, the water bandits will be the first to oppose. In my view, both the present Guard of Jiang City and the current Commander don''t have the courage to challenge our Navy of Jiang City."


    This was what Jiang Xiao told him. Although it was not clear, there was no doubt that even if they had left, River Heart Island was still his. He was very comfortable with Jiang Xiao and also had great confidence in him.


    Therefore, when they offered to follow him to the capital city, Junior Leopard agreed without much consideration.


    "Where shall we go today? Where do you want to go? I''m telling you not to take me to red-light districts. Do you think I don''t know where you often go these days?" Junior Leopard sneered.


    "How dare I!"


    Although Zhu Ba was thick-skinned, his face flushed due to Junior Leopard''s words. "Your Excellency, I know a restaurant. The food is excellent. Why don''t we go there?"


    "You go. I have something else to do!" Junior Leopard replied.


    "Ah, Your Excellency, won''t you have a meal?"


    "I''m going to bookstores. I know you''re not interested in those kinds of places!" Junior Leopard said and gave a wave, "You go, go!"


    "Your Excellency, you''re going to bookstores again!" Zhu Ba''s expression became odd. He had been walking around the capital city for days with Junior Leopard, but Junior Leopard went to bookstores every day. They almost visited all of the bookstores within the capital city and bought a pile of books every time. For the first few days, Zhu Ba followed Junior Leopard. Later, Junior Leopard found Zhu Ba''s expression grew more and more bitter, so he let Zhu Ba go and he quietly strolled into the bookstore.


    "Yes, I''m gonna go to bookstores again. And I''m going to buy a lot more books again!" Junior Leopard said, "Get out of here!"


    "Yes!" Zhu Ba replied. He had no interest in visiting bookstores, so hearing Junior Leopard''s words, he ran faster than a rabbit that was just amnestied.


    Visiting bookstores was a habit of Junior Leopard in his previous life. In this life, he gained great benefit from books, so he had a special fondness for bookstores.


    As the capital of the Great Jin, the capital city was the best city in the country, as well as one of the largest cities and the center of economy and culture in the world. There were many more books in the bookstores in the capital city than that in remote prefectures like Yunzhou and small places like Jiang City. And it was from these books that Junior Leopard found a lot of what he wanted.


    These days, he visited almost all of the bookstores in the capital city. Young as he was, he was very generous. Whatever book he liked, he would buy it, so he became one of the favorite customers for these bookstores.


    Book Street was an old street in the capital city. It was the place where bookstores and Book Fairs were concentrated, and the place where Junior Leopard visited the most these days.


    Bosses of these bookstores did not know who he was and thought that he was a rich master who came to the capital city for a visit and regarded him as a "big fish".


    Therefore, as soon as Junior Leopard came to Book Street, he was greeted by a group of bosses around him.


    He also smiled and greeted these bosses. When he was about to walk into a store, he suddenly stopped and his gaze also paused.


    What a pretty girl!

 Chapter 236: I Want a Home

    Chapter 236: I Want a Home


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The girl was pretty with an exquisite face. She looked tender and charming, about 15 or 16. There was a comely little maid behind her and they were wandering on Book Street.


    The two girls were dressed in men''s clothes, but Junior Leopard could tell at a glance that they were disguised as men. He believed that not only he, but also many people on Book Street had seen that.


    Fortunately, on Book Street was a Book Fair, so the people who came here were genteel. When they saw the girls disguised as men, they pretended not to notice. Instead, they enthusiastically promoted books to them as if they were seeing two fat sheep.


    Of course, there were some malicious eyes. Junior Leopard simply laughed.


    The two girls dressed up as men must have had a good background. Now at least five or six experts at Level Five or Six on the dark side of the street were protecting them. At this time, if anyone dared to find the trouble with the two girls, he would definitely suffer a loss.


    At this moment, the girl who was wandering about raised her head and met Junior Leopard''s gaze.


    Seeing Junior Leopard, the girl was stunned for a moment, and then a little bewilderment appeared on her face. She began to pull the little maid beside her, pointing at Junior Leopard. The little maid also looked up at Junior Leopard and was stunned for a moment as well. Then there was an incredible look on her face.


    They know me!


    Seeing their expression, and then associating with those experts who were hiding in the vicinity, Junior Leopard suddenly understood. He was a very well-known man now!


    Was there not such a saying that said that popularity tended to cause trouble?


    There were no cameras in this world, but there were many masters of painting. As far as he knew, his portrait had already spread to many powerful influences. Some of these influences did not want to cause misunderstanding because they did not recognize him; others had ulterior motives.


    It was obvious that the two girls had such expressions because they had seen his portrait.


    Now that they recognized him, Junior Leopard smiled and walked toward them. "Excuse me, two Young Masters!"


    When Junior Leopard suddenly approached and spoke to them, they seemed a little flustered, obviously not prepared.


    "Are, are you talking to us?" the pretty girl asked.


    "Of course. I think both of you are graceful and charming. So I want to make friends with you. I''m Zhou Bao from Yunzhou. May I have your names, please?"


    "Zhou, Zhou Bao? Are, are you really Zhou Bao from Yunzhou?"


    "Yes!" Junior Leopard answered with a smile, but his attention was focused on those experts around. As he approached the two girls, those experts who had hidden in the shadows were evidently stirring, but none of them came out.


    "Are you really Zhou Bao from Yunzhou?" The maid dressed up as a footboy behind the girl could not help asking as well.


    Junior Leopard had to nod again.


    "I''m Yan Fei. He''s my attendant, Little, Little Huang!" The pretty girl imitated Junior Leopard to cup her fist on the other hand before her chest.


    "Mr. Yan, nice to meet you!"


    Junior Leopard froze a moment after he heard the pretty girl''s words. Yan was the imperial surname. Was the girl the emperor''s relative?


    Then Yan Fei came back from the initial confusion and began to chat with Junior Leopard.


    Gradually, she was relaxed. They talked and laughed as if they had been friends for years. This made the footboy, Little Huang, somewhat puzzled. She did not understand what Junior Leopard had done to make the princess be so affectionate to him.


    Junior Leopard was good at pleasing, not to mention facing an unsophisticated girl. Those little jokes that he had seen on the Internet in his previous life were at his fingertips. Therefore, with a few words, he drew Yan Fei''s interest.


    The three of them strolled along Book Street while chatting.


    "It''s better to meet than hear. Rumors in Jianghu say that Brother Zhou is as fierce as a wild beast. Unexpectedly, you''re so gentle and educated!"


    "Rumors aren''t necessarily groundless. It''s just that I''m in a good mood today. If I''m in a bad mood someday, I''ll be like a wild beast!" said Junior Leopard with a laugh. "Brother Yan, do you come here to buy books?"


    "Yes, did Brother Zhou also come here to buy books?"


    "I like to read miscellaneous books. I like all the strange books. There are few bookstores in Yunzhou. This time, I certainly want to enjoy myself to the fullest in the capital city!"


    "Enjoy yourself to the fullest? You go to bookstores just for enjoying yourself to the fullest?"


    "Not really, I''m going to buy books!" Junior Leopard walked into a bookstore with Yan Fei. "I''ve been hanging around Book Street for several days, and I''m kind of familiar with it here. This Hongwen Bookstore has the most books and the books are the most diverse, so I like to come here." Then he picked up a book to read.


    Yan Fei looked around and suddenly saw a book lying on the shelf. Her eyes lit up and she pulled out the book and read it just like Junior Leopard did.


    "Oh, is Brother Yan interested in medicine?" Junior Leopard turned some pages of the book and set it aside. He glanced at the book in Yan Fei''s hands with the corner of his eyes, and then he asked with a smile.


    "No, I''m just trying to find a folk prescription for headaches."


    "A folk prescription?" Junior Leopard laughed. "If it''s a headache, it''s better to find a good doctor and not to use folk prescriptions."


    "Why?" Yan Fei asked with puzzlement. "I heard some folk prescriptions are very effective!"


    "They''re called folk prescriptions because they''re produced by chance. They have different effects on different people. They can cure some people immediately. However, for others, they might be deadly poisonous drugs!"


    "Huh?" Yan Fei was startled and hastily threw the book to the side. Seeing Junior Leopard looking at her with a smile, she blushed. "You are kidding me!"


    "No, I''m telling the truth!" Junior Leopard laughed. "Do you know how folk prescriptions came about? I thought of a joke!"


    "A joke?" Junior Leopard told her a lot of jokes along the way, which made her very happy. Now hearing that there was a joke about folk prescriptions, she became curious. "What joke is it? Tell me about it!"


    "Okay!" Junior Leopard nodded. "One man in Central Shu learned literature at first, but he hadn''t been admitted for three years. Then he learned martial arts. However, he shot an arrow at the schoolyard and hit the drum official, so he was expelled. Then he began to study medicine and had some achievements. He created a prescription, but after he drank it, he died."


    As soon as Junior Leopard finished this, Yan Fei and Little Huang were both laughing with their hands covering their mouths. It took a few moments before they stopped. Yan Fei gave Junior Leopard a black look. "There is no such person in the world. You made it up!"


    "Why not? If not, how can there be so many folk prescriptions in the world?" Then the three of them laughed again.


    After a few jokes, they walked into a row and got close to each other. With a profound family origin, Yan Fei had acquired in-depth knowledge. Junior Leopard had more life experience, and had read many miscellaneous books. In addition, he did well in observing and talking. Unknowingly, he used some of the tricks from secret books of picking up girls that he had seen in his previous life. The more they talked, the more congenial and happier they became. They even had a feeling of regretting not having known each other before.


    Beside them, Little Huang was sweating all over with worry. As a servant in the imperial palace, her life was even worse than a dog''s. It was because the princess was a good person, treating her like a sister, that she lived so well. If the princess eloped with a man, she would die.


    However, the princess and Zhou Bao talked so happy that she dared not disturb them and could only worry.


    Junior Leopard took Yan Fei around the entire street two times and bought seven or eight books. Finding that the sun was directly over their heads, he proposed, "Brother Yan, it''s getting late. How about finding a place to eat something?"


    "Great!" Yan Fei raised her eyebrows and a flicker of excitement flashed across her eyes. "I heard that Fragrance Lounge is the first restaurant in the capital city. Let''s go there!"


    "Fragrance Lounge?" Junior Leopard shook his head repeatedly. "No, no, no, it only has a good reputation, but the food isn''t delicious. If you really want to eat well and eat until you''re full, you have to go to Ditan Street. The food there is cheap and delicious, and it has the characteristics of the capital city!"


    "It''s not been long since you arrived in the capital city. But you''re so familiar with this city!"


    "Well, I can''t help it. I have no hobbies but food!" Junior Leopard chuckled. "How about it? Let''s go together!"


    "All right!" Yan Fei did not refuse and went to Ditan Street led by Junior Leopard.


    ...


    ...


    In Shanglin Imperial Park, the Royal Capital¡ª


    The bright moon shed a white light. The whole Shanglin Imperial Park was covered in it, as if it were enveloped in frost and snow.


    In the Blighted Pavilion of Shanglin Imperial Park, the Great Jin Emperor Yan Yuntian, who conquered the northern prairie, sat at a stone table, holding a teacup in his hand. He stared fixedly at a black figure in front of him.


    "What? Zhou Bao? The one from Yunzhou? He and Fei-er spent a day on the street?"


    "Yes, Your Majesty!"


    "Why didn''t you stop it?"


    "... Zhou, Zhou Bao and the princess had an agreeable conversation. He didn''t seem to know the princess''s identity. And he didn''t do something outrageous. They just strolled about together, so..."


    "Nonsense!" The teacup in his hand landed on the face of the black figure. "Young as he is, he entered Jianghu at an early age. He''s an old con. How could he not tell that Fei-er disguised herself as a man?" "They had an agreeable conversation without outrageous actions? Strolling together all day is the most outrageous action. Would he do that if he had no attempt on Fei-er? Are you all pigs? Can''t you even tell that?" The Jin Emperor roared, without any trace of the king who did not show his emotions and was calm in the court during the daytime.


    Kneeling on the ground, the black figure dared not say anything, letting the angry father swear to vent his anger.


    Angrily, the Jin Emperor Yan Yuntian stood up from the stone bench and walked up and down in the Blighted Pavilion. Suddenly, he stopped. "Ask the Imperial City Department to report to me a detailed account of Zhou Bao''s whereabouts over the past few months. And ask the Secret Department to send all the information of Zhou Bao to the Imperial Study!"


    "Yes!"


    Junior Leopard had no idea that he would get such attention from the Jin Emperor after wandering around the street with Yan Fei for a day. Thus, he was in good mood.


    He had a favorable impression of Yan Fei, whom he met today. Not that he fell in love with the girl. He just had a crush on her. After all, love at first sight only happened in fairy tales.


    The girl was beautiful, in line with Junior Leopard''s taste. She was sweet and mild and her gentle voice sounded very comfortable. She must have been from a good family, perhaps the emperor''s relative. Of course, the main thing was her beauty. The delicate facial features, the lovely nose, and the small mouth that would slightly open once she smiled all fit perfectly within Junior Leopard''s standards for his wife.


    "Well, the first meeting was really good. I must have made a good impression on her!" Junior Leopard was very satisfied with his performance today, but he was worried about what should he do next.


    "Chasing a girl requires perseverance. Obviously, Yan Fei lives in the capital city, while I''m leaving in two days. How am I going to chase her? Stay here for her? That''s not going to work. I have a lot of things to do. Moreover, if I stay here, I''ll definitely attract the attention and suspicion of many people!"


    The capital city was not like the other places. Experts like Junior Leopard would get much attention in the city and every time they entered the city, they needed to put on record. This time, he came to the capital city because of the reward, which was a very good reason. However, once it was over, he had to leave. Staying here too long would cause trouble for him. If he said he stayed here for a girl, no one would believe him, and he would be laughed at.


    However, he did not want to give up. Having been in this world for so many years, he finally met a girl he liked very much. Giving up was out of his character. Besides, he was not young anymore. In this world, people of his age, even if they were not married, had already been engaged, unless they were really poor. Most people had children at the age of 17. Now, though he was not in a hurry, his family was in a hurry. Even subordinates like Zhu Ba were very concerned about this matter. From time to time, they would like to introduce their cousins and nieces to him, which made him quite fretful.


    "Oh, aren''t there a lot of finger men of the Immortal Palace in the capital city? The enfeoffment is such a big deal, but they knew it half a year in advance. They must be able to find out the background of Yan Fei. Why don''t I ask them to check it for me? If she''s the right one, I can prepare some lavish gifts to propose a marriage!"


    Then he thought it through. He was not in China in the 21st century. Basically, people did not believe in free love. You did not need to chase the girl you liked. You should carry the bride-price directly and find a respectable person to propose a marriage. If you were rejected, there were still second and third chances. In a word, you could always go to propose a marriage until you succeeded.


    Anyway, Junior Leopard had a rank of nobility and a fief with a 300 km radius in the northern prairie. He might be called a little vassal. With such an identity, even if Yan Fei was really a relative of the emperor, he was barely worthy of her.


    "If she were a princess, things would be a little more difficult!" It was a matter of his lifelong happiness. He certainly had to think more and plan for it.


    Actually, the arranged marriages of this era could bring a lot of convenience to guys like him. Likewise, it could also cause a lot of trouble, which was even more than the convenience.


    Because in this world, it was the woman''s parents who really made the decision. If Yan Fei''s parents were scheming, they would bring up harsh demands to Junior Leopard when finding out about his great value, and he would be embarrassed too.


    "How about taking her away?"


    Junior Leopard thought about it and gave up on the idea. Nothing forcibly done was going to be agreeable. Unless he really did catch Yan Fei, it was very bad to take her by force.


    He thought about it all night like that and had not come up with a solution. "Well, I''ll go to the contact point of the Immortal Palace tomorrow so they can help me check the true identity of Yan Fei!"


    ...


    ...


    "What? The Imperial City Department is investigating me!"


    On the second day, Junior Leopard came to the secret contact point of the Immortal Palace in the capital city. He was one of the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace now and was eligible to borrow the resources of the Immortal Palace. Unexpectedly, as soon as he came to the contact point, he received such a message. He had not even had time yet to make his request.


    Fragrance Lounge, the first restaurant in the capital city, was one of the contact points of the Immortal Palace. And the landlady, Li Wanxiang, was the only peripheral member of the Immortal Palace.


    However, it was obvious that Li Wanxiang was so trusted by the Immortal Palace that she knew the true identity of Junior Leopard. Hence, Junior Leopard had just entered Fragrance Lounge, and before he could even think of how to contact Li Wanxiang, he was led to her room.


    "The girl dressed as a man, who spent all day with you on the street, is named Yan Fei-er. She''s the favorite daughter of the Jin Emperor Yan Yuntian. Yan Yuntian stormed about what had happened yesterday. He thought you had an attempt on his daughter, so he sent someone to investigate you. I think you''d better leave the capital city early!"


    Li Wanxiang was a beautiful woman in her 40s. She looked 30 years old due to good maintenance. Her big, watery eyes were fascinating. She looked at Junior Leopard with a smile, saying, "You know what, there were a lot of people who wanted to catch Princess Fei-er, but none of them succeeded!"


    "Their failure doesn''t mean that I can''t succeed!"


    Junior Leopard said with a smile.


    "Don''t tell me you really want to catch Yan Fei-er!"


    "What, can''t I?"


    "It''s not impossible, but it''s very difficult!"


    "That''s why I came to you!" Junior Leopard leaned lightly on the back of the chair. "I''m one of the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace. I have the right to get support from the Immortal Palace, don''t I?"


    "Are you sure you want to use the support from the Immortal Palace for this? Even if you''re one of the 28 constellations now, you can only use the resource of the Immortal Palace for free once a year. Are you really going to use this opportunity to do this boring thing?"


    "Well, is there anything more important to me than this?" Junior Leopard touched his nose and stood up. "I''m leaving the capital city, but I don''t want to give up the girl. I want her to be my bride. So, please!"


    "Now that you say so, I can''t change your mind. You can rest assured, I''ll be here to help you!"


    "Then it relies on you!"


    "A troublesome boy!" After Junior Leopard left, Li Wanxiang mumbled helplessly, her head leant on her hand, "alas, after all these years, has the Immortal Palace really fallen to help such a boy to pimp?"


    ...


    ...


    "Commander, are we leaving the capital city tomorrow?" When he returned to his residence, Junior Leopard gave orders to his men to leave the capital city, with a sulky face.


    "Of course, we''ve lived in the capital city for so long and have gotten all the things whether we should have gotten them or not. What are we doing here?" said Junior Leopard grumpily.


    It was as Li Wanxiang had said. As soon as he left Fragrance Lounge, he found himself being targeted. But the cultivation of those people who followed him was not very high and some of them even only knew a little about martial arts.


    Junior Leopard knew that those people were from the Imperial City Department. Although he made light of those people, he could not handle them at will. After all, those people just secretly tracked him and did not do anything too much to him.


    However, it was not a good thing to always be followed. It was not difficult to get rid of these people with Junior Leopard''s ability, but it only made them suspicious. The less trouble, the better. Now that the matter had been handed over to the Immortal Palace, it would make no sense for him to stay here. Anyway, he believed in the power of the Immortal Palace.


    Therefore, as soon as he came back, he gave the order to leave.


    "Your Excellency, where are you going, Jiang City or Yunzhou?"


    Although it seemed that Junior Leopard was very powerful now, but thinking carefully, he really did not have an exact residence. Anyuan Store was in Jiang City, Zhonghe Prefecture, but that was where he did business and was managed by Wang Tianlei. It was the home of Zhou Hua''er and Wang Tianlei. What about Yunzhou?


    There was the Wu Family in Yunzhou and he was an Elder of the Wu Family, but his last name was not Wu. As for the two, Zhou Mansion in Qingyang Market and the mountain village, his parents and brothers lived there. Though he was also the master, he did not want to live with them now.


    Blackstone Valley in the northern prairie belonged entirely to him. However, he had never been there. He found it on the map after looking for a long time. Thus, he could not live there as well.


    He thought for a long time, finding that the only place he could live now was perhaps the little courtyard in Zhonghe City. But he no longer worked in Zhonghe City presently. Furthermore, a group of people was following him. These people were different from him because they lived with their families. They had to have a place to settle!


    He had a headache when he thought of this.


    "Damn it! It seems that I still have to get married. Otherwise, everywhere is home, and then everywhere isn''t home. It is really unpleasant!"


    ¡­


    ...

 Chapter 237: Exclusive Puppet Technique & Tragedy in the Cool Breeze Gang

    Chapter 237: Exclusive Puppet Technique & Tragedy in the Cool Breeze Gang


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In the carriage, Junior Leopard sat cross-legged. He had made up his mind, so he left the capital city quickly.


    He planned to first go back to Yunzhou, settling those people from Zhonghe City. There were 20 or 30 of them, actually not a large group of people. Then, he wanted to check his fief, which was his own property. Though he had no clue of where it was, he had to go there someday. If the fief was not bad, he intended to settle there for a while.


    Just as he had thought before, the memories of his previous life had not been erased when he entered this new world from the old world, when he transformed into a baby from a man in his 40s. Thus, he had little sense of belonging in this new world.


    Therefore, he had no sense of security. Over the years, he had been working hard to strengthen his power; with a bit of luck, but mostly by hard work. As he became stronger, he felt more safe. Now, he needed to pursue a sense of belonging in this foreign world, which could not be given by others but could only come from himself.


    The carriage did not run fast on the official road but was somewhat jolty, and the space inside was quite roomy, matching up with his status as a viscount. There was not much difference in terms of the rank of nobility between the Jin, even on the Central Plains, and ancient China in his previous life. They were: duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron from the top on down. Now, he at least ranked fifth as a viscount, so his carriage could not be anything less. Otherwise, it would not only make him lose face, but also the face of the imperial court.


    This carriage was his new purchase and was totally worth the money. It was not too luxurious, but roomy with a soft couch and a small side table, in which people could sit, sleep or stand. It should be noted that on the edge of the soft couch hid a row of secret cabinets, being pretty useful in storing a few odds and ends, which were expected to be to a lady''s liking.


    Junior Leopard had his eye on the carriage mainly due to its outstanding feature of being enclosed. Inside was covered tightly by thick felt and cotton fabric, and it was separated into a private and quiet space.


    Junior Leopard always favored private and quiet places with minimal interference from the outside world.


    "F*ck, what season is it! There are still bugs!"


    A small spinning spider was slowly crawling up from the curtain-covered window, making it all the way up to the soft couch. Junior Leopard was going to flick it away, probably to its death, when a quirky idea struck his mind.


    Between his fingers flashed a dark-green, luminous spot, which was not Internal Qi but a thought.


    The thought was just like a wisp of fire.


    It disappeared into the spider''s body in the twinkling of an eye.


    ubsequently, a very strange feeling passed through the thought. At that moment, he became a spider in some way, along with the spider''s sense of touch, smell, and vision.


    However, it only remained for a second.


    His thought died in an instant, going down with which was a similar matter. The process was like an oil drop dripping into water, popping and then disappearing.


    The lifeless spider fell from the wall, motionless. Junior Leopard could still feel its breath of life. The spider was alive with no soul.


    The matter that together went down with the divine thought was the spider''s soul.


    Well, how about taking your soul out?


    Then, Junior Leopard opened the sedan curtain, lifted his hands with his palm wide open toward the roadside, and sucked in a few spiders, crickets, and the like.


    After taking them, Junior Leopard started his Fiery Eyes, pumping out the spirit of a spider, and forced his thought into the spider''s body. It worked this time.


    Through this piece of divine thought, Junior Leopard had made himself a spider to some degree. But it did not feel good because right now the spider''s head was suffering a great deal of pain as if it was about to explode at any moment.


    "Crack!"


    Unsurprisingly, the spider burst apart with a slight crack. But this time, it did no harm to Junior Leopard''s thought, which had been retrieved by its owner timely.


    After pulling the thought back to his divine thoughts, he was hit again by a strange feeling¡ªthe feeling of being a spider for a few seconds.


    Although it''s just a piece of thought, it is still too much for these fragile insects. What if I try something stronger other than fragile insects?


    He repeated the whole procedure on other captured insects, but the results were pretty much the same, with the only difference lying in the time period before dying. However, he managed to control the cricket to move it forward a bit.


    These very steps offered him a new inspiration out of his previous whimsy.


    If I were able to find a few new creatures that could withstand my thoughts, wouldn''t it be the same as creating several animal-like incarnations of myself?


    Upon thinking this, he became excited and his mind started to get fired-up.


    "His Excellency, Songjiang City is ahead. We shall rest there for a night!" said Zhu Ba outside of the carriage.


    "Well, all right!" Leopard replied.


    Now he could not wait to catch some cats and dogs for experiments.


    Songjiang City was a small town in central Jin, whose gate had already been shut in the middle of the night. However, Junior Leopard served as a Level Five Viscount, who had the power to command the opening of the gate at midnight.


    Entering the city, he ran into some city officials serving as magistrate and garrison, who graciously offered an invitation to rest for the night in the government house. Junior Leopard refused them after a perfunctory small talk. Later, Zhu Ba reported to him that he had checked into an inn.


    Songjiang City was a small city with few inns. There was only one inn available to receive so many people at midnight. That was Yuewen Inn, whose spelling was just a word different from that of the most well-known chain inn in Jianghu¡ªYuelai Inn, or the so-called Happiness Inn.


    Junior Leopard and his followers checked into the courtyard, the only spacious courtyard in Yuewen Inn, and the only one that could accommodate so many people in Songjiang City.


    It took a while to properly allocate rooms for everyone, but none of the details bothered Junior Leopard because his room was no doubt the deluxe suite among all the kinds of rooms.


    The Deluxe Suite was spacious and truly deserved its title with a decent study and a reception room.


    Marvelous!


    His facial expression was slightly changed as he was stepping in the door, and suddenly showed a trace of weirdness. But such weirdness was gone in no time and he walked straight toward the bed like everything was fine.


    There was a hanger at the bedside. Junior Leopard took off his coat, hung it up, and walked toward the table located in the middle of the room.


    The teapot and cup on the table were well-placed with hot water.


    Reaching for the teapot, Junior Leopard murmured, "That''s very considerate!"


    The moment the teapot was picked up, a bright green light that was hidden below the teapot shot at his wrist.


    Fast!


    Unbelievably fast!


    It was so incredibly fast that even Junior Leopard could not escape even with mental preparation.


    A bit of numbness went through his right arm almost in the blink of an eye.


    What a strong poison!


    With a closer look, Junior Leopard had seen through the green light, which turned out to be a green, bean-sized spider.


    At this point, the dark green spider, stiffening all over, was biting tightly on Junior Leopard right wrist.


    Logically speaking, this spider''s light should go out as fast as before after it had bitten him.


    At the moment, Junior Leopard had independently defended himself through his Poison Cold Shield while being bitten.


    The green spider was extremely virulent. However, Junior Leopard had always carefully nourished the Poison-absorbing Green Bead and successfully cultivated the Poison Cold Shield. Therefore, this virulence could at most paralyze his right hand before being fully absorbed by the shield. Then, Junior Leopard''s right hand returned to normal while the spider was frozen by the shield with no jumping ability at all.


    "What a sophisticated plot!" Junior Leopard remarked. He smiled and flicked the poor green creature onto the table top.


    My team didn''t go in secrecy, so they must have figured out that we would spend the night in this courtyard in Yuewen Inn based on our numbers and routes. Even more, they expected that I would be at the Deluxe Suite in accordance with my status. Therefore, they plotted it all to hide the strange spider below the teapot, sat back and waited, only waiting for me to pour some water to consummate their plan of a one-hit kill!


    It did not take long for Junior Leopard to see through this little game¡ªa simple but good scheme.


    It seems that whoever wants me dead holds high expectations of you, poor thing!


    Junior Leopard looked at the stiff, dark green spider and remembered its origin.


    It''s among the five green-scaled poisonous creatures, one of the most vicious and poisonous creatures in the world. Sadly enough, it never occurred to you that I have the Poison-absorbing Green Bead with me!


    Junior Leopard was shielded by the Poison Cold Shield and carried the Poison-absorbing Green Bead with him, and was absolutely familiar with poison. In addition, the appearance of that spider was nothing but conspicuous, which made it easy to spot its origin.


    The mixture of five green-scaled poisonous creatures was known as one of the top nine poisons in the world.


    Why so?


    The reason was that only when synthesized by all five green-scaled poisonous creatures could such a toxin be listed as one of the top nine poisons. While the individuality of the five, though they could easily bring down Level Seven or Eight experts, was still far away from the top nine.


    The poison that could cause the death of Level Nine experts instantly won the glory of being one of the top nine poisons. If this time Junior Leopard was hit by one of those, he could die soon before his Poison-absorbing Green Bead could dissolve it.


    Junior Leopard''s right arm did become numb for a little while.


    That was because the toxin had spread beyond his right arm before the Poison-absorbing Green Bead could fully absorb the poison.


    The Poison-absorbing Green Bead was able to detoxify every sort of toxin, but it required time.


    Junior Leopard was not eager to find out who was behind all of this. He stared at the stiff Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula, twitching his mouth twice.


    Normal spiders cannot bear my thoughts. I wonder whether a Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula could!


    As he thought of it, he immediately started his Fiery Eyes, sucked out the soul of the Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula and controlled it with a thought.


    Oh, it is so cold!


    An odd coldness came from the spider''s body, and almost froze his thought to nothing.


    "Amazing! The Poison Cold Shield is really tough!" Junior Leopard said to himself and lifted his hand, subsequently, he covered the table with a stream of heat flow. It was after a while before his thought regained its vitality and passed its feelings to the divine thoughts of Junior Leopard.


    It was a strange feeling. After the Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula came back to life, Junior Leopard tried to control its body with difficulties, and did not take long to get familiar with the feeling. The feeling was different from the Reining Flying Sword, which enabled him to feel just like a spider with the thought, including its compound eyes, its poisonous gland, as well as the shrill and anxious noise around the spider.


    It was the noise which could only be heard by a Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula. After hearing it, Junior Leopard felt the spider''s eagerness to leave.


    However, it was limited to its body.


    Its soul has been extracted by Junior Leopard and thus had disappeared. Now, the thought of Junior Leopard controlled everything, with its old soul being replaced.


    Replacing its soul with a thought made the spider an extension of Junior Leopard''s body. If there existed any inhibition in its soul, it would naturally dissipate. Let alone Junior Leopard could tell from the spider that there existed no inhibitions or any spiritual contact like the one shared by him with Little Du. The spider was simply tamed.


    It should be noted that whether setting inhibitions on souls or sharing spiritual contact with another, like the one Junior Leopard and Little Du owned, they were both rare and superior means in Jianghu, and the masters of which could be counted on one hand. The most frequently used method for poisonous insects and vicious beasts was domestication, similar to taming a hound.


    Evidently, based on the reaction of spider''s body toward the noise around him, the noise was a signal, a command noise that could only be heard by spiders.


    When Junior Leopard thought of this, the Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula jumped a few times and got used to the new body. Then, it took a high jump with its eight legs and shot out the window like a green light.


    The source would soon be found by following the sound. However, Junior Leopard felt funny during the process.


    There were two strange findings. First, controlling the creature was nothing like the Reining Sword. The latter was just a weapon, making him able to move when reining it. In contrast, as for the former, he needed to concentrate several times more than he did with the Reining Sword and remain unmoving, totally engrossed. Only by doing so could he fully control the thought and manipulate the spider''s body. Second, the Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula had already been severely infected by the Poison Cold Shield. It did not occur to him at first, but the spider was actually dying after strenuous movements.


    Fortunately, the spider moved fast and its journey never went beyond the inn, meaning that the plotter was nearby. So, the spider finished its job successfully in its last moments.


    "Really?"


    It was another courtyard at the inn. Both the courtyard and its room were way smaller and lower graded than Junior Leopard''s. With a dark oil lamp, Junior Leopard was able to identify the face of the only man in the room.


    He was an ordinary man in his 30s or 40s, who looked like a farmer that had just gotten out of the field. His eyes were flashing a very cold light, and scary somehow.


    The spider fell straight down to the ground after jumping into the room. Through the thought, Junior Leopard could feel its last extreme affliction¡ªits organs evidently had been completely exhausted by the Evil Qi of the Poison Cold Shield. That long jump was like the last radiance of a setting sun.


    That man did not see it coming, shockingly witnessing the dispirited Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula. Then, he tried to take a closer look at it by grabbing the spider into his palm, only to feel a tingle at his fingertips, which fiercely stretched all the way to his arm.


    With a muffled shout, he walked backward two steps, waved his left hand, and pulled out a dagger. He cut off his right arm from the elbow resolutely with a chilling light.


    "Uh¡ª!"


    What a calm and ruthless man! He only grunted once with one clear cut of his forearm. After that, he stepped back to the bedside, tossed the knife aside, and groped out a white porcelain bottle. After biting off the plug, he poured some powder into his mouth several times and the rest onto his wound.


    He was so busy dealing with his freshly-cut wound that he did not even raise his head to notice that in front of him, his assassination target was smiling and looking at him. It was tense and horrifying.


    He instantly quivered inside and started to get the knife with his left hand out of instinct. But he quit trying to reach the knife and in turn looked at Junior Leopard with a bitter smile.


    "You''ve won!"


    "Slap!" A heavy slap hit him directly in the face, shoving him to the corner.


    "Why do you want to kill me?"


    "A lot of people want to kill you!" he said. Being slapped to the corner with his left cheek instantly swelling up, he was still deadpan and looked cool.


    "You''re just the type I hate the most, with a poker face acting like a superman!" Junior Leopard smiled grimly and said. Suddenly, he released an intangible force lifting the man toward himself, buckled the man''s throat precisely, and asked, "Who sent you on this mission? Who wants me dead? If you ever want to walk out of here alive, you shall answer me, otherwise, I won''t show any mercy!"


    "Will you spare my life?"


    The man''s expression finally changed a bit and he asked surprisingly.


    "Only if you''re telling the truth!"


    "I honestly don''t know. I''m simply following orders."


    "Orders?"


    "I''m from the Cool Breeze Gang!"


    The man was tossed to the ground after Junior Leopard loosened his hands.


    The Cool Breeze Gang was one of the famous killer organizations in Jianghu. The way that the Cool Breeze Gang recruited killers was just like the way that the Immortal Palace did, with expert-gathering, and the members and capabilities of which were both daunting. The killers were assigned with different murder missions. It was reported that an expert at Level Eight served at the Cool Breeze Gang.


    A Level Eight expert who was serving as a killer?


    No one had heard of such a shameless person, who totally discarded the face of Level Eight experts. Nevertheless, it was true that people were invincible when they did not care a damn thing about self-dignity. Almost no one could stand unscathed in front of an expert and professional killer as strong as Level Eight. However, rare dirty jobs would go to such hands.


    The world was not black or white. A Level Eight killer did not get his hands dirty easily, who could not even be called upon with the combined influence of three powerful and well-known families, let alone anyone or any single power.


    Not to mention that such a figure would not kill to his liking without limits due to his high status in expertise. The case otherwise would incur the wrath of the public. Therefore, this expert barely did the killing, only serving as a deterrence on behalf of the Cool Breeze Gang.


    If he was really a member of the Cool Breeze Gang, he would not know the client behind the curtain. It was known that the Cool Breeze Gang only revealed a client''s target to the killer, and never information about the client.


    "As it''s the case, please take a message for me to your superior that he should kill the client and send his head to me!" said Junior Leopard grimly. Then, before he could react, the man was tossed out of the window to the ground brutally with the sounds of broken bones.


    The heavy fling broke at least one-third of his bones.


    That man spurted out a mouthful of blood and took quite a while to get on his feet.


    Fixing his eyes on the inn with a flash of reluctance, he was about to leave when he again heard the low but clear voice of Junior Leopard. "Don''t forget to tell your superior that I would love to trample down the Cool Breeze Gang if he can''t accomplish the mission within a month."


    Though it was a low voice, it frightened the man for a moment and an incredible look of disbelief appeared on his face.


    How arrogant that was!


    Founded 300 years ago, the Cool Breeze Gang had gotten a perfect record in completing murder missions. There were at least 12 Level Seven experts and six Level Eight experts among the murdered men over the years.


    For 300 years, never ever had a person or a power, though holding the utmost resentment to the Cool Breeze Gang, said something as arrogant as that.


    How to define the words: trample down the Cool Breeze Gang?


    By saying it out loud?


    The Cool Breeze Gang was known for having a Level Eight killer and several Level Seven professional killers.


    Level Seven experts could be counted as the ones with superb power in the martial arts world, while Level Seven killers showed way more deterrence than common Level Seven experts.


    In addition, the Cool Breeze Gang was indeed a killer organization with a notorious name for methods of murder. It could be assumed that there were more astonishing talents or means to keep this organization standing steadily for over three centuries. Thus, never ever would someone, or wealthy and powerful families, or major sects in the martial arts world go against the Cool Breeze Gang easily. But now, how did Junior Leopard dare to speak with such boldness?


    Of course, Junior Leopard was not just being hot-headed, because he could ask for help from the Immortal Palace when things really went that bad. It was something that he could afford. Let alone, he did not consider the killer organization a big deal for his present strength.


    In the eyes of an outsider, it seemed to be a mysterious organization. But it was quite the opposite in his eyes.


    There only remained two things to take care of before his trampling down of the Cool Breeze Gang. First thing was getting its address. The second was protecting his own family in the meantime.


    Both of them could be handled by the Immortal Palace.


    Compared with asking for an expert of the Immortal Palace to storm the Cool Breeze Gang, it cost much less to trust them with protecting his own family and finding the address.


    "How dare you mess with me when I did nothing wrong to you! If I choose to not avenge myself and show my power, then maybe someday anyone, whether strong or weak, would dare to provoke me," Junior Leopard said to himself.


    It was reasonable for him to spread such aggressive words.


    The reason why the Cool Breeze Gang was so famous, besides its extraordinary strength, resided in its obsession with completing the missions. Those people would try their best to finish the job once a mission was received. If the first killer failed to do it, more killers would follow him to finish the job until it was done.


    Hence, there were bound to be more killers, such as fire-playing or water-playing killers, coming for Junior Leopard''s life after this poison-player''s death. To Junior Leopard, this was not a fun game to play for a long time. A definitive solution would be better.


    Moreover, it greatly annoyed him that he was wanted by the Cool Breeze Gang under somebody''s order since he had no previous history with the organization.


    Tit for tat is fair play!


    That was the principle held by Junior Leopard. "Since you came for me without legitimacy, it would be fair to kick your ass back to defend my titles."


    Needless to say that he was totally competent to do so.


    Would it be dumb to assume that an organization could be invincible forever based on merely 300 years of foundation? If not for some remaining leverage, such an organization would have been gone a long time ago.

 Chapter 238: The Incarnation of Poisonous Scorpion, A Fantasy of Demonic Cultivation

    Chapter 238: The Incarnation of Poisonous Scorpion, A Fantasy of Demonic Cultivation


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Damn! How arrogant he is! To wipe out our Cool Breeze Gang? Now I do expect to see how he is going to wipe us out!" A heavy growl reverberated through a small yard which was located in an unimpressive small city of southern Zhonghe Prefecture near Qianzhou. It was a common yard with nothing special. However, it was exactly where the headquarter of the terrible killer organization Cool Breeze Gang was.


    The Cool Breeze Gang was a killer organization, which could be crowned as the most successful one in the past 300 years in Jianghu. That was not for their powerful strength but for their long history.


    A killer was always an annoying profession. In the martial arts world, there used to be countless killer organizations. However, they were all passers-by no matter how powerful they were, and they would be replaced by new killer organizations after a short prosperity.


    It wasn''t because of their lack of strength but the innumerable enemies they had made.


    It was said that one would finally encounter a ghost if he always walked at night!


    Similarly, one would definitely be killed by others in the end if he had killed too many people.


    However, the Cool Breeze Gang had been in Jianghu for more than 300 years. There was also a sign that it would be existing further ahead, which could be deemed as a minor miracle. Of course, people who were familiar with it knew that it was all due to the principle that Cool Breeze Gang stuck to.


    It was carefulness and caution!


    They would never accept business which would bring them misery. What''s more, they even had an independent department of business evaluation whose members weren''t killers but were proficient in evaluating business risk. The Cool Breeze Gang would only take the business that had passed their evaluation. This department was also responsible for the ability evaluation of their targets.


    It was exactly this caution that made the Cool Breeze Gang endure safe and sound for more than 300 years.


    The business of killing Junior Leopard this time had also been evaluated by the department, but it was absolutely unexpected that the killers would suffer a great failure in that.


    To say the least, it was still acceptable for them to suffer the great failure. What made them even more frustrated was that the killers served as a megaphone in the end and delivered such an unexpected message to them.


    The growl heard a moment ago was from Lan Wu, master of the Cool Breeze Gang and a veteran killer at Level Six.


    There were eight members sitting inside with Lan Wu as the leader. Besides him, there were three experts at Level Seven and one at Level Eight. They were the bluff for the Cool Breeze Gang, and only when Cool Breeze Gang''s business involved strong experts would they be dispatched.


    Among the remaining three members, one was the killer who was sent to Junior Leopard and returned crestfallen to the headquarter after his arm was broken. The other two were in charge of the risk and ability evaluation in Cool Breeze Gang.


    Kneeling down on the ground, that killer was pale and morose. He couldn''t be more awkward at that moment.


    Although Lan Wu''s growl was loud enough, it still couldn''t frighten the people present. They needn''t be frightened either. Those four experts obviously enjoyed a high status so that they wouldn''t be restrained by Lan Wu, the master of the Cool Breeze Gang. As for the killer who had lost his arm, his heart was like dead ashes, and he had no violent mood swings at all. The two members in charge of business evaluation were shrewd and deep so how could they be afraid of Lan Wu''s growl?


    The room became silent after Lan Wu''s growl. After a while, the man in blue, one of the two members responsible for business evaluation, finally said something. "Master, please calm down. We need to give it further thought and discussion. It seems that we have underestimated Zhou Bao''s strength!"


    "Underestimated? I don''t think so!" another guy responded. He was in a grey robe with a pale face. He again said coldly, "In my opinion, it''s his good luck this time. We have already overestimated his strength a lot. We have deemed him as a Level Eight expert so that we sent Kui Hai as the killer. Kui Hai''s five green-scaled poisonous creatures are among the most wizardly poisons in the world, and even if Zhou Bao is really a Level Eight expert, without an antidote, he would definitely die when bitten by them. We also have made a complete and thorough plan. This time is definitely his good luck. He just noticed our plan in advance!"


    "That isn''t necessarily his good luck!" The man in blue shook his head. "Kui Hai has told us just now that he was bitten by his own Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula and lost his one arm as a result. As a disciple of the Poisonous Insects Sect, he is proficient in training these poisonous insects, and the Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula has been trained for years so how could it bite his trainer all of a sudden if it wasn''t Zhou Bao''s trick? Is there any other explanation?"


    "He did train the Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula, but you should also know that the Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula was found already by Zhou Bao at an earlier time, which was the reason why it became dead when he came back, as he mentioned just now. The Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula''s backfiring might be its instinct anyway. I don''t think Zhou Bao could control the Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula in so short a period, and if he could, he would be too horrible! Wait, if so, it wouldn''t be the matter of that, it would be the overall fault of our evaluation. We need to re-evaluate his strength, or we''d better send him the head of our client!"


    "For what?" Lan Wu raised his head and asked fiercely. He fell into a rage soon after he heard that.


    "As a member of Wu Sect, Zhou Bao is skilled in punching and hammering skills, and he has practiced the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Currently, he has built a strong Hammer Spirit and a Fire Dragon Internal Qi. He also has a set of smart celestial devices. His cultivation has reached Level Seven. At Level Four he killed a Level Seven expert and at Level Five a Level Eight expert. At Level Six, he successfully rescued Wang She from Dark Lord Mie Chen''s hunting and, as rumor has it, he even inflicted a serious injury on Mie Chen. As that rumor has not been verified yet, we won''t take it into consideration. The above is what we know about Zhou Bao!" The man in blue broke in and said calmly. After a glance at that old man at Level Eight, he then started his analysis gradually. "Judging from the above information, we infer that Zhou Bao enjoys a strength as formidable as that of a Level Eight expert, which makes it pointless to compete with him in cultivation. Therefore we sent Kui Hai who, though only at Level Four, is adept at Yin Killing and could even be deemed as the Grandmaster of poisons. We haven''t heard that Zhou Bao knows about poisons, let alone the control of poisonous creatures, so we guessed that his Achilles'' heel might be the poison! "


    "That''s our analysis of his strength. He comes from the Wu Family and now is their Outer Core Elder, but in our opinion, the Wu Family wouldn''t fight with our Cool Breeze Gang for his death. Because they couldn''t rival us and couldn''t find the evidence of our business if we do it secretly and leave no sign. Nor would the Tian Long Taoism. Under the same condition, although the Tian Long Taoism has a close relation with Wang She, they still wouldn''t set themselves against us for Zhou Bao, almost a stranger to them. That was the reason why we could take the business!" The man in grey robe added. "I hope it''s his good luck this time; otherwise, the reality might be that he controlled the Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula in a very short time, which means our information about him is shallow, and all we see and hear about him in Jianghu is on the surface. He acquired another master and identification secretly. If that''s the reality, our best choice is to give him head of the client!"


    "No way! Over my dead body! If we do that, Cool Breeze Gang would lose its reputation forever. We definitely won''t let it happen! This Zhou Bao is just a boy of seventeen and isn''t that tough enough as you mentioned in my opinion. Let''s do it this way: why not four Elders join hands in hunting him down? I don''t believe that Zhou Bao could survive the killing of three Level Seven experts and one Level Eight expert no matter how highly cultivated he is!"


    "It means that we will definitely turn the Wu Family into our enemy and offend Wang She from the Tian Long Taoism as well. Apart from that, Zhou Bao isn''t just an ordinary martial arts practitioner. He has been offered a high post in the imperial court for rendering outstanding service in Northern Yuan''s destruction. If we kill him openly and wantonly, we then clearly set ourselves against the imperial court, which is simply a chance for them to suppress us!"


    the man in blue said refuting Lan Wu''s suggestion.


    "Then launch one more killing action. He gave us one month, didn''t he? If we fail again, then what about his family? Doesn''t he leave all his family members in Yunzhou? Humph, how arrogant he is to believe that he is invincible now only by killing several experts. Now that he shows contempt for us, I would like to see what he got to tread down my Cool Breeze Gang!" said Lan Wu. He turned ferocious, his eyes filled with anger. "If he does come here, in the end, The Elders present can just fight with him. At that time, I believe the Wu Family, the Tian Long Taoism, and the imperial court will all have nothing to say about it!"


    The whole room fell into silence again.


    "Since the Mansion Master has made the decision, my suggestion is to send the strongest killers in our Cool Breeze Gang to kill Zhou Bao''s family. In this way, he will definitely be infuriated. Then we can launch a tight dragnet at the headquarter waiting for him!" said the man in the grey robe insidiously with a light flashing in his eyes.


    "All right. Then it''s settled. Send out all the killers who have no tasks in Tianzi Group right now!" said the Mansion Master. "Is there anyone who has questions about it?"


    No one replied, which meant that they all agreed to the arrangement.


    "Okay, let''s show that arrogant fellow the strongest muscles of our Cool Breeze Gang!"


    The Mansion Master''s bold voice resounded through the whole yard.


    "What''s your purpose exactly? Do you really want to bring the Cool Breeze Gang to perdition?" asked the man in blue in a whisper. He buttonholed the man in the grey robe as soon as they left the yard.


    "Why haven''t you stopped it just now?" the man in grey replied with a sneer throwing off his arm. "Kui Hai''s failure told us obviously that our evaluation was totally mistaken. Since it is so, we''d better take the wrong and make the best of it!"


    "Take the wrong? It''s easier said than done. What if Zhou Bao..."


    "There is no ''what if'' at all. Don''t you realize that the Mansion Master would never accept Zhou Bao''s requirements? In this case, we could only fight back recklessly, which may help us win the initiative. Isn''t it what you reckoned just now? Otherwise, you would have stopped it already!"


    "It sounds reasonable, but..."


    "It has been decided already. It''s unreasonable to regret, nor is it meaningful. The past 300 years have witnessed the ups and downs of the Cool Breeze Gang. Even if we did underestimate his strength and fail to kill him, with four experts sitting, I bet he dare not risk breaking in!" said the man in grey coldly.


    "That''s right. Zhou Bao''s great performance relied on his celestial device. It seems that the First Elder also has one!"


    "Definitely. If not so, I wouldn''t egg the Mansion Master on!" the man in grey said. He nodded and smiled insidiously. "By the way, it''s time for the two of us to get prepared!"


    "To prepare for what?"


    "The failure in killing Zhou Bao may just be a beginning. Haven''t you noticed that the Cool Breeze Gang has been too conspicuous in recent years? To be a well-known killer organization couldn''t be regarded as a success!" the man in the grey robe replied.


    "Then you mean..."


    "We''d better well prepare a way out of this matter!" The man in grey raised his hand and lightly touched his forehead. "My upper eyelids have been flickering frequently recently. I feel that something bad may happen in the coming days. We both are sensible, Lingfeng. Do you get what I mean?"


    "Of course I know. A tall tree catches the wind!" Lingfeng, the man in blue, responded. He shook his head with a wry smile. "But it isn''t easy to defeat the Cool Breeze Gang considering its strength nowadays."


    "Yeah, it isn''t. However, if the same incident happens repeatedly, the strength of the Cool Breeze Gang would be weakened step by step. It''s heard that in this action what Kui Hai lost is not just his palm and the Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula but also the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion caught by him after innumerable hardships. What a heavy cost!"


    ...


    ...


    "A killer organization, which has been existing for 300 years, is now known by a rookie in Jianghu. Don''t you feel that their good days shall come to an end?" Either talking to himself or to the scorpion, Junior Leopard sat in the carriage and played with a green scorpion in his hands.


    This green scorpion was found in the residence of the killer who was thrown out straightway by Junior Lepard. How poor he was that he even couldn''t take his belongings away.


    As a killer, his belongings were not much, and he didn''t even bring a change of clothes. He had only a small parcel and a bamboo tube.


    There was nothing valuable in that small parcel. The antidotes and the like were carried within his clothes including that bamboo tube which dropped out of him during a thrashing by Junior Leopard.


    The bamboo tube contained this Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion, which was a little bigger than the Green-scaled Poisonous Tarantula. It was unbelievable that its body fits Junior Leopard''s thought properly after he took its soul out.


    Then to what degree did they fit?


    It was after a period of practicing, Junior Leopard felt that he had been familiar with this body totally.


    And for that reason, his interest surged afterward. These days, he tried to keep controlling its body by his thought through which he may find a more suitable controlling method. It wasn''t sensible to leave his own body motionless whenever he controlled the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion. That was both inconvenient and pointless.


    Anyway, from the practices over the past several days, Junior Leopard also gained some experience. He didn''t need to treat the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion as his body from the start. His thought was separated from his divine thoughts, and what he only needed to do was to send his divine thoughts some orders, which the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion would naturally follow like a set program.


    Soon afterward he found another thing¡ªthe instinct!


    Yes, it was the instinct!


    All living things had their instincts such as eating, drinking, excreting, sleeping, and even breathing even if it was a human vegetable whose brain was dead. So did the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion whose soul was taken out. It was because those instincts came from the body instead of the soul. Thus, after integrating Junior Leopard''s soul into its body, it could move like other ordinary scorpions, and with only Junior Leopard''s divine thoughts, the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion would completely do what Junior Leopard wanted.


    Moreover, Junior Leopard found one more amazing thing that the scorpion could absorb the Sun and Moon Essence for practicing!


    When Junior Leopard concentrated his consciousness on the scorpion, he found that its body could automatically absorb the essence of the world around and turn it into energy like the Internal Qi.


    It was an unexpected and also surprising discovery.


    And this discovery enlightened him. In a sense, the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion could now be regarded as one of his incarnations, a live one. Currently, he had two External Elixirs, both of which could practice by themselves, and if the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion could also do that, it would probably grow into an evil beast in the future. For Junior Leopard, an evil beast incarnation meant another strong bluff.


    And if so, what he got would be more than one evil beast incarnation.


    "The more thoughts I separate from my divine thoughts, the more incarnations I will have. And if all of those incarnations can practice by themselves like the External Elixirs..."


    That idea made him tremble with excitement!


    However, he became a little disappointed after he tried. He could indeed make the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion self-practice by absorbing the Sun and Moon Essence, which in fact was very easy for him as well. He only needed to deliver an order like a computer program to his divine thoughts about how to absorb the Sun and Moon Essence, how long it should take, and how to convert the pneuma it absorbed.


    It was the same process as he refined External Elixirs, which could practice by themselves. However, a problem came soon afterward. On the third day, the Internal Qi had already filled the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion''s body, which would blow up if it continued to practice. He then realized that the practice should be based on the balance the inner and outside cycle.


    Human beings had spent countless years exploring their Body and Qi Strengthening Method before they attained such a fruitful achievement right now. As for the evil beasts, they could only practice by instinct. Even if some evil beasts could finally develop their spiritual intelligence and practice successfully, they needed more time in practice. Unlike human beings who had all the knowledge of acupoints, tendons, and meridians in the body, and who knew how to make the Internal Qi move within the body, evil beasts found all this knowledge, easy for human cultivators, very difficult.


    "Shit, let alone nine incarnations, I can''t even be sure when this one will be successfully practiced." Having thought that, Junior Leopard smiled wryly. "Should I go and find some Demonic Cultivation methods recorded in the legend?"


    Demonic Cultivator was short for the evil beasts that had an appearance of human beings after their successful practice. However, this living creature hadn''t appeared since the medieval period, and as for the Demonic Cultivation method, it was more like a legend because the Demonic Cultivation method was totally useless to human beings. For humans, if they practiced the Demonic Cultivation method, they would either die or turn into a monster. In the end, no one collected this useless while dangerous method.


    "Well, it was said that the Demonic Cultivators could only practice by instinct. Even if there was a Demonic Cultivation method, it would be exclusively designed for the evil beast that wrote the method and beasts of its kind. Then where could I find a method for scorpions?" Thinking this, Junior Leopard was a little disappointed. "But I also heard that the Demonic Cultivation was all by the instinct, and if an evil beast''s spiritual intelligence was developed with no Kalpas, it wouldn''t practice in a wrong way. So now my control of it was a little excessive and hurried!"


    Realizing that, Junior Leopard then become relieved and decided to let nature take its course.


    Under the circumstances, the relation between the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion and him went smoothly like a fish in water. After his thought was totally integrated into the Poisonous Scorpion''s body, its intelligence raised fiercely as if its spiritual intelligence was developed. When facing some incidents, the Scorpion could follow Junior Leopard''s thought even without his control.


    "His Excellency, emergency from Yunzhou!" Outside the carriage, an anxious voice raised. It was Zhu Ba. "There were eighteen killers slipping into Yunzhou. It seemed that they would do something bad to the Elderly Master!"


    "That damned Cool Breeze Gang!" Junior Leopard cursed. But he was not that worried. The night he threw the killer out, he went to the branch of the Immortal Palace in Songjiang City. As Songjiang was a small city, there was only one person in charge¡ªa street vendor.


    One person was totally enough if he was competent. It didn''t take Junior Leopard much time to find this vendor who then helped him to send a letter of entrustment. The Immortal Palace enjoyed its own efficient delivery system so that Junior Leopard got the response the very next day. His entrustment had been accepted, and experts sent to protect his family had taken action. Besides, there was a detailed address of the headquarter of the Cool Breeze Gang.


    And the price Junior Leopard paid for that was the prescription of Tendon-Changing Pill.

 Chapter 239: Beat the Bird Before the Lion—the Reason for Destroying the Cool Breeze Gang

    Chapter 239: Beat the Bird Before the Lion¡ªthe Reason for Destroying the Cool Breeze Gang


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "I can''t believe he might have the prescription of the elixir for the Tendon-Changing Pill! Looks like our Junior Leopard of Winnowing Basket has many secrets!" In a small room in the Immortal Palace, Elder Qing looked at the method for the elixir in his hand quietly with a strange look in his eyes. "The Immortal Palace has been looking for this for all these years. Who would think that it could come so easily!"


    "Everyone has their secrets. As a young man, he has great strength. That means that before this, he must have encountered many opportunities and adventures. We should not be too surprised!"


    "I am not surprised. It''s more than I expected!" Elder Qing put the prescription of the elixir on the table, raised his head and said, "Old Wretch, you have been with him for a while. What do you think of him?"


    "He is a rare talent with a pure mind," said the thin, scholarly looking middle-aged man. He stood next to Elder Qing in a white washed robe. "It''s just that he seems to have many secrets. It makes him appear way too cautious."


    "There is no need to worry. As the power is getting stronger, his secrets will no longer be secrets. Like now. He is changing the prescription of the elixir of the Tendon-Changing Pill elixir, right?!"


    "He has the method of the Tendon-Changing Pill elixir, and some other elixirs...!"


    "Perhaps. But what does this have to do with us?" Elder Qing smiled, "The Bone-Forging Pill doesn''t hold much value for us. As for the Pulse Setting Pill, the Blood Exchanging Pill and the Marrow Cleansing Pill, they are too troublesome to make. Do you actually think that there are people still making these pills? We can only make Tendon-Changing Pills in batches."


    "It''s true. But even if the Bone-Forging Pill is useless to us, it''s not for those in martial arts world...!"


    "It''s none of our business!" Elder Qing interrupted Old Wretch, "You have been in the Immortal Palace for hundreds of years. Since when you do you care about Jianghu?"


    "I am not interested in what happens in Jianghu. I''m worried that once the information is leaked, it will have a negative effect on the young man!"


    "As long as we don''t talk about it, no one will leak the information. Junior Leopard is one of us, a member of the Immortal Palace, a place where people help each. We don''t betray each other!" Elder Qing said, looking at Old Wretch. He slowly stressed each word. "You don''t need to worry about such a thing happening here!"


    "Then I will relax!" Old Wretch looked very satisfied, "Let the kid do what he wants!"


    "Let him go. Even though he is one of the 28 stars of our Immortal Palace, he is still so young. He needs more experience. Jianghu is the best place for him to get experience!"


    "Do you think we should lend a hand with the Cool Breeze Gang?" Old Wretch asked hesitantly, "After all, there are four experts in the Gang. It will be difficult for him to handle on his own!"


    "I have already sent Jin Yuquan to guard him!"


    "OK, that should be fine. Yuquan has just reached Level Eight. The young man should be safe with him!"


    "You''re pretty worried about him!"


    "Humph. Well, after all these years. Look what kind of people you have brought in. Except for him who has the patience to learn from me, the others were all like monkeys who couldn''t even sit for a while." Old Wretch laughed coldly. "I am counting on him to pass on my knowledge to later generations. How could I not be worried about him!"


    ...


    ...


    Things in Jianghu spread quickly, especially rumors about famous people.


    Although the Cool Breeze Gang was a killer organization and sounded mysterious, just as the man in grey robe said, for the last three hundred years, everyone in Jianghu knew about them. It had become famous, yet it was too ostentatious for a group of killers.


    Every time the Cool Breeze Gang made a big move, observant people noticed. This time, they had sent several killers to kill Junior Leopard''s relatives. The operation was extremely classified yet not classified enough to hide from these observant people. The most important thing was that they had failed. All of the killers were dead.


    The twelve killers who had been sent to Yunzhou and Zhonghe City were all dead. They hadn''t even seen the people from Zhou Family. They were not only killed; their corpses were nailed to the city wall along with their Cool Breeze Gang identity tokens.


    As a result, it had provoked the entire city of Jianghu, and become a major event.


    In just a few days, everyone in martial arts world knew that the Cool Breeze Gang was going after Zhou Bao. 12 members had been sent to hunt him yet all of them had been killed by mysterious experts and their bodies exposed to the public for three days.


    At almost the same time, the Wu Family expressed strong dissatisfaction with the Cool Breeze Gang''s move. They issued a warning that if another Cool Breeze Gang killer entered Yunzhou, they were the enemy of the Yunzhou Wu Sect. Although the Wu Sect was not one of the prestigious sects or schools or a millennium family, they would still give the strongest counterattack to this provocative behavior.


    The Wu Family was serious about the Cool Breeze Gang.


    In the martial arts world, where people had not yet figured out the antecedents and consequences of the matter, another piece of information stormed out. The location of the Cool Breeze Gang''s hideaway that very few knew about was leaked by Zhou Bao. He claimed he would flatten the nest in 20 days.


    The martial arts world was in an uproar!


    So was Jianghu!


    The troublesome Zhou Bao had become the focus of the world again.


    ...


    ...


    "Flatten the Cool Breeze Gang. That''s some big talk!"


    "Is Zhou Bao mad? The Cool Breeze Gang has stood for three hundred years without collapsing. How could he actually go up against them? Does he think that he is like the Three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan?"


    "Not necessarily. If he didn''t have the confidence, he certainly would not say this. He has identified the secret location of their hideaway. He is taking them out! "


    "Zhou Bao is not simple. Twelve top killers from the Cool Breeze Gang all missed and were even killed. This means that whoever killed them must be at least a Level Seven. The Wu Family doesn''t have such strong power. It must be Tian Long Taoism! This guy has Tian Long Taoism standing behind him!"


    "Right, right! Without the strength of Level Seven, there would be no possibility of killing twelve from the Cool Breeze Gang. Zhou Bao will have to spend a lot to find two experts who are above Level Seven to help him in such a short time. This time, the Cool Breeze Gang is in seriously big trouble!"


    "He is still so young and reckless to have said such words, leaving no space for them to be reconciled and forming a dead situation. If he can''t crush them, then his future is doomed. I mean, the two Level Seven experts can''t be his bodyguards forever, right?"


    "Yes, he is still a young man, doing things too impulsively!"


    ...


    ...


    In just a few days, there were all kinds of rumors everywhere in Jianghu. Meanwhile Zhou Bao, living in the center of the storm, completely disappeared from the public eye.


    On an official road of Zhonghe Prefecture, Junior Leopard stood in a black robe, frowning. He was looking at the Golden Rooster who had suddenly appeared.


    "Golden Rooster, I didn''t invite you. Why are you here?! "


    "Elder Qing asked me to help you!" Jin Yuquan said, "You have the courage fight the Cool Breeze Gang to death!"


    "Humph, I did not trick them or mess with them, yet they sent people to kill me and my guys. If I don''t destroy them completely, how can I be happy?! " Junior Leopard sneered.


    "Do you know how strong the Cool Breeze Gang is?!"


    "I know a little. I heard that they have a Level Eight expert!"


    "Why are you so sure of yourself?"


    "If I didn''t have the confidence, I wouldn''t do it!" Junior Leopard said. "What''s more, I am not the only one the Cool Breeze Gang has offended over the years. That''s why they kept their nest a mystery. I leaked the location to the public. It must have given them a huge headache, right?!"


    "Maybe. But it won''t be easy!" Golden Rooster shook his head. "Their strength cannot be ignored. Now that people know where they are located, they will be more cautious. Not to mention that you are standing out to fight against them. They would be stupid to sit and await their deaths! "


    "Right, no one is a fool. I am the fool this time!"


    "That''s what I don''t understand. The Cool Breeze Gang killers couldn''t even touch you. You and the Cool Breeze Gang have many things which you could negotiate. Why do you have to do this?"


    "I want to and I like to. I''m not happy!" Junior Leopard said, "Of course, the most important thing is that I want to find someone to try my hammers on!"


    "Try your hammers?"


    "Yes, try my hammers!" Speaking of the hammers, a sense of confidence filled him from the bottom of his heart. An evil smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. "Don''t they have a Level Eight expert? Doesn''t he have steel-like Internal Qi? I want to know how many hammers he can bear!"


    "After killing a Level Eight you become different. You think that killing a Level Eight is like killing a chicken, don''t you?" Golden Rooster''s tone was cold.


    "That''s not what I meant. I know that you are also a Level Eight!" Junior Leopard said hurriedly, seeing the anger on Golden Rooster''s face. His facial muscles twitched, "It is because I feel like many people have been after me recently. I want to beat the bird before the lion."


    "The bird before the lion?"


    "Emmmmm!" Junior Leopard could feel the cold sweat on his forehead. The Golden Rooster''s eyes were beyond cold.


    "Sorry, I''m really sorry! My damn mouth!" Junior Leopard covered his mouth and laughed.


    "Lad, I think you are messing with me on purpose!"


    "How could I? Anyway, we are partners, right? How can I mess with you?!" Junior Leopard laughed.


    Golden Rooster gave him a cold snort and stopped talking.


    "Damn it, how could I forget that there is a Golden Rooster in front of me? Beat the bird before the lion? What if I''m killed by the bird first before the lion can even see!" Junior Leopard cursed himself inwardly.


    "Emmm...Golden Rooster, Can I trouble you to help me?" Although he was confident in himself, with a Level Eight in front of him, he could not say no.


    "Forget it. You are going to kill birds. There is no need for me to help!" Golden Rooster said coldly.


    "I''m sorry. I''m sorry. I''m not killing birds! I''m not!" Junior Leopard laughed repeatedly.


    Golden Rooster was a kind person indeed. Seeing the apologetic look on Junior Leopard''s face, his anger was half gone. "Lad, even if you do have some ability, what gives you the confidence to do this?" Golden Rooster asked with confusion in his eyes. "Are your hammers that powerful?"


    "What? You don''t believe me?"


    "No!" Golden Rooster said.


    "It''s a pity that I don''t have the hammers with me. You would understand!"


    Although he could get his hammers anytime through the space divide, Junior Leopard didn''t want to expose the secret of Space Division Skill this early.


    He had thoroughly considered trading the Tendon-Changing Pill with the Immortal Palace.


    Compared to the Bone-Forging Pill, the Tendon-Changing Pill was a real scarce resource. In today''s world, upper to mid-level well-known families like the Wu''s all had the ability to let their disciples use Bone Forging soup. Never mind a mysterious organization like the Immortal Palace. For ordinary people, Bone Forging soup was very precious, and there was a large supply of medicinal herbs readily available. With so much Outstanding Secret Arts in the Immortal Palace, it was not hard for people in the Immortal Palace to enter the Bone-Forging Realm.


    Tendon-Changing Pill was different.


    There was a Tendon Changing soup indeed, but only in small quantities. This was because the Magic Drugs were hard to find, and even if one could find Magic Drugs, there were not enough to make Tendon-Changing Soup. The Tendon-Changing Pill, on the other hand, only needed a small amount of the drugs yet it was much more effective than Tendon Changing soup. This was why Junior Leopard had been able to reach Level Seven easily.


    Having been to the Immortal Palace once before, he knew that there were many masters of martial arts whose cultivation could reach the Bone-Forging Realm in the village. But they were all stuck on the threshold of the Bone-Forging Realm. It could only be passed by a few masters of martial arts. Therefore, the Tendon-Changing Pill was very important for the Immortal Palace. Junior Leopard had given the Immortal Palace exactly what they wanted, so they were generous, sending three Level Seven experts to help him.


    As for the Pulse Setting Pill, the Blood Exchanging Pill, and the Marrow Cleansing Pill, there was no need to mention their prescription of the elixir because the Magic Drugs were too hard to find even for the Immortal Palace. So the Tendon-Changing Pill was the most practical one.


    Junior Leopard wasn''t worried that the Immortal Palace would leak the prescription of the elixir of the Tendon-Changing Pill. There were so many Outstanding Secret Arts in the Immortal Palace, and not one was missing, let alone a prescription of the elixir.


    As for why he had such confidence, it was because of his twin hammers.


    After reaching Level Seven and facing so many experts and master of martial arts, he knew well the strength of a Level Eight expert. He also knew that compared with a Level Seven, a Level Eight expert with steel-like Internal Qi had great advantages, just as a Level Seven had to experts from lower levels.


    One''s Internal Qi was like water while the other was like steel. How could they be the same?


    But Junior Leopard was not afraid. No matter how strong the enemies were, there had to be a limitation. Even if the Internal Qi was like steel, no matter how hard the steel was, it could not compete with the crazy hammers!


    His twin hammers weighed more than 2 tonnes. When they were swung, the attack force would be more than thousands of kilograms. Even a man made of steel would be smashed to mud.


    In addition, Junior Leopard''s fist intent and Hammer Spirit were merged so the hammers could be used in various ways.


    Combined with the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, the pulse of these two mental cultivation methods could produce Critical Hit, making Junior Leopard unstoppable even if there was a mountain in front of him.


    The probability of these two pulses combining together was limited. Junior Leopard had tried many times. For every fifty hits, one Critical Hit peak would appear. Junior Leopard could not think of a way to increase these odds.


    If it was a twin-fist, Junior Leopard would take it easy. Although he could merge Wild Hammering Skill into punching skill, punching dozens of fists within a breath, it would cause huge damage to his fist. But with his hammers, it was different. With their heavyweight, the power of each strike was multiple times that of a human fist. More importantly, Junior Leopard didn''t need to worry that the speed would cause any damage to his body.


    On the contrary, the huge weight of the hammer would speed up his strike. When the speed of the hammer reached a certain level, there was no need for Junior Leopard to give extra power; the innertance would carry the hammer forward at an extremely high speed, causing eighty to ninety strikes within a breath. This meant it was possible to use the Critical Hit twice!


    Two Critical Hits from his huge one-tonne hammers with a Heavenly Jade Technique bonus!


    Without preparation, even a Level Nine could barely handle the strike. Let alone a Level Eight.


    So with the twin hammers, even if he was confronted with a Level Nine expert, Junior Leopard would not be afraid.


    "Forget it. I won''t ask you. Anyway, when we arrive at the Cool Breeze Gang''s hideaway, your bluff will be exposed. I can wait for another twenty days!"


    "Twenty days? Who said twenty days? I''m going to the Cool Breeze Gang now!" Junior Leopard said, with a sinister look on his face.


    "Now?" Dumfounded, Golden Rooster raised his head, fixing his eyes on Junior Leopard''s face. "Ten days ago, you said you would go after the Cool Breeze Gang in a month. Ten days have passed. That leaves twenty days, right?!"


    "A month ago, I told them to send me the head of their client, or I would flatten them. But now, clearly, those damn killers are not going to do as I said. They even sent killers to kill my guys. This I cannot tolerate. Do you think I''m going to give them time to set traps against me?!"


    "But what if after they found out that they could not handle your guys, they reevaluated your strength and did as you said. Then you would be going against them with no excuse!"


    It was possible. The Cool Breeze Gang had been around for three hundred years. Although they had been acting ostentatiously recently, they had their way of living. When they found out that there were several Level Seven experts standing behind Junior Leopard, they might actually change their strategy and make friends with him!


    "Funny. But if I destroy the Cool Breeze Gang, how can they chop the client''s head off?!" Junior Leopard smiled coldly.


    "So you don''t want to know who is up against you?!"


    "Of course I do. But wiping out the Cool Breeze Gang is more important. After this, no matter how badly the client wants to kill me, no killer organization would be willing to help him, right?!" Junior Leopard smiled. Although he did not say "beat the bird before the lion", he meant it. Indeed, if he could actually do this, then any killers who went after him or his guys would think twice about whether it was worth it!


    Jianghu was big and the Cool Breeze Gang was not the best group of killers. However, the stronger one was only slightly better than them. If Junior Leopard could destroy the Cool Breeze Gang, then he would also hurt them badly. With this behind him, no killer organization would be willing to go after him.


    Junior Leopard knew that he had been rising too rapidly recently. He had been making too much noise and attracting too much attention. Many people in Jianghu were onto him. Some were well-intentioned, some were curious, and others were malicious. Although he acted like it was nothing, he had still touched on some people''s interests unknowingly.


    Compared with his performance, his background was so plain. He was just a young man from a small village, which was nothing in the eyes of some. No matter how strong he was, he would collapse when he faced a violent storm. What was more, he hadn''t risen to the point where everyone was afraid of him. This was why so many people wanted to take him down.


    The Cool Breeze Gang killers were one. The Gang was famous, and so were their rules and the evaluation agency.


    They had sent people to kill him. This meant that they thought his strength could be controlled. They might pay the price, but this didn''t mean that the gains would be worth it.


    If the Cool Breeze Gang thought this way, then others did too. Therefore, the Cool Breeze Gang had to be eradicated no matter how difficult it would be. After this, there would be less trouble.


    This was the real reason he wanted to destroy the Cool Breeze Gang.

 Chapter 240: Breaking into the Cool Breeze Gang’s Hideaway

    Chapter 240: Breaking into the Cool Breeze Gang¡¯s Hideaway


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "I can see where your confidence comes from!" Though he had been mentally prepared, when Golden Rooster saw Junior Leopard carrying the two huge twin hammers that were even larger than his body, he couldn''t help but gasp for some cold air.


    It was the first time that Junior Leopard had brought out both hammers. He held a hammer in each hand and crossed them at his back. From afar, he looked like an eight foot monster with two heads.


    The twin hammers were so heavy that with each step he took, the ground would sink down several centimeters, and the footprint was as long as from the city gate to the alley entrance.


    The footprints were deepest at the start near the city gate, but as he took more steps, the footprints became more shallow. When he reached the alley entranceway, he stepped firmly on the ground and there remained no trace of footprint. At the same time, his Qi Power was condensed to its extremity.


    His slender body looked as if it was carrying a huge mountain rather than two iron hammers. As he stood at the entranceway, the entire alley was covered in an immense and tangible shadow. It seemed like the mountain would break down at any minute and crush all living creatures into ashes.


    It was the Cool Breeze Gang''s hideaway. After Junior Leopard revealed its location, the small town south of Zhonghe City had been in a weird state of extreme calm and strangeness.


    There were martial arts people and Jianghu schools here, but these characters were not famous. When they heard what was beside them they were in shock and disbelief. The ordinary alley that had never attracted much attention before was now the focus of the entire martial arts world.


    The government wouldn''t search it merely based on a rumor. A few constables did visit, but according to their feedback, there were no assassins living in the yard. There was only a kind and gentle old landlord.


    Of course, this was to be expected. If the Cool Breeze Gang could be discovered by sending out a few constables, then it wasn''t the real Cool Breeze Gang.


    However, the families that had originally resided in the small alley were decisive. They all left in one night. Before people in the city could take further action, Junior Leopard appeared at the city gate. Carrying two gigantic hammers, he walked slowly and purposefully, until he reached the alley entrance.


    The alley was long and winding. Even though Junior Leopard had 360¡ã vision, it wasn''t yet abnormal enough to see things behind a turn. Hence, he couldn''t see beyond the bend.


    There was no one in the alley. Not even an animal. The ground was very clean, flat and dry.


    Standing at the entrance to the alley, Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows. With a smile that carried to his eyes, he said, "Stop standing there. Although I can''t see behind the turn, I can sense your existence with my spiritual mind!"


    "Yunzhou Zhou Bao, you really deserve your reputation!" Behind the alley, the sound of hands clapping could be heard. Then a man appeared before Junior Leopard.


    "Hell, even assassins know how to pretend in this era. I''m here today to destroy them, yet they are clapping their hands to welcome me. How foolish!" Junior Leopard looked at the man with a cold smile on his face. "It appears that the Cool Breeze Gang has become corrupted. Assassins should remain hidden and kill their enemy with one hit. How can you pretend to be smart and powerful here?"


    "It''s my business and I deserve my reputation. Who the hell are you?"


    "Huyan Ping of the Cool Breeze Gang!" The man stood, as if he didn''t care about Junior Leopard''s mountain-like Qi Power. "Yunzhou Zhou Bao, your name has spread across the world. Unfortunately, you are someone who doesn''t keep his promises!"


    Junior Leopard laughed, "Go to hell with the promise! I let you guys slaughter the client, but you dared to kill my family. No promise ever existed between us!"


    "You gave us one month to slaughter the client. You never said we couldn''t dispatch assassins to kill your family!"


    The man was still smiling as he spoke.


    "Well, your reasoning is fair enough!" Junior Leopard also smiled. "Okay then, you can say that I haven''t kept my promise. Actually, I was just toying with you anyway. So do you want a piece of this?"


    The enormous Qi Power collapsed as if the mountain had broken. A wild wind started to blow, and the air became mixed with sand and mud. The man who had been smiling a moment ago finally changed his facial expression. He gave out a cold snort, then a puff of effeminate Qi Power began to hover around his body. Junior Leopard''s overwhelming Qi Power was immediately dissolved. However, he still stepped two steps backward and left two faint footprints on the ground. His face turned red.


    "Level Seven! Your cultivation has already ascended into Level Seven, the Tendon-Changing Realm!"


    he exclaimed with surprise.


    It was true that few people knew Junior Leopard''s cultivation had reached Level Seven except for those who were close to him. In the eyes of men in Jianghu, his cultivation was Level Six at most, though he had shown an overwhelming advantage against Meng Qingrong on River Heart Island.


    The reason was obvious. Level Seven was a huge gap, no matter how talented a person was. Although Junior Leopard had excellent combat capability, which even exceeded Level Seven, combat capability wasn''t cultivation. Combat capability was composed of many extra factors. Celestial devices, magic weapons, cultivation methods and even ordinary weapons could all be counted in combat capability. But cultivation could only be measured by the amount of Internal Qi and the clarity of the Internal Qi.


    Just now however, the man had discovered from the difference in Qi Power that Junior Leopard let out that his cultivation was not at Level Six. His cultivation had leaped the gap and reached Level Seven.


    A Level Seven expert at the age of 17!


    No wonder you are so bold and arrogant. It turns out that you are at Level Seven!


    The man was in awe; his eyes revealed a sense of disbelief. But this didn''t mean he would do nothing in the face of Junior Leopard''s pressure.


    It''s time to fight!


    The man yelled. As he yelled, a mild power rapped his entire body. His body was like a fish, swimming towards Junior Leopard.


    Countless concealed weapons shot from both sides of the alley in accordance with his yell, including a steel needle, Flying Knives, a boomerang, a Datepit Pin, an Arched Blade, a Meteor Hammer and even a Thunder-fire Ball. The weapons'' shadows covered the sky. They were all targeted directly at Junior Leopard.


    There was a faint blue light on the needles and at the edge of sabers. Junior Leopard could sense the somewhat sweet smell on the concealed weapons. The weapons were smeared with toxins. Even a tiny injury could kill him. Moreover, Junior Leopard could tell from the sound as they flew through the air that some of the weapons might be able to break Gang Qi. Even if he had Gang Qi, it might be broken by them, not to mention that he hadn''t practiced Gang Qi successfully. If the Gang Qi broke, he would be injured. Although the possibility was not high, it was still there.


    Junior Leopard had no way to escape from the mass of flying weapons so he didn''t. He shook his body and curled up under his huge hammers.


    DING! DING! DING! DANG! DANG! DANG! PA! PA! PA!


    With all the tiny cracking sounds, it was as if there was a symphony at the alley entranceway. Numerous concealed weapons were all blocked by the enormous twin hammers before they could touch Junior Leopard.


    Enormous. That was the best word to describe the iron hammers. They easily shielded Junior Leopard''s body as they were gently put in front of him. They shielded him from the eccentric fish-like body movement the man used.


    DANG!


    The sound came from the man''s body as he approached Junior Leopard. He was struck hard by the hammer.


    He flew far back. The saber light in his hand began to shiver dramatically. His expression changed.


    "What powerful strength!"


    The strength passed down from the iron hammer was way beyond his expectations.


    He was a Level Seven expert and knew to balance the inner and outer cycle. His muscles and bones were also well forged, tough and strong. Though his muscles didn''t look extraordinary, they were tougher than iron under the cover of his robe. Nobody would refuse to say he had a body strong as iron.


    In fact, experts whose cultivation had reached Level Seven could all be described as having bodies as strong as iron. There were no exceptions. If the body was not tough enough, it couldn''t hold the Internal Qi of Level Seven.


    Most experts didn''t care much about weapons. Ordinary weapons couldn''t injure experts over Level Seven at all. As one became a master of martial arts, the function of weapons became weaker. Only Genuine Weapons could pose threat to them, and even that was limited.


    Today, he helplessly discovered that the commonsense that existed in ordinary people''s minds was broken.


    Junior Leopard''s twin iron hammers had been refined less than a hundred times. As a matter of fact, all iron hammers were refined less than a hundred of times, because they had too weird a shape. Not to mention that Junior Leopard''s hammers were too big.


    They have not refined hundreds of times, nor were they sharp as blades. But they were powerful. The power frightened him. Half of the power was from Junior Leopard, and half of it was from the hammers.


    "The twin hammers must weigh at least a tonne!"


    This was the conclusion Huyan Ping had after he was knocked with the hammers. But the reality was that he underestimated their weight by half.


    The twin hammers were like two doors and shields, giving Junior Leopard airtight protection. They made all attacks ineffective. Although the man had a weird body movement, he had no choice when Junior Leopard retreated behind the hammers like a turtle. His saber could do nothing against the iron hammers. If he chopped at the hammers, his Genuine Weapon that had been refined hundreds of times might have abraded.


    After the rain of concealed weapon, the alley entrance became silent again. Aside from the mass of concealed weapons covering the ground, it looked as if nothing had happened. As for Huyan Ping, he retreated to the alley''s bend. He finally had the manner of an assassin, hiding his spirits and waiting the best moment to kill.


    Hahahaha, does the world famous Cool Breeze Gang really have so few killing methods?" Junior Leopard scoffed. He walked into the alley. The giant twin hammers were still carried behind his back. He continued walking, as if to walk deep into the alley.


    Suddenly, Junior Leopard waved his right hand fiercely.


    BANG! The giant hammer smashed against the wall beside him violently.


    HONG! With a loud sound, dust billowed, and rubble flew everywhere. The wall was broken by force and the hole in the wall was big enough for three men to walk through side by side.


    There was a large garden behind the wall, but it had been abandoned.


    Originally, there had been four families in the alley including the Cool Breeze Gang, but the other three families had left.


    As Junior Leopard entered the yard, he turned his body and waved his twin hammers. Two painful cries came out immediately from two killers who had been hiding. They didn''t have a chance to escape before they were knocked down by the big hammer. They died a very painful death.


    Their corpses fell more than ten feet away, leaving no bones intact.


    Next, Junior Leopard bounded in the direction of the Cool Breeze Gang. The Cool Breeze Gang''s plan was immediately ruined.


    The Cool Breeze Gang was located in the deepest part of the alley, and they had allocated most of their men in the alley and around it. They were hiding beside the wall, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.


    But Junior Leopard hadn''t taken the normal route, he''d broken the wall and walked directly through. Their preparations had been in vain. They had to change their strategy quickly.


    They had speculated on how Junior Leopard would approach, but they did not realize that the walls didn''t make any difference for a master of martial arts like Junior Leopard.


    He could break down the walls with his fists, or he could simply fly over them using Lightness Skill. The wall would not stop a master like Junior Leopard.


    They hadn''t thought Junior Leopard would actually break the wall and boldly walk in. Breaking a wall took great strength, especially in a killer''s nest. He''d had to prevent their attacks first. This was not the best method when considering all aspects. As for using Lightness Skill, it could be even worse. Flying in the sky could easily turn a person into a living target. However, if one had perfect Lightness Skill or had cleared Gang Qi, things would be different. The Cool Breeze Gang had a plan to deal with such experts, and they were already well prepared.


    Unfortunately, they had never thought that Junior Leopard''s final option would be to smash the wall. Even assassins hiding could do nothing when they faced such method of destroying the wall. Junior Leopard''s hammer was too heavy and too fast. Under the attack of his iron hammer, the wall was like a piece of paper. It didn''t stop him at all. They could only watch as he smashed the wall with one hammer after the other.


    Huyan Ping, who had been hiding behind a turn, finally appeared as Junior Leopard was breaking the last wall. Huyan Ping was now furious. His eyes were flashing a chilling light of fury and humiliation. He felt he was doomed, completely doomed. He had hidden in the alley like a fool, waiting for the chance to kill, but his enemy never paid the least bit of attention to him. Instead, Junior Leopard had approached by successively smashing the walls.


    "Since when do killers in the Cool Breeze Gang like to confront the enemy face to face?" Junior Leopard laughed as he saw Huyan Ping jump towards him with a soft saber in hand; the saber gave off an odd light. He waved the hammer in his left hand to protect his body and smashed the one in his right hand toward Huyan Ping.


    The hammer hadn''t arrived, but the momentum was near. The giant hammer was like a mountain, blocking Huyan Ping completely.


    Huyan Ping hid the light of his saber and jumped into the air. His body was as swift as an eel swimming in water. An intangible force wrapped the big hammer that was coming at him. Suddenly the hammer attacked Junior Leopard as if it had its own intelligence.


    The power was light and soft, like running water and breath. It was fast. When it came into contact with the big hammer, it wasn''t fighting by force. Instead, before anyone could notice, the strength leaped the big hammer''s defense and was at Junior Leopard''s front.


    The power which was soft like water became piercingly cold like the saber after engulfing the iron hammer, as if to cut Junior Leopard in half starting from his head.


    "Hell!"


    Junior Leopard focused his eyes. Green light appeared, surrounding him, then disappeared momentarily. Things didn''t stop there. The immense evil intent and toxins that the green light contained melted into Huyan Ping''s body following the way of his power.


    Huyan Ping swerved back and forth like a fish in the shadows of the hammer. Suddenly, he felt his Gang Qi diminished by a cold force. He was surprised. Then he noticed the green light that flashed around Junior Leopard''s body.


    "Gang Qi!"


    That was his last thought. The cold violent breath of evil made him tremble. He felt his entire body go numb. The Gang Qi he had just launched disappeared mysteriously. Before he could have any other thoughts, Junior Leopard''s iron hammer was in front of him. It crushed him.


    POOF!


    When Huyan Ping''s Gang Qi disappeared, all the mystery disappeared at the same time. The iron hammer, which contained Heavenly Jade Technique, struck his body heavily. He was like a pedestrian hit by a Mack truck driving at 70 kilometers an hour. No, actually, Junior Leopard''s hammering strength was even more intense than a Mack truck, and it contained devastating fist intent.


    He wasn''t forced backwards. Instead, he was pounded into minced meat, squashed like a tomato. Blood and meat flew everywhere instantly. Even his bones were crushed to ashes under one attack.


    He was actually hammered to death!


    Junior Leopard''s one hammer had stopped the surrounding air!


    Some assassins appeared out of the surrounding darkness. They had intended to join in the battle, but they all stopped. Although their faces were covered, Junior Leopard could see the terror and hesitation behind.


    However, he wouldn''t let go of the perfect chance. He waved his twin hammers again. The assassins were crushed in a breath.


    Junior Leopard had annihilated Huyan Ping''s group. His spiritual mind discovered that all the killers hiding in the dark were retreating.


    The Cool Breeze Gang had found that it was pointless to continue. The incomparable skill of hiding spirit that the killers took such pride in was of no use when it came to Junior Leopard. The hammers in his hands were also too extraordinary. They exceeded the killers'' abilities. Anyone who encountered his hammers either met his death or became severely injured. Under such circumstances, even a strong assassin would choose to retreat.


    They were killers, not Men of Sacrifice. Though sometimes these two words had the same meaning.


    "It seems that this Huyan Ping''s identity is not simple! People from Cool Breeze Gang all retreated after his death. They might have decided to defend their nest!" "It seems that this Huyan Ping''s identity is not so simple! The rest of the Cool Breeze Gang all retreated after his death. They should have stayed to defend their nest!" Junior Leopard raised his twin hammers and crossed them behind his back again. He looked upward gently. The Cool Breeze Gang''s nest was already in his eyesight. There was only a wall between them. Junior Leopard believed that there were many killers hiding in the dark, including three experts: one was at Level Seven, another was Level Eight and the last one was Lan Wu, the Cool Breeze Gang''s Mansion Master. Although Lan Wu was only a Level Six expert, his combat ability was surely above Level Seven. This was what he had learned from the Immortal Palace.


    So what kind of killing arrangement was there in the Cool Breeze Gang?


    Standing before the wall of the yard and feeling the sharp murderous intent it let out, Junior Leopard wondered how many traps and killers were waiting for him.


    "Did you guys really believe I would break into the yard the normal way?"


    Junior Leopard sneered. He put the twin hammers in his right hand and raised his left hand at the same time. Three golden flames as big as fists soon appeared. He was smiling with malice. He waived his hand.


    HU! Three flames flew rapidly toward the Cool Breeze Gang.


    A few seconds later, Junior Leopard waved his hand continuously and shot out more than 20 flames. It was the Lion of Nine Forms of Real Dragon skill, the third form of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. The flames were fast. As soon as they met objects, they ignited. One flame fell onto the camp. The red light flickered, engulfing the whole yard in fire.


    Junior Leopard''s acts were too wicked!


    The yard was the Cool Breeze Gang''s nest indeed, but its structure was still similar to other yards. This was to hide their identity. The main building was made of wood and fire spread rapidly in a very short time.


    As the fire was ignited, the killers hiding in the dark no doubt could not hide any longer. Everybody shouted in the yard, then dozens of black shadows appeared, storming towards Junior Leopard.


    In such a great fire, it didn''t make sense to hide anymore.


    But the killers didn''t charge Junior Leopard directly. They stopped when they were a hundred feet away, posing to defend themselves.


    "Funny!"


    Obviously, Junior Leopard knew their intentions. He squinted at them.


    A violent wind suddenly swirled in the yard, wrapping all the flames in. It formed a huge fire pillar. But the weirdest thing was that the flame which was originally golden turned to dark red. The enormous Qi Power and dark red fire pillar were pressing at Junior Leopard.

 Chapter 241: The Hollow Celestial Device Teaching Fish to Swim

    Chapter 241: The Hollow Celestial Device Teaching Fish to Swim


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "How strong the Qi Power is!"Junior Leopard squinted at the dark red fire pillar with a cold light flickering in his eyes.


    However, Qi Power can normally only be used to boost your courage!


    Junior Leopard sneered in his heart. He had already gotten the effect that he had intended to. No matter what composition of murder they had arranged in the Cool Breeze Gang, it must to be destroyed by his arson. Presently, people in the Cool Breeze Gang were about to lay siege to him. Though it wasn''t their most skillful method, it was the best method they could adopt now.


    As their rival, of course, Junior Leopard wouldn''t let his opponents achieve what they wished under such circumstances, otherwise, he must face an unfavorable condition.


    Since he could not let them attain their wishes, he needs to do the exact opposite.


    Looking around at all the killers, Junior Leopard sneered and stepped forward with a rush.


    "Clomp¡ª!"


    His footstep on the ground was like a meteor crashing to the earth, making the ground quiver along with it. At the same time, by virtue of the bounce of this footstep, he jumped up with his big twin hammers in his hands and roared.


    "Kill¡ª!"


    In total, he had shot out 49 Demon Devil Needles.


    "Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh¡ª!"


    As slight swooshes that induced toothaches were heard, a burst of crying rang out among dozens of killers who rushed out of the Cool Breeze Gang. And within one breath, they all died.


    People like them who rushed out indiscreetly had no other use other than being targets of his Demon Devil Needles.


    Junior Leopard was now soaring in the sky. After slaying all of the killers, the Demon Devil Needles entwined around him and formed the Demon Devil Tactical Formation.


    "Just go to hell!" Junior Leopard roared in the air. The twin hammers in his hands began revolving, which drove his body into a high-speed rotation as well.


    "Enjoy my Whirlwind Hammer!"


    The rotating hammers smashed toward the courtyard with incessant might, targeting that dark-red fire pillar.


    Killers should only hide in the shadows and wait for their chance to assassinate covertly. How could you set such a gigantic posture?


    Junior Leopard whispered secretly, while his hammers had already hit that dark red fire pillar successfully.


    For Junior Leopard, the flames now possessed neither lethality nor deterrence. As for their Qi Power, Junior Leopard didn''t take it seriously.


    The Whirlwind Hammers had hit in the center of the dark red fire pillar.


    "Crash¡ª!" Just like thunder in fine weather, the earth began to violently shake. A figure was thrown out straightly to 100 feet away and didn''t stop until it smacked into a wall that had been scorched.


    He kept spitting out blood as if blood was a totally useless thing. Though he was trying to stand up, he had no strength to do so.


    eeing was one thing, while suffering was another.


    It was obvious that the masters of martial arts and the experts in the Cool Breeze Gang had underestimated Junior Leopard''s twin hammers.


    "Again a Level Seven expert? How boring!" Looking at the brawny man who had been arrogant but now failed to get up, Junior Leopard was pretty insatiable.


    A huge crater appeared when Junior Leopard defeated him and hit him on the ground. Now, Junior Leopard was standing in the crater. He expanded himself with his big hammers, like a great hawk spreading its wings. Then he knocked away the remaining debris that was left from the fire.


    "I wonder, is the Cool Breeze Gang really at such a low level? It''s so easy for me to trample you down. How disappointing!" Junior Leopard said in a loud voice, revealing his disdain.


    There was no reply or trace of a sound. The surrounding was so silent that you could clearly hear the sound of a pin drop. Junior Leopard stood still, while his expression became more and more dignified. He spread his spiritual mind all over the courtyard, yet nothing could be found.


    There was nobody there, utterly no one.


    Except for the killers who had rushed out and the Level Seven expert which had been smacked away by him just now, there was no living person in the courtyard now. Or it could be said that those were the only people who were in the courtyard.


    "The Cool Breeze Gang has three Level Seven experts, one Level Eight expert, and the Mansion Master, Lan Wu, whose fighting capability is over Level Seven. So they have five experts in all. But till now I have only met two of them. Where are the rest?"


    As Junior Leopard pondered attentively, suddenly the awareness of a crisis overwhelmed him.


    "This situation is quite unusual. Could it be so coincidental that they have all gone out today?"


    "Was there truly anything so coincidental?"


    From the information the Immortal Palace gave him, he knew clearly these five experts usually stayed in the Cool Breeze Gang and would not leave if there was nothing special. So how could the three of them be gone at the same time? It was illogical.


    Junior Leopard looked up. Now there was only one thing suspicious in the courtyard ¡ª a bronze mirror which was burnt nearly to the point of melting.


    That was the only difference between this courtyard and the others. Looking at the position of this bronze mirror and its style, Junior Leopard found it was quite incompatible with the courtyard. But he couldn''t find anything abnormal after he examined it with his spiritual mind, as if it was just a common bronze mirror.


    "Wait, it must be the Hollow Travel!"


    In a rush, a ray of delicate verdurous light flickered behind him, and Junior Leopard sharply changed his expression and tried to protect the middle of his back with the big hammers as soon as possible.


    A ray of silver sword light flashed out of the green light and shot straight toward the middle of Junior Leopard''s back, as if a viper was poking out its forked tongue.


    "Ding¡ª!"


    With a ringing sound emerging, the sword light hit directly on the hammer and then disappeared. At almost the same time, the verdurous light appeared again at Junior Leopard''s side. This time, what flashed out of it was a ray of overbearing saber light with heavy Evil Qi.


    But Junior Leopard didn''t use his hammers to fend it off this time. The saber light chopped at the Demon Devil Formation that surrounded him. After the attack, white fog arose and the Demon Devil Formation began to launch automatically without hesitation.


    Nearly at the same time when it launched, the verdurous light disappeared again.


    While being covered by the fog, Junior Leopard seemed to be a little at a loss. He did feel helpless.


    "What the hell was that?"


    The Hollow Travel! One disappeared in a flash, while in the very next second, he appeared behind you! Could there be anything more uncanny or more intricate than that? Could it be more nonsensical?


    Yes!


    Just because of the affirmative answer, Junior Leopard, who seemed to be at a loss and had to passively defend in the fog, nearly laughed his head off.


    It was really hard to judge things in this world!


    If one was really suffering misfortune, he might even hit his heel with his fart.


    "It seems to be the Cool Breeze Gang''s ace in the hole. I''m afraid it may also be the treasure of the Cool Breeze Gang, which helped them to develop. Well, it really brings out the best in each other when killers have the Hollow Travel."


    Junior Leopard said to himself.


    The Hollow Travel may truly have great impact on other people. It could even slay a Level Seven expert in one second.


    But to Junior Leopard, it was just a joke.


    As soon as the verdurous light appeared behind him, Junior Leopard was clearly conscious of the mysterious, yet familiar, fluctuation. And his 360-degree vision that had no dead zones also captured the entire process. From the appearance to the formation, Junior Leopard viewed all. It was not mysterious to Junior Leopard at all, but on the contrary, inferior.


    Totally inferior.


    When the Three Realms Division traveled the hollow, it would also cause a spatial fluctuation. While as Junior Leopard''s cultivation became more and more advanced, such spatial fluctuations were more and more subtle, unlike the way people in the Cool Breeze Gang caused.


    They acted like they were throwing a big stone into a river. It was hard for ordinary people to detect, but for people like Junior Leopard, who was skilled in the Three Realms Division and the Space Division Skill, it felt like someone was teaching his grandma how to suck eggs.


    But Junior Leopard didn''t want to expose his skill in the Hollow Travel, so he covered himself in the Demon Devil Formation.


    "There must be numbers of eyes that are staring at me. I should hold back my Three Realms Division and Space Division Skill."


    Suddenly, the verdurous light flashed again, appearing at the side of the fog that was caused by the Demon Devil Formation. After the sound of a howling dragon was heard, a ray of cold green light, which shaped like a new moon and had a golden radiance encircled around it, rushed out from the green light as quick as a flash. In just a minute, both ends of the radiance elongated several feet and emitted out countless peculiar lights ¡ª golden and green, gloomy and cold.


    It cut apart the Demon Devil Formation in front of Junior Leopard in just a moment.


    "Damn you!" Junior Leopard cursed. Luckily, he was alert enough to block it with his twin hammers in time.


    "Clang!" The loud noise resounded, like a loud drumbeat. The harsh sound echoed beside his ears, like people were playing gongs and drums around him.


    The Demon Devil Formation had been wholly cut apart now, and along with his two Big Iron Hammers, Junior Leopard was beaten away by the cold green light, which was now several feet in length.


    "That''s it!" When the verdurous light disappeared and reappeared again, even with Junior Leopard''s body still in mid-air, he found the strong spatial fluctuation in the place behind him.


    "Damn you!" Junior Leopard roared. His body, which was heading backward at a high speed in mid-air, came to a halt.


    The Dragon Flying Technique!


    He forcibly stopped his inertia of heading backward and steadied himself in mid-air. However, due to the twin big hammers that he held in his hands, he nearly vomited blood with this hasty halt.


    Forcing blood down his throat, he fiercely spun his body. As fast as lightning, he combined his twin hammers and smashed towards space in front of him. At almost the same time as he smashed, the verdurous light appeared precisely in where Junior Leopard had attacked.


    "Hollow Travel?! Just enjoy your last travel!" As he roared, blood sprayed out of his mouth while cruel laughter was revealed in his eyes.


    "Oh no!"


    A low shout, which sounded a bit panic, came out of the verdurous light. The verdurous light showed its transient presence and disappeared, thus the twin hammers came away empty-handed.


    "Humph!"


    With a cold snort, Junior Leopard spread his arms and waved the twin big hammers, smashing towards the space behind him this time. Just as the time before, the hammers smashed and the verdurous light disappeared as soon as it had appeared. But Junior Leopard made some changes this time.


    How lucky I am!


    He truly was lucky. Unexpectedly, this attack had the power of a Critical Hit. It was known that only when the pulsing crest of the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill coincided could a Critical Hit be achieved. This coincidence had only a two percent of chance.


    Two percent was just a rough and average probability. It did not mean that if you struck 50 times then a Critical Hit would occur. Among 50 attacks, it might happen the first time, or might happen the last time. Two percent was only a probability that he calculated after punching thousands of times.


    To be frank, he had smashed over 10,000 times continuously before and it nearly made him exhausted. Among those 10,000 times, there were only about 200 Critical Hits. He had also tested it a few more times, but the results were similar.


    This time, Junior Leopard was pretty lucky enough to achieve a Critical Hit with his following attack. And he also detected that this sudden Critical Hit brought some problems to them.


    Hence, the next time when the verdurous light appeared, it kept 100 feet away from him.


    Just 100 feet of distance couldn''t force Junior Leopard to give up. After another two attacks, he had already landed on the ground. On this occasion when Junior Leopard sensed the mysterious fluctuation when the verdurous light broke open the hollow, he smiled coldly.


    He detected the unstable spirit of the space.


    It was definitely unstable.


    Such a kind of spatial fluctuation would only appear after he had continuously performed the short-haul Three Realms Division for 120 times or the long-haul Division for 18 times.


    Once he came across such a kind of spatial fluctuation, he would stop right away. Because if he kept on, then the space would become extremely unstable, and he would be casually transferred to somewhere other than where he had aimed to go. Junior Leopard had drawn this conclusion after he was transferred to the bottom of Luo River when he was practicing one time. Actually, he congratulated himself privately for not being transferred to the inside of a stone or underground that time.


    "I''d like to see where you would be transferred to next time!" Junior Leopard sneered. He had already jumped up with his twin hammers towards the destination where the verdurous light flashed before the spatial fluctuation appeared.


    This time, the green light didn''t disappear. Instead, a cold green light was shot out from it to Junior Leopard''s twin hammers again. Obviously, they also understood they couldn''t do the Hollow Travel anymore, so they wanted to use the cold green light to withstand Junior Leopard''s hammers and then come out from the hollow.


    But unfortunately, they had overestimated the cold green light and underestimate Junior Leopard''s strength. The twin hammers had drawn a weird arc in the sky, keeping the cold green light away and, at the same time, smashing towards the verdurous light.


    That cold green light failed to contact the hammers, then it was too late for them to fight back. But Junior Leopard''s iron hammers had severely hit the verdurous light.


    "Clang!" A rattling sound resounded. Though it was subtle, Junior Leopard heard it clearly. The verdurous light disappeared again, but Junior Leopard had already wore a victorious smile.


    "Hollow Travel?! Why don''t you keep traveling now?" He sneered, holding his iron hammers firmly. Then he covered all the courtyard with his spiritual mind.


    The Hollow Travel required skill. It also suffered a lot of limits, just like Junior Leopard''s Three Realms Division. Though they could travel through the hollow, the distance was short. The Cool Breeze Gang was no exception. As a matter of fact, when traveling through the hollow, they were not so skillful as Junior Leopard.


    Whether it was the speed or the efficiency of the travel, they couldn''t equal Junior Leopard. Therefore, once they had been fought back by Junior Leopard, they would certainly lose control. And that was what Junior Leopard was waiting for.


    ...


    "How can this be? How can Zhou Bao always discern the time and place about our appearance?" Inside the hollow, Lan Wu, the Mansion Master of the Cool Breeze Gang, together with a First Elder and a Level Seven expert, sat on a big capacious red carpet, cursing.


    A Hollow Magic Carpet!


    This was the foundation for the Cool Breeze Gang, and the guarantee that helped them run smoothly everywhere at the very beginning. But now, the Hollow Magic Carpet had eerily lost its efficacy. More than that, it even firmly stuck them in the hollow, not allowing them to display their original strength.


    "First Elder, we can''t wait any longer. Next time, we must rush out!"


    "Rush out? How can we? Zhou Bao has employed an unknown way to figure out the rules of our Hollow Magic Carpet. Since the Hollow Magic Carpet is now damaged, it will be harder for us to break out forcibly."


    "It''s all up to you, First Elder!" In this case, Lan Wu put all scruples aside and said, "First Elder, only when you perform your Dragonslayer at its full power can we make an escape from death!"


    "I have already tried my best to perform the Dragonslayer just now, but I suffer so many limits in the hollow that I can''t do it."


    "Then what should we do now?" Lan Wu''s expression became even uglier.


    "I can''t control the Hollow Magic Carpet any longer. I just wish Zhou Bao couldn''t predict where the Hollow Magic Carpet will show up next time. Later, when our Magic Carpet breaks up the hollow, I will try my best to perform the Dragonslayer again. And you guys must rush out recklessly at the same time. Only in this way can you gain the slim chance of survival!"


    "Only us? How are you then?"


    Lan Wu looked rather pale as he sensed something ominous in the First Elder''s words.


    "Me? Can there be any other ending left for me? Since we have lost control of the Hollow Magic Carpet, I must use my brute force if we want to break the hollow. After breaking the hollow and performing the Dragonslayer, I will lose all my combat capability." The First Elder said with a bitter smile.


    "But...!"


    "There''s no time. The Hollow Magic Carpet is about to break the hollow. Get ready. Hurry up!"


    All of a sudden, the First Elder pressed the Magic Carpet beneath them with a gloomy look on his face.


    A looming fluctuation flashed out from his palm and the verdurous light appeared in front of the Magic Carpet.


    ...


    "Over there!" Inside the courtyard, Junior Leopard looked a bit ruthless. After the fluctuation of the Hollow Travel disappeared for few minutes, it showed up again. This time it got pretty close to Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard combined his twin hammers together, but instead of rushing out, he faded his body and hid to the side. The fact proved to him that his decision was wise.


    Almost at the same time when the verdurous light appeared, the cold green light showed up. Moreover, it covered an area of 30 feet around the verdurous light. If Junior Leopard were to rush out conspicuously, he would surely run into it. Though Junior Leopard''s hammers were heavy, they were not as strange as that cold green light, which had broken up the Demon Devil Formation in one flash. So, Junior Leopard didn''t dare to let his hammers get in touch with it. After all, you could never be too careful.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard just hid to the side and looked at the cold light quietly. He didn''t move until he saw two figures go out from the verdurous light as the cold green light faded. Then in a rush, Junior Leopard brandished his hammers and smashed straight out.


    Lan Wu and another Level Seven expert were ready with weapons to defend with as they rushed out of the verdurous light, but they encountered no attack and were not blocked. Having gotten out so easily, they could not help but feel relaxed. They thought that Junior Leopard had not predicted the fluctuation of the hollow this time, so they tried to keep calm and stood beside the verdurous light like two doorkeepers.


    Doorkeepers!


    Two people were not enough. Junior Leopard had long since predicted the fluctuation of the hollow and he thought there would be someone trying to get out this time. So, he''d better not attack prematurely.


    All was just as his expectation. Before they could get a firm foothold, Junior Leopard had already brandished his hammers. Due to his position which was just behind the verdurous light, he could smash straight out before they were able to look around.


    "Jesus!" The Level Seven expert was first to respond, then Lan Wu. But both of them were too late. By the time they had a response, the verdurous light had already disappeared, but Junior Leopard''s hammers hit the green light straight-on.


    "Clink, clink!"


    This time, the sound of crackling glass was clearly heard. Inside the hollow, the verdurous light came to a halt, and a strange spirit stream began to pervade. Following that there was a spatial fluctuation which was visible to the naked eye.


    At this moment, the space was fiddled by an invisible hand, as a paperboard which allowed everyone to play with.


    "Clink, clink, clink!"


    The ringing sound became clearer and clearer. Suddenly, it disappeared, and so did the spatial fluctuation. In the place where the verdurous light had just been, an eccentric carpet appeared and suspended in mid-air, with a person sitting on it.


    The state of suspension only lasted for a moment, and then the carpet along with the person sitting on it fell on the ground, just like a common carpet would do. Following that, there was a ray of verdurous light.


    "Gurgle!"


    "First Elder!" Lan Wu cried and rushed towards that figure. While the other person, a Level Seven expert, moved to face Junior Leopard. A gloomy and cold light was gleaming in his eyes now.


    "It seems that we have misjudged this time," the man said in a husky voice.


    "Yes, you''ve misjudged! My spiritual mind is born with sensitivity, therefore, few can escape from it." Junior Leopard smiled. He waved his hands and the Demon Devil Needles, which had scattered all over when they were hit away by the verdurous light, flew back to him. But he was pained to see that half of the needles were broken.


    "What is that? It''s pretty fierce!" Junior Leopard looked towards Lan Wu and the First Elder, who slid down on the ground, and asked them as if they were chatting.


    "It''s the Dragonslayer, a Mysterious Level celestial device, one level higher than your Demon Devil Needles." He answered in a cold voice.

 Chapter 242: A Strange Ending; The Delusion of the Poisonous Hitching Post

    Chapter 242: A Strange Ending; The Delusion of the Poisonous Hitching Post


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "It''s our misjudgment this time."


    "No kidding." Junior Leopard''s smile became even wider as he used his twin big hammers to prop him up from the ground. "I would''ve been done for if you three didn''t attack me that way."


    "You''re right. But who thought that you can restrain the Hollow Magic Carpet?" The man smiled bitterly.


    Junior Leopard returned his smile, but there was a great reluctance in it.


    "Looks like the Cool Breeze Gang is destined to end." Junior Leopard''s face twitched as he struggled to keep his smile. He didn''t look very well. Inside, he was feeling a heavy sense of helplessness.


    First, it was the Hollow Travel. Then it was poison. Had he known that it would be so easy to deal with this gang, he wouldn''t have put so much thought into it.


    This guy thought himself to be clever, or perhaps he truly was smart. He tried to distract Junior Leopard by talking as he released an invisible and colorless toxic gas. If the Poison-absorbing Green Bead on Junior Leopard didn''t activate, he really wouldn''t have discovered it at all.


    The poison that the man used couldn''t be ordinary judging by the reaction of the bead. It might even be deadlier than the Green-scaled Venomous Tarantula.


    That was why Junior Leopard''s expression was so ghastly and he was having such a hard time smiling. He couldn''t even hold his hammers firmly.


    But the smile on that man''s face became even brighter.


    "We shouldn''t have resorted to unnecessary tricks. Your combat capability may be high, but you wouldn''t stand a chance if the five of us teamed up against you. What a pity the Mansion Master and the First Elder disagreed."


    "Elder Cui, you¡­!"


    The man who was crouching on the ground and checking on the First Elder looked up with a darkened expression. "You!"


    "Mansion Master, I once told you that we''re assassins, not prostitutes. Why do we need to make ourselves known to the world?" Elder Cui said, smiling gently.


    Realization dawned on Junior Leopard. His grip slacked and his twin hammers fell to the ground. "You used poison!"


    He clutched at his chest, trying his best to recall the expressions and moves he saw on television. Anger flushed his cheeks.


    "Correct! Of course I did!" Elder Cui''s smile turned even brighter. With a wave of his sleeves, a fragrance drifted toward Junior Leopard and made him dizzy again. Fortunately for him, his Poison-absorbing Green Bead was fully activated. A watery airflow flowed through his tendons and meridians, helping him recover.


    "Cui Hailong, what are you planning?!"


    Lan Wu''s voice was loud and full of anger. On the other side, Junior Leopard was finally feeling better.


    "Not much. But don''t you think you''re not suitable to be the Mansion Master of the Cool Breeze Gang anymore?" Cui Hailong turned his head after seeing Lan Wu had also fallen. "If it wasn''t for you, our gang wouldn''t be reduced to such a state!"


    "Are you rebelling?!"


    "Why not?" Cui Hailong lifted his head and said calmly, "Is there a better opportunity than now?"


    "You..." Lan Wu was fuming even as his body went limp and numb. Cui Hailong had always hidden his strength all these years, having entered Level Seven for more than a decade. When he first joined, Lan Wu kept his guard against him but soon realized he seemed to harbor no interest in authority. His interests seemed only to be fiddling with his venomous insects and rearing some odd creatures in his room. What was more, it was he who helped the gang when they got into trouble in the past and his solutions had always been perfect.


    Hence, his distrust of Cui Hailong gradually eased.


    To be fair, he wasn''t familiar with any of the Elders in the gang. The existence of certain Jianghu rules meant it was troublesome for them to make a Level Seven expert an assassin. They could only ask them to assume personal command. But they could be considered as impregnable and secret as possible. There wasn''t anyone like Junior Leopard who had ever broken into their nest. Secondly, they would be even more persistent in their pursuit of power after entering Level Seven compared to the average person. They would never show up unless it was necessary. He wouldn''t see Cui Hailong, who practiced the Heavenly and Earthly Poisons Technique, around for months at a time. He didn''t expect him to rebel at such a critical point, leaving him no time to prepare.


    "There''s no benefit for you to betray the Cool Breeze Gang!"


    "I''ve never said that I''m betraying the gang. I just think you''re not fit to be the Mansion Master anymore, so I''m replacing you."


    "Replace me? I''ve never expected you to hide such wild ambitions!"


    "There are even more things beyond your expectations." Cui Hailong snickered. "But you don''t have to think too hard about it anymore."


    "You..." A heavy sense of exhaustion clouded Lan Wu''s mind. He tried to operate his Internal Qi to resist the poison but failed. His limp body fell on the ground, where he twitched and foamed at the mouth. He finally went quiet after a while and huddled up at last, losing all his vitality.


    "You gave us different poisons?"


    Junior Leopard slowly propped himself up with his hands as he watched the dramatic scene in front of him.


    "Of course. There''s nothing about the gang that is a secret to me, but you''re different. You must be hiding a great secret to achieve Level Seven at the age of 17! How can I let you die so easily?"


    "What if you go for wool and come home shorn?"


    Cui Hailong burst out laughing and said, "Do you know what you''re poisoned with?"


    "Don''t you know I have a Green-scaled Venomous Scorpion on my hands?" Junior Leopard''s lips curled and revealed a strange smile.


    "What?" Cui Hailong was struck dumb, not grasping Junior Leopard''s words. While he was still confused, Junior Leopard swiped his twin hammers at him as rapid as lightning.


    "You¡­" Clang! Thud!


    A scream was followed by a low sound, finally ending with the ear-splitting sound of hammers knocking down a body.


    Junior Leopard didn''t give Cui Hailong much time to think. He picked up his hammers from the ground and bashed Cui Hailong''s head. He hadn''t expected Junior Leopard to be untouched by his poison, so he didn''t put up his guard. With just one hit from Junior Leopard''s hammers, his head exploded like a crushed watermelon.


    "I thought it''s me who wanted to end the Cool Breeze Gang but looks like it''s the God who wants to end it. He''s just doing it through my hands."


    Junior Leopard didn''t feel any happiness at killing the final expert of the Cool Breeze Gang. Rather, he felt as if his actions were controlled by an invisible hand.


    The battle that he had been anticipating ended without any fanfare. Junior Leopard silently killed the most powerful Level Eight expert just like that while he was controlling the Hollow Magic Carpet, leaving him no chance to demonstrate his true strength. The unlucky Lan Wu didn''t have any chance to fight either, having been poisoned by his partner. Cui Hailong, on the other hand, was so confident in his poison that he didn''t even put a guard and was smashed to death.


    This was so easy that Junior Leopard felt like it was something right out of a movie.


    The Cool Breeze Gang had many departments and assassins, but their true strength lied in their four experts and a master with an expert''s combat capability. The First Elder, a Level Eight expert, was particularly powerful. Yet they were inexplicably killed. The remaining assassins, the tiny fish who had escaped Junior Leopard''s net, were too insignificant to care about.


    In the past 300 years, how many people had the Cool Breeze Gang assassinated or offended?


    Now that their most powerful assassins were killed in one clean sweep, the influences and schools who had their men killed would definitely not give up this chance to kick them while they were down.


    Having considered this point, Junior Leopard slowly walked toward the bodies of Lan Wu and the First Elder. He raised his head and a ball of golden flame flashed, reducing Lan Wu''s corpse into ashes. He didn''t dare to treat the First Elder corpse lightly and carefully controlled the remaining undamaged Demon Devil Needles. He pierced the First Elder''s head with the needles to make sure that he was truly dead.


    He didn''t dare to burn him with fire for the Hollow Magic Carpet was still on the First Elder''s body.


    Now that he confirmed the First Elder to be truly dead, he lifted his hand and retrieved the Magic Carpet that helped the First Elder to travel in the void. He felt a familiar spirit the moment he touched it. It was the Flickering Light Evil Qi. However, it seemed to be too heterogeneous. It was no wonder there would be a tremendous space fluctuation each time the carpet was used.


    He pondered for a while and finally understood why. He lifted his hand again and the Dragonslayer flew into his hands. It was the same thing that cut his Demon Devil Needles and broke his Demon Devil Formation.


    "Is this a Mysterious Level celestial device?" Junior Leopard mumbled to himself as he examined the eccentric cyan weapon. "If this is one level higher than my Demon Devil Needles, then what level do my needles belong to? I knew celestial devices and magic weapons have their classifications, but I''ve never learned any details. Would the Cool Breeze Gang have any information on them?"


    He wrapped the Dragonslayer with the Hollow Magic Carpet before strapping them to his belt. He looked up to the sky and then down at the messy courtyard. He frowned and walked toward the mansion of the Cool Breeze Gang that was burning halfway already.


    He became a demolisher and hammered away at the mansion without hesitation. After tearing down the building, he even smashed the ground as if he had gone mad. After some time, he actually found a secret chamber hiding among the ruins.


    The secret chamber was largely empty except for the gang''s ledgers from over the years stacked on rows of bookshelves. He easily found the order for his assassination in the latest ledger and smiled when he saw the name. He tore the page off the ledger and tucked it into his bosom. Besides the ledgers, there was only one purple sandalwood box containing bills of every native bank in Great Jin. The impressive amount of bills were the entirety of the gang''s fortune. The gang had more than 200,000 silvers in the Datong Bank alone.


    These silvers were all dirty money. Being an assassin was also an illegal occupation in Great Jin. Naturally, the money wouldn''t be stored under the gang''s name. To the modern person, they were all non-tangible bonds accumulated during 300 years enough to drive people mad. Junior Leopard collected them all.


    "No wonder there are so many who like being robbers. This is so much fun!" Junior Leopard created another fireball after exiting the secret chamber and burned it into ashes.


    When he walked to the courtyard, he didn''t leave immediately and bowed in the air. "Respected predecessors, I''m done with my show and will now leave. Any objections?" he asked. He waited for several minutes and when no sound came, he jumped out of the courtyard with a smile.


    ¡­


    Did the Cool Breeze Gang end just like that?


    In just half a day, the news of Junior Leopard wiping out the gang and its experts had spread wide and far in the Jianghu.


    He caused a sensation as usual, but it didn''t last long this time. People found themselves numb to his affairs. No matter how shocking his actions were, they slowly began to find it acceptable.


    Though it was an unverified hearsay, it was much more shocking to hear about Junior Leopard killing Mie Chen after all.


    This time, people were more concerned about the fortune that Junior Leopard had nicked from the gang.


    The mansion wouldn''t have stored all of the gang''s fortune, but experts had witnessed him tearing down the place until he found a secret chamber. They knew he burned the place into ashes. Though they didn''t know what was inside the chamber, they knew it was a fruitful trip for him judging from his expression after.


    But no one was stupid enough to ask about or covet Junior Leopard''s spoils no matter how curious or envious they were.


    This time, Junior Leopard had demonstrated to the world not only his strength but also the network he had control over.


    He had two Level Seven experts protecting his family to foil the Cool Breeze Gang assassins. It wasn''t something the average person could do.


    "It''s not all that different from a hooligan snatching another hooligan''s territory!"


    The Jin Emperor, Yan Yuntian, squinted at the newspaper in his hand in Qianzhou, the capital city of Great Jin, and suddenly smiled. "When people first started roaming the Jianghu, they have no roots like duckweed that can be easily blown away. They can only fight it out by being more vicious and cruel than their rivals. They will slash each other and whoever falls first dies. The outcome supposedly justifies the means! Others will only have misgivings about scheming against you if you show enough malevolence and strength! In their hesitation, you have the time to grow. When your strength reaches a certain degree, those who want to scheme against you will hesitate even more in the face of your growing power. That''s the only way you can grow and build your authority! That''s what Zhou Bao is trying to do."


    "You mean his viciousness was intentional?"


    "It was definitely intentional! Before this incident, he already had strength and reputation but there was no lack of people aiming for his head. Many, including some eminences, targeted him precisely because he had no roots. He couldn''t deter others simply on the virtue of his strength or relationship with Wang She. That was why the Cool Breeze Gang dared to accept the order to assassinate him and why someone dared to make the order. Thus, he acted so viciously in flattening the gang. If you put it nicely, he was asserting his authority but it was no more than a contest to see who could be crueler. Obviously, the gang lost to him in cruelty this time!"


    "Looks like Zhou Bao is really something."


    "He truly is!" Jin Emperor looked peacefully at the girl standing in front of him. "Do you want to meet him, Yan''er?"


    Yan''er was a tall and slim girl dressed in pink. She had a beautiful face with bright and watery pupils that made her even lovelier. She appeared astonished by Yan Yuntian''s sudden question. "Can I, father?!"


    "You''re not that young anymore. You''ll be 16 tomorrow and of age to marry. Zhou Bao is also 16. He has great martial arts and good looks to boot. Most importantly, he''s smart and has a promising future. Many eminences have their eyes on him, wanting to gain him through marriage. That includes the Li family in Pingzhou, the Yan family in the Shuo Province, and some other middle or small-sized well-known families. It''s much better for you to marry him than the scions of the capital or the barbarian princes!"


    Yan''er stood there quietly, her face completely flushed. After considering for a moment, she said, "Father, do you have high expectations of him?"


    "Why do you ask that?"


    "He''s now a mere County Governor and his fief is so far away in the Northern Yuan. He''s not the only one who had contributed to the downfall of the Northern Yuan in the war, but I see he''s the only one you''re concerned about. And now you want me to marry him. Doesn''t this show your expectations of him?"


    "Yes, I do have some expectations of him. But I have yet to figure out his true relationship with the Tian Long Taoism. We can talk about this when I know for sure."


    "So you want me to..."


    "No, of course not. Do you think I''ll make you marry him to figure out his background?" Yan Yuntian shook his head. "You''re too smart, Yan''er. It''s precisely because of your wisdom that you''ll think and consider more. Before I figure out his background, I won''t give him your hand in marriage. I only want you to meet him and see what you think of him. After all, you''re a good judge of character." He then smiled.


    "Thank you, father. I understand what you want me to do!"


    ...


    Junior Leopard gently unfolded his claws that gleamed with a dark green ray of light and experienced the strands of Pure Yin Qi in the moonlight. They traveled along the pores of his skin and gradually seeped into his body before turning into fine light particles. They merged with the subtle airflow inside his body and returned to his Dantian.


    Dantian!


    Perhaps Dantian was the final destination for all airflow!


    There wasn''t any need for cultivation methods or an understanding of tendons and meridians. It was an innate instinct!


    The strands of Pure Yin Qi in the moonlight merged with the essence of the world and entered Junior Leopard''s body through the Green-scaled Venomous Scorpion''s acupoints. He only needed to make sure his consciousness follow the direction of the airflow. It was the only way to prevent the airflow from vanishing in its path back to the Dantian.


    For the next two months, he would repeat the same practice every moonlight night. He focused all his efforts on the Green-scaled Venomous Scorpion. Though he couldn''t guarantee it would be a true Demonic Cultivation, he did gain something out of his persistence over the two months.


    His Green-scaled Venomous Scorpion had become stronger and its venom seemed denser and thicker too. More importantly, he found that scorpion''s stinger had become harder and more impregnable.


    While he absorbed the essence of moonshine, he could clearly feel some of the airflows would be intercepted by the stinger each time it passed inside him. If he did this on purpose, nearly all the airflow would be consumed by the stinger without limit. But he didn''t know how this would help him.


    "Could this be the legendary Poisonous Hitching Post?" A strange idea popped up in Junior Leopard''s mind. "The Demonic Cultivation is so absurd that I don''t have anything to use as a reference. It''s better to focus on this stinger. Maybe it''ll surprise me one day!"


    Just as he was still caught in his wild fancies, he felt the carriage stop.


    He transferred his divine thoughts from the Green-scaled Venomous Scorpion back his own body immediately as it continued to absorb the Moon Essence. That was the advantage of using thoughts to replace the soul. It allowed him to practice 24 hours a day, absorbing the Sun Essence during the day and the Moon Essence during the night.


    The scorpion would faithfully execute whatever his idea was, as long as it was conveyed to his thoughts. It would completely meet his requirements.


    "Your Excellency, there''s a river up front!" Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows. Caught in his joy of fantasizing about the Poisonous Hitching Post, he nearly misheard it as, "Teacher, there''s a river up front!"


    He wasn''t Monk Tang and Zhu Ba wasn''t Pigsy!


    He looked helplessly at Zhu Ba who had lifted the curtain and shook his head. A bitter smile appeared on his face. "What river?"


    "We don''t know, Your Excellency!" Zhu Ba was also distressed.


    They were on their way to Junior Leopard''s fief, the Blackstone Valley. But no one knew what the fief, all 300 kilometers wide of it, covered. That included him and the man who gave him the land, Yan Yuntian. When Yan Yuntian and the imperial court arranged the enfeoffment, their first consideration was the location of the fiefs of the eminences and great schools in the martial arts world. They didn''t care about what was on that fief. Those like Junior Leopard were given fiefs at random. The officers of the Hanlin Academy had divided the map of Northern Yuan into over 1,000 pieces and pointed at random, thus deciding everyone''s fiefs that way.


    To the officers and Junior Leopard, the Blackstone Valley was just an unfamiliar name on the map.

 Chapter 243: Emerging Ambition at Dragon-pressing River

    Chapter 243: Emerging Ambition at Dragon-pressing River


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Hand me the map!"


    A muddle-headed Junior Leopard was standing in front of the boundless river that was shaking the heavens, looking at the map.


    "Zhu Ba, we didn''t head the wrong way, did we?"


    "I''m not sure, you''ll have to ask Jiang Xiao, but I do not see a river right here on the map!" said Zhu Ba, confused.


    Junior Leopard then turned to Jiang Xiao, who was holding the map.


    With a wry smile, Jiang Xiao said, "Your Excellency, we''ve been heading in the right direction all along." Staring sharply at Zhu Ba while pointing out a thin line on the map, he continued, "The map was made by the Hanlin Academy in a hurry. Moreover, it was made by magnifying the complete Northern Yuan map, which may lead to a lot of mistakes and leave out many things. This was marked on the map with just a thin line, nobody thought it was actually a scary river instead of a minor ditch."


    Looking down at the map, then looking up to the river, Junior Leopard said, "Does that mean we have lost our way after two months of effortless walking in the middle of the prairie?"


    "Don''t worry, Your Excellency. We''re far from being lost. It''s just that the map is not as accurate as expected. If we manage to get past the river, we will be at your fief within another two months."


    Junior Leopard twitched the corners of his mouth and said, "Another two months?"


    "Your Excellency, it''s not that bad. Your fief is already closer than a lot others!" said Jiang Xiao smiling superficially while grumbling secretly, "We would have arrived already if you was willing to ride rather than sit inside a carriage."


    But, he dared not to say so out loud. It was strange to him that Junior Leopard would prefer riding in a carriage rather than atop a horse. The latter was far more convenient and speedy.


    "It must be a famous river to be so wide." Junior Leopard said. He then put down the map, walked to the river, and thought for a moment, "You guys stay put here. I am going to see if there''s a bridge to get over it!" and with a sudden jump, he flew several feet up high into the sky. He then used the Dragon Flying Technique and glided away against the wind, disappearing in a blink of the eye.


    "That is the power of an expert!"


    The people left behind showed enormous admiration for Junior Leopard, who was flying away. It was a common sense that a Level Seven expert could fly, but they still felt jealous and shocked when they saw it with their own eyes. Especially since there was not much to see before.


    They had completely ignored the fact that a Level Seven expert could only fly in the sky with Gang Qi.


    Flying in the sky, Junior Leopard was not looking so good. With such a broad river traversing the prairie where his fief was located, there was not much leverage for future development.


    As a foreigner to this world, and with the sense of the previous life, after understanding that he may never return to his original world, Junior Leopard began to work hard to cultivate a sense of belonging to this world.


    But, it had not been easy.


    Now that he had a great opportunity to own a piece of a fief in accordance with the rules of this world. This was an awesome opportunity for him to regain a sense of belonging that had been lost for over a decade.


    He surely would not miss it.


    Therefore, he intended to take a carriage when leaving Yunzhou. The first reason was that he did enjoy the privacy in the carriage during the trip. Second was that he planned to get familiar with the routes and environment leading to his fief for future use.


    He didn''t expect that the journey would last for two months, let alone encountering such a wide river that was even wider than the Yangze River in his previous life, which separated his fief from the Central Plains completely. It upset him a lot.


    Thus, he decided to fly out for a break.


    As for bridge-searching, it was a total joke. Based on the architecture technique in this world, it was impossible to build a bridge over such a wide river.


    "Damn, the river is even longer than the Yangze River and it runs so turbulently. It''s also out of the reach of my fief, which could be a pain in the ass when transporting goods in the future. Oh! I see some people over there!"


    Standing in the air, Junior Leopard clearly saw a group of people as well as horses walking slowly down the prairie. Their destination was seemingly to be the river too.


    Junior Leopard flew towards them directly.


    They had more numbers than Junior Leopard''s group, up to a hundred people. Junior Leopard was able to find out their backgrounds from the way they spoke. It was the Zhao family. They were just like Junior Leopard who had contributed in the war. However, the size of the Zhao family was much smaller than the Wu Family, which was similar to an unlucky friend of his teacher, Xu Yong, in Ningzhou City. Xu Yong''s power was limited to a small county. But the Zhao Family was lucky enough to rob a tribe of a precious treasure, and then they dedicated the treasure to the imperial court when the Family Head of the Zhao Family trod over Northern Yuan. Later, the Zhao Family was conferred with a county title along with 100km2 fief located in Northern Yuan.


    Yes, it was only 100km2. Now a large group of people, mostly family servants and distant relatives, were assigned here to accept the fief on behalf of the Zhao Family. But, their Family Head was not here. Though they had numbers, their strongest one was merely a Level Three expert who was not even entering the Bone-Forging Realm.


    Just like Junior Leopard, the Zhao family halted in front of the river. With over a hundred people and tons of luggage, way more than that of Junior Leopard, they were at the end of their rope faced with the river.


    "F*ck, you damn Tartar. Are you leading us to nowhere? Why is there a river?"


    Out of a sudden, someone leading the group caught the man in front of him by the collar, shook his body and fiercely asked, "Why the hell is there a big river?"


    "Cough, cough, cough, cough, here, here..." The man was lifted up from the ground by his collar, choking his neck. His face quickly turned purple.


    "Zhao Ke, you will strangle him to death without getting any answers!"


    "Well!" Zhao Ke, quite strong man, threw the man fiercely on the ground, pointing to his nose he cried, "You''d better start explaining, otherwise, I will feed you to fish!"


    "I told you earlier, (coughing), I''m from the Mosang tribe, and I''ve never gone beyond Small Stone River!" The man on the ground said on and off.


    Zhao Ke glared at him, intending to beat him even harder before he said, "Then why would I keep you? You''re a total waste of food!"


    "I know this place, please..." the beaten man said instantly.


    "You ass*, don''t you dare fool me!" Zhao Ke became angrier by saying the word out loud.


    "I have never been here before, but I do know the place. I am honest with you!" Cried the beaten man. He held his head and crawled back to a corner trying to avoid Zhao Ke''s greater anger.


    From his accent, Junior Leopard could tell that he was a local of Northern Yuan.


    "I was so stupid. I should have found a local Northern Yuan guide earlier. It would''ve save a lot of time!"


    The whole thing made Junior Leopard annoyed and speechless. He had intended to find a guide who came from Northern Yuan in the first place. Though the army of Great Jin had started the genocidal war towards Northern Yuan, the bloodline of Northern Yuan was far away from extinction. In fact, large numbers of people from Northern Yuan, both noble and ordinary people, had been enslaved by the Jin through buying and selling like livestock, leading to the flourishing of the long fallen slave trade business. At the same time, Jin who used to crack down such crime, showed indifference now. However, any slave traders knew in their hearts that no Central Plains people could ever be touched as slaves in such a dirty business. If someone had the balls to do so, he would not only lose his business channels, but be heavily punished by the court, even lose his entire family fortune. So, the slave-traffickers would never expand the business to the people from the Central Plains.


    But from Junior Leopard''s point of view, it would happen sooner or later.


    Everything had two sides. Junior Leopard didn''t care about it due to little conflict of interest. He only came to Northern Yuan to be a cosy ruler of his own.


    Meanwhile, he did tell Zhu Ba to find a Northern Yuan tour guide before leaving. Back then, the Yunzhou slave market was open. It was easy to find a tour guide who knew the roads. Whereas Zhu Ba forgot this particular errand since he had too many things on his plate. When they were about to leave with the aid of a guide, the slave market had already been closed.


    The fact was that there were lots of Northern Yuan slaves in Yunzhou after the war. Because Yunzhou was so close to Northern Yuan, the people of the two sides had accumulated tons of resentment and hatred. For example, slaves were cheap in Yunzhou, and they were often inevitably beaten to death by the buyer, which was not good for slave traders. In addition, the Great Jin imperial court was unwilling to see so many Northern Yuan stay in Yunzhou, which was close to Northern Yuan. Therefore, the slave market in Yunzhou was just a fire in the pan, which had been either transferred or closed before Junior Leopard could find one before leaving.


    Yet, it didn''t mean there left no Northern Yuan slaves. The ones left were originally from the Seven Troops of Southern Yard, who knew little about the far north, where the fief of Junior Leopard was located. So, it was not very helpful.


    Anyway, they had a map and Jiang Xiao had volunteered to be the tour guide. During the trip, there were just boundless grasslands with no tricky landform. Thus, they decided to embark on the road with no real guide. For two months, they went on smoothly. Northern Yuan had become history, leaving few people across the land. Occasionally, they happened to meet some other teams sharing the same destination as them, who were all rewarded with fiefs for contributing in the war. Northern Yuan was quite a vast place and plenty of families were rewarded. Therefore, different groups of people were just passing through and then went in their own directions. After four to five days of walking far north, there were fewer and fewer people, just packs of wolves. All in all, it was a smooth trip until they were blocked by such a wide river.


    "At least, he heard of the place as we have no clues of what it is like on the other side of the river. Taking him with us is better than going blindly at all!" Junior Leopard said to himself and instantly roll up the man from the ground with a red airflow from his sleeves.


    It was the Boundless Crane Sea, the Magic Crane Change of the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds!


    That man didn''t practise martial arts. Even if he once practised, it would leave him with nothing after being enslaved. Right now, he was just an ordinary person who could be easily lifted up into the air by Junior Leopard.


    In the eyes of others, they only saw a sudden blow of wind. A red stripe of airflow coming out of nowhere lifted the guy up high in the sky and disappeared in a blink of the eye, leaving surprise and shock behind.


    Junior Leopard carried the man directly to his carriage site and dropped him.


    The Norther Yuan person had never experienced something like this. When they were flying in the sky, he looked as if he was seeing a ghost. He appeared more scared than that of Junior Leopard when Junior Leopard was carried through the air by Xue Wuya. Until landing on the ground, the Norther Yuan person was able to be back on his feet, but the smell out of his pants had sold out everything.


    "Your Excellency, what is it?" asked Zhu Ba.


    "A person from Northern Yuan, claiming that he knew about the river. So I brought him here!" said Junior Leopard, glaring at him.


    Zhu Ba knew he was not justified to talk back or glare back, so he just shrank his head and stepped aside.


    "You just said though you''ve never been here, but you do know about it, right? So, what is this place?"


    "This, this is Dragon-pressing River," said the scared Northern Yuan person. He knew about martial arts, though he didn''t practise them, for he came from a small noble family too. He knew that people who could fly were experts who were able to do anything. He held nothing to fight back in front of such people.


    "Dragon-pressing River? Such a good name. Do you know how to pass it?"


    " pass.. passing? Boats, using boats!"


    "Bullshit, I know it! The problem is i am not seeing any boats nearby!" Said Junior Leopard muttering, which shocked the man.


    "Alright, don''t be afraid. I''m not your enemy. I just want you to be our guide like what they wanted you be!" said Junior Leopard, "You said we should take boats. It means we should find a ferry. So is there a ferry nearby?"


    "Tiltingstone Beach" said the man quickly, "I''m from Mosang tribe, belonging to Blackwolf tribe. The most far-away Hengshan tribe is located beside the Small Stone River, 200 kilometer away from Dragon-pressing River. Going past the Small Stone River, the areas belong to the Hengshan tribe, who controls the Dragon-pressing River, too. There is only one ferry. It is Tiltingstone Beach!"


    "Your Excellency, I found it on the map!" Said Jiang Xiao, who had been looking at the place on the map upon hearing the place.


    "It seems far away from here!" Said Junior Leopard, looking at the map and frowning.


    "At least 50km!" Said Jiang Xiao, hopelessly.


    "Well, it''s too troublesome. It would be better if I just carry all of you to the other side of the river. Now, all of you get in the carriage!" Demanded Junior Leopard.


    It was an exploratory trip with a limited number of people, including Jiang Xiao, Wang Cheng, Zhu Ba and several veterans whose services were up from the Navy of Jiang City. The total number was around ten. They had been following Junior Leopard since Jiang City. The total weight was just around 500kg, plus carrying the weight of half a carriage.


    Junior Leopard could take all the people and goods along with horses and carriages to the other side within several trips.


    "Your Excellency, you don''t have to. It is too much for you. Nothing compares with your health!"


    "Shut up if you want to arrive at the destination as soon as possible!" Said Junior Leopard annoyingly. He rolled his sleeves and released a thick airflow to form a Qi blanket. Like what happened before, he lifted up three horses and jumped up in the sky flying straight to the other side. It made all the people there speechless. They stood standing, gazing at each other.


    "F*ck you, Zhu Ba. You screwed all of us." swore Jiang Xiao, jumping into the carriage. Wang Cheng glared at him too and jumped in it too. Zhu Ba felt a chill, but didn''t dare to say more anything, asking the veterans to get inside.


    Junior Leopard couldn''t figure the width of the river standing on the land. While he didn''t take long to fly past it. It turned out it was only around 5 km wide.


    He felt a little tired after putting down the horses who had already become limp.


    He was in Level Seven, but he didn''t practise Gang Qi. Reining sword technique and Dragon Flying Technique enabled people to fly by themselves, but it was not specialized in weight flying. It was not impossible, but it was still a bit hard for Junior Leopard to fly with heavy loads.


    Fortunately, during these days, he learned the movement of Boundless Crane Sea from Magic Crane Change of the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds.


    Boundless Crane Sea was a wind reigning technique of Magic Crane Change. When releasing it, it became fine airflows just like pieces of red cloths which could lift people or goods up to the sky. It was originally coordinated with Crane''s Crying of the Heaven of Magic Crane Change, but Junior Leopard didn''t take it seriously as he found the movement of Boundless Crane Sea itself quite useful in carrying things to fly. So, he kept practising it and the work paid off today. The whole process was so much convenient than carrying things with his hands.


    Although the movement of Boundless Crane Sea was wonderful, it took him five trips to finish all things including that tour guide.


    The group showed even more respect and admiration towards Junior Leopard after being carried past the river. While Junior Leopard was worn out.


    He was almost exhausted.


    "Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao, from now on, you two are in charge here. I need to rest for some time. Zhu Ba, you listen to both of them. Don''t mess around anymore. Otherwise, I''ll throw you into the river!" Said Junior Leopard. Zhu Ba could say nothing before his mouth was sealed by Junior Leopard.


    "It is f*cking exhausting. I probably would not do it again!"


    Junior Leopard leaned on the little couch right away upon jumping in the carriage. Luckily, his External Elixir of Fiery Eye helped him replenish his Internal Qi, or he wouldn''t have been able to manage.


    "Two months, there''re still two months to go. F*ck, who the hell is it that would give me such a fief, not only is it far away, but it''s facing a wide river? It''s bad for future development. We should find a way to claim the place near the river and set up a ferry beside the river with full control!" Junior Leopard thought to himself, bursting into laughter suddenly, "A not very far-sighted man like me will think of conquering other places before setting foot on one''s own fief. A total number of over 2000 fiefs equaled to over 2000 vassals. Assuming one-third of them would think this way, Northern Yuan would become a miserable war zone in less than 10 years. Then, Jin could get all the benefits without losing one single battle. How vicious is that!"


    It was not urgent for Junior Leopard to plan on taking others'' fiefs. He closed his eyes and started to replenish his Internal Qi with the help of External Elixir and inner Mysterious Fire. No more than five hours later, he had regained all his energy.


    Then, he attached his divine thoughts to the thought of Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion. " It seems good to practice Poisonous Hitching Post. It is better than transforming Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion into a small monster!"


    He recalled his divine thoughts and waved his hand in a flash of green, pulling out the Dragonslayer he looted from the Cool Breeze Gang.


    "Mysterious Level celestial device? It can''t help me much. What a pity! It would be much better if it was a Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    Back in the Cool Breeze Gang, Junior Leopard paid attention to Cui Hailong when he said Mysterious Level celestial device. After that, he tried every way to collect related information about it. However, Mysterious Level celestial device was no rare knowledge to Immortal Palace. Junior Leopard didn''t bother to ask in the past.


    So many mysterious things existed in the world. Those so-called Mysterious Object could be forged into magic weapons when tempered with Evil Qi or pneuma and other things.


    Magic weapon was just yet a general term.


    An old saying goes as magic weapon existed in antiquity times while celestial device in the medieval period.


    The fact was that magic weapons in antiquity time were also called as fairy weapons!


    In the medieval period, some people also called celestial devices like Flying Sword, magic weapons.


    However, the authentic division should be going up as a spiritual weapon, celestial device and fairy weapon!


    Spiritual weapon was the most inferior one, which were just weapons with intelligence and special properties. They could barely connect to people''s minds. They did have extra defensive and aggressive power. Yet they were restricted in multiplying the strength and not good enough to enhance the combat capability of their owners to fight against the rival of a higher level.


    Celestial devices were different. They were truly intelligent and more functional than Spiritual Weapons. Even the celestial device of the lowest level could support the owner to challenge someone of a higher level.


    For example, Demon Devil Needles was so powerful, but it only ranked amongst the lowest of celestial devices, which was a psychic celestial device.


    Dragonslayer was one level higher than Demon Devil Needles, belonging to Mysterious Level. The greatest difference between the two was that inside the Mysterious Level celestial device was a soul of evil beast. A soul of Flood Dragon was sealed in the Dragonslayer. Other powerful and spiritual things could serve the same the function as the souls of evil beasts. Take Junior Leopard''s Blue Sword for instance, it contained 10,000 years old spiritual peachwood, making the weapon a Mysterious Level celestial device.


    If the material used for psychic celestial device was high-level and later it successfully sealed evil beasts or the souls of spiritual creatures, then such weapons would be ranked as Mysterious Level celestial devices.


    As for Pure Yang Celestial Devices and fairy weapons, they were just legends.


    Pure Yang Celestial Devices were the most precious treasure of big families and schools even in medieval period when a lot of extraordinary miraculous sword experts were around. The most used swords of sword practitioners were just in Psychic Level. Among four levels of Flying Sword, Mysterious Level and Yellow Level both belonged to Psychic Level celestial device. While the other two levels, Earth Rank and Heavenly Rank were in Mysterious Level. As for Pure Yang Celestial Device, the kind just existed in the legendary stories of big families and it had never been seen by anyone throughout the sword practicing period.

 Chapter 244: The Blacktail Plain

    Chapter 244: The Blacktail Plain


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Infused with the Heavenly Peach Wood and purified by the Ninth Heaven Thunder Energy, the Blue Sword was just a Flying Sword of the Earthly Rank, a Mysterious Level celestial device. Junior Leopard forged it himself, so he knew the hardships and dangers and its power.


    The Dragonslayer was also a Mysterious Level celestial device. In principle, it should not be weaker than the Blue Sword, but apart from its powerful attacking force, Junior Leopard really did not find anything special about it.


    The Dragonslayer was shaped like a crescent moon, full of a chill green. Through the chill, Junior Leopard could feel the horrible power that was hidden within it. However, he did not know how to bring this power out. At best, he could only exert its power to the level of breaking the Demon Devil Formation.


    But Junior Leopard was unsatisfied with the power.


    He knew clearly how powerful the Blue Sword was, so he had high expectations for the Dragonslayer, which was at the same level as the Blue Sword. Unfortunately, after he fumbled around for nearly two months, he still did not find a way to bring out its full power.


    "Golden Rooster said that the Dragonslayer imprisoned a flood dragon''s Original Spirit. Unfortunately, now I can feel the flood dragon''s Original Spirit, but can''t arouse it, let alone use it!" Junior Leopard sighed slightly and put the Dragonslayer back into the partitioned space.


    For Junior Leopard, the Space Division Skill not only brought him convenience, but its way of using space also helped him make great progress in the Three Realms Division.


    The Space Division Skill and the Three Realms Division cross-referenced and confirmed with each other. Junior Leopard benefited a lot. Of course, there was one other thing worth mentioning about the Hollow Travel¡ªthe Hollow Flying Carpet that came with the Dragonslayer.


    In terms of quality, this Hollow Flying Carpet was only a Psychic Level celestial device. But because of its function, its value was absolutely no less than a Mysterious Level celestial device.


    To Junior Leopard, who was a lucky bastard, there were not too many secrets in the Hollow Travel. But to others, it was quite mysterious.


    Because of this, Junior Leopard sold the Hollow Magic Carpet after he had thoroughly studied it.


    Yes, he sold it. And it was not a general sale. He gave the Hollow Magic Carpet to the Four Seas Commercial House, the largest chamber of commerce in the Jin, and the Four Seas Commercial House put it up for auction. Junior Leopard made a lot of money, not less than the riches he had collected from the Cool Breeze Gang''s secret chamber.


    He sold the Hollow Magic Carpet for two reasons. Firstly, he had thoroughly studied it. It worked in a similar way to the Three Realms Division, containing the Flickering Light Evil Qi. It was just that compared to the Three Realms Division, the special technique of the carpet was inferior. Therefore, it caused so much spatial fluctuation that Junior Leopard easily detected it. The only advantage was that it was more convenient and easier to use than the Three Realms Division. Most importantly, to attach the special technique of the Hollow Travel onto the Magic Carpet was within the scope of refining celestial devices, and that was unknown to Junior Leopard. For Junior Leopard, who already knew the Space Division Skill and the Three Realms Division, the Hollow Magic Carpet was of little use. Secondly, he sold it to avoid trouble. It was not attractive to him, but it was a great treasure for the powerful families, millennium families, and even the imperial court. Owning it, a person was able to travel hollow, which would make all the people in the martial arts world feel jealous. Carrying this thing was undoubtedly more eye-catching than carrying the Dragonslayer. After all, no one knew the origin of the Dragonslayer. Even the people who watched Junior Leopard fight with the Cool Breeze Gang in the dark were probably aware that this was a very aggressive celestial device. They might have thought that it was probably precious, but it had no fatal attraction. But the Hollow Magic Carpet was different. Its ability to travel hollow had been seen by those watching. Even Junior Leopard might have had trouble keeping it, so it was better to maximize its value and sell it.


    Junior Leopard could not help laughing at the thought of the benefits that he had gained from the Cool Breeze Gang.


    Just as the ancients said¡ªNo man could become rich without a windfall; no horse could become fat without feeding on grass at night. This was a classic example.


    Pondering that, he thought of his territory.


    He gently unfolded a map. It was a scaled-down version of the Jin''s enfeoffing map, but was the size of a table after it was opened. It was densely filled with the names of more than 2,000 fiefs and their owners. There was a rumor that, except for a few well-known families and barons, the rest of the fiefs were chosen randomly by the Jin Emperor¡ªWhile wearing a blindfold, he pointed with a brush after the eunuch beside him called the name of the meritorious ministers. The land he pointed to was the fief given to that minister. The quality of the land depended entirely on luck.


    Junior Leopard did not know if that was true, but now he had no illusions about his territory anymore.


    "I hope that Blackstone Valley is not a lifeless place!"


    Northern Yuan had a vast territory. Although nomadic people had strong mobility and settled down near places with adequate grass and water, they had a certain extent. For example, the Seven Troops of Southern Yard only lived in the southern part of Northern Yuan, which was about the size of two or three states of Northern Yuan. In the north was the territory of the Blackwolf tribe. Farther north was the area of the Small Stone River, which belonged to the Hengshan tribe. The Hengshan tribe was one of the nine largest tribes in Northern Yuan. However, their sphere of influence was only on both sides of the Dragon-pressing River. Junior Leopard''s fief was over 1,000 kilometers northwest of the Dragon-pressing River. Originally belonging to a remote tribe of Northern Yuan, it could not be called a good place.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    Junior Leopard''s horse team went on for several more days, much faster than before. Their guide deserved all the credit. During these days, they finally realized the benefits of having a guide.


    The guide''s name was Wendu, a former nobleman of a small tribe. Hence, he knew more than the average Northern Yuan man. Although the farthest place he had visited before was the Small Stone River, he knew something about the place to the north of the Dragon-pressing River.


    In particular, he could point out one by one some special areas that might hinder their journey. This saved them a lot of trouble. And that was why they did not treat Wendu poorly.


    As time went on and the farther north they went, the lower the temperature and the stronger the wind became. The weather was changing unpredictably as well. Although they were well prepared before coming there, they were very unaccustomed to such weather and temperature changes. Two veterans got ill, which delayed their journey again.


    Fortunately, these veterans had learned martial arts. Although their cultivation was only at Level Two or Three, their resistance was strong. In addition, they met with other groups of people who had also come to accept their fiefs, and they had doctors. Thus, there was not a big problem.


    When they arrived there, these teams were not so easily dispersed, because their fiefs were all in the same area. There was a fief even close to Junior Leopard''s. It belonged to a gallant man in the martial arts world, Tie Kongyi. The so-called gallant man in the martial arts world was not a man from a wealthy family, but a man of exceptional ability. Maybe he had a high degree of martial arts, and maybe he traveled widely. He might have been rich, but the foundation was shallow. Although he might have made friends all over the world, no one would help him when he was in trouble. However, such a person had a strong influence locally and was the typical representative of the local bully. This time, Tie Kongyi also took the credit for the battle of the destruction of Northern Yuan, so he obtained a fief with a 50 km radius.


    Obviously, he was a man with a strong adventurous spirit. Perhaps he found that having the identity of a gallant man in the martial arts world was not firm and he had no foundation, so he, like Junior Leopard, came to his fief to find real opportunities for development. Thus, he met Junior Leopard.


    The so-called gallant man in the martial arts world actually was just a local bully. His martial skills were limited.


    Tie Kongyi''s cultivation was just at Level Four. He had set off a month earlier than Junior Leopard with a group of men, but by the time they arrived here, half of his men had been lost and the team was worn out.


    Since their fiefs were next to each other, their men naturally joined together. Although Junior Leopard had fewer people with him than Tie Kongyi, Junior Leopard occupied the dominant position.


    In this regard, Tie Kongyi had no opinion. Junior Leopard''s strength had been universally acknowledged. Besides, he came from the Wu Sect and had a very good relationship with Tian Long Taoism. Although there were few people under his command, their strength was extremely powerful, especially Zhu Ba, whose cultivation had reached Level Four as well. And the little wolf, which had always been in Junior Leopard''s carriage, was like a pet dog, but its gentle roar would make him, a Level Four expert, tremble in his heart and make the horses run around in fright.


    Moreover, Junior Leopard''s fief was much larger than his. In a sense, his relationship with Junior Leopard was like that of the barbarian neighbors to the south and the Jin. He could not afford to offend such a man.


    However, it was one thing to be a team, and it was another thing to manage. Junior Leopard did not even want to take care of his own team, let alone anyone else''s.


    But the benefits of being a team were obvious. Although Tie Kongyi had lost a lot of people, he was well prepared before they set off. His guide was a herdsman from the Hengshan tribe, even more familiar with the terrain than Wendu. Under his guidance, the team went very well at first.


    ...


    ...


    "Your Excellency, Your Excellency!"


    Hearing the small voice, the gaze of Junior Leopard moved slightly, just as he was closing his eyes. He knew that the voice came from Wendu.


    Since the merger of the two teams, the guide work had been done by Tie Kongyi''s guide. Wendu seemed to have nothing to do, so his effectiveness was greatly reduced. Thanks to his hard work over the previous days, several team leaders thought that he was useful. Otherwise, he might have been kicked out of the team to wander in the vast wilderness.


    Now he did some chores in Junior Leopard''s team, especially the dirtiest and most tiring work. He was a wise man who could see the situation clearly and had no complaints. Thus, Junior Leopard did not pay much attention to him at all. Unexpectedly, he came to knock on his door at midnight. What the hell was he up to?


    The team prepared enough tents and would rest in them every night like herdsmen on the prairie. However, Junior Leopard was accustomed to resting in the carriage, and no one dared to oppose him. And in the evening, no one dared to disturb him if it was not necessary. Since the two teams merged into one, Tie Kongyi had been very enthusiastic. Each evening, people from the two teams came together to drink, eat, play finger-guessing games, and chat. They really had a good time and their relationship also became very harmonious.


    At this time, the moon had just risen into the sky, so it should be the time for drinking. Wen''s status was not high, but he had been drinking with them around the fire. The only difference was that he sat far away from them.


    "You don''t wait on them there. What are you doing here?" As Junior Leopard lifted his hand, an invisible airflow lifted the curtain in the carriage, revealing Wendu''s frightened face.


    "Your, Your Excellency... there, there seems to be something wrong!"


    "Something wrong? What is it?"


    "There seems to be something wrong with our route!" Wendu answered.


    Junior Leopard''s heart moved. "Something wrong with our route? What''s wrong with it?"


    "I, I don''t know. But, but I''ve been feeling that something isn''t quite right!" Wendu shook his head.


    "Do you think that their guide knows more than you and took your place, forcing you into only doing some rough work? So now you''re upset and trying to frame him?" Junior Leopard laughed.


    "No, no, no, absolutely not. I dare not do such a thing, even if you give me great courage!"


    "Didn''t you say that you had never come past the Dragon-pressing River? How do you know that our route through the wilderness is wrong?"


    "I, I''m not sure!" Wendu said with embarrassment. "There''s nothing wrong with the general direction, but just now I saw a blacktail pinetree while I was having dinner!"


    "A blacktail pinetree?" Junior Leopard was puzzled, "Wendu, make it clear. What''s wrong with a blacktail pinetree?"


    "This, I, I heard a rumor from my friend in the Hengshan tribe!" Wendu said, "My friend told me that there''s a place to the north of the Dragon-pressing River called the Blacktail Plain. It looks no different from the rest of the places, but it''s covered with swamp and mire. And there''s no difference between the floating grass on the swamp and mire and the surrounding area. But if someone accidentally steps in it, the entire person will sink into it and the others will have no time to save him. In addition to the swamp and mire, there''s a lot of danger on the Blacktail Plain. Therefore, it''s a forbidden place for the Hengshan tribe and even some tribes to the north of the Hengshan tribe!"


    "There''s such a thing?" Junior Leopard''s eyes narrowed and he looked at Wendu. Then he called him into the carriage and spread out the map. "Are you sure this is where the Blacktail Plain is?"


    Wendu spent a few moments looking at the map, laughing bitterly. "Your Excellency, the Blacktail Plain isn''t marked on the map. If I remember correctly, my friend said the Blacktail Plain is in this area!" He drew a circle with his hand as he spoke. Junior Leopard''s expression became somber because the Blacktail Plain was between the Dragon-pressing River and his territory. It was not directly between but a little bit by the east. They had been going northwest for several days, but it would not have been discovered if the guide had deliberately deviated from the beginning. As the saying goes: A minimal deviation results in a wide divergence. For such a long time, he might have been taken them into the Blacktail Plain.


    Suddenly Junior Leopard sneered and turned his eyes to the wall of the carriage. Though the wall was in the way, he could still clearly feel Tie Kongyi''s guide spying on them in the dark. But his spying was just hiding in the tall grass and looking at his carriage.


    Junior Leopard now basically believed what Wendu had said. "Wendu, how did you find out that it''s wrong?"


    "Because of the blacktail pinetree. The reason that it''s called the Blacktail Plain is because there are a lot of blacktail pinetrees. Just now I saw one while I was having dinner. And I also saw one today on the way. But I didn''t realize it at the time!"


    "Well done!" Junior Leopard nodded and gave a look of admiration. Then, just like a Japanese invader would act toward a traitor-translator, he patted him lovingly on the shoulder and said, "You did a good job. Keep it up. I won''t treat you badly!"


    "Yes, yes!" After listening to Junior Leopard, Wendu got excited.


    Unlike Tie Kongyi''s guide, who was a herdsman, Wendu was a small nobleman. Though his tribe was small, he knew much more than Tie Kongyi''s guide and cherished life more than he did. Ever since Junior Leopard took him to fly into the sky, he knew that Junior Leopard was an expert whose cultivation reached Level Seven at least. Because only an expert who reached that level could fly into the sky.


    What did "Level Seven expert" mean?


    In the past, there were no more than 20 experts whose cultivation was at Level Seven and above in the entire Northern Yuan. Those people had the strongest combat capability on the prairie, were the most elite force, and were the highest ranking men. Since his tribe was small, the strongest warrior in the tribe was only a Level Four expert. As for a Level Seven expert, he had only heard of them, but had never seen one. However, the Level Four warrior in their tribe had told him and the other tribespeople countless times that Level Seven experts were invincible.


    Therefore, he had no resistance to Junior Leopard at all, but just wanted to please him in order to be appreciated, or even valued, by Junior Leopard.


    But he knew that he did not have the capacity to gain such recognition. Then he tried to keep a low profile, and was meticulous about what Junior Leopard''s team asked him to do, hoping to gain the favor of Junior Leopard.


    Unexpectedly, he stumbled upon a chance to make a contribution. How could he be unhappy now that Junior Leopard seemed to believe him?


    "You go back and pretend that nothing happened. That guide is spying on my carriage, and he might do something. For your own safety, don''t interact with him too much. I will investigate what you told me!"


    "Yes!" Wendu paused for a moment, and hurriedly replied, bowing his head. Then he left Junior Leopard''s carriage and hurried off.


    "Little Du, go and see if this guy is telling the truth!" Little Du, who was lying next to him, whined and rushed out of the carriage in a flash.


    Seeing Wendu leave Junior Leopard''s carriage, the hidden guide looked a little anxious. He came out of the grass and followed Wendu.


    Wendu was a smart guy. After being reminded by Junior Leopard, he did not return to his tent. He shared a tent with that guide, but they seemed to have no common language. In such circumstances, he certainly would not go back to his tent, so instead, he went straight back to the bonfire where the crowd was drinking and eating meat, and sat down not far from the crowd.


    A silver light streaked across the night sky and into the depths of the prairie. No one noticed. A quarter of an hour later, deep in the prairie, a wolf howled. Although it was far away, the crowd could still feel the power of the howling.


    "Hey, that''s Excellency''s Silver Wolf. How could it have left His Excellency''s carriage?" Although he had drunk a lot of wine, Zhu Ba, due to his good cultivation, immediately noticed that it was wrong.


    Little Du spent most of its day in the carriage with Junior Leopard and rarely left. Why did it run deep into the prairie at midnight and howl?


    Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao and other people also responded. They rose to their feet and looked at the place where the wolf howled with puzzled expressions on their faces.


    Just then, there was a sudden noise not far away. Looking up, they found that that guide had gotten to the horses, untied one of them, and leaped up.


    "Oh, no! He''s trying to escape!"


    Seeing this, even a fool would know what was going on. However, Zhu Ba, Wang Cheng, and Jiang Xiao did not act. The guide was Tie Kongyi''s man and they certainly would not exceed their authority.


    And to their surprise, that guide had just gotten on the horse and hurried it to bolt, but before he had even fled 100 feet away, he was taken by a powerful force. He flew up from the horse and fell heavily in the middle of the crowd, who did not even have time to respond.


    "What a group of idiots! You were all fooled by this guy!" Junior Leopard''s voice rang in the ears of these people. "He took us to an impasse. You can ask Wendu the details. As for..."


    "Howl¡ª!" A voice like thunder in the sky resounded from deep within the prairie, interrupting Junior Leopard. Then, a shrill howl shook the fields.


    "Shit, damn it!" Junior Leopard cursed with a low voice. Then he shot out of the carriage into the depths of the prairie.

 Chapter 245: The Black Demon Chama

    Chapter 245: The Black Demon Chama


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    That sharp roar came from far away, which included the howl of Little Du along with the bellow of a strange beast.


    Junior Leopard knew that Little Du must have met a strong enemy, so without thinking, he shot out and went straight into the depths of the prairie.


    ¡­


    The guide was thrown violently down on the ground, but did not seem frightened. Due only to the pain caused by the fall, the muscles in his face twitched slightly. He exclaimed something, looking very excited.


    What the guide spoke was a Northern Yuan dialect, but no one knew which tribe it belonged to. Although there were people who were proficient in the language of Northern Yuan, they were also very confused. However, Wendu understood what he had said, and instantly, his face went pale.


    "Chama, Black Demon Chama! Damn it, it''s Black Demon Chama!" Wendu screamed, jumping up and trying to run.


    "Hey, what was he talking about?"


    Before he could run two steps, Zhu Ba caught him by the collar.


    "It''s Chama, Black Demon Chama. This damn guy took us to the lair of Black Demon Chama!"


    Wendu exclaimed, looking extremely alarmed.


    "What''s Black Demon Chama?" Jiang Xiao slightly frowned and went over to Wendu.


    "Black Demon Chama is one of the most powerful devils on the prairie!" Wendu quivered.


    Jiang Xiao burst into laughter. "The most powerful devil on the prairie? How come we have never heard of it?" "Because Chama''s lair has always been on the Blacktail Plain and it never comes out of the Blacktail Plain. Besides, the area of the Blacktail Plain is very large. So, few Northern Yuan men even know about the existence of Chama. I occasionally heard about it from a friend in the Hengshan tribe!"


    "I didn''t expect you to have a lot of friends!" Having heard what he just said was from a friend, Jiang Xiao joked.


    "Your Excellency has penetrating judgment. My friend was a great nobleman in the Hengshan tribe, so he knows a lot of secrets. He is a man who couldn''t keep a secret after drinking, so he told me a lot of things." Suddenly, he seemed to think of something, pointing at the guide. "He, he must be a great nobleman from the Blackwolf tribe. Otherwise, he wouldn''t know the secret of Chama!"


    "Bah!" That guide spat severely at Wendu, and then mumbled something in his dialect. The others, of course, did not understand it, but Wendu understood, and his expression became uglier.


    "Don''t worry about what he says. Just tell us what Chama is!"


    "I don''t know. I only know that Chama has been the devil for thousands of years in the Hengshan and the Blackwolf tribes!" Wendu helplessly answered, "It''s hidden in the depths of the Blacktail Plain, and though it has unparalleled power, it never comes out of the Blacktail Plain!"


    "Then what did he say?"


    "He, he just said that this is the day for Black Demon Chama to come out to look for food. And all of us will be its food!" Wendu replied with a pale face.


    "It''s all useless information!" Jiang Xiao said, dissatisfied. Then he glanced back at the guide, who had closed his mouth and smiled triumphantly, as if he were not a prisoner, but a victor.


    "You damned guy!" Tie Kongyi was blue in the face, then fiercely kicked the guide to the ground. "You fucking fooled me!"


    He was in a bad mood. He had wanted to take this opportunity to get along well with Junior Leopard so that this expert could help him in the future. Unexpectedly, such an incident happened before they even arrived at the fief. Furthermore, the incident was created by his guide. How could he not be angry?


    "Your Excellency Tie, stop doing this meaningless thing. Wait until His Excellency comes back!" Jiang Xiao said softly and looked around, "Everyone, stay where you are. Now that there are swamps around, don''t run away. Don''t worry, we''ll be fine with His Excellency!" Jiang Xiao''s words reassured Junior Leopard''s team. After all, they had seen how Junior Leopard brought them across the Dragon-pressing River. If necessary, he could do it again.


    Tie Kongyi''s men were not so calm and became a little disordered. Suddenly, there was a cry from the crowd.


    "Oh, no! Somebody''s stuck in the mud!"


    "Damn it! We can''t pull him up!"


    "His head has been submerged. Be careful! No...! Oops!"


    ¡ª


    ¡ª


    A flurry of screams followed. By the time Tie Kongyi and the others arrived, four men had fallen into the swamp¡ªtwo of them had been completely buried in the mud, and two others had been buried up to their chests.


    Fortunately, there were a lot of people in this group who knew martial arts, and they promptly rescued the two men who were not completely buried in the mud. Otherwise, four people would have died.


    "From now on, everyone should stay put. If you get stuck in the swamp, no one will save you!" Tie Kongyi shouted angrily, and turned to teach the guide.


    ¡­


    ...


    "This really is as the saying goes: If you are unlucky, even cold water will plug your teeth!"


    Junior Leopard sped swiftly in mid-air like an eagle, rushing toward the roaring. The roaring traveled very far. From Little Du''s voice and the connection of their minds, Junior Leopard knew that Little Du had met a strong enemy.


    After absorbing the fist intent of Buyan Gerel, Little Du experienced a metamorphosis, and its strength greatly increased. Its combat capability was even more powerful than a Level Seven expert. But now, it told Junior Leopard that it had met a strong enemy.


    Was there an expert whose cultivation was over Level Seven or an evil beast in the depths of the Blacktail Plain?


    Yes, it was an evil beast. Even he was surprised by the initial roar, which contained a powerful, terrifying force.


    He launched the Dragon Flying Technique to its limit, like black lightning, straight toward the depths of the Blacktail Plain.


    Far away, with a loud bang, a huge figure emerged in the darkness.


    "Is that a dragon or a snake?"


    In the moonlight, Junior Leopard could not help palpitating from the enormous power of the black body that was hundreds of feet long.


    Little Du had already transformed into a huge wolf over 10 feet tall and was leaping around the huge body, howling and fighting with the monster.


    It was a long snake covered with fine black scales. It was huge, but it was flexible. Its lower body was coiled into a ball, but its upper body was like a flexible whip that followed Little Du.


    However, Little Du was not only fast, but also had its own unique skill. It could magically transform itself into phantoms and even could magically transform into nine phantoms at most. Most importantly, these phantoms were also highly lethal. Thus, the black python was fast, but also a little sloppy.


    That allowed Little Du to take advantage of it.


    You could see that from the jagged scratches on the balled-up snake''s body. But that also illustrated the snake''s strong defensive power. Little Du''s claws were sharp enough to tear gold and stone, but it only left some thin white scratches on its black scales.


    But this snake was not ordinary either. Though it could not locate Little Du''s true body occasionally, once in a while, it would spit out a foul black mist to cover Little Du''s true body along with the phantoms. And every time Little Du rushed out of the black mist, it slowed down a little bit and even staggered. As a result, it was getting slower and slower, and several times it nearly fell into the black python''s mouth.


    Without thinking, Junior Leopard raised his hand, and a black Big Iron Hammer appeared out of nowhere. Then he dashed down, and the hammer in his hand violently fell on the python.


    With a "Bang!", a great recoiling force spread from the hammer into his arm, and then spread throughout his body.


    Junior Leopard rose rapidly with a cold look.


    This hammer obviously made the python uncomfortable. The part that was hammered was torn open and the scales were all turned over.


    "Hiss! Roar¡ª!"


    Having been heavily hurt, the python finally got angry. It lifted up its huge body and straightened out its lower body that was originally in a ball.


    Its body was cut in half by Junior Leopard, but the bones did not break, and its whole body was rejoined together. Just then, it soared up into the air 100 feet above the ground. It then opened its mouth wide to bite Junior Leopard and, from very far away, he could smell the horrible odor coming from its mouth.


    "You''re courting death!"


    Junior Leopard had just observed that wherever the python''s black flow touched, whether it was an aquatic plant or a bush, it would be corroded by a strong force.


    However, in the eyes of Junior Leopard, who had the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, this power was not worth caring about, and he also did not want to waste too much time.


    The python was so large that its open mouth was wide enough to swallow Junior Leopard along with his hammer.


    "You have scales on the outside, but your belly doesn''t!"


    This huge open mouth was the black python''s biggest flaw.


    Taking his hammer back, Junior Leopard curled up and suddenly disappeared in front of the python. Apparently, the black python had never experienced such a strange situation. It paused for a moment, its mouth still open. At just the moment that it paused, Junior Leopard appeared in its mouth. Black and red Sword Qi burst forth immediately and plunged straight down the python''s throat.


    "Howl¡ª!"


    The black python howled crazily and its body twisted violently because Junior Leopard''s Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword had directly pierced its throat. As its body was in a ball, the Sword Qi had just broken half of its body and come through the black scales. When the Sword Qi pierced the black scales, Junior Leopard clearly felt a strong resistance.


    And Junior Leopard''s Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword could only pierce through its black scales.


    ¡­


    ...

 Chapter 246: Arriving at the Fief, Problem of Population

    Chapter 246: Arriving at the Fief, Problem of Population


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Though Junior Leopard was confident in the power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, he also knew that this huge python must have strong power. Therefore, after one strike he immediately retreated, and it turned out that he had made the right choice.


    Stabbed by a sword at the throat, the python didn''t die but became wilder as it was badly injured.


    Its body, which was hundreds of feet long, extended to its fullest in a flash like a long whip. Compared to such a huge body, Junior Leopard was like a small ant. Planning to exhaust this monster, he shuttled back and forth flexibly in the gap of the python''s huge body. But obviously, he had underestimated its vitality.


    It was widely known that a reptile had dogged vitality. This huge black python had hidden in the Blacktail Plain for thousands of years. With open spiritual intelligence and its incredible cultivation, both the quality and quantity of its internal Demonic Qi far exceeded that of Junior Leopard, who had just achieved Level Seven. Even with his two External Elixirs added, he was no match for this monster which had cultivated for thousands of years!


    Powerful as the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword was, it could only pierce the monster''s black scales from inside.


    The black python had learned a lesson from the injury and it not only closed its mouth, but also covered the injured parts. Though Junior Leopard mastered the Three Realms Division, under these circumstances, he dared not take it lightly but used his Three Realms Division to look for the best chance.


    "Damn it. I''ve far underestimated its spiritual mind!"


    After several deployments of his Three Realms Division, Junior Leopard felt exhausted. The python''s spiritual mind was far beyond Junior Leopard''s expectation. Well guarded, it was able to perceive Junior Leopard''s every movement and make targeted defensive maneuvers, leaving Junior Leopard no chance to attack.


    But his Three Realms Division still worked. After a while, streams of blood could be seen flowing from the black python''s mouth and injured parts. The thick smell of blood spread everywhere.


    At this time, the black python seemed to realize that the situation was not to its advantage, because what it faced was not only this Junior Leopard, but also a powerful wolf.


    Therefore, having realized that it could not beat Junior Leopard, it decisively threw itself into the muddy ground.


    Regardless of its huge size, it acted like an earthworm in the mud and disappeared at an astonishing speed.


    The python had plunged into the mud before Junior Leopard could wave his hammer. It reminded Junior Leopard of himself eating noodles. He could suck up all the noodles in one gulp if he wanted. It seemed that there was a suction force in the mud which sucked up this python as if it were noodles.


    After the black python disappeared in the mud, Little Du collapsed on the grass as if it had run out of all its strength. It turned into the size of a pet dog and panted heavily.


    Junior Leopard stood in the air. He raised his hand and was about to get Little Du''s body up. He dared not lower his guard in this situation.


    Unexpectedly, something happened when Little Du''s body was lifted in mid-air.


    Countless "hands" made of mud stretched out from the ground and headed towards Little Du.


    "Humph!" Junior Leopard snorted coldly. He rushed to the back of Little Du in a flash. Dark red Sword Qi flashed from his fingers, cut off the mud, and Junior Leopard successfully caught Little Du.


    There was a wheezing sound.


    The grassland was flipping like boiling water. At that moment, the swamp seemed to come alive and moved without wind. As if it was controlled by an invisible hand, countless tentacles were formed and tangled towards Junior Leopard and Little Du.


    "This monster even could do this!" Junior Leopard had no choice but to cease fighting and fly back to the garrison where his followers were.


    "Your Excellency is back! Your Excellency is back!"


    Seeing Junior Leopard fly back, everyone waiting there felt relieved as they had found their backbone.


    "Your Excellency, you''re finally back. We''ve been really worried about you!" Zhu Ba rushed towards Junior Leopard and showed his loyalty at once.


    "Shut up. Did you find out anything from this guy?" Junior Leopard pointed to Sangkun who had been trussed up tightly and asked.


    "Your Excellency, he was tight-lipped. He said nothing more than cursing!" Zhu Ba kicked Sangkun resentfully.


    "What is that huge monster?" Junior Leopard approached Sangkun and asked.


    It was obvious that Sangkun was shocked at the fact that Junior Leopard could come back. He raised his head and looked at Junior Leopard who was covered by mud and asked, "You... you haven''t been killed?!"


    "Humph. That monster is in fact very powerful. But it''s not powerful enough to kill me!" Junior Leopard laughed grimly. He stepped on Sangkun''s foot and trampled the bones into pieces.


    "Listen, you''re already dead meat. If you tell me what that huge monster is, I will give you a quick end. If not, I will let you wish you were dead!"


    "Humph!" Sangkun held his neck stiff and turned around. His body trembled because of the sharp pain in his foot, but he still said nothing.


    "You''ve got a lot of nerve. But I don''t like this kind of person!" Junior Leopard laughed grimly. He lifted his foot and kicked slightly on Sangkun''s several key acupoints. At the same time, a hot strength ran inside Sangkun''s body through those several key acupoints and began to circulate in his tendons and meridians.


    "Ahhhhh!"


    Endurant as Sangkun was, when the stream of airflow above 100 degrees circulated in his tendons and meridians, he couldn''t stand it.


    If it was not for that Junior Leopard hadn''t used full force, he would have already been killed instantly by this internal Qi.


    Sangkun lay flat on the ground like a cooked shrimp, his body hunched and he couldn''t help twitching. He let out a desperate roar, which could be heard in the distance. Junior Leopard remained unmoved and looked at his twitching body coldly.


    "I''m not patient enough. So if you don''t nod within an incense worth of time, I won''t ask again and I''ll let you roar here, just like now, but for seven whole days!"


    "I''ll tell you! I''ll tell you everything!"


    Sangkun nodded fiercely. He was a tough guy, but he wasn''t a fool. It was definitely not a good choice to roar here for seven whole days!


    "You wouldn''t have needed to suffer if you said that earlier. Son of a bitch!" Zhu Ba swore at one side.


    "Then say it!" Junior Leopard kicked at Sangkun and scattered the internal Qi inside his body, at the same time, Junior Leopard blocked his Qi so that he would not have the strength to commit suicide.


    "That''s the Black Demon, Chama!" Sangkun panted and said slowly. "That''s the devil in the legend of our Blackwolf tribe. It''s the devil of the Blacktail Plain. 2,000 years ago, the Number One Warrior in our Blackwolf tribe used to go into the Blacktail Plain and meet this monster. He knew it had great power. In addition to its huge body and unparalleled power, it was also able to control the swamp in the Blacktail Plain where it was the king!"


    Sangkun said that in one breath. He stopped and then said, "That''s all I know!"


    "That''s all you know?" asked Zhu Ba fiercely. He didn''t believe this at all.


    "No matter how you torture me or even kill me, I have no more information for you. Every tribe to the north of the Dragon-pressing River knew that the Blacktail Plain is a forbidden area and there were swamps everywhere. Therefore, no one would step on this forbidden area. With the Black Demon Chama hiding deep in the Blacktail Plain and no treasure of heaven and earth, even the soldiers of the big tribes wouldn''t come here. Therefore, we prairie folks know little about this place just like you do!"


    "You know little about this place and you dare lead us to this Blacktail Plain. It seems that you are determined to die with us!" Junior Leopard laughed grimly.


    "Humph. Since I have been caught by you, I am bound to die. It''s just a matter of time. Two Southern people had died for me, so it''s worth it even I die now!" Sangkun seemed relieved. He smiled, closed his eyes and waited for his death.


    "You Bastard!" Tie Kongyi couldn''t bear it anymore. He roared and rushed forward and then kicked and punched Sangkun.


    Junior Leopard didn''t stop him. In fact, he didn''t look at them at all. He waved his hand and summoned Wendu. "Wendu, you live on the prairie. Though you''ve never been to this Blacktail Plain, you must have heard of it. We are not in the deep of the Blacktail Plain yet. Are you able to bring us out?"


    "I''ll try! I''ll try my best!" Wendu answered hastily.


    "It''s not enough to just try your best. If you can''t bring us out, you''ll have only one choice... death!" Junior Leopard laughed grimly. "But if you can lead us out, then you will render outstanding service and I won''t treat you shabbily!"


    "Don''t worry, Your Excellency. I will definitely lead you all out of here!"


    Hearing Junior Leopard''s words, Wendu was overjoyed. He knew an expert like Junior Leopard would not make a promise easily. But once they did, they would definitely keep their promises. "Junior Leopard had said that he wouldn''t treat me shabbily if I could get them out of this Blacktail Plain. Maybe I could take this chance to get out of slavery and have a position at Junior Leopard''s side."


    "You traitor! Bastard!" Sangkun swore. Junior Leopard was surprised to find that Sangkun could still hear their conversation while being wildly beaten by Tie Kongyi. It seemed that Tie Kongyi dared not really beat Sangkun to death in this situation where no one could ensure that they could get out of the Blacktail Plain.


    "Brother Tie, just kill him. It''ll always be a trouble for us if he''s still alive!" Junior Leopard sighed silently. He knew it very well that ethnic contradiction is the most difficult to solve. As Sangkun was obviously an extreme nationalist, it was impossible to either subvert him or trust him. For this kind of person, no illusion should be held and the only choice left was to kill him once and for all.


    Having heard Junior Leopard''s word, Tie Kongyi hesitated for a moment, and then he kicked Sangkun in his nape and broke his neck. After that, he turned around and said, "Mr. Zhou, I''m so sorry for all this...!"


    "Forget it. After all, it''s not my men who have been killed!" Junior Leopard waved his hand and said, "We''d better leave here as soon as possible. Though the devil Chama was fought off by me temporarily, it might still come to us at any time. Although I''m OK with that, your men might be not, as Sangkun had said, it can really control the swamps in the Blacktail Plain."


    "Yeah, yeah!"


    Tie Kongyi dared not disobey, but nodded repeatedly.


    Along the way, all the men and horses marched carefully in a row, especially Wendu who couldn''t be more careful. Three days had passed before they finally got out of the Blacktail Plain and stepped on the solid ground.


    During that time, another five or six people sank into the swamp but were all timely rescued. Junior Leopard''s spiritual mind worked perpetually during those three days. That so-called Black Demon Chama was not an ordinary evil beast. Instead, it could control the underground swamps. If it refused to endure defeat and rushed out to attack them with the swamps, though he and Little Du would be fine, some of the people he led might not survive.


    Not to mention those who were led by Tie Kongyi.


    In fact, during those three days, he did sense the spirit of the devil Chama, and even its divine thoughts and spiritual mind. At least a couple of times, the monster was less than three miles away. Junior Leopard knew that at such a short distance, he could only protect a limited number of people if the monster really attacked.


    But obviously, the monster was also very cautious, and it chose to yield when sensing Junior Leopard''s spirit.


    It was the instinct of every creature to draw on the advantages and avoid disadvantages.


    Therefore, they had a narrowly safe return.


    It was not until they were absolutely sure that they had walked out of the Blacktail Plain that they felt relieved. But Junior Leopard didn''t join their jubilation.


    He was still thinking of the devil Chama.


    He was confident that he could draw Chama out and kill it. But he was thinking about others, how to tame it.


    After Junior Leopard found out that he could use his thoughts to control living creatures and turn them into his puppets, he began hankering for those powerful living creatures.


    Moreover, the devil Chama left him an indelible impression. What interested him most was that turning Chama into his puppet could bring great benefits to his future territory.


    This Blacktail Plain was a natural barrier and it was not far away from his territory. If he could control this monster, he would be able to expand his territory surreptitiously.


    "Wait!"


    It seemed that he had thought of something. He unfolded the enfeoffing map of the Northern Yuan, and his expression turned eccentric.


    On that map, the Blacktail Plain was divided into six parts which belonged separately to six people or influences, and one of their territories happened to border on his. That was to say, if he could actually control this black python, he could probably disturb lives in others'' territories so that they would have no choice but to withdraw from their fief!


    This wicked idea flashed in his mind and then he smiled more broadly. "Heaven is on my side! Heaven is definitely on my side!"


    It was not easy to surrender Chama as it had a cultivation of thousands of years. During those three days, Junior Leopard could obviously sense that it owned something like the divine thoughts. That was to say, Junior Leopard couldn''t absorb its spirit with the power of his Fiery Eyes.


    Useful as his Fiery Eyes were, there was still a limit. He could only absorb the complete soul of creatures who had low spiritual intelligence. As for those powerful ones like wild beasts including tigers and lions, he was not able to absorb their spirit in full, let alone evil beasts. If the spirit he absorbed was not complete, it would conflict with his thoughts and get out of his control.


    On top of that, his Fiery Eyes could only be used to absorb a spirit once at a time because it required a great deal of energy and strength. Even though he was now at Level Seven and had a body of Tendon-Changing Realm, he could only remain in that state for an incense worth of time. The more powerful the spirit was, the more time was required. It would at least take him three days to be able to absorb a soul again. Additionally, for a creature, when part of its soul was absorbed, even just a small part, it would not be able to live longer than several hours.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard had nothing to do with those creatures with a powerful soul.


    He could only do that after he had a more profound cultivation and the power of his Fiery Eyes was further enhanced.


    ...


    ¡­


    Once they had gotten out of the Blacktail Plain, they began to speed up and they finally reached their destination half a month later.


    Tie Kongyi''s fief was right next to Junior Leopard''s, but it was a little remoter. He needed to go through Junior Leopard''s fief and walk another 600 miles. Therefore, the two groups parted at the margin of Junior Leopard''s fief. To reach his fief most quickly, Tie Kongyi led his group to walk around the low mountains beside the Blackstone Valley. While Junior Leopard made his first patrol in his fief with his followers.


    The Blackstone Valley!


    It was the name of this fief, but actually, it was just an iconic name.


    This was the north part of the whole prairie while the Blackstone Valley was a canyon between two low mountains. It was called the Blackstone Valley because most of the stones in the canyon were black.


    The canyon was not long, about three or four miles. There were crushed stones everywhere and bushes and vines covering the mountainsides. Black rocks, some were of light color, while some of deep were exposed. Seen from a distance, this canyon was like a black passageway. Once Junior Leopard arrived in the Blackstone Valley, he went down from the carriage and walked through this Blackstone Valley with his followers. On entering the Valley, he saw a broken skeleton on a huge stone ahead. The skeleton was so broken that there was only a small part of the upper body covered by rags which were flapping in the wind.


    Walking forward, they entered the canyon and found that the canyon was filled with broken bones, most of which were chewed apart by the wild beasts in the prairie. In fact, it was already lucky that some bones were left.


    "Your Excellency, this Blackstone Valley used to belong to a middle-scale tribe in the prairie. But when Governor Ma mopped up the prairie, he encountered quite a fierce defense here. So when he conquered this place, he exterminated the whole tribe, and the corpses¡ª"


    Junior Leopard waved his hand and stopped him. Of course he knew what had happened. The destruction of the Northern Yuan by the Jin. For the Jin it was an immortal achievement, while for the Northern Yuan people, it was a disaster. As the saying went, what millions died that Caesar might be great. That war fulfilled the dreams of Ma Tianchang, of the Jin and of Yan Yuntian, but it also resulted in the broken bones all over the prairie. God knew how many people had died in it!


    Junior Leopard had nothing to say about the destruction of the Northern Yuan. In fact, he even felt a malicious pleasure deep in his heart for such an extermination of a nation in the prairie. But now facing so many bones, he was more or less unhappy as no one would like his territory to be filled with broken bones.


    Walking through the Blackstone Valley, everyone seemed in low spirits as they had seen so many bones. But after they passed, their mood was lifted all at once.


    "What a beautiful place!"


    Behind the Blackstone Valley was a region of low hills. There were rolling hills and criss-cross rivers. From northwest to southeast, there was respectively low mountains, hills, smooth hills and depressions. A flat and wide river ran through the low mountains and smooth hills, and then was divided into several branches which formed a tiny water network. Among the rivers was the green prairie.


    The scenery was definitely beautiful, but the scene on the prairie was quite a turn-off.


    "Such a killjoy!" Zhu Ba cursed.


    There were dozens of people, and a few dozen sheep and cows on the prairie, but they were all besieged by a group of wolves.


    The wolves benefited the most from the war. After suffering a snowstorm which came once in a blue moon, the badly sapped wolves suddenly found that their food increased so much that they didn''t even need to hunt purposely. There were corpses for them to eat everywhere. People living on the prairie took the wolf as their totem and followed the example of the wolves. Now as they died after a war, their corpses fed wolves on the prairie. In this way, they had died a worth death.


    "It seems that they are the survivors of this tribe. But they are all sick and disabled!" Junior Leopard frowned at the sight of that group of people besieged by the wolves.


    "They are really lucky as they even survived the war and lived until now!" Jiang Xiao smiled and said.


    "There are lots of sick and disabled people like these on the prairie. Ma Tianchang has already killed all of the strong men and left these people dangling in the wind. Most of them would definitely die, but some of them did survive!" Junior Leopard patted on Little Du, which was held in his arms, and the latter rushed out.


    "Ooroo!"


    A loud howl came from Little Du''s mouth and shook the earth.


    The wolves which were besieging the sick and the disabled suddenly stopped and turned around towards Little Du with fright and subjection in their eyes.


    These wolves were fierce. But no matter how fierce they were, they were just ordinary wolves while Little Du was an evil beast with the blood of primitive beasts. As a wolf, Little Du was born with the power to lead the tribe. What''s more, in recent years, Little Du''s strength had been drastically enhanced as he absorbed the fist intent of an expert at Level Eight. These wolves were no match for it at all, so only one howl could make them bow down. Of course, the Wolf Lord didn''t seem to resign himself. But with only one attack, Little Du''s sharp claws, like a silver lightning, had already torn the Wolf Lord''s head and body apart.


    After Little Du led the wolves away, Junior Leopard turned around and once again looked at the sick and the disabled people that had survived. He then sighed and said, "Jiang Xiao, take some men to accommodate these people. Wendu, follow them. It may be easier for you to communicate with them as you also live on the prairie. Also, tell them I''ll be their master from now on!"


    "Yes, master!" Wendu bowed deeply to Junior Leopard and then approached those people, following Jiang Xiao.


    "Wang Cheng!"


    "I want you to explore the terrain with some brothers and find a place to encamp. You''ve been all very tired these days. Take a rest!"


    "Yes, sir!" Wang Cheng took his orders and left.


    As the former Vice Commander of the Navy of Jiang City, Wang Cheng was quite adept at leading troops. Though he''d never fought in a big war, it was still more than enough for him to command hundreds of people.


    When all was settled, Junior Leopard leaped into the sky and used the Dragon Flying Technique to patrol his territory.


    600 miles referred not to the area of his fief, but the circumference. In this way, with the Blackstone Valley as the entrance, his fief equaled to the area of one big state or two small states in Jin. For such a large an area, even if he had flown into the sky, he could not see its full picture. Junior Leopard could roughly see that his fief was mainly covered by low mountains and hills. But there was a huge mountain at the western border. The terrain was high in the west while low in the east. The large river obviously took its source at that huge mountain.


    "This is actually quite a good place, but the population is too small!"


    Sparsely-populated!


    This was the biggest problem for Junior Leopard, also the biggest problem for all the power, families and individual who were enfeoffed.


    A big enough population was indispensable for a fief to thrive. Without that, no matter how big the fief was, it was only a wasteland.


    The Northern Yuan had already been destroyed, or to put it this way, it had been exterminated. The previous large and wide northern prairie was now empty of people. There was a huge mountain in the west of the prairie, and no one knew how long it was or what was inside. Compared to the Misty Mountain, that mountain was far more ancient and colder. It was covered by ice and snow all year round. Except for some experts who liked adventuring in mysterious places, no one would enter that mountain, let alone live there.


    This mountain could only be climbed over by experts, not ordinary people. Everyone knew that behind the mountain, there were other countries and many people, but they could only make a detour if they wanted to pass it.


    And the detour had a distance of tens of thousands of miles. Therefore, from ancient times, the two sides separated by the mountain had no contact with each other, let alone wars.


    In the southwest was the northwest of the Jin. There was a large area called Western Region there. Western Region was of a similar size to that of the Jin. What made it different was that it was not unified. Instead, it was divided into hundreds of big and small countries which fought with each other all year round. However, recently, it was said that the tense situation had been eased. Several big countries there were quite wealthy and they had trade dealings with the Jin. Countries in the Western Region were rich in spices, diamonds and other specialties whose prices would jump at least 10-fold when traded from the Western Region to the Jin. Similarly, once traded to the Western Region, prices of goods from the Jin also would jump at least 10-fold. However, no matter if it was the Western Region or the Jin, they were separated from Junior Leopard''s fief by boundless desert and vast ocean. The two places were only connected by one commercial route, which was quite similar to the Silk Road in Junior Leopard''s previous life. On this road there were many bandits, so only a few wealthy businessmen could pass by negotiating with both sides.


    For Junior Leopard, countries in the Western Region might be useful to him in the future. But now, they were worthless. What he needed now was not goods, but people, large amounts of people.


    In the east and the due south were more than 2000 fiefs enfeoffed by the Jin. They were all facing the same problem as he was a lack of population. They had nothing to do with the empty prairie.


    What about due north?


    That was the Ice Field, the boundless Ice Field. There wasn''t a single rabbit there, not to mention people.


    "Damn it! It seems that I must cast my eyes at the Jin!" Junior Leopard thought secretly. This was his territory and he needed population. But as he didn''t want to turn his territory into a place full of blondes or blue-eyed foreigners, he could only set his sights on the people of the Jin.


    "Well, Yan Yuntian did have a perfect plan. He had enfeoffed more than 2000 vassals in the north without giving them population. It would at least take them hundreds of years to develop the Northern Yuan. At that time, even those vassals wanted to vie for supremacy, he had nothing to fear as the Jin not only earned three states from the war but also dissolved threats from the north. A lack of population, vassals like me who wanted to have a foothold in the north could only rob people from neighboring places. Yan Yuntian enfeoffed all the territory near the northeast to those aristocratic families, powerful family and schools like the Tian Long Taoism. To enlarge their population, those schools would definitely plunder people from tribes in order to attach themselves to the Northern Yuan. In this way, tribes which had the chance to take advantage of the destruction of the Northern Yuan to develop themselves would be suppressed. And the Jin wouldn''t need to worry about them. Thus, if only the Jin didn''t collapse from inside, no power in this world could threaten it. So what about next? What did Yan Yuntian plan to do?"


    Thinking of this, Junior Leopard began to be interested in Yan Yuntian, the Emperor of the Jin who had made the immortal achievement.


    "Yan Yuntian and Ma Tianchang are indeed somebody. Ma Tianchang used to keep a low profile and quietly got on with it in Yunzhou for a decade. Once he acted, he destroyed the Northern Yuan overnight. Taking advantage of the destruction of the Northern Yuan, Yan Yuntian not only successfully dissolved the potential threat from the Northern Yuan, but also directed the attention of well-known families to the northern prairie using enfeoffing. Every family got quite a large size of fief which was bordered by one another. In this way, those powerful families would keep a close watch on each other. Though they all knew it was poisonous fat, no one was willing to throw it away. They would all send people to develop their fiefs so as to leave themselves wriggle room. None of these families could be trifled with as they had developed for thousands of years or even tens of thousands of years. Every family had its profit space in the Central Plains, so the contradictions were hidden in the deep. But it was different in the Northern Yuan. Every fief was connected with each other. Even if they didn''t have conflicts now, they were bound to have conflicts in the future. In this way, the attention of those families was naturally shifted from the Jin to the Northern Yuan and their influence at home would gradually abate!"


    Junior Leopard slightly squinted his eyes. He thought of that enfeoffing map of the Northern Yuan. "Hehe. Lucky that my fief, though not small, was quite far away from theirs. I can also learn from Ma Tianchang and keep a low profile. To enlarge the population is indeed a tough problem, but it still can be solved. But I may have no chance to compete with those families as my foundation is too weak. I''d better make some plans!"


    Standing in mid-air and looking at the large scale of fief under his feet, Junior Leopard frowned and thought.


    "It was impractical to recruit people from the Jin. The Jin would definitely not allow this to happen. Even if it did, no one would be willing to leave their home and come to this bitter cold place in the north. Only a real fool would leave the colorful world in the Jin and come to this barren land."


    "Then who would be willing to leave the Jin and come here?"


    Suddenly, a chilling light flashed in Junior Leopard''s eyes. A terrible idea came to his mind!


    Something was wrong!


    It seemed that the Jin Emperor had made a perfect movement, but actually it was a misstep, a misstep which would set about a disastrous path for the Jin!


    "If I were the head of those well-known families, under the circumstances, I would support the Sect of Flame to launch a war. Though the Jin appeared to be stable now, once those powerful families spared no efforts to promote wars, the Jin would be very likely to sink into the swamp of civil unrest. If these families could keep a balance and made the war last for one or two decades, then there would be refugees everywhere. At that time, with some means, they could attract those homeless people to their territory and they would have a large enough population. As stable as the foundation of the Jin appeared to be, once those families tried to launch the war, they would definitely make it. If they had deeper thoughts, they didn''t need to begin the war themselves at all. They could make it happen by pushing those several princes. In this way, once they abandoned the Royalty in the Jin and disturbed the whole Central Plains, they could get plenty of population. As for what would happen if the Central Plains were in chaos, in the eyes of the families who had their fiefs, it was none of their business. What they needed to do was to find a new dynasty. At that time, with a solid foundation in the Central Plains and fiefs in the north, their power would be improved to a new level. Oh, I''m such an asshole! How could I come up with such a wicked idea?"

 Chapter 247: Knock All of Your Teeth Out

    Chapter 247: Knock All of Your Teeth Out


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Your Majesty, are you really deciding to do this? In that case, the world will be in chaos!"


    In the West Capital of Qianzhou in the Great Jin, Ming Yuesheng, wearing a white robe, was pulling a long face as the three strands of his beard were fluttering in the wind. He looked right at the most honorable person in the world standing in front of him, Yan Yuntian, the Emperor of the Great Jin, and said, "Those aristocratic families will really do anything to protect their profits!"


    "I know. Of course I know that. Doing this will put the world at risk, but it''s also an opportunity for us!" Yan Yuntian laughed, saying, "What, are you scared, Yuesheng?"


    "I''m not scared, I''m just worried that things will be out of control when the time comes." Ming Yuesheng said, "Your Majesty, think about it. Those well-known families and barons will not be easily conquered. Now that you have destroyed Northern Yuan, which is already an unprecedented achievement, you''ve surpassed all the ancient emperors. I suggest that you leave something for your offspring to do so that they can set their own goals. But if you have accomplished everything, your offspring will not have anything to strive for. I really don''t think that''s good for them, is it?"


    "Hahahaha¡ª!" Ming Yuesheng''s words made Jin Emperor burst out laughing. He scolded Ming Yuesheng, pointed at his nose, and said, "Are you trying to provoke me or scold me? Just speak frankly, and don''t beat around the bush. It''s just you and me."


    "Your Majesty, I''m not beating around the bush. I''m just simply talking about the truth. What you want to do is too dangerous, and I''m afraid that I can''t agree with you!"


    "With big risk, comes big reward!" Jin Emperor said.


    "What if we lose? Then the Great Jin will be destroyed!" Ming Yuesheng said without any mercy.


    "So what? We''ve come this far. What a pity it would be if we gave up now. I have so many sons, so even if the Great Jin is destroyed, the bloodline of the Yan family will not go extinct unless they are all useless. And if my sons are useless, my bloodline would ultimately disappear anyway, even if I managed to maintain the Great Jin for thousands of years. I fought for this crown, so if they want it, they must fight for it rather than do nothing but wait for me to give them the most honorable position in the world."


    "I''m afraid that I can''t agree with you on this idea, either. However, since you''ve made up your mind, I can only follow you!" Ming Yuesheng was staring down at himself. He knew that once the Jin Emperor had made up his mind, there was no turning back.


    "Alright, don''t be upset. You''re looking as if the Great Jin will collapse tomorrow. Come here and play chess with me and see whether this stupid chess fan has made any progress playing chess or not."


    "Oh, if one hasn''t become a national champion in chess before the age of 18, he will never become one. Your Majesty, you learned to play chess at the age of 20. How can you make any progress in it?" When it came to chess, Ming Yuesheng laughed out loud without hiding any mockery on his face.


    "Come on, try me!" Yan Yuntian laughed and said, dragging Ming Yuesheng along and rushing to the Imperial Study.


    ...


    ...


    "Your Excellency, I''ve searched the surrounding 200-mile area and I''ve brought all the people that I found."


    In the Blackstone Valley of Northern Yuan,


    dozens of tents were properly dispersed on a vast meadow.


    10 days prior, Junior Leopard and his team arrived in his territory, the Blackstone Valley. After gathering dozens of old, weak, sick, and disabled people, Junior Leopard assigned a mission to Zhu Ba. He had asked him to lead his army to patrol the territory with Little Du and bring anyone that he saw. He had brought more than 100 people back. These people used to be the herdsmen of neighboring tribes. But after the war, the tribes had been destroyed, their muscular teen had died, and those who were vulnerable were dead or had fled away. At one time, there had been thousands of survivors. However, after a year of hunger, thirst, and frequent attacks by the wolves, which had grown stronger through devouring the corpses and wanted to get a taste of the living, there were only 100 or so remaining.


    These survivors were tattered and withered, most of whom looked like as if they were near their last breath.


    "Is there enough food?"


    "Almost. In any case, now that the wolves in the prairie have been fattened up, if we are running out of food, we can hunt those wolves. As long as we make it through this period, our problems will be solved once our cattle and sheep grow up," Zhu Ba said with obvious excitement.


    "Alright, that''ll work. I''ve picked a place and plan to set up a small town centralization there. Then all the people in the territory can move into the town for better management."


    "Yes, sir. I''m on my way."


    "You don''t have to do that, Jiang Xiao will take care of it. Zhu Ba, you should go to the Central Plains with some helpful subordinates and tell Senior Wang to find a solution for expanding the business of the Anyuan Store and find a direct trade route connecting the Central Plains to us here."


    Senior Wang was Wang Datong, who used to be the officer in charge of military logistics and food service in the Navy of Jiang City and was now the vice Hall Chief of the Anyuan Store and was the right-hand man of Junior Leopard. Apparently, he was more a professional businessman than a military soldier. Thanks to his efforts, the economic strength of the Anyuan Store could be increased dramatically. Though it had not yet become a large business store, it had succeeded in making a name for itself.


    "Great, I was thinking about going back to the Central Plains!" When hearing Junior Leopard''s words, Zhu Ba shouted with joy.


    "I know that you want to go back. This bleak place is no comparison to the colorful world of the Central Plains."


    "Well, that''s not what I meant, Your Excellency. I just haven''t seen my wife for months and I kinda miss her."


    "Just cut the crap and go. Remember to bring Senior Wang with you and leave 10 people here when you go," Junior Leopard said.


    "Yes, sir!" Zhu Ba ran back with excitement.


    ¡­


    "Your Excellency, although there are more than 100 people here, we can only afford to have 20 or 30 people who are really laborers that can work. It''s a bit too much to build a town centralization!"


    "First, we have to build a place to live. Now we are in the north and summer is almost gone. After summer, the weather will get very cold. If we haven''t built a place before the snow falls, no one will survive this winter!" Junior Leopard said to Jiang Xiao. He looked around, seeing nothing but a vast and empty field. It made him feel like he was blazing a trail and going back to the primitive times where he could rebuild the civilization of humans.


    "Yes, I''ll ask them to hurry up." " And I''ll go to the mountain and cut some stones and bring them down. There aren''t so many people, so we can build several big houses first and set up the frames to resist the wind and snow,"


    Junior Leopard said with worry mounting in his mind. A lord like this was rarely seen in the world, who would excavate stones for his citizen on the mountain and transport them down the mountain for his citizen to build houses. He had overthrown the subordination and because of that, the refugees on the prairie who had been forced to gather here by Zhu Ba could be relieved to settle down here. These people were mostly herdsmen that had been living on the nearby prairies for generations. They lost the foundation of their lives because they had lost all of their muscular teens in a brutal war. But now, Junior Leopard gave them hope. And most of all, Junior Leopard did not want anything from them now, and even though he was harsh, he was nothing like the Royals who used to override and bully them. Therefore, they felt that Junior Leopard was better than their leaders back in the day.


    "Your Excellency, Your Excellency..." A series of voices mixed with the panting from running came from behind.


    "Well, if it isn''t our Old Master Wendu. What can I do for you?"


    "Your Excellency, you are making fun of me again!" Wendu smiled awkwardly when hearing Junior Leopard''s words.


    "I''m not joking. You see, you''re somebody now!" Junior Leopard said with laughter, looking at the new leather coat that Wendu was wearing.


    "Thanks to your blessing, Your Excellency. If it were not for you putting me in an important position, I would never have become who I am today!" Wendu said with an awkward smile.


    Since arriving here, Wendu had been appointed by Junior Leopard to take charge of the herdsmen that Zhu Ba brought here. This former royal of a small tribe did have talent in management, seeing as he had managed more than 100 people in perfect order. However, he was not a mean person. Junior Leopard had given him the power and he did not use it for showing off. He tried his best to make everything right in the way that it should be. Wendu managed to facilitate communications between Junior Leopard''s team and the herdsmen. He often granted whatever was requested by the herdsmen. Thus, he had become popular among them, and they called him Old Master Wendu with sincerity.


    "Just speak. What''s going on?"


    "Your Excellency, Old Kelsang wants to see you!"


    "Old Kelsang?!" Junior Leopard frowned. He had heard of this Old Kelsang, who was the eldest of the herdsmen. Old Kelsang was a man with vast knowledge and experience and he had some aristocratic bloodline running through his veins. But most importantly, he had lived a long life of more than 70 years after all of those struggles. Junior Leopard secretly could not help admiring his strong vitality.


    "Your sinner Kelsang bows before the Master!"


    Wendu had brought Kelsang to Junior Leopard. Kelsang kneeled at the feet of Junior Leopard as soon as he met him.


    "Please don''t, you''re such an elder. My lifespan will be shortened if I accept your salutation!" Junior Leopard hurried over to him and said. The reason why Kelsang called himself a sinner was because the Great Jin and Yan Yuntian declared that all of the Northern Yuan people were guilty and slaves since the Great Jin had destroyed Northern Yuan.


    "Get up and just speak frankly with me. I don''t care about these manners so much!" Junior Leopard said.


    "Here is the thing, Your Excellency. We are a people who have lost their country. If not for you, we couldn''t make it through this winter. Even if we were not frozen to death, we would be eaten by the wolves on the prairie¡ª"


    "Get to the point!" Junior Leopard interrupted him and said. Although Kelsang did not speak the Mandarin of the Great Jin so well and with a strange accent, Junior Leopard still could clearly understand him.


    "Your Excellency, we are herdsmen who have been living here for many generations and we are familiar with this land. I''ve heard that you, Your Excellency, wanted to build a town centralization here so that the herdsmen will no longer be homeless. They can thus lead a life like the Central Plains people. I know a place which is suitable to build a town, so I ventured to come here and see you, Your Excellency!"


    "Well, is that so?" Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows. He had traveled hundreds of miles in the vicinity through his Dragon Flying Technique during these days, planning to find a good place to build a town centralization. However, after a cursory look at this land, it was hard for him to make up his mind and pick the right place out of several alternatives.


    Now, the words of Kelsang intrigued him.


    "Well, tell me about it. Where is it?"


    "It''s at the foot of Jilei Mountain!" Kelsang said, "The land at the foot of Jilei Mountain is vast and plain. There are two branches flowing down. It''s right in the middle of the branches. You can not only build a town centralization there, but also a fortification. Because of these two crossing branches, we only need to alter them a bit and we can have a natural moat!"


    "I''ve seen that place!" Junior Leopard nodded and said, "But I just didn''t know that it is called Jilei Mountain. Well, it is a high mountain!"


    "Yes, it is, Your Excellency. It''s the highest mountain in the vicinity!"


    "You''ve got something there. It seems like you have also thought about building a fortification, not just me, right?"


    "Building a fortification has been the dream of our tribe for hundreds of years. However, this land is remote and bleak with strong enemies surrounding it. If we build a fortification, we will be easily targeted by others. But that problem no longer exists here now!" As he spoke, he pulled out a piece of parchment from his chest. "Your Excellency, building a fortification has been our dream for generations. All the ideas and designs about the fortification from our tribe over the generations have been put down on this parchment. I hope you, Your Excellency, can accept it!"


    "It''s good!" Junior Leopard accepted the parchment and unfolded it. It was big and exotic, and the pictures on it were sophisticated and that really cheered him up. After some quick glances, Junior Leopard folded it and put it in his chest pocket.


    "Well, Old Kelsang, thanks for your help. The designs on this parchment are way too big for us now. I mean, one step at a time. We should first build a small town centralization to let everyone settle down." Junior Leopard walked over to Kelsang and helped him up. "You don''t have to be worried, I won''t hurt you. In the Great Jin, you are the sinners. But now, you are in my territory, and you are the first residents here. As long as you don''t walk out of my territory, you are no different from any others. Understand?"


    "Your sinner understands!"


    "Good. Now get going!" Junior Leopard waved his hand and beckoned him to leave.


    Junior Leopard was glad to accept the hospitality from the indigenous people and he also understood their concerns. However, he did not want to do harm to these indigenous people. These people were the residents of his territory, and now he needed to expand his population. He even thought about utilizing these people to attract other refugees from the prairie.


    He was presently unable to enlarge the population in the Central Plains or any other places within a short period of time, so he could only depend on these refugees from the prairie. Old Kelsang had lived here for so many years and he was so familiar with this land that he could even be called a local bully. If he was willing to help, this thing would be much easier to accomplish.


    While he was thinking, a soldier rushed over to him, saying, "Bad news, Your Excellency, bad news! They are fighting. They are fighting!"


    "What''s all the fuss?" Junior Leopard looked at the soldier, a confidant of Zhu Ba. "What do you mean ''They are fighting''? Who is fighting? Make it clear!"


    "Your Excellency, Sire Zhu is fighting with the others!" the soldier said while panting, "Someone is here in our territory to make trouble!"


    "What? Someone is making trouble?" Junior Leopard burst into laughter. There could be someone who was bold enough to make trouble in his territory?


    "Let''s go and see who is it!" Junior Leopard lifted his hand and beckoned the soldier to show him the way.


    Not too far away came the noise of yelling and weapons colliding.


    "How dare you fight against me! Do you know who I am?"


    Junior Leopard clearly heard an outburst of furious yelling.


    "How could I know who you are if you don''t tell me?" Junior Leopard walked over there, smiling, only to see that Zhu Ba had already fought with someone and a batch of people were watching, standing around him. Aside from Zhu Ba''s subordinates, there were a group of people that he did not know at all. These people all wore the same green robes with the same design, like the family servant of some wealthy families. They were all holding sabers and spears, wearing furious expressions on their faces and staring at Zhu Ba and his subordinate. It looked like they would raise their sabers and cut someone as soon as the fight began.


    In the center, there was a young man who looked to be in his 30s fighting with Zhu Ba. He had a clean face of delicate beauty with no beard. He wore a luxurious red robe with a glittering silver long spear in his hand. Just like Zhu Ba, he was also at Level Four, so they were still locked in the fight.


    When he noticed Junior Leopard, Zhu Ba attacked a movement ahead of his opponent, forcing him to defend himself using the horizontal spear. Zhu Ba then jumped out of the circle and stood beside Junior Leopard.


    The man stretched his long spear and wanted to go after Zhu Ba when Zhu Ba was standing down. But he was stopped by an elder dressed in a grey robe.


    "A master of martial arts at Level Six? That is rare!" Junior Leopard stared at that the elder in the grey robe, watching him walking over to the young man and grabbing his long spear.


    "Who are you people? Why are you making trouble in my territory?"


    "Your territory?!" A glint of sharp light flashed in the eyes of this young man when hearing Junior Leopard, and he looked at him, saying, "Are you Zhou Bao from the Wu Family?"


    "Yes, I am. I''m Zhou Bao from the Wu Family. Who are you?" Junior Leopard stepped forward with his foot gently landing on the ground.


    "I''m Wang Hua from the Wang Family in Cenzhou!" the man looked up and said.


    "Wang Hua?!" Junior Leopard nodded gently. He had heard of this name, as well as the Wang Family in Cenzhou, a well-known family and barons in the world.


    Technically, Wang Hua was not a direct descendant of the Wang Family in Cenzhou. He was just a member of one of its branches. In the war of conquering Northern Yuan, he had made lots of achievements with the help of the Wang clan, therefore, he had been awarded a fief of 200 miles that was adjacent to Junior Leopard''s. In other words, Wang Hua was a neighbor of Junior Leopard.


    "It''s Young Master Wang!" Junior Leopard smiled and said, "Why are you here, Young Master? And you''ve been busy fighting with my subordinate since you arrived here. I don''t think that''s the proper way to be a guest!"


    "I''m not trying to make things difficult for you. However, your subordinate dared to stop me when I was running after an escaped slave. He''s really got some balls!"


    "Well, I think you''ve got some balls, too!" Junior Leopard said leisurely with a chilling light flashing in his eyes. He did not know if there was something wrong with Wang Hua, otherwise, how could he be so full of himself?


    "Zhou Bao, I don''t want to be your enemy and I have no intention to encroach upon your territory. All I want is to hunt the slave down. I will leave here as soon as I catch the escaped slave!"


    "What do you think this place is? Is it your garden that you can come and go from anytime you want?!" Junior Leopard said coldly, "For the sake of the Wang Family in Cenzhou, I will not make it difficult for you today, so you had better get the hell out of here!"


    "Zhou Bao, are you saying that you want to be the enemy of the Wang clan?" Wang Hua said with anger, "How dare you scold me like that?! It''s very brave of you!"


    "Alas!" Watching the furious face of Wang Hua, Junior Leopard suddenly sighed. He turned his face to the old servant in the grey robe with his finger pointing at Wang Hua and said, "Is there something wrong with him? You''d better take him away, otherwise, I''ll kick him out of here!"


    "How... how dare you!" Wang Hua''s face was flushed with anger. He put up his silver spear and tried to step forward, but the elder in grey grabbed his silver spear so tightly as if the spear was soldered to his hand so Wang Hua could not move a bit.


    "Wang Fu, are you going to rebel?!"


    "Master, you are no match for him. Let me do it!" the elder said gently.


    "Are you sure you want to have a battle with me?"


    "Your Excellency, I''m sorry to make you laugh at me. You are a well-known expert, and I''m just a useless servant. How can I have a battle with you?!" the elder said with a forced smile, "But this slave has stolen an important item from our Wang Family. It is a treasure that His Excellency, the Family Head, gave our master for protecting the destiny of the fief. We can not lose it under any circumstances. So we hope you, Your Excellency, can make an exception for us this time!"


    "You''ve lost something, which is none of my business. But this here is my territory, and I won''t allow anyone to make any trouble in my territory. If you were willing to have a conversation first, we could have worked this out through negotiations. But now? I''m sorry. If you want to find someone here, please let your Family Head talk to me. Zhu Ba, see them out!"


    Junior Leopard smiled sarcastically with a condescending momentum emanating from him. He looked at Wang Hua with a sneer on his face and was about to leave.


    "You arrogant...!"


    "Your Excellency, do you really refuse to make an exception for the Wang clan?" said the elder with a sunken voice.


    Junior Leopard stopped, "Respect is what we strive for. It''s not what we are granted. Today, you didn''t respect us. I''ve already shown my utmost respect to you by letting you walk out of here alive!"


    "In that case, Your Excellency, I need to have a fight with you!"


    "Well, do you mean that you''re going to fight with me?" Junior Leopard turned around and threw a glance at Wang Fu.


    "I''ll always be a member of the Wang clan, dead or alive!" Wang Fu groaned, tightened his hand, and took the silver spear from Wang Hua by force. Then he attacked the forehead of Junior Leopard fiercely with the spear.


    The red tassel on the spear looked like a dancing flame and the spear point was as fast as a flash.


    "Alright!"


    Unparalleled power converged into a spot on the spear at that moment. When it arrived at the forehead of Junior Leopard, it bloomed all of sudden just like the blooming snow lotus on the very top of Snow Mountain.


    This spear unexpectedly contained huge sharp Qi, which was strong enough to break the protective Gang Qi of a Level Seven expert.


    "Duang¡ªHum¡ª!"


    The sound of a collision and a tremor arose.


    When the point of the spear was about to stab his forehead, Junior Leopard put his fingers on the point of the spear.


    The silver spear then bounced off. Wang Fu stepped back five paces so he could reluctantly stop himself. However, the spear in his hand was still trembling and humming.


    "Pia¡ª!" Then, a loud slapping sound emerged. It turned out that when Wang Fu had started to fight, Wang Hua also rushed at Junior Leopard with a dagger out of nowhere. But because he was too slow, he was slapped by Junior Leopard before he could stab him. The hit was so hard that Wang Hua was slapped away with all his teeth flying into the air. When he finally landed on the ground, there were no teeth left in his mouth.


    "If you dare to get fresh with me, I''ll knock all of your teeth out!"

 Chapter 248: A Halidom of the Blackwolf Tribe

    Chapter 248: A Halidom of the Blackwolf Tribe


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Your Excellency, you''re excessively merciful. If I were you, I would have beaten that bastard to death!"


    "Even if he doesn''t die now, he''s ashamed of staying here!" Junior Leopard gave a brittle laugh. "This guy''s arrogant. Where did he foster such a nasty temper? That such a person should still be alive today. Amazing!"


    Thinking of Wang Hua''s attitude, Junior Leopard felt very surprised. Wang Hua, a Junior Master of martial arts who had just reached Bone-Forging Realm of Level Four was so aggressive before him, a famous Level Seven expert in Jianghu. A fool was not enough to describe him. He had no brain!


    "That''s not strange. All the well-known families act like that!"


    "They all act like that?" Junior Leopard became dazed for a second. "Are you sure? I know a guy of the Li Family in Pingzhou. He''s a direct descendant, and he''s much better!"


    "You Excellency, you know the descendants of the Li Family in Pingzhou?!"


    "Don''t forget that in the past I was a personal guard to Admiral Li. He was also from the Li Family. I never saw such arrogance from them then!"


    "That''s rare given that the descendants of those millennium families are infamous for being overbearing. Ordinary family servants dare to yell at the local officials. Even a housekeeper could ride a horse quickly in the city and kill someone, nobody would pay attention to that!"


    "That means, in this world, he''s not the only one who doesn''t have brains. Many other people are also idiots?"


    "Your Excellency, if you thought in this way, it''s almost the same," Jiangxiao said and laughed. "However, Your Excellency, it''s not a good thing to offend those powerful barons!"


    "I''ve already pissed one off, I don''t care to affront one more," said Junior Leopard. "The Wang Family in Cenzhou is the same as the Meng Family in Ningzhou. These are two biggest, well-known families in the Great Jin. They made great contributions in the conquest of Northern Yuan and were awarded large fiefs respectively. The well-known families'' fiefs are given in a way of family. The contributions made by their descendants are attributed to the families. How did Wang Hua receive a fief separately? A land of 100 kilometers. Did he perform some deed of merit?"


    "This... I''m not clear about this," Jiang Xiao said and shook his head. "However, according to what I know, many indirect descendants of the well-known families received fiefs. Instead, those direct ones got nothing!"


    "It seems that it''s a method used by the imperial court to divide those families and foster the collateral branches against the direct ones?" Junior Leopard''s eyes glinted slightly. "One family''s fief is large, but it only has a plot of land. There are many collateral descendants. Decades later, fights for fief will be bound to happen. Thus, the power will decrease by itself. If the collateral descendants boom, it''ll be hard to lead. For the direct line, that''s a worry!"


    "Your Excellency is right. Those people are accustomed to competing for power and enjoying the misfortune of others," Jiangxiao said. "It seems that the imperial court is well prepared this time!"


    "The person in the imperial court is playing chess. We''re just one of the inconspicuous chess pieces. We just need to take care of ourselves," Junior Leopard said softly. "Well, is there any news about Wang Hua''s escaped slave?"


    "Zhu Ba is investigating with Little Du. I suppose the news will come soon!"


    Before Jiang Xiao''s voice had died away, they heard a pleasant laughter outside the tent. "Your Excellency, we found him!" That was Zhu Ba''s loud voice.


    "Bring him in," said Junior Leopard.


    He took a skin roll from the inner side of his coat and handed it to Jiang Xiao. "This is the fortification map from Old Kelsang. Have a look first. We''re bound to need it for the fortification in the future!"


    "Yes!" Jiang Xiao nodded and put it in his arms.


    The tent curtain was opened. Carrying the emaciated person, Zhu Ba walked in and threw her on the ground. "Your Excellency. That''s her, the Wang Family''s escaped slave!"


    "I''m not an escaped slave. I was just forcibly captured by them!" The tiny figure struggled to get up and shouted.


    "A girl?" Hearing the thin voice, Junior Leopard knitted his brows. He had never expected that the escaped slave should be a girl.


    "You''re dressed in the exclusive clothes of the Wang family''s slaves and fled to my territory due to being pursued by the fool Wang Hua. You''re still denying that you''re the Wang family''s escaped slave. If you''re not, why are you here?"


    "I''m Cole Khan''s daughter, the princess of the Blackwolf tribe!" The slender woman cried. "You''re damn evil. Grassland God will punish you!"


    "Your Grassland God has already died!" Hearing her voice, Junior Leopard closed his eyes, raised a hand and moved her body in the air. "Wang Hua said that you had stolen his treasure. What''s on earth is that?"


    "I... I didn''t steal his treasure. He wanted to snatch the halidom of our Blackwolf tribe!"


    "Blackwolf tribe''s halidom?" Junior Leopard smiled slightly. "Well then, take out your Blackwolf tribe''s halidom and show me!"


    "No way!" The woman''s face was covered by dust, but her eyes were bright. She fiercely stared at Junior Leopard and did not show weakness. "It''s a halidom passed on for more than 10,000 years in our tribe. I won''t give it to evil people like you!"


    "A strange strength wave. Why? Why am I familiar with it?" Junior Leopard thought.


    Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows mildly as if he found some surprising thing. "Do you think that I can''t find it even if you refuse to show the halidom?"


    "Hum!" The girl gave a cold snort and turned her head away.


    Junior Leopard loosened his hand and hurled her on the ground again. "Blackwolf tribe, in the previous Northern Yuan, could be considered as a formidable tribe. This tribe''s halidom must be a good stuff!"


    Junior Leopard''s eyes lingered on the woman as he spoke. He noticed that a contempt flashed through her eyes and could not help laughing. "According to what I know, the Blackwolf tribe was breached by Jin Dawei along with soldiers, a subordinate to Governor Ma. All of the tribe''s treasures were sent back to Great Jin. Jin Dawei was famous for his cautiousness. How could he miss out such important stuff? Moreover, you, the princess, before the Blackwolf tribe was conquered, the patriarch had burned his whole family. How could you survive? You just said you''re the Blackwolf tribe''s princess. Do you have any evidence?"


    "I don''t need to prove it. I''m the Blackwolf tribe''s princess! Believe it or not. Hum. I know Central Plains people are sly. Don''t cheat me into taking out the halidom in this way!"


    "You''re Northern Yuan people, but you speak standard Central Plains language. People like you are rare in Northern Yuan. You must not be in a low position in Northern Yuan. As for whether you''re the princess, I don''t want to know. About your halidom, I know a little bit now. So, I don''t need to goad you!" Junior Leopard smiled, slowly bent forward, extended his hand and gently lifted her chin.


    "You''re only average-looking. I happen to need a maidservant now. You can be my maidservant. Zhu Ba, bring her out, let her have a bath and change her clothes. From now on, you serve me in my tent!"


    "Ah?" Zhu Ba did not predict that Junior Leopard would make such a decision, so he was dazed for a second.


    "What? Action!"


    "Yes, yes, yes!" Zhu Ba''s face showed a hint of ambiguity. "I know, I know."


    An hour later, Zhu Ba brought the girl back to the tent. Now she looked much cleaner than before. She was about 15 years old. As Junior Leopard just said, she was just average-looking. Even if she was the princess, how could there be so many beautiful princesses in this world?


    This Blackwolf tribe''s princess had already changed into a maidservant clothes, but her eyes were filled with stubbornness and resentment. She suddenly fell down from her princess position, became a sinner and even lost her freedom. It was no wonder that she was exasperated.


    For her, an offspring of nobility in Northern Yuan, she had unforgettable hate for the Great Jin.


    "Alright, Zhu Ba. You can leave now. The princess serves me here, so I don''t need you!"


    "Ah. Oh. OK. Your Excellency!" Zhu Ba said and quickly receded from the tent, faster than a rabbit.


    "You... what do you want to do?" After Zhu Ba had left, only Junior Leopard and the girl were in the tent. Obviously, the girl seemed to be scared, so she stepped backward a few steps to the threshold of the tent. It looked as if she would flee away once Junior Leopard made some offensive behavior.


    "Take it easy. I''m not interested in you!" Junior Leopard felt embarrassed and touched his nose. "Do I look like a lady-killer?"


    The girl kept silent and put her arms before her chest, implying her answer in her heart.


    "Well. Even if I''m a lady-killer, I won''t be keen on you!" Junior Leopard shook hands speechlessly as if he wanted to disentangle him. "I''m only interested in beauties. However, you are ugly¡ª"


    "You''re ugly!"


    All women were seemingly sensitive to this topic. However, Junior Leopard was not chivalrous when he said that the girl was not good-looking in front of her without scruples.


    Junior Leopard did not care about his manner. What he cared about was the Blackwolf tribe''s halidom. Extremely useful stuff intrigued him.


    Why?


    Junior Leopard felt a wave of the Flickering Light Evil Qi from this girl.


    Flickering Light Evil Qi!


    It did not possess great power. Actually, it was not powerful at all. It only worked on the space.


    Unluckily, Junior Leopard now only knew three special techniques and skills regarding space. These include the Three Realms Division, the Space Division Skill and a way used to open the space. This way was researched based on the Hollow Magic Carpet; he temporarily did not know its name.


    However, now he had access to a new celestial device. The Flickering Light Evil Qi was waving. He did not need to guess. It must be a celestial device relating to space.


    When good luck befell someone, it could not be resisted!


    In those days, he had always been researching the Space Division Skill, the Three Realms Division and that magic formation on the Hollow Magic Carpet. The research was not only about the utilization, but also a deeper understanding of the secret skill about space.


    Yes. His understanding was only about the secret skill of space, not about space. Space and time were the two most abstruse systems in the universe. Based on his current level, he was not even qualified to take a look at it. How could he touch that?


    The whole thing was based on the principle of the Hollow Magic Carpet. There was a formation on the carpet!


    The formation more or less had a relation to the space. For example, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation which had been obtained by Junior Leopard was a formation integrating illusion, sword technique, space, time and even other basic principles between the earth and the sky. It was a synthesis. However, the formation on the Hollow Magic Carpet was another thing¡ªa specific formation about the space.


    Junior Leopard did not have enough energy to study that formation. Instead, he took advantage of his Three Realms Division and Space Division Skill to break the formation. Finally, he reached a surprising conclusion that this formation was not similar to the Three Realms Division which was exclusively used for shuttling in space. Its real effect was to build a fixed passageway between two specific points.


    In other words, it was a Space Portal!


    Nevertheless, the so-called Space Portal merely existed on the basis of theory. To set up a stable passageway between two points, one would first have to maintain an unimpeded gateway at both sides. It was not like building a house, for which two pieces of wood could construct a gateway. Supporting the entrance and exit in a space needed special material. As for what kind of material it was, Junior Leopard did not know, he had never heard it.


    However, this formation brought many verifications and experiences for Junior Leopard to study the Three Realms Division and the Space Division Skill. Meanwhile, a new idea popped up in his mind.


    Now he used the Space Division Skill to separate a small space and put his two Big Iron Hammers in it. Some sundries could also be piled in it. However, this space was connected with his spirit, and only he could put things in the space. That behavior was too eerie. For instance, whenever he wanted, he just motivated his divine thoughts, and the two hammers could be conjured from the space. Although it was convenient, this method was very weird. Others would immediately know that he understood a special space controlling technique when seeing that.


    Special techniques, differing from celestial devices, could be learned as long as one understood the way, so they provoked much more greed among people than celestial devices. If Junior Leopard could open a unique gateway from the space which he had separated, he may as well set up the gateway at positions like Gate Gourd or Gate Jade Vase. In such a way, when he took things from the gateway, others would just think that he had a spacial celestial device. Spacial celestial devices were precious and could attract covetous eyes, but they were much better than special techniques.


    However, as far as he could see, it was just a conception. For him, a space technique beginner, this conception was unattainable.


    However now, he saw hopes from this Blackwolf tribe''s princess.


    "No need to be frightened, nervous or even scared. Useless!" Junior Leopard stood up from the chair and strode to the girl in one step.


    He moved quickly, which shocked the girl and made her step back again; she was almost backed out of the tent.


    Junior Leopard extended his hand straight to her chest.


    "Ah..." A sharp cry sounded. The girl put her hands over her chest and shouted. "What are you doing!"


    "I want your Blackwolf tribe''s halidom!" When saying this, his hand rudely reached to her chest and slightly pulled. After his hand drew back, there was a necklace in it. The necklace, with a ruby pendant on it, was made from platinum; it looked very common.


    "That''s my neacklace, not the halidom!" The girl yelled.


    Junior Leopard had a look at the ruby pendant over and over again. Then he turned his head around, walked to his chair and had a seat.


    "Don''t conceal it from me. You can''t hide it successfully," Junior Leopard said. "Your Blackwolf tribe''s halidom is this ruby pendant." His finger lightly lifted and slowly rubbed the ruby pendant. A strange thing happened. His finger, after touching the pendant, looked like it was going through a door which was made of waves, clicking into the door directly.


    "Good design. The most important part is this ruby!" Junior Leopard smiled. "It''s not jade, but a special material. Am I right?"


    "You..." The girl pointed at him, showing a panicked face.


    "In fact, your Blackwolf tribe doesn''t have any halidom. What you have is only an independent space which had been separated at an unknown time. The space harbors treasure that had been plundered by your Blackwolf tribe for several dynasties. Even if the Blackwolf tribe was extinct, there''s a hope for your tribe to recover as long as the pendent exists. The ruby in the pendent is the gateway to that independent space. Am I right?"


    "How did you know? How could you open it? That''s my tribe''s halidom. Except the Elder Shaman..."


    "Of course I can open it!" Junior Leopard ridiculed her. "Do you think that just the tribe''s Elder Shaman can open it? Only small tribes like you living in the north have such a narrow outlook. Such a thing should be a rare thing for you. It''s not something hard to get. In the Central Plains, many people have the capability to open it. Otherwise, why do you think that the Wang Family was in hot pursuit of you?"


    "You..." At this time, the girl was so astonished and pavid that she could not utter a word.


    "Enough! You don''t have a chance at all. Either the enfeoffed lords in the north or Great Jin in the south won''t give Norther Yuan an opportunity to let it bob up like a cock. It''s impossible to return the Blackwolf tribe to its previous state. I suggest that you give up and stay with me tamely. Be my maidservant, marry a good man and live out your days in peace and security!"


    "You... you''re a demon!"


    The girl screamed and rushed to Junior Leopard, trying to fight with him.


    "How silly you are!" Junior Leopard touched the girl with a finger to make her pass out. He said loudly, "Zhu Ba, come in!"


    Zhu Ba came in with a forced smile.


    ...


    It was peaceful in territory in the following more than ten days. Zhu Ba brought a group of right-hand surbodinates back. In the whole territory, among those who accompanied Junior Leopard from the Central Plains to this place, there were only Zhu Ba, Jiang Xiao and four other carefree soldiers left. However, Old Kelsang surprised him once again with the advantage that he was familiar with the close terrain and tribe characteristics, he had recruited 100 herdsmen to roam the prairie. They entered Junior Leopard''s territory, including more than ten post-adolescents. Under Old Kelsang''s guidance, they built temporary residences at the foot of Jilei Mountain which had been marked on the map.


    Fortification was a dream to every tribe on the prairie. The reason was that only those most powerful tribes were qualified to build fortifications and city walls and moats. Although those city walls and moats looked very simple and crude, they were the symbols of power. Now that Old Kelsang''s tribe had been destroyed, if a city wall and moat could be constructed on their own land, it was a reassuring thing to him.


    In recent days, Junior Leopard was not off guard. On the one hand, he appointed Jiang Xiao to arrange several people to keep watch on Wang Hua''s territory. He did not believe that Wang Hua, with his temper, would easily give in since he had suffered a great loss from him. On the other hand, he had been dedicated to digging into the space connected with the ruby pendent.


    The space was segmented by the Space Division Skill. But it was much bigger than what Junior Leopard had separated. Its space area amounted to his two tents. Fortunes that had been amassed over the past years by the Blackwolf tribe were stacked in it. There were many rare pearls and wondrous precious stones, which dazzled Junior Leopard. Certainly, those were not the whole treasure. Golden stuff and priceless gems were just the things of lowest value. It also contained many Spiritual Stones, Genuine Weapons, costly medicinal herbs and some other things which could not be recognized by Junior Leopard.


    The Blackwolf tribe was one of the few big tribes on the prairie. In particular, it had dominated in the north of Dragon-pressing River for about 3,000 years. The best things that had been accumulated for about 3,000 years were stored in this space. Therefore, this time the stuff that Junior Leopard gained greatly exceeded what he got in the Cool Breeze Gang.


    "Wealth should not be exposed before others. It''s a large amount of treasure. Of course I won''t reveal it. There is too much. I can''t spend it in a short time. I''d better keep it."


    That was Junior Leopard''s plan. As a matter of fact, in the past few days, he was always trying to merge the space that he had cut by using the Space Division Skill with the small space connected with the ruby.


    If he could succeed, the merits were apparent. His Space Division Skill could divide a much larger area; meanwhile, he could also use that ruby to cast a mist before the eyes of others.


    That ruby was a mysterious object, not a common jade. It had not been fostered from stone. Instead, it had been grabbed from a certain beast, similar to Junior Leopard''s Poison-absorbing Green Bead. Although it looked like a dead thing, it had intelligence. It owned a faint but tough life spirit, or the spirit of a soul. Regrettably, it was so weak that it could only link with that independent space.


    Junior Leopard succeeded. After dozens of attempts, he successfully connected the two spaces. It was not perfect because there were still much room left for improvement at the point that joined the two spaces. However, given enough time, he would merge them totally. Regarding the ruby, he had already cast it into a ruby ring and wore on his left hand.

 Chapter 249: The most beautiful women in Jianghu Twenty Years Ago; Ruins Appears

    Chapter 249: The most beautiful women in Jianghu Twenty Years Ago; Ruins Appears


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Fate was a thing that mankind could not see and touch. To some extent, it was related to luck.


    When he was in the Immortal Palace, Junior Leopard once heard of relevant issues from his teacher of ancient Chinese characters.


    A man had fate. A family and a school had fate. So it was with a nation.


    Fate, in a way, meant fortune or destiny. It sounded abstruse and indeed was somewhat mysterious and beyond comprehension for Junior Leopard in his current phase.


    He only knew that a treasure capable of guarding fate could increase the fortune or destiny of a person, an organization, and even a country.


    Different nations, organizations, and persons had various fates. Thus treasures used to guard fate should be different. It must be compatible with the actual strength of the person, organization, or country. Otherwise, it would drive away all the fate rather than increase or maintain it.


    For example, a common well-known family, such as the Wu family, could suppress fate once it owned a psychic celestial device like Junior Leopard''s Demon Devil Needles. But if the device was much more high-end, like one at the mysterious level, Wu family would not dare keep it. They knew the valuable would finally bring misfortune to them even though they were innocent.


    It was enough for Jin, a rich nation, to use a Pure Yang Celestial Device, namely Heavenly Crown of Peace, to guard its fate. In fact, the most powerful device used by dynasties before Jin was only a celestial device at the mysterious level that was close to Extreme Yang Level.


    According to his teacher, if the emperors of Jin governed the country in a proper way, it could exist for thousands of years with the guarding of Pure Yang Celestial Device, the Heavenly Crown of Peace.


    As for those well-known families, they all had their own celestial devices to guard fate. Tribes of Northern Yuan also owned similar things.


    For instance, the ruby pendant that Junior Leopard transformed into a ruby ring was a celestial device of Blackwolf tribe to guard fate.


    The device, at best, was only a psychic celestial device, but owing to its rare spatial attribute, Blackwolf tribe succeeded in staging a comeback for times after suffering from disasters. But now it belonged to Junior Leopard. The tribe would thus lose its fate.


    As to the Clear Glass Jade Bottle, it was a fairy weapon far more powerful than a celestial device. It should never be used to deal with fate for one had no right unless one ruled the whole world. Nevertheless, dominating all life was only a thing pursued by some famous lunatics in history.


    Though the present Jin Emperor was ambitious, he was not that crazy. Thus he did not need to guard fate with the Clear Glass Jade Bottle.


    "Renzhen Cuo, why did Wang Hua know that you had the halidom of Blackwolf tribe and insist that it belonged to Wang family?" Junior Leopard asked.


    After interactions with the princess of Blackwolf tribe for a few days, Junior Leopard had known her name, Renzhen Cuo. She seemed to have a clear mind of her current situation and began to carefully serve Junior Leopard with an obedient attitude. Awkward as she was, her service could be ranked as not bad, given her previous status.


    Hearing this, Renzhen Cuo replied with a sad expression, "Shortly after you had conquered the Blackwolf town, I escaped with the halidom under my father''s demand and hid it in a safe place. Later, I was captured by your soldiers on the run and was brought to Yunzhou. I used to think that I would never have the opportunity to return to the prairie in my life. But unexpectedly, Wang Hua bought me to Yunzhou!"


    "After that, you went back to the prairie with them?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "That''s right. All the slaves they bought are sinners, and we all worked as guides. I didn''t expect that a bastard should recognize me!" Renzhen Cuo said, grinding her teeth in extreme anger. "I thought he was a kind man. I never expected that he would inform Wang family of me after gaining the halidom. It was just a futile effort to believe that he was bent on helping me reinvigorate Blackwolf tribe!"


    "What a fool!" Junior Leopard snickered and murmured. It appears that the guy swindled the little girl out of her halidom and love.


    Junior Leopard now figured out what had happened. The guy who recognized Renzhen Cuo was named Timur, a warrior of Blackwolf tribe. When he met her, he pretended to be excited as if he was loyal to Blackwolf tribe. However, he soon betrayed her and secretly monitored her under the order of Wang family. Besides, he wanted to rob her when Renzhen Cuo retrieved the pendant. But he did not expect that the girl would perceive his intention and cut off his pendant. She escaped and entered Junior Leopard''s territory by coincidence.


    "Well, I think I have known the whole story. You can stay in my territory at ease. I can promise you that no one will hurt you, but you''d better give up the idea of reviving Blackwolf tribe. Now that Northern Yuan has collapsed, it is impossible for you to reinvigorate the tribe!"


    "Of course. In the past years, I have accepted the fact. Your Central Plains people have a thriving fate while we have only been abandoned by Grassland God. Besides, you, the powerful people, have controlled the prairie. We have no chance to achieve the goal!"


    "It''s good for you to be realistic!" Junior Leopard said, nodding and smiling, after seeing the disappointed expression of Renzhen Cuo.


    At this moment, out of the camp came Jiang Xiao''s voice, "Your Excellency, here again comes the Wang family!"


    "What endless trouble!" Junior Leopard sneered and complained. When he talked with Renzhen Cuo, he felt the spirits of dozens of masters of martial arts approach. However, he did not care because those spirits did not move stealthily but instead drew near to his camp at the speed of common walking. Besides, he also felt the familiar spirit of Jiang Xiao in front of those masters.


    "Let them in!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency,"Jiang Xiao responded. He turned around and said to those masters behind him, "Please!"


    ......


    ...


    This time Wang family dispatched a fair number of people headed by a woman.


    "My honor to meet you, Your Excellency. I''m Wang Yue-er from Wang family in Cenzhou," Wang Yue-er stepped forward in front of Junior Leopard and said with her hands folded.


    "Wang Yue-er!" Junior Leopard''s eyes lit up because she was famous. "Haha, here is Miss Wang. If I was told of your arrival ahead of time, I would have welcomed you at the door!"


    He rose to his feet from the seat and moved forward with an apologetic expression to Wang Yue-er.


    "It''s very nice of you, Your Excellency. Please forgive Yue-er for coming here without an invitation."


    Junior Leopard gave two hollow laughs and said, "Miss Wang, sit down, please. Jiang Xiao, let a servant girl quickly offer tea!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" Jiang Xiao replied, nodding his head and naturally leading Renzhen Cuo out of the camp.


    After everyone sat down, Junior Leopard smiled and asked, " Miss Wang, could you tell me what do you come here for?"


    "I come here, first, to apologize to Your Excellency for the offense of my cousin several days ago, and second, to capture the fugitive slave. Would you mind my taking away the slave? We will subject her to discipline."


    "You are too serious, Miss Wang!" Junior Leopard replied and gave a hollow laugh feeling uncomfortable for what she said, thinking to himself, "Sh*t. I am only 17, while you b*tch are 37. You are old enough to be my mother. Why do you call yourself Yue-er? No f*cking shame!"


    Even though she was 37, honestly speaking, she was beautiful. After catching sight of Miss Wang, Junior Leopard, with a memory of a previous life, where he had decades of experience exposed to the computer Photoshop technology, had to admit that she was a beauty.


    Because of her attractiveness and eminent status, she was known as the most beautiful women in Jianghu over two decades ago and pursued by countless teens and persons with exceptional ability. It was said that duels for her were more than one hundred. All participants were juveniles or outstanding figures with names in Jianghu at that time just like Junior Leopard.


    Moreover, though Miss Wang was nearly forty, she appeared to be a maiden in her twenties, attractive and gorgeous, more charming than younger, immature women.


    However, the most beautiful women in Jianghu two decades ago was not mere eye candy. As a matter of fact, she was a well-known martial artist.


    Wang Yue-er was born with great talent and strong savvy. When she was 17, she made cultivation reach Level Four and became one of the most renowned masters of martial arts among the young generation in Jianghu at that time.


    All these attributes, young, beautiful, noble, and highly skilled in martial arts, had formed the most striking landscape in Jianghu. You could say that people of the whole Jianghu had been crazy for this woman at that time.


    "What a pity that she was already 37 years old!" Junior Leopard thought.


    Though she looked like a twenty-something woman, Junior Leopard was not interested in her.


    "About Wang Hua, I have already taught him a lesson. No need to mention. As for the so-called fugitive slave, honestly, I knew nothing about her. You know, my territory, covering 282,600 square kilometers, contains mountains and rivers. If someone flees here and hides in a corner at random, no one knows whether the person is frozen to death, drowned, or eaten by wolves. Is that right?"


    "What you say adds up. I shouldn''t have troubled you for this matter, but someone happened to see the slave in your territory and was taken in by Your Excellency. For this reason, I come to you!"


    Zhou Bao laughed and asked, "Really? I want to see which son of a bitch has eyes on his buttock. Miss Wang, words alone are no proof. Do you have any direct evidence?"


    "No problem," Wang Yue-er said confidently. She turned half around and nodded toward a family servant in greenish-blue standing nearby. The servant stood.


    "He is a family servant named Timur. It is he that first found the fugitive slave!" Wang Yue-er pointed out the pale man and said, "The maidservant who had stood beside you just now is exactly the slave of our Wang family. Her name is Renzhen Cuo, originally a princess of Blackwolf tribe. If you have any other question, you can ask her!"


    "The story is funny. You randomly let a family servant testify that our maidservant is a fugitive slave of your Wang family," Junior Leopard replied. "Likewise, I can ask some random person to prove that this so-called Timur guy is the dog that we lost twenty years ago, can''t I?"


    "Your Excellency, please do not draw a hasty conclusion. He is only the first witness, and I have another to verify that on the day our Wang family chased fugitive slaves, that maidservant fled to your territory and got caught by your soldiers. Two days later, she unexpectedly became your maidservant to provide service for you!"


    Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows and asked, "Really? Then I would like to see who the witness is!"


    "He is one of your men, Your Excellency!" Miss Wang said and clapped her hands. Then a man lifted the curtain and entered.


    "Your Excellency, don''t you know him?"


    The guy was in his thirties with only one arm. Junior Leopard remembered he was one of the first nomadic herdsmen entering his territory.


    "My man? To be honest, I actually don''t know him. Miss Wang, you know, since I came here, I have always stayed in the camp all day long and hardly gone out. It is Jiang Xiao that takes charge of those specific matters. Jiang Xiao, come in and tell me whether you know this guy?"


    "I don''t know him!" The voice of Jiang Xiao came out before he lifted the curtain.


    The curtain was lifted again, and Jiang Xiao came in and said to Renzhen Cuo who came with him, "Offer some tea to our guests!"


    Renzhen Cuo responded in a low voice. Looking down, she at first poured Junior Leopard a cup of tea. Then she walked carefully to the front of Wang family and served them the hot drink.


    "Zhou Bao, she is here. How dare you deny the fact!" A man shouted.


    He suddenly gripped her wrist when Renzhen Cuo served tea. He is a member of the Wang family.


    Renzhen Cuo screamed and tea in her hands spilled all over the floor.


    After that was a long silence in the camp.


    Junior Leopard squinted and slightly raised his head showing a cold smile.


    "Miss Wang, I think Wang family had better replace the head of the fief next to mine".


    "What does that mean?" Wang Yue-er''s countenance fell, and her tone became cold.


    "Wang Hua rubs me the wrong way. If he is my neighbor, I will become irritable. If I am irascible, I will kill people. In order to save Miss Wang''s face, I give up killing him today. However, I cannot promise you that I won''t slay him in the future. Therefore, you''d better replace him for the sake of profits of Wang family."


    "It is a threat?"


    "I''m just giving you a piece of advice!"


    "Your Excellency, you should not forget that the fief doesn''t belong to our Wang family and that his Majesty distributes it to us. So we have no authority to take the place of the head!" Wang Yue-er said. "You also have no right to replace him, or you want to tell us that you will kill the meritorious statesman who contributed a lot in the battle of overthrowing Northern Yuan?"


    "A meritorious statesman, so what? He acted indecently against my maidservant in my camp. Even if I have to argue in front of the emperor, I will not be afraid." Junior Leopard shouted and suddenly pointed at Wang Hua, "Let her go, or I will kill you immediately!"


    A crisp sound was heard, "Bang!" It was Wang Yue-er who slapped one arm of the chair into small pieces. Then she turned around and said, "Wang Hua, put down your hand!"


    "Yes, madam!" Wang Hua behaved like a cat with good manners in front of Wang Yue-er, loosening his grip on Renzhen Cuo''s hand.


    "Your Excellency, you see, this woman is the fugitive slave of our Wang family who stole our treasure. For the sake of your face, I won''t take her away, but she must hand out that highly valued object!"


    Junior Leopard laughed grimly and said, "She is not your fugitive slave. She is my maidservant. She came with me from Yunzhou. Miss Wang, I think you''d better look for your slave in other places!"


    "Zhou Bao, it seems that you want to stand opposite to our Wang family!" Wang Yue-er said in a deep voice.


    "If you determine to menace me with Wang family, that''s a great accusation!" Junior Leopard replied, sneering. Then he gently took up a cup for a sip and continued, "I''m sorry. Miss Wang, my place is too small to accommodate members of your Wang family. All of you, leave, please. Jiang Xiao, see them out!"


    "Zhou Bao...!"


    "What? Miss Wang wants to discuss with me more?" Junior Leopard added, raising his eyebrows with a sneer. "You have 12 people excluding that waste of space: seven at Level Four, three at Level Five, and two at Level Six including you. Believe it or not, I can smash you all with one stroke of the hammer."


    "Good, very good!" Wang Yue-er said in anger. Taking a deep breath, she rose to her feet and forced herself to calm down. She thought to herself that for nearly 40 years since she was born, no one, even her parents, had talked to her with such an attitude, let alone a 17-year-old boy."


    "Now that you give an order to evict us, I am not a shameless person and will certainly leave. But I hope that you won''t forget what has happened today!"


    "I don''t have a good memory, but Miss Wang can remind me in time!" Junior Leopard said and laughed scornfully, putting the cup on the desk. "Have a safe trip home. I don''t bother to see you out!"


    "Let''s go!" Wang Yue-er flung her sleeve and turned around to walk away.


    "Wait a minute!"


    "Well, Your Excellency wants us to stay?"


    "It is none of your business!" Junior Leopard grinned with dissatisfaction and looked at the witness with one arm who had already turned around. "You want to go? You can''t. I have decided to hang you. If you leave, I will have nobody to hang!"


    "What? You¡­ Miss Wang, please save me. You said that you would take me away. Miss Wang, you said..."


    Wang Yue-er glanced at him and then turned to look at Junior Leopard.


    "Miss Wang, you don''t want to go now? Do you want to see how I hang this guy?"


    "Humph!" Wang Yue-er flung her sleeve again and left with the other members of Wang family.


    "Your Excellency, spare my life. Your Excellency, spare my life. Your Excellency, spare my life. I just temporarily get confused. I..." The one-arm witness suddenly knelt down.


    "Jiang Xiao, fix a wooden post at the side of Wang family''s territory and hang him at the top of the post!" Junior Leopard waved his hand and said.


    "Yes, Your Excellency!"


    ...


    ...


    "He is too much! He is honestly too much! This guy, Zhou Bao, is confident of his own martial arts and obviously looks down on our Wang family. Cousin Yue-er, why don''t you fight with him? Though he is an expert at Level Seven, we have 12 people¡­"


    "Shut up!" Wang Yue-er scolded her in a cold voice and mercilessly stared at Wang Hua. "You are just a waste of space and failed to watch a little woman. How can you have the face to make irresponsible remarks? Fight? How dare you! He is an expert at Level Seven. He alone destroyed the whole Cool Breeze Gang. It is a piece of cake for him to kill all of us. I will report this matter to the Family Head. Shut your mouth and come back to Central Plains with me three days later. Wang Fu will handle all affairs here."


    "Ah? Why? This is my fief!"


    "Your fief? It is useless to own any large fief if you lose your life!"


    "I don''t believe that he dares to kill me."


    "Of course he dares. With his strength, he can kill you without a trace. It''s easy for him. His intention to kill you is obvious. If you insist on staying here, you will doubtlessly die!"


    "But..."


    "It''s settled. No more words!" Wang Yue-er said in a deep voice.


    ......


    ¡­


    "Your Excellency, he is dead", Jiang Xiao said.


    "Good, just let him hang there!" Junior Leopard said, "Ask all the people to see the consequence of betraying me!"


    "Yes!" Jiang Xiao replied, "but, Your Excellency, do you think it''s appropriate? Wang Yue-er is not a simple person. It is said that in those years..."


    "Her gossip in those days was widely known in Jianghu and was even written into a book. Of course, I know!" Junior Leopard said.


    "But you still..."


    "I what? Let me tell you. This woman lives a comfortable and luxurious life for a long time and is accustomed to commanding others in a proud manner. Those people extolled her for twenty or thirty years. That''s too much! Now, she has an exaggerated opinion of her own abilities. For this kind of women, do not spoil them, or they will be more and more arrogant. Pay no more attention to her. She is a nobody."


    "Yes, Your Excellency," Jiang Xiao responded. Though he disagreed with what Junior Leopard said, he did not dare to argue as before. Junior Leopard today was not the man several years ago. His cultivation has reached Level Seven. Despite the fact that he treated his followers in a gentle manner, people like Jiang Xiao, with a cultivation of Level Three, dared not think to rebel against him threatened by his expert spirit shown unintentionally or on purpose. When Junior Leopard made a decision, he did not have the courage to rebuke it though he had different opinions.


    "I know what you are worried about. If Wang Yue-er were 20 years younger, I would also worry that her pursuers might pick on me. However, she now is nearly 40. Do you think those pursuers, young men of exceptional abilities at that time, who left numerous stories of flirting with girls, will fight for her? Mr. Jiang, if you were one of them, would you?"


    "Er, if so¡­" Thinking of the beautiful face of Wang Yue-er, Jiang Xiao blushed and said shyly, "Your Excellency, actually I''m not sure about that!"


    "Hum, you''re a spoony!" Junior Leopard derided and then walked away.


    ......


    ...


    The prairie at midnight was particularly quiet. On the cloudless sky was a full moon spreading its water-like light to the ground. The entire prairie was thus in frosty white.


    Suddenly, the sky became overcast for an unexpected dark cloud blocked the bright moon. The prairie was immediately in the dark. Later, dark clouds in the sky gathered and formed larger and larger clouds.


    "Boom boom..."


    There was a crash of dull thunder, and the bright lightning suddenly lit up the earth.


    "Boom, boom, boom..."


    After the first thunder, the second one came soon, ensuing the third, the fourth...


    The rumbling thunders came one by one. The rumbles resounded through the prairie.


    "What happened?" Junior Leopard abruptly opened his eyes as if he got scared, and his face blanched.


    "Why is my heart pumping so fast? Why do I feel that something will happen? I only reach Level Seven. Why do I have such a strong feeling? Why do I...?"


    He stood up from the bed and lifted the curtain of the camp. Bean-like raindrops were falling from the sky. He did not care about that. When he raised his head, he was suddenly dumbfounded. "What is that? A mirage?" Junior Leopard thought.


    Moonlight originally spreading on the prairie had been completely blocked by unexpected dark clouds. There was no light here. It was so dark that you could not see your hand in front of you. Everyone had hidden in the camp. If they were awake, they would not walk out of the camp like he. Even if they walked outside, they could see nothing.


    However, Junior Leopard saw that. He saw clearly that in the remote eastern sky, there were huge city ruins.


    "No light, so that is not a mirage." Junior Leopard squinted and said, "What is that?"

 Chapter 250: Ancient Ruins Appeared, and Experts All Rushed Forward Like Going to Market.

    Chapter 250: Ancient Ruins Appeared, and Experts All Rushed Forward Like Going to Market.


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Can''t others see that thing except me?" Junior Leopard thought. After an overnight heavy rainstorm, fresh, clean air drifted across the prairie in the morning making him relaxed and brisk.


    Though the weather was Junior Leopard''s favorite, his attention was attracted by the enormous ruins hanging in the air.


    It seemed that the other people did not see it!


    Now and then, the sunlight went through the clouds. He found that once the light shone on the hanging ruins in the eastern sky, the illuminated part of the ruins would reflect colorful light, which looked amazing.


    But it could only be seen by him.


    Others were unable to see it. Standing on the prairie, he spent a while openly staring at the eastern sky. This riveted Jiang Xiao''s attention to follow his sight, but Jiang Xiao seemed to find nothing. What did that mean?


    It meant that he could not see it.


    "Why can''t they see it? Why only I can see that? Because of the Fiery Eyes?" Junior Leopard thought. At that moment he got shocked as if he saw a ghost and quickly returned his sight to the eastern sky.


    Junior Leopard knew no more about the Fiery Eyes than what he had known since he was six. If he made efforts to investigate it, he surely would know more. He was sure that he had better mention nothing about it and hide his mysterious eyes like grim death. In this way, safety could be guaranteed. He just would not be informed of any secret and message about Fiery Eyes.


    "Kiddo, what are you looking at?" called out a voice.


    Maybe he was so concentrated on the secret that he failed to notice the man who had come to him closer than a hundred feet.


    "Golden Rooster? Oh, it''s you!" Junior Leopard said.


    He was taken aback when he saw Golden Rooster and stopped casting hands for defense.


    Golden Rooster continued, "I know you have been used to staying in your own territory, but we have no choice. Now we have a task."


    "A task?" Junior Leopard laughed and asked, "Another big business?"


    It should be known that even if Junior Leopard was one of the 28 constellations of Immortal Palace, he was not concerned about what happened there. Obviously, Immortal Palace knew and understood his considerations. Now that it sent Golden Rooster to get him, there must be a big business.


    "It is not a business this time," Jin "Golden Rooster" Yuquan explained. He looked bad and continued, "Moon Deer of Extended Net gets in trouble and is being hunted. Our task is to save him."


    "Moon Deer of Extended Net?" Junior Leopard asked, feeling puzzled at first but soon remembering that Moon Deer of Extended Net was also one of the 28 constellations.


    "Only you and me?" Junior Leopard asked. He knew that the weakest of the 28 constellations of Immortal Palace was at least at Level Seven. The chaser who was capable of killing an expert at Level Seven must be very strong.


    "We two will be enough," Golden Rooster replied.


    "When shall we set out?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "As soon as possible," Golden Rooster replied.


    "Okay. But I need some time to make arrangements here," Junior Leopard replied without any hesitation. He did not refuse it because it was his duty to help Moon Deer of Extended Net since he was a member of Immortal Palace, as he thought. Of course, the duty was limited to members of Immortal Palace.


    It was the same situation as the previous conflict against Cool Breeze Gang. If Junior Leopard did not openly stand opposite to Cool Breeze Gang, Immortal Palace would also send someone to help him when he could not stop them. He chose to fight toughly at first so Immortal Palace asked him to pay the labor remuneration for protecting his family.


    For him, one of the 28 constellations, it was his unshirkable duty to help Moon Deer of Extended Net, another member of the 28 constellations who was being chased for a kill.


    When he finally finished arranging for Jiang Xiao to take over the territory, he had completely forgotten the ruins hanging in the eastern sky.


    He flew much faster on Reining Sword than Golden Rooster, which quite delighted him.


    Junior Leopard sportively said, "Golden Rooster, don''t fly so slowly. You know, our brother is being chased. Would you please be a little more professional?"


    "Shut up!" Golden Rooster shouted. Watching Junior Leopard so relaxedly flying on Reining Sword, he felt a little bit angry and depressed. He added, "You should know you are a sword practicer. To compare with you in speed? Do you take me for a fool?"


    "That''s true. You can''t fly faster," Junior Leopard chuckled. All of a sudden, he became slightly nervous because he found that Golden Rooster turned his direction straightforward to the eastern sky as if he was flying straight to the ruins in the air.


    "Why are you flying this way? We are flying to Central Plains, aren''t we?" Junior Leopard asked in a hurry.


    "If it were five days ago, we indeed should fly to Central Plains. But now, Moon Deer of Extended Net has run to the East Sea." Golden Rooster reluctantly said, "He is nicer than wise. When he was chased at first, he didn''t even notify us and wanted to handle by himself. When he realized he himself could not deal with it, he got in touch with Immortal Palace and was at that time chased to the East Sea. Later, Immortal Palace informed me, and I came to get you. All this took time. He might have run into the inner area of the sea. Nobody knows whether he is still alive."


    "If he is dead, we will just make a wasted trip," Junior Leopard said.


    "If so, we can inform Immortal Palace and kill all the people who chased him," Golden Rooster said, "whoever they are or whatever organization they belong to." His words revealed his anger and murderous intent.


    Hearing this, Junior Leopard was startled and slightly trembled for it reminded him that he had killed one of the 28 constellations 10 years ago.


    "Why don''t you fight with Lu Shaoyou? It''s because of him that Xue Wuya disappeared," he asked.


    "Xue Wuya? A bastard. Lu Shaoyou was no stronger than him. Both of them were at Level Eight. Even though he was chased by Lu Shaoyou, he would not be killed theoretically, but he disappeared 10 years ago. Even by now, we cannot verify whether he is dead or not," explained Golden Rooster. "It is said that he hides in the Misty Mountain for practicing some martial arts. Maybe a few years later he will come out and revenge himself on Lu Shaoyou."


    "You don''t like Xue Wuya, do you?" Junior Leopard said.


    "Nobody likes that guy, even his partners," Golden Rooster replied. "Actually, few of the 28 constellations agreed with his joining Immortal Palace before."


    "Then why did he finally join Immortal Palace?" Junior Leopard continued to ask.


    "Immortal Palace held its own principle. Xue Wuya matched all the conditions so we had no reason to reject him," Jin Yuquan said. He turned to Junior Leopard and asked, "Why are you suddenly so interested in Xue Wuya?"


    "Nothing. Just your words seem to be telling me that we will never let off whoever offends Immortal Palace," Junior Leopard said.


    "That''s correct. We are part of Immortal Palace. People who deliberately provoke us will pay the price," Golden Rooster said with pride.


    Then he gave a derisive snort and added, "Like this time."


    "Who did Moon Deer of Extended Net offend on earth leading to the chase?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "He might have known some secrets, which makes the incident so mysterious. Besides, his fleeing direction was puzzling, too. In fact, he was very close to Immortal Palace," Golden Rooster answered. "If he chose to run for us, he wouldn''t get into such trouble today, but he fled to the sea, which looks quite strange."


    "So you have not yet discovered the secret?"


    "We all have our own secrets. Immortal Palace is not aimed at digging out secrets of its members," said Golden Rooster.


    They flew in the air at a relatively high speed toward the East Sea that was over 3,100 miles away from the territory of Junior Leopard. If Junior Leopard himself flew on the Reining Sword at the highest speed, it would take him almost a whole day. Golden Rooster was an expert at Level Eight, but he did not fly well at speed. Given that Junior Leopard had to reduce speed to accommodate his companion, it might take them two days to arrive at the destination.


    They had flown for six or eight hours. In the eyes of Junior Leopard, they were flying toward the hanging ruins. But it was strange that the ruins were much farther than expected. After hours of flying, he found that the ruins seemed to be still hidden under the misty scenery with hills and waters. Hanging in the air, it was as far away as he saw for the very first time.


    "It becomes increasingly like a mirage. It''s so weird that even Golden Rooster cannot see it. Maybe it was my Fiery Eyes that allow me to see the ruins. I hope it''s just my illusion. Damn it. It must be my illusion. I CANNOT see it." Junior Leopard murmured and slightly looked down.


    ......


    ¡­


    It was two days later at the seashore of the East Sea.


    Roaring waves crashed each other with spindrifts splashing.


    When they arrived at the East Sea, the hanging ruins in the air became even more clear. Even some buildings and objects inside could be seen clearly. However, it was still in the distance.


    Both Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster stopped there.


    Junior Leopard silently exercised the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and hid behind a rock. Golden Rooster also held his breath and hid nearby.


    Shortly after they finished hiding, two whistles over their heads pierced the silence, which were produced by two rays with different colors. Both rays were flying toward the deep sea. It turned out to be the Gang Qi flying, a skill owned by experts at Level Seven.


    When the two experts flew away, Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster showed their heads over the rocks. "Wow, the spiritual mind is powerful. After all, they are real experts at Level Eight." Junior Leopard asked, "Are they chasing Moon Deer of Extended Net?"


    Golden Rooster shook his head and replied, "Of course not. The chasers must have entered into the inner area of the East Sea. It is impossible for them to come here later than us."


    Suddenly a look of seriousness flashed across his face, and he said in a hurry, "Someone is coming." They hid again.


    However, this time came four experts, not two.


    "What the hell is going on? Why are there so many experts at Level Seven in the world, and why do they all come to the East Sea? Are they going to market?" Junior Leopard complained.


    Jin Yuquan frowned and replied, "Not to market, but some urgent thing must have happened."


    It would not be appalling if there were only one or two experts at Level Seven, but just now five experts appeared. In the world, experts at Level Seven were rare. Even for those millennium families and barons, those experts, as strategic figures and weapons, were very precious resources. It was inconceivable that so many experts showed up at the seashore of the East Sea. Some earth-shaking thing must have happened.


    At this moment, several whistles were heard from the air.


    "This time came people at Level Eight," Golden Rooster said and was on the alert at once, but those experts just left them alone and flew toward the depths of East Sea like the first ones.


    Junior Leopard slightly closed his eyes, watching them. Where they flew toward was exactly the weird ruins hanging in the sky.


    "Golden Rooster, what are you planning for? I don''t think you have told me that so many experts are chasing Moon Deer of Extended Net," Junior Leopard asked. He turned dissatisfied. "I don''t want to get involved in this big trouble in the East Sea."


    "Nor do I. What about finding a place to stay before we know what exactly happened?" Golden Rooster suggested. He looked a little restless and continued, "We have flown for two days without regular rest. Besides, we haven''t contacted with Immortal Palace. Now that so many experts come to the East Sea, something must have happened here. We need to get new information."


    "OK. Where is the nearest contact point?" Junior Leopard asked.


    Golden Rooster replied, "Contact points of Immortal Palace are scattered everywhere. You should have known that."


    Junior Leopard shook his head and said, "I still cannot imagine and get used to the fact that Immortal Palace has such enormous strength."


    Golden Rooster patted on the shoulder of Junior Leopard and said, "Trust me. You will gradually get used to it. Let''s go now."


    ......


    ¡­


    "Ancient Ruins? You mean the Ancient Ruins appear in the depths of the East Sea?"


    It was in a town centralization beside the East Sea. Golden Rooster was quite excited about the news.


    "Ancient Ruins? What''s that?" Junior Leopard asked. Actually, his heart thumped with excitement, but he had to pretend that he knew nothing about it.


    "The so-called Ancient Ruins is the same thing as Immortal Palace in nature," Golden Rooster explained. "Both of them are independent spaces created by great practicers with Divine Sense through Space Division Skill in antiquity times. The difference between the two is that Immortal Palace has always been used while the other was abandoned."


    "You mean both of them are independent spaces divided in antiquity times?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "Exactly. Every school in antiquity times had such a space," replied a woman in her forties or fifties who was standing beside Golden Rooster. Dressed in vulgar grid-printed cotton clothing, she was snacking on a handful of sunflower seeds, one by one. The shells of the seeds were being spat out from her mouth and scattered across the floor.


    "But most independent spaces have been abandoned, left drifting in the hollow. The space created by Space Division Skill should be connected with a spirit. When the space owner disappears, it will not exist unless another thing substitutes the spirit. For example, the ring on your finger," the woman continued.


    Junior Leopard was startled and subconsciously stroked the ruby ring on the finger of his left hand. He regretted in his heart, "I did disguise myself. However, we set out in a hurry, so I forget to get this eye-catching ruby ring off my finger."


    Junior Leopard chuckled to dissimulate and said, "You have sharp eyes." Then he took the ring off and put it in the pocket near his chest.


    "Generally, if the owner of a huge divided independent space like this was dead, it will drift in the hollow and gradually disappear. Finally, it will integrate with the hollow. Only a few with substitutes will exist for a long time. Of course, when the substitute is broken, the space will also be part of the hollow," the woman supplemented, "but some rare and special conditions will make the space open to the world again. People call it Ancient Ruins."


    "Thank you for your introduction," Junior Leopard said, "but how can we know about the presence of the Ancient Ruins? Did somebody see it before?"


    The woman sneered and said, "See? Nobody can see that except people with Fiery Eyes. What a pity that the bloodline of Fiery Eyes has been cleaned out thousands of years ago!"


    "People with Fiery Eyes can see the Ancient Ruins!" Junior Leopard was shocked.


    "The bloodline of Fiery Eyes is the only one that enables people to directly see Ancient Ruins. But some other bloodlines can also feel the appearance of Ancient Ruins. If not so, why are there so many experts flying in the sky? Do you really think that they are going to market?" Golden Rooster added.


    Junior Leopard added, "They go for the Ancient Ruins."


    "Yes, for the Ancient Ruins," said Golden Rooster. "It seems that Moon Deer of Extended Net is being chased because he got the news about the presence of the Ancient Ruins. This is why he didn''t go to Immortal Palace and ask for help but ran toward the East Sea instead."


    "At present, only a few super-old seniors know the Space Division Skill. Because Ancient Ruins is not attractive to them, they won''t come to it," the woman added, "but the problem is that some other greedy people will."


    "Wow, you are such an expert on all these things!" Junior Leopard exclaimed. He seemed to be a little surprised and raised his eyebrow. Actually, he was extremely curious about the liaisons planted everywhere. With no cultivation, these people all looked worn with age as if they were ordinary people like the old man in the mortuary. Junior Leopard thought that some liaisons in other places were extraordinary as well, but he did not know why. After listening to her clear and logical analysis, he was more certain that this liaison, who appeared to be an ordinary and tacky middle-aged woman, was not that simple.


    "Kiddo, don''t pay attention to me. You and little Golden Rooster should go to the East Sea as soon as possible. Maybe you are lucky enough to find the entrance to the Ancient Ruins and get some benefits from it," the woman said to Junior Leopard. "You must have a good luck to get so much cultivation at your young age. Don''t miss this opportunity. As for our liaisons, you will gradually know about us. After all, you are part of Immortal Palace."


    "You just now mention some greedy people. Who are they?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "The emperor of Jin is one of them. As for others, they are not very strong. Even though you two are no match for them, you can still escape with your strength," she replied.


    Hearing this, Junior Leopard felt helpless, just looking at Golden Rooster without saying a word.


    "We''ve got to go." Golden Rooster turned to the woman and said, "Aunt Hua, thank you for your news!"


    "You''re welcome. Just go ahead. Try your best to get some benefits. It is for thousands of years that the boring world has not changed," Aunt Hua said, waving her hand and smiling. Eating sunflower seeds, she then walked out of the house with her chubby hip swaying.

 Chapter 251: Small Thunder Temple and the Secret of the Underground Palace

    Chapter 251: Small Thunder Temple and the Secret of the Underground Palace


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What on earth is in Ancient Ruins to let so many people focus on?!"


    "No one knows what is in Ancient Ruins. Among these independent spaces of the antiquity times, some of them may even produce fairy weapons sometimes. However, they may also produce nothing but danger. Nevertheless, the showing up of the latest Ancient Ruins occurred thousands of years ago. No one knows how it came into being or which one in the antiquity times created it!"


    "But why are so many people still running there?"


    "Danger and opportunity are coexisting. Otherwise Moon Deer of Extended Net, that guy wouldn''t have been in such a plight!" Jin Yuquan just sneered and said.


    "But, according to the rules of the Immortal Palace, even if Zhang finds the ruins and profits from them, the palace will not pay any attention, right?"


    "Sure, but the prerequisite was that he is able to manage it. Now you see, he can''t manage it and we are now involved!"


    "That might be a good thing!"


    "Good is shit!" Jin Yuquan shook head and said, "Do not think that something good is in that ruins or that treasures are everywhere. I''m telling you, countless powerful men have been buried in Ancient Ruins since the medieval period, even someone with Fiery Eyes could not make a successful retreat, let alone today that the bloodline of Fiery Eyes is extinct!"


    "You seem to have a good understanding of Fiery Eyes," Junior Leopard said, seemingly nonchalantly, "there''re many legends about Fiery Eyes, but the legends I know are too unbelievable. I didn''t know Fiery Eyes could be so beneficial when exploring Ancient Ruins!"


    "Ancient Ruins have not appeared for thousands of years, and only a few people know of their existence. No wonder you have never heard about it. As to Fiery Eyes, numerous views exist in the upper echelons of Jianghu, but these are farfetched hearsay. No one except the one who truly owns them, knows the real function of Fiery Eyes. What people really know about them is the fact that they are the best material for refining external elixir, and this is due to the fact that they''re able to dramatically enhance the spiritual mind of the owner, as well as finding the ruins directly. For other things, it might be, each according to his lights!"


    "Then, why did people destroy the bloodlines of Fiery Eyes at that time?"


    "The genocide of the bloodlines of Fiery Eyes is creepy, even the Immortal Palace knows nothing about who designed it. You know, at that time, due to the strong potential of Fiery Eyes, all the schools in the martial arts world enthusiastically searched for the disciples with the bloodline of Fiery Eyes to cultivate. For this reason, people with such bloodlines were gathered in all kinds of great schools, including Tian Long Taoism, Sect of Flame, Dark Sect and so on. These people existed on both the good and the evil side. But one day, in these great schools, the disciples with Fiery Eyes collectively betrayed and they were widely hunted all over the world. Gradually it became a big matter affecting the whole martial arts world. These schools not only hunted the betrayers, but also the people with the bloodline of Fiery Eyes. It seemed to premeditate. Over a short period of three years, all the bloodlines of Fiery Eyes were liquidated!"


    "Didn''t Immortal Palace participate in it?"


    "No, the palace never does such boring things, and this thing is obviously related to the secret of those great schools. Their behavior later on proved it. Whenever the bloodline of Fiery Eyes showed up, they would immediately appear and kill the person with it, resolving to destroy whole bloodlines!"


    "Isn''t Immortal Palace interested in it?"


    "There''s no owner of Fiery Eyes in the Immortal Palace, thus, we have nothing to do with it!" Golden Rooster shook head and said, "besides, this is the secret of those great schools. Inquiring about the secrets of others is taboo in Jianghu, and Immortal Palace will never do such thankless tasks!"


    "But now Ancient Ruins have appeared... If only there was a person with the bloodline of Fiery Eyes!"


    "Come on, do not make trouble. Having the bloodline of Fiery Eyes is not likely a good thing," Jin Yuquan shook his head and took a glimpse at Junior Leopard, "but it would be a good thing if you were able to get a Fiery Eye as an External Elixir!"


    Junior Leopard, saying nothing, just giggled and went on ahead.


    The journey took another day. They met several groups of experts during the journey, among which the smaller ones looked like them, consisting of only two members, while the bigger ones consisted of three or four members. They kept a certain distance when meeting others, separating after being contacted. They never greeted, talked to, nor provoked a huge row.


    Both Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster were dressed like the 28 constellations in the Immortal Palace. Among these experts, most of them, whose cultivation was above Level Eight, seemed to know of the existence of Immortal Palace. Even those who didn''t know the background of the two naturally knew that they were not to be trifled with when seeing their peculiar attire. Believing that the less trouble they encountered, the better, certainly all of them avoided causing any trouble for the two. Therefore, the two didn''t encounter any problems on their journey.


    Although the two had profound cultivation, they felt fatigue after flying for a whole day. Suspended in the air and seeing the vast blue waves, Junior Leopard gave a wry smile and said, "Well, Golden Rooster, the East Sea is broad and immense, where can we find Moon Deer of Extended Net?"


    "Follow those guys. I''m now sure that the hunting down of Moon Deer of Extended Net is related to the Ancient Ruins. We don''t know where it is, but it should be in the orient according to the flying direction of the people we met throughout the day. Despite Moon Deer of Extended Net''s cultivation being Level Seven, it''s not a patch on us. After being hunted for such a long time, he should be injured and not able to escape much further. Either he is so unlucky that he has been caught already or he is so lucky that he has already entered the Ancient Ruins. Nobody is quite sure!"


    "But..."


    "Come on, go after taking a rest. I suppose the journey will end soon!"


    "Let''s go!"


    ...


    ...


    The East Sea was so vast that all that could be obtained from taking a broad view was the sea water. There were some isolated islands which could be seen occasionally, protruding above the boundless sea and seemingly about to be devoured at any time by the surging waves.


    The two flew for half a day and didn''t stop until the night totally fell and the bright moonlight rose above the sea level.


    What was in front of them was a huge island having a circumference of 50 kilometers; the undulating hills on the island also nearly stretched the same length of the island, taking up more than half of the island.


    Suspended in the air and being nearly five or more kilometers away from the island, the two heard the sound of booming and felt the occasional exploded gloss of Gang Qi.


    "Is it here?"


    "Sounds about right!"


    The two blocked their spirits and slowly landed on the island.


    "Luo Haiyun, do you think you are able to escape the hunting of our Wang family?"


    "The Wang family in Cenzhou?"


    The violent roaring happened to be heard by Junior Leopard as soon as he landed on the island, "What a small f**king world! I meet the Wang''s family members in such a deserted place!"


    "Luo Haiyun is Moon Deer of Extended Net. He is the current family head of Luo family in the Minshan Commandery, which has also been a distinguished family for centuries. But it''s far more inferior to the Wang family, the millennium family!"


    Junior Leopard nodded, "What should we do now? Save him?"


    "Just wait and see. Moon Deer of Extended Net has a defensive celestial device with him which is hard to beat in battle, it''s totally enough for self-protection!"


    Junior Leopard knowingly nodded, turning his eyes to the battlefield.


    At this moment, the fighting had been incandesced. Luo Haiyun was a middle-aged man that could be judged as handsome. But now he was in a tough plight. His magnificent robe was in shreds and stained by blood, dangling on his body. His messy hair was arbitrarily dispersed and stuck on his face by sweat. Luo Haiyun''s face was pale due to losing too much blood and he had a layer of yellow Gang Qi wrapped him, but the Qi seemed a bit dark when flashing. It seemed that he could not hold on for much longer.


    Four experts of Level Seven were besieging Luo Haiyun. They were all dressed in the same attire. In Junior Leopard''s eyes, the clothes style was similar to the attire of the Wang''s slaves in the grassland. But their clothes were golden and more gorgeous compared to the slaves in cyan, and the material used for making the clothes was certainly superior to those humble ones.


    They fiercely jumped towards Luo Haiyun with Gang Qi of various colors glittering on their bodies. The difference was nuanced in terms of cultivation, however, Luo Haiyun outnumbered, which meant they were at an absolute advantage. Moreover, an expert whose clothes style was similar, but of a dark gold color, was on the battlefield. The spirit coming from him was 100% of Level Eight.


    "You said Luo had a defensive celestial device? Why he doesn''t use it?" Junior Leopard asked acoustically.


    "It seems that he may have already used it, thus he is able to be alive now!" Golden Rooster''s eyesight was cast upon the man in dark gold, "Wang Yuebai! It''s unexpected that he is here!"


    "Wang Yuebai, the most powerful man in the Wang family?"


    "Besides him, look at the saber in his hand. That should be the Pero Purple Striped Saber, the top wizard weapon of the Wang family. Only this saber is able to break Moon Deer of Extended Net''s Marvelous Wheel. But you see, his hands are shivering, which illustrates that he was also badly injured by breaking the wheel. It''s the reason why he is holding the line on the edge of the battlefield!"


    "What should we do?" Junior Leopard clenched his fists. He bore a grudge against the Wang family in Cenzhou. If he took this opportunity, he could reduce the number of experts in the Wang family and dramatically weaken the Wangs'' power, it would kill two birds with one stone.


    Although the Wang family was a millennium family, it didn''t have too many experts, let alone the most powerful man like Wang Yuebai!


    "Look at Moon Deer of Extended Net. It seems that Luo family in Minshan is over. Is the feud between the two families unresolvable?"


    "What are we waiting for?"


    "Nothing!" Golden Rooster said and then emerged from his hiding place, "Stop it, mates!"


    "Who are you?" Wang Yuebai turned around abruptly. He was embarrassed when seeing Golden Rooster''s attire.


    "Immortal Palace?!"


    "Sun Rooster of Hairy Head and Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket from Immortal Palace," Golden Rooster said, Junior Leopard then appeared behind him, "Sir, you are holding the Pero Purple Striped Saber, you must be Wang Yuebai, the most powerful man in Wang family?"


    "Yes, I am. Since you showed up, may I ask what do you need?"


    "Let your fellows stop. Luo Haiyun is Moon Deer of Extended Net, a member of the 28 constellations in the Immortal Palace. If you don''t stop, you will be the enemies of the Immortal Palace!"


    Wang Yuebai suddenly showed a scowling face.


    "He is one of the 28 constellations?"


    "Yes, please stop!"


    "He is the formidable enemy of our family due to killing our three experts and a dozen of our masters of martial arts. We have taken great pains to keep him here..."


    "Hum!"


    Golden Rooster used a cold snort to interrupt Wang Yuebai. His black cloak was waving without wind, and an intangible stream of air, which was the spirit of the expert of level eight, was sent from him. With a flash of gold, his two hands were wrapped by a layer of golden iron claw. He slightly tilted and told Junior Leopard, "Bring Moon Deer of Extended Net out and kill anyone who resists!"


    "I see!" Junior Leopard nodded and his fingertips slightly moved. A luxuriant green streamer lingered among his fingertips like a snake, but his figure rushed like a ghost towards the simple formation made by the four men.


    "Sir, do not push us too far!" Seeing Golden Rooster let Junior Leopard take action without saying something ritual, Wang Yuebai suddenly shouted and exhibited the Pero Purple Striped Saber in front of him, "You are from Immortal Palace, but Wang family in Cenzhou is also hard to be trifled with!"


    "Ah!"


    "Oh, no!"


    "Ding, ding, ding!"


    After Junior Leopard rushed toward the four-man formation, several faint noises were heard. Almost without any motion, the light of Blue Sword flashed in a weird electric arc, beating back the enemies in only a single bout.


    "You are a sword practitioner!"


    Junior Leopard''s undisguised and extremely sharp Sword Qi could never be ignored by Wang Yuebai, although he was confronting with Golden Rooster.


    Junior Leopard didn''t pay attention to Wang Yuebai. He brandished the sword and drove away all four of the experts before he arrived next to Luo Haiyun. Dragging Luo Haiyun and flashing his figure several times, he arrived back next to Golden Rooster.


    "What a fast speed! What an exquisite sword technique! It''s unexpected that there''s a sword practitioner in Immortal Palace!" Wang Yuebai said gashing his teeth, "This time, our Wang family has been defeated, let''s go!"


    He waved his hand to call the other four Level Seven experts, and then they flew and left.


    "He is clever!" watching the four depart, Golden Rooster smiled faintly, "It''s unexpected that you didn''t kill them, that makes me curious!"


    "Why should I kill them?" Junior Leopard asked faintly, "Today we come here to save people, not kill them!"


    "Right, we come here to save people!" Golden Rooster nodded and took a glimpse of Luo Haiyun, "Moon Deer of Extended Net, it seems that you are badly injured!"


    "Oh, oh" Moon Deer of Extended Net coughed and spat a bloody sputum, raising his head and staring at Golden Rooster, "this time... I''m beaten... The Luo family is also over... But the Wang family didn''t get what they want... I''d like to¡ª"


    "Don''t even think about it. You are a member of Immortal Palace, and certainly, you know our rules of taking orders. We will never be the enemies of the Wang family for you!"


    "Well, that''s fine. I know what you mean!" Moon Deer of Extended Net nodded and didn''t insist on it, "Anyway, thank you!"


    "You are the member of Immortal Palace. We should save you!" Golden Rooster''s tone became indifferent again.


    "Do you know why the Wang family sent such a big force to annihilate my family and hunt me down?"


    "For Ancient Ruins!"


    "How do you know?" Luo Haiyun was shocked.


    "Everyone with strength and power knows. We met at least eight or nine groups of them on the journey!" Golden Rooster said coldly, "It has been proved by Immortal Palace that an Ancient Ruins appeared on the East Sea, but we don''t know where it is exactly."


    "Shit!" Luo Haiyun fiercely flapped his thighs, an angry and confused expression appeared on his face.


    "This time you are too greedy. If you told the news to the palace earlier, such a thing would never happen!" Golden Rooster flapped his shoulder, an expression of compassion emerged, "The Wang family was able to hunt for you for thousands of miles, insisting on slaying you. It seems that your family is indeed over!"


    "We are absolutely irreconcilable!" Luo Haiyun took a deep breath and shivered, his teeth gnashed. Even Junior Leopard could feel the boundless resentment from Luo Haiyun.


    Golden Rooster and Junior Leopard looked at each other and stopped mentioning it. The feud of the whole family being massacred was able to trigger anyone. No matter whom. Obviously, it''s Luo Haiyun''s own action that makes him suffer.


    "Luo, do you think we should return to Immortal Palace or go to the Ancient Ruins to try our luck?" Waiting for a moment and seeing Luo Haiyun''s breath had calmed down, Jin Yuquan asked.


    "Of course we should go to the Ancient Ruins. Hum, what would happen if the news of the ruins is divulged? What would happen even if these guys knew it appeared on the East Sea? They don''t know the exact location or how to enter the ruins!"


    "Do you know?"


    "Of course I know!" Luo Haiyun lifted his head, his eye radiating out a gloss of extreme hatred, "I also know which school of the antiquity times those ruins belong to and what may be in those ruins!"


    "No wonder the Wang family decided to hunt you down. If I were them, I would possibly not be able to resist such a temptation!" Golden Rooster gave a wry smile and said, "How dare you to plan to take such benefit alone!"


    Luo Haiyun said nothing, but the throbbing muscle on his face seemed chilling.


    Golden Rooster took a small porcelain bottle out of his clothes and sent it to Luo Haiyun. "Take the Qi-cultivating Elixir and have a rest. Let''s go to the Ancient Ruins after you feel better!"


    ...


    ¡­


    "Frist Elder, we just let it go? We killed the whole Luo family in Minshan Commandery and only left Luo Haiyun alive. He is the bane!"


    "He is a f**king bane, but we are not capable of killing him right now!" Wang Yuebai sighed and said, "It''s unexpected that he is from Immortal Palace. We should inform the family head and let him be precautious in advance!"


    "But..."


    "Do you think we five people can keep the three of them?" Wang Yuebai sneered. "All of them are the members of the 28 constellations in the Immortal Palace, but we didn''t know this before. Except for hunting Luo Haiyun, there are two more constellations. To kill them all is to make enemies with Immortal Palace. I dare not. Besides, between the following two, one is an expert of Level Eight and the other is a sword practitioner. We have no strength to keep them. That sword practitioner only used his sword for but a moment to force you back. His strength is clearly remarkable. When breaking Luo Haiyun''s celestial device, I was injured by its backfire. The Pero Purple Striped Saber was also damaged, and its combat capability also decreased dramatically. Forget keeping them, half of us would die if a confrontation occurred!"


    "But..."


    "Come on, this thing is so serious that we should inform the family head right now and let him decide. To put it more seriously, it''s possibly of vital importance to the Wang family''s existence. Being different than others, the Immortal Palace is a powerful force from the antiquity times, its basis is more profound than all the contemporary well-known families, prestigious barons, and thousand-year prominent schools. Masters and experts are crowding there. You''d rather knock yourself on a tofu than provoke them!"


    "That''s to say, we are at the mercy of Immortal Palace?"


    "No, it isn''t!" Wang Yuebai shook head, "Immortal Palace is not the only powerful force from the antiquity times, besides, they have conventional rules and constraints. They will never act like other schools or families. That is to say, helping Luo Haiyun is one thing, but whether they will help him to retaliate or not is another thing. Therefore, we only need to worry about the problem of Luo Haiyun and not worry about the problem of Immortal Palace. Otherwise, the world would have already been in a mess.


    "Frist Elder, you mean, these forces from antiquity times will not arbitrarily interfere Jianghu?" One man asked cautiously.


    Wang Yuebai took a glimpse of him and sighed "I''m only of Level Eight, how can I know so many things? Let''s go back and let the family head decide everything."


    "How about the Ancient Ruins? Do we really just give up?" Another one asked.


    "What else can we do? It has come to this point. Do you think Luo Haiyun will take us to the Ancient Ruins? Do you think our strength is able to follow behind the three? Wang Yuebai gave a wry smile and said, "Old Ding, stop thinking such useless things. Did you notice how many experts we met during the journey? It reveals that the secret of the Ancient Ruins has been divulged. Maybe the family head knows about it and the solution has come out. We only need to inform him of the problem of the Immortal Palace and wait for the dispatch!"


    "Are you sure that the Ancient Ruins is the site of Small Thunder Temple?"


    Meanwhile, Golden Rooster could not help but shout when he heard Luo Haiyun''s description of the ruins.


    "Yes, it is." Luo Haiyun said expressionlessly.


    "I can''t believe... I can''t believe it''s the site of the Small Thunder Temple that has appeared! What a shame, we may not get any profit even if we enter. It was broken into and totally plundered by the demon tribe in the antiquity times!"


    "I don''t think so!" Luo Haiyun said indifferently, "The demon tribe in the antiquity times didn''t find the underground palace!"


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 252: Chaotian Palace of the East Sea

    Chapter 252: Chaotian Palace of the East Sea


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Here it is. This island is the entrance to the Small Thunder Temple Ancient Ruins!"


    After a two-day flight, Junior Leopard, Golden Rooster and Luo Haiyun finally rested on an isolated island located remotely in the East Sea.


    Standing on the shore, Luo Haiyun took out a piece of black cloth that was made of unknown materials. No one knew how long it had existed, but it was releasing a stale smell.


    "My family were wiped out because of this. Wang Family in Cenzhou, you were my, Luo Haiyun''s, sworn enemy!" Luo Haiyun roared under his breathe.


    Junior Leopard kept his head up and fixed his eyes on the skyline far away. They had found that the phantom of the Ancient Ruins hanging in the sky didn''t come any closer than what they sensed when they were in Junior Leopard''s northwest fief. Even after flying for two whole days and crossing thousands of miles, it hadn''t gotten any closer.


    However, having mastered Space Division Skill, Junior Leopard felt an unusual sense on the island.


    Subtly, he sensed that there was a hidden passageway connecting the Ancient Ruins and the island, which was unlike both the Three Realm Division and the Space Division, but was just like the Space Transport Passageway that Junior Leopard himself comprehended from the Hollow Magic Carpet.


    That was to say, there was a Space Transport Passageway between the isolated island and the Ancient Ruins.


    "How can we get into the Ancient Ruins?" asked Golden Rooster, inadvertently showing a bit of anxiety.


    Luo Haiyun knew that the entrance to the Ancient Ruins was here, but obviously, he was not the only one who knew it. In a very short time, five groups of experts had arrived at this small island.


    "I have no idea. The only thing I know is that this piece of kasaya is the key. But I don''t know the exact way to¡ª"


    His words were broken by Junior Leopard''s sudden movement in which he snatched that piece of kasaya.


    "What are you doing?" Luo Haiyun roared. But just as he was about to strike, he was stopped by Golden Rooster beside him.


    "I know what it is!" Prickle-eyed, Junior Leopard shot a glance at Luo Haiyun. "I also know how to use it, but this piece alone is not enough."


    "You mean?"


    Without answering him, Junior Leopard raised his arm and said, "My friends, just show up. We share the same purpose, but nobody can reach it without cooperation now."


    "You know how to use the kasaya?"


    A hoarse voice came out from afar.


    "I''ve seen it before, it is probably a fragment of Hollow Magic Carpet or something alike, if I''m not mistaken. It works the same as a Hollow Magic Carpet, which means it may enable us to hollow travel and open the passageway between here and the Ancient Ruins. But this piece is not enough!"


    "You know Space Division Skill?" Another voice came from the dark, this one was a bit shrill.


    "I don''t know Space Division Skill, but I do know some skills of space!" Junior Leopard nodded and said.


    "Are you sure you can open the passageway?"


    "A man in Immortal Palace wouldn''t make fun of you on this issue!" Golden Rooster said grimly, "Just come out. United, we will all find ourselves in a win-win situation. Divided, it shall be lose-lose. I don''t think there is anyone who wants a fight before getting into the Ancient Ruins, is there?"


    "Absolutely not!" A robust figure from whom that hoarse voice belonged, suddenly appeared.


    With the appearance of this man, more people showed themselves from the dark.


    "Man, none of them is lower than Level Seven!" thought Junior Leopard. People came one by one and it sent a chill up his spine.


    There was no need to hide now. There were 6 groups of people including the group of Junior Leopard. The biggest group consisted of four people, and the smallest one was made up of two, altogether there were 19 people. None of them was under Level Seven.


    "The number of experts here is almost one-third of all Level Seven experts in this world!" Junior Leopard thought.


    These groups of people seemed to be familiar with each other and had nodded at each other upon coming out. They did not show much hostility or kindness.


    They all fixed their eyes on Junior Leopard. The hoarse-voiced man also held a piece of kasaya in his hand, which was a little larger than Luo Haiyun''s. He handed his piece of kasaya to Junior Leopard without hesitation, "I am Sect of Flame''s Mo Antong, this is the fragment that we, the Sect of Flame own!"


    "Sect of Flame?!" Junior Leopard looked at Mo Antong, spotted the flame embroidered on the corner of his clothes, and nodded towards him. He was not so familiar with the Sect of Flame, but he knew Prince Xiaoming, the Level Nine expert. He remembered that he owed Prince Xiaoming a promise, the Earth Fire Yuan Essence.


    "Mingyi School, Jin Longyu!" Said the owner of the shrill voice. He walked to Junior Leopard, and passed his kasaya to him, not forgetting to glare at Mo Antong.


    The Sect of Flame and the Mingyi School were the two biggest opposite influences in the Great Jin. Mo Antong and Jin Longyu were Level Eight experts. It was unexpected for Junior Leopard that they were not fighting with each other when meeting here.


    Junior Leopard took these two fragments of kasaya, and put them together with his own fragment.


    "Hmm, with these two, it is enough."


    In fact, Junior Leopard had already found the way from the island to the Ancient Ruins, but he could also feel that there was a powerful inhibition in the way. Junior Leopard could not cut out the entrance with only his Space Division Skill.


    However, it was totally different with the kasaya in hand. It was just like Hollow Magic Carpet, in which a Space Formation was embroidered with golden threads.


    Neither the kasaya nor the formation was complete, but to Junior Leopard, these were already enough.


    He was sure that he could open the passageway to the Ancient Ruins with his Fiery Eyes, his understanding of the space, and the uncompleted formation.


    After putting the three pieces of kasaya together, with a simple flick, Junior Leopard made the parted kasaya pieces recover as one piece after a green streamer flickered on its surface.


    After which, Junior Leopard waved his hand and threw the kasaya away, but not too far away. It was floating about a hundred feet away from people, and started rapidly whirling.


    A light green streamer began to appear and deepen on the kasaya as it whirled and then it condensed into a pillar of green light, shining in front of all people here.


    "This is..."


    All people on the spot began to stare at Junior Leopard. Without a word, he just walked forth and stood in the shower of the green light. At the same time, a sound of "Shhhh" was heard, and he then disappeared in front of everyone.


    "It''s Guiding Light! The Guiding light of the Ancient Ruins!" A man behind Mo Antong cried as he suddenly thought of something.


    Mo Antong looked back to glare at him and encountered with Jin Longyu''s provocative face. Mo Antong responded to him with a grim smile and stepped into the green light.


    What happened next was in accordance with expectation. Those experts entered the green light one by one as if there was some prior consultation. Without fight or congestion, they just stepped into the light by order of strength.


    Golden Rooster was the third to get in, followed by Luo Haiyun, who had already changed into the clothes of the 28 constellations of Immortal Palace so that nobody here recognized him.


    But it was believed that at the moment they went back to the Central Plains from here, they would obtain information on Luo Haiyun, at which point they would await the fool show of the Wang family. But for now, their attention was fixed on the Ancient Ruins.


    ...


    ...


    "What the hell is this place?"


    With a flash of green light, Junior Leopard appeared on the vast ruins, and as two flashes of green light followed, Golden Rooster and Luo Haiyun arrived beside Junior Leopard.


    "How dense the essence of the world is!" Golden Rooster exclaimed as soon as he got here. After hearing his words, Junior Leopard recognized that in this grey space, the essence of the world was at least ten times denser than that of outside. TEN TIMES!


    As the green light continued flashing, the experts on that isolated island had been shifted here, and after their arrival, most of them were shocked about the density of the essence of the world here.


    Junior Leopard felt differently.


    The space of the Ancient Ruins was highly problematical because it was unstable and full of cracks that could not be seen with normal eyes, making it like a big splintery glass bowl which seemed as though it could break at any time.


    "I was doing well in my business before. Why did I come to such a godforsaken place?" Junior Leopard thought to himself and then winked at Luo Haiyun and Golden Rooster.


    "Everyone, since we have gotten into the Ancient Ruins, what you can get will be based on your own abilities!" Golden Rooster folded his fist towards the others and then took Junior Leopard and Luo Haiyun away after waving goodbye.


    The rest of the groups of people cautiously looked at each other and silently left towards different directions.


    ...


    ...


    "I wouldn''t recognize it as a temple if you didn''t tell me that it was some ruins of Small Thunder Temple."


    As the three were flying and looking down on the ruins, Junior Leopard sighed and said,


    "Small Thunder Temple was a great sect during antiquity times. It''s a pity for them that they offended the Demon tribe of antiquity. As soon as the Demon tribe entered the temple, the ancient temple which might have existed for hundreds of thousand of years was totally torn down. Not to mention the treasures in the temple, which were all taken away by the Demon tribe. There was nothing left!"


    "Then what did we come for?" asked Junior Leopard.


    "Hmm, natural sources were very abundant in antiquity times. Things of value at that time would be a priceless treasure now. What antiquity practitioners saw as useless, would be treasures of heaven and earth now. Look!"


    When talking, Golden Rooster seemed to notice something and pointed forward. "It looks like Crimson Snow Grass, a perfect material for calming, but it has ceased to exist in our world a thousand years ago."


    Golden Rooster stopped before a white, dandelion-like plant and carefully dug it up, along with its root, and then stored it.


    "Things like it were just as useless as weeds, but now, they are priceless treasures!"


    "What I care about is the underground palace of the Small Thunder Temple." Confirming that no one was near, Junior Leopard reminded him with a low voice.


    During the first two days on that island, Luo Haiyun had told them the whole story about how he got the piece of kasaya, how the Ancient Ruins showed up, and how his family was wiped out by Wang Family.


    He unexpectedly got this piece of kasaya along with a diary covered by the kasaya in a remote temple three years ago. He came to learn that the temple was the Uniform Dao, passed on by a monk who ran away from Small Thunder Temple in antiquity times. However, his Uniform Dao had been lost.


    Secrets concerning Small Thunder Temple were written on the diary, but some of them were lost or were actually just surmises of descendants that had possessed the diary, since many people had held it over such a long time. In the end, the only thing that Luo Haiyun could be assured of, was that although Small Thunder Temple was torn down and robbed, the underground palace of Small Thunder Temple had not been found yet.


    As for what was in the underground palace, no one knew.


    At the beginning, Luo Haiyun regarded the book as an unofficial history. After all, it had been so many years since antiquity times, and everything had changed. In addition, Small Thunder Temple had disappeared. Even if not, even if the Ancient Ruins still existed, it would be impossible for it to show up, for the showing up of Ancient Ruins was totally an accidental issue. Even though the Ancient Ruins showed up at last, they might not be the ruins of the Small Thunder Temple.


    However, things always went coincidentally. A month ago, the kasaya showed a fantastic reaction. The golden thread flashed all of a sudden and had a tendency to fly to the east. Although he didn''t have a pair of Fiery Eyes, Luo Haiyun, a knowledgeable person, knew it was a symbol of Ancient Ruins showing up. It made him extremely happy, and he began to prepare for the tour of the Ancient Ruins right away.


    But, the walls had ears. Minshan Commandery belonged to Cenzhou, and there were finger men of the Wang Family everywhere. Although the Luo Family was also a great family in Minshan Commandery, despite the fact that they had a lot of power, the Wang Family''s power was overwhelming. In the Luo Family, there were men of the Wang family stealthily sending messages. Besides, Luo Haiyun did not take it seriously when getting the kasaya and diary because he did not think such a coincidence would happen to him, so he did not keep it a secret. When the Ancient Ruins showed up, it was too late for him to keep it a secret.


    Once the information about the kasaya was known by the Wang Family in Cenzhou, the things that happened next were easy to imagine, just like the conventional plot in Jianghu, when neither compelling nor inducing worked out, the Wang Family decided to take it by force. Consequently, the Luo Family in Minshan Commandery, the great family that had existed for hundreds of years, was almost erased from this world completely by the Wang Family. Only Luo Haiyun, the strongest one and the potential great avenger of the Luo Family, had managed to escape, and was saved by Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster.


    "This is Jianghu. You can never take even one wrong step. If you do so, you will probably lose everything. Luo Haiyun is only fighting against the Wang Family, but my Fiery Eyes, may be faced with all of the prestigious sects, schools, well-known families and barons in this world. If my secret leaks out, my consequence will be thousand times more miserable than him!" Junior Leopard thought to himself silently. He had known better and more directly about Jianghu from the experience of Luo Haiyun, and thus he became more cautious.


    "The content about the underground palace in that diary, is it true?"


    "We won''t know until we get there!" Golden Rooster seemed a little helpless. He looked around and glanced at Luo Haiyun. "I hope that the underground palace does exist. I also hope that we are able to find something incredible, or it''s not worthy for you to come here."


    "Huh, it''s not worthy for me even if I can find a fairy weapon there!" Luo Haiyun showed a bitter smile. "I only hope I will get something that can destroy the Wang Family!"


    "Well, Elder Qing is going to have a headache. You know, we of the Immortal Palace doesn''t like to take in people who insist on revenge!"


    "What a pity. I was at my peak when you took me in!"


    Golden Rooster laughed and said, "Fine, no more nonsense. Just show us the way."


    Luo Haiyun nodded, carefully observed the landform, before he led Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster to the deep of the ruins.


    A while later, Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster stopped almost at the same time.


    "People there, show yourselves please!" The eyes of Golden Rooster flashed and he slightly moved his hands which reflected chilling lights under his sleeves.


    "Experts from Immortal Palace, you do have well-deserved reputations!"


    Four figures came out all of a sudden from the left rock and one of them said, "We have tried our best to restrain our spirits. Unexpectedly, we were still found by Your Excellency."


    Looking at those four people, Junior Leopard squinted his eyes, he found that there were two experts at Level Eight among these four.


    "That''s Second Palace Leader of the Chaotian Palace of the East Sea!" While Golden Rooster and Junior Leopard kept silent, Luo Haiyun recognized him and said, "What can you enlighten me on?"


    Chaotian Palace, located in the East Sea, was one of the strongest sects. It was a thousand-year sect just as Tian Long Taoism and Sect of Flame, but their sphere of influence was the East Sea, seldom involving the central mainland.


    "How sharp your insight is, Your Excellency! I, Wan Renshan of Chaotian Palace, pay my respect to you three!"


    "Master Wan, what''s your purpose of following us?"


    "Your Excellency, please don''t make fun of us. The Ancient Ruins are not large. We just happen to have the same direction as you, and walk slower than you."


    "Oh?" Golden Rooster scoffed and said, "We have changed our direction three times. Yet you are still walking behind us. Do you think we Immortal Palace have nobody to fight?"


    "Well, well, I am so sorry. It must be a coincidence!" Encountered with the query from Golden Rooster, a kind smile spread over Wan Renshan''s fat face. His look was far away from an expert at Level Eight, but more like an amiable businessman.


    "I don''t believe in coincidence!" Golden Rooster looked at those four people with an unfriendly attitude.


    "Well, I have no choice." Wan Renshan threw up his hands and posed a reluctant emotion. Suddenly, a sound of laughter, which was obviously reckless and filled with mockery, came from the three behind him. The group consisted of four people, two Level Eight experts and two Level Seven experts, while Junior Leopard''s group was made up of only three, one Level Eight expert fewer than them. It seemed to be just one person fewer than them, but from the aspect of actual strength, Junior Leopard''s group was much weaker than the other group.


    Generally speaking, a Level Eight expert was equivalent to a dozen or more of Level Seven experts. After all, Internal Qi as water and Internal Qi as steel were two totally different concepts. Therefore, from the angle of the scene, the group of Chaotian Palace had the upper hand.


    "That''s to say, you Chaotian Palace want to set yourselves against us Immortal Palace?"


    "Well, well, don''t say it like that. We Chaotian Palace are located in the remote East Sea. How dare we set ourselves against Immortal Palace? However, the road is built for everyone. We just took our side to walk. Immortal Palace is great and famous and has marvelous strength, but you cannot be too overbearing and forbid us to walk on the road, right? Even though you might have outstanding eloquence, I am afraid that in this case¡ª"


    "Shhhhh!"


    Golden Rooster did not have time to talk nonsense with Wan Renshan. He flashed forth towards Wan Renshan when he was still talking. Golden Rooster fiercely attacked him with golden lights sparkling in his hands.


    Obviously, Wan Renshan did not expect that Golden Rooster would recklessly start a fight without any warning. All of sudden, Wan Renshan was flustered by force in no time.


    Seeing the tense situation, with a loud shout, those three people behind him all went forth and prepared to besiege and attack Golden Rooster.


    As Junior Leopard laughed softly, a clear green light burst from his fingertip and changed into thousands of green light spots which instantly covered the three people.


    "Too arrogant!" As a Level Eight expert behind Wan Renshan roared, blue Gang Qi poured from his body and exploded like billows.


    "Water Pure Gang, break it for me!"


    "Hua la la!"


    As a violent noise burst out like a waterfall hitting the ground from the Ninth Heaven, the blue Gang Qi rolled and pounced like a huge wave, drowning the green sword light released by Junior Leopard. Though that was not the end. The blue billow soared at an incredible speed and pounced on Junior Leopard and Luo Haiyun both of whom seemed to be flooded at the same time.


    "Watch out!"


    Luo Haiyun changed his emotion and quickly moved back, but Junior Leopard remained still. When the blue wave was about to immerse him, the Gang Qi suddenly stopped and shivered, inside which, a green light shone dimly.


    "Too bad, that is¡ª"


    "Such a fool! Don''t I know that you are a Level Eight expert? Will I take actions when I don''t have the confidence to succeed? How foolish do you think I am? I am not the fool eager to die in the fight against someone I can''t deal with." Junior Leopard scoffed and a cyan stripe suddenly and violently rose from the blue Gang Qi and dull blue electric arcs soared along with sword light. The most dangerous part was that there was infinite Sword Qi among those electric arcs.


    The sword light suddenly cut through the wave like lightning, unveiling the three people who were under the protection of Gang Qi before.


    "Today I shall let you know how youth overwhelm elders!"


    "Gosh, run!"


    "Oh my God!"


    "He is a sword practitioner!"


    Several cries were heard, which could not change anything. Silvermoon Swordplay had already been activated, and the cyan Sword Qi that was like Death that collected souls, immediately cut a Level Seven expert open. As for the other two, the Level Eight expert avoided the Sword Qi in time, but his arm was cut off. The other was not lucky enough to avoid the Sword Qi, so his leg was cut off at his knee.


    How formidable the sword practitioner was!


    In a short time, one Level Eight expert and two Level Seven experts ended up as one dead body and two disabled persons, all losing the ability to fight.


    Junior Leopard''s unexpected movement did contribute to the result, but the powerful strength of Silvermoon Swordplay coordinating with Blue Sword and his Jade Original Power Gang Qi was also responsible.


    "Damn, let''s go! Immortal Palace, we''re going to have a long feud!"


    Apparently, Wan Renshan, who was attacked by Golden Rooster, did not expect such a result. In such a short time, a Level Eight expert and two Level Seven experts were repulsed by only one person. Wan Renshan himself had lost the advantage. Now he did not have any chance to win and might be killed here.


    He was a determined man. Seeing things went wrong, he raced to attack and got an interval in the fight at the cost of being hurt by Golden Rooster''s claw. He grabbed the two experts alive with his two hands and managed to run away as fast as a flash of lightning.


    "Hmm, he is only good at running!" Thought Golden Rooster, who had clawed Wan Renshan. The attack could not satisfy him, nevertheless, he was unwilling to chase after them, so he only saw them leaving.


    "After that, I don''t think anyone would dare to stalk us."


    Junior Leopard said thoughtfully and astringed the green light around him.


    "Let''s go, don''t care too much about him. The underground palace is the most important thing!" Golden Rooster patted Luo Haiyun who was standing still and said.


    He knew that Junior Leopard was a sword practitioner, but he did not know he could kill a person in such a short time with his powerful strength.


    He failed to regain consciousness until Golden Rooster patted his shoulder.


    "Oh, yeah. Follow me!"


    "Now we have started a feud with Chaotian Palace. Three experts in all, one dead, two heavily injured, one slightly hurt. We must be careful from now on. "


    "Why? Are they pretty strong?" Junior Leopard cast his eye on Golden Rooster, puzzled by his words, and said, "You seem to fear them."


    "I just don''t want to get into trouble. If I was scared, I wouldn''t have watched you killing that man." Golden Rooster snickered and said, "However, the Palace Leader of Chaotian Palace is a woman, and a troublesome person. It was said by Elder Qing that she almost joined Immortal Palace 60 years ago. Though she failed in the end, she gets along well with some elder constellations in Immortal Palace."


    "Is it possible for them to help outsiders?"


    "No, not to such an extent. But they will feel embarrassed. You needn''t care about it. I will deal with it!" Golden Rooster said.


    The three kept walking for a while. The longer they walked, the Junior Leopard felt the atmosphere was wrong.


    "What, do you sense something?" Finding the expression of Junior Leopard was a little weird, Golden Rooster asked as his mind flickered.


    "Nah, not some findings. I just sensed that there is something wrong with this space. As if the essence of the world is continuously draining."


    "Your spiritual mind is very sensitive. Although the essence of the world is dense here, it can never be compared with that in antiquity times, not even that of the medieval period. As was expected, all Ancient Ruins showing up in this world are not stable. It is said that the space of those Ancient Ruins is damaged and filled with invisible space cracks from which the essence of the world leaks out. But there''s no need to worry, because it''s not a big deal. The destruction of the space of Ancient Ruins is a very long process. If there''s still the essence of the world there, it means that the space is not completely destroyed. We are safe to search for what we want."


    Before his voice had died away, Luo Haiyun spoke out, "That''s it! I think this is the place."


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 253: Green Lamp, Ancient Buddha and Tusita Fire

    Chapter 253: Green Lamp, Ancient Buddha and Tusita Fire


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "It''s here!" Luo Haiyun shouted in excitement, pointing to a dilapidated Buddha statue.


    The statue was enormous. It''s head alone was more than three meters high. Unfortunately, the head had already fallen to the ground, and the body, which sat in a lotus position, was weathered.


    "Wow, they built such a huge Buddha statue! The temple is really large!"


    "The cultivators in antiquity times all had extraordinary Divine Sense. Building a giant statue like this was like lifting a finger!" Golden Rooster turned to Luo Haiyun and asked, "Is this the underground palace you were talking about?! How do we get in?"


    Luo Haiyun brought out a glittering bead from his pocket and showed it to the two.


    "Is this Sarira?!" Golden Rooster recognized it as soon as Luo Haiyun took it out, "I can''t believe you have such good stuff!"


    "The Sarira was left by the venerable monk who fled from the Small Thunder Temple; I got it together with the kasaya. It was used to open the underground palace!"


    "He was so considerate!" Looking at the Sarira the size of a pigeon''s egg, Junior Leopard was confused. "How can a man''s bone be so smooth and round?"


    But he didn''t have time to think about the question, because the Sarira in Luo Haiyun''s hand began to transform.


    The wind in the space was not strong; it could be called a breeze at most. However, it was a gust of wind that turned the Sarira into ash. Certainly, it was unexpected, especially for Luo Haiyun, who was extremely anxious.


    "Don''t panic, it seems to be changing!"


    As expected, the sand-like Sarira didn''t drift far. It converged in front of the statue''s head and formed a gleaming vortex.


    "Another separate space!" With a flicker of intelligence in his eyes, Junior Leopard understood the change at once.


    The gleaming vortex was actually a passageway leading to an unknown space. Compared to the former passageway they had gone through, this one was much more magnificent, and it was far more superb than the space in Hollow Magic Carpet.


    "So can we go in?!" Golden Rooster asked Junior Leopard.


    "Sure! Why else would we be here?!" Junior Leopard smiled, then went straight towards the vortex with Golden Rooster and Luo Haiyun following behind.


    Enveloped in the vortex, Junior Leopard noticed immediately that the space was reversed. Feeling his heart tighten, he turned on his spiritual mind and tried to absorb all the abstruse space turbulence. He had some knowledge about space, although it was still somewhat sparse. He was also able to use Space Division Skill as well as Three Realms Division, but it was just to practice. If he wanted to grasp the real secret of space, he needed to experience things like this. Just like the Guiding Light that had been coming from the Ancient Ruins when they entered, and this translucent vortex passageway; all of which, the boundless turbulence and changes brought by various techniques, were Light coming from the Ancient Ruins.


    "Here we are!"


    Immersed in the mysterious turbulent tracks of space, Junior Leopard suddenly heard the voice of Golden Rooster.


    He brought his thoughts back promptly.


    The green lamp and the ancient Buddha!


    The green lamp and the ancient Buddha!


    That was his first and only impression of the underground palace of Small Thunder Temple.


    The green lamp, with its beam-like lights, was radiating dark yellow flame.


    Against the bluestone wall stood a long lifesize Buddha statue.


    The underground palace was square, with a height of no more than seven meters. Junior Leopard estimated that it was about 50 or 60 square meters in total.


    Depressing!


    There was nothing except the green lamp and the ancient Buddha.


    They looked at the green lamp, and the soybean-like flame shimmered in their eyes.


    No matter what it was, they were in a thousand-year-old underground palace from antiquity times. It was sure-fire that this green lamp which had been burning for so many years was a treasure.


    "It must be a treasure!" Compared to Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster''s discretion, there was no hesitation in Luo Haiyun''s heart. His family was ruined, and his only aim was to take revenge on the Wang family. Certainly, he would never miss a chance to strengthen his power. He affirmed the green lamp was a precious item as soon as he saw it and couldn''t help reaching for it.


    "Be careful!" Both Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster screamed in warning, but it was too late.


    "Aaaugh--!" His scream rang out before his hand even touched the lamp. With a flicker of yellow light, Junior Leopard faintly saw Luo Haiyun''s seizing hand vanish immediately. He discovered that Luo Haiyun''s hand had vaporized.


    There was no bloodstain on or near his broken wrist. The blood had also been vaporized.


    "Damn!" Cursing silently, Golden Rooster held Luo Haiyun and put medicine on his wounds.


    "This really is a treasure, but it won''t be easy to take with us!" Junior Leopard stepped forward slowly to peer at the statue, then sighed.


    At that moment, the Mysterious Fire in his Dantian flicked, and then the Gang Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire began to surge abruptly.


    HISS!


    Junior Leopard hissed fiercely like a snake, his face turned a ghastly white. He didn''t stand firm until he fell back some steps.


    "What happened?!" Golden Rooster asked Junior Leopard at once, noticing his pale face.


    "This damn lamp, it seems like it conflicts with my Internal Qi!"


    "What?!"


    He had hardly finished speaking when the green lamp gave out a flicker of dark light and then disappeared before their eyes. The entire underground palace was in complete darkness.


    "What happened ?! Where''s the light?" Luo Haiyun cried out.


    The three were all experts above Level Seven, with excellent eyesight. They could clearly see everything in the underground palace without light, but how exactly had the lamp disappeared? They all missed it.


    "I don''t know, it just disappeared suddenly!" Junior Leopard said honestly, and this was true. But he was clear that another green lamp had emerged in his Dantian when the green lamp disappeared. He was unclear how it had happened and what it would bring about. But if the green lamp was in his Dantian and he was safe now rather than being vaporized, perhaps it meant that there would be no great danger?!


    "Treasures from antiquity times are always divine, maybe we just don''t have the luck to possess them!" Golden Rooster sighed. "This is the underground palace of the Small Thunder Temple, it''s not surprising to find strange things. We should look for other treasures!"


    Junior Leopard and Luo Haiyun did not answer. Luo Haiyun''s look was even more disgraced than before. Before entering, he had still had a strong body. But now? His hope of avenging his family was ruined.


    All of them were cautious this time. Their search in this empty underground palace was also very watchful. No one wanted to repeat Luo Haiyun''s mistake. y blow.


    They searched for an hour but found nothing. The area was not large. It was constructed of ordinary bluestone which made a dull sound when they knocked on it. There were no special hidden grids or patterns, never mind treasures.


    "We could bring the Buddha back, it''s not too big!" When they couldn''t think of anything else, Junior Leopard mentioned this idea. He looked at the Buddha.


    The small green lamp had done such powerful damage, what would happen with the big Buddha statue?


    A small green lamp had so powerful damage, how about the big Buddha statue?


    Therefore, despite his suggestion, Junior Leopard did not move; the other two did not either. They just looked at the Buddha statue as if they wanted to see through it.


    "Hehe, you small guys are really interesting. But there is nothing in the Buddha statue, it would be useless to move it back!"


    A voice went off in Junior Leopard''s head abruptly and the expression on his face changed. He was grateful for the laughing mask which covered his face, otherwise, Golden Rooster and Luo Haiyun would notice something was different.


    "Who are you?!"


    With this sound surfacing in his mind, it was natural for Junior Leopard to flash such a thought.


    "I am not human, I am Spirit, the Green Lamp Spirit. I have been trapped here for thousands of years, and now I''ve finally found a chance to get out of here. What a rare opportunity!


    "The Green Lamp Spirit¡­ So you are the green lamp then?!"


    "Yes, it''s me. Smart boy!"


    "But how could you enter my Dantian?"


    "Oh, you don''t have to ask about it. Now boy, I have some questions for you. You are here seeking treasures of the Small Thunder Temple, right?! Well, I have to tell you something disappointing. There is no treasure!"


    "No treasure? That''s not true, you''re one of the treasures!"


    "I don''t belong to the Small Thunder Temple, damn it!" The Green Lamp Spirit said it depressingly. "The underground palace of the Small Thunder Temple was not used to collect treasures, but to suppress Evil Spirits. The Small Thunder Temple was attacked by the Demon tribe and too many Evil spirits were trapped. All the evil masters united together furiously and captured the Small Thunder Temple, then the Evil Spirits were all set free!"


    "So you''re saying, there is nothing good here except you, the inexplicable green lamp?!"


    "Almost right!" The Green Lamp Spirit admitted honestly, "If you insist on getting treasure, the green lamp could be one, but it is not very useful for you. That''s it, leave the rubbish and get me out of this place quickly. I have been here too long!"


    "It''s not easy to get out of here!" Junior Leopard laughed. "We came here for benefits, and we paid a painful price. If we can''t get any treasure, the other two will never leave the place, and neither will I."


    "I have told you there is nothing precious. You have already obtained the biggest benefit. If you really want something good, just carry the big Buddha statue back as you said before. The statue was built to suppress the Formation Eye, with Taiyi Luoxuan Metal as its raw material. It is a high-level material for Refining Weapons. The only defect is its heavy weight, almost ten million kilograms!"


    "What? Ten million kilograms? That can''t be true, if it was that heavy, the underground palace would have sunk into the earth!"


    "You stupid, it is the Formation Eye. It has an abstruse nature. Look carefully, is the statue on the ground?!"


    "That''s not right, the statue seems like it''s not on the ground!" At this moment, Golden Rooster pointed to the Buddha statue and said, "look, the statue seems to be levitating!"


    "How can it be?!" Junior Leopard cried out. He stepped inquisitively toward the statue in amazement, and wondered to himself, "is it safe to be near the statue?"


    "That''s just a lifeless thing, what''s the danger!" The Green Lamp Spirit said with full disdain.


    Junior Leopard grinned sardonically and moved forward. He stretched his hands out as if to hug the Buddha statue.


    "Be careful--!" Golden Rooster reminded him quickly, thinking of Luo Haiyun.


    "It''s ok!" Junior Leopard said. He didn''t touch the statue directly but took out his Blue Sword and knocked the statue pretentiously. The statue clinked as though the sword was hitting ordinary metal.


    "It seems normal!" Junior Leopard brought back his Blue Sword and went forward to the Buddha statue. He took hold of the base of the statue with two hands.


    "Well, ha-- !"


    Taking a deep breath, he lifted the statue with great effort.


    CLUNK!


    "Oh oh -!"


    A light sound occurred, and a strange voice followed.


    "Junior Leopard, what''s wrong with you?!"


    "Damn, it is so heavy. I strained my back using too much strength!" Junior Leopard held his back and limped backward.


    The expressions on both Golden Rooster and Luo Haiyun''s faces had changed oddly, but they didn''t say anything. Golden Rooster went forward and tried to lift the statue himself. Finally, he nodded and admitted, "Okay, it''s too heavy. Bringing it back will not be an easy job for us!"


    "We can''t just leave emptyhanded!" Luo Haiyun began to worry.


    "Let''s search carefully one more time. Make sure we didn''t miss anything." Golden Rooster understood how Luo Haiyun felt, but he had no other choice. An expert of Level Eight like him, who possessed sharp spiritual mind, could see everything clearly. If there was any abnormal turbulence in the underground palace, he would not miss it. Except for the weird changing of the green lamp at the beginning, nothing unusual had occurred. He was clear that their efforts would be in vain unless they could actually bring the Buddha statue back.


    He also discovered that the Buddha statue was not built with ordinary materials. When he tried to lift the statue, he noticed that his power was almost useless against it. Moreover, his weapon and his hands had bounced back with an indistinct power. It was obvious that the statue was made with precious materials however, it was pointless if they could not possess it.


    The three searched the underground palace once more, and still found nothing of value. They sighed hopelessly.


    "Forget it. There is nothing valuable here, and we''ve wasted a lot of time. We should go outside and look for other opportunities!"


    Luo Haiyun nodded reluctantly, regretful about the heavy Buddha statue.


    After making the decision, they did not waste any more time. They left the underground palace through the translucent vortex one by one and went back to the Ancient Ruins.


    Luo Haiyun and Golden Rooster took one last glance at the translucent vortex, with a bit of reluctance.


    "We''d better leave now. If others detect us here and find the underground palace, there will be a lot of trouble!"


    Junior Leopard reminded.


    Golden Rooster and Luo Haiyun certainly understood. Though they hadn''t profited from the underground palace, they were the only ones who knew that. Others would never believe them. If they found the palace, the empty palace, they would definitely believe that someone had stolen all the treasure. No treasure? Impossible!


    Just as they expected, soon after they left, there were two other groups who found the palace at the same time. But the result was the same. They entered in with high spirit and left with sour faces. They even fought in front of the palace; both had casualties.


    The three had rambled through the Ancient Ruins for several days and found several useful items. Although the Small Thunder Temple had been destroyed by Demon tribes, it had after all, been a famous school in antiquity times. The attacking Demon tribes had also had casualties; their skeletons, as well as their precious medicines and weapons, remained in the Small Thunder Temple.


    However, the Demon tribe was not famous for precious medicine. Though the tribe had collected lots of treasures of heaven and earth, they didn''t know how to store these things, and there were no dead bodies with high cultivation. Moreover, the medicines had been sitting here for so many years, they were of little value. However, the broken weapons were really good. Most of them were of high levels, and even the most inferior ones were Secondary Heavenly Weapons. A vast majority of them were also wizarded weapons. Though they were broken and lacked intelligence, the materials were good enough. Once people brought these weapons back and nourished them carefully, they could recover the excellent power. Besides, even if the weapons were useless, the materials were valuable and almost lost in today''s world. If they took these materials back, they could make a nice fortune.


    Some were lucky and even found one or two broken magic weapons, which were very rare


    Certainly, the most delightful things in the ruins were the plants. These plants were very helpful for Junior Leopard. He found many rare materials which had vanished in this life but were necessary for making Tendon-Changing Pills, Pulse Setting Pills, Marrow Cleansing Pills and Blood Exchanging pills.


    Junior Leopard roughly counted and found that the quantity of medicinal herbs was enough for him to make sufficient Tendon-Changing Pills and Pulse Setting Pills, even one or two Blood Exchanging Pills or Marrow Cleansing Pills, which were beneficial to him.


    Aside from the medicinal herbs, Junior Leopard didn''t gain too much. Actually, besides looking for herbs, he had to divert a lot of his attention to the Green Lamp Spirit. The unknown creature was constantly urging him to leave the Ancient Ruins and enjoy life.


    What was most important was that the Green Lamp Spirit could shout in his mind at any time and Junior Leopard had no way to stop it. Sometimes the Green Lamp Spirit rushed abruptly out when he was in the middle of cultivation, which almost led him to Qi Deviation. Junior Leopard was furious about it but could do nothing.


    The Green Lamp Spirit hadn''t spoken to anyone for thousands of years. These days, it was so talkative that Junior Leopard was almost clear about its background.


    As it had mentioned before, the underground palace of the Small Thunder Temple was used to suppress Evil Spirits. In antiquity times, people in the Small Thunder Temple had shouldered the responsibility of wiping out demons and guarding the principle. They killed as many of the captured demons as possible, and if there were ones with high cultivation, they repressed them. The Green Lamp Spirit was one of the Grand Demons in antiquity times. At that time, he had been captured by the Small Thunder Temple. His body was ruined, and his Original Spirit was put into the green lamp to burn and refine, but he was unexpectedly fortunate. The green lamp was actually a Pure Yang Celestial Device which bred natal original spirit during the refining. When the spirit developed completely, the green lamp would evolve into an immortal weapon.


    But nobody in the Small Thunder Temple had noticed it, which could not be blamed. Theoretically, in very rare circumstances, a Pure Yang Celestial Device could breed natal original spirit and become a fairy weapon with the help of the essence of the world. But it was almost impossible. What''s more, the process was so long that it needed at least several thousand years. So no one in the Small Thunder Temple paid attention to this lamp, they just used it as a Pure Yang Celestial Device to refine the Grand Demon''s Original Spirit. Unexpectedly, the demon had seized the chance to merge his Original Spirit into the newborn Original Spirit. It had been just like an infant with no power to resist; it was swallowed easily by the Green Lamp Spirit. When people in the Small Thunder Temple realized what had happened, it was too late. Not only had the Pure Yang Celestial Device used for upgrading to fairy weapon become invalid, but it was also the target for refining the Grand Demon''s original spirit!


    Similarly, the Grand Demon''s original spirit was united with the green lamp and it was impossible for it to leave out of the unification. With no better choice, monks in the Small Thunder Temple decided to put the green lamp into the underground palace and left it alone.


    "Why was that? If the green lamp had a complete original spirit, it should have evolved into a fairy weapon. Why was it abandoned?"


    "Bullsh*t. I am a demon and my original spirit is certainly a demon spirit. The original spirit of the green lamp is made of Tusita Fire which conflicts with me. We are mutually conflicting. It took me 50 thousand years to dissolve the spirit of Tusita Fire from the original spirit; almost 80 percent of the lamp''s power lies in the Tusita Fire. Now I am the original spirit and they cannot manipulate the fire. Naturally, the lamp is useless for them. Why are you so surprised!"

 Chapter 254: Turtledoves Claw and Heavenly Magic Eyes

    Chapter 254: Turtledove''s Claw and Heavenly Magic Eyes


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard was really excited at the news that the green lamp was a Pure Yang Celestial Device and damn close to a fairy weapon, but he was frustrated by the green lamp Original Spirit before his excitement rose to full bloom. After the infusion of the Original Spirit of the Grand Demon and the Tusita Fire, it lost its intelligence and was reduced to a useless celestial device.


    The ups and downs of the mood vexed him very much, but it was no use to be angry since he simply did not know how to deal with the hidden green lamp Original Spirit in his own body.


    "Don''t be too depressed. This green lamp has lost its spirituality, just leaving behind the kindling of the Tusita Fire. It is not necessarily a bad thing for you," said the green lamp Original Spirit. "In this way, it is easier for you to extract the Tusita Fire and use it as a material for a Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "You mean I can make a Pure Yang Celestial Device by myself?!" Junior Leopard seemed to have heard a big joke. "Do you think it''s so easy to refine a celestial device?!"


    "Do you think it''s difficult to refine it?" the green lamp Original Spirit laughed. "The simplest thing in the world is to refine a weapon. Boasting the congenital Mysterious Fire and practicing the Internal Qi with Pure Yang property, you are the most suitable one to refine weapons. As long as you are willing to do so, and materials are sufficient, you can refine eight to ten Pure Yang Celestial Devices at any time!"


    "You know how to refine weapons?" Junior Leopard felt a jolt and popped out a question in hesitation.


    In the present world, the method of refining weapons had been lost for many years. Among the prestigious sects and schools, there were occasionally one or two old monsters who could only refine some celestial devices of Psychic Levels. It''s rare for them to refine a Mysterious Celestial Device. With the loss of the essence of the world and the withering of treasures of heaven and earth, the method of refining weapons in antiquity times had disappeared long ago. The green lamp Original Spirit, however, used to be a Great Ancient Demon so no wonder it knew how to refine weapons.


    "As refining weapon is the specialty of my Demon tribe, I possess it certainly!" the green lamp Original Spirit laughed. "However, everything comes with a price. I can teach you how to refine weapons, but you have to give me some benefit!"


    "What benefits?!"


    "I need a body!"


    "Body?!" Hearing these two words, Junior Leopard felt a burst of sinister chills in his heart. "What kind of body do you need? I''ll find one for you!"


    "This is not urgent!" the green lamp Original Spirit said. "I''ve been in the green lamp for so long that I''m already integrated with it and simply can''t leave there. It''s useless even if I find the right body now!"


    "Aren''t you saying bullshit?!"


    "I need time to perfect my Original Spirit, but I can''t do it in that damn underground palace nor in this independent space!"


    "Where can you make it?!"


    "Just let me get out of this space and return to the world of Completion instead of being in this separate and divided space!"


    "But this place is also full of the essence of the world. Ah, maybe you don''t know that now the outside world can''t be compared to yours. Although the essence of the world in this Ancient Ruins is thicker than that of antiquity times, it is ten times denser than outside. If you need to supplement your pneuma with the essence of the world, I think you''d better stay here!"


    "Has the essence of the world been so sparse?" the green lamp Original Spirit asked unexpectedly. He apparently had not expected there would be such a thing.


    "Yes, it is so weak, less than ten times here!"


    "There is no other way. There is sufficient pneuma here, but it lacks two most crucial things!"


    "What?!"


    "Sun and Moon Essence and the Nine Heaven Thunder," the green lamp Original Spirit said. "They are the most vital pneumas between heaven and earth. It does not matter whether other types of pneuma are less or more. If I want to gather the Original Spirit and escape this green lamp, I have no choice but to own these two pneumas."


    "In other words, what you want me to do is take you to the outside so that you can absorb the Sun and Moon Essence and the Nine Heaven Thunder to make up the Original Spirit and then help you get a body and let you out of the green lamp, right?"


    "Clever!" The green lamp Original Spirit giggled and suddenly said, "Is the outside world really so poor? You even have to pick up these trashes?!"


    "Trash? The trash we have picked up are real treasures of heaven and earth in the outside world." Junior Leopard forced a smile.


    While talking, they suddenly heard Luo Haiyun exclaim, "Look, I ''ve found a complete celestial device!"


    Looking up, he saw Luo Haiyun holding a shuttle-shaped celestial device.


    "It is at least of Mysterious Level. Although it lost all its intelligence, it is still complete. Just go back to refine it, and then you can use it!"


    "Congratulations! The revenge really stands a chance now!" Junior Leopard smiled. Suddenly, his look changed. At almost the same time, there came a slight vibration from the ground.


    "This is¡ª! "


    "Hurry up, buddy! The space gateway of the Small Thunder Temple is disappearing. Hurry up! Otherwise, you will vanish in the endless hollow with this space."


    An exclamation was also heard in the distance. Glancing at each other, Junior Leopard, Golden Rooster, and Luo Haiyun plunged up almost simultaneously and swept straight toward the place where they came.


    Ancient Ruins, which was floating in the hollow, sometimes stopped in a place for a period of time and then continued to float. The places where the Ancient Ruins might sojourn varied from the depths of the hollow to the mundane world. It was rare for it to have a connection with the mundane world, but it was certain that the Ancient Ruins would not stay put in one place forever.


    It was not always the case that the Ancient Ruins continually stayed in the mundane world, but there were always some signs when they were about to leave under the traction of the hollow, which acted as departure signals for those who had entered into the Ancient Ruins. Once these signs appeared, people in the Ancient Ruins must leave immediately no matter how many good things there were. If you did not leave, you would be brought into the hollow space and wander among the endless hollow. There was no idea when you could return.


    Maybe you would be trapped for hundreds of thousands of years just like the Green Lamp Spirit. By the time that the Ancient Ruins connected with the mundane world again, you would have vanished into trashes.


    With flashes of the green lamp, Junior Leopard, Golden Rooster, and Luo Haiyun returned to the isolated island of the Ancient Ruins, one after another. They were somewhat disappointed. Luo Haiyun was particularly disappointed as he had made great efforts only to find some treasures of heaven and earth and one Mysterious Celestial Device. It was really a big loss.


    They were the ones who left early. After they returned, the surrounding glare continued to flash. Only four of the five groups who entered the Ancient Ruins came back, among which, two groups were bearing some injuries. The Sect of Flame and Mingyi School almost fought with each other once they were out. Mo Antong and Jin Longyu stared at each other as if one''s wife was kidnapped by the other. A fight was on the verge of breaking out.


    Junior Leopard and his companions had no intention of involving themselves in this mayhem, and they quickly left the island. It was none of their business whether the others were fighting or doing anything else on the isolated island.


    When he was about to leave, Junior Leopard witnessed the Ancient Ruins suspended in mid-air disappear after being sucked into a black vortex. At the sight of this, he could not help but give a shudder.


    Following Golden Rooster and Luo Haiyun, he left without looking back.


    Here were the depths of the East Sea. If you wanted to go out, you had to fly for a long time just like when you came in.


    Bearing the affairs of his fief on his mind and an eccentric green lamp in his body, Junior Leopard naturally did not want to waste time in the East Sea. He excused himself from Golden Rooster and left with Reining Sword.


    His Blue Sword was a Flying Sword of Earthly Rank, Mysterious Celestial Device. Plus, he was practicing Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill which was full of powerful thunderbolt strength. Once he sped up, it was several times faster than normal Gang Qi. With a simple swing like a blue rainbow in the air, he disappeared from sight in a blink.


    "How fast! Golden Rooster, is Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket from Golden Lights Cave?!"


    Golden Rooster patted his shoulder with a smile and said, "You are familiar with the rules of Immortal Palace. I can''t tell for sure!"


    "I see!" Luo Haiyun nodded his head and did not ask about Junior Leopard anymore.


    ¡­


    Junior Leopard''s speed of Reining Sword was amazing. It took several days for Golden Rooster, Luo Haiyun, and him to arrive at the isolated island in the East Sea. Now he sped up regardless of the others. It only cost him half a day to leave the East Sea.


    It was the first time he had flown at full speed after he acquired the technique of Flying Sword. He felt very comfortable from head to toe. It felt extremely satisfying when he pierced space with the Flying Sword again and again.


    "Boy, take it easy! It is just a Mysterious Celestial Device, and the speed is limited. This speed should excite you like this, how ignorant you are!"


    "Well, since good things have all been grabbed away by the practitioners in antiquity times like you, no wonder I am grateful to run into such a piece of Mysterious Celestial Device. If you''re so capable, go out and get one for me right now!"


    "Well, it''s true. The essence of the world is too thin. I am not used to it."


    "That''s all right!" Junior Leopard said sulkily. Hearing the words of Green Lamp Spirit, he lost interest in flying for the moment.


    "The material of your Flying Sword is not bad, but you didn''t refine it correctly. If it was well-refined, the sword would become at least a Pure Yang Flying Sword!"


    Junior Leopard''s eyes brightened. "Pure Yang Flying Sword?"


    What did it mean?


    Even in the medieval period when the sword practitioner dominated the world, there were only a few Pure Yang Flying Swords!


    There were four levels of the Flying Sword: Heaven, Earth, Xuan, and Huang. Even the Heavenly Rank Flying Sword was merely a Mysterious Celestial Device. Pure Yang Flying Sword was used by the sword practitioner school to suppress fate. It might come by sheer luck but not by searching.


    "You mean my Blue Sword has the potential to become a Pure Yang Flying Sword?!"


    "What I am saying is that because of your incorrect refinement, you''ve ruined the material of this Flying Sword!" Green Lamp Spirit snapped.


    "I think it''s not bad!" Junior Leopard did not care and said, "There are not so many Pure Yang Celestial Devices in this world, and it is great to own one or two of them."


    "Well, the world is changing so much now!" Green Lamp Spirit said. "But don''t you see it? Compared with before, the essence of the world is extremely sparse, but the power of the celestial device is not reduced. In such a world, practice is much more difficult than before. As the strength level is low, the function of the celestial device is greater."


    "It is true, but it''s hard to find the treasure of heaven and earth!"


    "In terms of a celestial device or fairy weapon, it is the excellence that matters, not quantity. It is enough to have a suitable one to defeat all others, which is particularly true in this world. Although it''s hard to find treasures of heaven and earth, you already own Tusita Fire, don''t you? You also have Demonic Fire of Primitive Dragon Chimera. As long as you find one or two proper materials and couple with my refining skill, it is a piece of cake to concoct a Pure Yang Celestial Device designed for you!''''


    Junior Leopard just smiled. It was completely similar to the IOUs that the cadres of the previous life had promised to the villagers. The glib talk was totally different from the truth.


    "One or two suitable materials? Where to find those treasures of heaven and earth to refine Pure Yang Weapon?"


    "However, it''s not good for you to be in my body all the time, just come out!" Junior Leopard came up with a thought and changed the topic. This guy used some unknown method to plunge the green lamp into his Dantian, and his Original Spirit can freely move into his mind, which made him very annoyed.


    As a result, there was no secret in front of the Green Lamp Spirit.


    This was not important. What mattered was that, if one day, he came across a suitable beauty and married her, when he wanted to have sex, wouldn''t Green Lamp Spirit capture every move of him? Junior Leopard certainly did not have the desire to perform that kind of affair in front of others.


    "Come out? Hey, I would like to be out, but the Mysterious Fire of Primitive Dragon Chimera in your Dantian is a great help for Tusita Fire. It can greatly nourish Tusita Fire so I think it''s quite good to stay here! "


    "You¡ª!" Junior Leopard''s anger immediately burst out. "Good gracious, this guy really regarded the Dantian as his own home and cannot be driven away."


    "What''s up, buddy? Don''t make a fuss. Bad temper is not good for health, especially for practitioners like us who tend to arouse demons once we get furious. I think you''d better suppress your anger!"


    "I don''t have the habit of suppressing anger!" Junior Leopard sneered. He pressed the sword light and landed on the ground.


    "I don''t believe I cannot get you out!" Junior Leopard sneered. After some searching, he found a small cave in a stretch of deserted and secluded hills and slipped into it.


    "Kid, this is not a good place for practice. It is fraught with Yin Qi. I think you''re practicing¡ª, eh, you¡ª!"


    Before finishing the words, Green Lamp Spirit began to scream.


    After hiding in the cave, Junior Leopard began to operate Fiery Eyes, which was an extremely wonderful bloodline. He did not yet fully understood the mystery of this bloodline, but he knew that his current Fiery Eyes had the power of capturing spirits. Green Lamp Spirit in the form of Original Spirit was also a kind of spirit. Fiery Eyes should be effective on him.


    Sure enough, once the Fiery Eyes was on, Green Lamp Spirit, which he was not able to see before in any case, was now in his sight.


    It was a green fox, like a cloud of smoke and fog, curling up on the wick of the green lamp, which was pretty much the body of the fox then.


    "Hum, fu*king you, just get out!" With a red light flashing in the eyes, Junior Leopard grabbed towards his own Dantian with a hollow pawn.


    With a bolt of blue light flashing, the green lamp in his Dantian and Tusita Fire were pulled out. They were firmly gripped in his hand, but the yellow fire which burned Luo Haiyun''s palm into ashes in the underground palace did not appear.


    When he captured the green lamp out of thin air, the red light in Junior Leopard''s eyes vanished. In his hands, the red strength of nine-finger size entangled the green lamp firmly.


    Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds, Turtledove''s Claw!


    The so-called Turtledove was a famous nine-headed demon bird in antiquity times, which fed on Yin Qi and specialized in quelling spirits and sucking souls. Turtledove''s Claw also needed the spirit of living creatures to refine before its power reached the Advanced Level. Once the refining was completed, at any random attempt, you could directly grasp the spirit of living creature out of the body. Though extremely insidious, Turtledove''s Claw was way too sinister and vicious. Junior Leopard did not practice it often, but his skill was more than enough to suppress the spirit. It''s much better to exercise this Turtledove''s Claw than always resorting to Fiery Eyes.


    Just in the past fleeting second, he turned on Fiery Eyes to absorb the spirit, which in turn, imposed a great burden on his body. The spirit of the green lamp was unlike that of insignificant animals, which was not so easy to be sucked out. It did cost a lot of effort. Fortunately, it occurred to him that he still had Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds to spare.


    "How did you make it? You only have the cultivation of Level Seven. How could you have such a great power to take me out of the wick?"


    Actually, with this move, Junior Leopard not only took the green lamp out of his Dantian but also drove Original Spirit out from the wick of the green lamp. The spirit was sealed in his Turtledove''s Claw and could not move a step.


    "Well, the essence of the world is very weak in this world, and my cultivation is very shallow, but there is surely a way to keep you within bounds!"


    "No, no, my Original Spirit has been combined with the wick, I will not be ingested from the lamp unless by some unconventional means. Even Small Thunder Temple and Heavenly Dragon Zen Song had failed to do so. This must not be an ordinary means!"


    "Aren''t you a Great Ancient Demon? You are omnipotent and knowledgeable. How can''t you figure out the method I used?"


    Junior Leopard put on a mockery smile. These days, Green Lamp Spirit always boasted himself as omnipotent Great Ancient Demon, but he was so secretive of his origins that he refused to reveal his real name. Junior Leopard deeply detested this gesture of pretending to be sophisticated and mysterious, and he always felt that Green Lamp Spirit was a vain and boastful guy who probably had no impressive skills. Now that he had easily grabbed him out from his own Dantian and restrained him with Turtledove''s Claw, it only made more sense for him to look down upon this spirit.


    "There is a problem here. There is a big problem!" the green lamp Original Spirit started yelling. "This green lamp is a Pure Yang Celestial Device. My Original Spirit has been integrated with it for hundreds of thousands of years. Even those who have great Divine Sense cannot easily separate my Original Spirit from this green lamp, let alone those shallow-cultivated guys like you!" Green Lamp Spirit roared, "The method you adopted in constraining my Original Spirit has revealed a breath of Turtledove. But if I was in the lamp, even if a real Turtledove came, he could do nothing about me. Damn it! The means to separate me from the green lamp are fewer than the number of your fingers. How could you have one?"


    "Really so difficult?!" Junior Leopard was struck by a thought. Though a bit exhausting, that process went very smooth during which he did not find much difficulty at all!


    At this time, Green Lamp Spirit started talking again, "You only have the cultivation of Level Seven. Even if you understand those Divine Sense means, you will not be able to use it at all. Should you possess the Heavenly Magic Eye?!"


    At this point, he seemed to think of something and cried out, "Impossible! You are an ordinary man. How can you own the Heavenly Magic Eye that only congenital gods have?"


    "Heavenly Magic Eye? I don''t get it and never heard of it before. But you''ve got one thing right, my eyes are indeed different from others!"


    "Not Heavenly Magic Eye? Impossible! Only Heavenly Magic Eye has such ability, is it¡ª!" All of a sudden, something important seemed to cross his mind. "Boy, let me see what''s special about your eyes!"


    "Are you kidding me? Why should I show you the special features of my eyes? Right now, you are in my hands!" Junior Leopard sneered.


    "Ha ha ha ha, indeed, you ingested me out of the green lamp. It''s really something. But what else can you do with me except barely imprisoning me with the strength similar to that of Turtledove? Based on your present strength, the only way to destroy my Original Spirit is to use the power you just employed when taking me out of the green lamp, that is to say, your eyes! " The green lamp Original Spirit burst into presumptuous laughter as though he had figured it all out.


    "Well, your words do make sense. I really have no way to destroy your Original Spirit!" Junior Leopard said. After all, Original Spirit was different from spirit or soul.


    If you have to use a familiar thing to describe Original Spirit, then, that must be a ghost.


    Original Spirit was a ghost. However, unlike a ghost that would dissipate, Original Spirit was an independent life, an existential form free of a body, which would not dissipate as quickly as the ghost would nor would it dissipate by a clap of thunder or a blow of wind like an ordinary ghost because Original Spirit was a stable form of life.


    Though Original Spirit was stable compared with a ghost, it would be damaged like a human body when it came under certain attacks. Sometimes it was even weaker than an ordinary man''s body.


    However, an Original Spirit like this Green Lamp Spirit had been integrated with Pure Yang Celestial Device for hundreds of thousands of years. Although he was forced out by the power of Junior Leopard''s Fiery Eyes, it was not easy to destroy him as he had already been contaminated with the strength of Pure Yang Celestial Device. Even with his Fiery Eyes, Junior Leopard was merely confident to ingest him out from the green lamp. As to destroy this spirit, he believed that at least for the moment, his Fiery Eyes could not manage that.


    Hearing that Junior Leopard could not break him apart, the green lamp Original Spirit became happy again.


    "However, I can imprison you forever, just as you used to be in the underground palace of Small Thunder Temple where you can never see the sunlight!" Junior Leopard snapped, with a red light flashing fiercely in his eyes.


    "Blood of Blood Wheel? No. Blackwater Genuine Eyes? Nor is it. Heavenly Magic Eye? How could this happen, why?!" Green Lamp Spirit finally could not help but scream at the sight of the red light in Junior Leopard''s eyes. "I see! I see! Damn it! Those crazy necromancers made it! They made it! They have successfully stolen the power of congenital gods! (To be continued)

 Chapter 255: Beyond the Three Realms and Pure Yang Celestial Device

    Chapter 255: Beyond the Three Realms and Pure Yang Celestial Device


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    From Green Lamp Spirit''s description, Junior Leopard captured a glimpse of antiquity times that was not exactly the same as the legends had it.


    In the legends of this life, antiquity times were greatly mystified, maybe even demonized. However, the version accounted by Green Lamp Spirit was much more tangible and realistic.


    Practicers in antiquity times were not a far cry from those of this life, as they still had to begin with Level One and proceeded all the way until Level Nine. The distinction between Three Large Realms and Three Small Realms also existed, but owing to the copious supply of essence and treasures of the world in antiquity times, practice could be achieved with much less effort than today.


    Take the simplest example. In this life, practice in Three Small Realms would cost most practitioners a lifetime, because people in this life had to, step by step, exercise their body, nurture and hone their physique with Internal Qi so as to rise from Skin-Toughening Realm by crossing one barrier after another, and finally managed to syncretize their inner ability with their bodies. In contrast, practice in antiquity times would not require any of the above, because treasures of heaven and earth were everywhere and you could just eat those magic body-strengthening drugs for dinner. Though their effect might not match that of Bone-Forging Pills and Tendon-Changing Pills, the large quantity of drug in-take would make up the gap, and with much more plentiful essence of the world, not only would your body grow at a faster rate, but also the absorption process of Internal Qi. Therefore, practitioners in antiquity times didn''t need to spare much time in Three Small Realms, and for them, the first hurdle they met would be the leap from Bone-Forging Realm to Tendon-Changing Realm, in other words, it was a bit difficult in ascending from Level Six to Level Seven, but it was a small one, and most people were able to stride over it.


    The true problem lay in the leap from Three Small Realms up to Three Large Realms, where most people would get stuck. Though a few would succeed and obtain the Individual Immortal Karma Rank.


    The Individual Immortal of Mystery!


    The Mysterious Realm in this life was actually the Individual Immortal Karma Rank in antiquity times.


    After entering Individual Immortal Karma Rank, the advantage enjoyed by the practitioner in antiquity times would become less evident, which in effect, was basically extinguished.


    The reason was that once you reached the peak of Marrow-cleansing Realm, you would undergo the Nine Kalpas¡ªnine times of Thunder Tribulation.


    Only when you had endured one Thunder Tribulation, could you truly leap out of the Three Realms and achieve the Genuine Immortal Karma Rank.


    Compared to this life, the Thunder Tribulation was even tougher in antiquity times. If you didn''t make it, you would be done. Your body would die out and your ability would wither away. But if you survived one, congratulations, you would really jump out of the three realms and enter the Genuine Immortal Karma Rank, upgrading to a Genuine Immortal.


    Thunder Tribulation actually referred to more than one trial. If you wanted to strike further and break through the Genuine Immortal Karma Rank, you would have to constantly exploit the thunder of the highest heaven to purify your body, as, at that point, only the thunderbolt would be eligible to further enhance your body.


    If you managed to pass another eight Thunder Tribulations, you would forge yourself a golden body and achieve the Human Immortal Karma Rank.


    The so-called golden body accomplishment after nine Thunder Tribulations meant to be the Human Immortal Karma Rank.


    What would then happen after the Human Immortal Karma Rank?


    That would be the collection of Three Flowers and the congregation of Five Kinds of Qi.


    Naturally, these things were far too early to be of concern for Junior Leopard now.


    He had yet managed to be an Individual Immortal, not to mention the Human Immortal or the collection of Three Flowers and congregation of Five Kinds of Qi that only existed in legends.


    In comparison with this life, the biggest advantage possessed by practitioners in antiquity times did not lie in cultivation nor in the essence of the world, but in magic weapons.


    In those times, celestial devices could be found everywhere. There were so many fairy weapons that even any plain disciple from a random school would be equipped with one or two celestial devices. But now, it would be extremely difficult to spot even one celestial device all over the world.


    The reason why it ended up in this way was that, apart from sufficient treasures of heaven and earth, we would inevitably mention a bunch of special people and special skills, the necromancer and the necromancy.


    According to Green Lamp Spirit''s description, Junior Leopard started to get to know these necromancers and the necromancy. In his view, these necromancers were just like scientists in his previous life, and if put more vividly, they bore a lot resemblance to the alchemists he came across in fantasy literature from his previous life.


    These necromancers were adept in utilizing all sorts of materials to build celestial devices and fairy weapons. Of course, they would also concoct magic pills and even do some other weird things.


    Well, not all those working on necromancy could be referred to as a necromancer, instead, only those who achieved immense attainments in necromancy could enjoy such an honor.


    For those long-lived practicers in antiquity times, studying necromancy was their greatest interest, for doing so could help them independently build celestial devices that were suitable to their practice, as well as allow them to while away their long lifetime. Gradually, necromancy became popular and powerful in antiquity times.


    Necromancy study was just another version of scientific work, in which those crazy necromancers proposed loads of wild assumptions and visions, but few of them were successfully realized.


    One of the assumptions was that if ordinary persons were injected with the bloodline of congenital gods, they would consequently possess the power of congenital gods.


    This one was the biggest challenge in necromancy, also the wildest one.


    Congenital gods, even in antiquity times, were more or less living in legends, because they actually lived in far more remote primitive times. As it came to antiquity times, knowledge about congenital gods could only be found either in legends of primitive ancestors, or in several imputrescible dead bodies of congenital gods.


    Congenital gods were different from ordinary living creatures. They were born with great Divine Sense, and their figures were peerlessly huge, which could be 100 feet high at birth and reach thousands of feet as they came of age. Also, their appearances were peculiar of all kinds. The only feature they all shared was their great Divine Sense.


    Picking up stars, reaching for the sun and the moon, knowing about Yin and Yang, cracking up mysteries!


    Those were all their innate capabilities, which did not require any practice. With respect of individual strength, a newly-born congenital god would overtake a practicer who had gone through nine Thunder Tribulations and achieved Human Immortal Karma Rank. Moreover, it was said that all the practice methods of human beings were created by the Mighty, the Wise among primitive ancestors through observing those congenital gods.


    As to those legendary rumors from antiquity times, Junior Leopard simply took them as entertaining and laughed them away.


    Though they were born with Divine Sense and capable of dominating the world, congenital gods still had one weakness¡ªtheir low fertility. The essential, and the only way to conceive a congenital god and pass down the bloodline was the combination of one congenital god and another. In this way, carrying on the bloodline of congenital gods became fundamentally difficult.


    When antiquity times came, those congenital gods in primitive times were long gone, leaving behind a few corpses of themselves for no obvious reason. Then, those necromancers in antiquity times, brimming with mad ideas, came up with this one on a whim, whether it was possible, under the help from those dead bodies, to impart the bloodline of congenital gods into ordinary people, allowing them to also possess these Divine Senses of congenital gods!


    This was a crazy idea. But for those necromancers known for their madness, it was a really wonderful conception. As a result, seemingly endless experiments had been set underway.


    "They made it?"


    "At least not yet at the time when I was constrained in the underground palace of the Small Thunder Temple. However, after seeing your eyes, I reckon, they did presumably succeed in fitting the bloodline of congenital gods into that of ordinary people!" Green Lamp Spirit gave a little sign, and added, "What a bunch of lunatics!"


    "In the present world, lots of people do have some magical power of the bloodline. It seems that the experiments those necromancers conducted were truly successful!" Junior Leopard grinned bitterly. "But evidently, these bloodlines can''t bring us the power of congenital gods!"


    "Nonsense. In the first place, no one had ever wanted to transform a man into a congenital god by this means. The aim of those necromancers was mere to steal some sort of Divine Sense from congenital gods, and the fact that you are already able to use the power of Heavenly Magic Eye is a sound proof of their success!" Green Lamp Spirit yelled.


    "But so far, I still don''t have my Eyes fully functioning!"


    "Fully functioning is, of course, impossible, since your physical strength is limited. Having the bloodline is one thing, but an application of it is another matter. For example, if I give you a big hammer weighing a half a million kilos, would you be able to sledge it?" Green Lamp Spirit sneered. "In order to truly wield these Divine Senses of congenital gods, you have to wait until you reach the Human Immortal Karma Rank at least. You should remember that these methods necromancers worked on are not designed for you lot who haven''t even obtained an Individual Immortal Karma Rank!"


    "But there are many people in the present day who can wield their power of bloodline smoothly!"Junior Leopard refuted mutinously.


    "Humph. You''re just talking about some skin-deep Divine Senses. If someone really had a perfect command of the Divine Sense of congenital gods in primitive times, the present world would long ago divert from its present appearance!"


    Junior Leopard couldn''t find anything to reply, but that Green Lamp Spirit went on again, "Well, I''ve told you everything you should know. I didn''t expect you to have a bloodline of congenital god and be able to utilize part of it. You won. But, with your current ability, you can''t destroy me anyway, even if you''re able to perform the power of Heavenly Magic Eye. As for the Turtledove''s Claw, it may keep me constrained for the moment, but not all the time. It is no use for you or anyone to imprison me like this, so I say, just put me back, would you?"


    "Put you back, are you kidding me? That green lamp is a Pure Yang Celestial Device, perfect for me to refine. If I put you back, what shall I use in the refining? As I see it, let''s just pick up a cat or dog and thrust your Original Spirit into it!"


    "It''s true that the green lamp is a Pure Yang Celestial Device, but its Natal Original Spirit was already engulfed by me, so you won''t be able to use it at all!" Green Lamp Spirit shouted hastily. "Plus, my Original Spirit isn''t something that any random creature can bear. I''ve been in this green lamp for tens of thousands of years, and my Original Spirit has long been infected with the fire character of Tusita Fire, so it can no longer possess any body of creatures. The wick in this green lamp made of Heavenly Evergreen is the thing most suitable for my dwelling!"


    "If so, I can''t do anything with that. But it is a Pure Yang Celestial Device! How can it be useless just because you say so? I think we can always find a way to use it, can''t we?"


    "Useless, absolutely!" Green Lamp Spirit said. "Or how about this, I''ll tell you the way of using this Tusita Fire. Nine out of ten of this green lamp''s power stems from this Tusita Fire. You can take the Tusita Fire, and I''ll also teach you how to refine this Pure Yang Celestial Device. With the Tusita Fire, as well as proper materials, it''ll be pretty easy to refine another Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Why should I trust you?"


    "There is no use in distrusting me, either. Maybe we shall stick to this stalemate, with you constraining me by Turtledove''s Claw. Let''s try again to refine this green lamp to see whether you can wield it or not?" Green Lamp Spirit suggested with enough composure.


    "Even if I really can''t wield it, so what?!" Junior Leopard gave a cold smile. "Anyway, it isn''t necessary to give this to you!"


    As he said so, Junior Leopard dripped a drop of blood onto the green lamp in the face of Green Lamp Spirit, and appeared to implement the refining process decently.


    "You!"


    Green Lamp Spirit finally started panicking at the sight of Junior Leopard initiating the refining procedure. "This green lamp has long been wrecked. Even if you successfully refine it, it can''t have¡ª"


    But before Green Lamp Spirit finished his words, Junior Leopard already opened his eyes, looking confused.


    "Why is it so? How could it be so easy? Isn''t it a Pure Yang Celestial Device? How come this lamp is easier to refine than a psychic weapon?"


    "Damn you, stupid idiot, rusted pig head!"


    Maybe due to the excessive vehemence, Green Lamp Spirit burst out a long list of swearing words, rendering Junior Leopard dumbstruck, who failed to strike a retort until Green Lamp Spirit got enough out.


    Blinking his eyes, he looked down to the cyan fox that was caught by the Turtledove''s Claw in his hand, and his gaze shifted to a less-benignant one.


    "You damn Original Spirit, getting sick of being alive? You think I''m someone you can just scold? Your head must have gone wrong!" Junior Leopard clutched his hands, and at once, a whiff of soul-summoning power shrouded Original Spirit.


    "Aaaah, no, no, you are bad mannered!"


    "Bad mannered? Are you mad! What fu*king manners shall I have with you, a Great Ancient Demon!" Junior Leopard sneered at him. "You''ve had a great time cursing me just now, haven''t you? Why didn''t you get your manners then? Now you want me to show you some manners, how could that happen?"


    "I-I didn''t mean that, I, I''m saying, I-I have told you long before, the green lamp is so wrecked that it can only be used as my dwelling. It''ll never recover its ability as a Pure Yang Celestial Device, because its spiritual character has long been reset to the chaotic state by me, so refining it now would just be a waste of time!


    "Then, what''s the matter with you?" Junior Leopard bellowed.


    "I-I-I need it as my shelter. If I dwell into the green lamp after you''ve refined it, that means I would be put under your control, wouldn''t it?" Original Spirit of the green lamp sighed.


    "Really? I never heard of it. Thank you for reminding me!" Junior Leopard laughed and asked, "do you have to re-enter the green lamp now?"


    "Do I have any other choice except for going back into the green lamp?" Green Lamp Spirit sounded a bit discouraged. "Damn it, in this world, there is no other suitable thing to accommodate my Original Spirit. But you should know, though this green lamp has been refined by you, I won''t succumb to your control!"


    "Are you going to break my inhibition at all?"


    "Rubbish! Original Spirit doesn''t equate to primordial spirit. Immortal as we are, we don''t have much difference from ordinary people. Only when relying on external materials like celestial devices, fairy weapons or other treasures of heaven and earth, can we possess some power. But now I''m in the form of Original Spirit, how can I wipe out your inhibition? However, let''s make a deal, shall we?"


    "A deal?"


    "Yes. I admit that your refining of the green lamp is my Achilles'' heel, but I''m also reluctant to be suppressed by you. Thus, I may go back into the green lamp on the condition that you shall not threaten me with it to work for you. As to my side, I''ll help you if necessary, like teaching you how to separate the Tusita Fire from this green lamp and methods to refine weapons. But in no case can you force me into helping you, otherwise, I would prefer to live a wandering life as an Original Spirit and never come back to the green lamp!" At this, he appeared to have made up his mind. "Huh! You know your Turtledove''s Claw can merely constrain me for the moment instead of for good. Once I ever find an opportunity, I''ll certainly be able to shake off your control. When that day comes, all you can get is no more than a crappy green lamp!"


    "OK, that''s a deal!" Junior Leopard agreed without even thinking. For one thing, he never intended to enslave Green Lamp Spirit, for another, he thought in his deep mind, "I''ve already refined the green lamp anyway. Once you''re back in it, even it''s against your will, you''ll be at my mercy!"


    Apparently relieved at the promise of Junior Leopard, Green Lamp Spirit further asked him to vow to act upon the deal, which ensued another round of bargaining. In the end, Junior Leopard swore by God that he would never ever force Green Lamp Spirit into anything against his will. Meanwhile, Green Lamp Spirit was also made to pledge that he would never ever disclose any of Junior Leopard secrets within his knowledge.


    Not until they both took their vows, did Green Lamp Spirit go back into the green lamp with a bit of reluctance.


    This coming-back felt immensely different than before for Junior Leopard.


    He had had this green lamp refined, therefore, gained a clear view in observing Green Lamp Spirit dwelling into the wick of the green lamp. The figure of Green Lamp Spirit would no longer escape his monitor by virtue of his spiritual mind. Meanwhile, even if the Spirit went back to Junior Leopard''s Dantian again, he would have no chance to unscrupulously break into Junior Leopard''s mind and talk to him, for, right now, it was Junior Leopard who was seizing the initiative.


    However, Junior Leopard never intended to put this green lamp back into his Dantian, for the thought alone that an Original Spirit was living in his Dantian would give him an uncomfortable feeling.


    He planned to place this green lamp in the space he divided up, but before that, there was one more thing to do. Ask the Original Spirit of the green lamp to teach him how to take the Tusita Fire off the green lamp, for he had witnessed its great power, which burned the palm of a Level-Seven expert into ashes with just a flash of flame.


    "Tusita Fire is also a product of necromancy. It was made by necromancers via simulating the properties of congenital fire and extracting the essence of acquired fire, and has part of the power of congenital fire. The wick of this green lamp is made of Heavenly Evergreen, and that''s why it can hold the Fire. Thus, if you separate it from the wick now, you would have no place to store it, unless you can find an object capable of bearing its power, which, I''m afraid would be really hard work in this world, wouldn''t it?" Green Lamp Spirit said with a note of glee, as though he had pulled off some kind of plot.


    "You crafty guy!" Junior Leopard cursed in an undertone. He raised his hand with a strange object in it and asked, "What do you say, will this do the trick?"


    The object he drew out was exactly the weird stone he obtained from the rock flows of the underground fire vein on that day. Though he knew it would be great material in refining a celestial device, he had no idea what this stone was at all.


    "Underground Fire Golden Essence, you should have Underground Fire Golden Essence!" At the sight of the object that Junior Leopard took out, the eyes of Green Lamp Spirit were as wide as balls, of course, provided that he had eyes.


    "How come you have this thing, how is this even possible? Haven''t you said that in the present world, the treasure of heaven and earth has all gone? How can this thing be here? And it''s such a big piece!"


    "You don''t need to know why I have this. Just tell me, can it hold Tusita Fire or not!"


    "Boy, the question at the moment is not whether it can hold Tusita Fire. Instead, with Underground Fire Golden Essence and Tusita Fire, as long as you manage to collect enough Earth Fire Yuan Essence, you''re able to build up a primitive Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Really?!"Junior Leopard''s heart leaped.


    "Of course it''s real. Tusita Fire was created by necromancers through extracting the essence of 81 kinds of acquired fire. Though it can''t be on par with congenital fire, Tusita Fire is no less inferior than several famous sorts of acquired fire, and it has some unique properties of congenital fire, enabling it to simulate the power of the latter. As for Underground Fire Golden Essence, it is forged from a bit of golden metal essence in underground lava, being refined by Worldly Extreme Yin Fire for numerous years, which is the perfect material to refine a fairy weapon featured gold and fire!"


    "A fairy weapon?"


    "Don''t daydream now. The Underground Fire Golden Essence you''ve got hasn''t been refined to the right point. Unless you refine it in underground lava for another million years, you won''t be able to build fairy weapon with it, but you can build a Pure Yang Celestial Device at the moment!"


    "No, no, no. Haven''t you said that Pure Yang Celestial Devices can evolve into a fairy weapon? Isn''t your green lamp also a Pure Yang Celestial Device that can evolve into a fairy weapon? Other than that, the material of the green lamp is merely Heavenly Evergreen!"


    "Boy, stop pretending that you understand it to wheedle information out of my mouth. Heavenly Evergreen is nothing but a name. It never meant that the tree had grown forever. Actually, the Heavenly Evergreen is an alien type of wood from primitive times, which can be divided into categories of 100 years, 1,000 years, 10,000 years, 100,000 years and one million years pursuant to their germinating period instead of living period. Heavenly Evergreen refers to those that take a total of 10,000 years for sprouting since being planted. As to how many years it takes for a Heavenly Evergreen to grow up, you can do the math yourself. This green lamp was made from a mature Heavenly Evergreen of 100,000 years!


    Junior Leopard swallowed gently, and then gave a silly smile. "Forget it and talk about Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Is it true that Tusita Fire, Earth Fire Yuan Essence and Underground Fire Golden Essence can be made into a Pure Yang Celestial Device?"


    "Of course not. That also requires the mysterious fire of Primitive Dragon Chimera contained in your body!" Green Lamp Spirit said. "Refining weapons is a very delicate technique, so don''t dream of it as something you can get done with a whoosh!"

 Chapter 256: Hard to be a Lord

    Chapter 256: Hard to be a Lord


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Refining Weapons was a science, a matter of knowledge.


    Junior Leopard had refined his weapon, Bi You, before by himself. However, after hearing some basic ways of refining weapons from the Green Lamp Spirit, Junior Leopard realized that he was inexperienced in this art.


    Necromancy, including refining weapons, had prevailed in antiquity times, and all its practitioners had researched necromancy. In Junior Leopard''s previous life, he had learned Physics, Chemistry and Math at school. He knew a few theories but only enough for him to solve some equations and do one or two easy chemistry experiments. Although he could recite the theory of relativity fluently, it was still impossible for him to build an atomic bomb.


    Junior Leopard thought the Green Lamp Spirit was like a high school level demon. He himself was not even a pre-schooler, let alone a first-grader. It was good enough for him to have a high school student as his teacher.


    The procedure to refine a weapon was not so mysterious. In a sense, it was very similar to a chemical reaction in his previous life: different types of heaven and earth treasures mutually combined. With their power, superimposing, they mutated, and finally brought into play their various functions.


    This was the basic principle of refining a weapon. Unfortunately, it was just a principle.


    "After researching for several years, necromancers have summarized thousands of ways of refining celestial devices and fairy weapons. I only know a few of them," Green Lamp Spirit said. He continued, "But you already own complete materials and they are more than sufficient for you to refine a Pure Yang Celestial Device. To refine a celestial device isn''t something you can finish in one go, you need time and patience. You should be aware, a Pure Yang Celestial Device was not designed merely to help you to kill and defend, its main purpose is to nourish your body and spirit. The cultivation method you practice belongs to the fire element. If you refine a Pure Yang Celestial Device that includes both gold and fire, its nourishing function for your body, cultivation and spirit will be significant. You cannot do this with the Telepathize Celestial Device or Mysterious Celestial Device! "


    "So what should I do? !"


    "Just follow my steps. You refined the Green Lamp and we are truly going to rise and fall together. You don''t need to worry that I will trick you!"


    "I don''t worry about that, but you should at least tell me your background."


    "I''m a Grand Demon. To use your words, I lived in the antiquity times. Even if I told you, you would never know where I came from, because there were plenty of grand demons at that time. By the way, I am the Green Lamp Spirit now and my past means nothing to me. You can just call me Green Spirit."


    "Well Green Spirit, this is who you really are!" Junior Leopard said with a smile and stopped digging on his past. Following the method that Green Spirit described, he took the Tusita Fire from the green lamp carefully and then blended it slowly into the Underground Fire Golden Essence.


    Green Spirit said, "You need to nourish the Underground Fire Golden Essence with the Tusita Fire and the Demonic Fire from primitive Dragon Chimera. It''s a meticulous job and you can''t go too quickly. When it is almost done, I will tell you how to refine the celestial device."


    "OK, thanks." Junior Leopard smiled. As soon as the red diamond on his fingertip sparked, Green Spirit was sent back to the space Junior Leopard divided, without a chance to say a word.


    "Humph! Great Ancient Demon! No matter how big a demon you are, now you''re an Original Spirit and you''re taking orders from me. This feels so good!" Junior Leopard got up smugly and said, "I should head to my territory to see what''s going on. I have had some disputes with the Wangs, I hope they are not foolish enough to attack my place while I''m away. The experts of the Wang family are more interested in the Ancient Ruins anyway."


    Junior Leopard rode the sword light heading to the northwest.


    ¡­


    Northern Yuan was in full swing.


    Since many fiefs have been enfeoffed to the Great Jin, the masters hastened to their territories one after another.


    Different people had different ways. On the prairie, after the complete collapse of an old master, a new one would move in with territory construction, just like paint on white paper.


    The most enthusiastic people were those who came from the martial arts world. They had been trained in Military Camps and then enfeoffed lands. They had once earned their living in Jianghu, but now they had suddenly become masters of large territories. Although there were few people on the land, how could they not be delighted? They now had authority just slightly lower than the Emperor of Jin.


    Within half a year, most people moved their families into the territory. Of course, astute businessmen noticed that plenty of trade routes opened at the same time.


    The Southland seven tribes belonging to Northern Yuan had now changed into three states of Jin, and these states naturally became the transfer station for border trading. A bustling scene was starting to appear in this sparsely populated place.


    What was the best business to do in the North?


    Undoubtedly, it was human trafficking.


    In Jin, many restrictions were issued on human trafficking and the trafficking of the people of Jin was prohibited. You could only buy and sell slaves from Northern Yuan and barbarians from the south. Otherwise, even if the people were malicious killers or arsonists, you would be making a trip to the guillotine.


    Nonetheless, the great Marx once said, if there are profits, the businessman will risk his life. At present, the profit in this business was huge. It was now or never.


    Unlike the strong-arm Governor Ma Tianchang, the Governors of the three northern states turned a blind eye to human trafficking for they knew the northern prairie needed people. Besides, it gained them a few advantages and brought them no enemies.


    The human trafficking business in all three states was getting bigger and bigger.


    When Junior Leopard arrived, he was astounded by the growing number of people.


    Before there had been at most one or two hundred people in this place, but now, the population had almost doubled. Town centralization began to take shape. A curved street winding along the Piedmont of Jilei Mountain, and two lines of simple houses were built beside the street. Hundreds of cattle and sheep fed in the prairie down the hill, giving the image of peace.


    After looking over the territory, Junior Leopard landed in a secluded place and changed his clothes. He displayed the body movement of Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds and went back to the growing town under Jilei Mountain.


    Junior Leopard was recognized by a servant as soon as he arrived at the log gate. The servant rapidly sent the message back so that Junior Leopard saw the happy faces of Jiang Xiao and others after just a few steps on the town street.


    "My Lord, it''s so nice that you''re back!"


    "Your Excellency, please allow me to express my gratitude."


    "The pleasure is mine!" Jiang Xiao bowed and said.


    "Look at your joyful face, did something good happen? "


    "Your Excellency, we were mining stones to renovate the house, and we came across a refined iron mine. It tested to be Upper Grade One. The diggings are in full swing. We don''t need to worry about money anymore!"


    "Great!" Junior Leopard couldn''t help being delighted after hearing this news. He was from the Wu Family and certainly knew the value of an iron mine. It would be possible for him to raise thousands of people with the mine.


    "What''s more, My Lord, there were some merchant groups here recently. They not only brought us goods, but some people as well." Jiang Xiao subconsciously came closer to Junior Leopard and said, "They are not from Northern Yuan, or South China, My Lord, they are from Great Jin. They are southern farmers who rebelled by following the Sect of Flame and were all brought to the prairie because of a collaboration among officers, soldiers, and human traders."


    "OK, I got it." Junior Leopard nodded. As a good student who had studied Marxism from childhood, he had expected this. From now on, the business of human trafficking would thrive.


    On the other hand, Junior Leopard didn''t think this type of business would truly change the situation in the prairie. Even in Northern Yuan''s heyday, the population was just a couple hundred million.


    People from Northern Yuan were always living a nomadic life, finding prairies and rivers and staying a short time. Only tribes with a population of over half a million had the qualification and ability to build a city in the prairie.


    What about Jin?


    Only Yunzhou, under the governance of Ma Tianchang, had three hundred million people.


    The lifestyle habits of Central Plains people were different from prairie people. They were used to settling down, farming, building cities, and propagating. Accomplishing this type of lifestyle required plenty of people. However, the original nomadic people of Northern Yuan had almost all been expelled, and now it was the Central Plains people who occupied the rest of prairie. In this way, the ecology of the entire prairie would certainly be changed. Junior Leopard believed that in ten years the Northern Yuan prairie would be beyond recognition. The increasing population was evidence. Under the population policy of Great Jin, the prairie population couldn''t reach its demand no matter what exceptional abilities the businessmen had.


    Unless Junior Leopard''s prediction came true -- a war in Jin. Then, a multitude of people would migrate to the northern prairie, as it would be a good, safe place for them. But for now, everything remained unknown.


    "Father Kelsang really is something. He helped us hire more than a hundred nomads and now all of them are settled down," Jiang Xiao continued.


    Junior Leopard''s eyebrows went up in doubt. "This Kelsang actually supports us with everything?!"


    Jiang Xiao understood his meaning and quickly asked, "Do you think this is improper, My Lord?"


    "It''s nothing. A few thousand people can''t cause any trouble, never mind hundreds. What we lack right now is people. The more the better, it doesn''t matter what we think of them. Don''t worry."


    "Yes, Your Excellency!"


    "You have the right to deal with all territory matters. If you think it''s beneficial for us, you can pass by me and make a decision yourself."


    "Your Excellency, I''m afraid that''s not appropriate. Some important matters..."


    "Important matters are also in your charge. I only do the violent part," Junior Leopard waved his hands and said, "I''m in no mood for managing specific affairs."


    "Yes, Sir!" Jiang Xiao answered with his head bowed. "Your temporary mansion is all set up, Your Excellency. I''ll show you the way."


    "Good!"


    ¡­


    It sounded easy to build a temporary mansion, but actually, it was not. This was the largest yard in the town center and it had just been built. Junior Leopard looked up at it towering above him. It wasn''t until Jiang Xiao brought him here that he realized the place had nine doors and dozens of rooms. The garden and pavilion prototypes had already taken shape. It wouldn''t be long before the construction was finished.


    "It''s too big for me!"


    "Your Excellency, this is only your temporary mansion. In the future..."


    "Alright, alright, I know!" Junior Leopard waved reluctantly and went directly to his room.


    ¡­


    Junior Leopard felt it was refreshing to live in the new mansion, but after a few days, this freshness was all gone. The construction of the mansion hadn''t finished yet. There were prototypes of yards, mountains, and pools that needed to be built. In order to live in quiet, Junior Leopard moved into the farthest yard, which was almost done. It was not that big but it was enough for him and his maidservant Renzhen Cuo.


    Junior Leopard hadn''t seen her in a while. She had become white and gained weight. Junior Leopard had appointed her as maidservant so no one dared to slight her even if he wasn''t here. She was actually the one with the most authority in the yard aside from Jiang Xiao. One reason was that she was Junior Leopard''s maidservant, another was that she was the princess of the Blackwolf tribe, which didn''t exist anymore. Most of the servants in the house were former prairie herdsmen. Even though Northern Yuan''s collapse was not long ago, they had heard of the Blackwolf tribe. Surely they had a sense of awe toward her.


    The air was crisp in the late autumn. The territory was located in the northwest of China which was the frozen land in the Central Plains. The temperature had dropped below zero. Junior Leopard was not cold for he had powerful cultivation. As for others, they already wore fur robes, Jiang Xiao and Renzhen Cuo being no exception.


    "Your Excellency, Father Kelsang asked me to send homemade oil-tea!" Junior Leopard almost stepped out of the door when he saw Renzhen Cuo holding a big copper pot in her hand.


    "Put it inside and I''ll drink it when I come back. So, have you gotten used to living here yet?"


    "Yes!" Renzhen Cuo said bowing. "It''s not far away from the Blackwolf tribe. I''m familiar with the mountains, rivers, and prairies. I''ve been here before, but there were not many people back then."


    Renzhen Cuo looked wistful and seemed to be recalling her former life.


    "Let bygones be bygones. It''s no use holding onto the past." Junior Leopard looked at Renzhen Cuo as if he could see into her soul. "You are not that kind of beauty nor an expert with the cultivation of Level Nine. Maybe you owned some assets before but now you are in my hand and that means you have nothing. You can''t change a thing with your little secrets. The tribe of Northern Yuan has collapsed and your Blackwolf tribe, the strongest tribe, will not revive. Stop thinking about unrealistic things and live here in peace. Find your true love, get married in the next year or two, and have a child if you want. I may want a disciple whom I can help become a master over Level Seven!"


    "Yes!" Renzhen Cuo trembled slightly. She looked down and left with the copper pot.


    "The girl is nice but she is dwelling in the past. She stays with those nomads every day. How could Jiang Xiao not know her thoughts?"


    The wind of fall was very cold now; few people appeared in the town. Junior Leopard wore plain clothes and walked aimlessly through the street.


    Suddenly, he stopped and frowned.


    "The Sect of Flame?!"


    A slight scent of sandalwood wafted from a bunkhouse and Junior Leopard heard the sound of praying, although it was a small voice.


    "Jiang Xiao told me that human traders in the three northern states were overflowing with people from both Northern Yuan and South China. Southern rabbles were sold to this frozen land, and they were coerced by the Sect of Flame whose base camp is in the south, so there is no surprise that a few Sect of Flame''s disciples are here. This is my territory. Although we say freedom of religion, the Sect of Flame is not merely a religion. It''s an expert of rebellion. I need to order Jiang Xiao to be careful next time. He better not let these sect followers root on my territory."


    Junior Leopard walked straight through the door, lost in thought. It was not worth it for him to deal with these Sects of Flame''s disciples.


    It was then that he heard the small voice.


    "Young Master, we have already contacted Madam. Madam and Venerable will pick you up soon. Please wait for another few days."


    "You told mother about the situation here?!"


    "Yes, and Madam said she will figure something out."


    "Ok, you can go. Be careful and don''t expose us. Just act normally!"


    "Yes, Young Master!"


    Junior Leopard stopped as the voice disappeared.


    "Young Master, Madam, Venerable!" He kept repeating these three names. "Who was that guy? The son of Sect of Flame''s Venerable? There are not many Venerables. Prince Xiaoming might be the one. This man couldn''t be Prince Xiaoming, the nancy boy, who else could it be?"


    The slit of the door opened as Junior Leopard was thinking. A vigilant eye looked out and met his gaze.


    "Ah..."


    The man looked at him, trembling. He seemed to lean back like he was going to close the door but he froze, thought about it and slowly opened the door.


    "Your sinner Kelsang bows before the Master!"


    All the people in the town were Northern Yuan convicts, so Junior Leopard was their master. Although he didn''t take himself as a master, people would call him by it when meeting him.


    "Ha, sinner?!" Junior Leopard laughed and looked inside. The houses beside the street were all the same, so it was easy to see clearly. A white robed teen around the same age as Junior Leopard, held the sandalwood and kneeled before a statue of God. Just then he turned his head and looked outside with frightened eyes.


    "I''m just passing by. Don''t bother. You can go." Junior Leopard waved his hand and continued on.


    The man inside couldn''t decide whether stay or go.


    "Protector Cao, did he hear what we said just now?" The teen asked. He timidly walked out until Junior Leopard was far away and there wasn''t a soul in sight.


    "He is an expert at Level Seven with a terrible spiritual mind, I''m afraid he heard it all!" Protector Cao looked as pale as death. "He might even hear what we are saying now!"


    "What should we do now?" asked the young man urgently.


    "Rest assured that you will be fine, Young Master!" Protector Cao looked back and patted his shoulders with a wry smile. "Since he didn''t catch us it means he is not watching us. Venerable and Madam will be here soon. If something happens, he will talk to the Venerable."


    This meant that both of them were not important enough to bother Junior Leopard.


    "But..."


    "Young Master, it can''t be helped. All we can do is stay here and wait for the answer." Protector Cao said, "This place belongs to Lord Zhou. Things need to be explained."


    ...


    "Your explanation better be good, or I will destroy you!" Junior Leopard thought, walking and listening to their conversation. "There is more than one Venerable of Sect of Flame, but it''s impossible that all of them have Level Nine as Prince Xiaoming does, and I don''t know the real strength and plan of this Venerable. Nobody wants to come to this frozen land, so why is he interested in this place? Does the Sect of Flame want a foothold in the northwest? That doesn''t make sense. If they did, why would they choose such a bad location? There are cowards all over the north, it is not a big deal for them to occupy a territory with their power!"


    Walking on the withered prairie and thinking of the territory issues, Junior Leopard smiled suddenly. "F*ck, why did I come here to be a lord? Now I know why Emperors have such low cultivation. They have so much to worry about. People like me who already gave everything to Jiang Xiao, now need to be concerned about the territory. This could surely affect my practice!"

 Chapter 257: Owning a Celestial Device to Fish a Golden Turtle and Causing a Storm

    Chapter 257: Owning a Celestial Device to Fish a Golden Turtle and Causing a Storm


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Green Spirit coughed twice. "Bastard! How dare you treat me like this! You dare put me back in that godforsaken place!"


    The late autumn in the prairie was particularly cold. The withered and yellowed grass was already coated in a layer of frost and all around. Seeing as there was no one around, Junior Leopard retrieved the green lamp from his independent space. The moment Green Spirit emerged, he started complaining loudly about Junior Leopard''s actions.


    "That place is far more spacious than the underground palace of the Small Thunder Temple. There are more things at least!" Junior Leopard said, smiling.


    Green Spirit snorted and said nothing. The green lamp, the only place he could stay in, was already refined by Junior Leopard. To some extent, their relationship was akin to a landlord and his tenant that wasn''t tied by a contract. Though he had Junior Leopard''s promise that he would never be forced to do anything, the problem was that Junior Leopard didn''t even need to force him. He could just tamper with the green lamp, then Green Spirit couldn''t live in it even if he wanted to.


    Therefore, this Great Ancient Demon had to be humble in front of Junior Leopard despite his haughtiness and merely snorted to express his dissatisfaction after complaining.


    "I have no choice. This lamp is too enthralling." Junior Leopard shrugged. "Now that it''s busted and useless, I won''t be keeping it in my Dantian. I can only put it in a place that others can''t see. But if you don''t like it, you can come out from the lamp at any time."


    "Humph!"


    He gave another cold snort. "Why did you summon me out of the lamp? Did something happen?"


    "Hey now, that doesn''t sound right. Must I only summon you when I''m in trouble? Doesn''t that make you seem to like my servant? The moonlight is so lovely tonight and the prairie is so quiet and peaceful. I was worried you''d be bored inside, so I summoned you for a talk. If you prefer the quiet, then I''ll put you back in."


    Green Spirit cried, "No need! It''s good to have a talk. That godforsaken place has many things but it''s too quiet."


    The man and spirit began an idle chatter in the prairie about anything and everything. It was a great way to pass the time.


    Junior Leopard knew relationships needed nurturing. How? When you meet an ordinary person, you can treat him to a meal, have a drink, go to karaoke, or even hit on girls together. Your relationship will naturally improve. But what about a spirit who didn''t need to eat, drink, single, or date?


    It wasn''t difficult either. You just need to find his weakness.


    Green Spirit''s biggest weakness was his fear of loneliness. After being trapped in that godforsaken underground palace for several hundreds of thousands of years, he should feel grateful he didn''t go mad. Junior Leopard thought Green Spirit might really have gone mad, but he simply didn''t show it at the moment.


    Things would be much easier now that he knew Green Spirit''s weakness. He could lock him in a similar place and summon him now and then for a chat. This way, they would gradually become closer. Besides, Green Spirit could only stay in the green lamp and the lamp was already refined by him. It wasn''t as if Green Spirit could leave or find someone else. Sooner or later, he would be reaping all the benefits from Green Spirit.


    With a Great Ancient Demon with him, he would be hiding an enormous advantage on his side.


    That was why he came to the deep prairie at midnight and spent time chatting with Green Spirit.


    "Didn''t you say that you''re going to absorb the Sun and Moon Essence? The moonlight is pretty nice tonight," Junior Leopard said. "If you want to take in the Qi of Nine Heaven Thunder, I can take you to the place where it''s thundering. But I need a reward to do this kind of energy-wasting work."


    "You want me to absorb the Qi of Nine Heaven Thunder right now? Are you kidding? I don''t want the thunderbolt to kill me. But I can absorb the Moon Essence," Green Spirit said and transformed into a wisp of blue smoke against the bright moonlight. He drifted in the air, vibrating as he absorbed the Sun and Moon Essence.


    The gentle moonlight enveloped the blue smoke as it carefully absorbed the tiny red particles in the moonlight. The particles merged with the Green Mist. Seeing such a sight, Junior Leopard felt inexplicably moved.


    He had been racking his brain for the way of Demonic Cultivation. The Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion could only cultivate the venomous needle behind his tail based on its instinct. Since this spirit was a Great Ancient Demon, he must know the way of Demonic Cultivation. Perhaps he could help.


    Just then, a scorpion as green as a jade came out from his sleeves and climbed onto a protruding stone in the prairie. It mimicked Green Spirit''s actions and began absorbing the Sun and Moon Essence. Of course, Junior Leopard compelled it to use the essence to refine the venomous needle on its tail.


    God knew how much time had passed. Just as the moon was beginning to fade, the blue smoke stirred and became condensed.


    "Kid, where did you get this scorpion? Oh, you''ve washed away its soul and replaced it with your thought. Are you trying to turn it into your puppet?"


    "Good eye. That''s right. I want to turn it into a puppet."


    "Seems like I''ve underestimated you. Not only do you have the bloodline of congenital god in primitive times, you also seem to know the method of cultivating Spirit. What''s more, you''ve cultivated another thought at Level Seven. I really did underestimate you."


    "These are mere techniques. If I don''t have this pair of eyes, I can''t occupy this scorpion body even if I have another thought."


    "Kid, don''t be too arrogant. The technique you use is the same method that the congenital god in primitive times used to control puppets. The Puppet Technique in later times that necromancers created was based on this original technique. However, they couldn''t remove living souls from bodies without the pair of Heavenly Magic Eyes. Therefore, they could use corpses or dead things as puppets. How can those be superior to the bodies of living creatures?" Green Spirit said.


    "Powerful Divines in antiquity times can''t summon the souls of living creatures either?"


    "No. They could shatter the souls of living creatures with ease, but not summon the souls in its entirety the way you did. When the souls are shattered, the living creatures would die instantly. There are many other methods to summon souls but only partially. As long there''s a part of the soul that is attached to the body, it''ll be difficult for another person to inject his thought and integrate it with the puppet body, never mind controlling it. So necromancers prefer using corpses or dead things as puppets."


    "Is it that hard to summon living souls?"


    "Haha, you don''t feel it hard because you have the Heavenly Magic Eyes to summon souls and inject thought. But when you use the technique, you will feel that the soul isn''t only linked to the brain but every part of the body as well. The links are like branches, leaves, and the trunk, but don''t you forget there''s also a large number of roots. The stronger a living creature is, the more roots it has. The roots would also be much deeper. It''s easy to destroy a big tree with a hammer or a fire, but it''ll be a hundred times harder if you want to unroot it. Besides, you have to make you keep every single root, as well as the ground it takes root in, intact. Do you think it''s possible?"


    "It may be impossible for ordinary people, but for Powerful Divines¡­"


    "It''s easy for them to uproot a big tree without damaging it, but a living soul isn''t a tree." Green Spirit sighed." Besides the power of the Heavenly Magic Eyes, there''s no other way to summon living souls neatly."


    "Looks like it''s pretty handy to inherit this bloodline."


    "Don''t you be so excited. Your eyes aren''t pure Heavenly Magic Eyes. I can see that your eyes have several other congenital skills like Black Water-Genuine Pupils. I can''t imagine how those necromancers managed to mesh so many kinds of bloodlines of congenital god together. But I know that they had a theory about stealing the bloodlines of congenital god."


    "What theory?"


    "Hybrid theory!" Green Spirit said." The bloodline of congenital god is too overpowering for ordinary creatures. That was why necromancers first diluted the bloodline, suppressing the powerful functions and extracting only the weak ones to be used in the bodies of living creatures. As time passed, living creatures began to get used to the blood and it gradually strengthened their bodies too, allowing the ability of the congenital god''s bloodline to be demonstrated completely."


    "That''s a pretty good method."


    "It was said to be successful in the beginning, but problems began showing after. Though this method allowed the congenital god''s bloodline to be maximized, the bodies of the living creatures would gradually break down at the same time. That was because the speed of their bodies awakening the power of the bloodline was lower than the speed of their bodies strengthening and adapting to the change. Though the bloodlines could be successfully integrated with the bodies of living creatures, they wouldn''t be able to withstand the impact. So this method was a failure. But then the necromancers discovered that when several bloodlines were mixed, they would restrict each other and delay the awakening and growth of the bloodlines. That was their hybrid theory. But it wasn''t an easy task. They still hadn''t succeeded even to the day I became constrained in the Small Thunder Temple."


    "Seems like they''ve succeeded now!"


    "Perhaps, perhaps not." Green Spirit scoffed. "The bloodline in your body has just developed. Perhaps the more times you use it, the quicker the bloodline will awake. You''re only at Level Seven with an ordinary body. Do you think you can withstand the explosive power of so many bloodlines?"


    "Damn." Junior Leopard was shocked and recalled how exhausted he felt after using Fiery Eyes each time. "So I''ve been playing with fire! No way! Even if the Fiery Eyes are useful, they''re not worth risking my life."


    "You have a decent puppet. I''d consider it an Upper-Grade item. But you seem to know nothing about the way of Demonic Cultivation."


    "I was wondering if I could ask you for help."


    "You''re very smart. Though you don''t know the way of Demonic Cultivation, you still managed to discover the way of Demonic Cultivation in cultivating a natal magic weapon. You didn''t miss anything."


    "I just have some luck."


    "Too much luck isn''t always a good thing. Don''t you think it''s a little weird?"


    "Weird? What do you mean?"


    "Do you think it''s a coincidence for the Small Thunder Temple to suddenly appear in this world? The temple has drifted in the void for several hundreds of thousands of years and I''ve seen it stop anywhere."


    "How is that weird? In the past, many Ancient Ruins also appeared."


    "It''s not the same," Green Spirit said. "I don''t know about the independent spaces of other schools, but I know everything about the Small Thunder Temple. Even if I was confined at that time, I knew that it was the Great Sage Moro who blew the little world of the temple into the depths of the void. His Qian Yuan Palm-leaf Fan is a Taihao Fairy Weapon that could cut into the void with just one swipe of his hand. If there wasn''t a particular reason, the temple would continue to drift not just hundreds of thousands of years, but millions of years, and never appearing in this world."


    "Then why did it come back?"


    "Exactly." Green Spirit laughed. "That was why I found it weird. I''ve barely been released from the underground palace before getting stuck in this little world again. Of course, I wouldn''t know why."


    "It''s fine if you don''t know anything about it. I''m not interested," Junior Leopard said. "I don''t want to invite any troubles."


    "Having achieved Level Seven at your age and possessing the bloodlines of congenital god in primitive times, do you think you can really keep your nose out of chaos in such a world? Even if you want to stay away, other people may not agree."


    "Who do you mean?"


    "I don''t know. It''s just my feeling." Green Spirit laughed happily. "Let''s not talk about this. I''ll teach you the way of Demonic Cultivation. That way, you won''t have to refine your natal magic weapon."


    "Then I''ll depend on you." The muscles on Junior Leopard''s face cramped slightly.


    ¡­


    A month quickly passed.


    Ever since he noticed how his focus on the fief slowed his cultivation progress, Junior Leopard left all matters to Jiang Xiao. In Junior Leopard''s territory at least, Jing Xiao had become an authoritative figure that no one could say no to.


    Junior Leopard locked himself up in his house, using the way of Demonic Cultivation Green Spirit taught him to cultivate his puppet. At the same time, he slowly experienced the degree of Underground Fire Golden Essence to prepare for the cultivation of his first Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    Unfortunately, the peaceful times only lasted a month. Wang Cheng and Zhu Ba returned with their household as well as over 500 people and a large number of materials. Of course, those people were still on the way. Zhu Ba and Wang Cheng had rushed back first.


    They made a beeline for Junior Leopard''s yard without even stopping to rest after reaching the fief. Zhu Ba, in particular, began shouting before even arriving. Junior Leopard was irritated and snapped at them. "Why are you yelling?"


    "Your Excellency, I really have something urgent to report!"


    "What''s that?" Junior Leopard knew something serious must have happened when he saw Wang Cheng. Otherwise, Wang Cheng wouldn''t have gone along with Zhu Ba''s antics.


    "Your Excellency, we heard about a great event when we went back to the Central Plains."


    "What''s that?"


    "I''m not too sure myself. I heard it''s about some Ancient Ruins showing up." Zhu Ba rubbed his head, appearing confused.


    "Ancient Ruins?" Junior Leopard raised an eyebrow. Perhaps no one knew about the Ancient Ruins better than he did. "What does that have anything to do with us?"


    "You know about the Ancient Ruins?"


    "Nonsense! Of course!" Junior Leopard turned to Wang Cheng and asked, "He''s blabbering all over the place. You tell me what''s going on."


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" Wang Cheng smiled and quickly told him the whole story.


    It turned out that the Ancient Runes didn''t only attract the group of people Junior Leopard met the last time. Several large aristocratic families and schools also sent their men over. The imperial palace sent their experts as well. It was also discovered that there were other entrances to the ruins other than the solitary island they visited. Junior Leopard knew this. After all, the group of people from the East Sea Skyward Palace also managed to enter the ruins despite coming from a different direction. This proved that there was at least one other entrance.


    Junior Leopard knew exactly what happened inside the Ancient Ruins. Though those long grasses on the ground were all precious medicine and the items left on the ground were either celestial devices or fairy weapons, they were basically scraps. After all, so many years had passed. Junior Leopard was lucky to pick up a scrap Pure Yang Celestial Device. If he didn''t manage to bring Green Spirit home with him, he would have really found the trip a waste of time. Yet someone was even luckier than him in this world.


    Like him, most left after picking up some medicinal herbs and scrap item. But a group of people got lucky beyond imagination and picked up a Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    It was this group of people that caused the great event in the Central Plains.


    They were experts from the imperial court!


    They were experts from the imperial palace.


    They happened to pick up a Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    Generally, even if it was the emperor, they should be keeping a low profile after picking up such a good weapon. But the emperor seemed to have gone mad or perhaps had another motive. He actually declared the weapon to be the prize for the World Hero Competition.


    "World Hero Competition? Is he mad?"


    Even Junior Leopard couldn''t help shivering after hearing the gallant title of the competition.


    "Your Excellency, how can such an intelligent person like the emperor be mad? I think it''s intentional!" Jiang Xiao said, standing by the river.


    "Of course it''s intentional, but it''s hard to guess and there''s no need to guess either." Junior Leopard merely sneered. "A Pure Yang Celestial Device is certainly an eye-catching prize. Oh right. What''s the purpose of this World Hero Competition?"


    "After destroying Northern Yuan, Great Jin has been wantonly enfeoffing its land in a show of authority. It wouldn''t be possible for them to win this war without the many experts and martial arts masters slaughtering those from the prairie. Now that the royalty found a Pure Yang Celestial Device, they wanted to find to hold this hero assembly to find a good owner for it as well as to showcase their national power."


    "You mean they hold such a large-scale competition for this lousy reason?"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" Wang Cheng said with his head lowered. "There''s no limit to the World Hero Competition. Regardless of your martial arts level, you can join as long as you''ve contributed to the victory against the Northern Yuan. The winner will get the Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Why? Are you planning to join?" Junior Leopard smiled. He could hear the overwhelming desire in Zhu Ba''s words.


    Zhu Ba laughed. "Your Excellency, though every martial arts master of Great Jin are allowed to join, I''m not qualified with my Level Four cultivation. If I go, I''ll just be slapped to death by those experts. It''s better if you go."


    "Go if you want to. Though you were in the navy in Jiang City and didn''t enter the battlefield against the Northern Yuan, you took charge of escorting army provisions. That could be considered as a form of war contribution. Don''t worry about failing because of your cultivation or feel shame if you don''t win. There''ll be tens of thousands of people who will be joining but there''s only one victor. Besides, it''s not in your character to stay here for a long time!"


    "Thank you, Your Excellency!" Zhu Ba was elated.


    "We''ve talked for half the day, but you still haven''t told me what the Pure Yang Celestial Device is."


    "No one really knows what it is exactly, they just know it''s a Pure Yang Celestial Device." Wang Cheng smiled bitterly. "But it''s apparently something like a pagoda."

 Chapter 258: Uninvited Guest

    Chapter 258: Uninvited Guest


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    There were things that were unreasonable or even ridiculous in the eyes of outsiders. But once you learned the truth, you would find that the profound meaning hidden in them was unimaginable.


    What was the value of a Pure Yang Celestial Device?


    Only a few people could make it clear.


    Actually, before now, most people in Jianghu had not heard about the so-called "Pure Yang Celestial Device", and all they knew was that there were various bizarre magic weapons in the world.


    It didn''t matter that they didn''t know this before.They knew now, and that was enough. The gossip in Jianghu spread like wildfire, especially since all the people were very interested in it. So not long after, the whole Jianghu knew that the Pure Yang Celestial Device was the magic weapon second only to the fairy weapon.


    Below the Pure Yang Celestial Device was the Psychic Celestial Device and the Mysterious Celestial Device.The young expert Zhou Bao, who had made a great contribution to the Northern Yuan destruction war and had been in the limelight of Jianghu in recent years, killed a Level Eight expert of Northern Yuan by using a Psychic Celestial Device.


    A Level Five master of martial arts could kill a Level Eight expert by using a Psychic Celestial Device. So, what would happen if one used a Pure Yang Celestial Device that was two levels above it?


    This sort of reasoning was enough to make the whole Jianghu and the martial arts world go crazy.


    Although this was just a joke in the eyes of Junior Leopard, it was sufficient to light up the dreams of hundreds of people who had very little capacity in the martial arts world.


    Moreover, what the World Hero Competition had was not just a Pure Yang Celestial Device, besides which, people could also win other awards if they ranked higher. As for what the other awards were, it was believed that the news would come soon.


    "Well, don''t think too much. Zhu Ba, I assume that with your present capacity, even if you took part in that competition, you''d have no chance to win a prize. Just stop getting your hopes high, and if you meet a real expert, never force yourself to be brave because it isn''t worth it, just run away as far as you can."


    "Thank you, Your Excellency!"


    "Ok, you can go back. Whoever wants to take part in this competition is permitted to. But you should do it according to your ability. Understood?!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!"


    Just as people were going to leave, a flicker of confusion passed across Junior Leopard''s face. "Jiang Xiao, take some people and go outside and check. It seems that we have a guest!"


    A burst of hubbub and reproach came from the yard before Junior Leopard finished his words.


    With gloomy expressions, Zhu Ba and the others went outside. But before they arrived in the yard, the gate of the yard was bumped open, and Renzhen Cuo came in staggering.


    "Zhou Bao, don''t put on airs!"


    There were three people following Renzhen Cuo¡ª an old man, a middle-aged man, and a teen. Among them, Junior Leopard only knew the old man, Lyu Yiyue, the First Elder in the Wu Family. Now he was looking inside with embarrassment, and as soon as he saw Junior Leopard, his eyes looked away.


    It was the teen who shouted. He was about the same age as Junior Leopard, wearing a magnificent robe, full of pride, and with a sneer on his face. Junior Leopard felt that he looked familiar, but at that moment he could not remember where he had met the young man.


    The middle-aged man standing behind him was in black and had a strong body. He looked dignified and although he was not angry, his expression was cold.


    "A Level Eight expert?!" judging from his Qi Power, Junior Leopard easily sensed his cultivation. He was undoubtedly a Level Eight expert!


    "Elder Lyu, please forgive us for not meeting you at the door!"


    "It doesn''t matter!" Lyu Yiyue said immediately, "Elder Zhou, let me introduce you. This is our Family Head''s son, Second Young Master Wu Yulong, and this is Elder Lin Xiaoqing from Tian Long Taoism!"


    "Wu Yulong and Lin Xiaoqing?!"


    Junior Leopard gazed at him and remembered that he had met this Second Young Master Wu Yulong at the Selection Contest of the Wu Family because the contest was followed by a banquet to acknowledge his teacher. As Junior Leopard was not interested in this banquet, he barely glanced at Wu Yulong. Now ten years had passed, and Wu Yulong had grown from a little child to a brave teen. No wonder he did not recognize him.


    "It''s Elder Lin, Second Young Master!" Junior Leopard nodded with hands folded together, "Please come in. Renzhen Cuo, serve tea!"


    "Humph!"Second Young Master Wu Yulong gave a cold snort, glancing over at Junior Leopard, and came directly into the house behind Lin Xiaoqing.


    "It''s weird. The Second Young Master of the Wu family and I are strangers, yet he seems to be very hostile towards me!" Junior Leopard frowned slightly and thought, "I don''t want to look for trouble with a foppery like Wu Yulong, but if he looks for trouble first, I don''t need to resign because now I''m not a disciple of the Wu Family anymore. Even if it is the Family Head and the First Family Elder, they should still be polite to me, let alone this young man. And most importantly, he is the disciple of Wang She."


    Jiang Xiao, Zhu Ba, and Wang Cheng were also dissatisfied, especially Zhu Ba, whose eyes flicked with chilling light. If it was not Junior Leopard who stopped him, maybe he would have turned the table over right away.


    "You guys can go back. I can handle this!"


    ...


    "Damn it, how can he be so arrogant! How dare the asshole come to our domain! If it was not for His Excellency, I...!


    "That''s enough, Zhu Ba. His Excellency came from the Wu Family, and although he is famous now, he is still the outer core elder of the Wu Family. That Wu Yulong is the young master of the Wu Family, so it is reasonable that His Excellency has some misgivings."


    "But..."


    "Don''t worry!" Jiang Xiao patted on Zhu Ba''s shoulder with a smile and said, "His Excellency is not a person willing to suffer any loss. Just wait and watch. There will be something interesting!"


    "You mean, His Excellency will...!" Zhu Ba said with happiness, but soon his mouth was covered by Jiang Xiao, who said, "Lower your voice down, because they have at least two Level Seven experts!"


    "How do you know that?!"


    "Nonsense, Tian Long Taoism is one of the most powerful schools in the world. If one can be The Elder in such a school, he has to be at least a Level Seven expert!"


    "I see!" Zhu Ba giggled, tapping his head.


    ...


    Junior Leopard led the three people into the house and sat them according to their ranks. Renzhen Cuo served the tea and left.


    "Elder Lyu, what can I do for you?"


    "Well..., I think it''s more appropriate to let Elder Lin talk. Today, I am just here to accompany them." Lyu Yiyue smiled bitterly. He meant to send Junior Leopard a message, but Lin Xiaoyue being a Level Eight expert, could decipher the message which was carried by Secret Acoustic Skill.


    "Well, Elder Lin, what can I do for you?!" Junior Leopard turned to Lin Xiaoyue and asked.


    "You already know about the World Hero Competition, right?!"


    This is the first time that Lin Xianyue spoke. His voice was beautiful and magnetic, but with a bit of coldness and arrogance.


    Junior Leopard smiled and said, "I heard about it not long ago. Well, is this why you came? Is Elder Lin going to take part in the World Hero Competition? Haha, I think with your cultivation, it will not be difficult to win that Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Not me, but you!" Lin Xiaoyue said, "this World Hero Competition is related to that Pure Yang Celestial Device. But all the several well-known schools and families have some concerns. In order not to ruin the peace among us, we made an agreement that only experts below Level Seven are allowed to take part in this competition, and The Elders and experts above Level Seven are forbidden. But except for the well-known schools and families, those middle-sized or small-sized well-known families also have one or two experts above Level Seven, and some of them even have already cultivated Gang successfully. Besides, there are also some experts who don''t belong to any school or well-known family. Although they are in the minority, they are the ones who desire the Pure Yang Celestial Device the most. Maybe their combat capacity is not excellent, but experts below Level Seven are no match for them. Therefore, we decided to let you take part in it. With your capacity, it will not be difficult to defeat them. If you win that Pure Yang Celestial Device for us, we will not treat you shabbily!"


    "Hahahahaha...!" Junior Leopard laughed after hearing this, and said, "I''m really sorry, Elder Lin. I think it is trouble, so I don''t want to get involved. I think that you''d better ask someone else for help!~"


    "Zhou Bao, don''t make us do it the hard way. It''s an honor to be chosen by us. Don''t think that just because you have a celestial device you can ignore others. Don''t forget that you are still a disciple of the Wu Family. I''m the young master of the Wu Family, and if I ask you to take part in it, are you going to refuse?!"


    "Firstly, I''m not a common disciple of the Wu Family, but an outer core elder. What about you? You are just the young master of the Wu Family, not the Family Head. So you have no right to command me; Secondly, because I''m still the outer core elder of the Wu Family, not even the Family Head can force me to do anything that I don''t want to do, and this point is made very clear in the family rules of the Wu Family. If you haven''t read it yet or don''t understand it, you can go and ask First Elder Lyu!" Junior Leopard held out two fingers, smiling.


    "You...!" Wu Yulong smacked the back of the chair with great force and stood up abruptly. The force was so great that the chair smashed directly.


    "Second Young Master, stop messing up. You are the Second Young Master of the Wu Family, and once you step out of the door of the Wu Family, you are representing the Wu Sect. You may cause trouble if you keep being so impulsive!" Junior Leopard was still not angry and kept smiling, and then he said, "Do you agree with me, Elder Lyu?"


    Lyu Yiyue just smiled bitterly and held Wu Yulong''s arm fiercely by one hand. After all, he was a Level Seven expert, and Wu Yulong was just at Level Five, so he easily pulled Wu Yulong back to his seat. Wu Yulong was just about to say something, only to find that Junior Leopard had already turned to Lin Xiaoqing.


    "I''m sorry, Elder Lin!"


    "Sorry doesn''t work!" Lin Xiaoqing shook his head slightly and stared at Junior Leopard as if he wanted to read Junior Leopard''s mind and said, "Your refusal is useless because this is not a command by the Wu Family, but the decision was made by Tian Long Taoism together with the well-known families of Wang, Chen, Lin, and Yang, and more than ten middle-sized and small-sized well-know families!"


    "Haha, that''s interesting. Do Tian Long Taoism and the well-known families of Wang, Chen, Lin, and Yang have anything to do with me?!" Junior Leopard sneered and said. He was still wearing a smile on his lips but his eyes were not smiling, and he said, "I''m neither a disciple in those families, nor do I belong to Tian Long Taoism. What authority do you have to tell me to do things?!"


    "Right comes from power!" Lin Xiaoqing was not swayed, and he said, "I have said that this competition is very important, and we must win that Pure Yang Celestial Device. So you must take part in it, whether you like it or not!"


    "If I understand correctly, are you saying that even if I go and win first prize, I still have to hand the Pure Yang Celestial Device to you?!"


    "Of course. But we will treat you right!" Lin Xiaoqing said with certainty.


    "Hahahahahahaha...!" Junior Leopard was so angry that he laughed, "Well, well, you are right. Power comes from strength. If one gets absolute strength, he will have absolute power. But, I think you overestimate your own strength, and therefore, you have overestimated your power!"


    "I admit that you are indeed a genius, as you have obtained such a great cultivation and reputation at such a young age. But at best you are just a Level Eight expert and there are lots of people who are more powerful than you. I think you better give it some serious thought. You are no match for Tian Long Taoism together with the four well-known families of Wang, Chen, Lin and Yang, and more than ten middle-sized and small-sized schools.


    "Try me!" Junior Leopard snorted. "I''m sorry, I have no time to spare. Please...!"


    Junior Leopard held his teacup to send the guests off.


    He was ordering them to leave, and he even didn''t care that Lyu Yiyue was present.


    Lyu Yiyue''s face went pale, and he was too embarrassed to stay there. Holding Wu Yulong, he was about to leave when Wu Yulong shoved his hand unexpectedly.


    "Zhou Bao, you are so conceited! How dare you be so rude to Elder Lin!"


    Junior Leopard did not even glance at him, but just stared at Lin Xiaoqing and said, "Well, does Elder Lin have anything else to say?!"


    "The only thing I need is to capture you!" Lin Xiaoqing''s eyes flickered with chilling light. Raising his hand, he rushed to capture Junior Leopard.


    "Gang Qi!"


    Once the expert acts, then you will know if he has any real abilities.


    Lin Xiaoqing reached out his hand, and it became extremely chilly. In the blink of an eye, the whole room turned to frost.


    His hand went directly toward Junior Leopard''s chest, with Qi of frost carried by his hand.


    "Humph!" Junior Leopard sneered. A strong red light was surrounding him, and then four Fire Dragons made by Internal Qi went towards Lin Xiaoqing.


    "cheap trick!" Noticing the Fire Dragons, Lin Xiaoqing didn''t dodge at all, and he just tapped the air downward fiercely.


    "Sough...!" The cold wind sweep made the four Fire Dragons disappear immediately in a flash. But it was during this time when he made the wind sweep that Junior Leopard moved away from his chair, and flashed like a ghost to the back of Lin Xiaoqing, attacking Lin Xiaoqing with his two fists.


    "Great!" Lin Xiaoqing said deeply, and turning around, he got punched too.


    "Boom...!" The frost was swept away by the hot wind.


    Standing aside, Wu Yulong was naturally the first one to suffer. He was a Level Five expert, which was very high at his age. But faced with the strength emitted by two experts, he could not withstand it. Thanks to his good foundation in martial arts, after being swept dozens of feet away and somersaulting several times, he finally stood steadily but he had turned pale due to the surging qi and blood and he fell to the ground.


    Noticing that the situation wasn''t right, Lyu Yiyue held Wu Yulong who had just stood steadily and escaped through the window.


    "Smash...!" Lin Xiaoqing and Junior Leopard''s fists punched each other, and both of them moved two steps back. The room they were in had completely collapsed.


    "This place is too small. How about we change to a bigger place to fight?" Junior Leopard said deeply, using Dragon FLying Technique, he flew directly toward Jilei Mountain.


    Lin Xiaoqing seemed to be a little doubtful, but he didn''t want to show weakness, so he followed Junior Leopard closely, with frost surrounding him.


    "F**k, this guy is from Tian Long Taoism, so I can''t kill him and I have to fight with him. Well, I can test my punching skill!" Junior Leopard thought.


    Lin Xiaoqing was from Tian Long Taoism, and although Junior Leopard would not obey Tian Long Taoism to take part in that World Hero Competition, he would certainly not kill Lin Xiaoqing. Although he believed that with his cards on hand, even if he killed this Elder, Tian Long Taoism would not do anything bad to him, the loss outweighed the gains as he would sour the relationship between he and Tian Long Taoism. Actually, he thought of drawing Tian Long Taoism over to his side as a backup. But if he killed Lin Xiaoqing, a deep crack would appear between him and Tian Long Taoism. Therefore, he would not kill Lin Xiaoqing. But if he was to not kill Lin Xiaoqing, he could not use many of his skills, such as skills of Sword Practitioner, Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword and Poison Cold Shield, which were the three most powerful skills he had. As for the Three Realms Division, it was better not to use them either, and he had to wait for another opportunity to use his two big hammers. So for now, the best way to defeat Lin Xiaoqing was to use his fists.


    After all, Lin Xiaoqing was a Level Eight expert and had already cultivated Gang Qi successfully, while Junior Leopard had not. Just this fact alone showed that there was a huge gap between them, as one was a Level Seven expert and had a water-like Internal Qi, and the other was a Level Eight expert and had a steel-like Internal Qi.


    If it was the former Junior Leopard who wanted to defeat Lin Xiaoqing just by his punching skills, he was not sure if he would be able to do it. But now, when Junior Leopard cultivated himself to Level Seven at geocentric fire vein, he also reached the Basic Level of punching skills and condensed his fist intent to Half Closure, which made him more confident about winning.


    "Let''s fight here, Elder Lin. It''s spacious here, and it''s also a good place to bury people."


    Soon after Junior Leopard flew into Jilei Mountain, he stopped at an open ridge.


    "How can you fly without cultivating Gang Qi successfully?!"


    Following Junior Leopard closely, Lin Xiaoqing stopped, held his hands back and asked.


    "You want to know why? Come and defeat me first!" Junior Leopard said.


    "Ok! That''s what I''m going to do!" Lin Xiaoqing said full of confidence.


    He opened his hands fiercely, and the frost that surrounded him went directly toward Junior Leopard.


    "Go!" Junior Leopard raised his hands, and more than ten golden red fist-sized flames went directly toward Lin Xiaoqing.


    Seeing this, Lin Xiaoqing just sneered. Junior Leopard had recently become so famous that his usual tactics were well-known to others.


    Of course, Lin Xiaoqing knew that the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique that Junior Leopard used was a little different from the ordinary one. After all, it originated from Tian Long Taoism. As an Elder of Tian Long Taoism, he knew it better than people of the Wu Family. And these weird golden red flames Junior Leopard used to knock people with were also written in the classics of Tian Long Taoism.


    "You are indeed a genius, as you have successfully grasped the third form of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique which no other person has succeeded in doing for over 10,000 years. However, on your cultivation, you just practiced one form of the Nine Forms of Real Dragon. You are undermining Tian Long Taoism if you think that you can defeat me on just one form. Frost the World, put them out!"


    "Hu---!"


    The bleak frost put out all the fireballs in a flash.


    "What a powerful Gang Qi!" Junior Leopard was surprised and thought, "From the day I started to practice Nine Forms of Real Dragon successfully till today, my fireballs have never been put out so easily."


    "The Gang Qi that Lin Xiaoqing practices seem to have extreme coldness, which is the exact opposite of my Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, or better put, the two are incompatible."


    "But first he is one rank higher than me, and second, I can''t even cultivate Gang Qi successfully. So how can I compete with Lin Xiaoqing on that aspect?"


    "This guy has great strength anyway and is surrounded by Gang Qi. This battle seems to be a little bit difficult!" Junior Leopard mused. He leaned forward suddenly, opening his left hand and stretching his right hand forward to punch, and went directly toward Lin Xiaoqing.


    "Hiss!"


    As soon as Junior Leopard opened his left hand, it sent chills down Lin Xiaoqing''s spine because at that moment when Junior Leopard opened his hand, it felt like the world had been caved in. And in the meantime, strange suction was produced, although it was not strong, it made Lin Xiaoqing to involuntary move toward Junior Leopard.


    "This is fist intent!"


    This is fist intent, Junior Leopard''s fist intent. In the earth vein, Junior Leopard cultivated his fist intent to the Basic Level and had already combined his punching skill and fist intent into one. As long as he punched, the fist intent would appear.


    Fist intent was very strange because it was related to divine thoughts. Therefore, Junoir Leopard''s fist would not only cause physical damage but also spiritual damage, if the opponent was not cautious. The reason why Lin Xiaoqing moved toward Junior Leopard''s fist was that of his fist intent.


    As Lin Xiaoqing was a Level Eight expert, although he had not cultivated intent successfully, his willpower was very strong. Sensing that something was going wrong, he concentrated his attention and roared deeply, and then the frosty Gang Qi went directly toward Junior Leopard''s fist.


    "Hiss!"


    The bone-chilling cold made his fist extremely strong, and at the same time, an extremely Yin Evil Qi seeped into his tendons and meridians through his fists.


    But soon, this Yin Evil Qi was absorbed by Poison Cold Shield.


    "Great!" Junior Leopard laughed internally. His Poison Cold Shield could not be seen by other people. If he kept it hidden, Lin Xiaoqing could not see it.


    "Child, you want to die? You dare to use your fist to fight against my Gang Qi!"


    "I have already lived long enough. It''s none of your business!" Junior Leopard roared coldly, and with hot steam surrounding his fists and Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique running fully, he rushed toward Lin Xiaoqing.


    "Hum!" Lin Xiaoqing sneered and rushed toward Junior Leopard too.


    "Hong, Hong, Hong, Hong...!" The sound was like rolling thunder.


    After Gang Qi and the fists bumped for more than ten times, Lin Xiaoqing groaned and suddenly turned pale. He rushed back and looked extremely shocked.


    After fighting with Junior Leopard for more than ten rounds, Lin Xiaoqing noticed with fear that Junior Leopard did not fear his Gang Qi and that he also had special heavy fists that were stronger than he had imagined. After being punched more than ten times, his Gang Qi seemed to be unable to persist, but Junior Leopard was still calm and at peace, as if the longer they fought, the more spirit he had. For the first time, Lin Xiaoqing felt terrified.


    "Gang Qi vs. fists, would the outcome be the defeat of Gang Qi ?"


    "Is this possible? How can this happen? It will be the joke of the century if others hear about this."


    But right now, right in front of him, it happened.


    "Hahahahahaha, Gang Qi. Is it amazing to have Gang Qi? Do you believe that I can destroy your Gang Qi?!"


    Junior Leopard rushed forward, and with wild laughter, he punched fiercely with his hot red ray fists like rainfall on the Gang Qi of Lin Xiaoqing.

 Chapter 259: The Way to Fight: The General Program of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique

    Chapter 259: The Way to Fight: The General Program of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard''s fists were hard. His fists were very strong, beyond Lin Xiaoqing''s expectation. Under the attack of Junior Leopard''s fists, Lin Xiaoqing already knew that he could not hold out for much longer by only using his Gang Qi. This being the case, he might as well fight back!


    Without any hesitation, Lin Xiaoqing did not just launch his Gang Qi but he also swung up his fists to strike back, just like Junior Leopard had done.


    "Bang, bang, bang¡ª!" Fierce strength flowed all around. Lin Xiaoqing and Junior Leopard backed up about five steps respectively, with stern expressions.


    Junior Leopard was surprised that the Level Eight expert had a well-deserved reputation. His Internal Qi was as hard as steel. After peeling off the Gang Qi, every punch reached the opponent''s flesh. Junior Leopard clearly felt that his fists were full of irony Internal Qi. Even if he had used the Heavenly Jade Technique, an incredible addition strength in the view of common people, he was just on par with Lin Xiaoqing. Unless he could create Critical Hit by combining the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, his fist strength alone could not do anything to Lin Xiaoqing.


    Actually, Junior Leopard was at a disadvantage during the fist fight.


    With the addition of the Heavenly Jade Technique, his fist strength could, or the time being, confront Lin Xiaoqing. However, there was a big gap between them; their body strength.


    One was at Level Seven while the other was at Level Eight!


    There was a big difference between them in terms of their body strength. A Level Eight expert''s body could harbor the steel Internal Qi. It was way stronger than a Level Seven expert.


    After dozens of fist fights, Junior Leopard felt that his fists were weak. Not only were his fists fragile, but also his two arms were numb.


    "The Level Eight expert was really worthy of the reputation. If I had my two big hammers at hand, I could have been at an advantage. Now I''m afraid that I can''t make it!" Junior Leopard said to himself. However, he did not regret anything because everything had met his expectation.


    They punched each other a while longer. Junior Leopard felt that he was not very lucky today; it seemed that there was no sign of the Critical Hit. If it went on like this, even if the Critical Hit appeared, he did not dare to use it. After all, his fists could not bear such power anymore.


    Such being the case, his fist trend changed; suddenly, they were soft, and he did not directly resist Lin Xiaoqing fists anymore.


    "Hum?"


    Lin Xiaoqing was a little bit shocked. He stepped back abruptly. Without noticing, Junior Leopard''s fists had already smacked in Lin Xiaoqing''s face. His face was not the same as his fists. No matter how hard the face was, it would suffer great pain from Junior Leopard''s fist attack. Lin Xiaoqing had to step aside quickly, which made him lose a good opportunity.


    Junior Leopard displayed his punching skill to the full extent.


    When Junior Leopard was working his punching skill, Lin Xiaoqing was not as optimistic as before.


    Lin Xiaoqing was from the Tian Long Taoism and had a high cultivation. Since he reached Level Seven twenty years ago, he had not been in a fight for a long time. Even if sometimes he encountered an opponent, he would use his Gang Qi to go head to head with his opponent. For those who had a higher cultivation than him, he, of course, could not win. In contrast, those who had a lower cultivation would quit earlier under the power of his Gang Qi.


    He had never met a person like Junior Leopard who could strangely break through his Gang Qi only by the fists, even when he was still using his Gang Qi.


    Generally speaking, smashing the Gang Qi forcibly with the body would happen when a Level Nine expert fought against a Level Eight expert or when a Level Eight expert fought a Level Seven expert. Now the reverse was happening.


    He was unfortunate. The Frost Gang Qi that he had practiced was a top-level Gang Qi in the world, but he had crossed paths with Junior Leopard, who had the Poison Cold Shield. In terms of its nature, the Poison Cold Shield possessed the function of intensifying its power by absorbing the Evil Qi. Besides, the Poison-absorbing Green Bead had been used for practicing the Poison Cold Shield. Therefore, Junior Leopard, as a result of owning the Poison Cold Shield, was not afraid of any poisonous things or any Evil Qi on earth. The Evil Qi in Lin Xiaoqing''s Frost Gang Qi was at a high level, but this also made it a good supplement for the Poison Cold Shield.


    Although the Frost Gang Qi, other than just hurting the opponents with the Evil Qi, could also attack and defend plus other good functions, Junior Leopard''s Heavenly Jade Technique was very tough. His fist strength was so powerfully frightening that Lin Xiaoqing had no chance to give a counterattack using the Gang Qi. A shower of punches made Lin Xiaoqing''s Gang Qi weak.


    His Gang Qi could not withstand but it didn''t really matter. When a Level Eight expert fought with a Level Seven expert, even if he did not have the Gang Qi, he still had the upper hand. Junior Leopard had strange Internal Qi and a strong cultivation method, but the difference of their body strength was easily visible. Lin Xiaoqing''s advantage was obvious.


    However, Junior Leopard was good at playing the punching skill!


    It was a pity that Lin Xiaoqing had not fought with others for many years. He had not practiced his old Kung Fu for a long time. This time, he was sort of stunned when Junior Leopard approached him.


    Junior Leopard''s three continuous punching attacks missed Lin Xiaoqing by a tiny inch. But being a Level Eight expert, Lin Xiaoqing was flexible, so he easily evaded the punches each time. When he dodged, his footsteps levitated a bit and this revealed his numbers to Junior Leopard.


    "This guy is not skilled in the punching skill!"


    Seeing this, Junior Leopard did not hold back anymore. He opened his arms sending forth a whiff of weird and remote Qi Power from his body.


    "Fist intent!"


    Lin Xiaoqing felt the surrounding atmosphere become eccentric; earlier he had been scrambling on his feet and now his face took on a ghastly expression.


    Zhou Bao had insights on the fist intent. He learned this earlier on. Nevertheless, he was skeptical when he first heard about it.


    "Intent" was an extremely mysterious thing!


    If one wanted to comprehend the intent, he had to satisfy at least two conditions. First, he had to possess the divine thoughts and had to also feel them. Second, he had to have a deep understanding in certain skills. It would be better if he could have a sudden enlightenment and apprehend its essence, then he could likely produce the intent.


    He was already 58 years old. He became a Level Seven expert when he was 38 years old; his divine thoughts initially formed when he was 39 years old. He once tried to forge his own intent. However, after exploring and striving for five years, he still failed to make any progress, so he gave up. Like other experts, he practiced and grasped his Gang Qi, being Gang Qi-oriented.


    It was just for this reason, that he came to realize just how hard it would be for him to condense the intent. Although he did not believe it at the very start, later, when he heard that Junior Leopard had killed Buyan Gerel, he was convinced. He knew Buyan Gerel, an expert at the same level with him. However, Buyan Gerel was much stronger than him with regard to his status and strength on the prairie. The reason was simple, Buyan Gerel figured out his own first intent.


    To the experts of the same level, there was a vast difference between those who had condensed the intent and those who had not.


    Buyan Gerel could not even be killed with a set of Mysterious Celestial Devices, not to mention that what Junior Leopard had was a set of Psychic Celestial Device, unless he had also condensed the intent.


    However, even if Junior Leopard had condensed the intent, Lin Xiaoqing did not care too much because the intent only prevailed among experts of the same level. His cultivation was one level higher than Zhou Bao. He also kept an eye on Zhou Bao''s celestial device. Zhou Bao had not condensed the Evil Qi. Although he could display the fist intent, he could not break through his Gang Qi. What else could he do?


    It was beyond his expectation that Junior Leopard''s fist intent was this terrifying. When Junior Leopard was opposing Lin Xiaoqing''s Gang Qi, even if Junior Leopard did not completely display his fist intent, he could already shatter Lin Xiaoqing''s Gang Qi. Now Junior Leopard was close to him and displayed his fist intent in full swing. Lin Xiaoqing worried that his Level Eight body could not withstand Junior Leopard.


    Thinking of this, he sighed softly; his hand touched his waist, and a pale golden light glinted from his hand.


    Junior Leopard was fighting fiercely. All of a sudden, a golden light flashed over his eyes. He stared at the light for a second, and his face changed. It turned out that a golden net had appeared abruptly and was dropping in his direction to catch him.


    "This Knot Golden Net was meant to take on your Demon Devil Needles, but you''re unexpectedly awesome. You forced me into such a situation without using the Demon Devil Needles!"


    "Hum!" Junior Leopard just laughed grimly, lifted his left hand and scratched toward the net. His right hand followed and punched the Knot Golden Net.


    "A broken star fist! Break!"


    With a strange whoosh, the Knot Golden Net that was used for dealing with the Demon Devil Needles was torn to pieces by this fist.


    "Impossible!" Lin Xiaoqing shouted in a peculiar voice. However, before he reacted, Junior Leopard''s open hand had already reached him.


    Subconsciously, he wanted to withdraw, but to his terror, he found himself in a rum hollow. This hollow was awash with unspeakable power, invisible and massive, which held his shadow firmly in place.


    "What''s this?"


    Junior Leopard''s figure disappeared in front of Lin Xiaoqing, while a giant star appeared and crashed him along an abstruse orbit.


    The star emerged at a far distance, like twinkling stars near the horizon. For an instant, it came with endless destructive power and bumped right into him.


    "Crack, crack¡ª!"


    Formidable strength followed; the sound of his skeleton cracking inside his body was clear, like fractured metal.


    "What? What''s wrong with me? What''s happening?"


    A blazing liquid burst out from the inside.The intense pain brought him out of his bewilderment.


    "I am hurt. My rib is broken. I lost!"


    After awakening, Lin Xiao''s thoughts became confused and vague again. He fell from the sky. Before his body touched the ground, Junior Leopard grabbed his collar and threw him into the air.


    ...


    "Splash!" Lin Xiaoqing''s body was cast at Wu Yufei and Lyu Yiyue''s feet like a battered sack.


    "You, you killed The Elder Lin. How dare you! You killed him. You''re dead! You¡ª!"


    "Bang¡ª!" With a sharp snap, Wu Yulong''s body was knocked off into the air and dropped to the ground heavily.


    "This slap was a lesson from me on behalf of the Family Head," said Junior Leopard coldly.


    "You¡ª!" Wu Yulong who was on the ground, suddenly turned over and stood up; his eyes were full of venom. It was not a hard slap, however, Junior Leopard used an insidious way to direct his Qi, which did not hurt other parts of his body but made his face to swell like a steamed bun.


    "Why me?" Junior Leopard felt refreshed when he saw Wu Yulong staring at him with nefarious eyes. Perhaps he had been stifling his emotions for a long time, so he needed a form of release.Therefore, when he saw Wu Yulong angry and helpless, he was very pleased, but his eyes were cold.


    Wu Yulong, who had just received a cold look from Junior Leopard, slightly recoiled back; he was afraid and drooped his head.


    "Elder Zhou, this thing!"


    "Don''t worry, First Elder. I was just teaching him a lesson!" Junior Leopard said and extended his foot to kick Lin Xiaoqing''s body. "Could you kindly please bring the Tian Long Taoism Elder back? This time, for the sake of Chief Wang She I will spare his life!"


    "He''s still alive.That is good enough!" After hearing this, this took a load off Lyu Yiyue''s mind and he crouched down to examine Lin Xiaoqing''s body. He worried that Junior Leopard would kill Lin Xiaoqing in a fit of anger. In that case, his behavior would thoroughly irritate the Tian Long Taoism and their Wu Family would pay the consequences.


    Even if Junior Leopard had not killed him, they would still have a hard time explaining to the Tian Long Taoism after they went back because Junior Leopard had beat him severely. Hence, Lyu Yiyue raised his head in embarrassment and said, "Elder Zhou, you''ve badly hurt Elder Lin, may I suggest he recuperates for a few days in your residence before he can go back¡ª?"


    His tone revealed a hint of inquiry. Although he was the Wu Family''s First Elder and ranked top in reference to ability, he had to admit that, since Junior Leopard had risen like a comet, he was no match for Junior Leopard, an outer core elder who was young and powerful. Today, Lin Xiaoqing''s experience proved that Junior Leopard was strong. Consequently, he kept a lower profile than before.


    "That''s OK. You just bring him back!" Junior Leopard waved his hand, and a sneer rested on his lips. "Regarding the Tian Long Taoism, I could be tactful. As for the several well-known families, hum, I''m a baron of the imperial court.They are not qualified to order me around!"


    Seeing Junior Leopard so full of confidence, Lyu Yiyue could not help being concerned about him. Junior Leopard had not shown him any respect in spite of him being the Wu Family''s outer core elder. Now he was a competent person with real power, so he controlled many resources. If he really became hostile to the Tian Long Taoism and those well-known families, it would not be a good thing for the Wu Family. In particular, Junior Leopard''s strength was perversely mighty. His power topped in the Wu Family. Anyway, Junior Leopard alone could deter the other three smelting families in the Great Jin, which was a great benefit to the Wu Family!


    However, if the Tian Long Taoism wanted to counter Junior Leopard, then the Wu Family would likely lose such a giant deterrence. At the thought of this, he said spontaneously, "Elder Zhou, you may not know this but Chief Wang is said to have been seriously hurt. He was confined to his house earlier. Rumor has it that his cultivation would be useless even if he could recover."


    The martial arts practitioners world always treasured strength the most. Once a person lost his strength, all would be in vain no matter how excellent he had been in the past. Wang She was one of the three Chiefs of the Tian Long Taoism and also a Level Nine expert. However, if his cultivation was ruined, even if the Tian Long Taosim considered their previous affection, he would not be able to live in peace from now on.


    After hearing that, Junior Leopard was suddenly speechless, and then he laughed. "Really? That''s refreshing news. When I''m free, I''d like to visit him and ask him when he will die!"


    "This¡ª!"


    Lyu Yiyue had not expected that such words would come out from Junior Leopard''s mouth; he did not know what else to say.


    "Alright, First Elder, that''s it. For such a loathsome guy, I won''t invite him to stay. If you don''t carry him away, he will die on the prairie!"


    "Well, it is what it is now. I will follow your orders. You, young people, are too impulsive!" Lyu Yiyue sighed, picked up Lin Xiaoqing from the ground, carried him on the shoulder and strode away without calling on Wu Yulong.


    Seeing the situation, Wu Yulong kept pace with him silently and dared not to look at Junior Leopard; his eyes indicated a touch of added resentment when he was watching Lyu Yiyue''s back.


    Junior Leopard caught sight of all of this, but he did not point it out bluntly and instead he just smiled.


    After the two had walked far away, Junior Leopard sent Jiang Xiao and the other people away.


    After all the people had left, Junior Leopard danced in his robe sleeves. A layer of light and invisible mist instantly covered the small yard.


    It was the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!


    Junior Leopard had not understood the peerless formation. However, through his long research, he could now easily display a magic matrix which could be pervasive in his yard.


    Displaying the formation, he turned around slightly and looked at the debris in the room, and said with a laugh, "Chief Wang, they''ve already left. Don''t hide. Come out!"


    "Interesting. How did you find me?" A hoarse voice came from behind the wall. Then, Wang She''s figure moved from the shadow with a curious face. "I used the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill!"


    "Indeed, you just used the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, but your position was wrong. Your shadow was reflected."


    Junior Leopard, pointing at a corner, said, "You''re careless. It''s not your style!"


    "Even if my shadow was mirrored, how could you be sure it was me?"


    "That''s easy. Who else could be able to imperceptibly walk into my room except you, Chief Wang, who else has grasped the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill?"


    "You''re really confident. Experts in this world are as many as the hairs on an ox. There are countless people who could sneak up on you!"


    "Maybe, but I know that only you can do that, so I guessed!" Junior Leopard said with a laugh. "Your Excellency the Chief you have come to my cold and poor place in the northwest. Do you intend to persuade me to participate in that lousy World Hero Competition held by Lao Shizi?"


    "Yes, that''s my purpose, but I don''t mean to persuade you. Instead, I''d like to give you a thrashing so that you can''t participate in it!" Wang She said with a smile. "I just didn''t expect that your temper would be so fierce. You don''t respect our Tian Long Taoism at all. Now, I have a reason to beat you up!"


    "You have a reason to give me a blow, but I am not in the mood to strike back. I''m just a little bit curious why the four well-known families, Wang, Chen, Lin and Yang, and you Tian Long Taoism are trying to make trouble for me? You are all crazy."


    "They''re not crazy. This thing is so serious that it touched some people''s nerves. That''s why it happened!" Wang She gave a wry smile and said, "Although I''m one of the top three Chiefs of the Tian Long Taoism, I''ve not been involved in the Tian Long Taoism matters recently because of my injury. Besides, the Tian Long Taoism is a big household in which influences interweave. As a Chief, I seem to have great authority, but I cannot control some people!"


    "For example, this Elder Lin?"


    "Lin Xiaoqing is from the Lins, so he has some influence in the Tian Long Taoism. He doesn''t get on well with me, so he''s not under my control!"


    "How about your disciple? How can you be his partner?"


    "This disciple is a street-wise person!" When it came to Wu Yulong, Wang She''s face became displeased. He smiled sullenly and changed the topic. "As for you, you were also slick. What''s wrong with you today? So valiant. You punched Lin Xiaoqing and he spurts blood. What on earth do you expect? Don''t you think that I can help you with this thing?"


    "Can you help me?"


    "If you hadn''t hurt Lin Xiaoqing as badly as you did, this could have been the past. Now, you bunged him up. It greatly injures the Tian Long Taoism''s dignity. The old man won''t let it go. You will probably implicate me in it!"


    "It''s not that serious, is it?"


    "Not serious? The old man was nice, but he always puts the Tian Long Taoism''s profit first. You brutally hurt the Tian Long Taoism''s Elder, so you won''t get past him!"


    "I don''t think so!" Junior Leopard said, laughing. "You''re the Tian Long Taoism''s Chief. Except for the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill, you''ve also practiced other cultivation methods?!"


    "I mainly practiced the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill. No other cultivation methods. Why did you ask that?"


    It was an unexpected question and even impolite, so Wang She paused, eyeing Junior Leopard questioningly.


    "About the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, even if you didn''t practice it, I suppose you''ve heard of it?"


    "Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique?" Wang She''s eyes were frozen. "Oh, boy, this is the unique cultivation method that the Tian Long Taoism''s Leader is entitled to practice. Others don''t know of it. How did you know?"


    "I not only know that you have the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, I also know the General Program of your Tian Long Taoism''s Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique is lost!"


    Wang She jerked his lips and saw that Junior Leopard''s eyes were kindled with a weird and seductive light. "Don''t tell me that the General Program is in your hands?"


    "You deserve to be the Tian Long Taoism''s Chief. You''re much cleverer than common people. You''re right. The General Program is in my possession now. I was entrusted by someone to give it back to the Tian Long Taoism, but I haven''t got an opportunity!

 Chapter 260: An Open Conspiracy

    Chapter 260: An Open Conspiracy


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Calm was gradually restored in the small town at the foot of Jilei Mountain.


    The large courtyard sitting at the end of that town also returned to tranquility after the commotion.


    The backyard was completely destroyed, though front yard remained fairly intact.


    Inside the West Hall in the front yard.


    Junior Leopard and Wang She were seated leisurely as they chatted in a low voice. Jiang Xiao was waiting outside. He could hear their laughter from time to time and it made his heart itch.


    Everything changed too quick for him to grasp. Wang She came here shortly after Junior Leopard badly injured the elder from the Tian Long Taoism but he talked and laughed with Junior Leopard, showing no sign of wanting to punish him.


    As much as they found the change strange, they were finally relieved of their worries.


    Junior Leopard might have some reputation, strength, and status, but he was no bigger than an act in the face of a huge sect like the Tian Long Taoism. For him to beat up one of their elders meant he held no respect for the sect. Life would become difficult for them all if Junior Leopard truly angered the sect.


    But everything seemed to be fine now. Wang She had arrived and was laughing and chatting with Junior Leopard without any regard for the injured elder. It was obvious from their joyful interaction that they were much closer than regular friends. It seemed that it wasn''t just hearsay that Junior Leopard brought Wang She back from the prairie. Wang She must be the reason behind Junior Leopard''s confidence.


    Wang She commanded real power in the Tian Long Taoism as one of its three Chiefs and enjoyed a higher status than elders like Lin Xiaoqing. With his backing, Junior Leopard would definitely be all right and they didn''t need to worry at all.


    "If that''s the case, I''ll first excuse myself and tell the Leader exactly what happened. I assure you no one from the Tian Long Taoism will come and bother you. If someone is ignorant enough to come to you, don''t give me any face and just beat him to death!"


    Inside the West Hall, Wang She had already got up to his feet as he spoke to Junior Leopard with a beaming smile.


    Junior Leopard was also smiling. "I''ll be counting on you, Chief."


    "It''s just a piece of cake. I''ll try and find a way to warn those well-known families for you." Wang She waved his hand. "I still have work to do, so I have to leave. You don''t have to see me out."


    He waved at Junior Leopard and transformed into a cyan streamer before flying toward the sky.


    "Remember to teach those brats a lesson for me!" Junior Leopard shouted at the cyan light. A burst of laughter answered him before gradually fading away.


    "Your Excellency, is the problem settled?"


    Jing Xiao came up to Junior Leopard after waiting for the cyan light to disappear to finally ask his question.


    "Almost!" Junior Leopard said before turning toward Zhu Ba. "Didn''t you say you''re joining that World Hero Competition? Go and pack. We''ll leave together."


    "You''re joining too?"


    "How is it possible? I''m going there to watch the show and teach those brats a lesson." Junior Leopard answered. "Jiang Xiao, you haven''t returned to the Central Plains for a long time. Get someone competent to temporarily take over your duty and go back with us."


    "Thank you very much, Your Excellency!" Jiang Xiao''s face beamed with delight at those words.


    Only Wang Cheng seemed to be hesitating. "The competition seems far more complicated than it appears. Is it fine to send Zhu Ba there?"


    "Why not?" Junior Leopard appeared unconcerned. "I won''t be getting myself entangled in this troublesome matter. But nothing will happen to you guys if you do."


    "Understood!"


    Seeing how Junior Leopard seemed to have a well-thought-out plan, the three said nothing more. They nodded and left.


    "Damn it! So unlucky! I didn''t go around looking for trouble but trouble found me! Someone actually targeted me! Be careful or I''ll beat you brats to death!"


    Wang She didn''t bring him good news but it wasn''t bad either. It helped him figure out the whole thing and explained why he was being inexplicably targeted.


    What on earth was going on?


    It was a really long story!


    The imperial court enjoyed the great national prestige and gradually began to get drunk on their superiority after exterminating Northern Yuan. The emperor was also being complacent. On the surface, the whole Jin seemed brilliant and prosperous at the moment.


    However, it was getting turbulent underneath its splendid surface and the struggle over profit among all parties was becoming increasingly intense.


    There were three surface influences in Great Jin, namely the imperial court, well-known families, and the three original sects. The Mingyi School supported the imperial court, the Tian Long Taoism teamed up with the well-known families, and the Sect of Flame backed the rebels. Jin was locked in a three-way confrontation, though it was still in a relatively stable state.


    After all, it was just like the saying that went ''Where there are people, there is Jianghu; where there is Jianghu, there is fighting!''.


    The three influences were also rife with internal struggles with different sides of the family trying to gain profit. Never mind these large families, even ordinary middle-class families would be troubled with internal problems with several sons vying for the family property.


    In the imperial court, the royalty and well-known families weren''t the only factions vying for profit. There was also the bureaucratic group.


    This was similar to the power struggle between the monarchical power and the premier power recorded in the medieval times. While the profit of the Royalty and the well-known families could both be inherited, the profit of the bureaucratic group rarely could.


    Besides, there were two bureaucrat systems of the imperial court. One was composed of scions of different well-known families who possessed no real power despite their high status. The other consisted of intellectuals who gained power through the imperial examination and were the ones who actually ran the country. Most scions were good-for-nothings, yielding no real power even though their families had so much influence over their administrative regions that even local officials were afraid of them. It was the court-appointed officials who were in charge of the people.They were given the responsibility of collecting taxes, defining the budget, leading the army, and suppressing bandits. In the whole Jin, from small counties to large states, the real power was always held by local officials. Put it this way, the bureaucratic group could be said to hold the real power.


    The more power one had, the more thinking he would do and the less willing he would be to relinquish his power. But the problem was that it was the emperor who entrusted the power. He had the right to take it back whenever he wanted. Thus there laid the conflict.


    But things didn''t always go according to the theory. Take Chen Yizhi as an example. He had been an official for decades, garnering many disciples and followers who were indebted to him. In the past 20 years, he was responsible for the development of nearly half of the government decrees. It was him who came up with most governance ideas. If someone took over his position, carrying different governance ideas, the decrees would be in a mess and the people might not be convinced.


    Therefore, even the emperor was forced to be cautious of Chen Yizhi who had been the premier for decades.


    But here was the emperor''s chance!


    The destruction of Northern Yuan boosted the national prestige of Jin and the emperor to a new high. The imperial court had also undergone huge changes due to enfeoffing of the Northern Yuan land, so there was no better time than now to abolish the premier.


    Therefore, the current state of the imperial court was somewhat strange. On top of that, the grown-up princes including Prince Ning were itching for action. It made the everything felt unpredictable and left all those involved at a loss.


    The imperial court was now in troubled times. What about those well-known families and prestigious sects and schools?


    They were also in a similar situation. Take, for example, the Tian Long Taoism. The sect was internally divided into several factions. One faction was composed of direct disciples like Wang She and Nian Wushuang. Another faction was the influence of well-known families inside the sect. In fact, the Tian Long Taoism had long enjoyed close relations with different well-known families and often took in the sons of those families as disciples. Lin Xiaoqing was the offspring of the Lins while Wu Yulong was the offspring of a small branch family. As the tightest bonds between the Tian Long Taoism and their families, they not only represented the interest of their sect but sometimes of their families. Therefore, they were usually not close to the direct disciples. And the last faction was made up of those from the ancient tribes that had long existed in the sect. Their ancestors were all founders of the sect, with the successors passing down power from generation to generation, allowing them to retain strong power. Take the Lei Family for an example. Though it didn''t govern the sect, its will must be taken into consideration by the two other influences.


    Everyone fought for their own profit in this area, plunging the world into chaos.


    The World Hero Competition was designed to balance the interests of all these different parties.


    Precious as Pure Yang Celestial Device was, it was no more than a stunt.


    Everyone wanted it, but no one would dare steal it now that it was in the hands of the royalty. No one expected the royalty to offer it as a prize for the competition. No one knew what the royalty was up to.


    But every influence had its own think tank and formed their own guesses. The answers they got were all the same ¡ª the emperor wanted to use the Pure Yang Celestial Device to test their strength.


    No one could resist the temptation of such a weapon.


    There was only one such weapon even in the Yan Family, the royalty of Jin. As for the millennium families and powerful family, only the most distinguished ones would have a Pure Yang Celestial Device. There were less than five who possessed one.


    Now the Jin royalty was even generous enough to give one away. Besides testing the strength of the different parties, they were probably planning to tempt those experts into killing each other and causing grievances.


    This was an open conspiracy!


    Though all the families knew that, they had no choice but take action under the lure of the Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    The emperor had his own wishful thinking, but no one was willing to follow his plans. Therefore, they all dealt with the temptation in their own way. For example, someone from the Tian Long Taoism wanted to make sure of another person''s strength to gain what he wanted, so he thought of Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard originated from the Wu Sect, a tributary of the Tian Long Taoism. Therefore, there was no problem having Junior Leopard represent the sect to fight in the competition. Since Junior Leopard had established his reputation, making him their agent wouldn''t reveal the true strength of the sect or even the well-known families. Besides, it wouldn''t be difficult for him to win the weapon with his strength and a little help from the families.


    Surprisingly to them, Junior Leopard refused them.


    "I didn''t quite believe Jiang Xiao when he told me the scions of those families are unbearable but it seems to be true judging from what Lin Xiaoqing and Wu Yulong did."


    Lin Xiaoqing was a talented person from a well-known family. He was used to bossing others around after a lifetime of high status in the Tian Long Taoism and his family, having joined the sect and reaching Level Eight. To him, Junior Leopard was no more than a lucky fellow hailing from a small family. No matter how powerful Junior Leopard was, the families considered him no more than someone who should obey whatever they ordered him to do. More importantly, Junior Leopard might not act alone but his backing was merely a small family and an estate.


    Anyuan Store wasn''t by any means small but was considered a small business in the eyes of those like Lin Xiaoqing. It would take them only a wink or a word to destroy it. However, before Lin Xiaoqing could say anything threatening, Junior Leopard fought back. Fortunately for him, those words never left his mouth. If they did, then the question remained whether he could walk away alive. Junior Leopard''s temper, though sometimes mild, could explode under another''s threat.


    "You''ll pay for that! You definitely will!" Riding on his horse, Wu Yulong cursed angrily as he covered his severely swollen cheek. "How dare a mountain villager''s son to treat me like this! If we''re in the olden times, he''d just be a servant of my family. Who gave him the guts to beat me! How dare him!"


    Lyu Yiyue''s face twitched in anger, but he soon calmed down.


    The word ''servant'' irritated him.


    He didn''t expect him to be considered a mere servant after all the things he had done for the Wu family.


    Inside, he was laughing at himself but his expression became more relaxed instead.


    More than a thousand years ago, there was no such thing as an elder in both the Wu and Wang families. External disciples like Lyu Yiyue and Zhou Bao were considered family servants no matter how powerful they were or how much they contributed to the family. The family could do anything with their lives. They were also not given the chance to learn any profound martial arts or inherit any estate. There were, however, always exceptions for those with great talent. After all, these families wouldn''t choose some idiot to be their servant and the smart ones would end up learning by themselves and accidentally gain some insight by chance. They would then rebel to escape the control of the families or perhaps escape their fate of being a slave forever. As such, conflicts began to surface.


    In the beginning, the families tried to suppress their servants and increasingly kept their guard up. Thought it worked, they soon realized it didn''t solve the problem. This was particularly true for small and medium-sized families. If they were unlucky enough to crack down on a talented servant, the revenge they might suffer would be fatal. For thousands of years, many such families disappeared precisely for this reason. After all, they were much weaker than the millennium families, though those families would also suffer a heavy setback if they ran across such a talent by chance. Therefore, after learning dozens of painful lessons, families big or small began loosening their control over external disciples. They would also regard those outstanding disciples with special respect rather than treating them as servants. Thus the Outside Elder System gradually emerged.


    Though the outside elders couldn''t become the head of the family, they still enjoyed high status in the family and yielded strong power. This system had two advantages. First, by winning over these powerful external disciples, the family''s strength could be greatly enhanced and internal conflicts would also decline. Second, these external disciples could make more achievements with the family as their backing. This way, the Outside Elder System became a win-win policy and was thus widely accepted.


    But the nature of those well-known families never changed. Direct disciples still looked down on the external disciples and elders, despite their status and strength. The difference was that they would usually hide their scorn, only occasionally showing it. It was precisely what happened with Wu Yulong.


    Wu Yulong was still feeling dazed after getting slapped by Junior Leopard and couldn''t restrain himself from swearing wildly. He forgot that the one standing beside him was Lyu Yiyue, who was also an outside elder and the second most powerful member of the family after Junior Leopard.


    But Lyu Yiyue was now old and shrewd. He hid his expression and said in the tone of a benign elder, "Yulong, the times are different now. You saw with your eyes how not even Elder Lin from the Tian Long Taoism was a match for him. He alone can destroy our Wu Family, so you''d better watch your mouth."


    "What''s there to fear? So what if he''s strong? Even if he''s strong, I don''t believe he''s more powerful than the Tian Long Taoism. I think he really swallowed the courage of a lifetime to dare beat up Elder Lin! Wait and see, our sect definitely won''t leave this matter alone. Just wait till I get back to the sect!"


    "What can you do when you get back to the sect?"


    A delicate yet somewhat hoarse voice suddenly drifted next to their ears, shocking them both.


    "Who''s there?" Lyu Yiyue roared. He raised his hand and immediately threw his fist toward the source of voice but his punch only hit the air.


    He heard a terrified voice. "T-Teacher!"


    "So you still remember I''m your teacher!"


    The voice carried even more mockery and discontentment.


    "I-I dare not forget!"


    Wu Yulong''s face turned completely pale as he got off the horseback. He fell on his hands and knees, pressing his head fiercely against the ground. He trembled all over.


    "That''s enough acting. I won''t do anything to you." Wang She came close to him and gave him a light kick. "Now that you''ve established relations with the four families, I can no longer control you as a lowly chief. Do whatever you want but don''t go pissing off Junior Leopard, understand?"


    "Yes! I understand!"


    "That''s good. At least when you die, you can become a ghost who understands why he''s dead!" Wang She chuckled.


    Trembling, Wu Yulong dared not to say another word and kept his head lowered.

 Chapter 261: Sense Acupoint

    Chapter 261: Sense Acupoint


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "It''s getting more chaotic in the world. With everyone''s focus on the upcoming World Hero Competition, it''s my chance to slip out of some people''s sight and do my own thing."


    Junior Leopard neither interested in the competition nor the Pure Yang Celestial Device because he could produce a similar weapon himself.


    If someone knew he could produce a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it would sure cause another wave of shock around the world. But the thing was that no one knew.


    Though Green Spirit once said he could only create Pure Yang Celestial Devices of a primary level, it was good enough for him. It was better than publicly showing off all his abilities and going all out against so many experts from the well-known families. Only a fool would do so.


    "Your Excellency, the preparations are complete. We can set off anytime."


    "Go ahead without me. I''ll catch up!" Junior Leopard told Jiang Xiao. "There are some things left to be done!"


    "You''re not going with us?"


    "Do you think you''ll feel comfortable traveling with me?" Junior Leopard smiled. "Besides, you guys are too slow."


    "Yes!" Jiang Xiao lowered his head and left. In his head, he criticised Junior Leopard. Weren''t he the one who insisted on taking the carriage to come here? Now that they were leaving, he didn''t want to take the carriage anymore! Didn''t they do all that work for nothing?


    Junior Leopard smiled as he watched Jing Xiao left. There was something he truly needed to do before he could leave. A Venerable from the Sect of Flame seemed interested in his fief, and he himself was interested in the Venerable as well. He wanted to know why the Venerable wanted to come to this godforsaken place. Did this place hold any important resources?


    He knew there was a refined iron mine in his fief, but that was hardly enough to attract the attention of a Venerable from the Sect of Flame.


    In the Sect of Flame, all experts with cultivation above Level Seven were called Venerables. It was similar to the title of Elder in the Tian Long Taoism. They were the same status, just with different names.


    Protector visited him yesterday afternoon and, with great respect, told him that their Venerable would be arriving at his fief in three days to discuss something very important.


    That was why Junior Leopard decided to stay for a few more days to see what the Venerable was up to.


    "Your place is pretty decent. If you carefully cultivate this place, you can actually achieve something!"


    The prairie at midnight was cold and quiet. There was a huge stone on the gentle slope of the Jilei Mountain. Except for its size, there was nothing extraordinary about it.


    Whenever the night came, Junior Leopard would lean on the stone and take out Green Spirit and his Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion, allowing them to absorb the essence of the moon. He would chat with the Great Ancient Demon and learn about the antiquity times. However, Green Spirit wasn''t easy to deal with. He wouldn''t say a word if it didn''t benefit him for the ancient times was so secretive. But he was in a good mood today and started spilling words once it came out as if he had recalled something.


    "Humph, I''m not interested in my career. It''d be nice if you can give me some tips on how to rapidly increase my cultivation instead."


    "Your strength is already growing really quickly; it''s not necessarily a good thing. In ancient times, you human practitioners had quick minds and various ideas. Those necromancers came up with so many ways to speed up their cultivation but not one worked!" Green Spirit laughed. "That''s why they thought of merging the bloodlines of congenital gods with the bloodline of humans."


    "They still succeeded in the end!"


    "Your bloodline isn''t fully awake yet. We don''t even know if it''ll work!" Green Spirit laughed. "Don''t be complacent just because you can use some power of the congenital gods. It''s no good!"


    "I understand. I''m just feeling dejected at how slow my cultivation is progressing."


    "Your journey has been too smooth up until now. Even in ancient times, it''s rare to have your cultivating speed. Whether it''s back then or now, what we''re truly after is the balance of the inner and outer cycle. There''s no true way to achieve instant success and we need to build both our bodies and cultivations slowly. But the Divine Sense techniques aren''t limited in that way. If you have the time, you can work on them. You have the most intense and profound fist intent that I''ve ever seen. It''ll be good for you to comprehend it a little more."


    "I''m aware of that too. My current punching skill is all thanks to the hammering skill insight that I gained when I was young. Now that both skills are merged, allowing for my success today. But if I want to make a breakthrough in this, I''ll need to be enlightened again. That''s much more difficult than practicing Internal Qi and the body."


    "Then there''s nothing I can help!" Green Spirit said. "Maybe you can cultivate the Pure Yang Celestial Device that I told you about as soon as possible. With that weapon nourishing you, your cultivating speed will increase by at least five times."


    "Five times? It''s that effective?"


    "Why do you think so many people are aiming for a Pure Yang Celestial Device?" Green Spirit said smugly.


    "So do you know what''s that Pure Yang Celestial Device? I heard it''s a pagoda-shaped weapon."


    "Necromancers were everywhere in antiquity times and they would create all kinds of celestial devices, so Pure Yang Celestial Devices aren''t anything extraordinary. There were so many pagoda-shaped Pure Yang Celestial Devices, how would I know which one is it!"


    "No wonder we''re lacking so many resources now. They''re all wasted by necromancers and Grand Demons like you."


    "Though you''re not wrong, it''s not all our fault. You can blame this on those necromancers. They were the ones who wasted the most resources!"


    "Never mind. There''s no use talking about something that happened so long ago. Since my cultivation has reached a bottleneck, I''m no longer in a hurry. What about it?"


    "Your puppet is pretty good. It''s promising. Its cultivating speed is fast, too. But what do you think it can do with the low concentration of the essence in this world?" Green Spirit said mockingly. "Compared to human cultivation, the most important thing for Demonic Cultivation is arousing spiritual intelligence. Once that''s achieved, its cultivating speed would far surpass a human''s cultivating speed but only if there''s enough essence of the world. In the beginning, Demon Cultivation would need huge amounts of essence, dozen times more than a human would need. Your puppet is already lacking in essence since it didn''t arouse any spiritual intelligence. With such small amount of the essence in this world, it''ll need at least 800 or even a thousand years for it to successively finish its cultivation even with its speed advantage. I suggest that you stick to the old way and concentrate on cultivating your natal magic weapon. Maybe you can achieve something in a short time!"


    "You offer no solution after saying so much!" Junior Leopard laughed, but there was a hint of challenge in his tone.


    "There''s no need to challenge me! It''s useless. Everything is born out of this world, so we need to go by their rules. This includes cultivation. It''s not impossible to break the rules and gain benefit from it, but there''s always a price that you have to pay. This has been proven by necromancers again and again in ancient times. You should give up trying to take a shortcut."


    "But the world''s changing so rapidly these days. I need strength to protect myself. Though I''m strong, it''s not enough. It''s likely that someone is targeting me!"


    "What''s your plan?"


    "If there''s no other way to promote cultivation, I can only cultivate the Pure Yang Celestial Device. But there''s another troublesome thing!"


    "What is it?"


    "The Earth Fire Yuan Essence. My fist intent has a special function. It can summon the Qi of Earth Fire Yuan Essence from the underground fire vein. I know a place with fire vein and it was incredibly helpful at the beginning of my cultivation. But I''ve received letters from the Central Plains telling me that the fire in the underground fire vein is for some reason dying as if the fire is being quenched. Even the lava river is cooling down. Since the lava river stretches everywhere, it''ll block the passageways to the center of the geocentric fire vein once it''s frozen. I think it''s because¡­"


    "Of course it''s all thanks to you! If you extract too much Earth Fire Yuan Essence, the geocentric fire vein will naturally cool down. Even fools know this in our times. Not even the craziest necromancer would do something like this for the Earth Fire Yuan Essence!"


    "So I need to find another geocentric fire vein!"


    "And extract the Earth Fire Yuan Essence again?" Green Spirit sneered. "You said the practitioners of our times were immoral to use up the resources. What a hypocrite! Aren''t you the same? You''re going to use the limited resources just for your personal interests! What right do you have to blame us?"


    "Looks like you''ve been unhappy with all my complaints about people from antiquity times!" Junior Leopard laughed.


    "Of course! I''m one of them!" Green Spirit said. "For you, it''s a world in a legend. For me, it''s my wonderful times. That''s enough nonsense for today, kid. I can''t satisfy your request for increasing your cultivation rapidly and it''s rather difficult too. You better think of some other way!"


    "What can you offer me?"


    "It''s different now. You should clearly know that many things have changed. There''s not a lot that I can help with. But if I absorb enough of the Sun and Moon Essence and the Nine Heaven Thunder Qi, I''ll recover some of my pneumas and trigger the power of the green lamp. Perhaps it''ll be of some help to you."


    "The Tusita Fire inside the green lamp has already died. What other use does it have?"


    "Of course there''s use for it! It''s too bad you''re practicing the Internal Qi of fire. If yours is of wood, then you can use the green lamp to purify your Internal Qi!"


    "My Internal Qi is pure enough!"


    "It''s not enough, far from enough. Speaking of which, I can give you a suggestion and advice!"


    "What is it?"


    "Build a solid foundation. Don''t rush to reach Level Eight. A solid foundation will help you greatly when you try to enter the Mysterious Realm and get Individual Immortal Karma Rank. Or even Genuine Immortal and Human Immortal Karma Rank. Your Internal Qi is pretty pure thanks to the help of the Demonic Fire from Primitive Dragon Chimera, but it''s because of this that your Internal Qi is turning into Demonic Fire. Your body is a human one. It may seem powerful now but eventually, it''ll become incompatible with your Internal Qi and slow down your future cultivation."


    "Then what should I do?"


    "Didn''t you manage to cultivate one of the Nine Forms of Real Dragon? If I were you, I''d start with Sense Acupoint to figure out about Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoint and merge my nine acupoints with it. After all, you have congenital god bloodline in your body. If you''re lucky, you may figure out one or two congenital god acupoint. Then you''ll be reaping a crazy amount of benefit from it!"

 Chapter 262: Dao of Acupoint & Kindling of Nanming Ignis

    Chapter 262: Dao of Acupoint & Kindling of Nanming Ignis


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints? What do you mean by that?!"


    Junior Leopard heard the word "acupoint" from the Stranger who passed down the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique to him. However, Junior Leopard didn''t know the meaning of the word. Fortunately, since he had reached the third form of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and gotten some insights for the Dragon Flying Technique, Junior Leopard had acquired unbelievable benefits from the Stranger by exchanging the mental cultivation method of this technique with him. Now hearing what the Green Spirit said, Junior Leopard could be sure that the Stranger hadn''t lied to him.


    "Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints basically means the nine acupoints of a real dragon!" the Green Spirit said. "You should know that nature produces millions of creatures and these creatures reproduce and evolve into their own species with unique features. Most unfair, each living creature is born with different power. The law of the jungle becomes the first principle among the world!"


    "L"Law of the jungle?!"Junior Leopard thought to himself, "Indeed, I can''t complain about the difference of inborn power in each spirit!"


    "Quite right! Can''t complain! What''s more, that is nature. It is not easy to change destiny. Those who are born to be weak, can be killed in one stomp. While those who are born to be strong, can create a new world with a mere casual act. Nature is far from fair. All living creatures have struggled for just an illusory chance to survive!" The Green Spirit seemed emotional when saying this and his voice became far-reaching. "All creatures can practice, whether they are flying birds, walking animals or crawling insects. Everything could go for that slim chance to be alive. Even the grass and the stones, if they got the chance, they could also practice. There are evils, demons, immortals and strangers existing in nature. Because of their congenital limitations, their practices are different. All living creatures have acupoints inside their bodies. And the so-called acupoint functions as a place to store and transform the essence of the world!"


    "Dantian?!"


    "Dantian. To you humans, Dantian is the acupoint. Actually, the acupoint is more than Dantian!"


    "Dantian is only one kind of the acupoint. And you humans belong to the acquired living creatures. That is why you only get one acupoint. Some creatures have more than one acupoint!" said the Green Spirit.


    "What is ''congenital'' and what is ''acquired ''?!"


    "Creatures that have fur, antlers or are born from eggs or embryos all belong to the ''acquired''. Even your ancestors, the primitive ancestors still belong to the acquired. As for the congenital, even in the antiquity times, you could easily count them. Real dragons belong to the congenital. So they have nine acupoints!"


    "Nine acupoints equals nine Dantians!"


    "Not equal, but similar! It would be similar to you humans having nine Dantians!" The Green Spirit corrected him, "In this case, they can store at least nine times more pneuma than you can. And in fact, the amount of the pneuma stored in each of their acupoints is much more than yours!"


    "So you''re saying humans can also practice several other Dantians?!"


    "You got it! So do the demonic cultivation!" the Green Spirit said. "Even back in the antiquity times, aside from the few living creatures grown out of the congenital seeds which were left by the primitives, the rest of the demonic cultivation all belonged to the acquired group who had only one acupoint, just like you humans do. Nevertheless, your ancestors were so smart that they found a way to Refine Acupoints during their practice. In this case, living creatures of the acquired group also had the chance to have the other acupoints in addition to the Dantian. But it was too dangerous to practice. One mistake could cost even the highest level of the practicers. A better way did not come out until the necromancer appeared!"


    "A better way? What''s that?!"


    "The necromancers believed that all living creatures are interrelated and have the same principles. And they believed that the congenital group and the acquired group had similarities in their body construction. Though the primitive ancestors'' Refine Acupoints method had enormous benefits, its risks were also unbearable for the common people. So they figured out a method to seek how the congenital living creatures practiced, and based on this they could use backward induction to find their acupoints. Considering their own physical features, they created a new way of sensing the acupoint. And finally, necromancers also found that among all the living creatures, the real dragon group had the most similar acupoints to those of human beings. These are also the easiest to practice!"


    "Is it the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints?!"


    "Yes! It''s the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, one of which is the Dantian!" the Green Spirit said, "I can teach you how to Sense Acupoints and Refine Acupoints. But I don''t know the mental cultivation methods that were secretly passed down within the dragon family. So I recommend you practice your own Dantian firstly. As for the others, you can wait until you have the mental cultivation methods of the Real Dragon Mysterious Method!"


    "I do have a mental cultivation method for the Real Dragon Mysterious Method!" Junior Leopard thought. He said, "The storage capability of the congenital living creatures'' acupoints is much larger than those of the acquired group. This means Refine Acupoints can not only increase the amount of acupoints but also the storage capability of the Dantian for the pneuma, right?!"


    "Right! That''s it!"


    As they were talking, the Green Spirit passed Junior Leopard the ways of Sense Acupoints and Refine Acupoints at the same time without concealment.


    "No wonder the golden-robed man gave me so many benefits that day. It turns out he wanted to detect his acupoint using the Real Dragon Mysterious Method!" Junior Leopard thought to himself.


    "What is the relationship between this Sense and Refine Acupoints with my Level Eight cultivation?!"


    "Surely they''re related! With level eight cultivation, you are gonna have iron-strong Internal Qi. And you may also produce the Real Essence Source. Once the Source is made, you will step completely into Level Nine. At this level, the Real Essence Source will be nourished carefully. If you have more than one acupoint before condensing the Real Essence Source and going into Level Eight, you will definitely yield twice the results with half the effort in your future practice. If you only have one acupoint when you step into Level Eight, even if you have the other acupoints later, each acupoint will still need to condense into the soul source. What''s worse, even if the later sources came out, it will be hard to integrate with your original Real Essence Source. The later ones will also need to be purified and refined which is indeed troublesome. The best way is to have all the acupoints ready before you step into Level Eight. Moreover, your internal qi has already integrated with the evil fire of the primitive dragon chimera. If your Internal Qi can be completely transformed into the evil fire of the primitive dragon chimera, even though this is not one of the congenital nine fires, you will still enjoy endless benefits. The evil fire is also quite famous and as good as the Tusita Fire. If you can make a few more acupoints ready and plant this evil fire in all of them, your future achievement will be unmeasurable!"


    "There are so many techniques!"


    "There are more than you can imagine! The Sense Acupoints and Refine Acupoints are just a small part. Once your cultivation reaches the corresponding level and you step into the big three realms and your Internal Qi transforms into the Real Essence, you will understand how important it is to have a solid foundation!"


    Junior Leopard nodded with a smile on his face. This was a major lesson.


    Junior Leopard had some leisure time in the following days to practice his Dantian following what the Green Spirit had said. After several days, he obtained excellent results. His Dantian experienced wonderful changes, plus others he hadn''t even noticed before. Of course, as the Green Spirit mentioned, Refine Acupoints was not a thing that could be done in one day or one night. It was dangerous and would take a long time. Junior Leopard, practiced it very carefully.


    One day, just as Junior Leopard finished his daily practice, he felt refreshed and his Dantian seemed to have advanced just as the Green Spirit said.


    As Junior Leopard was immersed in his happiness, he frowned suddenly. Renzhen Cuo lifted the curtain and came in. "Your Excellency, the Cao man is here to visit again!"


    "Let him in!" Junior Leopard answered. Cao, a protector, belonged to the Sect of Flame and was mastered by a Venerable of the sect. Junior Leopard didn''t understand why he wanted to be in his territory. A few days ago, Mr. Cao had informed him that his Venerable master together with his wife would visit soon. Full of curiosity, Junior Leopard waited for a few days for them. This was his personal territory. The appearance of a Level Seven master from the Sect of Flame, in any case, was disturbing for him.


    "Your Excellency, Mr. Zhou. My respect!"


    Guided by Renzhi Cuo, Cao Zhi showed his respect when seeing Junior Leopard.


    "Don''t bother! You are from the Sect of Flame. Hearing you call me ''Your Excellency'', ''Your Excellency'', it makes me feel uncomfortable!"


    It was ironic. The Sect of Flame followers were all rebels who planned to kill the officers, particularly those who served for the imperial court. Cao Zhi, as a protector of the Sect of Flame, greeting a man ''Your Excellency '' so respectfully would make anyone feel uncomfortable.


    CCao Zhi''s look stiffened. A trace of embarrassment flitted across his face. "Your Excellency just likes joking around!"


    "I never joke. I''ve waited here for days. Why hasn''t your Venerable Master come yet? If he isn''t coming, I will leave. After all, I don''t have much leisure time!" Junior Leopard''s words revealed some maliciousness.


    "Please forgive me, Your Excellency! Please!" Cao Zhi felt horrible deep inside at this young master''s dark look, though he could not tell whether Junior Leopard was really angry or not. "My Venerable arrived this morning. I''m here to invite Your Excellency to visit him!"


    "I should go to visit him?! "Junior Leopard grinned with an unpleasant look. Cao Zhi was hit by invisible stress all of a sudden. He felt depressed with a feeling like he was being choked. When he came to, he was soaked with cold sweat. With feeble knees, he flopped onto the ground. His feet were unable to bear his weight because of fear.


    In recent years, Junior Leopard had become much more mature. He''d gained a higher cultivation and more knowledge about the world. He also had a wider vision which made his behavior much more powerful and influential. Normally, his power would not be that strong; he usually wore a smile. But when he was in a bad mood, like now, his Qi power would show up. His inborn Divine Sense, his Fiery Eyes and the Heavenly Magic Eye, carried a shocking feature which had integrated into his bones. Cao Zhi, a Level Four martial master who had just stepped into the Bone-Forging Realm, could barely stand it. His whole soul was suddenly shocked. It happened only for a short time, but to him, it seemed like it was a lifetime. It was a good thing he was in the bone-forging realm, if he was a rookie in the Skin-Toughening Realm, he definitely would have pissed himself unconsciously.


    "Your, Your Excellency! You, you misunderstood!"


    Though not frightened to death, Cao Zhi still could not smooth himself, "My venerable is not belittling Your Excellency. It''s, It''s that he tru-truly cannot stand up!"


    "What? Can''t stand up? !"Junior Leopard stared at this Cao Zhi with a puzzled look. "Tell me the details! What happened?!"


    "My Venerable master met a tough enemy and was seriously wounded! Thank god he''s still alive! He''s resting at the Young Master''s with extremely bad injuries. He can''t get out of bed and falls into a coma from time to time!"


    "What?!" Junior Leopard paused. He felt speechless. He wasn''t expecting this. All the Sect of Flame Venerables were strong masters. A master lying in bed, unable to stand because of the injuries incurred by another man, this was big news. Filled with curiosity, Junior Leopard changed his demeanor. "So that''s the situation. I misunderstood you! Let''s go visit your Venerable. I''m really wondering what on earth your aim is in doing all these things!"


    ¡­


    ...


    It was late Autumn. In this desolate and cold land, the north wind was blowing like a knife, though winter hadn''t come yet. Very few people settled in the small town. In this gloomy weather, few people were wandering the street at dusk. Following Cao Zhi and looking at the humble stone houses, Junior Leopard was thinking that he should construct a square.


    A square was not popular in this world. In fact, nobody knew this kind of stuff. In his previous life, officials had been addicted to constructing squares, the bigger the better. Back then, Junior Leopard had been merely a common civil servant working in an office. He could hardly be counted as an official, an assistant at most. He had often sworn privately when reading the news. Now, in this life, it was his turn to master this little town. Seeing the empty streets and scarce passers-by, he felt as if walking in a slum. Something was missing. He decided he wanted to construct a square with a sculpture. It would be a psychological compensation for his previous life.


    Cao Zhi interrupted his thoughts. "Here we are, Your Excellency Zhou!"


    Junior Leopard stopped. He looked around and found that it was the same stone house he had passed by that day. With a smile, he said, "Well, let''s go inside and see!"


    Inside the small stone house, it was dim and dark with gloomy lighting. It emitted an odd smell.


    "Poison?!"


    Though the fishy smell was not that strong, Junior Leopard still felt his Poison Cold Shield reacting. He sensed what it was immediately.


    Your Excellency, this is the Madam!" Caozhi introduced.


    "Zhou Bao'' s respect!"


    The Venerable''s wife looked like she was in her early twenties. She had a good-looking face and not bad cultivation. She had reached Level Four, but she looked pale and tired now.


    "Your Excellency flatters us!" said the Madam. She bowed toward Junior Leopard, "Our unexpected visit here must be very rude, but we really didn''t have any other choice. We beg Your Excellency''s forgiveness!"


    Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows and didn''t know what to say. "This f*cking Venerable and his Madam had no acquaintance with me at all. Now they came to my territory inexplicably and say words I don''t understand as if we have a good fellowship," he thought.


    Junior Leopard wanted to know the details since the whole thing was not that simple. He said, "Don''t mention it! We all struggled in Jianghu and we all come across bad times. Helping each other is common sense. And luckily, I''ve had some leisure time recently. Well, could you inform me your names, please?!"


    "I''m Cao Xuetang. Please forgive my rudeness, Your Excellency!" a tired and hoarse voice came out from behind the white-dressed Madam.


    "So you are Mr. and Mrs. Cao!" Junior Leopard greeted them and cupped his hands together in salute. "If I''m guessing right, Venerable Cao must have been poisoned!"


    Before Cao Xuetang could open his mouth, Madam Cao had already stood aside to allow Junior Leopard a clear view of the situation.


    Cao Xuetang didn''t look old. He was in his robust thirties, but terribly pale at the moment. There were three obvious bruises on his body, the worst one on his forehead with smelly black blood oozing out. The whole thing was quite terrible.


    "It''s true! I turned my back for a second, I was attacked. Sorry to trouble you!"


    "Never mind! So what was your intention in visiting me?!"


    Cao Xuetang was about to answer. Two coughs burst, and a gulp of blood burst out from his mouth. Though the blood was pressed back reluctantly, a violent cough was unavoidable. He could barely say a word. He turned to his wife for help.


    "Here is the thing. We are actually here for an item!" the white-clothed madam said with a bitter smile, full of uncertainty in her words. Her husband had been attacked. He was not only a Level Seven expert but also the venerable master of the Sect of Flame. Though he might not have completely won Zhou Bao over, at least he would have respected them. Although they''d come here to ask Junior Leopard for help, the truth was that it was a cooperation. But now her husband had been poisoned and was in danger of passing away anytime. Jianghu was a very practical and sophisticated place. If you lost your power, you had no right to speak. Now the cooperation they had planned was transformed into asking for help. In this situation, unprovoked, they humbled themselves in front of Junior Leopard. It was somewhat unnerving and she hesitated to start the conversation.


    "An item? What item? I can hardly believe that there is anything good in my barren little territory!" Junior Leopard smiled and thought to himself, "If we did have something precious, it would definitely not be your turn to have it!"


    "It''s a long story!" murmured by Madam Cao.


    "It''s ok! Take your time. I have plenty of time!" Junior Leopard smiled.


    "We came to your territory mainly for the kindling of the Nanming Ignis!" Madam Cao answered directly without any concealment.


    "The kindling of the Nanming Ignis?!" Junior Leopard felt a throb in his heart.


    He did have some knowledge about the kindling. It was a mysterious object with a prestige second only to the spiritual stone.


    Like the spiritual stone, there were different types. People in the world who practiced the Fire Way Method of the Five-Way Method would surely benefit considerably even by acquiring just one kindling.


    Followers of the Sect of Flame practiced the Ignis Mysterious Skill and the Ignis Skill was their introduction technique. Just like the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, the Ignis Mysterious Skill was also a fire method. During practice, if anyone could get a good kindling, he could acquire twice the results with half the effort. Because Junior Leopard had good luck, he had gotten the demonic fire of the Primitive Dragon Chimera by accident. It had advanced his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique considerably. Moreover, he had also practiced to the third form which hadn''t been achieved by anyone else in the last ten thousand years. He had learned the mental cultivation methods that had been secretly passed down within the genuine dragon family. He believed the demonic fires helped him substantially.


    As a mysterious object, kindling of the Nanming Ignis was not easy to find. Junior Leopard was surprised to hear that they wanted it.


    If the kindling of the Nanming Ignis did exist in his territory, they could search for it secretly. Why did they want him to join?


    He didn''t know them at all. What made them think he would help them instead of stealing the kindling from them?


    "We came here intending to ask cooperation with his excellency for the kindling of the Nanming Ignis. Unexpectedly, someone got the news and made a secret attack on us in the end!" the woman explained angrily. She was grinding her teeth.


    "That''s how the world works! People get envious. My question is, why did you come to me?!" said the Junior Leopard.


    "Firstly, the item is in your territory. Secondly, I alone, don''t have the ability to get it. So we wanted to work with you! But...(coughing)!"


    Before his voice died away, he had another burst of coughing.


    Now, Junior Leopard was puzzled again, "Your Venerable, pardon me for saying this, but I really wonder why you think I would work with you. We''ve never met before!"


    "I have the qualification to work... aheck... work with you!" Cao Xuetang coughed desperately and explained in an intermittent way, "The great Venerable, Prince Xiaoming, knew about my visit here and he wrote you a letter. You will understand af-after reading the letter!


    "Prince Xiaoming?!" Junior Leopard grinned and recalled the memory of when Prince Xiaoming, the nancy boy, had hooked up with Wang She in the geocentric fire vein. He also remembered he owed Prince Xiaoming a large amount of Earth Fire Yuan Essence. Thinking of this, Junior Leopard felt weak immediately.


    "So Venerable Cao and Venerable Prince Xiaoming are acquaintances! No wonder!" Junior Leopard took the letter from the lady and smiled, "It''s been a long time since I''ve seen Venerable Prince Xiaoming! Is she okay?!"


    "Venerable Ming is doing well all the time!" Madam Cao replied instantly, flashing a bit of curiosity in her eyes, "Your Excellency knows well about Venerable Ming?!"


    "We met just one time, only once!" Junior Leopard replied and didn''t want to discuss it further.


    His reply seemed quite normal. But to the couple, it was surely abnormal. Prince Xiaoming was one of the great Venerables in their sect and also a Level Nine master. For his young age, he behaved very arrogantly. He would leave without a glance at even the Sect Master let alone the other common Venerables. Outside the Sect, he didn''t have any friends. As for Cao, since his father had once helped Prince Xiaoming''s family, Prince Xiaoming treated him slightly differently. Normally, they didn''t have any interaction, but this time, it was really important, so Cao had gone to Prince Xiaoming for help. Cao had intended to ask Prince Xiaoming to get the Nanming Ignis for them. Prince Xiaoming didn''t do it himself, rather, she wrote a letter to Junior Leopard and promised that Junior Leopard would help them after reading it. Until now, they hadn''t known that the most influential strong young master was a good acquaintance of Prince Xiaoming.


    Junior Leopard had already opened the envelope and unfolded it. It was not long and contained just a few words. With one glance, Junior Leopard''s look changed.

 Chapter 263: Management

    Chapter 263: Management


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    There were not many words on the letter, but Junior Leopard''s heart kept pounding: "Messystar Stone, Sea Bile, Wind Bead!"


    Those nine words made Junior Leopard''s heart beat more quickly because all three of those things were materials to refine Air-frozen Beads.


    He only had one method for refining Air-frozen Beards. And in the Immortal Palace, the seat of Water Leopard had been vacant for a long time, so there were no refining materials. When Junior Leopard had told Green Spirit about it, unexpectedly, Green Spirit''s tone changed when he heard Air-frozen Beads. It never came to Junior Leopard''s mind that Air-frozen Beads were not celestial devices, but a fairy weapon, the Taihao Fairy Weapon.


    But after that, through careful inquiry, he understood that the Air-frozen Beads that Green Spirit had told him about were not the same thing as what he had spoken of because their materials were totally different. After his description of the material and refining technique, Green Spirit thought for a while and told him that the Air-frozen Beads given by the Immortal Palace could also be called Air-frozen Beads. But some materials of the Air-frozen Beads had been changed into some other materials that were easier to obtain. It was a simplified Taihao Fairy Weapon. Even if it was successfully refined, its effectiveness would be greatly reduced. But, it was still a Pure Yang Celestial Device, and even better than an ordinary Pure Yang Celestial Device. After all, it was a copy of fairy weapon. The mystery of fairy weapons could never be compared with an ordinary Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    Because of that, he extinguished the thought of refining the Air-frozen Beads because the most important material for refining genuine Air-frozen Beads was called the Heaven Nine Essence Pearl. It had been rare even in antiquity times, not to mention at present. The material given by the Immortal Palace was replaced by Wind Beads. In Green Spirit''s words, Wind Beads were rare oddities. Their essence came from the wind. In the present world, Wind Beads were just like the Heaven Nine Essence Pearls. They did not appear for tens of thousands of years, so how could they be easy to obtain?


    But unexpectedly, Prince Xiaoming''s letter had mentioned Wind Beads.


    "It seems Prince Xiaoming is also from the Immortal Palace. Which constellation is she among the 28 constellations?" Junior Leopard thought to himself as his hand vibrated lightly and crushed the letter that he was holding, but his smile became gentler. "So, brother Cao is a friend of Prince Xiaoming. You should have told me initially. And by the way, who dared to stir up trouble with you? You can just tell me and I will make him pay."


    "Who would dare?" Cao Xuetang answered quickly, looking embarrassed. "I was set up, but I''m not so sure who did this to me. For this, I will make them pay."


    "If you need me, you can just tell me directly. I will help you if I possibly can!" Junior Leopard promised him as he patted his chest.


    "Alright!" Cao said, "That''s very kind of you, Your Excellency!"


    "Please don''t be so courteous. Don''t call me Your Excellency. I''m, at most, a landlord in the shabby and poorest area. You can just call me Junior Leopard if you don''t mind that." Junior Leopard laughed, then suddenly, he became serious. "You were badly injured. You shouldn''t stay in such a terrible place. Though my place is remote, it is big. What about moving to my place, so we can look after each other!"


    "Um¡­" Cao Zhi murmured to himself. As a Venerable of the Sect of Flame, although he could not be called a rich and powerful man, he had never got into so much trouble before. At first, he tried to cooperate with Junior Leopard, but unexpectedly, he almost got into a dilemma. He almost lost his face. It was so embarrassing for him to move to Junior Leopard''s territory. But, he did feel uncomfortable living in this shabby room, so he hesitated. Finally, he nodded. "With such being the case, sorry for bothering you. And thanks!"


    ...


    The fire was burning hot in the charcoal brazier, which made the whole room so warm. The cold north wind was whistling outside, but it gave off no hint of a chill in the house.


    Inside, Cao Xuetang had changed his clothes and his wound had been bandaged. He had regained his Qi and blood and looked much better than before.


    "I never expected that you were not only good at cultivation, but that your medical skills would also be so amazing!" Though he still felt weak in Qi and blood, he knew that the poison was gone. Thinking of Junior Leopard''s mysterious and effective method, he felt even more surprised.


    "Shitty medical skills. I was just lucky years ago to get a treasure which could eliminate poison!" Junior Leopard chuckled. There were so many treasures to eliminate poison, not only the Poison-absorbing Green Bead. He just mentioned a "treasure" and changed the subject. "You made this more complicated and mysterious. If you offered this letter to me earlier, there wouldn''t be such a big problem."


    "You are right. I was too cautious. I had no idea that you and Prince Xiaoming were friends." Cao Xuetang gave a wry smile.


    Those simple words made everything clear.


    Where there were people, there were conflicts. It was a rule in the Imperial Court and among well-known families, barons, and even the Sect of Flame. Cao Xuetang used to be a powerful Venerable of the Sect of Flame, but later, when another influence of the Sect of Flame arose, he gradually lost his power and became just a figurehead as a Venerable, like those titular Elders in the well-known families. Though he was a Venerable, his cultivation was only at Level Seven, which was not prominent in the Sect of Flame. It was fine when he had real power, but now, without real power, he could only be used as a soldier. When trouble came, he worked as a sword for others. He was a man seeking fame and wealth, so he felt unwilling but had no alternative. He had lost power with only a Level Seven cultivation, so he had no strength to fight against those who had real power. Unexpectedly, he got some information about Nanming Ignis, so he thought maybe he should obtain the fire seed to improve his power, then he could go back to the Sect of Flame to regain his power.


    As a man in Jianghu, he knew clearly the perils therein. As for this kind of good news, he would never tell outsiders and had to be careful. However, he could not smile anymore when he knew the exact location of the Nanming Ignis.


    Because it was the exact territory of Zhou Bao.


    After the complete collapse of Northern Yuan, the Great Jin had conferred titles of nobility on lots of people and carved up numerous fiefs to give to them. The enfeoffment map of Northern Yuan circulated among the people, but only a few names could be remembered, including the territory of several schools and powerful families as well as some territories with good fame, strong power, and good merits. Unfortunately, Junior Leopard''s territory was included.


    Cao Xuetang knew it was trouble when he saw that the location belonged to Junior Leopard''s territory. If it were another place, he would not care even if it was in those millennium families because they did not have many powerful people. But, it was different in Junior Leopard''s territory. It was known that Zhou Bao was in his own territory now, and it was impossible to conceal it from Zhou Bao because it would cause a big movement if he wanted to get the kindling of Nanming Ignis. So, he just wondered if it would be a better way to cooperate with Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard cultivated the Fire Way Method, so the kindling of Nanming Ignis was also beneficial to him. Besides, Cao Xuetang did not know Zhou Bao at all. Zhou Bao was a rebel of the Imperial Court, while he was the viscount and lord of the Imperial Court. They had no connections at all. In theory, they were enemies. It would not be easy for him to cooperate with Junior Leopard.


    Furthermore, he was not sure if that thing was still in Junior Leopard''s territory, so he had asked his capable assistant, Cao Zhi, and his son and to go and investigate first.


    There were so many people doing trafficking activities in the north. So, Cao Zhi and his son went into the territory of Junior Leopard as trafficking businessmen.


    He thought he had done it secretly, but actually, he was noticed from the very beginning. His enemy in the Sect of Flame was not ordinary. Once his strange movement was noticed, he was spotted by his enemy''s followers, who did not know his purpose. They hid in the dark and inquired about his movement. When they found that both Cao Zhi and Cao Xuetang''s son had gone to Junior Leopard''s territory, they realized that something was really suspicious and continued to tail after them.


    As for Junior leopard, on one hand, he did not have that many people, on the other hand, he did not care about that stuff, so he did not perceive it at all. Even if he realized it, he would not care. It was none of his business, after all.


    But finally, things were now out of control. Cao Zhi made things troublesome, and Cao Shun, the son of Cao Xuetang, was young and unable to make a decision. With no other people that could be trusted, Cao Xuetang sent his son and Cao Zhi to come here. Cao Shun was nervous so that he kept on nagging. When he was free, he liked to chat with Cao Zhi. Then, the message had leaked out during their chats just like on that day that he inadvertently blurted it out it in front of Junior Leopard.


    Originally, it was impossible for Cao Xuetang to get that matter done well. He even did not know that his son had blurted it out. Unexpectedly, Prince Xiaoming came to find him one day, offering him a letter and requiring him to have a conversation with Zhou Bao. He did not know it until now that his father had done a favor for Prince Xiaoming, who had come here exactly for returning the favor and had pointed him in the right direction. He felt so surprised and happy. Meanwhile, he received a letter from Cao Shun. According to the letter, the location was in the exact territory of Junior Leopard.


    In this way, the matter became simpler. Packing their luggage, he and his wife started their way toward Junior Leopard''s territory. Unfortunately, he had been intercepted along the way. Although he killed those killers, he was badly injured and he tried his best to get here. Maybe he would only have one breath remaining now if Junior Leopard had not detoxified him.


    "This has been made so complicated. Prince Xiaoming should be the one to blame. Why didn''t he tell you about it at first? He didn''t show up until you had been so heavily wounded. Why? To show his strength?" Junior Leopard complained to him.


    But Cao Xuetang dared not complain like that and spoke hurriedly. "The Great Venerable should not be blamed. It was confidential information, so I kept it secret and had no expectation that it would leak out, which has caused so much trouble."


    "Trouble? It didn''t get that far." Junior Leopard said, "Don''t worry, brother. I promise that there won''t be any trouble in my territory. Just take a rest and heal your wounds. When you are ready, I will keep you company to find the kindling of Nanming Ignis!"


    "All right. Thank you."


    "Not at all. It''s beneficial for both of us!" Junior Leopard said with a laugh.


    When Junior Leopard left, Cao''s wife stared at him with a worried look and asked, "Xuetang, do you think Zhou Bao¡­?"


    Cao Xuetang just waved and said, "It''s okay. We have no alternatives. I believe in the Great Venerable."


    She nodded and said nothing.


    ¡­


    After getting all the family members of Cao Xuetang settled, Junior Leopard went outside, grinning.


    For Junior leopard, the Great Venerable of the Sect of Flame was not a very important person, but he did play an influential role in Jianghu.


    The Sect of Flame was a powerful organization in the south, and even the Imperial Court feared it. Though Cao Xuetang had lost his influence, if he obtained the kindling of Nanming Ignis this time, his cultivation would progress. With the help of Prince Xiaoming, he would become powerful and influential again.


    Now that he encountered difficulties, it was not a big deal to do him a favor. On the contrary, it was beneficial for Junior Leopard to help him.


    Junior Leopard knew his weaknesses. He did not have a strong foundation. Even if he could say that he came from the Wu family and was a disciple of the Wu Sect, he did not have the bloodline of the Wu family. If he had no power, the Wu family would not care about him at all, which he knew from the attitude of Wu Yulong. Even though his cultivation had already reached Level Seven, he was just a powerful servant when compared to the direct line of descent and in the eyes of the prestigious sects and schools.


    Otherwise, Wu Yulong and Lin Xiaoqing would not dare to look for trouble in an unbridled way.


    It seemed that he had no choice but to join the Immortal Palace, but secretly he also thought that it could offer him a guarantee and an opportunity to make friends with more powerful guys. Of course, it was not that easy to do it within one day.


    As a civil servant in his previous life, he knew that the relationships among people required managing. They could not last long if you did not manage the relationships, no matter how close they used to be.


    Everything mattered in management!


    Now that he was someone in Jianghu, in public, with the support of Wang She from Tian Long Taoism, idlers had no courage to look for trouble. But Junior Leopard knew that Wang She had already gotten himself enough trouble. In addition, he was the Chief of Tian Long Taoism, so Junior Leopard would not bother him over trifles. And for other famous experts in Jianghu, Junior Leopard did not know many of them and had no idea how to get connected with them without a particular reason. He had met Prince Xiaoming of the Sect of Flame once. He seemed to have some relations with Wang She. Now he was sure that he was also a member of the Immortal Palace, so Junior leopard wanted to make friends with him.


    "Keeping a good relationship with Prince Xiaoming will just do good things for me. The Sect of Flame is the most powerful organization in the south. Even the Imperial Court can''t keep it under control. If Cao Xuetang goes back and regains real power, then I will get more relations and many things could be much easier. Even just for the business of the Anyuan Store, if it becomes bigger and has some trouble in the south, there would be no need to disturb Prince Xiaoming. Cao Xuetang is powerful enough to deal with all the trouble." That was why Junior Leopard became so enthusiastic.


    "It has been a long time doing things like this. It has become more like my previous life. Boring. So boring!" Junior leopard shook his head, snickered at himself in his heart. "In the end, I''m still a laic!"


    And soon after, he left it behind. Now that Cao Xuetang had been settled in his place, he would not allow something to go wrong with Cao Xuetang there. Though Cao Xuetang had killed those who had intercepted him, his opponent already had known his purpose and they would send better killers with high cultivations. If the opponent was smart and prudent enough, swarms of masters of martial arts and experts would be sent. After all, it was the kindling of Nanming Ignis!


    Even for ordinary people, it was a wonderful thing. Not to mention those guys who practiced the Ignis Mysterious Skill in the Sect of Flame.


    Perhaps swarms of masters of martial arts were already on their way, trying to look for trouble in his territory soon.


    But this was his place and he would not fear, no matter how many people came.


    Junior Leopard clearly knew the direction of Nanming Ignis. He had not explored it personally, but he could not be sure if there were other guys watching it in the dark, so he settled the Yin and Yang Dust Formation there.


    "The Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Hehe, I never imagined that it had so many profound mysteries!" Junior Leopard thought of the shocked expression of Green Spirit when he found out that Junior Leopard understood the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    The formation did not come from the necromancers, but was passed down from primitive times. However, it was those necromancers who made the formation known and useful.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation was one of the greatest masterpieces of the necromancers.


    Junior Leopard understood just a little and Green Spirit did not know much more, even though he was a Great Ancient Demon. But Green Spirit said that it was enough for them now.


    For common people who just acquired the Individual Immortal Karma Rank but still had not entered the Mysterious Realm, it was enough¡ªit could kill all of them, no matter how many people came.


    He was not a cruel man, but when his benefits were involved, he would not hesitate to kill.


    This was his place, where everything belonged to him and he could do whatever he wanted. Even though he had settled a killing formation in his place, no one else could say anything about it. Recently, he had been chatting with Cao Xuetang, and he also noticed the movement of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. He also put Green Spirit inside of it.


    Over the past few days, Green Spirit had made some progress by absorbing the existence of the sun and moon. Though he did not necessarily have much strength and was unable to perform the power of the Pure Yang Celestial Device, it was easy to control the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. By now, a few batches of people had been killed there, including masters of martial arts at Levels Five and Six and two at Level Seven.


    "Did you bitches think that this was your vegetable garden and you could come and go at any time? You can not leave anymore."


    Junior Leopard arrived at the other side of the mountain. Walking into the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and staring at the people swoon on the ground, he scolded them angrily.


    "They are just some idiots, there''s no need to get angry with them." The voice of Green Spirit rang out faintly. With its dim and green fog, the formation was a small world. It seemed to be spacious, but there was no way out. If people became trapped inside and had no understanding of its mystery, they would be trapped permanently and die even if their cultivation had reached Level Seven, Level Eight, or even Level Nine.


    The body of Green Spirit was green and foggy. Now he was speaking from inside the formation, misty and mysterious, making Junior Leopard feel cold in his bones and spine even though he knew who it was.


    "Why did you come out? If someone saw this¡­"


    "They could not see anything at all. In the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, they could just see what I wanted them to see, and they couldn''t see anything that I didn''t want them to see!"


    "All right, stop. How about the matter that I asked you to inquire about?"


    "There really is kindling of Nanming Igins here!" Green Spirit said. Junior Leopard had settled him in the formation, not only to control the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, but also to explore the kindling of Nanming Ignis.


    "Cao Xuetang was right that the kindling of Nanming Ignis was brought by a meteorite and pounded on the prairie for many years. The valley here may have been left by that meteorite, and the deepest part of the valley is the location of the kindling. But now, there is a bottomless pool. I guess that''s because the meteorite was too heavy, so it pounded a deep hole. Then, it was filled with water after so many years. It should have been at least seven or eight thousand years ago. If you want to get the kindling of Nanming Ignis, you need to get inside of the pool. But you already have the Demonic Fire of the Primitive Dragon Chimera and the Tusita Fire. Besides, you don''t practice Nanming. The Nanming Ignis is of the lowest level, so it isn''t worth giving too much energy and time. It''s more beneficial to use the time to practice your acupoints and meditate on the Ying and Yang Dust Formation."


    "Entrusted by people, you should try your best to keep your words. Once that I had promised, I had to offer my help!" Junior leopard laughed. "Besides, from the words of Cao Xuetang, there should be other benefits besides that kindling of Nanming Ignis. That was why he wanted to cooperate with me. Obviously, he was not sure what it was. I immediately promised him when I saw the letter from Prince Xiaoming, so he did not tell me anything further."


    "Other benefits?" Hearing this, Green Spirit looked surprised and asked, "What other benefits will there be? Be careful, don''t be fooled."


    "He does not dare. He didn''t say it just because he wasn''t sure. Let''s wait. If there are other benefits, I will get my share!" Junior Leopard smiled.

 Chapter 264: The Cold Pool in the Valley Bottom and the Red-Scaled Python

    Chapter 264: The Cold Pool in the Valley Bottom and the Red-Scaled Python


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Westflower Hall, the Royal Capital,


    The West Capital, the Great Jin¡ª


    There were only two people in the huge Westflower Hall. Yan Yuntian, the Emperor of the Great Jin, held a newspaper in his hand and wore a weird expression.


    Ming Yuesheng had changed his clothes, wearing a magnificent robe. He strolled leisurely and aimlessly inside the Westflower Hall with a cup of insipid tea.


    "I''ve eaten too much greasy food at noon, so this tea should be more insipid!" He blew away the heat and then looked at the few tea leaves in the cup while frowning.


    "If you want to drink tea, I''ll send another carriage of fresh tea to you tomorrow." Yan Yuntian shook the newspaper in his hand. "What''s your opinion about Zhou Bao? How surprising his relationship with Wang She is! I still cannot understand why a Chief of Tian Long Taoism should be connected with a common disciple of the Wu Family."


    "Your Majesty, Zhou Bao truly is a rare teen expert, but experts in the world are neither too many nor too few. Experts at Zhou Bao''s age are few, but there are still some and they just can''t match his reputation. I really wonder why you insist on paying attention to him."


    "Sure! Experts in the world are neither too many nor too few, and there are some other teen experts in the world as well. But, it''s definitely difficult for a young man like him who was born with a poor background to earn such achievements in his youth. He must have a shocking secret!" Yan Yuntian lost himself in thought.


    "Everyone has his own secret. There are numerous secrets in the world!" Ming Yuesheng didn''t care. "We''ve clearly investigated his background. There''s nothing wrong. Even if his combat capability reaches Level Eight, he still can''t make any trouble for us, let alone that he''s just a teen expert at Level Seven. Your Majesty, what on earth are you worrying about?"


    "I have no idea. I only have a premonition. Every time I hear about Zhou Bao, I feel something weird."


    Looking at Yan Yuntian, Ming Yuesheng seemed speechless. "Then why not have someone sound him out?"


    "No. Those fools of Tian Long Taoism have sounded him out already!" Said Yan Yuntian. "Some people thought Zhou Bao was too arrogant. They wanted to teach him a lesson, so they commanded him to take part in the World Hero Competition in the name of Tian Long Taoism and the Four Great Families. As a result, Lin Xiaoqing from the Lins was badly wounded and carried away. Before the Lins looked Zhou Bao for trouble, Wang She suddenly exited training and banished a lot of disciples who belonged to the Four Great Families in Tian Long Taoism, claiming to support Zhou Bao. What do you think?"


    Ming Yuesheng glanced at the newspaper in his hand and laughed. "It illustrates that Wang She isn''t as weak as what''s said in the rumor. Maybe he even has gotten some insights during critical conditions and gained amazing benefits. What''s Yu Baimei''s opinion?"


    "Yu Baimei should pay no attention to it at all, which is exactly what surprised me the most!" Yan Yuntian pondered. "Yu Baimei must acquiesce in having them teach Junior Leopard a lesson and try to bring him under control. Generally speaking, Junior Leopard''s attitude obviously has hit Tian Long Taoism in the face. However, Yu Baimei seems to be indifferent to it. Intentionally or unintentionally, he is somewhat partial to Wang She. Why would he change his attitude all of a sudden?"


    "It seems that Your Majesty''s attention to Zhou Bao is reasonable!" Ming Yuesheng was reminded by his words. "Zhou Bao may truly have some big secrets. After all, with an identity of a master, Yu Baimei shouldn''t worry too much. Look at it this way, we should have arranged his fief into the surroundings of the millennium families and perhaps he can make great trouble for them."


    "What''s done is done. Now we should figure out the countermeasure."


    "A countermeasure? What countermeasure? We don''t need to do so!" Ming Yuesheng replied. "Since Zhou Bao has something which Yu Baimei also scrupled about, we should exclude him completely. It''s better that he doesn''t take part in the World Hero Competition, otherwise he may disrupt our plan. As for the other things, let''s just talk about them when the World Hero Competition is finished."


    "All right." Yan Yuntian sighed lightly, saying. "I wonder whether or not we can detect their true power this time."


    "The Pure Yang Celestial Device is definitely attractive. Otherwise, the Four Well-known Families wouldn''t look for Zhou Bao so eagerly. It would be better if Zhou Bao doesn''t participate in this match. It''s really difficult for them to find the proper people so quickly. So they can only hold an indoor election. In this way, the privity among those well-known families will be broken and they must try their best to strive for it. Even if they don''t try their best, we can take this opportunity to grasp the tip of the iceberg of their hidden power."


    "Well, that''s to say, Zhou Bao has helped us a lot by chance!"


    "Hehe, yes! According to the way that Zhou Bao has always conducted himself, he hates making trouble. While at the same time, he hates being worried. So we should try to pacify such kind of people."


    "Pacify?" Yan Yuntian nodded slightly. "In your opinion, is the thing that I mentioned last time feasible?"


    "That''s Your Majesty''s private matter, so it''s all up to you!" Ming Yuesheng smiled.


    ...


    "You... What did you do to them?"


    The Crescent Valley, the Northwest¡ª


    It was the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!


    Looking at a dozen people who lay on the ground unconsciously, Cao Xuetang was astonished, although he was really well-informed. He knew all of those guys. They occupied important positions in the Sect of Flame. Among them were three Level Seven experts and one Level Eight expert, but they now all lay on the ground like dead pigs. At the first glance, Cao Xuetang even thought that they had died since they had become unconscious.


    "They broke into my territory, so I''d like to teach them a lesson." Junior Leopard kicked the most strapping man on the ground. "I guess you know all of them, don''t you?"


    "They all belong to the same sect as me. This is Xie Haifeng, the great Venerable. Unexpectedly, he should be defeated by you!" Cao Xuetang sighed. His view toward Junior Leopard was mingled with a sense of fear. He had heard early on that Zhou Bao in the Wu Sect became famous when he was young and his combat capability was even greater than some common Level Eight experts. He only took them as rumors in Jianghu at that time, but now, he thought those rumors were not accurate enough to describe Zhou Bao''s true power. Didn''t everyone see that he had struck down three Level Seven experts and one Level Eight here? How could a common Level Eight expert achieve that?


    Junior Leopard felt quite uneasy under his fiery gaze. After all, Cao Xuetang was not a beauty, so him staring at Junior Leopard like that was a little disgusting.


    "It seems that the kindling of Nanming Ignis is so attractive that it causes many people in your sect to pay a visit to me. Brother Cao, since they are experts in your sect, I don''t dare to deal with them on my own. Do you have any advice or comments?"


    "Hmm..."


    Hearing that, Cao Xuetang couldn''t help pondering. Though all those men were disciples in the Sect of Flame, they belonged to opposing influences. They were his mortal enemies and had come here to hunt him down. Naturally, he was itching to kill all of them. He cared nothing about the masters of martial arts under Level Seven, but he had to pay attention to the four experts.


    In the Sect of Flame, an expert who achieved Level Seven was called a Venerable, and when one''s cultivation reached Level Eight, he would become a Great Venerable. Great Venerables had a higher position than common ones. Furthermore, every Great Venerable held some authority in his hands. Xie Haifeng was one of the most dominant Great Venerables recently.


    Though the Sect of Flame had already been a huge influence in the world, it only had a few Venerables, let alone Great Venerables. Every Great Venerable had a pivotal position in the sect that was much more important than the common Venerables like him. If that Great Venerable died here, the Sect of Flame would not leave the matter at that. Even if he were to obtain the kindling of Nanming Ignis and reach Level Eight, it would be difficult for him to account for it.


    "I know you the Sect of Flame possesses the vast property and lots of masters of martial arts and experts. I don''t want to provoke you too much. I''ve already gotten them under control, so how to deal with them is up to you now." Seeing that Cao Xuetang had slipped into hesitation, Junior Leopard started to talk first and revealed his attitude clearly.


    "It was I who made the trouble. I really appreciate that you can help me out with that. How could I bother you further!" Said Cao Xuetang. "But we''re going to find the kindling of Nanming Ignis now, so I''m afraid that if we let them go, they would make trouble for us. I think we''d better handle our business first and I''ll take them away after that. How''s that?"


    "That''s fine!" Junior Leopard nodded.


    "They possess high cultivations, especially Xie Haifeng, who has reached Level Eight. I''m afraid that we can''t keep them under control for long."


    "Don''t worry. I have a method to get them to stay here quietly until we come back," Junior Leopard replied confidently.


    "Well, thank you for helping me!"


    "Don''t mention it, I only lifted a finger." Junior Leopard replied with a laugh.


    Since he had to do Cao Xuetang a special favor, he would definitely make it a big one. Such an amazing special favor could both show his strength and force him to pay him back. Furthermore, he would be so impressed with Zhou Bao''s kindness that, if they met with any problems, he might ask him for help. Little by little, their relationship would become closer and closer.


    The Crescent Valley was very long. Standing on the ridge in front of Jilei Mountain and looking into the Crescent Valley, you could see a valley stretch out long and unbroken for 10 miles, just like a long snake. The valley was also very deep, reaching a depth of 200 feet. Both sides of the valley were strewn with cliffs like the huge canyon in the desert that he saw in his previous life. But now, he was inside Jilei Mountain, not the desert.


    At the end of the valley, there was a bottomless cold pool. The shape of the cold pool was quite odd. From where Junior Leopard stood, if all of the water in the cold pool was drained, an obvious meteorite crater would be seen.


    "Hehe, seemingly, a meteorite had crashed into it. From the distinct traces that are left on the ground, that meteorite must be very huge." Junior Leopard sighed in his heart. He then turned around and said to Cao Xuetang who stood beside him. "Brother Cao, if I guess correctly, the place you that you aimed at must be located in the depths of the cold pool!"


    Junior Leopard pointed at the cold pool at the bottom of the valley as he spoke.


    "Brother, you have good eyesight! Yes, Nanming Ignis is at the bottom of the cold pool. A predecessor in my sect came to this place by chance and found the kindling of Nanming Ignis 3,000 years ago. But he was badly hurt and was too weak to get the kindling from the pool at that time. When he returned to the sect, his injury became worse immediately. After writing the general location down on a note, he died. And the note has been hidden in the scripture library of our sect. Unintentionally, I learned this secret, so I decided to promote my cultivation with this kindling. Little did I expect that I would be chased. I''m so ashamed!" Cao Xuetang shook his head and sighed.


    "Well, Brother Cao, no need to be so sorrowful. Few things in the world can be achieved easily. Just like now, as we are about to snatch the kindling of Nanming Ignis, it''s still difficult for us to be successful even though we know where it is." Junior Leopard said with a smile.


    "What are these statements?" Cao Xuetang changed his expression on hearing Junior Leopard''s words. The Nanming Ignis that he aimed at was connected with his future and destiny, so any error had to be prevented. Now, upon hearing Junior Leopard''s words, he couldn''t help becoming nervous.


    "I just have some premonitions," Junior Leopard said.


    "Will there be any other people coming here to butt in?"


    "I don''t care whether there are other people that butt in or not." Junior Leopard laughed. "I''m just worried about the condition underneath the cold pool. After all, the kindling of Nanming Ignis has been in that pool for so many years. God knows what is underneath it."


    "Sure!" Cao Xuetang nodded his head. "Your words make sense. We can''t be too careful!"


    Before their words were finished, they both jumped toward the pool at the same time.


    "Splash! Splash!"


    Almost simultaneously, they fell into the cold pool. Cao Xuetang was covered with a layer of red Gang Qi while Junior Leopard was embraced by a layer of looming Green Mist. They both were insulated from the water.


    "I didn''t expect that you would have such a magical protecting weapon." Seeing the Green Mist around Junior Leopard, Cao Xuetang was inspired. He knew that Junior Leopard had been practicing the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. If Junior Leopard had succeeded in practicing Gang Qi, he wouldn''t present such an appearance. Then the only possibility left was that Junior Leopard had a protective celestial device. Though he had no idea about that celestial device, he instinctively wanted to keep away from that Green Mist.


    "I have no other choice but to employ such a device. Though my cultivation has reached Level Seven, I can''t find the proper Earth Vein Evil Qi to cultivate Gang," Junior Leopard said with a bitter smile, yet explained nothing about the Green Mist that was around him.


    Cao Xuetang was a long-time Jianghu dweller. Since Junior Leopard refused to explain it, then he wouldn''t ask or inquire about other people''s secrets. Cultivation methods and celestial devices were especially private when one wandered in Jianghu. He now was joining hands with Junior Leopard and asking him for help, so definitely he wouldn''t inquire further. However, when faced with Junior Leopard, he felt more dreadful. After all, few people could become experts with more than one celestial device at a young age like Junior Leopard.


    Maybe even the sons of the Leader of those schools couldn''t receive such treatment.


    Junior Leopard had not only the Demon Devil Needles, but also an eccentric protective celestial device. Never did he believe that Junior Leopard was only a common disciple in the Wu Sect who was born in a small village.


    The pool was very deep. The lower they went, the cooler the water was and the heavier the pressure was.


    Cao Xuetang felt fine at first. But when they got down to a depth of 400 or 500 feet, however, he felt strenuous. The Ignis Mysterious Gang he had practiced was the Gang Qi of Fire while the pool water was cold. And as they went lower in the pool got, the water became colder. The chill cold began to counteract his Ignis Mysterious Gang. Thus, his diving speed slowed down.


    Junior Leopard felt more comfortable as he went lower. The looming Green Mist entwined around him helped him separate the massive hydraulic pressure and absorbed the Cold Breath of Evil. For the Poison Cold Shield, the Cold Breath of Evil that the water contained was the best tonic. Therefore, Junior Leopard''s speed became faster and faster.


    "Brother Cao, how are you doing now? I guess we must dive for another 1,000 feet. Can you bear it?" After diving for a while longer, Junior Leopard stopped because the distance between him and Cao Xuetang was getting farther and farther. No sunlight could penetrate down to their depth of hundreds of feet, but Cao Xuetang''s red Gang Qi was pretty well-marked, just like a big bright bulb.


    "Never mind, I''ve got a plan. I just didn''t imagine that you''d be so fast," Said Cao Xuetang. He took out a red stone from his chest and grasped it firmly in his hand. Then the Gang Qi around him became brighter all of a sudden, pushing the pool water away and rushing downward.


    "A Fire Spiritual Stone?"


    "I''m a Venerable of the Sect of Flame. We have some underground fire veins on hand, so it isn''t difficult for me to get a Fire Spiritual Stone," Cao Xuetang said with a smile.


    Junior Leopard nodded his head but said nothing. With the help of the Fire Spiritual Stone, the power of Cao Xuetang''s Ignis Mysterious Gang strengthened a lot. They dove for 100 more feet and, gradually, they could see the bottom of the pool.


    "Brother, look. It''s over there!"


    At the bottom of the pool, there was a black stone about 10 feet high lying peacefully. Half of its body was exposed while the other half was wholly covered by sludge. Judging by its appearance, it seemed to be nothing unusual.


    "Is this big ironstone the one?" Junior Leopard slowly arrived down on the bottom and asked.


    Cao Xuetang nodded. Even though he had a Fire Spiritual Stone with him, the chill cold and massive pressure on the bottom caused great burden to him. When he discovered that Junior Leopard felt so comfortable in the Green Mist, he envied him so much.


    "If I had such a kind of celestial device, why would I take the risk of being chased to snatch the kindling of Nanming Ignis here from so far away?"


    "Wait, why can''t I feel anything unusual from it?"


    When Cao Xuetang was still pondering, Junior Leopard had already walked to that black stone and took a roundabout way. He detected nothing. Upon looking up, he sharply changed his expression. "Watch out!"


    "What?" Catching the sharp change in Junior Leopard''s face, Cao Xuetang felt a piece of coldness flash through his heart. The Ignis Mysterious Gang around him also flashed immediately, but it was too late.


    A swarthy tail abruptly appeared in the dark and whipped toward the red Ignis Mysterious Gang.


    "Pow!" Cao Xuetang''s Ignis Mysterious Gang turned bleak after that sound. He was whipped away by that tail. Till now, Junior Leopard had clearly seen that a 30-feet-long black water-snake appeared on the bottom.


    It looked like a water snake, but actually was not so. This black water snake had so many scales, which were thickly wrapped around it like a mass of armor. But its figure was small ¡ª even though it reached 30 feet in length, it was only as wide as a bucket.


    After whipping Cao Xuetang away with its tail, it shook its figure and began to attack Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard pulled up the corners of his mouth and was ready to meet it head-on.


    "Pow! Pop!" A fine muffled sound was heard. The Green Mist around Junior Leopard fluctuated slightly and then went back to normal. But that black snake was uncontrollably shaking. It hissed in a low voice and then was about to drill into the sludge. But before its body could get all the way inside, it was rooted to the spot like a tetanic stick. Even though the black snake was raised in the cold pool and had strong protection against the cold, it would be ruined by the psychological attack of the Poison Cold Shield''s Evil strength and endless bane.


    "That''s right. That''s the power that my Poison Cold Shield is supposed to have." Junior Leopard was satisfied with the Poison Cold Shield''s power. He then raised his hand and cast a big golden net, covering that stone on the bottom firmly. But when Junior Leopard put forth his strength, he staggered and fell down hard on the ground.


    This net was the one Lin Xiaoqing used to restrain Junior Leopard''s Demon Devil Needles. It was called the Knotted Golden Net. Though Junior Leopard had broken it down with his fist, being a psychic celestial device, it was still very precious in the world. Only Green Spirit regarded it as rubbish. With Green Spirit''s directions, Junior Leopard had already fixed the Knotted Golden Net.


    "How heavy it is! I guess it must weigh over eight kilograms!" Junior Leopard tried to pull it, but failed. The stone didn''t move at all, which greatly surprised Junior Leopard. At the same time, the sludge on the bottom surged again. Other several black snakes drilled out quietly. With lessons drawn from that snake''s mistake, they didn''t dare to take rash actions. And Junior Leopard paid little attention to them because of the Poison Cold Shield.


    Seeing two of them swimming toward Cao Xuetang, Junior Leopards smiled bitterly. He withdrew his golden net and jumped in front of Cao Xuetang. And the green light in front of him was in full bloom and was about to scare away those two black snakes, which wanted to gain profits.


    "Brother Cao, are you alright?"


    Cao Xuetang looked pale. He grasped two Fire Spiritual Stones firmly. It was those Fire Spiritual Stone that had helped his Gang Qi to avoid being broken up on the spot. Even still, he had suffered a huge impact.


    He was really unlucky. If it was on the ground above, merely some black snake couldn''t hurt him at all. But they were on the bottom of the cold pool. His Gang Qi was almost counteracted by the surrounding hydraulic pressure and the endless Cold Breath of Evil. He had the least protection. On the other hand, the assistance of the cold pool added a lot of strength to that black snake''s tail. Therefore, it nearly whipped Cao Xuetang to death in just one movement.


    "I''m really ashamed. I didn''t expect there could be such a fierce creature in the cold pool." Cao Xuetang was gray-faced. As a Level Seven expert, he had confidence in his strength. Unexpectedly, during the mission to snatch the kindling of Nanming Ignis, he was not only badly injured but also nearly beaten to death by a strange snake. He even had no strength to fight back. How shameful it was!


    "Red-scaled Pythons! Those are Red-scaled Pythons! Why does their color change like that? Kid, don''t misuse anything! Their blood is quite valuable. Quickly catch them with the net! Your net! I have a plan! Quickly!"


    Green Spirit shouted in his mind.

 Chapter 265: The Black Devil Frost, The Divine Weapon

    Chapter 265: The Black Devil Frost, The Divine Weapon


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Red-scaled Python? What is it?" After casting the Knot Golden Net, Junior Leopard withdrew his hands. There was a golden light flashing on the net. In the golden light, the talisman loomed and in the blink of an eye, the net shrunk to the size of a palm. The strange pythons caught in the net were swaying as if they had shrunk as well.


    This was the magic of the Knot Golden Net. It was not only tight, but it also had spatial property. Although it was impossible to completely separate out independent space like the Space Division Skill, it had space inside itself. As long as it trapped something, it could shrink down to palm-size with the prey within. Thus, it was of some use.


    "I don''t know why these Red-scaled Pythons turn black, but they are definitely Red-scaled Pythons. Perhaps they stayed in the pool so long that they mutated!" Green Spirit said, "They''re not very strong spiritual creatures, but their blood is extremely precious. They were extinct in my time. I can''t believe that there are so many here! How fortuitous!"


    "Are they valuable? They''re easy to catch!" Junior Leopard asked, sounding confused. It was common sense that the more precious things were, the harder they were to get, and the less there were. However, these black snakes were not only numerous but also not very strong. In the water, they might be able to reach the strength of Level Seven, but under the attack of Junior Leopard''s celestial device, they had no chance to fight back.


    "You idiot, it''s because the Red-scaled Pythons are so easy to catch that they became extinct! They''re not strong and their organs aren''t so precious. Both the texture of their scales and their strength are low amongst spiritual creatures. Also, they''re not good materials, only their blood has a singular use!"


    "What kind of use?"


    "Their blood can stabilize acupoints. Aren''t you trying to detect and refine acupoints? With this, you can yield twice the result with half the effort in refining acupoints!"


    "Really?" Junior Leopard was pleasantly surprised. Seeing a few black snakes coming out from the bottom of the pool, he raised the Knot Golden Net and tried to cast it again.


    "You don''t need so much!" At this point, Green Spirit said, "It''s enough now! If you have time, you might as well think of how to remove the thing on the bottom. I can feel that this Meteorite Metal not only contains the kindling of Nanming Ignis but is also a super material, which is much more precious than the kindling of Nanming Ignis!"


    "No wonder it''s so heavy!" Junior Leopard muttered, glancing at Cao Xuetang.


    Cao Xuetang had come over at this time, and his complexion was much ruddier than before. Looking at the Meteorite Metal at the bottom of the pool, he was in a bit of a quandary. Suddenly, a dozen black snakes were drilled from the bottom of the pool. They feared Junior Leopard''s Knot Golden Net and they did not dare to come forward. However, they went round and round the Meteorite Metal, which made it hard for Junior Leopard and Cao Xuetang to act.


    Although the Knot Golden Net was good, it was only a Psychic Celestial Device and it had a limited capacity. The black snakes that had just been caught did not fill it, but it was almost full. There were so many Red-scaled Pythons around the Meteorite Metal that perhaps he might not be able to catch them all. What was more, the ones that had been caught might escape. Then that would be a bit of a pyrrhic victory.


    Moreover, due to the high water pressure at the bottom of the pool, his powerful Poison Cold Shield was more than enough to defend, but it was not powerful enough to attack.


    "Brother Cao, you stay here for a moment. I''ll go and look at that thing and see if there''s any chance of taking the kindling of Nanming Ignis back."


    "Then please!" Cao Xuetang was self-aware, knowing that he could only protect himself now and had to rely on Junior Leopard to get the kindling of Nanming Ignis. He took a cyan wooden bottle from his inner pocket and handed it to Junior Leopard. " This is a Wood Spirit Bottle, it''s specially used to collect the kindling of various types of spiritual fire. If you get the kindling, use the bottle!"


    "Okay!"


    Junior Leopard thought that the cyan wooden bottle in his hand felt a little heavy. A fine, lingering heat flow passed from the Wood Spirit Bottle to his body. The Internal Qi in his body seemed to be greatly nourished as a myriad of thin and dense Internal Qi tentacles stretched out to entangle his tendons and meridians. At once, Junior Leopard felt unspeakably comfortable. If he had not been at the bottom of the cold pool, he would have sat down on the floor to regulate his breathing.


    "What a waste, what a waste! It''s made of Heavenly Evergreen, the same material as the green lamp''s wick. To think that it was only used to refine a Psychic Celestial Device. It''s too much, too much!"


    "Shut up!" Junior Leopard gave a hiss and continued, "You just said that it''s made of Heavenly Evergreen. The green lamp is also made of the Heavenly Evergreen and its grade is higher than the Wood Spirit Bottle. Why can''t the green lamp nourish the Internal Qi?"


    "It''s not the green lamp that can''t nourish the Internal Qi, but it has lost its intelligence. Additionally, the Tusita Fire was taken by you. Hence, it can''t produce the same effect as the Wood Spirit Bottle."


    "You mean that if I return the Tusita Fire..."


    "Forget it, it''s just Heavenly Evergreen. Wood can promote fire. It produces such an effect because of the fire property of your Internal Qi. It will work once or twice. If it''s used too many times, it will be useless!" Green Spirit sneered and added, "Even if you sleep with this bottle in your arms all day long, it won''t necessarily be good for your Internal Qi. Be honest. Don''t be greedy! What matters most to you right now are two things. The first one is refining acupoints, and the second one is forging a Pure Yang Celestial Device. A Pure Yang Celestial Device will not only nourish your Internal Qi, but it will also nourish your body and soul. It''s much better than the Heavenly Evergreen!"


    "Okay, okay, I''ll listen to you and not be greedy!" Junior Leopard helplessly nodded. Then with a flash, he moved towards the Meteorite Metal.


    Seeing that Junior Leopard was coming, the surrounding Red-scaled Pythons all approached him. However, just like the beginning, after a few black snakes were defeated by Junior Leopard''s Poison Cold Shield, the Red-scaled Pythons, which had some spiritual intelligence, dared not to come anymore. Junior Leopard finally arrived next to the Meteorite Metal and slowly began to check.


    Gently stroking the Meteorite Metal, Junior Leopard could feel that it was radiating heat. Even though it was in the cold pool, it was not affected by the icy chill of the bottom of the cold pool. He tapped on it and heard a muffled sound. Then he pushed it hard, but it didn''t move.


    "It''s really heavy!" Junior Leopard thought. He gathered his Qi into his Dantian and sank to the bottom of the cold pool. The silt at the bottom of the pool was thick and soft. He stepped on it and sank half a foot deeper.


    "I really need to be careful. If I really get stuck in the silt, it''ll be a real hassle!" Junior Leopard thought to himself, "But this will make my lower body more secure!"


    Standing firm at the bottom of the pool, Junior Leopard put out his hand and began to push the Meteorite Metal. Now that his lower body was firmly in place, something changed¡ª the Meteorite Metal moved a little.


    Junior Leopard''s strength was vast; otherwise, he would not have been able to wield two iron hammers of nearly 1,000 kilograms.


    If it hadn''t been in the pool, Junior Leopard would have hit it with his hammers. Unfortunately, under the immense pressure of the water, even given his power, there was no way to wield two big hammers. He had to find a way to get it out of the cold pool first.


    "It''s too big and too heavy. It''s not easy to move it out!"


    Junior Leopard wanted to put it in the separate space with the Space Division Skill, but when he saw Cao Xuetang was looking at him, he dismissed the idea. He was not afraid of the Space Division Skill being unable to do the same thing as a Space Ring, for dividing an independent space in order to store objects was only a subsidiary function of the Space Division Skill. Moreover, the Space Division Skill had other wonderful functions and Junior Leopard believed that even Individual Immortals and Genuine Immortals would be enchanted if they knew of these.


    If one reached the Individual Immortal Realm, he would have certain control over the space without learning the Space Division Skill. However, spatial special techniques, like the Space Division Skill and the Three Realms Division, could make an Individual Immortal or a Genuine Immortal become an expert in space. These were two completely different concepts. Green Spirit had already told him the key points very clearly. Thus, Junior Leopard would never let anyone know that he knew the Space Division Skill.


    Since he could not use the Space Division Skill to take this Meteorite Metal, there was only one way to do it.


    To push it forcibly!


    The Meteorite Metal had already moved, so only a little more force would get it out of the silt. If only he could get it out of the silt, it would be alright. The water at the bottom of the pool was so buoyant that Junior Leopard was confident about getting the Meteorite Metal out.


    But when he tried again, trouble came. With his great push, the Meteorite Metal moved more. But at this moment, a stream of black water came out of the bottom of the Meteorite Metal. An ice cold breath was passing through the Poison Cold Shield and straight into his body.


    Junior Leopard was not surprised, but rather happy. The first thing he thought of, was that he might meet something good.


    "It''s the Earth Vein Evil. Is there Earth Vein Evil Qi?"


    Over the years, he had been watching the Earth Vein Evil Qi. After all, he only mastered the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword and half of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. High-quality Earth Vein Evil Qi was hard to find, so it was difficult for him to completely master the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Now suddenly, there was such a cold air, his reaction was certainly more expectation than a surprise.


    "Black Devil Frost!"


    Seeing the sudden appearance of the black water, Green Spirit screamed again. Maybe what happened today was really a surprise to him, so he was a bit dumbfounded.


    "Black Devil Frost? What''s that? The Earth Vein Evil Qi? You mean here?" Junior Leopard urgently asked.


    "No, this isn''t Evil Qi, but a cultivation method. It''s Gang Qi!" Green Spirit marveled, "No wonder the Meteorite Metal fell from the sky and made such a deep hole. No wonder the water here is so cold. No wonder those Red-scaled Pythons have mutated. It turns out that the Meteorite Metal was knocked down from a hollow with the Black Devil Frost!"


    "What? It''s Gang Qi?" Junior Leopard almost screamed, "The cold pool was so deep and so large. The Meteorite Metal had fallen from the sky so long ago, at least 7,000 to 8,000 years. How is it possible that the Gang Qi''s strength hasn''t dissipated after such a long time?"


    "It''s not intentional! If I guessed right, it was the man who practiced the Black Devil Frost that knocked down the Meteorite Metal in the course of his battle with others. Hee hee, the Black Devil Frost is one of the three kinds of Gang Qi of authentic tradition. Only the disciples of the Moon Palace can practice it to this point!"


    Junior Leopard didn''t say anything and avoided the black water. He was disappointed. As for the Moon Palace, it should be a school''s name in the antiquity times. After so many years, it had probably vanished without a trace. So it was not worth worrying about.


    The black water spread. Very soon, a very strong chill spread all over the place. Junior Leopard didn''t care it. Although the Black Devil Frost could penetrate through his Poison Cold Shield, there were not much left when it entered Junior Leopard''s body after being absorbed by the Poison Cold Shield. After all, so many years passed, it had been diluted a lot and it did not hit him directly. Besides, his own Internal Qi was not affected too much. Thus, he launched the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and the chill was driven away.


    Cao Xuetang was not so lucky. When the Black Devil Frost spread, he felt uncomfortable. Seeing the black water rolling in, he could only drive his Gang Qi up to escape the black Gang Qi, which was enough to destroy his Gang Qi and freeze him. Thus, Junior Leopard saw a very strange scene. The black Gang Qi seemed to be chasing Cao Xuetang all the way towards the pool surface.


    "Now, the trouble has gone!" Looking at Cao Xuetang''s back, Junior Leopard smiled in the heart. With a wave of his sleeve, he launched the Space Division Skill and put the Meteorite Metal along with the silt under it, into a divided space.


    After a space division, the bottom of the pool became smooth and a flood of black water gushed out of the bottom.


    "The Black Devil Frost is so powerful!" He had no intention of taking on the unowned Gang Qi that was left by an ancient, so he moved to rush out of the pool. Naturally, he was much faster than Cao Xuetang. Soon, Junior Leopard arrived close to Cao Xuetang, who was drowning in the black water and stretched out his hand to catch Cao Xuetang. Instantly, he sped up, and in a blink of an eye, they rushed out of the mirror-like pool surface. The black water did not leave the cold pool but merged with the current. From the outside, the cold pool was not much different barring that it was a little deeper and colder than before.


    "Brother Cao, are you alright?"


    Once out of the cold pool, Cao Xuetang sat on the ground and began to regulate his breathing. If Junior Leopard did not pull him out just now, he would''ve been stuck in the black water to become a lump of ice.


    After regulating his breathing for more than one hour, he felt a little better. He opened his eyes and looked at Junior Leopard with gratitude. He said, "Thanks for your help! Without you, I might have been frozen in this cold pool!"


    "It''s no bother, not worth mentioning!" Junior Leopard helplessly said, "Unfortunately, I didn''t expect that there would be such a strong cold poison down there!"


    "You''re not to blame! To get the fire, the stone must be moved to the shore. Thus, we have to move it. It''s just that we''re out of luck!" Cao Xuetang bitterly said.


    Junior Leopard nodded thoughtfully. "Let''s find another way. Anyway, it''s in this pool and it won''t be lost. How is your injury? Do you want to have a rest and recuperate for some time?"


    "No, my injury isn''t that bad. I''ll be fine in two to three days!" Cao Xuetang shook his head and said, "I''ll stay here!"


    "Okay!" Junior Leopard handed the Wood Spirit Bottle in his hand back to Cao Xuetang and added, "I won''t use this bottle for the time being. You can put it away first. I didn''t get hurt, but I consumed a lot. Tomorrow I''ll go down again and see if I can find a chance to get the kindling of Nanming Ignis."


    Hearing these words, Cao Xuetang showed a very grateful expression despite showing a slither of struggle in his eyes. Eventually, he could not resist the temptation of the kindling of Nanming Ignis and said, "Then... then, please! I will repay you in the future!"


    "We''re like family. Don''t mention it!" Junior Leopard smiled, looking like a pure high school student, but he had already cursed in his heart, "Damn it, this guy of the Sect of Flame is really not a good man. I would have thrown you into the pond to feed the pythons if it was not for the fear of offending the sissy Prince Xiaoming. You wouldn''t be able to talk here then!"


    "Anyway, the trip is worth it! At least our fellowship is established. I saved his life again and now Cao Xuetang already owes me two lives. If he wins power in the Sect of Flame in the future, he must give me some benefit, otherwise, even Prince Xiaoming can''t protect him!"


    Junior Leopard wrathfully thought.


    ...


    At the end of the town centralization, the yard that was destroyed by Lin Xiaoqing and Junior Leopard had almost been rebuilt. Anyway, it was small and the process was not very complicated. Once again, Junior Leopard lived in it. As soon as he returned to the yard, he set up the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and removed the Meteorite Metal from the space.


    "You are right. It was actually knocked down by someone!" Junior Leopard wonderingly said. Though it was no longer at the bottom of the pool, a layer of silt still encased the lower part of the Meteorite Metal. Alas, it was no longer an obstacle.


    The Meteorite Metal was so heavy that Junior Leopard felt the ground shake as it hit the ground. It immediately sank half a foot into the ground. However, the part that sank was not the part encased in silt, because Junior Leopard turned it upside down.


    Gently wiping away a layer of silt, Junior Leopard saw a shallow palm print. The print was incomplete, but more than half of it remained. It looked as if someone had pushed the Meteorite Metal from the side.


    "Nonsense, of course, I''m not wrong! The Black Devil Frost was the most famous Gang Qi of my time. Even in the Moon Palace, there were very few people mastering it. So I can''t be wrong. Boy, forget it. Get to work!"


    "What? To work?" asked Junior Leopard.


    "Break the Meteorite Metal with your two big hammers! The kindling of Nanming Ignis is inside!" Green Spirit said, "Having been forged by the Black Devil Frost and the Nanming Ignis for so many years, the Meteorite Metal had become a useful material!"


    "It''s become a useful material? You mean¡­"


    Born in a smelting family, Junior Leopard certainly knew the mean of becoming a useful material. It meant that this material would become a super weapon with some slight refining and wouldn''t require too many procedures.


    However, Green Spirit was a Great Ancient Demon and proficient in necromancy. He must have different interpretations of "becoming a useful material" from those of ordinary smelting families like the Wu Family.


    "If I''m not mistaken, most of the Meteorite Metal is made up of Taiyi Jade-scaled Gold. I have seen your two big hammers in your space. They''re extraordinary. Now that you have the Tusita Fire, you can just make a Divine Weapon!"


    "A Divine Weapon?" Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows. He had heard of wizard weapons, but he had never heard of Divine Weapons.


    "You can change its size at will. It''s like your Knot Golden Net, but it''s a little different!"


    "Do you mean I can refine my hammers so that I can change their size at will?" Junior Leopard cheerfully asked.


    "It''s impossible. Their materials are excellent, but they have been forged broken. They can only be used as offcut!" said Green Spirit without mercy.


    "What? Take my two hammers as offcut?" Junior Leopard cried angrily, "You know they''re my strongest weapons!"


    "Fists are small hammers. Your punching skills have reached a higher level. What''s the use of the two hammers?" Seeing Junior Leopard trying to argue, Green Spirit went on, "I know, you want to increase the lethality using their weight. But you''ve gone the wrong way. Instead of relying on hammers to enhance your lethality, you should think about making your two fists more powerful than your twin hammers. Otherwise, with your extremely strange and grand fist intent and high cultivation, you still won''t realize the final step of crushing vacuum!"


    "But..."


    "Don''t hesitate! You practiced punching skills, and now your fist intent has been condensed. Using your hammers to increase power will only delay the progress of your punching skills!" Green Spirit interrupted Junior Leopard, "Rest assured, I will help you to make a Divine Weapon more powerful than your twin hammers!"


    "I hope so!" Junior Leopard said, somewhat deflated, "But, I warn you that if you break my hammers but fail to make a Divine Weapon..."


    "I am in your hands now. What are you worried about?" said Green Spirit impatiently.

 Chapter 266: Golden-Scaled Cudgel and 72 Style Earthly Fiends Cudgel Techniques

    Chapter 266: Golden-Scaled Cudgel and 72 Style Earthly Fiends Cudgel Techniques


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Boom, boom¡­" loud sounds spread from within the formation, Junior Leopard, who held twin hammers in his hands was mercilessly hitting on the slender handprint of the Meteorite Metal. The meteorite was quite tough and its weakest part was perhaps the palm print. After the print was hit several times, the meteorite, as expected, cracked. There was just a small opening at first, but then the whole meteorite split open. The process was so fast and simple that it was totally beyond Junior Leopard''s expectation.


    "Goodness, what the hell is this? It looks like heavy. Ah, is that the kindling of Nanming Ignis?" Junior Leopard asked surprisedly after seeing the cracked Meteorite Metal.


    "Don''t let this Ignis Essence Qi run away! After being incubated in the Meteorite Metal for so many years, they are even more precious than the kindling of Nanming Ignis!" Green Spirit shouted.


    Hearing that, Junior Leopard, who did not intend to lose such a good thing, violently sucked and inhaled all the red gas spurting out from the meteorite. In the twinkling of an eye, he launched the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique.


    "What violent Ignis Essence Qi! Damn it, I inhaled too much!" Like a long dragon drinking water, Junior Leopard inhaled all the Ignis Essence Qi in one breath. However, he failed to instantly digest all of the Qi. Though his body, which was as strong as reinforced iron had practiced into Tendon-Changing Realm and was far superior compared to ordinary refined iron, was still not strong enough. When plenty of Ignis Essence Qi rushed into his body, he could not immediately assimilate them even with the full operation of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. As a result, his tendons and meridians were filled with the rushed Essence Qi and began to bulge. Junior Leopard felt that he just looked like a balloon being violently blown into by others.


    "I have got to do something!" He thought to himself. Then he concentrated on mobilizing the Ignis Essence Qi that he had inhaled and infusing it all into the External Elixir between his eyebrows. An hour later, his face did not wear as serious an expression as it did before.


    "Almost, almost¡­" He took a deep breath and shouted out, "Green Spirit, the Ignis Essence Qi almost destroyed me! You did that on purpose, didn''t you?"


    "I just asked you to keep these Ignis Essence Qi from running away, not to breathe it in!" Green Spirit was apparently in a worse mood and scolded Junior Leopard. "You idiot! You should have collected all these Ignis Essence Qi into your space rather than your stomach. There is no need for you to absorb so much Essence Qi. What you practice is Fire Way Method, so the Essence Qi at most makes your internal Qi more vigorous. Since you haven''t cultivated into Genuine Soul, you couldn''t get anywhere with that vigorous internal Qi! It''s impossible for you to use it as Genuine Soul!"


    Junior Leopard blushed at those harsh words and was on the verge of exploding. Fortunately, Green Spirit felt his anger and quickly changed the topic. "It''s amazing that this Taiyi Jade-scaled Gold has been refined to such a degree. Take out the kindling of Nanming Ignis now. I''ll tell you how to concoct it!"


    "Hmph! "Junior Leopard groaned with anger. Then he diverted his attention to the meteorite metal that he had cracked previously.


    The Meteorite Metal in black was about 10 feet tall and appeared to be strong, solid and as heavy as tens of thousands of pounds. However, after being broken apart by Junior Leopard with a hammer, the meteorite actually turned out to be a hollow, thin shell akin to that of an egg. The shell was no more than 10 centimeters thick, and its thinnest part was less than one centimeter. In fact, below the slender palm print, its thickness was equivalent to a thin film.


    As soon as the shell was opened, Ignis Essence Qi rushed out. Blown by the wind, the red bean-like kindling, floating in the center of the shell, began to move as if its light would be extinguished at any time.


    "Quickly, put away the kindling! Just now, the Ignis Essence Qi took away most of its pneuma. If exposed to the air too much, it will soon go out!


    Junior Leopard did not dare to slow down. He waved his right sleeve and collected the kindling of Nanming Ignis into his space. It was not until he had done so that he was able to spend time carefully looking at the big egg.


    The swarthy and thin shell had a white jade-like liner. With careful observation, Junior Leopard found the fine jade scales scattered around the liner. What surprised him most was the faint purple halo in some scales.


    Junior Leopard slightly reached out his hand to touch the shell, but he stopped several centimeters away from the white jade-like liner and asked, "Can I touch it?"


    "Of course you can. This is Upper Grade Jade-scaled Gold! See its texture, color and spirit. It''s so delicate and warm! It feels more comfortable than Ten-thousand-year-old Warm Jade and even turned into purified purple scales!" Green Spirit said, immersing himself in his own world, "The Upper Grade Jade-scaled Gold had been heated by Nanming Ignis and nurtured by the Ignis Essence Qi for thousands of years. Even in antiquity times, such good materials were rare. If it were refined 1,000 years longer, it would have transformed into Purple Jade-scaled Gold, and at that time, ha, ha¡­What a pity!"


    "Can it be used to make a Pure Yang Celestial Device?" Junior Leopard asked with an expectant look on his face.


    "Why do you want to use such a good thing to make celestial device rather than wizard weapons?" Green Spirit''s good mood was interrupted by Junior Leopard''s words. Green Spirit continued, "Of course, you should use such a good thing to develop weapons. Jade-scaled Gold is one of the few materials in the world that are the hardest to destroy. It''s the best material for weapons. However, making celestial devices with it is not greatly beneficial!"


    "Now that it''s the hardest to destroy, what method should I apply to refine it?"


    "Tusita Fire, you have Tusita Fire!" Green Spirit shouted. "Tusita Fire is one of the highest achievements of those necromancers. The ultimate objective of refining it is to produce weapons. It is the flame specifically used by necromancers to refine weapons and make pills of immortality. Though it''s less powerful than the congenital fire, it overshadows the latter from the perspective of making weapons and elixir."


    "Specifically used for refining weapons and elixir?" Junior Leopard queried.


    "Exactly," Green Spirit added, "Tusita Fire dwarfs other flames in melting and refining. Melting means making different materials become liquid, while refining signifies removing foreign matters from the substance!"


    "It seems that I got an incredible thing!" Green Spirit''s words provoked Junior Leopard''s thoughts. Though Junior Leopard knew Tusita Fire was not an ordinary thing, he had never thought that the stuff could be described with the word, ''MOST''!


    There were too many treasures of heaven and earth in antiquity times, but he hardly heard of a treasure modified by an adjective with the word ''MOST''. He had never expected that his Tusita Fire deserved this modifier. The descriptions made him really happy.


    However, happiness did not last for long. Junior Leopard then slightly moved his mouth and asked, "What should I do next?"


    "Take out your Tusita Fire. I''ll teach you how to make use of it. The first thing you need to do is to melt the Jade-scaled Gold, which requires you to stimulate the force of Purple Bright Heavenly Fire in Tusita Fire. The Purple Bright Heavenly Fire is the hottest fire among all the congenital ones, it is known for its capability of refining everything in the world. Though the temperature of Tusita Fire can only reach one or two-tenths of Purple Bright Heavenly Fire''s, the heat is enough to refine the Jade-scaled Gold. However, you should be careful during the refinement and the time won''t be long!"


    "I see!" Junior Leopard said, lifting his hand in the air, before a glimmer of Tusita Fire appeared in front of him. According to the incantation from Green Spirit, he slightly moved his fingertips and the flame thus jumped like an active person. Subsequently, a ray of light purple gas emerged and rushed to the eggshell-like Jade-scaled Gold. The moment it touched the substance, something eccentric happened.


    In an instant, Junior Leopard retreated 10 meters away. Even so, the hot airflow still made him flushed. He attempted to release the Poison Cold Shield, but it did not work. In fact, he had no sooner released the Poison Cold Shield before he took it back.


    The unexpected high-temperature airflow could burn down his Poison Cold Shield.


    "Your Poison Cold Shield is nothing but a celestial device at Mysterious Level. However, the Purple Bright Heavenly Fire can burn weapons like the Taihao Fairy Weapon. Although Tusita Fire only exerts one or two-tenths of the power of the Purple Bright Heavenly Fire, you can''t defend against it with your Mysterious Level celestial device!" Seeing that Junior Leopard immediately took back the Poison Cold Shield that he released, Green Spirit laughed and said, "You launched the Tusita Fire, so you will at most be scalded once or twice, but not to death. As for the fate of other things, it''s hard to tell. See¡­"


    Enduring the incandescent heat waves, Junior Leopard looked ahead. Sure enough, as Green Spirit said, all things, except the Jade-scaled Gold, were instantly vaporized once touched by that purple flame. Exposed to the purple fire, the Jade-scaled Gold was slowly melting.


    "Goodness! This place is as hot as an oven!" Junior Leopard exclaimed. In addition to the Jade-scaled Gold which became liquid as result of being heated by the Tusita Fire, everything else was gasified by the heat flow.


    "Put away the Jade-scaled Gold! This place is not suitable for refining weapons," Green Spirit said, pointing at the melted Jade-scaled Gold.


    "Well, I have no other choice. I don''t want to take a risk and refine the weapon here!" Junior Leopard said with a lingering fear after seeing the power of the Tusita Fire.


    "Don''t worry. Tusita Fire could indeed exert a little of the power of Purple Bright Heavenly Fire, but not for long!" Green Spirit comforted Junior Leopard. With the temperature dropping quickly, he continued, "Though it''s enough to refine materials!"


    "Yes, more than enough!" Junior Leopard murmured. He thought of the main reason why major smelting families spared no pain to search for the underground fire vein. If they had the Tusita Fire, the underground fire vein would immediately lose half of its value.


    After putting away the Jade-scaled Gold and the Yin and Yang Dust Formation in sequence, Junior Leopard said, "Well, the next time I go to the cold pool, I should give the kindling to Cao Xuetang!"


    "It seems that you want to make friends with this guy", said Green Spirit.


    "I have saved this guy''s life twice. You can say that I have doubled down on him. If I ruin our relationship right now, I will get nothing. You once said that the kindling of Nanming Ignis was useless for me, but I could give it to this guy to help him enhance his strength and status and I''ll get some benefits from this man. Don''t you think it''s a good choice?" Junior Leopard smiled and added, "To maximize the potential yield, what I need to do is to make the most of my resources rather than use all those good things!"


    Junior Leopard returned to the valley the next day. Cao Xuetang obviously had not recovered from his injury. After Junior Leopard said to Cao Xuetang that he had known how to get the kindling, Junior Leopard took the Wood Spirit Bottle from Cao Xuetang''s hand and entered the cold pool before Cao Xuetang stopped him.


    In a quarter of an hour, the calm mirror-like cold pool began to form bubbles as though the water was boiling. Seeing that, Cao Xuetang, who sat beside the pool, felt alarmed.


    The alien change of the cold pool lasted for an hour. Then the pool gradually regained its calmness. An hour later, Junior Leopard rushed out from the pool with a Wood Spirit Bottle in hand. Smiling satisfactorily, he walked to Cao Xuetang.


    "Cao Xuetang, I have succeeded in carrying out the assignment. You see, this is the kindling of Nanming Ignis."


    When Cao Xuetang reached out to take the Wood Spirit Bottle, he could easily notice the warm feeling of his finger and the active movement of the Ignis Mysterious Gang inside his body. With an expression of joy on his face, he stammered. "Yes, yes, yes. Well-done, well-done. This is the kindling of Nanming Ignis, the kindling of..."


    "I''m glad that I found it," Junior Leopard said with a smile, "and it seems that you have not recovered from your injury. Now that you have got the kindling of the Nanming Ignis, you should come back with me to heal your wound!"


    "Ah, okay, okay, no problem!" Cao Xuetang who was still in a state of great excitement nodded his head.


    "He''s wild with joy. Just leave him alone. Let''s go back", Green Spirit said beside Junior Leopard, "I haven''t made a wizard weapon in a long time. Let''s hurry back to melt your two big hammers and produce a Divine Weapon to my heart''s content!"


    After hearing Green Spirit''s words, Junior Leopard rolled his eyes and said,"Nuts!" He then ignored Green Spirit.


    "I''ll never forget your kindness," Cao Xuetang recovered his composure and said with great gratitude, his eyes looking at Junior Leopard, "but you might not know that the Meteorite Metal forged by the kindling of Nanming Ignis for many years at the bottom of the cold pool has turned into a good material for refining weapons. The great Venerable, Prince Xiaoming reckons that if refined properly, the meteorite could be made into a wizard weapon".


    "Really?" Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows and seemed to be astonished. Then he smiled and continued, "the meteorite is so heavy. If we want to pull it out of the pool, we need to take more time to discuss this matter. Since the meteorite has no feet to run away from the bottom of the pool, we can talk about it later. For now, we''d better go back!"


    Cao Xuetang nodded his head and said, "That would be fine!" He thought, "What Junior Leopard said is correct. The Meteorite Metal can''t run away. Junior Leopard can pull it up at any time since it is in his territory. There are plenty of methods to get the meteorite. I should not worry about that."


    Five days later, Cao Xuetang recovered his health. After integrating the kindling of Nanming Ignis into Internal Qi, his strength improved. Afterward, he said goodbye to Junior Leopard, and in high spirits, along with his wife, son and Cao Zhi, set out on a journey. Patting his chest, he promised Junior Leopard that he would offer a helping hand whenever Junior Leopard needed it in the South. From then on, Junior Leopard''s business was Cao Xuetang''s business.


    Junior Leopard smiled and said a few words of courtesy to Cao Xuetang. After that, he saw them out of his territory. Along with them were the masters of martial arts and experts that had hunted Cao Xuetang and had been subdued by Junior Leopard.


    The Qi functions of those unlucky guys were sealed by Junior Leopard. Besides, they were still in a coma after taking large doses of Anesthetic Pills. As for how Cao Xuetang would take over power in Sect of Flame and punish these people after he went back, Junior Leopard did not know and it was none of his business.


    Now that Cao Xuetang''s rival had lost an expert at Level Eight and three experts at Level Seven, people could say that their strength suffered a fatal attack. In this case, it was very likely for Cao Xuetang, who had the support of Prince Xiaoming, would take power. If he still failed, Zhou Bao could only say that he had a bad luck.


    After parting with Cao Xuetang, Junior Leopard felt relieved. He had over 20 days away from the World Hero Competition. Though Central Plains was far from here, Junior Leopard could reach the competition venue in a day with his high speed. He did not intend to join the contest and would not register for it, so he could take his time.


    Junior Leopard asked, "Can you refine the Divine Weapon within 20 days?"


    "Of course I can. With the Tusita Fire, I''m able to refine anything," Green Spirit said, "but you need to find a suitable place. We can''t refine weapons here, for the process requires the frequent use of Tusita Fire. Though you could launch the Yin and Yang Dust Formation to separate the Tusita Fire from the environment, you couldn''t guarantee that the surroundings wouldn''t be ruined".


    "What about going to the cold pool valley? We could make weapons beside the cold pool where it is uninhabited!" Junior Leopard suggested.


    "It''s a pity that you don''t have an Elixir Furnace with which the refining of weapons or elixirs are just a piece of cake for you. Though I know the method of making an Elixir Furnace, there are no appropriate materials in this world. If I make it with ordinary materials, the Elixir Furnace wouldn''t be able to stand the power of the Tusita Fire!" Green Spirit explained.


    "Now that we cannot produce the Elixir Furnace, we''d better ignore the treasure. The valuables that I possess are more than enough. Owning too much is not necessarily a good thing," Junior Leopard said.


    "You always look on the bright side of things!" Green Spirit said, "Let''s begin. First, I''ll teach you the method of making a Divine Weapon!"


    ...


    An hour later, Junior Leopard''s expression changed.


    Sitting in the house, he complained. "Why is the process so complex? It''s just making a weapon!"


    "Kiddo, what you are going to refine are wizard weapons, to be more specific, Divine Weapons. Do you think it''s easy to get all those good things?" Green Spirit continued, "Damn it, I forget you have never learned the method of talisman formation. Without it, you can''t make any wizard weapons, er, or even Pure Yang Celestial Devices. If you know nothing about it, you can''t produce Pure Yang Celestial Device even though you have materials!"


    "But the refining ways of Air-frozen Bead do not contain the talisman formation!"


    Junior Leopard added defiantly, "You once said that the Air-frozen Bead was a Taihao Fairy Weapon which was more powerful than Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Why not refine the Taihao Fairy Weapon with those materials?"


    "Nonsense. You could try to refine the Air-frozen Bead with the ways that you learned and see what things you will make. Let me tell you, though you could make something, the thing could only calm the wind and would be weaker than a Mysterious Celestial Device. In other words, it''s useless!" Green Spirit shouted angrily. "How about learning the methods of talisman formation in these 20 days instead of refining weapons? You should at least grasp the basic principles of the talisman formation''s methods. After that, I''ll teach you the talisman formation of refining Pure Yang Celestial Devices and Divine Weapons. You don''t need to make sense of it. Knowing how to launch it is enough. What do you think?"


    "No objection. This is my only choice," Junior Leopard said with a forced smile.


    In the next 20 days, Junior Leopard learned the methods of talisman formation from Green Spirit.


    The methods were profound and obscure. Junior Leopard was not a smart man, and his achievements today was mainly attributed to his luck. He studied very hard, but only managed to master the talisman formation of refining Divine Weapons after 22 days.


    "Stupid, very stupid. It took only 10 days for me to master the foundation of talisman formation!"


    Hearing this, Junior Leopard rolled his eyes. In his previous life, he was a student of arts. He did not learn liberal arts because he loved literature, history or other subjects, but because he was afraid of math. From middle school to high school, his math score had been about 60, the passing line. In the college entrance exams, he only flunked the math exam. The talisman formation, however, was closely related to math. Its calculation and evolution in nature were similar to recondite mathematical principles. So it was difficult for Junior Leopard to grasp the talisman formation.


    Thanks to the system of learning by heart, Junior Leopard succeeded to launch the Highest Ruyi Talisman Formation. If Green Spirit asked him to make sense of it, he would definitely give up refining weapons.


    "Well, now that you''re able to launch the talisman formation with great efforts, it''s time for you to refine a Divine Weapon. The Highest Ruyi Talisman Formation is not too profound to understand. It''s the most frequently-used talisman formation for refining wizard weapons. If you could master it, you can earn a lot of money from refining weapons for others with a talisman formation and Tusita Fire!"


    "This is a good way to be a rich person. But if I provide such services, I''ll die without a complete body," Junior Leopard sneered and said, "what you taught me is all useful knowledge that failed to be handed down from past generations. People in this world are eager to acquire them. You know, though the owner himself was not guilty, his valuables would finally bring him misfortune. If I want to live longer in this world, I have to be prudent!"


    Speaking of this, Junior Leopard smiled. "So I''ve decided to join the World Hero Competition a few days late. During this time, I will stay here to refine a Divine Weapon." He seemed to think of something. "It''s nice of you to teach me how to refine wizard weapons. Since I have weapons, of course, I need some movements to match them. I have never learned cudgel skills. Even though I could make a cudgel, I''m afraid that it will be useless!"


    "The cudgel is the ancestor of all the weapons and is the most widespread one at our time. The cudgel skill is the most thoroughly studied weapon skill and its refining method the most popular. This is the reason why I want you to refine a Golden-Scaled Cudgel. You shouldn''t worry about the cudgel skill. I have a set of 72 Style Earthly Fiends Cudgel Techniques. Once you master it, you will triumph over the method of sword practitioner with the Golden-Scaled Cudgel. If you are lucky enough to comprehend the spirit of cudgel, hehe..."


    "Come on. Are you kidding me with the spirit of cudgel? It sounds f*ucking unbelievable!" Junior Leopard complained.

 Chapter 267: Zhou Baos Hot-tempered Challenge

    Chapter 267: Zhou Bao''s Hot-tempered Challenge


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The whole cudgel was pale gold and covered with delicate, silky scales, which made it very comfortable to grasp. However, you could only see the scales if you had vision like Junior Leopard''s and could only feel them if you held the cudgel in your hands.


    After 32 days, following Green Spirit''s step by step instructions, did he finally successfully refine the Divine Weapon.


    It weighed 4,396 kilograms, and could reach up to 190 feet long with a diameter of five feet. Additionally, it could be shrunk to the size of a sewing needle as well, just like Monkey Sun''s Golden Cudgel. However, he was not able to put it in his ear like what Monkey Sun did due to how great the density would be at the size of a sewing needle. How could the body of ordinary people bear such a weight?


    Although his physical body may now be called as strong as iron, it was not as strong as Monkey Sun''s terrifying body. He couldn''t bear it if the cudgel was put in his ear. Therefore, even if it could be shrunk to the size of a sewing needle, it could only be placed in his independent space.


    His two big hammers had been melted down by the Tusita Fire. Although Junior Leopard was a little reluctant, after practicing the 72 Style Earthly Fiends Cudgel Techniques with the Golden-Scaled Cudgel a few times, he had to admit that this cudgel skill was marvellous. Matching with the Golden-Scaled Cudgel, the power was no less than his twin hammers. Of course, if Junior Leopard used his powerful Hammer Spirit, it was another case.


    "Boom, boom, boom!" With three attacks all at once, the Golden-Scaled Cudgel in Junior Leopard''s hand reached up to 100 feet and smashed against the hill ahead. The sound was as loud as a thunderbolt and the stone fell down like rain. In a moment, a big stone mountain was razed to the ground.


    "Good cudgel skill, it''s very powerful!" He withdrew the cudgel and leaned on it, "The 72 Style Earthly Fiends Cudgel Techniques is really wonderful! Where did you find it?"


    "Seriously? Do I have to find it? The cudgel is the earliest weapon. People in the antiquity times all used cudgels. There''s no mystery in cudgel skills at all. Everyone can use the 72 Style Earthly Fiends Cudgel Techniques, but they all comprehend different levels."


    Junior Leopard smiled and put away the cudgel, "Then I need time to figure it out, but I am not available now. Yesterday I got a message, it seems that something curious happened at the World Hero Competition. I''m going to check it out!"


    "The World Hero Competition? Haha, is it the competition that your subordinate is going to take part in? Interesting! I liked to join in such fun in the past!" Hearing the World Hero Competition, the Green Spirit was a little excited.


    "It is too complicated. I don''t want to get involved. I''m just going to watch it!" Junior Leopard said, "The most important thing right now is to find another underground fire vein to refine a Pure Yang Celestial Device with the talisman formation while I still have a sense of it. That thing is really annoying!"


    "Okay, but it''s hard to find the underground fire vein!"


    "Not necessarily. I have an appointment with Prince Xiaoming of the Sect of Flame. I''m to help him get enough Earth Fire Yuan Essence with my fist intent. But for various reasons, it''s delayed. This time I go to the Central Plains to find her. If she wants the Earth Fire Yuan Essence, she must find an underground fire vein. Then I can take advantage of this opportunity and save a little more Earth Fire Yuan Essence Qi so as to refine a Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Aren''t you afraid of freezing the geocentric fire vein again?"


    "It''s not my possession so it''s none of my business!" Junior Leopard sneered.


    ...


    ...


    Even if he spurred on the flying horse, traveling from the northwest to the Central Plains would take an average man dozens of days. However, by Reining Sword, it only cost Junior Leopard one or two days to travel tens of thousands of kilometers. The time was mainly spent on refining his Golden-Scaled Cudgels, so when he arrived, the World Hero Competition was almost half way through.


    The World Hero Competition caused a sensation in the world. It adopted the knock-out system. More than 8,560 people have signed up and got a number individually. Then people competed in pairs. The winner went to the next round, and the loser left. It was simple. There was no so-called round robin or repechage.


    Zhu Ba was defeated and knocked out with serious injuries. Fortunately, he was still alive and his pneuma wasn''t damaged. When Junior Leopard saw him, he was biting big pettitoes in white bandages.


    "Hum, not serious. You still have a good appetite, you won''t die easily!"


    "Your Excellency, here you are! Here you are!" When Junior Leopard entered the room, Zhu Ba froze for a moment and then immediately exclaimed. Junior Leopard believed that if he could still move, he would definitely jump on him. Thinking of this, Junior Leopard shivered.


    "Stop shouting! How could you be so unlucky as to be beaten up like this?"


    "Alas, don''t mention it, Your Excellency. Who would have thought we''d meet that monstrous woman!" Zhu Ba helplessly cried, "That woman is extremely powerful! I''m not like you, so I can''t beat her!"


    "Meng Qingrong''s cultivation was high, and she has a wizard weapon, Taixuan Thunder Saber. So it''s not surprising that you lost the competition. It''s not a disgrace!" Junior Leopard smiled, "However, it''s also not easy for her to win the Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Of course! This time, all the well-known families and schools have sent their hidden experts. On the third day, there were already two experts of Level Seven competing. It was really..." Thinking of the competition, Zhu Ba sighed quietly, "It is said that even the weakest one who is still in the competition is a master of Level Five. Most of them are experts with cultivation of more than Level Seven. Heehee, there''re more than 60 experts, most of whom I have never heard of. I can''t imagine that there are so many awesome guys in this world!"


    "This World Hero Competition is basically successful. Who wins the Pure Yang Celestial Device is not important!" Junior Leopard laughed, "Oh, I heard that there are two teen experts in this competition, right?"


    "Yeah, yeah, Your Excellency, I didn''t expect there would be people who are as talented as you. I thought that Meng Qingrong was already very powerful because she ascended into Level Five at such a young age. Unexpectedly, there are still two youngsters who have ascended into Level Seven. They''re Li Xiu, the young master of the Li Family of Pingzhou, and Ji Yeyue."


    When hearing the name of Ji Yeyue, Junior Leopard could clearly feel some excitement, "Heehee, Your Excellency, you have no idea how sturdy Ji Yeyue is!"


    "I have no idea? I certainly know that Ji Yeyue has been called as ''the first sturdy girl in the world''!" Junior Leopard laughed.


    "''The first sturdy girl in the world''?" Hearing Junior Leopard''s description, Zhu Ba finally began to laugh hysterically, "Your Excellency, it''s not ''the first sturdy girl in the world'', but ''the most beautiful woman in the world''!"


    Ji Yeyue was the only woman among the four brightest youngers in the World Hero Competition. She was not only powerful in feat, but also beautiful in appearance. As soon as she turned up, she shocked all the male attendants. In the first few competitions, she even didn''t exert 10 percent of her strength, because her opponents were so absorbed in her beauty. It was not until she met a strong-willed Level Seven expert in the fourth competition that she had a chance to show her real strength. Then everyone present was stunned. It turned out that the girl aged about 17 or 18, had the strength of Level Seven, which was extraordinary. She soon beat her opponent. Her strength and demeanour had completely overshadowed the other young talents and undoubtedly, she became the focus of the World Hero Competition.


    "Your Excellency, there are a lot of people comparing you to them. Would you like to take part?"


    "Absolutely not. It''s not easy to find two people to help me share the reputation. I won''t be so stupid as to mess with them!" Junior Leopard smirked.


    "Li Xiu of Pingzhou, good, I didn''t expect that you''d have also broken through to Level Seven in these years. It seems that you mainly practice swordsmanship. If there is a chance, we can have a battle. But for now, I''m not available!"


    "Your Excellency, there''s one thing that is troublesome."


    Zhu Ba had his convalescence in a large room. Jiang Xiao and other people were in the room as well. Hearing that they almost finished talking, Jiang Xiao began to speak with a flicker of embarrassment on his face.


    "What''s up?"


    "Recently, Anyuan Store has been severely suppressed!" Jiang Xiao smiled bitterly, "Someone is aiming at us. Some of our goods were robbed, and others were confiscated by the government. The hard-fought connection and several trade routes have all been broken. As for the established cooperations, they were also stopped by the partners. If it goes on like this, Anyuan Store will have to shut down in a few months!"


    Hearing this, Junior Leopard''s expression changed with his eyes narrowed.


    "Do you know who is responsible?"


    "It''s probably the Four Seas Trading Company, the estate of the Wang Family."


    "The Wang Family?" Slowly mulling over the words, Junior Leopard smiled, "It seems that I''m really a little out of line with the Wang Family lately!"


    Jiang Xiao said with a forced smile, "The Four Seas Trading Company, with complex business networks, is one of the top 10 trading companies in Great Jin. Small trading companies like the newborn Anyuan Store are simply not able to match it. If they really want to block us, it''ll be really hard for us to keep doing business!"


    "Have you thought about a way to fight back?"


    "It''s certainly impossible to fight back in business. We aren''t at the same level as them!" Jiang Xiao answered, "It seems that the Wang Family is not only a millennium family, but they also have a close relationship with Tian Long Taoism. Because of this, the Wu Family has scruples about helping us openly."


    "Oppressing us using their powerful influence! It''s really a good choice!" Junior Leopard smiled, "Since we cannot solve it using business, we have to make other plans. Is there anyone else who is against us, apart from the Four Seas Trading Company?"


    "The Four Seas Trading Company is the ringleader, and there are several other big trading companies!" Jiang Xiao replied, "But I think, if we can successfully fight against the Four Seas Trading Company, others will not be hard on us anymore."


    "Damn it! Why didn''t you tell me earlier? I''d have brought some people to smash the Four Seas Trading Company and see if they dare to look for trouble again!"


    "It''s wishful thinking! The Four Seas Trading Company is the estate of the Wang Family. Moreover, the Wang Family is a famous millennium baron worldwide, with numerous masters and experts in their clan. Believe it or not, if you smash the Four Seas Trading Company today, the Wang Family will send experts to kill you tomorrow!"


    "The Wang Family in Cenzhou is a millennium family that is really hard to be pushed around!"


    When it came to the Wang Family, a harsh light flashed through Junior Leopard''s eyes. In the northwest, his fief was adjacent to the fief of one of the collateral members of the Wang Family. They had a conflict and he had been deeply impressed by their arrogance. So they might try to clamp down on him to get revenge by suppressing the Anyuan Store.


    "However, if I will be frightened by you , I won''t be called by the name, Zhou Bao!" Junior Leopard sneered in his heart, "Now you want to play the game, I''ll play with you to the end. The leading bird usually bears the brunt ofattack . Now you''re the leading bird that provokes me. But I have to find more participants since it''s too boring!"


    When Junior Leopard thought of this, a cold smile occurred in his eyes, "Jiang Xiao, signal that I, Zhou Bao from Yunzhou, will challenge Wang Yuebai, the most powerful man in the Wang Family after 10 days. If he is afraid, he can give up!"


    "Your Excellency!" Jiang Xiao did not expect that Junior Leopard would pay his attention of this problem after his slight mention, "Your Excellency, Wang Yuebai is the most powerful man in the Wang Family in Cenzhou. It is said that his cultivation has reached the peak of Level Eight, only a step away from Level Nine. Besides, there is a whole Wang Family in Cenzhou behind him. Do you really plan to challenge him?"


    "Now that the Wang Family wants to be the leading bird, then I''ll help them!" Junior Leopard laughed grimly, "He''s just a Level Eight expert. No big deal! Spread the news now, the wider and more sensational the better. This time, it is the Wang Family who has come to annoy me. It''ll give others the impression that I am mild-tempered if I don''t teach them a lesson. Do you think I''m that kind of person?" Junior Leopard grinned.


    "OK! I''ll try to give the news out. But before that, I still advise Your Excellency to think twice. The Wang Family isn''t like the Cool Breeze Gang. They have been in the world for thousands of years with unfathomable foundations. Wang Yuebai is probably the most powerful man superficially. If the real master..."


    "Don''t worry, I can handle that!" Junior Leopard waved his hand to dismiss his worry, "Make the arrangements as I said. If there is really a hidden expert in the Wang family, I also have confidence to deal with that!"


    "Yes!" Speaking like this, Jiang Xiao dared not to say any more, bowing his head and leaving the room.


    "Your Excellency, you still care a lot about your reputation. It''s actually not your wish to have someone share your reputation. It seems that you''re afraid of being upstaged, so you arranged the challenge, right? Then in the end, you can steal the thunder of those two young experts." Zhu Ba tittered beside him.


    "Challenging Wang Yuebai is just the endgame!" Junior Leopard said, waving his hand, "I asked Jiang Xiao to spread the news out because I''m worried that Wang Yuebai won''t accept the challenge. Besides, I have no other purpose!"


    "The endgame? For what?"


    "The conflict that happened in the northwest, along with the Tian Long Taoism and a few well-known families asking me to participate in the World Hero Competition." Junior Leopard replied, "These must be the reason why the Wang Family are suppressing the Anyuan Store. They don''t represent one family, but a powerful profit group. I have degraced them, so they naturally want to make reprisals!"


    "But if you challenge Wang Yuebai, it will aggravate the problem, making it harder to wrap up. Moreover, you''ll offend the Tian Long Taoism again!"


    "The trouble with Tian Long Taoism has already finished!" Junior Leopard answered, "Those families are smart. This time the Wang Family is just making a final sound. In such a case, I shouldn''t show weakness. The Tian Long Taoism will never tell those well-known families the reason why they stopped. Therefore, they''re all wondering what I have done to let the Tian Long Taoism give up taking advantage of me, and they want to sound me out. Under these circumstances, the only thing I have to do is to give a strong counterattack and tear down the face of the Wang Family completely. These families are all bullies, and there''s a lot of interest entanglement among them. As long as I show my strong attitude, they''ll find that they must suffer great losses and lose more than they have gained to fight against me, then in the end, they''ll shrink back!"


    "What if they keep on being tough?" Reckless as Zhu Ba was, he was not a fool. He thought about it for a second, "There''re many experts in the Wang Family, so it doesn''t matter if they lose one or two. After all, they have deep roots. But if you have any accidents, we''ll all lose our backer and Anyuan Store will be uprooted!"


    "Tough? They''re unable to keep being tough!" Junior Leopard said confidently, "Don''t worry! I won''t be as foolish as to throw an egg at a rock!"


    Junior Leopard certainly wouldn''t be foolish like that. Wang Yuebai indeed had the strength of Level Eight, but Junior Leopard didn''t think highly of him. As long as he hadn''t ascend into Level Nine and his Internal Qi hadn''t been converted to the Genuine Soul, Junior Leopard would never worry about it. The Wang Family was too aggressive and had offended too many people. For example, Moon Deer of Extended Net, who was one of the 28 constellations just like him, as well as Luo Haiyun from the Luo Family in Minshan Commandery, who had absolutely irreconcilable hatred with the Wang Family. The reason why he had set the time for 10 days later, was to leave enough time to spread the news. He believed that Moon Deer of Extended Net would be very happy to help him against the Wang Family.


    In addition to Moon Deer of Extended Net, Prince Xiaoming was the reason why he came to the Central Plains. For the sake of the appointment made in the underground fire vein in Zhonghe City, as well as the raw materials of the Air-frozen Beads, Prince Xiaoming would definitely come when she heard the news. Even if she would not help him openly, she may possibly help him secretly.


    That was why Junior Leopard told Jiang Xiao to spread the news widely. Besides, Wang She was sure to come too if he heard of the news. This was not because he had close a relationship with Wang She, but for other reasons.


    "After such a long time, the Tian Long Taoism Leader, Yu Baimei, must be very concerned about the relationship between me and the golden-clothed man! The general principles of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique are not trivial. Moreover, those who are able to get through the Thunder Tribulation must have arrived in the Genuine Immortal Karma Rank. As the Leader of the Tian Long Taoism, he couldn''t care less about the guy whose strength is terrific. Additionally, I purposely didn''t make it clear to Wang She what the relationship between me and the golden-clothed man was, which must be a sore point to him. No matter whether public or private interest, he would definitely motion Wang She, who has a good relationship with me, to approach me, and signal that he''d better figure out my relationship with the Stranger under the thunder!" With all of this, Junior Leopard was confident that even if he challenged and defeated Wang Yuebai, mercilessly causing the Wang Family to lose face, the Wang Family couldn''t do anything to him.


    "Since the Wang Family is bent against me, then I''ll help them to achieve their aim. I have to hurt them so much that they will be afraid of me. In this way, the crackdown of the Four Seas Trading Company on Anyuan Store will be naturally eliminated. Then Anyuan Store will soon become the economic lifeline of my territory. How can I let it be suppressed?"


    ...


    "What? Zhou Bao is going to challenge Wang Yuebai, the most powerful man of the Wang Family in Cenzhou? What the hell is this boy doing?"


    The news was passed out in the afternoon, shocking the whole Jianghu.


    Under the influence of the World Hero Competition, the whole Jianghu was already in a boiling state. Junior Leopard''s behavior had now exacerbated the situation. Although he didn''t attend the World Hero Competition, he suddenly announced the challenge to Wang Yuebai, a celebrated expert that had been famous for decades, which raised all sorts of conjecture.


    "Is this guy crazy for fame?"


    "What the hell is he doing? Does he realize that he is out of date because there''re two teen experts appearing in the World Hero Competition? So he arranged this challenge because he was undefeated?"


    "It''s interesting! Zhou Bao has already killed several experts. Will there be another one this time?"


    ¡­


    People who didn''t understand the truth kept thinking like this.


    "Anyuan Store is Zhou Bao''s estate. These days the Four Seas Trading Company is clearly aiming at Anyuan Store. It seems that Zhou Bao is going to fight back. But is this too radical?"


    "It is said that he defeated Lin Xiaoqing of the Lins with his bare hands in the northwest, so his confidence increased sharply. But Wang Yuebai isn''t Lin Xiaoqing. He is the most powerful man in the Wang Family and owns the most powerful treasure, the Pero Purple Striped Saber. What''s more, His cultivation has reached the peak of Level Eight, ready for stepping into Level Nine. It''s not easy for Zhou Bao to beat him!"


    "Damn it! Zhou Bao is really hot-tempered. As soon as you provoke him, he gets angry. Fortunately, the Wang Family had the leading role this time, so we can just watch the competition and see if he has backers. No, we should see whether his backers are strong. I''ll never believe that he had become an expert at such a young age without any backers!"


    ¡­


    Within three days, the challenge launched by Junior Leopard had spread throughout Jianghu. Unsurprisingly, it became the most sensational event along with the World Hero Competition.


    "This boy, heehee, is very intriguing! I should never miss the chance to join in the fun? The Wang Family has been pushy for thousands of years, and it''s time for them to suffer losses!" In the Tian Long Mystic Mountain, Wang She sat cross-legged on the Sunset Peak with a very malicious smile on his face, "I can also take this opportunity to finish my business!"

 Chapter 268: A Malicious Saber and a Fierce Cudgel, a Battle between Two Experts

    Chapter 268: A Malicious Saber and a Fierce Cudgel, a Battle between Two Experts


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard challenged Wang Yuebai, the most powerful man of the Wang Family. It caused a stir in Jianghu and embarrassed the Wang Family.


    Using the Four Seas Trading Company to suppress Anyuan Store was an important means of competition among well-known families. This world, like ancient China, did not value business. Business was nothing but a tool. The competition between tools was usually a game of means and ability. No one would be like Junior Leopard and respond to the suppression of a trading company with a challenge against their most powerful man.


    It didn''t make sense!


    "He is really from a humble family! He knows nothing about the rules!"


    Those aristocratic families silently cursed, but also watched how the Wang Family would respond, with great interest.


    Zhou Bao was a famous young expert in the world. Although his cultivation only reached Level Seven, his combat gains were remarkable, no worse than a Level Eight expert or even better. In terms of strength, he really had the ability to challenge Wang Yuebai.


    As the most powerful man of the Wang Family, Wang Yuebai represented the face of the Wang Family. If he refused the challenge, the family''s reputation would suffer. But there were other ways. Since the challenge was posed by Junior Leopard, Wang Yuebai could send his men to battle. You knew, in addition to Wang Yuebai, there were also many other experts who could battle. However, except Wang Yuebai, the rest of the men seemed unable to beat Junior Leopard.


    Zhou Bao was the man who killed Buyan Gerel on the prairie in a one-to-one battle.


    Moreover, at that time, his cultivation had not reached Level Seven!


    Now that he had become a Level Seven expert, what level exactly has his combat capability reached?


    No one really knew, but one thing was clear, Zhou Bao had never been beaten since his debut.


    After enumerating the experts of the Wang Family, they found that only Wang Yuebai had a decent chance to win. Hence, on this matter, Wang Yuebai had no choice at all.


    It was because of this that the Wang Family was quite straightforward. The day after Junior Leopard put the news out, the Wang Family accepted the challenge.


    Accept!


    10 days later, in Blackdragon Temple!


    The Blackdragon Temple was not far from the World Hero Competition field. It was a very small martial arts school. If a few Taoist priests who knew martial arts could form a school, then the Blackdragon Temple was also a school.


    In Jianghu, the Blackdragon Temple was not well-known. However, within a radius of hundreds-of-kilometers, it was very famous because it was very prosperous. On auspicious days, the believers around would bring their families here to offer incense and pray for safety.


    The Wang Family chose the Blackdragon Temple as the venue, mainly because it was actually their estate. On their turf, they did not have to worry that Junior Leopard would cheat. Additionally, if they wanted, they could cheat. There was a large vacant lot behind the Blackdragon Temple which was a natural arms drill field. Both Wang Yuebai and Zhou Bao were experts, so their competition could not be tranquil. Besides, many busybodies were sure to flock here. To choose such a spacious place was safer.


    To Junior Leopard, it was nothing. Because he was not going to cheat, nor was he afraid of the Wang''s cheating, and he wasn''t afraid others seeing his match with Wang Yuebai either.


    The challenged had the right to decide where and when to fight. However, Wang Yuebai did not have much thought about the time of 10 days, so the time was still 10 days later since the challenge was put out.


    When the time was fixed, something unexpected happened. The organizer of the World Hero Competition, the Great Jin Royalty, announced that the Hero Competition would stop on the day Zhou Bao challenged Wang Yuebai.


    The decision was well received. As soon as it came out, it was praised.


    In this way, neither side would be delayed.


    "Damn it, the Jin Emperor really desires to stir up trouble!" After learning the news, Junior Leopard could only shake his head with a wry smile.


    ...


    ¡­


    10 days later, in Blackdragon Temple!


    From the wee hours, there were people in Jianghu on the road to Blackdragon Temple. By the time the sun rose, the hill where the Blackdragon Temple was situated and even the roof of the Blackdragon Temple had been already full of people. They jostled each other. Every now and then, there were several screams and arguments from the crowd. The Taoist priests had already lost their minds in an attempt to maintain order. The clever man had found a good place, while the clumsy one had been already crowded out of the temple.


    In the hill where the Blackdragon Temple was situated, the only spacious place was the vacant lot behind the temple.


    The vacant lot was about 1,000 feet long and several hundred feet wide. Around it was also full of people, but the space left was enough for the challenge.


    A few of Junior Leopard''s subordinates such as Jiang Xiao, Zhu Ba, and Wang Cheng, were worried about the Wang''s tricks, so they came early. The Wang''s also had already arrived here and were ready. Several cool shelters had been set up and had been occupied. Junior Leopard and his subordinates occupied one, and so did the Wang Family. Most notably, Wang She himself occupied one alone, leisurely drinking tea under a huge cool shelter. As for others who also occupied cool shelters, Junior Leopard did not know them.


    Junior Leopard was not surprised that Wang She appeared. But he was a little surprised to see him so early.


    "Isn''t this guy always late? Why is he so early this time?"


    Junior Leopard glanced at Wang She and then looked away.


    Wang She did not seem to notice Junior Leopard looking at him and just bent his head over his tea.


    In the crowd, Junior Leopard saw several familiar figures, the Wu''s Family Head, Wu Yansheng and the First Elder, Lyu Yiyue. What surprised Junior Leopard, was a young man in his twenties, standing by the side of Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue.


    "Wu Yutian, the Wu''s First Young Master!" Junior Leopard''s heart trembled as if he thought of something. Glancing at Lyu Yiyue, he found that Lyu Yiyue was looking at him in a very friendly way, so he nodded slightly and averted his eyes.


    He also saw two acquaintances besides the Wu''s. One was Li Xiu, standing on the roof of the main hall of the Blackdragon Temple. He exuded fierce Sword Qi so that there was no one within 30 feet of him. He was looking at Junior Leopard with a strange look. Junior Leopard nodded to him, smiled, and then turned to another acquaintance, Meng Qingrong.


    He gave the tsundere girl a sharp look in her budding breasts and a malicious thought flashed through his mind. He raised his hand, waved at Meng Qingrong, and revealed a smile that he thought was very charming. The tsundere girl responded by slightly opening her small mouth with a bewildered expression on her face. Seeing her reaction, he was satisfied, but soon he frowned.


    An uncomfortable feeling rose from his heart.


    "Someone is peeping!" The powerful spiritual mind made him instantly understand what was going on. His eyes narrowed slightly, and following his vision, his spiritual mind was instantly fixed on the old pine that was before the hall of the Blackdragon Temple. Amid the thick foliage, a figure loomed.


    "Damn it! It''s a woman!" Though the person''s face was completely obscured by the shadow of the tree, Junior Leopard could clearly distinguish her gender from the graceful figure. Moreover, from her long and deep spirit, Junior Leopard could also confirm that her strength was Level Seven.


    At this time, in this place, among so many people, only one person had such strength.


    It''s the new young expert, Ji Yeyue.


    "Why is she hiding in the pine tree and being furtive? She definitely harbors evil intentions!" Junior Leopard grinned and gave a middle finger to the pine tree.


    It was getting hot. The Wang Family only sent out a few people to keep order in the cool shelters. Since there were too many people and it was hot, the surrounding people began to be noisy and the sound was growing. Zhu Ba had got tired of waiting.


    "Your Excellency, why doesn''t the damn Wang Yuebai come? Didn''t we make an appointment for today?"


    "Just wait, wait a little longer!" Junior Leopard waved.


    "But we''ve been waiting for more than two hours!"


    "Now that His Excellency told you to wait a little longer, just wait a little longer. What''s the hurry?" Jiang Xiao, who was next to him, discontentedly said, pulling Zhu Ba''s sleeve. Then Zhu Ba quieted down.


    After a while, the noisy crowd suddenly became silent, and then a voice abruptly became louder. Sitting in the cool shelter, Junior Leopard could see a group slowly approaching the Blackdragon Temple. The first man was riding on a fine black horse with a smile on his face that gave off a quiet expression like pines.


    "Here come the Wangs! Here come the Wangs!"


    "Look, that''s Wang Yuebai, the most powerful man of the Wang Family!"


    "And that man, who is side by side with Wang Yuebai, is the present Family Head of the Wang Family in Cenzhou!"


    "What? The Wang''s Family Head also came here?"


    "Of course! The Wang''s Family Head certainly came! Wang Yuebai is not only the Wang''s most powerful man, but also his uncle!"


    "No wonder. I see!"


    ¡­


    ...


    The crowd became even noisier and struggled to separate to let the Wangs march in.


    "Interesting! This time the Wang Family sent a lot of experts. Apart from Wang Yuebai, there are four Level Seven experts. It seems that they were the ones who chased Luo Haiyun on that day. Heehee, it''s really unpredictable!"


    After the Wangs entered a cool shelter, the Family Head came out and slowly went to the entrance of the cool shelter. He looked at Junior Leopard and said, "Zhou Bao, we''re here. What do you say?"


    "I have nothing to say. Let''s get started. Don''t talk rubbish!"


    It was not Junior Leopard who spoke, but Wang She. He seemed to have had enough tea. Putting the teacup aside, he reached the entrance of his cool shelter and said, "Wang Yuebai, come out! Everybody''s busy. You''d better start early and finish early!" Then he turned to Junior Leopard. "Junior Leopard, you should solve your own problems. If you die here, I''m not in charge of your body!"


    "I dare not trouble Chief Wang!" Junior Leopard stood up and bowed to Wang She. Then he went to the entrance of his cool shelter. Instead of giving a glance at the Wang''s Family Head who was standing at his cool shelter, he looked at Wang Yuebai. "First Elder Wang, I have heard of your illustrious name for a long time. This time, I take the liberty to see the power of the Wang''s Pero Purple Striped Saber. Can you show me that?"


    "Now that you want to die, I''ll help you!" Wang Yuebai stood up with a sneer. With a flash, he was in the field. The Pero Purple Striped Saber in his hand was flashing a strange purple lustre in the sun.


    "Good, First Elder Wang is so straightforward!" Junior Leopard walked down the field with a smile and raised his hand. Then a pale gold light flashed and a pale gold cudgel suddenly appeared in his hand. It was only a foot long at first, but it grew strangely against the wind, and in the blink of an eye, it became a light gold Eyebrow Cudgel.


    It was such a strange situation that no one present had ever seen or even heard of. Only the expression of some people in cool shelters suddenly became sullen. They had never seen it, but they all had heard of it.


    "A Divine Weapon?" A gleam appeared in Wang Yuebai''s eyes with the greatest astonishment in his sluggish tone.


    "First Elder, good sight!" Junior Leopard laughed, lying his cudgel before his body. "First Elder is elder, so you first please!"


    "Then I''ll come first!" Wang Yuebai had no intention of modesty. With a flash of purple light, he was already in front of Junior Leopard.


    "Clank!"


    "Good!"


    As a deafening crash of metal was heard, Junior Leopard''s Golden-Scaled Cudgel blocked Wang Yuebai''s Pero Purple Striped Saber.


    With one blow, Junior Leopard did not move, but Wang Yuebai was surprisingly knocked back two steps by a force.


    He had never thought of such a situation. They just did one movement and he failed.


    "It''s no wonder that Zhou Bao is so famous at a young age. He does have some abilities!" Wang Yuebai privately thought, but he was not in a panic. A purple light flashed on his body and a brilliant purple lustre appeared.


    "Pero Purple Striped Gang!"


    It was the most powerful cultivation method in the Wang Family. As the purple lustre appeared, it rushed to Junior Leopard. Since Junior Leopard''s Gang Qi had not formed yet, he would not recklessly fight with him naturally. He withdrew the cudgel in his hand and seven or eight golden fireballs smashed against the purple lustre.


    "Puff, puff!" Those fireballs hit the purple lustre, which made it give a sharp pause. Then it engulfed these fireballs sent by Junior Leopard, not even leaving one behind.


    "Eh?" The golden fireball had been so powerful since Junior Leopard inadvertently practiced the third form of the Nine Forms of Real Dragon. Though it had encountered resistance, it has never been engulfed.


    "Try again!" As he raised his hand, a dozen more fireballs flew out. But the results were still the same. Those fireballs could only block off Wang Yuebai''s Gang Qi, and in a blink of an eye, they were engulfed.


    "It seems that I''m facing my match today!" Junior Leopard secretly said. Then he stopped wasting his Internal Qi and mindlessly smashed the purple lustre with his Golden-Scaled Cudgel.


    Wang Yuebai certainly would not make it so easy for him to succeed. In a competition between masters, you had to be proactive and play at your own pace instead of getting caught up in your opponent''s pace. This was basic common sense. His Gang Qi was marvellous, but he was not going to deal with Junior Leopard''s wizard weapon with his Gang Qi. Certainly, he would use a wizard weapon to beat a wizard weapon.


    Therefore, seeing Junior Leopard swinging his cudgel to attack, Wang Yuebai showed no weakness and took his saber to meet the cudgel.


    Clank, clank, clank!


    Bang, bang, bang!


    ...


    Within seconds, they had been fighting for more than 10 movements. The Pero Purple Striped Saber was an acknowledged wizard weapon with infinite power. Additionally, Wang Yuebai had been practicing saber techniques for so many years that his saber techniques were sophisticated. Combined with his Gang Qi, he forced Junior Leopard to retreat in succession in a few movements.


    Although the 72 Style Earthly Fiends Cudgel Techniques was marvellous, Junior Leopard had not been practicing it for very long. He was familiar with it, but it was the first time he used it against an enemy. Thus, he was lacking in experience. Moreover, after Wang Yuebai knew that Junior Leopard had no advantage in strength from the first attack, he did not meet Junior Leopard head on, but controlled the situation ruthlessly with his sophisticated saber techniques. After several rounds, Junior Leopard was at a disadvantage.


    "Uncomfortable, it''s fucking uncomfortable!" Junior Leopard almost had an urge to throw the cudgel and fight with Wang Yuebai with bare hands.


    "Damn it! He has the upper hand in a few movements. It''s a shame!" He cursed in the heart. He swung the cudgel in his hand to protect himself, and then letting go of the cudgel with one hand, he touched his waist. A gold light flashed and he had taken out the Knot Golden Net to cover Wang Yuebai.


    The Knot Golden Net was a psychic magic weapon. As soon as it unfolded, the golden light was all over the sky, which was very beautiful.


    However, something that was beautiful but useless was easy to make a fool of oneself. The Knot Golden Net was suitable for catching fish, crabs, and even snakes, but not necessarily catching people.


    The golden light, hit by the purple lustre, stopped in the air. Then a purple saber light flashed and the Knot Golden Net was cut in half by the Pero Purple Striped Saber.


    "Hum, now that you took away the Knot Golden Net from the Lins, you should know that it''s of little use. You''re stupid to use it against me!"


    The saber light, like electricity, broke the Knot Golden Net and then hit him in the face without stopping.


    Under the saber light of Wang Yuebai, Junior Leopard dodged with the protection of the Golden-Scaled Cudgel. He then said, "The Knot Golden Net didn''t work. But what about my Demon Devil Needles?"


    "Click, click, click..."


    "It didn''t work either!" The Pero Saber flashed and cut off the Demon Devil Needles shot out by Junior Leopard. "Zhou Bao, don''t play these kind of tricks in front of me! Take out your real strength, or else I''ll kill you with my saber!"


    In a moment, the lustre of the Pero Purple Striped Saber flourished as if it echoed Wang Yuebai''s words. Beams of purple lines emanated from the saber, turning into powerful Saber Qi that hit Junior Leopard.


    "Damn it!" Seeing the purple lines, Junior Leopard knew something was wrong, but it was a little late. The purple Saber Qi which was avoided by Junior Leopard didn''t disappear, but turned back and rushed into Wang Yuebai''s Gang Qi as if it had intelligence.


    In a flash, the Evil Qi of the placid Pero Purple Striped Gang became thriving. The Gang Qi with Evil Qi made Junior Leopard suffocate and successively retreat.


    "Zhou Bao, this is the end of your overreach!" Wang Yuebai snarled. The nine strands of sharp Saber Qi turned into entities, forming a formation to surround him.


    "Fuck!" Junior Leopard cursed in a low voice, "You''re overreaching yourself!"


    The Golden-Scaled Cudgel in his hand, fiercely glittering with gold, suddenly became 100 feet long and one foot in diameter. Through the brandishing of Junior Leopard, it immediately hit the Saber Qi that turned into a formation.


    "Clap, clap, clap!"


    "Crack, crack!"


    The mournful voice continued. After all, the purple Saber Qi was weaker than the Divine Weapon, so it was broken by Junior Leopard''s Golden-Scaled Cudgel.


    "Don''t forget that my weapon is also a wizard weapon!" Junior Leopard cried. Now, he had a thorough understanding of his Divine Weapon. Its size was changeable. Once it was amplified, the area that he was able to control would become larger, just like his previous two big hammers. It could be used to attack and to defend. Once he used it to defend, people really did not have a way to deal with it.


    "First Elder Wang, don''t do any more of these weak things. Just get out your real strength!" Junior Leopard shouted. Within the circulation of his Internal Qi, the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill were started, and the power of the gold cudgel increased several times.


    After the saber formation was destroyed, Wang Yuebai did not care at first. He took the Pero Purple Striped Saber vertically to meet Junior Leopard''s cudgel. But there started the trouble.


    With just a blow, he was blocked and flew out like a meteor.


    "Gosh!" He was startled because he noticed that Junior Leopard''s blow was different from the previous ones. It not only became a few times stronger, without the slightest hint of wind, but also was extremely mysterious.


    It was mysterious!


    At this time, the long cudgel in Junior Leopard''s hands could change as he wanted. Though Junior Leopard still used the 72 Style Earthly Fiends Cudgel Techniques, Wang Yuebai felt it was completely different from before. The cudgel was heavier and the strength was stronger. Most importantly, there was no wind.


    We all knew that the five senses of people who practiced martial arts were very sensitive. People at the level of Wang Yuebai especially almost had an instinct of telling the location through the wind. All of a sudden, Wang Yuebai found that the cudgel was hitting him in the face without any sound. This made him a little uncomfortable, and he was slow to react. Then Junior Leopard got a chance.


    The 72 Style Earthly Fiends Cudgel Techniques were fully displayed to hit Wang Yuebai like a storm pouring down.


    Wang Yuebai''s saber techniques were masterly, but he could not protect the Pero Purple Striped Saber in his hand from contacting the Golden-Scaled Cudgel. The Pero Purple Striped Saber was powerful, while the Golden-Scaled Cudgel was a wizard weapon as well. Additionally, under the double effect of the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, the Golden-Scaled Cudgel could produce a powerful force with only a light touch. After several rounds, Wang Yuebai was exhausted and was about to lose.

 Chapter 269: A Crazy and Impertinent Man

    Chapter 269: A Crazy and Impertinent Man


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Pero Purple Striped Saber was a famous wizard weapon in the world. It had powerful lethality and was almost indestructible. It also had many other uses, such as the saber formation formed previously by the purple saber Qi. With this saber formation alone, Wang Yuebai was confident about killing any expert with cultivation below Level Nine. Unfortunately, he met Junior Leopard who also had a wizard weapon. Therefore, the Pero Purple Striped Saber did not have much use. The strength of Junior Leopard''s Golden-Scaled Cudgel was no worse than that of the Pero Purple Striped Saber and so it was impossible to threaten this wizard weapon with the saber Qi of the Purple Striped Saber. However, as a wizard weapon, it definitely had other uses.


    The greatest use of the Pero Purple Striped Saber was that it could store Internal Qi.


    Each generation of its masters practiced the Pero Purple Qi. Moreover, only those who practiced the Pero Purple Qi could really control the Pero Purple Striped Saber. Before they died, they would inject the Pero Purple Qi that they cultivated throughout their lifetime into the saber to be used by later generations. In theory, the control of the Pero Purple Striped Saber was the equivalent of controlling the Pero Purple Qi of hundreds of generations of masters of the Pero Purple Striped Saber. What did this mean?


    It meant that the master of the Pero Purple Striped Saber had an almost infinite Internal Qi, so they were not afraid of Qi depletion at all.


    Of course, this was only in theory.


    If the Pero Purple Qi in the Pero Purple Striped Saber were to be used freely, the Wang Family would be far more powerful than it was now. Even if the cultivation methods were the same, there would be subtle differences in the nature of the Internal Qi produced by different people. These were normally invisible, but the difference could be revealed by putting two men''s Internal Qi together. Especially when there were a lot of people, these kinds of subtle differences would add up and would thus make the Internal Qi heterogeneous. The master of the Pero Purple Striped Saber needed to have powerful Internal Qi and strong control over Internal Qi if he wanted to use the nearly infinite Internal Qi. Besides, even if the master successfully used it, the Internal Qi amount of the master''s own consumed to control the Internal Qi inside the Purple Striped Saber would be amazing. It could be said that the master could only use one at most unless his cultivation had reached Level Nine. Even when his cultivation reached Level Nine, he would not be able to use it more than three times in a battle.


    Wang Yuebai had never thought that he would use this movement in the fight with Junior Leopard.


    But things had gone completely beyond his expectations.


    Junior Leopard was clearly more powerful than he thought. Moreover, he had no idea that Junior Leopard had a wizard weapon, a Divine Weapon that could counter the Pero Purple Striped Saber. All of a sudden, the advantage of his Pero Purple Striped Saber was gone. Now that Junior Leopard had suddenly exerted a strange cudgel skill, he was unexpectedly suppressed. The eccentric cudgel was so heavy and powerful that if he did not use the full force of the Purple Striped Saber, he would lose his face this time.


    "You asked for it!"


    He was driven back by Junior Leopard. The wind caused by the Golden-Scaled Cudgel seemed to have materialized, rolling up the dust within 100 feet. In a yellow cloud, there was a flash of purple light. Suddenly, the purple light burst.


    "Whir, whir, whir..."


    The purple airflow instantly swallowed up the yellow cloud and stirred boundless airflow. Soon a purple streamer, like a dragon, was born.


    "Powerful strength! How can this guy have such powerful Internal Qi?" Junior Leopard didn''t expect Wang Yuebai to fight back so fast and fierce.


    As the cudgel in his hand paused, it was suddenly struck back by the Wang Yuebai''s saber Qi.


    "Boy, you asked for it! Purple light suffused the sky! Go to the hell!"


    The purple airflow rolled up a purple air column rushed toward the sky, spinning wildly. Strands of airflow, like tiny blades, cut through everything in the airflow at top speed.


    "Swash..."


    Junior Leopard swung the Golden-Scaled Cudgel extraordinarily quickly to protect his whole body. The tiny blades dashed against the Golden-Scaled Cudgel, splashing gold light.


    "Fuck!" Junior Leopard roared. Although he had the Golden-Scaled Cudgel to protect himself, the unmatched Internal Qi still made his blood level surge. His Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill were being worked to the extreme.


    Bang, bang, bang!


    Suddenly there was a loud rumble in the purple wind column. The Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill were integrated once again, and Junior Leopard had made a Critical Hit.


    This time it showed the difference between a hammer and a cudgel. Relying on his hammers, Junior Leopard used to punch, and so even if he could make the Critical Hit, it could only be one blow at a time. But now he was exerting cudgel skills which had been passed down from the antiquity times. In this blow, the stick figure flew. His Golden-Scaled Cudgel, under the influence of this Critical Hit, seemed to have become a living creature and poked out a great hole in the purple wind column. In addition, in a flash, it produced a powerful force that completely suppressed the power of the Purple Striped Saber, its rapidly spinning wind column was suddenly frozen.


    "That''s impossible!" Feeling a mountain-like power, Wang Yuebai shouted with a very shocked and unbelievable expression.


    "Almost failed!"Junior Leopard began to rush out of the wind column, thinking that he was lucky. However, before he had fully rushed out, the effect of the Critical Hit had disappeared, and once again he was completely suppressed by the huge purple airflow. A powerful force of suction emanated from the wind column as if it was going to reabsorb him.


    "Bigger!" Junior Leopard gave a strange cry, and the Golden-Scaled Cudgel in his hand suddenly became bigger. Before being sucked in by the wind column, it once again became 100 feet long and one foot in diameter before it directly stabbed Wang Yuebai in the moment of being caught in the purple wind column.


    Seeing the huge cudgel, Wang Yuebai did not dare to use his saber to block it, and decided to dodge. This time, his spirit was unavoidably messy.


    Junior Leopard grasped the chance keenly. He steadied himself, and spreading out his arms, he dove straight out of the purple wind column like a roc.


    It was the Roc Flying Freely of the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds!


    Out of the wind column, Junior Leopard made a strange, completely non-mechanical glide in the air. Whilst simultaneously, the Golden-Scaled Cudgel instantly returned to the size of a common Eyebrow Cudgel Skill.


    Seeing Junior Leopard rush out of the purple wind column, Wang Yuebai once again raised his saber. The scattered purple wind column turned into a boundless airflow, and rolled up to Junior Leopard like the surging sea.


    "You can''t escape my Pero Purple Striped Saber! Endless Purple Sea!"


    Failing in succession, Wang Yuebai was already angry that he no longer scrupled, and gave play to all the power of his Pero Purple Striped Saber to cover Junior Leopard fiercely.


    "Endless Purple Sea? Let me overturn rivers and seas!"


    A strange feeling suddenly rose from the depths of Junior Leopard''s heart. The Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, which were running at full speed, were once again integrated. This time, rather than it happen at the peak of the pulse, as before, it happeend at the bottom of the pulse of the mental cultivation methods.


    It was a feeling that he had never felt before. In the seemingly endless purple sea, Junior Leopard was preparing to stir up the boundless stormy waves with his Golden-Scaled Cudgel, but in that instant, he felt as though his Internal Qi was completely drained by a kind of nondescript force. Suddenly the strength that had been drawn from him began to swing around.


    "Thanks to my talent, otherwise, I might have died here today!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly to himself. It never occurred to him that the second function, after the combination of the two Seven Wonderful Techniques, had completely drained his Internal Qi before it had any effect. He was still stuck in the sea of the airflow that was produced by the Pero Purple Striped Saber, and if he had not had an External Elixir, he would have died within the Endless Purple Sea, even if he had displayed this movement.


    Fortunately, he had an External Elixir. The External Elixir made from a Fiery Eye was running the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Most importantly, he found a way to keep the External Elixir running. In other words, his External Elixir was in constant practice 24 hours a day. Therefore, the Internal Qi which was generated by the External Elixir was much powerful than that in his own body. Junior Leopard once estimated that the Internal Qi stored in the Fiery Eye was at least a dozen times as much as the amount in his body. Thus, though his Internal Qi was completely drained this time, he did not panic. Almost at the same time, a puff of Internal Qi rushed out of his External Elixir and instantly replenished his whole body.


    After he was filled up with Internal Qi, he felt a little more comfortable. Besides, at this point, the Internal Qi that had just been drained had also played a role.


    He felt that after his Internal Qi was pulled out, it followed his cudgel tendency and wast completely shot out.


    "What power is this?" Junior Leopard and Wang Yuebai were almost simultaneously surprised. Junior Leopard hid his Internal Qi, but the speed of the Golden-Scaled Cudgel had increased countless times. The Golden-Scaled Cudgel of more than 4,000 kilograms completely lost its weight at this moment.


    Yes, it lost its weight. Still holding it, Junior Leopard felt no weight, but felt empty. At the same time, the purple airflow that permeated the surrounding area could no longer cause any blockage on his cudgel.


    It was an easy, very strange and simple blow, but it suddenly appeared before Wang Yuebai at top speed as if it completely ignored space limitations.


    "Damn it!"


    Immense fear instantly caught Wang Yuebai''s heart and subconsciously, he lifted his saber to stop it. The saber saved his life, but Junior Leopard''s Golden-Scaled Cudgel violently hit his saber.


    "Bang!"


    Junior Leopard''s cudgel struck against the saber that it had built up the strength to hit. Wang Yuebai''s saber just subconsciously blocked, but with insufficient strength. The blow did not make a Critical Hit, however, because of Junior Leopard''s strength through the addition of the Heavenly Jade Technique, plus the cudgel of over 4,000 kilograms, given the extreme acceleration, the strength of the strike was not worse than a Critical Hit. Wang Yuebai''s hurried resistance saved his own life, but he was seriously wounded.


    With a violent thud, the Pero Purple Striped Saber was hit away. It turned into a purple light, and disappeared in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile, Wang Yuebai has also blown away. With a series of cracking and crunching sounds from his bones, he sounded just like frying beans, he flew out hundreds of feet before smashing into a wall of the Blackdragon Temple and leaving a hole in the shape of a human figure.


    "It''s not that easy to kill me!"


    There was silence, as if the time were stagnant.


    It was not until the case had been settled that the Wangs responded. Their Family Head sprang to his feet and almost at the same time, the four Level Seven experts who came with them all rose up. Two of them jumped at Junior Leopard, while one flew to the place where the Pero Purple Striped Saber had disappeared, the other jumped to Wang Yuebai whose consciousness had been completely lost while more than half of his bones had been broken.


    "Go back!" Seeing the coming two jets of Gang Qi, Junior Leopard just grinned and pushed his Golden-Scaled Cudgel forward.


    With two poofs, both of their Gang Qi was broken backward in an instant.


    The Golden-Scaled Cudgel scattered the remaining purple airflow and then Junior Leopard leaned on his cudgel that was propped up on the ground while narrowing his eyes slightly.


    With both the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill running, the two kinds of mental cultivation methods were intertwined and there was a sign of confluence.


    "I seem to have a knack for Seven Wonderful Techniques. But it''s not a good time!"


    As he repelled the two experts, a dozen men from the Wang Family rose up and surrounded him.


    "Wang Family in Cenzhou. Hee hee!" Glancing at these people, Junior Leopard finally fixed his gaze on the Family Head and said, "As a millennium baron, you actually can''t afford to lose!"


    "Zhou Bao, don''t think that you can do whatever you want with your top cultivation. Jianghu is so complicated that you are not yet qualified to be involved. You don''t even know what your behavior means today!"


    "You''re right. I don''t know how complicated Jianghu is, or what it means to offend you. But I know that more than one person has gone in the direction of the Pero Purple Striped Saber. Perhaps after today, your most powerful wizard weapon, the Pero Purple Striped Saber, will have changed master!"


    "Hum!" The Family Head gave a cold snort. "No one dares to covet or rob the Wangs'' things!"


    "Family Head, something''s wrong!"


    An urgent voice came out of the crowd.


    "What happened?" The Family Head''s face darkened as if it was about to drop water. "Who is yelling?"


    "Family Head, it''s me, it''s me!" A figure came out of the crowd, rolled up to the Wangs'' Family Head, and fell to his knees.


    "Wang Rui, why are you? What are you doing here?" Seeing this man, the Family Head''s expression changed. "You''re hurt. What''s going on?"


    "Luo, Luo Haiyun, Luo Haiyun, he, he..."


    "What happened?" Hearing the name, the Family Head''s expression changed again, and then he grabbed Wang Rui by the collar and picked him up.


    "He rushed into the headquarters of the company to kill everyone he saw. In the time of a cup of tea, just in the time of a cup of tea, he, he, he, he killed all the people. He, he, he..."


    Wang Rui was on the verge of a mental break down. His eyes were scattered and his speech was incoherent.


    "What else did he say?" The Family Head slightly yelled with his Internal Qi, which shocked Wang Rui''s mind and restored his consciousness a little, "He, he asked, he asked me to tell you, Family Head. He said he would never let our family off!"


    "Bastard!" The Family Head gave a sharp rebuke and threw Wang Rui away. His eyes flashed a severe glare and he stared fiercely at Junior Leopard, "You, you have been complicit!"


    "I don''t know what you mean. I''m not complicit!" A faint smile flickered across his lips. "You clearly know the reason why I challenged Wang Yuebai. You asked the Four Seas Trading Company to suppress my Anyuan Store, and secretly instigated bandits to rob my Anyuan Store''s goods, so I bothered you!"


    "Bullshit! I didn''t ask Four Seas Trading Company to suppress your Anyuan Store and instigate bandits! Do you have any evidence?"


    "I don''t need evidence! What I said was the truth!" Junior Leopard lifted the Golden-Scaled Cudgel and carried it on his shoulder. "Look, I don''t care about you Wangs. You provoked me first, so I hit back. You have to bear the consequences. As for this Luo Haiyun that you just said, I don''t even know him!"


    "Do you expect me to believe that?"


    "Do I need you to believe that? What can you do with me now? All the crap around you hasn''t even reached Level Seven in cultivation, so how can you deal with me?" Junior Leopard just sneered. "Hey, people may be afraid of you, but I''m not. I''m just giving you a lesson today. That''s the end of the past. If you dare to do any little trick behind my back, my revenge is definitely worse than this. I don''t want to admit it, but I have to tell you, I''m a vindictive jerk!"


    "You..." Unable to say a word against Junior Leopard''s almost scoundrelly words, he wanted to command an attack, but he knew that the members of the Wang Family here were unable to compete with Junior Leopard.


    He took a deep breath and subdued the fury that had rushed to his head. "Zhou Bao, I remind you that you will pay for what you have done!"


    "I''ll wait!" Junior Leopard gently said, "But I think it''s you that is in trouble now!"


    "Hum!" The Family Head''s pupils instantly constricted, and then he jerked his sleeve. "Let''s go!"


    Hearing the command, the Wangs followed him to leave despite their dissatisfaction and disappeared from the sight of the crowd of people in Jianghu.


    "The Wang Family has lost face now!"


    "Is Luo Haishan the Family Head of the Luo Family in Minshan Commandery? Wasn''t the Luo Family mysteriously exterminated not long ago? Did the Wang Family do it?"


    "Hum, of course! In Cenzhou, besides the Wang Family, who has so much power? But I don''t think they thought there was anyone alive!"


    "Yes, you''re right. Luo Haishan is a Level Seven expert, but the Wang Family let him escape. It seems they''re in trouble now!" The voice of schadenfreude spread among the crowd.


    "He''s just a Level Seven expert, no big deal!" Someone puzzled.


    "He''s a Level Seven expert! Man, do you think you can always see so many experts beaten like today? It''s easy to beat a Level Seven expert, but it''s hard to kill one. Besides, on the surface, the Wang Family only has one Level Eight expert, Wang Yuebai. Luo Haishan is the Family Head of the Luo family in Minshan. As a centuries-old family, it couldn''t be without some assets. Zhou Bao is stupid and bold, but Luo Haishan has lost everything. The world is so big that it''s extremely easy for a Level Seven expert to hide. However, the Wang Family is a millennium family, which has a large fortune, so it''s impossible for them to hide. Thus, the Wang Family is really in trouble!"


    The Wang Family was really in trouble!


    As he looked at the Wang''s disappearance, a smile flickered across Junior Leopard''s lips. After this, the other well-known families that had a bad relationship with him would not be against him in secret. After all, no one wanted to be the enemy of a reckless impertinent man like him.


    ¡­


    He was an impertinent man, a bloody impertinent man, with the peak of Level Eight combat capability, holding a Divine Weapon, and owning a very mysterious background!


    What did this mean?


    This meant that you would never mess with him before you were well prepared!


    However, according to the speed of his growth, by the time you were well prepared, he may have reached another level. What was more, no one had ever managed to call his bluff since his debut.


    He debuted early and first emerged in the war in Zhonghe City. In this war, with a pair of Meteor Hammers, he opened the gate of Zhonghe City and got the first-class merit, showing his potential. Then, in the underground fire vein of Zhonghe City, he guarded the fire vein for several days, before he, with his Level Three cultivation, defeated several masters from some great smelting families, and struck up a friendship with Wang She, one of the three Chiefs of the Tian Long Mystic Mountain. Therefore, he rose to fame and gradually gained some fame in the martial arts world. After that, he served as the Commander of the Navy of Jiang City, suppressed the water bandits on Luo River and gained control of River Heart Island, which gradually spread his reputation. Later, was the battle that made him truly famous. He killed the Level Seven expert of the Meng Family. This made people astonished, however, it was nothing compared to his later battles. After a few tough battles, he became a first-rate young expert in the martial arts world and was even known as "the most powerful man" in the young generation of the martial arts world. Judging from the way he had behaved since his debut, everyone could draw a clear conclusion that he was an impertinent man who was hard to deal with. But this impertinent man had unrivaled potential and a frightening background. For the ordinary people in the martial arts world, this guy was backed by Wang She, a Level Nine expert of the Tian Long Taoism. But for the Tian Long Taoism, there was another mysterious and powerful force backing him.


    It was a powerful force that ordinary man in the martial arts world had the right to know of.


    It was for this reason that after Junior Leopard fiercely slapped the Wang Family, which proved himself to be an impertinent man, he found that his life seemed to be better.


    "Whether it''s the school in the martial arts world or the millennium baron, they''re the same as bullies in the street. Ultimately, the more ruthless people win!"

 Chapter 270: Heading for the Fire Vein

    Chapter 270: Heading for the Fire Vein


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The second year of Jinyuan in Jin dynasty.


    This year, as throughout previous years, Jianghu was thick with disturbances. Compared with the earth-shattering battle in the first year of Jinyuan, the second year incurred several huge events as the war to overthrow Northern Yuan drew to an end.


    Unmistakably, the most famous one among those events was the World Hero Competition, during which, following the debut of Zhou Bao from Yunzhou, three more teen experts emerged splendidly. Li Xiu from Pingzhou, Ji Yeyue and Yan Fei all demonstrated strength over Level Seven at the World Hero Competition. This Li Xiu from Pingzhou was the first legitimate son of Li Family in Pingzhou, a true prodigy. Ji Yeyue''s background was more mysterious. She was said to be a disciple of a secret school that was barely known in the general martial circle. However, this secret school had close relationships with today''s Three Great Sects, namely Tian Long Taoism, Mingyi School and The Sect of Flame. It was also connected with some millennium families, for the masters and disciples of the said sects and families had received command before coming to the World Hero Competition, demanding them not to mess with Ji Yeyue. Therefore, as mysterious as this Ji Yeyue was, she leveraged her excellent cultivation and nailed down all her competitors without encountering any serious trouble. When it came to Yan Fei, it was even more amazing because he hid his true strength and fighting ability, which were both up to Level Seven, until the last three days of the event when he achieved a sweeping victory. Moreover, after Yan Fei''s real identity was unveiled, another wave of upheaval began.


    Yan Fei was Xining King''s Eldest Son, a junior Roral Uncle!


    Although this Yan Fei was pretty young, merely 18 years old, his seniority in the family was extremely high due to him being the Roral Uncle of the present emperor Yan Yuntian and son of Emperor of Xining Yan Zidan.


    In this world, it had to be the emperors who had the largest number of wives, and in this world, most of them practiced this feat, making them fit and healthy. They could start having children from 15 years old, continuing until they reached their seventies. Accordingly, the ages of their offspring varied across a wide range. It was common to see a junior son born when a senior son already had grandchildren or even great-grandchildren. As such, the population of the Royalty became very large and the seniority also became quite complex, meaning that it was not rare for Yan Fei to rank as a Roral Uncle at the age of 18.


    What''s rare was the strength he possessed!


    A young expert of Level Seven, at the age of 18, nailing down all others at the World Hero Competition and breaking into the semi-final was not a huge piece of news if he was nurtured by the Royalty, considering the great power and strength the Royalty had. However, this junior expert, Yan Fei, was not from the imperial palace, but the mansion of the vassal king, which rendered all this relatively novel.


    Nowadays, the Emperor had many sons, but none of them had achieved a cultivation above Level Four. They were all far from this Xining King''s Eldest Son, their Great Roral Uncle.


    Due to this, the subject of what role this Great Roral Uncle would play in the future battle for the throne was a sensitive subject. Especially as the battle for the throne was already budding forcefully.


    Of course, these were things that might happen at a later time, only worrying and concerning the bigwigs. For the nobodies in the martial arts world, the greatest point of focus at the moment was the result of the World Hero Competition where three young experts had entered the semi-finals along with an Elder from a millennial family, but no one believed him to be the winner in light of the strength displayed by the previous three young experts.


    The World Hero Competition had roused an enormous racket for some time, but now, what people discussed most frequently was two other issues, both related to the Wang family in Cenzhou. The first was that Zhou Bao from Yunzhou had heavily injured Wang Yuebai, the First Elder of the Wang family, and knocked their prized wizard weapon Pero Purple Striped Saber into the air. Rumors had it that the Wang family were yet to find their Pero Purple Striped Saber yet. Of course, that was just hearsay. The second was that Luo Haiyun, the Family Head of Luo Family in Minshan Commandery, which was said to be wiped out, had reappeared in Jianghu, and the mystery of his family''s genocide was also unraveled, it was the Wang family that carried out the slaughter. Hence, Luo Haishan initiated a vendetta against the Wang family, causing the latter great headache.


    Luo Haiyun was an expert of Level Seven that had lost everything and cared about nothing but sparing no effort to destroy the Wang clan after his return. He struck with unparalleled insidiousness and ruthlessness. He never went head to head with the experts in the Wang family, but started with peripheral organizations of the Wang family, such as the Four Seas Trading Company and the Dragon Escort Agency. The men he killed were all elites in these peripheral organizations. They might be highly talented in a certain field, but they were lacking in terms of fighting. For example, the shopkeeper of the Four Seas Trading Company, Wang Datong, a sharp businessman who had brought immense fortune to the Wang family for decades, who was also a key figure in terms of the protection the family, was killed by Luo Haiyun with a single blade move.


    There were many similar examples.


    Normally, all these kinds of talents of the Wang family were under very tight protection. It was very hard for ordinary people to approach them, not to mention killing them. Unfortunately, Luo Haiyun was an expert of Level Seven, while the bodyguards of these people were only up to Level Five. Though the Wang family possessed a large fortune, it was not so large that they could afford experts as bodyguards. In fact, even if they had such wealth, experts of Level Seven still would not lower themselves to be the bodyguards of ordinary people.


    Therefore, these bodyguards stood no chance under the onslaught of Luo Haiyun. Besides, since Luo Haiyun had lost everything and turned himself into a sworn enemy of the Wang family, he had no fear for the potential revenge of them. Moreover, Wang Yuebai, the only fighter in the Wang family who could have fully subdued and killed him, was seriously injured in the battle against Junior Leopard. He was not only unable to hunt Luo Haiyun down, but he actually required of a large portion of protection from the Wang family. Thus, there was even less force the Wang family could employ to take on Luo Haiyun.


    Then, resigned to the harsh situation, the Wang family adopted a downsizing defense strategy and announced a bounty in Jianghu, offering a wizard weapon for the head of Luo Haiyun.


    However, this brought little effect. Most experts had been exclusively working for those well-known families and schools, which were all in collaboration as well as competition, so no one would risk being vindictively attacked by Luo Haiyun, a lunatic that had nothing to lose, just for a wizard weapon. Meanwhile, as a result of his revenge against the Wang family, martial arts practitioners all got a better understanding of how terrifying an expert could be when he was cornered into a dead end.


    Revenge from an expert who cared about nothing was absolutely more powerful than a wizard weapon. Therefore, everyone was waiting to have a good laugh at the Wang family, to see them being forced into resorting to their long concealed strength.


    For every ordinary man in the martial arts world, recently, Jianghu was really noisy, but also fantastic to observe. This drama in Jianghu reached one climax after another, dizzying all the audiences and incurring lots of exclamations. Even Zhou Bao, a maker of a certain climax, had now been completely reduced to a minimal role as one of the many onlookers.


    "This time, the Wang family is in really big trouble, but you also have to be careful, because the main reason why they have suffered such a great loss is that you injured Wang Yuebai so badly. The Wang family will never let you off the hook!" In an ordinary restaurant, Junior Leopard and Wang She were sitting in the middle of the lobby, eating as well as chatting, without tending to any obscure looks cast by diners around them at all.


    "I''ve heard that the Pero Purple Striped Saber was lost?" asked Junior Leopard, who merely gave a gentle smile and took a sip of his wine at Wang She''s advice.


    His voice was not loud, but there were more than enough people with sharp senses in this restaurant straining their ears to hear snatches of their dialogue, for they were trying to figure out what kind of relationship it was between these two men, the young expert and the Chief of Tian Long Taoism.


    "Right, it''s lost. Hee-hee, the Wang family had lived a comfortable life for too long. Relying on their awe-inspiring reputation, they thought it would be compelling enough to send another expert of Level Seven there, but they never expected that there would be so many people refusing to acknowledge their superiority. It is actually several Elders from the Dark Sect Ninemoon Sea who took that Pero Purple Striped Saber away!"


    "Dark Sect Ninemoon Sea?!"


    Talking about the Dark Sect, Junior Leopard thought of Xue Wuya, an eccentric feeling involuntarily arose in his stomach.


    "Hum, interested in the Dark Sect?!" Wang She couldn''t help but tease him at his weird look. "For thousands of years, the Dark Sects have been weak in power, shunning from public sight and remaining mysterious. But they are actually great places, especially the Ninemoon Sea. Lots of beauties there. Do you want me to introduce one or two to you?"


    "Come off it. You''ll still enjoy yourself!" Junior Leopard snapped with a smile. "As long as that sissy doesn''t mind, it''s fine!"


    "Boy, don''t talk nonsense. I have no close relationship with her!" Wang She put on a rarely stupefied look and shot Junior Leopard a nasty glare.


    "Right, right, right, no close relationship. But I am going to have some relationship with her!" Still beaming, Junior Leopard changed the subject. "I''d better settle that matter I promised her last time as soon as possible. When will she arrive?"


    "In two days!" Wang She said, "Just about when you finish enjoying this World Hero Competition!"


    "Forget it, I''m not interested in all the fighting and killing stuff. Anyway, that Pure Yang Celestial Device will have no chance of ending up in my hands!"


    "You have no interest in fighting and killing?!" Wang She almost sprayed a gulp of wine on Junior Leopard. "If you''re not interested in fighting and killing, no one else in this world could claim to be interested in that stuff!"


    "I do mean it. I''m a pacifist. It''s only because the Wang family screwed with me first that I was forced to give them a bit of a lesson. If it was you, Chief Wang, who came to provoke me, I would certainly run for my life!" Junior Leopard laughed.


    "Stop joking around. You always call her a ''sissy''. Be careful in case you bump into her and get killed under her palm!"


    "Yeah, that''s true..."


    "..."


    "..."


    The two just continued chatting as if no one was around, and the topics they discussed seemed to be merely trivial issues. However, soon after their small talk, the content of their dialogue was converged into pieces of information and passed down via various channels to different people, ready to be dissected and consulted.


    ...


    "Seems that the rumor is true. This Zhou Bao is really not simple. The relationship between him and Wang She is surely not as simple as it looks!"


    Western Capital, the imperial palace.


    Looking at all the copies of information, Jin Emperor Yan Yuntian gently furrowed his brows. "Look, who could that sissy be that they referred to?"


    "That neither Wang She nor Zhou Bao dares to offend them easily, at the very least, they''re bound to be an expert!" Ming Yuesheng smiled, but this smile was mingled with a hint of concern. "Your Majesty, this Zhou Bao is apparently more surreptitious than we''d expected. The wizard weapon in his hand is something we''ve never heard of, which could occur in only two possible situations. One is that this weapon has never shown up since antiquity times and he was lucky enough to discover it. The other is that this weapon was made recently. If it is the second one, Your Majesty, this situation would be completely out of our control!"


    "Exactly. If it''s truly a recently-made weapon, then, there must be a powerful force behind Zhou Bao. Just because of this force, he has been able to operate in such a ferocious and domineering manner. It''s not his stupidity, but his sufficient confidence that makes him unafraid of this millennium family of Wang at all!"


    "Based on his usual style, it''s quite possible!" Ming Yuesheng signed softly. "A solid background is nothing intimidating. What shall be intimidating is whether or not all the troubles he has stirred up were done so out of his own will, or someone else''s command. This is the key issue here! Your Majesty, it seems that we must pay more attention to this Zhou Bao!"


    "Yeah, he is very young. Look, if I recruit him as the emperor''s son-in-law, do you reckon it''s proper or not?"


    "Downright improper!" Ming Yuesheng shook his head hastily. "This bloke is just a rough fellow. It will be unharmed if he accepts this. But what if he''s foolish and turns us down? It''s not going to look good. If not taken carefully, the dignity of our Royalty will be stained. Plus, he has just humiliated the Wang family, if Your Majesty recruits him as a son-in-law at once, wouldn''t it equate to slapping the Wang Family in the face?"


    "That''s right!" Yan Yuntian nodded, beaming. "Although the Wang family has embarrassed themselves so deeply, they are, after all, one of the millennium influences in our Great Jin, and looking good is very important for them!"


    "Your Majesty, do you still intend to let Princess Changhui marry Zhou Bao?"


    Yan Yuntian''s expression initially froze, before he forced a smile and said, "Yes. Yan-er is already at the age suitable for marriage. This kid has been unusually smart since little, as though she was born to be so intelligent. She is also haughty enough to make light of any ordinary man. There are few men in this world she will think much of, but this Zhou Bao may be the one who can bring her some surprise!"


    "Princess Changhui is indeed super talented, maybe too talented, unfortunately. Your Majesty, pardon me for speaking frankly, this may not be good for the Princess, nor for the Royalty!"


    "Yes, I see. Well, look at that junior Roral Uncle of mine. The look on his face every time he meets Yan-er worries me a lot!"


    With this topic being brought out, a trace of a bitter smile flashed across Ming Yuesheng''s face. He didn''t speak another word, as it was only sensible for him to stay out of the topic on roral secrets if he could.


    "Your Majesty, the result of the World Hero Competition is about to get underway. Do you reckon Xining King''s Eldest Son will be the winner?"


    "He will. Not for anything else, but for putting a smile on my daughter''s face!" Yan Yuntian said. "Ji Yeyue comes from Jade Pool. For her, attending this Competition is just an opportunity for experience, so she won''t truly battle to win. As to Li Xiu from Pingzhou, he has already had a glorious exposure. I''ve notified the Li family through Li Yuan that in the next round, his opponent will be Yan Wenguang from Shuo Province. Regarding the seniority, this Yan Wenguang is Li Xiu''s uncle, which means he will back off when facing this difficulty. Additionally, this Yan Wenguang is not a match for this junior Roral Uncle of mine."


    "Your Majesty has calculated everything. Seems that all of this is well-arranged. I''ve worried for nothing!"


    "Not exactly. This time, I seem to have miscalculated a bit. The strength of those well-known families is even above our estimation. Though we''ve used a Pure Yang Celestial Device as bait, we''ve still failed to measure their true strength!"


    "All is what it is meant to be. Precious as the Pure Yang Celestial Device is, it''s not bound to cause those Old Masters of a powerful family to fight hard for it. If we use a Taihao Fairy Weapon..."


    "Hang on, hang on. If we had a Taihao Fairy Weapon, you reckon I would still care about their strength?"


    "Right, right!" Ming Yuesheng nodded consecutively and continued, "What''s more, Your Majesty still got something in return this time!"


    "Yes. For a period, the empire will enjoy a stable and peaceful time after this event. By loosening the human trafficking ban, those aristocratic families will have to think twice before stirring up any more troubles!"


    "Wise as always, Your Majesty. For now, we need some stability to digest the fruits of the victory we''ve gained, particularly the three provinces in the north, and then proceed to the next step. In this way, our foundation will be thoroughly stabilized."


    "Yeah. To accomplish a lot, we''d better go ahead steadily and surely rather than going in a hurry!" Yan Yuntian exclaimed, nodding. "Though this Ma Tianchang is a bastard, he does act more steadily and prudently than I do!"


    "Your Majesty, Ma Tianchang has accepted his fief, but judging by the situation, he doesn''t want to move from there for the moment!"


    "Don''t bother, whatever this bastard wants to do, leave him alone. After all, we''ve let him owe us a huge favor this time. According to his temper, he won''t settle down until he returns us that favor!"


    "Yes!"


    "Finally! If you hadn''t come now, I would have left!"


    Looking at the ice-faced Prince Xiaoming, Junior Leopard felt an involuntary jolt and subconsciously straightened up his body.


    "You''re a world-famous celebrity now. Want to go? To where?" Prince Xiaoming gave a sneer and glanced at Wang She who was next to Junior Leopard, a trace of warmth fleeting across her ice-cold eyes. "Why did you come here, are you also interested in the Earth Fire Yuan Essence?"


    "Not necessarily. I''m here to prevent you two from getting into a fight and hurting your friendship for some slight disagreement!"


    "You''re afraid of us hurting the friendship between ourselves?" Prince Xiaoming scowled gently. "Why would such a thing concern you?"


    "Not for any reason in particular, but, just in case!" Wang She gave a subtle shrug. "Besides, I also want to take this chance to consolidate my phase. The Earth Fire Yuan Essence is a real treasure!"


    "In that case, let''s set off now. We''ve been delayed for a long time!" Prince Xiaoming''s look was restored back to its original coldness once again. "The underground fire vein in Zhonghe City has turned stagnant. I''ve been there to check. It''s because the Earth Fire Yuan Essence has been extracted too excessively!" Speaking of this, she shot a significant look at Junior Leopard. "This time, the geocentric fire vein I''m taking you to is one of our Sect of Flame''s, and I do not want the situation in Zhonghe City to happen again!"


    "You can''t ask the horse to run fast when you don''t feed it, can you?" Before these words faded away, roars of complaint were already piled up from Junior Leopard. "My fist intent can surely induce the Earth Fire Yuan Essence out, but I can''t control the quantity, so how can I promise you nothing would happen to the underground fire vein?"


    "Is it?!" Prince Xiaoming''s eyes flashed again. "You just need to withdraw your fist intent when the time comes!"


    "My punching skill is indeed great, but hasn''t reached the phase where I can roll it out and withdraw it at will!" Junior Leopard made no concession at all. "Besides, Earth Fire Yuan Essence is complementary to my fist intent. If I stop my fist intent at crucial moments, it may hurt me! If you want me to self-sacrifice and benefit others, that won''t happen!"


    "Do you mean you''re going to destroy the geocentric fire vein of our Sect of Flame too?"


    "Of course not. I''ll try to control it, but I can''t guarantee you anything. I''ve warned you in advance, in case this turns into a strenuous but thankless task later!"


    Sensing the mounting tenseness between those two, Wang She hurried to smooth things over.


    "We''re all in the same boat. No need to get upset about such trivial things. Junior Leopard, just be careful when you do it, don''t extract too hard. Concubine Ming, you shall also take a bit of care to caution him and that''s all!"


    "Fine!" At Wang She''s words, Prince Xiaoming nodded, and her expression also softened.


    "I know that these two must have some history! Otherwise, how could this Prince Xiaoming listen to his words!" Seeing Prince Xiaoming changing so fast, Junior Leopard jerked his lips a bit as an interest in gossip rose in his stomach. However, at the sight of the cold eyes of Prince Xiaoming, he hastily suppressed this fire of gossip.


    "Let''s go and get the job done first, I''ve got other things on my plates!"


    "Hey, tomorrow is the semi-final. Shall we stay here a bit longer and have a look?"


    "What''s interesting about that? Do you still want those things or not?"


    "Fine, fine, fine, let''s go!" Hearing this, Junior Leopard revealed a trace of a bitter smile on his face. This Prince Xiaoming looked fragile, but her disposition was uncommonly impatient. Moreover, she had things that he needed urgently, so he really didn''t want to upset her.


    "Er, well, when will you give me that thing?"


    "That thing is at the geocentric fire vein. I''ll give it to you when we arrive there!"


    "The Sect of Flame controls seven geocentric fire veins. Concubine Ming is not only one of the Great Venerables, but also an expert of Level Nine, so she is qualified to own one geocentric fire vein herself. This time, we''re going to take advantage of her. Thus, Junior Leopard, you should be careful and don''t ruin her geocentric fire vein!"


    "Seven geocentric fire veins? " Junior Leopard''s heart pounded at those words. He secretly exclaimed at the vast fortune the Sect of Flame possessed. "Remember, even the Wu Family, a smelting family with hundreds of years of history, had been longing for a geocentric fire vein, but could never get one. That this Sect of Flame should have seven, comparisons are odious!"


    "Who told you that I''m heading for my geocentric fire vein!" Prince Xiaoming suddenly chimed in and cast a baleful look at Junior Leopard. "This guy just said that he might destroy my fire vein, how on earth will I allow him to do so!"


    "Then, you mean..."


    "Raging Fire Ancestor''s geocentric fire vein is the nearest one to us, and I happen to know that this old bloke is out on business and won''t return for half a month or so. We''re going there, and then, you can do whatever you like with it!"

 Chapter 271: Entering the Fire Vein

    Chapter 271: Entering the Fire Vein


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Greensword Mountain, Sui Province.


    In the dynasty of Jin, Sui Province was bleak and remote. Vast as the territory was, the soil was pretty barren. Even when all went well, the harvest of one field was merely a third of that of other provinces. Furthermore, this ruddy place mainly consisted of hills and was thus, inconvenient for transportation. Nor was it on any vital communication lines, so few merchants would pass by. Gradually, this place became the poorest province among the entire Central Plains.


    Due to its poverty, this Sui Province had seldom attracted people''s attention and hadn''t cultivated a single decently well-known family for thousands of years. Even when it occasionally nurtured some brilliant talents, they always continued their life''s pursuits elsewhere and never came back to this ruddy place with no future for anyone.


    Of course, that did not mean Sui Province was totally deserted. Its population was not large, but it was sitting among the Central Plains, and small potatoes could always be found. Plus, with vast land and plenty of hills, it became a paradise for bandits to hide.


    The Greensword Mountain was not a huge one in Sui Province, and its look was nothing special either. However, it was common knowledge that there was a school called Redflame School in the Greensword Mountain. That school wasn''t large and never accepted disciples from outside, but it had many masters of martial arts. For normal schools, having one or two masters of Level Four or Five would already be impressive, whereas this Redflame School, apparently it had more than just one or two masters. After being established 60 years ago in the Greensword Mountain, it flattened all schools within hundreds of miles radius within one month. However, what powerful sects could this poor place possibly have?


    Seeing this Redflame School was so fierce and tough, everyone went soft and never dared to look for trouble with the Redflame School anymore. Instead, they suffered anxiety all day long, worrying that this Redflame School would one day beat a path to their door.


    Nevertheless, the Redflame School obviously didn''t aim to lord it over everyone and settled down after taking up the land within hundreds of miles, which also eased the surrounding schools as days quietly passed by. But now, after 60 years since its founding, the Redflame School had become the most famous but also the most low-key and mysterious school in Sui Province.


    "You''re saying this is the work of the Raging Fire Ancestor?" Standing on the woody peak of the Greensword Mountain and overlooking the entire area, Wang She asked in amazement.


    "The Raging Fire Ancestor discovered this geocentric fire vein here 60 years ago and then led his subordinates here and occupied the Greensword Mountain, establishing the Redflame School. Just because of the help from this geocentric fire vein, his cultivation kept progressing over the last 60 years, and until 10 years ago, he entered the phase of Level Nine."


    "What an astute old bloke! But, I guess many of your Sect of Flame are eyeing his geocentric fire vein!"


    "Seven geocentric fire veins are all controlled by someone, but we won''t easily refuse those who ask us a for a favor. After all, the geocentric fire vein is connected to the geocenter, capable of creating as many Level Nine experts as you want. Also, not everyone will be able to ruin the fire vein by excessively extracting from the inside like this boy does!"


    "I still can''t figure out whether you''re complimenting me or insulting me?" Junior Leopard forced a smile next to her.


    "Whatever you like!" Prince Xiaoming glanced at him. "The geocentric fire vein is right underneath here. As far as I know, the man who is responsible for guarding this geocentric fire vein is the chief disciple named Chilei. He just entered Level Seven five years ago and is also a Venerable of my sect!"


    "Shall we do him in?"


    "What on earth do you have in your head?!" Prince Xiaoming glared at Junior Leopard forcefully, and cursed under her breath.


    It truly gave Junior Leopard a sense of accomplishment to inquire from a Great Venerable of the Sect of Flame about whether he shall kill another Venerable or not.


    "Chilei is just in Level Seven. We just need to be careful and he won''t even detect us. Although there are some others in the geocentric fire vein, they are not at that great a depth. With our cultivation, we don''t need to deal with them at all. As long as we reach the depth of the fire vein, no one will find us. Even if we cause a huge sensation, they will only take it as an unusual movement at the depth of the earth vein. By no means will they suspect us, and even if they suspect that there is something wrong in the vein, they won''t have the ability to come down!"


    The entrance of this geocentric fire vein was not as easy to find as the one in Zhonghe City. Instead, it was concealed in a palisade surrounded by a vast expanse of buildings, hiding in the deepest part of the constructions.


    "Unexpectedly, this Redflame School took up such a large area. It''s even several times larger than the old mansion of the Wu Family!"


    "The Raging Fire Ancestor is one of the richest Venerables in the sect. He has controlled multiple commercial corps. Though Sui Province is pretty poor, it''s an easy job for him to build up a large manor!" Prince Xiaoming answered. Her figure then flashed into a wisp of wind and she slipped into the entrance.


    "Never did I think that Prince Xiaoming had great potential in being a thief!" Seeing the swift body movement of Prince Xiaoming, Junior Leopard gave a smile and operated the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill before slipping in.


    After entering, the two felt a hot burst of dry wind brushing over their faces.


    "What strong Fire Qi! Eh, has that guy already taken action?"


    Not far from the entrance of the cave, a man dressed in a red robe was sprawled out on the ground. If not for the slightest respiration, Junior Leopard would have taken him to be a corpse.


    "This is Chilei. Damn, unexpectedly, he would be stationed at the entrance today!" Prince Xiaoming looked a little upset.


    "This is Chilei, a Venerable of the Sect of Flame, the chief disciple of the Raging Fire Ancestor, an expert of Level Seven!"


    Junior Leopard''s heart made a tense throb. This expert of Level Seven was silently subdued by Prince Xiaoming in a blink. Junior Leopard believed that he himself wouldn''t be able to do such a neat job, unless striking furtively with his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill.


    But on a second thought, his astonishment wore off a lot. "After all, Prince Xiaoming is an expert of Level Nine, and she''s determined to let go of her face to sneak attack. If that wasn''t enough to defeat this Chilei , she wouldn''t be qualified as an expert of Level Nine."


    "What shall we do now?"


    "What else except get going! This guy won''t wake up in one hour. At that time, we''ll be down in the depth of the earth vein, so he won''t be able to touch us. But we have to act quickly. We must get the job done before Raging Fire Ancestor returns, otherwise..." At this point, Prince Xiaoming turned her gaze to Wang She. "Otherwise, we shall bother you to get closer to this old Ancestor!"


    "I knew the unlucky guy would always be me!" Wang She gave a wry smile. "Fine, if we really get so unlucky, I will handle this Raging Fire Ancestor and lure him elsewhere so that the two of you can get out!"


    The passageways in this earth vein were different from those in Zhonghe City. The passageways of the latter were comprised of countless sub-passageways, but as long as you walked along the main passageway, you would soon arrive at the rock flow underground. However, the geocentric fire vein in the Greensword Mountain was entirely different. Apart from a spacious area at the exit, all of the remaining passageways were of various sizes and were crisscrossing like a spider web.


    "The road distribution in this geocentric fire vein is quite complicated. If you get lost in those passageways, it''ll be very hard to find a way out. I heard that years ago, Raging Fire Ancestor had spent an enormous amount of effort to find this Underground Rock River. He guided me down here once, that''s why I know the way in and out!" Rounding corner after corner in the tricky passageways, Junior Leopard began feeling a bit disoriented. As Prince Xiaoming went on about this geocentric fire vein, his brain seemed to become more dazed.


    After turning countless corners and passing through myriads of passageways, the temperature around became higher and higher, red airflow rose everywhere. Soon, the temperature almost reached a hundred degrees, which forced Wang She and Prince Xiaoming to open their Gang Qi to defend the heat. Having no intent to flaunt his endurance, Junior Leopard also shot out his Poison Cold Shield, which generated a whiff of light Green Mist around him, drifting and whirling, bringing him cool wind and expelling all the heat away from him.


    "What a nice celestial device! Where did you get it?"


    Since Wang She and Prince Xiaoming were both experts of Level Nine who were precious to find even across the world, their insights were surely extraordinary. Both of them had perceived that what Junior Leopard had was an extremely uncommon defending celestial device. From the coldness exuding from deep inside, they knew it possessed not only great defensive power, but also a terrifying attacking force.


    "I found it by luck. It''s operating great actually!" Junior Leopard smiled.


    Prince Xiaoming and Wang She both cracked a smile almost simultaneously. They both took a dismissive attitude towards the term "luck".


    However, since Junior Leopard had used luck to fob them off, he apparently didn''t want to detail this fortuitous encounter, and they didn''t have to get to the root of the matter merely for a celestial device. It was an unspoken survival rule in Jianghu that you shall never insist on getting to the bottom of another''s business, which was naturally known by heart for these two veterans in Jianghu.


    In these two, Wang She had been closer to Junior Leopard and known more about him, especially his critical secrets. Normally, Junior Leopard would have nothing to hide from Wang She. But since Wang She acquired the general principles of Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique from Junior Leopard, some subtle changes occurred in their relationship. With his acute senses, Wang She felt that Junior Leopard was already out of the range of his control, heading in a more unpredictable direction. If it had been other people, they might feel a little mutinous about those changes, but Wang She didn''t mind this, after all, in this world, only a few people or matters were worthy of his concern. So long as his plan was intact, Wang She would never bother to care whether Junior Leopard had Fiery Eyes, or would become an enemy of the whole world later!


    They strolled among those exceedingly intricate passageways for more than four hours as the surrounding temperature got higher and higher. Just when Junior Leopard felt a bit impatient, Prince Xiaoming came to a halt.


    "Well, just round two more corners and we shall be at our destination. There is a smelting chamber built by Raging Fire Ancestor, however, it''s just for his use and seldom accommodates others. Our destination isn''t the Underground Rock River, but somewhere deeper. Therefore, after we''ve crossed the Underground Rock River, everyone should mark his path in case we bump into some troubles when getting out!"


    Junior Leopard and Wang She nodded at the same time. This was no laughing matter. If they got lost in the geocentric fire vein, they would face enormous danger even with their remarkable cultivation.


    In general, the geocentric fire vein of Raging Fire Ancestor was much deeper than the one in Zhonghe City, and also more dangerous. Hot as the fire vein in Zhonghe City was, its temperature was not as high as this one. Ordinary experts of Level Four or Five could also go down to the smelting chamber in the underground rock flows and that was exactly why those smelting families were craving for the geocentric fire vein in Zhonghe City. As for the present one, if you didn''t have the cultivation of Level Seven or above, nor had any Gang Qi as a shielding device, you would have no chance to reach the geocentric rock flows, let alone smelting. Only those experts who had cultivated an Internal Qi of fire, like Junior Leopard, were tempted by this kind of geocentric fire vein, for in this environment, cultivation would progress with half the effort and fewer disturbances. Thus, when spotting this geocentric fire vein years ago, the Raging Fire Ancestor set up the Redflame School so anxiously and appropriated the entire area to himself.


    After rounding a huge curve, the three finally caught sight of the smelting chamber constructed by the Raging Fire Ancestor. Without a second thought, they went straight across the Geocentric Rock Flows and picked the widest passageway near them to head onwards.


    "It''s here. It''s pretty secluded, but still leads to the rock flows!"


    They walked on for nearly two more hours and finally found a spacious place where wide rock flows were running down. Compared with the chosen location of the Raging Fire Ancestor, the rock flow here was more turbulent, and rocks were rushing from high to low while splattering fits of gold rock flowages. Some of the rock flowages fell back into the flow and integrated with it again, but some others dropped onto the nearby ground, causing the spot they touched to melt, and then gradually solidifying to black stones which were firm but burning hot.


    "I think even Raging Fire Ancestor won''t take interest in this damn place!" Looking around, Wang She chortled with delight and said to Junior Leopard, "Junior Leopard, quickly, start your fist intent! From my view, the Earth Fire Yuan Essence under the rock flows must be plenty. You can go all out now."


    "Ho-ho, if the Raging Fire Ancestor ever heard your words, he would certainly strangle you fatally!" Junior Leopard''s laughter burst out.


    "Stop joking around, get started now!" Prince Xiaoming said coldly. "Here, you don''t need to restrain your power!"


    "Got it!" Junior Leopard nodded and gave a smile. He lifted his hands gently, and the Green Mist that had been enveloping him disappeared instantaneously.


    "Hiss!" Although Junior Leopard had prepared for this, he was still stupefied by the overwhelming hot flow blowing directly toward his face. But soon after that, his Internal Qi circled a complete round in his body, and he strode out with one step.


    "What a fascinating boy!" Watching Junior Leopard stalking toward the rock flows, a bright light flickered in Wang She''s eyes. He could not hide his surprised look.


    "Well, did you just find that you''ve lost control over this boy?" With the reaction of Wang She, a hint of a smile flitted across Prince Xiaoming''s eyes.


    "Control? Why should I control him?" Wang She said while shaking his head. "It''s fine that others don''t know about me, but how don''t you either? I''m not interested in controlling other people, at least not as interested as you!"


    "You mean I want to control you?"


    "Not that. Even if you want to, you can''t! What I intend to say is that controlling others is not so interesting. If you continue to think about it and spend too much effort on it, in the end, your own cultivation will be delayed!"


    "Are you teaching me?"


    "Not at all, just a little small talk with you!" Speaking of this, Wang She grinned. "Well, we''d better cut it out. Otherwise, we may get into a fight once again. Look at that bloke, he''s already got started!"


    Prince Xiaoming again fell silent and looked up. Seeing that Junior Leopard had already been in the rock flows, Prince Xiaoming had an appalled expression flashing through her eyes. This time, he didn''t practice his punching skill as what he did last time, but sat cross-legged in mid-air above the rock flows with a black sun blazing behind him. In comparison with the fist intent they saw the first time, the present black sun was much more compact and real, it also had more Qi Power.


    Surging rock flows started bubbling. At first, the Earth Fire Yuan Essence was oozing out wisp by wisp from the rock flows. But then, as if driven by a strong power, the entire geocentric rock flows formed into spring-like streams at the bottom, emitting a rather intense Earth Fire Yuan Essence.


    "Damn this guy! Thankfully I didn''t take him to my geocentric fire vein, or else that fire vein would be ruined!" At the sight of this, the corner of Prince Xiaoming''s mouth twitched unbiddenly. Then, without another word, she began initiating her Internal Qi to absorb the Earth Fire Yuan Essence which suffused throughout the air.


    "The Earth Fire Yuan Essence! Ha-ha, so much Earth Fire Yuan Essence! Boy, be quick, get your Underground Fire Golden Essence out to absorb the Earth Fire Yuan Essence!" Seeing the environment permeated with the Earth Fire Yuan Essence, Green Spirit shouted emotionally.


    "No, in a moment. I need to find a proper place!" Said Junior Leopard. He stretched out his hands, and the Black Sun Fist Intent behind him gave a fierce shudder, the geocentric rock flows underneath also shook with the abnormal vibration of the Black Sun Fist Intent. Then, the geocentric rock flows were separated to two parts by an invisible power, dense streams of golden liquid were exuded and they vaporized into thick Earth Fire Yuan Essence.


    "Is the Earth Fire Yuan Essence enough for you two?" Junior Leopard called out loudly.


    "Enough, it''s enough! You are really relentless. Are you going to completely exhaust his fire vein?"


    "That''s also an option. But I don''t have time for that. If you two consider this enough, excuse me and I won''t bother you further!" Junior Leopard then got to his feet and strode out of the sphere of rock flows with one step.


    "What are you going to do?"


    "This place is not very large, and it''s a bit crowded with you two practicing here. If adding another one, it''ll be inconvenient. I''d better go and find another place!" Junior Leopard smiled. Then, his figure flashed by and disappeared out of their sight.


    "What''s this boy up to?"


    "No idea. Don''t mind his business, let''s focus on our practice. With his cultivation, he wouldn''t end up dying in here. Would he?" Wang She said with a smile.


    "That''s not a funny joke at all!" Prince Xiaoming''s eyes flickered and then closed shut. "Just let him be!"


    Junior Leopard got out of the Geocentric Rock Flows and wandered around for a while. Finally he found a relatively great place with rock flows where the space was not large but enough to accommodate he himself.


    After steadying his body, Junior Leopard swung his arm, and the hot airflow around him circulated more fiercely. In the end, a layer of red mist rose above him, enveloping the geocentric rock flows around there.


    It was the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!


    He was going to refine Pure Yang Celestial Devices there without anyone noticing. Wang She and Prince Xiaoming were no exception.

 Chapter 272: Golden Flame Mirror and Sun Colored Glaze Flame

    Chapter 272: Golden Flame Mirror and Sun Colored Glaze Flame


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Standing beside the rock flows, Junior Leopard drew out the Underground Fire Golden Essence and placed it next to him. Then he asked, "What''s next?"


    "Get more Earth Fire Yuan Essence and put it into the Underground Fire Golden Essence!" Green Spirit said. "Remember the talisman formation that I''ve taught you? Just use that formation to lead the Earth Fire Yuan Essence into it!"


    "Got it!" Not daring to neglect anything, Junior Leopard raised one hand, and the Black Sun Fist Intent appeared once more, drawing out all the Earth Fire Yuan Essence at the bottom of the earth-fire rock flows. Meanwhile, he stuck out the index finger of his other hand and sketched the outline of an abstruse talisman in the air. Though the talisman was drawn out of thin air, the peculiar phenomenon was that it did not disappear, but floated in the air. All the Earth Fire Yuan Essence began pouring into the Underground Fire Golden Essence along the talisman formation that Junior Leopard had drawn up, as if guided by some invisible force.


    Two hours later, all of the Earth Fire Yuan Essence induced out by Junior Leopard''s fist intent had been sucked into the Underground Fire Golden Essence. Green Spirit squeaked hastily, "Hurry, use your Tusita Fire, use the power of the Purple Bright Heavenly Fire to dissolve this Underground Fire Golden Essence, and let it merge with the Earth Fire Yuan Essence, and then inscribe that talisman formation on it!"


    Hearing this, Junior Leopard''s fingertips flared with Tusita Fire zooming out of them. Later, the Tusita Fire generated a wisp of purple glow, which shrouded the entire Underground Fire Golden Essence.


    "You should carefully observe the process of melting and refining. You''ll benefit from it!" As Green Spirit''s voice gently floated into his ears, Junior Leopard settled his mind and began to focus his attention with all his might.


    Having no idea how much time went by, Junior Leopard, who had been sitting cross-legged with his eyes shut, finally twitched his eyelids and slowly opened his eyes.


    "What an impressive flame! After this, the Earth Fire Yuan Essence and the Underground Fire Golden Essence can finally merge into one!"


    A ball of golden liquid was floating in front of him, which was exactly the form of the merged Earth Fire Yuan Essence and Underground Fire Golden Essence.


    "Draw the talisman formation on it, and add a drop of blood, too!" said Green Spirit.


    As Green Spirit had instructed, Junior Leopard drew the talisman formation and flicked a drop of blood onto the ball of golden liquid. With a flash of golden light, the blood and the talisman formation dissolved into the ball of liquid, as if being sucked inward.


    "Now do as I say, step by step, and don''t make even one mistake, or this celestial device will be wasted!"


    Junior Leopard did not utter a single word, but his hand never stopped moving. Gradually, that ball of liquid started to take shape under the manipulation of Junior Leopard. Hours later, Junior Leopard''s face was beaded with hot sweat, and his clothes were already soaked in sweat. However, his eyes were still avidly staring at the celestial device that had just formed, not daring to relax a bit.


    "OK, it''s time for molding. Listen, this Pure Yang Celestial Device is called Golden Flame Mirror, developed by Haikong Master, a famous necromancer in antiquity times. Its materials are simple, but its power is formidable. Even for Pure Yang Celestial Devices, this one can be counted as an Upper Grade. There, it''s almost done. Don''t rush it. The input of Internal Qi should be done slower!


    "Right, along with the direction of the talisman formation, patiently purify it. Right, that''s it!


    "Don''t rush, never ever rush it. Just a moment. Haste makes waste, you know?!


    "Nice, very nice, well done! And now, just the last step. Junior Leopard, pour your Internal Qi into it, as much as you have!" Green Spirit kept nagging in Junior Leopard''s ears, afraid he would lose grip for even a second.


    "Rubbish. If it doesn''t absorb the Demonic Fire, how can this Pure Yang Celestial Device fully take shape!" Green Spirit said. "Don''t think that it''s just some other celestial device! This is a Pure Yang Celestial Device. No matter if it is the Earth Fire Yuan Essence or the Underground Fire Golden Essence, neither of them have intelligence. Only the Demonic Fire in your Dantian has powerful intelligence, and that''s why it can intellectualize your Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Intellectualize?!"


    "It''s a technique for refining Pure Yang Celestial Devices used by necromancers. Your talisman formation drawing is already done, so the matter of intellectualizing is not your business now, given that the talisman formation will do the work automatically. Once the intellectualizing is finished, this Golden Flame Mirror will be almost completed. The remaining work can be done after you get out of here. You need to let it absorb enough Sun Colored Glaze Flame and it will be fully molded!"


    "Sun Colored Glaze Flame?!" Hearing this, Junior Leopard''s eyes widened. "How can I possibly have the skill to let it absorb the Sun Colored Glaze Flame?!"


    "Nothing is impossible. When you leave, just put it out to bask in the sunshine!" Green Spirit said briskly.


    "Bask in the sunshine!" Junior Leopard almost jumped up with irritation. "How can it be basked? Everyone is saying that sunlight contains the Sun Colored Glaze Flame, but no one has ever been able to separate the Flame from it. Even many brilliant Level Nine experts have attempted to do this, but the accidentally separated Sun Ignis, the Pure Yang kindling of sun fire ash, burnt all of them to death!" Saying this, he suddenly became dazed.


    Pure Yang kindling, Pure Yang celestial device, in which¡ª


    "A Pure Yang Celestial Device needs Pure Yang kindling for refining, which is also the last procedure in building a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Only after undergoing the refining of Pure Yang kindling can it possess a bit of Pure Yang pneuma and be qualified as a Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Green Spirit said. "You''re right. The Sun Colored Glaze Flame is the hardest one to separate out of all the Pure Yang kindlings. But you have no need to worry, because I''m not asking you to separate the Sun Colored Glaze Flame. Now that the Golden Flame Mirror is turned into an embryo of a Pure Yang Celestial Device with the talisman formation developed by Haikong Master, it can separate the Sun Colored Glaze Flame from sunlight by itself. Thus, the only thing you need to do is to let it bask in the sunshine!"


    "Truly that simple?" Junior Leopard said incredulously. As he had said, since ancient times, the sun hanging above everyone had been providing the world with the greatest energy and nutrients, nourishing all forms of life, which could only exist with the presence of the sun. Meanwhile, sunlight also contained the abundant Spiritual Energy of Fire in this world, which was the greatest fortune for practitioners.


    On the other hand, since the Spiritual Energy of Fire in sunlight was too strong, ordinary practitioners could merely manage to absorb some superficial and less violent Spiritual Energy of Fire. However, those experts who had achieved certain milestones in practice could separate some rather pure Spiritual Energy of Fire from the sunshine with great effort, but due to the lethality of the separated Spiritual Energy of Fire, even if their cultivation reached the Expert Realm, they might not be able to bear it. Therefore, regardless of what rank one was at, practicing with sunlight was truly a double-edged sword for practitioners¡ªrisks and opportunities coexisted. Still, for so many years, numerous experts had warned everyone with the price of their lives that, in general, such practice embodied many more risks than opportunities.


    Hence, for almost 10,000 years, few had attempted to target the sun hanging overhead, except for those evil beasts that needed to absorb the Sun and Moon Essence for their evolution. But now, Green Spirit was telling him why the refined embryo of this celestial device should be able to separate the Sun Essence by itself and convert the Sun Colored Glaze Flame of pure Yang nature. So, how could he not be amazed?


    "Don''t act so surprised. Embryos of Pure Yang Celestial Devices all have this feature, which of course, solely exists in those embryos because Pure Yang Celestial Devices rely on Pure Yang kindling to complete the last step. But after the weapon fully takes shape, it''ll no longer possess such a feature!" As though seeing right into the mind of Junior Leopard, Green Spirit easily smashed his delusion. "Well, at this step, both the quality and quantity of the absorption of Pure Yang kindling will determine the power of the Pure Yang Celestial Device. The Sun Colored Glaze Flame is an Upper Grade among all of the Pure Yang kindlings, so a Pure Yang Celestial Device that is refined with it will also be Upper Grade. If the Golden Flame Mirror had absorbed some ordinary Pure Yang kindlings like the Sun Fire in the first place, it would also be able to form a Low-Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device. However, since it has been refined with the Demonic Fire of Primitive Dragon Chimera that has special traction to the Sun Colored Glaze Flame, boy, you can end up with an Upper-Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device. You are really in luck!"


    "I hope so!"


    Junior Leopard said with a beaming smile, "Well, Green Spirit, how long have I been here?"


    "Over 10 days. And all that time you''ve been focusing on this Pure Yang Celestial Device, so no wonder you''ve lost track of time!"


    "But I''m starving now!" said Junior Leopard. "Let''s go out to check on the other two. It''s been more than 10 days, and they should have practiced just about enough!"


    Junior Leopard put away that embryo of the Golden Flame Mirror and regulated his breathing for a while, and then walked back along the way in to find Wang She and Prince Xiaoming next to that place with surging rock flows. They were sitting cross-legged facing each other with their palms pressed against the other''s as two gold airflow swirled between them. These air currents sometimes slipped into one''s nostril, and then came out from the other''s. With every round of circulating air, they absorbed the Earth Fire Yuan Essence from the surrounding air into themselves. The gold was getting increasingly dense, while the Earth Fire Yuan Essence was turning paler and paler as the absorption continued.


    "Fu*k! Still claiming they don''t have a history! But look, they''re already pair-practicing! Well, should I seek an opportunity to send them a fat red envelope?!" Watching the figures of these two, an odd smile cracked at the corner of Junior Leopard''s mouth. "If I had a camera here, I would certainly snap a shot of them right now and put it up on the internet to spark another huge scandal!"


    As his mind was wandering, the soft sound of a breeze was captured by his ears, which came from afar at first, but in the blink of an eye, it sounded very close to them.


    "Damn, is today really not my day? Could it be the return of Raging Fire Ancestor?"


    This was the territory of Raging Fire Ancestor, and the underground temperature here was so high that, except for the experts above Level Seven, no one could come down to such a depth. Accordingly, this newcomer had to be someone from the side of Raging Fire Ancestor, and it was likely he himself.


    Although Prince Xiaoming told them that Raging Fire Ancestor was out on business and would not come back so soon, they had still disturbed Raging Fire Ancestor''s disciple, Chilei, on their way in and had even knocked him out without adopting further cover-up measures. It was not impossible that this Chilei had woken up later and notified Raging Fire Ancestor to come back quickly!


    "Fuck, how can they qualify as famous experts at Level Nine? They just take care of the beginning but don''t tend to the end!" Junior Leopard cursed to himself. With a flash of body movement, he began fluttering toward the source of the sound while lamenting his bad luck inwardly. "There are so many passageways in this ruddy place that even Raging Fire Ancestor himself may not know every one of them, nor can he expect that we''re practicing right here. Let me see if I can find an opportunity to lure them away!"


    "Teacher, are they really in the vicinity? That day, they swooped in on me and knocked me out, so I didn''t clearly see who they were!" Three men were rapidly flying ahead in the passageway and each one of them was shrouded by a layer of red Gang Qi. Among them, the leader looked like a vigorous old man about 60 years old, wearing a robe embroidered with a Raging Fire pattern, whose beard and hair were all pricking up like steel needles and shimmering with a red glow. Beside him were two stocky men¡ªone of whom was Chilei, who had slumped into a coma under the acupoint attack by Prince Xiaoming as they entered the geocentric fire vein; and the other was about 30 years old, a little shorter in height, but his pair of small eyes were flashing very ferociously.


    "That old bloke has to be the Raging Fire Ancestor or something. One of them is Chilei, and the other one should be his other disciple, Chichuan. Raging Fire Ancestor only has two disciples that have entered the Expert Realm, and this time he brought both of them here. It looks like he''s truly burning to avenge this defeat for his disciple!" Junior Leopard said inwardly. Then, he initiated the Snake-like Breath Holding Technique and hid in the darkness of a passageway. Sure enough, this Snake-like Breath Holding Technique was so fantastic that, even with his cultivation at Level Nine, Raging Fire Ancestor did not notice anything abnormal as he passed nearby. When those three had hurtled ahead over 100 feet and rounded into another passageway, Junior Leopard surfaced from the dark, slightly stomped on the ground, and smashed a stone. Then, he broke into a run toward the opposite direction, but this time he did not cover up his breath, instead, he even vented some out while galloping into the distance.


    If he fails to sense this disruption, this expert at Level Nine had better end his life by knocking his head against a chunk of tofu.


    Surely, only a few seconds after he departed, the three men who had just disappeared returned once more.


    "Teacher, is it this way?"


    "Right, he''s heading for the way we came in!" A speck of red light glittered in Raging Fire Ancestor''s eyes, and a swift and fierce sneer fleeted across the corner of his mouth. "I''ve got your tail already, but you still hope to run away?!"


    Junior Leopard was rushing through the passageways at random. Just when he felt that it was about time, suddenly, a powerful waft of strong fire strength was charging at him from behind.


    "What!" He became startled, was flung forward, and cast out his Poison Cold Shield almost at the same time.


    "Boom¡ª!" With a slight crash, Junior Leopard just felt a sensation of a hard push on his back, and even though the Poison Cold Shield had strong defending power, that blow still penetrated it for just a second. In the next moment, the Poison Cold Shield recovered itself, but that exceedingly fierce fire strength still pierced into his body.


    "Poof!" Blood spat out of his mouth, and the violent fire strength was running through his body as if countless steel needles had plunged into his tendons and meridians. But just when his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was about to be initiated by this blow, a blast of Essence Qi in his Dantian started operating first, which instantly flowed across his body and fully digested that sweeping fire strength.


    Golden Flame Mirror!


    Though the last step of refining was still pending, this Golden Flame Mirror was already working.

 Chapter 273: The Strongest Vassal State in the Northwest

    Chapter 273: The Strongest Vassal State in the Northwest


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Eastern Palace, the Royal Capital, West Capital City¡ª


    Autumn had gone and winter was coming. Although West Capital City was located in the Central Plains, this year''s first snow came so early that it was out of everyone''s expectation.


    The snow had fallen the night before, but it was not heavy. It lay thinly on the ground, the roof, and the trees. And when the cold wind blew, wisps of fine snow drifted in the air with some falling on people''s skin, making them feel cool and comfortable.


    Of course, those who felt comfortable were the ones who had no worries about food and clothing, and those who failed to have enough food and clothing hoped that it would never snow.


    With a vast area and an important role in the Royal Capital, the Eastern Palace boasted various architecture and gardens. Standing at a high elevation from a distance and looking at the East Palace, one could vaguely see the corner eaves, pavilions, ponds, and rock gardens inside, but it could only be seen from long-distance.


    "Your Highness, you sent for me today. What can I do for you?" Yan-er, a beautiful girl in a pink dress, stood in front of the Southmoon Hall in the Eastern Palace and looked at the thin snow. The young man beside the wintersweet tree had shining and watery eyes.


    "Yan-er, I''ve heard that His Majesty once spoke of Yunzhou Zhou Bao with you." When the young man turned back, there was a very gentle smile on his handsome face. His face had quite a resemblance to that of the Jin Emperor Yan Yuntian, but the lines on his face were softer than Yan Yantian''s, which might have been inherited from his mother, the empress of the Great Jin. This man was Crown Prince Yan Jinting, the legitimate son of the Great Jin Emperor Yan Yuntian.


    Yan Yuntian was a mighty man who wholeheartedly dreamed of being an eternal emperor. Now he had achieved half of it. In terms of trouble-making and country governance, he had proved himself better than the former emperors, but that was nothing compared to his fertility, which had surpassed that of all the previous emperors. He began having children at a rate of more than one per year before he had ascended the throne. So, over the past decades since his enthronement, the number of his sons and grandsons had grown large enough to form a battalion.


    Most importantly, among those who had grown into adulthood, most of them had amounted to something.


    In another family, it was definitely something worth celebrating to have a son grow into a useful person, but that was not the case in this family. And it would be quite a disaster if there was more than one talented son!


    These disasters were originally only potential dangers, but now, everyone in the Great Jin could see it. The emperor was in the prime of his life and health. It was said that he had good cultivation and would live at least another 80 to 100 years. Coveting the throne, no adult princes had the patience to wait for another 80 to 100 years. Furthermore, the emperor was in good health and had children, one after another. After 80 to 100 years, who knew how many people would fight for the throne?


    There had been an excellent opportunity when Northern Yuan was laid down. Such a large area of land had become without landowners. If the emperor had enfeoffed the land to his own children instead of to the outsiders, maybe the hidden trouble in the future would not be so great. But, as nobody knew what was wrong with the emperor, instead of enfeoffing the vast area of land to his children, he enfeoffed it to the outsiders. It was definitely not the right choice. However, at that time, Yan Yuntian had unquestionable prestige and grip over the country.


    The only person who was not affected by this move was Crown Prince Yan Jinting, the legitimate son of the emperor and the empress. As soon as he was born, he was destined to become the most distinguished person in the Great Jin. Even if Yan Yuntian enfeoffed his sons, it was impossible for him to be enfeoffed since there was no precedent in history to enfeoff a crown prince unless he was deposed.


    Given the emperor''s physical condition and the endless stream of newly born junior brothers, Yan Jinting forced a smile and shook his head. What difference could it make even if the emperor enfeoffed his brothers now? After a decade or two, there would be a new batch of junior brothers, and then the trouble would be as incessant as now.


    Besides, he had figured all of that out a few years ago and, so to speak, his mind became settled like still water.


    In another 80 to 100 years, his great-grandchildren might have had children. He would be so old that he had no gender. Who would care about the throne?


    But, what about now?


    He was still incompetent. To put it plainly, he was destined to be a crown prince and, even more likely, a deposed crown prince.


    It was precise because he had realized all of this that Crown Prince Yan Jinting lived a very prudent life. He was very gentle in dealing with others. He never offended others, nor did he take advantage of his title to go too far. General speaking, everyone in the Great Jin knew him as honest and tolerant.


    His honesty and tolerance were not a disguise to win support, but were genuine. Such a man was not cut out to be an emperor.


    And since no one was a fool, few people really regarded him as the future emperor.


    Although no one really thought of him as the future emperor, as the crown prince, his power was still great. Compared to his brothers and the ministers, he had shockingly strong and special power. When Yan Yuntian was not in West Capital, he had acted as regent several times. Although he was not regarded as brilliant, he was steady in his work and no one could find his faults.


    Therefore, no one in this world dared to underestimate His Royal Highness.


    "Yes, Your Highness, His Majesty did mention Zhou Bao to me," Yan-er said with a smile. "So, are you also interested in that guy?"


    "I''ve heard of Zhou Bao. Although he is a martial arts genius, he is reckless and arbitrary. I am afraid he is not a good match for you," Yan Jinting said gently with a tone of deep concern. As for what was hidden behind that concern, only God knew!


    "Thanks for your concern, Your Highness. That''s also what I think, so..."


    "But, you did not refuse His Majesty''s proposal!"


    "I dare not refuse it. You know the temper of His Majesty. No one is allowed to disobey him. If I had refused directly, perhaps I would have been married now!"


    "Well, that''s right!" Hearing her words, Yan Jinting smiled. "Do you want me to help you deal with this Zhou Bao?"


    "Your Highness, you seem to be too concerned about Zhou Bao."


    "I have no choice. You must have heard what he has done recently. Even Wang Yuebai has been seriously injured by him. Now the whole Wang family is in such a panic. He was too bold. If he was put in the northwest, it would be disastrous in just a few decades!" Yan Jinting spoke clearly, one word at a time.


    "Really? It''s definitely not easy to develop in the remote and cold northwest, and no matter how powerful he is, he is only an expert!" Yan-er expressed doubts. Though an expert was strong, he was only strong by himself. In a school or a well-known family, the biggest function of an expert was to act as a hatchet man. No matter if he was of an ordinary or deterrent level, he was nothing but a hatchet man. And the masters of every school were rarely the strongest because running a well-known family required not only power, but also lots of energy. It was well-known that an expert would focus his attention on practice rather than wasting too much time on management.


    "The whole north is in a vacuum of strength. At such times, brute force is the best choice. Besides, Zhou Bao is not alone. He has the Anyuan Store as well as the background of the Wu Family and Tian Long Taoism. His relationship with Wang She of Tian Long Taoism is unclear. If Tian Long Taoism wants to support a force in the north, Zhou Bao is the best choice. And once he obtains the full support of Tian Long Taoism, I believe that no one can beat him down in the northwest!"


    "It''s not that serious, is it? Besides, in this enfeoffment of the northern regions, lots of people have the influence of Tian Long Taoism and there are a few well-known families who have trades with Tian Long Taoism. Anyway, Zhou Bao shall not have the chance."


    "Life has many possibilities. From the result of Zhou Bao''s challenge to Wang Yuebai this time, we can draw two conclusions: Firstly, Zhou Bao''s combat capability is close to Level Nine; secondly, he has a close relationship with Wang She. Even if Tian Long Taoism doesn''t give him full support, he can develop very well with Wang She''s support. You know, there is really no decent influence around him. His fief is the largest within a radius of 1500 kilometers, and his power is the strongest. The only thing that could pose a slight threat to him is the collateral sons of the Wang family. But now, he is so obviously targeting the Wang clan that even Wang Yuebai has almost been killed by him. As long as the sons of the Wang family are not idiots, they won''t bother him. Just tell me, who else can defeat him in the northwest!?" Yan Jinting sighed, saying, "Once he has the control of the 1500 kilometers of land in the northwest, his territory will be no less than that of the most well-known families. In 30 years, at most, he will get the full control of the northwest region of the Yalong River, which is equivalent to 75 percent of the area of the Great Jin. When that day comes, he will be the strongest vassal in the northwest. Maybe he will not pose a threat to the Great Jin in 100 years, but how about 100 years after that?!"


    "The reason for His Majesty''s enfeoffment is to put the north into a chaotic state of war. If Zhou Bao really has the ability to do so, it''ll fit in exactly with His Majesty''s wishes. What will that matter even if he does become the strongest vassal state in the northwest? The Yalong River is more than 10,000 miles away from the Central Plains and there is a vast prairie lying in the middle. He won''t be a threat to the Central Plains!" Yan-er laughed. "What''s more, even if he does become the strongest vassal state in the northwest, it won''t be for another 100 years. Who can tell what will happen then? Your Highness, isn''t that right?"


    "Yes, you''re right. No one knows what will happen in 100 years!" Yan Jinting gave a wry smile and shook his head. "But, I do not know why that, every time I hear of Zhou Bao, I always have a bad feeling!"

 Chapter 274: Being Suppressed

    Chapter 274: Being Suppressed


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "The fire strength is so powerful! It is f*cking strong! No wonder he is a Level Nine expert," Junior Leopard said and coughed gently. If he had just refined without the Golden Flame Mirror, he would have suffered a heavy blow. He was fine at present as the deadly fire strength had been absorbed by the Golden Flame Mirror. However, he was somewhat worn out.


    At this time, he was merely facing a Level Nine expert along with two Level Seven experts. Of course, neither Chilei nor Chichuan had the guts to do anything when Raging Fire Ancestor was fighting, but them eyeing-up Junior Leopard was also an enormous pressure on him.


    Having suffered a blow from Raging Fire Ancestor, Junior Leopard did not dare to continue fighting. Fortunately, the passageway in the earth vein was so complicated and changing so quickly that he only had to turn around and dive into a small passageway nearby. After turning left and right several times, he was about to elude Raging Fire Ancestor.


    But it was easier said than done!


    As a Level Nine expert, Raging Fire Ancestor''s spiritual mind was not weaker than Zhou Bao''s. Previously, it was because Zhou Bao had hidden in advance by using the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill that he had fooled Raging Fire Ancestor. Now being closely followed, he failed to escape from the fierce eyes of Raging Fire Ancestor even though he again used the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill.


    "You bastard! You''re my target now. Want to run away from me? No way!" Raging Fire Ancestor sneered behind Zhou Bao. Suddenly, he sped up and came close to Junior Leopard after a few ups and downs.


    "Damn it!" Junior Leopard cursed in his mind. Having no time to consider anything, he rolled into a small passageway ahead.


    "It''s no use hiding in a dog hole!" When seeing Junior Leopard whisk into the small passageway, Raging Fire Ancestor seemed to read his mind. With the gentle wave of the sleeves of his robe, the entrance of the passageway was fused by the fire strength. The originally small passageway suddenly became huge.


    "Shame, a f*cking shame!" Junior Leopard cursed. With a roll like a lazy donkey and a slight movement of his hands, he swung the Golden-Scaled Cudgel and a golden light flashed out.


    "Your Divine Weapon is also a cudgel! Are you Zhou Bao from Yunzhou?"


    At the sight of the Divine Weapon in Junior Leopard''s hands, Chilei, who was nearby, uttered a cry of surprise. Junior Leopard had a great reputation and he had done something notoriously bad. Although Chilei did not care about the affairs of Jianghu, he had a rough idea about it because it was so sensational. Therefore, he recognized Junior Leopard at a glance.


    "You''re so unreasonable, old man. I''ve only practiced here for some time and have no intention of being your enemy. Why are you so aggressive?" Junior Leopard knew that it was not easy for him to run away, so he was on the alert with his Golden-Scaled Cudgel crossed in front of him.


    "Humph! You didn''t intend to be my enemy? The geocentric fire vein of Greensword Mountain is my territory. You hurt my disciple and sneaked into the geocentric fire vein, and you say that you have no intention of offending me?!"


    Having noticed that Chilei had recognized Junior Leopard and gotten a clear picture of his appearance, Raging Fire Ancestor showed a hint of a gleam in his eyes.


    "Are you kidding? Greensword Mountain was born between heaven and earth, and the geocentric fire vein is also the product of heaven and earth. When did they become your private property?" said Junior Leopard with a sneer.


    "Humph!" Raging Fire Ancestor said with his red eyebrow moving, "No more nonsense! Only fire!"


    As he was talking, he lifted his fingers and a bright fire light shot out at Junior Leopard.


    "Damn it! You''re fighting!" Junior Leopard lifted his hand and tried to block the fire light with the Golden-Scaled Cudgel.


    With a loud clang, the red fire light was blocked by his Golden-Scaled Cudgel, but at the same time, Junior Leopard inevitably took a big step backward and could hardly bear it as the strength was overwhelming.


    "Is this the real strength of a Level Nine expert?"


    Unlike a Level Eight expert, when one''s cultivation reached Level Nine, all of his Internal Qi would turn into a Real Essence Source stored in the acupoints to breed the Real Essence. Once the Real Essence was successfully bred, its strength would be 100 times more powerful than the Internal Qi. Even if the Internal Qi had not transformed into Real Essence like it did now, the Internal Qi extracted from the Real Essence Source also carried the attributes of the Real Essence, and its intensity was more than 20 times stronger than the steel-like Internal Qi of a Level Eight expert. The greatest difference between a Level Nine expert and a Level Eight expert lay in the quality of their Internal Qi.


    Therefore, even the power of Raging Fire Ancestor''s finger being casually pointed forced Junior Leopard to move backward a few steps.


    "It is indeed a Divine Weapon. It can even defend against the power of my finger!" Raging Fire Ancestor could not help praising it as he saw Junior Leopard stabilize himself after just a few steps.


    Though Junior Leopard had the same amount of Internal Qi as Raging Fire Ancestor, its power was over 20 times weaker. And when taken into account the strength of the body and the magical effects of Internal Qi with the power of the Real Essence, there was no need to fight.


    It could be said that even if all the Level Eight experts in the world were combined together, they were still not likely to beat a Level Nine expert.


    Therefore, although Raging Fire Ancestor knew about the achievements of Junior Leopard, he did not care. In his eyes, Level Eight experts were just waste. The combat capability of a Level Eight expert was absolutely no match for a Level Nine expert. He could kill a Level Eight expert in a snap.


    "It seems that the rumors in Jianghu are true. Your combat capability is indeed close to Level Nine!" Raging Fire Ancestor gasped in admiration, but he did not relax his hands and directly hit Junior Leopard with a palm.


    "Oh, my God!" From the very beginning, Junior Leopard had not felt anything until he was hit by that palm.


    The palm gave him the feeling that the whole world had been shrouded. He wanted to hide, but he did not know where to hide. He intended to fight back, but he did not know how. Even with a Divine Weapon in his hand, he had no power to defend himself.


    Although it was transient, it seemed to have been hundreds of years.


    With his heart beating violently and a stream of blood welling up from his Dantian, Junior Leopard seemed to be confined by an invisible force. He struggled to break free, but it was all in vain. Even the Poison Cold Shield was completely contracted under the pressure of this palm and lost its defensive function.


    As the big hand was getting closer and closer, it was about to slap him to death in an instant.


    "Level Nine! Is this the power of Level Nine?"


    "I don''t even have any room to defend myself!"


    "My strength and my Divine Weapon are useless!"


    "No! It can''t go on like this. Absolutely not!"


    "Am I dying? No, no, I can''t be defeated like this!"


    "I won''t be beaten so easily!"


    "I don''t want to die here!"


    Junior Leopard''s mind continued to think. For an instant, everything was tortuous. His eyes ferociously stared at that offensive palm, and suddenly, from a red light that flashed between his eyebrows, red Sword Qi shot violently out.


    All that happened in a very short moment. When the center of Junior Leopard''s eyebrows flashed with the red light, Raging Fire Ancestor''s palm was less than three inches from Junior Leopard''s forehead.


    At this moment, sanguine Sword Qi shot out, and Raging Fire Ancestor could not even take back his palm quick enough.


    "Hiss!" Raging Fire Ancestor gasped, drew back three steps and dropped his right hand down. The sharp Sword Qi just passed through his Protective Gang Qi and pierced his palm. Almost at the same time as he withdrew his hand, Junior Leopard made a strange scream, broke free from him, and poked toward his feet with the Golden-Scaled Cudgel.


    "Boom!" With a loud noise, the Golden-Scaled Cudgel completely pierced the passageway under his feet. The fire vein terrain was complex, and the passageways, like spiders'' webs, connected to one another, forming a huge network of passageways from top to bottom. Some passageways were interlaced, some were intertwined, and some were linked up and down while others were inaccessible. Junior Leopard''s poke not only pierced through the passageway under his feet, but also three other passageways. Without hesitation, Junior Leopard jumped into a cave poked open by his Golden-Scaled Cudgel.


    Just now, he fully realized that his combat capability was only close to Level Nine and he was just a waste upon meeting a real Level Nine expert.


    He had just launched his External Elixir of Fiery Eyes by surprise and exerted all the killing power of the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword, and only in this way was he able to knock back that palm. However, he also exhausted his Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword that he had been practicing hard. It would take a long time for it to recover, and in a short period of time, it was simply impossible for him to give play to a second attack. Under such circumstances, if he had not escaped, he would have been smashed into pieces by Raging Fire Ancestor.


    All of this took some time to explain, but it, in fact, happened in an instant: Raging Fire Ancestor hit Junior Leopard with his palm; red light flashed between the brows of Junior Leopard; Raging Fire Ancestor took back his palm; Junior Leopard pierced through the passageway and jumped away. When Chilei and Chichuan realized what had happened, there was only dust everywhere and Junior Leopard had disappeared. They were startled when they saw Raging Fire Ancestor''s right hand hanging down with drops of blood dripping on the ground.


    "Master, you¡ª?!"


    "It''s okay!" Raging Fire Ancestor raised his right hand. Chilei and Chichuan saw clearly that there was a bloody hole in his right palm and were dumbfounded.


    "What happened?"


    "How is this possible?"


    "How could our master be hurt?"


    "Our master is a Level Nine expert and one of the most powerful people in the world. His Ignis Mysterious Gang has been practiced to the extreme. Even Divine Weapons can''t break through his Gang Qi, and he has reached the limit of the iron body. The strength of his palms and fingers is no less powerful than any Divine Weapon in the world."


    For so many years, Raging Fire Ancestor was just like God in their eyes. He had never been hurt. But now, it was true that he was injured, although not badly. Furthermore, he was attacked by Zhou Bao in one move, who only had a cultivation of Level Seven. It completely subverted their cognition.


    "What''s all the fuss? I just got a slight injury. It''s no big deal!" Raging Fire Ancestor''s face clouded over at the sight of the astonished faces of the two men. The wound on his palm healed up at a speed that could be seen by the naked eye. "It''s no wonder that he is so famous at such a young age. This guy is really something, much better than you two!"


    "Yes!" These two guys, who had reached Level Seven, were geniuses themselves, otherwise, Raging Fire Ancestor would not have received them as his disciples. Therefore, their shock soon subsided and they said, "Master, what do we do next? Do we just let him escape like that?"


    "Escape? Can he really escape?" Raging Fire Ancestor sneered, "This is Greensword Mountain, and I am not Wang Yuebai!"


    As he spoke, he swung the sleeves of his robe. Violent fire strength overflowed and a stream of strong red Qi gushed into the big hole that Junior Leopard had poked.


    "Oh, no!" Junior Leopard screamed as he felt the rush of the fire strength from behind. He flickered and tried to move to the side, but before he had completely flashed past, he heard a loud bang and the entire passageway began to collapse.


    "How fierce!"


    Junior Leopard knew that something was wrong. There were lots of passageways in this underground fire vein, but it did not mean that these passageways were strong, stable, and unchanging. In fact, the underground passageways were very unstable and often collapsed, and now, the most serious collapse happened under the influence of Raging Fire Ancestor.


    "Boom, boom, boom¡ª!"


    The entire Greensword Mountain began to vibrate.


    "Hurry up!" After he swung his sleeves, Raging Fire Ancestor retreated like lightning with his disciples instead of continuing to chase or lingering there. After a few breaths, the place that they were just standing was covered with rocks and mud.


    Meanwhile, in another cave, Prince Xiaoming and Wang She, who were sitting face-to-face, were alerted and they opened their eyes.


    The ground began to tremble and rock fell from overhead with boundless marl.


    "Oh, no! It must be Raging Fire Ancestor returning." Prince Xiaoming''s face fell as he suddenly figured out what had happened. He glared at Wang She and shouted, "I told you before. Don''t stay here. Don''t stay here. But you didn''t listen. And this is the result!"


    "Take it easy! No matter how strong Raging Fire Ancestor is, he is just a Level Nine expert. Both of us are here. There is no need to be afraid of him!" Wang She sneered, "Zhou Bao! Junior Leopard! Junior Leopard! Damn it, why don''t you come out? We''re leaving. Raging Fire Ancestor is back!"


    He called out a few times but no one answered. Only then did he feel that something was wrong. He flashed and disappeared immediately. After a few breaths, he appeared again.


    "How''s it going?"


    "Damn it! Raging Fire Ancestor must have come while we were practicing. I bet he was worried about us, so he lured Raging Fire Ancestor away by himself. The chaos must have been caused by Raging Fire Ancestor when he was fighting with Junior Leopard!"


    "Well, now we''re in big trouble!" Prince Xiaoming looked at Wang She with his eyes flashing slightly. "What should we do now?"


    "What else can we do? Go and find him!" Wang She yelled and flashed out of the cave like the wind.


    ...

 Chapter 275: Evil Fire Kylin

    Chapter 275: Evil Fire Kylin


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Damn it! Oh, no, such bad luck! I''ve even been suppressed as a monkey!"


    Surrounded by darkness and with a bitter smile on his face, Junior Leopard curled up in an empty cave as the whole passageway had collapsed under Raging Fire Ancestor''s attack. He did not dare to use the Three Realms Division in such a strange place. God knew where he would be once he used the Three Realms Division. If he were to have bad luck, he would be transported directly into the underground rock flows, leaving him in limbo. So, he had no choice but to dodge again and again, and in the end, he was inevitably trapped in this small hole by the collapsed mud and rocks.


    "Fortunately, it is not Buddha who is pressing on me, nor is the Five Elements Mountain on top of my head!" Junior Leopard said in his heart. At this moment, he did not dare to move but sat cross-legged in this small cave, which had only enough space for one person. He silently regulated his breathing and paid no attention to the dust and stone that was falling from time to time above his head.


    By the time he finished regulating his breathing and leveling the damage that he had just suffered from the fire, the vibration had disappeared.


    "The strength of a Level Nine expert is really eccentric. It is evident that the Golden Flame Mirror has absorbed all the fire strength, but the damage to my tendons and meridians took so long to recover. If it were in the past, it would have been restored long ago!"


    "The killing power of a Level Nine expert''s Internal Qi is 20 times stronger than a Level Eight expert''s!" Green Spirit jumped out from somewhere. "That man has already practiced the Real Essence Source with a high quality. If you hadn''t managed to practice the Golden Flame Mirror by a stroke of luck, now the majority of your tendons and meridians would have already been destroyed!"


    "Is a Level Nine expert really so powerful?!" Junior Leopard asked. Just now, when fighting with Raging Fire Ancestor, although that only lasted a short period, he knew that, with his present strength, he could not compete with him at all. If not for Raging Fire Ancestor being too careless to notice that he had the External Elixir of Fiery Eyes and had also practiced the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword, he might have been stuck in a tough battle.


    "Tough battle" was not the best way to put it. More precisely, it was a bitter struggle. Perhaps if he pulled out all the stops, he would be able to just barely fight against Raging Fire Ancestor for several rounds, but it was impossible for him to beat him.


    That was when he secretly considered himself lucky for not having been pinched to death by Dark Lord Mie Chen in Northern Yuan.


    In terms of cultivation, Dark Lord Mie Chen was only a half step to the Individual Immortal Karma Rank and was much more powerful than Raging Fire Ancestor. But obviously, his mightiness had stopped him from taking Junior Leopard seriously. On top of that, Mie Chen was concentrating on Wang She at that time. That was why Junior Leopard could gain such a big advantage. However, good luck was rare and scarce and it was a great blessing to have it.


    "You''re in luck. The man didn''t mean to kill you in the beginning. He just wanted to teach you a lesson, so he hasn''t used his full force!" Green Spirit said, "Never compare a Level Nine expert with an expert under Level Nine. They have essential differences. This difference is even greater than that between Level Eight and Level Seven. Although the Internal Qi of Level Eight is greater than that of Level Seven, after all, it''s just in the category of Internal Qi, so you can beat a Level Eight expert using several methods. However, Level Nine experts are completely different. Their Internal Qi contains the power of Real Essence that can''t be resisted by Genuine Qi. To put it simply, Internal Qi is tofu, while Real Essence is a steel knife. Have you ever seen tofu beat a steel knife?!"


    "Is the difference really so big?"


    "Of course. You''ll understand it after you enter the Metaphysical Realm. All of the people below the Metaphysical Realm are mortals, but once they step into the Metaphysical Realm, they''ll reach the Individual Immortal Karma Rank. That is the difference between immortals and mortals!" Green Spirit said, "Once entering the Metaphysic Realm, you become an Individual Immortal or immortal. Those who are below the Metaphysical Realm are just mortals. When a mortal reaches Level Nine, though he''s not an immortal, he can use some immortal strength. That''s why you are no match for him!''''


    "If my Pure Yang Celestial Device is completely refined, can I contend with a Level Nine expert?"


    "Yes, of course!" Green Spirit said, "The Golden Flame Mirror''s power is very strong. As long as you refine it successfully, you can defeat even an Individual Immortal. However, with your present strength, even if it is successfully refined, you can''t give a full display of its power. But it''s more than enough to beat a Level Nine expert."


    "In other words, I don''t need to be afraid of anything?"


    "Bingo!"


    "It seems that this time the emperor really sacrificed a lot. With a Pure Yang Weapon, you can deal with a Level Nine expert, but he is willing to just give it away!" Junior Leopard thought to himself. But he did not know that now the World Hero Competition was over and that Pure Yang Weapon had also fallen into the hands of Yan Fei, Xining King''s Eldest Son, and Royal Uncle. Strictly speaking, the emperor still kept goodies in his family.


    "It''s no use thinking so much now. Just think about how to get out of this trouble!"


    "It''s a piece of cake! I''ll just wait until the old guy is gone, and then use the Golden-Scaled Cudgel to cut a road through!"


    The size of the Golden-Scaled Cudgel could change as Junior Leopard wished. Though it could not grow as large as the legendary Golden Cudgel, it could easily open a passageway under the ground. As the passageways were interlaced, Junior Leopard could probably go through another passageway once he opened one, and then he could find his way out. Of course, if he wanted to, he could also use the Golden-Scaled Cudgel to open a direct passageway to the ground, but in that way, it would be too noisy and inevitably alarm Raging Fire Ancestor. It was better to take it easy at first.


    "Then don''t waste time, hurry up. It''s no fun being stuck in here."


    "Why?"


    "Buddy, didn''t you see it? The damned place isn''t stable and may collapse at any moment. It was lucky that you even managed to find this place. But if it collapses, you will definitely have no place to hide. Even if your cultivation has reached Level Seven, and you have the Poison Cold Shield as well as an iron body, it''s impossible for you to bear the pressure of this kind of land subsidence, so it is better to leave early."


    "It seems to me that you have been trapped in the Small Thunder Temple for so long that you have a psychological shadow!" Junior Leopard said, "Perhaps even claustrophobia!"


    "Don''t say anything that I don''t understand. Hurry up!" Green Spirit urged him again.


    "OK! OK!" Junior Leopard had no choice but to take out the Golden-Scaled Cudgel, and he poked it forward suddenly. "Grow!"


    With a flash of golden light, the Golden-Scaled Cudgel, which was originally the size of a flute, grew suddenly, and soon it opened a long and wide passageway beside Junior Leopard.


    "Haha, you displayed the full function of the Golden-Scaled Cudgel." Green Spirit laughed at the sight of this.


    Junior Leopard did not speak, and as soon as he raised his body, he jumped into the passageway. He was very fast and the cudgel in his hand did not cease operating. He did not completely follow the passageway that was opened by the cudgel. He knew very well that passageways like these were completely out of line with mechanical principles and would soon collapse, otherwise, there would be no architects in the world.


    Sure enough, shortly after he opened up another passageway, the previous one collapsed.


    That was repeated five times. Finally, the sixth time, the passageway that he opened up connected with a natural passageway.


    "Haha, I knew that it would work!" Junior Leopard cried excitedly. And with a leap, he entered the natural passageway and put away his Golden-Scaled Cudgel.


    "Buddy, hurry up, otherwise this passageway will collapse!" After it happened several times, Green Spirit also seemed to figure something out. This passageway might have been very strong, but thanks to Junior Leopard''s poking, it would not sustain itself for a long time, no matter how strong it was.


    Junior Leopard did not dare to stay and quickly passed through the passageways. Going round and round, he did not stop until an hour had gone by.


    "Haha, it must be safe now. Even if the damned Raging Fire Ancestor has mighty power, he can''t be familiar with every passageway of this fire vein. We are here now and he couldn''t find us even if he were a god!"


    "Before you get too excited," Green Spirit said dully, "you should realize that although it is impossible for Raging Fire Ancestor to catch up with us, you are also lost!"


    Looking around, Junior Leopard found that all the passageways around seemed to be the same. The palisades, the land, and even the air were all red. He could not find any differences.


    "We just escaped from below. It seems that we have been going down for such a long time, so now we should be close to the bottom of the rock flows!" Junior Leopard said after thinking for a moment.


    "So What?"


    "Nothing. I mean, it''s better to find those underground rock flows and then go up along them, then we should be able to find out where we are!"


    "Nonsense! There is more than one rock flow in this geocentric fire vein. Like rivers, which are always widely distributed, how can you be sure that the rock flow that you just found is the one that you used just now?" Green Spirit sneered, scoffing at Junior Leopard''s statement.


    "Do you have a better idea? Poke through the ground with the Golden-Scaled Cudgel? Not to mention how far it is from here to the ground. The Golden-Scaled Cudgel can only extend 300 feet. Even if it did make it, the passageways are not stable. Because of the constant poking, the structure of the passageways in the underground fire vein may collapse down at that time, so we wouldn''t be able to go out even if we found an exit!" Junior Leopard said. Ignoring Green Spirit, he looked for the place full of the Spiritual Energy of Fire. According to his experience, rock flows went through places full of the Spiritual Energy of Fire. Besides, there was a plan in his mind that in this geocentric fire vein, if he was lucky enough, he might run into the Fire Evil Qi like the Blood Essence Evil Yuan and cultivate Gang successfully.


    But there was no such thing as a free lunch.


    Along the way, although the Spiritual Energy of Fire was getting stronger and stronger, Junior Leopard was not able to find a geocentric rock flow.


    "Damn it! It is obvious that the Spiritual Energy of Fire is getting stronger and stronger, but why isn''t there a geocentric rock flow?"


    "Buddy, you are really very funny, too funny, hahaha!" Hearing Junior Leopard''s complaining, Green Spirit finally could not help laughing. "Who told you that the stronger the Spiritual Energy of Fire is, the easier it is to find geocentric rock flows?"


    "No one told me. I just think so!"


    "Geocentric fire veins are directly connected to the lungs of the earth, buddy. The lungs of the earth, have you heard of that? All the inner geocentric fire veins in the world extend out from the lungs of the earth. It is not necessarily true that the stronger the Spiritual Energy of Fire is, the closer it is to geocentric rock flows. On the contrary, perhaps the stronger the Spiritual Energy of Fire is, the closer it is to the lungs of the earth. Of course, in terms of your ability and the temperature here, it''s still far away from the lungs of the earth, but it is a passage."


    "Lungs of the earth? So we can go straight to the lungs of the earth?"


    "It should be the case at the moment, but it has nothing to do with you. I think you might as well change your direction!"


    This time, Junior Leopard did not insist, nor did he have any reasons to insist. He followed Green Spirit''s advice and changed to a path that was also full of the Spiritual Energy of Fire.


    "Wow, there it is, and it looks like I''m lucky!" After a long time, Junior Leopard stood on the edge of a geocentric rock flow and breathed in.


    "Whoo, whoo, whoo!" Gasping for breath and with sweat streaming out like rain, he sat down at the edge of the geocentric rock flow. "I am f*cking tired, damn it. This underground fire vein is a dozen times hotter than the one I came across before. The temperature must be over 100¡æ. Without the Poison Cold Shield, I would have been scalded!"


    "You wouldn''t be scorched without the Poison Cold Shield. At most, you would be burned to death!" Green Spirit said coldly. The temperature here had no effect on Green Spirit, who existed in different forms. Floating out of Junior Leopard''s body and circling around above the rock flows, he returned to Junior Leopard''s side. "Buddy, don''t you think there''s something wrong here?"


    "No? Why?" Junior Leopard was confused and said, "This is just a geocentric rock flow."


    "No, this is not an ordinary geocentric rock flow. Do you think it looks like a lake?"


    "A lake?" Somewhat taken aback at first, Junior Leopard carefully observed and then replied, "Yes, you are right, it''s quite like a lake!"


    The geocentric rock flow in front of him was very large, but unlike the geocentric rock flow that he had seen before. It did not flow straight down, but was narrow at both ends and wide in the middle¡ªit looked as if a river had been injected into a Great Lake. It was not like a rock river, but a rock lake.


    "Get out of here quickly. I think something is wrong!"


    "Something is wrong? Forget it!" Junior Leopard was surprised at first and then extended out his spiritual mind, which sensed nothing for a long time. "Well, can you not make a fuss? It''s just a rock lake. What''s the problem?"


    Now Junior Leopard was very dependent on his own spiritual mind and trusted it very much. As he felt nothing with his entire spiritual mind, he did not think that the rock lake was dangerous.


    But was he really not in danger just because he could not feel it?


    Otherwise, how could a saying such as this be in the world: "You''ll just have to learn the hard way if you don''t heed the warning of someone with experience"!


    Hardly had the words been spoken when the rock lake throughout the space shook and rock flows splashed out. Junior Leopard could not help stepping back.


    "What, what happened?"


    "You are in trouble!" said Green Spirit, floating into the green lamp, saying nothing further.


    "Damn it, what a slippery guy!" Junior Leopard cursed in a low voice. He stood up and was ready to look for an opportunity to leave.


    Now, it was just like an earthquake, and the ground around vibrated along with it. Junior Leopard did not know what was going on, but it was better to leave quickly. As the saying goes: "When the city gate catches fire, the fish in the moat suffer". But now, he had no idea of what had happened, let alone how he would be affected.


    Unfortunately, when he realized it, it was a little too late. He had just turned around when a steaming-hot fire strength came from behind him, which was no weaker than Raging Fire Ancestor''s attack.


    But this time, Junior Leopard was finally ready. He fought back with the cudgel as soon as he had turned around.


    "Poof¡ª!" With a gentle sound, the cudgel hit nothing, but the fire strength hit him hard.


    "Uh-oh!" With a dull hum, Junior Leopard''s body plummeted backward, and the scorching fire strength was drawn into his tendons and meridians. And once again, the Essence Qi of the Golden Flame Mirror rose in his body, engulfing the invading fire strength.


    Compared with the palm strength of Raging Fire Ancestor, this fire strength was a bit hotter but somewhat less severe. Without a trace of Internal Qi, it was like the purest flame in the world.


    "What the hell is this?!" Junior Leopard dared not neglect it. Having failed to strike anything with his cudgel, he suddenly turned around and waved his Golden-Scaled Cudgel. Then he saw the situation behind him clearly. But it was useless as there was a mass of flames instead of disordered things in front of him. The red flame was hanging over the rock lake, and from time to time, a cluster of red flames flowed out from the fireball, looking like a red sun.


    "No, there seems to be something in this flame!"


    Junior Leopard gently narrowed his eyes and, as a red light glimmered, he used the power of his Fiery Eyes.


    But this time, he did not dare to use more. The greater his cultivation was, the more he felt that there was something wrong with his Fiery Eyes. It seemed that every time he used the Fiery Eyes, it would bring a heavy burden to his body. Yes, a heavy burden indeed. The greater his cultivation was, the heavier the burden Fiery Eyes brought to the body. Besides, Fiery Eyes represented trouble in the world itself. As his strength increased, Junior Leopard was more reluctant to use them, or even deliberately forgot them, but now in this strange situation, he could not help but use them. Anyway, he did not let the Fiery Eyes completely run but just used them to see any strange objects in the flames. That would not consume a lot of physical strength.


    "Damn, what is this monster? It is¡ª!"


    Through his Fiery Eyes, Junior Leopard clearly saw the true face of the flame. At first glance, he subconsciously regarded it as a monster, but by the second glance, he recognized it.


    It had a dragon''s head, antlers, a lion''s eyes, a tiger''s back, a bear''s waist, snake scales, horseshoes, and an oxtail. Its whole body was wrapped in red flames, with only the scales sparkling.


    Kylin!


    It exactly was a Kylin!


    Junior Leopard did not expect to come across such a thing.


    "Damn it! Oh my God, you''re not kidding me, are you? How can I run into a kylin?" Junior Leopard wailed in his heart. The previous fire strength had been fired out by the kylin in front of him, but it had fired out only once. Through the flames, Junior Leopard also noticed that the kylin was staring back at him. The gazes of the man and the beast locked together.


    "No!" A warning sign flashed through his heart.


    "Roar¡ª!"


    With a loud roar, a huge sound wave violently scattered. In an instant, Junior Leopard felt an invisible force of oppression toward him and he could not resist it, even though the Poison Cold Shield was ready.


    "This is, Qi Power¡ª!"


    Both the Poison Cold Shield and Internal Qi were ineffective. Junior Leopard only felt the rattling vibration of all his bones as if a mighty force had pressed on his body in an instant. Almost at the same time, Junior Leopard suddenly realized that this inexplicable force was Qi Power with physical force, or Yi.


    However, it was different from Yi. This Qi Power, or rather, this strength, was more condensed, smoother, and more powerful than Yi.


    "Evil Fire Kylin! This really is an Evil Fire Kylin!"


    At the same time, Green Spirit also recognized it and screamed.


    Yes, screamed!


    Junior Leopard did not know why he felt that he was screaming from what was only supposed to be an exchange of ideas.


    "I don''t care whether it is an Earthly Evil Fire Kylin or a Heavenly Evil Fire Kylin. I will soon be crushed by him!" Junior Leopard bellowed in his heart, and tried his best to straighten up his body, which had been compressed like a bow. He did not know that a huge black fireball was burning up behind him, and then the fireball shrank sharply. As two more stars were orbiting around the hollow, Junior Leopard had given full rise to his fist intent, ready to fight against the kylin''s Qi Power.


    "Are you crazy? This Evil Fire Kylin is born with Divine Sense and a mighty force. How can you fight against it?" At the sight of Junior Leopard''s actions, Green Spirit cried out urgently, but it was too late. Seeing Junior Leopard use his fist intent to fight back, the kylin felt that its dignity was greatly humiliated. With a fierce light in its eyes and low growl, it dispersed Junior Leopard''s fist intent in an instant.


    "Puff!" Junior Leopard felt that he was numb all over. At least half of his skeleton was broken at this moment. He was flung away like a rag doll and did not have any strength to hold onto the Golden-Scaled Cudgel, which was rolling out.


    Seeing that Junior Leopard had fallen to the ground and had no breath, the kylin cooled down a little. With an inhale, the kylin sucked all the surrounding red flames into its body, leaving only a red flame around its four hoofs as if it was flying in flames.


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 276: The Kylin Evil and the Kylin Gang

    Chapter 276: The Kylin Evil and the Kylin Gang


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    What kind of creature was the Evil Fire Kylin? Junior Leopard did not know, but he knew that he would be killed if he did not think of something.


    He did not want to experience death.


    A piercing pain caused by his skeleton being fractured went through his entire body and he could not even smoothly operate his Internal Qi.


    Without thinking, he started the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and held his breath like a corpse.


    Seeing Junior Leopard lying on the ground without any breath, the Evil Fire Kylin was a little confused and slightly shook its big head. The severely wounded Junior Leopard clearly felt a giant and eccentric energy sweeping over his body, as if he was being scanned by something.


    "Divine thoughts?" Junior Leopard was a little bit shocked, but soon he discarded that possibility. Perhaps when Qi Power and thought reached a certain degree, a substantive effect could be formed. However, divine thoughts...


    His divine thoughts were strong enough to scan within a certain range, but he could not use them if he wanted to achieve anything substantial.


    "Damn it! It knows that I''m alive?" Junior Leopard was worried. This kylin was so strong that even a Level Nine expert could not be its rival. Indeed, even a Level Nine expert could not make Zhou Bao be half-dead with just a casual snarl like it had.


    "Shit! Am I really so unlucky? I just ran for my life, only to meet a kylin whose strength is equal to someone in the Metaphysical Realm. That Raging Fire Ancestor has possessed the earth vein for many years. Why hadn''t he come across it before?"thought Junior Leopard.


    It was obvious that the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill was much more magical than his imagination. Even if the Evil Fire Kylin had strength, it was not aware that there was something wrong with Junior Leopard.


    "I would be bound to die this time!"


    Because the Evil Fire Kylin could not feel Junior Leopard''s spirit, it slowly walked down from the lake surface, stepped on the ground, and leisurely went over to Junior Leopard.


    "Hu, hu¡ª!" Approaching Junior Leopard, it lowered its head slowly and seemed to be observing Junior Leopard. At this time, he felt very uncomfortable because he could clearly see this creature spitting formidable Fire Qi. Although the strength of his body had already reached Level Seven, he could not stand the natural Fire Qi of the Evil Fire Kylin. Once it touched him, his flesh and skeleton would definitely melt.


    Therefore, Junior Leopard did not dare to wait for the kylin to show its big and ferocious head in front of his face.


    "Go to hell!"


    A green light flashed and lightning appeared. As the kylin approached Junior Leopard, who was lying on the ground like a dead dog, he suddenly stood up. The violent green light was drastically chopping at the Evil Fire Kylin''s neck.


    "Roar¡ª!"


    Sword light instantly radiated.


    The Evil Fire Kylin stepped back, but it was too late. Its vital parts escaped from being injured, but the cyan sword light just touched its shoulder. That touch almost cut its right front leg off. Its red, scorching blood exploded and splashed onto Junior Leopard''s head. He let out a strange cry because it felt like the skin where the blood had landed was being burned. Although the cultivation of his body had reached a level of steel sinews and iron-like bones, he could not withstand this lava-like blood.


    "Great! Good boy! Good attack!" Green Spirit, who had just been hiding somewhere, shouted and was very surprised about Junior Leopard''s actions. "It''s beyond my expectations that you would have this trick. Cool! Excellent! Don''t stop. Attack it! Come on! Kill the Evil Fire Kylin. It''s a total treasure!"


    "How could it be so easy?" Listening to Green Spirit''s yell, Junior Leopard could not help producing a forced smile. At this moment, the Blue Sword had already shot toward the Evil Fire Kylin. The Fire Kylin became cautious after suffering losses. It jumped back into the rock lake and sank in. The Blue Sword turned into a snake-like silk streamer, flying above the lake. However, the Evil Fire Kylin became wiser due to having taken a beating. It seemed to be hiding in the lake and would not come out again. The Blue Sword helplessly returned to Junior Leopard after wandering around for a while.


    "Boy, leave now. The Evil Fire Kylin just received a serious wound, but you didn''t take advantage of that great opportunity. I guess it''s healing now. After it recovers, you won''t be so lucky!" Green Spirit raised his head, watching the lake and wearing an expression of regret.


    "Fu*k! Half of my bones are broken. How can I walk?" Junior Leopard painfully cried and did not dare to rashly move his body. He just examined his body internally only to find that his body was much more seriously hurt than he had imagined. Not only had half of his bones been fractured, but also his viscera, tendons, and meridians had been assaulted. He was extremely fortunate to have survived.


    However, the good thing was that he had many artifices. Although his body could not move, he could use the Three Realms Division. After displaying the Three Realms Division several times, he left the Geocentric Rock Lake and secretly breathed a sigh of relief. The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi inside of him spread out through his entire body. It would take a very long time to put his dislocated skeleton back together and restore the broken parts, including the destroyed tendons and meridians. All of that could not be finished in a short time. More importantly, it would be an excruciating process.


    "Hiss¡ª!" Lying on the ground, Junior Leopard used his powerful Inner Vision to rejoin his damaged skeleton and tendons and meridians little by little. Each skeleton movement was very painful and every tendon and meridian treatment made him convulse. About 10 minutes later, his body was steeped in intensive sweat; his muscles jerked uncontrollably all over his body, and his face was also much more hideous.


    "Poor guy. You''re not so lucky. You encountered an Evil Fire Kylin, and you have badly wounded it. If you had responded swiftly, you could have left him behind. But you missed the chance. It''s really... Alas¡ª!"


    "Shut up! If you don''t stop talking, I will throw you into the space divided by the two realms. You''ll never come back, even if you want to!" Junior Leopard roared in a low voice while he carefully cured himself.


    "I said the facts. If you think that I''m joking with you, you''re wrong!" Green Spirit did not care about Junior Leopard''s threat at all. "Evil Fire Kylins are heavenly creatures with formidable power. They are rarely seen in our times because they are heavenly creatures. Their whole body is precious, especially their blood, which is the most invaluable!"


    "It''s hotter than the lava. Why do I need it? To drink?" Junior Leopard unhappily said. His body was now in sharp pain, so he wanted to soothe it by talking with Green Spirit.


    "Of course not to drink. The Evil Fire Kylin has lived in the depths of the earth vein for thousands of years. It feeds on the pneuma and Evil Qi in the earth''s core, so its blood mixes countless pneuma and Evil Qi of the Fire in the five elements, finally forming this unique thing: the Kylin Evil. The Gang Qi practiced by the Kylin Evil is called the Kylin Gang, one of the seven wonder Gangs in the world. Aren''t you always looking for an opportunity to practice the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang? If you use the Kylin Evil to cultivate Gang, you could get the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Kylin Gang, which is extremely powerful!"


    "Is there such a thing?" Junior Leopard was suddenly speechless because he had never expected that the Evil Fire Kylin had such a magical effect. He began to regret that he had not chopped at it more times. He wished that he had made the kylin bleed more!


    "I have no reason to deceive you but you won''t get such an opportunity. If you recover a little bit from your injuries, you''d better get out of here quickly. The Evil Fire Kylin possesses the strength of the Metaphysical Realm, it wouldn''t have gotten hurt so seriously if it had been prudent enough. Also, your sword light was strange and fierce. If you return to that place, you won''t be so lucky when you meet with it again!"


    "Does it really have the cultivation of the Metaphysical Realm? That doesn''t seem to be true!"


    Indeed, that did not seem to be the case. If it had the cultivation of the Metaphysical Realm and the Individual Immortal Karma Rank, how could it have been severely wounded by him? Moreover, it hid under the rock lake and did not reveal its head. Did it really behave in the style of an expert?


    "I said your sword light is excessively strange. Although your Flying Sword is not at a high level, it contains a strange lethal power and was harmonious with the Gang Qi that your Flying Sword''s External Elixir practiced. Besides, the kylin was very negligent, so you were able to seriously injure it with an attack!" Green Spirit said, "Guy, you''re lucky enough to be alive right now!"


    After hearing that, Junior Leopard gradually understood. The reason that the sword was so lethal could be attributed to the purple thunderbolt that he had encountered during the cultivation of Gang with the thunder Evil Qi. His Blue Sword at that time was tainted with the purple thunderbolt''s power. Only that could explain why one strike was able to seriously injure the Evil Fire Kylin.


    "So strange. Your Flying Sword has just reached the Earth Rank, and you can''t wield its full power due to your strength. So why is that sword so destructive?"


    "Perhaps I have a good luck!" Junior Leopard was not in the mood to chat with him about it, so he changed the topic slightly. "My practice of the Golden Flame Mirror is almost at a perfect state. As you see, may I use it¡ª?"


    "What''s on your mind? You are still one step away from the successful practice of your Golden Flame Mirror. It''s not an absolute success yet. The Evil Fire Kylin is a creature living on the earth vein''s pneuma, so it doesn''t fear fire. Your Golden Flame Mirror could only release a little power, but the power is a rare nourishment to the Evil Fire Kylin. Using the mirror now is equivalent to adding nourishment to the kylin!"


    "Well then, what if I combine the Sun Colored Glaze Flame and the Golden Flame Mirror at an advanced level after I get out?"


    "That can cause harm to the Evil Fire Kylin, but you shouldn''t be under any illusions about it. Even if there''s any harm, it won''t be much. It''s impossible to get an immediate result fighting fire with fire!" Green Spirit said, "Guy, don''t think too much. You have lost the best opportunity and would better serve to leave early. Once it recovers from its injury and is in a foul mood, it might make trouble for you. By then, even if you want to leave¡ªEr, we can''t leave now!"


    "Shit!" Seeing the Evil Fire Kylin walking toward him along the passageway, Junior Leopard finally could not help swearing.


    Surrounded by a scarlet flame, the Evil Fire Kylin was slowly walking toward him. Its front right leg, which had been almost cut off by him, had been cured. With a murderous gleam in its eyes, it carefully approached Zhou Bao with steady steps.


    Junior Leopard placed his hands on the ground and gradually moved backward. Though he had tried to heal himself for a while, he was not totally cured but was just a little bit better. Hence, he still needed to recuperate long-term. However, in his current situation, it was an extravagance to talk about recuperation.


    The Evil Fire Kylin seemed to feel that Junior Leopard was less aggressive, so it suddenly halted its steps and then its body became tense.


    "Oh no! Damn! Again!" Seeing that stance, he immediately displayed the Three Realms Division. The very moment that he had disappeared, a howl resounded in the passageway, sweeping out in all directions.


    "How dangerous! I narrowly escaped death!" Junior Leopard rejoiced, putting a hand on his ribs. The ground around him shook like an earthquake.


    "Don''t count your chickens before they''re hatched. It hasn''t left!" Green Spirit coldly gave him a reminder. It seemed that the Evil Fire Kylin carried out what Green Spirit had said. Its figure emerged again in the passageway.


    "Bloody hell! How did it find me?"


    "Don''t forget we are at the geocentric fire vein. Earth fire pneuma and Evil Qi are everywhere, and the Evil Fire Kylin is most sensitive to the earth fire pneuma and the Evil Qi." Green Spirit said, "As long as you are in the earth vein, you can''t evade the tracking of the Evil Fire Kylin."


    "What should we do now? Fight to the end?" Junior Leopard nervously asked. He was indeed anxious and the Blue Sword above his fingertips had already flown out.


    "What else can we do? Fight now!" Green Spirit seemed to have no idea. "Your sword is eccentric and that scares it. Use your sword to force it back. And don''t give it a chance to open its mouth!"


    "Got it!" As he saw the Evil Fire Kylin opening its mouth, Junior Leopard came up with an idea. Then he threw the Blue Sword toward its mouth.


    A green light flashed by. The Evil Fire Kylin did not dare to catch the light, so it leaned sideways with red rays flashing from its eyes. Two red rays then shot toward the Blue Sword. However, Junior Leopard would not let the kylin attain its wishes. Under his manipulation, the sword easily dodged the attack.


    Since he had already known that the Blue Sword had an influence on the Evil Fire Kylin, he would not miss the boat. A glimmer came into his eyes. Subsequently, the Jade Original Power Gang of the Blue Sword became larger and larger, gradually turning into a cyan power grid that ferociously moved toward the Evil Fire Kylin to cover it.


    "Hu¡ª!" Seeing a cyan power grid coming at him, the Evil Fire Kylin did not flinch. It seemed that nothing within the cyan power grid made it feel any dread. The red rays in its body flickered and formed a red fire net instantly, catching the cyan power grid.


    "Crack, Crack, Crack¡ª!"


    With a big bang, the earth trembled and the mountains swayed and dust overflowed. Junior Leopard''s Jade Original Power Gang was destroyed by the Evil Fire Kylin''s protective red fire. Nevertheless, the Evil Fire Kylin did not feel good because its red fire had been cut to pieces by Junior Leopard''s cyan power grid and had lost its red flare.


    The level of Junior Leopard''s Jade Original Power Gang was at least one step lower than the Evil Fire Kylin''s protective red fire. If another Gang Qi had been used, he would have disintegrated under the attack of the protective red fire. Luckily, Junior Leopard''s Jade Original Power Gang Spirit had been practiced by guiding the Nine Heaven Thunder Qi, so its power was several levels higher than the ordinary Jade Original Power Gang. Due to the restriction of his own cultivation, the power of the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit was not on a par with the protective red fire that had been practiced by the Evil Fire Kylin, who had almost reached the Metaphysical Realm. However, if the red fire wanted to destroy his Gang Qi, it had to pay a great price.


    Everything vanished in a flash. The Fire Kylin suddenly pounced on Junior Leopard. How could Junior Leopard give it a chance to attack him easily? The brisk sound of thunder emanated from the Blue Sword as it radiated blue lights that blocked the Fire Kylin.


    This time, Junior Leopard was not negligent. He fought against the Evil Fire Kylin by reining the sword with his thoughts.


    In fact, according to his strength, there was a gap of several levels between him and the Evil Fire Kylin. Anyway, he was not a match for the Fire Kylin. However, he did have good luck. The sword in his hand was a Flying Sword of the Earth Rank and its body was the Heavenly Peach Wood containing the Thunder Yuan. Moreover, it had once been stained with a purple thunderbolt, an unbeatable rival to the Evil Fire Kylin and even all the living creatures in the world. A small amount of it would be enough to make the kylin feel dread. Additionally, Junior Leopard fully displayed the Silver Moon Sword Technique, enveloping the Fire Kylin in the blue sword light in the blink of an eye.


    "Chi, chi, chi, chi, chi¡ª!"


    "Hu, hu, hu, hu, hu¡ª!"


    "Dong, dong, dong¡ª!"


    "Bang, bang, bang¡ª!"


    The passageway was chaotic. The Evil Fire Kylin was stopped by Junior Leopard''s Blue Sword and was afraid to break through Junior Leopard''s sword light.


    "Hey guy, what on earth does your sword light contain? It turns the Evil Fire Kylin into such a coward!" Green Spirit asked with confusion. Obviously, he had not expected that Junior Leopard could so easily trap the Evil Fire Kylin.


    "No idea!" Junior Leopard said with a smile, "One of the main elements of my Blue Sword is the Heavenly Peach Wood. This wood breeds the Thunder Yuan. Maybe that''s the reason the kylin is so cautious!"


    "No. Even if the Heavenly Peach Wood has the help of the Thunder Yuan, that can''t make this kylin be so careful," Green Spirit shook his head and said with doubt. "The Evil Fire Kylin is a heavenly creature. Although the thunderbolt can counter it, your Heavenly Peach Wood is just a 10,000-year-old thing. That Thunder Yuan hasn''t reached the Advanced Level, so it can''t be such a big threat!"


    "Then, I have no clue," said Junior Leopard, shaking his head. "I said don''t talk with me now. I''m busy!" Junior Leopard changed the subject. Regarding the miraculous purple in the thundercloud, Junior Leopard did not intend to mention it to Green Spirit. Although he already knew many of his secrets, he did not worry that Green Spirit would betray those secrets. But instinctively, he wanted to hold all the cards, so he was not willing to let Green Spirit know everything.


    "Roar, Roar, Roar!"


    "Swish, Swish, Swish!"


    Junior Leopard intently manipulated the Blue Sword to scuffle with the Evil Fire Kylin. The kylin in the sword light was not weak, either. As a matter of fact, in just a short time, it had already made several powerful movements, which terrified Junior Leopard.


    "Is this the cultivation and method of the Metaphysical Realm? Damn it! How could such methods exist?"


    ...


    ...


    To be continued.

 Chapter 277: Great Fusion Technic: Refine Acupoints

    Chapter 277: Great Fusion Technic: Refine Acupoints


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What''s that? What did I just see?" Blue Sword''s light turned tight. At the moment, Junior Leopard felt overwhelmed by boundless pressure. His divine thoughts to manipulate Blue Sword were suddenly delayed and almost forced back.


    In the sword''s light, red rays were flickering on the body of Evil Fire Kylin. Space where these red rays had just reached also melted up. For several times, the molten space was almost dragged into the endless hollow. It was Junior Leopard who made a great effort to pull it back.


    "Great Fusion Technic? This is Great Fusion Technic, one of the natal Divine Senses of Evil Fire Kylin. Wow, kiddo, you are lucky to see this Divine Sense. It''s really a feast for the eyes."


    "You mean it is the Divine Sense that can melt up space?"Junior Leopard asked.


    "Yes, it is. You should know, although there are many kinds of flames, both the ordinary flame and celestial flame cannot fuse the space, no matter how high the temperature is. Only Evil Fire Kylin can do it," Green Spirit said excitedly. "Even during antiquity times, I have only heard of it, but have never seen Evil Fire Kylin use this Divine Sense. Unexpectedly, I saw it today. Evil Fire Kylin is really powerful."


    "Powerful? If it were really that powerful, I would have been fused, too." Junior Leopard sneered.


    Green Spirit became silent.


    After the Blue Sword was under Junior Leopard''s control again, the Evil Fire Kylin exercised the Great Fusion Technic again. The surrounding space burned like paper, but it still could not destroy Junior Leopard''s Blue Sword.


    "Your sword is weird. Undoubtedly, it''s a device of Earth Rank, but its magical effect can catch up with the Flying Sword of Heaven Rank. Kiddo, You seem to have many secrets!"


    "You can attribute it to my good luck," Junior Leopard said. He used his thought to control the Blue Sword, then it immediately changed into starry Sword Qi and shot toward Evil Fire Kylin.


    The Evil Fire Kylin growled. But before it finished roaring, the sword light had shot toward its mouth.


    A red light was flashing, and then the Evil Fire Kylin screamed in a low voice, the red and golden scales on its body erecting. A dark and red light shot and instantly shrouded his body. The starry Sword Qi hit against that dark and red light, but only stirred up a touch of ripples, which did no harm to the body of Evil Fire Kylin. This dark and red light was enough to protect the body but not too aggressive. Seeing that his Sword Qi was not working, Junior Leopard, without hesitation, changed the expression in his eyes; meanwhile, the Blue Sword gently vibrated, and then the surrounding green light suddenly gathered and was absorbed into the sword.


    Clang¡­


    After a light sound, Blue Sword turned into a green stripe and chopped straight toward the Evil Fire Kylin.


    Feeling the thunderbolt power inside the Blue Sword, Junior Leopard finally understood the frank and straightforward characters of the sword practitioners in the medieval period.


    As the legend went, those sword practitioners in the medieval period could challenge others bypassing ranks by dint of a sword. Even if Junior Leopard thought it interesting, he did not believe it actually. But now, he did.


    With no doubt!


    His Blue Sword was a Flying Sword of Earth Rank. Even though it was at Earth Rank, could cause Evil Fire Kylin to become afraid of it because of its special property. The Evil Fire Kylin''s power amounted to the level of Metaphysic Realm, but even it could not hit back strongly. It could not escape from the attack area of the sword without the help of its natal Divine Sense.


    Is there anything cooler than this?


    "No wonder in the medieval period sword practitioners'' attack force ranked first. Now it seems that they deserved their reputations." Brisk Sword Qi and fierce sword movement, as well as the destructive thunderbolt power hidden in the sword, became reality at this moment.


    It was the first time that he had realized that he actually trapped a supernatural animal of Metaphysic Realm with his own Blue Sword!


    As if he felt the excitement of Junior Leopard, Green Spirit could not help discouraging him and said, "Guy, do not be happy too early. It''s not that sure who will win or lose. The Evil Fire Kylin has three kinds of natal Divine Senses. The Great Fusion Technic is just one of them!"


    "I don''t care how many kinds of natal Divine Senses he has. Look! I will beat him with one sword," Junior Leopard said. With a wave of his hand, he made that green stripe tightly entwined the Evil Fire Kylin as if it was full of intelligence. The kylin eluded to the left and right, but it still could not escape from the attack of Junior Leopard''s artful Silver Moon Sword Technique.


    A few rounds of the fight, Blue Sword finally chopped the red ray protecting the body of Evil Fire Kirin, and cut on the body. Suddenly, blood splashed and spewed out all around.


    "Kiddo, quick. Gather the blood of the Kylin as fast as you can!" Seeing the Blue Sword cut the Fire Kylin''s protective red ray, Green Spirit stopped bickering with Junior Leopard and screamed. "Hurry up. Damn it. You are so lucky to get this Kylin Evil Qi to cultivate Gang. How lucky you are!"


    Junior Leopard suddenly came to his senses. With hands propping on the ground, his body became like a stream and he began to collect this Kylin Evil Qi.


    At this point, he had not recovered from the pain. But as the saying goes, the brave man often receive great rewards. Thinking of the temptation of the huge benefits, the pain in his body counted as nothing. It would take no more than two days to recover after leaving this place.


    "Roar, roar, roar¡­"


    Evil Fire Kylin felt the pain and angrily howled. It thought to itself , "Since I was born, I ''ve never encountered such a strange thing. Obviously, the opponent was far weaker than me, but he played around with me using only a sword. The sword was also quite weird. It contained the power of boundless destruction so that I dared not touch it. I didn''t touch it, but it came to touch me. It has the devastating power that can break open my protective red ray, cut off my scales, and add scars to my body."


    The Kylin thought, "I can only imagine that if it keeps going on like this, though I won''t be cut to death, I could die of excessive bleeding."


    The Evil Fire Kylin was a natural spiritual living creature. Although it could not be described as wise and knowledgeable, it was not worse than ordinary people. After such a long time, it realized that this weird creature in front was not as powerful as itself. However, as long as he had this strange sword in his hand, it could do nothing to him and may even get into the danger of dying. It was not such a stupid thing; therefore, it would not do so.


    Therefore, after seeing the ineffectiveness of Great Fusion Technic, this kylin was not in the mood to fight. It looked around with the pair of pink eyes and tried to get a chance to run away.


    Obviously, Junior Leopard didn''t know this Evil Fire Kylin''s thoughts, but he knew that spiritual living creature like Evil Fire Kylin had a great power and a short fuse. Once someone invaded its territory and posed a threat, it would intently destroy the enemy. But he did ignore that this Evil Fire Kylinis obviously had supreme intelligence and belonged to intelligent creatures. All intelligent creatures had the stronger desire for survival than the ordinary animals, and their mind was also much more flexible than the average animals. The ability to profit and avoid a loss was in their blood. The Evil Fire Kylin was born in the underground fire veins. Among these years, it also saw other living creatures, but those creatures were either the ones that had accidentally fallen into the depth of earth veins or the ones like Junior Leopard who unexpectedly arrived the lake because of exploring the veins. But none of those creatures were well-match enemies of Evil Fire Kylin who had reached Metaphysic Realm. Therefore, in general, it had never met an opponent for so many years. As a result, when it encountered such an experienced opponent who could do real harm to it, he did not know what to do.


    Compared to experienced Junior Leopard, Evil Fire Kylin at Metaphysic Realm was only a rookie.


    What choice would a rookie make when it encountered an opponent who could hurt or even kill it?


    It was a question and also, it was not a question. For Junior Leopard, he had only one choice: escape. The Evil Fire Kylin made the same decision as him. It chose to flee away.


    When the green stripe cast another cut, the Evil Fire Kylin did not escape. Instead, it held its head up high and fiercely opened all its scales, making them thicker than before; it looked like it was putting on an armor.


    "Be careful. It''s fighting back!" Seeing this, both Green Spirit and Junior Leopard felt tense lest the Evil Fire Kylin carried out a mighty counterattack which Blue Sword could not stand. Therefore, Junior Leopard subconsciously exercised all his power into Blue Sword, so that Blue Sword gave out green light that overwhelmed the red ray in the passageway of geocentric fire vein in the twinkling of an eye.


    "Boom!"


    Another shuddering jolt happened in the geocentric fire vein, which aroused much dust and made heat flows rise in a mess.


    "What the f*ck!"


    "It''s running away."


    "Hurry. That hit can provide enough blood for you to cultivate Gang."


    The Evil Fire Kylin had made up its mind to escape. It had only a simple idea¡ªfight back the sword so that it could flee back to the lake. But what it did not think was that its suddenly strengthened power was thought as a counterattack by Junior Leopard, so he forcibly exercised the power of Blue Sword. As a result, it did win the time to flee back to the lake, but it was just cut from its neck to the belly by the sword so that a great deal of blood spewed out. Thanks to the quick reaction of Green Spirit, who just cried out, in a moment Junior Leopard knew what Green Spirit thought through spyware and moved immediately. With red ray flashing on his fingertips, he had stored the spewing blood of Evil Fire Kylin away into the space created by Space Division Skill.


    "Damn it. It is unexpected that he should run away!"


    After collecting all the blood, Junior Leopard had been exhausted to fall down on the ground and said unbelievably, "Don''t you said that it had only two kinds of natal Divine Senses? How come it ran away?"


    "How could I know?" Green Spirit was also surprised by the Evil Fire Kylin''s action and said, "It was unexpected that it should escape. But in this case, you can securely cultivate Gang. Your last cut almost consumed half of its life. Uh, it lost most of its blood because of that cut. Even if it can go back to the lake, it can''t recover until eighty or hundred years later."


    "Eighty or hundred years? It''s too exaggerated, isn''t it?"


    "Not at all. Otherwise, why do you think is the blood of Evil Fire Kylin so precious? That''s because the blood is formed when it swallows and spits Evil Qi of Spiritual Energy of Fire during its growth. Without an accumulation for tens of millions of years, the Kylin blood would not have so strong spiritual effect. It lost so much blood. When it goes back to the lake, its blood will be recovered like before. However, the spiritual effect of the blood will be reduced greatly. As a result, the strength of the kylin will be weakened."


    "You mean that I have a chance to kill it?"


    "No," Green Spirit flatly denied and said. "Look at it. Obviously, it was a coward and was completely frightened by you. It will hide in the Rock Lake and never come out. You will never find it unless you tear the Geocentric Rock Lake up. Do you think you have that capability?"


    "Tear the Geocentric Rock Lake up?" Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows with a bitter smile and continued, "I''m not an Immortal. How could I have that capability?"


    "Even if you had achieved Individual Immortal Karma Rank, you would not have that capability," said Green Spirit with a sneer. "This Evil Fire Kylin seems to be less experienced to fights, so you just unexpectedly got a bargain. By the way, your Blue Sword was indeed weird. How did you refine it?"


    "There is something you don''t know in the world? That''s great," Junior Leopard laughed and said, "but it''s better for you to know nothing about something."


    "Kiddo, you have much more profound thoughts than others who are also your age." Hearing the words, Green Spirit understood that Junior Leopard did not want to tell him about Blue Sword. Green Spirit was sensible and stopped asking but said, "Hurry up. Cure you wound first, and then find a place to cultivate Gang. Now you have the Evil Qi of Evil Fire Kylin which can be used to cultivate the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Kylin Gang. When you accomplish that, it''s possible to use the two kinds of natal Divine Senses of Evil Fire Kylin."


    "What? To use natal Divine Sense of Evil Fire Kylin?" Junior Leopard was quite excited when he thought about the Great Fusion Technic with great power.


    "Of course. Ninety percent of its Divine Senses is in the blood of Evil Fire Kylin, as well as the secret of Great Fusion Technic. As long as you cultivate the Kylin Evil Qi into Kylin Gang, you will be able to exercise two of its three kinds of natal Divine Senses, including the Great Fusion Technic."


    "What about the other one?" Junior Leopard asked.


    "I''ll tell you when necessary!" Green Spirit laughed and added, "It''s better for you to know nothing about something."


    "..."


    Junior Leopard did not expect that Green Spirit said the same word to him so soon, which depressed him a lot.


    "Okay. Okay. It''s better to know nothing about something," he said with an ironic smile. "Now that you said that Evil Fire Kylin had been seriously injured and would never come out until eighty or even hundred years later, I don''t want to move now. I might just as well cultivate Gang here!"


    "Does the wound of your body matter?"


    "Of course, I''ll cure my wound first and then cultivate Gang. Do you want me to cultivate Gang with all my injuries uncured?" Junior Leopard taunted with a smile.


    "If you haven''t recovered from the injury yet, why not take the chance to detect your acupoint. The more serious your injury is, the more possible for you to successfully detect the acupoint!" Green Spirit continued, "This is experience concluded by human beings for detecting acupoint."


    "Is there really such a statement?" Junior Leopard was shocked that Green Spirit should have said that.


    "Don''t ask me the reason. I don''t know. Even if you human beings don''t know. It''s experience concluded from countless facts. Those necromancers fail to figure out either."


    "Let me have a try," Junior Leopard said.


    Green Spirit had taught him the way to detect acupoint, and he knew how to exercise the Dragon Flying Technique which was essential methods of Dragon tribe. He immediately exercised the Dragon Flying Technique and closed his eyes to feel the exercising routes of Dragon Flying Technique inside his body. It was essential mental cultivation methods of Dragon tribe. Even though it could also be exercised inside a human body, it was still different from being exercised in the Dragon tribe. Usually, he had never felt the lack of fluency because of those differences, but now when he exercised both the way to detect acupoint and Dragon Flying Technique, he clearly felt something different. Meanwhile, he understood why Green Spirit said that it was easier to detect acupoint when he was injured.


    When he exercised the two ways at the same time after he had got injured, the feeling of inconsistency became increasingly clear. Soon, Junior Leopard felt inconsistent in eight positions in exercising the Dragon Flying Technique. The number was just pure vague feelings for him.


    Although he felt inconsistent, he could not specify the individual points.


    "Kiddo, don''t expect to be successful with only one try. You need, to find the acupoints slowly, step by step. It will not be that easy for you to detect all the acupoints. The way to detect and cultivate acupoint half depends on luck. Don''t rush in trying to find all of them."


    "I see!"


    Junior Leopard quieted down his anxiety and exercised the way of Inner Vision. Sure enough, he began to have some knacks when he calmed down.


    "I found one!" After a time, he located a weird point in his tendons and meridians as if he found a New World. Every time he exercised the Dragon Flying Technique and made the Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire flow through the point, the Internal Qi would make a turn. What was more, the turns were different. Several times later, Junior Leopard found some rules lie in the turns: Turns were not always same. These turns of Internal Qi happening at this point could be linked together as a complete Internal Qi circulating, which meant that, by exercising the Dragon Flying Technique, his Internal Qi created a small circulating like Dantian. Junior Leopard then tried several other ways, but they did not have that kind of effect. It meant that only the Dragon Flying Technique could achieve that effect.


    "It seems that this point is one of the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints," Junior Leopard murmured. "Next, I will refine acupoints. Let''s see what''s the difference between acupoints of real dragons and human beings."


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 278: Successfully Refining Acupoints and Cultivating the Heavenly Fire Gang

    Chapter 278: Successfully Refining Acupoints and Cultivating the Heavenly Fire Gang


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Refining an acupoint was a technical task that required meticulousness.


    Even if Green Spirit had imparted the method to Junior Leopard for refining acupoints, Junior Leopard could not really understand the difficulty until he did it himself.


    He was going to use Internal Qi to scour and expand his tendons and meridians little by little so that he could create another Dantian at that particular point. Thanks to his excellent Inner Vision, Junior Leopard could just barely continue the work. Otherwise, he might have died because of bursting tendons and meridians.


    This was not a joke. Generally, even if tendons and meridians got injured, people like Junior Leopard, who had practiced into this phase, could repair them by themselves. But at present, he gathered almost three-quarters of his Internal Qi into the new acupoint in order to expand the tendons and meridians there, so that it could transform into an acupoint. If he relaxed for a while, or an accident happened, the gathered Internal Qi would burst the tendons and meridians. Under the impact force, his body would become a bloody fog and minced meat at the same time, leaving him no chance to recover.


    That was why Junior Leopard said that it was dangerous. Its requirements were, quite simply, carefulness and cautiousness.


    Gradually, Junior Leopard controlled his Internal Qi and tried to circulate it inside those tendons and meridians. He had tried several times before, but had never succeeded. If ordinary circulation could not be operated at that point, it could not be seen as an acupoint.


    "Bang!"


    After countless trials, a stream of Internal Qi finally formed a complete circulation. At the very moment that the circulation was completed, Junior Leopard felt that something had gotten through. He was shocked, and then inside of those tendons and meridians, there was a huge attractive force. Suddenly, it fiercely attracted all the Internal Qi that Junior Leopard had gathered at that point.


    The extreme speed and fierce attractive force were totally beyond Junior Leopard''s expectation.


    In the twinkling of an eye, the Internal Qi, which both gathered at that point and was stored in other places inside Junior Leopard''s body, was all attracted. In the original Dantian, there was only a poor Demonic Fire Seed, which seemed likely to be extinguished at any time.


    It was still not enough. After absorbing all his Internal Qi, that huge attractive force still existed like a hungry monster who was crazily looking for food to fill its belly. Under such circumstances, even that last Demonic Fire Seed in his Dantian could not withstand it too long.


    "Damn it!" Junior Leopard cursed in a low voice. He had clearly seen that the tendons and meridians, which now could be called an acupoint, had been established. Compared to the Dantian, this acupoint was even bigger and more grandiose, like a huge black hole. The Internal Qi moved in circles inside and formed a golden-red revolving cloud.


    However, compared to this huge acupoint, that starry cloud appeared to be too small to fill the acupoint. That was why just now the acupoint crazily emitted an attractive force to absorb as much pneuma as possible. The great attractive force also made Junior Leopard''s breathing difficult. Not only his mouth and nose but also all his pores were absorbing the surrounding pneuma. At this moment, the airflow around Junior Leopard produced a peculiar change.


    It was in the depths of the geocentric fire vein where the Spiritual Energy of Fire was extremely rich. Now, the Spiritual Energy of Fire had come here from all around and gathered around Junior Leopard''s body because of the attractive force of that new acupoint. Then all the Evil Qi of the Spiritual Energy of Fire went deep into Junior Leopard''s pores, which he could not take any more.


    Though his body was very strong, he was only in the Bone-Forging Realm. His tendons and meridians were 10 times stronger than ordinary people''s, but compared to his body, they were much more fragile. Therefore, when this heterogeneous Evil Qi and pneuma struck in the tendons and meridians, Junior Leopard immediately felt that it was hard to withstand.


    His body had just gotten badly injured. Even though those impaired tendons and meridians had been almost repaired, they could not withstand the fierce impact anymore. Now, as the Spiritual Energy of Fire ran amuck, swarming into his body, he naturally could not bear it.


    "If it continues like this, when I successfully refine my acupoint, my tendons and meridians will also explode," Junior Leopard thought to himself. Then a red ray flashed in between his eyebrows. Massive Internal Qi from the Fiery Eyes came out like a flood and rushed downward.


    Suddenly, that fierce attractive force stopped. It transformed into a much milder force to take the emerging Internal Qi from the Fiery Eyes into that new acupoint like an invisible hand.


    "Gurgle, Gurgle¡ª!"


    The Internal Qi flowed and ran along his tendons and meridians like running water. It was the first time that he had completely released the Internal Qi of the Fiery Eyes'' External Elixir. Even though he had always known that his round-the-clock practice had accumulated enormous Internal Qi in the Inner Elixir, he was extremely surprised by the significant spurting.


    "Kiddo, how did you do that? How come you have such powerful Internal Qi? It''s impossible!"


    Green Spirit screamed out. It seemed that he had felt the change happen in Junior Leopard''s body.


    "You still have a telepathic connection with the condition of my body?" Junior Leopard was shocked and he changed his expression suddenly. Because he thought that Green Spirit could not have a telepathic connection with his body anymore since Green Spirit and the green lamp had been taken out of his body.


    "Of course. Your Internal Qi comes out in torrents like a flood. With such a loud amplification, the deaf and the blind can also feel that." Green Spirit sulked and continued, "Even if I don''t have any telepathic connection with your body, I can still feel it. Tell me, how did you do it? Such powerful Internal Qi needs at least hundreds of years of practice."


    "I certainly have my own wonderful method." Hearing this, Junior Leopard was a little complacent because Green Spirit did not know the method to keep the External Elixir practicing day and night.


    "It seems that necromancers in antiquity times were not up to much. They didn''t even figure out this little talent that I just discovered with a flash of wit. If I lived in antiquity times, I must have been the Einstein among those necromancers!" Junior Leopard thought to himself complacently.


    "Circulation in acupoints never ends!"


    Just at the moment that Junior Leopard felt complacent, Green Spirit cried out strangely. "I see it. I see. Haha, you are really a lucky dog. It must be the acupoint that you used to refine your External Elixir. Only in this way, circulation in the acupoints will never end and it will accumulate such powerful Internal Qi after round-the-clock practice."


    "What do you mean? The External Elixir is also an acupoint?" Junior Leopard''s heart beat wildly.


    "Of course. You said that your External Elixir was the Fiery Eyes that has the feature of the Heavenly Magic Eyes. You yourself have the Fiery Eyes¡­" Green Spirit suddenly stopped and said nothing as if he had thought of something. And for a long time, no sound could be heard.


    "Hey, what''s wrong with you?" After a long while of silence, Junior Leopard had less patience and asked him.


    "Kiddo, be patient. Let me think, let me think," Green Spirit replied strangely and then stayed silent for another while.


    Junior Leopard stopped thinking because he knew that even if he were to think about it a lot, he still would not be able to figure it out. Then, he sat down there and led the rolling Internal Qi from the External Elixir into the acupoint.


    If his former Internal Qi could be defined as a trickle, then the Internal Qi at present could be defined as a rolling deluge.


    The rolling Internal Qi rushed out of the acupoint and integrated into his original Internal Qi. The starry cloud in the acupoint suddenly became larger but rotated slower. After a long time, the rolling Internal Qi gradually ran slower and finally stopped. In his External Elixir, there was not any Internal Qi, but only the power of the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword that had just been restored.


    The newly formed acupoint finally became stable and stopped attracting the Internal Qi from other places.


    Inside the acupoint, a huge golden-red starry cloud was rotating up and down. From time to time, the golden-red Internal Qi could be seen rising and falling. Junior Leopard suddenly detected something strange.


    "It seems that I have had this kind of feeling before." Junior felt strange in his heart. In the meantime, that golden-red starry cloud in the acupoint suddenly began to roll as if there was something stirring inside of it.


    Junior Leopard became suddenly inspired and the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique automatically exercised. When the Internal Qi was rolling within the acupoint, the Lion that had been refined by Junior Leopard appeared, and following that was an eccentric monster with a dragon''s head and a beast''s body. As the two monsters appeared, the Internal Qi in the acupoint rapidly decreased. But this time, the acupoint did not produce the attractive force. At that moment, the Lion went back into that starry cloud and only the other monster with the dragon''s head and beast''s body still hovered around that cloud.


    "It''s the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon!"


    Just now, Junior Leopard finally understood what happened inside. The Nine Forms of the Real Dragon was the third form of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. He knew that he had just now refined another one of the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon, which was called the Goat-shaped Dragon. Since he had refined the Lion, he began to pay more attention to the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon and kept all of them in his mind. But this time when he refined this Goat-shaped Dragon, he was not so lucky to have the Dragon Flying Technique in mind. He only knew that the Internal Qi was much more condensed and the fact that he had gotten another form to exercise. Now the question was what functions did this Goat-shaped Dragon possess.


    But before he began his exploration, Green Spirit''s voice came into his ears. "Kiddo, you have great luck. But also it might be big trouble."


    Junior Leopard was shocked, and then the Goat-shaped Dragon that was formed just now disappeared again into the starry cloud of the acupoint.


    "Green Spirit, I tell you that people can be frightened to death by others."


    "Yes, people can be frightened to death by others. But if it were the Innate Deity who frightens people, it would not be so simple as death." Green Spirit said slowly, "If I didn''t guess wrong, you might have two acupoints of the Innate Deity. They are your two eyes."


    Two acupoints of the Innate Deity?


    Junior Leopard was surprised by this news. With a light flashing across his eyes, he asked, "What do you mean by that?"


    "Kiddo, if I guessed right, the reason why that Fiery Eye in between your eyebrows has such a strong Internal Qi is that it circulates all the time like a Dantian and accumulates lots of pure Internal Qi."


    "Hehe, nothing can escape from your eyes."


    "It''s not because I know a lot, but because this method was tried by many people in our time. But they didn''t have as much luck as you." Green Spirit said, "Do you understand?" "What those damned necromancers were wild about were various methods to improve their strength. This was only one of them."


    "Indeed, it''s very ordinary. But it''s also quite effective."


    "That''s because you''re so lucky to have an External Elixir in the location of an acupoint. Only in this way can it operate automatically. Otherwise, it can only operate under your control, like your Dantian."


    "In the location of an acupoint? What do you mean by that?" Junior Leopard was quite confused.


    "In this world, there are many things that can be used to form an External Elixir. By and large, they can be classified into two categories. One category is the special part taken from the body of living creature. The power of External Elixir "


    "Do you mean that my External Elixir is in the exact location of an acupoint?"


    "Yes. Your External Elixir is a Fiery Eye, and you yourself have the Fiery Eyes. That means that your two eyes are the locations of two acupoints. What''s more, your Fiery Eyes are formed because of inheriting the bloodline of the Innate Deity, so the two acupoints are probably acupoints of the Innate Deity."


    "Is it really possible for me to be so lucky?"


    Hearing what Green Spirit had said, Junior Leopard could not help getting excited.


    Indeed, it was a really good thing.


    He remembered that Green Spirit had told him that, if he was lucky enough, it was possible for him to open an acupoint of the Innate Deity. It could be seen as reaching the ultimate in one leap. Because an acupoint of the Innate Deity could bear much more Internal Qi than human beings could, and even several times more than other living creatures.


    "Don''t think about that good thing so soon." Green Spirit had detected what Junior Leopard thought in his mind. Then, Green Spirit said a few words to discourage this idea. "You''ve just opened one acupoint of the Real Dragon, which almost killed you. If you can actually open an acupoint of the Innate Deity, it won''t be as simple as death. Real Dragons are just ordinary congenital living creatures, while the Innate Deity is the topmost congenital being. Under the current condition of the essence of the world, if you open an acupoint of an Innate Deity, the only result will be that the Spiritual Qi in the surrounding area of 10,000 square kilometers will be absorbed. As a result, your body will explode into pieces because of the enormous power of the massive Spiritual Qi."


    "You''re right. You''re right. Just now, when I only opened one of the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, my Internal Qi was almost completely drained. If I open an acupoint of the Innate Deity, I would drain myself." Even though this wording sounded strange, it was the truth. "Then, before I have enough strength to manage them, I won''t open the two acupoints. Does that matter?"


    "It does matter. The more acupoints that you open, the more sensitive that the Internal Qi and Real Essence are to the acupoints. Perhaps when you open nine acupoints, your Internal Qi might have transformed into Real Essence. Both the Internal Qi and Real Essence will batter your acupoints no matter if it is intentional or not. Then you will have big trouble."


    "Is that true?"


    "Many facts can prove that it''s possible. You still can''t control when and whether it happens." Green Spirit slowly said, "In our time, there were many people who were as lucky as you, but most of them died like dogs."


    "Could you please speak more politely?" Junior Leopard burst into a furry.


    "I said it for your own good. Kiddo, listen, take it easy. You have refined an acupoint and now have the experience. It''s not that hard to refine the second. But you should be patient now. What you need to do is to advance yourself to Level Eight as soon as possible before you open all of the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints."


    "Why? You said that I should refine as many acupoints as possible before I step into Level Eight, didn''t you?"


    "Time has changed. If your body was as strong as an Innate Deity''s, I wouldn''t mind if you refined all the acupoints inside your body first and then stepped into Level Eight. But now, the problem is that you don''t have the ability to control your acupoints. Just now, only one acupoint of the Real Dragon already threw you into great confusion."


    "Okay, I''ll listen to you." Junior Leopard knew that Green Spirit was right. He nodded and said, "I''ll pay more attention to the movement of my Internal Qi."


    "Besides, don''t use your Fiery Eyes if you don''t need to. Perhaps using the Fiery Eyes can stimulate your acupoints."


    "I got it," Junior Leopard replied with a bitter smile. Even though his Fiery Eyes were wonderful and unique, he had another reason to not use these two marvelous eyes.


    "You''ve just opened an acupoint. You should consolidate it first. I won''t disturb you anymore," Green Spirit considerately said.


    Junior Leopard nodded but thought about another thing. "My Blue Sword can also be practiced day and night. That''s because my skull External Elixir of the Primitive Dragon Chimera has this function, which means that I should also know the location of the Primitive Dragon Chimera''s acupoint. What a pity. I don''t know much about the way of a Primitive Dragon Chimera. Otherwise, it''s good to open this acupoint. Even if a Dragon Chimera is small, it can eat dragons, so it must be a congenital living creature."


    Over the next three days, Junior Leopard began to consolidate that just-refined acupoint and began to get familiar with the power of the Goat-shaped Dragon, which was one of the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon.


    Lions could cast countless golden fireballs that were more powerful than ordinary flames. They could even destroy Gang Qi and their power could grow along with his cultivation. He could also spare no effort to give the Lion more intelligence so that it could fight for him when necessary. But this Goat-shaped Dragon''s functions were different from the Lion''s. It could not cast that kind of golden fireball. But when Junior Leopard called for its power, the Goat-shaped Dragon would transform into a long flaming whip. This whip could extend to almost a thousand feet long and had great power. Generally, one whip could split stones and even mountains. Furthermore, except for the experts at Level Nine and those who practiced special Gang Qi, it could destroy Gang Qi in just one strike.


    "The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon are really good. It seems that I should try to learn how to use a whip."


    "You don''t need to learn a whip method. This long flaming whip is transformed by the Goat-shaped Dragon and it only has a method to fight." Green Spirit said, "It seems that you still don''t completely understand the functions of the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon."


    "Do you know the functions of the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon?"


    "Of course I know them. Every form of the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon has a special function. You don''t need to study it. You just use it." Green Spirit continued coolly, "The point is not the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon, but your Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang Qi. You are going to use the Evil Qi of Kylin to cultivate Gang. You should properly understand the power of the Evil Qi of Kylin. You have seen the Great Fusion Technique before. Perhaps you can comprehend this Divine Sense when you successfully cultivate Gang."


    "I will keep it in mind." Junior Leopard nodded. He changed his gesture slightly, and then a blast of sanguine mist came out from his fingertips and shrouded him.


    That was the Evil Qi of Kylin that he had collected.


    Condensing Evil to Gang!


    Every expert needed to go through this step. Even if your cultivation had reached Level Seven, you were merely a fake expert if you could not condense Gang Qi. For example, both Dragon Granny from the Meng family and Lyu Yiyue from the Wu family were fake experts. It meant that they only had the high cultivation of experts, but did not have the Gang Qi that a true expert should have. As a result, it was hard for them not to bow their heads in front of real experts.


    Only the geek Junior Leopard could make himself almost reach the combat capability of Level Nine without Gang Qi when he was actually at Level Seven.


    Even though Junior Leopard himself did not cultivate Gang, his Blue Sword in the External Elixir had cultivated Jade Original Power Gang. So, he actually had some experience cultivating Gang. Besides, the smart Green Spirit was at his side to provide guidance. Therefore, it was easy for him to integrate his Internal Qi with the Evil Qi of Kylin to cultivate that thinnish but remarkable Gang Qi.


    When he cultivated Gang Qi, he gradually comprehended the wonderful functions of the Evil Qi of Kylin under the guidance of Green Spirit. The Evil Qi of Kylin that drifted around Junior Leopard integrated with his Internal Qi that came out of his body and then surged, raged, and transformed into unusual visions. This lasted for over 10 days.


    Over 10 days later, Junior Leopard opened his tightly closed eyes. The surrounding Evil Qi of Kylin had been integrated with his Internal Qi. The newly cultivated gold Kylin Gang moved around Junior Leopard. Suddenly, he opened his fingers and grasped straight out.


    "Hiss¡­!"


    A soft, strange sound was heard, and then a huge rock in front of him along with its surrounding space disappeared suddenly in a shining gold light. The endless hollow flashed away in front of Junior Leopard.


    It was the Great Fusion Technique.


    The gold Gang Qi curled up into a whirlwind and then disappeared.


    "Now, only the Golden Flame Mirror is left."


    ...


    ¡­

 Chapter 279: Troublesome News

    Chapter 279: Troublesome News


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Wang She, you asshole! You not only went to my fire vein to gain benefits but also gave me trouble. What a bastard! Don''t you ever comply with morality or justice?"


    Redflame School, Greenwood Mountain.


    Half of the grand Redflame School had been destroyed by a mighty power. Most buildings were in ruins, yet a few main buildings remained.


    Raging Fire Ancestor also looked bedraggled. His fiery red robe had been broken into strips, his face was scorched and his golden-red hair stood up as if he had been burned by electricity.


    In fact, he had been.


    "Humph! This geocentric fire vein is given and nourished by nature. Old man, even the emperor has no right to proclaim sovereignty, let alone you. How can it be yours? Do you mean to claim it as your property just because you established a Redflame School here? If so, it will belong to me tomorrow after I build a toilet here." Wang She sneered and said, "Listen, if you don''t give me a clear answer, I will pull down your Redflame School and destroy this geocentric fire vein."


    "I''ve told you for many times, that guy has either run away or has been trapped in the geocentric fire vein. It''s of no help for you to make trouble for me. If you didn''t waste time here but went down to look for him at first, you might have found him by now."


    "Humph! You have forcibly occupied this geocentric fire vein for so many years. Thus, you must be more familiar with the inside terrain than me. It will be more efficient if you come with me. If you have no ulterior motives, wouldn''t you go down with me?"


    "You¡­" Raging Fire Ancestor tried his best to suppress his anger, but his fiery red eyebrows couldn''t help moving.


    Conversations like this had lasted for over ten days. That was unexpected for Raging Fire Ancestor.


    He used to think that only Junior Leopard snuck into the fire veins. Unexpectedly there were two more partners. Moreover, it seemed that the chief plotter was not Zhou Bao.


    It was really troublesome when Wang She and Prince Xiaoming came to ask him for Junior Leopard at the same time.


    He always thought he was on the reasonable side, but obviously, those two were unreasonable people.


    After all, Prince Xiaoming was a member of the same school as him. He would not go too far but incidentally added some inessential words. While Wang She was relentless, he not only almost destroyed the Redflame School that the Raging Fire Ancestor established with lots of effort, but also inflicted serious wounds on his several disciples. If he had no scruples, he probably would have killed them.


    "Prince Xiaoming, you are the Great Venerable of the Redflame School. How dare you unite with outsiders to attack members of our school? Aren''t you afraid of being punished according to school discipline?"


    "I didn''t attack them. I just made a round trip inside your Redflame School." Prince Xiaoming shrugged and said, "Old Raging Fire, you''d better listen to him and get that guy out of the fire vein. Otherwise, he won''t leave the matter at that. What''s more, that guy has done me an unnecessary favor and I''m much obliged for that."


    "Since you are obliged, why don''t you go down to look for him? I didn''t kill him." Raging Fire Ancestor felt extremely aggrieved and added, "If you want to use my fire vein, you can just tell me. Why are you so furtive?"


    "I have no time to listen to your verbose talk." Suddenly, Wang She''s body shone with green electric light. He said to Raging Fire Ancestor, "Old man, you have two choices. Surrender Junior Leopard or come with us to look for him. I don''t want to spare more time with you here."


    "Humph! Wang She, do you really take my Redflame School as your backyard to do whatever you want within?" Raging Fire Ancestor''s body also shone with red rays and he angrily replied, "Let me see who is more powerful!"


    "Now that you yourself want to fight, it won''t be my fault if I hurt you later." Wang She narrowed his eyes and fiercely stared at Raging Fire Ancestor, just like a poisonous snake.


    But on the verge of a fight breaking out, a strange thing happened.


    A golden ray was projected from the back of Greensword Mountain, and then the surrounding essence of the world fiercely fluctuated.


    What was more, on this sunny day, the heat from the sunlight was decreasing rapidly. At that moment, sunlight in the surrounding 25 square kilometers seemed to lose all its energy and become cold. Even if it only happened in a flash, the three experts of Level Nine were so sensitive that they simultaneously moved to the place where the golden light appeared.


    Junior Leopard looked bedraggled with his whole body soiled with dust. Under his feet, there was a huge round hole which could extend to the depth of geocentric fire vein. At the same time, extremely strong Spiritual Energy of Fire was gushing from this hole and was out of control.


    When he just opened his eyes, Junior Leopard saw Raging Fire Ancestor who made him subconsciously pose in a defensive gesture. After which, he felt relieved because he saw Wang She and Prince Xiaoming.


    "Hey, brothers. Have you successfully mastered the stunt?"


    Wang She did not give a shit at all, while Prince Xiaoming''s face turned slightly red because of Junior Leopard''s teasing words. She replied, "You really are a lucky dog. You survived!"


    "Hehe, it''s just a little earth fire. It can''t kill me." Junior Leopard said with a smile.


    "Humph! Kiddo, you are just lucky." It was a great relief for both Wang She and the Raging Fire Ancestor to see Junior Leopard get out from the geocentric fire vein safely.


    "Okay. Now that he has come out safely, you guys can leave."


    In the past a dozen days, Raging Fire Ancestor had been so mentally exhausted for dealing with Wang She, that he had no energy to even lose his temper. All he wanted was to send the three gods of plague away as soon as possible, and then he would feel thankful. He had no desire to badger with them anymore.


    Actually, Wang She had intended to make some more trouble. But he gave it up when receiving the signal from Prince Xiaoming''s eyes.


    Then they left together.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    "Now that Raging Fire Ancestor is so familiar with you guys, why did we sneak into the fire vein and making such trouble?" Junior Leopard asked with confusion.


    "I didn''t want to owe him a favor. Besides, we didn''t know whether you would destroy the geocentric fire vein again or not. If we had informed him and you carelessly destroyed this geocentric fire vein, we would become enemies."


    "He knows about it at last. Then what''s the difference?"


    "You are right. If I had known this, there wouldn''t be so much trouble."


    "In fact, you were not wrong. But you should carry it through to the end. If you had properly dealt with Chilei, who later informed the Raging Fire Ancestor, perhaps there would be no trouble today."


    "You really have cut-throat means at your young age. After all, Chilei is a Venerable of my school. To deal with him? How? Kill him?"


    "I didn''t say to kill him, but we can tie him and leave him inside the geocentric fire vein. Of course, we would let him go when we came out. We shouldn''t have left him there... Okay, it was my fault for failing to express myself. Otherwise, we wouldn''t have had such trouble today."


    "Kiddo, this time we are obliged to you. But you''d better not behave like this as if you are giving a lesson." Prince Xiaoming was quite dissatisfied with Junior Leopard''s attitude. "Kiddo, listen, if you keep talking like this, I will throw you back into the fire vein."


    "Hey hey!" Junior Leopard touched his head with a smile and stopped talking.


    "Kiddo, it seems that you''ve gotten great benefits this time." In a timely manner, Wang She changed the topic.


    "Sure. You guys also got lots of benefits, right?"


    "Hehe!" Wang She forced a smile and said, "Do you know that the World Hero Competition has come to an end. That Pure Yang Celestial Device has a new owner."


    "Oh, really?" Junior Leopard was interested in the Pure Yang Celestial Device. Before he came out from the geocentric fire vein, his Golden Flame Mirror had absorbed enough Sun Colored Glaze Flame to evolve to Pure Yang. By now, he had finished refining his own Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    "Who is the lucky dog to own this Pure Yang Celestial Device? Is it the guy from the Li family?" Junior Leopard asked because he was on good terms with Li Xiu.


    "No. It''s Yan Fei, Xining King''s Eldest Son." Wang She replied, "Li Xiu was beaten by Ji Yeyue. But she gave up and didn''t show up in the battleground of the final battle. It meant that Yan Fei won that Pure Yang Celestial Device hands down."


    "It is a Pure Yang Celestial Device. How could Ji Yeyue give up it so easily? She''s really generous." Junior Leopard sighed.


    "That Pure Yang Celestial Device is the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda, which owns offense-defense fusion together. It''s quite powerful. I believe that very soon, Xining King''s Eldest Son will be world-renowned."


    "It''s a good thing. Thus, the Great Jin will have another teen expert."


    "Maybe he will cause you some trouble."


    "Me? Why? He is the eldest son of Xining King. What does he have to do with me?"


    "The things you have done recently are too aggressive. Even though you have gained a big reputation, you also cause dissatisfaction with other people. Some others'' profits have also been affected. Therefore, some people are going to cause trouble for you."


    "What can I do now?"


    "By the way, if Yan Fei challenges you, what will you do?"


    "Challenge me?" Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows. This was unexpected for him. If he was challenged, he seemed to have no reason to refuse it. It was the Jianghu''s rule that after you achieved success and won recognition, you should face not only things you won but also the challenges you met. If you refused, it would be regarded as you admitting defeat and you would lose your reputation. This was why Wang Yuebai accepted it without hesitation when he was challenged by Junior Leopard. Mostly, he was confident enough, but besides that, he feared that if he refused, his reputation would be damaged.


    Junior Leopard did not care about his reputation. He thought for a while and said, "I don''t think he is that stupid as to challenge me when he just achieved Level Seven. A Pure Yang Celestial Device can''t help him reach the pinnacle with one leap."


    "In the eyes of the people in Jianghu, what helped you in the battles where you achieve your success, was also a celestial device. Not a Pure Yang Celestial Device, but only an ordinary psychic celestial device." Wang She said with a smile, "You have created a legend. Obviously, someone wants to break the legend now."


    "Is it really that serious? I''m just a common person in Jianghu, while he''s the Xining King''s Eldest Son. He has nothing to do with me. Why must he come to cause me trouble?"


    "Everything happens for a good reason. It''s not he who wants to cause you trouble. It''s an irresistible trend. He has to challenge you even if he doesn''t want to. Do you think he could get the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda for free?" Wang She gave him a look and sneered. "Kiddo, I know what you are thinking of, but you must know that you have been trapped in Jianghu. It''s not that easy to remain clean. You involuntarily get involved in many things that you can''t control."


    "I see. Is your news accurate?"


    "At least it''s more accurate than yours." Wang She replied, "By the way, Princess Xiaoming, you''ve also heard the news, haven''t you?"


    "Exactly. I''ve heard of that." Prince Xiaoming nodded and glanced at Junior Leopard. "Kiddo, Wang She is right. You are too dazzling right now, basking in the limelight. Someone wants to humble you."


    "To humble me?" Junior Leopard slightly raised his lips and said, "I just don''t understand why there are always some people thinking that they are superior to others and want to humble other people from time to time. I piss on them!" Junior Leopard murmured to himself and a cold light flashed across his eyes. "Okay. Let''s wait and see who is going to be humbled."


    Prince Xiaoming and Wang She smiled at each other.


    After walking for some distance together, Junior Leopard took the thing he wanted from Prince Xiaoming and went another way.


    Their journey to the earth vein was quite dangerous. But the harvest was more than expected. He not only successfully cultivated Gang but also refined a Pure Yang Celestial Device. With a Pure Yang Celestial Device, Junior Leopard would feel more grounded and confident when facing a Ninth-level expert.


    At least he didn''t need to run away like how he would''ve done against Raging Fire Ancestor last time.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    "Your Excellency, you finally come back. If you didn''t return soon, we would''ve completely lost our heads."


    "What happened?" Seeing the several worried people, Junior Leopard thought to himself, "Had the letter of challenge from the damn Yan Fei been received?"


    "I pay my respects to Your Excellency!" A figure flashed past behind Jiang Xiao and he went down on his knees upon seeing Junior Leopard.


    "Wang Datong? Oh, it''s you. Long time no see. I remember that you should be in Jiang City. Why are you here?"


    Wang Datong was former captain of rear services for Navy of Jiang City, afterward he became a shareholder and the shopkeeper of the Anyuan Store.


    "Your Excellency, I heard that you came here, so I came to pay my respects and report something to you."


    "What is it?"


    "Well, Your Excellency, all goods have been packed and we are ready to set out tomorrow. However, with the distance being so far and the terrain including mountains, it''s not that easy to arrive at the destination. Since you are here, I''d like to have a discussion with you."


    "Oh, really? All goods have been packed well?"


    These goods were prepared for Junior Leopard''s territory. Because of the location being so remote, bitter and in the cold northwest, his territory had a small population and thus less production. Winter was coming and if there wasn''t enough food and materials, at least half of the people in his territory would die. Junior Leopard definitely wouldn''t let things like that happen. Therefore, he had asked Wang Datong to prepare and send lots of goods to his territory in batches. This was the last batch of goods. He had made a fortune in both Cool Breeze Gang and Blackwolf tribe. Even if it could not be compared with a country, the money was enough for him to support his people for many years.


    But it was not only about buying goods, it was also about transporting and storing these goods. Junior Leopard did not want to manage these trifle things. In addition, Wang Datong used to methodically take charge of finance for the Navy of Jiang City and was experienced in it. Therefore, he asked Wang Datong to manage all of it.


    "Yes, your Excellency. Everything is ready." Wang Datong nodded.


    "Okay. Then you can ask the caravans to set out. As you have said, it''s a long distance. If they don''t set out as soon as possible, winter may have already passed when they arrive finally there."


    "That''s exactly what I''m going to say." Wang Datong added, "It will take at least half a year to deliver those goods. Even though we never delay and hurry on with our journey, we may also be late. Thanks to your great consideration, most of the goods have either been delivered or are due to arrive at the destination now."


    "What''s your opinion?" Junior Leopard looked at him with confused eyes.


    "Well, your Excellency. Given the long distance and cold weather, as well as the blizzard in the north, I''m wondering if we can deliver these goods in early spring. Otherwise, once we encounter heavy blizzard on the way, both the goods and our people would get into danger."


    "Fine," Junior Leopard nodded and replied, "It''s a reasonable request. Winter is coming. It''s indeed dangerous to deliver so many goods. Okay. You can deliver this batch of goods in early spring as you said. By the way, you don''t need to ask for my opinion. Just manage such kind of trivial things on your own. It doesn''t matter"


    "Thank you very much. Your Excellency, there''s one more thing I must report."


    "What''s up?"


    "Thanks to you, the Anyuan Store has a good reputation and our business goes well. The losses have also been made up. Those bandits gave back all the goods they robbed and paid us a large sum of money. Now that we''ve extended several other business lines, after the beginning of spring, I''m preparing to start a business in the south. What I worry about is the Sect of Flame which has great influence in the south. They hide their influence and implant lots of people among ordinary folks. Almost every store in the south is related to the Sect of Flame. Thus, we have to comply with the provisions of the government and also the ones of the Sect of Flame. I''m afraid that they will bully newcomers."


    "You really want to expand the business to the south?"


    "The south is known for good mountains and rivers. It''s an abundant place with a developed water network and advanced business. Three-quarters of the Great Jin''s fortune is based in the south. That''s why the government never wants to seriously suppress the south. No matter how aggressive the Sect of Flame is. If we can expand our business to the southern market, Anyuan Store will have a more promising future. What''s more, if we succeed in extending this route from your territory directly to the south, great benefits will be brought. So I''m trying to carry out the plan through interpersonal networks in the south. We should receive exact information about it soon." Wang Datong said.


    "I know little about business, but I''m interested in what you said. If you really want, you don''t need to bother. The newly appointed Great Venerable of External Three Halls that belong to the Sect of Flame is Cao Xuetang. He''s my friend. You can go and ask him for help," Junior Leopard replied.


    "Cao Xuetang?" Wang Datong suddenly trembled. He had heard of Cao Xuetang. That man used to be an ordinary Venerable of the Sect of Flame. Even though he once held a relatively important position, he had fallen into disgrace for a long time. It was just half a month ago, he suddenly stepped into Level Eight and became the Great Venerable of the Sect of Flame. Besides, he gained support from parties who had true power. He defeated his opponents and controlled the External Three Halls. Now he had almost become the most sought-after person in the sect. Wang Datong had never thought that such a man was a friend of his boss.


    "Your Excellency, do you really know him?"


    Junior Leopard smiled and said, "Just feel free to do business in the south. If you have trouble, you can ask Cao Xuetang for help. "


    "Yes, your Excellency. I''ll do it at once." Wang Datong said excitedly. He was very smart and good at doing business. Certainly, he knew that it was extremely wonderful for a businessman in the south to have a good relationship with a big shot of the Sect of Flame.


    "Don''t be happy that early. It''s not a problem to find a helper. As for doing business, you must count on yourself."


    "Don''t worry, your Excellency! If I messed up the business under such good conditions, you can just take my life."


    "Why should I?" Junior Leopard said with a smile, "You can do your job at ease. I won''t treat you shabbily. You are a shareholder of Anyuan Store. The more money you make, the more bonus you''ll get. Isn''t that right?"


    "You are right, your Excellency. I''d like to express my deep gratitude to you for your understanding." Jiang Xiao, Wang Cheng, Zhu Ba and Wang Datong replied with one voice.


    "Okay. By the way, I was informed that Xining King''s Eldest Son might make me for trouble. What''s your opinion on it?"


    "Xining King''s Eldest Son? Do you mean Yan Fei, the winner of World Hero Competition who won the Pure Yang Celestial Device?" They were all shocked. Even though they were not strong enough to clearly understand what exactly a battle between experts of Level Seven was, they all heard of the legend of Pure Yang Celestial Devices. His Excellency gained worldwide fame with a psychic celestial device at that time. The one Yan Fei got was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, which was two levels higher than a psychic celestial device and attracted many heroes to fight for it. Despite that Zhou Bao had unfathomable cultivation and great strength, it was not guaranteed for him to win a battle if his opponent had a Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    "Your Excellency, we all watched the World Hero Competition. We can''t identify Yan Fei''s true strength, but we have seen that Pure Yang Celestial Device. When it showed up, it shined and looked really dazzling. At the moment it was taken out from the box, we, even thousands of people on spot, all felt a great power and couldn''t move at all. Only those renowned experts of Level Seven were exceptions. That pressure didn''t disappear until it was put away by Xining King''s Eldest Son. Your Excellency, I have to tell you, that Pure Yang Celestial Device''s power is even stronger than yours when you fought with Wang Yuebai."


    ¡­


    .

 Chapter 280: A Wicked Idea and the Poisonous Dragon Emperor

    Chapter 280: A Wicked Idea and the Poisonous Dragon Emperor


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "I know. If it were not powerful, it couldn''t be called a Pure Yang Celestial Device at all," said Junior Leopard. "But, only one Pure Yang Celestial Device can''t scare me away. I just don''t want to be led by the nose. I haven''t seen Yan Fei. What''s your opinion, Jiang Xiao?"


    "It''s hard to say, Your Excellency. But I''ve seen his performance several times. His Qi Power is overbearing. What''s more, because of his high strength, he seems to be very arrogant. So many times he has raised his chin to the sky and disregarded others'' feelings when fighting on the stage. I think he should be a piece of cake."


    "A piece of cake?" Junior Leopard laughed, saying, "All right, since such a person is only a piece of cake, I''ll leave him to you."


    "What?" Jiang Xiao opened his mouth widely, wearing a bitter expression. "Your Excellency, please don''t be so hard on me! Even if he is a piece of cake, only you, the expert, can handle him. My cultivation is only at Level Three, so he can easily kill me with one finger. God bless me!"


    "But you just said he was only a piece of cake."


    "That''s because I was answering your question. For you, he is no stronger than a child. But for people like us, even if he is a fool, with a cultivation at Level Seven, he can also be as powerful as a god."


    "Well, this way. You help me to spread the message that I''ve got some insights about practicing when fighting with Wang Yuebai. And I''m going to have closed-door training, refusing any visitors. Hurry up."


    "Yes, Your Excellency. So, how long will this closed-door training last?"


    "One year. I''ll have a one-year closed-door training," Junior Leopard answered ruthlessly.


    "One year? Isn''t that too long?" Wang Datong clamored at the side, "But the trade route in the south¡ª"


    "The trade route in the south doesn''t need me to appear personally. Just ask Cao Xuetang for help. Now all the people know that the Anyuan Store is my estate. Even if you don''t ask him, he will also help you." Junior Leopard waved his hands impatiently and said, "Stop here. I need to perform my closed-door training now. You can all go, except for Jiang Xiao."


    "Your Excellency, what are your instructions?" After the other two men had gone, Jiang Xiao still remained. He looked at Junior Leopard with curiosity.


    "Go and help me with one thing."


    "What is it?"


    Junior Leopard waved to him, hinting for Jiang Xiao to move closer to his ear. Then Junior Leopard said something to him in a low voice, making Jiang Xiao''s expression change as if it were a palette. "What? Oh my God. Your Excellency, your idea is so wicked!"


    "Really? I don''t think so. I''m just nipping it in the bud. In case he looks to me for any trouble, I''d like take the initiative to gain the upper hand."


    After giving his orders and sending Jiang Xiao away, Junior Leopard hunkered down in the house, at the same time recalling all of the benefits that he won in the geocentric fire vein a few days ago. Inside the acupoints that he had unpacked, Internal Qi flowed like a running river. He also released the Goat-shaped Dragon, one of the shapes of the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon, trying to be up on it. As for his Gang Qi, to be exact, the kylin Gang of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire, it was more fantastic. This gold Gang Qi was like a jumping flame when being performed. Though it seemed to be normal, it had a mighty lethality. What was more delighting was that when he unpacked the Real Dragon''s Acupoints, he succeeded in both amplifying his Internal Qi in numbers and practicing Gang Qi. Therefore, when he succeeded in practicing the Gang of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire, he should refine nine fire dragons with his Internal Qi and blend them with the Gang Qi. As soon as the Gang of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire was performed, the nine fire dragons began to embrace him. How awe-inspiring! When he threw out those nine dragons, they would coil together and burn with raging fire, making a subtle formation. That formation would turn into a huge cover and spurt out a roaring flame. Junior Leopard had had one tentative attack before, but this cover, which was made of nine fire dragons, had boundless might. It could even melt gold and stones.


    "This is the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield, one of the esoteric Divine Senses of the Taixuan School from antiquity times. Unexpectedly, it can still be seen now."


    "A Divine Sense? What on earth is a Divine Sense?"


    "A Divine Sense is an insight which primitive ancestors comprehended according to the Self Divine Sense of Grand Demons or Innate Deitys. It can communicate with heaven and earth and release a huge might, just like the so-called special techniques or secret skills in your life. The Great Fusion Technic is a Divine Sense, and so is the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang." Green Spirit continued, "However, because of changes in time and differences of the essence of the world, people will use different ways to perform their skill. We can take your Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang as an example. From the Evil Qi nowadays, only when the Blood Essence Evil Yuan, one kind of top Evil Qi of Fire, blends with the full-bodied Internal Qi, can the Gang be achieved. And you luckily have full-bodied Internal Qi, which surpasses the majority of people. At the same time, Evil Kylin is more advanced than Blood Essence Evil Yuan. Therefore, you can practice it successfully. If it were someone else, he would absolutely have no possibility."


    "That is to say, I''m really so lucky that I can practice one more Divine Sense!" Junior Leopard laughed and said, "So, who should I say thanks to? You, or my insubstantial luck?"


    "No one except yourself!" said Green Spirit. "No matter if it''s the Great Fusion Technic or the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield, both of them need the essence and spirit. Since you have one Pure Yang Celestial Device, you don''t need so many Divine Senses. In ancient times, one good weapon could help you travel all over the world."


    "What if I lose my celestial device?"


    "Then you''ll be so ill-starred."


    "I can detect the mystery of the Golden Flame Mirror when it has absorbed the Sun Colored Glaze Flame."


    "Well, that''s for sure. In antiquity times, people always lived with their magic weapons. They never fought with their own cultivation. Unlike this life, where only a few celestial devices are left. How boring!"


    "Yeah, it''s really boring for people to fight with their own cultivation. But unfortunately, you can never go back to the antiquity times, or else¡ª"


    "Just stop here. Don''t talk about old anecdotes anymore. Though your Golden Flame Mirror is ready, you still need to nourish it carefully and become familiar with it little by little. When you reach the Metaphysical Realm or Individual Immortal Karma Rank and have insights in Taoism of Primordial Spirit, you can develop all the power of this celestial device. At that time, you won''t need to be afraid of anyone!"


    "I don''t need to be afraid of anyone even now," Junior Leopard sneered.


    "Oh yes, you don''t need to be afraid of anyone even now." Green Spirit repeated his words, but his voice was full of amusement.


    "Hmph," Junior Leopard sneered again. He did not pay attention to him any longer, instead, he patiently refreshed his spirit by closing his eyes and began to practice.


    .........


    ...¡­


    "What? What did you say just now? Yan Fei, Xining King''s Eldest Son, is the bastard of His Majesty, and His Majesty even desires to pass power on to him? Are you mad?"


    The World Hero Competition had just finished. Before digesting the fruits of victory, Xining King''s Eldest Son, Yan Fei, the teen expert who just pushed himself forward, was surrounded by an absurd rumor. He even had no time to adjust his mentality and began another task.


    The rumor of being the emperor''s bastard was widespread in West Capital. Furthermore, this rumor became increasingly fierce like wildfire in just a few days. By now, it might have spread to all over the world.


    Because of this, His Majesty was said to fly into a rage. In just three days, a dozen restaurants were forced to close down because customers talked about that rumor in there. However, rumors were always independent of the potentate''s will. And they could never be eliminated just by sealing up restaurants.


    The source of the rumor was unclear. The authorities could not find out who the spreader was at all. They only knew that the news had first spread out from the Yuanhai Restaurant. So the Yuanhai Restaurant was the first to be closed. But it started up business again the next day. That was because the Yuanhai Restaurant was King Yuan''s estate. King Yuan, who was the fifth son of His Majesty and had huge influences among all the princes, was hard to deal with. He insisted that the one who had spread the rumors in his restaurant had no relationship with him. Actually, the authorities could not find any evidence to prove his suspicions of that rumor, so they ended up with nothing concrete.


    Though the restaurants in West Capital had some background, not all of them were as influential as King Yuan. How could they not try to avoid being involved in such events?


    Therefore, each restaurant that had not been sealed up in the capital city were all apprehensive of danger within every sound. Some of them even closed their doors on their own initiative, in case of getting into trouble.


    On the other hand, the initiator of evil had already set foot on the way back to the northwest.


    Yes, it was Junior Leopard who asked Jiang Xiao to spread that rumor.


    On hearing that Xining King''s Eldest Son wanted to look for trouble with him, Junior Leopard was really reluctant. He was not willing to deal with Yan Fei at all. But if Yan Fei did challenge him, according to his status in Jianghu now, he had to say yes. After all, when in Jianghu, things would go beyond control. So, he thought up a wicked idea to disperse Yan Fei''s attention.


    He had planned to perplex Yan Fei, but unexpectedly, a huge disturbance was caused.


    Yes, a huge disturbance,


    because this rumor had touched the most taboo topic in the Great Jin. Though the protagonist paid no attention to that rumor, there still were so many people who were kept in the dark.


    And in this world, the most meddlesome people were those who were kept in the dark. At the same time, they had the richest imaginations.


    Hence, a rumor that was originally simple and easy to expose diverged into many versions from mouth to mouth. Most of them were clear and logical and reasonable. Little by little, many exciting and interesting rumors and stories endlessly emerged.


    For a while, all the world remained restless. Yan Fei, the new teen expert, was pushed into the teeth of the storm. He could not spare any efforts to care about Junior Leopard any longer. So Junior Leopard swaggered along and returned to his territory, claiming to have a one-year closed-door training. With no impetuous man looking for trouble with him, he was free and easy the whole way.


    .........¡­


    ......


    "The weather is getting cold." Standing above a protruding rock, Junior Leopard closed his eyes and sensed the blowing cold wind. "No wonder people often say the northwest is a tough and cold land. As expected, it''s at least 20 degrees lower than the Central Plains in winter. What''s more, the wind is like a steel knife when it is blowing. How painful my face is!"


    "It''s time to go to the Blacktail Plain. That damn long bug is still cozily lying in the Blacktail Plain. Because the Blacktail Plain is very large, it didn''t matter before. But since the territory in the north has all been enfeoffed, that location has become critical. If I can take control of that area, then I''ll nip the lifeline of the entire northwest. Getting the passageway in the Blacktail Plain through means going through a shortcut between the northwest to the Central Plains. Since I can figure it out, so can other people. I heard that a few lords who live near the Blacktail Plain have already been aware of it and sent people to inquire about it. Some lords with big territories even are ready to align together and fight against Black Demon Chama!" Junior Leopard recalled information about the Blacktail Plain that he had learned recently. He then sneered, "No matter how powerful Black Demon Chama is, it''s just a monster that is not mature enough. If those lords truly take it seriously and ask several experts to attack with joining hands, then they would certainly face big problems. But if I bring Black Demon Chama under control first, the situation will be different." Thinking about that, Junior Leopard could not help chuckling.


    "Hey you, guy... what are you thinking about? I thought that you weren''t a timid man. Why would you think up such a wicked idea to deal with Yan Fei? Are you afraid of him?"


    "The situation in the Central Plains is becoming more and more complex." Junior Leopard shook his head, saying, "I don''t have enough power to put my foot in it. Actually, I also don''t want to. Though the northwest is a tough and cold land, it''s a good fit for me to cultivate my mind and do closed-door training. I can also keep away from the disputes in the Central Plains. Besides, I have pushed myself forward for so long. Long-time prosperity will lead to failure. Previously, no one was outstanding enough to distract everyone''s attention for me. But now, there are three. Just let them show off."


    "So, you think if you don''t push yourself forward, you will be let off then?"


    "That''s why I don''t push myself forward but hide in the northwest." Junior Leopard smiled and said, "Heaven is high and the emperor is far away from here. And nominally, it''s my domain. If I can''t deal with a person who looks for trouble in my domain, how can I dare to live any longer!"


    While speaking, Junior Leopard changed his expression. He turned around and saw a man running toward him in a flurry.


    On the hillside of Jilei Mountain, there was a rock which towered 50-60 feet over the cliffside. The surface of the rock was flat and was roomy enough for a man to hunker. After returning to his territory, Junior Leopard, though he lived in his big residence, would spend most of the time hunkering on that rock. It made him more like an enigmatic master who always withstood exposure, deprivation, and hunger just to absorb the Sun and Moon Essence.


    Common people did not dare to bother him, they even did not dare to enter within 1,000 feet of the rock. Only when urgent things happened would Jiang Xiao ask people to inform Junior Leopard. Looking at that man who was muddleheaded, Junior Leopard had inexplicable anger in his heart. "What green and inexperienced subordinates they are!"


    Even though he had a huge territory, he actually had few people there. And most of those people were centered around the town centralization. As the population in his territory grew more and more, however, the personnel structure had improved a lot. Instead of only having the old and the weak, more and more muscular teens entered into his territory because of human traders. Just because the labor turnover was more tanglesome, the public security became less ordered for some time. And the management of the town was chaotic. Hence, on Junior Leopard''s order, a small government that took Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao, and Zhu Ba as the core was established. Work regarding public security and protection in the town was in the charge of Zhu Ba. However, Zhu Ba could not do everything himself, in spite of his decent strength. He whereupon gathered some muscular teens and taught them martial arts, no matter what their race was. As the basic defensive power in the town, they were titled urban management, an amiable and proper name, by Junior Leopard.


    The urban management became stronger day by day, but its quality needed to be improved.


    But that was pardonable. People who were sold here by human traders were either sinners or bandits. They were at the end of their ropes. Each of them had bandit nature and was good at destruction, and they all felt uneasy and unadapted when wearing robes.


    More than that, they worked imprudently and obtrusively and were never stable men.


    "What are you flustering about? What happened?" Junior Leopard frowned. He moved his finger slightly, then an invisible and withy parclose appeared in front of that man and stopped him.


    "Your Excellency, bad news! There''s been an accident in the refined-iron mine!"


    "What could happen in the refined-iron mine?" Junior Leopard frowned again. There was a refined-iron mine in his territory. But because the trade route had not gone through yet and people in the territory were not rich enough, they seldom exploited it. They had just built a small puddling workshop and dug some mineral to meet the basic needs of the territory. Since few people were there, what could happen?


    Junior Leopard felt a bit puzzled. His figure flashed and then disappeared from that rock.


    A red light rushed down Jilei Mountain.


    The refined-iron mine was also located down Jilei Mountain, but it was far away from his town. He was satisfied with it because few people would be bothered.


    His speed was pretty fast. But when he arrived, the entire area of the mine was in a chaotic state.


    A dozen weak and limp miners could not move a step on the ground. The urban management of the town was dispatched. But strangely, both the urban management and Zhu Ba stomped far away from the refined-iron mine, showing no intention to access it.


    "What''s wrong with it, Zhu Ba? Why are you standing over here, offering no help?"


    "Thank God, you are finally here. Your Excellency, we''ve got a problem, a big problem!" Zhu Ba looked pale. He seemed to get his backbone back upon seeing Zhou Bao arrive. "There''s poison gas in it. At first, we didn''t know, so we asked people to go inside. But shortly after entering into the mine area, they all fell down, fainting. I tried once, but I almost couldn''t get back. The poisonous gas is colorless and tasteless. How grisly! I''ve no idea what I should do about it now."


    "Poisonous gas?" Junior Leopard was surprised. "Let me see."


    Upon finishing those words, two green lights appeared and circled around him. His figure flashed and then he entered into the mine area. As expected, as soon as he set foot in the mine area, the Poison Cold Shield started absorbing insanely.


    "There really is bane here." Feeling shocked in his heart, he did not dare to be neglectful. He raised his hand and rolled the miners and the urban management up to the outside. A layer of green light flashed. It flowed across their bodies like a streamer, extracting all the bane from out of their bodies.


    "I''ve detoxified them. Go and ask the doctors to check them. If they are alive, then treat them quickly."


    "Yes!" Zhu Ba nodded and called people out to go and get the doctors.


    Junior Leopard turned back and entered into the hole again.


    The mine hole was neither big nor deep. Since it had only been exploited not long ago, it was not as moist or dark as those old mine holes. But, this was a rich ore. So even if time was short, the stones on the wall were still twinkling with colorful lights. It was beautiful.


    The deepest place in the mine hole was 100 feet away from the entrance and the height was about 10 feet, so everywhere could be seen clearly. In the depth of the hole, something seemed to be wrong on the stone wall. Something ropy was running out of a deep gap.


    Is this blood?


    Though owning eccentric eyes and superior vision, Junior Leopard still could not figure out what that was just yet.


    "It seems to be the corpse of an evil beast,"


    Junior Leopard said in astonishment when he checked it carefully.


    He now knew that the colorless and tasteless poisonous gas was emitted out from this running "blood". From the part that was exposed from the stone wall, Junior Leopard could indistinctly see rough, plicated black fur, like the skin of a lizard.


    "Get closer, let me see it more clearly!" Green Spirit''s voice rang out in his mind, sounding very excited.


    "Can I gain benefits from it?" When hearing Green Spirit''s voice, Junior Leopard became excited again. He rushed toward that stone wall in a few steps.


    "Green Spirit, do you know what it is?"


    "Yes, of course! This is one of the five poisonous beasts, which were mounted by the Poisonous Dragon Emperor in those days. It''s unexpected that it should die here."


    "The Poisonous Dragon Emperor?"


    "He was a famous bastard in antiquity times, a bastard who was the most intrepid. Why would his mount appear here?"


    Eight balls of golden flame appeared instantly around the stone wall. Within a few minutes, the stone wall was burnt with a big hole. But the corpse of that poisonous beast did not suffer any damage at all. After a long-time practicing, Junior Leopard''s control of the flame of Lion reached a high degree of professional proficiency.


    When the body of that poisonous beast was exposed at last, Junior Leopard raised his left eyebrow slowly.


    "This damn thing definitely is a poisonous beast!"


    This so-called poisonous beast was just a horse-like monster, which was four times larger than common horses. It had a black body, along with rough skin. Its appearance was quite ugly and odd. There was only the upper part of the body left. The lower part of the body had vanished from sight. From its wound, Junior Leopard guessed it must have been torn by a strong power.

 Chapter 281: The Emperor of the Moon Temple and the Azure Secret Area

    Chapter 281: The Emperor of the Moon Temple and the Azure Secret Area


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What was the poisonous beast torn by?" Junior Leopard asked. The wound of that poisonous beast was uneven. Though not knowing how many years had passed, Junior Leopard found the wound still shocking to look at. Some blue crystal particles remaining in the skin folds could faintly be seen. Those blue crystal particles were pretty small, several times smaller than rice. People other than Junior Leopard could hardly see such small crystal particles which hid in the skin folds.


    "Hey! This is the Moon Method. This poisonous beast was torn by the Moon Method. You see, those crystal particles are dark frost, which takes their shape when the Moon Method freezes air. Don''t judge them just based on their quantity. Each particle can freeze a master of martial arts who is under Level Seven to death. Some experts who are over Level Seven may also fall into the trap due to carelessness." Green Spirit had distinguished what those blue crystal particles were. He took a deep breath and said, "How could the Poisonous Dragon Emperor direct in the Moon Palace? Why should the Moon Palace kill his mount? It''s well-known that the Poisonous Dragon Emperor had spent painstaking efforts to refine these poisonous beasts. The Poisonous Dragon Emperor always took them as his lifeblood. Since it died here, the Emperor of the Moon Temple must have taken actions."


    "The Poisonous Dragon Emperor? The Emperor of the Moon Temple? Were there so many emperors in antiquity times?" Junior Leopard laughed.


    "In total, there were 72 emperors in antiquity times. Both the Poisonous Dragon Emperor and the Emperor of the Moon Temple are among them. And only the Moon Method performed by the Emperor of the Moon Temple himself could preserve this corpse for so many years," said Green Spirit. He soon became excited, saying, "Hey guy, dig again! Quickly! See if you can dig out other corpses. If you can dig out the corpse of the Poisonous Dragon Emperor, then you''ll be extremely rich!"


    "Why did you mention the corpse of the Poisonous Dragon Emperor but not that of the Emperor of the Moon Temple?"


    "The corpse of the Emperor of the Moon Temple? Are you kidding me? Among the 72 emperors, the Poisonous Dragon Emperor ranked 11th from last, while the Emperor of the Moon Temple ranked the fifth best. There was a huge gap between them. If they clashed with each other, the Poisonous Dragon Emperor could never win."


    "You don''t say¡ª" Junior Leopard was a little unconvinced. He was good at challenging bypassing ranks. And he would not be arrogant enough to think that there was no one who could do so except him.


    "Don''t speak rubbish. No matter whose corpse it is, if you can find one, you will be flourishing." Green Spirit was extremely excited now. He became very eager. Obviously, he cared nothing about whether one of these emperors was alive, but only their corpse.


    Junior Leopard was speechless. The surrounding golden fireballs turned brighter again. Seven fireballs made up a link and they began to rotate. No matter where it arrived, gold and stones were all fused. Soon after, more area around the poisonous beast was cleared up.


    But what a pity.


    The facts proved that it was just flogging a dead horse.


    Junior Leopard spent almost an hour to clean up a square inside the mine hole. The result was the same as before. There was nothing more than a poisonous beast that stood tall and upright like a statue in the front of the square.


    "Should I continue?" After cleaning up a big square, Junior Leopard was a bit tired. He then asked this.


    "That''s enough. The poisonous beast may have been killed by the Emperor of the Moon Temple but thrown here conveniently." Some disappointment was revealed from Green Spirit''s words. "It seems that your luck stops here."


    "Only a poisonous beast from antiquity times could have already improved my Poison Cold Shield this much. I think I''m lucky enough," said the man who took himself for a lucky dog.


    "Except for the remaining bane in the blood, your Poison Cold Shield cannot absorb another one. The Moon Method can freeze everything and disintegrate everything. With so many years having elapsed, only a little bane could remain in the blood. It cannot even poison ordinary people to death. What are you looking forward to?"


    "What about the flesh and blood of the poisonous beast?" Junior Leopard asked, puzzled. He was under the impression that such kinds of beasts had to be full of treasures.


    "I said that it was killed by the Moon Method. So you can drop that idea forever," Green Spirit answered.


    "Is the Moon Method so powerful?" Junior Leopard was attached to that poisonous beast, which looked like a statue. Greed from his eyes was frankly revealed.


    "You can just give it a try if you don''t trust me!" Green Spirit was a bit irritated by Junior Leopard''s attitude.


    "All right, since you''ve said it''s impossible, then I''ll give up." Junior Leopard chuckled. From his tone, he knew that Green Spirit was impatient, so he asked, "Then what can I do now? Can I solve all the problems by breaking down this corpse?"


    "Use your Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire! And get away from it. Though many years have passed since then, it was killed by the Moon Method. So, we''d better watch out!"


    "Okay." Junior Leopard nodded. He went back to the entrance of the mine hole without hesitation. A burst of gold light flashed and nine Fire Dragons flew out from his Gang Qi and intertwined together, covering the corpse of the poisonous beast.


    The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield shaded the corpse of the poisonous beast and the nine dragon heads began to burn with fire at the same time. Junior Leopard had done such things so many times when practicing, so he should have been very familiar with it. But it was strange that the corpse was as hard as a perpetual goldstone, refusing any fusion. Not only that, but when the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire spurted out flames, the corpse of the poisonous beast should emit bursts of cold air outward and block out the flame. But actually, what was emitted out was bursts of cold air that were exactly the blue crystal particles, which were smaller than rice.


    Even though the bursts of air were piercingly cold, it could only block out the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire for a while. Junior Leopard believed that those small crystal particles would be melted by his flame in just one hour. However, such small crystal particles were not only cold, but also terrifying. He would not like to acknowledge that Green Spirit was right before. Maybe he did not detect it carefully at present. But now, he would never get close to those crystal particles.


    Dangerous! Very Dangerous!


    With crystal particles being fused little by little, the awareness of a crisis in his heart became more and more obvious. Inside the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield, the nine dragon heads had already stopped spurting out the fire. He slowly squinted his eyes and lightly moved his finger. Then, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield broke up immediately, turning into nine Fire Dragons and coiling around him again. Almost at the same time, those blue crystal particles dissolved into mist.


    "Retreat! Quickly! Damn it, it''s a trap. It''s¡ª" It had already been too late when Green Spirit became aware of what had happened. Junior Leopard sensed some familiar fluctuations.


    Spatial fluctuation!


    Compared with his Three Realms Division and Space Division Skill, this spatial fluctuation was finer and softer. Or one could say, it was full of artistic atmosphere.


    Yes, artistic atmosphere!


    The blue crystal particles dissolved into mist. Then the mist pervaded and joined together. The surrounding space was like a piece of paper that had been dipped in water, permeated, and melted.


    Suction naturally came into being.


    Junior Leopard wanted to escape. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not get rid of such a sudden and inexplicable strength.


    "Help me, Green Spirit! Or else, I may be engulfed by the hollow!"


    Junior Leopard finally felt anxious because he found that both the Three Realms Division and Space Division Skill had lost their effect, which was just because of the enormous suction in the wrecked space that was eroded by the mist. He tried his best to perform the Internal Qi and Gang Qi in his body and the Internal Qi in the External Elixir of the Fiery Eyes, and he even wanted to use the strength of the Blue Sword and the Golden Flame Mirror, but it was all in vain. In this instant, he was completely constrained by that inexplicable strength in the hollow.


    It was something that had never happened or even been thought of.


    As it all had already happened, he wanted to revolt. Although he was strong in will, he was weak in power. The only thing that he could do was to ask Green Spirit for help. And, he thought of one man:


    Living Buddha Ba Siba, one of the three Grandmasters in Northern Yuan!


    Maybe he was in the same condition as Ba Siba when he was faced with the Clear Glass Jade Bottle.


    "Don''t shout! It''s of no use!" Green Spirit''s voice rang out at the right time. "This is a bit troublesome. It''s a trap. But you''re fine for the moment. Don''t try to resist or you''ll be more uncomfortable."


    Now, Junior Leopard had already been sucked up by the broken hollow.


    That broken hollow sucked Junior Leopard up and then writhed slowly. It began to close up, seeming to be alive. When space finished closing up, the corpse of the poisonous beast turned into dust and ashes as it ran out of all its energy. At last, the ashes fell down on the ground and went away with the wind.


    "Your Excellency? Where is His Excellency? He was here just now!"


    Sometime later, Zhu Ba felt something must have been wrong. After all, it had been so long since Junior Leopard had entered the hole. He then asked someone to try to get in and he succeeded. So, he rushed into the mine hole. After entering into it, one square, which was more than a dozen times bigger than the mine hole was before, was presented in front of him. From bursts of heat and the stout Spiritual Energy of Fire in the square, he knew that it must have been caused by Junior Leopard. But, where was he?


    Because he was just standing outside the mine area, Zhu Ba did not witness the scene of Junior Leopard being sucked up into that fantastic space. Additionally, he was not smart enough, so he could just scratch his head and remain at a loss.


    "What''s wrong, Zhu Ba? What happened? Where is His Excellency?" Jiang Xiao and the rest of them also arrived there at this time. After entering into the mine hole, they first were stunned and then had asked him.


    "I don''t know. His Excellency came in by himself and enlarged the mine hole to many times its size. But when I came in here, I couldn''t see anybody. Maybe he went back for his closed-door training again!"


    "That''s possible. But every time that His Excellency goes on his closed-door training, he likes to inform us." Jiang Xiao was hesitating. His view toward Zhu Ba was also full of a peculiar feeling.


    "Hey, what do you mean? Do you think that it''s me who hurt His Excellency? Am I powerful enough to do that?" yelled Zhu Ba after noticing Jiang Xiao''s doubt.


    "Enough! Don''t quarrel anymore. Since His Excellency isn''t here, there''s no sense in continuing to quarrel. Let''s just get back to our work. His Excellency has a high cultivation. So when he comes across formidable enemies, he won''t suffer great losses even if he can''t match them. Now, the problem of the mine hole has already been solved, let them go on working." Wang Cheng gave the final word. "After all, the mine hole is so small that we can see it clearly. His Excellency can''t be here. Even if he is here, we have no chance to find him!"


    "That''s right." Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba looked at each other and both nodded their heads.


    ¡­


    ...¡­


    "Where is this place?"


    Junior Leopard had been sucked up into the hollow. He could not struggle at all because the surrounding spatial fluctuation was too messy to be mastered. As a matter of fact, he did not need to master it. He was sent to another space in very short time.


    This was a vast space where a yellow cloud was all around in the sky, which was as dense as the dark clouds in thunderstorms. But there were not any thunderbolts or moisture here, just some dry air in the yellow cloud. To be exact, it was not a cloud, but a block of yellow sand that had floated into the air from the ground.


    The wind here was pretty fierce. There was yellow and all on the ground. The immense desert along with the yellow cloud in the sky made this space a yellow world when the wind blew.


    Suddenly, a small gap appeared in the dusty yellow cloud. Then, a figure was sent out from that gap and it fell straight down on the ground.


    That figure was exactly Junior Leopard. Being sucked up into that fantastic space, Junior Leopard was quite depressed. But his depression was useless. When he refreshed his mind, he found that he was nearly caught in the yellow sand on the ground. He cursed out of helplessness. Then a fire cloud rose up beside him and slowly covered him from the side.


    "Do you know where I am, Green Spirit? Why I''m being swarmed with sand?"


    "It may be a micro-world passed down from antiquity times, just like the Small Thunder Temple," answered Green Spirit.


    "A micro-world passed down from antiquity times? Seriously? The essence of the world here is even more feeble than that outside. Is that possible?"


    "Maybe it''s history is even longer than that. Naturally, the Spiritual Qi would have been let out," said Green Spirit. "In antiquity times, or sometime earlier, the people with great Divine Senses were many and they had opened up many micro-worlds. And some of those worlds were deserted for many years. So naturally, they were neglected."


    "You mean, this is only a neglected micro-world? Then why would I be sucked up here?"


    "How could I know that? I didn''t arrange it." Green Spirit was impatient. "But the one who set the trap to bring you here must have his own plan. I suggest that you look around to find if there are any clues."


    "What clues can there be here? Don''t you see that all around is only sand and a yellow cloud! I don''t think that I can find any clues in this bleak desert." Junior Leopard was disgruntled. However, he finally complied with Spiritual Qi and began to search all around.


    Two hours later,


    he stopped at the edge of a canyon that had suffered wind erosion for many years.


    "You see, I can only find this canyon, which has a different terrain than its surroundings. Let me check it." Before finishing his words, he was about to fly down into the canyon.


    "Wait." Green Spirit held him back. "I think I have seen this canyon before."


    "You''ve seen it? Where is it?" Junior Leopard was pleasantly surprised.


    "Shut up." Green Spirit interrupted his words. "Let me think it over by myself."


    Junior Leopard then said nothing and just stood quietly beside the canyon, waiting.


    "Walk along the canyon. Turn left and go forward 40 miles. See what''s over there!"


    "Okay." Junior Leopard jumped up and rushed toward the left. According to his speed, he could go 40 miles in few seconds.


    "Stop! Right here." Green Spirit yelled in a low voice. He seemed to be astonished.


    "Impossible! It can''t be! This is the Bihua Gorge and we''re in the Azure Heaven! How could it be? How can the Azure Heaven become so?" Green Spirit neurotically continued murmuring, paying no attention to Junior Leopard.


    "Where is the Azure Heaven? Why can''t it be?"


    "The Azure Heaven is one of the 33 heavens. And it was one of the 33 micro-worlds that had the most essence of the world and the most treasures of heaven and earth of the time. It is said that the micro-worlds were opened up by people with great Divine Senses in the Primordial Place in the beginning of the heaven and the earth genesis. When it was passed to our age, all micro-worlds were mastered by magnates. The Azure Heaven was no exception. It belonged to the Emperor of the Azure Heaven, an emperor of my Demon tribe. And the Emperor of the Azure Heaven gained the name because of the Azure Heaven. How could it become so?"


    "Why couldn''t it become so? Now it''s many years later and god knows how much time has passed since the Emperor of the Azure Heaven has died. Time can cover up everything. Even if the Azure Heaven was one of the 33 heavens in ancient times and owned the most essence of the world and so many treasures of heaven and earth, so many years have passed."


    "That''s impossible! When I was imprisoned in the underground palace of the Small Thunder Temple, the Emperor of the Azure Heaven was still alive. Micro-worlds in the Small Thunder Temple was only a few. None of them could match the Azure Heaven. What''s more, they suffered more injuries than the Azure Heaven. But they still have stouter pneuma and less environmental changes than outer space. Something must happen here that destroyed all the vitality in the Azure Heaven. There must be some reasons."


    "Maybe!" Junior Leopard was unwilling to bicker about it with Green Spirit. In his opinion, no matter how glorious the Azure Heaven was in former times, it had already been destroyed. He would not accept such a space even if it were free. All he cared about was who on earth sent him here and what the intention was, and most important of all, how he could get out of here!


    That was what he cared about.


    If he wanted to solve all the questions, he had to count on Green Spirit. But Green Spirit was caught in an anxious feeling. He seemed to be clouded in mind by the scene of the Azure Heaven.


    Under such a circumstance, Junior Leopard did not dare to talk, in case of alarming Green Spirit. If Green Spirit went crazy, then things would be more troublesome.


    At first, Green Spirit only kept saying words like impossible and something was wrong. But as time went by, he could not figure out what kind of language Green Spirit was speaking anymore. Green Spirit continued murmuring as if he was abreacting.


    Sometime later, Green Spirit finally came out from his feeling and pulled himself together.


    "We may get into trouble. If we are in the Azure Heaven, it''ll be hard to find the exit."


    "Why?"


    "The Azure Heaven was the head among the 33 heavens. It was the micro-world that had been separated in the absolute beginning. Its essence is quite stable. You see, though the surroundings are full of space cracks like the scene in the micro-worlds in the Small Thunder Temple, it''s much more stable. Even if this micro-world was broken, it didn''t travel in the hollow but has been fixed in a certain place. So the suction is not powerful. If I am not guessing wrong, the Azure Heaven must be fixed in a Taihao Fairy Weapon. In a sense, we''re inside of a Taihao Fairy Weapon." He paused when speaking here, then continued slowly, "Maybe just because of having integrated the essence of the Azure Heaven, that Taihao Fairy Weapon was able to become a Taihao Fairy Weapon."


    "You mean, I was sucked up into a fairy weapon, the same as that unlucky Ba Siba? And the only difference between this fairy weapon and that Clear Glass Jade Bottle is that it doesn''t have the ability to refine people. Or, that ability hasn''t been launched yet, so I''m still alive!"


    "Maybe no one is powerful enough to launch this fairy weapon." Green Spirit said in a cold voice, "The Azure Heaven has been shaped since the absolute beginning. Even it was refined, it could just be fixed. Just like a millstone that weighs thousands of kilograms, it can grind everything. You can own it, but can never drive it. This fairy weapon must be the same. Without the cultivation of a Human Immortal, one can never drive this micro-world. Its only function must be to store things, the same as your little space. But strangely, it doesn''t look like a storage."


    "So what do you think it¡ª?" Before his words were finished, Junior Leopard sharply changed his expression. He jumped up and hid behind a rock, operating the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to cover up all his spirit.


    When he was speaking, he suddenly sensed the spatial fluctuation, as if this space was about to rip open another hole. Therefore, he hurried to hide and waited to see what would happen. Maybe he could find out who the one that brought him here was.


    Not long after he hid, the originally peaceful space, which was not far away from the rock, rippled like the surface of a river. Inside the ripples, a gateway faintly appeared. Then, three figures entered.


    "It''s Ji Yeyue!" Junior Leopard was surprised by one of them because the leader of the three of them was Ji Yeyue, the new teen expert who cut a smart figure in the World Hero Competition. The other two were also young. And their cultivation was at the peak of Level Six. They were ready to reach the Expert Realm and become Level Seven experts at any moment.


    "Junior Sister, unexpectedly, our teacher should allow us to do the test in the Azure Secret Area. I must seek this opportunity to break through the barrier of Level Seven and become an expert."


    After the rippled gateway disappeared, the older one, who was about 23 years old, spoke excitedly. His view of Ji Yeyue was full of heat.


    And almost at the same time, Green Spirit''s voice came to junior Leopard''s ears, saying, "Hey guy, I know how to get out now!"

 Chapter 282: Jade Pool Sect, Fire Land Prohibition

    Chapter 282: Jade Pool Sect, Fire Land Prohibition


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What? We can go out?" Junior Leopard asked hastily. He was very worried that he would be stuck in this micro world forever. Nothing would be worse than that.


    "That''s a fixed gateway from which one can get in or get out of this micro world, so you can go out if you break that gateway. Moreover, both the Space Division Skill and the Great Fusion Technic can manage to do that!" Green Spirit said decisively, leaving no room for doubt.


    "Will it work if I break other places?" asked Junior Leopard again. Apart from the Great Fusion Technic and the Space Division Skill, he could also break the space with his Three Realms Division.


    "Nonsense, of course not! Though this Azure Heaven is attached to a Taihao Fairy Weapon which is no more than a gateway to this micro world in essence. The whole Azure Heaven is, in fact, in a hollow. Only by opening this fixed gateway, can you reach the world we live in. If you break other places, then you will face the endless hollow. In that case, you may not be able to survive or may even be lost in the deep space even if you do manage to get out!" Green Spirit sneered with an obvious taunt about Junior Leopard''s ignorance, making Junior Leopard embarrassed.


    "That is to say, to get out of this damn place, all I need to do is to burn a hole!" said Junior Leopard, feeling stuffy.


    "Yes. If you want, you can begin now!"


    "I''m not that stupid as to begin now!" Junior Leopard laughed grimly and said, "This is s Taihao Fairy Weapon! The school which owned this Taihao Fairy Weapon may not be that famous, but it must be a huge monster. It can''t be weaker than Tian Long Taoism. As for Taihao Fairy Weapon which is used to keep fate, it must be placed at the most important place in the school, guarded by the most powerful men and covered by countless inhibition formations. I''ll definitely get myself killed if I just rush in this way!"


    After knowing that he could get out, Junior Leopard felt relieved. With his spirit lifted, his mind became clear and he said, "I''ll follow these guys first and get a quick understanding of the situation. I heard that Ji Yeyue came from a mysterious school and it seems true. Such a school with a Taihao Fairy Weapon can definitely overpower prestigious sects and schools including the Tian Long Taoism and the Mingyi School. Of course, the premise is that those prestigious sects and schools don''t have any Taihao Fairy Weapons!"


    "The spirit of this Ji Yeyue feels familiar to me. It seems that I''ve met someone with the same spirit!" said Green Spirit.


    "Don''t tell me that the school where Ji Yeyue comes from is from Antiquity Times?" Junior Leopard asked bitterly.


    "That''s impossible! This woman''s spirit does have a little similarity with the Great Azure Energy, but the essence of her Internal Qi is totally different, so it can''t be the Great Azure Energy. It may just because she has collected the Divine Energy of Azure Clouds in the Azure Heaven to practice. But we''ve moved around the Azure Heaven for several circles. Why haven''t we found the Divine Energy of Azure Clouds?"


    "Divine Energy of Azure Clouds? What''s the use of it?" Junior Leopard was like a miser now. Upon hearing the words "Divine Energy", his heart began itching as if he had met his dream lover or first love.


    "It''s of no use!" Green Spirit''s reply upset him a little. "You can regard Divine Energy of Azure Clouds as the air of the Azure Heaven, in that it is purer than ordinary pneuma and has more intelligence!"


    "Really?!" Junior Leopard didn''t believe that. Of course he wouldn''t believe that, by its name, he knew that this Divine Energy of Azure Clouds must be a good thing.


    "Of course! Divine Energy of Azure Clouds was just one of the most ordinary types of spiritual Qi in the Azure Heaven. In the Antiquity Times, Emperor of the Azure Heaven used to give a banquet where all the monsters gathered together. As I was also invited, I visited the Azure Heaven once. At that time, the Azure Heaven was covered by azure clouds which were composed of this Divine Energy of Azure Clouds. In this way, how can this Energy be precious. At most, it''s purer air."


    "Damn. Why didn''t I travel back to the Antiquity Times instead of this era of scarcity? Now the trash of the Antiquity Times is cherished as treasure!" Junior Leopard secretly complained.


    "Junior Sister Yeyue, this time you went to the Central Plains to participate that World Hero Competition. You should have won that Octupole Exquisite Pagoda, but you gave it up at the order of our master. I suppose our master should have given you some compensation?" The slightly elder man standing beside Ji Yeyue began asking her about the World Hero Competition.


    Junior Leopard listened carefully. Though he didn''t watch the finals of the World Hero Competition, he knew that during the last fight, this Ji Yeyue announced abstention at the last minute and Yan Fei, Xining King''s Eldest Son gained the advantage.


    "Though I abstained in the last round, no one could make sure that I would win if I didn''t abstain!" answered Ji Yeyue. Her voice was soft, as sweet as a lark''s and very agreeable to the ear. "Yan Fei is not weaker than me. It''s true that I have hidden techniques, but he is very strong indeed. It''s still hard to tell who will emerge victorious!"


    "Junior Sister, you''re too modest. You are a rarely seen genius. Regardless of your young age, you are already been a Level Seven expert and you''ve succeeded in condensing Gang Qi with your own efforts. You are also protected by the celestial device given by our master. You can even beat a Level Eight expert, let alone this Yan Fei, a Level Seven expert!" The slightly elder man said hastily with flattery in his tone.


    "What''s the big deal of being a Level Eight Expert or beating a Level Eight Expert?" sneered Ji Yeyue. "Senior Brother Yu, it''s true that I have the combat capability of Level Eight and that I may be able to fight against a Level Eight expert... Before I went to the Central Plains, I also believed that I was remarkable, but I was so full of myself and I looked down on everyone. It was not until I came to the Central Plains that I realized there is always someone who is better than us. There are so many geniuses in this world that I can''t be commoner among them. Our master was right, the Central Plains is indeed a place propitious for giving birth to great men!"


    "Is this Yan Fei really that strong?!" asked the slightly younger man who was approximately the same age as Junior Leopard. He had delicate features and seemed more childish than Junior Leopard. His cultivation was at Level Six, which was already quite extraordinary among his peers. It was obvious that he had hardly suffered any set-backs before and he that he had a smooth growth path. Besides, he came from a powerful school. All of this resulted in his insolence. Therefore, after hearing Ji Yeyue''s remarks, he was curious and held a little defiant arrogance.


    "I''m not talking about Yan Fei. I''m not afraid of him, though he was indeed quite strong and it was not easy to beat him, it wouldn''t be too difficult. I''m talking about someone else. He''s of your age, but I can''t see any chance to defeat him."


    "Really? Is there such a person in the world?" Feeling uncomfortable at her words, Senior Brother Yu asked unconvincedly with a hint of envy, "Who is so powerful that our Junior Sister even thinks so highly?"


    "Zhou Bao from Yunzhou!" Ji Yeyue proceeded as though she hadn''t noticed the emotion in her senior brother''s tone. Though her expression couldn''t be seen, one could sense the bitterness and helplessness in her voice.


    "I saw it myself that he beat an expert at the peak of Level Eight with his Level Seven cultivation. Only Level Seven! He was at the same age as Junior Brother Wu and he hadn''t used Gang Qi. I heard that he hadn''t condensed Gang Qi yet, but he broke his enemy''s defense, destroyed his Gang Qi, and inflicted heavy losses on him!" At this point, she seemed excited and her thoughts wandered far away as if she was back again at that thrilling battle where she felt a thrill deep from her soul. When Wang Yuebai was badly injured by Junior Leopard, she could even feel the helplessness and desperation of Wang Yuebai. "Senior Brother Yu, Junior Brother Wu, you didn''t see that horrible scene. That Junior Leopard is definitely the most dominant person I''ve ever seen!"


    Before that battle, Ji Yeyue was certainly full of confidence. In her eyes, of the younger generation, no one was a match for her. But after that battle, she was deeply shaken and impressed by Junior Leopard''s power at such a young age. She lost all interest in the World Hero Competition, so her abstainting at the final battle was not just bacause of the school, but also herself.


    "This little girl can''t take a fancy to me, can she?!" Hidden in the dark, Junior Leopard rubbed his chin and couldn''t help laughing secretly, making a wild guess when hearing Ji Yeyue''s words.


    Ji Yeyue''s face was covered by a strange veil from which even Junior Leopard couldn''t figure out what she looked like. However, this could not stop him from admiring the beauty. The curvy figure, the siprit of youth, the melodious voice, and most importantly, the slender legs were all making his heart itch.


    "Boy, what are you thinking? They''re gone. Follow up!" Though now Green Spirit was not able to read Junior Leopard''s mind, judging from him rubbing his chin and nasty smile, Green Spirit knew what he was thinking without difficulty.


    After a hard swallow, Junior Leopard smiled embarrassedly. He hid himself in the boundless yellow cloud and followed the three people like wind.


    "How weird! Why does this yellow cloud have such dense Earth Spiritual Qi?" Entering the yellow cloud, Green Spirit asked confusedly as if he had found something.


    "Indeed. The Earth Spiritual Qi is quite dense here, but since I don''t pratice the Earth Cultivation Method, it''s of no use for us!" said Junior Leopard indifferently.


    "You''re right. Here is full of sand and wind, so it''s natural that the Earth Spiritual Qi here is denser!" Green Spirit felt relieved now.


    It wasn''t difficult to follow those three guys among which Ji Yeyue''s culitvation was the highest. Though she had condensed Gang Qi, both her senior brother and junior brother were only at the peak of Level Six. In this way, Ji Yeyue couldn''t fly, but displayed her Qinggong and moved at a slow speed with them in the sandstorm.


    As they were moving at such a slow speed, Junior Leopard could catch up with them easily. However, Junior Leopard began feeling impatient when the slow speed continued for too long.


    "Damn! Where on earth are they going? They''ve already moved at this slow speed for three days, and the distance they''ve covered is not longer than an-hour-run for me. I''ve run past tens of thousands of miles and encountered nothing unusual. With their speed, it''ll take them at least four or five days to cover the distance I''ve covered with two hours. How inefficient!" After following them for three days, Junior Leopard was now filled with discontent.


    "Take it easy. You need to be patient. You need to follow them even it takes 50 days, let alone five days. After all, this is better than being lost in the endless hollow." persuaded Green Spirit.


    "But this is too slow and too inefficient!"


    "You think they''re too slow? That''s fine, you can help them. Now that you have condensed your Gang Qi, it''s totally not a burden for you to take them with you. What you need to do is to wrap them up and take then wherever you want in an instance. What do you think?" smiled Green Spirit.


    "Come on. I don''t want to expose myself so early!" retorted Junior Leopard. "Besides, I can also get a lot of imformation by following them."


    Indeed, by following those three guys and listening to their conversation, Junior Leopard learned a lot about their school.


    It was a very mysterious school called Jade Pool, which Junior Leopard at least, had never heard of. Mysterious as it was, it was very strong and had all the elements needed, including Leader, Elders and disciples. Ji Yeyue was the only core disciple of the Leader and the only candidate for future Leader. Thus she enjoyed high status in the school.


    As for the other two, the elder one was called Yu Qingyong, while the younger one was Wu Lingxiao. They were both direct disciples of Jade Pool. As the leader of the direct disciples of his generation, Yu Qingyong enjoyed status only lower than Ji Yeyue. Wu Lingxiao''s status was pretty much the same as Yu Qingyong''s, but as he was younger, he always followed Yu''s lead.


    The Azure Heaven, also the Azure Secret Area, mentioned by disciples of Jade Pool, was a place specially for disciples of Jade Pool to cultivate Daoism heart and practice Gang Qi.


    Now Green Spirit was sure that this mysterious micro world was the Azure Heaven, one of the Thirty-three Heavens governed by the Emperor of the Azure Heaven from the Demon tribe that was one of the Seventy-two Emperors in the Antiquity Times. As for why the Azure Heaven now would be controled by the Jade Pool and how it was turned into such a weird place from the legendary heaven full of spirit, he had no idea.


    Though Ji Yeyue was the core disciple of the leader and also the future leader, the future was unpreditable and she was not the leader now. Her status in the Jade Pool was only high when it was compared with other disciples of her generation and ordinary elders. Essentially, she was no more than a disciple. A micro world like the Azure Secret Area was the top secret in the school. Of course she would know nothing about it before she became the leader.


    After following those three guys for another several days, Junior Leopard was approaching the margin which he had detecetd previously and they stopped before a dune.


    "We''ve come here and found nothing suspicious!" Junior Leopard asked in confusion after looking at the dune and places around.


    "You idiot! You''ve just flown past it and that it took you less than two hours! You did nothing, but you''ve taken a hurried and cursory glance. How can you find out anything!" scolded Green Spirit roughly. "Just watch what they are going to do. Maybe there are some special inhibitions here!"


    Before he finished, the dune began trembling and the sand began rolling down as if the ground was violently bombarded by a huge pile driver. Before long, the dune which was about a head height, declined and a large number of pneuma seeped out from the sand during that process.


    "Cave?!"


    Junior Leopard stared at the dune in astonishment and exclaimed incredulously. Under the dune, there was an indistinct cave.


    "Underland!" exclaimed Green Spirit. Then as if he was reminded of something he had long forgotten, he said, "I got it! I got it! Only the Spiritual Qi on the surface of the Azure Heaven disappeared, the underground Spiritual Qi didn''t!"


    "Is it possible?" Junior Leopard asked in confusion.


    "Why not!" shouted Green Spirit. "Isn''t there a geocentric fire vein in the present world? Think about it. The Spiritual Energy of Fire in the geocentric fire vein far exceeded that of the surface in density and quality, didn''t it? Since that can happen in the present world, why not here!"


    "It makes sense. As that has happened in the present world, it can also happen here!" nodded Junior Leopard. "That is to say, there is a place similar to the geocentric fire vein here?"


    "You can understand it this way!" Green Spirit''s voice was full of mockery. "But, the underground of the Azure Heaven... Gee, this is..."


    Before he finished his big speech, massive pneuma gushed out from the cave like an erupting volcano. This pneuma, unlike those odorless, colorless air or pneuma in the present world, was flashing azure light like a fine jade. As Green Spirit had said, this azure pneuma was much purer than pneuma in the outside world which was heterogeneous. It could be turned into Internal Qi directly without spending much effort purifying or refining it. What was more, at the same density, practicing in this pneuma is ten times faster than that in ordinary pneuma. This practice of ten times faster had taken the endurance of the human body into consideration. The Divine Energy of Azure Clouds could nourish the body and enhance its strength to a huge degree. Under these circumstances, the practising speed could be increased ten more times. If the body element was not taken into account, the practising speed could be increased at least 50 times.


    "If I can pratice in this Divine Energy of Azure Clouds for several years, my body aside, the amount of Internal Qi in my two External Elixirs will definitely increase by a few times and become very powerful. Maybe I can also get the insights of the secret at Level Eight and reach Level Eight!" Junior Leopard thought to himself. To enter Level Eight, his body needed to open more acupoints, while his External Elixir didn''t have that requirement.


    When he was immersed in this thought happily, he felt the Essence of the World around him suddenly tighten and pour towards him.


    "What happened?!" Junior Leopard was puzzled and his expression became strange. The Essence of the World would not gather together for no reason. Junior Leopard could see clearly that though at first the Essence of the World flowed in a random way, when they reached within 1,000 feet, everything changed,


    The dense pneuma rolled and surged within a thousand feet like galloping horses along an abstruse track.


    "Formation! This is formation!" Green Spirit shouted excitedly. The running track of the pneuma was so abstruse and incredible that it formed a huge talisman formation and smashed down from the sky violently.


    Enormous pressure rushed down and Junior Leopard felt there was a powerful strength squeezing and tightening around him. It was OK for him and Ji Yeyue as they had both been Level Seven experts who had condensed Gang Qi. Besides, the target of the surging talisman formation was not him. Therefore, when the pressure caused by the formation went past them, they felt nothing but a gentle breeze and were not impacted at all. But Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao were not that lucky. Their cultivation was only at Level Six. Though they had reached the peak, they hadn''t condensed Gang Qi yet. Once squeezed by the pneuma, their bodies floated as suddenly as the fallen leaves in the wild wind. They were rolled up by the airstream and smashed towards the cave.


    "Oh, no!" Seeing this, Ji Yeyue''s eyes flashed. A dark red stripe popped out from her sleeves and dragged the two men back.


    "Be careful! The inhibition here is very strong!"


    "Yes. Thank you, Junior Sister!" The two answered with a lingering fear.


    As the talisman formation had come into being, enormous pneuma poured towards the cave and totally pressed back the ejecting Divine Energy of Azure Clouds.


    "Fire Land Prohibition!" whispered Green Spirit when he saw the talisman formation on the cave. "Damn it! I finally got why there is only Earth Spiritual Qi here, and I think I know what''s underneath!"

 Chapter 283: Genuine Water and Spirit Sea

    Chapter 283: Genuine Water and Spirit Sea


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What''s underneath?" Junior Leopard asked curiously. From Green Spirit''s words earlier, he could clearly sense the great change in the spirit''s mood. It was the first time he had sensed such a drastic change after spending so much time with this old monster. Evidently, what laid underneath was definitely unusual. Anything that could provoke such a reaction in Green Spirit couldn''t be an ordinary item.


    "If I''m not mistaken, there''s a Spirit Sea underneath!" Green Spirit cried loudly. Junior Leopard''s heart jolted. What a scream! Even if he couldn''t hear it, it felt like Green Spirit was yelling.


    "There''s a Spirit Sea underneath! Definitely! I didn''t think a person powerful enough to create a Spirit Sea would exist!"


    "What''s that? A Spiritual Qi or something else?" Junior Leopard asked, puzzled.


    "Spirit Sea is just an idea, a concept drawn up by those crazy necromancers. It didn''t exist before I was trapped and I''ve never heard of anyone succeeding in creating it either." Green Spirit said, having gradually calmed down. He began to explain the story. "You people dubbed my era the Antiquity Times and yearn for those times as if you can pick up a Treasure of Heaven and Earth everywhere you go."


    "And isn''t that the truth?" Junior Leopard retorted.


    "It''s true only if you compare it with how things are now. We do find Treasures of Heaven and Earth everywhere back then but they were just ordinary objects to us. Even if you pick them up, they won''t be of much use. It''s just like the yew trees that grow wild in this world. There''s no use for them now but who knows if thousands or millions of years later, they''ll turn out to be as precious as the Heavenly Peach Wood? You must know, back then, the Heavenly Peach Wood can be found everywhere as well."


    "That sounds too exaggerated!" Junior Leopard laughed. He had considered this possibility and also understood it was likely to happen. But a stone from the Antiquity Times was still just a stone no matter how much time had passed. It could turn into a fossil at most, but what was the value of that?


    "Not at all!" Green Spirit''s tone became solemn when he saw how Junior Leopard didn''t seem to take his words seriously. "While you''re yearning for our era, we also yearned for an even older era back then. It was recorded as the Primitive Times or the Primordial Origin. Have you heard of it? We knew that era the same way you knew ours, as a place full of Treasures of Heaven and Earth, celestial devices, and precious pneuma! The only difference was that we have a certain group of people who not only yearned for that era but also tried to restore it!"


    "Restore that era?" Junior Leopard was tak-en aback, not understanding how it was possible. "How?"


    "Exactly!" Green Spirit chuckled. "How would you feel if someone tells you they''re going to restore the Antiquity Times? What would you think? Unbelievable, right? You may even think it''s just a pipe dream and they''re a bunch of lunatics!"


    "That''s for sure," Junior Leopard replied without having to think. "Of course it''s a lunatic''s idea. Even an Innate Deity couldn''t achieve this."


    "Correct! Even if the Innate Deity exists now, he wouldn''t be able to do it. Besides, such deities were no more than legends in our times. But we had necromancers, those crazy necromancers!"


    Each time Green Spirit mentioned the necromancers, his tone was always complex. There would be feelings of envy, resentment, helplessness, and also admiration. There were so many complex emotions that he seemed undecided what he truly felt about the necromancers.


    "Though the ideas of these necromancers were ludicrous, they were methodical in their ways and proposed many possibilities. But there was too little chance for any of those possibilities to be realized and they were vetoed. That was until the craziest of all necromancers appeared ¡ªGreat Necromancer Konghai!"


    "Great Necromancer Konghai?" Junior Leopard felt a flicker of interest. "I remember it now. He''s the one who invented the Golden Flame Mirror you mentioned!"


    "That''s him. Even among the necromancers, he was the best. Since it was impractical and impossible to restore the entire world to the Primordial Origin, he proposed that they restored only a certain area. That wasn''t entirely impossible!"


    "The micro world!" Junior Leopard instantly understood his meaning.


    "Very smart. You''re right. We have many micro worlds in our era and that''s where we draw and deserve your admiration. Nearly every famous school had its own micro world, as did every famous martial arts master. Konghai''s plan was to use all these micro worlds, drawing all the pneuma from them using inhibitions. When the density of the pneuma reached a certain degree, it would turn into a water known as Genuine Water. All the lakes, rivers, and seas were made of Genuine Water and we dubbed them as Spirit Seas. They were all different in nature but similar in the way they nurture everything. Legends had it that all living things emerged from Genuine Water, including even the Congenital God. Without enough time and Genuine Water, it was possible for Konghai to nurture the extinct Treasure of Heaven and Earth. He might even be able to restore a micro world into the times of the Primordial Origin!"


    "That''s just a theory." Junior Leopard was intrigued but knew it was no more than a theory. And theories were always different from reality. For example, just because he understood the Theory of Relativity, it didn''t mean that he was capable of building a time machine. Even if he knew the theory of nuclear weapon, he couldn''t produce atomic bombs either.


    A theory was just that, while the reality was still the reality. They were two separate matters. If he couldn''t differentiate them, it would spell trouble.


    "Correct. It was just a theory and Great Necromancer Konghai only proposed a hypothesis. It would be easy to condense pneuma into Genuine Water if all you need is one or two drops. But you will need a large amount of pneuma to get enough Genuine Water. That amount, in addition to the time necessary to nurture living creatures, is far beyond the ability of an ordinary human. Thus Konghai used his great Divine Sense to prove his hypothesis. He spent 120 years condensing all the pneuma in his micro world but only ended up with one measly bowl of Genuine Water. He calculated that he would need to condense the pneuma of at least 120 micro worlds and spend tens of thousands of years to get enough Genuine Water to start nurturing living creatures. Even after that, more time would be needed. It wasn"t cost-effective no matter how one calculated it so he gave up in the end!"


    "That''s true. It''s not a pity to give up on something so impractical!" said Junior Leopard.


    "Who said it''s impractical? Ordinary micro worlds may not be able to meet the requirement, but there are others that can!"


    "You mean, the Thirty-three Heavens?"


    "Yes. They''re micro worlds separated during the Primordial Origin. It''s true they''re not as pure as they were in the beginning after so long but with certain efforts, one can clear the pneuma inside any of them into a Spirit Sea that was at least on par with the Primitive Times, if not on the Primordial Origin level. But unfortunately, they were under the control of powerful magnates like Emperor of the Azure Heaven or powerful, mysterious schools. No one would be able to force these forces and they naturally wouldn''t be willing to risk draining the pneuma of their micro words just to test this crazy theory." Green Spirit sighed softly. "It''s precisely because of this that I''ve never heard of anyone who would attempt this until I was trapped in the underground palace. I didn''t think I''d meet it so soon after I''m outside."


    "Since it''s so difficult, how can you be so sure it''s a Spirit Sea under the cave?"


    "Pretty much," said Green Spirit. "Look around you. The space here has been inhibited by the Fire Land Prohibition. It''s a large-scale inhibition of the Essence of the World, rather than of humans. In other words, it condenses the Earth Spiritual Qi in this place and constraints the pneuma. Though the inhibition is brilliant, the Earth Spiritual Qi is among the heaviest and thickest, resulting in a very limited use. There aren''t many who would use it. After Konghai proposed his hypothesis, he used this inhibition to constrain the Essence of the World and preserve Genuine Water. Look, the inhibition here is too strong. If I''m not mistaken, this Fire Land Prohibition has covered the entire Azure Heaven to preserve Genuine Water or possibly the Spirit Sea that was formed. Thus, we can only feel the Earth Spiritual Qi in this Azure Heaven!"


    Just then, the dune in front of Ji Yeyue and the two men had disappeared entirely. The mouth of a tunnel the size of a mine entrance emerged, covered by a layer of visibly thickening film made out of Earth Spiritual Qi.


    The three of them exchanged glances.


    "I''ll enter first, Senior Brothers. You can join me after I make sure there''s no danger."


    "No way!" Yu Qingyong yelled. Having greatly embarrassed himself earlier, he was feeling a little regretful. He didn''t expect himself to behave that way before the person he loved. He naturally wouldn''t allow Ji Yeyue to go first and was eager to redeem his honor.


    "Please don''t argue with me, Senior Brothers. It''s dangerous down there. My Gang Qi has reached the advanced level, so I''m capable of defending myself. Besides, I had been down there once so I''m more familiar with it than you two. I''ll also know how to deal with the danger. Just wait here!" She jumped down without waiting for them to answer. Unable to stop her, Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao could only watch her disappear.


    "Is the Spirit Sea dangerous?" Junior Leopard asked curiously. Green Spirit''s description made the place seem like heaven but the way Ji Yeyue and the two men reacted, it felt more like a lion''s den to him.


    "Of course! A Spirit Sea only has the most basic conditions of the Primitive Times. After all, it''s different from our era and many things are different. Without outside intervention, a Spirit Sea needs a countless time to nurture living creatures. But since the eras are different, who knows if the creatures formed will truly be the same ones as those in the Primitive Times. Thus, the Seed of Life from the Primitive Times must be planted in the Spirit Sea. That way, even if the creatures created are a little different, they would basically be the same!" Green Spirit sounded a little wistful at this point. "But it''s not easy to achieve this. Konghai and the other necromancers found out that living creatures are all interdependent, reinforcing and counteracting one another. Many Treasures of Heaven and Earth will only be formed in terrible environments and many are guarded by fierce and evil beasts. Thus, when you''re planting the Seed of Life, you not only have to focus on the treasures, you also have to consider hostile environments and evil beasts. It wouldn''t work otherwise. Do you really think there''s so much good luck in this world? That you can easily recreate the Primitive Times environment and gain an advantage?"


    "What do you mean by easily? From what you''ve said, it''s not easy to create a Spirit Sea!" Junior Leopard retorted. He instantly understood Green Spirit''s words. This was an issue of balancing the ecosystem. In the prairies, one couldn''t kill all the wolves just for the sake of rearing sheep or the sheep will eat all the grass and grow unsustainably. In the end, there wouldn''t be any grass left and the sheep would all starve to death. This was a simple logic in Junior Leopard''s previous life but he couldn''t help arguing just for the sake of it when he heard Green Spirit''s tone.


    "Compared to the harvest that the successful creation of a Spirit Sea would bring, the process and time spent counted for nothing at all!" Green Spirit said seriously. "Boy, you need to understand that all living creatures in the world live in balance. Strictly speaking, you can''t reap without sowing."


    "Perhaps."


    "It''s not perhaps. That''s the truth. To gain something, you have to pay the price. Perhaps you wouldn''t notice the consequences while you''re in the thick of things and only realize it after time passes. Of course, you can only understand this rationale after accumulating experience over time. It''s no surprise that a spring chicken like you wouldn''t get it!"


    Junior Leopard curled his lip and didn''t argue again. He raised his head and shifted his attention to the three disciples from Jade Pool. Ji Yeyue had disappeared for about an hour, while Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao were still standing at the entrance and staring downward anxiously.


    "Hey, Ji Yeyue has been down for so long. Do you think she''s in trouble?"


    "She''s fine. Nothing has happened to her, at least for now. Otherwise, her body would already be sent up. She''s just an ordinary person and her spirit isn''t pure though she has a Level Seven cultivation. If she dies, her corpse Qi will pollute the Spirit Sea. You need to understand that the idea of restoring the Primordial Origin is human-made no matter how great it is. There are bound to be flaws even if it succeeds. Therefore there''ll definitely be inhibitions set in place to prevent external contamination," Green Spirit replied indifferently.


    "Why do you make it sound so depressing?" Junior Leopard''s mood soured hearing the words ''corpse'' and ''death'' from Green Spirit. There was such a contradiction between these concepts and Ji Yeyue''s beautiful looks.


    "Boy, why do you care about her so much? Don''t tell me you''re being bewitched after hearing her say some good things about you. Don''t forget that this is the territory of Jade Pool and this is their Azure Secret Area. You''re the one who broke into this place without permission and you''re an enemy to them!"


    Junior Leopard''s face flushed and he said nothing. After a while, Ji Yeyue finally came out of the cave.


    The two brothers rushed to surround her with concern and ask, "Junior Sister, what''s going on underneath?"


    "It''s fine. There are only several common reptiles down there and I''ve settled them!" Ji Yeyue said, panting. Her words sounded relaxed but her breathing was rather quick.


    "No way. She''s a Level Seven expert. Why is she panting like that after such a short time?"


    "Boy, get ready. We''ll go down in an hour."


    "Why an hour later?"


    "By then, these people will either be dead or have left or so badly injured that they can''t pose any threat to you!" said Green Spirit casually.


    Junior Leopard didn''t reply, only silently activating his Poison Cold Shield. A layer of cyan light enveloped his body, followed by a layer of golden light. The Nine Fire Dragons appeared indistinctly in the golden light, three of them hovering around his head while two appeared under his feet. Another four surrounded his body and clung to his visualized Gang Qi.


    He didn''t completely believe Green Spirit but he noticed there was a huge pressure coming from the entrance seconds after the three of them jumped down. The pressure was so strong that it rolled in like a mighty river, fully covering all the area within 10 miles.


    "What a strong pressure!" Junior Leopard''s expression darkened after experiencing the strong pressure. The pressure was capable of even penetrating the barrier of Fire Land Prohibition blocking the cave entrance. The Earth Spiritual Qi was the thickest and heaviest pneuma in the world. Besides, it was also being inhibited by the Fire Land Prohibition. Even with his current strength, Junior Leopard wasn''t sure that his Qi power could break it.


    Similarly, this pressure finally triggered the Fire Land Prohibition. The Earth Spiritual Qi in the area surged and overwhelmed this pressure.


    "What on earth is underneath?" Junior Leopard asked in bewilderment.


    "I have no idea!" Green Spirit answered directly. "Only the heaven knows. Who knows what the lunatic who created this Spirit Sea put inside! There were countless evil beasts as well as great Divine Sense in the Primitive Times. You need to be more careful!"


    "Screw being careful!" Junior Leopard retorted. "If Ji Yeyue and the other two dare to go, why wouldn''t I? This Azure Secret Area is used to cultivate excellent disciples, not kill them!"


    "That''s precisely why you need to be more careful. There could be a guard beast of Jade Pool down there. The three disciples will be fine but the beast might just swallow an outsider like you whole!"


    "If that''s true, Ji Yeyue won''t be so tired just now!" Junior Leopard squinted and stared at the entrance coldly. He looked at the gradually denser Earth Spiritual Qi and said, "The timid are starved to death when the tummies of the shameless are bursting. I don''t believe that it''s really a lion''s den. It''s been almost an hour now. I''ll check it out myself!" He leaped up and threw himself down the entrance as large as the mouth of a well. He deployed his Carefree Skill and sent one of his thoughts down.

 Chapter 284: The Initial Fight

    Chapter 284: The Initial Fight


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Hiss!" Junior Leopard shot his divine thought, named Fu Yi, into the cave and was shocked by the scene in front of him.


    There was a dense essence of the world which surged crazily that was sticky just like gelatin. Once Junior Leopard''s thought went into it, it felt the unimaginable pneuma. The corner of his mouth on his body outside the cave twitched constantly and greed arose in his mind.


    It was more than greed, he even wanted to live his whole life here.


    In such an environment, it would be just a piece of cake for him to practice to Level Eight and Level Nine. He even had the confidence that he could break through to the Mysterious Realm in 10 years.


    "The density of the pneuma here is thousands of times stronger than that in the Small Thunder Temple. There really is such a mysterious place like this in the world!" Junior Leopard exclaimed in his heart. He glanced at the world, which was totally surrounded by the blue glow of the pneuma, and thought, "Is this the Divine Energy of the Azure Clouds?"


    One thing that was out of his expectation was that the world under the cave was not filled with immortal Qi as he had thought before, but instead, it was so gloomy.


    Under the entrance to the cave was a fantastic space, which was not as boundless as the Azure Secret Area outside of it, but was also not small. The most peculiar thing was that its top was not soil, as Junior Leopard had thought, but a sky.


    There was no sun in the blue sky, so the blue light looked extremely gloomy. It was like a blue mantle that covered the whole space. There were also blue clouds, but it was not like what Green Spirit had described before. It was not that beautiful, but sinister in deep green, which made people feel scared.


    Under the sky was a gigantic lake. This was a world that consisted of a green-black sky and a green-black lake. Though the lake was large in area, it was far from being called a sea.


    It was two or three times larger than Lake Tai. There was a glistening light of waves on the lake''s surface. From time to time, weird fishes leaped out of the lake and there were several islands towering above it. Looking from the distance, the sky atop these islands was filled with ominous clouds and gusts of gloomy wind. Although it was just a small thought of Junior Leopard which had gone to this place, his body outside the cave still felt great pressure from the lake water and the eccentric coercion of these islands.


    But obviously, those who emitted coercion did not interest Junior Leopard''s thought. In fact, he even thought that they had no interest in anything. They just wanted to live in this small world ignorantly forever.


    The entrance of the cave was located on an island that was very large. Rarely seen plants and creatures existed all over it. The exit of this cave was in a tree hole from which Junior Leopard''s thought came out.


    This was a giant tree, whose leaves and branches thrust into the blue clouds of the sky and whose roots were deeply rooted under the earth. No one could tell how high it was.


    Near the tree hole were some bushes. Though here they were bushes, when they were taken to the outside world, they would be trees of great height.


    In the bushes stood a monster that was like a lion. Its whole body was golden and its thick mane flickered with blue light. Under its mane and above its skin were dense golden scales that looked like snake scales. Besides that, it had three tails. Its tusks were pointing to the tree hole and it was exhaling hot breath. An overwhelming coercion was emitted from its body. The coercion that rushed out of the inhibition of the cave and spread for 10 miles was emitted exactly by it.


    "Level Nine. At least this monster has a Level Nine cultivation. No wonder it could emit such powerful coercion!" feeling that powerful strength, Junior Leopard exclaimed in his heart.


    Now what he worried about was not just the strength of this monster, but also its spiritual intelligence. No matter what monster it was, when its cultivation reached Level Nine, it definitely had possessed spiritual intelligence and could be called an evil beast, which was the most troublesome thing.


    When Junior Leopard looked at the back of the evil beast again, he found that it was followed by three little monsters of a similar appearance. He knew that he was out of luck, and could roughly tell what happened.


    Apparently, this was the so-called "if you hit the younger, then the revenge of the older will come".


    These three little monsters were at a Level Five or Level Six cultivation, and wounds could be seen on their bodies. They must have been severely injured in the fight with Ji Yeyue, and therefore, they had brought a parent to fight back.


    But it was a pity that the one who had fought with them had already gone. And, as an unlucky man, he remained here instead. The giant monster blocked the cave entrance, which pushed him into a plight. Naturally, he was agitated.


    Ji Yeyue has a Level Seven cultivation and his combat capability is at Level Eight. He definitely possesses some good things. But still, he had exhausted a lot of energy and had undergone painstaking efforts when he fought with these three little monsters. In this way, these three little monsters'' combat capability is at least at Level Seven or they have some special magic skills. Green Spirit had said that the Grand Demon of primitive times possessed some peculiar magic skills. If I go down abruptly, I''ll cause trouble for myself.


    When Junior Leopard thought of this, he was not hot-headed. After a second thought, he smiled and lifted his hand up. Blue light flashed through his fingertips, and the Blue Sword was shot out like a snake and then flew into the cave.


    "Howl!" The evil beast in the cave had waited for a long time and became agitated. Different from Junior Leopard''s divine thought that was invisible, the Blue Sword was discovered once it appeared. The beast howled and its voice shocked the surroundings. Gigantic sound waves compressed the coercion into one place and struck toward the Blue Sword violently.


    "Humph!" Outside the cave, Junior Leopard snorted coldly. The sword light of the Blue Sword suddenly arose. Carrying the sound of the wind and thunder, the sword broke the coercion of the evil beast in an instant and chopped toward its head.


    Facing the surging sword light, the beast did not care about it at all. It casually lifted up its claws and patted on the sword light directly.


    "Ding!" A clear sound emanated. Junior Leopard was astonished. The thunder-like attack was broken apart by the beast''s claws. The sword light darkened and the shock force followed the thought on the Blue Sword to strike his divine thought. Although nothing serious had occurred, it shocked him after all.


    Of course, the beast had suffered a lot as well. Although the sword light did disappear, the sharp Sword Qi struck its body and left a deep wound on its claws, where golden-blue blood flowed down from. If Junior Leopard''s body was here, he would find that the blood was not fishy, but emitted a faint fragrance.


    This was the benefit of living in such a place filled with Spiritual Qi¡ªthe creatures living here hardly ever touched the impure air of the mortal world. Thus, evil beasts living here were treasures. Even though their flesh, blood, and skeletons were not used to refine celestial devices and elixirs, they could temper muscles and bones and nourish pneuma when they were served as food directly.


    Feeling its injury, the beast was furious. It was born on this island and had never met a strong opponent. Now, the inexplicable blue light before it not only injured its three babies, but also hurt it easily, therefore, it felt extremely embarrassed.


    Though the three little monsters were not hurt by the Blue Sword, they were hurt near the tree hole, so it firmly believed that it was Blue Sword that had hurt its babies. Even though Junior Leopard wanted to explain, it was impossible.


    The beast retreated a step and blood light flashed through its eyes. Suddenly, it fiercely jumped toward the Blue Sword. Its giant body moved fast like lightning and the three whip-like tails flogged toward the sword with the sound of wind and thunder.


    Seeing how ferocious the beast was, Junior Leopard did not intend to fight with it recklessly. Through his thought, the sword light of the Blue Sword diffused into nine rays of sword light and evaded the violent attack of the beast. When the beast was exhausted, the sword light began to attack.


    "Pa, Pa, Pa!" At the moment the Blue Sword was attacked, the pneuma around the beast suddenly exploded, which shocked Junior Leopard.


    "What are these things?" Surging thunderbolts exploded and swept away the bushes within a 100-foot radius, leaving 10 more holes in the ground. When these thunderbolts hit the Blue Sword, they were absorbed instantly by the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit. The Blue Sword suddenly became bright and looked like an little emerald sun, as if it had been greatly nourished.


    "It is the Green Flame and Dark Thunder, a kind of Evil Qi of the highest grade that can refine thunder-property Gang Qi. It is refined by the Blue Mysterious Evil Qi in the Azure Heaven. But if you haven used the Nine Heaven Thunder Qi to practice the Jade Original Power Gang, the Jade Original Power Gang refined by the Blue Mysterious Evil Qi could also be of great quality."


    Green Spirit explained after he heard Junior Leopard''s description.


    "This creature knows how to refine somber thunder?" This time, Junior Leopard had a whole new level of respect for this beast. Compared to Junior Leopard, the beast was more astonished. It was a rare primitive creature and was pretty powerful. Adding to that, it had several inborn magic skills in which the Green Flame and Dark Thunder was one of them, so it had succeeded in all the fights with other creatures on the island before. If only it used the Green Flame and Dark Thunder, even if it met a stronger opponent, its opponent would be severely injured. But now, the blue light that was like a swaying snake had not been affected at all and its spirit even became more dangerous, which confused it a lot.


    Whether it could figure it out or not, Junior Leopard did not want to lose this opportunity. With the sword light of the Blue Sword suddenly illuminating and the Jade Original Power Gang spreading, a blue ray went over to cover the beast.


    The beast was stunned and dared not to fight head-on, so it retreated. However, the Blue Sword did not give up fighting with it. Meanwhile, together with the Jade Original Power Gang, the Silver Moon Sword Technique was also displayed and pursued the beast.


    In an instant, the sword light and Gang Qi all went over there. The beast had nowhere to escape to and finally was covered helplessly in the sword light and Gang Qi.


    "Howl!" The beast roared and a layer of blue light also emitted from its body to protect itself.


    However, this action was barely enough to block the green jade-like Gang Qi outside the blue light. Junior Leopard executed the Silver Moon Sword Technique this time and turned the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit into sharp Sword Qi, which directly slashed at the body of the beast.


    The beast tried to avoid the Sword Qi, but the blue light on its body gradually became faint. Though it occasionally lashed its three tails, how could they hit the Blue Sword?


    "Alas, another poor little thing with only strength!"


    The performance of this beast reminded Junior Leopard of the Evil Fire Kylin in the geocentric fire vein, which had overwhelming power that had reached the Mysterious Realm. With no fighting experience and only some primitive skills, it was severely injured by Junior Leopard, who gained great benefit from it. The fighting experience of this beast was richer than that of the Evil Fire Kylin because it may have experienced some fights on the island. But its experience was limited as well. When it came up against the sword movement of the Silver Moon Sword Technique that had been tempered and refined by many talented sword practitioners, it had no means to withstand it. Within a few rounds, it was riddled with scars and had no strength to fight back.


    Blue thunderbolts around it exploded chaotically. Its three tails that were like iron whips were wielded so fast that no one could see them clearly, but they could not hurt the Blue Sword at all. And the constantly exploding Green Flame and Dark Thunder incessantly powered the Jade Original Power Gang of the Blue Sword.


    In this way, Junior Leopard felt it much easier to hit the beast. Finally, after giving out a clear sound, the Blue Sword broke the protective blue light of the beast and slashed ferociously on its body.


    Though it had tough skin that was like steel, it would greatly suffer if it was cut by the Blue Sword just once, let alone if it was slashed by the sword over a dozen of times in a short period of time.


    Wounds that were deep enough to reveal bones appeared on its body. Its blood incessantly flowed down. And at the same time, the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit also rushed toward it. The Jade Original Power Gang of the Blue Sword was refined by the Nine Heaven Thunder Qi, which made it the highest grade thunder-property Gang Qi in the world. It was hundreds of times stronger than ordinary thunder-property Gang Qi. This green jade-like Gang Qi was all-pervasive. When it touched the blood of that beast, it exploded and fierce thunder Evil Qi invaded into the beast''s body through its wounds, which caused it to wail constantly.


    Cyan Gang Qi illuminated and rolls of thunder were faint. Blue sword light was like lightning, moving extremely fast. The beast was totally controlled and had no way to rebel against Junior Leopard.


    "Weak, too weak. It only has cultivation but doesn''t know how to display it. So boring!" Outside the cave, Junior Leopard sighed with little interest or enthusiasm.


    Facing the bored sigh of Junior Leopard and his crocodile tears, Green Spirit heaved a deep sigh in his heart. If he had a body, he would be knitting his brows tightly right now.


    Sorrow, this was the sorrow of evil beast!


    "These evil beasts in the Azure Secret Area are indigenous. Though they possess infinite pneuma, which helps them possess a powerful cultivation, no one teaches them how to practice. They can only rely on their instinct to practice and absorb pneuma, let alone have fighting experience and methods. Hence, they''re the best prey for human practitioners. Their furs, Inner Elixirs, flesh, blood, skeletons, and demonic spirits are all in the human practitioners'' back pocket!" Green Spirit said with a tone of tense sarcasm, which made Junior Leopard feel somewhat fearful.


    "Hey, this isn''t my fault. It''s the evil beast who took the initiative to attack me first!"


    "I know, I know!" Green Spirit said, "Maybe the era has really changed and maybe it''s the main purpose of the guy who created this place. Besides these treasures of heaven and earth, there are boundless evil beasts. And these evil beasts in the Azure Secret Area are almost like the reappearance of the existence of the Demon tribe from the early era!"


    "What is the existence of Demon tribe in the early era?" Junior Leopard suddenly had an interest in this topic.


    "Humph. What can we do? Different from human beings, the Demon tribe is born with no spiritual intelligence and has to deal with everything by using our instinct. If we''re lucky enough to have the spiritual sense, we still don''t know how to practice. We can only rely on our instinct to inhale and exhale the Sun and Moon Essence. Through daily accumulation, we possess gigantic strength. But we are the same as the evil beast in the cave and allow ourselves to be trampled upon by human practitioners just like what you did just now. Your cultivation isn''t so good, but relying on a good weapon, sophisticated skills, and sufficient patience, you can fight with an evil beast whose strength is far greater than yours and get everything from it. This is why human beings are obsessed with killing evil beasts!"


    Junior Leopard did not continue to speak because he did not know how to reply. There was nothing worth arguing. This could be explained by a saying in his previous life, which was "people in different positions have different perspectives".


    Everybody acknowledged the problem faced by the Demon tribe. Since ancient times, the Demon tribe was divided into two categories: one for evil beasts, and the other for monsters. The former was just like the beast in the cave, which possessed spiritual intelligence and strong power. The latter was also called a Grand Demon, a kind of monster that had practiced to a certain degree and had a human shape.


    Compared to evil beasts, the monsters had strength and intelligence that was no weaker than human beings. In fact, in antiquity times or an even earlier period, countless talents also appeared in the Demon tribe. Because of congenital advantages, powerful members of the Demon tribe could be seen everywhere. Various kinds of cultivation methods were also very exquisite even when they were compared to those of human beings.


    However, this was the glory of antiquity times. Since the tribulation of antiquity times, the whole Demon tribe declined at a strange speed. It was said that in only 100 years, famous Grand Demons all mysteriously disappeared along with all kinds of cultivation methods of the Demon tribe. Since then, no Grand Demon had ever shown up. Losing the support of the Grand Demons and monsters, evil beasts became the prey of human practitioners and also their targets for practicing killing skills and experience.


    Now, the evil beast in the cave knew that it had no hope to win. It would lose the lives of its whole family here if it continued fighting. Thus, it stopped fighting.


    It already had spiritual intelligence. Compared to ordinary people, it was just duller, and that was all. Now, it had seen through the whole matter. Instinctively, it roared and a blood-like color filled its eyes all of a sudden.


    "Howl!"


    The roar shocked the surroundings, and the body of this evil beast began to shiver. It opened its big mouth and then a dark green bead was spat out of it. Once the bead appeared, it exploded immediately and became clouds of green-black fire. This tangible green-black fire cloud blocked away all the Gang Qi and sword light of the Blue Sword. The beast rolled its three whip-like tails to take its children away. Under the shield of the fire cloud, it leaped up and disappeared into the dense and boundless forest, running hundreds of times faster than a rabbit.


    "Good. Though it''s just an evil beast, it knows what is more important. It must have exploded its Inner Elixir. In that way, even it escapes successfully, its strength will decline to 30-40% of its former strength and it might not have much time left to live."


    Seeing that the evil beast was escaping, Junior Leopard did not let the Blue Sword pursue it. His fingertips moved and then nine rays of sword light combined as one, which looked like a green jade-like snake, and then came back to his fingers. After he took back the Blue Sword and thought, Junior Leopard jumped into the cave. It seemed that this film of earth-property pneuma would only act on the essence of the world and have little restriction on the creatures entering and leaving.


    "Oh, my!"


    The moment Junior Leopard entered the cave, Green Spirit could not help sighing deeply. He discarded his entire gloomy mood and said, "The Spiritual Qi here is so dense that can be kneaded into steamed buns to eat directly."


    "Yeah, indeed!" Junior Leopard sighed too. It was totally different for him to be personally on the scene rather than letting the divine thought come down. Although he only inhaled slightly, he had the feeling of doing heroin. He felt extremely comfortable and ethereal. Every pore and cell was filled with Spiritual Qi. He even believed that, even if he farted here, the Spiritual Qi contained in it would be 10 times greater than in the outside world.


    "What a good place this is!"


    "Yeah, it''s a good place. Though the effect is a little worse than what Great Necromancer Konghai has described, the essence of this world is 10 times denser than it was in those years. It''s pretty much like a scene from ancient times."


    "Just like ancient times?" Junior Leopard was a little surprised. Originally, he had thought that the density of Spiritual Qi here at least should be equal to that of primitive times. But unexpectedly, it was only the same as ancient times.


    "Yes, it''s a little worse than ancient times!" Green Spirit said this and shook his head at the same time.


    Junior Leopard did not talk anymore. He fixed his eyes on the Spirit Sea. The sea water consisted of dense pneuma and it was deep green. It was very turbid and bad-looking, which looked like Lake Tai, which had been infested with cyanobacteria. If it were not for the deep green water containing the dense Spiritual Qi, he would have left directly.


    "Lad, take care!" While Junior Leopard was thinking, he heard the yell of Green Spirit in his head. Junior Leopard suddenly quivered and then a gust of wind rose up from the sea, rushing toward him suddenly.


    "Pa!"


    Junior Leopard slightly leaned his body only to see that a pair of sharp white teeth closed above his shoulder, making a sound.


    It was a strange, palm-sized silver fish that jumped up from the water and bit toward his face. It failed to bite him the first time, so its fat body turned around in the air in a strange way and jumped into the sea.


    "Wanna leave now?" Junior Leopard was furious. He stretched out his hands to catch the fish and successfully got it. Unfortunately, it was too slick, and he failed to grasp it tightly. The fish sneaked out of his hands, jumped into the sea, and then quickly disappeared.


    ...


    ....

 Chapter 285: Sword Skill Practice with the Dragon Sparrow

    Chapter 285: Sword Skill Practice with the Dragon Sparrow


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What the hell is this!" Junior Leopard cried in irritation, having suffered a loss.


    "Be careful. There will be all kinds of monsters in a place where the essence of the world is this thick. Don''t think you can be fearless just because you have Level Seven strength and Gang Qi. In a place like this, it''ll be good enough if you can just protect yourself," said Green Spirit.


    Junior Leopard exhaled gloomily. He was dressed in a dark robe and wearing a pale Smiling-face Mask over his face. His Blue Sword had spread its Gang Qi and transformed into a cyan streamer that danced around him in case of danger.


    "Where should we go? Leave this island?"


    "They must be on this island. If you want to find them, you just have to search this place. And you better not think about leaving the island before you''re able to achieve a Level Nine cultivation," the Green Spirit said. "It''s only on this island that your pitiful strength is capable of protecting you. Don''t be fooled by the calm waters. Underneath the current is turbulent and all kinds of monsters lurk in an endless stream. You wouldn''t be safe even if you fly using your Reigning Sword. Never mind those three!"


    "I know they''re definitely still here. I''m asking if we should stay here for a while longer or think of a way to leave."


    "You still have the mood to think about this!" Green Spirit clearly didn''t expect this answer. "You''re really such a money-hungry person. Do you know how dangerous this place is? Do you know that if you can''t find a way out, you''ll be stuck here for the rest of your life?"


    "It took a lot to come here! Of course, we can''t leave without treasures!" Junior Leopard chuckled. "If I let this chance go, I''ll never find another place like this again. What a pity it would be. You also know that some opportunities are gone forever once you miss them."


    Green Spirit said nothing and sighed helplessly. He then added, "Forget it. Since that''s what you think, nothing I can say will change your mind. But I suggest you take a walk around this island. Very soon you''ll realize that it''s not a place for a Level Seven kid like you can stay in."


    "Then I''ll keep my eyes peeled!" Junior Leopard smiled and dashed into the woods in a flash.


    Whether it was due to the strong Spiritual Qi here or something else, the plants here were all tall and many resembled the towering tree they first saw. The lofty trees reached into the clouds and even the ordinary bushes were nearly the height of the tall trees. Standing in the woods, Junior Leopard felt like he was a little mouse that had made its way into a shrub.


    He ventured into the tall woods, making his way through the soft mud by following the footsteps that Ji Yeyue''s group left behind. He walked through the woods for about an hour and met some trouble along the way, though he easily handled those. He came here as the Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket carrying his powerful Blue Sword. Though there were many evil beasts, they were nothing against his sword and Silver Moon Sword Technique. Everything was going well for him. The only thing that displeased him was how he still caught no sight of Ji Yeyue''s group even after such a long time.


    "Damn it! Who says that all the stones here are precious? What an exaggeration. I''ve found so many stones but none are special!" Junior Leopard complained as he continued on his journey. With so much Spiritual Qi around, the world had no shortage of good things but none were familiar to him. Besides, the space that he had created through his Space Division Skill was limited and he didn''t dare to put too many things inside. So he just put away some herbs that were evidently Magic Drugs and a few odd-looking stones that he found.


    Green Spirit never said a word since they entered the woods. He knew it was because he hadn''t found anything that was worthy of Green Spirit''s attention. Since Green Spirit didn''t find any of what he had found important, that could only mean that his spoils weren''t precious even if they were treasures of heaven and earth.


    Amid his complaints, he heard a sudden sharp yell.


    He was startled. "It''s Ji Yeyue and the rest!"


    "Nonsense! The three of them are the only ones here except you. What''s there to be excited about?" Green Spirit couldn''t help ridiculing Junior Leopard when he saw his reaction.


    "No one will think you''re mute if you don''t talk!" Junior Leopard blushed and started speeding up. The strong pneuma around him meant that there was a fierce battle going on nearby.


    He followed the sound and ran through the woods until he reached a spacious ground. A pool sat in the middle, its water greatly different from the Spirit Sea. It was green and luxuriant like a cyan jade, translucent and beautiful as it emanated refreshing Spiritual Qi.


    But a place that was supposed to be serene was no longer peaceful. Ji Yeyue was hanging in the air, fighting two iron-feathered birds.


    The birds were nearly three meters long, the span of their wings about ten meters when fully stretched. Their dark feathers seemed to be cast out of iron. Only their necks and tails were dotted with yellow streaks. When the birds blinked, their eyes would flash with an evil green glint.


    Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao were lying at the edge of the pool pathetically, covered in blood. The latter''s face was pale and there was a gash that stretched from his left shoulder to his stomach, revealing a faint outline of his entrails. If he wasn''t a Level Six master, he would have already died.


    With two of them rendered completely useless, Ji Yeyue was the only one left to battle the peculiar birds.


    But it was precisely under such circumstances that she could demonstrate the best of her strength.


    "They''re Dragon Divine Sparrows!" The birds captured Green Spirit''s attention but he instantly denied his own statement. "No, they''re not Dragon Sparrows. I think they''re hybrids."


    "What do you mean? Can these birds interbreed?" Junior Leopard was confused. He had never heard of birds crossbreeding.


    "The Dragon Sparrows are so licentious that all of their kind can produce offspring. These two birds look similar, but there are differences. The Dragon Divine Sparrows have cyan streaks in their necks but these two have yellow streaks. What''s more, the pattern in their tails shouldn''t be so striking. They''re probably first-generation hybrids. That means there''s definitely another Dragon Divine Sparrow here! That''d be troublesome!"


    "How strong are they?"


    "They''re definitely powerful considering that they''re called divine birds. They''re born with Level Nine strength and an adult bird has the strength of an Individual Immortal. The strong ones can even reach Genuine Immortal Karma Rank."


    "That powerful?" Junior Leopard was surprised but not all that concerned. So what if they were in the Individual Immortal Karma Rank? The Evil Fire Kylin under the earth vein of the Greensword Mountain was in the same rank but he still dealt it great injuries. A bird was just a flat-feather beast. He wasn''t afraid as long as it didn''t possess true strength.


    "Of course it''s powerful. The Dragon Divine Sparrows aren''t just powerful because of their strength. They''re also full of Divine Sense and has an extraordinary mastery of cold ice. You''re blessed with good luck but it won''t be that easy for you to win against the bird. You should be more careful!"


    "I will." Junior Leopard nodded and focused all his attention on the battle.


    To be honest, Ji Yeyue intrigued him. It wasn''t only because she had an attractive figure or admired him. She had great strength as well.


    That was right. He liked her strength!


    Her Level Seven strength!


    She was a teen expert in a world where there were so few of them. There were only her, Li Xiu, Yan Fei ¨Dwho was the eldest son of the Xinning King¨D and him.


    Discounting himself, she was actually the most powerful one of them.


    It was probable that the four of them would fight against one another to dominate the entire martial arts world. Unless he managed to make this beautiful leader of Jade Pool into his partner, they would likely be rivals in the future. Now that there was such a great chance for him to witness the true strength of his future rival, he would definitely not miss it. After all, if he knew his enemy and himself, he need not fear losing a battle.


    Ji Yeyue wasn''t doing too well under the attacks of the talons and iron wings of the two peculiar birds. The birds emanated a chilling glint in their eyes and aggressive spirit, trying to claw her vital parts. She commanded two maroon stripes in her hands, made of neither silk nor satin. They were extremely flexible but more importantly, they were enveloped in red Evil Qi. It was a celestial device that could be coordinated with her Gang Qi. Even if it wasn''t in the Extreme Yang level, the device was nevertheless in the Metaphysical early stage. The stripes were like two peculiar pythons, hissing and twisting as they bound the birds without any sense of grandeur.


    From the sidelines, Junior Leopard saw everything clearly. The birds weren''t harmed despite being trapped by the stripes. They were so powerful that a Metaphysical early stage device wasn''t capable of hurting them at all. On the contrary, the stripes would tremble whenever they were attacked by the birds. Each time the stripes trembled, Ji Yeyue would be affected. Her face behind the black vein began to turn pale.


    She knew she couldn''t let the situation continue. She didn''t expect her Supernatural Crimson Silk to be so weak against these birds. How could they be so powerful? How did they come here when she didn''t see them here the last time? Could it be¡­


    She thought of a possibility and couldn''t help feeling anxious. She wielded her stripes even more rapidly. Red blood surged and transformed into thorns that fired at the birds.


    The birds were confused by the sudden attack and were forced backward by their taste. But they quickly regained their wits and responded. The icy spirit instantly enveloped them and blocked all the thorns.


    The icy spirit wasn''t that smooth in the beginning but grew stronger as it firmed. The surrounding temperature dropped drastically as the icy spirit fully materialized. The faster the birds flapped its wings, the stronger the cold winds became.


    The winds repelled the maroon awns and stripes. The Mysterious Level celestial device was finally activated and the awns disappeared. In its place, a layer of hazy red light began to emanate from the stripes.


    Swish, swish, swish!


    The endless icy spirit vanished like falling snow the minute the red light appeared. The attacks from the two birds also slowed as if they were dreading the light.


    Croak!


    One of the birds made a strange cry when it accidentally brushed against the red light. Its body went stiff and it instantly fell on the ground, shivering. The other bird didn''t dare to be careless after seeing this and spread its wings, flying out the parameters of the red light. A blue light began to frame the bird, causing all of its iron feathers to stand on its end.


    Swish!


    A black iron feather flew out from its wing, transforming into hundreds of imaginary feathers that rained down upon Ji Yeyue.


    Dipped in blue light, each feather was like a wizard weapon on its own that carried a thundering force. There wasn''t any place for Ji Yeyue to run for cover.


    If she couldn''t avoid it, then she could only take it head-on. With an angry cry, she wrapped herself in her Supernatural Crimson Silk at the exact moment that the iron feathers rained down on her.


    Puff, puff, puff!


    The Supernatural Crimson Silk managed to block out every single one of the feathers but it also gradually lost its layer of red light.


    The peculiar bird croaked again and charged at Ji Yeyue, who had been exhausted by her continuous use of a celestial device. With this sudden attack, she was forced toward the edge of the pool, so close that she would fall with a single step.


    "Be careful, Junior Sister!" Yu Qingyong instantly cried in concern, worried that she would fall.


    Ji Yeyue was feeling anxious and gnashed her teeth. She wielded her two stripes, emanating a chilling light.


    "She hid her sword in the stripes!" Junior Leopard was stunned.


    Swift as the thunder, the chilling light shot directly at the bird.


    Creak!


    Everything happened so fast and violently that the peculiar bird that it didn''t have any chance of avoiding the light. The bird was hit squarely on its body, sending its feathers flying everywhere.


    Ji Yeyue didn''t plan to stop. Having pulled off an effective attack, she stepped forward and starlight suddenly appeared in her hands. It burst violently with a silver glow, bringing out an air of Qi so sharp that it threatened to cut the atmosphere.


    The attack had sliced off the bird''s wing and a growing sense of unease grew inside it. It didn''t dare to face off with Ji Yeyue anymore and was trying to retreat, but it was already too late. When the chilling light appeared, it took a step back and narrowly avoided a deathly blow. But it nevertheless sustained heavy injuries and fell to the ground. Just as it was struggling to get up again, the chilling light came close again.


    She was pushing the bird too far! Junior Leopard sighed. He then aimed his Blue Sword straight at Ji Yeyue.


    The sword radiance from the Blue Sword created a trail of light as it sped past the air before hitting a bird that had appeared behind Ji Yeyue.


    The peculiar bird, about ten meters in length, croaked and soared up to the sky, instantly rushing at Junior Leopard.


    "Humph!" Junior Leopard sneered and utilized the Dragon Flying Technique with his Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword. Countless tiny golden Sword Qi emanated from his body and attacked the bird.


    Puff, puff, puff! His Sword Qi hit the blue light enveloping the bird and successfully forced it to retreat. The bird rapidly rose a hundred feet into the air and directly confronted Junior Leopard.


    It was only now that Ji Yeyue and Yu Qingyong finally reacted.


    Swift! It was too swift!


    The appearance of a third peculiar bird was so instantaneous that it was beyond their imaginations.


    Junior Leopard''s sudden appearance also surprised them. They didn''t expect there would be someone else besides them on this island.


    "Be careful, kid! This bird is a real Dragon Sparrow. It has the strength of a Metaphysical Individual Immortal!"


    "I understand." Junior Leopard naturally wouldn''t take his personal safety lightly. He stepped out of his hiding place and faced off with the bird.


    Everything that happened too quickly that Ji Yeyue only realized what was going on when she saw Junior Leopard. When she was trying to deal the peculiar bird the final blow, a third bird had appeared. What was more, the third bird was far bigger and faster than the first two birds she had been battling. If not for this mysterious master, she would have been torn up by the new bird while trying to kill the injured bird on the ground.


    "I, Ji Yeyue of Jade Pool, thank you for saving my life!"


    "Now isn''t the time for courtesy!" Through the mask, Junior Leopard''s eyes barely swept over Ji Yeyue before he focused his attention on the Dragon Sparrow.


    "Take the other two and leave! This bird is in the Metaphysical Realm. I don''t have the confidence to defeat it!"


    "Metaphysical Realm?" Ji Yeyue and Yu Qingyong were astonished. Their doubtful gaze drifted from Junior Leopard to the peculiar new bird. Even among everyone in Jade Pool, only their teacher had such an ability! Could this ordinary large bird in front of them possess such a strength?


    Croak!


    The bird looked up and burst into a strange cry as if it understood Junior Leopard''s words. Its cry was resounding with solid Real Essence Energy. Yu Qingyong couldn''t take the pressure and instantly fainted, his body quivering and mouth spewing blood.


    Ji Yeyue fared a little better. Her Supernatural Crimson Silk instantly emitted a red glow, blocking her from the worst of the bird''s cry. The light vanished with a terrible sound. She was forced backward several steps and spat blood. Still, she was much better off than Yu Qingyong thanks to her celestial device.


    The bird''s cry also injured Junior Leopard, who could only regain a firm footing after taking several steps backward.


    This bird really knew how to bully people using its cultivation! Before Junior Leopard could curse more, the bird appeared before his eyes once again.


    He was about to wield his sword for another strike but before he could make his move, a burst of chilling Qi surged around him. He felt his entire body stiffening and everything inside him frozen, handicapping his ability to manipulate Internal Qi. Instead, his Blue Sword flickered and slashed the Dragon Sparrow directly.


    The bird didn''t expect Junior Leopard''s sword to be so powerful and flexible under the pressure of its chilling strength. It wasn''t aware that the sword was Junior Leopard''s External Elixir, refined by the Heavenly Peach Wood and the Primordial Loach Monster''s skull. Naturally, it wouldn''t be affected by its chilling strength. While it could freeze Junior Leopard''s blood, it was useless against his thoughts. Therefore, his sword remained as sharp and free as it was.


    Junior Leopard knew this bird had the cultivation of a Metaphysical Individual Immortal so he didn''t dare to restrain himself. With the sword light flashing, he manipulated his silver light sword skill. The net of lighting and the rain of sword Qi completely suppressed the Dragon Sparrow. He then seized the opportunity to activate the black fire in his Dantian, triggering the Internal Qi of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire. The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire and the Primordial Loach Monster was the bane of the bird''s chilling strength. So it didn''t take long for Junior Leopard to recover.


    "What are you waiting around for? I can''t protect you for long!" Junior Leopard yelled as he went forward again. He wasn''t willing to demonstrate his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire in front of Ji Yeyue, so he could only use his sword. He had the upper hand for now but the bird was nevertheless a divine bird from the Antiquity TImes. Its sharp claws, iron feathers, and chilling strength were all formidable. More importantly, its cultivation was in the Metaphysical Realm. Though he had the advantage now, his sword alone wasn''t enough to defeat the bird.


    Ji Yeyue knew the situation was dangerous and it wasn''t the time to ask questions. If she stayed here, she might trouble this eccentric person. Carrying her senior and junior brothers on both hands, she disappeared among the bushes.


    The bird cried when it noticed the one who killed its offsprings had disappeared. It flapped its wings ferociously, sending harsh whirlwind toward Junior Leopard, and tried to run after Ji Yeyue. Naturally, Junior Leopard wouldn''t allow the bird to leave. His sword glowed in a blue light and released its Jade Original Power Gang Spirit at once.


    "Dragon Sparrow, oh, Dragon Sparrow. Just stay here obediently and help me practice my sword skill!"

 Chapter 286: Dragon Sparrow Frozen Cannon and Heavenly Dragons Giant Handprint

    Chapter 286: Dragon Sparrow Frozen Cannon and Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Star River Burning Completely!"


    "Backflow Galaxy!"


    "Full Moon Galaxy!"


    The three killing skills of the Silver Moon Sword Technique were used by Junior Leopard in a flash, making the Dragon Sparrow continuously rush back.


    Being over 10 feet long and surrounded by the endless sound of wind and thunder, the azure sword light completely covered the Dragon Sparrow inside.


    His Blue Sword was a Flying Sword of the Earth Rank and was also a celestial device of the Mysterious Level. As it was mainly made from Heavenly Peach Wood and Primitive Dragon Chimera and was cultivated by Junior Leopard during these years, it could be ranked as Upper Grade, even if it was among the celestial devices of the Mysterious Level. Furthermore, what Junior Leopard used was the Silver Moon Sword Technique that had excellent killing power. And although the Dragon Sparrow was called the divine bird of antiquity times and had a cultivation in the Metaphysical Realm, it constantly flew back owing to his attack.


    Having the experience of dealing with the Evil Fire Kylin, Junior Leopard used his most powerful killing skill to attack this Dragon Sparrow at the very beginning. He also gradually grasped a skill that was indispensable to sword practice, which was to attack and kill. If he had a good sword on hand, he could use it to bully others, which was very cool.


    "Caw, Caw, Caw!" As the Dragon Sparrow brayed angrily, it flapped its iron wings, creating a great strength that formed into fiercely blowing icy windstorms. But because the storms were being cut by Junior Leopard''s sword, they could not penetrate through the sword light and were all kept away by his Blue Sword Qi and Jade Original Power Gang.


    Then, the Jade Original Power Gang that had absorbed the Nine Heaven Thunder Qi gradually began to exert power. It transformed into flashes of lightning and then fiercely rushed toward the Dragon Sparrow.


    Although the Dragon Sparrow was protected by the icy Qi, it could not resist such a strike of lightning. Not long after, the Jade Original Power Gang broke through its protective Qi and impacted its body.


    "Caw!"


    It was ok with the Dragon Sparrow if it was attacked just once or twice, but as it was hit more and more hard by more and more thunderbolt, it could not endure it. Roaring angrily, its endless iron feathers stood still and transformed into a feather arrow, shooting toward Junior Leopard.


    "Tit for tat!"


    "This stupid animal!" Junior Leopard ridiculed it with a laugh. But he was not worried about this because, although this Dragon Sparrow''s iron feather was powerful, it could not break his Jade Original Power Gang.


    As expected, the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit that had transformed into lightning just rolled slightly and then resolved the Dragon Sparrow''s attack successfully. Although it had a fast speed, it seemed like there was nothing in the world faster than lightning.


    Realizing that it had failed, the Dragon Sparrow screamed angrily. And then invisible sound waves were emitted from its mouth and rippled all around.


    "Such an uncreative guy!" Junior Leopard sneered and said. Rolling his Jade Original Power Gang, he transformed it into a long cyan thunder saber and hacked toward the Dragon Sparrow.


    It directly chopped the sound waves into two parts and, without stopping, it hacked directly toward the Dragon Sparrow.


    Now the Dragon Sparrow realized that it was in a bad situation. With its wings held back, a blue light suddenly surrounded it and then condensed into a bizarre, icy blue flower.


    "Clang!"


    The thunder saber collided with the blue flower!


    "Hong!"


    "Boom!" The bizarre, icy blue flower blew completely up into ice particles. And although it had blown up, the ice particles that it became did not scatter, but just stayed suspended in the air, freezing the entire space. Affected by this, the thunder saber that was transformed from the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit dimmed and its power was greatly reduced by the blue flower. Furthermore, as space was unexpectedly frozen by the ice particles, the saber stopped in mid-air, and although that was just for a flash, it was enough time for the Dragon Sparrow to react.


    Freezing the icy saber and ignoring the Blue Sword that Junior Leopard hacked with, the Dragon Sparrow suddenly spread its wings and absorbed the essence of the world within a 100-foot radius.


    "Be careful! That is the Dragon Sparrow Frozen Cannon!" Seeing this, Green Spirit could not help reminding Junior Leopard. "Don''t fight back head-on!"


    The Dragon Sparrow Frozen Cannon was the Dragon Sparrow''s killing skill. It was used by first absorbing the essence of the world, then transforming it into a boundless cold, and then firing out by focusing on one point.


    While reminding Junior Leopard, Green Spirit told him the information about the Dragon Sparrow Frozen Cannon.


    Junior Leopard''s look turned cold. Raising his hand, he took back his Blue Sword. And just before the very moment that the deep blue freezing air was about to hit him, he disappeared.


    "Three Realms Division!"


    The Dragon Sparrow Frozen Cannon definitely could not be fought back head-on because it worked by the Dragon Sparrow transforming all the Spiritual Qi around using its own original energy. It could be said that this attack was carried out by its whole cultivation and the pneuma of the world within a 100-foot radius.


    This adult Dragon Sparrow''s cultivation was the same as a Metaphysical Individual Immortal''s. Therefore, how could Junior Leopard withstand this attack with his Level Seven cultivation and a Blue Sword at Level Seven?


    He had made it just now probably with the advantage of the Blue Sword and the Silver Moon Sword Technique, but it was done by using proper skills and taking some risks. Although his Blue Sword was a Flying Sword of the Earthly Rank and a celestial device at the Mysterious Level, it was still very stupid for him to fight back the attack of a Metaphysical Individual Immortal head-on. Junior Leopard was not a fool, so he would not do that.


    He could use the Three Realms Division, so all he needed to do was hide.


    Although the Dragon Sparrow Frozen Cannon was very powerful, it lacked variation. Being powerful and having a speed that resembled lightning, it very likely could not be successfully avoided by others.


    But unfortunately, it had met Junior Leopard, who knew the Three Realms Division.


    He disappeared at the very moment that it had come near him, and when he appeared again, he had already stopped behind the Dragon Sparrow.


    Although the poor Dragon Sparrow sensed that there was something wrong when Junior Leopard disappeared, it would never imagine that he would appear behind it. Carrying out that Dragon Sparrow Frozen Cannon had exhausted almost 80 percent of its pneuma, and therefore, it was already too late when the Dragon Sparrow sensed that there was sharp Sword Qi at its back.


    So all it could do was to move away slightly to protect its vital parts.


    "Poof!"


    "Caw!"


    With a muffled sound and a scream of sheer pain, it could be seen that the left wing of the Dragon Sparrow was cut off by Junior Leopard. With blood streaming from the wound, the Dragon Sparrow fell from the sky.


    "Eh?!"


    Just when Junior Leopard was going to draw his sword once more, a sharp cold gas was moving toward his face. Although it was not as strong as the Dragon Sparrow Frozen Cannon''s attack, it moved too quickly and Junior Leopard was feeling complacent about cutting the Dragon Sparrow''s wing off and was careless, so he did not react until it arrived at his face.


    Thinking quickly, he used the Three Realms Division again and successfully avoided this attack. But also because of that, he lost the best opportunity to make the three strange birds stay.


    Clawing its brother and father, the strange bird that was hurt by Ji Yeyue soared, flapped fiercely, and then disappeared in the blink of an eye.


    "My goodness, so fast?!" Junior Leopard appeared and without having any chance to react, he watched the three birds disappear in front of him and therefore felt depressed.


    "Dragon Sparrows have a very fast speed. With just one flap, they can fly for 650 kilometers. Therefore, you can''t catch up to them!" Green Spirit said.


    "One flap for 650 kilometers?!" Junior Leopard was very surprised internally but just said, "Well, just let them escape. It''s not a big deal!"


    "You also gained a lot. As a Dragon Sparrow''s speed relies totally on its wings and you have chopped one of them off, you can use it to make a celestial device for flying!" Green Spirit reminded him.


    "That''s exactly what I''m thinking about!" Junior Leopard''s eyes flickered and, raising his hand, he put the Dragon Sparrow wing that had fallen on the ground into his individual space.


    After putting the wing away, he landed on the shore of a pool that resembled jade.


    "This pool is so strange!" Junior Leopard said while looking at it. No matter if it was when Ji Yeyue had fought with the two strange birds or when he had fought with the Dragon Sparrow, they all destroyed the surroundings considerably. But this pool was not affected at all, as if it really was made out of jade.


    If it really was jade, then that was good. But he saw countless branches and stones and forces emitted from the battle fall into the pool, and none of them disturbed it. Most strange of all, they all disappeared in a very short time, as if they were swallowed by it.


    "Kid, just stop looking at it. This is Green Genuine Water. No matter what falls into it, it will be transformed into the purest Green Genuine Water, and the same will happen to you if you fall into it!" Green Spirit said coldly, "I''m afraid that is also the same reason why Ji Yeyue will come here!"


    "What can be it used for?"


    "In essence, the Green Genuine Water was condensed from the Divine Energy of Azure Clouds and it also absorbed Evil Pure Yin Qi and it''s extremely pure. If it''s used for practice, it will yield twice the result with half the effort, as the Internal Qi you cultivate will not only be very pure but also have the power of the Divine Energy of Azure Clouds that can destroy evil things, which is the nemesis of all the evil and bloody things in the world. Although your Poison Cold Shield is powerful, I guess it won''t threaten Ju Yeyue very much, as her Internal Qi has the Divine Energy of Azure Clouds. And as it''s highly condensed from Spiritual Qi, even if it''s just a drop of it, it will be equal to a Level Nine expert''s cultivation. Now do you think it''s precious?"


    "Why don''t we take such a precious treasure? And there is not much of it!" As Junoir Leopard had a thief''s nature, he became very greedy and could not help asking about that after hearing of its benefits.


    "Well, you can give it a try to see if you can take it!" Green Spirit sneered and said, "Every drop of Green Genuine Water weighs more than 150,000 kilos, so it can''t be carried at all. I guess if Ji Yeyue comes here, she will not take it either. Instead, she may have some means to dissolve it and then she can use it for practicing. You should know that although it has endless benefits, it''s extremely dangerous, as it can transform everything in the world into the Divine Energy of Azure Clouds. Just take you as an example, if you fall into it, within a very short time, you will transform into a drop of Genuine Water from this pool. No matter if it''s Gang Qi or a celestial device, they will not play a role. Well, only your Golden Flame Mirror will not be absorbed by it, as it has Pure Yang Qi."


    "My goodness!" upon hearing that, Junior Leopard gasped and said. "This is not a precious treasure, but a demon that kills people! Fortunately, I didn''t reach out to take it, or I would have lost half of my life,"Junior Leopard thought.


    "So it won''t be of any benefit to me?"


    "It will benefit you, but you can''t be greedy. Even in the antiquity times, lots of people died in this Green Genuine Water!"


    "If this is Green Genuine Water, what about the one outside? Isn''t that the Spirit Sea? It is also made up of Genuine Water, but there are creatures living within it!"


    "That''s because it is Azure Genuine Water, not Green Genuine Water. As there are mixed pneumas in the Azure Genuine Water, it is the best choice to breed creatures. But the Green Genuine Water condenses all the pneumas together and is the carrier of embracing things of the world. Although they have only one word different, they have totally different effects."


    "Well, so is it possible for Azure Genuine Water to transform into Green Genuine Water?"


    "That''s impossible. Although they both evolved from the Divine Energy of Azure Clouds, the Azure Genuine Water is just a simple condensation of Green Genuine Spirit Qi, while the Green Genuine Water has absorbed the Evil Pure Yin Qi and therefore a qualitative change has occurred to it. If there is no Pure Yin Qi, there is no Green Genuine Water. This involves the knowledge of evolving and Pure Yang and Pure Yin. Even I don''t understand that matter, let alone you. If in the future you have the chance to meet any real necromancers, you can ask them."


    "I''m afraid I don''t have that chance!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly. In his opinion, necromancers were the scientists and alchemists of antiquity times, and all of them were extremely powerful people. It was lucky enough for him to meet one Grand Demon from antiquity times, so he did not think that he would have anything to do with those necromancers.


    "You really don''t have any method to get the Green Genuine Water?!"


    "No. But I can teach you how to dissolve it. Therefore, your Internal Qi can have the power to destroy the evil!"


    "Now is not the proper time to do that. We''d better find the three birds first!"


    "Hehe, now you want to find them? Aren''t you so brave all of a sudden! You''re just like a hero who wants to rescue a beautiful girl!" Green Spirit sneered and said, "However, it''s still unknown whether they will accept your kindness or not!"


    "I''m just trying to do something good!" Junior Leopard smiled and said, "And as for whether they will accept it or not, we can discuss that later!"


    "If you want to find them, don''t go aimlessly. They will come back if they find that there are no sounds being made!"


    "Well, so we''ll just sit and wait. This reminds me of a joke, which is called ''wait for windfalls''!"


    "No, you''d better prepare to confront them. The best way would be to subdue them all as soon as they appear!"


    "Why?"


    "The three birds would not appear here without any reason!" Green Spirit said, "Although Green Genuine Water is precious, it is for you human beings. As for the evil beasts like Dragon Sparrows, it''s the same as a poisonous drug, as they don''t know how to dissolve it. Therefore, if it''s not for some specific reason, they will only come here to look for unpleasantness!"


    "So what did they come for?"


    "Hmm, obviously for treasures. Those so-called treasures of heaven and earth are sure to be protected by supernatural animals. So I think the three birds were here to protect a treasure of heaven and earth. They were waiting for it to show up."


    "Are you sure?!" Junior Leopard did not believe him. He did not think that such a dump would have a treasure of heaven and earth.


    In this place that was said to have more Spiritual Qi than the antiquity times, Junior Leopard was very disappointed and internally cursed all the nice stories about the antiquity times. Now Green Spirit should say that there was a treasure of heaven and earth, and obviously, he would not easily believe it.


    "Sure kid, if you don''t believe it, just wait and see. Only if...?!"


    Before he had finished his words, Junior Leopard disappeared because he heard people talking, and definitely, they were not Ji Yeyue and others.


    "Quite lively!"


    Using the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, Junior Leopard hid in the dark and suddenly became serious.


    There were three people flying toward the Green Pool, and all of them had cultivations at Level Nine.


    "When did so many powerful experts appear in the world?" Seeing them, Junior Leopard became perturbed.


    One of the three people was a tall, strong middle-aged man, about 47 or 48 years old. His look was serious and his salt-and-pepper beard pointed like a steel needle. His eyes flickered with a mysterious black light and did not hide his ferocity at all.


    Another one was a baldheaded monk, with his back revealed. From Junior Leopard''s perspective, he was just a Lama, with fine features, red cheeks, and a sunny smile. The last one was in green and about 50 years old. He wore a four-foot-long sword, with his hand on the hilt. He was just like a sword hidden in a sheath, waiting to come out and destroy all around.


    The three people came from three directions to the shore of the pool, forming a triangle.


    "Hahahahaha, what a small world! I never thought that I could meet you here!" The brute laughed after seeing them clearly and said, "It seems like we won''t be bored today!"


    "Amitabha. Very good indeed. It''s lucky for me to meet you!" Putting his two hands together, that handsome monk looked very happy.


    "Happy Monk, don''t pretend to be friendly. We have the same goal today. It seems that the three of us have to fight to decide who the owner of the treasure will be!"


    "Benefactor Xia, what you said is correct, but I''m afraid there are not just the three of us here!" The monk''s eyes wandered over the mess around as he smiled and spoke.


    "What an astute monk!" Junior Leopard said internally.


    "That is not astute. Any person seeing this messy place would know that someone had come here!" Green Spirit sneered and said.


    "No matter who he is, he''s nothing more than a clown. We don''t need to mind it!" the tall and strong man just glanced around and said disdainfully. By his cultivation and the signs that remained, he could feel the level of the battle that had happened here and did not feel anything that could threaten him.


    "I think we''d better be careful, lest there is someone coming to gain benefit after we all get hurt fighting!" the middle-aged man who wore the sword sneered and said. He raised his fingers, and then endless sharp Sword Qi scattered around.


    "Sword Net!"


    Once he attacked, he should attack indiscriminately. Although Junior Leopard had the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to protect him from being discovered by them, it could not prevent him from being hurt by the Sword Qi.


    "F**k, son of a b**ch!" Junior Leopard cursed deeply. Swiftly flying from where he had been hiding, he landed in the forest.


    "You want to escape? It''s not that easy!" With a smile, the monk made a grasping motion in the direction of Junior Leopard.


    "Western Guiding Stunt!"


    All of sudden, Junior Leopard felt that his surrounding space was completely locked by a great power. The invisible strength behind him pulled him back and he could not resist it at all.


    "Fuck!" Junior Leopard cursed deeply. He performed the Jade Original Power Gang Qi and transformed it into a giant thunderbolt saber light, and fiercely chopped toward the monk.


    "Eh?!" The monk did not think that his opponent still had any remaining power to resist him while being covered by his Western Guiding Stunt, or in such a fierce way. "This over ten-foot-long thunderbolt saber light is more than I can resist head-on. Even if I could make it, I would not do that at this point. After all, this guy is just a small problem. My real problem is the two Ninth Level experts standing beside me," the monk thought.


    Therefore, he chose to dodge. Moving like the wind, he successfully dodged the thunder saber that was transformed from Junior Leopard''s Jade Original Power Gang Qi.


    Although he dodged it, the power of the Western Guiding Stunt did not disappear but, on the contrary, was intensified. Meanwhile, Junior Leopard doubled his flying speed toward the monk, which obviously was because he became angry. He had decided to teach the guy who made him lose face a great lesson.


    Of course, Junior Leopard was not a man waiting for his doom. The Jade Original Power Gang Qi was just a reaction he had done in an urgent situation. What he wanted was just a pause from his opponent in a flash, and he got it.


    Although the suction of the Western Guiding Stunt was much stronger than before, the monk''s pause gave Junior Leopard a chance to take his Blue Sword out. Most importantly, his Blue Sword would fly faster in such a strong suction.


    The green Sword Qi was sent out and it chopped back along the path of the Western Guiding Stunt.


    With an explosive sound, the sword light filled the path of the strength of the Western Guiding Stunt in a flash and formed a thick green passageway.


    "Silver Moon Sword Technique, Full Moon Galaxy!"


    The killing skill of the Silver Moon Sword Technique was not that easy to deal with. With the faint sound of an explosion, the green Sword Qi completely broke the path of the strength of the Western Guiding Stunt.


    "Boom!" With a strange sound, the green Sword Qi scattered. Carrying a bit of lightning, it shot straight out toward the Happy Monk.


    The Happy Monk did not think that he would meet such a "monster" here. Seeing the Sword Qi shooting toward him, he groaned and fiercely spread his red frock, which transformed into a red cloud and covered his whole body to protect him.


    "Puff, Puff, Puff, Puff!" The sword lights hitting on the red cloud were all kept away.


    "Boy, you are courting death!"


    Although the monk resisted Junior Leopard''s sword light, he completely lost his face, so of course, he would not let Junior Leopard be happy. After resisting his sword light, the red cloud separated and a giant handprint flew out from it. With sacred songs and a Buddhist halo surrounding it, it pressed directly toward Junior Leopard.


    "Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint? The Happy Monk is really getting crazy because of feeling shame and anger!"


    Observing the situation, the tall, strong man could not keep from laughing, and the man with the sword looked very serious and grave.


    "He is a sword practitioner?! His Flying Sword is at least at the Mysterious Level. When did such a sword practitioner appear in this world?!"

 Chapter 287: The Innate Green Lotus, the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman

    Chapter 287: The Innate Green Lotus, the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint!


    Junior Leopard had not heard of it, but that could not deny the mightiness of this martial arts skill.


    The enormous palm became even more massive, and a chanting Buddhist halo sparkled on the palm just as if a western Buddhist patriarch had arrived. Golden light sparkled everywhere like a small sun. As the space around Junior Leopard had been blocked entirely, Junior Leopard was like a bug trapped in resin, having no room to move.


    The huge palm arrived in front of Junior Leopard in the blink of an eye. There was no doubt that Junior Leopard would be beaten into ashes if that palm struck the frozen space.


    Just then, the Blue Sword displayed a strong light like a green rainbow and its Sword Qi ran through the sky.


    "Crack!"


    There was no doubt that the Blue Sword broke the space that was solidified by the Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint and escaped.


    Within the sword light, a purple light appeared. A sharp Sword Qi projected out, fiercely crashing into the huge palm that was thrusting toward it as the green light radiated everywhere.


    Star River Burning Completely!


    One of the three deadliest weapons in the Silver Light Sword Skill had appeared once again, raising beams of green electric light and wrapping the Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint in a cluster of green thunderbolts.


    "Oh my god, when did the Immortal Palace get this guy?" The middle-aged strong man was shocked when he saw the situation. From the clothing of Junior Leopard, he could see Junior Leopard''s background. Although the Immortal Palace was a mysterious place, it was not a secret among the circle of top players.


    "Cool!"


    Feeling the sword light agitating his flesh and blood, Junior Leopard appeared to see Happy Monk gritting his teeth in pain and stamping his foot in anger. The corners of Junior Leopard''s mouth slightly twitched upward, and the glow of the Blue Sword became brighter.


    Indeed, Happy Monk was a Level Nine expert, and the Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint was also a powerful martial art, but unfortunately, the Blue Sword that Junior Leopard had was a Flying Sword of the Earthly Rank, which was a celestial device at the Mysterious Level that a normal human body could not resist.


    Level Nine was certainly very powerful and Happy Monk''s body was also solid, but no matter how solid and strong it was, it could not compare to a wizard weapon.


    A man with good martial arts was still afraid of a kitchen knife!


    The kitchen knife of Junior Leopard was sharp and brightly worn down, so how could Happy Monk not fail by using his stupid method?


    In the medieval period, the third or fourth generation disciples from the large sword-practitioner sects could drive the Elders and demons of the heretical class into a corner with a good Flying Sword in hand. Even those powerful and old demons, which had lived for a hundred or even hundreds of years, would have a headache whenever they saw those disciples from the influential families. But why was that?


    Just because of the Flying Sword.


    The Blue Sword was a Flying Sword of the Earth Rank with strong destructive power and a fast speed. Additionally, the Silver Moon Sword Technique was an excellent sword secret. The Sword Qi of this Blue Sword had become sharp and fierce after being purified by the Bright Moon Deifying Technique day and night, and it had gained a trace of destructive spirit after being refined by the hammering of the Nine Heaven Thunder Qi.


    This destructive spirit was something. Though it was faint, it was rooted in Sword Qi, and its lethality was beyond imagination. The power of its sword light was also beyond the expectation of Happy Monk.


    The Blue Sword broke the Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint, and then easily penetrated the Gang Qi and stirred above the palm of Happy Monk.


    "Ah¡ª!"


    Feeling the pain, Happy Monk screamed out. He stepped back in a hurry with the muscles of his face twitching and his fierce eyes sparkling with hatred. Throughout all his years, when had he ever suffered pain like this and gotten hurt so badly?


    He was a somebody ever since his cultivation had reached Level Seven and then he had become an abbot of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. And since then, he had focused on practicing. He had not even gotten tired before, let alone been injured.


    It was unexpected that he would come across a monster with a Flying Sword of the Earthly Rank in the Azure Secret Area, and that even his Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint and Gang Qi would be broken by one sword movement, leaving his palm whipped directly.


    Before he could respond to the strike, that azure light appeared again. Junior Leopard knew the eccentric monk in front of him had powerful strength and a Level Nine cultivation. This was no laughing matter at all. Just like Raging Fire Ancestor, who had a Level Nine cultivation and had suppressed him into a dead end once they started fighting, now what he should do was suppress the monk with his Flying Sword as well. Moreover, the monk was careless, he was not aware of the seriousness the first time that Zhou Bao broke his Guiding Stunt, and then he let him break his Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint also. It seemed that he had less fighting experience than Raging Fire Ancestor, but even still, he did not have much chance to win once the monk got his strength back and would just need to escape. But for now, he began to attack to get an advantage as much as possible.


    The Silver Moon Sword Technique displayed its complete strength. The sword light charged at Happy Monk like mercury pouring down to the ground.


    Happy Monk retreated in a hurry, scolding and shouting. His red monk robe danced like a red cloud, surging in the azure sword light. Even though he was solely defending, he did not seem to be in a disadvantageous position other than not being able to easily get away from the sword light. Luckily, his red monk robe was a defensive celestial device, otherwise, Happy Monk would have gotten several wounds by now.


    "How strange! Happy Monk has more skill than this. Why is he still on the defensive?"


    The eyes of those two standing by revealed a hint of confusion. Knowing the strength and the temperament of Happy Monk, it should not have been like this.


    "Was he injured?" The middle-aged strong man and the man with a sword looked at each other as their eyes displayed their astonishment.


    Yes, he had gotten injured..


    The huge handprint of Happy Monk was broken through by Junior Leopard and his palm got whipped. It should not have mattered because he was a Level Nine expert. For Level Nine experts, their Real Essence Source of Dantian had already been able to generate the Real Essence. Adding to that, the body of a Ninth-level expert had a strong power of healing, so normal skin trauma would not matter at all since it could heal in a short time no matter how severe the trauma was. Therefore, the human body would have the power to derive flesh and blood once the cultivation reached Level Nine, which was a huge advantage compared to those below Level Nine. And that was exactly why those above Level Nine discriminated against those below Level Nine¡ªbecause they could not even hurt a single one of their hairs.


    But now it was different, completely different.


    The Sword Qi of Junior Leopard was not only sharp and fierce, but it had an eccentric strength. This strength was full of destructive power, and after whipping his palm, the power that he derived from flesh and blood could not work at all. Blood continuously flowed, and drastic pain kept accompanying him. More importantly, once he used the Real Essence Internal Qi, his palm would produce an unbearable pain.


    That had heavily affected his combat capability.


    Not until the time that it took a stick of incense to burn out did he adapt to the pain.


    "Hiss! Boy, f*ck you, you are damned! No one can save you, f*ck!"


    Having adapted to the pain and suppressed it, Happy Monk roared angrily, rolling his frock up into a huge ball. As Junior Leopard''s sword light pricked into the ball emitting golden light, he felt that the ball was peerlessly soft as well as incomparably tough and his Sword Qi had no way to deal with it. Just then, he vaguely felt a strong power cohering inside the ball.


    "Shit, he is going to play big!"


    How smart Junior Leopard was! The moment that he felt that something had gone wrong, his sword light withdrew immediately. And then, he stood on the sword, becoming an azure light to escape into the depths of the rainforest. Right at the moment that he escaped, Happy Monk''s frock radiated a shining red light and it fiercely shot out several red scattered lights.


    The power of those red scattered lights was extremely strong.


    "Clap! Clap! Clap!"


    Innumerable sounds of light resounded all around and everything became nothingness wherever the red light touched. The ground looked like a sieve after this attack, and some red scattered lights even hit the azure lake, causing the lake surface with copper light to ripple faintly.


    "The Departure Light? Happy Monk, open your eyes, don''t hurt the innocent!" The middle-aged strong man and the man with a sword were nearby Happy Monk, and the indiscriminate Departure Light had affected them as well. The middle-aged strong man had no will to fight it directly. He only scolded him, wandered among the Departure Light like a ghost, and darted more than 10 feet away to escape it. Meanwhile, the man with a sword darkened his expression but did not move at all. He raised his left hand slightly and dozens of Sword Qi spurted out, squarely neutralizing the dozens of Departure Lights that were coming at him.


    "Monk, he is gone. If you continue to fight like this, I won''t mind killing you!" The man with a sword beat the Departure Lights back. His expression was quiet, but a chilling light was sparkling in his eyes.


    "Humph!" Happy Monk came out with a gloomy face, staring at the man with a sword fiercely, and said, "Escaping miles away once a shot was missed, that is the quintessence of sword practitioner. Is he from your Golden Lights Cave?"


    The man with a sword sneered, "There are many peculiar things in this big world, not all sword practitioners come from the Golden Lights Cave. But if you insist on identifying him as a disciple of the Golden Lights Cave, just bring it on!"


    "Monk, stop it. He came from the Immortal Palace, didn''t you see his robe? He is Water Leopard of the Winnowing Basket of the 28 constellations!"


    "You recognize him?" The expression on Happy Monk''s face changed.


    "He is the mysterious expert who has joined the Immortal Palace recently. He appeared in the Ancient Ruins of the Leiyin Temple last time. It is said that he has a powerful strength. Though his cultivation is only at Level Seven, the sword in his hands might be a celestial device at the Mysterious Level, whose speed and destructive power are among the best. As for combat capability, it should be at the peak of Level Eight!" The middle-aged man said casually, "In this case, the information should be true. It''s unbelievable that you got hurt. How are you? Is everything okay?"


    "It''s not a big deal. I have medicine with me!" Looking at his bloody hands, Happy Monk felt pretty embarrassed. He took some medicine out, applied it to his hands, and continued, "There was an eccentric spirit of that guy''s Sword Qi that destroyed the vitality around the wounds. It''s strange. Is he only at Level Seven? Is the information from your Dark Sect really true?"


    "Sometimes the information is true and sometimes it''s not. Since the Immortal Palace is a mysterious place, of course we can''t get all the inside information. But Water Leopard of the Winnowing Basket is indeed one of the newest guys to join the Immortal Palace in recent years, and he did do something, so I know a little about him."


    "I heard that he once argued with the people of the Chaotian Palace," said the man with a sword.


    "The people of the Chaotian Palace are always arrogant, so it''s not a peculiar thing they couldn''t get along. But Brother Qi, do you want to teach him a lesson for the Chaotian Palace?"


    "This time, that I am able to enter the Azure Secret Area is utterly due to the Chaotian Palace''s help. I need to return the favor, but I just know very little about the Immortal Palace, so I asked such a question. Moreover, why has he fallen into the Azure Secret Area if he is from the Immortal Palace? Though there are nine entrances in the Azure Secret Area, the nine entrances don''t belong to the Immortal Palace. Did the Immortal Palace discover a new one?"


    "It didn''t go that far. Many had double identities among the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace. Besides that, many like to keep their second identity a secret. And the Immortal Palace is a place which attaches great importance to confidentiality. Thus, as long as they don''t disclose that information, no one will know who Water Leopard of the Winnowing Basket is. I guess Water Leopard of the Winnowing Basket might be somebody among those influences who own the nine entrances!" The middle-aged man cooly accounted his analysis. "Plus, there is a possibility that they have just happened to come here. The Seed Setting of the Green Lotus is confidential information. Though nine influences have entrances, there are only three people who can predict this thing, that is why we are here."


    "Could this be so coincidental, right at this time?" Happy Monk did not believe it.


    "That''s the most reasonable explanation!" The man with a sword said coldly, "First of all, the entrances of the Azure Secret Area are so valuable that people have only discovered nine entrances over the past thousands of years, and they are controlled by nine big influences separately. I certainly won''t believe it if someone tells me a new entrance has surfaced suddenly, so Water Leopard of the Winnowing Basket should be someone who belongs to nine influences. Second, following threads of the same theory, no one can know about the Seed Setting of the Green Lotus in advance without the help of the masters of the Divine Design. So, it seems that he must have come across it by chance."


    "So, do you mean we should just ignore him?" Happy Monk shouted.


    "Hard to say. Even if he didn''t know it before, he should know something now. After all, the three of us couldn''t have gathered together here just to drink tea and have a chat!" the man with a sword said casually.


    "So we should just kill him, no matter which influence he belongs to. It will be lucky for him if he doesn''t appear anymore. Once he appears, we shall kill him together. Though he is a sword practitioner, his cultivation isn''t very high, only at Level Seven. He can''t survive the attack if we cooperate," Happy Monk said angrily, looking at the wound on his left hand.


    "It''s a good method but, just like you said, he is a sword practitioner, and sword practitioners are proficient at speed. With sword light shining, they can escape without a trace. If he wanted to escape, it would be hard for us to kill, or even catch him, even if we cooperate. If we can''t catch him, we can''t kill him. When we strike out without the assurance that we can kill an opponent, we will acquire us a new enemy. Though I came from the Dark Sect, I am not an idiot like Xue Wuya, and I don''t want to have an enemy without any reason," the middle-aged strong man said with a snicker.


    "Humph!" Happy Monk flicked his sleeves, having nothing more to say. The middle-aged strong man had already clearly presented his ideas, and as for the man with a sword, he said nothing from beginning to end, just throwing his eyes over to the quiet Green Pool.


    A thousand feet away, hidden in the shadow of a huge tree, Junior Leopard was staring at the brim of the Green Pool earnestly. He had escaped into the rainforest just now but instantly launched the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to get back. With his vision, he could see a thousand feet in the distance, and the three of them did not deliberately try to conceal their voices, so Junior Leopard heard their conversation clearly.


    "Seed Setting of the Green Lotus, what is that? Could it be that the lake has some treasure?" Hiding in a tree, Junior Leopard had a clear view of the lake, and that was why he got confused. "Green Spirit, didn''t you say that the Green Genuine Water derived everything, and no matter what fell into it, it would become the Divine Energy of Azure Clouds and be absorbed by the Green Genuine Water? Then, what are they waiting for?"


    "Haha, didn''t you hear that they were waiting for the Seed Setting of the Green Lotus?" Green Spirit laughed, and his extreme excitement was revealed. "Right, I did say that the Green Genuine Water could derive everything, but the word ''everything'' refers to something acquired. If I were right, in the lake there would be a congenital bone, it should be the Innate Green Lotus. It is congenital, so the Green Genuine Water can''t absorb it, and it even could be said that all Genuine Water was born for the Innate Green Lotus. I had no idea that there was a treasure like it. Boy, if you could get one lotus seed, you would make a fortune!"


    "If it is the Green Lotus Seed, then it should bear many seeds during one seed-setting process. There are only three of them, so I''m afraid that they can''t take very many."


    "Hmm, there won''t be many seeds, only nine at a time." Green Spirit said with excitement, "Boy, you shouldn''t get greedy, because getting greedy will bring you few advantages. Having just one seed will be enough. With one Innate Green Lotus Seed, you can protect yourself even when you come across a Metaphysical Individual Immortal. No, no, wait, it won''t only give you a basic protection, but will guarantee you not being in a disadvantageous position in the first place!"


    "What? The lotus seed is so powerful?" Junior Leopard was shocked. He was just at Level Seven and he had to escape whenever he came across a Level Nine expert. What ability did this lotus seed have to let him never taking a disadvantageous position when dealing with a Metaphysical Individual Immortal?


    "Hey, man, I don''t need to lie to you. That thing can only fully function when it falls into your hands. As for them, it can just help them step over Level Nine and reach the Individual Immortal Karma Ranks, and that is no big deal."


    "What do you mean?" Junior Leopard asked in confusion.


    "Didn''t you get the formation of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation? Powerful as it is, it''s not easy to use and it costs too much. One of the most troubling things is the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman that is needed for making the Formation Eye. It must be refined by the congenital spirit, which was quite rare even in the primitive times, not to mention now. It could only be easily found in the legendary Primordial Origin. But how could it be possible that the thing from that time has been passed down to the present generation? There are two things in the seeds of the Innate Green Lotus: one is the Congenital Green Spirit, which is one of the congenital spirits and can refine the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman; the other is the Innate Green Lotus Flame, which is also a kind of magic flame. Once the Innate Green Lotus Flame mixes with your Golden Flame Mirror, it will double your power!"


    "Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman?" Junior Leopard gasped. He did get the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, but after understanding the mystery of the formation, he extinguished the thought to refine it because it required too much. In particular, the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman was needed for the Formation Eye, but it could not be found anywhere. He never expected to come across things that could refine the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman here, so merely this one thing could make him satisfied. As for the Innate Green Lotus Flame, he did not care much about it.


    Taking a deep breath, Junior Leopard turned to that Green Pool with his eyes revealing his greed. "Innate Qi PureTalisman and Yin and Yang Dust Formation! When this formation is set up, it can be counted as a fairy weapon. Shit, with a fairy weapon, would I even fear an Individual Immortal? Congenital Treasure Green Qi, Innate Green Lotus Flame!" He murmured about these two things, and then asked suddenly, "What will the two things do to those three guys? Will it help them to step into the Metaphysical Realm?"


    He did not think that the three Ninth-level experts were as lucky as him to have the formation map of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, even getting the Green Lotus Seed was for refining the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman!


    "Of course, their cultivation is high enough. With one more lotus seed, they can step into the Mysterious Realm." Green Spirit nodded. "Besides that, if the Congenital Treasure Green Qi goes inside your body and mixes with your Internal Qi, it can improve the quality of the Genuine Soul. After being burned by the Innate Green Lotus Flame, it will melt foreign matter and get the maximum effect of the Treasure Green Qi. And because the Genuine Soul contains Congenital Qi, their future for practicing martial arts will be easier compared to normal people''s, and they will at least have a comparatively straight path from the Individual Immortal to the Genuine Immortal."


    "It''s so good?" Hearing those words, Junior Leopard felt itchy. "Then how about mixing the Congenital Treasure Green Qi with it? The Yin and Yang Dust Formation is good, but it is still a worldly possession, whereas upgrading my ability is the most important thing!" Junior Leopard said.


    "How stupid are you?" Hearing his reply, Green Spirit shouted, "Your Internal Qi is pure and the Demonic Fire of the Primordial Loach Monster is included in your body, so why do you need the Congenital Treasure Green Qi? Damn! It is valuable, but it isn''t designed for the Real Essence Internal Qi, which can only perform a small part of its effect. What I taught you before is the best way to maximize its effect."

 Chapter 288: Calculating

    Chapter 288: Calculating


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Green Spirit disappointedly screamed. He was so exasperated that he almost pointed his finger at Junior Leopard''s head and scolded him for his squander.


    "What do you think is the reason why it was so easy for you to practice the third form of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, the Nine Forms of Real Dragon? Do you really think it was because you''re talented? Have you ever wondered how many people in the world practice the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, but how many of them can cultivate the second form, not to mention the third form, the Nine Forms of Real Dragon? So many geniuses didn''t make it, but you easily succeeded. Don''t you think it''s strange?"


    Hearing this, Junior Leopard coyly smiled and didn''t know what Green Spirit meant.


    "You should know, boy, it''s all because of the Demonic Fire of the Dragon Chimera from primitive times in your body that you could successfully practice the Nine Forms of Real Dragon, and practice the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique to this point. The Dragon Chimera fed on dragons. There is countless real dragon spirit in its Demonic Fire. Thus, you can do this with half the effort. If you integrate the Innate Green Lotus Qi into your Internal Qi, and then forge it with Green Lotus Fire, your hard work will be destroyed, and your tendons and meridians will be damaged. If you feel that your life is too boring and want to taste the life of a disabled man, you may try it. Besides, the Bright Moon Deifying Technique is so wonderful that your Internal Qi has been thoroughly purified. There''s no need to purify your Internal Qi again with external force. Now the most important thing for you is to think about how to open the rest of your acupoints."


    "I know I have to open my acupoints. You just told me that the Innate Green Lotus is a treasure, but never told me that it''s harmful!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly and extinguished the fire of his greed for the time being.


    "By the way, do they come here just for the Green Lotus Seed? Why not just pull the Innate Green Lotus out?"


    "I want to do it as long as I can. Is it so easy to cultivate it? Ever since the man who created this Azure Secret Area put in a seed of the Innate Green Lotus, it''s probably the first time that it''s going to seed. Additionally, this kind of innate magic root can only survive in certain circumstances. Once it''s out of the Green Genuin Water, it won''t last for a few days. Besides, it''s buried deep in the Green Genuin Water, and only comes to the surface when it seeds. Even if there are three Genuine Immortals and three Human Immortals to help the three Level Nine experts, it would be hard to break the pool, not to mention you, a Level Seven expert to break the divine mud in the bottom of the pool and took out the magic root. Give it up!"


    "Is it really that hard?"


    "Otherwise, will the three guys be so good standing at the edge of the pool?" Green Spirit sneered again, "Fortunately, you live in this world short of resources. If you were born in the antiquity times, you would have wiped out the treasure of heaven and earth. How can you say that people in the antiquity times were greedy and used up all the good stuff?" Green Spirit asked him contemptuously.


    "I''m so greedy because I haven''t seen anything good. The real good things have been taken by you people in the antiquity times!" Junior Leopard muttered angrily. Suddenly, his expression changed, "Someone else is coming!"


    There was a rustle in the jungle, and three figures slowly approached the Green Pool from the dense jungle.


    "It''s Ji Yeyue!" Seeing who they were, Junior Leopard smiled. "These three guys are so bold that they should dare to come back. Do they also know that there is a treasure of heaven and earth in this pool?"


    However, Junior Leopard didn''t think they could take advantage of the three Level Nine experts, even though they were casting covetous looks toward them.


    The three of them were positioned in a triangular arrangement, moving forward cautiously. Ji Yeyue''s cultivation was the best, and she had already successfully practiced Gang Qi, so she walked in the front. Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao followed her on the left and right, like two hangers-on. Well, there was no other way to do it. The two were both pale, with no trace of blood. At first glance, you would mistake that they were weak because they had been indulging in wine and women.


    The three of them moved slowly towards the Green Pool. When they were about 1,000 feet away from the Green Pool, which was about the same distance as Junior Leopard was from the pool, they came to a halt. They felt something was wrong. Unfortunately, they were not like Junior Leopard, who knew the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, and they were breathless. Thus, they could not hide themselves from the three lvel Nine experts who were standing at the edge of the pool.


    "Now that you''re here, come out! Happy Monk has just been fooled and is in a bad mood. If you don''t come out, it will piss him off and he may pull you out with the Western Guiding Stunt, causing you to suffer!" The strong middle-aged man said with a smile. His words made Happy Monk want to swell his face with a slap, but he didn''t dare.


    "Ji Yeyue, Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao from Jade Pool, pay our respects to three predecessors!" Now that they could not hide, they straightforwardly walked out from the jungle and stopped in front of the three.


    "You come from the Jade Pool!" The middle-aged strong man nodded and gave them a significant look, "Ji Yeyue, I''ve heard of you. That woman, Yu Qing, seems to think highly of you!"


    Hearing this, Ji Yeyue frowned. What was "that woman Yu Qing"? Yu Qing was her teacher, and the Leader of the Jade Pool. What was with calling her "that woman"?


    "Are you a disciple of Yu Qing?" From the moment Ji Yeyue appeared, Happy Monk''s eyes were wantonly wandering on her delicate body, unwilling to leave.


    "Humph!" She was very dissatisfied with this kind of hot and blatant stare, and did not want to give this predecessor, a Ninth-level expert a little face, so she just gave a cold snort and kept ignoring him.


    "Heehee, good, a cool girl, I like it!" Happy Monk laughed, "It''s hot enough!"


    "You!" Ji Yeyue was in a bad temper, so when she heard his obvious lecherousness, her look immediately darkened. Just when she was about to lose her temper, a cold voice sounded in her ears.


    "Flower Monk, you''d better shut up! I don''t mind killing you here!" said the man with a cruel face, holding a sword. At the same time, a wisp of murderous intent emanated from his body, directly charging at Happy Monk.


    Happy Monk''s expression suddenly froze. Then he glanced at the long sword at the man''s waist, "Fu*k, you old slayer, did I mess with you?"


    "Swish!" There was a sound of sword.


    Happy Monk gave a shudder, shook his head angrily, and then stopped talking.


    "How is your teacher?" After scaring off Happy Monk, the man holding the sword asked Ji Yeyue. His voice was gentle, and not as cold as he had been towards Happy Monk.


    "My teacher has always been healthy. Every time she mentions you, she praises you for being the best in sword technique. She believes that one day you will be able to set up your own sect, pass down the Uniform Dao, and restore the name of sword practitioners!"


    "Mmm, thanks for her auspicious words!" The man holding a sword smiled, twiddling his beard, and looked at the two men behind him, "This time, you guys have come to the Azure Secret Area for experience, right?"


    "Yes, our teacher ordered the three of us to come here for experience for a period of time. Unexpectedly, we met you three predecessors. What a coincidence!"


    "Oh, well, it''s a little bit of a hassle. The three of us have important things to do here. Although you''re a disciple of Yu Qing, we can''t invite you to stay here. You may go somewhere else and come back in a few days. How about it?"


    It was a negotiation, but his tone was not negotiable.


    "Ah?" All of the three were stunned for a moment, especially Yu Qingyong who looked a little anxious. Remember, the reason they came here was to get the Green Genuin Water in the Green Pool to enhance their cultivation, and even to help them break through the Bone-Forging Realm and enter into the Tendon-Changing Realm. Besides, because of the characteristics of Green Genuin Water in the Green Pool, there were no powerful evil beasts or monsters here, so they wouldn''t need to worry about falling into the water and dying unsatisfied. Therefore, in the whole Azure Secret Area, the Green Pool''s surroundings were the safest. What was more, he and Wu Lingxiao were seriously hurt and needed the Green Genuin Water badly. How could he reconcile himself to go away now?


    However, they had no choice. The three men in front of them were all Level Nine experts. Since they were determined to usurp this damn place, they could only retreat.


    Ji Yeyue''s cultivation was the best among the three of them, and she was one of the principals for this experience. Hence, after thinking to herself, she said, "Since predecessors are busy here, we dare not disturb you anymore. We''re leaving right now. Please forgive us for disturbing you!" Then she beckoned the other two and got ready to leave. But suddenly, she turned around again, as if she had thought of something.


    "What, anything else?" The man holding the sword asked.


    "Oh, as you can see, my senior brother and junior brother are injured. They need the Green Genuin Water to heal. So we want to know when we can come back."


    "The fastest you can come in is three days, the slowest, five days. Well, you can come back after five days!" The man holding the sword thought for a moment and then answered.


    "Okay, then we''ll be back in five days!" Ji Yeyue nodded, took off from the edge of the pool and entered the jungle with the two men.


    "Heehee, old slayer, unexpectedly you''re really considerate to women! Oh, you didn''t get her teacher, so you want to get her? That''s not bad. This woman is masked, but..."


    As Happy Monk''s words became more and more vulgar, the man holding the sword became more and more gloomy.


    "Swish!"


    Happy Monk wanted to continue, but frightened by the Sword Qi of the man''s sword, he finally fell into a thorough silence.


    "Happy Monk, if I were you, I would not covet Ji Yeyue!" Seeing that the two of them were on the verge of breaking out into a fight, the strong middle-aged man began to do the peacemaking. But apparently, this time, he was leaning toward the side of the man holding the sword, "Once you bother her, even if you have stepped into the Metaphysic Realm and had the help of those Living Buddhas in the Great Wheel Temple, you wouldn''t manage to escape, let alone that you haven''t reached the Metaphysic Realm yet!"


    "What do you mean?" Happy Monk''s expression changed slightly, displaying his disapproval of those words, "She is only a disciple of that woman Yu Qing! Even if she is Yu Qing''s daughter, as long as..."


    "Her last name is Ji!" The man holding the sword grinned, "And her teacher is Yu Qing, who is from the Jade Pool. I don''t believe there is such a coincidence in this world!"


    At this point, Happy Monk seemed to contemplating something, mumbling to himself, "Her last name is Ji, and her teacher is Yu Qing. What do you mean?"


    Suddenly, his fat body shivered abruptly and his eyes were as big as brass bells, as if he had thought of something. Then he jumped up like a fat cat whose tail was stepped, "You mean she is... It''s impossible!"


    "Impossible? Heehee, not really! There''s no cat that doesn''t nick fish in this world!" The middle-aged strong man said with a very wretched smile, "Happy Monk, it''s for your own good. It''s always wise to play it safe. If Ji Yeyue is the daughter of that guy and Yu Qing, do you think that the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple can protect you?"


    "Whose daughter she is is none of my business!" Happy Monk gave a strange cry, as if he had heard something completely irrelevant, "I just met her once. There''s no need to take responsibility for it!"


    The middle-aged strong man and the man holding the sword smiled at each other and stopped talking. Then they sat cross-legged on the edge of Green Pool and closed their eyes.


    "Heehee, it''s really full of gossip!" Hidden in the branches of ancient trees, Junior Leopard listened with keen pleasure. Although the three people talked in vague terms, he had almost figured out the whole thing from their conversation, which was nothing more than a romantic affair of some predecessors in the martial arts world; Ji Yeyue was probably the illegitimate daughter of the Leader of the Jade Pool, Yu Qing and a big shot.


    Why would her father be a big shot?


    Because they had said that Happy Monk couldn''t manage to escape even with the help of those Living Buddhas from the Great Wheel Temple. He had not heard of the Great Wheel Temple, nor did he know those Living Buddhas. However, Happy Monk was a Level Nine expert, and he would step into the Mysterious Realm if it went well this time. How could the man who he couldn''t provoke be a nobody?


    But of course, this gossip had nothing to do with him. He now only wanted to take a Green Lotus Seed from the three Level Nine experts.


    In fact, it was very difficult, but it could be very easy in a way. The key was timing.


    He knew the Three Realms Division, and with his cultivation growth, he could exert it superbly. He could move over 1,000 feet at a time. As long as the timing was good, there was no problem for him to grab one or two lotus seeds.


    But what to do after that?


    Depending on the Three Realms Division, he was confident of escaping under the siege of three Level Nine experts. Of course, he would not be foolish enough to provoke the three Level Nine experts, his target was Happy Monk. Now that he had had a grudge against him, he didn''t mind making it bigger. After all, he did not believe that after Happy Monk''s Green Lotus Seed was robbed, the other two would help this rebarbative monk.


    Happy Monk was a level Nine expert, but after striking a few moves against him, Junior Leopard knew he could not defeat him. However, it was not difficult to escape from him.


    The biggest problem now was that it was easy to escape from Happy Monk, but it was extremely difficult to leave the Azure Secret Area.


    He now knew that there were nine exits in the Azure Secret Area, which were in the hands of nine great influences. In other words, the Azure Secret Area was carved up by nine powerful influences. Every exit must be heavily guarded, and it was impossible for him to get out so easily. Moreover, his understanding of the Azure Secret Area was too limited, and he needed more information.


    "Three days later, the Innate Green Lotus will outcrop, so I have to wait for three days. I might as well take this opportunity to learn about the Azure Secret Area. I can''t get the information from these three old guys, but I can get it from Ji Yeyue and the other two guys."


    Ji Yeyue is only a Level Seven expert, and the other two are Level Six masters that are badly injured. I should be able to get important information about the Azure Secret Area from them."


    Thinking of this, he moved horizontally by exercising the Three Realms Division four times . At last, nearly 5,000 feet away, he found traces of the three people.


    5,000 feet was basically out of the range of the three Level Nine experts'' spiritual mind. However, Junior Leopard still did not dare to be careless. He kept close behind the three men, running the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill.


    The three men did not have the ability to hide their tracks as Junior Leopard did, and the jungle here wasn''t peaceful. Although they didn''t meet Dragon Sparrows and evil beasts at the level of those they met when they had just entered here, they did come across a lot of Level Five and Six evil beasts. There were even a few Level Seven evil beasts. Ji Yeyue repelled all of them. It was safe to say that the thousands of feet trail was totally blazed by her.


    Due to her cultivation of Level Seven, Level Six and Seven evil beasts could hardly hurt her. But she was only a human being, not a machine. One or two batches of evil beasts were easy to deal with, but three or four batches would be harder to tackle. There were six to seven batches in two hours, which she was unable to bear. Moreover, the two men behind her hadtemporarily lost their combat capability. Therefore, it was a tough journey.


    "Hey, boy, aren''t you very kind to women? Why don''t you give her a hand?" At this time, Green Spirit came out again, with a malicious smile.


    "So far away, the three old monsters can''t notice us, right?"


    "Yes, of course! It''s nearly 6,000 to 7,000 feet away, and their attention is concentrated on the Green Pool."


    "Good!" Junior Leopard nodded and made up his mind.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    "Junior Sister, let''s find a place to have a rest. You can''t go on like this!" Looking at her shortness of breath, Yu Qingyong advised with concern.


    "It''s not safe here. Wait until we get to a safe place. I can hold on for the time being." Ji Yeyue shook her head, looking cautiously around, "I''ve been here several times, and I remember there is a valley not far from here where we could re¡ª"


    When she had hardly finished speaking, she saw a black figure flashing a few times. Before she could react, Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao disappeared out of sight.


    "Who?"


    Ji Yeyue shouted, giving off huge, frightening Qi Power, but it was too late. Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao were gone, and she was alone in this gruesome and strange jungle, listening to the echo, which was very weird.


    "It''s a disgrace to leave such a beautiful girl in the deep forest!" Junior Leopard carried two terrified men, and after a succession of jumps, they arrived at an open cliff. He had taken a fancy to this place, because hidden in the dense bush, there was a cave under the cliff, which was very secluded and hard to find.


    Originally, there was the nest of boars with the strength of Level Three to Four. They were all killed by Junior Leopard before they had chance to fight back. The cave had become a temporary shelter for Junior Leopard.


    Poor Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao thought that they were captured by a powerful flying evil beast at first. It was not until they reached the cave that they found out that the captor was the one who had rescued them by the pool, so they couldn''t refrain from feeling surprised.


    Wu Lingxiao was in a coma at the time, but Yu Qingyong recognized Junior Leopard.


    "Your Excellency, why did you bring us here?"


    Even though they were taken captive by this strange man, Yu Qingyong didn''t want to lose face. After all, he came from a famous school and could tell Junior Leopard''s background from his appearance, but he was not very clear about it. He was not surprised at the presence of the Immortal Palace''s member in the Azure Secret Area. The Immortal Palace did not master the entrance to the Azure Secret Area, but it did not mean that its men could not enter. Just like that old slayer who did not have an entrance, but entered here.


    That was why he did not want to lose face in the presence of the Immortal Palace''s man. Looking at Junior Leopard, he proudly asked, "There is not much contact between the Jade Pool and the Immortal Palace, but there is no conflict. Do you want the two schools to fall out?"


    "You know quite a lot!" Junior Leopard was not surprised to hear Yu Qingyong spoke directly about his background. From the talk of the three Level Nine experts, he came to the conclusion that for ordinary men in the martial arts world, the existence of Immortal Palace was a big secret, but for mysterious schools like the Jade Pool and prestigious sects and schools like the Tian Long Taoism, its existence was not mysterious.


    "According to the way you look, you''re Water Leopard of Winnowing Basketone, the 28 constellations in the Immortal Palace. In this world, no one dares to pretend to be the 28 constellations, unless he is tired of living!"


    Junior Leopard smiled, lifted his hand, and a force of soft power gushed out to make Wu Lingxiao faint.


    "What do you want to do?" Yu Qingyong was a little nervous about Junior Leopard''s sudden action.


    "Don''t be afraid. Don''t panic. I mean you no harm!" Junior Leopard smiled, "But, you know, unlike you who intentionally came here, I unintentionally stumbled into a grotto to get here. It took me a while to figure out where it is!"


    "What? You aren''t..." Hearing Junior Leopard''s words, Yu Qingyong''s expression sharply changed. "What did he mean by that? What did that mean?"


    This meant that, in addition to the nine known entrances, there was one more entrance to the Azure Secret Area. It was inevitable that a profit redistribution would occur. The news was too important for the Jade Pool. Obviously, one of the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace in front of him didn''t know about the Azure Secret Area.


    Given that he did not know about this place and was suddenly plunged into such a strange place, all he wanted to do was get out of here. The reason why he took him here was to get the information of the Azure Secret Area from him and find out how to get out of here. This might be an opportunity for him.


    Junior Leopard just coldly looked at his expression changes and the flickering light in his eyes, and then he sneered, "Don''t think so many silly ideas! Do you know why I made your junior brother faint? I don''t want him to hear our conversation. When I finish asking you, I will make you faint and ask him. If you two speak differently, I won''t spare you. Don''t think that I dare not kill you because you''re from the Jade Pool. I can kill you here and make a deal with the three old guys. Then it''s not difficult to get out of here!"


    Junior Leopard''s words shattered most of Yu Qingyong''s aspirations. Yu Qingyong''s expression immediately darkened.


    "Well, from now on, I ask, you answer. Don''t talk nonsense. Otherwise, I''ll make you suffer." Junior Leopard said coldly, trying to make his voice as grim as possible, giving Yu Qingyong a sense of fear.


    "There''re nine entrances to the Azure Secret Area, but I''m not here from these entrances. Now I ask you, can I get out of here from the place where I came in?"


    "Yes, you can!" Yu Qingyong answered without hesitation, "According to Moon Secrets , there''re a total of 18 entrances to the Azure Secret Area, and nine of them have appeared in the world. If you didn''t come in from these nine entrances, the 10th entrance has showed up now!"


    "What''s the method to get out?"


    "I don''t know!"


    "You don''t know?"


    "The entrance to the Azure Secret Area and the access method are big secrets. All I know is that the entrance and exit that we Jade Pool controls is connected to the most powerful fairy weapon of our school. Only when we use our fairy weapon can we enter here!"


    "Stop stressing the fairy weapon! What''s the big deal?" Junior Leopard laughed grimly, "You really don''t know how to get out from the entrance? Then how are you going to get back?"


    "This time, we planned to practice for a month here. A month later, someone will take us out at the entrance." Yu Qingyong replied.


    "A month?" Junior Leopard''s eyes grew lukewarm. It seemed almost impossible to follow the three of them to get out, "The spiritual qi is so abundant here, why not spend some more time to practice here?"


    "It''s not safe here!" Yu Qingyong shook his head, "The Azure Secret Area is a good place to practice, but there''re dangers everywhere. A man whose cultivation hasn''t reached Level Seven is courting death. Additionally, it does not only belong to our Jade Pool, but is shared by nine schools. What''s more, in the Azure Secret Area, this is the only time that it''s peaceful. A month or two later, when the Essential Qi Tide rises, even a Mysterious Realm expert will have a close shave!"


    "The Essential Qi Tide?" Junior Leopard''s gaze was fixed, he had a bad feeling flitting through his heart.


    "The Essential Qi Tide really exists! After all, how can there be such a perfect thing in the world?" Green Spirit interposed in his mind, "Boy, it seems that you really have to leave this place early. Once the Essential Qi Tide comes, you have nowhere to escape!"


    "What is the Essential Qi Tide?" asked Junior Leopard.


    "You can think of it as a side effect of the form of the Azure Secret Area." Green Spirit said, "I don''t know much about it, I''ve just heard those necromancers mention it!"


    Junior Leopard rolled his eyes and ignored Green Spirit, "Besides the Jade Pool, who owns the entrances to the Azure Secret Area?"


    "There are nine schools. I only know four of them, the Jade Pool, the East Sea Chaotian Palace, Whitebone Sect of the Dark Sect and the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. I don''t know the other five schools. But I''m sure that your Immortal Palace isn''t amongst them, because 10 years ago, the Immortal Palace used we Jade Pool''s entrance!"


    "We''ll have it soon!" Junior Leopard grinned and continued, "Are all the entrances in the same place?"


    "No, every position is different!" Yu Qingyong answered, "Every entrance leads you into a different place. This island is the place where we Jade Pool, the Chaotian Palace, the Great Wheel Temple and the Whitebone Sect enter. Other influences enter the other islands of the Spirit Sea. So, we don''t have much chance to meet!"


    "Then we really have a predestined relationship!" Junior Leopard looked at Yu Qingyong with malicious intent, "You don''t know how to get in or out of this place, but what about Ji Yeyue?"


    "Of course Junior Sister doesn''t know either!" Yu Qingyong said quickly, "Only our Leader and several First Elders know. There is no chance for we inferiors to know."


    "Okay, I''ll trust you this time." Junior Leopard smiled, and raised his hand to make Yu Qingyong faint with one finger. Then he woke Wu Lingxiao up and asked the questions again.


    Wu Lingxiao was much tougher than Yu Qingyong was. He didn''t tell Junior Leopard at first, but soon he confessed it all. What he said was similar to what Yu Qingyong said. For the answers that differed, Junior Leopard had made him suffer a lot.


    As soon as the matter was confirmed, Junior Leopard made Wu Lingxiao faint again.


    "Hey, Green Spirit, what do you think of this?"


    "There''s no doubt. What they say is true. Now that there''re 18 entrances, the one we came in through should be one. They''ve just mentioned " Moon Secrets ". According to the name, it should be handed down by the Moon Palace. The poisonous beast you met before you came in died of the Moon Method. In this way, the Azure Secret Area was probably created by the Emperor of Moon Temple. Anyway, let''s try the place you came in first!"


    "The place I came in?" Junior Leopard''s expression changed, "Can we get out from there? I watched it carefully after I came in. When we were sucked in, the space was so perfect that I couldn''t find anything wrong with it. You know, space has the function of self-healing, and that entrance depends on..."


    "Try it. You''re different. You own the Space Division Skill and the Three Realms Division, sensitive to the fluctuation of space. Since it is the entrance and exit, you can go out there. Have a try first! If it doesn''t work, you can control the three of them and get out of here before the Essential Qi Tide begins and then try to get away from the Jade Pool. But that will be more dangerous. Not only do you have to face the hunting of the Jade Pool, but also the three guys out here."


    "I''m not that unlucky!" Junior Leopard smiled, and then the smile disappeared, "If there is more than one Mysterious Realm expert here carrying fairy weapons, will I have the opportunity to escape from the Jade Pool by hijacking one of them?"


    "The chance might be remote! Although you have the Three Realms Division, it''s not omnipotent. Besides, unlike the celestial device, the fairy weapon has some miraculous functions. If that happens, your only chance is to take them by surprise. But I don''t think you can escape unscathed!"


    "Damn it, I can only hope for luck. If I''m not lucky, I can only go all out to risk it!"


    "Yeah, if you''re unlucky, you can only go all out!" Green Spirit grinned, "You can''t put them back till you leave."


    "There is no better way!" Junior Leopard nodded, and sealed the two men''s qi and blood before he left.


    Now, his first goal was not to get out of here, but the Innate Green Lotus.


    "By the way, do you think that after I get the Green Lotus Seed, I can take this opportunity to refine the Yin and Yang Dust Formation? There''s still a month to go anyway. If I refine it..."


    "It''s not that simple. I know that the materials of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation are in your divided space. However, if you want to reach a Basic level of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, you must first refine the Innate Qi PureTalisman before you can practice it. The Innate Qi PureTalisman can''t be done in a day, let alone the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. So, give up! Without three to four years, your Yin and Yang Dust Formation won''t reach the Basic level!"


    "Fu*k, that is to say, I''ll be in big trouble if I can''t open the passageway that I came in through, isn''t it?"


    "Right, if you can''t open it, you''ll be in big trouble!" Green Spirit smiled, "It''s going to be a tough fight!"


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 289: Seizing Lotus Seeds, Seeking Retreat

    Chapter 289: Seizing Lotus Seeds, Seeking Retreat


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "It''s going to be a tough fight!" That was what Green Spirit said. In the eyes of Junior Leopard, it was a real hassle. Though there was a slight fluke in his heart to get out of here from the place where he entered, he knew that it was only a fluke.


    Out of the cave, he went to the Green Pool again. The man holding the sword said that it would take three days at least, and five days at most, but it might be ahead of time.


    The three of them were still sitting at the edge of the Green Pool, and there was nothing to notice about the pool.


    Hiding in the ancient tree, Junior Leopard was simulating in his mind, what was going to happen, again and again¡ªhow to attack, how to take the Green Lotus''s Seed, how to escape unscathed. Every step should be thought out over and over again. You knew, in the face of the three Level Nine experts, the slightest neglect would doom him eternally.


    He stayed in the tree for four days. Four days later, the peaceful Green Pool changed at last.


    A wisp of incomparably pure spiritual qi flowed from the surface of the Green Pool. It was completely different from any spiritual qi that Junior Leopard had felt before.


    It was pure, fresh, and without a trace of human fireworks.


    Although there was only a wisp of it, when Junior Leopard sucked it into his body, in almost a flash, it was soft like water immersed in a sponge, making him comfortable. He felt like a tired man in a hot spring and didn''t want to come out anymore.


    Unfortunately, it didn''t last long!


    Soon after the spiritual qi seeped into his body, his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi started suddenly bubbling up. This was because the spiritual qi had begun to attempt to infiltrate Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi, and there was something wrong with it.


    As Green Spirit said, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi that he refined had been integrated with the Demonic Fire of the Dragon Chimera from the primitive times. It immediately caused a strong rebound when the spiritual qi was suddenly mixed in.


    It instantly exploded, like a drop of water dripping into boiling oil.


    "Ah..."


    In order not to draw attention to himself, Junior Leopard covered his mouth tightly, his face muscles twitching. Stirred by this wisp of spiritual qi, all his Internal Qi turned into countless sharp knives that cut through his tendons and meridians.


    The Internal Qi was raging. The spiritual qi that had just made him feel good was going to kill him. His Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi was separated by the spiritual qi and was cutting his tendons and meridians. In the same way, the spiritual qi was split by the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and became a few times thinner than a hair, fiercely stabbing him in the tendons and meridians. The scattered Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi was doing its best to merge into the rest of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi.


    "Damn it!" Junior Leopard cursed in his heart. The black fire kindling in his Dantian jumped twice. Then a puff of pure Internal Qi of fire property was rising from his Dantian, and in an instant, it integrated the scattered Internal Qi in his body and formed a whole. At the same time, he also ran the Bright Moon Deifying Technique. The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi began to solidify, and it could no longer fit into Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi.


    Junior Leopard slowly ran his Internal Qi, carefully wrapped the spiritual qi, and then expelled it from his body.


    "Now, boy, you know it!" Green Spirit said proudly as if to say that if you didn''t listen to the aged, you would lose immediately.


    At this point, Junior Leopard was pale and bloodless, like a zombie. Hearing Green Spirit''s words, he could only smile bitterly, "Yeah, you''re right. The spiritual qi really goes against my Internal Qi!" As he spoke, he closed the pores of his body and even paid attention to his breathing to prevent the spiritual qi from entering his body.


    To others, the spiritual qi was better than elixirs, but it was a poison to him.


    In the meanwhile, his eyes were fixed on the surface of the pool, which was about 1,000 feet away from him.


    The three Level Nine experts at the edge of the pool were also staring at the pool with their eyes as big as a bull''s eyes, not daring to blink. Although they were all Level Nine experts, with strong willpower, it was related to whether they could step into the Mysterious Realm with one step. So, inevitably, they all seemed anxious.


    It was human nature.


    A little of the fine ripples suddenly appeared on the surface of the pool. Gradually, it spread and became bigger and bigger, more and more obvious. Suddenly, a green leaf came out of the water.


    "There''s nothing special!" Seeing the green lotus leaf peeping out of the pool, Junior Leopard pursed his lips. Slowly rising from the surface of the pool, the Green Lotus had gradually revealed its true appearance.


    This was a very common Green Lotus bud like the Green Lotus that Junior Leopard had seen before. If it had not risen out of the pool, and the given that the way it had risen was so strange, even Junior Leopard could not see what was special about it.


    Of course, this was only the first glance.


    The situation seemed to have changed a little when the Green Lotus emerged completely from the water.


    The spiritual qi that had just pervaded the atmosphere and made him suffer had disappeared. Moreover, the fluctuation of pneuma around also stopped. Time and space seemed to be still at this moment.


    It was weird around here. The Green Lotus, which was in bud, stood motionless on the surface of the pool. It looked ordinary, but in Junior Leopard''s eyes, it seemed to be completely independent of this space. It seemed very close, but actually, it was very far away.


    "Damn, how can this be so weird?" He cursed in a low voice, "Green Spirit, what''s next?"


    "Didn''t I tell you?" Green Spirit replied, "The Innate Green Lotus will produce flowers and seeds in a very short period of time. After the seeds have been seeded, the Green Lotus Seeds will automatically jump out of the lotus. Then it''s your chance!"


    Understanding what he meant, Junior Leopard nodded and forced himself to sit on the tree in patience.


    He was patient here, but the three men were impatient. They all seemed to be moving, looking at the unopened Green Lotus.


    All of a sudden, the Green Lotus shuddered. The closed bud slowly opened and a hint of faint fragrance emanated out.


    The three men moved and stood in three positions. They looked at each other and found fear and vigilance in each other''s eyes.


    "There are nine Green Lotus Seeds, three for each person. This is the most equitable division. Okay?" At this moment, the strong man in black suddenly spoke. As he spoke, he slipped out his tongue and licked his lips, giving off a hint of bloodlust.


    "Okay, just do it!" The man holding the sword agreed with a slight flicker in his eyes.


    Happy Monk nodded. He was the weakest of the three. Besides, he suffered from Junior Leopard''s attack. Although he was not badly hurt, he was certainly the weakest in front of the two men now. Hence, he had to agree.


    After these words, the tension between them seemed to ease. The fragrance was getting thicker and thicker. The green bud was almost completely open, revealing the heart of the flower¡ªseedpod of the lotus.


    All the people, including Junior Leopard, took a deep breath and looked at the nine Green Lotus Seeds.


    All of a sudden, the nine Green Lotus Seeds all glowed. Almost at the same time, the Green Lotus moved, and the nine Green Lotus Seeds turned into nine blue lights which flew out, straight from the pool.


    These lotus seeds flew in different directions, but the positions of the three men were very particular. They went to fetch the three seeds closest to themselves, all using their sleeves.


    The speed of the lotus seeds was extremely fast. But for the three Level Nine experts, it was not a big deal.


    The strong man in black and the man holding a sword almost simultaneously got three Green Lotus Seeds into their sleeves, but Happy Monk failed.


    As he plucked the red frock and was about to carry the three Green Lotus Seeds, a black figure appeared in front of him in a strange way. The black figure reached out and caught two Green Lotus Seeds, and disappeared before the three men could respond.


    Finally, when the red frock was withdrawn, Happy Monk only got one Green Lotus Seed.


    It happened so fast and only took a second, from the figure appearing to taking the two lotus seeds, and disappearing. When it was all over, the black figure was gone without any trace.


    Even if Happy Monk was alert and precautious, he would''ve been unable to act.


    Suddenly and unexpectedly, around the jade-like pool fell into a weird silence.


    "It''s hollow travel!"


    After a while, the strong man in black seemed to know what had happened, and said uneasily, "Unexpectedly, he knows hollow travel!


    Yes, travel the space. No matter what kind of method it was, he obviously used the way of hollow travel to appear and disappear in a short time. Moreover, only in this way could the three Level Nine experts be unable to intervene.


    "I''m gonna kill him. I''m gonna kill him!"


    There was a sound of teeth grinding. Happy Monk''s white face had turned red. He clenched his fists, and the crackling of his knuckles sounded like thunder.


    The strong man in black and the man holding a sword glanced at each other and read each other''s thoughts from their eyes. By coincidence, they stepped backward at the same time. Ten steps later, they both launched themselves into the air and went away. The situation between Happy Monk and the Azure Secret Area had no business with them.


    The purpose of their coming here was to get the lotus seeds of the Innate Green Lotus. Now that they had got the seeds, the most urgent thing was to find a place to have a closed-door training and refine the lotus seeds. As for the guy who just showed up and nabbed away Happy Monk''s lotus seeds, it was none of their business. Anyway, he didn''t take their stuff.


    Happy Monk was now on the verge of breaking out. Although his cultivation was not as good as Junior Leopard''s, who knew what he would do when he was angry. In this case, only a fool would deliberately stay in this bloody place and find troubles for himself.


    "Ah... Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket, I''m gonna kill you!"


    After the two men had left for a long time, Happy Monk recovered from the sense of loss. He roared, and jumped, turning into a red cloud drifting toward the tree hole that entered here.


    However, by this time, Junior Leopard had left the place which was full of spiritual qi using the tree hole.


    In fact, he had planned it all these days. He would use the Three Realms Division to seize the Green Lotus Seeds at the moment it appeared, and leave at once after getting them. Afterwards, he would try to open an exit from where he came in, and if he couldn''t, he needed to find another way¡ªthat is finding Ji Yeyue.


    Junior Leopard inhibited Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao and learned about the Azure Secret Area from them. When he left, he controlled their bloodline, but Junior Leopard''s inhibition had been measured¡ªthey could untangle it at most after six days. With their cultivation of Level Six, they should be able to survive for six days without food and water. By the time their inhibitions were removed, they would naturally join Ji Yeyue. By then he was almost certain that he would know whether he could return from the entrance where he came in or not. If not, he still had time to get here. If they were about to leave, they were sure to get out of the cave from where they had entered through.


    In this way, both sides would not be missed.


    All of this was planned at the very start. Besides, Junior Leopard had deduced the process many times in his heart and thought there should be no omissions.


    Happy Monk was out of his plan. He just needed rob him of Green Lotus Seeds and didn''t have to care Happy Monk''s responses. Because Happy Monk couldn''t find him, and even if he could, he was unable to catch him.


    It went as simple as he planned. Such a Level Nine expert, that could make the ground tremble by stamping his foot in any place, was abandoned in Junior Leopard''s memory. He got nothing, but only one Green Lotus Seed.


    Everything was just as Junior Leopard had expected. The poor monk waited for several days at the entrance but did not see Junior Leopard at all. He felt ashamed of himself after reconsidering it again. Since Junior Leopard knew hollow travel, he must have gone back and found a place to practice after getting the Green Lotus Seeds. It was impossible for him to wait here troubling himself.


    Anyway, he already knew his identity, Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket, one of the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace. Therefore, he would have the opportunities to retaliate sooner or later.


    Having thought this all through, he did not want to be in this sad place anymore. Then he left.


    Almost as soon as he left, the inhibition that Junior Leopard made to the two men was removed. In fact, if Happy Monk was more patient, he could learn from them that Junior Leopard accidentally entered the Azure Secret Area, and had no idea in regards to how to get out. Thus, there was an 80% possibility that he was still in the Azure Secret Area.


    But that was the way things in the world went on. How could they be perfect?


    Just like Junior Leopard who dispiritedly stood in the desert where he had entered, was facing an embarrassing situation. He had used the Three Realms Division many times and split the space dozens of times with the Space Division Skill. Unfortunately, he could only feel the sense of hollow from this space.


    It was normal!


    It was so normal that Junior Leopard could not find a flaw at all.


    "There is no other way. I can only ask Ji Yeyue for help!" Junior Leopard said helplessly, "Not too much trouble this time!"


    "Even the trouble could not stop you!" Green Spirit came out and said before going silent.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    20 days later.


    At the entrance to the Azure Secret Area, there was a slight movement in the calm desert. Ji Yeyue and the other two men came out of the cave in which they came in. They looked much more terrible compared with before when they had just entered. They must have met evil beasts again. However, the two men''s wounds were all healed, and in their eyes, flowed the sacred light. Their cultivation was much higher than before they had gone in.


    Although they did not break through to Level Seven, they were almost there. It wouldn''t be long before they broke through.


    "Damn it! If it wasn''t for that guy, junior brother Wu and I would definitely have broken through to Level Seven now. He inhibited us for days. He not only delayed our practice, but also injured our tendons and meridians. He''d better not cross my path again. If I meet him, he will suffer!" Yu Qingyong shouted with resentment, as he walked.


    "Senior brother, keep your voice lower! Maybe the guy hasn''t left yet!" Hearing Yu Qingyong''s words, with his expression changing, Wu Lingxiao reminded, "Don''t forget, that guy came in by accident. It''s not that easy for him to leave here!"


    At this point, the three of them were quiet. They looked around carefully as if they were afraid of Junior Leopard coming out of the corner, but there was nothing but sand.


    "Senior brother Yu, junior brother Wu, be careful! If he didn''t trick you, he might be following us, and watching us secretly now!" Ji Yeyue said in a low voice, "He is powerful, extremely cunning, and very good at concealing. Not only did he outwit us, but he also outwitted the three Level Nine experts the other day. He took the risk of making Happy Monk of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple suffer!"


    Mentioning this matter, Yu Qingyong couldn''t help sighing, "Alas, I didn''t expect such a thing to happen. What the hell did the guy do to Happy Monk? He was so angry that we could hear his roar in those days when we were imprisoned in the cliff cave!"


    "I don''t know either. But the three Level Nine experts gathered at the edge of the Green Pool, obviously wasn''t for the sake of chatting or making a vow to God. They definitely had a purpose. If my guess is right, they should know that there would be a rare treasure appearing nearby, and they came together to find treasure. Unfortunately, it seemed that Happy Monk''s share was caught by the black-clothed man, and so he would be so hysterical. It''s definitely not an ordinary treasure that can make Happy Monk lose his composure. Moreover, it isn''t ordinary people who can take things under the noses of three Level Nine experts. I certainly couldn''t."


    Ji Yeyue gently analyzed the matter, and in a few words, she almost described the whole thing from the beginning to the end which was also very close to the truth. "As for what treasure is in the Green Pool, we have to ask the teacher and the Elders when we get back to the Immortal Palace. Actually, when I was looking for you guys that day, I did smell the weird fragrance. Very soon, Happy Monk searched everywhere crazily and desperately for something. Thus maybe the fragrance was out of that treasure!"


    "This guy is so bold. He dared to grab things under the noses of the three Level Nine experts!"


    "He actually succeeded!" Ji Yeyue said coldly, "The more skills he has, the bolder he''ll be. This guy must be very confident in himself. Therefore, I''m sure that if he hasn''t found a way out yet, he''ll be following us, looking for a chance to get out of the Azure Secret Area from our gateway. Perhaps he is hiding in the depths of the sand sea right now, listening to our conversation secretly!"


    "How clever this woman is!" Junior Leopard said to himself, "What do you mean by saying that? Are you warning your senior brothers or telling me that you are on your guard. But, even if you are on your guard, what can you do? You don''t know that I know the Three Realms Division. How can you stop me at my speed?"


    Knowing the Three Realms Division was not almighty, but not knowing it was absolutely regretful.


    Without getting the situation, it could play an unmatched role.


    Take Junior Leopard grabbing the Green Lotus Seeds as an example. By using the Three Realms Division twice, Junior Leopard ran away from the three Level Nine experts after getting the Green Lotus Seeds. It was because they didn''t know that Junior Leopard could hollow travel.


    This time, Junior Leopard was still going to depend on the Three Realms Division.


    The guy who came to pick these three men up certainly didn''t know he could practice the Three Realms Division. All he needed to do was move to the passageway when the guy opened it and practice the Three Realms Division three to four times consecutively. Everything would finish well.


    This was the ideal result. Of course, everything in the world was always counterproductive. Many things required you to prepare a plan B.


    As Green Spirit said, though the Jade Pool was not famous, given its power and mystery. It was impossible to not have any protection or guards around this important passageway. Additionally, maybe many formidable inhibitions were set there. Although the Three Realms Division was marvelous, it may not be able to get through so many inhibitions. It all depended on luck. He had always had good luck, and he hoped that he would not run out of his good luck this time.


    "It''s about time. The uncles are about to open the passageway." At this time, Ji Yeyue looked around and said thoughtfully. Before her voice had died away, Junior Leopard felt strong spatial fluctuations around them as a fusiform space entrance gradually formed.


    "Alright, it''s time to have a try and it''s all or nothing!" Junior Leopard took a deep breath and bent down slightly.


    The Three Realms Division was launched!


    ¡­


    ...

 Chapter 290: Being Captured, Waiting for the Highest Bid

    Chapter 290: Being Captured, Waiting for the Highest Bid


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The formation of the space, Junior Leopard''s appearing in front of the space passageway, and Ji Yeyue''s response all happened at almost the same time. Although Ji Yeyue and her fellows took precautions against Junior Leopard just as Happy Monk had done back then, they, just like Happy Monk, did not know that Junior Leopard had the ability to hollow travel.


    Once Junior Leopard appeared, Ji Yeyue''s pupils converged, and just as she was about to operate the dark red stripe in her hand, Junior Leopard disappeared once again.


    This was different from the last time that he appeared. He turned into a jet of green sword light, and directly threw himself into the space passageway when Ji Yeyue''s stripe had just been lifted. As for Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao behind her, they did not have the time to react and shouted with amazement until Junior Leopard had disappeared in that passageway.


    Junior Leopard did not have the time to care about what was in their minds or how angry they were.


    He was not stupid enough to use the Three Realms Division in front of the space passageway. What he did was defend with his sword immediately and rush into the space passageway.


    It was what he and Green Spirit had deduced before.


    People could only see that the green sword light had flashed, and Junior Leopard had disappeared from the Azure Secret Area.


    Holding his Blue Sword, Junior Leopard did not relax once he had rushed out of space passageway. Instead, he was even more nervous than before because after he had rushed into the passageway, he sensed several spirits many times stronger than him.


    Instantly, he dashed out of the passageway, where in front of him were a group of people in white, all of which were women. Their leader was a woman in a white suit, which was something that was likely to be worn in the Imperial Court, who had her face covered by a white veil. Although Junior Leopard only took a glance at her, it was easy for him to recognize that the woman was more physically attractive than Ji Yeyue and she was much more mature than Ji Yeyue, who was just an undeveloped and naive girl.


    That was just what he could see in a single glance.


    He did not have much time to cast another look.


    Apparently, the woman did not expect that such a strange thing would happen the moment that the space passageway opened¡ªthat the man who came in was not a disciple of Jade Pool, but only a flash of green light.


    However, the female leader was totally different from Ji Yeyue¡ªher strength was far greater than Ji Yeyue''s, and in fact, much greater than Junior Leopard''s.


    She only showed a little surprise in her eyes for a moment, then her hand moved as quick as lightning with her white and tender finger pointing at the light of the Blue Sword.


    "Boom!"


    Although it was only a pointing movement and Junior Leopard''s sword light was extremely quick, when she pointed at him, it was impossible for him to dodge it.


    He was struck by the fingertip.


    And as soon as he was struck by that fingertip, Junior Leopard was knocked backward through the air as if he had been hit by a huge hammer and his Blue Sword lost its light.


    An extremely powerful strength rushed toward Junior Leopard along his Blue Sword. He even thought that the Blue Sword would have been completely destroyed by that simple pointing if it had not been a Flying Sword of the Earthly Rank and a Mysterious Level celestial device.


    "Huh? Nine Heaven Thunder Qi!"


    Having struck Junior Leopard off the ground, the woman in white raised her eyebrows slightly and observed the clothes of Junior Leopard, who had fallen to the ground that was made of white jade. She was surprised and said, "You are a man from the Immortal Palace?"


    At this time, Ji Yeyue and the other two also entered the passageway. The moment that they showed up there and were just about to say something, they spotted Junior Leopard lying on the ground. They were shocked and said, "Master, he¡ª!"


    The woman in white lifted her hand a bit and interrupted her, and said, "Yeyue, Qingyong, and Lingxiao, you three must be very tired these days. Go and have some rest. I will deal with this."


    The woman in white, who the strong man in black called "Woman Yu Qing", was just the current Leader of Jade Pool.


    "But master, this man¡ª!" Seeing Junior Leopard lying still on the ground just like a dead dog and recalling what he had done to them, Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao found this very satisfying. But when they heard Yu Qing make them leave without asking them anything, they were unwilling to follow that instruction.


    Yu Qing raised her head a little and glanced at them coldly. They immediately swallowed down the words that were about to pop out and lowered their heads unwillingly. As the women in white behind Yu Qing was stepping out, there were only Junior Leopard and Yu Qing that remained.


    Junior Leopard was pretty uncomfortable now.


    The finger pointing, which had appeared to have been so casual, was so amazingly powerful that it knocked his Blue Sword into confusion. And he believed that he could not fight against this woman even if he could use the Blue Sword again. The only thing that he could do was pretend to be badly hurt and look for a chance to escape.


    Among everything that had happened, the only thing that he was relieved about was that the finger pointing of Woman Yu Qing had no continuous effect on him¡ªalthough it was powerful, it was a one-time attack. He was indeed knocked dizzy and nearly threw up, but he was not as wounded as he was pretending to be right now. After all, the target of the finger pointing was not him, but his Blue Sword. In addition, the strength of his body was far greater than an ordinary Level Seven expert. Thanks to all that, his bones and muscles were not badly hurt.


    But he was still lying there, pale-faced and short of breath.


    "Enough, kid. Stop pretending, I know how much strength I used. You''re not hurt that bad!" said the woman in white, who waved her sleeve to shut the space passageway after all the other people had left.


    Junior Leopard got up with a bitter smile and several violent coughs. He looked up at the woman in white, also noticing the surroundings at the same time. Well, his eyesight was pretty good.


    It was a misty place. With one simple look, it did look like a fairyland of Jade Pool. But Junior Leopard understood that it was a place surrounded by many blockages and formations. When it was completed, his Yin and Yang Dust Formation could possibly produce a more real fairyland than this scene here.


    But generally speaking, the obstacles and formations at this level could not be built with only the knowledge of the formation map. It needed plenty of supplies, which would be impossible to fully collect even if given all the treasures that the Great Jin had.


    "Water Leopard of the Winnowing Basket of the Immortal Palace pays respect to Leader Yu Qing!" Junior Leopard stood up and bowed respectfully, but he could not hide the paleness in his face. "Accidentally, I strayed into the Azure Secret Area. I had no alternative but to use your space passageway to get back to the present world. I hope for your forgiveness if I have offended you!"


    "Water Leopard of the Winnowing Basket of the Immortal Palace?" Yu Qing smiled and said, "I have heard that the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace haven''t rounded up for a long time. As for Water Leopard of the Winnowing Basket, this position has been empty for over 10,000 years. Information about the appearance of a new Water Leopard of the Winnowing Basket did surprise me!" She looked over Junior Leopard and went on, "It is fortunate for the Immortal Palace to have you, a person with tremendous luck and good fate, so lucky that the 10th entrance of the Azure Secret Area was discovered by you. But you should know that if I don''t let you go, even if you have found a hundred entrances, they''re useless to you."


    "Yes, I totally understand it. That''s why I tried to toughen my scalp and break through by force. But I didn''t expect to rush into your place."


    "Do you know why I asked Yeyue and all the others to leave?"


    "Leader Yu Qing is unfathomable, I don''t stand a chance to know."


    "You are so sweet and even called me unfathomable. I neither care what you did in the Azure Secret Area nor where the 10th entrance is, for they have nothing to do with me. I only care about the Immortal Palace, not you. To us Jade Pool, one more or one less entrance makes no difference, but it does make a difference to the Immortal Palace because it is a huge treasure for them, which is the reason that I kept you here. I won''t do anything to you, but I need you to stay here for several days, waiting for Elder Qing to bring you out. I''m convinced that he would be delighted!"


    "I believe he''d be delighted for the sake of the Azure Secret Area," Junior Leopard smiled wryly and said. He had already known the plan of Yu Qing.


    Keeping him and asking the Immortal Palace to take him back would accomplish two aims. On the one hand, she told the Immortal Palace that their man had offended her and they owed her an explanation. On the other hand, she would tell the Immortal Palace about the 10th entrance of the Azure Secret Area. Even though it was told to them by Junior Leopard, the Immortal Palace would still owe her a big part of the favor. Whatever happened, she would not suffer losses.


    Junior Leopard was very upset.


    Although Woman Yu Qing did not mean to be hard on him, he felt like he was a wretch who had been arrested by the police for going to prostitutes, making phone calls to his family members one by one and waiting for them to come and pick him up.


    It was so embarrassing.


    "Don''t even think about running away. I know you have some skills, but there are all kinds of obstacles and formations around Jade Pool. Even the man of the Immortal Palace who is going to pick you up needs our guidance to get in. However strong your skills are, you can''t escape from here. So, just keep silent and wait for someone to take you back," Yu Qing said. And she cast a look to Junior Leopard, erasing his wrong thought with a simple sentence: "Take it easy, you are a guest of Jade Pool since you are here now. Whatever you did to Yeyue and the other two in the Azure Secret Area, it doesn''t matter."


    "Huh?" Junior Leopard couldn''t believe it, looking at Yu Qing blankly.


    "Hmm, seeing the angry faces of Qingyong and Lingxiao, I know you must have had a conflict with them in the Azure Secret Area. But since they are alive, and there''s nothing wrong with Yeyue, it''s not a big deal. Follow me, I''ll show you your where you''ll stay!"


    "Then I''ll have to trouble Leader Yu Qing!"


    The Leader of Jade Pool was going to direct him to his residence by herself! For a moment, Junior Leopard felt overwhelmed by this unexpected favor.


    On his way, he got to know more about Jade Pool. It was a world thoroughly embedded in obstacles and formations, where the essence of the world was four or five times thicker than the outside world, but still was not on par with the Azure Secret Area.


    Due to the obstacle, the entire Jade Pool was surrounded by mist. Even the winding corridor, which was carved out of white jade under his feet, appeared to be floating in the misty world.


    Under the winding corridor was water, which was clear but had an unfathomable depth. There were several lotuses floating on the water, releasing a light fragrance. It did look like a fairyland.


    "This is Jade Pool. Although it can''t be compared with my imagination, it has the style of the sects of immortals," Junior Leopard thought to himself.


    The so-called style of the sects of immortals could only work on a bumpkin like Junior Leopard. But Green Spirit could not feel anything. In his mind, he even thought that it only had a gorgeous and fairy look, but actually, was just flashy.


    Junior Leopard could not figure out it was flashy or something else because he was thinking about making a plan against her.


    Woman Yu Qing placed him under house arrest, which was for a simple reason: to get the Immortal Palace to owe her a big favor. An entrance of the Azure Secret Area was such an immense favor. But the prerequisite was that she had no idea what he had done by himself in the Azure Secret Area.


    It was not a big matter to beat up Yu Qingyong and Wu Lingxiao. After all, they were just two disciples below Level Seven, and Yu Qing would know which was more important even if she was a fool. But what about the Seed of the Innate Green Lotus?


    With their state in Jianghu and relations with other sects, Jade Pool would know what happened in the Azure Secret Area soon. And his stealing of two seeds of the Innate Green Lotus from Happy Monk certainly could not be kept hidden from them.


    The Innate Green Lotus Seed!


    Even during the antiquity times, it had been one of the most precious treasures. The Azure Secret Area had been in existence for uncountable years, during which the Innate Green Lotus had only seeded once. To some extent, the value of the lotus seed was equal to the value of the Azure Secret Area. Therefore, when following Yu Qing, Junior Leopard thought wickedly, "Damn, who cares? Those people with high seniority all like to pretend as if they are almighty and know everything in this world. Anyway, she doesn''t know that I have the seed of the Innate Green Lotus. I have to act faster. She must pretend to be generous by settling me down first, and then she can meet with Ji Yeyue, and she will know that there were three Level Nine experts that appeared there at the same time. With so many years of practicing and experiences, she will understand why those three people gathered by the Green Pool formed by the Green Genuine Water. And through deduction, she will definitely know why the three people showed up. After all, creatures like Green Spirit could deduce the existence of the Innate Green Lotus when hearing the phrase ''lotus seed''. As the Leader of Jade Pool, Yu Qing may not be as knowledgeable as Green Spirit, but she can gather all the information and learn about what happened in the Azure Secret Area. What she will also discover is that he has two seeds of the Innate Green Lotus."


    "I have to be faster, I must be faster! This time, I must put the seed of the Innate Green Lotus to use first. Green Spirit, now I have two Green Lotus Seeds, can it be faster for me to make a Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman?"


    "Are you silly? Making a Magic Talisman has nothing to do with the amount of Spiritual Qi. It''s such a waste to use two seeds at one time. One is enough. Furthermore, one Innate Green Lotus Flame is pretty much enough, also. You don''t need so many lotus seeds because, in the Golden Flame Mirror, the Innate Green Lotus Flame will automatically produce Innate Green Lotus Kindling, which will grow stronger along with the level-upping of your strength. One more lotus seed won''t produce one more piece of kindling. One seed is enough for you, two will be a waste."


    Upsetting... What Green Spirit said was very upsetting. But when Junior Leopard was in this gloomy mood, he also made up his mind to use a lotus seed in Jade Pool, so he would not be left empty-handed later. Under the guidance of the Leader of Jade Pool, Yu Qing, they reached the guest room of Jade Pool.


    Although it was only a guest room, it was clean and simple but elegant. Compared with his room in his fief, it was not as big or luxurious, but it was much cleaner.


    "You will stay here until the Immortal Palace send people for you," Yu Qing took him into the guest room and said.


    "Okay. So many troubles for you, Leader!" Showing no dissatisfaction, Junior Leopard walked into the room and sat on the bed. "Well, it''s not bad, so soft. It is much more comfortable than my own."


    "Good. You can tell Ruyan your requirements. She will meet any of your reasonable demands." While talking, Yu Qing waved her hand and a pretty girl in white, about 14 or 15 years old, came to the door.


    "I will." Junior Leopard looked at the girl in white, smiled, and said, "I will not be too polite if I am in need."


    Yu Qing nodded, turned around, and left. The girl named Ruyan walked in front of Junior Leopard with an air of being ready to be at his service at any time.


    However, Junior Leopard was not so silly as to think that Yu Qing, the leader of a great sect, would be a madam. He just smiled and asked for paper and a brush pen, and then he used them to write down a sentence. When finished, he gave it to Ruyan and said, "I''m good, you can leave. I believe your leader will come soon, and at that time, you just give her the paper note."


    "Yes."


    Ruyan nodded softly. After taking the folded paper from Junior Leopard, she kept it without looking at it and left the room, closing the door carefully. At nearly the moment that she closed the door, a light mist began to fill the room as Junior Leopard waved his sleeve.


    It was the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!


    Although Junior Leopard knew only a little about the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, it was enough for him to set the simple formation. And Junior Leopard believed that it would take a long time to break it, even for someone as powerful as Yu Qing.


    After setting the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Junior Leopard took out a seed of the Innate Green Lotus without any hesitation.


    "Green Spirit, tell me how I should activate it!"


    "Easy. Cut it open and the Green Lotus Flame and the Treasure Green Qi will be released. Remember to absorb the Green Lotus Flame with your mirror. As for the method of making the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman, since I''ve told you before and you''ve deduced it yourself many times, you don''t need me to say it one more time, right?"


    "Understood." Junior Leopard nodded, and lifted his finger up to cut the seed open. At the same time, a mirror covered in flames appeared over his head.


    After being cut open, the surface of the Green Lotus Seed turned into dust instantly, and a gust of Green Qi rushed out with some faint flames.


    The Green Qi and the Green Flame were mixed together, and it looked like a ball of dancing green flames. As the mirror above his head flashed, the green flame shimmered as well. And then, a green light shot into the mirror covered by flames. At the same time, in the place where the green flame had been dancing, there now remained a cluster of thin Green Qi.


    "Kid, what are you waiting for? Do it! It''s the congenital Treasure Green Qi!" Green Spirit screamed out. Meanwhile, the mirror above Junior Leopard gave a subtle shudder and turned into a golden light, disappearing into the forehead of Junior Leopard.


    Congenital Treasure Green Qi?


    Junior Leopard moved his hand without any hesitation and drew an abstruse talisman in the air. As his finger moved, the cluster of Green Qi was dancing and gradually condensed into a light talisman in the air.


    After the talisman was formed, Junior Leopard''s Internal Qi was pouring out from his fingertip to the talisman as if it were unlimited.


    ...


    ...


    An hour later, several hasty steps resounded outside the room. The Leader of Jade Pool, Yu Qing, quickly approached from somewhere distant, followed by Ji Yeyue, Yu Qingyong, Wu Lingxiao, and some Elders with profound experience. When they arrived at the door of Junior Leopard''s room, Yu Qing could not help changing the expression under her veil, and she stopped suddenly.


    But the two Elders and Ji Yeyue following her were unable to brake, and they all crashed through Junior Leopard''s door and charged toward his room.


    However, once the door was opened, they sensed something unusual and stopped in their tracks at the door. Only an Elder who must have been walking too fast to stop stepped into the room, who was then covered by a layer of light mist and disappeared.


    "A Formation!" Yu Qing knitted her eyebrows and pulled back Ji Yeyue, who was about to step into the room, and said, "My boy, what courage and a scheming mind you have!"


    "Master, should we¡ª!" said Yu Qingyong urgently, looking at the mist in the room.


    "You can give it a try." Yu Qing glanced at him and said, "Qingyong, don''t be blind in the face of hatred. The boy''s formation is really troublesome. Taking it on is out of your range. We have to discuss this further."


    At this time, Ruyan arrived and handed the paper note to Yu Qing.


    "He sent this to me?" Yu Qing asked, taking the note.


    "Yes, Leader. He said I should give it to you once you arrived."


    "Good." Yu Qing nodded and unfolded the paper. She took a glimpse of its contents, and finally laughed out loud. As she raised her finger, the paper was reduced to dust.


    "Good, very good. Elder Qing has brought up a good boy. Waiting for the highest bid, waiting for the highest bid. Hehe...!"


    "Master, he¡ª!"


    "''He'' what?" Yu Qing glared at him, and said, "Go, go to the store and give me the list of everything valuable. And we don''t need to inform the Immortal Palace until I''ve finished the deal with him."


    "Deal? Master, what deal?"


    "One seed of the Innate Green Lotus is waiting for the highest bid!" Looking at the misty room, Yu Qing said coldly, "The boy is somebody."

 Chapter 291: Return Trip, Scheming

    Chapter 291: Return Trip, Scheming


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Junior Leopard was just a nobody and was now focused on refining the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman. The white-robed woman who could not help bursting into his Yin and Yang Dust Formation at the beginning had been controlled by him now. Though she was a strong expert at Level Five, she was unable to defeat his Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    Refining the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman was difficult. Unlike the Innate Green Lotus Flame, which would be absorbed by the Golden Flame Mirror once it entered it and whose refining process would be completely controlled by the Pure Yang Celestial Device, this talisman needed to be refined by him. It took him four days to get it to take shape. Though it was tiresome, it was quite rewarding. Not only had he barely made it, but his skill in making talismans greatly improved. The Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman was top-notch. During its refining process, various methods had to be adopted. It could be said that Junior Leopard had tried all the methods he had learned from Green Spirit within these four days. His comprehension of the spell and talisman deepened.


    "The so-called talisman is a structure and a method of constructing energy. It''s essentially used as a refining process for External Elixir. It''s a pity that I didn''t major in mathematics during my previous life. Otherwise, all I need to do is to build several models and my mastery of talismans will get a qualitative improvement," thought Junior Leopard while holding the almost-completed Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman. However, it was just a daydream. To a student of liberal arts, building an arithmetic model was extremely abstruse, just like creating an atomic bomb, which could never be figured out by him.


    "It''s been almost four days. I believe that Yu Qing must be impatient after waiting outside for so long. I wonder what price she will offer me this time. After all, the Innate Green Lotus Seed is a rare treasure."


    "Are you afraid that she''ll kill you at once and rob you of your treasures? Don''t ever forget that this is her place. There are obstacles everywhere in the Jade Pool. If she wants to kill someone, no one can stop her and nothing will leak out!"


    "Haha! It''s not worth it for her to do that in order to get an Innate Green Lotus seed. Making a deal with me and doing the Immortal Palace a special favor is far more valuable than that!" Junior Leopard chuckled and then added, "If Yu Qing was only a Level Nine expert but an expert who has reached the Mysterious Realm, I might be in danger. However, she''s now stepped into the Metaphysic Realm. A lotus seed only makes her a little bit more powerful. Its value decreases a lot."


    "But it''s still valuable to the people of the Jade Pool!"


    "She represents the Jade Pool and also controls the people of the Jade Pool. The Green Lotus Seed has less value to her, so does the Jade Pool. Do you know what that is? It''s called ''one''s position determines his thought''. As a representative of the Jade Pool, she must take the interest of the Jade Pool into consideration!" Junior Leopard scorned and said, "Her value equals that of the Jade Pool, so I think that she won''t harm me."


    "How old are you? Do you think that you understand human nature? Brat, this world is very complicated!"


    "Yeah, I know it is. I also know that human nature is complex. But in the final analysis, this matter cannot be hidden from the Jade Pool. Furthermore, I can''t get out. Therefore, the only thing that I can do is brace myself and pretend to be natural, unfathomable, and calm. In this way, I can earn myself some initiative. It''s not about human nature but just an unwilling yielding due to the current situation!"


    "That''s the truth!" Green Spirit laughed.


    Junior Leopard raised his hand and withdrew his Yin and Yang Dust Formation by waving his sleeves. After releasing the woman in white from the formation, he smiled and stood up.


    Two women stood quietly outside the door. They were shocked to see that Junior Leopard''s door was open. One of them left there quickly while the other supported the weak woman in white, who walked out with Junior Leopard, with one of her hands.


    "The leader shall arrive immediately. Your Excellency, please wait a moment."


    "Thank you!" Junior Leopard smiled naturally as he walked out of the room. He leaned against the balustrade outside the room and began to enjoy the scenery of the Jade Pool.


    "You''re in a good mood!"


    Several minutes later, Yu Qing arrived there. She was followed by the woman who had just sent her the message.


    "You''re so quick!" Junior Leopard looked back and smiled. He continued, "I feel extremely flattered but frightened as well!"


    "You''re so bold. Who can frighten you?" Yu Qing asked. She sneered, and a sharp light flashed through her eyes.


    "Don''t scare me. I''m too timid." Junior Leopard smiled. He added, "Let''s talk about business. I''m convinced that we''ll get what we want this time."


    "Why are you so convinced that I''ll negotiate with you instead of killing you?"


    "Killing me can truly provide you with some benefits, but the seed of the Innate Green Lotus isn''t important compared to what you can get from our deal. Don''t you think so?" Junior Leopard laughed. He added, "I just look calm and confident, I''m actually very nervous deep inside."


    "Good! Very good! It seems like that the old man has found me the right person. Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket, you''re not bad. I''ll get straight to the point. Your seed of the Innate Green Lotus is truly precious, but it''s not the only one in the world. There are many treasures that have the same value as it in the Jade Pool. Some are even more valuable than it. But I won''t exchange my treasures with you. Do you get it?"


    "Of course, it''s reasonable for you to offer me something that isn''t as valuable. Well, is it okay for you to give me a Pure Yang Celestial Device in exchange for my lotus seed?"


    "You''re asking an exorbitant price!"


    "You want to lower the price, so of course, I''ll raise it. Isn''t that fair?"


    "Nothing is totally fair in this world. Don''t forget, you have to look to me for help!"


    "Therefore, I don''t ask for a totally fair price!" Junior Leopard kept smiling. "You''re the leader of a sect and are very knowledgeable. I believe you''ll give me a satisfying price!"


    Yu Qing nodded and said, "Fine! I have a Pure Yang Celestial Device, but there''s no chance for you to get it. You can only have a Mysterious Level Weapon."


    "I''m not interested in Celestial Devices!" Junior Leopard shook his head. He continued, "You might have seen that I''m a sword practitioner who pursues the supreme phase of the Supreme Swordplay. Getting a Celestial Device will only harm my practice!"


    "Your words sound good. But I''ve never seen a sword practitioner who is as philistine as you. Let''s make it clear. What exactly do you want?"


    "I want materials to refine formations. I believe those things are abundant in the Jade Pool."


    "Formations?" Yu Qing was surprised. She thought about the thick mist that filled Junior Leopard''s room and said, "I forgot that you know something about that. Okay, just tell me what kind of materials you need and I''ll see whether I have them or not. If those materials are here, I''ll try my best to get them for you."


    "In fact, it doesn''t need to be any good material," said Junior Leopard. Then, he listed a series of materials.


    "You want quite a lot of things! But it''s not too excessive, except for...!"


    "Leader, the price that I''m offering you is quite fair. They''re not first-class materials except for some key materials. They can''t be compared to the Innate Green Lotus Seed!"


    "But you can''t collect all these materials in one time anywhere else!" Yu Qing, the leader, smiled. She said, "Fine, I don''t want to get you in a pickle. I have every material that you want. They will be sent to you soon. However, there''s a condition!"


    "Leader, tell me please!"


    "Yeyue is my disciple who you''ve met before. She has a good cultivation, which has already reached Level Seven. She''s able to finish her apprenticeship now. I plan to let her gain some experience outside of the mountain. As you can see, though she''s somewhat powerful, she''s only a girl with insufficient experience in Jianghu. She will inevitably encounter some troubles while walking in Jianghu. I''m not asking for anything excessive. I just want you to help her at a time when she meets with some big trouble."


    "Of course I will!" Junior Leopard nodded his head as if it was obligatory for him to take care of the girl. He continued, "Please rest assured. No matter who pisses off Lady Ji, I, Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket, will not let him go!"


    "That''s fine. I planned to ask Yeyue to join the Immortal Palace, but now it seems that there''s no need to bother!" Yu Qing smiled and said. Then she added, "In case that old man thinks that I''m begging him, this time, he''s the one who is going to beg me!"


    Junior Leopard''s mouth twitched. He wanted to say something but he silenced himself.


    Junior Leopard had to say that the Jade Pool was very efficient. He had listed dozens of materials, and the next day he was informed to fetch them as they were already prepared in a storehouse.


    Junior Leopard could only wear a bitter smile as he looked at the big pile of materials. He took out the Innate Green Lotus Seed and gave it to Yu Qing. Then, he requested to stay there for a couple of days. Yu Qing agreed because she knew what would he do next.


    "You''d better be fast. I already sent information to the Immortal Palace. I guess that they''ll come to fetch you in three to five days."


    "Thank you for reminding me!" Junior Leopard said, then added, "But it''s alright to let them wait for me for some time!"


    ¡­


    ¡­


    The closed storehouse was finally opened 10 days later. Feeling refreshed, Junior Leopard walked out. He bumped into Jin Yuquan before he could inform others of the news that he had finished his work.


    "Elder Qing''s estimation is correct. You''ll come out in one or two days." Jin Yuquan laughed as he saw Junior Leopard.


    "Golden Rooster, why are you here?"


    "I came here with Elder Qing." Jin Yuquan looked refreshed and said, "Boy, you''re in the limelight this time! You''ve driven that Happy Monk mad. These days, he has been searching for information about you all over the world!"


    "Happy Monk!" While being reminded of that baldhead, from whom he had obtained the Green Lotus Seed, Junior Leopard sneered. He added, "The treasures of heaven and earth can only be gained by those virtuous people. They are born and raised by nature and, thus, belong to anyone who takes them. Was the Innate Green Lotus planted by his grandpa?"


    "You''re right. That''s also our answer to the Bigwheel Temple." Golden Rooster laughed and said, "These treasures are raised by heaven and earth. There''s no such rule stipulating that they belong to the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. Well, let''s go. I think Elder Qing must be very anxious because he has been waiting for us for so long."


    Junior Leopard followed Jin Yuquan and quickly arrived at the main hall of the Jade Pool. He again appreciated the fairyland on his way to the main hall. However, he felt that the place was somewhat fake no matter how wonderful it was.


    Yu Qing and Elder Qing were having some tea in the main hall. They had made a deal during Junior Leopard''s closed-door training. Upon seeing him arrive, Elder Qing was not willing to stay there anymore and directly got up to leave.


    Junior Leopard, Elder Qing, and Golden Rooster were standing on a Celestial Device that was shaped like a boat and flew above the clouds a half an hour later.


    "The Jade Pool is really secluded! Not only does it have so many obstacles but it''s also located in such a remote place."


    "The Jade Pool is located in the far west. It has been detached from worldly affairs for many years and it''s one of the greatest sects nowadays. Therefore, it''s remained unknown to people." Standing at the prow of the boat, Elder Qing sighed and said, "Ordinary martial art practitioners in the world have no chance to hear of the Jade Pool during their lifetime, even if they are Level Seven or Eight experts. But you''re lucky enough to make yourself an acquaintance with the people of the Jade Pool."


    "But I almost offended them!"


    "Haha, stop talking about things that will make others envy you. You''re someone with great fate. Let''s get to the point. Where''s the 10th entrance of the Azure Secret Area?"


    "It''s on my fief!" Junior Leopard chuckled. He could not help laughing every time he thought about it.


    Even to a huge sect like the Immortal Palace, the 10th entrance of the Azure Secret Area was of great value and required their attention. Coincidentally, the entrance was on his fief. Because he was a member of the Immortal Palace, it was much more convenient for people from the Immortal Palace to use the entrance freely. However, relatively, in order to keep this entrance a secret, they would do lots of things such as sending experts to guard the entrance. According to the manner of the people from the Immortal Palace, it was impossible for them to expose him to the martial arts world for just an entrance. They would not occupy his fief and act as a lord as Tian Long Taoism had done. All concealed actions should be handled by him because it was his territory. It was reasonable and natural for him to do so.


    In this way, he successfully bound his territory and the Immortal Palace together. The palace would try their best to protect his fief and the entrance of the Azure Secret Area for their interest. They would not let other influences take a share of his territory, which was an extremely favorable thing for him.


    "It''s on your fief?" Elder Qing surprisingly raised his eyebrows. He grinned while pointing to Junior Leopard and said, "Hey, you''re really a great lucky star!"


    "I''m not a lucky star. I''m just fortunate once in a while," Junior Leopard said. He happily told Elder Qing the details of finding the entrance to the Azure Secret Area. Obviously, he did not reveal anything related to Green Spirit.


    "You''re really lucky. The entrance to the Azure Secret Area is under a refined iron mine where poisonous monsters existed and freezing Qi permeated everywhere. Not bad." Elder Qing stopped and glanced at Junior Leopard, then asked, "Do you know why you can enter it but can''t find a way out?"


    "Don''t you know?"


    "It''s because at least a Pure Yang Celestial Device is required to support the entrance." While saying this, Elder Qing looked helpless. "The reason why the Jade Pool can move the entrance into their sect is that they have a fairy weapon. Although the Immortal Palace does also have a fairy weapon, it can''t be used in that way. We can only support the entrance with a Pure Yang Celestial Device. In this way, the entrance will become unmovable." He looked at Junior Leopard and said, "It seems that we need your help."


    "Sure, no problem. Although it''s located in a refined iron mine, it''s no big deal!" Junior Leopard blurted out.


    "You don''t need to remind me about your losses." Elder Qing waved his hand and said, "It''s good for both you and the Immortal Palace. What we''re going to do is maximize the interest and keep it a secret. Therefore, you don''t need to worry about it, we''ll make it up to you."


    "Of course. As a member of the Immortal Palace, it''s my honor to make some contributions," Junior Leopard said. The two cunning foxes smiled at each other.


    "There''s one more thing. I believe that this matter can be hidden from others, but not from Wang She and Prince Xiaoming." Junior Leopard suddenly thought about that.


    "There''s no need to hide it from them. They will not divulge it because the Azure Secret Area is beneficial for their cultivation. They''re not that stupid to tell others."


    "I see!" Junior Leopard nodded and added, "Then, I''ll start to set it up as soon as possible. Elder Qing, could you give me some advice about how to do it specifically?"


    "Even though it''s a refined iron vein, you can''t exploit it anymore because the entrance to the Azure Secret Area is located there. I heard that your territory is quite poor and lacks buildings. It''s better for you to build a mansion there to camouflage the entrance."


    "That''s a good idea. I''ll build a villa once I get back and proclaim that there''s a suitable Earth Vein Evil Qi for my practice. No one will doubt that."


    "Yes, giving up a refined iron mine for practice isn''t a big deal for us practitioners." Elder Qing agreed and said, "You are the most familiar with Yuquan among all the people in the Immortal Palace. I''ll just let him help you. After my return, I''ll send people there to open the entrance as soon as possible. Take it easy. Our purpose is the entrance and has nothing to do with your territory."


    "Elder Qing, you''re being over-courteous. I hope that you can send more people to help me. Although it''s my fief, it''s too vast for me to control. Besides, there are other people who covet it, so the more people you send there, the happier I''ll be."


    "You don''t need to talk to me so cautiously. Since there''s an entrance to the Azure Secret Area on your fief, we will surely not let others target it. But you must know that we will not support you publicly. Meanwhile, unless it''s necessary, our people will not show up either. However, we will support you in other aspects, such as capital and information. I promise you that your fief will always be impregnable."


    "Elder Qing, you''ve really taken great pains to do so many things for me."


    ¡­


    ¡­


    The speed of the boat-shaped Celestial Device was extremely fast. It was like a golden light shuttling in the clouds. However, the Jade Pool was very far away from the Central Plains. It still took two days to arrive at Junior Leopard''s territory.


    "Well, Yuquan, these days, you''ll need to stay at Junior Leopard''s side and watch out for him. If there is an accident, tell me promptly, OK?"


    Jin Yuquan lowered his head and said, "Yes!"


    "Uh, wait!" Junior Leopard''s expression changed slightly as he heard that Jin Yuquan would be staying with him.


    "What''s the matter? Don''t you want to stay with Golden Rooster?"


    "Of course that''s not the case! I just want to ask if he''ll stay here forever. If he will, I need to arrange a fake identity for him to avoid others'' suspicions. You know that many people still pay attention to me all the time even though I''m huddled up in the northwest. If a Level Eight expert suddenly appears beside me, they will notice him. Moreover, every time Golden Rooster takes action, he never wears a mask, therefore, many people recognize him. Hence, it would be easy to arise suspicion if someone with ulterior motives were to see him."


    "What do you mean?" Golden Rooster, who was beside him, became dissatisfied.


    "I mean that you''d better put on some makeup or wear a skin mask in order to keep others from recognizing you at once. What''s more, you need to hide your true strength. Don''t behave like an expert every time you show up. I think it''s better to take one step at a time."


    "Then, what should I do?"


    "Recently, there have been many refugees on my fief. They are sold by human traffickers and they''re strangers to each other in the beginning. You can sneak into their group and show your skill when it''s appropriate in order to draw others'' attention. Since I''m the landlord of a poor fief, it''s reasonable for me to recruit talents. In this way, I can hire you and no one will suspect you. Of course, you just need to act like a Level One or Two expert, that will be enough."


    "That''s a good idea. Yuquan, it seems that you''ll suffer from injustice for a while!" After hearing Junior Leopard''s words, Elder Qing nodded and apologized to Golden Rooster.

 Chapter 292: Subdue Chama: the Pure Yang Celestial Device Showed First Power

    Chapter 292: Subdue Chama: the Pure Yang Celestial Device Showed First Power


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Your Excellency, laborers for building the villa have been recruited!"


    Jiang Xiao, silently standing before Junior Leopard, said politely, "But, Your Excellency, it''s a refined iron vein. Are you sure you want to build a villa there?"


    "The Evil Qi there is very dense. Even if it''s a refined iron vein, when ordinary workers are not able to exploit, it amounts to a useless thing. I happen to need the Evil Qi for practice, so I''d rather build a villa," said Junior Leopard.


    "Despite it, Your Excellency, it''s so unexpected. As you see, we are short of hands in the territory. Now you suddenly want to build a villa, we''ll have to transfer more manpower. Your Excellency, it''s your territory, and you''re free to do anything. But, it''s really not a good time to put up a building now!"


    "You''re admonishing me?" Junior Leopard asked in a low voice.


    "I dare not. I just..." Hearing Junior Leopard''s sullen tone, Jiang Xiao answered immediately.


    "Well then, that''s all. I know you''re speaking out for my sake. However, I must build the villa. If you don''t want to be responsible for it, I''ll look for other people." Junior Leopard shook hands and said, "Alright, I''m tired. You can retreat!"


    "Yes," Jiang Xiao said and left.


    ...


    ¡­


    "I say, Mr. Jiang, does your brain work?" Getting out the door, he saw Zhu Ba coming to him. Zhu Ba complained, "Just do what His Excellency requires you to do. Why talk back to him? I can see His Excellency is unhappy this time!"


    "Oh, it''s not my intention. But His Excellency wants to build a villa now. It''s not appropriate!" Speaking of this, his tone was a little bit sulky. "His Excellency did not act in this way before. As long as what we said was reasonable, he would adopt our suggestion. Why is he so stubborn this time?" Shaking head, he left with a sigh.


    "Your subordinate is really loyal!"


    Jiang Xiao moaned and groaned outside, which was not hidden from Junior Leopard and Golden Rooster. After Jiang Xiao had left, Golden Rooster suddenly showed up from the back of the screen and smiled.


    "He''s a good guy, but it''s not a good time to tell him something," said Junior Leopard, shaking his head. "Ah, you''ve been there. What do you think of it?"


    "Nice place!" Golden Rooster said.


    "All right then. You''ll be appointed as the overseer to handle all the things at that time!"


    "It''s not so good. It''s too noticeable!"


    "I''m the lord here. It can''t be too normal to promote a person to be an overseer," said Junior Leopard, "so nobody would care about such a tiny thing. Besides, I want to build a villa. Perhaps people think I, as a new lord, indulge in a life of pleasure and thus belittle me!"


    "Nobody is that stupid!" Golden Rooster glanced at him, giving a brittle laugh. "You''ll build the villa in a big way, which will make people think that there are some likely secrets in your villa, rather than that you''re living a leisurely life. I suppose it won''t be long before your villa receives an investigation!"


    "With you, what shit will I fear? Uh, when will your Immortal Palace people arrive?"


    "Within several days," answered Golden Rooster. "This time, the Azure Secret Area''s entrance is concerned, so the Immortal Palace pays great attention. Among those people, there''s a person very proficient in formations and they''ll bring a Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Mentioning this, he took a meaningful look at Junior Leopard. "You really hit the jackpot, but you are also closely bound up with our Immortal Palace. One honors all, and one damns all!"


    "I''m one of the 28 constellations in the Immortal Palace, so I was linked to you from long ago," said Junior Leopard with a laugh. "This time, our relationship has just deepened again!"


    "That''s right. I won''t talk to you anymore. I''m going to go there and have a look!" Golden Rooster was a dedicated person. He left after a short chat with Junior Leopard.


    Seeing Golden Rooster leaving, Junior Leopard stood up. His territory had just been established, but the mechanism was sound here because he was lazy. All the matters, except those serious ones, did not need him to deal with them personally. Take the villa building as an example, he just issued the order. Even though Jiang Xiao was against it slightly, he had to implement it without any reservation because Junior Leopard had given an order.


    "It''s time to cope with matters caused by Black Demon Chama. It''s said this thing has created many troubles in the territories and attracted many people''s attention!" Junior Leopard thought. His figure flashed with a piece of fire cloud, and he rushed out of the room, flying straight to the sky.


    This time, Junior Leopard succeeded in practicing the Gang Qi. Hence, when he was flying, he did not need to use the Dragon Flying Technique. By comparison with the Gang Qi, the Dragon Flying Technique could be used unfetteredly, but it was too flaunting. As for the fire cloud surrounding him, it was formidable and combining it with his martial arts skills, it would not introduce others'' reveries.


    With the advancement of his cultivation, Junior Leopard had a far better understanding of the Gang Qi. He knew that the Gang Qi had another magical function in addition to attack and defense.


    That was instantiation!


    For example, his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire could instantiate to be the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire cover and the Jade Original Power Gang to be a giant thunder saber.


    Of course, the pre-requirement for the Gang Qi instantiation was that the Gang Qi cultivation must reach an extremely profound level, and the Gang Qi must be filled with intelligence.


    Therefore, experts could seldom instantiate the Gang Qi. However, Junior Leopard easily fulfilled the requirement of the Gang Qi instantiation. His Internal Qi was intelligent, so he practiced nine dragons once his Gang had been formed. To the common people practicing the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, it would be a lucky thing to successfully practice one Fire Dragon when their Gang was formed. Even if they could instantiate the Gang Qi, their result would be just One Fire Dragon Cover, Two Fire Dragons Cover and the like, were not rivals to his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Cover.


    Besides, even the cultivation of the same Gang Qi would create different results after instantiation. Like his Jade Original Power Gang, which could instantiate into a giant thunder saber, Junior Leopard believed Wang She''s Jade Original Power Gang would not instantiate into a thunder saber.


    That wasn''t his style.


    Now, Junior Leopard had already stood in the midair at more than 1,000 feet up. The fire cloud around his body had disappeared, but his feet were still on a fire cloud, looking like an immortal riding on the cloud in the legend. He looked down and uttered a long and loud roar.


    His roar shook the heaven, lingering on and extending to an area with a radius of hundred miles in the shortest time. People in the territory were shocked by this roar, but lowered their heads and continued their work as if nothing had happened, because they knew that their lord was beckoning his pet, the Silver Wolf.


    "Ooroo!"


    The roar was still travelling to a remote distance when a forlorn wolf howl appeared. Then came the second, third, and fourth howl, closer and closer. A silver line emerged and shot from the direction of the skyline, growling along the way while splitting the ground.


    This was Little Du!


    Since he came to the prairie, Little Du was always in a free-range state. After several months, it had already become the wolf chief in an area of hundreds of miles around.


    With the help of Little Du, Junior Leopard indirectly had the prairie wolves in his control.


    What was the most terrible thing for earning a living on the prairie?


    Wolves, which not only attacked people but also flocks and herds. They were a great threat to anyone living on the prairie. Moreover, bloodsucking and cruel wolves could not be exterminated. No good methods could be applied to fight against those evil intelligent living creatures.


    Some time ago, under Junior Leopard''s instruction, Little Du led several nearby big wolves to assault the neighboring land, the territory in the hands of Wang Hua, who was from the Wang clan''s branch that conflicts with him. At that time, Wang Hua lost approximately half of the flocks and herds, which greatly sapped his strength.


    Gradually seeing the robust Little Du rushing toward him, Junior Leopard laughed happily, "Let''s go, Little Du. Let''s go see our old friend!"


    Little Du seemed to understand what Junior Leopard said and gladly hissed, running quickly to the southeast.


    "Hehe!" Junior Leopard smiled and rode the Gang Qi, closely following Little Du.


    Blacktail Plain was located to the southeast of Junior Leopard''s territory. About 3,000 miles far from it. When he came to the territory for the first time, he spent many days in going through the Blacktail Plain before arriving at his own territory. Now, only Little Du was together with him, so they were much faster. It only took them, one people and one beast, four to six hours to get to the Blacktail Plain.


    "Good heavens, so busy here!"


    Once they reached the Blacktail Plain, Junior Leopard felt as if there was something wrong here because there were too many people.


    It should be known that the Blacktail Plain had been a forbidden place, with swamps and floating weeds everywhere. Ordinary people would be caught in the swamps if they walked here carelessly. Besides, there was nothing being produced. Therefore, people seldom came here. However now, as soon as they arrived at the Blacktail Plain, Junior Leopard saw several groups of people walking cautiously on this prairie, as if they were searching for something.


    Among those people, most of them were sallow and emaciated sinners in shreds and tatters, being bunched by ropes and forced to plod forwards while behind them were soldiers in gorgeous dress.


    Soldiers?


    They looked like soldiers, but not absolute soldiers. According to the clothes, those guys seemed to be soldiers. However, after careful observation, Junior Leopard broke into laughter. He instantly understood that those guys were the lord''s private armies, similar to the urban management in his territory.


    People like them who had been granted a fief and the rank of nobility, were entitled to possess a private army which couldn''t be too great in number. For example, Zhou Bao, who had been awarded the title Wuyang County Governor, was a Viscount, and could own a private army of 800 people. The urban management under Junior Leopard''s control took the quota of 800 people from the private army.


    Thus, those people''s appearance showed that they must be a lord''s private army from somewhere nearby. The reason that they took this measure was that they perhaps had been suffered a loss before in the plain swamps. Consequently, this time they adopted this measure to explore the mysterious prairie, like the Japanese scouring for landmines during the Counter-Japanese War.


    Besides driving the sinners to proceed, the private army also marked their way using any available means.


    "A conscientious Lord!" Junior Leopard said in his heart. At this moment, a cry suddenly came. Turning to look back, he saw several sinners in the first row falling into a sludge pit at almost the same time and calling loudly for help.


    "Hurry up, hurry up. It''s none of your business!" Several sinners around wanted to save them but were whipped by the following private army.


    "Be quick, lame ducks. Quick! I don''t have time to consume with you!" The one that seemed to the head of the private army shouted, swishing with a long whip. "Before the sunset, if you fail to march three miles, your supper will be canceled. If I''m scolded due to you, I promise, you¡ª"


    Before he finished his words, he seemed to perceive something and turned around, seeing a Teen, in cyan clothes, standing not far away and watching him calmly as well as a Silver Wolf, sturdy and vigorous, standing beside him.


    Inexplicably, seeing the man in cyan, he could not help but tremble with cold fear. He abruptly looked back and dared not to have a look again. He was afraid to ask who he was.


    In recent days, a large number of people came to the Blacktail Plain, including martial artists. He was only an insignificant head of the private army. He could only domineer those vulnerable sinners, but he would land himself in serious trouble if he provoked some martial artists.


    Junior Leopard was targeting Black Demon Chama this time around and did not want to make any trouble. His hands slightly lifted and a strong power emerged for a second, rescuing the sinners out of the sludge pit.


    Seeing Junior Leopard lend a helping hand, those people stopped walking. That head felt his heart sink and showed a nervous look. He thought that maybe he encountered a Jianghu chivalrous man who came here to take revenge. If it was so, he would get into trouble. Even if he did not die, he would be afflicted, equating to his skin being peeled off.


    "Are you their head?"


    While he was deeply anxious, a cold voice came to him, making him suddenly shudder. He almost collapsed on the ground.


    "Yes, yes, I am!"


    "Whom do you serve? Why are you driving so many sinners here?"


    "I... I work under His Excellency Qi...Qin. His Excellency Qin''s fief has a circumference of 100 miles, but half of it was occupied by the Blacktail Plain. So, His Excellency Qi...Qin sent me to lead those sinners to explore the way!"


    "Explore the way?" Junior Leopard nodded, not knowing who His Excellency Qin was. However, now that this person was awarded a fief of 100 miles, he must have made a great contribution in the war against the Northern Yuan. "Are there many people coming to the Blacktail Plain recently?"


    "Yes, there are. Their Excellencies of all families have sent people to the fief, and many of Their Excellencies have fiefs all around the Blacktail Plain, and, and..." Mentioning it, the head gave an eccentric smile. "Several of Their Excellencies aren''t lucky, because their fiefs are in the middle of the Blacktail Plain, so many of Their Excellencies have sent people here to explore the Blacktail Plain!"


    "Interesting. Some are really unlucky!" Hearing what the head had said, Junior Leopard nearly laughed. Fiefs located in the middle of the Blacktail Plain proved the rumor. The Emperor didn''t have so much knowledge about the Northern Yuan when awarding the fiefs and just casually allotted the land. Otherwise, such a situation would not happen. Although few people knew the Blacktail Plain, the imperial court, based on its capability, should have acquired detailed information after a subtle exploration. If it knew the details, it certainly wouldn''t give this land to others. However, the possibility that the Emperor had purposely given several unlucky people these fiefs as a joke, couldn''t be ruled out.


    "Well! Since you''re exploring the way, I won''t take any more of your time!" Junior Leopard waved hands and pointed at the sinners who had been saved by him. "The northern prairie is a vast land with a small population. Only a few people live here. If they all die, then there will be no more people!"


    "Yes, yes, you''re right," said the head of the private army, nodding repeatedly, his head almost burying to the waist. "I''ll pay attention to it, great attention!" When he looked up again, the man and the wolf had already disappeared.


    ...


    ...


    Junior Leopard went with Little Du, advancing one more hour. They were already deep in the Blacktail Plain. Even though more and more people appeared on the Blacktail Plain, few of them could come deep into this plain. Now that all the people were at the initial exploration state, they could not startle Black Demon Chama, who was in the depths of the Blacktail Plain.


    The reason that Junior Leopard brought Little Du with him to the Blacktail Plain was that he himself had no confidence to find out Black Demon Chama''s whereabouts.


    The Black Demon Chama was an evil beast. He didn''t fear it, but it was its home, its domain. If it really wanted to hide, he couldn''t find it. However, Little Du had a keen sense of smell and he had a fight against with Chama once, so it was a good choice to search for it together.


    As expected, in the boundless plain with grass and swamps everywhere, Little Du found a clue soon. With the nose being close to the ground, it smelt briefly and ran swiftly.


    An hour later again, it stopped and firmly howled, facing a grassland.


    "Got it!" Junior Leopard smiled and pacified the restless Little Du. He walked to this grassland, calmed down and released his spiritual mind. Even the mere rustle of leaves in the wind ten miles was under his observation.


    "Here it is. Let''s check the legendary Pure Yang Celestial Device''s power!"


    Junior Leopard was already too impatient to wait. It had been a period since he had finished his practice of the Golden Flame Mirror, a Pure Yang Celestial Device, but he always had no opportunities to try its power. Today, he, fortunately, got this chance. He would like to have a try regarding the difference between the Pure Yang Celestial Device, which could suppress a millennium family''s fate, and the celestial device of Mysterious Level.


    A golden light emerged from behind the back of his head and then turned into a pale gold mirror. Soft clouding flickered on the mirror''s face and chimed in with the sunshine in the sky. All of a sudden, with a violent flash, a straight golden light shot directly from the mirror.


    "Shit!"


    He had prepared well in advance, but the golden light was so dazzling that it shone upon him.


    "Hu-la!" At the very moment when the golden light reflected the grassland, the wet grassland swayed, white smoke vapors rising, the watery grassland became so dry that it cracked.


    "Great effect!" Junior Leopard was taken aback and began to manipulate the mirror unconsciously. The golden light swept the grassland backward and forwards. Only after several times, this grassland, within a radius of 1,000 feet, looked like it was experiencing a drought, pallid and cracked. The waterweeds withered, and the cracks could even harbor a fist. Junior Leopard felt surprised. Achieving such a result would take a long time, even if he exerted the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire. However, using this mirror light caused such a situation. It could be seen how strong the power of the Golden Flame Mirror was.


    Marveling at the situation, he felt a subtle vibration under his feet.


    "It''s Chama. It''s moving!" Junior Leopard thought. However, Chama didn''t rush out. Thanks to congenital vigilance, it could easily feel the unique power of the Pure Yang Celestial Device above. Consequently, it knew that going to ground was useless, and it wanted to escape now, fleeing away underground, secretly.


    Nevertheless, one thing was incomprehensible to it. It would not be a problem for it to run away underground previously. But now that the grassland, plump with water plants before, became a dry land under the function of the Golden Flame Mirror, the ground shook as it was moving. Moreover, Little Du, besides Junior Leopard, also felt Chama''s spirit and quietly snarled.


    Junior Leopard gave a gentle smile and raised the Golden Flame Mirror highly. The straight golden light began to move along the grassland, and everywhere it went, the grass was scorched.


    The golden light''s track, which was exactly that of Black Demon Chama''s escape route, was very clear.


    White mist rose in gusts, and thick smoke emerged in streams. Suddenly, the light stopped moving, as if Black Demon Chama stopped. But it just halted, not exposing its head.


    "What a sly thing!"


    Chama had a feeling that something was wrong, and it was troublesome to take flight. Therefore, it dug deeper underground. It was an evil beast which was born in the soil, so it was naturally good at burrowing and moving freely underground without impediment.


    The ground here referred to the special swamps in the Blacktail Plain. It was rich in water, making it very convenient for Chama to move. However, the ground was dry now, which prevented Chama from moving smoothly.


    Thus, it chose to penetrate the underground.


    In terms of his capability, the best depth for movement was 150 feet underground. But a much deeper depth did not work, because it would be rock layer. After all, he was an evil beast, not a drill. Hence, in the beginning, he didn''t bore down until he reached soft position. At almost the same time, the Golden Flame Mirror''s power was shown again.


    Flames flashed from the golden light one after another and began to vapor the moisture of that ground. At first, the mirror''s golden light could totally dry the moisture at the depth of 50 feet underground. However, the Golden Flame Mirror now began to display its power properly, more and more moisture being vaporised. The grassland at that position, from the ground surface to 1,000 feet underground, was absolutely pulverized.


    "Ka, ka!"


    The ground cracked due to the excessively dry fissures becoming bigger and bigger, causing the surrounding dust to turn into flying ashes.


    The Golden Flame Mirror had already stopped vaporising and hung behind Junior Leopard''s head, looking like a small sun with its golden light reflecting the ground and firmly nailing Black Demon Chama to the position of 1,000 feet underground.


    Even though Black Demon Chama drilled down 1,000 feet, it ended with it being fixed by the Golden Flame Mirror''s golden light and couldn''t move a step.

 Chapter 293: Yin and Yang Magic Matrix and An Amazing News

    Chapter 293: Yin and Yang Magic Matrix and An Amazing News


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The power of Pure Yang Celestial Device was so vast that totally exceeded Junior Leopard''s expectation.


    The Golden Flame Mirror was on the top of his head, and a strong hot stream flowing throughout his body. Junior Leopard felt that he had merged into the Golden Mirror as if it was a part of his body, which was completely under his control.


    "The power of the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror can be controlled at will!" Feeling that a pieces of information spreading from the Golden Flame Mirror, and at the same time, Junior Leopard felt that his sense of spirit extended downwards along with the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror, until the depth of a thousand feet, while the condition of the Black Demon Chama was fully reflected in his mind.


    "Poor guy!"


    In the dark-tailed predator, the all-powerful Black Demon Chama, tightly huddled himself up at the moment, thoroughly covered in a golden flame and couldn''t move even a bit.


    Even though the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror didn''t mean to kill or harm, it still had a strong imprisonment function. As long as it is used well, the strong could easily take down Level Seven or Level Eight experts without wasting much effort of Junior Leopard. In just a flash of golden light, it would either vaporize the opponent or constrain him!


    "No wonder a single Pure Yang Celestial Device attracts so many people and striving for it! It turns out that the function of a Pure Yang Celestial Device was so great. Damn it, those guys wanted me to help them grab the Pure Yang Celestial Device for free. F*ck, who am I in their eyes? I would make you look good one day!"


    Amazed by the power of the Pure Yang Celestial Device, Junior Leopard thought that idiot who ran to his territory and asked him to participate in the World Heroes Competition for the Eight Immortals Exquisite Pagoda, which instantly got his temper up.


    Suddenly, several low-pitched roars came from afar. Junior Leopard''s looked awkward, "Someone is coming!"


    Someone was coming, but it must not be an ordinary person.


    Hearing the roars of Little Du, Junior Leopard can hear that the one coming nearer certainly had a high-level strength.


    "Damn, he is coming at this crucial juncture, what a bad luck!" Junior Leopard was extremely uncomfortable and he fumbled in his front pocket and reached out nine palm-size purple flags. Then he raised his hands, and the flags were turned into nine streams and dispersed in all directions.


    As the flags descended, a thin layer of mist arose in the surrounding. After the fog was formed, it suddenly shaken and were, disappeared. After a while, everything in the vicinity was restored to normal, as if no one was ever here before.


    After a few seconds of breathing, five streams of light fell from the air and landed right next to where Junior Leopard was standing.


    "What''s up? Is there something unusal?!"


    "No, it seems that nothing is unusual here. Old Nose, will you be wrong?"


    "Impossible, how could I be wrong?"


    The total of five people who have fallen from the air, are actually an expert of Level Seven or above. Their Gang Qi was perfectly incorporated with every inch of their body, suggesting that they were either Level Eight experts or sophisticated Level Seven experts. Otherwise, their Gang Qi could never run through the body seamlessly.


    "What the hell? Have experts in the world become so abundant that suddenly there are five of them here?" Junior Leopard cursed himself in the matrix. At the same time, he was also secretly wondering at the power of this Yin and Yang Dust Formation, because five experts were standing right in front of him, but could not feel or discover him in any case, even if he had stuck out a finger and swung it before their eyes. This Yin and Yang Dust Formation not only hid the spirit of him and the Golden Flame Mirror from view, but also his physical body.


    Even now, none of those five experts knew that they were deeply immersed in the illusion produced by the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. But Junior Leopard didn''t want to wake them and make trouble for himself, therefore, he intentionally lure them off his territory and let them leave before lifting his formation. However, with the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, they could not notice the odd at all.


    "I saw clearly that there was an emitting strong sense of a celestial device, certainly it is a Pure Yang Device. How can it be lost in a blink of an eye?" The Level Seven expert known as Old Nose screamed out with confusion. "Impossible! This makes no sense!"


    "Old Nose, are you sure that you read it clearly?" The leader of this group was an old man, also a Level Seven expert, while judging the light shooting from his eyes, the Gang Qi was surrounding his body. With this, his cultivation had already reached the peak of Level Seven that might have entered into Level Eight at any time.


    "Certainly I saw it. Big Mu, do you feel now an overwhelming sensation of power, don''t you?" Old Nose was frowning. "Look, could it be possible that someone else has arrived here before us and snatched the device?"


    "Impossible, we''ve moved fast enough, and we haven''t noticed anyone else, either!" A man behind Big Mu said. "No one has the capability to take away this treasure in such a short time. You know, this is not just as simple as picking up a stone on the side of the road!"


    "Exactly! If it''s true that a Pure Yang Celestial Device just revealed itself, then no way it can be taken away so easily!" Big Mu nodded and said, "Look around, maybe there is a way on the other side to hide the trail. Let''s take a look carefully!"


    "Yes!" The rest of these four men replied with a smile, and then dispersed.


    What a bunch of fools!


    Seeing of the five people bustling in illusion, Junior Leopard merely gave a sneer. "Into the illusion of Yin and Yang Dust Formation, how could you find flaws with your Level Seven cultivation?"


    Sure enough, after about half an hour, five of them gathered again, found nothing.


    "What shall we do, Big Mu? We can''t find anything. I guess maybe a certain expert nearby was using a Pure Yang Celestial Device and he left as soon as he spotted us coming!" The man who raised the question behind Big Mu spoke again. "We''d better not waste our time here, shall we?"


    "Hum!" Big Mu nodded, sort of crestfallen. "That''s very likely. We''ve just entered this Blacktail Plain. How can we run into a Pure Yang Celestial Device so soon that is lying here for us to pick up? No such good thing could happen. If we have such luck, our cultivation and strength would not have stuck at Level Seven and couldn''t break through Level Eight. Old Nose, forget those treasures. Let''s find out where that beast is!"


    "Not here!" Old Nose shook his head. "Not a single trace of the spirit of that beast is here. Big brother, this Blacktail Plain is a kingdom of marsh, with various spirits mixing together, and that thing is deep down the soil. I''m afraid that it''s not easy to find it."


    "Though it''s hard, we still got to find it. If the information we''ve learned is right, that Black Demon Chama is an evil beast that just matured, which a great use for us. Moreover, Prince Ning also paid a huge price for this. So, nothing to lose!"


    "Prince Ning?" Junior Leopard startled a bit. "How could Prince Ning be interested in the Black Demon Chama?"


    Junior Leopard only gained limited knowledge of Prince Ning originated from Zhonghe County. At that time, in order to seize power, Prince Ning sent a henchman to take over the Navy of Jiang City in the hands of Junior Leopard, who mysteriously poisoned Prince Ning to death. Somehow, later Prince Ning couldn''t find any evidence against Junior Leopard and that matter was left unsettled. But in any case, the biggest benefit from this incident would be Junior Leopard---the most likely suspect.


    From this perspective, it seemed that the two have different identities. The light poles do not reach the edge, but the nails are already buried.


    "These guys are sent by Prince Ning! What did he send them here for? Doesn''t he want to fight for the throne at the Central Plains? Or does he plan to set a flag of his own in the north?" Junior Leopard said to himself, wondering why Prince Ning had reached out to the far north.


    At this point, he heard another one saying: "It''s really interesting that Prince Ning bought so many territories in the north instead of focusing on being His Royal Highness. The north is vast, but also cold and barren. Is it possible that he is planning to claim the throne in the north?"


    "Prince Ning bought lands?!" Suddenly heard this, Junior Leopard obviously stunned.


    "Can the territories be bought or sold?"


    Those were fiefs, territories, unable to be sold to others. Even if someone reckoned that their territories were barren, producing few outcomes, they could not sell them due to the lack of legal reasons. Hasty as this enfeoff was, every fief was on the record of the imperial court. Perhaps, the imperial court did not have an accurate map. Therefore, if you thought the neighboring territories took up more or less land than what was awarded, the imperial court might not help you. But if you sold your territory and found a new proprietor for it, the imperial court would certainly manage it.


    It was a must because the laws of Jin forbade this business.


    Trading the land of fiefs privately, if put in mild words, was an act of disrespecting the imperial court. While putting in harsh words, was an intention to rebel against the empire, which would equate the untouchable high-voltage cables in any dynasty. "Is this Prince Ning eating? Did the bear leopard dare, or lost his mind?"


    "This kind of thing is not what we should speak of carelessly. Prince Ning has his own plan. We just need to do our job and that''s it!" Big Mu said coldly. "Old Nose, since there is no such thing here, let''s go somewhere else. Whatever happens, we have to find out and remove this Black Demon Chama!"


    "Good!" Old Nose nodded, and carefully scrutinized it with his nose almost sticking into the dirty grass. After that, he nodded his head to show that nothing is suspicious. Suddenly, five jets of light flashed again and flew toward the depth of the Blacktail Plain.


    As the five lights were flashing, Junior Leopard had already released the illusion and let them leave. The five experts felt no doubts at all, but just believing that they found some abnormality at a certain place of the Blacktail Plain, searched again, and then left.


    "Yin and Yang Dust Formation is indeed miraculous! With this formation and the Golden Flame Mirror, I can almost be invincible in the Metaphysic Realm. Even if I come across some experts of the Metaphysic Realm, I''ll have the strength to put up a fight. It looks like it''s time to find a proper opportunity and let out the news that I''ve also obtained a Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    Junior Leopard''s mind was racing, his eyes were gradually turned red. As his thoughts were altering subtly, the shaft golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror emitted, sent by the Black Demon Chama and make it a drop from the air onto the ground.


    At this time, The Chama was already dying. How could it have any bit of demeanor of a Black Demon?


    Half of the body was burnt into a gang black, and some part of it was showing the bones. Its drool was uncontrollably dripping down, diffusing fits of stink smell which made Junior Leopard frowning. Remember, at first, Junior Leopard intended to extract its spirit and then hit his own thought to have complete control over this Black Demon. But seeing this scene, he started thinking again. "This is what you are living in, in the mud under the swamp, slipping in and out among the ooze all day long. While living like this is certainly something it can''t bear."


    Therefore, his reddened eyes restored to normal. Junior Leopard held up a finger, pointed it at the forehead of the Black Demon Chama and drew up an odd talisman on it.


    That talisman glinted a bit and soon sank into the forehead of the Black Demon Chama.


    At this point, Junior Leopard received the golden light so that the Black Demon Chama will escape from it.


    As soon as the golden light was lifted, the Black Demon Chama trembled slightly, its bleak eyes fixed toward Junior Leopard, revealing an expression of rimless fear. At the same time, following the spiritual connection, Junior Leopard also sensed its blatant dread to himself, as if he was a terrifying king of demons.


    "Am I that frightening?"


    Seeing that this monster known on the prairie as Black Demon and worshipped as a god of demons, should regard him as a demon god, a very odd sensation rose up in Junior Leopard''s stomach.


    "Oh!" Black Demon Chama bellowed in its undertone, and put its huge head with immense difficulty toward the feet of Junior Leopard to show its surrender. At the same time, along with its train of thoughts, confused and obscure pieces of memory rushed into the brain of Junior Leopard.


    "This is the memory of this Black Demon Chama. Sure enough that it has gained spiritual intelligence and harbored some ideas, but unfortunately, it''s not mature enough and nothing special exists in its memory!" As strong as this telepathic connection, Junior Leopard was pondering secretly. "But it''s good that this thing has certain spiritual intelligence, so I can pass the skills of Demonic Cultivation to it, let it practice quietly on the Blacktail Plain and never come out to stir up troubles if not necessary!"


    Contemplating, through the spiritual connection, Junior Leopard transmitted one of the cultivation skills for Demonic Cultivation that the Green Spirit had taught him and passed on to the mind of the Black Demon Chama.


    Hiss, hiss!


    Sensing the information sent from Junior Leopard, the Black Demon Chama was a little excited. Then, an indescribable feeling of thought spread to the mind of Junior Leopard.


    "Ha! This thing can be said to be a smart guy, even acknowledged absolute surrender!" Junior Leopard laughed, although at the beginning, the Black Demon Chama entered a Mantra Contract with him, regulating that the Black Demon Chama must always take his orders, this was merely enforced under the constraint of the Mantra Contract. The Black Demon Chama might listen to him due to the influence of the Mantra Contract, but it could cut corners during the operation. As long as Junior Leopard didn''t notice, and the relationship between the two would not be too harmonious. But now, Junior Leopard passed down the cultivation method for Demonic Cultivation to the Black Demon Chama at one blow. All of a sudden, the Black Demon Chama''s feelings for Junior Leopard immediately changed. Thus, its low intelligence became a benefit to Junior Leopard for it was particularly vulnerable to be fooled.


    Although this Black Demon Chama had evolved intelligence, its level was barely comparable to a child of nine or ten years old. With the policy of stick and carrot, adding a Mantra contract, Junior Leopard nailed it down completely.


    "Well, big guy, go back to your place. I will look for you when I have something!" Junior Leopard patted the head of the Black Demon Chama. This time, he had completely surrendered to him, and it was constrained by the Mantra contract. Likewise, it had some intelligence, so it would understand his intention easily, which was pretty great.


    The Black Demon Chama received the message of Junior Leopard and moved its large body slowly into a mud puddle it picked. He continued slipping downward until the depth of over two thousand feet under the mud. Then, it started healing itself by harnessing the filthy vitality at the bottom of the pond to heal wounds, and at the same time practicing the Demon tribe cultivation method that was passed by Junior Leopard.


    "Green Spirit, what''s your view on this big buddy? "


    "It''s merely a black python in the swamp. No big deal!" The Green Spirit replied disdainfully. "I don''t understand why you have to spend so much effort to subdue this thing!"


    "He is the overlord of the Blacktail Plain. To control him is equivalent to controlling the Blacktail Plain. The stronger he is, the more profits he can bring to us!" Junior Leopard said.


    "Profits, profits¡ªboy, I found that you are now increasingly concerned with the power of the secular world, which is bad for your practice!"


    "The loads of things I did are just for the sake of continuing my practice without worries behind!" Junior Leopard said. "It''s true that you are somewhat a Grand Demon, but when it comes to this kind of issues, you just don''t get a hang of them!"


    "Ah, you boy should get to lecture me already! Yeah, there are some issues I don''t know about, but I know that you will miss this practice!"


    Junior Leopard did not response to the Green Spirit, but just took the nine flags back, removed the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and left the Blacktail Plain with Little Du swiftly.


    Half an hour later, five of the Level Seven experts who had previously appeared here returned.


    This time, what they saw was utterly different from the view on their first visit. Within a radius of a thousand feet, the earth was cracked, the surface of a road was scaly like snakes, and a place appeared to be a drought layer that reached the depth. All of the bleak vision completely displayed in front of them.


    "Big Mu, this is¡ª!"


    At the sight unrolling before them, the five were all shocked. They were not the ones who hadn''t seen the world yet. On the contrary, they had seen more of the world, but encountering such a scene like this today was a first experience for all of them. Recalling the sight that everything was normal on their first visit, they felt this place getting more uncanny.


    "It seems that the Black Demon Chama has already been killed!" Big Mu''s face was sinking like water, but his eyes cast a look at the surroundings with a sort of tension. "Let''s hurry back. It looks like that this Blacktail Plain is much more complicated than we''d expected!"


    "But big brother, Prince Ning is there!"


    "I''ll explain to Prince Ning." Big Mu glared at him with a glance. "Did you not see it yet? We are either caught in a magic matrix of our opponent right now or we came here first. Otherwise, it''s impossible to make a huge change in such a short time!"


    "What? Magic matrix!" The look of Old Nose suddenly changed, and the tip of his nose started shivering so subtly that this was almost unnoticeable. After a while, he looked up at Big Mu and said, "Impossible! I didn''t feel anything unusual!"


    "Either the level of their magic matrix is so high that it''s beyond our imagination, or we were already in a magic matrix the last time!" Big Mu murmured softly. "You really didn''t notice anything, did you?"


    "Nothing at all!" Old Nose answered resolutely. He stepped on the hard and cracked the earth, and gray-black dust fell from the gap naturally, without anomalies.


    "Then it''s true that we were in a magic matrix when we first came here!"


    "But the last time, nothing strange happened to us!"


    "That''s because the other side doesn''t want to make trouble for us, nor does it want us to bother him!" Big Mu''s looks got increasingly deep as he was brooding over this whole thing. "If I guess right, the overwhelming pressure we felt last time and the light Old Nose caught sight produced as the opponent using a powerful celestial device in dealing with the Black Demon Chama. But he sensed that we were coming and didn''t want any more troubles, so he set up this magic matrix. When we found nothing strange, we just left. After that, he quickly settled the Black Demon Chama¡ªeither subdued or killed it, doesn''t matter¡ªthen he removed the magic matrix and left, while we came back here and discover the differences."


    "That is to say, the other side not only has a powerful celestial device, but also a master of magic matrix?!" Old Nose''s eyes glowed, and a frightened look revealed on his face. "Since when does such a figure exist in the world?!"


    "I have no idea about that. But I do know that we have basically been more stubborn in this Blacktail Plain Valley. Let''s go back and see what happens, lest we bump into more troubles!" As saying this, he first leaped into the air and took off. The rest looked at each other, all sighed and left.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    Under the power of the Golden Flame Mirror, this Black Demon Chama was unexpectedly easy to handle, but the heart of Junior Leopard still couldn''t help worrying due to the conversation among the five Level Seven experts.


    "Prince Ning was buying land in the north, and also required them to deal with the Black Demon Chama. Hiring five Level Seven experts at a time in this world was indeed a big deal, for the price of Level Seven experts was pretty high. This fact, for one thing, proved that the royal highness Prince Ning had an intricate plan in the north, and he was determined to take down the Blacktail Plain, otherwise, he would not have dispatched five Level Seven experts all at once. After all, in this world, experts were but the scarcest resource!"


    With his head loaded with questions, Junior Leopard and Little Du went back to his territory. But on the way, Little Du ran away from him. This boy had become used in living a free life since Junior Leopard let go of it on the prairie, exactly like setting free a tiger back to the mountains. Junior Leopard also didn''t strive to get it back, but only summoned it when needed. In other time, it was left alone to do whatever it liked. Anyway, no matter what it did, the final beneficiary was always itself.


    When he entered his own territory, Junior Leopard revealed his figure and strolled across the vast prairie. He walked along and watched the wind caressing and lowering the grass to let cows and sheep surface into sight, which was really beautiful. After walking for a while, he saw that the little town on its territory set away.


    Just when he was about to leap into the air and ride his Gang Qi to get back to his territory, an extremely shrilling whoosh of a sword move suddenly floated into his ear, whereafter, a jet of powerful pressure swept over him.


    "Li Xiu, fleeing is futile! Today, I, Yan Fei, will certainly take your life!"


    The sound rolled like a thunder.


    ............¡­

 Chapter 295: Wrestling Control; Deal

    Chapter 295: Wrestling Control; Deal


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was Yan Fei who refined and drove the pagoda with his divine thoughts. Thus, it was closely linked with his spirit. Earlier, he felt his connection to his four holy mountains cut off after they were subdued by Junior Leopard''s mirror. This time, when the mirror directly fought his pagoda, he felt a great impact on his divine thoughts.


    Yan Fei was also a genius and a teen expert in his own right. Young as he was, he not only managed to achieve a Level Seven cultivation but also able to control the pagoda with ease. But his divine thoughts were subpar and he had never been truly tested. Perhaps he could withstand the force if he was like Junior Leopard who had practiced the Carefree Skill Thunder and had his divine thoughts brushed against the Nine Heavenly Thunder.


    Unfortunately, he didn''t have such an experience and his divine thoughts had never been impacted by such a great force.


    Thus, the moment the mirror''s golden light crashed into the pagoda''s screen of light, his divine thoughts collapsed.


    It was as if a massive hammer striking him hard on the head. He lost all ability to respond and was even close to fainting.


    Without the support of Yan Fei''s divine thoughts, the pagoda could only depend on its innate strength to resist the mirror. How could it win?


    In a split second, the pagoda''s defense collapsed and the screen of light transformed into four streams of light that entered Yan Fei''s forehead all at once. Following the light, Junior Leopard found the true body of the pagoda as well as the holy spirit brand that Yan Fei made when he refined the pagoda.


    "What an unfortunate fellow!" Junior Leopard sighed. Suddenly, the golden light of the mirror brightened. In the path of the light, he could see faint golden lotuses rushing toward Yan Fei''s stiffened body and pinned themselves directly on his forehead.


    Yan Fei''s stiffened body shook violently and he woke up from his partially unconscious state with his eyes full of fear.


    He wanted to get up and run but he couldn''t control his body at all.


    "Don''t move and don''t rush either, otherwise the one hurting will be you. I only want your pagoda," said Junior Leopard coldly. Yan Fei continued to tremble as the golden lotuses traveled along the path of light and landed on his forehead. Moments later, the mirror absorbed a faint cyan light from his forehead. A burst of red light flashed and transformed into a three-feet-tall bronze pagoda.


    The ancient pagoda was carved with strange patterns and had eight sides that turned into eight poles.


    It was none other than the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda, a Pure Yang Weapon.


    In that short period of time, Junior Leopard manipulated his mirror to consume the spirit brand that Yan Fei left in the pagoda. The pagoda was then restored to its original unrefined state and was instantly absorbed into the mirror.


    Once the pagoda was absorbed, the four streams of light moving around the mirror started shaking as if they were summoned by something.


    "Go!" said Junior Leopard gently. The four streams of light broke free of the shackles posed by the mirror and vanished from sight after worming their way into the pagoda.


    He reached out and grabbed the three-feet-tall pagoda. With a turn of his hand, the pagoda disappeared.


    "I''ve got what I wanted so I won''t trouble you any more. You can go now!"


    "Hurry up and return my pagoda!" Like a dying ember, Yan Fei''s face was pale. His handsome face was twisted into an ugly expression. It was a miserable feeling to experience the might of the pagoda only for it to be taken away from him.


    "Do you think that''s possible?" Zhou Bao merely sneered at his words. "I''ve already warned you but you wouldn''t listen and insist on fighting me. Do you think I''ll still return the weapon to you?"


    "It''s the Emperor who conferred the pagoda to me! You dare snatch it?" Yan Fei shouted.


    "If you don''t leave now, I''ll kill you!" Junior Leopard retorted with a threat, with all his killing intention released.


    Yan Fei shivered, sensing his killing intention. He glared at Junior Leopard and Li Xiu with obvious hatred and indignation before leaving.


    Junior Leopard watched Yan Fei''s disappearing figure and a small contemptuous smile appeared on his face. He turned to Li Xiu and guffawed. "You brought a really lavish gift for me this time! Why don''t you do the same in our next meeting?"


    "Next time? There won''t be a next time! That lunatic nearly beat me to death!" Li Xiu touched his chest, fear still lingering after hearing Junior Leopard''s playful words.


    "You really kept your Pure Yang Weapon to yourself well. No wonder you didn''t participate in the World Hero Competition!"


    "Even if I don''t have one, I wouldn''t join anyway." Zhou Bao waved his hand. "What''s going on? Why was the guy hunting you down like a lunatic? What did you do?"


    "It''s a long story. Let''s find a place to rest and I''ll explain," Li Xiu suggested.


    "No problem. There are many places to rest. It''s my turf after all!" Junior Leopard smiled and led the way to the heart of the town by flight.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    "Satisfied now?" Golden Rooster squinted at the man beside him with a smile. "You still have the thing on you, don''t you? Don''t tell me you have to go back and retrieve it for me."


    That man harrumphed without a word. He fumbled for an emerald thumb ring and tossed it to Golden Rooster.


    "It''s finally mine after dreaming about it for so many years! I didn''t think I''d be able to get on my hands on it before my death," said Golden Rooster. To spite the man, he even put the emerald thumb ring and took a closer look at it as if he was examining a piece of treasure.


    This irritated the man and he left with a flick of his sleeves and a snort.


    "To think I finally gained something good out of the old fool!" Golden Rooster laughed happily as he watched his friend depart. "But really! Since when Zhou Bao get his hands on a Pure Yang Weapon?" He continued, "And it isn''t the Air-frozen Bead either! He really knows how to keep a secret! No wonder he has always been so confident! His backing turns out to such a powerful weapon." He shook his head, snickering, before turning to leave.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    Junior Leopard led Li Xiu to his small courtyard and yelled, "Take a seat! Renzhen Cuo, make a good pot of tea for me!"


    "So this is your turf? How simple and crude."


    Li Xiu had always been candid with Junior Leopard. He frowned as he carefully looked around the courtyard.


    "You brat, of course you''d look down on this small place. You come from the Li family in Pingzhou," scolded Junior Leopard jokingly. He called three men standing outside the courtyard over, including Jiang Xiao. "Meet these people. They''re all my right hand men."


    Li Xiu hugged his fist at the three men and smiled. "I''m Li Xiu from Pingzhou. Nice to meet you."


    The men humbly replied, "We''re not worthy of this courtesy!" They stared at Junior Leopard oddly, wondering since when he befriended the young expert from the Li family in Pingzhou. It seemed like they were close too.


    "Listen up. Li Xiu is my friend. You should treat him like you treat me from now on. Understand?"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" they replied in a chorus.


    "That''s enough. Are you trying to make it so that the members of our Li family will treat you like they treat me?"


    "Exactly! I''m so happy that you understood me." Junior Leopard laughed. "You''re a clever person indeed! You got it from just a hint!"


    "F*ck you!" Li Xiu laughed. Just then, Renzhen Cuo came in with the pot of tea that she prepared.


    "Okay, you can all leave. I have something important to discuss with Young Master Li. Renzhen Cuo, you can leave as well. Just leave the teapot here."


    Everyone obeyed and left them alone. Junior Leopard waited until they left the courtyard and said with a smile, "There''s only the two of us now. You can slowly start your story."


    "What story? I can only say it''s my bad luck!" Li Xiu wryly smiled. "I don''t know what''s wrong either. I inexplicably came across Yan Fei and was inexplicably hunted by him. Then I inexplicably met you. Everything is too inexplicable!"


    "Impossible. Yan Fei wouldn''t want to kill you for no reason. With your strength and status, he''d need to put in a lot of effort to chase you down over thousands of miles. He wouldn''t dare to either. Speak! What kind of vile things you''ve done to make him hate you that much?"


    "Well, it''s actually a misunderstanding!"


    Junior Leopard was confused when he heard the hesitation in Li Xiu''s words. Sure enough, Li Xiu stammered as he explained, "I accidentally s-s-slept with h-h-his fiancee!"


    Junior Leopard spat out the tea in his mouth and looked at the handsome teen before him in surprise. He grinned and said, "F*ck. You really made yourself Yan Fei''s nemesis this time!"


    This enmity was past the point of return!


    It was still understandable that he lent Li Xiu a hand if it was just a common enmity. He was still acting self-righteously to help a friend and it didn''t matter even if he stole Yan Fei''s Pure Yang Weapon. But now his friend had slept with Yan Fei''s wife and he even stole his weapon. It seemed this enmity could never be solved amicably.


    Didn''t people often say the two most unforgivable crimes were killing one''s father and stealing one''s wife?


    He bet Yan Fei now hated him and Li Xiu to the core. No wonder he felt Li Xiu acted as though he couldn''t lift his head up in front of Yan Fei. So this was why.


    "You brat, you were still reserved when I saw you several years ago. You didn''t look like a womanizer. With your looks, you''re prettier than even women. What kind of women couldn''t you get? Why must you sleep with Yan Fei''s woman?"


    "Do you think I want to do that?!"


    Li Xiu was close to hears when he heard his friend''s words and his fair face was already red. "Listen! I didn''t do it on purpose. The entire thing was too inexplicable!"


    He then told Junior Leopard the whole story. The latter wore a puzzled expression and said, "Something like that happened? There must be some conspiracy against you!"


    "I thought that too. There''s definitely a conspiracy but before I can even investigate, Yan Fei has already coming to hunt me down! It didn''t matter if I try to explain or not."


    "What is there to explain? I''d be surprised if you can clear up the matter!" Zhou Bao smiled. "Never mind Yan Fei. Even if it''s me, I would''ve already stabbed you to death. I''ll first kill you before considering any conspiracy!"


    "You''re right. I would''ve done the same thing in his place. Though I''m innocent, it''s not something I can explain either. That''s why I was so irresolute when fighting against him. But the guy was bent on killing me and even used his Octupole Exquisite Pagoda to attack me and render me helpless! I could only run away desperately. But fortunately, I somehow made it here and met you. I think I would be really killed by his pagoda otherwise!"


    "Can''t believe you got into such trouble. If you really did sleep with his woman, then you''d at least deserve it. But if you didn''t even sleep with her and got killed, then wouldn''t that be too unjust?"


    "Why are you like this? I''ve already explained myself but you''re still laughing at me!" Li Xiu''s face was so red that it was nearly purple. He picked up his teacup and swallowed tea, glaring at Junior Leopard.


    Junior Leopard was embarrassed by his glare and didn''t dare to make fun of the teen any longer. "Fine, let''s stop here. You''ve already made yourself Yan Fei''s nemesis but he''s now a toothless tiger without his pagoda. Don''t tell me you''re still afraid of him."


    "I''m not scared but the explanation¡­"


    "What more is there to explain? You can''t explain away things like this. Even if you manage to find the person responsible, you can''t clear it up!" Junior Leopard waved his hands. "The feud already exists now and it''s already beyond repair. It won''t do if you keep that mindset. Think this way instead. You didn''t sleep with his woman. It''s he who wrongfully blamed you and even wanted to kill you. It''s his fault and arrogance. You''ve done nothing wrong. If you don''t correct your mindset, you''ll continue pulling your punches the next you meet him. Though you won''t be killed, it''s still not worth being defeated by him!"


    Li Xiu pondered over this and when he raised his head, the red had faded from his face. There was only determination in his eyes. "You''re right. I did nothing wrong. Damn Yan Fei! He wronged me and even wanted to kill me. It''s all his fault. If I encounter him next time, I won''t pull my punches and lose the battle!"


    "That''s right!" Zhou Bao happily tapped him on the shoulder. "This is a small thing and not worth remembering. If your mind is that narrow, it''ll be difficult for you to make any breakthrough in the mental state."


    "Right! I''m narrow-minded and can''t compare to you. Even when you snatch things, you do so self-righteously!" Li Xiu replied humorously, his mood much better now that he unloaded the burden in his mind. "Including this Pure Yang Weapon that I brought you, you have two now! That''s awesome. Never mind a tiny vassal like you, even those millennium families and Jin royalty aren''t a match for you. You know, the Jin royalty only has one Pure Yang Weapon left after losing the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda!"


    "Humph, the Pure Yang Weapon is indeed powerful. But I wouldn''t believe if you tell me your family doesn''t have one!" Zhou Bao scoffed. "Besides, the Jin royalty must have more than one Pure Yang Weapon!"


    "I don''t know about my family, but Jin does have one. Nevertheless, you two are tied. Jin''s riches are the possession of all within the four seas, but they only have two Pure Yang Weapons. You, a vassal of a territory covering 28.26 square kilometers, also have one. What are you going to do? Do you want to fight against Jin?" Having calmed down, Li Xiu smiled at Junior Leopard with the temperament of a young aristocrat.


    "What do you mean by telling me this?" Zhou Bao laughed, staring at Li Xiu. "Don''t tell me you''re also interested in the Pure Yang Weapon!"


    "The Pure Yang Weapon is so powerful that everyone covets it!" said Li Xiu. "But ultimately, it depends on whether you''re willing to share."


    "Damn it! It''s not my wife. Of course, I''m willing to share. But this weapon is so precious that I won''t give you for free!" Junior Leopard smiled.


    "That''s for sure! Even if you give it to me for free, I won''t take it without giving anything in return. Tell me what you want. If it''s something my family can do, we''ll do it!" Li Xiu patted his chest in assurance.


    "Looks like you''re the head of the Li family now?"


    "If you''re willing to give this Pure Yang Weapon to me, I''ll have 80 percent chance of success." Li Xiu laughed. "If your request isn''t too high, it''ll be 90 percent."


    "The way you bargain is quite novel. Well, I don''t mean to trouble you. I''ll give you a list of what I need. If you agree, the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda is yours!"


    "Okay, I''ll be waiting," Li Xiu said.


    "Come, I will show you around. Though it''s still a godforsaken place now, I believe it''ll soon flourish!"


    "Then I''ll have to keep my eyes wide. I won''t be able to witness you being poor and pathetic when you succeed in the future." Li Xiu sighed. "I thought I''d be able to fight you once I reached Level Seven, but looks like it''s just a pipe dream!"


    "You can''t force cultivation and strength. I owe my current cultivation to my luck. Otherwise, I''d be thankful if I can even reach Level Four."


    "Luck is also part of strength. Otherwise, I''d have just as much luck as you."


    The two walked out of the courtyard, laughing. Jiang Xiao and the rest wanted to follow them but they were turned away by Junior Leopard. They began strolling along the streets.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    "Zhu Ba, why is our Excellency so familiar with the young master of the Li family from Pingzhou? Why haven''t I heard about this?"


    Li Xiu''s cultivation had exceeded Level Seven and he unleashed his might in the World Hero Competition. He was thus named of one of fourteen experts. He was trusted into the limelight, making him a familiar figure to Junior Leopard''s subordinates.


    "How would I know? His Excellency has always been mysterious. How could I know his friends or acquaintances!" Zhu Ba tilted his head and sneered. "But one thing''s for sure. I''ve never doubted his decision, unlike you who like to be a smartass! When he wants to build a courtyard, you can''t stop complaining like he''s made some huge error! I''m embarrassed to even tell others that His Excellency lives in this shabby courtyard in this godforsaken place! See, here comes the Young Master Li. He''s barely able to stay here out of friendship to His Excellency, but what if the head of his family comes in the next few days? We can''t ask them to stay in that shabby courtyard! It''s too shameful!"


    Jing Xiao was silenced and sighed. "You''re right. I didn''t know he has so many friends back then. We must really speed up the construction of the courtyard, otherwise, His Excellency will be losing face because of us."


    In the beginning, he advised Junior Leopard to give up the idea of building a courtyard out of worry that he would end up being an extravagant lord after being the head of the territory. He didn''t expect Junior Leopard to have such a wide network of famous friends. Naturally, it was vital to build a courtyard now to preserve Junior Leopard''s face.


    He didn''t know the only reason Junior Leopard wanted a courtyard was because it was the entrance to the Azure Secret Area.


    Junior Leopard brought Li Xiu around for a few hours and even showed him the yard under construction. "The next time you come, you can stay here. It''s going to be much better than the shabby courtyard earlier."


    "I don''t care where I live." Li Xiu shook his head. "Your place is too freaking small. We''ve barely walked around but we''ve already seen everything. Let''s go back and discuss."


    "I haven''t decided the price!" Zhou Bao smiled. "If you''re tired, let''s go back now. You must be exhausted after being hunted down by Yan Fei for thousands of miles. We can talk about the Pure Yang Weapon tomorrow."


    "Sure. The weapon is yours and the initiative is also with you. I have no objections," Li Xiu said, smiling wryly.

 Chapter 296: Tears Ran In My Life

    Chapter 296: Tears Ran In My Life


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    ............


    "How is it, Green Spirit, what price do you think is right?!"


    "A Pure Yang Celestial Device is a losing business no matter what price you charge. Instead, you''d better refine it for your own sake. The Octupole Exquisite Pagoda was made by refining the essence of the eight mountains, and the strongest Pure Yang Celestial Device in the world. The boy was unable to develop his full force or even didn''t know how to use it, otherwise, it wouldn''t be so easy for you to defeat him and got a bargain!"


    "I want to keep it as well, but you have to understand that the biggest tragedy in life is possessing something unsuitable with one''s own strength. Possessing only one Pure Yang Celestial Device for me right now is, within my capacity, through which I might even deter others. But if I have two, and one of them is obtained from the Royalty, then it is a crime and disaster. This matter is simply not worthy of others." Junior Leopard said with a sarcastic smile. "Although I have a deeper relationship with the Immortal Palace, they will never breach the rules established by several hundreds of thousands of years and openly give it to me. Therefore, the Eight Immortals Exquisite Pagoda is a root cause of trouble in my hands, so send it out as soon as possible!"


    "It makes sense for you to think like this, like an Innate Green Lotus Seed. Isn''t because your Air-frozen Bead processed materials are missing? Why not exchange the Pagoda for the materials with Li Family? It''s okay that they may not provide us with all the materials at once, but we can ask as much as it can be changed!"


    "Well, it''s fine. To lose a Pure Yang Celestial Device openly and to exchange one secretly in return is indeed a good bargain!" Zhou Bao nodded. "By the way, The Immortal Palace members have arrived already. It seems that the palace has attached great importance to this Azure Secret Area. Besides the Golden Rooster, there are another two experts. Currently, there are three experts in my territory which is enough to build a great defense here!"


    "Your territory only has a radius of 300,000 meters, which is too wasteful to use three experts. But...it''s much safer anyway!"


    "I''m going now to look for them, and talk about their situation, and to see if there is any place to look out for! The Immortal guys are highly skilled, but too troublesome sometimes!"


    "You are now a member of the Immortal Palace, but I feel like you''re always thinking of how to use their ideas. That''s really bad!" Green Spirit reminded him.


    "Yes, I know. I do have the idea of taking advantage of them and I know that''s very bad!" Zhou Bao answered and rushed straight to his villa in a flash.


    ...


    ¡­


    "Junior Leopard, come, let me introduce you!"


    At this moment, the group of the three guys headed by Golden Rooster was looking for something at the place where Zhou Bao entered into the Azure Secret Area. Seeing Zhou Bao coming, Golden Rooster started the introduction promptly. "This is Moon Deer of Extended Net. You''ve met each other before. This one is the Sun Rat of Emptiness and you can call him Mouse. His best technique is to dig holes and set formations!"


    With a smile, Zhou Bao cupped his hand in front of the Sun Rat of Emptiness. "I''m Zhou Bao, the Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket among the 28 constellations. I''m honored to see you here!"


    Seeing Zhou Bao''s courtesy, the Sun Rat of Emptiness smiled as well. "Everyone is a family and doesn''t need so much devotion. But, don''t be rude as Golden Rooster!" He glanced at the Golden Rooster fiercely while saying that.


    If at other times, the Golden Rooster would have already answered back. But today, he got a great deal from the Sun Rat of Emptiness, for which his mind also became broader. He made a look that was saying "I''m not at the same level as you," leaving no chance for the Sun Rat of Emptiness to unleash his anger.


    "Junior Leopard, we won''t be guilty of you!" The Golden Rooster laughed for a second and then his expression turned serious. "I guess you know our purpose this time. The exit of the Azure Secret Area is of great significance, even the Immortal Palace have to be very careful about it! The Mouse is the most proficient in setting formations among the 28 constellations. And this time, he has brought a Pure Yang Celestial Device¡ªthe Universe Wheel in order to protect the gateway. However, it takes some time to set the formations and fuse the Universe Wheel with the gateway. During this time, no one is allowed to disturb him. That''s why Moon Deer of Extended Net and I came here as well and we are here to protect the mouse. Although we''ve got enough defensive force, but we hope we could take every care just in case. It''s your territory after all. Therefore, we need your help and we won''t let any accidents happen!"


    "Certainly, you are in my territory. I will be responsible for your security!" Junior Leopard nodded, and then smiled again. "But¡­how could it be unsafe with you guys sticking together to set the protection."


    "It''s just in case!" Golden Rooster shook his head and said, "It would be best to have your help. The formation settlement and the fuse of Universe Wheel take at least half a year, which accidents are absolutely not allowed. Of course, that''s good for you as well. No one in this world knows that Zhou Bao is the Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket from the Immortal Palace except our members. Once someone intrudes and find out that we all are in your territory, I think people can naturally relate us to the entrance which is guarded by you. Those with excellent imagination will then know the relation between you and the Immortal Palace, and then your second identity may not be a secret anymore."


    "Are you scaring me?"


    "I''m not scaring you. It''s a reality. So, you''d better stay within your territory during this period and don''t run around. Lest we get involved if anyone garners all his courage and makes a trouble in your territory, making your secret revealed in the end!"


    "You''re right. In this case...I will stay here for half a year. By the way, does it only take half a year?"


    "The duration is only our prediction. If everything goes well, five months is enough at most!" The Sun Rat of Emptiness added, "You don''t have to be too worried about our long stay!"


    "I''m very glad to have you guys stayed here!" Zhou Bao chuckled and said. "Since then, let''s say it. Here is my territory. Inform me whenever you guys have any requirements, despite the opening. As long as I can do it, I must do it!"


    "Don''t be so courteous. Golden Rooster will go for you whenever we need your help!" The Sun Rat of Emptiness nodded with a smile. "I have to stay here during the formation settlement. Moon Deer of Extended Net will be in trouble if he goes out, for he has made some troubles outside. So, Golden Rooster is responsible for the contact with you. Seal this place off after you leave!"


    "Seal it off?" Zhou Bao was shocked. "Then, what about your basic supplies like meals and drink---!"


    "I would open a new passageway to the outside after that. It is much safer. We stay here for the formations while you build your yard outside. It''s a win-win scenario!"


    "That''s alright. I''ll tell them to seal it off!" Zhou Bao listened with a sarcastic smile. "Those guys are too eccentric. Since they are fond of making holes and want to enjoy themselves to the fullest, there is no reason for me to refuse!"


    The next day.


    In the living room of the western yard.


    Li Xiu wrinkled his beautiful brow and looked at the long list provided by Zhou Bao. "Well, what do you do? There are more than a half that I haven''t heard of, and a few that are almost legendary and...Well, are you making things difficult for me deliberately? If you do not want to give it out, you don''t need to embarrass me!"


    "Your words are unjust a little bit. Is it very easy to find a Pure Yang Celestial Device in your mind? Or is a Pure Yang Celestial Device not worthy of those materials? If you could meet my requirements easily, then, wouldn''t it be my disdain for the Li Family of Pingzhou?"


    Zhou Bao smiled and raised his hand. And then, with a flash of yellow light, a Bronze Pagoda at the height of about one meter stood in front of him. "I''ll give you the Bronze Pagoda first. As for the stuff on the list, you have five years to look for them. You could give me whatever you find and for the rest, you should hand in things with the equivalent value instead. How about that?"


    Seeing the Eight Immortal Exquisite Pagoda, Li Xiu''s eyes were totally hooked. He immediately took it into his arms and observed it up and down. After a while, his eyes moved away from the Eight Immortal Exquisite Pagoda and fell on Zhou Bao. "Okay, I agree with your conditions. Whether we can find them all or not, the Li Family of Pingzhou owes you a debt!"


    "You guys¡­young aristocrats always speak in such a haughty way!" Zhou Bao waved his hands and said, "Well, I don''t need you to owe me anything. Just try your best to find those materials. You must spread the news that the Eight Immortal Exquisite Pagoda was in the Li Family''s hand in Jianghu, the instant when you return your place. I don''t want to be in trouble for it then!"


    "Don''t worry. The Li Family of Pingzhou also needs a Pure Yang Celestial Device like this to suppress the fate!" Li Xiu smiled and said. "Over the years, we have always followed the rules obediently and did not make any astonishment. Some people are seeking the chance to go against us right now. So, we need something to hold them in awe. Obtaining a Pure Yang Celestial Device at this moment, enough of the people, is really frightening!"


    "I don''t care what you like, but I don''t want to be an enemy of the whole world only because of one Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Zhou Bao smiled and sipped the tea. "That''s my difficulty¡­eh¡­you may know it!"


    "I know that, of course. I''m not an idiot anyway!" Li Xiu smiled. "One Pure Yang Celestial Device can only arouse the suspicion of your mysterious background, but two will definitely help others unfold it. Too much is as bad as too little. I understand that as well!"


    "Alright, then let''s take what we need respectively!"


    "Okay!" Li Xiu greeted Junior Leopard for a while after getting the Eight Immortal Exquisite Pagoda and then rode on his Gang Qi to the southeast. Unexpectedly, a Pure Yang Celestial Device gained by chance, he must get back to his family as soon as possible because he couldn''t protect it by himself alone. Yan Fei left one day ago and the news that Zhou Bao had owned a Pure Yang Celestial Device already and took his Eight Immortal Exquisite Pagoda would be spreading out in Jianghu sooner or later. Li Xiu must settle it down before the news spread.


    The Eight Immortal Exquisite Pagoda was grabbed by Zhou Bao from Yan Fei''s hands, which happened just because of Yan Fei''s deficient cultivation from the perspective of people in Jianghu. So he had no reason to complain about that incident which was totally due to his inferior cultivation.


    However, it was more than a debt of Jianghu, because it involved the Royalty of Great Jin as well. To put it more seriously, Zhou Bao robbed what was bestowed by the Royalty, and that was the reason why Zhou Bao bore pain to give it up, though he knew how precious the Eight Immortal Exquisite Pagoda was.


    If he kept it, the pressure he would face would come from not only the people in Jianghu but also the Royalty. Now, since he had given it out, the whole thing became more complex. Thanks to the Li Family of Pingzhou heading in front, his pressure was also lifted to a great deal.


    On one hand, the Royalty of the Great Jin wouldn''t force the Li family to return the Eight Immortal Exquisite Pagoda to Yan Fei. It would be a totally unreasonable requirement because the Li Family got the Pagoda from Zhou Bao instead of Yan Fei. On the other hand, since Zhou Bao had sold the Pagoda out, he could make excuses that he was unable to take it back from the Li Family of Pingzhou and asked the Royalty to take up the matter by themselves.


    The whole thing then turned into a Tai Chi activity or a football match, in which Zhou Bao was an expert in his previous life as a civil servant. Moreover, the Pagoda was grabbed by his own strength, thus, Yan Fei would not be in the right and self-confident on that matter.


    So, this time, Zhou Bao is equivalent to throwing a hot potato and not only made a fellowship with the Li Family of Pingzhou but also gained many benefits from the bargain. The Li Family of Pingzhou also easily gained a valuable Pure Yang Celestial Device that no one dared to buy it. Thus, one would only be too glad to do it.


    It was a win-win scenario!


    As for the dispute with Yan Fei, Zhou Bao wasn''t much afraid of that, because there was no reason to fear a fellow whose cultivation just entered Level Seven.


    The status of being in the imperial clan might frighten others but not Zhou Bao. Without the Pure Yang Celestial Device, they were just tigers without tooth. Once they caused him trouble, Zhou Bao would never mind humiliating the young aristocrat of the Emperor of Xining to the full.


    It wasn''t a good habit to climb on the head of another person, but if you are pushed, Zhou Bao wouldn''t mind climbing.


    For the sake of the security of the Azure Secret Area entrance, Zhou Bao had to stay in his fief for at least five months.


    Five months!


    Since he achieved a high cultivation, he hadn''t stayed in any place for such a long time except for retreats.


    Now that his cultivation had already reached Level Seven, and to open his acupoints, his mind was always on those issues about acupoints. He kept constraining his strength and stopped practicing deliberately for fear that his Internal Qi might reach Level Eight unconsciously and would influence his further cultivation.


    His body had been completely as strong as that of an Eighth-level expert. Meanwhile, he possessed an External Elixir, a Demonic Fire and a Pure Yang Celestial Device with an intelligent and pure Internal Qi. His Gang Qi had already been represented and had reached the requirement for the promotion of the Level Eight. However, he wasn''t willing to be promoted before the acupoints got open. He didn''t dare to practice anymore for fear of the accident promotion of his Internal Qi to the Eighth-level Realm and at that time, it would be too late for him to cry out seeing it happen.


    "Oh, it''s such a tough world. Others are unwilling to make a progress while I''m making efforts to suppress my cultivation. If they know, they may scold me to death!"


    After spending three days in his territory, Zhou Bao felt very bored and uneasy all over. "Green Spirit, is there any fun to make? I''m going to die soon since I haven''t practiced for 3 days!"


    "You have to endure that. At this moment, your Internal Qi is buoyant and your blood level is high. You could easily reach the Level Eight at any time with your Internal Qi turning into Gang Qi and being condensed into the Real Essence Source. So it''s dangerous for you to even practice the punching. Let alone practice other serious martial arts. What''s more, stop studying the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. It contains the Great Ways and you would promote your cultivation accidentally during the study. Thus, if I were you, I would just think of the ways to open the acupoints here."


    "To open the acupoints is a fine art. It requires me to settle down for it, otherwise, I won''t even know the reason of my death if that happens!" Zhou Bao felt helpless and sat down. "The Golden Flame Mirror has been exposed. In the following days, this place won''t be peaceful and it''s impossible for me to calm down for opening the acupoints as well!"


    "There must be some gains and losses, and I can''t help you either. I need to concentrate on my practice to recover the Original Spirit. Don''t disturb me!" The voice of Green Spirit''s thoughts disappeared.


    "Hey, hey, what do you say? You---!"


    Screamed a few times, Zhou Bao got no response. And that green lamp turned into dim already, looking nothing distinctive at all. He knew that Green Spirit just went back for recovering its Original Spirit, so he could only complain bitterly to himself and yell no more.


    ...


    ¡­


    "Damn, these guys are really endless!"


    Zhou Bao hadn''t had a good sleep for five consecutive days and the reason was very simple. The news that he owned a Pure Yang Celestial Device had spread all over Jianghu, arousing more and more martial arts practitioners to come here and spy on him.


    From the beginning, they were masters of martial arts only at Level Four, Five or Six but until now, a quite few experts at Level Seven had appeared. Although there weren''t any signs of the emergence of Eight-level expert, but Zhou Bao believed that it wouldn''t take much time to see them.


    After all, Pure Yang Celestial Devices were too tempting and no one was even clearer of that than Zhou Bao, who had owned one and developed the weapon''s power.


    If at other times, Zhou Bao wouldn''t care about their visiting, but now things had changed a little bit. It was the time when his yard was under construction as well as the entrance of the Azure Secret Area.


    Although the entrance to the mine vein had been sealed, but some who were curious about that would probably go there for an exploration. It would be better if their cultivation were low. But once their cultivation reached Level Eight, perhaps they would definitely see some flaws. Finally, after five-day patience, Zhou Bao couldn''t refrain from his urge and took action.


    Although his territory was large, but what really arouse others'' attention was the small town centralization down from the Jilei Mountain and his yard under construction. One would naturally go to the two places instead of the barren land for the news, so it was quite easy for Junior Leopard to find them all.


    Zhou Bao wouldn''t be too polite to them, instead, he would beat them black and blue and expel them all.


    Soon he found that it didn''t work in this way. After expelling a Fifth-level expert, there would be a Sixth-level expert coming and then a Seventh-level expert. Five or six days had passed, and Zhou Bao couldn''t bear the continuous troubles anymore. His intention of killing arose then.


    "Damn! Does my benevolence stand for my cowardliness? Do I look like a plain doormat?"


    Looking at the guys whose hands were tied behind their back, Zhou Bao was totally inscrutable. There were seven people kneeling down in the courtyard, most of which were with a cultivation from Level Five to Level Six, and there was one Seventh-level expert as well. They all belonged to different forces.


    "Zhou Bao, what do you want? Do untie me right now! Who do you think I am?"


    The Seventh-level expert looked reassured and emboldened. "I must tell you that I am Prince Ning''s..."


    With a flash of a sword, this Seventh-level expert''s head was cut off. His warm blood spurted over ten feet high from his neck and his head actually carried an inconceivable gleam when falling on the ground.


    "Hump!" Zhou Bao again snorted coldly after that. The cold and powerful spirit fluctuates instantly and violently, and tore the Seventh-level expert''s spirit into pieces with nothing left at all.


    He then returned the sword to Zhu Ba standing beside him and fiercely cast his eyes on the rest six people with his face cold and grim. At last, his eyes fell on a Fifth-level master of martial arts at the age of about 30.


    "You, also a Prince Ning''s subordinate, right?"


    The man was obviously scared by Zhou Bao. He had never seen such a harsh behavior. That was a Seventh-level expert! Zhou Bao just killed him without any hesitation.


    So as Zhou Bao asked him, he had been too scared to respond anything until a grim murderous intent hit him.


    "Yes, yes, I''m Qin Lei, the guard of Prince Ning!"


    "I won''t ask you why Prince Ning sent you here, but take the corpse to him and tell him that don''t send any subordinates here anymore, otherwise, I will kill whoever he sends!" Saying that, Zhou Bao paused and turned his head. He looked at the rest and said, "It''s the same to you guys. Go and tell your Masters that do not trouble me anymore. Otherwise, I won''t show any mercy. I will kill all of them!"


    None of them replied, but their expressions were filled with a bit of fear and horror. Prior to Zhou Bao''s killing of the Seventh-level expert, they might think that Zhou Bao was merely frightening them. When the head fell on the ground, they had finally known that he wasn''t. This Seventh-level expert was not only highly skilled but also the subordinate of Prince Ning. Zhou Bao could kill him without batting an eye, so how could he scruple to kill them as they were with a low cultivation and not as powerful as Prince Ning?


    At the moment, all of them became watchful and reverent. They even didn''t dare to give a heavy breath out of fear that Zhou Bao with an anger to kill the gods, would cut their hearts into two parts.

 Chapter 297: The Unrest of Prince Ning

    Chapter 297: The Unrest of Prince Ning


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    However, Zhou Bao did not intend to make them embarrassed.


    He raised his hand and unleashed their restraints. "I will let you go. But I need you to remember that I will show no mercy to the martial arts practitioners who enter here from now on!"


    Indeed, Zhou Bao would no longer show them mercy.


    He established a sentry post outside of the small town at the foot of Jilei Mountain. The sentry post functioned like a city gate¡ªno matter who wanted to enter the town, he had to get in from the sentry post. If there was someone who did not come in or out from the sentry post, then he would be regarded as an intruder. As for the place where the yard was located, it had become a forbidden ground. Without Zhou Bao''s permission, nobody was allowed to enter.


    The entire martial arts world was shocked!


    It was natural that the martial arts world was astonished. As the famous World Hero Competition had just ended, everybody thought the martial arts world would return to peace for a period of time. However, the reality was quite different, in fact. The first news came that the Li Family of Pingzhou''s legitimate son, Li Xiu, had slept with Xining King''s Eldest Son, Yan Fei''s, fiancee, then he was chased thousands of miles by Yan Fei. He was finally rescued by Zhou Bao when he was in the northwest region. And what was most surprising was that Zhou Bao and Yan Fei fought against each other with Pure Yang Celestial Devices. The fight not only ended with Zhou Bao''s success, but he also obtained Yan Fei''s Pure Yang Celestial Device, the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda, that he had gotten in the World Hero Competition.


    His behavior was so surprising, arrogant, and bold.


    While everybody was shocked by Zhou Bao and was keen on seeing how he would manage the pressure that was to come to him soon, one of the interested party, the Li Family of Pingzhou''s legitimate son Li Xiu, should have returned to Pingzhou. Meanwhile, he also brought back other astonishing news. The news was that Zhou Bao had sold the Pure Yang Celestial Device, the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda, that he grabbed from Yan Fei to the Li Family of Pingzhou. Maybe other people did not know how much Zhou Bao had earned in this transaction, but Yan Fei had lost face because of it. The royalty also suffered losses from this incident. As for those who could think things through more carefully, by considering Zhou Bao''s series of behaviors since he had become known in Jianghu, they had entirely and secretly believed that Zhou Bao belonged to the influences of the well-known family that Tian Long Taoism represented.


    Things would have been easy if it had ended there. However, other astonishing news followed. There were many scouts sent by different influences to check out Zhou Bao''s Pure Yang Celestial Device after they learned that he had a powerful one. But their actions irritated him¡ªZhou Bao immediately picked on Prince Ning''s expert subordinate who had gone to spy him and beheaded the guy. What was even more surprising was that Zhou Bao only returned the unfortunate guy''s body back to them, while the guy''s head was hung at the sentry post as a warning to others. Nobody knew how long the head would be there!


    Prince Ning was famous for his toughness, hence, what Zhou Bao did was like a slap in his face.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    "Bastard, damn it! This Zhou Bao is too conceited. He dares to humiliate me like this!"


    Normally, the Dragon-pressing River was untraversed. But now, countless tents were stationed along the bank of the river, as if an army had arrived.


    The fact was that it was not an army, but the tents of the new lords and their subordinates.


    One year had passed since Northern Yuan''s land was enfeoffed. The northern prairie gradually became busy with the operation of different influences. Although it was busier than before, it could not be compared to the Central Plains. For thousands of years, the nomads lived wherever there was grass, hence, they never built any decent buildings. As for the Central Plains people, they would not change their habits even though they had settled down in the north. That was why rounds of construction projects spread through the north. And before the new city was established, the tents became the best place for them to live.


    Then, an outrageous roar came from a very ordinary tent that was buried among the sea of tents.


    "Your Royal Highness, please calm down, please calm down!"


    A big group of people scattered to the left and right side of the tent, while Prince Ning was standing in front of a desk, slamming his palm onto it.


    Those who sat in the left row were all ordinary people. They dressed with grace and no Internal Qi could be found in their body. And those who were in the right row all contained abundant Internal Qi in their bodies. There were even seven or eight guys who seemed to have Gang Qi. They were all experts above Level Seven. As for the black-robed elder named Yuantingyueshi, who stood in the first row, his Internal Qi was deep and plentiful. Obviously, he was an expert at the peak of Level Eight.


    If one could see all these people, he would be astonished by the power of this Prince Ning!


    He had so many experts whose cultivation was near Level Seven or Eight! The outside world all felt for him as he had lost a Level Seven expert in the northwest. Some even thought that Prince Ning''s power had been seriously weakened. But the people did not know that a Level Seven expert did not mean much to him.


    The people who were gathered in the tent now already had a power that was beyond most well-known families'' in this world. Therefore, if Prince Ning were to become crazy, he could massacre nearly the majority of them.


    But for now, he could not think about that. He not only had to hide his power, but also needed to take revenge on Zhou Bao!


    It was because he was entirely provoked by Zhou Bao''s behavior.


    As a noble and the Jin Emperor''s son since he was a born, when had he suffered so much?


    Even His Highness the Prince of the Jin, his elder brother, had not made him suffer so much. Although his brothers competed with each other using both open and secret means, no one ever dared to slap him in his face so flagrantly!


    Who was Zhou Bao? He was merely a wild boy who had come from Ten Thousand Huge Mountains. But he dared to slaughter his subordinate and hang his head on the sentry post. It was more than a slap in his face, it was more like a provocation. If he could not regain his face, he would have nothing to depend on in Jianghu or the Jin, let alone compete for the position of emperor. That was the reason why he was so outraged and swore to get his face back.


    A young man who was in the left row comforted Prince Ning, saying, "Your Royal Highness, please calm down. We need further consideration on this matter!" The man who spoke had a handsome face and a scholar''s style, with wisdom filling his eyes.


    "Further consideration, you want me to have further consideration on this matter? But, Zhou Bao has slapped me in my face. Tell me, how can I have further consideration on this matter?!" Prince Ning roared, "No, I have to regain my face back. I have to!"


    "Surely, we have to get our face back, but the loss would outweigh the gain if we expose our actual strength!" The intellectual continued unhurriedly while Prince Ning was angry. "Zhou Bao is very powerful. He is the most powerful man among the youngest generation. He only has a Level Seven cultivation, but his combat capability is at the peak of Level Eight!" As he spoke here, he took a glimpse at the black-robed elder who sat in the first row on the right side. Then he smiled and continued, "Moreover, he has a Pure Yang Celestial Device. I believe that Zhou Bao can even face a Level Nine expert with it. Hence, it is not easy to deal with him!"


    "Surely that doesn''t mean that I''ll be afraid of him!"


    "Of course, you don''t have to be afraid of him. But you have to deal with him carefully. Your Royal Highness, you also know that Zhou Bao is only a wild boy from Ten Thousand Huge Mountains. So he can''t grow so rapidly even though he has a panacea. Therefore, there must be a powerful influence behind him. And I''m sure that the influence is neither from the Wu Family nor from Tian Long Taoism!"


    "Why?"


    "It is easy to eliminate the Wu Family, for it is only a mid-level well-known family. Although it''s rich enough to turn against a country, Tian Long Taoism is its backer. Its own power is not strong. Only one Level Seven Elder had existed in the Wu Family before Zhou Bao. Hence, if the Wu Family has the ability, they no doubt won''t spend so much effort on a disciple who doesn''t have the Wu''s family name. As for Tian Long Taoism, they do have powerful strength, and Zhou Bao is very close to Wang She. But Zhou Bao isn''t Tian Long Taoism''s disciple, so he can''t obtain such big benefits like the Pure Yang Celestial Device from them. What''s more, if Zhou Bao is Tian Long Taoism''s disciple, he won''t give the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda to The Li Family of Pingzhou. A Pure Yang Celestial Device still means a lot for Tian Long Taoism. And there''s another thing, Your Royal Highness, I don''t know whether you have thought of it. Zhou Bao once fought with the Cool Breeze Gang and destroyed the organization by himself. When the Cool Breeze Gang intended to deal with his family, some people were secretly protecting his family. Although we don''t know who they are, I am sure that they are all Level Seven experts and they don''t belong to Tian Long Taoism."


    "I know what you mean. This is nothing more than Zhou Bao having a powerful influence behind him, so it is not a good time to turn against him. However, this time, he is too extravagant. If I don''t fight back this time, I may not get the chance again."


    The young intellectual nodded. He knew that Prince Ning was telling the truth. Face was an easy matter to talk about, but for him being in a high position, often was the case that, once he lost his face, his prestige would be destroyed in a minute. And he would hardly have the chance to earn his face back. That was why what Zhou Bao did to him made him furious and he almost lost his mind. Zhou Bao was diabolical, he had no scruples about Prince Ning at all. Hence, Prince Ning had to get his face back.


    "I also understand the reason, however, you don''t have to deal with Zhou Bao in person!" The Younger smiled gently and said, "The only thing that is concerning is whether Your Royal Highness is generous enough!"


    "Generous about what?"


    "Zhou Bao''s Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    His words evoked a slight disturbance.


    "Please explain your idea clearly!"


    "As Zhou Bao has a Pure Yang Celestial Device and he also has his own strengths, it is uncertain if we can succeed even if we use all our power to deal with him."


    As he spoke here, the people who sat opposite him all smiled. "I hope my words haven''t offended you. If Zhou Bao is alone, things won''t be difficult. But when he uses his Pure Yang Celestial Device, I suppose we might lose a lot even if all of you fight him together. Elder Sun, what is your opinion?"


    "I agree with you. The Pure Yang Celestial Device''s power is unimaginable. You don''t have to find excuses for us. If he has a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it will still be difficult for all of us to beat him!"


    Elder Sun was the black-robed elder, whose cultivation was at the peak of Level Eight. He opened his eyes and glanced at the young intellectual peacefully.


    "It''s correct that because of the weapon we can''t confront him now. If we do, not only is it a waste of time, it will also do harm to His Royal Highness. It''s better to push him against others."


    "Others? Who? Who can deal with him?"


    "Your Royal Highness, what do you think?" The young intellectual did not answer Prince Ning directly, he gave a mysterious smile instead. "What is the most important part of your plan?"


    "You mean¡ª!" Prince Ning was shocked for a moment, and his voice also raised. But half-way through speaking, he lowered his voice down.


    "You mean we can let the guys from Kunlun Mountain go to deal with him?"


    "Who is not eager to get a Pure Yang Celestial Device? Kunlun Mountain was a famous organization in Northern Yuan before. Although it is not comparable to the Palace of Destruction Demon, it is crowded with masters of martial arts. In addition, the Kunlun Master still exists. Hence, nobody dares to find trouble with them. The only problem is that Northern Yuan is extinguished, and Living Buddha Ba Siba was also killed by Ma Tianchang, so they don''t dare to take any big action now. However, in this way, their power is retained successfully. Your Excellency, it is also because of their retained power that you intend to cooperate with them, isn''t it?"


    "Right! I do want to cooperate with Kunlun Mountain. But even if I have established cooperation with them, it is not suitable for us to reveal that matter." Prince Ning sneered, "How can I let them get my face back?"


    "Your Royal Highness, your plan is huge and amazing, so there are many difficulties to realize it. Our behavior can''t be hidden from those who keep an eye on us. What you need to do now is to disturb things in the north. Then the people won''t be able to figure out your real purpose. As for cooperating with Kunlun Mountain, it is the first step to disturb things. Our scheme should go like this: Kunlun Mountain finds trouble with Zhou Bao in order to get his Pure Yang Celestial Device. Simultaneously, Your Royal Highness is about to find fault with Zhou Bao. Fortunately, before you find him, Zhou Bao is defeated by Kunlun Mountain and has lost his Pure Yang Celestial Device. At that time, if Zhou Bao still lives, things will be easy for us."


    "Your reasoning quite makes sense!" Prince Ning nodded nonstop after hearing the young intellectual''s words and added, "But what if Kunlun Mountain cannot deal with Zhou Bao either? Don''t forget one thing: Zhou Bao also has a powerful influence behind him!"


    "If Kunlun Mountain can''t take him down either, Your Royal Highness needs not to deal with him anymore. We''d better make friends with him!" The young intellectual smiled bitterly. "Everything is illusory when one is that powerful. The alternative is to instigate trouble between him and other influences. In a word, we shouldn''t encounter him directly."


    "Humph!"


    Prince Ning knew that the young intellectual''s words made sense, but they still made him angry. "I am Prince Ning, descendant of the Celestial Emperor, do I really have to submit to that wild boy?!"


    The young intellectual was silent. He lowered his head and was still smiling like an innocent lamb.


    "Alright. In that case, go to Kunlun Mountain and ask for cooperation. Bai Qinghu, you go with him."


    "Yes, Your Royal Highness!"


    Suddenly, a man stood up near the desk. He bowed to Prince Ning and spoke respectfully.


    "Your Royal Highness, now that we want to use Kunlun Mountain to deal with Zhou Bao, we still need to make our stance clear before it happens!" At that moment, another intellectual stood up and said, "If we don''t show them our attitude, people will think we are truly afraid of that wild boy."


    "Yes, you are right. Yu Cai, please dispatch somebody to start trouble with Zhou Bao right now. And one more thing, the subordinates cultivation shouldn''t be too high. A Level Three or Four cultivation is enough. I guess Zhou Bao won''t deal with the people whose cultivation is so low!"


    "Yes, sir. I''m on my way."


    ...


    ...


    "Eh, this bastard Prince Ning, what''s his purpose? Is he crazy? How can he dispatch only a few of them here? Their strength is so lame, but their attitude is unyielding in contrast. What on earth do they want?" Since Zhou Bao had expelled the martial artists who had snuck into his territory with violence, his territory immediately became quiet.


    Zhou Bao already felt bored, but the quietness made him even more bored. Since he established the sentry post, nobody dared to trespass on his territory and the small town using Lightness Skills or martial arts. Although martial arts practitioners would also go through this area, all of them followed his rules. After all, it was a joke to attempt to fool a Level Seven expert''s spiritual mind in such a small town.


    Meanwhile, they were also well-behaved when they entered the town. Except for asking about rumors, they never did anything exceptional. Hence, Zhou Bao appeared rather bored now. As for the yard, few would even go there. The reason was simple: scouts who had entered there already knew what was there.


    The yard was only a place that Zhou Bao used to practice his martial arts. And people who could sneak out of the yard all had a good cultivation. Therefore, they could notice the Evil Qi under the mine vein. It turned out that the rumors were real. Zhou Bao decided to build his yard there to practice a sort of special technique because an Earth Vein Evil Qi was located there. The refined-iron mine was nothing compared to a powerful special technique for a practitioner!


    So Zhou Bao felt rather bored. After a Level Seven expert was killed, Prince Ning finally had made a reaction yesterday. He dispatched an intellectual with guards whose cultivation was less than Level Five. They had come here in a threatening manner, asking to take back the head of the expert who had been killed and demanding an explanation for killing Prince Ning''s subordinate. Of course, Zhou Bao did not spare a glance at them and expelled them immediately. But things were weird from his point of view.


    It did not seem like Prince Ning''s normal way of doing things!


    "He only dispatched a few subordinates here. And they merely spoke a few threatening words. They left here without even fighting. What did Prince Ning want? Was he showing his white feather? Or did he have other intentions?"


    Among the sons of the Jin Emperor, Zhou Bao was most familiar with Prince Ning. And he was also most afraid of Prince Ning. Obviously, Zhou Bao would not believe that Prince Ning would let it go just like that after losing his face in a humiliating manner because this prince was always famous for his bloody and iron conduct.


    That was impossible. Even if Zhou Bao was not familiar with Prince Ning, he would not be so silly to believe that Prince Ning would just let it go.


    Since he would not let it go but, instead, did an eccentric thing, the only explanation was that Prince Ning had concocted a scheme for Zhou Bao.


    "Things are so troublesome, really freaking troublesome. As Royal Highness, why on earth do you come to the north and find fault with me? Can''t you stay in the Central Plains to enjoy an easy life?" Zhou Bao cursed Prince Ning in his mind. "The north is bitterly cold, it is not suitable for a prince to live here. He even bought some territories here. What does he want to do? Could it be that he plans to do business here?!"


    Zhou Bao recalled his talk with the Level Seven expert whom he had met on the Blacktail Plain, then he thought about Prince Ning''s recent eccentric behavior, but he could not figure out what Prince Ning wanted.


    Since he could not figure it out, Zhou Bao decided to ignore his doubts. And it did not take long for him to be drawn by another matter, which was practicing.


    Of course, he was not focused on his own body''s practice. He was actually focusing on the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion''s practice. Controlled by his thoughts, the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion had become his puppet. In addition to the Demonic Cultivation Technique that he had gotten from Green Spirit, its strength had improved dramatically. If nothing else, the poisonous needle on its tail was now unimaginably powerful and indestructible!


    It was indeed unimaginably powerful and indestructible. It would also take him a while to deal with the tail if he used his Pure Yang Celestial Device, the Golden Flame Mirror.


    The Golden Flame Mirror was a multifunctional celestial device that combined offense and defense together. It had different functions, including a golden light that had a powerful attack and a constraint force that was used to attack Black Demon Chama; Green Lotus that could block out the four holy mountains when faced with the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda; and the mysterious flame that removed Yan Fei''s spiritual brand from the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda.


    As a matter of fact, if nothing else, Zhou Bao was quite sure that the Golden Flame Mirror''s golden light could be offensive and defensive at the same time.


    However, after some experiments, he found that no matter if it was the Golden Flame Mirror''s golden light or the cyan scattered light of the Innate Green Lotus Flame, none of them could stop the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion''s stinger from thrusting in. The stinger could stab into the Golden Flame Mirror''s body more than one inch, and it almost injured the Golden Flame Mirror''s pneuma. For now, the Green Spirit Scorpion Sting had merely reached the Basic Level. Even he could not imagine what kind of power it could have when it reached the Advanced Level.


    Only then did Zhou Bao realize that the evil beast''s Natal Power might also be more powerful than a human practitioner''s celestial device.


    Zhou Bao was upset about the fact that the Golden Flame Mirror was deeply injured by the stinger. Although the device was still powerful, it already had a weak point. So, he had no choice but to use Natal Qi to cultivate the Golden Flame Mirror. It took half a month to repair the Pure Yang Celestial Device. During this period, there were three times that he almost reached Level Eight. But with great effort, he managed to suppress the intense impulse, which still left him annoyed now.


    After finishing half a month of closed-door training, the first person Zhou Bao saw when he opened the door was Zhu Ba, who was practicing in the yard. 49 Demon Devil Needles floated around Zhu Ba''s body, emitting an extreme cold spirit and scattering in different directions.


    Zhou Bao could not help but smile in appreciation, for in his eyes, even though the Demon Devil Needles seemed disordered, they were actually insidious enough.


    "Zhu Ba, it seems that you haven''t wasted your time during these days. You have improved your understanding of Demon Devil Needles!"


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 298: Kunlun Mountain

    Chapter 298: Kunlun Mountain


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Hearing the sound of Zhou Bao, Zhu Ba dared not neglect it and hastened to withdraw his Demon Devil Needles. Then he sniggered and said, "It''s all attributed to Your Excellency''s teaching. If not for the fact that Your Excellency is generous enough to impart to me the Demon Devil Needles, I would still..."


    "Good, good. As I''ve mentioned, don''t be so polite to me. Although I passed down the Demon Devil Needles to you, considering you''ve done so much for me over these years, we''re even now. Plus, I don''t have many experts on my team. The more powerful your strength is, the greater use you will provide me. Meanwhile, since my use of the Demon Devil Needles keeps lessening, who else would I give it to except you?"


    "Right, right!"


    The Demon Devil Needles were the first celestial device that Zhou Bao had obtained. Although it was at the Psychic Level, it was extremely useful and had weathered Zhou Bao through loads of dangerous situations. But later, many of the needles were snapped into pieces during his encounters with strong enemies, and as the cultivation of Zhou Bao grew gradually, he used it less and less and finally shelved it away. Then, as Zhou Bao wanted to practice the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and began to search for the Earth Vein Evil Qi with the Cold Attribute, he happened to find several places with the Earth Vein Evil Qi suitable for practicing the Demon Devil Needles, though he failed to get ahold of any earth vein that was fit for his practice of the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword. Thus, with the idea of "the more, the better", he refined the Demon Devil Needles once more and conveniently gifted it as well as the Demon Devil Formation to Zhu Ba to enhance his strength.


    However, it was almost impossible to make Zhu Ba, a man with a careless mind, figure out the wonder of the Demon Devil Needles and operate them as freely as Zhou Bao had. After several tries, Zhu Ba completely abandoned the idea of practicing the Demon Devil Formation, but only focused on exercising his control over the 49 Demon Devil Needles with his own divine thoughts.


    Speaking of Zhu Ba, he was truly a lucky guy, for he succeeded in activating his hidden bloodline and got the hang of divine thoughts with a cultivation merely at Level Five. Now, with the 49 Demon Devil Needles, he would have a chance to fight back even when facing Seventh-level experts. But of course, wanting to bombard his enemies to death and bypassing ranks like Zhou Bao had done was something out of the question.


    Also, when Zhou Bao exited training, the most excited one was, of course, Zhu Ba. The one who benefited most from Zhou Bao among those original commanders of the Navy of Jiang City was still Zhu Ba.


    "Your Excellency, thank god you finally exited training. We''re having an eventful time recently!"


    "Eventful?" Zhou Bao''s eyes narrowed a bit, and a shilling trace of murderous intent was given off by him. "What''s up? Another guy who should know better about us wants to seek undue advantages?"


    "Not that actually. It''s just that Kunlun Mountain has sent someone here!"


    "Kunlun Mountain? What Kunlun Mountain?!" Zhou Bao was a little confused.


    "I''m not clear about that, either. But Jiang Xiao seems to know something. He is having a headache about this these days. That damn ambassador from Kunlun Mountain has a cultivation of Level Seven and powerful Gang Qi all over his body! I''m not his match, but fortunately, that bloke has been sensible enough not to make any trouble after learning that Your Excellency was busy doing closed-door training. He only said that he would further the discussion with Your Excellency after you exited training."


    "First, go and summon Jiang Xiao here!" Zhou Bao nodded to show that he got it, and asked Zhu Ba to fetch Jiang Xiao.


    "A Level-Seven expert! A school which can send out Level-Seven experts! Their strength should never be underestimated. It seems that another school has come for my Pure Yang Celestial Device, the Golden Flame Mirror. Level Seven, Level Seven! Isn''t Golden Rooster here? I wonder whether they''ve bumped into each other or not!"


    While thinking, he saw Zhu Ba come running toward him followed by Jiang Xiao, who had an anxious expression on his face. Zhou Bao immediately knew that there was some trouble.


    "Your Excellency, you finally have left the training! Recently, I have been almost worried to death!" At the sight of Zhou Bao, Jiang Xiao began to pour out his grievances as if he was going to drown Zhou Bao in them.


    "Worry? What for!" Zhou Bao smiled. "Merely some guy from Kunlun Mountain came here. Why are you so upset? Well, what on earth is this Kunlun Mountain? Why do you care about it so much?"


    "Your Excellency, you don''t know what Kunlun Mountain is?" Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Jiang Xiao was a little taken aback.


    "Should I know?"


    "Your Excellency, Kunlun Mountain is one of the largest schools in Northern Yuan, only second to the Palace of Destruction Demon. Kunlun Master, one of the Three Grandmasters in Northern Yuan in previous years, is from Kunlun Mountain!"


    "Kunlun Master!


    "One of the Three Grandmasters in Northern Yuan!"


    At this point, Zhou Bao did recall that when Northern Yuan was still in existence, this Kunlun Master, along with Dark Lord Mie Chen and Living Buddha Ba Siba as the so-called Three Grandmasters, was indeed receiving offerings from Northern Yuan.


    Only because the war initiated by the Great Jin was way beyond anyone''s expectation and its result was also extremely surprising that the performance of these Three Grandmasters during the war paled in comparison with the legends about them. And many people even believed that the Three Grandmasters were not worthy of their reputation.


    But Zhou Bao never dared to think as they all did.


    Among the Three Grandmasters, Dark Lord Mie Chen was the one who he had come across, and that encounter was not a comfortable memory at all.


    At that time, his strength still belonged to another realm and no Pure Yang Celestial Device was at hand, but he oddly injured Mie Chen with his Fiery Eyes and gave Wang She an opportunity to rise and devastate Mie Chen.


    Although he was badly injured in that fight, he shared the current idea of the people in thinking that the Three Grandmasters were nothing more than this.


    But as his strength was growing day by day, every time he looked back upon that prior situation, he started to realize how lucky he had gotten in that fight.


    The cultivation of Mie Chen was about to break through Level Nine then, which was in the Demi-Mysterious Realm. If Mie Chen had not been that reckless, he would not have had the opportunity to even activate his Fiery Eyes. Further, if his Fiery Eyes had not been able to directly attack the spirit, which was really beyond the expectation of Mie Chen, Wang She might not have successfully imposed a sneak attack on him!


    It was a string of accidents and coincidences that enabled them to miraculously turn the tables. But now, if you asked Zhou Bao to repeat his victory once more, he would stand no chance to achieve that.


    That was a miracle!


    And as for Ba Siba and Kunlun Master, they had not gotten the chance to show off their abilities¡ªBa Siba''s cultivation already topped the Metaphysical Realm, but he was subdued by a fairy weapon, which was the most helpless situation a man could be caught in. Precisely because he never had an opportunity to strike, others had not been able to witness the real demeanor of this Living Buddha with the Golden Body.


    Once a fairy weapon struck out, it was time to retreat and recoil even if you had thousands of armed forces.


    Kunlun Master reluctantly withdrew his forces to Kunlun Mountain, and since then, not even a single piece of information about him had ever trickled out.


    Exactly for this reason, no one had ever seen any of the Three Grandmasters strike in a fight, except for a handful of people. Such a dim performance that they presented to the world was far inconsistent with their titles as the Three Grandmasters. Therefore, after a long time, people reduced this moniker to something that was in name only!


    In name only!


    Although others might have thought that, Zhou Bao was not stupid enough to believe it. Thus, with the words of Jiang Xiao, Zhou Bao felt his heart sink to his stomach.


    "Bring me to meet them!"


    "Yes!"


    The people from Kunlun Mountain were staying right in the little town at the foot of Jilei Mountain.


    The town had already taken shape, but due to its remote geography, no inns could be found there. Accordingly, Jiang Xiao developed a small courtyard in the center of the town, which was used to accommodate those who came here requiring a meeting with Zhou Bao. Of course, not any random man was allowed to stay there but only those with high statuses or extraordinary cultivation.


    "You''re Zhou Bao?"


    There were a total of five men from Kunlun Mountain. Their leader was a middle-aged man with a cold look, who was emitting freezing spirit from every bit of his body, rendering Zhou Bao very uneasy.


    Aside from him, the other four had also reached a Level Six cultivation. They were wearing clothes that had the same pattern, blatantly announcing that they had come as a party.


    Seeing Jiang Xiao guiding Zhou Bao in, before Jiang Xiao could say a word, the middle-aged man directly asked that question in a very impolite tone, which made Zhou Bao quite uncomfortable.


    "It seems that men from Kunlun Mountain truly lack some manners!" Zhou Bao put on a stern expression and said. When dealing with those impolite guys, he would not need to treat them with his politeness. "Jiang Xiao, our place does not welcome these guys. Send them away!"


    As he spoke, he turned around to leave the courtyard.


    "Hold on!" The middle-aged man in the lead darkened his face. "Zhou Bao, if you leave here today, you''ll regret it!"


    "In all my life, never have I known how to write the term regret!" Zhou Bao looked over his shoulder, his eyes flickering with a fierce light. "Now that you want to provoke us, you''ve achieved your goal! Get out right now! If you are still in my territory in an hour, I''ll start killing!"


    "Your Excellency!" Jiang Xiao did not imagine that they would get into such a mess upon first sight, and he began to open his mouth to conciliate them.


    "You shut up!" Zhou Bao''s eyes turned freezingly cold as he cast him a ferocious glance. "From now on, never bring these nobodies in front of us!"


    "Uh, yes!" Seeing the cold look of Zhou Bao, Jiang Xiao''s heart thumped abruptly, and he hastily replied and lowered his head.


    "Zhou Bao, you will pay for your arrogance!" Behind him, the snarl of the middle-aged man was heard. Zhou Bao did not look back, but a hint of a dismissive smile flitted across his face.


    "Kunlun Mountain, isn''t it? Well, I''d like to see how powerful the second largest school of Northern Yuan from the legends can be! "


    The same as the Central Plains!


    In those years, Northern Yuan also had some martial arts schools. However, on this vast prairie, the weak was always the prey of the strong, who had no right to survive. Hence, in this nomadic kingdom, nothing like the little schools or gangs of the Central Plains, which were as numerous as the sand, would exist at all because those local bully gangs that could merely take up land to declare their dominance would have no chance to survive.


    A school that managed to survive in this place undoubtedly had solid strength. In fact, the largest school in Northern Yuan was the Palace of Destruction Demon, followed by Kunlun Mountain. Their status was quite the same as the Three Great Sects of the Central Plains, or even surpassed it. But due to the fast change of the world, the two great schools had not gotten around to reacting. Adding in the deterrence of the fairy weapon, the Clear Glass Jade Bottle, both of them finally stopped all of their activities and lay low. Even so, the Great Jin still did not dare to mess with these two schools but acquiesced to their existence. Though the Jin provided fewer offerings to them, they were still treated with privilege. However, Zhou Bao did not care about that, but he did know this situation. It was just that it never occurred to him that he would ever engage with these two schools, so when Zhu Ba and Jiang Xiao mentioned them in the first place, he failed to think about that for a moment.


    Nevertheless, he could do nothing even if he had remembered that because he never intended to get on well with those two sects. Putting the Palace of Destruction Demon aside first, it was him who hammered Mie Chen, so how could they be friendly toward him? As to this Kunlun Master, he did not know much about him, nor did he presume that this old turtle would ever show him a smiling face.


    Therefore, he had been clinging to the idea that he would never make any contact with those people.


    But now, even though he had not contacted them, they had come to contact him. As he stepped into that courtyard, Zhou Bao had sensed an extremely disagreeable emotion. Then, judging from the rude greeting of that middle-aged man at the first sight of him, Zhou Bao realized that Kunlun Mountain wanted to pick a bone with him.


    When dealing with anyone who, without having been troubled by him before, came to provoke him first, he was always hard on them. It could be said that he loathed people like them. Thus, just at the first words of that man, he had lost all patience to feign his friendliness in front of those Kunlun Mountain men and directly headed out.


    "Your Excellency, Kunlun Mountain was one of the most powerful influences in Northern Yuan. Although Northern Yuan has been overthrown now and people of Kunlun Mountain all became sinners, this downfall has not affected Kunlun Mountain or the Palace of Destruction Demon. These two sects are still of strong influence. Moreover, lots of remaining people of Northern Yuan are still struggling to survive on the northern prairie, who also listen to the orders of the two sects. But most of all, Your Excellency, your territory is sitting right in the previous sphere of influence of Kunlun Mountain, so..."


    "So I''d better not turn against Kunlun Mountain, right?" Zhou Bao asked with a smile.


    "Yes, Your Excellency. I reckon this is for your own good as well as for your territory. It''s better not to incur any conflict with those from Kunlun Mountain!"


    "Good. From your level and perspective, what you''ve said does make sense. But Jiang Xiao, there are other things that you don''t understand. You think that those Kunlun Mountain guys wouldn''t have made trouble for me if I had treated them with manners, but that''s not true. Certainly, they would still try every means to come after me, not for anything else, but for my Pure Yang Celestial Device."


    Zhou Bao continued in a soft voice, but his face revealed a trace of resignation. "The fact that I have a Pure Yang Celestial Device may have a deterring effect on those idling martial arts practitioners or those small and middle sects and well-known families. However, for Kunlun Mountain, the Palace of Destruction Demon, or even the Mingyi School, this is a chunk of delicious fatty meat that might be a little too greasy to swallow. Besides, considering the shadow of Tian Long Taoism is right behind me, they''re just unwilling to act indiscreetly. But they''re biding their time to wolf down this fatty meat of mine. Though I''ve gained some strength so far, I''m still too weak to face those immensely powerful influences. And just because I''m weak, I need to enhance my power more than ever. I have to present my solid strength to let them have something to worry about, to let them know that I''m not the one they can easily mess with. Only by these means can we keep living a peaceful life here. Otherwise, if there is always someone targeting us, your life won''t be easy either, will it?"


    "So, Your Excellency has picked Kunlun Mountain?"


    "Mighty as Kunlun Mountain is, it''s still a school in the north. After the collapse of Northern Yuan, its power already has been significantly slashed. They do have some experts at hand, but I also have my Pure Yang Celestial Device. As long as I have it, I''m confident in a fight against a Level Nine expert. Once he makes any unusual moves, I''ll have the guts to challenge that Kunlun Master with a real battle!"


    "You want to challenge Kunlun Master in a battle?" Jiang Xiao was dumbstruck hearing Zhou Bao''s plan, and he almost leaped to his feet in the end when he learned that Zhou Bao intended to fight against Kunlun Master, who was at least a Level Nine expert and a Grandmaster of Northern Yuan, regardless of what others implied. Even though Zhou Bao''s fighting record was amazing, no matter how amazing it was, his combat capability was defined as being at the peak of Level Eight, which in no case would be mentioned in the same breath as that of a Level Nine expert!


    "Right, challenge Kunlun Master in a battle!" Zhou Bao growled viciously. "Previously, I challenged Wang Yuebai of the Wang family, the purpose of which was actually the same thing¡ªto build up my prestige. It''s just because nobody knew that I had a Pure Yang Celestial Device, so it was quite effective to beat a Level Eight expert with it. But now it''s different. A Pure Yang Celestial Device is worth much more than a Level Eight expert at the peak level. Therefore, only if I defeat a Level Nine expert in broad daylight can the world know that my combat capability is at Level Nine, so that no one will dare to act recklessly and plot to target us!"


    "But, will this work? Your Excellency, we''re talking about Level Nine experts! Besides¡ª"


    "Besides, his cultivation is at the peak of Level Nine!" Zhou Bao grinned. "If he didn''t have such a strong power, why would I make use of him to set up my prestige all over the world?"


    "But Kunlun Mountain does have more than one expert aside from him!" Jiang Xiao shook his head repeatedly. "Kunlun Mountain has been thriving and dominating in the northwest for thousands of years, with experts emerging one after another. In addition, a millennium sect like this one is bound to have a Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "I''ve already thought this through, and I know for sure that they have a Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Zhou Bao said with a sneer.


    "Since you do know they have a Pure Yang Celestial Device, how could you still¡ª"


    "They do have one, so what? I''m sure Kunlun Master will never make use of that Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Why not?"


    "Once he uses it, then, even if he kills me, Kunlun Mountain will be doomed to disappear in no time!" Zhou Bao said as he was beaming. "Northern Yuan is now gone, but the two sects are still there. Do you reckon that the Jin Emperor and the Three Great Sects of the Central Plains will let them stay there? The reason that they haven''t made a move yet is just that they fear the strength of the two sects. Leaving the Palace of Destruction Demon aside, let''s talk about the Kunlun Sect. This is a huge sect, but judging from their performance over the years, they only have one Pure Yang Celestial Device to steady their fate. The second that they use it, the rest of the world will know what their ace card is. When their true strength is unveiled, will you still think that the Three Great Sects would leave them free and unfettered? Above all, since I have a misty relationship with Tian Long Taoism, they will certainly have scruples about that when I challenge Kunlun Master. Plus, Kunlun Master is already a peak Level Nine expert, who must want to maintain his self-respect, so he definitely will not use that Pure Yang Celestial Device at the start."


    "But it''s always wise to play it safe!"


    "Nothing unsafe will happen. I''m not that thick, ok? If something really happens, I''ll certainly be the first to run for it. Even with his Pure Yang Celestial Device at hand, Kunlun Master will have no way to stop me once I decide to flee!" Zhou Bao said to Jiang Xiao with a pretty confident smile. "Thus, Jiang Xiao, there is nothing that you need to worry about. It''s merely a big school that has already passed its prime. The reason that Kunlun Mountain popped out is just because they badly need my Pure Yang Celestial Device to replenish their strength and that''s it!"


    "Your Excellency seems to know some inside information that I don''t know about!" After hearing Zhou Bao''s remarks, a hint of bewilderment flashed through Jiang Xiao''s eyes.


    "Not inside information, just some tips from a friend!" Zhou Bao waved his hand, turned away, and left.

 Chapter 299: Prince Nings Ambition and Zhou Baos Cruelty

    Chapter 299: Prince Ning''s Ambition and Zhou Bao''s Cruelty


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Zhou Bao behaved mysteriously and seemed to be concealing something. However, Jiang Xiao could do nothing about it. Anyway, now he knew that Zhou Bao did not mean to risk his life, but instead, felt confident in himself. Jiang Xiao felt calm as if he had laid down a big stone that had been pressing on him.


    Zhou Bao was the key person among them and was also their backer. If there was something bad that happened to Zhou Bao, their own lives together with their families would be at risk, let alone their future fortunes and happiness. Thus, regarding Zhou Bao and everything to do with the territory, Jiang Xiao was greatly concerned.


    And as Zhou Bao left Jiang Xiao and used his body movements to flash away, he finally arrived at the construction site of the villa. Since his body movement was so fast, the people building the villa did not notice him at all. They only felt a smooth wind blowing around them.


    "Golden Rooster, what on earth does this Kunlun Mountain want to do?"


    Going inside the mine vein through the secret passageway that was opened by Sun Rat of Emptiness, Zhou Bao first found Golden Rooster chatting with Moon Deer of the Extended Net. When he met the people from Kunlun Mountain at that time, Golden Rooster passed his words to him secretly and asked him not to be polite to those from Kunlun Mountain. Most of what he expressed to Jiang Xiao just now was the result of Golden Rooster''s words.


    Therefore, as soon as he had gotten rid of Jiang Xiao, he came to Golden Rooster immediately and wanted to find out what had happened.


    "What do they want? Obviously, Kunlun Mountain wants to cause you trouble!" Glancing at Moon Deer of the Extended Net, Golden Rooster smiled and spoke as he saw Zhou Bao''s arrival. "You little boy! You should know common sense¡ªno financial exposure. Though you have a Pure Yang Celestial Device, you should not show it like this. Now you have already attracted a group of envious ''wolves''!"


    "What f*cking envious wolves! Even Kunlun Mountain has no reason to abruptly cause me trouble! Don''t they want to hide their capabilities and bide their time?"


    "By stealing your Pure Yang Celestial Device, they can also take their time to cultivate themselves better!" Golden Rooster smiled and answered him. "It''s Moon Deer of the Extended Net that found the problem in this situation. Let him tell you! "


    Hearing this, Zhou Bao turned to Moon Deer of the Extended Net with a puzzled expression.


    Moon Deer of the Extended Net grinned. "There are two reasons for Kunlun Mountain to cause you trouble. Firstly, your territory belongs to their previous sphere of influence and you are the toughest guy to deal with within their influence. If they could kill you, it would not be hard to restore their influence to the same level as it was before the war. To them, the only difference is that those who originally served them, the tribes of Northern Yuan, have changed their allegiance to you lords from the South. You know, though these lords contributed a lot during the war with Northern Yuan, they are not powerful enough. Facing a huge power like Kunlun Mountain, they have no ability to win. As for the Great Jin, it''s too far to control and manage them. Secondly, Kunlun Mountain''s attitude is provoked and induced by someone who wants to trouble you through taking advantage of Kunlun Mountain''s power. "


    "Do you mean Prince Ning?" Zhou Bao said thoughtfully with a flash in his eyes.


    "You are smart. It''s Prince Ning. How did you get that?"


    "In the Northwest, though there are lots of enfeoffed territories, none of the lords from there have the power or influence to threaten me. Only Prince Ning does, as His Royal Highness has trouble with me and is very ambitious. While he acts very confidentially in the Northwest, it''s not convenient for him to deal with me publicly, but he could hassle me secretly!"


    "That''s it! It''s Prince Ning that has provoked this whole thing!" Moon Deer of the Extended Net replied, "Besides, I also discovered Prince Ning''s ambition!"


    "He wants to conquer the Northwest?!" Hearing the word "conquer", Zhou Bao abruptly trembled. Thinking about this possibility and considering the previous clues, Zhou Bao could not conceal the shock in his eyes. "Does this guy want to occupy the Northwest Region?"


    Moon Deer of the Extended Net nodded slightly and showed his appreciation of Zhou Bao. "It''s true. Prince Ning has a plan to conquer the Northwest. He bought several territories from the comparatively weaker lords. Those territories could be his base. He also cooperated with Kunlun Mountain, secretly intending to make Kunlun Mountain his backer of force. He plans to keep a foothold in the Northwest Region and then seek hegemony within it."


    "Seeking hegemony in the Northwest Region?" Zhou Bao grinned coldly and said, "Then I have become sore in his eyes or a thorn in his side!"


    "Yes! Your influence is growing too fast, which is out of his expectation! The bigger your influence becomes, the sooner that he wants to kill you. Even though he might not kill you, he could weaken your influence and make you subject to him!" Moon Deer of the Extended Net answered with a smile.


    "Occupy the Northwest? How dare he! He is the Prince of Jin. Though he''s not the Crown Prince, he still is one of the most powerful princes and has plenty of opportunities in the future!" Jin Yuquan frowned and was unable to understand it. "Moon Deer of the Extended Net, you''ve never told me about this before!"


    "It''s all nonsense to you! Considering your intelligence and the question that you asked just now, you will just be laughed at!" Moon Deer of the Extended Net mocked him with a teasing expression. "You won''t understand Prince Ning''s intelligence!"


    "Intelligence? I really can''t understand his so-called intelligence!" Mocked by Moon Deer of the Extended Net, Golden Rooster showed a bad expression rather than directly fighting with him. "What benefits can he gain in the Northwest Region?"


    "What benefits? If he can seize the Northwest Region, even though he can''t find a country, his position would be almost the same as an emperor''s. The size of the Northwest Region isn''t smaller than the Plains. If it''s well managed, in several decades it will be a big country on par with the previous Western Region. Isn''t that better than competing with his snaky brothers for the far-reaching emperor''s position?" Moon Deer of the Extended Net grinned coldly. "That''s why he''s smart. He has already clearly understood that the position will most likely not fall into his hands. That''s why he is abandoning everything from the Central Plains and transferring all he has to the Northwest Region!"


    "What? He''s transferring all his power to the Northwest Region?" With a sudden shock, a flash of incredible light shined in Zhou Bao''s eyes. "What a guy! If he really wants to control the Northwest, doesn''t he worry about the interference from the Central Plains? His father is a tough character who won''t be cheated so easily!"


    "That''s why he cooperates with Kunlun Mountain and hides on the dark side without any big movement. However, small actions always continue!" Moon Deer of the Extended Net said.


    Narrowing his eyes, Zhou Bao thought for a while. "Prince Ning has already gathered lots of powers in the Central Plains. And dealing with the lords in the Northwest, he will soon beat them without any big movement. These lords are newcomers without any base here. In the desolate and inhabited Northwest Region, coordinating with the local bully, Kunlun Mountain, and suppressing these lords by military force, Prince Ning can easily control them. These lords don''t have any resisting force and will definitely transfer their territories to Prince Ning, who behaves like their little master!"


    "Right! All he needs to do is to secretly control those territories, transfer the rights to his followers, and wait for the right time!" Moon Deer of the Extended Net said, "Now, you are his only trouble. You have the strongest power among all these tribes and are the toughest one to deal with. What''s more, you are smart and close to him. You must sense something about all of his many movements. To make sure that his plan goes smoothly and he achieves his ambition come, he needs to kill you first!"


    "It seems that he doesn''t have any luck. He chose the wrong opponent at the very beginning!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly. "He wants to use me as an example? Prince Ning isn''t qualified!"


    "Right! Prince Ning, at most, worries about the connection between you and Tian Long Taoism. He doesn''t know about the relationship between you and the Immortal Palace. Actually, he may not know whether the Immortal Palace exists or not!" Moon Deer of the Extended Net smiled.


    "He should know about the existence of the Immortal Palace. But as for the connection between me and the palace, he might not know!" Zhou Bao shook his head and continued, "If he wants to play with me, I''ll keep him company until the end. Making trouble in the Northwest, he is unluckily in the wrong place!"


    "He has no choice! After the enfeoffment in the north, the Northwest Region is comparatively weaker in force. See, the Seven Troops of the Southern Yard of Northern Yuan has already been taken away by Jin. If carrying on hegemony in the southern area, he will find a dead end for himself. As the central part of Northern Yuan, it has already been authorized to the millennium families and great figures who have superpowers. He can''t take any action there. As to the northeast area that faces the sea, there is no back up there and, what''s more, where the original tribes live has not been enfeoffed. It''s a barren and worthless land. Thus, the only place he can act is in the northwest."


    "I see!" Zhou Bao nodded. "Anyway, Prince Ning is smart. Pity for him!"


    "Yeah! What a pity!"


    "And what about the Azure Secret Area?"


    "Mouse has been busy inside. The progress is pretty good without needing to wait for half a year. Four or five months will be enough!"


    "As soon as possible, please! I''m bored to death here."


    "You still feel bored now?" Moon Deer of the Extended Net smiled and said, "We are the real bored people, staying and living underground all day long!"


    "That''s your own choice! You surely can let Mouse stay underground by himself and just walk out to take a look. Though it''s a little remote here, the scenery of Jilei Mountain looks great. You are so responsible that I feel embarrassed to invite you out!" Zhou Bao grinned. "But if you are really so responsible, how can you get so much news?"


    Moon Deer of the Extended Net flushed. "I have my own news source. You don''t need to care about that and should only take care of your own business!"


    "You''re right! I''ll deal with my own things! Kunlun Mountain will soon take some actions and I won''t be bored anymore!" Zhou Bao replied happily.


    "Kunlun Mountain is the second largest school in the north with many experts. Can you hold off all of them by yourself?" Golden Rooster felt worried. "Though you have a Pure Yang Celestial Device, you are still on your own!"


    "I get your point! Don''t worry! I can handle it! Surely, I won''t fight against them alone. I know that you have your own methods to bring Wang She here!" Zhou Bao added, "When he gets here, everything will be better!"


    "You asked Wang She to help you?"


    "I need help here since I can''t contain the entire situation alone. Wang She stays at Tian Long Taoism and has nothing to do all day long. Can''t he come here to relax his muscles and bones?" Zhou Bao smiled. "I believe that he must be willing to play here! "Not only him, but if Tian Long Taoism gets to know this, they''ll agree to let him crack down on Kunlun Mountain. After all, the world was divided into Three Great Sects before. Another two now want to make a name for themselves. None of the Three Great Sects are willing to accept this situation. If I can help them to suppress Kunlun Mountain this time, surely they''ll be very glad."


    "I get your point! I''ll inform Wang She immediately. Within five days, he''ll be here!"


    "It''s okay now!" Zhou Bao smiled. "Take your time here and tell us any problem that you face. I''ll try my best to meet your requirements!"


    ...


    ...


    Kunlun Mountain acted so fast that Zhou Bao had no time to react. The third day after they left, Zhou Bao got the news that a group of shepherds that appeared in his territory planned to live there for a long time. The news came from the old man, Gesang. These days, Old Gesang had been the leader among the criminals of Northern Yuan from his territory in the Central Plains with a high prestige among the citizens. And considering his close connection between the surviving stragglers of Northern Yuan, he kept up with everything.


    In Zhou Bao''s territory, there were some idle herdsmen who survived the fall of Northern Yuan and did not want to change their customs. Zhou Bao did not set any rules for them except that they make no trouble. Actually, they always remained in peace and did normal things like shepherding in this land, communicating with some criminals who lived in Zhou Bao''s territory, trading for some necessities among their own shepherds, and getting some news. Zhou Bao was quite satisfied.


    But recently, things had changed a little.


    It seemed that someone had started to organize the herdsmen living in his territory to be a tribe and they planned to live in his territory for a long time.


    However, if they were just normal herdsmen, Zhou Bao would not care too much. The problem was that these newly arriving herdsmen obviously had some connections with Kunlun Mountain. Judging from the news of Old Gesang, they were very likely from Kunlun Mountain and planned to found a new tribe in his territory.


    His territory was actually part of Kunlun Mountain back in the time of Northern Yuan. For these people, Kunlun Mountain was a holy mountain and people from there were representatives of Grassland God.


    This group of herdsmen lost their country and idled around everywhere. They were unwilling to be subject to the new lord. Now they felt extremely excited and refreshed when they met the representatives of the holy mountain. They thought that the Grassland God might have still remembered them and had come to save them by dispatching the oracles.


    Stirred up by the people of Kunlun Mountain, they started to found a new tribe. The place that they chose fell just inside of Zhou Bao''s territory, less than 100 miles away from his little town centralization.


    "These damned guys! They are courting death!"


    Knowing the exact position where they found the tribe, Zhou Bao could not control himself anymore, filling himself with strong murderous intent. Zhou Bao knew that place, which was at the foot of the Jilei Mountain. With flourishing grasses, plenty of water, and a moderate climate, it was a sanctum there. Zhou Bao took that place as his first destination to develop when he finished setting up his base and his development of the territory. He never expected that someone else would occupy it before him. What was worse was that they belonged to Kunlun Mountain.


    This was a total act of provocation!


    But he thought too much about this. They were located there only because of the good Fengshui. They had no idea that he, Zhou Bao, also wanted that place.


    No matter what, they messed up in his territory that was enfeoffed by the Imperial Court, and they apparently disgraced him. And Zhou Bao would definitely have no plan to respect them.


    At Zhou Bao''s speed, hundreds of miles only took him several breaths worth of time to arrive there. What made Zhou Bao angry was that looking down from the sky, dozens of big or small tents had been set up forming a pattern similar to the previous tribes of Northern Yuan. A huge tent was set in the center point, in which lived the tribe captains and the other leaders. The other small tents were lived in by the normal herdsmen. These tribes that had suddenly popped up occupied many square miles around.


    At the same time, Zhou Bao could clearly smell several strong spirits from this tribe that belonged to the experts.


    "Five experts who are in at least Level Seven and more than 20 masters of martial arts belonging to the Bone-Forging Realm are all here. Their forces could easily destroy a middle-sized well-known family. Kunlun Mountain did dispatch a lot of them here. But, why the f*ck did they do this?!"


    A killing intent shone in the eyes of Zhou Bao. With a golden light shining on the back of his head, Zhou Bao offered up the Golden Flame Mirror. And a straight beam of golden light flew to the biggest tent fiercely!


    He had already sensed that three of the five experts who were above Level Seven were in the biggest tent and the other two were wandering among the tribe. Followed by the more than 20 masters of martial arts in the Bone-Forging Realm, they were cruising around and inspecting.


    So, Zhou Bao started his attack without hesitation.


    "What the f*ck!" As soon as the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror had been sent out, the three experts lead by the white-clothed Elder felt something wrong. They were about to leave but, obviously, they could not move faster than the light.


    As they were about to move, the fierce golden light burst straight down on them, covering the whole tent completely, and the tent turned into ash immediately. Through the golden light, there were three light points flashing that were the Gang Qi launched by the three experts. They tried to resist the power of the Golden Flame Mirror.


    Unfortunately, compared with the strong Golden Flame Mirror, their Gang Qi could only defend for a very short moment. Their Gang Qi would die out under the Golden Light like a dead light socket.


    Everything happened so abruptly and nobody expected Zhou Bao''s sudden attack without any notice. And no one had correctly predicted that his Pure Yang Celestial Device would have such superpowers. Even the Second Elder, whose cultivation had reached Level Eight, could not defend himself for even one moment. It was too late for them to react.


    Three experts together with the upstarts in the tent had been destroyed into ashes under Zhou Bao''s attack.


    "Second Elder! How dare you, Zhou Bao...!"


    One of the two experts who lead the 20 followers patrolling the tribe reacted first. He shouted and waved his hands, sending a mighty power out to Zhou Bao.


    "Cheap Trick!" Glancing at the white light, Zhou Bao showed his mocking smile coldly. As the golden light behind his head flashed, it hovered above a white light. Being covered by the Golden Flame Mirror, the white light stopped in midair. Standing still there, it was actually a white bead shinning with a crystal-like light.


    "A pretty good celestial device! It should be a Celestial Device of the Mysterious Level. What a pity! Didn''t you know that I have a Pure Yang Celestial Device?!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly. Lifting up his finger lightly, Zhou Bao grabbed the flashing, white bead-shaped celestial device with the restrained golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror.


    "How dare you, Zhou Bao!" At the same time, the two experts jumped into the air and dashed toward Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao could clearly recognize that one of them was the middle-aged man that visited him that day.


    "I was wondering who had the guts to cause me trouble! You Kunlun Mountain again!" Facing the two oncoming experts, Zhou Bao did not worry much as he moved the Golden Flame Mirror. The two fighting experts had to dodge the golden light at their first sight of it. As they had already seen with their own eyes, if they were covered by that golden light, they would die a graveless death.


    "Humph! How rebellious you Kunlun Mountain are! You dare to collude with the traitors and sinners and attack an Imperial Court official! I''ve found out your plan. You acknowledge your guilt and get down on your knees quickly! Otherwise, even if you can survive today, later, when I inform the Imperial Court, you Kunlun Mountain will still be extinguished by the troops!" Offering up the Golden Flame Mirror, Zhou Bao shouted in a loud voice with a happy mood!


    Being chased by the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror, the two experts of Kunlun Mountain were in a terrible dilemma in which there was no way to heaven and no access to hell. Hearing what Zhou Bao had said, they were full of rage. The middle-aged man replied furiously, "Zhou Bao, how shameless you are! You raid us and kill our Elders, Kunlun Mountain will never forgive you or let you go easily!"


    "Humph! Do you think that Kunlun Mountain can be a threat to me?" Summoning his thoughts, Zhou Bao made the golden light project and burst out furiously! The scattering rain of light covered the two hidden experts!


    "Damn it!"


    "Watch out!"


    The two experts screamed out and started their Gang Qi immediately! But the power of that rain of light seemed to suppress their Gang Qi particularly and was so powerful that it fell onto the two experts. Even though they had already flashed very quickly, they still fell down to the ground screaming loudly as they were being beaten by the rain of light.


    Standing in midair, Zhou Bao caught the Golden Flame Mirror behind his head. With a slight shake, the rain of light disappeared and subsequently, a strong power was reflected from the mirror!


    It was different from the straight golden light. This time, the light of the golden light took the Golden Flame Mirror as the center, spreading all over and forming a huge light cover. The entire newly settled tribe was completely covered by the golden light.


    ...

 Chapter 300: The Strength of Kunlun Mountain

    Chapter 300: The Strength of Kunlun Mountain


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Neither human beings nor anything inside could move a step, even though they were not hurt. It turned out that Zhou Bao had launched the constraint function of the Golden Flame Mirror and imprisoned all of them.


    "Zhou Bao, what do you want?"


    The middle-aged man in white, who could not display his cultivation because of the constraint, gradually gathered himself after his initial rage and coldly asked Zhou Bao with a disconsolate stare.


    "Now you have fierce anger. Let me make you angrier!" With a fingertip, Zhou Bao launched a layer of light-colored firelight, which later surrounded the man confined in the golden light. The middle-aged man turned white and began to shiver as if suffering from a great deal of pain. He gritted his teeth, which produced a buzzing sound, but said nothing, showing an unyielding personality.


    "Oh, you are one tough nut!" Zhou Bao slightly raised his eyebrows and sneered. When he was about to increase the power of the firelight, an expert at Level Seven beside the middle-aged man said, "Zhou Bao, don''t you think that you are too audacious? Even though what we have done might have offended you, you shouldn''t fight against us without any warning and kill three Elders of our Kunlun Mountain. Don''t you know that your reckless behavior will bring you a catastrophe!"


    Zhou Bao threw a glance at him, a fat guy with tender skin with an expression of amiability on his face. In other circumstances, Zhou Bao believed that he would have definitely beamed, showing a comfortable smile. The first time that Zhou Bao saw him, he knew that it would be much more difficult to deal with this fatso than the middle-aged man.


    "A catastrophe, indeed!" Looking at the fat man, Zhou Bao shook his head and said, "But it''s not I that caused the catastrophe, but you, Kunlun Mountain!"


    As he spoke, he glanced at the surroundings with his cold eyes. "You know that Northern Yuan has fallen and the Jin''s attitude toward the Northern Yuan convicts is clear. At this time, you Kunlun Mountain dare to help stragglers of Northern Yuan rebuild tribes. Do you want to rebel?"


    "We just helped those poor herdsmen find a place to stay, not rebuild their tribe!" Zhou Bao''s words made the fatso a little nervous. Certainly, he would not admit they had given assistance to the stragglers to make a comeback. "They wander in the prairie and act as a symbol of the regional instability. If you don''t pay a close attention to them, they will become thieves or bandits. I think you Jin don''t wish to see those bandits run wild in the northern prairie, do you? We help them build shelters, not to fight against the Jin, but to ensure the stability of the north!"


    "Really? I don''t think so!" Zhou Bao grimly laughed at the fatso''s words. "This is my territory. Those people are my citizens because they stay in my place, and should obey the rules that I established. Now, they occupy a piece of land and start a tribe without authorization. Their behavior is equal to a rebellion and you Kunlun Mountain are exactly the backers behind them. By all means, I''ll report this matter to the Imperial Court!"


    The fatso paused for a short while and then determined to change the topic. The meaning of Zhou Bao''s words was clear and obvious. As the lord of the territory, he did have the right to kill several sinners on his property, which was a piece of cake, and would not be punished by the Jin. As for the three murdered Elders of Kunlun Mountain, Zhou Bao could easily lessen his responsibility. From the angle of justice, his action was reasonable. Arguing with him about this matter was equivalent to asking for trouble.


    Therefore, the fatso gave up debating with him about the issue. "Reasonable, what you say is reasonable. This is your territory. You could do anything that you like here. Even if you call a circle a square or black, white, no one will oppose you. But I have to remind you that although the Jin is powerful, this place is beyond the reach of its power because of the long distance!"


    "Right, you''re right. This place indeed is beyond the Jin''s grasp and many people in the Imperial Court are waiting to see me as a joke and how I die. Thus, no one will help me if I submit a report concerning this matter. The Jin officials will, at most, order to reprimand you Kunlun Mountain!"


    "Now that you know that, why are you so aggressive?" The fatso frowned.


    He was not fond of smart people, especially intelligent and insightful ones like Zhou Bao. In front of those people, you should not talk useless nonsense.


    "Why can''t I be aggressive? This here is my territory. If I''m not aggressive, who will obey me?" Zhou Bao lifted the corners of his mouth and looked at the fatso with a faint smile. "I know your Kunlun Mountain is powerful and now colludes with Prince Ning. But I have to warn you that Prince Ning''s abilities and wisdom don''t match his great ambition, even though these virtues are good. Be careful not to be involved in trouble with him!"


    "What do you know?" The fatso''s face changed and took on a ghastly expression. He was acquainted with the cooperation between Kunlun Mountain and Prince Ning and indeed impressed by the competent royalty. Though his impression was favorable, his heart sank after hearing Zhou Bao''s words.


    That should have been a secret. Now this young lord said it lightly. What did that mean?


    It meant that the collaboration that seemed to be watertight and confidential turned out to be a joke.


    "How do you know that?" the fatso asked with mixed feelings.


    "It''s not up to you to ask me this question!" Zhou Bao coldly said, "Kunlun Mountain has a history of thousands of years in the northwest. For the sake of their long history, I will not spite you this time, but you''d better leave here immediately with your companions. And tell Kunlun Master, ''If you are actually interested in my Pure Yang Celestial Device, come to take it by yourself! I''ll wait for you. If members of Kunlun Mountain make trouble for me again before we meet, I''ll kill them just like your three Elders!''"


    After saying this, Zhou Bao unfolded the golden light and set the experts and masters of martial arts of Kunlun Mountain free from the light.


    "You can go now!"


    "But, can they?" The fat man grabbed the middle-aged man who was going to fight and firmly held his arms in case he should rashly act. He clearly knew Zhou Bao had a Pure Yang Celestial Device, so they were no match for him.


    "They''re all sinners. Now that they have shown up in my territory, I have the right to manage them. According to the Jin''s laws, they''re now my property, specifically my slaves. Do you have any complaints?"


    "No," the fatso shook his head and said. Hardly did he want to be irritated by Zhou Bao once more at this moment.


    ......


    ...


    "Your Excellency, the members of Kunlun Mountain have all returned!"


    "Take them back. Tell Old Gesang that they''re all sinners or slaves, and he should treat them the way that he treats prisoners of war. F*ck, they must get tired of living. How dare they create a disturbance in my territory!"


    After Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba arrived, Zhou Bao pointed at these several hundred people who had gathered together into one place and been imprisoned, and coldly spoke.


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba quickly directed the underlings to tie the hands and feet of those people and take them away without further delay. In fact, they were as annoyed as Zhou Bao was.


    Zhou Bao seldom handled the affairs of the territory and handed them over to his subordinates, including Jiang Xiao. Mainly focusing on the town centralization and the yard at the foot of Jilei Mountain, Jiang Xiao hardly paid attention to any herdsmen wandering in the territory. Influenced by Old Gesang, he generally adopted a conciliatory approach toward those homeless sinners and herdsmen, but he did not expect that some people would harbor evil designs and regard him as a real sucker. How dare they make trouble under his nose.


    If that could be tolerated, then what could not?


    Jiang Xiao made up his mind to torment these jerks and let them know who administered this land once he returned.


    "Your Excellency, you can rest assured. I''ll surely give them a lesson!"


    "I don''t care how you give them a lesson because it''s none of my business. But I don''t want to witness similar incidents!" Zhou Bao coldly said and then glowered at Zhu Ba, "Fella, you should also be vigilant and let your underlings of urban management buck up their energy. Once any unusual movement appears, suppress it and kill all the people who revolt!"


    "Yes!"


    Hearing Zhou Bao''s murderous words, Zhu Ba nodded with a shiver and did not dare to do anything playful in front of him.


    "Your Excellency, we offended Kunlun Mountain this time. In your view..."


    "No need to worry about that. Even though I destroyed the Taoist rites of Kunlun Mountain, I will work out a solution. You should only mind your own business," Zhou Bao said with a mild tone as he looked at the worried face of Jiang Xiao.


    "Yes!" Jiang Xiao breathed a sigh of relief because of Zhou Bao''s assured air. Of course, he only breathed one sigh of relief. Who knew what would happen in the future and whether Zhou Bao was able to bear the pressure from both Kunlun Mountain and Prince Ning.


    Three days later, on a clear and scantily starred night, a flash of a green figure streaked across the sky and appeared in Zhou Bao''s territory.


    "You''ve come so fast!" Seeing the green figure in the yard, Golden Rooster squinted and smiled.


    It turned out to be Wang She.


    "Golden Rooster, long time no see. I am told that you got a fat job, didn''t you?"


    Wang She joked upon seeing Golden Rooster. They were old partners in the Immortal Palace, so they were very close.


    "Damn it! It''s not a fat job. I just work as security. If you want to grab some profits, you can find Zhou Bao. I am told that he obtained great benefits in the Azure Secret Area this time!"


    "I will certainly not let him go!" Wang She grinned with a glance at the surroundings and then asked, "The guy is not here, right?"


    "That guy is a lord and naturally doesn''t live here. But I think he''s coming," Golden Rooster said with a smile and then pointed at Moon Deer of the Extended Net beside him. "This is Moon Deer of the Extended Net. You have met him before. Mouse is working below, but we shouldn''t disturb him, otherwise, he will stamp around with rage!"


    Wang She nodded and then lightly raised his eyes. "Zhou Bao must be coming. Good heavens! What a fast speed!"


    Before his voice had died away, Zhou Bao appeared in front of the three of them.


    "Chief Wang, I''m very honored to have you visit me here. It''s not right for me to be so slow!"


    "Boy, you really have a good tongue!" After seeing Zhou Bao, Wang She gently patted his palm with a little fan in his hand. "You always think of me when you get into trouble, which never happens when good things come your way. Do I owe you something?"


    "Why do you say ''trouble''?" Zhou Bao laughed. "If I was really in trouble, I would not dare to ask you to come here!"


    "Hehe, then I''d like to see what good things you asked me to come here for!"


    "Thousands of years have been passed since the establishment of Kunlun Mountain, so the school must have lots of treasure and now, we can get some of them. We''ll feel sorry for ourselves if we don''t grab some profit. It''s time for us to bring trouble to them."


    "You want to rob Kunlun Mountain?" After hearing these plain words from Zhou Bao''s mouth, Wang She was a little bit shocked.


    "Rob Kunlun Mountain? I''m not so stupid. I have a solitary goal, Kunlun Mountain''s Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Zhou Bao sneered and turned over his hand and a shiny, milk-white bead appeared in his palm. "I don''t know what it is, but I''m sure it''s at least a celestial device at the Mysterious Level. Any Level Seven expert of Kunlun Mountain can show this kind of device, so the school must have a rich collection. With one Pure Yang Celestial Device in my hand, I''m not afraid of them. To defeat me, they might ask Kunlun Master or an expert with Pure Yang Celestial Device for help. It''s not easy to ask Kunlun Master to fight, so I guess someone will fight against me with a Pure Yang Celestial Device. If so, wouldn''t it be easy for us to get that Pure Yang Celestial Device?"


    "Kunlun Mountain is not like the Emperor of Xining. It''s not easy to get stuff from them!" Wang She interrupted. "The Pure Yang Celestial Device is invaluable. Even if it''s stolen by you, they will try their best to get it back!"


    "That''s the reason why I asked you to come here!" Zhou Bao said, "I already have a Pure Yang Celestial Device and it''s meaningless to have another. As long as you help me defeat Kunlun Mountain, the Pure Yang Celestial Device that we get this time will be yours!"


    "How generous you are!"


    "I have no choice!" Zhou Bao shrugged. "If I was able to swallow it by myself, I would do just as I treat the Azure Secret Area. Unfortunately, I have a limited appetite and have to share with others. So, you don''t want the Pure Yang Celestial Device?"


    "Sharing with others, and at the same time, you can distract their attention away from you. Clever trick to get rid of trouble!" Wang She opened the little fan in his hand, a little bit relaxed with a smile. "Compared to the precious Pure Yang Celestial Device however, I can ignore the trick that you play. I''ve heard a lot about the Pure Yang Celestial Device in Kunlun Mountain and it''s exactly what I need!"


    "Does that mean there''s no problem?"


    "Yes!" Wang She was also a straightforward person. "It''s not easy to wait for such a good thing, but I want you to do me a favor!"


    "What?" Zhou Bao pulled a long face. It was always hard to complete Wang She''s tasks. Many years ago, when his cultivation was only at Level Three, he was asked to protect Wang She at the entrance of a geocentric fire vein. Another time, to help this guy, he was almost killed by Raging Fire Ancestor. So, what did Wang She want this time?


    "You can rest assured. It''s nothing difficult for you, just a piece of cake!"


    "If it''s as easy as you say, then it''s unnecessary to ask me for help, right?" Zhou Bao wanted to get more information before making any promises.


    "I don''t have any choice. I''m not suitable to deal with it by myself and I need everyone to know that I''m clean, so I have to show up when you do it!"


    "An alibi?" Zhou Bao blinked his eyes and seemed to get it. Then, he nodded his head and said, "Well, you can tell me the details after I finish the task. If it''s really as easy as you said, I will help you!"


    "You sly dog!" Wang She taunted. "Anyway, I came here to help you. You''re not going to arrange for me to stay in a house that hasn''t been built yet, are you?"


    "How could that be? When you arrived, you found the way into this yard. I didn''t invite you here, and I have arranged your room. You are a Level Nine expert, distinct from ordinary people, so you don''t care much about secular living conditions, right?"


    "Screw you!" Wang She scolded him in a low voice, not hopeful about Zhou Bao''s arrangements.


    What happened next proved that his thoughts were correct.


    In fact, Zhou Bao had prepared nothing but only arranged for Wang She to stay in the study room of his courtyard, which was sparsely furnished and clean but not elegant at all, making Wang She really unsatisfied.


    "You really do save money and cannot even serve better tea!"


    "So what? The most annoying thing I find is that you guys are always particular about tea. For me, all the tea tastes the same. No need to spend more money on it!" Zhou Bao scornfully said, "We are men with cultivation and should have high aspirations. If our minds are full of enjoyment, that will hinder our mental state and become a roadblock to higher cultivation!"


    "Bullshit, don''t mention ''hinder the mind'' or ''roadblock''. I think you''re just mean!"


    "Yeah, I''m a poor lord with no money, so then just accept the tea calmly!" Zhou Bao shrugged and said, "Oh, you said that you heard a lot about Kunlun Mountain''s Pure Yang Celestial Device. What is it?"


    "You''ll find out," Wang She said. "Why do you care about that? If they''re really going to fight against you with that Pure Yang Celestial Device, it will be mine if we steal it!"


    "Yeah, yeah, I know that. But as the saying goes, ''if you know the enemy and yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles''. Since my Golden Flame Mirror has been used several times, people in Kunlun Mountain know it well. If I don''t know anything about their Pure Yang Celestial Device, it will be not good for us to fight in the battle!"


    "Kunlun Mountain''s Pure Yang Celestial Device is the Invisible Dragon Rod, a celestial device designed for constraint and it looks like a golden ring. When it starts, one will become nine, or more specifically, one ring turns into nine golden ones. It''s so amazing that it can firmly tie up the enemy with those rings. Although you can practice the Three Realms Division, there is no chance for you to run away from the Invisible Dragon Rod!"


    "Invisible Dragon Rod, one into nine, and constraint?" Zhou Bao thought to himself and then he said, "A celestial device designed for constraint... Is there any method to crack it?"


    "There''s no method. Kunlun Mountain''s Invisible Dragon Rod has never failed!" Wang She shook his head with a bitter smile. "You know, we are in a big world, but the number of influences with powerful strength is limited. Most of them know each other and have similar strengths, so those at normal levels haven''t caused big conflicts, and well-known families with Pure Yang Celestial Devices haven''t really fought with each other. For several thousand years, Kunlun Mountain has indeed met several crises, but each crisis was pacified mainly due to the Invisible Dragon Rod. In those cases, many powerful enemies of Kunlun Mountain were tied up by the device, such as Level Nine experts, and even experts in the Mysterious Realm!"


    "Experts in the Mysterious Realm?" Zhou Bao was very shocked. "The Invisible Dragon Rod is able to tie up experts in the Mysterious Realm?"


    "Of course. Otherwise, what do you think is precious about Pure Yang Celestial Devices? It''s their powerful strength that makes them different. So, you may get into real trouble this time!"


    "Humph, I''m afraid of him? Don''t forget, I have a Golden Flame Mirror!"


    "The Invisible Dragon Rod is not the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda and its controller is not a rookie like Yan Fei. Your Pure Yang Celestial Device is indeed powerful, but it''s only a match for the Invisible Dragon Rod. It''s most likely that you can defeat your rivals with your Pure Yang Celestial Device but are subdued by the Invisible Dragon Rod, both being defeated and wounded," Wang She gently said.


    "My Golden Flame Mirror is extremely defensive. Perhaps I can resist the Invisible Dragon Rod with it!"


    "Don''t say ''perhaps'' on this issue! When it comes to Pure Yang Celestial Devices, everything will be in vain if you aren''t 100% sure." Wang She shook his head and said, "In the past, fights between Pure Yang Celestial Devices were rare. I don''t have such experiences, either. So, before we put the weapon right, we''d better make full preparations. And there is one more thing that we shouldn''t ignore!"


    "And what''s that?"


    "People. All Pure Yang Celestial Devices are manipulated by people, just like you treat the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda. Yan Fei is no match for you, so you could fight against him without any scruple. However, if the person who manipulates the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda is more powerful than you, I''m afraid that you should consider plenty of conditions. The Invisible Dragon Rod is Kulun Mountain''s Pure Yang Celestial Device, so the manipulator will be a Level Nine expert, not a rookie like Yan Fei. If so, you will be put in an absolutely disadvantaged position for your strength!"


    "I asked you here to help me, not to frustrate me!" Zhou Bao said with exasperation.


    "Do you want to know the best approach?"


    "Tell me!"


    "Give me your Pure Yang Celestial Device, and let me deal with the people of Kunlun Mountain. Even if Kunlun Master comes, it doesn''t matter!"


    "That''s a good idea, but it''s impossible for you to use my Golden Flame Mirror because I have already refined it!" Zhou Bao said with a smile, "Is there another choice?"


    "No other good choice!" Wang She shook his head.


    "I have one!" Zhou Bao laughed, "I''ll deal with Kunlun Master and you fight against Kunlun Mountains'' Pure Yang Celestial Device. What do you think of that idea?"


    "Haha, you really have guts to face Kunlun Master alone. Boy, do you want to know the feeling of being killed?"


    "Kunlun Master may be very powerful, but don''t forget that I have a Pure Yang Celestial Device and I''ll give it a shot, just like I treated Dark Lord Mie Chen. He is not weaker than Kunlun Master, but he was still finished by us, right?


    "We had good luck and you used the power of your Fiery Eyes that time. Now, we are against Kunlun Mountain in public and you can''t take advantage of your strange eyes. What''s more, Kunlun Mountain might have more than one Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    ......

 Chapter 301: A Deadlock, Zhou Baos Scruples

    Chapter 301: A Deadlock, Zhou Bao''s Scruples


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "There is more than one Pure Yang Celestial Device?!" Zhou Bao was stupefied for a while and then his face turned pale.


    He was not afraid of one Pure Yang Celestial Device, but two...


    "They, Kunlun Mountain, don''t need to use two Pure Yang Celestial Devices to deal with a person like me, do they?" Zhou Bao smiled bitterly and asked.


    "Everyone thinks so. But things will change once you have successfully wrested the Invisible Dragon Rod. So, Kunlun Mountain doesn''t have any margin for error. Kunlun Master is sure to bring another Pure Yang Celestial Device. Kid, you have to understand that over the 8,300 years since the establishment of Kunlun Mountain, the world has only known that one of the Pure Yang Celestial Devices of Kunlun Mountain is the Invisible Dragon Rod. However, the other one has never been seen!"


    At this point, Wang She stopped for a moment before continuing, "So, kid, you are so rash this time. Anyway, Kunlun Mountain is one of the top schools in the world with a history of thousands of years. Its strength is nearly the same as our Tian Long Taoism. Do you think that you can shake them on your own?"


    "Whether I have shaken them or not, what''s done is done. There''s no use for me to regret it, right?!" Zhou Bao smiled bitterly. "Well, since you''re here, I suppose you already have some solutions, don''t you?!"


    "If you want to win, you have to be good and smart." Wang She laughed and said, "If it''s Kunlun Master who comes with the thunderbolt force, all you can do is to hide. However, in my opinion, he won''t do that. A Grandmaster Level expert won''t bother himself fighting with a kid even if he is in a very bad mood. However, you have a Pure Yang Celestial Device, which means that you cannot be defeated by normal people. And you have killed three experts of Kunlun Mountain with that Pure Yang Celestial Device, one of whom was their Second Elder. They will never bear this insult. So, if I guess correctly, the person who will come at you is Ning Bo, the First Elder of Kunlun Mountain. He is the only Level Nine expert in Kunlun Mountain in addition to Kunlun Master and he has been the actual keeper of the Invisible Dragon Rod for over a hundred years!"


    "Shhh¡ª" Zhou Bao took a deep breath, "He''s been the keeper of the Invisible Dragon Rod for over a hundred years?!"


    "That''s right. I think it''s because your life is too smooth and you think you have some kind of connection with the Immortal Palace, so you are now afraid of nothing!" Wang She said softly, as if he was describing a funny story, "But you have to understand that though the Immortal Palace attaches great importance to the Azure Secret Area, they won''t appear for a place they can only use for two months a year. The history of the Immortal Palace is longer than any other prestigious sect or school in the world, and even many prestigious sects and schools were established by the people of the Immortal Palace. They are used to living in the dark and will never expose themselves to the public for anyone or anything. This habit is enshrined in their veins, which is really sick. Therefore, they might help you secretly. But if the help is beyond their power, they will give up first and then persuade you to give up. This time, if you don''t handle it well, they will be the first to give up!"


    "It seems like you know a lot of things!" Zhou Bao learned the information in the words of Wang She, and wiping his nose, he said, "You even know that the Azure Secret Area can only be used for two months each year!"


    "I''ve been to that place, but I was never as lucky as you were to find the Innate Green Lotus Seed!" Speaking of that, he laughed suddenly. "Happy Monk was so pissed off by you, so now he is searching all over the world and asking who Water Leopard of Winnow is. Hahaha!"


    "He knows that I am from the Immortal Palace, and he is still going to cause me trouble?!"


    "Moon Deer of the Extended Net was also from the Immortal Palace, but his entire family was still murdered by the Wang clan anyway." Wang She smiled coldly and said, "You should not think that the Immortal Palace can do anything. It''s strong, but it has its own rules. Wherever there is a rule, there are people who will ignore it. People whose cultivation have exceeded Level Seven are those who know how to find the loopholes!"


    "Alright, back to the point. You just said that the one who was going to cause trouble for me was Ning Bo, the First Elder?"


    "That''s what I was talking about. If you want to have a satisfying result on this matter, you should confront Ning Bo, defeat him, and take the Invisible Dragon Rod from him on your own. When Kunlun Master comes to find you with the second Pure Yang Celestial Device, I''ll confront him. Even if I can''t defeat him alone, you and me, together with those two Pure Yang Celestial Devices, can at least play to a draw. If you are not lucky, that is to say, the Grand Master will be the first to go after you, then you won''t have any chance and all you will be able to do is kneel. Then I will show up and plead for your mercy, so this incident can have a happy ending. But, you know, I have some kind of a beef with the Three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan. So I don''t have much reputation in front of them. You have killed their Second Elder, so this time, you must pay a huge price!"


    "Is there no other way?"


    "I told you that you have gone too far this time. Now, you can only pray for this," Wang She said coolly, without leaving too many choices for Zhou Bao.


    ...


    ...


    "Hahaha¡ª! Well, it''s great! This Zhou Bao has been too reckless and bold. He dared to kill three experts of Kunlun Mountain without saying a word, one of whom was the Second Elder of Kunlun Mountain. I''m going to see how he can handle this!"


    In the camp of Prince Ning, on the banks of the Dragon-pressing River¡ª


    Hearing the reply from his subordinates, Prince Ning laughed wildly, with complacency all over his face. "This wild kid is just a wild kid. He has overestimated himself and has done everything which was beyond him. He thought that he would be the best in the world with a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Well, apparently, he has no idea of the strength of such a prestigious school like Kunlun Mountain. Haha¡ª!"


    "Your Royal Highness, you are right. Zhou Bao might have some luck, but he is just a wild kid. You should not mind him. And now, Kunlun Mountain has lost three strong experts, so they won''t be willing to let it go. We can wait and see what will happen to Zhou Bao!" A right-hand man of Prince Ning, the young intellectual raised his glass with a smile on his face and continued, "Once Zhou Bao is gone, we will have no obstacles in the northeast. It won''t take many years for the land of thousands of miles around to be yours, Your Royal Highness. By that time... Hahaha¡ª!"


    They laughed together as if they already had everything in their hands.


    "Brother, what if Zhou Bao defeats the people from Kunlun Mountain?" When these two were thinking that their scheme would succeed, a clear and melodious voice came from outside.


    With a slight change of expression, Prince Ning was silent for a moment and then smiled, saying, "Well, it''s Sister Yan''er. You are here. I''m sorry I didn''t welcome you, I hope you don''t mind!"


    While talking, Prince Ning walked over to the tent and lifted the curtain in person, only to see Yan''er looking at him, smiling, with the guards of Prince Ning lying around.


    "Brother, your guards are not good enough. They didn''t notice me even when I was approaching the tent. If I were an assassin, I''m afraid that you would''ve been a dead man!"


    "You are making fun of me, Sister Yan''er. You won''t assassinate me!" While talking, his eyes moved to the girl in pink who was beside Yan''er wearing a maidservant''s dress. "If I guess correctly, you must be Miss Shui. I''ve heard a lot about you, but I never have the chance to meet you. It''s my honor to meet you here!"


    The girl in pink raised her head slightly, but before she could reply, Yan''er smiled and said, "Sister Shui, don''t trust him. He has been the most smooth-tongued man, ever since we were little. I seriously don''t know how many girls have been tricked by him!" She went into the tent and moved forward as she spoke, right to the seat of honor.


    Prince Ning smiled awkwardly and closely followed her, "Sister Yan''er, why have you come to this bleak place?"


    "Brother, are you asking me how I know that you are here and how I know about your plan?!" Yan''er smiled and turned toward him. She sat up straight on the large chair in the tent and continued, "Your Highness, I know not only your plan, but your ambition. Of course, I also know that you are in trouble now!"


    "Please help me out, sister!"


    "What you''ve done can''t be kept a secret!" Yan''er said with a smile. "Do you think that you can hide it from father and Brother Prince?"


    When hearing the words "father" and "Brother Prince", the muscles on Prince Ning''s face shivered a bit and then he smiled bitterly and said, "I didn''t think I could hide it from them. In fact, I just tried to keep it a secret for a while. I didn''t expect that they would find out just as soon as it had happened!"


    "Well, so what? What are you afraid of? His Majesty and Brother Prince didn''t interrupt you, did they?" Yan''er smiled and said, "Since they didn''t stop you, and they even pretended that they didn''t know, then just continue to do it!"


    "If they really pretended that they knew nothing, you wouldn''t be here, would you?"


    "I''m not here for you. I''m here for Zhou Bao!" Yan''er drank the tea gently, smiled, and said, "All I want is the Pure Yang Celestial Device of Zhou Bao. The reason why I am here is to tell you, brother: Don''t try to obtain that Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "If it''s in the hands of Zhou Bao, it''s not easy for you to take it!" Prince Ning said thoughtfully.


    "Certainly it won''t be easy, brother. Wang She has left the Tian Long Mystic Mountain. If I guess correctly, he has already arrived in the northwest!"


    "What? Wang She also wants to get himself involved in this matter?!"


    "Why are you so shocked? You knew that Zhou Bao had some kind of relationship with Wang She. Many people think Zhou Bao is from Tian Long Taoism. However, he has grown so fast that Tian Long Taoism could hardly control him. So, they changed their plans and sent Wang She to keep an eye on him!"


    "They were willing to give up a Pure Yang Celestial Device for a person. That person must be very important!"


    "They didn''t know about the Pure Yang Celestial Device, otherwise, they wouldn''t be so passive right now. Zhou Bao is a person with lucky chances, so Tian Long Taoism let him go and fostered him like that!" Yan''er laughed and said, "Tian Long Taoism is really good at this!"


    "Now that Wang She has arrived here, there might be some changes."


    "Nothing will be changed. No matter how strong Wang She is, he is alone. As far as I know, Wang She didn''t bring a Pure Yang Celestial Device with him this time. In any case, there won''t be a chance for Zhou Bao to win!"


    "It''s hard to say!" Prince Ning shook his head. "Zhou Bao has killed the Second Elder of Kunlun Mountain, so it must be the First Elder, Ning Bo, who will stand out. If Zhou Bao and Wang She collaborate to defeat Ning Bo and take his Pure Yang Celestial Device, the Invisible Dragon Rod, it''s hard to tell who will win!"


    "Such a thing won''t happen. There is a great disparity in strength between the two sides!" Yan''er shook her head and continued, "Don''t forget that Ning Bo is a Level Nine expert with a Pure Yang Celestial Device in hand. Zhou Bao has no advantages. As for Wang She, since he has no Pure Yang Celestial Device, he is no match of Ning Bo at all. Even if Zhou Bao lends his Pure Yang Celestial Device to Wang She, Wang She won''t have any chance to win. Moreover, Kunlun Mountain is not stupid. It won''t send only one person to go after Zhou Bao. They have an absolute advantage, so Zhou Bao will have a lot of trouble!"


    "I hope so!" Prince Ning smiled, saying, "Well, what about you? What are you going to do?"


    "I told you, this time, I''m here for his Pure Yang Celestial Device. If possible, I''ll subdue this leopard for father!" Yan''er giggled. "You should know that father is getting more and more interested in this leopard!"


    Prince Ning did not look good. His plan was to dominate the Northwest Region. Killing Zhou Bao was the best choice. If Zhou Bao was recruited by the Imperial Court, it would be harmful to him. It seemed like the Imperial Court had embedded a nail in the Northwest Region, so he could not just take action at will!


    "Brother Ning, don''t worry. Even if I have subdued this leopard, he has already offended Kunlun Mountain. Do you think that he can still live in the Northwest Region? What''s more, father needs this leopard, but not here. So, you can rest easily. And whether I can subdue him or not is uncertain now!"


    "What if you fail?"


    "If I fail, I can only destroy him!" A hint of sharpness flashed in the eyes of Yan''er. "Father won''t allow this puppet of Tian Long Taoism to become more and more strong!"


    "I see!" Prince Ning smiled, taking a look at the girl in pink beside Yan''er. "I guess that''s the reason why Miss Shui is here with you."


    When hearing that, Yan''er smiled and made no comment about it.


    ...


    ...


    Under the shroud of night, Zhou Bao looked gloomy.


    Yes, he was. He was indeed gloomy!


    Wang She did not bring him any confidence, but instead, pressure, a lot of pressure.


    At the same time, he understood what Wang She said was true. He had gotten dizzy with success recently, so he did not have a second thought before taking action. He had hit so hard that the Elders of Kunlun Mountain were dead, which left him no room to fix the relations between him and Kunlun Mountain.


    However, no matter how regretful or stressful he was, the situation would not be changed. The only thing that he could do was to face it.


    But the problem was how to handle it!


    He had to confront a Level Nine expert with a Pure Yang Celestial Device that had been cultivated for many years by that expert, and he only had a chance to win if he took the Invisible Dragon Rod from the expert. However, his chance to win was too small to count on.


    "I can help you to handle the First Elder of Kunlun Mountain. But I can assure you, once I take part in this, the others in Kunlun Mountain will join in, too. These people won''t fight with us, but with your subordinates. The strength of your subordinates is too weak to fight against the experts of Kunlun Mountain. You can''t count on Golden Rooster unless you want everyone to know that you are a member of the Immortal Palace and you are one of the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace. If they join in, your identity will be exposed. Everyone will connect you to the Immortal Palace and then deduce that there must be an entrance to the Azure Secret Area. At the same time, Happy Monk will come after me!"


    "Well, if you are willing to ignore the lives of your subordinates, I don''t mind helping you!"


    Wang She had made it clear. He knew he had no other choice but to face it.


    He would by no means sacrifice his subordinates or expose his identity to the world. If he did, he would get into bigger trouble.


    "What about the Yin and Yang Dust Formation?!" Zhou Bao considered the possibility in his mind, but he soon vetoed it. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation was a Formation of Immortality, which could be used secretly. If he just used it in front of people, they would know that he had learned this formation, which would cause more trouble than the Pure Yang Weapon that he had. Moreover, he had only mastered this formation for a short while, and he was not that familiar with it. If he wanted to use it, he had to ask for the advice of Green Spirit.


    "Green Spirit, Green Spirit, where are you? Come up and see me. I know you can hear me. Come out, I''m in real trouble!"


    Zhou Bao closed the doors and windows and sat cross-legged on the bed. His mind was sinking into the green lamp, calling another consultant.


    He wanted to find some solutions from Green Spirit, a 10,000-year-old demon.


    "What''s all the fuss? Didn''t I tell you not to disturb me when I was recovering my pneuma? Don''t come to me if nothing has happened!"


    Zhou Bao had been calling him for a while before the voice of Green Spirit, full of complaints, came into his mind, "What''s going on? What''s your trouble?"


    Green Spirit arose from the green lamp slowly. Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed slightly. The image of Green Spirit was more animated than before. It seemed that his body was made of smog before, which was virtual, but now he looked real.


    "It seems that you haven''t been practicing in vain these days, you look much better than before."


    "If you didn''t interrupt me, I''d be much better!" Green Spirit grumbled, "No more nonsense. Come on, what''s going on?"


    "What do you mean again?!" Zhou Bao twitched his mouth. "It was the trouble that came to me this time!"


    Zhou Bao told the recent incidents to Green Spirit in detail and Green Spirit was obsessed with those things with his eyes sparkling.


    "You idiot!"


    He was just about to continue and suddenly heard the strange yelling of Green Spirit. "How dare you do that! Are you tired of living? How could you set yourself against that prestigious school? You are a total fool!"


    "Shut up! I''m not an idiot. It was they who wanted to be my enemy first!" Zhou Bao shouted with discontent.


    "They were just impolite to you, and you killed their Second Elder? Kid, your temper is getting worse and worse these days!" Green Spirit said with an eccentric mood, "I can''t help you with this. All my cultivation was ruined. All I have left is an Original Spirit, which is under your control. I have no combat capability, so I couldn''t help even if you pulled me out!"


    "I won''t ask you to fight against that enemy. I just want to know if there is any way to handle the Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Zhou Bao said coldly, "That Pure Yang Celestial Device is called the Invisible Dragon Rod, one of the most valuable celestial devices of Kunlun Mountain, which enjoys a long history. I think you''ve heard of it!"


    "The Invisible Dragon Rod?!" Green Spirit was shocked for a moment. "Since it''s in the hands of Kunlun Mountain, why would they use it to cause you trouble?"


    "You know about it?!" Zhou Bao raised hope in his heart when he heard the tone of Green Spirit. "Is there any way to deal with this Pure Yang Celestial Device?"


    "The Invisible Dragon Rod is a pure constraint celestial device. It''s hard to deal with. Although your Golden Flame Mirror has a strong capability, it''s not enough to defend against the Invisible Dragon Rod. Using the Golden Flame Mirror to fight against the Invisible Dragon Rod will certainly constrain you, but it''s hard to say whether your enemy will escape from your Golden Flame Mirror or not. However, once you''ve been constrained by the Invisible Dragon Rod, your divine thoughts will be constrained too, so you cannot control the Golden Flame Mirror at that time!"


    "I won''t be able to control the Golden Flame Mirror?"


    "Right. Although the Golden Flame Mirror was made by you and was integrated into your divine thoughts, the Invisible Dragon Rod can easily constrain your divine thoughts in your mind. Therefore, your divine thoughts won''t be able to wander around. Then, how could you control the Golden Flame Mirror?" Green Spirit said, "There is only one way to deal with it. That is, kill him before he uses the Invisible Dragon Rod. But it''s almost impossible, your enemy is a Level Nine expert, not some kind of idiot. How will he not use the Invisible Dragon Rod when facing a Pure Yang Celestial Device?!"


    "All in all, it''s a deadlock. I''m not calling you out to analyze how I will die. I called you out to bring this deadlock back to life!"


    "Oh, bring this deadlock back to life? Do you think that I''m an immortal? Kid, I''m just a Grand Demon who has lost everything but a bit of Genuine Spirit. You''re asking me to find a solution, but you''re overestimating me. I''m flattered."


    "Now that you have time to satirize me, you must have some solutions!" Zhou Bao said.


    ...


    The monthly tickets! Please give me the monthly tickets!

 Chapter 302: Dark Female Pearl and Dust Formation

    Chapter 302: Dark Female Pearl and Dust Formation


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Hehe, I must have a way?" Green Spirit laughed with anger, "You really know me! Must have a way? If I had a way, I wouldn''t be stuck here by you!"


    "You''re stuck here by me? You''ve been stuck in the green lamp for hundreds of thousands of years, and I''m not even 20. It''s none of my business!" Zhou Bao cried, "Besides, I''ve been trying to help you. Look, you wanted a new body, so I looked everywhere for treasures to provide for you. You''ve seen all the treasures that I''ve got, and you said none of them would work. What can I do?" Speaking of this, he took out the white bead that he just put in his hand, "You see, I also got a treasure when I was fighting with Kunlun Mountain. Unfortunately, it''s only a celestial device at Mysterious Level. I''m afraid it won''t be appropriate for you, either!"


    "Gee? When did you get this?"


    To the surprise of Zhou Bao, when Green Spirit saw the white bead, he exclaimed, and then his tone also became strange.


    "This was the stuff of Kunlun Mountain. They wanted to use this thing against my Golden Flame Mirror, but I took it. What? Is there a problem with this bead?" Suddenly, Zhou Bao had his heart in his mouth. Honestly, there were not many things in this world that could surprise Green Spirit.


    "You took it with the Golden Flame Mirror? Are you kidding?" Green Spirit steadied himself forcibly.


    "I''m not kidding. What, I''m lucky again?"


    "Yes, you really lucked out!" murmured Green Spirit, "You said those guys of Kunlun Mountain used this thing to hit you?"


    "Yes, they hit me with this. It''s powerful. If I hadn''t shielded it with my Golden Flame Mirror, I might have been hit by it!"


    "Idiots, idiots, they''re real idiots! To hit people with this thing! How stupid!" Green Spirit cried out a few times, then stopped and sighed, "It''s useless, boy. It''s precious, but it''s not designed to be used against the enemy. It will take at least a year to refine it and really use it, so it''s not appropriate. By the way, don''t you have the Yin and Yang Dust Formation? Why not use it?"


    "The Yin and Yang Dust Formation? I refined the formation flag in the Jade Pool, and if I use it here, the Jade Pool may be aware of it!" Zhou Bao answered. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation was one of his trump cards, and he had successfully refined the formation flag. Since the formation flag was refined in the Jade Pool, he was afraid that those Jade Pool guys would spot his flaws.


    "Rubbish! The formation flag is just the formation flag! There are many people in the world that can refine formation flags. Are they all from the Jade Pool?" Green Spirit spluttered and began to curse, "Your Yin and Yang Dust Formation has reached the Basic level. It''s not a problem to use it to deal with a Level Nine expert and a Pure Yang Celestial Device. The Invisible Dragon Rod is formidable, but it can''t break your Yin and Yang Dust Formation. In the formation, you don''t have to be afraid of any Pure Yang Celestial Device or Kunlun Master!"


    "This formation is my last bluff. I don''t want to use it yet!" Zhou Bao said gently, "You know, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation is so famous that if I use it openly, the trouble it will bring to me shall be way more than the worth of owning the Pure Yang Celestial Device. It can only be the last bluff to be used in the dark. Using it in broad daylight is asking for trouble!"


    "What if no one knows you''re using it?"


    "I know you have some concerns about the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. But right now, it''s the best choice! Of course, if you''re not willing to expose it, you can make the magic matrix as the main formation when you set the formation!" Green Spirit said leisurely.


    "Magic matrix?"


    "Yes, the magic matrix! The Yin and Yang Dust Formation is wonderful. If the set is good, even Level Nine experts can''t realize that they themselves are in the formation. Most importantly, even if they''re in the formation, as long as you don''t launch all of its power, they won''t know it''s the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!" Green Spirit explained, "Besides, although you''ve made the formation flag now, it''s still delusional to give full play to the power of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. It''s better to concentrate on one formation, and to bring out the power of the magic matrix first. As long as you''re careful, no one will think that you know the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!"


    "Is there really no other way?"


    "No, there isn''t. You can only use the Yin and Yang Dust Formation now, unless you''re sure that you can defeat a Level Nine expert who owns a Pure Yang Celestial Device in a one-on-one battle!" Green Spirit smiled bitterly.


    "The reason why I sought you out is just because I''m not sure!" Zhou Bao said, "But now that you say so, I''ll try. I''ve used the magic matrix, and it''s indeed a bit of a mystery!" At this point, he paused, lifting his hand with the white bead, "Hey, what the hell is this bead that made you so excited?"


    "It''s a Dark Female Pearl! It''s of no use to you now, but when you enter the Individual Immortal Karma Rank, which means you break through to the Mysterious Realm, you can practice the Second Primordial Spirit with its help. It works wonders. Those guys actually hit you with it. What a waste!"


    The Dark Female Pearl, the Second Primordial Spirit!


    Zhou Bao nodded, carefully put the Dark Female Pearl back into his Space of Segmented Realms, and put Green Spirit back. Then he pulled out the formation flag of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, and practiced it while referring to the formation map of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation was marvellous. With the current cultivation and horizon of Zhou Bao, it was almost impossible to thoroughly comprehend the formation. However, he was lucky enough to get two Innate Green Lotus Seeds, and successfully refined the Formation Eye, which was the most important part of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. What was more, he exchanged a lotus seed with the Jade Pool for enough materials to make a complete set of formation flags.


    Owning both the Formation Eye and the formation flag, although he still couldn''t set the complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation, he could manage to set one of six gates of the life and death, creation and destruction, dark and light, which would display some power.


    The power of this magic matrix was far less than the power of the complete formation, but it was enough to deal with a Level Nine expert with a Pure Yang Celestial Device. As for the complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation, it was used by great schools of immortality in the antiquity times to guard their own sects, suppress the immortal fate, and kill Ultimate Demons. Thus, it had nothing to do with him.


    He had exercised the magic matrix for a while, and had some ideas about it. Now he only needed to secretly practice how to set the most suitable magic matrix in order to get the biggest advantage in the coming game.


    "It''s truly the Ancient Great Way of Immortality! Really remarkable!" Zhou Bao sat quietly on the bed, the black and white light around him looming. The Qi within a radius of five kilometers was fully mobilized and utilized by him. Now, he was like a great painter, who only needed to draw what he wanted in the place as he saw necessary.


    The black and white light suddenly went out, and an invisible layer of vibration rippled out, instantly enveloping the whole room. Meanwhile, the scene in the room was changed. The small room which was originally less than 100 square meters had been expanded infinitely, becoming a Fairyland.


    Zhou Bao, who had been sitting on the bed, was sitting on a big stone now, beside a withered pine tree. Around him, some cranes were feeding and flying around. In the distance there were overlapping mountains. White clouds were leisurely floating in the sky. It was like the world of Immortals with living Divine Qi.


    Suddenly, a crane beside Zhou Bao changed. Dots of white light radiated from it, and it began to transform into a human being. After several breaths, the crane had become a man who looked exactly like Zhou Bao. At first, only the appearance was the same, but after a while, its spirit, momentum and even eyes were indistinguishable from Zhou Bao''s.


    It was a weird feeling.


    Seeing the other version of him looking at himself with a smile, Zhou Bao was a little overwhelmed, though it was him who made this illusion.


    He gave a flick of his sleeve, and the figure in front of him was once more a crane.


    "The Yin and Yang Dust Formation is really marvellous! With the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman as the Formation Eye, I can almost simulate all the spirit of the world. Although there is no real power in this magic matrix, it''s enough to fool my opponents. In the face of my the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and the magic matrix, even a Level Nine expert with a Pure Yang Celestial Device is sure to suffer."


    Taking back the magic matrix, Zhou Bao thought.


    At first, he did not dare to expose the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, so his combating means appeared to be insufficient and short of variation. But now, Green Spirit''s words made him realize that he could actually use the legendary Formation of Immortality. In this way, his thinking was much broader. In fact, he came up with the solution almost immediately.


    It was just the Invisible Dragon Rod, a Pure Yang Celestial Device!


    It was powerful, but if they picked the wrong target, no matter how powerful it was, Zhou Bao wouldn''t be afraid of it.


    "No matter how strong Ning Bo is, and how wonderful his Pure Yang Weapon is, I''m not afraid of him as long as he is in my magic matrix!" Thinking of this, Zhou Bao was finally relieved, a smile of complacency crossing his face, "This time, let Kunlun Mountain fail once and for all!"


    Over the next few days, Zhou Bao began to wander around his territory and set the formation as he traveled. After the magic matrix was set, as long as he wanted to, it could fit perfectly with the surroundings, just as what happened on the Blacktail Plain. Even if you walked into the inside, no matter how sensitive your spiritual mind was, you would not be aware that you had been trapped in the magic matrix, unless Zhou Bao changed the magic matrix.


    The place was carefully chosen by Zhou Bao. It was the place where he used to bombard those three experts of Kunlun Mountain to death with the Golden Flame Mirror, and also the place where Kunlun Mountain mustered refugees to set up tribes.


    It was flat and fertile, not only suitable for settling and herding, but also for fighting.


    Just when he returned after finishing the setup of the formation, he immediately sensed something was wrong, terribly wrong!


    Outside the sentry post of the little town centralization, Wang She stood with his hands behind his back in the middle of the road. In front of him was a fine carriage, and in front of the carriage stood a girl in pink. She looked at Wang She with a cold, angry look. They were confronting each other.


    The carriage should be heading towards the town centralization.


    But behind Wang She was Jiang Xiao, Zhu Ba and the others. They seemed to be very confused, and did not seem to understand Wang She''s intentions.


    "Chief Wang, Her Royal Highness has something to discuss with His Excellency Zhou. It''s none of your business!" After a short confrontation, finding that Wang She had no intention of making way for her, the girl in pink finally spoke in a very cold and very dissatisfied tone.


    Instead of immediately answering, Wang She looked at the girl in pink, and glanced at the carriage, then replied, "Shui Hongyan, I don''t care what you come here for, but the accounts between us have to be settled!"


    "Yes, the accounts have to be settled, but not now!"


    "Now that the princess is here, you should know I''m here, and you dare come. If you''re not going to settle accounts with me, what are you doing?" Wang She''s voice was bitingly cold, a chilling light glowing in his eyes, and a faint trace of killing intent looming over him.


    Just then, the sedan curtain opened, and a sublime face appeared in front of the crowd, "You must be Chief Wang of the Tian Long Taoism. Here are tributes from Yan-er!"


    When Wang She saw Yan-er, the muscles on his face twitched slightly, but he just nodded, "Princess, you really came. Please forgive me for being rude!"


    "Chief, you''re being too modest!" Yan-er smiled and gracefully stepped out of the carriage, "Chief Wang, I don''t know the grievances between you and elder sister Shui. But this time she came with me for my business. Please for my sake, don''t embarrass her! As for your grievances, how about you two putting them aside until my business is over?"


    Wang She winked and looked at Yan-er with a strange look. When he was about to say something, he saw a jade pendant that Yan-er was slowly raising from her waist, and then he was stunned for a moment. Once more, he looked at Yan-er carefully, and finally looked up at Shui Hongyan. He, however, gently moved aside to make way for a passage.


    "It''s not like you!" Hiding his spirit with the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, Zhou Bao passed his voice to Wang She and laughed.


    "Humph, boy, don''t be too excited! This princess is not a girl to trifle with, be careful!"


    "Be careful? I don''t care what kind of person she is. I don''t want to see her now!" Hidden in the dark, Zhou Bao sneered, "I know she''s not a girl to trifle with, so I''ll never see her before I resolve the matter with Kunlun Mountain!"


    "That''s a good idea!" Wang She smiled, and turned suddenly, snapping, "Wait!"


    The carriage stopped again. "What''s the matter, Wang She, you changed your mind?" Shui Hongyan asked in a very cold voice.


    "No." Wang She grinned, "You''re here to find Zhou Bao, right?"


    "Yeah, we came here to find His Excellency Zhou. So what?"


    "Nothing, I just forgot to tell you, Zhou Bao is very nervous now because he''s gonna fight with the experts of Kunlun Mountain. He has been in closed-door training and won''t exit training until the opponents come. So you can''t find him now!"


    Shui Hongyan''s gaze suddenly froze. Not knowing whether it was true or false, she turned her eyes to Jiang Xiao and the other people, who were standing at the gate of the town centralization.


    "If I''m not mistaken, you must be His Excellency Zhou''s right-hand man, Jiang Xiao, His Excellency Jiang!" Yan-er once again stepped out of the carriage, and approached Jiang Xiao and the other people, asking with a smile, "Please tell me where he has been doing his closed-door training?"


    "This..."


    Jiang Xiao and the other people were tongue-tied. For a moment, they didn''t know what to say.


    Zhou Bao had been in closed-door training?


    Nonsense, they just saw Zhou Bao this morning. Expose him on the spot? They dared not. Wang She was a Level Nine expert, and few could defeat him. In addition, he had a good relationship with Zhou Bao. If they exposed his lies on the spot, they would suffer.


    If the question was not posed by her, even if by Shui Hongyan, the girl in pink, they would answer it without hesitation by following Wang She''s meaning.


    However, the beautiful girl in front of them was not an ordinary person, but the princess!


    The princess, the Emperor''s daughter!


    A God''s favored, honoured girl!


    In this world, to experts like Zhou Bao and Wang She, the majesty of the royal family was nothing, but to people who grew up in Jin and later served as officers in Jin''s army, like Jiang Xiao, Zhu Ba and Wang Cheng, the majesty was unrivaledly immense.


    In spite of the fact that they had followed Zhou Bao in recent years and done many things that seemed to be dismissive of Jin''s imperial power, for a while, they did not dare to lie when they were really facing the royal bloodline, the present princess.


    Temporarily, they were caught in a dilemma.


    Looking at their expressions, Yan-er smiled and then turned to Wang She, "Chief Wang, you''re the Chief of the Tian Long Taoism, the most famous expert in the world. Unexpectedly, you lied to a weak girl!"


    "I lied to you? Heehee, that''s a joke!" Wang She just laughed grimly, "Believe it or not!"


    Yan-er caught sight of both Wang She''s confident expression and the bewilderment of Jiang Xiao and the others. After giving it a thought, she understood the basics. Although her cultivation was not high, she knew that experts, such as Zhou Bao and Wang She, could conceal their spirit and communicate in the dark, while ordinary people could not detect it.


    However, she was not resigned to leave now.


    Her aim was to persuade Zhou Bao before the people of Kunlun Mountain came, rather than after.


    After the people of Kunlun Mountain came, no matter whether Zhou Bao was winning or losing, it was meaningless.


    At the thought of it, she felt depressed. She had heard that Zhou Bao was hard to deal with, but she did not expect that he refused to meet her, not giving her any chance. It really frustrated her.


    She gently gritted her slivery teeth and looked up at Wang She with a smile, "Chief Wang, His Excellency Zhou is in closed-door training, and no one can disturb him. But I don''t think that includes you!"


    "What do you mean? Let me call that guy for you?" Wang She gave her a look and laughed, "Princess Yan-er, you''re really from the Yan Family! You really dare to do everything and think everything! I have a good relationship with Zhou Bao, but he''s in trouble now. I''m afraid he really has no mood to meet you. You''d better go back!"


    "I come here just for this business!" Yan-er said, "I know you came here for the same reason. You pissed off Kunlun Mountain, and created a big grudge. Although this grievance isn''t easy to resolve, it''s not necessary to settle the issue with fighting and killing!"


    "Really?" Wang She slightly raised his eyebrows, and knew Yan-er was not only talking to him, but also to the hidden Zhou Bao, "You mean, you can help this guy to resolve his grievance with Kunlun Mountain?"


    "I''ll try my best. As for details, I''d like to talk to His Excellency Zhou in person!"


    "Talk to him in person? Then I can''t help!" Wang She helplessly spread his hands, "Why don''t you let these guys take you to look for him and see if you have any luck. Maybe Zhou Bao might just happen to have exited training!"


    "Then, I''ll have to bother you, please!" Yan-er smiled and looked at Jiang Xiao and the other two men.


    "We really don''t deserve this honor!" The three repeatedly replied. Then they led Yan-er and Shui Hongyan into the town centralization.


    Seeing them off, Wang She pulled back his gaze.


    "What do you think, boy?"


    "I have no idea. I''m in closed-door training. Even if the Emperor comes, I won''t meet him, not to mention her!" Zhou Bao responded with a sneer. He might have met her if they had come before he asked Green Spirit for advice. Now that he had decided to use the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, and he almost had full confidence to overcome Ning Bo, the First Elder of Kunlun Mountain. In such circumstances, he wished the enemy to come early and fight early. Thus, how could he listen to the princess and reconcile with the enemy?


    "Hey, what''s the background of the princess? Even you had to give her face."

 Chapter 303: The Venom Showing Power, the Magic Matrix Making Contributions

    Chapter 303: The Venom Showing Power, the Magic Matrix Making Contributions


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "You''re wrong. I didn''t give her face, but give the one that gave her that jaded pendant!" said Wang She, "Yan Yunyan is the Jin Emperor''s daughter, entitled as "Princess Heyang". She''s only 17, but she''s famous. It is said that she has been instructed by talented people since she was young. She is also intelligent and resourceful, and quite remarkable among the Jin Emperor''s children. Many people say that if she were a man, she would probably be one of the most eligible Princes to compete for the throne. Unfortunately, she''s a girl. Because she is a girl, she is very popular among many good Princes. Moreover, she was so beautiful that many young aristocrats like her!"


    "There are too many beautiful and intelligent people in the world. Tell me the origin of that jade pendant!"


    "I never believed that she had been instructed by talented people. But it now appears that''s true. That jade pendant is a token of the East Sea Skyward Palace. Do you know the Chaotian Palace? You''ve been in conflict with them. But there''s some friendship between the Chaotian Palace and the Tian Long Taoism. I''m a Chief of the Tian Long Taoism, so I have to give this face anyway, and let them go."


    "What about Shui Hongyan? She''s not simple. Although she is trying to restrain her breath, her strength and cultivation are all at Level Seven!"


    "It has nothing to do with you, and you don''t need to know. I really should settle accounts with her. You''d better not get involved!"


    "Since it''s your privacy, I certainly wouldn''t ask!" Hearing what Wang She meant, Zhou Bao smiled secretly. "You were in a trance the other day. Why are you suddenly so confident? Have been in closed-door training? Have you come up with ideas to deal with the Kunlun Mountain?"


    "Of course! Don''t forget that I have a set of formations!"


    "The Yin and Yang Dust Formation?" Even for Wang She, when heard the term "formation", his expression suddenly changed, "You can set the Yin and Yang Dust Formation now?"


    "Not a full set, of course!" Zhou Bao said, "You know, I got two Innate Green Lotus Seeds from Happy Monk. One sold to the Jade Pool and made a set of formation flags, and the other one''s Innate Green Lotus Qi was refined into the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman. With the formation flags and the Talisman, I can''t set the complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation, but I can concentrate on one of the six gates formations, and the power is marvellous as well!"


    "Well, boy, you have more bluffs than I thought!" When Wang She heard. "Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman", a flicker of confusion flashed in his eyes, and he immediately laughed, "Are you saying that you can deal with Ning Bo now?"


    "Probably, the Invisible Dragon Rod is only a Pure Yang Celestial Device. As long as I''m good, I can guarantee him a trip with no return!"


    "Don''t, boy!" Wang She''s look suddenly changed, "I warn you this time, don''t kill anyone. This is serious."


    "Rest assured, I''ve done something stupid once, and I won''t be silly for the second time!" Zhou Bao laughed, "Are you sure you can beat Kunlun Master?"


    "As long as you can help me get the Invisible Dragon Rod from Ning Bo, I can help you defeat Kunlun Master!"


    "Really? If I remember correctly, you seem to have been chased by another Grandmaster of Northern Yuan for thousands of kilometers!"


    "The Three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan enjoy equal popularity, but Mie Chen is the most powerful one. And Ba Siba takes the second place. Kunlun Master is the weakest. Mie Chen has already reached the Demi-Mysterious Realm back then, so I couldn''t beat him. However, Kunlun Master has been at Level Nine. For decades, he didn''t make much progress, nor did he see any hope of a breakthrough. Even if he has a Pure Yang Celestial Device, he isn''t formidable!"


    "That''ll be fine. We both have the confidence to win, so you don''t have to talk. Let Her Royal Highness visit the town!" Zhou Bao chuckled and his voice faded.


    "The Yin and Yang Dust Formation and the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman. The Talisman is too clear to connect even just heard that the refining method has been lost. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation that he got was also seen into the Congenital Clear Spiritual Magic Talisman, but doesn''t mention the refining method. How did he make it? Who taught him? Would it be Elder Qing? No, Elder Qing told me that the refining method of this kind of Talisman had been lost for many years, and even the Immortal Palace doesn''t have it. Oh, this guy is getting more and more interesting!" Gently touching his chin, Wang She gradually turned his eyes to the small town centralization that was in the sunset, and the smile on his face became brighter, "The Yin and Yang Dust Formation, a Pure Yang Celestial Device, I don''t know if this guy was planning to establish a new sect? If he does well this time, he might be able to establish one in the northwest. If so, what will be the expression of the old things on the Tian Long Mystic Mountain? Oh, Oh, hahaha!"


    Wang She grew more happier, and he found it more interesting. Then his body, in a burst of laughter, turned into a breeze and disappeared.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    Princess Heyang Yan Yunyan was doomed to disappointment, because all the facts showed her that Wang She did not joke with her, and Zhou Bao really avoided it.


    No one was in the yard at the foot of the Jilei Mountain, nor in the yard outside the mine vein. Yan Yunyan didn''t give up until the next day, and the people of Kunlun Mountain came, but Zhou Bao did not appear.


    Compared to the last time, there were not many people from the Kunlun Mountain. They were led by a skinny old man, about 80 to 90 years old, but very energetic. His small eyes shone with a pale golden light, which was very strange.


    Apart from him, the Kunlun Mountain sent only two people, and Zhou Bao knew both of them. One was the middle-aged man who came in lead the last time, and the other one was the other man whom he had seen before.


    "The First Elder Ning of Kunlun Mountain is here! Zhou Bao, come out!"


    They all came here in Gang Qi with a very fast speed. Arriving at the destination, the middle-aged man shouted directly without ceremony. His voice shook the field like thunder, and all of a sudden, it spread all over the places down to Jilei Mountain. Although he wasn''t sure where Zhou Bao was, he believed that Zhou Bao could hear it.


    "Damn it! The people of Kunlun Mountain have come, but Zhou Bao doesn''t show up yet!"


    In the town''s only tavern, Princess Heyang Yan Yunyan and Shui Hongyan were sitting face to face. When they heard the voice, their looks changed. Yan Yunyan, in particular, had a gleam of unwillingness in her eyes.


    "Princess, don''t worry about it. Even if the people of Kunlun Mountain have come, we still have a chance, as long as they don''t fight!" Shui Hongyan consoled, "But Zhou Bao is defiant. Even if we meet him, it won''t be easy to persuade him."


    "Human effort is the decisive factor. As long as I see him, I''ll be sure to persuade him. But he isn''t even willing to see me now, it is extremely abhorrent!" Yan Yunyan thumped the table with hatred. Just then, a sound of fluttering noise came over.


    "It''s really the First Elder Ning. Please forgive me for not greeting you!"


    It was Zhou Bao''s voice, but apparently, it came from a distant place.


    The place was 50 kilometers away from here at the foot of the Jilei Mountain, which was not easy to pass the voice from there. Without the cultivation of Level Seven, one could not do it.


    "Hey, Zhou Bao, even if you''re hiding, we won''t let you go!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s voice, the middle-aged man heard him, "You know, the monk may run away but the temple remains!"


    "First Elder Ning, you must be here to denounce me. Then I won''t evade! However, our grievance has nothing to do with others. That''s why I chose this place to settle our grievances. If you feel it''s not proper, I don''t mind changing another place!"


    "No, that''s fine. Our Second Elder and two junior brothers all died here. Let their spirits bear witness!" Before the middle-aged man could open his mouth, the First Elder Ning spoke. Then a faint light glimmered beneath Ning Bo''s feet, and he disappeared. The middle-aged man with the fat man exchanged a glance, and launched themselves to follow First Elder Ning.


    "Shui... " Yan Yunyan who got out of the tavern, felt something was wrong. She was about to speak when a pink light enveloped her. Then she was rolled up by this light and flew swiftly to the foot of the Jilei Mountain, 50 kilometers away.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    At the foot of the Jilei Mountain, the scene was still the same¡ªsoft green grasses carpeted the ground; the land was fertile, cattle and sheep were everywhere.


    Zhou Bao sat quietly among the sheep, looking delighted. At this time, the distant sky flashed a faint golden light. When he looked up again, a skinny figure had arrived.


    "You''re Zhou Bao?"


    "Yes, you''re First Elder Ning of the Kunlun Mountain?" Zhou Bao smiled. At the same time, other two strands of Gang Qi flashed, and the middle-aged man and the fat man also arrived and fell behind Ning Bo.


    "Right, I''m Ning Bo, the First Elder of Kunlun Mountain!" First Elder Ning nodded, and his eyes wandered across the surroundings, "Where is Chief Wang of Tian Long Taoism? I heard he has come, too!"


    "I did come. But rest assured, Elder. This is between you and him, so I won''t interfere!" With a flash of green shadow, Wang She had appeared silently beside Zhou Bao. "It''s your Kunlun Master, not you, who has a grudge against me. I''m not here to help Zhou Bao, but to end the grievance in those years with Kunlun Master."


    "You''re too cocky!" The middle-aged man snapped, and when he was about to go on, Wang She gave him a stern look, and he was too frightened to continue.


    Ning Bo didn''t care about Wang She''s words, but just smiled, "It''s best that you stay out of it, as for the grievance between you and the Sovereign. After this event is over, I''ll personally lead you to our mountain. How about it?"


    "Good, that''s settled!" Wang She nodded with satisfaction, "Your mountain gate is too high for me to find. That''s what I wished for!"


    Ning Bo smiled and turned to Zhou Bao, "I''ve heard about you, but didn''t have the chance to meet you. I finally see you today, and you surely deserve the fame. At a young age, you have reached Level Seven. In fact, your Internal Qi is so strong that it is far beyond Level Seven. Not reaching Level Eight isn''t because you cannot find a breakthrough, right?"


    "The old guy''s eyes are so damn sharp!" Zhou Bao cursed in his heart, and gave a hollow laugh, "First Elder Ning has a discerning eye! But that has nothing to do with today''s business. Why don''t we get things settled and then talk about it?"


    "That''s more than I could wish for!"


    After hearing what Zhou Bao said, First Elder Ning Bo grinned, "Okay! Your cultivation is inferior to mine, and your seniority is lower than me, and you''re younger than me, so I won''t humiliate you. You go first! I''m very curious about your Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Then I don''t use much ceremony!" When he heard Ning Bo letting him strike first, Zhou Bao smiled. Then there was shining golden light in the back of his head. With the appearance of the golden light, the mighty pressure surged up like a turbulent river.


    "Golden Flame Mirror, go!" Zhou Bao shouted with a low voice, and then the Golden Flame Mirror in the back of his head spewed out a straight golden light, shooting at Ning Bo straightaway.


    Without changing his expression, Ning Bo did not smile until Zhou Bao used the Golden Flame Mirror. A layer of Green Qi suddenly flashed around his body, and before that golden light hit him, there was a flash of golden light in his sleeve.


    The golden light, like a wheel, turned into a golden circle in a blink. With a shake and a flicker, the circle appeared over Zhou Bao''s head. Then it became nine circles and held up Zhou Bao firmly. At the same time, the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror shot into his Protective Green Gang.


    "Puff!"


    With a groan whisper, Ning Bo was ready to fight against the powerful impact of the Golden Flame Mirror. He planned it very well.


    The Invisible Dragon Rod had the most powerful constraint in all Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Even Zhou Bao''s Pure Yang Celestial Device was marvelous, its constraint was not as good as that of the Invisible Dragon Rod. And Ning Bo had owned the Invisible Dragon Rod for more than 100 years and knew everything about it. Zhou Bao was less than 20 years old, so even if he had been fortunate enough to get a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it would be almost impossible to thoroughly master its function in a short time.


    It was for this reason that Ning Bo was confident enough to face Zhou Bao who also had a Pure Yang Celestial Device. He believed that he could beat Zhou Bao face-to-face and get his Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    He also heard about the power of the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror. The golden light killed three experts in almost a second, including an Eighth-level expert.


    However, Ning Bo was not at Level Eight, but rather at Level Nine. He was truly an accomplished Level Nine expert.


    He was confident that he could beat Zhou Bao''s first blow. And as long as he passed the first blow, he didn''t need to worry anymore. Because, Zhou Bao would have been caught by his Invisible Dragon Rod, not be able to play the power of his Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    This was the source of all his confidence.


    However, when he was fully confident to collide with the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror with his Gang Qi, an accident occurred. This did not mean that the power of the Golden Flame Mirror was unexpectedly powerful, but unexpectedly weak, which was too weak to be credible.


    It could even be said that it was simply no power at all.


    The marvelous light and the scorching spirit which looked as if it could burn out everything vanished as soon as they came in contact with his Gang Qi. It was only then that he realized that it was a very ordinary beam of light, without any exception.


    "Crap, I was fooled!" This was the first thought that came to his mind. Also, the moment that he thought of the idea, a thin wisp of azure light parted from the golden light and thrust into his Green Gang.


    "Ah---!" Ning Bo suddenly uttered a terrible scream. The cry was so horrifying and so loud that it frightened the people who heard it.


    The First Elder of Kunlun Mountain, a Level Nine expert, was so disgraceful, making such a cry in front of so many people!


    This surprised the middle-aged man and the fat man who followed him.


    However, after being surprised, they felt a pang of fear.


    A golden light shone from behind them, and a golden sun rose suddenly into the air. Then, the straight golden light directly shot down, and the three men were firmly nailed to the ground.


    At this time, Ning Bo had not recovered from the terrible and violent pain, and his eyes were perplexed. Instinctively, he wanted to take back the Invisible Dragon Rod. But his divine thoughts could not reach through the golden light that hung over his body to contact with the Invisible Dragon Rod that he had refined for more than 100 years.


    Painful and anxious, the poor First Elder of Kunlun Mountain didn''t know what to do. If he had been able to move, it must have been a matter of desolation.


    This was a trap, a naked trap. Zhou Bao led them to the magic matrix that he had set up, and he turned the incarnation of his Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion into him. As for the Golden Flame Mirror in the back of his head, it was also made by himself using the power of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation indeed was a Formation of Immortality. It could perfectly simulate the atmosphere and Qi Power of the Pure Yang Celestial Device, creating enormous mental pressure. The only drawback was that it could not play the true power of the Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    But that was enough to deceive Ning Bo. Even though he was the First Elder of the Kunlun Mountain, it would never occur to him that there was such a magical formation in the world, which could perfectly imitate the energy fluctuations of a Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    The most wonderful thing was that the golden light from the counterfeit Golden Flame Mirror naturally had no power, but the puppet of Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion was capable of attacking.


    On the contrary, it is a power to strike once. Although it could only stroke once, the power was quite beyond Zhou Bao''s expectation.


    The Poisonous Hitching Post!


    The green-colored needle completely ignored the Protective Gang Qi of this Level Nine expert and directly harmed him.


    And the damage was rare; it was not heavy, without a long-term effect on the body, but it was extremely painful!


    It was a piercing, unforgettable pain.


    Ning Bo lived for more than 200 years. He had suffered a lot, but it had never been so painful right now.


    It was not an ordinary pain. He felt like it was killing him.


    He was a little out of his sense under the influence of the pain, but the drastic pain earned Zhou Bao time to use the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and the magic matrix. Actually, he had been standing behind the three men, so he duly took the Golden Flame Mirror to shine on them violently.


    He did not use the lethality of the Golden Flame Mirror, but use all of its constraints, temporarily trapped them in the golden light.


    Why was it temporary?


    Because Zhou Bao had confidence that the golden light could imprison the middle-aged man and the fat man, but he was not sure that it could imprison Ning Bo, a Level Nine expert. Even if it could imprison Ning Bo, it may not be able to completely control him. Perhaps he still could manipulate his Invisible Dragon Rod while being imprisoned, which would be bad.


    Therefore, at the very first time that they were imprisoned, Wang She came out of the darkness and ran towards Zhou Bao''s puppet, who had been imprisoned by the Invisible Dragon Rod.


    After circling around the puppet three times, he seemed to have finally made up his mind and took out a knife from his arms and sank it into his arm ruthlessly. Then he threw his arm around and spilled a lot of blood on the Invisible Dragon Rod, as if the blood was inexhaustible.


    The Invisible Dragon Rod was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, so it could not be that simple. A faint golden light flashed on the Invisible Dragon Rod, and all of the blood was blocked outside, floating in the air, which was extremely odd.


    "Humph!"


    Wang She snorted coldly and went pale, covered in flowing Gang Qi. Then he made an abstruse gesture, and condensed the blood that was floating in the air and turned it into a dark red, pigeon egg-sized blood ball, which was incomparable condensate.


    "Oh---!"


    He shouted, and used his hands, to make a gesture, together with the blood ball directly for breaking the scattered light of the Invisible Dragon Rod. Then he pressed hard against the Invisible Dragon Rod.


    For a moment, the golden light of the Invisible Dragon Rod was stronger, as if to resist the immersion of Wang She''s blood. At the same time, Ning Bo who was being trapped by the Golden Flame Mirror freaked out. Ignoring the immense pain that still existed, he suddenly folded his hands together, emitting a stray of powerful Qi Power from all over his body. His Gang Qi burst out and turned into a cyan flag in front of him. Then he held the flag in his hand and waved it violently.


    With a small flag waving, Zhou Bao felt a strong turmoil passing from the Golden Flame Mirror. The golden light that enveloped them was a little shaky.


    "Have the instantiation of Gang Qi present?" Seeing the small flag, Zhou Bao was a little stunned, but gave a sneer appeared on the corners of his mouth.


    Ning Bo was worthy of being the First Elder of Kunlun Mountain. His Gang Qi was vast, majestic, and had been instantiated. In other words, he was taking out all his cultivation to do a hard-fought battle against the Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    If his opponent was someone else, the Pure Yang Celestial Device might have a problem. However, his opponent was Zhou Bao, who refined the Golden Flame Mirror by himself and had already mastered it. With a move of Zhou Bao''s heart, a green lotus suddenly appeared in the golden light, blocking the flag in Ning Bo''s hand.


    "Take it easy, take it easy. I know First Elder Ning is unbeatable and can break my Pure Yang Celestial Device. But you need some time to achieve this!"


    ......


    .

 Chapter 304: Another Snatch-up of Pure Yang Celestial Device and the Reaction of Wang She

    Chapter 304: Another Snatch-up of Pure Yang Celestial Device and the Reaction of Wang She


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    When Green Lotus emerged, he immediately resisted the cyan flag. To know that this cyan flag was materialized from the Gang Qi that Ning Bo had practiced for his entire life, it could be said that most of his cultivation was integrated into this tiny flag. Thus, when being pinned down like this, even if he had exceptional abilities, it would still be hard for him to get off the hook at the moment.


    "Zhou Bao! Wang She! How dare you two! You both get together and attempting to nick the treasure of Kunlun Mountain!"


    "Oh, what First Elder Ning is talking about? I have no intention to nick your treasure. Haven''t I competed you here? Your cultivation is truly unfathomable since you can even withstand my Pure Yang Celestial Device with your own body. It seems that I cannot resist for a long time, so how can I have time to nick your Pure Yang Celestial Device?"


    At this time, Wang She had successfully forced his essence and blood into the Invisible Dragon Rod. His face was already blazed with redness, which even went a bit purple. As he was murmuring some incantations that no one could understand, jets of cyan Gang Qi shrouded in the blood began to slowly wrap up the Invisible Dragon Rod. Each time it wraps around, the golden light of that Invisible Dragon Rod went feeble.


    "Quick, release me!" Seeing this scenario, First Elder Ning got anxious, threw all his manners in the wind and cried out, "Aaaaaah!"


    Before he finished crying, another painful wail came in!


    The Poisonous Hitching Post hit him once again.


    "Oh, what a real arrogant! Where do you think you are? What do you reckon you''re doing? Should you keep thinking about other matters during the fight with me, and even asked me to let you out! How ridiculous you are! Is this how thing works at your Kunlun Mountain?"


    "His Excellency Zhou, there''s no joking about such matters!" Among the golden light, that fat man finally sighed, "You constraint our First Elder and let him see his Pure Yang Celestial Device and were taken away by others. It was worse than killing him. A loss of state is unavoidable, but are you not afraid of the revenge of Kunlun Mountain?"


    "Afraid, of course. I know Kunlun Mountain has at least another Pure Yang Celestial Device, but, what other choice do I have? Now that we have initiated a contest, we shall go through with it. Otherwise, let alone my poor little territory, my life and even the lives of my family will be at stake for this."


    "If I could guarantee that Kunlun Mountain will never go against Your Excellency from now on, then, can you let go of us?"


    "Yes, I can. However, I cannot assure you that this Invisible Dragon Rod will go with you together. You see, it''s not me who schemed your Pure Yang Celestial Device, but Wang She does. That guy has spent so much effort on this, dare you let him go back empty-handed?"


    The fat man smiled bitterly. "That means there is no room for negotiation, isn''t it?"


    "It''s better to do business with the acquaintances than with strangers. Wang She and I have developed a close friendship for many years. We know each other well, and had always a pleasant cooperation. But with you and Kunlun Mountain, well, forget it!"


    "I''m still gonna remind you, neither Wang She nor the Tian Long Taoism will be able to save your ass since they are far away in the Central Plains, while your territory is sitting in the influence sphere of us Kunlun Mountain!" The fat man said coldly. When inducement failed, he turned to coercion.


    "The sphere of influence? Ah, really funny! Well, I admit that in the Northern Yuan era, this place was indeed your land in the Kunlun Mountain. Unfortunately, it is no longer the era of Northern Yuan. No signs of human habitation ever appeared here. Thre is no human habitation, no tribes, how can you talk about influence sphere? The influence sphere of Kunlun Mountain is confined to the place on your big mountain. To the mountain area, you won''t find even a ghost. How can you regard this as influence?" Zhou Bao said with a sneer. "Maybe after you and Prince Ning formed an alliance and help him exclusively dominate the northwest, this place will be counted as your influence sphere once again. But this shall wait until Prince Ning succeeds, right?"


    "Oh, it seems that you know a lot of things!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, the fat man felt a little shocked, and his cold face suddenly melted into a sunny, warm smile.


    With a broad smile, the fat man replied "Business may fail us, but righteousness still remains. Or let''s talk some other business, shall we?"


    "Business can be negotiated when we''re sitting down. But as you''ve seen, now it''s not a good time for business negotiation!" Zhou Bao looked at him with a smile, and then turned his eyes to the sideway and fixed them on other two figures¡ªYan Yunyan and Shui Hongyan had arrived at unknown time.


    However, they came one step late to see the process of Zhou Bao fighting against Ning Bo. On their arrival, Zhou Bao had already constrained the three men from the Kunlun Mountain, while Wang She was ploughing on the work of collecting the Invisible Dragon Rod.


    "This must be Princess Heyang, am I right? I''ve heard that you had visited me for business, but at that time, I was in the middle of a closed-door training. If offense is made, please kindly pardon me, Your Highness!"


    "Yan-er dare not blame you for this!" Yan Yunyan said hastily, a smile blossomed on her beautiful face, which, for a moment, looked like that flowers of every kind were in bloom, even rendering Zhou Bao into an uncalled daze.


    "I''ve heard that His Excellency Zhou had a cultivation for the sake of the world, and he was the No.1 junior hero in the Great Jin. Today meeting you in person, I finally knew that you well deserve your reputation. Even the First Elder of the Kunlun Mountain is no match for you. It seems that the people in the world are still underestimated your strength!"


    "How can the rumors in Jianghu be reliable? The power of this Pure Yang Celestial Device is all that I depend on, which cannot count as my true ability!" Zhou Bao said with a smile. "I wonder what Your Highness has arrived here for!"


    "Originally, I intended to resolve the misunderstanding between Your Excellency and the Kunlun Mountain, and to avoid the harassment. But now, it seems that it is unnecessary." Yan Yunyan said in downhearted voice. "Sure enough that Yan-er has made a fruitless journey this time!"


    "I don''t want to come, Your princess has watched a big show free of charge. And I believe that as long as Your Highness stays here, she will not be able to go. There will be soon a big show for Your Highness to see!" Zhou Bao chuckled.


    "Give me income!"


    The cyan light with blood had rounded the nine golden rings. Wang She roared abruptly, both hands swept over in the air. Then, the Invisible Dragon Rod and the surrounding cyan light all condensed into a shaft of bluish yellow light, and shot into his forehead. Almost at the same time, Zhou Bao sleeves lifted. Zhou Bao that was constrained by the Invisible Dragon Rod, turned into a shaft of azure light and descended into his sleeve. No one caught a clear sight of what was in the azure light.


    "Congratulations, Chief Wang!"


    "Yeah!" Wang She''s face looked pale. He gulped a large breath of cool air and looked up at Zhou Bao. "This time I owe you. But I still need time to refine this Pure Yang Celestial Device. Damn it, this Invisible Dragon Rod has been possessed by that old bloke for many years. It''ll take me some time to cast out his spiritual brand!"


    Zhou Bao''s expression slightly changed, and suddenly asked, "How do these people handle?!"


    "I need at least half a month to get a preliminarily grasp of this Pure Yang Celestial Device. For these people, you just lock them up first and don''t release them. Otherwise, if Kunlun Master arrives early, I will not be able to help you out!" At this point, Wang She''s eyes rested on Yan Yunyan and Shui Hongyan. "And about these two, lock them up. Never allow them to disclose any information about this situation!"


    "You dare to!" This time, Shui Hongyan opened her mouth first. With a flash, her figure was already flashed in front of the princess, and her gorgeous eyes were stared upon Zhou Bao. "Zhou Bao, do you dare to offend the princess?"


    "Princess? Of course I don''t dare to offend her! But right now, I''m dealing with my strong enemy, the Kunlun Mountain. So there is no strength I can spare to rescue the princess!" Zhou Bao laughed.


    "What?" Shui Hongyan''s face distorted at these words. But before she could realize it, Wang She already approached near her. With a soft point, the tip of his finger punctuated her pink Gang Qi that was protecting her body, and pinned above her forehead.


    Although Wang She had exhausted loads of his strength, but after all, he was a Level Nine expert, who could easily handle a Seventh-level expert, as long as he was not a freak like Zhou Bao.


    Just when the finger touched on her forehead, Shui Hongyan''s eyes rolled upwards and she collapsed onto the ground. Wang She stretched out his hands, stopped and held her right into his arms.


    "Oh, here is the beauty in legend. Chief Wang, feeling pretty good?" At the sight of the two''s posture, Zhou Bao revealed a sly smile.


    Wang She didn''t answer him, but did the same thing on Yan Yunyan and subdued her before she could get any chance to speak.


    "Half a month!" Wang She said, "At least it shall take half a month, or 20 days for the best, before I can have the confidence using this weapon. I need time to apprehend the wonder of this Pure Yang Celestial Device. It''s far too early for me to employ it to deal with enemies in such a short time, especially when the enemy is Kunlun Master!"


    "Then, just ask the Tian Long Taoism to send another one with Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    The golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror glinted, and the three from the Kunlun Mountain who were covered in the light viewed a dazzling sight and lost consciousness all at once.


    Without the presence of outsiders, Zhou Bao''s expression turned ugly. He shouted, "Damn, I finally got you a Pure Yang Celestial Device, but you''re telling me that you can''t help me cope with Kunlun Master. Then, what did I ask you to come here for?!"


    "I never said that I could not help you deal with Kunlun Master. What I mean is that I need time!" Wang She shook his head and said. "It''s a Pure Yang Celestial Device! Do you think it is the same as a Celestial Device of Mysterious Level? It''s not like that! It takes time to get the hang of it. Lots of time! "


    "You should have thought about this before we took action, shouldn''t you?" Zhou Bao said. "Don''t tell me this never occurred to you! You are a Level Nine expert, the Chief of Tian Long Taoism. You''re intimidatingly famous in the world, it is impossible to not consider a matter like this!"


    "Yes, I did. But I never expected that the Invisible Dragon Rod could be so hard to control!" Wang She''s face looked even more bitter than a bitter herb at the moment. Suddenly, he pointed at Ning Bo, who was constrained in the Golden Flame Mirror, and snarled, "This Damn dude not only has a cultivation of Level Nine, but also has practiced certain secret spiritual method that has made his spiritual brand deeply engraved into the Invisible Dragon Rod, even deeper than a knife''s work. Thus, it won''t be easy to wipe it out. Damn, half a month can only get me to block his spiritual brand, so that this guy shall never have control over the Invisible Dragon Rod when he have free from the constraint. As for the rest, it only can depend on our patience to wear down the spiritual brand bit by bit. But if you want to use it, it is definitely not enough!"


    "Then what shall we do? How should we deal with Kunlun Master?" Zhou Bao exclaimed. "The power of his Pure Yang Celestial Device will certainly not be inferior to that of the Invisible Dragon Rod, and his strength is even better, which may have possibly half-entered the Metaphysic Realm. What methods do you recommend to deal with him?" Zhou Bao shouted loudly. "You can''t take away the benefits without getting the work done!"


    "I know, I know. I won''t take your advantage!" Wang She shook his head reluctantly. "I won''t take benefits from you without giving you anything in exchange. I will certainly sort out the issue of Kunlun Master for you. Actually, now we don''t have to worry about Kunlun Master at all. Powerful as that guy is, since the Kunlun Mountain has lost a Pure Yang Celestial Device, and one of their Level Nine experts has been constrained in this place by you, Kunlun Master''s strength is considerably weakened. With you and me, adding the help of your Pure Yang Celestial Device and the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, we may have a chance to hold him back!" Speaking of this, he shot Zhou Bao a weirdly look. "Don''t you see it? In fact, this round, you''ve already won!"


    "Won what f*ck!" Zhou Bao growled. "I''m not this stupid like those Kunlun Mountain people, who came to find fault with their opponent before figuring out his strength. After several fights so far, the Kunlun Mountain should have strength for us. Next time when Kunlun Master strikes, he is bound to come with the power as strong as a thunderbolt, so the winning opportunity will be utterly different. I don''t want to lose the battle to the point that even my underwear is lost to the other side. Therefore, this time, I must be assured of our victory, just like the one we just did."


    Wang She listened carefully over Zhou Bao''s words. He felt that Zhou Bao did have a fair point on this, but he truly misjudged the situation, belittled Ning Bo''s control over the Invisible Dragon Rod, why he got his combat capability severely slashed. Then, he gritted his teeth and said, "Wel, I''ll go back to the old man and let him put pressure on Kunlun Mountain!"


    "Go look for the old man and ask him to impose pressure on the Kunlun Mountain?" Zhou Bao forze a bit, a little confused. "What do you mean?!"


    "Don''t forget who I am. I am one of the Three Chiefs of the Tian Long Taoism, and I do have a bit power in the Tian Long Taoism. Do you know who my teacher is? He is the Leader of the Tian Long Taoism. Damn, as long as he is willing to come out and clamp down on Kunlun Master, it is enough to prevent Kunlun Master from getting down the Kunlun mountain!" Wang She seems to squeezed him.


    "Should there be such a great thing? Why didn''t you tell me earlier?" Hearing this, Zhou Bao relapsed and happy. He was able to prevent Kunlun Master from getting down the Kunlun Mountain! He should have informed him eartlier instead of letting Zhou Bao worry for nothing!


    "Do you really think that old man can invite anyone to move? That guy is known for his greediness. Without enough benefits, he will never come out to take action. The best he will do is to ask us Chiefs to come forward!" At this, Wang She gnashed his teeth very hardly and said, "Damn, for this, I''ll have to work my ass off for the Tian Long Taoism for another 20 years!"


    "Aren''t you the Chief of the Tian Long Taoism? Have you been fighting for Tian Long Taoism?"


    "Well, when we, the Three Chiefs, truly want to exercise the power of Chief, it will indeed be very impressive. Meanwhile, we shall also assume huge responsibilities. Precisely for this reason, the three of us have either been hiding on the mountain all day and night, or running around aross the world, but seldom exercised our power as ever. But this time, for the sake of this Pure Yang Celestial Device, it is still worthwhile to cost 20 years of my life!" At this moment, as if to make up his mind, Wang She cast a fierce look on Zhou Bao. "I''m going back right now. I''ll employ my power as the Chief of the Tian Long Taoism and protest against the Kunlun Mountain. Protest against them for unduely bullying the peripheral strength of control Tian Long Taoism. You are from the Wu Family and still entitled as a disciple of the Wu Family. Since the Wu Family is one of our peripheral strength, you naturally belong to our peripheral strength. F*ck, if he dares to do so, I''ll dare to drag all the strength under my control to the northwest and go against him. I truly want to know whether the Kunlun Mountain, who has lost its fangs and power, will be able to contend with us Tian Long Mystic Mountain!"


    "Then you just figure it out!" Zhou Bao softly took a breath. He had no interest in digging up secrets of the Tian Long Taoism, so he merely smiled and went on, "I''ll have no objection if you really draw your power in Tian Long Taoism here to put up a fight against the Kunlun Mountain." Of course he would have no objection. If Wang She could really turn the Tian Long Taoism against the Kunlun Mountain, in this way, new speculations about the ambiguous relationship between him and the Tian Long Taoism would soon sweep across the entire martial arts world. The more those speculations and rumors were, the more advantages he would get.


    "Surely I can!" Wang She replied. "I''ll go back now, so you don''t have to worry about this. In three days, I can release the news to the public. By the way, you can let go of these guys. They are actually useless now. If we release them, at least we won''t immediately become a swear enemy of the Kunlun Mountain!"


    "Yeah, you''re right, they are already of no use to us!" Zhou Bao nodded in acknowledgement and withdrew his Golden Flame Mirror. He softly flicked his sleeves, which made the surrounding air give a silent stir, and then, nine cyan flags emerged in his palm. With one flip of his hand, the nine flags disappeared at once. Everything went to normal as if nothing had happened, except five unfortunate guys were added to the scene, all lying on the ground in a coma.


    "I''m leaving. You just go back to your place at ease. This time, I truly spent a fortune!" Wang She''s expression went increasingly nasty. He stamped hard on the earth, turned into a shot of cyan light and disappeared in front of Zhou Bao.


    "F*ck, you have such a simple solution but never use it. Instead, you should insist me to envolve in fighting and killing. How ominous it is!" Zhou Bao murmured to himself, but he could understand what Wang She had said and given it to Tian Long Taoism for no reason. After 20 years of hard work, without huge benefits, even if he was a disciple of the Tian Long Taoism, there was no way for him to agree to this.


    "Ah, the affiliate influence of the Tian Long Taoism. After this one, I''m afraid that the northwest will have to go silent for a while." "That guy, Prince Ning, has always been longing to use the power of the Kunlun Mountain to realize his ambition. This time, I''ve destroyed half of the strength of the Kunlun Mountain, and then by resorting to the influence of the Tian Long Taoism, deterred the Tian Long Taoism as well as those in the northwest who had second thoughts about me. With this legendary Tian Long Taoism backing me up, I ''ll be able to peacefully develop my territory and open up the commercial routes of the Blacktail Plain."


    The Blacktail Plain was a shortcut for commerce development. Now that he has made the Black Demon Chama surrender to him and had the Golden Flame Mirror at hand, as long as he wanted to, he could blaze a commercial route on the Blacktail Plain at any time with no need to concern about sludges and swamps.


    Remember, what truly terrified him on the Blacktail Plain was not Black Demon Chama, but the lethal swamps, which would engulf lives whenever and wherever possible, forcing those who wrongfully stepped into the sludge to witness themselves slowly sink in till death. After all, no matter how strong Black Demon Chama was, it was merely a powerful evil beast. Moreover, the Blacktail Plain was significantly vast, very different from the swamps which were ubiquitous but hard to discover, and could pose death threat to human beings at any time.


    However, with the Golden Flame Mirror in his possession, Zhou Bao had the ability to easily open up a firm route untroubled by mire. This advantage was beyond anyone''s control.


    Of course, Zhou Bao had never thought to take up this route to himself. This place in the northwest was not that large, but also not that small. If we counted it up, there could be over a hundred lords of enfeoffs at all sizes, among which more than 10 lords'' territories were about the same size as his. But most of them never came here to take over their territories, while among dozens of those who had moved here, a part of them already surrendered to Prince Ning. That was the reason why Prince Ning was so confident to dominate the northwest. First, he had solid strength average lords could not have, even if the area of their territories equated Zhou Bao''s. Second, considering the north was just developed, few people would come and live here. Even though you had a vast territory, you would not have the equivalent strength. At present, influences in the northwest were the weakest. So as long as Prince Ning took root in the northwest, then, whether it was reasonable or unreasonable, legal or illegal, he would be the most powerful influence there. Even if in the future, someone wanted to develop his influence in the northwest, Prince Ning would have already built up his power here and could do them in from behind through some dirty work, while sort of lords would suck it.


    This was exactly why Zhou Bao was so scrupulous about this Prince Ning.


    Other lords had to gradually foster their influence, including himself, and Prince Ning himself had already gained great influence, which was originally designed to compete for the throne, so he had a perfect talent pool and a net of connections. Even if he was in the Central Plains, no one would dare slight his power. However, he should resolutely withdraw all his influence from the Plains to the northwest, a place where even birds would not defecate, for the purpose of seeking development. Therefore, the advantage he possessed was beyond anyone''s reach.


    Zhou Bao naturally couldn''t be a match for Prince Ning, and Zhou Bao knew this by heart. Compared to Prince Ning, the biggest advantage he had was his strong combat capability, which was exactly why this influential Prince Ning was not bold enough to act carelessly on his own accord. But only dealt with him by virtue of the power of the Kunlun Mountain.


    But now, the failure of the Kunlun Mountain was a foregone conclusion. Then, what move would Prince Ning do next?


    That was what Zhou Bao concerned the most. Once the Kunlun Mountain dropped out, violent conflicts would be destined to arise between Zhou Bao and Prince Ning. Even though Zhou Bao merely aimed to keep steady control over his own territory, this ambitious Prince Ning would never tolerate such a huge labile factor under his nose. In the upcoming days, he would definitely resort to all kinds of means to take down Zhou Bao.


    This was not a good thing for Zhou Bao!


    Further, he had no interest in tackling Prince Ning all by himself. "I am not Mother Teresa. No need to do good things for free." Therefore, he intended to drag all lords in the northwest into this game. By what? Trade route! Trade route!


    ¡­


    Not in a state recently, I feel dizzy when I sit in front of the computer!


    "Immortal Palace?!"

 Chapter 305: Striking out and Stirring up Trouble

    Chapter 305: Striking out and Stirring up Trouble


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    As the saying goes, if you want to be rich, build the route first.


    The reason why those lords who had been awarded territories were unwilling to come here could only be due to the harsh living conditions here¡ªthe northwest was very cold and remote, and the route leading to this place was a long and tough trail. These difficulties were subjective and could be overcome. After all, who didn''t want to have his own kingdom and claim dominance across his land, and who didn''t want to keep a route of retreat for himself?


    The real barricade for the development of the northwest did not lie in its hard living conditions or its long distance from the Central Plains, but in the Blacktail Plain. As long as the Blacktail Plain was spanning across the northern Dragon-pressing River, existing on the front side of the northwest, the development of the northwest would remain a joke. Hence, no one wanted to come here, for not everyone could be ready to completely give up the colorful world in the Central Plains and come here to run the northwest, just like what Prince Ning did.


    But Zhou Bao could sort this out. He was able to set up an absolutely safe route on the Blacktail Plain, or even more than one route, which would be intriguing enough for all the lords to cast their eyes in the northwest. Once those various lords in the northwest all came up, the water of the northwest would be stirred up to become thoroughly muddy.


    However, in this way, Zhou Bao would downright offend Prince Ning till the end. But again, at the moment, Zhou Bao didn''t think there was any leeway to turn things around with Prince Ning.


    He didn''t know Prince Ning at all, but Prince Ning initiated attacks one after another upon him, which was enough for him to loathe Prince Ning. Zhou Bao was never a yes-man, but he had always abided by the principle of never attacking unless being attacked. Once someone attacked him, there was no way that he would he stifle his explosive temper.


    These days, it was all about Prince Ning making moves upon him, while he just passively made responses according to the situation. But now, he was going to change his strategy. He intended to take the initiative to do something and let Prince Ning learn a lesson. Opening up the passageway to the Blacktail Plain was one of these things, also the most fatal and the most effective one.


    "I wonder what the expression on Prince Ning''s face will be after I accomplish this thing?" Zhou Bao gave a cold laugh in his mind.


    "Prince Ning, now I''m making a move, let''s see how you take it!"


    ...


    ¡­


    "What? Kunlun Mountain lost?"


    In the barrack of Prince Ning beside the Dragon-pressing River, Prince Ning was staring at Yan Yunyan with an incredulous look and a numb face. At all events, never did he expect that Kunlun Mountain would lose the battle. Plus, they failed so suddenly, completely and glumly that even their Pure Yang Celestial Device Invisible Dragon Rod was lost to the other side.


    "What the hell is this?"


    "Yes, Kunlun Mountain lost. That Ning Bo walked right into Zhou Bao''s trap, who used the Invisible Dragon Rod to constrain a puppet, and then fell to Zhou Bao''s assassination effort and was subdued by him, causing their Pure Yang Celestial Device Invisible Dragon Rod to be snatched up by Wang She!" Standing next to Yan Yunyan, Shui Hongyan recounted the facts in an unperturbed tone. "Both of us were subdued by Wang She. When we came to our senses, Zhou Bao and Wang She were long gone, and the three men from Kunlun Mountain had also disappeared."


    "Are you really sure that Wang She snatched up the Pure Yang Celestial Device of Kunlun Mountain?" Prince Ning was still a little unconvinced.


    "Of course we''re sure! We witnessed it with our own eyes!" Seeing that Prince Ning took a pinch of salt in her words, Yan Yunyan started feeling a bit upset. "Prince Ning, my brother, we risked a lot to see the whole thing. If Zhou Bao ever wanted to silence us using murder, we would have never made it back. You should suspect our words! Honestly!"


    "Haha, haha, Sister Yan''er did go through lots of trouble this time. Your words are not suspicious to me, but unbelievable!" Prince Ning hastened to give an apologetic smile, though this smile was evidently forced.


    "Please rest assured, Prince Ning. The failure of Kunlun Mountain is not necessarily a bad thing!" A man beside them suddenly opened his mouth and said.


    "What do you mean?" asked Prince Ning, whose eyes flashed for a second.


    "If the Kunlun Mountain merely lost this battle, it''s nothing. Moreover, maybe they will not make new moves on account of Zhou Bao''s strength. But this time, since Zhou Bao and Wang She even robbed their Pure Yang Celestial Device, Kunlun Mountain will never let it go. Although this time, their First Elder lost. The next time, it will be Kunlun''s Master, the Leader of Kunlun Mountain and one of the Three Grandmasters in the Northern Yuan that come out and strike. Regardless of how powerful Zhou Bao is, how can he ever take any advantage of the Kunlun Master?"


    ¡­


    ¡­


    So long as Zhou Bao was there, the world would never be short of sensational news!


    Merely within 10 days, the entire martial arts world registered the truth of this saying once again.


    Now, Zhou Bao, who had been out of the spotlight of the Central Plains for a while, suddenly created a huge buzz in the northwest.


    He collided with Tian Long Taoism''s Wang She and nicked a Pure Yang Celestial Device of Kunlun Mountain!


    A Pure Yang Celestial Device. A thing that was legendary and incomparably precious in the eye of numerous prestigious sects and schools, as well as well-known families, was now connected with Zhou Bao for the second time. The first time, Zhou Bao robbed Xining King''s Eldest Son Yan Fei of the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda he had obtained from the World Hero Competition. The second time, it was the treasure of Kunlun Mountain, the Invisible Dragon Rod that was snatched away by the joint hands of Zhou Bao and Wang She.


    If we counted it up, so far, a total of three Pure Yang Celestial Devices had passed through Zhou Bao''s hands, one of which was owned by him.


    This was truly unbelievable.


    But the channel from which this news spread out was even more unbelievable¡ªthis was disclosed by the Tian Long Taoism in the first place.


    This time, the Tian Long Taoism made a rare announcement to the world, warning Kunlun Mountain that they had unduly assaulted an outer core disciple of the Tian Long Taoism and attempted to murder a key official, the lord of the Great Jin, as well as to loot a Pure Yang Celestial Device of the Great Jin. This was something that the Tian Long Taoism and even the whole martial arts world of the Great Jin could not tolerate.


    Zhou Bao was an outer core disciple of the Tian Long Taoism, which meant he was under the protection of the Tian Long Taoism. Kunlun Mountain should dare send a First Elder with the cultivation at Level Nine to attack Zhou Bao using a Pure Yang Celestial Device, but was beaten up by him in the end! How could they have the dignity to claim justice from Zhou Bao and strive to retrieve that Pure Yang Celestial Device? How silly was this, wasn''t it?


    For this purpose, the Leader of the Tian Long Taoism Yu Baimei even came forward to warn Kunlun Mountain in person, informing them that if they ever dispatched anyone to harass Zhou Bao, the Tian Long Taoism would have no problem to put up a fight with them. As to Wang She, one of the Chiefs of the Tian Long Taoism, he even went so far to declare that he would pull all the strength subordinate to him to the northwest and start a fierce battle against Kunlun Mountain.


    Although this threat was not realized due to the persuasion of several significants from the Tian Long Mystic Mountain, it was a sufficient manifestation of Tian Long Taoism''s care for Zhou Bao. Indeed, he was titled as an outer core disciple. But as a matter of fact, even if this had happened to Wu Yansheng, the Family Head of the Wu Family where Zhou Bao came from, he would have no way to make the Leader of the Tian Long Taoism Yu Baimei seek justice for him in person, would he?


    Moreover, even though he didn''t manage to redeploy all the strength in his hand, Wang She refused to stay on the spot after he returned to the Tian Long Mystic Mountain. Instead, he went straightforward to the northwest with a dozen of his subordinates. Every one of them was his trusted buddy, all of whom had a cultivation at the peak of Level Six, except for one that was about to break through Level Seven.


    For Zhou Bao, who was temporarily short of helpful subordinates, these men were strong reinforcements. With the dozens of men, he would have adequate force to dominate his own territory. Zhu Ba would also have no need to lead those subordinate urban managers to patrol all over the place for day and night.


    Not to mention that there was another Level Nine expert there to help him¡ªWang She!


    Having a Level Nine expert at the place who also owned a Pure Yang Celestial Device, meant that nobody would be stupid enough to cause trouble for them. Even with the current strength of Prince Ning, provoking Zhou Bao was still something too dangerous to perform, because two Pure Yang Celestial Devices coupled with two experts, would be more than enough to completely wipe out the strongest force of Prince Ning.


    As might have been expected, owing to the pressure imposed by the Tian Long Taoism, no force of Kunlun Mountain ever dared to show up within Zhou Bao''s territory, as if they had acquiesced that this was the ending of the issue.


    Among all schools in the world, Kunlun Mountain was known for its endurance and cowardice. Last time when the Northern Yuan fell down, didn''t the Kunlun Master run back to Kunlun Mountain on his own? That was why he was the only Grandmaster out of the Three who had managed to escape unscathed. Though he had to put up with some mockery and derision for this, he did keep the foundation of the Kunlun Mountain intact. Those guys who laughed at him or scolded him in the dark would never dare to provoke Kunlun Mountain. Yet, after the Northern Yuan was destroyed, Kunlun Mountain was still enjoying the same treatment as the Palace of Destruction Demon, and didn''t differ much from the Three Great Sects of the Great Jin. How could they achieve this?


    This was simply attributed to the Kunlun Master and their Pure Yang Celestial Device!


    The Kunlun Mountain did lose a Pure Yang Celestial Device, which significantly weakened their strength, but their root was not damaged. They still had at least two Level Nine experts and one Pure Yang Celestial Device. This kind of strength was sufficient to make everyone scared of them.


    This was precisely why Wang She had personally assumed command over the northwest after the event.


    It was due to concerns about the Tian Long Taoism that Kunlun Mountain didn''t adopt any further action. However, their current inaction did not guarantee an uneventful future. After all, robbing a Pure Yang Celestial Device was no laughing matter. Although the Invisible Dragon Rod was now in Wang She''s hand, Zhou Bao still had another one with him, right?


    For this, Wang She wasn''t assured either. Thus, he simply moved to the northwest, displaying that he might have a long-term stay there. The top of the Tian Long Taoism also tacitly consented to it.


    While all these dazzling actions dazed many people''s eyes, they also put many observant men into overthinking.


    This was not about protecting Zhou Bao! Apparently, the Tian Long Taoism was using this matter to openly expand their strength. Good heavens, with a single move, they could deploy their force to the northwest.


    The Mingyi School, the Sect of Flame, and all sorts of other schools in Jianghu had all interpreted something unique from this action of the Tian Long Taoism.


    With Zhou Bao''s strength and the secret support from the Tian Long Taoism, he would soon take firm control over the northwest region. Though at present, the future region was cold and remote, barren and deserted, what would happen to it in the future?


    The northwest was vast and abundant in resources. If provided with time, patience and sufficient labor, this region would certainly thrive and prosper. It was even possible to build up a large kingdom with a strength no less than that of the Great Jin. This time, the Tian Long Taoism truly got a head start. Zhou Bao and Wang She were actually the northwest agents of the Tian Long Taoism. Perhaps, one day, the Tian Long Taoism could really develop and shine in the northwest region!


    Thinking of this, everyone''s mind began to run wild, maybe too wild.


    For a while, various schools, influences, and well-known family in the martial arts world started making moves in secret. Batches and batches of forces were dispatched to the northwest. Those lords who had obtained fiefs in the northwest but due to the martial environment, chose to remain in the Jin and never went there, also became popular figures, starting to engage with assorted influences every single day.


    For a moment, undercurrents were surging and the storm was rising!


    ¡­


    ¡­


    "Bastard! Zhou Bao, you bastard! Not to mention Wang She, and the Tian Long Taoism! Why don''t you stay put in the Central Plains? What did you come to the northwest for?"


    In the camp of Prince Ning beside the Dragon-pressing River, Prince Ning was outraged. In the past dozen days, all sorts of messages had been swinging before his eyes like trotting horse lamps, all of which was disadvantageous to him. Thanks to the joint action of Zhou Bao and the Tian Long Taoism, the water in the northwest was stirred muddy, completely muddy. Myriads of people had eyed this place now. Originally, Prince Ning planned to quietly take up the northwest region. But now, the plan of taking as much advantage as possible fell through again.


    "Your Royal Highness, please calm down. I think we''d better give the matter some further thought and discuss it later!"


    At the sight of this furious Prince Ning, none of the experts in the camp dared to utter another sentence. Instead, several men dressed like intellectuals, seemed thoughtful regarding the matter.


    "Calm down, how! I''ve toiled to manage this place for three years, and I''ve invested all my force in this tough northwest region, but for what? Simply, for occupying the northwest region before anyone realizes the whole situation. This was so as to gain some advantages. But today, what about today? Everything is too late, because everyone has shifted their focus to the northwest. Thus, how on earth can I calm down?"


    As prince Ning was growling, his two fists violently dropped onto the low tea table in front of those intellectuals, shattering the newly built low tea table made of firm wood into pieces.


    "My painstaking efforts. All my painstaking efforts were spent in the northwest. Now they''re all wasted, all wasted!"


    Being ferociously glared at by Prince Ning, that intellectual went ashen-faced, quivering in fear. For a while, he didn''t know what to say. He recoiled to the back, as if about to slump into his chair.


    The whole camp was enveloped by the fury of Prince Ning and fell into silence, like a volcano that might erupt at any time, which could generate a force of compelling stress, even though the quietness was not broken at all.


    "Actually, it''s not a bad thing!"


    These words rang out, breaking the horrible silence.


    All eyes in the camp darted toward the source of that sound. There stood the most inferior seat at the intellectuals'' table. An intellectual in black was sitting there, who had a slight figure, a wretched face and a handlebar mustache.


    It seemed that he had taken no notice of the uncanny atmosphere in the camp, but had been slowly sipping his liquor, appearing to be quite at ease. However, with so many people in the camp staring at him, he could not remain unresponsive. He slightly raised up his head, looked at the crowd, and began smiling. "Actually, from the beginning, I''ve disagreed with your plan. What rubbish it is saying that the northwest is cold and remote when it''s vast and abundant in resources, which is good for development! No matter how tough and vast it is, how fit it is for development, it''s impossible to keep this kind of thing away from the rest!" He heaved a soft sigh and continued, "Unfortunately, you just didn''t listen to me, but insisted that this would be a great opportunity!"


    "Jia Yuan, stop deliberately mystifying this issue. Just spit it out!" Among all the intellectuals, a middle-aged man in lead looked a little embarrassed, and he snapped in an undertone.


    "I have nothing to spit out!" The intellectual named Jia Yuan shook his head, he slowly rose up from his chair, and gave a deep bow at Prince Ning. "It''s just that, I reckon, right now is precisely the most advantageous timing for Prince Ning!"


    "Oh?" Prince Ning''s eyes flashed, and a trace of an odd smile was jerked out on his face. He then strode in front of Jia Yuan in merely one step. "Are you saying that right now is the most favorable opportunity for me? How come? If your words make sense, I''ll promote you as my strategist. If you are deliberately mystifying things and try to deceive me, I''ll toss you out of our camp and let the wild wolves feed on you!"


    Jia Yuan cracked a smile and replied, "Why so serious, Your Royal Highness? The position of strategist is something I am not up to. Well, the issue here is not complex. It''s just because of the sudden appearance of Zhou Bao that Your Royal Highness and other associates lost your usual peace of mind and ignored this point. If we think it over, this event actually didn''t cost a thing for Your Royal Highness. At most, it is merely Kunlun Mountain that lost a Pure Yang Celestial Device. The reason why they lost it is utterly due to their incompetence, which has nothing to do with Your Royal Highness, and also didn''t incur any damage upon the alliance treaty between Your Royal Highness and the other Royal Highness!" Speaking of this, Jia Yuan started laughing. "Even if the northwest region has attracted others'' attention, so what? Your Royal Highness''s influence is still the No.1 in the northwest. In addition, with the secret help provided by Kunlun Mountain, no matter who comes to the northwest, they still have to act in line with your attitude. If Your Royal Highness wants to, you can make them disappear at any time. What''s more, since others have noticed the northwest, many people will be willing to move here. Then, Your Royal Highness will never be short of work hands. Goals that are planned to be realized in five or 10 years can also get started right now. As long as the situation is properly handled, those new-comers will not become an impediment for Your Royal Highness. Instead, they will become your helpers, and as for Zhou Bao..."


    Speaking of Zhou Bao, Jia Yuan paused for a moment. "Though Your Royal Highness may find it weird, I still want to say the mountains. In fact, you don''t need to provoke him. Zhou Bao does have some strength, but he is not very mountainous. The reason why he has devoted himself to managing the northwest region is simply that he is just a wild boy from the mountains, who has no foundation for building an enterprise. Accordingly, he merely aims to set up one foundation of his own, and that''s it. As long as Your Royal Highness gradually takes control over the northwest, why do you need to fear for his potential rebellion?"


    "So you''re saying that I should just ignore this Zhou Bao, right?''''


    "Yes, just ignore him, and don''t get into conflict with him. Your Royal Highness only needs to concentrate on building up your own influence. Considering the major influence of Zhou Bao is in the west, it won''t have any serious impact on Your Royal Highness!"


    "No serious impact? How can you allow others to sleep soundly just on the other side of your own bed? This is really simple, how could you not understand?" The middle-aged intellectual sitting in the primary seat sneered. "Jia Yuan, it seems that you are drunk talking! Maybe we need those wild wolves to sober you up!"


    "Jia Yuan is not confused by liquor!" Jia Yuan grinned, not caring a crap about the threat made by the opponent. "Your Royal Highness, does it ever occur to you that even if there was no Zhou Bao, could you really bring the entire northwest under your rule so smoothly? As I''ve mentioned, it''s impossible to keep this kind of thing from those perceptive men, no matter how confidentially you get it done. Princess Heyang is a living example. The greatest advantage of Your Royal Highness, is that you have acted one step ahead than the rest, also more resolutely than the others. That''s why you''ve established such a huge superiority in the northwest. On the count of this superiority, even if other Royal Highnesses have noticed the benefits in this matter, they will not take action simply because they shall have many scruples about you and give up their hopes. Your Royal Highness, at present, you''re possessing the absolute advantage in the northwest! How can you say that your effort is all wasted?"


    "Advantage? Do I have any advantage? Yeah, I do. I do have the absolute advantage! No matter how many people they are going to send here, it''s none of my business. Even if it''s true that, as the rumors have it, Zhou Bao has truly opened up the passageway to the Blacktail Plain, that will only do good to me instead of harm. In this case, the northwest shall be able to prosper at the highest speed. Right, right, that does make sense!" Hearing the remarks of Jia Yuan, Prince Ning''s indignant look suddenly brightened, and the suffocating sense of ferocity that had permeated the tent also faded away. Prince Ning narrowed his originally wide-open eyes, and started pacing up and down in the tent.


    After about the time for a meal, Prince Ning finally stopped pacing. He stood there, staring at Jia Yuan while saying, "You do make a fair point. But now, undercurrents are all surging up in the northwest region. How to do it? Which is the better way? These are things that you need to delicately scheme for me, please! "


    "That''s a matter within my duties!" Jia Yuan smiled, and took a bow down to the deepest level.


    Just at this time, a fit of hurried horse clops fluttered into the tent. The horse halted right in front of Prince Ning''s tent. Then, a junior captain hustled in, panting.


    "Your Royal Highness, Your Royal Highness, the rumor, the rumor is true! Zhou Bao, Zhou Bao does has opened up a route to the Blacktail Plain!"


    ¡­


    ...


    To be continued.

 Chapter 306: Feeling for the Acupoints

    Chapter 306: Feeling for the Acupoints


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was a fantastic event for the whole Northwest land that Zhou Bao opened a trade route to Blacktail Plain.


    It meant that it would be unnecessary for people who wanted to enter the Northwest to detour for hundreds of kilometers after passing Dragon-pressing River. Instead, they could straightly head for their destination through Blacktail Plain with goods from Central Plains once passed Dragon-pressing River.


    This news caused a sensation in the entire world, especially among influences who already had ideas about Northwest land, and again fixed their eyes on the Northwest. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao, the initiator of this issue was now looking furious at Wang She, at an open area of Azure Secret Area''s mine vein.


    "Isn''t it a Pure Yang Celestial Device? Haven''t you completely kept Ning Bo''s spiritual brand down? Why is it so troublesome?"


    Zhou Bao was confused, very confused. He thought, "I''ve seen Pure Yang Celestial Device such as Octupole Exquisite Pagoda, which is not weaker than Invisible Dragon Rod. However, I don''t think it''s hard to control it!"


    "Isn''t it just a Pure Yang Celestial Device? You know nothing because you''ve only seen a few Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Invisible Dragon Rod has been refined for over a hundred years, and it''s not easy to remove Ning Bo''s spiritual brand from it!"


    "Since it''s very difficult to remove, why don''t you do some closed-door trainings instead of approaching me?"


    "I need Innate Green Lotus Fire. I know that you have acquired an Innate Green Lotus Seed, which contains Innate Green Lotus Fire. I''m going to purify Invisible Dragon Rod and completely remove Ning Bo''s spiritual brand!"


    "Will it work?" Zhou Bao asked.


    "Nonsense, of course it works. If not, then what do I came here for?"


    "Alright, since the kindling has been blended with my Golden Flame Mirror, you''d better tell me what to do!"


    "Simple!" Wang She raised his hand and shot a beam of cyan light from his fingertip. Then Invisible Dragon Rod covered by cyan airflow was suspended in front of Zhou Bao.


    Until then, Zhou Bao was not able to see the whole picture of this Pure Yang Celestial Device. However, even it was covered by cyan airflow, it wasn''t really the full view to be seen.


    With a thought, a golden light flashed from behind his head which then covered with Invisible Dragon Rod.


    Being covered by a celestial device at the same level, although it was tightly restricted, the instinct of Pure Yang Celestial Device led it to fight back.


    However, being refined by Wang She''s blood, restricted by Jade Original Power Gang Qi and only driven by itself, the power of this Pure Yang Celestial Device badly decreased. Therefore, the golden light on the surface of Invisible Dragon Rod fiercely flashed but failed to pass through the cyan light outside, only to be inhabited by Jade Original Power Gang.


    ince Golden Flame Mirror was connected with Zhou Bao''s Divine Awareness, the flash of Invisible Dragon Rod was also sensed by Zhou Bao, but he didn''t care.


    Without his owner, Invisible Dragon Rod couldn''t give out the power of a Pure Yang Celestial Device. However, Zhou Bao''s Golden Flame Mirror was a true Pure Yang Celestial Device made and refined by himself, and he was so familiar with it that he had no reason to be afraid of the paper tiger.


    Fixing Invisible Dragon Rod with Golden Light Mask, Zhou Bao made an incantation with his fingers, and then a light cyan flame was flashed across the mirror, walking along the golden light like a gossamer. It reached Invisible Dragon Rod and rotated around Jade Original Power Gang which covered Invisible Dragon Rod. With a sudden blink, it squeezed into Jade Original Power Gang.


    "Hurry! Remove the spiritual brand with your Green Lotus Fire!"


    Wang She hastily cried out.


    Zhou Bao attached one of his thoughts to Green Lotus Fire and entered Invisible Dragon Rod. At this time, he really got a complete and clear full view of this Invisible Dragon Rod.


    "This is a dragon scale¡ª!" Green Lotus Fire like a tiny snake, was moving in the upper part of Invisible Dragon Rod, and divine thoughts attached to it made Zhou Bao clearly felt the texture of Invisible Dragon Rod.


    A small and delicate scales were clung to the surface of Invisible Dragon Rod. Tiny as they were, they contained astonishing Spiritual Qi which could be sensed clearly by Zhou Bao. The Spiritual Qi was as deep as abyss and ocean, and as high as peak and mountain. The most important was that once he sensed the spirit of the scales, Zhou Bao''s black flame in his Dantian moved and began to jump regularly. Then, Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi also moved, with a light black flame uncontrollably jumping out from his body. Both Zhou Bao and Wang She felt frightened for they had no idea about what happened.


    "Sh*t! Damn it, what''s going on?" Zhou Bao inwardly snorted, and started Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire with attempt to suppress his own Internal Qi. But he was surprised to discover that at this moment, his Internal Qi seemed to show its own willpower, which could be sensed by Zhou Bao. It was tiny, but with great intelligence, and seemed confused.


    It was at this moment that this confused spiritual intelligence completely took control of Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi, and drove it out of his body.


    In a very short period of time, Internal Qi in Zhou Bao''s body totally disappeared. Zhou Bao was shocked and called Internal Qi in External Elixir of Fiery Eyes into play in a hurry. The great Qi rushed down like a fall, but once it got into the tendons and meridians, it was completely controlled by the spiritual intelligence that suddenly emerged rather than Zhou Bao. Once again, Internal Qi rushed out of Zhou Bao''s body.


    Then the light black Internal Qi was continuously gathering outside of his body. It was even impossible for Zhou Bao to stop Internal Qi in Fiery Eyes flowing out.


    The Internal Qi was like smoke, or flame!


    When it was over, there was no Internal Qi left inside his body, neither was in Fiery Eyes. All his Internal Qi was condensed into a ball of black flame, suspending in front of him.


    Wang She and Zhou Bao were both stunned. Although Zhou Bao had already known that his Internal Qi owned considerable intelligence, he had never thought that it could gave birth to spiritual intelligence.


    "Internal Qi gives birth to spiritual intelligence. Is it possible or rational?"


    "It''s just like a joke!"


    Zhou Bao, who had never heard of this kind of thing, was very shocked, and a piece of thought came from the part between his eyebrows and rushed into the black flame consisting his own Internal Qi.


    "Boom---!"


    The thought was instantly burned up, or scattered by the surrounding Internal Qi.


    However, it didn''t mean that Zhou Bao''s divine thought was also eliminated by his own Internal Qi. In fact, his divine thought was blended with the newborn spiritual intelligence of that ball of black flame.


    A kind of unsophisticated feelings came from the ancient time attacked Zhou Bao and forced him to tremble fiercely. A consciousness that might come from primitive times was hitting his divine thought. The consciousness contained no specific meaning, nor a set of cultivation method when he got insights of the first form of Nine Forms of Real Dragon.


    What the consciousness gave him was only an instinct, a powerful one, which was a desire came from within the heart.


    It was hungry!


    It wanted to eat something and the best food was in front of it, being covered by cyan Gang Qi, and was beside the cyan flame which transformed by another piece of divine thought.


    "Damn! What the hell is going on? My Internal Qi wants to eat the Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Having figured out the reason why Internal Qi''s changed, Zhou Bao didn''t know whether to laugh or to cry.


    With his divine thought moved, the ball of black flame wriggled all at once, and was transformed. Finally, it turned into a weird earthworm which was of one-foot long, completely made by black flame.


    "This is Primordial Loach Monster! My Internal Qi was influenced by Primordial Loach Monster Fire, so it got out of control!" Zhou Bao laughed slowly and due to the immense loss of Internal Qi, he looked pale, but he now knew that he gained a lot of benefits. This time, he accidentally activated the intelligence of Internal Qi, and enabled it to bring forth spiritual intelligence. But the spiritual intelligence was engulfed by his divine thoughts before it became complete, which not only eliminated the potential hazard of Primordial Loach Monster Fire Seed existing in his Internal Qi, but also completely refined his Internal Qi, instead of remaining heterogeneous like before.


    Hiss!


    With a "hiss" like a snake, Zhou Bao had breathed in the Internal Qi, which had already become a Primordial Loach Monster. Now that his divine thought was destroyed after it was mixed with Internal Qi, the connection between his Divine Awareness and Internal Qi became closer.


    Inhale, exhale!


    Countless thin black flames spurted out of every pore of Zhou Bao,and was impressive.


    "He-he. My bad. I don''t know that Invisible Dragon Rod was made by an Ancient Real Dragon, and the Demonic Qi in my Internal Qi was hungry. That''s why things went messy. Forgive me, Chief."


    Wang She looked at Zhou Bao with an eccentric look. "Internal Qi is hungry? Never heard of it! But I have nothing else to say since Zhou Bao has already controlled it."


    Fully recovered at this time, Zhou Bao realized that the reason for current situation was Demonic Fire of Dragon Chimera being influenced by Dragon Chimera''s nature quality. Now Zhou Bao had completely refined the wisp of Original Spirit of Dragon Chimera by his divine thought, so the sense of hungry disappeared.


    On the other side, the Green Lotus Fire spotted the spiritual brand that Ning Bo left on Invisible Dragon Rod, and directly entwined around it. As what Wang She had said before, Innate Green Lotus Fire was operated to burn fiercely.


    After about an hour, the last wisp of spiritual brand vanished due to the Green Lotus Fire. Blood was spurted out from the mouth of Ning Bo who was at distant Kunlun Mountain, and his spirits, was recovered for a while, and were drooping again.


    "First Elder, what''s the matter?!"


    At the moment, the Elders of Kunlun Mountain were at a meeting and Ning Bo spurted. No wonder all people present were frightened and asked him in a hurry.


    "I''m okay. It''s just...my spiritual brand in Invisible Dragon Rod was removed by Wang She. Can''t imagine he moved so fast." He sighed softly, and his tone was full of helplessness and unwillingness!


    After the Innate Green Lotus Fire was used to remove Ning Bo''s spiritual brand, the Invisible Dragon Rod should have been withdrawn once the removal was finished. However, under the control of divine thought of Zhou Bao, one wisp of Green Lotus Fire revolved around Invisible Dragon Rod like a ghost, from outside to inside, up to bottom.


    Wang She didn''t get full control of Invisible Dragon Rod, so he didn''t know what Zhao Bao was doing. Otherwise, Zhou Bao''s Green Lotus Fire would be instantly kicked out.


    Zhou Bao was feeling for acupoints!


    Because of the given messages from Dragon Chimera Fire inside his body, Zhou Bao could be sure that this Invisible Dragon Rod was exactly made from the body of a real Ancient Celestial Dragon. Although the dragon had already died, Zhou Bao could still pinpoint Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints via feeling the dragon''s body in the shortest time with the Dragon Flying Technique. Then he was able to refine acupoints in accordance with his physical condition.


    For Zhou Bao, it was indeed a shortcut.


    It saved him a lot of time.


    Although his cultivation was fairly great, but the greater one''s cultivation, the broader his horizon was. In addition, Zhou Bao was famous and many people kept an eye on him, and that he was eager to make his cultivation greater. It would rather take a long time to feel for acupoints little by little as suggested by Green Spirit, and there is such a good opportunity to have a corpse of real dragon right in front of him. So, how could he let the wonderful chance slip away?


    Four hours later, Wang She outside, was losing his patience when the Green Lotus Fire came out quickly from his thick Jade Original Power Gang.


    "How is it? It is done?!" Seeing Green Lotus Fire coming out of Green Lotus Fire, Wang She showed a happy face, rushed in front of Zhou Bao and asked him loudly.


    "Nonesense, of course, it is done." Zhou Bao looked tired, but his tiredness wasn''t able to cover his happiness. "I''ve already removed Ning Bo''s spiritual brand from Invisible Dragon Rod. Like what you''ve just said, the Green Lotus Fire is so..."


    Before Zhou Bao finished his words, Wang She shouted with glee and raised his hands to fetch his Jade Original Power Gang around Invisible Dragon Rod, showing the body of Invisible Dragon Rod. With his light command, Invisible Dragon Rod turned into a beam of golden light and entered the place between Wang She''s eyebrows. "Great! Very Great! That''s so great indeed!"


    Having said "great" for three times, Wang She looked Zhou Bao with a warm smile. "Boy, this time you do me a great favor, and I won''t forget about it!"


    "Chief, no need to say that. It''s easy for me!"


    Zhou Bao obtained great benefits this time and pretended to be modest. "You can count on me when a similar situation happens from now on. The Green Lotus Fire is convenient to use after all."


    "Alright! When I get one more piece of Pure Yang Celestial Device, I would surely come to you! Hahahahha!"


    Wang She out of happiness, shouted and strongly patted Zhou Bao''s shoulders several times. Under the power of a Level-Nine expert, Zhou Bao''s bones were nearly broken. Wang She said, "I''m going to refine Invisible Dragon Rod now, and with my order, people following me are all yours now. You can command them as you like!"


    Wang She that was led by him, was talking about the masters of martial arts in Tian Long Taoism. This time, he gathered all his power here.


    Zhou Bao immediately grabbed Wang She, who was going to leave, and asked, "I''m just going to ask something about it. What''s the meaning of your Tian Long Taoism? Do you really intend to develop a sub-sect in Northwest?"


    "No. I bring people here to help you!" Wang She shook his head.


    "You lie to me! Rumors are flying everywhere that Tian Long Taoism wants to keep a foothold in the Northwest by this event, and replace the position of Kunlun Mountain. They also say that you, Great Chief Wang, are the pioneer of it, and you are going to root here."


    "Who? Who said that was such a nonsense!" Wang She was getting anxious when he heard about it, and he glanced at Zhou Bao. "I''m telling you, boy. Don''t misunderstood people''s good intention. I truly came to help you, and how can it become ''going to root here'' in your view? What do you mean!?"


    No wonder Wang She was pissed off.


    "My action of gathering people here in the Northwest truly meant to assist Zhou Bao so as to pay back the favor that Zhou Bao did to me. However, in Zhou Bao''s opinion, my paying back became another favor. How could it be! If I let it be, the favor that I owe Zhou Bao would be too many to be paid back clearly! I have to be anxious!"


    Zhou Bao showed a bitter smile. "I didn''t mean anything else. It is just because those rumors are too real, and most importantly, even though Wang She had no plan, it neither assure that other people had no plan!"


    "I have no choice! If the rumor was true, I have to prepare for it. You know, I am an Outer Core disciples of Tian Long Taoism. Something needs to be prepared in advance. You knew that if Tian Long Taoism wants to develop itself in the Northwest, I can only benefit from it! At least I will have no worries about Kunlun Mountain, right?"


    "You mean the old man does have this idea?"


    Wang She was not stupid. He figured out the meaning of it just after thinking briefly. "Zhou Bao is not creating a chance to let me owe him a favor, but truly wants Tian Long Taoism to develop here, which would indeed help him a lot without a little harm."


    "Since you are thinking about it, I will ask the old man on behalf of you and see what does he think. Anyway, developing the Uniform Dao of our Tian Long Taoism is the biggest wish of our great ancestors. Since the chance is here, they have no reason to reject it!"


    "Yes! Exactly! It is a good chance that we should hold fast to Tian Long Taoism. This time, I opened the passageway to Blacktail Plain, it is only a straight tunnel to my territory, which was nothing important back then. But the opening of this passageway adds importance to the territory. He-he!"


    "Yes, I see. However, this kind of thing should not be carried out in a hurry, and we are supposed to slow down and wait until I finished refining my Invisible Dragon Rod." said Wang She with a smile while patted on Zhou Bao''s shoulder. Then he quickly rushed to the depth of the mine hole.


    "Hump, that guy. It is just a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Not a big deal! I have Tusita Fire now, and I can produce many Pure Yang Celestial Devices, as long as I have enough materials!"


    Zhou Bao thought exaltedly, but his spirits went down when he thought of those abnormal materials needed to produce Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    "Come on. Just let it go. This time, I got to know clearly about Real Dragon''s Acupoints and I need to do closed-door trainings for some time!"

 Chapter 307: The Magical Effect of Air-frozen Bead and the Forming of Faux Air-frozen Bead

    Chapter 307: The Magical Effect of Air-frozen Bead and the Forming of Faux Air-frozen Bead


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Is it already done?!" Looking at the palisades, at the bottom of the mine hole, smoother than glass and the complicated Formational Incantation scripted on it, Zhou Bao''s eyes gazed with greed. "When can we enter the Azure Secret Area?!"


    "Yes, it''s done, but you can''t enter yet. In a year, there are ten months for the Azure Secret Area to be filled with endless Essential Qi Tide. He whose cultivation has reached the Mysterious Realm will end up in a pile of dust by the furious Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth. You have to wait for another three months at least, before you enter."


    "Three months? That''s too long!" Suddenly, Zhou Bao''s face looked bitter. After the days of closed-door training, he figured out the location of the seven acupoints of the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, which he could continue to condense as long as he wanted . However, the condensation demanded a vast amount of the essence, which is impossible to get in this time and this world. He could not open three acupoints even if he managed to gather all the essence of the world for a thousand miles around. That was only the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints; Zhou Bao secretly wanted to open the Primordial Loach Monster''s acupoints. It was a fierce beast in primitive times. Condensing its acupoints would definitely demand more essence of the world than that of the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints. Then he had to think about the Azure Secret Area. Who would have thought that he could not still enter the entrance of the passageway although it was ready? That was really a pain in his ass.


    "Boy, you''d better hurry up and get in! Your Internal Qi has cultivated a breakthrough point and you might reach Level Eight and condense the Real Essence Source at any time. If you still can''t condense and open the acupoints, you''ll get yourself into serious trouble!" The Green Spirit''s voice suddenly appeared in his head.


    "I know, I can feel it!" said Zhou Bao, grumpily, "But now is not the right time. There is Essential Qi Tide in the Azure Secret Area. Do you know about that?"


    Essential Qi Tide!!


    That was not the first time Zhou Bao heard about it, but he didn''t actually knew what it meant. Literally, it was something like a storm caused by a whole tangle of too much Essential Qi.


    But it was beyond Zhou Bao''s knowledge to truly understand it.


    "But you can''t avoid it, kiddo. It may seem troublesome, but there''s still a way to solve it. Don''t forget your Air-frozen Bead!"


    "That bead?" Zhou Bao''s eyes brightened, but he just started shouting the next minute. "Air-frozen Bead? I don''t have a f*cking Air-frozen Bead! I just have some of the ingredients, but not full!"


    "But you already have a Wind Bead. Being the main body, and the ingredients you own, you could forge a celestial device of the Mysterious Level. Although it''s not as powerful as the Air-frozen Bead, and it couldn''t function as a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it will help you to deal with the Essential Qi Tide."


    "Seriously?!"


    "Of course, you can''t count on it to clear away the Essential Qi Tide in the Azure Secret Area. But all it can do is to protect you from the Essential Qi Tide. Besides, you must find a spot with steady Essential Qi as soon as you set foot in the Azure Secret Area. But don''t worry about that right now, I''ll talk you through the details after you get in there," said the Green Spirit. He continued to say after a short pause, "As a matter of fact, this is the best option for you. If you wait and enter the Azure Secret Area until the Essential Qi Tide is faded, others who are able to enter will definitely do the same. On the other hand, you will certainly make a lot of noise when refining your acupoints at the Azure Secret Area and draw their attention. That might blow your cover and get yourself into real danger!"


    Zhou Bao nodded. "Okay, then, I''ll go and refine the Air-frozen Bead. Damn it! When refining the celestial device, I can''t make it without the Internal Qi, Divine Awareness, and the essence and blood. Please don''t have another breakthrough on me when I''m doing it!" He cursed in a low voice, said hello to Sun Rat of Emptiness and Golden Rooster, turned around and left.


    "Alas, the Youngers! No patience at all! They can''t even wait for a couple of months!" Seeing Zhou Bao left with a worried face, Sun Rat of Emptiness smiled and said to Golden Rooster.


    "I guess he has something difficult to disclose," Golden Rooster said with his head shaking. "Haven''t you smell any strange on him lately, Rat? His Internal Qi is incredibly strong. More like he''s already reached Level Nine, if you ask me. The reason why he can''t possess the Real Essence Energy at the moment is that he has yet to break through Level Eight and condense the Real Essence Source. But I suppose he''ll break through the Level Eight Realm in no time!"


    "Level Eight? How could it be easy to break through?" Sun Rat of Emptiness said, showing a little disagree with his friend. "Condensing the Real Essence Source is not an easy job. His body is strong as Level Eight or even Level Nine expert. However, to condense the Real Essence Source, one will need the Apprehension and repeatedly purify his Internal Qi. Only in this way, one will have the chance to get some insights. That guy is too young to understand all of that!"


    "Maybe you''re right. But I still have a feeling that he can do it," Golden Rooster said vaguely, looking at Zhou Bao''s shadow. "He''s less than 20 years old, remember? If he really succeeds, oh God, I guess Elder Qing will have to rearrange for him."


    "I don''t think so. Elder Qing won''t make any change even if he succeeds. Things don''t work as it did thousands of years ago. The principle of the Immortal Palace is to live in peace and stay out of trouble. We are expected to mind our own businesses. Elder Qing cares of our cultivation!" Sun Rat of Emptiness said, "You, of course. You''re up to something, aren''t you?" He laughed.


    "It''s none of your business!" Golden Rooster sneered and turned his head around. "Just do your job. The gateway will come useful after six months, so you''d better keep your eyes on it. Elder Qing would you if anything went south!"


    "As if I should care! I''m merely a man doing my job." Sun Rat of Emptiness sneered, too. "I don''t own this Azure Secret Area. I''m just building a gateway. How could anyone possibly blame me for anything?"


    Again, Golden Rooster laughed grimly and stopped talking.


    Sun Rat of Emptiness was seemingly angry; turned his head and stared at the glass-like palisades, closing his ears to Golden Rooster.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    "Green Spirit, are you sure that the thing I''ve practiced will work in the Essential Qi Tide?" Zhou Bao asked.


    "Sure, boy! Believe me!" Green Spirit shouted.


    "You seem interested in getting into the Azure Secret Area, especially when it is connected to the Essential Qi Tide!" Zhou Bao thought and said.


    "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha¡­"


    Green Spirit laughed in a strange way and said, "Not bad, huh? Clever boy. I am interested in it. It''s lethal to you, but good to me. Don''t you really know what it is, do you? The Essential Qi Tide is composed by strong Essential Qis of different properties between the earth and sky. If Essential Qis imbalanced, so conflicts and impact with each other occur to a point that they''ll form the Essential Qi Tide to sweep over the entire universe. The Essential Qi Tide is precious regardless of being difficult to be dealt with. During such period, the conflict and impact of various Essential Qi will lead to the formation of many Essential Qis but of new property. Meanwhile, it will bring all the Essential Qi in the world together. The Earth Fire Yuan Essence, for instance, is buried deep down under the rock flows of the earth''s core, which makes it untouchable in normal circumstances and abnormally precious. When the Essential Qi Tide occurs, it will come to the surface all the way from the deep core. Such things are what the Azure Secret Area can offer, many of which are beneficial to my recovery and helpful to you as well. You can only see them during the Essential Qi Tide period, which means it''s impossible to be found in normal days even if you manage to get into the Azure Secret Area and know where it is!"


    "You mean it''s a good thing to have the Essential Qi Tide?!"


    "Heh, heh. In fact, the Essential Qi Tide exists anytime and anywhere. In this world, even in the primitive times, this phenomenon occurs frequently. It''s also likely to happen nowadays. It has not been a long time since the Azure Secret Area only taken shape, which explains why the high frequency of such phenomenon. What''s more, the essence of the world will become more and more steady with every burst of the Essential Qi Tide. Given enough time, the frequency will reduce and eventually form into a steady world, just like the world we are in right now!"


    "How long does it take?!"


    "Oh, very long! Just as I told you, the Essential Qi Tide occurred in the primitive times. Not every year though, but every thousands of years. As for the Azure Secret Area, the time of the Essential Qi Tide maybe reduce after ten thousand years, and maybe there will be three to four months quiet period in a year."


    "I''ll enjoy the benefits in the Azure Secret Area if I practice the Air-frozen Bead successfully, right?"


    "Absolutely! That''s why you should start finding the ingredients right away. Oh, and don''t forget to search carefully when you get into the Azure Secret Area." Green Spirit laughed and said, "Ten months of Essential Qi Tide period within a year. Aren''t you the luckiest of them all?!"


    Green Spirit''s words made Zhou Bao''s mouthwatering. He could not wait to get deep down into the mine vein, laid the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, took the Wind Bead and other materials out from his space of the segmentation of two worlds, and started to condense the Faux Air-frozen Bead in the way that the Air-frozen Bead had been practiced.


    The pure-cyan Wind Bead, glowing in a weak mysterious light, was extracted entirely from the Wind Essence. It was hard to ignore the wisps of wind coming out of the bead when he held it in his hands.


    It was the purest form of the wind spirit. Zhou Bao could tell by his experience in practicing the Dragon Flying Technique. He was unable to start condensing the Air-frozen Bead when he first obtained the Wind Bead, for lack of materials. This was the first time that he had taken it out after a long time.


    "What a pity! If I took the Wind Bead earlier and apprehended it constantly, my Dragon Flying Technique would have been at the Advanced Level by now. Damn it! I always had some obstacles when practicing the Dragon Flying Technique, but the moment I took the Wind Bead out and felt the intelligence of the wind in it, it was gone. Is it luck or bad luck?" Zhou Bao thought to himself. He wielded the Wind Bead, raised his hand and threw a dozen of odd materials into the air, circling the Wind Bead.


    As soon as Zhou Bao slightly opened his mouth, a Tusita Fire came out of his mouth and instantly wrapped the Wind Bead and all other materials. He wielded the characteristics of the Purple Bright Heavenly Fire in the Tusita Fire with ease and perfect skill, a gust of purple came out of the fire, which immediately melted all the other materials except the Wind Bead. And then, the color of the fire changed. All at once, there was no trace of purple, while part of the flame became freezing cold instead.


    Between cold and hot, it can be said that it is a heavy fire.


    The surrounding space was cracked by the flame, creating strips of black filaments in the air floating like a cobweb.


    That was the Archaic Yin Flame!


    It was the coldest Yin flame in the world; but it did not last long as it was created by the Tusita Fire, a temporary side effect like the Purple Bright Heavenly Fire. At the same time, the cracked space automatically repaired itself with the cobweb-like cracks. And the materials vanished as well while the Wind Bead showed another state.


    The Wind Bead was a solid bead extracted from the Wind Essence. But at that moment, it looked like a water ball, glittering with ripples.


    Zhou Bao was patiently and quietly observing the transformed bead, as if he managed to see through every structure and every ripple on it.


    He did not know how long it had been. But the Wind Bead restored to its peaceful state at last. Zhou Bao made his next move when there were no ripples on the surface.


    "Puff¡­" Zhou Bao cruelly bit his tongue tip and spat blood to the Wind Bead.


    With blood on the surface, the Wind Bead was dented by the powerful impact force, as if it was made of liquid. Then, the blood permeated into the core of the Wind Bead.


    The permeation process was not happening randomly. On the contrary, it followed a fixed pattern. Soon the Wind Bead was glowing with Zhou Bao''s essence with the blood in its core.


    Zhou Bao slowly opened his eyes, looking at the bead, he practiced a gesture with his hands and left a mark on the bead vigorously.


    One, two, three¡­


    For six hours, the gestures in Zhou Bao''s hands were changing, growing more and more complicated in slower motion, and he was reciting spells at the same time. Little by little, Zhou Bao''s divine thoughts were planted into the Wind Bead with the incantation and gestures.


    The glowing blood light in the bead dimmed, gradually concentrated at the core and then spread out again into many sanguine talismans.


    The antiquity, simplicity, elegance and dignity released by these talismans were beyond description.


    "Ha!"


    Zhou Bao shouted after the talismans had totally taken shape. A ray of weak blood light coming between his eyebrows and penetrated right into the bead.


    Suddenly, the bead radiated dazzling green light. A great force was released from it and then restrained.


    Everything went quiet.


    Zhou Bao stopped and waited, looking at the transformation of the talismans inside the beam. A long wait came again.


    When everything is over, the appearance of the beam changed.


    The light-cyan bead floating in front of Zhou Bao was no longer glittering, but sedate and solemn.


    The Faux Air-frozen Bead, though made from many materials, was smaller than the original Wind Bead, like a light-cyan round stone but with irregular light blood patterns on the surface.


    "Whoosh---!"


    Zhou Bao took a long sigh; he was entirely exhausted and became sluggish.


    The Faux Air-frozen Bead was only at the Mysterious Level, but it''s refining process was way harder than that of the Golden Flame Mirror. One reason was that he didn''t had the perfect ingredients, and the other reason was that he used the method for refining Pure Yang Celestial Devices to refine the celestial devices of the Mysterious Level. Just like breaking a fly on the wheel, he consumed too much strength and only got half of the results with double effort.


    "You are lucky to have the Tusita Fire! Otherwise, it could have been harder!"


    That was Green Spirit''s voice.


    The Tusita Fire was the flame invented by necromancers of the antiquity times for refining weapons and for the practice of Chinese alchemy. Zhou Bao should attribute 99 percent of his success to the Tusita Fire.


    Zhou Bao was pumped out, though. He sat for a long while before he looked up and showed his tired face.


    He took a look at the Faux Air-frozen Bead. Then, the Faux Air-frozen Bead became a green light, penetrated between his eyebrows and disappeared with a bright flash in his eyes.


    "How long has it been?"


    "Half a month!" Green Spirit said coldly. "It''s been half a month."


    "Wow! No wonder I''m starving!" Zhou Bao touched his belly and laughed in embarrassment. "I need a big meal!"


    "Get into the Azure Secret Area as soon as you''re finished!" Green Spirit said.


    "I know! I know! What''s the hurry!" Zhou Bao waved his hand impatiently and sent Green Spirit back to the green lamp.


    ...


    ¡­


    "Finally, you bastard are here! I''ll look for you myself if you won''t show up!"


    The moment he got out from his training, he ran into the Golden Rooster, Zhu Ba, Jiang Xiao and others, whose faces contorted with anger.


    Zhou Bao frowned slightly. He could tell there was a problem between the two sides. They all stayed at the yard recently for the job at the Azure Secret Area. Being the headman of honor, Golden Rooster took charge of the construction, while Jiang Xiao was responsible for the logistics and fund. They had to work together but not all the time.


    Golden Rooster, the overseer, was appointed by Zhou Bao, so Jiang Xiao knew that Golden Rooster was a nobody. Jiang Xiao used to give him whatever he wanted and the two had a pleasant cooperation. But it seemed that the good old days were gone.


    Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba, who were about to complain to Zhou Bao, were astonished by Golden Rooster''s address.


    "You bastard?"


    All over the northwest, no one had the gut to call him that except Wang She, Chief of Tian Long Taoism. How could an overseer dare to say that? The next moment, Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba''s anger turned into fear.


    "What''s the fuss about? Huh?" Zhou Bao looked around and didn''t see anyone except Jiang Xiao, Zhu Ba and Golden Rooster. "What the hell is going on? It can''t be that they took your wife away from you!"


    "Stop trying to be smart!" Golden Rooster shouted, "Guess what, I quit!"


    "Have you finished your job? Why do you quit?" Zhou Bao asked. He thought Golden Rooster was here just to build an entrance to the Azure Secret Area. Considering that the job was finished two weeks ago, it did not make any sense that he wanted to quit.


    "This...!" A thought occurred to Golden Rooster''s mind, but he looked at the two men behind him and did not say it aloud.


    "Enough! Don''t play innocent. I totally trust them with my secrets." Zhou Bao said and glanced at the two frightened men.


    Listening to Zhou Bao''s words, Golden Rooster realized that it was okay to be honest with them now. He drew a scroll out from his pocket and handed it to Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao felt strange. But he was frozen when he finally opened that scroll.


    "What''s this?!"


    "It''s a blueprint!"


    "I...I know. Of course! But is the Jin Emperor planning to build to the new imperial palace?" Looking at the blueprint, Zhou Bao was still at sea. The building in this blueprint was so granted. Take the Royal Capital of the West Capital as a reference, it just accounted for a quarter of the total area at most of it.


    "No, it''s exactly your yard!!"


    "Mine?!" Zhou Bao shouted and almost fell to the ground. He looked at Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba, and the Golden Rooster.


    "You sure? I mean, I just wanted a yard. Just made a courtyard. I didn''t ask for an imperial palace!"


    "Not imperial palace, it''s a partial blueprint of the Divine Wind Palace!"


    Speaking of that, even Golden Rooster felt embarrassed and his face turned blank.

 Chapter 308: Dragon Veins Under the Sea-calming Palace and Entering the Azure Secret Area

    Chapter 308: Dragon Veins Under the Sea-calming Palace and Entering the Azure Secret Area


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Part of the Divine Wind Palace?


    Zhou Bao suddenly saw a lot of stars flickering before his eyes as if he was dreaming a dream. Gaping at Golden Rooster with a dull look, after a while, he said, "Golden Rooster, what the hell are you doing?"


    "I''m not making any trouble," said Golden Rooster with a bitter smile. "Somebody is whimsical. That''s why we''re here!"


    "Whimsical? Who''s whimsical?"


    "It''s not whimsical. It''s Fengshui!" A voice suddenly sounded and surprised Zhou Bao. His nerves were abruptly tightened, like a steel wire. The Internal Qi, like the black flaming, also began to run instantly.


    "Take it easy. Just a bad bat!" Seeing Zhou Bao showing a nervous look, Golden Rooster waved hands and added, "His other skills are useless, but he''s good at hiding and mystifying. No one is a match for him regarding these things!"


    Taking a look at Golden Rooster, Zhou Bao gradually calmed down.


    "Ohhh hehehe, you''re that Leopard. I''ve heard of you previously but had no opportunity to see you. Today, I finally meet with you. Ohhh hehehe!"


    A figure slowly walked from the dark with a strange giggle and approached Zhou Bao step by step.


    Simultaneously, Zhou Bao saw him clearly. He had a short, small stature and wore a black robe which was used for the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace to work outside the palace; there was also a black bat pattern embroidered on the robe.


    "Earth Bat of Girl!"


    Seeing the dress, Zhou Bao immediately realized his identity. It was the Earth Bat of Girl of the 28 constellations.


    Although he already knew his identity, he had no idea how to address him, and thus became stiff for a while.


    "Ohhh hehehe. You''re one of us. Others call me bad bat, jerk bat. You can also call me like they do!" Earth Bat of Girl seemed to know what was on Zhou Bao''s mind and said with a laugh.


    Zhou Bao gave a wry smile. "I dare not. Anyway, you''re senior to me. I''d better address you as Senior Bat!"


    "Interesting. You''re so polite. As you like!" Earth Bat of Girl showed a weird smile.


    Earth Bat of Girl seemed to be at the age of 50 or 60. He had a darkish face, a slight figure and looked very capable. In particular, his eyes kept rolling around, which easily gave people a feeling that he was a shrewd person.


    "I say, Senior, why are you free to visit me?"


    "For your sake!" Earth Bat of Girl laughed and pulled the drawing from Zhou Bao''s hands. "Do you know that your territory has good Fengshui?"


    "Good Fengshui?" Zhou Bao blinked, he did not get it at that moment.


    "Yup, excellent Fengshui. The Fengshui in your territory is dozens of times better than that in Western Capital of the Great Jin. There''s only one dragon vein under Western Capital, while your territory is a place where the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins convene. The fate is so strong that it shocks the heaven and the earth!" Saying this, Earth Bat of Girl was seemingly excited and gesticulated with his hands and feet.


    Zhou Bao blankly turned his head and had a look at Golden Rooster but that was only to see a bitter complexion. Golden Rooster helplessly spread the hands, indicating that he could do nothing.


    "Buddy, you know? As long as you control the dragon veins here, then, if you''d like to, the whole world will be in your hands. Moreover¡ª"


    "No no no. Senior, I, Zhou Bao, am not that ambitious!" said Zhou Bao, waving his hands. In this world, there were the martial arts world and the martial arts. When one person cultivated the martial arts to a certain degree, he would possess incredible Divine Senses, plus the magic weapons and the fairy weapons in the legend, which are totally a different world with the previous world. In this world, one could likely gain a long life of tens of thousands years or even hundreds of thousands of years after he culminated in cultivation, broke through Level Nine and finally jumped out of the three realms. However, frankly speaking, when one day another person came to you and said that your place had a good Fengshui, it was still pretty weird. Therefore, Zhou Bao had an emotional resistance right now, especially when an apparently untrustworthy person told him that.


    "You don''t have great ambition? You don''t need that. It''s destiny, serendipity, fate. Got it? That''s the fate of heaven that falls to you. You need to do nothing. You just build the Sea-calming Palace. Then everything will take its course."


    "Sea-calming Palace?"


    "Right. Sea-calming Palace. It''s the real Sea-calming Palace. I found it in a damaged pattern in a wall at an Ancient Ruins. Hehe. It should have been the whole pattern of the Divine Wind Palace, but the only intact part is the Sea-calming Palace. Anyway, it''s enough to suppress the Evil Earth Qi in your territory!"


    "Evil Earth Qi?" Zhou Bao stared at Earth Bat of Girl confusedly.


    "Exactly. Evil Earth Qi. The Evil Earth Qi here is too strong that the Dragon Qi is completely covered in the place where the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins converged. So, nobody else ever found it. Thanks to me, I came here and noticed this. Otherwise, you may really waste such valuable land with such good Fengshui. See, once my Sea-calming Palace is constructed, the Evil Earth Qi will be instantly suppressed. Then, nothing could suppress the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins here. Thus, your good fate will pour in from all sides!"


    "I don''t need such strong fate!" Zhou Bao still shook his head and cast eyes on the drawing in the Earth Bat of Girl''s hands. "Also, even if I need fate, it''s not now. Besides, your Sea-calming Palace is a really huge project. I can''t afford it now. Look at my two subordinates, their faces have paled with fright. So, let''s talk about this thing later!"


    "Later? What does your ''later'' mean?" Earth Bat of Girl cried unsatisfied, "Do you know what the fate on earth is? Don''t you know that once you own the fate of the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins, your future¡ª"


    "The Nine Strips of Dragon Veins are here, and they can''t run away. Construction of any building results in the same effect. Now, you want to build up such a big palace. Eye-catching. It''s not the good time, not the time!" Zhou Bao said with hands waving.


    Hearing what Zhou Bao had said, Earth Bat of Girl thought for a moment and nodded with a smile. "Yes, you''re also right. It''s really garish to build the palace now. However, it''s not good to let the Dragon Qi simply be suppressed by the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins. How about erecting a main hall on it to suppress the Evil Earth Qi and release a little fate?"


    "OK. As long as it''s not showy and I can afford it, you just build it," said Zhou Bao, nodding with a forced smile and waving hands to Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba. "Em... You two, come here!"


    "Your Excellency, what can we do for you?"


    "Let me give you an introduction. This is Golden Rooster, the overseer for building the villa. In the past, he obeyed you, but now, you should obey him. So long as we can afford it, just give him what he wants. Clear?"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!"


    "And, this one. Mr. B-Bat, an assistant to Golden Rooster. Regarding the project, all of you shall listen to him. Got it?"


    "Yes, Sir. Clear!" Those two people were dripping with sweat, like the rain.


    A place where the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins got together?


    What did it mean?


    It should be known that, in this world, most people were superstitious. Especially, the fate or the dragon vein, which often appeared in all kinds of stories and legends, as it were, could be deeply rooted among the people, particularly those with underclass backgrounds like Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba.


    Hearing that Zhou Bao''s territory was a place where the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins gathered, their heart rate sped up and felt an upsurge of emotion, which made them too excited to do anything.


    Western Capital, the imperial capital of the Jin, was known as a Land of Dragon Rising, and thus a vast foundation was launched there. Even so, only one dragon vein was under the land. In contrast, Nine Strips of Dragon Veins were here!


    Did it mean that their master, Zhou Bao, was much better suited to be an Emperor because he had more fate than the Emperor of the Jin?


    All of them were with Zhou Bao when they were about 13 years old. So to speak, they were the first team. This time, if Zhou Bao really became the Emperor, they would all be senior officials who contributed to the country''s establishment!


    This thing which only happened in the novels suddenly befell them, making them feel that they were in the dream.


    "What daydream are you two dreaming? You believe a charlatan''s words?" Zhou Bao scolded with a low voice, awakening his subordinates who were caught up in their daydreams. The two didn''t return to the reality until now. Raising their heads, they found that only Zhou Bao was before them.


    "Stop looking. Both have already left!" Zhou Bao gave them a black look. "Did you hear what we just talked about?"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!"


    "Now that you''ve already heard it, don''t leak it out. I just saw your angry face as if you were ready to eat people. What''s up?"


    "Yes, yes!"


    At this moment, Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba had no idea what to say and clicked their tongues for a while. Finally, Zhu Ba said, "Golden Rooster, as you called him, the overseer, suddenly brought that drawing to us and insisted on expanding the foundation based on the drawing and wanting more money and laborers. Em... We didn''t know his identity, so we refused him. We just thought he was a common... common overseer, but who would expect that he came to you behind our backs!"


    "Hehe. It''s not a big deal. Golden Rooster is a friend of mine. He came here for help. He doesn''t want others to know his identity, so he conceals himself with the identity of an overseer!"


    "Yes yes yes. We know it now!"


    Actually, when Golden Rooster came to Zhou Bao and unscrupulously called him "guy", they realized that Golden Rooster had a special identity. After that, the old Bat also came here and made a fuss. Even an idiot would understand that they belonged to another system of the subordinates under their boss, Zhou Bao, or another force.


    "Now that you already know that Golden Rooster is my friend, in the future, if you encounter something which can''t be solved by our forces, just go to him. He''s a Level Eight expert. Nothing can''t be solved by him!"


    "Level Eight expert?" Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba sharply swallowed the saliva and felt that they had lived in vain for half a life. Several years ago, when they had served as the privates in Jiang City, they had not often met masters of martial arts of Level Four or Five, let alone the experts. The experts, like the Immortals in the legend, flew in the sky instead of walking on the ground.


    But, how about now?


    Since they followed Zhou Bao, everything had changed. A Level Four or Five master of martial arts would not get their attention anymore. Zhu Ba was already a Level Five expert. Even Jiang Xiao, a person who was poor at martial arts among the high level of the Navy of Jiang City, had already broken through the Level Three phase and reached Level Four in terms of the cultivation. The experts who had been known only by their name but they had never met with in person in the past, now frequently emerged before them. They often saw some Level Eight and Level Nine experts, still less Level Seven experts. See, they just disputed with a Level Eight expert and flushed with agitation, which almost led to a quarrel.


    Fortunately, they avoided the quarrel!


    If they two, a Level Four and a Level Five expert respectively, really argued with a Level Eight expert, they may not even know how they died. Thinking of their attitude toward Golden Rooster a moment ago, they were so scared.


    "Don''t panic. Although Golden Rooster is not a broad-minded guy, he won''t haggle over you two!"


    "Thank you, Your Excellency!"


    "Well, it''s over. As for the villa, you two keep an eye on it. Also, Golden Rooster, if he wants laborers, just arrange them. If he wants money, just give him the money. However, there''s a limit. Like this time, if you really run into a brutal thing, come to me. Oh, I will be in a closed-door training in the near future, so I will leave for a period. If you come into unreasonable things, go to Wang She. He''s in a closed-door training in the mine hole here!"


    "Ch-Chief Wang?" The two looked at each other with eyes revealing an awkwardness.


    They knew of Wang She, but only knew of him. There was a big gap between them on the part of identity. Even though they had seen him, they had to look at him from a distance. Because they walked behind Zhou Bao, they just lowered their heads and dared not to speak when seeing him. How could Wang She know them?


    "You''re my most competent subordinates, so Wang She knows you. He won''t ignore it if there''s any trouble in my territory," said Zhou Bao with a smile. "Besides, this time he brought some masters of martial arts with him, didn''t he? You can arrange something for them. It''ll be beneficial if you''re on good terms with them!"


    The two threw helpless eyes to each other and said with a wry smile, "Yes, your Excellency!"


    ...


    ...


    "Your hell territory should have the gathering of the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins?"


    Wang She, lying on the chair, made a very indecent gesture, his feet almost extending to Zhou Bao''s desk. "Isn''t your luck excessively good?"


    "You truly believe it?"


    "You don''t believe it?"


    "What does that Earth Bat of Girl actually do? I think he''s a Jianghu fraud!"


    "Is there any Jianghu fraud whose cultivation can reach Level Eight?" Wang She asked with a smile, waving his hand. "This guy is the Fengshui master of the Immortal Palace. He''s been researching Fengshui for hundreds of years. I tell you, his insight is never wrong. He''s more brilliant than those Jianghu frauds!"


    "Are you sure?" Thinking of Earth Bat of Girl''s appearance, Zhou Bao still was not convinced.


    "I don''t need to fool you!" Wang She shook hand. "This guy''s cultivation of the martial arts skills is not half a patch to his Fengshui achievement. Do you know, 15 years ago, he said that Northern Yuan''s good fortune would run out? He even successfully predicted Northern Yuan''s perdition time. Hehe!"


    "Is that so abnormal?"


    "Somethings are much more abnormal," said Wang She, shaking his head. "Anyhow, you can deny his other statement. If he said something about Fengshui, you''d better trust him. Now that he said it''s a gathering place of the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins here, the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins must converge here. What do you think of it, Guy? Any idea?"


    "Not yet," said Zhou Bao, shaking head. "For now I have an important matter, and I need your help!"


    "Whom will you set me against this time?"


    "Not against somebody. I want to enter the Azure Secret Area!"


    "Haven''t we already made a deal? You can enter at any time as long as the Essential Qi Tide inside stops!"


    "I can''t wait for the ending of the Essential Qi Tide. I must enter when the Essential Qi Tide is still there!"


    "Are you sick of living?"


    "My Air-frozen Bead practice is almost done. It''s half-finished but can still ensure my safety in the Essential Qi Tide," Zhou Bao said. He opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of Green Qi¡ªthe Faux Air-frozen Bead.


    "Half-finished?" Wang She changed his expression and gave a look at the Faux Air-frozen Bead suspended in the air. "Judging by the spirit, it should be a celestial device at the Mysterious Level. Your Air-frozen Bead has shaped! "


    "It''s not at Advanced Level. There''s still room for improvement!"


    "I''ve heard the function of this stuff, but are you sure it can ensure your safety in the Essential Qi Tide?"


    "There should be no problem!"


    "Even if it can ensure you uninjured in the Essential Qi Tide, so what?" Wang She said, shaking the head. "In that furious Essential Qi Tide, you can''t do anything at all!"


    "I told you, I will be fine!"


    "You seem to know something about the Essential Qi Tide!" Wang She slightly turned his head and stared at Zhou Bao with a serious countenance. "Boy, you''re becoming more and more mysterious, right? You already know many things that you shouldn''t know!"


    "What are the things that I shouldn''t know?"


    "What''s the Essential Qi Tide on earth? Few people know it in this world. I''ve never told you. As far as I know, people who know the Essential Qi Tide have nothing to do with you. Even if people like Golden Rooster know of the Essential Qi Tide, they don''t know the essence. Why are you so confident that you could benefit from the Essential Qi Tide?"


    "Yes, right!" Zhou Bao was inexpressibly astonished but showed a warmer smile. "I''m not sure I can certainly gain some benefits from the Essential Qi Tide, but I know I have such a chance, and it will help me to break through the state!"


    "That''s what I''m curious about. Why are you so confident?"


    "It''s my secret. I suppose I don''t need to tell you my secret," said Zhou Bao, laughing.


    "Alright, you have many secrets, but you don''t need to tell me all of them!" Wang She was mildly rebuffed, but he was not angry. He nodded and said, "Well then, since you''re so confident that you''ll gain benefits from the Essential Qi Tide, I have no need to stop you. I will arrange this thing, but you should be careful!"


    "One more thing. I have no idea when I can come out after entering the Azure Secret Area. So, could you please take care of the things happening outside the Area. As for your subordinates, I''ve already set Jiang Xiao to arrange tasks for them. If there''s anything, just order Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba!"


    "Yeah, I know. The two guys have been following you for several years, haven''t they?"


    "Correct. When I was the commander of the Navy of Jiang City, they began to be with me. Till now, almost four to five years. They deserve our trust!"


    "Hehe. OK. I got it. Don''t worry. I''m here. No trouble will occur in your little territory. However, you cannot be too careful in the Azure Secret Area. Once you can''t hold up there, get out quickly. If you get caught in it, it''s not a good thing for anyone!"


    "Am I that silly?" Zhou Bao laughed.


    ...


    ...


    After making comprehensive arrangements, Zhou Bao walked into the passageway built by Sun Rat of Emptiness before the shocked eyes of Golden Rooster, Sun Rat of Emptiness and Moon Deer of Extended Net.


    This time he voluntarily walked into it, which was very different from the previous experience when he entered there involuntarily. The palisades at the bottom of the mine hole, which was as smooth as a mirror, began to radiate dreamlike blue light after Sun Rat of Emptiness had spoken out several incantations.


    The blue light was mild and had a comforting effect. Seeing the dreamy blue light, Zhou Bao, who was excited before, now was slowly calming down. His mind also became very sober.


    "What a good thing!" He acclaimed in his heart. Knowing that this effect was attributed to the Pure Yang Celestial Device used for constructing the passageway, he praised secretly. When the blue light flashed, Zhou Bao felt as though he was underwater. However, the water was warm. He could easily breathe, which gave him a feeling that he was in a bathhouse. Regrettably, something suddenly showed up in front of him before he could enjoy that bathhouse feeling for a while. A wild and dry wind came in his face, almost blowing him away.


    "Here I am!" Treading on the blazing fine sand and watching the surrounding boundless desert, Zhou Bao knew that he was already at the right place.


    Compared with the experience that he had when he had come here for the first time, the environment here was much worse now. Endless sandstorms were everywhere in the whole desert. As far as the eyes could reach, hundreds of tornados violently blew one after another. Sand pervaded between the sky and the earth, and the whole place was immense and indistinct.


    "No worries. It''s not the Essential Qi Tide here. The heavy wind was due to the influenced of the Essential Qi Tide in the Azure Secret Area!"


    Green Spirit''s voice sounded in his brain. Before the voice died away, he heard a bang. A clap of thunder came from a tornado at a short distance away. At this moment, Zhou Bao found that those tornados were unexceptionally giving out dim blue flashes of lightning.


    ...


    To be continued.

 Chapter 309: Practice in Secret Area, Insights of Acupoints

    Chapter 309: Practice in Secret Area, Insights of Acupoints


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    This was the Azure Grotto!


    The endless wind which was mixed with the dreary sound of thunder made people feel chilly in their hearts.


    Though Zhou Bao was an expert at Level Seven who was ready to reach Level Eight, he still couldn''t help changing his facial expression before the world''s vast expanse of mighty power.


    "Don''t worry. Take it easy. Just invoke your Air-frozen Bead as it will play a big role here!"


    Following his words, Zhou Bao invoked the Air-frozen Bead!


    As soon as the Air-frozen Bead was taken out, the wind around him stood still. Even within the radius of 1,000 feet, there was no trace of wind and the howling wind could only be heard 1,000 feet away.


    The Air-frozen Bead, which had formed a wonderful force field around Zhou Bao within the radius of 1,000 feet, blocked out all the wind and sand.


    "It really works!"Zhou Bao was overjoyed at the sight of the Air-frozen Bead''s miraculous function.


    "Outside is just some storms caused by the Essential Qi Tide in the Azure Secret Area, it''s no big deal. If the Air-frozen Bead can''t settle down such a wind, I wouldn''t let you enter the Azure Secret Area!" Green Spirit drifted out of the green light and hovered around Zhou Bao.


    "Hurry up and go into Azure Secret Area. I can''t wait, haha!"


    With a smile on his face, Zhou Bao jumped up and started flying toward the entrance to the Azure Secret Area.


    Along the way, Zhou Bao encountered a lot of storms, but everything was under the control of the magic Air-frozen Bead, and nothing happened. Zhou Bao once again felt the magical function of the Air-frozen Bead. Even tornados disappeared as if they had met their nemesis once they were in the area controlled by the Air-frozen Bead.


    "It''s amazing. After I have completely refined the Air-frozen Bead in the future, I will come here and leave as I wish. Others can only be here for two months in a year, but I can be here at any time. What a big advantage!"


    "Yes, yes, but the magic function of the Air-frozen Bead is more than that, and you will know all about it when you have completely refined it!" Green Spirit was also very excited at this time.


    Having walked to the entrance to the cave safely, Zhou Bao stopped to look back, but he only saw storms enveloping the world. He couldn''t help shaking his head and said, "Level Seven, well, even a Level Nine expert wouldn''t necessarily arrive here safely without the Air-frozen Bead."


    "The world''s mighty power is not something that human beings can imagine or reverse. You can''t communicate through the heaven and earth, and come and go freely unless you have reached the Mysterious Realm and have obtained the Individual Immortal Karma Rank. Otherwise, it''s nothing but empty talk!"


    "I won''t need to care about these storms once I have reached Mysterious Realm, will I?"


    "Well, of course, you''ll know when you reach Metaphysic Realm. Now let''s see how to get in. Now is the time that the Essential Qi Tide is rising, so the inhibition on the entrance to the cave should be loosened."


    "Ah!" Zhou Bao nodded, and slowly bent down, carefully examining the inhibition on the entrance to the cave.


    "The Fire Land Prohibition has become very fragile under the influence of the Essential Qi Tide. You can easily burn it with the Great Fusion Technic, but you need to be careful and pay attention to the pneuma inside. The pneuma in the secret area is completely chaotic at the moment. You will be in trouble if the Evil Qi comes out when you open the inhibition."


    Zhou Bao nodded and stretched his fingers. A bright golden light fluttered violently upon the entrance which was banned by the Fire Land Prohibition.


    Afterward, with a slap in the air, the khaki-colored inhibition, which was made up of the forbidden skill, was instantly blazed open.


    Bang!


    In no time, Zhou Bao suffered boundless pressure from all sides, which pushed his body toward the cave, and at the same time, a stream of black Evil Qi came out of the cave.


    "Evil Black Water, buddy, watch out!"


    At the sight of this stream of black Evil Qi, Green Spirit screamed and the illusionary body suddenly slipped into the green lamp.


    With a flash of bright light in Zhou Bao''s eyes, his gold Gang Qi rose instantly. Once the black Evil Qi came into contact with his Gang Qi, it let out a very sharp and piercing sound as if cold water poured into boiling oil, and then it disappeared without a trace.


    Zhou Bao, on the other hand, was safe and sound.


    When Zhou Bao was immersed in his complacency, Green Spirit came out again unexpectedly, "Are you crazy? You even used your Gang Qi to resist the Evil Qi. I''ll tell you that this is the greatest taboo in the Essential Qi Tide. Just now, what came out was nothing but a stream of Evil Qi. But when we go deep down, countless kinds of pneuma, Evil Qi, and Spiritual Qi will blend together. If you resist them rashly with your own Gang Qi, you''re prone to get into trouble. Got it?"


    "I see! I see!"


    After breaking the inhibition, he entered the secret world.


    Everything was different.


    In the Azure Secret Area, there was none of the vitality that he had seen on his last entry, but a sense of lifelessness between heaven and earth.


    With the extremely sticky essence of the world mixing together, the Azure Secret Area was now a big jar, which was filled with jellylike substances consisting of various pneuma, Spiritual Qi, and Evil Qi, all flowing slowly.


    It was lucky that the Air-frozen Bead had propped up a region of 10 feet around him and isolated the pneuma miscellany which had been condensed into gelatine from the inside.


    However, Zhou Bao also felt enormous pressure as soon as he entered the Azure Secret Area.


    The pressure came from the Air-frozen Bead!


    The sand and storms that seemed to be violent beyond the bounds of the Azure Secret Area posed no threat to the Air-frozen Bead, which could spread its power 1,000 feet away easily and didn''t drain Zhou Bao''s strength at all.


    However, it was different in the Azure Secret Area.


    The surrounding essence of the world had become a gel, mixed in one place. The world in the Azure Secret Area had become veiled, and nothing could be seen clearly. Although the Air-frozen Bead had popped up a region of 10 feet, it faced various kinds of pressure from all sides and its own strength couldn''t resist them at all. Therefore, it began to fuel up by drawing strength from Zhou Bao''s body.


    When Zhou Bao was refining the Air-frozen Bead, he followed Green Spirit''s advice and refined the Air-frozen Bead as a natal magic weapon. Therefore, the spirit of the Air-frozen Bead was closely related to his. Once it was suppressed, the pressure would also pass on to Zhou Bao''s body, and it would naturally draw strength from his body.


    The Internal Qi of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire was in full operation, and the black flame began to flow through the tendons and meridians in his body. Through a mysterious passageway, it entered into the region of the Air-frozen Bead. All of a sudden, he was surrounded by darkness and the 10 feet area around him was filled with thick and hot black spirit, which firmly stabilized the Air-frozen Bead''s shaky region.


    "It can''t go on like this!"


    The Air-frozen Bead was temporarily stabilized and the pneuma was blocked out, but similarly, Zhou Bao felt the rapid loss of his Internal Qi. ''''I can''t sustain it for a long time. At most, in one hour, my Internal Qi will be exhausted!"


    "It doesn''t matter. Although the Essential Qi Tide is powerful, it''s not true that there''s no hiding place. Otherwise, the living creatures in the Azure Secret Area would have died out long time ago!" Green Spirit said, "Two hours are enough. Let''s look for it!"


    "How to find it? Being covered by the essence of the world, this place is in pitch darkness and nothing can be seen beyond 30 feet.''''


    "Just sense it with your spiritual mind!" Green Spirit said sourly. "Don''t rely too much on your eyes. When your cultivation has reached Mysterious Realm, your eyes are no longer important!"


    "But my current spiritual mind is useless here. I can''t see with my eyes. Don''t even mention the spiritual mind!''''


    "Just do what I say. Please walk slowly forward, and explore with your spiritual mind and divine thoughts. Don''t you have eight divine thoughts? If you use them to communicate with your spiritual mind, it will be more sensitive.''''


    Zhou Bao had no choice but to follow Green Spirit''s words. If not for the Wind Bead, which had propped up a region of 10 feet amidst the Essential Qi Tide, he would have run into a tree within few steps. Even with the help of the Wind Bead, he still nearly hit a rock several times.


    But gradually, Zhou Bao seemed to have mastered the know-how. The longer he used the spiritual mind, the clearer it felt. Suddenly, with a flash between his eyebrows, the eight divine thoughts drilled out. Centering on the purple-jade-like divine thought which had been purified by purple-thunderbolt, the eight divine thoughts were circling around his body. In an instant, his spiritual mind suddenly burst out like a radar and began to sweep in all directions.


    Soon, the spiritual mind passed through the Air-frozen Bead''s region, leaving Zhou Bao clearly aware of the situation outside.


    It was thick, sticky, and possessed a variety of different properties.


    That was what Zhou Bao felt of the essence of the world beyond the region of the Air-frozen Bead.


    Like the malt food that Zhou Bao had eaten at home during his childhood, all the essence here was slowly stirred by an invisible stick which seemed to mix all the pneuma together, but the relationship among the pneuma, the Evil Qi and Spiritual Qi was similar to that of oil and water. However you stirred them, they could basically maintain their independence and only a small amount of pneuma would be melted together.


    After a period of time, the melted pneuma started to settle down. Some slowly sank into the ground, while others slowly rose upwards. It seemed that they no longer wanted to be blended in the pneuma''s tide. However, it was very rare, and there was not a single case in the midst of hundreds of pneuma.


    Now, Zhou Bao finally understood what Green Spirit had meant.


    He also remembered the saying he had often heard before, "Clear air floats up, while turbid gas sinks!"


    The Essential Qi Tide had always existed. As long as there was enough time, the numerous pneuma would be melted together and form a very stable state one day, just like the outside world. It was not certain whether, to achieve this, it would take tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, or even longer. Right now, the Azure Secret Area was was still in a period similar to Primordial Origin and primitive times. Since the pneuma was not stable, it was impossible to form a stable world similar to the outside world in a short period of time.


    The spiritual mind slowly spilled around like water.


    With the help of eight divine thoughts, Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind became very sensitive and delicate. Through the region of the Air-frozen Bead, he could clearly sense the properties of various pneuma and tell whether it was Evil Qi or spiritual qi, safe or dangerous.


    Suddenly, Zhou Bao gazed for a moment and stopped in his tracks!


    It was because he had found a strange place where there was no miscellaneous and dangerous Essential Qi Tide.


    Although it was more chaotic than the first time he entered the Azure Secret Area, the chaotic extent was limited.


    "How did it go? Did you find it?"


    "Yes, there is a hiding place 600 feet away. However, it seems that it already has a master!"


    "I don''t care. Can you feel the strength of the guy hiding there?"


    "I can feel a bit, its cultivation is no less than Level Seven!"


    "It''s an evil beast whose cultivation is equal to Level Seven. It should be hiding in the hole and be trembling right now. It''s easy to deal with it!"


    "I see!" Zhou Bao nodded.


    Because there was turbulent and eccentric pneuma everywhere, it took him more than one hour to cross a 600 feet distance. But fortunately, it was safe in the end. He bid defiance to a Level Seven evil beast. Moreover, the evil beast was not as sensitive as usual in the Essential Qi Tide, and it would never have imagined that one could still find the way to its cave in the boundless Essential Qi Tide.


    So, when Zhou Bao arrived at its lair, it was not even awake.


    Zhou Bao resolved the issue of the cave''s previous master using his Great Fusion Technic.


    "Whoo, whoo!" After jumping into this cave, Zhou Bao took a deep breath and gasped, and then sat down and began to adjust his breath. Along the way, he was exhausted and his Internal Qi, including that of his Fiery Eyes External Elixir, had been consumed by 80 percent. If it was a bit longer, he might not have survived it.


    However, in the Azure Secret Area, his Internal Qi recovered quickly and the cave which was not affected by the Essential Qi Tide, was full of pneuma.


    "Green Spirit, just tell me why this cave is not affected despite the Essential Qi Tide almost covering the entire Azure Secret Area?"


    "The power of the world is unpredictable, but in any dangerous situation, there will always be some hope of survival among the Great Ways. The exquisiteness of the Great Ways lies in the transience between death and life. I just know this truth, but I can''t really understand it. You''re asking me the reason, but I can''t exactly explain it!"


    "Just say you don''t know. What do you do with all this esoteric stuff?" Zhou Bao was angry at his words and asked, "What shall we do next?"


    "Since you have recovered your Internal Qi, just begin to refine acupoints!'''' Green Spirit said, ''''I''m going to look for a place to restore my Original Spirit!"


    "Aren''t you staying here?"


    "What am I doing here?" Green Spirit laughed.


    "Don''t forget that this place is full of Essential Qi Tide. Can you just go out like this? Aren''t you afraid of falling into trouble?"


    "I''m not going out. I''m just guide pneuma into my body at the entrance to the cave!" Green Spirit said, "Because of the stir of the Essential Qi Tide, there is Spiritual Qi and Evil Qi everywhere. I have just discovered several kinds of pneuma that are good for my recovery. I just need to guide the pneuma at the cave''s entrance, and I don''t need to leave."


    "You simply got a terrific place for yourself!"


    Having muttered a curse, Zhou Bao calmed down, quietly exercised his own Internal Qi and began to refine acupoints.


    This was not the first time for him to refine acupoints. He already had some experience. In addition, since he had fumbled through the acupoint of the Primordial Celestial Dragon by Invisible Dragon Rod, he had a very deep understanding of the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints. Therefore, once he ran his Internal Qi, exploring the tricks of his own acupoints was something up his street.


    Because he wanted to open the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, therefore, the Internal Qi was in accordance with Dragon Flying Technique. After several full days, Zhou Bao''s body gave a slight shake, and the black flames began to swirl around him like wind instead of in a solidified form.


    At this moment, in Zhou Bao''s tendons and meridians, the black flame-shaped Internal Qi which was like a hand controlled by Zhou Bao, moved slowly and probed the depths of his tendons and meridians, feeling their difference in a subtle way and trying to find a unique point in the tendons and meridians.


    The Fiery Eyes'' Inner Vision function had been fully turned on and all the movements in his body were fully reflected in his mind. The flow of a drop of blood, the beating of the heart, the pulsation of the tendons and meridians, and even the deepest mental and spiritual movement were all clear and complete.


    After a full day''s operation of the Dragon Flying Technique, he basically knew the position of the remaining seven acupoints of the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints. After a few more days, he could locate the position of the seven acupoints and went to the second step.


    Refine!


    To refine acupoints!


    According to the last distribution of tendons and meridians, he first began to flush the tendons and meridians with his own Internal Qi, slowly emptying the points around the seven acupoints, creating the inner air circulation, step by step, letting the cycle take shape.


    As expected, the acupoint was opened by him.


    "Bang!"


    As what happened when he opened the first acupoint, this acupoint madly absorbed his Internal Qi like a black hole once it was formed. The Internal Qi which originally coiled around his body because of the operation of the Dragon Flying Technique, was sucked into his body suddenly.


    The Internal Qi was rolling like a long river running!


    In a very short period of time, the Internal Qi in his body was completely inhaled into the newly opened acupoint. The Internal Qi in his Dantian, the Fiery Eyes External Elixir, and the crimson star cloud in the acupoint he had opened before, all rushed out and poured directly into the newly opened acupoint.


    Everything happened as Zhou Bao had expected. However, instead of crimson star cloud, there was a black star cloud circling in the newly opened acupoint.


    "Whoo!" Zhou Bao took a deep breath. Unlike last time, there was no shortage of Internal Qi this time. Having been circulating in the newly opened acupoint, the Internal Qi in his Dantian, the Fiery Eyes and the first acupoint were completely melted together. After being purified and converted, it was completely condensed into one when the star cloud was formed.


    But at the same time, Zhou Bao felt an endless emptiness and even had the feeling that he was hurt badly. It was because the whole body''s Internal Qi had been consumed in this new acupoint, leaving the whole body in urgent need of supplementation.


    Fortunately, he was in the Azure Secret Area. The richness of the essence of the world quickly filled up his Internal Qi, but at the same time, his look became a bit weird.


    "Internal Qi is powerful!"


    After opening the second acupoint, he had totally doubled the amount of Internal Qi in his body. Additionally, after the purification, the crimson Internal Qi in the acupoint which was first opened, was also completely assimilated, and it began to change into condensed and black flame-shaped Internal Qi.


    His Dantian, the first acupoint, and the second acupoint, vaguely formed a cycle where the Internal Qi flew endlessly. Furthermore, he noticed that the capacity of his Dantian seemed to have been expanded a lot, not to mention the capacity of two Real Dragon''s Acupoints which was more than ten times bigger than that of his Dantian.


    "Although my cultivation is still at Level Seven, my current Internal Qi is at least fifty times more than that of an ordinary Level Seven expert. If I try to open a few more acupoints, then my Internal Qi capacity will be a hundred times or even hundreds of times more than that of an ordinary Level Seven expert!" At this thought, his face lit up with a joy, but it soon subsided.


    "It''s a pity that the strength of my tendons and meridians is limited. Moreover, it is impossible to make all the Internal Qi burst out at once no matter how abundant my Internal Qi is. Otherwise, it will fracture the tendons and meridians. Therefore, compared to a Level Seven expert, my biggest advantage is only my great amount of Internal Qi. If we confront each other, my endurance is a hundred times more than that of theirs, but the power that can be exerted by one stroke will not be much stronger!"


    This is a very simple truth. An acupoint was like a pool, and tendons and meridians were like water pipes. In the case of the same thickness and the same number of pipes, the amount of water that you put in one pool and one hundred pools at the same time was almost the same. The advantage was shown when the water in one of the other pools was drained.


    But Zhou Bao was very satisfied with this. What he valued was not the present, but the future. After he had opened all the acupoints, he would purify the Real Essence Source. By the time his cultivation had passed Level Nine, reached Mysterious Realm and obtained Individual Immortal Karma Rank, his Real Eessence would be many times more powerful than that of an ordinary Individual Immortal.


    Of course, this was just one of his ideas. It was far from becoming a reality.


    After he opened the second acupoint and tasted the benefits of it, Zhou Bao continued to work hard and started refining the third one and the fourth one...


    Gradually, he had completely indulged himself in the process of refining acupoints.


    Because during this process, he increased the number of his acupoints, and at the same time, he used his own Internal Qi to control his own tendons and meridians inch by inch as he opened his acupoints step by step. It helped him a lot with the control of Internal Qi in extremely subtle areas. His technique of exercising Internal Qi also entered into a new level and height.


    "The Sword Qi of the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword can also be used separately!"


    "Differentiation of such a large quantity of Sword Qi can be carried out in the tendons and meridians!"


    "Yes, if the gathering and diffusion of Sword Qi can be done in such a way, the efficiency will at least double!"


    "Oh, I got it! If Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill work in this way, the Critical Hit rate will be greatly increased!"


    "Well, why is it in the reverse order? Haha, I got it. The waves of two secret skills of Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breathing overlap. As long as I do it in this way, I can keep the probability under my control, and I don''t need to count on luck!"


    "This is the secret to the technique of Flipping Sky Seal. As long as my Internal Qi flows like this, I don''t need to worry about breaking my tendons and meridians when I exercise Flipping Sky Seal!"


    "As long as Infinite Trembling Contemplation is also exercised in this way, the power will be increased by 30%. The time of application will be reduced by half. The damage to the tendons and meridians won''t be so serious. It can save my life at critical moments!"


    ...


    ...


    Time flew as he was refining and meditating. When he re-opened his eyes, it was already half a month later.


    He let out a sigh of relief. The past half month was fruitful and he was extremely exhausted due the fact that he kept practicing and meditating, which was physically strenuous.


    ...


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 310: Real Dragons Nine Acupoints and Dark Jade Frost

    Chapter 310: Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints and Dark Jade Frost


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Zhou Bao was greatly relieved when his ninth acupoint was opened.


    Feeling the purification of Internal Qi the same as before, he started to establish the circulation between the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints. Finally, he understood the principle.


    When the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints were refined successfully, the nine acupoints would interact and influence each other, thus, forming a giant circulation. It looked like a huge Dantian, in which Internal Qi circulated smoothly.


    What surprised him the most was that he could feel the enlargement of his Dantian clearly every time he opened his acupoints. When the ninth acupoint was opened, his Dantian would be the same as the other eight acupoints. The quantity of Internal Qi that they could store was the same.


    What disappointed him was that after he had refined the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, he had not refined a real dragon successfully like he had done when he opened his first acupoint.


    However, he was very satisfied because he had obtained a lot from these nine acupoints.


    "All right. I refined the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints finally. I can step into the Level Eight Realm without any worry now." He was greatly relieved. He possessed nine acupoints, so he felt that he was filled with Internal Qi. He could feel the swelling of his body. His tendons and meridians could only withstand the flow of Internal Qi in these nine acupoints. The Internal Qi flowing through his body could break his tendons and meridians at any time and rush out of his body.


    "Fu*k. I''d better think about how to infuse this dammed Internal Qi into these acupoints now."


    The pressure created by the immense Internal Qi made his tendons and meridians begin to collapse. But the Internal Qi circulating through his newly formed ninth acupoint had yet to set up. He was worried about whether his tendons and meridians could withstand the pressure until he had finished infusing.


    In fact, he was right. When he calmed down, he found that the formation established by his nine acupoints, the giant Dantian-like formation, operated faster than before. Continous vigorous Internal Qi swarmed out from the Dantian and rushed into his tendons and meridians. They were almost filled up with the infinite flame-shaped Internal Qi and were going to explode.


    "Hahaha, I succeeded! As I had thought, the Netherworld Evil Qi in the Azure Secret Area can restore my Original Spirit. I don''t need to attach to that damned green lamp anymore!"


    Zhou Bao already heard the laughter of Green Spirit. Green Spirit had taken shape completely. He turned into a cyan fox and ran over to Zhou Bao complacently. As he was trying to show his Original Spirit, he found that Zhou Bao''s expression was not normal. His face turned green and his lips became purple. His veins twisted and strands of black flame-shaped Internal Qi were faintly visible. It was as if those veins were going to explode.


    "Oh no! His tendons and meridians cannot withstand the pressure now." Watching this scene, Green Spirit figured out what was happening here. Though he had cultivated his Original Spirit successfully, he had no power. He could merely get rid of the green lamp. Therefore, he was unable to help Zhou Bao.


    Thus, he exclaimed, "Little boy, listen to me carefully. Your tendons and meridians can''t bear your Internal Qi now. If you keep going like this, they''ll definitely collapse. But you don''t need to worry about it too much. Your cultivation has already reached the peak of Level Seven. You can step into Level Eight at any time. I''m going to teach you how to condense the Real Essence Source. You must gather and compress your Internal Qi into the Real Essence Source right now and store it in your acupoints. In this way, the Internal Qi in your body will be greatly reduced. It can reduce Internal Qi to a certain degree that your tendons and meridians can bear. But you should prepare mentally. You have nine acupoints. You must condense nine Real Essence Sources. Otherwise, if some of these acupoints have no Real Essence Source while others do have one, your Great Circulation of Acupoints will collapse. Besides, your body will explode. Do you understand?"


    His voice went into Zhou Bao''s mind directly. Zhou Bao''s mouth twitched and he nodded his head firmly. He had no strength to utter a word now.


    "Ok. Now follow my instructions. First, use your Dantian..."


    Green Spirit said slowly. The crucial technique to condense the Real Essence Source appeared in Zhou Bao''s mind. Green Spirit explained it in detail for fear that Zhou Bao could not understand it or hear it clearly. Therefore, Zhou Bao did not need to use his brain. He just needed to follow Green Spirit''s words to condense the Real Essence Source. Because his body possessed profound and dense Internal Qi, the process went smoothly. After two hours, the first Real Essence Source appeared in his Dantian.


    The so-called Real Essence Source was a substance that one could get after he had greatly compressed his Internal Qi and the Internal Qi had a qualitative change.


    Of course, a qualitative change could not occur just by compressing. In the process of compression, one should follow special steps to condense the Internal Qi into a liquid core step by step and then compress other Internal Qi into filaments. These filaments needed to be connected with the Internal Qi core and, thus, form an exquisite formation. Zhou Bao was stunned by how complicated this process was. As he was absorbed in condensing the Internal Qi, he could not help thinking, "Why should it be so complicated? Do these Level Eight and Level Nine experts all form their Genuine Soul Sources in this way? There''s no way. Because of my Fiery Eyes, I can have such a strong Inner Vision and am able to control my Internal Qi so delicately. If it were other people, they would go crazy when they encountered such a delicate operation, even if they were Level Nine experts."


    However, these ideas occurred to him when he was condensing the Real Essence Source. Though they were right and reasonable, he did not ask Green Spirit about it during this critical moment.


    Green Spirit was filled with apprehension and fear. But if he was in the Essential Spirit State now, you would be able to see the cold sweat all over his body.


    In fact, the process of condensing the Real Essence Source did not have to be as complicated as Zhou Bao had thought.


    When the cultivation of Internal Qi reached Level Eight, the Internal Qi would be extremely dense and as hard as steel.


    Once this state formed, as the essence of Internal Qi, the Dantian would produce a marvelous reaction and form the Real Essence Sources automatically.


    Nevertheless, this kind of naturally formed Real Essence Source would take a lot of time. The time this process took would vary based on the differences in people''s physical fitness and cultivation methods.


    Some unlucky men were unable to condense the Real Essence Source in their acupoints for their entire lifetime. Hence, they stayed in that state forever.


    Presently, most of the Level Eight experts were stopped at that point.


    Differing from them, Zhou Bao only had a Level Seven cultivation. Although it was at the peak of Level Seven, he had not yet stepped into Level Eight completely. His Internal Qi was not as hard as steel, so it could not condense into the Real Essence Source naturally. He had to condense it voluntarily.


    The method of condensing the Real Essence Source that Green Spirit taught him was used by practitioners in antiquity times. It had been extinct for many years.


    That was because this method was useless now. A Horrible Inner Vision and the delicate ability to control Internal Qi were needed when it came to condensing the Real Essence Source voluntarily. At present, the essence of the world was scattered. The person who possessed these abilities would not appear over several thousand years. Furthermore, the thick essence of the world was needed in the surroundings in the process of condensing the Real Essence Source in order to spare any future worry. However, this could not be realized now.


    Now, Zhou Bao was in the Essential Qi Tide. He could meet these conditions and condense the Real Essence Source voluntarily.


    Even so, the action of condensing the Real Essence Source voluntarily was dangerous for Zhou Bao. If something went wrong, he would explode. That was why Green Spirit was so anxious.


    Fortunately, Zhou Bao was a lucky guy. 10 hours later, after the formation in his Dantian had completely taken shape, a qualitative change of the Internal Qi in his Dantian finally took place. The Internal Qi that filled up his tendons and meridians began to flow back and refill the Dantian, which looked like a black hole.


    Zhou Bao did not need to worry about this process. Once the formation in his Dantian had formed, everything would operate voluntarily.


    He started to establish the circulation of his ninth acupoint wholeheartedly after the pressure in his tendons and meridians reduced. Compared to setting up the formation of the Real Essence Source, this circulation was much simpler. Besides, he was very familiar with it. So, he formed this circulation before his Dantian sucked all the Internal Qi from his tendons and meridians.


    After that, his ninth acupoint reached the Advanced Level. The formation created by these nine acupoints took shape completely and formed a giant Dharma wheel.


    The huge Dantian was finally complete!


    He suddenly felt the shock of his body. His tendons and meridians were shocked as well. The Dharma wheel rotated in his body and infinite Internal Qi circulated. He felt the unprecedented power and strength that he possessed now.


    "Little boy, it''s too early to be happy. Hurry up. Condense the Real Essence Source in your ninth acupoint now. Otherwise, your acupoint circulation will crumble soon!"


    Sensing Zhou Bao''s signs of relaxation, Green Spirit reminded him at once.


    It was the most crucial moment and also a time that could easily ruin the efforts he had made earlier.


    Zhou Bao was finally relieved as he successfully condensed the Real Essence Source in his last acupoint. He opened his eyes slowly. His consciousness was no longer tense.


    Then, the strong sensation of hunger hit him.


    He was so hungry!


    His dull eyes wandered all over the place. Finally, he turned to Green Spirit, who was absorbing an unknown Evil Qi, and then asked, "How long have I practiced?"


    "A month and a half!" Green Spirit wore a smile when he saw that Zhou Bao had awoken.


    "Fu*k. I''d better eat something now. Otherwise, I''ll starve to death!" Zhou Bao murmured. Even an expert could not withstand eating nothing in a month and a half.


    Fortunately, he possessed the Space of Segmented Realms. It was not big, but it was enough to store some rations and drinking water.


    He devoured some cold food ravenously and, finally, felt somewhat satisfied. He burped and let out a sigh. "Huh, I''m feeling well. Green Spirit, you should remind me when you''re going to ask me to do something. It would be so stupid if I starved to death during closed-door training."


    "You won''t. Your cultivation has reached Level Seven. You can go without eating and drinking for three months. Besides, I know your practicing speed very well." Green Spirit shook his head and continued, "You have practiced the Real Essence Source successfully and can break through to the Level Eight Realm at any time. Do you want to practice here later?"


    "Of course! It''s a good opportunity." Zhou Bao looked up. A bright light appeared in his eyes. "You told me that the Essential Qi Tide will gather all the pneuma around the world, no matter where it hides. This is the Azure Secret Area. Originally, the essence of the world here is several levels higher than it is outside. Now, all the pneuma gathers together. I definitely can find the best Evil Qi to refine my Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. How can I let this opportunity go?"


    "Haha. You''re good at seizing opportunites. You''re right. There are various kinds of top-grade Evil Qi, enough for you to practice special techniques. You can feel that the variety of Evil Qi is mingled in the tide. You need to find whatever you want now. But it will be hard to separate these Evil Qi." He stopped for a while and then continued, "What''s more, your Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword was practiced by the Blood Essence Evil Yuan, the Evil Qi that can go with it is rare. I advocate two types to you. One is the Archaic Yin Evil, and the other is the Dark Jade Frost. The former can be found in the cave, but you need to go out to find the latter."


    "Which one is better?"


    "The Dark Jade Frost of course. The Archaic Yin Evil can merely match with the Blood Essence Evil Yuan, but the Dark Jade Frost can blend with it well. You''re so lucky that you can find the Dark Jade Frost in the Essential Qi Tide. Otherwise, it wouldn''t be that easy for you to find it, even in antiquity times."


    "Then I''ll go and find it!"


    Zhou Bao shrugged. He was indifferent. He had opened his nine acupoints and condensed nine Real Essence Sources. Therefore, he was pretty confident in his strength. "The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword is extremely powerful. I''ve wanted to practice it successfully since long ago. Now, I finally have the opportunity to realize my dream!"


    "It''s the best opportunity to practice special techniques with the Essential Qi Tide. Top-grade Evil Qi can be seen everywhere in the Azure Secret Area. It''s an infinite and inexhaustible treasure-house now!"


    Zhou Bao was out of sorts when he looked at the darkness outside the cave.


    "It''s too early to laugh. The Evil Qi in the Essential Qi Tide is hard to collect. What''s more, you can''t collect as much as you want." Having seen through Zhou Bao''s thought, Green Spirit said coldly, "You can give it a try."


    Of course, Zhou Bao would give it a try.


    He would not let such a good opportunity go.


    He took out the Faux Air-frozen Bead again and walked out of the cave.


    This time was different from the last time. When he had walked into the Azure Secret Area, his Air-frozen Bead could only cover an area of 10 feet. But as his strength had risen now, it could cover an area of 50 feet, which was five times larger than before.


    Meanwhile, he could feel the pulsing of his nine Real Essence Sources. Every time they pulsed, strands of a barely discernible black fog infused into his Internal Qi. After that, his Internal Qi would be much denser. But like the black fog, this effect was faintly visible. Additionally, the Real Essence Sources moved too slowly, so he did not care about it anymore after he had experienced the excitement at the beginning.


    Outside of the cave, the Essential Qi Tide was chaotic and furious as it was before. Soon after, he discovered that it was not good for the coverage of his Air-frozen Bead to enlarge because that gave him the corresponding pressure. After walking 100 feet, he controlled the Air-frozen Bead and shrunk its coverage down to 10 feet. Then his pressure was also greatly relieved.


    There was plenty of Evil Qi and Spiritual Qi in the Essential Qi Tide. But if one thought that he could collect them as he wished, he would be wrong. As Zhou Bao found the Dark Jade Frost and was about to collect it, he knew that Green Spirit had already simplified the difficulty of collecting Evil Qi.


    Although all kinds of pneuma had mixed together, the case of pure pneuma floating above and an impure one sinking down was rarely seen. These pneuma huddled together like disordered threads.


    If these pneumas were taken as cotton threads with different colors, the Essential Qi Tide would consist of over 10,000 cotton threads with different colors, lengths, and sizes. They mixed together and formed several groups. So, it was quite hard to get a certain kind of pneuma from them.


    Normally, ordinary cotton threads were harmless. But most of the pneuma in the Essential Qi Tide was lethal.


    If Zhou Bao wanted to benefit greatly from the pneuma, he needed to untie these disordered threads. That was nearly impossible. Even if there was someone who could do it, it would not be him.


    Thus, he could only get some parts of the Dark Jade Frost from the pneuma.


    To take the Dark Jade Frost out from a group of tangled pneuma had its advantages and disadvantages. The good news was that this method was simple and practical. The bad news was that he could get only a little everytime. Furthermore, great effort was needed to prevent the Essential Qi Tide from being disturbed. Most importantly, it would take a lot of time.


    He spent six hours and only got a tiny group of the Dark Jade Frost. It was far from meeting his needs to practice the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword.


    But his Air-frozen Bead could not work anymore. He needed to operate the Air-frozen Bead on one hand, and on the other hand, he needed to think about how to get the Evil Qi. Both the physical and brain work were his headaches.


    "Jesus. I''m fu*king tired. I''d better not do this kind of thing in the future. Otherwise, my lifespan will be shortened!" He returned to the cave in frustration when he saw the nail-sized Dark Jade Frost in his hand.


    "When your cultivation reaches the Mysterious Realm, your lifespan will increase greatly. It''s ok to shorten some of your life." Green Spirit made a bad joke beside him. "Well, have you ever thought about how long it will take for you to collect enough of the Dark Jade Frost?"


    "Half a month, I have to suffer at least half a month!" Zhou Bao thought for a while and smiled bitterly. He could collect the Dark Jade Frost for six hours at a time, but after that, he needed 10 hours to recover back to his perfect condition. Besides, he needed another four hours to rest in order to maintain his energy.


    "You''d better be content with this result. You should know that in antiquity times, in order to collect enough Evil Qi, some practitioners would spend decades and even several hundred years to collect the same kind of Evil Qi. But you only need half a month to collect enough Evil Qi that a strong special technique requires. It''s pretty good."


    "I''m just a nobody. How can I be compared with those great practitioners in antiquity times?" Zhou Bao responded and smiled bitterly.


    "Great practitioners in antiquity times were nobodies at the beginning. Your practicing speed is superior to most of them. However, compared to that of ordinary practitioners, it''s not slow. What''s more, you have opened nine acupoints. It''s possible to have great achievements like those great practitioners. You can even break through to the Realm of True Immortality and achieve the Human Immortal''s Karmic Rank!"


    "Come on. I''d better be an Individual Immortal at present." Zhou Bao stopped talking with Green Spirit and began to practice wholeheartedly.


    For most of the fighters, there was a huge gap between Level Seven and Level Eight, which was just like ascending to Level Seven from Level Six.


    After entering the Expert Realm, huge costs and painstaking efforts were needed to enter the next realm. Over the course of about 10,000 years, no one had been able to reach Level Eight from Level Seven as smoothly as Zhou Bao had.


    There were two barriers that should be overcome to get from Level Seven to Level Eight:


    Your body was the first barrier and the prerequisite as well. If your body, tendons, and meridians could not withstand the fierce Internal Qi of Level Eight, everything would be in vain. The second barrier was Internal Qi. If its quality was not high enough, no matter how many efforts had you made and how had you condensed your Internal Qi, qualitative changes would not take place. Internal Qi could not change into a solid.


    But these two barriers were a piece of cake for Zhou Bao.


    His body had been forged by the Primordial Loach Monster''s Demonic Fire and nourished day and night by a Pure Yang Celestial Device named the Golden Flame Mirror. Besides, it also had close contact with the Earth Fire Yuan Essence when he was in the geocentric fire vein. Thus, his body was far better than the standard quality of Level Eight, or even Level Nine. It was merely one step to enter the Mysterious Realm. The quality of his Internal Qi was far better than others because it had totally turned into black flame-shaped Internal Qi. Its purity was beyond the imagination of ordinary people. It was more powerful than the Demonic Fire of the Primordial Loach Monster. So, it could be called the top-grade Internal Qi in the world. He had already condensed the Real Essence Sources. Hence, it would be a piece of cake for him to compress it into a solid.


    In fact, he had reversed the sequence when he was practicing both his body and Internal Qi. Ordinary practitioners would reach Level Eight first and then condense their Real Essence Sources. However, he did the very opposite. He had condensed the Real Essence Source first and had then entered Level Eight.


    Therefore, the fierce Internal Qi of Level Eight could not hinder him.


    Nevertheless, it still took time.


    He passed the next month doing this boring practice. In the first half of the month, he spent six hours to collect Evil Qi, 10 hours to recover his energy, four hours to take a rest, and four hours to practice. He really had a tight schedule.


    After the first half of this month, he had collected enough Dark Jade Frost. 16 hours were available because he did not need to collect Evil Qi and recover his energy anymore. However, he still needed to spend 12 hours to evolve the Dark Jade Frost into the Sword Qi of Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword. Luckily, he had another fours hours to practice.


    After a month, he had lost a lot of weight but had grown taller. The bright light in his eyes disappeared. His eyes became glittering and translucent, looking like newly created black-jade jewels.


    "Is this the power of a Level Eight practitioner?" His hands were half-closed. He gently waved one of his hands, and instantly, a clear fist appeared on the cave wall. The lines of veins in his hand could be seen clearly.


    "This isn''t the power of ordinary Level Eight practitioners. You''ve already opened nine acupoints of your Real Essence. Thus, the Real Essence Energy that these eight Real Essence Sources have stimulated can contend with that of ordinary Individual Immortals in the Mysterious Realm!"


    "Really?" Zhou Bao was overjoyed when he heard that he could contend with Individual Immortals in the Mysterious Realm. But suddenly, he felt that something had gone wrong. "Oh, no. The Internal Qi of Level Eight practitioners should be as hard as steel. But no change has occurred to my Internal Qi now. Why?"


    "Originally, the quality of your Internal Qi was higher than ordinary Internal Qi. After it turned into Demonic Fire, its power could match that of Real Essence Energy. The state of Internal Qi that is as hard as steel is only a transitive step in which ordinary Internal Qi turns into the Real Essence. The quality of your Internal Qi is too high to go through this step. But the power of it is stronger than the Internal Qi that needs to undergo that step. Its power can reach the standard strength of ordinary Real Essence Energy."


    "So, why should I need the Real Essence Sources?"


    "Your Internal Qi is equal to ordinary Real Essence Energy. But before the Real Essence Source is condensed, the transformation that the Real Essence Source has on Internal Qi is a qualitative change. Your Internal Qi is equal to an ordinary Real Essence in quality and can match that of ordinary Level Nine experts. But after all, it isn''t the Real Essence and it''s defective. After it totally turns into a Real Essence, both its quality and power will increase by leaps and bounds. Then, you can fight against Individual Immortals." Green Spirit slightly sighed as though he had thought of something in ancient times. "Your case can only appear in the individual disciples of big sects in antiquity times. Your starting point was higher than others. Therefore, your achievement will be much greater than ordinary practitioners. You do possess great luck, but don''t squander it recklessly. There are many practitioners who possess great luck, but they can''t reach the real peak because of profligacy!"


    "The real peak?" Zhou Bao''s eyes shined. "What do you mean?"


    "You''ve just entered Level Eight, so it''s too early to talk about that!" Looking at Zhou Bao, whose eyes were shining, Green Spirit smiled faintly and said, "You seem to have already practiced the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword successfully. The combination of Yin and Yang is troublesome. Be careful!"


    "I''ve had some insight. I may be successful in a month."


    "A month! Haha... Little boy, the power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword is infinite. The mysteries of it weren''t that easy to figure out." After that, Green Spirit did not talk anymore.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    Zhou Bao sat cross-legged and his upper body was naked. Strong muscles could be seen on the exposed parts. Nine Fire Dragons were rotating around him. They went into his midbrows one after another just like nine tiny wandering snakes.


    At the same time, two real dragons of the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon appeared around him as well. They did not show their entities. Instead, they turned into two flame tattoos and coiled around his upper body.


    During his breathing, two real dragons undulated with him. They followed Zhou Bao''s breath to inhale and exhale, as if they had life.


    "Huh, huh, huh...!" When he was breathing, two black flame-like airflows went out from and into his nostrils. The process was repeated until he had refined them to the extreme.


    A strong Pure Yang power was shed from the Golden Flame Mirror behind his head. It looked like rolling waves surging ahead ceaselessly.


    The Demonic Fire of the Primordial Loach Monster had become quite strong. It blazed fiercely in his Dantian.


    What flowed in his body was the Demonic Fire-like Internal Qi of the Dragon Chimera. It could completely match the Real Essence.


    That was to say, he could contend with Level Nine experts given his Internal Qi, which contained the power of a Real Essence. Adding on to the Real Essence Energy that transformed from the Real Essence Sources in his nine acupoints, he could fight against ordinary experts in the Mysterious Realm.


    He had no reason to be frightened.


    He had a Pure Yang Celestial Device, the Three Realms Division, the Space Division Skill, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, the Great Fusion Technic, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang, the Infinite Trembling Contemplation, and horrible fist intent. Every one of them could make him invincible in the world. Let alone that he had all of them.


    After practicing the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword successfully, he spent another whole month to appreciate the way of the Yin and Yang Integration. Finally, he successfully practiced the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi.


    The unification of the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword practiced by the Dark Jade Frost and the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword refined by the Blood Essence Evil Yuan was a weird, black-and-red Sword Qi.


    The Sword Qi was aggressive and the sword technique was imposing!


    No matter if it was a Level Eight expert or a Level Nine expert, if he was attacked heavily, he would defeat him within one movement.


    His Poisonous Hitching Post could pierce through any Gang Qi. That was the property of it. In fact, it did not have much lethality. Its only function was to generate immense agony. No matter if it was an immortal or a monster, if he was attacked by it, he would not be able to withstand the agony. So, he would reveal his flaws. But the bottom line was that the Poisonous Hitching Post could only injure people but not kill them. Besides, it would merely give people overwhelming pain, but it could not injure them fundamentally. However, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was different. It was extremely sharp and could kill anything. After the Yin and Yang Integration, the congenital killing intent that was condensed in the process could eliminate everything. If he had reached a certain phase, he would have killed everything by using the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    Even experts in the Mysterious Realm would die when they were swept over by his Sword Qi. This was the power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    "Why does the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword have such a strong murderous intent?"


    He felt the marvelous killing intent contained in the Sword Qi when the Sword Qi had come into being.


    "Hehe. The Yin and Yang Integration can transform into chaos and control life. Your Sword Qi possesses a congenital killing intent that can eliminate everything! Of course it''s invincible." Green Spirit grinned and then continued talking, "But you''d better know that it''s too early to laugh. The power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword is determined by your own strength. The stronger you are, the more powerful it will be. Besides that, the killing intent will be stronger. But if you''re weak, your body cannot bear this fierce killing intent, let alone bear killing others."


    "I can feel it too!" Zhou Bao nodded and said, "This strand of killing intent is weak, it put a lot of pressure on me. I''m going to put the Sword Qi into the External Elixir of the Fiery Eyes and nourish it with the Real Essence." A determined look showed on his face. "I have nine acupoints now and can store countless Real Essences of Internal Qi. The External Elixir of the Fiery Eyes is less useful. What do you think if I use the Fiery Eyes to practice the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword only?"


    "If you''re willing to use it in that way, it''s a good choice. However, if you did so, you would own a trump card that can overawe the Individual Immortals in the Mysterious Realm. It''s a good idea!" Green Spirit stopped for a while as if he was thinking about something. Then he continued, "It''s marvelous. Your External Elixir is peculiar. It seems that you''ve integrated with it now. It can be taken as an acupoint. If you put one divine thought in it to nourish your Sword Qi, you may practice the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword into your Natal Sword when you become an Individual Immortal. At that time, it will be the Supreme Swordplay. Yeah, you must use your divine thoughts to nourish Sword Qi and practice the Natal Sword. I haven''t seen an extraordinary talent like you for years!"


    "All right, it''s a deal!" Green Spirit''s words made him excited. Zhou Bao was a resolute man. He would do what he had said. He infused all the Internal Qi that was stored in his Fiery Eyes originally into his body at once.Though there was infinite Internal Qi in the Inner Elixir of his Fiery Eyes, once it was attributed to the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, it would be nothing. Furthermore, there was a Real Essence Source in every acupoint, therefore, no matter how much Internal Qi he had, it could easily be stored in these acupoints.


    After that, he broke the Internal Qi circulation that had formed when he successfully refined the External Elixir of the Fiery Eyes. Then he shot one divine thought directly in it.


    He never tried to shoot his divine thoughts into the External Elixir of his Fiery Eyes before. This was his first time. "Boom!" After the divine thought went into the External Elixir, he heard a loud sound in his head. A wonderful world appeared before him.


    This was the inner world of his Fiery Eyes.


    A fiery red world!


    It was empty and broad like a hollow boundless universe. His divine thought floated around inside it alone.


    "Huh? Where is the Sword Qi?" When he was about to find it, a black and red cyclone appeared in front of him suddenly.


    "It''s the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!"


    He was delighted when he saw it. It was the Sword Qi of his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. His heart moved and then the Sword Qi showed up around his divine thought.


    The divine thought emitted a faint light. It immediately jumped into the core of this cyclone under his control.


    "Boom!"


    His divine thought was shocked fiercely. Later on, he could feel that, refined by Evil Qi, the dead Sword Qi was alive and had become part of his body.


    "It''s really fantastic!"


    He looked up slowly. A ball of a black and red cyclone appeared in his palm instantly and rotating continuously. Suddenly, it rotated slower than it had before. His divine thought was inside it, so he could feel every one of its tiny changes clearly. His expression turned strange.


    Soon after, the cyclone solidified. It was glittering like crystal.


    However, in this beautiful crystal there existed a cold killing intent.


    "Good. The Sword Qi has already infused with your sword. Other things should depend on your luck." Green Spirit laughed loud.


    "Then I have to depend on my luck." Zhou Bao nodded. A light passed through his palm and then the black and red crystal disappeared.


    "Ah, it''s time to go back!"


    He withdrew the Sword Qi and looked up. In front of him was the vast Azure Secret Area. "I''ve stayed in this damned place for several months without seeing the sun. I really miss the sunshine!"


    "Well, why don''t you stay longer? There are treasures everywhere, especially now. Various kinds of rarely seen pneuma and Evil Qi can swarm into the Essential Qi Tide. You can use them to practice other special techniques."


    "Damn! I feel extremely tired already as I was collecting the Evil Qi needed for just one kind of special technique." Thinking back to when he was busy collecting the Dark Jade Frost a month ago, Zhou Bao looked ill. He said, "Anyway, I have the entrance to the Azure Secret Area and the Faux Air-frozen Bead. I can come here at any time!"


    "Haha. That depends." Just then, Green Spirit seemed to think of something. He laughed out and said, "Haven''t you found that there''s something wrong with your Faux Air-frozen Bead? It''s just a Mysterious Level celestial device and cannot bear so much pressure. It cannot operate after you''ve left the Azure Secret Area. If you want to enter here again, next time you''ll have to refine another one."


    "What?" Zhou Bao screamed. He took out the Faux Air-frozen Bead and observed it carefully. Though the Spiritual Qi on it was thick and it was powerful, numerous fine lines had appeared on its surface. But if his eyesight was good, he could not find these lines. He again used his spiritual mind to observe it. But his countenance completely changed this time!

 Chapter 311: Having A Guest

    Chapter 311: Having A Guest


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Damn it. Why haven''t you told me earlier? Do you know how much time has it taken me to refine this Air-frozen Bead?"


    "Of course I know. Without my guidance, do you think you can refine it successfully in such a short time?" Green Spirit did not care about Zhou Bao at all. Looking at his distorted face, he said leisurely, "You''ve known that it isn''t complete, haven''t you? If it was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, this wouldn''t happen. However, it''s a pity that it''s just a Mysterious Level celestial device. Do you think Essential Qi Tide that has hindered so many powerhouses can be easily overcome? It''s not bad for a Faux Air-frozen Bead like yours to do this."


    "Anyway, you should tell me earlier!"


    "Is there any difference whether I tell you earlier or later? Could you turn it into a Pure Yang Air-frozen Bead if I told you earlier? Wouldn''t you enter the Azure Secret Area if I told you earlier?" Green Spirit snorted. "Kiddo. You''d better stop complaining since you''ve gained a lot benefits in the Azure Secret Area."


    "Yeah. I should be contented." Zhou Bao thought for a moment, and he had to admit that it was a helpless thing. Although he felt distressed about the materials he had used on Air-frozen Bead, he had benefited a lot in the Azure Secret Area. When he realized he had recouped the cost and made a profit as well, he had no regret. Furthermore, although these materials were priceless, since he could scrape together one portion, he could gather the second portion, too. With his current strength and resources, he would refine a Pure Yang Air-frozen Bead someday and by then, the Azure Secret Area would be his backyard.


    He was no longer dissatisfied as soon as he had thought through this point.


    Compared with entering the Azure Secret Area, everything was smoother on his way home. Zhou Bao was afraid Air-frozen Bead did not function, so he shrunk the coverage of it to a circle of a five-feet radius and left the Azure Secret Area at his top speed. When he appeared in front of the exit to his mine vein, he was shocked.


    For what?


    There were a lot of people standing here, including Wang She, Golden Rooster, Moon Deer of Extended Net, Sun Rat of Emptiness as well as Elder Qing. Behind him were four people who were all in the 28 constellations. Zhou Bao could tell that they were all Level Seven or Level Eight powerhouses and they should be members of the Immortal Palace.


    Since they found the light at the entrance, they all stared at the smooth and glassy wall. As soon as Zhou Bao showed up, they turned to stare at him, which made him shiver and feel bad.


    "What''s up?" He asked with his mouth twisting.


    "Have you refined Air-frozen Bead successfully?" This was the first sentence of Elder Qing, and then he asked, "Can it enter Essential Qi Tide easily?"


    Zhou Bao stunned and then he looked at Elder Qing''s greedy eyes, laughing. "Yes, it can help you get into and out of Essential Qi Tide freely, but it was disposable!"


    He took out Air-frozen Bead, which was about to break. "Look, though it''s secured my safety on this trip, it''s been destroyed!"


    Elder Qing took over Air-frozen Bead hurriedly. He checked it carefully and looked a little delightful.


    "A disposable bead? That''s okay, as long as it can help me enter Essential Qi Tide." He looked at Zhou Bao. "It''s not easy for you to collect so many materials in such a short time!"


    "I have no other choice!" Zhou Bao smiled bitterly. "But I think it''s not hard for the Immortal Palace to gather enough materials."


    "Yes, we can collect the materials for five or six Air-frozen Beads in one year!" Elder Qing looked at Zhou Bao thoughtfully. "Air-frozen Bead belongs to you, Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket. However, we sent you a piece of Heavenly Peach Wood because of the shortage of materials last time. This time, no matter what you''ve entered the Azure Secret Area, you''ve proved that Air-frozen Bead can help us move freely in Essential Qi Tide. What''s more, the entrance of Azure Secret Area was founded by you. You''ve made great contributions to the Immortal Palace, and we''ll make it up to you since your Air-frozen Bead was destroyed. We''ll give you a portion of materials this time. Of course, it''s unequal to your contributions. When this is finished, we''ll give you a satisfactory account."


    "Am I that lucky?"


    Zhou Bao didn''t expect that Elder Qing would say so. He was stunned and then laughed. "It''s very kind of you. Elder Qing, you''re so wise. Immortal Palace will definitely prosper under your guidance! Haha..."


    "Stop. Don''t flatter me!" Elder Qing smiled and waved his hands. "I''m not the leader of Immortal Palace. I''m only responsible for the 28 constellations and other foreign affairs."


    "Even so, you''re our leader!" Zhou Bao said shamelessly.


    "Don''t flatter me anymore. Be serious. You must have gained a lot on this trip?"


    "What a bullshit. All the pneuma had mixed together. I only collected a little extreme cold Evil Qi and practiced a special technique successfully. It''s not a big deal!"


    "You''ve practiced a special technique?" Elder Qing was somewhat surprised. Then he laughed. "I''m afraid that you''ve gained more than that special technique. You should have broken through Level Eight, but your Internal Qi isn''t so hard as steel since it''s very special."


    "Elder Qing, you really have good insight!"


    "You''re my person, so you don''t have to hide from us." Elder Qing laughed loud and he pointed at Golden Rooster and other people who were standing behind him. "They''re unruly and they only honor the strength. The stronger you are, the more respectful they are. Therefore, you don''t have to conceal your strength. You can only keep one or two trump cards as your secret."


    Upon hearing this, all the people here laughed out.


    "Since Elder Qing came to handle this matter personally, the Azure Secret Area has to be more valuable than I''ve imagined."


    "If it had only ordinary value, I wouldn''t come here personally. However, if we can enter it during the period of Essential Qi Tide, it''s worthy to come. Since you''ve entered it, you must know what I mean."


    "Of course. As long as we have Air-frozen Bead, condensing Gang Qi in Essential Qi Tide will be our best option!" Zhou Bao said emphatically. "Besides, if we could work out the Evil Qi, we may save effort and lead to better results when we practice special techniques in it."


    Upon hearing this, all the people surrounding him were excited. They were Level Seven or Level Eight powerhouses, who had already condensed Gang Qi. Therefore, they did not need to practice Gang Qi in Essential Qi Tide, but others did.


    Most of the 28 constellations of Immortal Palace had double identities. Took Zhou Bao and Wang She for examples, apart from being the constellations of Immortal Palace, they had another identity in the secular world, which would be never simple. Besides, they had a lot of disciples from big sects. If their disciples had great aptitude and cultivation, they needed to condense Gang Qi. In this case, the Azure Secret Area located in Essential Qi Tide would be the best choice. Except condensing Gang Qi, there were various of spiritual qis and Evil Qis that were suitable for them to practice some powerful special techniques. After all, it was the only place in the world that Evil Qi could be found during nearly 10 months of a year.


    Looking at these excited people, Zhou Bao seemed to have heard their accelerated heartbeats and blood circulation. Even Level Eight cultivation and culture could not cover their wolf-like greedy eyes.


    "Let me speak frankly!" Zhou Bao suddenly said. "I won''t interfere with the use of the entrance of the Azure Secret Area, but I don''t want others to know about it!"


    "Of course. We''ll keep it between us even if you don''t mention it!"


    "All right!" Zhou Bao was contented. He walked toward Elder Qing and said, "Elder Qing and brothers, you''ve come from afar and you must be tired now. I''ll try my best to treat you in my place. Everybody, please!"


    "No, thank you! We came here for two purposes. The first one is to make sure that the entrance has been built up. The second is to ensure your safety. Now since you''re okay, there''s no need to stay any longer!" Elder Qing smiled and gently patted Zhou Bao''s shoulder. "Besides, if we stayed here too long and were seen by some people with ulterior motives, it would be troublesome!"


    Zhou Bao nodded and did not speak anymore. He bade farewell to them reverently.


    He did closed-door training in the Azure Secret Area for several months. Now there were plenty of things in the territory that needed handling.


    Although he was a hands-off leader, he was a lord after all. As passageways of the whole Blacktail Plain were opened, the northwest region began to become prosperous. As the starting point and the transfer station of these passageways, his territory became the focus of the whole northern region. Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba were unable to make decisions on many things.


    Wang She came to his territory but did nothing. The experts he brought here were the same. Except for drinking and eating, they had not done anything serious. Wang She said that his purpose here was to be a hatchet man. But now, no one had the guts to find Zhou Bao''s trouble. So, there was no need for them to take action.


    Indeed, no one found Zhou Bao''s trouble now. Instead, more and more envoys of well-known families, schools, and chambers of commerce came here to negotiate their businesses with him.


    Jiang Xiao could make decisions on some of these things, but he was helpless when he encountered other things.


    Zhou Bao used Golden Flame Mirror to open the passageway of the Blacktail Plain. But he was not a good Samaritan. The Blacktail Plain was broad and there lived a kind of evil beast that had been tamed by him. He would not turn all the Blacktail Plain into passageways. In fact, he just opened a straight passageway that led to his territory from Dragon-pressing River. All goods from the Dragon-pressing River could reach his territory through this passageway. As for other lords whose territories bordered on Blacktail Plain, they were not so lucky. Zhou Bao also opened passageways for them, but these passageways all led to Zhou Bao''s territory directly. If they wanted goods, they would pass Zhou Bao''s territory. It was the same case like what they did on River Heart Island in those days. Navy of Jiang City was quite familiar with these things.


    At the beginning, Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba had not encountered any difficulty. As time went by, more and more people realized the importance of the Blacktail Plain and the value of the transfer station in the boundary of Zhou Bao''s territory and the Blacktail Plain. Businessmen saw great business opportunities and swarmed there. During that period, Jiang Xiao was extremely busy.


    He was too busy to treat all these comers. Frankly speaking, Zhou Bao''s territory was a wasteland without any facility. The transfer station merely was a broad prairie without any population. Jiang Xiao originally wanted to build a huge warehouse and a crucial point just like what they did on the River Heart Island. But they had forgotten that this was not River Heart Island and the market they faced was not a small Jiang City. It was the whole northwest region of Dragon-pressing River. Though there were no people here, business opportunities were created. Never belittled shrewd businessmen.


    Shortly after, temporary camps were built up in the broad prairie to store goods. More and more people came to visit Zhou Bao.


    Of course, not everyone was qualified to meet Zhou Bao. Most of them came here to visit Jiang Xiao. They all knew that he was the butler of Zhou Bao and the upstart of the northwest region.


    Jiang Xiao became the most famous celebrity in the whole northwest region now. He was busy welcoming and sending guests all day long. His life now was better than that of the time when he was a Captain of the navy.


    He clearly knew that thanks to Zhou Bao, he could gain this prestige and status. Without what Zhou Bao had done, as a soldier, he would never be respected by those arrogant senior officials.


    Hence, he became more prudent and did not make decisions on most of the things. When Zhou Bao came back, he was startled by the one-feet-thick documents piled on the table.


    "Jiang Xiao, what do you mean? I just come back, and you mean to let me handle so many things now. Are you serious?"


    "Oh, no, your Excellency. These things are quite important. I can''t make decisions on them without your permission. So I have to leave them to you."


    "I told you that no matter how important they are, you can handle them properly. Don''t bother me with these things. If you''re too busy to do it, you can recruit some people to help you. If there are really important things, you can just tell me. Don''t put so many things in front of me, I have no mood to see them!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency. I understand!" Jiang Xiao smiled bitterly. "Your Excellency, even if you don''t want to look at these official documents, there are other things need you to do. You''ve opened the passageway of the Blacktail Plain, our territory has become the core of the northwest region now. I don''t have enough men to help me and can''t handle most of the things. Besides..."


    "If you need men, you can recruit some. As long as there are enough people, everything can be handled. Don''t tell me these things particularly!" Zhou Bao stared at him. "Jiang Xiao, I''ve told you. You can do things boldly. Don''t care about me. I''ve no idea to spend energy on these things!"


    "Your Excellency, except these documents, a lot of people came to visit you during your closed-door training. I declined most of them, but some of them had special identities. I''m afraid you need to meet them."


    "Special identities? Okay, tell me now!"


    ...


    ¡­


    Many people wanted to visit Zhou Bao, but only a few of them were qualified.


    Zhou Bao wore three hats. Firstly, he had the rank of nobility given by the Great Jin. From this aspect, most people that Jiang Xiao had met were eligible to meet him. Secondly, he used to be known as a Level Seven expert. But now, he was a Level Eight expert and nearly had Level Nine combat capability. However, others did not know this. Only half of these people could see him from this aspect. Thirdly, he was the spokesperson cultivated by Tian Long Taoism in the northwest region!


    Adding these three identities together, only two comers were qualified to let him welcome them in person. One was Yun Peng, vice chairman of Prosperous Chamber of Commerce of Great Jin. The other was Nie Wushang, the imperial envoy.


    The name ''Prosperous Chamber of Commerce'' was vulgar and popular. But it had existed for over 10 thousand years. It was one of the three biggest chambers of commerce in Great Jin and even the whole Central Plains. It was supported by countless well-known families and mysterious schools. It seemed ordinary. However, if it took any action, it would be more powerful than the Great Jin which was founded only several hundred years ago. If we took Zhou Bao''s Anyuan Store as an ant, Prosperous Chamber of Commerce was no more an elephant but a blue whale. It could easily eliminate Anyuan Store if it wanted. Likewise, it could help Anyuan Store prosper readily.


    No one knew who was the chairman of Prosperous Chamber of Commerce. Yun Peng was the person in charge of it publicly. He had high status, so Jiang Xiao listed him as one of the must-see people of Zhou Bao. The other one called Nie Wushang was the imperial envoy who represented the imperial court. After all, Zhou Bao was one of Great Jin people. Surely, he should not be slighted.


    After hearing the analysis of Jiang Xiao, Zhou Bao thought for a while and asked, "Where is Yun Peng? I''ll visit him now. As for Nie Wushang, he has waited so long, it''s nothing to let him wait two more days!"


    "All right. I''ll invite vice chairman Yun Peng right now!"


    "No, no, no. I''ll come to meet him personally!" Zhou Bao waved his hands. Now that he was going to meet Yun Peng, he should be polite and considerate. Otherwise, he would rather not do it.


    Yun Peng and Nie Wushang were arranged to live in the best yard. Jiang Xiao felt lucky, for Yun Peng''s yard was far from that of Nie Wushang. Otherwise, it would humiliate the imperial court if Zhou Bao met Yun Peng personally but left Nie Wushang alone.


    Yun Peng looked not that old. He was in his forties and at the prime of his life. He was a Level Five expert whose cultivation was not weak. He would be a famous person even in Jianghu. But as vice chairman of Prosperous Chamber of Commerce, he was too weak, especially when he stood beside a Level Eight expert.


    A Level Eight expert!


    When did experts become worthless and all come to his territory?


    Prosperous Chamber of Commerce was so generous to let a Level Eight expert to be his bodyguard!


    The expression of Level Eight expert, Fu Yi, changed when he saw Zhou Bao. He knew that Zhou Bao was a Level Seven expert and had a Pure Yang Celestial Device. He had trapped other Level Nine experts with Wang She. Thus Fu Yi had already thought highly of Zhou Bao. But after seeing Zhou Bao, Fu Yi found that he had underestimated Zhou Bao.


    Because he could not know Zhou Bao''s real cultivation.


    Zhou Bao had completely covered his spirit. He looked like an ordinary teenager, who was about 17 or 18 years old. Nevertheless, his eyes showed maturity that could not fit his age.


    "Zhou Bao, pay my respect to chairman Yun!"


    Zhou Bao cupped one hand in the other after entering the door, wearing a faint smile.


    "Haha, I''ve heard that Yunzhou Zhou Bao is the No.1 talented teenager of Great Jin. Meeting you in person today, I finally know that you well deserve your reputation!"


    Yun Peng laughed loud and welcomed him. "Several days ago, I came here to visit Excellency Zhou. But I heard that you were doing closed-door training. I didn''t dare to bother you. Now you''ve exited the training, and I guess your cultivation must be more profound."


    "Chairman Yun, you must be joking. I''m so audacious and aggressive during practice that my basis isn''t stable. Thus I need to do closed-door training to stabilize it. Don''t mock me, chairman Yun."


    The two were as cunning as foxes. After the conventional greeting, they began to sit down and got down to the topic.


    Zhou Bao had received over 10 years'' education and thus knew something about economics. He would not do stupid things like building customs post to levy on goods that were written in the books. In fact, as a bleak place without any independent industry and product, the most important thing was to use free tax to attract businessmen, people, and business.


    Therefore, they had an agreeable conversation. In fact, they did not have that many things to discuss. Yun Peng''s subordinates and supervisors had already discussed details with Jiang Xiao. In order to show respect to Yun Peng and Prosperous Chamber of Commerce, Zhou Bao visited him personally. They were here to go through the motions and sign their names. It was somewhat like the signing ceremony of later ages.


    So, they said some beautiful words before making dirty jokes and sending gifts to each other. Then, they began to eat and drink. They had not discussed anything serious, but only made agreements on the cooperation of Anyuan Store and Prosperous Chamber of Commerce and the openness of northwest market.


    Zhou Bao directly went home for a rest after meeting Yun Peng. He tended to visit imperial envoy two days later.


    But little did he expect that Nie Wushang came to visit him early in the next morning. Apparently, he knew that Zhou Bao had met Yun Peng yesterday.


    Since he had come, Zhou Bao had to meet him, because he didn''t want to give others the excuse to gossip. Hence, he treated Nie Wushang respectfully.

 Chapter 312: Terrible News and Murder Plot

    Chapter 312: Terrible News and Murder Plot


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Nie Wushang was someone who worked for the imperial court, his main purpose here was to announce the imperial edict. Remember, the troubles Zhou Bao had stirred up in the northwest had already garnered into the imperial court''s notice. In addition, he had robbed Xining King''s Eldest Son, Yan Fei, of his Pure Yang Celestial Device, which indirectly humiliated the imperial court. Of course, the imperial court would not pass these incidents over in total silence. However, none of those things were embodied in the imperial edict. The main idea of the edict was to soothe Zhou Bao with compliments about how good a lord he had been and what an excellent example he had set for other newly enfeoffed lords, as well as to encourage him to make persistent efforts for the flourishing of the Great Jin. In the end, it even awarded 1,000 taels of gold to Zhou Bao, as well as a nominal title of General.


    As for other matters, naturally, they were discussed in private between Zhou Bao and Nie Wushang.


    "Your Excellency Zhou, General Zhou, His Majesty and the imperial court think very highly of you!"


    In contrast with the Yun Peng''s business style, this Nie Wushang was a typical old con of the officialdom. The type that always put on a false smile. He was, in Zhou Bao''s mind, the most troublesome kind of person.


    He was not hard to deal with, but quite troublesome.


    Zhou Bao had met loads of these kind of guys before. They were really base people, who would seek revenge for the smallest grievance. They could hold grudge against you for 100 years over something quite trivial. Moreover, when they wanted to seek vengeance, they would employ insidious means and act with zero humanity. But the most important part, as well as the most troublesome part in the eyes of Zhou Bao, was that for this kind of guy, harming others without benefiting themselves was their favorite thing to do.


    If someone wanted to do things that would harm others but it would benefit himself, that meant he had some scruples in mind, because he was at least thinking about himself. However, doing something that would harm others but without benefiting oneself, that was thoroughly a matter of mentality. Undoubtedly, Nie Wushang was one of the latter kind. Although he would walk on you with a smile and his voice was always mellow and sweet, even sweeter than those eunuchs, all of this would only make Zhou Bao more vigilant.


    "I''m flattered. Zhou Bao is merely a rustic man who accidentally obtained some luck. How can I be qualified to enjoy such generous favor of the emperor and the imperial court?"


    "Your Excellency is being too modest. Actually, the emperor and the ministers are all hoping that Your Excellency will return and work for the imperial court. After all, in today''s court, there are few who are as young and strong as Your Excellency!"


    "Bullshit!" Zhou Bao cursed secretly. Those minsters wanting him to go back and work for the imperial court? No way! It could only be the idea of the emperor himself. As for those ministers, they would never hope that someone who had a powerful background and solid strength like Zhou Bao would chime in, especially given the stable governance at present.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao only took those words as nonsense. He also put on a false smile and cupped his hands in salute, "Your Excellency is joking with me. I''m utterly illiterate. How can I ever work in the imperial court? Even for those annoying things that happened in this damn place where birds will not defecate, I will always assign someone else to deal with them. I won''t bother to handle any bit of them. Even if I want to handle a bit, I don''t how to do it. Now, the only role I''m playing here is just to keep up the appearance."


    "Your Excellency is truly too modest!" Hearing such a self-degradation from Zhou Bao, Nie Wushang''s eyes flashed, and his assessment for Zhou Bao grew even higher. However, he didn''t pay too much mind to this and just smiled flatly. "The world has already heard about and witnessed the strength of Your Excellency. You are more than competent enough to take the position of a provincial governor in the Great Jin, let alone governing in this remote northwest!"


    "Haha, Your Excellency Nie, if you continue to compliment me like this, I''d be too embarrassed to eat my meals!" Zhou Bao waved his hands with a beaming smile, but his mind was racing . "What provincial governor? Even if you want me to be the governor of 10 provinces, I won''t give my consent! Those provinces belong to the imperial court of the Jin , while the northwest region, though a bit bleak and desolate, is owned by myself!"


    "Zhou Bao, I''m just telling the truth. But there is one thing Your Excellency did that has put His Majesty in an awkward situation!" The smile on Nie Wushang''s face shrank a bit, revealing a trace of mockery. Then, he weighed his tone and said, "That Yan Fei is Xining King''s Eldest Son, a member of the royal family. His Pure Yang Celestial Device was also granted by the imperial court. But Your Excellency took it away so blatantly. I''m afraid that''s a bit inappropriate!"


    "Well, it turns out to be this thing!" Zhou Bao smiled, "But I don''t find it inappropriate!"


    Nie Wushang''s look darkened. If it were another guy who said so in front of him, he would already fall into a great rage. But facing Zhou Bao, whose notoriety was well-known by the masses and by himself, he didn''t dare to. Even millennium families like the Wang clan, who had provoked Zhou Bao, ended up disgracing themselves under his attack, not to mention that he was merely a small officer at sixth rank. This guy was not like those scholars in the imperial court that you could reason with.


    This guy was, just as he had described, a rustic man. Apart from his brute force, he believed in nothing. His means were also extremely cruel. If he really got his temper up here, he might be killed on the spot. Even if it weren''t that bad, getting partially paralyzed would not be worthwhile either, would it?


    Anyway, he only came here to announce the imperial edict and to investigate Zhou Bao''s attitude toward the imperial court, so there was no need to push hard on him!


    Thinking of this, the corner of his mouth twitched. He then said carefully, "Oh, it''s not inappropriate. Beg your wise opinion on this!"


    "I don''t have any wise opinion. I just don''t find it inappropriate." Zhou Bao gave a lukewarm smile and continued, "That Yan Fei didn''t put anyone in his eyes, since he is one of the royal family. He hunted Li Xiu over thousands of miles to kill him. When I came forward to talk him out of it, he not only didn''t listen to me, but initiated his Octupole Exquisite Pagoda and tried to kill me altogether. How bossy was he?! How outrageous he behaved! If I hadn''t broken his momentum, he would become a danger to the imperial court in the future. Your Excellency, what''s your say?"


    "Fair point! Fair point!"


    Nie Wushang softly wiped away the cold sweat all over his forehead and gasped for breath. "That he should frame up others in front of me without missing a beat, today''s youngsters truly outperform their predecessors!" He thought to himself.


    The reason why Yan Fei wanted to hunt down Li Xiu was already known by the world, but when it came out from Zhou Bao''s mouth, Yan Fei became the unreasonable one. In addition, arrogant as Yan Fei was, no one had ever heard him do anything unjustified to others. As to his arrogance, he was after all, young and sucessful, he also came from a strong family with extraordinary strength. Thus, it was normal for him to be a little arrogant. If he turned out to be this sleek, and as good at playing tricks as Zhou Bao, it would be abnormal.


    Anyway, since their conversation already came to this point, no words would work anymore.


    Therefore, he merely smiled in an awkward way and ended this talk between them.


    Seeing Nie Wushang''s back disappear out of sight, Zhou Bao looked over his shoulder to look at Jiang Xiao, "Something is going on!"


    "Something is going on?" Jiang Xiao seemed confounded for a moment. "Your Excellency, do you mean..."


    "Don''t you find this odd? He came here with no other good reason except for announcing a meaningless imperial edict?" As Zhou Bao turned around and went back to the inside of the room, he continued, "This imperial edict contains no substantial things at all!"


    "In addition to the imperial edict, isn''t there any other issues you''ve discussed?"


    Zhou Bao and Nie Wushang''s talk inside the room was had in secret. Except for the two of them, no one else was there. Thus, Jiang Xiao naturally reckoned that this talk was the big drama, but unexpectedly, it was not even a prologue.


    "That''s weird. He toiled himself all the way down here, but only wanted to talk some crap with you and give you a nominal title of General, and that''s it?"


    At Zhou Bao''s words, Jiang Xiao started to find this odd too. "Can there be any plot in this?"


    "Plot? What plot? The most powerful subordinate he brought here was merely at Level Five. I can crush all his 200 guards with a single finger.''''


    "Then, what did he come here for?" Jiang Xiao tilted his head in contemplation. "Did he want to test Your Excellency?"


    "Test me? For what?" Zhou Bao still shook his head at this assumption. "I''m not some big number. Although I''ve done something famous in the northwest, compared to the big picture of the imperial court, those things can''t even count as pinpricks. Plus, the northwest is really barren and remote. Even if I truly have some competence, I won''t be able to grow into a threat for the imperial court in the next 30 years. Why did he want to test me?"


    Jiang Xiao gave a dry smile and said, "I think I have a way to figure this out!"


    "What way?"


    "Kidnap him and torture him into a confession!"


    "Haaaaa!" Zhou Bao tapped Jiang Xiao''s shoulder with great force. "Dude, good idea! But we''d better not do this kind of stuff at the moment!"


    "Then..."


    "Forget it. No matter what comes up, a certain measure should be there. No matter whether they have some secret agenda or not, we''ve been at leisure for a long time, and it''s not bad for us to get a little exercise anyway!" Zhou Bao smiled, stretching out his arm as if intending to do some sort of workout. But all of a sudden, he scowled, and then swiveled his eyes towards the outside of the courtyard in confusion.


    "Your Excellency, what''s wrong?"


    "Why is Zhu Ba all in a fluster?" said Zhou Bao with dissatisfaction.


    Not long after his words faded away, Zhu Ba forced the door open and rushed into the yard.


    "Your Excellency! Your Excellency! Something is wrong! Terribly wrong!"


    "What''s the matter now?" Zhou Bao glared at Zhu Ba in discontent, almost giving him a deadly kick.


    "Your Excellency! Your Excellency! Truly terrible news, Your Excellency!" Zhu Ba bustled in front of Zhou Bao, unable to speak coherently while swinging a letter in his hand. "Your Excellency, Elderly Master is acutely ill, in critical condition!"


    "What?" Zhou Bao grabbed that letter right away and unfolded it to read.


    This Elderly Master was Zhou Bao''s father, the Old Zhou living down the Misty Mountain in the past. Ever since his son Zhou Bao made something of himself, this Old Zhou also upgraded to become the Old Master, and then, the current Elderly Master.


    Zhou Bao did not have such a close relationship with his new family in this life. But by all accounts, this couple were the biological parents of his new body, and the basic filial duty was still necessary for him to perform.


    Additionally, the Zhou''s did raise him up with great care, at least they didn''t let him starve to death before he grew to 10 years old.


    For this reason, Zhou Bao had treated the Zhou''s with quite generous support. He made very proper arrangements for his parents and several brothers. He was also thinking about moving the Zhou''s to the northwest as soon as he completely built up his residence here.


    He never expected that, at this point, the bad news about Elderly Master getting ill would come to his ear.


    Right at this moment, someone came running from the outside of the courtyard, panting, "Your Excellency! Your Excellency! Terrible news! Elderly Master, Elderly Master, he''s a-acutely ill!"


    Maybe he was too nervous, too exhausted from the running, while his strength was not that strong, so his body was worn out after galloping all the way down here, which made him directly slump onto the ground and fall into a coma.


    "Your Excellency, he is the messenger. I''m an impatient person and I also didn''t want to cause delay to your business, so I hurried here first to hand you the letter!"


    "I hear you." Zhou Bao nodded, pointed at the man lying on the ground and said, "Hoist him into the room, let him have a good rest. I''m going to pack up and go back to Yunzhou at once!"


    "Your Excellency, should we go with you?"


    "You? How can you keep pace with me?" Zhou Bao shot a look at Jiang Xiao. Pursuant to the letter, his father was really seriously ill. Moreover, based on the date in the letter, more than two months had passed since this letter was sent out.


    Given that the Zhou''s didn''t have any Level Seven experts other than Zhou Bao, nor could they command any Level Seven expert to deliver the message, this letter could only be passed to Zhou Bao''s hand through the primitive horse-riding delivery. In fact, in this world with no telephone or email, it would take three or four months to communicate a message between the northwest and the Central Plains. But this time, the letter was delayed for just two months, which was somewhat beyond Zhou Bao''s expectation.


    No wonder this messenger fainted instantly when he arrived here. He fainted due to tiredness.


    That was why Zhou Bao decided to take off immediately. Otherwise, maybe when he got to Yunzhou, the corpse of Old Zhou would already stink.


    Since this point could occur to Zhou Bao, Jiang Xiao and the fellows could also consider it. Therefore, when they saw Zhou Bao turn into a jet of gold light and disappear from the air, they merely heaved a sigh.


    Meanwhile, on the other side, Nie Wushang and his fellows had been keeping track of Zhou Bao after they had returned to their place. Catching a sight of the gold light shooting toward the sky from Zhou Bao''s yard, a trace of glee flitted across Nie Wushang''s eyes. He took out a small cyan block looking like a wooden plate from his sleeve, which, with a sudden squeeze, was crushed into ashes, and then vanished in the wind.


    Zhou Bao was hurriedly flying to the southeast with his Gang Qi covering his body. His speed was amazing, as if a gold meteor was streaking across the sky.


    At this speed, even if he flew straight to his home in Yunzhou, it would take nearly 16 hours, almost half a day. And that still depended on whether his stamina could allow him to keep flying like this!


    Fortunately, Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi was pretty adequate, and his Gang Qi was also of a higher grade. Therefore, after flying for six or eight hours consecutively, he still didn''t feel a bit tired.


    Halfway through his flight, he suddenly felt something was wrong. His speed seemed to grow slower, and in the blink of an eye, the whole world went all grey and misty.


    "What?" Zhou Bao was startled. But before he could react, a chilling wisp of the killing intent stole over him from behind.


    "Crap!" Subconsciously, he tried to launch the Three Realms Division. But to his surprise, the surrounding air was stagnant, as if being locked in by some invisible force. Even with his strength, it would be really hard to mobilize the space.


    Previously when he launched the Three Realms Division, the surrounding space would become as fragile as a piece of paper, but now it was as solid as a wall. Although he might be able to mobilize this wall if he employed more strength, sadly, he didn''t have time to make it happen.


    Launching the Three Realms Division would only cost a second, but after all, this would delay him for a second.


    Exactly at this time, that wisp of killing intent had invaded and instantly punctured his Gang Qi, his Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang!


    The Poison Cold Shield was launched at this second. A layer of faint cyan light enveloped Zhou Bao, shielding him from that murderous intent, which finally allowed Zhou Bao to have some leeway to react.


    "Now that the Three Realms Division is constrained ... I''ll simply give it up for the moment."


    That killing intent penetrated through the Poison Cold Shield and hit Zhou Bao. However, he was not badly injured. He just got a shallow cut in the waist, where a sense of numbness was spreading out. But soon, it was replaced by the cooling Qi of the Poison Cold Shield.


    The Poison Cold Shield wasn''t completely able to block out this killing intent, but it was sufficiently capable of absorbing all the poison contained in it.


    In the meantime, Zhou Bao also caught a clear sight of the man who had launched this attack against him.


    He was a black-robed masked man with a pitch-dark dagger!


    But he only got a glimpse of him. After that, the black-clothed man suddenly disappeared together with his black dagger, just like Zhou Bao launching his Three Realms Division.


    "This is a trap!"


    All of this happened in a split second, from the emergence of that black-clothed man, to the launch of the Poison Cold Shield, and then to Zhou Bao getting injured and that man disappearing. When Zhou Bao steadied his figure, his Gang Qi covered all parts of him once again, that black-clothed man was already gone. The environment was a vast expanse of whiteness, putting Zhou Bao under the impression that he was caught in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    Of course, this was not the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!


    "Interesting. Seems that someone wants to set me up and murder me!" Suspending in the air, Zhou Bao looked around, and an extremely freezing smile flashed across his face. He jerked his body and was ready to descend, but unexpectedly, a whiff of vigorous Sword Qi appeared out of thin air and even condensed into a shadow of a sword at his foot, thrusting directly at him.


    "Go to hell!" Zhou Bao waved his hand, and the Golden-Scaled Cudgel appeared in it, which gave a fierce pound downwards.


    "Bump!" The Sword Qi which already took shape was smashed into pieces by this pounding.


    However, smashing the Sword Qi did not mean the trouble was over. On the contrary, it seemed that his move, this pounding, was so fierce that numerous whiffs of Sword Qi were produced after that one strike. All the Sword Qi tightly surrounded him, piercing at him together from all directions.


    "Break!" Zhou Bao let out a low bark. The Golden-Scaled Cudgel in his hand swept out, making the movement of sweeping in all directions. This strike was incomparably harsh, which crushed all the thousands of jets of Sword Qi that were coming from all directions.


    However, after being smashed into pieces, that broken Sword Qi combined once again, and even produced more of them out of nowhere, attacking straightforwardly at Zhou Bao.


    The cudgel in Zhou Bao''s froze for a second, but this time, he didn''t strike as brutally as he did previously. Instead, he used the cudgel to protect his body, warding off all the surrounding Sword Qi.


    "That Sword Qi is launched according to my movements. The more violent I move, the stronger that Sword Qi will be!"


    As he kept all of the Sword Qi away from him, Zhou Bao said to himself in his head.


    Compared to the Sword Qi that caught him off guard at the beginning, this Sword Qi emerged out of the void and was much easier to deal with, because except for some of them that were very powerful, the rest couldn''t even break through his Protective Gang Qi.


    "Don''t move fiercely. I just need to crumble this powerful Sword Qi. No need to care too much!"


    After one round of attack, Zhou Bao got a hang of the working principle and the function of the surrounding sword formation. Thus, he started to strike in a more prudent way.


    He was now caught up in a well-prepared trap. Although he had absolute faith in himself, he still needed to be necessarily cautious. After all, this happened too fast, so he couldn''t immediately start a massive killing spree. He needed to observe the situation first. He needed time.


    After the seemingly endless attack of Sword Qi, Zhou Bao finally spotted the dirty trick in this trap. Among this Sword Qi that looked unable to break his Gang Qi, occasionally there were one or two jets of sharp Gang Qi that was more than enough to break his Gang Qi, his Poison Cold Shield, and even his body. By far, only this insidious Gang Qi was the true trump card of this formation.


    "Though interesting enough, we might as well not continue to play the same boring trick anymore. Just reveal yourself!" yelled Zhou Bao. He quickly flung up his Golden-Scaled Cudgel to attack the place under his feet and simply formed a clearing there. He rapidly plunged toward the ground, but within the blurring formation, he couldn''t see where the ground was. Nevertheless, it was sufficient for him to know that he was falling downwards. He was originally flying at the height of no more than 10,000 feet. Now in the process of descending, if he considered the height and his falling speed together, it was easy for him to predicate when he would land on the ground.


    However, the man who had set up this trap could never allow him to do what he wanted so easily.


    Just when Zhou Bao started falling, that familiar killing intent appeared once more.


    "Hmph!" sneered Zhou Bao. He threw a dozen gold flames at it, reserving almost no time for the other side to take a break.


    With a swish, that figure vanished in the air. That Sword Qi, after being crumbled, also disappeared without a trace.


    "Hiding the head but showing the tail. That''s not brave at all!" Missing the strike, Zhou Bao felt very angry and cursed in an undertone. He suddenly accelerated the movement of his Golden-Scaled Cudgel to completely shield his body with the moving shadows of the cudgel and began falling down more rapidly.


    This time the opponent didn''t seem to impede him. Apart from the flowing Sword Qi appearing frequently around him, Zhou Bao didn''t notice anything abnormal.


    Another round of violent attacks didn''t surface until the moment Zhou Bao stepped onto the sold ground. This time, it was not only Sword Qi attacking, but also three Flying Swords blended amongst it!


    The three Flying Swords were giving off peerlessly sharp Sword Qi. They forced the Golden-Scaled Cudgel in Zhou Bao''s hand to deal with them, while the rest of the Sword Qi headed directly for Zhou Bao himself.


    "Still not revealing yourself?"


    Zhou Bao had unleashed his fire in the fight. Now, he could not consider anything else. With a flash of the golden light shining on the backside of his head, Zhou Bao initiated the Golden Flame Mirror. After which, a straight beam of golden light flew right at the three Flying Swords to shroud them.


    The Level of these three Flying Swords was pretty high, but they were no better than a celestial device at the Mysterious Level. Thus, how could they contend against a Pure Yang Celestial Device like the Golden Flame Mirror?


    The instant the three Flying Swords touched on the Golden Flame Mirror, three shrilling hootings sounded, and then they disappeared into nowhere.


    The Golden Flame Mirror was blazing, covering Zhou Bao in its golden light. Three Green Lotuses were floating around Zhou Bao, which took hold of every jet of the attacking Sword Qi. Sharp and numerous as the Sword Qi was, none of them were able to hurt Zhou Bao.


    Meanwhile, Zhou Bao grabbed the incantation in one hand, and a forbidding light flashed through his eyes. "This is just a sword formation. Do you really believe this thing can trap me inside?"


    Clusters of lotus-shaped golden flame were shooting out from the Golden Flame Mirror in all directions. Along with the squirting of these lotus-shaped flames, the white surroundings also began to change color.


    A wave of sizzling noise spread into Zhou Bao''s ear, which just like grilling meat over fierce fire. The space of the formation was torrenting violently as if being stimulated to a great extent.


    "Sun Colored Glaze Flame? Damn! How can he have collected the Sun Colored Glaze Flame?"


    At the sight of those clusters of golden light ejecting from the Golden Flame Mirror, a deep voice came down, but it turned out to be someone who couldn''t stifle their shock and let out a queer bawl.


    "Got you!" Although Zhou Bao set out his Golden Flame Mirror, his spiritual mind was as sharp as usual. Once the voice came out, he immediately identified the opponent''s location and lengthened his Golden-Scaled Cudgel to give a hard pound at the source of that sound.

 Chapter 313: A Powerful Lineup

    Chapter 313: A Powerful Lineup


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Bang!" The cudgel was poked out, but it did not achieve the desired effect.


    "Haha, boy, don''t be too naive! This is the Sumeru Sword Formation! Do you really think that you can locate me?"


    Hearing the sound coming from behind him, Zhou Bao rammed the judge again without thinking. But he failed as before.


    "Don''t do all these useless things. If this is really the Sumeru Sword Formation, you might be in trouble!" Green Spirit''s voice sounded in his mind, "If I were you, I''d stay here and look for a chance to break the formation!"


    "You know this formation?"


    "I''ve heard of it. It looks like a fairy formation. However, the materials used for setting formation are too simple. It''s not difficult to break open!" Green Spirit answered, "Use your Golden Flame Mirror!"


    "There''s something wrong here. Everyone knows that I have a Pure Yang Celestial Device, so it doesn''t make sense to set such a formation that can be broken open with a Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Said Zhou Bao in a cold voice, "Maybe they''re trying to kill me at the moment I break open the formation!"


    "Then what are you going to do?"


    "Keep feeling it out!" Zhou Bao said, "This sword formation can''t be that simple. There should be other changes!"


    "There will be no more big changes!" Green Spirit added, "I have just said, the sword skill that used to set this sword formation is very simple and crude. Therefore, the maximum power of this formation can''t be exerted at all!"


    "Then let''s wait and see who is more anxious!" Zhou Bao sneered.


    "Aren''t you in a hurry to get back?"


    "This is a trap. Otherwise, how could they set this sword formation on my way? I suspect that the news of my father''s emergency is false. Hmph, how smart! Hardly had he arrived when he fainted. If he hadn''t fainted so quickly, how could he have fooled my spiritual mind?"


    The thought that the messenger had fainted at the sight of him made him furious. He had not been fooled for a long time.


    "Now that they want to play, I''ll play with them!" Zhou Bao thought bitterly. All of a sudden, a tremendous pressure came over him from behind, and he fiercely hit back with his cudgel without turning back.


    "Bang!" A loud bang sounded like a thunder. Zhao Bao''s Golden-Scaled Cudgel was knocked of his hand due to this blow.


    "What''s that?" The sudden accident shocked Zhou Bao. He used 50 percent of the force against this blow, but the force of the counterattack was three to four times stronger, which caught him off guard and caused his Golden-Scaled Cudgel to be knocked out of his hand. Zhou Bao''s right hand was numb due to the powerful force, trembling slightly, and he unconsciously moved forward.


    It seemed that he had lost his chance.


    The tremendous pressure stretched from behind him to the top of his head, pressing on him rapidly just like Mount Tai crashing an egg.


    In haste, Zhou Bao launched the Golden Flame Mirror over his head. Red gold abruptly flashed in the Golden Flame Mirror, and then the Golden Flame Mirror emitted a gold light which shone stubbornly above his head.


    "Puff!"


    With the shot of the golden light, the invisible pressure was pressed down, and the two crashed into each other. Since the Golden Flame Mirror was connected with Zhou Bao''s spirit, he felt a tremendous force upon him at the first moment. Then he stumbled and fell forward.


    He was greeted with countless fierce Sword Qi.


    The Sword Qi that could not hurt Zhou Bao just now, was 10 times fiercer than before, and it gathered into a streak of extremely sharp Sword Qi, straight to Zhou Bao''s throat.


    "Damn it!" Zhou Bao gave a vicious scolding in his heart. Then he lifted his finger, and a streak of black and red Sword Qi flashed out.


    It was the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!


    It was neither the Extreme Yang Heavenly Sword nor the Extreme Yin Heavenly Sword, but the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword that was truly the integration of Yin and Yang.


    The black and red Sword Qi shot out and struck hard with the Sword Qi that was about to stab Zhou Bao.


    "Puff!"


    The coming Sword Qi was completely disintegrated by the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi. The black and red Sword Qi was like a long white rainbow, breaking the whole sword formation. The vast world was suddenly lit up, and the real world, covered in endless whiteness, was revealed at this moment.


    The Supreme Swordplay, and all skills derived from one sword!


    The so-called Sword Qi like a rainbow might be the effect of this blow.


    "No!"


    Obviously, the power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was far beyond the expectation of the people who were in the dark. The Sword pierced the sky, and almost in a flash, it shook the root of the whole sword formation.


    The men who set the formation were shocked and hurriedly tried their best to stabilize the formation.


    "Hmph, it''s already showing a flaw. Do you still want to stabilize it?" The surrounding space fluctuation couldn''t hide from Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind at all. Slightly raising his fingertips, he relaunched the Sword Qi of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Just as he was about to strike again to thoroughly break the mysterious formation, he felt a heavy pressure above his head.


    A pang of immense pressure had completely suppressed his Golden Flame Mirror, and went straight through the path between the Golden Flame Mirror and his spirit, damaging his spirit heavily.


    "Uh!" With a low snort, Zhou Bao only felt his spirit agitated, as if he had been struck in the head by a huge stone.


    The only thing that made him feel lucky, was that the three Green Lotuses in the Golden Flame Mirror had suddenly coalesced into a single one, and had stopped the pressure in front of his spirit. It was smashed to pieces in a moment but protected his spirit. Thus, although his spirit was badly hurt, its root was not hurt.


    "A Pure Yang Celestial Device! Damn it, it''s a Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    Zhou Bao gave a strange cry. At this point, he was completely certain that the pressure behind him and over his head must come from a Pure Yang Celestial Device, otherwise, it would never break the protection of the Golden Flame Mirror. It was just a matter of a moment, but it was enough.


    "Who on earth has so much hatred against me, to do this to me?"


    The doubt flashed through his mind. As he moved, he lunged forward and withdrew the Golden Flame Mirror.


    "Hiss"


    With his lunging forward, Zhou Bao escaped the pressure of the unknown celestial device. Then he took a deep breath, and the Golden Flame Mirror turned into a ball of gold light, shooting out of between his eyebrows and nourishing his damaged spirit.


    Since the blow failed, the pressure rose again.


    Zhou Bao suddenly lifted his hands, and simultaneously stretched out his ten fingers. Then 10 streaks of black and red Sword Qi shot out behind him.


    "Rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub..." There were 10 dull sounds. The 10 streaks of Sword Qi blocked the Pure Yang Celestial Device and tore up the formation, which allowed Zhou Bao to see the real appearance of that Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    It was a gourd, a dark red gourd.


    The dark red gourd was about 100 feet high, with an air of solemnity, and at this point, it came down on Zhou Bao mercilessly like a huge mountain. The 10 streaks of Sword Qi tore up the formation, but they did not damage the gourd, only slightly hindered its approach.


    "Gee, this is..." Seeing the bell, Green Spirit suddenly screamed in a weird voice, "Did I see wrong? This thing is... crazy, it''s too crazy. How could... how could this thing come out? And how could it be driven?"


    "You know it?" Zhou Bao moved quickly in the formation, trying to get rid of the huge pressure of the dark red gourd, but he did not succeed.


    "No, I guess I was wrong. I was wrong!" Now Green Spirit appeared some incoherent. It seemed that he recognized the gourd, but he was not sure.


    "Hey, what am I gonna do now?" Zhou Bao cried. He had intended to use the Golden Flame Mirror to resist, but when he thought of it, he clearly felt a strange wave from the Golden Flame Mirror, which showed him that the Golden Flame Mirror did not seem willing to go out against the dark red gourd again and it seemed to be afraid of the gourd.


    The Golden Flame Mirror was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, possessing super intelligence. Although it had no spiritual intelligence, Zhou Bao could sense the meaning of this simple wave.


    And this wave surprised Zhou Bao.


    Nothing like this had ever happened since the Golden Flame Mirror was refined. As a Pure Yang Celestial Device, an extremely powerful Pure Yang Celestial Device, it did not fail when it was competing against the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda and the Invisible Dragon Rod which were all Pure Yang Celestial Devices that had been famous for a long time. Then why was it afraid of the red gourd?


    "Grab it. You gotta get it!" At this moment, Green Spirit''s voice sounded in his mind again, a little hysterical. "Why is this thing here? Boy, you gotta get it. Otherwise, when others understand its mystery, you are dead. No one can save you, you''re dead. Even if you have become an Individual Immortal, a Genuine Immortal, even a humpan Immortal, you''re dead!"


    "Is that so exaggerated?" Zhou Bao was suspicious and perplexed. "Grab it? How? Damn it, I''m stuck in their formation now!"


    "Whatever you do, you must get it!" Green Spirit shouted. His voice was quieter than a moment ago. It seemed that his excitement had gradually subsided.


    At this point Zhou Bao came to a critical juncture. Without the obstruction of the Golden Flame Mirror, the red gourd, exuding enormous pressure, rushed at him.


    Now, the Golden-Scaled Cudgel was not available, and the Three Realms Division could not be used, and the Golden Flame Mirror did not work well. For a moment, Zhou Bao was in a dilemma.


    The red gourd was carrying a mighty power against him and Zhou Bao was forced to retreat. After which, with fire flicking in his hand, a long whip, made of flame, appeared at some point.


    The long whip, like a serpent, danced around him, and scattered all the coming Sword Qi around. Meanwhile, he launched the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang to the extreme and nine dragons began circling around him, making threatening gestures. Although Zhou Bao had been retreating, temporarily, the Sword Qi in the sword formation could not hurt him.


    The standoff began.


    Now, the only thing that could threaten Zhou Bao was the little red gourd.


    Fortunately, Zhou Bao escaped with all his heart, Although he could not get out of the sword formation, the red gourd could not catch up with him, and was getting further and further away from him.


    It had no choice.


    This kind of magic weapon that''s used to smash people, should attack people by surprise, and should smash people to death with one blow. In case the people dodged, it was not so easy to attack again. After all, people in this world were not stupid and no one would stand and wait to be smashed.


    This celestial device was so powerful that even the Golden Flame Mirror wanted to avoid it. It was absolutely a Pure Yang Celestial Device. It would take a lot of energy to drive such a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Even to manipulate the Golden Flame Mirror that was forged by Zhou Bao, he had to be focused, let alone guard against the red gourd, which was a rare treasure from the antiquity times. The manipulator didn''t fully understand its uses, and only thought that it could hit people. They could narrowly use it, but after manipulating it for such a long time, its manipulator felt that it became more and more difficult.


    Then the red gourd gradually slowed down and finally stopped in the middle of the vast formation.


    "I didn''t expect Zhou Bao to be so powerful that he could avoid the attack in this formation, ignoring the Sword Qi!"


    In the middle of the vast formation, an old man in sackcloth appeared. As he waved, the red gourd, which was 100 feet high, became smaller and smaller. At last, it shrunk to about the size of a palm, and then he hung it around his waist.


    The old man in sackcloth was a little pale. This was because it had taken a lot of effort to manipulate the gourd. "There''s no way. Open the sword formation!"


    Open the sword formation!


    That meant they were going to use the final killing movement.


    "I have advised you to open the sword formation, but you didn''t listen to me until now. What a waste of time!" Said a voice somewhat discontented. However, with "open the sword formation", a hollow replaced the original vast world.


    "Gee, the sword formation is opened!" Zhou Bao looked up at the white fog that was dissipating at breakneck speed, and his expression slightly changed.


    Just in one breath of time, the vast hollow appeared around Zhou Bao.


    "Nine Level Eight experts?"


    When the white fog dissipated, Zhou Bao was really surprised. Why?


    It was because he found himself surrounded by Nine Level Eight experts. They were standing in a Nine Palace, each with a Flying Sword hanging in front, and one old man in sackcloth had a dark red gourd on his waist. But the gourd was not as big as it was before, just the size of a palm.


    "Hehe, you finally show up!" Zhou Bao gave them a sneer. With golden light flashing continuously behind his head, he started the Golden Flame Mirror again. "You want to kill me here. Who the hell are you?"


    ''''You don''t need to know who we are. Anyway, you''re dead today!'''' The one speaking was the old man in sackcloth.


    Zhou Bao just sneered, but he was becoming more alert in his heart, because he did not see the black-clothed man who had attacked him from the start, and that man who had the power of hollow travel was the most troublesome.


    "Give it up. You''re in the Sumeru Sword Formation. No matter how powerful your spiritual mind is, you can''t find him!" said the old man in sackcloth with a grim smile, as if he knew what Zhou Bao was looking for.


    "The Sumeru Sword Formation? It sounds pretty powerful, but I have already experienced it. It''s not that powerful!"


    "Hmph, then let us show you its real power!" Then the old man in sackcloth knocked at the Flying Sword in front of him.


    "Clang!" That Flying Sword made a clear sound. When Zhou Bao heard this, his look sharply changed. He sprang to his feet, and a sharp sword went through his thighs, soundless and stirless. Then the other man, who was standing on the other side, also knocked at the Flying Sword in front of him and another clear sound rang.


    Zhou Bao rolled a somersault in the air, a large amount of blood spurting out.


    As the nine people knocked at the Flying Sword in front of them successively, Zhou Bao was stabbed nine times in a row, but he didn''t even know how it happened.


    If his spiritual mind had not been too sensitive, which allowed him to avoid being stabbed in a vital spot at the most critical moment, he might have died now. But he was still bleeding, unable to stop the invisible and silent Sword Qi.


    "Haha, Zhou Bao, stop making pointless struggles! You''re awesome, but you''re in a formation where you can''t escape!" The old man in sackcloth''s cold laughter sounded in the ears of Zhou Bao. At the same time, in the dark hollow, a steak of Sword Qi vanished and a killing intent suddenly appeared.


    "Sh*t!" Zhou Bao cursed with a weird voice, another pool of blood spurting out. After which, a black figure flashed and then vanished.


    It was the black-clothed man whom he had been worried about.


    Zhou Bao did not completely avoid this sword. On his ribs, there was a deep wound, down to the bone.


    "Damn you!" In spite of his injury, Zhou Bao stretched out all his fingers and 10 streaks of black and red Sword Qi shot out again, directly to the nine people.


    The Sword Qi, went directly through the bodies of the nine people, and tore 10 holes in the formation. But the holes flickered and disappeared, and the hollow returned to peace, once more after shaking. When the Sword Qi passed through the nine people, it did not do any harm to them at all, as if it had passed through nine shadows.


    "It''s the Sumeru Sword Formation. You think what you see is really where we are?"


    "Clang!" There was another sword sound.


    Zhou Bao done a somersault with his face distorted, gritted his teeth and said, "I don''t even want to know where you are!"


    He violently shook his robe sleeves and the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi which had been condensed into a beam, turned into strips of Sword Qi that was as fine as ox hair under the influence of the Dragon Flying Technique, spreading out in all directions, and enveloped the whole formation.


    "Haha, awesome! I can''t believe you have such a special technique which is so destructive!"


    The triumphant voice came again, sounding rather harsh.


    "This is magic matrix!" Green Spirit said in his mind, "Everything you see is unreal. You think your Sword Qi is in all directions, but it''s not!"


    "I see!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed with a fierce light. The long flame whip that was transformed from the Goat-shaped Dragon, one of the Nine Forms of Real Dragon, wrapped him up completely. Then, before his Gang Qi had been fully launched, along with the Poison Cold Shield, in the blink of an eye, there were already three defenses in his body.


    At this moment, the sword rang again.


    Clang¡­


    The Sword Qi like wind, flashed across Zhou Bao''s body, and as just now, it almost ignored his three layers of defenses, directly stabbing into his heart.


    Having suffered a few losses, Zhou Bao had been prepared to defend himself against such powerful Sword Qi, which appeared soundlessly in the sword formation. Once again the Sword Qi broke his defenses, but it did not hurt him. Because when it broke the defenses, Zhou Bao launched a wisp of exceptional Sword Qi to hit it, and eliminated it.


    "Boy, stop playing. Otherwise, they''ll be more familiar with the formation. Then once they launch one tenth of the sword formation''s power of the sword, instantly sending out 81 streaks of Sword Qi to attack you, you''re dead!" Green Spirit''s voice sounded at this point, full of worry. "Get rid of them quickly before they completely master this formation!"


    "Get rid of them? How? It''s not easy!" Cried Zhou Bao peevishly.


    "The sword formation isn''t complete. These guys may have practiced it before, but it''s the first time they''ve used it against someone, so they''re not used to it. But if they are familiar with your body movements, they can at least start a killing movement with their cultivation!"


    "Then what should I do now?" Zhou Bao anxiously asked.


    He could hide from the Sword Qi, but if there were 81 streaks of Sword Qi all at once, just like what Green Spirit said, he could never escape.


    "Don''t underestimate yourself! I''ve heard of the Sumeru Sword Formation before. The Flying Swords that they''re using are of good quality, but they don''t meet the minimum requirements of the sword formation. You will be able to shake the foundation of this formation with the Great Fusion Technic and the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, and then you can attack it with all your might!"


    "Got it!" Zhou Bao certainly nodded. Suddenly, he rolled his body that has been evading. In his tendons and meridians, the black flame-shaped Internal Qi was flowing rapidly, and the wound, which caused by the Sword Qi, began healing quickly.


    "No, he''s gonna put up a desperate fight!" The men who set this formation were all Level Eight experts whose discernment was extremely good. They were startled to see the changes in Zhou Bao''s body, and they almost simultaneously struck the Flying Sword in front of them.


    "I''m not afraid of you!" Zhou Bao snapped. Having mastered the rules of the Sword Qi, he launched nine streaks of exceptional Sword Qi, and materialized the piercing Sword Qi that appeared out of nowhere. Then, in his Gang Qi, a golden light came out and a gold flame rose from the Gang Qi.


    The space was boiling.


    "Zi!" The gold flame violently tore a hole in the formation. Almost at the same time, a light flashed between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows and a streak of black and red Sword Qi shot out of between his eyebrows, going straight up into the sky along the space that had been torn open by the gold flame.


    It was the Great Fusion Technic!


    Along with the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!


    The two great special techniques broke open the Sumeru Sword Formation jointly, fiercely tearing a slit in the sword formation. Then Zhou Bao jumped out of the slit like a loach.


    Everything happened so quickly that they had no time to react. The nine experts who set the sword formation almost instantaneously struck the Flying Sword in front of them.


    "Clang..."


    This time the sound of Flying Swords was very crisp, and in the blink of an eye, 81 streaks of Sword Qi appeared out of nowhere and twisted together. However, the Sword Qi got nothing.


    Zhou Bao was gone!


    In the formation, the Flying Swords in front of the nine experts turned into numerous pieces in an instant, shooting around. Subsequently, the sword formation broke.


    "It was a close one! It was a close one!" Out of the sword formation, Zhou Bao felt his back cold, because the 81 streaks of Sword Qi had broken his Gang Qi. Fortunately, he was out of the sword formation. If he had stayed in the sword formation, he might have been crushed by the Sword Qi, just as Green Spirit said.

 Chapter 314: A Fairy Weapon? Ferocious Power

    Chapter 314: A Fairy Weapon? Ferocious Power


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Zhou Bao recovered his high spirits in the minute leaving the sword formation.


    Without the constraint of sword formation, not to mention the other stuff, his Three Realms Division could work immediately. Once the special technique started, he would be in an invincible position.


    "Boy, kill them, kill them all and get that red gourd back. If I am not mistaken, that red gourd is a fairy weapon!"


    "What? A fairy weapon?" Zhou Bao''s heartbeat fiercely, and the blood was surging through his whole body.


    It was a fairy weapon!


    It was something better than a Pure Yang Celestial Device. One fairy weapon could kill expert of Mysterious Realm in one second. Just imagine, how did Living Buddha Ba Siba get a failure?


    Is not a fairy weapon the reason?


    If the red gourd was also a fairy weapon, then...


    When he thought of this, his heart jumped fiercely, just like a motor engine installed with 100,000 horsepower.


    "It is, it is a fairy weapon and not a common Taihao Fairy Weapon. This is a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, a real Heavenly Fairy Weapon!"


    "Heavenly Fairy Weapon?"


    "Yes, Heavenly Fairy Weapon, a higher level than the Taihao Fairy Weapon. This is a Fairy Weapon of the Way of Killing on Heaven level with infinite power, and how dare he used it as a brick. It is too much!" Green Spirit gritted his teeth. Though he didn''t have it now, Zhou Bao seemed to hear the sound.


    But this moment offered has no space of thought to him, though the sword formation was broken, these nine were Level Eight experts. Nine lights leaped up and surrounded Zhou Bao immediately once the sword formation got broken. Meanwhile, the familiar and piercing killing intent arose, with the cold sword light which could eliminate everything, and the masked man in black attacked again.


    "Will I be afraid of you now?" Zhou Bao was confident after leaving the sword formation, waving his whip to the black-clothed man.


    "Puff!" Sword Qi hit on the long flame whip transferred by Goat-shaped Dragon, a shower of glaring sparkles splashed, the fire color of the long whip had tarnished, and the sword light extinguished.


    Zhou Bao could feel the long whip became depressed after receiving one sword hit as if it included some power against his long flame whip.


    "Dragon-slaying Sword, that is Dragon-slaying Sword. Boy, you are in trouble, the sword could restrain your Nine Forms of Real Dragon and Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield. It seemed they make a lot to fight against you!" Green Spirit''s voice rang near his ear, with a hint of schadenfreude.


    "Hum!" Zhou Bao snorted coldly, retrieving the long flame whip and standing up slowly. He swept over the nine Level Eight expert surrounded him with a sneer and looked at the black-clothed man once again.


    "Who are you?!"


    "You don''t need to know who we are. Rather know that you are going to die in our hands today!" The old man in sackcloth with the red gourd speaking.


    Zhou Bao rolled his eyes, showing a contemptuous look.


    He did look down upon him which he unexpectedly used a fairy weapon as a Pure Yang Celestial Device, hitting people like it was a brick. This was funny, but also stupid.


    "Do you want to kill me?" Sneering, Zhou Bao clenched his fist, released the Golden Flame Mirror.


    "Hum, Zhou Bao, indeed you are very powerful to break the Sumeru Sword Formation. But you could get away for the weak quality of our Flying Swords used to set formation so it can''t perform huge power. Even though you are strong, you could still get hurt heavily. We are 10 experts at Level Eight. Though you have strong combat capability, do you really think you can survive in our attack?"


    "Oh, 10 Level Eight experts, it seems you really think highly of me!" The muscle on Zhou Bao''s face twisted.


    Did he get angry? How could he not be angry?


    Suddenly, 10 Level Eight experts were sent to kill him and there was a set up planned, sword formation was placed, what does it count?


    The one who dealt with him really thought extremely highly of him. It seemed he considered him like a figure as Three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan.


    "Do you want me to kill them? No kidding? There are 10 Level Eight experts and one of them is good at assassination! Do you think I am an expert on Mysterious Realm?" In the deepest part of the heart, Zhou Bao roared fiercely to Green Spirit.


    "Just listen to me, at least you need to kill the guy with the fairy weapon, and you must be. Though he doesn''t know the gourd was a fairy weapon, it had been refined as he could drive it. It would be a trouble getting the red gourd without killing him!"


    "Got it, I will try my best." Zhou Bao sighed faintly. He no longer hesitated, and the Golden Flame Mirror behind his brain wavered and the golden light swept directly toward the 10 guys. The expression of 10 experts changed. They were at Level Eight, but they had never thought they would face the power of a Pure Yang Celestial Device directly.


    "Howl!" Witnessed Zhou Bao launched the Golden Flame Mirror, the old man in sackcloth wouldn''t be willing to be left behind. He shouted and the red gourd around his waist flying outside, inflating along with the wind and expanding more over 100 feet, blocked the light of the Golden Flame Mirror.


    This was when Zhou Bao realized it would cost a lot for the old man in sackcloth to launch red gourd, and his face was super red like he used all his power to pull it.


    "Bastard, how bastard he is, how dare he insult a fairy weapon like this! This is a Heavenly Fairy Weapon! This guy deserves a death like ten thousand times!" In Zhou Bao''s brain, Green Spirit roared like he was insulted enormously.


    "All right, shut up!"Zhou Bao reprimand gently, his body moving a bit, floating forward like a wilted leaf. One fist attacked straightforward to the head of the old man in sackcloth.


    "Bitch, how dare you!" Witnessing Zhou Bao''s move, the saber-eyed elder sitting around roared and rushed out like an arrow.


    "You are right on time!" A tricky smile appeared on Zhou Bao''s face, and then he raised his fist to counter the fighting.


    "Bang!"


    Along with a loud bang, the saber-eyed elder flew out, a burst of cracker sounds of skeleton sounded around their ears.


    "Impossible!"


    "How could it be possible?"


    "Just one punch to beat Old Jiang? Just one?"


    "Damn! From the sound, at least half bones of Old Jiang was broken, he must lose his half-life!"


    "Isn''t he a Level Seven expert? Even for those whose combat capability almost reached to Level Nine couldn''t have a strong power in one simple punch!"


    Just one punch, Zhou Bao shocked everyone. No one expected that his power could be so strong.


    Unexpectedly, Zhou Bao himself was surprised a bit.


    Since his Internal Qi transformed into black flame, it was his first time to fight. This stunning effect was unexpected. He just punched randomly without going to all lengths.


    "Don''t be shocked, boy, the Demonic Fire Internal Qi in your body could be compared to generic Real Eessence. They are just Level Eight experts whose Internal Qi was like steel, having too many distances compared to the quality of your Internal Qi. You were trapped in the formation, that''s why you didn''t perform the strength you have. And now without the restraint of formation, it would be easy for you to beat them all. Besides your body strength, your attack force could be compared to the expert on Mysterious Realm.


    "This is it!"


    Zhou Bao was excited, and immediately moved faster. Gang Qi around him whistling, pouncing toward another lanky old man.


    The expression of the lanky old man changed a lot. Dark cyan Gang Qi of him rose, and a broadsword showed in his hands, splitting fiercely toward Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao sneered and his fists sparkled with a black light defending directly to the coming broadsword. Meanwhile, the rest seven rushed out including the black-clothed man. From the punch before, Zhou Bao was stronger than they predicted. If they got hit by his fists, it was hard to see the consequence.


    Besides the old man in sackcloth who manipulated the red gourd, the rest rushed out and threw their Gang Qi and weapons to Zhou Bao without the proper plan.


    However, it was late.


    ''''Go to hell!'''' Zhou Bao roared fiercely, and like a flash, he moved at an unbelievable quick speed. Before Gang Qi and weapons hit him, he smashed broadsword of lanky old man in one pounce. Just one punch, the broadsword was first beaten into pieces and then melted into crimson liquid iron and finally spread everywhere, aiming at the seven behind him.


    "F*uck!"


    "Oh, no--!"


    "Be careful!"


    ¡­


    ¡­


    The seven paled with shock and fled. Though they were protected by Gang Qi, facing these crimson fluid iron, they were scared for no reason, the speed of pouncing forward slow down. This was when Zhou Bao hit on the lanky old man physically.


    The seven were escaping and watched a horrifying scene that they would never forget.


    Around Zhou Bao''s fists, a black flame flashed. Getting hit by a punch, the dark cyan Gang Qi of lanky old man couldn''t defend it like they were made of paper. It melted immediately, the fist hit on the hands of lanky old man wholely, and the huge strength pushed him forward. At that time, the lanky old man still held a position handing broadsword to split. Right when Zhou Bao''s fist hit on his waist, the distance between both hands and body was about one foot, and the strong power made him move forward fiercely.


    Zhou Bao''s fist speed was extremely fast; so were his hands. There was only a distance of one foot, which would only take one second. But, exactly at the moment his hands disappeared and became ashes when his fist hit on lanky old man''s chest.


    "Go to hell!"


    As the fist came to the chest, Zhoubao roared, and the black fire of fist expanding hugely.


    "Puff--!"


    Firstly, it was a dull thud, Zhou Bao''s fist punctured the chest of the lanky old man, and then a powerful black Demonic Fire devoured the whole body of the lanky old man. The elder expert on Level Eight became ashes without enough time to scream or change expressions, it just disappeared in the world.


    This is not enough!


    Far more than enough!


    Zhou Bao didn''t stop smashing the lanky old man. His Gang Qi moved and then Nine dragons Heavenly Fire Shield showed and covered another Level Eight expert when all of them still shocked.


    "Not good, he is too powerful to exceed our expectations. Retreat! Now!"


    The expression of six experts left changed a lot, and one of them screamed.


    At present, the expression of the old man in sackcloth became gloomy. He was the man with the best cultivation among the 10, but it took him a lot defending against Zhou Bao''s Pure Yang Celestial Device. He didn''t attack because he had to manipulate the red gourd. But what happened before was observed by him clearly.


    Having witnessed Zhou Bao''s stunning power, he was completely shocked.


    "It''s not the strength of a Level Seven expert! It was so easy for him to kill a Level Eight expert. Has he stepped into Level Nine?"


    Yes, a Level Nine expert!


    The combat capability of Zhou Bao was not close to Level Nine, but it was a genuine Level Nine!


    Only a Level Nine expert could kill a Level Eight expert outrageously and leisurely surrounding 10 Level Eight experts.


    "Where did this monster come from? In this young age, he has this unbelievable power. I just achieve Level Eight for over 100 years, but still vulnerable dealing with him." The old man in sackcloth sighed in his heart, "For all these years, I kept focused on refining the Pure Yang Celestial Device. I got it intentionally, but slow down the speed of cultivation, otherwise , I would have the power of Level Nine, and not be so passive like this."


    The elder thought to himself and had an idea to retreat.


    Zhou Bao could release anyone at present but not him!


    Zhou Bao killed the lanky old man with one punch and covered another expert with Nine dragons Heavenly Fire Shield. It happened quickly, so did the response of these Level Eight experts. They closed to retreat back and gave the assassin job up in the meantime.


    Seeing Zhou Bao''s attack, they had already understood Zhou Bao''s power was more than their expectation now, and there was no chance to win.


    The old man in sackcloth chose to retreat as well. But he slowed for retrieving his red gourd. Exactly the one pace slowness killed him.


    "Great Fusion Technic!"


    Zhou Bao was powerful, but it was unreasonable to kill all the Level Eight expert surrounded him.


    But there was a good saying that, if you can''t win, can''t you just escape?


    If Level Eight experts tried to escape purposely, it would be hard to catch even for a Level Nine expert. Not to mention Zhou Bao, he wasn''t only facing one but seven Level Eight experts.


    Right after Zhou Bao killed the lanky old man, the seven experts began going back. It couldn''t hide from Zhou Bao, but Zhou Bao didn''t care much, and his purpose was only the one.


    That was the old man in sackcloth.


    That guy couldn''t abandon his red gourd, so he pinched an incantation quickly. With the formation of this incantation, the red gourd became smaller. The old man in sackcloth waved his hand, trying to retrieve his gourd.


    But his movement delayed the time to escape.


    Zhou Bao had taken him as a target, and in fact, all Zhou Bao''s attention was on him when he released Nine dragons Heavenly Fire Shield. Zhou Bao didn''t give a glance for other''s leaving and put Great Fusion Technic on him directly.


    "Ah!"


    The old man in sackcloth launched a grieving scream. But this kind of scream was brief, and stopped after one sound. Because he died faster and more brutal, the small piece of body burnt left on the ground.


    "How amazing the Great Fusion Technic was!" Zhou Bao marveled, he raised his hand and retrieved the Nine dragons Heavenly Fire Shield back, while the Level Eight expert was covered by his Nine dragons Heavenly Fire Shield also turned to ashes.


    There was no one around, the red gourd was left on the ground alone and remained still. Not far from it, was the body of the old man in sackcloth who was kind of intimidating.


    "This is a real fairy weapon, but a Heavenly Fairy Weapon''s level was higher than that Clear Glass Jade Bottle?" Zhou Bao asked, unbelievable.


    "Right, it is. Though it had been contaminated and broken, it is a fairy weapon, the Heavenly Fairy Weapon in legend!" Green Spirit rotated the red gourd, and his mouth sucked as if to drool, "Boy, lucky you, put it away and study in the future gradually. With this stuff and have enough understanding, you won''t be afraid of anyone!"


    "Is this a real fairy weapon? Why do I feel it is not much better than Pure Yang Celestial Device?" Retrieving the red gourd, Zhou Bao telepathic connected with his own spiritual mind, but felt nothing special. The red gourd did own huge power, but the power was not as immense as a Pure Yang Celestial Device, even worse than it. Only a killing intent containing in the red gourd made him fear, exactly was the killing intent made him shocked which likely far exceeded the killing intent in his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    "Of course you don''t feel it, it was broken. Otherwise, do you really think you can kill that guy? You would be lucky if you didn''t get killed."


    Green Spirit said coldly, "See its underneath part, it was a trail of bumping. This is where all its pneuma leaked out. You should fix it and after, this fairy weapon became fixed in most parts.


    Hearing it, Zhou Bao observed it carefully. As expected, he found a break which was smaller than needle eye under the seemingly perfect red gourd.


    "It is, hey, the fairy weapon was damaged unexpectedly. It''s a Heavenly Fairy Weapon! It wouldn''t get so severe damage if it was collide with other Heavenly Fairy Weapon. If I am not mistaken, it should collide with a Supreme Fairy Weapon directly, so it got damaged heavily.


    "Supreme Fairy Weapon?!"


    "Right, the Supreme Fairy Weapon. There are three levels of the celestial devices: psychic, Mysterious Level and Pure Yang. So are fairy weapons: Taihao, Heaven and Supreme Fairy Weapon." Green Spirit said, "The fairy weapon is different from the celestial device. The highest level of the celestial device, Pure Yang Celestial Device could be refined, but it''s so hard to refine a fairy weapon. With a lot of luck, it is possible to refine a fairy weapon. Taihao Fairy Weapon is fine comparatively, some Pure Yang Celestial Device with enough roots could upgrade to Taihao fairy weapon with millions of luck. But as for Heavenly Fairy Weapon and Supreme Fairy Weapon, it was certain since primitive times, and just a few, the red gourd is one of them!" Speaking of this, he was excited and murmured," I never expect that I would have a chance to see fairy weapon in reality and have time to fix it gradually!"


    Continuously by using two unexpected expressions, his excitement showed his high spirits.


    "Which means this fairy weapon was damaged like your green lamp?" Zhou Bao looked a kind of depressed, he had some unsure fantasies about the fairy weapons. Now hearing the fairy weapon was damaged, he was disappointed.


    "Boy, you know nothing! This isn''t the green lamp. The green lamp is a Pure Yang Celestial Device, and this is a fairy weapon, a fairy weapon! Do you know the biggest difference between a fairy weapon and a Pure Yang Celestial Device?" Green Spirit shouted, without getting a response, "I don''t know," from Zhou Bao, he continued talking, "the material is the biggest difference, the material of the fairy weapon was undestroyable and could heal automatically even it got damaged. See, the red gourd got a small wound which should be huger in the first beginning. Why? Because it has an ability to heal, just the speed is slow, boy, it is a good time, now it is its weakness, refining it at present is simplest, when it recovered. The fairy weapon on Heaven Level, even you are an Individual Immortal, your primordial spirit can''t stand its pressure."


    "So good?" Zhou Bao''s eyebrow raised, "If it is true, I will refine it now. Would it still give my spirit a huge pressure?"


    "No, it wouldn''t, it would only give you good advantages, powerful advantages. It would strengthen your spirit when recovering. It''s a shame that it is a Fairy Weapon of the Way of Killing, otherwise you would have a huge process with its help. Pity, it is a pity!"

 Chapter 315: The Orthodox Strength

    Chapter 315: The Orthodox Strength


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "I don''t think it''s a pity! If it''s indeed a superpower fairy weapon, though it can''t help me to advance my cultivation, then it''s still something worth celebrating!" Zhou Bao directly put it into the space dividing the two boundaries with his eyes squinting gradually. "About the fairy weapon, we can talk about it later. The most important thing, for now, is to find out who wants to kill me on earth. Ten Level Eight experts altogether set up a sword formation! It''s absolutely a deadly situation to a Level Seven expert!"


    Thinking of wounds he had got in the sword formation, Zhou Bao bit his teeth tightly. An ordinary man surely could not gather so many Level Eight experts. Honestly, until now he could not figure out who has a strong power to despatch ten Level Eight experts and one Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    Even those millennial families might not have such power. Probably it might be the Three Great Sects or Kunlun Mountain.


    Right! Kunlun Mountain!


    Most likely it is the Kunlun Mountain to do so!


    Ten Level Eight experts and one Pure Yang Celestial Device! Only an influence reaching at the level like Tian Long Taoism or Kunlun Mountain might manage to do it. But, was it really the Kunlun Mountain?


    Zhou Bao was still very suspicious. Kunlun Mountain didn''t have a good relationship with him. Besides, together with Wang She, he grabbed them a Pure Yang Celestial Device. But, did they really have such strength?


    Zhou Bao showed his deep suspicion! After all, there were ten Level Eight experts!


    If Kunlun Mountain did have a power as strong as this, they must do something in the war of conquering the Northern Yuan, let the Kunlun Master alone stay in Kunlun Mountain because of the threat from Tian Long Taoism.


    That''s why Zhou Bao was so suspicious!


    How about the Three Great Sects of the Jin?


    Tian Long Taoism had no reason to set such a trap! Neither did the Sect of Flame! Anyway, as long as Prince Xiaoming functioned in the Sect of Flame, such a thing wouldn''t happen! Then Mingyi School might be the suspect. From the very beginning, Zhou Bao did not work well with the Mingyi School. However, did Mingyi School have the strength to despatch such a group of experts? If they did have, was it necessary to make such a serious situation in terms of the relationship between himself and the Mingyi School? It was hard to believe that Mingyi School would despatch such a power to attack him!


    "So, who could it be? Who attached great importance to me?" Zhou Bao thought secretly, squinting his eyes gently.


    "Buddy, it''s useless to think aimlessly!" Green Spirit said coldly.


    "You''re right. I''d benefit nothing from this aimless thought. I''d better go home and have a check!" Zhou Bao was astonished and then turned into a gold streamer, flying directly to Yunzhou!


    After he left for a long while, at the position where he stood, a bare head bumped out. His face showed that he was at young age. He gazed at the disappearance of Zhou Bao with a complex look and muttered twice bitterly!


    "Zhou Bao, Yunzhou Zhoubao, what a tough guy! His cultivation and his fighting capability must be far beyond the Level Nine experts. That black flame was stronger than any of Internal Qi I knew. Maybe he has reached the so-called Genuine Soul Level. What on earth was Zhou Bao''s background? He should have a strong Internal Qi with such good quality. Even the Sect Leader won''t reach this level before he cultivates to Mysterious Realm. This news must be spread out and I need to inform all my fellows and ask them to stop all the actions aiming to Zhou Bao. Otherwise, they''ll lose!" The bare head man thought. He made a decision at last with a strange and unsteady expression. Burying his head in the soil, and he disappeared.


    ...


    ¡­


    As Zhou Bao expected, when he came back to Zhou Mansion in Qingyang Market in a hurry, his father was in good health and lived very well. Because of Zhou Bao''s back, the Zhou Mansion got themselves into a mess. Looking at Zhou Bao who was absent, brought great benefits to the whole family, Old Zhou apparently felt very excited. Since Zhou Bao was always in a rush, he didn''t talk too much with Old Zhou except several simple greetings. He also asked whether something abnormal happened at home. All the feedbacks from Old Zhou seemed very normal. As to that letter-delivery guy, after Zhou Bao''s detailed description, someone finally recalled. He was a far-related relative of the Zhou''s. He came to the Zhou''s for help. But when the people went to his house they found no one. Zhou Bao was in a terrible mood and he refused all his families invitation and went back to his territory immediately.


    Obviously, it must be a plot specifically to Zhou Bao, and the plotter was very cautious. Before his success, he neither startle anyone nor leave any trace.


    The only clue now was the letter-delivery guy. That''s why Zhou Bao went back rapidly. He was afraid that the guy might be killed by someone.


    Unfortunately, though he had already made his best, he still faced a corpse lying before him when he arrived at his territory.


    "He didn''t come around since he was fainting. When the person who brought the meal came, his body was found stiffened. But strangely, he seemed not to be poisoned." Jiang Xiao wore an awkward expression. He just thought that the guy was too tired to die. However, Zhou Bao came back hurriedly at dawn time, which made him realize that there was something wrong. As expected, upon Zhou Bao''s arrival, he went to see that guy.


    "Not to be poisoned? Then what''s the reason?" With a dark look, Zhou Bao spread a strong killing intent fulfilling the whole room.


    "It was an injury! He was attacked by a kind of soft palm power which terribly injured his internal organs. The killer controlled his power so that that guy wouldn''t die last night. And it''s not easy to perceive before this wound showed. Considering his exhaustion when he arrived, the abnormal body completely covered with wounds. Therefore, nobody could find it."


    The man who spoke was Nan Haiping, one of the masters of martial arts from Tian Long Taoism, came together with Wang She. He was in his forties with a long beard and wore an elegant look.


    "A soft palm power!" Zhou Bao nodded to Nan Haiping without any comments. As the man died, there were no clues anymore. Of course, Zhou Bao wasn''t satisfied with this situation. "After I left, nothing unusual happened?!"


    "No!" Jiang Xiao shook his head without any hesitation. "There''s not enough time for something to happen since you only left for a half day. It doesn''t even take you one whole night!" He thought secretly.


    "You''re back now, surely nothing happened. But if you came back one or two or three days later, maybe something will happen!" Wang She''s voice came from the outside.


    "Chief!" Zhou Bao nodded slightly. "You''ve already known it?"


    "I can easily tell by your appearance! You look so terrible. You must be attacked!" Wang She said.


    "So, in your opinion, who did it?"


    "Since you stepped into this martial world, you''ve annoyed a few guys. However, anyone who dares to attack you isn''t that simple!" Wang She swayed his cyan fan and his eyes ran down around. A strong pressure was spread and made the people around all in pale, including Jiang Xiao and several masters of martial arts. Then, they all left the hall, lowering their heads. After a while, only Wang She and Zhou Bao were in the hall.


    "It''s not simple! Surely I know he''s not simple. After all, he should lay out such a murder plot to me! If I hadn''t entered the Azure Secret Area and got some benefits, I might have lose my life in their hands!"


    "Really? Is that serious?" Wang She said, lifting his eyebrows. "So who on earth are they? They should dare to do such a thing!"


    "Not only one attacker! There are ten of them!" Zhou Bao shook his head and smiled bitterly. Then he detailedly described his experience after his leaving.


    "What? Nine Level Eight experts and one red gourd-shaped Pure Yang Celestial Device? They laid out the Sumeru Sword Formation! And you were also attacked by a man in black using the hollow travel!"


    Wang She opened his eyes widely. According to Zhou Bao''s appearance when he came back, he supposed that Zhou Bao suffered an assassination but he had never expected it would be so dangerous!


    After clearly hearing Zhou Bao''s description, Wang She looked very depressed all of a sudden. Anyway, Zhou Bao was protected by Tian Long Taoism, which was confirmed. And he, the Chief of Tian Long Taoism, also showed his support to the whole marital world. However, it was unexpected that someone should set a big trap at this time. It was a deadlock aiming Zhou Bao killing to death. This plotter did not take Tian Long Taoism seriously at all.


    "Don''t worry. I will investigate it thoroughly! Though the letter-delivery guy is dead, there are very few people who can set up such a murder plot. And, with your clues, I don''t think they won''t expose themselves!"


    "They can surely expose themselves finally! Treating me like this, whoever they are, I won''t let them go easily!" Zhou Bao clenched his fists tightly and shouted.


    Surely, he would not let them go! This plot was apparently to kill Zhou Bao. If Zhou Bao had not cultivated better with much stronger combat capability far beyond the Level Nine masters recently, now he would have been a corpse. Otherwise, at least he would be seriously wounded because of being chased by others!


    Zhou Bao would not swallow his anger secretly in any way!


    "Actually, it won''t be difficult to infer! Looking around, there are only a few influences owning such power. We could exclude one by one!" Wang She smiled sinisterly.


    "You seemed to have some clues!" Glancing at Wang She, Zhou Bao''s look changed.


    "I didn''t have any idea before. But after thinking carefully, I did get some clues!" Wang She grinned and flashed a weird smile. "Maybe, someone can''t control himself anymore! Hehe. Nine Level Eight experts and one sacrifice to the Dark Hall. It''s indeed a death plot which was very threatening to me before entering the Level Nine. Don''t do it or do it to the best without any chance left to the enemies. It''s the style of the eldest of Yan!"


    "The eldest of Yan?" Zhou Bao stunned a bit, and then, there was a bright light in his eyes. "You mean the Jin Emperor?"


    "Yes! It''s him! He might sense that you''d be a huge threat to him, so he planned to kill you before you get matured. He never expected that your power has grown to a high level. As the saying goes, he goes for a wool and come back shorn!"


    "Are you sure it''s him?!" Zhou Bao''s face got blue.


    "I''m basically sure!" Wang She thought again. "Only the royalty Yan of Jin has the ability to wield such a strong power to attack you! I have no idea about the nine Level Eight experts, but I heard about the assassin in black that had a Level Eight cultivation. It''s said that the royalty of Jin raised a group of experts called Dark Hall. This Dark Hall contributed a lot to the foundation of Jin. Later, they had been doing some shame in the dark for the royalty!"


    "Why does he want to kill me?!"


    "As I said, it means that the Jin Emperor has already considered you as a threat to him. Coping a guy with potential threat, he was never merciful and would send out all his influences. He has only one purpose: security!"


    "I didn''t think that he should pay great attention to me!"


    Zhou Bao said with a bitter smile.


    "Pitifully! He still underestimated you at last!"


    "Hum! Thanks to my good luck again! If I hadn''t get any breakthrough in the Azure Secret Area, I might surely have already been killed by him this time!" Zhou Bao replied angrily.


    "All right! Don''t bother yourself too much! Though he is the noblest in the world now, considering your power and cultivation, you don''t need to fear him. Moreover, the power you showed him this time is out of his expectation. Through this failure, he doesn''t have any way to inspect your bottom line. Thinking about his character, his following action will be comforting you. And maybe he''ll even give you more benefits!"


    "Benefits? Hum! Do I care about his benefits? I surely will pay him back for his ''hospitality''!"


    "It''s not a good idea to fight back apparently. Though your ability is good enough, standing against with the royalty of Jin wasn''t a wise choice. If I''m not mistaken, the Jin Emperor now, together with some strong influences, was playing a big game. Before, you were nobody, not even a chess piece. But now, because of your sudden rise, you have the value of being a chess piece. However, your actions had already gone out of their control before they have decided where to position you. That''s why he wants to remove you from their game, but they failed. To stabilize this game, he''ll stabilize you first by all means!"


    "But how?!"


    "They don''t expect you to help them but at least not to disturb them by giving you some benefits!"


    "What if I have made my mind to mess them up?"


    "Then you must keep your actions dark and kick them out forever at the key time. In this way, perhaps you may also get unexpected benefits!"


    "Unexpected benefits?!"


    "Your eyes, Fiery Eyes, are the eyes of taboo. Buddy, do you really think you can relax since your power have reached this level? I can assure you that once you reveal your secret, you will be hunted by at least 70% experts above Level Nine in this world!"


    "Is that serious?!" Zhou Bao got shocked. The power of Fiery Eyes was far beyond his imagination. Therefore, the more power he had, the more curious he was to this pair of fantastical eyes. And the more powerful strength he felt, the more scared he was to the person who once destroyed the Fiery Eyes bloodline with complete power!


    Since the Fiery Eyes bloodline had such powerful strength, the influence who could destroy the whole clan might have the power beyond imagination!


    Hence, as he grew stronger, he hid the power of Fiery Eyes deeper. At usual time, there was no need to use this power. So, nobody knew that he had this magic bloodline except Wang She.


    Since Wang She mentioned this again in a depressed tone, Zhou Bao had to pay attention to it.


    "How much do you know about the Fiery Eyes on earth?"


    "I don''t know much about it, either! But I know that this power scares the orthodox strength very much!"


    "Orthodox strength?!" Zhou Bao was puzzled. "What does it mean?"


    "The royalty power was only one of them. The powers hiding beyond the royalty also includes the Mingyi School. They''re strong influences apparently which control the whole world publicly and secretly for 50,000 years. They are beyond your imagination! They seem to scatter everywhere. However, once they unite, they could break out great power. As I know, in this world, only the Immortal Palace can fight them back. While the Immortal Palace seemingly also fears this power and tries to avoid any conflict with it. That''s why it exists in a state of half-hide."


    "Even the Immortal Palace need to hide?" Zhou Bao shocked.


    "Right. In the past 50,000 years, the Immortal Palace has managed to avoid the elan of the Orthodax strength!"

 Chapter 316: Divine Sense of Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds and Assassin

    Chapter 316: Divine Sense of Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds and Assassin


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It was an influential orthodox strength that even the Immortal Palace chose not to run against?


    What kind of powerful influence could it be?


    After hearing Wang She''s words, Zhou Bao was a little shocked and then said with a cold expression, "I can destroy Jin Emperor''s Pure Yang Celestial Device without any help of the Fiery Eyes. Even though they might secretly have another one, I''m not afraid!"


    Raising his eyebrows, he balled his hands into hollow fists, an enormous and strong spirit scattering from his body.


    Wang She suddenly shrank his pupils. At the time Zhou Bao balled his fists, he could clearly feel the terrifying spirit released from Zhou Bao''s unintentional movement.


    This was an imposing feeling, which was dimly discernible but endlessly immense. It was a kind of infinitely subtle feeling, but it violently shook Wang She''s state of mind.


    Wang She, one of the strongest Level Nine experts in the world, had the confidence to defeat any other Level Nine expert, especially after he had refined the Pure Yang Celestial Device¡ªthe Invisible Dragon Rod.


    Powerful as he was, and with such strength, Wang She couldn''t help but feel a very strong sense of shock from the bottom of his heart as he was influenced by a huge spirit around him.


    "Although he can''t control the immature power or use it as he likes yet, he''ll be able to exert its powerful and endless strength once he is able to master it!" Wang She thought.


    He did not show his surprise, but he secretly contemplated about the properties of this power and attempted to simulate its attributes. However, he still failed to simulate the spirit that symbolized such a strong power. In fact, when simulating it, he felt as though his spirit seemed to be disordered, so he couldn''t complete the whole process at all.


    "Well, the stronger this kid is, the better it is for me. Hey, with his Fiery Eyes, he is definitely my fated ally, unless he removes his pair of eyes one day!"


    At the thought of that, Wang She looked at Zhou Bao in an increasingly benign fashion. "Boy, at present, there''s no need to think about revenge. You can pretend nothing has happened, and see what benefits the emperor will give you. Then, wait for the appropriate time!"


    "So, you''re asking me to keep silent?" Zhou Bao coldly asked. He was not the kind of person with lots of patience.


    "Step back to see a brighter future. Right now, you can only speculate, but you have no evidence to prove it was done by the emperor!"


    "I''m not an official and do not need any fu*cking evidence!"


    "At times, we need to some causes to account for the things we do, especially for these kinds of things. If you Immediately rush to Western Capital, grab the Jin Emperor from his chair, and even beat him to death, you will acrue nothing but serious trouble!"


    "I know. I''m not that stupid, but I won''t just keep silent!"


    "What are you going to do?"


    "Hey, you know what kind of person I am. Will I make trouble for him straightforwardly? I''ll tell you, the answer is no. I''ll do it in secret and spoil his plan. You mentioned that he was playing a game, didn''t you? I''ll f*ck ruin his game and drive him crazy," said Zhou Bao viciously.


    "What will you do?"


    "Firstly, wait for the heaven emissary from the imperial court," Zhou Bao said. Thinking of Nie Wushang, the heaven emissary who was empowered after the announcement of the imperial edict, a trace of coldness flitted his face.


    ...


    ...


    Nie Wushang was poker-faced when he came. However, as he saw Zhou Bao, a slight hint of fear flickered in his eyes, which was caught by Zhou Bao''s sharp eyesight.


    Meanwhile, Zhou Bao also clearly heard that Nie Wushang''s heartbeat and breath accelerated in a short period of time, though he rapidly covered this up.


    "Nie Wushang pays respect to Your Excellency Zhou!" Suppressing the surprise in his heart, Nie Wushang bowed to Zhou Bao as if nothing had happened.


    To his relief, Zhou Bao smiled and bowed to him as well.


    "Sorry to say that, Your Excellency, I was busy yesterday. Please forgive me for any inconvenience!"


    "Well, Your Excellency, I quite understand that you are busy showing your talents in the northwest region where many matters are yet to be dealt with!" Nie Wushang said with the intention to flatter Zhou Bao.


    "Oh, yeah, I should be busy!" Next, they began talking about things of no importance. Later, Zhou Bao politely saw Nie Wushang off.


    After that, Wang She jumped out and asked, "How is it? Have you seen anything wrong?"


    "He can hide nothing from me. Although he tried to concentrate on the conversation and hide his panic and terror, he still got distracted from time to time. It seemed that he was very surprised to see me again!"


    "He should be!" Wang She smiled. "This time they had prepared a magnificent plan to finish you, but they failed. Of course, he was shocked at this. However, he is not a real martial arts practitioners and only has low cultivation, so he doesn''t know just what it means that you have managed to survive this time!"


    "Lucky for me to survive this time!" Zhou Bao laughed. "Ten people at Level Eight, not to mention that they had a Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "You could survive, not just for luck, but for your unexpected strength. At present, I''m afraid that even I am no match for you!"


    "Oh, Chief Wang, come on!" Zhou Bao quickly waved his hand and continued, "You are chief of Tian Long Taoism, while I''m just a disciple of its affiliated influence. I dare not be compared with you!"


    "Well, stop fooling around. While I''m not clear about your strength now, it''s a good thing!" Wang She shook his head and said, "This matter, you can handle it at your will. Whenever you need help, you can come to me. As for my trusted subordinates, order them as you like. I have made the issue clear to them and they will absolutely obey your orders."


    "Well, Chief Wang, thank you. If you don''t say that, I will be too embarrassed to command your subordinates!"


    Wang She laughed and pointed his finger at Zhou Bao without saying a word. Eventually, he shook his head and walked away.


    ¡­


    ...


    "What are you going to do?" After Wang She walked away, Green Spirit jumped out. "Now that you know who wants to deal with you, what will you do next?"


    "Whatever. This time, they failed because they didn''t understand me or have my number. They hurried to deal with me without any clue of my bluff. Similarly, I don''t understand them either. Well, I had never thought that the royalty of Jin would ask ten experts at Level Eight with one fairy weapon to fight against me. If they can get one fairy weapon out, they can get two, three, four or even more. Nowadays, Jin is a rich dynasty among the four seas, and the power of its bluff is still a mystery. Those who had come after me are just two or three small potatoes, while there is a tiger standing behind their back, but it is an invisible tiger. I''m not such a stupid person to directly battle them!"


    "What do you mean?"


    "Just wait and see. I wonder what our majesty will do next. I now have a fairy weapon in my hand, which makes me itch for a fight!"


    "You don''t have the ability to use that weapon now. It''s not a celestial device like Golden Flame Mirror or Invisible Dragon Rod, but a pure Fairy Weapon of the Way of Killing at Heavenly Level. If your body can''t bear its killing intent, you will die in a nasty way. Of course, your body is not currently capable of tolerating its intent!"


    "If even I can''t bear it, how did that guy control it?"


    "He adopted a wrong method, so he didn''t have a real mastery of the fairy weapon. Otherwise, you would have been dead long before!" Green Spirit said coldly, "His method is not suitable for you, and it will be very troublesome if you refine the fairy weapon with that approach!"


    "You mean I''d better not refine it right now?"


    "Before you achieve the Individual Immortal Karma Rank, not refining it is better!"


    "No refining, huh, but it''s so tempting to have a try!" Zhou Bao laughed.


    "Boy, be patient, you are still young, way too young. The road ahead of you is very long, along with plenty of good and rare things. A piece of Heavenly Fairy Weapon is indeed quite rare and important. For that reason, you should think twice before you act. Otherwise, you will lose more than you''ve gained!"


    Hearing this, Zhou Bao sighed. "Well, I''ll listen to you this time. By the way, do you know the so-called orthodox strength?"


    "Oh, I don''t know. In my era, the so-called right ways and evil ways are completely different from those of the present. Techniques are totally different as well. At that time, both right and evil ways were domineering and powerful. Not like now, all those ways take actions in secret and I don''t know what they are afraid of!"


    "What are they afraid of? They are afraid of being killed once they stand out!" Zhou Bao sneered. "In these years, it''s not a good thing to stand out like me!"


    "Now you have to be the first bird that stands out!" Green Spirit laughed.


    "I have been in great trouble since I became that kind of bird. After that case, I have already turned into a master in coming forward. When the ten guys fought against me, I could vaguely feel a person''s spirit. His ability to hide his tracks is very strong, which is almost above my Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. If it was not for his shock that prevented him from holding his spirit while I was killing those experts, I wouldn''t have noticed his presence!"


    "Now that you noticed his existence, why don''t you detain him?"


    "I said that I was sick of being a little bird that came forward and now I want to be a prestigious master who stands out. The man hidden in the dark didn''t reveal any killing intent, so he shouldn''t be in cohoots with those ten guys, but should belong to another influence. Perhaps the few surviving persons will keep their mouths zipped, but this guy won''t and will at least leak this matter to the other influences. I believe I will live a peaceful life for some time!"


    "That''s exactly what you want. In these few days, you''d better get a hang of Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds from meditation. Boy, I don''t know what kind of fate you have. It is inexplicable that you have learned so many eccentric things!"


    "Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds is indeed powerful, but it is not suitable for my approach. Nor is the 72 Style Earthly Fiends Cudgel Techniques that you taught me. My approach is this!" As he spoke, he lifted up his fists and clenched them tightly, and then, horrible and enormous Qi was released from his body. "What I believe in most are my own fists."


    "Fists!" Green Spirit said with a faint smile, "Yes, your biggest advantage is your fists. I believe, in this battle, you also noticed the change in your fist intent after Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints was refined. Their power is at least 10 times stronger than before!"


    "So I need to make my fists more powerful, rather than understand the so-called Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds," Zhou Bao said.


    "You shouldn''t say that!" Green Spirit continued with a smile, "I have noticed that your fist intent is too powerful, even more powerful than that of the great emperors in antiquity times, who already had the most unfathomable cultivation and was specialized in punching skills. For the same reason, it''s impossible for you to reach such an Advanced Level in such a short time. However, Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds is different, which is an unfathomable skill. Though I don''t know who created it, I can deduce that, if you can comprehend Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds, you will be able to figure out the natural Divine Sense of these nine divine birds, which is greatly beneficial to you, like the Great Fusion Technic of Evil Fire Kylin!"


    "How could this happen? Why didn''t I know of it before?"


    "Of course you don''t know. If I am not mistaken, the Great Fusion Technic should also originate from those necromancers. It''s honestly much easier to study the Divine Sense of natural evil and divine beasts than skills of gods and devils in primitive times!"


    "Necromancers again. These guys are annoying!" Zhou Bao said with a wry smile, "What is the Divine Sense?"


    "I have no idea about that. These nine kinds of divine birds who owns various vagarious Divine Senses have been world-famous since antiquity times, but I believe what you finally comprehend should be the strongest Divine Sense in each bird, given the consistent style of those necromancers!"


    "So I actually have to figure out the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds!"


    "This is only my advice!" Green Spirit smiled and then crept into the green lamp.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    Great Jin, Western Capital!


    In the ancient and stately Royal Capital, everyone was solemn and respectful. Eunuchs, maids and all the other servants were methodically completing the tasks that had remained unchanged for thousands of years. Like a machine that would never rust or stop running, they were always working precisely and punctually, because in this place, they and even their entire clan might be beheaded if they ever made a small mistake.


    Therefore, everyone here was cautious and meticulous for fear that they and their family would be killed because their negligence and carelessness annoyed the lord of all the world who lived in the center of the Royal Capital.


    Hence, the atmosphere and spirits in the Royal Capital always changed along with the mood of that lord of all the world.


    Today, the whole Royal Capital was in an atmosphere of upset and oppression.


    Because the lord of all the world felt depressed.


    Little Button, a eunuch of Princes'' Study, had some power in the palace, so he usually held his head high before other eunuchs and sometimes flirted with beautiful maids. However today, he trotted, and with a straight face, quickly passed by those good-looking maids without lifting his eyes.


    His behavior shocked those eunuchs and maids who were familiar with him.


    "Ouch!"


    Little Button who had been hurriedly walking forward with a pot in hand, ran into something and then fell to the ground. The water in the pot spilled all over the place.


    "Who is it? Don''t you walk with your eyes open? Haven''t you seen¡ª"


    The sound abruptly stopped, as if a duck who had been making strange shrieks was suddenly held by the throat.


    What knocked him down was a man in black¡ªblack like iron¡ªexuding a cold spirit. Little Button looked at the man, shocked, with his brain in a blank.


    This man, whom he had never seen in the imperial palace, should neither be a palace guard nor a secret guard, that could be judged from his attire. Being a eunuch serving in the Princes'' Study, he knew some secrets of the court. However, he never felt complacent for knowing those secrets. In many cases, he even felt scared because people of his status should not know these things.


    Now, the man in front of him looked like a secret guard at whom he had once glimpsed, but he was a little different from those secret guards with cold spirit, because his bleak spirit spread everywhere as if he was an iceberg.


    Just now, he was in a bad mood, too frightened to notice the coldness. Now he came to himself and realized that he had already shivered with cold.


    This black-clothed man was tall, in a stark contrast to his thinness and smallness.


    Hearing the abuse of Little Button, he looked down and said, "You are a eunuch of this palace?"


    "Yes, yes!" Little Button said wryly, with his tooth roots slightly sour.


    "So, do you know how to go to the Princes'' Study?" The black-clothed man asked, his voice as unemotional as his expression.


    "The-the Princes'' Study?" Little Button froze for a while and then woke up to reality. Turning around, he shockingly found that in addition to him, other people were also here¡ªeunuchs, maids and Palace Guards of the palace¡ªbut they were all lying on the floor, unconscious.


    "Tell me, where is the Princes'' Study?"


    "In... assassin!"


    Shortly after Little Button said the word "in", he shouted the word "assassin" at the top of his voice. The shout was perhaps the loudest sound that he had ever made in his life and could be heard in the distance. The black-clothed man froze for a while and looked at the thin eunuch in astonishment. He did not expect that this small guy could make such a loud sound.

 Chapter 317: Marriage Granting

    Chapter 317: Marriage Granting


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Little Button''s voice was loud and far-reaching. Though he was knocked out by the black-clothed man in no time, people across several yards could hear him clearly. Soon, the entire imperial city was in unrest.


    Slightly wrinkled, the black-clothed man glanced at him and murmured, "How troublesome!" Before he flew off like a gust of wind. After several breaths, a group of Palace Guards rushed over, only to find dead bodies all over, causing a flurry of activity.


    At this time, the black-clothed man had already snuck to the Princes'' Study.


    "The Royal Capital is truly a messy place to find someone!" Without scruples, the black-clothed man walked straight inside the Princes'' Study.


    "Who?"


    "Stop!"


    "Hurry, stop the assassin!"


    ¡­


    ...


    The guards, eunuchs and maids in charge of the Princes'' Study were appalled and alerted by the sudden stranger. What''s more, inside the room was some vestiges of a powerful spirit, confronting the black-clothed man in the dark.


    "Stand down!" said Yan Yuntian in a deep voice, who was the Jin Emperor. He came to the doorway and waved his hands, giving the others the sign to be not nervous.


    The guards all stood down, as Yan Yuntian''s face with calm and warning.


    "Royal Capitals resembled each other. Compared with the Capital City back then, my West Capital was nothing marvelous!"


    Now, they were alone. Yan Yuntian smiled at the black-clothed man and said, "Was it you who made all that noise?"


    "Your men are all fuss-makers!"


    "My apologies. I could''ve come to meet you and saved you all the trouble." said Yan Yuntian smiling. He leaned aside, let the black-clothed man in and closed the door. In the meantime, the hidden powerful spirit nearby went away in a flash as if nothing had ever happened.


    "It was not appropriate for an Emperor to find me. You are the ruler of the future world. So here, I come!"


    "Brother Yu, you are too modest!" replied Yan Yuntian.


    "Well, let''s cut the big talk! What brought you here in such a hurry?" asked the black-clothed man called Brother Yu of Yan Yuntian, waving his hands.


    "The same old thing! Zhou Bao''s strength is far beyond our thinking" said Yan Yuntian smiling bitterly.


    "Has your plan failed? You told me that he was only a Level Seven expert." replied the black-clothed man with a hint of surprise. "Assuming that he had entered Level Eight with the support of a Pure Yang Celestial Device. It was still difficult for him to flee away from the Sumeru Sword Formation. If it had been the truth that he escaped, he would have exceeded Level Nine!"


    "He escaped, took away the Pure Yang Celestial Device, and killed four experts of Level Eight!"


    "That is impossible!" said the black-clothed man unbelievably, standing up fiercely. An idea struck him for a second and he wondered whether Yan Yuntian was so envious of the Celestial Device that he squirreled it away and claimed he lost the fight?


    After a second thought, he denied the possibility. A piece of Pure Yand celestial device is not attractive enough for a man aspiring for the world to commit such wrongdoing. However, it was nothing minor that the failed operation with the loss of four experts of Level Eight and the Celestial Device.


    The Pure Yang Celestial Device was listed as a strategic resource for even the great power behind him. Bringing out Red Gourd this time was meant to take Zhou Bao out of the big picture. For he was an unstable pawn who was high-likely to infringe on their own interests. Unexpectedly, they paid a double penalty.


    "I couldn''t believe that they lost the battle despite having ten experts of Level Eight supported by a Pure Yang Celestial Device and the Sumeru Sword Formation."


    "Based on their information, Zhou Bao was at least an expert at the peak of Level Nine. It was not exaggerated to say that he has reached Mysterious Realm."


    "Really? You can not be serious. It is horrifying to imagine his strength entering in Mysterious Realm under the age of 20."


    After hearing Yan Yuntian, the black-clothed man said with slight disdain, "If his power reached Mysterious Realm, how could our people come back alive with messages? They would have been long dead." He continued after a pause, "He did inflict heavy losses on us, and it could be assumed that he has been at the upper level, even the top of Level Nine. However, your information is not accurate!"


    Being stricken to a raw nerve somehow, Yan Yuntian replied, "Yeah, I never expected that his strength would be so formidable. How about you talking with the rest of our people? Based on your mature experience and details during the fight, we could have a valid evaluation of Zhou Bao? I believe that it would give us a better chance to win next time!"


    The black-clothed man sneered, took a glance at Yan Yuntian and said, "You wish there was even a next time. Upon hearing of your failure, I came here in person trying to get the bottom of the fight. Unexpectedly, a huge defeat was all I realized. You had to understand that the loss of either a Level Eight expert or a piece of Pure Yang Celestial Device was significant to anyone. Let alone to mention that you have lost the four of them and the Celestial Device at once. Though you stood in a unique position, the seniors would not allow for more of your messes. Besides, I had to warn you that it was a total accident that you swallowed Northern Yuan in such a short time. It was beyond everyone''s thinking. However, the fact had proved itself that owning it by name was not equal to full control of it. Incapability of dealing with the north would only lead to disasters. Should it happen, the north would only be your weak spot instead of strength."


    Yan Yuntian said, "I am totally aware of that, so I am more determined to take the north under my full control. I admitted that it was my fault to grant Zhou Bao a fief in north, but I will correct it!"


    "You have to be more decisive!" Shaking his head, the black-clothed man continued, "You should know that you were just gaining some advantages, which is not enough to overwhelm the two guys. What''s more, witnessing your strength, the two of them had shown the sign of alliances. When it happens, the new ally would turn your edges to ashes with their highly complementary resources. Your loss this time, the death of four Level Eight experts and the loss of a celestial device combined, has already made it easier to fan the flames to weaken you. Therefore, it is impossible for you to make a big move again by pooling all the resources."


    "But, what Zhou Bao stands for is too powerful. In addition, he has the secret support of Tian Long Taoism. He has a chance to develop himself and go beyond the reach of anyone in the north!"


    "These are all minor details. Even if he became capable of taking the northwest region, he would not have done it in one or two days. By then, your plan could have worked already. Then his occupation of the north would have meant nothing to you."


    "I get your point, but..."


    Yan Yuntian flashed a glimmer of anger, slapped fiercely on the low tea table in front of him and said, "I have my resentment. That young boy was just so arrogant in all his doing, showing the minimal amount of awe to our royal family!"


    "That''s your own business. You''re supposed to figure it out! You had been weakened by the huge defeat. You''d better listen to me and focus on how to handle the pressure from the two seniors. You should consider the weight on each end of the scale." said the black-clothed man shaking his head again.


    "I will get it done! " said Yan Yuntian seriously, with his clenched fist loosened. "I should have been more cautious. I will deal with the rest. But, in terms of the Pure Yang Celestial Device..."


    "You don''t have to worry about it. Although it was lost during the fight, it was lost in their useless hands. I would speak for you in this aspect. But for the rest, you must come by by yourself!"


    "I understand. Thank you, Brother Yu!"


    "You don''t have to. We are in the same boat. What is good for you, is also good for me, and vise versa. The stake we placed on you guaranteed that you won''t lose severely. Though you took a fall this time, there was nothing disastrous. I would speak for you for what I see fit. But, you ought to stabilize the situation as soon as possible and make no more incidents feeding others'' fussy mouths. You hear me?" said the black-clothed man, waving his hands.


    Yan Yuntian nodded innocuously and replied, "I understand. I will listen to you and trouble you no more!"


    The black-clothed man nodded and said, "Good for you. Now get the rest experts and I will leave with them!"


    The emperor nodded and knocked the table a few times. Suddenly, several black shades came out, waiting for instructions.


    "Go and get the great assassins here!"


    They nodded and disappeared like the wind. After several breaths, the rest of the living experts of Level Eight involved in the fight against Zhou Bao were all brought there. All of them except the man who could shuttle through the void. The black-clothed man''s expression changed a little after brief talks with the experts. Then, they all left the imperial palace, leaving no words behind.


    Being alone in the Princes'' Study, Yan Yuntian frowned and sank into deep thought.


    ...


    ¡­


    "Holy crap, a royal granting marriage? The emperor wanted to marry his daughter to me?" asked Zhou Bao abruptly. He was staring at the envoy for the imperial edict announcement with strange looks in his eyes.


    The young man who came to announce the royal edict was fine-looking with a Level Five strength, who could be easily categorized as a young hero. He was chosen by the emperor for a reason. The most significant reason was being qualified to arrive at Zhou Bao''s fief within ten days from Western Capital. it suggested that his or her strength had to be above Level Five or even Level Six.


    Strictly speaking, Zhou Bao''s words were pretty rude. But, the young man seemingly ignored the obvious disrespect and smiled back. He added, "Congratulations on being the emperor''s son-in-law!"


    Zhou Bao squeezed his eyes and sized up the young man named Chi Hengxing. He was handsome and only in his early twenties, three to four years older than Zhou Bao. You would also find incomparable agility and craftiness in his eyes. He could easily be spotted as a resourceful man judging from his appearance and outfit.


    "It''s unnecessary. It is about time for me to get married!" said Zhou Bao with a few nods. Since he knew that it was Yan Yuntian who was behind the murder plot, Zhou Bao was disgusted by him and his doings in every possible way. He desired to wreck them all. Zhou Bao never expected the next move of the emperor would be granting a royal marriage for him after the violent waterloo.


    "Does Yan Yuntian already know that I was aware that it was him who behind the scene?" Zhou Bao had doubts in his head. "It was possible. He knew Wang She was with me. The real end of a granting marriage may fool me but not Wang She. The stupid marriage was to appease me. But, am I an easy person to satisfy?" "He would be dumb to assume that I would marry whoever was offered t me. Yan Yunyan, though Princess Heyang is beautiful, she''s not to my liking. If the emperor really wants a relationship with me, I would fully exploit its benefits."


    Thinking of that, he could not help but tilt up the corners of his mouth. The smile chilled the young man that had come to announce the imperial edict. Bad feelings sprung up in his head.


    Not surprisingly, what Zhou Bao said next almost made him jump up.


    "I acquainted with the Princess Heyang one time. I didn''t like her, though she was a beauty. What''s more, she was too sophisticated a woman for a happy marriage. How about another princess?"


    "Another one?" Chi Hengxing said that and almost bit his tongue off. His eyes lost focus and he nearly fell onto the ground with soft limbs.


    The granting of a marriage with a royal princess by the emperor was an unprecedented fortune to anyone in the world. There was no room for rejection and everything was arranged down to the smalllest of details. Nobody would dare to be picky and discuss the terms with the emperor.


    "She was too sophisticated to be a good wife?!?"


    Those shocking words by Zhou Bao would make the princess the greatest joke of the world once it got out. No matter whether the words themselves were valid or not, everyone would view the princess as a shrew woman.


    Therefore, he didn''t know how to respond and dare not to say anything.


    "I am being honest with you. I have no feelings for Princess Heyang!" Zhou Bao twitched his mouth and added without hesitation, "So, please send my words to the emperor. I am grateful for his offer with the deeper knowledge being taken. But, granting me a royal marriage isn''t the fix for everything. However, it would be still negotiable if he is willing to marry Princess Qingyang to me!"


    Fix? Negotiable?


    Chi Hengxing wobbled a bit with confusion. But, he was a witty guy knowing his position. He was clear of what he should know or not and when he should play an idiot in certain occasions. Since the secret was shared by Zhou Bao, he only needed to be a messenger. The response of the emperor was none of his business.


    He might be punished for not completing the task this time. But it didn''t concern him.


    Strength is all it takes to gain a foothold in the world. Zhou Bao was the living proof of that, who was younger than him, and with a much lower background. Climbing all his way up from a hunter''s family, he transformed himself into a world-known martial art expert in less than a decade with incomparable potency and good luck. He became so significant that the emperor of the Jin would marry his own daughter to him for a reason. Blessed with a royal marriage, Zhou Bao was playing picky and even denouncing the princess right in front of the envoy. Zhou Bao also blatantly asked for the the most beloved daughter of the emperor, Princess Qingyang. How dare he?


    The absolute power!


    He had the absolute strength to bargain with the emperor!


    The only reason was the unparalleled strength. Being at the top of the list of the four most powerful teen experts in the world, with a nearly Level Nine power and all shocking records, he has every reason to be arrogant.


    If his strength could be anywhere near Zhou Bao''s, and with all the astonishing records of battles, he could easily act like Zhou Bao right now. Zhou Bao rejected the paramount imperial edict with a slightly abhorrent smile while sitting arrogantly in front of the envoy.


    He was not as powerful as Zhou Bao was!


    Yet, he was no rookie. His strength, though far below Zhou Bao''s, has served enough to complete the tough task. Aged 23 and with a strength of Level Five, he could be favored by the any aristocratic families compared with ordinary people. The four greatest ones aside; Zhou Bao, Li Xiu, Ji Yeyue and Yan Fei, he had no fear at all.


    "I shall faithfully send your message to the emperor, as you''ve said!"


    "Thank you!" said Zhou Bao, walking him out.


    ...


    ¡­


    Zhou Bao lifted his eyebrow as Chi Hengxing left and said, "I can''t believe that the Emperor would play such move with me. But, I really have no interest in Yan Yunyan at all!"


    "Don''t you think you were too straightforward back then and left no face to Yan Yuntian?" the voice of Wang She came from behind.


    "Like I said before, I would never be comfortable without retaliating against him. He has to pay for my anger." said Zhou Bao with a chilly smile.


    "Your anger? He has offered his daughter. How could that be any more sincere? Though the title of two princesses only differs in one character, but the status of them are sky and earth. Do you even know who is the mother of Princess Qingyang?"


    Lifting his head lightly, Zhou Bao replied, "Of course. The Empress. I knew what I was saying and I knew plenty about the Princess Qingyang."


    Wang She asked surprisingly, "You knew of her? That''s strange!"


    "Only one acquaintance. She left me with a better impression than Yan Yunyan. Princess Heyang is pretty, but I don''t like her!"


    "You have good judgement. Could anyone be good around Shui Hongyan?"


    Zhou Bao asked confusedly, "You seems to be pretty biased to Shui Hongyan. What do you know about her?"


    "She is a self-righteous woman. But so is Yan Yunyan. Your idea of trying to bottom line the Jin Emperor is excellent. We will see if he is willing to make a concession and offer Princess Qingyang." said Wang She smiling, avoiding the topic of Shui Hongyan.


    Since he did not want to talk more about the woman, Zhou Bao asked no more.


    Zhou Bao replied scornfully, "I don''t know whether he would make a concession or not, but he would definitely be pissed off and probably burn his Princes'' Study down in a fury. I wish he could piss himself off to death!"


    Wang She said, "You wish! He is a man of huge plans. He would be just fine with your provocation. You would be disappointed!"


    "Are you suggesting that he wouldn''t trade Princess Qingyang for Princess Heyang after the madness?"


    "Why should he? You both knew that he only wanted to appease you by granting marriage. Now, you had make it clear that you would not be in a straight and narrow way even after a royal marriage. Therefore, why should he give you another daughter?" explained Wang She. "Unless you would push him further. You have to force him to believe that there would be worse consequences if he refused to do so!"


    "What do you mean?"


    "You have to fight for yourself with actions to meet your end. Waiting is useless. Additionally, Yan Yuntian is not a kind person. You have to work harder and put more pressure on him if you really want Princess Qingyang. Only by doing that, can you get what you want!"


    "It seems that you''ve got some good ideas!"


    "Just a piece of advice!"

 Chapter 318: Soul Cutting, Fighting For Justice

    Chapter 318: Soul Cutting, Fighting For Justice


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Suggestion? What kind of suggestion?" Zhou Bao was a little surprised while glancing at Wang She. There was a sense of distrust in his eyes. Subconsciously, he felt that Wang She would probably offer him a lousy idea which might damage his interest, so he had better be cautious.


    "Stop looking at me like that. You''re very strong. It''s okay if you cause some trouble. Besides, you''re intelligent and thoughtful. You can kill two birds with one stone."


    "What do you want me to do?" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows and looked at Wang She. He still did not trust him.


    "Your strength is quite powerful, but the result of this battle will never be circulated. And if not, then people will think that your cultivation is at Level Seven and your combat capability is at the peak of Level Eight. And with this kind of power at your age, it will make a sensation in the entire world. It qualifies you to marry the emperor''s favorite daughter, but that''s all, and you can''t even be sure about that. What''s more, you''ve humiliated Jin Emperor Yan Yuntian. Given his personality, he won''t agree with you marrying his daughter unless you give him some pressure," Wang She said confidently.


    "Well, tell me, who provoked you?" Zhou Bao asked while laughing.


    Wang She''s face flushed with awkwardness. He said, "It can''t be considered a provocation. It''s just that we don''t see eye to eye. Mingyi School will be the best target for you to cause trouble."


    Zhou Bao asked, "You seem to have many grievances against the school, but why do you want to destroy it?"


    "Fighting against the school isn''t only my problem, but also yours, because both Mingyi School and Yan Yuntian are one group who represent the orthodox power. As far as I know, the school has expended many efforts to destroy the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes in the past!"


    Zhou Bao reacted very seriously. His eyes narrowed as he said, "What do you mean? Am I the one who must cause trouble for the school?"


    "Haha. That depends, but I think something must be prepared. Doing it earlier can weaken their strength, and you''ll benefit from it. You already possess the combat capability of the Mysterious Realm at the age of 17, but you should know that cultivation and combat capability are different and cannot be compared. However, you''re destined to become an immortal in the future. At that time, do you think you can conceal your Fiery Eyes? Once they know that you possess the Fiery Eyes and have become an immortal at such a young age, they won''t let you go. Now, you should make plans and be well-prepared in order to save yourself some room to escape instead of fighting against them later. Otherwise, you will only have two choices by then. One is to be killed by them and the other is to stand on the same side as the Immortal Palace. I believe that you won''t want either of these two choices!"


    "Become an immortal? What do you mean?" Zhou Bao heard those words for the first time and was somewhat curious.


    Wang She said, "When your cultivation breaks through Level Nine and enters the Mysterious Realm, you can achieve the Individual Immortal Karma Rank and become an immortal!" He added, "That phase is my lifelong pursuit!"


    "The Individual Immortal Karma Rank!"


    Zhou Bao had heard about it from Green Spirit. However, he knew nothing about becoming an immortal.


    "That''s interesting! Can obtaining the Individual Immortal Karma Rank make a person become an immortal? We must get the Genuine Immortal Karma Rank at that time, or else we can''t be listed."


    "Cannot be listed as an immortal?" Zhou Bao''s expression slightly changed. However, since Wang She was right in front of him, it was inconvenient for him to communicate with Green Spirit. Thus, he forced himself to smile and said, "Breaking through to the Mysterious Realm is a thing for the future. We''d better talk about what I should do right now!"


    "Then do me a favor!" Wang She smiled and relaxed when he saw Zhou Bao''s expression had softened. "I want to do something, but Mingyi School will definitely stop me by using many people. Besides, I can''t get any assistance from Tian Long Taoism. Originally, I intended to get Wu Shuang and Lei to help me in private. However, since you''re so powerful, I don''t need to bother them anymore!"


    "Be specific!"


    "I''ll go and get a corpse there in 10 days. I need you to challenge the experts on that day and distract their attention from me!"


    "Why do you want to get a corpse there?" Zhou Bao blinked as he looked at Wang She. He added, "It won''t take long!"


    "Mingyi School is one of the Three Great Sects in the Great Jin and has numerous experts. Moreover, guarded by several senior and sophisticated experts, the corpse is placed in an important place. If you don''t display your true strength to draw them out, I''ll be really inconvenienced!"


    "Could it be that you''re going to dig up the ancestral graves of that school?"


    "The school has no ancestral graves. It only has mausoleums of the sages of every generation."


    "But digging up their ancestral graves is still equal to it!" Zhou Bao exclaimed.


    Wang She was helpless. He said, "Well, sort of!"


    "The school will have a lot of animosity toward me if I help you!"


    "The animosity between you and the school can''t be solved if you still have your eyes. Your action to cause it trouble is the preparation for the future. What''s more, you have a justified reason to cause trouble to it!"


    "And what''s the reason?"


    "Obviously, it''s about your marriage. You need to put some pressure on Yan Yuntian. More importantly, there must be people from the school among the 10 who besieged you. I''ll investigate their identities for you. Then you will have enough reason to attack."


    "How will you investigate?"


    "I have my ways. You only need to do me that favor!"


    "If there are people from the school who really are involved in that case, I won''t mind making trouble for it!"


    "Within three days or, at most, five days, I''ll get the evidence into your hands," said the overjoyed Wang She.


    ¡­


    Swoosh, Swoosh, Swoosh!


    Wheeze, Wheeze, Wheeze!


    Zhou Bao sat with legs crossed on the bed. He put his hands on his knees as some light smoke surrounded him.


    The room was small. There was nothing strange inside except the bed that he sat on. Nevertheless, if you were to put a flat iron griddle in the black fog, you would be surprised to find that it would melt like a candle.


    Inside the black smoke was a sinister and horrible monster. It wandered around in the fog. Suddenly, Zhou Bao turned his hands over and five strands of scarlet Qi shot out from the five fingers of his left hand. The Qi hovered around the black fog and they fused together instantly, transforming into a Nine-headed Bird!


    After the Nine-headed Bird had taken shape, Zhou Bao suddenly opened his eyes and shot two red rays inside its head. Then, some changes began to take place in the newly-formed monster. Scarlet Qi was surging and flashes of red and flickering lightning were faintly visible in the Qi. Finally, all the Qi unified and transformed into an abstruse Chinese character that had many strokes. It gave people a sense of desolation and simplicity but it looked kind of strange. If it was observed carefully, it could be found that it was surrounded by an obscure black flow, which was very unpleasant to the eye.


    "Whir!"


    Zhou Bao felt deeply relieved when the character came into being. He waved his hands, only to see that the character collapsed suddenly. It turned into a red vortex and entered the place between his eyebrows.


    "That''s good! Pretty good! I didn''t expect that you could practice the turtledove''s Divine Sense named Soul Cutting so quickly. However, I''m not that surprised. You have the Heavenly Magic Eyes. You''re destined to infuse your special eyes into the turtledove''s claw, one of the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds, and practice Soul Cutting successfully. Haha!"


    Green Spirit showed up and laughed loudly when he saw that the black vortex had entered Zhou Bao''s eyebrows.


    "The Soul Cutting Skill is weird. Although I haven''t used it to fight against my opponents, I can feel its place of horror. If a Level Eight or Level Nine expert is hit by it, his spirit will be greatly damaged. Moreover, he''ll lose combat capability and his spirit can even be destroyed, leaving him an empty corpse. It''s so horrifying!" Zhou Bao inhaled the black fog around him into his body and his countenance became solemn. "This Divine Sense is very sinister. If I use it too often, something bad might happen."


    "Hey, kid. Don''t worry. It indeed is insidious, but it''s not easy for you to practice it to perfection. It''s especially practiced to harm the primordial spirit. Ordinary people, especially those below the Mysterious Realm, can only comprehend the divine thoughts. The spirit and body are closely connected. Under the obstruction of the body, the power of the Soul Cutting Skill will be weakened greatly. At least it can injure others'' spirits and let them lose combat capability temporarily. It won''t kill them. You can display its true power only if you have become an immortal. Its real effect can be manifested only when everyone attacks each other with Dharma power. Therefore, you don''t need to be anxious!"


    "Is that true?"


    "Of course it''s true. Do you think that the human body is so vulnerable that our spirit can be attacked casually?" Green Spirit laughed. "For you, the Soul-cutting Skill is quite powerful. Almost every Level Eight and Level Nine expert can feel the divine thoughts. However, their divine thoughts are too weak to protect themselves. If you use the Soul Cutting Skill to attack them, although it may not dissipate their spirit, it can severely injure their spirit and suppress their newly-born divine thoughts. This is the best application of the Soul-cutting Skill!"


    "Sounds good!" Zhou Bao was excited after he heard its magical effects from Green Spirit. He added, "That''s right. I forgot to ask you about one thing earlier. What is Divine Sense? It seems to be different from special techniques and secret skills!"


    "Yeah, they''re different. Unlike Divine Sense, special techniques and secret skills are the application methods of the essence of the world and one''s own pneuma. You may notice that Divine Sense doesn''t rely on the essence of the world or one''s Real Essence Internal Qi. It refers to the enlightenment of the Dharma in the world. You can directly use the Law of Heaven and Earth to get the effect you want if you have comprehended it thoroughly. The big talisman you saw just now is the application of the Law of Heaven and Earth. You can condense a big talisman when you comprehend a kind of Dharma in the world to a certain degree. At that time, you can do things that are beyond the imagination of ordinary people!" Green Spirit then drifted toward Zhou Bao. "Your Great Fusion Technique is the same. I believe you have noticed that a talisman is concealed in your Gang Qi when you are using it."


    "That''s right. I discovered that I trigger the power of this talisman every time I use the Great Fusion Technique. But I have no enlightenment of Dharma, so how am I able to use it?"


    "Application and enlightenment are two concepts that are totally different. You can apply a skill without comprehending it. Take the Celestial Device for example; most people don''t know how to create it, but they know how to use it. The reasons are the same." Green Spirit continued, "You just need to know how to use Divine Sense. As for comprehending it, you can give it a try when your cultivation reaches the phase of Human Immortal."


    "Human Immortal?" Zhou Bao blinked his eyes and laughed awkwardly. It was too soon to think about that.


    "The Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds can evolve into nine Divine Senses. I''ve just practiced one of them. There are eight left. Perhaps..."


    "Don''t even think about it! You can practice the Soul Cutting Skill successfully just because of your Heavenly Magic Eyes. Otherwise, you wouldn''t be able to succeed in 30 or even 50 years!"


    "Then why do you let me do it?"


    "Compared to the trouble that your strange fist intent brought, 30 or 50 years is nothing!" Green Spirit said.


    Zhou Bao also got a headache when he thought about the Universe Fist Intent that he practiced.


    Now, his cultivation had reached a state that was beyond his imagination and his fist intent became much more powerful as well. The power his fists could display now was way stronger than his two Big Iron Hammers. However, at the same time, he could not control the enormous fist intent easily anymore. He understood that it was because his cultivation had increased too fast compared to his perception and comprehension of the punching skill. The only thing he could do was practice his dull punching skill again and again. In this way, he hoped that he could strengthen his perception of the punching skill and control his fist intent.


    Moreover, even if he had the perception of the punching skill and could control his fist intent, it would not last long because his fist intent expanded without limitation. Though it was a simulation of the universe, it still was a universe. The universe was infinite, and so was his fist intent. He had to comprehend and practice it over and over. Only in this way could he get his punching skill to keep pace with the expansion speed of his fist intent and truly control his punching skill.


    "I''ve truly found big trouble for myself!" Zhou Bao narrowed his eyebrows as he thought of it.


    "Doing some closed-door training is necessary, but your knowledge and future achievements will be limited if you practice it at home all your life!" Green Spirit continued, "Your cultivation and strength are quite powerful, but the cultivation of your mind can''t keep pace with your strength. It''s the same as your punching skill not being able to control your fist intent. What you need to do is temper yourself in the secular world immediately rather than stay at home!"


    "I got it. Indeed, I have to go out to do something. But it will depend on Wang She''s efficiency. It''s already the third day. He said that he can find evidence for me so I can cause trouble for Mingyi School. I wonder if he''s found any yet."


    Wang She was effective. He threw a pile of portraits in front of Zhou Bao the next day.


    "Take a look. Did any of them give you trouble on that day?"


    Zhou Bao unfolded the portraits. His expression changed because there were two Level Eight experts who had besieged him among the eight portraits.


    "Who are they?"


    "They are the eight First Elders of Mingyi School!" Wang She smiled as he saw Zhou Bao''s expression. He added, "It has a total of eight First Elders. Six of them are Level Eight experts while the two are Level Nine experts. These are their portraits!"


    "These portraits are quite vivid!" Zhou Bao''s mouth twitched. He took out two of them and said, "Are they truly Elders of Mingyi School? Don''t lie to me!"


    "Haha! Take the two portraits to Mingyi School and you''ll know for sure!" Wang She laughed insidiously. He added, "The school claims itself to be prestigious and upright. They will surely confess everything when they see these portraits. As long as they admit it, you''ll have a reason to make trouble!"


    "Humph, I''ll surely kick up a fuss if they were the ones that besieged me!" A chilling light flashed through Zhou Bao''s eyes. He continued, "I''m not willing to swallow my grievances!"


    He was furious. His anger rushed to his forehead from his Dantian as he thought of those experts who had besieged him.


    No matter what purpose Wang She had, the two people in the portraits had besieged him. He had never seen them before and they had no enmity toward each other. However, they had tried to kill him in such a way. At last, he knew who they were. If he did not take revenge and regain his reputation, the anger in his heart would control him. And if the madness stayed for too long, his heart would be defective and his future practice would be impeded. Therefore, he had to take revenge personally.


    "It seems that I must help you this time!"


    "Haha. The only explanation is that I''m fortunate, but the school isn''t." Wang She smiled. A sharp Qi Power appeared deep in his eyes. He added, "Junior Leopard, I''m ready to make Mingyi School suffer this time!"


    "You can do whatever you like, that''s your business. The thing that I want to do is simple. I just want to nab those two guys!"


    "What will you do after that?"


    "I''ll kill them of course. Haven''t you told me to weaken their strength? It''s a good opportunity for that. And aside from them, I might kill other Mingyi School Elders."


    "It seems that you''re quite confident."


    "Of course I''m confident!" Zhou Bao replied. He glanced at Wang She and added, "I know that you have some cards up your sleeve. But Chief Wang, I can kill you if we fight each other. Believe it or not!"


    "Really?" Wang She''s pupils shrunk and a cold spirit emitted from his body. He stared at Zhou Bao and suddenly began to laugh.


    "Hahaha. Fine, that''s pretty good! It''s good to have confidence. However, it''s better to have the corresponding strength. Boy, I wholeheartedly hope that you can become an immortal quickly!"


    Wang She left while laughing.


    "Boy, you''re provoking him purposely!"


    "I''m just testing him!" Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes. "He knows most of my secrets. Although he has no evil intention toward me, I''d better be careful and guard myself. Hence, I warned him that he''d better think twice if he intends to take advantage of me, lest I''ll be harmed by him."


    "He should have no evil intention toward you!" Green Spirit said. "You''re destined to fight against his enemies because of your Fiery Eyes. The more powerful you are, the happier he is. I think that is the reason why he has spared every effort to help you. Some animosities are acquired but some are destined. Like you and his enemies, you''re destined to fight each other because of your inborn Fiery Eyes. Therefore, he helps himself by helping you. It''s beneficial for him to cultivate a strong enemy for his enemies."


    "Therefore, he will not hesitate to reveal my secrets when I reach a certain phase. He can sit and acquire the benefits by letting me and his enemies fight against each other!" Zhou Bao said coldly.


    "That is his intention. But you don''t need to let his purpose be achieved so easily!" Green Spirit said. "Jin Emperor Yan Yuntian originally intended to make you his puppet. But you got out of his control before he could react. Wang She is the same as Yan Yuntian. As long as you enhance your strength quickly and control him before he begins to take advantage of you, maybe he can be your man by then."


    "Be my man?" Zhou Bao doubted and shook his head. "I don''t have that idea. My greatest wish is to practice and enhance my strength constantly rather than forming cliques and factions."


    "You''d better not. I''m afraid that your mind and practice will be influenced and linger on authority when you have acquired the benefits it has brought to you." Green Spirit said gently, "Thus, you must keep a clear mind at all times. The ways of practice are infinite. Only those who can endure loneliness can find the real Great Way!"


    "You don''t need to tell me those general principles, I''ve heard them all many times!" Zhou Bao waved his hands. He forcefully put this verbose guy into the green lamp and began to meditate.


    ...


    ¡­


    Over the next three days, he stayed at home to get familiar with the Soul Cutting Skill, to comprehend Real Essence Mystery, and to fill the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints with Internal Qi.


    The Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints was his biggest advantage. Ordinary people only had one Dantian, so the Internal Qi that they could store was limited. However, he had nine Dantians. Adding on to the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints that he had opened, he could store much more Internal Qi because the Internal Qi that one acupoint could store was several times more than one Dantian could.


    In this world, even a Level Nine expert could only have the opportunity to refine acupoints after his cultivation had broken through to the Mysterious Realm if he did not have the lucky chance like Zhou Bao did. The capacity of his Dantian would not enlarge either. If he wanted to enhance his strength, he could only work on upgrading his Internal Qi''s quality and his cultivation.


    Zhou Bao was totally different from them. He had refined nine acupoints which were equal to nine Dantians and each Dantian was several times larger than that of ordinary people. If one likened a Dantian of theirs to a pond, Zhou Bao''s Dantian and acupoint would be a gigantic lake. And these nine Dantians formed a huge Dantian that could be likened to a boundless sea. The result was that Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi was immense and thick even compared to that of experts at the peak of Level Nine or the Demi-Mysterious Realm. The quantity of his Internal Qi was much greater compared to others and could be said to be infinite. Besides that, because of the Demonic Fire of the Dragon Chimera, the quality of his Internal Qi was equal to Real Essence Energy. Therefore, though his cultivation and body were at Level Eight, his real combat capability was equal to that of experts in the Mysterious Realm. Frankly speaking, he was a freak.


    Of course, he could not be called an immortal because although the power of his Demonic Fire Internal Qi was equal to that of Real Essence, it was not real Real Essence after all. His Internal Qi could not display the superb applications of Real Essence yet.


    Therefore, he could not be called an Individual Immortal of the Mysterious Realm now.


    Taking a lot of time and energy to fill it with the gigantic acupoints was the consequence that his profound and thick Internal Qi brought. Although these nine acupoints accelerated his recovery speed, it still took him three days to fill all of it.


    Time elapsed quickly when he practiced hard. Three days passed by in just a moment. Today was the sixth day and, in four days, it would be time to set out to help Wang She.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    The General Yard of Mingyi School was located in Western Capital. However, all the people knew that quiet and poetic small yard merely was a branch location. It received ordinary guests, honored guests, and admirers. The real General Yard of Mingyi School was located in a suburb of Western Capital. It was a giant building complex which was equal to a small city. It was called Mingyi Lane.


    Although it was not that prosperous compared to Western Capital, it did not pale in comparison to other large cities around the world.


    Of course, as the General Yard of Mingyi School and the headquarters of the leader of upright people, Mingyi Lane had its own characteristics. It had no brothel.


    Mingyi School was one of the top schools in the martial arts world. It had numerous experts and emphasized literacy as well. There were countless bookstores on the streets. The smell of ink floated in the air. Even the peddlers who sold wonton on the road would say some famous sayings when they were bargaining with you. They might discuss literature with you and treat you with free wonton when they were happy.


    There were few citizens there. Most of them were nominal disciples or people who were closely related to the disciples of the school. Only these people could live on Mingyi Lane.


    Though citizens there were few, the tourists were innumerable. Among these tourists, there were martial arts practitioners and many scholars. Aside from the strong fighters, Mingyi School had knowledgeable scripture masters as well. These scripture masters and philosophy masters always went to some academies on Mingyi Lane to teach lessons. Therefore, the scholars outnumbered the martial arts practitioners on Mingyi Lane because not every martial arts practitioner could have the chance to be a disciple of the school. However, every scholar could listen to the lessons of true knowledgeable masters if they patiently waited on Mingyi Lane for about half a month. Hence, Mingyi Lane was more attractive to scholars than martial arts practitioners.


    Scholars belonged to a special group in this world. They might have had no strength, but they were the ones in power. In the authority system of the world, scholars possessed great power, which permeated every aspect and every corner. Their power was much greater than the practitioners''. Therefore, many times practitioners needed to behave according to the attitude of the scholars. However, the most powerful practitioner was able to control the greatest power. When one''s cultivation broke through to Level Seven, he could disdain most of the world''s laws and make the scholars conduct themselves according to his attitude. But at the bottom, how many people could reach Level Seven among those innumerable people?


    Therefore, the scholars belonged to a strong group in this world. Even some well-known families and martial arts schools were afraid of these short-lived and weak scholars.


    Early in the morning, a man was slowly walking along the official road of Mingyi Lane.


    He was a 17- or 18-year-old teenager who was handsome but somewhat thin. The smile on his face was hardly visible. He was empty-handed and wore a cyan robe that was made from ordinary materials, so he looked like a poor scholar. No one knew how he had appeared on the official road leading to Mingyi Lane. But at the moment, there were few people. Hence, no one cared about him.


    The cyan-robed teen was Zhou Bao, who had hurried to Western Capital from the northwest region. Though he was strong, it still took him a great deal of time to reach here.


    "Mingyi Lane is right in front of me!"


    Looking up, he could see Mingyi Lane and the giant wall of Western Capital clearly.


    "Should I find a place to take a rest? I''ve been on the road for several days. Chi Hengxing should have arrived at Western Capital and reported my words to Yan Yuntian. I wonder what kind of expression His Majesty will have. Will he marry off Yan Fei-er to me? Will he suppress me again? However, I''ve shown such powerful strength that there should be no one to suppress me given the power of the Jin Royalty. As for the orthodox strength behind him, Wang She said that they won''t show up, what do you think?"


    "The world has changed, but I can roughly guess what orthodox strength means. Since the person who achieves the Individual Immortal Karma Rank can be an immortal in this era, the so-called orthodox strength will not exhaust much of their strength because of you!" Green Spirit kept communicating with Zhou Bao in spirit. "Boy, you must get involved in this world and experience a lot if you want to integrate into it and know its secrets. So, it''s right to come here whether they''ll show up or not. Don''t worry, your strength is sufficient to handle any risks in this world. Don''t worry about the presence of experts in the Mysterious Realm from Mingyi School. They won''t cause you trouble over trivial things!"


    Zhou Bao nodded in agreement. He was very interested in becoming an immortal. However, Green Spirit seemed to worry about it. Therefore, he never told him anything in detail about being an immortal.


    He moved another distance and Mingyi Lane was now in sight. It was the location of the General Yard of Mingyi School. Unlike Western Capital, it had no city wall.


    If anyone thought carefully, he would find that the so-called city wall was useless especially for martial arts practitioners that were above Level Seven.


    "What a strong spirit!" Zhou Bao stopped at a place that was 1,000 feet from Mingyi Lane because he felt a mighty spirit that was obscure right in front of him.


    "It''s a powerful formation!" Zhou Bao felt the psywave of Green Spirit, who was somewhat restless. "The entire Mingyi Lane is covered by a giant formation. Once it is launched, it will be extremely powerful. It''s superior to your Yin and Yang Dust Formation. However, unlike your formation, it''s complete. Therefore, it''s way powerful than your formation!"


    "Damn! What should I do?" Zhou Bao''s eyes twitched. It was evident that there were no easy things in the world. Mingyi Lane was the nest of Mingyi School. How could it not be tightly guarded?


    "Wang She wanted to get me to cause trouble in the nest of Mingyi School! Am I that stupid to listen to him? Can it be that he thought I could fight against so many experts and break the formation as I leave?" thought Zhou Bao.


    "Let me take a look!" Green Spirit turned into a cyan fox and flashed away. After a while, he came back and said, "Right. It''s a formation. Once it is launched, you''ll have no chance to escape. It''s way more powerful than the formation that we met last time. But don''t worry, they can''t launch it!"


    "Why not?"


    "Hehe. This is a great formation!" Green Spirit laughed. He continued, "There''s a giant dragon vein under Western Capital that has great fate. Once the formation is launched, it will require the essence of the world within a radius of 10,000 kilometers and the fate of this dragon vein. Even in antiquity times, such a formation was used to guard the sect. It is only unleashed to eliminate powerful enemies when the school encounters risks of destruction. But you''re coming alone to cause trouble instead of to destroy the school. So how can they launch it?"


    "Are you serious?"


    "Why would I deceive you? Once it is launched, neither of us can escape!" Green Spirit was a little bit angry as he added, "If you don''t destroy the foundation of the school and don''t take it too far, they won''t launch it!"


    "How about digging up their sages'' mausoleum? Can that be counted as destroying their foundation?" Zhou Bao asked strangely.


    "No, actually not." Green Spirit shook his head. "Wang She surely knows about the existence of the formation. He must understand that Mingyi School won''t launch it over this matter. Otherwise, how could he dare to come here and plan to steal corpses?"


    "Then I should have no more worries!" Zhou Bao stepped into the coverage of the formation. "Let me see how powerful this so-called one of the three greatest sects is!"


    "What are you going to do? Are you planning to go to Mingyi School and cause trouble directly?"


    "No, no, no. Why should I cause trouble in the General Yard of Mingyi School directly? I''m not going to dig up tombs!" Zhou Bao shook his head. "Sometimes, there is no need to do it directly!"


    "Then what will you do?"


    "Wait and see!" Zhou Bao wore a mean smile and went directly to Mingyi Lane.


    Mingyi Lane had no walls, so naturally, it had no city gate. There was only a tall archway, above which was a plaque that read "be sensible and righteous".


    This place was named Mingyi Lane because of this large archway.


    There were few soldiers guarding the archway. Thus, everyone could freely enter Mingyi Lane.


    Zhou Bao arrived there very early, few people were on the street at that time. Moreover, he dressed casually, just like a good-looking but poor scholar. Hence, few people paid attention to him. He went directly to the main street of Mingyi Lane.


    There were few pedestrians but some of the early risers had already awakened, especially businessmen. Some shops that sold breakfast were already open. A Chinese pancake store had ignited their fire to make cakes and peddlers who sold wonton began to peddle on the street.


    Zhou Bao had never been to Mingyi Lane. So on the way, he glanced around as if he was looking for something. Those who sold breakfast thought that he was going to buy food and began to greet him.


    He sat down in front of a restaurant and bought a bowl of beancurd and two fried dough sticks, eating them directly outside of the restaurant.


    That small restaurant had only one table. Though it was early, many people had already gotten up by now. Since a man occupied the table, Zhou Bao could only sit outside the restaurant. However, he did not mind it as it was good to eat while enjoying the scenery of Mingyi Lane.


    "Young Master, are you going to the capital city for the imperial examination?"


    The talkative store owner thought that he was a scholar who had come to the capital city to take the imperial examination because he looked civilized and gentle.


    "Haha. I''m not coming to take the test but to be an examiner."


    "To be an examiner?" The store owner was confounded. But before he could understand, other guests had arrived.


    "Boy, something is wrong!" Green Spirit suddenly sensed something and began to communicate with Zhou Bao in spirit.


    "Yeah, I feel it too." Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes. At the very moment, he sensed several strong spirits that had suddenly appeared on Mingyi Lane. These were special spirits of Level Seven experts who practiced Gang Qi. They did not cover their spirits at all. Zhou Bao was confused and he asked, "Are experts of Mingyi School born in this way? They''ve gotten used to the environment they''ve lived in but don''t care about whether other''s being able to bear it?"


    The spirit of a Level Seven expert was quite powerful. Ordinary people whose spiritual minds were blunt might not sense it from a distance. But if it was a Level Three practitioner whose mind had been tempered, his spiritual mind would be stronger than that of ordinary people. This kind of Junior Master could easily feel the spirit of any Level Seven expert. Moreover, the spirits of experts possessed powerful coercion. Hence, they did not need to fight but just released their spirits to completely suppress their opponents when facing masters of martial arts. Of course, Zhou Bao was an exception.


    Generally speaking, only when confronting enemies and encountering special needs would experts release their spirits lest they frighten others.


    There were many martial arts practitioners on Mingyi Lane now and most of them were Level Four or Level Five Junior Masters. All of them gathered here and were able to sense the experts'' spirits. What did these experts mean by releasing their spirits?


    Could it be that they intentionally pressured these Junior Masters to temper their minds?


    No way. Even if it were so, there was no need for about 20 experts to release their spirits all at the same time. Zhou Bao sensed it carefully and found that there were 17 strong spirits, among which two spirits were very familiar to him. They were his targets for this trip as well.


    "Humph. Wang She is right. These two guys did come from Mingyi School. I haven''t come here in vain. But I didn''t expect there to be so many experts on Mingyi Lane. It seems that I must really be cautious!"


    Zhou Bao murmured secretly. Suddenly, he heard a cry and as he looked up, he saw a pale-faced Level Four Junior Master squatting on the ground, tightly hugging his chest. It was evident that experts'' spirits had suppressed him.


    Soon afterward, this same kind of situation happened to other people surrounding him. He saw that these strong spirits had suppressed innumerable Junior Masters very clearly.


    "What happened? Does the school know that I''ve come here to cause them trouble and, thus, puts pressure on me?" He thought of another possibility.


    "No!" The spirits suddenly combined as one. It did not have the same coercion from earlier, but it became more heavy and imposing. The atmosphere of the entire Mingyi Lane changed all of a sudden. It had an imposing and boundless atmosphere similar to Western Capital.


    "Ding! Ding! Ding...!" 18 distant rings suddenly echoed above Mingyi Lane.


    Those sounds were distant and ear-pleasing.


    "Today seems to be special, otherwise, there wouldn''t be so many strange things!" Zhou Bao gently sipped a mouthful of beancurd. He glanced at the highest ground of Mingyi Lane, the Mingyi Tower, with interest. It was three to four miles away from him. He noticed that atop the tower, a scholar wearing a long robe was ringing the over-10-ton copper bell.


    "Boss, what special day is it today?" Zhou Bao asked the restaurant owner who stood at the door. As the latter looked in the direction of Mingyi School, the location of the General Yard, jealousy could be easily seen on his face.


    "Haha. You must be an outsider just arriving on Mingyi Lane. Besides that, you''re not a martial arts practitioner!"


    Zhou Bao smiled and asked, "Really? How did you figure that out?"


    "That''s easy, for today is a good day for His Excellency, the Man of Honor, Ji Zhongtang, who is becoming an Elder of Mingyi School. You would know that if you were a martial arts practitioner because the news has spread around the martial arts world. The people around here also know about it, so I guess you must be a foreign scholar!" The boss smiled.


    "Is it the Man of Honor Ji Zhongtang, the chivalrous man who killed his son and wife?" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows and asked sarcastically.


    The boss''s face became awkward and his tone became gruff. He said, "Mind your words. Master Ji is the example of our generation. You can''t slander him venomously!"


    "Am I a slanderer? That''s a joke! People in this world understand how the title of Fighting For Justice comes. I said that he killed his wife and son. What''s wrong with that?" Zhou Bao snorted. His voice was unsubdued. He even operated his Internal Qi to make his voice spread out so his words could be heard several streets away.


    The atmosphere suddenly became strange around the beancurd restaurant.


    Ji Zhongtang was a chivalrous example molded by Mingyi School. He was a famous gentleman in the world.


    The word "chivalrous" represented the standard judgment of Mingyi School toward fighters.


    Even though Ji Zhongtang was being scorned and opposed by the people because he had killed his son and wife, he had no conflict of interest with them, so they could not offend the school by gossiping about him.


    However, on such a special day, a man criticized his past in public on Mingyi Lane, the headquarters of Mingyi School. What did this mean?


    The man had spoiled the reputation of the school in broad daylight.


    How did he have the guts to behave like this?


    "It''s funny. A murderer can become an Elder of Mingyi School. It seems that being an Elder of Mingyi School is worthless!"


    Zhou Bao voiced his opinion again. This time, it was louder and more disdainful. It spread throughout Mingyi Lane, which had been busy before but became quiet all of a sudden.

 Chapter 319: Wild Defiance and Battle

    Chapter 319: Wild Defiance and Battle


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    There was silence.


    Zhou Bao''s unscrupulous voice echoed on Mingyi Lane and went out to everyone, including experts, martial arts practitioners, and ordinary people.


    He made sure that everyone could hear it, which was his purpose. His voice was being spread out by his profound Internal Qi.


    That was provocation!


    At this time, any wise man could figure out that he was here to make trouble.


    The peaceful situation did not last long. Then, an angry shout broke out from the silence.


    "Where do you come from?! Little bastard! How dare you slander Master Ji?" The man arrived together with his voice. He rushed at Zhou Bao swiftly and was about to slap him in the face.


    "Clap!" A clear sound resounded to somewhere in the distance. The man who had approached quite fast was sent back like a flying arrow.


    Zhou Bao sat still and did not move. He held a bowl of almost consumed beancurd with a slight sneer on his face.


    "Pah!" That man was a Level Five Junior Master, who rushed toward Zhou Bao but ended up falling to the ground heavily, stirring up a cloud of dust. He was strong and tall, with big eyes and thick eyebrows and he seemed very powerful.


    Obviously, that was his appearance before he had been battered and exhausted. Now, however, he looked quite awkward. Zhou Bao had slapped him without using his full strength or playing any dirty tricks, but it was powerful enough for the Junior Master. Both his blood and teeth were spat out on the ground, and half of his face was severely swelled. His manner of being a master of martial arts clearly disappeared with his Qi Power.


    "You...!"


    Since he had lost his front teeth, air leaked out from his mouth as he was talking. Then, he struggled to his knees and his eyes filled with wrath and fury as he fiercely pointed at him but did not dare to move forward.


    Zhou Bao acted so quickly that he had not been able to respond. While he was on the ground, he finally realized that he had been slapped by Zhou Bao.


    There was a big difference in their strength, and if he continued making an action, he would humiliate himself.


    Zhou Bao sat outside the restaurant as if nothing had happened. He leisurely sipped the remaining beancurd in his bowl without looking at the man.


    After that, he turned his gaze in the direction of the General Yard of Mingyi School.


    "I''m scolding Ji Zhongtang loudly. I guess the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou can''t bear it. He was a Level Eight expert decades ago. I wonder whether he has broken through to Level Nine or not!" Zhou Bao thought secretly.


    Ji Zhongtang and Lu Shaoyou were like father and son, but they were even closer. Everyone knew that. He had spoken rudely about Ji Zhongtang on Mingyi Lane. This action was a show of defiance, not only to Mingyi School, but also to Lu Shaoyou. It would not make any sense if the latter did not show up except he was not there.


    However, today was a good day for Ji Zhongtang because he was going to become an Elder of Mingyi School. Therefore, Lu Shaoyou had to be there.


    Immense Sword Qi rose from the General Yard of Mingyi School in a few breaths as expected. The sword light followed it and slashed at Zhou Bao without greeting.


    "The White Blademaster, Lu Shaoyou!"


    Zhou Bao curled his mouth. He could not help laughing when seeing the sword light and the white clothes.


    He had first learned of Lu Shaoyou because of Xue Wuya. Lu Shaoyou had pursued Xue Wuya to kill him, but as an irrelevant person, he implicated himself and suffered severely. Later on, he had several informal contacts with Lu Shaoyou when he was a Junior Master. He caused trouble for Lu Shaoyou every time, but he did those things indirectly.


    When he was a teen, among the countless experts around the world, Lu Shaoyou had given him the deepest impression, and it was a bad one. However, if not for Lu Shaoyou, he would not have been caught by Xue Wuya. Although he had received considerable benefits from Xue Wuya, he made a narrow escape and survived completely by luck. He did not want to experience that again. Therefore, he did not appreciate Lu Shaoyou at all.


    Of course, he did not hate Lu Shaoyou. Aside from being too hypocritical, Lu Shaoyou did not have anything to make him feel sick about.


    He inevitably thought that he was different from Lu Shaoyou because Wang She had a bad relationship with Lu Shaoyou and he himself spoiled some of Lu Shaoyou''s good things indirectly.


    Sharp and quick, Lu Shaoyou''s sword light was full of murderous intent. He intended to kill Zhou Bao with this single move.


    "What a powerful man! He concealed the murderous intent until the sword arrived right in front of me! It''s surging and devastating. He truly deserves the reputation of Blade Master!"


    Zhou Bao sighed secretly. Though he was surprised, he still was rational and stretched his fist out.


    A single punch!


    He gently struck out his fist, as if he had been sitting in a chair for a long time and just wanted to stretch his muscles and bones.


    The "powerless" fist struck out directly.


    It happened to encounter Lu Shaoyou''s overwhelming sword light.


    Zhou Bao used his fist to hit the sword light, specifically, the well-known Blade Master''s sword light. It was an action similar to hitting a stone with eggs in the eyes of the spectators.


    "Oh no!"


    However, Lu Shaoyou, who was under the fist, did not think the same as them. When Zhou Bao struck out his fist, he actually saw it. But his spiritual mind felt that the whole world was inclining toward him. His sword rushed toward a meteor falling from Ninth Heaven rather than the fist. Zhou Bao compacted the overwhelming and expansive power in his fist and released it at him.


    However, at this moment, it was too late for him to withdraw his sword. Zhou Bao did not give him a chance, even though his sword technique was excellent enough. The fist that had looked powerless was quite fast. It was equal to the speed of his sword light.


    Therefore, his sword and the fist encountered one another with a "Boom!" sound.


    Crash!


    The wind whipped Zhou Bao''s green robe and let out a sound, but he just sat still. Lu Shaoyou''s sword light disappeared under the fist, and he was flying backward because of Zhou Bao''s strength, just like the Junior Master had earlier.


    Lu Shaoyou was a Level Eight expert after all. He was about to step into Level Nine. Obviously, a Junior Master at Level Five or Six was no match for him. When he was in mid-air, his body emitted some white sword light that held his body up and kept it stable in mid-air.


    In the eyes of the onlookers, they just exchanged one move. Zhou Bao sat still, but Lu Shaoyou was sent flying. Those onlookers thought that Lu Shaoyou had just suffered a small loss and that he was slightly inferior to Zhou Bao and was at a disadvantage.


    But Lu Shaoyou knew his condition very well. He knew that he had lost.


    He was indignant when he wielded his sword that contained 70 percent of his power. However, Zhou Bao''s fist contained power that was over 10 times stronger. Moreover, Zhou Bao struck out the fist casually. So even if he had used his full strength, he would have been no match for him.


    Not to mention that the Sword Qi he was proud of was completely destroyed by the scorching hot Qi contained in the fist. Following the Sword Qi, the hot Qi invaded his body. Because of the sword light Gang Qi, he was able to stand in mid-air. However, his tendons and meridians were a mess. All of his tendons, meridians, and Dantian were severely damaged. He had totally lost his combat capability.


    "Who is he? When did such a horrifying expert appear in the world?" Lu Shaoyou''s face was pale. He operated his Internal Qi to subdue his injury and looked in amazement at Zhou Bao.


    Suddenly, something came to his mind. A name occurred to him.


    "Are you... Zhou Bao of Yunzhou?!" He pointed at Zhou Bao and asked bitterly.


    "Being remembered by Blade Master Lu really is my great honor." Zhou Bao laughed as he cupped his hand in the other. "That''s right, I''m Zhou Bao!"


    "If so, is the rumor true?" Though it was incredible, he was convinced when he thought about the rumor that he had heard among the senior leaders of Mingyi School when he returned yesterday.


    "A rumor? Do you mean these two guys?" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. He raised his hand and pinned up two portraits on the wall. He said, "I''ve come here for them too!"


    Lu Shaoyou''s face became much paler when he saw those two portraits. "How... how do you know?"


    "If you don''t want anyone to know something, you''d better not do it!" Zhou Bao suddenly stood up. The surrounding temperature became much hotter along with this action. The air was about to boil.


    "Wang Haiming and You Tianjing, both of you have besieged me. You intended to kill an Imperial Court official. I''m here to get revenge today! Be a man and stand up or else I won''t mind humiliating Mingyi School!" Zhou Bao shouted in a loud voice, which was resonant and like surging Nine Heaven Thunder that enveloped the entire Mingyi Lane.


    The voice contained unparalleled and overwhelming dignity. It was like the angry shout of Ninth Heaven God that scared everyone. Some people with low cultivation could not control their minds and their legs trembled. However, ordinary people on Mingyi Lane, especially scholars, had never seen such a powerful but angry expert. They all knelt down. Some cowards even could not help peeing and shitting.


    Lu Shaoyou looked terrible. His blood flowed backward along his veins. His body shook twice in mid-air and he nearly fell to the ground.


    "No way! It''s impossible! How can he possess such profound and dense Internal Qi at such a young age?"


    All the experts doubted but were astonished.


    Mingyi School had a total of 23 experts, including Elders and deacons. In Mingyi Lane, except for the experts of Mingyi School, there were guests from other families who stayed at some inns. They were here to participate in the inauguration ceremony.


    As one of the Three Great Sects in the Jin, it was common to have a disciple become an Elder. However, as this was important, the school still needed to invite guests here. Those who came here had a good relationship with Mingyi School. They were qualified to participate in the ceremony, and obviously, they had high statuses. Among these guests, Level Seven experts were numerous. They stabilized their minds on one hand but, on the other hand, they all had the same thought¡ªhow did this guy practice? Why did he have such profound Internal Qi?


    However, their reactions were different. There were mixed feelings, including delight, solemnity, doubt, and worry. But more people were stunned as if they were dreaming.


    "He can''t possess such profound Internal Qi without 300 or 400 years of practice! But he''s less than 20 years old now. Is he truly a unique genius?" The people who were stunned thought like this.


    "Acupoints! He must have opened other acupoints, but how could he have opened them? Could it be that he knows a method to open them? But that has been lost for a long time. Even in Tian Long Taoism, it is controlled by those Highest Elders and kept a secret. Perhaps he''s a secret weapon of Tian Long Taoism!"


    "That''s impossible! The way of opening the acupoints is extremely dangerous. Even experts in the Mysterious Realm should be quite cautious, otherwise, they''ll die with no hope of reprieve. However, he''s only a Level Eight expert, so it''s impossible for him to open the acupoints!"


    "This is something fun to enjoy. Mingyi School should offend such a little freak! Haha. Today is a good day for Ji Zhongtang to become an Elder but Mingyi School completely lost its reputation through this freak''s provocation!"


    "That''s true. Tian Long Taoism has received an excellent disciple!"


    "Why did Mingyi School besiege and try to kill him? Moreover, they sent two Elders to pursue him. What has he done? Did he dig up their ancestral graves?"


    All of a sudden, various ideas lingered in the spectators'' minds. They wanted to know what Mingyi School would do to handle this matter.


    If they were not cautious enough today, they would destroy their prestige and reputation that they had established several thousand years ago.


    A horrible silence permeated everywhere!


    After Zhou Bao had shouted in anger, the entire Mingyi Lane was silent once again. All the people shifted their attention to the General Yard of Mingyi School, the Mingyi Tower.


    They were waiting for the response from this millennial school.


    Mingyi School was in chaos, and everything was a mess.


    "I''ll never forgive him! Never! How dare he disturb our ceremony and cause trouble for us! He must die! He has to die!" The dean of Mingyi School shouted. His eyes were bloodshot like those of a crazy rabbit.


    Such a thing had not happened for many years. This teen was not just causing trouble, but provoking them. He ruined the reputation of Mingyi School in front of so many prestigious sects, schools, and millennial families. No one could bear it!


    "He''s too arrogant! Oh no, I''m going to kill him! I must peel off his skin and fry his bones!"


    That angry shout spread out from Mingyi Tower. Then, a strong black figure darted toward Zhou Bao from the tower.


    "Elder Yuan, no...!"


    Although the dean of Mingyi School was livid, he was rational after all. He had not participated in the besieging of Zhou Bao, but he knew how powerful Zhou Bao was from Wang Haiming and You Tianjing. Zhou Bao had broken the devastating formation and killed four Level Eight experts. Moreover, he had stolen a Pure Yang Celestial Device from them. Thus, ordinary Level Nine experts were no match for him.


    Though Elder Yuan was already a Level Nine expert, it was hard to tell who would be the winner if he confronted Zhou Bao. What was worse, he was one of the two aces in the hole of Mingyi School. If he was severely injured or killed, Mingyi School would suffer greatly.


    Unfortunately, his warning arrived too late.


    Elder Yuan had a short fuse and had lived in Mingyi School since he was young. He could not tolerate anything that was bad. How could he tolerate Zhou Bao''s humiliation of Mingyi School on Mingyi Lane?


    "It''s Yuan Hai!"


    "Yuan Hai is coming out. He''s one of the two Level Nine Elders of Mingyi School. I hadn''t expected that he''d come out so quickly!"


    "Mingyi School is resolute. They want to solve the matter quickly by sending a Level Nine expert to fight Zhou Bao!"


    When experts participating in the ceremony saw that figure, they harbored these thoughts in their minds.


    "It''s true that Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi is profound. However, Level Nine experts have comprehended the power of Real Essence and possessed Real Essence Sources. Their Internal Qi quality is higher than ordinary Internal Qi. It''s hard to tell who will be the winner!"


    ¡­


    ¡­


    "A Level Nine expert?" When he saw that figure coming, Zhou Bao smiled, but at the same time, he became more serious.


    "Little Bastard. How dare you provoke Mingyi School. Go to hell!" Obviously, Elder Yuan was a hot-tempered man. Instead of greeting him, he shot out a palm at Zhou Bao, wanting to kill him.


    It was not an ordinary palm but, rather, a powerful secret skill named the Sky-covering Palm!


    Yuan Hai''s temperament was like the raging fire. However, as a Level Nine expert, he had a discerning eye. Zhou Bao had knocked Lu Shaoyou back with one punch and broken the siege of 10 Level Eight experts, so his strength should not be underestimated. Therefore, Yuan Hai did not show any mercy. He took out his trump card in order to kill Zhou Bao at once.


    The wind rose and the clouds blustered after the display of the Sky-covering Palm. The essence of the world within a radius of 10,000 feet was completely dragged down and condensed. The sky had been sunny and cloudless earlier, but now, it was immediately filled with the cloud-like essence of the world. It finally formed a 100-foot huge palm, covering the entire sky.


    Suddenly, the sky became dark.


    Any powerful man whose cultivation reached a certain phase could activate the power of heaven and earth through his own Genuine Soul and, thus, could execute incredible power. Yuan Hai''s current action was the same as that. Zhou Bao was going to be smacked by the huge palm from the sky as if he were an ant.


    "Humph. Do you think that I don''t have a secret skill?"


    Zhou Bao sneered when he felt the limitless pressure of the Sky-covering Palm. He clapped his hands to make a strange gesture and black flames burst out from his body. They encircled him and then formed two hands that were made of black flames.


    "Relying on the strength of heaven and earth, your power is quite strong. But it''s a pity that your cultivation is not high enough. Your palm is huge, but the power in it isn''t compact. It can only intimidate people!" Zhou Bao shouted out loud. "Look at my Flipping Sky Seal!"


    The Flipping Sky Seal!


    It was a secret skill that he had acquired when he was exterminating the water bandits on River Heart Island. In fact, it was an unfathomable and powerful secret skill that those bandits were unable to comprehend and learn. After acquiring it, he practiced it but had scarcely used it because he knew so many other things and had numerous skills. Thus, he had few opportunities to use it. When confronting ordinary opponents, he could easily suppress them by using the Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. However, today was different.


    Though he had said that Yuan Hai''s Sky-covering Palm was worthless, he clearly understood that it was hard to handle the power of heaven and earth. Therefore, he used this secret skill.


    Two hands that had been made from the black flames quickly made the same gesture as his two hands did. Immediately, he raised his hands to confront that 100-foot giant palm.


    The scene was so ridiculous.


    Zhou Bao looked like a little ant under that giant palm. But he tried to fight against it with his weak and laughable strength. This action was like an infant trying to hold a 10,000-kilogram iron hammer. It was impossible.


    But was it really impossible?


    In a flash, the giant palm and the flame gesture met.


    They collided together at once.


    "Ugh...!" Zhou Bao let out a deep grunt. He gently retreated one step backward, leaving only a shallow footprint. The wind whipped his green robe and the fierce essence of the world encircled him, forming a pneuma flow that was equal to a tornado that was sweeping around.


    Wheeze, Wheeze, Wheeze...!


    Boom, Boom, Boom...!


    Fierce and loud sounds echoed around this place. Sometimes, thunder could be heard.


    The onlookers with low cultivation could not keep their feet on the ground. They were rolled up and sent flying by the uncontrolled airflow. Even Level Seven experts tottered and leaned back when the essence of the world and Zhou Bao''s hands collided.


    After a moment, everything became clear. A huge hole appeared in front of everyone and encircled Zhou Bao. Its diameter was 300 feet and had a depth of 30 to 40 feet.


    The poor beancurd restaurant had already disappeared. Every house that surrounded the hole leaned outward in a radial pattern. Such a scene could be seen even from 3,000 feet away.


    3,000 feet was a tremendous distance!


    If using the unit of measurement that Zhou Bao had used in his previous life, it was one kilometer. Everything within a radius of one kilometer was completely destroyed.


    Mingyi Lane was a densely populated downtown. The scene was the same as terrorists exploding a bomb in an American downtown. Without a doubt, there were many casualties.


    Of course, no one cared about the casualties. They only paid attention to the outcome of this battle!


    "Haha, there is something about this Level Nine expert!" Zhou Bao smiled in the hole. Then, he patted his green robe and dust floated in the air.


    The giant palm had already disappeared. The surrounding essence of the world was in chaos. But gradually, it became normal and quiet.


    The First Elder of Mingyi School stood in mid-air and his eyes were wide open. The corners of his eyes, nostrils, ears, and mouth were dripping with blood.


    His Seven Apertures were bleeding!


    "Pfft!"


    Finally, Yuan Hai spat out a mouthful of blood fog and fell to the ground. No one knew whether he was dead or alive.


    All the people were in chaos!


    They rose up in an uproar.


    Yuan Hai, the First Elder of Mingyi School and Level Nine expert, had been defeated!

 Chapter 320: Splitting up and the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword

    Chapter 320: Splitting up and the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Who was Yuan Hai? He was the First Elder of the Mingyi School and one of their biggest bluffs as well. He was a supreme Level Nine expert, one of the Three Grandmasters who was designated to deter the Northern Yuan from Yun Zhou when the Jin was about to devastate it. Such a revered expert fell to a complete defeat after taking a single movement of Zhou Bao!


    Just one movement!


    In the eyes of those Level Seven experts, losing in one movement was not a big deal. When experts got in a battle, they would usually go all out instead of reserving some strength, unless the two sides had a starking difference in strength. For most contestants who were at similar levels, the fighting result was supposed to be out in just one or two movements, while it was utterly the opposite for those ordinary fighters.


    Basically, the so-called "toughly fought 300 rounds" scenario could only happen in battles among Junior Masters at Level Four or Five, or even fighters below Level Three.


    However, among those who were at the scene, how many truly knew about this principle?


    After all, the number of experts was limited. Right now, most of the on-lookers in Mingyi Lane were Junior Masters below Level Seven. Seeing him kill a Level Nine expert with one single movement, they couldn''t help wondering what kind of formidable extent had Zhou Bao''s strength reached.


    Let''s take another look at the consequence arising out of the one movement they had struck out. Was this horrible scene even possible to be created by human beings?


    Suddenly, the status of Zhou Bao in their mind soared up to heaven.


    "The Level Nine expert is nothing more than this!" Zhou Bao thought in his mind.


    Putting the spectators aside, even Zhou Bao himself was surprised at this. It was the first time he had ever fought against a Level Nine expert, but the victory was so easy, much simpler than he had imagined.


    "Although this bloke is a supreme Level Nine expert and has enough cultivation, his strong power became too dispersed when he simply pursued the pure powerful effect by exercising the essence of the world. In addition, your Flipping Sky Seal has been enhanced by the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, so you could break down his entire defense by hitting the weakest point, which surely helped you take a huge advantage in this battle!"


    "Seems that this Flipping Sky Seal is quite good!"


    "The attack force of the Flipping Sky Seal is really immense. Additionally, I saw you use it without a hitch, so it may be suitable to regard it as your main attacking means!"


    "Really?" Zhou Bao smiled, and then, he dropped out of the spiritual communication with Green Spirit. With a flash, he already darted out of that terrifying pit and stood on its edge with both hands clasped behind his back.


    "Today, the reason that I come here is just to require an explanation from the Mingyi School. the Mingyi School secretly dispatched forces to besiege me in an attempt to kill me. Now, you should want to kill me openly in this Mingyi Lane. In this case, I have no more words to say. But I''ll try you out, just to see how much strength this world-renowned school truly has!"


    Zhou Bao''s voice resounded through the entire Mingyi Lane once more.


    "What an audacious note! However, he has defeated Yuan Hai in such a short time, even without employing his Pure Yang Celestial Device. It seems that he does have the capital for arrogance..."


    "What? Looks like that the Mingyi School did send Elders to murder him. Otherwise, he can''t have committed such a huge offense and fought all the way to the front door of the Mingyi School!"


    "Haha, now one of the two Level Nine experts that the Mingyi School has is already down. I wonder when the other one will come out!"


    "I''ve heard that the Mingyi School has a very impressive formation for protecting the whole school. Is it possible that they will initiate that formation today? If they truly launch this formation merely for defending against this Zhou Bao, and then, the millennia prestige that the Mingyi School has enjoyed will be destroyed in just one day!"


    "Only if they let Zhou Bao walk out of here alive will their millennia prestige be destroyed!"


    Various discussions were buzzing in the crowd of the representatives who had come here for the ceremony.


    "We''ve got really lucky to see this. I thought we could only get some boring rituals, but who knew that we''d bump into such a brilliant event. It''s brilliant, truly brilliant!"


    "Brother Gao Hai, is it true that the Mingyi School did try to kill Zhou Bao? Isn''t he an Outer Core disciple of the Tian Long Taoism? Why didn''t the Tian Long Taoism stick up for him? Or else, do you have some private deals under the table with the Mingyi School?"


    In the guest yard of the Mingyi School, someone asked Gao Hai in a low voice, who was a representative of the Tian Long Taoism, watching this ceremony.


    Gao Hai was fairly young, just in his 40s, but already had a cultivation at Level Seven. This rendered him a precious talent even in the whole world.


    Hearing the surrounding acquaintances asking him this, he could only shake his head with a wry smile. "How can I know this? I''ve never heard of this. However, judging from Zhou Bao''s acts, I think this is true. Humph, now the Mingyi School is getting bold. It even casually kills the disciples of us the Tian Long Taoism. I''ll certainly report the event to our Sect Leader and require the Mingyi School to give us a proper account for this!"


    "Brother Gao Hai, I''m afraid it''s too late. Zhou Bao isn''t a patient man. Now, the Mingyi School has already lost one expert at Level Eight and one expert at Level Nine. If they let Zhou Bao leave here alive, they''ll truly have no dignity to face others anymore!"


    "Not necessarily. To finish off Zhou Bao is not such an easy task for the Mingyi School, I''m afraid." Gao Hai''s expression suddenly went sullen, and then, as if coming to think of something, turned mildly relaxed, which looked sort of enigmatic.


    "Maybe today''s drama is actually directed by the Tian Long Taoism in the dark to give the Mingyi School a hard time, isn''t it?" The changes on Gao Hai''s expression pushed the crowd to overthink. However, they didn''t know that Wang She had just secretly passed his voice into Gao Hai''s ears.


    As a matter of fact, Gao Hai did enjoy some respect in the Tian Long Taoism. He was also part of the system of the Three Chiefs, who was a subordinate directly led by Nian Wushuang.


    The Three Chiefs were closely related, each holding a different ambition, so there were almost no conflicts of interest among those three. In addition, they were about the same age and shared a lot of views in conversations, which helped them maintain a great relationship with each other. Thus, they formed their own system in the Tian Long Taoism and possessed extraordinary influence. In their sect, many newly joined masters of martial arts all submitted themselves to their side which grew to be the youthful group of the Tian Long Taoism.


    However, precisely for their young age, Gao Hai still didn''t know many top secrets about the sect even though his cultivation had reached Level Seven. Therefore, when he first learned that the Mingyi School should send forces to kill Zhou Bao on the sly, he was a bit nonplussed, which then turned into a fit of indignation. Anyhow, Zhou Bao was a member of the Tian Long Taoism. Moreover, that fact was already publicly verified by the Tian Long Taoism. However, the Mingyi School still did such a nasty move, which obviously showed their contempt for the Tian Long Taoism. Thus, how could Gao Hai not get furious? Nevertheless, just when he was about to interrogate the Mingyi School in rage, Wang She''s voice floated into his ears and told him to take a wait-and-see approach. That was why he displayed such a confident appearance now.


    Let''s set Gao Hai''s wait-and-see approach aside for the moment and talk about Zhou Bao. Now that Zhou Bao''s voice had run through the whole Mingyi Lane and was carried to everyone''s ear, and the Mingyi School would seem to be coward if they still didn''t reply.


    Therefore, soon after Zhou Bao''s voice faded away, the front door of the Mingyi School that was originally tightly closed, opened widely before an old man over the age of 60 came out from it, escorted by a big crowd.


    "Wang Daohong! He is Wang Daohong!"


    "The head of the Mingyi School! The Sect Leader! Hehe, I never thought he would come in person! "


    "Of course he would come. Facing such a mess that the Mingyi School had not met over thousands of years, he''s really out of luck!" Someone gloated.


    Indeed, throughout the past millennia, the Mingyi School had never run into these kinds of troubles. However, one of those just happened to Wang Daohong. If he had not been the unlucky guy, no other person could claim to be one!


    There were more than 20 people clustering around Wang Daohong, and each of their cultivation was above Level Seven. In fact, under this circumstance, if your cultivation had not reached Level Seven, you would be utterly useless.


    "Are you the head of the Mingyi School, the Sect Leader?" Zhou Bao asked the unflustered Wang Daohong with a smile. His eyes swiveled about Wang Daohong, and in the end, fixed on two figures.


    "Wang Haiming, You Tianjing! You two finally has the guts to see me!"


    "Humph, Zhou Bao! You are here behaving aggressively and thinking nothing of our the Mingyi School. You are truly arrogant! Today, we''ll let you have a journey with no returns!" Wang Haiming''s face went livid. Although fearful of Zhou Bao''s strength, surrounded by so many experts, he naturally became daring.


    "Calling me aggressive! Hehe, is this the style of the Mingyi School?" Zhou Bao gave a lukewarm smile. "Don''t people say that the Mingyi School is the leader of the Right Way? Moreover, isn''t this the most righteous place? But how come, as I''ve seen today, this place is more like a home base for bandits? No, no, that''s not right. It''s even worse than that. After all, some bandits are still able to be reasoned with, they''re much more reasonable than you!"


    "Zhou Bao, stop pressing your win over the quarrels. Today, you forced your way in and injured a deacon and an Elder of the Mingyi School. This matter shall be settled neatly no matter what happens!"


    Wang Daohong opened his mouth and interrupted the upcoming disputes.


    "What a smart guy this Wang Daohong is!"


    "How unabashed he is! Seems like Zhou Bao is telling the truth that the Mingyi School did try to kill him in secret. Otherwise, Wang Daohong wouldn''t have stopped them talking!"


    "What a the Mingyi School! Behaving so shamelessly in broad daylight! Hehe, no matter whether they win or lose, the prestige of the Mingyi School will be considerably diminished after today!"


    "Well, that will be better than letting Zhou Bao expose all their dirty moves on the spot. If things don''t develop in this way, the Mingyi School will still be able to retain some dignity after all!"


    "But in that case, maybe the Mingyi School will really launch the protective formation. After which, Zhou Bao will certainly be in danger!"


    "But that may not happen, either. Look, Gao Hai seems to have a well-prepared plan. Maybe Zhou Bao has the Tian Long Taoism to back him up. The result will remain pending until the final moment!"


    ¡­


    ¡­


    Waves of discussions, whether loudly spoken or furtively muttered, were all carried to Wang Daohong''s ears attributed to his Level Nine cultivation. But even as the Leader of a whole sect, whose ability to maintain a peaceful mind was already superb, when hearing those discussions, Wang Daohong still couldn''t fight back his upsurging qi and blood and wished to unleash his wrath by punching those gloating assholes to death. As for Zhou Bao, he loathed him even more. However, ostensibly, he still had to put on a calm and stern appearance as a Leader.


    "Hehe, pressing to win over quarrels? Is the attempt to bring out facts and reasons equate with that? It seems that you the Mingyi School has no plan to reason with me. In that case, there is no need for me to reason with you bunch of hypocrites. Wang Daohong, send out Wang Haiming and You Tianjing, those two bastards, and leave them to me, then, I''ll let this pass. If not, I''ll turn the Mingyi School upside down!"


    "Hahaha..." Wang Daohong burst out with loud laughter, "Turn the Mingyi School upside down. Zhou Bao, what a bold tone you''ve taken! Today you''ve destroyed our gate, injured our Elders, and what you did is exactly the same as the acts of evil demonic gangs. Since you''ve committed the most heinous crime, if I don''t punish you today, how can I preserve the dignity of our school? Elders, set the formation!"


    As Wang Daohong thundered, more than 20 experts next to him scattered in all directions to circle round Zhou Bao, and then a formation was unveiled.


    "Using formations again! I say, can you get some new plays? Last time, you used a formation, and this time is the same. Do you reckon that you can trap me with just one set of formation?" Zhou Bao sneered, but his hands already started working. A shaft of golden light flashed behind the back of his head, and the Golden Flame Mirror sprang to life, shooting golden light all around. In a second, the paces of those 20 experts who were setting formation all went disorganized.


    "Damn, you''ve just said that one set of formation couldn''t trap you. If so, why are you making so much effort to sabotage the formation?" Wang Daohong cursed in his mind and pointed at Zhou Bao with his fingertip. A speck of cyan light ejected from his fingertip, and then inflated itself while traveling against the wind and turned into a haze of cyan mist, thrusting at Zhou Bao''s Golden Flame Mirror to envelop it.


    "Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Zhou Bao''s eyes contracted. His Golden Flame Mirror was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, therefore, if Wang Daohong wanted to deal with it, he must use a Pure Yang Celestial Device too. It was just that the celestial device Wang Daohong had initiated was really peculiar. It had no physical existence but looked like a haze of cyan mist, which was coming right at the Golden Flame Mirror. Carrying an immense amount of righteous Qi, the mist poured down straightforwardly with the momentum of a long surging river. The Golden Flame Mirror didn''t dare to relax a bit. It condensed its golden light into one cluster and abruptly shot the light out in a streak, piercing right into that cyan mist.


    "Puff!" A light noise sounded.


    The mist dispersed as if it had intelligence, and then began to wind up along the golden light, aiming directly at the body of the Golden Flame Mirror.


    "Crap!" As this Golden Flame Mirror was connected with Zhou Bao''s mind, he was only too clear about its state. This odd cyan mist, though emitting immense righteous power, started sending off a trace of freezing spirit after it entangled the golden light. Zhou Bao had never sensed such a spirit before, while a sort of instinct told him that this thing could do huge harm upon his Golden Flame Mirror.


    "Eh, it''s the Divine Dog''s Blood!" Green Spirit seemed to have felt something as well because a psywave rushed into Zhou Bao''s head. "Boy, be careful. This celestial device contains the Divine Dog''s Blood, which can easily contaminate celestial devices. If your Golden Flame Mirror were touched by it, its power would certainly be slashed. Moreover, it''s not easy to get rid of it!"


    "Then, what should I do?"


    "Don''t panic. Your Golden Flame Mirror has absorbed the Sun Colored Glaze Flame, which is the exact nemesis to the Divine Dog''s Blood!" said Green Spirit.


    Hearing this, Zhou Bao was heartened a bit and propelled the Golden Flame Mirror with full strength. A ball of flickering flame in the color of glaze shot out right from the mirror and flung itself at that cyan mist.


    "The Sun Colored Glaze Flame?" As the Leader of a sect, Wang Daohong surely knew about this stuff. At the sight of this fireball, his look suddenly went solemn. Without a second thought, he waved his hands. The cyan mist that was entwining the golden light instantly huddled up, revealing its true form, which turned out to be a light cloth made of half-mist and half-smoke.


    This cyan cloth contracted itself a bit and gave off a kind of very soothing spirit. Above the cloth, countless abstruse talismans appeared indistinctly. With one colossal formation setting up after another, the air in the surroundings began rippling. Experts who were watching in the vicinity all felt a sense of unprecedented ease out of this spirit.


    "It''s the Soul Cleansing Cloth. This thing should be in his hand!" Green Spirit shrieked in surprise. "He added the Divine Dog''s Blood into the Soul Cleansing Cloth! This guy must have a really dark mentality. Otherwise, he can''t have done such thing!"


    "What''s the Soul Cleansing Cloth?" Zhou Bao asked.


    "It''s also a Pure Yang Celestial Device. But its attacking power isn''t strong, and its defensive power isn''t satisfying either!"


    "That can still be counted as a Pure Yang Celestial Device?" Zhou Bao pouted, sending back a fit of psywave. "It can neither attack nor defend, so why do people need it?"


    "You idiot, idiot! This is an auxiliary Pure Yang Celestial Device. Once covered in the Soul Cleansing Cloth, both the recovery speed of the Internal Qi and the physical power will be one or two times faster, while the consumption speed of the two will be one or two times slower. Thus, with help of the Soul Cleansing Cloth, the practice can be achieved with only half efforts. Moreover, there are many other wonderful uses of this item. In general, it isn''t worse than your Golden Flame Mirror!"


    "Is it that good? Can it block my Golden Flame Mirror?"


    "Maybe not. But when they set up the formation, it is more than enough to block your device. Each of those 20 people has at least one celestial device at the Mysterious Level with them. Once the formation is done, your Golden Flame Mirror will have a slim chance to display its original power!" Green Spirit gave a cold laugh.


    Surely as Green Spirit predicted, after cuddled into a cloud, the Soul Cleansing Cloth blocked the Golden Flame Mirror first. Just when the two devices were confronting each other, more than 20 experts already stood in their right position in line with their bearings. With the formation being settled, the surrounding essence of the world also froze a bit. Almost at the same time, those experts all emitted various colored lusters, which converged at one spot under the influence of the formation and conjured a multi-colored light column, fiercely charging at the golden light that the Golden Flame Mirror was issuing.


    The colorful golden light collided with the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror, forcefully pressing against the mirror. A dim thud sounded, and space shuddered along with it.


    "What a powerful formation! These celestial devices have merely reached the Mysterious Level at most, even if they level up, they will only be Psychic Celestial Devices. But after being integrated into one by this formation, they are able to withstand my Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Zhou Bao praised to himself. Then, the Soul Cleansing Cloth broke away from the Golden Flame Mirror and turned into a cyan cloud, hovering over the formation. Gusts of spiritual qi fluttered out of the cloud and projected onto those experts, which considerably boosted their energy at once. Almost simultaneously, a stream of enormous and righteous spirit emitted from Wang Daohong''s body.


    This Leader of the Mingyi School was also a Level Nine expert. His strength might not be so strong as Yuan Hai''s, but his awe-inspiring righteousness was something that should not be taken lightly. Moreover, another domineering spirit could be sensed in the Mingyi School, which was the spirit of their another Level Nine expert.


    But this Elder hadn''t come forward. He merely hid in the vicinity and watched them fighting, as if waiting for the moment they both suffered great losses and that was when he would stand out and clear up the mess.


    For Zhou Bao, this arrangement piled up another layer of his scruples, because no one knew when the hidden Elder would strike, which distracted his focus and influenced his combat ability!


    "Alas, this time the Mingyi School truly wants to be shameless! They''ve even employed such a crooked means!" In the Mingyi School, Gao Hai let out those words in a queer tone with a cold smile. That was to say the Mingyi School kept one more Level Nine expert hidden away, otherwise, who knew what kind of things this guy would do! But now, though he wasn''t able to make unusual movements, paying a lip service was something he still had time for.


    "I say, Head Wang, what you''re doing is sort of rude. Without having the basic reasoning, you bluntly go head-to-head against Zhou Bao. Do you really think we the Tian Long Taoism is obedient to bullies?"


    "Shut up!"


    As those words died down, everyone heard a cold snap, and then Gao Hai''s look suddenly changed, for he had been locked up by an invisible force. Now, he could not even open his mouth.


    "Is this the power of a Level Nine expert? Damn it, how can he pick on me so blatantly! Do they truly aim to stir up a war between the Tian Long Taoism and the Mingyi School?" Gao Hai swore with fury in his mind. But unfortunately, since his skills were inferior, a Level Nine expert was able to subdue and silence him with no difficulty, even at a distance of hundreds of feet.


    At this point, the formation was in full swing. With Wang Daohong being the Formation Eye, a vast and majestic force permeated the formation. For a moment, Zhou Bao felt he was standing in a river that was purely composed of pneuma. The essence of the world that dispersed was once again mobilized by the formation, pouring into the formation along with its bearings.


    Splash!


    Just like rivers running backward, the essence of the world came racing into the formation and gradually filled it up. In a short time, this small formation managed to condense all the essence of the world in a radius of 1,000 miles. For a while, it even produced an effect similar to the Essential Qi Tide in the Azure Secret Area.


    Of course, the Essential Qi Tide made within such a small area was incomparable to that in the Azure Secret Area, whether in terms of quantity or quality.


    "Interesting... If I still had one Air-frozen Bead, I wonder what expression Wang Daohong would make!" Completely ignoring the endlessly mounting pressure brought up by the accumulated essence of the world in the environment, Zhou Bao''s mind shifted to the Air-frozen Bead.


    The essence of the world that entered the formation began to regularly divide into wisp by wisp under the guide of the formation, which then turned into threads of pneuma and hurled at Zhou Bao to wind him up. As the amount of pneuma increased, the tighter its constraining force got. All at once, Zhou Bao felt like a bug being entangled by a spider web, unable to move a single finger.


    "That''s typical of the Mingyi School. No matter it''s martial arts or formation, they always launch some immense and compelling technique and leave not a single chance for the opponent to strike back. Although Zhou Bao has gotten great strength, when facing the formation jointly made by so many experts, plus the pressure of two Level Nine experts, he is likely to have no other way but surrender, right?"


    A few of the crowd started to take this opinion.


    But evidently, Zhou Bao didn''t want them to have their wish fulfilled.


    "Even though I don''t have any Air-frozen Bead, it''s impossible to constrain me with this magnitude of the essence of the world!" Zhou Bao looked up, both hands stretched out, and he broke free from the pneuma that was curling up his hands. 10 jets of black and red Sword Qi ejected from his fingertips, which transformed into one streak of black and red Sword Qi, at the size of an arm, and came crashing at Wang Daohong.


    This sword movement carried little Qi Power at first, but it was peerlessly sharp.


    In no time, the essence of the world was split up. In a fleeting second, the power of that black and red Sword Qi burst out to the full. With the red light flashing and the black light glistening, the world between heaven and earth should be covered in these two colors.


    "This is... the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!"


    ¡­


    ...

 Chapter 321: The Innate Universal Golden Book and the Golden Dragon Saber

    Chapter 321: The Innate Universal Golden Book and the Golden Dragon Saber


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The soaring black and red Sword Qi, like a sharp blade, pierced through the essence of the world that was binding him up. Then, Zhou Bao''s Dragon Flying Technique got rolling again. The arm-wide Sword Qi instantly turned into numerous tiny versions of the black and red Sword Qi, pounding onto the ground like raindrops.


    "Oh, no!"


    "Retreat now!"


    "Go!"


    Wang Daohong''s expression altered dramatically. Initially, the formation they set up was to gather together the essence of the world and transform the ubiquitous pneuma into sturdy ropes, which would bind the opponent with compelling force, thus enabling them to trample their opponents at their will.


    After all, with the combined efforts of more than 20 experts led by a Level Nine expert amidst the guided and normalized essence of the world, it should be sufficient to hold an expert at the peak of Level Nine, or even a Demi-Mysterious Realm expert firmly in check.


    That was why he released the Soul Cleansing Cloth. It was difficult for the mere dozens of experts below Level Nine to mobilize such an immense essence of the world. It was likely to spiral out of control. But when using the Soul Cleansing Cloth to replenish the pneuma they were absorbing ceaselessly, this should work. Assuming that this method could not completely suppress Zhou Bao, it would at least contain him for a while and provide some respite to the other Level Nine experts hiding in the Mingyi School.


    To their great shock, this formation that had previously inspired such confidence in them failed totally to suppress Zhou Bao. Even though his Pure Yang Celestial Device was completely blocked by the formation of over 20 celestial devices, he had a powerful special technique which was the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!


    As the stronghold of the Mingyi School, this formation was vanquished in the blink of an eye! This powerful formation was to the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword what a piece of soft and delicate silk was to a sharp knife. It was no match for the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    Above all, not only had Zhou Bao succeeded in practicing this awe-inspiring age-old special technique, but he had also mastered a formidable way to break up the strong Sword Qi and turn it into tiny versions of Sword Qi, which were capable of sweeping attacks.


    After disintegrating into pieces, the power of the Sword Qi was reduced, but its lethality did not lessen. Additionally, when the Sword Qi disassembled, its components did not disperse all at once. Instead, they were still under Zhou Bao''s control and started streaming toward all the experts who had set up the formation in assigned directions. Surprisingly, one of the strongest Sword Qis was dashing toward the Soul Cleansing Cloth from the top of that formation.


    Since the Sword Qi had broken through the formation, the essence of the world could not stop falling and went completely out of control. Initially, it was due to the Soul Cleansing Cloth that those experts managed to get the enormous pneuma under control. But now, those experts were reeling about from the impact of the disorganized pneuma. As the Soul Cleansing Cloth came under attack, and all the essence and Qi started heading back to defend itself, was it any wonder that it had any energy left to support the experts?


    Without the support of the Soul Cleansing Cloth, the overall condition of the experts worsened. The lower part of the bodies became wobbly and their feet started trembling. All of them deviated from their assigned positions, and cracks started appearing in the original formation. Moreover, together with Zhou Bao''s aggressive Sword Qi, the double pressure could only result in a total collapse.


    The consequence of this collapse was that the pneuma in the formation spiraled out of control and turned into numerous pneuma dragons that went on a rampage in all directions. Suddenly, just like the disintegration of the dike due to massive flood waters, the pneuma washed away numerous buildings and caused total chaos in Mingyi Lane. The disaster also affected the residents there, who had hurried back to their homes to seek shelter, only to discover that their homes were not safe either.


    Sounds of grief reverberated through the small town that was initially a paradise but now became a living hell. All the events occurred in the spate of only two hours, and the stark contrast made the people sigh in sorrow.


    "Zhou Bao, I swear that the Mingyi School won''t co-exist with you under the same heaven!"


    A large number of casualties in Mingyi Lane forced Wang Daohong to lose his cool. Scarlet with anger, he glared at Zhou Bao. He waved his hands and after withdrawing the Soul Cleansing Cloth, he leaped up in the air and hurtled toward Zhou Bao. "Zhou Bao, today, you will die!"


    Roaring in anger, he pressed his hands together. His Internal Qi and Real Essence surged upward and his Qi and blood merged together and a beam of pearly light emanated from his body. Over his head, a cyan-colored palm-sized book appeared.


    The cyan book was emitting rays of golden light. Once fully charged, its brilliant radiance shone all around. Even the splendor of Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was eclipsed by its brilliance.


    "This is the Innate Universal Golden Book!"


    Seeing this cluster of light, Green Spirit squeaked with surprise.


    "Innate Universal Golden Book!"


    The connoisseurs in the crowd had a change in attitude.


    "Wang Daohong should have acquired the skills from the Innate Universal Golden Book!"


    Zhou Bao had no clue what the so-called Innate Universal Golden Book was about, but he could tell that it was a powerful weapon. When it appeared, the splendor of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was outshone by it while heavenly like sutra chants were coming out of the book. When the chants were heard by others, they were all filled with waves of awe-inspiring righteousness. However, in Zhou Bao''s ear, they felt like the Ring Tightening Mantra making him flustered, and almost causing him to blunder.


    "Watch out! The Innate Universal Golden Book is the lost Confucian knowledge. It has boundless powers!" When Zhou Bao''s mind was in disorder, Green Spirit''s psywave came to him once more.


    "Now I understand," Zhou Bao''s heart gave a thump. Looking up, he saw that the Innate Universal Golden Book was already open, and myriads of lighted characters shot out from the book and engulfed him!


    "When did these appear?" Zhou Bao focused his eyes on the gleaming characters that surrounded him. Each of them seemed to symbolize significant meanings, and they all came from the book. Even if you only glanced at them, your heart and mind would be in great turmoil.


    Those characters were pounding ceaselessly upon Zhou Bao''s heart and mind like incessant huge hammers.


    After suffering a bout of hammering, Zhou Bao''s face paled and a ray of red light shimmered between his eyebrows. Then, a crystal clear divine thought shot out from his palm with a bright gleam. With the splendor swirling around him, Zhou Bao felt his nerves easing, and the sutra chants that were reverberating in his mind a moment ago vanished in a flash. Also, the unceasing hammerings that were bombarding his mind had stopped.


    "F*ck. I almost fell into the trap!" Zhou Bao cursed softly and turned to look at the characters that were still floating around him. He scowled, let out a low bark, and flexed his five fingers. Immediately, those thin traces of Sword Qi that had divided up converged into one again.


    "The Innate Universal Golden Book! I shall see how powerful it is !" He bellowed. The converged black and red Sword Qi should have the unparalleled power as compared to when it was split apart. Although the thin traces of Sword Qi could not withstand the righteous Qi of the Innate Universal Golden Book, this all-powerful Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword did not give it any preferential treatment.


    The sword roared and surged, churning like tidal waves. The black and red Sword Qi hacked away at the Innate Universal Golden Book.


    Boom!


    The Sword Qi was as swift as lightning, which went beyond the imagination of Wang Daohong. With a mere flash of the black and red Sword Qi, that golden book was hit instantly.


    Ah...


    Wang Daohong was ashen-faced and spat out mouthfuls of blood. When the golden book was hit by the Sword Qi, it had no chance to fight back but was hacked in two immediately. The damaged book fragmented into slivers of golden light and slipped in between Wang Daohong''s eyebrows.


    After splitting apart the gold book, the Sword Qi did not slow down but launched another strike at Wang Daohong.


    Swish!


    A blast of cyan airflow blocked the Sword Qi. It came from the Soul Cleansing Cloth, that Pure Yang Celestial Device. Even though it was at the Extreme Yang Level, it was purely a decorative weapon, not designed for attack or defense. Now, even with the combination of the torrential Sword Qi of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, it could only hold on for a second, and with a loud moan, it turned into a shaft of cyan light that retreated into the point between Wang Daohong''s eyebrows.


    "Zhou Bao, stop your insane actions!"


    Before the black and red Sword Qi could reach Wang Daohong, a furious howl rang through the Mingyi School. Soon after, a long dragon-shaped streak of golden light appeared with a roar and flew straight toward the Sword Qi of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    "It''s Golden Dragon Saber! Jin Mo has made his appearance!"


    Jin Mo!


    Not too long ago, the other Level Nine Elder of the Mingyi School was hiding in the dark and bidding his time to strike. But Zhou Bao''s combat capability was so strong that he dispersed the formation and defeated Wang Daohong in seconds. If he had remained silent a little longer, Wang Daohong might die and the leadership of the Mingyi School will be handed over to someone else. Therefore, he had to make his move.


    "Humph, a wizard weapon? I''d like to see how brilliant it is!" said Zhou Bao with a cold smile. The black and red Sword Qi followed his mental thoughts and aimed directly at the streak of dragon-shaped golden light.


    Bang, bang!


    The Sword Qi made contact with the Blade Qi. One was a special technique weapon that was peerlessly immensely strong, and the other was a wizard weapon that was peerlessly precious. These two weapons collided and an extreme force rippled forth, causing another earthquake in Mingyi Lane.


    "Well done!"


    Zhou Bao let out a loud shout, "Its reputation as a world-famous wizard weapon is well deserved. It even withstood a single attack from my sword!"


    It was the renowned wizard weapon¡ªGolden Dragon Saber!


    But now, it could only ward off a single motion of his sword.


    After the collision, both lights of the black and red Sword Qi and the golden blade went out simultaneously. Almost at the same time, the black and red Sword Qi rose again. But it became more powerful and forceful than it had been before.


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was forged by two kinds of precious Evil Qi named Yin and Yang. They were mixed and refined with secret methods and had infinite powers. More importantly, it contained a wisp of a unique congenital killing intent, which even the Pure Yang Celestial Device did not possess. That was why the Soul Cleansing Cloth could only withstand one blow from it. Even the wizard weapon, Golden Dragon Saber, was able to withstand one strike only, and that was executed under the full launch made by Level Nine expert Jin Mo.


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!


    Ever since medieval times, it had claimed to have the special technique with the best killing capability. The main reason for this was that it stimulated the first wisp of killing intent that was produced at the Primordial Time through two kinds of Evil Qi of the Yin and Yang. The stronger the Evil Qi was, the stronger its killing intent was, and naturally the better its killing capability would be.


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi was refined by Zhou Bao with the Blood Essence Evil Yuan and the Dark Jade Frost, two kinds of the most powerful Evil Qi of polarised nature in the world. It contained an unlimited killing intent which was similar to the killing intent in the Primordial Time. Although it was inferior to the latter, the difference was not that great. Thus, the killing intent Zhou Bao possessed was extremely powerful, so how could an ordinary Pure Yang Celestial Device and a wizard weapon hope to hold it off?


    Hence, when the black and red Sword Qi reappeared, Jin Mo''s expression changed tremendously. He had nowhere to hide. The only thing he could do was to leap into the air with the Golden Dragon Saber in hand. But when the golden light glistened again, his cause was already doomed.


    ...


    ...

 Chapter 322: Wang Daohong Defeated by a Sword, Run into the Master of the Mysterious Realm

    Chapter 322: Wang Daohong Defeated by a Sword, Run into the Master of the Mysterious Realm


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The top-secret special technique, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, was the very first that Zhou Bao had learned.


    He had hardly used it though. One reason for that was because his technique had not been practiced to perfection and the other was out of fear that such a powerful technique would be the envy of others and bring him trouble that he could not handle.


    But things were different these days. He did not have to worry about it anymore because self-defense was no longer a problem for a man with his power. On the contrary, he had to bring out the best of his power so that his foes would be aware of what he was capable of and would not have the balls to put up a fight against him. Considering this, he did not give a second thought about applying this powerful special technique that he had newly practiced to perfection.


    He decided that the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword would be his first choice of attacking technique from this day on because it was both powerful and handy.


    Nevertheless, the truth was that he still underestimated its power.


    In the second strike, the Golden Dragon Saber was beaten by the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, whose dark-red Sword Qi was stronger than ever, shredding that newly formed golden light.


    Bang!


    With a sound like pearls dropping onto a jade plate, the Golden Dragon Saber, Jin Mo''s Wizard Weapon, was broken into millions of golden pieces.


    Jin Mo revealed himself from the darkness, an old man in his early 50s with a goatee.


    At that moment, he looked upset and surprised, dodging like a flash. He had barely dodged the dark-red Sword Qi, but still received thousands of wounds from the flashing debris of his Golden Dragon Saber.


    Jin Mo acted as if he had not even gotten a single scratch on him. Having avoided the Sword Qi, he regathered his inside breath with a flicker of resolve in his eyes. "Nephew! He is at Level Nine. We have to eliminate this malicious man, or he''ll be our undoing!" he said.


    "Uncle! That''s¡­"


    Suddenly, Wang Daohong was astonished as he stared at Jin Mo, who was charging toward him, and he shouted, "No!"


    He wanted to stop Jin Mo, but it was too late.


    "Open your mind and prepare to let me in! I''ll give you my 200-year essence and blood to help you with your Innate Universal Golden Book!" said Jin Mo.


    Like a flash, Jin Mo''s body transformed in the air with a faint Blood Qi. "Hurry! As powerful as his Sword Qi is, there must be a limit. He has already used it twice. We have to destroy him before he regathers his Qi¡­"


    Jin Mo''s voice grew weaker and weaker. By the time he finished his last word, his body transformed into a blood fog, casting itself toward Wang Daohong.


    "Zhou Bao! This will be the end of you!" Seeing the blood fog transformed by Jin Mo, Wang Daohong roared with his eyes wide open and his head glowing green. The Innate Universal Golden Book between his eyebrows flew out against the blood fog.


    Everything happened in the blink of an eye.


    Zhou Bao smashed the Golden Dragon Saber with his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, and Jin Mo transformed himself into a blood fog to go at Wang Daohong, who again called out the Innate Universal Golden Book. All of this happened in the blink of an eye.


    The minute that the Innate Universal Golden Book took in the blood fog of Jin Mo, it was shining in gold, while the cyan book turned into the color of pure gold as well.


    The Golden Book fiercely bombarded Zhou Bao with a blast of fearless Qi like a rough sea.


    The countless golden characters were four or five times bigger than the ones that Zhou Bao had seen before, and waves of thunderbolt sounds tortured his ears and head.


    Zhou Bao groaned a bit. The Golden Flame behind his head became a golden light, which then disappeared between his eyebrows, bringing a gentle Pure Yang airflow into his head and bringing peace to his mind. Meanwhile, although his divine thought was not omnipotent, it was glowing like the glaze and blocked most of the impact for him.


    Injected with all the essence and blood of Jin Mo, Wang Daohong''s Innate Universal Golden Book, though having newly taken shape and imperfect, became hundreds of times more powerful than it was before. Miraculous as Zhou Bao''s divine thought might have been, it was merely one. The mysterious glaze-like splendor dimmed from the impact of the golden characters.


    "Impressive!" Zhou Bao said to himself.


    Having ruled over the world for thousands of years, the Mingyi School clearly had something. Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was admittedly one of the best weapons and his Pure Yang Celestial Device was one of the finest, too. But the Mingyi School was no lamb. On the contrary, as a time-honored school, they had to have their own secret weapons. So far, the Mingyi School just showed one of their Pure Yang Celestial Devices. There was no way that it was their only Pure Yang Celestial Device. These thoughts worried Zhou Bao.


    There were two in Kunlun Mountain! Besides, as marvelous as the Green Yarn was, it was nothing but a subsidiary Pure Yang Celestial Device after all, not enough to secure fate. Anyway, Zhou Bao would not believe that the Mingyi School did not have a Pure Yang Celestial Device to secure their fate.


    He could not lower his guard even when he won just now, let alone when the Innate Universal Golden Book started to display its incredible power.


    "How curious! What on earth is it that the Mingyi School used to secure its fate? Why would they rather sacrifice a Level Nine expert than show the celestial device? What are they trying to hide?"


    Zhou Bao was more vigilant than ever. He raised his right hand, and the dark-red Sword Qi was once again resolved by the Dragon Flying Technique, protecting him. The immense Sword Qi scattered in all directions, blocking the power of the Innate Universal Golden Book.


    "You surely have lived up to your name!" said Zhou Bao. With the Sword Qi protecting him, Zhou Bao was quite relieved. He took his divine thought back with a smile on his face and a flash between his eyebrows.


    "But, do you really think you can stop me with the Innate Universal Golden Book? If I were you, I would choose to hand over the two bastards who tried to kill me. Just think about it."


    "Zhou Bao, how dare you! You''re a dead man walking! I swear it!" Wang Daohong was covered with the golden light of the Innate Universal Golden Book. The sedate and dignified look on his face was replaced by the lust for killing. This leader of the Mingyi School had zero tolerance for Zhou Bao right now. His hatred had reached a point where he would do anything to eat Zhou Bao''s flesh, smash his bones, and crush them into ashes.


    "Oh, I don''t think so," Zhou Bao sneered. He looked up and only saw the Innate Universal Golden Book hanging over Wang Daohong''s head with thousands of characters dancing. The sound of chanting grew louder and louder, starting to impact Zhou Bao''s protective Sword Qi.


    "Okay, if that''s what you want. I''ve warned you!" Zhou Bao looked out as his fingers reached into the air, suddenly trying to grasp the Innate Universal Golden Book over Wang Daohong''s head.


    After he saw Zhou Bao''s movements, a hint of mockery flashed through Wang Daohong''s eyes, but then that unfinished expression became astonishment.


    Wang Daohong felt a tremendous shutter upon his mind and spirit by that sudden grasp. It was as if his soul was being pulled out of his body by a giant invisible hand.


    "Damn it! What is that? A kind of martial art or special technique?"


    It had done something to his spirit! He was lucky that the hundreds of years of practicing forged his firm and determined mind, but still, his spirit had been shaken by that grasp and he almost lost his mind for a minute. At the same time, five rays of red light came out of Zhou Bao''s fingertips and shot toward the Innate Universal Golden Book. The lights penetrated through the thousands of golden characters surrounding the Innate Universal Golden Book, reached the book itself, and formed a red vortex around it, rotating in a swift and fierce fashion.


    That was Soul Cutting!


    "Oh, no!" Wang Daohong panicked the moment that he saw the red vortex. It needed to be known that the Innate Universal Golden Book was an exclusive secret of the Mingyi School, not any secret skill or special technique, but a Divine Sense.


    The Divine Sense had great power. When cultivated to the Advanced Level, it would be golden just like this one, with countless formations and talismans dancing and rotating, hurting and taking your mind and spirit. And even worse, it had the power to turn you into a walking dead if you were not strong enough and your spirit was destroyed by it.


    Because of the great attacking force of the Divine Sense toward the spirit, it had an extremely high demand on and close relations with the spirit of its practitioner. Zhou Bao''s Divine Sense of Soul Cutting, on the other hand, was exactly the undoing of all other Divine Senses of the spirit kind.


    If Wang Daohong had not fought Zhou Bao with the Innate Universal Golden Book, Zhou Bao could not have had the chance to defeat his enemy once and for all. He should have attacked by force. But now that he was using the Divine Sense, powerful as it was, it provided an opportunity for Zhou Bao.


    Once released, the Soul Cutting Divine Sense immediately crashed the part of the spirit that was blended in with the Innate Universal Golden Book.


    Wang Daohong could do nothing but screech. The glowing Innate Universal Golden Book with Jin Mo''s essence and blood dimmed, becoming thousands of golden light dots, and then found its way back between Wang Daohong''s eyebrows. Wang Daohong''s face was like a piece of gold paper as he retreated 10 steps under the impact, momentarily falling into a trance. He was unable to do anything and blacked out.


    "My, my, my¡­ This Soul-cutting Skill is so unexpectedly powerful!"


    This time, even Zhou Bao was surprised. He just intended to defend himself from Wang Daohong''s Innate Universal Golden Book, but now, he basically just killed Wang Daohong. He did not see that coming.


    Wang Daohong had not expected Zhou Bao to know how to directly attack his spirit and Divine Sense in a way that was much more savage and cruel than his Innate Universal Golden Book.


    Such negligence brought him directly into Zhou Bao''s trap. He was lucky that his cultivation was unfathomable and, therefore, had only blacked out. Otherwise, he could have died on the battlefield.


    Wang Daohong was in a coma, while the entire Mingyi School was plunged into utter chaos.


    The Mingyi School was crowded with experts, but under the challenge of Zhou Bao, they faced total destruction. Among the three Level Nine experts, namely the leader and the two Elders, one was dead and two were injured. As for other experts below Level Nine, about 20 of them were badly injured by the backfiring of their own battle formation.


    There was nothing but dead silence on Mingyi Lane, even the sound of breathing was gone as well.


    Everyone was looking at all this, at Zhou Bao, the cold-blooded man standing at the center of the mess. The look in their eyes was nothing but surprise and fear.


    Yes, fear!


    Their previous interest in this young man had turned into fear.


    Dreadful. Absolutely dreadful.


    What happened on Mingyi Lane was dreadful!


    How could the Mingyi School, boasting a history of a thousand years, have been defeated by a boy barely in his 20s in such a short time?


    What the hell was he?


    Was he even human?


    There were over 20 experts, three of which were Level Nine experts!


    And what about the Pure Yang Celestial Device and the secret Divine Sense? Was that the end of them?


    What about the time-honored Mingyi School, one of Jin''s Three Great Sects, ruling over the world for 5,000 years? That could not be the end of it, could it?


    The crowd swallowed hard and kept looking at the incredibly unreal scene¡­


    Suddenly, a light sigh came from nowhere in such subtle silence.


    "Soul Cutting. Kid, that''s a total surprise!"


    Zhou Bao slightly raised his eyebrows, looking up at the Mingyi Tower, and with a gentle breath, the gold Gang Qi was floating around him. He did not speak, but just raised his hand and a long whip of flames appeared in his hand.


    The Goat-shaped Dragon!


    Crack!


    The long whip kept extending among the crowd to over 1,000 feet in a minute, violently whipping the Mingyi Tower.


    The walls surrounding the Mingyi School were slashed apart by the long flame whip, like butter being cut. The Mingyi Tower, however, was untouchable as if it was shielded by an invisible wall.


    "Humph!" Zhou Bao gave a cold snort and was not ready to give up. All of a sudden, dozens of golden flames were conjured around him.


    Whoosh!


    The golden flames were fired toward the Mingyi Tower, but again, they were shielded and put out by an invisible force 10 feet from the Mingyi Tower.


    "Nine Forms of Real Dragon, the third form of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. My, my, my! A mortal could do that. Impressive!" said the mysterious voice. Zhou Bao''s attack did not cause any damage at all and when the black and red Sword Qi flashed in Zhou Bao''s fingertips, the sound coming from the Mingyi Tower said again, "Kid, you''d better take your Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword back. I mean no harm to you, but if you slash me again with that thing, I''ll have to do something!"


    Zhou Bao''s eyes squinted, and the black and red Sword Qi was withdrawn little by little. He could feel an invisible pressure coming from the Mingyi Tower and a coldness arose on his back. At the same time, the Golden Flame Mirror was activated and its golden light covered his body. And even the Poison Cold Shield, which he had not used for a long time, was also activated like a telepathic connection and its cyan lights flashed around him.


    "Haha, don''t panic, kid. I mean you no harm. Just stop what you''re doing now, and I promise that I won''t touch you. Owing to your vigorous and firm Internal Qi, your Pure Yang Celestial Device and all those Divine Senses, although your cultivation is only at Level Eight, your combat capability is above Level Nine. No wonder that kid from the Wang family is no threat to you. But that''s enough. You have made the two bastards pay for what they have done to you. Well, just do me a favor and stop here. Let''s call it a day, shall we?"


    "Stop?" said Zhou Bao, his eyes lingering on Wang Haiming and You Tianjing. "It''s not fair. I came here for revenge, but the Mingyi School stood in my way. They asked for it! They totally deserve this!"


    "Fair enough!" That voice thought for a second and the next sound Zhou Bao heard was the screaming of Wang Haiming and You Tianjing. Their bodies were stiff with blood rushing out of their mouths as they fell to the ground.


    "What about now?"


    "Hey¡­" Zhou Bao took a deep breath. Although he was totally focused, he still had not seen how it was done.


    "I don''t care if they are dead or not. I just wanted to know who was behind this!"


    "Oh, kid! Don''t mess with me. You knew who it was. You asked for revenge, and now you''ve gotten it. Don''t push it!"


    Zhou Bao tried to fake a smile but failed.


    "Yeah, I''d heard some rumors indeed. But I need to confirm them!"


    "That means that you have already gotten what you came for!" The mysterious voice was drifting around, like a candle flickering in the wind. "Oh, one more thing. The little snake that came with you wanted me to tell you that he was done with his business. You might as well want to leave now."


    "Oh!" Zhou Bao blinked, forced a smile and said, "As you wish. Thank you!"


    He glanced at the two bodies lying on the ground and said, "They are lucky to have you backing them up this time, but they won''t get away so easily the next time!"


    "There won''t be the next time because their cultivation is gone and they can''t even live five years with those bodies."


    "Well, if you''ll excuse me." Zhou Bao bowed slightly toward the Mingyi Tower, transformed into a green light, and disappeared.


    The crowd of experts and masters of martial arts of various schools were left looking at each other, speechless.


    ...


    ¡­


    "Hahaha. You''ll be famous! Within three days there won''t be a single man who doesn''t know the name Zhou Bao."


    Zhou Bao conjured up the Dragon Flying Technique, flying with the wind. When he was 100 kilometers away from Mingyi Lane, he saw that Wang She was waiting for him, and probably for a long time. Upon seeing Zhou Bao, Wang She smiled, with something hard to understand in his eyes. "Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. I didn''t see that coming. Not bad!"


    "F*ck! I came back alive just by pure luck! You never told me about this mysterious expert of the Mysterious Realm in the Mingyi School, nor about his Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "You don'' t have to worry about that!" Wang She shook his head and said, "The fact that his cultivation is in the Mysterious Realm is exactly why you don''t have to worry about it. He won''t attack you as long as you don''t attack him first."


    "Why not?"


    "Because you''re not in the Mysterious Realm but he is," said Wang She. "He acts according to the rules and he appreciates talent. That''s why."


    "You know him?" Having heard this, the look on Zhou Bao''s face changed.


    "Of course I do. As the Chief of the Tian Long Taoism, I''m quite familiar with the Mingyi School, including the Old Weirdos in the Mysterious Realm. There are three of them. I know them all."


    "Three?!" Zhou Bao froze for a moment and then cried, "There are three experts in the Mysterious Realm in the Mingyi School?"


    "Of course! The Mingyi School is one of the Three Great Sects. How do you think they got that title? The Mingyi School, Tian Long Taoism, and Sect of Flame, they all have Old Weirdos in the Mysterious Realm. Otherwise, they couldn''t be the way that they are today."


    "Then why did you ask me to break into Mingyi Lane?"


    "Just like I said, he won''t attack you as long as you don''t tear the Mingyi Tower down. Nothing will happen to you and nothing did, right? Look what you did to Wang Daohong. Did he do anything to you?"


    "But he still showed up in the end!"


    "That was because he was afraid that you''d hurt the foundation of the Mingyi School. Those Old Weirdos in the Mysterious Realm are listed among the gods. As almighty as they are, they must abide by many rules. Thus, they are the last concern to us."


    Zhou Bao''s eyes were shining. He seemed to have read something else from Wang She''s words. "You mean, when you are in the Mysterious Realm, listed among the gods, you basically can''t attack people casually?"


    "No, you can, but with many restrictions." Wang She glanced at him. "These Old Weirdos all really appreciate talent. You didn''t bring the best you had back there. Although you caused heavy casualties, you didn''t kill a single expert of the Mingyi School. How could they do anything to you because of that?"


    "What on earth does a restriction in the Mysterious Realm mean?"


    "I have no idea," said Wang She. "All I know is that restrictions definitely exist, and they will attack only if they don''t have a choice."


    "Green Spirit, is that true?" Zhou Bao asked Green Spirit in his mind silently since he could not get what he wanted from Wang She.


    "I don''t know about that. There were no such restrictions back in the antiquity times. The Individual Immortals couldn''t be listed among the gods. While the Genuine Immortals who were listed among the gods usually wouldn''t speak to ordinary people. Any ordinary person who pissed them off would be a dead man by the lifting of a finger. No restrictions at all!"


    "Okay¡­" Zhou Bao still had doubts. He looked at Wang She but did not see anything suspicious from his face like he had expected. "Oh, I heard about your tomb digging business at the Mingyi School. Why didn''t they stop you?"


    "Yeah, I did that, certainly. He won''t do anything to me, because I didn''t even put a finger on the tombs of the 72 sages of the Mingyi School. Plus, I had good reasons to do that. My biggest concern was the non-Metaphysical Realm experts, which was why I asked for your help. And you wanted to get your revenge anyway. Isn''t that convenient?"


    "Yeah, sure. Convenient!" Zhou Bao murmured to himself, and the next second, he looked up with a big smile on his face. "So, my wedding. It''s on schedule, right?"


    "Haha, haha, haha, hahaha¡­"

 Chapter 323: Wish Fulfillment, a Powerful Henchman

    Chapter 323: Wish Fulfillment, a Powerful Henchman


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The second year of Yongping of Great Jin.


    It was the fourth year after the collapse of Northern Yuan, Jin''s great enemy for the last 10,000 years. The world, which had been gradually getting peaceful, was stirred up once again by a young man named Zhou Bao.


    Breaking into the Mingyi School alone, he had challenged more than 20 experts and Elders one on one, including the Sect Leader of the Mingyi School and three Level Nine experts, and had won.


    More than 20 Elders and experts of the Mingyi School were badly hurt, an Elder at Level Nine died, and the Leader, Wang Daohong was unconscious. This had created the most sensational murder case in 3,000 years.


    And the name "Zhou Bao" once again spread out all over the world.


    It was completely different from what had happened before. This time, he made a big splash with his boundless power. Because of the battle on Mingyi Lane, all the representatives of Jin''s strongest well-known families witnessed the birth of a legend, a peerless expert.


    "His combat capability is far superior to that of experts at Level Nine!" This was what the mysterious expert at the Mysterious Realm of the Mingyi School thought of Zhou Bao.


    The combat capability far superior to Level Nine? What did that mean?


    That, of course, meant that he had reached the Mysterious Realm. Zhou Bao was a Mysterious Realm expert! Above all, he was not yet even 20 and had just turned 17 this year!


    A Mysterious Realm expert at 17!


    He challenged one of the world''s three major schools, the Mingyi School, and did not leave until the Old Weirdo at the Mysterious Realm who guarded the school had punished two Elders for their offense. What strength and prestige were these?


    He already had such great strength and courage now. What would the future hold?


    What would Zhou Bao achieve in the future?


    Nobody knew!


    Perhaps even the fabled Powerful Divines from the antiquity times could only achieve such a feat!


    Perhaps he was the reincarnation of one of the Powerful Divines from antiquity times, thereby giving him such power at his age.


    For a while, rumors were rife. All eyes were fixed on the northwest, on the unprecedented man who had made his name in the world.


    To their disappointment, however, after returning to the northwest, Zhou Bao underwent closed-door training again and stopped showing up.


    10 days after the battle on Mingyi Lane,


    another piece of news about Zhou Bao spread throughout the world.


    Since Wuyang County Governor, Zhou Bao, made great contributions to the country by opening up the commercial routes, taking in the refugees, and sharing the country''s worries in the northwest region, he was made Wuyang Earl and granted the title of the Crown Prince''s tutor, and his territory was extended by 150 km and would be guarded for generations. In addition, he would marry Princess Qingyang Yan Yunfei as his legal wife, build Wuyang Earl''s Mansion, and choose a lucky day to hold the wedding!


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    "Haha, the emperor really has the cardinal principles in mind! He''s actually giving me the little beauty. Haha..."


    Taking the imperial edict and sending away Chi Hengxing, who sent the imperial edict for the second time, Zhou Bao laughed.


    Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao, and Zhu Ba, his three most trusted subordinates who were standing to the side with extremely strange expressions, alternately looked at Zhou Bao and the imperial edict in Zhou Bao''s hand and exchanged glances, not knowing what to say.


    Their superior was so extraordinary that he had done so many big deals that had all amazed them. It had been more than 10 days since it happened, but they still seemed to be in a dream.


    Originally, they thought that Zhou Bao was only a Level Eight expert with a bunch of friends who were experts, having the Tian Long Taoism as his backer, and therefore, was so arrogant and unscrupulous. Now they knew that, compared to Zhou Bao''s actual strength, his behavior was actually a little low-key.


    It was the Mysterious Realm!


    Those two words had always been associated with Old Weirdos, Patriarchs, and old Immortals. Even the Three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan, who had been confronted with the whole martial arts world of Great Jin for more than 200 years, had only reached the peak of Level Nine.


    If the three experts at the peak of Level Nine intimidated the martial arts world of Jin for more than 200 years, then what about an expert in the Mysterious Realm?


    It was known that in the battle on Mingyi Lane, Zhou Bao defeated three Level Nine experts. Although the three were not as powerful as the Three Grandmasters, together with the more than 20 experts and Elders and their formation, their combat capability should have been equal to that of the union of the Three Grandmasters.


    Such a strong lineup, however, was defeated by this indecent teenager who was laughing and saying "little beauty". And it was a head-on confrontation, not a sneak attack. What kind of monster was this teen in front of them?


    Monster?


    No, he could not be called a monster, but a demon.


    Seeing that Zhou Bao had seemed to have been dizzy with his achievements for a long time, Jiang Xiao finally coughed twice to interrupt his delusion.


    "Your Excellency Jiang, do you have a sore throat? Why are you coughing?" Zhou Bao was dissatisfied with Jiang Xiao''s interruption of his delusion and squinted at Jiang Xiao. "What, I''m getting married. Aren''t you happy?"


    "Hehe, yes, of course, we''re happy that you''re getting married!" Jiang Xiao forced a smile. He was not afraid of Zhou Bao''s dissatisfaction because after staying with him for so many years, he knew Zhou Bao''s temper. He was not a meticulous person; on the contrary, he was very easy-going. Although he was sometimes childish and audacious, in general, he was a good boss. He had the courage to assign rights to his subordinates, which was good for them.


    Of course, this was related to the strength of Zhou Bao. By virtue of his strength, even if he divided up all his rights, no one would dare to seize power but would only do things better for him with the rights that he had given them.


    "Your Excellency, the imperial edict has been received. And the princess is going to marry you. What is the procedure of the marriage? Your Excellency, please make a decision!"


    "Make a decision? For what?" Zhou Bao winked, thinking that he had indeed been a bit carried away just now. The marriage was settled, but marrying a princess was no small thing. He did not like Jin Emperor Yan Yuntian, but he was about to marry his daughter and should not hold a grudge against him. Therefore, he had to arrange the procedures and etiquette of the marriage. Thinking about that, he felt that it was very complicated and he became annoyed.


    "Didn''t Chi Hengxing say that? Soon, the Ministry of Rites of the Imperial Court will send someone here and build an Earl Mansion. So you will have direct contact with the people of the Ministry of Rites. Besides, although it''s my wedding, it''s definitely not something that I can decide. Holding the wedding in Yunzhou, well, in Qingyang Market, you and Excellency Wang can go there and prepare it now, just tell me the time. I''m going to do closed-door training! Zhu Ba, follow me!"


    "Yes!"


    The three men exchanged glances. Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao smiled bitterly, while Zhu Ba beamed with delight.


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    "Zhu Ba, what are you laughing about? After all this time, you still haven''t made any progress in your cultivation. Have you spent the last few months visiting prostitutes?"


    After Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao had left, Zhou Bao took Zhu Ba into the back courtyard, gave him a stern look, and scolded him.


    "Uh, Your Excellency, I wouldn''t dare!" Zhu Ba''s smile instantly turned into a grimace. "You can''t compare your progress with common people like me! In your eyes, I''m not making progress, but I am indeed. My cultivation is now at Level Six. If I go any further, it will be at Level Seven. Level Seven, Your Excellency! This is what I have been dreaming of. But it''s not that easy!"


    "What''s hard about it?" Zhou Bao threw a small white porcelain bottle into Zhu Ba''s hand. "You possess the Bloodline Power from the antiquity times. With your current cultivation, you should already have felt it. It''s only because your cultivation is not high that this power is not fully aroused. As long as you work hard to break through to Level Seven, you will naturally understand it. Then your strength is bound to advance quickly. At that time, any ordinary Level Seven expert will be no match for you, and you will be a deterrent everywhere you go. Inside this bottle are nine Bone-Forging Pills, whose effect is much greater than that of the Bone-Forging Soup. I''ll teach you some punching skills. As long as you practice earnestly, within three years, you will be able to break through to Level Seven and become an expert. Understand?"


    "Thank you, Your Excellency!" Taking the bottle, Zhu Ba bowed to the ground, and the delight on his face turned into profound gratitude. Perhaps because he was too excited, he stuttered and buried his head on the ground. His body was trembling with emotion and he was breathing with a lump in his throat.


    "Well, don''t be too grateful to me. You''re my subordinate, and the stronger you are, the more helpful you will be. Don''t think I''m really so kind!" Zhou Bao smiled and held his finger to the back of Zhu Ba''s head. An abstruse thought came out and some punching skills that Zhou Bao had learned from the Stranger standing in the thunder were implanted into Zhu Ba''s mind.


    This was the way that knowledge was directly implanted with Spiritual Strength, and it was not difficult. Zhou Bao had practiced the Carefree Skill so that his spirit was mighty. In addition, he had been in spiritual communication with Green Spirit. Thus, he was already familiar with this way of communicating through his divine thoughts and could manage it with ease. But it still made Zhu Ba, a Level Six Junior Master, feel mysterious. Even though his cultivation had reached Level Six, and he could vaguely feel the power of divine thoughts due to his Bloodline Power, he was terrified by the direct knowledge infusion through spirit because he had never had such an experience and had never even heard of this technique.


    "Well, don''t be nervous. By the time your cultivation gets to Level Nine, and you entirely understand the power of divine thoughts, you''ll understand that it''s just a common technique!" Zhou Bao patted him on the shoulder and said softly, "I left you here just to force you to practice hard. If you have time, go to the courtyard. Golden Rooster and the other people are all experts. You can ask them about your confusions or obstacles. They''re older than me, are more knowledgeable than I am, and have an understanding of martial arts skills. My cultivation is growing too fast, so the foundation is weaker. They can explain it better than I did. Understand?"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!"


    "Okay, you can go!"


    "You''re very attentive to him. If you want to get his eyes, I advise you to forget it!" After Zhu Ba had left, Green Spirit said quietly, as if he had felt the thought fluctuations of Zhou Bao.


    "Since when can you read my mind?" Zhou Bao asked in a cold voice, and his face suddenly darkened.


    "I didn''t read your mind, I just guessed. When you spoke to him just now, your eyes produced an abnormal fluctuation. Hehe, I''m very familiar with that kind of fluctuation!"


    "You''re very familiar with it?"


    "Those damn necromancers have put the bloodline power of the Blood Freezing Demonic Pupils in your eyes too. There''s no special power in the Blood Freezing Demonic Pupils, its only function is to absorb other people''s gifted powers. But it can only absorb the gifted powers in the pupils, and can only absorb one power at a time. When another is absorbed, the former will disappear. The more that you use it, the less effective it''ll become, and it''ll cause damage to your vision. For you now, there is no need to take such a risk!"


    "If that''s so, then it''s a real risk, and not worth it!" Zhou Bao did not think that Green Spirit was lying because he did not have to lie about it. "However, possessing the heaven-sent bloodline, this guy is promising. With such a strong thug, there are many things that I don''t need to do myself!" Zhou Bao thought about it and felt that it would not be a loss for him to cultivate Zhu Ba even if he did not deprive him of his Divine Sense. During his years of cultivation, Zhu Ba showed not only a prodigious talent for martial arts skills but also loyalty to him. Such a devoted subordinate would be of great use.


    "By the way, aren''t you going to be married? What about that girl''s aptitude?" Green Spirit suddenly asked, dismissing Zhou Bao''s secret thoughts.


    "Why, do you want to accept a disciple?"


    "No, but I know a way of refining a dual-cultivation puppet. If her aptitude is good, you can turn her into your dual-cultivation puppet. Then you definitely..."


    "Stop, stop!" Zhou Bao repeatedly waved his hand, feeling a chill in his heart. "You''re really an Old Demon and not a good thing! I''m getting married. What''s this dual-cultivation puppet? Go to hell!"


    "I''m serious. Turning a person into..."


    "Shut up!" Not wanting to listen to his crap again, Zhou Bao directly cut off the spiritual connection.


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    At the same time, in Western Capital of Jin, the Princes'' Study, the center of Royal Capital, was already a mess. Yan Yuntian''s face was blue, and everything in the Princes'' Study, including desks, chairs, bookcases, books, cups, and bowls had been smashed and scattered on the ground.


    There were several corpses on the ground, all dressed as eunuchs, and some of them stunk. These corpses were the ones beaten to death with rods in the Princes'' Study by his order recently, and he had not asked anyone to carry the bodies away. In fact, there was not a eunuch or maid who dared to approach the Princes'' Study during these days unless something urgent happened.


    "The emperor is crazy!"


    This piece of absurd gossip was whispered in the Imperial Palace.


    Of course, everyone who knew the truth knew that the emperor was not crazy, but angry.


    "It doesn''t do you any good, and it doesn''t work!" A soft voice was heard outside the Princes'' Study. A beautiful, elegant young woman with a gallant garment slowly came in. "Fei-er is also my daughter. Marrying her off to Zhou Bao also worries me. But what can we do? Zhou Bao''s strength is not something that we can suppress. This time, you were too hasty and have misjudged his strength, so we''re forced to this step. There''s nothing we can do!"


    "He is just a boy with some lucky chances, but now he is so arrogant. Who knows what he will do in the future?" Yan Yuntian growled, bristled, and stamped on a corpse. Suddenly, there was flesh and blood flying. Then, he trampled twice again, as if it was Zhou Bao''s corpse.


    The woman gently frowned, raised her hand, and covered her nose. "The future will only be known in the future. Maybe Zhou Bao is a genius and will be an immortal. But if Your Majesty succeeds in the future, even if he does become an immortal, he will be at the mercy of you. It won''t be too late for you to reckon with him at that time!"


    "Do you think that I haven''t already thought of that?" Yan Yuntian jerked his head up with his eyes full of violence. "But Zhou Bao''s aptitude is too high. He''s only 17, but he has a combat capability over Level Nine. If he really reaches the Mysterious Realm, that will be so awful! Even if I do succeed in the future, I''m afraid that I still won''t be able to control him."


    "Do you mean that you will continue to deal with him?" The woman''s expression changed and she asked tentatively.


    "Humph! Deal with him? How can I deal with him now?" After hearing her words, the Jin Emperor sat down in the only chair in the Princes'' Study like a deflated rubber ball.


    "His strength is powerful. I can only appease him now so he won''t get me into trouble. It''s crunch time. If he were to hold me back, it would be very troublesome. Last time, I mobilized so many forces to kill him, but they failed just as they were on the verge of success, which has given him a foothold!"


    "In that case, we can only make Fei-er go through with all of this. So, about Fei-er..."


    "Forget it. Don''t let Fei-er even find out about it. She can accept it as a noble princess marrying a humble man. Maybe it''s good for Fei-er to marry an expert like Zhou Bao. Even if I fail in the future, she will not be involved!"


    "Your Majesty, what are you talking about? How can you fail?" The woman''s expression changed slightly, and in a flash, she had come to Yan Yuntian''s side and her white hand had covered his mouth.


    "Hehe, it''s no big deal to fail!" Yan Yuntian shook his head, holding the woman''s hand tightly in his, with his other arm around her waist. "The thing to do is yet to be done. Unfortunately, last time, my only mistake was that I misjudged his strength and offended him. Otherwise, I could pull him over to my side and have a better chance of success!"


    "Is there really no chance?" asked the woman gently, frowning.


    "No, not anymore. He was decisive and ruthless, and his backer is powerful. How can he possibly help me when I tried to kill him and offended him so badly? I''ll be thankful if he doesn''t hinder me in the future for the sake of Fei-er."


    "Fei-er is young. I''m worried about her..."


    "Fei-er is sensible and gentle. I have investigated Zhou Bao. Although he is cruel to his enemies and is aggressive in his actions, he is always polite to others, and even very flexible. Thus, Fei-er should not be wronged!" With a slight sigh and a look of exhaustion, Yan Yuntian looked at least 10 years older than he had been when Northern Yuan was ruined and he was full of high spirits just a few years ago.


    "Alas, one false move and everything can be lost. This time it is a foregone conclusion. The result has been fixed this time. But luckily I didn''t push Zhou Bao to the extreme!"


    Yes, he had not pushed Zhou Bao to the extreme! The first reason was that Zhou Bao had the Tian Long Taoism as his backer, so Yan Yuntian could not target his family or the Anyuan Store. The second reason was that although he had started a siege, he had lost heavily, and Zhou Bao had not suffered much damage. Therefore, their hatred was not yet irreparable. It was a bit humiliating for him to marry his daughter to Zhou Bao now, but there was room for improvement.


    "I made a mistake after the destruction of Northern Yuan by putting too much attention on the inside, thinking that it was more secure to consolidate the internal forces to enhance strength to make it my powerful backing, and then compete for that big goal."


    "There was nothing wrong with your plan!" There was a flicker of helplessness in the eyes of the woman. "It''s just that no one thought that there would be such a demon-like figure, Zhou Bao!"


    "Yeah, no one saw that coming. But it''s still not too late!" Yan Yuntian''s expression was even more bitter. "Let the boys deal with those internal affairs. I have lost face completely this time. Fortunately, the foundation hasn''t had losses, and there are still huge advantages!"


    "It seems that you have come around!"


    "Come around? Humph, I''ll never come around!" Yan Yuntian smiled grimly, but the expression on his face was much more relaxed than it had been a few days before.


    The woman smiled because what Yan Yuntian said showed that at least the anger, which had been in his heart over the last few days, had subsided. "Actually, this time, the Mingyi School has lost the most. The Tian Long Taoism is really insidious, hiding such a powerful henchman, looking for such a good opportunity. After this battle, the Mingyi School''s prestige is over, and they won''t be able to recover for a decade or two!"


    "That''s okay. Their losses are not too great, just a Level Nine expert. Zhou Bao is very discreet and it seems that he was prepared. Otherwise, it would not be so easy for him to retreat. Hehe, his combat capability is far superior to Level Nine, but his cultivation is just at Level Eight. Although he is unable to be an immortal, he can act with fewer scruples. Such a guy is the scariest. Unfortunately, he can''t be my man. Otherwise..."


    "Otherwise, he will be a powerful henchman of Your Majesty!" The woman giggled, "But Your Majesty, do you ever think that even the Tian Long Taoism is under your rule? He''s a powerful henchman of Tian Long Taoism now. Maybe he''ll be a powerful henchman in your hands someday!"


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 Chapter 324: A Visitor from the East Sea for the Taiyuan Gathering

    Chapter 324: A Visitor from the East Sea for the Taiyuan Gathering


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Be my powerful henchman?" Yan Yuntian laughed but rose to his feet suddenly as if something had crossed his mind. He was so excited that he almost threw the woman to the ground.


    She was worried as she thought that Yan Yuntian had gotten angry again. Before she could speak, she saw him frowning and pacing back and forth in the Princes'' Study as if he was thinking over something extremely important.


    "Your Majesty, you... "


    But Yan Yuntian waved his hand, a sign for her to stop talking lest he would be interrupted.


    After pacing for a while in the Princes'' Study, he suddenly stopped in his tracks and asked, "Xian''er, what if I send this guy to Taiyuan Heaven?"


    "Taiyuan Heaven?" The woman named Xian''er changed her expression. She looked shocked and said to Yang Yuntian, "So you are going to give him the Taiyuan Token? But up until now, he hasn''t submitted himself to your rule yet. If he were to get the opportunity to go to Taiyuan Heaven and obtain even greater strength, he would be more arrogant and beyond your reach, wouldn''t he?"


    "Hehe, now he is already beyond my reach. Besides, he has a special status. He has a combat capability close to the Mysterious Realm, second to none among those who are below the Mysterious Realm. But he hasn''t reached the Mysterious Realm due to his cultivation level, so he cannot be included in the list of Immortals, which means that he doesn''t have to comply with the Law of Heaven. That''s the trouble. If there is an opportunity to help him enhance his strength and reach the Mysterious Realm, which doesn''t belong to the Three Realms, he has to abide by the Law of Heaven. If so, as long as we don''t provoke him, he can''t make trouble for me. If worst comes to worst, I can give him my entire northwest region. He is going to marry Fei-er anyway, so we won''t lose much. It''s much better than letting him continue to make trouble everywhere like a shit-stirrer, right?"


    "I see. Now that we can''t stop him, we might as well do him a favor to help him reach the Mysterious Realm quicker. Then there will be one less troublemaker for us, too."


    "That''s right!" Yan Yuntian nodded. "It''s somewhat helpless and even shameful, but we have to admit that he has gone beyond our control. In that case, it''s better to let him have his way and give him some support. Anyway, he is also one of the people of the Great Jin. Even if he sets up a country in the northwest later, he will still belong to our own people. That''s for sure, isn''t it?"


    "Your Majesty, that''s a brilliant idea. Please accept my respect and admiration. It is indeed a feasible way. In addition, with such powerful strength, he will obtain great benefits in Taiyuan Heaven. He can be used to deter others. One way or another, he will become a henchman of Your Majesty!"


    "Haha!" Hearing this, Yan Yuntian burst out peals of laughter and felt unprecedentedly carefree, as if all his depression and gloom that lasted for the past dozen days had flowed away along with that laughter.


    "Good, that''s good. In this case, I''ll turn him into my henchman. Besides, if he really does obtain great benefits from Taiyuan Heaven, he will be grateful to me. That''s killing two birds with one stone."


    "Your Majesty, you are playing an even more sophisticated game. In the future, you can rename yourself the Golden Abacus!" Xian''er giggled, feeling utterly happy when she saw Yan Yuntian become relieved upon finding a solution.


    "Your Majesty, by the way, it''s not a big deal to let Fei''er marry Zhou Bao, but for the Third Prince of the Li dynasty... "


    "Humph. That''s not my problem. If he didn''t think of getting more chips in Taiyuan Heaven to suppress me but proposed to Fei''er earlier, then why will Fei''er marry Zhou Bao? If he feels dissatisfied now, he can go and reason with Zhou Bao. I wonder whether he has that ability or not!"


    "That''s right. The engagement between Fei''er and him was only a verbal promise and was not settled. Now that this swift-footed Zhou Bao got Fei''er first, all he can do is to blame himself for thinking too much!" Xian''er nodded. "I think that Zhou Bao is more reliable than the Third Prince. The Third Prince''s mother is from a powerful family, but they are, after all, outsiders. How can he compare to Zhou Bao!"


    "You are right. Even if there was no Zhou Bao, I would still have declined this marriage engagement. Now that Zhou Bao has a hand in it, I don''t have to worry about it. Although he is a son of a bitch, he does solve one of the big problems!" Yun Yuntian laughed, stroking his beard. "You know, even what you eat and drink has some reasons. Gains and losses are also heaven''s will. Since things have gone so far, we might as well push the boat along with the current. Perhaps, we will have a windfall."


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    Time flew.


    The second year of Yongping of the Great Jin quietly came to an end. After a heavy snowfall, Yunzhou of the Great Jin was covered with white and it was enchanting.


    Qingyang Market in Yunzhou.


    The town centralization that previously could not be found on a map had become a busy and lively county. It had been extended two times in one year. The house of the newly renowned Zhou family had also been extended three times so that it occupied a quarter of the entire county seat. But no one dared to say anything against this.


    That was because now the Zhou family were relatives of the royal family!


    For martial arts practitioners, Zhou Bao was one of the strongest experts in the world. But to the common people, being identified as a relative of the royal family had much greater value than being identified as an expert.


    At present, what the people in Qingyang Market talked about most was the spectacular wedding ceremony that was held before the New Year, when Zhou Bao, this "Fourth Doggie" from the Zhou family, married Princess Qingyang, the beloved daughter of the emperor.


    The people in this small village never saw that kind of splendid scene, and the whole process happened just like a dream. Even one month had passed, they still could not stop talking about this wedding and their envy of the Zhou family.


    "The Zhou family is really prosperous now. I never thought that Old Zhou could have such a capable son!"


    "The ancestral grave of the Zhou''s is located next to my family''s. How could it alone produce the lucky blue smoke?"


    The people familiar with the Zhou family sighed with emotion and did not understand why the Zhou family had become so prosperous all at once. They had no doubt that their families were not much different from the Zhou family.


    It did not matter how envious people were of them or that they were talking about them.


    At present in the Zhou''s house, all of the family members of the Zhou''s were finally gathered together.


    Of course, the man sitting in the seat of honor was Old Zhou. He looked older and portlier than he was before, smiling as if there was endless good news coming to the door.


    Sitting beside Old Zhou were Zhou Bao and Yan Yunfei, followed by his eldest son and eldest daughter-in-law, second son and second daughter-in-law, and Zhou Hua''er, Zhou Bao''s sister, and her husband, Wang Tianlei.


    "Little Fourth, are you going out again after just getting married?"


    Mrs. Zhou sitting beside Old Zhou looked unhappy because Zhou Bao, who just had gotten married and had stayed at home for only a month, had to leave again.


    "Mother, I''m going to the northwest to see what''s going on there. Now that the trade route is open, more and more people are coming and there are more things to deal with. I need to handle the things that Jiang Xiao can''t and make the decisions myself." Zhou Bao smiled. "What''s more, I''m going to find a good location to build a new house so that you and father can move there!"


    "Move? Why? Isn''t it good in Qingyang Market? People here are familiar folks and can take care of each other. I heard that your place is very desolate and has only a small population. Besides, it''s cold. Your father and I are old and can''t stand the cold!"


    Zhou Bao forced a smile. "Mom, do you really think that I haven''t thought about that and would leave you and dad in the cold after you arrive there? Don''t worry. Even if you don''t live there for a long time, you should at least go and visit from time to time. After all, it''s my fief, and also the land of the Zhou family. When you go there, you will be the most revered elder."


    "Little Fourth is right. It''s the fief of our Zhou family. Now I''m still healthy enough to go. Even if I''m too weak to get out of bed and need to be lifted, I''ll still go and see it!" Old Zhou tapped his long and straight pipe of tobacco pouch against the table hard and gave Mrs. Zhou a dirty look. "Stupid woman, shut up if you don''t know anything!"


    Mrs. Zhou did not buy it and stared back at him. Seeing Yan Yufei sitting next to Zhou Bao, she did not swear back.


    To be honest, she thought that the life of the past few years had been a dream. Throughout most of her life, she never expected her son to marry a princess. She felt uncomfortable about the identity of Yan Yunfei as a princess. It was not because she felt dissatisfied with her, on the contrary, she was extremely satisfied with Yan Yunfei, who was beautiful, gentle, and considerate. But her identity as a princess made Mrs. Zhou feel ashamed for her own identity as an ordinary person. In front of Yan Yunfei, she was unable to put on airs as a mother-in-law. It was awkward when they were together because she felt inferior to Yan Yunfei, which was totally different from normal relationships between other mothers-in-law and their daughters-in-law.


    Both she and old Zhou had this feeling. This kind of embarrassing situation made Zhou Bao feel uncomfortable. In fact, he himself did not have close relationships with members of the Zhou family except for Zhou Hua''er and her husband. That was also why he would like to take Yan Fei-er away.


    However, Mrs. Zhou was reluctant to part with her most promising son. Over the years, Zhou Bao had spent most of his time outside and little time with his family members. Finally, he had gotten married and came back, but he was going to leave again, which made her feel empty in her heart.


    "Mother, Little Fourth is an official of the Imperial Court. He has many things to deal with. You can''t make him always stay at home!" At this time, Wang Tianlei began to speak. "And he has a fief and has become a vassal. There is a court decree saying that people with this kind of identity cannot leave their fief casually. This time, it is already owing to the emperor''s grace that he can come back and stay at home for so long. If he does not go back, he might be punished by the emperor!"


    "Ah, is this true? Little Fourth is the son-in-law of the emperor, isn''t he? Will the emperor also punish him?" Mrs. Zhou felt puzzled.


    "Mother, no matter he is the son-in-law or even the son of the emperor, if he goes against orders, he will be punished!" Zhou Bao gave Wang Tianlei a grateful look and continued to explain.


    As soon as the voice had just fallen, he felt that the sensitive and soft part of his waist was pinched by Yan Yunfei, and then was revolved around. He turned around and saw Yan Yunfei staring at him with anger.


    He smiled, gave her a comforting look, and added, "In fact, the fief isn''t that far from here. In two months, in the early spring, I will take you there to have a look. Even though it''s desolate, the scenery is still good!"


    "But..."


    "Don''t mind her, she doesn''t know our Fourth Doggie''s ambitions. How could he always stay at home?" Old Zhou suddenly groaned as if his authority had been damaged, and that settled the matter.


    After shooting a dissatisfied glance at Old Zhou, Mrs. Zhou said nothing but looked at Zhou Bao with a reluctant expression in her eyes.


    ....


    ¡­


    "You really are... Your mother wants you to stay longer. It''s not a big deal. My father won''t blame you for it!" Back at their own courtyard, Yan Yunfei could not help complaining. "You always put the blame on my father, aren''t you afraid of him getting angry and blaming you?"


    "He had blamed me for everything that I should bear the responsibility for before, so he won''t blame me anymore!" Zhou Bao laughed. No one was around, so he held Yan Yunfei in his arms and kissed her face feverishly.


    "It''s still daytime. In broad daylight, how could you... Shame on you!"


    But Zhou Bao did not feel the same and wanted to continue. At this time, his expression changed and his hands stopped moving abruptly.


    "Who is that? Friend, why don''t you come out? Are you blaming me for not entertaining you well enough?"


    "Ah!" After hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Yan Yunfei blushed. She pushed Zhou Bao away and lowered her head to sort out her dress.


    "Zhou Bao from Yunzhou, you deserve your reputation!"


    With the advent of this voice, weird things happened. A puff of smoke rose up and slowly gathered into a figure. It was a middle-aged intellectual with a gloomy expression dressed in a gray robe. "I''m Mo Yinyang from the East Sea Li Empire. My pleasure to meet you, Mr. Zhou."


    "The East Sea Li Empire?" Zhou Bao''s mind went slightly blank for a second as he was very surprised.


    He knew that the Li Empire was located on another far-away continent separated by the sea, whose national strength was not inferior to that of the Great Jin dynasty, and it was the overlord of that continent. However, it was distant from the Great Jin, separated by an ocean that was hundreds of thousands of miles wide. It had to be very hard and dangerous to go across such a distance. Ordinary people could not pass over the boundless sea. Even for Level Nine experts, it was still very difficult to pass over it.


    The sea was incomparable, much larger than the mainland. It had all kinds of evil beasts and animals. Some hidden demons were hiding on some islands. It was said that the Demon tribe that was wiped out by human beings several hundred thousand years ago was also stranded in the sea areas. They lived and reproduced on the islands. And after several hundred thousand years of development, it had become a promising tribe once again.


    As for the Li Empire, it had no intersection with the Great Jin dynasty either.


    In fact, 99% of the people in the Great Jin dynasty did not know about the existence of this Li Empire. That was because it was too far away. Since ancient times, there were no official exchanges between the two states. Zhou Bao only learned about this empire from a book that he had captured from the Cool Breeze Gang. But at that time, he just took it as a wild history and put it aside after reading. He never thought that someone from the Li Empire would actually appear in front of him and would know about him. The most important thing was that this man had an extremely strong cultivation, having reached the phase of Level Eight. He exuded a very secretive spirit that made Zhou Bao feel that it was pretty dangerous.


    "There really is an East Sea Li Empire!" Zhou Bao gently nodded and winked at Yan Yunfei, suggesting for her to go back.


    Yan Yunfei nodded obediently, turned back to her room, and gently closed the door.


    "The East Sea Li Empire has existed a long time, but the two countries are too far apart to communicate. Therefore, only a few people know about it!" Mo Yinyang smiled.


    "It seems that the technique that this guy practices is the Dark Dust Technique, the orthodox heritage of the Jade Toad Clan of the Ancient Dark Sect. He has a strong cultivation, so be careful. The Ancient Dark Sect has secretive methods. Don''t be tricked!" Green Spirit suddenly sent out the idea to remind Zhou Bao to be careful.


    Zhou Bao secretly kept it in his mind and smiled. "Indeed, there are few people that know about the East Sea Li Empire. After all, it''s hundreds of thousands of miles from the Great Jin dynasty. Could you please tell me why you have come here?"


    "I came here for you, Mr. Zhou!" Moyin Yang smiled. "At this time, the Third Prince of the Li Empire has sent many experts to assassinate you, Your Excellency. I came here to warn you!"


    "the Third Prince of the Li Empire?" Zhou Bao blinked, thinking that it was inexplicable. "He wants to assassinate me. But why?"


    It was not surprising that he was surprised. "The Li Empire is hundreds of thousands of miles away, separated by the sea. There are no relations between the two countries. Even if I am arrogant in the Great Jin dynasty, it is not the business of the Li Empire. Why did a prince send experts to assassinate me?"


    "It is all because of Princess Qingyang!" Mo Yinyang laughed. "Maybe you don''t know that yet. In fact, the Third Prince has long been interested in Princess Qingyang of the Great Jin dynasty, that is, your wife. He planned to propose marriage at the beginning of the new year. However, you got a head start on him. Given his character, he would have personally rushed to the Great Jin to make trouble for you. But he didn''t, which could be seen as a generous gesture to show you some respect."


    "Humph. And what does he count as? Do I need him to save face?" Zhou Bao sneered. With his current strength, he had dared to break into a millennial school like the Mingyi School. He really did not care whether the man was a prince or not, let alone that the man coveted his wife. Every time that Zhou Bao thought about that, the idea to crush his face surged up into his mind.


    He and Yan Yunfei had gotten married over a month ago and had a happy, married life. Although Yan Yunfei was a princess, she was not arrogant, but obedient to Zhou Bao. She was also not like Yan Yunyan, who looked glamorous but always gave Zhou Bao a sense of distrust. It seemed that Yan Yunyan was always calculating inexplicable things from day to night.


    To put it plainly, Yan Yunfei was a little girl who was still living in an illusion. It was very easy to deal with her. Although it was an arranged marriage, the relationship between Yan Yunfei and Zhou Bao seemed to have gotten closer little by little over the past month. Zhou Bao was very satisfied with this. When he heard that this so-called Third Prince coveted his wife, how could he not be annoyed?


    "The Li Empire is different from the Great Jin. Founded 8,000 years ago, the Li Empire is the most powerful dynasty in the East Sea. With powerful strength, it is much more powerful than the royal family of the Great Jin dynasty and even stronger than those prestigious sects and schools in the Great Jin. Every prince of the Great Jin is an expert. In your Jin, if one becomes an expert when he is under 20 years old, he can be called a rare and talented man. However, in Li Empire, all of the 18 grown princes have reached the Expert Realm before 20."


    "So what?" Zhou Bao sneered. "Is it really remarkable to reach the Expert Realm before 20? In fact, the Li dynasty is only a super school that controls the world. Do you really think that such an influence can threaten me?"


    "You misunderstand, Your Excellency. I am not threatening you. I just want to warn you!" A trace of a reluctant smile flitted across Mo Yinyang''s gloomy face. "At this time, not only are those assassins sent by the Third Prince coming, but so is Ye Qingtian, the top master of martial arts in the Li dynasty, who has risen up from the younger generation. He is only 20 this year but has already reached the peak of Level Nine. With the help of a Pure Yang Celestial Device, his combat capability is far beyond Level Nine. I am afraid that this time he comes to have combat with you!"


    Zhou Bao''s expression became weirder. He knew that he was famous now, but that was only in the Great Jin dynasty, or at most, to the edge of the continent. How could his fame have spread all the way to the Li dynasty separated by a sea of hundreds of thousands of miles?


    The most important thing was that he realized something from the last sentence of Mo Yinyang.


    His combat capability was far beyond Level Nine!


    His own combat capability was also far beyond Level Nine. And so was Ye Qingtian''s!


    However, the fact that his own combat capability was far beyond Level Nine had only been known to the world a month ago when he alone had challenged the Mingyi School. Before that, people all thought that his capability was only close to Level Nine.


    But what Mo Yinyang said meant that Ye Qingtian had heard that Zhou Bao''s power was far beyond Level Nine, so he wanted to come to have combat with Zhou Bao!


    It only happened one month and a few days ago. How could it already be known by the Li dynasty?


    Even if a man used the Dragon Flying Technique to fly at the speed of Zhou Bao with the help of Gang Qi, it would be impossible to reach the Li dynasty in just one month. "There aren''t things like telephones and telegraphs in this world. How could the news be transmitted so fast? Is this guy deceiving me?"


    Seeing Zhou Bao''s puzzled expression, Mo Yinyin finally smiled. Of course, this smile was hidden in his heart and was not shown on his face. But Zhou Bao could tell that from the faint smile that flashed in his eyes.


    "It must be a conspiracy!"


    That was the idea flashing across Zhou Bao''s mind.


    "Actually, it''s very simple. There are no exchanges between the Great Jin dynasty and the Li dynasty, but the senior officials of the two countries are connected." Mo Yinyang smiled. "When a man has a cultivation of Level Seven and can be called an expert, he will have access to some hidden secrets of the continent and some things about the Mysterious Realm. You are too young and your cultivation grows too fast. In addition, you don''t belong to any powerful sect. That''s why you don''t know about all this now!"


    "Another old fellow is making things mysterious on purpose!" Zhou Bao said in low voice coldly. "I know what I should and shouldn''t do. It''s my business. It seems that it''s not your business to teach me!"


    "Of course. I didn''t come to teach or threaten you at this time. I came here to make a deal with you!"


    "A deal?" Zhou Bao slightly squinted and said, "What kind of deal?"


    ...


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    ¡­

 Chapter 325: Inheritance of the Big Dipper

    Chapter 325: Inheritance of the Big Dipper


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Make a deal with me?"


    Darting a glance at Mo Yinyang, Zhou Bao showed no hints of emotion on his face as he said, "What kind of deal do you want to make with me?"


    "I know that you have unfathomable power with continuous hidden advantages, but the assassins that come from the Li dynasty also have some real power, especially Ye Qingtian. Though the cultivation and combat capability of that guy isn''t as good as yours, he is still not easy to deal with!"


    "I''m not going to joke around with my life. If you are just trying using this message to make a deal with me, then I need to know what exactly is it that you really want!"


    "I do want to make a deal with you with some information, but more than just this. I will tell you the exact time and location that they want to confront you so you can be prepared and even have a chance to defeat them. As for the thing that I want, you don''t have it, but they have it. I want a Taiyuan Token!"


    "A Taiyuan Token?" Zhou Bao whispered to himself, "I don''t even know you, so why should I trust you? What if you are a scout or bait that they sent?"


    "I am one of the assassins that were hired by the Third Prince, but the reason I joined up is for a Taiyuan Token, not because I am your enemy. If you don''t believe me, I can make a Great Vow of the Heart Demon. I am a member of the Dark Sect, Great Vow of the Heart Demon...!"


    "I know you are practicing the cultivation method of the Jade Toad Clan of the Ancient Dark Sect, which is enough. Make a Great Vow of the Heart Demon and I will believe you!"


    Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Mo Yinyang''s eyes flashed. Without anything further to say, he made a Great Vow of the Heart Demon in front of Zhou Bao immediately. Hearing his oath, Zhou Bao''s expression seemed to have become a bit milder at this moment.


    "All right, now you can tell me. Where will they try to assassinate me?"


    "On your way back to your territory. They know that you are here and considering this is the territory of the Jin and you are an earl of the Jin, they wouldn''t blatantly go against you, so they have a good plan to assassinate you on your way to your territory. No one would notice it!"


    "That surely is a good idea. It is a long way from Yunzhou to my territory, desolate with no inhabitants. There are a bunch of families and servants with me so it is a really good chance for them to do it!" Zhou Bao''s eyes became cold and fierce. "Will you also go against me then?"


    "Absolutely not, I will never go back now that I have left them, besides, they also wouldn''t allow me to come back. But they would never get the idea that I would come to find you!"


    "Why wouldn''t they?"


    "Because no one knows that the Taiyuan Token is with Ye Qingtian except for me. As far as they are concerned, I have no reason to betray them. As for why I left suddenly, they would never ask about that. The Dark Sect emphasizes a freewheeling lifestyle and doesn''t pay much attention to it."


    "That is hard to say. If I were one of you, I would certainly be suspicious!" Zhou Bao shook his head as he spoke. Nothing was really easy in this world, especially something surreptitious like an assassination. And suddenly, one of the assassins had disappeared and was nowhere to be found. Therefore, the assassination plan should definitely have changed no matter how deliberate it was, which was just basic common sense. Zhou Bao did not believe that assassins from the Li dynasty did not know common sense like that, and if they did not get it, the Third Prince of the Li dynasty just hired a bunch of inferiors. So in the view of Zhou Bao, Mo Yinyang''s explanation was not sufficient.


    "I know. Not only you, but I would also do exactly the same thing to change the plan. But they won''t at this time, even though the plan isn''t thorough at all. The one who made this plan is Ye Qingtian and he is a man with a combat capability over Level Nine and has obtained Divine Fate at a young age. Because of that, he is super arrogant and overbearing and will not allow anyone to disobey him. His intention is to confront you by himself. As for the others, they will just be used to make a formation. Even if I, or every one of his subordinates, ran away, he would still wait for you at the planned location."


    "He has personality." Looking at Mo Yinyang and considering that he would not lie about it since he made a Great Vow of the Heart Demon, Zhou Bao nodded and said, "What about the Taiyuan Token? What is it?"


    "The Taiyuan Token is the road-leading token to enter Taiyuan Heaven, and Taiyuan Heaven is one of the most famous micro worlds from antiquity times!" Mo Yinyang said, "You should know, the antiquity times..."


    "I know!" Zhou Bao interrupted Mo Yinyang once again. "Taiyuan Heaven is said to be the vastest and holiest of the 33 Heavens. And what? Can we just enter it with a Taiyuan Token?"


    "So you know about the 33 Heavens from antiquity times!" Mo Yinyang felt surprised. He was the Holy Son of the Jade Toad Sect with a high status in the Jade Toad Sect of the Dark Sect, while the Jade Toad Sect was one of the most powerful schools to have access to these covert things from antiquity times, which was why he had had the chance to access it.


    But what about Zhou Bao? He did not even know about the connection between the authorities of the Li and Jin dynasties, which apparently showed him a man with the Fate of the Immortal and had practiced from grassroots to the present phase. Normally, those like him had strong power but lacked a sufficient recognition of the world.


    It shattered his preconceptions about Zhou Bao because Zhou Bao knew not only about the 33 Heavens, but also the so-called vastest and the holiest micro world of 33 Heavens, which was information that was not commonly known at all.


    "It seems that those guys were correct and there is a strong backer behind Zhou Bao, but exactly who is still unknown. Maybe he is a secretly trained talent from an organization, so he knows so many covert things from antiquity times!" Mo Yinyang sighed to himself. Just raising his head a bit then, Mo Yinyang saw Zhou Bao''s playful eyes, and suddenly his heart fiercely stagnated. "Taiyuan Heaven would come out every other thousand years. With a Taiyuan Token, you could get a chance to go to Taiyuan Heaven. The treasure of heaven and earth and the pneuma of Taiyuan Heaven couldn''t be compared to those at present. For 50,000 years, 99% of those who survived from Taiyuan Heaven had succeeded in stepping into the Mysterious Realm. So this is a chance for everyone. And I joined the assassin group for the Taiyuan Token."


    "According to what you''ve said, Ye Qingtian is so fierce that you have no chance at all, even though you have reached the Expert Realm!"


    "That is why I came here for you. Prestige comes with danger. If I don''t take a chance and risk it, then how can I succeed? Because if I don''t enter Taiyuan Heaven, I can only achieve Level Nine with my aptitude, even if I practice until my death. I have to fight to make progress."


    "All right, in that case, I will make a deal with you, but the deal won''t be like what you imagine. Ye Qingtian is trying to offend me, and I won''t be courteous to him. But if he is powerful and over Level Nine, I don''t have the confidence to take him down, either. So, I am not sure that I will eventually be able to get that Taiyuan Token."


    "That''s not a problem. Ye Qingtian is erratic like he is the biggest character in the world. Now that he has come to find you himself, he won''t leave without defeating you or being defeated."


    "Isn''t he afraid of death?"


    "He doesn''t think that he''ll die!" Thinking of Ye Qingtian, the corners of Mo Yinyang''s mouth twisted. "This guy has the Fate of the Immortal, even an expert in the Mysterious Realm can''t kill him!"


    "Humph!" Hearing this, Zhou Bao sneered. Without any further words, he now believed Mo Yinyang. He knew something about that Ye Qingtian. There were not many men like him in the world, but they did exist.


    "How much do you know about Ye Qingtian? He must have fought against others in the past now that he has such a strong combat capability. What is he good at?"


    "Ye Qingtian is a legend in the Li dynasty. He was once a disciple of a small sect. In this small sect, the highest cultivation was no more than Level Seven. When he was 16, this small sect was besieged by others and was about to be slaughtered. As a normal disciple of the sect, Ye Qingtian suddenly fought back and showed his combat capability at the peak of Level Eight along with his extraordinary power, killing all the enemies of the sect. He has always been a winner since then. Half a year ago, when he fought with five Elders at Level Nine of the Star River Ashram, he won with only a minor injury, killing two and badly hurting three others. That was when his reputation reached its peak. Now he is an assistant of the Third Prince and also the most powerful hatchet man in combat capability, and as for his advantages..." Mo Yinyang smiled wryly. "Generally, Ye Qingtian fights against others with his bare hands. His Internal Qi is also immense. I have no idea how he gets it. He has one Pure Yang Celestial Device that was eventually used as a celestial device to fight with those five Level Nine Elders of the Star River Ashra. It''s said that it is a golden ruler."


    "That''s it?"


    Zhou Bao was dissatisfied with the information, but the embarrassing expression on Mo Yinyang''s face showed that he had already told him all that he knew.


    "All right, such being the case, that''s it. Thank you for giving me this information. I will give you the Taiyuan Token as long as I''m able to get it."


    "Many thanks for that." Putting his fist into his other palm, Mo Yinyang''s gloomy face looked a bit blissful. "I will leave now and expect good news from you!"


    After finishing these words, his body darkened into a wisp of smoke and disappeared.


    "Green Spirit, what on earth was the Kung Fu that he used to turn himself into a wisp of smoke?"


    "That is an escaping skill that belongs to one of the 3,000 Small Powers. I thought that it had disappeared since nobody has used it after I showed up. It seems that the inheritance of 3,000 Small Powers is in the Li dynasty!"


    "What do you think about Taiyuan Heaven? Can a Taiyuan Token really usher you into Taiyuan Heaven?"


    "I don''t know about that. Taiyuan Heaven is one of the 33 Heavens. In antiquity times, the 33 Heavens basically belonged to others, so you had to get permission from its owner if you wanted to enter it. And as so many years have passed by, Azure Heaven has turned into another appearance. So of course, I don''t know what Taiyuan Heaven has turned into!"


    "So, is Taiyuan Heaven worth going to?"


    "What? Do you want to enter it?"


    "You have seen what Azure Heaven looks like. These microworlds from antiquity times really are treasures, so I would definitely try if I had the chance!"


    "Taiyuan Heaven is vast and holy and belonged to Emperor Wanluo in antiquity times, where it was not open to outsiders. But I heard that there were many magic herbs and spiritual creatures inside with abundant pneuma. Meanwhile, there were some weird things there. But all of that is hearsay. I never entered before so I can''t attest to what the real situation is like. If you want to know the specifics, you can just enter it and see. It won''t hurt. Do you want to go back on your promise of giving the Taiyuan Token to Mo Yinyang?"


    "I don''t intend to withdraw my promise," Zhou Bao said with a smile, "but I don''t believe that there is only one who is allowed to enter Taiyuan Heaven with a Taiyuan Token. You have seen what Azure Secret Area is like, once the gateway is open, the accepted amount is limitless, so I believe that Mo Yinyang won''t refuse my company if I help him to get a Taiyuan Token."


    "That is a damn good plan!" Green Spirit scolded in a low voice.


    "All right, cut out this chitchat and let''s just arrange these things before us. Why not give them a surprise since they are trying to make trouble for me?" Zhou Bao''s vision became piercingly cold. "This time, I must be well-prepared since they will try to hold me up on my way back. After all, there are others, like Yunfei, along with me. It is kind of troubling, but I can solve it."


    "Now, What are you going to do?"


    "I will absolutely go there to see what they are capable of since I know that they will come after me. But I won''t take others, like Yunfei, with me. Besides, even though they are staying here, they still need protection. I will contact Wang She and ask for his help. With his help, those guys from the Li dynasty will definitely fail no matter how good they are!"


    "Are you so confident with that guy?"


    "The hidden advantages of Wang She might be stronger than ours. That guy loves to hide and always plans in advance. He wouldn''t suffer a defeat!" Zhou Bao said, "I will arrange for others to go with me in order to lower their guard!"


    "Um, that is a nice idea. But you must be careful about Ye Qingtian. What if he is also someone with great luck like you? His cultivation is over Level Nine at an age of no more than 20. Hey, that was rare even in my era. I would be the first one to not believe it if I was told that he didn''t have great luck!"


    "Don''t worry, I am the one fearing death, so I will take it carefully!" Zhou Bao nodded.


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    At noon, three days later.


    In front of the Grand Mansion Gate of the Zhou family in Qingyang Market, it was noisy with the hubbub of voices and extremely busy.


    A bunch of people from the Zhou family came out from their big house, which caused a crowd of Qingyang Market to gather. It seemed that Zhou Bao would go back to his territory in the northwest with his wife, the princess.


    The princess had gotten married, and especially, the favorite daughter of the emperor had gotten married. All of the corresponding etiquette and standards were supreme. Therefore, the dowry alone had installed 20 big carts. And the servants, eunuchs, and maids granted by the Imperial Court had reached four to five hundred in total. Of course, all of these people would not go to Zhou Bao''s territory at one time. In fact, some of them would be on their way to Zhou Bao''s territory already in order to make preparations for Zhou Bao and Yan Yunfei''s arrival.


    The people who set off together would only be about 100 this time and they would take care of Yan Yunfei and Zhou Bao along the way, which was an established practice and was a so-called ritual that could not be abolished.


    Because all kinds of trifles needed to be arranged in advance, they went out after breakfast. It was not prepared until the afternoon. Then they started moving toward the northwest. Over 10 big carts and almost 100 people went toward the west in a grandiose fashion.


    There was not one accident on the first day, nor on the second day. Everything seemed peaceful over the following days until the 10th day, when the fleet had just arrived at a place over 500 miles away from Dragon-pressing River. And it was exactly at that time that Zhou Bao, the poker-faced man riding on a horse, finally smiled.


    That was because the assassins were already here.


    Pulling on the bridle, Zhou Bao beckoned the fleet to stop.


    A slender man in white stood in front of the road with a gentle face, full of mystery. Putting his hands behind him, he glared at the fleet from a long distance as if the mystery of the world was engulfed in his deep and profound eyes. Anyone with a weak spirit would fall into it with one simple glance.


    Zhou Bao''s eyes were born to possess Divine Sense and were immune to the eccentric eyes, so he did not get affected. But those who came with him were different. Although it was far away, they were still enchanted by his fantastical eyes, just standing there stupidly with their eyes becoming blank.


    "It shouldn''t be like this. Something is wrong, the spirit of this guy isn''t right!" The psywave of Green Spirit passed on to him at that moment. "Why is this guy''s Qi so eccentric?"


    "Do you feel something?"


    "It is kind of familiar to me. I am sure it is extremely dangerous!" The psywave of Green Spirit was full of discretion and doubt. "Boy, be careful. This guy must have the inheritance from one of the great emperors of antiquity times. That is why he made me feel that he is dangerous. I went to a meeting of the Heavenly Court once in antiquity times, and some great emperors with excellent cultivation attended as well. The spirit of one of them is similar to that of this guy. But I was not qualified to meet that influential great emperor at that time, therefore I can''t offer a judgment about whom this guy has inherited from!"


    "Does such a place like the Ancient Celestial Court really exist?"


    "There was a Heavenly Court in antiquity times just like now. Otherwise, how would someone belong to the current Heavenly Court?" Green Spirit smiled coldly and said, "But you should be careful if this guy really has inherited something from the Great Ancient Emperor. He might have a fairy weapon besides the Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "A fairy weapon? Crazy! Then what should I do now?"


    "Don''t worry about it. His cultivation isn''t high enough to control a fairy weapon!"


    Zhou Bao gradually calmed down upon hearing this.


    "Are you Zhou Bao?" Staring at Zhou Bao in the distance, Ye Qingtian suddenly interrupted the communication between Zhou Bao and Green Spirit. "No wonder you have a high cultivation at such a young age. It turns out that you have a Demon Spirit from antiquity times!"


    "Good judgment!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed. Let alone a Level Nine expert like Wang She, experts in the Mysterious Realm from the Mingyi School, did not know that he had Green Spirit. But Ye Qingtian discovered that with just one simple glance, so he did have a kind of excellent ability.


    "Humph, I don''t know how many people this Demon Spirit has killed from antiquity times to be able to survive until now. Zhou Bao, hand it over to me and let me destroy it, and I will let you live!"


    "What?" At first, Zhou Bao thought that he had heard him wrong and was momentarily distracted. Then, he stared at that guy in white named Ye Qingtian, blinking his eyes fiercely and laughed suddenly. "Where does this lunatic come from? You have a lot of nerve to act drunk in front of me. Just leave quickly, otherwise, you will get yourself killed!"


    "Oh, this damn kid is so disgusting just like those guys at that time. Sh*t, boy, beat him and maliciously kill him!"


    Green Spirit was infuriated, the psywave transmitted to Zhou Bao''s mind was turbulent like a wave. "Boy, go and kill him. I will tell you the method of cultivating spirit so that you can refine your Poisonous Hitching Post. Damn, this guy deserves to die. Destroy his spirit, eliminate his theory, and leave him no chance to live forever!"


    Zhou Bao rolled his eyes and a thread of a smile flashed at the corners of his mouth as he said to Ye Qingtian, "Why are you still here? Do you really want me to kill you!"


    Ye Qingtian smiled as well. Although these two were different in age, personality, and the way that they behaved, they had one thing in common, which was confidence. They were both very confident and believed they could overcome any obstacle in front of them, even though the adversary was at same level as themselves.


    "Zhou Bao of Yunzhou, you are really deserving of your reputation. I didn''t believe it when I heard that you fought with the Mingyi School alone, but now it seems it is the truth. Even though you are still not my match, if you just give me the Demon Spirit, then maybe I can let you go!"


    "Humph. I know that you have inherited something from the Great Ancient Emperor and fought against five Level Nine experts of the Star River Ashram alone, but does that mean something? You wouldn''t be my match until you step into the Mysterious Realm. Do you really think that you are invincible because you have an inheritance from the Great Ancient Emperor?" Zhou Bao sneered.


    "Is that so?" Ye Qingtian''s smile was withdrawn. An enormous spirit emanated from his body and then the essence of the world around became agitated like a monstrous wave above the sea.


    "How splendid the Internal Qi is!" Zhou Bao frowned and his expression became strange.


    The Internal Qi that erupted from Ye Qingtian surprised him, but that was it.


    "It seems that he also knows how to practice acupoints and possesses more than one acupoints, but not much more. Except for Dantian, he just has practiced two acupoints. And those two acupoints are already much better than ordinary people''s."


    "Damn, I know who he inherits from¡ªthe Big Dipper Emperor. If I am not mistaken, he has practiced three of the Seven Apertures of the Big Dipper and has hidden his strength, so maybe he has practiced four acupoints, and even all the Seven Apertures of the Big Dipper are open. But it doesn''t matter, it is no big deal even if he has practiced all Seven Apertures of the Big Dipper. Your Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints are two acupoints more than his. Besides, your Internal Qi''s quality isn''t worse than his. Wait! His Internal Qi...!"


    Green Spirit became shocked suddenly as if he had felt the strangeness of Ye Qingtian''s Internal Qi. Then, he shouted weirdly, "The Star River Essential Qi, it is the Star River Essential Qi. Boy, be careful, the quality of his Internal Qi isn''t worse than yours, and your Real Essence''s quality seems equal. You do have a real adversary today!"


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 Chapter 326: The Meeting of the Two Heroes, Star Palace, the Sky-measuring Star Ruler

    Chapter 326: The Meeting of the Two Heroes, Star Palace, the Sky-measuring Star Ruler


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "I have met my match, my real match!"


    When Zhou Bao''s Demon Fire collided with Ye Qingtian''s Star River Essential Qi for the first time, they both felt that each other''s Internal Qi was not only vigorous, but also powerful.


    Ye Qingtian''s Internal Qi was quite special, which made the Gang Qi that he cultivated special as well. When it was launched, the world sparkled with stars as if a starry river was coming out of his body. Along with the starlight and its chill air, Ye Qingtian''s Internal Qi collided with his Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang, and the essence of the world around them was immediately stirred into a mess the moment that the coldness collided with the heat.


    Boom!


    When the two different Gang Qi met, an explosive sound of thunder rumbled out of the blue, shocking not only the over 100 ordinary people who followed Zhou Bao and had completely passed out just now, but also those assassins who had come from the Li dynasty that were hiding in the shadows and waiting for an opportunity to end his life. The assassins were stunned stiff and forced to reveal themselves unsteadily.


    "It seems to me that you brought quite a few men with you!"


    After their Gang Qi had collided, they both backed up a few steps. Staring at the nine people thrown out of darkness, Zhou Bao laughed.


    "Humph, they are useless and no threat to you at all. Their presence will make no difference in this fight!" Ye Qingtian sneered. "If they join us, they will all die!"


    "Well, you''re fighting me. Do you have a death wish too?" Zhou Bao smiled and raised his hand, grabbing the Golden-Scaled Crudgel to attack him. "How about my 72 Strokes of Evil?"


    "It''s just a cheap trick!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s cudgel, Ye Qingtian smiled and raised his hand. Suddenly, numerous spots of tiny starlight were circling and guarding his body like fireflies.


    Zhou Bao''s Golden-Scaled Cudgel was a Wizard Weapon which was extremely heavy, but when smashing the starlight, it bounced back with endless chills crawling to his hands along the Golden-Scaled Cudgel.


    "Your Divine Weapon is quite good, but you are using it the wrong way. Moreover, this weapon didn''t infuse into you, so you can hardly use one ten-thousandth of its power. Zhou Bao, be serious and show me what you''ve got. Or else, today is doomed to be your last day!"


    Ye Qingtian easily blocked Zhou Bao''s Golden-Scaled Cudgel, while his face turned dark as if he was unsatisfied with Zhou Bao''s loose attitude. He raised his hand and the flying starlight around him formed a tremendous cover that moved straight toward Zhou Bao.


    "I know that trick too!" Zhou Bao laughed and packed up his Golden-Scaled Crudgel, shaking his body and motivating the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang. The Gang Qi was congealed into the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield with nine dragons spiraling on it, and it rushed into the starlight.


    Boom!


    The two shields crashed into each other. However, neither one was able to beat the other and they both vanished together.


    "Alright!" Ye Qingtian whispered as he motivated all his Internal Qi and then the Star River Essential Qi flashed out. All of a sudden, a myriad of mysterious and distant forces penetrated through the hollow and were converged, rushing toward Ye Qingtian. It had just been the middle of the day and the sun had been shining brightly. But now, as streams of force emerged, numerous starlights appeared in the clear sky, and the sun and the stars were appearing simultaneously.


    "He is guiding the star force. Where did he gather so much Star River Essential Qi? And he completely integrated it into his Internal Qi. That''s incredible!" Green Spirit saw that the sky was immersed by the starlight and sent Zhou Bao a psywave stream. "Don''t butt heads with him. Now that he has guided the Nine Heavens Star Force, it''s no use even if you attack it with all of your power. However, guiding the star force has its own limit, so he will not last long!"


    "Understood!" Zhou Bao gently nodded.


    When the stars were sparkling in the sky, Zhou Bao felt that Ye Qingtian''s temperament had undergone tremendous changes, as if he had suddenly turned into a giant mountain, standing right in front of Zhou Bao.


    "Since you aren''t attacking first, I''ll do it. The infinite starry sky converges every single star. The Starlight Infinite Claw!"


    Numerous stars were converged to form a giant claw and violently rushed toward Zhou Bao.


    As soon as the claw had stretched out, the world changed and the temperature suddenly dropped by several dozen degrees, as if it had suddenly fallen into a world of snow and ice.


    Zhou Bao did not dare to relax his vigilance in the face of the Starlight Claw. He stretched his hands out and shot countless fireballs toward the Starlight Claw.


    Seeing those fireballs, Ye Qingtian just sneered. "Zhou Bao, do you have a death wish?" As he spoke, the claw dispersed wave after wave of chills, which immediately devoured all the fireballs and reached in front of Zhou Bao''s eyes.


    "I might disagree!" Staring at the Starlight Claw, Zhou Bao''s Gang Qi burst out of his body. He raised his hands, and suddenly a golden splendor exploded in that claw.


    It was the Great Fusion Technique!


    Pfft!


    The Great Fusion Technique blasted a hole in the powerful Starlight Claw and then the claw loosened. A strange expression crossed Ye Qingtian''s face. Zhou Bao pointed at him with his finger, and the golden splendor appeared again.


    It was the Great Fusion Technique again!


    "What an excellent Divine Sense!" Ye Qingtian could not help praising it. He hunched his body, only to find that the Great Fusion Technique had exploded in the starlight around him and shook his foundation, and the star force guided from the Nine Heavens was also shaken.


    "This is awesome! The Great Fusion Technique is really powerful!" Having seen that his two fusion techniques had beaten Ye Qingtian back and the Nine Heavens Star Force started to shake, Zhou Bao was so delighted.


    "It''s too early to be happy. Though the Great Fusion Technique is quite strong, you can''t release it constantly. This guy is now prepared, so it won''t be that easy next time!" said Green Spirit, with his spirit bouncing.


    Sure enough, when Zhou Bao''s third Great Fusion Technique was released, a stream of starlight started to flash. Zhou Bao clearly felt that a stream of strong force flowing down from the Nine Heavens defused the Great Fusion Technique, and at the same time, the Nine Heavens Star Force that had been shaken by the Great Fusion Technique was stabilized again.


    Ye Qingtian stretched out his body, shooting out a myriad of starlight that rushed over to surround Zhou Bao.


    "The Starlight Prison!"


    The speed of the lights was approaching the extreme. Faced with the high-speed starlight, Zhou Bao had nowhere to hide. All he could do was motivate his Gang Qi to protect himself and put up his Poison Cold Shield.


    When the starlight hit on top of the Gang Qi, Zhou Bao finally figured out what was going on. There were a total of 81 streams of starlight. Each starlight contained a huge amount of power that formed a prison trapping and demobilizing him.


    Meanwhile, numerous chills in each starlight started to erode Zhou Bao''s body.


    "Humph, the Starlight Prison. Do you really think that this thing can trap me?" Zhou Bao motivated all his Internal Qi and struggled to free himself.


    Bang!


    The small prison cell was not big, but once it was tilted by Zhou Bao''s power, it immediately rolled up turbulent waves, as if a giant mountain was about to be lifted, and space around shook with it.


    "What a strong force. However, my Starlight Prison is made from the Nine Heavens Star Force. Do you think that you can fight against the stars in the Nine Heavens alone?"


    Seeing that Zhou Bao''s struggle could release such huge power, Ye Qingtian was in shock, but he knew that even with this power, Zhou Bao had no way to escape from his prison, which was made of the Nine Heavens Star Force. Yet, he would not relax. Restricting Zhou Bao with the Starlight Prison was just his first step.


    "Infinite Star River! Boundless Way of Heaven!" Ye Qingtian trapped Zhou Bao with the Starlight Prison and raised his right hand. The star force of a complete day began to converge in his fingertips, and then the starlight suddenly flashed, forming a sword light that shot fiercely toward Zhou Bao.


    The Star River Divine Way Sword!


    The power of the sword was enormous. The sword chopped as if it would cut out the whole world. The world started to tremble as it felt the majestic power of the sword.


    "I can also wield a sword!" A red light flashed between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows, then a crimson-black Sword Qi appeared out of the blue.


    Swish!


    This Sword Qi, different from the Star River Divine Way Sword, was not as enormous as the starry river but had an endless murderous intent that the Star River Divine Way Sword could never have.


    That killing intent, extremely sharp and destructive, as if it was all contained in this sword, was now released freely.


    This sword broke off all the restrictions of the Starlight Prison and collided with the Star River Divine Way Sword. At this time, the killing intent showed up. The crimson-black Sword Qi broke the Star River Divine Way Sword quickly and smashed the starlight Sword Qi. The crimson-black Sword Qi became darker, but it did not fade away, rushing toward Ye Qingtian.


    "What?" Seeing the unstoppable Sword Qi, a terrified expression appeared on Ye Qingtian''s face. The starlight around Ye Qingtian formed a huge shield in front of him, yet his body jumped to the side when the Sword Qi hit the Starlight Shield.


    Pfff! The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword broke the Starlight Shield, becoming darker and dispersing suddenly, but it did not disappear. It was transformed into millions of threads of Sword Qi flying toward Ye Qingtian from all directions.


    Seeing these innumerable threads of Sword Qi, Ye Qingtian smiled and gently waved his sleeves, and then numerous starlights converged to smash the Sword Qi.


    But later, his facial expression changed.


    A majestic and enormous power came from the inside of the Starlight Prison and destroyed the prison.


    He saw Zhou Bao with a sneer on his face make a seal with his hands and imprint toward him from the sky.


    The Flipping Sky Seal!


    One seal had broken the prison, and another seal had directly smashed the Starlight Shield around Ye Qingtian.


    Ye Qingtian wanted to escape when he felt this boundless pressure, but the Flipping Sky Seal had blocked the space around him when it was thrown. The space around Ye Qingtian was blocked by the seal like a prison, a lot more troublesome compared to the one that had trapped Zhou Bao. He was like a fish trapped in a huge ice cube, unable to move.


    He saw the pressure of the seal coming toward him and knew that it would destroy the space there, including himself.


    Ye Qingtian certainly could not let that happen. Although he could not move, the seal had only blocked his body.


    There was starlight flashing between Ye Qingtian''s eyebrows, and then a silver light arose from his hand and collided right into the force of Zhou Bao''s Flipping Sky Seal.


    "The Sky-measuring Star Ruler!"


    Seeing that silver light, Green Spirit''s mind experienced huge trembling waves.


    That starlight was glowing as shiny as a starry river. As a silver ruler flashed faintly, wave after wave of the furious star force started to surge and the stars in the sky began to shine restlessly. Streams of visible starlight rushed to the ruler from the sky, only to make the starlight of the ruler brighter.


    It was in just a moment that the star force in the ruler had reached an incredible degree. And it destroyed the power of the Flipping Sky Seal after it knocked into it.


    The starlight was still shining and the ruler had not faded away, which hit right on Zhou Bao.


    This was just bullying people with pure power and a Divine Weapon!


    "You think that you are the only one who possesses a Pure Yang Celestial Device?" Zhou Bao sneered with a golden light flashing behind his head. The golden light hit straight on the ruler.


    Boom!


    It was another loud sound. The Sky-measuring Star Ruler was blocked by the golden light and it stopped halfway, blazing with a silvery starlight that was resisting the golden light.


    "Oh no!"


    The Sky-measuring Star Ruler paused, but not because it was as powerful as the Golden Flame Mirror. In fact, though the Sky-measuring Star Ruler was hindered, the endless star force was surging and rippling, flowing through that golden light. Zhou Bao was staggered by the unexpected hit and almost fell to the ground with his spirit trembling, as if it would be beaten out of his body.


    He could not help himself from being astounded, but then he stabilized his spirit. The golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror suddenly became brighter and then faded away.


    "What a strong power, as if it''s infinite. Is that really a Pure Yang Celestial Device?" Feeling the streams of force passing through the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, Zhou Bao''s face went pale. The Golden Flame Mirror could not withstand these unreasonable forces.


    "Boy, don''t put yourself out here. The Sky-measuring Star Ruler was once the celestial device of the Star Palace. It has been purified in the Constellation Sea for more than 10,000 years. Although your Golden Flame Mirror is also a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it has not been purified for long, so it is no match for the ruler. It seems that this guy has learned kung fu and inherited something from the Star Palace!"


    "Didn''t you say that he has inherited from the Big Dipper Emperor?"


    "Humph, so what? Who says the heir of the Star Palace can''t also absorb the power of the Big Dipper Emperor?" Green Spirit said with a sneer, "However, you had better stay alert. Your Golden Flame Mirror can''t resist his Sky-measuring Star Ruler!"


    As if confirming Green Spirit''s words, pushed by the waves of star force, Zhou Bao''s Golden Flame Mirror began to rustle, coercing the Green Lotus transformed from the Innate Green Lotus Fire to come out, but it was still hard to withstand for long.


    "The star force contained in this celestial device is too powerful, and he has the stars of the Nine Heavens as his backup. It''s unwise to fight recklessly against him!" Zhou Bao fell back a dozen steps, leaving a dozen footprints on the ground. His face was pale and the Golden Flame Mirror behind him was gloomy. Even that golden light was restrained by the star force, and it would not take long to be smashed by the star force.


    "Well, Zhou Bao, you''re so famous, but is that the best you can do?" Seeing that Zhou Bao was burned out, Ye Qingtian turned his mouth upward in a grin complacently, as if he was mocking Zhou Bao for overestimating himself.


    "Your treasure is really good. Just give it to me!"


    While speaking, Zhou Bao suddenly disappeared along with his Golden Flame Mirror. All of a sudden, the surge of the star force had a way out, bursting out just like flowing water.


    Suddenly, the earth trembled and the mountains swayed.


    Ye Qingtian looked panicked, and a feeling of extreme danger came from the bottom of his heart. He motivated the starlight around him and formed a layer of thick Gang Qi to protect himself the moment that Zhou Bao had disappeared.


    Boom!


    Zhou Bao showed up behind him and punched him simultaneously.


    It was right on Ye Qingtian''s Protective Gang Qi.


    This punch was so hard that the world trembled. Ye Qingtian''s protective starlight became dim as the enormous force of the punch passed through the starlight and hit hard on his body.


    Ye Qingtian''s body flew back, and at the same time, the Sky-measuring Star Ruler appeared on the top of his head, glowing with endless starlight and protecting his entire body.


    Therefore, when Zhou Bao showed up beside him, Ye Qingtian did not stand a chance.


    Ye Qingtian looked uncomfortable. He did not expect for Zhou Bao to have mastered such a strong special technique like the Three Realms Division, nor did he anticipate that the punch of Zhou Bao could contain such huge power, so he was trapped by Zhou Bao accidentally and lost his chance to win.


    Although the power of Zhou Bao''s punch was partially absorbed by his protective starlight, its destructive power still passed through and hammered him hard.


    "What kind of punching skill is it? What kind of fist intent is it? Why does it contain so much destructive spirit? The tendons and meridians broken by his punch have no chance to recover. What horrible punching skill did he practice?"


    Feeling the abnormalities in the area where he was hit, Ye Qingtian was in shock and he looked paler than before. He had expected that it would be a brutal fight, but little had he expected Zhou Bao to be such a pain in the ass.


    At this time, Zhou Bao was rushing toward Ye Qingtian while raising his fist. He was just about to attack when he saw that the Sky-measuring Star Ruler had protected the body of Ye Qingtian, so he then chose to step back. He had confidence in his fist, but he was not going to use it to fight against a powerful Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    "It is not the time to fight with my life now."


    "Boy, don''t be lenient. He may be just as lucky as you are. You can grasp this opportunity to kill him and have one less threat in the future!"


    After seeing that Zhou Bao had retreated, Green Spirit hurried to tell Zhou Bao. What Ye Qingtian had said had completely irritated him and reminded him of some horrible things from antiquity times.


    "Do you think that I am willing to show any mercy? This guy has a Sky-measuring Star Ruler to protect himself. Even if I manage to kill him, I could get seriously injured. Don''t forget there are nine people who are waiting to kill me!"


    Zhou Bao said in a hushed voice and stepped back quickly.


    "You have already revealed your Three Realms Division. If you can''t kill him this time, he will have something prepared for you the next time you meet him. And at that time, it won''t be so easy to deal with him!"


    "He already was prepared!"


    "But now he is injured!"


    "Even if he is injured, he still has the Sky-measuring Star Ruler. I will not fight against such a powerful Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Zhou Bao yelled to Green Spirit.


    "If you can grab that ruler, I have a way to make you stronger!" Shouted Green Spirit, "Your Golden-Scaled Cudgel is not an authentic Divine Weapon yet. But, if you manage to get that Sky-measuring Star Ruler, you can refine it into a Pure Yang Celestial Device. And then your strength will be greatly increased!"


    "It is a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Why should I bother to refine it into a Wizard Weapon?" Zhou Bao was puzzled, but his body had started to move. "Besides, I have nothing to help me resist that Pure Yang Celestial Device now!"


    When it came to this, he deeply regretted that he had been too generous and had given out two Pure Yang Celestial Devices that he had grabbed. If he had kept one for himself, he would not have been in such an awkward situation right now.


    "The Space Division Skill and the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!" Green Spirit shouted, "This time, even if we can''t kill him, we have to force him to show us what he has and grab his Sky-measuring Star Ruler!"


    "Humph, if I use those two techniques, I must put him down this time. Those two techniques are all that I have left!"


    The spiritual exchange between the two was going extremely fast, but it was also at that moment that the situation drastically changed.


    Ye Qingtian, who was being guarded by the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, had finally recovered his breath. He bore the wounds with his Internal Qi by motivating the Qi, while his strange eyes fixed firmly on Zhou Bao as if he wanted to use them to kill Zhou Bao.


    "Well, very good, kid, you are totally dead. I was seriously injured by you. I''m gonna kill you! I''m gonna kill you!" Ye Qingtian cried after he recovered a bit of his spirit. His face was as pale as white paper and looked distorted.


    The starlight in Ye Qingtian''s eyes flickered, spinning slowly just like the starry river. He would not use the Sky-measuring Star Ruler against Zhou Bao because he had not figured out a way to deal with his Three Realms Division.


    "You wanna kill me? Hehe, you might be powerful, but you''ll have to work harder to kill me!" Zhou Bao was stricken by the Sky-measuring Star Ruler before, but now he had summoned his breath and opened up nine acupoints. Now that he possessed such enormous Internal Qi, he could recover his Qi quickly. Hearing Ye Qingtian''s words, he crackled, "I was going to spare your life, but now I have to kill you to save me all the trouble later!"


    "Kill me? Do you think you can kill me?" Ye Qingtian sneered. Afterward, the Sky-measuring Star Ruler transformed into starlight, penetrating the center of his eyebrows and sweeping away his exhaustion. "But you, please don''t think that you can do anything because you know how to travel hollow. Today, I will show you what I''ve got!"


    "Is that so? I also want to show you what I am capable of!" Zhou Bao also sneered and suddenly fled away. He could smell a sense of danger in Ye Qingtian, who had withdrawn his Sky-measuring Star Ruler.


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 Chapter 327: Breaking through Ye Qingtians Attack.

    Chapter 327: Breaking through Ye Qingtian''s Attack.


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    A sense of danger prevailed.


    Zhou Bao relaunched the Three Realms Division and with a shrill whistle, he disappeared and re-appeared more than 100 feet away.


    Stars filled the sky!


    In the afternoon, amidst the wilderness of the northern prairie, an unforgettable sight appeared! Starlight vied with the sun, overshadowing its rays and filling the sky with its brilliance. To the north, there appeared seven bright stars which constituted the Big Dipper.


    It was different from the Big Dipper he had seen previously. It was not in the shape of a ladle, but instead had three stars on top and four below and looked rather odd.


    The seven stars projected a formidable force created from heaven and the column of silver beams shone down directly on Ye Qingtian.


    The star force that surrounded Ye Qintian surged forward forming crest upon crest of silver waves, which turned into a rotating funnel, similar to a tornado, sucking up everything in its path.


    Zhou Bao hissed! Even though he had nine acupoints and a particularly powerful Internal Qi, he could not make use of the force from heaven and earth to increase his attack force like what Ye Qingtian did. No matter how much power there was in a man''s Internal Qi, there was no way one could compete with the forces of heaven and earth.


    Using this tremendous power, Zhou Bao restarted the Three Realms Division thrice in order to return to where he thought was a safe area.


    "Zhou Bao, this time you have really made me furious! I''ll definitely kill you here today! I will show you what my Big Dipper Magical Punch is capable of doing!"


    "Big Dipper Magical Punch?" Zhou Bao halted abruptly in his tracks and distracted for a moment, after hearing the familiar yet strange sounding expression.


    "Boy, be careful, the Big Dipper Emperor''s supreme weapon is the Big Dipper Magical Punch and never have I known of anyone who survived an attack from this weapon!


    Green Spirit shouted out a warning. Zhou Bao immediately felt a bout of cold air hitting him with a powerful blast. Engulfed in the blast, he could see a swirling ring of stars that stretched across the universe, distracting him with its movements.


    Suddenly he spied an enormous fist made up of starlight hurtling toward him with a massive force!


    It was a good chance!


    Instead of experiencing fear, Zhou Bao welcomed the attack!


    The first attack though enormous, it had too many flaws. Zhou Bao felt that it differed from his method of attack and was not so good.


    The attack could be described as such:


    The Big Dipper was primal in nature, overwhelming and penetrating at the same time, but to Zhou Bao, its power resembled that of a decrepit building, run-down and dilapidated in appearance, a former shell of its previous existence. Zhou Bao had a different type of weapon. Even though his defense weapon was new, it was crafted entirely by him and had a very solid foundation. In comparison to his fist intent, the Big Dipper did have certain powers but was a hopelessly archaic fist technique, which was a joke to him.


    It was this incomplete fist intent that gave Zhou Bao a good fighting chance.


    "The Big Dipper fist intent is really worthy of studying, but you meant to belittle me as you used it against me!"


    With a sneer on his face, Zhou Bao summoned his Internal Qi, clenched his fists, and threw a forceful punch.


    Boom!


    Ye Qingtian reeled from the massive blow and his face blanched in shock.


    "This is..."


    When he lifted his head, he froze at the sight.


    Even though he was surrounded by the powerful force shield of the Big Dipper, it was of no help. Behind Zhou Bao, a black sun steadily rose, beating down on the earth with its scorching rays.


    It was indeed a bizarre scenario! In comparison with the Nine Heavens Star Force which he summoned and together with the Big Dipper, the power of the black sun was considerably weaker. But the force of the black sun managed to keep his own fist intent in check. No matter how he tried to resurge his power, he could not advance.


    "What is this weapon I am up against? How could this happen? He is much weaker than I am!"


    A smile flickered across the corners of Zhou Bao''s mouth. "You''ve bullied a lot of people with your fist intent, right?"


    "You!" An expression of sheer panic flashed across Ye Qingtian''s face. The Big Dipper Magical Punch was one of his unique skills. In the Li dynasty, regardless of how powerful his enemies were, he was always undefeated as long as he used the Big Dipper force, driven by his Internal Qi and the Essential Gang. Yet today, he came across such a strange fellow who was able to totally suppress his fist intent, even though his force was not as powerful as his star force. How did this happen?


    Ye Qingtian was horrified, but before he could react, something even more frightening happened. The surrounding environment began to change. He was covered by his own fist intent, amidst brilliant starlight, but now a mysterious darkness swallowed up the brilliance.


    The starlight disappeared. Under the black sun, a huge, mysterious, and black hole was forming. It was chipping away at the Nine Heavens Star Force.


    Bang!


    All the horror, the surprise, and ideas flashed in a moment. At this moment, the huge fist of starlight had come to Zhou Bao, but it did not strike him and was completely disintegrated by a mysterious force, disappearing without a trace. The starlight that was condensed into the fist had been turned into numerous spots of light, going into the mysterious black hole.


    This is impossible!" Finally, with a mighty roar, as Ye Qingtain gathered all his strength and tried to resurrect the silver starlight, a huge fist formed once more.


    Destroy it! He heard Zhou Bao''s cold voice giving the command. An enlarging black shadow loomed and slammed into the center of the starlight.


    "Whoa!"


    Ye Qingtian''s face turned a ghastly shade of white. A great force hurtled toward him and shattered his fist of starlight. The force struck him repeatedly.


    If the Sky measuring Star Ruler had not been there to protect him, he would have been shattered to pieces by the blow. And only then did he see what the shadow was.


    It was a fist, Zhou Bao''s fist!


    "You idiot, do you think you can defeat my fist? Hehe, I''ve been waiting for this!" Zhou Bao''s mocking laughter rang in his ears. To salvage his pride, Ye Qingtian was all ready to retaliate, but another force hit him unexpectedly. Zhou Bao''s second fist came.


    "Your fist is powerful indeed, but I have the Sky-measuring Star Ruler. Do you really think that you have the power to break my Sky-measuring Star Ruler?"


    Unknown to others, but because he had inherited the Star Palace, he knew that the Sky-measuring Star Ruler had been put into the Constellation Sea by the Palace Leader and had been purified for more than 10, 000 years. The massive star force that it contained had reached a tenth of the Constellation Sea. It had no chance to turn into a fairy weapon. No matter how powerful Zhou Bao was, and how strong his fist strength was, he was a mere mortal. Could he really overcome the power of the Sky-measuring Star Ruler?


    Such situations only occurred in myths and he did not believe in that.


    But what happened next made him feel like he was in the midst of a myth.


    Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!


    One punch was not enough, a series of punches followed.


    Within a few moments, Zhou Bao had made five successive hard punches, right on target, at the protective star force.


    His Big Dipper fist intent could not withstand Zhou Bao''s iron-fisted punches and broke down completely.


    "Building up the star force and adding your divine thoughts are what your fist intent is doing? You really don''t get it, do you?


    Zhou Bao roared with rage and the five punches rained down on the Sky-Measuring Star Ruler, making it quiver. Even though the Sky-measuring Star Ruler was not easily broken, Ye Qingtian, sheltering in the middle, felt a surge of panic.


    "Monster, he''s a monster!"


    Ye Qintian had the ability to conjure up a powerful fist strength, but he lacked the capability to throw in five rapid punches and make each punch more powerful than the last. Even with the knowledge of the workings of the Big Dipper Magical Punch that he had inherited from the Big Dipper Emperor, he was still incapable of the task. The Big Dipper Magical Punch was equipped with the power of seven movements and seven punches. Even after using his best efforts in creating such a force, he could not attain the required speed.


    What did that mean?


    This meant that the power displayed by Zhou Bao''s five punches had already surpassed that of the Big Dippers Magical Punch.


    Or the powers of the Dipper Magical Punch was already outdated.


    Having smashed Ye Qingtian''s fist intent with the five successive punches, Zhou Bao was still raring to go.


    The Big Dipper Magical Punch had been destroyed but there were lessons to be learned from the incident. Zhou Bao neither had the time nor inclination to learn from the incident. After destroying Ye Qingtian''s fist intent, he operated his fist intent and infused the fist intent of the Big Dipper Magical Punch into it. The suddenly appeared black hole had not only absorbed the essence of the Big Dipper Magical Punch but also the invincible star force.


    "The Sky-measuring Star Ruler is so tenacious and its defense force is really incredible!"


    "Humph, so what, Ye Qingtian may be powerful but his strength isn''t enough to exert the full power of the Sky-measuring Star Ruler!" Green Spirit exclaimed. "This is a good breakthrough! He has been thrown into confusion by you. We just need a little more effort to break down the protective shield of the Sky Measuring Star Ruler and he will be rendered totally helpless."


    It was true that Zhou Bao now had the upper hand, and the battle was completely in his favor.


    The assassins who had come to the Great Jin from the Li dynasty with Ye Qingtian were at Level Eight or Nine, but they could not see the changes in the field. The Nine Heavens starlight totally obscured Zhou Bao and Ye Qingtian. All they could see was a silver field of starlight within a radius of nearly 1,000 feet. They did not know what had taken place in the field and no one had the courage to find out.


    From the starlit field, they could hear muffled sounds coming at short intervals. All the sounds blended together, sounding like the roar of a gigantic beast and overwhelmed the people there.


    At this moment, Zhou Bao had reached the critical point of the battle and the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill were converging as one.


    Bang, bang, bang...


    Ferocious punches rained down on the starlight. The waves of starlight were increasing in mass and churning violently, threatening to spill its contents at any time.


    "No, that''s impossible! I am under the protection of the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, and the Sky-measuring Star Ruler is indestructible!" Ye Qingtian was totally terrified of Zhou Bao. After the five punches came another 20 punches.


    In addition to the enormous pressure of each punch, the searing heat which could melt the iron ruler in an instant also made him tremble in fear.


    "Who the hell is he? What kind of monster is this?


    He was known as a "monster" in the Li dynasty. Upon his arrival, he found that he was not the only monster in the world. Comparatively, Zhou Bao was even more of a monster and demon than him!


    "Great, that''s great!"


    After 20 or 30 punches, Zhou Bao had no feeling of overexertion. Instead, he felt a burst of exhilaration. He hadn''t felt this way when punching for a long time.


    Ordinarily, he would not have this chance. He had yet to find a rival who could make him fight this way. The punches were likened to a form of amusement, and there was no need to exert much strength at all.


    Suddenly, in the midst of his furious punching, his face broke into a cruel smile.


    "Break, break, break, break, break!"


    Amidst the succession of punches, there were three crucial hits.


    Boom, boom, boom, boom...


    Heaven and Earth had been altered. Zhao Bao''s single punch had finally broken through Ye Qingtian''s protective starlight. However, the Sky-measuring Star Ruler was a powerful Pure Yang Celestial Device. A crack appeared when the star force was destroyed and it tried to resurrect its power to repair the damage.


    But how could its speed match Zhou Bao''s fist speed?


    The first punch had broken through the star force, and to Ye Qingtian''s horror, he was sent flying by the subsequent punches just like a sandbag. Then, the star force was revived together with the protective ability of the Sky-measuring Star Ruler. But at that moment, Zhou Bao hit a fourth time and it was another critical hit, breaking the protective star force of the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, which had just been restored.


    This time, the Sky-measuring Star Ruler was beyond recovery.


    Ye Qingtian was seriously injured and since he was the one who had refined the Sky measuring Star Ruler, it was his Natal Celestial Device. Its first priority was to heal him.


    Luckily, the two punches that hit Ye Qingtian were not critical hits, or else Ye Qingtian would be dead, even with the protection of the Star River Essential Gang.


    Ye Qingtian was severely injured, with broken bones and blood oozing out from every orifice of his body.


    "Damn it!" Being able to achieve such a high-level cultivation at such a young age indicated that Ye Qingtian was not an ordinary person and the sharp pain woke him from his panic-stricken state.


    With a low roar, he curled himself up into a ball and gathered together the Nine Heavens Star Force.


    "All the stars of the heavens, give me the strength to form a bridge!


    Following Ye Qingtian''s chanting, the starlight in the sky stirred and formed a Starlight Bridge under his feet in an instant. The Starlight Bridge appeared in the sky, like a rainbow after the rain. The difference was only that the rainbow was colorful, and the bridge was made entirely of silver starlight.


    "No, it''s Starlight Bridge. He wants to run away. Stop him!" Said Green Spirit anxiously.


    The Starlight Bridge was formed in a flash. Zhou Bao''s expression altered and he instinctively drew out his black and red Sword Qi to slash the Starlight Bridge.


    The Starlight Bridge moved fast, but the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was even faster. The black and red Sword Qi hit the middle of the bridge.


    Bang!


    A tremendous quake rippled through the ground and the Starlight Bridge shook violently.


    "It''s pretty sturdy!" Zhou Bao responded with a sneer. Raising his left hand, his sword light rose with it. It was three or four times stronger than the previous one and it hit the Starlight Bridge with the intention to kill.


    "Countless stars, protect my Starlight Bridge!"


    Ye Qingtian''s expression darkened. A blast of starlight erupted from between his eyebrows, and he relaunched the Sky-measuring Star Ruler again.


    The starlight was diminished and the sword light was moving freely!


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and the Sky-measuring Star Ruler clashed with each other, and the strong Sword Qi drove the Sky-measuring Star Ruler away.


    "No!" Seeing that the Sky-measuring Star Ruler was flying away, Ye Qingtian stretched out his hand to bring it back but Zhou Bao did not give him any chance to bring it back. In an instant, Zhou Bao restarted the Three Realms Division and reached the edge of the Starlight Bridge in the blink of an eye. Then he threw a punch at Ye Qingtian''s head.


    Ye Qingtian''s face darkened in anger. In spite of the presence of the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, he turned and launched the Star River Essential Gang, which together with the guided Nine Heavens Star Force melted into one force and blocked his way.


    "Hehe, that''s what I want!" Zhou Bao laughed and withdrew his fist. Then he disappeared in a flash, then reappeared beside the Sky-measuring Star Ruler that was flying in the midst of the sky, and caught it.


    As soon as he had caught the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, Zhou Bao felt a cold, icy star force flooding his body and causing it to buck like a horse.


    "It is not the right time to clash with you!" Zhou Bao muttered. Using his fingertips, he raked a line through space and the Sky-measuring Star Ruler was also gone.


    He had used the Space Division Skill to put the Sky-measuring Star Ruler into his Space of Segmented Realms.


    Even though the Starlight Bridge had gradually stabilized, how could the power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword be so easily dispersed?


    The bridge, which was made up of the entire star force in the sky had almost collapsed under the attack of one sword. Now it was holding up well albeit slower in movement. Ye Qingtian had been bracing the star force with all his strength. It, however, had a hard time recovering.


    "Great, this guy is like a broken arrow now!"


    Indeed, Zhou Bao could see that Ye Qingtian was already at the end of his tether. Zhou Bao would not let him leave so easily. He felt that heroes should not feel sorry for each other.


    To kill him when he was at a disadvantage was his intent.


    On seeing the unstable Starlight Bridge, Zhou Bao sneered. A blast of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi rose again, cutting sharply on the Starlight Bridge.


    This time, the Starlight Bridge finally broke down.


    It could never withstand any further attacks after having been hit twice by the Sword Qi, in addition to Ye Qingtian''s serious injury. As the Starlight Bridge collapsed, Ye Qingtian''s face turned white. With the diminishing power of the Starlight Bridge, he only had the Star River Essential Gang left to support him, whose power was lesser than the starlight.


    "Are you able to escape now?" Zhou Bao launched his Three Realms Division again and rushed to hit Ye Qingtian''s chest. "Your Gang Qi can''t stop my attack."


    Boom!


    The bare fist landed on the silver Essential Gang, and in a flash, the Star River Essential Gang had scattered. Then the fist came straight to Ye Qingtian''s face.


    "You came from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away to see me. You really are in a hurry to meet your doom!" Zhou Bao looked at Ye Qingtian as if he were watching him being hit in a scene from afar.


    Swish!


    A blast of faint starlight burst from Ye Qingtian. Zhou Bao didn''t think too much about it initially, but when his fist was about to hit Ye Qingtian''s head, the starlight seeped into his fist.


    A piercing coldness overcame him and his body became rigid, and his advancing fist stopped in front of Ye Qingtian''s forehead.


    "This is..."


    Zhou Bao paused for a moment, but before he could fully respond, another starlight shot out. The two blasts of starlight were different from the starlight that Ye Qingtian had guided from the highest of heavens before. It was not silver but pale blue.


    "This is..."


    "Run as fast as you can, it''s a fairy weapon. Hurry up, leave this place." Green Spirit''s spirit suddenly trembled, as he realized what was happening. "It''s the Holy Ice Qi of Star Palace. Only the most powerful fairy weapon of the Star Palace can emit it. Come on!"


    As Green Spirit cried, Zhou Bao had already launched the Three Realms Division thrice and fled to a distance 1,000 feet away.


    It was only then that he could see that Ye Qingtian''s whole body was filled with the Holy Ice Qi. Dozens of Holy Ice Qi had been encircling him and hacking away at the surrounding space, leaving it in disarray. In the blink of an eye, the place he was in became a hollow black hole.


    By this time Ye Qingtian had weakened considerably and unable to put up a resistance created by the black hole. Before he could even utter a scream, he was sucked into the hollow black hole. All the objects within a radius of 300 feet followed suit.


    "Impossible, doesn''t he have a fairy weapon?"


    "He does have a fairy weapon. But his strength is too low to operate it!" Green Spirit said, "However, it should be linked with his fate, so it will start when he is in the moment of life and death. It seems that this guy won''t die this time!"


    "Unfortunately, he escaped before I had the time to grab the Taiyuan Token!" said Zhou Bao, ruefully.


    ¡­


    ...

 Chapter 328: Sacred Roots

    Chapter 328: Sacred Roots


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "I''m so sorry, Mr. Mo. Ye Qingtian did have something. I have defeated him but was unable to kill him, so I didn''t get you the Taiyuan Token."


    Sitting in the armchair and looking at Mo Yinyang, Zhou Bao smiled, as if he was sorry.


    "That''s too kind of you, Your Excellency. I was just curious about the Taiyuan Token. I didn''t mean to take it as my own." Mo Yinyang smiled, feeling surprised. He had secretly watched the whole battle between Zhou Bao and Ye Qingtian. Obviously, by "the whole battle", it meant the beginning and the time when Zhou Bao cut off the Starlight Bridge by his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and when Ye Qingtian tore up the void and left with a burst of star-blue mysterious Qi on him. For the rest of the time, the two of them were just covered by starlight, from which the tremendous Qi Power chilled him from the bottom of the heart.


    Such power was supreme and invincible even to a Level Eight expert like himself.


    He knew that Ye Qingtian was powerful and the same was Zhou Bao, but he had never seen the two fighting each other with all their strength. Now that he had seen it, the conquest of these experts was a matter of state, which would kill any rebellious spirit of anyone who had seen the battle. That was why he acted more respectful to Zhou Bao compared with the first time they met.


    "Well, Your Excellency, I have a presumptuous request. I hope you could consider it."


    "Cut to the chase. I owe you a big favor. I''ll help you as long as it''s within my power." Zhou Bao nodded and said. No matter what Mo Yinyang was up to, if it wasn''t for that man to tip him off, his companion Yan Yunfei would have been in grave danger on the way back to the territory with him, even if he was okay. During the battle, among the one hundred men or so he took, none of them ended up in one piece: a dozen were dead and over a half were badly injured.


    "You see, I expect it would be quite easy for you, Your Excellency. If you ever find the Taiyuan Token, please take me into Taiyuan Heaven with you."


    Zhou Bao was confused. He looked at Mo Yinyang and said, "Ye Qingtian has torn up the void with the Taiyuan Token. Where should I find him?!"


    "Oh, that was not the only Taiyuan Token, Your Excellency." Mo Yinyang smiled with confidence. "And considering that Taiyuan Heaven is about to open again, with your marvelous power, I believe you can get one. What''s more, according to the rules, one Taiyuan Token shall take three men into Taiyuan Heaven. That''s why I''m asking you, Your Excellency."


    "Is that so? You mean, there is one in the Jin dynasty?"


    "Of course there is. Like in the Li Dynasty, however, the Taiyuan Token was in possession of the most powerful schools. If you really want to enter Taiyuan Heaven, Your Excellency, maybe you should try and find one!" said Mo Yinyang with a glimmer of smile. "I suppose you have heard about the 33 Heavens, Your Excellency. Then you should know that the Spiritual Qi in there is thousands of times stronger than that of in our world. Not to mention countless long-lost treasures. If you can make your trip there, it will be of an infinite benefit to your power. With your aptitude and power, the chances are that you''ll break through Level Nine or even enter the Mysterious Realm!"


    "Hehe, it''s too soon to talk about that. But if it''s true, I wouldn''t say no to that!" Zhou Bao nodded. "Well, now there''s still time before the opening of Taiyuan Heaven. What''s your plan, Mr. Mo?"


    "Although there''s a small difference between the Li Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty, they each have their unique customs. I want to take a tour in here and see them with my own eyes by this opportunity. I''ll come back to you 10 days before the opening of Taiyuan Heaven whether you get the Taiyuan Token or not, Your Excellency!"


    "Great, deal!" Zhou Bao stroke his chair and said. "I''ll be waiting for you then, Mr. Mo!"


    Mo Yinyang smiled, saluted to Zhou Bao and then turned into a cloud to leave.


    Seeing Mo Yinyang leave, Zhou Bao adjusted his expression. "Come in, Zhu Ba!"


    The voice penetrated through the room and reached outside the courtyard. Zhu Ba ran in upon hearing the voice and said, "Are you calling me, Your Excellency?"


    "How about the nine guys? Anything new?" asked Zhou Bao, smiling. All the nine assassins of the Li Dynasty were captured by Zhou Bao, except for Ye Qingtian. They were experts at Level Seven or Eight, but still could not escape from the misery, only because Zhou Bao was in a bad mood.


    After capturing them, Zhou Bao did nothing but sealed their acupoints, tendons and meridians and left them to Zhu Ba.


    "Your Excellency, they were all tough guys. They fear no common instruments of torture. I had to do it myself to get something from them." Zhu Ba laughed and thought to himself that his boss was extremely powerful. He fought against the Mingyi School alone and now captured nine experts of Level Seven or Eight, which was really something. He was one of the few people who had the guts and power to do so in Jin, or maybe in the whole world.


    "You can save that to yourself. Just tell me who they are and what can I get from them," said Zhou Bao. Although they all came from the Li Dynasty, these assassins were not quite familiar with each other. Mo Yinyang just knew a few of them.


    "Ha-ha, Your Excellency, some of them won''t tell a word but I managed to get one of them talking. According to him, they were all from the Li Dynasty and came to mess you up by the order of goddamn Third Prince. They came with two other guys. One remains a secret and the other was a guy named Ye Qingtian, the one you defeated. He was the strongest of them all," said Zhu Ba, rubbing his hands in excitement. "These guys are incredibly wealthy. They all had celestial devices with them, and some had more than one. I got 19 celestial devices with magical effects in total. Five of them were of the Mysterious Level and 14 of them were of the Psychic Level. I got many materials and medicinal herbs as well!" Upon finishing his words, he looked at Zhou Bao and continued. "There seemed to be a leader among them. He had this odd ring. I thought it was strange but couldn''t tell how. He won''t tell me anything about it, so I brought it to you!" Then he handed a sapphire ring to Zhou Bao.


    "Oh, a Space Ring!" Zhou Bao was surprised by the ring. It looked like it was made by common materials and perhaps the marvelous and unique spatial fluctuation on the sapphire could fool the eyes of a Level Nine expert, but it was obvious to Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind.


    "It''s a Space Ring. Your current strength and spiritual mind aren''t enough to see it through. I suppose you could sense the abnormity only because of your eyes."


    "Yes, exactly, Your Excellency." Zhu Ba smiled fatuously and agreed.


    Zhou Bao glanced at him and reached his divine thoughts into the sapphire ring.


    "Aye?"


    There was not enough space inside the ring, merely about ten cubic meters, smaller than Zhou Bao''s own Space of Segmented Realms. There were not many things in it, either, only some medicinal herbs, weapons, and celestial devices. Judging by their colors, these weapons were Secondary Heavenly Weapons, while the celestial devices were mainly of the Psychic Level, among which only one was of the Mysterious Level. Those things were enough to start a war in Jianghu, but nothing important to Zhou Bao. Actually, there was one thing that interested him ¨C it lay on the corner in the Space Ring and it looked flat, like a willow leaf. He couldn''t tell what it was made from ¨C neither gold nor wood. It looked like a piece of rotten wood but with metallic luster. Most importantly, there was an odd formation carving on it.


    "Oh, a spaceboat! I thought it no longer exists. How amazing!"


    At that moment, Green Spirit showed up and was surprised by it as well.


    "Spaceboat! Can it fly?"


    "No, I don''t think so. It needs a great amount of heaven and earth original energy to make it fly, which is impossible in this world." Green Spirit answered. "The magic formation had three functions: First, to absorb the original energy; Second, to transform the original energy into flying power; Third, to control formations. This is the simplest and the least valuable spaceboat, but to be fair, it was perfectly preserved."


    "Does it need the heaven and earth original energy to fly?"


    Zhou Bao was disappointed. It was like a small plane, by which even an ordinary people could fly in the air. It was useless to himself but perfect for his families to fly between Yunzhou and the Wuyang Region.


    "Unless you can alter the formation and find an object full of the essence of the world as the energy source. Oh, by the way, the Sky-measuring Star Ruler is perfect for it. It contains sufficient star force. If you are willing to make it into the energy source, I''ll promise this spaceboat will be faster than you."


    "I''m not stupid!" Zhou Bao cursed in a low voice and took his divine thoughts back from the ring. "You did well this time, Zhu Ba. We have got 20 celestial devices including the ring. I''ll take the ring and another nine celestial devices, and you can have the rest. You can do whatever you want with the ten celestial devices. I don''t care. Understand?"


    "Thank you, Your Excellency!" Zhu Ba was in a state of euphoria. It was ten celestial devices! If he sold them all, he can afford ten lives of extravagance!


    "Don''t be glad too soon. You can''t practice them all at once. You''d better focus on one of them. Speaking of this, how did it go with the Demon Devil Needles that I gave you?"


    "The refining of the Demon Devil Needles was completed, and the Asura''s Dark Fiend formation has taken its shape. I believe it won''t be long before they function perfectly, Your Excellency."


    "Good!" Zhou Bao nodded. "The secrets hidden within the Demon Devil Formation deserve your careful apprehension, which will benefit your cultivation as well. Don''t neglect your practice on the Demon Devil Needles because of those celestial devices!"


    "Yes, I won''t, Your Excellency!"


    "Now take me to that guy who has revealed his identity!" Zhou Bao stood up and said. "I want to know if he can be an asset to us or not."


    "Sure, Your Excellency!"


    After months of construction, Zhou Bao''s Wuyang Region was beginning to take shape. Of course, it was still the same small town, but it was twice the size than before. There were more buildings now and Zhou Bao''s mansion was three times bigger than its original size. The circumstances were different, he could get by with only a bed when he was single, but now, he had a wife, the princess of the imperial court. It was a fact that his territory was newly developed, but at least his mansion should not look shabby. No need to be as magnificent as the imperial palace in the capital city, but it had to be decent.


    The political center of the Wuyang Region laid in the west to Zhou Bao''s mansion. The big yard served both as the office for Jiang Xiao and as the jail of this region.


    The newly built jail was merely taken shape ¨C it was equipped with a dungeon.


    "This is it, Your Excellency." Zhou Bao followed Zhu Ba into the dungeon. He couldn''t help but covered his nose because of the strong stinking smell and said, "Zhu Ba, what the hell? How many prisoners have you brought here to make it stink like this?"


    "Your Excellency, I didn''t bring anybody here myself. These are the nine guys you brought here last time. Unfortunately, none of them had the spirit of cooperation, so I had to make them suffer a little," said Zhu Ba eagerly.


    "Sh*t, only nine prisoners made a hell of this place?!" Zhou Bao cursed in a low voice.


    "Oh, watch your head, Your Excellency!" Zhu Ba said when passing through a narrow passageway. Through the passageway, Zhou Bao heard the screams.


    "What the hell? I thought we''re done!"


    "Your Excellency, those eight guys wanted it the hard way. I''ll make them pay for what they have done to you, even if they refuse to talk. After you, Your Excellency."


    Zhou Bao glanced at him and did not speak a word. Indeed, there was no need to show mercy to those scums.


    Zhou Bao found himself in a small damp stall by Zhu Ba''s lead. It was not big enough but luxurious than the place where the guys were tortured.


    Inside the room were a bed and a desk with a burning candle on it. A man sprawled on the bed, with a pale face and blood on his cloth. His face lighted up with excitement when the door was opened.


    When he saw Zhou Bao, he could not help himself but trembled and shrank his body.


    "I''m not a monster!" Seeing his reactions, Zhou Bao smiled bitterly and walked to his bed. "Don''t be afraid. You are our friend now, I promise you''ll be treated well."


    The man nodded, and his strained body slowly relaxed. But the deep fear in his eyes betrayed him when he looked at Zhou Bao.


    "So tell me, what''s your name? Who are you?" Zhou Bao tried to speak in a plain voice so that the man wouldn''t panic, but he still wondered how could a coward like him be a Level Eight expert. It was odd that his power was one of the best among the nine guys.


    "My, my name is Tan Yuelan. I''m from the Li Dynasty¡­"


    Tan Yuelan ignored his fear and began to tell his story. Although still nervous and stuttering at the beginning, he got better and became fluent in the end. Soon, Zhou Bao knew nearly all about his past.


    Tan Yuelan had a blue blood of the Tan Family in the Li Dynasty. He was the brother-in-law of the emperor of the Li Dynasty and uncle of the Third Prince. The Tan Family was a respected family in the Li Dynasty, like the millennium family of Jin, if not superior.


    Born with extraordinary aptitude plus the strong backing of the Tan Family, Tan Yuelan practiced at a high speed. At the age of 20, with the help of various incantations of martial arts and Magic Drugs, he broke through Level Six, becoming a Level Seven expert and one of the best experts in his family. After another 20 years, he broke through Level Eight. Thanks to his family again, he found a spot with the best quality Evil Qi, gained a powerful Gang Qi and became even stronger.


    This was a way to put it ¨C the influence of his family, various Magic Drugs, and good fortune made the man he was today. This blue blood never fought in a real war, having profound combat capability but no experience. More importantly, he never had a hard cheese. When his power was sealed by Zhou Bao and intimidated and tortured by Zhu Ba, his psychological defense collapsed easily and confessed everything in no time.


    Zhu Ba was good at torturing, but interrogation was a different thing. He got little information.


    Unlike him, within an hour, Zhou Bao got enough information he needed about the Li Dynasty and the Third Prince.


    Tan Yuelan was more than an uncle to the Third Prince. In fact, he was a trusted subordinate. He knew all about the Third Prince, including his obsession toward Yan Yunfei. This solved the mystery for Zhou Bao.


    He still had doubts about what Mo Yinyang had said. The Third Prince of the Li Dynasty was a nobleman, who could find any woman he wanted to. Why was he so obsessed with Yan Yunfei, a woman he never met before? And he even ordered a quite few experts to cross the sea and hunt him down. Anyone in his right mind would not do something like that. Otherwise, he would be crazy.


    Thanks to Tan Yuelan, Zhou Bao saw what was going on.


    His wife was not like other ordinary women. She had the Sacred Roots!


    What was it?


    Zhou Bao did not hear of it before, but Green Spirit knew it quite well. By his explanation, Zhou Bao finally figured it out. He kept blinking his eyes and then glared with anger.


    "F*ck! He wanted to do the Dual-cultivation with my wife! How dare he is! The mother-f*cking Third Prince! Damn it! He''s dead. I swear I''ll kill that bastard!" Zhou Bao cursed with fury.


    "Kid, don''t think about killing anybody now. You''d better learn a Dual-cultivation Method first!" Green Spirit said. "Sacred Roots! Such roots were rare even in the antiquity times. You surely have a good eye, kid."


    "The Li Dynasty wanted to reach its power to Great Jin. How ambitious they are! They even knew about Yan Yunfei''s Sacred Roots. I don''t think Yan Yuntian knew that himself. Otherwise, he wouldn''t marry her to me that easily!" Zhou Bao sneered.


    "Indeed. If he had known that, he didn''t need to worry about you at all. With her daughter as a bait, he could have even make the experts of the Mysterious Realm come after you, ignoring all their restrictions."


    "Oops, he missed his best shot!" Zhou Bao said, feeling relieved. "You seemed to have mentioned about knowing much of the Dual-cultivation Method. Show me one of them. What do you say?"


    "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Sure! No problem!" Green Spirit laughed out loud, sensually.


    ¡­


    Ten days passed. Zhou Bao was still practicing in the Secret Chamber of his mansion in the Wuyang Region.


    He was sitting cross-legged on a cushion, with black Internal Qi winding around him. Not as hot as it used to be, now the Internal Qi was as fine as jade.


    Yeah, it was like the jade.


    People say that the jade gave off steam under the sun. But now, Zhou Bao''s warm Internal Qi seemed to be transformed into the jade.


    "Ha-ha, Real Essence¡­ Tell me, Green Spirit, how is my Internal Qi compared to the Real Essence?"


    "You have the Divine Qi now. That''s totally different!" said Green Spirit. "Now that you have gained the power from Sacred Roots, even though it''s no match for the Real Essence, your Internal Qi would become extremely strong before long. It''s the Sacred Roots, kid! Still can''t believe you married someone with the Sacred Roots and gained power from it. You seriously didn''t know that she had it?"


    "I didn''t hear about it before. How could I know if she had it?" Zhou Bao said.


    "I see." Having thought for a while, Green Spirit looked up and said. "Kid, listen to me. I''ll be your man from this day on. When you reach the Mysterious Realm and be listed among the Individual Immortal Karma Rank, I''ll teach you all the Divine Senses I know. What do you think of that?"


    "Why? Why do you think I can?"


    "It''s because of your fate!" Green Spirit said, "If you were telling the truth, you managed to marry Yan Yunfei by nothing but the first sight and a little trick. The whole thing went smoothly despite two fights, which were a piece of cake to you. Those all proved that you have something that others don''t ¨C fate. And it is a good one, very good indeed. There are many men out in this world who have good aptitude, personality or blue blood, but seldom with your fate. An era will only give birth to three or four men with strong fate like you. In this lifetime, I guess the only man with such fate is Ye Qingtian, the guy you hurt badly that day. As far as I''m concerned, a life with your lead wouldn''t be a bad one!"


    ¡­


    ...

 Chapter 329: The Function of the Sacred Roots and the Spy

    Chapter 329: The Function of the Sacred Roots and the Spy


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "You are still young. You don''t understand the importance of the fate. A person with the great luck, just like you and Ye Qingtian, even you are facing a great danger, there will be no worries of death. Both of you with the great fate met each other this time, though you were just upon him. With the help of the fairy weapon, Ye Qingtian escaped from death as well. Moreover, he might encounter some lucky chances after leaving the hollow. His strength will increase to compensate the loss of the Pure Yang Celestial Device¡ªthe Sky-measuring Star Ruler." Green Spirit stopped and then looked at Zhou Bao with a complex expression. "In this world, the most troublesome was that one meets another person with a great fate like you, especially at the peak of his fate. He then will suffer a tragic ending. However¡ª"


    Speaking of that, Green Spirit paused and glanced at Zhou Bao. "The fate is something invisible, and no one knows the time it comes or vanishes. No matter how great your luck is, you shouldn''t be too arrogant lest you should start too many feuds, which will bring the misfortune once your great fate leaves!"


    "I know what you mean, I shall value my good fortune. Am I right?" Zhou Bao smiled. "You should also know that these days everything that happened can be regarded as big events, but none of them were provoked by me. Instead, they came to me step by step and gave me no space to back off!"


    "I understand that as well. I just want to remind you. I need to comprehend the Great Way of Stars and refine the body with the help of the star force of your Sky-measuring Star Ruler, so there will be some time when I won''t bother you. I''m just afraid that, in my absence, you may grow dizzy with success and run out of your fate!"


    "I won''t! I know the limits!" Zhou Bao smiled. "Take it easy. Go and refine your body! Hope you succeed soon!"


    "I''ll take your blessings!" Green Spirit chuckled and squeezed into Zhou Bao''s Space of Segmented Realms.


    "This wordy guy finally is gone!"


    Soon after Green Spirit left, Zhou Bao curled his lip a little bit. Of course, he would not believe in the fate which could be neither seen nor touched. He believed in strength. Once there would be a chance to get promoted, he would not miss it.


    This time, he fought very hard with Ye Qingtian, and in the end, he was nearly hurt by the fairy weapon, which indicated that his strength still couldn''t sweep away all the enemies. Same as Zhou Bao, Ye Qingtian also enjoyed a combat capability which far exceeded the Level Nine but hadn''t reached the Mysterious Realm yet. The star force from his Star River Essential Gang could never rival the Real Essence as well, which was only similar to the Real Essence''s quality just like Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi.


    But now, after absorbing the power of Sacred Roots from Yan Yunfei through the Dual-cultivation Method, Zhou Bao could strongly feel the mysterious power which was called the Divine Qi by Green Spirit within the Sacred Roots.


    The Divine Qi!


    That was a unique energy carried by every female body with the Sacred Roots. However, it could not be employed by those females themselves and could only be absorbed somehow. That was called the Dual-cultivation Method.


    To be frank, those females with the Sacred Roots were only the containers of the Divine Qi.


    The reason why such a thing existed could be explained by no one, even those necromancers with the Divine Sense in antiquity times.


    The Sacred Roots could only exist in female bodies and be absorbed through the Dual-cultivation Method, so females with the Sacred Roots were also the most popular candidates for Dual-cultivation Method even in antiquity times. In fact, there was a special method of identifying and hunting those females, who were then selected as concubines by the great emperors. Thus, ordinary practitioners had no opportunities to be their Dual-cultivation Method partners. If Yan Yunfei were born in antiquity times, she would have naturally been the concubine candidate. How could Zhou Bao enjoy this great deal?


    Then, what was the Divine Qi?


    Green Spirit''s explanation was very vague. He just mentioned that the full name of the Divine Qi was Primordial World Divine Qi, a powerful pneuma only could be found in the Primordial Time. Zhou Bao also had no idea about how powerful it was. All the fairy weapons carried the Divine Qi, no matter they were Taihao Fairy Weapons, Heavenly Fairy Weapons or even the Supreme Fairy Weapons. A would-be fairy weapon must be transformed by the Divine Qi.


    Taking the Sky-measuring Star Ruler snatched by Zhou Bao for example, it had been purified in the Constellation Sea for many years and was never inferior to some common Taihao Fairy Weapons. However, it was still a Pure Yang Celestial Device because it lacked the Divine Qi. If it were transformed by the Divine Qi, it would become a Taihao Fairy Weapon at once.


    Unfortunately, Zhou Bao had only one wife with the Sacred Roots. The Divine Qi he obtained through the Dual-cultivation Method was only enough for himself. Then, how could he find some other Divine Qi for the Pure Yang Celestial Device?


    The Divine Qi could transform the Pure Yang Celestial Devices into the fairy weapons. To human beings, it was also extremely beneficial. However, that did not mean one could become untouchable or increase the intelligence of his Internal Qi without limit once absorbing the Divine Qi.


    The intelligence of Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi was extremely high, but he never attributed it to his aptitude. Instead, it was because that he had drunk the water in the Golden Goose Cup. It was with this great intelligence that he could easily evolve two forms of the Real Dragon when he practiced the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. After all, the reason was just the water in the Golden Goose Cup instead of his aptitude.


    However, the Divine Qi was much more powerful than the water in the Golden Goose Cup. It could directly transform the Internal Qi into the Dharma power!


    Then what was the Dharma power?


    The common fighters and experts practiced their Internal Qi. After they reached the Mysterious Realm, their Internal Qi then transformed into the Real Essence. The differences between the Internal Qi and the Real Essence were their quality and energy density. It was a qualitative change from one to another. The Real Essence Source which was born in the Internal Qi then produced the Real Essence in the end. In this qualitative change, the Real Essence Source then possessed some Dharma power.


    The most important feature of the Real Essence was its similarity to the Dharma power, which explained that people who reached the Mysterious Realm were called Individual Immortals. The Dharma power was typical of the immortals, and only those who possessed the Dharma power could be named as Immortals.


    However, Individual Immortals were still different from Genuine Immortals. When reaching the Mysterious Realm, they were just breaking the Three Small Realms and still in the Three Big Realms, while Genuine Immortals had already been out of the three realms and the five elements. Only after reaching the Mysterious Realm and then purifying the Real Essence through the Thunder Tribulation, one could transform his Real Essence into the Dharma power gradually. Only such a person could be called a Genuine Immortal!


    In this world, only the thunderbolt in the Nine Heavens could carry a wisp of the Divine Qi. That was the reason why one must undergo the Thunder Tribulation after reaching the peak of the Marrow-cleansing Realm. One could purify his body by the thunderbolt, during which the Real Essence tried to get inflicted with the Divine Qi. However, the total amount of the Divine Qi in the thunderbolt was not enough. Generally speaking, the Divine Qi in the Heavenly Thunder could only serve as a trigger. And after that, it should carefully nourish the Real Essence for some time so as to transform the Real Essence into the Dharma power in the end. The whole process would always take several decades or even hundreds of years.


    In addition to the Nine Heaven Thunder, another place where one could get the Divine Qi was the Sacred Roots.


    It was exactly the Sacred Roots in Yan Yunfei''s body.


    At this time, Zhou Bao already understood the anger of the Third Prince from the Li Dynasty. If Zhou Bao were him, he would certainly be very angry as well.


    The surveillant of the Li Dynasty in Jin was subordinated to the Third Prince. Once he discovered that Yan Yunfei carried the Sacred Roots, he secretly informed that to the Third Prince. The Third Prince would not spread this information to others, so he kept planning to marry Yan Yunfei. After years of planning, the marriage became very hopeful, and he even could make sure of marrying her without others'' suspicion. In fact, what was left at last was only to propose a marriage to her officially, however, he did not expect that everything would be stuck at this stage because of Zhou Bao.


    It was a swift and ruthless action, which did not give him any time or opportunity to counter. When he planned to counter it, things had been done already, so how could he not be angry?


    In a world where the power was much preferred, Zhou Bao not only snatched his hope of possessing the Dharma power overnight but also grabbed his predetermined wife. So it would be easy to know that the Third Prince of the Li Dynasty who never met Zhou Bao had already hated him to the bone.


    "As you like. I''ve gained this bargain anyway. Your hatred can only make you lose control." Zhou Bao thought to himself.


    The amount of the Divine Qi absorbed from the Sacred Roots was equal to a Genuine Immortal experiencing nine Thunder Tribulations. However, if somebody said that he could become a Nine-tribulation True Immortal or even reach the Human Immortal Karma Rank only through the Dual-cultivation Method, that would be total nonsense.


    How could so many lucky things happen in the world?


    The Divine Qi itself was only a special pneuma with no strong power at all. It had a low requirement of the bearing capacity, so even the tendons and meridians of an ordinary person could bear this mysterious pneuma. However, once the Divine Qi touched the Internal Qi or the Real Essence, it could nourish the Internal Qi and the Real Essence carefully and turn them into the Dharma power. Frankly speaking, the Divine Qi was actually the nutrition and tonic.


    Once the Real Essence and the Internal Qi were turned into the Dharma power, the requirement of the body would be immediately changed. It was still very difficult for Zhou Bao to bear the Real Essence, let alone bear a higher one¡ªthe Dharma power.


    Therefore, what Zhou Bao could only do was to store it up in his body after absorbing the Divine Qi from the Sacred Roots in Yan Yunfei''s body and to nourish his Internal Qi slowly, instead of infusing it into his Internal Qi at once. Otherwise, it would definitely turn Zhou Bao into a pile of flesh and blood in a very short time.


    Even if there was only a little Divine Qi to nourish the Internal Qi, the effect would be very obvious as well.


    Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi had been totally turned into the secretive Demonic Fire of the Primitive Dragon Chimera. Now, with the nourishment of the Divine Qi, it was changed into the current jade-like form immediately from the rampant flame. Without the previous arrogance, it was like a blazing sun, which was less worldly but more mysterious.


    The change did not only happen to the form. The third form of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and two of the Nine Forms of Real Dragon also disappeared. They were all engulfed as well as the form of the nine Fire Dragons. Instead, what was left with his Internal Qi was a Primitive Dragon Chimera''s shadow whose appearance was similar to that of the one Zhou Bao had seen. Compared with that one, this one had thicker scales and fiercer appearance, carrying a Fierce Qi of the primitive times.


    Yes, it was the Fierce Qi!


    It was a Qi Power that could hardly be described by words. It was monstrous.


    By such a monstrous Fierce Qi, Zhou Bao could make sure that masters of martial arts below Level Seven would shake with fear and retreat when facing him, and he did not need to move even one finger to accomplish that.


    "The Nine Forms of Real Dragon has disappeared, yet my Internal Qi could be changed into any shape I want with ease!" Zhou Bao was thinking of his gain and loss. After that, a dozen black fireballs appeared in front of him and flew forward swiftly, melting the wall in front of him into lava quietly. Later, the black Internal Qi changed into a lissome long black whip as if it was a living being. When it moved, it cut the wall behind Zhou Bao into chunks silently, and the cut had been totally melted by the high temperature already.


    "The functions of two forms of the Nine Forms of Real Dragon have been absorbed by the Dragon Chimera, but it''s a pity that I can''t grasp more forms of the real dragon. Otherwise, the Dragon Chimera will greatly increase its strength after absorbing them!" Zhou Bao pondered. He looked at the Dragon Chimera''s indistinct phantom in his Internal Qi with a myriad of thoughts crowding into his mind.


    As for his Gang Qi¡ªthe Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang, also changed with his Internal Qi. Its color had totally turned into the black from the gold originally. Besides, the nine black dragons of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield had disappeared as well. Instead, there were nine wisps of black smoke, which formed a translucent black shield. This shield was over 10 times stronger than the Nine dragons Heavenly Fire Shield.


    It could be said that through the nutriment of the Divine Qi, Zhou Bao''s strength had reached a new stage and overmatched Individual Immortals at the Mysterious Realm.


    His Internal Qi was no longer the common one. Its quality had exceeded the Real Essence, and it could not be called the Dharma power as well. Although it enjoyed some characteristics of the Dharma power, it could only be considered as the fake Dharma power.


    His body had also been improved a lot by the Divine Qi and overmatched those common experts at the Mysterious Realm. However, he clearly knew that after turning into the fake Dharma power, his Internal Qi had become stronger, yet it still could not be called the Real Essence.


    Once his Internal Qi was transformed into the Real Essence successfully with the Real Essence Source totally evolving, there must be a soaring of his strength. In other words, as long as he reached the Mysterious Realm, his strength would immediately reach the peak of the Marrow-cleansing Realm and even enabled him to become a Genuine Immortal by undergoing the Thunder Tribulation.


    To the practitioners at the Mysterious Realm, their practice was to temper the Real Essence to be able to feel the change of the pneuma, to comprehend the "Dharma power" of their Real Essence and to transform the Real Essence into the Dharma power gradually. But, to Zhou Bao, whose Real Essence had been improved by the Divine Qi, he was able to transform the Real Essence into the Dharma power directly without tempering his Real Essence patiently at all. Nevertheless, the premise was that his body must be strong enough.


    In other words, the most important task for Zhou Bao was to increase his physical strength step by step, adapting his body to his future Dharma power. That was not easy.


    "It seems that I still need to suppress my cultivation and to spend more time looking for those exotic medicinal herbs for refining the Pulse Setting Pills, the Blood Exchanging Pills and the Marrow Cleansing Pills. It''s impossible to collect all the medicinal herbs that those pills needed in this world definitely. The Azure Secret Area is a good choice. I went there for careful checking last time. There were some precious herbs at the entrance, a few of which could match the three pills. Even if I pick all of them, I can only make a heat of Pulse Setting Pills and a half heat of the Blood Exchanging Pills. There were only several plants for the Marrow Cleansing Pills as well. Except for the entrance which is only a small island, there are some other places with those materials in the Azure Secret Area as well, but it may take me much time and energy looking for them. So many evil beasts inhabit the Azure Spirit Sea, and it won''t be easy to cross it. If I really get the chance to Taiyuan Heaven this time, I should take back more herbs. Currently, I have two Pure Yang Celestial Devices and one fairy weapon, but those possessions aren''t important any more and the medicinal herbs are important, instead. With those medicinal herbs, I can make the elixirs to build my body and greatly improve my strength." Thinking of that, Zhou Bao clenched his fists. He made up his mind that by any means, he must find ways to enter Taiyuan Heaven.


    After that, Zhou Bao practiced in the secret room for several days. He got free then and was going to walk out with Yan Yunfei. Suddenly, Jiang Xiao reported that the Princess Heyang came.


    Hearing that, Zhou Bao was slightly surprised. As far as he knew, the Princess Heyang Yan Yunyan''s relation with the Princess Qingyang Yan Yunfei was not very close. In fact, they were not like sisters. Yan Yunyan was a busy woman. She stayed close with several Princes who were capable of obtaining the throne. Her backer was strong as well, otherwise, such kind of person like Shui Hongyan would not follow her. Yan Yunfei was totally different. As the queen''s daughter, she enjoyed a status much higher than that of concubines'' offsprings. The queen had only one daughter, that was her. From childhood, she had got intensive care from the queen and her elder brothers. No one dared to offend her, and no one dared to apply the disgraceful intrigues and conspiracy on her. That made Yan Yunfei more simple-minded than Yan Yunyan, and that was the reason why Zhou Bao refused to marry Yan Yunyan but preferred Yan Yunfei.


    As for Yan Yunyan, Zhou Bao had neither positive nor negative opinion of her. He just thought that this woman was very annoying and fond of meddling in others'' business. The dispute between the Kunlun Mountain and him could be left to themselves to solve, but Yan Yunyan, an unrelated woman, interfered. "Who are you? Do I know you? For what can you mediate?" Zhou Bao thought.


    That was exactly the main reason why Zhou Bao disliked this woman.


    However, visiting her sister was very reasonable, which Zhou Bao had no reason to impede. Moreover, she was also a princess!


    "Humph, to visit your sister... I don''t think your purpose is really pure!" Zhou Bao thought. He stood off the chair with a sneer on his lips.


    "Jiang Xiao, let her wait in the parlor. I''m going to change the clothes. I''ll go with Madam!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!"


    ...


    ¡­


    After one hour, Zhou Bao and Yan Yunfei showed up together in the parlor. He frowned the moment he entered.


    It was because, besides Shui Hongyan, there was another person with Yan Yunyan, a court eunuch.


    His spirit was gloomy as if he only had a cultivation of Level Four or Five, but he gave a feeling of extreme danger to Zhou Bao, or perhaps, at the first sight of this eunuch, a sense of crisis came to Zhou Bao immediately.


    Seeing Zhou Bao and Yan Yunfei entered, the three people, including Yan Yunyan, also stood up.


    "Sister Yunfei, it''s been a long time that I haven''t seen you!" Yan Yunyan walked toward Yan Yunfei riantly and held her hands as if their relationship was very close.


    "Princess Heyang, long time no see!" Zhou Bao smiled. "As a woman of eminence, you never went to the temple for nothing. What''s the purpose of today''s visiting?"


    "Oh, my dear brother-in-law, you have wronged me. Isn''t it natural for me to visit my sister? We haven''t seen each other for several years. Judging by your words, you are going to impede my visiting?"


    Saying that, she looked Zhou Bao up and down several times. Her eyes revealed some puzzlement.


    Zhou Bao''s wearing today was simple, it was a blue robe.


    "How dare I? She is my wife as well as your sister. You can come whenever you want of course, but¡ª"


    Before he finished his words, he suddenly felt his eyes heating up. Meanwhile, a huge greedy desire came from his eyes. Zhou Bao was shocked at once, and all of his Spiritual Strength was fixed on the old eunuch together with Yan Yunyan.


    "Eh?"


    Thanks to his spiritual strength, Zhou Bao found that there was a strange wave hidden in the old eunuch''s eyes. It was such a wave that Zhou Bao had never felt before, but the feeling from his Fiery Eyes was very familiar. It was the desire and greed when his Fiery Eyes were eager to engulf the power of Zhu Ba''s eyes.


    "Something is wrong with the guy''s eyes!" Zhou Bao thought. He got nervous and his gaze became fierce at the same time. That old eunuch seemed to feel something as well. He suddenly raised his head and cast his eyes at Zhou Bao.


    "You, oh¡ª"


    Zhou Bao would never give him any chance to open his mouth. The moment he said "you", Zhou Bao raised his hands, and soon an invisible power lifted the eunuch''s body up.


    "Zhou Bao, you¡ª"


    Seeing that, Yan Yunfei, Yan Yunyan, and Shui Hongyan all got shocked. Shui Hongyan, with a swift move of his body, stood in front of the eunuch.


    "You''d better stop, otherwise, I''ll kill you too!" Zhou Bao cast a cold glance at Shui Hongyan. A strong Fierce Qi burst out afterward.


    Shui Hongyan was an expert. But facing Zhou Bao''s fierce Qi Power, he could not help trembling.


    "This guy is the spy from the Li Dynasty. It was him that led the assassins to the Jin Dynasty. I''m killing him today to eradicate one scourge!" Zhou Bao said coldly while his hands hold harder. "Crack!" He broke the eunuch''s neck.


    ...


    ¡­


    "Zhou Bao, how conceited you are!"


    After a few breaths, Yan Yunyan finally reacted to it and screamed out!

 Chapter 330: The Four Eastern Regions and 3,000 Great Ways

    Chapter 330: The Four Eastern Regions and 3,000 Great Ways


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Zhou Bao, you are so conceited!"


    Yan Yunyan''s scream passed through the small reception room, and even the cloud in the distance. Jiang Xiao and Wang Cheng, standing in the front of the room, could not help but quiver, gazing at each other in speechless despair.


    No one dared to say anything!


    Zhou Bao ruthlessly broke a eunuch''s neck the moment they met. Although only a eunuch, he was from the imperial court, as could be judged from his clothing, bearing as well as Yan Yunyan''s attitude towards him, which made his true intention of the visit less important. Spy or not, no officials of the imperial court shall be empowered to give death sentence to such a eunuch. Zhou Bao, regardless, broke his neck even before he got to finish a complete sentence. What the hell was going on?


    Yan Yunyan was infuriated.


    Originally, she was a little curious and even had a crush on Zhou Bao. After experts led by Yan Yuntian failed to besiege and kill him, Yan Yunyan agreed on the suggestion of Yan Yuntian''s marrying her to Zhou Bao. After all, in this world, free love was rare and it was also a wonderful choice to marry such a teen expert with a bright future who owned a territory, even though she was a princess.


    However, she did not expect Zhou Bao would reject the offer with only one sentence and even complained that she was not a good match because of her sophistication.


    Zhou Bao said those words in front of Chi Hengxing who certainly would not broadcast them, but he reported them to Yan Yuntian. Because of it, Yan Yuntian harshly criticized Yan Yunyan and warned that she should seldom show her face in public and must stay in the palace for some time.


    The treatment aggrieved her very much. She had never experienced that and thus detested Zhou Bao.


    Initially, she planned to ask her brothers to make trouble for Zhou Bao. However, this knucklehead directly rushed to the Mingyi School and fought alone against several experts of the school. To her surprise, he left the school without being hurt, and you could say, returned in triumph. The news shocked her very much and also made her realize that Zhou Bao was an ignorant and unreasonable person. Thus, she gave up her original plan. In these few months, she became less intense, but still felt angry, so she proactively took the task from Yan Yuntian to spite Zhou Bao. But she did not expect that this man acted before she made clear what she had come for. Without consideration of others, he killed the eunuch who accompanied her to deliver an imperial order and insisted that her company was a spy. Wasn''t it possible?


    Yan Yunyan, full of grievance, eventually exploded. She pointed at Zhou Bao and loudly shouted. "Zhou Bao, Eunuch Ying was sent by my father to announce the imperial edict. How, how dare you kill him! Do you look down on my father, the emperor? Do you look down on the Jin? You..."


    That was some serious charges all at once.


    "On the contrary, I killed him only because I respect Jin and His Majesty!" Without caring a nut, Zhou Bao gently loosened his grip, and the corpse of the eunuch fell on the floor. Then he asked Jiang Xiao and Wang Cheng to drag it out by waving his hand at them.


    The two didn''t dare to neglect. They lifted the body and quickly left the reception room as if being chased by a dog.


    "This eunuch was a spy of the Li Dynasty. Your Highness, don''t you know the Li Dynasty?"


    "What evidence do you have to prove that he was a spy of the Li Dynasty which was about several million miles away from us. Even though it might send a spy, how do you know that? Do you also collude with the Li Dynasty?" Yan Yunyan coldly looked at Zhou Bao and her words were so bitter that they seemed to be going to roast him on a fire.


    However, this time Zhou Bao was confident and not angry at all. He just watched Yan Yunyan explode as if seeing a drama. After the princess gave vent to her fury, Zhou Bao smiled. "I said he was a spy and certainly had evidence. Your Highness, maybe you don''t know that when Yunfei and I were on our way to the territory, we were intercepted by ten experts from the Li Dynasty headed by Ye Qingtian. Fortunately, I had got the news earlier and prepared for the attack. Otherwise, we would not pull out unharmed!"


    "Ah?" Yan Yunfei, who was standing behind Zhou Bao, realized what had happened until now. Having heard Zhou Bao''s words, she grabbed his hand even more firmly. "Are you all right?"


    "I am fine. Do I seem to be not fine?" Zhou Bao laughed. Then he turned to Yan Yunyan and said, "I have caught all those assassins who came to kill me expect Ye Qingtian. If you don''t believe it, I can show you the way to see them. As for why I knew that eunuch was the spy of the Li Dynasty. Well, I got it from the interrogation!"


    "Really?"


    Yan Yunyan felt shocked after hearing Zhou Bao''s words. Not until she and Shui Hongyan exchanged looks did she raise her head and said, "Even though he was a spy, you can''t kill him like this. He was a eunuch of our palace, a confidant of my father. Thus, his life and death must be determined by my father. Besides, we should interrogate him to find whether he has accomplices in the imperial palace and who are they if he has. As soon as you showed up, you killed him. Are you trying to hide something?"


    "Whether he had accomplices and whoever are they, I think those assassins will give you the answer. As for why I directly killed him, I did that for your Highness. Though the eunuch''s cultivation was not high, he had learned weird skills. Once he starts to assassinate, I am confident that I won''t be hurt, but can''t guarantee the safety of your Highness. If this spy wants to alienate the imperial court from me by hurting or killing you in front of me, I can''t clearly explain what has happened even though I have a thousand mouths, so I have to slay him. This is the best choice. Does your Highness think it was improper?"


    "You..." Yan Yunyan was speechless. She had seen shameless people, but not such shameless one. A moment ago, the eunuch found out something and was ready to speak out, but Zhou Bao held him by the throat to prevent him from speaking. His behavior was obviously to silence the eunuch. However, she also knew that she could not provide any evidence against him, if what he said about the Li Dynasty turned out to be true.


    Well, killing the eunuch was a blameless behavior for him and even a meritorious service!


    As she thought of it, her hatred went to her marrow. She itched to kick Zhou Bao down and trampled on his face a hundred times, a hundred times.


    "Princess Heyang is of a kindly disposition that I appreciate. However, people like him are as vicious as scorpions. If I didn''t kill him as soon as possible, he might hurt your Highness here. I can''t afford the consequences if either your Highness or Miss Shui Hongyan were hurt."


    "Humph!" Yan Yunyan flung her sleeve and angrily sat back in her chair. At this moment, Yan Yunyan knew what Zhou Bao said was probably true. It seemed that this matter really related to the Li Dynasty. However, even it was true, she still cannot forgive Zhou Bao!"


    Without saying a word, she angrily sat on the chair and her plump chest heaved. The reception room suddenly became silent.


    "Sister!" Seeing the tense atmosphere, Yan Yunfei wanted to say something but Zhou Bao pulled her and winked at her.


    "Humph!" Yan Yunfei saw Zhou Bao''s wink and felt very angry. With a cold snort, she rolled her eyes, shook his hand off, and came before Yan Yunyan. Then she whispered, "Sister, don''t be angry. Don''t lower yourself to his level. He is a vault. You shouldn''t be angry at a vault. Come, just let me show you around!" With this, she held Yan Yunyan''s hand and walked outside.


    Yan Yunyan was annoyed like a bone was struck in her throat. At the thought of dealing with Zhou Bao, she didn''t expect to see he ate a humble pie in front of Yan Yunfei and thus, almost cooled down with an angry expression on the face. Then she stood up with the help of Yan Yunfei and accompanied her to walk out of the reception room, followed by the expressionless Shui Hongyan, leaving Zhou Bao there alone blinking his eyes.


    "That thing in the box was what my father ordered me to bring to you, so you can take it to death!"


    Yan Yunyan''s voice with obvious grievances rang outside the reception room.


    "What the hell is this!" Zhou Bao grabbed the box in the air and opened it. Then his facial expression changed. It turned out that a token, not gold or metal, was in the box with the word "Taiyuan" carved on it.


    "Taiyuan Token!" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows and a peculiar feeling flashed in his heart.


    It was something that he wanted and planned to take. To his surprise, the Emperor gave it to him directly.


    "Heh heh!" Zhou Bao gently weighed the Taiyuan Token in his hand and thought, "It seems that the Emperor has straightened his thinking. He gave it to me and wanted me to do something in Taiyuan Heaven. Hehe, the heaven opens once a thousand years. The last time it opened, the Jin was not yet built. However, those millennium families should have experienced the opening of Taiyuan Heaven. I should figure out the situation inside it. If Mo Yinyang and I enter it without any preparation, we might be played fool of without any awareness!"


    Zhou Bao thought for a while. Then he put away the Taiyuan Token, caring nothing about where Yan Yunfei showed Yan Yunyan around. After that, he flew to the yard in a flash.


    Wuyang yard was located at the foot of Jilei Mountain. Though it was not extravagant, it had a certain extent of scale at that time. In order not to disturb others, Zhou Bao quickly wormed his way into the original mining tunnel and walked down.


    This mining tunnel had now become an important protection object of the Immortal Palace for it had the entrance to Azure Heaven. After expansion and arrangement for some time, its passageway was covered by plenty of formations. It was totally different from its original appearance. It became a more spacious and tall underground passageway whose walls were made by huge bluestones carved with complicated and numerous decorative patterns. There were many traps on the road as well, which were not ones in the unofficial historical novel for ordinary people, but huge traps aimed at experts above Level Seven.


    At the end of the passageway around that entrance, there was a huge expanded underground hall, which was about 10 feet high with nine over ten-feet-diameter pillars arranged in the direction of the Jiugong. These pillars were engraved with stars in the sky and talismans of antiquity times, showing a kind of mysterious power beyond Zhou Bao''s knowledge. Along with, was an architectural structure similar to an altar or a small pyramid, divided into nine steps, in the middle of the nine pillars.


    At the top of this pyramid, there was a small gateway, ancient and atmospheric, as if cast by a bronze. The bronze door frame was engraved with patterns of ancient times, forming a complex and mysterious talisman formation.


    Gate of All Manifestations!


    This was the gateway of the Immortal Palace that was used to connect with the Azure Secret Area. Gate of All Manifestations, a Pure Yang Celestial Device!


    This was a kind of pure space celestial device. It was said that it could flow through all heavens and earth with unpredictable power. It was the characteristic of this Pure Yang Celestial Device that made it perfect to be used as a bridge to enter the Azure Secret Area.


    "Oh, the damn place should be quite different!"


    Zhou Bao hadn''t been there for a long time, so when he arrived here, he was shocked and surprised. He inferred that when he came here, he saw that the immortal palace constructed this place as a lair from all the battle formation institutions.


    "Of course, this is an important place to connect the Azure Secret Area, which is surely different. Otherwise, how can they explain it to Elder Qing!" said Earth Bat of Girl, one of the permanent residents of the Immortal Palace. He didn''t care it was the entrance to the Azure Secret Area, but he still chose to stay here because it was the center of nine dragons, where he could study his favorite subject, Fengshui, here.


    Other permanent guys were just Golden Rooster and Wang She, and the latter one, similar to him, also had two identities, so he could stay here as he like.


    This was the best part for Zhou Bao. These experts stayed at his place and got everything without a pay. If something bad happened in the territory, they surely should give a hand!


    Even if they were not willing to do anything, Zhou Bao could have his way to solve this.


    These bodyguards were sent here for free and could be asked to do everything. If they could practice to the Expert Realm, they would demand less just like Immortals. Besides, they were from famous family, Immortal Palace or the Tian Long Taoism, where they could get a lot of benefits if they became the expert. So they didn''t favor things from Zhou Bao, a little lord.


    "That''s reasonable!" Zhou Bao nodded and agreed.


    "Boy, it''s rare to see you here. So, why do you come here? What''s the matter with you?" Earth Bat of Girl, a kind person, came close to Zhou Bao and asked with a smile.


    "No big deal!" Zhou Bao took out the Taiyuan Token as he said, "I came here for this!"


    "It''s¡ª!" Earth Bat of Girl looked at the Taiyuan Token for a while without any response, meanwhile, Zhou Bao heard a loud voice.


    With a breeze flashed over, Zhou Bao moved and quickly withdrew his hand holding the Taiyuan Token.


    "Eh?"


    Again it was a loud voice.


    "Surprised for what? That boy''s power is getting more and more strange. It''s not easy to steal something from his hand!" Earth Bat of Girl laughed. "I''ve heard that this boy taught Ye Qingtian a good lesson, admired much by White Tiger!"


    "You knew Ye Qingtian?" Zhou Bao was shocked. "Ye Qingtian was a person from the Li Dynasty, which was hundreds of thousands of miles, nearly a million miles of the sea area, away from the Jin Dynasty. How could he know that guy? Who was White Tiger? Is that the person of the Sixiang?"


    Zhou Bao got this idea since he heard the names of the 28 constellations. According to his knowledge, 28 constellations were divided into four parts, namely, Seven Constellations of Green Dragon, Seven Constellations of White Tiger, Seven Constellations of Scarlet Rosefinch, and Seven Constellations of Spirit Tortoise.


    But later, he found out that he was wrong. He was Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket, who belonged to one of Seven Constellations of Green Dragon. Wang She was Flying Fire Snake, belonging to one of Seven Constellations of Scarlet Rosefinch. Sun Rat of Emptiness was one of Seven Constellations of Spirit Tortoise and Moon Deer of Extended Net was also one of Seven Constellations of Scarlet Rosefinch. As for Golden Rooster, he was one of Seven Constellations of White Tiger. All of them, not divided into four groups of Sixiang, were subordinates of Elder Qing. So, Zhou Bao held that view. But this time, Earth Bat of Girl suddenly raised the phrase, White Tiger, which made him somewhat puzzled.


    "Of course I knew him. White Tiger once wanted to persuade him to join us but failed. That boy is very arrogant because he got the inheritance of Great Ancient Emperor and Star Palace, and he had never fluffed White Tiger off. However, White Tiger doesn''t care at all and admires his pride even more. He may have lost his mind!"


    "In that case, the Immortal Palace also has its power in the Li Dynasty?!"


    "The influence of Immortal Palace spreads all over the Four Eastern Regions!" Earth Bat of Girl took a look at Zhou Bao and smiled. "You just stay in your own place to practice and care nothing about the Immortal Palace. But when you finally feel the need to know about it, all you have to do is to ask somebody. Good for you!"


    Zhou Bao smiled sheepishly at his words and turned back to see that man, who was trying to take his Taiyuan Token before. "This is..."


    "This is Sun Horse of Star, succeeding Mouse!" said the Earth Bat of Girl. "It seemed that he was very interested in the Taiyuan Token in your hand!"


    "Is it?" Zhou Bao smiled and took out his Taiyuan Token. "It was given by Yan Yuntian, who wanted me to come to Taiyuan Heaven. You know, the heaven appears only once a thousand years and there are some things I can''t identify now, so I would like to ask you!"


    "It''s really something, and he gives it to you?"


    Wang She reached out his hand to get the Taiyuan Token, ignoring Zhou Bao, and said behind him, "That''s true. It seems that Yan Yuntian has some ideas!"


    "What ideas?"


    "Some troublesome ideas!" Wang She smiled slightly and put the Taiyuan Token back into Zhou Bao''s hand. "It''s possible for three people to enter Taiyuan Heaven with it. Count me in!"


    "And me!" Sun Horse of Star on the side said coldly.


    "Sorry, I already have a candidate!" Zhou Bao also smiled. He did not like Sun Horse of Star, who was so rude and wanted to get the Taiyuan Token without saying hello. "You want me to count you in? Who are you, idiot?"


    Sun Horse of Star did not expect Zhou Bao refused him directly. With a cold look, he looked up and stared at Zhou Bao. He said, "Taiyuan Heaven is very important to me. I must go!"


    Zhou Bao blinked his eyes and stared at him as well. His eyes gradually revealed a hint of an inexplicable smile. Instead of looking at him any longer, he turned to Wang She and smiled. "Chief Wang, you know some things about Taiyuan Heaven, right?"


    "Sure!" Wang She nodded and stared at Sun Horse of Star aggressively. "I know it quite well!"


    "That''s good! Let''s go and talk over there so that we won''t be bothered by others again!" He walked out with Wang She.


    "Stop!" Anger appeared on Sun Horse of Star''s face, he moved his body and stopped in front of Zhou Bao and Wang She quickly.


    "You want to die?" Zhou Bao was really angry, filled with an inexplicable viciousness. Sun Horse of Star was also angry with the killing intent. The same was true of Wang She, squinting his eyes.


    "Calm down, calm down! Three of you, please calm down!" After seeing that, Earth Bat of Girl moved his body and stood in the middle of the three, waving his hands, "We are family! Take it easy!"


    "Family? I don''t have such a family member like him!" Zhou Bao said coldly.


    Wang She also looked angry.


    Earth Bat of Girl smiled bitterly. "Sun Horse of Star just came back and hasn''t been informed of everything. You guys..."


    "I told you, I must enter Taiyuan Heaven!" Sun Horse of Star said firmly and stood in front of the two people without stepping back.


    Zhou Bao, resisting his anger, looked at Earth Bat of Girl with an extremely unhappy face, but decided not to embarrass him. "Some other Taiyuan Token can be found. If you want it, find it by yourself. Don''t count on this one!"


    "I know a big secret about Taiyuan Heaven. If you count me in, I can help you get great benefits!"


    "Benefits?" Zhou Bao laughed. "I have my own purpose in Taiyuan Heaven. As for benefits, there are so many benefits around the world and I don''t need you to get them!"


    "The 3,000 Great Ways!" Sun Horse of Star looked at Zhou Bao with a determined look, withdrawing his killing intention. "In Taiyuan Heaven, there is a secret cultivation book about the 3,000 Great Ways. You have strong strength and pure Internal Qi, but you don''t have the excellent cultivation method for practice. Otherwise, you could get rid of the obstacle in Level Eight and break into the Mysterious Realm!"


    "3,000 Great Ways?" Zhou Bao was shocked but he shook his head. "I have prepared myself for my practice incantation and it''s one of the 3,000 Great Ways!"


    Sun Horse of Star shook his head slightly, "The 3,000 Great Ways in Taiyuan Heaven contain more than one ways. Even if you already have one of the cultivation methods, you will benefit from other methods!"


    Zhou Bao shook his head again. At this time, Wang She intervened. "Do you really know the secret of the 3,000 Great Ways in Taiyuan Heaven?"


    "Yes!" Sun Horse of Star was hopeful, showing his expression of expectation.


    "No!" Zhou Bao suddenly interrupted Wang She. "I don''t know about Taiyuan Heaven, which is why I need someone I fully trust to go with me, and it''s definitely not him!"

 Chapter 331: Peach Blossom Miasma

    Chapter 331: Peach Blossom Miasma


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    3,000 Great Ways!


    Those were the most unfathomable 3,000 ways for practice that were handed down since the Primordial Time!


    As the legend had it, only by studying the secret method of those 3,000 ways could one upgrade his strength and Divine Sense to the highest level, as well as gather the three Taoism flowers and condense the five Qi.


    The number 3,000 was a truly huge one. But from the beginning of the Primordial Time until now, thousands of years had flown by and numerous havocs had happened. Thus, few of those secret methods were successfully inherited by the current generation. Even among those that didn''t get lost through such a long time track, most of them were incomplete. For example, the Great Way of Stars was a secret cultivation method discovered by Zhou Bao when he was about to refine the Sky-measuring Star Ruler after snatching it up. Although it was incomplete, Green Spirit felt as if he had discovered some precious treasures. The whole package of the authentic 3,000 Great Ways was long gone, such as the Tian Long Taoism''s Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. Previously, this technique also missed some part. But later, since Zhou Bao obtained that mysterious guy''s general principles of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, the missing part was secured and the technique became a whole. At first, Zhou Bao wasn''t aware of the value of this technique''s general principles at all, but now he was totally clear that the Tian Long Taoism had owed him a huge favor simply for these general principles. Additionally, the martial art that Zhou Bao had practiced was the matching Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and the nature of his Internal Qi was the extreme Fire Attribute¡ªthe innate Demonic Fire¡ªso, when he chose to practice the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, it would bring out the best of both techniques.


    Each of those 3,000 Great Ways had its own Dharma corresponding to the essence of the world. Though Zhou Bao knew that he had a great fate, he never thought he could ever learn many of those 3,000 Great Ways. Even if he had the opportunity, he could not learn them all. But as the saying went, a bird in the hand was worth more than a thousand in the bush. Now that he already had one secret cultivation method at hand, why would he need to pursue more?


    Given that the mysterious Taiyuan Heaven was the most immense and vast place filled with infinite opportunities as well as boundless dangers, Zhou Bao could not bring two complete strangers there. Mo Yinyang was already a trouble, now adding another one called Sun Horse of Star, how could he set his mind at rest? Therefore, when he saw Wang She that was a little intrigued, Zhou Bao immediately chimed in, "Even if you don''t go, I won''t take this guy with me in there!"


    "You!" Hearing this, Sun Horse of Star''s temper was totally up. He had already tried his best to place himself in a lower position, but who knew that Zhou Bao still put on a look as if nothing would make him change his mind.


    His body leaned forward slightly, and a chilling fit of killing intent became intense at once.


    Wang She furrowed his eyebrows and let out a cold snort. He also made one step forward and the light blue lightning started to sparkle on his body. "Since Zhou Bao doesn''t consent this, there is nothing I can do. Sun Horse of Star, if you want to enter Taiyuan Heaven, I suggest you find other approaches!"


    "No, I''ve tried many ways and followed many approaches, but I still can''t find the door to it. This is my last chance!"


    "Interesting! Seems that you think I''m the easier one to bully among those who have the Taiyuan Token, don''t you?" Zhou Bao snorted coldly, producing abundant Fierce Qi from his body. "Now that our conversation has reached this stage, let''s just quit bargaining and turn to combat to have a winner. I''m wondering what kind of ability you have on earth. Should you dare to behave in such an unbridled manner in my territory!"


    At this point, Zhou Bao could no longer stifle down his Fierce Qi and colossal of pure Internal Qi rolled out like a magnificent river. Instantly, the entire underground hall was suffused with his boundless fierce intent.


    On the sideway, Wang She also slightly narrowed his eyes and fixed them upon Sun Horse of Star without a blink, ready to attack at any moment.


    "Stop!" Just when things were at swords'' points, a sudden snarl was sounded and Golden Rooster slipped in from outside. After seeing this tense situation, he got startled, and then with a flash, his figured quickly darted to the place between the two sides and stood shoulder to shoulder with Earth Bat of Girl.


    "What''s happening? What are you going to do?!"


    "What else can it be other than fighting with force?!" Zhou Bao displayed a half-hearted smile and said, "His Excellency Sun Horse of Star has cast his eyes on my Taiyuan Token and wants to pocket it as his own!"


    "Nonsense! Who heard that I''ll pocket it as my own? I''m just saying that I only want to enter Taiyuan Heaven along with you!"


    "But when I disagreed on this, you wanted to start up a fight. How can this not count as pocketing it as your own? We''re members of the 28 constellations. According to the rules of Immortal Palace, internal conflicts are not allowed. Obviously, you dude just breached this rule. Golden Rooster, Elder Qing has told me that you were the one responsible for dealing with this kind of stuff, so what''s your opinion?" As Zhou Bao determinedly stuck to the claim that Sun Horse of Star was going to rob his possession, and referred the rules of Immortal Palace to impose pressure on Golden Rooster, Golden Rooster''s look suddenly went nasty. He turned to look at Sun Horse of Star and inquired. "Is Zhou Bao telling the truth? You really wanted to take his things away by force?"


    "I didn''t!" Indignant as Sun Horse of Star was, he was not stupid. Otherwise, he would not be able to be one of the 28 constellations of Immortal Palace. When hearing Zhou Bao''s claim which aimed to make him the one to blame, he would surely not let Zhou Bao have his wish. He simply said in a cold tone, "At such a young age, this boy overestimates his ability and thus becomes incredulously arrogant. I just want him to learn a lesson and teach him to have some respect for seniors! "


    "Is it true?" Golden Rooster craned his neck over his shoulder and asked Zhou Bao again.


    "I''m not a worm living in his stomach, how could I know what he was thinking? These are merely empty words, and who knows whether they are true or not! But now that he wants to teach me a lesson, it won''t hurt if you just let him achieve his goal for one time. Anyway, competing with each other is not banned among us, the 28 constellations. Just take it as a competition, what do you think?"


    "Ugh..." At the sight of Zhou Bao''s sullen look, Golden Rooster hesitated in giving a reply. In terms of the close and distant degree of relationship, of course, he was closer to Zhou Bao. However, Sun Horse of Star was no one to mess with either. Elder Qing had warned him this just when he was about to go here. But to everyone''s surprise, Sun Horse of Star went antagonistic to Zhou Bao the second he arrived here. If he really let things develop in the way as they liked, they might truly make some huge troubles. But if not, this conflict would still exist. As long as they were at the same place, they could stir up much larger trouble in the future. Thus, Golden Rooster felt his head aching and cast a pleading look upon Earth Bat of Girl.


    "If they want to get close and know each other better, there is no need for us to forbid them doing so, and we may not be able to forbid them anyway!" Earth Bat of Girl laughed bitterly, feeling that he was truly unlucky today. How come he had to handle these two funny fellows? But he did not fancy Sun Horse of Star either. This guy''s background was not revealed, and he had an overbearing and debauchery temper, never acted scrupulously but always assuming an air of self-importance. Hence, it would be good for him if he got a lesson here.


    "Such being the case, you two may compete with each other. But I want to set the rules in advance. Since we are all members of Immortal Palace, this competition shall stop where it should¡ªjust when we have a winner of this game. You''d better not injure each other, let alone taking one''s life. Otherwise, even if I can forgive you, Immortal Palace will not!" Saying this, he shot an alarming look to Zhou Bao, apparently warning him that he shall not go beyond the limit.


    "No problem!" Zhou Bao shrugged his shoulders and gave a smile, "I guarantee you, we won''t make trouble out of this. Alright, Sun Horse of Star, are you ready? If so, you can strike first, and I won''t fight back in your first three movements!"


    Sun Horse of Star''s look went chilling and he replied, "First three movements? That depends on your ability!" Saying so, his figure gave a shake and a wisp of extremely cold spirit charged downright at Zhou Bao.


    "Interesting!" Sensing this raw wind coming for him, Zhou Bao didn''t move at all. While his Gang Qi, which had completely turned black, swept around his body and worn this cold wind down. "That''s all you''ve got? Eh, oh no, that''s poisonous!"


    "Hump! Realizing it now? But too late!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s expression changed a bit, Sun Horse of Star knew that his attack was effective. Then, he raised his hands, crooked his fingers like hooks, and flung his hands at Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao''s face went stiff subtly. Sun Horse of Star''s skinny fingertips all had pointed nails as sharp as a blade, which was stunningly black. When he stretched out his hands to attack, they diffused a vague but sweet odor, apparently fed with strong venom.


    "This bloke should be proficient in using poison!" That was indeed little beyond Zhou Bao''s expectation, but the Poison Cold Shield inside his body was already in operation. The green mist rose up and absorbed all the poison that invaded Zhou Bao''s body, and then, Zhou Bao darted sideways and escaped his grab.


    "That''s the first movement!" Zhou Bao said with a smile.


    "The Poison Cold Shield?" Sun Horse of Star was an expert in poison, so when he saw that his poisonous strike went in vain plus Zhou Bao was surrounded by green mist, he immediately realized what was happening. However, he was still thunderstruck. "You even have the Poison Cold Shield!"


    "What''s up, can''t I?" Zhou Bao sneered. "Two more movements to go. Let me see how great on earth you''ve achieved in poison technique and whether you can beat my Poison Cold Shield or not!"


    "You''re mistaken in believing that you can resist any toxins with only a Poison Cold Shield!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s tone full of confidence, Sun Horse of Star''s body slightly shivered, and a puff of pink fog spread from his body. "Now that you''ve got the Poison Cold Shield, I''ll just go all out. Have a taste of my Peach Blossom Miasma!"


    "Peach Blossom Miasma?" Besides Zhou Bao, Wang She and Earth Bat of Girl as well as Golden Rooster all changed their looks and dashed more than a hundred feet backward to distance themselves.


    "Sun Horse of Star, don''t go too far! You should resort to such an insidious means during a sect competition. I''ll certainly report this to Elder Qing and seek punishment upon you!" Golden Rooster was infuriated because he knew too well about how powerful the Peach Blossom Miasma was. Sighting that Sun Horse of Star launched this movement when the competition had just begun, his expression was surely not too pleasant. Obviously, Sun Horse of Star had already put his pre-competition swear behind himself.


    "Humph, I''m competing against him, not you! He''s got the Poison Cold Shield for protection. Thus, even if I break down his Poison Cold Shield with stronger poison, he won''t suffer much. For the best, I''ll reserve a bit strength then!"


    "Is this your second movement?" Eyeing the pink fog permeating in the surrounding, Zhou Bao smiled faintly as if having a well-prepared plan in his mind. The area between his eyebrows screwed and a jet of cyan light shot out, floating above his head and swirling swiftly. It turned out that this was a pigeon egg-sized cyan bead, which was emitting fits of green mist to shroud around Zhou Bao.


    The green mist and the pink Peach Blossom Miasma entangled with each other at one point, but no matter how hard the Miasma rolled and surged, it could not penetrate the mist even an inch.


    "This is...the Poison-absorbing Green Bead? How could you have it? Where did you get it? How come you refined the Poison-absorbing Green Bead into the Poison Cold Shield?" After catching a clear view of that green bead, Sun Horse of Star''s look changed thoroughly, and he pointed at Zhou Bao while screeching.


    "Why can''t I have the Poison-absorbing Green Bead? And why can''t I use the Poison-absorbing Green Bead to refine the Poison Cold Shield?" Zhou Bao sneered. Then, he pointed at the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, and the green light that was sending off instantly got brilliant. Soon afterward, the green mist gently curled up and even formed a cyan vortex.


    This cyan vortex was swiveling around slowly, and unexpectedly whirled in the Peach Blossom Miasma that made Golden Rooster, Wang She and Earth Bat of Girl frightened at sensing it and only too willing to avoid it. In the vortex, the Peach Blossom Miasma was differentiated and assimilated. Meanwhile, the cyan bead that was hanging over Zhou Bao''s head was emitting faint cyan light, and as the green mist swirled, it began to absorb the Peach Blossom Miasma.


    "Damn!" Sun Horse of Star cursed in his undertone, ready to withdraw his Peach Blossom Miasma. It cost him a total of 30 years to refine this Peach Blossom Miasma! During those years, he traveled to various dark and remote places across the world for the purpose of collecting this highly toxic Miasma. Then, by combining 49 strong poisonous materials into it, the Peach Blossom Miasma was finally made. If spilled out, it could corrode any Gang Qi and fuse any Internal Qi, so it was the nemesis of Gang Qi. Even when a Level Nine expert came across it, he would choose to escape from it. However, to everyone''s surprise, it was so coincident that the Peach Blossom Miasma just met its own nemesis.


    The Poison-absorbing Green Bead!


    This magical object was the nemesis of almost all the poisons in the world, including his Peach Blossom Miasma. But this object was so precious that it merely appeared for a few times throughout the entire history of the world. Accordingly, it never occurred to him that someone in this present world should possess a Poison-absorbing Green Bead and even produced the Poison Cold Shield by refining it. If Zhou Bao had displayed this Poison-absorbing Green Bead in the first place, he would never make such a silly movement by sending out his own Peach Blossom Miasma.


    But now, since the weapon was already sent out, trying to retrieve it would not be such an easy thing to do.


    The Poison-absorbing Green Bead was the nemesis of all poisons around the globe, while the Poison Cold Shield was a celestial device that could absorb every poison and made use of them. If the Poison Cold Shield had been refined out of other materials, Sun Horse of Star would still be confident to burst it with the strong poisoning power of his Peach Blossom Miasma. However, when he bumped into the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, the only thing he could do was to back off, as far as possible.


    Unfortunately, Zhou Bao didn''t want to give him any chance to retreat. The Poison-absorbing Green Bead spun faster and faster, creating immense suction that had firmly hold down the Peach Blossom Miasma, which consequently formed a wide road. Although Sun Horse of Star was eager to pull back his Peach Blossom Miasma, his ability already fell short of his wish.


    After absorbing the Peach Blossom Miasma, the Poison-absorbing Green Bead turned increasingly brighter, even the green mist that swirled around Zhou Bao at first began to gradually take on the color of faint pink.


    This was exactly the effect produced after it had absorbed the Peach Blossom Miasma and refined it into the Poison Cold Shield. Suddenly, the power of the Poison Cold Shield augmented significantly, while under the principle of wane and wax, the Peach Blossom Miasma paled a lot.


    Cold sweat dripped down from Sun Horse of Star''s forehead. At this point, no matter what kind of method he employed to urge the Peach Blossom Miasma to come back, his effort could only bring little effect. The green mist and pink fog forcefully blended into each other like a cheating couple acting passionately in their love affairs. They surged up and down, even appeared to have the tendency of integrating into one.


    "Quickly let go of my Peach Blossom Miasma! I throw in the sponge!" Sun Horse of Star started yelling. Considering that this time he had lost all the advantages, if the competition went on, he might even lose his last stakes.


    "What did you say? I didn''t catch it clearly, say it again!" Zhou Bao was grinning, looking like a rascal. He even put a hand near his ear as if trying to listen to something.


    "You!" Sun Horse of Star gnashed his teeth in anger, desperately wishing to give Zhou Bao a fatal punch. However, for the sake of his own Peach Blossom Miasma, he finally stifled his rage and admitted, "I said I throw in the sponge! Hurry up and withdraw your Poison-absorbing Green Bead. Do you truly intend to take away my Peach Blossom Miasma?" Sun Horse of Star barked balefully, anxious to wolf down Zhou Bao alive.


    "What? You throw in the sponge?" As if just heard it clearly, Zhou Bao pulled back his Poison-absorbing Green Bead and Poison Cold Shield without haste. Up in the air, the green mist contracted and then vanished to nowhere, leaving a cluster of pink fog there alone.


    "It''s..." Sun Horse of Star''s face went livid, for the remaining pink fog was just one-third of the original Peach Blossom Miasma he had cast out. In other words, during such a short time, Zhou Bao''s Poison-absorbing Green Bead should absorb two-thirds of the Peach Blossom Miasma which he had put lots of effort to obtain and practice, so how could he hold his rage in leash?


    "What? You still want to fight me?" Looking at his exasperated face, Zhou Bao was in a good mood. This time, it could be said that he had taken a considerable advantage¡ªthe power of his Poison Cold Shield was boosted to a great extent. With the Peach Blossom Miasma''s function, now his Poison Cold Shield was already able to corrode experts'' Gang Qi. Furthermore, it could be said that this Shield had become the nemesis of most Gang Qi, which was much powerful than the simple poison it had been before.


    At the sight of Zhou Bao''s gleeful smile, Sun Horse of Star fought back his fury and said, "This time I admit my failure. I will not stay at this place. Everybody, I''ll take my leave!" After saying this, he cupped his hands toward Golden Rooster and the other two, dashed out of the underground hall and disappeared without a trace.


    "Come on, this dude is really keen on face-saving. Just fell for one time, why take it so seriously?" Seeing Sun Horse of Star leaving, Zhou Bao curled his lips and said.


    "Stop taking your undeserved gain for granted. Sun Horse of Star does have some background, and his backer is quite powerful. You''ve offended him this time, so you must take care from now on!"


    "It never occurred to me that members of the Immortal Palace do have discords and rifts as well. And there is such a presumptuous funny fellow!" Zhou Bao sneered, saying his complaints out loud.


    "Now we''re in special circumstances. General principles of the Immortal Palace remain intact, but each supervisor has his own idea. They may as well indulge some valuable members as long as it''s not against these general principles, just like how Elder Qing treats you. He also significantly indulges you, doesn''t he? Sun Horse of Star is a senior general subordinate to White Tiger. He was transferred to a post here on account of the issue concerning the Azure Secret Area. But surprisingly, once he arrived here, he was sent off by you in anger even before he could have a sit. Moreover, you''ve taught a lesson to Ye Qingtian, who has been admired by White Tiger, so, there may be enough drama in the future!"


    "White Tiger?" Zhou Bao asked and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. "I always live up to the principle of never attacking unless attacked. This time, they all came and attacked me. If I didn''t give them a lesson, they would really take me as someone weak and easy to bully!"


    "Zhou Bao has a point. Don''t attack unless being attacked. If White Tiger truly comes after Zhou Bao for these two matters, Elder Qing won''t just sit there and keep his eyes shut. Neither will White Tiger make such a rookie mistake!" Wang She said in a cold voice. "At most, White Tiger will track Zhou Bao in the dark and wait for the moment he makes some mistakes. Then, with that proper excuse, he will pick on him afterward!"


    "That''s also my greatest concern. Zhou Bao, you always behave unscrupulously. One day, White Tiger will certainly have something on you. From now on, you should really act in discreetness!"


    "I don''t fear that damn White Tiger!" Zhou Bao replied dismissively. "I''d like to see him trying that!"


    "Surely you don''t fear him, and I don''t either. Nobody is afraid of him. But messing up with this guy always is a trouble!" Earth Bat of Girl added, shaking his head. "Anyway, even if he detects some of your errors, all he can do is merely give you a hard time. With Elder Qing being here to take command, he won''t be able to harm you. Furthermore, the entrance to the Azure Secret Area is in your territory, and it is you who have discovered it. Simply with this contribution, you have the capital to point fingers at him and call him names!"


    "Really? Then, when it''s time, I shall have a try!" Zhou Bao started laughing. Later, he fumbled out the Taiyuan Token and said, "Well, just now I was annoyed beyond myself by that Sun Horse of Star. But now, let''s talk about business. This Taiyuan Token is in my hand, but I''m not familiar with it, so I want to ask you guys!"


    "Taiyuan Heaven only opens for one time in 1,000 years. Though we''re old, we''re far from being 1,000 years old, aren''t we? Even if we are that old, we won''t have such a luck like you to get the Taiyuan Token. Thus, none of us has ever been to Taiyuan Heaven. But Elder Qing may have some files about this Taiyuan Heaven. If you want to know about it, just go to Immortal Palace. I guess you must have some questions. You may as well go for Elder Qing and figure this thing out before determining your later agenda. What do you say?" Golden Rooster suggested.


    "Take another trip to Immortal Palace?" Zhou Bao thought for a minute and said, "That''s okay. Anyway, I have something to consult Elder Qing!"


    "If you decide to go there, take off as soon as possible!"


    "Yeah!" Zhou Bao looked up at Wang She and said, "Well, Chief, will you accompany me to Taiyuan Heaven?"


    "No problem. But you''ve said that you already decided on the other candidate to go with you, and you don''t know much about him. What''s happening on earth?"


    "It''s nothing!" Zhou Bao gave a hollow smile and repeated the whole story about Mo Yinyang''s tipping off.


    "You said Mo Yinyang is from the Dark Sect, which belongs to the Jade Toad Sect?" Wang She slightly squinted at him and asked.


    "He told me so!" Zhou Bao answered. "And I also interrogated those captives and confirmed his identity!"


    "The Li Dynasty''s Jade Toad Sect...haha...interesting!" Golden Rooster tilted his head and busied himself in pondering. "This guy did have a well-calculated plan. Only by delivering a message, he has gained the qualification to enter Taiyuan Heaven. Why things like such never happen to me?"


    "Seems he had planned this for a long time. Ye Qingtian also has a Taiyuan Token and a fairy weapon which he can''t operate. But in the end, he tore off the hollowness and went away!" As if thinking of something critical, Earth Bat of Girl muttered to himself. "Are you sure that Ye Qingtian does have a Taiyuan Token?"


    "Mo Yinyang told me so. But I can''t guarantee whether it''s true or not!"


    "Seems that I have to go back to Immortal Palace with you!" Earth Bat of Girl said.

 Chapter 332: Returning to Immortal Palace & Golden Book of Fate

    Chapter 332: Returning to Immortal Palace & Golden Book of Fate


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Immortal Palace was the same as it was when Zhou Bao left the last time. It was lofty, majestic, and full of an air of rural life and mystery.


    Now, he became stronger. His comprehension of space and formation advanced as well. Entering Immortal Palace once again, he benefited considerably as he comprehended the inhibition of the Space Division.


    "The inhibition of Immortal Palace is really mysterious and unfathomable. If I can set up a complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation, maybe the same effect will appear!" He entered the palace in the waves of space.


    "But it''s a pity that I lack plenty of materials to complete and set up it. Otherwise, my home can be tightly-guarded. I can even occupy the entrance of the Azure Secret Area personally. Haha, it''s not cool. I''m too greedy!" He thought secretly.


    He came to Immortal Palace together with Wang She and Earth Bat of Girl. Oddly enough, after Earth Bat of Girl heard that Ye Qingtian possessed a Taiyuan Token, he behaved strangely. As if Ye Qingtian did not deserve a Taiyuan Token.


    He did not talk about it anymore all the way to Immortal Palace as if he was dumb. Wang She and Zhou Bao were quite confounded. But Earth Bat of Girl was always paranoid. Thus, they kept silent too.


    When they arrived there, Elder Qing was waiting for them in front of the palace door as if he had already received the news.


    He smiled as the three people were in sight.


    "It''s time for you to come here now. Everytime Taiyuan Heaven appears, it will exert a considerable influence on the world. This time is no exception. After 1,000 years of waiting and preparation, we know more about Taiyuan Heaven. There must be a fierce struggle. Experts who haven''t reached the Mysterious Realm in the Seven-deity Region are doomed to die. I''m wondering whether you''re well-prepared!" Elder Qing sighed as he saw the flying figures and wore a wry smile.


    "Pay my respect to Elder Qing!" The three bowed.


    "Don''t be over-courteous. I already knew what you guys came for. Taiyuan Heaven has shown up now. Zhou Bao, you''re one of the people who possess great luck in 1,000 years. You''re destined to be involved in this matter. But I haven''t expected that Yan Yuntian acted so quickly and gave you his Taiyuan Token!"


    "Elder Qing is truly intelligent!" Zhou Bao''s expression changed and then he laughed. "It seems that you can solve my doubt too."


    "You''re too lazy and hot-tempered, so you don''t understand the solution to your doubt. If you stayed here any longer the last time, you would have known everything now!" Elder Qing smiled. "You''re a member of Immortal Palace, the Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket among the 28 constellations. You definitely will know things that others know as well."


    "Good." Zhou Bao smiled and nodded his head. Since his cultivation had advanced greatly and he had a discerning eye now, he was more afraid of Elder Qing. At first, he thought that Elder Qing was very simple and ordinary earlier, but now he could sense the overwhelming Qi Power from him. His Qi Power and strength were above that of Level Nine experts.


    The inner space of Immortal Palace was boundless and majestic.


    Zhou Bao did have a good visit to Immortal Palace last time. But he did not enter the real core, the palace that was covered within the mountains. Elder Qing took them directly to the palace this time.


    It was a shabby palace.


    It was not glorious and dazzling anymore. Tilting angels and overhanging eaves were dilapidated. However, as the time went by, the unadorned and bleak air of the palace still existed. Time elapsed, but it endowed the palace with a new aesthetic perception.


    "The real Immortal Palace is right in front of us. It''s the place where we make decisions on big events. But we never use it over the last 1,000 years!" Elder Qing led them to walk through the old and broad meeting hall and stood in the center. He smiled and pointed at the 32 chairs that had made up a circle. Then he said, "You''re one of the 28 constellations. You own a seat among these 32 chairs. If you''re free, you can have a seat here. But the room is windy and the chair is a little cold!"


    Zhou Bao had already noticed these chairs. They were high back chairs. Among them, 28 chairs were grey and were in the same pattern. However, four black high back chairs were in the east, south, west, and north respectively. They were very eye-catching.


    He also noticed the circle that these chairs made of was like a roundtable for holding conferences. But no tables could be seen here. There was only a magic formation on the ancient limestone ground.


    "It''s a meeting hall. But as I''ve said, we haven''t held any meeting for 1,000 years. The last time we held a meeting was when Taiyuan Heaven showed up. But you know, the 28 constellations have never come together. Last time, more than half of the people didn''t come."


    "Elder Qing, you''ve already known that?" Wang She asked respectfully. He was always bossy and domineering but was rarely so well-behaved.


    "Of course I know!" Elder Qing smiled and patted him on the shoulder. He walked toward the black high back chair that was located in the east and sat down. "Have a seat, please. It''s a meeting, we''d better discuss slowly."


    The three people smiled and sat down in their chairs.


    "Elder Qing, I''m afraid that there''s one thing you don''t know!" Earth Bat of Girl sat down and said, "Ye Qingtian possesses a Taiyuan Token. If so, one token is left!"


    "Ye Qingtian? Is he the young man that White Tiger has mentioned?" Elder Qing was somewhat surprised. But he was not that shocked like Earth Bat of Girl, and he nodded his head gently. "Ye Qingtian has a great luck. It''s normal for him to find a Taiyuan Token that hasn''t shown up. It''s no big deal for three more people entering Taiyuan Heaven!"


    "Elder Qing, don''t forget about the Thousand Year Promise!" Earth Bat of Girl reminded him of this matter.


    "The Thousand Year Promise? It''s just a joke! I''ve never treated it seriously!" Elder Qing snorted. "Those big sects believe that they''ve controlled the whole world. Do they think they can determine things 1,000 years later easily by a short discussion? They really impose themselves as Great Ancient Emperors!"


    Even the deaf could hear the disdain from his words.


    Earth Bat of Girl''s expression slightly changed. He was somewhat awkward. "Elder Qing, though it''s true, if they...!"


    "Is Ye Qingtian our man?" Elder Qing interrupted him.


    "No!" Earth Bat of Girl shook his head.


    "That''s it! Since he''s not our man, it''s none of our business!" Elder Qing smiled. "If they want, we''d better act according to rules. Though the Thousand Year Promise is ridiculous, it''s hard to change after all. We''d better wait and see. We must get what belongs to us. If we can obtain more, we can''t let them go. This matter is so simple. If others want to pursue more Taiyuan Tokens, we don''t need to care about it. But we should fight once they damage our interest. It''s right and unalterable!"


    "It''s the very point where I worry about. Ye Qingtian isn''t our man, but he''s in a good relationship with White Tiger. If he involves in it, Immortal Palace cannot get away from this matter!"


    "White Tiger has a sense of property. He can handle the personal relationship and official business well. He won''t muddle them together. Otherwise, he won''t be the White Tiger!" Elder Qing dispelled Earth Bat of Girl''s worry. He put his hands on the chair and stood up. "Bat and Wang She, you can go for a stroll. I have something to talk to Junior Leopard!"


    "Yes!" They stood up and left directly, leaving Zhou Bao alone in the hall.


    After that, Elder Qing pointed at the roof. "I guess perhaps you''ve noticed that?"


    "Yeah. I noticed it as I came here." Zhou Bao smiled and looked up. The roof of the palace was a dome that was made of a whole giant stone. It was thick and heavy. However, observed carefully, it was somewhat inharmonious with the palace. In other words, it was not so perfect and tightly fitted.


    What surprised him most was the picture on it. It was like a map that was easy to be understood. However, it was different from maps he had seen earlier.


    There were seven regions on it. They were all about the same size. Outside these regions was the Sea Area. Islands of different sizes floated on it, but compared to the seven mainlands, they were much smaller.


    Among them, he was interested in the region located at the east the most. Because the border of a certain place was similar to the coastline of the Jin Dynasty.


    "Is this... a map?" Zhou Bao asked hesitantly.


    "This is our world map!" Elder Qing nodded in agreement. He pointed at the map and smiled. "This region is the Jin Dynasty. It''s the Central Plain, because it''s located in the middle of the Seven-deity Regions, and it''s also called the Central Mainland Region. The east is the Li Dynasty, also we call it the Penglai Region. The northeast of this section is the Yingzhou Region and the west is the Fangzhang Region. Generally speaking, these four regions are located at the east of the Seven-deity Regions. We call them the Four Eastern Regions. Between the other three regions and the Four Eastern Regions are billions of miles of Sea Area. These three regions are called the Three Western Regions. Thus, the Four Eastern Regions and the Three Western Regions are called the Seven-deity Regions. Except for these seven regions, the other is the Sea Area. Though it''s broader than the Seven-deity Regions, it''s underpopulated. The dominators of this boundless Sea Area are evil beasts rather than human beings."


    Elder Qing glanced at Zhou Bao and smiled. "But the Sea Area and the Seven-deity Regions live in harmony. Everyone minds their own business. Except encountering things concerning the whole world, influences within the Sea Area and the Seven-deity Regions just mind their own business. Moreover, evil beasts in the Sea Area aren''t allowed to enter the coastline 10,000 miles away from every region. This part of the Sea Area belongs to the Seven-deity Regions!"


    Elder Qing introduced him the outline of this world within a few sentences. Zhou Bao looked at the map thoughtfully, and Elder Qing did not talk anymore. No matter who knew the complete framework of the giant world, they would be at sea like Zhou Bao.


    But what Zhou Bao was thinking was completely different from that of Elder Qing. He was not shocked by the giant world. Instead, he was thinking that since the world was so big, it would be quite hard to travel around the world.


    After a while, he calmed down. Elder Qing asked him to have a seat and continued speaking. "I believe you''ve noticed that the Jin Dynasty is just a small part of the Central Mainland Region. It has defeated Northern Yuan. Including the territory of Northern Yuan, the whole territory of the Jin Dynasty is less than a quarter of that of the Central Mainland Region. But it''s the largest country in the Central Mainland Region. However, countries that are broader than the Jin Dynasty are countless in other six regions. For example, the Li Dynasty in the Penglai Region is twice larger than Jin. However, it''s just one of the biggest countries in the Penglai Region!"


    "What does it have to do with me?" Zhou Bao sighed deeply and then smiled. "I don''t have the ambition to rule the world. Neither do I have the noble aspiration to defeat all experts and become the number one expert. It''s none of my business even the world is ten times larger than now!"


    "You shouldn''t say that, it''s not that relevant to you earlier. But now, everything has changed!" Elder Qing shook his head and looked at Zhou Bao thoughtfully. "Nine Strips of Dragon Veins converges now. If you can open the dragon vein in your territory, at least you''ll possess the great luck and fate to rule the Central Mainland Region!"


    "That will be a troublesome thing!" Zhou Bao shook his head. "I only pursue immortality. It''ll be better to leave this matter to guys like Yan Yuntian!"


    "You don''t have such an ambition. It''s a good reason!" Elder Qing said. "You better understand that there are various kinds of practice. The Emperor''s Great Way is one of the 3,000 Great Ways!"


    "Then that has nothing to do with me too. Let alone I cannot find the Way of the Emperor, even if I find it, it''s impossible for me to practice. It''s the same as you let me practice the Great Way of Stars when I''m practicing Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique."


    "You''re so young, less than 20 years old. Don''t you have any ambition?"


    "No, I do. My ambition is to practice. In fact, I''m afraid of death, and my ambition is to pursue immortality!"


    "Hahaha...!" Elder Qing guffawed finally. "Pursuing immortality is an ambition, one that has gone beyond everything. Good! Since you''ve chosen this way, I must warn you. Since Primordial Time, no one has come to the end, because no one knows where the end is. You''d better be well-prepared!"


    "Of course I am!" Zhou Bao blinked his eyes and smiled.


    "That''s fine. Since you aren''t interested in being an emperor, let us talk about practice!" Elder Qing said. "The 3,000 Great Ways are most proposed among numerous practicing methods and every way is feasible These two sentences are passed down from antiquity times. But even if you find the real 3,000 Great Ways and want to pursue them, it''s difficult as well. Otherwise, there won''t be so many ways that have been lost!"


    "I understand. Immortality is an unending way!" Zhou Bao nodded. "Everyone has his own limitations. I don''t have the qualification to criticize others. Perhaps I''ll die in Taiyuan Heaven!"


    "Oh? Why do you have such an idea?"


    "Although I''m Yan Yuntian''s son-in-law, he eagerly hopes that I can die in front of him immediately. He must give me the Taiyuan Token with some evil intentions!" Zhou Bao said coldly.


    "Taiyuan Heaven is one of the 33 Heavens. Entering Taiyuan Heaven is an opportunity, but it has risks as well. However, it''s not that dangerous as you have thought. Immortals aren''t allowed to enter it. It means you won''t encounter experts of the Mysterious Realm. Those experts in Taiyuan Heaven cannot pose any threat to you!"


    "Was there such a rule?"


    "Hum. All listed immortals should be restraint by the Law of Heaven. As long as his name is in the golden book, no matter how mighty he is, the restraint is unavoidable. The Law of Heaven will exercise less restraint on him unless he condenses the Three Flowers and Five Kinds of Qi."


    "To be a listed Immortal? What does it mean?" Zhou Bao asked. He had inquired Green Spirit earlier, but he did not tell him in detail and concealed something on purpose. He said that he would tell him when he entered Level Nine. Therefore, Zhou Bao was pissed off.


    Elder Qing did not conceal anything. "The so-called to be a listed Immortal means that your name appears in the Golden Book of Fate!"


    "Golden Book of Fate?"


    "It''s a fairy weapon in antiquity times or ancient times. The legend went like this; it was an incarnation of Way of Heaven. No matter who had reached a certain phase, he would activate the Principle of Great Ways. Then the Golden Book of Fate would have the telepathic connection and wrote your name in it. After that, you would be an Immortal and you must obey the Law of Heaven. Otherwise, you would go through Divine Tribulation immediately!"


    Zhou Bao blinked his eyes and was confounded. "Really? Will the Divine Tribulation arrives at once?"


    "Many people said that the way of practice goes against heaven. But in fact, it''s the opposite. Those who went against heaven have already died. A real practitioner pursues the Divine Design. When he enters a certain phase and comprehends something that is closely related to heaven and earth, he''ll become a part of the heaven and earth. He''s heaven and vice versa. His action is closely linked to the Great Way of Heaven and Earth. If he goes against the Law of Heaven, he goes against himself. For example, you''re destined to eat with your mouth, and going against heaven means you''re eating with your nose. The result can be easily seen!"


    "The Way of Heaven is related to the Golden Book of Fate. When we reach a certain phase, we will be relevant to the Golden Book of Fate. In this way, we''re closely linked with the Way of Heaven. Once we obey the Way of Heaven, we will slap ourselves."


    "Not bad! You have a good aptitude." Elder Qing nodded.


    "So, isn''t it a good thing to be a listed Immortal?" Zhou Bao felt weird. According to Elder Qing''s words, the essence of being a so-called listed Immortal was to manage those experts whose cultivation had surpassed the Mysterious Realm. It could only bring constraint rather than benefits.


    "Of course it is!" Elder Qing laughed. "To be a listed Immortal has its own benefits. The Golden Book of Fate is the instantiation of Great Ways, and it''s mysterious and wonderful. Once you become a listed Immortal, you''ll have a telepathic connection with it. It will endow you a Divine Sense given your characteristics. Those with strong fate may be endowed with several kinds of Divine Senses. The so-called Law of Heaven is illusory with few restrictions, it''s just an empty shell. Most important of all, once you become a listed Immortal, your Genuine Spirit will be protected by the Golden Book of Fate. Except few rare Fairy Weapons of the Way of Killing and Massacre of Heaven and Earth, nothing will kill your Genuine Spirit! In this way, you''ll achieve immortality!"


    "Are you kidding me?" Zhou Bao laughed. "If we can achieve immortality through being a listed Immortal, those mighty in antiquity times would have been alive now. Moreover, Taiyuan Heaven and Azure Heaven wouldn''t become forsaken."


    "How do you know they''re dead?" Elder Qing wore a smile. "Even if they have died, they may die of Massacre of Heaven and Earth. Do you know the origin of the Seven-deity Regions? Originally, it was a whole land. During the Massacre of Heaven and Earth in antiquity times, Immortals had a fierce fight between each other. Therefore, the whole land was divided into seven pieces together with countless islands. Hence, it''s very common for Immortals to die in Massacre of Heaven and Earth!"


    "Massacre of Heaven and Earth?!" Zhou Bao was stunned by these words. The Demonic Fire in his Dantian flickered. Then, he felt a fear and was about to sweat.


    "What''s wrong with you?" Elder Qing asked as he saw Zhou Bao''s strange expression.


    "Oh. Nothing. I just comprehend something!" Zhou Bao shrugged and said insincerely.


    "Really, haha!" Elder Qing looked at him thoughtfully and continued speaking.

 Chapter 333: The Causes of Everything

    Chapter 333: The Causes of Everything


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    ...


    ¡­


    Green Spirit tended to conceal things from Zhou Bao and deliberately mystify him. However, Elder Qing would tell him everything in detail. If he had any doubt, Elder Qing would try his best to answer him without any hesitation.


    Therefore, he figured out the general ideas about being a listed Immortal, the Golden Book of Fate, and the Seven-deity Regions within less than one hour.


    Jade Pool, Immortal Palace, Divine Wind Palace, Dragon Thunder Palace, Small Thunder Temple and Dark Sect were the real mainstays and powerful influences of the Four Eastern Regions. However, the Tian Long Taoism, Mingyi School and Sect of Flame were their public schools. Of course, these schools were not affiliated with the former Six Influences but inextricably linked with each other. In a sense, these three schools were the spokespersons of these Six Influences in the Jin Dynasty of the Central Mainland Region. In addition, there were many other countries and regions in the Central Mainland Region that were also spokespersons of these Six Influences. For example, Palace of Destruction Demon of Northern Yuan was the spokesperson of Dark Sect in Northern Yuan. Mount Kunlun was closely correlated with Divine Wind Palace. Living Buddha Ba Siba was the Living Buddha of Small Thunder Temple on Snow Mountain. These influences were unknown to ordinary people, but they left a deep brand in the whole Four Eastern Regions. Moreover, aristocrats of the Central Mainland Region were closely linked with these Six Influences, and many aristocratic families were established by people from these Six Influences. For example, the Wang family, who had a bad relationship with him, was established by Divine Wind Palace. As time went by, except the Family Heads of well-known families, barons and the top experts of schools, few people knew these Six Influences.


    Zhou Bao could understand that all these were due to the fact that the world was so big. Even masters of martial arts could fly across the sky, the Sea Area that was millions of miles separated the Seven-deity Regions from each other. Thus, though they did have the ability, it was quite difficult for them to arrive at another Divine Region. Only those who had achieved the Karmic Rank of Individual Immortal and possessed corresponding strength were qualified to fly across the Sea Area. But the so-called flying across the Sea Area meant that you could fly smoothly from one Divine Region to another without meeting any danger. However, once you met the evil beasts, everything would be different.


    The Sea Area was far broader than the land, and no one knew what kind of primitive beasts and powerful demons would be in the sea.


    Even if achieving the Karmic Rank of Individual Immortal, human beings could only be the dominators of the land. They were extremely weak when compared to living beings in the Sea Area.


    Only those who had broken through Three Big Realms and achieved the Karmic Rank of Genuine Immortal could leave from the East Sea in the morning and arrive at Cang Wu in the evening. They could travel everywhere as if the world was their home. Even if they met evil beasts as they flew across the Sea Area, they could escape safely.


    However, even so, those who obtained Genuine Immortal Karma Rank would not likely to fly across the Sea Area casually, because there were plenty of experts in the Sea Area. If they died of trivial things, it was not worth doing, though they were lucky enough to keep their Original Spirit.


    Hence, only top experts and high-level managers knew the real condition of the world. As for the ordinary people, they would feel tired to run two or three kilometers, let alone millions of miles.


    It was like other people talked about the condition of Mars with you when you were living on the Earth. Though you were interested in the conversation, it would not influence you after all. Mars is far from Earth, so it''s a different world to you. It was extremely hard for ordinary people to have any connection with other regions all their life for many people in this world would spend their entire life living in their cities. They would never go to other countries and continents.


    "Since evil beasts in the Sea Area are powerful enough to pose a threat to Individual Immortals and Genuine Immortals, they must have equal strength. Will their names be listed on the Golden Book of Fate?"


    "Of course. Once their strength meets the requirement of the Golden Book of Fate, their name will be listed on the book automatically!" Elder Qing smiled. "But their Golden Book of Fate is different from ours!"


    "What kind of difference?"


    "Originally, there was only one Golden Book of Fate. But it''s a pity that it was divided into two in the Massacre of Heaven and Earth at that time. After that, it recorded Powerful Divines of the Human Tribe and the Demon Tribe respectively. Therefore, the Golden Book of Fate in the Sea Area was called Ranking of Demons and Immortals. Its function was the opposite of the Golden Book of Fate in the Seven-deity Regions. However, there were fewer restrictions in it than in the Golden Book of Fate in the Human Tribe."


    "You''ve said that the so-called Law of Heaven is an empty shell earlier. Why do you say it has many restrictions now?"


    "The Golden Book of Fate is a fairy weapon. It won''t have that many restrictions when it''s put aside. But things will be different if someone''s controlling it." Elder Qing smiled mysteriously, but the smile also showed his helplessness and bitterness. "Different from the Human Tribe, the Demon Tribe doesn''t have so many evil intentions. No one has ever touched the Ranking of Demons and Immortals, but it''s quite the opposite in the Human Tribe. Over the past hundreds of thousands of years, numerous people paid attention to it, because controlling the Golden Book of Fate equals to controlling people with Immortal ranks. With the book in hand, people can reorganize Heavenly Court and control all Immortals!"


    Zhou Bao''s eyes flickered. "What do you mean? The Golden Book of Fate is controlled by others? Does it mean that once I reach the Mysterious Realm, I''ll become a subordinate of other people?"


    "Yeah. You''ll become others'' subordinate once you enter the Mysterious Realm and achieve Individual Immortal Karma Rank!" Elder Qing said. "However, the Golden Book of Fate isn''t controlled by a certain man. Instead, it''s controlled by a huge influence!"


    "A huge influence?" Zhou Bao''s expression became solemn and cold as he thought of Wang She''s words. There was an orthodox influence that had eliminated the Fiery Eyes tribe. "Is it controlled by a certain strong influence?"


    "It''s not just a strong influence but several influences. Six Influences of the Four Eastern Regions are involved in it. Several powerful influences of the Three Western Regions, whose strength is no worse than ours, also take part in it!" Elder Qing smiled bitterly. "Since they cannot resist the temptation, they have to participate in it and gain some benefits from it. They have no other choice!"


    "Damn it!" Zhou Bao swore secretly. He heard that the orthodox influence was extremely powerful from Wang She, but he had not expected that it was so powerful. He was frightened by just hearing it, though he was not 100 percent sure that the orthodox influence was the same influence that controlled the Golden Book of Fate. Yet, it was pretty close.


    "Do you think it''s troublesome?" Elder Qing smiled gently. "Don''t worry, you don''t need to worry about it even if you enter the Mysterious Realm. Immortal Palace is one of the controllers of the Golden Book of Fate. No one will operate the Golden Book of Fate to harm you as long as you haven''t caused widespread indignation and resentment, even though you''ve violated the Law of Heaven. The Golden Book of Fate is a Supreme Fairy Weapon. Except for the Ruler of the Sea, the Celestial Emperor, no one can activate it individually. Only the combined power of several Powerful Divines from these influences can do that. The power it costs is beyond your imagination. Therefore, though it exists, it hasn''t been launched for thousands of years."


    "Ruler of the Sea, the Celestial Emperor?" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows. "Is he very powerful?"


    "Celestial Emperor is a legend. His name is enough to intimidate the whole Sea Area. He''s a huge demon that has existed since antiquity times. His strength is unfathomable, and the Ranking of Demons and Immortals of the Sea Area is in his hands. If there''s someone who can launch the Golden Book of Fate alone, that''ll be him."


    Elder Qing''s eyes became bright as he mentioned Sea Emperor. "Because of his existence, the Seven-deity Regions never have had any big dispute, though internal dissension is commonly seen. Even if there are big disputes, big bloody incidents won''t take place. No one dares to weaken their strength because of internal strife. Likewise, because of Sea Emperor, several influences can control the Golden Book of Fate together and put some restrictions on experts that have entered the Mysterious Realm for fear of their reckless actions.


    "Is there any expert who has questioned our control of the Law of Heaven these years?"


    "Yes, of course. Human nature is the same as that of demons, who long for freedom. Of course, they''ll have a conflict with us. Our influences are way too strong, so we''ve never encountered any large-scaled fight initiated by them, except the Fiery Eyes tribe. They rose abruptly and didn''t want to obey the so-called Law of Heaven. Therefore, they caused a battle. But all experts of Divine Wind Palace spared their efforts and finally eliminated this horrible tribe!"


    "The Fiery Eyes tribe?" Though Zhou Bao was mentally prepared, he suddenly felt alarmed when he heard Elder Qing mentioned the Fiery Eyes tribe. He suppressed his surprise and said, "I''ve heard about the Fiery Eyes tribe and I possess a Fiery Eye External Elixir. But the Golden Book of Fate was controlled by all of us, why experts of Divine Wind Palace were the only forces that had taken action?"


    Elder Qing wore a strange smile and glanced at him. "Since you own a Fiery Eyes External Elixir, you must know the wonderfulness of the Fiery Eyes. Do you think Divine Wind Palace would be willing to share benefits with other influences? Though the Golden Book of Fate is controlled by all of us, it''s stored in Divine Wind Palace. Divine Wind Palace always think of themselves as Orthodox Heavenly Court. Therefore, they''re the best influence to handle matters such as violating Law of Heaven!"


    "Orthodox Heavenly Court?"


    "Yes, Orthodox Heavenly Court. They intend to recover the majesty and stateliness of Heavenly Court and choose a new Jade Emperor to restrict Sea Emperor!"


    "Choose a new Jade Emperor? The Great Jade Emperor?"


    "Yeah, the Great Jade Emperor. He''s the only one who has practiced the Way of the Emperor to the extreme among the owners of Heavenly Court in the world!" Elder Qing said without any expression. "Because of this, Divine Wind Palace surely wouldn''t let go any chance that could advance their strength. The Fiery Eyes tribe was a strong bloodline that was created by necromancers in antiquity times according to numerous Immortal-demon Bloodlines. Since the Fiery Eyes had many wonderful uses, the Divine Wind Palace began to fight the Fiery Eyes tribe in order to level up their strength. But they had never expected that after the Fiery Eyes tribe was cornered, they manifested an extremely strong power. They weakened half of the Divine Wind Palace''s power and destroyed one of their Taihao Fairy Weapons, and Divine Wind Palace suffered considerably. After that, Fifth Manor on Longevity Mountain struck Divine Wind Palace too. Divine Wind Palace was meant to go for wool but came back shorn. But if with the help of Jade Pool, it would have disappeared."


    "Fifth Manor on Longevity Mountain?"


    "It''s another powerful influence in the Three Western Regions and also the only one that is in a good relationship with the Four Eastern Regions. It''s in a bad relationship with Divine Wind Palace. Hence, once it found any chance, it would definitely cause Divine Wind Palace to suffer a lot!" Elder Qing sat down slowly and sighed. "It''s a pity that not everything went as we expected. Though Divine Wind Palace suffered greatly, it benefited a lot as well. No one had expected that the Fiery Eyes should have some peculiar connection with the Golden Book of Fate. Divine Wind Palace exterminated the Fiery Eyes tribe and got the Fiery Eyes. Therefore, they could better control the Golden Book of Fate. Thus, we couldn''t act against it so as to prevent harm to innocents. Alas, if we knew this point at that time, we would have taken in the Fiery Eyes tribe and controlled the Golden Book of Fate. Maybe the Seven-deity Regions would have a new look!"


    "Yeah, it''s a pity!" Zhou Bao''s facial muscle twitched rigidly, and no one knew his feeling.


    After a short silence, he asked, "Was the Fiery Eyes tribe really that powerful?"


    "Of course. Otherwise, Divine Wind Palace would neither fear them nor suffer greatly from them. Their eyes, their eyes...!" When it came to the eyes of the Fiery Eyes tribe, Elder Qing''s eyes showed some greed. However, it disappeared in a flash. "Their eyes were so powerful. It was the key of their confidence!"


    "It seems that you''re quite familiar with the Fiery Eyes tribe!"


    "Of course, I''ve lived for 38,000 years. I definitely know many things!" Elder Qing looked at Zhou Bao sourly. "The Fiery Eyes tribe wouldn''t have suffered from extermination if its patriarch gave in and joined us. Although Divine Wind Palace was powerful, Immortal Palace together with other five influences would be a match for it. But unluckily, the patriarch was too arrogant and never gave in. Haha, without strength, arrogance is futile. He could only suffer a great loss. He was truly an idiot!"


    "Yes, he was an idiot. But why did Divine Wind Palace pursue and kill the Fiery Eyes tribe after that?"


    "I''ve said that earlier, the Fiery Eyes could generate some connections with the Golden Book of Fate. After people in Divine Wind Palace knew this, they were upset. Though they had obtained countless Fiery Eyes, they were not inborn ones. Even if they were turned into External Elixirs, they were no match for the inborn Fiery Eyes. The Divine Wind Palace was scared of this and thus pursued the remnant Fiery Eyes bloodlines. In order to justify themselves, they smeared the Fiery Eyes tribe. Hum, they were deceiving themselves!"


    "Yeah." Zhou Bao smiled. "So it seems that Divine Wind Palace is the most powerful one among the Six Influences of the Four Eastern Regions? They''ve possessed the strongest control of the Golden Book of Fate. Therefore, the power they can utilize is very strong. Strictly speaking, Immortal Palace is no worse than it. However, unless encountering something urgent, the Six Influences wouldn''t like to initiate conflicts. They all pursue immortality rather than anger after all!"


    "Yeah, you''re right!" Elder Qing nodded in agreement.


    "Then, how about Taiyuan Heaven and Taiyuan Token?"


    "Oh, it''s the same with the appearance of Ancient Ruins. The difference is that Taiyuan Heaven only appears during a certain period and Taiyuan Token is needed in order to enter it. I''ve lived for so many years and have seen the appearance of Taiyuan Heaven nearly 40 times. I entered it once and I''m tired of it now!" Elder Qing waved his hand. He said impatiently, "But you''re different. Junior Leopard, you''re young and strong. You also possess a great luck and good opportunities, but be careful when you enter it. It''s worth worrying about it, but there''s no need to worry about it too much. Since you''re going there with Wang She, you both will be safe, because you''re powerful and own Pure Yang Celestial Devices."


    "I hope so!" Zhou Bao smiled bitterly. "Elder Qing, what''s the so-called Thousand Year Promise about Taiyuan Heaven?"


    "Taiyuan Heaven appears every 1,000 years." "Because of this law, we (influences of the Seven-deity Regions) have entered Taiyuan Heaven many times and know something about it as well. In the beginning, in order to contend for resources in Taiyuan Heaven, we fought with each other fiercely and suffered considerably. Only 10 percent of experts came back alive from Taiyuan Heaven 17,000 years ago. Because of this, we were on the verge of falling out with each other. However, we kept calm and made some rules finally; whoever entered Taiyuan Heaven should behave according to the rules and obtain resources through his lucky chances and strength; no one was allowed to robe others, otherwise, he would be our common enemy. Therefore, we had a Thousand Year Promise. Gradually, the more frequently we entered Taiyuan Heaven, the more familiar it was to us. We divided Taiyuan Heaven into 20 areas because only 20 Taiyuan Tokens would appear every time. Holder of every Taiyuan Token could only search resources in a specified area. If he was unsatisfied with his area, he could negotiate with others to exchange their areas before entering Taiyuan Heaven the next time. Of course, the two parties should agree with it willingly. In this way, the chances of leading to conflict decreased largely, and therefore, several recent Taiyuan gatherings were fruitful."


    "But now, there''s one more Taiyuan Token!" Zhou Bao finally understood the reason why Earth Bat of Girl was panicked. It was just like planting a carrot in a hole, however, there was one more carrot left. Planting it in which hole was a serious problem.


    "Hum. That''s why I said that it''s complete bullshit to determine things that would happen 1,000 years later. Ye Qingtian''s background is mysterious. As White Tiger showed me his information, I thought there was something wrong. Luckily, he was too arrogant that he didn''t want to join us. Otherwise, he would have brought troubles to Immortal Palace. The Taiyuan Token you have is one of the four Taiyuan Tokens in the Central Mainland Region, and they are kept by the strongest worldly orthodox dynasties in the Central Mainland Region. The Jin Dynasty and the Northern Yuan Dynasty contended for it earlier, but now, since the Northern Yuan was destroyed, it belongs to Jin. Yan Yuntian wanted to suppress his two rivals taking this as an opportunity. Therefore, he gave you his Taiyuan Token!"


    "His rivals? Who were his rivals?" Zhou Bao was confused, not knowing why. "How does it connect with Yan Yuntian''s rivals?"


    "It''s about the plan of Divine Wind Palace. It planned to reestablish the Heavenly Court. They always call themselves orthodoxy. Thus, they supported dynasties that had orthodox status in the Four Eastern Regions secretly, such as the Jin Dynasty and the Li Dynasty. They intervened in the world trend through these dynasties, and the Mingyi School was the product of their support. Moreover, they wanted to choose a new Jade Emperor, and control the Law of Heaven and Golden Book of Fate. But they haven''t found a proper person or opportunity yet. Therefore, Yan Yuntian becomes one of the candidates it promoted."


    "Jade Emperor?!" Zhou Bao blinked his eyes. "Is he crazy?"


    "You may think that Divine Wind Palace was crazy. However, they''ve been carrying out the plan. There are two reasons for them to call themselves orthodoxy: the First reason was that they''ve occupied the main hall of Heavenly Court, namely Divine Wind Palace. The second reason was that they possess the complete Way of the Emperor. The Way of the Emperor is one of the 3,000 Great Ways. The royalty of the Jin Dynasty and the orthodox royalty of the Four Eastern Regions together with the Three Western Regions all practice the Way of the Emperor. It needs infinite ambitions and schemes. Besides, it requires you to rule and control everything. If you practice it to the extreme, you can be called Jade Emperor. The process of practicing the Way of the Emperor has something to do with authority. The greater authority you possess and the more people you''ll control, the more unfathomable your strength will be. Sea Emperor controls the whole Sea Area, boasting numerous experts and infinite territory, so he has practiced the Way of the Emperor to the extreme!"


    "It''s completely a joke!" Zhou Bao curled his lips. "If Yan Yuntian wants to be the enemy of Sea Emperor, he should control the whole Seven-deity Regions at least. Only in this way can he level up the power of the Way of the Emperor. But he has only controlled a country, he''s way far from Celestial Emperor!"


    "So he''s one of the candidates of Jade Emperor. Choosing a Jade Emperor isn''t as easy as you have thought. Divine Wind Palace has only chosen some candidates during such a long time, but no one meets their requirements. Once such a man appears, they''ll spare every effort to help him to control the Seven-deity Regions, at least the Four Eastern Regions. In this way, though he''s no match for Sea Emperor, at least he can fight against him!"


    "It''s crazy. They''re all crazy!" Zhou Bao murmured incredibly.


    "Yes, you''re right! Those who practice the Way of the Emperor were all lunatics!"

 Chapter 334: Wang Shes Purpose

    Chapter 334: Wang She''s Purpose


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Zhou Bao revealed a grim face when he left the Immortal Palace. After knowing the whole thing, Zhou Bao found that the road ahead would be hard for him. As for his Fiery Eyes especially, Wang She had said that when his strength broke through the Mysterious Realm and had a rank in the Immortal Book, his secret would be disclosed. Once he was found to possess the Fiery Eyes, what would be the attitude of the Six Influences? He didn''t even need to infer the Divine Wind Palace''s attitude, let alone the other palaces, they would manage to kill him as they had done with the whole Fiery Eyes clan.


    Although he was already a member of the Immortal Palace, he wasn''t really sure whether the Immortal Palace would protect himself from being killed or not by then.


    "Hum. Easier said than done. I have to try to weaken their strength before cultivating to the Mysterious Realm. Weaken? How could I do it?" On their way back, Zhou Bao glared at Wang She. He was very anxious to kick Wang She to death. If he had known the case earlier, he would not have increased his strength so quickly. On the contrary, he would attempt to suppress his strength and would''ve stopped his cultivation at the Mysterious Realm instead of breaking through it.


    "It''s not late now. My own cultivation is only at Level Eight. I must overcome a level if I want to reach Level Nine. Moreover, it''s more difficult to enter the Mysterious Realm than it is to pass into Level Nine. Damn it! Why the hell should I search for the medicinal herbs!" Zhou Bao helplessly thought in his heart. "No, the medicinal herbs need to be searched for. Can''t I delay breaking through to the Mysterious Realm my whole life? However, before that, I should prepare well and improve my strength. Oh yes, that gourd, the Fairy Weapon of the Way of Killing, f**k. Unless I could wield this Fairy Weapon of the Way of Killing, I won''t break through the Mysterious Realm!"Zhou Bao said in his heart.


    If Yan Yuntian knew his thoughts now, he would be very much regretful. If he had not given Zhou Bao the Taiyuan Token and let Zhou Bao go to the Immortal Palace again to figure out the whole thing, perhaps several years later, provided that he was so lucky to break through the Mysterious Realm, Zhou Bao would still not trouble him. However, the Taiyuan Token was counteractive now.


    Wang She was seemingly aware of the reason why Zhou Bao showed such an expression and just smiled helplessly. Because the Earth Bat of Girl was together with them, he had no idea how to ask Zhou Bao. In this way, they sullenly returned northwest.


    Obviously, before this farewell, the Elder Qing had said something to the Earth Bat of Girl. As soon as they arrived in the northwest, the Earth Bat of Girl then hurried to the yard. Subsequently, there was finally an opportunity for Zhou Bao and Wang She to talk with each other.


    "It seems that Elder Qing has told you everything. What do you think of it? Any idea?"


    "Bullsh*t idea. I''m totally at the mercy of others''. What a damn the Divine Wind Palace is! I have no idea!"


    "Even though the Divine Wind Palace is strong, there''s some way to cope with it!"


    "To cope with it? How? Could you?" Zhou Bao sneered. "Hum, have you ever thought about how many experts in the Immortal Book cannot die after their names go to the Immortal Book, even if they want. See, many years have passed. How many people who have broken through the Mysterious Realm are controlled by the Golden Book of Fate? That means they''re controlled by the damn Divine Wind Palace. Those people are unparalleled experts and any of them could destroy the Jin dynasty. We just act in a tyrannous manner, but due to the restraint of the Law of Heaven, we can''t deal with you at will!"


    "That''s our advantage!" Wang She said grimly. "The enemy is in the open while we''re under cover. We''ve already known their plan, but they don''t know us. That''s the biggest advantage. The best opportunity!"


    Zhou Bao slightly shivered. Looking at Wang She, he said with a strange face, "Why should I believe in you? It is I who has the Fiery Eyes. You''are one of the 28 constellations, one of the three Chiefs of Tian Long Taoism. Why would you enter this muddy water and oppose the Divine Wind Palace? I really don''t understand. Why would you get into this trouble?"


    "Why?" Hearing this question from Zhou Bao, Wang She asked with a self-mockery, "Why? You asked me the reason?"


    "Yes. I asked you the reason because I don''t know," said Zhou Bao ruthlessly.


    "Now that you''re itching to know, I''ll tell you the reason!" Wang She''s face slimly twitched and viciousness flashed over his eyes. "My purpose is to destroy the so-called orthodox influence and justice. I will let the beliefs in his heart turn into nothing. I will let him watch everything that he believes suffers from a destruction by me. I will let him experience the regretful result because of the seeds that he sowed. I will let him live with remorse. I will let him feel that he''d rather die!"


    Finally, Wang She''s face began to twist and his eyes sparkled with malicious light. However, his expression was a smile, which made Zhou Bao feel horrible.


    "Is he insane?" Zhou Bao thought and as he wondered whether his wrong words had irritated him.


    "If he knows that the faith and convictions that he believes are ruined due to his silly behavior, what will he think of? What will be his expression then? I''m really wondering. I''m expecting. Hahaha!"


    The former part was gently and softly said while the latter part was filled with weird laughter like a crying owl. Zhou Bao''s eyeballs rolled and he could not help stepping back a couple of steps, lest he should be affected because this Level Nine expert became crazy.


    Apparently, he underestimated Chief Wang She''s self-control. After laughing, he realized he just had forgot himself and sighed slightly. He restrained his impoliteness and was back to the original grin. "I''m sorry. I haven''t shared my anger for a long time. Did I scare you?"


    "Almost!" Zhou Bao was not courteous to him. He looked at him with a little bit of shock and wanted to ask who the person was in Wang She''s mouth, but he feared to ask more and bit his tongue.


    "Don''t worry. I was not mad. I was just a little bit excited. You must be eager to know the person I mentioned?"


    "Yeah. I''d like to know, but I suppose I''ve already guessed right!"


    "Oh? You guessed?" Wang She was taken aback and then laughed. "Hehe. It''s not difficult. You know all the troubles I''ve made in the past several years, so you can guess. I''m Ji Zhongtang''s son, the poor fish who has been dead for long time in the story of Fighting For Justice. Unexpected? In the Mingyi School''s graveyard, I saw my cenotaph. Hahaha... my cenotaph, my beloved son, Ji Renyi''s grave. Ji Renyi. Hahaha!"


    Seeing that Wang She was showing signs of being crazy, Zhou Bao had no idea of what to do. However, at this moment, he did not know how to console him and whether he should do that or not.


    "Em... Well. It''s already a bygone. You don''t need to think too much on this sad thing!"


    "Damn it. I''m not willing to think of it. It was you that asked me," said Wang She.


    "Yeah, yes yes. It''s my fault. Calm down. Calm down!"


    "Calm down? Aren''t I calm? If I''m not, I would have been to Mingyi School to kill Lu Shaoyou already!" Wang She shouted at the top of his voice as if he was stimulated.


    Zhou Bao was speechless and stopped talking. Refusing to interfere with Wang She, who was like a defeated gasping cock.


    After a while, Wang She gradually became quiet and his breath slowly returned to normal. He panted for a long time and fell heavily on the ground. This rare Level Nine expert seemed to have used up his energy and just collapsed on the ground.


    "That guy wanted to replace me with Lu Shaoyou, but my mom refused. He then beat my mom to death with a palm and threw her off a cliff. I watched him hitting my mom until she spit blood, and the blood splashed over me. Then, he hid Lu Shaoyou and carried me to escape. As he escaped, the killers were running after us. We escaped to a place 300 miles away. Hehe. He hit me to the foot of the cliff with a palm in front of the killers, but he turned and ran away. Hehe, you say, is this bastard really Fighting For Justice? Shouldn''t he die?" Wang She lost his expert dignity and sat on the ground, muttering. He was laughing while speaking, which sent a chill to Zhou Bao''s heart.


    "A bastard indeed!" Zhou Bao nodded in agreement.


    "But I can''t kill him. It''s he that gave birth to me. He''s my natural father. I''ll be in trouble if I kill him. I shouldn''t get into such a big cause and effect issue with the reason that I want to kill him. It''s unworthy. It''s undeserving to be angry at him!"


    "Of course!" Zhou Bao knew that this world paid attention to cause and effect. Many things in the scope of morality in his previous life were inevitably regulated by a mysterious power in this world. For example, the son should not kill his father, otherwise, he would be struck to death by the lightning without an official death order.


    "Yes, I can''t kill him. Surely I shouldn''t kill him. Killing him is letting him off a bit too easy. However, I can let him live an unpeaceful life, a perpetual torment. I''ll destroy all the beautiful things in his heart. I''ll destroy all his happy things. I''ll destroy all the things he believes in. Is there anything that will make me more delighted than destroying his just cause and the orthodox strength in his faith?"


    "Nope. No. Your idea is right. It''s good. I''m with you!" Zhou Bao smiled. He stood up and slowly left. When leaving, he closed the door. "Your Excellency, you''re in a bad mood, please have a rest here!"


    Boom!


    Before Zhou Bao had hardly finished speaking, he heard a crash. The roof had been blown to the sky by a strong power.


    "I don''t need to take a rest!" A green figure flashed, and Wang She was already beside him. He emitted a cold spirit, Zhou Bao couldn''t help but shivering. "Buddy, there are three months before the opening of Taiyuan Heaven. Make good preparations. You can just regard what I said as a story. Don''t take it seriously!"


    After that, the cold spirit totally disappeared. Wang She also vanished.


    "Story? Interesting. I seem to have heard it before but a different version than today''s. Unexpectedly, there''s an extension to it. Perhaps I could play a walk-on role in the extended version. Nice! Nice!" Zhou Bao suddenly became joyful.


    Wang She''s story also gave him a hint, an idea.


    "Indeed, the Divine Wind Palace is powerful. However, there are Six Influences in the Four Eastern Regions, plus the Sea Emperor and the Three Western Regions. It''s a big world. Even if I cannot afford to provoke you, can''t I avoid you? Besides, can you, the Divine Wind Palace, cover the sky with one hand? Wang She belongs to the Immortal Palace and is Tian Long Taoism''s Chief, but his mind is set on how to destroy the orthodox strength which entitles him the right and strength. The Dark Sect is one of the members in the Six Influences. Now that you, the Divine Wind Palace, claim to be orthodox, you won''t have a good relationship with the Dark Sect. According to Elder Qing''s tone, the other five Influences have resentment to the Divine Wind Palace. If it has no stronger control over the Golden Book of Fate, I''m afraid that many skirmishes have occurred among them." Zhou Bao thought in his heart.


    The Elder Qing also had said that internal strife among people never stopped. In other words, the current balance and stability were just relative. Once the unbalance occurred at some node, there would be a tremendous and world-shaking change to the situation.


    "Jade Emperor. Heh heh. Jade Emperor. Not everybody wants a superior Emperor to him!"Walking to the doorway leisurely, Zhou Bao mused with hands clasped behind his back. "If a Jade Emperor is established, what will be the position of the Divine Wind Palace? Those who practice the Way of the Emperor are loonies and supercilious. They pursue absolute control. The puppets who are supported to practice the Way of the Emperor don''t act in accordance with the practice mind of the Way of the Emperor. Moreover, this Way can''t be practiced to the Advanced Realm. There will be troubles then. However, there''s a possibility that the so-called Jade Emperor is just a gimmick by the Divine Wind Palace. They want to create a justice reason in the name of this gimmick. In this way, they could legitimately and openly command the whole Seven-deity Regions. However, it''s a big game. I''m too obscure to care for this thing."


    "Anyway, I have to make a plan earlier. This time I need to change the plan of entering the Taiyuan Heaven. I still need to search for those medicinal herbs, but it should not be that urgent. I''ll look for whether there are some materials in the Taiyuan Heaven for practicing the Air-frozen Bead, the real Air-frozen Bead. Then I can freely move in and out of the Azure Secret Area. I can enter the Azure Secret Area to practice during the Essential Qi Tide and familiarize myself with my Fiery Eyes. In the past, I always wanted to conceal my Fiery Eyes and avoid using them, but now, I have to change my idea. After all, the Fiery Eyes have effects on the Golden Book of Fate, so I''d better attach importance to them. That Divine Wind Palace is veiled in mystery. Since they have been chasing the descendants of the Fiery Eyes to kill them, they must have other ways to explore the trace of the Fiery Eyes."


    "I have to know my Fiery Eyes very well, so I should practice the Air-frozen Bead. Isn''t the Taiyuan Heaven famous for being the most immense and vast heaven among the 33 Heavens? At this time, my purpose is to look for all the materials for the Air-frozen Bead. Regarding the damn regions and appointments, I''ll ignore all of them. Those in the Immortal Book can''t enter anyway. Based on my strength and Wang She''s, I don''t believe somebody would dare to make carping comments! Hum!" Thinking of that, Zhou Bao showed a hideous face. The Elder Qing''s words were like a 500-kilogram stone pressing on his heart, making him lose his breath. With the help of Wang She, his mind became clear, and he also realized that the Six Influences were not an iron plate. But for him, this fact was a glimmer of hope.


    In this world, anything could be chosen except for one thing: parents! That was bloodline!


    "I was too careless before. Now I know the truth and the consequences, so I shouldn''t ignore it anymore. In this life, I have natural parents, natural brothers and sisters. My sister also has children. Sh*t! They''re also practicing martial arts. If it''s discovered that their bloodlines are open, troubles will come. I''m quite lucky. When I was opening the Fiery Eyes, I met Wang She who was entertaining rebellious schemes. Hence, I haven''t let the cat out of the bag. Thanks to it, I have had opportunities. But others may not be so lucky!"


    He became anxious when he remembered this. Without any arrangement, his figure flashed and turned into a green light, shooting toward the southeast. The destination was no other than the Qingyang Market.


    Qingyang Market!


    This small town centralization, located at the northern border in the Jin and being close to Misty Mountain, had already become a county and expanded in terms of area. Standing in midair and seeing the well-established Qingyang Market, Zhou Bao sighed with emotion. Looking back on the past years, how was this hell place when he first came here. How was it now?


    "It seems that my effort in those years was not in vain. As the saying goes, even the dog swaggers when its master wins favor. The Qingyang market is the best mirror. What will it be when I''m destroyed by the Divine Wind Palace in the future?" Zhou Bao asked with forced a smile. With his body wobbling a little, he pressed the Gang Qi and fell to the yard of their family estate.


    Now the Zhou Family was a real big family and became related with the Emperor by marriage. Their attendants were numerous; more than ten people were sweeping in the yard. Suddenly a person emerged, which shocked all of them. Later, they found the person was Zhou Bao and became excited.


    "The Fourth Master is back! The Fourth Master is back!"


    Zhou Bao had already successfully transformed from the Little Shiba to the Fourth Master.


    The Fourth Master, who brought endless riches to them, was respected by the Zhou''s and even the whole Qingyang Market in the bottom of their hearts.


    "Little Fourth, you''re back!"


    "My second brother, you are at home!"


    Zhou Bao looked back. It was the Zhou''s second son, his second elder brother, Houndie who was speaking. The Zhou Family was much different since Zhou Bao had developed. Houndie was Zhou Bao''s natural brother. His position rose in Qingyang Market, however, he felt a little bit embarrassed every time he saw Zhou Bao. Their fourth younger brother created incomparable pressure for them while he also brought prosperity to the family.


    Everything was better now, but several years ago, if they made the slightest mistake, Old Zhou would whine about how good the Fourth was, which made it unbearable for the others.


    Moreover, with the improvement of Zhou Bao''s strength and position, he gradually emanated an invisible majesty, hardly giving people a sense of intimacy.


    "Yes, at home. Oh, where''s our sister-in-law? She''s not with you?"


    "Nope!" Zhou Bao shook his head. "This time, I came back to deal with something and visit the teacher''s tomb. Fei-er is weak, and a long trip is hard for her!"


    "Aha!" Houndie nodded and did not say anything else. Actually, he had no right to say anything to Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao''s return was a big event to the Zhou Mansion, so the whole family got together in the evening and feasted. However, Zhou Bao did not focus on either drinking the wine or chatting with the family, but on the relatives who had a bloodline relationship with him.


    Among them, the Old Zhou had both a Qi and blood deficiency. Despite a better life with the nutritious nourishment and the practice of some cultivation method which was good to Qi and primordial spirit, he had enough pneuma. Nevertheless, if he wanted to trigger the Fiery Eyes'' bloodline, it would be impossible. Almost the whole older generation had this problem. Even though they owned the Fiery Eyes'' bloodline, they could not trigger it. As for his generation, they all practiced martial art. Except for his third elder brother, Boxer, his brother-in-law, Wang Tianlei had the highest cultivation. Zhou Bao did not need to care for Wang Tianlei, who had a cultivation of Level Five. Even if his cultivation reached the Mysterious Realm, Zhou Bao was still indifferent because they two had no kinship. Boxer, who was only several years older than him, had practiced to Level Four. It seemed that he had good talent. Such a talent would be likely to trigger the Fiery Eyes. As for his first brother and second brother, their cultivation was too low and could be ignored. Anyway, their Qi and blood were not concentrated, which gave people a feeling that they had been addicted to booze and women for some time. Although they had the Fiery Eyes'' bloodline, they would fail to trigger it.


    In other words, in this generation, only Boxer, who had a Level Four cultivation, could possibly to trigger his bloodline as a Junior Master. Such a Junior Master had enough conditions to trigger his bloodline. Regarding the third generation in the Zhou''s Family, there were many offspring. The first son had three sons and two daughters; the second one had two daughters and one son; even the third son had a girl while his wife and concubine were pregnant. This year he would meet two new nephews and nieces. Zhou Hua''s son and daughter were also grown-ups. Those children had good talent. Some older children began to practice martial arts as well.


    It seemed that the Zhou''s Family became large and thriving in his generation, which was a good thing in other people''s eyes. But it was a trouble as far as he could see. It was a real trouble!


    "Do I have to visit them every time they give birth to a baby? Damn! Will I be tired to death? Moreover, reviving the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes doesn''t depend on the cultivation. As for me, if I''m not dead, mine would be activated through serious stimulation."


    "No. I must find some efficacious way to handle this for good!" Zhou Bao said in his heart.


    "Efficacious way for good? I have it!" At this moment, Green Spirit, who was said to practice the Great Way of Stars in closed-door training, suddenly appeared.


    "Oh my god. How do you know my idea?"


    "Your thoughts are deeply rooted in your mind. It''s as if they were crying in your head. How can''t I hear them!" Green Spirit''s psywave came with a faint wave which made Zhou Bao feel abstruse. That was the wave of the stars.

 Chapter 335: A Star Incarnation, Solving Hidden Trouble

    Chapter 335: A Star Incarnation, Solving Hidden Trouble


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    After the banquet, the family gathered together again, chatted for a while, and then went back to their rooms.


    Zhou Bao had drunk a lot, but now he would not feel anything, even if he was drowned in a wine jar.


    He didn''t have much communication with Green Spirit when drinking, but, as soon as he returned to his room, he couldn''t wait to ask.


    "Aren''t you doing closed-door training? You''ve mastered the Great Way of Stars so quickly?"


    "How could it be! If it could be mastered so quickly, it would be too worthless!" There was a flurry of irritation in Green Spirit''s psywave. "But lately I''ve comprehended something through the practice, and I refined a star incarnation with the Sky-measuring Star Ruler!"


    A star incarnation?


    Zhou Bao was a little stunned. At this moment he felt the ring on his finger move and a bit of starlight broke through his Space Division Skill and flew out of the ring.


    "This, is your star incarnation!"


    "Yeah, this is my star incarnation. What?"


    "Nothing, nothing. It''s just that it looks a little unexpected."


    "Humph, ignorant!" Green Spirit swore rudely, "I''m a Great Ancient Demon, so my incarnation is a demon, too! Do you want me to pretend to be a man?"


    "Right, right, you''re a Great Ancient Demon. You have the dignity of a Great Ancient Demon!" Zhou Bao blinked and stopped laughing, looking at the spider composed entirely of starlight.


    Yes, it was a spider!


    Green Spirit''s star incarnation was a spider. "Monster''s aesthetic is far from human. Wait, the body of this spider..."


    Just then Zhou Bao seemed to sense something, and suddenly rounded his eyes. Indeed, the spider in front of him was extremely small, similar to that of the ordinary, bloodsucking, Colorful-legged Spider. However, the immense star force that gathered in the spider was so vast and bright.


    This spider had tried to suppress the massive star force within itself, but at any rate, the terrifying star force that emanated from the flowing faint starlight was unstoppable.


    Zhou Bao''s face went white after he felt it carefully with his spiritual mind. Looking at, and pointing to the bloody spider with trembling fingers, he sprang to his feet. "Damn it, goddamn it, I was just letting you comprehend the Great Way of Stars with the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, not allowing you to suck up all the star force in the Sky-measuring Star Ruler to make a star incarnation! The, the, the star force in your incarnation is about the same as that of the Sky-measuring Star Ruler. You, you, you, did you suck up its star force?"


    "How can this happen! The Sky-measuring Star Ruler was purified in the Constellation Sea for thousands of years. Awesome as the star incarnation is, it cannot use so much star force!"


    Green Spirit''s words reassured Zhou Bao, but his next words made Zhou Bao furious again.


    "I just used up 80% of its star force. Hehe, boy, you''re lucky! My star incarnation is powerful, with the cultivation of the Mysterious Realm. Boy, you''re really lucky!"


    "Fu*k!" With a roar, Zhou Bao lifted his foot to kick the bloody spider, but before he could kick it, he was blown away by the surging starlight and bumped into the wall of the room.


    "Don''t get mad, boy. Just listen to me!" Green Spirit''s psywave seemed to be extremely complacent, as if jeering at Zhou Bao''s overreach. "The star incarnation''s cultivation is Mysterious Realm, but its potential is immeasurable! Most importantly, it''s an incarnation which isn''t in the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. Haha..."


    "What? The incarnation isn''t in the Ranking of Demons and Immortals? Then likewise it shouldn''t in the Golden Book of Fate?"


    "Certainly, hehe. Surprisingly, the world has changed so much in the years since I was banned. The Golden Book of Fate should be split in two. Neither the Ranking of Demons and Immortals, nor the Golden Book of Fate can affect the incarnation. Boy, this is the chance of Great Ways, a loophole in the Way of Heaven, which has been discovered early in the antiquity times. Moreover, since necromancers ran amok in those days, the way to practice incarnations spread throughout the world. Hee hee, even the way to practice the Third Primordial Spirit and the Fourth Primordial Spirit has appeared, not to speak of the Second Primordial Spirit. Well, boy, are you interested in it?"


    "Is the Outer-body Incarnation really so magical?"


    "Of course! But there''s a condition for the Outer-body Incarnation¡ªto practice it, you must condense primordial spirit first. Look, without primordial spirit, how can there be the Second Primordial Spirit, the Third Primordial Spirit? Additionally, to condense primordial spirit, your cultivation must reach the level of Individual Immortal!"


    Hearing this, Zhou Bao froze, and his sudden beating heart, as if squeezed by something powerful, became calm. Then he looked at Green Spirit fiercely, "What, the Second Primordial Spirit? Then what''s the loophole?"


    "Take it easy, take it easy, hear me out! Didn''t I just say that? After the discovery of this loophole, necromancers have studied countless ways to practice the primordial spirit. Unfortunately, these ways were only used in practicing the primordial spirit, and there was no way that could make a man succeed in practicing the primordial spirit before he reached the Mysterious Realm. But they found some methods!"


    "They found some methods?" Zhou Bao frowned slightly, a little puzzled.


    "Yes, they found some methods which allow people to successfully practice their primordial spirit before they reach the Mysterious Realm!"


    "What are these methods?"


    "Take advantage of the limited treasures of heaven and earth. Even at the very beginning of Primordial Time, these things did not appear several times. To get them now is wishful thinking. Boy, do you think it''s easy to utilize the loophole of the Way of Heaven?"


    "Then what''s the use of refining an incarnation?"


    "It''s certainly useful. An incarnation is equivalent to one more life. Then, if you break the Law of Heaven, and are struck by lightning, you will not truly die, having your soul dissipate. Even if your body is destroyed, as long as the incarnation exists, you will not die. Although you will be seriously injured, the Original Spirit won''t have perished after all. Best of all, your incarnation isn''t in the Golden Book of Fate, so you won''t be listed as an Immortal. What a wonderful thing it is!"


    When it came to this, Green Spirit finally got excited, laughing weirdly around Zhou Bao. "I''m so lucky to run into the Sky-measuring Star Ruler this time. Put a wisp of primordial spirit in it, and refine the Outer-body Incarnation!"


    "What? You''ve refined the Sky-measuring Star Ruler?" Zhou Bao gave a strange cry. The Sky-measuring Star Ruler was an extremely powerful Pure Yang Celestial Device, and he got it from Ye Qingtian through untold hardships. Before he had time to see it, it was refined by the damned Green Spirit. Of course he was angry.


    "No, I didn''t refine it. Boy, don''t panic! My Original Spirit has already merged with the green lamp, so how can I refine a celestial device? I just placed the Second Primordial Spirit on the Pure Yang Celestial Device. Moreover, it''s good for you as well. The Sky-measuring Star Ruler is a Pure Yang Celestial Device, but its star force is so vast that you can''t use it. After I consumed 80% of the star force, the rest is right for you. Don''t be an ingrate!"


    Zhou Bao rolled his eyes. "Now that your cultivation has reached the Mysterious Realm and you have the incarnation, you can go everywhere. You''re no longer dependent on me, right?"


    "No, my primordial spirit is placed on the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, just like my Original Spirit and the green lamp. How can I leave with these two things in your hand?" Here, his tone became strange. "Plus, I told you, you''re a man of great luck, so I''m going to stick with you. What, you want to get rid of me?"


    "No, I''m not that stupid. I''m very pleased to have an expert at the Mysterious Realm as my thug!" Zhou Bao laughed. Indeed, he was not that stupid. Green Spirit was a Great Ancient Demon, so there were many advantages to keeping him around. Moreover, his strength was formidable!


    "Hee hee, thug? Boy, that''s easy for you to think about. Well, that''s all right. Now I have my incarnation, and it is placed in your Sky-measuring Star Ruler. As long as you refine this celestial device well, why not be your thug?"


    "That''s what you said!"


    "Yeah, no big deal! I''ve been a thug. But my incarnation isn''t complete, and it takes time. I''m not here to tell you this!"


    "Oh, you just said it. What''s the method of once and for all?" Zhou Bao asked, "You won''t let me kill them all, will you?"


    "You''re cruel, too cruel! They''re all your family. It''s too cruel of you to want to kill them all!"


    A drop of cold sweat dripped from Zhou Bao''s forehead. "I, I didn''t mean that. I''m just afraid you will give me such a bad idea!"


    "No! Do you think I''m that kind of person?" Green Spirit replied disapprovingly, "Only the inhuman Dark Sect can do such a thing. Don''t compare me, a Great Ancient Demon, to the bastard of the Dark Sect!"


    "Okay, okay, I won''t, I won''t!" Zhou Bao repeated, "Then tell me, is there any way to help me?"


    "Very simple, to seal their bloodline. This is a common technique used in antiquity times. A Bloodline Sealing Technique is enough!"


    "Bloodline Sealing Technique?"


    "Yeah, Bloodline Sealing Technique, a Spirit Technique to seal bloodline power. With it, the bloodline won''t awaken for 10 generations. Thus, you don''t have to worry about that!"


    "Won''t awaken for 10 generations? Really?"


    "We Demon tribe have been using it for hundreds of thousands of years, and it has never had a problem. How could it be false?" Green Spirit complained, as if he had been greatly insulted. "This is the masterpiece of the Demon tribe''s Great Necromancer. If you and I are not one, I won''t send it to you!"


    "I see, I see!" Zhou Bao repeatedly said, giving Green Spirit a rare bow.


    Green Spirit didn''t seem to want to tease Zhou Bao, directly passing the Bloodline Sealing Technique on to Zhou Bao, and quickly got back into the ring.


    "Great!" Getting the Bloodline Sealing Technique, Zhou Bao was secretly relieved, and the big stone that pressed in his heart, finally let up some of the pressure.


    After the seal of all the bloodline of the consanguineous relatives of the Zhou Family, the next thing would be easy.


    "Hmph, the next is the Air-frozen Bead. At the worst, I suppress my cultivation and enter the Mysterious Realm hundreds of years later. Hmph, I''m not yet 20 years old, but I''ve reached Level Eight. To live for hundreds of years is no problem. Moreover, because of the limitations of the bullshit Law of Heaven, the people who have reached the Mysterious Realm can never interfere in the world at all. With such strength, I''d not be afraid of anyone. Therefore, I can be in the world leisurely until I find a solution. Heehee, Divine Wind Palace, Divine Wind Palace, I don''t believe you can really keep on being decent!" Zhou Bao thought bitterly.


    The clear blue sky was cloudless.


    15 kilometers outside the Qingyang Market was a graveyard.


    Not a mass grave, but a graveyard, where those with names were buried.


    There were a lot of people coming to offer sacrifices at anniversaries or festivals such as Tomb Sweeping Day and Cold Food Festival.


    Today was neither Tomb Sweeping Day nor Cold Food Festival, but the graveyard was full of people. It was very lively.


    These were people of the Zhou Family. Today Zhou Bao came to offer sacrifices to his first teacher, Old Xing.


    Old Xing was a disciple of the Wu Family in Yunzhou, and Zhou Bao''s mentor when he first entered the Wu Family. It was he who taught Zhou Bao his initial forging skills and martial arts. Moreover, with his help, Zhou Bao experienced an insight, which gave him a taste of the essence of hammering skills.


    Old Xing, so to speak, was Zhou Bao''s real reference in martial arts. Unfortunately, their fate didn''t last long. It was not long before Zhou Bao entered the Wu Family, and Old Xing died. In Zhou Bao''s view now, the cause of his death was shameful; the two Madams of the Wu Family fought for favor and competed with each other for their sons. Old Xing, whose status was not very high in the family, was dragged into the fray. Finally, he lost his life for the sake of a Dragon Grass.


    It was impossible to investigate who was wrong, because the First Madam and the Second Madam, who were concerned in the affair, were all dead the day after he first came to worship Old Xing. The First Young Master, who had the best hope of inheriting the Wu Family, was evicted from the sect. As for the Second Young Master, he was not greatly involved, since he was a disciple of Wang She. However, he also lost the right to inherit the Wu Family and could only be a disciple of the Tian Long Taoism. Now, his future was totally in Wang She''s hands.


    Having abandoned two sons, Wu Yansheng was not distressed much. After all, he had several other successors. Moreover, he was in the prime of his life, so he didn''t think much of it now.


    It was cost-efficient for the Wu Family to get Zhou Bao''s amity at the expense of two women''s lives and the prospect of two sons.


    To all of this, Zhou Bao did not even say a word, he just showed his attitude in front of Old Xing''s grave, and everything was resolved. This also gave Zhou Bao a thorough understanding of the benefits of power.


    His present strength and status had reached the point where the Wu Family had to look up. But what about himself? What did he need to look up to?


    Zhou Bao gave a gentle sigh, pouring wine from the bowl on the grave of Old Xing, he silently said in his heart, "Old Xing, teacher, I''m here to redeem my vow today. Someone has avenged you. Your name is in the Valhalla of the Wu Family. I''m worthy of your teaching. You can rest in peace now!"


    Indeed, he could rest in peace now. Old Xing had fought for the Wu Family for a lifetime, but he was finally killed by a killer hired by a person of the Wu Family. Only in order for a woman to relieve her anger. This kind of death had some cowardice.


    "Little Fourth, it''s getting late. It''s time to go back. If Uncle Xing knows this, he would be discontent!" Boxer came up to Zhou Bao and said. He looked at the tall tombstone and gave Zhou Bao a complicated glance. "I just got the news, His Excellency Wu Yansheng and your teacher Elder Xu of the Wu Family will come here tomorrow!"


    "Really?" Zhou Bao nodded with a smile. "I haven''t seen my teacher for a long time. Make good preparations!"


    "Okay!"


    His other teacher, Xu Yong, was the Highest Elder of the Wu Family now. Though he had not broken through to the Expert Realm, his position was much higher in the Wu Family than that of the First Elder Lyu Yiyue.


    In fact, the other Elders of the Wu Family now regretted their choice, "Why didn''t I choose Zhou Bao as my disciple? Otherwise, I''d the Highest Elder of the Wu Family now!"


    Of course, Wu Yansheng felt very lucky that Xu Yong was indifferent. Although Zhou Bao was like the sun at high noon now, Xu Yong still enjoyed being alone in his own small courtyard in the Wu Family, without making many demands. When it came to Zhou Bao, he was a bit proud, but more modest. He put all the credit on Zhou Bao''s aptitude, as if Zhou Bao was his nominal disciple, and he did nothing. At first, there were many people who wanted to be his disciples, with a view being Zhou Bao''s junior brother at least in nominal terms, but he refused all of them. Later, as Zhou Bao''s reputation became more and more prominent, and the things Zhou Bao did become more and more frightening, these people all gradually dismissed the idea. After all, it was not so simple to be Zhou Bao''s junior brother.


    Every time Zhou Bao returned to Yunzhou, he would visit Xu Yong. At the beginning, he visited Xu Yong officially; afterwards, he felt that this was too much trouble, so most of the time he went to Xu Yong''s courtyard himself, drinking wine and telling jokes, and occasionally exchanging knowledge of martial arts skills with Xu Yong. It made them feel at home.


    Similarly, due to the change of Zhou Bao''s identity, every time he went back to Yunzhou, and stayed a little longer, Wu Yansheng would come to visit Zhou Bao once he found out. In any case, Zhou Bao was still an Elder of the Wu Family in name. But he could not take his own identity as the Family Head of the Wu Family to press this outer core elder. Because the business cooperation between Zhou Bao''s Anyuan Store and the Wu Family was increasingly close, not to mention Zhou Bao''s current strength and identity. Thanks to the sales network of Anyuan Store, among the four major smelting families in the Jin, the dominance of the Wu Family had begun to emerge.


    Although the three other backers were very strong as well, just for a smelting family, they would not offend Zhou Bao, an unrivaled expert who broke into the Mingyi School alone, and made them awkward and helpless. Besides, didn''t you see that Zhou Bao has married into the royal family? Now he was the emperor''s son-in-law, the emperor''s relative. Additionally, he had a large territory in the northwest. Thus, he was not a person that anybody could offend!


    At this time, the Wu Family and Anyuan Store were fully formed into a business alliance, and its development speed was directly proportional to Zhou Bao''s strength. Although Zhou Bao was not concerned about these mundane affairs now, he must give his teacher face.


    If Wu Yansheng hadn''t been afraid that he could not see him, he wouldn''t have taken Xu Yong with him. Xu Yong was Zhou Bao''s teacher, so as the disciple, Zhou Bao should visit Xu Yong. How could the teacher come to visit the disciple?


    With this alone, Zhou Bao''s impression of Wu Yansheng had become worse.


    Five days later, Zhou Bao left Qingyang Market for Wuyang Region.


    Everything at home had been dealt with. In the name of Muscle-renewing and Marrow-cleansing, he used the Bloodline Sealing Technique to seal the bloodline of all the people who practiced martial arts and newborn babies in his family. Of course, all the family members whose bloodline was sealed had benefited. Muscle-renewing and Marrow-cleansing was true. Over the course of five days, he used more than 30 Bone-Forging Pills. They did not increase these people''s feats greatly, but broadened the path for their future growth. Of course, he did not forget his brother-in-law, which was to confuse other people''s attention and help Wang Tianlei. At the same time, he also stipulated that all the new members of the family, both male and female, should be sent to Wuyang Region before they reach one year old, and he would personally do Muscle-renewing and Marrow-cleansing for them, laying the foundation for their future.


    This was good. It was common to help his family after one had made a rise in his life. Zhou Bao had the strength and elixirs, so it was human nature to help his family members enhance strength, which was not suspicious.


    In the process, no trace of bloodline was found to be stimulated, which gave him a slight sigh of relief.


    Having temporarily solved the problems of the bloodline, he began to focus his attention on the Taiyuan gathering.


    The Taiyuan Heaven was one of the 33 Heavens. Owning the essence of the world and the treasure of heaven and earth that were beyond people''s imagination. Although Zhou Bao, who had the right to access the Azure Heaven, did not care too much about the Taiyuan Heaven. Green Spirit said that each Heaven of the 33 Heavens had its own characteristics and unique specialties. For example, the Innate Green Lotus discovered in the Azure Secret Area was a special product of the Azure Heaven.


    There were many treasures in the 33 Heavens, but there were also many dangers. Just like the Azure Secret Area, he entered only a small island, and no one knew what was in the Azure Spirit Sea. The Taiyuan Heaven was much bigger than the Azure Heaven, so only God knew what would happen in it.


    "There are more than two months left. I have to get ready!" Zhou Bao thought to himself, and began to make plans.

 Chapter 336: Opening of Taiyuan Heaven on the Blue Whale Island

    Chapter 336: Opening of Taiyuan Heaven on the Blue Whale Island


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Hehe. I, Mo Yinyang, pay my respect to Your Excellency, Zhou Bao! Your Excellency indeed has wit! For your honorable identity in Jin dynasty, the Emperor of Jin dynasty should give you the Taiyuan Token!" Looking at the Taiyuan Token held in Zhou Bao''s hand, Mo Yinyang wore an extremely happy expression. He seemed to be so excited that he was sort of shivering.


    "As I promised, as long as I get the Taiyuan Token, I shall enter the Taiyuan Heaven together with you!" Putting away the Taiyuan Token, Zhou Bao smiled and said, "One Taiyuan Token only allows three people to go into the Taiyuan Heaven. Besides us, the third one is Chief Wang from Tian Long Taoism!"


    Nodding his head, Mo Yinyang smiled and said, "Of course! I also hear a lot about Chief Wang!"


    "Since you belong to the Li dynasty, how could you know about me?" Picking his eyebrows, Wang She who sat beside Zhou Bao glanced at Mo Yinyang and showed an eccentric expression.


    "Hehe! Chief Wang, to be honest, do you really think nobody knows you can practice the Asura Heart-Killing Stick Technique?!" Turning around and taking a glance at Wang She, Mo Yinyang showed a smile in his eyes. "That case of Li dynasty back then, I say, it''s you who did it, right?"


    "It seems that the intelligence work of your Li Dynasty in our Central Mainland Region goes well!" An unknown light flashed in Wang She''s eyes, he looked at Mo Yinyang with an unkind expression.


    "I have nothing to do with that case. I just heard some news about it!" Feeling uneasy about Wang She''s stare, Mo Yinyang explained immediately.


    "Hum!" With a cold snort, Wang She went away, leaving the other two a back view of himself.


    "Mr. Mo, I don''t care about what happened between you and Chief Wang. Since Taiyuan Heaven is an eventful place, once we go in together, I don''t want you two ready to jump at each other''s throats!"


    "Relax! I don''t have any conflict of interest with Chief Wang!"


    Mo Yinyang explained with a smile. "Moreover, entering Taiyuan Heaven together with an expert like Chief Wang, we shall have more opportunities!"


    "Right! Taiyuan Heaven is a good place. Hope we all can get what we want this time!"


    "I agree!" Mo Yinyang nodded, "I believe we all can get what we want!"


    ...


    ¡­


    Five days later, Zhou Bao, Wang She, and Mo Yinyang started their journey to the endless Sea Area.


    The entrance of the Taiyuan Heaven was different from that of the Azure Heaven. There were many entrances to the Azure Heaven and many passageways connecting the Azure Heaven. There was only one entrance to the Taiyuan Heaven, which located on an island in the Sea Area, on an island called Blue Whale Island. The island had a very delicate location, which sat in the junction of the Seven-deity Regions and the Sea Area. It had a bit of land in the Seven-deity Regions and bits of another part in the Sea Area, so it was hard to tell which side it truly belonged to.


    There were countless islands like this with few values in this world. Basically, Seven-deity Regions had no need to vie with Sea Area for island sovereignty. But when it came to the Blue Whale Island, which served as the entrance of the Taiyuan Heaven, things would be much different. Though this entrance only opened once every 1000 years, the profit inside was beyond imagination. Neither sides would give it up. After this entrance was found, several battles broke out between the Seven-deity Regions and Sea Area. They both suffered some losses. But later, they found that those battles were nonsense.


    Without the Taiyuan Token, even if you took the Blue Whale Island as your home, you couldn''t enter the Taiyuan Heaven. Therefore, the Taiyuan Token became the key point of their battle. This gave way to another huge battle!


    These kind of battles lasted for thousands of years, taking the lives of loads of experts, practitioners, and fighters. At last, an extremely stable state was formed with the calming down of the battle. The state was called the rules.


    The rules had been set up.


    Then everything they did should follow the rules. The Taiyuan Token had been distributed for both the Seven-deity Regions and the Sea Area. To some extent, though they had already had the rules, the Taiyuan gathering was still considerably competitive every time. The competitiveness existed within the Seven-deity Regions and also existed between the Seven-deity Regions and the Sea Area. In a word, in the circumstances the rules permitted, everybody tried to weaken each other''s strength, influences and even the last achievements they acquired. These all were a competition. A large-scale conflict wasn''t allowed. Robbing others wasn''t allowed, either. Otherwise, they would be seriously punished. However, if what you did hadn''t been seen by anyone or what you did didn''t leave any evidence for others to find, it meant you did nothing.


    These were the real rules.


    Blue Whale Island, named after the blue whale, was an island shaped like a whale. The part floating out of the water was like a giant blue whale out of the sea. The giant peak standing on the island was like the water column spat by the blue whale.


    Looking from afar, it was quite like a blue whale leisurely floating on the sea.


    "In front of us is the Blue Whale Island. We weren''t the first to arrive at the island given that it had already been imposed with an inhibition by someone else!"


    All the influence couldn''t neglect the Blue Whale Island because of its special status and its function. It had no inviting resources or treasures except being the entrance of the Taiyuan Heaven. Thus, before the millennium gathering, basically, nobody would come to the island, whether they were from the Seven-deity Regions or from the Sea Area. Even when someone visited it, they wouldn''t cast any inhibition in that the island was covered by a thin layer of mist like today, which was quite different from the surroundings. One could easily tell that it was already under an inhibition.


    "Hum! It''s only the Deception Technique. No big deal!" Mo Yinyang grinned. Flashing his body, he flew close to the Blue Whale Island and waved his hands.


    A light grey smoke came out of his sleeve, mixing together with the thin mist around the Blue Whale Island. The mist shivered and gently cracked a slit. A passageway made of the mist and the grey smoke came out in front of the three people.


    "Let''s go inside!" Taking a glance at Mo Yinyang, Zhou Bao said nothing, but flashed himself and squeezed into the passageway.


    "Who are you? How dare you enter the Blue Whale Island uninvited?" A fierce shout came to them the moment they exposed themselves. Then, a sharp saber light directly flew to them, cutting at Zhou Bao who stood in the front.


    "Go to hell!" With a cold expression, Zhou Bao lifted up his finger. A string of black and red Sword Qi sprayed out of Zhou Bao''s finger and hit squarely on the saber light.


    A clatter sounded, and the saber light was crashed down by Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi.


    It wasn''t enough. During the counter-attack, Zhou Bao had already recognized the attacker. All of a sudden, he flashed in front of the attacker like a ghost, raised a hand and gave him a swift slap.


    Clatter!


    "Stop!"


    Everything happened in as a short time as fleeting lightning. As Zhou Bao''s Sword Qi cracked down the saber light and he spanked the attacker, someone interrupted.


    "Asking me to stop isn''t that easy!" Wang She, standing behind Zhou Bao, smiled coldly. His one hand was in a fake grasping state, with strings of blue electric lights spreading out of his fingers in the direction of the white-clothed man who shouted.


    Oops!


    That guy changed his expression to a miserable one. When he held up his hand, a cloud of gray smoke already covered him.


    Cracking¡­


    The electric light bumped into the gray smoke, producing several thuds which fell into silence gradually. However, at the same time, the white-clothed man hummed and made a few steps backward with a pale expression.


    "Everybody stop! This is Blue Whale Island, not your Seven-deity Regions!"


    A shout like a thunderbolt, deafeningly clapped in the sky and shocked everybody.


    Such a loud voice!


    Everybody including Zhou Bao, Wang She and Mo Yinyang, who stood behind, felt thunderstruck. Instead of using any Internal Qi, the voice simply came out of the throat. But the voice was much louder than that of a normal Level Nine expert who made full use of his Real Essence. Moreover, the power of it was also much stronger.


    Zhou Bao sensed nothing but a roar in his ears. It was like a thunder blasting beside his ears.


    Together with this shout, a figure that was incredulously tall and stout came out from the thin mist followed by a very strange-looking guy. A guy looked at his youth but his skin was gray. He wore no tops or pants, only a seaweed-like gray cloth attaching at his crotch to hide his crucial part. Additionally, there was another middle-aged brute in a cool outfit. He looked as normal as ordinary people, except a long and sharp thorn in his head.


    "You humans are just like that! You only know how to fight with each other. I don''t care if you fight somewhere else. But this is the Blue Whale Island, which isn''t your place. You all need to watch your behavior. Otherwise, I, Lei, will clap you to death, one by one!"


    When he spoke, Lei inflated his rock-like muscles slightly and stared at the six people at the site furiously.


    "Alas! Isn''t it First Young Master Ma? What happened to your teeth? They all fell out! You, First Young Master Ma, need to grow your permanent teeth again?"


    An enigmatic voice came out from another side. With several lights flashing by, another three men showed up at the site. A handsome teen with a weird smile, led these three men. Once he showed up, he looked at the Younger who was lying on the ground, covered his mouth, and was ready to stand up with a mocking smile on his face.


    "All right! No words, ok? Though you rush to fight, it''s not the right time!" A middle-aged black-clothed man following the weird teen said. Upon hearing the voice, Zhou Bao was surprised slightly, since he had heard this voice once before. Looking at the direction where the voice came from, Zhou Bao couldn''t control himself to laugh, because the black-clothed man was the one who fought with Mandkesvara for the Innate Green Lotus at the Azure Secret Area.


    "What a coincidence!" Zhou Bao laughed to himself. He then turned around to Wang She and Mo Yinyang without any comments.


    "You Bastard! How dare you beat me! You¡ª"


    Clap! Another slap came on from Zhou Bao, "I don''t care who you are! But if you continue to insult me, I''ll slap you to death!"


    "You..." The teen on the ground struggled to stand up. Looking at Zhou Bao with fury and malice displaying all over his face, he seemed to attempt to say something else, but was stopped by the white-clothed man.


    "Ma Tianlu from Peacock Dynasty. May I have your name, Your Excellency?" The white-clothed man wearing a cold frosted expression, stabilized the teen and then asked Zhou Bao.


    "Zhou Bao from the Jin!" Slightly lifting his head, Zhou Bao looked at Ma Tianlu.


    For these days, he had been frenetically absorbing information about this world. He heard about the Peacock Dynasty which was also a big dynasty in Four Eastern Regions. But it neither belonged to the Central Mainland Region nor belonged to the Penglai Region. It was the biggest dynasty of Fangzhang Region. Like the Jin, it also had a Taiyuan Token.


    While the Ma family was the biggest well-known one in the Peacock Dynasty. Only one family played a monopolistic rule in the Peacock Dynasty, unlike in the Jin where several families ruled together. The emperor of the Peacock Dynasty was only a puppet of the Ma family.


    That was why when Yan Yuntian competed for being the Jade Emperor, the emperor of the Peacock Dynasty didn''t present among the candidates. A puppet didn''t have the qualification to apply for this position.


    "Zhou Bao from the Jin!" Ma Tianlu nodded, "Expert of the Central Mainland Region. Sorry for my disrespect!"


    Zhou Bao nodded and calmed down. At this time, his shabby gray robe, which was flying gently in the wind, made Zhou Bao look like a scholar without any property at home, instead it made him look like an expert who would kill anyone anytime.


    The Blue Whale Island recovered from the initial conflict. There were four groups on the island at the moment. Except for Zhou Bao''s team, the first arrivals, who were the ones that set up the inhibition, were, the three people from Peacock Dynasty, who learned their lesson from Zhou Bao. And another two groups, who were the black-clothed stout man''s team and Lei''s team.


    Among these twelve people, Lei''s team was the most eye-catching one. Apparently, they must be the evil beasts from the Sea Area instead of humans.


    Because of their attraction, they became the focal point of all.


    "What are you looking at?" Feeling uneasy, Lei roared abruptly waving his two arms that were as thick as hundred-year-old trunks, with extremely unkind expression.


    Zhou Bao rolled his eyes and turned his eyesight to another direction, looking at the sky with boredom. The others also turned their eyesights to other directions.


    "Eh?!" All of a sudden, Zhou Bao changed his expression slightly, emitting a light sigh. There was another three points of light converging on Blue Whale Island through that layer of thin mist.


    Those three points of light came exactly from the Central Mainland Region. What''s more important, Zhou Bao discovered a string of similar spirit among those points of light.


    It was the spirit of the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda!


    As expected, when the three lights came closer, he could tell who they were.


    "Damn, "Shit! What''s this f*cking inhibition they set up?" Zhou Bao scolded. Then he sent out a jet of black and red Sword Qi to crack down a nearby gray stone into ashes.


    At the very moment when the gray stone was crushed, the thin mist around the Blue Whale Island went away immediately.


    It was a little weird when the mist faded away. Without any preparation, the three lights in the air apparently paused for a while.


    But they soon recognized the situation on the island. One of the lights accelerated his flying. It was Li Xiu.


    "Haha! Junior Leopard, I can hardly believe you are here!" The bright and clear laughter came first before his arrival.


    "I also never imagined that you''d be here!" With a gentle smile, Zhou Bao came to him. It was truly out of his expectation. Entering Taiyuan Heaven brought both opportunities and dangers. However, so many people in this world had the lucky psychology, and that was why they all competed for the valuable Taiyuan Token. Li Xiu''s cultivation only reached Level Seven. Though he was called the youngest expert in the Central Mainland Region, his capability was actually far below here. It was unexpected that he should be here.


    "Thanks to you! Though my cultivation is so-so, I had the Pure Yang Celestial Device to protect me." Facing Zhou Bao, Li Xiu shouted out this fact aloud instead of trying to hide it.


    "Pure Yang Celestial Device"


    Hearing this, all the people at the site stared at Li Xiu at the same time.


    "Little Li, take it easy! Few people have a Pure Yang Celestial Device in this world!" Zhou Bao grinned and patted Li Xiu''s shoulder. Looking at the two rushing lights, he asked, "So, how about introducing your friends?"


    The moment when he finished saying this, his expression turned eccentric. He knew the other two together with Li Xiu. One was the Happy Monk from whom he took great advantage of at the Azure Secret Area. From the suit of another one, he could easily tell that he was one of the 28 constellations from Immortal Palace. Casting another look, Zhou Bao almost laughed out. You know why? The masked guy was Golden Rooster!


    "Happy Bald Ass, you''re also here!"


    Before Li Xiu answered Zhou Bao, the black-clothed stout man lifted his eyebrows and shouted strangely, "How can such a bald ass have such good luck?"


    "Hum! Great Dark Lord Du, Since you are here, why can''t I?" With a cold smile, Happy Monk looked around and his eyes lingered on Lei''s team for a while. But he shifted his eyesight away from Lei quickly, and turned all his attention to the companion of the black-clothed stout man. "Ah! Great Dark Lord Du, when did you change your partners? Who are they? Take your time and make an introduction!"


    "You don''t need to know that much!" The black-clothed stout man sneered without any comments.


    Though Happy Monk got the cold-shoulder treatment, he dared not turn against with the black-clothed stout man this time. Taking a glance at him with extreme unhappiness, he turned around and looked at Zhou Bao.


    "So you are the Leopard from Yunzhou. I''ve heard that you crushed those bastards of Mingyi School. Interesting! Interesting!" Walking to Zhou Bao with laughs, he reached out his hands and intended to clap Zhou Bao on his shoulder.


    With a gentle smile, Zhou Bao gently stepped backward which made him actually pat the air.


    Happy Monk''s expression stiffened. A string of anger flashed in his eyes. But, when he saw Wang She was standing beside Zhou Bao with the unknown Mo Yinyang, he humped and walked away.


    Li Xiu felt a little embarrassed and said, "Junior Leopard, he is the happy master of Small Thunder Temple. This is Sun Rooster of Hairy Head, one of the 28 constellations from Immortal Palace!"


    Though they were familiar, at an occasion like this, it was better for them to pretend to be strangers. Zhou Bao nodded to Golden Rooster, and felt surprised that Immortal Palace indeed had the power it had, because it made three people enter the Taiyuan Heaven. What''s more, these three people were not the whole of Immortal Palace.


    In the following hours, twenty teams came one by one. Six of them were from the Sea Area. While, judging from the relationship between these six teams, it was not calm in the Sea Area. They seemed to be hostile to each other. Lei almost fought with a stout man similar to his size.


    There was no trust among these twenty teams. They were wary of each other. A weird atmosphere covered the Blue Whale Island. All the people were waiting for the opening of the Taiyuan Heaven.


    Finally, in all the anxiety during the waiting, the Blue Whale Island had a change at last.


    It was already slightly dark at the time when the sunset glow fulfilled the sky and the waves of the shocking space that came from the peak of the Blue Whale Island spread out in all directions.

 Chapter 337: Entering the Taiyuan Heaven, Rippling the Space and the Cloud-swallowing Beast

    Chapter 337: Entering the Taiyuan Heaven, Rippling the Space and the Cloud-swallowing Beast


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The highest Mountain on the Blue Whale Island began to tremble as if an earthquake was happening. Thunderous rumbles sounded and spread to afar, while waves of the space rippled and an invisible and intangible force enveloped the entire Blue Whale Island.


    "Eh, I''ve never sensed this kind of space fluctuation before!"


    Zhou Bao excelled in the Three Realms Division and the Space Division Skill, so he was quite sensitive about space fluctuation. But at the moment, this exotic space fluctuation was utterly different from those he had felt in the past. He even sensed that a strong mysterious force was surging up from somewhere and was forcefully tearing the surrounding space into pieces. This strong force was not only tearing up the space, but it was showing a vague sign that it was integrating itself with the nearby space.


    This was infusion!


    This was something that never crossed Zhou Bao''s mind. "What kind of force could infuse into the force of space?"


    Precisely for this infusion, the surrounding space fluctuation seemed to be unique. Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind sprawled in all directions like tentacles, thoroughly detecting the overlayed and almost endless space fluctuation.


    All of a sudden, his expression altered, "What is this place?"


    Exactly! What the hell was this place?


    After wandering through a somewhat special part of this space fluctuation, a fine tentacle of his spiritual mind sprawled among the multilayered space fluctuation, suddenly stretched into a pretty marvelous place. This was a greyish world, in which everywhere was fused with greyish and blurry fog. There was no essence of the world, but this place was not utterly empty like a hollow space, because it was full of ever-changing storms and endless hollow.


    This was a weird space!


    Yes, a weird but stable space!


    "What is this place? Could it be the legendary Taiyuan Heaven?" This thought flitted across Zhou Bao''s mind. All at once, he felt a compelling force charging at him, which split his spiritual mind apart. He gave a violent shudder and came to his senses.


    A whirring noise sounded!


    All these insights, mental activities, and discoveries occurred in just a split second, even less than one-tenth of the time it takes for you to blink your eyes. Therefore, no one noticed anything abnormal about Zhou Bao. But when he came back to his senses, after that one-tenth of a blink of an eye, everything on the Blue Whale Island had changed.


    Rampant Space Storms swept through the entire Blue Whale Island, scooping up numerous tiny space fragments that looked like pieces of glass in the air. Everything on the Blue Whale Island was carried into the storms.


    "What a storm! With so many space fragments in it, even if I turn on my Gang Qi, I still cannot get enough protection!" Zhou Bao, who was terror-stricken, said to himself. At that moment, a layer of fuzzy blue light emitted out of his body and shrouded around himself, Wang She and Mo Yinyang. The moment those raging storms got contact with the blue light, they automatically gave way to it.


    "No wonder the rule is that each Taiyuan Token can only allow three people to come onto the Blue Whale Island regardless of what kind of influence the newcomers have. If the number exceeds three, the Taiyuan Token would not be able to protect all of them. Facing such a Space Storm, even a Level Nine expert may have to head backward with regret!"


    As the Space Fluctuations and Space Storms grew increasingly violent, the blue light of the Taiyuan Token became more and more bright. When the light grew to the brightest extent, the space fluctuation around them suddenly surged up, swallowing all the 20 blue light like ocean waves.


    At the same time, on the other side of the island, a blue light dot was also engulfed by the fluctuation.


    "What a great opportunity!" After being engulfed by the blue light, Zhou Bao''s heart leapt with delight. Once more, his spiritual mind spread around like tentacles, taking advantage of this rare opportunity to apprehend the wonders of this space.


    It was a pity that the time he had to apprehend was too little, but he did find something out in the end.


    After a few seconds, an abundant burst of the essence of the world blew in his face, which almost made him choke.


    In fact, at the same time, he heard several dim coughings, which were apparently made by someone who was choking on this extremely abundant spiritual qi.


    "This is the Taiyuan Heaven!"


    After breathing several times, everything was restored to its quietness, and there were about 60 men standing in a mysterious and exotic space.


    After eagerly inhaling mouthfuls of rich spiritual qi, Zhou Bao cast his eyes around. Looking about, he was stupefied.


    What a world it was!


    Vast, peerlessly vast!


    That was his first impression of the world.


    Towering mountains stood afar, one after another, with their peaks floating in the air. At first glimpse, they looked a lot like those floating mountains he had seen in the film Avatar in his previous life. Although the mountains in front of him were far more numerous and much more magnificent than those in the film.


    In this space, there was thick spiritual qi and mountains suspended everywhere in the air. However, there was not even a single patch of normal land.


    Looking at distant views, there were assorted mountain peaks. Some of these mountains were huge in terms of volume¡ªsurely surpassing hundreds of thousands of miles in diameter. They looked like a suspending continent. But some were small, merely with the size of a house. The distance between those mountains also varied. Some of those vacant areas in the middle of two mountains were vast like a sea area, with nothing existing in the vicinity of hundreds of thousands of miles apart from the blue air. Meanwhile, some peaks were closely entwined, even linked with each other by some plant rattans.


    The sky was navy. Touches of white fog and colorful clouds were flying in the sky, floating around those suspending mountains, which looked just like a fairyland.


    "Alright, everybody, we''ve now arrived at the Taiyuan Heaven. According to the alliance treaty agreed a thousand years before, every batch of us visitors has to stay in a designated area, and no one is allowed to go outside of their own area without authorization. If you want to exchange your area with others, now is the time!"


    A booming voice sounded in the crowd, which was suffused with compelling pressure and inviolable spirit.


    "It''s the idiot from the Divine Wind Palace!" Zhou Bao shot a glance at the man who was the source of that voice, cursed under his breath and then simply ignored him. Then, he nodded to Li Xiu, said some greetings and got ready to leave this place.


    "Hold on!" Just when Zhou Bao was about to leave, another voice sounded and called him up. Turning back with a scowl, Zhou Bao saw it was exactly the expert of the Divine Wind Palace who made that announcement just now.


    This man was eight feet in height, with a long black beard. His eyebrows were as sleek as silkworms and his eyes were as slanted as phoenix eyes, which made him sort of majestic-looking, like a tiger. If his face got redder, Zhou Bao would take him as a reincarnation of General Guan Yu.


    "Your Excellency has some instructions for me?" Zhou Bao cupped his hand together and said with little enthusiasm.


    "If I''m not mistaken, Your Excellency must be Zhou Bao, from the Jin dynasty in the Central Mainland Region?" That man enquired.


    "Right, I am Zhou Bao. Your Excellency is..."


    "Zhang Yunhao, from the Divine Wind Palace!" Zhang Yunhao raised his chin as he said the word "Divine Wind Palace" and his Qi Power also seemed to burgeon at that moment.


    "I wonder what instruction Your Excellency intends to bestow me for calling me out!"


    "Of course I have something to discuss with you!" Zhang Yunhao smiled and went on, "I have a presumptuous request!"


    "Since it''s a presumptuous request, you should say no more. I will not exchange my Taiyuan Token with you!" Zhou Bao''s mouth cracked a thin slit, giving out a fleeting sneer. "Time is limited, and I will excuse myself!"


    Zhou Bao cupped his hands once more. His figure flashed and brought up a beam of red Gang Qi, ready to take off.


    "How dare you!"


    Just as Zhou Bao was about to leap up and get away, a cluster of golden light twinkled and soared downright in the direction of Zhou Bao''s head to enclose it.


    "You''re courting death now!" A shaft of chilling light flitted across Zhou Bao''s eyes, and he saw the man giving off that golden light was exactly the golden-robed brute standing beside Zhang Yunhao. He lifted a hand, pointed one finger at him, and a jet of black and red Sword Qi flashed out, colliding head-on with that golden light.


    "Eh?"


    Upon crashing into the golden light, Zhou Bao''s Sword Qi instantly disappeared. Zhou Bao felt that his Sword Qi had bumped against a soft wall, and all its power was consumed by it.


    "You dare destroy my magic weapon?"


    Almost simultaneously, that brute started barking wildly. That golden light took one collision with the Sword Qi of Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi, and then, split into two parts. As its light paled, the physical body of that weapon was revealed in front of everyone.


    It turned out to be a golden handkerchief.


    "Humph, I will not only damage your magic weapon, but I''ll also teach a lesson to you, you dumbass!" Zhou Bao shouted with a sneer. Moving like a flash of lightning, Zhou Bao already approached that golden-robed brute. Then, the moment he raised one hand, a shaft of Sword Qi burst out.


    The golden-robed brute stamped his feet in fury. He bellowed in an undertone and a layer of golden Gang Qi rose from his body, covering every part of him.


    "Crap!" At sight of this scenario, Zhang Yunhao knew that things would not go well. He was an expert of weapons. Though he didn''t know what the black and red Gang Qi Zhou Bao shot out was, when he came to contemplate it for a second, the story of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword crossed his mind. Seeing this brute tried to resist this Sword Qi with his Gang Qi, Zhang Yunhao was startled. He abruptly raised one arm to push that brute away, but he was still one second late. The brute''s body was shoved away, but the Sword Qi was so fast that he failed to escape it completely.


    Swish!


    The black and red Sword Qi cut open his Protective Gang Qi as if cutting a chunk of Tofu, which chopped off his left hand in a second.


    "Ah!"


    The Sword Qi was now highly aggressive. That wisp of killing intent in the Sword Qi crept into the brute''s insides from the wound and invaded into his tendons and meridians. The brute felt a spasm of sharp pain and let out a growl out of anguish, but he could not say a single word even though he wanted to do so.


    Zhang Yunhao''s figure leapt to that brute like a flash of lightning, and he placed a punch right in his back.


    Poof!


    A torrent of blood spurted out from the end of that brute''s handless arm and splattered onto the ground, resulting in a deep indent. After the blood gushed out, the brute seemed to have got better, though his face was still as white as chalk. Anyway, his breathing became smoother, and he slowly sat down with his legs crossed to regulate his breathing.


    "Zhou Bao, how ruthless you are!" After confirming the brute was not in mortal danger, Zhang Yunhao raised his head and snapped at Zhou Bao reprovingly, "Are you truly going to go against the Divine Wind Palace?"


    Zhou Bao blinked, let out a cold laugh and replied, "Humph, your Divine Wind Palace is really unbridled. You even breached the Thousand Year Promise in broad daylight. He launched a strike at me without even calling me out first, so what''s wrong with me cutting off one of his arms?"


    "You..." Zhang Yunhao suddenly became speechless for the moment.


    It was true that the brute struck out against Zhou Bao first a moment ago, and it was also him who spoke rudely to Zhou Bao. Thus, Zhou Bao was only fighting back. Although his counter movement was too harsh, as a matter of fact, this was not a big deal.


    In this world, power was the dominating factor to inspire awe. When someone overestimated his power and started a fight against the one whose power was stronger than his, people would think that he had asked for it, even if he was killed in that battle, let alone now where nobody was killed and there were still so many people watching them. Among those qualified to enter the Taiyuan Heaven, everyone must have some background, mustn''t they? Even though the Divine Wind Palace possessed great power and massive influence, they could not always get their way by relying on their prestige.


    Therefore, under such a circumstance, Zhang Yunhao truly had nothing to say.


    But his silence did not prevent others from speaking up their views, "Zhou Bao, even though Emissary Chang struck first, he had no malicious intent towards you. He merely wanted to stop you from leaving, so why did you launch such a nasty counter-attack?"


    Zhou Bao made a glimpse with the corners of his eyes, and then grinned. The one who said those words was exactly the First Young Master, Ma, whose teeth were all knocked out by Zhou Bao with one slap on the Blue Whale Island.


    "F*ck, which bastard didn''t buckle up his crotch and let you out? You say one more word and I will punch you back to your daddy''s testicles, dare to try me or not?"


    "Hahaha..."


    Those words were so vulgar that the crowd on the scene all burst out laughing, among them Lei''s laughter was the loudest.


    "Wow wow wow! You dude, very good. You dude, really f*cking good. Hahaha, if you can walk out of here alive, I shall buy you liquor to celebrate! Hahahahaha, what a brilliant swear! I''ll use this to curse others from now on, hahaha!" Lei gave Zhou Bao a thumbs-up, and then waved his hands and turned to the two behind him, "Okay, stop watching the fun. We still have our own business to do. Let''s go!"


    The three of them conjured three tornados around themselves and disappeared out of sight in a twinkling.


    As they left, several other Demon Tribes also followed suit and disappeared in various directions. Other Human Tribes trotted off as well. After all, the opening time of the Taiyuan Heaven was limited and everyone should not waste it on watching the drama. In a few seconds, half of the crowd on the spot were already gone.


    The face of that First Young Master Ma purpled in rage. He lifted one hand and pointed it at Zhou Bao, his beautiful fingertips shivering, trying to say something to save his dignity. But the middle-aged man nearby pulled him back. Finally, no words spurted out of his mouth.


    "Well, it''s alright then. I''ll go now!" Zhou Bao shrugged and surveyed that Zhang Yunhao. "If you want to settle this issue here, scratch a line for the record then. I''ll not mind having a play-around with you!"


    Zhang Yunhao''s face was frosty. He said, "Alright, this time, we Divine Wind Palace, admit our bad luck. But as the saying goes, green hills and green flows will always be there. This debt will be settled on your account one day!"


    "Save your meaningless words!" Zhou Bao sneered. He exchanged a look with Wang She, and then the three men turned on their Gang Qi and shot to the sky.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    "Bloke, today your temper is really on!"


    When they were flying, Wang She grinned and said, "The Divine Wind Palace is not easy to mess with!"


    "Pish! Hard to mess with, so what? Should I swallow down my anger just because their influence is immense?" Zhou Bao said in a cold voice. "Never attack unless being attacked. But when someone does attack me, I''ll surely punch out all of his teeth, no matter who he is!"


    "Hehe, you youngsters are always so cranky!" Wang She said, chuckling. "But there is nothing to worry about. Divine Wind Palace does have great influence, but the Central Mainland Region belongs to the territory of we Immortal Palace. No matter how far the Divine Wind Palace''s arm can reach, they cannot stick in our place!"


    Speaking of this, he shot a look at Mo Yinyang, "Am I right, Brother Mo?"


    Mo Yinyang seemed to be undecided about this. Frankly speaking, after seeing Zhou Bao''s act just now, he already started regretting following Zhou Bao in here.


    He knew only too well how influential the Divine Wind Palace was. Although Wang She touched on the matter lightly and said that they shouldn''t fear them because the Central Mainland Region was the territory of the Immortal Palace, he was a man of the Penglai Region, which was a territory thoroughly belonging to the Divine Wind Palace.


    If the Divine Wind Palace took him as one of Zhou Bao''s gang and failed to make trouble for Zhou Bao, they would unleash their fury on him in the end. Then, who shall he reason to seek justice?


    However, what was done was done. Regret would not help. He could only wish that those three hadn''t recognized him yet. Also, if he managed to find some good stuff as he wished in this Taiyuan Heaven, he would be able to break through his present phase.


    Six hours later.


    "Damn it. How far on earth is our area from there? Why haven''t we arrived there after flying for such a long time?"


    Every Taiyuan Token was processed with a special technique. Once entered the designated area, it would glow with blue light. However, after flying for six hours straight, their Taiyuan Token still remained the same, which really irritated him.


    Remember, this Taiyuan Heaven was actually not as peaceful as you saw it. Spiritual Qi and pneuma were everywhere, while danger also lurked around. During the six-hour flight, they had met a dozen flying exotic demons and evil beasts, though their strength was at Level Nine, they were actually a bit stronger than ordinary Level Nine experts. When they came one by one, the three of them could still manage to fend them off through teamwork. But when those beasts shot at them in flocks, they would feel like weeping, but they had no tears.


    Dozens of seconds ago, they had just escaped the attack launched by a flock of red birds. Those birds were no bigger than sparrows, but they were made of copper skin and iron bones. Even with their strength, it would cost them a great deal of effort to kill one of these birds. They would have nothing to complain about if there were only one or two of these birds. But in reality, this flock was formed by tens of thousands of birds, which formed a red cloud in the blue sky. They flooded at them from all directions, and each of them had steel feathers and iron claws. Once being trapped among these birds, they would have a job to fight a way out on their own.


    What was more, this group of red birds not only had steel feathers and iron claws, but they could penetrate their Protective Gang Qi. Although their sizes were small, they could breathe fire at their enemies. Accordingly, those birds gave the three a really rough time.


    "We can''t continue like this. If we come across any more monsters, we won''t even get the chance to know how we''ve been killed!" said Mo Yinyang with anxiety. He had come here for gains, not for death. That flock of red bird had already let them have enough strife and caused his heart to flutter in fear, but if they bumped into any more beasts again, they would face great trouble.


    "Maybe we should find a place and take a break, and then continue our flight. Based on my knowledge, when you had entered the Taiyuan Heaven, if you keep flying to the biggest suspended continent in the east, you''ll find our area. That continent is visible, but it''s actually about 300,000 miles or at least 200,000 miles away from us. We''ve been flying for six hours, while the distance is still that long. Seems that it''ll take much more time to fly there!" said Zhou Bao.


    "That makes sense!" Wang She echoed. "There is a mountain right ahead of us, let''s take a rest there!"


    The three of them played down their Gang Wind and began to head for that mountain.


    This mountain was not very huge, which could only be counted as a small hill when compared with the infinite space of the Taiyuan Heaven. But if you compared it with the size of a man, it was enormous. Those three descended in the direction of that mountain as if they were as small as three tiny ants. They landed on a boulder where plants were scarce and then sat down to regulate their breathing.


    "33 Heavens does live up to its fame! The essence of the world is thousands of times denser than the outside world. Practicing here for one year shall equate decades of practice outside, or even hundreds of years of practice. If we could stay here for a long time, that would be fantastic!"


    "Brother Mo, you''d better spend less time on those stupid thoughts!" Wang She said with a smile. "If one could really make a long-term stay in the Taiyuan Heaven, you really think the Divine Wind Palace would be unwilling to do so?"


    "Just an idea. Even if there was truly something that good, it would not be available for me!"


    "Not necessarily. With Brother Mo''s strength, you must assume a high-level position in the Dark Sect!"


    "My position is not low, but not that high either." Mo Yinyang giggled. All of a sudden, his expression altered and his eyes swiveled to the right front. Zhou Bao and Wang She also noticed the abnormity, both of whom also cast their eyes to the same place.


    "Eh, no way!" When they caught a clear view of that thing, all three of them gasped.


    What they saw was an eye, a huge eye. At first, this eye was closed shut and didn''t emit any spirit, which was why the three of them hadn''t detected it in the first place. But now, it seemed that their movements had alerted it, and the eye opened, giving Zhou Bao and the other two a great shock in return.


    The height of that huge eye was already more than a hundred feet.


    An eye with a diameter of a hundred feet! Exactly how big was it? Then, how huge could its body be...


    They didn''t need to really look at it to be terrified, because the imagination itself was formidable enough.


    It was a pity that what they were facing at that moment was not imagined, but a real trouble!


    As the earth began to quake and the mountain began to shudder, the three of them leapt up at the same time and speedily flew towards the way ahead of them.


    "Roar!"


    A howl thundered, and the three of them that had already flown miles away, slowed down simultaneously as if being bombarded by a heavy plummet. With this roar, their figures started stumbling in the air, wobbling to the left and right.


    "F*uck, what monster is this!" Zhou Bao felt a fit of dizziness, and his ears began ringing, which almost made him fall from the sky.


    Soon after, a wild wind sprang up. In an instant, it darted behind them.


    "Everyone watch out! It''s a Cloud-swallowing Beast!" As if remembering something, Mo Yinyang yelled with all his strength. Then, he turned into a faint whiff of grey smoke and disappeared out of the sight of the other two.


    Cloud-swallowing Beast!


    Zhou Bao never heard of it, but now it was not a good time for wondering what it was.


    Without any hesitation, he made a waving motion and a jet of Sword Qi of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi shot out. Instantly, Wang She and he darted sideways.


    "Shut down your hearing!" Wang She barked. Almost at the same moment, the two closed their sense of hearing as the second roar sounded. Powerful sound waves even caused their Protective Gang Qi to shudder for a while, which almost fell into pieces under this vibration.


    The figures of the two were now like withered leaves in the wind, pretty rickety under the impact of the strong sound waves and air flows. If they had not closed their hearing in time, they would already be deafened by this roar of that Cloud-swallowing Beast.


    "Haha, a Cloud-swallowing Beast! It should be a Cloud-swallowing Beast! This one must have practiced to the degree of 50,000 years, and that''s why it has grown so huge. Zhou Bao, hurry up and kill it! Every part of it is extremely useful!" Green Spirit''s psywave arrived, revealing his utmost thrill.


    "Kill it? How? Teach me!" snapped Zhou Bao. He had seen clearly the appearance of that Cloud-swallowing Beast¡ªits body was as high as 10,000 feet, like a huge mountain, even covering up the sun and the sky. If it had not been for the special ability of his Fiery Eyes, he would not have seen its entire body from their present position.


    The beast was covered in extremely hard and heavy scales. Even when Zhou Bao sent out two jets of Sword Qi of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi in a row, it merely injured some scales and caused it to bleed a little.


    "You git! It''s been such a long time, but you haven''t grasped the wonder of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi yet? Look, that bloke is much better than you!"


    Zhou Bao was taken aback at this. Not until then did he find that Wang She also launched the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Judging by his Sword Qi, the two types of Evil Qi Wang She used in practicing his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was of inferior quality to those which Zhou Bao used, but the power it produced was much stronger. With only a few attacks, the Sword Qi penetrated the scales of that Cloud-swallowing Beast and injured it severely. But most importantly, Wang She''s Sword Qi could pierce through that beast, which really gave Zhou Bao a huge shock.

 Chapter 338: Obtaining the Life Pearl

    Chapter 338: Obtaining the Life Pearl


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Damn it!"


    "This is really hell!"


    Zhou Bao had never thought that he didn''t really comprehend the mystery of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi.


    He had always believed he had comprehended the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi to the fullest extent, but he didn''t expect he would be scolded by Green Spirit. Seeing the power of Sword Qi that Wang She had exerted, Zhou Bao couldn''t help but sweat with fear.


    However, it was not the time to consider the matter. Though Wang She indeed could give almost full play to the power of the Sword Qi, its damage to the Cloud-swallowing Beast was limited.


    The size of this beast was big. Being tens of thousands of feet high, it was more than 3,000 meters tall, making the three men standing before it seem like ants. You could think of it this way, an ant that had powerful strength was capable of shooting a slim Sword Qi to perforate your body, but the hole that it created was not fatal at all, and sometimes even could be neglected.


    Now, the three had fallen into a situation like this.


    Although Wang She''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi could break through the heavy and thick scales of the Cloud-swallowing Beast, causing a physical injury, the injured area was small for the beast, and Wang She''s Sword Qi was not able to be inexhaustibly released.


    "We can''t go on like this!"


    The wounded beast became even crazier. As it moved, its surrounding airflow rolled up and formed storms like the prestige of heaven and earth, which was difficult for ordinary people to resist.


    Amid this almost crazy storm, experts with Protective Gang Qi, like Zhou Bao, were only capable of protecting themselves.


    It was rather good to be able to be self-protective.


    As for attacks, after several effective ones from Wang She, the three began to crazily deal with the surrounding storm and airflow.


    Hoo, hoo, hoo.


    The violent storm became fiercer and heavier, driven by the Cloud-swallowing Beast.


    At times, the beast bellowed, forcing the three to close their auditory sense. Their communication was thus hindered, and they could not talk with each other freely like before.


    After a short period of time, the three were completely unable to exchange views, even though they wanted to, they couldn''t because the furious storm blew them away.


    In this heavy storm that connected the heaven and the earth, their Gang Qi appeared indistinctly like a canoe amid wild wind and huge waves that might be capsized at any time.


    "We can''t go on like this!" Zhou Bao, huddling up for the gale and feeling himself pushed around by a considerable strength, was unable to control his body. "If only I had an Air-frozen Bead!"


    It was obvious that the Cloud-swallowing Beast could manipulate airflows in this world to form a violent storm capable of tearing everything apart. If Zhou Bao had an Air-frozen Bead, he would not be afraid of any wind or rain launched by the beast.


    "Boy, be careful. Controlling wind and airflow is only one small skill of the Cloud-swallowing Beast!" Green Spirit''s psywave suddenly spread to Zhou Bao. "If I were you, I would run away from the beast now. Otherwise¡ª"


    Before Green Spirit had finished speaking, Zhou Bao felt a powerful and invincible suction approaching.


    "Gosh!" A bit of panic flashed in Green Spirit''s psywave. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao changed his expression as he saw the Cloud-swallowing Beast open its bloody mouth to immediately form an incomparable suction force that drew everything around it towards its mouth. Not only that, the suction was capable of twirling and tearing everything into shreds and powder before it was sucked into the beast''s mouth.


    Before this powerful suction, Zhou Bao and his companions felt helpless, and were all sucked by the force.


    "Damn! I don''t believe I can''t do anything helpful!" Grinding his teeth, Zhou Bao launched the Three Realms Division. In the twinkling of an eye, he showed up before the huge Cloud-swallowing Beast. Then a golden light flashed behind his head, followed by the appearance of the Golden Flame Mirror.


    At that moment, he raised his hand quickly, forming another Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi. The powerful black and red Sword Qi, coupled with the flickering golden light on the Golden Flame Mirror, then dashed to the eyes of the Cloud-swallowing Beast.


    Puff!


    With a soft chink, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror both hit the beast''s eye. At this time, it was easy to distinguish between the two.


    The Sword Qi of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword only hurt its yellow crystal-like eye slightly. The attack merely caused slight damage on the surface, as if it was hitting a huge diamond. However, the Golden Flame Mirror was different. Its golden light pierced through the eye with scorching strength. Later, the yellow eye collapsed completely. Though there was originally a small hole, the damage quickly spread to the whole eye.


    "Damn, this beast''s eyeballs are even harder than a diamond. Fortunately, I have a Pure Yang Celestial Device, otherwise I wouldn''t succeed!" Zhou Bao rejoiced in secret at such a stroke of luck.


    With his eyes severely damaged, the Cloud-swallowing Beast exploded and began to howl. The storm around the three suddenly became ten times heavier than before, but the huge suction that had been formed when the beast had opened its mouth vanished.


    Its sudden disappearance resulted in Wang She and Mo Yinyang being thrown tens of miles away. At the same time, Zhou Bao launched the Three Realms Division again, and moved in front of the other eye of the beast, as if having found its weak point.


    In response, the severely injured beast raised its huge claws and pounced towards Zhou Bao madly. However, it could not touch even a hair of him despite the fact it had a big hand with a wide scope of coverage. In the eyes of the beast, Zhou Bao was a larger agile mosquito, but this mosquito was at its fastest speed and also knew the Three Realms Division.


    Hindered by the waving big hand, Zhou Bao had no chance to blind its other eye with the Golden Flame Mirror, but shifted himself to avoid the attacks.


    "Hoo"


    After several unsuccessful attempts, the beast felt a sharper and sharper pain in its wounded eye. Eventually, it flared up and snarled and the storm became more violent. The wind strength was so great that it was able to impact on the space, and now even began to tear it up. The tearing was different from that of Zhou Bao''s Three Realms Division and Space Division Skill, both of which cut the space apart with Flickering Light Evil Qi, the rarest and the most miraculous Evil Qi in the world with a spatial attribute, just like a special key.


    If properly used, the Flickering Light Evil Qi could open the space door effortlessly at the user''s will. But different from the Three Realms Division, the crazy storm purely tore the space apart in the most violent manner, just like the Divine Sense Great Fusion Technic that Zhou Bao gained from Evil Fire Kylin, whose strongest power could directly melt the space.


    "Gosh, the beast is so powerful. It went mad for a slight injury and tore the space apart in its craziness. Powerful, very powerful!" Zhou Bao was surprised, but it was not time to do this. In the strong gale, he quickly evaded attacks and strenuously moved forward.


    Given the fragmented space, he dared not launch the Three Realms Division. If he launched it, he might be transported to an unfamiliar place!


    "Boy, be quick. If the beast applied its Devouring Technique again, we''ll be in great trouble!" Green Spirit''s psywave reached Zhou Bao once more.


    "I know I should be quick, but the beast is watching out for my attack, so I have no chance!" Zhou Bao yelled. "If I rush to the beast, I will not find any place to attack because the space before it has already turned into void turbulence!"


    "I know. I know!" Green Spirit''s psywave came. "Kiddo, you shouldn''t say I haven''t told you this. A Cloud-swallowing Beast with a good character is rare in this world. If it practices tens of thousand years longer, it might evolve into a Sky-swallowing Beast. The Sky-swallowing Beast owns two divine senses¡ªwind and space. If you refine your Air-frozen Bead with the beast''s Life Pearl, you will get a device a hundred times better than the Wind Bead!"


    "What? Really?"


    "Sure. Didn''t you notice that the wind around you has begun to change?"


    Green Spirit continued with a smile, "Even in the antiquity times, the Cloud-swallowing Beast was also a rare evil beast. I don''t expect that you would readily meet one. Especially one at such a degree that you are able to handle!"


    "I can handle it? Why don''t I think so?" Zhou Bao cried.


    "That''s because you haven''t found its real vulnerable point!" Green Spirit said, "Though the eyes are one of its weak points, it consciously protects them, so you have to find another crucial point. But you should not directly attack its scales on the body, because they are flawless, very thick, and as hard as a diamond, and all your efforts will in vain!"


    "What should I do?"


    "Its real vulnerable point is on the forehead, where its Life Pearl lies. Kill it and take its Life Pearl away. Then your Air-frozen Bead is half done!" Green Spirit shouted with excitement.


    "Forehead?" Zhou Bao yelled. Its forehead indeed was different from other places, but just a little different.


    The Cloud-swallowing Beast was covered with a heavy armor, all light cyan, but one scale in its forehead was dark cyan with a glimmer of anomalous metallic light on the surface. Furthermore, there was no defensive void turbulence surrounding the forehead.


    "This Cloud-swallowing Beast is either silly or very confident in its dark cyan scale."


    "As long as you break the scale and take away the Life Pearl, the beast will be finished!"


    "I''m afraid it''s not that easy!"


    "Certainly, the scale has the strongest defense, even stronger than that added by all the scales!"


    "What the f*ck, you want me to fight against it? We''d better run as quickly as we can!" Zhou Bao yelled.


    "Opportunity knocks but once. I didn''t mean that it''s you who would destroy its defense!" Green Spirit''s psywave spread to him with a sneer. "Let go of the Sky-measuring Star Ruler and let me through!"


    "Can you do that?" Zhou Bao asked with confusion.


    "What a load of claptrap!" Green Spirit said, "If I can''t, you will be done! Didn''t you notice anything rather strange?"


    "Strange?"


    Of course, it was strange. The original intangible and colorless wind had turned into a light cyan one, with the tendency of becoming darker and darker. Its power seemed to be several times stronger than before.


    In the cyan wind, a mysterious space debris was dimly seen, which existed in the strength of the Cloud-swallowing Beast rather than from the tearing of the space before.


    Without thinking twice, Zhou Bao opened his own Space of Segmented Realms and threw the Sky-measuring Star Ruler out.


    Initially, there was a bit of starlight flashing, but after a burst, the silver starlight gushed out of the Sky-measuring Star Ruler like water. Then a silver spider, made by the starlight, appeared on the ruler and all starlight gathered as if being towed, to immediately form countless filaments. Those filaments intertwined and turned into a silver cobweb which ripped through the cyan wind current and directly covered the head of the Cloud-swallowing Beast.


    Howl!


    The beast seemed to realize the danger and roared again. As a result, the wind color abruptly darkened. In no time, Zhou Bao felt a limitless power approaching him from all directions, which almost tore his Protective Gang Qi to shreds.


    After several rapid dodges, he launched the Dragon Flying Technique, but he just managed to evade the fiercest attack with the circumambient wind power. However, Wang She and Mo Yinyang didn''t have such a good luck. Zhou Bao stood far away from them, but he could still hear their screams clearly. In a short period of time, their Gang Qi were torn apart by the cyan wind, ensued by the blood splattered in the air. If they were not Level Nine experts, they themselves would have been torn into pieces.


    Nevertheless, they still suffered a lot from the attack. Their iron-like bodies were scratched by the cyan wind, leading to numerous scars, some of which were even open to the bone.


    They had to do their best to protect themselves. At this time, Zhou Bao found these two guys both had a second Gang Qi. To his surprise, Mo Yinyang''s Gang Qi turned into a pure black one from the original grey. Zhou Bao had seen it before, as he was almost killed by it once. This was exactly the Nine Yin Blackdragon Smoke Gang from Dark Lord Mie Chen, one of Three Grandmasters of the Northern Yuan. In the Gang Qi, Heavenly Devil appeared indistinctly. He had practiced into the Heavenly Devil Real Body like Mie Chen. However, Wang She''s Gang Qi was different from Mo Yinyang''s. His second Gang Qi was red. A flirtatious red that was extremely coquettish.


    "Hehe, these two guys have their own bluffs as expected!"


    With their changed Gang Qi, the two steadied themselves in the cyan storm, but helpless expressions were shown on their faces, because neither of them wanted to reveal their bluffs at such a time and in such a place.


    Right now, the Starlight Net had covered the Cloud-swallowing Beast''s head. Though the beast was huge, the star force collected in the Sky-measuring Star Ruler for ten thousand years was more powerful.


    In the cyan wind, the Starlight Net teetered, but the filaments made by starlight would not be cut short, no matter how strong the wind was.


    Along the filaments, a large amount of star force rushed to the beast''s head. Amid the starlight, the Sky-measuring Star Ruler had already separated itself from the starlight spider, and directly smashed the beast''s forehead.


    Boom!


    With a loud bang, the ruler hit the dark cyan scales and bounced back. Influenced by the powerful attack, the Cloud-swallowing Beast trembled and shortly felt a little dizzy. The sense passed from the Life Pearl also told it that this eccentric thing seemed to be able to threaten its life.


    The beast began to be uneasy, stretching out its huge claw to tear apart the silver cobweb on its head, but Green Spirit wouldn''t let things progress as it wished.


    The Sky-measuring Star Ruler, a Pure Yang Celestial Device with massive star force, was not easy to deal with.


    Numerous filaments of starlight were released to entangle the beast''s two big claws. Though the filaments were quickly pulled apart, they fit together rapidly and entwined the claws firmly. All of a sudden, the Sky-measuring Star Ruler shined with dazzling light, and again hit the beast''s forehead. The attack this time was much fiercer and more powerful than the previous one.


    "Boy, watch out. You could only use the Sky-measuring Star Ruler to attack the beast once. Take this opportunity to force its Original Spirit out with the Poisonous Hitching Post. You know what to do next, and don''t need my instructions, do you?" Green Spirit''s psywave spread to him as the ruler hit the beast again.


    "Damn. I still need to do something!" Zhou Bao spluttered.


    Boom!


    With another bang, the ruler hit the beast''s forehead the third time, and the ruler''s light afterward became dim. However, Zhou Bao could clearly see the dark blue frost formed on the dark cyan scale of its forhead, and faintly saw several fissures on the scale.


    "Now is was the time!"


    Zhou Bao thought with his hand raised. Then a streak of green light appeared and directly hit that scale!


    Poisonous Hitching Post!


    Almost without any impediment, the Poisonous Hitching Post struck onto the scale.


    "Hoo, howl!"


    Sharp pain suddenly overwhelmed the Cloud-swallowing Beast.


    Pain-painful!


    The Poisonous Hitching Post wouldn''t kill people or ruin lives, but it could cause severe pain!


    The Cloud-swallowing Beast who dominated this Region of Taiyuan Heaven, had never suffered such pain since it was born, especially pain passed from the Life Pearl, which was even harder for it to put up with. The Life Pearl not only possessed strong power, but it also combined with its Original Spirit, so the beast had to tolerate unbearable pain directly spreading to the Original Spirit. With a sad cry, a dark cyan bead rose from the trap door of the beast''s brain, and plumes of green smoke were exuded from the bead. Eventually, the smoke turned into a cyan shadow, whose size was in sharp contrast with the huge one of the beast and could practically be described as tiny. Compared with Zhou Bao, the shadow was a little larger, but its shape was clear, exactly a miniature Cloud-swallowing Beast.


    "Now it''s time!" Zhou Bao gently made a fist. A reddish strength appeared, followed by a crimson vortex around the Original Spirit.


    Soul-cutting Skill!


    As soon as the skill was launched, the vortex swallowed the Original Spirit and cut it into countless fragments.


    Though it had lived for tens of thousands of years, the Cloud-swallowing Beast had never seen such a method. Before it could react, the Original Spirit was cut into pieces, which later turned into miraculous brightness and disappeared.


    The yellow crystal-like eyes suddenly became dim and the lifeless huge body fell on the ground. The dark cyan wind around also faded away. In a twinking of an eye, Zhou Bao raised his hand and grabbed. Then the dark cyan bead appeared in his hand. With a flick, he put it away in his Space of Segmented Realms.

 Chapter 339: Arrival and Tracking

    Chapter 339: Arrival and Tracking


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    There was no land in Taiyuan Heaven. The Cloud-swallowing Beast dived downward and there was a faint whiff of blood in the air. The smell of blood seemingly triggered off a reaction. Suddenly, dark clouds gathered around the surrounding mountain peaks and surged around the Cloud-swallowing Beast.


    "It''s the Carrion Bird! Quickly, run, kid! You don''t want to mess with them!" Seeing the dark clouds, Green Spirit shouted hurriedly. Zhou Bao''s scalp tingled when he realized what the true nature of the dark clouds was. They were countless little crow-like birds whose claws and feathers were made of iron and steel, resembling the red cloud that they had encountered previously. The difference was that the dark clouds gave off death fumes, while the red birds emitted strong fiery vibes.


    Having learned their lesson from their previous encounter, they did not have any second thoughts but rode off instantly with the Gang wind, as far away as they could.


    "Damn it! There is something strange going on here! All we wanted was to get some rest and catch our breath, but we ended up running into such a powerful evil beast! Oh my god, I guess it''s able to enter the Mysterious Realm with it strength?"


    "It has yet to reach that level, but I suppose its combat capability is more powerful than the Mysterious Realm. However, being an evil beast with relatively insufficient spiritual intelligence and a gigantic body, of which he has minimal control over, it can''t be such a big threat to us," said Green Spirit.


    A gigantic body usually is quite vulnerable. Back in the antiquity times, all strong evil beasts were gigantic. However, after experiencing the ThunderTribulation, their bodies were transformed into human shapes. No matter how big their bodies were, they still had the skills of Dharma Laksana in them. But before the Thunder Tribulation and the cultivation of the Dharma Laksana skills, these evil beasts remained dormant and did not show themselves unnecessarily in front of humans. Otherwise, they would likely be killed and skinned by greedy skilled masters like Zhou Bao.


    It was a bad day for the Cloud-swallowing Beast. As one of the giant beasts from antiquity times and also the strongest among the evil beasts in this area, it had led a good life in Taiyuan Heaven. More importantly, its nest was its safe haven; it would not be in any danger as long as it stayed inside. Except for this time, unluckily for it, it came rushing out.


    To be fair, it was not its fault. In its memory, it knew that once in every thousand years, there will be some human beings venturing into Taiyuan Heaven. It had encountered them a couple of times. It also recalled that these tiny little creatures had some not so powerful skills, which was not a threat to them. Most of the time, they could not even venture beyond the scales of its body and had fled in fear. When it recalled such memories, it felt that it had nothing to fear. Therefore, it did not expect to meet such a legendary strong man, which had cost it its life.


    "You really have lived up to your reputation, Your Excellency. You have mastered the skills of the Sky-measuring Star Ruler within a few days only. I suppose you have refined this Pure Yang Celestial Device too, right, Your Excellency?"


    Wang She stared covetously at the Sky-measuring Star Ruler in Zhou Bao''s hands and said, "Not bad, Junior Leopard! How about giving it to me?"


    Zhou Bao rolled his eyes and said, "No problem! It''s yours if I can exchange it with your Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique."


    "You want the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique?" Wang She was distracted for a moment. He glanced at Zhou Bao and suddenly figured out something, and the greed on his face turned into a bitter smile. "I know what''s on your mind. But the only person who has the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique is the Leader of the Tian Long Taoism, who is also my teacher. I will have a chance to acquire this skill if I take over my teacher''s place. But now, alas¡­"


    "Then we''ll talk about the exchange after you have mastered that!" Zhou Bao shook the Sky-measuring Star Ruler in his hand and said, "This is something good. There is sufficient spiritual qi in Taiyuan Heaven. But it''s a pity that there are no stars. If you bring it outside, it''s even much more powerful than you can imagine!"


    Remembering when Ye Qingtian attracted the Nine Heavens Star Force using the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, which had almost defeated him, Zhou Bao began seeing red. Had it not been for the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, he would have never given the Sky-measuring Star Ruler away.


    "Are you kidding? Kid, I still need the Sky-measuring Star Ruler to gain further knowledge of the stars. Don''t give it away yet!" Green Spirit''s psywave fluctuated as if he was unhappy about something.


    "Haven''t you already incarnated into the stars? You''ve already absorbed eighty percent of the star force in it. Having it won''t make much difference to you. It''s just the icing on the cake for you!" Zhou Bao did not care about Green Spirit''s words.


    "What the hell do you know, kid? I''m practicing the skills for the Great Way of Stars, and that is why I need the Sky-measuring Star Ruler. In our world, when I''m in unity with the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, I can guide the Nine Heavens Star Force. By then, I''ll be able to fight against even the Individual Immortals of the Metaphysic Realm. Do you understand?"


    "Of course I do! But I need it to make a deal with him. It''s the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique! It''s priceless! It''s not a mere object that we can just exchange it with a Pure Yang Celestial Device?"


    "Junior Leopard, I wonder if you have considered¡­"


    Wang She unexpectedly asked with a somber face.


    "What is it?" asked Zhou Bao, hesitantly.


    "Would you like to join the Tian Long Taoism?!" said Wang She. "My master brought it up to me before. He told me to find out if you would be willing to join the Tian Long Taoism, and not just being a secondary strength. As long as you join us, the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique will be within your reach. Maybe after a couple of years, who knows, my master might decide to impart this technique to you when he''s ready to do so!"


    "Join the Tian Long Taoism?!" Such a thought had never occurred to Zhou Bao before. He raised his eyebrows slightly, weighing the pros and cons of the offer.


    Thinking of the pros and cons, he could not really find any cons. Being a disciple of the Tian Long Taoism meant having Tian Long Taoism being his backup. That would make him more fearless.


    "That''s a great idea. But you know, I''m used to being a free spirit. I don''t like to be constrained!"


    "Well, of course, you are. I understand now you''re the boss of your own territory, more like the king of the northwest. You will merely gain a title if you join the Tian Long Taoism. But bear in mind we have Elders too. We can give you the title of a teaching elder, yet you don''t have to be responsible for anything. Even when the Tian Long Taoism is facing perils, you don''t need to do anything. All you have to do is to pass on the Uniform Dao of the Tian Long Taoism. And furthermore, during our prosperous days, you will be paid more than the ordinary elders. What do you think of the proposal?"


    "That''s nice. Name your price!" Zhou Bao smiled and said, "with such a position and such a tempting offer, I bet even the Individual Immortals of the Mysterious Realm will be jealous of me!"


    "I bet they will. The current teaching elder of the Tian Long Taoism is an Individual Immortal, who will be undergoing his second Thunder Tribulation in 10 years in order to become a Genuine Immortal. He won''t be with us whether he succeeds and gets the Karmic Rank of the Genuine Immortal, or if he fails and turns into ashes."


    "You mean there will definitely be another teaching elder in the Tian Long Taoism in 10 years," said Zhou Bao. "But I don''t believe that he is your only Individual Immortal. It''s just a wishful thinking on your part to get me into that position!"


    "Who knows what will happen in 10 years. Only time will tell!" Wang She laughed.


    "10 years won''t be sufficient for me to break through the Mysterious Realm. You know this better than anyone else!" Zhou Bao sneered.


    "Yeah, well. Maybe you will not be able to break through it in 10 years. But who says the teaching elder of the Tian Long Taoism must be a Metaphysic Individual Immortal? Guess what, the most important thing about being a teaching elder is not about the cultivation, but the age, as the teaching elder need not fight. In fact, if a school needs its teaching elder to win a battle, they wouldn''t be far from their doom. That''s the reason why the younger you are, the more advantageous it will be for you. That''s exactly what you have!"


    "Fair enough, but I still have to think about it. It''s a big decision for me to make!"


    "Take your time. You have 10 years for that!" said Wang She. Suddenly, the Taiyuan Token on Zhou Bao''s chest brightened.


    "Here we are!"


    They had arrived at their destination before they knew it.


    "Ha-ha, let''s try our luck in this hellish place!" The three of them were excited about the ethereal mountain peaks in front of them, looking as if there were countless treasures buried there.


    However, after all the excitement, they had to deal with the real problem.


    The unpleasant encounter had given them an inkling about the dangers in Taiyuan Heaven. They had tried to get some rest and ended up running into the Cloud-swallowing Beast, a powerful evil beast. Who knew what other dangers would be awaiting them when they began their meticulous search.


    But again, it made sense that great benefits usually come after great dangers. Reaping without sowing is indeed a rarity.


    "Should we act individually or stay together? What do you think, Junior Leopard?" Wang She looked up at Zhou Bao and asked. Since Zhou Bao was holding the Taiyuan Token, it made him the unspoken leader of the whole situation.


    Zhou Bao''s eyes lingered on the two men and he smiled. "I suppose we all have our motives for getting into Taiyuan Heaven, so it''s better for us to split up. We should decide when and where we should meet up after.


    Zhou Bao had his own purpose in seeking the materials for refining the Air-frozen Bead. He did not want any company for that reason. And apparently, the other two men had the same thought as well. Both seemed content to go along with Zhou Bao''s idea.


    "Okay, well, Taiyuan Heaven will stay open for a month, so how about we meet here in a month''s time. This is Taiyuan Heaven, very unlike our world. We are literally on our own here. Mr. Mo, my brother, what do you think?"


    Wang She nodded in agreement, looking up at Mo Yinyang with his question.


    "Excellent!" Mo Yinyang nodded, too. The only reason that he was with Zhou Bao was that he needed Zhou Bao to get into Taiyuan Heaven. He could tell that these two guys would destroy and kill anyone without any hesitation. It''s better for him to stay away from them. He did not know who to go to or what to do once such horrible things happened.


    The decision was made. Mo Yinyang left first. Wang She said to Junior Leopard, "Look, I think it will be better if you give me the Taiyuan Token. I don''t want to die with you if you can''t get out of here alive!"


    "Bullshit!" Zhou Bao rolled his eyes and said, "I''m telling you, Chief Wang, you''d better hope nothing bad will happen to me. If I die, you will have a wait of a thousand years here!"


    He had good reasons to say that. Based on historical records, many had survived after getting into the Taiyuan Heaven, but they could not get out because the one holding the Taiyuan Token had died.


    Once the owner died, the Taiyuan Token would immediately disappear, leaving those experts waiting for another millennium so that they could grab the Taiyuan Token from the newcomers to Taiyuan Heaven.


    However, few people could live for a thousand years. Although there was an abundance of spiritual qi in Taiyuan Heaven, there was no Heavenly Thunder, which meant no Thunder Tribulation. Without the Thunder Tribulation, no matter how high a person''s cultivation was, he could only arrive at the Demi-Mysterious Realm and nothing beyond. They were expected to live long lives, but it was still hard to live for a thousand years.


    It was not impossible, though. Taiyuan Heaven had countless treasures of heaven and earth to offer, and it was not hard to find one that could prolong one''s life. And if somebody had a little knowledge about the Alchemy skills, he would have a better chance at surviving for a thousand years.


    Hence, for the person who was entering Taiyuan Heaven for the first time, the biggest threat came from those experts who had been there for the last thousand years rather than that of the evil beasts.


    Having honed their skills for the last thousand years, even though they were not of the Metaphysic Realm, their cultivation and Internal Qi were much more profound than those of the ordinary people. And their familiarity with the environment meant they could easily set traps and lure others into trouble.


    That led Zhou Bao to be extremely careful in Taiyuan Heaven.


    "Hey, kid, have you thought about why those guys at Divine Wind Palace wanted to make a deal for your Taiyuan Token?"


    Zhou Bao found the nearest peak, landed on it, and practiced his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. When he was ready to start his search, Green Spirit''s psywave suddenly came to his mind.


    "They must know something that I don''t. Maybe there are rare treasures in this area!" Zhou Bao pondered. "But I think you''d better not think about it as this place is really weird. We must get our priorities right. I don''t mind finding out what Divine Wind Palace''s real motives are after we''ve finished gathering all the materials for refining the Air-frozen Bead. But right now, we''d better stick to our original plan!"


    Zhou Bou could decipher all the thoughts that had been in Green Spirits mind. He smiled and replied, "Kid, you are getting smarter all the time!"


    "Even an idiot will turn into a cunning fox after spending so much time with you!" Zhou Bao said and slowly strolled down the mountain peak.


    Taiyuan Heaven was a magical place, where exotic, rare flowers and herbs, which were believed to have been long extinct in the outside world bloomed abundantly all over the place. It was nourished by the excessive spiritual qi that was there. Unexpectedly, the materials Zhou Bao desired for his elixir were plentiful too.


    Within two hours, Zhou Bao had found enough medicinal herbs for the Bone-Forging Pills and Tendon-Changing Pills within the mountain area; he had also found sufficient medicinal herbs for the Pulse Setting Pills and Blood Exchanging Pills. With careful searching, he even found the medicinal herbs for the Marrow Cleansing Pills which were extremely precious and he collected enough to concoct about 50 pieces.


    "Good heavens! This is my lucky day!" Zhou Bao thought to himself as he gathered all the materials he needed. He had never been this lucky even in the Azure Secret Area.


    "It''s no big deal. Finding the herbs is an easy task because Taiyuan Heaven remains unchanged since the antiquity times. Azure Heaven, on the other hand, was transformed into the Azure Secret Area by the Powerful Divines, so now it''s different from its original state!" Green Spirit read Zhou Bao''s mind and explained to him by a psywave.


    "It seems the Azure Secret Area holds many secrets. As long as I am done refining the Air-frozen Bead, I can enter and leave the Azure Secret Area randomly. The treasures will be all mine by then! Ha-ha-ha!" Zhou Bao thought to himself.


    A couple of hours had passed. Zhou Bao soon arrived at the hillside. By now, he had already found not only the medicinal herbs for the elixirs but also several materials for the Air-frozen Bead.


    "If I keep going at this rate, it won''t be long before I gather all the materials for the Air-frozen Bead!" This thought made Zhou Bao excited. Suddenly, however, the look on his face changed, and he dodged behind a huge rock, hid among some bushes and kept very still.


    Three golden lights flashed and landed slowly on the mountain peak. They were the three experts Zhou Bao had seen at Divine Wind Palace.


    "My goodness! They truly are after something! They didn''t bother searching their own area but headed directly to ours. But they must have encountered something that made them look so dreadful!"


    Zhou Bao and his two friends had been embarrassed by their appearance after they encountered the Cloud-swallowing Beast. These three men, however, looked worse than they did. Their clothes were in shreds and bad luck seemed to be written all over on their faces, except for Zhang Yunhao, who was seemingly the second oldest brother. He was the only one who looked normal. The golden-robed brute, whose arm had been broken by Zhou Bao, had wounds all over his body and would have died if he had not been a Level Eight expert.


    But still, he looked pale, dizzy and was trembling so much that it looked as if he would topple over if he took one more step.


    Yunhao, my brother, this should be the area we are looking for. We don''t know if Zhou Bao is here or not, so we''d better be careful and try not to run into him!"


    "I don''t think so. There''s nothing to be afraid of. I''ll be glad to settle my score with him!" Upon hearing Zhou Bao''s name, Emissary Chang, known as the golden-robed brute snorted. His face was all knotted up in anger and his huge eyes were shooting out sparks of fire.


    "We''d better be careful! Although we have the upper hand, Zhou Bao is not just any ordinary person. On the contrary, he is a man with great luck, for he defeated Ye Qingtian, took the Sky-measuring Star Ruler from him and sabotaged Yan Yuntian''s murder plot, during which he obtained another Pure Yang Celestial Device. He has three Pure Yang Celestial Devices altogether and he cannot be that easily defeated!" Zhang Yunhao coldly. "We made this trip in order to accomplish an important mission and we don''t want any unnecessary trouble. You can settle your score with him after we are finished here and back to our world."


    "Aye, my Lord!" said Emissary Chang. He dared not utter another word after hearing Zhang Yunhao''s words.


    "Don''t let your hatred blind you, my friend. Our mission comes first!" Seeing that Emissary Chang was still angry, Zhang Yunhao said to him.


    "I understand!" He lowered his head further down.


    "That guy seems to be holding a grudge against me in his heart!" Zhou Bao said to Green Spirit, smiling.


    "Nonsense! You broke his arm. Of course, he wants to tear you apart! You can try and see how it feels to have a broken arm!"


    "That is not my thing!" Zhou Bao said with a swagger. "But now, I''m more interested in their mission!"


    "The timing is perfect. There''s no harm in following them to find out what exactly they are after. And I will not be wasting too much time!" Zhou Bao thought.


    Zhou Bao was very happy with the smooth progress of his search. If he kept going at this speed, he would be able to gather all the materials he needed for the Air-frozen Bead within one or two days, which meant there would still be plenty of time left.


    Having been lucky with his search in this world full of treasures, he thought it would be good too if he stalked those three guys and saw what people from Divine Wind Palace were after. Maybe he could even benefit from it. Who knew that?


    "Oh, what a pity! They wouldn''t be a threat to me if Wang She were here. With our combined powers and secret tactics, I will not be afraid of their so-called ''ace'' card, whatever that is. But I can handle this by myself. After all, I can always run away even if I lose!" Zhou Bao pondered the various scenarios in his heart and followed them.


    Could it be that their target was on the mountaintop?


    Seeing them walking and searching along the way, Zhou Bao had a strange feeling. This mountain stood at the edge of his area. The three of them stopped at this mountain when their Taiyuan Token lighted up at a certain spot. Had they accidentally discovered their target? It was unbelievable!


    Was that really a mere coincidence?


    And it turned out to be true. It really did exist!


    Apparently, this mountain was their destination. Zhang Yunhao held a map in his hand, which had suddenly appeared from nowhere. They headed deep into the mountain using the map as a guide.


    This mountain was a medium-sized mountain in the entire Taiyuan Heaven. Although the mountain was not as high as it looked from afar, it was filled with dark forests and numerous hills and spread out over thousands of miles wide. No one knew what type of monsters or treasures were hidden in the deep forests.


    The three men moved forward slowly with Zhang Yunhao in the lead. Along the journey, he constantly stopped to check the map, leaping up and down from time to time, as if trying to find the way. Zhou Bao followed them for three whole days, finding himself going deeper into the mountain range. Just when his patience was about to run out, they finally stopped.


    "This is it! This is the exact position indicated on the map!" Zhang Yunhao put his map away, looked up at the high precipice and sighed deeply.

 Chapter 340: The Second Pair of Fiery Eyes Appeared

    Chapter 340: The Second Pair of Fiery Eyes Appeared


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The cliff stretched for thousands of feet as far as the eye could see. It appeared in front of Zhang Yunhao, projecting a razor-sharp image and its cyan surface was so clear that shadows were reflected on it.


    "We''re here, exactly where the spot is on the map!"


    "Lord, what are we going to do now?" These cliffs were hardly a hindrance to the experts. However, it seemed like these three people were not simply waiting to fly over the cliffs. They stood there, staring solemnly.


    "What else can we do? We need to lure him out first!" Zhang Yunhao beckoned to Emissary Chang. He understood what was required and took out an incense stick. Creating a spark using his fingertip, he lighted up the incense and put it on a rock. They rushed to hide behind a giant rock that was some distance away, and with bated breath, waiting for signs of any movement.


    "The Tihu Incense?"


    Inhaling the scent awakened a long-buried memory in Zhou Bao''s mind. This was what Xue Wuya used to lure out the monster from the mud, the Furious Toad. Were they here for the evil beast?


    Suddenly, the realization hit Zhou Bao. He had seen them frantically trying to find the road and they were not in the least interested in the treasures of heaven and earth buried in the ground. And now, they were lighting up the Tihu Incense. So evidently, the evil beast they were after was more precious than all of those treasures of heaven and earth.


    But was that really the true gist of the matter?


    It would take time to figure it out.


    The Tihu Incense was burning steadily, and Zhou Bao could feel the air around him starting to change. It was Taiyuan Heaven, whose spiritual qi was thicker than that from antiquity times. This was a place where a stranger would appear only once in a thousand years, and there were all kinds of evil and weird beasts here that had evolved to an incredible level of skills after all the years. Did God even know how many evil beasts were living on this mountain full of spiritual qi?


    And, who knows how many evil beasts would be lured out by the Tihu Incense?


    There were faint rustling sounds coming from the hiding places around him. Some of the older evil beasts had come running out of the shrubs. Using the magic Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, Zhou Bao laid on the ground and looked so much like a statue, that the evil beasts did not pay any heed to him. But Zhou Bao was surprised to find that the Zhang Yunhao and his subordinates were also ignored by the beasts. These three hiding behind a rock, glittered with a goldlike aura and suddenly vanished without seeming to use any spiritual skills. It was as good as the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, and what was more astonishing was that they became invisible.


    "I don''t know what kind of celestial device they are using, but it must be at least a Mysterious Level celestial device. Otherwise, it wouldn''t have such magical effect!" Zhou Bao said to himself. There were several celestial devices and magical weapons in the world which served various purposes. Some were for attacking and others for defending. Some were good only after years of practice and could be used for several other functions.


    Although most were used for attacking and defensive purposes, this particular celestial device, which could render a person invisible and conceal their spirit, was relatively more precious.


    With the Tihu Incense still burning, more and more evil beasts and spiritual creatures gathered around. These beasts and creatures were certainly not here for a meeting. Every kind of evil beast and spiritual creatures had its own home turf, and they had a strong sense of territorial rights, so very soon they were pitting themselves against each other. Flashes and howling filled the air as the creatures went to war. Within a couple of minutes, half of the evil beasts and spiritual creatures were dead, and a large number of them had fled. Only a dozen stronger evil beasts were left still confronting each other.


    "What do these guys want? Are they here merely to watch the show?"


    Zhou Bao was perplexed and suddenly, something strange happened.


    The smooth surface of the cliff quivered, giving forth a ripple effect and at the same time emitted a powerful suction force which sucked in all the evil beasts whose combat capability was from Level Eight to Level Nine.


    "Now¡ª¡ª"


    Zhang Yunhao and the other two, who were in hiding, jumped out behind the rock, glowing in a swathe of red light.


    "Let''s go for it!" Zhang Yunhao shouted. The golden light which radiated from them beamed down on the cliff. The cliff had already settled back into place after it had sucked in all the evil beasts, yet when the golden light shone upon it, it started to quiver again.


    Zhou Bao''s eyes were saturated with the heat of the golden light. A sense of greed and desire filled his heart and he wanted to rush out to the site.


    "What is happening? Why am I feeling this kind of impulse?" Zhou Bao said to himself, puzzled.


    "It''s the Golden Book of Fate. Sh*it! Why are these three guys bringing the Golden Book of Fate? Aren''t they afraid it will be stolen by others?" Green Spirit''s spirit jumped, "No, no. How can they control the Golden Book of Fate? With their cultivation, it''s not even possible for them to get close to the Golden Book of Fate!"


    "Hey, take a look at it! Is that really the Golden Book of Fate?"


    Zhou Bao was initially surprised and then when he heard the words of Green Spirit, he felt puzzled, "How were they able to bring the Golden Book of Fate to Taiyuan Heaven?"


    "No, this is not the Golden Book of Fate. It''s just an image of it. I know what they are planning to do. Oh, I know. Divine Wind Palace has come up with a very good plan!" Green Spirit had figured it out and couldn''t help heaping praises on it.


    "What have you figured out? What on earth do they want to do?" asked Zhou Bao.


    "They want to gain control of the whole Taiyuan Heaven. Hehe, what they have is only the image of the Golden Book of Fate, whose power is less than ten thousandth of the real Golden Book of Fate. But for using it against Taiyuan Heaven, it''s enough!" Green Spirit giggled and said, "Kid, the best part of the show is yet to come. We''ll see."


    "What show?" Zhou Bao watched the golden light reflection shining on the cliffs and it looked like it had been transformed into a swirling pool of water. The three people who were standing in front of the cliff, together with the golden light radiating from their foreheads had summoned up an image of a book before them.


    The book was illustrated with millions of illegible talismans sparkling from within it. Writings from antiquity times were glowing vividly as if they were showing the essence of the evolution of the world. Zhou Bao was obsessed by it, and the desire pervading his nerves.


    If Green Spirit had not sounded out a warning, Zhou Bao''s desire would have overcome his judgment.


    "Kid, stay calm. Even if you go and grab it, it''s of no use. Hehe, although the power of the projection is no match for the real Golden Book of Fate, it''s still enough to defeat you!"


    "Shut up, what do you think they are really up to?"


    "I said that they wanted to gain control of the entire Taiyuan Heaven. This Golden Book of Fate will be used to evolve the trails of the Great Ways in Taiyuan Heaven. If I am not wrong, this cliff is the passageway leading toward the center of the entire Taiyuan Heaven!"


    "What is that powerful force that sucked in all the beasts?"


    "Of course it''s the Primeval Beast!" Green Spirit giggled, "They really wanted to find out where the center of Taiyuan Heaven is. As long as they control Taiyuan Heaven and combine the Great Ways with it, then Taiyuan Heaven will become a complete world and the owner of this Golden Book of Fate will be the owner of Taiyuan Heaven too. Everything in it will be available to them and at their command. Thus Divine Wind Palace will be No. 1 in the world. There will be no one who can defeat them in the Seven-deity Regions!"


    "Is it really that serious?"


    "Just think about it!" Green Spirit said casually, "The great emperors of the antiquity times who possessed 33 Heavens also had thoughts about it. However, although the Golden Book of Fate had no particular owner, no one had the power to create a copy of it. Therefore, someone had come up with an astute way to create the Azure Secret Area to combine the primitive powers from before which gave birth to an entirely new world of tricks. But it is different now. Now that Divine Wind Palace has control of the Golden Book of Fate, it''s no surprise that they have this idea. Yet it''s extremely difficult to make it. They need to infuse the image of the Golden Book of fate into the center of the micro world. Even though each micro world is guarded by a giant beast, they are not similar to the evil beasts outside. They were bred and appeared at the same time within the 33 Heavens, just like the Primordial Divine Demons. Their power is stronger than Human Immortals who gather the Three Kinds of Flowers and the Five Kinds of Qi. It''s impossible to defeat them!"


    "If it''s so strong, aren''t they risking their lives going after it?"


    "Risking their lives? It''s hard to say!" Green Spirit thought for a while and said, "I don''t know what is going on, but I can assure you that the Primeval Beast of Taiyuan Heaven must have been badly injured, and has lost most of his power. Otherwise, the projection of the Golden Book of Fate would not be able to defeat it."


    "Only through the infusion of the Golden Book of Fate into the center of Taiyuan Heaven and taking control of this Primeval Beast will enable it to have control of the entire Taiyuan Heaven!" Zhou Bao had chilling thoughts about it, "Divine Wind Palace really has some excellent ideas!"


    "The scariest part is that they are able to make those ideas come to life. This idea is by far the best since the antiquity times, and it''s been proven true by those necromancers for countless times. If it were not for the inability to project the image of the Golden Book of Fate, someone would have succeeded a long time ago!"


    "Then what should I do now?" Zhou Bao asked. Divine Wind Palace was his biggest threat, so there was no way he could just stand and watch their plan hatch successfully, nor would he allow it to become stronger and rule over the world.


    "Don''t worry. Haste makes waste!" Green Spirit whispered, "Though this plan has been exercised by the necromancers over and over again, no one had ever succeeded. It''s not an easy task. Even if the Primeval Beast was injured, it is still difficult to deal with it. And even though they are relying on the power of the projection of the Golden Book of Fate, it''s not sufficient for these three guys to create all this, and they need to have at least one fairy weapon with them!"


    "Fairy weapon?" Zhou Bao said coldly, "No way! Do they have the fairy weapon?"


    "Of course, or how else are they able to conquer the Primeval Beast?" Green Spirit''s voice had a trace of a sneer when he said, "These guys didn''t even attain the Individual Immortal Karma Rank, and it''s not possible for them to conquer the Primeval Beast even if it was injured. Without the fairy weapon, the Primeval Beast is able to make anyone who sets foot in Taiyuan Heaven disappear totally without any trace with only one blow, and that includes you!"


    "That''s really none of my business!" Zhou Bao was unhappy when he heard what Green Spirit said.


    "You''d better have nothing to do with this matter. These fellows from Divine Wind Palace are really courageous. With the fairy weapon, these experts at Level Eight or Level Nine want to defeat the Primitive Beast, they must be kidding!" Green Spirit grinned, "Kid, we''ll see!"


    Green Spirit stalled him so he could see what was going to happen next, and not rush to attack first. He restrained himself, masking his desire and stared viciously at the three guys.


    At this moment, the golden light on their foreheads disappeared. The golden book was floating about 30 or 40 feet away in the air and was emitting glorious rays of golden light, which were shining directly at the cliff. The cliff was undulating. Zhang Yunhao and his guys looked hesitantly at each other, and at last, he strode over to the cliff.


    With one step, he vanished into the cliff wall, and Emissary Chang and the other guy were left behind, looking around vigilantly.


    "They are setting up the formation!" Watching their movements, Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows in shock, "They mean it. They are really using the Pure Yang Celestial Device to set the Formation Eye!"


    Two people pulled out some triangular flags, which were embroidered with clouds, dragons, tigers and all kinds of rare treasures, with a total of 49 flags. They were glowing, and people could tell that the flags were celestial devices at the Mysterious Level when they saw them. The little cyan flag in the middle, used as Formation Eye, was a Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    "So I am letting you stay here and don''t go walking around. This time, Divine Wind Palace has drawn up a big plan. These three people are not to be messed with. I advise you to stay here and see what will happen next!" The psywave of Green Spirit showed a sense of vigilance.


    Looking at the small cyan flag in the middle of the formation, Zhou Bao was secretly glad that he had not rushed out. Otherwise, even this trivial cyan flag will be able to defeat him, let alone their fairy weapon.


    However, just because he did not go did not mean that no one else did.


    When the formation was about to be completed, a silvery light flashed suddenly toward Emissary Chang, who was setting the formation.


    "Who dares to impede Divine Wind Palace?" Seeing this silvery light, the facial expression of Emissary Chang changed all of a sudden. His golden Gang Qi sparkled, as he tried to avoid that silvery light.


    But as they were well-prepared prior to their arrival, how could he get away so easily?


    The silvery light flashed before Emissary Chang, appearing as a giant silvery claw and violently capping him.


    "The Star River Essential Qi? Is that Ye Qingtian?"


    The freezing cold star force coagulated, and the force from the familiar waves made the corners of Zhou Bao''s mouth tremble.


    The person was Ye Qingtian, and when he started to attack, he would strike Emissary Chang to death.


    Emissary Chang was an expert at Level Eight, one of the best among them, and his combat capability had already surpassed Level Nine. However, he was quite defenseless against Ye Qingtian, who was as close to being a Metaphysic Individual Immortal. Yet the golden-robed man merely raised his hand, pulled up the cyan flag on the ground and waved it.


    A cyan cloud appeared and battled the giant silvery claw, enabling Emissary Chang to escape.


    "The Star River Essential Qi, are you Ye Qingtian? How dare you rebel against Divine Wind Palace?"


    Ye Qingtian was a well-known expert in the Penglai Region, so Divine Wind Palace, located in the Penglai Region, was quite familiar with his skills.


    "I don''t have time to talk!" Ye Qingtian sneered. He flew toward Emissary Chang, turned his claw into a sword that pulsed with the Sword Qi. "I want to see how long this small flag can protect you. The Star River Divine Way Sword!"


    The silvery Sword Qi flew through the sky and sliced through the cyan cloud which had been transformed by the cyan flag.


    Phew¡ª¡ª


    The Sword Qi sliced through the cloud like slicing through cotton, and the sword light together with the cyan light of the cloud faded away. "Try another move!" Ye Qingtian cried and emitted another Sword Qi.


    "Ye Qingtian, don''t be too arrogant!" Emissary Chang yelled. Though he knew he was no match for Ye Qingtian, he had almost completed the formation, with only a trivial setting left. It was too soon to activate it, though, it was the best thing he could use to handle such an emergency.


    As he shouted and raised his hand, a golden light hit the surrounding flags, and a cyan mist appeared out of the blues, shrouding the surrounding area within a thousand feet. Emissary Chang and the gold-robed guy faded away into the fog, leaving no traces behind.


    The fog was billowing away. The glimmering evil beasts rushed at Ye Qingtian with a gigantic momentum.


    "The Hundred-spirit Banner Formation. What a cheap trick!" Facing the spirits of the evil beasts, Ye Qingtian showed no hint of fear. The galaxy of stars around him sparkled and the Star River Essential Qi was turned into a myriad of tiny star needles shooting at the spirits of the beasts and tore them apart.


    "Do you think you can trap me with this little formation?" After scattering the spirits, Ye Qingtian twisted his body, and the Star River Essential Qi was transformed into a silvery stream similar to a silver dragon roaring in the fog. The special force field made of fog was gradually being torn asunder by the furious movements made by the silver stream.


    "The Internal Qi of Ye Qingtian is very strong. He has merely opened up three acupoints. The last time you met him, he did not use all of his power at once!"


    "Humph, he underestimated me last time!" Zhou Bao smiled, "But now, even if he doesn''t underestimate me again, I won''t bother too much about him!"


    "Of course. Your muscles and bones, tendons and meridians, and Internal Qi have been strengthened by the Divine Qi, your power has increased, and you even grabbed his Sky-measuring Star Ruler. You don''t have to be afraid of him. Not unless he uses the fairy weapon... "


    "Oh, as you said, it is the fairy weapon. How will he be able to activate it?" Zhou Bao sniffed sarcastically with his eyes.


    "Whether he is able to activate it or not, he is still your biggest enemy. See, he is about to break up the formation!"


    "This formation is not complete yet, so it''s not surprising that he is able to break it!" Though the Hundred-spirit Banner Formation was magical, Zhou Bao did not take it seriously, because he had already mastered the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. The power of this formation came from the souls of the beasts and demons which had been sealed on 49 flags and because it had not been set properly, it was not hard to break it up. Ye Qingtian had found the loopholes of the formation and was able to break up the Formation Eye with his powerful Internal Qi.


    Bang!


    With a loud noise, except the cyan flag that was used as the Formation Eye and held by the gold-robed guy, the other 48 flags were knocked off by a huge force.


    The fog dispersed and the formation was broken up. With the silvery stripe twining around him, Ye Qingtian looked like a god standing there.


    "Oh, so this is Divine Wind Palace."


    Ye Qingtian pointed at the two people, and the huge stripe rushed toward them.


    The golden-robed man dared not defend himself, so he waved the cyan flag. A number of cyan clouds appeared and shielded them from powerful impact of the Star River Essential Qi.


    Ye Qingtian did not seem to want to defeat them immediately. He sneered and looked at them. All of a sudden, he glanced at the golden book in the air, and scolded,"Do it now!"


    Hearing his voice, two red lights suddenly flickered from nowhere, broke through the rays of the golden book and hit it directly.


    "This is¡ª"


    As careful as he was, Zhou Bao went cold and started to tremble.


    It was the Fiery Eyes. It was the power of the Fiery Eyes!


    When the two red lights appeared, a blood light rushed before his eyes. In that mysterious space, a floating giant eyeball made its move. At that moment, the power of the Fiery Eyes was activated, and the black lines on the eyeball began to spin. Numerous streams of the magical force rushed out quickly and merged as if they were finally reuniting with their families.


    "Sh*t, get back here!" Zhou Bao was astonished and shouted aloud in his mind. He suddenly bit his tongue, and his essence and blood spurted out. Acute pain penetrated his brain and he forcibly tried to stay awake. At the same time, he activated his Internal Qi, which was spinning crazily, and directed the power to his eyes using the Demonic Fire''s tremendous power.


    Although the power of the Fiery Eyes was magical, Zhou Bao had always been very careful all these years, and he purposely didn''t explore or try to develop it further. That was why it was still weak. Yet the Demonic Fire of Zhou Bao was very strong, he also opened nine acupoints and had been strengthened by the power of the Divine Qi. It was obvious who would be the winner. The power of the Fiery Eyes was repressed by Zhou Bao, and the floating eyeball in the mysterious space flickered and then faded away with a whisper.


    The red light below his eyes dissipated, and the black lines around the eyeball also faded away. The spilled power was forcibly sucked back into the Fiery Eyes. Zhou Bao''s eyes cleared in the blink of an eye.


    The power of the Fiery Eyes was completely suppressed.


    "It''s not time yet!" Zhou Bao sighed as if the message from the eyeball was meant for him as well.


    Looking at the field, with the arrival of two red lights, the golden book started quivering. Meanwhile, a weird but familiar power surged through the area.

 Chapter 341: The Gathering of All Parties & Fairy Weapons Appear

    Chapter 341: The Gathering of All Parties & Fairy Weapons Appear


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Strange and mysterious spirits pervaded everywhere. Zhou Bao had to operate his Demonic Fire Internal Qi to repeatedly suppress the commotion of his Fiery Eyes.


    "Are these the Fiery Eyes? Damn it! How could this be? Why is the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes tribe still in the world?" Emissary Chang looked awful. They were completely suppressed by Ye Qingtian and struggled under the cyan flag''s protection. Thus they had no time to take the Golden Book of Fate''s shadow into account. In fact, they did not plan to.


    The Golden Book of Fate''s shadow possessed the functions of the Golden Book of Fate, and only those who received permission could control it. Even a Level Eight or Level Nine expert, a Genuine Immortal or a Human Immortal could not pose a threat to the shadow, but they all forgot something.


    The Fiery Eyes!


    They were aware that the Fiery Eyes would create some wonderful reactions when meeting the Golden Book of Fate. But the real descendants of the Fiery Eyes tribe had disappeared thousands of years ago. Therefore, many people believed that they had gone extinct. Moreover, they hadn''t expected that a descendant of the Fiery Eyes tribe would appear in Taiyuan Heaven.


    Taiyuan Heaven would only open every 1,000 years. People who entered it represented the interests of different forces. Therefore, every force would carefully select the people to enter Taiyuan Heaven. They would not want to be involved with the Fiery Eyes tribe, a taboo bloodline.


    That was why the Divine Wind Palace rested assured and was arrogant.


    This time, however, they came across an unexpected and impossible thing.


    A man with the Fiery Eyes bloodline entered Taiyuan Heaven at the critical time when the Divine Wind Palace was conducting their plan. He wanted the Golden Book of Fate''s shadow.


    "Ye Qingtian, how dare you to collude with the descendant of the Fiery Eyes tribe. Aren''t you afraid of being attacked by everyone?"


    "Hmpf. Everyone? I''m afraid it will be your Divine Wind Palace! If I kill you three here today, who else will know about it?" Ye Qingtian said coldly with strong killing intent. Since he had attacked, he would not leave them any chance to go back alive. Otherwise, they would bring troubles to him!


    "Don''t think the Blue Waves Vast Ocean Flag can protect you!" Streaks of starlight pounded on the protective clouds made by the Blue Waves Vast Ocean Flag. The flag was radiant with cyan color earlier, but now it was dim and tottering.


    "It''s just a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Do you think it can stop me?" Ye Qingtian shouted loudly. The Internal Qi was surging around his body. Overwhelming power was released from his body and the silver streaks encircled him. The silver wave surged forward and the silver airflow formed a giant vortex. It condensed around him. An infinite pneuma in Taiyuan Heaven converged and encircled him as well.


    "This seems like the legendary Big Dipper Magical Punch!"


    Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes and smiled as he saw this scene.


    Big Dipper Magical Punch! This was Big Dipper Magical Punch! He had destroyed it forcefully when fighting with Ye Qingtian.


    However, there was only one Zhou Bao in the world and only he had comprehended his fist intent thoroughly before the Mysterious Realm. He was a genius but also a freak. No one could possess such a powerful fist intent that simulated the universe like him. His fist intent completely controlled Ye Qingtian''s Big Dipper Magical Punch!


    No matter if it was Emissary Chang or the golden-clad, tough man, none of them were able to do that.


    Compared to several months ago when he fought against Zhou Bao, Ye Qingtian''s fist intent became several times compacter, and his Big Dipper Magical Punch became more powerful.


    "How can this guy make such a great progress within several months?"


    "He''s the same as you and has great luck too. Maybe he had some lucky chances after suffering from the frustration that you gave him the last time. Moreover, he''s more composed now. It seems that he has benefited from the lesson you taught him."


    "Really? Is there such a good thing?!" Zhou Bao harbored another idea in his mind. "I should have been more ruthless."


    "Don''t flatter yourself. He was pushed to a dead end by you and escaped by tearing apart space with his fairy weapon in the last minute. Even if you are strong enough, you''re courting death when encountering a fairy weapon!"


    "That''s true. But I never expected that he could recover so quickly and was related to the Fiery Eyes!"


    "What a surprise!" Green Spirit sighed gently. Even though he had some intentions about the trip to Taiyuan Heaven this time, he never expected to encounter something like this.


    Boom!


    Ye Qingtian''s Big Dipper Magical Punch fiercely hit on the Blue Waves Vast Ocean Flag. The Big Dipper Magical Punch condensed all the star force''s pneuma into a tiny point and then suddenly exploded.


    Although the Blue Waves Vast Ocean Flag was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it could not withstand such a fierce strike. It offset most of the fist power. After that, the cyan clouds on it dissipated and it turned into a dim flag. The golden-clad, tough man grasped it with his hands.


    However, it only offset a part of the Big Dipper Magical Punch''s power. The remnant power surged toward Emissary Chang and the golden-clad man.


    There was a wide strength gap between the two parts. Though it was just a smaller part of the fist force, the two could not take it. They both made muffled snorts, sprayed out blood from their mouths, and were sent flying by the force. Under the impact, the golden-clad man could not hold the Blue Waves Vast Ocean Flag tightly anymore. His hand opened and the flag flew aimlessly through the air.


    "Haha. It''s really a good thing!" Forthright laughter came to people''s ears. A figure flashed away and grasped the Blue Waves Vast Ocean Flag.


    This brute was Lei whose voice was resonant. Zhou Bao had met him on the Blue Whale Island.


    Lei spat a mouthful of essence blood at the flag without a second thought. There was black Qi in the essence blood. Once it touched the flag, the newly-arising cyan light on the flag was suppressed by it.


    After that, he wiped the flag on his clothes, laughing, and put the flag in his bosom.


    Looking up, he saw Ye Qingtian. He then laughed and said, "You''re busy so I won''t disturb you. I''m here to be an onlooker and enjoy the bustling scene!"


    "Enjoy the bustling scene?" Ye Qingtian''s expression slightly changed. He clenched his fists and starlight shone around him. "What kind of bustling scene?"


    "Don''t intimidate me. It''s useless. I admit that you''re a little more powerful than me. However, you''ve exhausted a lot of energy in the fight just now. If we fight seriously, no one knows who will be the winner. This is your humans'' business. We''re just here to be onlookers and take some advantages of you. We won''t help either of you. However, if you push us into a corner, we may help these bastards from the Divine Wind Palace. Hey, guys. Am I right?"


    Another two members of the Demon tribe who followed Lei showed up and looked at him enviously. After hearing his words, they nodded in agreement. They stepped behind him and looked at Ye Qingtian cautiously and defensively.


    "It''s merely a Pure Yang Celestial Device. I don''t value it!" Ye Qingtian laughed coldly. He was wise enough to choose to concede and stood still in the air as he glanced at the two rays of red light, which shot out from the void.


    These two red rays broke the golden light of the Golden Book of Fate''shadow and hit it directly. They tried to melt it as if they were sunlight that shed on glaciers. Though it had some effects, it was not enough.


    The Golden Book of Fate began to melt very slowly.


    "Oh, my god. The Fiery Eyes really can control the Golden Book of Fate!"


    After a while, Green Spirit''s psywave passed to Zhou Bao. He was very surprised and said, "His Fiery Eyes are powerful, however, he doesn''t know the real method to control the Golden Book of Fate. He can only take tough measures to destroy the influences that the Golden Book of Fate exerted on its shadow one by one. It needs a long time."


    "I wonder what he''s doing?" Zhou Bao felt strange after watching for a while.


    "He''s wiping off the imprint, which the Golden Book of Fate left on its shadow, by using the Fiery Eyes'' power. And then he brands his imprint on it. In this way, he can control the shadow completely!"


    "What benefit can he get by controlling its shadow?" Zhou Bao was still confused.


    "You''re an idiot!" Green Spirit scolded him, "The Golden Book of Fate is the Great Way Embodiment. The shadow is the same. However, the shadow is less powerful. You should know that the sparrow may be small but all its vital organs are there. It''s the same with the shadow. Because it''s small, it''s easy to control. After controlling it, he can benefit considerably when comprehending the mysteries of the Great Way of Heaven and Earth. His comprehension will be leveled up very quickly. Moreover, with the suppression of the shadow, he doesn''t need to worry about his foundation. You can display a combat capability that is equal to that of ordinary Metaphysic Individual Immortals when you''re at Level Eight. If he controls the shadow, after comprehending for a period of time, his strength and comprehension will go beyond that of Genuine Immortals and even Human Immortals, even though he''s at Level Nine. Besides, his combat capability will increase sharply. In the future, he doesn''t need to worry about barriers in the cultivation. If he has enough pneuma, he can break through to Metaphysic Realm, Genuine Immortal phase, and even Human Immortal phase. He can even take advantage of the Thunder Tribulation to upgrade his cultivation according to the Great Way of Heaven and Earth when passing through it. Are these benefits?"


    "There are such good things?!" Zhou Bao suddenly became greedy. "If I can get it...!"


    "You can get the same benefits as him. However, the power of your Fiery Eyes haven''t been exploited yet and thus you cannot apply it. Otherwise, you could have a try!"


    "I''d better not. If I get the shadow, I''ll be too conspicuous. Since there''s someone who has stood out, I''d better do him a favor."


    "Do him a favor?!" Green Spirit was confounded. "You mean...!"


    "Anyhow, he possesses Fiery Eyes like me. We''re destined allies just like Wang She and me. Although the promotion of his cultivation may do no good to me, it should do no bad to me either. The more powerful he is, the more attention he can attract, and the safer I''ll be!" Zhou Bao said.


    "Mm. Not bad. Kid, you finally become judicious. But you don''t need to help him now. With the help of Ye Qingtian, he can maintain it for some time. Besides, he may have other helpers."


    "Of course. Three men are allowed to enter Taiyuan Heaven with one Taiyuan Token. Including Ye Qingtian, there are only two men. Fortunately, I haven''t stolen Ye Qingtian''s Taiyuan Token the last time. Otherwise, I wouldn''t have the chance to see this scene."


    "If you would have done so, you would have fought each other with Fiery Eyes!" They both smiled and observed the situation secretly from the dark.


    An hour had passed. The red light was still melting the Golden Book of Fate. No one had received any information, voice, or image from Zhang Yunhao, who was on the steep cliff. No one could figure out whether he knew what had happened outside. Even if he did, he could not divert his attention. The Primeval Beast there was difficult to handle. Even though he had fairy weapons, he was not absolutely sure about it.


    Emissary Chang and the golden-clad man were sent flying dozens of miles by Ye Qingtian. They fell on top of a floating mountain and recovered a little bit of strength within an hour. But they were unable to pose a threat to Ye Qingtian after losing the Blue Waves Vast Ocean Flag''s protection. When they wanted to leave, they were stared at by Ye Qingtian. The cold killing intent pervaded the air, leaving them unable to breathe. They could only stand still at where they were.


    The nearby, evil beasts and supernatural animals were quite intelligent and nimble. They were frightened by Ye Qingtian''s punch just now.


    Big Dipper Magical Punch absorbed the essence of the world. Thus, creatures with a strong spiritual mind immediately understood that there was an extremely powerful human being here. They dared not to provoke him. So, they stayed away from him and dared not come near.


    At this moment, many figures flashed through the sky and hurried over.


    "Someone is coming!" When seeing this, Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes, while Ye Qingtian frowned his eyebrows.


    But he was not that anxious. One hour was sufficient for him to recover the pneuma that he had exhausted just now.


    There was no Mysterious Realm expert in Taiyuan Heaven. So, naturally, he was not afraid of those people who were at the peak of Level Nine or Demi-Mysterious Realm.


    He was only afraid of Zhou Bao. When thinking of him, he became alert. But no one''s spirit matched Zhou Bao''s among those approaching figures, so he gradually rested assured.


    "They were so vulnerable!"


    "Haha. It seems like there''s really no idiot in the world!" Green Spirit grinned sarcastically.


    "Hmpf. Men die for wealth, as birds for food. Zhang Yunhao called me when entering Taiyuan Heaven. Any wise man knows he wants to change Taiyuan Token with me. It means that there must be good things in my area. Even people from Divine Wind Palace were anxious about it. I assume it''s uncommon. Those approaching figures surely want to have a look. They must be very tired in order to hide. But now, they missed the highlight."


    "Not necessarily. The highlight is just beginning!" Green Spirit said.


    "The more people there are, the more favorable the situation is. I can make a profit in the troubled situation!" Zhou Bao lowered his body gently. His spirit was so clear that his body was like a stone. "I''m wondering whether Wang She comes here or is already nearby. Ye Qingtian had made such a big stir, he must have felt it. He has practiced his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to the acme of perfection. No one would notice him even if he''s here."


    Zhou Bao was guessing whether Wang She and Mo Yinyang would come. At the same time, Emissary Chang and another golden-robed man were overjoyed when they saw someone coming.


    Seeing acquaintances, Emissary Chang exclaimed, "Senior Brother Kong, Ye Qingtian colludes with the descendant of Fiery Eyes tribe and harbors sinister plots. He not only wants to harm the Lord but also tries to steal the copy of the Golden Book of Fate. Hurry up! Please stop him!"


    "What?!"


    Senior Brother Kong looked like 30 plus years old. But his eyes were filled with a sense of vicissitudes. He was much older than his appearance made him look like. When he had heard Emissary Chang''s words, his expression changed sharply, and he glanced at Ye Qingtian. When he saw the two red rays in the void and the Golden Book of Fate''s shadow, he suddenly looked terrible.


    "Damn it! What does the Divine Wind Palace want to do?" He swore in a low voice and turned back. "Great Dark Lord Du and Master Mandkesvara, no matter what kind of grievance we have, it''s inappropriate to handle it now. The bloodline of the Fiery Eyes tribe reappeared. It''s very significant. We''d better join hands to deal with it. What do you think?"


    "Amitabha. Sadhu, sadhu!" Happy Monk devoutly put his palms together and affectedly read a Buddhist name. He looked at Emissary Chang unfriendly and winked at Great Dark Lord Du. The latter nodded without anyone noticing it, and they both rushed toward Ye Qingtian first.


    "Suppressing devils is the righteous cause of Buddhism. All living creatures must be in utter misery since the devil of the Fiery Eyes tribe appeared. We must join hands to eliminate him."


    Happy Monk exclaimed as he rushed forward. A Buddhist halo shone around him and made him look like the incarnation of a true enlightened monk.


    What happened next really surprised Zhou Bao. Experts coming from far away followed Great Dark Lord Du and Happy Monk, rushing toward Ye Qingtian without a doubt.


    Li Xiu and another three to four younger experts hesitated for a while. But finally, they followed them as well.


    All of a sudden, Sword Qi, Gang Qi, sabers, fists, and palms mixed together, raging toward Ye Qingtian.


    Although Ye Qingtian was really powerful, he had to retreat when facing the joint attack of dozens of experts. He flashed like starlight and rushed into the crowd.


    These experts were not bad. Those who were qualified to enter Taiyuan Heaven were elites. They were entrusted with an important position by different forces. None of them were ordinary. When they saw that Ye Qingtian turned into silver light and rushed toward them, they all scattered orderly. They knew they could not withstand his attack. Though they did not know each other, they were so powerful that they knew when to advance and retreat when coordinating with strangers.


    Ye Qingtian was not ordinary either. He rushed into the array and found a target. Then he directly hit Happy Monk with his palm.


    "How dare you cause trouble to me?!" Happy Monk''s expression changed when he saw that the Starlight Palm was going to hit him. As angry as he was, he didn''t dare to underestimate it. He shouted in a low voice and operated his Internal Qi. A dark golden ray shot out from his head and turned into a smiling, dark golden Buddha. It made gestures and hit on the Starlight Palm.


    Boom!


    The great force of the Starlight Palm destroyed the Buddha completely. However, the Starlight Palm turned into scattered starlight and encircled Ye Qingtian.


    Ptui!


    Happy Monk spat a mouthful of blood out and exclaimed, "Freak. He''s a freak. He has opened at least three acupoints. You should be careful, Great Dark Lord Du!" While speaking, he fell on the mountain peak as if he was severely injured.


    "What a crafty, bald ass!" Great Dark Lord Du scolded Happy Monk secretly, but his action did not slow down. He rushed toward the starlight. "Ye Qingtian, since you''ve colluded with the descendant of the Fiery Eyes tribe, you won''t have a happy ending!"


    Ye Qingtian just snorted. The starlight around him turned into a giant palm again and fiercely hit toward Great Dark Lord Du. At that moment, those separated experts gathered again and displayed all kinds of magic arts on Ye Qingtian.


    "What a cheap trick!" Ye Qingtian shook his body and another starlight palm was formed surrounding him, bearing down on these experts.


    Boom, boom!


    It sounded as if it was thundering in the sky or two nuclear bombs were exploding in the air.


    Suddenly, two mushroom-shaped clouds sprang up into the sky.


    "What a powerful man! Ye Qingtian, we''ll wait and see. You hurt us today and there will be someone who revenges us!" Great Dark Lord Du wailed bitterly. He took his two subordinates to fly out from one of the mushroom-shaped clouds and landed on the mountain peak that Happy Monk was standing on.


    The three were scorched and staggered as if they were severely injured.


    The conditions of the experts who followed the three was the same. It seemed that Ye Qingtian''s strength had far surpassed that of Metaphysic Individual Immortals. Dozens of experts at Level Eight or Level Nine fled in utter confusion by his attack. Li Xiu could not figure out what had happened at the beginning. But Golden Rooster pulled him aside and pinched his waist with great force.


    "Ouch!" He felt the pain and let out an earth-shaking scream. Meanwhile, he was dragged out of the battle field by Golden Rooster and landed on a distant peak.


    When everything vanished, only Ye Qingtian and another four people were left in the air. They were inextricably linked with the Divine Wind Palace, or we could say that they were staunch supporters of it. They were severely injured. However, they supported themselves laboriously. They either operated Gang Qi or took out their magic weapons to confront Ye Qingtian.


    Ye Qingtian''s face was somewhat pale. The two palms he had displayed just now exhausted much of his pneuma. However, he had opened many acupoints. His Internal Qi was profound and dense. Therefore, it was easy for him to regain the pneuma he had exhausted.


    "Only you four left now. Are you going to stop me?" Ye Qingtian laughed coldly. He glanced at them and then shifted his focus on the shadow of Golden Book of Fate.


    At this moment, half of the Golden Book of Fate''s shadow had melted. The golden light that it emitted became weaker, and the cliff became quiet as well. After the golden light vanished completely, the passageway on the cliff would disappear too. No matter how powerful Zhang Yunhao was, he could not come out alive even with fairy weapons.


    "Ye Qingtian, are you crazy? Why would you collude with the descendant of the Fiery Eyes tribe and leave yourself no road of retreat?" The countenance of these four people''s leader was cold. He held two golden bangles in his hands, which emitted extraordinary light. Everybody would know at first sight that it was an extremely powerful celestial device.


    Ye Qingtian ignored him and put his hands behind his back. "Stay there obediently. Otherwise, I''ll kill you!"


    "You...!"


    The one who held the golden bangles moved his hands and stared at Ye Qingtian maliciously. But in the end, he did not take action. "Fine. Ye Qingtian, you''d better remember that you''ve humiliated me, Hai Hanyun, today. I surely will humiliate you twofold!"


    Ye Qingtian raised his eyebrows. "Don''t stay there any longer if you don''t take any action. If you mess up my thing, I''ll kill you too!"


    "Hmpf!" Hai Hanyun stared at him bitterly. He put down the two bangles and said to the two men behind him, "Let''s go!"


    "Hai Hanyun, you can''t leave like this. He colluded with the descendant of the Fiery Eyes tribe. It''s an earth-shaking event. He is meant to be the enemy of the whole world. You mustn''t get cold feet and let him succeed even if you die. Ouch...!"


    Before the man finished speaking, a silver Sword Qi shot out and shattered his head directly.


    Star River Divine Way Sword!


    "Noisy!"


    After killing the man with only a single move, Ye Qingtian twitched his mouth and stared at Hai Hanyun. Hai Hanyun was frightened by him. He didn''t dare to speak anymore and landed on the peak with his two subordinates.


    "You, you...!" Seeing this situation, the golden-robed man and Emissary Chang became furious. However, they were severely injured and had no choice left. They could only watch experts from different parties with evil intent.


    "It seems that the so-called orthodox strength that was made of different forces did not work together!"


    "You human beings have never been of one mind!" Green Spirit seemed to think of something. He grinned and said, "It''s a good thing for you!"


    "Of course. But I should observe further and figure out what kind of benefits it can bring me!" Zhou Bao nodded in agreement.


    Without other''s interference, Ye Qingtian became slightly relieved. With his strength, his chances of winning were low when he encountered so many experts at a time. Let alone there were several experts who had reached Demi-Mysterious Realm.


    The two red rays became more radiant. However, the golden light of the Golden Book of Fate''s shadow became weaker. As the golden light was about to disappear and the lofty cliff was going to recover, a scattered light suddenly emitted out from the cliff and hit the two red rays directly.


    The red light suddenly became weak. Then, an overwhelming spirit shot out from the cliff and swept across all directions.


    "Fairy weapons, this is the power of fairy weapons!" Green Spirit''s psywave throbbed violently.


    ..

 Chapter 342: Taihai Sage and the North Pole Frozen Wheel

    Chapter 342: Taihai Sage and the North Pole Frozen Wheel


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    ...


    ¡­


    The fairy weapon!


    Zhou Bao had seen the fairy weapons, and he actually had one¡ªthat Red Gourd. Green Spirit said it was a Fairy Weapon of the Way of Killing, which was a level higher than the general Taihao Fairy Weapon, so it was known as a Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    It was a pity that his cultivation was so low because there was no way for him to control a fairy weapon at that level. All he could do was put it in his Space of Segmented Realms.


    Aside from the Red Gourd, he had also seen, or to be more precise, felt the fairy weapon of Ye Qingtian.


    However, Ye Qingtian also did not have the cultivation required to activate that fairy weapon, but he was closer than Zhou Bao. When he was in danger, his fairy weapon would automatically protect its master, which explained how he had managed to escape from Zhou Bao''s punch.


    Those were the two fairy weapons that Zhou Bao had in mind. Due to multiple reasons, he failed to figure out where the real power of this fairy weapon lay. But now, he had seen it and he knew it well.


    He realized how powerful fairy weapons could be.


    And compared to them, Pure Yang Celestial Devices were nothing.


    The raging power swept out of the precipice, smashing all the floating peaks within the vicinity of 100 miles.


    Apparently, dozens of experts who were looking on from the side had not expected that. Every one of them was badly injured by this enormous power. Those with low cultivations were immediately evaporated into a fog of blood.


    Their dreary cries and screams haunted this area of 100 miles. The floating peaks were immersed in abundant spiritual qi, for there were many evil beasts and spiritual creatures there. However, confronted with the fairy weapon, only a small portion of the evil beasts and spiritual creatures survived, including those who had strong power and whose combat capability and defensive power was equal to a Level Nine human''s cultivation or had even reached the Mysterious Realm. The rest of them were all turned into a mist of blood.


    Even Zhou Bao could hardly survive this tremendously destructive power.


    He could barely activate his Gang Qi and Poison Cold Shield when the enormous power came to him, and then he was knocked into the air.


    "Damn, this is crazy!" Zhou Bao suddenly felt himself being ripped by a huge force and was hanging upside down in mid-air with every part of his body seriously hurting. His Gang Qi was smashed and the Poison Cold Shield was severely damaged. Yet the main body, the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, had retreated back to his Dantian and never wanted to come out again.


    At least half of his bones were shattered and the other half were starting to crack. He was struck and flying upside down just like a cloth sack.


    Compared to the others, he had been lucky to not lose consciousness, which was because he was among the top experts here. Although the other people had one or two Celestial Devices, and some even possessed extremely precious defensive Celestial Devices, and all had mastered a strong Gang Qi to protect themselves, they had not been so lucky. All of them literally lost consciousness the moment that they had gotten hit by the fairy weapon. Even if they were not killed, they were passed out for a while.


    And if not for the incredible healing ability of the Level Eight and Level Nine experts, they would have died after passing out even if they did not die immediately under that huge impact.


    Even though the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill was quite marvelous, he could not hide any longer when everything in the vicinity was shattered to ashes.


    In addition to him, Wang She and Mo Yinyang were also shaken out of their hiding places. They were apparently thinking the same thing as Zhou Bao. Just like Zhou Bao, they had wanted to get a real bargain, yet they never thought that they did not obtain any benefits, but rather, they suffered such losses.


    Wang She was also not in a coma, but he did not look any better than Zhou Bao did. He looked creepy with a layer of demonic red glitter around him and his hair was disheveled. Yet, the Nine Yin Blackdragon Smoke Gang of Mo Yinyang had long vanished, so he was half-unconscious. The Heavenly Devil Real Body was half-hidden and half-scattered by the power.


    Only the remaining half of it was holding Mo Yinyang up, preventing him from falling. What a nightmare!


    What made them speechless was that this impact was just the beginning, and it was only the power emitted when the fairy weapon was first motivated.


    That huge outbreak of power was nothing but the beginning. It was used to clean the battlefield in advance. Just one blow and everything there was gone, except for Ye Qingtian and the projection of the Golden Book of Fate that was suspended in mid-air. After getting rid of two red lights, the golden light of the Golden Book of Fate again shone on the precipice. The waves on its surface started to ripple again.


    The only person who was not injured was Ye Qingtian. He was embraced by a layer of baby-blue light and had a sneer on his indifferent face as he kept his eyes fixed on that precipice.


    "Zhang Yunhao, come out. Do you really think there is no one in the world can defeat you because of your fairy weapon? It''s not only you who has a fairy weapon!"


    "Brat, you are a dead man!"


    A cold rebuke came from the wall. Then a giant jade hand flew out from the precipice and attacked straight at Ye Qingtian''s head.


    "Oh?" Seeing this giant hand, Ye Qingtian was obviously surprised. The spirit that was revealed from that hand definitely did not belong to Zhang Yunhao because Zhang Yunhao did not have such strength nor such magnificent power.


    Bang!


    The jade hand snatched the blue light around Ye Qingtian, stopped for a moment, and broke the protective blue-light layer. Ye Qingtian was totally in shock. He groaned and transformed his body into sparkles of starlight and then escaped from the control of the giant jade hand.


    "You''re not Zhang Yunhao. Who the hell are you?" Ye Qingtian snapped. A sparkle of light darted out like electricity and stopped after flying dozens of miles.


    "I''m Wen Yida!" The giant jade hand abruptly turned into a jade-robed elder. He had a clean face and was standing in front of the projection of the Golden Book of Fate with his hands crossed behind his back and a sneer on his face.


    "Wen Yida, the Taihai Sage!"


    "Yes, that''s me!"


    "Well, Divine Wind Palace! Taihai Sage! You, as a Genuine Immortal, should unexpectedly enter Taiyuan Heaven. Don''t you people from Divine Wind Palace care about what the world thinks of you?"


    "What does the world think of us?" Wen Yida said with a sneer, "You ganged up with the remnants of the Fiery Eyes and sneaked into Taiyuan Heaven with malicious intentions. We people from Divine Wind Palace found out your scheme in time, but we couldn''t track you, so they sent me to Taiyuan Heaven and secretly protected everyone. Is this enough of a reason to shut the mouth of the people in the world?"


    "You disgusting...!"


    Ye Qingtian did not know whether that reason would button people''s lips or not, but apparently, those words were enough to shut him up.


    Indeed, that reason coupled with the strength of Divine Wind Palace could justify his actions. He emphasized the fact that Zhang Yunhao had left his territory arbitrarily and violated the millennial alliance treaty and could even distort the truth.


    Seeing Ye Qingtian saying no words, Taihai Sage smiled and looked him up and down. "Ye Qingtian. I''ve heard about you. Your cultivation is outstanding at such a young age. You are a person of great luck. Why do you join the remnants of the Fiery Eyes? Do you really think that your great luck will always be able to protect you? I''ll tell you what, even though you have such great luck, you can''t use it at will. You think that because you possess a fairy weapon and inherit the power of Great Ancient Emperor that you can do whatever you want? You are such an ignorant fool!"


    When speaking, he again transformed into a jade hand and crushed Ye Qingtian abruptly. "Today, I''m going to smash all your great luck!"


    "Humph!" At this point, Ye Qingtian could not think twice. Determination flashed in his eyes. With a huge shake, a ray of a blue streamer darted out from his eyebrows and directly confronted that giant hand.


    When the blue streamer emerged, the whole world seemed to be completely covered with ice and snow in a flash. The sky turned blue and the essence of the world was frozen to ice in a single moment.


    All of a sudden, the streamer collided with the giant jade hand.


    Silence prevailed. Then a light that was baby-blue mixed with jade radiated around.


    "Damn, that''s not good!"


    Zhou Bao, Wang She, and the other fellows who were still sober had stabilized themselves. Before they had fully recovered, they saw the giant jade hand knocking into the blue streamer.


    Although the crash was silent to the other people, Zhou Bao clearly felt that the space where the two lights hit together was scattered and had frozen before it could recover. Therefore, that place was still glittering with a creepy blue color. As for the jade ripples, they were more frightening. With the ability of this fairy weapon, its power could be sent out a thousand miles away, let alone a hundred miles. Although they had been knocked away, they were still just a dozen miles away from those two people. If they were to be hit by the remnant impact of that collision, Zhou Bao believed that they would definitely die. Thinking about that, he became worried and was ready to activate his Three Realms Division and run away. But before he could flee, the situation of the battlefield changed again.


    He only saw that the speed of those baby-blue ripples had slowed down, yet the jade light in the ripples shone more and more abundantly. And finally, it overrode the blue light and formed a jade cover that shrouded an area of five or six miles, which included all the blue light.


    "The North Pole Frozen Wheel! Ye Qingtian, you do have great luck. You even have the best fairy weapon of Big Dipper Emperor and can forcibly motivate it. However, you have underestimated this fairy weapon. Even if you manage to motivate it, you can''t control it!"


    The jade light then turned into a figure of Taihai Sage. It was just like the real Taihai Sage, with his hands crossed behind his back and a lofty expression on his face, looking at Ye Qingtian indifferently. Ye Qingtian flushed with anger and stared at Taihai Sage with a blue glimmer on the top of his head.


    "I don''t need to control this thing. I only need to motivate it!"


    "Sure. All you need is to motivate it. But unfortunately, you''ve met me today!" Taihai Sage smiled as a jade radiance was glittering between his eyebrows. In the midst of the jade radiance, a shining green leaf fluttered out. "You are not the only one who has a fairy weapon!"

 Chapter 343: Mutual Suspicion and Deception & Punish You on Behalf of the Moon

    Chapter 343: Mutual Suspicion and Deception & Punish You on Behalf of the Moon


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The green leaf was like a small boat, which emerged between the eyebrows of Taihai Sage. All of a sudden, azure light flourished. Then, the spherical region 500 miles around them became a green sphere. Gradually, the round object turned into a huge green crystal or an emerald.


    Standing outside of the emerald-like region, Zhou Bao looked at that big, green precious stone in astonishment. Suddenly, four words came into his mind: mole crickets and ants!


    Yes, before this powerful fairy weapon, Zhou Bao, Wang She, as well as other people present were just like mole crickets and ants.


    While one fairy weapon fought with the other, they could only watch the sphere blankly and wait for the battle to end because they were in no position to intervene or take a closer look.


    "What strong power this fairy weapon has. Compared to it, a Pure Yang Celestial Device is just a device barely worth mentioning!"


    "That''s for sure. A fairy weapon and a Pure Yang Celestial Device are objects at totally different levels. As a person reaches Level Seven, he can refine and motivate a Pure Yang Celestial Device. One who is beneath Individual Immortal is able to take advantage of its considerable power as well. In the Mysterious Realm, he can even kill people and remain invincible with the weapon. However, when the person reaches the Genuine Immortal, its power sharply decreases. After one Thunder Tribulation and an ablution of Divine Qi out of the Three Big Realms, the weapon will become less powerful and even useless to them, just like a person who wants to get you into trouble and comes at you just with a Celestial Device at the Mysterious Level or the Psychic Level!" Green Spirit secretly gave out his psywave to communicate with Zhou Bao. "As for a fairy weapon, it is completely different. Even if your cultivation breaks through the Genuine Immortal to reach the Human Immortal, or even the phase of the Three Flowers at the top and Five Kinds of Qi Gathering, a fairy weapon is still powerful!"


    "So the gap between a fairy weapon and a Pure Yang Celestial Device is really enormous!"


    "Yes, there is an enormous gap, but various Pure Yang Celestial Devices have various power. Take your Golden Flame Mirror as an example. This newly refined mirror, though it contains Innate Green Lotus Qi and Sun Colored Glaze Flame, is still much weaker than your Sky-measuring Star Ruler. The ruler had been practiced for tens of thousands of years and purified in the Constellation Sea for more than 10,000 years. That''s the reason why you found it difficult to compete with it that day. You know, some powerful Pure Yang Celestial Devices are almost on par with fairy weapons!"


    "Although the Sky-measuring Star Ruler is powerful, that Pure Yang Celestial Device is still not as strong as a fairy weapon!" said Zhou Bao.


    That day, Ye Qingtian fought against him with the Sky-measuring Star Ruler. Ye Qingtiang''s guidance of the Nine Heavens Star Force indeed put great stress on his mind, but Zhou Bao never felt as helpless as he did today.


    "The Sky-measuring Star Ruler can at most be called a middle-ranked Pure Yang Celestial Device. It''s no match for a fairy weapon!" Green Spirit said with a laugh.


    "Magic weapons are numerous in the world and are divided into spiritual weapons, celestial devices, as well as fairy weapons. There is a large gap between spiritual weapons and celestial devices and we just skip them. Amid celestial devices, the only difference between the Psychic and Mysterious Levels is in power and quality. When it comes to the level of Pure Yang, it is extremely higher than the former two. You know clearly about that. Once a Pure Yang Celestial Device absorbs a bit of Pure Yang Vital Essence, it can link up to the essence of the world. Though neither Under Mysterious or Mysterious Realm really steps out of three realms, one is an Individual Immortal and the other is only a common person. The difference between a Pure Yang Celestial Device and a fairy weapon is similar to that. You can''t imagine how enormous the gap is between an Individual Immortal and a Genuine Immortal who has experienced the Thunder Tribulation and completely jumped out of the three realms."


    "This Taihai Sage is a Genuine Immortal?" Zhou Bao was a little shocked. "A Genuine Immortal is actually in Divine Wind Palace and even entered Taiyuan Heaven! It seems that your conjecture about their purpose is correct. They indeed want to control Taiyuan Heaven!"


    "Exactly. And what is most troublesome is that Ye Qingtian provided Divine Wind Palace the best excuse. I now suspect that Ye Qingtian got the Taiyuan Token and entered Taiyuan Heaven due to the palace''s plot."


    "You mean members of Divine Wind Palace have known about the existence of the Fiery Eyes since long ago and they have colluded with Ye Qingtian? They have plotted the whole thing to get a double advantage!"


    "What do you expect? There are not so many coincidences in this world. Coincidently, it was again the time to open Taiyuan Heaven that only happens once every thousand years. Coincidently, members of Divine Wind Palace wanted to take this opportunity to control Taiyuan Heaven, so they entered the heaven with the shadow of the Golden Book of Fate. Again coincidently, Ye Qingtian got a Taiyuan Token and was in league with a guy who possesses the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes. And lastly, one of the members of Divine Wind Palace in heaven was coincidently an incarnation of a Genuine Immortal. There are so many coincidences in this whole event. Do you think that it''s possible?"


    "It seems that Ye Qingtian will get into great trouble this time. Wait, what did you say just now? An incarnation of a Genuine Immortal?"


    "Exactly. Taihai Sage is the incarnation of a Genuine Immortal, but not the body, which is not in Taiyuan Heaven. If what I guess is correct, this guy has placed his incarnation in the fairy weapon!"


    "So?"


    "So Ye Qingtian is bound to lose!"


    As if to prove what Green Spirit said was correct, the huge green emerald-like sphere became smaller and smaller. In the twinkling of an eye, the whole sphere changed.


    Wen "Taihai Sage" Yida just stood there with his hands crossed behind his back, looking forward coldly. At this time, the green leaf had turned into a ball of green light, which afterward wrapped up the pale blue light of the North Pole Frozen Wheel. Meanwhile, Ye Qingtian in mid-air had squatted on his heels, and was about to be completely covered by the green light as the pale blue light around him became paler and paler.


    "Humph, won''t you do him a favor?" Taihai Sage looked into the sky and said, "If you don''t help him, I will actually kill him!"


    Before his voice had died away, a strange red light appeared in the hollow and soon pervaded the entire sky.


    "This..."


    A familiar force activated the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes in Zhou Bao''s body once again.


    "F*ck you! Can''t you be f*cking quiet for a while?" Zhou Bao cursed in a low voice. Then he motivated the Demonic Fire of the Primitive Dragon Chimera in his body to fiercely attack the huge eyeballs in his mysterious space. At last, he calmed the eyeballs down.


    "Kiddo, this is your instinct, one that flows in your bloodline. If you can''t control your eyes, you can''t control your instinct either. It seems that you should put some effort into familiarizing yourself with the bloodline!"


    "I know that, but not now!" Zhou Bao replied coldly. As the red light flourished, the entire surrounding area of 500 miles was covered by the strange red light.


    "Wen ''Taihai Sage'' Yida, shame on you for bullying a junior who hasn''t even reached the Mysterious Realm with your Body of True Immortality."


    A strong voice fell from a place up in the ninth heaven, with each word like a thunderbolt coming to weaken the green light that had suppressed Ye Qingtian. As the final word was spoken, the light on the green leaf was totally surrounded by the red one. Thanks to it, Ye Qingtian found the opportunity to escape. With a quick movement and a loud shout, the green light around him deepened and turned into a blue streamer which directly dashed at Taihai Sage.


    "What a cocky guy!" Taihai Sage smiled. Then, the green leaf''s light suppressed by the red one became smaller and integrated into his body.


    "Boom!" With a loud sound, Ye Qingtian again flew out upside down, but this time, he had already lost consciousness.


    "Though the North Pole Frozen Wheel is powerful, you haven''t refined it successfully, so you can''t give full play to its power. How dare you fight against me! You..." As Taihai Sage said this, he quickly moved forward and was ready to kill Ye Qingtian.


    However, he suddenly found that he could not move.


    "Your fairy weapon is powerful indeed, but you forgot one thing. You are now just an incarnation. Though you possess power as strong as a Genuine Immortal''s, a primordial spirit is still a primordial spirit and is different from a body. If you stay in the fairy weapon as meek as a lamb, then nothing will happen. However, you''ve now jumped out of it and make some trouble. Aren''t you playing with fire?"


    As he spoke, a huge palm emerged from the void and suddenly grabbed Taihai Sage.


    "Captivating souls!"


    Familiar strength, familiar feelings, and familiar fluctuations, but not familiar gestures.


    This was the strength of the Fiery Eyes, with which Zhou bao grabbed the spirit of Green Spirit Scorpion and replaced its spirit with his thought, making the scorpion a complete puppet, and also got the creature''s Divine Sense, the Poisonous Hitching Post.


    However, his Fiery Eyes now were only able to captivate souls of creatures without any spiritual intelligence like a scorpion. It was still impossible for him to grab souls of human beings or evil beasts with spiritual intelligence.


    He had once fought against Dark Lord Mie Chen with this movement. Though it was like extracting a tooth from a tiger''s mouth, he still inflicted great harm on his rival. When he thought of the spirit of Dark Lord Mie Chen, as hard as ice, he could not help shivering. Now, in front of him were not experts in the Demi-Mysterious Realm like Dark Lord Mie Chen, but a Genuine Immortal out of the three realms, not in the five elements.


    A Genuine Immortal who had placed his incarnation of primordial spirit in the fairy weapon.


    How powerful was his spirit?


    Zhou Bao could not imagine that because it was beyond his capability. Now this guy who possessed the Fiery Eyes wanted to captivate the incarnation of an immortal''s primordial spirit with the eyes'' strength!


    How enormous was the strength that he needed?


    When Taihai Sage saw the big sanguine hand that emerged from the void, his face changed. Then he shouted angrily, "How dare you!"


    As he shook his body, a green light flashed and directly rushed toward the big hand.


    "It''s useless. Though your fairy weapon repelled the North Pole Frozen Wheel, a long narrow opening appeared. It''s impossible for you to fix it now!"


    The big hand reached out to destroy the green light, and precisely captured the incarnation of Taihai Sage.


    "Oh..." The incarnation fiercely shivered. In that short period of time, it seemed to be about to vanish. However, the situation subsequently changed.


    "Got you!"


    A clear voice rang out. This complacent sound did not come from the place above the void, but from Taihai Sage.


    As he spoke, the body of Taihai Sage spread apart and turned into countless green lights. He not only got rid of the sanguine hand, but also wrapped it up.


    "The power of the Fiery Eyes is indeed miraculous and powerful. All of this is recorded in the books of Divine Wind Palace. For thousands of years, we have never given up exploring the power of the Fiery Eyes, especially the three most powerful ones like the Thorn Wheel Fiery Eyes, Fiery Eyes of Thousand Skills, and Emperor Wheel Fiery Eyes. I guess the power you have is from Emperor Wheel Fiery Eyes, am I right?"


    Here was Taihai Sage''s complacent sound. "Emperor Wheel Fiery Eyes coincides with the Way of the Emperors among 3,000 Great Ways. It was born with nine lives and was the birth destiny of the Ruling Heavenly Court. It''s nothing special if you take the place of Jade Emperor with this power. However, you were not born at a good time and don''t have the opportunity that your patriarch had 4,000 years ago!"


    The bluish light formed a huge windmill that stirred the red light in the sky madly. In the end, the windmill turned into a bluish vortex, large and deep, which slowly stirred up the red light in the sky.


    "My Green Spirit Leaf is condensed with some of the clear Qi at the time of Primordial Origin and can be riddled with evil. The most important thing is that it has more than seven apertures and 100,000 holes, which is more suitable for the primordial spirit to stay than the body itself. Therefore, my incarnation is more powerful. Although you have the special abilities of the Fiery Eyes, which are said to be a nemesis to all incarnations, they can''t restrain my Green Spirit Leaf nor my incarnation!"


    Taihai Sage shouted, "The Fiery Eyes are very powerful and enable you to pass ranks to challenge the incarnation of a Genuine Immortal with a cultivation of Level Nine, so you often neglect the actual strength of your body and its cultivation. This is also the reason why the Fiery Eyes tribe collapsed. Once a weapon with the ability to restrain your Fiery Eyes appears, you will definitely lose in only one attack!"


    Boom!


    After he spoke the last word, the entire space collapsed. The blue light shrouded the heavens and the earth with an enormous green leaf covering the earth. "Don''t hide again, and don''t try to play tricks. Come out! Without the protection of the Fiery Eyes, your family is nothing but a group of clowns!"


    The sky was torn and space collapsed, but a figure was born out of the void that was shadowing in the sky.


    "Is that all?" Seeing the might of Taihai Sage, Zhou Bao deeply sighed in his heart. Although he wanted to save this person who had the same bloodline as himself, it was clear that he did not have such an ability.


    "Kiddo, don''t be nervous, the best part is yet to come!"


    "What?" Zhou Bao was suddenly shocked and felt something change. A thin black line was seen flying across the sky, silent and fast beyond imagination.


    Swish!


    The black line seemed to flash through the sky in just a moment or a whole lifetime. It swept past and completely cut the body of Taihai Sage.


    Bang! The blue whirlwind that had ripped everything quivered. Then, Taihai Sage''s body was divided into two parts in the blink of an eye and later turned into a cloud of mist. The green leaves in the sky became cracked. And although the crack disappeared in an instant, the might of the leaves no longer remained, which disappeared and changed into a green leaf that fell from the sky.


    "This time, Wen Yida, you demonstrate your flaws!" The voice coming from the void was loud and smiling. The red light began to rise again and envelop his body, leaving his eyes extremely bright and clear, prominent even in the red light.


    "The Lunar Shuttle! It''s the Lunar Shuttle! Kiddo, quickly go and steal it! It''s a Celestial Device of the Way of Killing, the most powerful weapon among Pure Yang Celestial Devices, which you should steal to refine your fairy weapon of the Way of Killing and perfect the practice of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!" The psywave of Green Spirit beat wildly.


    "Are you crazy? How can I take that thing?" Zhou Bao shouted. Greedy as he was, he cherished his life. "It''s proven to be a horrible thing, which can even destroy Genuine Immortals and fairy weapons, not to mention Level Nine experts like me!"


    "You idiot! It''s just a Pure Yang Celestial Device and can only attack a fairy weapon effectively once. Although it can shake the Green Spirit Leaf, it must be seriously injured and the same is true of the guy who manipulates it. Do you think that a fairy weapon combined with the power of immortal incarnation is so easy to defeat? Do you really think Taihai Sage is lost? Quickly, do it now! Otherwise, it will be too late if they react!"


    Zhou Bao was persuaded by those words.


    Human beings died in pursuit of wealth as birds died in pursuit of food. After seeing the power of the fairy weapon, Zhou Bao had long been agitated and considered the only fairy weapon in his collection. "Since I have such a good opportunity, why not give it a shot?"


    At least he had the opportunity to retreat!


    At the thought of this, he no longer hesitated to launch the Three Realms Division, flashing three or four times, and then he arrived beside that black streamer.


    As Green Spirit said, the man in black who manipulated the Lunar Shuttle was badly injured. His eyes were closed and his mouth was full of blood. He was already in a semi-conscious state with a fist-sized spindle-like Celestial Device hovering beside him, which now looked bleak. However, its lingering killing power still frightened Zhou Bao.


    As if he felt the sudden appearance of Zhou Bao, the man in black abruptly opened his eyes. "Who is that?"


    "Humph. You are in an evil demonic way. Everyone has the right to kill you!" Zhou Bao shouted. As he raised his finger, a dark red Sword Qi emerged and quickly moved forward.


    "Oh no!" The black-clothed man was badly hurt. When he saw the Sword Qi approach him again, he felt shocked and suddenly came up with an idea. Then, the Lunar Shuttle quickly flew forward and fought against the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    "It''s a good chance!" Zhou Bao did not want to hurt this guy, but he wanted to find the best opportunity to snatch the Lunar Shuttle. As he saw the Lunar Shuttle directly rush toward him, he smiled as if everything was under his control. And when his fingertip drew a line, the hollow split.


    Space Division Skill!


    The Lunar Shuttle had been badly hurt in the fight against the Green Spirit Leaf. This time, to protect its owner, it battled with the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Though its attack spread the dark red Sword Qi apart, it still failed to stop the division of two realms by Zhou Bao.


    All of a sudden, a silver light cover appeared and directly covered the Lunar Shuttle. Then the shuttle disappeared.


    It happened in a short time. No one had expected this, just like no one had expected that the Lunar Shuttle and the black-clothed man would show up and that one would intervene in the fight at such a high level. As the old saying went: "The brave one dies from eating too much, while the timid one starves to death".


    Both Wang She and Mo Yinyang were surprised at Zhou Bao''s behavior. They could not help opening their mouths. When they saw that Zhou Bao had successfully stolen the Lunar Shuttle and left the man in black without any further method of attack, they both sighed in their hearts and cursed, "What a f*cking lucky guy!"


    Yes, what a f*cking lucky guy.


    Almost at the time that Zhou Bao disappeared, from the space where he just was, there came a flash of red light and it unexpectedly collapsed into pieces, as if it was ruined by some mysterious strength.


    "Damn, how powerful the strength is!" As the space collapsed, Zhou Bao quickly came out of the hollow and appeared right behind the shadow of human figures wrapped in the red light. And as the Golden Flame Mirror rose from his head, golden light was released and shot directly at the man while Zhou Bao shouted, "You evil demon, go to hell! I''ll punish you on behalf of the moon!"


    Boom!


    The golden light fiercely hit the red light, forcing the guy to stagger.


    The man got angry. He snarled and turned to kill Zhou Bao with his skill. To his surprise, Zhou Bao had vanished a hundred miles away after several quick movements. Then he launched the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and hid at the top of a hill a hundred miles away. Even though the guy had the skill to connect to heaven, he could not find a slice of Zhou Bao''s spirit in such a short time.


    All this happened in the twinkling of an eye. When the other people became clear-headed, Zhou Bao had already seized the Lunar Shuttle and disappeared. The man in black angrily snarled as red light was released from his eyes, which completely destroyed the surrounding 10 miles of space. But all that he had done was in vain.


    Because of Zhou Bao''s disturbance, he had lost the best time to defeat Taihai Sage.


    The bluish light flashed fiercely and seemed to recover from its previous serious injury.


    "Go!" He was a resolute person. When he saw the resurrection of the azure light, he knew that it was impossible for him to kill Taihai Sage today. The red light fiercely flashed and engulfed the black-clothed man, Ye Qingtian, and the shadow of the Golden Book of Fate. Then, the hollow split and all of them vanished.


    "Hahaha, Taihai Sage, though I didn''t kill you today, your Divine Wind Palace also failed to seize Taiyuan Heaven. You planned this for a thousand years and gained nothing in the end. I am happy to see that, very happy! Hahaha!"


    A burst of crazy laughter came from the void, as if he had not lost, but had gained a great victory.


    In fact, it was a great victory.


    Taihai Sage''s countenance was gloomy for he had not expected the guy to take away the copy of the Golden Book of Fate as he left. However, everything was over. It was still not easy for him to find three hidden guys in the very big Taiyuan Heaven. Besides, the man with the Fiery Eyes also had a good command of Space Dharma. So he knew that it was impossible for him to find them in the heaven.


    As he thought of that, he gently sighed. Pointing at the green leaf in front of him, the green light was scattered and turned into a green rain of light. The rain spread and covered the surrounding 300 miles. Zhou Bao was only 200 miles away, so he was also covered.


    Zhou Bao felt shocked and was ready to run away with his Three Realms Division. However, Green Spirit''s voice rang out in his head. "Kiddo, don''t leave. He just wants to heal you."


    Sure enough, as the rain of light fell on his body, Zhou Bao felt his body quickly recovering from the injury caused by the fairy weapon''s wave. The healing effect was even better than Dragon Chimera''s Demonic Fire. All his wounds were soon healed. Now he was energetic, even more energetic than he was when he had entered Taiyuan Heaven.


    It was the same with the others. Even the ones who had stepped one foot in death''s door were quickly healed by the green rain of light and regained their consciousness.


    "You''re Zhou Bao from Yunzhou, is that right? Come out. No need to hide. I won''t do anything to you. This time, I owe you a favor!"

 Chapter 344: Hypothesis About the Graveyard

    Chapter 344: Hypothesis About the Graveyard


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Taihai Sage Wen Yida, whose cultivation had reached the Realm of True Immortality, was a wise person, so he had an easy attitude toward gains and losses. In particular, at the last moment, if Zhou Bao had not appeared in time and interrupted that person''s trick, he would have been severely wounded even if he did not die. For a Genuine Immortal like him, both the grand plans and the profits of the school were less important than his life. Therefore, the plan that the Divine Wind Palace had been preparing for a thousand years regrettably failed, and that was not as important as his life. From this perspective, he owed Zhou Bao a great favor. He was a Genuine Immortal, a sensible Genuine Immortal.


    A Genuine Immortal who was outside the three realms and the five elements and had experienced the Thunder Tribulation was called a Sage.


    How could such a person easily owe a favor to others? It was an accident this time. He felt surprised and helpless. Anyway, Zhou Bao had saved him, therefore, his voice was feeble but sincere.


    The green rain of light gradually disappeared and the surroundings were restored to their previous calm state. Dozens of lights rotated and slowly converged toward the center.


    "Wen Yida, you''re a bastard. Your Divine Wind Palace openly betrayed the Thousand Year Promise and used Fairy Weapons in Taiyuan Heaven. You took this opportunity to cruelly kill the dissidents. You''ll pay for that. Our Sea Area will never give in!" Lei sharply cried. He had already recovered from his injury. Half of the experts from the Sea Area, including his friends and enemies, had died. The Sea Area experts gave equal treatment to the Seven-deity Regions. Wen Yida had a higher cultivation and could easily kill them. Had it not been for this reason, they would have fought against him.


    Wen Yida did not respond to Lei''s words but just laughed grimly upon seeing the Sea Area experts leaving angrily.


    By contrast, the experts of the Seven-deity Regions had suffered a great loss during the outbreak of the Fairy Weapons at that time. But they did not have the courage or qualification to complain in the face of a Genuine Immortal from the Divine Wind Palace.


    Wen Yida turned his eyes and showed a bitter smile when he saw Zhou Bao reluctantly flying toward him. This cunning person unwittingly became the one who had gained the most. The Divine Wind Palace made a long and full preparation. But, unexpectedly, it was the others who benefited. What else could he say?


    He could only say that things in this world happened coincidentally.


    "I''m Zhou Bao from Yunzhou. Please accept my respect for you!" Standing before Wen Yida, Zhou Bao unwillingly saluted with his hands clasped in front. "I wish you a long life and blessings!"


    "What a foxy guy!" Wen Yida thought.


    Hearing Zhou Bao''s seemingly flattering words, he thought of the inexplicable: "Punish you on behalf of the moon". He suddenly felt that he could not make out what was on Zhou Bao''s mind.


    "As I said, now I owe you a big favor. Well, what do you want?"


    "I want nothing. The gathering in Taiyuan Heaven occurs once every thousand years. I''ve been expecting it for a long time. We didn''t have a smooth start, but we still have to stay for a long time in Taiyuan Heaven. So, I think if the Divine Wind Palace has no other purposes, let''s follow the agreed-upon rules. This area belongs to our Jin dynasty. So, many people come here, which makes me really terrified!" Zhou Bao laughed.


    "You don''t need to sneer at me implicitly. However, what you said is also correct. The gathering in Taiyuan Heaven only happens once in a thousand years. Well then, as you said, everything should proceed based on the agreement. I don''t think anyone would oppose it!"


    Meanwhile, his eyes swept over the surroundings. "I assure all of you, from now on the Divine Wind Palace won''t break the agreements. And about everything that happened here, our Divine Wind Palace will give you a reasonable and satisfied reply after we''re out of here. What do you think?"


    "Now that Taihai Sage put it this way, we''ll comply," said Great Dark Lord Du. He took a deep look at Zhou Bao, folded his hands, and quietly left with his subordinates.


    The rest of them also did not dare to utter a single word and left one by one.


    "Taihai Sage, if there''s nothing further, I also have to go now," Zhou Bao said.


    "OK." Taihai Sage nodded. An azure light flashed over his body and covered Emissary Chang and the man in gold. They vanished in an instant as the azure light headed due north.


    Now, only Zhou Bao, Wang She, and Mo Yinyang still remained there.


    After a moment''s silence, Zhou Bao suddenly raised head and asked them, "What do you two think? Do you have a plan?"


    "You gained all the profits. What the hell plans could we have?" Wang She took a look at him, standing in between them. Only the precipice of hundreds of ten feet high lonely suspended in the air and was conspicuous, like being sliced by the sword.


    "Come on, Chief Wang. The copy of the Golden Book of Fate is missing. Even Taihai Sage has already left. It doesn''t make sense to do it anymore unless we wait another 1,000 years and let the Divine Wind Palace make a copy again!"


    "Yes. This time the Divine Wind Palace really brought shame upon themselves. They''ll be upset!" Wang She also gave a nod. "It''s alright now here, so you can leave!" Casting a glance at Zhou Bao, he showed a meaningful expression as he spoke. "Buddy, good job. Are you sure you want to act by yourself? Ye Qingtian and the other two people are still in Taiyuan Heaven!"


    "I know. But you know my strength. Although I don''t have the ability to beat them, I believe that they can''t track me if I hide!"


    "Em... it sounds reasonable. If too many people stay here, it will be noticeable and even worse!" Wang She nodded, turned into a vivid red light, and left without saying anything more.


    Mo Yinyang and Zhou Bao had nothing to say, so they just nodded to him and also departed.


    "Hehe, boy. I have to admit that you did an excellent job this time. But you''re Ye Qingtian''s enemy now!"


    "Because of the appearance of an expert possessing the Fiery Eyes, after this gathering in Taiyuan Heaven, the Divine Wind Palace, no, the entire Seven-deity Regions will watch the fun. I''ll also take this opportunity to see if I can find out some ways to solve the problems!"


    "Strength, only strength is the key. But don''t focus on the Lunar Shuttle. It''s not the time to refine that. And about Taiyuan Heaven, I have a little bit of knowledge. Perhaps this time we''ll have a windfall!"


    "You know about it? Why didn''t you tell me earlier?"


    "Why should I have told you earlier?" Green Spirit laughed. "I didn''t intend to tell you at all, but now I have to. Boy, keep in mind you offended Ye Qingtian''s people and they haven''t left yet. Ye Qingtian got severely hurt and so did the guy who used the Lunar Shuttle. And we''re in Taiyuan Heaven. It''s filled with sufficient essence of the world and endless treasures of heaven and earth. In addition to their cultivation and strength, and Ye Qingtian in particular, they''re also equipped with Fairy Weapons. You need to stay here for a long time. Besides, the Divine Wind Palace''s plan failed this time. They have a Genuine Immortal incarnation and a Fairy Weapon. Hence, Ye Qingtian surely won''t cause the Divine Wind Palace trouble. Even a fool knows to bully the weak and fear the strong. Do you think you''ll be safe in Taiyuan Heaven?"


    "What does all that have to do with your knowledge of Taiyuan Heaven?"


    "They''re connected of course. I know a place that is good for escaping from a chase. It''s full of opportunities but it''s dangerous inside. To go or not to go is up to you!"


    "Since you''ve mentioned it, it must not be a good place. I have the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. If I really wanted to hide somewhere, they could not find me!"


    "Don''t bet on it! You possess the Fiery Eyes, so you should know about their wonderful functions. The Snake-like Breath Holding Skill can only conceal your spirit, not your body. However, his control of the Fiery Eyes has already reached the perfect level. Perhaps he has the ability of a ''thousand-mile beam''. Do you know the meaning of a ''thousand-mile beam''? It means that nothing within a thousand miles can hide from his eyes. I''m not sure whether or not he has that ability, but if he does, then you can''t hide at all."


    "So..."


    "So, my advice would be that you''d better think it over. You don''t have much time. In the damned Taiyuan Heaven, it is not difficult for them if they want to recover and it won''t take them much time!"


    "I don''t need to think it over. Let''s go to the hellish place you mentioned!" Zhou Bao sighed helplessly. "That damned Taihai Sage, he said that he owed me a favor. Maybe he wants me to be discovered and killed so he won''t have to return the favor!"


    "Those Genuine Immortal guys won''t die. With their eyes rolling, many tricks and plots pop up from their minds. What they hate most is to owe favors to others. If they can use Ye Qingtian to trap you in Taiyuan Heaven, it couldn''t be better."


    "So, like I said, those Divine Wind Palace guys are assholes!" Zhou Bao angrily scolded and left as his body spun around.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    Three days later, Zhou Bao emerged at a marvelous place in Taiyuan Heaven.


    It was also a land that was suspending in the air. It was not a big land, with an area of just a few thousand miles. But like the other places in Taiyuan Heaven, it was abundant in Spiritual Qi and had exotic flowers, rare herbs, as well as strange birds and peculiar animals everywhere. And a strong spirit of evil beasts vaguely emanated.


    "There are at least five powerful evil beasts whose combat capabilities are not lower than the Mysterious Realm. I don''t want to provoke them. Are you sure this is the place that we should come to?"


    "Of course, this is it. Although it''s changed, I still remember it!"


    "You remember? What do you mean ''you remember it''? Didn''t you say that you''ve never been to Taiyuan Heaven?"


    "Yeah, I did. I''ve never been to Taiyuan Heaven. But I''ve seen a picture of it. That picture, which was another contribution made by the necromancers, could record the places where the necromancers had been to and then reproduce it. It''s a little thing. I do know a necromancer and we have a good relationship. He once came here and made some surveys. But that guy is lunatic, he mainly researches the legacy and history from the primitive times and even the Primordial Origin times. He has an interesting hypothesis about Taiyuan Heaven, but it''s never been proven!"


    "What hypothesis?"


    "You''ll know soon." Green Spirit said with a smile, "Now you have three Pure Yang Celestial Devices at hand. You don''t need to fear anything at all!"


    "Three? Humph. Only two. I don''t dare to use the Lunar Shuttle. If I take it out, probably it would be felt by those three guys," Zhou Bao said unhappily. This time he obtained a Pure Yang Celestial Device, which was a gain for him. However, it would bring him endless trouble. Even if he could flee from Taiyuan Heaven, he would be caught in big trouble, provided that those three people purposefully wanted to get revenge. Particularly, that excessively black-clothed thin person easily snatched his Pure Yang Celestial Device because he was weak when meeting him. At that time, he had already dedicated himself to using his Pure Yang Celestial Device to raid Taihai Sage Wen Yida.


    A Genuine Immortal and a Fairy Weapon!


    This black-clothed man only had a Level Nine cultivation, but he could do it with just a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Wen Yida did not suffer a substantial loss but he was disgraced. The person who had the Fiery Eyes seized the chance and almost successfully fought back.


    Finally, due to Zhou Bao''s sudden attack, he failed. However, he, together with Ye Qingtian, escaped. Thinking of the black line that abruptly appeared, Zhou Bao believed that he could not do it.


    Zhou Bao had stolen his Pure Yang Celestial Device when he was weak. How could he easily let him off? Once they left Taiyuan Heaven, he would give him trouble. Even if Zhou Bao was not scared, a Level Nine expert would drive Zhou Bao crazy when he recklessly and deliberately made disturbances. After all, this he had a big family and a great business now.


    At the thought of this, Zhou Bao felt uncomfortable. "Green Spirit, we need some way to kill that black-clothed man. Otherwise, my future trouble is boundless!"


    "What are you afraid of? Based on what happened today, as long as they leave Taiyuan Heaven, Ye Qingtian and the other two people will undoubtedly be hunted by the whole world like mice in a sewer. It will even be too late for them to escape. How could they give you trouble?"


    "I don''t fear Ye Qingtian and the person who has the Fiery Eyes, but that black-clothed man is different. Nobody knows his identity or background. Even though the Divine Wind Palace is very capable, it''s hard for them to hunt for an unidentified person. If he comes to my territory to provoke trouble, it will really be an annoying problem!"


    "Buddy, it''s useless to regret it now," said Green Spirit. "Leave it alone. Let''s go, we''d better pass through the barrier of Taiyuan Heaven. If you''re killed here, even God can''t help us!"


    "Yes, God can''t help us. Look at what you did!" Zhou Bao muttered and slowly went toward the remote floating land according to Green Spirit''s guidance.


    "This Taiyuan Heaven is indeed a sanctum. It has everything you want!" During his several days here, Zhou Bao had a big harvest every day and was able to quickly collect all the materials used for practicing the Air-frozen Bead and enough elements for elixirs. Besides, precious things could be seen everywhere, such as strange materials, crystals, Spiritual Stones, medicinal herbs, even the 10,000-year-old immortal fleece-flower roots, ganoderma, and ginseng. At first, Zhou Bao was very excited when seeing them but he became complacent later.


    "The legends about the antiquity times are true and so believable! Somebody produced a treasure of heaven and earth by a foot. Magic Drugs are here and there. Is this what the situation is in Taiyuan Heaven? No wonder the Divine Wind Palace deliberately plans to possess this place. If they occupy this big treasure of Taiyuan Heaven, then their strength will grow sharply. Even if the other influences are powerful, they''ll be forced to accept an inferior position!"


    "Hehe. You get excited easily about commonplace things. All of the 33 Heavens are treasures. And the 33 emperors who control the 33 Heavens are top players and possess the most powerful strength and influence. If the Divine Wind Palace gains domination over Taiyuan Heaven, their dream to renew Jade Emperor will maybe come true. Unfortunately, they failed this time, so they''ll have to wait another 1,000 years!"


    "1,000 years? Humph. Their purpose has come to light. Do you think that the other influences will allow them to do that again?" Zhou Bao gave a brittle laugh. Suddenly, his expression changed and he curiously asked, "What''s that?"


    At this time, he had already sneaked around for three days and harvested a lot of treasures of heaven and earth under Green Spirit''s guidance. He also got into some trouble. However, by using the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, the trouble was not very dangerous to him. Moreover, he had opportunities to kill several evil beasts with high combat levels and obtain their elixir by peeling off their furs and splitting their bones. The methods were outrageous¡ªeven Green Spirit could not bear it even though he was a thousand-year-old Demon. Anyway, they were the evil species. Although there were different types, they still had a relationship. Zhou Bao''s unscrupulous acts made Green Spirit extremely unhappy, so he shouted and Zhou Bao restrained himself. Another reason was that his two-boundary-separated space was almost full.


    "That''s the place I''m looking for!" He was looking at a quirky mist-shrouded place.


    Yes, quirky. It was very weird!


    It was an area with a 100-foot radius and was heavily fogged. The fog was black and gave off a death spirit.


    But it was different from the death spirit that Zhou Bao had once felt. This eccentric death spirit was very peaceful and serene, giving people a feeling that their hearts were calm like still water.


    Indeed, standing before the black fog, Zhou Bao involuntarily had a feeling that his heart was as still as water, as if nothing in this world was worthy of his affection or worth surviving for or could evoke his expectations of living.


    In an instant, Zhou Bao even had an impulse to cut his own throat. Simultaneously, the Demonic Fire Internal Qi inside his body began to move, adjusting to his thoughts. The fierce Demonic Fire began to disorderly and erratically move through his veins. Several wisps of Demonic Fires started to forcibly impact a mystical point between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows. It seemed that they were refining acupoints. In such a situation in this place, refining acupoints was simply equal to committing suicide.


    "Hey guy, wake up! Even if you want to commit suicide, it''s not the right time now!" Feeling the unusual movements of the Demonic Fire Internal Qi inside of Zhou Bao''s body, Green Spirit immediately yelled at him. A strong psywave turned into an invisible needle, deeply stabbing Zhou Bao''s spirit.


    Zhou Bao suddenly trembled and became clear-headed.


    After he had been re-awakened, he felt that something was wrong. The Internal Qi of his entire body moved in disorder. A powerful Demonic Fire Internal Qi had already gathered between his eyebrows¡ªHe was going to refine acupoints.


    "Sh*t. Damn it!" Zhou Bao cursed and forced himself to disperse the Internal Qi between his eyebrows. His brain, like abruptly being beaten with a stick, felt a roar. If he had not had a strong spirit because of practicing the Carefree Skill and experienced the purification, he would have been done.


    "Pfft¡ª!"


    Although this did not cause danger to his life, disorderly movement of his Internal Qi had a severe effect. Zhou Bao spat out blood and fell into a prostrating position.


    "What''s the matter? Why is the fog so eccentric?" Zhou Bao shouted strangely.


    "I told you that you need to be careful. Did you think I brought you to a place which is full of treasures? The fog is very odd here. Even the Taiyuan Heaven master and my necromancer friend failed to make it clear. But they have a hypothesis!"


    "Hypothesis? What hypothesis?"


    "That it''s a legendary graveyard to an Innate Deity or a Primordial Demon!"


    "An Innate Deity or a Primordial Demon''s graveyard?" Zhou Bao became dazed for a second. His heart disappointingly beat. "What did you say? An Innate Deity or a Primordial Demon''s graveyard? Do they die? Were they buried after death?"


    If Green Spirit had a body, he would have rolled his eyes at Zhou Bao and kicked him to death.


    "You fool. Primordial Divine Demons die, of course. Otherwise, wouldn''t the world be under their control?" Green Spirit said. "Innate Deities and Primordial Demons never showed up even in the antiquity times. Nobody knows whether they died or disappeared or broke the hollows of another world. However, one thing you can be sure of is those guys can really die. In the antiquity times, we once discovered several graveyards!" he added.


    "What''s in the graveyards?"


    "The Innate Deities'' and Primordial Demons'' remains. If somebody is lucky, he could get their Natal Magic Weapons!"


    "Natal Magic Weapons? At what level?"


    "Fairy Weapons certainly. And they''re Supreme Fairy Weapons!" Green Spirit dismissively said.


    "Supreme Fairy Weapons?" All of a sudden, Zhou Bao became excited. "What are we waiting for? Hurry up!"

 Chapter 345: Entering the Graveyard

    Chapter 345: Entering the Graveyard


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "So impatient! Why are you being so impatient? It''ll do you no good!" Green Spirit screamed with discontent. "Do you really think that the Innate Deity''s graveyard would be so easy to enter? Or do you reckon that since you''ve bumped into it, you must have such good luck to obtain some heritage of an Innate Deity or a Primordial Demon?"


    "Right! You''re right!" said Zhou Bao hastily. At this point, he did not dare to have a tantrum, so he could only reply with care.


    "Don''t get your hopes up! Those devices that I talked about, such as Supreme Fairy Weapons, were merely occasionally discovered in the graveyard. For an Innate Deity or a Primordial Demon, the most valuable weapon is their bodies because they were powerful beings born together with heaven and earth from the Primordial Origin, and the power of their own bodies trumps all other magic weapons. Thus, these kinds of things like magic weapons are just worldly possessions for them. A casual punch from an Innate Deity can be as mighty as one launched by a Supreme Fairy Weapon with its full strength. Their defensive powers are also stronger than that of those purely defensive Supreme Fairy Weapons. So you tell me, do they need any magic weapons at all? The so-called Natal Magic Weapon is merely something they use when practicing the Little Way to ease their boredom!"


    "Then, will I be going back empty-handed?" asked Zhou Bao a bit gloomily.


    "Are you listening? The most powerful weapon of an Innate Deity is his body! Even after he died, his remains are still the best magic weapon! If used properly, its value will be no less than that of a Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    "OK, got it!" Zhou Bao seemed to be a little disappointed. "Digging out others'' bones and everything else? It''s so unethical!" But at the prospect of finding some potential benefits, he decided to shelve the issue of ethics and many other scruples.


    "Then, when shall we go in?"


    "Be patient. This only looks like a graveyard. We don''t know the truth yet!"


    "Never mind, let''s go in first. It''s been three or four days, and maybe Ye Qingtian and the other two have already fully recovered. If I don''t go into hiding now, I might really be killed in this Taiyuan Heaven!"


    "You, get killed? Ridiculous! Their leader is the one with the Fiery Eyes. Even when you''re truly cornered, you can just show him your Fiery Eyes and he won''t really lay murderous hands on you! Boy, actually the scheme that you devised is highly sophisticated. Don''t think I''m ignorant about this!"


    "That''s not certain. We know little about each other. And I did snatch up some things from his subordinate and spoiled his important business. If he intends to kill me, I''ll have no clue how to stop him either!" said Zhou Bao, giggling.


    "Save your nonsense. Listen, going in is no big deal, but you should be on high alert. In old times, this place had been explored by the owner of Taiyuan Heaven countless times, but every time, he went back fruitlessly. And that''s why he invited my friend to come here with him for another exploration because that friend of mine was a famous necromancer. Well, that exploration also ended up with nothing. After experiencing that failure, my friend started pondering over this event. He finally found some clues after studying it for years. But unluckily, since I had been inhibited in the underground palace of the Small Thunder Temple, I don''t know whether or not he unraveled this mystery in the end. However, judging from the scene here, this place is exactly the same as he had described. It seems that he never had a second chance to come here and research," said Green Spirit with a soft sigh.


    "Did his study come with a result or not?"


    "Open up your Gang Qi!" Green Spirit said, "Go straight into it!"


    "Okay!" Although his heart was sort of hammering like crazy, he did not say one more word as he opened his Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang and slowly walked into that black mist.


    Zhou Bao did not feel anything special when he stepped into that mist. Just like normal mist, this black one did not impede him or let out a shriek when he entered it. It simply let him in without a hitch.


    Within the mist, there was nothing eccentric. The ground under his feet was still flat and even, very substantial. Apart from making people feel the deadly silence in their hearts and arousing an impulse to commit suicide, this black mist had no other special attributes.


    When Zhou Bao had pulled himself together and launched his Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang, this black mist even lost its last bit of threatening power toward him.


    "Everything is normal here. There is nothing peculiar in this place!"


    The area covered by the black mist was not large, with only a radius of 100 feet and a height of 30 to 40 feet. Black as the mist was, it was not pitch-dark inside of it. Besides, with his Fiery Eyes helping him to get superb vision, Zhou Bao could see through it with one glance. But he still did not notice anything unusual.


    It was just like a patch of ordinary land, merely with a layer of mist floating over it.


    "If it is so easy for you to spot any abnormality, why is this place being left here to be explored by us?" Green Spirit said nastily. "Boy, just carefully look around again and see if you can find any place exceptional!"


    "Even if I explore this place another dozen times, there is nothing exceptional here!" Zhou Bao said with certainty. He also tried to employ his Gang Qi and his own strength to expel this black mist.


    Maybe that was the only thing he felt abnormal there. With his strength, he could even lift up a huge boulder with a radius of over 100 feet, but this mist was not something that he could repel by any means. Even when he did use all his skills, all that he succeeded in doing was putting the mist into flowing motion within a 100-foot range. Yet, when he wanted to expand his Gang Qi to its utmost to a radius of over 100 feet, he made an eerie discovery that the black mist even seeped into his Gang Qi.


    This discovery gave him a huge shock. Accordingly, Zhou Bao did not dare to mess around with the mist any further. He just drew back his Gang Qi and made a round trip within this 100-foot area while examing everywhere carefully.


    "It''s not working. There are still no discoveries, no abnormalities!"


    "Yeah, exactly!" It looked like Green Spirit also knew that it was not useful for Zhou Bao to continue running around like this, so he suggested, "Try the formation!"


    "Formation?" Zhou Bao seemed a bit nonplussed.


    "Yes, the formation!" Green Spirit explained, "The current situation is exactly the same as my friend described. Even with the strength of both him and that emperor, they found nothing in this black mist, which led him to suspect that this mist might actually be an extremely delicate formation. It''s just that this formation was arranged so cleverly that he and that emperor didn''t even realize it!"


    "It''s obviously just a clearing. How can a formation be here!" Zhou Bao said eccentrically. He took a few steps forward and found himself outside of the mist, but then he slipped back in it and exclaimed, "How could this be a formation! I can see through it with one glance and walk in and out of it freely. When viewed from the inside, the outside is clearly seen. And looking from the outside, when I fully operate my eyesight, I can also see inside of it!"


    "That''s precisely the cleverness of this formation!" Hearing Zhou Bao doubt his assumption, Green Spirit was not annoyed at all, but patiently went on, "Otherwise, how could it have fooled the emperor of the ancient times and the savvy necromancer?"


    "Fine. If you say it''s a formation, I''ll take it as such. But this formation is so brilliantly devised, how can I figure out a way to crack it?"


    "Who told you that you don''t have a way? Don''t you know about the Yin and Yang Dust Formation? "The method proposed later by my friend is to use another formation to crack this formation. As long as it is a formation, no matter how brilliantly it is designed, it shall have a Formation Eye just like any other formation. And it is able to connect the surrounding essence of the world. If you build another formation here and disrupt the connection between this Formation Eye and the surrounding essence of the world, even an extremely sophisticated formation will be bound to reveal its flaws!"


    "That means I should set up another formation within a radius of 100 feet? Could it be that simple?"


    "Simple? Hehe, it''s surely simple when you talk about it. Given this clever formation, do you really believe any other formation will do? No, it has to be the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. You''ve mastered this formation and successfully refined the Innate Qi Talisman, so that''s the reason I want you to give it a try. If you choose a different formation, nothing unusual will appear even if you''ve managed to set it up here! Since the Yin and Yang Dust Formation is a congenital formation, it can hook up to the power of heaven and earth in a wonderful manner. Thus, only this kind of congenital formation stands a chance to bring disorder to the Divine Design in this formation!"


    "Are you sure? Even I can perform the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, so there is no reason that the emperor of antiquity times couldn''t have performed it!"


    "Like I said, for one thing, this method was developed little by little through my friend''s pondering once he had gotten back from that exploration. For another, even in antiquity times, the formation maps of those congenital-level formations like the Yin and Yang Dust Formation were still pretty precious. And even if you were able to get one, it was still difficult for you to acquire the Innate Qi Talisman that was necessary for its Formation Eye!" Green Spirit said, "And lastly, all of that is just speculation. It relies on you to verify the truth!"


    "Okay, then let me verify if your friend, the necromancer, knew some real stuff!" Hearing Green Qi''s words, Zhou Bao reluctantly shook his hands and 12 triangle flags appeared out of thin air, floating in front of him. With a flick of his sleeves, those 12 flags whirled and settled themselves in the ground pursuant to the distribution of the Two Forms and Four Phases. Soon after, one of his hands touched his forehead, and a jet of Green Qi spurted out from the area between his eyebrows, mirroring each of the 12 flags. A thin film of green mist began to disperse around from those flags.


    This green mist gradually blended into the surrounding black mist, which made the latter that was shrouding this place start to change marvelously. As if rejecting the green mist, the black mist gathered together and went all out to squeeze the green mist back into those green flags.


    "This is working!"


    Unusual movements of the mist let Zhou Bao see signs of hope. The black mist, which was originally permeating this area in a mess and perfectly blended into itself with no pronounced distinctions, unveiled some eccentric meridian of Spiritual Qi during its unusual movements.


    "Hahaha! Sure enough, sure enough, there is something eccentric here! Using one formation to crack another, what a smart move! Only that clever guy could think on this level. Hahaha!"


    Sensing the unusual movements of the black mist as well, Green Spirit''s psywaves feverishly sprang up as if he was laughing madly. Then he continued, "Good, it''s really good! Boy, go on! Chop-chop! Find the black mist''s meridian of Spiritual Qi!"


    "No, I can''t! There is an odd power in it, and my Yin and Yang Dust Formation may not last very long!"


    At first, he did not feel it. But when he cast the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Zhou Bao could clearly sense waves of pressure coming from the black mist, which was getting increasingly immense, one after another. This pressure plummeted straight on to the top of his head like a hoisting jack, completely suppressing his Yin and Yang Dust Formation. If it were not for the Innate Qi Talisman, his formation would have long ago been devastated. However, under such pressure, even this magical talisman could not last much longer.


    "Then just hurry up and find the key to destroying this formation!" Green Spirit shrieked, "As long as you find the Formation Eye, everything will be fine. Otherwise..."


    Before Green Spirit could finish these words, a booming voice carried through from the highest heaven. "Got you, Zhou Bao! How dare you act alone while not concealing your spirit!"


    "Damn it, it''s Ye Qingtian''s people!" Hearing that voice, Zhou Bao''s heart abruptly leaped into his throat. Looking up instantly, he realized that the world outside the black mist was already overcast by a faint layer of sanguineous light, while an exotic but evil force was coming toward him.


    "This formation is surely wondrous! It should cut off the reaction that my Fiery Eyes would have from his!"


    Previously, every time his opponent''s Fiery Eyes showed up, Zhou Bao''s Fiery Eyes would make a crazy response to them as if they were stimulated by something.


    If Zhou Bao had not stifled his own Fiery Eyes each time without delay, his opponent had to have known the fact that he also possessed the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes. But this time, though Zhou Bao sensed the other''s power blatantly suffusing the surroundings, his own Fiery Eyes rendered no reactions to that power under the isolation of the black mist.


    Nevertheless, it was not time to mull over this matter now. A force of extremely freezing power descended from the highest heaven in a compelling way. Drastic changes happened in the weather around¡ªdark clouds were gathering in the sky, a wild wind was surging and howling, and snowflakes began to fall from the sky like a myriad of feathers!


    The black mist did not prevent those snowflakes from landing on Zhou Bao''s body.


    "Damn it!" Zhou Bao cursed in a whisper and launched his Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang. However, a Fairy Weapon was certainly not that easy to tackle. Several ice-blue snowflakes fell on his Gang Qi, and its effect was just like pouring cold water into hot oil.


    "Sizzle!"


    As the snowflakes vanished, so did a large portion of pneuma in his Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang. At the same time, a chilling trace of killing intent also dashed toward him out of mid-air.


    "Crap!" Zhou Bao yelled, and his body gave a shudder. At this point, he had no time to think this through. With a flick of his sleeves, he attempted to withdraw all 12 of the flags together with the Innate Qi Talisman.


    If it had been another place where he cast out this Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Zhou Bao could still resist Ye Qingtian for a while even if Ye Qingtian had a Fairy Weapon. But now, in this meadow of black mist, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation was under the all-out extrusion of the mysterious power contained in the mist and could not function one bit. Therefore, the only choice left for him was to flee.


    Just when he was about to operate his Three Realms Division, Green Spirit''s psywave suddenly jumped out, "Find it! It''s here! Boy, quick, use your Great Fusion Technic!"


    Stuck in imminent danger, Zhou Bao raised his hands without thinking and instantly launched the Great Fusion Technic.


    As a ball of golden fire light flashed, the black mist with its radius of 100 feet suddenly shrank, even thoroughly covering Zhou Bao inside of it. The black mist became smaller and smaller, and then finally disappeared.


    Everything happened so fast that it just took a fraction of a second.


    Almost at the same instant that the black mist started contracting, two streamers arrived there.


    A huge sanguine hand appeared out of the hollow and tried to grab that black mist.


    However, it was still one step too late.


    When Ye Qingtian and that black-clothed man reached that spot, the black mist had already disappeared into nowhere with Zhou Bao inside of it.


    "Hollow Travel! This guy knows the special technique of Hollow Travel! He got away once more!" Seeing that Zhou Bao had already vanished out of sight, Ye Qingtian''s entire face became livid and he gave a heavy stamp on the ground.


    "This is not right! The space with a radius of 100 feet had already been blocked by us. Even if he does have the special technique of Hollow Travel, he can''t put it to use!" The expression of that black-clothed man was coldly stern, but his eyes revealed a hint of astonishment.


    "How could he manage to disappear?" asked the ashen-faced Ye Qingtian.


    "No idea!" The black-clothed man shook his head and kept eyeing the surroundings. "This place is perfectly normal. Nothing is unusual here!"


    "Just come back. He has fled out of this space." A voice carried to the two''s ears with a slight sigh. "The black mist just now must be an exotic formation, which was the only spot that could not be blocked. Inside that ethereal mist, there are infinite time-to-space conversions. Thus, this guy has already slipped away."


    "What "What shall we do now?" Ye Qingtian asked, "Shall we go to find him?"


    "No need. Now that he has gone beyond this space, it will just be a waste of your time to try and find him. If you come across Wen Yida again, you will have another problem. Considering that there are numerous treasures buried in this Taiyuan Heaven, let''s get sufficient benefits for ourselves first. How can we leave such a treasure-trove empty-handed? Loads of things that you can never find in your world are right here! We can''t miss this opportunity! As for that guy, we''ll have plenty of time to get him after we get out of here! After all, the monk may run away, but the temple can''t run away with him."


    "Yeah, let''s wait till we''re out of here and then settle this matter with him!" Ye Qingtian snarled malevolently. He exchanged a look with that black-clothed man, and both of them disappeared simultaneously.


    Simultaneously, when Zhou Bao was swept away by that black mist, he merely felt a very regular fluctuation produced in the surrounding space, which was utterly distinct from any space fluctuation that he had felt, seen, or experienced before.


    In the past, the space fluctuations that he had sensed were either inflicted by a powerful force splitting up the hollow or a space-key like the Flickering Light Evil Qi opening up the hollow. There was no third case that existed. However, at present, he felt that the barrier wall of this space had suddenly disappeared, leaving an uncanny cavity there. Then, they just fell into this cavity like this.


    Entering the cavity, Zhou Bao felt himself gliding downward in this weird space-tube at the fastest speed. He could not control his body in this eccentric space-tube even when he tried to activate his Gang Qi or his Dragon Flying Technique. He had to let himself keep falling in this eerie way, with no clue of where the tube would end or if he would die from this fall. The only thing he could do was to prop up his Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang and his Poison Cold Shield in case he would fall to the solid ground and break all his bones.


    Zhou Bao''s figure was dropping rapidly, but the fierce crash that he was expecting did not come. Instead, at one point, the process of this rapid falling down suddenly came to a halt, and he felt that he was suspended in the air.


    Yes, he was suspended with no force to support his body, as if he was in a hollow where there was no gravity. He was simply suspended in this pitch-black space, not able to see his fingers. Even with his Fiery Eyes, he still could not see anything around him. It was an utterly dark space.


    Not a single light was there. The temperature was not very cold, but it could not be called hot either.


    Zhou Bao believed that if there was a drop of water here, it would gradually freeze-up for sure.


    Actually, the temperature was at the freezing point. This might be pretty cold for ordinary people, but for Zhou Bao, it was not a problem at all.


    He reached out and tried to feel his surroundings, but he failed to make contact with anything other than an expanse of the intangible pneuma of the world.


    The essence of the world! The highly immense essence of the world! Here, the essence of the world, which was hundreds of times more immense than that in Taiyuan Heaven, was floating everywhere.


    But all this essence meant little to Zhou Bao because it was impossible for his body to accommodate so much pneuma. Upon arriving at such a place where the density of the essence of the world was about to reach the bursting point, even activating an ordinary practicing state would be fatal. The reason was that once you started practicing, the essence there would transform into your Internal Qi of its own accord. And accordingly, you would not even consume a bit of your Internal Qi. It would then suffuse your entire body, and in the end, even make you burst, turning you into a haze of blood fog.


    "What the hell is this place? Green Spirit, is this the Innate Deity''s graveyard that you''ve talked about?" Zhou Bao inquired of Green Spirit as his psywave began to get active.


    A sparkle of starlight flickered between his fingers, which then turned into a silver spider the size of a fist. With the appearance of this starlight, Zhou Bao could finally have a clear view of the surroundings. But to his frustration, the place around him was devoid of anything.


    Even with the starlight, he could see nothing but the starlight itself and that large spider. There was simply an expanse of empty space.


    "Boy, be patient, there is a spacetime gap here!" Green Spirit seemed to know about this place and went on, "It looks like we''ve arrived at the right place. Innate Deities of the primitive times were inclined to pick this kind of empty and small space where the essence of the world was sufficient because that place highly resembled their birthplace!"


    "Is that true? If so, how should we start the search? And how... how can we get out later?"


    "You will know that when the time comes!"


    "What do you mean?"


    "The graveyards of Innate Deities and Primordial Demons were the favorite things those necromancers liked studying. For the purpose of these kinds of places, those damn necromancers had come up with plenty of methods to deal with them. From entering to exiting, all are supposed to abide by a settled procedure. So, this should not be your concern at all!"


    "Really? It seems that those necromancers did excel at digging tombs and all this stuff, didn''t they?"

 Chapter 346: Soaking in the Pure Yang Waterball

    Chapter 346: Soaking in the Pure Yang Waterball


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Now that there''s a whole set of procedures, what shall we do?"


    "Find it" Green Spirit replied resolutely, "Since the place is a spacetime gap, it''s far larger than you could imagine, so we only stand a chance if we conduct a search ourselves."


    "Fine, I''ll find it!" Zhou Bao was forced to agree. In this current situation, listening to Green Spirit was his only thing to do. He launched Gang Qi, which glittered with a red light, before Zhou Bao and Green Spirit began their search in this dark eccentric space where one couldn''t see his hand in front of himself.


    This seemingly aimless search made Zhou Bao feel helpless. After ferreting about for a long period of time, maybe one day, 10 days, or even a month¡ªnobody knew the exact time¡ªjust as Zhou Bao was approaching the extremities of boredom from this tedious task, Green Spirit''s psywave suddenly arrived with great excitement. "Found it! I found it! Haha, it''s me who found it!"


    "Found it? Where?" Hearing this, Zhou Bao also got thrilled and hastened to ask.


    "Follow me!" said Green Spirit. With starlight sparkling, Zhou Bao trod on the heels of that starlight and, in a few seconds, arrived at an odd place.


    It was still pitch-dark there, but following Green Spirit, Zhou Bao felt as though his feet were treading upon something tangible.


    Once he stepped on it, he found it soft, and very comfortable to stand on. It was just like standing on a ground covered with sponges or softwood.


    Looking around, as it always had been, nothing existed except for the ground-like tangible substance under his feet.


    Green Spirit moved on and Zhou Bao followed him. After totting for around an hour, Green Spirit came to a halt.


    "Ahead is the place!" After saying this, the starlight faded away. "Bloke, I''m an incarnation right now, though lodging in the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, I still can''t approach the remains of an Innate Deity!"


    "Why?" Zhou Bao asked with confusion.


    "Because I just successfully refined my incarnation, the Second Primordial Spirit, so I have no way to resist against the Innate Pure Yang Qi of an Innate Deity!"


    "Then, what about me?"


    "You have a tangible body and your Original Spirit is protected by it, so the Innate Pure Yang Qi will not do you any harm, instead, it''ll do you loads of good!" As they were talking, Zhou Bao stepped several paces forward and a waft of rich Pure Yang Qi blew directly in his face.


    Innate Pure Yang Qi!


    It was the most nutritious spirit for any creature. However, nothing could be absolutely good or bad, right?


    For example, water was the most important substance for all creatures, but it could also make you drown if there was too much water on earth.


    The Innate Pure Yang Qi was indeed a great nourishment, but if one consumed this nourishment way too much, his internal heat would also be too exuberant.


    The Innate Pure Yang Qi here was so dense that it had already transformed from gas to liquid. This region with the radius of 10,000 feet was actually a gigantic ball formed by the liquid, which was purely comprised of the Innate Pure Yang Qi.


    "Hiss!" At the sight of this scene, Zhou Bao gasped, but soon his shock was replaced by a fit of ecstasy. "So much Innate Pure Yang Qi! Hahaha, Pure Yang Injection! Pure Yang Injection! F*ck, why didn''t I bring more celestial devices with me in here!"


    While immersed in wild joy, several lights emitted from Zhou Bao''s body and started flashing violently, bringing out four of his Mysterious Level celestial devices and wizard weapons¡ªthe Poison Cold Shield, the Knot Golden Net, the Blue Sword and the Golden-Scaled Cudgel¡ªthey all bustled out and dashed right into that Pure Yang Waterball. Then, a twinkle flitted between his eyebrows, his Golden Flame Mirror also rushed out and plunged straightaway into the Pure Yang Waterball.


    His Poison Cold Shield was originally refined based on the Poison-absorbing Green Bead, which was a very rare treasure. It was just that the refining way of this Poison Cold Shield was highly sinister and vicious, plus it was of the Cold Attribute, even though it was already at Mysterious Level, once the refining was completed, a considerable amount of Innate Pure Yang Qi was still needed to evolve it into a Pure Yang Celestial Device. But in the present world, where could he possibly find so much Innate Pure Yang Qi?


    The success of refining the Golden Flame Mirror shall mainly be attributed to its extreme Yang nature. Besides, it was forged by the Tusita Fire and it absorbed extreme Yang flame like the Sun Colored Glaze Flame, and that was what pulled off this fluke. However, though the Golden Flame Mirror was already a Pure Yang Celestial Device, its power was still at the bottom level if compared with other Pure Yang Celestial Devices.


    Now, with suddenly so much Innate Pure Yang Qi in the vicinity, Zhou Bao would naturally never let this opportunity slip by.


    The so-called Pure Yang Injection referred to the means allowing a celestial device to possess a bit of Pure Yang Qi, with which one could evolve his formation talismans. Pure Yang Injection was, in fact, a pretty generalized concept. If we had to use an analogy, it could be said that this was a procedure similar to bestowing living creatures with spiritual intelligence. Before obtaining the spiritual intelligence, one could merely be a beast, regardless of how powerful his strength was or how prestigious he was. But when he possessed the spiritual intelligence, no matter what kind of creature he had been, he would be qualified to call himself a demon. He could be an evil beast, or else a monster, but anyway, he would belong to the demon family.


    The difference between a Pure Yang Celestial Device and a Mysterious Celestial Device lay on the issue that whether one possessed the spiritual intelligence or not. This was a qualitative leap.


    What the Pure Yang Injection technique needed was exactly a bit of Pure Yang Qi.


    Why did this only need a bit of Pure Yang Qi?


    The reason was that there wasn''t that much Pure Yang Qi in the present world. The Golden Flame Mirror, for instance, only rose to a Pure Yang Celestial Device after absorbing a wisp of Pure Yang Qi by relying on the help of the Sun Colored Glaze Flame.


    But currently, there was so much Innate Pure Yang Qi in front of him, which was so thick that it could turn his Poison Cold Shield into a Pure Yang Celestial Device straightaway, for the evolvement of Pure Yang formation and Pure Yang talisman did not necessarily require Zhou Bao''s engagement. The reason why he did it in person when refining the Golden Flame Mirror was that the amount of Pure Yang Qi at that time was so minimal that it was unable to complete the evolvement by itself. But now, in the Pure Yang Waterball, there was enough Pure Yang Qi for this smart Poison-absorbing Green Bead to evolve into a perfect Pure Yang Celestial Device on its own. Meanwhile, the Pure Yang Formation of the Golden Flame Mirror could also be improved here, and its power could soar to several phases above its present level. As to that Knot Golden Net, it was unable to upgrade to a Pure Yang Celestial Device at once due to its material limits. Nevertheless, when it had absorbed sufficient Innate Pure Yang Qi, it could gradually evolve its magic formation and grow into a Pure Yang Celestial Device as long as it could undergo a careful purification.


    In this way, adding the Sky-measuring Star Ruler and the Lunar Shuttle, Zhou Bao would possess a total of seven Pure Yang Celestial Devices!


    Seven Pure Yang Celestial Devices!


    What did that mean? Well, the Jin dynasty only owned two Pure Yang Celestial Devices. One of which was robbed by Zhou Bao.


    Among those millennium families and powerful families, only a few of the strongest ones possessed Pure Yang Celestial Devices, which was used to stabilize their fate. Even for those huge sects that had existed for thousands of years, like the Tian Long Taoism, they could merely have one or two Pure Yang Celestial Devices. But Zhou Bao had already gotten seven!


    Though these devices were far enough for him to set up a millennium sect from scratch.


    "Ah, almost forget this!" Zhou Bao rummaged for a while and finally took out the Life Pearl of that Cloud-swallowing Beast. Then, he tossed it into the Pure Yang Waterball as well.


    "This time I shall have 90% assurance to refine this Air-frozen Bead into a Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Zhou Bao thought to himself. "Shall I throw myself in as well? Maybe I can really have a Pure Yang body and become a virgin once again, hey hey..."


    Harboring this obscene thought, Zhou Bao stared at that Pure Yang Waterball and continued brooding on this wretched stuff.


    "Boy, don''t push the limits. A bit would be enough!" Just at that point, Green Spirit''s psywave arrived. "Take it easy, don''t go too far! Though you have the Pure Yang Waterball here, you can not mess with it!"


    "What do you mean?" asked Zhou Bao in bewilderment.


    "You''ll find out soon enough!" Green Spirit replied, but didn''t give him a straight answer.


    "Then, can I get in it and take a bath?"


    "You idiot! This is Pure Yang Water, quite beneficial for your body. Its effect can be much better than consuming tonics like Bone-Forging Pills or Tendon-Changing Pills. You know that a majority of those Innate Deities from antiquity times were born from this kind of Pure Yang Waterball?" Green Spirit cried out. "You can take a bath in it, but never launch your techniques or start practicing there!"


    "I''m not that silly!" Zhou Bao murmured quietly. Then, he looked up and slipped into that Pure Yang Waterball.


    "Wow..." The instance that he got into the Waterball, Zhou Bao couldn''t help but let out a yell out of comfort.


    It was truly comfortable!


    Stepping into the Pure Yang Waterball, the Pure Yang Water inside seemed to have sensed the existence of a living creature and turned into thin trickles, pouring into his body and pores to reach his insides. Then, the Pure Yang Water kept flowing autonomously along his tendons and meridians.


    Yes, those trickles were flowing autonomously. Right now, Zhou Bao did not dare practice at all, and he even did not dare breathe, because once he took a breath, the immense Pure Yang Qi he inhaled would certainly make him explode. Thus, he shut down his breathing but opened up hundreds of thousands of pores all over his body. Pure Yang Water crept into his body through those pores, forming the flows inside his tendons and meridians that were actually organized and regulated. As a matter of fact, these trickles of Pure Yang Water went along his tendons and meridians and directly ran to his Dantian and acupoints.


    Zhou Bao had so far opened nine acupoints¡ªthe Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints. The capacity of each of these acupoints was infinitely larger than an ordinary Dantian, and Zhou Bao hadn''t filled up any of them before.


    Because, for one thing, the spiritual qi in the present world was not so abundant; for another, his tendons and meridians might not be able to take in so much Qi either.


    But now, as the Pure Yang Water flowed, Zhou Bao could clearly feel that a portion of the Pure Yang Water that went inside his body had already seeped into his tendons and meridians, bones, flesh and blood, and even viscera. Being nourished by the Pure Yang Water, his body also started to present delicate changes. These kind of changes were pretty subtle, which meant that his body did not grow infinitely stronger at once. Instead, these were in-depth changes, and he felt that every bit of his flesh and blood, every piece of bone, and every single cell came to be full of intelligence, alive like tiny little creatures.


    Every part of his body was brimming with vitality and intelligence. Meanwhile, his tendons and meridians had been forcibly expanded by Pure Yang Water and became extremely resilient. With the current strength and resilience, his tendons and meridians could bear the amount of Internal Qi produced when all the nine acupoints were launched. But that was not all of it.


    When the Pure Yang Water was nourishing and changing his body, most of the water flowed into his nine acupoints. At this time, these nine acupoints served as nine reservoirs, unprecedentedly being filled up in a twinkling. After filling up his acupoints, Pure Yang Water began to infuse and evolve with the Internal Qi that was originally stored in his acupoints, and then slowly transformed into his Demonic Fire Internal Qi. Compared with the previous one, this newly formed Demonic Fire Internal Qi was multiple times purer.


    It was true. Under the influence of the Pure Yang Water, the Demonic Fire Internal Qi inside Zhou Bao started growing purer, while in his Dantian, the essence of all his Internal Qi, the kindling of that Demonic Fire finally began to metamorphose.


    Yes, metamorphose!


    Zhou Bao was a Level Eight expert. Apart from the Internal Qi, his acupoint also housed eight Real Essence Sources. Among them, the most important one, as well as the largest one, was the Source in his Dantian, which was the foundation for everything.


    His Internal Qi had already turned into the Dragon Chimera''s Demonic Fire, whose quality was much higher than most Real Essences. If it could truly evolve into a Real Essence in the future, its power would naturally get stronger at exponential speed. However, if you wanted to sustain those Real Essences, your body must also meet some extremely harsh requirements.


    Real Essence and Internal Qi were two kinds of powers that were at different levels. That was why the first barrier that one shall meet after jumping out of the Three Small Realms was to refine one''s tendons and meridians.


    The first Realm of the Three Big Realms was to refine tendons and meridians!


    Only by refining those tendons and meridians that could bear the Real Essence could one truly became a Metaphysic Individual Immortal.


    Now, with the impact and nurture of Pure Yang Water, those Real Essence Sources in his nine acupoints started to change, especially the one in his Dantian. At first, it was a cluster of black flame, but now, after absorbing and transforming Pure Yang Water, it began to pulse as if Zhou Bao had taken some magic pills. A dim but explosive power was pulsing in the Real Essence Source, and the surrounding Internal Qi also drew toward that Real Essence Source and got absorbed by it. This did not only happen in his Dantian, but in other eight acupoints as well.


    Thanks to the almost inexhaustible Pure Yang Water here, Zhou Bao could really make this happen. Comparing it to the present world, the amount of Pure Yang Water he had consumed was an astronomical figure, while in this place, it was merely a few drops of water at most. Abundant Pure Yang Water backed up the Real Essence Sources in Zhou Bao''s acupoints to incur this ever so eccentric change.


    At first, Zhou Bao did have some concerns about whether his Real Essence Sources would all burst at once and turn his Internal Qi into Real Essence, allowing him to directly jump from Level Eight up to the Mysterious Realm.


    No, to Level Nine!


    With only a few seconds of breathing after he entered the Pure Yang Waterball, when he experienced the nurturing and remolding of the Pure Yang Water, his body strength, his Internal Qi quality, and even the state of those Real Essence Sources in his acupoints, had all reached Level Nine.


    That huge gap between Level Eight and Level Nine, as viewed in eyes of ordinary people, was easily crossed by Zhou Bao without a fuss.


    If this happened to someone else, he would certainly be overjoyed. But for Zhou Bao, this might not be good news.


    Yeah, not good news!


    This was due to his Fiery Eyes, which was his deepest and deadliest secret. He could manage to keep it a secret when his cultivation was below the Mysterious Realm. But once he broke through that level, he would be registered on the Golden Book of Fate. When that day came, he would face some real trouble.


    He was indeed powerful at present, but his experience and strength were still not sufficient enough. Thus, it was impossible for him to confront the orthodox influence represented by the Divine Wind Palace. Once this secret was exposed, he would face a close-call situation for sure. Therefore, Zhou Bao had been trying to slow down his cultivation progress. However, the more he tried, the more troublesome this turned out to be. Such being the case, if he stayed longer in Pure Yang Water, he would probably really break through the Mysterious Realm!


    Thinking of this, Zhou Bao started to think about leaving.


    However, right at this point, a mutation happened.


    All his nine acupoints vibrated at the same time, and a strong power burst out from the nine Real Essence Sources.


    "F*ck, we''re done for!"


    Zhou Bao''s heart gave a jolt, and he really thought those Real Essence Sources were going to explode. But to his surprise, they didn''t. In contrast, under the joint impact of the outside Pure Yang Water and the inside Real Essence, a wonderful change surfaced.


    All the Real Essence Sources began to contract.


    Yes, they didn''t blow up or turn his Internal Qi into the Real Essence. On the contrary, they actually started to condense and clear themselves.


    "What''s going on here?" Just when Zhou Bao was at a loss, shots of faint golden light were simultaneously released from his nine Real Essence Sources. Vaguely, Zhou Bao felt that a certain kind of change was happening inside his Real Essence Sources.


    Level Nine!


    This was the feeling of being at Level Nine.


    When he was at Level Eight, his Internal Qi, which were as hard as steel, also carried the Real Essence Sources. In emergencies, he could even draw some Real Essence Qi out of those Real Essence Sources to replenish his Internal Qi and enhance its power. But now, he had stepped into Level Nine. Level Nine!


    Those Real Essence Sources could disperse Real Essence Energy of their own accord, which could naturally infuse into his Internal Qi and create a state of semi-Internal Qi and semi-Real Essence. This type of Internal Qi had gained some preliminary features of the Real Essence and possessed great intelligence. The Internal Qi could be refined into something similar to the Primordial Spirit, such as the Heavenly Devil Real Body, through some powerful cultivation methods. Lastly, it would infuse into one''s body and allow one to accomplish the Individual Immortal Karma Rank.


    Currently, Zhou Bao''s Real Essence Sources had condensed into a blotch, which was a very peculiar shape, but was still giving off rich spirits of the Real Essence like other Level Nine experts'' did. His Real Essence Sources had blended into his Dragon Chimera Fire and fallen into a state of semi-Internal Qi and semi-Real Essence, full of intelligence.


    however, Zhou Bao still felt that something went wrong, for the Real Essence his Real Essence Sources issued out should be golden colored. But anyway, his initial Internal Qi was already very odd. Zhou Bao wouldn''t even be surprised if it had evolved to be multi-colored Real Essence, let alone the pure golden one.


    What Zhou Bao found odd was the fact that this whiff of Real Essence was mingled with a bleak and primitive spirit that seemed to have come from the primitive times or even more ancient times. There was another kind of spirit contained within that made his heart palpitate like mad. He could not tell what it was exactly, but it was truly there.


    "Given that my Internal Qi is the Dragon Chimera''s Demonic Fire, a kindling inside the beast of primitive times, could it be possible that both of my Internal Qi and Real Essence have returned to their ancient states?"


    Zhou Bao was buried in rumination, wondering whether this change was beneficial to him or not.


    All of a sudden, Zhou Bao felt his nine acupoints starting to pulsate concurrently.


    "Eh? Looks like those Real Essence Sources has absorbed enough Pure Yang Water!" Zhou Bao thought. Indeed, the nine acupoints had already stored adequate Pure Yang Water. Pure Yang Water that was initially flowing along his tendons and meridians had also stopped pumping into his Dantian, and started aggregating bit by bit through a mystical and eccentric path.


    Dantian!


    Watching the path of Pure Yang Water, Zhou Bao was slightly taken aback. He clearly saw that Pure Yang Water was pouring into his "Dantian".


    But this "Dantian" was not one of his nine acupoints, instead, it was a huge "Dantian" that was constituted by the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints combined.


    The capacity of this "Dantian" was even larger than that of the nine acupoints, actually, over a hundred times larger than each of them. But most importantly, when Pure Yang Water flew into this Dantian, the thing produced by the gradual transformation was not the Internal Qi of his Dragon Chimera Fire, but the Real Essence!


    It was a golden colored Real Essence!


    What this enormous "Dantian" was awash with was exactly the light golden Real Essence emitted from his nine Real Essence Sources.


    However, compared to those vague mists blended in the Internal Qi that his Real Essence Source was giving off, the Real Essence integrated into this huge "Dantian" was flowing like real liquid gold, emanating a kind of honorable and domineering spirit that even made Zhou Bao feel irresistible.


    At the sight of this golden Real Essence Energy, Zhou Bao was somewhat dumbstruck.


    "No way! Already condensed into the Real Essence? Have I reached the Mysterious Realm?" "But that does not seem right. It can''t be. Breaking through the Mysterious Realm from Level Nine can''t be like this. Even though my body strength and my Internal Qi has turned into the Real Essence, my primordial spirit should have made the same change as well! These three shall act in unison, but why hasn''t anything happened to my divine thoughts yet? And why has my Real Essence Source remained so quiet, too?"


    Zhou Bao found this inexplicable, and also couldn''t figure out what on earth his current state was.


    But it was evident that he had not entered the Mysterious Realm, for his spirit had not changed a single bit. However, his internals were suffused with the Real Essence Energy. He knew for sure that although his huge "Dantian" had not been filled up yet, in terms of the quantity of Real Essence, he should already surpass all Individual Immortals in the world regarding the quality of his Real Essence. But he was not an Individual Immortal right now, just a Level Nine expert.


    At the thought of this present situation, he was amused.


    This was really grotesque.


    However, no matter how grotesque this was, it did happen to him. He wasn''t dreaming at all.


    "Fine, fine. Regardless of what happened, it must be good for me!" Zhou Bao consoled himself, allowing Pure Yang Water to freely run into his Dantian and then transform.


    Having no idea about how long this had taken, when his huge "Dantian" was filled to the full extent by a colossal amount of golden Real Essence, Pure Yang Water seemed to have lost its aim and began to run wild in his body.


    As hints of a swelling sensation spread out from his tendons and meridians, Zhou Bao knew that it was time to go out.


    Just when he was about to take off, something beyond his expectation happened again.


    His Fiery Eyes were turned on.


    Previously when he plummeted into Pure Yang Water, his Fiery Eyes remained quiet as usual, and remained so when the Pure Yang Water pumped into his body. But now, just as everything was drawing to an end and the Pure Yang Water had already offered Zhou Bao sufficient benefits, his Fiery Eyes were suddenly turned on. His eyes instantly went sanguine, and the ring of black line around each of his eyes starting circling. As the black lines started moving, something incredulously odd happened.


    Both of his eyes seemed to turn into bottomless pits and sucked all the Pure Yang Water around into that mysterious space.


    This time, Pure Yang Water was being actively sucked in, instead of passively seeping in as before.


    The speed of this intake was amazingly fast.


    In just a few seconds of breathing, the diameter of that Pure Yang Waterball rapidly shrank from 10,000 feet to 5,000 feet. While the only thing Zhou Bao could see in that mysterious space was a wisp of faint fog.


    "What on earth is happening?"


    As though sensing a drastic change around the corner, Zhou Bao''s heart began to pump violently, while his spirit started shivering too.

 Chapter 347: The Remains of Innate Deity Regressed

    Chapter 347: The Remains of Innate Deity Regressed


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Pure Yang Water was extremely thick. It was absorbed and turned into mist in that marvelous space. Zhou Bao hadn''t understood it before, but he finally realized that The Pure Yang Water wasn''t small, but the mysterious interspace was just too vast.


    Zhou Bao sensed it was inconceivable.


    Because of thinking the dark interspace was small, Zhou Bao hadn''t sensed it before. However, he finally saw it clearly: The Pure Yang Waterball was huge, with a diameter of over ten thousand feet.


    Ordinary people would say said that the water ball was incredibly huge. A man standing in front of it was just like nothing but a little ant. However, what if you put an over ten thousand diameter water ball in the universe?


    It would be much smaller than a drop of water in the sea!


    Well, that was now the case.


    The water ball was only a layer of thin fog that scattered across the mysterious space. The mist couldn''t be seen at all if it broke up. However, the condensation began when his Fiery Eyes absorbed more Pure Yang Water. Finally, when half of it was absorbed, a drop of liquid appeared, tinier than a needlepoint.


    Was this the Pure Yang Waterball?


    Looking at the water drop, Zhou Bao felt like weeping though he had no tears.


    As more of it was taken in by Zhou Bao, more tiny drops started to condensate as well. However, no matter how much of the Waterball he had absorbed, they all were as small as the first one.


    "Well, this is...!"


    When he thought about how big the Pure Yang Water Drop could be in this mysterious space, he suddenly froze.


    When he wanted to see how much Pure Yang Water was left, he saw something breathtaking. It wasn''t that his vision had been impaired while absorbing the water with his Fiery Eyes, but he just had his eyes fixated on the mysterious space.


    What he saw were the remains, and they were incredibly tiny!


    Well, maybe not tiny, but rather different from his idea of an Innate Deity''s remains.


    In the description of Green Spirit, the Innate Deities and the Primordial Demons, the two kinds of formidable living creatures, which dominated the whole world from the Primordial Origin, were enormous in size. Even the smallest Innate Deity was about 1,000 feet in size, and the stronger ones were 10,000 feet at least.


    No matter what Divine Sense these supernatural beings had and how they could transform, their bodies would return to their original size when they died. In other words, the remains of an Innate Deity or a Primordial Demon should be about 1,000 feet at least. However, now they were only the size of a human adult, and even with a very cute posture in the Pure Yang Water.


    It looked like a baby sleeping in its mother''s belly, but only if the baby had no flesh and only yellow jade-like bones.


    "No, these aren''t the complete remains!"


    He was right. The remains were not complete. In fact, looking carefully, there was only a yellow jade-like skull; the rest of the body was virtual, composed of a strange golden energy.


    Even though it looked like the complete remains when it was soaking in the Pure Yang Water, as it was being absorbed by Zhou Bao''s Fiery Eyes, the lower part of the body turned into a golden mist and rushed towards Zhou Bao.


    "No!" With a look, Zhou Bao wasn''t sure if it was a blessing or a curse, so he subliminally tried to avoid it, but how could he avoid that?


    These golden mists went straight into Zhou Bao''s mouth and nose as if they were alive.


    Zhou Bao only felt a cold breath into his body, along the path where the Pure Yang Water once flowed to his huge Dantian. Slowly, these golden mists melted into one strand and blended in with his golden Dantian without making the slightest sound, almost as if nothing was happening.


    If it hadn''t been for the yellow jade-like skull that was suspended in front of him, Zhou Bao would have thought it was an illusion.


    Since the skull was a little dim and he was far away, even with Zhou Bao''s eyes he could barely see it, and the finer details were cut off by a layer of yellow light. It was only now that he could appreciate the true face of the skull.


    Even though it was no different than a common skull, it looked like it was made of yellow jade rather than bone.


    Zhou Bao could not resist and he reached out to touch the warm yellow jade which looked almost like jade lipid. He felt a unique soft force coming that made him feel really comfortable. With a little effort, his strength was deflected by that force and vanished into the void.


    "It must be something good, but how do I use it?" Zhou Bao secretly thought.


    "Eh, a complete skull of an Innate Deity!"


    By then, the Fiery Eyes had absorbed all the Pure Yang Water and Green Spirit came out again, feeling that there was not much danger.


    He first looked at the skull suspended in front of Zhou Bao. Then, after an exclamation, he flew to its side.


    "It''s, it''s really the skull of an Innate Deity! And it is complete! Boy, don''t stand still, quick, quick refine it!"


    "Refine it?" Zhou Bao said confounded before looking up and asking, "Can the skull be refined?"


    "Sure!" Green Spirit cried, "This is the skull of an Innate Deity, more solid and more powerful than a common fairy weapon!"


    It was more powerful than a fairy weapon!


    Zhou Bao''s eyes suddenly lit up because he truly coveted fairy weapons. Knowing that the skull was superior, he definitely would not miss it. Without thinking, he broke his fingertip and dropped a little bit of blood, just like when refining celestial devices, right between the eyebrows of the skull.


    The skull was slightly shaken, and sending out a hazy yellow light, the blood seeped into it between the eyebrows. With his hands flying, Zhou Bao quickly made numerous handprints and began to refine the yellow jade-like skull there.


    "This is..."


    As the handprints kept flying, a thread of ingenious spirit from the yellow jade-like skull passed through Zhou Bao''s handprints and entered his mind.


    It was vast, primitive, desolate and huge!


    After being exposed to that vast amount of information, his spirit could not bear it.


    "Enough, if this continues, my spirit may be overwhelmed by the information!" Zhou Bao became abruptly anxious as he felt his spirit unsteady. The handprints turned slowly, ready to withdraw. He had benefited a lot already this time, and if all his previous efforts were wasted due to his greed, it was really not worth it.


    But when he was ready to quit and refuse the information, his eyes flashed red, and the black lines rotated slightly. At that moment, he felt as if his spirit had grown countless times, and in the blink of an eye, he had absorbed all the information from the skull. After that, the red light in his eyes faded, and his spirit returned to normal.


    "What''s going on? Fiery Eyes have this weird function?" Zhou Bao blinked fiercely with confusion, but that wasn''t the moment to figure it out. Thanks to his refining, Zhou Bao was spiritually connected with the skull, and he felt its tremendous power.


    Endless layers of mysterious fluctuation attached to the skull galvanized him.


    "Well, boy, don''t be dazed. It''s time to leave now!"


    Finding Zhou Bao was staring blankly, Green Spirit reminded him, "You''ve refined the skull of this Innate Deity, and have taken away the core of this space-time gap, so it begins to collapse now!"


    What?


    Hearing the word "collapse", Zhou Bao looked up with startled. Indeed, the spatial fluctuation around him had become abnormal, and the walls looked like they were just about to tear apart. If he did not leave soon, he would be shattered inside the space-time gap.


    "How do we get out here?"


    "When the space is about to collapse, an opening to the Taiyuan Heaven will appear. The opportunity is fleeting, and you must seize it. Otherwise, even if you don''t die, you will only be floating in the endless hollow!" Green Spirit''s psywave seemed a little nervous.


    "Damn it, why didn''t you say that earlier?" Zhou Bao muttered. Then he raised his hand, taking all the celestial devices, which were soaking in the Pure Yang Waterball, back to the ring on his finger.


    Just as he was trying to put the yellow jade-like skull into the Space of Segmented Realms, it turned into a yellow light and went straight into his Dantian.


    "This..."


    "Hey, boy, you''re lucky. Put the Tusita Fire into it, too!" Seeing what happened, Green Spirit laughed happily, "The skull of an Innate Deity, a complete skull, it''s the best material for an Elixir Furnace. And you have the Tusita Fire and the Pure Yang Water. Haha, boy, you''re rising, you''re really rising!"


    There was a thrill in Zhou Bao''s heart, but it was not the time to celebrate. The space around began to collapse, and one after another hollow black hole started to appear around them.


    Zhou Bao, like a little ant, was shaken by the fierce void turbulence, but he clung to the ground where he stood, squinting his eyes, feeling the changes of the surrounding hollow with all his spirit.


    "Now!" All of a sudden, Zhou Bao opened his eyes, a wisp of very fine bright light shooting out. With a move, he turned into a gold streamer and threw himself into a black hole deep in the hollow.


    The surrounding black holes were getting bigger and bigger. A light spot suddenly appeared at the center of the black hole as the golden streamer was about to be sucked in by the black hole.


    The light spot passed like a flash of starlight in the dark night sky. It only took half a snap of the fingers, and it was now that the golden streamer threw into that light spot and disappeared.


    Simultaneously, the Taiyuan Heaven, after a month of noise, was gradually returning to calm. On the peak where Zhou Bao and other people had first stopped when they entered the Taiyuan Heaven, a dozen experts, with different expressions, watchfully looked at the surrounding people, including their own companions.


    In addition to Ye Qingtian and his two companions, 60 experts had entered the Taiyuan Heaven, but a month later they were the only ones left.


    Furthermore, all of these surviving experts were wounded, even the strongest.


    Likewise, their gains were considerable; over the course of a month in the Taiyuan Heaven, the treasure of heaven and earth that they got were equivalent to or even far beyond the collection of thousands of years in the temporal world.


    After going through all this, some of the strongest would go back and immediately have a closing-door train which concerned life and death, intending to break through to the Mysterious Realm, getting the Individual Immortal Karma Rank to become an immortal.


    "It''s almost the time. It seems that Zhou Bao did not survive this time!"


    The surrounding spatial fluctuations became abnormal, and the Taiyuan Token of the people of each group began to glow slightly. Experts with some experience knew that this was the signal of the Taiyuan Heaven opening. A voice sounded with schadenfreude from these experts, "But Chief Wang and Brother Mo, don''t worry. This time, far fewer people can go back. You two don''t have to afraid that you can''t get out, right?"


    Due to Zhou Bao''s arrival not happening, Wang She was in a bad mood. Now hearing this gloating voice, he became sullen and was about to flare up. However, with a light noise, the man who had just spoken was suddenly flying out, like a rag bag, hitting the mountain wall with a dead faint.


    A green light emerged out of thin air, directly into the more and more chaotic space turbulence. Emissary Chang of the Divine Wind Palace appeared in front of the people with the gold-clothed man, and behind them was Taihai Sage who possessed the Genuine Immortal Karma Rank.


    In front of a Genuine Immortal, all the experts who didn''t even reach the Mysterious Realm, dared say nothing.


    "Bloke, even if Zhou Bao is a bastard, it''s not you to be gloating. Don''t be arrogant just because of a little gain from the Taiyuan Heaven!"


    Taihai Sage Wen Yida scowled, casting a glance at that man as if he was looking at a dead dog.


    Everyone was speechless, and it occurred to them that this Taihai Sage seemed to owe Zhou Bao a favor. Even if he was dead, it would still exist. After all, life and death had nothing to do with a debt!


    At the thought of this, they all slightly gasped and dared not to speak.


    "Alas, it seems that the boy didn''t make it. But even if you die, I remember the favor!"


    The surrounding space turbulence was becoming more and more violent, just like surging sea, fiercely striking everything around. Meanwhile, the 20 Taiyuan Token were brighter and brighter, everyone being enveloped in the light. At this point, even Wang She began to despair.


    "Boy, are you really that short-lived? I''ve spent so much time on you. Don''t lose your life just because of a Taiyuan Gathering, or, how do I charge interest?" Wang She muttered to himself, clenching his fists more tightly. "It won''t happen. You have Fiery Eyes. Even though you are blocked by Ye Qingtian, as long as you show your Fiery Eyes, I don''t believe that the guy who has the same bloodline as you will ignore it and kill you!"


    "Ahhhh..."


    Just as Wang She secretly worried about Zhou Bao, a deafening cry suddenly came to the ears of these people. Like just the appearance of Taihai Sage Wen Yida, a point of starlight abruptly emerged in the space turbulence, and subsequently, the starlight increasingly grew bigger, forming a gateway of hollow, a strand of gold light spit out. And the loud scream was from this gold light.


    "Catching up, I finally catch up. Hahaha, I finally catch up. The bane can survive for thousands of years. That''s right! The bane can survive for thousands of years. I''m the bane!" With a gathering, Zhou Bao appeared in the space turbulence, enveloped in the light of his Taiyuan Token, and then left the Taiyuan Heaven with others.


    "He is indeed a bane!" The sudden appearance of Zhou Bao surprised everyone. Although the space turbulence just now was very violent, they clearly heard what Zhou Bao said. His complacency and self-proclaimed bane made these experts smiled bitterly.


    These people, chosen to go to the Taiyuan Heaven and live out of there, were all heroes who dominated an area expect for Zhou Bao. The youngest of them was the same age as Wang She; some even lived for 100 or 200 years and were all well experienced, but they had never met such a wanton person as Zhou Bao.,


    Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, even Taihai Sage Wen Yida shook his head with a wry smile. "He must have also benefited a lot in the Taiyuan Heaven, otherwise he wouldn''t be so excited. But, the most troubling thing is that he''s alive. If he was dead, I could just repay his favor casually. Whether I repay it to his family or to his friends, in my capacity, it will only be like a gift, and I wouldn''t lose face. However, now that he is alive, it will definitely annoy me in the future!" Taihai Sage Wen Yida thought with helplessness.


    In the temporal world, the storm that raged on the Blue Whale Island a month ago rose again. 20 light-spots of light flashed in the space turbulence. However, there was a much smaller number of people this time than the strong squad of 60 people from last time.


    "Hump!" As soon as they appeared, and with the space turbulence not completely gone, Taihai Sage Wen Yida gave a snort and gently lifted his fingers, fiercely striking at a peak of the Blue Whale Island.


    "Bang!"


    With a loud bang, the peak was smashed to pieces. Then a muffled sound came, a strand of red light flashed, and a figure flickered, breaking the hollow instantly and disappearing.


    "This time you have revealed your whereabouts. Even if you can escape, you cannot resist the relentless pursuit of our Divine Wind Palace. From now on, there is no place for you!" Taihai Sage laughed grimly and gave Zhou Bao a glance. Then with a roll of the green light, he rolled Emissary Chang and the gold-clothed man up, and they turned into a gust of green wind and disappeared in front of the crowd.


    "Zhou Bao, I owe you one. If you have trouble in the future, go to the Mingyi School and they will help you solve it. Your grievance with the Mingyi School has been written off. They will never get you in trouble by any means!"


    Far away, the faint sound like that of a gnat reached the ears of Zhou Bao. Hearing this, Zhou Bao grinned, "The Mingyi School? Hehe, it''s really a pleasant surprise!"


    After Taihai Sage''s departure, the experts all looked at Zhou Bao in a weird way. Zhou Bao felt uneasy and showed a displeased look, giving a cold snort.


    This cold snort was infused with his Internal Qi, so it sounded like thunder.


    "Uh!" Every one of the expert''s expressions changed. With their cultivation and experience, they instinctively sensed Zhou Bao''s huge Internal Qi and powerful strength just from his snort. However, in such circumstances, they dared not stare at him, so they left, including that expert of the Sea Area, Lei. In only a moment, only Li Xiu, Zhou Bao, Wang She and Mo Yinyang remained on the Blue Whale Island.


    "Zhou Bao, you''ve attracted a lot of attention this time!" Li Xiu said, looking at Zhou Bao with a mixture of envy and jealousy, but also with a lot of joy. "I intended to take advantage of this Taiyuan Gathering to catch up with you, but now it seems you left me behind again!"


    Zhou Bao smiled, "That depends on whether you benefited a lot or not!"


    Li Xiu shook his head. "it doesn''t matter, it can''t be compared with a Genuine Immortal''s favor. Besides, you''ve got a Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "It''s just a fluke!" At the thought of the process of grabbing the Lunar Shuttle, Zhou Bao was still feeling jumpy.


    "Your Excellency Zhou, thank you very much. I benefited a lot!" At this point, Mo Yinyang began to talk, while cupping his fist before his chest, and he was more deferential than when he entered the Taiyuan Heaven. "It''s over here. I''m leaving. If you need any help in the future, I''m at your service!"


    "No, it was me who owed you first, so Mr. Mo, never mind!" Zhou Bao also cupped his fist before his chest in an indifferent manner. The mysterious background of Mo Yinyang gave Zhou Bao a feeling of distrust. Moreover, he had a lot of headaches right now, and he really didn''t want to go into a deep conversation with this unknown guy.


    Mo Yinyang understood Zhou Bao''s intentions, so he smiled and turned into a could of grey smoke, disappearing on the spot.


    "Well, he left. We must return!" As Mo Yinyang was gone, Zhou Bao glanced at Wang She and Li Xiu. He said, "Chief Wang, are you going back to Tian Long Taoism?"


    "No, I''ll go to your place first. This time the benefit is too much. I need to digest it well and consolidate my strength!" Wang She said shaking his head.


    "Good, going back together will save us a lot of trouble!" Zhou Bao said as he nodded, "What about you, Li Xiu?"


    "Okay, I''ve been to your territory before, but I have never visited it carefully. It''s good to have a chance to do it this time!" Li Xiu said with a smile.

 Chapter 348: Great Harvest (I)

    Chapter 348: Great Harvest (I)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Well, you''ve said that this skull can be refined into an Elixir Furnace. How is it done?" After returning to the Wuyang Region, Wang She instantly began to do closed-door training to digest the benefits he got in Taiyuan Heaven. While Zhou Bao took Li Xiu around his territory before they both began to do closed-door training.


    After all, the people came out from Taiyuan Heaven alive, all gained huge benefits. If they did not digest them, they would not rest assured, just like Golden Rooster. In order to disown him, Zhou Bao did not speak to him at either Blue Whale Island nor Taiyuan Heaven. Just as Zhou Bao tried to ask about his information, he had already gone into closed-door training.


    Since all of them were doing closed-door training, Zhou Bao was no exception.


    He was too powerful, and thus, every time he made a breakthrough during closed-door training, he would cause great chaos and destruction, which was nothing serious earlier.


    However, he was married now. He had a wife and untold servants. He could not destroy his Lord Mansion at will.


    He could not show his prowess in this way either.


    Therefore, he especially selected a site on Jilei Mountain to do closed-door training.


    It was a deep valley on the mountainside. Looking from outside, it was smoggy and cloudy. Birds and beasts were rarely seen around it.


    Moreover, there was a poison swamp that was emitting insidious spirit.


    Surrounding it were dead twigs and withered leaves. Because it consisted of old trees and crows and looked completely gloomy, it was not a good place for a righteous person to practice.


    However, Zhou Bao thought it was a perfect place.


    He was not demanding. His requirements for a practicing site were quiet and unoccupied.


    As for the essence of the world that other practitioners required the most, he did not give a shit.


    He did not need to care about it. His practice had nothing to do with the surrounding essence of the world. His accumulation was enough and his foundation was extremely solid. At present, rather than absorb the essence of the world, his main task was to make full use of the tremendous pneuma that was stored in his body.


    The first thing he needed to do was to inquire about the usage of the Innate Deity''s skull that he had acquired.


    It was like a yellow jade and he knew it was unusual. However, he could not figure out its specialty. It was just like a skull that was carved completely out of yellow jade, it was like the ordinary artwork that he had seen in his previous life.


    "Since you''ve put your Tusita Fire in it, you just need to carve some formations now!" Green Spirit said gently. His psywave quivered strangely as if he was thinking about something.


    "Formations? What kind of formations? What should I do?"Zhou Bao asked.


    Patterns came out from Green Spirit''s psywave one after another and directly imprinted into Zhou Bao''s mind. "These are the formations. The skull of the deity... Eh..."


    While Zhou Bao was receiving the patterns, Green Spirit emanated a voice in surprise.


    "What''s up?" Zhou Bao asked.


    "There must be something wrong with you, boy. How can your spirit be that strong? I cannot communicate with you now unless you agree. Besides, I cannot sense your physical condition. Your strength seems to have disappeared all of a sudden, but at the same time, it seems to have increased by several times. I completely cannot figure out what has happened to you. No matter how miraculous the Pure Yang Water is, it wouldn''t bring you such a change!"


    "How about adding on the remains of the Innate Deity?" Zhou Bao laughed straightforwardly. "Moreover, my Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints had a small problem!" Zhou Bao then began to talk about the colossal Dantian that was made up of his nine acupoints, and the tremendous golden Genuine Soul that had been stored in his Dantian together with the mysterious yellow energy that he had absorbed in the Innate Deity. Green Spirit was astonished and bemused.


    "Are you serious? I''m unable to examine your physical condition at this moment!" Green Spirit said dubiously. He thought of a possibility in Zhou Bao''s words. However, if it was true, he was way too lucky, because it was only a legend in the antiquity times.


    "Of course. I don''t need to cheat you!"


    "Then you must try to operate the Golden Essence in your giant Dantian and show it to me!"


    "It''ll be fabulous if I can operate it. The Golden Essence is about to solidify. I''m unable to operate it!" Zhou Bao said. He had tried several times as he came back. However, the golden power in his giant Dantian was like a huge yellow crystal. He could not operate it at all.


    "Then show me your Internal Qi right now!" Green Spirit said. His expectation was revealed by his psywave.


    "Fine!" Zhou Bao nodded in agreement. He operated Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, and a dark golden flame-like airflow appeared on his palm.


    "Hiss!" As it showed up, Green Spirit could not help gasping in wonderment. He stepped backward dozens of feet and then stopped. He looked at Zhou Bao fearfully and said, "Lad, how lucky you are?! This in no way is Internal Qi. It''s Dharma power!"


    "Dharma power?!" Zhou Bao was astonished. He glanced at the strange flame in his palm and said, "No way! You''ve said that I can only possess it after I pass through Thunder Tribulation and become a Genuine Immortal. Moreover, it possesses special Divine Senses and other functions. Why haven''t I found anything in it?"


    "This is Dharma power. The main purpose of undergoing the so-called Thunder Tribulation is to let your Internal Qi be infected with Divine Qi. You''ve finished this process through your wife. Your body has been strengthened by the Pure Yang Water, and your Internal Qi is mutated through the Pure Yang Water as well. Presently, your Internal Qi contains Dharma power rather than the Real Essence. Besides, your Demonic Fire Internal Qi has completely been turned into Real Essence. Real Essence mingling with Dharma power is the hallmark of a Metaphysic Individual Immortal, whose cultivation has reached the peak of the Marrow-cleansing Realm."


    Green Spirit stopped for a while and then continued speaking. "If I''m right, the material that is stored in your giant Dantian is the pure and immense Dharma power. To be precise, it''s golden Dharma power. I don''t even know what should I say now!"


    "Do you mean it''s a good thing?"


    "For others, it''s not a good thing, because the stronger they are now, the more powerful the Genuine Immortal Tribulation will be. However, you''ve been purified by the Pure Yang Water. Except for your spirit, your other parts are as powerful as that of experts among Metaphysic Individual Immortals. As you refine your spirit to a certain degree, you''ll pass through the Thunder Tribulation and achieve Genuine Immortal Karma Rank by skipping the stage of being an Individual Immortal. Only some legendary mighty figures in primitive times could do it. Even in antiquity times, few people could skip the Metaphysic Realm to be a Genuine Immortal directly. What a powerful man you are!"


    "Does that mean I''ll encounter the Thunder Tribulation soon?"


    "Yes. If you don''t suppress your cultivation purposefully, you''ll face the Thunder Tribulation in 10 to 20 years. At that time, if you''re lucky enough to avoid from being split into ashes, you must achieve Genuine Immortal Karmic Rank!"


    "I don''t want to become ashes!" Zhou Bao murmured. He was somewhat depressed. Achieving the Body of True Immortality was a good thing for him. After all, strength was everything in this world!


    However, before this, he must encounter the Thunder Tribulation!


    The Thunder Tribulation of Genuine Immortals could not be easily passed through by common people. They were not like protagonists in novels that had privileges either. Passing through the Thunder Tribulation was not funny, rather, it would take someone''s life. Among 10 Individual Immortals, eight would die of the Thunder Tribulation. Among the remaining two lucky dogs, one would end up losing all his magic weapons.


    Moreover, Zhou Bao was different from other ordinary Individual Immortals. The latter ones were listed immortals, and some of their Original Spirit was on the Golden Book of Fate. Even if they were split into ashes, their Original Spirit could remain. However, Zhou Bao ascended the Realm of True Immortality from Level Nine directly. If he failed, he would become ashes and leave nothing.


    "10 years! It''s way too short. What if I suppress my cultivation?"


    "That will depend on your situation. But I must remind you that the more fiercely you suppress your cultivation, the more profound it''ll be, and the more fierce the Thunder Tribulation will be!"


    "Will it be troublesome for me? Why did you say that it''s harmful to others? What about me?"


    "No, it won''t. It''ll be extremely easy for you to pass through the Thunder Tribulation as long as you refine this skull into a fairy Elixir Furnace!" Green Spirit revealed strong envy in his psywave. "The skull of the Innate Deity! You''ve absorbed its remains. What are you afraid of? Once you finish refining the Elixir Furnace, even a Thunder Tribulation of 18 layers cannot restrain you!"


    "Can I be that powerful?" Zhou Bao was exalted. His heart moved, and the skull that was like a yellow jade flew out of his Dantian. The Tusita Fire was burning in the skull as if it had integrated with the skull, and the two eye holes emitted abstruse light as if the skull suddenly possessed life.


    "The Innate Deity''s skull is a fairy weapon with unimaginable power. If it''s refined properly, it''ll be extremely powerful. I believe that you should have sensed it now!" Green Spirit said this as Zhou Bao was integrating formations, one after another into the skull.


    "Yeah. I''ve already sensed it!" Leading the Tusita Fire in the skull to burn, Zhou Bao turned his dark golden Internal Qi into formations and spells. Then he infused them into the skull. He could feel the mighty Divine Sense contained in the fairy weapon that belonged to him.


    Suddenly, the skull quivered. It flew higher and higher and became bigger. All of a sudden, it turned into a 100-foot radius giant skull. A bright light flashed through Zhou Bao''s eyes, and then a golden light appeared behind his head. His Golden Flame Mirror flew out automatically and then flew into the giant skull directly. Then, a flashing golden light integrated with the Tusita Fire in the skull. It was shimmering in the eye holes of the skull. Later on, it flew out and shot into the place between the skull''s eyebrows.


    "This is..."


    The sudden change stunned Zhou Bao. He found that his Golden Flame Mirror really infused with the skull, and turned into a golden spot in between its eyebrows. It gradually melted and finally disappeared.


    Later on, the giant skull turned back to its normal size. It floated in front of Zhou Bao and went in-between his eyebrows.


    "What?!" Zhou Bao was flabbergasted. But soon after, he felt very comfortable. After entering the place between his eyebrows, the skull turned into a heat flow and ran through his whole body. He felt an unparalleled strong sense all over his body.


    Yes. Amazingly strong!


    "My body has been strengthened by 100 times at least. Its intensity is greater than that of the Pure Yang Celestial Device!" As he sensed the benefits brought by this skull, he was overjoyed. Then, a bigger surprise struck his spirit again.


    The ancient formation was passed into his spirit, which helped him understand the wonderful usages and methods of application of this skull.


    His divine thoughts moved. The yellow light in between his eyebrows flashed, and then the Skull Elixir Furnace flew out again. As he pointed a finger, assorted herbs and blood of rare spiritual creatures he brought from Taiyuan Heaven, all rushed into the skull. Within a few seconds, thousands of elixirs flew out of the eyes of the Elixir Furnace. The fragrance of elixirs pervaded everywhere. Even the poison swamp under the steep valley could not suppress the immense fragrance. It spread over dozens of miles and agitated all of the animals on Jilei Mountain.


    "Haha. Good. The Elixir Furnace is really good!" Zhou Bao rotated in the air and turned into a dark golden light, going into the Elixir Furnace.


    Phew... The Elixir Furnace turned into a yellow rainbow and disappeared from the horizon. Within several seconds, Zhou Bao already reached the coast of the East Sea.


    "How speedy it is! It really broke the hollow directly. It''s more convenient than the Three Realms Division!"


    On the coast of the East Sea, he came out of the Elixir Furnace and glanced at his surroundings complacently. Meanwhile, he was calculating his speed, and gains and losses.


    "The only shortcoming is that I''ll exhaust plenty of energy every time I use it. Damn it! Within a few seconds, a quarter of the Real Essence Dharma power in my nine acupoints has been exhausted. The quantity of my Real Essence Dharma power is dozens of times more compared to that of ordinary Individual Immortals. Without the cultivation of Genuine Immortals, no one can use such a fairy weapon. I wonder why Ye Qingtian could utilize the North Pole Frozen Wheel."


    "Lad, don''t show off in front of me. Now, you can rest easy with it. However, it''s a fairy weapon. Therefore, it''s not easy for you to utilize it. You cannot depend on it too much. You''d better save the use of it!"


    "I got it. I won''t use it unless I need to refine elixirs or use it as a last resort under dangerous circumstances!" Zhou Bao nodded in agreement. He went into the skull once again. The yellow rainbow passed through the sky and returned to the poison swamp under the steep valley.


    After that, he began to check the gains he had acquired in Taiyuan Heaven.


    Compared to Wang She and other people, Zhou Bao gained less in Taiyuan Heaven in terms of quantity, because he had stayed in the tomb of the Innate Deity most of his time.


    The materials he had acquired were less than 10% of those of other people. Except scraping together the materials to refine the Air-frozen Bead and elixirs, there was nothing he could show off.


    However, he gained the most compared to others in terms of quality.


    He had acquired seven Pure Yang Celestial Devices!


    His Golden Flame Mirror was absorbed by the Skull Elixir Furnace and the two integrated as a whole. Moreover, his Poison Cold Shield began to evolve into a Pure Yang Celestial Device. At least within half a month, it would be successful. His Knot Golden Net, Golden-Scaled Cudgel, and Blue Sword were evolving as well. However, it would take a lot of time to finish the procedure.


    He was unable to use the three Pure Yang Celestial Devices that were evolving. So, he only possessed the two Pure Yang Celestial Devices that were available, the Sky-measuring Star Ruler and Lunar Shuttle.


    "I shall refine the Lunar Shuttle first!" Zhou Bao thought secretly and then took the Lunar Shuttle out of the Space of Segmented Realms directly.


    It quivered as it came out of the Space of Segmented Realms. Moreover, it was about to fly as if it was attracted by some great force.


    "Stupid!" Zhou Bao snorted coldly. He then stretched out a hand to capture it. It was then controlled by an immense power, and unable to move.


    Suddenly, a fierce killing intent was emitted from the Lunar Shuttle. It condensed into a thread and shot toward the place between his eyebrows.


    "Presumptuous!" Zhou Bao did not dodge the killing intent, but let it dart toward his forehead.


    Clash!


    The killing intent collided with Zhou Bao''s forehead. Right after that, a sound of metal clapping emanated. Zhou Bao''s head vibrated slightly. However, the killing intent completely disappeared.


    As the Lunar Shuttle tried to condense killing intent once again, Zhou Bao clenched his hand. He subdued the immense killing intent directly as if bearing down on it with the weight of Mountain Tai.


    "Wow. I''m way too strong. After possessing the Skull Elixir Furnace, my body became more powerful than an ordinary Pure Yang Celestial Device. It can be said that it''s already a Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Zhou Bao grasped the killing intent of the Lunar Shuttle, smiling secretly.


    "Lad, don''t waste your energy anymore. You can just refine the red gourd right now. It suffered severe damage earlier and now requires the nourishment of this killing intent. Give it the Lunar Shuttle!"


    "What? Are you telling me to give the Lunar Shuttle to the red gourd?"


    "Of course!" Green Spirit''s psywave came to Zhou Bao''s mind. "Don''t waste your energy to refine the Lunar Shuttle. It''s useless to you!"


    "Alright!" Zhou Bao nodded in agreement. He twisted one of his fingertips. After that, a red spot shot out of the hollow. It was the red gourd he had plundered earlier.


    "Then how should I refine it?"


    "Use the method you''ve applied to celestial devices!" Green Spirit said helplessly. "How did you refine the skull of the Innate Deity?"


    "You''ve said that it''s a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. I''m afraid that something might go wrong!"


    "Stay calm and handle things appropriately. Nothing will happen!" Green Spirit said.


    "What do you mean?" Zhou Bao was amazed. One of his fingers flickered and his blood dripped on the gourd. Just when he raised his hand and prepared to refine it...


    No one had expected that a mighty vital force would fiercely hit his spirit head-on as his blood met the surface of the red gourd.


    "Ugh, phew!"


    Zhou Bao was not well-prepared mentally. He spouted out a mouthful of blood directly. After that, the second force struck him again.


    He stepped backward continuously like a man who was moving forward when encountering a typhoon of the 12th grade.


    Every time he stepped backward, he would spit out a mouthful of blood. Worst of all, his face grew paler and paler.


    Nine crystal-clear thoughts flashed out of the place between his eyebrows, as if they were going to escape. However, they were enveloped by an invisible force. Therefore, they struck violently.


    Zhou Bao was no longer sanguine. The spirit revealed by the red gourd grew weirder. It turned into numerous sharp tiny blades and cut his spirit apart little by little. Their attacks were directly targeting his spirit. It was in no way his first time to experience this kind of attack, however, among all such experiences, it was the most violent one.


    Moreover, it was extremely hard to endure.


    He felt as if his spirit was cut into pieces. He was in a trance and his nine crystal-clear divine thoughts became dark. Just when he was about to lose the ability to resist the spirit attack of the red gourd and be completely crushed down, his Fiery Eyes operated again. The red light was glowing, and black lines were rotating. The thorn surrounding these black lines was clear and distinct. As these black lines were rotating, a powerful force was delivered to his spirit from a mysterious space and began to repair the injuries on his spirit.


    At that moment, he finally felt relieved. Without thinking, he bit on the tip of his tongue fiercely and spat a mouthful of essence and blood onto the surface of the red gourd. He then made gestures in a hurry. Abstruse gestures were printed on the gourd quickly. The murderous intent emitted by the gourd became thinner and fewer as Zhou Bao continuously made gestures to suppress it. Finally, everything came to an end. A subtle connection appeared between Zhou Bao''s spirit and the red gourd.


    "Damn it! I finally solved this fu*king problem!" Although he would not be attacked by the red gourd, his body was tottering, as if he would fall down any time.


    "Bah..." He ferociously spat out a mouthful of blood bubbles on the ground, which smashed a stone.


    "Green Spirit, what should I do next?"


    "Ugh... Destroy the Lunar Shuttle and let the gourd absorb its murderous intent!" Green Spirit stopped talking for a while. He felt somewhat surprised.


    He had thought that Zhou Bao would surely complain loudly and blame him for not reminding him of this matter when he suddenly suffered such a great loss. Little did he expect that Zhou Bao said nothing about it.


    "Fine. Smash..." Zhou Bao clenched his hands which held the Lunar Shuttle.


    Cluck... A horrible cracking sound echoed through his hands. Meanwhile, an extremely powerful murderous intent emitted out from his palms.


    Feeling this murderous intent, the red gourd slightly quivered. It let out a mysterious suction and sucked all the murderous intent emitted out from Zhou Bao''s palms.


    The red gourd sucked all the Lunar Shuttle''s debris after Zhou Bao opened his hands. After that, it leaped slightly, as if it burped after satiating. Later on, it began to shrink to a half palm-sized shuttle, hanging in front of Zhou Bao.


    At this moment, Zhou Bao felt that he was able to operate this fairy weapon. However, as he tried to operate it through the tie between his spirit and the red gourd, a great suction appeared on the red gourd, as if it was going to absorb his spirit completely.


    He quivered suddenly and took back both his spirit that had not been recovered yet, and his nine divine thoughts, in a hurry.


    "Although I can refine it now, it''s still hard for me to utilize it!" He sighed gently.


    "Of course. It''s a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. Your body and Internal Qi is incredibly strong, but your spirit is considerably weak. It cannot operate the Fairy Weapon of the Way of Killing!"

 Chapter 349: Great Harvest (â…¡)

    Chapter 349: Great Harvest (¢ò)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "So, when will I be able to make use of this Fairy Weapon of the Way of Killing!"


    "You can only make use of it after passing through the Thunder Tribulation test. Don''t worry. Now, you should be able to handle anything with your Skull Elixir Furnace!" Green Spirit grinned, saying, "Put this gourd into your Dantian, yeah, the giant one, and preserve it carefully with your golden Dharma power. It will come it absolutely handy when the time comes to use it!"


    "You''re saying that I am not able to use it now!" Zhou Bao felt a tinge of regret. With a gentle wave of his hands, he withdrew the red gourd with an incantation.


    Although it could not be used yet, he had made considerable progress compared to what he could do previously. He was not powerful enough then, thus, the gourd was stored in the Space of Segmented Realms. However, after refining his skills, the gourd could be easily concealed within his body.


    "Your eyes have a magical quality. They must have absorbed so much Pure Yang Water. But it''s a pity that it cannot be taken out of you. Otherwise, you can have a store in front of your house, selling only Pure Yang Celestial Devices!"


    "I have magic weapons already. Why will I need so many Pure Yang Celestial Devices!" Zhou Bao laughed heartily. He had experienced the power of magic weapons, therefore, he was not that desperate for Pure Yang Celestial Devices.


    "Fairy weapons are extremely rare. However, Pure Yang Celestial Devices are easy to refine and use. Besides, they''re quite powerful. And, compared to magic weapons, they''re much more affordable!" Green Spirit added on and said, "Furthermore, an equally strong power is required to make full use of these fairy weapons. You''re really powerful, but you''re can''t use that red gourd. Even if it''s the Skull Elixir Furnace that you''ve personally refined, it''ll will use up considerable energy and Dharma power as well. You know that better than me!"


    "That''s right!" Zhou Bao nodded in agreement. A magic weapon could be extremely powerful, however, he feared that exhaustion would overcome him.


    "I''d better refine my Air-frozen Bead first!" he said. With the exception of magic weapons, what impressed him most were the Fiery Eyes.


    Relying on the power of his Fiery Eyes, the other opponent challenged him to a Genuine Immortal head-on match, but they were evenly matched.


    It came as a great shock to him. Though he did not know who the person was, he was sure that the other guy had not attained the cultivation skills of Individual Immortals yet. Otherwise, he would have been listed in the Golden Book of Fate and unable to avoid being pursued of such a huge power like the Divine Wind Palace.


    Needless to say, that guy''s thoughts reflected Zhou Bao''s thoughts. He''d like to accumulate his skills slowly and then find an opportunity to advance to be an Individual Immortal. He merely had a Level Nine cultivation skill in Taiyuan Heaven.


    By relying on his Level Nine cultivation and the power of his Fiery Eyes, he was able to suppress a Genuine Immortal!


    Zhou Bao was truly amazed. However, every time he thought about the pressure created by his Fiery Eyes, his heart would pound furiously.


    Now that the guy had achieved it, there should be no reason why I am not able to make it as well.


    He had obtained the projected image of the Golden Book of Fate, namely its copy. Thus, his name would not be listed in the Golden Book of Fate, even though he had achieved the rank of Individual Immortal Karmic Rank.That meant he would not be controlled by the Golden Book of Fate. Perhaps, I could use this method in future!


    Narrowing his eyes in thought, he calculated, "It''s extremely difficult for the people in Divine Wind Palace to utilize the copy of the Golden Book of Fate. Perhaps, they''ll decide to use it only during the opening of Taiyuan Heaven. Taiyuan Heaven only opens once every 1,000 years. However, there''s an Azure Secret Area in the world. If my plan goes well, I might have the opportunity to coax them to use the copy of the Golden Book of Fate."


    Just thinking about the Azure Secret Area, made him excited. The Essential Qi Tide in the Azure Secret Area takes place 10 months in a year. Thus, only two months were peaceful months. During this period, every powerful sect would send their most distinguished disciples to the Azure Secret Area to seek their opportunities.


    Differing from Taiyuan Heaven, Azure Heaven had become a renowned area. It did not have as many opportunities as Taiyuan Heaven did. Most of the items there had been evolving long before, especially the Azure Spirit Sea. It divided the Azure Secret Area into countless small islands, each one quite a distance from the other. In the sea lived powerful, evil and strange creatures and beasts. Even a Genuine Immortal could not fly across the sea. Therefore, compared to Taiyuan Heaven, the value of the Azure Secret Area was lesser. However, hopefully in a thousand years or more , when Azure Heaven was done evolving, its value might surpass the Taiyuan Heaven.


    But it was a pity that no one knew for sure how many years it would take for this to happen!


    "Since people from the Divine Wind Palace suddenly attacked Taiyuan Heaven and sent a Genuine Immortal into it, this meant they were determined to have it under their control. However, things did not work out and their secrets were exposed. It''ll be very difficult for them to continue with their plans. It is impossible for them to wait for another 1,000 years. Having said that, Azure Heaven will then be their best choice. However, Azure Heaven and Taiyuan Heaven are worlds apart. Strictly speaking, the latter has no owner. But Azure Heaven and the Azure Secret Area are controlled by several influences. If one wants to create trouble there, he surely will fall out with other influences. Haha, it''s really a Heaven-sent chance. If I make use of the Azure Secret Area, perhaps I can make this closely knitted huge influence fall out with each other completely and all these will be done when they are fighting with each other, hum...!"


    The more Zhou Bao thought about it , the more he felt it was possible. Finally, he could not help laughing in complacency.


    Standing next to him and hearing his laughter, Green Spirit felt disgusted. His intention was to pry into his thoughts, but things were different now. After the purifying by Pure Yang Water, Zhou Bao''s strength had increased by leaps and bounds. It was no longer easy for him to pry into his thoughts.


    "Green Spirit, what''re you up to now?" Sensing Green Spirit''s strange psywave, Zhou Bao smiled and said, "Do not be too bothered by what''s happening . Though Pure Yang Water hasn''t given my spirit that many benefits, my current cultivation has already reached Level Nine. My spirit is now more condensed and stronger than before. You don''t have any way now to pry into my secrets."


    Green Spirit laughed awkwardly. His psywave had revealed some embarrassing thoughts. "Since you''ve gathered enough materials, you might as well work on refining an Air-frozen Bead. The Life Pearl of the Cloud-swallowing Beast has already absorbed adequate Pure Yang Qi. Moreover, you have the Skull Elixir Furnace with you. It''ll be quite easy for you to refine the Air-frozen Bead into a Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Of course. I don''t need you to remind me about this matter!" Zhou Bao replied.


    He had gained a lot of knowledge and skills from Taiyuan Heaven this time, and his strength had skyrocketed. Furthermore, he had obtained a magic weapon for free. So, he felt very confident now. He took out the Life Pearl of the Cloud-swallowing Beast right away and began to work on its refinement.


    The Cloud-swallowing Beast was a giant beast from olden times. Once it had undergone rigorous training for its skills, it was able to evolve into a Sky-swallowing Beast. This giant beast had stayed in Taiyuan Heaven for thousands of years. It led a very well cared for existence, it had plenty of food, was able to roam about freely and slept very well at night. With the ample Spiritual Qi available there, it had already accumulated a vast amount in its reserve. But due to Taiyuan Heaven''s lack of thunderbolts, it had no way to pass through the Thunder Tribulation and had merely evolved into a Sky-swallowing Beast.


    Therefore, its Life Pearl would surely be more valuable than other ordinary Wind Beads. In Taiyuan Heaven, events kept occurring successively. Thus, Zhou Bao had no time to keep a close watch. After returning, when he was free, he took out the bead. He felt a blast of wind sweeping across his face. Inhaling a mouthful of wind, his body became lighter and it felt like he was going to fly.


    Compared with the previous cultivation exercise, this current cultivation was more intense. Besides, he had the Skull Elixir Furnace with him. His recovery was therefore much faster.


    After absorbing an adequate amount of Pure Yang Water, the bead started to change. It turned a dark cyan color. At first sight, it looked like a never-ending wind tunnel. Once you looked at it, you would be trapped.


    Gusts of wind roared through the black hole. Standing outside, Zhou Bao could hear the mighty howling of the gusty wind, and it sounded like it could rip his spirit apart. What surprised him most was that the sense of a clear space power emanating from this Life Pearl.


    The power and fragments of the space!


    That reminded him of the amount of space debris that was found in the savage storm as he battled against the Cloud-swallowing Beast the other day.


    "This Cloud-swallowing Beast is able to control wind and space at the same time !" Zhou Bao was shocked. "Green Spirit, the Life Pearl of this Cloud-swallowing Beast is a strange creature indeed!"


    "What is so strange about it ? This Cloud-swallowing Beast''s Life Pearl is mature. It has absorbed so much Pure Yang Water that it can easily tear the space apart. But even though it''s so powerful, I will advise you not to use it as a substitute for the Wind Bead. I cannot confirm if you can refine it into a Pure Yang Air-frozen Bead!" Green Spirit said.


    "You reminded me of something!" Zhou Bao said, "As soon as Taiyuan Heaven opened, I had a strange feeling when I stood outside. It felt like there was an endless space in that boundless vaccuum. It resembled the graveyard of that Innate Deity. However, it was quite odd because it was totally grey all around!"


    "What? You could feel that there is a space inside the hollowness?!" Green Spirit was stunned. He asked, "Are you sure?"


    "How would I know? I just sensed that there was a space which was similar to the graveyard of that Innate Deity!"


    "Oh, it''s no big deal. You know that in this infinite hollow, every space is in always in state of total chaos. Countless types of spaces constantly overlap each other. The one that is the most stable is located at the center, which is our world. While those have no complete Dharma has formed small spaces like the 33 Heavens, all adrift in the hollow. Others have even produced assorted types of strange living beings. However, the more complete these spaces are, the more similar their Dharma will be, and the harder it will be to find them. They''re almost totally enclosed, especially some spaces that have living beings. However, some spaces with incomplete Dharma have many flaws and they''re easily sensed and captured, even though they''re gigantic. In olden time, many mighty beings like to capture these kind of spaces and inhabit them. They practiced their skills in these spaces and were able to evade all kinds of harassment together and avoid all types of tribulations. It was similar to the graveyard of that Innate Deity that we visited. I''ve told you that it was a space crack, but it was the remains of Primordial Origin. Perhaps, the grey space you sensed is a space crack as well."


    It''s a marvel that there are still such things existing in this world!


    Zhou Bao was excited and greedy after hearing Green Spirit''s words, "That is to say, I can capture one too?"


    Space!


    It was a space!


    Even though the Spiritual Qi here was lacking, and the Dharma was incomplete, it was still a complete space after all. Just as what Green Spirit had said above, it could be used to evade tribulations, even if he did not use it to practice . When he was out of luck and pursued by others, he could hide in the space. No matter if they were Genuine or Human Immortals, no one would be able find him. It was an absolutely wonderful escape route!


    "Lad, it''s too early to rejoice. Capturing a space crack is not easy. In addition to locating the space, you also need to destroy different space barriers before reaching the main area. Furthermore, you need to build a connection with its passageway. You cannot achieve this at the moment!" He paused and then continued to say, "But it''s still doable. You have a magic weapon with you. You can make use of the Skull Elixir Furnace to connect to that space crack, and then capture it. But you have to locate the space crack once more. You know, it''s not that easy. The reason why you''ve were able to locate it last time was due to the fact that when Taiyuan Heaven was opening, all the spaces were in chaos, and you were skilled at several Divine Senses of space. You''re quite lucky. But it''ll be difficult for you to find it the next time!"


    "Didn''t you say that there are numerous space cracks in the hollow? Maybe I will be able to sense another one the next time!"


    "Haha, I''ve mentioned that already. But the hollow is infinite too. Before you became a Human Immortal, you''ll have no way to sense the worlds drifting in the hollow. You''re so lucky to have sensed it once. Even though you encounter a space turbulence the next time, your chance of locating a space crack in the infinite hollow is very slim. You will be able to find that space again if you can still remember which direction it was in when you sensed it at that time and the way you applied your skills. I hope you can remember all that I''ve told you just now!"


    "I see. It was just by pure chance then!" Zhou Bao said with a wry smile.


    "You''re way too lucky. It''s may not be a good thing!" Green Spirit thought of something else and he continued, "Don''t think about these impractical things anymore. You should focus on refining the Air-frozen Bead. The earlier we finish the refinement, the faster we''ll be able to enter the Azure Secret Area. In that way, we can study your mysterious eyes thoroughly. It''ll be good for both of us!"


    "No. I have another thing to attend to!" Zhou Bao replied with a shake of his head. He thought of the incantations that had entered his mind when he was absorbing the mysterious energy of that Innate Deity. "I obtained some insights of Taiyuan Heaven and I need to digest it right now, otherwise, I cannot settle down to refine this Air-frozen Bead!"


    "Alright!" Green Spirit kept quiet. Transforming into a silver light, he returned to Zhou Bao''s Space of Segmented Realms.


    After Green Spirit had left, Zhou Bao sat down slowly in a cross-legged position. He calmed down and began to recall the incantations he had absorbed.


    They had seeped into his spirit. He would not forget them unless his spirit was destroyed.


    The information he had received was so thorough that his skills sets were complete!


    It was so weird that he could only make it out from the patterns that made up these incantations. It was a complete Divine Sense, but he could not figure out what kind of Divine Sense it was.


    He could not understand what the incantations or patterns were. They were made up of characters from older and even more ancient times. These incantations had been lost for many years. Even if he knew their heritage, they were just a pile of strange patterns in his mind, nothing else!


    "Oh no. How can I forget this matter? This Innate Deity lived in Primordial Time. Even if he wants to impart these incantations to me, I will not understand what they are. I''ve heard about these characters and incantations from ancient times. But I''ve never paid any attention to them. I should pay more attention to them the next time, otherwise, it will be like returning empty-handed from a house that was filled with treasures. That is not my style at all!


    Zhou Bao felt regret for a short while, but there was nothing he could do about it. He decided to summon Green Spirit and ask him to explain what these characters meant. However, he decided to forgo this thought.


    "He knows too many secrets from me. Anyhow, I should keep this to myself. Perhaps it''ll be very useful in the future!" Zhou Bao secretly mused. "And anway, perhaps he cannot understand these characters either. I''ll keep this a secret until I have a proper opportunity to tell him!"


    He made up his mind to set aside this set of incantations. Instead, he took out the Life Pearl of that Cloud-swallowing Beast and began to refine an Air-frozen Bead.


    The method to refine an Air-frozen Bead had been meticulously documented by the Immortal Palace. However, that record could only help him to refine a Mysterious Level Air-frozen Bead. Later on, Green Spirit added some additional procedures to it. Finally, Zhou Bao would have the opportunity to refine this Life Pearl into a Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    He had found abundant materials to refine this Air-frozen Bead in Taiyuan Heaven. All of a sudden, an assortment of glittering materials came out from his Space of Segmented Realms. Soon after, Zhou Bao took out the Skull Elixir Furnace. A cyan flame shot out from the eyes of that skull and incinerated these materials directly, transforming them into liquid and gas. Then, these materials were all infused into the Life Pearl of the Cloud-swallowing Beast. Shortly after, its Life Pearl was drawn to the Elixir Furnace and was enveloped by the Tusita Fire completely. The refining process had began.


    Zhou Bao slowly sat in front of the Skull Elixir Furnace. With a flash coming from his midbrows, he shot a thought into the furnace. Then, he began to forge the Air-frozen Bead with the raging fire, in accordance with the refining method.


    It was quite a difficult task for anyone to refine a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Zhou Bao had the same problem too, even if his Skull Elixir Furnace was a magic weapon. After all, it was his first attempt in using it.


    Over a period of 10 days, Zhou Bao sat in the cave to refine the Air-frozen Bead. The fire in the Elixir Furnace blazed continuously. In addition, he was more familiar with the application of the Skull Elixir Furnace. He would benefit considerably from the total understanding of the functions and application of both magic weapons and Elixir Furnaces by refining a celestial device with so much care.


    Zhou Bao was using both his spiritual mind and divinity thoughts to assess the condition of the Elixir Furnace. Suddenly, his eyebrows gave twitched slightly. His eyes which had been tightly closed, opened and he smiled.


    Here it comes!


    Yeah, it did.


    A gust of cold wind blew across the clear sky. Soon afterwards, dark clouds began to gather in the sky and indistinct thunderclaps could be heard. The air became colder and colder.


    It was a bitterly cold place located at the northwest. A sudden snowfall was quite normal during this season.


    However, the wind became much more chillier. Within a few moments of breathing space, the surrounding temperature dropped abruptly by more than 10 degrees. The water on the road turned into ice, which was visible to naked eyes. This scene stunned many people.


    "May I know who are you? Since you''ve arrived at the Wuyang Region, I must apologize for not welcoming you in person. Please forgive me for being rude!"


    Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao, and Zhu Ba were the current principal leaders in the Wuyang Region. After watching this scene, they knew that the new comer must be a powerhouse of skills. However, Zhou Bao was doing his training behind closed doors in the Jilei Mountain and no one knew when he would return. Worst of all, Yan Yunfei was now in the Lord Mansion, if something went wrong with her, that would be a problem for all.


    Sensing the danger, Jiang Xiao immediately let Zhu Ba greet the newcomer in order to buy more time. They knew that in the Wuyang Region, there was a horde of mysterious powerhouses, who were on good terms with Zhou Bao and lived in other mansions. Apart from them, Wang She, the Chief of Tian Long Taoism, was here as well. Although he had been doing closed-door training, most of his followers were powerhouses too. Because of this, Zhu Ba and Jiang Xiao always thought that the Wuyang Region was an impregnable place. Little did they think that there would be someone encountering them face to face. Moreover, from what they had witnessed, they sensed that the troublemaker was the last person they should offend.


    Zhu Ba received no reply from the newcomer. By then dense dark clouds had already covered the sky. With the howling wind, came the first snowflake. Then, the second, third...


    The snowflakes swirled around like a myriad of goose feathers in the strong wind... A powerful force was pressing down from the sky directly.


    "Where is Zhou Bao? Ask him to come out quickly! I, Ye Qingtian, am here to seek my revenge against him!"


    His resonant voice boomed from the sky, shocking both heaven and earth.


    "Hum. Ye Qingtian, you really are courageous. Don''t you know that powerhouses around the world are searching for you since you''ve joined forces with the descendants of the Fiery Eyes tribe? How dare you act brashly in the Wuyang Region? You''ll end up dead!"


    Suddenly a figure flashed across the sky. Soon after, a golden light surged towards the looming dark clouds.


    BOOM!


    With a loud crash, the figure fell to the ground. He rebounded a few times and struggled to get up. He looked to be about 30 or 40 years old. He was dressed in a white robe and held a fan made up of feathers in his hand and was graceful in his movements. If not for the fact that he was wet and muddy, he would have looked very sage-like . However, at the moment, he was extremely embarrassed. He had severe injuries, his face was covered in blood and he was staring ominously at at the dark clouds.


    "Xieyuezi, your cultivation skills are higher than mine. You''re an Individual Immortal. But it''s a pity that you have no fairy weapons. Under the onslaught of fairy weapons, you''re destined to die, even if you''re a Genuine Immortal!"


    "Ye Qingtian, do you think I am the only one waiting for you?" Xieyuezi spat a mouthful of blood out forcefully , and said in a cold voice, "I know you have magic weapons with you, and Zhou Bao had ruined your affairs. You will definitely seek revenge against him. Therefore, do you think there''s only one Individual Immortal here?"

 Chapter 350: Qingtian Retreated and White Tiger Appeared

    Chapter 350: Qingtian Retreated and White Tiger Appeared


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Hey guys! I am coming back!


    ...


    ......


    "Hump, if that is really the case, then the guys of Divine Wind Palace did indeed ambush my team. No wonder the people of Immortal Palace are so well-behaved lately because they are afraid that the deeds they are planning will be exposed."


    "Zhou Bao, in a secret hideaway activating his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, laughed to himself, "We just don''t know how many people Divine Wind Palace has sent this time. The Mock Moon Immortal, oh, how magnanimous of Divine Wind Palace to despatch such an Individual Immortal. According to Mock Moon Immortal, he is not the only one who was sent here. It''s impossible that Divine Wind Palace didn''t know Ye Qingtian has a magic weapon, and is paying less attention to him. One single Individual Immortal alone will not able to take him down!"


    As expected, as soon as Mock Moon Immortal stopped speaking, another light flashed by, and every one of them had the same level of cultivation skills as an Individual Immortal. This was the level of respect given to Ye Qingtian as it had sent so many of these Individual Immortals to go after him.


    "Ye Qingtian, so what if you have a magic weapon? After all, you have only a cultivation skill of Level Nine. Even if you managed to activate the magic weapon, how much power from it can you use? And how long can you defend yourself? We''ll see whether four of us can take you down!" Initially injured by Ye Qingtian and overcome by shock, Mock Moon Immortal had calmed down now and had a sneer on his face.


    Three lights appeared as the three Individual Immortals joined forces to attack the dark clouds in the sky.


    Ye Qingtian could hardly withstand the impact of the attack from the three Individual Immortals even though he had his magic weapon.


    Rays of light shot out from the dark clouds and illuminated the gloomy sky. As the light continued to shine, a series of thunderclaps were heard and they were accompanied by a huge force that was pressing down.


    "Sh*t, these bastards!" Zhou Bao swore angrily. The pressure emitted from the collision of these Individual Immortals and a fairy weapon could destroy half of his Wuyang Region.


    They could ignore his Wuyang Region, but he couldn''t.


    With a snore and a slight shake of the body, Zhou Bao gave off a wave of light-golden ripples, which formed an egg-like transparent cover and shielded the small town and the mansion at the foot of Jilei Mountain in a moment.


    "Hey, be careful when you are fighting and don''t ruin my place!" Zhou Bao''s voice drawled and sounded like it came from far away, but the massive defensive power of the egg-shaped canopy which contained the Real Essence had terrified them.


    The force from the sky was completely blocked by this invisible egg-shaped canopy. Mock Moon Immortal, who was standing in the middle of the egg-shaped canopy, found himself trapped in it and he really didn''t expect the egg-shaped canopy to be so solid that he couldn''t find his way out.


    "That''s impossible. How can it contain such strong defensive powers?" He realized no matter how much power he exerted on the canopy, it would be absorbed by the egg-shaped canopy. The look on Mock Moon Immortal''s face turned uglier. Looking up suddenly, he saw Zhou Bao with a sneer on his face, watching four people waging a fierce battle in the sky.


    "That is a really strong Real Essence wave. This Real Essence wave is enormous and boundless as the ocean. Even if we four were to unite together, we will not be able to emit such a strong Real Essence wave. This Zhou Bao has not even reached the Mysterious Realm level, how is it possible that he has such strong powers? It''s incredible. Could it possible that he possesses a magic weapon as well?" "No, even if he had the magic weapon, there would not have been such strong effect. Activating a magic weapon will exhaust the Real Essence. If he had been using the magic weapon, he would not have been able to emit such a Real Essence wave!" He quickly denied his speculation as soon as it was spoken.


    Now there was only astonishment in Mock Moon Immortal''s eyes.


    Zhou Bao had noticed Mock Moon Immortal, but he barely glanced at the Metaphysic Individual Immortal and instead concentrated on the battle in the sky.


    Three Individual Immortals with two Pure Yang Celestial Devices and a Level Nine expert with a North Pole Frozen Wheel that he was just learning to use should be well-matched in strength. However, Ye Qingtian was soon reduced to inferiority. Although he had a strong cultivation skill, it was not strong enough to resist the North Pole Frozen Wheel for long. Yet those Individual Immortals were different and they just needed to cast a spell to pin down Ye Qingtian, until his Internal Qi and Real Essence were worn out. Then he had only two options, die or retreat. But could it be that simple?


    Watching the four people fighting for their lives, the sneer on Zhou Bao''s face became more pronounced. The outcome of the battle was doomed even before it started.


    He had undermined Ye Qingtian''s plans, so they would definitely retaliate. However, the Divine Wind Palace would not give up since the fire vein of Fiery Eyes had popped out. Otherwise, they could not rest.


    Regardless whether he would emerge alive or dead from Taiyuan Heaven they would still seek revenge on him. He could foresee that, so could the Divine Wind Palace. Therefore, they would surely ambush him at his territory. Yet it was no secret that Ye Qingtian had a magic weapon, the Divine Wind Palace must have also taken that into consideration, and it would never have risked its people''s lives. So they must have sufficient strength and methods to deal with the magic weapon. When Ye Qingtian sought to take his revenge on him, he must have figured out that the Divine Wind Palace would have a part in this, so he definitely would have a backup plan. Both parties were hard to deal with.


    This battle was nothing more than a test.


    Both sides were testing the other. Ye Qingtian was testing the Divine Wind Palace, and vice versa. They were not expecting to see any outcome from this fight.


    Since no one was expecting any real outcome, wasn''t the battle a waste of time?


    Not exactly!


    Ye Qingtian didn''t expect this battle to destroy Zhou Bao, but he believed that, with his strength, he could definitely cause extensive damage to the Wuyang Region. Even if someone tried to stop him, no ordinary being could handle the impact of the collision between the magic weapon and the Individual Immortals right now. If Zhou Bao had not set up this magical egg-shaped canopy, most of the Wuyang Region would have been destroyed by the huge pressure hurtling from the sky.


    As for the Divine Wind Palace, in helping Zhou Bao to resist Ye Qingtian, who had the power of the magic weapon, it had cemented its fellowship with Zhou Bao and showed its cooperation. At least, it could repay him for Wen Yida, the Taihai Sage.


    Moreover, both sides were fighting the same enemy, so they had the basis for cooperation.


    It was extremely beneficial to Divine Wind Palace. Although the strength of Divine Wind Palace was extremely powerful, it didn''t have such a strong influence on Central Mainland Region. Yet apparently, Zhou Bao was able to exert a huge influence on Central Mainland Region for centuries to come. If it could establish a solid fellowship with him now, they would certainly gain a lot from it.


    However, Zhou Bao''s power exceeded their expectations.


    Yes, they had severely underestimated his power!


    They had initially thought that even though Zhou Bao was strong, it would still be difficult for him to withstand the magic weapon of Ye Qingtian which everyone had witnessed in Taiyuan Heaven.


    But, what about now?


    It seemed like a piece of cake for him to protect the entire Wuyang Region and he looked so relaxed at that too.


    This was a surprise.


    But it was obvious that Zhou Bao had more surprises in store for them.


    After emitting a roar, Zhou Bao stood aside with a deadpan expression on his face.


    Should he stand aside to watch the drama of the battle? Or should he take part in the fight and give them a taste of the strength of his power?


    After debating for a while, Zhou Bao decided to stay where he was and watched the fight from the sidelines.


    Firstly, he had exhibited enough power to intimidate them and he didn''t want to exhibit all his tricks at the same time, nor did he want others to know about his magic weapon. Secondly, even though these people were fighting so ferociously, they definitely had a backup plan, so he had no need to join in unless he wanted to practice his Kungfu skills. But now, he had no intention of doing that.


    IIndeed, he never thought of joining in this fight. Divine Wind Palace had despatched four Individual Immortals to ambush his territory, of which Immortal Palace must surely be aware. Now he would see what Immortal Palace''s response was going to be, so he could plan his next move.


    The four had been battling each other for well over six hours. All of a sudden, a blue light shone brightly and extinguished the other three lights.


    "Zhou Bao, I won''t kill you today, but you and I are not done. Divine Wind Palace can protect you for a while, but it can''t protect you forever. We''ll see!"


    "As long as you can live forever!" Zhou Bao said nonchalantly with a cold look in his eyes. He didn''t go after Ye Qingtian. Watching the prevailing blue light fading away, he swished his sleeve and the egg-shaped canopy that had protected the Wuyang vanished.


    "Haha, you must be Zhou Bao of Yunzhou. It is good to see you for myself rather than to hear about your greatness from others frequently. You are such an outstanding figure!"


    A burst of laughter came from the sky, and suddenly, four people came up to Zhou Bao, "It''s an honor to meet you!"


    Upon seeing the trio, Zhou Bao gave them a lukewarm smile and extended his hands to them.


    It was quite an impolite gesture coming from Zhou Bao to the four Metaphysic Individual Immortals, but no one thought he was being impolite.


    Yes, Zhou Bao was still young and his cultivation skill was only at Level Nine.


    However, these four could discern that even though Zhou Bao''s cultivation skill was only at Level Nine, his actual strength was way above Level Nine. Even though he was just standing there and holding back both his Spirit and Qi, but they could feel the menace emanating from him.


    Zhou Bao''s body was not strong, but it seemed like a gigantic black hole which could absorb all the Qi and pneuma in the world. It was also like a sealed bag which allowed no pneuma to ooze out.


    With just one glance, the trio knew that even though Zhou Bao ''s cultivation skill was lower than theirs, his strength was way greater than theirs.


    He already had such strong powers at such a very young age, and could only get more powerful in the future.


    TThe most important fact was that this person was not an Immortal yet.


    To be an Immortal was the ultimate goal of most fighters and practitioners.


    It meant having an incomparable Divine Sense and immortality.


    However, only those had already become Immortals, knew that it was not as good as what people imagined it would be.


    Freedom and leisure!


    They had both. Yet they could not be part of any worldly affairs!


    They could not violate the Laws of Heaven!


    Although it was not confirmed, only under special circumstances, are these Immortals allowed to take part in worldly affairs. An example was the time when Ye Qingtian brought out his magic weapon and chased after Zhou Bao and they were allowed to intercept him.


    Magic weapons were not allowed to be used in the mortal world!


    That was one of the doctrines stipulated in the Law of Heaven.


    Several years ago, the disciple of Fifth Manor in Longevity Mountain randomly used a magic weapon, Pureness Jade Vase, to subdue a monk of Bigwheel Temple, and for that he got himself into a lot of trouble. If it had not been for the Fifth Manor and Palace of Eternal Life which came to his defense, Ma Tianchang would be long gone.


    Therefore, although they were able to help this time, their hands were also tied.


    For the entire world.


    The real deterrent was not the Metaphysic Individual Immortals like them, but those Level Nine experts.


    Level Nine was the peak of the power of a mortal.


    It had been an iron clad rule since the ancient times.


    Zhou Bao had not yet reached the Mysterious Realm, but he was a Level Nine expert, which meant he was free to do whatever he wanted in the world. As long as he didn''t violate the Law of Heaven, no one could restrain him.


    The Law of Heaven was used to rule the Immortals and was of no concern to Zhou Bao unless Zhou Bao used the magic weapon to create chaos. Otherwise, even if Zhou Bao was battling others before their eyes, the Individual Immortals could not interfere if he was not offending others intentionally.


    Just like last time when he smashed Mingyi School, the Individual Immortals stationed in the Mingyi School could only intimidate him with words, and not action. In fact, even if they were to battle against Zhou Bao, they could only drive him off instead of killing him.


    The affairs of the world can only be settled by the mortals.


    And the Level Nine experts could only be restrained by the Level Nine experts as well.


    That was also one of the doctrines of the Law of Heaven.


    The only law was made for the common people.


    But the thing was that, though this guy was at Level Nine, his power was far above Level Nine and even reached the level of a Metaphysic Individual Immortal. What did it mean?


    It meant that there was no one in the world who could control him!


    No one!


    This was Zhou Bao''s situation now. From the very beginning, there was already someone who advised them that they should not interfere when Ye Qingtian sought revenge on Zhou Bao. They wanted Ye Qingtian to use his magic weapon to destroy Zhou Bao, the weird puppet who had transcended the boundaries of the world.


    But that advice was not heeded.


    The reason was very simple - Zhou Bao could be of great use to them.


    Historically there had been people like Zhou Bao and they were all very powerful figures. Yet they all shared a disgraceful reputation and the common nickname given to them was "troublemaker".


    If Divine Wind Palace could win this guy over to its side, especially this troublemaker, it would be a lot easier for Divine Wind Palace to handle matters in Central Mainland Region. Even if they failed to recruit him, good relationships between them would have been established, in the event that he should decide to turn against them. If that happened, it could cause a whole lot of problems.


    One should know that Zhou Bao was from Wu Family, yet Wu Family belonged to Tian Long Taoism. Apparently, the relationship between Tian Long Taoism and Immortal Palace was very fragile.


    If Zhou Bao was recruited by Immortal Palace to go against Divine Wind Palace, Divine Wind Palace would not be able to do anything in Central Mainland Region, just like what had occurred at Mingyi School.


    At first, these four Individual Immortals came here with a mission, and they regarded Zhou Bao with disdain. But now, after they had witnessed Zhou Bao''s strength and realized that he was well matched or even better than them, at such a young age, they gradually lost their contempt of him and even swallowed their pride. Moreover, one of the Individual Immortals was a very chatty fellow and they soon got acquainted with each other.


    After exchanging some pleasantries, Zhou Bao got to know the Immortals. Except for Mock Moon Immortal, whom he knew from before, they were Bliss Immortal, Longlife Immortal and Xiaoyaozi.


    They were the Individual Immortals from Divine Wind Palace. Divine Wind Palace had anticipated that Ye Qingtian would retaliate against Zhou Bao, so it sent these powerful Individual Immortals to lay an ambush there.


    Zhou Bao did not bother too much with the three Individual Immortals, but he was also aware that they wanted to recruit him. Although he knew what they wanted, no promises were given by him.


    Zhou Bao tactfully declined their offer for him to join the Divine Wind Palace, but he indicated that he would try his best to help Divine Wind Palace if ever they needed help. After all, they were facing the same enemies.


    "This time, Ye Qingtian was just testing you. Now that they know our Divine Wind Palace has combined forces, they will not take any action for these few days. Hump, these remnants of Fiery Eyes are the common enemies of the world. After this incident, it won''t be easy for them to show themselves in public. So you can relax, Your Excellency." Mock Moon Immortal waved his feather fan and reverted to the form of a holy Immortal.


    "Sure he can. This is Central Mainland Region. We of the Immortal Palace have to be responsible for this incident. He has nothing to do with it." Someone said directly after Mock Moon Immortal had finished speaking.


    . With the exception of Jiang Xiao, who was the only subordinate there, everyone''s power was above the level of the Individual Immortal, and no one had noticed the stranger in their midst. They were not aware that he was in the room, until he spoke up. All of them were in deep shock.


    Zhou Bao''s eyes were very different from the common people, so he could see better than the rest. This stranger had appeared in the room the moment Mock Moon Immortal had finished his speech. When he showed up, there were no space waves or sound, which was very strange.


    Mock Moon Immortal and his mates started to panic, but when they saw who the guy was, they were relieved. However, they looked gloomy.


    It''s White Tiger. Sorry, I didn''t recognize you at first!" The Four Individual Immortals of Divine Wind Palace stood up and made their obeisances to the visitor.


    "Hump, why are you here at the Central Mainland Region? Since when you can manage the affairs in Central Mainland Region?"


    They looked gloomier, having known of the notoriety of White Tiger''s ill temper. Mock Moon Immortal cupped his hands, "Brother White Tiger, you must excuse us. We are not managing the affairs of Central Mainland Region. But since there were so many people and incidents involved in this matter, we were ordered to investigate it. And we happened to meet Ye Qingtian here, and engaged in a fight with him. It was never our intention to disturb you, Your Excellency."

 Chapter 351: Fierce Battle Against White Tiger

    Chapter 351: Fierce Battle Against White Tiger


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    White Tiger is a tall and brawny man.


    Going by visuals, he must have been a meter and a half tall, with a giant-like threatening stature.


    What surprised Zhou Bao most was his outfit, he was in modern dress with broad-sleeved robes and sported a buzz cut. He gave the impression of being very rigid and powerful.


    "After hearing what Mock Moon Immortal said, White Tiger''s expression grew colder. "As long as you heed the warning. You''re not welcome here. Leave now!"


    As the leader of the Immortal Palace of Penglai, his relationship with the Divine Wind Palace was not harmonious. Looking at the angry faces of the four people, he ordered the visitor to leave.


    Zhou Bao squinted his eyes, he had never felt easy in his company. In any case, this was his territory, yet this scoundrel had arrived with an air of proprietary, as if he owned the place.


    "You''re Zhou Bao?"


    White Tiger did not wait for Zhou Bao''s, and appeared in front of him in a flash.


    "That''s right, I am indeed Zhou Bao!" He snarled, feeling the pressure of White Tiger''s energy pressing against his body.


    Ordinary Individual Immortals may have turned pale in response, however, Zhou Bao was unfazed. The fringes of his garment remain unruffled.


    "His lip curled as he said with a snicker, "Ah, the mighty White Tiger! I was not aware that you had come all the way from Panglai to the Central Mainland. Are you here on official business?"


    "Don''t act coy, Zhou Bao. There must be some reason for my coming to see you. Send those four away first!"


    "They are my guests. You will have to await your turn. I will not send them away just because you are here. If you have any business with me, White Tiger, I must ask you to wait until my discussions with them are done."


    Zhou Bao stated leisurely.


    "Is that so?" Seeing Zhou Bao''s nonchalance when facing extreme pressure, White Tiger scoffed. "Little scamp, don''t think that because you are young and lucky, you can be so disrespectful. If I want them to leave, nothing you say will make any difference."


    "But this is my territory. If I want them to stay, it is also not Your Excellency''s place to say anything." Zhou Bao remained adamant and his face was inscrutable.


    This White Tiger must be very strong to have been sent to the domain of the Divine Wind Palace and having earned such a reputation. Zhou Bao admired that and had heard of some of his accomplishments in Penglai. He reflected on his total inability to achieve such a thing himself.


    Admiration was one thing, but so what if he didn''t have Bai Hu''s abilities, so what if he had done great things for the Immortal Palace?


    Why should I give a damn!


    If you want to be arrogant, go to Penglai and do it, no need to come here and show it, you damn fraud!


    Mock Moon Immortal and his company had wanted to leave when they saw White Tiger. But upon hearing Zhou Bao''s words, they exchanged glances and stayed where they were.


    "What an opportunity!"


    If Zhou Bao were to have a confrontation with White Tiger, then he might be estranged from the Immortal Palace and so would naturally gravitate towards Divine Wind Palace. The Immortal Palace has sent him here to create trouble in Penglai, so we will do the same in the Central Mainland and give you a taste of your own medicine. If the four of us were to leave there''s no telling if the confrontation will take place.


    Thinking through the situation, they didn''t leave.


    "It looks like you are intent on making life difficult for me, little man!" White Tiger was a straightforward person and seeing the situation, he didn''t want to waste his time. He reached out and grabbed Zhou Bao.


    "I will see today just where you get the courage to be so reckless in front of me."


    "If you engage in a fight with me, you will be violating the Law of Heaven. The Individual Immortals of Divine Wind Palace are watching!" Zhou Bao laughed, as he patiently awaited for the attack.


    Then White Tiger''s look changed.


    It was true, Zhou Bao had not yet reached the Mysterious Realm. He was considered a mortal still and was not ranked with the sages like White Tiger, thus, he could not engage him in battle without violating the Law of Heaven.


    White Tiger paused briefly, snapped his fingers and grabbed Zhou Bao.


    "I''m afraid the Law of Heaven is a just a joke. If I kill you today, let''s see if Divine Wind Palace will give me any problems with it!" White Tiger snickered, unleashed the power from his hand which immediately enclosed Zhou Bao in a frozen circle, wrapping around his body and trapping him, as if he were in a cage.


    "Damn, this bastard is even more arrogant than I am!" Zhou Bao muttered. A beam of golden light emerged from the back of his head and formed a circle that shattered the frozen space. His form then disappeared.


    His fist intent instantly enveloped the room.


    Boom!


    Zhou Bao threw a punch, but missed, and the terrible fist intent immediately made the four Individual Immortals turn pale.


    "What a strong fist intent!"


    "What an amazing fist intent!"


    "Yes. It was amazingly strong!"


    That was how the four Immortals and White Tiger assessed Zhou Bao''s fist intent.


    Although it had not occurred to them to get involved in the conflict, the four Immortals were now without a doubt completely embroiled in the immensity of Zhou Bao''s fist intent.


    The fist intent was immense and in the blink of an eye, the world had changed.


    "This..." Being the first target of Zhou Bao''s fist, White Tiger''s reaction was naturally the most revealing.


    His thoughts switched between listening to his warning intuition, escape or get involved in the terrible combat.


    Great changes had occurred so rapidly.


    He seemed to be enclosed within an endless vaccuum, being a mere speck of dust. Zhou Bao had disappeared, and taking his place, a black sun was rising in the sky.


    A black sun rising!


    What fist intent is this? White Tiger let out a low grunt and knew he had to keep his senses on full alert. White Gang Qi came flowing out and suddenly a gigantic shadow of a white tiger lunged toward the black sun.


    He knew that Zhou Bao''s body must be there!


    "White Tiger Gang Qi!" Zhou Bao smiled when he saw the Gang Qi appear. Its simple name belied it power. Once he took on his form, he emerged with a fury, and even shook Zhou Bao''s fist intent space.


    Yes, fist intent space!


    Zhou Bao had already completely fused his own fist intent with his space division skills into a unique powerhouse. When unleashed, he could send his opponent into a different space era. This merely transported them into another dimension, but did not increase the strength of his punches, but the combination nevertheless greatly enhanced the power of his fist intent.


    Seeing the boundless strength of the huge white tiger as he came charging, Zhou Bao merely smiled. It did not even seem to be of much concern to him.


    "What? No!"


    White Tiger attacked, using his fists furiously, with his boundless Gang spread towards the black sun. Before reaching it, it was sucked away by a giant force.


    In front of the black sun there was an invisible black hole.


    Yes, black holes are always invisible.


    Before the poor white tiger could reach its intended destination, it was swallowed up by the black hole.


    Afterwards, a huge engulfing force began to permeate through the entire fist intent space.


    White Tiger was astounded. He had never thought he would encounter such a thing!


    He was familiar with Zhou Bao''s abilities, so he knew that Zhou Bao''s greatest skill was in his punches and that he had a strong fist intent.


    But all along his impression was that Zhao Bao was at best an upstart. He had suddenly inherited the teachings of an ancient master, came by a bit of good fortune and grown quite strong, but there were limitations to how far one can perfect one'' skills. Especially for the fist intent skill, which required decades or even centuries of constant training in order to attain perfection. He was an excellent example of this cultivation.


    Because, it seemed to him, Zhou Bao''s Pure Yang Celestial Device and some inexplicable Divine Sense were all he had that made him seem invulnerable.


    These things may appear as such in the Mysterious Realm, but if they were to face him, the strongest of the Mysterious Realm, it would be different.


    He had not expected that Zhou Bao could an even match for him without the help of any magical powers.


    And all the powers he unleashed were so unexpected and came as a total surprise.


    Bang, bang, bang!


    White Tiger attacked five times and was repelled equally by Zhou Bao. All of his attacks were sucked up by the black hole, all the while being repulsed by Zhou Bao''s counter attack.


    Strong. Very strong!


    This is clearly a case of pitting strength against strength.


    The third attack came and Zhou Bao''s space of segmented realms had been shattered by the two men.


    The four Individual Immortals were driven back step by step during the battle and could only get a firm footing after some time.


    White Tiger took five paces back. His face was pale. "Good skills, good punches!"


    "You can''t take it!" Zhou Bao smiled, his pulse racing. That damn White Tiger is stronger than I realized. I''ve used Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding, and the third punch was a crucial hit, the separate realm space was even shattered, but he hadn''t even seriously injured him. No wonder he was able to gain a foothold in Panglai.


    "White Tiger is indeed a white tiger and so very strong. However, one simply cannot have fake skills here!" Zhou Bao laughed aloud, and with a wave of his hands, he issued forth an invisible force using only the least effort, yet it had a invincible gravity that enveloped everyone.


    "Come back, boy!" White Tiger had exchanged five fists punches with Zhou Bao, and although it had not yielded any results, he had exposed his wild nature, all the while, snarling and leaping and his white Gang Qi had roared forth like a river in full flood.


    "I don''t have time to play games with you!" Zhou Bao sneered, threw a punch and vanished from the sight of the five people.


    His space had been ruined but his skills were still excellent!


    When White Tiger leapt up, he felt that something was not right. Even though the gravity around him was not very strong, it permeated the air, and a force from nowhere seemed to be restraining his fists.


    In the martial arts world, the loss of an inch equates to the loss of a mile.


    Since he was restrained, he was unable to unleash all his powers, which White Tiger understood. He gave a shout and his white Gang merged into a powerful river. Gushing on with a whistling sound, it broke apart Zhou Bao''s force field.


    And returned to the dazzling black sun.


    Boom!


    The white river came in ultra layers and was filled with boundless energy. Even though the black hole was swallowing things up, it was only an illusion. It was only a virtual product of Zhou Bao''s creation, and it broke apart as Zhou Bao had exceeded the limit of its powers already. The river resembled a maelstrom, surging towards the black sun.


    "It''s good!" Zhou Bao said. Suddenly a dark shadow on the river.


    This time, it was not a black hole but a whole planet.


    Boom! The power of the two forces collided with such a terrible impact that the earth shook.


    Zhou Bao''s fist intent was shattered in the collision and dispersed. His face was pale as his form retreated.


    The area around the two was razed to the ground within a ten thousand foot radius. Zhou Bao realized he should be more wary and shifted his separate space to the foot of Jilei Mountain. Otherwise, the battle between them would destroy the greater part of Wuyang. Probably no survivors would be left at the newly completed Lord Mansion.


    "You fool, how dare you cause such an upheaval in my territory!" Surveying the scene before him, Zhou Bao let loose the total force of his actual powers, without regard for anything. Raising both hands, his light golden Gang flowed in a circle and combining together with nine beams of light gathered into one solid beam of golden light that turned into an egg-shaped hood that came down straight over White Tiger''s head.


    Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield!


    Since Zhou Bao had soaked in the Pure Yang Water, the power of his Nine Dragon Heavenly Fire Shield had increased tens of times over in power, but its appearance was rather strange.


    On the other hand, White Tiger was not doing well. However, since he had come so far, there was no point in giving up now. As soon as he saw Zhou Bao''s fire shield coming over him, he refused to yield. His Gang began vibrating fiercely and he issued forth a blood-curdling, shrill roar. Zhou Bao''s fire shield was blocked by his shrieks just as it was about to come down on his head. The intensity of the sound waves had defeated the Nine Dragon Heavenly Fire Shield.


    "What was all that roaring about?"


    Zhou Bao''s face fell, and he lifted his hand. A ball of light golden fire shot out towards White Tiger''s Gang.


    Great Fusion Technic!


    "What! The look on White Tiger''s face changed and he grunted with the effort. The Great Fusion Technic came as a sudden move and was so powerful that it had even blasted away his Gang. The shrieking stopped abruptly and White Tiger lost his ability to hold off the fire around his head and it came down over him.


    BOOM!


    The fire shield was translucent and as it covered his head, the demonic fire inside smouldered as its flames were directed at him.


    White Tiger had been too careless and Zhou Bao''s fire had engulfed him. But he did not panic. A white mist of light appeared and shielded his body from the blazing flames.


    The four Individual Immortals from the Divine Wind Palace were all looking on.


    Is this for real? Am I dreaming?


    Someone had actually sparred with White Tiger and had not been totally defeated. Besides that, he had also revealed the power of his Gang and Divine Sense, and kept White Tiger on the defensive with no chance to counter. Was this scoundrel''s skills really at level nine only?


    Even though he had considerable skills, everyone already knew that he was also a trouble maker, his reputation had already preceded him.


    "Roar!"


    Zhou Bao had engulfed White Tiger with Nine Dragons Heavenly Shield, but it was only an instant later that his swirling white light mist resurfaced as he gave a mighty roar. He turned into a beam of white light and aimed himself at Zhou Bao.


    "Not bad!" Zhou Bao muttered, loosening his muscles and carried on.


    Bang, bang, bang!


    Boom, boom, boom!


    The two were in close combat, but hearing the blows resounding like thunder, the enormous explosions of Qi, the four Immortals who were in the vicinity, recoiled. None were willing to expose themselves to all the flying qi. As for Jiang Xiao and the others, they were already unconscious, knocked out from the impact. Mock Moon Immortal fearfully dragged them away as he retreated from the battle scene.


    The forms of the two fighters could no longer be distinguished, all the Immortals could see were beams of white and golden lights and a beam of light golden light colliding into each other. They were also unclear as to who was having the upper hand.


    "This is great little boy, how lovely to be able to do battle with you! Haha!"


    A burst of fanatical laughter came from within the battle grounds. It was White Tiger yelling loudly in the heat of battle. "Little boy, I have yet to meet a foe who could be my rival in these past few decades. You really are something, boy, haha!"


    Zhou Bao laughed to himself. His skills were not bad, actually, they were excellent. But, in such close combat, whether in terms of the will to fight or grasp of strategy, or adapting to the unexpected, he must admit that he paled in comparison to White Tiger.


    This scoundrel''s has skill but no fighting plans at all. He fights likely invincible, his strategy of attacking is not to have any specific moves.


    Zhou Bao had merged his most powerful techniques, the Thirteen Punches of Desolation and Tai Chi Fist into one consolidated fighting style. There were laws for the use of techniques, much like the rotation of the stars in the sky are driven by the great ways. But he seemed unable to keep White Tiger''s attacks at bay. Ultimately he could only defend his home turf. Using Tai Chi''s soft motions and entanglement to the best of his ability was the only way to avoid a huge defeat.


    "You have good skills, boy. It''s a shame you don''t have much experience in engaging in battles. You must have only ever used your cultivation and celestial devices to bully others!" White Tiger was fighting as fervently as ever, and had already experienced all of Zhou Bao''s techniques. He began to relax.


    "What if I did!" Zhou Bao felt his chest constricting. He felt extremely uncomfortable and his voice revealed his discomfort. "I have so many magic weapons, such powerful skills, what do you care? Hmph!"


    He grunted!


    While he was talking, White Tiger saw his opportunity. He threw a fist and grazed his shoulder, breaking his Protective Gang Qi with a solid steel thrust and struck his body.


    Recoiling in intense pain, Zhou Bao activated the Three Realms Division. Within moments, he was transported from the battle scene. He raised his hands and let forth two Great Fusion Technics and one Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    "Too many complicated tricks is not necessarily a good thing!" After suffering the Great Fusion Technique, White Tiger was prepared. After a few flashes , his form became charged like lightning. "If you had concentrated on the method of the fist power, maybe you would not be humiliated today."


    "How I proceed is no concern of yours!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly, his body glistening in the light, and he moved forward to challenge him. "I want to see if your fists are stronger than my magic weapon!" Bang!


    White Tiger''s fists swept through the air. Zhou Bao dodged and hit out. His energy was not totally spent yet. He hit the ground with a huge bang and left a large crater. At the same time a thin cyan mist suddenly appeared and spread around Zhou Bao''s body.


    "What? What is this?" White Tiger said, feeling confused. The mist was all around him, its soft layers fell around him like a veil, and gave him a very uneasy feeling.


    Without thinking, he drew back as his Gang Qi emerged and formed into a white tiger phantom, charging at Zhou Bao, and disappeared into the mist.


    The mist gave out ripples which enveloped White Tiger in soft layers. The phantom had yet to charge a few steps in the mist, when he suddenly disappeared, leaving just a trace of dim pink light.


    "Peach Blossom Miasma!"


    White Tiger''s eyeballs were about to pop out of his face. How did this scoundrel happen to have such a sinister weapon? You should know, the Peach Blossom Miasma does not just dissolve a person''s Gang Qi, it causes harm to the actual essence as well.


    White Tiger''s Gang, although powerful, was swept away by the miasma and disappeared in a few breaths.


    "This miasma is really amazing. If I suck it up with my black hole, the black hole will be able to swallow things and gain even greater power!"


    Fist intent has an air of mystery about it, but is actually an instantiation the ways of combat. For example, Zhou Bao''s black hole represents the ability to absorb and transform the opponent''s energy. The fist intent is just to push Zhou Bao''s powers of absorption to the limit.


    Another example is the planets within Zhou Bao''s fist intent. They were just his fists, but within his fist intent, they were at their strongest, having the power to overturn and destroy anything.


    If the Peach Blossom Miasma was merged into his black hole, it would not only be able to absorb regular powers but it can also absorb real essence. Its threat would be much greater.


    Zhou Bao wondered how he could use the black hole against the miasma. On the other hand, the look on White Tiger''s face was uncertain. Zhou Bao was too strong, this simply could not be the cultivation level of a twenty year old kid.


    The bystanders were thoroughly impressed by Zhou Bao .


    But he was not a bystander, he was White Tiger. One of the figures of the Immortal Palace. His thoughts were different from normal people.


    It was not normal for someone who was not even twenty yet to possess this kind of power, in fact it was extremely abnormal.


    Even if he had the reputation of that of a legendary trouble maker, it was still not normal.


    White Tiger was also a trouble maker in his day, but he had his limits. When he was cultivating level nine, however, his combat ability was equal to an Individual Immortal in the blood-changing phase. But, now his cultivation was at the peak of the Marrow Cleansing Realm. His true strength would have been like that of a Genuine Immortal for quite some time if he hadn''t been suppressing the accumulation, and preparing for a one-time try at the sixth Thunder Tribulation. If he had achieved a golden body, he would have passed long ago.


    That being so, his own combat ability was still like that of a first Thunder Tribulation Genuine Immortal like Taihai Sage and was more like a level two Venerable One.


    This kind of power had been on the same level with that of a Level Nine Expert.


    He still hadn''t played his last card, but neither had Zhou Bao!


    So, this was definitely not normal!

 Chapter 352: Aftermath of the Battle

    Chapter 352: Aftermath of the Battle


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    ...


    ...


    ...


    Aware that the situation was rather out of the ordinary, White Tiger shot a glowing look toward Zhou Bao.


    Sensing that White Tiger had no intent to strike out again, Zhou Bao smiled and stopped fighting as well, "What''s up, Your Excellency White Tiger, shall we continue?"


    "Forget it. No need to continue this fight. You are a truly capable bloke!" White Tiger exclaimed, raising his eyebrows. "You have the ability to trade blows with me. Today, I''ll just let you off the hook!" After he spoke, speaking, he vanished in a flash of light.


    "Ugh, what a damned dude!" Zhou Bao cursed under his breath. Then, he wheeled around with a broad smile on his face, cupped his hands towards Mock Moon Immortal and others and said, "Guys, I''m so sorry that we had to run into that damned dude. Really unfortunate! If you guys don''t mind, let''s go for a drink to remove this bad luck. What do you say?"


    "A muscle on Mock Moon Immortal''s face twitched, but he answered with a beam, "Great. Since Mr.Zhou has invited us, we count ourselves as an honored lot. We are truly honored!"


    After going through this battle, no matter how dense Zhou Bao was, he could tell that the attitude of these four haughty Individual Immortals towards him had undergone a subtle change. Even that Longlife Immortal, the haughtiest of the lot, had begun to regard him with a certain amount of fervor.


    But how could he not get all worked up?


    Currently, even though Zhou Bao''s cultivation skill was merely at Level Nine, he was already an evenly matched rival of White Tiger. Over time, who knew how powerful he could grow to be?


    The most important fact to note though, was that currently he was at Level Nine, and was a total troublemaker!


    Now, enticing Zhou Bao over to their side and having this troublemaker in the Central Mainland Region appeared be their best choice.


    Last time, the Mingyi School had fallen into disgrace due to the problems this troublemaker had incurred, letting all others have a good laugh at their expense. But what about this time? This time he and White Tiger had battled against each other, which meant he had also started a feud with the Immortal Palace. In this way, the next one who would be subject to Zhou Bao''s sabotage and fall into disgrace would surely be the Immortal Palace, wouldn''t it?


    White Tiger was not a guy who forgave easily. Whenever he lost face, he would definitely have another go to gain it back. However, this time after launching one strike at Zhou Bao, he would never launch a second one.


    "This time White Tiger went too far! He is already ranked as an immortal, but he still waged a battle against you, which means he has openly violated the Law of Heaven in our presence and regarded the Law of Heaven as something trivial. That is totally outrageous! We do not condone this kind of practice! Rest assured, Mr. Zhou. We will certainly expect Immortal Palace to account for this matter when we return. And I will guarantee that, before Your Excellency''s strength breaks into the Individual Immortal Realm, White Tiger will absolutely not launch another fight against you!"


    "Then, I shall trouble you four to sort this out!" said Zhou Bao, beaming.


    "No trouble at all. It is our duty. White Tiger is used to running wild, and this will be a great opportunity to contain him for a while. But Your Excellency needs to be prepared for more troubles, because this White Tiger represents one of the Four Images of the Immortal Palace, and even if he won''t attack you, that doesn''t guarantee that the Immortal Palace won''t either. Even though you are close to Tian Long Taoism, considering White Tiger''s high status in the Immortal Palace, it''s still likely that experts from the Immortal Palace will try to make trouble for you either directly or covertly, even without White Tiger''s direct involvement. As long as they don''t breach the Law of Heaven, there''s nothing much we can do about it!"


    "Never mind. I''ll take precautionary measures when the actual situation happens. If there are truly attackers coming, I shall beat them up one by one. I just don''t believe anyone from that damn Immortal Palace can discipline me!" Zhou Bao curled his lips and raised his eyebrows, emitting an air of arrogance. In his eyes, one could see the awe-inspiring momentum of his thoughts.


    Seeing he was so confident, Mock Moon Immortal also smiled. Soon, the five of them went back to Zhou Bao''s Lord Mansion and started chatting over drinks. Fully satiated, the four took their leave. Although they each had their own axe to grind, it could be said that this time the guests and the host had got on very well!


    "You blokes seem really determined to have a go at entrapping the Divine Wind Palace!" When the four departed, Green Spirit, who had witnessed all the coming and goings, popped out with a giggle, "After this, Divine Wind Palace will definitely treat you as their most useful pawn in the and will want to develop a closer relationship with you. Hehe!"


    "The trees may prefer to be still but the wind will not subside just for their sakes. Given the state of my eyes, it''s destined that I may not be civil to the Divine Wind Palace throughout this life. Naturally, I shall prepare myself in advance." Zhou Bao said pensively.


    What you said is true, and your method is also good. However, honestly, conspiracies are just side issues, while strength is the most important thing. Only when you have enough strength to back you up can you take part in those conspiracies. Otherwise, who will want to play this game with you?"


    "Humph, my Air-frozen Bead has been fully refined already. It''s time to enter the Azure Secret Area. I feel that my eyes are not the same as before, after they''ve imbibed so much Pure Yang Water. They seem to have altered a bit. Now I will not dare practice my Fiery Eyes in broad daylight in this world!" Zhou Bao said in an anticipatory tone. After all, when he had stayed for so many days in Taiyuan Heaven which was suffused with Spiritual Qi, Zhou Bao found that now he was not used to practicing in this kind of surroundings which had lesser Spiritual Qi.


    ...


    ¡­


    "What did you say? His fight against White Tiger ended in a draw? "


    Great Jin, Qianzhou, Western Capital,


    In the imperial court of the imperial palace.


    Jin Emperor Yan Yuntian blinked and stared dully at Mock Moon Immortal and the other three, "Are you sure that man was White Tiger? And the fight between Zhou Bao and White Tiger really ended in a draw?"


    "Well, do you think we will lie to you?" said Longlife Immortal, who was utterly irritated by the disbelief in Yan Yuntian''s tone.


    "Of course not. It''s just that this news is quite shocking. Since Zhou Bao hasn''t entered the Mysterious Realm, his combat capability should at most be on par with an Individual Immortal''s. How could he even be a match for White Tiger? White Tiger hasn''t jumped out of the Three Realms yet, but..."


    "But his combat capability has already reached the level of a Venerable''s!" Mock Moon Immortal chimed in and finished Yan Yuntian''s sentence. "Zhou Bao''s combat capability is equal to that of a Venerable''s. Looks like that he met with some enlightening adventures in Taiyuan Heaven. If not, he can''t be have made such a rapid progress!"


    "Met some enlightening adventures in Taiyuan Heaven?" Yan Yuntian''s expression grew odd. He was the one who gave Zhou Bao the Taiyuan Token. But that dude was not back yet. Hearing that Zhou Bao had gained experiences from adventures in Taiyuan Heaven and that his strength was increasingly catching up with that of a Genuine Immortal or a Venerable, Yan Yuntian was instantly green-eyed with envy.


    "That explains it. It has to be. Otherwise, how can his strength suddenly soar to such a high level?" Mock Moon Immortal was coolly analyzing the whole thing. "When he was in Taiyuan Heaven, he was totally suppressed by Ye Qingtian''s fairy weapon. But this time, he was already a match for the fairy weapon!"


    "Are you saying he obtained a magic weapon in Taiyuan Heaven?"


    "At least a Pure Yang Celestial Device whose power is close to that of a fairy weapon!" Mock Moon Immortal said positively, "But you should not bother about this. Everyone will have his own lucky opportunity. Now, Zhou Bao''s fate is too strong to be forcefully suppressed. The only thing you can do is befriend him, you see?"


    "Of course. Don''t worry, senior. Anyway, Zhou Bao is my son in law, and I''ve awarded him another large territory. What happened before is now water under the bridge. The next thing I''ll do is to figure out a way to be on good terms with him!"


    "That''s the best solution! You already know the plight you''re in. The bit of advantage you managed to secure has already been used up by your negligence. However, if you can pull Zhou Bao over to our side, it will be very easy for you to regain your advantage!"


    "Really?What do you mean?" Yuntian''s eyes brightened, and he hastened towards Mock Moon Immortal.


    "Hum, the reappearance of Fiery Eyes is a major issue for Four Eastern Regions. Apart from our Divine Wind Palace, those influences like the Immortal Palace and the Bigwheel Temple will not leave it alone. We''ll certainly hunt them down. Although their numbers are small, their strength is extremely powerful. Besides, with all those influences, we can''t really make a big fuss for just a few people. I guess, all the influences will unite together in the end and set up a force solely responsible for hunting down Ye Qingtian and his lot. You should try to rope Zhou Bao in. It''s not that hard, because he has bred such an enmity with Ye Qingtian, and as long as he is not stupid, he will want to destroy them through our power. As for tasks like hunting down someone, it will not be limited to the Central Mainland Region or even the Four Eastern Regions. If you truly get him on our side and let him stir up trouble among those two territories, tell me, what kind of outcome will it produce?"


    "Brilliant, truly brilliant!" Yan Yuntian''s eyes shone with glee. Mock Moon Immortal''s words echoed what was in his heart. Indeed, putting Zhou Bao, the troublemaker, into his opponents'' territories to stir up trouble would certainly give these two a headache. Thinking over what he had done, he was the one who had thought of the originally huge advantage in dealing with Zhou Bao, hadn''t he? Zhou Bao had the strength and the ability to make trouble. The only problem now was how to attract Zhou Bao to his side.


    Zhou Bao was no longer a nobody like before, in his eyes. His strength had already reached to such a level that Yan Yuntain had to look up to him. Although he found it difficult to accept this situation, he was, on the other hand, thoroughly assured by this fact.


    At first, he had marked Zhou Bao for fear that his influence would grow. He was worried that Zhou Bao would be ungrateful for what he had and plot an uprising, becoming a threat to his dynasty and his throne and disrupting his plan to be a Human Emperor. But now, he had no need to worry about that.


    Since Zhou Bao had reached such strong level and owned such a combative capability, he wouldn''t bother about being a so-called Human Emperor. Even if he wanted to, he would not be able to make it, because he neither practiced the Way of the Emperor nor did the Divine Wind Palace enlist him into the Human Emperor program. And what mattered most was his bad temper. He was a born troublemaker, certainly not an Emperor material.


    "Great that you understand the beauty of it. We can also leverage this opportunity to get Zhou Bao under our influence and send him to create a scene in the Central Mainland Region. We will leave for the Divine Wind Palace in an instance, and I''m pretty sure the lord will give his consent on this. And the rest shall depend on you!"


    "Thanks a lot, senior. I will handle this matter properly!"


    ¡­


    ¡­


    While Yan Yuntian and Mock Moon Immortal''s lot were discussing how to attract Zhou Bao to their side in Western Capital, White Tiger was sitting boldly in the main armchair in Zhou Bao''s villa in the northwest Wuyang Region. He was propping his head on his hand, his expression was gloomy and he appeared deep in thought.


    On his right and left sat Golden Rooster, Earth Bat of Girl, Moon Deer of Extended Net and Wang She. The faces of Golden Rooster and Wang She were sullen and Moon Deer of Extended''s was expressionless. But for Earth Bat of Girl, he had an enigmatic smile on his face.


    Silence lingered in the hall for a long time. Everyone had fallen into a deep gloom since White Tiger was back. Wang She and Golden Rooster were both eyeing White Tiger with hostility. If they hadn''t known about the strength of his powers, they would have already initiated a fight.


    "That guy, yes you! Flying Fire Snake. You are very familiar with Zhou Bao right?"


    Suddenly, White Tiger broke the silence. He lifted a hand and pointed at Wang She, and asked his question.


    Wang She''s eyes glinted with rage. He glared at White Tiger and answered, "Yeah, I know Junior Leopard very well. Is there a problem?"


    White Tiger was not put off by Wang She''s rude attitude, but continued to ask, "Since you''re so close to him and know him so well, then, you must know what he wants most, don''t you?"


    Wang She was slightly bewildered at this. Having no idea as to what White Tiger meant, he casually replied, "He mentioned this once. He asked if I could help him get the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. I guess he is quite interested in this technique!"


    "Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique?" White Tiger murmured to himself, and abruptly raised his head and asked, "Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique is the top-one cultivation method of your Tian Long Taoism right? It is one of the 3,000 Great Ways. But the general principles of that thing is lost, isn''t it?"


    "The general principles have been completed!" Wang She caught on at this point and added, "And they were completed with his help!"


    "Do we Immortal Palace have this Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique?"


    "Of course we do. Tian Long Taoism''s Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique is actually obtained from our Immortal Palace!" said Earth Bat of Girl, chipping into the conversation.


    Well, I am the one calling all the shots on this issue, I''ve decided to give him the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. If he has any more demands and as long as we Immortal Palace can manage, just meet all of his demands!" said White Tiger, thumping hard on the handle of the armchair.


    "This...may not comply with the rules!" said Earth Bat of Girl with an embarrassed air.


    "How does this go against the rules? I will talk to Old Caterpillar and tell him this boy is extremely uncanny. I wonder how much farther his progress can reach. Holy shit! He is already able to have an even battle with me now, who knows how much more intimidating he can get in the future? By the way, are you sure he is our Immortal Palace''s Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket?"


    "Surely he is!" Wang She had recovered from his astonishment and answered.


    "Hahaha, good boy! Very smart! He even pretended to approach Divine Wind Palace. Don''t know what''s in his mind. But that''s fine. The worse his relationship is with us the more benefits he will get from that Divine Wind Palace. One day when the Divine Wind Palace discovers his real identity, haha, I wonder what kinds of expression will be on those old bastards'' faces! Maybe their fury will kill them, hahaha..." White Tiger started laughing hysterically, as he pictured the livid faces of those Divine Wind Palace masters.


    Wang She and Golden Rooster exchanged a look. They had no idea what was in White Tiger''s mind, either. The first thing White Tiger did after showing up was to revile Zhou Bao in a most aggressive manner. It seemed that Zhou Bao had made a terrible impression and he would be given a head-on blow at their first encounter. But now, that might not be the right assumption. Could he just be a son of a b*tch and need to be beaten up? Did his defeat by Zhou Bao change his view of him?


    As his laughter faded away, White Tiger looked at Wang She and Golden Rooster, "There is another reason why I am here for him. But since I''ve had a confrontation with him, it would be really awkward for me to talk to him again. Now that you two are very close to him, you can pass my message to him and tell him that soon the strongest powers of the Four Eastern Regions will be helping each other to track down the remnants of Fiery Eyes. Ask him to get close to the Divine Wind Palace with his identity as Zhou Bao and develop a close relationship with them!"


    The hall fell back into silence for a while, as Wang She and Golden Rooster waited for more explanations from White Tiger. But after quite a long time, none was forthcoming.


    "That''s it?" asked Wang She, who lifted his head.


    "Yes, that''s it!" White Tiger said, nodding. "And bring him the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique along the way!"


    This must be a classic example of treating someone rudely at first but afterwards with respect!


    In the beginning, White Tiger was looking aggressively for Zhou Bao. But once Zhou Bao unveiled his strength, White Tiger''s attitude instantly changed, which went beyond the expectations of Golden Rooster and Wang She.


    As far as they were concerned, White Tiger was supposed to be an extremely stubborn guy!


    "Don''t be fooled by his appearance. In fact, this guy is the most realistic among the Four Images. He bullies the weak and fears the strong. His temperament is one of the worst!" Detecting the bewilderment of the three, Earth Bat of Girl said with a giggle. He had been a member of the 28 constellations for a long time already, so he had a pretty clear picture of what the rest of the 28 constellations were like.


    "Damn Bat, you shall not defame me like this. What do you mean I bully the weak and fear the strong? Zhou Bao is a member of our Immortal Palace, and he has such powerful strength, so I will certainly spare no effort in supporting him. If you had the same capability, I would support you as well!"


    "Come off it. I''d better stop bothering about this!" Earth Bat of Girl said, shaking his head. This time, what on earth did you come back for? Just for that kid? Or it''s because you''ve made a mess in the Penglai Region?"


    "I''m here to pick up Old Caterpillar!" White Tiger said in a resigned tone. "Old Caterpillar said after working for so many years, he was tired, and was nearly about to die of fatigue. Thus, he dragged me here."


    "Then, you shall stop managing the Penglai Region?"


    "Matters in Penglai Region amount to nothing more than spoiling others'' plans and poaching others'' staff. After so many years, the place has settled down, so it doesn''t matter whether I''m there are not. One reason for coming back is to pick up Old Caterpillar, and the other is to help him find a successor. His position should not be vacant for too long!"


    "Interesting. There isn''t any random guy who will be able to take over Elder Qing''s position. Are you going to find the successor from among the 28 constellations or from those old men?"


    "You can''t scrape together 28 people to fill your 28 constellations, and you are all so used to living a free and unfettered life, so which of you could be capable to take over?" White Tiger said with a smile. Then, he shot a look at Moon Deer of Extended Net and said, "Well, you must be craving for it. But given that your strength is quite weak and you''re carrying a blood feud, nobody will agree to let you succeed Old Caterpillar''s post."


    Moon Deer of Extended Net gave a slight smile and quietly turned around.


    "So this is the reason why you are here at the northwest at this time, merely to meet up with Zhou Bao and give us an update, isn''t it?"


    "Yep. I meant to teach that kid a lesson but didn''t expect his strength to be so formidable, and I was nearly defeated by him. How interesting is that! Haven''t met a guy like him for ages!"


    "That kid is unpredictable!"Earth Bat of Girl nodded in sympathy. "Relax, though he is young, he knows what he should do and what he shouldn''t. With me here supervising him, nothing serious can happen! "


    "Fine. Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique will be delivered here in two days!" White Tiger rose from the chair, gave a subtle nod to Earth Bat of Girl, and turned into a jet of white light and disappeared.


    "What a weird dude!" whispered Wang She. But since White Tiger held no grudges for Zhou Bao and had intended to give him such a huge gift, Wang She had no need to get in a real fix with this White Tiger. "He seems to be a very crafty guy!"


    "If he wasn''t crafty, he could not have achieved so much in the Penglai Region for the Immortal Palace!"


    "You think very highly of him!"


    "It doesn''t what I think, it''s the truth!" Earth Bat of Girl answered with a smile, shaking his head. "Though this guy''s temper is nasty, he has tremendous talent. You will understand once you know him long enough!"


    "Hope so!"


    ...


    ¡­


    "What? That White Tiger wants to give me the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique as a gift? How nice! You heard him correctly, didn''t you?" Zhou Bao couldn''t believe his ears when he heard this news. After having such a massive battle with him, White Tiger was still willing to offer him such a huge favor! Was White Tiger losing his mind or something?


    "Of course I heard it right. This White Tiger is really interesting!" Wang She said while he paced up and down Zhou Bao''s study room. "Junior Leopard, remember the thing I told you last time?"


    "What thing?"


    The thing about becoming a teaching elder. Would you be interested?"


    "No way, you can still remember that. I thought you were just kidding."


    "I will never joke about this kind of stuff. If you think that the offer before was some sort of a joke, now, I''m now extending you the official invitation!"


    "You? But you are just a Chief, not a Leader!"


    It''s true I''m not a Leader, but as a Chief of the Tian Long Taoism, I''m entitled to recommend someone. Plus, the whole world must have heard of the fight you had with that White Tiger by now. Now, not only the ordinary world is looking at you, but also those giants like the Divine Wind Palace. You''re in a big game this time, just be on the alert. If you let others spot a small flaw in you, the entire world may come after you at the same time. I don''t think that''s what you want, right?"


    "I''m not that dumb!" Zhou Bao waved his hand and was feeling extremely confident. "My Air-frozen Bead has already been refined. In a few days when the Essential Qi Tide rises, l will go to the Azure Secret Area to have a closed-door training. I''ll figure out the secrets of Fiery Eyes first before doing anything else. You saw the power of Fiery Eyes that day. If I can work out some of its magic, that shall be come in very useful to me in the future. Perhaps I''ll have a chance to control the Golden Book of Fate!"


    "If only it''s that simple. But now that your mind is made up, I won''t try to stop you. As for the proposal of being a teaching elder, do you want to give me your reply right now or later after thinking it through?"


    "OK, how can I say ''no'' to such a good proposition!" Zhou Bao said, beaming. "I''m just afraid that when the time comes, your Leader will not approve of me taking up that post!"


    "That was in the past. But now, that will not happen. Once you consent to it, the post of the next teaching elder will be yours!"Wang She said. "I believe our Leader must be very relieved when a guy with a Genuine Immortal''s combat capability assumes the post. Even if someone wants to compete with you, just give him a punch and all will be fine!"


    Great, hit him with a punch, I like that!" Zhou Bao burst out laughing. He realized that after having battled with White Tiger, his status in the eyes of others seemed to have undergone a subtle change.

 Chapter 353: Appearance of Zhi IX and an Ambitious Scheme

    Chapter 353: Appearance of Zhi IX and an Ambitious Scheme


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Immortal Palace,


    Pantuo Yard,


    This secluded space hidden away in the mountains always gave Zhou Bao a sense of harmony, which was something of a deception. When there were people, there was Jianghu; and when there was Jianghu, there will always be disputes. That scenario could be applied to everywhere. In general, the Immortal Palace was a place where people could stand aloof from gaining worldly success, but there were still some competition for gaining profits. It was just that these competition for profit gains had little to do with Zhou Bao.


    A streak of white light flashed across the sky and vanished within seconds. From the brilliant glow, the figure of White Tiger emerged in the Pantuo Yard.


    The Pantuo Yard was the private residence of Elder Qing. Previously, all the places Zhou Bao had gone to in the Immortal Palace were those that were used for official business only, so he had never entered this Pantuo Yard.


    This yard was inconspicuous in appearance. There was nothing attractive about it. But because this was someone''s private residence, it held a special significance, much like Zhongnanhai, the White House and the No.10 Downing Street, places that had existed in Zhou Bao''s previous life. Here, this place was the real core of the Immortal Palace.


    As the white light faded, White Tiger''s eyes started running over the slightly shabby yard. Then, with the barest hint of a smile flitting through his eyes, he walked towards the house.


    "Look, look, it''s like what I said. I told you the Smiling Tiger would come for sure!" Before he had even entered the house, he heard a burst of laughter from inside. The laughter sounded like it was from a young voice, it rang out clearly and was very pleasant to the ears.


    "However, White Tiger was sullen when he heard the laughter. "Hehe, Zhi IX, it''s you. You seem to appear wherever the action is!. Why don''t you go to hell!"


    His words were rude, and his behavior was even ruder¡ªWhite Tiger strode into the room, cast a glance at the two who were drinking tea, and immediately sat down beside them. "Something is fishy is going on with that Zhou Bao!"


    "Of course it is fishy. Otherwise, how could you, the Smiling Tiger, be cornered like this!" Zhi IX, a middle-aged frail-looking intellectual, looked as if he could be blown away by a mere gust of wind. He had even applied rouge and powder on his face, which gave him a rather grotesque appearance. His fingers were long and tapering and he was holding a white folding fan. He sniggered and clapped his hand over his mouth.


    "At the sight of this delicate and seductive gesture, White Tiger gave a scowl, "Humph, Zhi IX, the Central Mainland Region belongs to our Immortal Palace. We cannot let this type of guy stay there!"


    "That is a mere lie. When you were trying to gain a foothold in the Penglai Region, Divine Wind Palace said the same thing!"


    "This matter isn''t for you to decide. It''s a You''re wasting your time if you are here to solicit a favor!" White Tiger waved his hands angrily, loathing showing all over his face.


    Zhi IX looked totally unperturbed at this. He merely raised his eyebrows and said, "It''s true I''m not the one who calls the shots on this, but today I am here not on my own will. Smiling Tiger, you''ve struck Zhou Bao. That means you''ve committed a breach of the Law of Heaven. Do you intend to commit another breach?"


    "Yeah, I did breach the Law of Heaven, but what are you going to do about it? Bite me?" yelled White Tiger, brazen-faced, and clearly using this shameless strategy in front of the two.


    After hearing that, even Elder Qing could not stand it anymore. This person was one of the Four Images of the Immortal Palace, and he was about to take control in the Central Mainland Region! That would be an utter disgrace to the Immortal Palace, as well as to him, Green Dragon.


    Seeing Elder Qing''s thunderous expression, White Tiger shrugged and kept quiet.


    "Elder Qing, what''s your opinion on this?" Noticing that White Tiger had gone very quiet, Zhi IX asked Elder Qing over his shoulder.


    "What else could it be? This time it''s White Tiger who started the fight and infringed the rules. We at Immortal Palace have nothing more to say about that. As for that Zhou Bao, we won''t pick on him. Anyhow, he still has a certain bond with the Tian Long Taoism!"


    Tian Long Taoism?" Hearing this, a smile flashed across Zhi IX''s eyes. He said, "That being the case, it couldn''t be better. I, Zhi IX, hereby thank Your Excellency, Green Dragon!"


    While speaking, Zhi IX got to his feet, gave a deep bow towards Elder Qing, cupped his hands in obeisance at White Tiger, and took his leave.


    Hehe, that kid Zhou Bao is truly something. He made a fool of the Divine Wind Palace, and even Zhi IX came forward to speak about him. But Old Caterpillar, the last part of your remark is really ingenious!"


    "Hum, just a small trick, hardly worth mentioning!" Elder Qing sneered. "You just said there was something fishy about Zhou Bao. What does that mean? Zhi IX may have taken what you said literally, but I can tell you mean something else!"


    "Of course there is something fishy about him!" Speaking of this, White Tiger''s expression turned serious."That boy''s strength is strong, incredibly strong, and he hasn''t even reached his 20s yet. This is unusual. Elder Qing, did you do a check at that time?"


    "Of course I looked into it. I investigated his background and experience, but I failed to find any clues," Elder Qing said with a wry smile, shaking his head. "If you say he has outstanding talent, I agree; if you say he is an anomaly, I agree with that, too. But like you said, standing next to him, even others with outstanding talents or anomalies will look like ordinary people. I find this odd. But after a thorough investigation, it''s true that nothing came up as fishy!"


    "Then, as you say, could he be the..." Before White Tiger could finish his sentence, his expression went a bit odd and unfathomable, as if he was unwilling to proceed because his words might be some sort of omen.


    "It doesn''t matter who he is. What matters is what he''s going to do. I''ve been watching him for a while. Though Zhou Bao likes to act recklessly, he still knows where to draw the line. It''s just that he has been too close to Wang She, so he is naturally influenced by him. That''s fine. Even though Wang She can be a pain, he is still one of us, of the Immortal Palace, so he will never go against us. Besides, he was the one who proposed recruiting Zhou Bao into the Immortal Palace. Hehe, from this aspect, my foresight at that point was really not as good as his!"


    Talking about Wang She proposing to let the Immortal Palace recruit Zhou Bao, Elder Qing seemed a little emotional. Indeed, when deciding whether to enroll him, Elder Qing had disagreed with Wang She. At last, under Wang She''s unrelenting insistence, Elder Qing finally changed his mind. Whenever he thought of this, the feelings he had suppressed previously always surfaced in his heart.


    "These two are getting too close to each other. One must know the other''s background and have an intimate link with the other. If I''m not mistaken, Wang She certainly knows all the undisclosed details about him!"


    "Yes, Wang She does know all his secrets," Elder Qing beamed. "And that is the least of my worries. Now that Wang She reckons he won''t be a threat to us Immortal Palace, everything will be fine then. As for his burgeoning strength, I may have a plausible explanation for that!"


    "What explanation?" asked White Tiger.


    "Mysterious Turtle Sage has passed his martial arts to him!"


    White Tiger''s expression immediately became distorted with shock."Mysterious Turtle Sage? You''re talking about that old turtle. But now we should call him Venerable Black Tortoise, right?"


    "Exactly. That dude has undergone seven Thunder Tribulations at a stretch. Hehe, among all the Venerables, he is still one of the most powerful experts. And it''s a fact that I am not as powerful as he is!" When Elder Qing spoke about Venerable Black Tortoise, his face darkened slightly and he went on, "That guy, Zhou Bao, is extremely savvy, and has even gained insights on the third form of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and obtained the heritage of the Real Dragon. At that time, he happened to come across Venerable Black Tortoise who was undergoing the Thunder Tribulations, so he offered the heritage of the Real Dragon to Venerable Black Tortoise. In return, Venerable Black Tortoise bestowed him with great benefits, among which includes the general principles of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. As for the other benefits, I have no way to find out what they are!"


    "Do you believe that really happened?" White Tiger was filled derision after hearing Elder Qing''s tale. "He just happened to bump into that old turtle while he was undergoing Thunder Tribulations! How could there be such a coincidence? It could be due to fate that they happened to run into each other, but I''ll not buy that. However, now that he is somehow related to that old turtle, I think that makes him even more suspicious!"


    "I suspect that, too. But what does that have to do with us?" Elder Qing said with a smile "No matter whether the facts are true or not, he is now a member of Immortal Palace and obviously harbors some strange ideas about the Divine Wind Palace. And that''s enough, isn''t it?"


    "Yeah, that''s enough!" White Tiger nodded. "It is his fate that he linked up with Zhou Bao, all this has nothing to do with us. We should just mind our own business and that''s it!"


    "Now, do you have any other questions?"


    "No more questions about Zhou Bao!" White Tiger shook his head. "But I still have one question for you. Who do you have in mind to take over your post?"


    "Didn''t I delegate that decision making to you?"


    "Rubbish! This is for your post, it''s no use delegating the decision to me. It''s up to you to decide!" White Tiger said. "I''m just your reserve. If you already have the right candidate in mind, just let us know! Don''t give me a hard time, I am tired of playing guessing games!"


    "Hehe, you people always think of the worst scenarios. Well, your guess is right, I do have a suitable candidate in mind, but I can''t tell you who it is at the moment. Just now Zhi IX came to see me. Apart from the matter about Zhou Bao, he also discussed another issue with me. And at present, that issue has the top priority!"


    "What issue?"


    "Azure Secret Area!"


    "What? Damn it! Divine Wind Palace is finally hoping to be involved in the Azure Secret Area?" White Tiger suddenly gripped the handle of his chair so strongly that the handle, which was made of a 10,000-year-old hardwood, instantly disintegrated into ashes. "Entrances to the Azure Secret Area are all located in the Central Mainland Region, which has nothing to do with the Penglai Region. Well, why do they suddenly want to have a hand in it?"


    "It''s not a sudden decision, they have been yearning for it for a long time already The only difference is that a thousand years ago, the target of their ambitious plan was not the Azure Secret Area, but Taiyuan Heaven. Look, for this Taiyuan Heaven Meeting, they had made ample preparations! Even Genuine Immortals like Taihai Sage were roped in, and they even included a magic weapon, which showed that they were going all-out to b the winner. But they never expected that their plan would be ruined by Ye Qingtian. Thus, even after having prepared for a thousand years or more, their plan failed. And how could they resign themselves to this failure? Anyhow, Taiyuan Heaven only reveals itself once every thousand years. It looks that they just can''t wait for another thousand years!"


    "So they''ve changed their target to the Azure Secret Area?" White Tiger cried in outrage. "Do they really have so little regard for our influences in Central Mainland Region ?"


    "No. It is because they are still wary of us that Zhi IX was sent here ¨C to the Divine Wind Palace to seek cooperation with us Immortal Palace!"

 Chapter 354: A Conversation about the Divine Wind Palace

    Chapter 354: A Conversation about the Divine Wind Palace


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "To cooperate with us Immortal Palace? Does he take us for fools? How can we ever work with these ruthless greedy guys?" White Tiger responded with a sneer, "Old Caterpillar, you''re old, but you''re definitely not muddleheaded yet, so you won''t agree to that, will you?"


    "I agree with you, I''m old, but I''m not muddleheaded yet. I certainly will not agree with that so readily!"


    "Will not agree with that so readily?" White Tiger frowned, "What do you mean? Are you considering going to work with the Divine Wind Palace?"


    "For some matters, you must look beyond the surface. Having lost face completely during the Taiyuan gathering, the Divine Wind Palace wants to get an ally as soon as possible. And the Immortal Palace is the first choice. If they team up with us, they will be able to stabilize the situation. And we will also benefit a lot, right?" Elder Qing looked at White Tiger with a smile.


    White Tiger gave Elder Qing a look that seemed to suggest that he was dealing with an idiot. "You want to attain profit through taking a risk? It doesn''t work this way for the Divine Wind Palace!"


    "How would you know if you don''t even try?"


    "You''re out of mind! You''re really old and muddle-headed!" White Tiger said, slowly drawing out each syllable, all the while staring at Elder Qing''s face.


    Elder Qing listened intently to White Tiger''s curses with a smile, and finally laughed, "Zhou Bao is the key. Now, to them, Zhou Bao is well-liked and they''re longing for Zhou Bao to join them immediately. What''s more, he belongs to the Central Mainland Region, which has immense strength and a highly placed position in the world. The Divine Wind Palace..."


    "Okay, enough said. I know clearly how much weight that Zhou Bao carries. But we can''t break the rules of the Immortal Palace which have been around for years for thousands of years just for him. Even if you agree, the other members of the Immortal Palace might not agree. I know you have the dictatorial right, but don''t forget, the Immortal Palace is different from other influences. If the members are not united, it is worthless!"


    "Elder Qing did not speak, but paced back and forth in the room. "You''re right. Without unity, the Immortal Palace is worthless. However, have you ever thought that if we don''t cooperate with the Divine Wind Palace, they will seek the cooperation of other forces. Regardless of the Dragon Thunder Palace, if they were snubbed by us, the Divine Wind Palace will seek the cooperation of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. If the Bigwheel Temple agrees, have you thought about the consequences?"


    "The monks at the Bigwheel Temple won''t be so foolish. They won''t be as muddle-headed as you are!"


    "If things are as you say, it doesn''t matter!" Elder Qing shook his head, "I''m afraid they''re more muddle-headed than I am now!"


    "Have you received any news?"


    "Hump, coming back from Taiyuan Heaven, Happy Monk did not conduct a closed-door training straight away but led Taihai Sage Wen Yida to the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple!" Elder Qing''s eyes held a trace of sulkiness. "They did it in secret, and I discovered it by accident. If the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple is up to something, we''re not going to take part in it!"


    "Do you believe that those monks can make it?" White Tiger asked coldly, "They''re just a bunch of blockheads. The only thing they do is to practice their skills daily with no original thoughts of their own!"


    "They''re truly blockheads, but they have formidable powers which is worrying" Elder Qing sighed, "The thing that the Divine Wind Palace needs isn''t their intelligence but their power. They don''t need to do outstanding things. The Divine Wind Palace will be doing that. You understand what I mean?"


    White Tiger frowned slightly. He was not stupid and clearly understood the meaning of Elder Qing''s words.


    Rome was not built in one day. Similarly, the formidable power of the Divine Wind Palace did not come about overnight, but happened over tens of thousands of years. Its advantages were accumulated bit by bit. Now, its ingrained strength was a force to be reckoned with, so it would be exceedingly unwise for the Immortal Palace to fight against it alone.


    There had been a combination of other influences who went against the Divine Wind Palace. But over the past thousands of years, the Divine Wind Palace had never gone beyond their boundaries and were very straightforward. Although they were still somewhat domineering and unreasonable, they were now much more easier to deal with than before. Otherwise, White Tiger would not have been able to initiate the situation in the Penglai Region. Besides, the Divine Wind Palace did not dictate orders to other influences unlike before, but only took care of their two regions. In this way, the pressure that had been imposed by the other influences had suddenly decreased.


    Because of the decrease in pressure, the Immortal Palace, the Dragon Thunder Palace, the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple and the Jade Pool, gradually became less united than they were before. To make matters worse, they often clashed over their own interests. As a result of this, their relationship began to deteriorate, and they were not united at all.


    At first, it was barely noticeable. Now, thousands of years later, however, when they wanted to work together again, they were horrified to find that they were all reluctant to cooperate with their former allies. The Immortal Palace had become stronger due to their effective management among their sphere of influence. With the ebb and flow of these influences, the situation today was quite different.


    "Alas, I know what you''re thinking. But I don''t agree to kowtow to the Divine Wind Palace. They''re powerful, but we Immortal Palace are not weak. We can''t beat them, but neither can they wipe us out. Moreover, their forbearance of thousands of years cannot be the same at this point in time. Strong as they are, they don''t have the ability. After all we''re not easily controlled. To cope with ever changing events by sticking to a fundamental principle. We don''t have to be afraid of them!"


    His words were harsh, but the initial sighing had already revealed his true feelings.


    "If we cope with changing events by sticking to a fundamental principle, we''ll soon find ourselves in a submissive position when under attack. Even if we finally retain our bases, we will be at their mercy. If the Divine Wind Palace takes full control of the Golden Book of Fate by chance, the general situation will be reversed and the Immortal Palace will not be at peace!"


    "Then, we can''t let them get what they want!" White Tiger said, "Just let them go to the Bigwheel Temple. Let''s see what will happen in the end!"


    "It''s not right! Not right at all!" Elder Qing replied slowly, "To be led by the nose will surely render us dead with a blow. It''s not right, so we need to be proactive now!"


    "To be proactive?" White Tiger paused for a moment. "Or will that bring disaster upon our heads?"


    "That should be alright as long as there''s a chance of turning the tables!"


    "A chance of turning the tables? What do you mean?"


    "Zhou Bao!" Elder Qing said confidently, twirling his beard under his chin, "He is our chance to turn the table!"


    "You still intend to use him as a pawn at this point? With his strength and background, he can''t be our pawn any longer!"


    "Let''s get him involved in this game. It''s no big deal!" Elder Qing said, casually, "This chess game has gone beyond our control already, so if we have one more chess player, we get one more chance!"


    "What exactly do you want to do?"


    "It''s one thing to take on the Divine Wind Palace in the Azure Secret Area, whether they can make it is another. They''ve been making preparations for 1,000 years already, and still failed in Taiyuan Heaven and they are now under so much pressure. Anyone can discern what their purpose for entering the Azure Secret Area is this time. What if they are able to enter there? We can take them in. Similarly, others can take anyone else in as well, such as Ye Qingtian. You''ll never know. Then what do you think of their chances of succeeding? What''s more, the Azure Secret Area doesn''t like Taiyuan Heaven. It''s really a changing world and the situation is getting more complicated. It doesn''t mean that The Divine Wind Palace will get all the benefits!"


    "There''re all kinds of possibilities. What if they succeed?"


    "They will never succeed!" Elder Qing stated vehemently, as his eyes flashed in anger, "White Tiger, you have the power and capacity, but you''re remarkably short-sighted. You should keep your eyes on the long term consequences!"


    "What? I''m shortsighted?"


    "Do not always focus only on their conspiracy on the Azure Secret Area. As I said, it''s not a reliable source. You''ve got to think about what you''re going to do after you take over my job, and that''s all that matters!"


    "Then, Elder Qing, you mean...?"


    Now White Tiger had stopped calling him Old Caterpillar, and his tone became serious.


    "Zhou Bao is the key. I think you already know that his fief is where Nine Strips of Dragon Veins gather!"


    Elder Qing continued after seeing him nod his head in agreement, "I have issued a gag order on this matter, so only very few people know about it. The thing about the Divine Wind Palace, after all, is the question of the Way of the Emperor. It''s about supremacy over all and the Emperor''s Intention. Because of this supreme control over all, the Divine Wind Palace has tried to dominate the world. And because of the Emperor''s Intention, they''ve been very candid for thousands of years and have openly laid out their plans. They have plenty of time anyway. We are inferior to them in this matter. The most important thing in the Way of the Emperor is their potential. Now they have reached their potential, and is difficult to overthrow. We can only conform to the flow!"


    "What do you mean by ''conform to the flow''?"


    "They need a Human Emperor and already have a few other candidates in mind? Why don''t we get involved?" Elder Qing grinned, "There''re Nine Strips of Dragon Veins in Zhou Bao''s fief. Thus, his fate is definitely not inferior compared to those candidates!"


    "Make him the Human Emperor? You can''t count on him! He''s not cut out for it!"


    "I''m not talking about him. It''s true that he is not cut out for it, but what about his offspring?"


    "His offspring? You mean..."


    "He married a princess, so his offspring has the bloodline of the Jin royalty, which gives his offspring the most basic conditions required. Although he has no children now, it is only a matter of time. If his wife gives birth to a few boys, they will grow up in a decade or two. This matter has already been delayed for so many years, they won''t mind waiting for another 10 or 20 years. Besides, Zhou Bao is so close to the Divine Wind Palace now. Therefore, it''s not impossible to push his sons or grandsons out in the future if we proceed with care."

 Chapter 355: The Way of the Emperor, the Divine Dynasty, Involved or not?

    Chapter 355: The Way of the Emperor, the Divine Dynasty, Involved or not?


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    ......


    "What? You''re going to build a Sea-calming Palace!" Zhou Bao stared blankly at White Tiger, who was smiling, for a moment, then waved his hands, "I will not be paying for it!"


    "Money is not an issue!" White Tiger gave Zhou Bao a reproachful look. He did not expect Zhou Bao to talk about money from the very start. Money was an important asset for a mortal, but for them, immortals, money meant nothing. It was only fair to say that after going through three realms, they fairly dripped with gold and silver. Being such a powerful being, the fact that Zhou Bao brought up the subject about money, rendered him speechless.


    "By the way, you do know that this is my territory. I don''t really care about your intentions, but do you think it''s appropriate to build such a large building here?" Zhou Bao queried.


    "I think you got me wrong. Erecting a large building here is not for us, but for you. The Sea-calming Palace is built with you in mind. When it''s completed, it''s yours!" Seeing that Zhou Bao was becoming more and more amazed, the smile on White Tiger''s face grew wider. "So there''s nothing inappropriate about it!"


    "Building it for me?" Zhou Bao finally asked after a long pause. He blinked and with a serious look asked, "Hey, what the hell are you up to? There is no such thing as a free lunch, so you must definitely be up to something! What do you want out from me?"


    "It''s not a big deal, we''re just trying to get include you in our grand plan!" White Tiger smiled, sipped his tea, then eloquently spelled out to him the discussion that he and Elder Qing had deliberated on.


    Zhou Bao remained silent throughout the whole process. It took him a long while to digest the information after White Tiger had ended his speech. "Damn, your idea is really outrageous. You want to get my offspring involved! But don''t forget, I currently have no children. If I''m unable to have children in the future, you''ll be wasting your time!"


    "Puff..." Before Zhou Bao''s voice had died away, White Tiger spat out a mouthful of tea, and looked aghast, at the seemingly innocent Zhou Bao.


    "You, you, you, it''s true that nothing is sacred to you!"


    He had only ever heard about one being cursed by another so he would not be able to have a child, but he had never heard a man who supposedly was tempting fate by saying that he himself might be childless.


    "Hump, even so, I can''t be compared with you guys. You''re thinking of my offspring! Human Emperor? Damn it, only a good for nothing would want to be a Human Emperor. I refuse!"


    "What? You are refusing to let your son become an Emperor? You''re really very hard to please!"


    "That is not the point! It''s not easy to take on an emperor''s role. The Emperor looks awe-inspiring, but in reality, he is very worn out all the time!" Zhou Bao answered, "I don''t want my offspring to suffer like that!"


    "Don''t listen to others'' malicious gossip. You haven''t been an Emperor before. How would you know what it is like?" White Tiger said with a smiling face.


    "Come on, it''s true I''ve never been an Emperor, but I''ve met the Emperor. Just look at what Yan Yuntian''s sons are doing. They all want to kill each other and they are brothers! If I have sons like that, I will strangle them before they grow up!"


    His words left White Tiger speechless for a moment.


    He was right. It was indeed hard to be a Human Emperor, and the more sons he had, the more trouble he would encounter. With Zhou Bao''s present strength, even the Human Emperor had to take him into account, so there was no need for him to disturb his family in the future for the sake of the throne.


    "You know, your territory is on a land which contains Nine Strips of Dragon Veins. Even if you don''t want your offspring to be emperors, they are already fated to be the future Emperor!"


    "Then replace my territory!" Zhou Ba said after pondering for a while.


    "Replace your territory?" White Tiger''s eyes moved slightly, "No way, boy, it''s not doable! The entrance and exit of the Azure Secret Area is here. If you replace it here, it will create a lot of problems!"


    "Then don''t include me in this!" Zhou Bao replied dryly, "You can build the Sea-calming Palace if you like, but I''m not interested in your plan. And I have my own plan!"


    "You have your own plan? What''s it?"


    "Letting nature take its course. I''m not all that ambitious. I only want to live in peace in my own territory. As for fighting..." When it came to fighting, Zhou Bao smiled coldly. "Right now, I don''t think anyone in the world wants to fight me, right?"


    He came to the point right away.


    With Zhou Bao''s strength and power, as long as he did not stir up trouble, no one or influence in the world dared to provoke him. Of course, he had an enemy, Ye Qingtian. However, since he was currently on the run from the Divine Wind Palace, Ye Qingtian could only compare himself to a wild stray dog. After his first failure, he would never be able to come back so easily. And because Zhou Bao had no fear of his coming back, his worries had lessened considerably now. He was waiting for his refinement to evolve to a certain degree before he could become an Immortal. With his current strength, it was enough to set up a powerful well-known family which could be a match present millennium families and prestigious sects and schools like the Wang family, the Li family, the Tian Long Taoism and the Mingyi School, and also establish a stronghold in the northwest. If he was lucky enough, it could even be a dominant power there for tens of thousands of years. As for the Human Emperor''s position, it really held no attraction for him.


    Hearing Zhou Bao''s candid words, White Tiger felt that he had nothing more to say. If you could be a millennial family with a state or even more territory, it would be insane to want to steal the throne that was coveted by many people.


    But before his arrival White Tiger had already expected such a reply, so upon hearing Zhou Bao''s refusal he merely smiled, "I hear that you have refined an Air-frozen Bead and plan to enter the Azure Secret Area when the Essential Qi Tide comes back. Is that true?"


    "Yes!" Zhou Bao answered with a smile. As his entry into the Azure Secret Area was something he could not hide, he simply took out the newly refined Air-frozen Bead and magnanimously showed it to White Tiger, "How about it? Your Excellency White Tiger, it''s good, right?"


    "It''s a Pure Yang Celestial Device?"


    White Tiger was startled, as he stared at the cyan bead which was the size of a pigeon''s egg, suspended before Zhou Bao''s eyes, strong Pure Yang Qi coming out strongly from it.


    The Pure Yang Qi came in waves and was truly overwhelming.


    "How were you able get so much Pure Yang Qi?" He asked in surprise.


    The powerful Pure Yang Qi emanating from the Air-frozen Bead shocked White Tiger immediately.


    "I got from Taiyuan Heaven accidentally. It creates a Pure Yang Celestial Device. With this Pure Yang Celestial Device, I can enter the Azure Secret Area at will from now on!" Zhou Bao answered with a smiling face, "As for that dragon vein, if you''re really interested in the throne, find someone to take over here. I''m serious. I''m not demanding as long as I can enter the Azure Secret Area freely!"


    "I will tell Old Caterpillar about this!" White Tiger nodded. Having reached this point, it made no sense to prolong the conversation. White Tiger got up to leave, and Zhou Bao sent him to the door.


    Watching the light of White Tiger disappearing in the sky, Zhou Bao smiled intensely. "Damn, do they think I can be swayed so easily?"


    "Are you sure you want to give up this place of Nine Dragons convergency to someone else?"


    "Hum, if they''re really going to drag me into this, I''ll give it up. It''s supposed to be a place that has good fengshui, but I don''t think so! It''s a territory that will eventually lead to death without descendants! Do you think I want it?"


    "The land of Nine Dragons convergency affects not only one''s birth destiny, but also impacts one''s fate. To build the Sea-calming Palace to suppress fate and hold on to this fate when the dragon vein opens, is the best choice. A dragon vein is able to protect a thousand year old dynasty. Now, there are Nine Strips of Dragon Veins gathering. It''s not just the simple addition of Nine Strips of Dragon Veins. After the dragon vein is open, the fate will be strong enough to stabilize a super dynasty for tens of thousands of years. You know what a super dynasty lasting for tens of thousands of years means?"


    "I don''t know!" Zhou Bao shook his head. He really had no idea.


    "A common dragon vein is only able to protect a millennium dynasty. And generally, a dynasty in the world does not last more than 1,000 years. Because even with the suppression of the Pure Yang Celestial Device, it can last for only 1,000 years, unless the dynasty has more than one dragon vein. With two dragon veins merging, the dynasty can last for 3,000 years. And with three dragon veins, the fortune will be strengthened and the dynasty can even last for 6,000 years, which will make it a great dynasty. If there are four dragon veins converging, the dynasty will last even longer. When a dynasty lasts for 10,000 years, it is then able to gather unimaginable strength. The dynasty that lasts more than 10,000 years is called Divine Dynasty!"


    Divine Dynasty?" Zhou Bao was a little surprised. He had never heard of it.


    "It''s the dynasty from the olden times. These dynasties, like today''s secular dynasties, were in conflict, but their struggles were of a different sort. Their emperors had immeasurable levels in cultivation skills. It was totally impossible for a man to become an emperor without undergoing a thorough transformation, and especially where the Qi in his heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys were involved. And with that strength, in general, after the establishment of a dynasty, he would always be the emperor. Therefore, the battle for the throne, like the current dynasty, would not happen!"


    "They want my future son to be the Human Emperor, but now you seem to want me to be Human Emperor!"


    "What I care about is not the throne, but the fate and resources. Among the 3,000 Great Ways, the Way of the Emperor is the special one which needs more external forces than the Way of the Buddhist do. Once they succeed, their practice becomes easier. Then not only their strength, but also their influence will be huge. Therefore, back in the olden days, a man who is imbued with a certain type of strength would likely try to find a dragon vein, so he can establish a dynasty, and then practice the Way of the Emperor!"


    "Not many people have succeeded, right?"


    "Emperors in the olden days were the masters of the Way of the Emperor. They might not be the strongest, but they were the most powerful of men. Thus, they were able to have a monopoly of more than half of the 33 Heavens in those olden times. And even people who were more powerful than them were generally unwilling to offend them!"


    Are the dynasties they founded all Divine Dynasties?"


    "Not really, only one dynasty, which was established by Emperors like the Emperor of Moon Temple who was ranked among the top five in all emperors, can be called Divine Dynasty. Some Emperors had only one dragon vein. They succeeded in practicing the Way of the Emperor within a 1,000 years, and became powerful. By the time the fate was over, they would retire after having left their mark in history!"

 Chapter 356: Jingtan Temple

    Chapter 356: Jingtan Temple


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "The Way of the Emperor has great benefits but it also comes with numerous obstacles that need to be cleared. The biggest obstacle is the so-called Emperor''s Intention which in fact is the greatest complication of the Way of the Emperor. The moment a person who is practicing the Way of the Emperor tries to figure out the Emperor''s Intention, he will fall under a spell. In this lifetime, he will never reach the Advanced Level of Way of the Emperor!"


    "Really? Does it mean that Yan Yuntian would never be able to reach the advanced level of Way of the Emperor in this lifetime?" Zhou Bao asked, with an odd expression on his face.


    "So Divine Wind Palace is convinced that he is the right candidate for Human Emperor because he will never become a Human Emperor in his life!"


    "Yan Yuntian may not have known about it!" Zhou Bao bowed his head in thought.


    "What do you think? Should he have known about it?" Green Spirit asked with a sneer. "Since you now know about it, are you interested in the Way of the Emperor? With Nine Dragons convergency, super good fate and Immortal Palace as the background, this Way of the Emperor seems to be made specially for you!"


    "No, what I dislike most is the person who thinks he is the sole player in the world. The person who practices the Way of the Emperor is that kind of person and I don''t want to be like that. Therefore, I will not practice the Way of the Emperor!" Zhou Bao said firmly.


    "Well, very good. Just follow your heart and never waver in the face of great temptations. This is the state of mind practitioners should have. It''s wonderful that you have already attained it at such a young age. Your future is indeed promising!"


    "Come off it! Following my heart? That''s rubbish. Just say I am stubborn!" Zhou Bao uttered a curse with a smile, when he heard the praise. "However, the Immortal Palace have really gone all out to try to win over me. They even gave me the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique!"


    "The wind sweeping through the tower heralds a rising storm in the mountain. Boy, you are part of the game now, yet you are trying to run away from it. How is that possible?"


    "I know I am part of the game, and I used to be a pawn for them. But now that the chess players can''t make control my moves, they want me to be a chess player instead. I don''t give a damn about it. I''m going to be in this game and take my rightful place. And no matter how well they play, they still need to get around me. I will drive them crazy!"


    "Hahahahaha, yes, yes, that makes sense! It does make sense. Just drive them crazy! Drive them crazy!" Green Spirit burst into laughter and said, "You are funny, extremely funny!"


    "Well, that''s it. I will not be part of the game. It''s someone else''s business instead of ours. I will just mind my own business from now on!"


    "Well, it''s time to prepare to enter the Azure Secret Area. It''s a good thing you have the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique which is also one of the 3,000 Great Ways. If not, it will be nearly impossible for you to make it unless you practice for hundreds of years. But I have a way which will help you reach the Basic level in a short time and also refine it into the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument!"


    "What is it?"


    "There should be enough Primordial Yang Qi that will enable you to reach the Basic level of Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique in the Azure Secret Area. Just be on the alert for it!"


    "This is excellent. In Taiyuan Heaven, we can only stay for a month, but now that I have the Air-frozen Bead, that will allow us to stay for a long time in the Azure Secret Area. If we are lucky, you can attain the Basic level of Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique!"


    "Well, the Azure Secret Area is our top priority now. Let''s not bother with any other matters until we come back. Maybe after we come out, things will have changed!"


    This time he entered the Azure Secret Area to figure out the mystery of Fiery Eyes. And he had predicted that it would take at least half a year. Furthermore, he now possessed the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. It was uncertain how long he would be staying inside. As time passed, things would have changed. He was not bothered about what the outcome would be.


    Now that he had decided not to contest for the Way of the Emperor, at this crucial moment, it would a wise decision to hide in the Azure Secret Area so as to avoid being disturbed.


    "Dong dong dong!"


    There was a knocking on the door and Zhou Bao''s fingertips twitched. The door opened suddenly, to reveal a maidservant, who was dressed in the palace costume. She walked towards him, bearing a wooden tray.


    "Your Highness, you didn''t have lunch. Her Highness is afraid that you will be hungry. She asked me to bring you this meal!" The maid looked timidly into Zhou Bao''s eyes.


    She was one of the maids who was part of Yan Yunfei''s dowry. Since Yan Yunfei was one of the most distinguished princesses of the Great Jin, naturally, her wedding regulation level was extremely high. There were hundreds of maids included in the dowry. On the wedding day, even Zhou Bao was stunned at the sight of so many people. How was he going to feed them all?


    Fortunately, Zhou Bao had amassed a huge fortune already. He had settled the Cool Breeze Gang and the prairie tribe. Anyuan Store was also on the right track, and he had plenty of money and goods. Besides, for this arranged marriage, Yan Yuntian had granted a lot of properties in order to win over this new expert, so Zhou Bao was very well-off. Although money talked, many hardware conditions could not keep up.


    Wuyang Region used to be a wasteland. Although there had been a slight improvement, it was almost impossible to bring over so many people from Great Jin to Wuyang Region as there was not enough accommodation for all of them. Hence, Zhou Bao let Yan Yunfei select twenty capable servants to come along with them. The little maid in front of him was one of them.


    The people brought by Yan Yunfei had all born in the palace and were generally arrogant. However, when they were in front of Zhou Bao, who had almost taken down Mingyi School, everyone only felt fear in their hearts. Zhou Bao treated them very cordially and was not as vicious as what he was reputed to be. However, he was already notorious for being fierce, so all the little maids and eunuchs were very timid around him. Zhou Bao could not do anything about this.


    "Just put it down!" Looking at the timid little maid, Zhou Bao gestured to her to put the food down. "Well, is there anything else?"


    "Heyang Princess is here," little maid said nervously "and she is chatting with Her Highness!"


    Yan Yunyan, Princess Heyang!


    Zhou Bao frowned gently and a flicker of disdain briefly crossed his face. With his current strength and spiritual mind, there was nothing that could be concealed from him. He had met Yan Yunyan before. Naturally, he could easily identify the person who appeared in his mansion was Yan Yunyan, Princess Heyang. He had a bad feeling about Yan Yunyan, but Yan Yunfei, who was a charming princess, had married him and had been brought to such a desolate place. Frankly speaking, he was not good at getting along with a woman. As she was alone here and was only surrounded by maids and servants, she had very few opportunities to have a heart-to-heart talk with anyone. Even if Yan Yunyan, Princess Heyang harbored some bad intentions, her arrival could divert Yan Yunfei from boredom. Therefore, Zhou Bao did not bother too much. In fact, he did not want to meet Yan Yunyan at all.


    Therefore, he just nodded his head and said, "Princess Heyang is here! That''s fine!" After that, there was silence. The little maid stood there as if in a daze, not knowing what else to say.


    "Well, is there anything else?" As the little maid remained standing there, Zhou Bao frowned and wondered whether Yan Yunyan was looking for him as well


    "Her Highness sent me to tell Your Highness that she would go to Jingtan Temple to pray with Princess Heyang tomorrow morning!"


    "To pray at Jingtan Temple?" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows. He had heard of Jingtan Temple which was built by Wuyang Region''s refugees at the foot of Jilei Mountain.


    Zhou Bao''s Wuyang Region was a desolate and cold place in the northwest. Originally there were no inhabitants at all. It was because Kelsang was acquainted with many persons and he called for some exiled shepherds to inhabit that desolate prairie. The population was initially extremely small. However, with Zhou Bao''s growing strength and reputation, more roads leading to Wuyang Region had been constructed. And the scale of Anyuan Store was increasingly becoming larger. Wuyang Region''s population had increased by leaps and bounds. By now, there were up to 10,000 people.


    If it had not Anyuan Store, which was engaged in human trafficking into Wuyang Region be it openly or covertly, the government would have arrested them already. However, when they heard that it was Anyuan Store, the officials around the country all turned a blind eye to it. They even made it easier for Anyuan Store to go about their transactions. Therefore, there were lots of people in Wuyang Region.


    In addition to the first town, there were a growing number of villages around the area. Most of these people had brought in by the traffickers. The population was made up of all kinds of people such as bandits, criminals, abductees, and kidnappers. Anyway, these people were part of the unfortunate bunch in the Central Plains and could not survive there. With the help of Anyuan Store, they all rushed to the Wuyang Region.


    When they arrived at Wuyang Region, Zhou Bao treated them equally and without discrimination. But there was no advantage to be there. Wuyang Region was desolate and cold. In the beginning, the conditions were hard. But thanks to the huge financial support from Anyuan Store and Jiang Xiao, a competent person, no one died of hunger or cold in the first winter. They manage to survive through the winter. Once Zhou Bao opened the passageway to Blacktail Plain, Wuyang Region had become one of the most prosperous places in the northwest and the most important transportation route to all parts of the northwest. The trading business was gradually flourishing. The surrounding prairie had been cultivated, and the whole territory had become very vibrant.


    If this had happened in other places, it might have made Wuyang the target of attacks by people who coveted the place. However, because it was Zhou Bao''s territory, no one dared to make any trouble.


    Although there was no external threats, there were many matters to attend to with the ever increasing number of people in the territory. In terms of security, due to Zhu Ba''s style of keeping law and order, much like a vicious god, no one dared to run wild. However, with the increasing stability of life, they tended to look for more things to fill their lives. Somehow, religion became popular. And among the thousands of people, there were different types of religions and a great number of persons believed in the Sect of Flame. For this matter, Jiang Xiao had brought it to Zhou Bao''s attention. But Zhou Bao did not bother about it and said to let it go because he believed in freedom of worship.


    Jiang Xiao also knew that once Wuyang Region was run by Zhou Bao, himself a great God, no one would create big problems. Therefore, as long as these devotees of Buddha did not run wild, they did not bother about them. It was this attitude of indulgence that led to the massive growth of some of the religious forces. One of these was Jingtan Temple.


    How the monks and devotees managed to buy land to build a temple, Zhou Bao did not really care. But to his surprise, even his wife was planning to visit Jingtan Temple to pray.

 Chapter 357: Child-endowing Buddha

    Chapter 357: Child-endowing Buddha


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    ...


    ...


    ...


    Jingtan Temple!


    Located under Jilei Mountain, this small temple had been operating for about half a year. During this period, more and more people came to worship the Buddhas in the temple.


    One word could be used to describe the secret for the mass of worshippers to the temple: efficacious.


    Yes, the temple had a reputation for being efficacious, especially in granting the wishes of worshippers who wanted to have children. The Child-endowing Buddha was worshipped by all in the temple. He had a large head and big ears. The Buddha wore a perpetual smile on his face and held a baby in his arms.


    Regardless if you were praying for a boy or a girl, your prayers would definitely come true.


    "Are you serious?"


    After hearing Jiang Xiao''s report, Zhou Bao had a strange expression on his face. "You''re saying that Yunfei was going to...!"


    "Your Excellency, you have been married for more than half a year already, but the Princess has not conceived yet. It''s only natural for her to think in this way!" Jiang Xiao felt a little awkward. This was, after all, Zhou Bao''s personal affair.


    As a subordinate, he felt embarrassed to have this discussion with him.


    "Fine. I see. Does this temple have anything special, except for praying for children?"


    "Nothing else. Since there have been so many people continuously coming to worship the Buddha, I thought there might be something fishy going on, so I investigated it personally. There is nothing exceptional about it. There are about 10 monks in the temple."


    The abbot''s dharma name is De Ling. He''s about 50 years old. I''ve heard that he is from Lingzhou, a place in the south. He was once a senior monk in a particular temple, but that temple was destroyed during the wars between the Sect of Flame and the officers and soldiers of Great Jin during the insurrection of the Sect of Flame.


    When the temple was destroyed De Ling was forced to follow those soldiers to Wuyang Region and there he met up with several monks. Since then, they''ve built Jingtan Temple, and it gradually developed into this large scale.


    "In the beginning, it was just a shack built of earth. But because of its efficacy, more and more people have been going there, and thus it became bigger."


    "Although it''s not that big at present, it''s still famous enough!"


    "Since you''ve already investigated it, I guess there''s nothing to worry about!" Zhou Bao nodded in agreement. "However, we''d better keep an eye on it. You ask Zhu Ba to go with them, as well as those from the powerhouses of Tian Long Taoism."


    "After all, they need to earn their keep!"


    "Yes, I see!" Jiang Xiao answered and bowed his way out of the house.


    "I have a feeling that there must be something going on at this Jingtan Temple!" Although he did not receive any untoward information about it from Jiang Xiao, he still preferred to trust his gut feeling.


    "Jingtan Temple? I seemed to have heard of that name before!" Flying in, Green Spirit flew around Zhou Bao and transformed into a spirit of a silver fox.


    "Oh, now I remember. There was an affiliated temple belonging to the Mandkesvara Sect also called Jingtan Temple!"


    "Mandkesvara Sect?" Zhou Bao''s expression suddenly changed. As soon as he heard this name, he could just imagine what kind of place it was! Child-endowing Buddha?!


    Firstly, there was no such type of God that had the ability to endow the gift of child to any human being. Furthermore, God surely did not want to be involved in such affairs.


    "I wonder if Yan Yunyan is aware about the details about this temple. If she knows and still insists on going there with Yunfei, I will assume there''s something serious going on."


    "Does she really want to go against me?"


    Zhou Bao stood up and with a face that showed no mercy, declared, "Hum. I''ll go there tomorrow and see what Yan Yunyan is up to.


    "If she has any ulterior motives, I will teach her a lesson she will not forget!"


    After he had spoken, he looked up and found Green Spirit lying on the ground, apparently in deep thought.


    "Hey, Green Spirit, what''s up?"


    "I''m thinking about Mandkesvara Sect!"


    Green Spirit said, "If Jingtan Temple is the affiliated temple of Mandkesvara Sect, perhaps Monk De Ling has gained the inheritance of Jingtan Temple of Mandkesvara Sect in those days!"


    "Is there any problem with the inheritance of Jingtan Temple?"


    You''re well known for your ferocious behavior. If an intelligent person knows this, he will not be such a fool as to challenge you on your home ground, let alone gaining the inheritance of Jingtan Temple.


    "Even though he has gained the inheritance of Jingtan Temple or the entire Mandkesvara Sect, he won''t dare to stir up any trouble in broad daylight, right?"


    "Maybe, but there are some people who might be fearless but incredibly stupid at the same time."


    "Besides, perhaps De Ling really has no idea about the happenings in the martial arts world, and is not aware of my reputation. So if he has never heard of my notoriety, he will not think twice about going against me!" What do you think about that?"


    "No way!" Green Spirit looked doubtful. "You''re already so famous that everyone should have heard about you!"


    "What if he really knows nothing about me!"


    "That is only a small possibility!" Green Spirit said. "Others may not know about your fight with White Tiger and your robbing of the Pure Yang Celestial Devices in Taiyuan Heaven, but they definitely would have known about what you''ve done in Mingyi School."


    "It''s become a widespread event in this world. Even though he is not a martial arts practitioner and knows nothing about martial arts, he should at least have heard about your great feat."


    "This is common knowledge to all of us. As a monk, can he be so ignorant as to think that he can contend with Mingyi School?"


    "Maybe he thinks that I won''t meddle with it?" Zhou Bao laughed coldly.


    "The main purpose of a monk building a small temple is to cheat those devout men and women of their money. Perhaps to him it means nothing at all."


    "Your explanation sounds rather far-fetched!"


    "But seriously, there must be something wrong with Jingtan Temple?"


    Zhou Bao asked him coldly, "What else do you know about Mandkesvara Sect and Jingtan Temple?"


    "I don''t know much about them. You should know that though Buddhism is the natural enemy of the Demon tribe, they have too many schools. My main opponents were the Large and Small Thunder Temple, who worships Tath¨¡gata."


    "However, Mandkesvara belongs to Vajray¨¡na, which is far from us. Therefore, I''ve only heard about it, but don''t know much about it."


    "I see. I''ll go there in person tomorrow and find out if there''s anything odd about this Jingtan Temple!" Zhou Bao said coldly.


    Early the next morning, accompanied by Zhu Ba and the powerhouses experts of Tian Long Taoism, Yunfei, and Yan Yunyan headed towards Jingtan Temple.


    The temple was located under Jilei Mountain and was not far away from the town. Zhou Bao did not follow Yan Yunfei''s entourage, instead, he had arrived at Jingtan Temple way before them.


    "Madam, come this way, please. Our temple is simple and very ordinary. Please forgive us if we are lacking in hospitality!" While speaking, De Ling led them to the main hall.


    "Master, you don''t have to be so modest. I''m only here to worship Buddha with my sister. This temple is small, but it''s the first temple in the Wuyang Region. You''ve really worked hard and performed an outstanding service!"


    Yunfei smiled and made gestured to her maid. The maid behind her walked forward and put a small ingot of silver in De Ling''s hands.


    Feeling the weight of the ingot, De Ling sparse eyebrows shot up. He put his palms together and said, "Thank you very much. This is the main hall. Please come in!"


    Yan Yunyan and Yan Yunfei walked into the main hall together, but Zhu Ba and the rest of the entourage were stopped at the door, an occurrence which did not seem to matter at that time.


    This temple was very small and had only one main hall. The Child-endowing Buddha''s effigy was about 20 to 30 feet away from the door. In front of the Buddha was a long altar with incense burners. Two cattail hassocks that were used for the Buddha worship ceremony were placed under the altar.


    The front door was wide open. Standing in front of the door, one had a clear view of the inside of the hall.


    If anything should happen, these guards could easily get into the hall in a flash.


    Moreover, there was no space to accommodate the whole entourage as the main hall was too small.


    After entering the main hall, Yan Yunfei and Yan Yunyan held a bunch of burning incense sticks and starting their prayers to the Buddha.


    Although Zhou Bao was powerful, he was not an Immortal. If these two ladies had uttered their wishes out loud, he would have been able to hear them clearly. However, they prayed silently in their hearts, and thus, he could not hear anything.


    ...


    While watching them pray in front of the Buhdda, Zhou Bao felt extremely bored. But just as he was going to leave, his expression suddenly changed.


    A faint wisp of odd-smelling pneuma was coming out from the Child-endowing Buddha.


    In fact, he had arrived here early in the morning and had checked out the temple thoroughly. There was nothing out of the ordinary to be found at the temple. As for Monk De Ling, he was just an ordinary monk who did not have any martial arts skill at all.


    Frankly speaking, he was just an old monk whose eyesight was failing. Besides him, there were nine other monks in the temple.


    Zhou Bao had observed them carefully, but they were just ordinary people just like that old monk. Among them, there were two monks who were physically well-built but everything else appeared to be normal.


    "Damn it. Am I getting paranoid?" After doing a thorough search of the entire temple, Zhou Bao felt embarrassed.


    He thought he had been over sensitive after heeding Green Spirit''s words. And luckily for him, he had not brought his men here, otherwise, he would have been quite humiliated.


    "Hey, Green Spirit. Are you sure that the affiliated temple of Mandkesvara Sect is called Jingtan Temple?"


    "Of course. The affiliated temple of Mandkesvara Sect is called Jingtan Temple. However, too many temples have the same name in the world. Don''t you know a monk called Happy Monk?"


    Green Spirit added on and said, "What''s more, Jingtan is a title used in Buddhism. Both Mandkesvara Sect and all other temples are using it. It''s very easy to make a mistake!"


    "Damned!" Zhou Bao swore under his breath. Since Green Spirit had said that, there was nothing he could do but to accept this explanation.


    It was already past dawn. Just when Zhou Bao was about to return home, the escorts and carriages from the Lord Mansion arrived.


    "Alright. Since I am already here, I''d better find out what kind of wish Yunfei is asking for. If she really wants a child, I''ll work hard to fulfill her request!"


    Watching his carriages stop in front of the temple, and seeing Yan Yunfei and Yan Yunyan walking together from the carriage, Zhou Bao felt his mood rise.


    Both Yan Yunfei and Yan Yunyan were princesses. Besides, the former was the hostess of the Wuyang Region, so Monk De Ling, the abbot of Jingtan Temple, had to personally receive them. He had been waiting for some time to lead them into the temple.


    ...

 Chapter 358: Golden Flame Mirror Shadow Reflecting a Demon

    Chapter 358: Golden Flame Mirror Shadow Reflecting a Demon


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In his previous life, Zhou Bao had read some classical books which said, "The sage has no father".


    It meant that those wise men of old had no mortal fathers.


    For example, in the legend, Fu Xi''s mother became pregnant after she touched a huge footprint in the woods out of curiosity. It was similar to Liu Bang, the first Han emperor, whose mother had the same experience. It was said that after his mother met a powerful god in her dream, she became pregnant and gave birth to him.


    No one knew who Confucius''s father was either. There was a remark indicated in Sima Qian''s Historical Records: Shu Liang Ho, an old man, married young Yan Zhengzai, a daughter of Yan Family in order to get Confucius.


    His conception was a total mystery.


    Back then, Zhou Bao regarded these stories as a joke, but his attitude was different now!


    Responding to a subconscious feeling, Zhou Bao intuitively felt that something was wrong. He pulled Yan Yunfei back from the Child-endowing Buddha before its power could advance on her.


    Then he smashed the Buddha with one strike of his hand.


    BOOM!


    Before Zhu Ba and the people outside could react, an extraordinary vision appeared.


    The bizarre vision suddenly vanished and they tried to rush into the palace, but Zhou Bao was already standing there before them, with a frightened Yan Yunfei in his arms.


    "Your Excellency, what brings you here? What''s going on?"


    At the sight of Zhou Bao, those people were shocked, especially Zhu Ba whose expression was even uglier.


    Zhou Bao''s sudden appearance and destruction of the Buddha revealed that some untoward incident had occurred in the palace. As his personal guard, not only had he been unaware of danger but had left Zhou Bao to his own defenses.


    By any point of view, he could be charged with breach of duty. Therefore, he grasped the collar of Monk De Ling to release his anger. "What an audacious monk! How dare you trick Mrs. Zhou? Aren''t you afraid of being killed?"


    Zhu Ba was a fierce looking man. This time due to his extreme fury, the scar on his face pulsated and stood out vividly on his face, making the monk''s blood turn cold.


    Trembling violently, the monk begged, "Your Excellency, please forgive me. I really have no idea what just happened!"


    "You don''t know? Humph, you were the one who built Jingtan Temple. How is it possible that you don''t know? How dare you deny any knowledge of the incident! Let me..." Zhu Ba berated him and raised his hand to hit him.


    "Well, Zhu Ba, you can''t get any useful information from him in this way!" Zhou Bao looked at him, frowning. "Take all the monks back. I will interrogate them carefully!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" Zhu Ba loudly responded. Then he shouted his orders at his underlings to tie up all the monks in the temple and escort them back.


    At the same time, Yan Yunfei came to herself and looked at her surroundings in bewilderment. "Zhou Bao, what''s going on? Did something happen?"


    "There is something wrong with this temple!" Zhou Bao smiled and gently stroked her back. "Nothing to worry about, just someone up to mischief! You can go back first. I''ll deal with the matter here!"


    Yan Yunfei nodded. She was such an acquiescent woman that she obeyed Zhou Bao''s instruction unfailingly. She only looked at Yan Yunyan who was in the temple and said,


    "Yunyan, let''s go back!"


    "Alright!" However, Yan Yunyan seemed to be terribly frightened. She straightened up slowly and walked out of the temple.


    "Humph!" Zhou Bao snorted when Yan Yunyan stood before him. His eyes bored into her.


    In a low pitched tone, he warned her, "Your Highness, you''d better pray you''re not involved in this matter. Otherwise, I will throw you to this evil god!"


    Yan Yunyan shivered. She looked up and wanted to say that she was not guilty. As her eyes encountered Zhou Bao''s cold ones, she felt frightened.


    She hastily lowered her head and didn''t dare to look into Zhou Bao''s eyes. Silently, she moved beside Yan Yunfei.


    With the occurrence of the incident, Jingtan Temple was naturally in a state of chaos. According to the protocol, Jingtan Temple should have been off limits to the public since Yan Yunfei was there for a visit.


    But because the princess was benevolent and didn''t mind having other people around, the temple wasn''t isolated specially for her visit.


    When they entered the temple, there were still some people around. In such an enclosed area, when a frightening incident happened, the people inside naturally scuttled away like frightened rabbits.


    Zhou Bao didn''t stop them, and the temple emptied rapidly.


    "There is something wrong with the temple, just as expected!" After all the other people left, Green Spirit''s psywave passed to Zhou Bao.


    "Hahaha, kiddo, this time you should thank me. If I did not have such an extensive knowledge, you would have fallen for the trick. Made a fool of, hahaha... "


    "Shut up!" Zhou Bao was in a bad mood and had no time for Green Spirit''s self-admiration.


    At this moment, a dark golden light shone around him. Then an egg-shaped canopy dropped down and covered the whole temple.


    "This is... "


    Outside the temple, there were some martial arts masters like Wang She. Following Wang She''s lead they gathered in the temple. Though their skills were only at Level Seven, their spiritual minds were better developed than any ordinary person''s.


    They could not sense anything amiss in Jingtan Temple and felt rather confused with Zhou Bao''s sudden appearance and his breaking of the Child-endowing Buddha.


    However when they stepped outside, they could sense the temple undergoing a series of bizarre changes. As they turned to look at it, their expressions changed.


    In the eyes of the untrained, the temple appeared to be the same. However, for those with highly defined spiritual powers, the Jingtan Temple appeared to be shrouded in a thin mist and was not clearly visible.


    It looked like a total illusion.


    "What''s wrong? What the hell is going on?" The three felt nervous. They exchanged looks and all wanted to return to find out what was really going on in the temple.


    As they were about to move, a green light flashed. Then Wang She appeared before them and said, "Escort them back and leave the matter alone!"


    Wang She''s expression was somber as if he had encountered a very serious problem.


    They rarely saw that expression on his face. All of a sudden, they too became serious and stopped talking.


    Leaving the temple manifestation behind, they escorted Yan Yunfei and other people out.


    When they had departed, Wang She felt a sense of relief which was reflected in his eyes. Then he turned to look at Jingtan Temple. "Space Division Skill! This guy is getting increasingly skilled at using it!"


    With a whirl, he slipped into the temple as if he were a wisp of smoke.


    Inside, Zhou Bao''s expression had darkened.


    As soon as he had isolated the temple from the actual space-time, using the Space Division Skill, he scanned every corner with his spiritual mind and repaired the broken Child-endowing Buddha after scrutinizing it.


    However, he couldn''t find anything out of the ordinary.


    After the Child-endowing Buddha was smashed, the wave of strange power dissolved.


    The whole temple seemed to be back to normal but was eerily silent.


    "Humph. I don''t believe that!" Zhou Bao sneered. Then a golden light flashed behind of his head.


    The shadow of a golden mirror appeared to be suspended behind his head. That was the shadow of Golden Flame Mirror.


    Though the mirror had been engulfed by the Skull Elixir Furnace, it did not simply disappear.


    Zhou Bao was still able to use it, with even greater proficiency, enabling it to produce greater power. Now the Golden Flame Mirror was represented by a mirror shadow.


    As a strong Pure Yang Qi rushed out, a beam of golden light suddenly shot out and began to sweep through the whole temple.


    Golden Flame Mirror''s golden light not only had a strong killer force, but was capable of detecting and killing demons.


    In ancient times, it had another name--Demon-detecting Mirror.


    Reflected by the Golden Flame Mirror, the fragments of the Child-endowing Buddha came to life and a light green smoke appeared from the top.


    "Who''s that? How dare you offend me!"


    Masses of violent psywaves were released from the green smoke which affected Zhou Bao''s spirit greatly.


    The psywave was so powerful that an ordinary expert at Level Seven or Eight would be shattered by its power.


    This force would have a direct impact on the spirit, but it encountered Zhou Bao, a monster with a strong spirit and a magic weapon.


    "Humph, what a tricky guy. Come out! Come out!" Zhou Bao yelled, curling his hands into claws and trying to grab the fragment.


    Turtledove''s claw!


    PHEW! The green smoke eluded Zhou Bao''s grasp and seeped directly into his hand.


    "Oh no!"


    Sensing the strong power coming from Zhou Bao''s claw, the green smoke suddenly receded.


    At the same time, Zhou Bao felt the smoke putting up a resistance in an attempt to defeat his palm.


    He couldn''t help but sneer. "Trying to escape? That''s not so easy!"


    Zhou Bao''s fingers curled into a fist and seized the air abruptly.


    CRASH!


    A silent wail which turned into fierce psywave fused with Zhou Bao''s spirit.


    The green smoke was divided into two parts, one in the hand of Zhou Bao''s turtledove''s claw, the other retreating towards the fragment of Child-endowing Buddha.


    However, the cover of the Golden Flame Mirror prevented it from going back in, so it struggled violently and contorted into various ugly images.


    Then a forceful power at the spirit level was released, but this time, all of it was engulfed by the golden light of Golden Flame Mirror.


    "Humph. Who are you? How dare you play a trick in my territory. Are you tired of living?"


    "How bold and ignorant you are. How dare you do this! Aren''t you afraid of being ripped into pieces?" A vicious psywave shot out from the smoke and pierced his hand.


    "You are facing imminent death. It''s useless to say this!" Zhou Bao sneered and clenched his fist to crumble the smoke.


    "No!"


    Out of the smoke came a cry. However, a black whip-like shadow subsequently appeared out of thin air and lashed at Zhou Bao.


    "Interesting!"


    The sudden appearance of the whip like shadow aroused Zhou Bao''s interest. It destroyed the space and launched a direct attack from a remote corner at Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao was familiar with its clear space wave attack.


    The shadow moved swiftly and whipped his face. However, Zhou Bao who was surrounded by the dark golden Gang Qi did not evade the attack.


    The shadow then charged at the Gang Qi, but met with resistance and bounced off, emitting a sizzling sound.


    It turned out that the hot Gang Qi had seared the whip into two pieces.


    "Junior Leopard, stop!"


    As Zhou Bao was about to make his next move, he heard Wang She calling out anxiously.

 Chapter 359: 60% Chance of Winning

    Chapter 359: 60% Chance of Winning


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What are you doing here?" Zhou Bao said, surprised by Wang She''s voice.


    "We''ll talk about it later!" Wang She answered with a cold expression. He looked at the Child-endowing Buddha whose pieces were scattered all over the floor, and the strange half whip which was floating still in the air. "Small Bao, just let him go. I''ll owe you a favor for this."


    "No way, Chief Wang! Why are you doing this for him? Do you know him?" Although the two were good friends, Zhou Bao still could not let it go just because Wang She asked him to. To say it nicely, this odd Child-endowing Buddha was disrupting people''s mind in Zhou Bao''s territory. But to say it badly, he was trying to make him a cuckold. Zhou Bao was not a broad-minded man, especially when it came to these sensitive issues. He would have punched anyone who was trying to stop him if they were not Wang She.


    "No, I don''t, but I do know his background. Listen, let him go, or you''ll get yourself into big trouble!"


    "I don''t care about trouble!" Zhou Bao sneered. "Stop bluffing! I would leave him in peace if he didn''t mess with me. But he did, so do you think I''ll ever let him go?"


    As he spoke, Zhou Bao stretched his left hand into the air and grabbed onto nothing. Suddenly, the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror gathered together and wrapped up all the debris of the Child-endowing Buddha. A thick black smoke arose from the debris, and gradually became a black shadow of a pot-bellied monk, who looked the same as the former Child-endowing Buddha, but with a vicious look in his eyes. He stared at Zhou Bao and said, "Damn it, Zhou Bao! How dare you use the Demon-detecting Mirror against me? I''ll kill you! I''ll ¨C"


    Before he finished speaking, the shadow of the monk vanished with a wrench of the golden light of the Golden Flame Mirror. Wang She did not have the chance to say anything else.


    The black shadow was unable to defend itself against the wrenching of the golden light. It did not manage to let out a final scream before vanishing on the spot.


    "Oh, you foolish boy. Do you really think you can kill him for good? No, it was only one of a myriad of his incarnations. The Child-endowing Buddha practiced Mandkesvara Dhyana. He has a myriad of incarnations and you just killed one of them. There''s no harm to him, but you have made him your enemy because of this. I''m afraid that one day you''ll have to pay for what you''ve done!"


    "It seems that you know all about the wicked monk!" Zhou Bao asked with his eyes squinting.


    "There''s nothing special about him. The Child-endowing Buddha is one of the 13 Living Buddhas of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, senior brother of the Living Buddha Ba Siba and teacher of the Happy Monk. Although his cultivation is unfathomable, he has a petty disposition. I''m sure he''ll seek revenge on you for destroying one of his incarnations!"


    "Oh, I see. Teacher of the Happy Monk? That''s interesting! Last time I took Happy Monk''s Green Lotus Seed, and this time I destroyed his teacher''s incarnation. Maybe it''s destined!"


    "Among the 13 Living Buddhas in the Bigwheel Temple, the Living Buddha Ba Siba has the lowest cultivation and the thinnest Blessed Fate. Except for him, the other 12 Living Buddhas are already of the Mysterious Realm. The three best of whom have the power of the Genuine Immortal. Besides the 12, there are several disciples of the Living Buddha at the Bigwheel Temple, who are of the Mysterious Realm and extremely powerful. I was trying to stop you because I don''t want to see you make the Child-endowing Buddha your enemy. You have destroyed one of his incarnations, someone will eventually find out that!"


    "Of course they will!" Zhou Bao smiled and looked at the whip that was trapped by the Golden Flame Mirror. "But do you think I''ll give a shit about this god damn Child-endowing Buddha?"


    "Given your circumstances, it''s better for you to not make so many enemies!"


    "Don''t forget that I have backers now!" Zhou Bao smiled. He flicked his fingers and the space around the whip started to fluctuate in waves. The hollow was opened and a dark passageway appeared in the space. The whip flew into the passageway and then disappeared with a slight pointing of his finger. "The Child-endowing Buddha had better know who he is dealing with. If he doesn''t, I''ll make him suffer!"


    Having seen Zhou Bao easily opened a space passageway and flipped the half-burnt whip into it, Wang She was stunned for a second. His estimation towards Zhou Bao''s power increased once more. "That''s true. But you still should be careful. The Child-endowing Buddha''s made his reputation 3,000 years ago. Except for the first 300 years, he hadn''t suffered any losses for more than 2,000 years!"


    "3,000 years?" Zhou Bao was surprised for a moment before he started shouting. "Damn! This mother f*ucker! Old pervert! The next time I see him, I''ll make him beg for death!"


    "Well, he can''t be killed!" Wang She shook his head and said, "This is exactly why the Child-endowing Buddha is a pain in your ass. He is not one of the most powerful ones among the 13 Living Buddhas of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, but he is the last one you would want to mess with because of the Mandkesvara Dhyana that he has practiced. The Mandkesvara Dhyana came from the Mandkesvara Way of the 3,000 Great Ways. It enables him to fertilize the women who desire children. At the same time, however, he would plant his own bloodline and a bit of his spiritual sense in the fetuses. As long as the bloodlines remain in the world, he won''t be killed, not even when his body is completely destroyed. He can use his bloodlines to recover 80% of his power within 50 years if he wants to. When bloodlines continue to exist, the Great Ways will always triumph. Because of this, for the last three thousand years, more than three sects as powerful as Tian Long Taoism were wiped out by him. As time passed, no one dared to mess with him. As his cultivation grew, he learned to restrain himself. In the last 1,000 years, nothing terrible had happened except that he continued practicing his Mandkesvara Dhyana with the power of the Child-endowing Buddha. Given that too many women were asking for children in the world, they won''t know even if they are having Devil Fetuses, so there was not much a chaos for a long time."


    "He had practiced Mandkesvara Dhyana for 3,000 years! That means he had many bloodlines in this world, and they may even include you and me!" As Zhou Bao thought about it, his expression became more strange. "Every day, countless people burnt incense and prayed for children. With no birth control, the children would give birth to grandchildren, and the grandchildren would give birth to more children. In this way, there would be an endless population. If the Child-endowing Buddha has been doing this for 3,000 years, his bloodlines would be nearly half of the entire population of the world."


    "What he has been practicing is just the Mandkesvara Dhyana, not Mandkesvara Way. His bloodlines last only for two generations, otherwise there would not be so many statues of the Child-endowing Buddha in the world, and he would not have to keep doing this for 3,000 years!" Wang She said and smiled bitterly.


    "We are lucky that his bloodlines last only for two generations. Imagine if his bloodlines lasted forever, and he had a way to control them, the world would have become his!"


    "There is no such powerful cultivation method, and even the Mandkesvara Way doesn''t possess such powerful effect. But one thing is certain, that you really have pissed the Child-endowing Buddha off and you might get into trouble with him."


    "Oh, try me!" said Zhou Bao in a cold voice. "He''s nothing but a Living Buddha in the Bigwheel Temple. Like I''ll give a shit! Nevertheless, I think there is an opportunity in it, isn''t there?"


    "Opportunity?" Wang She looked at Zhou Bao''s and said, "You are too close to the Divine Wind Palace. They are obviously trying to draw you over their side, probably because they want to contain the influence of the Immortal Palace within the Central Mainland Region with your help. They might be of help if the Child-endowing Buddha actually does something to you. You are planning to leave Divine Wind Palace and Bigwheel Temple!" Having seen through Zhou Bao''s idea, Wang She asked, "That''s a good idea you got there, but don''t you think you might be pushing it?"


    "No, I don''t think so. I just think it''s a good opportunity!" Zhou Bao smiled. "The Child-endowing Buddha messed with me, so of course I''ll fight back. If I don''t, people will believe I''m afraid of the Bigwheel Temple. The justice is on my side. I''ll make a scene and test the attitude of the Divine Wind Palace at the same time!"


    "Since you have already made up your mind, I don''t think I can change it. But the Immortal Palace and the Bigwheel Temple are in a delicate relationship. You can''t expose your current identity and your relationship with the Immortal Palace yet. On this matter, the Immortal Palace won''t be of help to you, unless the Bigwheel Temple knows about your true identity and that an entrance of the Azure Secret Area lies here. That''ll be another story."


    "Of course, I won''t ask the Immortal Palace to do anything for me unless necessary. But you are the Chief of the Tian Long Taoism and you are here to help. You can stick up for me when I''m in trouble, right? Will there be any problem?"


    "Of course I can! However, I have another identity in the Immortal Palace, although it is not a big secret, those who need to know already knew. So even if I want to help, I will have my own considerations!" He gave out a heavy breath and continued. "Boy, we are now in difficult times. You''d better get rid of your bad attitude. Try not to get yourself more enemies. It''ll do you no good! Don''t assume that ants can''t bite an elephant like you till death!"


    "It seems to me that you have heard of something?" Zhou Bao eyes slightly narrowed and showed his deep thinking.


    "Well, ever since the Divine Wind Palace did that thing at the Taiyuan Heaven, the world was destined to not be peaceful anymore. The Azure Secret Area has become their next target. They wish to finish the job they failed to complete at the Taiyuan Heaven in the Azure Secret Area." Wang She said with a sigh, "Elder Qing and White Tiger don''t take it as a serious matter, but more like a wild dream of the Divine Wind Palace. However, I know a secret. If the Divine Wind Palace managed to enter the Azure Secret Area, they''ll have 60% chance in completing it!"


    "What? 60% chance of succeeding?" Zhou Bao started to panic too. All the apprentices of the Daoism would be dying to find the slightest chance to live among the infinite Way of Heaven. They would risk it even if there were only 10% chance of succeeding. 60% was enough to make the Divine Wind Palace give up all they have.


    "That''s the reason why I warned you. The 60% chance of winning makes the Divine Wind Palace more determined to win over the Azure Secret Area. To achieve that, they have to get the support of the big forces of the Central Mainland Region, among which the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple is the easiest to win over. If you make yourself the enemy of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, the Divine Wind Palace will probably give up on you and choose to win the Azure Secret Area over instead. Now you should understand why I tried to stop you!"

 Chapter 360: Individual Desires

    Chapter 360: Individual Desires


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "The Child-endowing Buddha is merely one of the 13 Living Buddhas in the Bigwheel Temple, so he may not have the power to influence the Bigwheel Temple''s decision. Even if the Divine Wind Palace and the Bigwheel Temple will join forces, the Child-endowing Buddha alone does not have the final say!"


    "You''d better be careful. A tall tree catches the wind!" Wang She smiled cynically.


    "Oh, and how did you know the Child-endowing Buddha is here?" Zhou Bao asked him suddenly.


    "Your territory is only a small area. You also arranged for my guys to be your guards. How can''t I know? But I was in a closed-door training yesterday and I didn''t hear about it. Upon completion of my training, I heard the news and came to you immediately. I''m worried that you might have offended him. You ruined his incarnation unexpectedly!"


    "What I want is not only to destroy his incarnation, but also to find a way to injure him and even to the extent of killing him!" Zhou Bao said. His tone was filled with immense hate as if he bore a deep grudge against the Child-endowing Buddha.


    "Why?" Sensing the sudden venomous hate spewing from Zhou Bao, Wang She felt puzzled.


    "You said that this guy is narrow-minded and likes to avenge the smallest grievance. Now that I have seriously hurt his incarnation, he''s bound to oppose me. Naturally, I will deal with him. As for the thousand incarnations that you mentioned and the 80% strength recovery in 50 years. 50 years later, even if his strength recovers by 180%, it will not be a big deal, let alone 80%?" Zhou Bao spoke confidently.


    "Yes. You''re right. You''re only 20 years old, but you''ve reached such a level already. 50 years will surely give you a further enhancement of your skills, that is if you don''t become evil. Who knows which level you will attain? You certainly don''t need to bother about the Child-endowing Buddha!" Wang She instantly understood Zhou Bao''s tone. At the sight of Zhou Bao''s confident expression, he also laughed. "It seems you''ve already known what you want. I won''t give need to give you more advice!" At the same time, Wang She''s figure flashed and turned into a cyan light, disappearing into the Space of Segmented Realms.


    "I didn''t realize that this guy was able to break through my Space of Segmented Realms so quickly and silently that I did not feel a thing. It seems that I have underestimated him!" Wang She vanished, and with it, Zhou Bao''s smile too. Wang She''s sudden appearance was a big surprise. The Space of Segmented Realms was controlled by him. Logically speaking, anyone who wanted to enter this space would not be able to hide from him. However, Wang She had boldly entered the Space, which was really beyond any of his expectations.


    "Wang She must have practiced one of the 3,000 Great Ways. It''s not the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. Instead, it''s a very unobtrusive skill, a little bit like the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill that you practice. But it''s a more wondrous skill!"


    "Have you heard of it?"


    "No. The 3,000 Great Ways have many variations and are closely guarded secrets. Except for the famous cultivation method of the Great Ways like the Way of the Emperor, I don''t have much information about the other ways!" Green Spirit said helplessly. "But I know the Mandkesvara Way. The Mandkesvara Sect is famous for it and its destruction was also due to it!"


    "I will not bother too much about it. People only live once in this world, so we strive for happiness instead. Having to take so many things into consideration is really boring!" Zhou Bao said. The space suddenly vibrated, and the segmented space disappeared when he raised hands. The Jingtan Temple reappeared to the present world again. However, the entire temple yard had a desolate and chilled atmosphere now, unlike previously, when the temple grounds was permeated with the aroma of incense and filled with throngs of worshippers.


    Looking around, Zhou Bao gave a grim laugh and stamped his feet. With a loud rumbling sound, the whole ground churned and convulsed. Jingtan Temple became a total wreck as it was razed to the ground.


    Zhou Bao''s figure gradually faded into the pervading dust.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    Snow Mountain, Bigwheel Temple.


    Remote and filled with silence.


    This temple was built on the ridge of Snow Mountain. From the distance, it looked like a giant bronze dragon lying on the ridge, stretching hundreds of miles.


    The whole temple seemed to be cast in bronze, giving off a stark and cold ambience.


    Behind the Mahavira Hall lay a building with numerous large courtyards. One of the courtyard was spacious and grand, and was filled with a flowery fragrance. Now and then women''s laughter and screams could be heard. However, their voices seemed to be contained within the yard area by a strange force and did not peter out at once, but lingered in the air for a long time.


    All of a sudden, a cry was heard, coming from the courtyard. Subsequently, all the laughter stopped.


    "Sacred Roots. It''s the Sacred Roots power. It''s amazing that there''s a woman who holds the Sacred Roots power in this world. That''s terrific!"


    In a hall in the yard, was a monk, who had bared his neck and shoulders and bent over a soft animal fur. He was an exact replica of the Child-endowing Buddha statue, one of the 13 Living Buddhas of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple.


    The Child-endowing Buddha lay on the ground, his eyes shining with cruelty and greed. About ten young women dressed in green were dancing next to him, but were not able to attract his attention at all.


    "Heyhey...Sacred Roots. I didn''t expect to have such a lucky encounter. I can''t let her escape! If I can get this woman, she is the equivalent of skills cultivation in half of my lifetime. No no no, that''s the skills cultivations for my whole lifetime. If I can get her, no one will be able to match my skills. I can even practice the Way of the Emperor and even the¡ª!"


    Although his incarnation did not manage to attain his goal, he found out that Yan Yunfei was actually an embodiment of the Sacred Roots. Therefore, he fell into a deep reverie.


    "Zhou Bao, Yunzhou Zhou Bao, has been really blessed from the beginning with great luck. He is married to a woman who is an embodiment of the Sacred Roots. No wonder he has such tremendous strength and can even fight against the White Tiger at such a young age. He has gained great benefits from this. However, since you''ve already benefited so much, it should be more than sufficient. And the following benefits should actually be mine. They will be the compensation for the destruction of my incarnation!" He laughed, stood up abruptly from the animal fur and dumped the women who were with him. He swished a red robe around his shoulders and transformed into a red cloud, heading northwest.


    ....


    ¡­


    "Zhu Ba, I''ve already figured out the whole thing. Stop all the inquiries. Kill these monks and hang their heads on the flagpoles. And ask Jiang Xiao issue a notice to all the people in the Wuyang Region. In my territory, they have to let Jiang Xiao know their religious affiliations. And I will be checking on them. Anyone who is found to belong to cults will be driven away, like these monks. And find out how many women have become pregnant after they have prayed for babies at Jingtan Temple. Who are they? Check it out!"


    "Yes!"


    Back to the Lord Mansion, seeing Zhu Ba still questioning the monks, Zhou Bao became very angry and shouted out the instructions.


    Zhu Ba was greatly dismayed. He immediately said "yes" when he saw Zhou Bao''s complexion turning pale and heard the anger in his voice.


    "Boy, I feel a massive murderous intent here!"


    "The more I think it, the angrier I get!" Zhou Bao said coldly, "I''m very angry now. It''s not over. I will teach this damn Child-endowing Buddha a lesson. It will be better if I can kill him!"


    "He can''t be killed so easily. He has sown so many Devil Foetus, that it is like he has eternal life. It''s similar to an Original Spirit that is feeding off the Golden Book of Fate. He''s also an Individual Immortal whose skills cultivation has reached its peak. His Original Spirit has pervaded the Golden Book of Fate, so you can''t kill him!" Green Spirit''s psywave came to him with a little sneer.


    "Didn''t you say you want a strong body?" Zhou Bao suddenly asked.


    "What did you say?" Green Spirit was stunned for a moment and did not get Zhou Bao''s drift.


    "A strong body, a body whose cultivation has reached the peak of the Individual Immortal. I suppose that will suit you. And once you have this strong body, you can quickly break through the Mysterious Realm to be a Genuine Immortal" Zhou Bao said insidiously. Every word sounded like a ticking time bomb, grating on Green Spirit''s nerves.


    "Let...let me think it over."


    "No need to think about it. Don''t miss this opportunity. I don''t have such an opportunity to meet with such an enemy. The Child-endowing Buddha may look weird but he has a strong body. He practices the art of Mandkesvara Dhyana and that makes his spirit formidable. His body is able to harbor a great spirit with its strength. Except for him, even a body whose cultivation is at the Level of True Immortality finds it hard to harbor your Original Spirit!"


    "That''s a good idea!" After a long pause, Green Spirit sighed. "Boy, it''s a huge temptation for you. The Child-endowing Buddha''s body is definitely competent enough to harbor my spirit. But will you agree to let me go?"


    "Why not? Even though you''re with me, you''re always giving me dumb ideas. It''s true that sometimes they do bring benefits to me, but I feel that there is always a malicious intent behind your ideas. I''d better get rid of you first so as to avoid being played out by you!" Zhou Bao said frostily. "So, it''s better to let you leave as soon as possible!"


    "Well, OK, OK, boy. You''re really something!" Green Spirit laughed in delight. "Don''t worry, I''m not an ungrateful person. As long as you help me to get the body, I will not mistreat you. And I will not go back on my word. Even if I get the body, I will still follow you!"


    "Come on! If you get the Child-endowing Buddha''s body and still stay at my side, I''m afraid I''ll be pursued by Bigwheel Temple forever!"


    "Impossible. If you can completely destroy the Child-endowing Buddha, nobody will know that I am occupying his body!" Green Spirit said balefully.


    "He practices the Mandkesvara Dhyana ritual. A little bit of his Original Spirit is protected by the Golden Book of Fate. Even if you completely destroy him, he cannot be killed off!"


    You don''t understand this. Currently, nobody can grasp totally the essence of the Golden Book of Fate. It can only protect a little bit of a person''s Original Spirit. But nobody can get the complete information through his Original Spirit. As for his countless incarnations, hum, they are a direct link with his spirit and has left a deep imprint on his Sea of Consciousness. If I control his body and occupy his Sea of Consciousness, I will have all the information. Then, I just need to annihilate his incarnation and those Devil Foetuses he has sown. Thus, he has to be reincarnated with his Original Spirit. However, once his Original Spirit leaves the Golden Book of Fate, my Sea of Consciousness will feel it as there is a telepathic connection, unless he''s willing to be a coward in the Golden Book of Fate for thousands of years. Hahaha¡ª!" Green Spirit laughed complacently.

 Chapter 361: Give Me Your Woman VS Give Me Your Body

    Chapter 361: Give Me Your Woman VS Give Me Your Body


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Yeah, I see. We have nothing to discuss. We need to try our best to kill this disgusting fatso. Should we leave him an intact corpse or only his head?"


    "Am I an immortal? I cannot live with only a head!" Green Spirit shrieked after hearing Zhou Bao''s words. "I need at least an intact body that hasn''t been severely injured. Otherwise, Even if I possess it, I''ll suffer considerably!"


    "That guy''s cultivation is at the peak of an Individual Immortal, the same as that of White Tiger. His combat capability might have even reached the Level of True Immortality. Don''t forget that he''s lived for over 3,000 years. These years, everyone knows to conceal his own strength, and cultivation rarely commensurates with combat capability. It''ll be difficult for me to even defeat him with my current cultivation. I can only get rid of his soul and leave him an intact corpse if I use my fairy weapons!"


    "Firstly, you do have fairy weapons. Secondly, if you operate them properly, you can even fight against Taihai Sage, a Genuine Immortal. Why are you afraid of a Metaphysic Individual Immortal?!"


    "What do you mean?"


    "If you operate Yin and Yang Dust Formation properly and trap him in it, whether his cultivation is at the peak of an Individual Immortal or the Level of True Immortality, he''ll still end up dying!"


    "Nice try, but this formation is one of my ace cards. I won''t reveal it just for a Child-endowing Buddha. It''s too unworthy!"


    "I''m not asking you to reveal it. If you trap Child-endowing Buddha in your formation, we can join hands to kill him, even if he has fairy weapons. It''s the safest way!"


    "Although I''ve already refined an Innate Qi Talisman, my cultivation isn''t high enough. Therefore, I cannot operate it smoothly, and it''ll take me some time to become familiar with it. I''m going to enter the Azure Secret Area soon, I don''t have much time to do it."


    "There''s still some time left before you enter the Azure Secret Area. As of now, the Essential Qi Tide hasn''t formed yet. If you enter it now, you may attract others'' attention. You''d better go in when the Essential Qi Tide has completely formed. It won''t take you much time. With your current cultivation, you just need to make several arrangements. Since you have your own territory now, I suggest that you can first set up the Yin and Yang Dust Formation on your territory and be familiar with it. It''s very beneficial to you. Once you know the formation well, your enlightenment and control of the essence of the world will be further levelled up. It''s good for your trip to the Azure Secret Area!"


    "Not bad. I should set up the formation even if it is not for my trip to the Azure Secret Area. When there are enemies, it can at least withstand for some time. I''m going to fight against Mandkesvara this time. I''ve destroyed his incarnation, perhaps he''ll cause trouble for me. He''s more powerful than the opponents that I''ve met. Perhaps Wang She is no match for him!" After thinking twice, Zhou Bao thought that Green Spirit''s words made sense and nodded in agreement.


    ...


    ¡­


    "Sister, what happened? Why did Zhou Bao shatter the statue of Child-endowing Buddha?"


    Standing in the lobby of Lord Mansion, Yan Yunfei was very nervous. She had married Zhou Bao for such a long time but had never seen him get angry in front of her. Though he was not mad at her, she was sensitive enough to naturally understand it was because of her.


    "It''s not a big deal. Men are all the same. Perhaps he felt that praying for children is too embarrassing?"


    "No, it''s impossible. If he really thought so, he wouldn''t let me go there. Is there something wrong with that Jingtan Temple?" Yan Yunfei shook her head in doubt.


    Yan Yunyan''s countenance slightly changed. She forced herself to smile and said, "I don''t think so. Jingtan Temple is very popular all over the world and it''s very efficacious on the matter of praying for children. Everything had been fine all these years. I don''t think anything wrong would happen just because it''s built on the Wuyang Region?!"


    "It sounds reasonable, but..."


    "You don''t need to worry about it. It''s not your problem but that of the statue of Child-endowing Buddha!"


    Just when Yan Yunfei was still contemplating the reason, Zhou Bao''s voice came from outside of the house. He strode into the room and smiled at Yan Yunfei. He then glared at Yan Yunyan harshly and said, "Princess Heyang, I hope that you didn''t know about the problem of Jingtan Temple beforehand, otherwise we''ll become enemies!"


    "Hehe, now that''s interesting. How am I supposed to know that Jingtan Temple is problematic? Besides, what problem does that temple have?" Yan Yunyan was quite nervous, but she let out an unbothered smile and showed slight confusion.


    "Hmm. If you didn''t know, why are you nervous?" Although she pretended to be calm, she could not cheat Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao''s face darkened suddenly and he said, "Don''t tell me you''ve schemed it beforehand!"


    "I...!" Yan Yunyan''s heart trembled and she looked up. Just when she was about to say something, she heard a thunder-like roar bursting out in the sky.


    "Zhou Bao, give me your woman!"


    Following the thunder-like roar, a flame-like huge hand broke through the sky and tore the roof of the lobby apart directly. It stretched towards Yan Yunfei ferociously.


    "You don''t know what you''re doing!" Zhou Bao''s expression became cold, and he pointed at the huge hand with a single finger.


    Great Fusion Technic!


    The dark golden flame surged forward and fused half of the hand with a sizzle.


    "Ah...!"


    A low hum was heard from the sky, saying, "Little boy, you''re inflicting your own death!"


    "No, it''s you!" Zhou Bao''s expression became more serious. The dark golden Gang Qi surged around him. Nine glittering rays formed a shield by rotating and enveloped the sky.


    "What a cheap trick!"


    Soon after the huge hand was fused, another bigger hand that spanned across thousands of feet formed in the sky. The veins of that hand were clearly visible as if they were dozens of Heavenly Dragons entangled with each other. They let out ferocious roars and immense coercion.


    Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint!


    It was a thousand times stronger than the Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint used by Happy Monk when Zhou Bao last met him.


    He swooped with a single palm, aiming to not only destroy Zhou Bao''s Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield, but also half of his territory.


    "How dare you be rude to me! I''ll let you know how powerful am I!"


    BOOM!


    The sky seemed like it turned upside down from his palm. Countless Heavenly Dragons roared and pounced onto Zhou Bao with bare fangs and open claws.


    "Damn you!"


    Feeling the power of this palm, Zhou Bao''s expression changed sharply. This Child-endowing Buddha was really merciless. He tried to kill him with a single movement, leaving him no room to fight back at all.


    However, Zhou Bao was neither an ordinary powerhouse nor an ordinary Metaphysic Individual Immortal. He had many ways to fight against Child-endowing Buddha. Looking at the lowering hand, he smiled coldly and lifted up his hands. Starlights flashed through the sky and instantly transformed into thousands of silver rays. They were knitted into a huge net and enveloped that huge hand tightly, stopping it 300 feet away from the ground.


    In the sky of the Wuyang Region, starlights glittered again, leaving silver stars all across the sky.


    These starlights fell down like willow twigs, and turned into an immense star force, surging towards the Sky-measuring Star Ruler.


    This was not the Taiyuan Heaven, but the real secular world. The Sky-measuring Star Ruler appeared and demonstrated the power of an Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device. A giant spider came out of the Sky-measuring Star Ruler and controlled these starlights and the star force. It knitted a huge silver cobweb in the skies above the Wuyang Region.


    "Child-endowing Buddha, how dare you attack ordinary people publicly! Don''t you know that you''ve already violated the Law of Heaven?" Zhou Bao''s face became livid and he shouted coldly.


    "Hahahaha. The Law of Heaven. Interesting fella. Since you know about it, you should know that it''s controlled by us. Even if I violate it and exterminate the people of the Wuyang Region, it cannot do any harm to me unless the Golden Book of Fate is launched! Haha...!"


    Child-endowing Buddha''s laughter travelled through the sky. The huge handprint disappeared suddenly, and a cluster of red clouds instantly expanded. Even naked eyes could see its ferocious speed. In a flash, it enveloped the entire sky.


    These red clouds actually managed to cut off the star force that the Sky-measuring Star Ruler had been gathering from the skies above.


    "Haha. I did not expect you to possess the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, an Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device. It proves that my trip will be fruitful. I''m destined to become rich!" Child-endowing Buddha''s excited voice reigned through the sky, and muffled thunder could be heard faintly in those red clouds. "Little boy, what you used just now is the Great Fusion Technic of Evil Fire Kylin. It''s indeed not bad. But I''ll let you have a taste of the Rolling Thunder Technique of Divine Gang Jade Kylin!"


    "Rolling Thunder Technique?!"


    Zhou Bao was shocked. Following which, a flash of the lightning broke through the giant red clouds. Several claps of thunder rung out of thin air. Balls of thunderbolts rolled out from the red clouds and shattered the big net knitted by starlights.


    Red clouds, star net, and thunderbolts.


    All of a sudden, the entire sky of the Wuyang Region seemed to be at its end.


    "Rolling Thunder Technique?!"


    Zhou Bao''s face turned dark as he saw the fragmented star net. He raised his five fingers at the same time, and clouds of dark golden firelight appeared around those thunderbolts, fusing their surroundings completely.


    Great Fusion Technic!


    "Am I afraid of you when it comes to comparing the density of Real Essence?!" Zhou Bao had already opened nine acupoints. He looked grim while he fused those thunderbolts falling down from the sky one by one, as if the Great Fusion Technic does not cost him anything.


    "Ah? Your Real Essence is quite immense. No, it''s something more powerful. You actually have such overwhelming Dharma power!" Noticing that Zhou Bao had calmly fused all those thunderbolts completely, Child-endowing Buddha was surprised. Putting aside Zhou Bao''s powerful combat capability, his current cultivation was only Level Nine. There was no way he can be too powerful. But little did he know that Zhou Bao would give him a big surprise.


    "Child-endowing Buddha, have you run out of tricks?" Zhou Bao looked up at those red clouds and smiled ruthlessly. "I beg your pardon. What did you say just now? You want my woman? Haha. I feel so sorry for you!"


    In a flash, Zhou Bao''s body transformed into a dark golden light and flew towards those red clouds. "Child-endowing Buddha, give me your body!"

 Chapter 362: Golden Buddha, World in the Palm

    Chapter 362: Golden Buddha, World in the Palm


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Child-endowing Buddha, I want your body!" Like lightning, Zhou Bao rushed to the red cloud in the sky in an instant. With one blow, the force, which was like 10,000 horses galloping, ripped that red cloud.


    "Not good!"


    The face of Child-endowing Buddha, who was hidden in the red cloud, took on a ghastly expression. Zhou Bao was too speedy, and the power of his fist was totally unexpected. Under no defense, Zhou Bao actually broke through the red cloud and found his Real Body.


    From Child-endowing Buddha''s perspective, it was impossible, but it did happen to him.


    The red cloud covering the sky was also a Pure Yang Celestial Device. It was so powerful that even Child-endowing Buddha could hardly break it. However, counter to all his expectations, it was broken by Zhou Bao''s fist.


    What happened next, however, was something he would never have predicted. After breaking through the red cloud, Zhou Bao did not slow down at all. Instead, he rushed towards him.


    Although Child-endowing Buddha was clocked in the red cloud for the sake of being unsearchable, he could not hide from Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind. No sooner had Zhou Bao entered the red cloud than he launched the Three Realms Division and successfully hollow traveled to Child-endowing Buddha. Then, he raised his fist and punched Child-endowing Buddha immediately, trying to fight with him at close quarters.


    Child-endowing Buddha had never thought of such a situation, so he did not perceive it until Zhou Bao was close. By the time he was about to react, Zhou Bao''s fist had already met his face. Uttering a cry, he lifted his hand to stop it, but how could he stop it?


    Bang, bang, bang...


    A flurry of loud noise like muffled thunder spread from the sky.


    Zhou Bao''s attack came at him like a fierce storm. Each fist carried mighty power, which was impossible to defend. In a breath''s moment, he was hit by dozens of punches, and each punch struck him hard. Zhou Bao punched very shrewdly and venomously¡ªeach punch could hurt him, but still kept his body from flying with a strong pull. Just like this, Child-endowing Buddha suddenly became his punching bag, beaten to a mass of bruises and bones and damaged muscles.


    Child-endowing Buddha was beaten senseless by Zhou Bao''s storm-like attack.


    Although Zhou Bao was one of the 13 Living Buddhas of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, Child-endowing Buddha did not know him well enough. Although he knew that Zhou Bao was not at a disadvantage in the close combat with White Tiger, he took it that Zhou Bao was just lucky and that White Tiger did not do his best. Besides, he was too confident in his Pure Yang Celestial Device, so he took it lightly.


    Now that Zhou Bao seized the opportunity to beat him up, he was very regretful. Unfortunately, there were not so many remedies for bygones in the world.


    In one breath, just one breath!


    Child-endowing Buddha was badly wounded by Zhou Bao, both physically and spiritually. Zhou Bao''s blazing fists bore the power of invading spirit, each blow producing a crushing force of despair. Child-endowing Buddha actually achieved the Basic level in the golden body of Buddhism, but his golden body was very vulnerable in face of these fists.


    His golden body was completely shattered.


    After a breath, Child-endowing Buddha recovered from his sharp pain. He shouted and tried to fight back, but Zhou Bao did not give him a chance. As Zhou Bao gave full play to his punching skill, layers of fist strength turned into boundless fist intent which completely captivated Child-endowing Buddha.


    Meanwhile, an egg-shaped canopy descended from the skies. The red clouds over Wuyang Region suddenly vanished, and so did the starlight filling the whole sky. The sky was clear again. It was a peaceful, sunny day with white clouds and a gentle breeze. It looked as if nothing happened.


    At the same time on the flip side, Child-endowing Buddha lies dazed and covered in blood in Zhou Bao''s Fist Intent Space.


    He was dazed, extremely dazed, because he could not believe that a Level Nine expert should be able to launch such an eccentric, mysterious and powerful Fist Intent Space.


    But in the daze, he still could not get rid of Zhou Bao''s blow. In the Fist Intent Space, Zhou Bao''s fists transformed into giant stars that appeared suddenly from the hollow space. They bombarded him more violently, harsh, and direct than before.


    At this moment, Child-endowing Buddha had completely abandoned the previous arrogance, carefully guarding his whole body using that red cloud, single-minded in defense.


    After all, his cultivation had reached the peak of Individual Immortal. Although his combat capability was not as good as White Tiger''s, he should not be taken lightly. What mattered the most was that his Pure Yang Celestial Device was an excellent defense. Zhou Bao''s fists were powerful, but as Child-endowing Buddha shamelessly defended himself like a coward, Zhou Bao could do nothing but use brute force to impact that Pure Yang Celestial Device step by step.


    Under the protection of his Pure Yang Celestial Device, Child-endowing Buddha adjusted himself as he defended. At first, he was so confident and careless that Zhou Bao seized the opportunity abruptly and caught him off guard, hurting him badly. He really could not come up with any good method to counter Zhou Bao''s fatal fist strength.


    It was because he was not good at fighting physically. As a matter of fact, with a cultivation of this phase, few people were skilled in it, except for a psycho like White Tiger. Their bodies were priceless. They practiced all kinds of Divine Sense and special techniques and could contain the whole world, emanating great power in every act and move. Thus, there was no need for them to fight using their bodies.


    Poor Child-endowing Buddha had been an immortal for nearly 3,000 years but had never fought physically. He almost forgot what it was. Being attacked by Zhou Bao this way, he was in a fluster.


    "Zhou Bao, don''t be too aggressive! Do you think you can break through my Fire Cloud Kasaya? It''s a medium-grade Pure Yang Celestial Device, so it''s a wishful thinking to break through it with your own strength!"


    "Cut the crap!" From his tone of voice, Zhou Bao recognized his uneasiness. How could he not be uneasy? He had been beaten till he could only parry and was unable to fight back. No matter how many means he had and how powerful he was, under Zhou Bao''s strong oppression in his Fist Intent Space, he could not display them. He could only be beaten, wait for Zhou Bao''s morale to subside and the attack to slow before fighting back.


    But Zhou Bao would not give him the chance.


    Storm-like meteorites appeared in the hollow, slamming into the red cloud violently. From time to time, amongst the meteorite shower all over the sky appeared one or two large meteorites which were hundreds of times bigger than a normal one. There were also asteroids and one or two meteorites with extremely evil spirit. Every time the two kinds of meteorites hit the red cloud, the red cloud quivered. Child-endowing Buddha''s heart would tremble as well because he had a clear sense of the fact that his Fire Cloud Kasaya had been overwhelmed by Zhou Bao''s frantic bombardment.


    "It''s not possible! How could this be? He is so young but why does he have so perverse and powerful strength?" He bellowed in his heart, trying to vent his uneasiness. The Real Essence Dharma power from his body ferociously injected in Fire Cloud Kasaya.


    "I say, Child-endowing Buddha, no matter what, you''re one of the 13 Living Buddhas of the Bigwheel Temple. Why are you so weak? You actually carry a ragged kasaya and treat it as a treasure. You look like a wreck yet you still have the nerves to challenge me and provoke my wife. You''re really courting death!"


    As soon as Zhou Bao gained the advantage and almost figured out the strength of Child-endowing Buddha, he was relieved. Child-endowing Buddha was easier to deal with than White Tiger. White Tiger was expert in fighting at close quarters. It was not as easy as the situation now, where he could gain the upper hand so easily.


    Hearing Zhou Bao''s sarcasm, Child-endowing Buddha nearly vomited blood, "Zhou Bao, don''t be too complacent, I...!"


    Bang, bang, bang!


    While he was talking, Zhou Bao was lucky enough to make three Critical Hits in a row. This resulted in three small asteroids with tens of kilometers in diameter in the Fist Intent Space, slamming into the red cloud.


    Finally, the red cloud could not bear it and began to break down.


    "That''s too bad!"


    Realizing that his Pure Yang Celestial Device was broken by Zhou Bao, Child-endowing Buddha opened his mouth widely with an unbelievable look. However, he was not a man who waited passively for his end. With a low cry, Child-endowing Buddha bit his tongue suddenly, and a mouthful of essence and blood spurting out. His Gang Qi galloped around him, creating a Golden Buddha above his head, giving off an immense dignity.


    "Zhou Bao, how dare you be so rude to me! You''re too cocky! Go to hell!"


    Child-endowing Buddha gave a roar and a great deal of golden light came out of him. Brahman singing sounded like thunder and shocked everyone. The golden light formed golden lotuses, blocking the boundless meteorites.


    All of a sudden, Golden Buddha lifted a huge palm.


    The power of the palm was so extraordinary that it instantly overpowered Zhou Bao''s fist. It was infinitely more powerful than the Heavenly Dragon''s Giant Handprint which was launched when Child-endowing Buddha first appeared.


    With only one palm, the situation was reversed.


    It seemed to be an illusion, but it was not like an illusion.


    In an instant, the palm was magnified endlessly as if it lifted the whole Fist Intent Space.


    Zhou Bao could not escape his palm in any way!


    It was World in the Palm!


    "How could it be? World in the Palm is a Supreme Power, belonging to Buddha and his disciples of the Leiyin Temple. How could he master it?"


    The instant the World in the Palm appeared, the spirit of Green Spirit waved violently and connected to Zhou Bao''s spirit. "Be careful, this guy is more difficult to deal with than I thought!"


    "Hmm, I never thought he was easy to deal with!" As the situation changed, Zhou Bao did not panic. He raised his hand and a stray of black and red Sword Qi shot out from his fingertips, severely cutting the huge palm beneath him.


    "Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword?"


    The Sword Qi was quite uncomparably sharp but it did not manage to hurt the huge palm. Child-endowing Buddha was taken aback, for he knew at a glance the special technique that Zhou Bao was using. "You know this special technique. It''s a pity that you haven''t mastered it, and have not yet grasped the essence of the true nature of the Heavenly Sword Qi. That''s fine. When I catch you and torture your spirit, I will force you to tell me its incantation. I''ll then have one more killing method!"


    The huge palm began to close together while he was speaking.


    Not good!


    As the huge palm closes, Zhou Bao felt that the space around him was confined, and his Fist Intent Space began to collapse under the huge palm.


    "Fella, let me destroy your flesh, draw out your spirit, and take away your wife. I''ll let you watch me have double cultivation with her and take the Divine Qi of her Sacred Roots. Hahaha¡­!"

 Chapter 363: Breaking the World in the Palm with Elixir Furnace, Green Spirits Walk-in

    Chapter 363: Breaking the World in the Palm with Elixir Furnace, Green Spirit''s Walk-in


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The World in the Palm!


    It was a Supreme Power inherited from the Leiyin Temple of Buddhism from the antiquity times, which could evolve a world in a palm. It carried infinite power.


    However, apparently, even though Child-endowing Buddha possessed it, he had not mastered it yet. Otherwise, he would not have waited to only use it now.


    Even though he had not mastered it, on the other hand, Zhou Bao would not be able to break this Divine Sense. The huge palm had begun to close together, and it was about to crush his Fist Intent Space into pieces.


    Child-endowing Buddha''s triumphant laughter rang in his ear, "Haha, boy, I didn''t expect you to drive me to this stage. But you only have the power to do so. Haha..."


    "What a terrible laugh!" Facing this Divine Sense and broken space, Zhou Bao did not show any signs of panic. "World in the Palm? It''s indeed really awesome!"


    Just as he was speaking, flashes of golden light shone from behind his head and a giant shadow of a skull appeared on top of his head. Enormous power was emanating from the shadow, which was infinitely more powerful than that of the huge palm.


    BOOM!


    In this space, the skull shadow turned into a Skull Elixir Furnace, up to 100,000 feet high, and it came down violently from the hollow. It then broke the World in the Palm in a moment, just as the huge palm crushed the Fist Intent Space.


    "A fairy weapon? No way! How could you have a fairy weapon?!!!"


    The World in the Palm was shattered quickly. Child-endowing Buddha and his Golden Buddha appeared eventually. At this point, the Golden Buddha, though still emitting golden light, was densely covered with cracks. Likewise, its palm was incomplete. Its five fingers were all gone under the shock of the Skull Elixir Furnace, and there was a big hole in the palm.


    "Why can''t I have a fairy weapon?" Zhou Bao sneered as he moved the Skull Elixir Furnace and fiercely threw it at Child-endowing Buddha.


    The World in the Palm disappeared, and naturally, so did the 100,000 feet high Elixir Furnace in that world. But in the temporal world, the Elixir Furnace which was about 1000 feet tall, fell from the sky. It was too much for Child-endowing Buddha to handle. Under the Skull Elixir Furnace, the entire space had been sealed off. With Child-endowing Buddha''s strength, there was no way to break the space that was sealed off by a fairy weapon, so Child-endowing Buddha could only watch the Elixir Furnace approaching. He let out a loud cry and tried to stop it by launching his Real Essence Dharma power to form a circle of Buddhist halo over his head.


    "Can you stop it?!" Seeing that Child-endowing Buddha''s face was turning red, Zhou Bao''s mouth twitched. The Elixir Furnace fell straight down, hitting Child-endowing Buddha directly at the height of 100, 000 feet and landing him heavily in the mountains of the Jilei Mountain. From the ground, a flash was seen in the sky, and then a red meteor fell into the depths of the Jilei Mountain.


    "Hehe, great, a living body" Zhou Bao also landed following his Elixir Furnace. He smiled as he saw Child-endowing Buddha trapped under the Elixir Furnace.


    At this moment, Child-endowing Buddha was no longer arrogant. He was wrapped in a cloud of red cloud from head to toe. The Buddhist halo was flashing over his head, desperately pushing against the Skull Elixir Furnace, while the Skull Elixir Furnace was stagnantly pressing against the Buddhist halo.


    "Child-endowing Buddha, what were you saying just now? To have double cultivation with my wife and to take the Divine Qi of her Sacred Roots? Did I hear you correctly?" Zhou Bao walked up to Child-endowing Buddha slowly and asked proudly, making him look like a small man intoxicated by success.


    "Let me go, ahhh...!" Before his words were finished, the Elixir Furnace jerked down, shaking his protective Buddhist halo and red cloud.


    "He really lacks understanding of the state of affairs! Green Spirit, you handle him!"


    A ray of starlight flashed, and the Sky-measuring Star Ruler drifted down. A silver spider, composed entirely of starlight, came to the ground. It slowly moved towards Child-endowing Buddha.


    At this point, even Child-endowing Buddha was aware of the gravity of the situation. He was an Individual Immortal, a registered immortal who owned earthshaking-cultivation and exceptionally keen spiritual mind. Therefore, it was impossible for him to feel nothing when he encountered this kind of life and death event.


    Upon seeing the starlight spider, his subconscious mind told him a great danger is approaching, although he did not know what this spider was. He had not felt this way for more than 2,000 years. He had no such sense of danger even during the previous few times when he was almost completely destroyed and could only be reborn by relying on the remaining Devil Fetus bloodline. The sudden, great fear that struck him almost broke his mind.


    "What, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? I''m one of the 13 Living Buddhas of the Bigwheel Temple, and the Bigwheel Temple is one of the masters of the Golden Book of Fate. If you kill me, you will die miserably!" He roared, howled and threatened, his eyes flashing with a vague fear.


    "I know you''re one of the 13 Living Buddhas of the Bigwheel Temple, and I know the influence of Bigwheel Temple. So what? Do you think I''m afraid of you?" Zhou Bao responded with a sneer, "Green Spirit, I don''t want to talk nonsense with him. Start!"


    "Okay!" Ecstacy flowed through Green Spirit''s psywave. The silver spider jumped on the red cloud below the Skull Elixir Furnace. Then the starlight wavered, and the Sky-measuring Star Ruler was once again connected to the Nine Heavens Star Force, all converging on Green Spirit''s spider incarnate.


    "Boy, give me a hand, blow off his Pure Yang Celestial Device, and I''ll deal with his Golden Buddha!" Green Spirit''s psywave spread to Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao no longer hesitated. When the idea arose, the Skull Elixir Furnace sank violently. Then Child-endowing Buddha screeched, and the red cloud that covered him suddenly burst open due to the mighty force. It became a broken cassock, falling around him.


    The Pure Yang Celestial Device was powerful, but in the face of a fairy weapon, it was very fragile.


    In the instant when the Fire Cloud Kasaya burst open, Green Spirit jumped. All the star force concentrated into a lump and started to climb up the Buddhist halo over Child-endowing Buddha''s head.


    "What are you going to do? What are you going to do?"


    Child-endowing Buddha''s mind was greatly shaken, black blood flowing from his Seven Apertures. The Fire Cloud Kasaya was linked to his mind. Now that it was destroyed, his spirit was also hurt badly. By contrast, however, his Golden Buddha was even more dangerous. The starlight had totally sealed the Buddhist halo behind his head and the divine thoughts turned into a myriad of tiny spiders that infiltrated into his mind.


    "Damn it, it''s...!"


    Under the starlight, Child-endowing Buddha could make any sound. His stiff body laid under the Skull Elixir Furnace and only the light in his eyes flickered. They looked extremely evil.


    Standing beside him, Zhou Bao could clearly sense weird spirit power fluctuations that emanated from him. And there were two kinds of spirit power, one belonging to Child-endowing Buddha and the other, a very familiar one, belonging to Green Spirit.


    Obviously, Child-endowing Buddha''s spirit, which was badly hurt by Zhou Bao, could not beat the Old Demon, Green Spirit. In a few rounds'' time, his mind was lost, and Green Spirit had the upper hand.


    All the silver starlight around was fluidized and permeated into Child-endowing Buddha''s body. The Sky-measuring Star Ruler was glimmering and suspended above his head. Child-endowing Buddha''s eyes began to close, and his breath was gone as if he had died.


    All of a sudden, his eyes opened violently. His pupils rolled twice, flashing very cunning light. As the eyes rolled, his body moved. He tried to get up by supporting himself using his hands. But as soon as he touched the ground, he screamed.


    "Ouch! Ouch! Ouch...!" He screamed like a screaming pig waiting to be killed. "You went too harsh on him! It hurts! You did it on purpose. You must have done it on purpose!"


    "It''s just a little outer injury. As a Great Ancient Demon, you can bear it, can''t you?" Zhou Bao sneered and raised his finger to put the Skull Elixir Furnace away. "Are you alright? Try moving. How does the body feel?"


    "Good, good, great, hahahaha, he is known as Child-endowing Buddha, but his foundation is the authentic Buddhist magic from Buddha of the Leiyin Temple. Wonderful, it''s wonderful!" After the Skull Elixir Furnace was put away by Zhou Bao, the trapped Child-endowing Buddha, or Green Spirit, stood up and stretched himself. Then sounds of cracking bones were heard. The golden Buddhist halo flowed through his body and repaired it. The wounds given by Zhou Bao earlier were all gone.


    Green Spirit got up and felt very comfortable. With a wave of his hand, he brought the Sky-measuring Star Ruler to him and it turned into starlight, entering between his eyebrows. Then Zhou Bao felt his Space of Segmented Realms quiver, and the green lamp without flame flew out and disappeared between his eyebrows as well.


    "Great, that''s great. After all these years, I finally have a body, haha...!"


    "Well, you''re pleased. Not only did you get a flesh, but also two Pure Yang Celestial Devices of mine!"


    "Ahhh, small Bao, you''re a broad-minded great man. With so much Pure Yang Water, you can have as much Pure Yang Celestial Devices as you want. Besides, the green lamp is the place where my Original Spirit abides. It has already been inhibited by you. Without Tusita Fire, even if I take it, you won''t lose anything!" Green Spirit said in an indifferent manner. His fat body bobbled, and from time to time he gathered his fat waist up. Zhou Bao frowned and thought that monsters really have different aesthetic perceptions.


    "By the way, has Child-endowing Buddha''s spirit been settled?"


    "Of course, of course, if not I will not be so relaxed!" Green Spirit smirked, "His spirit is good, but it''s much worse than mine!"


    "And what about those Bloodline Demon Fetuses and the Original Spirit in the Golden Book of Fate that he left behind?" Zhou Bao asked.


    "I''ll deal with them properly. The Bloodline Demon Fetuses will be solved soon. As for the Original Spirit in the Golden Book of Fate, he can''t move it now, but by the time all his Bloodline Demon Fetuses have disappeared, he might. Once it is touched, he''ll die without being buried!" Green Spirit replied viciously, with a fierce glare in his eyes.


    "Then I''m greatly relieved!" Zhou Bao smiled. "Do you want to go to my Wuyang Region?"


    "No, his Bloodline Demon Fetuses must have sensed his body is bad, so I want to act now to avoid further troubles!"

 Chapter 364: Princess Heyangs Purpose

    Chapter 364: Princess Heyang''s Purpose


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "You want to deal with the Child-endowing Buddha''s Bloodline Demon Fetus? You''re not going to enter the Azure Secret Area?" Zhou Bao asked raising his eyebrows.


    "I will definitely enter the Azure Secret Area. Now that I have a body, I need to nourish it adequately. But, you''re not going there right away, are you? I can take this time to handle some of the Child-endowing Buddha''s Bloodline Demon Fetuses. I just received an insight. It tells me there are 479,721 Bloodline Demon Fetuses in total left by the Child-endowing Buddha. Not a huge number. But I need some time to completely eliminate all of them. So how about waiting a moment until I get rid of them before you enter the Azure Secret Area?"


    "Hmm. Why should I wait for you?" Zhou Bao twitched his mouth and revealed a scorn. "Are we close?"


    "Because I can bring you great benefits in the Azure Secret Area," said the Green Spirit with a smile. His fat body waddled toward Zhou Bao, a broad grin blooming on his plump face. "Junior Leopard, there are many secrets in this area that I know but you don''t. Bring me and you will make the most gains. You know that the Azure Secret Area has already attracted the Divine Wind Palace''s attention. This could be your last chance to enter. If you miss it, you may not get another opportunity!"


    Zhou Bao''s pupils narrowed slightly. After some contemplation, he asked, "How long do you need to eliminate the Bloodline Demon Fetus?"


    "Three months!"


    "OK. I will wait three months for you. But I expect to see results. Don''t go thinking you can act willfully now just because you have a body. Keep in mind that your Original Spirit inhibition is still in the green lamp. The lamp is still in my control!" He waved his hand. A green light flew out from Green Spirit''s ophryon and went back to the Space of Segmented Realms.


    "Once we''ve entered the Azure Secret Area, if I''m happy with the results, I will remove the inhibition and give you the green lamp. If you are not happy, humph!"


    After saying this, his figure flashed and disappeared.


    "Hehe, this guy''s temper is the worst!" Green Spirit was not upset about being treated rudely by Zhou Bao. Instead, he was joyful. He poked and pinched himself all over his body. "Em...Good. Really good. Even with lower strength, this body is really good after his treatment. Hehe, this guy is also lucky. His Gang Qi is the Kylin Gang. Divine Gang Jade Kylin, Rolling Thunder Technique, Strong Wind Technique. Hehe. He should understand the Natal Power of two types of the Divine Gang Jade Kylin. Ah, it''s so perfect! Damn! Evil Fire Kylin and Divine Gang Jade Kylin. These two things were pretty rare, even in antiquity times. The two of them have gained them! Was this Child-endowing Buddha a person who also had great luck? No. He should have had good luck several thousand years ago. But that era is already a past; his luck is weak. Hence, I get his body. Hehe." Green Spirit said to himself. He pondered for a while, then put his palms together devoutly and made the pose of an immortal monk. He practiced several times. He could feel that he had gotten a bit of legendary Divine Qi and smiled satisfactorily. With a red mist beneath his feet, he gradually rose from the ground. The speed increased, and he finally faded into the horizon.


    Lobby, Wuyang Region.


    Yan Yunfei paced back and forth in the lobby with an anxious look, fidgeting with the same restlessness as Yan Yunyan. It would be good if Zhou Bao did not come back. However, if he came back alive and firmly believed that it had been a plot against him, she would be in a big trouble.


    "Yunyan, will Zhou Bao be okay? It''s already been a long time. Perhaps he will be back soon?"


    "Yunfei, Zhou Bao is greatly accomplished and his cultivation is astonishingly wonderful. The monk may not be a match for him!" Yan Yunyan forced a smile and comforted Yan Yunfei. "Look at the sky, has it already changed back to its original state? I don''t think the monk could have defeated him!"


    "It couldn''t be better. You''re right. Our Zhou Bao is a Level Nine expert. Even if the monk is formidable, he surely couldn''t surpass Level Nine?"


    Hearing Yan Yunfei''s innocent words, Yan Yunyan gave a bitter smile.


    Level Nine?


    How could a Level Nine person cause such great turmoil?


    He must be an expert in the Mysterious Realm.


    However, she did not dare tell Yan Yunfei this, lest she would be frightened.


    "The monk was in the Mysterious Realm. So what? I''ve driven him away!" A cheerful voice came from outside. Looking up, they saw Zhou Bao stride in with a light-hearted smile.


    "Bao Zi, you drove him away?" At the sight of Zhou Bao, Yan Yunfei showed a look of delight. She quickly walked toward him.


    "Yes, I drove him away. Hmph. That monk was shameless. He attacked me even though he''s already in the Immortal Book, completely ignoring the Law of Heaven. I won''t let it go!" Zhou Bao said bitterly. Gently, he cuddled Yan Yunfei''s shoulder. "Don''t worry. Have the servants make some food. I''m hungry after such a long battle!"


    "OK. I''ll make porridge for you!"


    Yan Yunyan was in the lobby and Yan Yunfei felt Zhou Bao''s intimacy. Hearing his words, she nodded with a blush and quickly walked toward the kitchen in the backyard.


    Zhou Bao did not stop her. He watched her figure disappear into the corridor with a smile. He turned his head and looked at Yan Yunyan with playful interest. "Princess Heyang, I think we should talk!"


    Yan Yunyan was suddenly nervous. She looked at Zhou Bao and took a deep breath. "I know what you want to know. I didn''t expect this matter. The temples of the Jingtan Temple and Child-endowing Buddha are all over the world. They''re famous and effective, so I brought Fei-er there to pray. I didn''t know there was something going on."


    "The Child-endowing Buddha is one of the 13 Living Buddhas in the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. Didn''t you know this?"


    "Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple? 13 Living Buddhas?" Yan Yunyan had a confused expression. "What are they? Martial arts schools? I really don''t know!"


    "You don''t know? Then why did you go to the Jingtan Temple together with Fei-er?"


    "Fei-er told me she wanted a baby. I told her your Wuyang Region has only a short history. There''s no place to pray for babies. Who could expect that she had heard of it? So, she asked the maidservant who knew that there''s a Jingtan Temple in your Wuyang Region!" Yan Yunyan gave a wry smile. "And she''s interested in it. I also wanted to go out. Finally, we made it!"


    "Really?" There was a flicker in Zhou Bao''s eyes and he gave an intriguing smile. "Such a coincidence?"


    "Yes. It''s really a coincidence. However, if you don''t believe me, I have no way to prove it. It is indeed a coincidence!"


    "Well then. Let''s stop arguing about whether you''re right. Since Princess Heyang has come to me, I suppose you''re not just here for your gal-pal?"


    Yan Yunyan did not know the meaning of gal-pal, but she could guess Zhou Bao''s meaning from his tone of voice.


    "Of course not. I came here because of you!"


    "Me? What? Do you want to help Prince Ning get the Emperor position?"


    When it came to the Prince Ning, Yan Yunyan showed an eccentric look. "Are you kidding me? Prince Ning severely offended you and was dealt with by my father. Now he has lost all his power and influence and become a powerless Royal Highness. He''s penned up in the capital city and seeks solace by drinking every day. How could he ever strive for the emperor position again?"


    "Is there such a thing?" Hearing this for the first time, Zhou Bao was shocked.


    "You really don''t know?" Seeing that Zhou Bao was serious, Yan Yunyan became more bitter. "It seems you really don''t know. Alas¡ª"


    "Now that Prince Ning can''t get the position, why are you here?"


    Prince Ning''s insinuation took Zhou Bao by surprise. However, for now, the matter of who would get the emperor position in the Jin dynasty was just a trivial thing to him. It was not worthy enough to worry about. After the initial shock, he put it out of his mind entirely.


    "I am here as a persuasive speaker for my Brother Prince!"


    "Crown Prince?" Zhou Bao blinked his eyes and suddenly laughed. He shook his head. "It''s useless, no matter who the persuasive speaker is. Frankly speaking, I''m not interested in your competition for power and profit of the Great Jin Royalty. Don''t bother me with this!"


    "I know. It''s not easy to persuade you. Brother Prince also knows that. However, you won''t lose any skin hearing me out!"


    "Hehe. Interesting. You should know, with my current strength, I don''t pay attention to the wax and wane of the dynasties. Even if your father Yan Yuntian approaches me, I won''t be nice to him, let alone the Crown Prince. Why would you bother me with such a thing?"


    "This involves the Human Emperor''s position," Yan Yunyan said softly. "I suppose you must be interested in this?"


    "The Human Emperor''s position? You know the Human Emperor too?" Zhou Bao''s expression changed slightly, and he gazed deeply at Yan Yunyan. "Seems your father is determined to pass the Emperor position to your Brother Prince. He even told him this. Why are you worried?"


    "It''s not my father who told Brother Prince. Somebody came to him and wanted to help him because he was said to possess extremely respectable vitality and was qualified to be a Human Emperor!"


    "Which bastard said this?" Zhou Bao was shocked. He sensed something a little strange from this news.


    "No idea. His strength is very strong. Brother Prince can''t beat him at all. We just know he called himself Li VII!"


    "Lee VII?"


    "No. Li. Li VII," said Yan Yunyan. "He also told us we can discuss it with you!"


    "Discuss it with me?" Zhou Bao raised his chin. "He knows me?" (To be continued)

 Chapter 365: School of Five Virtues

    Chapter 365: School of Five Virtues


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "It''s not good to come back. I was worried that you were really struggling with the Child-endowing Buddha all the time!"


    Carrying the information and a bowl of porridge from Yan Yunyan, he returned to the study in the backyard. Wang She was already sitting there.


    Seeing Zhou Bao walk in, Wang She felt a sense of relief and it was shown on his face. He spoke with a lingering fear.


    "I meant to keep struggling with him, but he escaped quickly!" Zhou Bao smiled and said, "I''d like to ask for your advice on a matter!"


    "What is it?"


    "Have you heard of a man called Li VII? ''Li'' as in the''Àñ'' (Li) in ''Àñò'' (Li Mao) ."


    "Li VII?" Hearing the name, Wang She''s expression suddenly turned ugly. "How did you hear of him?"


    "You know Li VII?" Zhou Bao was in high spirits immediately. "I heard of him from Yan Yunyan. It seems that Li VII intends to intervene in the vicissitudes of Great Jin."


    "Hmm, this is normal. Li VII is a member of the School of Five Virtues of Divine Wind Palace. Ren II, Yi IV, Li VII, Zhi IX and Xin X are the five supervisors of School of Five Virtues. I didn''t know the Man of Honor Ji Zhongtang is a subordinate of Yi IV from School of Five Virtues of Divine Wind Palace until recently. These people, however, have great power in Divine Wind Palace. They can use an enormous amount of resources and are difficult to deal with."


    "So this is the first time a fellow from Divine Wins Palace dealt with me? I was surprised that they got in touch with me by using the advantage of their relationship with the Crown Prince!"


    "Divine Wind Palace is too large, and there are also a variety of internal disputes over profit. As one of the powerful forces in Divine Wind Palace, School of Five Virtues tried to approach you, and that''s not surprising!"


    "Then, should I accept their kindness?"


    "I am from Immortal Palace, and I don''t know much about Divine Wind Palace. In such a case, you''d better ask for Elder Qing''s advice. He has dealt with Divine Wind Palace for so many years and has a very good understanding of School of Five Virtues."


    "I have to go to Immortal Palace, but before that, please do me a favor!"


    "What is it?"


    "I''m setting formation, Yin and Yang Dust Formation," said Zhou Bao, "and I''ll have a closed-door training in Azure Secret Area for a few months. When I am in Azure Secret Area, I can''t be in charge of the matters in Wuyang Region, so please preside over this formation!"


    "To preside over the formation?" Wang She was stupefied at first before a ray of joy flashed across his face. Presiding over the formation required familiarity with it, otherwise, how could one preside over it?


    If one wanted to be familiar with the formation, one must have the formation map. That means Zhou Bao''s entrust meant that Zhou Bao would hand over the formation map of Yin and Yang Dust Formation to him. It was practically a gift from the heavens. He had no reason to disagree.


    Zhou Bao was not joking. With a lift of his hand, a shabby goat-skin scroll flew to Wang She, who caught it. He saw that it was indeed the formation map of Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    "As you know, I stole the Innate Green Lotus Seed from Happy Monk in Azure Secret Area and I refined it into Innate Qi PureTalismanas as the Formation Eye, so it was barely complete. After the formation is completed, I will give this talisman to you, and in the future, you''ll operate this formation."


    Wang She was enlightened and seemed to want to ask something, but in the end, it was only a sigh. "You refined it? You even know how to refine it. It seems that Elder Qing was right that there is an expert giving you advice!"


    "One expert and one demon!" Zhou Bao laughed in his heart. He felt relaxed but a little regretful that Green Spirit had found a new body.


    Although Green Spirit was a bit annoying, he was knowledgeable. Green Spirit helped him a lot. If it had not been for Green Spirit, he would have been dead or suffered a lot many times.


    But at the same time, it was always somewhat uneasy for him to keep such a guy around. He was a Great Ancient Demon. If Zhou Bao does not get rid of him as early as possible, it would be hard to dump him once he gets out of hand.


    The problem now was that the guy knew too much about his secrets. He even knew that he had Fiery Eyes and even identified the origin of Fiery Eyes. If Green Spirit was to spread this information, he will be in huge trouble.


    Fortunately, he still had the means to control him, although even he himself was unsure whether it could really control him!


    In this world, other than Seven-deity Regions, the Demon tribe also controlled the Sea Area. If this guy fled to Sea Area for shelter and talked about his secrets everywhere, he will be in huge trouble if he does not have any way to control him.


    However, he also had no choice. With the growth of his strength, he found that his control over Green Spirit was getting weaker and weaker. In the beginning, he obviously greatly underestimated Green Spirit''s strength. He vaguely felt that his inhibition on the green lamp could not completely restrain Green Spirit. Even if Green Spirit did not have a body, he only had to pay a little price and would never be hurt fatally if he was that determined to leave. Because of this, Zhou Bao took the opportunity to find him a body. No matter what, he should steer him away from his own body. As for Green Spirit''s final choice, he could not control.


    Zhou Bao did not think that Green Spirit would let his secrets out because there was no need. Green Spirit had been imprisoned in the underground palace of Small Thunder Temple for hundreds of thousands of years, and had no interaction with any forces above this world. Although he made it out alive, there was no great difference between him and Zhou Bao, a time-traveller. Yet, unlike Zhou Bao, Green Spirit did not even have a legal identity in this world.


    It was because there was no conflict of profit with everyone that Green Spirit would not betray him because of a certain profit. Even if he wanted to do so, there needs to be someone who would listen to him. Besides, in the past few years, they got along well with each other, cooperated with each other and got a lot of benefits, and there was no reason for Green Spirit to betray Zhou Bao.


    Of course, these were the words Zhou Bao told himself to comfort himself. Since he could not constrain Green Spirit, then he will just let him be. As the saying goes, give others another chance, in case you need help one day.


    As for the green lamp that he had taken back, it was also deliberately done. This green lamp might not have a great effect on controlling Green Spirit, but after all, it was a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Although it was damaged, it could be repaired. He also had a lot of Pure Yang Water. Even reckoning made long friends. Business was business.


    The reason for giving him Sky-measuring Star Ruler was that he was now practicing Great Way of Stars and needed this Pure Yang Celestial Device. This was a matter of friendship, while the green lamp was a matter of profit. Naturally, Zhou Bao would not abandon it casually.


    "Boy, what''s on your mind?"


    At the sight of Zhou Bao''s silence, Wang She thought that he was thinking about something, and asked, "Don''t you trust me to give this formation to me?"


    "Absolutely not! Why wouldn''t I trust you? It will be fine as long as you don''t give off the information!"


    "I know what to do!" Wang She nodded. "Well, I''m off to set formation!"


    "OK!"


    ....


    ¡­


    Three months passed in a flash. During these days, Zhou Bao joined hands with Wang She and unwittingly set Yin and Yang Dust Formation in Wuyang Region. When Green Spirit appeared again wrapped in the smell of blood, Yin and Yang Dust Formation had already been set for five days.


    "You''re back at last. I thought you were caught by the guys of Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple!" Zhou Bao lightly covered his mouth and nose, and the fat man in front of him exuded an almost solid, sticky blood smell. It was understandable, as he had killed nearly 550,000 people in three months. It would be a wonder if there was no blood smell on him.


    "I miscalculated!" Green Spirit exclaimed. In this new body, his voice was as soft, charming and magnetic as that of Child-endowing Buddha. It was the type that could drive girls crazy.


    "You miscalculated? What''s the matter?" Being stunned for a moment, Zhou Bao looked at the blood level of his whole body. It did not look like a miscalculation. "You didn''t kill all of them?"


    "One escaped. The guy was more clever and decisive than I had imagined. He not only decisively cut off my contact with Sea of Consciousness, but also the link with Golden Book of Fate, leaving only a bit of Original Spirit!"


    "What are you worried about? If he did so, he would have been reincarnated and completely unrelated to the Child-endowing Buddha of his previous life. Even if there was a memory of the past, it would be incomplete. Everything will have to start over again, and it will not pose a threat to you at all." Zhou Bao said matter-of-factly.


    "Well, you can think of it so easily, but I can''t, boy. There is a little bit of his Original Spirit in Golden Book of Fate, and he still has the memory of his previous life. Hence, our enemy will change from one to two. I can''t fight with them as one is in Golden Book of Fate and the other one is hidden in the dark. This kind of enemy in the dark is the most terrible and the most troublesome, and I don''t think you would like a man staring at you in the dark all the time.''''


    "I really don''t want to, but now that it has happened, what can we do?" Zhou Bao said with a bitter smile. "No matter what comes up, there would be a solution. Just relax. Even if the Child-endowing Buddha wanted to seek revenge on us, it would not be possible to do so for hundreds of years. Who knows what the situation will be after a few hundred years? Maybe by then, we would be already dead!"


    "You are really open-minded and looking at the bright side of things!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Green Spirit shook his head helplessly.


    "Well, now that you are here, let''s go into Azure Secret Area. Essential Qi Tide has begun for almost a month." At this moment, he hesitated and looked at Green Spirit. "But now you''ve got the body of the Child-endowing Buddha. How can you go in with me? You know, the entrance is guarded by people of Immortal Palace. Do you think they will let you in? When they catch sight of you, they might kill you."


    "Don''t worry! The cultivation of the guys at the entrance is too shallow to notice me." Green Spirit laughed. Throwing the red kasaya across, he disappeared into a red blurring fog.


    "This Fire Cloud Kasaya is an excellent Pure Yang Celestial Device that can conceal my body and breath!"


    "Then I''m relieved!"

 Chapter 366: Capturing Azure Heavens

    Chapter 366: Capturing Azure Heavens


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    ....


    The Azure Secret Area!


    The area was filled with chaotic negative energy.


    The storm capable of tearing everything apart was dancing wildly in the air. On the floor, all types of energy prevailed, colliding together and exploding simultaneously.


    All the living creatures with spiritual intelligence had hidden in the depth of caves like dormant black bears and dared not reveal themselves.


    In this endless pneuma storm, a glimmer of green light was like a small drop in the sea, that could be engulfed by the tide at any time.


    However, this drop of water was extremely resilient. It stood rock-still on the uninhabited island of the Azure Secret Area regardless of the tide.


    There were two people: Zhou Bao and Green Spirit. They sat face to face with their legs crossed. Above Zhou Bao''s head was the Air-frozen Bead. It''s shiny green light covered the area within ten feet to protect them from the Essential Qi Tide outside.


    Compared to the previous one, this Air-frozen Bead with it''s Pure Yang Celestial Device level was much more effective.


    When the two entered the Azure Heavens, they had both forgone walking around. Zhou Bao had used his red eyes and explored their mystery with his powerful spirit. Qingling, however, had chosen to carefully organize the inexhaustible essence of the world to select pneuma and spiritual qi that was needed for practice. Within a dozen days, his cultivation had upgraded greatly, almost to the Realm of True Immortality. Now, he was waiting to leave the area and pass the Thunder Tribulation. Then his Body of True Immortality would be accomplished, and the Child-endowing Buddha would become a Child-endowing Sage.


    Hiss!


    Zhou Bao slowly opened his eyes, which were bright red. The circle of black lines around his eyes had already solidified becoming completely thorn-shaped with extremely sharp pointed parts. The circle rotated slowly as if it could tear everything apart.


    All of a sudden, the black lines began to rotate faster. Zhou Bao shook gently, making a low sound.


    Green Spirit who sat opposite him abruptly opened his eyes with a sudden flash of shock. He watched as a layer of pale red light was released from Zhou Bao''s body. The light seemed to pass through his body harmlessly with the protection of Air-frozen Bead. It began to spread all over the place. In a short period of time, the light covered the whole island.


    The red light was not alarming. You could even say that it was not that special; it could not even activate the surrounding Essential Qi Tide at all. The Qi merely existed quietly.


    Green Spirit looked toward the center of the red light. "How do you feel?" he asked.


    "I feel good!" Zhou Bao smiled. In the next instant, his figure appeared before Green Spirit. His fingertip was already on Green Spirit''s forehead.


    "In the red light area, my speed and strength are more than ten times faster and stronger than before. But, they haven''t hit their limit yet!" Zhou Bao smiled. As the Thorn Wheel in his eyes spun faster and faster, the surrounding red light became paler and paler, and eventually vanished.


    "That''s thirty times!" Zhou Bao said coldly and then went back to his seat. "As long as I constantly familiarize myself with the special eyes, it will give me inconceivable power. Under the cover of my eyes, no one can keep a secret!" Zhou Bao stared at Green Spirit. "With the eyes, I can even see your physical condition. I know that you hit a wall and are now waiting to pass the Thunder Tribulation, aren''t you? I have already felt the change of Real Essence in your body. The essence seems to develop into Dharma power!"


    "Your Fiery Eyes indeed have a knack!" Green Spirit nodded. "It seems that I will be no match for you if I fight against you here! Am I right?"


    "Of course not! I think if I make the Fiery Eyes cover a smaller space, such as in my Fist Intent Space, within three breaths I can punch a white tiger to death!"


    "Will you be that powerful?"


    "Humph! In my Fist Intent Space, with the support of Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, Heavenly Jade Technique and Fiery Eyes, my strength and speed will be hundreds of thousands of times stronger and faster than before. With my Fiery Eyes, any injury I cause will be much more serious. In a close battle, I dare not say I could defeat a Human Immortal, but I should be invincible against the Realm of True Immortality!"


    "Kiddo, that''s just wishful thinking. Invincible in the Realm of True Immortality? Haha. You''re really good at drawing a long bow. Even though you''re powerful in a close battle, your strength is at most equivalent to the Realm of True Immortality passing Thunder Tribulation two or three times, which is far from invincible. How dare you call yourself a Venerable when you''ve only passed three Thunder Tribulations! With your current capability, you can''t even imagine how powerful a Venerable is!"


    Hearing this, Zhou Bao blushed. "Heh heh, maybe you''re right. But the Fiery Eyes are indeed powerful. Every time I use it, I feel like I''m invincible!"


    "This is why your Fiery Eyes family was exterminated three thousand years ago. They felt superior, so they behaved irrationally. Eventually, the Divine Wind Palace saw them as troublesome elements and killed them all!"


    "You know what happened in the Fiery Eyes family?" Zhou Bao looked at him.


    "I took the Child-endowing Buddha''s body and absorbed his innate spirit. I know everything that he knows!" As he spoke, he smiled. A puff of pink Gang Qi emerged from his body. "Do you know, if I was now in the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, no one would suspect a thing? They would still regard me as the original Child-endowing Buddha!"


    "One Bloodline Demon Fetus ran away, didn''t it?"


    "He is not a threat to me. By the time he has the ability, I might be the chairman of Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. It won''t be easy for him to cause trouble!"


    "Do you have any problem with the Golden Book of Fate?"


    "No!" Green Spirit''s smile became softer. "The Golden Book of Fate swallows the Original Spirit by itself and doesn''t involve the controller. The only thing that the Divine Wind Palace can do is to destroy the Original Spirit on the surface. You should know that if the Divine Wind Palace had the ability to track everyone listed in the book using the Original Spirit in the Golden Book of Fate, it would have already dominated the whole world!"


    "Does that mean that when you leave the Azure Secret Area, you can go back to the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple and take all of the Child-endowing Buddha''s things without raising any suspicion?"


    "Yes, but there is still a small problem. Everyone in the Immortal Palace knows that I created a disturbance in your territory; we can''t hide this from them. Trouble may come when you are safe and sound, yet I am missing."


    "Even though they are suspicious, they won''t start rumors. After all, I am a member of the Immortal Palace. They will react out of the consideration for the palace!" Zhou Bao smiled. "As for the Big Wheel Temple, now that you have inherited the Child-endowing Buddha''s spirit, you must be able to handle it. Maybe we will generate cooperation between the Big Wheel Temple and the Immortal Palace!"


    "That''s a good idea, but we''d better talk about it after we leave the Azure Secret Area. By the way, did you gain any insight into the Fiery Eyes? Do they have any other special functions?"


    "Yes, they do. But I dare not use it!"


    "Why?"


    "Because on this giant island, you are the only living creature that I can find. I am afraid that if I take your spirit from your body, you will have trouble!"


    "Try it. Next time I meet someone with Fiery Eyes, I can react according to this experience!" Green Spirit smiled. His voice trailed away, and he felt his head go cold. His spirit was yanked out of his body by Zhou Bao''s turtledove claw before he could respond.


    "How about that?"


    "Kiddo, quickly release me! F*ck. Your turtledove''s claw is even more powerful than before. Damn it. I didn''t even react to it at all!" "Kiddo, release me! Quickly! F*ck. Your turtledove''s claw is even more powerful than before. Damn it. I couldn''t even react to it at all!" When Zhou Bao clutched his spirit, Green Spirit had given a bizarre yell. Zhou Bao''s turtledove''s claw was not only able to seize the spirit, but it was also capable of constraining and suppressing it. Green Spirit''s spirit couldn''t move or use the star force at all.


    Seeing the claw''s satisfactory result, Zhou Bao smiled. Then he loosened his grip to release Green Spirit''s spirit. "How about that? Isn''t it great?"


    The spirit quickly wormed its way into the fat body. After twisting and turning several times, Green Spirit looked up. "Good, very good. With these two functions, you are almost invincible. Do you have any other skills?


    "Of course I do, but I won''t disclose them here!" Zhou Bao laughed. It was alright for him to show some of his skills to scare Green Spirit, but he would not display all of them. He was not that foolish. Things had changed now. In the past, he had had a close relationship with Green Spirit as his spirit was entrusted to him. Now, Green Spirit had a new body and their relationship had become totally different. Naturally, Zhou Bao would not disclose everything.


    "You''re smart!" Green Spirit understood Zhou Bao''s intention. He didn''t want to force him. He said, "What I care about most is whether your Fiery Eyes can connect with the Golden Book of Fate like the man in the Taiyuan Heaven could. This is the most important thing. If they can, you might get the chance to seize the Golden Book of Fate''s shadow. With the shadow, you will not be afraid of revealing your eyes when you are in the Golden Book of Fate.


    "What? Seize the Golden Book of Fate''s shadow?" Zhou Bao was shocked. "Do you think I could succeed?"


    "Of course. It''s much easier for you to take the shadow than the one in the Taiyuan Heaven!" Green Spirit grinned. "It''s up to you to determine whether to do it or not!"


    "This is a matter of life and death. You should not play tricks on me!" Zhou Bao said loudly.


    "There is no need for me to play tricks on you. Though I have a new body, we still have common interests. Besides, we''ve worked together for a while. I have no reason to replace you, a good partner with enormous potential and an unusual fate."


    "Well, tell me. What should I do next?"


    "This is the Azure Secret Area, not Taiyuan Heaven. Though they both belong to the 33 Heavens, they are distinct. The Taiyuan Heaven is the same now as it was in antiquity times. The Azure Secret Area on the other hand is evolving into a complete world. In a sense, it is not that different from the outside world. Now that they are similar, it should have all the things that the outside world has. But the evolution is not complete yet. Many things are still being created, including the Golden Book of Fate!"

 Chapter 367: Thorn Wheel Fiery Eye, Region

    Chapter 367: Thorn Wheel Fiery Eye, Region


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Including the Golden Book of Fate?"


    All of a sudden, Zhou Bao was overwhelmed, as if something occurred to him. With a rush of ecstasy on his face, he said, "You mean, the Azure Secret Area has its own Golden Book of Fate?"


    "Not the Golden Book of Fate. It''s the Origin of the Great Ways!" Green Spirit smiled. "Every world has its essence, whether it''s complete or not. For instance, what the Divine Wind Palace wants from the Taiyuan Heaven is its essence. Their plan is to use the Golden Book of Fate to fight against the Primeval Beast. Likewise, in the core of the Azure Secret Area, there lives an associated Primeval Beast which is different from the one in the Taiyuan Heaven. It has its own Origin of the Great Ways and the Golden Book of Fate. But for now, it has yet to take shape, which gives the Divine Wind Palace, and you, of course, a great chance."


    "Tell me more!" said Zhou Bao, who has become totally interested thanks to Green Spirit.


    "The Golden Book of Fate is an essence that can complete the world. Regardless of capability, anyone without luck can''t sense it, not to mention control it. Only the living creatures with the same essence as the heaven and earth can sense it, such as the Innate Deity and the Primordial Demon of the Primordial Origin. In the outside world, the Golden Book of Fate has been handed down from generation to generation. But here in the Azure Secret Area, you need fate to get it. I guess the reason why the Fiery Eyes are connected to the Golden Book of Fate is that the Fiery Eyes was the fusion of the bloodlines of the Innate Deity and the Primordial Demon. Hence, the Fiery Eyes are able to sense the Golden Book of Fate and to control it in some way. The Azure Secret Area is currently evolving into a complete world. The Golden Book of Fate has yet taken shape. It only has a little Origin of the Great Ways instead of the mighty power of the Golden Book of Fate. Things will be much easier if your Fiery Eyes can sense the essence and capture it in advance. If I''m right, the Divine Wind Palace intends to make the shadow of the Golden Book of Fate echo the essence of this world. Then, by merging the two into one, chances are that the shadow of the Golden Book of Fate would evolve into a complete one. It might not be as strong as the Golden Book of Fate out there, but its growth will be promising. Furthermore, if it succeeds, it will be of great help in fighting against the Primeval Beast in the Azure Secret Area. They may actually rule the Azure Secret Area!"


    Grasping the meaning of those words, Zhou Bao said, "That is to say, if I capture the essence of this world in advance, when the Divine Wind Palace influences the essence using the shadow of the Golden Book of Fate, I''ll have the chance to control the shadow and beat the Divine Wind Palace?"


    "Exactly. But that is if you can capture the essence of this world!" Green Spirit smiled, "If you can do that, you control the entire Azure Secret Area without anyone knowing!"


    "Without anyone knowing?"


    "Yeah, you know, the evolution of the world. Things like that have never happened before. Even in the antiquity times, it was only a deduction, a bold theory conceived by the necromancers. It never became a reality, nor was there enough time to be one. As a result, nobody knows what the essence of the world will become if someone actually does this kind of things. When Divine Wind Palace''s shadow of the Golden Book of Fate is captured by the essence of this world in a twist of events, no one would suspect you as long as you keep a low profile. You can secretly have the Azure Secret Area in hand. If someone in the Azure Secret Area pisses you off someday, you can easily hurt that guy. For example, that beloved disciple of mine!"


    "Your beloved disciple?" It took Zhou Bao a minute to realize that the one he was talking about was Happy Monk.


    "Oh, him! Are you sure you are going to the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple under this cover?" asked Zhou Bao.


    "Yeah, what''s the problem?"


    "No, none at all! Just a little worried that you would blow your cover and I would have to suffer along with you!"


    "No worries! Like I''ve told you, I have absorbed his spirit. The only one who could see through me is Happy Monk himself, so you''d better find a chance to kill him!"


    "He is your disciple. You have a million chances to get rid of him. You don''t need me to do your dirty job. I don''t want to get so much blood on my hands!"


    "Oh, there will always be blood on your hands!" Green Spirit smiled. "But I won''t force you into it. We shall see by then. I think your practice with the Fiery Eyes has reached a perfect degree. It''s time for us to get down to other businesses, don''t you think?"


    "Well, soon. Even though my Fiery Eyes has yet to reach that man''s power, it is close enough if I put up an all-out effort. But still, I have another mission in the Azure Secret Area, and that is to perfect my Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword by the Yin and Yang Evil Qi here!"


    "I told you that the power of your Sword Qi had nothing to do with the Evil Qi. Those two Evil Qis of yours were of the top players in the world. You know, when it comes to special techniques, your own insights are as important as the quality of the Evil Qi. Take your Three Realms Division as an example. I suppose it was not easy for you to use it in the beginning, but it''s now a different story. You could sense the fluctuation and variation of space merely by your spiritual mind rather than the Three Realms Division. This is called "savey". The same applies to the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Those are all the things you need to comprehend through time. Rushing is pointless. You should practice them more frequently and skillfully as long as you find a chance. Before long, you could comprehend a small portion of the tricks!"


    It was like a teacher giving a lecture to his disciple, but Zhou Bao was totally comfortable with it. He gratefully nodded and said, "I understand. Thanks!"


    A simple "thanks" showed all the difference. If Green Spirit had said those words in psywave like he used to, Zhou Bao would have simply nodded, as if he was bound to get help from Green Spirit. Now that Green Spirit had a new body, things were different. Zhou Bao learned to be grateful to Green Spirit''s teaching.


    Green Spirit was satisfied with Zhou Bao''s gratitude. "No big deal. We are in the same boat from now on. We know all about each other. No one can come between us!"


    Know all about each other?


    Zhou Bao sneered secretly. He knew nothing but that Green Spirit was a Great Ancient Demon, while Green Spirit knew nothing but that Zhou Bao had strong fate and a pair of Fiery Eyes. How could that count as "know all about each other"?


    But still, having felt the friendliness, Zhou Bao nodded and smiled, "Of course!"


    "Oh, and you must have achieved a good deal in the past few months. You''ll undergo the Thunder Tribulation once we get out, right?"


    "Yeah. If I hadn''t entered the Azure Secret Area thanks to you, I would have to wait for another 20 or 30 years!" He slightly sighed and continued, "Nevertheless, if you can''t control the essence of the Azure Secret Area this time round, I''m afraid this would be our last visit to this place!"


    "Are you sure that the Divine Wind Palace is so desperate? Don''t forget that they have prepared to get into Taiyuan Heaven for at least 1,000 years. Considering the fact that the Azure Secret Area is far more dangerous than the Taiyuan Heaven, shouldn''t they need some time to get prepared?"


    "The reason why they decided to take action in the Azure Secret Area so soon is that they had been preparing for the Taiyuan Heaven for a very long time, and everything has been well prepared by now. You know, taking over one of the 33 Heavens is never a thing that you could be 100% sure of. The Divine Wind Palace must have a backup plan in case anything goes wrong in the Taiyuan Heaven. Maybe the Azure Secret Area has always been their Plan B."


    Talking about this, Green Spirit sighed, "Now that their scheme is no longer a secret, they will naturally want to strike first. Better go early than later. Otherwise, the four influences including the Immortal Palace, the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, the Dragon Thunder Palace and the Jade Pool, would notice and fight against them together! You don''t want that, do you?"


    "Makes sense!"


    Old birds were not to be caught with chaff. Zhou Bao kept nodding his head while listening. He totally bought Green Spirit''s words, which were clear and logical. In contrast, he found himself shallow.


    "So, about taking over the essence of the Azure Secret Area. How should I do it?"


    "You''ll do it on your own. It''s your eyes! Your cultivation is too low to take over the essence of a world merely by your own strength. More like a joke, in fact! Your only chance is your eyes!"


    "My eyes?" A thought occurred to Zhou Bao. During the past month in the Azure Secret Area, he had been studying his pair of special eyes of his and had gained some knowledge from it.


    The more he knew about his own eyes, the more curious he was about them. They always surprised him throughout the last month. The Thorn Wheel Fiery Eyes actually have their own "region"!


    Zhou Bao actually did not understand what a region was. He just called the area covered by a red light a region. Not only his strength, speed, and his spiritual mind, but also his physical strength and recovery capability, increased multifold. What''s more, the region, coordinated with his Fist Intent Space, was more than enough to improve his power by hundreds of times.


    Yes, hundreds of times!


    He was not exaggerating. When the region of his Fiery Eyes was activated, his close combat ability would be abnormally strong. And his Critical Hit enabled him to attack as if he was crushing vacuum with his fist.


    Of course, that was just a feeling. He could open the space barrier with a single punch, but there was still a long way to go before he could truly crush vacuum and turn everything into nothing.


    However, taking White Tiger''s combat capability as an example, even if he had hidden skills, if he was trapped in the Fist Intent Space again, Zhou Bao was sure that he could give him a clean death.


    That was just one of several functions of the Fiery Eyes.


    Just as he had displayed in front of Green Spirit, the power of his turtledove''s claw greatly improved within the region of the Fiery Eyes. He could neatly pull the spirit out of his enemy''s body with his claw, even when he was confronting a Genuine Immortal-like expert like Green Spirit. Of course, the degree of compatibility between Green Spirit''s spirit and body should be taken into consideration. But Zhou Bao believed that average experts of the Mysterious Realm could not withstand a single attack of his claws.

 Chapter 368: Piracy

    Chapter 368: Piracy


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Unfortunately, all of that could only happen in one place.


    And that was the Region!


    Yes, all these effects could only occur in the red light-covered Region created by the Fiery Eyes.


    Although the Fiery Eyes Region was large enough, the red light would disappear when it reached its limit. But in the beginning, the coquettish red light could not be concealed.


    Therefore, to use this Fiery Eyes Region, one really had to be in a place with no one else. One could only use it when having to kill the enemy. If it was used unnecessarily, one would be exposed.


    Therefore, although there were other magical uses of this Fiery Eyes Region, in addition to the previous two points, there did not seem to be much use for it, yet it felt too wasteful to discard it.


    Moreover, for this month, his Thorn Wheel Fiery Eye Region was considered small. But, in addition to this unusual Region of vision that it offered, he really could not find any other function of the Fiery Eyes.


    Now, listening to Green Spirit''s words, Zhou Bao thought carefully, once again activating his Fiery Eyes, and the glamorous red light arose again. But this time, Zhou Bao did not expand them, nor did he focus his attention on the expansion of the red light. Instead, he immersed himself in the vast and boundless space in the Fiery Eyes.


    In the hollow, the red and gold eyes were now suspended high in the air, and a faint fog shrouded the center of his pupil. That was the current situation of the Fiery Space.


    As Zhou Bao''s spirit and soul immersed into the hollow, there was no movement. The golden red eyes were still hanging, as if they were not meant to do anything.


    Zhou Bao gently sighed and placed all of his attention on the eyes hanging in the hollow hoping to gain some inspiration from it.


    When Zhou Bao''s attention was fully focused on the golden red eyes, the eyeball initially did not respond. But this time, Zhou Bao did not look away just because of its unresponsiveness, but instead, he focused his attention on it with determination. Using his mental strength, he scanned the eyeball inch by inch and strand by strand until finally, after three hours, he found something unusual.


    The eyeball suspended in the air was basically the same as his own Fiery Eyes'' structure. Even the black lines around his pupil were exactly the same as the thorns around his pupil. The only difference was that, in the center of this eyeball, there was an unusual energy pulsating.


    Zhou Bao did not dare to disregard this golden red eye. With his divine thoughts, he carefully scrutinized and sensed it for a long time before finally determining that it was a talisman.


    Not one, but nine!


    Nine entangled talismans, as if grouped in a mess, did not move at all.


    Yes, it was arranged together in one spot, but not merged nor fused into one piece. It was like writing a word on a piece of white paper, and then writing another word on it, and then continuing until nine words had been written. The result was that even if the word was written beautifully, it still was unable to be deciphered.


    eeing this situation, Zhou Bao was stunned for a while. He used his divine thoughts again to carefully distinguish the entangled talismans. He only vaguely understood the shape of one of the talismans, but could not determine its exact nature.


    After investigating for a while, it seemed like there was nothing else to be gained. He could only sigh, regather his divine thoughts, and open his eyes.


    "What is it like? Were there any gains?" Seeing that Zhou Bao has regained his composure, Green Spirit appeared anxious.


    "There was no way. I could only find a jumbled talisman!" Zhou Bao gently sighed and flashed a trace of helplessness. He began describing the situation that he had seen in detail and drew out the only talisman that he was able to decipher. "Do you know what this talisman represents?"


    "That''s the Golden Thorn Realm!" When he saw the talisman, Green Spirit opened his mouth slightly and his eyes flashed with astonishment. Finally, he sighed and said those five words.


    "The Thorn Wheel Fiery Eyes, the Thorn Wheel Fiery Eyes, I see... Those damn necromancers actually cast a spell on your eyes to have nine talismans? I think I understand, I think I understand. No wonder your Fiery Eyes are so powerful¡ªturns out it''s because of the nine talismans!"


    "Don''t give me any or your riddles. Just tell me, what''s going on? And what is this Golden Thorn Realm?"


    "It''s just one of the effects of your Thorn Wheel Fiery Eye Region. No wonder I always felt that I''d seen it somewhere. Turns out that it''s the Golden Thorn Realm. The field of vision of your eyes is actually the Region of Golden Thorn Realm. That''s all!" Green Spirit whispered and murmured to himself. Finally, he said with a sigh, "Boy, you have such good luck! This Golden Thorn Realm is the strength of the Realm Power of the Innate Deity, and now the core of its curse has been transplanted into your eyes so you will have the Thorn Wheel Realm!"


    "The Realm Power of the greatest Innate Deity?"


    Having heard Green Spirit''s assessment, Zhou Bao was amazed¡ªthat evaluation was too good.


    "As for you, don''t think too highly of yourself. The Golden Thorn Realm is the Realm Power of the Innate Deity, but your Thorn Wheel Fiery Eyes Region is just a copy. It''s like the Tusita Fire¡ªthey are all replicas. So, even if it can exhibit a bit of the original''s authentic power and embody some genuine attributes, in the end, it is not authentic by nature!" Pausing, he glared and looked deep into the eyes of Zhou Bao. "In the Heavenly Magic Eye, those Fiery Eyes should be made by imitating the Heavenly Magic Eye. It should be based on the power of the Heavenly Magic Eye. But because yours is a replica, it is impossible to display the true power of the Heavenly Magic Eye because those necromancers engineered nine other talismans in, which means that your red eyes are also mimicking the ability of nine other Innate Deities, but you simply can''t display them!"


    After listening to this, Zhou Bao''s expression became even more strange.


    Was this not retribution?


    In his past life, what he loved to do most was to watch pirated discs and read pirated books. Now in this new era, he lived a new life, but all he had were counterfeit goods such as the Fiery Eyes and the Tusita Fire. Even his world of martial arts was a pirated universe¡ªas if he was fated to cross with pirates.


    Now, it seemed that the gang of necromancers of antiquity times was, in fact, a gang of pirate traffickers. They warned that the powers of Innate Deities could not be replicated perfectly, but now it turned out that they pirated them one by one just for fun. Zhou Bao felt extremely ashamed.


    These two worlds, where he was in now and where he came from, seemed to be fated to cross paths with any form of piracy.


    However, although Green Spirit had cleared up this talisman for him, he had not explained how to use his Fiery Eye cloud to realize the Azure Secret Area of the Origin of the Great Way. Zhou Bao could not help feeling anxious.


    "Let''s put this Fiery Eyes matter aside first. I still have no idea what the Azure Secret Area''s Origin of the Great Way is. Think about it, what should I do?"


    This was the real priority. It could be said that most of the joys and sorrows in the future depended heavily on this matter. He naturally had no alternative than to care about it.


    "The key is in your eyes. Now, I understand why the Fiery Eyes can be hooked onto the Golden Book of Fate. Everything is in the eyes, hehe, the Heavenly Magic Eye. It''s not the Fiery Eyes that can morph into the Golden Book of Fate, but rather the Heavenly Magic Eye. Your Fiery Eyes are the foundation of the Heavenly Magic Eye, which allowed for such an effect!" He paused and looked deeply into the eyes of Zhou Bao. "Boy, that Golden Thorn Realm is really powerful, but now the key is the power of the Heavenly Magic Eye. In the end, whatever you did over the past month was all wasted. Now you have to start again!"


    "Start over?!" groaned Zhou Bao. "No, I have spent a month''s worth of effort on this pair of eyes to achieve the results so far. How dare you ask me to start over!"


    "Then what can you do? Although you have spent a month''s effort, you have taken the wrong path, so of course, you must start over!" Green Spirit was also helpless. "But since we know the usefulness of the Heavenly Magic Eye, I do have a suggestion!"


    "Suggestion? What suggestion?!"


    "The Heavenly Magic Eye is a congenital gift of the Innate Deity, but even though it is a natural gift, it is not present from birth. It is developed based on gradual realization. You did learn something in the Golden Thorn Realm: Although this celestial vision is not realized in one or two days, but don''t forget, your Heavenly Magic Eye is not real, just the necromancers'' pirated copy. I even suspect that your Heavenly Magic Eye is only a half-formed product that can only exert some of the most basic functions. Therefore, just focus. With the right focus, it should not be difficult to find the core!"


    "That''s easy for you to say!"


    "I would rather you focus your energy on the essence of heaven and earth. Although I don''t have the Heavenly Magic Eyes, I''ve heard that this heavenly vision is the most sensitive to the induction of the essence of the world. If you do that, maybe you''ll be rewarded!"


    "The essence of the world?!"


    Zhou Bao nodded thoughtfully and stopped talking. The glamorous redness in his eyes flashed out again. This time, though, it did not burst into a flash of red light.


    After listening to Green Spirit''s words, Zhou Bao gradually gathered the strength of the Fiery Eyes into one place. Then, he looked toward the Essential Qi Tide.


    The Essential Qi Tide stirred just like the way that mud at the bottom of an originally calm pool usually would. All kinds of inexplicable pneuma were stirred up. Under the keen sight of the Fiery Eyes, he clearly saw that the Spiritual Qi and Evi Qi were also alright, suffocating it, slamming in one place, as if thousands of tiny lines were wrapped around one another. It was also like maltose sugar with its multiple layers. After stirring up one layer after another, he had some headaches, but gradually, he began to see a clue. (To be continued, please visit www.qidian.com for other chapters, to support authors and genuine copies!)

 Chapter 369: The Capture and Unexpected Gains

    Chapter 369: The Capture and Unexpected Gains


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The clouds of pneuma and spiritual qi in his eyes, irregular and messy, became more and more clear. Although they were still mixed up, he could distinguish what was the Yang pneuma, what was the Yin pneuma and what effect the two kinds of spiritual qi had. He could also tell which was destructive spiritual qi. All of this information was slowly transferred to his spirit through his eyes.


    At a certain moment, he felt that he was one of these clouds of pneuma and that he was born of it. Of course, he understood that this was merely an illusion.


    Whether it was an illusion, or he was drunk, when the feeling appeared, he felt his eyes burning and then the whole world became vivid. Zhou Bao changed his posture from sitting into standing in this messy world, yet the cyan light of the Air-frozen Bead on his head faded away.


    Green Spirit made a strange sound and hurried to move toward Zhou Bao. However, Zhou Bao was apparently in a completely ethereal stage, and ignored Green Spirit.


    "You want to hurt me, don''t you kid?" Green Spirit yelled queerly holding up his pink Gang Qi. At almost the same time, millions of turbulent energies whipped his body, hitting his pink Gang Qi so hard that it started to tremble. "You are doing it on purpose! You must ... "


    Green Spirit screamed twice more and then stopped. An odd smile appeared on his face.


    The cyan light of the Air-frozen Bead was completely wiped out. The roaring tides didn''t hit Zhou Bao but rather slipped past him softly.


    Zhou Bao, at that moment, seemed like a Sea-calming Magic Needle, suddenly lost in the boundless ocean. He stood firmly in place. Even the raging pneuma and storms capable of shredding everything in their path meant nothing to him. His eyes were sparkling a dazzling red, but the thorn around his pupils did not appear.


    His body twisted slightly, and his hands stretched out, as if he was looking for something. Then he moved and began to walk, searching, just like a blind man, limping forward.


    Zhou Bao was caught in an unusually ethereal state. His eyes had sharply caught the slim Divine Design, that string, within the numerous essence of the world and storms of power.


    Yes, he saw it, but it was hard to locate.


    Subconsciously, he began to grope. Although he seemed to touch the string as he reached out his hand, it was not close enough. He needed to find the Origin of the string. It wasn''t his original intention, but his eyes repeatedly imparted the importance of the string''s Origin.


    He began to fumble with it.


    It was not difficult to find the Origin. However, after a few steps, he felt that he had touched something. Pausing, he gently groped forward. His palm seemed to slice the hollow open, or it sank to the hollow. When his hand could be seen again, there was a cloud of gray airflow on it.


    Green Spirit''s eyes grew larger and larger. He couldn''t believe what he had just witnessed. He gaped in amazement at the swirl of air in Zhou Bao''s hand. "Origin of the Great Ways! The Origin of the Great Ways! Oh my god! This guy could capture the Origin of the Great Ways successfully!"


    All of a sudden, he seemed to remember something and turned cold. "Your eyes! Hurry up! Use your eyes to control it!"


    In fact, there was no need for Green Spirit to warn him. When Zhou Bao took hold of the gray energy, there were unusual movements in his eyes and he suddenly emitted a bright red light. Nine of his divine thoughts darted out one by one from the space between his eyebrows, dropping into the cloud of gray Qi. Most of the divine thoughts didn''t have any effect on the energy, but when the purple divine thought, transparent as an amethyst, immerged into it, it finally started to change.


    Threads of purple lightning started to crack into the airflow. Soon, the cracking sound changed into the faint clapping of thunder.


    The sound of thunder, though small, carried dreadful and majestic dignity.


    BOOM!


    A crash of thunder sounded in Green Spirit''s ears. He couldn''t help being startled. He looked up and was momentarily stupefied. The sky which had previously been a mess, now had spots of dark clouds. The clouds linked together, one after another extending thousands of kilometers.


    RUMBLE, RUMBLE!


    Thunder rang out constantly. Several spouts of Heavenly Thunder struck from the sky, one of which was nearly 3 meters long, hitting Green Spirit in the head.


    "The Divine Tribulation? The Thunder of Tribulation? No way! The world hasn''t completed its evolution. How can the Thunder of Tribulation and thunderbolt be appearing now?"


    No, there shouldn''t have been a thunderbolt!


    The Azure Secret Area had evolved from the Azure Heaven which was one of the 33 Heavens similar to Taiyuan Heaven. Although it was endowed with abundant pneuma and was suitable for practicing, it wasn''t a completed world. There shouldn''t have been any thunderbolts here. It was in transition to an intact world, but it would take millions of years for it to evolve the thunderbolt. This was the reason Green Spirit dared to stay here.


    Yet man''s fate was as uncertain as the weather.


    Why had the thunderbolt suddenly emerged in the Azure Heaven where it had always been so tranquil and peaceful?


    He had been practicing in the Azure Secret Area for several days, and his cultivation had already reached the peak of the Individual Immortal level. As long as he wanted to step into the contemporary world, he must go through the Thunder Tribulation. Although he was certain he could endure it, he wanted to stay here for another couple days, so he could pass several Thunder Tribulations in one go and jump straight into the Venerable Realm. Thus he would be able to earn more distinction when he returned to the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. God only knew why he would be struck by the thunderbolt at this point.


    "Did he do that?" Green Spirit turned his line of vision to Zhou Bao, puzzled. Thinking of the nine divine thoughts that had shot from Zhou Bao''s eyebrows, he recalled that one of the divine thoughts had been just like an amethyst, different from the others. An absurd idea came into his mind. "Could it be that the divine thought was the one practiced by Purplecloud Thunder and this was what caused such an effect? No way. How could this happen?"


    Absurd thoughts flashed through his mind. No matter what the reason was, the Thunder Tribulation was approaching. Moreover, he was in the Azure Secret Area. In the face of the Thunder Tribulation and Essential Qi Tide happening simultaneously, even he, an Old Demon with a new, much-steeled body, dared not to lower his guard. He groaned and activated the Sky-measuring Star Ruler. It unleashed a silvery light into the sky and shot directly at the Heavenly Thunder.


    At this moment, the entire Azure Secret Area was in chaos.


    There were countless powerful evil beasts and various magical creatures here in the Azure Secret Area, some of which were weak and some of which were extremely powerful. Among these powerful creatures there were some particularly strong ones that had been living in the Azure Spirit Sea for thousands of years. After accumulating great strength, they might have reached or even surpassed the peak of Individual Immortal Level. And because there had been no thunderbolts in the Azure Secret Area, none of them had passed through the Thunder Tribulation and became Individual Immortals. But now the thunderbolt had occurred, and millions of powerful living creatures were summoning the thunderbolt in the sky with their tenacious power.


    The Thunder Tribulation was coming!


    Everyone would undergo the Thunder Tribulation together.


    This was absolute chaos.


    Although these living creatures were extremely powerful and intelligent, most of them had been raised where they were born, so they had never seen a thunderbolt or anything like it. They had come here to escape from the Essential Qi Tide, when suddenly a bright light had flashed in the sky and struck down, injuring them badly. Even the strong beasts sleeping in the depths the Azure Spirit Sea were no exception. They all growled in fear. Aside from the evil beasts who had been living in the Azure Heaven since antiquity times and had intelligence, or those who had the bloodline to inherit and handle it, the rest of the evil beasts could do nothing but stagger on crying and roaring.


    "Wait, this doesn''t feel right. Why is the power of the Thunder Tribulation so weak? It''s much weaker than I expected!" When the Sky-measuring Star Ruler materialized, it had immediately blocked the powerful thunderbolt. Green Spirit looked up to the sky and saw the dark clouds begin to disperse. Perplexed in his contemplation, he felt a sudden stream of Divine Spirit Qi rush down from the Sky-measuring Star Ruler and sink into his body. He couldn''t neglect this. He activated his Real Essence to infuse with the Divine Spirit Qi. Mixing the Real Essence with Divine Spirit Qi could produce Dharma power. Green Spirit was too busy to see what Zhou Bao was doing.


    Actually, Zhou Bao was unable to cause any trouble. In his ethereal state, he felt like a god who controlled everything. The entire Azure Heaven was under his control and shadow. He could do whatever he wanted. Especially when the thunderbolt struck, he felt as if several small Original Spirits were flowing to the gray Qi in his hand and then sinking into it. He knew the exact number of these Original Spirits. It was 278,913.


    "They are from all the creatures who have undergone the Thunder Tribulation and are listed as Immortals. Oh, the Original Spirit of Green Spirit is here too, haha!"


    This was an unexpected harvest. Even Green Spirit hadn''t anticipated that he had just escaped from danger and then walked right into another trap.


    Green Spirit had taken the body of the Child-endowing Buddha, who was an Immortal in the outside world and had entrusted a bit of his Original Spirit in the Golden Book of Fate. If he could undergo the Thunder Tribulation in the outside world, he could be free from the restrictions of the Golden Book of Fate.


    However, he had been incredibly unlucky to undergo his Thunder Tribulation in the Azure Secret Area. Truly. He had passed through his Thunder Tribulation, but his Original Spirit was restrained by the Principle of Great Ways of the Azure Secret Area and had undoubtedly been handed over to the Origin of the Great Ways in Zhou Bao''s hand.


    How could Green Spirit have anticipated such an accident? By the time he reacted to all this, it was too late for him.


    "The Azure Secret Area is amazing! So many strong living creatures must have passed the Thunder Tribulation in such a short period of time. Once these 270 thousand True Immortality Level creatures are released, the entire world will kneel on its feet!" Zhou Bao was shocked. "What a pity that the Origin of the Great Ways is not complete. I can''t rely on it to control these powerful living creatures. Otherwise I would not be afraid of anything!" he said to himself.


    Eight divine thoughts flew out of the gray Qi, including the purple one, leaving only one divine thought. They melted together.


    "You are doing this deliberately. It must be intentional, kid!"


    Zhou Bao opened his eyes slowly and pulled himself back from the ethereal state, only to hear the angry shouting of Green Spirit.

 Chapter 370: Core of the World, Primeval Beast, Origin of the Great Ways

    Chapter 370: Core of the World, Primeval Beast, Origin of the Great Ways


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Green Spirit was burning with a frenzy of rage.


    He did have reasons for getting so exasperated.


    Having been detained for hundreds of thousands of years in the underground palace of Small Thunder Temple, he finally managed to get out of there. However, he had to take abode in the green lamp, and be restrained by Zhou Bao. Although Zhou Bao was good-tempered and nice to him, he disliked the feeling of being constrained by others. After all, as a member of Demon tribe, he advocated freedom. He finally found a chance to escape, and fortunately got a strong body with low cultivation but a good foundation. The most important thing was that this body itself was also listed as a fairy. What he valued most was that he would not be subject to Golden Book of Fate no matter how powerful its strength was.


    But in the end, he came to Azure Secret Area and unexpectedly survived the Thunder Tribulation. Then Zhou Bao figured out the essence of the Taoism. Finally, he once again fell into Zhou Bao''s hands.


    Now, the most important thing was that his Original Spirit was under the control of Origin of the Great Ways. It was impossible for him to escape from the grey air masses in Zhou Bao''s hands.


    Therefore, after jiggling the fats on his body, he jumped to his feet and pointed angrily at Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao was very innocent, indeed!


    "In fact, I really didn''t do it on purpose. Don''t forget that you let me do this!" He said evasively with an innocent and apologetic look at Green Spirit.


    "It was my idea. But I didn''t let you hit me with thunder!" Green Spirit shouted. "The incomplete Azure Secret Area should be devoid of Thunder Tribulation, but why was there thunder today? Why are there so many guys undergoing Thunder Tribulation?"


    Green Spirit was so depressed, so much so that he felt like he was about to cry. Why is this happening? How could he do this!


    Zhou Bao''s facial expressions seemed to be very helpless, as if he could feel the mood of Green Spirit.


    "Well, Green Spirit, I didn''t mean to do so, but now that it has happened, I have no idea either!"


    This was true. He indeed had no idea.


    The air mass in his hand was Origin of the Great Ways, the predecessor of Golden Book of Fate. It was indeed a good thing, but it had not evolved completely and Zhou Bao only incorporated one of his own divine thoughts into Origin of the Great Ways. It could be said that he got complete control of Origin of the Great Ways, but it did not mean he could manipulate it as he wished.


    In fact, he could not manipulate it at all.


    Just like in his previous life, if you became rich because you suddenly won a hundred million dollars with your good luck, would you be able to spend all the money in one day?


    Of course, you could spend all the money by donating it, but you would need to do some paperwork. What''s more, Zhou Bao now had no intention of donating.


    He just got hold of it, but he had no idea how to use it.


    Forget about using the power of Origin of the Great Ways to curb the 270,000 Original Spirit. Zhou Bao could not even deal with Green Spirit''s Original Spirit. The only thing he could do was to kill Green Spirit by destroying his Original Spirit. Or, he could destroy the 270,000 Original Spirit, but he was not mentally ill and would not do so for no reason.


    He has been jumping on his feet and yelling for an hour. Green Spirit only stopped when Zhou Bao''s Gang Qi had was almost crushed completely by Essential Qi Tide.


    With a slight smile, Zhou Bao once again activated Air-frozen Bead and caged Green Spirit in it.


    "Green Spirit, I have no choice. Maybe it is destined. Hehe, you can be rest assured that even if your Original Spirit is placed in me, I will not move it, nor will I use it to restrain you. Anyway, we are not just nodding acquaintances, you know my character, don''t you?"


    Green Spirit looked angrily at innocent Zhou Bao. Although he could not wait to break his teeth with a punch, he also knew that nothing could be done.


    "Forget it! Maybe it''s just like what you have said, this is destiny!"


    With a decadent expression, he sighed deeply. "I''m destined to be held by you all my life. Otherwise, why was it you who let me out? Give me that green lamp. Anyway, you don''t need it now and I''m lacking a celestial device!"


    Stretching out his hands, Green Spirit did not mention his own Original Spirit any more.


    Hearing his pitiful words, Zhou Bao just smiled and released the green lamp from the space between the two boundaries. At the sight of the green light flying into the place between Green Spirit''s eyebrows, Zhou Bao said with a slight smile, "You see, I have already got Origin of the Great Ways. What should I do next?"


    "What should you do? You have already placed your divine thoughts in them and sent it back. From now on, you are the Celestial Emperor of Azure Secret Area. Once you grow powerful, all the creatures listed in the Immortal Rank in Azure Secret Area will belong to you. You don''t have to worry about anything!"


    "It''s not true!" Zhou Bao laughed bitterly. Who knew whether he would grow powerful in the future? Previously, he still had some doubts about Golden Book of Fate. He did not understand why Divine Wind Palace shared with others such a treasure. Why was Divine Wind Palace unable to dominate the world although it had such an advantage?


    Now he came to realize that without sufficient strength, you could not manipulate it at all. Additionally, it was an Origin of the Great Ways that had yet to evolve completely. Like the Golden Book of Fate in the present life, it was a representative of the perfect world''s Great Ways and the source of good fortune. How could it be controlled so easily?


    Just like now, although he had merged one of his divine thoughts and Origin of the Great Ways into one, he had to put back Origin of the Great Ways obediently!


    Currently, he had no intention of thinking too much about it, and he gently loosened his grip to let Origin of the Great Ways dissipate in the air.


    "Next is to seek out the projection of Golden Book of Fate!" Green Spirit''s tone was very harsh, but his words were sensible. "You must be clear that the most fundamental cores of a world are Core of the World, Primeval Beast and Origin of the Great Ways, one of which must be controlled if you want to control a world completely. Of the three things, the easiest one to control is Origin of the Great Ways. It is extremely broad like the outside world. However, Origin of the Great Ways was still turned into Golden Book of Fate and fell into the hands of world''s living creatures!"


    "How about Core of the World and Primeval Beast?" Zhou Bao asked curiously.


    Green Spirit, however, burst into laughter. "Core of the World and Primeval Beast can''t be controlled by an ordinary person and no one knows what they look like. From primitive times to now, the key to everyone''s struggle was nothing more than Golden Book of Fate. Even Innate Deity, Primordial Demon and mighty people born in Primordial Origin were unlikely to think about grabbing Core of the World and Primeval Beast, not to mention those in this deteriorating world."


    "If you don''t talk about the outside world, how about Core of the World and Primeval Beast in Azure Secret Area?" Zhou Bao said with a slight squint of his eyes, "Divine Wind Palace is coveting Primeval Beast in Taiyuan Heaven!"


    "That is because Taiyuan Heaven is a fragmented space that can''t evolve Origin of the Great Ways. Therefore, it can only be called a space, or a micro world, instead of a real world. As the Primeval Beast is also in a weak state, so only they have the chance and the idea to control the Primeval Beast in Taiyuan Heaven with the projection power of Golden Book of Fate. The great emperors in antiquity times also controlled 33 Heavens using this method. Each space has its own Spatial Core and Primeval Beast. As long as you control one of them, you can basically occupy the space. As each space is different, the power of every Primeval Beast is also different. In the space you sensed last time, there is a Primeval Beast whose power is not too strong and can be defeated easily. Therefore, if you want to capture a space, you can start with Primeval Beast and Spatial Core. Right now, Azure Secret Area is evolving from space and a micro world into a real world, and it already has its own Origin of the Great Ways. Therefore, if Divine Wind Palace wants to control the Azure Heaven, the first thing that comes to its mind will be Origin of the Great Ways instead of Primeval Beast. However, it is equally difficult to get insights of Origin of the Great Ways. They don''t have Fiery Eyes. Instead of being understood or snatched, the Golden Book of Fate in the outside world was passed down by mighty persons in antiquity times. Without those people or the power of Innate Deity and Primordial Demon, the only option was to use the spirit of Golden Book of Fate in the outside world to attract Origin of the Great Ways."


    "Have you ever thought about them bringing the Golden Book of Fate directly?"


    "Unless they are crazy!" Green Spirit shook his head after hearing what he said. "Golden Book of Fate is the outside world''s Origin of the Great Ways. Once the body enters Azure Secret Area, it will inevitably be backfired by the entire world''s power. There are two results. Firstly, two Origin of the Great Ways will be annihilated at the same time with all Original Spirit disappearing. Secondly, the two worlds will be integrated into one, including Primeval Beast and Core of the World. Don''t think that it is just an ordinary fusion. Both worlds will witness dramatic changes and 99% of the living creatures will die eventually."


    "Doesn''t the projection of Golden Book of Fate come in with this problem," asked Zhou Baoqi curiously. "After all, it''s also an integration from Golden Book of Fate!"


    "No, the projection is different. It only has part of the functions of Golden Book of Fate. It is made by people. As long as the body of Golden Book of Fate does not appear, there will be no devastating consequences. You even have the opportunity to use the projection of this Golden Book of Fate to evolve a new one in Azure Secret Area, so that you can use some of the power of Origin of the Great Ways." At this point, he hesitated and cast a glance at Zhou Bao. "Well, you know, it''s a pity that you are a bit too young and weak. If you have Cultivation of True Immortality now, I actually have a way to help you control the whole Azure Secret Area!"


    "It''s impossible for everything to be in accord with my wishes!" Zhou Bao smiled. He knew that he had got too many benefits and seemed to be greedy if he wanted more.


    "I''m still worried. What if they come in and go straight to Primeval Beast!"


    "It''s impossible. If they are looking for Primeval Beast, they have to use the power of Golden Book of Fate''s projection, which will react with Origin of the Great Ways as soon as it enters into the realm of Azure Secret Area. You will then have the opportunity to seize the projection of Golden Book of Fate. Even if they want to find the Primeval Beast, there will be no chance!"

 Chapter 371: That Damned Whale

    Chapter 371: That Damned Whale


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "That''s to say, it''s pretty easy for me to control the Golden Book of Fate?"


    "Yes, but you still have to be careful!" Green Spirit said, "After all, you stirred up some big trouble this time. More than 270,000 living creatures in the Azure Secret Area passed Thunder Tribulation at one go. When the Essential Qi Tide is over, those who enter the secret area are bound to be aware of it. By then if you''ve got the projection of the Golden Book of Fate in your hands, regardless of whether other people tell or not, those in the Immortal Palace who know you''ve been to Azure Secret Area can naturally guess it''s you!"


    "You''re right! There are not so many fools in the world, all are quick-witted. Those who knew I have entered the Azure Secret Area, and can come and go freely in the Essential Qi Tide, can also guess that I did it!" Zhou Bao said to himself. It was obvious that even fools could guess. In his previous life, police cases were based on evidence, but in this world, evidence was a joke.


    There was no need for evidence for such a great event that could determine the direction of the whole world. One guess was enough to kill a man.


    Zhou Bao did not want to take the risk.


    "Do you have any good ideas?"


    "Don''t let them out!" After thinking for a moment, Green Spirit answered with a helpless smile. "You can only ask them not to come out now. But whether they listen to you is another matter!"


    "I have just mastered the Origin of the Great Ways, and the evil beasts and living creatures are so powerful that I may not be able to suppress them!" After pondering, Zhou Bao said, "These creatures have all passed Divine Tribulations and become Genuine Immortals and listed as immortals. But I can tell their strength from their Original Spirits in the Origin of the Great Ways. If it wasn''t for the fact that the Thunder Tribulation here was just generated, the strongest living creatures might have gone through nine Thunder Tribulations at one go and have got the Karmic Rank of Human Immortal. If I can convince them, this thing should be easy!"


    "Good idea, but it''s not easy to do it!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Green Spirit immediately forced a smile. "You know, you might have mastered the Origin of the Great Ways and their Original Spirits, but the Origin of the Great Ways isn''t complete yet. The Thunder Tribulation occurred so suddenly too. You may have the power to clamp down on the weaker monsters, but you may not be able to deal with the strongest!"


    At this point, he chuckled. "It is said that the Golden Book of Fate is able to clamp down on all living creatures in the world and to make them immortals. However, from ancient times to the present, no one was willing to put their lives in the hands of others, even the Origin of the Great Ways. It has been so many years now, and those necromancers have been working on it and came up with a lot of effective ways to get rid of the Golden Book of Fate. The most important one is the Outer-body Incarnation Skill. My true body was once the Body of True Immortality, but after getting out of the three realms, a bit of my Original Spirit was sealed in the Golden Book of Fate. How could I reconcile myself to that? This was why I made an Outer-body Incarnation to place my Second Primordial Spirit and hope to get rid of the control of the Golden Book of Fate. Unexpectedly, I was sealed in the Small Thunder Temple for hundreds of thousands of years. But also thanks to it, my Original Spirit and the green lamp became one. Then the Original Spirit destroyed my relationship with my true body, and I no longer had to be controlled by the Golden Book of Fate. I thought I would be free from then on, but I can''t believe that I failed in the end because of you. It seems I still have to figure out a way to make an incarnation again!"


    He talked about his incarnation again, which Zhou Bao can''t help but give a bitter smile. "Do you mean that some of these living creatures were able to get away with incarnations just like you?"


    "I''m not sure about the rest, but the strongest ones are for sure. Heehee, if I''m right, among these Original Spirits, there must be a whale in the Azure Spirit Sea, right?"


    Zhou Bao closed his eyes slightly and opened it a few seconds later. "Yes, there is a whale!" He glanced at Green Spirit with surprise. "You know him?"


    "Of course I know him!" Green Spirit replied, "In the past, the Azure Heaven was under the control of our Demonic Emperor, Azure Heavens. The real powerful living creatures were his subordinates. I know several others besides the asshole whale. But after all these years, you caused this scene suddenly, they''ll definitely not be in a good mood. It''s hard for you to ask them for help!"


    "You should have a way?"


    "Yes, the whale is the key to this matter. But the whale is greedy and unpredictable, and always acts on mood. He was only obedient to the Emperor of the Azure Heaven in those years. It''s really hard to convince him!"


    "No matter what, I have to try! It''s great that you are acquaintances!" Zhou Bao thought for a while and said, "This is a very serious matter. At worst, I''ll try to get his Original Spirit back from the Origin of the Great Ways and ask him to help me. He should be willing to!"


    "Hehe, I told you, your incomplete Origin of the Great Ways can''t control that asshole. With such an odd temper, he is really difficult to get along with!" Green Spirit said with a faint voice, "Or you can release my Original Spirit, then I''ll put in a good word for you!"


    "Good, but I can''t control the Origin of the Great Ways now, so the promise is just a lip-service. However, provided you help me with this, I will definitely put your Original Spirit out when the time comes. What do you think of it?"


    "That''s good!" Green Spirit nodded with satisfaction. It could be said that he knew Zhou Bao well. From what he knew, Zhou Bao was someone who would not make empty promises and could accept whatever that happens to him. For example, even though Zhou Bao knew that Green Spirit will not be controlled by him anymore once he has a new body, he still found him a perfect one without hesitation. Whatever happened this time around was an accident. As long as he was powerful enough, he would once again help him out of the bondage of the Golden Book of Fate.


    Their relationship was not intimate yet but there was solid trust between them. Thus, Green Spirit agreed when he heard Zhou Bao''s promise.


    "After all, that whale and I are old acquaintances, and I know that son of a bitch, so I should be able to make it!"


    Having figured it out, Green Spirit became easygoing. The accident brought him and Zhou Bao together again. From then on, they shared a common destiny.


    Judging from Green Spirit''s tone, he seemed to be able to settle the matter. Zhou Bao smiled reassuringly. "Then we shouldn''t wait any further. Let''s go and meet your old friend!"


    "One more thing!" Green Spirit did not move but stared at Zhou Bao. "What happened to your purple divine thought? And why the sudden evolution of thunderbolt in this world?"


    "I have no idea either!" Zhou Bao answered with a helpless shrug. The purple divine thought flew out between his eyebrows and floated in front of Green Spirit. "What I practiced was the Carefree Skill. It was unintentionally touched by a strange purple thunderbolt. I''m young and inexperienced, so I really don''t know what it was. I never thought that it would lead to this event in the Azure Secret Area."


    "A purple thunderbolt?" As he listened to Zhou Bao''s detailed description of the scene, Green Spirit''s face became dull. Then he looked at the amethystine divine thought again. The divine thought moved and approached Green Spirit, as if it had sensed his interest.


    "Oh my god!" Green Spirit screamed, and drew back in a row, nearly exiting the green light of the Air-frozen Bead. "Put it away! I don''t have the fortune to enjoy it. Also, when we get to the old whale later, don''t let it out. It''s a deadly thing. If he asks why there was a sudden Thunder Tribulation in the Azure Secret Area, just say that you don''t know, it was just you seeing things."


    "You know its origin?" Seeing Green Spirit''s reaction, Zhou Bao naturally understood his mind, so he asked hurriedly.


    "I just know it''s an awful thing!" Green Spirit smiled bitterly. "It is a thing that a lot of people want. The real Purplecloud Thunder!"


    Purplecloud Thunder?


    Zhou Bao was a little stunned. It was a very imposing name, but Green Spirit''s expression and manner made him afraid to go on. Anyway, he already knew the name, so it would not be difficult to know its origin in the future.


    Now was the time when the Essential Qi Tide surged most violently, especially in the Azure Spirit Sea. The waves already rolled up over 10,000 feet, and the fierce pneuma could easily tear all existence with cultivation below the Realm of True Immortality. Even a Genuine Immortal was unable to last long in this crazy Essential Qi Tide storm. However, with Air-frozen Bead, along with Zhou Bao''s mastering of the Origin of the Great Ways of the world, they were quite adept.


    Within a short time, they flew hundreds of thousands of kilometers over the Azure Spirit Sea. Zhou Bao followed Green Spirit, and looked at him as he flew and searched for something.


    "Found him! This bastard, after all these years, is still stubborn and foolish!" He said exaltedly while stopping at a sea surface of the Azure Spirit Sea.


    "Indeed!" Standing on the sea surface, Zhou Bao looked at the sea surface not far away. His face could not help but twitch. No wonder Green Spirit said so certainly that he could easily find him in the Azure Spirit Sea. He was right. On the surface of the sea, nearing two kilometers away, there was a visible island. And the look of the island made him really speechless, extremely speechless.


    "What, is it?" He turned to Green Spirit and asked.


    "It''s what you think it is!" Green Spirit also smiled bitterly.


    "Are you kidding?"


    "Yes, boy, that''s what the whale likes to do!" Green Spirit pattered Zhou Bao and said in a helpless tone, "Well, now that we''ve found his nest, stop admiring it and let''s go down!" He pulled Zhou Bao down to the sea as he spoke.

 Chapter 372: Hua-er and the Whale

    Chapter 372: Hua-er and the Whale


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    At the sight of the odd, symbolic island in the Azure Spirit Sea, Zhou Bao felt it would not be easy to find the damned whale that Green Spirit talked about.


    "Isn''t there a big island there? Why does your friend live at the bottom of the sea?"


    The Essential Qi Tide in the Azure Spirit Sea was more frantic than the sea surface, and it was not what Zhou Bao had imagined at all - at a certain depth, it would become calm.


    "He is a bastard, not a psychopath. Who with a normal mind, will live on an island like that?" Green Spirit answered grumpily.


    "That''s true!" As he thought of how strange the island was, the corners of Zhou Bao''s eyes twitched. If he had been asked to live in such a place, he definitely would not like it either.


    "If he doesn''t live there, why did he cause such a scene?"


    "God knows. He already did it when I first knew him!" Green Spirit shrugged his shoulders with a helpless look. "You know what, he also spends a lot of time thinking about how to improve the shape of that thing and make it perfect. Can you imagine that?"


    "He''s a real weirdo. Then how did you become friends with him?"


    "Don''t get me wrong, we''re not friends. I only did some business with him previously. After such a long time, I wonder if he still remembers me."


    "You''ll know when you meet. You''re a bane that can live for thousands of years, so he should remember you!" Zhou Bao said, "Maybe you can get some secrets from him regarding the antiquity times after you were sealed. For example, where did those Emperors go? And why did the Azure Heaven become the Azure Secret Area, and so on. What do you think?"


    "Don''t think that it''ll be easy, just wait till we see him!"


    Before he finished speaking, the surrounding surging seawater raged even further. It formed a huge water ball around the green light emitted from the Air-frozen Bead, firmly covering the Air-frozen Bead.


    Then, a blast of suction appeared, taking the water ball towards the depths of the sea.


    Zhou Bao''s expression changed instantly, but just as he was going to take action, Green Spirit stopped him. "Don''t move. In such circumstance, only those guys can do this!"


    Zhou Bao took a glance at him, stopped and let the suction pull him and Green Spirit straight down.


    The Azure Spirit Sea was bottomless, and the Essential Qi Tide was breaking out now, so it looked like the end of the world. The further down they go, the more furious the Essential Qi shockwave. Even Zhou Bao felt extremely frightened.


    After an unknown amount of time passed, the suction abruptly stopped and the surrounding became calm unexpectedly. Zhou Bao was stunned and looked around strangely.


    In the pitch black sea-bottom, there were countless creatures emitting strange lights floating around. The surrounding seemed quiet and peaceful, with no trace of Essential Qi Tide. Looking up, Zhou Bao found that the Essential Qi Tide was still raging about 100 feet above his head. They were only 100 feet apart, but it felt like two different worlds.


    These peculiar creatures on the sea floor were stunning and had great strength. They were even more powerful than a Level Nine expert. However, they seemed to have no spiritual intelligence. Moreover, their strength was powerful enough in the temporal world, but in such a strange world, they were not that powerful, so they were very quiet.


    With his abnormal eyes and the shimmer of the bottom of the sea, Zhou Bao finally saw the panorama of the sea floor.


    This was an undersea mountain range. It seemed to have been made entirely of a special kind of Spiritual Stone which was full of strange energy. One small grain of sand from the mountain would be invaluable in the temporal world. Zhou Bao only took one glance, and then all his attention was attracted to a large, dark cave in the mountains.


    The large cave was so deep and so wide that no one knew where it led to. But Zhou Bao knew that the power that brought him here came from the cave. And while looking at the cave, Green Spirit was clearly shocked and stared at the hole for a long time without a word.


    "How many years have passed? I don''t know! But nothing has changed here!" He muttered to himself in a subtle manner. Then he took a deep breath and exhaled as if to calm his agitation. Suddenly, his fat body was shaking.


    "Damned whale, your old friend is here! Is it funny to hide in the cave? Come out!"


    "Eh?" There was a cry of surprise from the cave. Though it was only a gentle sound, the powerful shock it produced still thundered and mingled in Zhou Bao''s ears.


    "Old friend? Funny, after so many years, I would have an old friend come to visit. Hum, it''s true. I do feel a touch of familiarity from your spirit, but who are you?"


    "That''s really funny! When did you become so cautious?" Green Spirit''s expression gave a slight change. "Think about it. Who brought you so many living animals? Who interceded with the Great Emperor to forgive your stupid mistakes? And who fought with you till death?"


    The cave was silent. After a long time, a long sigh came from the cave, "You''re not dead? Hua-er?"


    "Puff..." Hearing the name, Zhou Bao lost his breath and turned to Green Spirit with a very eccentric look.


    Green Spirit remained the same expression, just nodded gently. "Yes, it''s me! After so many years, time brings great changes to the world. It''s very kind of you to remember me!"


    "I didn''t expect you to get the Origin of the Great Ways of the Azure Secret Area eventually!" There was a feeling of helplessness in his loud voice. Subsequently, Zhou Bao felt a wave of space fluctuation around him, and along with the Air-frozen Bead, he and Green Spirit were moved to another strange space by a powerful force.


    It was a quiet empty space with not a single drop of water.


    "This is so troublesome! I''ve just transformed. And before I have time to do anything, you''ve come!" The voice was still majestic, loud and deafening. Even Zhou Bao had to drive his Real Essence to protect himself, or he would be badly hurt by the sound alone.


    "Your void reconfiguration is much better than before. But there''s one thing you got wrong. The Origin of the Great Ways isn''t in my hands, but in his!" Green Spirit shrugged and pointed at Zhou Bao.


    As soon as Green Spirit finished speaking, Zhou Bao felt an invisible big hand break through his Air-frozen Bead and grab him forcedly.


    Zhou Bao was startled and tried to shake off the invisible big hand with all his strength, but the hand was like a metal spade and did not bulge at all.


    "This boy is not powerful enough. It can''t be him!"


    "Damn you!" Now Zhou Bao was thoroughly enraged. With a flash between his eyebrows, a stray of black and red Sword Qi shot out, hitting hard on the invisible force that bounded him.


    Rustle!


    "Oh, you do have some moves!" The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi hit the invisible force. The force paused for a while and immediately loosened. "But only with these capabilities, there''s no way you could get the Origin of the Great Ways. By the way, Hua-er, where did you get this clumsy, ugly body? It seems that your taste is as bad as ever!"


    "All right, cut the crap. Have you finished the transformation? If finished, show up! Do you think I would like to come to your damp, smelly nest?"


    "That would be best. You are not welcomed here!"


    A crystal blue light streaked across, and the space was lighted up as bright as the day. However, the surrounding was still empty without any decoration.


    Zhou Bao really could not understand how it was the residence of such a powerful living creature.


    After the blue light flashed pass, a huge figure appeared before them. He was nearly 20 feet tall, fat, and dressed in a blue gown. He looked very strong, but gave people a weird feeling. His fat and bulky appearance was worse than that of Green Spirit.


    His whole body was full of a very powerful spirit that even Zhou Bao was frightened of.


    When the man appeared, he did not look at Zhou Bao, but stared at Green Spirit for a moment instead. He then laughed, "Hua-er, you''re getting weaker now, and I can blow your penis off with one hand!"


    "You can try!" Green Spirit stretched his fat head forward, and also brought out the Air-frozen Bead. He then turned around to Zhou Bao, "Put the Air-frozen Bead away. It doesn''t work here!"


    Forcing a smile, Zhou Bao withdrew the Air-frozen Bead. His body was suspended mid-air. He watched as the two old friends, who seemed to have not seen each other for hundreds of thousands of years, almost break out into a fight.


    "Well, old buck, I don''t want to fight with you the moment we meet. Come on, what are you doing here? No matter who in the two of you have mastered the Origin of the Great Ways, you should not come here to fight with me!" They looked at each other for a moment, and the man shrugged. "Especially you, Hua-er, you never go to the temple for nothing. Although we haven''t met for a long time, I don''t think you can change this bad habit."


    "Yeah, I can''t change this bad habit. This time I''m looking for you to do a favor, or a deal!"


    "Tell me!"


    Green Spirit did not hide, and soon told him all that should be told.


    "How about that? As long as you let those who have passed the Thunder Tribulation stay put and not come out to mess up and cause suspicion, he will definitely try to move your Original Spirit out of the Origin of the Great Ways when he is powerful enough!"


    "Over 270,000? You meant there are over 270,000 living creatures in the Azure Heaven that have passed the Thunder Tribulation and achieved the Body of True Immortality?!"


    "Yes, is anything wrong?"


    "No, it''s just that it''s a large population, and I can''t manage it myself!" The strong man shook his head. "Besides, I''ve just transformed, and my power is unstable. I may not be able to help. As for my Original Spirit, don''t bother, just leave it with you. See you later!"


    Having finished speaking, he did not give Zhou Bao and Green Spirit the chance to speak again but moved them directly over to the Azure Spirit Sea along with a wave of space fluctuation.

 Chapter 373: The Coal Dragon-smelting Furnace

    Chapter 373: The Coal Dragon-smelting Furnace


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Hua-er, how can your friend treat us so indifferently?" After being sent out, Zhou Bao complained to Green Spirit about his friend''s behavior.


    "Listen, don''t call me Hua-er!" Green Spirit looked up and glared at Zhou Bao. "Now you know the reason why I call him a freak. If he isn''t interested in it, no matter how you lure him, he won''t be tempted."


    "Does his strength enable him to ignore his Original Spirit?"


    "Even if you killed his Original Spirit now, he''d at least suffer a minor injury. Boy, you should know that he''s a huge demon from antiquity times and has plenty of ways to harm you. However, you''re just a brat who has good luck. He''s lived for so many years and has surely seen many people who were luckier than you!"


    "Are you saying that we can''t handle this matter?"


    "No. If you can offer him sufficient benefits, he will definitely agree. But I really can''t think of anything now that can tempt him!"


    "What if we find other demons and give them a try? Although he''s the most powerful one, I can feel from the Origin of the Great Way that there are several other demons whose strength is almost as equal to his!"


    "He is the most likely to agree with you. All the others just want to kill you!" Green Spirit glanced at him and continued to say, "The whale isn''t interested in that kind of thing. Even if you held his Original Spirit, he wouldn''t harm you. But other demons don''t want to suffer any losses, and if they do, they''ll kill you the immediately. You should know that your Origin of the Great Way isn''t mature now, so the threat and injury you can pose to their Original Spirits are limited. Once your Origin of the Great Way grows mature, the act of putting their Original Spirits in your hands is equal to putting their lives in your hands. They definitely won''t leave you any time to enhance your strength. They''ll kill you immediately and then eat you, regardless of the Origin of the Great Way."


    "Eat me?!" Zhou Bao shivered violently. "Are you joking?"


    "Of course not. I''m very serious. They''re members of the Demon tribe and winking is as easy to them as killing you!" Green Spirit glanced at him and smiled. "Actually, human flesh is palatable, especially human beings like you who are tender, delicate, full of strength, and chewy."


    "Damn!" Zhou Bao swore in a low voice. "Then why did you ask me to find them? Do you wish me to die earlier?"


    "No, I just asked you to find the whale to see if you have any method to convince him. You almost succeeded."


    "What? Is he their leader?"


    "No. He''s a scheming bastard!" Green Spirit added, "He can find a way to handle our matter, as long as you can tempt him!"


    "Fine. What is his Achilles'' heel? Or should I say, what is his addiction?" Zhou Bao asked. He shifted his glance toward the weird island and continued to say, "That doesn''t count!"


    "I agree with you, I have no inclination to acquire that. But we need to be sincere and give him something valuable in order to tempt him!"


    "Come on, Green Spirit, don''t you know that this is the Azure Secret Area, where the treasures of heaven and earth are all around! He has stayed here for tens of thousands of years, how could he not have a collection already? And you think he might be interested in my valuables? What a joke!" Zhou Bao said helplessly.


    "It makes sense. He''s adept at refining weapons and has been a dominator here for so many years, therefore, he definitely has abundant valuables. Except for your two refined fairy weapon, you have nothing to offer him. However, you absolutely won''t give them to him!"


    "He has fairly weapon? Interesting!"


    All of a sudden, a voice came to their ears. In a flash, a great force rushed toward them and transformed into a black hurricane, breaking the tide force, and directly enveloping and drawing away the Air-frozen Bead.


    "Who are you?" Zhou Bao''s expression changed sharply. He raised his hand and the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi immediately rushed out.


    The black and red Sword Qi shot out quickly and turned into numerous tiny sword stripes and stabbed that black hurricane.


    "Hmm? What interesting Sword Qi!"


    An exclamation came out of the black wind. Afterward, the black hurricane began shaking and rippling invisibly, offsetting the power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    Zhou Bao was tense, but he did not stop attacking. He continued to release Sword Qi and ferociously struck the black hurricane. Each Sword Qi contained immense killing intent as if the hurricane would be torn apart.


    However, that black hurricane dealt with the changes calmly by remaining constant. Although it was surging because of the attacks of Zhou Bao''s Sword Qi, it had not been injured fundamentally. Zhou Bao''s actions were just like hitting a cloud of fog with a fist¡ªas he dispersed a part of the hurricane, the remaining part would gather together again.


    "Hua-er, your friend is hot-tempered. Ask him to give up his scheming, it''s useless!"


    "Humph! Not necessarily. I didn''t expect you to take the initiative to attack and be the instigator!" Green Spirit acknowledged that man and said with despair, "Junior Leopard, you must put up a desperate fight. If you are captured by him, you''ll know that living is no better than dying!"


    Zhou Bao''s face became extremely dark. Judging by his Origin of the Great Way and this black hurricane, he knew this furtive man was one of the most powerful Original Spirits in the Azure Secret Area, whose strength was not less than the whale''s. However, that did not mean he would allow himself to get captured without putting up a fight.


    No matter how powerful they were, they had just passed through the Thunder Tribulation and their cultivation had only reached the Realm of True Immortality. Even though they had accumulated immense Real Essence in their bodies, after going through such a fierce Thunder Tribulation, they needed some time to turn it into Dharma power. The more immense their Real Essence was, the more time it would take for them to evolve it into Dharma power. Therefore, Zhou Bao could feel the strong Real Essence clearly from that black hurricane.


    He was not afraid of the power activated by Real Essence.


    Upon releasing the seventh Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi, he acutely felt the changes in it. It seemed that the power of his Sword Qi had advanced several times and the black and red were intermingled more harmoniously. Strands of brisk killing intent were generated from the black and red Sword Qi, sharply increasing the lethality of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi.


    Swish, Swish, Swish!


    Three streaks of Sword Qi cut the black hurricane surrounding the Air-frozen Bead apart and revealed the raging Essential Qi Tide outside of it. But obviously, Zhou Bao would not let it go easily.


    After that, the three Sword Qi streaks gathered immediately and violently hacked at the raging Essential Qi Tide.


    "Do you think that I can''t find you?"


    Boom, Boom, Boom!


    Several thunder-like explosions rung out and an exclamation came from deep inside the Essential Qi Tide.


    Following that was an utterly discomfited shout.


    "Brat, you''re courting death!"


    A black airflow appeared suddenly in the Essential Qi Tide and transformed into a black flood-dragon, dashing toward Zhou Bao and Green Spirit.


    "Damn you!" Zhou Bao was not afraid of him. He displayed his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi again.


    Clang!


    The Sword Qi collided with that black flood-dragon and directly chopped it into two halves.


    "I see. Haha! If I want to activate the maximum power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, I must combine the Sword Qi and its murderous intent as a whole and trigger the murderous intent inside of the sword with my own murderous intent. Only in this way can I exterminate everything!" Zhou Bao yelled with brisk killing intent emanating from his entire body.


    In the past, he had used the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword causally and, most of the time, the Sword Qi would be sent out without any killing intent. He would wield his sword just to deal with the situation at the time.


    But now, after his killing intent was activated and he continuously displayed the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, he finally triggered the congenital murderous intent in his sword and dramatically increased its power.


    "You''re really talented!" Green Spirit was nodding upon watching Zhou Bao fully display the maximum power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    "Brat, you''re pursuing death!" A crazy shout came from the raging Essential Qi Tide. Zhou Bao''s movements not only chopped the black Real Essence Dragon into two halves, but also completely exterminated the intelligence inside of it with congenital killing intent. The Real Essence Dragon collapsed and completely lost its lethality.


    However, the guy hiding in the dark would not give in so easily. The surrounding Essential Qi Tide suddenly went on a rampage as if it was stirred by a huge hand, surging toward Zhou Bao and striking at the cyan light of the Air-frozen Bead.


    The Air-frozen Bead was already a Pure Yang Celestial Device and was extremely powerful. The suddenly changed Essential Qi Tide naturally could not break its cyan light. But inside the Essential Qi Tide was a weird puff of black gas.


    This puff of black gas was faintly discernable. And if Zhou Bao had not possessed a pair of strange eyes, he would never have noticed or discovered it.


    The black gas intermingled with the Essential Qi Tide as if it was a kind of pneuma inside it. The Essential Qi Tide had struck the cyan light several times, but it did not break or shake the light. However, the black gas was seeping into the Air-frozen Bead little by little.


    "Green Spirit, your old friend is fu*king prudent!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly and pointed at the faintly visible black fog seeping into the cyan light.


    The Great Fusion Technique!


    Zhou Bao had already had a perfect command of his Divine Sense, known as the Evil Fire Kylin. It was several times more powerful than it had been before. With a move of his finger, golden red firelight surged forward and everything around the black fog collapsed immediately.


    Squeak, Squeak, Squeak!


    From inside the black fog came a sound similar to a mouse. But it could only squeak because it had been fused by a space-melting temperature and was engulfed by the collapsed space.


    "Good boy. You do have some skills. Hua-er, you''ve found a nice boy this time!"


    An exasperated voice came out from the Essential Qi Tide again. A huge shadow appeared behind their heads and violently smashed downward.


    An overwhelming pressure struck them directly and fiercely.


    "The Coal Dragon-smelting Furnace!"


    Green Spirit shouted out loud in terror.

 Chapter 374: The Furnace of Immortality & Fruition of Original Yang Gang

    Chapter 374: The Furnace of Immortality & Fruition of Original Yang Gang


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Coal Dragon-smelting Furnace!


    It was an Elixir Furnace similar to a tripod, whose mouth was 100 feet wide. Dropping down from the sky, it had great suction and a high temperature that made Zhou Bao stop breathing.


    "Good opportunity, boy, this is a good opportunity!" Beside Zhou Bao, Green Spirit suddenly exclaimed. "Although the Coal Dragon-smelting Furnace is a Pure Yang Celestial Device, the fire inside it is Coal Essential Gang Fire. It''s not as strong as Heavenly Fire, but it''s a top fire among all the fires around the world. If you fuse it into your Tusita Fire, the latter''s power will be increased sharply. Furthermore, this Elixir Furnace has nine holes and 12 apertures. You can further improve your Elixir Furnace after fusing it."


    "Improve my Elixir Furnace?" Zhou Bao was a little confused.


    "Do you think that your Elixir Furnace is perfect just because it''s a fairy weapon? I told you the refining method according to the way of refining the Furnace of Immortality. However, it''s presently only one finished product. You''re required to ponder over this matter carefully if you want to improve it. Now, the Coal Dragon-smelting Furnace can act as a reference for you. Don''t let this once in a lifetime opportunity go!" Green Spirit said.


    During their conversation, that Elixir Furnace was over their heads. Although the Air-frozen Bead was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, its function was to freeze wind. How could it withstand such a violent Elixir Furnace?


    The cyan light suddenly condensed. Then, the Air-frozen Bead transformed into a water droplet and went into between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows. The Coal Dragon-smelting Furnace continued falling down, covering his head.


    "Good!" Zhou Bao shouted. Golden light was glittering above his head, and a layer of dark golden light met the furnace with great force.


    Boom, Boom, Boom!


    While the earth was shaking violently, the black shadow covering the sky immediately was sent flying by the dark golden light. An exclamation could be faintly heard from the sky. But Zhou Bao did not stop attacking. Besides, he did not want to let it go. A cold light flashed through his eyes and the golden light above his head transformed into a huge Skull Elixir Furnace. Different flames burst out from these seven apertures and tightly enveloped the Coal Dragon-smelting Furnace. Soon afterward, nine different rays glittered violently and turned into nine flame chains in different colors. They violently dragged the Coal Dragon-smelting Furnace into the Skull Elixir Furnace. At that time, Zhou Bao pinned down the location of the man hiding in the dark.


    After pulling the Coal Dragon-smelting Furnace into the Skull Elixir Furnace, these flame chains went into the Skull Elixir Furnace as well. Inside the Elixir Furnace, the Coal Dragon-smelting Furnace was unwilling to be suppressed. Therefore, Coal Essential Gang Fire inside the furnace surged out ferociously, as if it wanted to fuse all the flames that had tied it down. However, Tusita Fire was the simulation of Heavenly Fire. Although it was not a pure Heavenly Fire, it could exert a power equal to that of Heavenly Fire for a long time. Furthermore, there were nine strands of such flames, which Coal Essential Gang Fire could not fight against.


    At that moment, the Skull Elixir Furnace expanded sharply, rising more than 100,000 feet all of a sudden. Its immense power dispersed all the Essential Qi Tide that was surrounding it.


    "Hmm? This is... this is the skull of the Innate Deity!"


    The man hiding in the dark finally recognized what Zhou Bao had released, and thus, he exclaimed. A black streamer flashed through the sky, as if it wanted to leave. However, Zhou Bao would not let it go easily at this moment.


    Following Zhou Bao''s shout, the Skull Elixir Furnace began to emit immense pressure and transformed into a golden light, moving toward the black streamer.


    Its speed far surpassed the black streamer''s, therefore, they collided with each other head-on.


    Just as they were about to collide, the black streamer surged vigorously, as if it wanted to ward off the attack of the Skull Elixir Furnace.


    Boom!


    The violent impact dispersed all the pneuma within 100 miles and destroyed the surrounding space. The black streamer seized this opportunity to escape, flying away thousands of times faster than before.


    "Hua-er, damn you! You would dare to bring someone to attack me. I''ll get revenge on you!" A voice came from the distance. "I have to..."


    Before the black streamer finished speaking, a blue fog surged forward and immediately blocked the surrounding space. It abruptly enveloped the streamer inside of it.


    "Hehehe... Old Hedgehog, I have finally gotten you. Haha, haha!"


    A resonant voice spread over the entire sky of the Azure Spirit Sea, louder than the Thunder Tribulation.


    "Humpback Whale, you bastard. How dare you ambush me!" An exasperated voice roared.


    "Haha, haha. I always plan to kill you when you''re in a plight. You bastard, I''ve waited for a chance to kill you for so many years. It really is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Haha, haha!"


    Humpback Whale''s voice sounded very complacent. A giant black hole suddenly appeared in the sky and, Old Hedgehog, who was enveloped by the blue fog, was sucked into it.


    "Hua-er, you really have a nice buddy. Since he helped me attack Old Hedgehog, I''ll handle that matter for you. They''re just some brats, I''ll get them to settle down. Relax. If necessary, I''ll do you a favor. Well, what do you think about that?"


    "Thanks. Old whale, won''t you invite us to your home?"


    "Of course not, I''m not familiar enough with you. Come on, Hua-er, I know what you''re thinking about, but I won''t tell you anything related to it. The Azure Secret Area concerns the plans of Great Emperor, I definitely won''t tell you about that."


    "I just want to know one thing. Can you please tell me if Great Emperor is still alive?"


    "Haha, haha. Hua-er, don''t try to trick me and get something from me. Great Emperor has nothing to do with you now. You were sealed in the Small Thunder Temple for thousands of years and your title has been erased from the Golden Book of Fate. Look at you, you''ve become a hired thug. I won''t tell you anything."


    Green Spirit went blank as he heard the words of that old whale. His face darkened, but in a flash, he smiled. "Haha. You''re right. That''s the temper of the Emperor of the Azure Heaven. Now, I do have nothing to do with him, so I''d better not ask anything about him!"


    After that, he shook his sleeves and continued to say, "Boy, since this whale has agreed to help you, you don''t need to worry anymore about those brats causing you trouble!"


    Green Spirit spoke to Zhou Bao loudly on purpose, as if he was afraid that the old whale could not hear him. "Let''s go. I know a place that is beneficial for you to practice the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique and enables you to achieve the Basic Level within a month!"


    "Wait. What did you say just now? Does he know the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique?"


    The voice of that old whale emanated again. However, inside his voice, some shock was heard.


    "Yeah. He does know the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. What? Are you interested in it?"


    "No!" That old whale thought for a while and then continued to say, "I''m not interested in it. Besides, I''m not the old Humpback Whale anymore. I don''t need the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique now!"


    "Fine!" Green Spirit replied with some disappointment. "Old whale, goodbye. I''m sorry to bother you to handle that matter for me!"


    "Since I''ve promised you, I''ll manage to do it. It seems that you''re walking really difficult in the Essential Qi Tide, so I don''t mind sending you to Primordial Yang Mountain."


    Before they could react, the surrounding space had shaken violently and everything in front of them had changed. A baking hot spirit surged toward them, as if they would be desiccated by it at any time.


    "Hiss... What immense Primordial Yang Spiritual Qi!" Zhou Bao looked at the yellow jade-like mountain in front of him and gasped in amazement.


    "Oh, my! When did this Primordial Yang Stone become a Primordial Yang Mountain?" Green Spirit exclaimed in surprise.


    "Is this the legendary Primordial Yang Stone?" Zhou Bao glanced at Green Spirit and gently sensed the surrounding spirit. Surrounding the yellow jade-like mountain, the Essential Qi Tide was surging ceaselessly. But compared with the heterogeneous pneuma in other places, the pneuma here was too dry. It consisted of assorted Yang pneuma and Evil Qi without any pneuma of other property.


    "Primordial Yang Mountain was a Primordial Yang Stone that had a 100-foot radius. It was possessed by the Emperor of the Azure Heaven. If anyone practiced a cultivation method that was similar to the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique and was going to break through another realm or had achieved the Basic Level, His Majesty would let him practice here. I didn''t know that it had turned into a mountain! Haha..." Green Spirit let out a hollow laugh. Obviously, he was shocked by the mountain in front of him.


    "It''s no big deal!" Zhou Bao shook his head. The Emperor of the Azure Heaven was truly generous. He had evolved a secret area here, and it definitely had an effect similar to the creation of heaven and earth. That era was just like the years of the Primordial Origin, when Primordial Yang Qi was extremely abundant. After being attracted, it piled up and formed a mountain. Everything was possible.


    "Yeah, nothing is impossible!" Green Spirit shook his head, laughing. "Alright. Hurry up your practice. Your body has been refined with the remains of the Innate Deity, so if you cannot achieve the Basic Level of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique within a month while practicing in an environment permeated by such immense Primordial Yang Qi, you''d better find some tofu to kill yourself with!"


    Zhou Bao said nothing but just laughed. After a flash of cyan light, he reached the peak of Primordial Yang Mountain, sat cross-legged, and began to practice.


    What he practiced was the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, a Pure Yang-property cultivation method. His Internal Qi had completely transformed into Demonic Fire of the Primitive Dragon Chimera, which was extremely Yang. Now, he would refine and store the Primordial Yang Qi around Primordial Yang Mountain in his body and turn it into the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Internal Qi as soon as possible.


    After refining with Demonic Fire of the Scale Monster, the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Internal Qi circulated around his Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints and it all turned into the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Essence. After that, a weird reaction occurred to the Demonic Fire inside his body. As his body shook violently, he suddenly opened his eyes, from which some astonishment was revealed.


    "What''s wrong with your practice?" Green Spirit asked as he saw Zhou Bao''s strange expression.


    Zhou Bao just shook his head but said nothing. He raised his hand and a great suction appeared in his palm. It cleaned all the surrounding mixed Primordial Yang Evil Qi and took the most ferocious one out. This Evil Qi rotated around him, and then he began to cultivate Gang.


    He sat where he was for the next 20 days.


    After that, a mild Yang Gang Qi surged out. Zhou Bao had finally practiced the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Gang Qi successfully!

 Chapter 375: Coming Out of Azure Heavens, Yukun Buddha

    Chapter 375: Coming Out of Azure Heavens, Yukun Buddha


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Don''t you think it''s weird?"


    "Why should I?"


    "My Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Essence and Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Essence can actually interconvert and it won''t waste any power or induce any change. This is so weird. I''ve never heard of anything like that!"


    Uncertainty was shown all over Zhou Bao''s face. That was one thing that had him scratching his head. Why could his two Real Essences change with each other?


    Although they were both Yang Internal Qi and Real Essence, they had different ways of practice. Furthermore, the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique was one of the 3,000 Great Ways, its power was infinite, which could be even stronger than the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Now he was able to transform the Real Essence of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire into the Real Essence of Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. That was to say, he only needed to practice the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. Come what may, he could later transform it into the more powerful Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Essence anyway.


    "Your Real Essence is not the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Essence. It is the Demonic Fire of Dragon Chimera, the Primitive Dragon Chimera. It is already better than the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Essence, even stronger than Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. You have to understand that the Real Essence of Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique is born of Way of King and it is peaceful. It can''t be as high-handed as your Dragon Chimera Demonic Fire. It is not surprising that it is now under the influence of the Dragon Chimera Fire!" Green Spirit smiled and looked at the golden ruler floating in front of Zhou Bao. "Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument is the embodiment of the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Gang Qi. It was born with various usages. It has an outstanding effect in oppressing the evil demonic ways. Kid, your strength has really elevated a lot this time!"


    "The evil demonic ways?" Zhou Bao threw a sharp look at Green Spirit. "What is that? Are you one of them?"


    "Haha, that''s direct. I tell you what, the phrase ''evil demonic ways''was not a negative term in antiquity times, but a general designation for many practice schools. Those practice schools took shortcuts in practice and were obsessed with stronger strength. They all had powerful cultivation and their properties of the Real Essence and Dharma power were extreme and powerful. Schools like that were called "evil demonic ways". No one would have expected that these evil demonic ways would now be pushed aside like this. Only one Dark Sect remains, which is struggling to survive. What a sad scene!"


    "So, my Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument is the nemesis of the Dark Sect?"


    "You can say so. The Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument and Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique are able to oppress most of the secret skills and Divine Senses of the Dark Sect. So, if you come across the guys from Dark Sect, you can do whatever you want. They can''t stop you unless you meet the real mighty in Dark Sect, the real master with huge power. Otherwise, you don''t have to be afraid of them."


    Zhou Bao nodded. With a swivel of his eyes, the golden Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument turned into the most refined Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Gang Qi and spread all over the place. Zhou Bao then withdrew it into his body.


    "Well, we are in Azure Secret Area long enough. We have done all we need to do and even obtained an unexpected harvest. Now we should get out of here, in case something bad happens!"


    "Alright. I''ve also gained a lot and passed through the Thunder Tribulation!" Speaking of Thunder Tribulation, Green Spirit stared at Zhou Bao ruthlessly. "It''s time to leave. I''ve left the Bigwheel Temple for such a long time and they received no news from me. They must be very worried!"


    "What, Child-endowing Buddha doesn''t enjoy enough freedom in Bigwheel Temple?"


    "It''s not like that. Child-endowing Buddha is one of the presiders of the magic formation that protects the Bigwheel Temple. He is also one of the most important combat capabilities. Now the world is experiencing a period of trouble, even the Bigwheel Temple has to raise its vigilance. Besides, Divine Wind Palace wants to control the Azure Secret Area, so it must get the understanding from Bigwheel Temple. At this juncture, Child-endowing Buddha can''t leave easily."


    "I got it!" Zho Bao nodded and stopped asking. As a cyan light flashed by, both of them left the Primordial Yang Mountain and rushed to their destination.


    Zhou Bao did not know the way at that time, but with Green Spirit as a guide, they arrived at the entrance after flying for three days and three nights in the Essential Qi Tide.


    At the entrance, Green Spirit transformed into a trace of pink fog, just like what it did when it just came here. It then followed Zhou Bao and left the Azure Secret Area.


    "That''s odd. There is no one here. Usually, there will be someone here to guard the Immortal Palace, won''t there?"


    As soon as Zhou Bao left the Azure Secret Area, he felt that something was fishy. The hall was empty and there was no one here, not even a rat. Dead silence reigned the entire place.


    Suddenly, his expression changed massively. Waves after waves of powerful pneuma were coming down from above his head as if two enormous pneumas had a collision.


    "Some enemy is coming!" At this moment, Zhou Bao had obviously figured out what was going on. He quickly moved his body and left the underground hall.


    Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!


    Once Zhou Bao got out of the villa, he sensed that the Yin and Yang Dust Formation had been activated. The entire Wuyang Region was shrouded by a cyan fog. Though the pneuma fluctuations in the environment were violent, they were not able to harm his Wuyang Region.


    "All the Living Buddhas of Bigwheel Temple, I suggest you all leave here. I''ve told you so many times that the Child-endowing Buddha isn''t in the Wuyang Region. You''ve come to the wrong place!"


    Just when he felt that something was strange, Wang She''s voice came from a distance with a tint of arrogance.


    Bigwheel Temple and Child-endowing Buddha?


    It turned out that the enemies were the monks of Bigwheel Temple!


    "Amitabha, very good indeed. Chief Wang, this is the grudge between us Bigwheel Temple and Wuyang Region. It''s none of your business unless the Tian Long Taoism wants to be an enemy of Snow Mountain Bigwheel Temple."


    The voice of the Buddha bounced around as loud as the chime of a bronze clock. Although the location was fully covered by the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, the voice still ran through the entire formation.


    "Haha, Yukun Buddha, please don''t drag Tian Long Taoism into this. Even if you do, I don''t give a damn. The Wuyang Region belongs to Zhou Bao, yet Zhou Bao is a disciple of our Tian Long Taoism as well as the future teaching elder in Tian Long Taoism. First it was Child-endowing Buddha, and now it''s you, Yukun Buddha. You attacked Wuyang Region without a word. It''s your Bigwheel Temple who provoked us deliberately. Although Tian Long Taoism is not a school with a rich history like Bigwheel Temple, we are not easily bullied. You are free to call on anything you have, and I''ll take them all!" Wang She''s voice was loud and righteous, making Yukun Buddha speechless for a moment.


    After a while, Yukun Buddha said, "Almsgiver Wang, I admit, it was wrong that my junior brother, Child-endowing Buddha suddenly attacked the Wuyang Region and Zhou Bao. He also violated the Law of Heaven. Therefore, he should be punished by the Law of Heaven. I promise you, as long as you hand over my junior brother, I will escort him to the Immortal Punishment Hall and let him face justice."


    "Do you really mean it?" This time, Zhou Bao asked before Wang She could give a response.


    "Who is it?" Yukun Buddha was astonished by the change of voice. He knew this formation was now presided by Wang She and Zhou Bao was in closed-door training, so Wang She was the highest representative of the Wuyang Region force. Who dared to interrupt at this moment?


    "I''m Zhou Bao, nice to meet you, Yukun Buddha." Zhou Bao smiled and jerked his arms as if he was ripping something. As the pneuma in Yin and Yang Dust Formation rippled, Zhou Bao vanished. And the next time he appeared, he was standing in front of Yukun Buddha.


    At that moment, Yukun Buddha was totally trapped in the Death Gate of Yin and Yang Dust Formation. The dark hollow prevailed in this dead place. Various Sword Qi and turbulence, lightning and thunder attacked Yukun Buddha, the leader, and other people from Bigwheel Temple. Except for Yukun Buddha, there were five monks whose cultivation were all at Level Nine. Among those monks, Zhou Bao could only recognize Happy Monk, the disciple of Child-endowing Buddha.


    Yukun Buddha sat cross-legged in the middle of the hollow with a circle of Buddhist halo glittering behind his head. It protected himself and five other monks who were at Level Nine. An extreme astonishment was shown on his skinny face.


    Yes, astonishment!


    How could he not be astonished?


    Although not many people knew Child-endowing Buddha attacked Wuyang Region, after these a few days, everyone who was supposed to know it had already gotten the news. Yet the result was the same¡ªWuyang Region remained intact while Child-endowing Buddha disappeared.


    However, in normal circumstances, no way would he have believed that Child-endowing Buddha could be defeated in such a small place like Wuyang Region.


    Zhou Bao was indeed famous, but that fame merely existed in the eyes of ordinary people, whereas others just reckoned him as an expert at Level Nine with combat capability near the level of an Individual Immortal.


    Child-endowing Buddha was an expert at the peak of Mysterious Realm and his combat capability had already reached the Realm of True Immortality, even surpassing the general Genuine Immortals. He was even able to fight against the Venerable who had been through two Thunder Tribulations. With such combat capability, it was easy for him to defeat a boy who was even not an Immortal. As for the Wuyang Region and the expert of Tian Long Taoism, he would not even pay them any attention.


    The Tian Long Taoism could only seek hegemony in the mortal world. In the eyes of those ranked as Immortals, Wang She was the same as Zhou Bao, an expert at Level Nine, unworthy for them to incur massive conflicts.


    Therefore, when they first heard that Child-endowing Buddha may have been defeated by Zhou Bao, they did not believe a word. But after a month, when they found that Child-endowing Buddha had not returned, the Bigwheel Temple started to panic. As what Green Spirit said, normally, even if Child-endowing Buddha disappeared for decades, the Bigwheel Temple would not care. But now in troubled times, it was different. Child-endowing Buddha was not only the one with the most combat capability in Bigwheel Temple, but also a crucial part of Mandala Formation which was used to protect the Bigwheel Temple. Without him, the entire Mandala Formation could not operate properly, resulting in a huge decrease in its power. Although Child-endowing Buddha was a dissolute person, he was definitely not a person who would ignore the big picture. Therefore, Bigwheel Temple started to realize that something went wrong.


    Now that the Bigwheel Temple could not do without Child-endowing Buddha, it asked Yukun Buddha to lead five disciples at Level Nine to look for Child-endowing Buddha. Their first destination was Wuyang Region.


    However, none of them expected that they would be stuck in this magical formation the moment they arrived at Wuyang Region. By the time when their combined powers could hardly protect themselves, Yukun Buddha started to believe that Child-endowing Buddha truly suffered a setback here.


    After failing to break the formation, Yukun Buddha had to swallow his pride to negotiate with Wang She who controlled this formation. But Wang She was unmoved by force or persuasion and he stuck to the claim that Zhou Bao was in closed-door training and he knew nothing. If there was something needed to be discussed, Yukun Buddha had to wait for Zhou Bao to handle. And all of this irritated him a lot.


    However, he could do nothing but resist this formation and reason with Wang She. And now, Zhou Bao exited training.

 Chapter 376: Three Pure Yang Celestial Devices

    Chapter 376: Three Pure Yang Celestial Devices


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Are you Yunzhou Zhou Bao? You''re really a legendary early achiever!"


    Catching a clear sight of Zhou Bao''s face and Qi Power, Yukun Buddha was irritated and he could not help but sigh. As Mandkesvara had said, Zhou Bao was really quite young with amazing strength.


    Although his own cultivation was in Genuine Immortal Realm and beyond three realms, he could not fully figure out Zhou Bao''s depth of cultivation. He could only barely recognize that his cultivation was at the peak of Level Nine, and was unable to identify the layers of magical spirit around his body.


    "I''m flattered!" With his hands cupped together, Zhou Bao cast a glance at Yukun Buddha. He then looked at the five monks behind him. Each of their cultivation was at Level Nine. "The 13 Living Buddhas in Bigwheel Temple who could protect five disciples in the formation are indeed worthy of their name. You are more powerful than Child-endowing Buddha, he said with a smile."


    "Amitabha!" Yukun Buddha pressed his palms together and uttered the Buddhist name. "So, you have really seen my unqualified junior brother?!"


    "Of course, he came to pick on me, and I will definitely give him a good lesson!" Zhou Bao sneered. With a flush of fierce killing intent, which was unexpectedly infused with the murderous intent of the Death Gate, Yukun Buddha''s expression altered and the halo behind his head also shook.


    After taking in a deep breath and stabilizing the golden halo behind his head, Yukun Buddha looked up at Zhou Bao, "I think you have heard the conversation between Chief Wang and me just now. It is my junior brother''s fault this time round to violate the Law of Heaven. I will give you an answer to account for this matter. But after all, he is the Living Buddha of us Bigwheel Temple, I won''t let him die outside!"


    "You won''t let him die outside?" Zhou Bao''s eyes were cold. "Yes, it is true that he can''t die outside. Yukun Buddha, You promised just now that you will give me an answer. I wonder what kind of answer it is!"


    "As long as you tell me the whereabouts of my junior brother, we will satisfy you!"


    "That''s a deal!" Zhou Bao smiled slightly. With a grab and a pull, he dragged out the body of Child-endowing Buddha from the hollow. At this time in time, Child-endowing Buddha, or in fact, Green Spirit, had his eyes closed and the fat flesh all over his body was trembling. His face showed extreme fear as if something terrible had come up against him.


    "Junior brother!" As an eminent monk with the cultivation of Genuine Immortal, Yukun Buddha could naturally recognize that the body pulled out of the hollow by Zhou Bao was the true body of his junior brother, Child-endowing Buddha.


    "This fat monk caused trouble in Wuyang Region several months ago and messed up everything here. Fortunately, with the help of the formation, I managed to keep him in dreamland until you are here. Since there is no use in keeping him, I can return him to you, but your Bigwheel Temple has to compensate for the loss I have suffered."


    "Amitabha! Gracious Buddha!"


    Yukun Buddha did not expect Zhou Bao to pull out Child-endowing Buddha directly. At the sight of his helplessly-stupid junior brother, even Yukun Buddha who had an unfathomable cultivation could not help but be so embarrassed, he felt like he was having a fever. Not to mention, Child-endowing Buddha''s disciple, Happy Monk, only wished to find a crack in the ground and slip into it.


    "We owe you a favor for being so generous, we will return the favor in the future!" Putting his palms together devoutly, Yukun Buddha anxiously stared at Child-endowing Buddha who was being carried by Zhou Bao. He looked as if he would suck Child-endowing Buddha over with his eyes.


    "Don''t talk empty words or play words with me. I don''t really care about your returning of favor. In any case, Child-endowing Buddha is an expert at the peak of Individual Immortal and also has the strongest combat capability in Bigwheel Temple. I don''t demand too much. How about three Pure Yang Celestial Devices?"


    "Three Pure Yang Celestial Devices?" With a jolt, Yukun Buddha''s thin old face also shivered.


    Pure Yang Celestial Device!


    As a great school with a history of tens of thousands of years, Bigwheel Temple had a profound foundation, but they really did not possess that many Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Even for the 13 Living Buddhas in the temple, not all of them had Pure Yang Celestial Devices. In the temple, there were still several Pure Yang Celestial Devices used to cooperate with fairy weapon to suppress fate, but those were less likely to be taken out. Therefore, at present, there were less than ten Pure Yang Celestial Devices that could be taken out. Each one was a treasure. How dare Zhoubao asked for three pieces! He really thought Pure Yang Celestial Devices were as cheap as cabbages!


    "Why, is the master unwilling to do so?"


    "You''re demanding an exorbitant price!" Yukun Buddha said with a sigh, "We do have Pure Yang Celestial Devices, but it''s impossible to take out three pieces all at once!"


    "You see, you are not sincere!" Confidently, Zhou Bao smiled and shook Child-endowing Buddha who was still in his hands. "Anyway, there is one on Child-endowing Buddha. Well, I''m not interested in Fire Cloud Kasaya, so I''ll give it back to you in exchange for another one. It''s not a bad bargain, is it?"


    With a long face, Yukun Buddha looked at the remnants of Fire Cloud Kasaya on Child-endowing Buddha''s body and nodded resignedly, "It''s not a bad bargain."


    "Well, this is one piece. Child-endowing Buddha, in any case, will be worthy of a Pure Yang Celestial Device. It''s not a bad bargain if you give me another one, right?"


    "Not bad, not bad!"


    "As for you guys, a Genuine Immortal and five experts at Level Nine, it is really too humiliating to say that you are only worth a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Therefore, I will not take you into account. I will just regard it that you are here to negotiate the issue of whether Child-endowing Buddha stays or leaves. Are you satisfied with this solution?"


    "Yes!"


    "Okay, then, let''s get straight to it. Child-endowing Buddha has harassed my Wuyang Region for no reason, causing great damage to the physical and mental health of our people. I suffered heavy losses. Jilei Mountain, where I planned to build a village, was smashed. Is it too much to ask for a Pure Yang Celestial Device to compensate for all the losses?"


    "No, not at all!" Looking at Zhou Bao, Yukun Buddha sighed ceaselessly and then burst into laughter. "Yeah, you are right that three Pure Yang Celestial Devices are not enough as the compensation for all the losses. Well, I will call the shots today. As long as you send my junior brother to us, we will send you three Pure Yang Celestial Devices within ten days. What do you think?!"


    "Good, I''m rest-assured with your words!" Zhou Bao smiled and threw Child-endowing Buddha to Yukun Buddha.


    The moment Yukun Buddha murmured the Buddhist name, a halo behind his head flashed out, and Child-endowing Buddha was inhaled into the halo and disappeared.


    Zhou Bao''s eyes gazed and without saying anything, he raised his hand and tore up the space around him. The hollow suddenly brightened up. With the blink of an eye, Yukun Buddha was out of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation''s Death Gate and appeared in the sky above the Wuyang Region.


    "Well, the six of you, I just ended my closed-door training. There are a lot of things to do. I will not see you off. Please make your leave on your own!"


    With their hands folded, Yukun Buddha and the other five people did not care too much about Zhou Bao''s attitude and turned into a stream of golden streamer before disappearing into the sky.


    "Good Job, Your Excellency!" Watching Yukun Buddha and others take their departure, Zhou Bao turned around and bowed towards Wang She who suddenly appeared behind him.


    "Three Pure Yang Celestial Devices! I''d like to have one!" Wang She looked at Zhou Bao with a faint smile on his face.


    "No problem!" said Zhou Bao. "You can take whatever you like!"


    "Great! Great!" Wang She patted Zhou Bao on the shoulder and laughed. "It seems that your trip to Azure Secret Area was very rewarding!"


    "Just so-so. I mainly practiced Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique with the help of abundant pneuma," Zhou Bao said with a slight smile. At this point in time, he already felt the spirit of many experts of Immortal Palace. They did not disappear but instead all ran out to watch the show. No wonder there was nobody in the underground hall. Now that it was over, they all went back as if nothing had happened.


    "Your Yin and Yang Dust Formation is indeed powerful. A Genuine Immortal and five experts at Level Nine were trapped in the formation by me, for three whole days. If not for your sudden appearance, I would have made them suffered more!"


    "It''s always better to get rid of an enemy than to make one. This Bigwheel Temple has a solid foundation. I don''t really want to be an enemy with them. It''s already not bad to knock them down by a bit!"


    "Kid, when did you learn to be generous? Are you playing some kind of conspiracy?"


    "Conspiracy? No, no, no, I''m just looking for an overt scheme, not a conspiracy!" Zhou Bao shook his head.


    The two men laughed at each other and returned to the Lord Mansion.


    "In the past few months, there have been a lot of things happening. Divine Wind Palace has already been talking about Azure Secret Area with Bigwheel Temple. It seems that Divine Wind Palace has promised them many benefits and induced a lot of coercion. Bigwheel Temple is now wavering, and it is extremely fearful of Divine Wind Palace, so it shows great care for Child-endowing Buddha. Mandala Formation, being as powerful as Yin and Yang Dust Formation, is perfect in defending and it can block the attack of several Genuine Immortals. It is the last resort of Bigwheel Temple."


    "That is to say that Bigwheel Temple has not made a decision yet!"


    "Yes, no decision has been made yet, but there is already some pressure. In addition to Bigwheel Temple, Divine Wind Palace also sent people to Jade Pool and Immortal Palace with a promise of great benefits. Now the two parties are also delaying!"


    "It can be delayed for some time, but it can not be delayed forever. This time, Divine Wind Palace is determined to obtain it. It is impossible to resist the pressure from Divine Wind Palace unless several parties suppress Divine Wind Palace together. Are these people idiots? Don''t they realize that both will benefit when they join hands?"


    "It is not as simple as you think. It''s true that even a three-year-old kid knows that both sides will benefit when they join hands. But they have not done so for so many years, and the benefits Divine Wind Palace promised are so great that everyone began to harbor a fluke mind. How can they join hands?!"


    "Benefits? What are the benefits Divine Wind Palace promised that made it so difficult to make a decision?!"


    "The rights to share the Golden Book of Fate equally," Wang She said leisurely. "This time, Divine Wind Palace did pay a hefty price, even I am intrigued!" (To be continued)

 Chapter 377: Short-sighted Divine Wind Palace

    Chapter 377: Short-sighted Divine Wind Palace


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What? They want to have an equal share to the rights of owning the Golden Book of Fate?"


    Upon hearing those words, Zhou Bao could hardly suppress a cry of astonishment. This was something totally beyond his expectation.


    He hadn''t expected that Divine Wind Palace would be willing to go to such great lengths to do that!


    "Exactly, the equal share to the right of Golden Book of Fate. The most powerful influences in Four Eastern Regions feel they all should have the equal rights to the book. It equates that Divine Wind Palace should totally share the existing advantage it currently has been holding on to for tens of thousands of years!" Wang She said, his eyes squinting. "This time, it seems that they are determined and confident enough to conquer the Azure Secret Area!"


    "Confident enough!" Zhou Bao''s concern showed in his face, and even though there was a sneer in his heart, he felt a bit excited by the news.


    Among all the people here, he was the one who was most keen on members of Divine Wind Palace entering the Azure Secret Area, because their entry would entail his receiving a great gift. With the support of Fiery Eyes and Origin of the Great Ways in the area, he was confident that he could have total control of the projection of Golden Book of Fate by combining the two powers into one and thus be able to secure the Azure Secret Area.


    However, he had to pretend to feel deep concern for the issue. "Oh no! If Divine Wind Palace should succeed, we will be in great trouble!"


    "Thus, we should not let them achieve it!" Wang She said ferociously. "We will definitely not just sit around and remain indifferent to this matter.


    "Currently we can''t take any action yet!" Zhou Bao gave a bitter smile. "Though we are two of the 28 constellations in the Immortal Palace, we don''t have the right to speak up. We can''t even discuss this with Bigwheel Temple and Jade Pool. This is a matter for the senior members of the group only. We are really out of the picture!"


    "How about the Azure Secret Area? Now that you have the Air-frozen Bead, you can easily gain access to the area. Do you think you can use your Fiery Eyes to undermine their plan in that place?"


    "Zhou Bao''s heart gave a start. At that moment, he thought that Wang She had discovered what he had done in the Azure Secret Area! However, when he saw his serious expression, he felt deep relief in his heart. "You think I don''t want to? I want, but I do not have a comprehensive knowledge of the workings of the Fiery Eyes, which is not something common. When I was in the Azure Secret Area, I tried to discover what their secret was, but it was in vain. Though there are some benefits, it''s still impossible for me to attain the level of that guy. The gap between him and myself is enormous. Besides, even though I can use Fiery Eyes, I am not allowed to attack members of Divine Wind Palace when they launch the projection of Golden Book of Fate. Having learned a lesson from their previous experience, Divine Wind Palace must now ensure they make a thorough preparation to avoid making the same mistakes. If they are not confident of their success, how can they dominate the world for tens of thousands of years?" Zhou Bao groused. "What I can do now is to suppress my cultivation and wait for an appropriate time!"


    "Damn, because of this, we will surely get into big trouble!"


    "Chief Wang, no one knows what will happen next. Azure Secret Area, after all, is totally different from Taiyuan Heaven, so it''s impossible for Divine Wind Palace to have a hundred percent success rate there. It''s good if they can attain a mere sixty to seventy percent."


    "That is what happens when you leave things to chance!" Wang She interrupted with a grim expression on his face. "Because of this idea, Immortal Palace, Bigwheel Temple and Jade Pool are all not united as one and after being lured by Divine Wind Palace, were defeated one after the other!" Wang She''s tone grew a little shrill, but his argument was undoubtedly reasonable.


    With an embarrassed look, Zhou Bao responded. "Right. You''re right. But it is a tempting bait that can easily lure someone in. If I were them, I will fall into the trap, too. Not everybody has a steadfast mind like you!"


    "Wang She chuckled. "Okay, forget it! Let''s change the topic. Now that the outcome is definitely settled, there is no need to throw an egg at a rock. The pattern of the world will definitely see a great change, no matter if Divine Wind Palace succeeds this time or not. Since you have a link to Divine Wind Palace and have reaped the benefits from Bigwheel Temple during the conflict, your status will definitely have risen, which means that Divine Wind Palace will not want to lose any opportunity to include you, a rising genius. Nevertheless, you should be careful not to reveal your Fiery Eyes in front of it. Otherwise, you will be endlessly pursued by the influence, much like Ye Qingtian!"


    "Ye Qingtian? Any news about that guy?"


    "Nope. But recently, Divine Wind Palace increased its efforts to track him down. It is estimated that they have gone to the west because Divine Wind Palace''s power is weaker in Three Western Regions than in Four Eastern Regions. Besides, the influence doesn''t get along well with Fifth Manor and Palace of Eternal Life!"


    "In other words, if my Fiery Eyes skills should happen to be revealed one day, I can always flee to Three Western Regions and at the same time to stay away from trouble. Am I right?"


    If at that time, Divine Wind Palace''s influence has not yet spread to Three Western Regions, you can do this. But you should drop everything and head there with your wife and son. As for the Zhou''s, they will certainly be killed!"


    "It depends. If I cultivate myself to the level of Genuine Immortal, I will transfer all of them there with my way of Space reconfiguration. It is possible!"


    "Alright. We shall talk about that when your Fiery Eye skills are out in the open!" Wang She said in a sullen tone. "Even if you are able to transfer them, you will still be in great trouble. Though your family might not be pursued in Three Western Regions, your bloodline will still be coveted by everyone and you have to live in fear forever."


    A flash of ruthlessness came into Zhou Bao''s eyes. Though he didn''t want to, he had to admit that what Wang She said was right. An esoteric bloodline like Fiery Eyes would definitively attract attention from all the practitioners and drive them wild. They might think of a way to capture the family who have the same kind of bloodline, so they could jab the eyes out to make External Elixirs. Perhaps, they would even attempt to marry the women in his family or send a variety of women to the men in his family, so that they can give birth to kids with Fiery Eyes bloodline. Given the stakes, everything was possible.


    In summary, he shouldn''t disclose his secret and take the risk.


    "Concerning Ye Qingtian, there is another piece of news!" Wang She said. "Since Divine Wind Palace wants to kill him, it is highly probable that they might flee to Three Western Regions, so the organization has gathered together major influences to form a hunting team. The hunters are all elites from the groups. I was told that they want to include you as well!"


    "Interesting. aren''t they gathering together elites of various influences? I have maintained the secrecy about my status in Immortal Palace, so I don''t belong to any group. Why do they want me?"


    "Firstly, they would like to draw you over to their side. Secondly, aren''t you close to our Tian Long Taoism? Tian Long Taoism and Immortal Palace are on very good terms as well, even if you are barely a member of the Immortal Palace, although you and Immortal Palace are not on good terms!"


    "The Immortal Palace and I are not on good terms?"


    "Exactly. After your fight against White Tiger, Divine Wind Palace''s opinion of you has increased. If you show the slightest interest now, to join them, I believe they will immediately take you in!"


    "If I now want to join Divine Wind Palace, undoubtedly they will have me checked out thoroughly!" Zhou Bao said softly, "Don''t regard me as a fool. It''s not easy to join an influence like Divine Wind Palace, even though my background currently seems to be flawless!"


    "Yup. Only a fool will choose to join Divine Wind Palace at this moment. What you should do next is to stay aloof so that Divine Wind Palace will do their utmost to win you over to their side. Just stick to doing what you need to do only!"


    "Though Divine Wind Palace is powerful, it is not the overall master of the world. If it issues forth a notice to form a team, not all influences will respond to its call, will they?"


    "Divine Wind Palace gave the promise that the North Pole Frozen Wheel will be given to the one who succeeds in wrestling it from Ye Qingtian, the same as Golden Book of Fate''s copy and all the other items from his stronghold, so you could try to wrestle all these items using your own ability. Besides, if you should run into bad luck and get nothing, you can still get a Pure Yang Celestial Device from the influence after you return. The promise is certainly tempting, isn''t it?


    "Very tempting indeed! Apart from parting with several Pure Yang Celestial Devices, Divine Wind Palace will actually lose nothing, yet succeed in killing its arch enemy. It does make a really lucrative plan!" Zhou Bao coldly said. "Though Pure Yang Celestial Device is precious, it is of no value to the influence. Do you know, I have accumulated so many Pure Yang Celestial Devices in such a short period of time?"


    "That''s true. You recently received three more from Bigwheel Temple!"


    When it came to Pure Yang Celestial Devices, Wang She had to say that he took his hat off to Zhou Bao. Though he had been around for many years and had earned the respect of others along the way, he hadn''t really come across a Pure Yang Celestial Device in all this time! If Zhou Bao hadn''t done him a favor to capture Kunlun Mountain''s Invisible Dragon Rod, he wouldn''t have even have possessed a single Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    As for Zhou Bao, he could easily obtain Pure Yang Celestial Devices by merely uttering a few words. Let me count how many Pure Yang Celestial Devices this guy owns? The mirror that he brought here is one. The Sky-measuring Star Ruler is another one. It is also he who seized the Invisible Dragon Rod and the Octupole Exquisite Pagoda. In Taiyuan Heaven, he also managed to wrangle a Lunar Shuttle. Now Bigwheel Temple owes him three Pure Yang Celestial Devices. It is said that he got one from a gang of experts who came to kill him, too. Taking into account all his possessions, he certainly is not lacking in Pure Yang Celestial Devices at all.


    "One could certainly be immensely annoyed when comparing him to others!"


    Wang She didn''t know that in Taiyuan Heaven, Zhou Bao also imbued considerable Pure Yang Water as well as Knot Golden Net, Golden-Scaled Cudgel, Poison Cold Shield, Blue Sword and so forth which were all refined into Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Otherwise, he might have strongly lamented his own fate.


    "Bigwheel Temple won''t go back on its words, will it?"


    "Go back on its words? Do you think the Yukun Buddha is like you? Now that he has given you his promise, they will definitely do as they were told and will never break their promise!"


    "That''s good. Very good. With three more Pure Yang Celestial Devices, I will have more on my hands!" Zhou Bao chuckled.

 Chapter 378: Potential to Establish A New Sect

    Chapter 378: Potential to Establish A New Sect


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "He is one person who can really make me angry!"Seeing Zhou Bao''s gloating appearance, Wang She wished that he knock Zhou Bao down with one blow, dislodge all the Pure Yang Celestial Devices from his body, pick them up one at a time and stow them in a safe place.


    "Now since Divine Wind Palace wants to present me with a Pure Yang Celestial Device, I have no reason to refuse it, right? Chief Wang, what do you think I should do now?"


    "Don''t do anything yet. Just wait for Divine Wind Palace to contact you. You''re different from others. Strictly speaking, you don''t belong to any of those big influences. Thus, they will certainly try to tempt you with huge profits. Then, you can just wait to collect the profits!"


    "Chief is truly far-sighted. Then, I''ll merely sit and wait for all the good things to descend on me!" said Zhou Bao, nodding. "I''ll wait here patiently for all the good things to come my way!"


    "You''d be better off paying more attention to managing your territory. These few days everybody has been feeling jittery. Some territories which are situated around your actual territory have prospered quite a lot over the past several months, but yours is still lacking."


    "I know what their plan is, of course. Now that the Bigwheel Temple issue has been solved, I believe, from now on, as long as I don''t pick on others, no one will dare to pick on me. Such being the case, this Wuyang Region has become impregnable and will not be a target for anyone anymore. Soon, this place will improve and flourish again. Why should I take such care of it? What''s more, honestly, I am just a warrior. And as a warrior, managing my own business is good enough, so why should I spare so much effort to get involved in others'' affairs? Right?"


    "Well, that is a good point. You admit that you are merely a warrior and without much knowledge. It indicates that you have not become too high and mighty even with the vast power you''ve got. It''s a rare and commendable trait. Looks like there is no need for me to keep giving you advice. You conduct yourself very well, as it is!"


    "After saying this, he patted Zhou Bao''s shoulder and continued, "Divine Wind Palace is not easy to mess with, nor is Immortal Palace. Since now you''re one of the 28 constellations of Immortal Palace, you may seriously consider the position of Immortal Palace when you are handling matters. That will probably do you some good!"


    "Consider the position of Immortal Palace?" asked Zhou Bao, his eyes narrowing slightly. "What? Are those bosses of Immortal Palace dissatisfied with something I have done again?"


    "Inside Immortal Palace, they have varied opinions about you. Golden Rooster''s lot and I have known you for quite a while and we are close to each other, so we feel good to have you as one of us. However, Sun Horse of Star and his guys do not think so kindly of you. Especially after you snatched up his Peach Blossom Miasma and disgraced him terribly the last time, he now hates you to the core!"


    "That moron, Sun Horse of Star? I know the selection of constellations in Immortal Palace is very stringent, how could they even allow that kind of moron in?"


    "Sun Horse of Star''s strength is pretty good, actually above the average level among the 28 constellations. If Golden Rooster hadn''t entered Level Eight, he would not have been a match for him! It was his bad luck that Sun Horse of Star bumped into you, a monster!"


    "That''s his bad luck, to have bumped into me!" Zhou Bao said coldly. "Based on your words, this guy still has some clout among the 28 constellations and still has a lot of influence there!"


    "He has a profound background. Although he claims to be the most liberal of influence in Immortal Palace, there seems to be some kind of shady dealings behind this. The teacher of Sun Horse of Star used to be from one of the 28 constellations, too. He has since dropped out of the 28 constellations, but still enjoys a significant amount of prestige in Immortal Palace. He has only one disciple¡ªSun Horse of Star¡ªso, of course, he cares a lot for him!"


    "The 28 constellations are just influences on the surface of Immortal Palace and representatives of it. Over the past hundred years or so, those retired 28 constellations might not add up to 100 but should at least amount to 80 or 90. Some of them chose to stay on at Immortal Palace and continue to accept offerings, while some have left Immortal Palace, such as the wife of Ma Tianchang, who seems to be Moon Vixen of Heart of Immortal Palace. But I''m always a little curious about those retired 28 constellations who keep accepting offerings. Do they still have a say in Immortal Palace?" asked Zhou Bao.


    "Yes, they do, of course. The more powerful one''s strength is, the more say he has. And why does White Tiger has such great say in Immortal Palace? It''s just because his strength is sufficiently powerful enough. But anyway, this time he actually put in a lot of good words for you. It looks that he developed a sort of affection for you after having that battle with you. He has become your staunch admirer, much like how he admired Ye Qingtian back then!"


    "What''s the relationship between him and Ye Qingtian?"


    "Not too close a relationship. When Ye Qingtian gained his fame in Penglai Region, White Tiger attempted to pull him into Immortal Palace but failed. He felt really upset about that. But it now appears that the failure was a good thing after all. If Ye Qingtian had joined Immortal Palace back then, now there would be a lot of trouble in store for Immortal Palace!"


    "Yep. Collaborating with the Fiery Eyes sect is enough to put Immortal Palace into a passive situation. But I really wonder what it is the reaction of Immortal Palace when they get into such a position!"


    "That will be very tricky for others, but for you, it''s a piece of cake!" said Wang She with a smile. "You can broadcast that you have Fiery Eyes now!"


    "Hahaha!"


    ¡­


    ¡­


    Ten days passed in a flash!


    After the day when Zhou Bao repelled the Yukun Buddha of the Bigwheel Temple, he was busy with a series of activities. First, he had a meeting with all the officials in his territory. Currently, the hierarchy of his Wuyang Earl''s Mansion was already in place. Everyone in Earl Mansion had his own role and would be receiving his own salary. But these days the Wuyang Region was in a chaotic state. With saboteurs coming to the scene one after another and spreading panic throughout the region, everybody''s hearts were in their throats.


    Zhou Bao met up with them, in the hope of setting their mind at ease. He told them that he had curbed his training and the days they had to tread carefully around him were definitely over, and what they should do now was working hard and do a good job. Their work should be deployed closely around the Zhou Bao-centered Earl Mansion. All the officials agreed that Zhou Bao''s words really made sense and were deeply inspirational. They would cooperate with Zhou Bao and build up Wuyang Region into a stable, harmonious, thriving and prosperous territory.


    When he had dealt with all his subordinates, he went to the villa and had another meeting with the experts from the Immortal Palace. After reinforcing his bond with those experts, calm was restored to the place.


    That lasted until the end of the 10 day period.


    10 days was enough time to change a lot of things, as well as to spread the news across the world. The news that the Bigwheel Temple''s double attacks against the Wuyang Region had ended badly, after suffering heavy casualties and having to compensate the Wuyang Region with three Pure Yang Celestial Devices, were no longer well kept secrets. Very few people was aware about what was happening at Snow Mountain BigWheel Temple; those who knew the actual facts did not realize the actual severity of the news.


    Of course, along with that news, another bit of information had also been making its rounds around the world: a very impressive disclosure had been going around regarding Zhou Bao''s Wuyang Region, which was able to resist Genuine Immortals. Child-endowing Buddha and Yukun Buddha both had their downfall due to this formation. According to Yukun Buddha''s speculation, this formation was likely to be the legendary Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    Comparing the news with that about the three Pure Yang Celestial Devices, this one was obviously much more shocking.


    Formation was said to be the foundation of a strong school or an influence, and a powerful formation could guarantee the safety of a school for numerous years. For example, the Mandala Formation of the Snow Mountain Bigwheel Temple had helped Bigwheel Temple to get through countless crises. No matter what kind of enemy or calamity they came across, as long as the Mandala Formation was initiated, Bigwheel Temple would be kept intact. And that had assured Bigwheel Temple''s existence for 50,000 years. However, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation even ranked higher than the formation of the Bigwheel Temple!


    What did this mean?


    Did Zhou Bao have plans to build not only a powerful territory but a powerful sect as well?


    That was a possibility.


    By now Zhou Bao was famed for his strong powers and formidable celestial devices. He had more than one Pure Yang Celestial Device in his hand. If he truly wanted to set up a sect, the Pure Yang Celestial Devices he had were enough to maintain the fate of his sect well, enabling the sect he had established to last for thousands of years. Meanwhile, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation would ensure that he was able to successfully withstand the attacks launched by any Genuine Immortal.


    Attacks launched by a Genuine Immortal?


    Nowadays, no Genuine Immortal would really launch an attack on a newly developing school. They would do that only if the founder of that school had extremely low moral standards like Zhou Bao. Nevertheless, the story of Yukun Buddha was evidence that a single Genuine Immortal was not able to break through the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, even two or three Genuine Immortals could not manage that, either.


    Only when there were five or more Genuine Immortals, would they then be able to break through the defense of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    Five Genuine Immortals!


    "Really, that must be a joke!" Zhou Bao''s strength was not even at Level Nine yet in order for him to attain the Metaphysic Realm. If he ever established a school, that would be a school of the mortal world. Accordingly, even if only one Genuine Immortal assaulted that school, the Law of Heaven would already be violated, let alone five Genuine Immortals. How could five Genuine Immortals be willing to simultaneously breach the Law of Heaven for this Wuyang Region?


    They must have lost their minds!


    It was good to remember that be it the Child-endowing Buddha or Yukun Buddha, striking out to conquer Wuyang Region would always come with a price. At Zhou Bao''s place, they had managed to get off the hook easily by giving him three Pure Yang Celestial Devices. But in the Divine Wind Palace, the Immortal Palace, the Dragon Thunder Palace and the Jade Pool, they would never be able to achieve that. After all, the two did violate the Law of the Heaven. If their attacks were successful and the victim died, that would be fine. However, now the victim was still alive and kicking and had a promising future ahead. Also, he was the prize that the Divine Wind Palace was trying to cozy up to. In this case, the Bigwheel Temple would certainly have a hard time. Divine Wind Palace was eagerly waiting for the Bigwheel Temple to commit some blunders so that they would have a hold on Bigwheel Temple and force them to surrender. With Bigwheel Temple at such a vulnerable point, surely Divine Wind Palace would leverage on that advantage?


    It was a totally impossible situation.


    In this way, after considering all the factors, everyone suddenly discovered that Zhou Bao, this little kid less than 20 years old, had the world in the palm of his hand; magic weapons, strength, and even the potential to open up a millennia sect similar to the Tian Long Taoism and the Mingyi School!


    A millennia sect!


    Setting up such a sect was even more difficult than setting up a dynasty on Earth.


    If we gave this further thought, if Zhou Bao should really establish an early form of a millennia sect and joined up with Divine Wind Palace, he was undoubtedly akin to a nail that was firmly hammered in place into the Central Mainland Region by Divine Wind Palace, which meant the situation of the Four Eastern Regions was bound to have significant changes!

 Chapter 380: Spirit Vein & Cave Paradise

    Chapter 380: Spirit Vein & Cave Paradise


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Boy, don''t turn a deaf ear to my words! The Master of the Golden Lights Cave is a very unyielding person. If his mind is fixated on one decision he will stick to it forever. When his fame was renowned, we were not even born yet. Although the things he has achieved could not be a patch on yours, he is not weaker than you. Are you listening to me? When he was newly upgraded to Level Seven, he managed to defeat three Chiefs and eight Elders of Tian Long Taoism, many of whom were Level Eight experts. The reason why I became a Chief so easily is due to the fact that he had badly wounded the former Chief. After that incident, our Tian Long Taoism has always been at odds with the followers of Golden Lights Cave. The Master of Golden Lights Cave created the Golden Lights Cave and devoted himself to strengthening the lineage, and has been quietly cultivating his mind and staying at Qianyuan Mountain for closed-door training and insights of the Great Way of Sword Mastery during these past decades. But his disciples, as you know, are all experts above Level Seven!"


    "Yeah, they are all experts above Level Seven, but merely experts." Zhou Bao said with a smile, "However since Chief is so afraid of him, I won''t lower my guard and will be more vigilant"


    "Look how nonchalant you are! Make sure you really watch out for him? Stop joking!" Seeing Zhou Bao wasn''t paying any attention to him, Wang She shook his head and stopped talking. Then he faded into thin air and vanished.


    "Your... Your Excellency!" After Wang She left, silence prevailed in the room for a while, and then Zhu Ba started talking. "Your Excellency, are you really willing to give us the Pure Yang Celestial Devices?"


    "You''re wrong! They''re for Jiang Xiao and Wang Cheng. As for you, we''ll talk about it after your skill levels exceed Level Eight!"


    "Level Eight? You must be joking! Why?"


    "Because that is what I want !" Zhou Bao smiled and patted Zhu Ba. "Although your aptitude is excellent, your moral values are poor. If you couldn''t attain Level Eight, you''d better kill yourself out of shame if that happens. Why do you need a Pure Yang Celestial Device?"


    "I--" He was stunned into silence and could only stare at Zhou Bao''s receding figure.


    "Oh, Zhu Ba. It looks like His Excellency really thinks highly of you!" Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao smiled bemusedly at each other and said, "But he is right. He has been training you as his disciple and has been very strict with your skills refinement all the time. If you couldn''t raise your skills up to Level Eight even with such a tutor, you should really be ashamed of yourself!"


    "Do you guys think that Pure Yang Celestial Devices are already yours? Your skills set are only at Level Five, it would be terribly difficult for you to reach Level Seven," Zhu Ba snorted.


    ¡­


    "F*ck, this saber is clearly a katana. What kind of vile weapon is this?" Squinting at the Evil Knife Thousand Snakes Pill in his hand, Zhou Bao had his doubts


    "F*ck, this saber is clearly a katana. What kind of Evil Way it is?"Watching the Evil Knife Thousand Snakes Pill in hand, Zhou Bao squinted and had doubts in his mind.


    "The language of this world is similar to that from the past world. Characters and idioms are alike as well. How did this item which is similar to a Japanese creation appear here? Is Wasn''t the ancient Chuyun destroyed by the Yamato people? How come there is a similar tribe in the Yingzhou Region? They are indeed an unlucky tribe to be destroyed a second time round. But the knife remains intact. Is it because this world has somehow connected to my previous life?"


    "Well, there should be a connection. Otherwise, I would not have been reincarnated here for no reason. Isn''t that what Buddha said ''to see the world in a wildflower and a bodhi in a leaf''? No, it shouldn''t be that. I don''t believe in Buddhism, but how did I end up in this world?"


    Even after pondering on it for sometime, he couldn''t come up with a plausible explanation. Zhou Bao had no choice but to infuse the evil knife with his GangQi. Then he purified and suppressed it with the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Qi to defuse its evil Qi.


    "Never mind. It''s always good to be alive. Now due to my limited skills, I can''t figure it out, but one day I will. Humph, there must be a reason why I was sent here."


    His hand stroked the handle of the evil saber. Suddenly, a chilling, macabre sensation seeped through Zhou Bao''s body.


    "It''s just a cheap trick!" Feeling an evil psychic power emanating from the coldness, Zhou Bao sneered and activated the Real Essence of Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique to dissipate the power. He grasped the handle of the saber and waved it in the air.


    The saber started spinning about and its blade sliced through the air. It gave off a sound much like a snake''s sibilant hissing. The sound echoed around the air but did not attract any attention from the people around. But Zhou Bao found that with each slash of the blade, cracks started appearing in the space around him.


    They were mere cracks and the spaces did not split too widely. An evil Qi had damaged its surface and left chinks in it.


    "I merely gave it a wave and it already produced such an effect. If I were to energise it with my full strength, it will definitely split the place asunder and release its destructive powers.. Hehe, it is a pity that there is so much evil Qi on it. My Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Essence is able to suppress the evil Qi, but it can''t be infused into this saber, so the actual power of the saber has not utilized to the maximum. Hehe, the Bigwheel Temple really has a good plan. Even if they were to lose, there will not be any benefits for me. It is a pity they are unaware my Nine Heavens Primordial Ruler can purify this evil saber. But if this evil saber was purified, it wouldn''t be an evil saber anymore. Even if it was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, its power wouldn''t be as strong as before. After all, it was once at the level of a magic weapon. I''d better figure out another plan. Should I use it for evil means?" Zhou Bao thought to himself. At this point, he realized how useful Green Spirit had been. Green Spirit was like a walking encyclopedia with its knowledge on the things he was not sure of. Whether its suggestions were rational or not, everything would always be solved in the end. Now with Green Spirit was gone, he was always in doubt when he had troubling issues in mind.


    "Forget it, I will trust my own instincts. Even though Green Spirit came up with some good ideas, I don''t really trust them enough to base my final decisions on them. It can only be one of my alliances, just like Wang She. If I were to establish a close relationship with it, it would still betray me!"


    Zhou Bao infused the Evil Knife Thousand Snakes Pill into his Gang Qi and suppressed it with his Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Qi. In a flash, he sat on the cloud bed again.


    After visiting the Azure Secret Area, he discovered that his practice place in Jilei Mountain had changed a lot. The cloud bed he used for his daily practice was once a stone bed, but was gradually turning into an intact piece of Ten-thousand-year-old Warm Jade. Even if a mere piece of this jade was made available to the outside world, there would be hordes of people rushing to own it, as it was such a valuable treasure. Its powers could be used to suppress internal demons and the restless Internal Qi, which could protect one from being possessed by the devil. Yet when he was honing his skills, Zhou Bao used it as a bed.


    Around the small cave, there was a protective formation made up of 81 Top-Grade Spirit Stones. This structure was formed by the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, but its powers were not as formidable as the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. It was apparently a weaker version of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and Death Gate. Even though it was just a copy without the Innate Qi Talisman as the Formation Eye, it could still unleash remarkable powers. Even the attacks from several Individual Immortals could not destroy its formation.


    In addition to these two defences, there was a spring behind the cave, which was the reason why Zhou Bao chose this to be his place of practice. Although the spring was a common feature, but it didn''t hide the fact that Zhou Bao was rich as hell. In the Azure Secret Area, he brought out a piece of the Green Spirit Essence. After he buried it beneath the ground, it was able to realign the spirit vein, gather together the veins that had been dispersed previously and create a whole new spirit veinscattered.


    This spirit vein was different from the dragon vein. The dragon vein''s power was linked to fate, and it was intangible. However, the spirit vein''s obligation was to produce the spiritual qi to nourish the world. The spirit vein was initially invisible but as the spiritual qi around it gathered with mounting speed, it became visible to all.


    The places imbued with the spirit veins were called Cave Paradises. All the powerful families in the world had their homes centered around Cave Paradises. For instance, the Immortal Palace which Zhou Bao had visited, was built on a giant spirit vein, which was stronger than the one that Zhou Bao had gathered with the Green Spirit Essence. Tian Long Mystic Mountain of Tian Long Taoism was a Cave Paradise, too.


    The Northwest Region was just a dismal and bleak piece of land and the spirit veins there were scanty and small. Because of this, they were too tiny to transform the piece of land into a Cave Paradise. But now with the Green Spirit Essence, it was different. The Green Spirit Essence had a powerful spiritual qi and was capable of combining with the spirit vein as well. Although it could not form a vast Cave Paradise like Tian Long Taoism, it was still able to transform this small cave and the surrounding areas within a 100 miles of the cave into a great Cave Paradise.


    "My Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique has already reached the basic level. With this environment, even if I kept on practising, I will not make much progress. My Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique has also reached the Advanced Level and Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints has attained its breakthrough. Even if it didn''t reach the Advanced Level, I am not able to practise it anymore now. Sh*t, I''ve gained so many benefits from Taiyuan Heaven and I feel that I have reached the peak of my skills attainment at Level Nine. If I carried on practising my skills, there would be a huge chance that I am able to exceed Level Nine and upgrade to the Golden Book of Fate. If this is true, I would lose more than I''ve gained. So I had better put up with it!"


    Zhou Bao drummed his fingertips on the warm jade bed and he said, "This being the case, I will seize this opportunity to create some mischief. In the past, there were always others creating trouble in my territory, but now it''s my turn to do the same. How will they react?"

 Chapter 381: To Swank, To Build the Sea-calming Palace

    Chapter 381: To Swank, To Build the Sea-calming Palace


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Peace descended onto Zhou Bao''s Wuyang Region ever since the Bigwheel Temple gifted Zhou Bao with three Pure Yang Celestial Devices.


    Of course, the peace referred to was the peace among the leaders of the Divine Wind Palace, the Immortal Palace, the Bigwheel Temple, the Tian Long Taoism and the Mingyi School. During this period, they did not harass Wuyang Region. Similarly, Zhou Bao did not stir up any trouble either.


    He looked as if he were really focused on cultivating his skills and starting to oversee his own territory.


    Within a short period of time, a set of rules and regulations had been issued by the Lord Mansion. Backed by Zhou Bao''s huge financial resources and powerful background, the whole Wuyang Region once again became the main focus of the world, and also became the most prosperous place in the northwest.


    Yes, it was indeed the most prosperous place now.


    Because Zhou Bao suddenly broadcasted some news which made every Barbarian Tribe clench their teeth in fury: Black Demon Chama in the Blacktail Plain had surrendered to him, and was now his subordinate; the tumultuous Wolf Lord from the northwest prairie was also his subordinate; no one was allowed to touch them, as it would seem that they were going against him as well. When will all this end?


    The mere thought of this gave the people a massive headache.


    It was overbearing!


    Too overbearing indeed!


    As soon as the news was announced, the lords of several large territories, who had been preparing their experts for battle against Black Demon Chama, had to give up their plans with a lot of sighings and headshaking. They called him all sorts of names secretly, but no one dared to even mutter dissent publicly.


    Sealing off the Blacktail Plain with Black Demon Chama forced the surrounding Barbarian Tribes to turn to Wuyang Region. Everything from personnel, materials and horses, had been procured from Wuyang Region. In this way, it was hard for Wuyang Region not to prosper.


    Earlier, Wuyang Region was in an unstable condition because of Bigwheel Temple. Many people built a few small territories around Wuyang Region to use as transit points, leaving the cargo, personnel and so on in these small territories. This however was extremely inconvenient and wasted a lot of unnecessary resources. Now that Wuyang Region was safe, the situation had changed. All the equipment and materials were routed to Wuyang Region and it was now the transit point.


    On the other hand, having gained experience in Jiang City, Jiang Xiao and others were very adept in this business. In just two to three months, Wuyang Region had flourished and gaining prosperity. No one had any doubts that in the near future, it would become the most powerful territory among Barbarian Tribes in the northwest, even in the whole north, and would eventually become an empire.


    During the development stage, Wuyang Region was undergoing large-scale construction with a large number of personnel and materials coming into the region. The materials that were meant for other territories in the northwest would be forcibly retained as long as they were thought to be of use for Wuyang Region. It was not an outright robbery, of course, but rather a forced purchase at a fixed price, which had shown Wuyang Region''s great financial resources to all people.


    Wuyang Region was well known to all for its wealth. Zhou Bao had made a lot of money from the Cool Breeze Gang and from the battle which destroyed Northern Yuan. Now that Wuyang Region was on the right track, Zhou Bao started to embark on a mission of "liberalizing business, abolishing the guild", which meant collecting a large amount of business tax by virtue of its geographical location. The steady flow of wealth into Wuyang Region had given Wuyang Region the financial resources it needed to support the massive construction.


    No one was aware that these projects did not cost Zhou Bao a single penny. The construction of the Sea-calming Palace on Jilei Mountain was entirely funded by the Immortal Palace, and he was ostensibly in charge of the matter. Outwardly, it appeared as if the people of Wuyang Region were buying and selling materials, and Anyuan Store was responsible for providing the items, but, in actual fact, the expenses were paid for by the Immortal Palace. What was incredible was that the Immortal Palace did not even send anyone to oversee the transaction of the goods, and Jiang Xiao would submit an account to Golden Rooster every other month. This allowed Zhou Bao to take advantage of this loophole, and he asked Jiang Xiao to charge more expenses than was actually spent each time, and thus he was able to claim more money. Jiang Xiao was shocked by this state of affairs, saying that Zhou Bao would be the first corrupt official in the world if he were to take office.


    Zhou Bao disregarded this. What was the Immortal Palace?


    It was one of the most powerful influences in the Four Eastern Regions, out of the secular world, equivalent to an immortal mansion in the eyes of the ordinary people. Would such a place be short of money? No, definitely not. For them, it was like having the Midas touch, the ability to turn everything into gold. Money was like sand to them. If he were not a member of the Immortal Palace and had some qualms in taking too much money, he would definitely try to get more.


    The Immortal Palace was out of the realms of the human world, but Wuyang Region was not!


    "I''m exhausted. I''m totally exhausted!" During the whole construction of Wuyang Region, Zhou Bao had not been idle.


    While the Sea-calming Palace was being built, he had to set up the Yin and Yang Dust Formation around the palace, and he had to extend the Yin and Yang Dust Formation below the Jilei Mountain to the Sea-calming Palace.


    It was a huge project.


    Previously, Wuyang Region was not a big county; It was about the size of the town at the foot of the Jilei Mountain with a courtyard. Thus, the scope of area for the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, which he had placed, was not large, and the work was not hard. Now, however, the Immortal Palace was building the Sea-calming Palace.


    It was the Sea-calming Palace!


    In the past, it was the palace of Heavenly Court, covering tens of thousands of acres and was bigger than the legendary Epang Palace. It was not an easy task to set up such a wide range for the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Originally, Zhou Bao wanted them to build the main hall first, and Earth Bat of Girl agreed. However, at the time of setting up the formation, Earth Bat of Girl requested for the expansion of the perimeters according to his diagram. Naturally, Zhou Bao refused, and they had a quarrel and nearly came to blows because of this. At last, both sides came to a compromise. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation would cover about 10 times the size of the main hall, including the small town below the mountain and yard. Although the scope was much smaller than that on the diagram, the workload had increased by more than a 100 times. Even though he was filled with excess energy, owned abundant materials and had the support of experts of the Immortal Palace, Zhou Bao was still dog-tired.


    "I won''t do this again next time! Damn it, what the hell is Earth Bat of Girl thinking? Asking me to establish a new sect and taking on disciples! He has even picked the name, calling this the "Sea-calming Palace"! I must have been a fool, to give up my life to do this kind of thing!" Zhou Bao muttered angrily.


    The Immortal Palace was being secretive this time and did not want to reveal their relationship with Zhou Bao. Hence, many things had to be done by Zhou Bao, and for other stuff, he needed Wang She''s help.


    And as his name indicated, when something came up, Wang She was a person of words only, but no action, much like a lazy snake that was in hibernation for the winter. In the end, everything was left to Zhou Bao.


    You really don''t know how lucky you are! How many people in this world are able to get the same benefits as you? The Immortal Palace provides money and personnel, as well as the planning for the Sea-calming Palace, but all you do is to complain of exhaustion! I really don''t know what to say!"


    "Hehe, Your Excellency Chief, I''m not a man who cannot discern the good from the bad. But it''s really tiring. Also, have you noticed, in this place, the Sea-calming Palace is used to suppress the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins, which aren''t spirit veins when they are underground. Thus, how is it possible to establish a new sect in this place? Even if I have the ability, it''s impossible to find a great spirit vein here. Without a spirit vein and Fairyland, how can there be a foundation for a new sect? Rather, it''s an opportunity to change regimes!"


    "What you say makes sense. It''s really too barren and lacking in spirit veins. It''s hard to establish a millennium sect. But it will be good to establish a millennium family as well, like the Li Family of Pingzhou. They do not have any great spirit veins and Fairyland, very similar to you. It will be good to use certain powers like the Green Spirit Essence to gather some spirit veins for the family base."


    "A millennium family?" Zhou Bao''s eyes rolled as he had little interest in what was being said. Now in the northwest, Wuyang Region had become the dominant force. They had money, manpower and strength, but lacked inner accumulation. And the cultivation of inner accumulation would take up a long time, and it would not work even if you were strong enough to put Immortals to death with just one hand.


    "Indeed, establishing a millennium family is the best choice. But you know the problem with the bloodline of my family!"


    "No matter whether you build a renowned family or not, you have to seal off the bloodline of every newborn in your family before you bring down the Divine Wind Palace. There is no doubt about it!" Wang She smiled, "It makes very little difference!"


    "Yes, it makes very little difference!" Zhou Bao thought. "Then, that''s it! It might seem that I have little or no ambition, if I don''t do anything under such good conditions,"


    "As long as you do not practice the Way of the Emperor to aggravate the Human Emperor''s position, no matter what you do, the Divine Wind Palace and the Immortal Palace will give you a bit of face. As for the Mingyi School and the Jin, you don''t have to bother about them. The Jin now occupies the Central Plains of the Central Mainland Region, is the largest and most powerful dynasty in the Central Mainland Region. But the scope of the Central Mainland Region is so wide that it is impossible for the Jin to take control of it completely. For example, the northwest, the Western Region, and the west of the Western Region are the places where the Jin is not able to reach. There is still a lot of room for you to develop. To establish a dynasty, a well-known family or a sect, it''s up to you to decide!"


    "Yeah, it''s all up to me! Hehe, I''ve heard a phrase before, ''a thought can lead you to Buddha, but a thought can also lead you to hell''. Does it describe my situation now?"


    "Where did you hear that? It sounds good!" Wang She said with a smile, "It has a profound significance. Unfortunately, I''m not the kind of person who likes to go for this sort of things. If you go to the Bigwheel Temple and talk to them about this, maybe they''ll make you the Living Buddha!"


    "I digress, I digress!" Zhou Bao laughed, waving his hand, "You are in such a hurry that you should not come to chat with me, right?"


    "Golden Lights Cave has sprung into action!" Wang She said with a serious expression.

 Chapter 382: Struggle for the Formation Map

    Chapter 382: Struggle for the Formation Map


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "The Golden Lights Cave in Qianyuan Mountain? Are they up to no good?" Zhou Bao asked with a frown.


    "Yes, the Master of Golden Lights Cave has been in contact with Mingyi School. He seems to want to connect with Divine Wind Palace through Mingyi School and then borrow the formation map of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation from you through the Divine Wind Palace!"


    "Borrow the formation map of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation from me through the Divine Wind Palace?" Zhou Bao blinked, "Does he think I am a fool?"


    "It''s not for nothing. It has been said that he has put in a lot of effort in it this time!"


    "Well, what good stuff can he offer us? He doesn''t even have a single Pure Yang Celestial Device, and I have just received three! Do I need his stuff?" The corners of Zhou Bao''s mouth twitched, and disdain showed his face. "Didn''t they think that the information will be made known to my special formation in northwest? How can I possibly lend it out? Allow him to cause trouble with my formation map? They don''t even know if I am willing to lend it out!"


    "The Master of Golden Lights Cave has a tendency to be extreme in doing things. It will be good if you can lend it to him. Otherwise, he will see you as an enemy!"


    "Are you trying to sow discord?" Zhou Bao glanced at Wang She with a smile.


    "Yes, my intention might be to sow discord, but it is also the hard truth!"


    "Take me for the enemy? Then let it be! And I tell you, it''s good that he''s being sensible, or I would definitely vent the anger I feel towards Bigwheel Temple at him! I''m unable to deal with Bigwheel Temple, but I''m sure I can wipe out the small Golden Lights Cave. Even if the Master of Golden Lights Cave is an Individual Immortal, I''ll ignore him as well!"


    "Indeed, he has ascended into the realm of Individual Immortal. It is said that it was the Innate Green Lotus Seed that he found in the Azure Secret Area that helped him break through the last crucial point!"


    "Then I will not lend it to him anymore!" Upon hearing Wang She''s words, Zhou Bao suddenly remembered that, like him, the Master of Golden Lights Cave also had the Innate Green Lotus Seed. That was to say, he also had the skill of refining the Innate Qi Talisman. "If he really got hold of the formation map of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, he might set up a complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation as well. Then wasn''t Zhou Bao just asking for trouble by lending it to him?"


    This thought made him more determined that no matter what, he would never hand over the formation map of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. In his mind there was a glimmer of hope to see the reaction of the Master of Golden Lights Cave after he refused his request.


    If he really dared to provoke him, Zhou Bao had no qualms about destroying the Golden Lights Cave that was a small meteor-like school.


    "Is the Golden Lights Cave on good terms with the Divine Wind Palace?"


    "No, the Golden Lights Cave has a partnership with Mingyi School, and it is through Mingyi School that the Golden Lights Cave got in touch with the Divine Wind Palace!" Wang She said with cold disdain, "He was only a Level Nine expert previously. The whole Golden Lights Cave is supported by him alone. The collaboration between Mingyi School and him would add him as a member to Mingyi School, and thus enable him to make full use Mingyi School''s influence. The Divine Wind Palace is only slightly impressed with him and they do not know him very well. They are helping him because he still has some value largely due to Mingyi School. Between you and him, the Divine Wind Palace''s preference will definitely be you. So, you don''t have to worry that they will force you to hand over the formation map of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation."


    "Just let them try to force me!" Zhou Bao smiled, but deep down in his heart, he felt slightly worried. His worry was not that the Master of Golden Lights Cave coveted his Yin and Yang Dust Formation but that the Divine Wind Palace also coveted the formation, and that was the gist of the problem.


    Wang She didn''t know about the connection between the Innate Green Lotus and the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, so to him it was just a simple fact. What if the Master of Golden Lights Cave struck a deal with the Divine Wind Palace with regards to his Innate Green Lotus Seed?


    To send his Innate Green Lotus Seed to the Divine Wind Palace and in return, Divine Wind Palace would forcibly "borrow" the formation map of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation from Zhou Bao, then they could enjoy the benefits of these two formations. Wouldn''t that be an ideal situation for them?


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation was one of the Ancient Miraculous Formations, ranking above the Mandala Formation of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. Even the Divine Wind Palace coveted this strange type of formation. How could they possibly miss this chance?


    The question now was not whether he or the Master of Golden Lights Cave was more valuable, but whether he or the Yin and Yang Dust Formation was of more value!


    At this thought, Zhou Bao had a feeling of discomfort in the heart. Although he knew he was worth far more than the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, in the eyes of other people, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation was far more valuable than him.


    Brooding over this, his face darkened.


    "What, is there something wrong?"


    "I''m afraid the Divine Wind Palace is not as easy to deal with as you think!" Zhou Bao smiled wryly, "But comfort soldiers with generals and stem water with earth. The Divine Wind Palace can''t snatch it forcibly, regardless of face. Even if they do, I''m not afraid!"


    "Why are you so sure that the Divine Wind Palace are after your Yin and Yang Dust Formation? You know, they already have the Alignment of Stars and it is equal in strength to your Yin and Yang Dust Formation, and is able to evolve the complete Great Way of Stars. Why would they want your Yin and Yang Dust Formation? With the most important Formation Eye, its power is less than a tenth of the complete power!"


    "The Innate Qi Talisman is refined from the Innate Green Lotus. The Master of Golden Lights Cave has the Innate Green Lotus, and the Divine Wind Palace must surely know how to refine the Innate Qi Talisman. Then the Yin and Yang Dust Formation is definitely of a great value for the Divine Wind Palace!"


    Hearing this, Wang She became sullen. "So this is the actual story. No wonder the Master of Golden Lights Cave is so open about this. He isn''t afraid the secret will leak out. Because the Divine Wind Palace will definitely find a way to get your formation map. All he needs to do is to reach an agreement with the Divine Wind Palace. Everyone thought you can defeat Bigwheel Temple because of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Hump, what a good plan!"


    "Yeah, a good plan! But that will never happen. Otherwise, I''m not Zhou Bao!"


    "What are you going to do?"


    "Divine Wind Palace is currently busy so they still require my help. Thus, they will never forcibly snatch my formation map regardless of face. But the future is uncertain!"


    "You mean after the Divine Wind Palace gets the Azure Secret Area..."


    "They are now going to pursue Ye Qingtian and gain entry into the Azure Secret Area, and I am of great use for them. Therefore, they won''t push me too hard. But it''s hard to tell in the future. After all, to outsiders, I do not seem to have enough power to possess a formation like the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Besides, many people are eyeing me and wishing for my death!" Zhou Bao''s eyes were gloomy. "They should sound me out first. For the initial period, they shouldn''t put too much pressure on me. I am able to handle it. As for the future, hum, no one knows!"


    "Thinking that since he had already mastered the Origin of the Great Ways of the Azure Secret Area, Zhou Bao''s confidence grew. "Divine Wind Palace, this time I definitely will make you go for wool and come home shorn! And Master of Golden Lights Cave, do you think I''ll let you off even if you are not the one doing the dirty work, yet instigating Divine Wind Palace to go after me? Hump, nothing is that good in this world!"


    "Now that you have a plan in hand, I will not bother you anymore. Your territory''s recent development is really good enough for it to be known as the strongest vassal state in northwest''! You''d better find a right-hand man to manage it for you. Soon you will be terribly busy!"


    Zhou Bao smiled and made no comment.


    As Wang She went away quietly, Zhou Bao''s eyes gleamed as he thought of something else. "Since you want to play, let''s make it a bigger game. I remember the arrival of my sister-in-law last time seemed to have something to do with the Divine Wind Palace. Is the person that the Master of Golden Lights Cave sent this time related to the School of Five Virtues?"


    Five Virtues meant benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and trust!


    Ren II, Yi IV, Li VII, Zhi IX, Xin X.


    They were the five supervisors. And Mingyi School was established by Yi IV of the School of Five Virtues, having been passed down for thousands of years. However, now Yi IV was not the original founder of Mingyi School, but someone from the third generation. Even so, Mingyi School was still a powerful force in the hands of Yi IV. In a sense, the cooperation between the Mingyi School and the Golden Lights Cave represented the will of Yi IV of the School of Five Virtues. What about Li VII?


    Was the Third Supervisor of the School of Five Virtues in agreement with the Second Supervisor Yi IV or at odds with him?


    If he was in agreement with Yi IV, there was nothing more to it. But if he was at odds with Yi IV, there will be news forthcoming!"


    It had to be said that, sometimes, Zhou Bao was discerning and very accurate in his judgements. As expected, when he came out of his closed-door training, and before he could even sit down, a maid came to announce that the Princess Heyang had come again.


    "Princess Heyang, she''s really persistent! But I forsee some opportunities. What good tidings will she bring me this time?"


    When he met Yan Yunyan again, she did not look good. She seemed very haggard, probably due to overwork. When Zhou Bao came in, she had a slightly surprised look in her eyes, and her eyes flickered. She had been not been on good terms with Zhou Bao, and was waiting for a chance to teach him a lesson, but now this was not uppermost in her mind.


    Zhou Bao was too powerful beyond her expectations. He was one person she could not afford to annoy any more. She was not as ignorant as before, and understood the meaning of influences like the Immortal Palace, the Divine Wind Palace and the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. They were the strongest in the world, unequaled in their strength, and even the Li dynasty had to bow to them. Zhou Bao, however, made the Bigwheel Temple suffer defeat and even gifting him with three Pure Yang Celestial Devices. With such strength, he was not someone that she, a little princess, could provoke. Thus, meeting Zhou Bao once again, she naturally kept a low profile.


    "What bad news does your highness have for me this time?" Satisfied with her humility, Zhou Bao questioned her with a smile.

 Chapter 383: The Supervisorss Struggle

    Chapter 383: The Supervisors'' Struggle


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Sorry for bothering you but this is so important that I had to come here." Seeing Zhou Bao''s teasing look, Princess Heyang, Yan Yunyan, felt so awful. It was as if he had seen right through her, all the way to the bottom of her heart. Her heart skipped a beat.


    "It must be the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, right?" Zhou Bao smiled as he walked toward Yan Yunyan and saw her uneasiness. "Just take it easy and have a seat."


    Yan Yunyan nodded. Up until now, she had not realized that she had been so tense and she could not help standing up.


    "Yes, it is! The master of the Golden Lights Cave, Qianyuan Mountain, came to Mingyi School for it in person. He obtained the recommendation of the Man of Honor, Ji Zhongtang, and met an upper immortal of the Divine Wind Palace. They finally came to an agreement after a confidential talk."


    "Did Li VII inform you of all this?"


    "Yes, Li VII informed me. He asked me to remind you so that you could make mental preparations."


    "Li VII has good intentions, but he''d better not be so artificial. You go back and tell him that if he wants to cozy up to me, he just needs to show me his sincerity. After all, he''s the Third Supervisor of the School of Five Virtues. Whether in status or the authority to speak, he greatly exceeds that Man of Honor. If he only says something, I won''t have much trouble. And you also have no need to come here."


    Yan Yunyan was stunned because of his words. She sat down dreamily and silently. For her, things like the School of Five Virtues and supervisors were so distant. And Zhou Bao made it clear that she was not qualified enough to discuss it with him. He wanted someone who was his match.


    That was Zhou Bao''s attitude now.


    He had already gotten the information that he needed. It seemed that neither the Divine Wind Palace nor even the School of Five Virtues was as tranquil as what was said. The five supervisors all had different thoughts.


    For example, not long after Yi IV made his own action, Li VII asked the people to inform him right away.


    However, what Zhou Bao wanted was not merely a message, but Li VII''s sincerity. Since he intended to seek interests from him, he had to pay enough for it. If he aimed at Zhou Bao owing a debt of gratitude by asking Yan Yunyan to send a message, then he would be disappointed.


    "Zhou Bao, my sister is so kind to come here to inform you. It''s fine if you''re ungrateful, but how can you be so enigmatic?!"


    Seeing Zhou Bao act like a villain holding sway, Yan Yunfei was dissatisfied. She stared at Zhou Bao and then took Yan Yunyan by the hand, saying, "Sister, stop taking notice of him. Come this way, I''ll show you around. Our Wuyang Region has changed a lot these past few months. I''m sure you''ll like it." As she spoke, Yan Yunfei had already pulled Yan Yunyan up and walked away without giving Zhou Bao any attention.


    "It was you who asked me here." Zhou Bao did not know whether to laugh or cry when he saw Yan Yunfei pull Yan Yunyan away. He sighed with the feeling that a man had better not try to guess a woman''s thoughts. It was Yan Yunfei who had asked Zhou Bao to the back parlor of Lord Mansion, but unexpectedly, she pulled the visitor away while leaving him here alone after his arrival. How unreadable!


    At that moment, Renzhen Cuo came in and served tea. She was a little surprised to see Zhou Bao standing in the parlor alone. "Master, here is your tea."


    "Fine, put it down." Zhou Bao glanced at Renzhen Cuo and then stared. He had not seen Renzhen Cuo for months, little did he expect that she would become more and more beautiful. With big eyes, a Roman nose, and a high and exquisite stature, she showed more exotic amorous feelings. Her temperament had become more distinguished than before, making her appear more like a princess of a tribe.


    "I remember that you''re a princess of some tribe, right?"


    Renzhen Cuo was a bit stunned and a gloomy expression flashed through her eyes. "Whoever I was in the past, I''m your family servant now, my master," she said humbly. "According to your current position and power, even a true princess should also bow and kneel to you."


    "It seems that you''ve really taken note of the situation. You must benefit a great deal in my Wuyang Region these days. Your cultivation is about to reach Level Four and you''re a Junior Master now. You''re able to have that cultivation at such a young age, not bad."


    "I''m still far inferior to Your Excellency."


    "I''m not like you. I may appear to be well-regarded, but if I make one wrong move, all will be beyond redemption. You''re different, you have lots of chances." Speaking of which, he said with a sigh, "I think it''s a pity to have you serve tea. Stop doing so from now on."


    "Your Excellency!" Renzhen Cuo was confused. There was a hint of provocation as she looked at Zhou Bao. She could not help blushing with shyness and she trembled. "I..."


    "Okay, so be it. Go and find Jiang Xiao. Tell him that I want him to arrange a post for you. You can practice with them from now on." After those words, Zhou Bao raised his forefinger and pointed directly toward the space between her eyebrows. Then some abstruse meaning was transferred into her brain, just as Stranger had done those years ago. The method of injecting one part of divine thoughts into the target object''s spirit was really quick and convenient. Zhou Bao''s strength had advanced at a high speed. He was no weaker than a Genuine Immortal now, therefore, it was easy for him to do so.


    Renzhen Cuo''s eyes became glassy. She sensed the strong divine thoughts transferring from Zhou Bao and her eyes were full of ecstasy. "Your Excellency, you..."


    Because she had gotten over-excited, she could not say anything but only gazed at Zhou Bao in surprise.


    "Well, don''t be stupefied anymore. Hurry to look for Jiang Xiao. My wife will misunderstand us if she comes back and sees you gaze at me like this. That''s troublesome." Zhou Bao laughed.


    The blush on Renzhen Cuo''s face became darker. She responded in a quiet voice and ran away.


    "This little girl seems to be fond of me. What a pity that I don''t want to hunt for beauties for the time being. Damn Li VII! Humph! Since you want to drag me into the internal strife of the Divine Wind Palace, surely I''d like to seize the chance to infiltrate your Mingyi School''s sphere of interest, stir up trouble behind the scenes, disintegrate your unity, and destroy you entirely from within, bravo! Don''t think you can make use of me easily. Humph!"


    The Divine Wind Palace was too powerful for Zhou Bao or Wang She to deal with. Confronting the enemy head-on offered them no assurance at all but was stupid behavior. They could only try everything in the dark to plot against that powerful influence, like mice that hid in a ditch. Only by doing so could they gain a ray of hope. After a long time of observation, Zhou Bao and Wang She finally got it.


    "Third Supervisor, this is my master''s decision. Are you sure you want to fall out with my master?"


    While Zhou Bao was plotting against the Divine Wind Palace, there was a spirited debate inside Mingyi School. One of them was a deacon of Mingyi School and the other one was the Man of Honor, Ji Zhongtang, along with another middle-aged man.


    "Ji Zhongtang, you''re merely a nominal disciple of the Second Supervisor. You''re not qualified to talk with me at all. It''s our business, so shut up." The middle-aged man was Li VII, the Third Supervisor of the School of Five Virtues in the Divine Wind Palace, and the one who had asked Yan Yunyan to inform Zhou Bao. He looked at Ji Zhongtang, wearing a disdainful sneer on his face. After saying such words coldly, he stopped paying attention to that excited man.


    Ji Zhongtang stood in front of him, bowing his body with his head lowered, but his face toward ground was filled with resentment. "The formation map of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation is what our master certainly must have. Even though the Third Supervisor has meddled in it, I''m afraid that you''ll end in failure."


    Li VII did not answer him. He picked up his teacup and blew off the foam lightly, and then took a sip of tea and pursed his lips, savoring the pleasant flavor of the tea.


    "Well, the tea isn''t bad. Make me five kilograms or so for me to give away." Seeming to be satisfied with the tea, Li VII stood up. "I''ll go back tomorrow. Don''t expect me to stay here any longer. This damned place is completely filled with the second eldest''s odor. How awful!" As he spoke, he also made a fanning motion in front of his nose, as if he was driving away an awful stink. It greatly irritated Ji Zhongtang, but he did not dare to say anything.


    He did not look again until Li VII had gone. Looking at the remaining half cup of tea on the table, he felt even more distressed. Five kilograms or so? That was the best Yinshan Maojian tea, which only originated from the Jin. Its total production in all of the Jin was no more than one kilogram. And Li VII suddenly required what was produced in many years. Even though Mingyi School was rich, they could not have so much stock. How could they obtain so many kilograms of tea in just one day?


    "What an unlucky guy! No wonder Yi IV wants to accept him as a nominal disciple. His temper and manner are both just like Yi IV''s. Perhaps he''s a bastard of Yi IV!" "I''m really irritated seeing him." Li VII still wore angry expression as he left Mingyi School. It was not a secret that the Second Supervisor did not get along well with the Third Supervisor. Actually, everyone knew that they were mutually antagonistic. They both had different ideas and had an itch to kill the other. But they were balanced in power.


    Mingyi School was Yi IV''s domain. And the Master of the Golden Lights Cave got along well with Mingyi School. It could be said that it was an extension of Yi IV''s influence. Yi IV had taken the upper hand in the Central Mainland Region. Li VII did not care much about it before because the Central Mainland Region was the Immortal Palace''s domain. The Divine Wind Palace was merely a guest there. There was not much use in taking the upper hand there.


    But now, the situation was different. The contention for the Human Emperor had gone into the white-hot stage. Yan Yuntian, who came from the Jin in the Central Mainland Region, was a top competitor. Therefore, it was Yi IV who seemed to gain the advantage in the general situation. Under such circumstances, Li VII had to think it over to safeguard his profits in the Central Mainland Region. No matter if taking strength or status into account, Zhou Bao was an excellent choice.

 Chapter 384: The Robbery of Pang Feiyun (4th edition)

    Chapter 384: The Robbery of Pang Feiyun (4th edition)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In the Four Eastern Regions,


    the Central Mainland, Penglai, Yingzhou, Buddhist Abbot.


    Among all the lands, the most expansive was the Central Mainland Region with the Penglai Region possessing the most Spiritual Qi. This was precisely because of the breadth of the Central Mainland Region, where the Immortal Palace, Dragon Thunder Palace, Bigwheel Temple, and Jade Pool had chosen to build their sects. And it was precisely because of the fact that the sects of the four major powers were all in the Central Mainland Region that the Divine Wind Palace simply had no means to seize control of the region. Even if they were stronger, it would have been simply impossible to simultaneously compete with the four major powers.


    As these sects differed from the Divine Wind Palace, the four major powers did not harbor any desire to fight for territory with the Divine Wind Palace. Hence, everyone lived peacefully together up until the present day.


    However, things had taken a turn. In recent years, the world had seen a great deal of change. The Jin Dynasty''s Northern Yuan was only a prelude to something bigger. In fact, in addition to the Jin Dynasty, there had been mutual confrontations in other fields. For one or two countries to be destroyed overnight it could still have been said to be an occasional anomaly, but the frequency of such destruction was too high for it to be accepted as normal.


    It was extremely abnormal.


    It should be noted that although there were many countries in the Seven-deity Regions, the real power belonged ultimately to the behemoth sect, the Divine Wind Palace. The shadow of these sects could be traced throughout the rise and fall of every dynasty.


    To make the most straightforward comparison: the Three Great Sects of the Jin Dynasty were all significant spokespersons of these huge sects in the mortal world. As they controlled a place''s power and resources on behalf of the powerful sects, they influenced a dynasty''s rise and downfall. Therefore, in general, events such as the national annihilation of a country were more or less related to these powerful sects. This time it was obviously not. The demise of Northern Yuan was so sudden that there was no time to react at all. In the ensuing investigation, everyone was surprised to find that the collapse of the great empire of Northern Yuan was entirely caused by a few coincidences and a few men whose only fear was peace in the world. Behind their backs, there was no trace of a powerful sect.


    Subsequently, be it the Four Eastern Regions or the Three Western Regions, similar events happened one after another. The next was the emergence of remnants of the Fiery Eyes during a once in a millennium meeting in Taiyuan Heaven and Ye Qingtian''s possession of the Fairy Weapon, the North Pole Frozen Wheel. A series of events took place in succession that made even the dullest people aware that this world was on the brink of change.


    As the real rulers of the Seven-deity Regions, these giant sects naturally felt more powerful. This sense of threat had not been felt for tens of thousands of years. But as for the exact nature of the threat, no one really knew. Even the mighty people of these powerful sects were not able to discern the source of this sense of threat despite using all sorts of means to do so. However, they all began to take precautions. If the Divine Wind Palace''s sinister plotting toward Taiyuan Heaven began a thousand years ago, or perhaps even further back, then they spontaneously decided to focus on the Azure Secret Area after their plot had failed.


    Although even fools knew that the Azure Secret Area was perhaps the Divine Wind Palace''s backup plan when the plan to seize Taiyuan Heaven had failed, the Divine Wind Palace''s response was too hasty. If a common adage was used to describe the situation, it was like eating without manners.


    If it were not for the huge sense of threat that they felt, they would not have been so anxious. They could have waited a few decades or even a hundred years to obtain sufficient bargaining chips to negotiate with the big powers that controlled the entrances of the Azure Secret Area and it still would not have been too late.


    The Seven-deity Regions was situated in a bizarre place susceptible to strong winds and rain. The Divine Wind Palace''s actions were no doubt a prophecy to everyone that a storm was imminent.


    When storms approached, it was generally the time when all kinds of conflicts, both external and internal, occurred together.


    The conflict of interests among the School of Five Virtues was only a miniature version.


    Zhou Bao''s formation map of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation was the exact trigger for this conflict of interests.


    With the step-by-step expansion of both the land and power of the Wuyang Region, management issues of the entire territory gradually became apparent. Zhou Bao was skilled and powerful enough to suppress all hostile forces, but to be honest, he was not a good managerial talent. Be it internal affairs or diplomacy and the like, he was totally clueless about them. Therefore, he decentralized his territories and handed their matters over to Jiang Xiao. In the beginning, the territory was only a small town, so Jiang Xiao could still manage it. However, the territory had now grown huge and talent issues, especially the management of talent, had become a problem.


    Renzhen Cuo used to be a princess. She had a lot of prestige and managerial skills in the northwest region, so to make her a maidservant was a slight waste of talent. Hence, Zhou Bao decided to release her from her post as a maidservant, teach her powerful martial arts, and prepare her to be his subordinate.


    As for whether Renzhen Cuo regarded him as an enemy that she would fight against using the strength she developed under Zhou Bao, it was simply not one of his concerns. The disparity between their levels of mastery was so wide that it made any kind of plotting a joke. As long as he maintained his power, Renzhen Cuo would not have the courage to betray him. Even if he lost his strength one day, it would not be a person with Renzhen Cuo''s level of mastery that caused the trouble.


    To speak the truth, he felt a little indifferent about this piece of territory, but as time went by, he helplessly sensed that as his power grew stronger and stronger, he had to bear more and more burdens. Putting Jiang Xiao and the rest aside, just his family alone made him regard his piece of territory more seriously. Perhaps old Zhou Bao did not request anything from him, but as his own power grew stronger and stronger, he was susceptible to more and more influences. His family''s life and safety were issues that he had to care about and his wife could not be disregarded as he wished.


    All of this inevitably caused Zhou Bao''s wholehearted thought-training practice to fail as that was all channeled to common matters.


    "Looks like I''m just a layman after all who isn''t open minded and can''t let go!" Sitting behind a heavy rosewood desk, his fingers tapped lightly against the thick table. He listened to the heavy sound of his taps to relieve his nervousness due to stress.


    Suddenly, his fingers stopped in mid-air. His brows furrowed slightly, his head also lifted slightly, and he looked out the door.


    "I''m not sure which friend has arrived ceremoniously. Please show yourself!"


    "The Divine Wind Palace, the School of Five Virtues, Pang Feiyun!"


    A white figure appeared with a brief introduction of himself outside the library of Zhou Bao''s study room.


    "Pang Feiyun?!" Zhou Bao''s squinted slightly. The guy named Pang Feiyun was a young man, a very young man. His youth was not based on his appearance. There were many strong men and women in the world who had undergone plastic surgery but looked very young when they aged. And the young man standing in front of Zhou Bao was evidently not an aged man for he carried the ostentatious aura of youth and its prideful spirit. These signs showed that he was a young man, not an old-aged tree trunk who had undergone plastic surgery.


    "The School of Five Virtues, huh, I have actually heard of it. I wonder why Your Excellency Pang Feiyun has arrived here today!" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows, shooting a provocative glance at Pang Feiyun. He did not welcome him into his house nor greet him politely.


    The anger in Pang Feiyun''s eyes flashed briefly before dissipating. But even a fool could see that he was suppressing his anger.


    "I have come this time with all due respect to the Second Supervisor to discuss a matter with you!" Pang Feiyun briskly took huge strides toward the desk of Zhou Bao, sat down in the first chair, raised his chin up high, and eyed Zhou Bao fiercely.


    "It seems that we have nothing to talk about!" Zhou Bao shook his head. "I know that you and that idiot Master of Golden Lights have made a stupid deal to steal my Yin and Yang Dust Formation''s formation map. But let me tell you that is only a dream!" Zhou Bao spoke in an understated tone, but the effect was surprisingly good.


    Pang Feiyun''s reaction was entirely within the expectations of Zhou Bao. Pang Feiyun swiftly stood up and pointed his fingers at Zhou Bao as if he had something to say. But, for a long time, his fingers trembled an uncountable number of times. As the direct disciple of Yi IV in the School of Five Virtues, Pang Feiyun was an expert young man. Pang Feiyun''s status in the Penglai Region was extremely noble. Even the prince and princesses from the Li Dynasty were only small figures next to him. Together with his qualifications and his years of cultivation, he was the top one among the youth in the Divine Wind Palace. Naturally, he developed the habit of feeling superior to everyone else so that even his bones could be said to be made of pride. In all the years of his life so far, there had never been anyone who rejected him outrightly or even snubbed him so subtly like Zhou Bao had.


    "Don''t point at me like that and don''t look at me with that strange look. As a disciple of the Divine Wind Palace and a subordinate of the School of Five Virtues, you should learn to respect others. When you visit someone, you should at least greet them. And when you make demanding requests you should maintain a humble attitude, rather than sting and snub others like you have. That''s not good!"


    "Brat, you are asking for death!"


    This condescending attitude finally infuriated Pang Feiyun completely. Without a thought, he swiftly punched at Zhou Bao''s head.


    "You are the only one who is looking for death!" As he watched the incoming blow, Zhou Bao reached out and touched Pang Feiyun''s fist with the tip of his finger.


    There was no trace of a sound. Zhou Bao''s touch was like a black hole that directly engulfed the force that Pang Feiyun had struck with. Pang Feiyun froze slightly and his eyes flashed with a hint of astonishment. His body seemed to be lifted by a vigorous force before he flew back violently. Like a burlap sack, he fell heavily in the yard in front of the house. He bounced on the ground and completely stopped moving. For a moment, there was only exhalation but no inhalation in Pang Feiyun''s body.


    "Take him away and throw him out of the house!" Zhou Bao''s gentle order summoned two strong servants from the darkness who took Pang Feiyun away.

 Chapter 385: Qianyuan Mountain & Lingdong County

    Chapter 385: Qianyuan Mountain & Lingdong County


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Pang Feiyun was a spoilt disciple of a famous sect, who was not worthy of Zhou Bao''s worry. By teaching him a lesson and kicking him out of his room, Zhou Bao already showed his stance to School of Five Virtues. Whatever would happen next was none of his business.


    "Now, it''s time to think about Qianyuan Mountain. Master of Golden Lights Cave, do you think that you can easily plot against me? Hum, Golden Lights Cave, what a well-known place! I''ll see what''s so special!"


    After giving a snort, Zhou Bao moved and disappeared with a gushed wind.


    To be precise, instead of a mountain, Qianyuan Mountain was just a hill near the edge of a mountain range located on the mainland of Jin, Pingzhou. This small mountain range was known as Cui Mountains. Therefore, Qianyuan Mountain was in Pingzhou. Originally, it was very desolate. Although it was in Pingzhou, it bordered on the junction of four provinces. Without anyone managing, there were hordes of thieves robbing ordinary people. Thus, people here lived a miserable life. However, since Master of Golden Lights Cave established a sect here, everything had changed. This master was a well-known powerhouse all over the world. No matter how many thieves were there, they were just a joke to him. Furthermore, he was a sword practitioner, who emphasized killing. Hence, mercilessly, he exterminated all the thieves within a 100-mile radius from Qianyuan Mountain in just a few days. Besides, he occupied their stronghold and established a new sect there.


    Because of him, this place became prosperous within a few years. Many commercial routes were created, and people all gathered here. These changes were similar to what happened to Zhou Bao''s Wuyang Region these years. The only difference was that this place was smaller than the Wuyang Region.


    Master of Golden Lights Cave got along well with the people of Mingyi School. They cooperated with each other. Therefore, he was very influential in the court. Unlike Zhou Bao, who had obtained the rank of nobility, he had been taken good care of by local officials. The government even established a new county here, called the Lingdong County, which meant it was an area to the east of Cui Mountains. The government sent officials to manage government affairs here. This place used to be a junction with the worst public order. However, with Master of Golden Lights Cave here, it became the most peaceful and well-ordered place within these four provinces. No one could find any fault with this place, even the pickiest people.


    After dozens of years of management, the Lingdong County became a famous big county in Pingzhou. It was prosperous, and people here were making a good living and were contented. You could even describe it as a paradise on earth.


    As was known to all, because of Master of Golden Lights Cave, they could make a good living and enjoy a good environment. In the Lingdong County, Master of Golden Lights Cave enjoyed an unparalleled prestige. Even Emperor of Great Jin could not obtain such respect like him. People in the Lingdong County all worshipped the longevity memorial tablet of Master of Golden Lights Cave. They prayed to God and hoped that Master of Golden Lights Cave could have many happy returns. These prayers came from their hearts. Only those whose cultivation reached a certain phase could see a faint layer of golden light above Lingdong Country. Ordinary people could not see anything. It was deposited on the peak of Golden Lights Cave slowly, like a layer of fog.


    "Master of Golden Lights Cave is by no means an ordinary person. He has gathered so much Power of Wish. Perhaps he''s a Buddhist sage rather than a sword practitioner?!" thought Zhou Bao.


    The effect of combined Power of Wish was mysterious, but only members of Buddhism could really make full use of it in this world.


    Zhou Bao now wore a simple but clean cyan robe and a cyan headband. He looked like an ordinary young scholar, with no outstanding features.


    Walking along the prosperous West Avenue of Lingdong and watching the busy people around him, he suddenly felt excited but guilty.


    Although he was not interested in Master of Golden Lights Cave, he had to admit that because of him, people here could lead good lives. However, now he was going to destroy everything here. It was truly an unpleasant thing.


    West Avenue was the business street of the Lingdong County, where assorted shops gathered, resulting in prosperity and also chaos.


    Yeah. Chaos. It could be easily figured out from the surrounding sounds.


    "Eggs, selling eggs! One penny for three eggs...!"


    "Steamed stuffed buns, hot steamed stuffed buns! One penny for two...!"


    "Fish, freshly-caught fish! Ten pennies for three...!"


    ...


    ...


    Similar calls were all over the place. West Avenue seemed like a busy bazaar. It was also somewhat similar to an outdoor market in the past, utter disorder.


    "Only in such places can I realize the benefits of urban management!"


    After stepping into a pool of wastewater, Zhou Bao lifted his foot with a wry smile and began to walk along the street more cautiously. Of course, it made him more determined on establishing a qualified urban management team in the Wuyang Region. Its combat power may not match the professional urban management team in his previous life, but, at least, it could act as a deterrent.


    After Zhou Bao walked for some time, the road condition gradually changed. West Avenue was divided into three parts. The first part was the chaotic market he walked through just now. When he reached the middle section of West Avenue, he found a crossroad. Several restaurants were over there. Their huge billboards were waving in the wind, and the fragrance of dishes poured into his nose. Suddenly, he felt hungry.


    His gaze swept around and he chose a restaurant whose dishes seemed to attract him the most. He walked slowly into the restaurant.


    "Sir, this way please!" Everything was the same as he had thought. Bowing and scraping outside the door, the waiter hung a white towel on his shoulder and wore a flattering smile.


    "Not bad. It''s just like the first time I went shopping in the Qingyang Town!"


    This environment made Zhou Bao feel at ease. Following the waiter, he entered the restaurant, known as Yunkelai Restaurant. He sat down behind a clean and available table on the first floor. The waiter cleaned the table diligently with the white towel on his shoulder and poured tea for him. He asked, "Sir, what would you like?"


    "I''d like the three best dishes and a bottle of good wine!" Zhou Bao ordered gently.


    "Okay!" The waiter smiled upon hearing his words. He may be young, but he has already been a waiter for five to six years. He really had a discerning eye. Though the young scholar in front of him was not well-dressed, he absolutely did not lack money. Of course, he may have a free meal here. But if he really had a dine and dash, he would not have done it so confidently.


    The waiter served dishes and wine very quickly. Zhou Bao sat there and ate slowly. Meanwhile, he listened to other diners'' chat. Although they were talking about minor affairs that happened in the Lingdong County, their words acted as a refresher to him.


    "Rumor had it that Golden Lights Cave is going to accept disciples again. I wonder whether it''s true!"


    A muffled voice came into Zhou Bao''s ear and attracted him.


    "Of course it''s true. My cousin told me this news. He''s an inner core disciple of Golden Lights Cave and is qualified to have a say in front of Seneschal. He told me about it in person!"


    "But it has already accepted some disciples last year. Golden Lights Cave only accepts disciples every three years. It''s a rule that has never been broken. Why are they breaking that rule this year?"


    "Alas. You don''t know that its Patriarch has broken through another phase and has now become a listed immortal. From now on, Golden Lights Cave becomes a school of immortals. Recently, people from Golden Lights Cave are purchasing materials without any restraint. They seem to be enhancing the formation surrounding Qianyuan Mountain. Before long, it will become a strong sect, the same as Tian Long Taoism and Mingyi School!"


    "Really? That would be nice. We''ll live a better life under the protection of Golden Lights Cave in the future. Haha. Its Patriarch has become an immortal, from which we can benefit. Good. It''s really wonderful!"


    "Pa!"


    A gentle sound was heard as if a dish had shattered on the floor.


    Though the restaurant was very noisy, this sound was particularly sharp.


    All of a sudden, the restaurant became quiet. Everyone turned their gaze toward the source of the sound. It came from Zhou Bao, who had crushed his wine glass. When he heard that disciples of Golden Lights Cave were purchasing materials rampantly to enhance their formation, he was enraged by this formation. He guessed that they did this to set up Yin and Yang Dust Formation rather than to enhance their formation.


    "Master of Golden Lights Cave really considers me as a pushover. Does he think that I''ll give him Yin and Yang Dust Formation because of Divine Wind Palace''s words?" thought Zhou Bao.


    He clenched his fist and broke the wine glass. Little did he expect that he would attract others'' attention.


    He left after giving a cheeky smile and threw a gold ingot onto the table. Then he said, "Waiter, check out. No need to give me the change!"


    He was here to cause trouble for Master of Golden Lights Cave, not to act like a monkey and amuse others.


    Looking at that gold ingot and hearing Zhou Bao''s words, the waiter''s eyes smiled into a thin line. He held it in his hands and thanked Zhou Bao for his kindness.


    Zhou Bao just smiled and prepared to leave.


    "Wait!" A voice came to Zhou Bao''s ear. However, he acted like that he had not heard this voice and directly stepped out of the restaurant.


    "I''m asking you to stop!"


    Obviously, the owner of the voice did not expect that Zhou Bao would walk out of the restaurant without stopping. He felt humiliated and jumped from upstairs without a second thought, aiming for Zhou Bao''s back.


    However, he was just a Level Five Junior Master. Zhou Bao did not even dodge his attack. He slightly leaned his body forward just when the Junior Master''s hand was about to reach his back. When that man realized he had caught nothing, he felt something was wrong. But before he fought back, he felt great pressure on his forehead, making him unable to move.


    "Are idiots from Golden Lights Cave all so rude? How did your master teach you?"

 Chapter 386: Two Choices

    Chapter 386: Two Choices


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "How dare you act wildly here in Golden Lights Cave?!"


    Zhou Bao''s voice was not very loud, but it clearly spread over the entire restaurant. There was cynicism in his voice, from which any wise man could figure out his hostility toward Golden Lights Cave.


    Zhou Bao looked up and glanced at those young boys and girls standing in front of the private room on the second floor. Then, he turned his gaze toward the one whose forehead was pinned by him. That guy was kneeling on the ground but looked ferocious. He was still struggling to fight back. Zhou Bao put more strength on his finger and pressed even harder. After that, the teenager suddenly rolled his eyes and fell to the ground.


    "How dare you be so arrogant?!" Watching this scene, the boys and girls turned pale with fear. Although they feared Zhou Bao''s power, they had no choice but to fight back. Suddenly, eight Sword Qis permeated the restaurant and targeted Zhou Bao.


    "You overestimated yourself!" Zhou Bao paid no attention to those teenagers rushing toward him. The eight sword lights were blocked when they were still ten feet away from him. Light golden rays flickered.


    Their swords were broken, and they were sent flying!


    These eight figures hit the wall of the restaurant. The great impact shook the entire restaurant.


    "Nooooo!"


    "Oh, no!"


    "The wall is collapsing. Hurry up! Run...!"


    Instantly, the entire restaurant became a mess. Even the diners, who have no background in martial arts, could tell that it was a fight among martial artists. They knew that they should not be involved.


    The waiter who was smiling from ear to ear just now became quite troubled. He fled with the crowd and held the gold ingot Zhou Bao gave him tightly in his hand. He was the one who led Zhou Bao into the restaurant. His boss would not let him go easily. He''d better face the reality and leave here on his own. With that gold ingot, he would have some capitals to do business in the future.


    The crowd was in a chaos. They rushed out of the restaurant, fleeing from Zhou Bao''s two sides. Within a few seconds, they all disappeared. The boss of the restaurant went out and stamped his feet in rage. He observed the situation on a street corner and prayed for the blessing of Master of Golden Lights Cave, hoping that his restaurant would be safe and sound.


    "Gang Qi?" After all, there were people in this world who had expertise in martial arts. When the teenagers on the second floor saw the halo rippling around Zhou Bao, their expression changed sharply. No one had expected that they would meet experts while dining in this restaurant. It really surprised them.


    After realizing their location and the identities of people fighting back just now, the few teens calmed down. Zhou Bao had badly injured disciples of Golden Lights Cave in their territory, which meant he was courting death. After thinking through this matter, they became bold again.


    "I truly admire your feat. However, you attacked them mercilessly just now. Don''t you think you''ve gone too far?" A teenager shouted out loudly.


    "Who are you? Are you from Golden Lights Cave?"


    "My name is Li Guan and I''m from the Li Family of Pingzhou!" That teen cupped one hand in the other and saluted. He was young but full of Qi Power. An ordinary family could not have cultivated a teenager like him.


    "Li Guan?" Zhou Bao was a little surprised. He suddenly asked, "What''s your relationship with Li Xiu?"


    "Li Xiu?" Upon hearing this name, Li Guan''s countenance became a little unnatural. "He''s my cousin. Have you ever heard of him?"


    "Have I ever heard of him?"


    Of course, he did, most people knew this name. Li Xiu was one of the four young powerhouses in Jin. Although his name was not that famous as compared with Zhou Bao, it was enough for these teenagers to admire.


    A teen whose cultivation was at Level Seven!


    This kind of talent was extremely rare. The Li Family was a millennium family, but it was still quite hard to get such a talent in 1,000 years. After breaking through Level Seven, Li Xiu immediately became the hope of the entire family. Meanwhile, he was nominated as the next Family Head secretly. With the help of Zhou Bao, he obtained a Pure Yang Celestial Device, known as Octupole Exquisite Pagoda. Thus, his status as the next Family Head became truly unshakable.


    Possessing such a talent was no doubt a good thing for the Li Family. However, for those who were qualified to vie for the status as the Family Head, for example, Li Guan, it was too cruel. They had prematurely lost their goal. More or less, they were not resigned to accepting this result. However, they also knew that they were unable to pose a threat to Li Xiu and his status. Young powerhouse was a horrible title. But, with the full strength of an aristocratic family, it was possible to cultivate a young powerhouse. The problem was that Li Xiu possessed a Pure Yang Celestial Device. When the news that Li Xiu had obtained Octupole Exquisite Pagoda spread to Pingzhou, all the younger generations in the Li Family fell into despair.


    After losing their pursuit, they seemed to turn all their interest to other matters. They still practiced martial arts, but they did not fall over themselves for it anymore.


    This was why Li Guan came here to join this gathering.


    "You are Li Xiu''s cousin!" Zhou Bao laughed while he saw the arrogance on Li Guan''s face. "If I''m right, you were discussing poetry on the second floor. Isn''t the Li family famous for martial arts? I never knew that its disciples are required to master poetry!"


    Upon hearing these words, Li Guan flushed. To be honest, though he had lost the qualification of being the Family Head, he was not good at poetry either. He came here to join this gathering not only to avoid hurting others'' feelings but also for his own purpose.


    However, it was quite inconvenient for him to expose his purpose here.


    "Poetry is the pursuit of sages. Every well-known family should emphasize it. Do you think you can govern the world simply by relying on martial arts?"


    Seeing Li Guan stammering, a teen beside him who was dressed like an intellectual replied. He stared at Zhou Bao, and his eyes emitted strange light.


    "Boy, you''re interesting!" Zhou Bao stared back at him without any hesitation. He laughed and said, "What? Govern the world? Which family do you come from? You want to govern the world at such a young age. How ambitious you are!


    This overt disdainful tone made that teen inhale deeply. Judging by Zhou Bao''s way of dressing, he thought that Zhou Bao was a man who was good at martial arts and poetry, just like him. Therefore, he tried to argue with him. Little did he expect that Zhou Bao did not give him any chance. Instead, he sneered at him in a sarcastic tone, which he completely could not bear.


    "My name is Fang Tieyi. I''m from Mingyi School!"


    "Mingyi School? You''re a disciple of Mingyi School?!" Zhou Bao was surprised at Fang Tieyi''s background. He looked at Fang Tieyi unkindly.


    "Yeah, I am!" Fang Tieyi straightened his back and said arrogantly. "Young as you are, you possess an extraordinary feat. You really surprise me! But without corresponding virtue, no matter how powerful you are, you deserve no admiration. You''ll be cast aside by other people and leave behind a bad name for myriads of years!"


    He said these words with awe-inspiring righteousness. Everyone clapped.


    "Leave behind a bad name for myriads of years? Haha. Do you know why I hate Mingyi School so much? Because you guys from Mingyi School are good at making acrid remarks. Every time I see you, I''d like to kick your ass until you cannot open your mouth." He signed gently and added on, saying, "You''re a disciple from Mingyi School and you''re ambitious, right? You have a lofty character, right? I''m a treacherous man and destined to leave a bad name forever, right?"


    The amount of "right" stunned the people. Even an idiot could feel the biting-cold killing intent from the tone of this scholar dressed in a cyan robe. His tone was enough to make people shiver.


    Fang Tieyi''s countenance changed slightly. He had profound knowledge and possessed an impressive feat. Although he could not figure out Zhou Bao''s real strength, judging by the chilly killing intent emitted from his words, he could estimate how powerful he was. He was not a powerhouse that had just stepped into Expert Realm but rather a Level Eight or Level Nine powerhouse. However, was it possible?


    Even if he was a Level Nine expert, so what?


    What was this place?


    It was the Lingdong County, the territory of Golden Lights Cave. Except for those crazy powerhouses, no one would have the guts to cause trouble here. Except...


    Suddenly, he seemed to have thought of something. He looked at Zhou Bao in astonishment. Countless rumors and descriptions of an overwhelming expert living in the northwest region flashed across his mind.


    He was a disciple of Mingyi School, so he knew the truth rather than just rumors, including Zhou Bao''s appearance. Although there were no cameras in that world, there were numerous marvelous Divine Senses that could accurately describe people''s appearance. These Divine Senses were out of ordinary people''s reach, but it was very familiar to Fang Tieyi, a disciple of Mingyi School.


    He had seen Zhou Bao''s portrait before. But the problem was, Zhou Bao''s current image was not in line with his previous way of dressing. Therefore, he did not recognize him at first sight. He only realized that things were completely out of his control when he felt the chilly killing intent in Zhou Bao''s voice.


    Yes, any rational man in the world would not cause trouble in the territory of Golden Lights Cave alone, except, except the leopard living in the northwest region!


    Zhou Bao clearly saw the change in Fang Tieyi''s face. A faint disdain was revealed from the corner of his mouth. He said, "It seems that you''ve recognized me, right? Good. You''ve spared me a lot of time and energy to explain to you. Since you''re a disciple of Mingyi School, I''ll give you a chance to show Mingyi School''s lofty and unyielding character. I''ll give you two choices. One is to climb downstairs toward me!" Zhou Bao''s finger slowly followed the route that these stairs stretched until it reached the door outside the restaurant. He laughed more heartily and said the second choice.


    "The second choice is to die!"

 Chapter 387: The Flipping Sky Seal

    Chapter 387: The Flipping Sky Seal


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The appearance of Zhou Bao meant trouble!


    This was his main intention!


    Just as he had done at Mingyi School previously, he came to Golden Lights Cave in Qianyuan Mountain with the same purpose in mind.


    Although he was known to be an unreasonable person, it would be better if he was there with a reason to stir up trouble.


    And those people who were together in the boite provided him with a good opportunity. They sprang into action and attacked Zhou Bao first. All these gave him a good reason to retaliate. Now what he would do was to attract the attention of the Master of Golden Lights Cave and challenge him to a fight. The Master, who desired to set up a new sect and pass down their Uniform Dao, was the so-called Patriarch among those people.


    And this Mingyi School''s disciple standing before him was just a pawn in the game, a mere toy.


    Watching Fang Tieyi with an amused smile, Zhou Bao''s eyes looked at him as if he was a mere plaything.


    It would have been appropriate if Fang Tieyi''s name was changed to Fang Tieqing at this moment. The reason was that his face was much like that of a chameleon, undergoing a change of colors, from livid to ghastly white.


    Others regarded what Zhou Bao said as a joke, but the one who had come from Mingyi School refused to take it as such. The name Yunzhou Zhou Bao was a thorn in the sides of all the people at Mingyi School. Fang Tieyi was not around when Zhou Bao battled with Mingyi School. However, each time he saw the broken gate, he could still feel Zhou Bao''s domineering arrogance during that night when he broke into the Mingyi School alone.


    They could not afford to offend such a person.


    However, the truth was that he did offend him.


    Certainly, a person like Zhou Bao normally did not take offense about such a small incident at all, just like a person did not take an ant''s opinion to heart. People like him were no different from ants to Zhou Bao.


    However the problem was that Zhou Bao wanted to seize this opportunity to achieve his own goals. In this world, what else would make Zhou Bao take full advantage of this opportunity and come to this small county at the at the foot of Qianyuan Mountain?


    There was only one answer: Master of Golden Lights Cave!


    Fang Tieyi was an extremely clever person. He instantly knew what Zhou Bao''s purpose for coming was when he saw him and what he was trying to do.


    It was this intelligence that made him much more afraid.


    When the immortals battled against each other, it was the little devils who suffered the most loss. He was unintentionally involved in the conflict between the two giant influences. What was the end result he would face was easy to figure out.


    The sentiments, be it of good will or animosity among these influential men was not something that he should be concerned about.


    But it was too late to consider all these things. It was also too late to feel regret. Zhou Bao had already proposed his terms and conditions and would not take them back. Now, it was his turn to make a choice.


    However, he did not feel utter despair; the choice was not his to make.


    He had no idea about the levels of Zhou Bao and the Master of Golden Lights Cave''s cultivation. But one thing he was sure about was that all events happening here would be made known to the Master of Golden Lights Cave, and could not be kept a secret. A person who was listed in the Immortal Book did not deserve to have that honor if he could not even deduce what events were happening. Yunzhou Zhou Bao would not be here in person. Besides, being a disciple of Mingyi School, if he should meet with an accident that occurred within the scope of Golden Lights Cave''s influence, the cooperation between the two influences would be affected. Therefore, he was very certain that the Master of Golden Lights Cave would have a hand in this matter.


    Even though he was aware of the outcome, inwardly it was not easy for him to remain calm in the face of Zhou Bao''s animosity.


    "Zhou Bao, with your current status, does it make any sense to threaten a junior?"


    His prayers had been answered! The Master of Golden Lights Cave did not let Fang Tieyi wait for too long. While Fang Tieyi was subjected to Zhou Bao''s teasing attention, suddenly an august voice could be heard, as clear and loud as a bell. It stirred up feelings in everyone''s hearts.


    "Patriarch¡ª!"


    "It''s the Patriarch''s voice. It''s him!"


    "I never thought I would have a chance to ever hear the Patriarch''s voice. I''m so lucky!"


    Needless to say, the Master of Golden Lights Cave still had a supreme prestige in Lingdong County. But the reaction from the people around made Zhou Bao frown slightly. It seemed that he had underestimated the esteem held by the Master of Golden Lights Cave among those people.


    However, he did not care about it. After all, it was not something like water and boat: Water can support a boat, yet it was able to overturn it at the same time. Hence, having the people''s support was of little use.


    "It does. Within the scope of your Golden Lights Cave influence, whatever I do becomes interesting. This time I am here to destroy your Golden Lights Cave and ruin your reputation. What do you think of it? Don''t try to be something of an enigma. Come out!"


    "Why? I''m not your enemy¡ª!"


    "Come on Old man! Stop spouting meaningless words. Others will simply despise you. Since you want to get my formation map, just use your strength to fight for it. Now I can''t afford to offend the Divine Wind Palace. But I don''t care if I offend you. All of this is happening because of you. You should put an end to it!" Zhou Bao said coldly. "Use the easiest way to overcome me and get the formation map. If you lose, just give Golden Lights Cave to me. The spirit vein here is good. You really chose a good place!"


    "All right, it is a deal!"


    Now that they had made this pact, both sides had no more opportunities for further negotiation.


    As soon as the"deal" word was spoken, masses of Sword Qi gathered over the Golden Lights Cave and formed a giant sword-shaped shadow.


    "Zhou Bao, the battle between us has nothing to do with these ordinary folks. If you want to settle our problem, come to Qianyuan Mountain. I will wait for you there!"


    "Ok!" Zhou Bao answered with a smile but he stood his ground. He turned his head and cast a look at Fang Tieyi. "Don''t leave. Wait for me to come back. I want to know what your choice is. I want to see whether Mingyi School''s disciple is the same as what I imagined one to be like! Hahahaha!"


    With a snort, Zhou Bao disappeared from the scene.


    Fang Tieyi''s body was totally rigid but his legs were so wobbly that they suddenly gave way. His whole body was soaked in cold sweat. He had to grab the rails on the second floor for support. Only in this way could he ensure that he would not fall due to fright. At the same time, he heard heavy breathing behind him: Li Guan''s face was also drained of color and he was thanking the heavens that he had survived.


    "How could not he be happy?"


    He had narrowly escaped death in the face of great calamity!


    At this moment, he remembered a rumor he had heard. At the bottom of his heart, he was a little bit grateful to his unpleasant cousin. Perhaps a good relationship between Li Xiu and Zhou Bao had enabled him to escape from this disaster. He was not like the unlucky person beside him, who was still caught in a dilemma.


    BOOM!


    An earthshaking boom and the ensuing earthquake pulled them back from their reverie. On Qianyuan Mountain, the battle between two troublemakers from the past and current generation had begun.


    A golden sun emerged over Qianyuan Mountain. This sun and the real sun added radiance and beauty to the sky, complementing each other. However, this golden sun was not the actual sun. It was a deadly celestial device.


    The shadow of the Golden Flame Mirror!


    The sustenance from the Skull Elixir Furnace increased the Golden Flame Mirror''s power, which was several levels higher than before. The mirror''s shadow spiraled over Zhou Bao, emitting lights in all directions. It looked like a golden sun and fiercely shot its rays toward the Golden Lights Cave.


    The Master of Golden Lights Cave was already a well-known figure since several decades ago. His nobility was known throughout the world, and nobody dared to provoke him. He had played a formidable role. Only with the help of the recently accumulated great Sword Qi was the battle between him and the Golden Flame Mirror an equal tie.


    "How interesting. There''s a formation in this Golden Lights Cave. And it connects with the earth vein. This guy is in the center of it all and even condensed the pneuma within the radius of several kilometers into the Sword Qi. It''s even a match for my Golden Flame Mirror."


    The Essential Qi broadsword was smashed by the Golden Flame Mirror after three rounds of collisions. However, it did not disappear. Instead, the formation turned it into countless tiny pneuma Sword Qi. Because the pneuma was composed of varying substances, these Sword Qi were different too. There were Fire Sword Qi, Ice Sword Qi, Earth Sword Qi, Stone Sword Qi, Water Sword Qi, Metal Sword Qi, corrosive Sword Qi and Wind Sword Qi¡ª!


    In a word, there was a variety of them, all mingled together and it did not matter whether Zhou Bao had ever come face to face with them before. They revealed a great killing intent, abruptly heading toward Zhou Bao.


    "Great timing!" A light golden halo flashed around him. Those innumerable Sword Qi broke up several meters from him and finally transformed into original pneuma.


    Splash! Splash!


    Meanwhile, the Real Essence inside Zhou Bao''s body was gushing forth like a raging river. The sounds could be clearly heard. It was difficult for people to imagine that this forceful Real Essence could be activated to extremes in an instant.


    The Golden Flame Mirror''s radiance returned to his body. Zhou Bao hovered in the air. An evil yellow light flickered in his eyes and his hands were pressed together in a strange gesture. The Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill integrated with each other perfectly. Then, they activated together in a mysterious track. In Zhou Bao''s body, nine acupoints interconnected and formed a giant Dantian where the Demonic Fire surged forth; it condensed and flowed into Zhou Bao''s hands in a continuous stream.


    For a moment, Zhou Bao''s hands pressed downwards. At that very time, his Real Essence gushed out and condensed into a giant golden point in the air. From this, an inexhaustible force shot out. Golden lights were spewing forth in every direction. Within the light, there were some black wriggly lines squirming and igniting into flames, which formed into a series of complex talismans.


    This golden gesture swept through and extinguished all of the others.


    It seemed that all the things were disintegrating into fine powder.


    The space within an area of hundreds of miles was sealed off when the golden power appeared. All the things within the space were not able to move, they were like insects trapped in a chamber!


    Zhou Bao gave a bitter laugh, and the golden gesture suddenly dropped and violently crashed against Qianyuan Mountain. The protective formation of the Golden Lights Cave began to flicker. Numberless pneuma which had transformed into Sword Qi suddenly slammed onto the golden power. However, they were crushed by the golden light.


    A secret skill!


    The Flipping Sky Seal! (To be continued.)

 Chapter 388: The Offensive-defensive Fusion Pure Yang Flying Sword

    Chapter 388: The Offensive-defensive Fusion Pure Yang Flying Sword


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    There were many instruments and Fairy Weapons on Zhou Bao''s body. The insignificant Master of Golden Lights did not think highly of him, but he had his own views. The Master of Golden Light''s battle strength was extremely strong, hence making him a good opponent. If he were to solely rely on his instruments to bully others, it would be too uninteresting.


    In fact he was preparing to use the Master of Golden Lights to hone his own strength. Anyway, the opponent had always been famous for his killing power so he made a good opponent.


    Therefore, besides using the power of the Golden Flame Mirror to explore the power of the magic formation that enshrouded Qianyuan Mountain, there was no other use for the magic formation.


    He used the secret skill Flipping Sky Seal!


    This secret skill had more benefits than he had previously envisioned. In fact, when he mastered the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, the enormous Dantian began to work and absorbed the corpse of the Innate Deity. With the secret skill of Flipping Sky Seal, the three other skills he knew had all undergone a mysterious transformation.


    The Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill''s powers have multiplied tenfolds. The Infinite Trembling Contemplation''s power not only grew stronger, but it also possessed the ability to radiate extremely strong seismic waves without the help of other celestial devices.


    Yes, everything could be shaken by the fine powder of the Infinite Trembling Contemplation. He could now start it at will.


    However, in the face of the current situation, the Flipping Sky Seal had a greater deterrent effect.


    The Golden Prints, which were akin to mountains, fell from the heavens. This by nature was a strong deterrence already.


    Numerous sword lights were crumbled by the light from the Golden Prints. The space in the Golden Lights Cave emanated bouts of unpleasant-feeling energy which suppressed the Formation''s protection of the space. Evidently, this kind of energy has already surpassed the limits of the Formation''s power to protect the mountain.


    The Golden Lights Cave''s protection was a sword formation!


    Sword Formation is very powerful and is known for its attacking power. In the previous case, if a foolish guy were to attack this mountain singlehandedly, he would have been bombarded to death. There would not have been any opportunity to enter the mountain with a simple attacking force. With a Sword Formation famous for its attacking power, the highlight is its attack and defense. But now, with the incredible powers of the Flipping Sky Seal, the attacking power of the Sword Formation became a joke. Of course, naturally, the Sword Formation could not defend.


    Yes, it was no longer able to defend well.


    The Flipping Sky Seal easily smashed and suppressed the Mountain-protecting Sword Formation''s sword light. It seemed that as the peak of Qianyuan Mountain was transforming into a flat land, a ray of sword light shot through the ground and into the sky.


    The sword light was like a rainbow. It rose abruptly and howled its way through.


    This sword light seemed capable of breaking the heavens, the earth and the sky. In the sword light, there seemed to be a will as strong as iron. It was the will to smash everything and the determination to break all laws!


    As the sword light shot through strongly, Zhou Bao felt the piercing sword light penetrate through his body and his bone marrow. It was as if this sword light wanted to break him into countless fragments, to reform him into the most primitive dust and scatter him until there was no trace of his shadow left.


    "Good!" Zhou Bao said in a low voice and his stature disappeared suddenly.


    The sword light collided with the Golden Print with a thunderous sound that resounded in all directions. The Golden Print''s golden light flashed fiercely and the talisman on the Golden Print was aggressively trying to break free. But all was in vain: the sword light was extremely tough, sharp beyond comparison and lethal beyond measure. With a slice of the sword, the Golden Print was broken, fragmented, and disappeared from the Qianyuan Mountain. All kinds of pressure and power disappeared without a trace.


    The Supreme Swordplay!


    All skills derived from one sword!


    At this time, Zhou Bao who was in a hostile state could not help but secretly praise in his heart the elegant swiftness of the sword that was passed down in legends during the medieval period. With an invincible killing power and such swiftness, it could endow power just by looking at it!


    However, for Zhou Bao, such a sword that endows power is not really a good thing!


    Because after the sword light broke the Flipping Sky Seal, it did not disappear. Instead, it stretched along with the fluctuations of Three Realms Division that Zhou Bao used, breaking the void and killing everything in its way.


    Everything happened as quickly as a flash of light. When Zhou Bao felt that the Sword Qi still existed, it was already a bit too late. Even as his body flashed multiple times, he could not avoid the power of this sword.


    The pale golden glow flashed consecutively and in a blink of an eye, he was stabbed nine times by Sword Qi.


    Still, thanks should still be given to the energy the sword light depleted while attacking Flipping Sky Seal. If not, these nine stabs would have caused serious injuries to Zhou Bao.


    Yes, serious injuries!


    Having absorbed the Innate Deity''s corpse, the sword light is now as powerful as the Realm of True Immortality. With Zhou Bao almost badly wounded, the power of this sword could be seen now.


    This led Zhou Bao to re-evaluate the combat capability of the Master of Golden Lights.


    "This guy is a lot stronger than I thought!" He secretly whispered in his heart but did not relax his hand. Raising his hand and lifting his finger, the golden flames of light in the core of Qianyuan Mountain grew more energetic.


    The Great Fusion Technique!


    Enough to fuse the hollow Great Fusion Technique!


    This time, Zhou Leopard showed mercy. He fully exploited the power of the Great Fusion Technique.


    The Great Fusion Technique is the Evil Fire Kylin''s greatest Divine Sense. It is extremely powerful and together with the Zhou Bao''s strength, this magnificent needle can be used. Golden flames of light leapt thousands of feet in the air and in a flash, they burned the entire peak of Qianyuan Mountain, the space within it collapsing as if there were no more goodness in this world.


    The Master of Golden Light''s killing power is unparalleled. Its Spiritual Qi can even break open a void and chase down Zhou Bao who was in hollow travel. But in the face of such a supernatural power he was still helpless.


    Seeing Zhou Bao display this hand that caused the entire Qianyuan Mountain to collapse, how could he admit defeat? He was extremely infuriated.


    "Zhou Bao, go to hell!"


    In his cries of anger, the essence of the world around Qianyuan Mountain powerfully solidified into a deathly Sword Qi that struck from the heavens to the earth.


    This sword was even fiercer than the sword that had opened the Flipping Sky Seal. It was braver and even more devastating in its effects.


    With a slice of the sword, the void was split into two and the surrounding space became fragmented, making it impossible for Zhou Bao to use the Three Realms Division to move away. As a result, the Sword Qi permeated the entire world.


    "You destroyed my Qianyuan Mountain. I will kill you!" the Master of Golden Lights Cave''s agitated yells sliced through the boundaries of the world.


    "Kill me? That can''t be true. Do you have that ability?!" Zhou Bao sneered and created a seismic wave by clapping his hands together.


    Zzzzzzzzz!


    In a flash, in the void, it was as if a formless metal wire had been plucked. Just that bit of vibration sound overpowered the Master of Golden Lights'' voice.


    The Infinite Trembling Contemplation!


    In the face of the Master of Golden Light''s strong sword, Zhou Bao no longer hid his private instruments. He displayed his own unique power - the Infinite Trembling Contemplation.


    The Infinite Trembling Contemplation was unlike the Flipping Sky Seal. Even if the Flipping Sky Seal were to suppress everything and seal off space, it could not rip apart space like what Sword Qi did. But when existing in the same space, it could permit all matter, especially Qi, to vibrate with extraordinary frequency. A thousand vibrations in a second was enough to destroy almost all matter on earth. And when there were a few thousand vibrations in a second, everything in this world, including Sword Qi, will cease to exist.


    Although the Master of Golden Lights'' Sword Qi was stronger than everything else, in the end it is composed of Qi. Under this high-frequency vibration, its power was greatly reduced. Together with Zhou Bao''s wave of his fingers, the traces of bizarre energy caused the vibrations to be highly irregular and the Qi that stabbed Zhou Bao to be resisted staunchly.


    "Interesting!"


    Zhou Bao who was enshrouded in Sword Qi raised his eyebrows and found an interesting thing.


    "This Infinite Trembling Contemplation is really strange. In a sense, if it is used for defense, it''s smoother than an attack. Once it is launched, there is basically nothing that can be near it within a hundred feet. Even swords like the Supreme Swordplay can''t do anything!"


    Indeed, under the high-frequency vibrations of the Infinite Trembling Contemplations, the Sword Qi of the Master of Golden Lights was eliminated from the ground a foot away. This reminded Zhou Bao of a phrase.


    Offensive-defensive fusion!


    Yes, offensive-defensive fusion, the Infinite Trembling Contemplations perfectly explained the concept of offensive-defensive fusion.


    Except, he had no time to ponder over it now. After the sword was blocked by Zhou Bao in a strange way, Qingyuan Mountain silenced a breathing effort, and then a great sword rose from Qingyuan Mountain.


    "The Pure Yang Celestial Device?!"


    Feeling the strength of the powerful Pure Yang, Zhou Bao''s brow furrowed, "There is still a Pure Yang Celestial Device in this inferior guy''s hand - a flying one too!"


    Zhou Bao also has a Pure Yang Flying Sword!


    It''s just that the Blue Sword could not see the light of day currently. But in private, Zhou Bao has tried it before. The Flying Sword is worthy of its name as an ominous weapon. Its killing power was beyond measure that even Zhou Bao feared it.


    Although the Pure Yang Qi of the giant sword was less powerful than the Blue Sword, its lethal nature could not be slighted.


    "Grandma''s bear, with the Master of Golden Lights'' interpretation of this sword''s intent, together with a Pure Yang Flying Sword, this power is not to be slighted! I must start strong!"


    At this moment, Zhou Bao realized that he had slighted the Master of Golden Light. Having been known in the world for so many years, he must definitely not be someone easy to tackle.


    "The Infinite Trembling Contemplation? Didn''t know that you knew this secret skill and to display it! Seems that your physical strength is no lesser than a Genuine Immortal. You are indeed stronger than what I imagined! For so many years, you are the first person that I needed my Green Rapier to fight with. For you to die under the blade of the Green Rapier, it is a worthy death!" the Master of Golden Light''s voice did not harbor the same agitation and fury. Instead, it carried a bit of emotionally-charged appreciation. But behind this appreciation, there also lay a strong desire to kill.


    "The Green Rapier?" Zhou Bao''s eyes squinted into a line. Gazing at the Green Rapier suspended in the air, this sword was now absorbing the pneuma within the radius of a hundred miles. The air currents were turbulent, but there was a taste of the Essential Qi Tide. But of course, it could not be matched with the vigor of the Qi tide.


    "Psh, Master of Golden Lights, if this Pure Yang Celestial Device is your most powerful card, then you have disappointed me!" Zhou Pan sneered as he moved his foot slightly, his left hand grasped about while his right hand clenched into a fist. At this moment, a strange and secretive aura radiated from his body and a Black Sun rose in the air.


    "Green Rapier, kill!"


    In the moment of darkness from the Black Sun, a cold laughter could be heard from the Qingyuan Mountain.

 Chapter 389: Strong Repression

    Chapter 389: Strong Repression


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Green Rapier rose, and in a moment a wisp of Sword Qi appeared in front of him.


    Yes, it was just a wisp of Sword Qi which was different from the all-consuming Sword Qi. This Sword Qi, even though it was only a wisp, carried supreme swordsmanship and was also extremely lethal. It could destroy and kill everything in its path!


    At the same time, Zhou Bao extended his fist in a punch.


    It was such a bizarre punch. It seemed like a meteor had suddenly flashed across the sky. It disappeared suddenly without a trace but before that, it had already launched a critical attack which was aimed at the most vulnerable point of the Green Rapier.


    The egg-shaped canopy that had flashing black lines on it shrouded the place in an instant, pulling the entire Qianyuan Mountain into Zhou Bao''s fist. But only for a moment - the instant Zhou Bao''s fist hit the Green Rapier, there was an abrupt change in the situation.


    A strange blue light flickered and slashed through Zhou Bao''s Fist Intent Space.


    Sword Intent!


    Yes, Sword Intent, the one that could wipe out all other Sword Intent.


    In this sword''s attack, Zhou Pan recalled encountering something quite similar previously. This killing intent that came from the Primordial Origin and the killing intent in the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, both their workings which he still could not completely grasp, were all contained in this Sword Intent. In Zhou Bao''s Fist Intent Space, the killing intent converged into a ferocious beast that lunged towards him.


    BOOM!


    The planet that the Fist Intent created was shattered by this ferocious beast with eight arms, four wings and three faces. It snarled violently and flew directly towards the Black Sun in the sky.


    "Destroy this beast for me!" Zhou Bao yelled. The Black Hole Fist Intent in the black hole flew towards the savage animal and began to devour it.


    "Grrr!" The savage beast let out a fierce roar. The four wings of the body fluttered ceaselessly. Each of the nine-headed eight-armed sword sent out an inexhaustible supply of wisps of Sword Qi. Within a short moment, the beast broke free from the bondage of the black hole and rushed to the Black Sun.


    "Good that you are here!"


    Although it was only within a very short moment, Zhou Bao was able to gauge the strength of this savage beast. The Black Sun swelled and the black flame within it leapt to engulf the powerful beast.


    Its body''s Real Essence was bubbling steadily. The black demonic fire flowed ceaselessly into his tendons and meridians, and it sent out angry and fearsome roars that gushed out in a torrent, melting the killing intent in this murderous beast. ´Ó


    "Indeed, this Supreme Swordplay is good - All skills are derived from one sword so you know the actual strength of the killing intent from the sword. Unfortunately, even though I don''t have an in-depth knowledge about the workings of this sword, I do know just a little about how this sword works. Not being able to fire from the sword doesn''t mean I can''t solve the problem!"


    When the Black Sun and beasts disappeared at the same time, the Green Rapier was already at the end of its limit, it had lost almost all its vitality and killing intent. Relying on the power of his boundless Real Essence, Zhou Bao finally eliminated the Green Rapier''s killing intent. But he made it clear that this was not the end.


    "Hmph!" a retort came from Qianyuan Mountains. The Green Rapier gleamed aggressively, as if it understood what was in its opponent''s mind. Zhou Bao suddenly reached out and grabbed hold of the Green Rapier!


    "You really have a death wish!" As if mocking at Zhou Bao''s inability to use the Pure Yang Flying Sword, the Green Rapier suddenly shot out a wave of cyan Sword Qi that seared Zhou Bao''s hands.


    "This is it for today, Master of Golden Lights. I''ve realized that playing with you is indeed a dangerous activity, even more dangerous than playing games with Mingyi School!" Zhou Bao smiled. Bright rays of golden light gushed from his hands and flew towards the Green Rapier.


    "This is¡ª"


    Without waiting for Master of Golden Lights to react, the Green Rapier was absorbed by the golden light. The Tusita Fire in the golden light was only a small flame but it erased all the divine thoughts that Master of Golden Lights had left in the Green Rapier.


    "Something is wrong!" Despite having broken contact with the Pure Yang Flying Sword, Master of Golden Lights instinctively felt that something was not right. It was already too late.


    An enormous pressure pressed down so strongly on him from the Heavens that he was unable to put up any resistance. But death would be a certainty if he did not put up a fight. At this moment between life and death, the Master of Golden Lights did not care too much. He let out a cry of anger. Golden rays of light were shooting out from his body and as they started vibrating, a radiant light wheel rose above his head. The light wheel turned into a giant statue of Buddha. He put his hands on it, as if he were trying to prevent a disaster sent from Heaven.


    "Interesting, you obviously have some links to Buddhism. I was right after all. But now, all your resistance is in vain. Rest assured, I will not kill you, but I will suppress you and imprison you in my Furnace of Immortality!"


    Zhou Bao''s voice rang in his ear, and the statue of the golden Buddha was completely enveloped by the golden light in the sky. There was only a little force of resistance and then the statue of the golden Buddha was swallowed totally by the golden light.


    "This is --- a magic weapon ---!"


    Yes, a magic weapon. Only a magic weapon could have such an incredible power and only a magic weapon was able to perform such feats!


    Zhou Bao actually had a magic weapon!


    "Where did this guy originate from?


    Although his mind was full of doubts, the reality of his situation overrode all the slightest doubts. The huge pressure on his body felt like there was a mountain clamping down on his body. He no longer had the energy to move. No matter how hard he tried to exert his power, the golden light on his head remained motionless.


    Suddenly, a faint flame of fire managed to escape from the golden light and rolled on his body. The fiery tremors from the Master of Golden Lights, the Real Essence that had been cultivated for nearly a hundred years, seemed to have broken through the floodgates, gushing out with such force that the strength from his whole body appeared to be leaking copiously.


    Subsequently, the suction came and without any further ado, the Master of Golden Lights was absorbed into the Elixir Furnace.


    After the golden light was extinguished, Qianyuan Mountain collapsed totally after a moment. Even the underground spirit veins of the earth had been shattered and the fortified land was no longer there.


    The breakage of the spirit vein announced the complete destruction of the Golden Lights Cave.


    Under Qianyuan Mountain, Lingdong County, countless people were shocked to watch the mountain peaks collapsing. They looked at the sombre young teen dressed in cyan clothes. His God-like power sent shivers into everyone who could see him.


    Of course, due to the distance, only those who have cultivated themselves to the level of strong players could see the silhouette of Zhou Bao in the sky.


    He lifted his gaze slightly and raised himself up. He could see everything on the ground from his vantage point thousands of feet up in the sky.


    His physique flickered for a moment and in the next instant he had already appeared on the ground. He stood in front of the building near the clouds, glanced at the flabbergasted teenagers before he looked up. He saw Fang Tieyi standing alone on the second floor. Only then he was aware of what had happened. But when he saw Zhou Bao''s expression, his face drained of color.


    "Well, Fang Tiyi, I gave you two choices earlier. Which one will you choose?!"


    Zhou Bao did not plan to let Fang Tieyi off so easily. Although this guy was a nobody at all to him, he did not like his attitude. When did he ever need strays to judge him?


    If he let this kid off today, then in future, anybody who was a nobody would dare to criticize him to his face.


    This was not a joke to be taken simply. Zhou Bao was not known to be a magnanimous person, nor will he ever be a magnanimous person.


    In the face of strong enemies, he could exert great strength. In the face of nobodies, he did not mind showing off his strength. Certain things could be laughed off, but some things required a little deterrence.


    For example, Zhou Bao did not like Fang Tieyi, so he decided to teach him a lesson. He had come across people like that before. On the surface he represented justice and all the proper ways. But in truth, he was a coward. If you asked him to crawl, he will crawl.


    Therefore, it would be better to strip off his superficial mask and save everyone from any future trouble.


    In a sense, this could also be considered as a bad taste!


    Yes, a bad taste!


    Looking at the sweat-drenched Fang Tieyi climbing down step by step from the second floor and running for the restaurant''s door, Zhou Bao''s smile became even colder.


    Well, not bad. This is what is Mingyi School is teaching you. Oh, I thought you would challenge me to a fight. I didn''t think you would actually climb down and try to make a run for it. Well, good!" Zhou Pan nodded his head and shot a blazing look around the surroundings. Regardless whether anyone was skilled in martial arts or not, whether they belonged to the Golden Lights'' Cave''s or not, all lowered their heads in fear at his gaze. Even the old man in the Golden Lights Cave who was there to worship the ancestors did the same.


    "That''s why I said, people''s hearts are worthless!" Zhou Bao''s smile became even colder. He murmured, "In this world, having the power to suppress everything is fundamental!"


    Then, he turned his gaze to the disciples of Golden Lights Cave who by now had revived. "This is a personal grudge between me and your Family Elder. Although I made a bet with him before and asked for Qingyuan Mountain, this request was made in jest only. Qingyuan Mountain is not his personal property but a property belonging to the Jin Dynasty. It can''t be bought and sold privately. Therefore, this is the end of the matter. I know that your ancestors have several good disciples. Tell them if they ever want to take revenge, come find me at the Wuyang Region. If they have a death wish, they can also look for me!" After speaking, he bellowed with laughter for some time before disappearing and leaving behind a crowd of astonished passers-by.


    Yes, astonished to the core.


    Everything had happened so suddenly; it was such an intense process and had ended so swiftly!


    From Lingdong County, to where he set foot on the mountain gate of Qianyuan Mountain, and finally to the destruction of Qianyuan Mountain, the whole process took one to two hours only.


    Within the span of one to two hours, an old legendary figure had fallen and a new one had been born!


    All this had happened before their eyes. Although they had witnessed it personally, they still found it hard to believe that these events had actually taken place.


    After surviving for centuries in the world, the invincible and overbearing Master of Golden Lights had been defeated on his home ground. All his youthful ambitions, dreams and legendary feats had become like dust in the wind in seconds. He left behind only a group of disciples and false believers who were now at a loss.

 Chapter 390: Everything was an illusion

    Chapter 390: Everything was an illusion


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Everything was an illusion!


    Zhou Bao sighed. He stepped on the door of the Qianyuan Mountain. After suppressing Master of Golden Lights Cave with the fairy weapon Furnace of Immortality and roasting him in the Tusita Fire for nine days, Zhou Bao finally managed to distill the new Individual Immortal into a soul. Through this soul, he mastered everything about Master of Golden Lights Cave.


    Actually, he did not have much of a history to boast about. He just got lucky and inherited the medieval period Sword Divine School''s teachings.


    Just that he was a little stubborn. He was determined to bring glory to the medieval period Sword Divine School and to continue passing on the teachings. However, after reaching cultivation Level Nine, Master of Golden Lights Cave lost all the luck he had. The sect that he spent almost all his life''s efforts to build could not go any further. From then, he turned abnormal. He chose to form an alliance with Mingyi School. He needed to use the strong Mingyi School as a backing. At the same time, Mingyi School needed a hatchet man like him. It was a win-win combination and they worked well together.


    After working and progressing together for a couple of decades, Qianyuan Mountain''s Golden Lights Cave had become a strong influence being second to none except Jin''s Three Great Sects. He had disciples that had reached the Expert Realm. However, this was not enough, far from enough.


    To revive the glory old days during the medieval period, he needed bigger forces, heavier influence, and this was not easy.


    Whatever profits there were in the world, they already had their rightful beneficiaries. Be it great quality resources or fairylands or cave paradises, they all had owners. To advance one step to get more profits and benefits, the only way would be to seize what others had.


    This was not easy! This was not realistic!


    Once Golden Lights Cave''s influence reached a bottleneck, the alliance partner''s attitude started to change and became ambiguous. He was helpless in such situation. He understood why Mingyi School would have such an attitude change. If the standstill continued, his Golden Lights Cave would eventually turn towards Mingyi School''s profits. This was something that Mingyi School would never want to see happening.


    So, Golden Lights Cave was in a tight predicament yet again.


    He understood very well where the challenges were--Golden Lights Cave had no history, strong sect nor solid backing. To change any of these, he had a long way to go. So he quietened down, as though he was a wild beast, waiting to pounce on any opportunity. He started to wait and wait that seemed endless. As he waited, he accumulated strength until the opportunity arrived.


    Zhou Bao''s rise was an opportunity. He saw hope, but what he saw was not Zhou Bao''s northwest territory. What he wanted was to build a sword practitioner''s sect and not a country. Although the northwest was wide, and rather well-managed by Zhou Bao, it was lacking that one thing that should not be lacked.


    pirit vein!


    With spirit vein, there would be no fairyland, no cave paradise, no hope for a sect to develop and to grow. So, in the very beginning, he did not notice Zhou Bao. Even after Zhou Bao received the title of the desolate northwest, he did not pay any attention to Zhou Bao. It was only when the Pure Yang Celestial Device appeared in Zhou Bao''s hands did he sit up and started to pay attention to Zhou Bao.


    He realized that there must be a tremendous secret behind this young man, Zhou Bao. Maybe even an unimaginable power behind supporting him. Otherwise, it was impossible that he could cause such a ruckus.


    From then on, Master Golden Lights Cave started to pay close attention to and feared Zhou Bao''s abilities. He started to covet the Pure Yang Celestial Device in Zhou Bao''s hands. At the same time, he also found out that because of his past negligence, he no longer had the confidence to rein in this young, powerful force. It was really frustrating.


    This frustration did not last. After a long training retreat, he felt himself almost breaking through the bottleneck. There was just this one thin layer left, and after tearing through it, he would reach the Mysterious Realm. With this progress, his thoughts started to run wild once more. After paying an enormous price to the Dragon Thunder Palace, Master managed to get the one-time right to enter the Mysterious Realm. He got the Innate Green Lotus Seed in the Realm. With the use of this spiritual item, he successfully broke through the Mysterious Realm and was in line with the Immortal status.


    The great strength of the Mysterious Realm gave him confidence. Master was prepared to make a move until news came. Zhou Bao, alone, went into the Azure Secret Area and defeated Ye Qingtian.


    Although Ye Qingtian could not be considered an expert in the Central Mainland Region, Master would somewhat have an understanding about Ye Qingtian''s abilities in his current position. After he heard that Zhou Bao left Mingyi School unscathed after beating Ye Qingtian, Master hesitated once more for the same reason. He once more realized that he did not have the strength to defeat Zhou Bao.


    All he could do was wait and wait for another opportunity. Then, when the news of Zhou Bao possessing the Yin and Yang Dust Formation reached his ears. Master could not wait any longer.


    In comparison to his Mountain-protecting Sword Formation and Seven Stars Facing the Moon, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation was much more powerful. Most importantly, he knew the most crucial element of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation--the Innate Qi Talisman. This could be extracted from the Innate Green Lotus Seed and he, coincidentally, knew of the way to do so.


    He could imagine himself possessing the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. This would mean that Qianyuan Mountain''s Golden Lights Cave would finally be strong and impregnable. Even if it could not immediately be as big a sect as the Mingyi School, with time it would slowly accumulate strengths, develop depth and become more powerful. He was in the level of the immortals, he would live a long life and would definitely get to see the brightest days of the Golden Lights Cave.


    The only thing that made him hesitate was news of the defeat of Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. With the protection of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, he was definitely no match for Zhou Bao. To attack without strategy would only result in one ending--he would be bombarded to pieces by Zhou Bao.


    What should he do?


    He thought of Mingyi School and then thought of the School of Five Virtues right behind it--the Divine Wind Palace!


    He knew Mingyi School in great depth. He knew that for the School of Five Virtues, for the Divine Wind Palace, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation was tremendously tempting. This resulted in a series of actions and moves from him which eventually amounted to today.


    It was not that he did not expect Zhou Bao to attack directly, but like everyone else, he thought Zhou Bao managed to defeat the Bigwheel Temple solely based on his Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Skills of formation are good for defense, but stands nowhere if used for offense. This is especially so for strong formations like the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. It was impossible to bring it around and be mobile. It was the defense formation that protected his old nest Qianyuan Mountain. Although this formation is not as powerful as the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, it had the ability to lock and seal off the earth vein and spiritual qi within miles. Once released, it would have formidable power. Plus, with the cultivation of the Mysterious Realm he had attained with his own ability. Even if a Genuine Immortal attacked him, Zhou Bao would have the capability to inflict serious injuries and defeat them.


    Master never thought Zhou Bao would really come, never thought that Zhou Bao would have such a strong force and never thought that Zhou Bao would have a fairy weapon that would crush him till grounds of no return!


    "Pfuuuu!" Zhou Bao exhaled deeply as he finished analyzing and breaking down the mind of the Master of Golden Lights Cave.


    "Didn''t think he was already plotting against me from so long ago. This shows that what I''ve done is right. Crushing him and destroying his sect were unavoidable. Otherwise, to ignore would only mean that this tumor will continue to grow. Now it''s perfect. He''s dead. Besides getting his Pure Yang Flying Sword, I also got his heritage of the Medieval Sword Deity. What a fruitful harvest!"


    He sighed that everything was only an illusion. The Master of Golden Lights Cave''s dreams, ambitions, and duties all became dust in front of his strength. They had become shapeless clouds. At the same time he continued to recount what he had benefitted from the Master of Golden Lights Cave.


    While he recalled the good stuff he got, an eccentric smile appeared on Zhou Bao''s face. "I already have the Blue Sword, why would I need the Green Rapier? The two Pure Yang Flying Swords are of not much use to me. Li Xiu, that rascal, isn''t he focusing on swordsmanship recently? Then, I''ll hand these two swords down to him. Hmm, I wonder what he would bring to exchange? The largest bit of the Master of Golden Lights Cave."


    Zhou Bao and Li Xiu could be considered to be somewhat good friends. However, there is a saying that goes, even true brothers of the same blood should make sure their accounts are calculated correctly. This meant that no matter how good of a friend they were to each other, it was not possible to be completely honest with each other. He was focused on supporting Li Xiu not because of any friendship ties, but because he wanted to make use of the power of the Li Family of Pingzhou. This was just like how the Master of Golden Lights Cave wanted to use the power of the Mingyi School. In the world, it is not possible to survive with only strength and without "friends".


    Now he held the Anyuan Store. Plus, he had relations with the Sect of Flame in the South, the Wu Family and Tian Long Taoism in the North and his own power in the Northwest--in the Jin imperial court, he was the emperor''s son-in-law. These were all the roots of his power and strength. He was not solely relying on his own powers!


    No matter how powerful he was, he was only a human being. In this world, there would definitely be a presence stronger than him. So to only rely on his own power to take down the world, it would not possible. In fact, more than often, relations would play an extremely important role.


    While Zhou Bao was strengthening his own skills, he also paid attention to build his net of relationships. This was how the Wuyang Region got to where they were today.


    The Li Family of Pingzhou was the key to building his relations with the millennium family.


    Even though the Tian Long Taoism and the well-known families of the world had ambiguous relationships, these were indirect links. He could not make use of any of them. He had to build his own.


    Hence, he gave great support to Li Xiu. Once Li Xiu gained power of the Li Family, he could then have a closer partnership with the Li Family. Zhou Bao believed that within a few years, his Wuyang Region would finally truly be the strongest vassal state in Northwest. This also meant that he would be relieved of some stress in the future.


    "This time I trashed the Golden Lights Cave and made the School of Five Virtues lose face. I wonder what kind of reaction the School of Five Virtues would have. Hehe. Divine Wind Palace, ah, Divine Wind Palace, this time you guys didn''t even protect the closest ally you had. Scheming to get my formation map? You''ve got a long way to go!" His fierce thoughts continued, "You all have always schemed against me. I will also scheme against you. This is only the first step. Wait till the Azure Secret Area, I''ll give you all a bigger surprise!"

 Chapter 391: The Sincerity of His Highness, the Crown Prince

    Chapter 391: The Sincerity of His Highness, the Crown Prince


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Zhou Bao is crazy!"


    The news was heard that Zhou Bao had gone up to Qianyuan Mountain and defeated the Master of the Golden Lights Cave.


    The people were initially calm when they first heard about that, but soon after, exclamations began to arise.


    The people were already immune to Zhou Bao''s daring acts. Compared to dashing into the Mingyi School on his own, demolishing the door of Qianyun Mountain did not seem all that surprising.


    Qianyun Moutain was a solo act outside of the three big sects of the Jin. Although there were occasional partnerships, Qianyun Mountain did not have any backup. Instead, their vigorous expansion now had even endangered the well-being of the three big sects. Hence, the people were actually smiling in their hearts when they heard what Zhou Bao had done.


    The only thing that they felt bad about was the Divine Wind Palace, which was also the School of the Five Virtues.


    Through his actions, Zhou Bao had proven that he had a very stern, determined attitude. Under such circumstances, there was only one way to lay hands on his Yin and Yang Dust Formation. And that was to snatch it by force.


    However, that was impossible.


    The conditions were not right. The internal opinions of the Mingyi School were divided and the School of the Five Virtues was on disagreeing terms. Furthermore, it was the prime time to take over the Azure Secret Area and no one was willing to fight a one-on-one with Zhou Bao at this point in time.


    Hence, with much pent-up dissatisfaction, they had to sit back and watch Zhou Bao, the shit-stirrer, show off.


    While the Master of the Golden Lights Cave may have been defeated, the cave still remained the same. Regardless, the Master had several strong disciples. They set up a new fort on a mountaintop near Qianyun Mountain and vowed to fight Zhou Bao till the end.


    The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou had especially sworn to destroy Zhou Bao''s body. However, by the time he had done so, Zhou Bao had already returned to the Wuyang Region, seemingly oblivious of his threat.


    Wang She had his eyes on Lu Shaoyou, so there was no need for Zhou Bao to worry about him.


    And as for the Golden Lights Cave, while it had not collapsed despite losing its Master and the underground spirit vein, it was destined to fail. And for whatever might come next, Zhou Bao did not even need to care too much because he could just fight back in the dark.


    The only thing that he was worried about now was the Original Spirit of the Master of the Golden Lights Cave. It had already entered the Mysterious Realm and attained immortality. Even though it was being put in the Furnace of Immortality at the moment, its name was still in the Golden Book of Fate. That being said, it still had the chance to be reincarnated. And if it were to be reincarnated with the memories of its previous life, it would indeed be a threat to Zhou Bao.


    However, Zhou Bao did not have the time to worry about him now. While his name was still recorded in the Golden Book of Fate, it was not easy to be reincarnated completely. The Divine Wind Palace had great control over the Golden Book of Fate, but not enough to determine who got to be reincarnated. That being said, there were disputes within the Divine Wind Palace. For example, the Third Supervisor of the School of the Five Virtues, Li VII, was not on good terms with Yi IV. If Li VII decided to side with Zhou Bao and help him in the dark, the Original Spirit of the Master of Golden Lights Cave might not come out at all.


    Henceforth, Zhou Bao was not worried about the Master of the Golden Lights Cave at all.


    "Crown Prince, Crown Prince... This is interesting. The Crown Prince is trying to get close to me at this time. What is he planning?!" Zhou Bao tapped his index finger lightly against the table while looking at the long list of presents that he had received. Doubts and guesses shimmered from his eyes.


    400,000 taels of gold, eight million taels of white jade pearl, 3,000 pairs of jade, five Blood Jade Coral that were 10 feet tall, and diamonds of every color¡ªthere was no lack of precious jewels.


    It took a whole three days just to transport the gifts, and that was on top of the fact that those in the Anyuan Store had already mastered the legendary Chunyun transportation ability.


    This bunch of precious items was enough to support one''s wealthy lifestyle for 10 lifetimes. They were sent by the Crown Prince without any hesitation. At the same time, he also gave Zhou Bao 500 beautiful servants. He did not even try to cover up his effort to draw close to him and get on his good side. Just what was he thinking of doing?


    Below Zhou Bao stood his servants, Jiang Xiao, Wang Cheng, Zhu Ba, and Renzhen Cuo. They were all looking down out of the corners of their eyes, occasionally eyeing the gifts that filled the yard. Zhou Bao had no idea what was going on in their minds!


    "What do you think, Jiang Xiao?"


    "Your Excellency, it is very obvious that the Crown Prince is trying to get on your good side for the sake of his future. Nonetheless, based on your powerful status, it is perfectly fine if you accept the gifts and do nothing about them!"


    "That''s right, Your Excellency, there is no need to bother so much. If they want to send us gifts, isn''t it perfectly fine to accept them?" Zhu Ba spoke deeply.


    "Who let you speak? What, now that you''re an expert, your voice has also gotten louder?!" Zhou Bao questioned Zhu Ba while staring at him intensely.


    Zhu Ba could sense that Zhou Bao was in a bad mood and quickly shut up.


    "Renzhen Cuo, you look like you have something to say!" Zhou Bao saw her trying to hold back an urge to speak.


    "Your Excellency, oh, no, Your Excellency!" Renzhen Cuo had been a servant for a long time, so it was hard for her to voice her opinion. "These gifts are strange. Even though the Jin is the greatest dynasty and the Crown Prince rules over the greatest dynasty, it does not make sense for him to have so much money. All of this added up could amount to half of the Jin dynasty''s annual earnings. He may have been rich, but he should be penniless after sending all these gifts!"


    "Makes sense!" Zhou Bao listened and felt the same.


    The Jin might have been the biggest dynasty of the Central Mainland Region, but their financial status was not in great shape. Their annual earnings were about 80 million taels of silver. The gifts that Zhou Bao received were in no way less than 40 million taels of silver. What was the Crown Prince doing by sending so much money over?


    Zhou Bao had another unanswered question. Being a prince, the Crown Prince should have known that even 400 million taels were not of any use to Zhou Bao, let alone 40 million. Zhou Bao''s combat capability was at the Level of True Immortality, what did he need money for?


    Furthermore, what bothered Zhou Bao the most was that the gifts were all earthly things¡ªthings that were not useful for his practice. Common people treasured things like silver, gold, pearls, and jewels as much as they treasured their lives. But to those who practiced martial arts, those things were as useless as feces.


    "Hehe, among so many jewels, there is not a single Spiritual Stone! All these medicinal herbs may be beneficial to common people, but they are not useful to those who practice martial arts. This Crown Prince is indeed thoughtful!"


    Zhou Bao laughed coldly, Renzhen Cuo could not guess the reason behind the Crown Prince''s effort, but Zhou Bao was able to understand what all of it was about after reading the letter that accompanied the gifts.


    "He is indeed one with no ambition but knows how to face reality. These items may be useless to me, but they will be handy for building in the Wuyang Region. Now that it is entering its beginning stage of construction, we have to pour in lots of money to complete it. Since this money is now knocking on my door, I''ll receive it with open arms!" Zhou Bao had decided on the plan as he nodded at Renzhen Cuo.


    "Not bad, you do have a point. His reasons are already stated clearly in the letter. Hence, there is no need to worry too much about his gifts. Jiang Xiao, Wang Cheng, and Renzhen Cuo... the three of you are in charge of taking stock of the gifts and storing them away. What is meant to be used will be used, and what is meant to be spent will be spent. There is no such thing as wasteful. Money is meant to be spent, understand?!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency, I understand!" the three of them chorused together. Zhu Ba was the only one who looked at Zhou Ba with eyes that spoke a different message.


    "What are you looking at? Haven''t you gotten enough from me these past two years?" After taking a glance of Zhu Ba from head to toe, Zhou Bao said, "Look at you, you cultivated until Level Seven and then stopped there. After so long, there is not even a slight improvement! I will give you three more years, and if you are not able to hit Level Eight by then, you can forget about the Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Huh? Three more years?!" Zhu Ba held up three fingers in shock and looked at Zhou Bao with a face full of doubt. "Your Excellency, I''m not like you. How can I jump from Level Seven to Level Eight in just three years?!"


    "That is your business. We should always expect more of ourselves. If we don''t try, then how will we ever know?" Zhou Bao laughed and said, "Also, regarding territory, that''s about it. We don''t have much use for you here. Go to the south and stay at the Anyuan Store. Our Anyuan Store has a very stable status and ally, but it would still look quite pitiful without an expert. You should go!" After saying that, Zhou Bao waved his hand and a ball of golden light landed in Zhu Ba''s hands. "This Knotted Golden Net has Pure Yang and is viewed as a Pure Yang Celestial Device. I''ll lend it to you first, you can also use it to refine yourself. However, by the end of three years, if you''ve yet to reach Level Eight, I''ll take it back, even if you have refined it to become a Natal Celestial Device!"


    "Thank you, Your Excellency!"


    Surprises that come after disappointments are often more heart-warming. Zhu Ba did not give it a second thought as he hurriedly held on to the ray of golden light and bowed to Zhou Bao with light shimmering in his eyes. "Do not worry Your Excellency. Zhu Ba will not disappoint you at all!"


    Then, the other three became jealous. Although the earthly gifts were good, they could not compare to a Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    "Good. Now get going!" Zhou Bao waved his hand and beckoned the four of them to leave.


    After those four had left, Zhou Ba reread the letter again carefully. After reading it, he grinned and turned the letter into ashes.


    "This Crown Prince is really something. However, to be pulled into a fight with the throne of the Jin dynasty is too much to handle. I would prefer to stay out of this mess for the time being. I don''t even know what the Crown Prince is thinking, and whether or not Li VII knows about this. If he is aware of what''s happening, it would still be fine, but if he does not and eventually finds out on his own, who knows what he would do!"


    The Crown Prince had a very simple idea. It was pragmatic and called for a stagnant state.


    In the letter, he expressed his stance. He was not interested in the Human Emperor''s position at all, he only wanted to peacefully rule as an emperor of the mortal world and continue the history of the Jin dynasty. He would not practice the so-called Way of the Emperor, nor strive to become some great emperor. In other words, he was a man with no ambition. His motive behind the earthly gifts was to express his desire to side with Zhou Bao. He had no longing to be involved in the world of martial arts. 40 million taels of silver was his entire fortune. By bringing them to Zhou Bao, he had already shown his sincerity clearly.

 Chapter 392: Dragon-taming Ruins

    Chapter 392: Dragon-taming Ruins


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The night scene resembled clear waters, and the shadows loomed over the vast northwest land.


    A heavy snowfall covered the whole prairie, giving it a silvery white sheen and it looked very enchanting.


    A full moon hung in the sky. In the moonlight, a figure clothed in cyan walked briskly in the seemingly unending field of snow. A breeze blew against the green cloth, but it was only a slight one and merely lifted up a corner of it and did not blow on his face.


    A big Silver Wolf tailed behind him meekly, uttering a low whimper from time to time.


    "Little Du, we''ve been walking for a very long time. Is it here?"


    "Huh, huh, huh, al-al-al-almost, almost there, there!" After a few exhalations, Little Du replied in a human voice. Although his speech was not fluent, it would have been a shock to anyone who heard it. What did it mean when an evil beast was able to converse in the human tongue?


    Demons were different from evil beasts.


    Some monsters and evil beasts outside of the Seven-deity Regions were born conversant in the human language, because their ancestors were powerful monsters from long ago. Thus, not only were they able to converse in the human tongue, but they were similar in appearance to human beings as well. But Little Du was different. It had only a slight trace of the evil beast''s bloodline from ancient times. His ancestors had lived in the Misty Mountain, and in fact, they were almost indistinguishable from ordinary wolves. There was actually no difference at all. Generally speaking, this kind of evil beasts were able to converse in the human tongue only when they broke through the Mysterious Realm and became an Individual Immortal. To assume a human shape was even more difficult, because they have to go through the purification of Thunder Tribulation and become a Genuine Immortal first. However, Little Du whose strength was between Level Eight to Level Nine was able to speak in the human tongue ready. It was really amazing.


    "Here?" Zhou Bao suddenly stopped. In front of him was a huge canyon covered with snow. As he approached, he found that the canyon was deep and foggy, but Zhou Bao''s magical eyes were able to see through it.


    He looked directly and saw the layout of the canyon clearly.


    There was not much difference between this canyon and the other canyons in the northwest. They were all deserted and desolate. The only difference was that there was a well at the bottom of this canyon.


    Yes, a well, dug entirely by human effort but it had dried up already for years.


    It was totally unnatural to have a well located in such a place.


    That was why Little Du notified Zhou Bao about it.


    "Good job, Little Du!" Zhou Bao nodded. In a flash, he descended to the well at bottom of the canyon.


    It was really an ancient well. Its mouth was narrow, made of ordinary bluestone, and was nothing special. Zhou Bao touched it and found it to be extremely cool, due to the surrounding environment and also the material it was made from.


    tanding at the mouth of the well, Zhou Bao couldn''t sense any abnormality in the well.


    But that did not mean it was any ordinary well.


    "Eh?" Pressing himself to the edge of the well, Zhou Bao spotted an abnormality. A faint force seemed to seep out from the seemingly ordinary bluestone, pitting itself against his strength, which ensured that the well''s edge held fast.


    This was not what ordinary bluestones could do.


    "It''s a formation! This well seems to be protected by a formation!" Reflecting on this, Zhou Bao walked away from the edge and began to look around intently. As expected, a moment later, he noticed something awry, and extreme shock replaced the easygoing expression on his face.


    "A formation, completely set up by the essence of the world? How could this be?"


    No wonder he was shocked. Because as far as he knew, there were many formations in the world, but they all needed materials and tools. For example, his Yin and Yang Dust Formation, though powerful, required an enormous amount of materials. Even a mediocre small formation required a lot of materials. Here, however, this formation, which was of medium size but exquisite and arcane, was totally made up of the essence of the world, without even using any forms of material. How could that be?


    If it could be done in this way, it would be possible to bring along all types of formations with you, and once you reached a place and did some configurations with the essence of the world, the formation would be completed. This was totally insane!


    Zhou Bao''s heart began to thump wildly. He was not very proficient in formations, but he could grasp the aftermath of this method of setting up any formation.


    "If I master this method of setting up any formation, there is no one I need to fear!" I can travel around with the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and be totally invincible. I can wipe out the damn Divine Wind Palace!" he murmured deep down in his heart. However, he dared not touch those formation suppressions, but circled around the mouth of the well twice. Then he picked up a stone from the ground and threw it into the well where it landed with a plop.


    The stone fell directly to the bottom of the well with a thump, and seemed to bounce back. Then nothing happened.


    Once again, Zhou Bao put his hand into the mouth of the well, and mimed the act of catching something. But all he grasped was air, as if he had reached into the mouth of any ordinary well.


    "Interesting!" He turned his head to look at Little Du, and Little Du gave him a perplexed look, "I, I, I also, also tried. You can do anything, but you, you can''t get into the well!"


    You could not get in!


    This was what he learned from Little Du.


    A very strange well that people could not get into.


    After pondering over it, Zhou Bao gritted his teeth and jumped into the well. But in the next moment, he bounced back up to the top of the well.


    "What a smart Five Elements Reversing Formation!" This formation caused him to disappear and appear. After one try, Zhou Bao could grasp a little of the workings of the mysterious formation. He found out that this formation had created a perfect spatial loop in the well. No matter how you tried to get into the well, it would just reverse your action and you ended up where you started because of this particular, fixed loop.


    Zhou Bao had not mastered the art of this formation, but he was highly attuned to the senses of space and the spatial fluctuation could not block his spiritual mind.


    "This formation seems to work only for living things!" Zhou Bao thought to himself and had an enlightening thought. He launched the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to restrain his spirit, thus making himself like a stone statue, without any breath of life. Then with a flop, he fell into the well.


    This time, the formation did not launch him back but instead allowed him to fall into the bottom of the well.


    The bottom of the well was much wider than the top, but it was still quite small with just enough space for him to stretch himself. The stone he had thrown earlier was a little way to the side. When he looked up, he saw Little Du looking around and purring at the mouth of the well.


    Waving to Little Du, Zhou Bao began to take a close look around the bottom.


    His first impression of the well was that it was dry and primitive; the second impression was that it appeared to be a rather odd place.


    He could clearly sense that the bottom of the well was the Formation Eye of the formation, because not far from his feet, a ball of pneuma gathered, flowing around an ingenious track. The pneuma was of a common type, but the flow was smooth and endless, containing the most profound truths of Great Ways. It was one thing to see and another to understand how it was done.


    Zhou Bao knew that there were a lot of truths in it, but he did not understand how it worked. This level of truth was not something he understood. The only thing he could do was to focus on the track of the pneuma he felt and the wonderful feeling coming out of it.


    "Who has set this formation and what''s the use of it? Just to show his ability to set a formation?" After a thorough examination of the bottom of the well, Zhou Bao found nothing, and felt a little discouraged.


    He knew that some of the mighty ones in this world had decidedly queer temperaments, but there was a limit. Was there really someone who was so eccentric that he set up such a puzzling formation here? Or, did he lack the power to solve the mystery?


    Zhou Bao had a fair sense of what he expected and also some ideas on the next move. "Hump, I don''t believe that with my combat capability of a Genuine Immortal and inheritance of the Innate Deity, I am unable to undo a formation! Then let me try using brute force!"


    Zhou Bao was never lacking in brute force. His eyes narrowed slightly and the dark golden Gang Qi flowed out of him. Raising his hand, a blow of the Great Fusion Technic hit the stone wall at the bottom.


    "Swish¡ª" The sounds were familiar to the sounds that issued forth when Zhou Bao was practicing the Three Realms Division in the beginning. The Great Fusion Technic that could fuse space had just risen in the wall and disappeared.


    But Zhou Bao could still feel the violent spatial fluctuation surrounding him.


    "There''s hope!" Zhou Bao was inspired. Then he successively launched the Great Fusion Technic three times, each time with more effort. Given such continuous strong attacks, even this extremely mystery formation could not hold on for too long. After all, it was not a big formation but a common Five Elements Reversing Formation. Being attacked successively by Great Fusion Technic, the flow of pneuma in the formation began to stagnate, and its flow was not as smooth as before. After a careful observation, Zhou Bao gave a faint smile. Then he swished his hand in a wave, but this time he was not using the Great Fusion Technic but the Space Division Skill. A crack appeared in the formation and a passageway opened up. Without any hesitation, Zhou Bao entered this passageway and the next moment, he found himself in a fantastic place.


    "It''s underground?"


    Zhou Bao took one glance of the surrounding environment, and saw that he was in an underground cave. The cave was not a natural cave but a man-made cave. Before he could react, the Dragon Chimera Fire in his body stirred uneasily, and a great rapacity came over him.


    "This is, dragon, dragon vein!"


    Zhou Bao looked into the center of the cave with great horror. There were corpses of some large creatures bound in thick black chains, hanging in the air. The end of the chain stretched out into the infinite hollow.

 Chapter 393: The Scheme of the Divine Wind Palace

    Chapter 393: The Scheme of the Divine Wind Palace


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    This was the place where the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins gathered!


    This was what Earth Bat of Girl had told him. He was well-versed in Fengshui and had discerning eyes. He once told Zhou Bao that Wuyang Region was the place where the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins gathered, and if one occupied this place, one could establish a dynasty of ten thousand years, a legendary Divine Dynasty.


    Zhou Bao, though not in favor of taking on the role of emperor, knew the importance of Earth Bat of Girl''s words.


    "Is this the underground area of my Wuyang Region? And the original convergency point of the so-called Nine Dragons and these chained dragons are the source of Nine Strips of Dragon Veins!"


    Walking along the huge black chains, Zhou Bao finally saw clearly that there was a hollow space above his head.


    A strange place indeed, where one side was underground, and the other was up above with an unfilled space.


    The dragons that were bound by the black chains served as the dividing line.


    "It''s really an odd place! But, eh, there are more than nine dragons. There seems to be 81 dragons!" Zhou Bao was shocked to see the huge number of dragons overhead. Just as he was about to leap out and explore the infinite hollow overhead, he suddenly froze in his tracks. In a flash, he hid in the shadows, fully exerting his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, and kept very silent.


    Almost at the same time, the spatial fluctuation split open, and two figures suddenly appeared in the area.


    Zhou Bao saw distinctly that one of them was tall and looked to be well over 60 years old, wearing sackcloth and straw sandals. There seemed to be no sign of life emanating from him, just like Zhou Bao who had been exerting his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. And because of this, Zhou Bao could not gauge what his strength was like.


    The other man was tall and noble looking, with an upright figure and a dignified face. When they arrived, they didn''t survey the area first but went directly to the 81 dragons that were bound by chains, as if they were certain that there would be no one here.


    "Old Ma, we''ve found four places of Nine Dragons convergency, but there are still five more to be found. It''s really a bit of a hassle. Please try to hasten things along, the lord doesn''t want to wait too long!"


    "Not willing to wait too long? Hehe, you Divine Wind Palace are taking things too lightly! You think this is merely a game of hide-and-seek, and they can be easily found? 81 Ancient Celestial Dragons have been divided into nine parts of Nine Dragons convergency. This was the way of Great Necromancers in the olden times! If it were so easy to find them, all of the 81 dragon veins would be gathered in one place and you could reestablish the Heavenly Court now!"


    "Precisely! It is because it is not an easy task and that is why we invited you to carry out the search, Master Ma!" The noble man''s tone was very mellow, and quite different from the arrogant tones of the experts from Divine Wind Palace. "It''s a matter of great importance to the Divine Wind Palace. I need to trouble you with regards to that, Master Ma!"


    "Very well, I''ll try my best. I''ll try my best. Give me 10 years. 10 years at most for me to find the nine places of Nine Dragons convergency. But there is a precondition that the nine places must not be discovered by anyone else first. Otherwise, if the fate of the Nine Strips of Dragon Veins was suppressed, it would cause a lot of problems!"


    "There are not many people who have this ability, so it should not be difficult to find. You''re responsible for checking on the movements of the spirit vein, and we''re responsible for spying on those families to see if there are any suspicious activities going on in their homes. To suppress the dragon vein Qi of the Nine Dragons convergency isn''t easy. As long as they are up to something, we Divine Wind Palace will easily get wind of it!"


    "Okay, that should be fine. As long as you have the full control of these 81 dragon veins, and gather their fate together, your Divine Wind Palace''s big deal is half way through. Even if you were to fail in the end, no one would be able to match your prosperous fate within 100,000 years!"


    "Then please!" The man nodded and gave a slight bow to Master Ma. In a flash, he disappeared from Master Ma''s side.


    "81 Dragons convergency, the Divine Wind Palace is really so ambitious!" Hidden in the darkness, Zhou Bao was speechless after overhearing their conversation. The place of Nine Dragons convergency was enough to establish a Divine Dynasty of ten thousand years, just imagine what could be established in the place of 81 Dragons convergency?


    Perhaps there was only one place that could withstand the formidable fate.


    The Heavenly Court!


    The legendary Primordial Celestial Court unified all sectors of the world, and was a supreme influence that ruled over all realms. Only Heavenly Court required and could withstand such incredible fate.


    Otherwise, even the most blessed of people would be driven to death by the incredible fate. And Zhou Bao believed that he was no exception.


    "Unexpectedly the Divine Wind Palace had found such a place and also the right man to help them search for the dragon veins. By comparison, those influences, including the Immortal Palace, were too laggy. No one was aware of their actions. Of course, they may have noticed it, but had to endure it." But Zhou Bao thought it was extremely unlikely.


    "Eh?" Suddenly, the old man in sackcloth who was observing the direction of the dragon vein made a slight sound. Zhou Bao''s heart sank. The old man stood in the place where Zhou Bao had appeared, and had a surprised look on his face.


    "Gosh!" Immediately, Zhou Bao understood what had happened. Without thinking, he aimed a finger at the old man in the sackcloth.


    The Great Fusion Technique!


    "Bastard!" Realizing that something was wrong, the old man in sackcloth, however, did not think that Zhou Bao would attack instantly and the first blow was the mighty Divine Sense. Before he could dodge, he was struck by the Great Fusion Technic.


    "Ah, the Great Fusion Technic, Evil Fire Kylin? No!" After being hit, the old man''s body, began to melt slowly, like dripping candle wax. But he did not die instantly, and there was no fear in his face, only a little expression of surprise.


    Hiss!


    On the contrary, after seeing this, Zhou Bao gasped. The old man''s body had melted and so did the surrounding space. The burned-out space formed a hole that connected the endless hollow, producing a powerful suction which sucked in all the air around. The body which, by now, resembled a melted candle, however, was not affected by this suction.


    "He''s not dead!" Although the thing that had melted appeared to be lifeless, Zhou Bao still felt a strong sense of danger.


    "Damn it!"


    Once again, Zhou Bao raised his hand. Instead of the Great Fusion Technic, fierce black and red Sword Qi gushed out of his fingertips. Then it disappeared!


    It was the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!


    The aggressive murderous intent was able to exterminate the soul, the "thing" finally moved.


    Then it disappeared!


    It was like the launching of the Three Realms Division. Zhou Bao did not sense the spatial fluctuation, but felt a chill in the heart.


    Rustle!


    The dark golden Gang Qi, which surrounded Zhou Bao, burst into flames and it looked like a huge firework display in the night sky. The overbearing power did not manage to break through Zhou Bao''s Gang Qi, but the tremendous impact flung Zhou Bao and his Gang Qi more than 100 feet away.


    "Guy, you don''t have the strength to kill me!" The voice of the old man in sackcloth was ringing in Zhou Bao''s ear, and before he could react, another great force came.


    A mass of Cyan haze suddenly rose in the air, surrounded by a cloud of pink Gang Qi.


    Rustle!


    "Eh?" When the great force hit the third time, Zhou Bao heard a surprised exclamation. Eventually Zhou Bao took a breather, and found that the waxy thing had turned back into the old man in sackcloth. The Great Fusion Technic had no effect on him at all, but now he looked a little grey. The grey Qi surrounding him looked alive, and tried to drive away the pink spirit that was on his body and the black spirit that was in it.


    The power of the Poison Cold Shield and the Peach Blossom Miasma were finally seen at this moment. The Great Fusion Technic did not do any harm to the old man in sackcloth, but he seemed to be afraid of the poisonous fumes and feared the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. After all, now Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword no longer only had the shape of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi as before. After the fusion of his own killing intent, Zhou Bao had initially mastered the power of this powerful special technique, and was able to manoeuvre the Sword Qi that could kill souls and tear everything apart.


    The cyan haze wrapping the black and red Sword Qi was once again directed at the old man.


    "Guy, you''re courting death!" The old man''s face had turned blue. With a wave of his hand, a flash of purple light around his body blocked Zhou Bao''s Sword Qi, and he disappeared into the purple light.


    "He is too fast. I can''t keep up with him unless I start Fiery Eyes!" Zhou Bao was secretly scared, but he did not use his Fiery Eyes. The old man in sackcloth was so powerful that Zhou Bao was not sure if he could kill him on the spot. It would not be good for him if his Fiery Eyes had been exposed. Besides, the old man feared his Poison Cold Shield, and would not attack him as freely as he had done.


    As expected, the great force that had shocked his Gang Qi did not come, nor did any attack from the old man in sackcloth. The old man stopped at the place where he was about 100 feet away, and was shrouded in a purple mist.


    "Who are you? How did you get in here? Why are you attacking me?"


    "Hump!" Zhou Bao''s eyes narrowed slightly. He could not gauge what was the old man''s strength earlier, but now after he had seen him in action, he knew a little of it.


    He had the cultivation of Genuine Immortal. But like Taihai Sage, he did not experience the second Thunder Tribulation. He was a Genuine Immortal regarded as Sage.


    He should have several powerful celestial devices that concealed his cultivation. Having found out about his strength, Zhou Bao was relieved and did not answer his question, but disappeared on the spot in a flash.


    The Three Realms Division!


    At the next moment, he was next to the old man in sackcloth. The cyan haze which enclosed a stray of black and red Sword Qi violently stabbed into the purple mist.

 Chapter 394: Crisis and Flee

    Chapter 394: Crisis and Flee


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Sword Qi pierced right through the purple mist as if stabbing into a piece of thick cow hide. Feeling a spasm from the strong recoil reflex, Zhou Bao gritted his teeth. The Fiery Eyes between his eyebrows immediately started to blaze. The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi suddenly came alive. And the frantic killing intent launched a sweeping attack.


    Swish!


    With a soft sound, the purple mist was ripped apart, and a glimmer of purple light shot out.


    "Boy, go to hell!"


    A snarl of outrage spewed forth from the old man in sackcloth. It came from within the purple light.


    Outrageous indeed!


    How could he not be furious?


    All he had been doing was quietly observing the place, and all of a sudden, he had been ambushed by a sneak attack. It was no wonder that he was infuriated!


    Amidst the purple light, numerous purple stars were shimmering. Playing the Three Realms Division to the extreme, Zhou Bao''s figure flashed several times and he executed the space shuttling technique a dozen times in a row so as to dodge the purple stars. However, that did not work.


    In a split second, Zhou Bao was hit by at least hundreds of purple stars. Though the cyan and golden lights kept flickering and deflected some of the purple light, these purple stars were too powerful and managed to break through the barricade of the Poison Cold Shield and the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang and shot directly onto Zhou Bao''s body.


    "Argh!" The immense pain caused Zhou Bao to let out a muffled scream. Immediately, blood flowed everywhere. His body that had been strengthened by the remains of the Innate Deity had been pierced by those purple stars! Each one of the stars was emitting a kind of power that made his body numb. The parts of his body that went numb immediately became very weak as well!


    However, for Zhou Bao, this loss of strength was only temporary, so too with the injuries all over his body. After another half second, the numb sensations receded, and all his wounds had fully healed.


    Meanwhile, the purple mist dispersed almost at once, leaving the old man in sackcloth standing there, fuming. His loosely hanging hair parted to show horrible bloodstains on his body¡ªhe had a severe wound between his shoulders!


    That wound was caused by Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi.


    When he saw that Zhou Bao was still standing, his rage instantly turned into shock. Zhou Bao noticed that he held a purple flower in his left hand, and around its petals were numerous purple stars, glistening and floating in the air. That was the sky full of purple stars which had injured him earlier.


    "It''s a Pure Yang Celestial Device, and its power is close to that of a fairy weapon. No wonder it can penetrate both of my defense layers and cause me to be injured!" Zhou Bao glanced at him in astonishment, finally able to ease the thought that was troubling him.


    The background of this old man in sackcloth was an unusual and his cultivation was even more amazing, so it was hard for Zhou Bao to get down to the bottom of it all. He was worried that he would be in deep trouble if this old man had one or two fairy weapons with him. However, it was widely known that fairy weapons were not easily accessible, meaning it was not readily available to any ordinary being. Apparently, what this old man in sackcloth had was not a fairy weapon, but a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Although the power of this Pure Yang Celestial Device was extremely strong, Zhou Bao still felt relieved that this old man had not resorted to using a fairy weapon even after being forced into a corner by his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and Poison Cold Shield and getting injured at the same time, which suggested that this guy had no fairy weapon on hand for sure. Otherwise, he would certainly have used it.


    With all those concerns gone, Zhou Bao decided to end his fight with the old man. He sneered and with that, a jet of golden light shot out from the back of his head and zoomed to the sky. In the golden light, an antique golden mirror could be seen faintly, from which another blast of golden light flashed and charged directly at that old man.


    "Demon-detecting Mirror?" At the sight of that mirror, the old man was at first petrified, but later gave a fleeting sneer. The purple flower in his hand instantly blossomed, forming a purple shroud around himself, which fended off the splendor of Zhou Bao''s Golden Flame Mirror!


    "Kid, you look very young, but you have more than one Pure Yang Celestial Device. Where on earth are you from? After blocking the Golden Flame Mirror, the old man showed no panic but exhibited total composure while asking his question. "You are not a disciple of a certain lord or Elder from the Divine Wind Palace, are you?"


    "Zhou Bao merely laughed at his words and replied, "Stop playing for time. I came in by accident and found out about the dirty deal between you and the Divine Wind Palace. Thus, there is no other way!"


    "Well, it''s surely what I expected. You must have already known about the other place of Nine Dragons convergence. This is good. I can capture you and force you to tell me its exact location; it will save me a whole lot of trouble to have to search for it by myself. Since I''ve found the trail of space fluctuations you left when entering here, with some reverse calculations, I can easily discover the entrance that you came through. Thus, I don''t have to bother interrogating you at all. Such being the case, you can just go to hell!" Grinning hideously, the old man in sackcloth stretched out a hand towards Zhou Bao with the purple flower in it. Instantly a gigantic shadow of the purple flower appeared on top of Zhou Bao''s head, in full bloom and looking as though it was about to swallow him whole.


    "With just a mere Pure Yang Celestial Device, you dare act rashly in front of me?" Zhou Bao laughed dismissively. From the shadow of that Golden Flame Mirror suspended over his head, there suddenly shone a golden light which knocked the gigantic purple flower away.


    The huge purple flower had strong powers, but when it encountered the golden light emitted by the Golden Flame Mirror, it was thrown off instantly, much like a regular flower that had encountered a truck. Then, the golden light blazed strongly and an extremely powerful force instantly took up the entire space and forcefully pressed down upon that old man in sackcloth.


    "A fairy weapon?" The expression of the old man in sackcloth altered dramatically. He did not expect that this Teen dressed in cyan clothes before him, who looked like a weakly scholar, had even possessed a fairy weapon!


    Overwhelmed by this attack, the old man in sackcloth was firmly locked up by fetters comprising of seven different fire lights that had come out from the golden light. With a hard pull, the fetters jerked the old man towards the Elixir Furnace.


    "That should work!"


    Zhou Bao sighed with relief. But to his shock, a growl suddenly sounded in his ears.


    "How dare you!"


    This voice sounded like a clap of thunder, reverberating through everyone''s bones. Meanwhile, a huge hand came out from the hollow and relentlessly bulldozed its way towards the golden light.


    "What type of monster is this?" Zhou Bao cackled. He felt an invincible power coming from that huge hand. Without hesitation, he threw the golden light of his Furnace of Immortality over himself to protect his body.


    Boom! That huge hand struck hard at the golden light. Zhou Bao felt a vibration from the Furnace of Immortality and then took one step backward, whereupon that huge hand bounced off under the impact of the unmatched power of the fairy weapon as fits of Spatial Fissure sound echoed about.


    Yes, it was the Spatial Fissure!


    Its effect was not like that of the Great Fusion Technic, which could only fuse a chunk of space; nor did it resemble the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, which simply cut space apart. This time, it was a fissure!


    With the collision of two immense powers, the space tore apart as if it was a piece of paper.


    Crack, split, and recombine. This process was repeated over and over again!


    Splash! Splash!


    The black chain, which had extended to the depths of the hollow and which had the 81 Ancient Celestial Dragons tightly locked in it ever since ancient times, began to rattle and shake under the impact of the collision. The fissure did not reach this black chain or the 81 Ancient Celestial Dragons as they were separated from this space. However, the aftermath of the fissure attack caused them to toss about turbulently.


    Although the huge hand ricocheted away, Zhou Bao was not feeling well. Under the impact of the vast recoil force, the Furnace of Immortality, as a fairy weapon, was standing up to it fairly well. But it was Zhou Bao who was operating the Furnace. After facing the palm attack, he retreated one pace. He had a feeling that his body was about to crack open and shatter into pieces. In that split second, he even felt he was in a trance.


    "Crap. This time I really bumped into someone who is extremely strong!"


    Of course, the opponent was a mighty one. Single handedly, he had broken through layers of the hollow with only one hand, forced a head-on collision with Zhou Bao''s fairy weapon¡ªthe Furnace of Immortality¡ªand caused him to be injured to such a severe extent, how could he not be mighty?


    Even though Zhou Bao had confidence in himself, he was not dumb. Facing someone with such a great cultivation and such a high level, he knew he would not be able to handle him. Then, what should he do?


    Run for it!


    The only plan Zhou Bao could come up with was to flee the scene ¡ªrun away before the opponent''s second attack came!


    But it was not that easy. Though he could flee, which place could he flee to?


    That was the problem, indeed!.


    This was a strange space. When Zhou Bao first entered, he had relied on the formation in the well. But after the attack, this space was thoroughly fissured and had not gone back to its original settings yet. Thus, Zhou Bao was now standing in the mess of spacial turbulences. If he were to take even one wrong step, he would be carried away into the infinite hollow and get lost in it, with no chance of returning. Or else, he might only manage to come back to the present world in tens of thousands of years, which was the last thing he wanted to do.


    However, if he chose not to run away, he could only await his death here. But before he could even come up with a solution after pondering over various options, the huge hand came crashing through the space once more. This time, its momentum was even greater than before.


    "Now you''ll die for sure!"


    In front of this huge hand which had appeared when it broke through the space, the only thing Zhou Bao could do was to propel his Furnace of Immortality and then await his death.


    Yes, wait for his death!


    Because even if his Furnace of Immortality could take on this attack, his body could not bear the recoil force anymore.


    BOOM!


    The huge hand crashed into the golden light of the Elixir Furnace again, but this time, the two did not split part, for that huge hand had taken hold of the golden light as though it was trying to grab the Elixir Furnace away.


    It was due to this avarice his opponent harbored that the recoil force this time round was not as forceful as previous ones. "Curse you!" Spitting out a mouthful of blood, Zhou Bao cursed inwardly. When the force of space fissure reappeared, Zhou Bao felt a force was vigorously dragging his Furnace of Immortality, causing it to drop from his Dantian.


    How could he let that happen!


    Zhou Bao gave a roar and activated all of his Real Essence to wrap around the body of the Elixir Furnace, his pupils dilating madly. The surrounding fragmented and distorted space, and the cascading fluctuations seemed very familiar to him.


    All of a sudden, his eyes brightened. "Right, it''s this place, this route, this space!"


    Zhou Bao let out a howl of jubilation as though he had discovered a brand new world. Inside his Dantian, the Demonic Fire of his Dragon Chimera abruptly rose and enveloped the body of the Elixir Furnace. At the same time, all the Real Essence poured into that Elixir Furnace as if all the Real Essence were freely available at no cost. The Elixir Furnace started vibrating violently. In an instant, it broke free of that huge hand and shrouded Zhou Bao. And then, in the blink of an eye, it was swept away into the endless spacial turbulences and disappeared without any trace.

 Chapter 395: Divine Wind Palace and Yu Taixu

    Chapter 395: Divine Wind Palace and Yu Taixu


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Penglai Region,


    Taihua Holy Mountain.


    The main peak of this tremendous mountain range sitting in the far east of the Penglai Region was so high up that it almost connected the sky with the earth. A vast palace stood there, partly hidden and partly visible at times, amidst the mist and clouds, stretching for more than 3,000 miles. It seemed to cover the sun in the sky, with its winding corridors meandering like ribbons and high eaves pointing skywards like the bills of birds; each of the structures possessed its own vantage ground, but they were all ingeniously interconnected, one built against another. It was truly a magnificent view. Among all the buildings, the main hall placed on the summit was about 1,000 feet high, seemingly suspended on the mountaintop and sending forth a boundless Qi Power. Hanging on the front door of the main hall was a glittering golden signboard, on which were inscribed these golden characters -Divine Wind Palace. Everything there was so majestic and solemn, wearing an air of overbearing dignity.


    This was the strongest sect in the world, a sect passing down for 100,000 years¡ªthe Divine Wind Palace!


    "Bastard, this bastard! How bold, how bold he is!"


    The furious curses rang out repeatedly and reverberated through the entire hall. There was a quiet room in the side wing, whose length, width and height were all similarly about 90 feet. In this quiet room sat a man dressed in a golden robe, who was wearing a high hat and a wide belt. This man was about 40-years-old, wearing the Violet Gold Cap and the Cloud-flying Boots as well as a set of gold elegant garments, giving him an air of royal magnificence.


    No. It should be said that the Qi Power revealed by this old man far surpassed that of an emperor. His majesty and honor were several times greater than that of an emperor''s. Even when Yan Yuntian of the Jin came in front of him, the only thing Yan Yuntian could do was to prostrate himself in respect and did not even have the nerve to overstep his authority.


    A man like this must have an open mind as wide as the sea and an in depth aptitude as profound as a bottomless abyss. Every moment of his was wrought with extraordinary meanings, and his emotions were kept tightly in check and could not be displayed blatantly.


    But right now, indignation was written all over his face; his bad mood was vented through his mouth; the jade table in front of him had already been smashed into smithereens. Even the servants standing next to him, whose cultivation had all reached the Realm of True Immortality, were thoroughly devastated by this man''s show of rage!


    "Motherf*cker, truly a motherf*cker!" He barked in fury. It could be due to his genteel education, or because he was unwilling to reduce himself to the lowest level, but this middle-aged man who was in the throes of such fury limited himself to using choice swear words only like "motherf*cker" and "bastard". He barked out those words over and over again. If it had been Zhou Bao, a country bumpkin who had little or no patience at all, his style of cursing would have been to condemn his entire family line to hell and back.


    "My Lord, please calm down, control your anger!" He finally fell silent, probably due to running out of steam and his servant heaved a sigh of relief and cautioned him to control his anger"


    "Control my anger?" This man''s eyes razed over the four servants with the cultivation of True Immortality. His expression changed and he abruptly swished the sleeve of his golden robe.


    Swish!


    Suffused with endless killing intent, a jet of fierce golden light flashed. Without any doubt, the four Genuine Immortals were blown to smithereens by this sleeve swing. Both their bodies and spirits were no longer in existence.


    After taking several deep breaths, he calmed down. And his furious expression was gradually replaced by a composed one. He now appeared calm and placid. His eyes appeared to be fathomlessly deep pools. Once again, his appearance and Qi Power became inscrutable.


    "Yu Huntian, come in!"


    With another sleeve swing, the middle-aged man removed the last vestiges of the four Genuine Immortals and returned to the big golden chair.


    Then there came the sound of footsteps. A muscular figure appeared at the door of the quiet room. He was a sturdy man with a calm and steady look, and he carried himself well with an impressive stature.


    "I, Yu Huntian, pay tribute to the lord. Please let me know what your commands are!" After entering the quiet room, Yu Huntian prostrated himself before that man.


    "Ma Wulong is dead, and you need to find me another necromancer!"


    "Yes!" A flash of astonishment flickered across Yu Huntian''s face, which was bowed to show his subservience. However, he remained expressionless. He gave his response and withdrew from the quiet room.


    Before the door of the quiet room could close, suddenly six beams of light came swirling downwards and landed right in front of the door, which then turned into six figures.


    "Is our lord here?"


    These six men did not have any special Qi Power, but there was a mysterious energy psywave swirling around them. This energy psywave was faintly discernible, which gave the six men an ethereal air as well. Standing beside them, even Yu Huntian was staring at them as if they were certain intangible illusions.


    Suddenly aware that a question was asked, Yu Huntian answered hastily, "Yes, he is in the hall!"


    "OK!" The man who had asked the question nodded slightly and pushed open the door of the silence room without knocking.


    "Lord, the six of us are here!"


    "You six Highest Elders must have already been informed about the issue of the Dragon-taming Ruins, haven''t you?"


    "It''s such a big issue, how could we not hear of it? We''ve made plans for this Dragon-taming Ruins for over 50,000 years. Until recently we''ve been very hopeful about the outcome. There is no way we will give up now!"


    "Of course, we definitely won''t give up. Ma Wulong''s death is not important because there are many other necromancers in the world. Anyway, we''ve settled the worst part, and now all we need to do is to find another necromancer!"


    "You have a point, but we can''t just let this matter rest. Have you found who the culprit is, yet?"


    "The man who did this is equipped with a magic weapon. Since he was enclosed in the mysterious light of his magic weapon, I could not catch a clear glimpse of his appearance. But this doesn''t matter. Only a few people in this world have magic weapons. It would be a piece of cake to find out who that person is!"


    "Magic weapon? Who could have a magic weapon other than those few sects? Could it be one of those few sects?"


    "That is highly possible!"


    "If so, we are in serious trouble. If they know we''ve found the Dragon-taming Ruins and seek to usurp this worldly dragon vein, the pressure we''ll face will be immense!" said the leading Highest Elder, his brows furrowing. "The matter of the Azure Secret Area is still bothering us. Together with all these stuff, we do have some problems!"


    "That is no big deal. Even if it is done by those other sects, it won''t matter because they don''t have any evidence. Maybe this thing will turn out well for us. That man might have discovered the seal of the dragon vein by chance and walked into the Dragon-taming Ruins along the formation. He doesn''t actually know where the exact location of the Dragon-taming Ruins, and now it has slipped into the spacial turbulences. Anyway, it will be a difficult task for him to return to the present world. As long as we take immediate action, perhaps we can find the place of Nine Dragons convergence. After that, we can naturally deduce who he is, which sect he belongs, and then deploy secret troops to hunt him down. Once he reveals himself, we will kill him using powerful forces!"


    "Such being the case, that''s the only plausible solution we have!" The Highest Elder sighed and went on, "Lord, this issue may be the result of an accident, but we still need an explanation for it. Otherwise, it will be unacceptable. You know what I mean?"


    The lord of Divine Wind Palace was startled, and a hint of rage flitted across his face. Then, he said with a sigh, "Fine, I see. I''ll give you an explanation!"


    "Great, then we shall wait for your explanation, my Lord!" The six Highest Elders then simultaneously turned into six streams of light and took off from the quiet room.


    After they left, the lord of Divine Wind Palace looked even more sullen than before. With a flick of his sleeve, a layer of faintly discernible inhibition started filling up the quiet room.


    "What a bunch of old bastards! Explanation? If it hadn''t been you who stirred up so many problems, I would not have to deal with these tricky problems? Why do they need to ask me for an explanation! Damn! Humph, one day, I, Yu Taixu, will give you each an explanation for your death!"


    ¡­


    ¡­


    "Darn it!" yelled Zhou Bao, who had nearly died from the sudden hand attack. But at the very last moment, he managed to shake off the attack with the power of his Furnace of Immortality and was carried off into the spacial turbulences.


    However, this time he allowed himself to be drawn into the spacial turbulences with a purpose in mind.


    Because when that huge hand tore the space apart and collided with the magic weapon, the surrounding space was ripped into fragments by this vast force, and this turned out to be an opportunity for Zhou Bao to survive.


    Zhou Bao experienced the same feeling as the one he had at the opening of Taiyuan Heaven. Once again, he detected the overcast space deep down in that space-time. This time it was more discernible than the last time, and the route was easy to make out as well. With the protection of his magic weapon, Zhou Bao rushed into spacial turbulences without a second thought and started traveling along the route based on his past recollection and also with the help of his spiritual mind.


    Traveling in the hollow space was an extremely difficult task.


    If Zhou Bao did not have a magic weapon with him for protection, he would have long been ripped apart many times by the endless spacial turbulences.


    "Big loss this time, I really suffered a big loss! Injured so badly by that damn guy. What on earth could his background be? How come he has such an invincible power? Is he a mere human? No, it can''t be. Given that he managed to penetrate through layers of the hollow with his own strength, confronted my magic weapon and even attempted to take it away, he cannot be any ordinary man, Sage or Venerable as they''ll never be able to do this! Could he be a Human Immortal?" Thinking about this possibility, Zhou Bao gave a shudder and felt shivers run down down his spine.


    "This eccentric place is discovered by Divine Wind Palace, and this man surnamed Ma also works for the Divine Wind Palace. Could that guy be a chief or something of the Divine Wind Palace? Maybe the lord of it? No way it could be just a mere exaggeration!"


    As he was mulling over this, the space around him suddenly started to vibrate. As if sensing a telepathic connection, Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind started to form increasingly close ties with the overcast space, while his Furnace of Immortality seemed to slow down and was not as swift as it had been previously. The space around him also became invariably stagnant. Waves of spacial fluctuation rolled all over the place, like intangible barriers, blocking his way.


    "I''m almost there!" Zhou Bao felt his spirits lift as a trace of insight flitted across his mind. Instantly, nine of his acupoints started pulsating at the same time, while his Real Essence merged with the Furnace of Immortality like surging torrents of water. The Furnace of Immortality immediately released a stream of blazing golden light and a shadow of a skull appeared and in one earthshaking quake, the surrounding spacial barriers fell into pieces.


    After the golden light flickered once more, the Furnace of Immortality entered into the overcast space, together with Zhou Bao wrapped in it.

 Chapter 396: Capture, Refining, Gain and Loss

    Chapter 396: Capture, Refining, Gain and Loss


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    This space was completely grey!


    Grey sky, grey earth, grey clouds, and grey pneuma!


    To be precise, there was no sky or earth. It was just a world of grey pneuma, which was somewhat like a hollow. However, so much pneuma could not be found in a hollow.


    "Haha. It''s really a good place. To my surprise, the density of pneuma here is as the same as that of in the Azure Secret Area. But it''s too desolate compared with the Azure Secret Area. Except for pneuma, there''s nothing at all!"


    Yeah, nothing existed here except pneuma!


    Zhou Bao straightened his back and withdrew the Furnace of Immortality. He stretched his body and could not help but laugh. His injury caused by the impact just now had completely been cured. Other than that, he felt that his body was much stronger and tougher than before, which was really out of his expectation.


    "It seems to be the merits of the remains of Innate Deity. It really deserves the reputation for bringing me so many benefits. But it''s a pity that I cannot fully display its power. Otherwise, I wouldn''t have been beaten so heavily today, like a dog being chased. People of Divine Wind Palace, I don''t care whether he''s your man or not, I''ll seek revenge against you!" Zhou Bao thought ferociously. He sat cross-legged in this grey space. Then, he emitted his spiritual mind towards four directions just like a radar and began to search this place.


    Unlike Taiyuan Heaven and Azure Heaven, this place was an incomplete space. It had not generated a basic Principle of Great Ways, let alone a Primeval Beast or Core of the World. After all, it was only a space-time rift with abundant pneuma.


    However, this was what Zhou Bao needed, a space-time rift with ample pneuma. Although it did not possess any complete Dharma, people inside it would not be restricted by Dharma from any other space. It was a free place.


    "Good. It''s really nice. Now, I''ve found this place. The only thing I need to do is to capture this space!" It was not difficult for Zhou Bao. He had gained much experience in the Azure Secret Area. Therefore, he had a good comprehension toward an independent space. Green Spirit had also explained to him how to capture a space-time rift like this in details.


    This was a space-time rift under the compression of hundreds of millions of spaces. It had no Dharma, stable Spatial Core, or Primeval Beast. In a certain sense, nothing could restrict it. However, if you gave it a Spatial Core, things would be different.


    What Zhou Bao needed to do was to give it a core.


    Every space had a core, but its size depended on the condition of its evolvement. The core of this space-time rift was very small, without a fixed form. Zhou Bao needed to use his Furnace of Immortality to extract this core. After that, he had to refine it and add some basic principles to it. After all that, this space would be under his control.


    It sounded easy, but it was quite difficult and troublesome when he took actions.


    Furnace of Immortality was a fairy weapon. But now, it could only be considered as a Taihao Fairy Weapon. Though it was extremely powerful, it was not powerful enough to refine a Spatial Core. Luckily, there was Tusita Fire inside the furnace, a kind of fire that shared the same property with Heavenly Fire. Hence, Zhou Bao was able to successfully refined this core, although it took him a lot of time. He spent three years in this grey space in order to refine the Spatial Core.


    Three years!


    This space had no clock. However, Zhou Bao''s current cultivation and spiritual mind were more precise than a clock. He stayed in this space for three years and finally refined the Spatial Core. Of course, he obtained a lot during this period. In the refining process, while the Spatial Core was changing, some strange changes had taken place in this chaotic space.


    The grey pneuma gradually began to differentiate from each other. Furthermore, gravity became more evident. Although it was still faint, Zhou Bao could feel it clearly.


    The grey pneuma was no longer an undifferentiated mass. It began to divide into Yin and Yang two properties. Zhou Bao found that although it was immense, it was also chaotic at the same time. It could be transformed into any type of pneuma he wanted. When he practiced Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, it turned into Real Essence of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique with the cultivation method operating. As he practiced Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, it transformed into Real Essence of Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. Furthermore, while he was practicing Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill, it turned into pneuma of Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill. However, when he practiced different cultivation methods, its consumption was different. This grey pneuma was heterogeneous as if it consisted of all kinds of essences of the world. However, with the refining of Spatial Core, Zhou Bao finally differentiated all kinds of pneuma, although he only categorized them as Yin and Yang.


    This result made him have a strange feeling as if he had separated heaven from earth.


    Three years later, after he had refined the Spatial Core completely, the Yin and Yang Qi of this space totally disintegrated. Apart from Yin and Yang Qi, there was another strange spiritual Qi. It was neither Yin Qi nor Yang Qi, but a unique spiritual Qi that was closely related to this space. Zhou Bao knew that it only belonged to this space, just like Divine Energy of Azure Clouds, which only belonged to the Azure Secret Area.


    Exhaling gently, Zhou Bao looked at the newly created Spatial Core.


    "Is this the Spatial Core of this space? It''s not eye-catching at all!"


    Yes, it was ordinary, just like this grey space. It was an irregularly shaped small stone about the size of a fist. If it was put on the roadside, no one would pick it up.


    Because Zhou Bao was the refiner, he could feel the immense spatial spirit and waves emitted from the stone. It was so powerful, but at the same time, so unfathomable.


    Watching the newly-created Spatial Core, Zhou Bao was eager to return home as soon as possible.


    Three years! He had stayed here for three years!


    He had stayed here for a full three years. If it was not to refine this core, he would not have delayed his time for so long. However, without this Spatial Core, he was unable to control this space. Then, he would not be able to make use of these spatial waves to find his way home.


    That was to say, he had to stay here for three years to refine this space. Only in this way could he return to his world.


    Now the Spatial Core was created. The only thing left was to fix this space and bring it to his world.


    He got to use his Taihao Fairy Weapon, the Furnace of Immortality, to fix this space. At that moment, he felt like a Great Ancient Emperor because he controlled a space. It was far from perfect compared to Taiyuan Heaven and Azure Heaven, which belonged to 33 Heavens. However, there are only 33 of them in 33 Heavens. Also, most of them disappeared in the depths of the hollow. Currently, people could only find the shadows of Taiyuan Heaven and Azure Heaven.


    It was not difficult to use Furnace of Immortality to fix this space because its Spatial Core was refined with this furnace. But similarly, it took Zhou Bao a lot of time. After he finished everything, half a year had passed.


    "It''s really big!"


    After putting this space into his Furnace of Immortality, Zhou Bao felt helpless. He found that his furnace changed too. The immense essence of the world was infused into the furnace through this space. After the refining of Tusita Fire, it turned into the purest pneuma, seeping into the furnace.


    The furnace became much more powerful, but similarly, it was more difficult for Zhou Bao to operate it.


    From his perspective, his furnace had now become thousands of times heavier than before. He felt that it was extremely difficult for him to operate it.


    Currently, he was still able to operate the furnace, but he could only use it once. He no longer was able to use the furnace to fly and conquer enemies.


    "Damn it! It''s really troublesome!" Since he had sensed the condition of his furnace, he felt angry. But he had no other choice. He could not solve this problem with his current cultivation and knowledge. He immersed his spirit and spiritual mind in the Spatial Core and began to find the source and path of spatial waves that had shown up earlier.


    He had to find two places. One was Blue Whale Island, where he had acquired the information about this space during the opening of Taiyuan Heaven. The other was a mysterious place that had suppressed 81 Primordial Celestial Dragons. Although he did not have the guts to go there, he could make use of the Spatial Core to find the path, through which he had entered this space three years ago. He dared not go there currently, but it might be very useful in the future.


    The Spatial Core was a slit of the whole space-time. It was also the core of this small space-time rift, through which Zhou Bao successfully found what he wanted. He felt delighted.


    He jumped up, transformed into a cyan light, and entered the Furnace of Immortality. Later on, that furnace began to shake and turned into a dazzling golden light. Swoosh! It disappeared from this grey space.


    After that, the space began to shake, and grey fog tossed continuously. After a while, the entire space returned to normal. It was grey as usual. The only difference was that it began to have directions, sky, earth, and clouds after the Yin and Yang pneuma differentiated from each other. The sky was completely covered by grey clouds, and the earth was made up of thick grey pneuma. It seemed very strange.


    In another space, present world.


    On Blue Whale Island, a Space Storm that would only appear every 1,000 years took place. However, it was so much smaller compared to the storm in Taiyuan Heaven, which appeared every 1,000 years. After the storm died out, a disheveled teen dressed in cyan clothes abruptly showed up on Blue Whale Island. He breathed deeply and disappeared with a gust of weird wind.

 Chapter 397: Time, Cutting off

    Chapter 397: Time, Cutting off


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What? I''ve only been away for five days?!"


    After Zhou Bao returned to the Wuyang Region, everything was normal at the beginning. The first thing he did was to summon his subordinates in order to inquire them about what had happened in this world during his three-year absence. Their answers really surprised him. He had only been away for five days! Even Zhu Ba had not departed for his journey to a southern place.


    "Yes, Your Excellency. You''ve been away for just five days, and I''m now ready for departure!" Watching Zhou Bao''s poker face and the unfathomable light in his eyes, Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao gave Zhu Ba a look. As Zhou Bao''s cultivation enhanced day by day, he became more solemn. Under these circumstances, Jiang Xiao and Wang Cheng were quite prudent when communicating with Zhou Bao. However, Zhu Ba was simple-minded and straightforward. He was poised in front of Zhou Bao.


    "What? You''re only ready to leave now?! You little brat! Did you need five days to prepare for departure? Are you going to move there?" Zhou Bao scolded him coldly and added on, saying, "Hurry up. Do you need me to send you there in person with tears?"


    Upon hearing that, Zhu Ba trembled with fear and his flesh crept. He shook his head and said, "No, I don''t. I''ll go. I''ll go right now!"


    Terrified and hurried, Zhu Ba left. Watching this scene, Zhou Bao was overjoyed. He waved his hand to Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao, and said, "Fine. You two can leave now!"


    "Yes!" The two replied in unison.


    " Five days! Only five days! I spent three and a half years in that space, but in this world, only five days passed. It means that the flow of time in that space is much quicker than this world. One day in this world almost equals to one year in that space. To be precise, one day in this world equals eight months in that space. Therefore, though I''ve stayed there for three and a half years, only five days passed in this world. It''s amazing! If anyone disobeys me the next time, I''ll throw him into that space and lock him there for one or two years. Damn! I''ll let him die there!"


    Of course, that was just a wicked thought of his.


    He surely knew the great value of that space. Not only was it filled with abundant spiritual Qi, its time flowed quite quickly. One year in this world equaled hundreds of years there. Compared with this world, it was a better place to cultivate excellent talents. However, he did not plan to reveal information about it so quickly. It was more valuable than Taihao Fairy Weapons. We could even say that if that damned Divine Wind Palace obtained it, they could replace Taiyuan Heaven and Azure Heaven with it. Then, they will not bother to obtain the Azure Secret Area.


    An innocent man would get into trouble on account of his wealth. Any wise man could understand this logic.


    He would conceal the information about that space, but not the scheme of Divine Wind Palace. After all, he was not a selfless model.


    "Oh, I forgot about that well. With Divine Wind Palace''s background and strength, they probably can find that space, following clues they''ve acquired as I entered it. If so, the fact that the Wuyang Region was a place of Nine Dragons convergency would be revealed to them. That can be bad!"


    Thinking of this, he dared not stay any longer. He flew towards that mysterious canyon, riding on a gust of wind.


    Upon his arrival, he saw Little Du walking around that well. It howled from time to time as if it was calling someone. It had a strong spiritual connection with Zhou Bao. However, as Zhou Bao became more and more powerful, this connection became a unilateral one; Zhou Bao could contact it, but it could not sense him. When Zhou Bao was too busy to remember it, it could not figure out Zhou Bao''s condition. It only knew that Zhou Bao had disappeared after jumping down the well and that he could not hear it no matter how it tried to call him. After three days, it became restless. Hence, when it saw Zhou Bao, it ran towards him delightedly.


    "M, m, master...!"


    "Okay, okay. Stop calling me. I know what you want to say. Don''t worry. I''m back. Everything is fine!" Zhou Bao gently caressed Little Du''s silky hair and smiled. He added on, saying, "You''ve worked hard these few days!"


    "No, it''s not hard at all!"


    "Well, I''ve figured out this place." Zhou Bao patted Little Du''s head, and a strand of strong Pure Yang Qi entered its head, spreading throughout its body. "You go back first and practice according to the method I taught you. Great changes are about to take place. Don''t run about when you''re free like the past. All right?"


    "Yeah, I know. M, master," replied Little Du. It absorbed the Pure Yang Qi transmitted by Zhou Bao into its Dantian and left there.


    "Gosh. Why didn''t I find this place before? It''s in my territory. But few people have come here because it''s too desolate. Therefore, no one has discovered it except me!" After Little Du left, Zhou Bao focused his eyes on the mouth of the well and closed his eyes slowly. He was carefully sensing the unobservable and mysterious waves that were emitted from the mouth of the well.


    "Yes, this is the force of the dragon veins after the Nine Dragons convergency took place. It can be stimulated through that strange place. As the force spread around, gradually it will cover the entire Wuyang Region and make it a place for Nine Dragons convergency!"


    As Zhou Bao thought of this, he operated Snake-like Breath Holding Skill again and entered the well.


    He was more familiar with this place than last time. He had stayed in that grey space for over three years to refine its Spatial Core. Thus, his comprehension of space was terrifying yet excellent. The formation in this well was marvelous and mysterious, so he could see no flaw in it. However, Zhou Bao could see the Space Passage under the well that led to the mysterious place very clearly.


    "What a fool am I! I used to open this passageway through Great Fusion Technic!" Feeling the faint spatial wave, Zhou Bao smiled coldly. "I don''t care whether Divine Wind Palace is able to find the passageway leading here through the spatial wave emitted from the space I had entered, I''ll destroy this passageway first. Damn it! I don''t need a place of Nine Dragons convergency. I don''t want to be an emperor!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly and stretched his hands forward. As his hands entered a void, a silver light flashed through his hands. He cut off this passageway without any hesitation. After all, the spatial passageway was different from a normal path. Once it was cut off, the entire spatial system of this passageway would collapse without any trace.


    Just when Zhou Bao was cutting off the Space Passage, in Dragon-taming Ruins, Yu Huntian was looking at an oddly-dressed man who seemed to be searching for something.


    Compared with people in this world, he dressed weirdly and unconventionally. He wore big earrings that were bigger than ordinary people''s fist. His hair was unkempt with some dust and mud. He wore shabby cotton-padded clothes. If Zhou Bao were there, he would call him ''Brother Sharp'' (special Chinese culture used on weirdly-dressed beggars).


    Suddenly, ''Brother Sharp'' shouted out with excitement. "It''s there! I found it! The unusual wave came from there!"


    He stood still on his feet and looked up, revealing half of his face covered by his unkempt hair. He shouted excitedly to Yu Huntian. The place he stood was where Zhou Bao entered Dragon-taming Ruins.


    "Right, it''s here!" He narrowed his eyes and sensed it for a while. Then he nodded his head to show his certainty of this place.


    "Oh, wonderful! Finally, I found the tail of that damned brat. I got your tail! I''ve found the route and trace of your coming here. Now, I just need to follow this passageway and I can get you!" Yu Huntian was excited. He added on, saying, "Lu Tong, hurry up. Investigate this spatial wave, and we surely can find a place of Nine Dragons convergency. Furthermore, we can...!"


    Before he could finish speaking, the place that Lu Tong stood shook violently.


    "Oh no!" Lu Tong screamed. He was sent flying by a great force and knocked into the giant black chain.


    "He, he, he, he broke the Space Passage!" Lu Tong shouted as he was falling to the ground.


    "I know!" Yu Huntian''s face suddenly darkened. The Space Passage Lu Tong had found was destroyed, and the traces of spatial wave disappeared completely. Because of various changes that took place after the passageway was destroyed, the Qi of dragon vein of 81 Primordial Celestial Dragons suddenly fell into chaos. The output channel of these Nine Strips of Dragon Veins was destroyed. It was just like an urban transportation system, which had a regular, flawless circulation over thousands of years. Now, a passageway became disordered, and the others would be affected by it. Therefore, the Qi of dragon vein emitted by 81 Primordial Celestial Dragons became chaotic.


    "Shit, shit! He destroyed the Qi of dragon vein!"


    Before he could finish swearing, the 81 Primordial Celestial Dragons tied up by a big black chain started to change too. To be specific, nine of them shook violently, as if they had come to life suddenly. The black chain rattled, and the sound it let out was like a symphony in Dragon-taming Ruins. When everything was over, the dragon scale of Nine Heavens Ancient Dragons began to shed, as if the dragons had used up their strength. Finally, they disintegrated and turned into ashes, disappearing without any trace.


    Yu Huntian''s eyes bulged out at this scene. He felt that it was impossible and gawked at the Nine Heavens Ancient Dragons that had already been turned into ashes. Suddenly, he seemed to realize something and began to howl.


    "Oh, no...!"


    Filled with panic and hatred, his howl shook the world. "No matter who you are, where you are, and how powerful you are, I definitely will find you and kill you. I''ll kill all the people that are related to you. Kill you, I''ll kill you!"

 Chapter 398: The Beginning of Chaos

    Chapter 398: The Beginning of Chaos


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Yu Huntian''s exasperated, crazy snarl at the Dragon-taming Ruins did not affect Zhou Bao, who was at the Wuyang Region. After he destroyed the Space Passage, he tried to destroy the well. But, the way of setting this formation was so marvelous that Zhou Bao failed to destroy the formation around the well after he had tried several times. Helplessly, he used the rocks in the canyon and the surrounding mountains to bury the whole well so that no one could see any difference.


    Having done all this, Zhou Bao clapped his hands and left this damn place.


    Now, without the dragon veins of Nine Dragons convergency, even if someone came here, he would not find anything unusual.


    "What would Earth Bat of Girl think if he discovered the Qi of dragon vein here is gone? Is he going to freak out?" He was wondering whether the Immortal Palace would continue with the Sea-calming Palace''s building, or, would they investigate exactly what had happened. After all, the place of Nine Dragons convergency was right here, and the palace was built to suppress the fate here. But now the Qi of dragon vein here was gone.


    "This is not necessarily a good thing. It would be bad for me if Earth Bat of Girl investigates it with a great fanfare, and divulges that there was once a place of Nine Dragons convergency . No, I have to think of a way to get them to continue to build the Sea-calming Palace, at least... eh, the Qi of dragon vein doesn''t weaken!" While he was thinking and walking, Zhou Bao suddenly discovered that although the passageway had been destroyed by him, the spirit of dragon veins in his territory remained. In other words, his territory still seems to be the place of Nine Dragons convergency.


    "What is going on here? The Qi of the dragon vein has not dispersed, or..."


    Zhou Bao thoughtfully looked up at the countless figures on Jilei Mountain rushing back and forth to build the Sea-calming Palace. Though a little scattered, the Qi of the dragon vein was attracted by the mysterious formation formed by the Sea-calming Palace and, then returned to the underground with little loss.


    A light flashed through Zhou Bao''s mind. He suddenly understood what was going on.


    "Right, how could I be so stupid? Both the dragon vein and the fate are dissipating. As time passes, the Qi of dragon vein of 100 and even 1,000 dragons will dissipate, not to mention that of nine dragons. That''s why a Pure Yang Celestial Device or a fairy weapon is needed to suppress fate and to avoid the fate from dissipating. Heaven knows how many years that damn place has been transporting the Qi of dragon vein to the Wuyang Region. Over the years, since there is nothing to suppress it, it all dissipated. Thus, that place keeps transporting the Qi of the dragon vein to these nine places. Now, the Sea-calming Palace is being built here, and the Yin and Yang Dust Formation has been set. With the two working at the same time, both the fate and the Qi of dragon vein will not dissipate. Then, Even if I cut off the passage, and block the Qi of dragon vein from coming in, this place is still the place of Nine Dragons convergency. If the Sea-calming Palace is built, and the Qi of dragon vein will still be transported here, this place will be the convergent place of more than nine dragons, even 10 dragons and 100 dragons!"


    At the thought of this, Zhou Bao smiled, but then his face darkened. "That''s to say, the Divine Wind Palace might have saved the Qi of dragon vein in such a way. With their financial and material resources, how much have they accumulated over so many years?"


    This thought made him shiver.


    "Junior Leopard, you finally come back. We''ve been looking for you for a long time!"


    As he was thinking about it, Golden Rooster saw him from atop Jilei Mountain and hurried over to him. "Finally, I find you! I was so anxious!"


    "Anxious? What had happened? Who''s causing trouble here?" Zhou Bao asked. Now he felt it was commonplace that there were strifes between him and others. Therefore, while noticing that Golden Rooster was anxious, he took it for granted that someone had come to his territory and tried to cause trouble for him.


    "No, it''s about Ye Qingtian. The Divine Wind Palace, Immortal Palace, Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, Jade Pool, Dragon Thunder Palace, and Dark Sect have reached an agreement. They''re never going to let Ye Qingtian get away with it. We prepare to form a team to hunt him and his two mysterious companions. Each sect''s participants have already decided. The Divine Wind Palace proposed that you should join in. Since you''re related to the Tian Long Taoism, and the Tian Long Taoism is closely related to the Immortal Palace, for the time being, you''re treated as a member of the Immortal Palace. Elder Qing and White Tiger are okay with it, but they all think that you''re not our member, although you are nominally related to the Immortal Palace. So everything is up to you!"


    "It''s up to me?" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows. "Is it the Divine Wind Palace that proposed for me to join in?"


    "Yes, they proposed for you to join in, and we just seconded the proposal!"


    "Okay, I''m idle recently anyway and ready to go out. I can just take this opportunity. Did Ye Qingtian and the other two hide in the Three Western Regions? We are strangers there, so will the sects there bother us?"


    "No, they won''t. We, the sects of the Four Eastern Regions, have already communicated with the Three Western Regions on this matter, so they won''t bother you. Of course, as long as you don''t mess around in the there!" Speaking of this, Golden Rooster cast Zhou Bao a worried look, "I know, you''re a troublemaker. But don''t make trouble this time; otherwise, it will be fairly troublesome, and the Fifth Manor and the Palace of Eternal Life won''t let you go easily!"


    "Am I that stupid? I won''t bother others if they don''t bother me. Oh, who''s going to be involved in the hunt?"


    "We only sent you and Moon Deer of Extended Net to fulfill this task. Mostly because White Tiger isn''t keen on this matter. Besides, everyone knows that he had wanted to bring Ye Qingtian to the Immortal Palace. In fact, only Moon Deer of Extended Net really belongs to the Immortal Palace. Among all the sects, the Divine Wind Palace dispatched the most people, six in all; the Bigwheel Temple and the Jade Pool sent three people respectively; the Dark Sect and the Dragon Thunder Palace sent two people respectively. Including you, there are 17 people. As for who they are, you''ll know when you meet with them!"


    "Then, who is the leader?"


    "The one from the Divine Wind Palace, of course. It may not be certain who the six people are now. The time and place have been set. Three months later, all these 17 people will arrive at Borderline Mountain, the junction of the Central Mainland Region and the Three Western Regions."


    "Borderline Mountain?" Zhou Bao wore a smile. He knew that mountain. Located at the westernmost part of the Central Mainland Region, the mountain was said to border on the Three Western Regions, but there was a vast Sea Area between them. So, they had to cross the Sea Area of nearly 500,000 kilometers.


    "Yeah, Borderline Mountain. Go back and get ready. I''ll tell the Divine Wind Palace that you''ll join in."


    "Well, thank you!"


    "Hehe, you don''t need to be so polite to me. But this time, please take care of Moon Deer of Extended Net. You know, since an accident took place in his family, he''s been in a bad mood and has been preoccupied with revenge. In order to obtain Ye Qingtian''s celestial device, he took part in our hunt. But he''s not powerful enough. I''m afraid he''ll do something stupid!"


    "Didn''t Elder Qing know that? Why did you ask him to participate in?"


    "It was his own idea. You know our rules¡ªeveryone has absolute autonomy. Also, no one else in the 28 constellations is willing to go, except for you. Besides, you cannot expose your identity as a member of the Immortal Palace. If necessary, you''re only half a member of the Immortal Palace. So, we can only let him take part in the hunt!"


    "Well, I see. Damn it, is that Wang Family really that powerful? Why not take a few people to destroy them and help Moon Deer of Extended Net get his revenge?


    "If only it is that simple. The Wang Family is a millennium family of the Jin, with a certain foundation. Besides, they only offended Moon Deer of Extended Net, and did not offend us, the Immortal Palace. If we rush to help him, we''ll likely clash with the Divine Wind Palace."


    "Clash with them? Hehe, I don''t know how you guys think. Why doesn''t the Divine Wind Palace have so many scruples, but you all have?"


    Golden Rooster gave a helpless smile. He did not answer Zhou Bao but patted him on the shoulder. "Well, Junior Leopard, be careful!"


    Looking at Golden Rooster''s back, Zhou Bao shrugged. "Is the Immortal Palace really stupid or does it play dumb? The Divine Wind Palace has been plotting for so many years, and haven''t they really noticed anything? Are they really indifferent? Not likely. Neither Elder Qing nor White Tiger is such a fool!"


    "Maybe they''re pretending to be a fool!"


    Zhou Bao reluctantly thought, as a consolation to himself.


    "Your Excellency, you''re finally back! Her Highness is looking for you!" One of Yan Yunfei''s maids hurried up to Zhou Bao, and hastily said when he was thinking and walking slowly down Jilei Mountain to the Lord Mansion.


    While seeing her looking anxious, Zhou Bao just smiled and followed her into the backyard. As they arrived there, Yan Yunfei was pacing up and down in a hurry. She repeatedly clenched and opened her hands, looking perplexed.


    "Yunfei, what''s up? You look so worried, what happened?"


    "You''re back, you''re back! It''ll be okay!" At the sight of Zhou Bao, Yan Yunfei seemed to find her backbone and rushed to him. "It''s my mother. She, she is seriously ill. I''ll go back to the capital city to visit her!"


    "Your mother?" Looking at her anxiously, Zhou Bao gently frowned, "You mean the Queen?"


    "Yes, it''s her!"


    "How do you know that?"


    "I just got a letter!" She took out a letter from her inner pocket and handed it to Zhou Bao, "Zhou Bao, I know you''re powerful, and you''re able to fly thousands of kilometers a day. Take me to see her, please."


    "Okay, of course!" Zhou Bao stroked her back and read through the letter rapidly. "Don''t worry, it''s late. Take a night off, and tomorrow I''ll bring you back to Western Capital!"

 Chapter 399: Rebellion in the West Capital

    Chapter 399: Rebellion in the West Capital


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    It had been raining for five days. The rain shrouded the capital city in the gloom, like the mood of most people in the imperial palace.


    The Queen was dying.


    Luo Xuehuan, the Queen of the Jin dynasty, was critically ill.


    Luo Xuehuan and Yan Yuntian got married young. After suffering together all these years, they were deep in love. Thus, when she was seriously ill and could not be cured, Yan Yuntian''s temper become eccentric. These days, a large number of little eunuchs and little maids were beaten to death for little mistakes. It was precisely because of the Emperor''s bad mood that the whole palace was put into a rather downcast atmosphere. Except for some people with ulterior motives, everyone in the palace hoped that the Queen would recover quickly so as that they would not be caught up in the wrath of Yan Yuntian. But, the reality is always cruel.


    Early this morning, Luo Xuehuan was in a state of dying. From morning till afternoon, Yan Yuntian remained in the Queen''s bedchamber and beheaded 48 imperial doctors in a row, but it still useless.


    "Yunfei, Yunfei..."


    At the Queen''s bedchamber, the Queen, who was already in her final state, murmured Yan Yunfei''s name with her dry mouth. Her left hand was clasped in Yan Yuntian''s hands, and the latter stared at her with his bloodshot, unblinking eyes, afraid that Luo Xuehuan would die in the blink of an eye.


    "Xuehuan, Xuehuan, don''t worry, Yunfei is coming, Yunfei is coming!" He whispered to console her but felt helpless in his heart. Yan Yunfei was in the northwest. Though he had sent the letter as fast as he could, it was tens of thousands of kilometers from the northwest to Western Capital. It took some time to come here. He hadn''t received any news yet, so he surmised Yan Yunfei should be unable to come. Even if she did come, the Queen seemed unable to wait until then.


    Deep sadness pervaded the bedchamber. Of course, there was sadness. After the Queen died, perhaps the maidservants and eunuchs in the palace had to be buried with her. Even if they died, they must serve the Queen in the netherworld. It was a rule, an iron rule. Therefore, within that bedchamber, the Queen was the last person that they had hoped would die.


    "Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap..." Suddenly there was a knock at the door of the quiet bedchamber.


    "Who?" Yan Yuntian asked impatiently. He raised his head suddenly but was afraid to frighten the Queen, so he deliberately lowered his voice. The voice traveled to the door flatly and startled the little eunuch who was knocking at the door.


    "Your Majesty, Grand Tutor begs for an audience!"


    "No!"


    "But..."


    "Didn''t you hear me? No!" Yan Yuntian yelled, louder than before, making the little eunuch too scared to go on. When the eunuch was about to turn away, unexpectedly, there was a resonant voice rang out.


    "I, Pei Tianming, beg for an interview! I have something important to say to Your Majesty!"


    The voice went straight to the bedchamber, and Yan Yuntian''s expression changed, a flicker of exasperation crossing his face.


    "Whatever it is, wait!"


    "This matter is too important to wait!" Pei Tianming, whose beard and hair were perfectly white, refused to yield an inch.


    "Humph, Pei Tianming, what makes you so bold?" Yan Yuntian was really in a peeve, and his voice became dramatically sharper. "Tell me, what makes you so bold?"


    "Your Majesty, you have not held court for 10 days. All the big events are pending. But you have killed imperial doctors and servants continuously for a woman. The whole inner city is filled with panic and complaints. It is against the way of being a sagacious king!"


    "How dare you!" His thunder-like fulmination hit Pei Tianming hard as though it was tangible. Pei Tianming''s expression changed, and he retreated three steps successively. Though the fulmination could break metal and stone, it only made him take three steps back.


    He knelt down, saying, "Your Majesty, I''m loyal! All I do is for the Great Jin. Please go to the Taiyuan Palace to hold court!" After that, he banged his head on the ground.


    Yan Yuntian was unswayed and looked even more serious.


    However, as Pei Tianming kowtowed, one by one, more and more people gathered outside the bedchamber.


    This was the Queen''s bedchamber, the royal interior. Even ministers like the Three Ducal Ministers could not enter. But today, it was as if there was no defense, or, the defense did not work. All the officials rushed in through the palace gate. Neither the eunuchs nor the guards in the palace could stop them.


    Rushing in, they all knelt and kowtowed at the door of the bedchamber, begging the Emperor to leave and to hold court.


    The sound was getting louder and louder.


    "Look, Elder Chen, why don''t you persuade His Majesty?"


    Outside the bedchamber, an old eunuch, who was obviously wearing the clothes of the head of the eunuchs, was quite anxious. He said to a green-clothed old man who was standing beside him, "It can''t go on like this! If His Majesty really rages, I, I can''t afford it!"


    "That''s the best. Let others afford it!" The old man, whose clothes were a little washed out, smiled. "I just come to ask the Queen''s condition and have nothing to do with this matter. Look, the Three Ducal Ministers are kneeling down and begging the Emperor to hold court. Why should I get involved?"


    "But..."


    "Alright, Old Jin, I advise you not to get involved either. For this kind of thing, the farther away you are, the better!" Elder Chen patted the old eunuch on his shoulder, and continued, "It is better for you to persuade His Majesty. You''ve been with the Emperor for so many years, he will be considerate towards you. As for me, an old man with one foot in the grave, forget it!"


    After saying this, he ignored the old eunuch''s pleas and left, leaving the old eunuch in a state of great anxiety and bewilderment, not knowing what to do.


    "Elder Chen, what do you think of this?"


    As Elder Chen walked out of the palace gate, he met several officials who stepped forward and seemed to ask for information. But he beckoned to them and said, "Don''t ask me or anyone else. Don''t get involved in this matter. Go back, even if the Emperor holds court today, he won''t want to see too many people!"


    "But, Elder Chen..."


    "Just go back, go back! Don''t you think the situation here is chaotic enough?" Elder Chen said and looked back at the high palace wall with an odd smile on his face.


    Elder Chen went to the palace and stayed aloof in regards to this matter. At the same time, Yan Yunfei, who had received the news that the Queen was terminally ill, spent the night preparing. Even Zhou Bao did not know how many things were she going to carry. When things were ready, they hit the road the next morning.


    With his current cultivation and strength, Zhou Bao was able to take a person, such as Yan Yunfei, and fly tens of thousands of kilometers a day at high speed. It was only tens of thousands of kilometers from Wuyang Region in the northwest to Western Capital, so he only spent 6 hours.


    From a distance, he saw that the dark clouds hanging over the capital were mingled with a dense purple Qi, which looked conspicuous.


    Zhou Bao knew neither Fengshui nor fate, but after the practice in the Azure Secret Area, his Fiery Eyes had strengthened a lot. He could not see ordinary people''s fate, but could see the fate of a city like Western Capital, which had been magnificently situated in the Central Mainland Region for tens of thousands of years, and gathered several dragon veins.


    "Though Western Capital is shrouded in purple Qi, there is a hint of grey in the soaring purple Qi. This should not bode well! Moreover, the fate of Mingyi Lane is much more obscure after my trouble making, yet there is a white and golden fate in it, which is alive. What happened there?" Zhou Bao thought, frowning, but soon he laughed at himself, "Damn it, I''m not Earth Bat of Girl, a fortune-teller, so why am I thinking so much? No matter whose fate is better, it seems to have nothing to do with me. I''d better wait and see the battle between the Royalties of the Jin. God knows who will emerge victorious, as long as it''s not the bastard Prince Ning, it will be okay in the end!"


    While thinking, he rolled up the dark golden Gang Qi, and suddenly sped up, flying toward the Royal Capital in a rush.


    "Eh?" As soon as they entered the city, he distinctly felt something was wrong. There seemed to be a kind of invisible tension in Western Capital. The moment they reached the city, a mighty force arose from the Royal Capital and tried to pull them down from the air.


    "What a formidable inhibition!"


    Even Zhou Bao, whose combat capability had reached the level of a Genuine Immortal, was a little overwhelmed in the Royal Capital. Slowing down, he descended from the skies and was ready to walk to the imperial palace. Anyway, they had arrived in Western Capital and were in no hurry.


    But when they had just landed, they heard a yell. "Who are you? How dare you enter the Royal Capital without permission! Fold your hands for capture!"


    Before the voice died away, a chain came towards him, aiming right for his head.


    "Damn it!" Zhou Bao let out a scream. Ever since he saw those 81 Primordial Celestial Dragons that had suppressed by black chains in the unknown space, chains had left a big shadow in his heart. How could he not be furious when someone dared to throw a chain at him? He reached for the chain, then jerked it, drawing the chain''s master to his side. It was a young General in silver armor.


    Bang! With one foot, Zhou Bao kicked the General out.


    There was a noise ahead. No one imagined that anyone would dare to be so aggressive in Western Capital.


    With a burst of yells, a group of soldiers in prominent armor appeared and surrounded Zhou Bao and Yan Yunfei.


    "Stop!"


    "Stop!" Before the soldiers did anything, an exclamation came from behind them.


    Then, a man squeezed himself out of these soldiers, rushed to Zhou Bao and Yan Yunfei, and fell to his knees.


    "Pay respects to Your Highness! Pay respects to the distinguished emperor''s son-in-law!"

 Chapter 400: Farewell

    Chapter 400: Farewell


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Distinguished emperor''s son-in-law!"


    It was not the first time Zhou Bao had heard someone call him that. But the voice of the man gave him a pang of nausea because it was too unctuous.


    The man who rushed to them was a short, fat fellow. He was chubby, like a ball of flesh. His long magnificent robe and very oily voice of greetings caused Zhou Bao to shiver a few times.


    "Gosh, who is this guy? That''s too weird!"


    "Feng Daban, why are you here?" As he was wondering, Yan Yunfei came up to the fat man and helped him up. "How is my mother?"


    The fat man, named Feng Daban, had already stood up, but instantly fell down on his knees again when he heard Yan Yunfei''s question. "I''m useless. I''m useless. The Queen, the Queen..."


    "What... What happened to my mother?" Yan Yunfei asked urgently.


    "All right, stop the questions. It looks like she''s still alive. Don''t waste time here, or you won''t get to see her one last time!" Zhou Bao reminded her impatiently behind.


    "Yes, yes, that''s right. The Queen has been talking about Your Highness''s name these days. I''ll take you in at once!" Feng Daban nodded repeatedly and led Zhou Bao and Yan Yunfei straight to the Royal Capital. The soldiers, who surrounded them, had made way for them and dared not to stop them.


    It was not until the figures of the three disappeared, that the soldiers were relieved and began to talk amongst themselves.


    "Who are they? To be so prestigious that Eunuch Feng should fetch them himself!"


    "You idiot, didn''t you see that it''s Princess Qingyang!" A well-informed soldier said.


    "Princess Qingyang? Isn''t she married and is living in the Wuyang Region in the northwest now? Why..."


    "How stupid you are! Can''t she go back to her parents'' family when she''s married? Didn''t you hear what Eunuch Feng called the man? Emperor''s son-in-law! Don''t you realize who he is?"


    "Emperor''s son-in-law? Oh, he is Zhou Bao of Yunzhou!"


    "Finally realized? You''re so stupid!"


    "God, we''ve just surrounded him, and we''re not dead. How lucky we are!" said those soldiers while touching their chests.


    "He is Zhou Bao of Yunzhou? He didn''t look like Zhou Bao, but looked very gentle, like an ordinary scholar."


    "A scholar? Which scholar can kick Commander out? Oh, right, Commander!"


    When the Commander was mentioned, these soldiers remembered that their Commander had been kicked out by Zhou Bao and they still did not know whether he was alive or not. Hence, they swarmed towards the Commander and took care of him.


    "Is this the Royal Capital? Hehe, what a powerful force of oppression! I guess even an expert of the Mysterious Realm can''t escape unscathed from here! Eh, what are they doing?"


    Entering the Royal Capital''s inner palace, they followed Eunuch Feng and finally reached their destination after many corners. Then they saw a lot of people kneeling in front of the Queen''s bedchamber.


    By this time, the rain was already heavy. But these people continued to kneel and kept motionless, letting the rain fall on them and drip down, as if they could feel nothing.


    Silence ruled in the bedchamber. The Emperor said nothing. He and his ministers seemed to be in a state of confrontation.


    Ignoring this, Eunuch Feng dashed to the front of the bedchamber with quick short steps and shouted, "Here comes Princess Qingyang and emperor''s son-in-law, Wuyang Earl, Zhou Bao!"


    His voice, containing a bit of internal strength, was wiry, loud and unctuous, making Zhou Bao involuntarily shiver.


    Crash!


    The sound of a crackle of porcelain, followed by a steady voice, came from the bedchamber, "Come in!"


    "Come in, Princess Qingyang and Wuyang Earl!" Eunuch Feng called again.


    In fact, after the first shout, the court ministers, kneeling on the ground, all looked back at them.


    After all, the emperor''s son-in-law, Wuyang Earl, Zhou Bao, was the man of the day. He had become famous in a short period of time and performed many large feats. Now, he was known as the strongest man below the Mysterious Realm, the lord of the first outlying prefecture in the northwest. Everyone wanted to see such a character. None of these ministers had ever seen Zhou Bao. Naturally, they did not want to miss the chance.


    However, at the sight of him, they were disappointed.


    In their imagination, an expert like Zhou Bao, even in the absence of being nine-foot tall and having a nine-inch waist, should, at the very least, be strong, and should be able to exude an expert''s momentum and impressive manner, making people admire him at first sight. But now, standing before them was only a scholar-like young man, who did not look as good as some of the children with advantages in their own family.


    "Is this Zhou Bao who comes from Yunzhou, one of the four teenager experts of the Jin, the strongest man below the Mysterious Realm and the Leopard of the northwest?"


    Zhou Bao did not know what these people thought, nor did he care. Today he was just a son-in-law coming to see his mother-in-law with his wife. He had no intention of having any relation with these ministers.


    Hearing that Yan Yuntian asked them to come in, Zhou Bao took Yan Yunfei by the sleeve and went to the bedchamber.


    "Wait!" Just as they were entering the bedchamber, there came a sudden shout.


    With a slight frown, Zhou Bao stopped and looked back, only to find that it was the old man that knelt at the front.


    Perhaps it was because he had kowtowed for so many times, his forehead was bruised with blood, despite this, his expression commanded respect, even with the solemnity of an imposing manner and an air of awe-inspiring righteousness.


    Eventually, Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows. He was unconcerned when faced with a man, but now facing the gathered fate of more than 100 ministers, he saw a hint of something-the vermeil fate was gathered over their heads. It was not clear, but Zhou Bao felt it was very stable. It seemed that these people were destined to be wealthy and honorable.


    "Are you Zhou Bao?" Seeing Zhou Bao looking at them with a frown, the old man asked with a clouded face.


    "Why bother asking me since you know the answer?" Although he knew that their fate was vigorous, Zhou Bao did not care. Anyway, it was all the fate of common people, which he did not fear.


    "You are His Majesty''s son-in-law and a commander of a border-province of the imperial court. I don''t care what you think, but as a person of Jin, you have an obligation to admonish His Majesty to not to delay state affairs for his private ends!"


    "What? Has he become a fatuous and self-indulgent ruler?" Zhou Bao asked.


    More than 100 ministers almost choked to death at his remark. The guy was really outspoken! With a word, the Emperor''s nature was determined¡ªa fatuous and self-indulgent ruler!


    "No, not yet. The Emperor has not held court for more than 10 days, but many important things require His Majesty to make decisions. Over the past few days, the state affairs has been piled up and can no longer be delayed to handle. If it goes on like this, there will be big trouble!"


    "Since such being the case, why bother to be a f**king Emperor who cannot accompany his own wife and who made so many people kneeling outside? It''s really silly!" Zhou Bao muttered, but the sound made it clear to all the people around him. Suddenly, his heartless words made everyone stiff, even the old man with an air of awe-inspiring righteousness turned dull.


    "Come on in!" There was a roar of rage in the bedchamber.


    Zhou Bao shrugged his shoulders. Then his mouth opened with a tiny curve, but it was not a smile. At this moment, Yan Yunfei was pinching the flesh of his waist and then, twisted it hard.


    He hissed and followed Yan Yunfei to the bedchamber. As soon as they entered the bedchamber, Yan Yunfei loosened her small hand that was twisting Zhou Bao''s waist and went straight to the bed.


    "Mother!" Rushing to the bed, she held Luo Xuehuan''s hand tightly and cried miserably.


    Feeling bored, Zhou Bao looked up at Yan Yuntian. At this moment, Yan Yuntian had released Luo Xuehuan''s hand and was looking at him.


    It was the first time they had met.


    "You''re younger than I have thought!"


    "You''re much older than I have thought!"


    The two people simply exchanged a few words, and Yan Yuntian said no more, turning his eyes to Luo Xuehuan with tenderness, which made Zhou Bao feel a little embarrassed.


    Yes, this was quite embarrassing. He seemed to be the only idle man in the bedchamber.


    "Cough, cough!"


    A few slight coughs broke the awkward silence.


    Yan Yuntian and Yan Yunfei were simultaneously startled.


    "Mother is awake! Father, my mother is awake!" Yan Yunfei cried with surprise. Yan Yuntian was also touched, but his eyes were full of grief.


    Zhou Bao gave a gentle sigh. Luo Yun did wake up, but it was a sudden recovery prior to death.


    "Yunfei, is that you? My little Yunfei, I''m not dreaming, am I?"


    "No, mother, you''re not dreaming. It''s me, your little Yunfei. I''m back!


    The thoughts after a long separation and the last farewell were all very strange to Zhou Bao. As a reincarnated man, his feelings for all the people in the world were subtle. As he came into contact with more and more people and, encountered more and more things, he seemed to be very close to a lot of people, but that was only superficial. Even with Wang She, the main reason to maintain their relationship was mutual interest.


    Thus, he was not used to such scenes.


    Standing there, he was a little awkward, until he heard a thin voice, "Are you Yunfei''s husband? Come, come here, let me take a good look at you!" The bitterness on Zhou Bao''s face got stronger.

 Chapter 401: A Shocking Change and Assassination

    Chapter 401: A Shocking Change and Assassination


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    In this world, strong power was not a necessity to scare people, because sometimes an eccentric relationship was scary enough to put people on alert. For example, the relationship between the son-in-law and the mother-in-law. As an old saying went, the mother-in-law would always be more and more fond of her son-in-law as they spent more time together. However, only the son-in-law knew his honest feelings toward his mother-in-law.


    Likewise, now, Zhou Bao was sitting in front of his dying mother-in-law, tortured by her intermittent mumblings that were thoroughly unrecognizable. He sat there solemnly as if he was an obedient pupil, not daring to make a single movement. What was even more awful was that his hand was still tightly gripped by Luo Xuehuan.


    He felt his entire body go as stiff as a zombie while cold sweat kept oozing out vigorously. He forced himself to ease his expression, but his nose, eyes, and muscles above those parts, still cramped together, so he actually couldn''t hear any of the words she was saying. Then, the hand gripping his, gradually grew cold and the wailing of Yan Yunfei rang into his ears. At the same time, an extremely woeful Qi Power began to exude from Yan Yuntian, hanging over the entire bedchamber.


    Again, the bedchamber was caught in silence.


    Suddenly, Zhou Bao''s expression altered. It was almost a quarter-hour after Luo Xuehuan''s death. As a matter of fact, the death of a normal man differed from that of an expert. Generally, an expert shall have a strong body and a relatively doughty spirit, which rendered them less likely to die. However, for an ordinary person, their spirit and body were both delicate and interconnected, so they would stand or fall together. When the body got hurt, the spirit was hurt too. Thus, if death came for an ordinary person, their spirit would disperse at the same time as their body died. Occasionally there were some spirits with great willpower that could sojourn in the body for some time after it died, but ultimately it would still dissipate.


    But being agonized over the illness for such a long time, Luo Xuehuan had long before craved for a death. Accordingly, when she died, her spirit dissipated in an instant, which meant she was totally a corpse now. However, after about a quarter-hour, a wisp of faint mist rose from the forehead of this corpse. This mist could not be detected with normal eyes, while Zhou Bao, with his Fiery Eyes that had a massive suppressing impact on spirits and the knowledge of Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds, including the Turtledove''s Claw that was a nemesis of spirits and divine thoughts, was highly sensitive to this spiritual power. Therefore, when he saw the creepy and mysterious spirit of the white mist, it occurred to him that this matter was not that simple¡ªQueen Luo Xuehuan did not die of illness, but due to a curse.


    Curse!


    It was an eerie magic art!


    Even large modern sects couldn''t get the hang of it, only a few wizards in ancient tribes, which hid in remote and thickly forested mountains knew about this less popular technique.


    However, now he had discovered it in the imperial palace. In general, curses would have a direct impact on spirits, whose effect would be quite eerie and secretive in the eyes of ordinary people. But to Zhou Bao, it was not threatening at all.


    A curse itself was not terrifying, but its eeriness and secretiveness were.


    A man like Yan Yuntian, who had practiced the Way of the Emperor among the 3,000 Great Ways, possessed magnificent strength. Although on the surface he only had a strength at Level Seven, merely scraping in passing the threshold for being an expert, Zhou Bao was pretty sure that his actual strength was way more than that. It was highly possible that Yan Yuntian had a strength at the peak of Level Nine, which was on par with the past Northern Yuan Three Grandmasters. But he hid his real strength level flawlessly by using some unknown method, which was not an easy thing to do.


    However, even with his strength at the peak of Level Nine, he could neither see the mist nor find out that his Queen had died due to a curse instead of an illness.


    Thinking of this, Zhou Bao''s expression became grotesque. Seeing Yan Yunfei weeping on her knees beside the bed, he turned to look at Yan Yuntian, who was issuing deep sorrow from every part of his body. He suddenly felt somewhat depressed and could not stand one minute in this bedchamber. He got to his feet and wanted to go outside for some fresh air, but just as he walked to the door, it came across his mind that there were a bunch of people kneeling on the ground outside the door. It was indeed inappropriate for him to go out at the moment.


    "What?" All of a sudden, his ears gave a gentle twitch, and a bright light flitted across his eyes. He abruptly looked back at Yan Yuntian, and almost at the same time, the latter, who was immersed in his grief, also raised his head and looked at Zhou Bao. Their eyes met, but instantly, turned away from each other. Without any hesitation, Zhou Bao rushed beside Yan Yunfei in a flash and wrapped her up with his dark golden Gang Qi. Simultaneously, Yan Yuntian took action too. He let out a howl of rage and shielded the corpse of Luo Xuehuan with his golden Gang Qi.


    Boom!


    A white light column with a width of over 100 feet, suddenly bombarded right onto the bedchamber from the sky.


    Under the attack of this white light column, the roof of this bedchamber was immediately ripped apart as if it was made of paper. A roar of anger sounded out from the bedchamber, along with some rising golden light.


    "Who, who has such guts!" Yan Yuntian bellowed.


    The odd change happened so fast that nobody saw it coming. Those ministers kneeling outside of the bedchamber also stood up in shock. Looking at the light column that dropped from the sky, their brains all went blank for a moment.


    "Assassin!"


    A shrilling yell rang behind them. It turned out that the guards of this palace were the first ones to realize what had happened and had hurtled towards the bedchamber. However, before they could reach the gate of the chamber, they were thrown into the air by strong airflows that were being emitted from the chamber.


    "Run away! Or do you want to die here?" A dark golden streamer shot out of the bedchamber and landed in the center of the square. They were Zhou Bao and, Yan Yunfei, who was thunderstruck and still muddle-headed.


    Hearing the shout, all those ministers went haywire. Most of them scrambled to run outside, except for that purple-robed old man in the lead, Pei Tianming.


    "What on earth happened?" asked Pei Tianming with a gloomy face.


    "How could I know!" Zhou Bao looked very innocent. He was only paying a visit to his dying mother-in-law, not preparing to be buried alive with her dead body as a sacrifice. He would be overwhelmed by such an unexpected blow.


    "Zhou Bao, what, what is all this?" Yan Yunfei finally came to realize the situation, with astonishment written all over her face.


    "Seems that someone wanted to assassinate your dad and we happened to find ourselves in the middle of it." Zhou Bao eyed the surroundings of the bedchamber, only to see that the whole place was ruined by the crash of that white light column and the golden Gang Qi. Waves of airflows produced by the collision between the Gang Qi and white light column had overturned all the cyan flagstones on the ground, unveiling many deep nicks underneath.


    "It''s a formation!" Zhou Bao''s brows furrowed more tightly. With his eyesight, it was easy for him to discover that this was a newly-carved formation, existing for definitely no more than one year. Moreover, this was not a smart formation, whose function was also monotonous. When it was not in operation, it sent out no energy fluctuation, and that was why it was hard for ordinary people to discover it, as it was perfectly concealed under cyan flagstones.


    Even Yan Yuntian, an expert at the peak of Level Nine, had not noticed that there was such an eccentric formation under his Queen''s bedchamber until it was launched.


    Formations were actually divided into many categories, with each of their functions differed. But generally speaking, all formations mainly focused on defense. Don''t be fooled by the names of many killing formations, which sounded impressively murderous as if they could destroy the whole world, that wasn''t the norm.


    Factually speaking, most formations were fixed at one place¡ªThey were not portable at all and neither were they set up temporarily. As long as the opponent never stepped into your formation, even if your formation could trap an Innate Deity, it would be useless. Let''s take the sword formation of the Golden Lights Cave in Qianyuan Mountain as an example. That formation was extremely powerful and brimming with murderous intent, whereas, if Zhou Bao had not entered the attacking range of that sword formation, it would have remained as a decoration there.


    The same went for this formation. Comparing it with the one made by Golden Lights Cave in Qianyuan Mountain, this formation was much simpler, and Zhou Bao found out its secret with just one glance. But that was not enough. It was precisely because he had seen through its secret that he frowned so hard.


    In most cases, the simpler the function of a formation was, the easier it was to break. However, if it abandoned other functions, the sole function it had would be extraordinarily strong. As was the case with the one sitting in front of Zhou Bao.


    This was a formation for constraining space. Given that Zhou Bao had refined the Spatial Core in that mysterious grey space, it could be said that he had a fairly deep understanding of space, but that did not mean he could break the formation. The reason he easily escaped from it with Yan Yunfei just now was precisely that this formation was launched a short while ago, still with many flaws in it. But now that the formation had been fully launched, the surrounding space impediments were stronger and more compact than diamonds, and no flaws existed at all. If one wanted to go in, he had to break Space Ramparts. Facing those overlaid Space Ramparts, which looked as hard as diamonds, Zhou Bao lost faith in himself.


    This was an intact space. You could imagine it as a house. If you had the key, you could open the door and enter it, which was just like using Zhou Bao''s Three Realms Division and Two Realms Fragments. If you didn''t have a key, but had enormous strength, you could break in through the door or even the wall, as if using Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and Great Fusion Technic. However, if you demolished the entire house, all its bricks would pile up together and form a sturdy construction¡ªa thick and solid wall. Even if you had the ability to break in or open the door at first, you would feel helpless in front of this kind of wall. It called for a power several times, dozens of times, or even hundreds of times greater than you used to break in through the door and the wall. For now, Zhou Bao just didn''t possess that kind of power.


    At that moment, what he saw was exactly such a wall, a thick and compact wall of space.

 Chapter 402: Turmoil

    Chapter 402: Turmoil


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    This was a long-premeditated assassination. The assassins must have plotted this for over one year. The target was Yan Yuntian. Zhou Bao just happened to be there at the right time.


    As the target was not him but the emperor, the whole thing basically had nothing to do with Zhou Bao. Although he had married the emperor''s daughter, that did not mean he had to fight his ass off to save the emperor.


    "Rescue the Emperor! Hurry up! Somebody rescue the Emperor!"


    By this time, everyone had fled away from the square before the bedchamber, except for the purple-robed old man and two other people. If Zhou Bao had sharp vision, he would see that these three were exactly the three chiefs of the civilian officers in the imperial court¡ªthe Three Ducal Ministers.


    The guards of the palace were also in a mess. They had never thought something like this would really happen. Since the palace was heavily guarded, even if someone wanted to assassinate a man in the palace, he would adopt a stealthy method. Thus, such a blatant and sensational assassination was the first one they had ever come across.


    The attack came from the sky. The commander of those guards was an expert at Level Seven, but when he turned on his Gang Qi and tried to locate the source of that white light, he could find nothing at all. With this white light connecting the sky to the earth, nobody knew how high it was. It was true that an expert at Level Seven should be able to fly, but the height could be no more than 10,000 feet. What was more, it was impossible to destroy the light column from the inside. Since the source could not be found, this commander of the guards naively raised his saber and hacked right towards the white light. As a result, his saber was broken and his life ended, with him being shattered into dust under the impact of the recoil force issued by the white light.


    An expert at Level Seven!


    One single attack of the recoil force could smash a person, which was enough to demonstrate the power of this light column.


    "It looks like a formation but also resembles a celestial device. Yes, this white light has to be the product of a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Otherwise, its power cannot be so vast or so long lasting!" After taking a few breaths, Zhou Bao noticed something special of this white light column and shouted, "No, no, this is not a Pure Yang Celestial Device. This is the effect of formations. They''ve overlaid two types of formations and have combined each of their sole function together!"


    "Then what are you doing there? Hurry up! Rescue the Emperor!"


    At this moment, the purple-robed old man and the other two Ducal Ministers also rushed in front of the bedchamber and started motivating their power. Wafts of righteous power rose up, violently pounding on the Space Rampart around the bedchamber.


    At Level Eight, all the Three Ducal Ministers had startling strength. Moreover, what they practiced was the Innate Universal Genuine Qi of the Mingyi School. Among them, Grand Tutor Pei Tianming had already successfully refined the Innate Universal Golden Book, which was bombarding the Space Rampart with all its might.


    "That won''t work. Your power can''t even break a normal space, let alone this specially overlaid space!" advised Zhou Bao, shaking his head.


    "Shut up! You are one of the vassals to His Majesty, quickly help us to rescue the Emperor!" The Grand Perceptor snapped and his expression hardened. "Regarding public relations, he is your king. In a private sense, he is your father-in-law... You can''t stand aside and do nothing!"


    Right now, he came to the realization that among those people at the scene, only Zhou Bao had a chance to rescue Yan Yuntian. Therefore, while he was harshly scolding Zhou Bao, he was exerting himself to wink at Yan Yunfei, who was still cuddled in Zhou Bao''s arms.


    Yan Yunfei finally came back to her senses from this shocking incident. Without a word, she gritted her teeth and charged forward. A light flashed in her sleeve and a bendy sword appeared in her hand. The next second, she stabbed the sword relentlessly at the Space Rampart.


    "F*ck!" Zhou Bao cursed quietly and then reluctantly walked towards that Space Rampart, but he didn''t make any strikes. "Enough, you should stop wasting your time. This Space Rampart was formed by piling up layers of ramparts. Even a Genuine Immortal cannot break it, not to mention you guys!"


    But everyone chose to ignore him. The Three Ducal Ministers and Yan Yunfei kept attacking the rampart desperately.


    Zhou Bao shook his head and was about to come forward to help. Suddenly, a sense of hostility flashed across his face as he bellowed, "You''re asking for death!"


    Stretching out his hands, the dark golden Gang Qi soared up again.


    With a loud bang, a spurt of blood came out behind Yan Yunfei. Not far away, a noise sounded as if something heavy dropped on the ground, and then a man''s figure gradually came into sight.


    It turned out to be a black-clothed man, skinny and small, with every part of his body wrapped in black cloth. Just now, he launched some unknown techniques to conceal his figure as he tried to approach Yan Yunfei. But how could this kind of trick possibly fool the spiritual mind of Zhou Bao?


    "Surely somebody is asking for a death!"


    At first, Zhou Bao had no intention to meddle in this mess, because this kind of thing would always badger you endlessly once you stepped in. However, that did not mean that he could tolerate somebody targeting him. Yan Yunfei already married him and belonged to him, so targeting Yan Yunfei equated to targeting himself, which was unbearable to him.


    Hence, after he threw that man into the air without a blink, Zhou Bao gave a cold snort, and his dark golden Gang Qi transformed into nine dark golden Fire Dragons rising up to the sky. The nine Fire Dragons grew larger and larger at a fast speed. In an instant, each of those Fire Dragons had grown to the length of 1,000 feet, hovering and roaring above the imperial palace.


    "Ah!"


    "Crap!"


    "Run for it!"


    "Hurry!"


    "Run away?"


    ...


    Numerous small and hastened voices sounded as many figures were forced to reveal themselves in the darkness by the strong heat flux.


    "Invisible Technique?" As the figures were popping out of blue, Zhou Bao''s eyes shined more and more brightly. The Invisible Technique was one of the special techniques, but by itself, it was not brilliant at all. It was no secret, either. One just needed to find a special Evil Qi and refine it. After that, by launching it, one could completely make himself invisible as well as hide his breath. Of course, its effect was not as amazing as the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. Anyone who entered the Expert Realm could detect some traces of a hidden person as long as they attached more importance to observe, not to mention such an expert like Zhou Bao.


    The moment Zhou Bao arrived at the bedchamber, he found these guys. However, he took their presence for granted and assumed that they were the defense forces of the imperial palace. He believed them to be like the guards or maybe some sorts of secret power of the royal family. Thus, he didn''t pay much attention to them. Not until one of these guys attempted to oppress Yan Yunfei a moment ago did he feel that something went wrong, so he straightforwardly launched his power and forced all these guys to show themselves.


    In that case, even the Three Ducal Ministers had to shift their focus and stop their ongoing attack.


    "Well, well, well, how great is this! So many assassins sneaked into the imperial palace... Gongye Chai! Gongye Chai! Look at what a great job you''ve done! Damn you, damn you!"


    Pei Tianming snarled, searching for a guy named Gongye Chai, but nobody responded. Precisely at this moment, a guard who looked like a leader came forward and said, "Grand Tutor, Your Excellency, His Excellency Gongye has just died in the line of duty!" While speaking, he also pointed a finger at the sky.


    Zhou Bao instantly realized that the guy who had attacked the white light column and had been shattered to death by its recoil force was exactly Gongye Chai that the Grand Tutor was calling.


    Hearing the words of the guard, Grand Tutor Pei Tianming took several deep breaths to compose himself. Then, he cast a fierce look at that guard, strode to one of the assassins and abruptly trampled on his leg.


    The cracking of broken bones spread out, which made Zhou Bao frown. Nevertheless, that assassin still clenched his teeth without even letting out a single sound.


    "Answer me! Who sent you here? Who is pulling the strings behind this scene? Answer now!"


    No one replied.


    "Your Excellency, stop wasting your time. They are all dead."


    As if he had figured something out, Zhou Bao spoke out with a gentle sigh.


    "Dead? You killed all of them?" Pei Tianming flared up and said, balefully looking over at Zhou Bao.


    "Nonsense! They have put poison in their mouths in the first place. Once they were exposed, they all gritted their teeth and committed suicide. This has nothing to do with me!"


    Pei Tianming went forward to have a look. The assassin before him, though his face was covered with black cloth, indeed showed an expanding bloodstain on the cloth at the corner of his mouth.


    "Seems like these assassins not only targeted the Emperor but also you guys. I''m afraid the purpose of these guys laying in ambush here is just to take you all down!" Zhou Bao said in a low voice.


    There were only a few people still in the square before the bedchamber. More than half of those ministers who were kneeling in the rain at the beginning had run away. Those who stayed were just dozen of people led by the Three Ducal Ministers. Each of them was an important officer or a direct descendant of the Three Ducal Ministers. Although the chiefs of the most crucial department in the court all had great prestige and vast power, their strength was fairly lame. Except for the Three Ducal Ministers, the one with the highest cultivation among the ministers was merely at Level Four, while the weakest of those hidden assassins was at Level Four. Some of the assassins had even reached Level Seven. Plus, they were hiding in the dark, seeking an opportunity to murder all of the ministers of the court while the Three Ducal Ministers were concerned about the safety of the emperor and were going all out to rescue him. No one would ever notice that these assassins, with Invisible Technique, had killed some ministers. In fact, one of them had already cut a minister''s throat.


    Although Zhou Bao was reluctant to say it out loud, he had to admit that the assassination plan would have already worked if he had not been here today.


    The emperor was an expert at the peak of Level Nine. But facing this murder plot, he was trapped in his bedchamber and unable to resist the invasion of a strong formation. He had no chance to stop defending himself or flee. As for the Three Ducal Ministers outside the bedchamber, though they were experts at Level Eight, they had lost their composure at this shocking event, so it was unlikely for them to come up with some good solutions for the moment. When the time came, it was possible that the plotter might deploy another force to kill the Three Ducal Ministers and their direct descendants.


    At present, the opponent hadn''t launched more force to deal with the Three Ducal Ministers. But that wasn''t due to a lack of forces. It was just that with Zhou Bao''s unpredictable presence, the opponent had some scruples and dared not carry out the plan for now.


    The force that could nail down three experts at Level Eight was not necessarily good enough to nail down Zhou Bao. The goal of that assassin trying to approach Yan Yunfei was also pretty straightforward. They wanted to take hold of Yan Yunfei so as to coerce Zhou Bao; making it difficult for him to intervene in this matter. In such a case, it would be safe for them to implement their plan.


    Their idea might be smart, but they still overestimated the ability of the Invisible Technique and underestimated Zhou Bao''s strength and spiritual mind.


    They didn''t gain the edge to coerce Zhou Bao, instead, they provoked him.


    Originally, Zhou Bao was still wavering between interfering in this matter and standing by. But now, he decided that he must step in. No matter what happened, he had to teach them a lesson and vent out his anger, right?

 Chapter 403: Mysterious Sky-reaching Pole

    Chapter 403: Mysterious Sky-reaching Pole


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    An hour ago.


    "What? Zhou Bao has arrived?!"


    Outside the imperial palace, Elder Chen got the news that Zhou Bao had arrived just when he was about to leave. Before he got this news, he looked at leisure, but after that, his expression darkened. It was as if he suddenly ate a fly while he was enjoying a feast of delicacies.


    "Yes, Your Excellency. Eunuch Feng has led him into the inner palace!" A white-robed young general knelt down in front of Elder Chen. He was the one that Zhou Bao and Yan Yunfei met when they entered this city. After being kicked by Zhou Bao, he rushed toward the imperial palace, taking no notice of his injuries, and bumped into Elder Chen, who was coming out of the palace.


    "I see. Go back now. Keep a lookout for your ruffian subordinates and don''t allow them to cause any trouble!"


    "Yes," replied that general. His expression turned strange and asked, "How about our plan?"


    "Plan? What kind of plan? We have no plan!" Elder Chen glared at him and added on, saying, "Go back! Pretend nothing has ever happened. Now, do what you usually do! Zhou Bao is a variable. However, whether he comes or not, he cannot influence the overall situation. Go back now and remember that, without my personal written order, no one can act recklessly!"


    "Yes, I see!" The young general replied, turned around, and left.


    "Zhou Bao, haha, you really are a variable. However, even if you come here, you''re unable to change this situation, but merely cause me some troubles!" After thinking about this, Elder Chen waved his hands to drive his sedan carriers away. He stood at the palace door and watched the deep and serene imperial palace as if he was waiting for something.


    He smiled faintly as he saw a white light column fall from the sky. Soon, his imperceptible smile vanished. Later on, the whole imperial palace fell into chaos.


    The guards guarding the palace door began to panic at the sight of the strange phenomenon inside the palace. They were totally at a loss. At this point in time, Elder Chen was panicking too. He pretended to be calm and went into the palace to scold the panicking guards'' leader loudly. He then gave them some orders and took control of the surrounding guards.


    The sound of "saving the Emperor" started to spread. Then, a bunch of officials that were kneeling down in front of the Queen''s bedroom earlier swarmed out of the palace in a panic. They were running while yelling.


    "Hurry up. Follow me to save the Emperor!"


    Elder Chen yelled and led this group of guards to rush towards the Queen''s bedroom. Upon their arrival, they saw Zhou Bao driving out those assassins in the palace and the latter committed suicide together.


    "Grand Tutor, what''s up? What happened? Who are they?" Elder Chen ran to Queen''s bedroom hurriedly. The stone road was wet and slippery. Obviously, Elder Chen had not practiced any martial arts, as he slipped on the road after running a few steps. He leaned forward and fell to the ground heavily, with mud and water all over his body.


    "Please get up, Excellency Chen."


    While watching this scene, the expression of one of the Three Lords changed suddenly. Elder Chen''s views on politics were different from theirs. However, as a senior official, he could not watch an official die from falling without doing anything. After all, he was a member of the Three Lords, who should be broad-minded.


    "I''m okay. Thank you very much, Chancellor!" Elder Chen replied hurriedly as he saw the old man who had lifted him up. Forgetting the mud on his clothes, he rushed to the door of Queen''s bedroom, asking, "Grand Tutor, w, what happened? His Majesty, where is His Majesty?"


    "His Majesty has been trapped in the bedroom!" Pei Tianming sighed gently and glanced at Elder Chen. Then, he turned his gaze to the bedroom, saying, "This is a powerful formation that I''m unable to destroy!"


    He then looked at Zhou Bao, saying, "I''ve already sent my men to Mingyi Lane, however, I''m afraid that His Majesty cannot withstand any longer!"


    "Do you think your men can arrive at Mingyi Lane safely under these circumstances? Furthermore, people from Mingyi School definitely know what has happened here since there''s such a big uproar in the Royal Capital." Zhou Bao said with sarcasm. "Mingyi Lane is not far from Royal Capital. Besides, people from Mingyi School aren''t blind. The chaos has occurred long ago, if they''re willing to come, they would have arrived!"


    "What?" Pei Tianming stared at Zhou Bao as if he had hit the most critical point that he was concerned about the most.


    "Fine. Unlike you, I''m an outsider. The entire Jin dynasty is under your control now. Such a big fanfare happened and I don''t believe you have no ulterior motive." Zhou Bao added on and said coldly, "Neither do I want to know nor care about who was involved in it and who profited from it. But you''re right. No matter what, inside the bedroom lays my father-in-law and my mother-in-law''s corpse. I cannot leave them alone!" While saying this, his all-direction eyesight easily caught Elder Chen''s expression, which was both weird and ferocious.


    "There''s definitely something wrong with him!" While seeing Elder Chen''s unnatural expression, Zhou Bao understood that Elder Chen probably was the one who had made this mess. At least, it had some connection with him. But he would not say anything without evidence. Moreover, even if Elder Chen played tricks on this matter, it was none of his business. He just needed to save Yan Yuntian.


    With Yan Yuntian''s ability, he could easily control this situation. However, such a thing happened under his nose. It seemed that his ability was limited.


    Elder Chen did not know that Zhou Bao had noticed his unnatural expression. In fact, at that time, he was standing beside Zhou Bao and behind Chancellor, with his head lowered. His eyes were blocked by Chancellor''s back. Therefore, he may have revealed a flaw accidentally, but he thought no one could notice it.


    He was a little nervous when he heard that Zhou Bao would interfere with this matter. He was not a martial arts practitioner and naturally knew nothing about martial arts. But it did not mean he knew nothing about Zhou Bao''s strength. Zhou Bao''s strength had been tested by many experts and influences. Many sects had already proved his strength with their life and dignity.


    He would not believe that a man who had fought against Mingyi School and came back safely could do nothing about this formation. It was unrealistic.


    However, when facing such a situation, he felt helpless because he knew nothing about martial arts. Even if he did, he was not that foolish to risk fighting with Zhou Bao now. It would only present him no other choice but death. The only thing he could do was to wait and see.


    "I''m in trouble now. Those guys have said that the formation is extremely powerful, then why haven''t they killed Yan Yuntian?" Elder Chen thought secretly.


    Yan Yuntian was still trying his best to withstand the attacks from those assassins, though he was furious at them.


    Yan Yuntian was an Emperor who had achieved the biggest accomplishment since Jin dynasty had been built, and was also the one who aimed at being an eternal Emperor and achieve Human Emperor''s great cause. His enemies were all outside of the imperial court. Inside the court, everything was under his control. He connived at the strife in court in order to counterbalance the power of different factions. It was the way of the balance of the Emperor and the application of Emperor''s Intention. But now, such a big problem had occurred; there was someone who tried to assassinate him in his palace and had made a big uproar. This was neither a simple means nor an outsider''s masterpiece.


    There was someone who was able to lay a huge trap in the imperial palace and even took the Queen''s death into consideration, which meant there was something wrong with the people around him. Since they had conducted this action, they definitely would be in a group. Their status should be considerably high.


    It was surely a great humiliation to him. They were slapping him in the face and spitting at him on the face wantonly. They were denying his ruling measures and mocking at him. Most of all, they were despising and negating the Way of the Emperor, one of the 3,000 Great Ways.


    Therefore, he was enraged and boiling with anger.


    "I don''t care who you are and who''s your backer, I will definitely make you pay the price, a high price!" Yan Yuntian thought angrily. His anger was raging. The golden Gang Qi encircling around him was like raging flames, and mysterious and ancient talismans appeared in the flames one after another. These talismans turned into strands of tiny force, which formed a pristine character after combining together.


    That character floated above Yan Yuntian''s head and abruptly lifted that white ray up. Above his head, a secluded space took shape.


    "Mysterious Sky-reaching Pole!" He stared at the white light that was putting a lot of pressure on him as it fell on his head. Hatred could easily be seen from his eyes. He bit his tongue with great force and spat out a mouthful of light golden blood. As the golden character above his head glittered, the pressure on his body decreased. He carried Luo Xuehuan''s corpse and prepared to flee.


    Just when he picked up Luo Xuehuan''s corpse, a mist formed and entangled with his Gang Qi.


    "What...!" Before he could figure out what had happened, he had lost all his strength. The talisman above his head darkened too. He suddenly fell backwards and sat on the ground, and his face lost all colors.


    "It''s really troublesome!" Outside the bedroom, Zhou Bao knocked on the substantial Space Rampart, which was like the tempered glass in his previous life. He narrowed his eyebrows tightly. The situation was more troublesome than he had thought. He could break it with great force at any time. But the problem was, once it was broken by force, such an overlapped Space Rampart could generate a Space Storm and turbulence that could raze the entire Western Capital to the ground instantly. Although he knew there were assorted powerful formations being laid in the surroundings and even within the city, to a large extent, they were used to defend against foreign enemies and their invasion. However, this kind of Space Storm would destroy everything internally. The imperial palace was the center of Western Capital, while the Queen''s bedroom was the center of the imperial palace. Therefore, if the powerful Space Storm took place here, formations in Western Capital would be destroyed before they are activated.


    Hence, Zhou Bao thought that this matter was very troublesome.

 Chapter 404: Everything Comes Together

    Chapter 404: Everything Comes Together


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Well, do you have any solution?"


    Seeing Zhou Bao narrow his eyebrows, Grand Tutor, Pei Tianming, had no choice but to play a low stance. He walked to Zhou Bao and asked cautiously.


    What happened today was way too weird. Pei Tianming could not imagine who would do such a crazy thing. What he was concerned about the most was that Mingyi School did not respond after such a long time. Since it was not far away from Western Capital, even the blind could see this towering light column. Perhaps the entire Western Capital had fallen into chaos now.


    Under these circumstances, he had to solve this problem as soon as possible. The longer the problem persists, the worse the situation would be. Pei Tianming knew the current situation was already out of his control.


    "I do have a solution. I can break the Space Rampart with great force, but this will cause a large-scale Space Storm, and the entire Western Capital will be destroyed!" Zhou Bao sighed as he spoke this. "The surrounding spatial formations are ill-designed with just a single function. Once it is broken, it can lead to a terrible backfire!"


    "Then what can we do? This is the Mysterious Sky-reaching Pole. Although His Majesty is powerful, he cannot withstand it for too long." Grand Tutor Pei Tianming already recognized the background of that white light column and he said worriedly. Because of that formation, Queen''s bedroom was completely secluded in another space. Although the Space Rampart was transparent, outsiders could see nothing inside it, so they did not know what had happened to the Emperor.


    "Take it easy. He''s an Emperor with a great luck. Heaven will help him. I guess he will not die so miserably!" Zhou Bao made a joke.


    "You... Ugh...!"


    Yan Yunfei had been suffering from utter panic and anxiety and as soon as she heard Zhou Bao talked about her father like this, she was enraged, no matter how good-tempered she was. She pointed at Zhou Bao and tried to say something, but she felt a sharp pain in her belly and squatted down slowly.


    "Yunfei, what''s wrong?" Zhou Bao was shocked. He quickly supported Yan Yunfei and asked with concern.


    "I...!" Yan Yunfei tried to say something, but her words were replaced by agonizing groan very soon. Zhou Bao was stunned and could not help but think: "Although she is a woman, she has stayed with me for a long time and also possess the Sacred Root. Her power is at least Level Four, enough to be called a Junior Master. Why does she suddenly feel a sharp pain in the belly? Could it be that she was poisoned?"


    Worriedly, he transmitted a pure yang spirit into Yan Yunfei''s body. With the help of Zhou Bao, Yan Yunfei was no longer that painful. Her face was wet with sweat. She opened her eyes and looked weakly at Zhou Bao, trying to say something but failed to.


    "Wuyang Earl, If you don''t mind, I can feel the pulse for Her Highness." At this time, a gentle voice came to Zhou Bao''s ears. Zhou Bao knew without turning around that it was Grand Protector, one of the Three Lords.


    "Do you know any medical skill?"


    "Yes, I know something about it!" Grand Protector replied gently.


    Zhou Bao nodded in agreement. He moved to another side and let Grand Protector walk forward. Grand Protector put his fingers on Yan Yunfei''s pulse. After a while, his expression turned strange, and he looked up at Zhou Bao. No one could tell whether his expression represented joy or sorrow.


    "What happened? Was Yunfei poisoned?"


    "Her Highness didn''t get poisoned. She''s pregnant." Grand Protector said gently. "Congratulations, Wuyang Earl!"


    "P... Pregnant?" Zhou Bao''s mouth slightly twitched. He went blank but soon laughed out. Then he grasped Grand Protector''s collar and asked, "Are you sure? Is my wife really pregnant?"


    "Yes, she does. Her Highness is really pregnant!" Grand Protector was a Level Eight expert. However, he was unable to dodge Zhou Bao''s grasp in excitement and was easily caught by Zhou Bao.


    "Haha, good. It''s really nice!"


    Zhou Bao was extremely excited about being a father for the first time, so he started dancing with joy, forgetting his circumstances.


    "Zhou Bao, Zhou Bao...!" A faint voice came to his ears. He quivered suddenly and walked towards Yan Yunfei immediately.


    "Hey. I need some maidservants! Did nobody see that my wife is pregnant? Is there nobody in the imperial palace that can take care of my wife?"


    Zhou Bao began to shout and wrangle. Upon hearing his words, the people here looked at each other helplessly, not knowing what to say.


    "Zhou Bao, save... save my father!"


    "Oh, yeah, I know. No problem, leave it to me. Leave it to me!" Zhou Bao replied. By then, he finally remembered where he was and what happened.


    However, though he did, his mind was no longer on this matter.


    "What happened? Why is she in such pain? Is there anything wrong with her?"


    "You can rest assured. Her Highness is just in panic and anger because she was worried about Queen''s health over the past few days. Her pregnancy is affected. She''ll be ok after getting some rest, but she''d better be relaxed. She cannot get anxious and angry!"


    "Fine, fine, fine. She cannot be anxious and angry!" Zhou Bao got panicky, totally unlike a super expert. Grand Protector''s words were like golden rules to him. He nodded continuously, and said to Yan Yunfei, "All right, Yunfei. Don''t worry, I can handle this easily. Now, take a rest. You need to take a good rest, you hear me?"


    "I...!"


    At this time, Yan Yunfei gradually felt relieved and less painful. Therefore, she nodded gently.


    "Good. God damn it! Is there no one to take care of my wife? What a shitty imperial palace!" Zhou Bao began to shout. Since people around him were men, to whom he did not want to leave his wife. Besides, some of them have ulterior motives.


    While Zhou Bao was shouting, that Chancellor had summoned Eunuch Feng, who led Zhou Bao and his wife into the palace. He said something to him and the latter left in a hurry. After a little while, Eunuch Feng led several panicking maids here.


    "Your Excellency, the rain is gradually becoming heavier. Her highness is pregnant, so I suggest we can send her to the side palace. I believe there''s not much danger there. Now, the palace is in chaos, and I can only find these maids temporarily," said Eunuch Feng.


    "Fine, that''s nice!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed, and he looked up at Grand Tutor, saying, "Do you want me to save the Emperor?"


    "Yes, can you do it?"


    "Of course I can, but there is one condition!"


    "What?"


    "You must protect Yunfei personally. I don''t trust others!" Zhou Bao emphasized every word he said and stared at Elder Chen. Rising his hand, he grabbed Elder Chen with an invisible force.


    "What are you doing?!" After being caught by Zhou Bao, Elder Chen was enraged and shouted angrily.


    "I don''t trust you, so I''ll make you stay beside me!" Zhou Bao said coldly. "You''d better follow me if you don''t want to die. From now on, you need to do nothing except follow me. Don''t think you can hide your tricks from me. I''ll save the Emperor, and you must go with me. You''re going to die, once you''re 10 feet away from me. Keep your hands in your sleeves. Even if you make a gesture, I''ll kill you too."


    "Then you''d better kill me now!" Elder Chen burst into anger. Although he knew nothing about martial arts, he had a high status in Jin, which was almost the same as the Three Lords. No one dared to offend him, so he never expected that Zhou Bao would be so rude to him.


    "I would if you want!" Zhou Bao was not swayed by Elder Chen''s words. At present, Yan Yunfei was the most important, thus he could not put Elder Chen, an unstable factor, by her side. Therefore, his eyes became cold and he said, "Either you accept my decision, or you die. You have no other choice!"


    "You...!" Elder Chen''s lips were trembling, and he could not utter any word because of anger.


    "My time is limited, so I''ll count up to three. Nod your head if you agree, otherwise, I''ll kill you. One, two...!"


    "Fine!" As Zhou Bao counted up to "two", Elder Chen suddenly shouted. He said, "For His Majesty''s safety, I''ll follow you. But...!"


    Before he could list his condition, Zhou Bao had already turned around and walked towards the Queen''s bedroom. Elder Chen had no choice but to follow Zhou Bao. Grand Tutor looked at them with a complex expression. He also turned around and ordered those maids to support Yan Yunfei to the side palace.


    "Grand Tutor, you see...!"


    "You two stay here. At present, we can do nothing but rely on Zhou Bao. Never have I expected this situation to occur!" Grand Tutor Pei Tianming, sighed. He followed those maids closely, and his back looked much bleaker than before.


    "Old goat, don''t feel aggrieved. Although I have no evidence, I''m sure that this matter has something to do with you. Damn you! You''re really generous to put so much effort into killing Yan Yuntian. You almost succeed, and that''s quite powerful of you!"


    "I don''t know what you are talking about!" Elder Chen said coldly.


    "Come on. Don''t pretend to be calm. Your heartbeat and breathing have already betrayed you. Don''t treat me as a fool!" Zhou Bao added, "Furthermore, my current cultivation is powerful enough to sense your spirit. Don''t think that you can conceal your secret from me. Also, talk freely. Your voice cannot be heard by the people 10 feet away!"


    Elder Chen fell into silence. As he did not know martial arts, he could not figure out whether Zhou Bao''s words were true or false. "Why don''t you kill me at once since you suspect that I have something to do with this matter?"


    "Why should I kill you? You didn''t attack me!" Zhou Bao laughed out. "But you''re really out of luck to bump into me when Yunfei is pregnant. But don''t worry. If you''re obedient, I won''t harm you!"

 Chapter 405: Leave Directly After Responsibilities Are Over

    Chapter 405: Leave Directly After Responsibilities Are Over


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Humph, do you think that the world revolves around you and everyone must do what you want them to do?"


    "Of course not!" Zhou Bao and Elder Chen arrived at the front of the bedchamber. Zhou Bao walked up to the transparent Space Rampart and ran his hands over it as if he was searching for something. As he touched it, he said, "But there is no other choice. You know I''m the most powerful person now and also the one who is most likely to change the situation here. Besides, my wife is pregnant. Anyway, I can''t let her down at this time. So this world will inevitably revolve around me!"


    "Why do you trust people such as Grand Tutor so much? If they are the ones who initiated this matter and then threaten you with Princess Qingyang, what will you do?"


    "God knows!" Zhou Bao smiled. "If they really did it and use my wife as a means to threaten me, actually, I have no choice but to do everything according to their will. I will be humiliated and my wife will be disappointed. She will get angry and curse me for a few days!"


    Zhou Bao''s voice sounded indifferent, but Elder Chen could sense a chilly undertone to it.


    "Well, here it is!" Before Elder Chen could say anything more, Zhou Bao suddenly uttered a cry of surprise. He felt a strong suction pulling at him, and then his body was involuntarily drawn to the bedchamber.


    His body flew rapidly and crashed into the Space Rampart that surrounded the imperial palace. It seemed that he was on a suicidal course.


    "Oh no¡ª!" he exclaimed. Just as he was about to collide with the sturdy Space Rampart and he imagined that his head would split open like a ripe watermelon, the situation suddenly changed.


    The tough Space Rampart seemed to ripple like a wave. Then he felt himself stepping into the Rampart. That feeling was similar to that of being pulled into a body of water, but it was not so cold. He was suddenly plunged into chaos. It seemed like a very long while before a sudden light came into his eyes and the scene in the bedchamber unfolded before his eyes.


    "Ah!" Sensing something, Yan Yuntian, with a white and drawn face, suddenly turned around, only to see Zhou Bao and Elder Chen coming out of the Space Rampart.


    "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, are you all right? I beg your forgiveness for being late, Your Majesty!" Elder Chen rushed to Yan Yuntian''s side without regard for anything else.


    "Are you tired of living?" Seeing the state Yan Yuntian was in, Zhou Bao sensed that there was something amiss and pulled Elder Chen back.


    The situation in the bedchamber was quite bizarre. Yan Yuntian sat cross-legged on the ground and held Luo Xuehuan''s corpse in his arms with Gang Qi surging around him. Over his head floated an ancient character that blocked the white light column in the sky and forcibly created a space that was less than 10 feet high in the bedchamber.


    "It seems that you are in trouble!" Upon feeling the obscure atmosphere, Zhou Bao smiled and slowly walked up to Yan Yuntian, saying, "Are you being poisoned?"


    "Yes, it''s a strange kind of poison and I''m afraid that I can''t hold on much longer!" Yan Yuntian sighed and added, "However, I have no more regrets in this lifetime because I am able to die with Xuehuan!"


    "Come on, Your Majesty, it''s useless to put on such a brave front. I''m here to rescue you!" Zhou Bao smiled. Although Yan Yuntian looked embarrassed, Zhou Bao''s intention was not to force him to admit his mistake. After all, this had nothing to do with him. He would be able to fulfill his promise to Yan Yunfei as long as he got Yan Yuntian out of this mess.


    "You managed to gain access into this place despite it being under such a tight blockade, so I guess the people around the world really underestimated you!"


    "That will be the best. The more they overestimate me, the more flustered I will be!" Zhou Bao chuckled and the cyan light glittered around him. Then, a blast of Yang Qi permeated the entire space.


    "Pure Yang Celestial Device? Do you have another Pure Yang Celestial Device?" When Yan Yuntian felt the Pure Yang Qi, he looked quite surprised. Soon afterward, he saw the cyan light swirling around his Gang Qi like a breath of fresh air. Just as the light poured into his Gang Qi, the obscure power that had mixed with his Gang Qi suddenly disappeared without a trace, and at the same time, his strength was restored to its fullest in a flash.


    The talisman over his head suddenly glittered and shone with a regal brilliance, pushing the white light column to a height of more than 10 feet.


    "Don''t waste your energy. I can bring you all out. But before that, you''d better let me take a look at the Queen''s body!"


    Yan Yuntian''s expression suddenly changed. Zhou Bao''s words sounded quite abrupt. But when he thought that the reason why he was there, trapped and unable to move a muscle, had something to do with Luo Xuehan''s corpse, he did not get mad but sighed gently and let Zhou Bao walk up to him to check on the body.


    Zhou Bao felt aggrieved as he noticed that Yan Yuntian was displeased. If it were not for his wife, he would not be at all willing to inspect a corpse. After all, he was not a legal medical expert!


    However, he did not do anything to the Queen''s corpse. He approached the corpse and carefully observed her face, murmuring, "Oh, it''s really a curse!"


    Zhou Bao passed his hand over Luo Xuehuan''s head. Suddenly, he caught hold of a wisp of smoke from the place between Luo Xuehuan''s eyebrows. It seemed to be alive. After being caught by Zhou Bao, it dispersed suddenly and tried to get away. However, it could not escape from the fist-sized circle enclosing it.


    "It is a well-thought scheme, Your Majesty. Without me, I''m afraid that you would have died this time!" Zhou Bao held out his index finger and suddenly a soul vortex glittering with mysterious brilliance appeared in the fist-sized space, encircling the faint fog and dispersing it totally.


    Zhou Bao had executed a Divine Sense called Soul Cutting.


    The curse was one that affected the spirit directly and it harbored the essence of the spirit. In a certain sense, it was equal to an Evil Spirit. The Soul Cutting Skill was its nemesis.


    On seeing that Zhou Bao was able to remove the curse from Luo Xuehuan''s corpse so easily, Elder Chen could not stop his canthus from twitching.


    "Damn! Didn''t those idiots say that this kind of curse is foolproof and no one could ever break it? How is it that this guy was able to eliminate it so easily?"


    He had actually misunderstood the spellcaster. The reason why Zhou Bao could eliminate the curse so easily and quickly was because Luo Xuehuan was already dead, and thus, the power of the curse had weakened considerably. If Luo Xuehuan was still alive, Zhou Bao would not have dared to use the Soul-cutting Skill because if that was the case, Luo Xuehuan''s soul would have been shredded instantly.


    "Let''s go. Let''s not waste any more time here. It''s just a bedchamber!" After removing the curse, Zhou Bao looked up at Yan Yuntian and said gently.


    Yan Yuntian nodded in agreement and replied, "Yes, it''s just a bedchamber. Zhou Bao, I owe you my life this time!"


    "Haha, it doesn''t matter. Yunfei already gave a life back to me. That is more valuable than yours!"


    "What?" For a moment, Yan Yuntian did not understand what he was talking about.


    "Your Majesty, Princess Qingyang is pregnant!" Standing aside, Elder Chen seized this opportunity and answered him.


    "Yunfei is pregnant?" Yan Yuntian was dumbfounded. Later, he forced himself to smile and said, "Well, I guess I''d better offer my congratulations!"


    "The same to you, haha!"


    "Humph, I don''t see anything worthy of congratulations! Having too many sons is not necessarily a good thing. I don''t know which bastard did this deed today!" The killing intent revealed in Yan Yuntian''s eyes made him look very ferocious.


    "No matter who did that, you can investigate it after you get out of here. We''d better get out now!" Zhou Bao did not want to face the murderous intent of this Human Emperor.


    "Fine!" Yan Yuntian nodded in agreement and held Luo Xuehuan''s corpse tightly in his arms. None of them spoke another word. Elder Chen stood beside Yan Yuntian, who stood in front of Zhou Bao. At this moment, the big character over Yan Yuntian''s head became brighter. When they had all vanished from the bedchamber, the white light column then touched the ground for the first time.


    "Boom!"


    The imperial palace together with the entire Western Capital shook violently. However, all of these were none of Zhou Bao''s business. Since he had rescued Yan Yuntian, his mission was accomplished.


    "God bless His Majesty! God bless His Majesty!"


    Just as they showed up safely outside the bedchamber, Elder Chen immediately shouted out loudly. Since he had no martial arts skill and no Internal Qi, he just yelled with all his might. However, his yell set off a big uproar in the entire imperial palace.


    Behind him, the Queen''s bedchamber together with the white light column in the sky disappeared, leaving no trace behind.


    It was raining buckets in the Western Capital, as if the sky had sprung a leak. Standing on the huge ground outside the bedchamber, Yan Yuntian held on to Luo Xuehuan''s corpse with the golden Gang Qi encircling him. No one knew what was going on his mind.


    With the exception of Zhou Bao, no one dared to bother him now. However, Zhou Bao was not in the least concerned about him. In the side chamber, his pregnant wife was waiting for him.


    He rushed towards the side chamber as he exited the bedchamber. With Grand Tutor standing in front of the door to guard his wife, nothing dangerous would happen. Upon seeing Zhou Bao running towards him, Grand Tutor was greatly relieved and made an unusual gesture. He saluted Zhou Bao, and then said, "Your Excellency, luckily, I lived up to my promise!"


    Zhou Bao smiled and pointed in the direction behind him, showing that he had managed to get Yan Yuntian out.


    The two went in the opposite direction with Zhou Bao entering the side chamber and Grand Tutor rushing to the bedchamber. Yan Yunfei looked better now. As soon as she saw Zhou Bao coming, a mixed feeling of delight and worry appeared on her face.


    "Zhou Bao...!"


    "Don''t worry, it''s all right!" Zhou Bao came up to her bed and supported her gently. Again, he sent a blast of Yang Oi to her and said, "We shall bid farewell to your father and return to the northwest region when he recovers his spirits!"


    "Go back? Now?" Yan Yunfei was surprised. With some hesitation, she glanced at Zhou Bao and asked, "Why? My mother...!"


    "You''re pregnant now and Western Capital is not safe!" said Zhou Bao. Although his voice was gentle, his words contained an incontrovertible power.


    "But...!"


    "No more buts. This matter is becoming too troublesome. It may involve your brothers. I am guessing you don''t want to stay here and witness your father and his sons fighting against each other."


    "Father and son? What do you mean?" Never having encountered such a situation before, Yan Yunfei looked so astonished with her mouth agape. She again began to worry about her father.


    "Well, since that''s the case, the following mess is inevitable. We can''t stay here any longer. You can go to sleep now. When you wake up, we''ll bid farewell to your father. We must return to the Wuyang Region as soon as possible!" As Zhou Bao spoke these words, a faint fragrance wafted from his fingers. Upon inhaling it, Yan Yunfei felt sleepy instantly.


    It was the Anesthetic Pill!


    Zhou Bao had bought this prescription from an out of luck person many years ago and it had saved his life. As time passed, he found its power became more and more amazing. Both the Anesthetic Pill and Drowsy Drug had strong hypnotic effects, and at the same time could also calm the mind. Therefore, wherever he went, he would bring some pills with him and take some whenever he was fretful and needed to calm himself down. Never did he expect that he would have to use it on his wife.


    However, it was the only option he had in order to let her have a rest at this time because of her delicate condition.


    After Yan Yunfei had fallen asleep, Zhou Bao stayed in the side chamber all the time. Although he was invited several times, he refused all invitations.


    He was determined to avoid getting involved in this mess. Since his own affairs had not been settled yet, he was not in the mood to help Yan Yuntian. After Yan Yunfei woke up, he would accompany her to bid farewell to Yan Yuntian. Yan Yuntian supported their departure as well because Zhou Bao was too powerful and he did not know what was in Zhou Bao''s mind. If Zhou Bao were to stay at Western Capital, it would not be good for him, so it was better to send him away. He was convinced that even without the presence of an expert like Zhou Bao, he would still be able to control the situation even though this time around, he had been tricked by someone. He believed that this would be the last time. Since then, he had become much more alert and no one would be able to trick him so easily again.


    Yan Yunfei was unwilling to leave in a hurry, but since both Zhou Bao and Yan Yuntian seemed so determined, she had nothing to say. Thus, she just bowed to Luo Xuehuan''s corpse several times and left with Zhou Bao.


    As soon as Zhou Bao left, the situation at Western Capital and the entire Jin Dynasty underwent a great change and a great drama started unfolding.


    However, all these things had nothing to do with Zhou Bao and neither was he keen to be involved.


    "Haha, finally, we are home. Damn! How could such a blunder take place in Western Capital? It really freaked me out!" Zhou Bao''s journey back took lesser time than the journey going to Western Capital. Now, since Yan Yunfei was pregnant, he had to do everything very cautiously.


    "Zhou Bao, my mother is dead and my father was attacked by an assassin, but we just left him to be on his own, so I think...!"


    "Yunfei, do not belittle your father. It''s just that someone has plotted against him this time. When he is better prepared, he will surely be able to take control of the situation at Western Capital!"


    Zhou Bao said gently, "I will be of no use to him even if I stay there. On the contrary, he will be distracted because he has to be on guard against me. In this way, he cannot do anything at will!"


    "Why does he need to be on his guard with you? You can help him!"


    "Your father practices the Way of the Emperor, so it is in his nature not to trust anyone. His priority is to have control over everything. Since I am so powerful that he cannot control me, even though I saved him, he would never be at ease if I were to remain there. And that is the reason why I left. Hence, our leaving is good for your father. In that case, he can focus all his energy on handling this matter!" As he spoke, he gently caressed Yan Yunfei''s belly and added, "Furthermore, even if he had asked me to stay there, I would not have agreed to his request. I''m sure that it is safer in the northwest region. The situation at West Capital is too chaotic especially with so many complex influences intermingling with each other. I''m afraid that I cannot protect you there!"


    "But you mentioned that perhaps my father and brothers would fight against each other, I...!"


    "The struggles between the father and sons, the monarch and his subjects are very common, even from long before. You were born into an imperial family, so I guess you must be familiar with this kind of thing!"


    "Of course I am. But I didn''t expect that it would happen to me. My father is so aggressive and mighty, how could anyone dare to make him a target?" Yan Yunfei looked very sad.


    "Forget it. Don''t think too much about it. The only thing you need to do now is to have plenty of rest. Do you understand?" Zhou Bao gently pacified her and continued, "Even if your father finds out who the initiator is, it''s no big deal, because I can go to Western Capital again and bring him here. I don''t believe that your father will actually come here and ask me to hand over your brother to him. If he does, I''ll kick his ass!"


    "Don''t be rude to my father!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Yan Yunfei was annoyed and scolded him.


    "Fine, fine, fine. I won''t be rude to him. Have some porridge and then take a rest. Don''t bother yourself with all of this!"


    "Ok!" Yan Yunfei nodded in agreement and ate the porridge in Zhou Bao''s hands obediently.


    ...


    "Congratulations, Your Excellency!"


    Zhou Bao did not intentionally conceal the news that Yan Yunfei was pregnant. Word got out and soon all the people in the Wuyang Region went wild with excitement, especially his subordinates such as Jiang Xiao and Wang Cheng. They all came to congratulate him. Since the establishment of the Wuyang Region, the only happy event since then had been Zhou Bao''s marriage. Now, Yan Yunfei was pregnant, without a doubt, it would be another important and happy event. Even if Zhou Bao wanted to keep a low profile, his subordinates definitely would not be willing to do so.


    Apart from his subordinates, his relatives would not agree to do so either. These days, with the development of the Wuyang Region, some of the Zhou''s family estates in Qingyang Market had gradually moved to the Wuyang Region. Qingyang Market was good and was near their ancestral land as well, but in the final analysis, it did not belong to them. However, the Wuyang Region now totally belonged to the Zhou''s and it was also their future foundation. Although Old Zhou was not a highly educated person, he knew how to make a choice when encountering a situation like this.


    The Zhou''s were poor in the early days and did not have many relatives at that time. Since Zhou Bao had become famous and powerful, more and more relatives had come out of the woodwork. Presently, the Zhou''s had a huge tribe near Qingyang Market. On the Wuyang Region, there were also a bunch of relatives belonging to the Zhou''s.


    Zhou Bao could not be bothered with these affairs. He handed the matter over to Jiang Xiao and Wang Cheng and asked them to treat these people equally.


    That was easy to say, however, how could Jiang Xiao treat them equally since they were Zhou Bao''s relatives?


    Therefore, in the Wuyang Region, people belonging to the Zhou family were taken good care of. If they were doing business here, they did not need to pay taxes and they all had high standings. However, no one dared to misbehave or create problems just because they were related to Zhou Bao. Since Zhou Bao had killed a bully, his uncle, in the presence of all the inhabitants of the Wuyang Region, no one had the guts to act irrationally from then on.


    However, except for this matter, people in the Wuyang Region really treated the Zhou''s very well because they all appreciated Zhou Bao. Now, since Yan Yunfei was pregnant, regardless of the sex of the baby, the next heir of the Wuyang Region was guaranteed. This was good news for the Zhou''s because it involved them personally. They needed to celebrate it either publicly or privately.


    Hence, some elders of the Zhou''s came to visit Zhou Bao early the next morning after his return. On the third day, the surrounding territory also got the news and sent some men to congratulate him. Everyone knew that he already was the dominator of the northwest region, and before long, the Wuyang Region would dominate the entire northwest region. Therefore, of course, it was better to ingratiate themselves with Zhou Bao earlier.


    In fact, aside from the lords of the northwest region, many sects in Jin, including the Tian Long Taoism, Mingyi School, southern Sect of Flame, and most well-known families all sent their emissaries to the Wuyang Region to congratulate Zhou Bao after they received this news. Over the next few days, they came in a continuous stream.


    Zhou Bao had never expected this situation to happen.


    "Oh, no, it''s really troublesome!"


    Watching the gifts that piling up like a hill, Zhou Bao smiled bitterly. His stay at Lord Mansion was limited because he was required to go to Borderline Mountain.


    Although his presence was required only three months later, he still needed some time to head to Borderline Mountain from here. Furthermore, he had to prepare for the journey as well, so how could he possibly entertain these people?


    However, no matter how reluctant he felt, he had no other choice. Since they came all the way here to congratulate him, if he did not entertain them, they would feel humiliated. He could neglect other people but not people from the Tian Long Taoism, Immortal Palace, and Divine Wind Palace.


    Yes, even the Immortal Palace and Divine Wind Palace had sent their men over to congratulate him.


    The man sent over by the Immortal Palace was Moon Deer of Extended Net. Of course, his presence was nothing but a show. Recently, he had been in the Wuyang Region all the time. The reason why he appeared before the public in this way was that the Immortal Palace was not willing to reveal their relationship with Zhou Bao. However, the one that came from the Divine Wind Palace was Li VII.


    The Third Supervisor of School of Five Virtues, Li VII.


    He came here with two purposes; one was to congratulate Zhou Bao, and the other was to get ready for a trip to Borderline Mountain three months later to pursue Ye Qingtian.


    The quest to pursue Ye Qingtian was led by Divine Wind Palace with other influences joining in. But in the final analysis, the most powerful one was Zhou Bao. Restricted by the agreement reached by the Four Eastern Regions and Three Western Regions, listed immortals were not allowed to cross each other''s borders at will. That was to say, the men who were sent to pursue Ye Qingtian this time were all experts below the Mysterious Realm.

 Chapter 406: Hunting Down

    Chapter 406: Hunting Down


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Things are troublesome this time. It is a long-standing rule that experts of Mysterious Realm shall not cross the border, but this rule is subject to the Golden Book of Fate. Even if the sects of Three Western Regions give us permission to do that, we still cannot cross the border!"


    When he saw Li VII, Li VII already had a smile of mischief on his face. He then continued to congratulate him.


    Zhou Bao already heard it thousands of times, so he just saluted with his hands folded in front of his chest and said, "Third Supervisor, you are indeed flattering me. I''m so sorry for bothering you with such a trivial matter."


    "This is not a trivial matter. This is something huge!" Li VII smiled and said, "Besides, this time I came here mainly for the matter of Borderline Mountain that will happen in three months, and while I''m at it, to also congratulate you."


    "Oh, about that matter. Why, does Third Supervisor have some special instructions for me?"


    "No, no. All sects have dispatched their strongest team to Borderline Mountain. However, the combat capability is still lagging behind on the whole." Li VII sighed.


    "Lagging behind? No way. I''ve heard that there is a total of 17 people including me, but the other side has only three people!"


    "No one knows how many people Ye Qingtian have. Maybe they have other accomplices, who knows?" Speaking of that, he sighed gently, "You have to understand that Ye Qingtian has stayed in the Penglai Region all the time, but the person who possesses the Fiery Eyes and the assassin who has Pure Yang Celestial Device have never shown up before in Four Eastern Regions. We have reasons to believe that their base has always been hidden in Three Western Regions. And I''m afraid, they have more than three people!"


    "So this is just about sending us to die?" Zhou Bao''s expression changed when he figured out what was going on.


    At first, Zhou Bao did not think twice when the Divine Wind Palace told him that they were putting up a team to hunt Ye Qingtian down.


    Ye Qingtian had openly ganged up with the remnant of Fiery Eyes, which was bound to induce the others to chase after him. There should not be any dirty trick. If the Divine Wind Palace did not hunt him down, then there must be something wrong in it. Now they put up a team to go after Ye Qingtian in the Three Western Regions, but not a single Individual Immortal at Mysterious Realm level was in the team, which made Zhou Bao worried. Ye Qingtian was too powerful and he even had a fairy weapon with him, so his combat capability definitely surpassed most experts at Mysterious Realm. Needless to say, there was an unparalleled expert who grabbed the projection of Golden Book of Fate and possessed the Fiery Eyes. Obviously, if they still owned some foundation or bases in the Three Western Regions, these 17 people stepping into the Three Western Regions would mean that they were seeking their doom!


    That was obviously a trap!


    "Of course I would not ask you to die for me!" Li VII had expected how Zhou Bao would respond to it. "Trust me. This time, we are well-prepared, and the sects in Three Western Regions will not make things difficult for you both in public and in private. They will even give you some help when necessary. Although Ye Qingtian has a fairy weapon, we Divine Wind Palace have Yu Nantian this time, who is from the Yu family. Though his cultivation is only at Level Nine, his combat capability is way stronger than normal Metaphysic Individual Immortals and is not inferior to Ye Qingtian." Speaking of it, he threw a glimpse at Zhou Bao, "Most importantly, Yu Nantian also has a fairy weapon with him, a special one to oppress the North Pole Frozen Wheel of Ye Qingtian. So, you don''t have to worry about his fairy weapon, let alone the remnant of Fiery Eyes. Golden Book of Fate is not so easy to be refined. It''s impossible for him to completely comprehend the Golden Book of Fate within ten years even though he has owned the projection of Golden Book of Fate. Most importantly, when he is comprehending the Golden Book of Fate, he is unable to use the power of Fiery Eyes!"


    "Can this even happen?" Zhou Bao was shocked, but he did not show it. He just pretended to be curious and asked, "Why?"


    "No one knows why, but it is a fact that the Fiery Eyes was annihilated for this back then. They attempted to take full control over the Golden Book of Fate, but their most powerful Elders temporarily lost the power of Fiery Eyes during the process, resulting in a huge decrease in their combat capability!"


    "That is to say, no one actually knows whether the Fiery Eyes can control the Golden Book of Fate or not!"


    "No, the Fiery Eyes can definitely control the Golden Book of Fate, but they didn''t have enough time!"


    "Since the Elders of Fiery Eyes failed, how can you be so sure about it?"


    "If the Fiery Eyes couldn''t control the Golden Book of Fate, that guy wouldn''t have grabbed the Golden Book of Fate in Taiyuan Heaven so smoothly," Li VII said.


    "That is not necessarily true. What if Fiery Eyes only had some common traits as Golden Book of Fate''s, so he could use them to snatch the Golden Book of Fate, but in fact, the Fiery Eyes can''t apprehend a complete control over the Golden Book of Fate?"


    "It doesn''t matter. As long as this possibility exists, it could be a huge threat to us. We must annihilate it in the cradle!" Li VII said cooly, "The reason I''m here today is not to discuss the Fiery Eyes, but to ask you a favor for the purpose of this chase!"


    "Damn, of course it''s important. I have Fiery Eyes too!"When Zhou Bao heard Li VII said it was not important, he almost shouted out loud. "Divine Wind Palace has the largest number of disciples. Since you are the Third Supervisor of School of Five Virtues, if you have something to do, just ask them to do it for you. Why did you come to me? I may not be able to help you!"


    "I can''t ask them for help, so I turned to you!" Li VII put up a forced smile.


    "What''s the matter?"


    "It''s Ye Qingtian. I want you to save Ye Qingtian''s life for me when necessary!"


    "What? Save Ye Qingtian?" Zhou Bao almost jumped up when he heard that. "This time we are going to hunt Ye Qingtian down, not to bodyguard him!"


    "That''s why I''m here for you!" Li VII smiled wryly at him. "Although you are nominally related to Immortal Palace, you don''t belong to any party, so you are my last hope. I know you and Ye Qingtian are enemies with huge hatred. This hatred can be solved. To be honest, you two didn''t have any serious grudge at all!"


    "No any serious grudge? It''s easy for you to say it. I''ve grabbed his Sky-measuring Star Ruler and ruined his plan in Taiyuan Heaven. After getting out of Taiyuan Heaven, he went to my territory and made troubles. It won''t be easy to dissolve this hatred!"


    "This is not a blood feud!" Li VII interrupted and said, "If there are enough benefits, this hatred could be solved!"


    "Benefits?" Zhou Bao frowned and appeared to be intrigued by it, "What benefits?"


    "Huge benefits!"


    "Third Supervisor, don''t keep me guessing. I''m always a profit-driven person. If you really want me to help you, you should tell me everything. I don''t want to be fooled!"


    "I wouldn''t do that!" Hearing the words of Zhou Bao, Li VII laughed, "Ye Qingtian knows the secrets of Big Dipper Emperor. Sky-measuring Star Ruler and the North Pole Frozen Wheel are just two of those secrets. The Taihao Fairy Weapons seem precious now, but in antiquity times, they were easy to find. Above all, Big Dipper Emperor owned one of the 33 Heavens, the Constellation Heaven, whose secrets may be known to Ye Qingtian!"


    "The Constellation Heaven?" Zhou Bao blinked, greediness sparkling in his eyes, but soon he was back to normal.


    "Constellation Heaven belonged to Big Dipper Emperor. His Big Dipper Palace was also built in it. There were all the treasures of Big Dipper Emperor in that palace. If you could take up one or two pieces of those treasures, they would be more valuable than normal Taihao Fairy Weapons, let alone the entire Big Dipper Palace!" Seeing Zhou Bao interested in it, Li VII spiced things up a bit.


    "It''s not easy. He knows the secrets of Constellation Heaven, but so what? Even if I was willing to reconcile with him, he wouldn''t be so sure to compromise. The grudge between us is way too deep!"


    "No harm trying!" Seeing the greed flash in Zhou Bao''s eyes, Li VII felt a bit relieved and said, "I have some dealings with Ye Qingtian. Hehe, White Tiger tried his best to stick to Ye Qingtian in Penglai Region, but failed anyway, because I tampered with it. If I hadn''t, maybe Ye Qingtian would have already been a disciple of Immortal Palace 10 years ago!"


    Zhou Bao was stunned and uttered no words. After a while, he sighed and said, "I see. How firm is your relationship with him? Can you really settle the grudge between him and me?"


    Now Zhou Bao seemed to be enchanted by the huge benefits Li VII described.


    "Of course, Ye Qingtian owed me a life back in the days. Although he is not a good man, he always repays the kindness he receives, and revenge on whoever hurt him. As long as I act as a mediator and you show enough sincerity, everything will be fine!"


    "I can try, but you have to know that I am on the team to hunt him down this time. A brutal fight is inevitable. How can I win his trust?"


    "That is simple!" As Li VII spoke, he took off his green jade ring and handed it over to Zhou Bao. "If you got a chance to meet him alone, show him this ring and tell him that someone from Myriad Gooses Tower wants to cooperate with him, and then he should know what I mean!"


    "Got it!" Zhou Bao took the ring and waved his hands, and then it was stored in his divided space. Regarding the relationship between Li VII and Ye Qingtian, Zhou Bao did not ask about the details. Apparently, Li VII did not want to talk much about it.


    "By the way, there''s one more thing."


    "What is it?"


    "You have to be careful around Yu Nantian. This guy is crafty and he is the nephew of the lord. He''s got a lot of dirty tricks. If he wants to go against you, you will be in a lot of trouble!"


    "He wants to go against me? I don''t even know him!" Zhou Bao was puzzled.


    "Some people are born to be enemies, just like you and Yu Nantian!"

 Chapter 407: Heaven

    Chapter 407: Heaven


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Born to be enemies? I don''t get it!"


    Zhou Bao was a bit irritated that he was arranged a destined enemy. It was the first time that he had heard of the name, how could Yu Nantian become his destined enemy?


    "You will know when you meet him!" Speaking of Yu Nantian, Li VII forced a smile, "He is from Yu family and the Yu families call themselves the offsprings of Yu Emperor. Most of its clansmen practice Way of the Emperor and they are all muddled now. Now the leader of the disciples from Divine Wind Palace in the killing squad is Yu Nantian, but he will not only control those from Divine Wind Palace, he will also try to control the 17 of you!"


    "This hunt-down was initiated by Divine Wind Palace. It''s not a big deal to let him lead the team!"


    "It''s easy for you to say it now, but will you listen to him when the time comes?"


    "I will listen to what I should listen, and ignore those that I should ignore. If he asks me to die, will I do that? No!"


    "Exactly. You are not willing to be a subordinate, so you won''t get along with him. Let me first warn you that Yu Nantian has a fairy weapon. What I worry most is that his fairy weapon may be used to handle you instead of Ye Qingtian. You are nominally from Immortal Palace, but you''re actually are not that close to Immortal Palace, so Immortal Palace will not become an enemy of Divine Wind Palace for you. You actually are the least advantageous in these 17 people. If Yu Nantian wants to establish his authority, you are the perfect target for him."


    "So troublesome!" Zhou Bao shook his head, "Are you sure he will peck at me first?"


    "As long as you get caught by him on the wrong side, he will definitely peck at you. Those who practice Way of the Emperor are all insane!"


    "Hmm, Way of the Emperor is one of the 3,000 Great Ways, but it is not the reason to drive people crazy. If he had to peck at me, I wouldn''t mind pecking at him as well!"


    "He has a fairy weapon!"


    "So what? With his Level-Nine strength, he needs to practice more to activate the power of his fairy weapon!"


    "Even if he is not strong enough to activate that power, he is strong enough to handle you!" Seeing how careless and casual Zhou Bao was, Li VII said, "Try to think about what happened to Living Buddha Ba Siba. He was the Individual Immortal of Mysterious Realm, but he couldn''t even fight back when facing that fairy weapon. Your combat capability may be higher than Ba Siba, but once you are confronted with a fairy weapon, you will not be able to fight back!"


    "I will be careful." Realizing Li VII was serious about it, Zhou Bao did not know what to say. Suddenly, he thought of something and asked, "The incident in Western Capital. Was that done by you and Crown Prince?"


    Li VII did not expect Zhou Bao to ask such a question, and he was in a daze for a moment before saying, "Why do you think so?"


    "That trap was simple but fatal. Crown Prince was the one who would gain the most benefits from the death of the Emperor. If I wasn''t there, Crown Prince would have already been crowned. Right?" Zhou Bao looked at Li VII with a faint smile on his face and said, "I know you have something to do with Crown Prince. Such a fatal trap could hardly be set by Crown Prince alone, so I guess it was you who helped Crown Prince to do it."


    "Yes, we did it. In fact, we even counted you in our plan. But we underestimated you. We never expected that you would be able to save Yan Yuntian." Speaking of that, he sighed and said, "and we never could have foreseen such a coincidence!"


    "It meant that Yan Yuntian shouldn''t die because of that." Zhou Bao laughed, "What happened to Elder Chen? I heard that he had been Prime Minister for dozens of years. Although he has retired now, he still participates in politics before the Emperor and enjoys a huge power. Why did he get involved into this?"


    "Why are you so interested in the affairs of the imperial court?" Li VII did not answer the question directly but looked at Zhou Bao with interest instead.


    "I''m just curious. Older fellows like Elder Chen should be the most loyal towards the Emperor. Why did he stir up such a huge event? Was he tired of living?"


    "Everyone has their own ideas and dreams. Elder Chen thought quite differently from Yan Yuntian. When Yan Yuntian was on the throne, he could hardly realize his dreams, so he had to do this."


    "Wasn''t he afraid of being found out?"


    "Do you think this kind of thing could be done in the heat of the moment?" Li VII smiled, "Every possibility was considered clearly before the incident. We have already chosen the best scapegoat, so Crown Prince or Elder Chen will not get involved in this!" Li VII smiled and said, "What? Do you want to meddle in this?"


    "Here is the thing. My wife doesn''t want to see a family tragedy where a father fights with his son. If the scapegoat you chose was the son of Yan Yuntian, please do me a favor, don''t let him die." Zhou Bao laughed and said, "There is nothing more important than my wife now. Supervisor, you do know what I mean, don''t you?"


    "Yes, of course. I had the exact same feeling as yours when I became a father for the first time." Li VII laughed out loud, "Just relax. Things will not be that bad where a father fights against his son. Hehe, but if you want this to end well, I will let it end well."


    After seeing Li VII off, Zhou Bao sat on a chair and meditated for a long time.


    "Yu Nantian and fairy weapon? This is a bit troublesome."


    Zhou Bao also had fairy weapons. He had Furnace of Immortality, but it was fixed with the space he gained. They were infusing and evolving, so he was not able to use it. Even if he activated it reluctantly, he would not only be unable to use its power but also would receive feedback damages. That was to say, if he really went against Yu Nantian, he might be disadvantageous without a fairy weapon.


    "Damn it, why did he practice the god damn Way of the Emperor. What a maniac!" Zhou Bao swore to himself and thought for a moment, "Since I can''t use Furnace of Immortality, I can use another one. Green Spirit said my strength was not enough to use that fairy weapon. But now I''ve gained a huge increase in my cultivation, even if I failed to activate it, at least I could master some of its secrets. Three months is a short period of time for me to study it. I hope I could have some gains, otherwise, I have to keep a low profile." He was depressed by this inward thought. Then he went to the backyard and took a look at Yan Yunfei. However, ever since they came back from the capital city, Yan Yunfei was in a bad mood. Zhou Bao could not do anything to fix it. After all, although he saved Yan Yuntian, Luo Xuehuan died in front of Yan Yunfei.


    That was what Zhou Bao regretted most. If he had known that Yan Yunfei was pregnant, he would never have brought her back to Western Capital. Although Luo Xuehuan was not her biological mother, Yan Yunfei grew up with her, so the relationship between them was better than biological families. Now that she was dead, how would Yan Yunfei feel better at this point?


    Once the pregnant woman was in a foul mood, it would affect the baby. Therefore, Zhou Bao was worried, so he cursed Li VII and Crown Prince very hard in his mind. Why would they choose such a timing when his wife was pregnant to give him trouble? Were they not giving him more troubles of his own?


    However, they must be very upset now. How could Zhou Bao''s wife be pregnant now? They definitely thought that Zhou Bao was going against them as well.


    Sitting on the bedside of Yan Yunfei, Zhou Bao consoled her for a while and said a dozen of jokes that he saw on the Internet in the previous life. There was finally a grin on her face. After Zhou Bao accompanied her to have a nice meal and help her sleep, he was relieved. Zhou Bao went back to the secret room in Jilei Mountain and took out that scarlet gourd.


    This gourd was pretty weird. There was no problem for him to activate this gourd. He could do it anytime he wanted. Not only him, those Level Nine experts, and even Level Eight experts could activate it as well. Once it was activated, it will be endowed with the power of a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Moreover, the powerful Qi of Pure Yang would diffuse to everywhere. By the time it would be nothing different from a Pure Yang Celestial Device. No wonder the people of Divine Wind Palace would use it as a Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    But then again, this thing could be used as a Pure Yang Celestial Device, but it would waste a lot of Internal Qi and Real Essence. People like Zhou Bao could still bear this waste, but if the others activated it, it would not take them long to exhaust all their Internal Qi and Real Essence.


    "Come on, the Heavenly Fairy Weapon, I want to know what''s your differences from the Taihao Fairy Weapon." Zhou Bao mumbled to himself and put his spiritual mind and divine thoughts into the scarlet gourd.


    "Hell, no!" The moment his divine thoughts and spiritual mind was injected, Zhou Bao felt something was wrong, totally wrong. What kind of fairy weapon was it? It was obviously a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Shafts of incantation flooded into his divine thoughts and formed a perfect talisman formation. This talisman formation looked like the one on Zhou Bao''s Golden Flame Mirror. It was exactly a talisman formation of a Pure Yang Celestial Device. As for the talisman formation of fairy weapon, Zhou Bao definitely knew that after he had practiced the head of an Innate Deity into a Furnace of Immortality, instead of being carved, the talisman formation of a fairy weapon would gradually evolve, which was way more complicated than the talisman formation of a Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    "Damn, does it mean that Green Spirit was treating me like a fool? This is actually an authentic Pure Yang Celestial Device?" Zhou Bao whispered to himself and took a closer look at it.


    "No, there is something wrong with it. This talisman formation is reversed. It''s used to block, not to attack." All of a sudden, Zhou Bao figured out something, "That is to say, I have to break this talisman formation to see what this gourd truly is!"


    Now that the divine thoughts of Zhou Bao were in the gourd, he found nothing special with this gourd. The inner space was as big as the exact size of this gourd. At the bottom of the inner space of this gourd, there was a pale gold talisman formation glittering faint light and thin Pure Yang Qi. It was nothing but a normal Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    "This talisman formation seems unbreakable. There must be a way in!" Zhou Bao thought to himself with a purple light flashing between his eyebrows. A piece of divine thought rushed out with a purple light and darted towards that talisman formation.

 Chapter 408: Initial Completion of Natal Sword

    Chapter 408: Initial Completion of Natal Sword


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    BOOM!


    Zhou Bao only felt like his divine thoughts ran into a solid wall. The purple spirit almost bounced off it. But at this exact moment, something strange happened. Glimmers of purple light shining in the divine thoughts turned into numerous purple thunder filaments and twined around the talisman formation.


    The light on the formation flashed several times, but the lightning filament. At this point in time, Zhou Bao sensed the formation seem to have changed into a strange lid. By lifting up the lid gently, he could open the formation to find the real secrets of the red gourd. On the other hand, he felt a strong sense of threat, as if he would face a great danger once he lifts up the cover.


    Killing intent!


    The killing intent was scary. It was faint but managed to penetrate into Zhou Bao''s bones marrow. It gushed from the talisman formation. In the beginning, it was light, but as time passed by, and as the time that the formation suppressed by Zhou Bao''s purple spirit increased, the killing intent gradually began to boil, as if it had already found an exit.


    The talisman formation was still a lid, but the lid now seemed to be unable to suppress the boiling water below.


    "Hiss!" Zhou Bao inhaled a cold breath and tint of cold, killing intent was mixed in it. The killing intent impaled his purple divine thoughts directly. The divine thoughts bounced suddenly and countless purple thunder filament vanished into thin air. Subsequently, the divine thoughts bounced back between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows.


    Without the suppression by the purple divine thoughts, the talisman formation seemed to return to normal. Its pale light flashing again, concealing all the murderous intent.


    "What horrible killing intent!" Zhou Bao shivered with his eyes closed. While the tinge of killing intent did not destroy Zhou Bao''s divine thoughts, it was brought back by his divine thoughts, and it triggered his spirit directly.


    Zhou Bao hadn''t felt such strong killing intent before, not even in the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. In that instant, he seemed to have entered a cold world of killing intent. There was no heat nor emotion. Nothing but the chilly killing intent.


    As if falling into a nightmare, Zhou Bao could not get away from this cold world. Though he was clear of what he wanted to do, he was unable to move at all, as if he was tied up by an impalpable rope.


    He wanted to activate his Internal Qi and Real Essence but he could not feel anything. It was as if he returned to his previous life, to the body of the ordinary Wang Bo.


    "Am I dead? Or alive!" Besides the initial bewilderment, Zhou Bao quickly calmed himself down and began to feel his killing intent.


    An unknown amount of time passed before the shivering body moved violently. As his mouth opened, a black and red Sword Qi spurted out and floated in mid-air before him. Afterwards, the red light between his eyebrows suddenly flashed and a streak of black light was quickly discharged, aiming at the Sword Qi.


    lowly, Zhou Bao opened his eyes. His body was already soaked with sweat. It was not until he sensed his surroundings moving that he realized nine Fire Dragons were hovering around him. In his body, the extremely dense Real Essence was thumping around. The Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique was fully activated and the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument was condensed. Even the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit also appeared around him. How could his small secret room withstand such torment? If not for the surrounding formation, it would have already collapsed. The formation was now in peril and it might crash any time from the impact of his strong power.


    "Hoo, why is this strange thing happening!" Zhou Bao let out a long breath to stabilize the disorganized and messy Real Essence in his body. Then he withdrew the disorderly Gang Qi into his body. That took him almost 2 hours. With everything arranged, he then paid his attention to the Sword Qi of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword that was still suspending before him.


    Just now, at the most dangerous time, he mobilized Sword Qi of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. It was the most appropriate thing that he had done. His Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword had already evolved into a tinge of killing intent in the Primordial Origin, exactly compatible with the killing intent that escaped from the gourd. The two encountered each other and rushed out of Zhou Bao''s body desperately to integrate.


    Though the black and red Sword Qi that from Zhou Bao seemed to be faint, they were all the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi he practiced for all these years.


    After the body''s recuperation, Zhou Bao began to focus on evolving Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi. Initially, his practice of the sword Qi was not up to standard. He also did not fully understand the true meaning of killing intent, homicidal intent, and murderous intent. Hence, he could only use a bit of the power of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Later on, he figured out that the infusion of Sword Qi with his murderous intent and killing intent were very powerful, although not up to the invincible level.


    But now, after stealing a tinge of congenital murderous intent from the red gourd to integrate with his sword Qi, Zhou Bao felt the wonderful power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    But now, the word ''wonderful'' was not enough to describe its power. This unique oppressive killing intent exuded from the Sword Qi was the most important.


    "It seems somewhat incomplete!" Looking at the faint integrated black and red Sword Qi, Zhou Bao felt its lack. Raising his hand, he summoned the wisp of Sword Qi into his palm. However, he saw that the black and red spirit surged and raged to engulf and melt all the murderous intent.


    After a long time, the disorderly surge and rage of black and red sword Qi gradually became orderly. Small talismans gathered and condensed. Eventually, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi actually began to take shape.


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was refined by two extreme Evil Qi ¡ª Ying and Yang. It then evolved into a unique sword Qi. However, the growth of the killing intent not only needed time, but also the savvy of practitioners. At the end of the day, Zhou Bao was not a homicidal maniac, so he did not have enough killing intent. In a sense, he was just a lucky ordinary person. Therefore, it was not advantageous for him to practice this special technique that focused on killing. Honestly speaking, it would be a complete waste of the sword. Though he comprehended something recently, it was still impossible for him to reach the Advanced Level.


    Nevertheless, the conditions have changed. The wisp of congenital killing intent exuded from the gourd was exactly compatible with Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. The integration and evolvement of the two, unexpectedly pushed the power of this special technique to its limit. This invisible and shapeless Sword Qi evolved accordingly into a visible and defined Natal Sword!


    Natal Sword!


    Unlike sword essence, the Internal Qi of sword practitioners in the medieval period could turn into Real Essence after their practice reached an advanced level. They were collectively called sword essence. Therefore, the so-called sword essence was actually the same concept as the Real Essence, but Natal Sword was totally different. Natal Sword was formed by condensing one''s sword essence and then accumulating it to a certain level so that it undergoes qualitative changes. From then it will evolve into a matter. It was similar to the qualitative change one undergoes after a breakthrough from Level Nine to Mysterious Realm. The power of Natal Sword was more than a hundred times stronger than the sword essence.


    Among sword practitioners in the medieval period, there were few people who practiced a Natal Sword, all of whom were earthshaking outstanding experts.


    Once the Natal Sword was made, the color of earth and heaven would change.


    Only the one who had practiced the sword had the right to talk about the so-called Supreme Swordplay.


    Natal Sword was just the beginning of the Supreme Swordplay.


    Though the Natal Sword was powerful, there were various levels of strength. Different practice would incur different powers. The stronger the Sword Qi used for practice, the more difficult it would be to condense it into a Natal Sword. For example, Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword itself was the most culminant special technique of swordsmanship with ghastly killing intent. It was about right for him to comprehend a tinge of killing intent. If he wanted to practice Natal Sword with his own power, he could forget about it.


    But today, with the help of the congenital killing intent from the red gourd, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword inexplicably evolved into a Natal Sword. Though it was only at the basic level, its potential threat was a little too overwhelming for Zhou Bao.


    "Heh heh, Natal Sword, Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword''s Natal Sword. This is unexpected!" Zhou Bao looked at the transparent tiny sword suspended before him. It was cold and only 3.9 inches long, and shaped like an ordinary dagger. Wrapped by layers of murderous intent, the sword was like a fierce beast who would swallow people as it liked.


    The corners of Zhou Bao''s eyes twitched, and so did the corners of his mouth.


    This Natal Sword belonged to him. He knew, he understood, and was also aware, that he could control it with his mind as he liked. But the problem was that he dared not store it in his body.


    "Can my body withstand it?" Though he had absorbed the remains of Innate Deity, Zhou Bao was still unsure of the abilities of his body. When the killing intent of the Natal Sword was hidden and not released, ordinary people would feel nothing. However, the hairs on Zhou Bao''s body were already standing, as if his body was resisting the sword.


    The Sword Qi was ghastly and the killing intent was surging. Just when Zhou Bao was contemplating whether or not to store the Natal Sword in his body, there were some changes happening to the sword. It gradually became crystal-like, and a faint red light started flashed across the sword before it turned into a ruby masterpiece.


    The killing intent surged for a while before it was completely hidden, leaving the pale ruby sword suspending in the air. There was no more killing intent. Zhou Bao felt relaxed all over his body and a tinge of tiny intimacy was released from the Natal Sword.


    Intimacy?


    Naturally, this sword belonged to him, but if you wanted him to store it in his body, that would be a different story.


    "External Elixir of the Fiery Eyes, let me try to put it away with External Elixir of the Fiery Eyes!"


    After thinking about it for quite a while, Zhou Bao made his decision. His Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi was stored in External Elixir of Fiery Eyes. When the Natal Sword was formed, the intimacy was first produced by his External Elixir of Fiery Eyes. However, he was still hesitant because he was not sure whether it could bear the pneuma of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, even though the elixir was marvelous and Fiery Eyes was known as Eternal Eyes.


    But now, it was not suitable to leave the Natal Sword outside!


    "I can''t be carrying this with me wherever I go in the future right? Who am I trying to scare?"


    "Now that the Fiery Eyes was known as Eternal Eyes, and the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi has always been carefully nourished inside, maybe the Natal Sword will not hurt my External Elixir." Zhou Bao thought. Red light flashed between his eyebrows and a wisp of thin red light was ejected, aiming at the transparent Natal Sword.


    BOOM! Endless killing intent gushed out.


    ...

 Chapter 409: The Power of the Natal Sword

    Chapter 409: The Power of the Natal Sword


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The red light of Zhou Bao''s Fiery Eyes had just touched the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi!


    Soon, they melted into one. After that, an enormous killing intent poured out of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and went into his External Elixir of the Fiery Eyes, with the Natal Sword scattering apart at the same time.


    BOOM!


    Zhou Bao felt as if his forehead was punched by a heavy hammer, and his head was almost about to break into pieces. Nearly at the same time, his Fiery Eyes opened spontaneously and began to function. A dense spurt of the Pure Yang water poured out from the space in the Fiery Eyes and ran into his External Elixir.


    At once, the Pure Yang Water was absorbed by the Sword Qi, and the Natal Sword integrated again into his External Elixir of the Fiery Eyes. This time, Zhou Bao felt that his Natal Sword was more restraining and formidable.


    With bouts of pain rushing from his External Elixir, Zhou Bao''s eyes widened. He was determined to bear this fierce pain. He then inhaled a huge breath to suppress the pain and lifted up his hand to point between his eyebrows.


    Bang!


    The Natal Sword which was fully integrated just now broke into pieces again. Meanwhile, a divine thought entered the Fiery Eyes External Elixir. It then turned into gleaming dots as if it was decomposed by the powerful Sword Essence, before recombining with the Sword Essence around.


    It was a piercing pain, like cutting a soul apart. It went deep into the spirit and the marrows. Zhou Bao''s body trembled again and his sweat was gushing like a fountain.


    The Natal Sword in the Fiery Eyes External Elixir began to come together again. However, as if impeded by something, the reunion this time was thousands of times more difficult than before.


    "Ha!"


    Realizing the difficulty of this integration, Zhou Bao exhaled and yelled. Real Essence poured into his Fiery Eyes External Elixir, and his big Dantian, which consisted of nine acupoints within his body, started to circulate as well.


    Things became better with Zhou Bao''s Real Essence pouring in. The Fiery Eyes External Elixir started to operate. The Sword Essence fused with the divine thoughts, and following the marvelous track of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, they slowly formed a whole new Natal Sword.


    This time, as soon as the Natal Sword Essence was formed, Zhou Bao could feel that his relationship with the Natal Sword was as close as flesh and blood.


    "That''s right! That makes sense! The Natal Sword should at least connect to one''s life, otherwise, how should one control it?" A satisfied smile finally appeared on Zhou Bao''s face. It was only now that he was sure he had really acquired the Natal Sword.


    Looking back at the vermeil gourd, the image of the killing intent rushing into his spirit came to his mind, and Zhou Bao shivered involuntarily.


    The Heavenly Fairy Weapon and the Fairy Weapon of the Way of Killing!


    A wisp of killing intent leaked out, and it almost killed Zhou Bao. If he had not practiced the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, his spirit would have been killed right now.


    "Shit! Green Spirit was right. This isn''t something I could work on right now. I''d better leave it alone for a while!" He then took the vermeil gourd back to the space between two worlds. Thinking of Green Spirit''s warning, Zhou Bao couldn''t help but heave a sigh. He thought inwardly, "The fairy weapons were not something that everyone could activate. The Taihao Fairy Weapon had been formidable enough, and the more superior Heavenly Fairy Weapon is more frightening for sure. If I had opened the talisman formation at the bottom of the gourd irrationally, the whole Wuyang Region would have already been swallowed by the boundless killing intent, let alone myself!"


    "This is a blessing in disguise! I should not be irrational like this again. After all, nothing is more important than my life!"


    He reminded himself that he was not a carefree bachelor anymore. He had a family, but he also killed some people. He should not cause any more trouble at this moment. As for those risky jobs, it would be better to leave them to others.


    After acquiring the Natal Sword, Zhou Bao wanted to witness its power. The Natal Sword had fused with his divine thoughts so that he could control it with his will. In just a thought, a wisp of untouchable and unrivaled Sword Qi rushed out.


    Swish¡ªswish¡ªswish¡ª


    After several soft sounds, the stone wall of this quiet room where he stayed was split into two in a flash by the Sword Qi, and the whole stone room began to shake again. However, it was more dangerous than just now when he was caught in the murderous intent, because there was still a formation protecting the stone room last time. But, right now, together with various Sword Qi, the sword skill he set in this room was cut apart unexpectedly in a twinkling of an eye. All power has been lost.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation!


    Although it was not a complete formation, it could still block a Metaphysic Individual Immortal''s all-out blows. However, right now, it fell into pieces completely after suffering a blow from this small Sword Qi. It had no temper at all, which was way beyond Zhou Bao''s expectation.


    "How could it be this powerful?" As this one thought flitted through his mind, the stone room collapsed.


    "Shit, Shit, I haven''t finished practicing!" At this moment, Zhou Bao was like a newbie driver driving on the expressway, without knowing the functions of the car. As a result, he was in a mess.


    The stone room was located in the middle of the mountain. Its collapse brought the whole mountain down as well, and it was falling down upon Zhou Bao. However, he was not afraid at all. Instead, he started to manipulate the unrivaled Sword Qi. Soon, those falling large stones were all cut apart like chunks of tofu by the Sword Qi. The numerous tiny Sword Qi disintegrated from the Natal Sword moved around Zhou Bao swiftly and formed a vacuum zone around him. No substance existed in this vacuum. Even if there were some, they would be smashed by the Sword Qi.


    Step by step, Zhou Bao walked out of the stone room. Behind him was the whirling dust produced by the collapsed mountain, which completely fell apart under the attack of Zhou Bao''s Sword Qi.


    "Junior Leopard, what''s up?" Stepping out of the stone room, Zhou Bao saw Wang She and the Golden Rooster running towards him. They sensed something unusual here. However, when they were 1000 feet away from Zhou Bao, their expressions altered, both displaying a horrible look. They stopped at the same time and then started to retreat.


    "Don''t come nearer. I have just comprehended something, but I still can''t master it. I can''t guarantee your safety if you come over!" The Sword Qi around Zhou Bao was encircling him, killing everything in its way. Taking this opportunity, Zhou Bao tried to familiarize himself with the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi and the Natal Sword.


    "The Natal Sword and the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword? How did you acquire them?"


    The Golden Rooster still did not know what was going on, but Wang She, who had also practiced the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, had a deeper understanding of the Sword Qi than Zhou Bao. Although the Evil Qi of Zhou Bao and Wang She were different when they practiced, Wang She was very familiar with the Sword Qi. With just one look, he could already see what had happened to Zhou Bao.


    "An Accident! It was totally an accident!" Shaking his hands, Zhou Bao chuckled and said, "There has been an accident. I comprehended something. That''s why I''m like this!"


    Wang She''s eye corners kept convulsing. How could he be calm at this moment?


    The power of his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was good enough, which was one of his trump cards. However, seeing the unrivaled Sword Qi around Zhou Bao, Wang She could still feel a little discouraged because compared with Zhou Bao''s Sword Qi, his was just like a wooden sword.


    The Natal Sword... the Natal Sword... It would take him almost 80 to 100 years to acquire the Natal Sword! Meanwhile, Zhou Bao was so lucky that he did it by an accidental comprehension! This was too unfair!


    However, he should set his jealousy and temper aside. Zhou Bao acquiring the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi was also a good thing to him. He was Zhou Bao''s ally. The more powerful Zhou Bao was, the more benefits he could get.


    "Well, how long will you probably take to control the Sword Qi? If it goes on like this, I''m afraid the whole Jilei Mountain will be whittled flat by you!" Wang She said, frowning.


    Indeed, the Sword Qi around Zhou Bao had formed an area shaped like an egg. The space within a 100-feet radius from him and also the ground below had also been chopped into numerous deep pits like tofu. With Zhou Bao moving forward, those deep pits started connecting with one another and finally became a big ditch. If Zhou Bao walked around the Jilei Mountain in this way, the Jilei Mountain would be razed more or less.


    "Wait! Wait! I won''t move! I won''t move anymore!" Suspending in the air, Zhou Bao shook his hands with an awkward expression. He tried his best to control this unparalleled power and slowly gathered them into one. After that, a transparent Natal Sword formed behind him in the air and then turned into a red light, rushing into the place between his eyebrows.


    "Haha, okay, everything''s fine now!" Retrieving the Natal Sword, Zhou Bao laughed for a while and landed on the ground. It was all a mess.


    "Brothers, I''m sorry for making you worried!"


    "I don''t mind, but the surprise you bring to us is getting bigger and bigger!" Golden Rooster gave a hollow laugh and cast his eyes in the surroundings. He went speechless at the sight of the power of the Sword Qi. "Bro, look at this Sword Qi. I''m afraid it could even cut open a Pure Yang Celestial Device by just one hack!"


    "I haven''t tried it, but I feel that if I use all my strength, I could break several layered hollows and even cause irreversible harm to them!" After saying that, he thought of something suddenly. "A common Pure Yang Celestial Weapon could also break the Space Rampart, but causing an irreversible harm was something only the fairy weapon could do."


    "Could it be that my Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi is able to rival the fairy weapon?"


    Thinking of that, he shot a look at Wang She and said, "Chief Wang, don''t you have a Pure Yang Celestial Device? Would you mind me letting me try?!"


    "Go to hell!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Wang She almost slapped Zhou Bao''s face with his feet. "What is this kid thinking? Asking me to offer my Pure Yang Celestial Device just to let him split it? I''m not him. I don''t have so many Pure Yang Celestial Devices."


    Zhou Bao also knew that his idea was unrealistic. Then, he laughed and said, "Seriously, I feel that the Natal Sword could really split open the Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    Zhou Bao said that calmly with his eyes squinting. "Perhaps it could fight against the fairy weapon!"


    "The fairy weapon?" Wang She was startled and looked at Zhou Bao with a confused gaze. "Are you sure?"


    "If the one you practiced was really the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, and you really successfully acquired the Natal Sword, you could really possess the power of a fairy weapon!" Standing beside them, Golden Rooster said suddenly.

 Chapter 410: Arrival to the Borderline Mountain for the First Time

    Chapter 410: Arrival to the Borderline Mountain for the First Time


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "It really has the power equal to the fairy weapon?"


    At first Zhou Bao just had such a vague guess and nothing more than that. It was beyond his expectation that Golden Rooster gave him a definite answer.


    "Of course, it does," said Golden Rooster, "otherwise, why is the Sword Qi so strong? Your Natal Sword is just at the initial phase. But it has a power equal to the Taihao Fairy Weapon. That''s the power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!"


    "How do you know that?"


    "Read more. The knowledge is in the books preserved in the Immortal Palace!" Golden Rooster, whose eyes were full of contempt, took a look at Zhou Bao. "Since this thing happened due to your practice of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, then it''s actually nothing serious!"


    After finishing speaking, he turned away and left before Zhou Bao could reply him. Zhou Bao smiled bitterly and cast a look at Wang She, "What''s wrong with Golden Rooster? He''s not happy!"


    "Of course, who could be happy after seeing your practice progress!" The corner of Wang She''s mouth jerked and he gave Zhou Bao a dirty look. "Buddy, it''s true that your progress is amazingly fast, but don''t always stand beside us and say those remarks, as if practice was as easy as playing around. It''s not good. It seems like you''re scorning us because we have slow progress!"


    "How could it be? God knows my mind. I never wanted to scorn at you!" Zhou Bao immediately complained.


    "Only you know whether it''s scorn!" Wang She shook his head, turned around and intended to leave.


    "Wait! Chief, I have something to talk with you!"


    "What?" Wang She turned back and asked, "You''ve already practiced the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. What else would you need my help for?"


    "Of course, you know, three months later, I will go to the Borderline Mountain. Wuyang Region needs your care!"


    "I know it very well in my heart. Don''t worry. With the Yin and Yang Dust Formation here, nobody could bring problems to your Wuyang Region or get unjust profit from it!"


    "I don''t worry about anything but Yan Yunfei. You know, she''s pregnant now. I have no idea when I can come back. Frankly speaking, I really don''t want to go there!"


    Wang She squinted and asked him, "You don''t want to go? I don''t really care. But you have to explain to Elder Qing and White Tiger. At first, you promised you would go. Now you changed your mind. It''s not easy to obtain these two''s permission for this!"


    "Precisely because it''s not easy, that''s why I''ve got to go!" Zhou Bao said helplessly. "Ye Qingtian is my enemy. I must kill him. Not for other reasons. Just for my unborn baby. I must cook his goose! But I''m really upset about the safety of my family!"


    "There is nothing you need to be upset about. Your wife is pregnant, but it''s her own business. You can''t help her even if you stay here. Can you replace her to be pregnant? "Don''t worry. Even though you''re not here, your subordinates in the Lord Mansion won''t slack, nor would the Zhou''s. Besides, in this situation, even if there''s no Yin and Yang Dust Formation here, nobody will dare to target you. Just set your mind at rest!"


    "Why would nobody target me?"


    "Hmm. You''re silly. This time, hunting Ye Qingtian is a joint action of several sects. You''re one of the hunters. The sects surely won''t let you have anything to worry about. Not only you. All the experts involved in this hunting action won''t have anything to worry about. Causing troubles for your family amounts to becoming enemies with several biggest sects in the Four Eastern Regions. In this world, there is nobody so audacious, at least for now. When something happens, even if Immortal Palace doesn''t come forward, Divine Wind Palace will do. So, just be at ease and put all your mind on hunting Ye Qingtian!"


    "Now that you said it, I feel relieved!" Hearing Wang She''s words, Zhou Bao rested assured. In recent days, the world situation became strange. Zhou Bao could almost be sure that the Central Mainland Region will undergo a violent change after Yan Yuntian had been attacked by an assassin. However, precisely at this moment, he must go on a long journey. At the same time, Yan Yunfei was pregnant. All the things happened to be scheduled during the same period. If somebody plotted against Yan Yunfei during his absence, he would find it difficult to go with relief. These big sects were not a piece of iron plate. Who knew whether somebody in this group would manage to control Yan Yunfei and threaten him so as to achieve some goal?


    Thus, he had to to be alert!


    For this reason, he wanted help from Wang She who would be cautious and take care of Wuyang Region while he was gone. However, Wang She''s words eased his heart.


    "Now you''re relieved, I gotta go!" Seeing Zhou Bao so absent-minded, Wang She said with a smile. "Well then, buddy, go back. Your Natal Sword is already done. I suppose nobody will be able to threaten you. Just go back to accompany your wife!"


    "Yeah. I can accompany my wife without worrying!" Zhou Bao smiled. Cupping his hand at Wang She, his figure shotted in the shape of light and flew directly to the Lord Mansion.


    "This guy is really a weird person. He even finished the practice of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword''s Natal Sword earlier than me! I remember he didn''t know the mystery of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. But he totally got it in a short amount of time. It''s so strange!"Wang She thought. Thinking of this, he shook his head in bewilderment. In the past years, Zhou Bao brought him many unfathomable enigmas. Now, he had been already used to the accidental surprise from Zhou Bao and developed a numb feeling to all that.


    In the following two months, Zhou Bao was a close companion to Yan Yunfei and kept easing her anxiety. In the end, Yan Yunfei finally relaxed a little bit. At the same time, the situation in the whole Jin was peculiar because of Yan Yuntian''s attack.


    All of Yan Yuntian''s sons, who ran around on sinister errands from dawn to dusk, had rolled up their flags, silenced their drums, and given up all their large-scale activities. Now they tamely stayed at home and forbid their subordinates to cause troubles. During this special period, nobody wanted to make Yan Yuntian angry.


    The investigation was still ongoing. As what Li VII had told Zhou Bao, no matter what, the Crown Prince was not investigated. Pieces of evidence showed that it was a long-cherished plot in which there was a team-up from both inside and outside. Half of the eunuchs and maids in the imperial palace were purged. All the clues pointed to the southern Sect of Flame. Yan Yuntian had raged and roared for more than ten days in the court. He tore up the investigation documents before the vassals and said that he did not believe that Sect of Flame carried out the assassination. He required a second investigation.


    Later, the hidden clues gradually appeared bit by bit. Although there was no concrete evidence, all the questionable points led the focus to Yan Yuntian''s third son¡ªThird Prince. Now that things ended up like this, it became odd.


    One month later, Yan Yuntian ordered to have the Third Prince brought to him. However, On the way to the palace, Third Prince was ambushed. Even the eight Level Seven experts sent by the imperial court were also severely injured. Three days later, the Third Prince''s baron was removed. The Third Prince''s family was arrested and kept under detention. Third Prince was still missing. Yan Yuntian issued a reward of lots of gold to find him. Finally, this assassination case came to an end.


    However, Zhou Bao knew that this thing would not end in such a way.


    The so-called end was just a convincing explanation to all the people.


    After the closure, the real shit will happen. According to Yan Yuntian''s temper, he would absolutely not let it pass. Even Zhou Bao could guess that the Crown Prince plotted this case. But he could never guess that this time Crown Prince cooperated with Li VII. They plotted so comprehensively that nobody could find out any clue leading to them. Besides, they also made Third Prince the scapegoat. Therefore, it was not a good time to hurt Crown Prince.


    However, Yan Yunfei did not know the inside story. The current ending was an acceptable explanation to her. Third Prince was not the outstanding one among Yan Yuntian''s sons and he was not close with Yan Yunfei. But he was her brother, after all. Yan Yunfei was not willing to see a fight between her father and brother. Hence, Zhou Bao rescued him and let he stay in Wuyang Region. Certainly, Yan Yunfei, who was very angry, had no intention to see this brother who assassinated their father. She just needed to know that he was alive.


    As for how to deal with this thing ultimately, it would be decided after Zhou Bao comes back from the Three Western Regions.


    Time flew. The last day of the two months arrived. Zhou Bao said goodbye to Yan Yunfei on this day. After arranging things in the territory, he headed directly for the Borderline Mountain. In contrast, Moon Deer of Extended Net was slow and he had already set off 10 days ago.


    The Borderline Mountain was about 50,000 kilometers away from Zhou Bao''s Wuyang Region. Despite Zhou Bao''s fast speed, he spent four days to get there.


    Almost all the people were there when he arrived.


    The Borderline Mountain was located at the extreme west of the Central Mainland Region. Behind the Borderline Mountain was an endless sea. This mountain, which was vaster and huger than the Misty Mountain, formed a small arc, enclosing the westmost area in the Central Mainland Region.


    The disciples from every sect had agreed to gather together at a small town on the brink of the Borderline Mountain ¡ª Yongning.


    Yongning meant everlasting peace!


    The name suits the town. It was a quiet town. The town, against the Borderline Mountain, belonged to the Jade Pool''s influence. Nobody dared to cause troubles here. Anyone who incurred unnecessary problems was taken to be against the Jade Pool.


    Moreover, it was a place where the Central Mainland Region and the Three Western Regions had the most communication. Along the road in this town, people could see a small road in the Borderline Mountain. They could go through the Borderline Mountains, without going uphill and down dale, and reach the seaside. It was also the safest passageway.


    The Borderline Mountain was bigger than the Misty Mountain. There were many evil beasts here. The most important thing was that the interior was close to the vast sea. Thus, the evil beasts in the mountain had a close relation with the ones in the sea. And the evil beasts of the sea sometimes came to the mountain. They colluded with each other. If the Jade Pool had not suppressed them in the past tens of thousands of years, this place would have been a stronghold for the evil beasts of the sea.

 Chapter 411: Regulations, Commander

    Chapter 411: Regulations, Commander


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    When Zhou Bao arrived at Forever Peace Town, it was already late at night. There were few people on the streets. The only inn was ablaze with lights. Moon Deer of Extended Net was standing outside the inn with an anxious face, pacing back and forth. When he saw Zhou Bao walking toward him, he was happy and came to him.


    "Zhou Bao, you''re finally here, you''re driving me crazy!"


    Zhou Bao frowned. This person was extremely friendly, as if he was an old friend. "Moon Deer of Extended Net, although I belong to the Immortal Palace nominally, I have the freedom to do what I want to do. You have no rights to interfere!"


    Moon Deer of Extended Net stopped instantly and he understood him. He became serious and said, "Zhou Bao, what do you mean? You still know you belong to the Immortal Palace nominally? Since you belong to it, you should represent its image. Look at your behavior now. Anyway, I''m one of the 28 constellations in the Immortal Palace, so I have the rights to control you!"


    "The rights to control me? Just try it!" Zhou Bao gave a brittle laugh and stepped forward. His body emitted a strong aura, which immediately suppressed Moon Deer of Extended Net. "28 constellations? So what?!"


    "Hump!" A scornful voice came from the inn. "Zhou Bao, this is the Borderline Mountain, not your Jin. You''ve no rights to be arrogant!"


    A strong Qi Power swept across, fiercely impacting Zhou Bao''s nerves.


    "Interesting!" Zhou Bao laughed and guessed that person may be the legendary Yu Nantian. Without decreasing his Qi Power, Zhou Bao stepped forward bravely, and fought back the other party''s Qi Power. "I''m arrogant? Who''re you to say that!"


    "Divine Wind Palace, Yu Nantian!"


    A shadow flashed and a handsome teen in magnificent robe appeared before Zhou Bao.


    "Good moves!" Seeing Yu Nantian''s excellent moves, Zhou Bao praised gently and added, "You can make a living by performing it!"


    Hearing the comments, Yu Nantian''s face flushed with redness, but he tamed his anger. "Zhou Bao, this hunt for Ye Qingtian and the Fiery Eyes remnants are really important. I hope you can look at the big picture and not cause troubles!"


    "Of course. I won''t cause troubles!" Zhou Bao cast a look at Yu Nantian with a smile. "The reason for me being here is not to cause trouble, no?"


    "Well then, this way, please!" Yu Nantian turned and made way for Zhou Bao to enter the inn.


    Zhou Bao glared at Moon Deer of Extended Net harshly and walked in while swaying his body.


    Moon Deer of Extended Net followed them, pulling a long face. The three did not talk and directly went up to the third floor.


    The whole inn was reserved by Jade Pool. Other than the shopkeeper and the waiter, there were only 17 other people, including Zhou Bao. After trio entered the second floor, he found that there were 15 people sitting down and looking at him with a strange gaze.


    imilarly, Zhou Bao also stared at them with a curious look. Those 15 people included monks and laities. Naturally, the monks were from the Bigwheel Temple. Three of them wore red kasaya. They showed an unfriendly expression when they saw Zhou Bao walking into the room. They cannot be blamed. In Zhou Bao''s Wuyang Region, two Living Buddhas from the Bigwheel Temple were killed and three Pure Yang Celestial Devices were lost. It was very embarrassing for them. How could they not stare at him like that?


    Facing their glares, Zhou Bao just smiled. He looked around and his eyes landed on a young lady. She was Ji Yeyue.


    As a disciple of Jade Pool, Ji Yeyue was also one of the fourteen experts in Jin, along with Zhou Bao. He would not have imagined her to be one of the hunters this time round. He was even more surprised to know that she had already surpassed Level Seven in just a little over a year where they have not met. She was now at the peak of Level Eight Realm. She could become Level Nine anytime.


    Innate Green Lotus!


    Even though Zhou Bao was standing at the door, Zhou Bao could still feel the pungent smell of the Innate Green Lotus coming from her.


    "It seems that the Innate Green Lotus Seed really has a good function!" Zhou Bao thought to himself and nodded to Ji Yeyue with a smile. Ji Yeyue also nodded slightly. The air between them became subtle.


    "Haha. You guys are indeed youngsters! Once you are in the room, you two start to notice each other! Nice!" A heavy sound emerged. Zhou Bao furrowed his brows and suddenly laughed. "It''s the Great Dark Lord Du! I can''t believe The Dark Sect sent Your Excellency here!"


    "Hahaha. We have no choice because we have no talents now. We are not young and handsome like you. Old guy here is just to fill in the numbers. Come on, Little Dao, let me introduce. This is the world-famous Yunzhou Zhou Bao, the most powerful man of the young generation!" Great Dark Lord Du was not being modest. He introduced a weak middle-aged man beside him to Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao made an obeisance by cupping one hand in the other before his chest. The middle-aged man who was called Little Dao also did the same gesture. "I''m Chen Dao!"


    "Little Dao is the third Dark Lord in our Dark Sect!" Great Dark Lord Du introduced fervidly. "You know our friends from the Bigwheel Temple! Over there are two emissaries from the Dragon Thunder Palace, Tianyuan and Difang!"


    "I have seen you two before!" Zhou Bao cupped his fist politely. The two emissaries smiled and respectively introduced themselves.


    Wu Tianyuan


    Zhao Difang


    Zhou Bao gave a nod. Even though he felt that their names were weird, he did not ask more. He just walked to an empty chair and sat down.


    "Well. Everybody. Now everyone''s here. This time we will go to Three Western Regions to hunt Ye Qingtian and the rest. It''s a very important mission and we should be cautious. We can''t go there recklessly. We need regulations. Any ideas from the floor?"


    Seeing that everyone was here, Yu Nantian started speaking with his fist cupped.


    "You''re right. It''s a big thing. We have to make regulations. All of us are outside the Mysterious Realm. Although some people have good combat capability, when facing Ye Qingtian, we are very likely to suffer losses without a fairy weapon. Also, Three Western Regions is a foreign place for us. If we are dispersed and attacked individually due to carelessness, it will be a big shame. We have to make a plan and regulations to proclaim prohibitions. That''ll be more like it!"


    After Yu Nantian finished his words, another golden-robed man began to talk. His style of dressing was exactly the same as those that Zhou Bao saw in the Divine Wind Palace when he was in Taiyuan Heaven. There are another four men dressed in the same way, seems like they were all from the Divine Wind Palace.


    When golden-robed man began to speak, the others did not say anything and just sat there silently. Some who knew each other exchanged teasing glares.


    Seeing that nobody replied, Yu Nantian''s face flushed with anger, but it disappeared instantly. "The 17 of us are all from different sects, so we don''t know each other and are not subordinate of one another. There''ll be lapses during our action. As the saying goes, soldiers won''t act without a commander''s order. Snakes can''t move with a head. We have to select someone as our commander so as to unite us and help us give our best shot. Otherwise, the other sects will laugh at us when we''re in the Three Western Regions. Great Dark Lord Du, what do you think of it?"


    "You''ve got a point there. It''s reasonable!" Hearing that Yu Nantian mentioned his name, Great Dark Lord Du slightly smiled and nodded. "Lord Yu is right. A snake can''t move without a head!"


    "It''s good that Great Dark Lord Du agrees. From what I can tell, among so many of us here, Great Dark Lord Du has the highest cultivation. You are most respected. How about you command us in this action?"


    Yu Nantian said with a smile.


    "I''m not worthy!" Great Dark Lord Du almost jumped from the chair when heard it and shook his head. "It won''t work. I only have a name of Dark Lord and live longer and eat more than you. How can I be a commander. No no no. In my opinion, the commander should be from your Divine Wind Palace. This time, your palace sent the most people. I cannot say for the others, but Little Dao and I follow you guys. Just tell us what we should do. Little Dao, what do you think?"


    "Yes. I follow you, my brother!" Chen Dao threw a faint smile and said to Great Dark Lord Du.


    "Now that Great Dark Lord Du has such an opinion, our Divine Wind Palace won''t decline to shoulder a responsibility!" Yu Nantian was satisfied that Great Dark Lord Du had such an awareness. "What do you all think of it?"


    "This action is led by the Divine Wind Palace. Our Bigwheel Temple has no objection!"


    "So does Jade Pool!"


    "Dragon Thunder Palace has no objections!"


    "Then, how about Immortal Palace?" Bigwheel Temple, Jade Pool, and Dragon Thunder Palace have claimed their stance. Only the Immortal Palace was left. Yu Nantian softly knit his brow and looked at Moon Deer of Extended Net and then Zhou Bao.


    "Hehe. I have no objections, but I cannot represent the Immortal Palace. We should let one of the 28 constellations express his view!" Zhou Bao glanced at Moon Deer of Extended Net and said unkindly.


    Moon Deer of Extended Net seems to have been thinking about something ever since he entered the room. When he heard Zhou Bao mentioning him, he suddenly turned his head and immediately answered, "No objections. The Immortal Palace agrees!"


    "OK. Such being the case, Our palace will assume this task and be responsible for the action of hunting Ye Qingtian. I hope all of us cooperate with each other and let none of them escape. We will let the world become bright!"


    All the sects had no objections. Even Zhou Bao, whom he was concerned about the most, had no dissidence. Yu Nantian was free from anxiety and was in high and vigorous spirits. All of a sudden, he banged the table, shocking Zhou Bao.


    "All of you know that Ye Qingtian has a fairy weapon, the North Pole Frozen Wheel. And he inherits from the Big Dipper Emperor in the antiquity times. Except for the North Pole Frozen Wheel, he also has some other weapons we don''t know. His combat capability is far beyond Level Nine, so he''s the most formidable!"


    "I''m afraid you''re wrong. Isn''t there a Fiery Eyes remnant? While I was in Taiyuan Heaven, I observed his power. He is not lower than a Genuine Immortal!" Zhou Bao seized the chance to question with a face full of lingering fear.


    "Not necessary to worry about it. He got the Golden Book of Fate, so he can''t play the Fiery Eyes'' power in at least ten years. The Fiery Eyes focus 80% their power on the eyes. Once they lose the eyes, there''s no need to worry." Yu Nantian said confidently.


    "OK. Then there''s indeed no need to worry." Zhou Bao smiled and leaned against the chair while slightly closing his eyes.

 Chapter 412: The Void Traveller

    Chapter 412: The Void Traveller


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Seeing Yu Nantian shed crocodile tears, Zhou Bao thought that it was ludicrous. Including Yu Nantian, there were 17 people here in total and they were not easy to trifle with and all had their own chain of command. Even if Yu Nantian made himself a commander, that was nominal. It was almost impossible for him to command the others or strictly enforce orders and prohibitions.


    Most importantly, he had to shoulder the responsibility now that he had gotten this position.


    In his previous life, Zhou Bao had been a civil servant for a dozen years. Though he was not very high-ranking, he was an officer. It was well-known that officers were as shrewd as foxes, and Zhou Bao was no exception.


    He had made a very thorough analysis of the situation that the leader had not only authority, but also an obligation. When they succeeded, there was satisfaction for everyone concerned. But when they failed, someone had to be called to account.


    Each one of them in the group would be the nucleus of their sects in the future. And even one death would make those sects very distressed, let alone if several died. Then they would certainly have complaints.


    Actually, they surely would return crestfallen because Zhou Bao had already been in league with Ye Qingtian. With Zhou Bao placing obstacles in the way, failure could be expected soon. So in Zhou Bao''s eyes, whoever made himself a commander would earn himself misfortune. Since Yu Nantian was eager to take the hot potato, he would love to make use of this opportunity and wait for the amusement.


    "Well, since I''ve received undeserved kindness from you and I''m allowed to be the commander, I''ll take on the necessary responsibilities!" After winning that position, Yu Nantian seemed to be more high-spirited and vigorous, and his view toward Zhou Bao became more gentle as well.


    "However, I know very well how slight my talent is. If I do something wrong, please offer your help!"


    "Alright!" All of the people nodded their heads, including Zhou Bao.


    "I hope that you all will sincerely cooperate in this operation. I know that you come from different schools and have different backgrounds, but it''s fate that has brought us together here. We, the Divine Wind Palace, have already stated clearly that even though this operation is led by us, the spoils of war will be shared by all, including the copy of the Golden Book of Fate, the Taihao Fairy Weapon, and the North Pole Frozen Wheel. We won''t privately take possession of them. Therefore, at the same time, I hope that you can strain every nerve and will never secretly hold us back. Otherwise, there will be no mercy."


    As he finished speaking, Yu Nantian''s expression turned cold and stern. He glanced at each of them, especially pausing when he saw Zhou Bao. Among those 17 people, Zhou Bao was the most wayward because he possessed powerful strength while suffering the weakest constraints from his sect. He wondered why such a person would be allowed to take part in this.


    Facing Yu Nantian''s cold and stern expression, Zhou Bao still smiled modestly, as if he was entertaining high-level leaders in his previous life.


    Next, Yu Nantian began to present his plan to the others. It was a pretty elaborate plan that contained various kinds of possibilities and details. Obviously, it had been prepared for a long time but that was not out of interest. To make such a perfect plan, he may have gone over it many times in advance.


    But from Zhou Bao''s point of view, such a plan would become a joke when it was carried out, just like those projects in his previous life.


    However, he definitely would not have his spirits dampened here. He instead nodded energetically and offered some proposals on critical points, seemingly very sincere. Everyone, including Yu Nantian, began to have a completely new appraisal of him then.


    "How foolish!" Seeing that Yu Nantian''s expression turned out to be the same as those leaders who had paid him inspection visits in his previous life, Zhou Bao chuckled in his heart. "It''s easy to fool him, so I don''t need any head-on confrontations with him. If I use the same methods that I used in the past, I may even be able to manipulate him without being detected."


    "Zhou Bao!" He suddenly heard someone calling him at this time. So he raised his head, cupping his hand in the other before his chest and smiling. "Commander, what are the instructions?"


    "Well. In total, there are 780,000 miles if we want to cross Borderline Mountain and the incessant sea and arrive at the Highest Heaven Region in the Three Western Regions. Our Seven-deity Regions truly have always had a good relationship with the Sea Area, while the situation there is rather complex and there will be various kinds of evil beasts. Even though we all have cultivations at Level Eight or Level Nine and carry some celestial devices with us, we''re not completely safe in the Sea Area. So, I want you to share more responsibility when crossing the sea."


    "Me?" Zhou Bao was a little confused. Besides Yu Nantian and himself, there were still 15 people. Why would Yu Nantian ask him to do that?


    Seeing that Zhou Bao was confused, Yu Nantian just smiled. "I know that Your Excellency has Pure Yang Celestial Devices with you. To safely cross the 780,000-mile-long Sea Area, we, the Divine Wind Palace, have prepared a Pure Yang Celestial Device¡ªthe Void Traveller. But even though it moves at full speed and never stops, it will still take three days and nights. No one can predict what will happen during this period. So I hope that anyone who has a Pure Yang Celestial Device can help to defend. I have already consulted with the others on it before you came here. What do you think?"


    "Sure." Zhou Bao agreed quickly. "We are all in the same boat, so naturally I will do my part."


    "All right!" Zhou Bao responded pleasantly, and so did Yu Nantian. "Then you''re in charge of the defense on the port side. Whoever attempts to get aboard on the sea, you have to beat him away."


    "I see!" Zhou Bao nodded.


    "The Void Traveller? A Pure Yang Celestial Device? Maybe it''s the same thing as the spaceboat that I saw last time. Even if it isn''t, it must belong to the same type as that one. I''d better observe carefully. Maybe I can get one more Pure Yang Celestial Device this time," he thought secretly.


    Due to the plan being so complete, all they needed to do was perform their individual functions. So, Yu Nantian only said a few words about the departure time and some other tasks.


    Zhou Bao''s task was none other than defending with his Pure Yang Celestial Device on the port side, just as Yu Nantian had told him before.


    Then everyone was dismissed. They decided to leave in the middle of the third day so that people would have enough time to get ready. Zhou Bao was not curious about Forever Peace Town, so he stayed at the inn during those two days to get himself in the best condition.


    On the third day, they all got their things ready and passed over Borderline Mountain following a path. They did not run into anything unusual along the way. No evil beasts would be stupid enough to provoke 17 experts with Pure Yang Celestial Devices, no matter how strong they were. So, it took only half a day to arrive at the seaside.


    The Sea Area was vast and limitless. It would be difficult to cross over even though they were all experts.


    If they did not travel in a group, few of them would dare to cross over the Sea Area!


    Yu Nantian waved his hand and a golden streamer ray flashed out and turned into a golden spaceboat in midair. That spaceboat reached a length of 1,000 feet and a height of 300 feet and had eight floors in total. How luxurious! With the spaceboat soaring aloft, Zhou Bao could clearly see that many spells and magic formations were engraved on it, which were sending forth an obscure spirit of energy.


    "With such mighty defensive power, we still need to help defend? Are evil beasts in the Sea Area really so strong?"Zhou Bao frowned and an ominous premonition overwhelmed him.


    How could he be optimistic?


    This Void Traveller could withstand the combined attack of several Individual Immortals at once. But in this case, they still needed to assist in defending with Pure Yang Celestial Devices. So, it meant that those evil beasts'' attacking force was even stronger than several Metaphysical Individual Immortals'' combined attack!


    Was that even possible?


    If that was possible, then he needed to reevaluate the risks of this trip!


    "Well, this is really good!" Standing above the Void Traveller, even Zhou Bao could not hold back his praise. Everything inside the Void Traveller was just as luxurious as what he had seen from the outside, looking splendid in green and gold. There were about 20 rooms on each floor, so even though they all had chosen their own rooms, the ship still seemed empty. Because of being in charge of the defense on the port side, Zhou Bao picked a room on the left side.


    Pushing open the window that was made of Phoebe zhennan wood, Zhou Bao discovered that it was raining. As soon as Zhou Bao and the others had gone on board, the originally fine weather turned cloudy, as if it were arranged that way intentionally.


    The spaceboat below them shook and then flew toward the incessant sea as the scenes in front of them changed rapidly.


    "The speed of this boat is really fast! It''s even several times faster than a jet and is able to cross over 780,000 miles in just three days and nights. Wow!"


    There was a huge white stone which reached a height of 30 feet standing above Wudang Peak of Borderline Mountain. It seemed to be very normal at first sight, but when the Void Traveller started to travel, the stone changed with a burst of a light ripple appearing on its surface. The stone suddenly turned illusory and strange. In just a few breaths the white stone transformed into a tall, thin man who wore white clothes. He was over 20 feet tall and his skin was cyan, which had a pattern of light on it. He stood on the peak and stared in the direction of where the Void Traveller was flying to and a grim feeling was revealed from his expression.


    "Tell Rolling Dragon King that human experts from the Four Eastern Regions are going toward his domain. Ask him to intercept them timely!"

 Chapter 413: The Power of the Void Traveller

    Chapter 413: The Power of the Void Traveller


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    When compared to the Seven-deity Regions, the Sea Area''s land area was many times bigger. Even though it had been divided by the Seven-deity Regions, it was still under the jurisdiction of the Sea Emperor.


    However, in reality, the Sea Emperor played a very minor role in the governing of the Sea Area. He did not bother with any of their important issues and also did not make any appearances at any of their events. For several years, the experts of the Sea Area came and went in batches. Very few of them had ever seen the Sea Emperor. It could be said that the Sea Emperor held the highest and also the least influence on the endless sea. He simply did not care about them.


    For tens of thousands of years, it had always been the law of the jungle that all kinds of chasing and killing should fall on the first day. But no matter how serious or how minor the situation was, the Sea Emperor had always expressed no interest at all in intervening. In the Sea Area, power and authority overruled all things.


    Be it based on strength or authority, to Seven-deity Regions, there had never been any character who was invincible, in the Sea Area. Experts and powerful characters came and divided the vast sea into countless small areas to gain control over them. Within each area, everyone eyed each other''s territories covetously, no matter if it was a large or small area. After hundreds of thousands of years, the system was complete and in place already. When compared to the Seven-deity Regions, this was much more complicated.


    The evil beasts of the Sea Area resided within 10,000 miles from the borders of Seven-deity Regions. They had minimal power and this was the sole reason they refrained from attacking humans. Hence, humans could still fish and sail in the waters without fear.


    In a place like Borderline Mountain where the huge mountains were connected to the endless seas, the evil beasts from the mountains had a close relationship with those from the seas. They went to war together. This close tie was something that even the biggest sects of Seven-deity Regions could not figure out.


    For the past tens of thousands of years, there had been no interactions between the Seven-deity Regions and the Sea Area. But some influences within had secret liaisons with each other. These included well-known families like the Great Jin, schools, and even the Immortal Palace. They all had connections with the Chaotian Palace of the East Sea, which was currently controlled by the Sea Area.


    This time, several giant sects of the Four Eastern Regions had come together to kill Ye Qingtian. Their influence was not only in the Seven-deity Regions, but also on the evil beasts in the Sea Area.


    In fact, a few months ago, some influential characters of the Sea Area discovered that Zhou Bao and his team were going to cross the sea from Borderline Mountain. They then went to the location to lie in wait for them.


    There were not many people in the group, only about 17. Among them, there was no expert from Metaphysic Individual Immortal fairyland, but together, their total strength was still quite intimidating!


    Quite a few carried Pure Yang Celestial Devices, and one might have even possessed a magic weapon!


    Magic weapon!


    Even though there were countless treasures from heaven and earth to be found in the endless sea, Pure Yang Celestial Devices were very rare, let alone a fairy weapon. Their numbers, power, and net worth made them most potential targets of robbers. It would truly be a legendary catch!


    That''s right, the best catch!


    Zhou Bao was not aware that his team had already become the target of many influential characters of Sea Area. Their Void Traveller was still speeding rapidly across the sea.


    The Void Traveller was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it could fly up to 50,000 feet!


    It was merely a Void Traveller. Even for experts equipped with the lost skill of flying, 50,000 feet was the limit. If they went above the limit, they would encounter the Gang Wind.


    Even a Genuine Immortal could not fly in the Gang Wind. The violent wind was able to reduce the Genuine Immortal into ashes in the blink of an eye.


    And going further up to 100,000 feet, would be out of the question for a Genuine Immortal.


    Hence, 50,000 feet was the safest altitude for a Void Traveller to travel at.


    It was also the safest distance for crossing the sea.


    The Void Traveller was more than a thousand feet long. But in the infinite sky, it was merely a small vessel, really insignificant. Without its power, it would go unnoticed.


    The journey was expected to last three days and three nights. Half a day had passed and the Void Traveller had yet to meet any hindrances or anything unusual. There were not that many evil beasts that could reach the level of 50,000 feet. Hence, Zhou Bao and Yu Nantian were reassured.


    The sky was overcast and gloomy. Zhou Bao looked out of the window and thought about his wife. She was three to four months pregnant but he had run off instead of staying by her side. He did not know when he would return to Wuyang Region. If this matter was not settled soon, his child would be walking and running by the time he returned. He was lost in his thoughts when suddenly a gust of wind came up.


    "Eh?" Zhou Bao was very alert. He could smell a faint stench in the wind. There should not be any stench at 50,000 feet above the ground. Suddenly he thought of something and moved back, closing all the wooden windows. In a flash, he reappeared in front of his room, carefully assessing the situation outside. Apparently, he was not the only one who noticed that something was amiss. Initially, there were sounds coming from the different rooms, but now there was a dead silence. Zhou Bao could imagine that every expert on the Void Traveller was holding their breaths, and worrying about the situation, much like himself.


    As time passed, the stench became stronger. At the same time, a golden ray suddenly lit up the whole Void Traveller. A Pure Yang swept across and blew away the smell of the stench. But at this instant, the Void Traveller went from traveling at very high speed to slow down to a complete standstill. The air inside vibrated with great force but fortunately, no one was affected as the Void Traveller was totally shrouded by the golden light.


    Later, the six experts of Divine Wind Palace went up onto the deck. They were led by Yu Nantian who asked, "Where did you come from and why are you hiding? Since you''re here, come out and show yourself!"


    "Lololololo, what an interesting fella. This is a Void Traveller right, it has been so long since I saw one, I miss this!" A sinister laughter was heard reverberating all around. It was not loud, but it resounded continuously in everyone''s ears and mind. Among the 17 people, the weaker ones showed signs of being affected by the noise, their faces turning pale. If the voice should reappear, there was no telling how their spirits would be adversely affected.


    "Hmm, attacking while in hiding, not what I expect of an expert!" Yu Nantian''s expression changed and his magnificent robe fluttered slightly. The unusual sound still lingered, but the frightening effect was gone. "Since you can recognize the Void Traveller, then you should know who I am. You should also know that using the voice spell will not work!"


    "Hahahahahahaha, good, very well, fella. I can tell that you are a part of the Yu family. So many years have passed; who would have thought that the son of the Yu family would still dare to cross the Sea Area. Are you really not afraid of meeting your doom?!" Following a burst of laughter, a cloud of black shadow suddenly appeared in front of the Void Traveller.


    The black shadow was that of a man. He was a sinister looking old man, dressed in a black robe. He was hovering in the air and glaring darkly at Yu Nantian. In his eyes, an evil intent could be seen. "A part of the Yu family, a son of the Yu family, a useless kid. How dare you fly over the endless Sea Area, aren''t you really sick and tired of the sea?"


    "Hu Bugui?! You are still alive?"


    Recognizing the old man, Yu Nantian was both shocked and surprised.


    "Who would have thought that someone from the Yu family still remembers me. As long as your family is around, how could I die!?"


    "Hmm, no, I did not die. I escaped to the Sea Area and formed an alliance with the evil beasts and led an utterly miserable life. Sometimes it is better to be dead than alive!"


    "You will soon know what is the difference between being alive and dead!" Hu Bugui laughed coldly, and with a wave of a hand, five black Qi shot out from his fingertips. Coiling and writhing like snakes, they shot towards Yu Nantian.


    "So many years have passed and you are still performing this trick. Do you really think you can scare people off by doing this?!" Seeing the snakes, Yu Nantian only laughed coldly, not at all bothered by them. He did not even budge. The snakes were destroyed by the golden light from the Void Traveller, even before they could get near him.


    "Since you know this is the Void Traveller, why are you still using this type of weapon?" Yu Nantian saw the destruction of the snakes and his expression grew even sterner, "Hu Bugui, I know you are a schemer, but it will be impossible for you to try any new tricks in front of me!"


    As he spoke, he struck the side of the ship violently. The Void Traveller rocked for a short while, sending streams of golden light rays towards Hu Bugui.


    "No way, he is using the cannon?!" Zhou Bao shouted. The ship was very large and spacious, but he never thought that anyone would have a cannon on board. He could hear loud gunshots and saw a golden light shooting across. That must have been a really big cannon.


    The double rays of golden light were not lethal enough. The black shadow was like a virtual-like image and the golden light shone through his body. His body vanished as if he had not existed at all.


    "Lolololo, this is indeed the true Void Traveller. The Yu family is actually willing to let you use this to cross the sea, it seems like they are actually delivering the goods into my hands!" He laughed again, and suddenly with a violent twist, his black robe swung towards the Void Traveller. It was not a big item, but when it was near the traveler, it suddenly stretched into thousands of feet in width and length, and totally covered the whole Void Traveller.


    Zhou Bao realized that it had suddenly become very dark. Soon, his legs started to tremble violently. The Void Traveller had just been totally wrapped up in the strange black robe.


    "Heaven and Earth in Sleeves?!" Zhou Bao tensed. This feeling reminded him of a very famous Divine Sense. The Heaven and Earth in Sleeves is a Divine Sense from the Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain!

 Chapter 414: Spatial Displacement

    Chapter 414: Spatial Displacement


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain was one of the super sects of Three Western Regions. It was also the super sect closest to Central Mainland Region.


    There were many stories told about this sect in the Four Eastern Regions. Many of them remained as pure fables only, but there was one that many agreed on. That is, this sect had a very powerful Divine Sense, which was the Heaven and Earth in Sleeves. This was a spatial Divine Sense and it had almighty powers. As long as it was practiced to perfection, with a slight swing of the sleeve, it could store all the things in the world within it.


    Of course, there were not that many people on earth who had honed this skill to perfection. This person by the name of Hu Bugui practiced this skill that seemed like the Heaven and Earth in Sleeves. Was he one of them from the Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain?


    Zhou Bao kept all these thoughts to himself in his mind.


    But his guesses were soon proven wrong.


    The Void Traveller shook a few times while it was entrapped. Thereafter, as a ray of golden light blasted through, its speed accelerated in a flash.


    Lifts!


    The black cloth was lifted up in a second. The Void Traveller became a ball of golden light and immediately zoomed away as if it was afraid of the dark. The speed was so much faster than their initial travel speed.


    "This fella, this speed is more than 20 times my maximum speed when I''m flying. Even a Genuine Immortal would not be able to reach this speed. This was definitely not in the original travel plan, if not we would have traveled at this speed right from the start instead of traveling for three days and three nights to reach Three Western Regions!" Zhou Bao calculated the speed of the traveler in silence.


    Zhou Bao had guessed correctly. The Void Traveller may be a Pure Yang Celestial Device, but it was impossible for it to last that long at such a fast speed. After flying for an hour, it started to slow down. It was not only slower than the speed it was cruising at earlier. In fact, it was way slower than from the start when they first set off from Borderline Mountain.


    "Everyone, listen. We''ve been targeted by the evil beasts in the Sea Area. The Void Traveller had been flying for an hour and has already used up lots of power. Its speed cannot be increased immediately. Even its defensive power has been greatly reduced. Hence, I hope that everyone can come out and assist me with the defense!" Yu Nantian''s voice roared out


    Zhou Bao, Great Dark Lord Du, as well as Ji Yeyue from Jade Pool, a monk from Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, and those from Dragon Thunder Palace, walked out of the door together. They greeted each other and took up their respective positions in preparation for helping out.


    Zhou Bao went to the left wing of the boat. He looked up and saw Ji Yeyue, who was at the boat end, looking in his direction. When their gazes met, Zhou Bao smiled at her, and she reciprocated with a slight nod. They looked away immediately and focused their attention on their own areas. Zhou Bao also took the opportunity to study the workings of the mysterious Void Traveller.


    He had figured out something. This Void Traveller was like the transportation equipment from his previous life. It had many wonderful advantages that men could not make use of, but with the proper materials, it could become than just a transportation tool. It could be turned into a weapon.


    In his previous life, he lived in a civilized world. People did not just hop onto a truck and ram into others without a care. But this world he was in now was somehow a bit more ruthless. Murders were commonplace because it was a widely-used tactic used to solve disputes. If trucks had existed, ramming into people would, no doubt, be a very frequent occurrence.


    Driving a Void Traveller into people was like using a truck in the previous life. Those who were behind the wheels do not use much physical energy, they only use that of the space boat itself. The Void Traveller had a huge body area, not only were its materials rare, but they also have immense powers. Additionally, there were many talismans on the space boat. These things were like a moving fortress. A well-packed army truck that not only could withstand all kinds of attacks, but it could also defend itself well. For Zhou Bao, this was a very good trail of thought.


    Yes, it was indeed a good way of thinking, but this was nothing new.


    Zhou Bao had seen a lot of these in his previous life. But after he came into this world, his thinking slowly aligned with that of this world. In a cold weaponized era, he never thought of creating any war truck, space boat or war equipment. Instinctively, he felt that the original techniques of this world could not be remade. But the Void Traveller overrode his concept of thinking. Or rather, it changed his mindset. It led him to think that this world was not only a cold weaponized era, it was also one with Immortals. In an era like this, there were not only cold weapons, there were also all sorts of celestial devices, even magic weapons. Their powers were non-comparable to the big planes and cannons of his previous life. Since so many trucks and tanks were created last time, then right now, according to the rules and skills, such things could also be created again. The Void Traveller was a good example.


    "I''m such an idiot! Such a simple thing and I still need to be reminded. But it''s not too late, even if I had thought of it earlier, I did not have the right conditions with which to make them. Even now, I still do not have the means!"


    Just as he was thinking, a loud rumble came from below his feet.


    Boom!


    It sounded like thunder. After that, the space boat started to shake violently, as if it was moved by a giant force. The Real Essence sank in and anchored the boat. It set up its own Poison Cold Shield, which had already become Pure Yang. It not only had huge attacking powers, but its defense had become more powerful.


    Just as the Poison Cold Shield was being set up, rumbling sounds could be heard coming from below.


    "Oh no, it is the Cold Wave Beasts, they are using the Cold Wave Beasts!"


    When giant shadows appeared around the Void Traveller, Zhou Bao inhaled a cold breath. Yu Nantian was able to recognize what those big black shadows were.


    A Cold Wave Beast was 1000 to 5000 feet long. It had a tough hide and possessed tremendous powers. It lived in the vast sea and survived on fish for its food. Having very low intelligence, it was merely a low-level evil beast in the seas. Its meat was fine but had a tinge of poison. Hence, even though the evil beasts were readily available in the sea, nobody really wanted them as prey or food. Because of its large body size, gentle character, submissiveness, and speed, many evil beasts liked to rear them to be used as mounts. But they were not able to catch many either. Its size was so massive and it had a huge appetite. Many evil beasts were not capable of rearing them. The Cold Wave Beasts, while not having too many foes, died mostly of hunger.


    An important fact to note was that they were not able to fly, so how did they manage to come up to 50,000 feet above sea level?!


    "Oh, no, why is the sky suddenly becoming so overcast?"


    Zhou Bao thought that it was very strange. When he looked down and eyed the surroundings, he took in a cold breath and felt that his heart thumping wildly.


    It was not the Cold Wave Beasts that were flying, it was the sea waters!


    Or rather, the Void Traveller had dropped into the sea.


    Yes, right now, they were in the sea. Even Zhou Bao had no idea when it had happened. The Void Traveller had dropped 50,000 feet into the waters in a short duration of time.


    "Spatial Displacement?!"


    Standing on the bow of the ship, Great Dark Lord Du seemed to realize something. With a low huff, his eyes filled with terror and he said, "To think that this kind of formation still exists, and in the hands of these sea creatures!"


    "Spatial displacement formation?" Zhou Bao murmured to himself quietly.


    Boom!


    Once again, the Void Traveller suffered a great blow.


    "Damn it, this Hu Bugui isn''t out to stop me. He only wants to install his formation on my Void Traveller!" Hu Nantian seemed to realize this belatedly and cried out in fury.


    So this is what is happening, no wonder I felt that something was not quite right. He knew that he could not block the Void Traveller, yet he still went ahead with his tricks. It''s like this, when the Void Traveller shot out of his black cloth, he placed the formation onto the boat. This sudden activation caused the flying capabilities of the boat to slow down immensely. The boat even dropped into the deep waters, what a good scheme!" Zhou Bao''s eyes were rolling around and he said, "We don''t even know how deep down we are now. But seeing how I can''t even see my fingers, it couldn''t be that shallow. However, I can''t even feel any pressure, the defense of the boat sure is truly amazing. If I were to fall into such deep waters, I would surely not survive!"


    Indeed, although Zhou Bao had was powerful, if he were to fall into such deep waters and had to face a bunch of Cold Wave Beasts, he would surely be clueless as to what to do. He could only use his special Three Realms Division technique or fight head-on. Indeed he would not be so nonchalant as he was now, watching the game from inside the space boat?


    However, despite it being a Pure Yang Celestial Device, there was only so much the space boat can handle under such attacks. The boat was only 1000 feet long and 300 feet high. The smallest Cold Wave Beast among the bunch was already much bigger than the space boat. And as for the bigger ones, they were clearly multifold times larger than the boat. The boat looked like a toy in their midst. It overturned and the people inside also fell out accordingly.


    With a loud boom, six golden light rays were shot from the space boat and landed squarely on the six Cold Wave Beasts.


    The smallest one was sent flying and its body floated listlessly on the waters. It looked like it was on the verge of death. But the three giant beasts were 5000 to 6000 feet in size, and it had little impact on them. They retreated a little, roared and attacked the boat again.


    Hahahaha, little kid of Yu family, let me see what you will do now!" Hu Bugui''s voice traveled through the deep sea waters as if it came from a far-off distance.

 Chapter 415: Cold Wave Beast

    Chapter 415: Cold Wave Beast


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Hu Bugui, you contemptuous man. Face me if you dare, I want to fight squarely with you!" Having been used once by Hu Bugui, Yu Nantian looked extremely furious as he shouted.


    "A square fight, hehe, how interesting. Your tone is exactly the same as your great grandfather''s. Let''s see if you can conquer this Cold Wave Beast first!" Hu Bugui''s voice faded. The Cold Wave Beast''s gigantic body once again smashed onto the body of the Void Traveler.


    "Phew!" The Void Traveller did not sway this time. The talisman on the spaceboat began to glimmer and transform into countless rays of golden streamers that flowed over the body of the spaceboat. The Cold Wave Beast knocked itself onto the spaceboat, only to be forcefully thrown to the side. It let out a low whimper. It was evident that the Cold Wave Beast had been injured seriously and had no more energy to attack the Void Traveller.


    Standing on the bow of the spaceboat, Yu Nantian powered up his golden Gang Qi. At that moment, the Spirit and the entire Void Traveller connected together. The Void Traveller began to ascend, trying to reach the surface of the sea.


    "Hohoho, you think it is so easy to escape?!" Hu Bugui''s sneaky tones reverberated once again. The sea began to roar. Dark shadows from the depths of the sea reached out their hands and tied the ascending Void Traveller firmly until it was locked in position. It was only then that Zhou Bao realized the dark shadows were actually the tentacles of a gigantic octopus. There were eight tentacles altogether and each one was two to three feet long. Every tentacle was covered with heart-numbing suckers and barbs. These eight tentacles held the Void Traveller tightly in place with no concern at all for the damage the protective golden light was causing to the Void Traveller. It began to pull the Void Traveller to the bottom of the sea.


    "Dammit, get out of this!" The bow of the boat listened to the Void Traveller''s Yu Nantian''s agitated cry. Following his orders, the Void Traveller began to shake vigorously, attempting to escape the eight tentacles'' entrapment.


    But obviously, all of these efforts were futile. After trying to escape multiple times, the Void Traveller did not manage to break free. In fact, its behavior seemed to have provoked the gigantic octopus that had risen from the dark. The octopus''s eight tentacles started to shake. Zhou Bao who stood on the boat only felt a wave of earth-shaking and mountain-moving tremours. Those that were slightly lighter, such as the Moon Deer of Extended Net, were thrown out of the cabin and fell onto the deck. If it was not for the prompt use of Gang Qi, everyone would have been seriously injured by now.


    "Yu Young Master, we cannot go on like this. If we let this bastard live, it will not be easy for us to escape next time!" The expression on Great Dark Lord Du was not pleasant. If they were at sea, he would not have hesitated to leave the Void Traveller and keep his distance away from Chen Dao. However now that they were in the depths of the sea, there was no guarantee that he could make it out alive even with his powers. He could only rely on the Void Traveller which was a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Once the Void Traveller was destroyed, he would be in big trouble. The depths of the sea was really as deadly as the legends said. Even small octopus would disregard a Pure Yang Celestial Device''s defense and dare to grab it tightly. Disregarding the enormous water pressure he will have to withstand if he left the Void Traveller at this moment, who knows what kind of monsters he might meet along the way?


    It was possible that he would have been swallowed by a random monster before he reached the surface of the sea.


    "I know we cannot continue on like this any longer, but while we were escaping Hu Bugui just now, the Void Traveller had exhausted too much energy. It is too difficult to recover Yuan Qi in such a short amount of time!" Yu Nantian also knew the severity of the situation but he was helpless. In his heart, he regretted using such a huge amount of energy to run the Void Traveller at a high speed. If he did not deplete so much energy just now, it would be possible for him to escape the tentacles of the giant octopus if he put in the effort.


    "Don''t panic. Panicking now won''t do any good. This octopus is just a little big and perhaps possesses some other powers, but in the end, it''s not worth being fearful of. We have so many people, should we still be scared of an octopus with no Qi?!" A disciple of the Dragon Thunder Palace who had been silently standing by the side smiled and asked softly,"Let''s accumulate some Qi to defeat Hu Bugui''s next move. Yu Young Master, you seem to know the history of Hu Bugui, shouldn''t you share it with us?!"


    Yu Nantian looked up and said, "This Hu Bugui is one of Yu family''s big enemies, but that was a story from thousands of years ago. I thought he was already dead long ago, but who would have thought that he was hiding in the Sea Area. Hehe, this Sea Area is indeed a filthy place!"


    Hearing Yu Nantian sigh, Zhou Bao would have loved to kill Hu Bugui with one stomp of his feet.


    The others felt the same. Once they heard that Hu Bugui was the Yu family''s arch enemy for centuries and have not seen each other for more than 1000 years, the expression on their faces turned sour.


    There is a limit to one''s lifespan. A man could only live more than 1000 years only if had cultivated to the Mysterious Realm. Hu Bugui had been Yu family''s enemy from 1000 years ago, which means to say, he at least had the power of the Metaphysic Individual Immortal.


    What was the Yu family like?


    It was the strongest family in the Divine Wind Palace. For tens of thousands of years, 90% of lords in the Divine Wind Palace came from the Yu family. For a family to hold grudges against the legendary Jade Emperor''s descendant and to have lived on, that spoke volumes about Hu Bugui''s powers.


    They were here to kill others, not to be killed by others. However, they were only out for half a day and not only was their target nowhere to be seen, they had also become someone else''s prey. The whole matter was terribly ironic.


    Zhou Bao''s thoughts had now settled. Watching the tentacles encircle the Void Traveller, he seemed to have understood the other party''s thoughts.


    Hu Bugui seemed to be using a lowly evil beast from the depths of the sea to drain the opponent''s strength.


    In the sea, demons and beasts were innumerable. The lowly beasts and demons were especially countless. These evil beasts and demons may have low intelligence and not know a thing about magic and even Demonic Qi, but their muscles were way too strong. They were born with this gift. Living in the boundless depth of the ocean and having lived through countless cycles of evolution, these lowly beasts and demons'' bodies were much stronger than Level Nine experts who trained hard on the land. If not, these beasts would not be able to withstand such high water pressure. The deeper the sea, the more of these beasts.


    Just like the Cold Wave Beast just now and the giant octopus encircling the Void Traveller now.


    They did not have any special powers. Their only strength was their body, but just with this strength, they could pose a threat to the Void Traveller and even disregard a Pure Yang Celestial Device''s attack.


    The Void Traveller was a Pure Yang Celestial Device but it withstood many attacks before. The Cold Wave Beast seemed to have finished, but the eight-tentacled octopus that suddenly appeared grabbed the Void Traveller. Even if the octopus was their opponent and was killed in their hands, more evil beasts and demons would appear. In the sea, there was never a lack of such animals. Oh no, another five to six Cold Wave Beasts were swimming towards them, encircling the surroundings of the Void Traveller. They did not charge towards them; they seemed to be waiting for an opportunity. The Cold Wave Beasts did not have this kind of intelligence. The only explanation for such a behavior was that they were secretly controlled by someone.


    "Yu Young Master, we cannot continue on like this. We must leave now, we cannot deal with this!" Great Dark Lord Du told Yu Nantian. The nine golden-robed men behind Yu Nantian also displayed similar expressions of anxiety on their faces.


    "I know. I will deal with this big fella immediately. As for the other Cold Wave Beasts'' impending attack, I will have to trouble you guys!"


    To be honest, these Cold Wave Beasts were not easy to fight with.


    "Leave the Cold Wave Beasts to me," said Zhou Bao, who was standing on the left side of the ship. "The most important thing is to get rid of those damn tentacles!"


    "Ok!" Having heard Zhou Bao''s orders, Yu Nantian felt surprised. In fact, not only Yu Nantian was surprised; the others were also taken aback. Nobody thought that Zhou Bao would take initiative in this circumstance.


    Feeling everyone''s strange gaze, Zhou Bao sealed his mouth, remained silent and offered no explanation.


    Yu Nantian stood at the bow of the boat and let out a low grunt. The golden light surrounding the Void Traveller fired up and flashed vigorously, forming a ginormous ray of golden light.


    On the brim of these rays of golden light, the talisman began to turn and showed an aura of sharpness. It swiftly cut each of the eight tentacles into two. Deep green fluid began flowing from the cut tentacles and drifted freely in the sea water. It looked very frightening. The eight tentacles were all cut into pieces, the master of the octopus seemed to have been seriously injured as well. Fragments of the tentacles'' upper arm were vibrating and a sharp scream was heard from the depths of the ocean. The scream was filled with agony and pain.


    "Come on!" Great Dark Lord Du''s expression changed suddenly because he saw the cut tentacle fragments regenerating new tentacles. Yu Nan also did not know what to do. He aggressively forced the Void Traveller to move to the sea surface. Simultaneously, a few Cold Wave Beasts huddled in as if they wanted to ambush the Void Traveller.


    Everyone turned to look at Zhou Bao. The edge of Zhou Bao''s mouth showed a slice of his cold smile. The cyan fog that surrounded the Void Traveller dispersed and the golden light from the Void Traveller shone through the sea water. It began to dissolve into the sea water, disappearing without a trace nor a shadow.


    Everyone did not understand what realm Zhou Bao used. Watching the Cold Wave Beasts charging towards the Void Traveller, Zhou Bao had no other moves.


    "Boom!" A loud noise was heard. The first Cold Wave Beast had hit the Void Traveller.


    "Zhou Bao!" This time Yu Nantian was angry. Zhou Bao said he would deal with the Cold Wave Beasts, but he did not do anything at all. What was this supposed to mean, was he joking with him?


    "Be quiet!" Zhou Bao glanced at him and held a straight face.


    Bang, bang, bang!


    Another few bangs. A few other Cold Wave Beasts knocked into the Void Traveller. At this point in time, everyone realized something strange. The Cold Wave Beasts that appeared this time all exceeded 300 feet in length. According to logic, the impact of their attack would have been much stronger than before.

 Chapter 416: Void God-eliminating Cannon A Leap of 80,000 Feet

    Chapter 416: Void God-eliminating Cannon A Leap of 80,000 Feet


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The collisions this time was unlike the previous ones, it was simply like scratching an itch. They rammed directly into the spaceboat, only to be deflected away by its golden light. The attackers posed no threat at all.


    "Hiss!"


    The crowd took a closer look and breathed a sigh of relief. The Cold Wave Beasts that attacked were all dead. They had no wounds on their body. Their huge bodies were turned over with their white tummies afloat, drifting up to the surface of the water like any other dead fish.


    It was not just the Cold Wave Beasts. Other living organisms in the vicinity of the sea were all dead as well. The death toll was high and all the dead animals were drifting to the surface of the sea. The tentacles that had just regenerated began to reach out from the depths of the ocean. They shook violently for a moment, were shed off and the giant octopus began to return to the depths of the ocean. It made no more noise.


    Death became the theme of this Sea Area.


    "Poisonous, very poisonous, all these fellas are dead!" The Void Traveller began to float to the surface of the sea. Staring in shock at its own surroundings, Chen Dao remarked uncomfortably.


    Yes, poison. An extremely strong poison. Chen Dao was renowned for his poisons back in the Dark Sect. He had countless types of poisons with him but when compared to Zhou Bao, who killed all the ocean''s evil beasts within a ten feet radius in just a moment, and to have killed them so cleanly, he would not have been able to achieve such a result even if he used all the poison Chen Dao had.


    However, Zhou Bao did it. His Poison Cold Shield was now a Pure Yang Celestial Device, including the various kinds of poison mixed in it. Once in contact with Pure Yang, its lethality would multiply many folds. In addition, they were now in the depths of the sea. The oceanic water became an excellent medium to transmit the poison, making the poison so miraculously effective.


    "Dammit!" After the initial shock, Yu Nantian''s facial muscles started twitching. This was because the poison Zhou Bao released not only killed the evil beasts in the surroundings, but it had also seeped into the spaceboat and started affecting everyone.


    The golden light surrounding the Void Traveller made a sizzling sound as a layer of cyan fog eroded it. It could be seen that one layer of light had already been corroded.


    "Quickly retrieve back your poison!" Yu Nantian shouted agitatedly. He had always known that Zhou Bao possessed more than one Pure Yang Celestial Device, but he never thought that Zhou Bao would use such a lethal Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    Zhou Bao smiled. The cyan fog flashed a few times before it was retrieved back. Since the goal had already been achieved, there was no need to stir up so many irritating events.


    "Yu Young Master, let''s leave this place quickly. Who knows what Hu Bugui would use against us next!" Zhou Bao said as he retrieved back his poison.


    Yu Nantian focused his gaze. The Void Traveller suddenly sped up. Its golden rays broke free from the boundless ocean, ascending rapidly into the sky. Although its current speed could not be compared to its usual speed in the sky, within a few breaths, it had ascended a few feet. Gradually, light that reflected off the surface of the sea was visible.


    Just when everyone began to see hope, the surrounding water became turbulent as if a mysterious force had stirred it up. The originally stable ascent of the spaceboat was influenced and started to shake.


    Although the Void Traveller was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it was designed to fly in the air. It was not designed to move in water, and definitely not designed as a submarine.


    When the Void Traveller was in the depths of the sea previously, it withstood an enormous amount of pressure. If it was not for its nature as a Pure Yang Celestial Device, which was built with countless rare materials and mysterious talisman formation, it would not be able to protect the people in the spaceboat. However, this protection was not absolute. Once the pressure reached the limit, the Void Traveller would also be crushed. If they did not kill the Cold Wave Beasts and the octopus just now, the Void Traveller might not be in one piece now.


    The sea water was raging in one direction. It began to form a gigantic vortex of thousands of feet wide. In such a huge vortex, in the face of such great pressure, the Void Traveller had no resistance at all. It was sucked into the vortex and the entire spaceboat let out squeaky sounds from being crushed. If it was not a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it would have been crushed to pieces by the water pressure.


    Inside the Void Traveller, the expression on everyone''s faces was not pleasant. Once the vortex was formed, almost everyone understood that if the Void Traveller had no other means of defense, it would be the end. Everyone stopped doing their work and thought hard about how they could escape from the Void Traveller. They wanted to escape from this damned Pure Yang Celestial Device, they did not want to die in it.


    Everyone could leave the spaceboat, but Yu Nantian could not. The Void Traveller did not belong to the Divine Wind Palace, but rather to the Yu family. Although the Yu family was a part of the Divine Wind Palace, possessing countless rare treasures, there was only one Pure Yang Celestial Device like the Void Traveller. The craft behind making such a large Pure Yang Celestial Device had been lost through the ages. This Void Traveller was also Yu family''s heirloom with a supreme amount of strength. If it was not for Hu Bugui''s attack, the powers that could be fully displayed in the air would wildly surpass any average Genuine Immortal''s attack force. In reality, its powers of attack and defense were sufficient to kill Genuine Immortals, not just the Genuine Immortals who had experienced the Thunder Tribulation. Even for those that experienced it two or three times, they might not escape from an attack by the Void Traveller.


    It was because of the Void Traveller that the Divine Wind Palace and the Yu family had control over the boundless ocean. However, they did not expect to encounter such an unfortunate event. Due to an oversight on their part, they had fallen prey to the evil calculations of Hu Bugui, landing themselves in a disadvantageous situation.


    This was shameful enough by itself. If at this moment, Yu Nantian gave up on the Void Traveller, then his family''s status would suffer a terrible fall. Even if he cultivated himself to be a Genuine Immortal and conquer nine Divine Tribulations, he would not be able to win his family''s approval and be the lord of the Divine Wind Palace. In reality, once he lost his family''s support, he had no chance of progressing as smoothly as he did in the past.


    Hence, he cried out loud and used all his might to restart the Void Traveller. The Void Traveller started to shake and a burst of energy radiated from the spaceboat.


    "What a strong force, what is this thing? Is it the Void Traveller''s real strength?!"


    Indeed, now that Yu Nantian was exerting the greatest force on the Void Traveller. The previous speed at which the Void Traveller traveled at caused a huge loss of pneuma, but it did not harm the core of the spaceboat. This time, he was tapping on the Void Traveller''s essence.


    "Everyone stand firm. I am going to activate the Void Traveller''s greatest strength!"


    Yu Nantian looked solemn and spoke in a warning tone.


    Having heard Yu Nantian, everyone''s hearts was tight with anticipation. What would be the Void Traveller''s greatest strength?


    The answer soon appeared in front of everyone''s eyes.


    After BOOM!


    An explosion was heard and all the golden rays of light concentrated at one spot before exploding outwards. They formed an all-destructive golden light column and the spaceboat shot towards the center of the vortex furiously.


    Void God-eliminating Cannon!


    This was actually the Void Traveller''s greatest strength, and also its guaranteed defense!


    After the explosion, the surroundings became chaotic. With one explosion, a hole seemed to have been burned in the entire ocean. The surrounding currents still flowed hastily, but the original huge pressure was lost. The Void Traveller left the trapping of the vortex. The surrounding golden light began to fluctuate strangely.


    Space fluctuations!


    Zhou Bao was more than familiar with this kind of fluctuation. It was space fluctuation.


    "The Void Traveller can actually hollow travel!" Zhou Bao realized in shock. He saw the oceans surrounding him being thrust away by the powerful space fluctuations to form a black Space Passage in front of the Void Traveller. The black Space Passage engulfed the Void Traveller. When everyone saw daylight again, everything was different.


    Blue sky, clouds, sunlight and wind!


    Everything was completely different. It was as if they had been in two different worlds and everything that had previously occurred was just a nightmare. Now that they have woken up from the nightmare, everything was beautiful again.


    It was just that, as everyone noticed, the golden light surrounding the Void Traveller had dimmed significantly. Its speed was also reduced drastically. It was even slower than when they flew on their own.


    "Everyone, the extraordinary strength that I launched from the Void Traveller just now broke open the Hollow and traveled 80,000 feet in distance. However, at the same time, the Void Traveller''s strength is now at the minimum. So, we need to find a place to rest!"


    More than 80,000 miles!


    Having heard the distance they traveled, Zhou Bao''s face turned white.


    What kind of concept was traveling 80,000 in one shot considered?


    His Three Realms Division could be said to be super successful. In the same space, it was probably only possible to travel three to four miles. For this Void Traveller to travel 80,000 miles, how was that possible?


    Casting his gaze on Great Dark Lord Du and the rest of the sect''s people''s peaceful expressions, he suppressed his own unease in his heart.


    It seemed like these prestigious sects and schools were not useless!


    At least on the basis of experience, they definitely surpassed his own.


    "It''s not safe here. Although we have shuttled over 80,000 miles, we are still in the boundless ocean. For the living creatures in this ocean, 80,000 miles is not considered far!"


    Great Dark Lord Du now said, "The Void Traveller has depleted a lot of energy. I suggest we find a small island to fix it a little. To fly to the sky now is too far-fetched a goal!"


    Everyone nodded in agreement.


    The Void Traveller''s goal was indeed very ambitious. They could not escape from an expert''s spiritual mind.


    "There is an island ahead. Let us head there. We should hide the Void Traveller first and think of ways to revive its energy. How''s that?!" Great Dark Lord Du asked Yu Nantian.


    "Ok, let''s do as you say!" Evidently, this suggestion was aligned with Yu Nantian''s idea. This trip out was way too rough; one could say it was extremely rough. He needed time to tidy things up and search for his morale. If not, the rest of the journey would be hard to carry out.

 Chapter 417: Tusk Island

    Chapter 417: Tusk Island


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The island ahead was about 3000 to 4000 miles away. Given that all those on the Void Traveller were experts with amazingly sharp vision, they could see the island in that distance clearly.


    "We''d better be careful. That island is giving off a compelling Fierce Qi, maybe some Grand Demon or Evil are hiding there. If it discovers us by accident and reckons that we are invading its territory, there will be another hard fight!" A monk of the Bigwheel Temple said in an anxious tone, as he stared at the distant island that was floating on the sea, shaped like a tusk of a Primordial Fierce Beast.


    "It''s better than landing in the sea. When we''re on shore, even if on an island, the methods we can use are much more plentiful than those we have when in the sea. Restraints upon us are much less, too. We have so many men and Pure Yang Celestial Devices, so how could we fear them!" Yu Nantian had been fighting back his fury for a long time, now he coldly contradicted the monk of the Bigwheel Temple with a tone full of rudeness. That monk had never be treated like that, but he knew it was not a good time to unleash his anger, so his face was of not a good color.


    Having caught all this in his eyes, Zhou Bao found it funny and his mind gave a small jolt. "Nice, staying on an island is always better than in the air and in the sea. Let''s first get on the island and take a look!"


    Hearing Zhou Bao echoing his view, Yu Nantian nodded. Then, without asking anyone else for more opinions, he directly propelled the Void Traveller to fly towards that island in the sea.


    This island was not large. It seemed to be more of a chain of volcanoes that stretched from the seabed to the sea surface than an island. Peaks of those volcanoes were like sharp tusks of Fierce Beasts, piercing right through the clouds while spraying dense grey smoke. The parts of those volcanoes revealing above the sea level were not big at all, but Zhou Bao knew that the rest that was hiding in the seawater shall at least be as sizable as the Misty Mountain of Jin or the Borderline Mountain. Perhaps it was even more vast and had more branches of mountain ranges.


    It would also certainly have loads of marine Demonic Fire dwelling on the branches of those gigantic volcanoes in the sea.


    The speed of the Void Traveller was several times slower than before. In the past, it would merely take a few seconds for it to travel thousands of miles. However, it flew for a whole hour before approaching that island.


    "Something might be wrong!"


    When they got increasingly close to that island, rich smells of sulfur ran into their nostrils and made them felt sick. However, in addition to those pungent smells of sulfur, wafts of extremely ferocious spirit brought even more fear to these experts on the Traveller.


    Void Traveller continued to decelerate and finally came to a halt. Yu Nantian''s expression was also undecided. How could he not have sensed the dangerous spirit exuding from the island? No, he definitely could have. However, at this moment, he was all in for it. If he refused to take a rest and readjust the Void Traveller, it could never carry them flying across the vast Sea Area. Even if it scraped to achieve so, at such a slow speed, how many years would they have to fly?


    The Void Traveller needed a secluded place to replenish the pneuma, and so did he. After all, flying like this with no shield or protection was truly too risky.


    If they descended downright on the sea, that would amount to courting their own death.


    It seemed that within a radius of thousands of miles from this area, only this island could serve a place for him to take a break. Thus, even if he saw huge evil beasts on the island, he would have to hurtle to it without hesitation, let alone face the ferocious atmosphere being emanated.


    Thinking of this, he made up his mind. Patting on the gunwale of the Traveller, it started to function again, carrying them flying towards the unknown island.


    The 16 men on the spaceboat all tensed up. They unbiddenly clenched their fists and gripped their weapons, ready for an upcoming combat.


    As the spaceboat approached the island, grey smoke in the environment started getting denser. All the smoke was erupted out from that crater, which enveloped the entire island. Considering the smoke was thin, it was possible to catch a clear sight of the island from afar. However, when they draw nearer, they found out that the smoke was not easy to penetrate through. Soon after the Void Traveller approached the island, its surrounding golden light attracted lots of grey smoke, which firmly wrapped the golden light as if it had intelligence. No matter how hard Yu Nantian tried, he just could not get rid of it.


    "The smoke is not formed by nature!"


    Great Dark Lord Du said so with a cold face as if he sensed something fishy.


    It looked like that the grey smoke shrouding the whole island was ejected from the peak of those tusk-shaped volcanoes. However, in actual fact, the grey smoke went under the control of a mysterious force after being shot out, which continuously hung above the island to form the first shield of this island.


    If the Void Traveller had been in its full bloom, it would have removed the smoke effortlessly. However, unfortunately, the Void Traveller''s pneuma was significantly undermined, so it had already done a good job when it managed to protect the body of this space boat from being tainted by the grey smoke. Yet, it was indeed impossible for the Void Traveller to shake off the smoke.


    Gradually, the entire Void Traveller was wrapped in smoke. If they let this be, they will not have a clear view of the road ahead.


    At this moment, a monk from the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple stood up and walked to the gunwale. He raised his hands slightly and a jet of cyan light flashed out, flying at high speed. This light was pretty thin at first, but when it went outside the Void Traveller, it was swiftly enlarged, conjuring a small-scale whirlwind. Once this whirlwind appeared, it swept through the surrounding airflows and expanded itself. Finally, it grew into a tornado that enclosed the entire Void Traveller.


    At the center of the tornado, the Void Traveller was still running stably. This tornado did not even impose any effect on it. However, shortly after that, all the grew smoke attached to the golden light of the Void Traveller was dispersed by the wind and vanished.


    Light reappeared in front of the crowd.


    "Smart move, smart move!" Great Dark Lord Du applauded with admiration. Before his words faded, a booming voice sounded from the island, "Who is it? How dare you enter the Tusk Island!"


    The voice came thunderously, producing an invisible sound wave that sent the Void Traveller wabbling from side to side.


    "I am Yu Nantian, passing by your honorable land. Since we bumped into a storm on the sea earlier, we hope to rest for a day on your honorable land. Please grant us the favor!" Cupping his fists, Yu Nantian answered with a loud and clear voice.


    Except for the monk from the Bigwheel Temple and two from the Dragon Thunder Palace, all the men on the Void Traveller scowled at this reply. Having frequently ventured in Jianghu, these men had already seen how the world worked. Thus, when they heard his stereotyped answer, they knew that he was a rookie who had just stepped into Jianghu.


    "F*ck, what is the Divine Wind Palace thinking? They actually sent a rookie to do this job! What''s their real purpose?"


    Yu Nantian''s answer was too standardized as if it was made by a formula, and not very polite either. Hence, these words might be easily regarded as annoying and unpleasant.


    Grant them a favor? How could that be allowed so easily?


    This was someone else''s territory. Nevertheless, they had entered this area without permission and even destroyed the first layer of the other''s defense, which obviously damaged the other''s dignity. Accordingly, Yu Nantian should have given this reply before the monk of the Bigwheel Temple took action, rather than after that.


    Sure enough, after hearing Yu Nantian''s words, the man on the island seemed ready to turn down on Yu Nantian''s request. All of a sudden, the smoke in the environment multiplied and condensed into a huge hand, making a fierce grab at the Void Traveller.


    "Great!" Seeing the impressive power of that huge hand, Yu Nantian''s expression altered and he quickly leaped into the air. His golden Gang Qi was flashing consecutively, which condensed into a huge fist and smashed at that huge hand made of smoke with a loud bang.


    "What a douche! This kid is really a rookie!" Zhou Bao''s brows furrowed harder. He knew that the smoke was intangible, even if he quashed the hand, the smoke would gather together again and form a new hand. All this would be a waste of breath if he failed to find who was manipulating the smoke.


    If he could take this into consideration, then so would those guys who were experienced combaters be able to do the same. Even those golden-robed man of the Divine Wind Palace had thought of this. They exchanged a look with each other and saw the same worry in the other''s eyes. Then, five shots of golden light launched from the Void Traveller, heading for the Tusk Island, which meant that these five men were already determined to find the one behind the scene first.


    "It''s not that simple, is it?" Zhou Bao''s eyes revealed a trace of bizarreness.


    A gale of wind rose up out of nowhere, and the five figures were instantly covered by endless smoke. Just when the five men were about to disappear behind the smoke, a blazing red light suddenly burst out and cut through the grey smoke.


    "Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    Sensing fits of Yang Qi, Zhou Bao knew that the opposite side had activated a Pure Yang Celestial Device. On the other hand, Yu Nantian already drew the hand apart. However, the smoke soon started to swoop at him as if it had sprung alive. Yu Nantian was entangled by the smoke and could not break free from it for the moment.


    "What is this kid waiting for? Just use the celestial device! Or he would be suffocated to death!" Watching Yu Nantian struggling to fight off the smoke, Great Dark Lord Du asked in confusion.


    Nobody answered him. Zhou Bao merely shrugged, then stepped to the left of the gunwale to carefully observe the surroundings. The quantity of grey smoke was getting increasingly larger, no way could they eliminate all of it. Apparently, the owner of this island had collected all smoke that erupted from those volcanoes for all those years. Only God knew how much smoke was there!


    Moreover, most of the smoke, that was the tephra, had been refined into something that possessed high intelligence. Thus, it was not easy to deal with the smoke.


    "What do you think, Leopard? Go and give them a helping hand? Well, standing here and waiting is certainly not a good idea!" Great Dark Lord Du abruptly turned to Zhou Bao and asked him fondly.


    "Hehe, fine. The purpose of us coming to this island is not to fight with the island owner but to have a rest. No need to let this escalate to a throat-cutting fight." Zhou Bao said, smiling. As he was speaking, several fierce snarls spread out from the island and a red light started flickering in the grey smoke. A violent power fluctuation reached the Void Traveller, which was mingled with an alarmingly aggressive Qi Power.


    "Gosh, we ran into a tough one!"


    Feeling this enormous Qi Power, even Great Dark Lord Du could not keep a placid face. He looked up at Zhou Bao and said, "With only my power, it is not enough to deter him!"


    Zhou Bao gave a nod and said impassively, "Then, I shall go with you!"


    At this point, Zhou Bao did not have to continue badgering with the opponent at all. He must display strong power to deter, to suppress the other side and render him scrupulous. Then, he would have a chance to negotiate. If he kept pestering the opponent like this, not only could it be unhelpful to solve the problem, but it might also arouse the opponent''s wrath.

 Chapter 418: Winning and Compromising

    Chapter 418: Winning and Compromising


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    After making up their mind, the two leaped out of the Void Traveller one after the other. With their torrential Gang Qi surging, a vast power emitted from their bodies and turned into an infinitely compelling pressure which directly crushed towards the island.


    The purple Gang Qi formed a shadow of Heavenly Devil behind Great Dark Lord Du, letting out silent roars. Great Dark Lord Du had cast out his Heavenly Devil Real Body! Meanwhile, Zhou Bao was not resigned to playing second fiddle. He was surrounded by fluttering dark golden Gang Qi, producing hot airflows that were running around like rivers appallingly, evaporating all the grey smoke flushing onto his skin.


    The smoke erupted from those volcanoes had all evaporated and turned into gas under the impact of Zhou Bao''s Real Essence Gang Qi.


    Even when Great Dark Lord Du, who revealed his Heavenly Devil Real Body, got a bit close to Zhou Bao, he felt a scorching pain in the body part that came into contact with Zhou Bao''s Gang Qi. He let out a twisted moan and jumped aside, staring at Zhou Bao as if he was a monster.


    Zhou Bao had launched his Gang Qi to the full extent. Now, nine dark golden Fire Dragons were wheeling around him, and there were shadows of two Real Dragons behind him. The grey smoke had long been gasified and thus was nowhere to be seen. The sky also seemed to be affected by Zhou Bao, because the original white clouds had turned scarlet. In the beginning, there was only a tiny patch of scarlet cloud, but soon it sprawled in all directions. All the clouds hanging above the Tusk Island went scarlet as if they all caught fire. Rays of light reflected from those clouds had bathed the whole island in red. Also, the air started getting hot, and the smoke that transformed into various forms to fight against Yu Nantian also began to dissolve under the influence of the burning air, enabling Yu Nantian to finally get away. Meanwhile, the five experts of the Divine Wind Palace, who had also been stuck in the smoke, felt a considerable reduction of their stress. They then broke free from the smoke by taking advantage of that Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    After getting out of their troubles, Yu Nantian and the five men of the Divine Wind Palace all stayed put, looking at Zhou Bao and Great Dark Lord Du who were still in the air with a mixed expression. In fact, all their attention were focused on Zhou Bao, and even Great Dark Lord Du''s expression became wondrous. He believed that he already thought very highly of Zhou Bao''s strength, but now it turned out that he had significantly underestimated his strength. At first, he only suggested Zhou Bao strike together with him in case his sole power was not sufficient. In this way, he could test Zhou Bao''s real power and show off his own strength as well. However, after Zhou Bao''s amazing performance, it was Great Dark Lord Du who found it hard to wind up this competition in his favor.


    "This damn dude! He is messing with me on purpose!"


    He gave a wry smile, but as a man who respected fair plays, he withdrew the Heavenly Devil Real Body behind him and leaped back into the Void Traveller in a flash.


    "Seems that he doesn''t need me to nail down all this!" Great Dark Lord Du looked at Chen Dao and gave him a smile. Then, he shot a glance at those monks of the Bigwheel Temple, whose expressions were all sour right now. Everyone knew that the Bigwheel Temple held a grudge against Zhou Bao. Now that Zhou Bao displayed such a strong power in face of the Bigwheel Temple, it was obvious that Zhou Bao was trying to threaten the Bigwheel Temple. Hence, how could members of the Bigwheel Temple put on a happy face at this point?


    "Who knew that he should possess such great strength! But he is so young. How on earth has he been practicing his martial arts?" Standing next to him, Chen Dao murmured. It was the first time Chen Dao had ever met Zhou Bao in person, but he was already deeply impressed by Zhou Bao. He remembered last time, Zhou Bao poisoned so many evil beasts and demons to death with an eccentric Pure Yang Celestial Device. Now, Zhou Bao had once more demonstrated his magnificent strength in front of all of them.


    Not only Chen Dao, but all the other people on the Void Traveller were also dumbstruck by Zhou Bao''s shocking aggressivity. In such a short period of time, the Zhou Bao''s Qi Power invoked an abnormal phenomenon in the sky and on the ground. Just imagine how forceful his Real Essence was and how strong his power was to achieve this!


    Even an Individual Immortal or a Genuine Immortal could not possibly have this kind of cultivation and such abundant Internal Qi, let alone a Level Nine expert.


    Level Nine?


    No, this kid was absolutely not a Level Nine expert. He could not be. How could a Level Nine expert have such a compelling Gang Qi? How could the Gang Qi of a Level Nine expert that existed as half Real Essence and half Internal Qi be able to incur such a drastic abnormality between heaven and earth!


    Those on the Void Traveller were all potential leaders of their respective sects who were experienced and knowledgeable, but this was about causing abnormality for heaven and earth, which could only be produced when a Real Essence, that almost had Dharma power, was powered with full strength. No way could a Level Nine expert''s half Real Essence and half Internal Qi, which was also called ''fake Real Essence'', generate this kind of phenomenon.


    No wonder the whole world was spreading the rumor that Zhou Bao''s combat capability had long surpassed Level Nine. This comment was certainly not exaggerative, perhaps even still a bit conservative. Maybe his strength had already overtaken that of a Metaphysic Individual Immortal and was infinitely close to a Genuine Immortal. What more, in some respect, his Real Essence was even more abundant than that of a Genuine Immortal. If a Genuine Immortal was standing here in front of Zhou Bao, he would not dare to say that his Real Essence or Dharma power was more abundant than Zhou Bao''s. It was possible that the quality of the Genuine Immortal''s Real Essence was better, whereas, with such a huge quantity of Real Essence, Zhou Bao could still offset the advantage those Dharma power could bring to him.


    How on earth did he do it?


    All those present were asking themselves this question, but right now, this was just a fleeting thought in their minds.


    With nine Fire Dragons hovering over the entire Tusk Island and the presence of Zhou Bao''s mighty Gang Qi, a kind of unrivaled pressure came into being, which was advancing upon the island as if it would crush it.


    "We coming here today is simply to find a resting place. We won''t stay for long. I wish the owner of this island could accommodate us so that both sides can live in harmony!"


    Zhou Bao''s voice was not very loud, but it spread all over the Tusk Island like muffled thunder.


    The island fell into total silence. After an unknown period of time, a helpless sigh finally sounded.


    "Distinguished guests, please forgive me for not greeting you long before you arrived at my door!" As this voice rang in, the grey smoke that Zhou Bao with his burning Gang Qi started falling slowly. It tenaciously entered the red light that filled up the sky.


    Zhou Bao gave a smile and the surrounding red light faded. Then, nine Fire Dragons and shadows of the two real dragons went back into his Gang Qi as if nothing had happened.


    The sky was still blue, the water was still green, and white clouds were still floating in the air as it had been. The Tusk Island returned to what it was like before when it was wrapped in grey smoke, except for the fact that the smoke stopped pestering the Void Traveller and the men on it, as though it had lost its intelligence. The smoke gradually fell downwards, and soon all of the smoke surrounding the island had dispersed itself like mist, unveiling a passageway in front of the Void Traveller. It led to the island.


    With a subtle flash, Zhou Bao had already returned to the Void Traveller. He glanced at the appalled face of Yu Nantian and said, "Young Master Yu, we may enter. The owner has allowed us to have a short rest here!"


    "Oh! I see." Yu Nantian suddenly came to himself. He shot a look at Zhou Bao, tapped on the gunwale, and the Void Traveller flew along the passageway in front of them and went into Tusk Island.


    The Tusk Island looked not much different than the one they had seen from outside. It was just that the island was encircled by some objects, so they could not have a clear view of it when they were from a distance. Now, they had a clearer view.


    People on the Void Traveller all stayed very quiet. Only Great Dark Lord Du walked in front of Zhou Bao and surveyed him. He beamed and said, "Well, well, well, one is never too young to be a hero! You, a leopard, truly have the power to engulf the whole world!"


    "The power to engulf the whole world?"


    Zhou Bao smiled and hastened to deny this as he waved his hands. "Great Dark Lord Du, please stop making fun of me. I don''t have many merits. I just deal with all the things with my brutal force. I can''t even swallow down this little island before your eyes! How could you say things like engulfing the whole world? "


    "Hahaha, actually, you can swallow the whole world, it''s just that you don''t want to!" Great Dark Lord Du simpered. "Comparing with you, those so-called teen heroes and talents are all dumbasses! Prodigies, outstanding persons, or whatever they are called, they all look like a joke now. No wonder Ye Qingtian, who even got his fairy weapon with him, still fell at your hand. It''s because you do have such power!"


    How honest those words were! Maybe too honest to please the others. Thus, many people had taken those words as an insinuation.


    For example, Yu Nantian clenched his fists after hearing those words. He forced himself to operate his Internal Qi and stifle down his blood that was boiling with indignation.


    "I''m not a prodigy at all, just had a bit of luck to learn directly from a predecessor!" Zhou Bao started sprouting nonsense. "If it was not me but a pig that got this luck, its strength would also grow no less stronger. But you, Great Dark Lord Du, your Heavenly Devil Real Body is really eccentric. I reckon it''s definitely not an ordinary Heavenly Devil. If you Dark Lord can infuse this Heavenly Devil Real Body within your body, perhaps you may break through the Individual Immortal Realm and upgrade to Genuine Immortal!"


    Uh!


    Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Great Dark Lord Du involuntarily narrowed his eyes. "Hehe, what a sharp vision! I never thought that your knowledge could also be wider than normal people! You even recognized my Heavenly Devil Real Body!"


    "Just heard about it by chance," said Zhou Bao with a smile. He slightly nodded at Great Dark Lord Du and thought inwardly, "You oldie, look, now I''ve already shifted the attention of Yu Nantian!"


    Yu Nantian was a total newbie, which was precisely the most difficult kind to handle. Rumors had it that 70 or 80% of conflicts in Jianghu were incurred by impulse activities of newbies like Yu Nantian. Jealousy was only one way to trigger a bloody crime.


    Just now, Great Dark Lord Du was praising Zhou Bao on the surface, but he was also somehow intentionally belittling Yu Nantian and Ji Yeyue. These two had been called prodigies and outstanding people since childhood, but now all their glory were overturned by one word of Great Dark Lord Du. Ji Yeyue might let this go, but Yu Nantian would certainly not. He was the kind of guy that you knew was not broad-minded at first glance. If you do not shift his attention to other matters, he may be driven by a rash impulse and pick on you. Then, it would be you who suffered loss, no?


    Although Zhou Bao did not like Yu Nantian, he knew that now was not a good time for conflicts, and this kind of meaningless conflicts was exactly the thing he should prevent from happening.


    This was also something that Zhou Bao did not want to see.


    No matter what, this Yu Nantian might still be useful to him on some occasions, so he did not want to turn Yu Nantian against him.


    The Void Traveller gradually landed on the Tusk Island. At first, Yu Nantian was still acting cautiously. But apparently, after Zhou Bao displayed his power, the owner of this Tusk Island had no intention to provoke such a troublemaker, so he did not make any more sabotages and allowed the Void Traveller to land on his island smoothly.

 Chapter 419: Highest Heaven Celestial Device

    Chapter 419: Highest Heaven Celestial Device


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    However, Yu Nantian was still cautious. He did not land the Void Traveller immediately, but instead, let it float at 500 to 600 feet in mid-air, so he could give it a thorough examination. After checking, he landed the craft.


    "So meticulous but lacking in confidence, he will never achieve anything great!" Great Dark Lord Du said harshly after seeing Yu Nantian''s actions. He had already lost interest in Yu Nantian, who was supposed to be the next rising star of the Yu family from Divine Wind Palace.


    After carrying out a careful survey of the area for some time, Yu Nantian finally let the Void Traveller land on the island. The landing place Yu Nantian had chosen was a beach. This was an island built from volcano lava. Hence, there was a thick coat of tephra all around, and the sand was very soft and fine.


    The space boat came to a halt, but Yu Nantian did not move. He just stood there, as if he was waiting for something to happen.


    "Young Master Yu, we have already landed. Should we look into repairing the Void Traveller?" Seeing Yu Nantian standing motionless, Great Dark Lord Du stepped forward and asked.


    "Oh, there is no rush, not everyone is here yet!"


    "Not everyone is here?" Great Dark Lord Du was taken aback at first, then later he understood what he meant. He laughed, "Young Master Yu, I don''t think anyone else is coming. We have already indicated our intent to use this place temporarily to fix the boat. We are only passing by, so no one will be coming out to greet us. Situations like this happen all the time!"


    "Really?" Yu Nantian apparently did not think that Great Dark Lord Du would be so blunt and did not take his word seriously.


    "Yes, it''s true!" An expert from the Divine Wind Palace who was listening to their conversation, opened his mouth to reiterate this point. "The owner of the island was initially against us fixing the boat here, but he gave in on account of Zhou Bao''s power. His self-esteem has already been badly damaged, why would he still be willing to appear in front of us!"


    "Yu Nantian didn''t believe that until he heard what the expert said. He could not conceal the blush that spread over his face and said, "Since that''s the case, let''s begin the repairs!"


    "After speaking, he turned around and said to those that were still on the Void Traveller, "Everyone, I''m really sorry. The Void Traveller is a secret asset belonging to my family. Now that it needs to be repaired, there are some secrets that should not be revealed to outsiders. Hence, I hope that everyone can disembark before we proceed!"


    The remaining 11 people exchanged glances with each other, each indicating that they understood what was behind the meaning of Yu Nantian''s appeal. They jumped off the vessel at the same time. After that, a hazy layer of golden light covered the whole vessel, preventing all from seeing what was going on inside.


    "He thinks all of us have the same attitude, that is probably due to his suspicious mind!" one of the experts from Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple snorted coldly when he heard Nantian''s request


    "Shut up, this is his family secret, it is only right that we are not supposed to see it!" At these words, the leading monk''s expression changed and he and snorted loudly. However, judging by his expression, this monk shared the same sentiments regarding keeping the secrets of the family away from prying eyes.


    Zhou Bao was not interested in getting involved with the dispute. He left the crowd and started walking along the sandy beach.


    Taking a walk along the beach was something he had always wanted to do in his past life. But he was always busy with work and never had the luxury to do so. After entering this world, he was even busier than before and still did not have the time to indulge in this sort of leisure activity. Who would have thought that he would have the time to do so now.


    The thick layer of tephra on the beach was soft and very comfortable to walk on. Leaving a trail of footprints behind, Zhou Bao walked for some time. He carefully observed the island and realized that the island did not have that many visitors. There were also not many living things, either. The whole place gave off a deadly vibe. Although it had more essence of the world than the Seven-deity Regions, this place was far from being a Fairyland or Cave Paradise.


    A place like this was not appealing. He had no idea why the owner of the island chose this place as his dwelling.


    "He must be not a powerful person. If not, he wouldn''t have chosen such a lousy place!" Zhou Bao thought silently to himself, finally getting rid of some of the fears that were dwelling in his heart.


    Their coming over like this was quite dangerous. The owner may have been aware that Zhou Bao was too powerful to be his match. But he could still set up traps around the island and let them fall into it.


    They had no idea how long the current owner had taken over the island, and whether there were any ambushes awaiting them. Getting off the boat like this was not safe at all.


    This was a dangerous place!


    Zhou Bao knew that it was a dangerous place and he believed that Great Dark Lord Du was aware of this too. But just like him, Great Dark Lord Du did not prevent them from landing here, but even suggested that this be done, to as to show off his power in order to let the Void Traveller descend. And why was that?


    Did he really want to watch Yu Nantian intervene and destroy him using the power of the island?


    But was it too early to get rid of him?


    Zhou Bao turned around with furrowed brows. He took a look at the golden light emitting from the Void Traveler, and then saw that Great Dark Lord Du was walking towards him. Great Dark Lord Du had a broad smile on his face as he headed for Zhou Bao.


    "How is it, are you interested in the boat?!"


    "Yes, you are right, I''m indeed interested. Zooming through 80,000 miles in the blink of an eye, even a Genuine Immortal wouldn''t be able to do that right? Or is the boat a fairy weapon?"


    "Of course not, the Void Traveller is only a Pure Yang Celestial Device. If you were to talk about its level, it is not even worth the one in my hand. But the materials used to build it, the formation drawn on the boat, and all the different structures are a hundred times more valuable than any Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "I don''t understand!"


    "Hehe, this is a Pure Yang Celestial Device that has been made in the likes of the Supreme Fairy Weapon. It has many uses, such as strong attacking power, non-comparable defense power, and the ability of traveling through space and self-creation of space on the inside. It is not a normal space, but a space suitable for human survival. This kind of celestial device could put a Genuine Immortal to death just by using its own strength. These are all the legendary uses of a Supreme Fairy Weapon. For a Pure Yang Celestial Device like this, it is also known as a Highest Heaven Celestial Device!"


    "Highest Heaven Celestial Device?!" Zhou Bao had never heard of this name, even Green Spirit had never mentioned it to him before. Now, hearing about this new device from Great Dark Lord Du, he was a bit surprised.


    "Strictly speaking, Highest Heaven Celestial Device is a type of Pure Yang Celestial Device. In essence, it is derived from Pure Yang Celestial Devices, produced by necromancers from ancient times by copying the traits of Supreme Fairy Weapon. But there were very few that succeeded. Even if they did, there were too many sacrifices involved. For example, it is said that the Yu family melted six Pure Yang Celestial Devices to build the whole structure of the Void Traveller. The interior structure required additional efforts as well. The most tedious part is that it requires a very strong moving force. Unlike a normal celestial device that can move just by using Real Essence Internal Qi, this Void Traveller has its own source for the moving force. This source remains the biggest mystery of all time, and the answer lies in the hands of a few necromancers. Today, it is extremely difficult to even locate one of them!" Speaking of necromancers, Great Dark Lord Du shook his head. "Look, they told us to get off just because they are repairing space boat. They are afraid that we will discover the secret of the moving force."


    Zhou Bao did not think much about the Void Traveller. Although he was amazed at its power, he did not expect that its history would be so strange and complex.


    "A Pure Yang Celestial Device designed to imitate a Supreme Fairy Weapon?!" He was aware of Supreme Fairy Weapon, which was of a level higher than Taihao Fairy Weapon and Heavenly Fairy Weapon. He did not understand how they functioned before, but now, after seeing the Highest Heaven Celestial Device the Void Traveller, he finally did.


    "Right, this type of Highest Heaven Celestial Devices are made by copying the traits of Supreme Fairy Weapon. However, since they are not fairy weapon and the artwork and technical components are so complicated, most of it has been lost amidst the passing down of the art long ago. This Void Traveller has passed down from ancient times. Legend has it that it was a temporary transport mode for the Jade Emperor. The Yu family was well-known for the fact that they knew how to operate and refuel the power source. If the source was out of order, then the boat would be no different from any regular boat!"


    "Jade Emperor from ancient times, does this mean that the Yu family is really the successor of the Emperor?" Zhou Bao asked.


    "Successor of the Jade Emperor? What nonsense! it is just the Yu family trying to associate themselves with royalty. Would the Jade Emperor even use a Pure Yang Celestial Device? Even if it''s just for transportation, he should sit on a Supreme Fairy Weapon. How could he ever use that thing. How embarrassing that would be!" Great Dark Lord Du laughed heartily. "You don''t have to bother about all these sayings, there are many rumors about the successor of the Jade Emperor. All the Yu family did was to take advantage of it and obtained the inheritance of the Ancient Celestial Court. No need to bother so much!"


    "I also do not want to bother too much about it, but some things are actually very complicated. Can''t the Dark Lord see it? This island is not as simple a place as it looks!"


    "Hmm, how can crossing the sea be easy? 780,000 miles of the Sea Area is all under control of the Sea Emperor. The influences in Sea Area cannot be compared to those on land, as there are so many rules. The most powerful one should be crowned king. In a messy place like this, there could be hundreds of different rulers within a few decades. Other than the Sea Emperor, nobody is capable of being a ruler. Even those who are already in high places have been fighting incessantly for the seat. It is very complicated. The Void Traveller is indeed not bad, but we''ve been spied on since the start. It''s almost impossible to cross the Sea Area safely!"


    "It looks like the Dark Lord is very much aware of the dangers of this place, so why didn''t you mention these earlier?" Zhou Bao laughed, "I am one without any background, but you are the number one Dark Lord of the Dark Sect. You should have some say in the sect, so why didn''t you put a stop to it?"


    "Hmm, the truth will be revealed soon, but before that happens, we must go along with whatever happens. The situation with Fiery Eyes has a huge connection to this. Fiery Eyes remnant, hehe. Back then, aside from Divine Wind Palace, we were the one that killed the most number of Fiery Eyes. Once Fiery Eyes revives, our sect will at least be the second, if not the first, unlucky sect. But on my watch, things like that will not happen that easily. The Divine Wind Palace has a great plan, so they wouldn''t want anything to go wrong during this time. That''s why they sent us out!"


    "Are they out of their minds? They know clearly that we will surely fail this time...!"


    "Fail? Hehe, that might not necessarily be the case. Since they have sent us out, they must have made preparations, especially Divine Wind Palace. They would not do anything rashly. Didn''t you see that they have even allowed Yu Nantian to bring out the Highest Heaven Celestial Device? It is something more difficult to cultivate than the Supreme Fairy Weapon, let alone the usage. If they are willing to bring such a thing out, it meant that Yu Nantian is able to deliver what they want. We are not talking about wiping out the opponents totally, but at least we can expect to seriously injure the opposite party!"


    "Just by using this Highest Heaven Celestial Device?"


    "No. When the Highest Heaven Celestial Device is launched, its power may be the best of Pure Yang Celestial Devices. But again, it cannot be compared to a fairy weapon, and their killing weapon is still a fairy weapon!"

 Chapter 420: Invited by the Island Owner

    Chapter 420: Invited by the Island Owner


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "If it''s like what you said, then you should have some insight into the workings of the fairy weapon in his hands?" Zhou Bao asked with narrowed eyes.


    "I don''t know, of course, I don''t know. The Divine Wind Palace has kept everything tightly under wraps when it comes to their fairy weapon. Up till today, all who have gotten a glimpse of their fairy weapon are all dead!"


    "So you''re saying that after we see it we will be dead too?" Zhou Bao''s ears pricked up at this fact.


    "It''s better not to see it, for those who do see it usually do not come to a good end!"


    "Then how is it that you are still here!"


    "In this world, there will always be a handful of people who are unbelievers, right? I''m one of them. And I believe you are, too! Hahahahaha!" He laughed and walked away. Zhou Bao laughed too. Watching his retreating back, Zhou Bao realized that he could not understand Great Dark Lord Du for the moment.


    Suddenly, Zhou Bao''s expression changed. A silhouette was seen making its way down from the top of Tusk Island.


    Zhou Bao was not the only one aware of this, a few of the others had noticed it too and they were all on the alert.


    It looked like a man in white, or something that resembled a man. This guy had blue skin with light freckles.


    He had pointed ears, long fingers ending in sharp nails and a tail.


    "How could this thing be a man! It resembled an Avatar-like character!"


    Indeed, this guy resembled the Avatar characters he saw in his previous life. The only difference was that there were two pupils in each of his eyes.


    This was not a human or an Avatar. This was a monster, a monster that had achieved some cultivation in the Sea Area, a monster that had transformed into human form.


    For a monster to attain a human form, there could only be two methods. One, it went through Thunder Tribulations. Two, its parents were transformed monsters.


    Judging from the spirit of this person, it was obviously the latter.


    Even though it belonged to the latter group, everyone did not take it lightly. Among the team, it was the first time many of them had seen a monster in the form of a human being. Zhou Bao had seen this kind of monster before when he was in Taiyuan Heaven, but he did not have many interactions with them. Other than being a dull species, he did not feel there was anything special about them. But obviously, this was not the case with the one in front of him.


    His shifty, glittering eyes showed that it had the ability to be as cunning as humans.


    He walked straight to Zhou Bao, without even glancing at the other people around them or even the Void Traveller on the beach.


    "First Level deacon of Tusk Island, Tuo Ha, is here to greet Your Excellency!"


    Walking to Zhou Bao, he immediately knelt down and did a strange ritual, with a serious expression on his face.


    "Tuo Ha? I am Zhou Bao!" Zhou Bao smiled and nodded. He did not know about the traditions of the monsters of the Sea Area and did not expect anyone of Tusk Island to seek him out so suddenly.


    From what he could tell, Tusk Island will either let them go after their space boat was fixed or they would go into battle with them and seek to destroy them here. Who would have thought that they would send a member over to interact with them? "There were only about a dozen of them, was it worthwhile to get to know all of them?"


    "So you are Zhou Bao, sorry for the intrusion, Your Excellency!"


    This Tuo Ha may be a monster and his method of greeting was a bit weird, but on the whole, Zhou Bao had a good impression of him. He looked pretty decent when compared to other monsters. Zhou Bao said, "We are only borrowing the space to tidy things up, we will leave after we are well-rested, you guys don''t need to worry!"


    Tuo Ha smiled, "There''s nothing to worry about. It''s just that our Island Owner would like to invite Your Excellency to meet with him!"


    "Your Island Owner?" Zhou Bao was surprised, "Why would your Island Owner be looking for me?"


    "I''m just a messenger. I have no idea why our Island Owner is looking for you!" Tuo Ha answered with all due respect. "Our Island Owner said that he wanted to welcome our valuable guest with a good reception!"


    "Only me?" Zhou Bao pointed to himself, "There are other people here too!"


    "We only entertain the experts!" Tuo Ha said matter-of-factly. "Your Excellency has impressed our Island Owner with your powers. So, he sent me over to bring you to him. If the rest are able to show their powers and get recognition from the Island Owner, he will send someone over to invite them too!"


    "I don''t think that''s necessary!" Zhou Bao said.


    Being in an unknown place, facing an unknown Island Owner and an unknown power, Zhou Bao was very worried about meeting up with this mysterious Island Owner on his own.


    "This invitation is issued with all the sincerity of our Island Owner!" Tuo Ha said, "Your Excellency has performed such strong feats and have such stable powers, I don''t think you should be afraid of going!"


    "He''s a monster alright, from the tactful way he is pushing forth the invite!" Zhou Bao thought with sarcasm.


    "After what you have said, I''m now really afraid of going. Who knows what your Island Owner has in store for me? For my safety''s sake, I think I should not go!"


    This one sentence was enough to make Tuo Ha choke in fright. But Zhou Bao was so insistent on not going that Tuo Ha started to get somewhat desperate. "Your Excellency, I know that your team is trying to cross the sea. You may possess a very strong celestial device but it is still extremely difficult to do so nonetheless. However, your problem can be easily solved if our Island Owner agrees to help!"


    "It''s difficult to cross the sea? How difficult can it be when we have already traveled hundreds of thousands of miles!"


    "The first part may be easy, but it is the rest of the journey that''s tough!" Tuo Ha laughed. "We are about to have a sea-closing!"


    "Sea-closing?" Hearing this, Zhou Bao''s expression changed, "Why so?"


    "This is an order from the Rolling Dragon King. There are a total of five kings in the Sea Area and he''s one of them. Every king has the power to close off the sea as long as he does not infringe on the limits of the other four. Once the sea is closed, even a bird in the sky cannot pass, let alone your space boat. Once you start a dispute, you guys will become the enemy of everyone within 100,000 miles of the Sea Area. Everyone will be fighting together against you. Your Excellency may have outstanding powers, but when you face a situation like this, it will be difficult to escape!"


    "Are you trying to scare me?"


    "What I am telling are just the true facts, it happens all the time. The Sea Area belongs to the Celestial Emperor. You are humans. Unless you seek refuge with the humans of the Sea Area, you can only carry out your activities within 10,000 miles of the Sea Area. If not, you will be regarded as the common enemy of all the monsters of the Sea Area. This rule was set thousands of years ago. If you want to cross the sea without the cooperation of the humans of the Sea Area, then you''re looking at your death sentence!"


    "Cooperation?"


    "Yes, cooperation!" Tuo Ha nodded confidently. "People from your Seven-deity Regions cross the endless Sea Area regularly. They must get our cooperation if it''s their first time. Otherwise, unless they have strong powers, they will not be able to cross. People like you traveling in a big team, without cooperation from us will certainly be attacked. What''s more, you have already been spied on since the beginning!"


    "What exactly do you know?"


    "What I know is only what the Island Owner tells me. If Your Excellency wants to find out more, why not pay a visit to my Island Owner?" Tuo Ha said.


    As if on cue, a gush of Qi Power rushed down from the peak of Tusk Island. The surrounding pneuma Qi fluctuation was affected and turned into a chaotic mess. Both the expressions on Zhou Bao and Great Dark Lord Du altered dramatically.


    They could both feel it. There was an obvious tinge of Dharma power in this Qi Power. Obviously, the Island Owner was an expert at the Level of True Immortality. He could even be a Venerable who had experienced Thunder Tribulation several times over. This kind of expert deserved a lot of respect. If they were to attack Zhou Bao and his team, the set up on the island and his power alone would overpower the majority of the crew. But now they were not attacking them yet, which meant they were giving them some face already. If they still refused to cooperate, they may not even know how they would meet their death in the end.


    Zhou Bao knew that he was strong, but he was not so dumb to believe he could take on a Genuine Immortal of the Venerable Realm.


    "Alright, since the Island Owner is welcoming me with such enthusiasm, it would be discourteous of me to reject his invitation. Now, please lead the way!"


    "Yes!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s consent, Tuo Ha was very relieved. Although he believed that his Island Owner had his own ways of forcing Zhou Bao to meet with him, if Tuo Ha had failed to bring Zhou Bao back with him, it would mean that Tuo Ha himself did not accomplish his mission and would be liable for this failure and be punished accordingly.


    "Wait!" Just when Zhou Bao was preparing to leave with Tuo Ha, Ji Yeyue, who had been watching from the side, shouted, "Isn''t it too dangerous for you to go alone?! Let me go with you!"


    "Yeyue!" An elder from Jade Pool who had come with Ji Yeyue had not expected her to volunteer. He was shocked for a moment and immediately stopped her.


    "The Island Owner has asked me to invite His Excellency only!" Tuo Ha took a look at Ji Yeyue and said harshly, "If you were to tag along, I cannot guarantee your safety!"


    "It''s enough as long as you can guarantee mine, I''ll willingly go alone!" Zhou Bao interrupted, "Let them all stay here!"


    Ji Yeyue wanted to say something else but was held back by the elder beside her. It was all right for Zhou Bao to go ahead and take the risk, because this had nothing to do with them. But if something was to happen to her, the owner of the Jade Pool would not let them get away with it, even if they did kill Ye Qingtian in the end.


    Ji Yeyue was the recognized official suzerain of the Jade Pool. If something were to happen to her in the Sea Area, they would hold accountable for it. Hence, they had to stop her by hook or by crook, from going with Zhou Bao.


    Following Tuo Ha, in a couple of leaps and bounds, they had already scaled the peak. This peak was several thousands of feet high, and was covered by the thick grey smoke of the volcano.


    This volcanic smoke seemed to have spiritual intelligence. When Tuo Ha appeared, they recognized him and immediately opened up a path for the two to pass.


    "The tephra here is interesting, have they been refined?" Zhou Bou asked tentatively.

 Chapter 421: Purpose

    Chapter 421: Purpose


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Of course, all the tephra here have been refined by the Island Owner. All these are only part of the Tusk Island''s defense. The only reason why all of you could enter this place smoothly is that the Island Owner has removed the island''s inhibitions. If not, entering the Tusk Island would have been impossible," Tuo Gu asserted. His tone was full of confidence and he completely disregarded the great power Zhou Bao displayed.


    "Seems like your Island Owner must be a powerful person. There is so much tephra here that it would take ages to refine!"


    "It''s nothing. The Island Owner has a magic weapon that can refine as much tephra as he likes!" Tuo Gu taunted, "Zhou Bao, Your Excellency, don''t think about tricking me. I have already told you what I can say. The words that I cannot tell will never be spoken!"


    Zhou Bao felt a bit awkward at Tuo Gu''s words. He could only nod and say, "I understand, I understand. I didn''t intend to inquire about your secrets. I was just curious about why your Island Owner has only invited me over. You must understand, there are people on that boat who are stronger than me and they even possess celestial devices and Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Our Island Owner invited you because the power you just displayed surprised him. Of course, that''s not to say that our Island Owner is not inferior to you. It is just that our Island Owner needs someone as powerful as you, that''s why he had let you guys in!"


    "The Island Owner needs my strength and therefore he let us in?"


    "That''s right. You''ll understand once you meet him," Tuo Gu promised. He stopped abruptly and said, "The Island Owner is right ahead. You can find him yourself, I can only accompany you to this point!"


    Zhou Bao fixed his gaze on the path Tuo Gu pointed out. The area under the mountain was, in fact, a basin enveloped by mountains. In the center of the basin was a deep pool, and beside the pool was a small wooden house. It looked rudimentary but it had a refreshing aura.


    "Your Island Owner lives there?!"


    "Yes. Go ahead. Besides the Island Owner, nobody is allowed in. Who would have thought that Your Excellency would have a chance to go in!" Tuo Gu sighed with a trace of jealousy that he could not conceal.


    "I''m not interested in that, I wish we could exchange positions!" Zhou Bao observed Tuo Gu''s jealous expression and thought in his heart. He saw that the valley had not much killing intent. It was instead a place of peace and calm. He felt relieved. Straightening his body, he leaped downwards to the bottom of the valley.


    Landing at the bottom of the valley, Zhou Bao walked to the front of the wooden house. Then, Zhou Bao''s eyebrows twitched a little. The door to the wooden house was open and the interior of the house was not big. With one glance, he could tell there was no spatial barrier in this space. Of course, there was no one there, either.


    "Strange, how can there be no one? Is that damn Island Owner playing with me? Do I look like an easy target to be played with?!" Zhou Bao was not pleased. While he was deep in thought, a loud splash came from the deep pool. Zhou Bao was wide-eyed as he saw a huge blue fish jump out of the deep pool. As it flew across the air, it transformed into a person and appeared in front of Zhou Bao.


    The fish incarnation was actually a blue-clothed female. She was beautiful, refined and exuded a pristine aura, much like the fairies in water.


    "18 Dragon-bone Regions, the First Tusk Island''s Island Owner Lan Shui''er meets Your Excellency Zhou Bao!"


    Lan Shui''er''s physical appearance stunned Zhou Bao. But in a split second he regained his composure and offered his hand, "Central Mainland Region, Jin Dynasty, Yunzhou Zhou Bao meets Island Owner!"


    "No need for the pleasantries, Your Excellency, please come in!"


    Lan Shui''er was a water fairy, a monster. She did not care for the pleasantries of human beings. She only exchanged names with Zhou Bao and then proceeded to invite him into the small wooden house.


    "Thanks!" Zhou Bao smiled and strode into the house. He found a stool, sat down, and said, "I wonder why Island Owner has called me here?"


    "I''d like to ask you for a favor!"


    "Island Owner, you must be joking. Island Owner''s power far exceeds mine. Just now, I, Zhou Bao, was just showing off my mediocre powers in front of you. I am now deeply embarrassed, so I ask Island Owner to stop joking with me," Zhou Bao said hastily.


    He could not see through the strength of the Island Owner, but he could sense Lan Shui''er''s Water-property Essential Qi in her body. It was silky and layered, as if her entire body had integrated with the Water-property Essential Qi. It was as if she was a boundless deep pool. A glance at her would make one gasp consecutively.


    This aqua original energy was not any ordinary essence of the world. It was Dharma power, an authentic Dharma power vibration, which was extremely rich and strong.


    Zhou Bao had Dharma power within him too and his level of Dharma power was quite high. But he was not able to display it as his body was not strong enough.


    His body condition now, to be honest, was only enough to withhold the Dharma power.


    The Innate Deity''s bones have been absorbed by him, but a large part of that energy was stored in secret corners of his acupoint. Only a small portion successfully blended with his body. He could only wait until his body''s strength meets a certain higher standard so as to absorb all the energy of the Innate Deity''s bones.


    Lan Shui''er stood in front of him and had an extremely fine Dharma power that began to pressurize Zhou Bao. If he had not used a fairy weapon nor the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword that he just accomplished, he would not be qualified to be Lan Shui''er''s opponent.


    That was why he said such polite and placating words. It could be considered as a decline of Lan Shui''er''s request. After all, how could she ask him for help?


    If he could not even handle matters this small, could he be silly enough to meddle in it?


    "I''ve overcome four Thunder Tribulations. In the Ranking of Demons and Immortals, I am ranked number 9873!"


    After Lan Shui''er heard Zhou Bao''s rejection, she was not angry. Instead, she gently said, "The 18 Dragon-bone Regions First Area''s Tusk Island''s Island Owner¡ªRolling Dragon King¡ªhas experienced the Thunder Tribulation five times and is ranked number 7452 in the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. Based on strength alone, he is slightly superior to mine. but the land controlled by him is so much bigger than my Tusk Island. I can only control the Tusk Island and its surroundings, the radius of which is about 12,000 miles. The Rolling Dragon King is one of the five Dragon Kings. The area he controls is 10 times of mine. Besides, he is on good terms with the other four Dragon Kings and has issued a sea-closing order. Without my help, we cannot cross the sea!"


    "It doesn''t matter if we can''t cross the sea!" Zhou Bao shrugged. "Wait until the people on this boat have all died, then I will head back. Even though I can''t save them, I am confident that I can return home safely. You think I want to cross the sea? I would rather have them all dead, then I will have a reason to go back!"


    "Ok!" Lan Shui''er smiled. "You have a point. Then let me help you kill all of them now. What do you think?"


    "Tut-tut-tut!" Zhou Bao smacked his lips. This girl had pretty looks, good refinement and strong powers, but how could she speak with such murderous intent? Just because there was the slightest disagreement between them, she claims that she wants to kill everyone. That left Zhou Bao freezing there, not knowing how to respond to those words.


    "Actually, there is no need for such murderous intent, right?!" Zhou Bao smiled pleadingly. "Island Owner''s powers are so strong. I''m sure you can see through me. I can''t conceal my real strength from you. How can I possibly help you, Island Owner?"


    "I say you can, so you definitely can!" Lan Shui''er could tell that Zhou Bao''s tone was easygoing. She smiled, "Although your strength is not as powerful as mine, your combat capability is shockingly strong. It seems like your cultivation has stagnated at Level Nine, but your Internal Qi has become Real Essence. Unbelievable! You must have practiced more than one acupoint, haven''t you?"


    "I just have good luck," Zhou Bao muttered.


    It seemed like the cultivation to activate acupoints was not much of a secret in the Sea Area. Putting in other words, for a Demonic Immortal like Lan Shui''er, it was not much of a secret.


    There was a message in Lan Shui''er''s words that worried him. What kind of a concept is it for a Genuine Immortal who had overcome four Thunder Tribulations to be ranked up to 10,000 on the Ranking of Demons and Immortals? That was to say, in this boundless Sea Area, the number of Genuine Immortals who had overcome four Thunder Tribulations was nearly 10,000.


    Also, Demonic Immortals who experienced less than four Thunder Tribulations would be even more. Thinking about this kind of power, Zhou Bao''s hair all stood up in fear.


    No wonder the Divine Wind Palace did not dare to attack the Sea Area. It was completely impossible. Even if the Divine Wind Palace''s strength was powerful, it would not be so unbelievably powerful. Putting aside the possibility of attacking the Sea Area first, if the experts of Sea Area did not attack the Seven-deity Regions, they should already be thankful.


    "There are many people with good luck. But even if there are thousands of Demonic Immortals in my Sea Area, there are not many that have really cultivated their acupoints. Although you have not cultivated your Dharma power, your Real Essence is extremely high. It is almost as high as Dharma power and is just as majestic. It is almost boundless and belongs to the Fire nature, which suits my preferences just right. Although I am a Genuine Immortal who has conquered four tribulations, my nature is Water. What I cultivate is water-property Essential Qi. Dharma power is also of Water nature. They cannot be used!"


    It seemed like someone is eyeing on Zhou Bao''s Real Essence of Fire nature.


    "Since Island Owner is being so frank, Zhou Bao naturally cannot reject. I wonder if Island Owner has any orders?!"


    "Follow me!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s agreement, Lan Shui''er immediately stood up. The surrounding air reverberated with waves of water-like ripples. Zhou Bao was worried. Lan Shui''er sliced a space open without a sound and opened a Space Passage.


    This trick was not difficult, but to conceal it from Zhou Bao within such a short distance was extremely difficult. The Space Passage was already formed without Zhou Bao feeling anything.


    The other end of the passageway was a sealed space. It could be said to be a hall, or a prison room made of stone. It was spacious, ancient and completely made using an enormous stone. The stone walls were extremely smooth, with no adornments on the surface. On the other hand, the floor was filled with all kinds of mysterious talisman, forming a huge threatening formation. It locked all the Qi in the air firmly within its space.


    A life that had not even been born was already this threatening. Who knew how sinister it would be when it hatches.


    "This is a Primordial Fierce Beast that I found on a falling star. I''ve kept it here to nourish it, but it has not been able to hatch. I practice with water-property Essential Qi, and my Dharma power out of the five elements belongs to Water nature. I cannot give it the warmth it needs."


    Zhou Bao''s eyebrows furrowed. He did not expect that he would be invited here to hatch a Primordial Fierce Beast''s egg. He did not even know what a Primordial Fierce Beast was.


    "Island Owner must be joking. Although I practice with fire-property Qi, I use it to attack. To hatch this Primordial Fierce Beast seems a little unreliable. What if I kill it...!"

 Chapter 422: Incubation

    Chapter 422: Incubation


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "You don''t have to hide it from me. I know you practice the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique and you have even acquired the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument. This giant spawn has been here with me for 150 years and has been nourished by the place''s formation, refined water, and various spiritual Qi throughout the years. It has enough nutrition already, only one more step is needed to hatch it! It is just that I haven''t been able to find a suitable person to do it. You possess such an extraordinary amount of Real Essence, hatching the spawn shouldn''t be a problem for you right?!" Lan Shui''er pleaded gently. "As long as you are willing to help me out here, I will be responsible for sending all of you across the sea safely. Otherwise, all of you will never find a way out of Tusk Island!"


    "Indeed, we do have some troubles!" Zhou Bao caressed his nose and looked helplessly at Lan Shui''er. Although he would really have liked to take control of Lan Shui''er then, he did not dare to attack someone on someone else''s land. "What do you want the spawn of the Primordial Fierce Beast for? The Primordial Fierce Beast is infamous for its viciousness. If the spawn really hatches, not only would it be unstoppable, but it would also be a catastrophe even for people of the Sea Rea right?"


    It must be known that the strong strength of the Fierce Beast has been passed down for generations since the primitive times. Although it had been hundreds of thousands of years since it had made its first appearance, legends of its sheer ferocity and strength have been circulating until the present.


    When Zhou Bao was young, he killed a young Primitive Dragon Chimera and obtained its Mysterious Fire. The Primitive Dragon Chimera was one of the Primordial Fierce Beasts that fed on dragons. The one Zhou Bao killed was not just a newborn, but one that was malnourished. It was about to die from hunger and that was why lucky Zhou Bao could attack it so easily.


    Its Mysterious Fire fused well with Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi. With the infusion of Real Essence, Zhou Bao''s strength increased gradually. When Zhou Bao only had Internal Qi, the Scale Monster''s Mysterious Fire shaped the Internal Qi such that its quality became level with and even exceeding that of Real Essence. Now that Zhou Bao had refined the Real Essence Source, his Internal Qi had all transformed into Real Essence. This Real Essence, under the influence of the Scale Monster''s Mysterious Fire, had a higher quality than the average Dharma power. It was an addition to his Internal Qi. Plus, the Mysterious Fire was slowly nourishing and transforming Zhou Bao, allowing him to have a stronger physique and a stronger Spiritual Strength. It could be said that a major reason why Zhou Bao''s practice journey had been so smooth was that the Scale Monster''s Mysterious Fire had built a solid foundation for him.


    And now, after practicing the 3000 Great Ways'' Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, he could feel the Dragon Chimera Fire was about to evolve again. If the evolvement was successful, the power of the Dragon Chimera Fire''s Demonic Fire would be stronger. Then, it would be more helpful to him, and it was even possible that he could cultivate some Divine Senses of the Primitive Dragon Chimera.


    What about the Primordial Fierce Beast''s spawn in front of him? Which Fierce Beast left it behind? What effects could it have?


    Zhou Bao was very intrigued, but also pretty worried.


    His encounter with a young Primitive Dragon Chimera was out of sheer luck. It must be known that the Dragon Chimera''s growth was mainly based on a diet of dragons. During primitive times, all the Dragon Chimeras lived on dragon meat and dragon blood. The strong Dragon Chimeras would prey on Heavenly Dragons and insert its own spawn into the body of Heavenly Dragons. Once the Dragon Chimera was born, it would then have enough food and fluids to grow robustly. It would not be like Zhou Bao''s catch- one who drank water, ate grass and whose Mysterious Fire was almost turning into a kindling.


    How could that Dragon Chimera have any power?


    But the giant egg of a Primordial Fierce Beast in front of him was different. It had been nourished by Lan Shui''er for 150 years¡ªwho knows how strong it would be? Some legends said that some Primordial Fierce Beasts, after being delivered, would possess the strength as powerful as that of a Nine-tribulation True Immortal and even that of a Human Immortal. It was not something that ordinary evil beasts and humans could match.


    Take the Primitive Dragon Chimera for example. If it could develop peacefully within the body of a Heavenly Dragon, it would possess the powers of a Nine-tribulation True Immortal once it was born. After a few hundred years, it would surpass the powers of a Nine-tribulation True Immortal and reach the level of a Human Immortal. And that was utterly incomparable to the practice of any human being.


    But the Primordial Fierce Beast had one weakness, and that was the difficulty of transformation.


    These animals were born strong, but to transform into humans would be hundreds of times harder than an average evil beast. Of course, these Primordial Fierce Beasts had no interest in transforming into humans.


    If a Primordial Fierce Beast at a Nine-tribulation True Immortal level were to be born, who would be able to control it? Did Lan Shui''er ever consider this?


    "Don''t worry. In the past 150 years, it has been here, we have been able to develop telepathy. He also understands human nature. It is just that there is no way for it to hatch now, which is why I am asking for your help!"


    "The Sea Area is vast. I guess the number of Demonic Immortals who practice fire-property Dharma power should not be small, right?"


    "Not many!" Lan Shui''er shook her head, "Demonic Immortals who truly practice the Fire Power are rare. This is the Sea Area. Even if there are underwater volcanoes, the Spiritual Energy of Fire will still be incomparable with the Spiritual Energy of water. Once one practices the Spiritual Energy of Fire, it will be hard for him to leave the place where he practices. Plus, I don''t want a lot of people to know about this!"


    Zhou Bao finally understood the whole situation and found himself being foolish.


    This place was the Sea Area. The rich Water-property Essential Qi pervaded in the atmosphere here. It could be said that in the boundless Sea Area, the Water-property Essential Qi had the advantage of suppressing all other powers. Who would be silly enough to practice Fire-property Essential Qi, which is in direct opposition to Water-property Essential Qi, in this place? That would be the most useless approach. Unless it was some fella who had physical restrictions, 99% of the people who practiced here would practice with Water-property Essential Qi.


    To find someone who practiced with the Spiritual Energy of Fire in the vast Sea Area and a Demonic Immortal with a certain level of practice already would be a tough task.


    No wonder once Zhou Bao displayed his strong Fire-property Real Essence, he was immediately invited to see Lan Shui''er on her island.


    "So that is to say, Island Owner is set on hatching this spawn of a Primordial Fierce Beast?"


    "Of course!"


    "Do you think I will help Island Owner hatch this egg here at ease?" Zhou Bao smiled wryly. "I would rather you kill everyone on the Void Traveller than do such a thankless job. If my Real Essence depletes because I have to hatch this spawn and Island Owner murders me in order to keep it a secret, then I''ll die a brutal death, won''t I?"


    Now that he had said things like this, Zhou Bao had nothing more to conceal. He spoke his concerns straightforwardly, "To be honest, I don''t trust you, Island Owner!"


    "I am a Four-Tribulation Genuine Immortal. Once I swear, it will be bounded by the Law of Heaven and Earth. Swearing would do the job!"


    "Ok then Island Owner, please make a vow now!" This was not a time to be polite. Lan Shui''er swore in front of Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao scrutinized her vow. As he found no loopholes, he was finally at ease.


    Anyway, she already said that she had established telepathy with the Fierce Beast. There should not be much of a problem.


    Hence, after Lan Shui''er swore, Zhou Bao no longer beat around the bush. He launched the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. As his Gang Qi was flowing, the Primordial Yang Qi caused turbulence in the air. The air in the stone chamber began to swirl and converge. With a wave of Zhou Bao''s hand, a golden light began circulating and converged into the Nine Heavens Primordial Instrument. It was fired towards the egg and suspended over the egg. In a moment, the surrounding pneuma all converged to the Nine Heavens Primordial Instrument. In a blink of an eye, the pneuma was transformed into warm Yang Qi by the Nine Heavens Primordial Instrument, shrouding the entire egg.


    Ping ping ping!


    Under the huge Primordial Yang Qi that enveloped the egg, the giant egg shook gently for a moment. There was a faint cooing sound, as if it was expressing its happiness. Soon after, Zhou Bao heard thumpings of heartbeats.


    The sound was so loud, so audible. It was filled with vigor.


    A smile finally flashed across Lan Shui''er''s face. This was the first time Zhou Bao saw her smile. It was a hearty smile, an extremely pleasing smile.


    But now, he had no energy to care about the Island Owner''s smile. He focused his whole mind on operating the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Instrument, because the giant egg was starting to voraciously absorb the Yang Qi released by the Nine Heavens Primordial Instrument.


    No, ''absorb'' was not the right word. It should be ''devouring''.


    Yes, the giant egg was devouring the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Qi.


    Gradually, Zhou Bao started to feel a bit odd.


    Because the Mysterious Fire in his Dantian started to flicker vigorously again.


    This time, it was flickering much more vigorously than when he first entered the stone chamber, as if it was warning him of something. Yes, it seemed like a warning. It was an instinct of imminent danger.


    For someone with Zhou Bao''s level of cultivation, he could sense danger whenever it was impending. It was just that this sense was not ripe and was extremely weak. It worked at times but failed at other times. In other words, it did not mean that one was not in danger if one could not feel danger. But once one could sense danger, then there definitely was danger present.


    Even now, Zhou Bao could be sure that the danger originated from the giant egg of the Primordial Fierce Beast.


    Zhou Bao became vigilant. He wanted to control the Nine heavens Primordial Instrument and slow down the hatching of the egg. But at this moment, an anomalous mutation suddenly occurred. A gust of strong absorption struck through the Nine Heavens Primordial Instrument and started engulfing his Real Essence.


    "Not good!" He was shocked. His nine acupoints simultaneously went into operation. The strong Inside Breath Real Essence was activated by Zhou Bao in an attempt to resist and even cut off the egg''s absorption power.


    But all efforts were in vain. Once the absorption power from the egg was formed, he could no longer resist it. It was like an invisible line connecting Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi and the giant egg. Unless Zhou Bao exhausted his Internal Qi, he would not be able to escape.


    Fierce flames that surged to the sky burst from the giant egg. This was not the same weak feeling that Zhou Bao initially sensed. It was a fierce and monstrous one that even enveloped the entire stone chamber.


    "This...!" At this moment, even Lan Shui''er''s expression changed. All the while, she had never realized that the 150-year-old spawn of a Primordial Beast that she was cultivating could be so fierce that even the formation in the stone chamber was not able to resist and lock it in anymore. In fact, it was beginning to tremble slightly.


    "Damn it, what are you waiting for? Hurry! Think a solution to destroy this egg! If not, he would absorb me till I''m dry and the next target would be you!"

 Chapter 423: Primordial Demonic Ape

    Chapter 423: Primordial Demonic Ape


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Seeing Lan Shui''er standing still in shock, Zhou Bao wished to tread on her delicate face.


    Step and crush it.


    Lan Shui''er looked indecisive. After all, she had nourished the giant egg of the Primordial Fierce Beast for 150 years and had consumed countless energy and pneuma. It was almost done now. Once it hatched, it would be her biggest help, giving her a hand to improve her strength by several levels. With its aid, she could undergo several Thunder Tribulations and became a Seven-tribulation True Immortal, even an Eight- or Nine-tribulation True Immortal. It was a big opportunity for her, so how could she give it up?


    "What a stupid woman!" Zhou Bao reproved secretly.


    Now he had a rough idea of what was going on. Creatures of the primitive times like the Primordial Fierce Beast, generally speaking, had their own inheritance. In other words, they were born with wisdom and a vast knowledge in their bloodline, much smarter than the average man.


    Lan Shui''er thought that after 150 years, she had been connected with the Fierce Beast in spirit. Zhou Bao now suspected that this cunning Fierce Beast had been playing with her.


    Its purpose was to lower her guard and to help it find a sucker like Zhou Bao to hatch it. To put it bluntly, it had been coaxing her, while Lan Shui''er actually believed that it would help her after she hatched it.


    "A gullible woman!" Zhou Bao shook his head in his heart, no longer counting on this Four-tribulation True Immortal and Tusk Island Owner. That is because in his Dantian, the Primitive Dragon Chimera Fire had already stirred.


    The nature of the Dragon Chimera Mysterious Fire had been seduced by some spirit, and it was the nature of greed.


    It was burning in Zhou Bao''s Dantian, affecting his thoughts.


    Zhou Bao may have spent a short time practicing the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, but it almost reached the Basic level. It was because neither the Evil Qi nor the place he used was found in the temporal world. In addition, the Gang Qi also carried the spirit of the Primitive Dragon Chimera Fire. Under the influence of the Mysterious Fire, the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique was more powerful than that practiced in a common way. At this moment, the giant egg was recklessly devouring Zhou Bao''s Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Essence, which also aroused the ferociousness of the Primitive Dragon Chimera''s Demonic Fire in the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Essence.


    This ferociousness was an innate greed of the Primitive Dragon Chimera Fire, a nature of desiring to devour everything.


    When the Fierce Beast in the giant egg tried to devour all the Real Essence, a faint black flame appeared on Zhou Bao. The flame was very light and smoke-like, as if it could be dispersed at any time, but then it grew thicker and thicker and soon covered the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Essence. Now, Zhou Bao was enveloped in this horrible black flame.


    The massive devouring force disappeared, and there was even a sound of whine from the giant egg.


    "What are you doing?" Because of ''the spirit connection'', Lan Shui''er immediately noticed something was wrong. She rushed to Zhou Bao and asked harshly.


    "Are you stupid? This thing wants to devour all my Real Essence and try to devour my spirit! You''ve lost control of him. Spirit connection? Are you joking? You''ve been fooled!" Zhou Bao laughed grimly. The black flame fluttered, and the strong, weird heat made Lan Shui''er stepped back involuntary. "You, it''s impossible!"


    "Impossible? You are no fool. As you have seen, the boiling feeling is true, right? It has included you in its devouring list, so you should have felt it. Stop lying to yourself. It''s not easy for a Primordial Fierce Beast to surrender! If it was so easy, there would be a lot of legends about these Primordial Fierce Beasts. Not knowing what it is, you still want to take advantage of it. You''re so bold!"


    Lan Shui''er was not stupid. The abnormality had alerted her. She just did not want to admit that she was fooled by a Primordial Fierce Beast that had not yet hatched. Hearing what Zhou Bao said, she felt humiliated but did not stop him anymore. She said, "Anyway, I got this giant egg, so it belongs to me. Don''t try to obtain it!"


    "I don''t! But there is no other method now. From what you saw, my Real Essence owns pretty strong intelligence. It is now united with that guy''s power, devouring each other. Either I devour it, or it devours me. There is no second choice!"


    What Zhou Bao said was true. His Dragon Chimera Fire and the Primordial Fierce Beast''s giant egg had begun to devour each other, like what just happened. No matter how hard Zhou Bao tried, their connection could not be cut off.


    "You...!" Lan Shui''er stared at the black Demonic Fire that had risen all around Zhou Bao, with her eyes flickering and sparkling with blue light. This time, Zhou Bao''s black Demonic Fire had been stimulated, not as small as before. Moreover, the nature of the Dragon Chimera Fire was fully aroused, and it was burning around Zhou Bao, rising nearly 1,000 feet. Zhou Bao had been completely wrapped up by this Demonic Fire. Actually, all the Real Essence in his body began to turn into the Dragon Chimera Fire at this moment. A monumentally rapacious, fiendish and evil Qi Power that seemed to devour everything spread from Zhou Bao.


    In a flash, it enveloped the whole stone chamber.


    "This is!" Lan Shui''er frowned, apparently not expecting that Zhou Bao would burst out such a strong Qi Power. She was startled and took a step back.


    "What is the power of this? It doesn''t seem to come from humans, but is somewhat similar to that of Primordial Fierce Beasts. Right, it came from the Primordial Fierce Beast, just like the Fierce Qi that the giant egg gave out just now. But his Qi Power is more ferocious. Is he not a human being, but a transformation from a Primordial Fierce Beast?" Lan Shui''er was confused, and Zhou Bao was in a dilemma.


    The potential of the Primitive Dragon Chimera Fire seemed to have been fully aroused at this point. Zhou Bao felt the Demonic Fire slowly swallowing the Qi Power that the giant egg released. Then, along with the Qi Power and pneuma of the giant egg, it pounced on the top of the giant egg and wrapped it up.


    Zhou Bao could not control his Demonic Fire now. It was good that the Demonic Fire owned powerful intelligence. But sometimes it was not easy to control, especially when its nature burst out.


    "Hoo-hoo..." Under the licking of the Demonic Fire, there was a burst of whine from the giant egg. Zhou Bao could clearly feel its fear and beg for mercy from the waves of psywave that came from the giant egg.


    Yes, he could clearly feel that it was begging for mercy. Not only was it pleading with him, but also with Lan Shui''er.


    "What a cunning thing it is! If I were careless, I could have been cheated!" Facing a stupid woman who had been cheated for 150 years, Zhou Bao really did not know what to say, but consoled her with reluctance, "But now, his tricks should be useless!"


    "Humph!" Lan Shui''er gave Zhou Bao a hostile glare, but did not stop him. But at the same time, she exuded violent killing intent, not only for the giant egg, but also for Zhou Bao.


    150 years of hard work and giving, and it was a hoax from the start. How could she reconcile herself to this? How could this not embarrass her? That was enough to make her an unprecedented dissatisfied woman.


    Looking at this situation, Zhou Bao knew it was bad. But honestly, he did not know what to do. After all, he was already stuck in this place. The Primitive Dragon Chimera Fire was devouring merrily. The life in the giant egg had lost its ability to fight back, and even its resistance had become very reluctant. The Demonic Fire had completely melted the pattern on the giant egg into a delicate talisman and rolled it in. In the giant egg, the great life essence of the Primordial Fierce Beast was broken down and absorbed by the Dragon Chimera Fire.


    Puffs of life essence, Primordial Essence Qi and fantastic talismans changed the Dragon Chimera Fire in different ways. The Demonic Fire slowly became mellow; its original blazing spirit gradually converged; even the surging ferociousness had been restrained. It turned into the purest black flame. In the dark firelight, pieces of mysterious abstruse talismans were floating, steaming and emitting remote, mysterious spirit. The shape of the Demonic Fire began to change. The flame raged, like the floating clouds in the sky, slowly changing, gradually taking shape.


    All of a sudden, Zhou Bao felt the Demonic Fire shake violently.


    "Crack!"


    There was a soft crack in the shell. The extremely enormous Essence Qi poured over his Demonic Fire. His Demonic Fire had now become an infinite abyss, recklessly absorbing the essence, strength, and spirit.


    The black flame gradually formed, producing a huge phantom behind Zhou Bao. It looked like an ape, with a white head and red feet, completely composed of Zhou Bao''s Demonic Fire. It could only scatter and could not gather. Every time it was about to get together, there seemed to be an invisible force preventing it from taking shape.


    "Zhuyan! It''s a Zhuyan!" Zhou Bao had seen the shape that the Demonic Fire gathered behind him, and it surprised him. The remarkable spirit, having not totally taken shape but containing powerful life essence, which the Demonic Fire devoured and was about to absorb, was the legendary Primordial Fierce Beast, Demonic Ape Zhuyan.


    Zhuyan was a famous Fierce Beast of the primitive times. It was so strong that people called it the strongest Fierce Beast. Furthermore, it was cunning, and its favorite trick was to stir up war everywhere, and then devour the spirits of the dead to increase its own strength. This was also the most powerful and the only Divine Sense¡ªdevouring living creature''s spirit and soul and transforming it into its horrifying power. The more it devoured, the greater its power. It was comparatively cruel. But this kind of Fierce Beast had disappeared in the antiquity times. Unexpectedly, Lan Shui''er got one, and it was eventually devoured by Zhou Bao''s Demonic Fire.

 Chapter 424: Merging

    Chapter 424: Merging


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    This newly coming-into-being Fierce Beast Zhuyan that was on the point of hatching had been devoured by Zhou Bao''s Dragon Chimera Fire. Now, the Dragon Chimera Fire strengthened greatly, and could even condense into the Real Body of Zhuyan, which was like the Heavenly Devil Real Body of Great Dark Lord Du and Dark Lord Mie Chen, after its complete absorption of Zhuyan''s life essence and spirit. When Zhou Bao fused this Real Body with the body, he could enjoy the peerless power of the Primordial Fierce Beast.


    Of course, it was an ideal situation, which would happen when everything went well. But how could there be such a good thing?


    Was he really the son of God? Was the treasure that Lan Shui''er had painstakingly nurtured for 150 years destined for him?


    Was this possible? No way!


    Lan Shui''er had been waiting for an opportunity. As a Demonic Immortal in the Sea Area, she ranked more than 9,000th. Given the vastness of the Sea Area, which was far superior to the Seven-deity Regions, and the rich resources of the sea, it was a miracle to be able to make such a ranking among the hundreds of millions of living creatures.


    Besides, she was also the Island Owner of Tusk Island, the first region of the 18 Dragon-bone Regions. How could she be easy to deal with or be the one destined for the benefit of Zhou Bao?


    150 years ago, she was too confident, thinking that she had a spiritual connection with the egg of the Primordial Fierce Beast and her strength would be greatly increased when it hatched, so she willingly spent 150 years. Now it turned out she had been cheated. After the initial anger, she calmed down and looked on, watching Zhou Bao''s performance, or rather, his Demonic Fire''s performance.


    If she was alone, upon knowing the giant egg was lying to her, she would break it immediately, absorb all of its life essence and energy, and refine its spirit to strengthen herself, as what Zhou Bao''s Dragon Chimera Fire had done.


    However, Zhou Bao had already done all this, and a good job at that as well. That Demonic Fire not only devoured the essence of the giant egg, but also took in its whole spirit and made a Real Body, which made Lan Shui''er considerably eager. She did not know the Dragon Chimera Fire, but she should know it was terrific. "If I kill Zhou Bao, take this strange flame along with the Real Body of Zhuyan, I might be able to undergo nine times of Thunder Tribulations at a time, and even become a Human Immortal!"


    Yes, a Human Immortal!


    Once this Primordial Fierce Beast Zhuyan came into being, it had the body comparable to a Human Immortal, and possessed the power to compete with Human Immortals.


    As long as the Real Body of Zhuyan and her body were united, she could undergo the Thunder Tribulation. How could she miss such a good chance? Since she did not have the means to condense the Real Body of Zhuyan like Zhou Bao, she did not act just now. If she had absorbed it, her Dharma power would have been dozens of times thicker at most, but it would not have been absorbed as much as Zhou Bao''s.


    This was Zhou Bao''s Real Body of Zhuyan, a Human Immortal body!


    It was a good thing that was hard to come by for thousands of years.


    Now, in her eyes, Zhou Bao was no different from a delicious Christmas dinner, except that she was not drooling.


    Zhou Bao, of course, noticed the danger. However, now almost all of his Internal Qi had been converted to the Dragon Chimera Fire, except those he got from the graveyard of the deity, so he could not use a single ounce of golden energy.


    Even at this point, he still could not use it. He sensed that she was stirring, and could conjecture that she intended to strike at him in the instant that his Real Body of Zhuyan condensed, because at that time his Demonic Fire consumed the biggest, and his resistance was weakest.


    At least, that was the theory.


    The Dragon Chimera Fire was raging, and Zhou Bao''s eyes gradually narrowed into slits. Layers of Dharma power began to jump around her, slowly gathering in her hands.


    "Ready to act?" Zhou Bao could feel Lan Shui''er''s murderous intent explicitly. "Island Owner Lan, don''t forget your oath!"


    "My oath is for you to help me to hatch this Primordial Fierce Beast''s giant egg, not you to swallow it up. Now that you have swallowed up my thing, I will swallow you up. That''s not against the oath!" Lan Shui''er smiled grimly and looked at Zhou Bao as if he was food. "I can''t believe I really underestimated you. Your Real Essence has such formidable intelligence, and you can even easily devour a Primordial Fierce Beast like Zhuyan, and condense the Real Body of Zhuyan!"


    "This is just an accident! Island Owner Lan, I don''t want to hurt our harmony!"


    "When you devoured my stuff, you''ve hurt it!" Lan Shui''er said lightly, with a more intense killing intent.


    Not daring to be careless, Zhou Bao slightly launched his divine thoughts, a thin layer of cyan light flickering around him.


    "A Pure Yang Celestial Device?" Lan Shui''er frowned as she felt the chill of the cyan haze. She did not expect this guy in front of her to be so difficult ¡ª he not only had the odd Demonic Fire, but also a magical Pure Yang Celestial Device. "Do you think I can''t handle you when you have the protection of a Pure Yang Celestial Device?"


    "Whether it''s true or not, go through this first!" Zhou Bao smiled faintly but his body became weak. Behind him, the Real Body of Zhuyan finally took shape, and his Demonic Fire vanished.


    Lan Shui''er sneered and flashed violently. In the next second, she was in front of Zhou Bao, and regardless of Zhou Bao''s Poison Cold Shield, she went straight to his chest with five bent fingers and surging Dharma power.


    "Hiss!" There was a piercing, grinding tearing sound. Lan Shui''er''s five fingers actually went straight through the protection of the Poison Cold Shield. Promptly, the endless chill and terrifying virulence were launched and rushed to her right hand.


    With a slight pause, a layer of blue Dharma power covered her hand.


    "Your celestial device is awesome, but unfortunately, it can''t stop me without your Real Essence, since I''ve undergone four Thunder Tribulations and my Dharma power is remarkably pure after the purification of the Heavenly Thunder."


    "Maybe!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed with a red light, and so did the area between his eyebrows.


    An acute sense of crisis instantly flowed through Lan Shui''er. Her right hand that was about to hold Zhou Bao''s heart stopped and retracted. Then after a bang, she disappeared in front of Zhou Bao.


    Swish!


    Almost at the moment of her disappearance, a black and red Sword Qi carrying understated murderous intent shot out of between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows.


    The Sword Qi penetrated the stone chamber and cut a big hole in the huge stone wall of about 60 feet thick, as if cutting tofu. Immediately, the whole stone wall was completely annihilated in the violent killing intent.


    The stone wall disappeared, and the surging water poured in. It turned out that the stone chamber Lan Shui''er built was in the deep sea.


    Zhou Bao''s Real Body of Zhuyan had reached the Basic level, but he still could not control it at will. However, in such a deep sea, he was in no mood to take it slowly. With a violent jerk, he forced the Dragon Chimera Fire into his body.


    "Ah!" Zhou Bao screamed. The Dragon Chimera Fire had been absorbed into his body, but the Demonic Fire that had condensed into the Real Body of Zhuyan was more than 100 times stronger than it was at the beginning. After it entered, Zhou Bao''s tendons and meridians were shattered in an instant on account of its shock.


    "Damn it, damn it!" Zhou Bao cursed in a low voice and regulated his breathing. Thankfully, he had his Poison Cold Shield. Otherwise, he would have been seriously injured by the deep sea pressure. Even so, he still dared not be unwary.


    He was in the deep sea, and he was wounded and was at his weakest in strength, while Lan Shui''er was like a fish in water. Actually, she was indeed a big fish spirit.


    As expected, when the water filled the space, everything changed.


    The stone chamber was not very large, mainly for the preservation of the giant egg of Zhuyan. Soon, it was completely submerged.


    At this time the change occurred, the water became active and alive. The current around Zhou Bao created a huge amount of pressure, and pushed toward the Poison Cold Shield.


    The Poison Cold Shield was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, but in such a deep sea, it was not easy to deal with additional pressure. Because of mind linking, Zhou Bao naturally knew that it was about to reach its limit of defense.


    Zhou Bao felt a headache now. He practiced pure Spiritual Energy of Fire, which meant that the power he could display in the deep sea was limited, and obviously, Lan Shui''er practiced the Spiritual Energy of Water, which suggested that for her, the bottom of the sea was like a paradise, and her power could get twofold results with half the effort.


    No matter what, he had to get out of here first. Otherwise, he would die without knowing why. With this in mind, Zhou Bao drove the Poison Cold Shield upward. On one hand, this could reduce the pressure on the Poison Cold Shield. On the other hand, he could get out of this damn place. As long as he left the bottom of the sea, even in the sky, Zhou Bao would not be afraid of Lan Shui''er.


    However, how could Lan Shui''er let him get away?


    The water in the bottom of the sea began to agitate as the Poison Cold Shield rose up. Waves and undercurrents were formed around it, and vortexes of different sizes were created out of thin air. All of these trapped the Poison Cold Shield.


    The so-called undercurrent surge probably referred to the present situation.


    "Island Owner Lan, there''s no grudge between us. Why go to extremes?" Zhou Bao cried, as he tried to stir up the Poison Cold Shield. Now, he had recovered his pneuma a little.


    Lan Shui''er not only remained silent, she did even show up. She only observed Zhou Bao in the dark. Seeing that Zhou Bao had gradually stabilized the situation, she only responded with a sneer, then raised her hand and manipulated the surrounding water.


    Under her control, the water was activated. It followed her mind and pounced on Zhou Bao.

 Chapter 425: Each Showing His Divine Senses, Poisonous Hitching Post Making Contributions

    Chapter 425: Each Showing His Divine Senses, Poisonous Hitching Post Making Contributions


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Tusk Island Owner, Lan Shui''er, was a fish spirit in the sea, who had been making contact with water since her birth. Thus, she had a big advantage in fighting against Zhou Bao in the water. Besides, as a Four-tribulation True Immortal, she even looked down on Zhou Bao who had not reached the Mysterious Realm in cultivation yet.


    If it had not been for the Sword Qi that made her baffled, she would have rushed to him and taught him a lesson.


    That was how Zhou Bao dodged this bullet. Now, his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was no less powerful than a Taihao Fairy Weapon. However, since it was the bottom of the sea, and he could not find a target, its terrifying power could not be exerted.


    It was somewhat unexpected for her to see that not only had Zhou Bao not been caught immediately, he had even stabilized the situation at the bottom of the deep sea. But she had endless methods in the water, she was not afraid at all. With her manipulation, the current around Zhou Bao had changed and condensed into ice. The water, mixed with blue ice, whirled at a tremendous speed, and began to attack the Poison Cold Shield from all sides.


    The Poison Cold Shield that was a little loose was once again tense. These blue ices were not only sharp, but also not afraid of the extreme cold Evil Qi ¡ª lower temperatures would only make them more powerful and harder to deal with.


    The water was congealed into fine ice pitons, and thrust themselves at the Poison Cold Shield violently. The Poison Cold Shield, though having evolved Pure Yang, was not a purely defensive celestial device. Resisting the pressure in the deep sea was a terrible struggle, so how could it stand up to the wrath of a Four-tribulation True Immortal?


    The Poison Cold Shield only withstood the first attack of the ice pitons in the water, and then it was punctured.


    These ice pitons came straight at Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao looked grim. He had been badly damaged by the forced withdrawal of the Real Body of Zhuyan. As amazing as his resilience was, he could not recover in such a short time. Additionally, in the deep sea, he did not have to worry about huge water pressure when the Poison Cold Shield was still intact. Now that it was broken, he had to bear the enormous water pressure equally.


    This made him uncomfortable.


    Crunch, crunch, crunch!


    The huge water pressure in the deep sea and the ice pitons simultaneously pierced his body. He moaned, and his skeletons were crushed by the pressure.


    Thousands of tiny ice pitons pierced him. The icy spirit squeezed into his body along with ice pitons and water pressure.


    Neither his Gang Qi nor his Real Essence could be used, and his body was wounded heavily. Zhou Bao could not be more depressed and uncomfortable. His whole body, thrown up by the wild sea like a large rag bag, made him look as if he had lost his life.


    Yet, Lan Shui''er did not act. The shock that Zhou Bao breaking the stone chamber with a streak of Sword Qi brought to her was still buried deep in her heart and frightened her. What she was worried about was the great killing intent contained in his Sword Qi.


    Zhou Bao was an expert with several acupoints opened and a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Lan Shui''er did not think that he who owns the eccentric Divine Sense would be easy to deal with. Hence, after a successful strike, she did not show up, but continued to manipulate the water, pushing Zhou Bao slowly toward the deeper sea.


    Zhou Bao kept a little clear, knowing that he was in big trouble today. The surrounding water was completely under Lan Shui''er''s control. It not only pushed him down, but also formed numerous tiny ice crystals and ice pitons, shooting straight into him. Zhou Bao''s current state could not reassure Lan Shui''er''s heart.


    "She is really a very cautious woman. It seems useless to pretend to be dead!" Zhou Bao had not recovered yet. When he was about to recover, he was crushed by the huge water pressure and unable to move. After broken, the Poison Cold Shield retracted into his Dantian and remained silent.


    This was the biggest dilemma that Zhou Bao had ever met since his debut. In the past, he could at least concentrate his Real Essence Internal Qi under all circumstances, but he could do nothing now. It was because his Real Essence Internal Qi had been completely converted into the Primitive Dragon Chimera Fire and began to suppress the spirit of the Zhuyan that had been devoured a short while ago.


    This Zhuyan had been nourished by Lan Shui''er for 150 years before it was even born. It only lacked a Pure Yang skill to hatch. It meant that Zhou Bao''s Demonic Fire devoured an entire baby Zhuyan. Obviously, the starving, hapless Primitive Dragon Chimera was not as good as the Zhuyan with the inheritance. Even if it was devoured by the Demonic Fire, its spirit was not completely destroyed and assimilated by Zhou Bao, but was constantly struggling. It cost Zhou Bao a lot of Real Essence Dharma power, so he could no longer move.


    After losing the Real Essence Dharma power, Zhou Bao found that he could hardly do anything ¡ª both the Divine Sense and celestial devices required the drive of a certain amount of Real Essence Dharma power. He could not locate her even if he could separate a little Real Essence Dharma power.


    This was another difficult task Lan Shui''er was a fish spirit, so she cannot be found easily while she hides in the water.


    That was why Zhou Bao decided to pretend to be dead.


    Yes, pretend to be dead, the real deal.


    Forced to drive his Internal Qi, Zhou Bao began to carry out the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. This secret skill could keep the user hidden, so it was certainly great to use it for pretending to be dead. Once it was launched, all Zhou Bao''s spirit was gone. His body, though still there, was indistinguishable from a non-living thing.


    Yes, a non-living thing. He was just like a dead wood floating in the deep sea. The most wonderful thing was that due to insufficient Real Essence, his operation of the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill was not fluent, which made Lan Shui''er believe that he had been struggling desperately before he died a while later.


    "He should be really dead this time, without a bit of spirit. But man has always been cunning. Maybe he knows how to hold his breath. I must be careful!" Hiding in the dark, Lan Shui''er could feel that Zhou Bao was dead. She forcibly resisted the impulse to eat him. Instead, she raised her hand and released a colorful water snake.


    The snake, about 70 feet long and huge, was speedy in the deep sea and soon swam to Zhou Bao''s side. After circling him several times, it stopped beside him and opened its bloody mouth.


    This water snake was very big, unlike Zhou Bao who was about the size of an ordinary person. It could swallow him whole in one mouth. Most of all, the snake''s mouth was covered with fine, sharp teeth like sharp swords. With one bite, Zhou Bao might be ripped to filets as small as the gap between its teeth.


    "Tricky woman!" Unable to continue pretending, Zhou Bao scolded in a low voice. With a fiery flash of red light between his eyebrows, a streak of sharp Sword Qi shot out, piercing the snake''s head, and instantly annihilating its spirit.


    "So it is, man is cunning!" Seeing this, Lan Shui''er became sullen abruptly and felt fortunate that she had not rushed forward. But her joy did not last long because another streak of Sword Qi came to her hiding place.


    She revealed her location when she released the water snake, and Zhou Bao found the trail.


    Overwhelming killing intents broke through the water and came to Lan Shui''er. Not daring to take it, she swam thousands of feet in a flash after a shake, as if the huge pressure under water did not exist.


    Zhou Bao did not pursue but pulled the corner of his mouth and started his Real Essence suddenly, launching the Three Realms Division after Lan Shui''er''s dodge of his Sword Qi.


    Crunch, crunch, crunch.


    "Fu*k!" Zhou Bao cursed. It was his first time to launch the Three Realms Division in water. Moreover, it was in such a deep sea where it was more difficult to use this special technique than on land. Zhou Bao only felt the pressure on his body increased by a dozen times, crushing his bones by half. Such expense shifted him about two kilometers up. Then the pressure precipitously dropped. But Zhou Bao knew that it was not enough, so he launched the Three Realms Division again as he grit his teeth. The pressure was not as great as it was last time, but it still crushed several of his bones.


    After more than half of the bones were crushed, Zhou Bao finally saw the light, and the pressure around him was reduced.


    Zhou Bao sighed with relief, but it was a little too early.


    The launch of two successive Three Realms Division in the deep sea caused him to break most of his bones and exhausted the little bit of Real Essence he just accumulated. He could no longer launch it but could only swim by himself. However, he would pull the crushed bones once he moves. How could he swim?


    At the same time, Lan Shui''er recovered. She was a monster in water. Initially, she was startled by Zhou Bao''s disappearance. Then she realized that this should be a way to hollow-travel, and salivated at it. Zhou Bao''s value in her eyes soared again. She certainly would not let him escape.


    The distance of a few dozen kilometers in the sea was just a piece of cake to Lan Shui''er. In a moment, she swam above Zhou Bao. Then, she hit the waters very hard and a huge pressure pushed Zhou Bao back into the deep waters.


    This time, Zhou Bao got an opportunity, because at this point, he had secretly started his Fiery Eyes and firmly locked Lan Shui''er''s position. In the moment of her action, Zhou Bao gently lifted his finger, and a little green light appeared in front of her and shot directly into her body.


    It was the Poisonous Hitching Post!


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi worked incredibly well, but Zhou Bao had just mastered its secrets and was not proficient. He needed time to release it in this deep sea. Although it could happen in just a blink of an eye, Lan Shui''er who was on the alert would have enough time to hide. But the Poisonous Hitching Post was different. Zhou Bao had reached the Advanced Level at this Divine Sense of Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion.


    By the time Green Spirit left Wuyang Region for the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, he had told Zhou Bao in detail the method of refining the Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion and the way to take its Natal Power, and Zhou Bao was naturally happy to accept it.


    Owning to the Advanced Level of the Poisonous Hitching Post, its launching did not take too long, all it needed was a thought. Lan Shui''er was wary of his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi, but she did not expect him to have such a virtueless Divine Sense.

 Chapter 426: Escape

    Chapter 426: Escape


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Poisonous Hitching Post was not fatal, but few were able to withstand the pain it brought.


    Before Lan Shui''er could react, the blue light she saw pierced through her body directly. Layers of Gang Qi and Dharma power encircling around her could not stop this blue light at all. She felt a sharp pain sweeping through her whole body.


    "Uh, ah...!"


    This pain came too suddenly and impactful. Poor Lan Shui''er cried out without any mental preparation. The wave of her Dharma power began to become chaotic. Her blue robe expanded, and her body began to tremble violently.


    She had never experienced such a sharp pain before. It spread from her flesh to her soul. She did not even experience it when she almost failed to pass the tribulation the last time. Her scream was sad and shrill, and her tears kept shedding.


    "A good chance!" Upon seeing her condition, Zhou Bao was elated. He planned to kill her with his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    But an accident took place again. Just when Zhou Bao was about to launch his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, the body of Lan Shui''er dispersed, just like bubbles, and disappeared without any trace.


    It was an escaping skill!


    Water-escaping Skill!


    Lan Shui''er was a water monster and also a Four-tribulation True Immortal. She naturally excelled in Water-escaping Skill. She was attacked by Zhou Bao while unprepared and almost died from the immense pain. However, she managed to keep calm under these circumstances. As she thought of Zhou Bao''s Sword Qi that could eliminate her, she displayed Water-escaping Skill without thinking. Otherwise, she would be killed in this sharp pain, which was not worthwhile.


    Zhou Bao felt greatly relieved after she left. But at the same time, he knew that his Poisonous Hitching Post could only let her feel extremely painful for an hour. After that, he would face her revenge. By then, it would be quite difficult for Zhou Bao to fight her, who aimed at seeking revenge wholeheartedly.


    If he faced it alone, he would not be so afraid. However, there were so many people on Tusk Island. If they died here, he would not be able to explain to others when he returned home.


    Thinking about this, he forced himself to utilize his Real Essence. After that, his body ascended quickly. After a few breaths, he stuck his head out of the water. When he saw Tusk Island, he sighed and felt relieved secretly.


    What he feared most was that Lan Shui''er would bring him to a seabed, which was tens of thousands of miles away from Tusk Island, in order to keep secret. If so, no matter how hard he tried, he could not escape from there. But now, since he could see Tusk Island, things will be much easier.


    He jumped out of the water. Although he was severely injured, he felt things could be done much easier on land, compared to the sea. He breathed deeply and displayed Three Realms Division. After several teleportations, he arrived at Tusk Island successfully and landed on a beach.


    The Void Traveller was still on the beach. It was still covered with a layer of obscure golden light. There were 10 people in total, including Great Dark Lord Du, Chen Dao, Ji Yeyue and so on, and they were all scattered around. Some were sitting, standing, chatting, or meditating. They were doing their own things and it was a harmonious scene.


    However, they were no longer at ease when Zhou Bao appeared in front of them.


    This was because Zhou Bao looked very shabby. Other than a pale face and bloodstains on his body, his black robe was fragmented. Worst of all, he looked very vulnerable. The Gang Qi encircled him was very thin, as if it could easily be pierced by a finger.


    Great Dark Lord Du''s expression changed. He rushed toward Zhou Bao and supported his teetering body.


    "Zhou Bao, what happened?"


    "Hurry up, leave! We must leave now. It''s a trap!" Zhou Bao was not in the mood to talk nonsense and said rapidly. The anxiety showed on his face was not fake. Once Lan Shui''er recovered from anguish and launch the inhibition of Tusk Island, it would be too late for them to leave.


    Great Dark Lord Du was alarmed when he saw Zhou Bao''s appearance and sensed the condition of Zhou Bao''s arm when he supported him. He could clearly feel that the bones in Zhou Bao''s arm were shattered. They were broken into pieces, rather than just broken.


    Zhou Bao is extremely powerful. I wonder who was able to break his bones into pieces? I guess bones of his other body parts were shattered as well. He must have suffered more severe injuries!


    He could not figure out how powerful Zhou Bao was, but Zhou Bao was certainly not inferior to him. If that guy could beat him up like this then he could do that to Great Dark Lord Du as well. Besides, this was someone else''s territory. Thinking about this, he dared not stay any longer. He supported Zhou Bao and flew toward the Void Traveller.


    "Board, be quick!" Great Dark Lord Du did not forget other people, and he yelled loudly.


    Although they did not know what happened, they began to move towards the Void Traveller after they saw Zhou Bao''s appearance. Now that Great Dark Lord Du shouted out, they all flew towards the Void Traveller.


    "What are you doing? Get off the spaceboat! It hasn''t recovered yet!"


    Passing through that obscure golden light, Great Dark Lord Du was the first to board that spaceboat.


    The light lacked interception and defense functions. Its main function was to prevent others from peeking using both naked eyes and the spiritual mind. Additionally, it could warn its owner when someone was coming. Just when Great Dark Lord Du went through the golden light, five golden-robed men of Divine Wind Palace together with Yu Nantian realized that something was wrong. Instantly, one of them came and stopped Great Dark Lord Du.


    "Get out of my way!" Great Dark Lord Du was no longer polite to them. He snorted and activated his powerful Gang Qi, shaking the man in front of him away.


    "You...!" Upon seeing Great Dark Lord Du being so rude, the expressions of the other golden-robed men that dashed here later darkened. They ran to Great Dark Lord Du and tried to argue with him. However, more people boarded at this moment. They did not know who should they stop. After all, they were only a group of five.


    Great Dark Lord Du scanned the surroundings coldly. After ensuring that everyone was on the boat, he supported Zhou Bao and helped him sit on a chair on the deck. Then, he said to an angry golden-robed man, "It''s a trap. Hurry up. Leave now!"


    Upon hearing that, these golden-robed men looked uneasy. They said, "The spaceboat hasn''t been repaired yet. We still need some more time!"


    "We have no time now! I guess the surrounding inhibitions have already been launched!" Zhou Bao looked paler. "Hurry up!"


    All the people looked up after Zhou Bao finished speaking, and their countenances changed suddenly. As Zhou Bao had said, the surrounding quiet grey smoke surged again and a group of strong spirits began to appear in their spiritual minds. Judging from their routes, they were flying towards the Void Traveller.


    The leader of these golden-robed men was no longer calm. He glared at Zhou Bao and Great Dark Lord Du harshly, and then rushed into the inner cabin.


    "Damn, they''re coming!"


    At the same time, dozens of lights flashed from afar and showed up in front of the Void Traveller. These figures were different in size, and their appearances were quite weird. Led by Gu Tuo, they held their weapons and celestial devices and attacked the Void Traveller violently.


    "This is a small island but there are so many experts," those on the Void Traveller thought. Upon seeing this scene, their expressions darkened. The attackers were all Level Seven or Level Eight experts, and the weapons they held were at least wizard weapons. Some even held Mysterious Level celestial devices.


    All the people were shocked. The rumors about this place were right; the Sea Area was abundant in assorted treasures of heaven and earth as well as experts!


    But they all knew it was not a proper time to be awed. They tried to fend against these attackers subconsciously as they saw that they were coming.


    Just at this moment, they felt a shake under their feet. A faint golden light surged and enveloped the entire Void Traveller. Exterior attacks on the golden light only have little effect. The golden light only shook once, and the Void Traveller floated up slowly from the beach.


    After being launched, the Void Traveller ascended at a fast speed. However, with its strong defensive power, no matter how these powerful monsters on Tusk Island attacked it, it remained intact. When it was almost 1,000 feet high, it suddenly sped up. In just a little while, it broke through the grey smoke on Tusk Island and returned to the sky above the endless sea. Then, it kept ascending while speeding up. The speed at which they were flying was comparably slower than when they were flying initially. After 10 to 12 hours, Tusk Island was tens of thousands of miles away from them. The Void Traveller gradually slowed down.


    Yu Nantian came out of the inner cabin and his face became paler, as if he had exhausted too much energy.


    "Thank you for warning me, Great Dark Lord Du and Zhou Bao. Otherwise, we would have been trapped in Tusk Island!" He went to the deck and thanked them politely.


    Yu Nantian was the nephew of the Master of Divine Wind Palace, who had a powerful background and practiced the Way of the Emperor. Therefore, he looked foppish and always valued himself too highly. But he was not a fool. He knew the order of priorities. Although Great Dark Lord Du and his partners had broken the rules and rushed to the spaceboat directly, they had made a right choice, judging from the things that happened later. He even needed to thank them for warning him. Staying in a trap was more dangerous than rushing out of it.


    Their escape, from his point of view, was possible because of some miscalculation on their enemies'' part that caused their delay in launching the trap.


    "You''re too courteous. If it''s not because of this wonderful Void Traveller, we would have faced attacks from a horde of experts. It''s me that should thank you, Brother Yu!" Great Dark Lord Du was no longer as domineering as when he was boarding the spaceboat. He smiled and cupped one hand in another. What he had said was right; those who attacked the Void Traveller belonged to the first group of experts. Beside them, more than 10 experts were heading toward the Void Traveller from every direction of Tusk Island. Without the Void Traveller, they would have been besieged by dozens of experts, and that would not be fun.

 Chapter 427: Facing The Battle

    Chapter 427: Facing The Battle


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Smiling, Yu Nantian turned around and said to Zhou Bao, "Brother Zhou, thank you for your warning this time. You know more details about this matter than all of us, therefore I would want to ask you, what the hell is going on here? Why did they call you out alone, and why do you know it''s a trap?"


    Yu Nantian continued smiling, but the smile was solemn and chilly.


    What exactly happened here?!


    Everyone had this same question in mind, including Great Dark Lord Du. When they first arrived at Tusk Island, people here were afraid of Zhou Bao''s cultivation. Although they were not particularly courteous, they harbored no enmity towards him. But why did they begin to attack them just after Zhou Bao left, although for just a while?


    Looking at their eyes filled with inquiries, Zhou Bao smiled bitterly, saying, "What else could it be? It''s just because that my cultivation method stifles the inhibitions and formations on Tusk Island. Thus, they made concessions in order to gain advantages and coaxed me to leave the island, trying to plot against me. Haha, however, I haven''t let them go easily. I taught that woman a lesson and then escaped!"


    While Zhou Bao may be talking nonsense, he revealed some information that they did not know.


    "A woman?"


    "Lan Shui''er is the Island Owner of Tusk Island. She is a fish demon and Four-tribulation True Immortal and she looks just like a woman!" Zhou Bao seemed quite excited as he spoke, as if he had not just run out with broken bones, but instead reaped some huge benefits from them.


    Of course, he did indeed profit considerably. But he could not tell them about it so easily. As for Lan Shui''er, since she had hidden Zhuyan''s giant egg so well, it would be for defense purposes and not meant to be found right?


    Although Zhou Bao did not know the details of 18 Dragon-bone Regions, Lan Shui''er was, after all, only the Island Owner of the Tusk Island of the first region. There are definitely higher-ups that she report to. In the Sea Area, experts were the most distinguished ones. The law of the jungle was observed more than in the Seven-deity Regions. Any slightest disagreement would result in a man''s death. Thus, Lan Shui''er definitely dared not tell others that she had been hiding an egg of a Primordial Fierce Beast for 150 years. Worst of all, someone stole it from her in the end. This might be a reason enough for her to die a miserable death.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao guessed that she dared not tell others the truth. However, she would not let him go this easily.


    This was understandable. If it was Zhou Bao who was robbed of a treasure, he would not be willing to let it go just like that. Lan Shui''er tried very hard to hide the egg for 150 years. For nine times, it was her hope as she almost went through the Thunder Tribulation.


    However, this hope was cruelly destroyed by Zhou Bao.


    All her painstaking effort over these 150 years was cast to the winds. After being stabbed by Zhou Bao''s Poisonous Hitching Post, she suffered a sharp pain. As a Four-tribulation True Immortal, she could not tolerate it in any way. She must avenge for herself. If she does not kill Zhou Bao, a psychological barrier would make it hard for her to advance any further.


    The question was, what excuse would she use to kill him?


    However, since the owner of this Sea Area, which is the Rolling Dragon King, had already given a sea-closing order, Lan Shui''er did not need any excuse to kill him anymore.


    Zhou Bao''s words were not very clear, so those on the Void Traveller were not willing to resign to this result. But when they saw how weak he was, as if he was going to die, they felt it inappropriate to ask further.


    However, they got a message from his words and it made them feel uneasy.


    Four-tribulation True Immortal!


    She was a True Immortal and not a Metaphysic Individual Immortal. She was a Four-tribulation True Immortal who belonged to the Venerable Realm, and not a One-tribulation True Immortal like Taihai Sage.


    The most powerful ones amongst them have merely reached Level Nine. Although some boast combat capabilities that excelled others, they could only fight with people of normal power from the Mysterious Realm at most. It was difficult for them to fight a more powerful expert at Mysterious Realm, let alone a Genuine Immortal, or even a Four-tribulation True Immortal.


    If a Four-tribulation True Immortal attacked 15 of them together, with just pure ability, they would be killed instantly. They would be extremely lucky if they could escape. The thought to go easy on their enemy was simply a wild imagination.


    Mysterious Realm was a higher realm compared to Level Nine. It was also known as the Three Big Realms, namely the Pulse-Steadying, Blood-Changing, and Marrow-Cleansing. Just like the Three Small Realms, every realm consisted of three ranks. Therefore, there were nine ranks in total, which were known as the Nine Ranks of Metaphysic Realm.


    In the Seven-deity Regions, it was hard to find a guy who had reached Mysterious Realm. Almost everybody was stuck in Three Small Realms. Therefore, few people knew deeply about the ranks of Metaphysic Realm. Zhou Bao only knew about it after he joined the Immortal Palace.


    The gap between each rank in the Nine Ranks of Metaphysic Realm was much bigger compared to that of Three Small Realms. Anyone could gain an overwhelming advantage over those of lower ranks. If one exited from the three realms, broke through the three ranks of Marrow-Cleansing, and reached Realm of True Immortality, they could possess Dharma power. Dharma power was much more powerful than Real Essence.


    Realm of True Immortality was divided into nine ranks as well. Going through Thunder Tribulation once could shift one up a rank. Through every Thunder Tribulation, Dharma power would be cleansed by the power of thunderbolt and the Divine Qi contained in it. Then, its power would advance by leaps and bounds. Therefore, Zhou Bao''s action of letting a Four-tribulation True Immortal suffer losses meant he had successfully skipped 13 ranks.


    This was complete bullshit!


    Of course, there was also a possibility that Zhou Bao possessed fairy weapons. That may sound plausible.


    Thinking of this possibility, the expression of the six in Divine Wind Palace turned strange, especially Yu Nantian, whose expression darkened as he looked at Zhou Bao.


    He was the nephew of Yu Taixu, so he surely knew Yu Taixu was struggling these few days with the sudden appearance of a man who possessed fairy weapons. Now that Zhou Bao possesses fairy weapons, does it not mean that he was the one who found Dragon-taming Ruins and ruined Divine Wind Palace''s plan?


    However, he could not make such irresponsible remarks without evidence. Did Zhou Bao really conduct such an appalling action or was he only bragging his cultivation?


    If Zhou Bao knew his words would make people from Divine Wind Palace suspect him, he would be regretful. But right now, he knew nothing about how they think.


    After fleeing for such a long time, his body had almost recovered. Although he was severely injured, his core was not hurt. Moreover, after being refined by Innate Deity, his body could recover at an amazing speed.


    Therefore, in order to prevent these people from asking more, he pretended to be a badly injured man just now.


    It sounded very ridiculous that he challenged Lan Shui''er by skipping 13 ranks in an unfriendly environment. However, it was possible.


    His current cultivation was at Level Nine. However, his Real Essence was actually made up of the Demonic Fire of Primitive Dragon Chimera. After being purified by Bright Moon Deifying Technique, cleansed from the thunderbolts from Nine Heavens, nourished by the remains of Innate Deity and immense Pure Yang Water, as well as his wife''s Sacred Roots, his Real Essence almost equaled to Dharma power in terms of pure quality. Furthermore, he opened Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints and formed a huge and boundless Dantian. The quantity and density of his Real Essence Internal Qi had far surpassed other ordinary Individual Immortals and True Immortals. With all these factors added together, he would be able to survive in a fight against a Four-tribulation True Immortal, although not on the advantageous end.


    Besides, he did not have an opportunity to fight with Lan Shui''er face to face. In the beginning, Lan Shui''er did not think of him as a worthy opponent, as he was a Level Nine expert who had not broken through the Mysterious Realm. In fact, she would not think highly of an expert at the peak of the Mysterious Realm too. The difference in strength was too great.


    It was because of this indifference that caused Lan Shui''er to be careless. She should have controlled Zhou Bao while she could. Later on, Zhou Bao was forced to display Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi. After realizing that Zhou Bao''s Sword Qi may kill her, she was afraid. Her ambivalence caused her to miss this good opportunity which Zhou Bao seized and let her suffer losses.


    Of course, good opportunities like this could only appear once. In places like the Sea Area, to become a True Immortal, especially a Four-tribulation True Immortal, and be listed as top 10,000 on Ranking of Demons and Immortals, meant that mistakes were not going to be repeated.


    It was impossible.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao understood that when Lan Shui''er caught up with him, they would have a fierce battle.


    He would not bother thinking about whether Lan Shui''er would catch up with him. Under these circumstances, she surely would.


    Hence, the next time when they meet, they would conduct an aboveboard battle. In terms of quantity, Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi and Real Essence almost equaled to Lan Shui''er''s. However, he still lacked a bit in quality.


    Although he had many close shaves, he was at Level Nine after all. Theoretically, his Internal Qi and Real Essence had not fully transformed. The Real Essence of Dragon Chimera Fire in his body was not concentrated enough compared to Lan Shui''er''s Dharma power. He might win only if he was willing to completely turn his Real Essence into Demonic Fire and utilize Real Body of Zhuyan in public. However, as of now, his Real Body of Zhuyan had just been formed and could not be used. If he managed to display it somehow, it would be for show only, as he could not apply it skillfully. Moreover, he understood its power. He wanted to keep it as one of his last resorts and surely would not display it easily in front of so many people.


    So he made up his mind. Once Lan Shui''er caught up to him, he would use the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword to fight her. Although the Natal Sword had just formed, it was in no way less powerful than a Taihao Fairy Weapon. He meant to use it to deal with Ye Qingtian''s North Pole Frozen Wheel and Yu Nantian''s unknown fairy weapon, and he was ready to expose it during this pursuit. It was no big deal to reveal it several days earlier.


    Hence, he was quite confident and did not worry about it at all.


    But it did not mean that others were not worried.


    Zhou Bao said that he made his opponent suffer losses, but it was common for martial arts practitioners. They would not be hurt fundamentally unless they suffered huge losses. However, on top of skipping so many ranks, Zhou Bao challenged his opponent and let her suffer losses. This would trigger his opponent easily. And what would be the result of it?


    His opponent would definitely not let them go.


    Therefore, all the experts on the Void Traveller felt as though they were facing a formidable enemy and dared not let their guards down.

 Chapter 428: Attack

    Chapter 428: Attack


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Void Traveller continued to march forward with its speed slowing down. You have to know that though this spaceboat was repaired at Tusk Island for a while, it was too short a period of time to restore its previous consumption. In order to get out of Tusk Island quickly, it exhausted its strength to step up its speed, so its speed could be that fast in a moment. Now after flying for a while, its speed should be slowing down.


    It is because of the slow speed, a dozen of people in the spaceboat became nervous. After all, the flying distance of Void Traveller just now meant nothing to an Individual Immortal who had survived four ordeals.


    Zhou Bao also secretly regulated his breathing. Now that Lan Shui''er would not let him go, then, he had to fight for himself. They were flying high in the sky, not under the sea. His Internal Qi and Real Essence were almost recovered, even if he was confronted with Lan Shui''er, he could take the initiative. More importantly, he had decided to activate the Natal Sword of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. When the Natal Sword was activated, it was endowed with the power of a fairy weapon. It was hard to tell who should be afraid by then.


    After the speed of the spaceboat slowed down, it flew dozens of thousand miles for another hour smoothly. When everyone was about to relax themselves, suddenly a series of turbulence and quivers shocked the Void Traveller.


    "What''s going on?"


    Everyone looked pale at this moment. A Highest Heaven Celestial Device like Void Traveller would not quiver like this, even if it met with the turbulence at a great height. There must be something special.


    "Sea water! It''s the sea water!" At the tail of the spaceboat, Ji Yeyue screamed after he realized something.


    As soon as the people saw it, their hearts sank. It was a transparent rope which entangled with the Void Traveller firmly. That rope was only as thin as a little finger, and was completely made of sea water. It stretched to a high altitude of 50,000 feet and firmly fastened to the Void Traveller.


    "Damn it! Void Traveller has exhausted itself too much. Otherwise, this thing can hardly trap us!" Yu Nantian said angrily, glaring at that rope.


    At that moment, there were some experts of Divine Wind Palace who brandished their knives and cut fiercely right on that rope.


    Swish!


    This rope made of seawater looked transparent, as if it could be broken by one gentle pinch. Just one cut and the rope was divided into two pieces. Then the Void Traveller started to shake, as if it could get out of this trap. However, as the old saying goes, "You cannot beat a river into submission." Void Traveller only quivered a bit, and the two pieces of rope linked together again and trapped Void Traveller.


    "Go to hell!" The expert of Divine Wind Palace was furious and cut that rope several times more, but the rope remained intact. When he was about to cut it for the ninth time, that rope spared one extremely thin branch and suddenly entangled his saber. The branch crawled along his saber until it prevailed all over his body.


    "What a moron!"


    Zhou Bao reproofed lowly. This Void Traveller was protected by a magic formation. Generally, even if that rope had some magic tricks, it could by no means break the golden light protection of Void Traveller. Now, this expert brandished his saber and cut that weird rope directly, which enabled that rope to find out where the loophole was and to crawl all over his body.


    "Nooooo!"


    The entangled expert screeched suddenly and then his body shriveled as quickly as everyone could see it, yet the rope on his body became more and more shining.


    "This thing can inhale people''s essence, blood, and pneuma!" Everyone on the spaceship was startled. They saw the thin rope was glowing glittering and translucent light, with runes floating faintly on it.


    That expert of Divine Wind Palace did not notice at first, so he activated his Gang Qi to resist the rope. Just a few seconds later, his Gang Qi was all absorbed and empowered this rope.


    It was the weird power of this bizarre rope that made everyone on the boat powerless to help that expert. All they could do was to watch him wither and die. At that moment, everyone looked sullen and solemn.


    As for Yu Nantian, he looked gloomy, yet he could do nothing. Watching his subordinate die before him, with a flash in his eyes, he gnashed his teeth and activated his slivery saber to cut off his subordinate''s head.


    The blood splattered to a height of 30 feet without a drop dripping on the deck.


    They saw millions of filaments emitting from that rope and shooting upward. Numerous threads were waved into a sophisticated web and trapped the blood of that expert inside the web. Then it extended downward at a visible speed. This water rope gradually inflated and then suddenly contracted. That headless corpse was exhausted to a dry mummy in a blink of an eye.


    "Pia!"


    At this moment, the head of that expert finally dropped on the deck. It bounced twice and he died with his eyes wide open.


    "It''s not good. Let''s go!"


    At this point, there was no one cared about that poor guy who died with his eyes open. After that water rope absorbed this poor guy, its pneuma skyrocketed. Then it again divided itself into 16 thin water ropes and crawled to 16 other people.


    The entire Void Traveller was turbulent with the halo of Gang Qi sparkling, but there was no one who dared to fight against this weird rope.


    They all figured it out. This weird rope was able to absorb the pneuma and essence of experts and turned them into its benefits. Even if a person activated his Gang Qi, once he got trapped by it, he would still be absorbed. Luckily, though this thing was eccentric and insidious, it was not intellectual. People on the spaceboat had excellent Qing Kung and they could dodge it easily, and Yu Nantian even had extra power to manipulate the Void Traveller. A few seconds later, the water rope gained nothing and had to retreat. The golden light outside the Void Traveller became brighter and cut out the connection between the water rope inside the boat and outside the boat. They could tell the water rope inside the boat had gradually lost its power and finally melt into a puddle of blood on the deck without any movements at all.


    No dared one to act rashly. After watching this for a while, Zhou Bao finally raised his hand and released a thin fire dragon to cover the entire Void Traveller in a hot spirit. That fire dragon flew around that puddle of blood and evaporated all the water in it, vanishing into the air.


    It was only now that everyone on board finally relaxed.


    "There are really something eccentric in this ocean. What on earth is this thing? How can it have such a weird power. A Level Eight expert was killed in an instant!" The Third Dark Lord of Dark Sect, Chen Dao, was mumbling aside.


    "The crisis is not over yet. Void Traveller is still trapped by this damn rope. If we couldn''t destroy the one outside, we would never leave this place." Yu Nantian said coldly and turned to Zhou Bao, "Zhou Bao, you look like you recovered well. Your Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique seems like it can oppress this weird water rope!"


    "I hope so." Zhou Bao could hear the grudge in his words. Zhou Bao should not be the one to blame. Although there was no direct evidence to prove that this resentment was caused by Zhou Bao, no one knew what happened when Zhou Bao was called away alone in the Tusk Island. Since no one knew what happened, Yu Nantian certainly would have doubts about Zhou Bao. Now he had lost one of his most loyal subordinates and he even cut off his head himself. How could he not be irritated?


    Zhou Bao could understand his anger. Therefore, though he knew there was a grudge in Yu Nantian''s words, he did not give a damn about it. He raised his hand and nine fire dragons came out of the fingertip of his index finger. Swish, they flew out of Void Traveller and hovered high in the air, forming a golden cover which shot right to that rope trapping Void Traveller and wrapped it inside its cover.


    It was the Nine dragons Heavenly Fire Shield!


    Sizzling...


    Water could overcome fire, but fire could overcome water as well. The power of nine fire dragons could never be compared to regular fire. The water rope entangling Void Traveller was evaporated by the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield of Zhou Bao in a blink of an eye. Void Traveller finally could move and rushed forward. When the mounting power inside the boat was released, the boat left the place quickly.


    However, since the other party had first attacked, it would not be this easy.


    As Void Traveller rushed forward swiftly, the water rope, a part of which was evaporated by Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield of Zhou Bao, rose again and dashed to Void Traveller at almost the same speed as Void Traveller.


    Meanwhile, there were threads of hazy mist around Void Traveller.


    Void Traveller went straight into the hazy mist, but no matter how hard it tried, it could not go through this mist.


    "It seems like a formation!" Great Dark Lord Du frowned and said, looking at the mist outside the boat. If one was to stretch out his hands, he could not even see his fingers.


    "We are at a high altitude of 50,000 feet. If someone is able to set up such a formation, he must have an extremely strong Dharma power. It must be the Island Owner of Tusk Island!"


    This time, they were meant to go after Ye Qingtian and his team, but before they arrived at Three Western Regions, they had already lost one expert and got stuck in such a dangerous place. They did not even know who was their enemy and how powerful he was. Their enemy was a Four-tribulation True Immortal, according to Zhou Bao. Yet they had not figured out what would happen later.


    Now that it was caught in this mist, if Void Traveller had enough energy, it could slice the hollow and dashed out of the mist as what it did under the sea. However, there was not enough energy left to maintain the initial speed, let alone to accomplish all of those moves.


    "I am Yu Nantian from Divine Wind Palace. If we have offended you, Your Excellency, please show up and let''s talk it over. Now you are hiding in the dark and secretly attacking us. I don''t think it is what a gentleman would do, is it?"


    As the nominal commander of this hunt-down, he had to stand up and say something since he had already lost one of his subordinates.


    "Gentleman, huh, this kid from Yu family. I tell you what, we are not humans like you, so don''t tell us to be gentlemen. I didn''t want to meddle with this trivial chore, but Rolling Dragon King had issued the sea-closing order. Therefore, this is my territory and you can''t cross it without my permission!"


    "Since you don''t allow me to pass through, we can just find another way, why would you attack us like that?" Hearing the words of his enemy, Yu Nantian looked pale with anger.


    "Oh, boy. Don''t get me wrong. That Sea-turning Rope doesn''t belong to me. I just used it to block you!"

 Chapter 429: Take Action

    Chapter 429: Take Action


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "That being the case, why can''t you let go of the inhibition and let us leave this place?"


    "Kid, don''t get smart with me. Your boat is always marching forward. If you could step back a bit, you could easily get the hell out of here!"


    "Step back?"


    Yu Nantian stupefied for a moment. Indeed, he did not try to step back. Thinking of that, his face flushed with shame. He always wanted to march forward, but he never thought about stepping back. Now hearing those words, he turned the Void Traveller around and stepped back.


    Sure enough, he just stepped back a bit and the mist around them dissipated suddenly. When he looked ahead, he only saw a pale and hazy mist prevailing all over the place. It was hard to tell how wide this mist was. Yu Nantian said he would find another way to pass this place, but he had not found the proper way yet.


    Looking back, the Sea-turning Rope, that long water rope, was chasing after them at an incredible speed.


    Zhou Bao said nothing but activated his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield again to protect Void Traveller from the back and block the Sea-turning Rope. Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield was entangled with Sea-turning Rope, producing a sizzling sound. After a while, there was a mist roaring on the back of Void Traveller.


    "This won''t work!" Great Dark Lord Du frowned tightly and felt unsafe, "We will be stuck here and die!"


    Everyone felt that things were not going well, but they could not figure out a better way to solve this. At the moment, they were frozen.


    All of a sudden, a blue light flashed over the distant sky and fell before them. Before everyone could react to it, it transformed into a blue cover and capped them.


    "Lan Shui''er!" The familiar Dharma power and spirit made Zhou Bao nervous. Next, a huge vibration of Dharma power came at them.


    BOOM!


    Without any doubts, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield of Zhou Bao was destroyed in a moment and Void Traveller quivered intensively. At that moment, Void Traveller was like a dugout canoe, drifting in the ocean and withstanding storms and rainfalls. They could collapse at any time. The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield was put out by the blue Dharma power. After the Sea-turning Rope got rid of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield, it trapped the Void Traveller tightly again.


    "Zhou Bao, come out!"


    The harsh and feminine rebuke came down from the sky like the thunder above the Nine Heavens, bombing people and making them dizzy. However, at the same time, people paid more attention to Zhou Bao.


    Everyone could taste the grudge in Lan Shui''er''s words. What exactly had Zhou Bao done to make a Four-tribulation True Immortal so furious?"


    "Just as what I expected, it''s him who brought us trouble!" The idea flashed in Yu Nantian''s head and he stared at Zhou Bao," Zhou Bao, what have you done?"


    "What have I done? Nothing. I didn''t do anything!" Zhou Bao put on an innocent face and denied it while waving his hands. He took a look at the blue cover which had already covered this space and yelled, "Lan Shui''er, Island Owner Lan, why are you so stingy? We didn''t offend you. It was you who first attacked us. We just wanted to protect ourselves. Why do you keep pushing us?"


    "You...!" Lan Shui''er was choked by Zhou Bao''s words and became irritated. "You didn''t offend me? You have offended me in multiple ways!"But she still could not tell anyone about the giant egg of Zhuyan. On one hand, she was afraid that if someone else knew about it, they would take it from her. On the other hand, she secretly hid that egg and did not hand it over to the Region Master of 18 Dragon-bone Regions. Although she was an Owner of an island and a Four-tribulation True Immortal, what she did was a serious crime in 18 Dragon-bone Regions and the Region Master would not let her get away with it. For her own safety, she would by no means tell anyone about it.


    In this way, she was unable to share this concern to anyone but herself.


    When Zhou Bao talked back, it reminded her of the anguish she had suffered when she was stung by the Poisonous Hitching Post of Zhou Bao. That pain, she would never suffer again. It was so painful that both her tears and snot were dripping. The most shameful thing was that when she reluctantly used water to run away, she soon fell to the bottom of the water and got eaten by a giant whale. At that time, she still had her Dharma power, so the giant whale could not digest her. She was pushed out of the whale together with its excrement. This insult, was more shameful than rape to her, a Four-tribulation True Immortal, which made her so irritated, so furious.


    She did not seek revenge on Zhou Bao the moment she recovered. Instead, she found that whale, tortured it and slaved its spirit, so as to ease her anger by slowly torturing it in the future. After she finished all this, she rushed to this place. She was not hurried, because she knew this was Sea Area. In this place, where Zhou Bao and his team were not so familiar, she had sea-closing order and her target was Void Traveller. What a huge and easily-tracked target. If she could not find it, she would rather kill herself for good.


    "Zhou Bao, don''t you dare to quibble! Even you do, you won''t get away with it. I will certainly kill you today and chop you and your accompanies into pieces. Then my hatred shall finally be relieved!" The ferocious voice of Lan Shui''er was spread all over the Void Traveller, shaking the spirit of everyone on board.


    "Zhou Bao, what did you do to her that she hates you so much? It seems like this hatred could not be washed away, even if you exhausted all water in the world. This could be much worse than you dumping her, isn''t it?" Great Dark Lord Du was confused and asked Zhou Bao.


    "It''s none of my business. I have no idea. Maybe she is just too mean!" Zhou Bao forced a smile. Surely he did not know what happened to Lan Shui''er after she escaped through water, but he thought it was about time for him to show up. If he had not, everyone on board could kill him with their gaze.


    "Lan Shui''er, you don''t have to do this. I only stung you once and you didn''t have to treat me like this. How about this? I will let you sting. Just let go of my friends. They have nothing to do with it!" Zhou Bao shook his body, flew out of Void Traveller and dashed into the blue cover.


    "Hiss!"


    The moment he entered the cover, Zhou Bao felt extremely cold and a frost formed surrounding his body.


    "Whoosh!"


    Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Gang Qi stated running on its own and a dark golden Gang Qi rose around Zhou Bao''s body. Then, a warm and gentle spirit crawled all over his body and dispersed all the chills he got.


    The Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, one of 3,000 Great Ways, was magnificent. Zhou Bao had practiced to a Basic level and formed the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument. When confronted with a Four-tribulation True Immortal, Zhou Bao did not have the balls to hide it anymore. He used the power of Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique to its extreme and formed a Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument. That instrument floated above the head of Zhou Bao and emitted lucky Qi and scattered light to protect Zhou Bao.


    As soon as Zhou Bao showed up, the shape of this blue cover changed, with millions of sharp icicles took shapes and shot swiftly Zhou Bao. However, at this moment, Zhou Bao was not in the sea, nor was he the Zhou Bao who had exhausted all his Internal Qi and Real Essence. After recovering for a long time, Zhou Bao had regulated his Internal Qi and Real Essence to a perfect level. Except for the Real Body of Zhuyan which he could not take full control, his Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique was strong enough to handle these minor problems.


    Numerous icicles were broken in front of Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Gang Qi, melted and evaporated.


    "Island Owner Lan, don''t play this cheap trick with me. If you want to fight against me, please show me what you got!" The scattered light of Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument was magical and the lucky Qi and scattered light dripping down were indestructible. Although the Dharma power of Lan Shui''er was strong, she was not confident to defeat him in front of Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Gang Qi.


    Seeing her attacks were easily compromised by Zhou Bao, Lan Shui''er fell into a rage and scolded lowly. The blue cover started to quiver and it was rolled up as a canvas, carrying along Zhou Bao and Void Traveller into a world of pure blue oceans.


    "What a quirky power!"


    After being swept off to this world of blue oceans, Yu Nantian was astonished. For those experts who were above Mysterious Realm, hollow travel was not a big deal, but taking people to another space was an extremely excellent technique.


    Or rather, the person who succeeded in doing this, owned a celestial device with extraordinary Spatial Attribute.


    There were only two things in this blue ocean world--the sky and the sea. It was so weird that there were no living creatures in the sea or any clouds in the sky. The spiritual qi here was scattered and was no match for half of what was in the real world.


    If Void Traveller wasn''t damaged, it would be easy for him to break this space and get the hell out of here. However, now Void Traveller had drained itself, there was not enough power for it to shatter the hollow and Lan Shui''er definitely would not let them repair it and restore its energy.


    When the Void Traveller was swept into this space of blue oceans, the Sea-turning Rope which entangled Void Traveller disappeared without a trace and completely integrated into the oceans in this world.


    Intelligence, it was an ocean with intelligence as if it was alive. After that Sea-turning Rope fell into the seawater, the ocean started to surge.


    Millions of ropes made of water appeared and waved into a wide web, capping toward Zhou Bao and Void Traveller.


    "I said these cheap tricks wouldn''t work!" Looking at those ropes, Zhou Bao thought of his Knot Golden Net. The seawater in this ocean was creepy with a thread of evil Qi, yet his Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique was the nemesis of this evil Qi. Therefore, Zhou Bao believed that the seawater could not hurt him at all.


    Surely, as soon as those ropes touched the Gang Qi of Zhou Bao, they were turned into dark smog and vanished into the air.


    "This Lan Shui''er have been a fish for so long that she likes to hide in the dark. Now we are stuck in this place. Although I don''t fear her seawater, we can''t put ourselves in the passive position. This will not be of any good!"


    Zhou Bao was not a fan of being passive, but Lan Shui''er was too strong, she was a Four-tribulation True Immortal with endless Dharma power around her, which made Zhou Bao nervous. Now she was his enemy, Zhou Bao was thinking of finding her weakness first and then attacking her. However, Lan Shui''er was used to hide in the dark and raided her opponents. This left no room for Zhou Bao to attack her. Now he was upset that he was dragged into this eccentric space.


    "In that case, I shall not be a gentleman anymore. I''d like to see whether your spatial celestial device can take my attack or not!" Thinking of it, Zhou Bao suddenly turned over his hand and got the Golden-Scaled Cudgel.

 Chapter 431: Master Jinhua & The World of the Gourd

    Chapter 431: Master Jinhua & The World of the Gourd


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Fairy Lan, no need to get angry! It is not worth it to damage your body for such a small character!"


    The voice was feminine and distinct. In the water-blue canopy, a tiny spot of light appeared, which then evolved into a human figure.


    Young, handsome, wearing a magnificent robe. He looked feminine and was holding on to a small, golden-yellow gourd. The gourd was small, delicate, and palm-sized. It looked like a carefully-made toy.


    But in the eyes of the crowd, it was strange. Everyone saw that the small gourd suddenly appeared in the blue canopy when Zhou Bao carried out his special technique of hollow travel. The small gourd then suddenly sucked him in and Zhou Bao was unheard of ever since.


    "So it''s Master Jinhua. I, Lan Shui''er, pay my tribute to you!"


    After figuring out who the young man in the magnificent robe was, the blue copy suddenly withdrew and disappeared. Lan Shui''er''s body slowly revealed itself in mid-air and bowed towards the young man.


    "You''re too courteous, Fairy Lan. This fella is too bold, how dare he offend you. If I don''t refine him into blood and water, I will never get rid of the hatred in my heart!" said Master Jinhua and laughed. His blossom-eyes stared at Lan Shui''er''s body as if he was going to rip off her clothes with his eyes.


    Lan Shui''er was obviously very uncomfortable for being stared at by Master Jinhua. "Young Master, thank you for your help. It''s just that this fella and I have a feud going on. If Young Master would be so willing to hand him over to me and let me deal with him, I will never forget this favor."


    "It''s nothing, it''s nothing. You are treating me like a stranger. There''s no need to ask for help between you and me. Let''s see, a fateful encounter is better than an arranged one. Since you have come to the Sea Area, I, being the owner of the place, should entertain you well!" As he said that, he saw a slight distress strewn across Lan Shui''er''s face. He couldn''t help but laugh and said, "Please not refuse, otherwise when word goes out, people would say that I do not know how to treat guests. That would not be good, right?!"


    "Since Young Master has invited me, then, naturally, I must agree!" Lan Shui''er suddenly thought it through and smiled slightly.


    "Good! ~" Seeing Lan Shui''er agree, Master Jinhua was very happy. Looking at the just-stabilized Void Traveller, he laughed and said, "Why don''t you all come along? Hehe. Rolling Dragon King has just issued a sea-closing order. Naturally, this is meant to catch all of you. But since I met you all coincidentally, then the honor should be mine. You guys even got a Highest Heaven Celestial Device! Not bad, not bad. This time, I want it as my reward."


    As he spoke, he flung his robe and the gourd in his hand suddenly became gigantic. It produced such a strong suction force that it seemed to be trying to suck in the whole Void Traveller.


    "Hmm, since you know this is a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, do you think it will be that easy to control me?!" Watching from the side, Yu Nantian laughed coldly. The gourd faced down towards the spaceboat. With a violent movement of the Void Traveller, a gleaming golden light shone from the spaceboat suddenly. A column of light had just shot out from the spaceboat.


    Void God-eliminating Cannon!


    Boom!!


    With a loud boom, the Void God-eliminating Cannon hit squarely onto the gourd. The gourd vibrated under the impact, and the light emitting from it toned down.


    Master Jinhua had a change in expression. He saw that although the Void Traveller was a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, the energy it needed to consume was too much. Hence, he decided to bring out his celestial device first. But he did not expect that at such a point in time the Void Traveller would still have the energy to fight back with such a strong recoil force.


    However, although this was out of his expectation, it was nothing to fuss about. These guys were just common people, how could they be compared with him with their small tricks?


    Master Jinua was ranked 9023rd in the Sea Area''s Ranking of Demons and Immortals. He was a Four-tribulation True Immortal and one of the four main subordinates of Rolling Dragon King. His cultivation was enough to shock the heavens and earth. Seeing his celestial device being beaten off, he was only shocked for a moment. He furrowed his eyebrows slightly, raised his hand, and suddenly a big hand appeared in the sky. This big hand was completely formed by pneuma. With a violent grab, the Void Traveller was already in this hand.


    The Void God-eliminating Cannon may be effective, but it also used up the remaining pneuma of the Void Traveller. It did not manage to escape the grab of the big hand. Shortly after that, a black hole appeared in the sky and engulfed the Void Traveller as well as the big hand.


    "Innate Qi Catching!"


    Seeing the big hand that appeared suddenly, a flash of light was seen in Lan Shui''er''s gaze.


    Innate Qi Catching Skill!


    In the endless number of techniques, this skill was still very well-known. It was, in fact, comparable to the Thunder Technique. If she launches her Yin Thunder of Gui Water against this Innate Qi Catching, she may not even be able to blast away the big hand.


    "Okay, Fairy Lan, everything is settled. If there''s anything, we can talk when we go back to the Water Mansion!"


    "Okay!" Lan Shui''er cast a profound look at the golden gourd tied around Master Jinhua''s waist. She nodded her head slightly and followed him, disappearing into the air.


    In mid-air, the fog that just blocked the path of Yu Nantian and the rest gradually cleared up, as if it did not appear before.


    But talking about Zhou Bao, after Three Realms Division was activated, he had been moved to a strange place.


    He had no idea that he was sucked into the celestial device of Master Jinhua. He only realized that he had moved to a very strange space. In this space, it was pitch-dark. Other than the golden red light coming from his Gang Qi, there was no other light source.


    "What a strange and eerie place!"


    There was neither pneuma nor life Qi. He was surrounded by dark mist. What was more problematic was that the dark mist was extremely corrosive.


    "What place have I moved to? Why am I in such a situation? Am I really so unlucky that I''ve bumped into a spacial turbulence or something?" Zhou Bao had many unanswered questions. Suddenly, his gaze sharpened. In the surging, black mist, a black shadow flashed through. If not for Zhou Bao''s Fiery Eyes, he would not have noticed it.


    The dark shadow was about the thickness of one''s thumb, but it was especially agile. In just a short moment, it crawled out from the black mist and landed on his Gang Qi.


    "This is...!" Having a clear look at the black shadow, Zhou Bao was alarmed. This black shadow was a black snake completely formed by the surrounding dark mist. The thin snake landed on his Gang Qi just like that but was not burnt by the scorching heat emanated from it. On the contrary, it stuck onto it and wiggled as much as it could. As it wiggled, Zhou Bao could feel his Gang Qi depleting.


    "What a creepy thing!" Zhou Bao was alarmed, while his mind was racing. Just when he was thinking about how to melt this snake, something even more alarming happened. The surrounding black mist suddenly became even more raging. Snakes made of black mist started to form one by one and pounced at Zhou Bao. In just a few breaths, Zhou Bao''s Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang was covered by snakes sprawling over. Initially, his Gang Qi was leaking bit by bit. But now, his Gang Qi was flowing out like a flood rushing through opened gates. But Zhou Bao had activated Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints and was supported by strong Real Essence. If it was someone else facing this attack, his Real Essence Internal Qi would be gone within three breaths.


    "I cannot go on like this. Even though my Real Essence Internal Qi is very strong, it cannot withstand such exhaustion. If I go on like this, within one hour, my Real Essence Internal Qi will be completely depleted!" Looking at the growing number of snakes covering his Gang Qi, Zhou Bao started to get frantic. The strange mist in the gourd looked extremely sinister from the beginning. But be it his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang or his Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, they all had extreme suppressing effects on sinister things. His Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique was one of the 3,000 Great Ways, and the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument formed by it was known to beat all sinister things in the universe. But just now, he transformed his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang Qi in Gang Qi for Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique but it did not work one bit. The formed Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument was even sucked away completely. This was way beyond Zhou Bao''s expectations.


    Even Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique could not solve the problem, and his Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument was sucked away. These things led Zhou Bao to be really worried.


    He had reasons to worry.


    All along, both of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique and the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire had powers to control the sinister force. A normal sinister force could not do anything if he had these two powers. With these two powers as protection, Zhou Bao had always been confident with his personal safety. But now, these two powers were proven ineffective. One of it even was Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique of the 3,000 Great Ways.


    He could not help but be scared.


    But being scared did not mean he could not think. After experiencing the initial nervousness, Zhou Bao started to think fast. One by one, divine thoughts started to fly out, attempting to control the surrounding black-mist snakes. But it did not work. These mist snakes seemed to have no intelligence or spirit. They were just lifeless mist that stuck together. Even though they may have a form now, it was only designed to suck away Zhou Bao''s Gang Qi more conveniently. It had no strong spirit itself.


    In other words, Zhou Bao was unable to retrieve information about those snakes through divine thoughts. Luckily, even though these mist snakes were strange, they were uninterested in divine thoughts. If they were to suck away his divine thoughts as well, Zhou Bao would be so desperate that he would be left with no tears to cry.


    But on the other hand, since they could not absorb divine thoughts, that would also mean that it had nothing to do with divine thoughts. Because there is no spirit, Zhou Bao could not use his Fiery Eyes'' special technique to defeat them. This would mean Zhou Bao lost a way to fight his enemies.


    "There''s no other way. I can only do this!" Zhou Bao sighed softly. In this strange space, he could only use his best and strongest weapon.


    Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!

 Chapter 430: Thunder Technique

    Chapter 430: Thunder Technique


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    This Golden-Scaled Cudgel was initially a Divine Weapon that could transform into different sizes. After evolving in Pure Yang Water, it had turned into a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Although it could not be compared to the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices like the Void Traveller, it had its own strengths as well.


    Just by weight alone, the Golden-Scaled Cudgel weighed the same regardless if it was big or small. But right now, the weight changed proportionately with the size.


    When it was the size of a sewing needle, it weighed slightly more than a real sewing needle. When it was enlarged, the weight of the pole increased as well.


    Zhou Bao took out this Golden-Scaled Cudgel and waved it gently in the air. The Golden-Scaled Cudgel immediately stretched to thousands of feet long and weighed nearly ten kilograms. Zhou Bao waved this pole that weighed nearly ten kilograms effortlessly as if it was a piece of straw, and the surrounding airflow and water started to swirl.


    Hu, hu, hu, hu, hu...


    A strong wind started up. The airflow turned into gales of violent wind that swept around all corners. After being rapidly brandished by Zhou Bao, the Golden-Scaled Cudgel evolved into a ball of purple-golden light, enclosing Zhou Bao in its midst.


    "Island Owner Lan, let me test how sturdy your space celestial device is!" Zhou Bao roared. The cudgel fell from the sky and hit the waters of the sea with a loud smack.


    This plain strike contained an enormous amount of Zhou Bao''s power. The impact felt like a big mountain range had fallen from the sky and hurtled into the sea.


    BOOM!


    The waters of the sea started churning, which created giant waves that shot up to thousands of feet high. Immediately after, the surrounding space started moving with the flow and weird sounds could be heard. They sounded like a house that had been hit and was falling apart after a thunderstorm.


    "Whoah... what a violent fella!" was the reaction of all on the Void Traveller when they saw Zhou Bao''s strike. None of them would have been able to withstand an attack like that. Possessing a Pure Yang Celestial Device could not guarantee their safety. Even Yu Nantian, who had a Human Immortal fairy weapon with him, had only a slim chance.


    That one strike caused too much of a load on Lan Shui''er''s space celestial device. After that attack, Zhou Bao felt something. It had yet to end. The cudgel in his hand felt like it was swaying along with the wind. Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill became one with the cudgel. In seconds, just within a breath''s intake, Zhou Bao struck 18 times consecutively at lightning speed. Each strike was stronger and harder than the previous one. In the 18 strikes, there were two Critical Hits.


    "Boom, boom, boom!"


    Yue-er was unable to fight back after facing the 18 consecutive blows. After the hits, the whole space shattered into pieces.


    Blue sky, blue ocean, blue world!


    All were demolished in a moment!


    At the same time, in the current world, the blue canopy which had swallowed Zhou Bao and the rest emitted a flash of cyan light. The Void Traveller and Zhou Bao appeared in the sky.


    However, things did not end so fast.


    The blue space may have been shattered by Zhou Bao, but the blue canopy did not totally disappear. After Zhou Bao and the Void Traveller got out, the blue canopy started to close in on them.


    Zhou Bao laughed coldly, raised his cudgel, and gave a thrust forward.


    "Puff!"


    At his first jab, Zhou Bao felt like his pole had landed on a ball of cotton candy, it felt soft and yielding.


    Suddenly there was a flash of blue light and a blue water droplet appeared in front of Zhou Bao.


    "Oh no!"


    A chilling realization struck Zhou Bao for no apparent reason, and he stepped back subconsciously.


    But he was still one step too late.


    Boom!


    With a loud boom, the small blue droplet suddenly exploded, its strong force sending Zhou Bao flying. The Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Gang Qi, meant for protection, also shook for a while. It smashed into the sea like a brick.


    Yin Thunder of Gui Water!


    The Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Gang Qi had ensured that Zhou Bao''s body remained intact, but the strong force was still able to send him flying far away.


    Thunder Technique!


    This strange yet powerful force could only be attained after one had cultivated up to the level of a Genuine Immortal and experienced Thunder Tribulation.


    Zhou Bao had heard about the Thunder Technique but had never experienced its powers. Now he knew.


    An enormous, almost-destructive force sent him flying away immediately. Zhou Bao could feel an impacted force pressing him down. A small part of his right body was ripped open by this strike. Huge pain engulfed his body.


    At the same time, a chilling force seeped strongly into his open wound, destroying his internal body.


    "Is this the force of the Thunder Technique?" Zhou Bao quickly took a deep breath. The Real Essence in his body was flowing and quickly melted away the force of the chilliness in him. However, before his body could fully recover, another seven to eight blue water droplets appeared in front of him.


    "Shit!" Zhou Bao cursed softly. He activated the Three Realms Division and moved several times to a place a few kilometers away to escape from the explosions.


    "So this Thunder Technique is just like those god-damn bombs!" The power displayed from the few explosions of the Yin Thunder of Gui Water led Zhou Bao to have a new understanding of how the Thunder Technique worked.


    The so-called Thunder Technique was a system of techniques, a powerful system of Dharma power.


    Techniques were the application of Dharma power. Plainly speaking, techniques were secret skills. After one had cultivated Dharma power, there would be all kinds of amazing effects when applying it. This was because the Dharma power itself had all sorts of mysterious uses. These effects were much stronger than the Internal Qi and Real Essense used before one jumped out of the three realms. Additionally, after moving out of the three realms and ascending to Genuine Immortal fairyland, one would have better insights about the Great Way of Heaven and Earth. That was because the Dharma power would have a new understanding of the power in the body. Hence, there was a vast system of techniques. There were many different types and other classifications. It was unlike the secret skills, where the skill, which was a simple application of Internal Qi and Real Essence that would cause uneasiness when activated.


    Thunder Technique was one of the many systems of techniques. It was also the most powerful and well-known one. It was not made of real thunderbolts. In this strange world, the power of thunderbolts was of extreme Yang and also one of the strongest. Hence, it was also the best. Only a few cultivation methods could reveal some of its secrets. Once cultivated to the level of Genuine Immortal fairyland, one would have Dharma power to cultivate Heavenly Thunder. These thunders were, in fact, just small bombs. But because their explosion sounded like claps of thunders in the sky, this technique was called the Thunder Technique.


    Those who practiced water-property cultivation method and had water-property Dharma power could also use the Yin Thunder of Gui Water. Those who had wood-property Dharma power could practice Yi Wood Thunder. Those who practiced gold-property Dharma power could use the Geng Metal Thunder. These gods of thunder, Thunder Technique, were special applications of the Dharma power. In plain words, they could set off strong chemical reactions, just like the bombs in Zhou Bao''s previous life, be it the black fire or C4. They had nothing to do with the thunders in the skies.


    Just that in this world, the effects of Dharma-power-triggered bombs were much more powerful than that of bombs from his previous life. Especially for Lan Shui''er, who was a Four-tribulation True Immortal and was ranked among the top 10,000 in the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. She had already become highly proficient in using water-property Dharma power. Even if she released only a tiny drop of Yin Thunder of Gui Water, a mere drop of water, the bomb could easily cause the deaths of many Individual Immortals, let alone the experts who were not even qualified to be Individual Immortals.


    If it was not for the fact that the target of the strong defense of the Void Traveller, as well as the Yin Thunder of Gui Water, was Zhou Bao, the majority of those on the space boat would have died from its first explosion. During the second time when many of the bombs exploded at the same time, it caused great destruction to the Void Traveller. Its giant body was blown far away and the defense was cut down by half. Poor Yu Nantian spat out a few mouthfuls of blood and managed to stabilize the space boat. But even so, his pneuma suffered greatly too. His face was white as sheet, and he was very weak. Now, he did not in the least resemble any expert from Divine Wind Palace.


    "Shit, shit, shit!" Suffering from such a great blow, Yu Nantian''s expression changed. Instinctively, from the conversation between Lan Shui''er and Zhou Bao and from her attitude, he could tell that she was targetting Zhou Bao. But Yu Nantian and his lot were brought down along unluckily. He felt angry but had no choice. Zhou Bao was too strong a match for him. He might have to use a fairy weapon to bring him down. But if he used a fairy weapon now, it would mean announcing the failure of this whole killing plan. Ye Qingtian was not someone to mess with, he had a fairy weapon too. His own strength was much stronger than Yu Nantian. Although Yu Nantian''s fairy weapon could control Ye Qingtian, after one use, not only would its energy be depleted, Ye Qingtian would also be aware of it. Yu Nantian''s slight advantage would then disappear into thin air.


    Thinking about this, how he wished that he could run up to Zhou Bao, haul him up by his collar and interrogate him loudly about what he thought he was doing.


    But he also knew that this was not the right time to ask him any questions. He also had no means of reaching Zhou Bao who by now was several kilometers away.


    He could only fervently curse that Zhou Bao and Lan Shui''er would both be bombed to death. No, they should be taken alive and tortured. Their skins and veins should be ripped out, their hearts carved and lungs dug out. They should be violently trodden on so he could release the inner hate that was simmering in him.


    After Zhou Bao escaped the attacks of Yin Thunder of Gui Water by using the Three Realms Division, he strongly gripped the Golden-Scaled Cudgel in his hand. But he was afraid of directly touching the Yin Thunder of Gui Water. That thing may look small, but when exploded, its power was equivalent to hundreds of tonnes of TNT. It even had special abilities like damaging the Yin in one''s body. Zhou Bao''s body may be powerful, but even he could not withstand the force of such an explosion.


    Zhou Bao gasped as he watched hundreds of droplets came flying towards him. It seemed like this Lan Shui''er really hated him to this extent. The Thunder Technique may be very powerful, but the droplets were very hard to cultivate. Usually, only one or two could be successively refined out of ten droplets. They were also not easily replenished. Hence, most of the time, even Genuine Immortals would not carry too many droplets with them. Judging by Lan Shui''er''s manner, she may have already used up the droplets she had preserved for thousands of years. Having to deal with such a forceful figure, Zhou Bao would not be so silly as to go on a head-on clash with her.


    Even if the Golden-Scaled Cudgel he was holding on to was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, to directly hit so many droplets would be something that only dumb people would do. Hence, seeing dozens of droplets coming towards him, Zhou Bao immediately carried out Three Realms Division without any second thoughts.


    As the saying goes, escaping is always the best plan.


    "I cannot fight you, but that does not mean I cannot hide from you."


    "It is best to hide from the enemy first and then think of a plan later!"


    "Oh?" Once the Three Realms Division was activated, Zhou Bao felt that something was not quite right. When he first broke through the hollow, all at once he felt a huge suction force. He was sucked into an unknown black hole and had no time to react at all.


    Fairy Lan, do you really need to go to such an extent?" A soft voice rung in Zhou Bao''s ears. Afterward, he fell into a vast black space, and could not hear any more sounds.

 Chapter 433: Disaster in Water Mansion & Enraged Jinhua & Zhou Baos Flee

    Chapter 433: Disaster in Water Mansion & Enraged Jinhua & Zhou Bao''s Flee


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    A burst of Sword Qi appeared with a loud crash. After shattering that gourd, the Sword Qi did not wait for any second but shot at Master Jinhua straightaway.


    Having experienced the initial violent rage, Master Jinhua also detected the uniqueness of this Sword Qi. He dared not take it bluntly. Instead, his figure flashed and turned into a jet of light, and dodged to the side.


    Seizing this opportunity, Zhou Bao hurtled over, with the Sword Blade Storm constituted by numerous tiny versions of Sword Qi whirling in front of him.


    "Damn it!"


    "Holy crap!"


    "Now we''re in trouble!"


    "Ah, help! What the hell is this..."


    "Monster! It''s a monster! Young Master, help! Help us!"


    This Water Mansion was in a total chaos, moanings ringing everywhere. When the black mist leaked out from the gourd, it almost instantly shrouded the whole place. This black mist went out of control after it broke away from the gourd. Sensing spirits of many creatures about, it evolved into myriads of black mist snakes, which swooped at all the creatures living in this Water Mansion. Although people from the Water Mansion had a certain strength, not any one of them had reached the Mysterious Realm. Well, how then could they have any chance to fight off those mist snakes that once made Zhou Bao suffer?


    In fact, even if one broke into the Mysterious Realm, it would still be impossible for him to take on those snakes without any special means. Therefore, shortly after the release of the black mist, wails and cries sounded from all directions, many of which were crying for Master Jinhua to rescue them. However, Master Jinhua was unable to even take care of himself, and that was attributed to the Sword Blade Storm of Zhou Bao.


    With the murderous movement originated from the Silver Moon Sword Technique in coordination with the mystic Dragon Flying Technique, a dreadful killing intent not only swept through Master Jinhua, but also stole over Lan Shui''er. The luxurious Gang Qi surrounding Master Jinhua and the water blue Gang Qi around Lan Shui''er were speedily ablated by the Sword Blade Storm, while both of their eyes were revealing that they found this highly inconceivable.


    How could this be possible?


    How come such a crazy thing has happened to us? We are Four-tribulation True Immortals! Four-tribulation True Immortal!


    This kid standing in front of them was merely a guy at Level Nine. Even if his cultivation was at the peak of Level Nine, how could he possess such a powerful killing ability?


    This was not normal!


    Getting through their initial startle, the two gradually calmed down. They both felt the suffocating killing intent spilling out from Zhou Bao''s Sword Blade Storm, which was sufficient to annihilate anything in the world.


    They did not dare to slight this fight anymore. Since using their Gang Qi did not work, they both resorted to their protective celestial devices. They launched those celestial devices and then dashed backwards. As to other people in the Water Mansion, they paid no attention to them. In fact, they could not even spare an effort to attend to others even if they wanted to. Now, the others could only rely on their luck.


    Zhou Bao''s Sword Blade Storm worked. Of course, Zhou Bao would not want to miss this good opportunity. He abruptly leaped in a flash and performed his Three Realms Division over 10 times in a row so as to move to a faraway spot.


    The Sword Blade Storm did prove to be effective, but he was not so stupid to believe he could defeat two Four-tribulation True Immortals merely with this half-baked Sword Blade Storm. That was never going to happen.


    These two guys were momentarily stunned at his unexpected attack. Plus, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi was indeed extremely powerful. That was why he had such a great chance to flee. Once the two regained their footings, Zhou Bao himself would be in deep trouble.


    After all, the Sword Qi of this incredulously powerful Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was not inexhaustible. When Zhou Bao had launched this Sword Qi for several times, the light of the Natal Sword behind him began to fade, and he still needed to reserve some Sword Qi for self-protection. Thus, he could not exhaust all the Sword Qi at once. You should know that it would be an extremely slow progress to replenish the sword pneuma if all of it was used up. Considering this Sword Qi was one of his greatest killing devices, he had no intention to exhaust it at one time. Thus, he chose to retreat.


    "Bastard, bastard!"


    Although the Sword Blade Storm was impressive, it could not hold on for long after Zhou Bao''s flee. Adding that there were two Four-tribulation True Immortals jointly fighting against it, the Sword Blade Storm soon disappeared out of sight.


    Master Jinhua and Lan Shui''er were both disheveled now. Lan Shui''er looked sick, her eyes glistening as if she was contemplating something. Meanwhile, Master Jinhua''s face was thoroughly livid, and his teeth were tightly clenched. Having no intention to care about his own messy appearance, Master Jinhua gave a slight jolt, and then rushed out to chase after Zhou Bao.


    "Young Master, don''t be reckless! That guy knows the special technique of hollow travel. If I saw it correctly, it should be the Three Realms Division. It''s been so long, he probably has already run to a place thousands of miles away. it won''t be easy to find him. And maybe he has some backup there, so we''d better think this through before taking actions!" Lan Shui''er grabbed Master Jinhua and pulled this enraged guy back.


    At this time, Master Jinhua seemed to have recovered a bit of his composure. He shot a glance at Lan Shui''er, and then turned around and stalked towards his Water Mansion, where no cries were ringing anymore. Instead, dead silence filled the air.


    The mist that just transformed into numerous black snakes also disbanded, drifting away in every direction. Since it only started dispersing a moment ago, it did not go very far.


    Master Jinhua opened his mouth widely and inhaled deeply, sucking up all the lethal mist into his body. After taking in all the mist, his face went a little black, a trace of sparkling black light flitted across his eyes. Then, he went back to normal. Settling the mist problem, the Water Mansion reappeared in front of the two.


    Nearly every living creatures were gone. The flesh of countless brutes, handymen, footboys, and maidservants were all sucked up, leaving only thin layers of skin. Moreover, many of them were forced to resume to their original forms. Therefore, now the ground was covered with dead fishes, shrimps, shells, crabs, turtles and so on, making the face of Master Jinhua twitch.


    "No matter who he is, what background he has, I will kill him! Definitely!" Master Jinhua''s countenance was already extremely forbidding. Scanning the chaotic Water Mansion, Master Jinhua started roaring madly.


    "Don''t worry, we have plenty of opportunities to do so. Now his companions are all in your hand, he can''t just leave and give up on so many of his companions!" Lan Shui''er said faintly, stifling down the impulse to stimulate Master Jinhua. Based on his current state, it would not be funny if he really burst with fury.


    "Right, you''re right. I got his companions. These guys are all subordinates of those powerful sects in the Four Eastern Regions. Thus, no way could he leave them here and go back alone. Otherwise, he will have to face the rage of all the strongest sects in the Four Eastern Regions. Humph, he is bound to figure out something to rescue his companions. So we don''t need to do anything other than setting up a trap here and wait!" Master Jinhua said balefully, his face sullen. He swung back his sleeves and stepped into the Water Mansion.


    "Now is not a good time to go back. Perhaps I will get into trouble!" After shifting to a place thousands of miles away by means of his Three Realms Division, Zhou Bao was sitting on a reef among the sea, flustered by his worries. He had found this remote place to recover after leaping miles afar with his Three Realms Division. As he also had the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to hide his breaths, he did not worry about being discovered by others. After resting for a whole mouth, he finally gained a full recovery.


    Having recovered, Zhou Bao was all focused on finding Yu Nantian and the other guys. Remember, Yu Nantian and others were captured after Zhou Bao was sucked in that gourd, so Zhou Bao had no idea of the whereabouts of his companions.


    However, the Sea Area was so vast, and there were so many demons living in it, so it was hard to prevent news from leaking out. Once Zhou Bao went out of his hiding place, he learned the news about Yu Nantian and others from some passing-by demons, that they were all at the hands of Master Jinhua.


    Also, from this information, Zhou Bao learned the name of Master Jinhua for the first time.


    Just as Master Jinhua predicted, judging by the current situation, he did not dare to go back to the Four Eastern Regions. If he was still living on his own, he would not have minded it so much. However, now he had an enterprise to manage, old parents to take care of, and a new-born on the way. If one day those sects really went mad against him, he would not be able to fend it off and protect his family. Putting aside other things first, simply thinking about the huge palm descending from the sky in the Dragon Oppressing Region was enough for him to go dispirited for a while. Being a pragmatist, he would never dare to place all his stakes on the Immortal Palace.


    "F*cking son of a bitch, does that mean I have to rescue that bunch of useless guys? My enemies include two well-prepared Four-tribulation True Immortals! No, not only two, who knows how many there are? They said the Rolling Dragon King or whatsoever had executed a sea-closing order, didn''t they? Now, Yu Nantian and others got caught. Naturally, they will be offered to that whatever Rolling Dragon King."


    Following this thread of thinking, Zhou Bao felt that things were increasingly tricky. If this was the real case, he would have to face the strongest influence of the entire Sea Area, which would be much stronger than sects on land. Zhou Bao had no urge to face such an influence all by himself.


    "No, this is not right. That slick guy Yu Nantian has a fairy weapon with him, he won''t surrender so easily. If I were him, I would have used the fairy weapon to run away in the first place. Could it be that Master Jinhua also has a fairy weapon?" Zhou Bao still could not think this through. "If I were Yu Nantian, what would I do?" Zhou Bao gently squinted, trying to reduce his intelligence to Yu Nantian''s level and analyze the whole thing from his point of view. By doing this, he really did come up with one possible scenario.


    "Does that idiot want to negotiate with that Rolling Dragon King? Does he really regard the Divine Wind Palace as the Celestial Court, which reigned all the heavens and realms years ago? Is he expecting everybody to be terrified once he announces his name and title?"


    Zhou Bao was pondering over these possibilities. He truly felt that stupid Yu Nantian would do so in reality. Heaving a soft sigh, Zhou Bao held his breath and dived into the water.


    From the conversations of many passing demons he had overheard previously, Zhou Bao learned that this Sea Area was not under the control of Master Jinhua, but belonged to the scope of influence of another subordinate of Rolling Dragon King named Master Bai Luo, who was also a Four-tribulation True Immortal. Under the leadership of Rolling Dragon King, the status of Master Bai Luo seemed equal with that of Master Jinhua. However, these two did not get along well because they were always competing against each other. In this Sea Area, most demons traveling to and fro were subordinates of Master Bai Luo. Based on snatches of their conversations, when those demons referred to Master Jinhua, they all revealed a certain degree of despise, which was also mixed with a bit of jealousy.


    Given that Zhou Bao mainly practiced with the Fire Way Method, he was not very adaptive to the life under water. However, at this time, he could only inquire about the news in the sea.


    Swimming like a fish, he soon dived to the bottom of the sea. Then, he found a secluded place to rest and launched his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. Now, he was hiding in the sea, disguised as a regular rock on the seabed.


    Shortly after that, several demons approached in lines from afar, chattering.

 Chapter 432: Breaking Out from the Gourd

    Chapter 432: Breaking Out from the Gourd


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was a great killing device that Zhou Bao had at present. After being nourished by the killing intent of that Heavenly Fairy Weapon, its power had grown beyond his imagination. Zhou Bao would contemplate how to use this Sword Qi, especially when he had some leisure time to spare.


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was just a kind of Sword Qi. Most of the descriptions of this special technique were about how to enhance the power of this technique, but seldom about its usage. As a result, Zhou Bao had only used the Sword Qi for sweeping attacks and found the effect unsatisfactory.


    However, he could do nothing about it. It was true that he knew about some sword skills, some abstruse ones actually, such as the Silver Moon Sword Technique. However, this one required him to use a solid sword at hand instead of mere Sword Qi.


    As for the difference between using a real sword and Sword Qi, Zhou Bao had a clear view. Putting aside this Silver Moon Sword Technique, even sword practitioners'' cultivation methods in the medieval period were not designed for Sword Qi. Based on Zhou Bao''s knowledge, maybe the six sets of sword skills of the Six Meridian Holy Swords are the only appropriate ones for practicing his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. However, where could he ever find the practicing illustration of this Six Meridian Holy Swords?


    Nonetheless, this did not mean Zhou Bao could not find a single way to improve this. In fact, when the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi were not so powerful and the Natal Sword not produced, Zhou Bao already stimulated this Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi with his Dragon Flying Technique and turned it into numerous miniatures of Sword Qi. These tiny versions of Sword Qi could shoot out through his pores which had proved to be surprisingly powerful. Zhou Bao started to vaguely believe this might be the best way to utilize the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    Besides, there were three top murderous movements in the Silver Moon Sword Technique, one of which was called Star River Fragmentation. This movement contained a mental cultivation method that aimed to display strong lethality by manipulating tiny and fragmented jets of Sword Qi.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao kept exploring the best way to use his Sword Qi. He managed to gain a bit of insight through combining the Dragon Flying Technique and the Silver Moon Sword Technique. Now, facing this circumstance, Zhou Bao would never let go of this great opportunity to test his research findings. As his mind raced, the Dragon Flying Technique was already launched. Countless jets of Gang Qi, which were as small as thin needles, shot out from his body and recklessly struck those ferocious black mist snakes that had been coiling over his Gang Qi.


    "Pfft!" With fits of stifled puffing noise, those hitten mist snakes all transformed into the original mist and vanished. In a few milliseconds, all the snakes wrapping around Zhou Bao had turned into mist, unable to impose anymore threat on him.


    Of course, merely achieving this was not enough for Zhou Bao. Seeing his Heavenly Sword Qi pretty effective, Zhou Bao was overjoyed. Then, he lifted a finger and those numerous Sword Qi swiftly gathered together to form a storm. In this storm, all those small Sword Qi were spinning at a high speed like drills, playing up the killing intent that could obliterate everything to its full extent.


    Sword Blade Storm!


    Yes, this was a Sword Blade Storm, but it was different from the one in Warcraft because this was a storm Zhou Bao came up with when he was inspired by that Cloud-swallowing Beast in the Taiyuan Heaven. This was a storm made of numerous tiny Sword Qi, which was sufficient to tear up anything.


    Once this Sword Blade Storm came into being, it immediately started closing in on the surrounding black mist. The black mist was surging vigorously as if it was struggling to break free from the constraints of this Sword Blade Storm. However, the Sword Blade Storm had already built a closely woven net of swords that wrapped all the black mist into one. No matter how violently the black mist fought back, it could not escape from the control of the storm.


    "Uh? This seems to be a closed space. It has an end!" After taking down the black mist, nothing else could pose threat to him in this space full of black mist. Hence, Zhou Bao finally got to take a careful look at this odd space that sucked him in. Soon, he spotted its secret.


    This was not a complete space. On the contrary, it was like a small dark room. He was only trapped in a small dark room. For Zhou Bao who could travel through spaces at his will, though this golden gourd was very large in volume, almost as vast as the space of a state in Jin, he still discovered its boundary.


    Finding out this secret, Zhou Bao laughed with glee. Now the whole thing became easier.


    "Seems that I''ve been constrained by a certain celestial device. This celestial device ought to have the function similar to that of a Highest Heaven Celestial Device. Its practical volume in the real world is not big, but its inside is a fairly large space. However, nothing exists in this space other than this weird black mist. Once you are sucked into this strange space, the black mist will attack you and drain your Internal Qi and Real Essence. You will eventually die because of that. This is just like the Purple Golden Gourd mentioned in A Journey to the West!"


    Indeed, this gourd highly resembled the treasure described in A Journey to the West that he had read in his previous life. It could suck people in and soon turn them into pus. However, right now, the thing that attempted to turn victims into pus was subdued by Zhou Bao, so there was nothing frightening about this space at present.


    "Now, let''s see how sturdy this celestial device really is! Will it fall apart under my attack?" Thinking of this, Zhou Bao recalled that blue space which whirled him in but then got shattered into pieces under thumpings of his Golden-Scaled Cudgel. He smirked at this. In comparison with that blue space, this peculiar space merely possessed more attacking powers.


    This time, Zhou Bao was not going to use his Golden-Scaled Cudgel again. Since he had already exercised his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, he had no need to hide it any longer.


    Thinking about this, Zhou Bao transformed himself into a cyan shadow in a flash. Pointing the guiding direction with one finger, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi, that had transformed into a Sword Blade Storm, instantly regrouped together and turned into a huge black and red sword. Following the direction pointed by Zhou Bao, this black and red sword fiercely hacked the meadow of black mist that had been rounded up previously. Then, without a break, it launched another round of attack at the boundary of the entire space.


    On the seabed, in the Water Mansion.


    The Water Mansion of Master Jinhua was pretty spacious and extravagant, a bit like the legendary Dragon King Palace. In this Water Mansion, a lot of marine demons that assumed human forms were shuttling to and fro. Among them, some were guards looking like brutes, whose strength might not have reached the Metaphysic Individual Immortal Realm, but most were above Level Seven; some were footboys running menial errands, whose cultivation was at least at Level Four or even exceeded Level Seven. If they lived on land, they could be Junior Masters that had domination in a few localities, or even secured a post of Elder in a medium-sized well-known family like the Wu Family. Also, there were many maidservants in colorful clothes. Their strength were also pretty high, most of them were at Level Four or Level Five, but some had also broken through Level Seven and entered the Expert Realm.


    The moment Master Jinhua and Lan Shui''er began to descend from the sea level, people in the Water Mansion seemed to have received the signal¡ªa bunch of footboys and maidservants galloped outside, lining on both sides of the street to welcome the two.


    "Fairy Lan, look, what do you think of my Water Mansion as compared to your Tusk Island?"After descending down into the water, Master Jinhua asked with pride.


    "My Tusk Island is remote and desolate in the first place. If you want to compete, it is better to do so with Shui Sheng''s Water Mansion. Among the 18 Dragon-bone Regions, his locality is the most luxurious!"


    "Eh, him? Hehe, forget it. He is the god of wealth in your 18 Dragon-bone Regions. How could I compete with him?" Speaking of Shui Sheng, Master Jinhua instantly ran out of patience. Just as the two were about to enter the Water Mansion, Master Jinhua''s expression suddenly became stern. He let out a yell, abruptly looked down and fixed his eyes on the small gourd hanging on his waist.


    This small gourd started vibrating, and Master Jinhua''s look grew serious. "Shit!" He barked. As if having sensed the danger inside the gourd, he raised a palm and harshly slapped it.


    This gourd was a Pure Yang Celestial Device that had long been connected to his heart and mind after experiencing his refine for myriads of years. At this point, in the gourd, Zhou Bao already defeated all the black mist by operating the Sword Blade Storm he just comprehended by himself. He also identified the truth about the space in this gourd and swung his Sword Qi to slash at the boundary of this internal world.


    Master Jinhua sensed that things were not going well in his gourd. Thus, he slapped on it, causing the black mist, which just escaped the restriction of Sword Blade Storm and was hacked to pieces, to instantly assemble together and turn into a huge black mist snake, charging right at Zhou Bao for a bite.


    "F*ck off!" The Sword Qi made its strike. With the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword suspending behind his head right now, Zhou Bao looked incomparably sharp and intimidating, just like a peerless magic sword. Seeing this mist snake fling itself at him, Zhou Bao just gave a derisive laugh and swished the sharp Sword Qi, easily cutting the snake in two. Then, the Sword Qi divided into many streams to disrupt the mist, throwing it into a total mess so that it could never pose threats on Zhou Bao anymore. Meanwhile, the Sword Qi Zhou Bao just slashed out had already reached the boundary of this gourd.


    "Clunk!" The golden gourd gave a gentle shudder and a visible crack appeared on the surface of it.


    "What..." Master Jinhua, who just gave a clap on the gourd, was astonished. He sensed some danger was coming, but never expected it would come so soon. Given that this gourd was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, its shell should be very solid, and he knew perfectly well how solid it was. Nevertheless, it never occurred to him that the expert with a mere Level Nine cultivation, who had been absorbed into his gourd, could have such power to damage this celestial device.


    Despite that, there were more shocking moments in store for him. Zhou Bao''s slash movement was very effective. Although it did not thoroughly cut open this space, Zhou Bao felt a wisp of pale blue light trickling from the present world.


    Without hesitation, Zhou Bao made a second slashing movement with his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi. This time, it completely demolished the gourd.


    From outside, the surface of this golden gourd had many thin streaks of visible lines and cracks. Very soon, they spread all over the gourd.


    "No!" Master Jinhua growled. But it was too late. Nothing could save his gourd. When Master Jinhua''s second clap made contact on the gourd as a last-ditch attempt, Zhou Bao''s third attack made by his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi had already given the gourd a finishing blow.


    "Boom!" The gourd burst open. The black mist inside it flooded out, soon enveloping the entire Water Mansion.

 Chapter 434: The Confusion in Mind

    Chapter 434: The Confusion in Mind


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Zhou Bao had heard that the Sea Area was extremely vast when he was on land, but he had never seen it for himself. This time, by sailing across the sea, he finally had the chance to experience it and it was certainly very impressive!


    In this damned Sea Area, any influence could easily control an area ranging from tens of thousands of miles. However, that was no big deal because the Four Eastern Regions were quite wide with many influences controlling such areas as well. Take the Jin dynasty as an example; its territory encompassed tens of millions of miles, but that was its area rather than its diameter. The distance between the Four Eastern Regions and Three Western Regions was measured by their straight-line distance which was about 700,000 or 800,000 miles. Even the undeviating distance of the Sea Area between the Four Eastern Regions and Three Western Regions ranged about tens of thousands of miles. Moreover, the Seven-deity Regions were bordered by the boundless Sea Area, however, in reality, they were just the seven largest islands.


    Due to the fact that the Sea Area was so wide, there were also many powerful Demonic Immortals. What surprised Zhou Bao the most was the fact that even with such a huge area filled with myriads of powerful Demonic Immortals, they still came under the control of a Sea Emperor. How powerful would this Celestial Emperor be?


    He could not quite imagine that.


    Compared to the sea in his former life, this Sea Area was several times wider and deeper. A depth of hundreds of thousands of feet was the norm. The undersea world did not pale in comparison with the land and its resources were several times more bountiful than those of the latter.


    The massive mountain ranges to the north above the seabed stretched on for tens of thousands of miles, and they were no lesser than Misty Mountain which was in Zhou Bao''s hometown. They were just ordinary small mountains in the Sea Area and there were also plants, animals, evil beasts, and monsters here. The variety and quantity of creatures here far surpassed those of creatures in the mountains on land. The terrain here was much more complicated than that of the land too. Aside from the mountains, the most problematic feature was the oceanic trench. It was a very common feature and it reached a depth of 100,000 feet. No one knew what strange things existed in these trenches. The deeper one dived, the greater the pressure he would feel in the water. With Zhou Bao''s current strength, he would feel the pressure once he was thousands of feet under the water. Therefore, this was a universal way of gauging the strength of the creatures in the Sea Area; the deeper the evil beast lived, the stronger and more unfathomable its power would be.


    Zhou Bao was able to execute his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill up to a depth of 10,000 feet under the water, without any problems. Of course, most demons were living at this depth. The deeper zone was the territory of some powerful beasts, whom even Rolling Dragon King who controlled this Sea Area dared not offend.


    For the entire Sea Area, the zone between the depth of 10,000 feet under the sea and the sea surface was equivalent to the land above and it was where most of the ordinary creatures lived.


    Zhou Bao held his breath and curled up in a rocky crack under the sea. The crack was located at the foot of a huge underwater mountain range and was covered by a huge rock. It was extremely hard for the light to penetrate this 40,000- or 50,000-foot deep sea. Due to it being covered by the shadow of that huge rock, the crack was in complete darkness.


    The undersea world was quite dark. Its main source of light came not from the sunlight above the sea but from the tiny creatures such as fishes and shrimps that gave forth strange lights, as well as from the shiny seaweeds that grew on the rocks. These lights together with the faint sunlight shed from above the sea were the main sources of light in the entire undersea world.


    For the people on land, the undersea world appeared darker than the night. However, for creatures in the sea, especially for demons, living in such a world for them was the same as living under bright sunshine. Of course, by relying on the mystical power of his Fiery Eyes, Zhou Bao was quite familiar with his surroundings. No one could hide from his vision within a radius of 1,000 feet, not even the tiny planktons.


    Five demons were coming near and Zhou Bao could easily distinguish who they were. Although they had human forms, they still possessed distinct characteristics of demons. For example, one of them had the head of a fish and webbed hands with four fingers only. Others also had various characteristics which distinguished what they were. One had the head of a shrimp and the other, the head of an octopus. The leader had a head of a turtle and a turtle shell on his back. He looked similar to Prime Minister Turtle that Zhou Bao had seen in the TV serials from his previous life.


    They were talking about something while walking and did not seem to be afraid of being overheard by anyone. In fact, there was nothing to hide. After all, the last thing they expected was anyone eavesdropping on them in this place.


    "Military Counsellor Turtle, what do you think about this matter? It''s said that someone escaped from Dragon Abyss Prison and killed a dozen guards. Is that true?" The man with the fish head asked curiously.


    "Of course it''s true. Rolling Dragon King was totally furious about this matter!" Military Counsellor Turtle said contemptuously and continued, "Master Jin Hua thought he made a great accomplishment by capturing the people from the land this time. However, why didn''t he check out their strength before doing so? Since they dared to sail across the Sea Area, they must be quite powerful. Not to mention the one who escaped in the beginning nearly destroyed his Water Mansion, the man who escaped this time was not to be trifled with. I heard that he owns a fairy weapon, and because of it, Rolling Dragon King issued the sea-closing order. Finally, Rolling Dragon King arrested all of them and acquired many celestial devices, including several Pure Yang Celestial Devices and Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. However, he failed to get that particular fairy weapon. Therefore, he imprisoned all those people in Dragon Abyss Prison and thought he could slowly come up with a plan. Never did he expect that he would receive such a result. He really went for wool but came home shorn."


    "Yeah, you''re right. Master Jin Hua is really in trouble this time. I heard that one of the casualties is Rolling Dragon King''s Fourth Prince, who lusted after a beauty there and wanted to take this opportunity to take advantage of her. He did not expect that he would be beaten to death by the man with a fairy weapon just because he thought he was a guard!" The Shrimp-headed Demon gloated over Fourth Prince''s misfortune and continued, "He is the biological son of the Dragon Queen, who has been in good hands all this while, but he hasn''t achieved the Individual Immortal Karma Rank yet. Unfortunately, his soul was shattered, and thus, he has no opportunity to be reborn!"


    "We can talk about all these matters here, but don''t say it out loud!" Upon hearing the Shrimp-headed Demon''s words, Military Counsellor Turtle''s face darkened and he asked grimly, "Are you really tired of living?"


    The Shrimp-headed Demon quivered with terror and repeatedly said that he dared not do so.


    "Hurry up, our master is summoning us. Since Fourth Prince was killed by the man with a fairy weapon, His Majesty will never be willing to let him go. Whoever finds and captures the killer will definitely receive a big reward and maybe even that fairy weapon. Haha, Master Jin Hua captured a scourge this time and because of him, Fourth Prince was killed. Even though His Majesty has not said it, he will not receive any more benefits in the future. Therefore, he is no longer a threat to our master!" Military Counsellor Turtle said grimly and added, "Hurry up, don''t keep our master waiting for too long!" While speaking, they sped up suddenly and dashed towards the deep end of the sea.


    "Did Yu Nantian kill Rolling Dragon King''s son?" After they left, Zhou Bao scrunched up his eyebrows. He sensed both opportunity and danger in this news.


    Everything was getting more and more complicated.


    "That''ll be fine. Since he had killed the Fourth Prince, everyone in this Sea Area will be focusing on him. If I proceed with care, there might be an opportunity for me to save other people. In that case, I can fulfill my promise when I return to the Four Eastern Regions." thought Zhou Bao.


    This being the case, Zhou Bao did not think that the mission to capture Ye Qingtian would be successful. At the same time, new doubts arose from his heart. "They were not aware of the dangers in the Sea Area, but the old guys in the big sects surely did. Even if there were Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, it would be quite difficult for them to sail across the Sea Area that was tens of thousands of miles. Why were those old guys able to come up with the idea of communicating with the people from the big sects in the Three Western Regions, but failed to communicate with the people in the Sea Area?" "Didn''t they know that the Sea Area posed a greater danger than the Three Western Regions? What the hell were these old guys thinking of? Did they intentionally send us to this boundless Sea Area to meet our death?"


    "If it was true, what was their purpose? What drove them to do so? Could it be that they wanted to wage a war against the Sea Area and were using us as an excuse?"


    "That was not true either!"


    Since the Sea Area was so powerful, the action to wage a war against it was equivalent to an egg striking a rock.


    The more Zhou Bao thought, the more confused he became.


    "Forget it. I''d better not think too much for now. I should see what I can do to save those unlucky guys. Yu Nantian has already escaped with his fairy weapon, so I''d better forget about him for now. I can do nothing even if I want to interfere in his affair. I should try my best to get some information about Dragon Abyss Prison!" thought Zhou Bao. His body shrunk, and a faint flame appeared above his body. Within a short while, it had completely turned into Demonic Qi.


    Yes, it was Demonic Qi!


    Although he was not a demon, the Real Essence inside his body contained the Demonic Fire of the Primitive Dragon Chimera. Meanwhile, he had absorbed the power of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan''s egg. Therefore, it was an easy task for him to turn his Real Essence into Demonic Qi. However, he had no time to become familiar with Zhuyan. The power of the Demonic Fire of the Dragon Chimera was considerably weaker under the sea, so the only thing he could do was to turn his Real Essence into a kind of Qi similar to the Demonic Qi of the Dragon Chimera. The Dragon Chimera was an aquatic creature which had lived in the sea since primitive times. Hence, after Zhou Bao turned his Real Essence into the Demonic Qi, he felt extremely comfortable. A layer of black fog encircled him and soon it transformed into a black gauze-like robe on him. However, his appearance did not change too much. But affected by the black Demonic Qi, his crystal-like skin darkened. He slipped into the stone crack and moved towards the deeper sea.

 Chapter 436: Dark Female Pearl & Zhou Baos Choice

    Chapter 436: Dark Female Pearl & Zhou Bao''s Choice


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    People who lived on the land thought that the Sea Area was similar to the savage land, since only evil beasts lived under the sea and the ones on the land gave the impression of haphazard and solitary animals that were an excellent hunting target. Zhou Bao had been influenced by this opinion before. He did not have a good evaluation on the Sea Area. However, now that he had seen it, his views towards it completely changed.


    After Zhou Bao submitted sufficient taxes, the two demon guards did not ask any questions. The strength of the two guards was at most Level Five or Six; there was no way they had the capability to sense any oddities in Zhou Bao. Together with the Rolling Dragon King''s massive reward, all experts in the sea from all corners will head here. In the past month, many people had been roaming this place. There were all kinds of people and defenses everywhere had been lowered a lot too.


    Indeed, the defenses were down. Currently, the entire Sea Area of the Rolling Dragon King was strictly controlled at the borders, but relaxed within. All the other major powers wished for the murderer of the Fourth Prince to escape to their territories. In that way, they would not only receive the Rolling Dragon King''s reward, but they could also steal the fairy weapons on him. Who would not want such a good opportunity?


    Master Bai Luo naturally was no exception. He could not wait to block the enemy''s retreat and then destroy him. Hence, under his orders, the original checks at the borders of Right-angle Bay were canceled to let people in directly.


    As a result, the speech Zhou Bao crafted became for nought, but it did make him considerably more relaxed. The only thing that still concerned him was that he could no longer ride the blue whale he had brought in.


    "Upper Immortal, your mount is too big. It would be of great inconvenience to you in Right-angle Bay. According to the rules here, you must store your mount at a fixed location while you are here and retrieve it when you leave!"


    Right after Zhou Bao had entered Right-angle Bay, he met a demon on patrol not too far in his journey into Right-angle Bay. When the leading demon saw such a big fella roaming about in the Sea Area, his expression suddenly changed. He walked to Zhou Bao and said the above speech carefully.


    "There is such a rule?" Zhou Bao was taken aback. He did not know about this and began silently cursing in his heart. "That damn Hun IV, he didn''t even tell me about this!"


    What Zhou Bao did not know was that this rule was only recently issued by Master Bai Luo. The purpose was also to limit the ability of other contenders who banked their escape on their mount. Hun IV knew nothing about this. So, from a certain angle, it could be said that Zhou Bao had blamed the wrong person!


    Although being displeased in the heart, Zhou Bao was not that silly to allow the patrols at Right-angle Bay to easily take his blue whale away.


    What shocked Zhou Bao even more was that the demon on patrol actually took out a piece of paper. "Upper Immortal, may I know how long you plan to stay at Right-angle Bay?"


    "About ten days to half a month. Why? You have to care about this too?" Zhou Bao asked perplexedly.


    "Oh, no no!" After hearing Zhou Bao''s words, he wrote something on that paper. After a few scribbles, he passed it back to him. "Upper Immortal, within the duration of a month, you can use this permit to collect your mount from the Mount-depositing Mansion at the east side. As for the feed expense, the people at the mansion will settle with you in one month!" The demon began to lead a group of his subordinates away after the talk, leaving Zhou Bao shocked alone.


    "Hehe, what a humanized place! It''s more civilized in the Sea Area than on the land. Interesting, just interesting!"


    What Zhou Bao did not know was that the demon''s good attitude towards him was because he could not understand Zhou Bao''s true intentions and therefore naturally had a few misgivings. In such a situation, he was naturally more polite and civilized to Zhou Bao. If Zhou Bao''s cultivation was only at Level Five or Six, his mount may have been immediately brought to the Mount-depositing Mansion already.


    In conclusion, the Sea Area was a place where only the fittest survived.


    While Zhou Bao was ambling along a street somewhat similar to western medieval towns, he began to perceive other differences.


    The first one was the water pressure at the bottom of the sea. Evidently, Right-angle Bay was under the protection of an extremely wonderful formation. Although Right-angle Bay was approximately 80,500 feet below sea level, the water pressure was so low that Zhou Bao could not feel any pressure at all. The second difference he noticed was that there was air here.


    The underwater world should be filled up by sea water, but over here it seemed to be made up of enormous air bubbles that occasionally bubbled up to the surface. Sometimes, one could see demons within those air bubbles for a while too before they returned to the water. These demons sometimes could even be patrol officers. These demons who need to replenish their Qi in an air bubble must have a cultivation of Level Nine and below. It seemed that this Right-angle Bay was filled with demons.


    Without a doubt, as one of Master Bai Luo''s biggest towns, Right-angle Bay was a peaceful and quiet one, at least on the surface. Although the demons that lived in Right-angle Bay looked a bit odd with many having an extremely fierce look, they were actually honest creatures who did not dare to cause destruction and disharmony.


    "This Master Bai Luo seemingly have quite a bit of influence in this part of the Sea Area. Based on the principle that the fittest survive, he definitely is extremely strong, no less powerful than that Master Jinhua. Seems like he is a hard opponent to beat. Right-angle Bay seems to be a place that is tightly controlled at the borders with a relaxed regulation within, but there are actually so many undercover spies!" Zhou Bao glanced at the seemingly unobtrusive pathway made up of an assembly of black stones where he wanted to place his foot. An obscure snail the size of a thumb caught Zhou Bao''s eye. These obscure things were Right-angle Bay''s secret eyes that watched over everything. Everything suspicious would be caught in their eyes.


    Zhou Bao would not provoke Master Bai Luo for now. He would also not mess with the power politics on Right-angle Bay. Hence, after his gaze flashed for a moment, he redirected his attention back on to the street. He needed to find a place to stay.


    Thanks to Rolling Dragon King''s impressive reward, the guesthouses at Right-angle Bay were enjoying a booming business. Zhou Bao had to try four to five guesthouses before he finally found a room at a shabby guesthouse.


    "You shitty idiot, how dare you come stay at a guesthouse when you don''t have money? You must be living a life with many frustrations. Get out of this place immediately! If I see you again, I will send you to the patrol team, send you to the Governing Mansion and banish you to a life of the Dragon Abyss Prison. You will never live a proper life again!"


    As Zhou Bao was paying the deposit at the counter, he saw someone rolling down the stairs. Subsequently, a waiter''s scolding came from upstairs.


    The one who was scolded was a demon. He was chased out because he had no money. This was the reason why Zhou Bao could stay in the guesthouse. To think about it, the room he was about to stay in must have belonged to this unfortunate fella.


    Zhou Bao smiled bitterly. Hearing the words from the green-scaled waiter with an overbearing tone, he was a little bit interested in what he had just said.


    Dragon Abyss Prison, Dragon Abyss Prison, sounded like a place of strict imprisonment? Creeping in there might not be easy. What if one was sent in?


    "If I make some troubles here and get put in the Dragon Abyss Prison, will I get a chance to save those guys?" Zhou Bao thought in his heart. "No no, I don''t have much knowledge about the Dragon Abyss Prison. Such a direct method may harm me in the end. In that case, what a great loss it will be! I need to understand more about this Dragon Abyss Prison. Let''s see if I have the chance!"


    With an idea in the heart, Zhou Bao followed the waiter up the stairs. Once he opened the door, a foul smell wafted out together with small streams of water. Zhou Bao could not help but furrowed his eyebrows.


    "I''m so sorry, Sir. Our guesthouse is too small and we have only this one now. I will help you clean up for a bit first. Please come in later!" While speaking, the waiter took out a two-inch long bottle. Once he opened the bottle, a layer of faint cyan Qi flowed along the water streams into the room. In an instant, the foul smell disappeared and in its place, there was a refreshing fragrant.


    "Sir, please!"


    "Thanks!" Zhou Bao nodded silently, walked into the room, and closed the door.


    After confirming that the waiter had left, Zhou Bao immediately began to regulate his breathing. Soon, black fires began to burn on his body.


    "Just imitating the Dragon Chimera''s Demonic Qi isn''t enough. Although I can do that, it is not consistent. In the presence of the four-tribulation True Immortals, just a bit of loss of composure will cause me my life. Plus, this is the ocean which is not a fighting ground in my favor. All my strengths will be weakened here. I need a way to fully unleash my power!"


    The black flame burned fiercely and Zhou Bao could not stop thinking. In the end, he seemed to have decided. He gently caressed the ring on his finger and a green pearl appeared in his hand.


    The Dark Female Pearl!


    As with all of Zhou Bao''s other celestial devices, the Dark Female Pearl had also been soaked in the Pure Yang Water and transformed into a Pure Yang Celestial Device. However, Zhou Bao had never used it as a celestial device. It was only used as a Second Primordial Spirit.


    The Second Primordial Spirit, Outer-body Incarnation


    In an unclear situation, Zhou Bao decided to increase his strength and up his powers.


    Although it could be said that now was a little too early, the current situation left him with no choice. He had to make a choice.


    If not, causing problems in the sea would be troublesome.


    "Second Primordial Spirit, Outer-body Incarnation. Hehe, I want to see your mysterious powers!" Looking at the Dark Female Pearl in front of him, Zhou Bao''s eyes began to shine with danger.

 Chapter 435: Right-angle Bay

    Chapter 435: Right-angle Bay


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Zhou Bao recuperated at the bottom of the sea for a month. However, for the entire month, he hid his body, controlled his breathing and never went out. His current understanding of the Sea Area was merely based on his inference from a passing demon''s words.


    However, judging from how the demons frequently passed by here, it must be the main traffic passageway.


    Indeed it was a traffic passageway. Zhou Bao''s body was entirely covered in a black robe. His Demonic Qi was sharp and his Yin Qi was rich. After Zhou Bao transformed his Real Essence into the Demonic Qi of the Dragon Chimera, he began to feel much more comfortable in water, as if he was a fish in the sea.


    Along his journey, he met a few passing demons. Although those demons were not able to see his depth, they could easily sense the Demonic Qi from his body. All of them maintained a cautious attitude and scrambled away.


    The world of the Sea Area was not a peaceful one. Killing demons and robbing treasures were common occurrences. For a suspicious-looking person like Zhou Bao who roamed alone in the sea, it either meant that he was crazy or he had strong strength. When one was faced a person like him, it was best to keep a distance.


    "You, come here!"


    Several demons ran away when they saw Zhou Bao, which made him a little mad. Three demons just passed by him. He furiously pointed at the fastest one. As he spoke, a gust of amorphous energy traveled towards the demon of approximately Level Eight cultivation and locked him down.


    The trapped demon twitched about furiously like a fish and cried, "Have mercy on me. Senior Immortal, have mercy on me!''


    As for the other few demons who walked together with him, they ran away like the wind, leaving their unfortunate buddy there.


    "The demons undersea are damn realistic," Zhou Bao said in a low voice. As he looked at the demon who had a runny nose from crying, he said, "Don''t worry, I have no intention to harm you!"


    When he was speaking, he lifted his hand and brought the demon to a secret place.


    "Whatever orders the Senior Immortal may have, I will see through it even if I have to risk my life! I will never refuse!" After hearing Zhou Bao''s amicable tone, the demon gradually began to feel at ease.


    "I came from another Sea Area to seek someone here. I am not familiar with the people and places here. Tell me the situation in this Sea Area detailedly. If you give a good introduction, I will not punish you. If you try to conceal anything from me, I have a thousand ways to make you suffer!" As Zhou Bao finished his sentence, his voice revealed a chilling Demonic Qi, almost freezing the spirit of the demon instantly.


    "I don''t dare, I don''t dare!" The demon assured hastily.


    "What is your name?!"


    "Small Hun IV!"


    "Hun IV?!"


    "I rank number four at home, so I''m called Hun IV," the demon shared with great regard. Seeing a flash of confusion on Zhou Bao''s face, he began to detailedly share the history of his name (the story is omitted here).


    Hearing the boring story, Zhou Bao regretted that he randomly picked a demon who was like Tang Monk.


    Interrupting the demon who was still giving a never-ending introduction of his background, Zhou Bao said, "Stop talking about your damn things. Tell me the situation here!"


    Hun IV then ended his self-introduction and began explaining the situation at the Sea Area.


    This Sea Area was under the control of Master Bai Luo. Master Bai Luo was like Master Jinhua, both of whom were messengers of the Rolling Dragon King. He had enormous power in this region. His status was second only to the Rolling Dragon King. They each controlled eighty thousand miles of the Sea Area. Currently, they reside on the outskirts of the Right-angle Bay. The so-called Bay in the Sea Area could be understood as a town on the land. Right-angle Bay in the Seven-deity Regions'' term would be Right-angle Town. It was one of the more prosperous places in the Sea Area, which was why demons often pass by this road.


    Zhou Bao was a little taken aback by this information. From his own impression, the Sea Area was a huge place with no significant mountains and barriers, so it was easy to swim there. Why was there still a passageway?


    After some explanation, he finally understood. The Sea Area could not be compared to the terrestrial land. Even if the Sea Area was positioned thousands of feet above the bottom of the sea, there were 10,000 feet of space for the living creatures here to roam freely. However, the boundaries in the Sea Area did not afford the vast freedom for creatures to move about as what was described in the poems. The legendary freedom for movement only applied to normal living creatures. Without spiritual intelligence, one could swim as he liked. Once one gained spiritual intelligence, it would not be as blind as those without, because this seemingly vast Sea Area actually had territory boundaries within it. Each spot of land had been marked and had an owner. The owner of the Sea Area could easily allow a whale to amble past their territory, but they would not allow the smallest demons to infringe upon them. Of course, this did not mean that organisms with intelligence lived a difficult life in the Sea Area. It was just like life on terrestrial land - in the Sea Area, along with the big and small currents of power, there existed cities after cities, town centralizations, farms and roads. From a certain standpoint, if one did not consider the differences between terrestrial land and the Sea Area, the infrastructures were the same.


    Zhou Bao was now living at a place with the fastest access to Right-angle Bay. Right-angle Bay was the largest town within a radius of a few thousand miles and it was under the control of Master Bai Luo.


    After asking his questions, Zhou Bao waved his hand, giving a hint that Hun IV could leave now. Hun IV obeyed him and he disappeared in a few steps.


    As for killing the small demons, Zhou Bao had no interest. He also did not wish to be responsible for any killing near Right-angle Bay. Although the demons living in the Sea Area did not have strict legal regulations, Right-angle Bay was one of the biggest market towns under Master Bai Luo''s control. If he killed any demon here, he would be noticed. His purpose was not to attract a lot of attention but to stay undercover and save a few unfortunate buddies.


    "Now I need a valid identity. Although the Sea Area is vast, each region is clearly demarcated. People who roam about freely between regions are not common. At such a crucial time, a person like me who has come to Right-angle Bay would definitely attract a lot of attention and suspicion!" Zhou Bao strategized quietly to himself. Having been in this world for so many years, although he had always been lucky, he understood a very simple principle, and that is to never rely on your luck to settle one''s affairs. That was a sure-fire way to fail. Especially in an unfamiliar place like the Sea Area, the strong opponents and fierce hunters one may meet would never have mercy!


    Zhou Bao also understood from Hun IV that in this boundless Sea Area, although there were not many roamers in each region, it did not mean there were no people there. There were mainly two types of people who roamed about freely: the first type worked in business, the second type in cultivation. The third type consisted of nomads.


    Ignoring those who worked in business, everyone else had a fixed nomadic route and a fixed identification. They could work anywhere. For those who were roaming because of their cultivation, all of them were strong warriors and played powerful roles. If it was not that, it would be for their personal growth or to break through a phase by continuously training oneself in the Sea Area. Of course, the strength of a part of these fellas was extremely strong. Without a Genuine Immortal cultivation, they would not roam about in this boundless Sea Area. As for the third type, which consisted of nomads akin to those in the Seven-deity Regions, they usually did not end up in any good situation. Aside from a few extraordinary fellas, in the end, all of them will die a sad death.


    Zhou Bao decided to play the role of a Jianghu person.


    Of course, playing the part of a cultivator also needed opportunity. To dash into Right-angle Bay so haphazardly would attract attention just as well. He needed an opportunity.


    An opportunity was actually not hard to gain.


    As the Rolling Dragon King''s Fourth Prince had been killed, the Rolling Dragon King was furious and issued an order to apprehend the murderer of his son regardless of which Sea Area he was from and status he had. The person who achieved this would receive a handsome reward. To obtain this reward, the person must be courageous. In this month, there had been countless wanderers congregating in this region of the Sea Area. There were even the second type of people present- the roamers.


    These roamers who had a cultivation of a Genuine Immortal were beginning to be unable to resist the Rolling Dragon King''s tempting reward and joined the mission to apprehend Yu Nantian.


    The huge ocean separating The Four Eastern Regions and the Three Western Regions were under the control of five masters. The Rolling Dragon King was one of them. Usually, all of them minded their own business, but now, the five Sea Areas'' expert Demonic Immortals were starting to congregate at the Rolling Dragon King''s Sea Area.


    What Zhou Bao had to do was to find a suitable identity and merge into the nomads running into the army.


    The Right-angle Bay was not far away. Zhou Bao did not head there directly. He killed a few demons in the sea and used their bones and skin to make a piece of clothing like the ones demons wore. He also caught a decently fast blue whale who was somewhere in between an animal and an evil beast. He then began to coax the blue whale to head towards Right-angle Bay.


    Right-angle Bay was a peaceful place at the bottom of the sea. It had a large area, about ten times the size of Qingyang Market. It turned from a shallow oceanic trench into Right-angle Bay.


    Although Zhou Bao had prepared beforehand, he was still shocked when he saw the town centralization in the Sea Area for the first time. There were all kinds of bizarre buildings and Zhou Bao was just flabbergasted. The buildings in the Sea Area was not comparable to that on land. They were made mostly from stone. The buildings at Right-angle Bay consisted all of massive clams. For the organisms living in the ocean, massive clams were their natural habitat. Hence, the demons bestowed with spiritual intelligence happily inherited this style. The top spiral-shaped architecture was the most common. It was then followed by the massive circular shell. These two types of buildings occupied at least 80% of the land in Right-angle Bay.


    The remaining 20% were made of rock, gold and some material that Zhou Bao could not distinguish. All these made up the entire Right-angle Bay.


    The entrance of Right-angle bat was a narrow valley. Two uniformed demons were guarding it, although they were not strict with it. As long as one was a demon in the Sea and paid the tax, he could enter.


    "It''s really a realistic world comparable to that on land!"

 Chapter 438: Incarnated & Gifted Powers

    Chapter 438: Incarnated & Gifted Powers


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Just several breaths after Zhou Bao left, a few strange shadows flashed past. They sneaked into the inn that he was staying at like smoke. When they stepped into his room, they were misled by a magic matrix that Zhou Bao had set up earlier. They tried very hard to get out of it and left disappointed as they did not manage to get anything.


    In the endless hollow space, layers of space were mixed together. There was no end to it. In the endless time space, most had no signs of life. Some spaces managed to breed life, but they were of the initial stage, with no consciousness and spiritual intelligence. Many things were lacking in these spaces, and it would be impossible to form a complete world.


    Their lives were much shorter than those belonging to the world. Usually, after millions of years, they would die out and new spaces would be born again.


    Birth, destruction, destruction, birth.


    It was like a never-ending cycle of life.


    In this time space where eyes could not find borders, Zhou Bao sat quietly in an inconspicuous and strange, grey space. Not far away, black Qi was evaporating from a cyan pearl. The black flame was raging and nine Fire Dragons could faintly be seen struggling in it. The shadows of the Nine Forms of Real Dragon could be spotted from time to time amongst the Fire Dragons.


    This was Zhou Bao who was refining his own Outer-body Incarnation.


    It had been 10 years!


    From having the idea of doing this when he was still in the little inn at Right-angle Bay till now, it had been exactly 10 years.


    According to the speed difference at which time passes, in the present world, it would have been more than 10 days.


    "Almost there. Who would have thought that the Outer-body Incarnation would be so hard to refine? If I did not have a space like this as my base, it would be impossible to attain it in such a short period of time!" Zhou Bao took a short glance at the slowly-forming Outer-body Incarnation that looked exactly like himself but emitted sinister Demonic Qi. He laughed.


    "Then, let my Outer-body Incarnation go out for a spin. I will sit here and slowly practice. When I finish digesting the spirit essence and blood of the Demonic Ape Zhuyan and attain my Real Body, it still would not be too late to go out." Zhou Bao laughed in his heart.


    ...


    20 days later!


    The tightly-shut door in the inn opened up. A strange character clothed in black Demonic Qi walked out of it. That was Zhou Bao''s Outer-body Incarnation.


    His body still remained in the grey space. He was practicing, combining, and trying to refine Zhuyan''s Real Body. The one outside was his incarnation of the Dragon Chimera.


    The incarnated body of the Dragon Chimera looked exactly like him, but the Demonic Qi was much stronger. Although he had already tried minimizing it, the aura of a Primordial Fierce Beast was not something a regular evil beast demon could compare to.


    "Guest, how come it is you?!"


    As he walked out of the door, the waiter was coincidentally walking up the stairs. When he met Zhou Bao, it was like he met a ghost. He got a big shock and stepped back.


    "Why, you met a ghost?!" Zhou Bao laughed and raised his hand, capturing this unlucky fella in his hand. "I had closed-door training for more than 20 days, nothing happened right?!"


    "Nothing, nothing!" The waiter shook his head frantically and was worried sick. On the day of Zhou Bao''s check-in, there was pungent and cruel Demonic Qi seeping out from his room. It was obvious that it was a demon of an extremely high level. This called for the investigation by Demonic Immortals of the Governing Mansion. Who knew that these Immortals would be trapped in the magic matrix in his room. They had glum expressions on their faces as they left the room as they spent too much time trying to figure the magic matrix out. They scolded the owner and the waiter very badly and warned them to immediately inform the Governing Mansion if they were to hear any news regarding Zhou Bao.


    Because of this, there were no signs of movements from Zhou Bao''s room for the next twenty-something days. The owner dared not rent this room out, but the truth was, they could not understand the magic matrix, which was still in his room.


    From what they knew, they assumed that a Demonic Immortal of Zhou Bao''s level would spend at least half a year in closed-door training. Hence, they did not think about doing anything else about it. A few days had passed and they were getting used to it, even forgetting the issue. Zhou Bao then suddenly appeared in front of the waiter, which was quite unbelievable to him.


    "Upper Immortal, you, you, you came out!"


    "Yes, I came out. Why? Did anyone come looking for me when I was not around?!" Zhou Bao asked, smiling.


    "No, no, nothing, nothing, nothing of the sort!" The waiter''s mind was blank, his cyan skin showed horror.


    "Okay, don''t panic! Why are you so worried? One look and I can tell you are guilty!" Zhou Bao laughed and waved his hand. "Let me ask you. For the past few days, did anything major happen in Right-angle Bay?!"


    "No, nothing, not a single thing happened. It was very peaceful and calm," the waiter said hurriedly.


    "Okay, you may go. Whatever you have to report, do it. Whatever you have to tip-off, do it!" Zhou Bao waved his hand and asked him to leave. He moved his body slightly and with a shake, he had arrived downstairs and was seated in front of an empty table, ordering wine to be served.


    Twenty-something days in the present world was more than a decade in the grey room.


    After so many years, Zhou Bao gradually refined the incarnation of the Primitive Dragon Chimera. Of course, it would have been sufficient to just purely refine the Outer-body Incarnation of the Dragon Chimera. But Zhou Bao took a step further and used the advantage of his body, allowing the Outer-body Incarnation of the Primitive Dragon Chimera to swallow the nine Fire Dragons and Nine Forms of Real Dragon that he had refined from his own Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. His power increased immensely.


    An Outer-body Incarnation was hard to refine, but when it was done, it had insane powers.


    For Zhou Bao, the incarnated body of the Dragon Chimera was purely a war machine used as a spy. It was his second body. He was even prepared to use this incarnated body as a Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket. Then, it would be even more beneficial to himself.


    This incarnated body was a Dragon Chimera spirit bred using the Dragon Chimera Demonic Fire. Hence, it would naturally entail the 13 acupoints of the Dragon Chimera. These 13 acupoints could contain a huge amount of Demonic Qi and demonic spirit. They almost sucked away all of Zhou Bao''s original Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. After evolving in the body''s demonic spirit, it was pounded, boundless, and had no limitations. It even self-learned some of the Divine Senses of the Primitive Dragon Chimera.


    As a reputable Fierce Beast amongst the Primordial Fierce Beasts, the Dragon Chimera had three Gifted powers where each had extreme power. He had just been incarnated. Even though he could not release all their powers, it would be enough in this circumstance.


    Although there was Demonic Fire in this Dragon Chimera, it was still a sea-animal. Amongst his three Gifted powers, one had to do with flame, one with water, and another one left Zhou Bao in great surprise.

 Chapter 437: Real Body

    Chapter 437: Real Body


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Compared to other cultivators, Zhou Bao had amazing luck. This luck was pretty much against nature. It also let him think that there were countless people who needed something to look up to. This caused him to get lost so often when he was improving his strength like crazy. He often wondered which way he should go.


    Cultivation-wise, he was only at Level Nine. But the Internal Qi in him had already become Real Essence of an Individual Immortal. He even had Dharma power of a Genuine Immortal. After his body had transformed from the Innate Deity carcass in Taiyuan Heaven, he already far exceeded the standard of a Genuine Immortal. All these made his combat capability soar madly. He had the ability to fight with Genuine Immortals of Venerable Realm. It was also the result of him being unable to further dig out the power of the Innate Deity carcass.


    But unfortunately, his cultivation was still at Level Nine. He could break through Level Nine at any time but had to suppress his cultivation because of the Golden Book of Fate.


    What does it mean to suppress one''s cultivation at Level Nine?


    Many people thought that cultivation meant Internal Qi and Real Essence or a little power of the spirit. Zhou Bao had already exceeded all of these far above Level Nine''s limit. So why did he still suppress his cultivation at Level Nine?


    The key laid in the spirit!


    There was an extremely important, and also the most critical step when one advances from Level Nine to the Mysterious Realm. It was called Pulse-Steadying!


    For many of those who wanted to reach Mysterious Realm, they would naturally think that Pulse-Steadying was similar to Bone Forging and Tendon Changing from before. They would think that it was purely just the strengthening of one''s body structure to withstand stronger and higher quality pneuma, like Real Essence and Dharma power.


    However, this was not the case. Strengthening one''s power to withstand it was only part of the purpose. The main purpose of Pulse-Steadying, which was also the most critical step, was the infusion of Real Body and body, as well as resetting the tendons and meridians.


    The Palace Leader of the Palace of Destruction Demon and Dark Lord Mie Chen, one of the Three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan, were all people who have reached the Demi-Mysterious Realm and have the Heavenly Devil Real Body. To complete that last step, they need to infuse it with their body and reset their tendons and meridians. After a successful infusion and a steadied pulse, they would then enter the Mysterious Realm.


    For those Level Eight experts that have started to condense Real Essence Source in their acupoints, they all had powers to interact with the secret of the spirit and understand it. At this point, regardless of one''s intentions, they would all start to condense their Real Body. Those without the intention are the Individual Immortals who did not inherit any powers but made it thus far based solely on their capabilities. Experts act based on their instincts and concentrate on condensing their thoughts. For those who had inherited powers, they had started preparing for the condensation of their Real Body long ago.


    Everyone had a different Real Body. Each person''s different body conditions, their special cultivation methods, their special treatments, and different personalities could all cause the slightest, or biggest, differences in the Real Body that they cultivate.


    For a normal cultivator, the first step in training the Real Body was to condense one''s own thoughts. Once their thoughts were fully matured, their Real Body would slowly show its form like a cocoon turning into a butterfly, and it will take a leap in quality.


    But Zhou Bao was different; his fist intent had already been practiced long ago. But it was the untrustable, undevoted, and bastard-like kind which could not help him practice his Real Body. Even if they gave him their pneuma from 33 Heavens, he would still be unable to attain the Cosmic Real Body.


    The Cosmic Real Body was a beautiful hope, a broken goal, and just a dream of an idiot.


    Not only those with an intention could attain the Real Body. Both intention and the Real Body are derivatives of the spirit. For many, it is only right to attain the Real Body through condensation of intention. This is only because both have the characteristics of the spirit. But there are also many that use different methods to attain the Real Body. One of them is to look for a powerful spirit of a living creature. At the end of the day, for the longest time in history, humans were the weakest living creatures. While they can practice and attain some sense of achievement, some natural gaps still existed. It is very obvious that despite practicing till the Metaphysic Individual Immortal Realm, or even the Realm of True Immortals, humans were still very powerless when facing powerful living creatures like the Primordial Fierce Beast. Forget about the adult beasts, even the child beasts were able to hurt human practitioners who have been practicing for thousands of years.


    From this point of view, it could be said that the world was unfair, very unfair. Differences existed right from birth.


    For cultivators, the best way to attain the Real Body was not to condense intentions on their own, but to directly take in the spirit of living creatures. By combining these powerful spirits, as well as their intentions, with their own to create a Real Body that possessed the traits of powerful living creatures was the best choice.


    But how many actually succeeded?


    In ancient times, these powerful living creatures may have existed, but they have all been captured by the mighty and great practitioners of antiquity times. Hence, Lan Shui''er put in so much effort in the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan. She kept it a secret for more than a hundred years and used up all her resources to mature it. All of this was to attain the Real Body of Zhuyan and infuse Zhuyan''s spirit, flesh, and blood into her own Real Body. She would then break through her bottleneck and possess unparalleled power. But who would have thought that it would eventually help Zhou Bao instead? How could she not hate him for that?


    Putting the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan aside, Zhou Bao originally had the right conditions to condense a strong Real Body. After he sucked in the kindling of the Primitive Dragon Chimera and also successfully bred it, he could totally take out its spirit from the Demonic Fire. As for the Real Body, he practiced Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and could even use the nine Fire Dragons as his Real Body. Other than that, he also understood the third phase of the technique and two forms of the Real Dragon''s Nine Forms. He could also use these two forms as his Real Body. Also, his fist intent, while unable to be his Real Body, could be used as a model. By incorporating the strongest rules of the universe into his Real Body, his Real Body could become more powerful by multifold. But exactly because of those many choices, Zhou Bao became lost and confused. He had no sense of direction, did not know the way to go, and could not decide which to use as the foundation of his Real Body.


    Real Bodies can be strengthened and infused. After becoming one with the body, one would have to undergo the Thunder Tribulation to become a Genuine Immortal. The power from the Thunder Tribulation can be used to forge the Real Body into Dharma Body, which possesses insane power. Hence, this was the biggest reason why a Genuine Immortal could completely destroy an Individual Immortal.


    Initially, Zhou Bao had already decided to use the Primitive Dragon Chimera as the base of his Real Body. He would then engulf the Nine Forms of Real Dragon he had condensed from practicing Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique and strengthen his Real Body. But after he gained the life essence of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, as well as all the other spirits, he had no idea what his next move would be.


    The Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan was in no way inferior to the presence of the Primitive Dragon Chimera. Most importantly, Zhou Bao only had the Demonic Fire Seed of the Primitive Dragon Chimera. After breeding its spirit, he unknowingly wasted its flesh and blood. But this time around, Zhou Bao absorbed a single giant egg of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan. Other than its spirit, he also took in its essence, blood, and flesh. These would come in very beneficial when undergoing Pulse-Steadying.


    However, he only had Zhuyan for a while and was still not familiar with it. He needed time to fully evolve it into a Real Body. On the other hand, he had already been playing with the Demonic Fire of the Primitive Dragon Chimera for more than a decade. Even the spirit of the Dragon Chimera was bred through his efforts. Hence, evolving into a Real Body was the most logical thing to happen. There was no need to worry about any side-effects that may exist in the future.


    In the midst of calculating his losses and gains, he began to be doubtful.


    The challenges that he faced at that time led him to passively make a decision.


    Under the present circumstances, it would be impossible for him to enter the Mysterious Realm. But he also needed the strength of the Primitive Dragon Chimera urgently. So the only way would be to evolve the spirit of the Primitive Dragon Chimera into his Outer-body Incarnation.


    And he also happened to possess the best tool for doing so - the Dark Female Pearl of Pure Yang Celestial Device level. All problems were then solved.


    He was going to use the Dark Female Pearl to make an Outer-body Incarnation. That way, he would not be recognized when he is in the Sea Area.


    To make this Outer-body Incarnation, it was all about techniques.


    It could not be obtained as and when you like. Zhou Bao may know the tricks to it, but they were all taught to him by Green Spirit. He had never tried it before and this would be his first try. Zhou Bao had his own considerations.


    If he wanted to save Ji Yeyue and the rest, he would have to go deep into that so-called Dragon Abyss Prison. He knew nothing about this place. He thought about going in as a prisoner, but he didn''t dare to imagine the great dangers that awaited him.


    At the same time, a slight sense of danger started to form in the bottom of his heart. After understanding the roughness and capabilities of the Sea Area, he realized that there were numerous ending points in the killing plan. The loopholes were even more in number and bigger than those of a fishing net.


    Everything felt like a set-up scam, one with hidden intentions. And in this scam, they were just an eye-catching tool to attract people''s attention.


    "To use a fairy weapon in this set-up, this sect must have a huge appetite for sure, right?!"


    The blazing flames from all over his body had started to concentrate on his right palm. In a few breaths, the Dark Female Pearl in his hand had been completely engulfed by the Demonic Fire. The shadow of the struggling Primitive Dragon Chimera could be seen in the fire. Eventually, under the control of Zhou Bao, it went into the pearl.


    After finishing all this, Zhou Bao sighed in relief, lifted his head, and felt it. What he had just done, creating a Grand Demonic Qi of Primitive Dragon Chimera''s Demonic Fire, should have already attracted some Demonic Immortals of this Right-angle Bay, right? Then what he had to do next was easy: Leave this place.


    A golden light flashed behind Zhou Bao''s head. Afterwards, it turned into a circle of light resembling a golden halo. Appearing behind Zhou Bao, this halo violently flashed and lit up Zhou Bao''s whole body. Then, it started to dim slowly. After everything disappeared, Zhou Bao''s figure also disappeared in the house, and he reappeared in a grey space.


    This space here was what that he had gained. A space that completely belonged to him and was supported by the Furnace of Immortality. Time in this space passed at a different speed compared to the outside world. And there was more than sufficient pneuma. It was the best place to make his Outer-body Incarnation.

 Chapter 439: Three Gifted Powers

    Chapter 439: Three Gifted Powers


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Zhou Bao was overjoyed by the discovery of these three gifted powers of the Primitive Dragon Chimera because these powers were quite practical. The most exciting part was the fact that, among the three gifted powers, there was one power related to space, which enabled you to do hollow travels. However, this power, which was called the Phantom Body Skill, was different from his Three Realms Division. It was a technique that allowed you to slip through cracks in space like an earthworm. It could not move you to a place dozens or even hundreds of miles away like the Three Realms Division, but when you are unable to fend off an attack, it could allow you to drill a hole in the current space you were in with just a shake of your body and to escape into that crack. It worked the same way when attacking. Your figure would disappear and reappear in a flash, which might give the opponent the creeps. Of course, the most important function of this gifted power was that it could break constraints and formations.


    There were myriads of formations and constraints in the world, but few of them could really constrain the space. Even if they could, they might not be able to resist being penetrated by Zhou Bao''s Phantom Body Skill. It could be said that this was an extremely useful power and was pretty helpful to Zhou Bao''s present plan. After all, he was going to sneak into the Dragon Abyss Prison to rescue his companions. The other two gifted powers were also equally amazing, namely the Slippery Body Technique and the Yin-devouring Technique.


    The Slippery Body Technique, as its name implied, featured properties of an earthworm. Just like those solidification passive techniques he encountered in the games of his previous life, this technique required no operation. As long as he was underwater, once an attack was coming up, the water around his body would turn into a substance that almost had no friction and made his body slippery. Its function was a bit similar to that of the dislodging formula of the Tai Chi Fist, but its effect was much better. In water, it could almost shake off nearly 80% of any physical attacking force. Moreover, it would make it even more difficult to catch him alive. If you do not believe it, put your hands in water and try to grab an earthworm.


    As for the Gifted power Yin-devouring Technique, it was one of the powers his Demonic Fire possessed.


    The reason why the Dragon Chimera was named like that was because it fed on dragons. The most crucial reason was that it possessed the Demonic Fire.


    To be honest, the Demonic Fire of the Dragon Chimera was of a sinister kind. It not only reached a high temperature but also had a unique feature of devouring. Precisely because of this unique feature, Zhou Bao successfully devoured the essence, blood, and spirit of that Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan. Before Zhou Bao produced his incarnation, this function did not play a big role. Only when special incidents happened could Zhou Bao feel and be affected by the greedy lust for devouring something, which came from his internal Demonic Fire. For example, when he saw the Invisible Dragon Rod, he felt an urge of gluttony; when he glimpsed at the huge egg of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, he also sensed the same impulse. Previously, this impulse was produced passively and unpredictably. But now, when his incarnation was achieved, everything became predictable, and the greed, viciousness, and other properties of his Demonic Fire were all refined into one power - the Yin-devouring Technique.


    Yin-devouring Technique!


    It could melt, dissolve, and devour the opponent. In addition, it would enable one to gain the opponent''s power.


    It sort of resembled the Star Attracting Technique, but it also differed from it in many aspects. Melting and dissolving were not a big deal, but the ability to seize and devour the enemy was more like gambling, depending on luck. To put it in other words, only when the opponent''s power matches one''s own strength could one devour and absorb him.


    Zhou Bao merely looked a bit into this kind of gifted power. At present, he was still in the passive cognition phase, so it would be hard for him to perform this technique at will right now.


    Apart from these three gifted powers, the property of this Dragon Chimera incarnation that pleased Zhou Bao most was the strong ability to move around underwater.


    It felt just like being a fish in water!


    This was what Zhou Bao felt right now. Meanwhile, he also learned a bit about why the Sea Area, which had such powerful strength, had not made any attack against the Seven-deity Regions. Maybe the reason was not that the Celestial Emperor of the Sea Area was content with things as they were, but that those marine demons would feel very uncomfortable if they went out of the sea. Or maybe the power of most of the marine demons would be significantly weakened when they leave the sea, and their power would gradually decline if they stayed too long on land. However, this would not matter to Demonic Immortals who got into the Ranking of Demons and Immortals.


    This is exactly the reason why the Sea Area and the Seven-deity Regions had co-existed in peace for the past thousands of years.


    Strolling on the street of Right-angle Bay, Zhou Bao was no longer at a nonplus as he first entered the sea world. Now, the surrounding water streams and water pressure could not pose any resisting force upon him.


    He was walking and moving around as he liked, not having to pretend his proficiency in living underwater anymore.


    "That''s it! Now I finally can start to be a real marine demon. This cannot be done by faking. Now, even if Rolling Dragon King is standing in front of me, he will not detect anything abnormal about me! Hehe!" As he walked, Zhou Bao was immersed in his thoughts, utterly oblivious of those astonished looks shot by others around him.


    Why did others cast astonished looks at Zhou Bao?


    Because just nearby, a patrol squad of demons was hurtling towards his direction. Their target was obviously Zhou Bao, who happened to realize the situation. However, he did not worry about it.


    These patrol demons were similar to those officers and soldiers in the Seven-deity Regions. But of course, their power was much stronger, and the whole squad consisted of demons.


    The one leading the squad was the same leader he had seen when he first entered Right-angle Bay. When he saw Zhou Bao, a trace of inexplainable unease flitted across his eyes. The leader remembered that this guy had promised him that he would only stay at Right-angle Bay for ten days to half a month. But now, it had been 20 days, and this guy was still leisurely trotting on streets. This could not be good.


    "Paying my tribute to this Upper Immortal!" Walking in front of Zhou Bao, the leader bowed slightly. "I am Wan Youfu, the Captain of the third squad of Governing Mansion at Right-angle Bay. By order of the Manager of the Governing Mansion, I''m here to invite you, Upper Immortal, to visit the Governing Mansion."


    The Sea Area also had its own managing institutions. For most demons, a man like Rolling Dragon King almost equated to an emperor, whom they would never have a chance to encounter in their entire life. The one they had most dealings with was the local Governing Mansion.


    The Governing Mansion amounted to an official in the Seven-deity Regions and only existed in places like Right-angle Bay. This Governing Mansion was fully functional and was the strongest influence in the Right-angle Bay area. Also, it was an official influence representing Rolling Dragon King. According to the rules, going against the Governing Mansion would be equivalent to going against the reign of Rolling Dragon King. Thus, even those Demonic Immortals with high cultivations would not dare to mess with influences like the Governing Mansion.


    Furthermore, the Governing Mansion was also in charge of the management of the entire Right-angle Bay, which meant it had great power. Once you step foot into Right-angle Bay, no matter who you were, you would be under the governance of the Governing Mansion. It was pretty normal for the Governing Mansion to send forces to detect issues it found suspectable, just like what was happening to Zhou Bao here.


    Even though Zhou Bao was not happy about this, he had no reason to refuse this request, unless his strength was stronger than that of Rolling Dragon King and Master Bai Luo, or he had sufficient evidence to prove that the Governing Mansion of Right-angle Bay was deliberately picking on him.


    The manager of the Governing Mansion was the boss, commanding all issues regarding the Governing Mansion. Generally speaking, all the managers of Governing Mansions in the Sea Area were the strongest and most powerful demons and monsters. In places like Right-angle Bay, the manager of the Governing Mansion should at least have a cultivation at the Individual Immortal level so as to rule the others.


    Also, this system was the only achievement of the Sea Emperor that Zhou Bao found very admirable. On the surface, the ruling of the Sea Area looked pretty loose. However, in a lot of aspects, the management system was much more complete than that of the Seven-deity Regions. Taking the Governing Mansion as an example, there were detailed regulations dictating its power and limits, time for patrol, and taking actions. Adding the fact that the subjects of their management were all demons, who could take care of their basic necessities of life all by themselves. The only thing the Governing Mansion needed to focus on was to maintain enough powerful martial forces in order to deter those demons who liked to defy the rules.


    Hearing the manager of the Governing Mansion inviting him over, Zhou Bao felt an unbidden jolt in his heart. He was sure that this was all because the magic matrix he left in that inn gave a great shock to those local experts at Right-angle Bay. Immediately, he burst out into a laughter and said, "Now that the manager, Your Excellency, has issued the invitation to me, how dare I not comply with it. Please lead the way ahead!"


    Seeing the attitude of Zhou Bao, Wan Youfu finally felt relieved. During those days, it was not easy to be a captain of a patrol squad. In the Sea Area, the more powerful a demon was, the more difficult it was to tame him. Nonetheless, demons in those patrol squads normally did not have a high cultivation. If they were patrolling other places than Right-angle Bay, where some experts were scrupulous about the hidden influence behind the Governing Mansion, they might have already lost their lives on duty for many times. Be that as it may, they still had to walk on eggshells in front of some powerful Grand Demons and Immortals in case they accidentally piss off one and get a hard time. If a powerful monster aimed to take you on, it would not be that simple as just killing you. He would have numerous means to make you suffer, which would be no better than to die. Plus, if a Demonic Immortal demonstrated great power in torturing someone but did not commit a murder, usually, the manager of the Governing Mansion would not bother to offend the powerful Demonic Immortal by attempting to bring him to justice.


    Therefore, at many times, they all found themselves in an awkward position. But now, the good faith Zhou Bao had displayed allowed them to breathe a sigh of relief. Hence, the leader began to survey Zhou Bao with a much more favorable look.


    "Fellow Upper Immortal, please don''t worry. This time, the reason for our manager''s invitation is just that the magic matrix you left in the inn is incomparably miraculous. Thus, our manager wants to befriend Your Excellency, and that''s all!"


    "Oh, so that''s what it is. No wonder!" Zhou Bao put on an enlighted expression. In fact, all things were going as he had expected. Before refining his Outer-body Incarnation, he first let out a burst of the ferocious Demonic Qi of his Primitive Dragon Chimera to attract the attention of those experts at Right-angle Bay. Then, he set up a magic matrix that could demonstrate his achievement on formations. In this way, the Governing Mansion of Right-angle Bay would naturally take heed of him. Although many strangers had come here for the offer of rewards issued by Rolling Dragon King, all those strangers looked half-witted and their strength seemed limited. Thus, those people wouldn''t be able to make waves. Meanwhile, the behavior of Zhou Bao was bluntly telling the Governing Mansion that he could make waves, really big waves. Therefore, the moment Zhou Bao appeared in the public, the Governing Mansion was bound to make contact with him. This was a natural and normal activity in the world of human beings, and so was it in the world of demons too. After all, with such an odd person appearing in its own territory, the Governing Mansion had to get in touch with him.

 Chapter 440: The Manager of The Governing Mansion

    Chapter 440: The Manager of The Governing Mansion


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    This way, Zhou Bao''s goal could be achieved.


    To figure out what was happening in the Dragon Abyss Prison, the best method was to gather the information directly through the subordinates of Master Bai Luo and Rolling Dragon King, right?


    Of course, Zhou Bao was not so foolish as to believe that others would just answer whatever he asked about. Thus, all he was doing now was merely to create an opportunity for himself.


    The Governing Mansion was not far from the inn he stayed at. After following Wan Youfu for about half an hour, he arrived at the destination.


    Compared to other buildings in Right-angle Bay, the Governing Mansion was pretty enormous and distinctive. By distinctive, it meant that it was non-comparable.


    The Governing Mansion was not constructed with things like conches but with earth and stones, similar to the buildings of officials in the Seven-deity Regions. But in comparison with the Water Mansion of Master Jinhua, it was several times smaller. It had overhanging eaves, and the richly-painted tower seemed to be hovering in the air. The gate was coated in red, and outside the gate was a big drum, which made the Mansion look like a County Administration in the Seven-deity Regions.


    "Has anyone ever come here to beat the drum and file a lawsuit?" Zhou Bao thought to himself. He followed Wan Youfu to the gate where two uniformed Shrimp-headed Demons were standing guard. At the sight of Wan Youfu and Zhou Bao, the two Shrimp-headed Demons hastened to open the gate and guided them in respectfully, while other patrolling demons were left outside of the Governing Mansion.


    Following Wan Youfu, Zhou Bao went through a long passageway and arrived at the Governing Mansion''s lobby. However, they didn''t enter the lobby but continued to walk along the lobby, turned right, and then stopped at the door of a quiet room in the side yard.


    "Upper immortal, the manager is waiting for you inside. Since I''m of a lower status, please excuse me for not going in with you!"


    Zhou Bao nodded and then entered the quiet room on his own.


    "My name is Qiu Hai. I pay my tribute to the manager!" After entering the quiet room, of course, Zhou Bao could not use his real name. Thus, he made up a name. But this name was not randomly picked, instead, it was made in accordance with the naming rules of demons. Now that he was disguised as the Outer-body Incarnation of the Dragon Chimera, he surnamed himself Qiu.


    The manager of the Governing Mansion at Right-angle Bay was a tall man about 12 feet in height. His appearance had also evolved into a human being, except for some subtle parts, which still displayed his original features. For example, the faint parotid glands behind his ears and the three visible, blue scales on his forehead were all telling Zhou Bao that this manager was originally a fish. As to which kind of fish he was, Zhou Bao had no clue.


    "I am Li Quan. You can just call me Old Li," said Li Quan without beating around the bush and grunted. "The reason I invited you here is that I learned you had displayed powerful Demonic Qi in my territory and planted a magic matrix in the inn 20 days ago. I''m a little worried about that. You know, recently this Sea Area is pretty eventful. A guy like you is the most eye-catching kind, so I need to know about you and your background!"


    "This dude really cuts to the chase!" Hearing Li Quan''s words, Zhou Bao gave a dry smile and answered, "I have no background, I just make a living in this Sea Area. As Your Excellency said, this time the rewards His Majesty Rolling Dragon King promised were too alluring. Whoever heard the news would be intrigued. I was muddling along in the Sea Area governed by the Purple Dragon King at first, but then I heard the news and immediately rushed over here!"


    "Purple Dragon King?" Hearing Zhou Bao''s statement, Li Quan furrowed his brows unintentionally. This sea was commanded by five Dragon Kings, including Rolling Dragon King and Purple Dragon King. The two Sea Areas they governed respectively were separated geographically by the greatest distance, which equated to two kingdoms sitting on the two poles of the Earth separately. Normally, except for those ranking at the same level of Rolling Dragon King or the Four Ambassadors, people in these two Sea Areas would not have any communication or do any business with each other. After all, the sea world was much more dangerous than the world on the surface.


    To Li Quan, Zhou Bao claiming that he was a vagrant seeking a living in the Sea Area of the Purple Dragon King was the same as explaining nothing at all. With Li Quan''s current power and strength, it would be impossible for him to know the situation of a place that far away. He could not investigate the true background of a guy drifting along under the governance of another Dragon King. Even if he wanted to, he had no such power.


    "You are under the governance of the Purple Dragon King. But the Sea Area of the Purple Dragon King does not border on that of His Majesty Rolling Dragon King. So, how come you''ve traveled here?"


    Li Quan was not a fool either. Sensing the evasive words of Zhou Bao, he asked hastily.


    "It''s nothing. Being a vagrant, I''m used to settling down in any corner of the world. Coming here was not my plan in the first place. But then, the Rolling Dragon King issued a sea-closing order and an offer of reward. The reward is so big that it is the biggest one over several thousand years. And there is a chance to obtain a fairy weapon as well. How can I not come?!" Zhou Bao giggled, with his eyes transfixed on Li Quan, for he had detected the chilling murderous intent emanating vaguely from Li Quan''s body. "Your Excellency, all I said was true. I have no intention to deceive Your Excellency. If Your Excellency doesn''t believe me, there is nothing I can do. But Your Excellency better not try to do something to me. Although I am a vagrant, I do have some means to survive from dangers!"


    "Oh, really?" Li Quan''s figure moved. He slightly narrowed his eyes and a faint murderous intent instantly permeated the entire room.


    Zhou Bao smiled. He was totally unaffected, still sitting there quietly. All of a sudden, his expression changed, and a light black flame gushed out from him.


    Sizzling...


    It sounded as if something was burning.


    "Your Excellency, this is not going well!" Zhou Bao said softly, but his tone was thuggishly fierce. The black flame abruptly rose to its prime, emitting wafts of richly savage Demonic Qi.


    Li Quan''s face suddenly reddened, and his body began to shiver as well. This was not because Li Quan had flown into a rage out of humiliation, it was due to the natural pressure that a superior creature could impose upon an inferior one.


    The body Zhou Bao was using right now was the Primitive Dragon Chimera, a Primordial Fierce Beast!


    Its rank was way higher than that of Li Quan''s body. Now, Li Quan attempted to make some petty moves. Therefore, Zhou Bao released the compelling pressure that the Dragon Chimera possessed. It instantly triggered the instinctive horror that had been deeply imprinted in Li Quan''s blood and made it hard for him to control his body. If it had not been for his profound cultivation, Li Quan would have already been on his hands and knees, begging for Zhou Bao''s mercy.


    Swish, swish, swish!


    Almost at the same time when Zhou Bao burst out his Demonic Qi, he felt several strong spirits appearing in this side yard, giving off fierce, murderous intents.


    "Stop! Both of you!"


    Li Quan was a manager after all. He suddenly shuddered and broke away from the nightmare-like situation he had been experiencing just now. He let out several screeches and looked at Zhou Bao with terrified eyes.


    It was powerful, brutal, greedy, and cruel.


    These were what Li Quan felt from the Qi Power Zhou Bao was emitting. It disabled him from even thinking about standing up against Zhou Bao.


    "Primordial Fierce Beast! It''s the spirit of a Primordial Fierce Beast! Damn, this guy should be a Primordial Fierce Beast that has successfully taken the form of a human being!"


    Li Quan was thunderstruck by this discovery. Now, how could he dare to behave even a little disrespectfully anymore?


    No wonder this guy was so confident about snatching the fairy weapon. It turned out that this was a demon evolved from a Primordial Fierce Beast!


    The Primordial Fierce Beast was the top-ranked creature among all the devils and beasts. And this one was even in the form of a human being. Let alone Li Quan, even if it was Rolling Dragon King standing in front of this kind of monster, he would have to stay humble or even back off to avoid a conflict with him.


    "Never thought it could be you, a senior Upper Immortal, who came over to our mansion. Please forgive me, a junior, for not welcoming you way sooner and losing my etiquette!" This time, Li Quan truly went on his hands and knees to express his admiration for Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao was taken aback by the sudden change of Li Quan''s attitude. He knew that the Sea Area was a strength-oriented world, and everything depended solely on one''s own strength. But it was still baffling to see Li Quan put on such a respectful face in just a second. Zhou Bao found this really suspicious.


    But suspicion was merely suspicion. Although Zhou Bao did not see through the whole picture at present, he would be an idiot if he failed to take advantage of him being such a respectful guy, right? Of course, Zhou Bao was not an idiot. Instead, he was a ruthless guy who would wolf down the enemy without spitting out the bones.


    "Please save all the unnecessary etiquettes. I am just a man muddling along in Jianghu. But it''s surprising to see that there are so many experts working for this little Governing Mansion. Those remaining outside all have similar strength to yours," said Zhou Bao while staring at Li Quan.


    "Those Elders are my seniors in my family. This time they have come here to take a post in the Governing Mansion along with me," Li Quan replied.


    Seniors in his family! Taking a post!


    Zhou Bao felt that something was fishy in Li Quan''s words. It seemed that this rustic Li Quan should be a demon with a background. He even brought five Individual Immortals here to take a post with him at Right-angle Bay.


    He seemed to be a man who could be valuable to Zhou Bao!


    Stroking his chin, Zhou Bao thought for a moment and then said with a smile, "Looks like you have quite the strength, right? Well, are you also interested in that fairy weapon?"


    "I would not dare! I would not dare!" Li Quan shook his head consecutively. Given his own strength and the strength of his family, possessing one Pure Yang Celestial Device was already his wildest dream. But what if he possessed a fairy weapon? In that case, his whole family would be killed for that!


    "I am just a manager at Right-angle Bay and only responsible for maintaining it. As for other issues, I''m not gonna meddle in them!"


    A moment later, the five experts who had reached the Individual Immortal Realm seemed to have received his message and went away quietly.


    "Not gonna meddle in them? Well, you seem to know your limits. But it better be so. That guy is not as simple as he looks. He is a lineal disciple of the Divine Wind Palace, which is the most powerful sect in the Seven-deity Regions, and has numerous means and tricks. If he were to be the target who possessed a fairy weapon, he would not even know how he died in the end!"


    Li Quan nodded wholeheartedly. It was true. Look at the Fourth Prince of the Rolling Dragon King, he was the perfect example. He acted so impulsively and ended up being murdered.


    "My family does have a little influence in this Sea Area. But compared to the Rolling Dragon King, my whole family is as weak as a tiny ant, while Rolling Dragon King is as strong as a whale. However, even the Fourth Prince of the powerful Rolling Dragon King had failed to prevent his brutal death. How could I ever manage to escape that fate?"


    After sorting this out, Li Quan was more determined to not meddle in this thing.


    "By the way, I just arrived here, so I''m not very familiar with this Sea Area. I heard that the companions of that guy have all been thrown into the Dragon Abyss Prison. But what on earth is this Dragon Abyss Prison? Besides, I''ve been in a closed-door training for over 20 days, so I have no clue about the progress of this matter. Your Excellency, please enlighten me on this," said Zhou Bao, beaming.

 Chapter 441: Action

    Chapter 441: Action


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Never have I expected the Rolling Dragon King to be so powerful! He actually opened an independent space to suppress his opponents!"


    Coming out of Governing Mansion, Zhou Bao slowly digested the information he had obtained from Li Quan and thought that he had made a right decision by being cautious.


    It turned out that Dragon Abyss Prison was not an ordinary prison, instead, it was a separate space created by Rolling Dragon King using unique Divine Sense.


    Of course, this was a popular explanation about the origin of Dragon Abyss Prison in the Sea Area, which Zhou Bao disagree. Instead of creating a space, he believed that Rolling Dragon King must have found a space rift, just like him. However, compared to him, Rolling Dragon King was not as lucky. The space he had found was void of spiritual Qi and unsuitable for human being''s residence and practice. It could only be used as a prison. Furthermore, compared with Zhou Bao''s space, this space neared the world they were living in and was more stable. Therefore, Rolling Dragon King did not need to use a fairy weapon to fix it. In fact, it was a waste of fairy weapons in doing so.


    Dragon Abyss Prison was located at the westernmost part of this Sea Area, known as Dragon Abyss Island.


    Among the five Dragon Kings in this Sea Area, Rolling Dragon King managed the easternmost part of this Sea Area. It was close to the Central Mainland Region of the Seven-deity Regions. The westernmost part neared Dragon Abyss Island was the territorial boundary between Rolling Dragon King and another Dragon King. Dragon Abyss Island was a meteor, which later became a meteorite. It consisted of hard diamond and was barren. Rolling Dragon King took advantage of the powerful original energy of Geng Metal to set up a Winding Golden Formation. Then he forcefully created an entrance between his world and the space he captured and fixed it up. That space was then called Dragon Abyss Prison.


    However, because no fairy weapon or Pure Yang Celestial Device was used to fix the Dragon Abyss Prison, its entrance and exit became very dangerous. It always drifted from one place to another. Because of this instability, both the entrance and exit were filled with formidable Space Storm and turbulence, which formed a natural protective zone. In order to prevent the range of activity of its entrance and exit from separating from Dragon Abyss Island, Rolling Dragon King laid 81 formations, other than the Winding Golden Formation. Thus, the entire Dragon Abyss Island became an impregnable fortress inside out.


    Moreover, because of the Dragon Abyss Prison, the surrounding Sea Area within a radius of 500 miles from Dragon Abyss Island was locked. Back in those days, Rolling Dragon King succeeded in obtaining the surrounding Sea Area after a long bargaining with another Dragon King, whose territory was close to this island.


    Now, this prison became formidable. Even a fly could not come near it.


    This was the basic information about Dragon Abyss Prison, and also all that Li Quan knew. Meanwhile, it was the most widely-known information that the entire Sea Area knew about Dragon Abyss Prison.


    Li Quan came from a strong family, yet his family could not obtain secrets of Dragon Abyss Prison. However, what he said to Zhou Bao successfully attracted Zhou Bao''s attention. It was about what happened during Zhou Bao''s closed-door training that lasted more than 20 days.


    Yu Nantian was found three times, but he always managed to escape at the last stage. Meanwhile, he used his fairy weapon again while fleeing. Hence, demons in the Sea Area could confirm that he possessed a fairy weapon.


    Therefore, more and more demons joined in to catch him. The number of demons coming from all directions to the Sea Area increased multifold.


    "If that guy can survive from this chase, his accomplishments in the future will be limitless." Zhou Bao thought secretly. Although he had acquired the information where Yu Nantian last showed up, he was not in the mood to care about it. Chasing after Yu Nantian was just his excuse. From the location where Yu Nantian last showed up and the direction to which he escaped, he was heading eastward. That meant he tried to go ashore and flee back to Seven-deity Regions. From Zhou Bao''s point of view, such an action was extremely stupid.


    Without thinking twice about it, one should know that the road leading to Seven-deity Regions from the Sea Area was managed by Rolling Dragon King and heavily guarded. Other than that, there must be many traps. Yu Nantian tried to force his way out alone, which seemed to be a life-risking action.


    "Those with fairy weapons are indeed different, at least they''re quite confident!" Zhou Bao was secretly gloating over Yun Nantian''s fall.


    Since he had obtained the information he wanted from Right-angle Bay¡ªthe precise location of Dragon Abyss Prison, he would no longer linger on. He found a man on the street and asked for directions, and then walked directly towards Mount-depositing Mansion.


    Mount-depositing Mansion was true to its name. It was a place in Right-angle Bay that was specially used to deposit mounts. After all, there were assorted mounts in the Sea Area, each one different in size. Right-angle Bay only had a small street. If all kinds of mounts were allowed to walk on it, the entire street would fall into chaos.


    The street here seemed like a pedestrian street, where people were not allowed to ride on mounts.


    Upon his arrival, he handed over a slip of paper that Wan Youfu gave him. Then, he brought back his blue whale and left Right-angle Bay.


    His current mood was totally different from his first time here.


    Previously, he came here in disguise, but his action still looked furtive as he was not confident. He disguised himself as a Primitive Dragon Chimera by covering himself under its Demonic Qi. However, others were still able to figure it out. But now, everything changed. He no longer needed to disguise himself. His current body was the Real Body of Dragon Chimera, a Primordial Fierce Beast and inborn Grand Demon. No one could see anything wrong with it.


    Furthermore, his current body could move swiftly in the sea. As he rode the giant blue whale and moved westward, Zhou Bao was at leisure and even felt the urge to break into a song.


    Zhou Bao had to admit that he realized the living space in the Sea Area was much broader than that on the earth after his journey in the Sea Area. Tens of thousands of miles under and above the sea were suitable for creatures to live. However, there was only a layer of land and some mountains on earth. The broad sky was an exclusive place for birds and some practitioners who were able to fly.


    Both the living space and resources here far surpassed that of the earth. Therefore, creatures here were not interested in the Seven-deity Regions. Perhaps, this was the main reason why human beings could rule the Seven-deity Regions.


    Zhou Bao headed westwards for three days without causing any trouble.


    Presently, Yu Nantian attracted all the demons'' attention in the Sea Area. They were heading eastwards to catch him. No one noticed Zhou Bao even though they met him riding a giant blue whale and heading westwards. Furthermore, since he blatantly traveled across the Sea Area, they guessed he must be a man with strong power. Therefore, they did not bother provoking him.


    Zhou Bao also obtained a sea map from Li Quan. It was a huge one consisting of the general parts of the Sea Area that Rolling Dragon King controlled, including paths used by demons in the sea, and each one was different in size. They were like tangled ropes, which divided all the influences in this Sea Area.


    No one would care about you as you walked along these roads, unless if you were unlucky and bumped into robbers. The road Zhou Bao chose was a shortcut to Dragon Abyss Prison. Of course, he did not plan to go straight to Dragon Abyss Prison. He had chosen a target and made a plan. If his plan succeeded, he believed that he could enter Dragon Abyss Prison successfully.


    Dragon Abyss Prison was not the only prison in the Sea Area. The Sea Area was strictly managed with many prisons. Strictly speaking, Dragon Abyss Prison was a prison for people who were convicted of grave crimes. They could only be imprisoned here.


    If Zhou Bao messed around here, he will not enter Dragon Abyss Prison even if he was caught. Moreover, he would also expose himself.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao was busy planning over the past three days. He looked at the map in his hand all the time.


    "The place ahead is Dragon Whisker Ravine, the junction of Master Bai Luo and Master Jin Hua''s territory. It means that I''m going to enter Master Jin Hua''s territory. I heard that he''s deeply troubled by Fourth Prince''s death, and now, he''s busy catching Yu Nantian, which means his Water Mansion is empty. Haha!"


    Zhou Bao smiled and thought secretly. His smile was quite sinister.


    He clamped the blue whale with his two legs. After receiving his signal, it immediately sped up and passed through Dragon Whisker Ravine, entering the Sea Area controlled by Master Jin Hua.


    "Who are you!"


    "What are you doing here?"


    "Stop! I need to check...!"


    Like all the other borders that belonged to different influences, it was guarded by warriors to maintain order and protect their interest. Obviously, Zhou Bao broke the rules by crossing Dragon Whisker Ravine directly and blatantly.


    Of course, Zhou Bao did more than that. Facing those fish and shrimp demons rushing towards him, he showed a cold smile. He raised his hand and shot out a strand of black flame from his fingers, burning those demons into ashes.


    "Master Jin Hua, haha. So many years have passed, and I guess the grievances between us should come to an end today!" Zhou Bao laughed out loud while urging his blue whale to speed up.


    Just a while after he left, deep down in Dragon Whisker Ravine, a small stone covered by a shadow started moving. It rolled aside and revealed a hole. A white-faced Shrimp-headed Demon crawled out of it and looked at the direction that Zhou Bao left. Panic could be seen from his eyes, and he could not help but tremble. All of a sudden, he quivered and began to run, but in the opposite direction.


    Knowing that the Shrimp-headed Demon left, Zhou Bao, who was 30 to 40 miles away from Dragon Whisker Ravine, began to laugh. He said, "It seems that my coming here to revenge myself on Master Jin Hua will spread over the Sea Area soon. I guess he must find it strange and cannot help but wonder when did he provoke me? Haha...!"

 Chapter 442: Master Jin Hua Hit a Dead End

    Chapter 442: Master Jin Hua Hit a Dead End


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Right now, Master Jin Hua was really angry. He just wanted to gain some advantages, and meanwhile, courted Lan Shui''er. Never did he expect that things would turn out like this. He did gain some advantages from experts of Seven-deity Regions he captured, but compared with his losses, they really didn''t deserve mentioning.


    "Fourth Prince is dead. Damn it! He died!"


    Hiding in the marginal oceanic trench of the fourth region of the 18 Dragon-bone Regions, known as the Illusionary Sea Area, Mater Jin Hua could not stop thinking about this matter.


    This was a vivid example of the old saying I did not kill him, but he died because of me.


    Rationally speaking, Fourth Prince''s death was none of his business. It all attributed to his lasciviousness. However, very few people in the Sea Area were reasonable, and Rolling Dragon King was not one of them.


    The reason why Rolling Dragon King offered him a great reward rather than caused him any trouble was that he had to appease others. After all these things are done, Rolling Dragon King would come for him. After all, it was him who captured those people that killed Fourth Prince. If not for him, Fourth Prince would still be alive now.


    He received such an ending as a result of his insatiable desire for merits and it truly made him feel depressed and angry.


    After knowing about Fourth Prince''s death, Master Jin Hua first plan was to escape from this Sea Area, the further the better. He no longer wanted to see Rolling Dragon King.


    Of course, this was just his dream, which was far from coming true.


    Since this Sea Area was strictly managed by Rolling Dragon King, it was formidable. Most importantly, while there may be, sometimes, frictions between five Dragon Kings in this sea, they always ganged up together against enemies when encountering something serious. Otherwise, there would have been no sea-closing order. Although Mater Jin Hua was a Four-tribulation true Immortal, the five Dragon Kings did not lack masters of martial arts who would make Master Jin Hua appear weak. They could easily kill him, so he could not act recklessly, lest his senior find an excuse to kill him.


    "Oh, fairy weapons. Only if I kill that guy and rob him of his fairy weapon then can I have the opportunity to escape from this Sea Area and stay alive!" Master Jin Hua thought ferociously. This was his only hope.


    "Yo, isn''t it Master Jin Hua? Why are you here?"


    Suddenly, his expression changed greatly after a voice came to his ears. Though he was thinking about escaping, his spiritual mind was alert. He did not expect that he would not notice when someone was near him. What if this guy attacked me...


    He was frightened at this thought.


    "Don''t panic, it''s me!"


    The person saw Master Jin Hua''s appearance and felt happy deep in his heart. As expected, Master Jin Hua was no longer calm and it was his best chance.


    "Oh, it''s Ming Haijun. You really scared me!" Master Jin Hua felt relieved as he saw the person. He appeared to be still in a state of shock and said, "Yeah, only people with a cultivation like Ming Haijun can come near me within 100 feet without being noticed. I thought my cultivation has fallen behind!"


    "You don''t need to wear a forced smile. I know clearly the situation you''re in!" Ming Haijun was not tall. Judging by the standard in Zhou Bao''s previous life, he was just 1.6 meters tall and not that good-looking too. Moreover, he looked quite thin and pale, which gave others an impression that he was ill. No one could figure out what his original body was because he looked just like a human being now.


    "Well, are you here to cash in on me since I''m in a bad situation?" Master Jin Hua''s face darkened as he heard Ming Haijun''s words, and he replied coldly.


    "Do you think I''m that stupid? I know that even a beast at bay will put up a desperate fight, let alone you''re not cornered now. If we fight seriously, I''ll be unable to bear your attacks. I''m here to do a deal with you!"


    "What kind of deal?"


    "How about I help you escape from the Sea Area, and in return, you help me to wrest a fairy weapon?"


    "Humph. If I can obtain a fairy weapon, then I surely can escape from here. I don''t need you to do me a favor!" Master Jin Hua said and laughed coldly.


    "That''s not true. You should know that there are many people who have their eyes on the fairy weapon. Presently, it''s extremely hard for you to obtain it. Even I can infer that you may escape from here relying on it, do you think that Rolling Dragon King won''t?" Ming Haijun laughed coldly and confidently.


    "It seems that both you and I are not sincere. Why should we waste time here?" Master Jin Hua snorted. He moved and was going to leave. However, he did not expect the surrounding seawater to ripple and form a tight circle, preventing him from leaving.


    "Well, do you want to force me to stay here?"


    "Nope. I just hope that you can take my suggestion into consideration. There are many people in the Sea Area that are watching you. It''s quite hard for you to leave here and wrest the fairy weapon!" Ming Haijun smiled and the circle condensed by seawater disappeared.


    "In the Five-dragon Regions, the 18 Dragon-bone Regions is the only one out of five Dragon Kings'' control. It is also the only influence that can help you leave the Five-dragon Regions," said Ming Haijun. He narrowed his eyes and continued, "It''s not me who want to get that fairy weapon!"


    Master Jin Hua''s expression suddenly changed and he said, "You mean...!"


    "Of course, it''s Region Master who is interested in it. However, he cannot act recklessly because he and those five Dragon Kings are afraid of each other. Therefore, as a subordinate, I should spare no efforts to serve him. Now, do you still think you''re able to acquire that fairy weapon?"


    "Damn it!" Master Jin Hua swore. Ming Haijun totally broke his dream. If experts like the master of the 18 Dragon-bone Regions are also vying for that fairy weapon, he would lose all chances. But should he give up just like this?


    "You''d better think twice. You''re really powerful and can be considered as a first-rate expert in the Sea Area, but that''s all. You cannot do whatever you want here, especially when Dragon Kings are involved in this matter. Anyhow, death is your destiny. Why don''t you follow my suggestion?"


    "You want me to go and seek refuge with your master. Humph, Ming Haijun, I admit that he is powerful. However, no matter how powerful he is, I don''t believe he can withstand the anger of five Dragon Kings."


    "My master didn''t kill Rolling Dragon King''s son, so why should he withstand the anger from them?" Ming Haijun laughed and continued, "He isn''t that stupid to publicly declare that you''re his man. Come on, you''re worthless now. What else do you want? We cannot accept you in public, at most we can help you leave the Five-dragon Regions secretly!"


    "A fairy weapon in exchange for helping me escape? Haha, your master is really skilled at scheming!"


    "Master Jin Hua, you should be clear that the fairy weapon is not yours and I didn''t ask you to use it to change for your life. I just ask you to exert yourself to wrest it. I don''t know what you''re thinking, but since we''re acquaintances, I exhort you to follow my suggestion. It is your best choice now!"


    "My best choice?" Master Jin Hua smiled bitterly and said, "Maybe, you have to let me think about it carefully."


    "Fine, as long as you can figure it out before that guy gets caught. When that happens, even the 18 Dragon-bone Regions cannot help you, haha!" Ming Haijun left while laughing. He transformed into a drop of water and disappeared before Master Jin Hua.


    "Bastard, you bastard!" After Ming Haijun left, Master Jin Hua''s countenance became very dark. He punched the giant rock beside him and the sound made by his fist spread along the seawater. Far away from him, Ming Haijun laughed coldly after he heard the sound.


    Master Jin Hua no longer had a promising future. Even if he was lucky enough to escape from the Sea Area, he could not easily stage a comeback.


    "It''s really interesting!" Zhou Bao frowned because of confusion. It was the fifth day since he had entered Master Jin Hua''s territory. He committed dozens of robberies in several places over these five days. Currently, the entire Sea Area knew that the enemy of Master Jin Hua was here to cause troubles. The Sea Area was in utter chaos. However, he seemed to be indifferent to this matter. He did not even show up, and there was no news from him, as if he was missing.


    Yeah, he was missing. Master Jin Hua was missing. The area under his control was a mess. Zhou Bao suddenly showed up and the governance of Sea Area fell apart. However, Master Jin Hua still did not show up, and Rolling Dragon King did not conduct any action or give any order.


    "Shit. Is that fairy weapon so eye-catching that everyone wants to obtain it? With so many people scrambling for it, the chances of getting it is very small!" As Zhou Bao thought maliciously, he was somewhat disappointed because his plan did not work.


    He planned to make a mess here to attract Master Jin Hua''s attention, who would then send some men to deal with him. After that, he could reveal one or two Pure Yang Celestial Devices to disturb the peace of this Sea Area. Finally, he could pretend to be caught and try to let them imprison him in Dragon Abyss Prison.


    He already figured out the situation. Dragon Abyss Prison only imprisoned criminals above the Mysterious Realm and people who were convicted of grave crimes. His current body was an incarnation, and there exist no such obstacles as that between Metaphysic Individual Immortal and the body. He had already reached the peak of an Individual Immortal''s, which was also the cultivation of Marrow-Cleansing Realm. His combat power was even stronger. If he utilized his Divine Senses together, he could be considered as a True Immortal, who was qualified to be imprisoned in Dragon Abyss Prison. He planned to pounce on an opportunity to save those criminals after entering it. However, the situation now is that he threw a heavy punch, an empty punch. Not only did Master Jin Hua not fight back, several powerful Demonic Immortals hiding in his Water Mansion were missing as well. Without getting the result he wanted, Zhou Bao felt extremely uncomfortable.


    This Sea Area was in chaos and no longer worthy.


    "It seems that I need to find another place, such as the territory of Master Bai Luo. He hasn''t caused any trouble, and if I go there to make a scene, I may get a better result. But then again, compared with Master Jin Hua, Master Bai Luo is more popular. Maybe he''ll find a powerful True Immortal to kill me directly, and that''s not worth it."


    "Humph, are you Qiu Hai? You only know how to take advantage of other''s difficulties to seek revenge. How could you do that?" As Zhou Bao was deep in his thoughts, a sarcastic voice came to his ears.

 Chapter 443: Netherworld Heaven, a Bolt from the Blue

    Chapter 443: Netherworld Heaven, a Bolt from the Blue


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "It''s funny, you''ve followed me so long and now you''ve finally spoken!" Zhou Bao turned his head. He had noticed that guy for a long time. Since Zhou Bao first stirred up trouble in Master Jinhua''s Sea Area, this strange guy had been following him. Originally, Zhou Bao had wanted to kill him and thought it would just take a lift of his finger because his spirit was quite weak and his cultivation did not even reach the Individual Immortal Realm. However, every time Zhou Bao was ready to do it, a sense of crisis arose in his heart. The feeling was so faint that he would not have felt it if his spiritual mind had not been so incredibly sensitive. Thus, Zhou Bao did not act immediately, but let the guy follow him and casually watched him. He wanted to learn about this guy''s origin. But a few days had passed and he had not found any clues yet. The strangest thing was that the man did nothing behind him, nor ever hindered him from doing anything. Therefore, Zhou Bao was surprised by his sudden speaking.


    Speaking was one thing, but even more to Zhou Bao''s surprise was that the man was here to fight for justice.


    Nowadays, there were few people, or even none, who liked to fight for justice for others. Unexpectedly, he had run into such a man!


    Looking at the man''s skinny body, Zhou Bao''s eyes narrowed slightly. "I do have a grudge against him, but when to get revenge is my business. Does it have anything to do with you?"


    "Humph, get revenge? Really?" The man responded with a cold snort. "Zhou Bao, you can hide it from others, but you can''t hide it from me! I also know that you want to take this opportunity to enter the Dragon Abyss Prison to save your companions. And you want to kill me now!"


    "I don''t want to kill you now, but I want to run away!" Zhou Bao spoke softly. He felt scared when this strange man spoke. An exceedingly unusual feeling rose up from the bottom of his heart. It was not a sense of crisis, neither was it excitement nor surprise, but fear¡ªa kind of inexplicable fear that he had never felt before.


    Zhou Bao gently moved his feet back as he eyed him warily. He planned to launch the Three Realms Division to flee as soon as the man made an unusual movement.


    "The Three Realms Division is great, but don''t try to escape using it! I come to you with no malice. A friend recommended you to me. He said that you could help me, so I came to see you. These days, I''ve been following you, watching you, and I don''t think you deserve the recommendation of my friend. But since he recommended you, I''m forced to give it a try and just make every possible effort!"


    Zhou Bao blinked his eyes, not understanding what the man had said. His words were like tongue twisters, making Zhou Bao confused.


    "What on earth are you talking about? Recommendation? Who''s your friend?"


    "Follow me and you''ll find out!" As these words were spoken, the surrounding environment suddenly changed.


    "Oh no!" Zhou Bao got nervous and tried to launch the Three Realms Division. But as he moved and the Flickering Light Evil Qi spread out, a blast of a violent spatial fluctuation suddenly occurred and swept him away.


    With a bang, he bumped into a hard object and did not dare to move anymore.


    "The Three Realms Division is a great cultivation method, but it''s just an insignificant way in the Great Way of Heavens and Realms! Don''t use it in front of me!" said that man.


    Zhou Bao had given up his resistance now because the disparity was just too big. The skinny guy in front of him did not have a single bit of Qi Power or even a little bit of martial arts, but he brought great pressure to him.


    "The Great Way of Heavens and Realms?"


    Hearing that name, Zhou Bao paused for a moment. The so-called Great Way generally referred to the 3,000 Great Ways. For instance, the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique was one of the 3,000 Great Ways. So was the Great Way of Heavens and Realms also one of them?


    "The Great Way of Heavens and Realms is one of the 3,000 Great Ways. It is fairly ingenious. Your Three Realms Division is only a way of the Great Way of Heavens and Realms!" the man said as he gave Zhou Bao a glance.


    Zhou Bao softly sighed. "In that case, I have nothing to say. What''s your purpose in bringing me to this damned place?"


    This was indeed a damned place. The man''s technique was wonderful. Through his means, Zhou Bao was already in a water-free space, not feeling the surrounding spatial changes. The full-bodied essence of the world came rushing instantly, but it carried an incomparably strong chill.


    That chill was Zhou Bao''s first impression of this space. But the next moment, his face changed. "Is this... the 33 Heavens?"


    "You have a discerning eye! This is Netherworld Heaven of the 33 Heavens, and also my sleeping place!"


    "Netherworld Heaven?"


    Like Azure Heaven and Taiyuan Heaven, Netherworld Heaven was one of the 33 Heavens. The pneuma density here was no less than that of the two micro worlds, but the scenery here was totally different from that in the two worlds. Azure Heaven was full of vitality while Taiyuan Heaven was boundless, but this Netherworld Heaven was spooky! Between heaven and earth was covered with a faint dark yellow¡ªyellow sky, yellow earth, yellow mountains, yellow water, and even yellow plants. What surprised Zhou Bao the most was that there were only plants but no animals.


    Aside from the two of them, he did not feel the slightest hint of an evil beast or even an ordinary wild beast here.


    "Netherworld Heaven has no living creatures with spiritual intelligence, only the Spiritual Qi of the Netherworld and five great rivers!" As if he had seen the confusion in Zhou Bao''s eyes, the man smiled faintly. "Come with me!"


    Zhou Bao did not ask any more questions, though his mind was full of doubts.


    The 33 Heavens was just a legend. Even great practitioners in antiquity times might not have seen one or two in their lifetime, yet, counting this Netherworld Heaven, he had seen three. Besides, he even wanted to seize control of one of them. If other practitioners in the world knew that, they would think that he was talking nonsense.


    "Sit down!"


    As he was thinking that, the man''s voice came to him. Zhou Bao looked around and discovered that they had reached a low hill. There was a platform on the top of the hill with several stone stools scattered over it, and no one knew how many years they had not been used. The man walked up to those stone stools and beckoned him to sit down.


    "I''ve just woken up, and there is nothing good for entertainment in Netherworld Heaven. Take a seat first!"


    "You''ve really been asleep for a long time!" Zhou Bao sat down with a smile. By this time, he was completely calm. Since the man had not attacked him at first, everything was negotiable and a fight could be spared. Hence, he had no need to be tense or worried and could just take it easy and talk.


    "I know you have a lot of questions on your mind, but I don''t have enough time to answer your questions because I don''t have much time. I''ll just make a long story short!" Seeing that Zhou Bao had sat down, the man spoke right away.


    "I need help with something. But I slept too long, and some of my old friends who can help me can''t be found now, so I came to you!"


    "Why me?"


    "As I said, someone recommended you to me!"


    "Who?"


    "The little turtle that imparted the general principle of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique to you. He said that your fate was so strange that even the weird child could not see it clearly, so you should be the best choice!"


    "The general principle of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique?" Zhou Bao was startled, and the image of the Stranger in thunder came to his mind. Now his vision was much wider than it had been in past years, so he knew that what he had seen was a Genuine Immortal undergoing the Thunder Tribulation. He did not know how many Thunder Tribulations had he undergone, but now, according to the picture in his memory, the Stranger''s relaxed appearance and power indicated that his cultivation was in the Venerable Realm at least.


    The Stranger was in the Venerable Realm. And with this man being his friend, should he also at least be in the Venerable Realm?


    But how many tribulations did it take for a Genuine Immortal like him to reach that level? Being hidden and not showing, how could Zhou Bao not notice a trace of abnormality?


    "That little turtle has a good impression of you. But I don''t think he has a good eye. You''re not a nice guy!"


    "Senior, get straight to the point. I''ve never thought that I''m a nice guy!"


    "You''re honest!" The man looked at Zhou Bao and said, "I am looking for something that is now in the hands of the Sea Emperor. I want you to help me get it!"


    His words almost knocked Zhou Bao down into the big river at his feet.


    "Get something from the Sea Emperor?"


    Zhou Bao might not have been so surprised if he had not known about the strength of the Sea Area. Now he had a basic understanding of the strength there and thought he had misheard him.


    "Senior, you must be kidding! You might as well ask me to steal the Ranking of Demons and Immortals!"


    "You''re right! I want you to help me bring back the Ranking of Demons and Immortals."


    Zhou Bao blinked and laughed out of fury. "Senior, you can''t make such a joke. You''re asking me to get the Ranking of Demons and Immortals? Why don''t you just slap me to death?"


    "I''m not asking you to get it right now. I know that you''re trying to get control of Azure Heaven!" The man looked at Zhou Bao and said some words that appalled him. He knew about even this! Was there anything that he did not know? Zhou Bao finally had an impulse to kill himself. He looked at this guy in front of him in horror as he asked, "Who the hell are you? What''s your connection with Green Spirit?"


    "Green Spirit? Oh, that lucky Grand Demon. I have nothing to do with him! And it''s not him who told me about you!" The man shook his head. "Don''t be so shocked. I know everything about you so far, including the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes and the plot of Azure Heaven. Of course I also know that you killed a Level Eight expert, Xue Wuya, with Level One strength when you were a child!"

 Chapter 444: The Secret of the 3,000 Great Ways, an Insight

    Chapter 444: The Secret of the 3,000 Great Ways, an Insight


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Wow! You''re so powerful, amazing, and great! Everything that you said is true! You fucking know all about me! But it won''t work! Now that you know me so well, you should know that what you asked me to do is far beyond my capability. I can''t do that at all. What you said is of no use!"


    "I didn''t ask you to do it now. I want you to do it after you''ve seized the Azure Secret Area!" He cast his eyes at Zhou Bao as he said, "Don''t overrate the Sea Emperor. Well, it doesn''t matter. He is also overrating himself now, so he would never think that anyone in the world would dare to grab the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. That is your first advantage. And the second one is your Fiery Eyes. It''s what the Emperor of the Moon Temple asked his necromancers to study. It is one of the strongest bloodlines imitating the Bloodline Power of the Innate Deity and can control the Wheel of Fate and affect the Ranking of Demons and Immortals and the Golden Book of Fate. At this point, even the Sea Emperor can''t compare with you! Besides, you have a third advantage: if you really can master Azure Heaven and capture the projection of the Golden Book of Fate, then you will naturally know some of the mysteries of the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. After all, the Golden Book of Fate and the Ranking of Demons and Immortals come from the same source. Fully grasp the projection of the Golden Book of Fate, and you''ll have succeeded more than halfway!"


    "Don''t say those unfounded things. It''s too hard. I won''t do it!"


    "You can neither beat me nor run away from me. You have no power to refuse me. I know so much about you, and you should know that if I want to, I can instantly make you have no shelter in the world. So, honestly cooperate with me!"


    "Did all of you ask for help like this in antiquity times?"


    "No, so much talking was not required in antiquity times!" The man shook his head. "If you promise me that you''ll do this, I''ll give you a lot of benefits. Don''t you want to save your companions? "I can send you to the Dragon Abyss Prison with the Great Way of Heavens and Realms right now and show you a way to ensure that you leave safely!"


    "You might as well impart the Great Way of Heavens and Realms to me and let me go and leave there by myself!"


    "You''re really greedy! It''s okay to impart it to you, but you seem to have some misunderstandings about it!"


    "Misunderstandings?"


    "Yes. There are 3,000 kinds of methods to the Great Ways in this world. Attaining mastery of anyone can gain one insight into a Great Way, which is passed down from primitive times, so that all people take it for granted that the 3,000 Great Ways are the best ways in the world!"


    "Aren''t they?"


    "You can''t say that it''s wrong, but it''s neither clear nor practical. It''s true that if you can realize, understand, and comprehend one of these Great Ways, you can indeed attain enlightenment. But from primordial times through primitive times to the present, how many people have really comprehended one of the 3,000 Great Ways? None, not one. Thus, no one has ever achieved enlightenment!"


    "It doesn''t work?"


    "It works, of course it works, but what''s the difference?" The man produced a forced smile. "Therefore, the energy of a person and a creature is limited. The 3,000 Great Ways are the general principle of Dharma, and it is impossible to study them thoroughly for hundreds of thousands of years or even millions of years! It''s better to patiently practice the thousands of cultivation methods that evolved from the 3,000 Great Ways. It''s the most practical method of practice. I think your Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique has reached the Basic level. Have you already condensed the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument?"


    "Yes, I''ve already condensed the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Instrument!"


    "Then, how do you feel about it? Don''t you think it has an undeserved reputation? As one of the 3,000 Great Ways, it is no more powerful than the other methods that you''ve practiced. Sometimes, it is not even as convenient as some Pure Yang Celestial Devices!"


    "Yeah!" His words had struck a responsive chord in Zhou Bao''s heart. He did have that feeling. The Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique was known as the nemesis of all great evils in the world, but both its attacking force and defensive power were not outstanding. It could only work by relying on his Internal Qi and Real Essence that were innumerably more energetic than others'', which had puzzled him. Since he did not know much about the abstruse methods of the 3,000 Great Ways at that time, he thought it was because he had not attained the proper degree. Now after hearing this man''s words, he realized that it was not that he had not attained the proper degree, but that the proper degree did not exist at all, so he could not help feeling dejected.


    "The greatest function of the 3,000 Great Ways is not to cultivate, but to comprehend, to contrast. As for the degree you can finally obtain, it doesn''t matter! For example, I used the Heavens Division to move you from the bottom of the sea to this Netherworld Heaven. And the Heavens Division can''t affect your Three Realms Division. However, I have a profound comprehension of the Great Way of Heavens and Realms, so I disturbed the time and space as I displayed the Heavens Division, which made your Three Realms Division useless. That''s the most practical effect of the 3,000 Great Ways!"


    "You don''t have to spend too much time trying to practice it, but can just use it for comprehension, contrast, and evolution?"


    Zhou Bao was inspired. In contrast to this sentence, thinking of everything he had done since he had practiced the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, he froze and was in a state of mystery. He felt his Demonic Qi flowing without his control, as if he had been born with it. His incarnation was the body of the Primitive Dragon Chimera, which was bred by the Primitive Dragon Chimera Fire. Although he had gotten the Dragon Chimera Fire, he did not know the Dragon Chimera''s way of practice. However, he spent so much time with Green Spirit that he knew very well about the Demon''s way of practice. Hence, for this incarnation, Zhou Bao had always been practicing the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique, which was most suitable for this body. As for how the Primitive Dragon Chimera practiced, Zhou Bao did not inherit the method.


    What was most suitable was the best. It was not necessary to find the most superior Great Ways. This mysterious man''s words opened up a new door for Zhou Bao, or rather, corrected his former wrong path.


    With the circulation of the demonic spirit, nine Fire Dragons made up of black flames appeared around Zhou Bao. At first, these nine Fire Dragons emitted a fiery spirit with a hint of creepy spirit, but as the demonic spirit continued circulating, the creepy spirit disappeared and was replaced by a mild, peaceful spirit. At that moment, the Primitive Dragon Chimera Fire was purified. It seemed to be reborn and was no longer creepy and vicious, but instead, revealed a spirit of magnificence and arrogance.


    "What the hell is this guy doing? Is he undergoing insight right here? In my Netherworld Heaven?"


    Seeing the strange condition of Zhou Bao, the mysterious man was a little shocked and his eyes were filled with surprise. However, because of his status, he had seen a variety of talented people, including people like Zhou Bao, who comprehended something after hearing his words, so he was only slightly surprised.


    But Zhou Bao was quite different. Because of this mysterious man''s words, now all the Demonic Fire on his body had changed and rose thousands of feet. Nine golden Heavenly Dragons split from his Demonic Fire and circled around him.


    "Woohoo, woohoo...!"


    The nine giant dragons lingering around Zhou Bao suddenly gave thunderous roars at the same time. Their roars went straight down like something substantial and rolled up great wind and waves that were thrown dozens of kilometers away.


    The mysterious man did not even blink as he just quietly watched Zhou Bao standing there.


    "Funny guy, I''d like to see what can you comprehend right under my nose. The ancestor of the Primitive Dragon Chimera was born from one of the nine Heavenly Fires, the Ancient Black Flame. Can you figure out the Ancient Black Flame from the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique? Eh?"


    As he was thinking, the fire light around Zhou Bao underwent another change. The nine golden Heavenly Dragons seemed to get free from Zhou Bao and rise into the air. At that moment, a tremendous engulfing force was suddenly produced in the midst of the flames, which had become magnificent and arrogant, and turned into a bloody mouth that swallowed up the nine Heavenly Dragons.


    The nine golden Heavenly Dragons were once again integrated into the black flames.


    This time, after being engulfed by the flames, the nine golden Heavenly Dragons did not even make a move.


    The black flames rolled over the top of Zhou Bao, forming a huge cloud of fire, whirling and burning. The color of the flames was getting darker and darker. The faint gold, which was produced by the effect of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, had vanished and was replaced by a color of extreme darkness.


    It was completely dark with no other colors. It looked like an endless abyss that was trying to engulf all the light and all of existence.


    Gradually, the flames on his body began to gather on top of his head. Their fiery spirit was gone. In Netherworld Heaven, the agitation caused by Zhou Bao had subsided. No longer wild and galloping, the black flames were gentle and as warm and moistening as jade.


    The mysterious man''s appearance finally changed because he saw that the rolling fire cloud over Zhou Bao''s head had gradually formed into a strange shape. The shape was like a huge placenta composed of black jade, and inside the placenta, a faint pulse was moving excitedly as if it was breeding something.


    "The Ancient Black Flame! He could breed the rudiment of the Ancient Black Flame through an insight! And it is in my Netherworld Heaven!" His mind went blank, as if he had witnessed the biggest joke in the world. "I don''t believe that he can really get that thing out!" He thought fiercely in his heart. His eyes were fixed on Zhou Bao as if they could almost shoot out a fire.


    Not knowing how long it had been, Zhou Bao slowly opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the mysterious man in front of him looking at him with bitter hatred. He felt a surge of shock. The fantastic feeling that he just felt receded like a tide and the flames all returned to his body. However, this time, he sensed that his Demonic Fire seemed to have undergone a strange change again.


    Seeing that the Demonic Fire over Zhou Bao''s head had returned to his body without any other strange changes, the mysterious man breathed a sigh of relief.

 Chapter 446: Emperor of the Netherworld, Fate Creation Boy, & Venerable Black Turtle

    Chapter 446: Emperor of the Netherworld, Fate Creation Boy, & Venerable Black Turtle


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    The Infinite Realms Teleportation was similar to the Three Realms Division. They were the same type of method that had evolved from the Great Way of Heavens and Realms.


    The only difference between them was that the Three Realms Division was about moving through the same space, whereas the Infinite Realms Teleportation was about moving through different spaces. In the same way that the mysterious man had moved him from the bottom of the sea to Netherworld Heaven, as long as Zhou Bao''s power reached that level, he could also move from Netherworld Heaven to Azure Heaven.


    Of course, this was all still part of Zhou Bao''s imagination only. Every method was still related to cultivation level. His Three Realms Division was cultivated from moving 10 feet at a time. Now, he also needed to start cultivating the Infinite Realms Teleportation from the most basic step.


    The difference between these two was very obvious. The Infinite Realms Teleportation was a way of moving from space to space. The spatial relation between the two spaces was very important. From a certain level, this Divine Sense could only be applied in lesser areas as compared to the Three Realms Division. Only when the coordinates of the two spaces, as well as their relation to each other, were known, could it be carried out successfully. If not, one would be sent from a space into a void. And that would not be fun.


    However, when the mysterious man was giving Zhou Bao the secret of the Infinite Realms Teleportation, he also told him the details of the relationship between the Dragon Abyss Prison and the present world. This was to help Zhou Bao escape from the prison easily.


    "He did think a lot about this, but it will not be an easy feat to bring so many people out at once!"


    Just as Zhou Bao was feeling that headache, there was a different story in Netherworld Heaven.


    The mysterious man who had a very awkward expression earlier had just now plastered a sinister smile on his face. In front of him, the space started to flow like water. Soon afterward, two strange shadows appeared in front of him.


    If Zhou Bao saw who these two people were, he would be shocked for sure. That was because one of them was the Stranger that he had seen that year. This Mysterious Turtle Sage taught him the gist of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique, as well as many skills about cultivation methods. He should be called Venerable Black Turtle now. The other person beside him was very eccentric¡ªit was a big child.


    Why was he called a big child?


    This person was wearing a child''s costume. The way he dressed was like the legendary Nezha in the novel of Zhou Bao''s previous life. It was also how Zhou Bao dressed when he was six. The person''s hairstyle was in two parts and a golden yellow necklace was hanging around his neck. He was only wearing a big red Dudou that had two golden carps sewn onto it. The person looked like a six- or seven-year-old kid as well. His face and eyes all were tender. One strange thing about this person was that he was very tall and even taller than the turtle! He looked like a six-year-old kid that had been enlarged four or five times. It was all very strange.


    "Emperor of the Netherworld, no matter what, you are still a Great Ancient Emperor. If you were to hold a grudge against a kid to this standard, that would be a first in this world!"


    Venerable Black Turtle looked at the mysterious man standing in front of him and smiled as if he was ridiculing him.


    If Zhou Bao was to hear the words of Mysterious Turtle Sage, he would have certainly jumped in shock.


    Emperor of the Netherworld, this mysterious, perverted guy, had actually been one of the great emperors of antiquity times. Emperor of the Netherworld, the great emperor from antiquity times, actually still existed in the present world, and he looked like this.


    "Hehe, little turtle. What I said was true. I changed my clothes and those things aren''t on me. Besides, I didn''t say that I''m not going to give him anything. As long as he finishes my task, I will not mistreat him!"


    Venerable Black Turtle''s mouth twitched twice. His gaze shifted to the side, and the disdain could be easily seen from his face.


    Looking at Venerable Black Turtle''s expression, Emperor of the Netherworld began to feel embarrassed. "Don''t worry, little turtle. I will not let him do all of that for nothing. As long as he completes it, I will naturally give a very huge benefit to him. It''s okay even if I have to give him my Netherworld Heaven!"


    "He now has the Origin of the Great Ways of Azure Heaven. The entire Azure Heaven is under his control, why would he want your Netherworld Heaven?!" Venerable Black Turtle was still unsatisfied. "Even if you have nothing now, you should have given him the Great Way of Heavens and Realms. Why did you only give him the Infinite Realms Teleportation?"


    "The Great Way of Heavens and Realms? Are you not afraid of giving him too many things? Based on his level of cultivation now, it would be just right to give him the Infinite Realms Teleportation. The Great Way of Heavens and Realms is all about the Dharma of heaven and earth, it may not necessarily be a good idea to give it to him. If he really is a genius, he should be able to figure out the Great Way through his Three Realms Division and the Infinite Realms Teleportation. If he really can''t do that, then I will be hurting him by giving him the Great Way of Heavens and Realms!"


    "Hmm, I disagree!" Venerable Black Turtle snorted coldly and remained silent.


    "Hehe, small turtle, you still have that temper! As long as something doesn''t go your way, you''ll begin to sulk!"


    "Big emperor, please do not joke around anymore, urgent matters are at hand. What do you think about this kid?"


    "He is quite interesting, but not very outstanding. Especially after I heard his secret, I keep on trying to hide my worries, but I''m still very scared. Fate Creation Boy, are you sure he can really help me?"


    "I''m not very sure, but for so many years, under so many conditions, fate put us together and proved that he is the best choice. Don''t you think it''s impossible for me to find someone tailored just for you?" Fate Creation Boy laughed.


    "What I said to that guy seemed to be his biggest secrets. How did you find out? Don''t tell me that you figured it all out?!"


    "Of course not, if I could really figure it all out, this world wouldn''t be what it is now!" Fate Creation Boy shooked his head. "In the past, the Divine Wind Palace spared no efforts to destroy the bloodline of the Fiery Eyes. Initially, I didn''t want to bother with it, but it was one of the biggest and the most successful achievements of those necromancers. I felt that it was a pity, so I secretly saved one person with the Fiery Eyes and sealed his bloodline. No way would I have thought that just after a few thousand years someone would have managed to break the seal. Hence, I started to notice this kid. But he gave me too many accidents!"


    The Fate Creation Boy might have looked very small and child-like, but he spoke like a 70- or 80-year-old person. As he spoke, his face showed signs of pity. "Rare people are so lucky like him. However, what interested me the most was not his luck, but his scheme. At such a young age, a kid at Level One could defeat a Level Eight expert! Initially, I was shocked by him. After that, things became more fun!"


    "So you asked the turtle to give him some benefits?"


    "No, they met coincidentally. Yes, this kind of thing does happen. This is also one of the reasons why I woke you up earlier!" Fate Creation Boy laughed. "For one, I feel that this is an opportunity; and two, I want you to see if this kid is a man of great potential!"


    "I already said it before. This kid has a mediocre aptitude and ordinary skills. All he has is better luck and a bigger drive. There''s nothing special. But his Fiery Eyes and possession of the Azure Heaven''s Origin of the Great Ways do stand a chance to help me. Maybe it''s an opportunity. It''s worthwhile for you to wake me up this time!"


    "It''s good as long as it''s worthwhile!" Fate Creation Boy laughed. "Emperor of the Netherworld, there is only so much that I can help you with. The remaining things are not related to me. You should understand what I mean, right?!"


    "Of course, you don''t need to interfere anymore. You have returned a huge favor. Whether it''s successful or not, that will be between me and that kid!" Emperor of the Netherworld laughed. "I should be going to sleep. Please take care of my Netherworld Heaven!"


    "For sure!"


    After listening to Fate Creation Boy''s promise, Emperor of the Netherworld smiled and changed into a stream of yellow water. He camouflaged himself into Netherworld Heaven and disappeared.


    "This old miser, in so many years he hasn''t changed at all!"


    "Aren''t you the same?" Fate Creation Boy smiled and looked at Venerable Black Turtle. "I see that you quite favor the kid!"


    "Yes, that''s right. Recently, there are very few people that can make me feel this way!" Venerable Black Turtle said, "Plus, I have a feeling. This kid can maybe help us solve that big problem!"


    "Big problem? Why, did you also learn to make predictions?!" Fate Creation Boy laughed.


    "It''s not that, I just felt it!" Venerable Black Turtle smiled and said, "It has been so many years and this kid has given me a fresh feeling. I think he has a bright future!"


    "Fine, that''s fine. I just hope that he doesn''t disappoint you!" Fate Creation Boy shook his head and sighed as he said, "But you should also understand that we should just watch. We should no longer interfere with the things of the present world, so we should just leave it to them!"


    "Yes, just leave it to them!" Venerable Black Turtle said with a sigh, "I would like to see if they can remake the same scene as that year!"


    "How hard would that be!" Hearing Venerable Black Turtle''s words, Fate Creation Boy sighed and his expression showed signs of reminiscing, contrary to his child-like features. "Besides, it was also not a good thing. The Heavenly Court was too lenient on that bunch of necromancers. They took and tried anything, causing that big tribulation, endangering so many people!"


    "Yes, they were too lenient on them. But after that lesson, I don''t think it will happen again!"


    "As long as people have greed, then this kind of thing is inevitable. Even if we don''t have the necromancer tribulation, we have the sword immortal tribulation. Everything starts with people''s greed!" Fate Creation Boy continued, "So, now the humans can only guard the Seven-deity Regions. The Sea Area is totally under the control of the Demon Tribe, and that''s not bad!"


    "Yes, it''s not bad this way!"


    Their voices and shadows gradually disappeared among the yellow clouds of Netherworld Heaven.

 Chapter 445: Infinite Realms Teleportation

    Chapter 445: Infinite Realms Teleportation


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "Fortunately, the Ancient Black Flame did not come out. If it had, at least half of my rivers in Netherworld Heaven would have evaporated. That guy may have good luck and comprehension skills, but he cannot be counted as a demon. However, he should have gained a lot from what I told him. Yes, he should be thankful to me for giving him such a huge benefit. If it wasn''t for what I told him, how would he have had such an insight? Should I help him again? Never mind that, I am not such a kind-hearted person. I helped him because I wanted him to help me do something. There''s no reason to help him again!" He laughed as if he had thought something through. "How was it, boy? How do you feel?"


    "Hoo!" Zhou Bao let out a long breath and stared deeply at that man. He bowed slightly as he said, "Thank you, senior, for your guidance. But take a look at me, your junior, do you really think that I can get the Ranking of Demons and Immortals?!"


    "Yes, you can, you surely can because the weird child said that you can do it, you definitely will succeed!" That mysterious man laughed heartily. "Besides, I am not asking you to get it now. Even if you did, it would be useless to me. I have exhausted too much energy. If I perform the Great Way of Heavens and Realms one more time, I would have to go into a deep sleep for at least 100 years. Hence, you do not have to worry. You have at least 100 years to prepare for it. For someone like you who has such great luck and was even approved by the weird child, it would be impossible for you to fail in stealing the Ranking from the Sea Emperor within 100 years. If that''s the case, then what''s the point of living? You might as well find a block of tofu and beat yourself to death with it. Do you agree, kid!"


    "100 years?"


    Zhou Bao looked at the mysterious man in front of him and asked, "Senior, you''re going to sleep for 100 years?"


    "That''s right. Do you think that it''s easy for someone like me to wake up?!" The mysterious man had a temper. "Boy, don''t waste any time. Let''s talk about the deal. Look, I helped you just now, your Demonic Fire has improved and your pneuma is not depleted. I''ll also help you get into Dragon Abyss Prison and save your friends. These two things would not be possible on your own even if you were given 100 years to do them!"


    "Yeah, I could not do that within 100 years!" Zhou Bao laughed bitterly. He felt that this man was forcing him, but he did not have the guts to reject him directly. He felt that this person was becoming more dangerous. Zhou Bao felt that the man was trying to control his temper and talk to him peacefully. If Zhou Bao himself failed to sense that and rejected him directly, he would not be able to escape from the consequences of his fury.


    "Damn! It looks like I have no choice but to agree. If I don''t, I may not be able to walk out of Netherworld Heaven. I have no idea where this guy came from. He has so much power and even controls Netherworld Heaven!" he thought to himself. After being silent for a while, he lifted his head and said, "Senior, since you want junior to do this, then naturally I have to try. But you also know that 100 years is not that long. Of course, to do it within such a short period of time, I have to practice hard and improve my cultivation. There is no time to waste. Look, why don''t you perform your Great Way of Heavens and Realms and take my friends out of the Dragon Abyss Prison? That would save me an unnecessary trip to save them myself!"


    "Boy, don''t even think about it. I am very weak right now. Sending you into the prison is already a difficult feat. If I were to let all of your friends come out, then I would need to sleep for 500 to 600 years to replenish my pneuma. But you, you have the time. My situation will be delayed... No, that''s a straight no!" The mysterious man shooked his head frantically while saying, "Boy, don''t play tricks on me. If I want you to settle things for me, I will naturally give you benefits. Last time, you told the small turtle the secret of the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints. It gave you some benefits, including the gist of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique. Naturally, I will give you more benefits. If I won''t, I will be looked down upon by the small turtle and weird child!" While saying this, he started to frantically touch his body. The more he touched it, the more interesting and awkward his facial expression became. As he let his hand down, his face twitched while speaking, "Er, boy, I wore the wrong clothes today!"


    "Huh?!" Zhou Bao was stunned as he did not understand what he meant.


    "My things are all on another piece of clothing, the one I''m wearing now is new!" The mysterious man''s facial expression became even more awkward. "How about this? After you''re done with my job, I will give you my share of rewards!" As he spoke, he waved his hand. Without giving Zhou Bao a chance to interrupt, he flung his big sleeve. Zhou Bao felt his surroundings swirl. After he realized what was going on, he had already left Netherworld Heaven and came to a dark, turbulent world.


    "What the f*ck is wrong with that guy? Even if you want to rush things, you can''t do it like that!" Zhou Bao furrowed his eyebrows and had a face full of complaints. Obviously, that mysterious man had given him an empty promise. As to whether or not the promise would eventually be fulfilled, that would depend on both his and Zhou Bao''s character.


    "Damn, who is this guy to get me to take such a big risk with just a few simple words!" The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. But he had no choice because this mysterious man knew almost all of his secrets. Zhou Bao even suspected that this man was collaborating with Green Spirit to trick him. But after thinking about it again, Zhou Bao felt that it was not very possible.


    In any case, he had come and gone in an eccentric way. And after he was gone, he left such a huge burden with Zhou Bao, which Zhou Bao found hard to believe.


    "You damn guy better not end up in my hands. If you really do one day, I will show you what I can do," Zhou Bao thought wickedly.


    Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!


    The sounds of flowing water interrupted his thoughts. His gaze wandered as he registered his surroundings. His eyebrows lifted slightly. "Is this the Dragon Abyss Prison? It is indeed a run-down place!"


    The prison was just as what the rumors had said with not a single bit of Spiritual Qi or pneuma. There was only the air for normal living creatures to breathe. Even if a genius were to practice here, he would not be able to achieve anything great.


    The space was pitch-black. That mysterious man had transported Zhou Bao to this place, which was in midair of the Dragon Abyss Prison, by using the Great Way of Heavens and Realms. Below his feet was sea water.


    The black sea water had no boundaries, with just a look it could be seen to have no end. At this moment, Zhou Bao felt as if he had returned to that dark blue space belonging to Lan Shui''er. Aside from the sea water, there was nothing else there.


    As compared to the space of Lan Shui''er, this one in the Dragon Abyss Prison was much more stable and sturdy. It would be a joke to try using violence to destroy this place.


    This was a complete space, a micro world. Although there was no Spiritual Qi, Zhou Bao was unable to destroy it at will. If it was that easy, Rolling Dragon King would not use this place to keep prisoners.


    However, being imprisoned in this place had one benefit¡ªyou technically had freedom.


    The Dragon Abyss Prison was a complete space on its own. After throwing the prisoners inside, Rolling Dragon King left them alone. This was because the exit was controlled by only him. Even if someone else had the Divine Sense to create an open slit, they would not dare to do it inside the prison. After creating the slit, one would have to face an endless void and God knows where you would run into. Hence, be it inside or out, it was all controlled by Rolling Dragon King.


    There was not much order in the Dragon Abyss Prison. The space might not have been smaller than the world of the 33 Heavens, but because there was no Spiritual Qi or living creatures, those trapped inside could not raise their cultivation. They could only wait to die slowly. It indeed was a depressing place.


    It was exactly this depression that led those imprisoned for the past thousands of years to become eccentric. Once a dispute existed, killings would happen. As time passed, the depressed practitioners would mostly serve Rolling Dragon King. This was also why the Fourth Prince of Rolling Dragon King could easily enter the prison during that time and flirt with Ji Yeyue.


    After being locked in this place for decades, or even thousands of years, everyone wanted to get out. Even if one had the biggest grudge against Rolling Dragon King, at this point in time, he would have no choice but to let it pass. Whenever the Fourth Prince promised some benefits, the practitioners would do anything to gain his favor and stand a chance to get out of this hell hole. Even if they could not escape, they could still gain some benefits from him, or to be exact, some resources.


    The conditions of the prison were depressing. The most basic things from the outside world, like meat or fresh produce, were worthy of the practitioners risking their lives and fighting for. But nobody would have thought that their flattery would eventually trigger Yu Nantian''s fairy weapon. So they went for wool and came home shorn.


    "This is a vast and complete space. It will be impossible to look for them blindly. Let me ask someone!" Zhou Bao gently felt the growing storm around him. His spiritual mind scattered out like radar. But he did not find one single living creature within a 100-mile radius.


    Having no choice, Zhou Bao moved and changed into a black streamer. He chose a random direction and flew straight toward it.


    "Hmm, looks like that old guy isn''t that confused after all. He sent me here but still left me some tricks. If he hadn''t, it would be horrible if I couldn''t get out!"


    Thinking about that pushy mysterious man in Netherworld Heaven, Zhou Bao had conflicting thoughts. This guy was basically asking for too much. He wanted the horses to run fast, yet prevented them from eating grass. How was that possible? Other than reminding Zhou Bao to use the 3,000 Great Ways and sending him here, he did not give Zhou Bao any other benefits, except for the cultivation method that Zhou Bao was thinking about now¡ªthe Infinite Realms Teleportation.

 Chapter 447: The Dragon Abyss Prison And The Black Iron City

    Chapter 447: The Dragon Abyss Prison And The Black Iron City


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    After wandering for quite a while around this Dragon Abyss Prison, Zhou Bao finally heard some voices and sensed human spirits in this painfully silent space.


    He stopped to use his Snake-like Breath-holding Skill and then dived into the black sea under his feet. There was also a ship made of an unknown material sailing towards him the surging waves. It had a mysterious sail that gave off repulsive and stinking Qi to the whole sea, and the main body was very shabby and as if it was just made by one hollow enormous black stone.


    It was more like a little boat: only a maximum of three people could be in the boat at the same time, and they would have to really be squeezed together.


    "This time, they''ve truly made a big mess. Those jerks from Black Wind Valley only focused on buttering up that Rolling Dragon King, but now, his son is dead because of that. What''s more, they even dragged us into this. What a bunch of bastards!"


    "It is not fair to blame them. Anyone would want to get out as soon as possible after being trapped in here for so long. No wonder they came up with those weird agendas to achieve this goal. But now, the most important task is to put this mess to an end. However, it will be hard to subdue them. Even though none of those men has reached the Mysterious Realm, their combat abilities are pretty good. Moreover, they can unite as one unlike us; we are woefully divided and can fall apart easily!"


    "Yeah, their strength is indeed something to be taken into consideration. We may have to fight really hard to beat them. Then, why should we step into this mess? No matter how angry that Rolling Dragon King could be, it has nothing to do with us. Do we really need to suck up to him? If we do so, will he possibly let us out?"


    "This is much more complicated than you think. The Fourth Prince was a son of Rolling Dragon King, a legitimate son actually. Moreover, this Rolling Dragon King is prone to vent his anger on someone who is not to blame. Given that the Fourth Prince died in Dragon Abyss Prison, do you really believe that the Rolling Dragon King would be in the mood for investigating the truth? All he learned is that his son died because some guy in this Dragon Abyss Prison here wanted to butter up his son. And that is all he needs!"


    "Do you mean that he will launch the Heavenly Calamity?"


    "If those bastards are not arrested and handed to him soon, he will definitely do it!"


    "F*ck! This damn old earthworm! Hope you have a tragic death!"


    As the two of them were talking, they gradually sailed afar. During this time, Zhou Bao was quietly lurking under the boat and he let himself travel ahead along with the boat.


    "This place is really strange: The water here is no different from the water in our world, but there is not even a single living creature. Furthermore, the water flow here is able to block my view. How can this happen at all!"


    After traveling for a while in the boat, Zhou Bao found something fishy once again. It turned out that there was not even one creature living on the seabed. This place looked just like the sea of death, making Zhou Bao feel a chill that made him anxious. Nevertheless, after coming so far, Zhou Bao had no choice but to brace himself and to keep going on.


    The boat finally started to slow down after a thousand miles, and the water seemed to have grown colder too. Zhou Bao slowly swam away from the bottom of the boat.


    After leaving the boat, Zhou Bao still felt some violent fluctuations coming from the boat.


    Above him, it seemed to be a huge battlefield, so Zhou Bao concealed his spirit and went about four miles away from it. As he was emerging because he thought he had found a safe place, he received a sudden harsh head-on blow.


    Over his head, a large black shadow came whirling.


    "You damn son of a bitch! Do you want to break through my place? I won''t let you!"


    That made Zhou Bao furious. However, he had other things to worry about: not only one weapon was thrown at him, but a dozen of heavy weapons, such as an iron hammer, a Wolf Teeth Club, a cudgel, and many other weapons Zhou Bao could not recognize. What''s more, they were all wizard weapons so they surrounded him in an instant and left him no without a way to escape.


    Normally, Zhou Bao would have already used his Three Realms Division. However, he decided to wait this time. Watching the wizard weapons hurtling towards his head, Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed, and then, he quickly dashed at them!


    "This guy is truly looking for death!" The attackers said, surprised with Zhou Bao''s reaction. However, they didn''t stop their weapons, because rather than thinking he had a plan, they thought he was just a crazy guy looking for dead.


    When the weapons made contact with Zhou Bao, something extraordinary happened. All the attackers certainly felt that the weapons had hit the target, but in a moment, all them slipped and changed trajectory.


    Just like a man suddenly tripped while walking, these weapons missed their target and fell into the sea, where Zhou Bao''s figure surfaced again.


    "You f*cking bastards! I''ll punish you all!"


    Zhou Bao leaped up in the air. Despite the fact that he did not get hurt thanks to the Slippery Body Technique, one of the gifted powers his Primitive Dragon Chimera had, he still felt angry about this surprise attack. What''s more, when launching their attack, these guys insulted him. "F*ck! They shall all be sons of bitches instead!"


    All his enemies subconsciously knew something ominous was coming. But before they could react, a black flame already surged up in the sky. Then, nine black Fire Dragons entangled with each other while circling overhead, forming a huge shield and dropping right at them.


    It was the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield!


    The Fire Shield fell down with a rumble, perfectly covering a dozen of those demons. Shortly after that, nine hideous dragon heads emerged from the shield and began to breathe black fire, turning that into a sea of flames.


    "Alas!"


    "Crap!"


    "Damn, what a fierce flame! What kind of fire is it? How can it be so powerful?"


    "Watch out! Don''t attack! Just go all out to resist it!"


    Cries started to fill the space inside the shield. Even the weakest one had reached the medium stage of the Blood-Changing Realm in the Mysterious Realm, so they must have extraordinary cultivations. Otherwise, they would have been burnt out by the Demonic Fire of the nine Fire Dragons long ago.


    However, the situation wasn''t good at all for them. They might not have been immediately burnt, but they should not be able to hold on for too long.


    Now that Zhou Bao finally got out of the sea, he got a clear picture of the surroundings and he put a really strange face.


    There was a city built on an island in the sea! Well, it would be better to call it a fortress. In spite of its simple construction, its geographic location made it an important strategic point to control.


    The island wasn''t incredibly large, but there were several towering mountains that raised up into the clouds. The fortress sat between two of them, with a wall a thousand feet high and engraved with various talismans and marks. This monstrous fortification encircled the valley between the two mountains to form a city. Now, shots of black light gushed out to shroud the entire city like an egg-shaped canopy that perfectly enclosed the whole city, leaving not a single crack or flaw.


    "He planted such a protective inhibition in the Dragon Abyss Prison, that no shred of spiritual Qi exists at all. Even I can''t do that!" Zhou Bao said to himself surprised. He also realized that he had been lucky and appeared at the right place: the weakest area of the entire protective fortress and also the most wanted place that the two sides were fiercely fighting for.


    Under the fortress, a battle between armies just like in the present world was taken place. However, there was a significant difference: the combatants were not just mere soldiers, they were experts whose cultivation was at least at Level Nine. Some of them were even Genuine Immortals in the Venerable Realm who had undergone four or five Divine Tribulations.


    Fights were happening everywhere¡ªin the sky, on the sea, and all over the seabed. When someone fell down, others would come forward to replace him.


    Chaotic, bloody, unreasonable, and unbelievable!


    Zhou Bao didn''t understand anything: neither why all those Genuine Immortals, who had endured four or five Divine Tribulations, came here to play an attack-and-defend game, nor why the battle was happening in a prison, especially the Dragon Abyss Prison.


    However, He couldn''t keep thinking about all this with that chaotic battlefield in front of him.


    When Zhou Bao used his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield on those guys who happened to be defenders, the attacking side instantly went overjoyed, as if an ally of theirs had come to help.


    "Great! Well done, buddy! Hurry up, push harder! Destroy this inhibition so that we can break into the Dragon-hiding City! Hahaha, this is a huge feat. As long as we catch those human beings from foreign lands, The Rolling Dragon King will be very pleased with us and we will have a chance to get out of this damned place. Now, be quick, get rolling!"


    The leader of the attacking side, who was also a Four-tribulation True Immortal, rejoiced beyond all expectations seeing the situation and started yelling his praises at Zhou Bao.


    Meanwhile, the defending side was not so happy. One Four-tribulation True Immortal of the defending force altered his expression drastically and charged downright at Zhou Bao. But just when he hurtled forward for a few steps, another Four-tribulation True Immortal from the attacking side barred his way and dragged him back.


    "Hahaha, Niu Tonghai, now you''re doomed! Once we break the inhibition, you''ll have no way to prevent us from capturing this Black Iron City! Then, you will just sit there and wait for Rolling Dragon King''s wrath!"


    "Humph, You Junda, you were also thrown into this prison by The Rolling Dragon King, but now, you betrayed all of us to ride on his coattails. Do you really believe The Dragon King will release you? How naive!"


    "Even if he doesn''t let me out, at least he won''t launch the Heavenly Calamity in this Dragon Abyss Prison. Niu Tonghai, you better get back your senses, because even though you have Black Iron City under your control, how many times do you think it can protect you? Don''t forget that this is the Dragon Abyss Prison: no spiritual Qi exists here. Thus, how many times can the inhibition cast in this Black Iron City save your lives? You should the current situation clearly!"


    "Shut up! The Rolling Dragon King is my sworn enemy. I have always wanted to kill his son but I couldn''t find a chance. Now that these guys helped me make my wish come true, I will certainly try my best to keep them safe!"


    Hearing the conversation, Zhou Bao blinked his eyes and gave a wry smile. "Sounds like I''ve attacked the wrong side, but it''s not my fault that they attacked me as I got out of the water, they can''t blame me! At least I haven''t killed them."


    Then, Zhou Bao lifted his hand and with a flash of the black light, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield was withdrawn. Zhou Bao shot a glance at the battlefield and said with a smile, "I have no time to waste on you guys here!"


    In a flash, his body transformed into a dark light and went right toward the Black Iron City.

 Chapter 448: Attacking Strategy For Black Iron City

    Chapter 448: Attacking Strategy For Black Iron City


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Zhou Bao used the gifted skill of Phantom Body to perform this move. With a flash of his body and a leap, he disappeared from the battlefield and eerily reappeared inside the Black Iron City, to then vanish again.


    Everyone was startled, but they were on a battlefield so they couldn''t stop thinking about what just happened and the war soon began again.


    In the Sea Area, there are all sorts of demons, and some of them develop marvelous powers. No one ever knew how many kinds of demons there were in the Sea Area, nor how many different powers they could develop. Thus, even though it was pretty impressive, it was not that shocking when Zhou Bao used his Phantom Body Skill. Moreover, the defending side seemed quite confident about guaranteeing the safety of Black Iron City. As long as the troop of the opposite side didn''t break in and send one or two experts inside, the forces defending the Black Iron City could handle it.


    Hence, the war went on.


    Meanwhile, Zhou Bao started jumping from one space crack to another thanks to his skill. After a few minutes, he successfully drilled several holes on the inhibition of Black Iron City. Although those holes and cracks made were repaired in an instant, Zhou Bao still managed to slip through one of them and entered the fortress.


    "It''s true that you can''t trust what you hear until you experience it. This damned place is really disappointing!" Zhou Bao said while entering the city and facing a great let-down. How come this was called a city? It was worse than a mountain village: it was merely a stretch of deserted land with no roads or paths, just a natural basin between two mountains. The only unique feature of this basin was that it was strongly guarded by those surrounding high walls.


    "Seems this is just a piece of land protected by an inhibition!" Zhou Bao thought. Then, he started inspecting the place carefully. Luckily, although it had no buildings and did not resemble a city at all, it still had some living creatures, and all of them were considerably powerful.


    Zhou Bao entered in without making any sound at all due to his Phantom Body Skill. All of the experts inside the City were now focused on defending their city so they didn''t pay much attention to him. They were all on the walls: 10,000 to 20,000 experts packed together; even though Zhou Bao had prepared for this, he still gasped at this frightening sight.


    Among them, you could find from level eight or nine experts, up to some with high cultivations who were all Genuine Immortals. Well, of course, most of them were Individual Immortals in the Metaphysic Realm, and they were was about 8,000 or 9,000. Despite their various forms and differentiated weapons, they all had the same enraged face that showed a strong resolution for fighting back, as if they were ready to dash forward and die with the outside attackers.


    Intense fighting and a lot of killing were gathering around the walls of the Black Iron City, which made Zhou Bao even feel an upsurge of excitement.


    But he quickly stifled down that excitement and instead a trace of despite appeared on his expression as he said, "After becoming Immortals, why do they still bother to fight each other? How boring is that!"


    After letting all his disappointment out, Zhou Bao swiftly headed to the front gate of the city wall, where the battle was most intense: the forces gathered there were the strongest ones with six or seven Genuine Immortals, who were standing there with stern faces, ready to reinforce into the battle at any time. But at that moment, they seemed to be in an conflict. Among them, there was a Genuine Immortal whose half face was covered in black scales that looked particularly emotional. Holding his breath, Zhou Bao slowly approached them and eavesdropped all their arguments.


    "Senior brother, we can''t go on like this. These cowards seem determined to capture those foreigners, and they won''t stop until they reach their goal. Thus, we''d better hand them over. Anyway, they are that important to us!"


    The one who spoke was the Genuine Immortal with black scales on his face, whom Zhou Bao was heeding just now.


    So far, Zhou Bao had more or less figured out the whole story of this battle: The people in the Dragon Abyss Prison were divided into two groups: the ones who were The Rolling Dragon King''s mortal enemies and had built up this Black Iron City to resist the Heavenly Calamity that might be launched; and the other group was also formed by captives of The Rolling Dragon King, but they had wavered to the side of Rolling Dragon King and started working for him as his hatchet men, hoping that this might help them to obtain freedom. Therefore, the current situation was that a part of them was eager to protect Ji Yeyue and her lot, while the rest wanted to hand them over, and that''s why such a violent war broke out.


    After such an extended battle, both sides had suffered losses. However, the losses of the group who intended to protect Ji Yeyue, were already higher than expected. Thus, the defenders of the Black Iron City began to have internal conflicts. Some of them wanted to turn in Ji Yeyue and her lot, such as this Genuine Immortal.


    "We can''t do that. Once the Black Iron City takes someone in, they become members of the City. If we trade some of our people for safety today, this will happen again and again in the future. If one day they ask us to hand you over, should we do it?"


    "But they can''t be counted as members of the Black Iron City! It''s not worthy to sacrifice so many of our companions for those guys. Look, right now the ones fighting on the battlefield are all our brothers, but where are those people you want to protect? You say that they are part of our City, they should do their job and defend our fortress at this critical moment, shouldn''t they?"


    "They haven''t reached the Mysterious Realm yet. What help can they offer even if they are here? If they were on the battlefield, we would even have to spare some forces to protect them instead!" Hearing this rebuttal, that senior brother went sheepish, and his following words sounded less emboldened now.


    "Senior Yin, the words Senior Mo just said are true. Now that we are members of Black Iron City and also the reason that we are under such an attack, we should definitely do our part!"


    Looking at the person who said those words, Zhou Bao could not restrain his happiness. It turned out that the speaker none other than Great Dark Lord Du, surrounded by Ji Yeyue, Moon Deer of Extended Net and many others. Except for Yu Nantian, all of his companions appeared out of nowhere. At this point, Zhou Bao noticed that next to the front gate of Black Iron City there was an invisible room, a wondrous space structure that was totally undetectable.


    "That is so smart! Even if the enemy break into the Black Iron City, they can just shelter inside this structure besides the front gate. The best place to hide is the one that looks most dangerous because enemies will never expect it!. Could the builders of this Black Iron City have also read Gulong''s novels?"


    Senior Yin didn''t agree with that, but the resolute faces of Great Dark Lord Du and those standing behind him made him change his mind, and with a sigh, he said, "Fine. Since that''s what you want, then, you can come and help us defend this city. Tiger, lead them to the western district and let them lend a hand there!"


    "Yes, Sir!"


    A sturdy brute next the old man darted forward and took Great Dark Lord Du and others to the western part of the city. The Genuine Immortal known as Mo attempted to say something else, but the senior brother Yin stopped him with a chilling look.


    With the disturbance settled, Zhou Bao proceeded to follow Tiger and headed for the western city with Great Dark Lord Du and the rest.


    On the way there, Zhou Bao looked closely at them: they all looked haggard and lost loads of weight, which showed all the suffering they had suffered those days. They seemed a little dispirited, or even crestfallen, but their eyes were all lit up with a fighting will.


    "It''s normal they have all fallen in despair. A lot of experts with the Level of True Immortality are trapped in this Dragon Abyss Prison and cannot break out, how can a bunch of guys who haven''t even reached the Mysterious Realm have any hope to get out of here?"


    After giving it a thought, Zhou Bao finally came to understand why they would fight so fiercely: because of the lack of Spiritual Qi in the prison, they couldn''t enter the Mysterious Realm. Therefore, they would all have to live a limited life no matter how would their combat capabilities were, so they thought it was better to die gloriously in the middle of the battle.


    "I would also be in such despair if I were them, wouldn''t I? However, if they can get through this and stay strong after this horrible situation, their spiritual phase will certainly suffer a huge improvement. For example, a man with a cultivation like Great Dark Lord Du''s would enter the Mysterious Realm right away. How interesting... If they rise to the Mysterious Realm in this sea area, I wonder whether their Intellectual Ray should enter the Ranking of Demons and Immortals or the Golden Book of Fate!"


    While Zhou Bao was immersed in this thoughts, they finally arrived in the western part of the city. Zhou Bao now realized why Yin sent them here¡ªthe intensity of confrontations here was really low, so this was also the safest section of all the walls. Despite this, Great Dark Lord Du and his group still found this battle hard with their celestial devices and weapons lost. However, that was normal: their opponents were all above Level Nine, and the stronger ones were experts in the Mysterious Realm. Besides, they had never gotten involved in such a wild battle. In a few seconds, they all found themselves caught in an increasingly dangerous situation and everyone got wounded, even Great Dark Lord Du.


    To make things even worse, the attackers found out The Dark Lord and the others joined the fight on that side, so the battle there began to become more intense. Several powerful Genuine Immortals even ignored their opponents who and flew directly towards them.


    Zhou Bao knew that if he didn''t start taking action, more than half of those guys might be killed in a matter of seconds. Even if some of them survived a little longer, they would be captured alive and it would be already too late.


    With this on his mind, Zhou Bao decided not to hide in the dark anymore: his figure began to flash, and then, turned into a black cloud, floating over the wall of the western city.


    "Hahaha, you kids! Is it fun to be part of all this fighting and dying? You''re killing your own man! Don''t you know that your real enemy, The Rolling Dragon King, is enjoying seeing you guys fight each other like this?"


    Zhou Bao cackled creepily at the Immortals coming to the west side. Black flames were surging from his whole body and wrapping it. He shot a quick glance at those Genuine Immortals hurtling in his direction and threw several strikes at them with his Great Fusion Technic.

 Chapter 449: The Genuine Immortal in Lord of Heavens Realm

    Chapter 449: The Genuine Immortal in Lord of Heaven''s Realm


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Boom, boom, boom!


    Facing such a fierce attack as Zhou Bao''s Great Fusion technic was the last thing all those Genuine Immortals flying towards him expected, and none of them was able to evade the attack. The luckiest one only had half of his body fused under the blow of Zhou bao''s deadly technique, letting out an extremely shrilling screech and made his escape as a shaft of black light shot out from the top of his head. For a Genuine Immortal, body and spirit were both equally important. Therefore, losing his body costed the lost of most of his skills, making him an easy target to trap. In addition to this, the spirit of a Genuine Immortal was highly precious. Thus, once someone saw you lose your body, no matter whether you were their allies or not, they would definitely scramble for your spirit and try to refine it, especially in this prison full of wicked and violent guys. Thus, this Genuine Immortal decided to flee instantly before everybody realized what had happened so that his spirit would not be caught by others.


    There were also other two Genuine Immortals, though not as unlucky as the first one, also badly injured. One of them had lost his left arm, and now he was floating in the air, pale-faced and thinking about whether he should keep going or retreat, which made him feel really embarrassed.


    "You guys, why do you have to do all this fighting and killing? Is it fun?"


    "Your Excellency, who are you? Why did you come here? We''ve never seen you in the Dragon Abyss Prison!"


    The least wounded one was a Genuine Immortal who had undergone three Tribulations, a real figure in the Venerable Realm. Although he was injured, the wound healed itself in an instant. Now, he was staring at Zhou Bao with a stern look, careful not to make any reckless action.


    "Hehe, No wonder you can''t recognize me! When I was thrown into that Dragon Abyss Prison by The Rolling Dragon King, you were not even born yet. Tut, tut, tut!" after saying that, Zhou Bao let out a burst of weird laughter again.


    Even though the Genuine Immortal did not buy Zhou Bao''s claim, he had a sharp enough spiritual mind common among the Genuine Immortals that he still sensed the dreadful spirit emanated by Zhou Bao''s demonic Qi. Although this spirit was not quite fierce, it still made Zhou Bao''s enemy unable to sprout a trace of will to withstand him. Just like the case with the Manager of that Right-angle Bay, this was natural pressure a superior evil beast could impose upon an inferior one.


    "Now that you claim to be a senior, you must know the reason for this conflict. What''s up? Does the senior want to have a hand in this?"


    "Hehehe, of course. I feel irreconcilable hatred for the Rolling Dragon King, so I''ll certainly have a hand in this!"


    "If so, then, please pardon my rudeness!" As that Genuine Immortal said so, three dots of mysterious fluorescent light emerged around him, sending out a faint pressure. It seemed that this guy, after sensing the extraordinary power of Zhou Bao, was about to strike with all his strength.


    "My little friend, don''t be nervous!" Zhou Bao started mystifying his identity deliberately: he mimicked the tone of the Emperor of the Netherworld and kept shaking his hands, "This time, the reason I interrupted my training was not for having a fight with you guys. Since we are all caught in this Dragon Abyss Prison, the Rolling Dragon King must be the common enemy of all of us. Then, why should we fight against each other like this?"


    "Senior, why do you ask such an obvious question when you must know the answer? It''s true that the Rolling Dragon King is our common enemy, but this Dragon Abyss Prison is under his control, so whenever he finds us unpleasant, he can launch the Heavenly Calamity. You, as a senior, must also know that once the Heavenly Calamity is launched, even Genuine Immortals will have a hard time resisting it, let alone Individual Immortals. That means we will not even have a chance to fight back. Therefore, is it right to ask all of us to die for the trouble those men produced?" while saying this, the Genuine Immortal also revealed his grief and indignation mixed with some resignation. Zhou Bao started to understand this man better: being thrown into a jail was not that big of a deal for a Genuine Immortal, but now, in order to save his own life, he had to surrender to the man responsible for his incarceration and work for him. Although he was already a Genuine Immortal, he still found this really insulting. However, if you want to pass under the eave of someone else, you had to lower your head. Thus, in order to stay alive, he was forced to put aside all his hatred towards the Dragon King and help him.


    Zhou Bao nodded, showing understanding and sympathy, "You have your point. There is no reason for you to die here for just some strangers. However, if you continue to fight like this, The Rolling Dragon King will be the only one who will be pleased by this scene!"


    "We already know that but this is the only thing we can do to save our lives. Unless you have some smart ideas that can convince me right now, Senior."


    "Of course I have a good plan!" Zhou Bao said this with his head held high, displaying an unfathomable smile. "I know you''ve endured three Divine Tribulations, so you must have a high status at your place, haven''t you?"


    "What? Do you think I''m not good enough to be your opponent?" The Genuine Immortal said those words as he blushed out of humiliation, and Zhou Bao could feel a freezing murderous intent from his rival.


    However, that tense situation was fixed by Zhou Bao''s next words:


    "Stop it now! I have a way to bring all of you out of the Dragon Abyss Prison without getting hurt!"


    This ordinary words sounded like a clap of thunder to the Genuine immortal, making him unable to move due to the astonishment. Then, he asked with an utterly incredulous expression, "What, what did you just say?"


    "I said exactly what you heard: I have a way to bring all of you out of the Dragon Abyss Prison without getting hurt, so both sides should stop fighting now!"


    "You, you are not playing some kind of trick, are you?"


    Slightly raising his eyebrows, Zhou Bao answered, "I won''t trick you. I''ll wait for you here. Bring all of the Genuine Immortals to this place. Look, being surrounded by such powerful individuals, even if I have an extremely powerful ability, how could I even dare to lie to all of you?"


    "Bring all Genuine Immortals here?" That Genuine Immortal was stunned for a second. He even considered that Zhou Bao was just looking for an excuse to kill all the Genuine Immortals at once. However, they were truly Genuine Immortals, how could they be that easy to deal with? that was impossible. What''s more, the total number of Genuine Immortals from both sides was about 800 or 1000. Even if this guy was a king of the heaven, he could not possibly round them up in one swoop, neither could he even have a chance to run away. Therefore, this guy could not be so stupid to fool himself.


    The Genuine Immortal did not say a word but looked really serious at Zhou Bao before turning away.


    Not after too long, all the yelling and fighting faded away and the two sides began to separate from each other and retreat to their respective sides. Then, the Genuine Immortal who just spoke to Zhou Bao flew back, landed in front of him and bowed. However, this time he did not come alone, as two other Genuine Immortals accompanied him.


    Zhou Bao became slightly altered because these two Genuine Immortals were emitting an unbelievably powerful pressure, which was something that an ordinary Genuine Immortal with three or four Tribulations absolutely could not even try to rival. The two sides which had retreated backward stepped back once more because of the incredible power emanating from the two figures in front of Zhou Bao. Due to their low cultivations, Great Dark Lord Du and his lot could not bear such pressure at all, so they all took their leave to go far away from there. Shortly after that, only Zhou Bao and the three Genuine Immortals were the only ones who still remained on the western part of the city.


    "I am Yuan Xiucheng!" The Genuine Immortal who talked with Zhou Bao earlier started introducing himself and the other two. "This is my master, Lord of Heaven Beicang, and this is the owner of Black Iron City, Lord of Heaven Luohua!"


    Lord of Heaven Beicang, and Lord of Heaven Luohua?


    Zhou Bao''s eyes went transfixed, revealing a hint of fear.


    They were Lords of Heaven!


    Only those Genuine Immortals who had undergone six Thunder Tribulations could be titled as a Lord of Heaven!


    When you entered the Mysterious Realm and ranked as an Immortal, regardless of your name, there were some rules about each title and rank.


    For example, Individual Immortals were commonly titled as "Zi".


    Xiaoyaozi was a good example of this.


    If a man went through one Thunder Tribulation, jumped out of three realms, and entered the Karmic Rank of Genuine Immortal, he would be called as a "Sage", like Taihai Sage and that Mysterious Turtle Sage that appeared many years ago.


    Once a Genuine Immortal pulled through two to five Thunder Tribulations, he would be titled as "Venerable", such as Thunder Dragon Venerable and Venerable Black Tortoise.


    But if one endured six Thunder Tribulations, his strength and status would be severely changed. Thus, for those Genuine Immortals who experienced six Thunder Tribulations existed the title "Lord of Heaven".


    Even in ancient times, becoming Lord of Heaven Realm was something quite rare, not to mention how uncommon it is nowadays. Each Lord of Heaven has control over immense power and resources: they can summon the storm and command the rain. If they stomped their feet on the ground, the land would quake for a while!


    Zhou Bao could never have imagined that he would run into such big experts, two at once actually. With this situation, he would have to reevaluate the strength of The Rolling Dragon King. Given that he was able to imprison two Lords of Heaven, he must be above the Lord of Heaven Realm.


    Six Thunder Tribulation! Lord of Heaven Realm!


    Facing two Lords of Heaven at the same time, Zhou Bao felt his heart thumping madly. But luckily, he had his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to help him conceal every ounce of his soul, otherwise, he would just make a fool of himself.


    "Tut, tut, tut. I never thought my plan would attract two Lords of Heaven here, please forgive me for being disrespectful before!" Zhou Bao cupped his hands and bowed slightly towards the two Lords of Heaven. "I reckoned this would be very tricky and hard to pull off at first, but with the presence of you two, it will be much easier!"


    "Your Excellency, don''t keep us wondering about it any longer: How on earth can you get us out of this Dragon Abyss Prison safe and sound?" Lord of Heaven Beicang said with a little impatience. He did not even ask about Zhou Bao''s background, but anyway, with his current strength, he didn''t even need to care for Zhou Bao''s background. Even if Zhou Bao''s claim about being imprisoned in this Dragon Abyss Prison since its foundation was true, Lord of Heaven Beicang had no fear of him. Since there was no spiritual Qi in the Dragon Abyss Prison, no one could practice their martial skills so no matter how long it passed, everyone remained at the same level as he was when first entered this place. Therefore, Zhou Bao would not be a threat to two Lords of Heaven no matter how long he had been in this prison. Although Lord of Heaven Beicang detected that Zhou Bao hid his own spirit perfectly with a wonderful technique, he was sure that he had not endured six Thunder Tribulations. Hence, this guy in front of him might be a Venerable at most, and that level of Immortals was not something Beicang cared about. He merely wanted to hear what Zhou Bao had just told Yuan Xiucheng. If he was telling the truth, that would be ideal. Otherwise, he would not mind tearing up this liar who had been trapped in the Dragon Abyss Prison for so long that he had lost his mind, and then, turn him into a tasty meal.

 Chapter 450: A Generous Contribution and Prison Escape

    Chapter 450: A Generous Contribution and Prison Escape


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Standing before two Lords of Heaven, even Zhou Bao didn''t want to keep them in suspense, so he spat it out, "I wonder if you two Lords of Heaven ever heard of the term¡ªInfinite Realms Teleportation?"


    "Infinite Realms Teleportation?"


    The expressions of Lord of Heaven Beicang and Lord of Heaven Luohua suddenly changed simultaneously. "Do you know the Great Way of Heavens and Realms?"


    "How can it be?" Zhou Bao gave a bitter smile. "If I knew the Great Way of Heavens and Realms, I wouldn''t have been caught in this Dragon Abyss Prison. I just obtained the way of Infinite Realms Teleportation by chance. Well, this is also the reason why Rolling Dragon King has trapped me here."


    "Are you saying you''re going to take us out of the Dragon Abyss Prison with the Infinite Realms Teleportation?" Lord of Heaven Luohua said while looking at Zhou Bao with a smile.


    "How could I have that ability? With my power, successfully teleporting ten people at a time would already be a hard enough job. I actually intend to pass on to all the Genuine Immortals here the way of the Infinite Realms Teleportation. Although it is is a marvelous and complex technique, I believe it shouldn''t be too hard for Genuine Immortals to get a hang of it. You two Lords of Heaven, what do you say about that?"


    Lord of Heaven Beicang and Lord of Heaven Luohua''s countenances became undecipherable at the same time.


    This was the Infinite Realms Teleportation!


    Legends said it that this was one of the most important ways among the Great Ways of Heavens and Realms. Despite the fact that they could not acquire all of them if this one way was handed to a Powerful Divine, he would probably be able to deduce some of the wonders of the Great Way of Heavens and Realms. Thus, anyone would absolutely hide it up and keep it a secret to himself forever if he found it. How could Zhou Bao think about sharing this way with others, especially with so many people?


    "Based on this guy''s assertion, he was confined in this Dragon Abyss Prison by The Rolling Dragon King because of this technique, wasn''t he?" The two Lords of Heaven thought while fixed their eyes on Zhou Bao''s face as if they wanted to see through him.


    "You are willing to pass on a marvelous way like the Infinite Realms Teleportation to strangers, that is rather strange"


    "I''m not, of course. Otherwise, I wouldn''t have been trapped in the Dragon Abyss Prison on the first place. However, after being here for so many years, I come around on this: compared to waiting for death trapped in this place while holding onto this technique, I''d rather pass it on and let more people learn it in order to escape!"


    "Humph, if you truly knew this way, you would have escaped to the outside long ago, so why have you stayed in the Dragon Abyss Prison for so many years?" Yuan Xiucheng quizzed Zhou Bao, seeming that this suddenly occurred to him.


    "Do you think the Infinite Realms Teleportation can be performed easily?" Zhou Bao snorted. "Even if you can understand it, if you don''t know the exact coordinates of the two spaces or can''t make them match with each other, you will get lost in the endless hollow. All these years trapped in here I''ve been trying to apprehend the Infinite Realms Teleportation while calculating the coordinates of the Dragon Abyss Prison and the present world according to the spatial fluctuation produced everytime someone enters or exits the Dragon Abyss Prison, and finally several days ago I was done with the calculations and making sure they are safe!"


    "If so, you can just go out alone. Why do you need to pass the way to others?"


    "How long have you been kept in here?" Instead of answering Yuan Xiucheng immediately, Zhou Bao threw another question back.


    "Five hundred years. Why do you ask?"


    "Five hundred years? Hehe, five hundred years. So, do you hate Rolling Dragon King?"


    "I do! How could I not hate him?" Yuan Xiucheng said, his expression instantly turning furious. "But..."


    "If you want something from someone else, you have to give them something first, isn''t that true? When you get out, will you seek revenge on the Rolling Dragon King?"


    "Of course I will!"


    "But can you achieve it?"


    "I..." Facing that question, Yuan Xiucheng went stupefied on the spot. "Yeah, can I achieve that? Even if I get out one day, will I really go back to Rolling Dragon King and retaliate him? Do I have that strength? Is it possible for me to get revenge?"


    "No, I can''t. I''m just a Three-tribulation True Immortal. Seeking revenge on a powerful bully like Rolling Dragon King is honestly just seeking death. In fact, not only will I give up avenging myself, but I''ll surely try to find a safe place and hide in it like a rat in its hole so that he can never find me again!"


    Now, he finally realized the meaning of Zhou Bao''s words.


    "You can''t get back on the Rolling Dragon King, because you do not have that ability, and even though I am stronger than you, neither can I. However, I am not the only one who has been captured in the Dragon Abyss Prison: there are a lot of prisoners here who are experts or Genuine Immortals, and each one of them holds a grudge against him. By throwing people inside this jail he has only increased his amount of enemies. When all of them get out, even if they can''t overturn the Rolling Dragon King, how many troubles do you think they can cause him? and if in order to accomplish that all I have to do is just share the way of the Infinite Realms Teleportation, I would gladly do it without a doubt!"


    The three Immortals conversing with Zhou Bao fell into a deep silence.


    "Truly brilliant plan!" After quite a while, Lord of Heaven Beicang finally spoke as he sighed with relief. "Really brilliant indeed! All you have to pay is the way of the Infinite Realms Teleportation, but you will get us all involved. This way, your revenge will be more likely to happen, and, what''s more, you will make all of us owe you a favor. Hehe, this senior, you truly did a brilliant calculation!"


    "Owe me a favor? Hehe, why would I want you to owe me a favor?" Zhou Bao responded while faking a sigh, revealing a hint of misery in his tone. "I just want to leave this damn place and stir up more troubles for that bastard Rolling Dragon King. That''s all. I wonder if you two Lords of Heaven could help me make this wish of mine come true."


    "No problem!" Lord of Heaven Luohua laughed. "Being able to get out of here as well as learning the miraculous way of the Infinite Realms Teleportation; only idiots would say no to that!"


    "Well, since both of you agreed on this, it couldn''t be better. However, before carrying out the deal, I have another small request!"


    "Surely this is it!" The expression of the three altered slightly. They all thought: "This was too good to be true. How could he teach us this wonderful way for free! The words he just said are merely hollow words, and now he is going to ask for the true price!"


    "My request is not really demanding: I just want those guys that were fighting here a moment ago!"


    "Those guys? Do you mean those foreigners?" Yuan Xiucheng asked.


    "Exactly, those guys!" Zhou Bao confirmed, nodding. "I know they have brought many troubles to you, but among them, there are disciples of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple and the Divine Wind Palace. Years ago when I was traveling in the Seven-deity Regions, I developed some fellowship with both of these institutions, and the Infinite Realms Teleportation was also acquired from the Seven-deity Regions. Thus, now that those guys are in trouble, I can''t sit back and do nothing, so when the time comes, I''ll teleport those guys out of here. Do I have permission from you two Lords of Heaven for this?"


    "Of course, out of question!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s request, the three sighed with relief. At first, they were worried that Zhou Bao might demand an exorbitant price. After all, he was able to rescue so many people trapped in the Dragon Abyss Prison and to share the Infinite Realms Teleportation to them, so no request would seem unreasonable. "From now on, we shall let those guys follow your lead. Senior, you may do whatever you want with them!"


    This time, it was Lord of Heaven Luohua who answered Zhou Bao. He was the owner of Black Iron City, and even though he had protected Ji Yeyue and the others, it was only as a way to declare their extreme antagonism towards The Rolling Dragon King. He already had little interest in those who had not reached the Mysterious Realm yet, so now that there was an opportunity to get out of here, those guys became dispensable to him. Thus, he promised so without hesitation.


    "That''s great. Then, you two, please gather all Genuine Immortals together so that I can teach the way of the Infinite Realms Teleportation to everyone!" Zhou Bao said, beaming with true generosity.


    "Hehe, if that old dude in Netherworld Heaven ever learns that I''ve handed down the skill of Infinite Realms Teleportation to so many people, he will get so angry that he might even vomit blood!" Picturing the bitter face of that old man in his mind, Zhou Bao felt a sensation of joy streaming through heart.


    Boom, boom, boom...


    Thunderous rumbles started to sound from the bottom of the sea.


    On that day, at the border of the territories of the two giants: Rolling Dragon King and Purple Dragon King, a tsunami burst out as deafening as thunder. Huge waves dashed to the skies, going as high as a thousand feet. Fierce roars spread from the seabed up to the sea surface one after another, sounding like claps of thunder.


    These roars were infused with various emotions: fury, surprise, sorrow, ruefulness, and excitement...


    All of them blended together, rendering this Sea Area a total chaos.


    Yes, it was indeed a complete chaos!


    In the Dragon Abyss Prison, there were more than 5,000 imprisoned Genuine Immortals, including four Lords of Heaven. Apart from Lord of Heaven Luohua and Lord of Heaven Beicang, the other two Lords of Heaven were more senior and had an even higher cultivation. In addition to this, there were 23 Five-tribulation True Immortals, 102 Four-tribulation True Immortals, and a total of 5,242 Genuine Immortals who had experienced three Tribulations or less.


    In front of everyone, Zhou Bao passed on the way of the Infinite Realms Teleportation and the coordinates of the Dragon Abyss Prison and the present world without any reservation. One month later, those over 5,000 Genuine Immortals launched the Infinite Realms Teleportation simultaneously, carrying about 100,000 prisoners in the Dragon Abyss Prison back to the present world with themselves. Among those escaped prisoners, anyone, no matter what role he had played in the Dragon Abyss Prison, was a truly mortal enemy of The Rolling Dragon King. Once those guys got out, how could they stifle their resentment? They just couldn''t, that''s why as soon as they got out they started causing all kinds of troubles to him.


    It was true that the Rolling Dragon King had deployed massive forces all around the Dragon Abyss Prison, but it was merely designed to just prevent those who tried to sneak into the Dragon Abyss Prison from finding the entrance to it, instead of preventing a prison breakout. Among those guards, the most powerful one was just a Two-tribulation True Immortal who had just ranked as a Venerable. How could those forces withstand the long-repressed wrath of those ferocious prisoners?


    Before they could realize what had happened, those guards were already bombarded to dust by those infuriated prisoners. They did not even have a chance to run away.


    After breaking out the Dragon Abyss Prison, the line of command that existed in the prison seemed to have also evaporated. While some prisoners started to freely slaughter in order to unleash the rage they had stacked up all those years imprisoned; some just quietly fled away, disappeared to nowhere; and others assembled together and discussed some unknown matters.


    Obviously, those who assembled together were the most powerful portion of all the prisoners, including the four Lords of Heaven and six Genuine Immortals who had undergone four Tribulations or above. Crowding together, they seemed to be discussing something important.


    However, none of this had anything to do with Zhou Bao.

 Chapter 452: Decision & the Black Fire

    Chapter 452: Decision & the Black Fire


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "You''re right. With our strength, of course, we can''t fight him recklessly, or else, we''ll definitely suffer!" Great Dark Lord Du sighed softly and then turned his helpless eyes to Zhou Bao, "I''m afraid I will have to trouble you again!"


    "No problem, as I said, I''m at your disposal!" Zhou Bao smiled, looking indifferent. But actually, he was admiring Great Dark Lord Du''s insight secretly.


    The fall of the Dragon Abyss Prison led to the release of four Lords of Heaven, of the same rank as Rolling Dragon King, and a large number of his enemies of Genuine Immortals. No matter how powerful Rolling Dragon King was, him being overthrew was beyond question. Not only Rolling Dragon King''s Sea Area, but the entire Five-dragon Regions would be in serious trouble. After all, with so many Genuine Immortals suddenly emerging, the balance of power in the entire Sea Area had been totally destroyed. Even if these mighty Genuine Immortals had no intention of gaining power, the authorities would think they did. Then these authorities would try hard to watch out day and night. This was true of all authorities, both men and demons.


    Thus, a conflict was inevitable. It was because Great Dark Lord Du saw through this that he thought of taking advantage of this chaos. But now, they were so poor that they were not qualified to go into the water, so they had to ask for help.


    Great Dark Lord Du was overjoyed to hear Zhou Bao''s consent. Then they began to discuss it on the deserted island.


    To get their things back, they had to figure out where it was. It was not difficult. In fact, it was no secret in this Sea Area. When Zhou Bao introduced the condition of this Sea Area, he had already said that after getting their weapons, Master Jin Hua took a small portion and gave Rolling Dragon King most of them. The most important weapon among them, the Highest Heaven Celestial Device¡ªthe Void Traveller, was certainly given to Rolling Dragon King.


    However, although Rolling Dragon King accepted these spoils, he did not use it for himself, but gave them all to his favorite son, the Third Prince.


    Yes, they were all given his favorite son, the Third Prince, not the hapless Fourth Prince.


    Therefore, their things were in the hands of Master Jin Hua and the Third Prince now.


    "Since the Sea Area is bound to be chaotic, we should have plenty of opportunities. I''ll find a way to dive back to the bottom of the sea and help you get your lost treasure back. Of course, I can only try my best. Whether I can succeed or not is not guaranteed!" Zhou Bao said. He left some leeway and didn''t take on everything.


    "We certainly don''t need your guarantee. This time we were accidentally caught and lost all of our weapons. It''s lucky that our cultivation and Divine Sense were not destroyed. Humph, what''s wrong with Rolling Dragon King? He captured so many people and put them in the Dragon Abyss Prison, but didn''t destroy their Divine Sense and Dharma power. Was he not afraid of such a thing?"


    "Of course he wasn''t. He had absolute confidence in his Dragon Abyss Prison!" Zhou Bao said in his heart. Like the space captured by Zhou Bao, the prison was entirely Rolling Dragon King himself. And apart from him, no one could find the space so easily without the specific coordinates, nor could he go in and out at will. By the time Zhou Bao reached a certain degree in cultivation, he could fully close the space and make it an independent world that only he could access. Rolling Dragon King didn''t do this because the prison had no great value, not as much value as Zhou Bao''s grey space. It did nothing but locked up prisoners. Therefore, he would not have thought that someone would have been so mad as to impart the Infinite Realms Teleportation, which could move people in all kinds of spaces, to so many people at a time, bringing a catastrophe to him.


    No doubt, only Zhou Bao knew this, but it was hard to say. As for the reason that Dragon Abyss Prison liked to throw people into the Dragon Abyss Prison, one might be that he wanted to see his enemies fighting with each other to satisfy some psychological predilection; two was to intimidate others. Exactly like in the Seven-deity Regions, in the Sea Area, once a person broke through the Mysterious Realm, owning a bit of Genuine Spirit, he could be on the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. Even if he died, he could reincarnate and there was no mystery in the womb. Hence, here, killing people was not the solution. Especially at the level of Rolling Dragon King, it was extremely difficult to kill your enemy once and for all. Even if you killed him, he would be reincarnated and come back to you in a few hundred years. Then your troubles would never end. Therefore, it was the best choice to imprison enemies in an independent space where they could not grow up. Thanks to the Dragon Abyss Prison, Rolling Dragon King was firmly the first among the five Dragon Kings. Many times, the other four Dragon Kings even tried to use the power of Rolling Dragon King to suppress some tough enemies in the Dragon Abyss Prison. This was also one of the reasons why the Dragon Abyss Prison had locked up so many powerful Genuine Immortals over the years.


    Now these people came out and gathered together. Once they started to stir up, the whole Five-dragon Regions would be turned upside down. It would be hard to imagine the resulting mess.


    "But you don''t seem safe here. Why don''t you go back to the Seven-deity Regions and wait for me in Forever Peace Town. After three months, I will go back no matter whether I succeed or not."


    "This...!"


    Everybody began to ponder.


    "How can we? We can''t leave you alone at risk!" It was Ji Yeyue. "Our cultivation isn''t as high as yours. We''re not as powerful as you, but..."


    "Well, that''s the only way!" Before Ji Yeyue finished speaking, she was interrupted by another senior expert of the Jade Pool. He glared at Ji Yeyue with discontent, and then looking up, said, "Your Excellency Zhou, then, please!"


    "Okay!" Zhou Bao nodded and glanced at that man. Then he smiled at Ji Yeyue, "Miss Ji, don''t worry. This little thing won''t bother me! Rest assured and go back!"


    Ji Yeyue blushed, nodding to Zhou Bao, and walked slowly to the back of that expert of the Jade Pool.


    The atmosphere became somewhat ambiguous at this moment. The expert of the Jade Pool was sullen. But Great Dark Lord Du laughed. And anyone who was not deaf could hear the ridicule in his laughter.


    "I''m married!" Zhou Bao stressed in his heart, but his mind did not struggle to come up with Ji Yeyue''s particularly beautiful face. He shook his head lightly, drove off the fancy in his head. After that he spoke to the others and then left alone.


    As soon as he left, all the people on the deserted island became active and gathered around Great Dark Lord Du. After all, Yu Nantian had escaped, and they were led by Great Dark Lord Du in the Dragon Abyss Prison. Now they came out, but were still in danger. Thus, naturally, they wanted him to make a decision.


    "We''ll hide here for a while, and then we''ll find a way to get back after this Sea Area is completely messed up. Now we''re out of the Dragon Abyss Prison, but we don''t know where it is, nor how far it is from the Central Mainland Region. The Sea Area is vast and dangerous. We came by the Void Traveller. Now without it, we can only fly by ourselves and cross the sea. It''s not easy!"


    "Yeah!" Hearing this, these people came to realize the truth, and their excitement and relief of escaping the Dragon Abyss Prison were all extinguished by the cold reality.


    They did escape the Dragon Abyss Prison, but no one knew where they were now. If they wanted to return to the Central Mainland Region, reality was not as good as they thought.


    Having said goodbye to the others, after leaving the desert island, Zhou Bao dived to the bottom of the sea.


    He did not use his incarnation of the Second Primordial Spirit this time.


    In his space, his Real Body of Zhuyan had been refined. He felt that his strength had been greatly improved. In particular, his power, even without the Real Body of Zhuyan, his physical power had increased more than 30 times. He could easily capture a mountain and crush it.


    Although he had long heard that Primordial Fierce Beasts were omnipotent, having far-reaching supernatural power, Zhou Bao didn''t expect it would be so powerful as to exaggerate. Compared with the Zhu Yan, the Primitive Dragon Chimera was somewhat unworthy of its name. Except for the bizarre Demonic Fire and several Gifted powers, it had nothing special.


    But after thinking about it, he was relieved. His Real Body of Zhuyan was taken directly from its huge egg, from the spirit to the essence of flesh and blood, while his incarnation of the Primitive Dragon Chimera was entirely condensed by the Demonic Fire. By contrast, the gap was wide.


    "Fortunately, my body chose the incarnation of Zhuyan. It would have been a loss if the incarnation of the Dragon Chimera had been chosen. Although in theory it could evolve and own the power of the Primordial Fierce Beast, who knows how long it would take!" Walking under water, Zhou Bao felt grateful in his heart.


    After withdrawing the incarnation of the Second Primordial Spirit, Zhou Bao certainly walked in the water quite easily. Along the way, he released a deterring wisp full of Demonic Qi, showing the spirit of an upper Demon; naturally, no demon of the sea dared to provoke him.


    After a long walk in the sea, Zhou Bao stopped in front of a rising submerged volcano.


    For now he was faint and in a strange state.


    It was a really weird feeling. When he completely took back his Second Primordial Spirit, and the Primitive Dragon Chimera Demonic Fire of the incarnation was once again returned to his Dantian, everything changed.


    "My Demonic Fire seems to have changed!" He said to himself, feeling the burning Demonic Fire in his Dantian, and inadvertently he started the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique.


    "Whoo, Whoo, Whoo!"


    The black flame rose all over him, and the nine Fire Dragons did not appear but a cloud of fire appeared over his head. The cloud of fire was deep, and it flashed strange black flames now and then.


    These flames were different from the black fire which was bred in Zhou Bao''s Dantian before. They were deeper, more refined and more unpredictable.

 Chapter 451: A Deliberately Mystifying, Discussion

    Chapter 451: A Deliberately Mystifying, Discussion


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    After Ji Yeyue and other several men were brought out by Zhou Bao''s Infinite Realms Teleportation, the Demonic Fire flowing around Zhou Bao, enveloped the 14 exhausted companions. Then, Zhou Bao drove his Three Realms Division several times in a row, and they reached a desert island in the sea.


    Although Rolling Dragon King''s influence crossed the whole Sea Area, now due to this great event, all his strength should be focused on those escaped prisoners, so he had no energy for some nobodies like them. After all, his enemies included the four Lords of Heaven and countless Genuine Immortals. Thus, Rolling Dragon King would not notice them who had not ascended into the Mysterious Realm.


    "Du Haitao from the Dark Sect of the Seven-deity Regions, and my junior brothers and sisters, give thanks for predecessor''s help!"


    Being taken to this deserted island, Great Dark Lord Du was clearly not confused, making a solemn salute to Zhou Bao. Then everyone else responded and followed suit.


    At the moment, Zhou Bao was full of Demonic Qi, wrapped in a black fire mist. Even his face was covered with layers of mists, and no matter how discerning your eyes were, you could not see the face behind it. Add to that the Demonic Qi all over him, of course, everyone did not recognize him.


    "Do not thank me; I''m entrusted to save you!" Zhou Bao said coolly.


    "Be entrusted?" This puzzled everybody a little. They wondered if the elders in their sects knew that they were in trouble and had asked Zhou Bao to rescue them; in this case, they should be more respectful to this predecessor.


    When they showed their confusion, Zhou Bao cried in a low voice, "Boy, come out!"


    "Hee hee, predecessor, you''re actually formidable!" A familiar voice sounded in everybody''s ears.


    "Zhou Bao, you''re Zhou Bao?"


    Everybody was astonished to see the man. It turned out to be Zhou Bao, who had not been seen for many days. They were jointly suppressed by Master Jin Hua and Lan Shui''er, losing all their celestial devices, imprisoned in that Dragon Abyss Prison. They thought they would never be able to come out, but unexpectedly, they were inexplicably rescued so quickly. And it was Zhou Bao who entrusted this mysterious expert to save them.


    Zhou Bao grinned and walked out from the darkness to his substitute, giving a slight salute. "Predecessor, thank you very much!"


    "Humph, I''ve finished your request, and now it''s your own business!"


    "Sure, sure!" Zhou Bao smiled. As his mind moved, his Second Primordial Spirit turned into a black light and disappeared.


    "Great Dark Lord Du, everybody, I haven''t seen you for days, sorry for your suffering!"


    "Humph, Zhou Bao, it''s you! How could we have gotten to this point if you hadn''t offended Lan Shui''er? Now the whereabouts of junior brother Yu are unknown, and all our celestial devices and magic weapons have been ransacked. You must take the responsibility!"


    eeing the disappearance of Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit and Zhou Bao''s appearance, a man in a golden robe jumped out and began to accuse Zhou Bao. As he spoke, several people looked at Zhou Bao and their face turned sinister.


    "Damn you!" Zhou Bao swore in a low voice and gave the man a kick which was as powerful as thunder. The man, from the Divine Wind Palace, though a Level Nine expert, nonetheless could not avoid the kick.


    He was kicked away. His skeleton cracked, more than half broken.


    "You idiot! The moment we left the Central Mainland Region, Rolling Dragon King issued the sea-closing order. Even if I didn''t offend Lan Shui''er, all the demons in the Five-dragon Regions would have pestered us. You think we could get through this Sea Area? You were caught by Master Jin Hua, not by Lan Shui''er, it''s none of my business! Would I have wanted to save you if it wasn''t for the sake of us coming together? Do you know how many means and favors I paid to persuade that predecessor to save you? If it weren''t for me, you would remain in the Dragon Abyss Prison until your death. Now you dare to blame me? Believe it or not, I will kick you to death!"


    "Okay, okay, Zhou Bao, you''re right. It''s his fault. I apologize for him!" See Zhou Bao was about to move forward, Great Dark Lord Du hurriedly stop him. "He''s one of us. Zhao Cheng just had a loose tongue and didn''t know the truth. You don''t need to bother with him!"


    At this time, the other several people of the Divine Wind Palace ran to Zhao Cheng''s side. They protected Zhao Cheng firmly and looked at Zhou Bao warily for fear that he might suddenly attack him again.


    Zhou Bao cast a glance at Great Dark Lord Du, nodded and paused, "Well, for Great Dark Lord Du''s sake, I won''t bother to deal with you! But, Zhao Cheng, I warn you, I don''t mind killing you the next time you say something impertinent without thinking!"


    "You!" Zhao Cheng looked at Zhou Bao with his eyes full of resentment. Though he wanted to say something cruel, he dared not say a word under Zhou Bao''s gloomy eyes.


    "Well, now that we are out, let''s discuss what we should do next!"


    Seeing Zhou Bao had stopped, Great Dark Lord Du secretly breathed a sigh of relief and began to change the subject. "Zhou Bao, this time, thanks to you, we were able to escape from that damned Dragon Abyss Prison. We all owe you a great debt of gratitude. What do you think we should do next?"


    "Well, Great Dark Lord Du, I''m flattered. I''m young and shallow, just relying on some luck, but I don''t have much knowledge. You''ve spent a lot of time in the Dragon Abyss Prison. I''m afraid you''re not familiar with the outside. Well, let me tell you something about what''s going on in this Sea Area now. As to what to do next, I''m at your disposal!" Zhou Bao smiled, holding one fist on the other hand. He then gave an overview of the Sea Area. When he had finished, he looked at Great Dark Lord Du as if he were saying he was at his disposal, which made Great Dark Lord Du complain in his heart.


    "In that case, I''m afraid we''re in real trouble!" Great Dark Lord Du touched his chin and murmured softly, "Unexpectedly, our crossing of the sea has caused such a great response and trouble in the Sea Area. Rolling Dragon King issued the sea-closing order so soon! What a coincidence, but why, why did Rolling Dragon King do this to us?"


    "Big brother, it doesn''t matter now. What matters now is how to go back. The Sea Area is sealed off. It is not easy for us to return to the Seven-deity Regions!"


    None of them here were fools. Under the circumstances, it would be a joke to talk about going to the Three Western Regions and killing Ye Qingtian and his companions.


    All their weapons, including celestial devices and magic weapons, were taken away by Master Jin Hua. And Master Jin Hua gave most of the spoils to Rolling Dragon King, leaving a small portion for himself. Not a scrap of iron was left to them.


    They were now, so to speak, the poorest Level Nine experts in the world. Poverty stifled ambition. In this case, who would want to go far away to suffer in the Three Western Regions? Even the most active men of the Divine Wind Palace were silent and acquiesced.


    "The sea-closing order is powerful, but it''s not difficult to return to the Central Mainland Region!" Great Dark Lord Du shook his head, "After all, Rolling Dragon King and his subordinates have no time to bother us now!"


    "Yeah, yeah, I''m so confused. So many Genuine Immortals came out of the Dragon Abyss Prison, and they are all enemies of Rolling Dragon King. Strong as he is, he can''t have so many subordinates of Genuine Immortals. Now he is miserable! Among these Genuine Immortals, some people are at the Lord of Heaven Realm. One to one is fine. He must really be in a stew dealing with so many enemies at once!"


    "Rolling Dragon King can''t handle so many people. He''s got too many enemies. So many people have been imprisoned in the Dragon Abyss Prison that the power in the prison has far exceeded his power. Especially the Four Lords of Heaven, they can even be compared with Rolling Dragon King in power, while his best men is a Four-tribulation True Immortal. How could he beat these prisoners? I''m afraid the five Dragon Kings of the Five-dragon Regions can only compete with the gang of prisoners through cooperation. Unfortunately, these prisoners don''t have a truly convincing leader; otherwise, the power composition of the Sea Area would immediately change dramatically. Even the Five Dragon Kings would be ousted! What a pity! What a pity!" Great Dark Lord Du said, shaking his head, with a look of pity on his face.


    "You mean, this gang of prisoners will be destroyed one by one?"


    A monk of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple asked curiously.


    "It won''t happen! Although they''re not working together, their power has accumulated too much in the Dragon Abyss Prison over the years. Even if they cannot form a large whole, the small ones cannot be easily broken down. After all, they''re not stupid! What''s more, the four Lords of Heaven are agitated. I think Rolling Dragon King is doomed this time!" Great Dark Lord Du squinted slowly. "This is also our chance!"


    "Our chance? Right! This is our chance! Once the Sea Area is in chaos, we can take advantage of it and escape! At that point, who will care about us?" Another Dark Lord of the Dark Sect cried.


    "You worthless thing!" Great Dark Lord Du gave him a sidelong glare, "We came out to hunt down Ye Qingtian. Even if the Sea Area is impassable and the pursuit fails, we cannot return empty-handed and lose all our weapons. Otherwise, do we have a future? Won''t we be laughed at?"


    "It makes sense!" After being scolded, he shrunk his head and nodded repeatedly as if he had thought it through. But soon, he showed an expression of hesitation. "But all our celestial devices and magic weapons were taken away by the damned Master Jin Hua. None are left. How do we confront him? He''s a Four-tribulation True Immortal. The gap between us and him is as great as between heaven and earth. Are we going to fight him recklessly with our poor power? Even if we join hands, we could not withstand his small attack!"

 Chapter 453: The Magic Black Fire & the Chaotic Sea Area

    Chapter 453: The Magic Black Fire & the Chaotic Sea Area


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "I seem to have seen the flame somewhere before!" Zhou Bao considered. All of a sudden, he seemed to be aware of something, moving his mind and a cyan flame appeared before him.


    The flame gave off a faint cyan light in the water, and there were nine different colored streamers of light flashing.


    "Yes! Exactly like this one!" Zhou Bao seemed to find something, before touching the cyan flame with his fingers. The cyan flame flared up, and in an instant a black spirit enveloped the whole flame. Then, the cyan flame was transformed into a ball of quirky black flame.


    The quirky black flame was like a black hole. As soon as it appeared, the surrounding water, as if drawn by some force, rushed into it.


    Swoosh, Swoosh, Swoosh!


    Something strange happened. Water could have put out a fire, but the water in the sea could not extinguish the black flame in any way. On the contrary, it was completely absorbed by the flame.


    "Green Spirit has said that the Tusita Fire was made by ancient necromancers with reference to the Nine Ancient Heavenly Fires. I''ve only used the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire. What kind of flame is it?"


    Zhou Bao could easily tell that the flame coming out of the Tusita Fire was similar in nature with the black flame flashing in the cloud of fire over his head.


    Just as he was about to investigate further, the black flame suddenly flashed and dimmed. Then the unknown amount of water that it had just sucked in burst out.


    "Damn it, no!" Zhou Bao retreated repeatedly. Fortunately, he now had the property of the Primitive Dragon Chimera, which allowed him to move in the water as if he were on land, so he was not washed away by this sudden upwelling of water.


    "It is a replica, and it doesn''t last!" The reaction of black flame reminded Zhou Bao of the reaction of the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire. He instantly understood that the Tusita Fire was a replica of the Nine Ancient Heavenly Fires, and that it would not last long, even if it could exert its power.


    "In other words, the flame in the cloud of fire is also one of the Nine Ancient Heavenly Fires. It''s just that I don''t know what kind it is!" Although Green Spirit told him the Tusita Fire was a replica of the Nine Ancient Heavenly Fires, he just mentioned some of them, never mentioning what the other flames were and their uses.


    It seemed that the black flame was one of them.


    "But while the two flames are very similar, there are some differences. It should be because it''s a replica, and the black flame in this cloud of fire is genuine. It is only a little bit, but it''s a little more obscure and primitive than the black fire which the Tusita Fire produced."


    "The replica is so overwhelming. The genuine one should be even more overwhelming. According to the situation just now, this kind of flame should have been able to devour everything. Perhaps the Divine Sense of the Primitive Dragon Chimera came from this black fire. Unfortunately, on the day of my comprehension, my state was too low to bring this wonderful flame out completely. If not, I''ll have an Ancient Heavenly Fire, and that''ll be awesome!"


    Gently closing the eyes, Zhou Bao felt the powerful devouring force contained in the continuous black flame in the cloud of fire, and fell into it.


    Not knowing how long it had been, he suddenly felt something wrong, so he opened his eyes sharply. The present situation gave him a fright.


    He was surrounded by many demons and Demonic Immortals, not knowing when it happened.


    The water around him had also become erratic, creating swirling barriers around him. These vortexes, entirely made of water, formed a boundary like area in a radius of about 1,000 feet. Most bizarre of all, there were some spatial fluctuations in these strange boundary vortexes, from which a steady stream of sinister wind emerged. Zhou Bao could see clearly that these vortexes were like tiny knives, while the space was like a piece of paper, on which the tiny knives made countless tiny cuts. These tiny cuts were neither large nor deep. Because the space itself had a strong healing force, after a cut, it would automatically heal, and then be recut and healed, and so on and so on, which looked fairly creepy.


    It was this creepy boundary that stopped the outside demons and Demonic Immortals with different expressions.


    They all looked with wonder at Zhou Bao within the boundary. And they seemed relieved to see Zhou Bao open his eyes.


    "This Upper Immortal, please take back your Gang Qi. If it goes on like this, all living creatures within a hundred kilometers will die!"


    Finally, one of them stood out and walked to the boundary of Zhou Bao, with a bitter smile on his face.


    Zhou Bao was puzzled for a while, then understood immediately. The constant cracking and healing of the space would create enough gravity to draw water within a hundred kilometers, as well as living creatures in the water. Tiny as these cuts were, they were like knives that tear apart these living creatures in the water. His boundary was small, but it affected a range of hundreds of kilometers, which had widened as time got off-balanced.


    Zhou Bao smiled. Then he moved his mind slightly. The black cloud of fire over his head stopped surging, turning into black fire lights and entering his body. The boundary also disappeared.


    "I''m sorry. I suddenly comprehended something. Please forgive me for causing so much trouble!"


    The boundary was closed up, but the demons and Demonic Immortals around all looked at Zhou Bao with frightened eyes, none daring to approach.


    "No, no, it''s an honor of Mysterious Yin Mountain to have an Upper Immortal comprehending the Great Ways here!" The Demonic Immortal with the highest cultivation, the first to speak to Zhou Bao, held one fist in the other hand and forced a smile. "I''m Xie Chuan, the owner of the Mysterious Yin Mountain. Welcome, Upper Immortal. If you don''t mind, please come to my Water Mansion!"


    Xie Chuan was a Two-tribulation True Immortal, barely a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm. Genuine Immortals at this rank could run amok in the Seven-deity Regions. But in the endless Sea Area, he was nothing more than a local moneybag, a bully for a hundred kilometers around.


    "No, thanks, I''m busy now!" Zhou Bao shook his head and refused. "By the way, how long have I been here?"


    "Well, about 10 days!"


    "10 days?" Zhou Bao slightly paused. 10 days was not short. "I can''t believe it''s been 10 days! My negligence! By the way, is Rolling Dragon King dead?"


    His words nearly caused Xie Chuan to fall to the ground.


    What was "is Rolling Dragon King dead"? The Five-dragon Regions had been a bit of a mess recently. The Dragon Abyss Prison was in chaos, countless powerful Demonic Immortals having escaped prison. Rolling Dragon King''s rule of the sea was at stake. But anyway, he was still in power now, and the small Mysterious Yin Mountain still belonged to him. How could Xie Chuan answer such a direct question?


    However, he was considerate, thinking about the big things that had happened recently and looking at Zhou Bao. Then he asked cautiously, "You, Upper Immortal, are you from there, too?"


    "There? Where?" Zhou Bao was puzzled at first, then understood, "You mean the Dragon Abyss Prison?"


    Xie Chuan nodded and did not dare to answer.


    "Yeah, I came out of the Dragon Abyss Prison, so I asked you if Rolling Dragon King was dead!" Zhou Bao answered indifferently, but let out an air of ferocity duly. With a little release of the spirit of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, the surrounding demons and Demonic Immortals were completely stunned.


    "No, no, His, His Majesty Rolling Dragon King is fine. But now the Sea Area is in complete disarray because of the fall of the Dragon Abyss Prison. My Mysterious Yin Mountain is only a small place, very remote, so no one came, and it isn''t greatly affected. But..."


    "All right, I see!" Zhou Bao interrupted him and disappeared with a slight flash in the presence of this large group of demons.


    It was good to know that the Sea Area was in a mess, because he could fish in troubled waters now. His first task was to find the whereabouts of Master Jin Hua and the Third Prince of Rolling Dragon King.


    Having left Mysterious Yin Mountain, along the way, Zhou Bao detected changes. First, there were fewer demons on the sea floor. Before that, when he walked down the passage marked on the sea map, he would encounter one or two demon from time to time; but now, he had walked a few hundred kilometers, and did not find one. And occasionally he would meet a few, but they were all frightened and wounded, as if refugees were fleeing.


    Of course, in addition to these demons who looked like refugees, there were some crazy demons and Demonic Immortals. They all escaped from the Dragon Abyss Prison. They had no physical problems, but had mental problems because they were locked up for too long. Their minds were full of crazy ideas. They only know how to kill. When they met those who were weaker than them, they would kill them; and when they met those who were stronger than them, they would be killed.


    As Zhou Bao moved closer to the core of Rolling Dragon King''s region, he saw more and more fighting, from sporadic fighting to massive group fighting. He came to know what had happened in this Sea Area in the last 10 days. The many demons and Demonic Immortals that escaped from the Dragon Abyss Prison had been divided into several groups. One was those crazy people Zhou Bao had seen. They had been entirely abandoned and were only making trouble as outcasts. Another was revenging groups of different sizes, formed by complex and eager guys. They banded together to wreak havoc on Rolling Dragon King''s territory, and it was they who started the fighting that Zhou Bao saw. The other group was headed by the four Lords of Heaven. Most of the people in this group were Three-tribulation True Immortals or Four-tribulation True Immortals. This group was small, but extremely mighty. They were not making a fool of themselves on Rolling Dragon King''s territory, but were systematically dismantling his ruling structure. Two Lords of Heaven were blocking the Rolling Dragon King''s palace, while the other two Lords of Heaven with these Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm were divided into two-person teams, and began to sweep away his important halls and powerful assistants, such as Demonic Immortals like Master Bai Luo and Master Jin Hua. Although these Demonic Immortals were powerful, they seemed to have no better choice than to escape in the face of the terrible combat power of the teams that were led by Lords of Heaven and were composed of Genuine Immortals at Venerable Realm.

 Chapter 454: The 18 Dragon-bone Regions

    Chapter 454: The 18 Dragon-bone Regions


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Within a short span of ten days, the four Young Masters'' land had been attacked and the Sea Area was in chaos. The demons who had escaped the Dragon Abyss Prison were not here to snatch territory but rather to take revenge.


    They ravaged one scene after another, with the sole purpose of obliterating the Rolling Dragon King''s military force until it could not be consolidated.


    "This move is damn good. The Rolling Dragon King''s subordinates have been handicapped within ten days. By concentrating their best powers, they destroy something that was already in a state of ruin. Seems like the Four Lords of Heaven have tricked up their sleeves!" Zhou Bao thought silently to himself. But come to think of it again, the powers locked within Dragon Abyss Prison was extraordinary. Even if the Rolling Dragon King could assemble the strongest defense it would still be powerless. Plus, due to the suddenness of the attack, he did not even have time to assemble the powers at all.


    However, Zhou Bao did not think that the ending of this matter would be so unsuspenseful. The Rolling Dragon King had a huge advantage¡ªcelestial devices. He had ruled the Sea Area for so many years and the Sea Area was filled with treasures of heaven and earth. His Dragon Palace was defended even more fiercely. Disregarding the Four Lords of Heaven, even the forty associates of the Lords would not be able to break his Dragon Palace''s defense. As for the unfortunate souls from the Dragon Abyss Prison, they did not have many magic weapons in their hands. After they had been attacked by the Rolling Dragon King, the magic weapons in their hands had all been confiscated. This was their greatest advantage and also the reason why they had attacked the Rolling Dragon King. Although they did not come from wealthy family backgrounds like the Rolling Dragon King, they were not poor people. Consolidating all their family''s wealth together, they could still stand a chance to weaken the Rolling Dragon King''s power.


    Within ten days, the situation at the Rolling Dragon King''s Sea Area had changed completely. The situation was rather stable and with the Rolling Dragon King locked in his Dragon Palace, he began to understand the politics at his Sea Area. Although war was raging below, it no longer had any influence on the big picture. But to face the Dragon Palace which was as solid as a turtle''s shell, the four Lords of Heaven were also stuck. If they were not able to break through the Dragon Palace''s defense, they would not be able to kill the Rolling Dragon King, retrieve the celestial devices that was once theirs and take revenge truly. The situation began to look tricky.


    This kind of stalemate was not advantageous to the demons who broke away from the Dragon Abyss Prison. In the Sea Area, there was not only the Rolling Dragon King. There were also the other four great Dragon Kings and the 18 Dragon-bone regions. If these five powers allied together, it would be sufficient to suppress them all. The longer they were suppressed, they more disadvantageous it was to them.


    Zhou Bao also got the message he wanted from this stalemate.


    Master Jin Hua sought refuge at the 18 Dragon-bone Regions!


    From a certain angle, it could be said that Master Jin Hua would be one of the great beneficiaries if the Dragon Abyss Prison caused trouble. The Rolling Dragon King would find it hard to protect himself. Even if he could do that, he would definitely have to lose his ruling power over his section of the Sea Area. Hence Master Jin Hua, who had changed his loyalties, no longer had to be scared of the Rolling Dragon King''s revenge. As for the 18 Dragon-bone Regions, they did not receive Master Jin Hua openly out of fear of agitating the Rolling Dragon King. But now, the Rolling Dragon King''s pneuma was heavily damaged and no longer posed a threat to the 18 Dragon-bone Regions. Naturally, their movements became more ostentatious. They also grew more courageous and received Master Jin Hua. No matter what, to receive a True Immortal was a sign of power in the power politics of the Sea Area. In fact, it was not only the 18 Dragon-bone Regions that made this move. The other four Dragon Kings were also on the move and started receiving the Dragon King''s subordinates to boost their own power. In this way, even if the Rolling Dragon King could escape, he no longer would have the power to fight with the other four kings.


    "Since the Rolling Dragon King loves his third son so much, then that means he must be in the Dragon Place now. With the Dragon Palace''s protection as strong as a turtle''s shell, the Four Lords of Heaven were stuck. It would still be fruitless if I went. But as for Master Jin Hua who has just entered the 18 Dragon-bone Regions, even if they gave him a high-ranking position, he still would not have much power. Plus, he is an outsider; he would definitely be ostracized by the original powers there after he has just entered. This is an opportunity!" After considering the losses and gains, Zhou Bao decided to first seek revenge at Master Jin Hua at the 18 Dragon-bone Regions before considering if he should attack the Third Prince.


    The 18 Dragon-bone Regions was an extremely odd presence in the Five-dragon Regions. Its power and boundaries in the Five-dragon regions were lesser than any of the subordinates in the Five-dragon Regions. In fact, in this boundless Sea Area, the 18 Dragon-bone Regions'' territory was at a mountain range at the bottom of the sea. The Tusk Island that grew from it was the first city and also the only city among the eighteen cities that is above the sea. It could be said that all the eighteen cities were actually a gigantic underwater mountain range under the Tusk Island. It was also a Sea Area with a radius that extended thousands of miles.


    This gigantic mountain range was divided into eighteen layers with eighteen masters.


    The history of the 18 Dragon-bone regions was much longer than the Five-dragon Regions''. Before Wang Cheng became this piece of Sea Area''s ruler, the 18 Dragon-bone Region had already existed. After so many years, the area it controlled neither grew nor decreased at all. And the ruler of the 18 Dragon-bone Regions, the Region Master, was even more mysterious. According to hearsay, this Region Master was a Genuine Immortal of the Lord of Heaven Realm, just like the Five-dragon Regions'' Wang Cheng. But he never showed himself. Now among the 18 regions, even the most unqualified people have not seen him. Needless to say, so goes for the people under the Region Master. Even the 18 Dragon-bone Regions'' masters did not know the origins of this man, much less seen this man. in this Five-dragon Regions, no one knows about the Region Master except the Five-dragon''s King Wang Cheng.


    However, the 18 Dragon-bone Regions only looked after their own piece of land. They did not expand it. Hence, they did not bring much pressure to the Sea Area as compared to the Five-dragon Regions'' King. This was also the reason why this plot of Sea Area was named as the Five-dragon Region.


    Zhou Bao''s current goal was the 18 Dragon-bone Regions.


    Master Jin Hua sought refuge at the 18 Dragon-bone Regions but he had not seen the Region Master.


    He was a Four-tribulation True Immortal who had attained the standard of the eighteen region''s region master. To seek refuge at the 18 Dragon-bone Regions, being a region master there was not a problem. However, the 18 Dragon-bone Regions had enough region masters already. Hence, he could only be received as an assistant, such as Ming Haijun''s assistant that would advise on the diplomacy between themselves and the 18 Dragon-bone Regions.


    No matter how displeased he was in his heart, he had to obey the orders in someone else''s home.


    The chaos in the Five-dragon Regions, especially that in the Rolling Dragon King''s Sea Area, was already a source of trouble. However, the 18 Dragon-bone regions did not interfere and did not have any intentions to interfere. They had focused all their energies on Yu Nantian. The fairy weapons on Yu Nantian were their true targets. Yu Nantian wanted to seize the opportunity to escape while the Sea Area was in chaos while the 18 Dragon-bone Regions also wanted to seize this opportunity to catch their target amidst the chaos. This was not a secret in the 18 Dragon-bone regions and the newly deployed Master Jin Hua was this pursuit''s direct manager.


    "What a difficult situation! Enemies are bound to meet on a narrow road."


    Zhou Bao curled up and hid amid some corals. A vividly colored fish that swam past only treated him like an odd looking rock.


    The 18 Dragon-bone Regions never interfered with the Five-dragon Regions'' matters. Its subordinates power also did not exceed the boundaries of the 18 Dragon-bone Regions. However, just this time for Yu Nantian''s fairy weapons, Ming Haijun activated all hands on deck. It was not only Ming Haijun; even Region Master Lan Shui''er supported the mission fully.


    This was Winding Bay, the boundary between the 18 Dragon-bone Regions and the Rolling Dragon King''s Sea Area. With no one guarding it now, it was in an extreme mess. The fellas from the 18 Dragon-bone Region entered the scene, split into a few teams and started searching this piece of Sea Area.


    Winding Bay, as its name suggested, had a complicated terrain. The middle of Winding Bay was cut across by a stretch of oceanic trench that was not too long. Occasionally there were one or two hills undulating in the underwater mountain range. The terrain was complex. Finding a hidden Water Mansion here would have been difficult and even more so for a hidden person.


    Just like now, Zhou Bao used his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to hide in the corals. Although those demons were searching very thoroughly, they had not been able to trace his tracks.


    The leader of the team was Master Jin Hua. His glum face no longer had that trace of light-heartedness that was evident when they first met. Compared to his blithe appearance the previous time, Master Jin Hua''s face now had traces of years and age etched onto them. Zhou Bao could even see that Master Jin Hua had lost weight. His gaze, though, was much sharper. His Four-tribulation True Immortal''s strength and spiritual mind seemed to scan the surroundings, sharp as lightning. Land extending a radius of a thousand feet away were all seen in his eyes and under the control of his spiritual mind.


    "Assistant Region Master, Your Excellency, we have searched the area with a radius of three hundred miles from here. We could not find any traces of Yu Nantian. Take a look, do you think...!"


    "Continue searching, he is definitely here. He can''t run away!" Master Jin Hua abruptly cut into a Shrimp-headed Demon''s report. His expression appeared grim and his gaze was almost like a razor, sharp with murderous intent that gave one the chills.


    "Since he has run to Winding Bay, then he can''t run away. There is only one exit at Winding Bay. We have already sealed off the exit very tightly. We did not see him run out. That means he must be at Winding Bay!"


    "But¡ª!"


    "Order your people to search carefully. Search inch by inch and do not leave out even a bit of territory. Yes, call the second team into the oceanic trench. Since there isn''t much up here, then, he must be hiding in the oceanic trench. That celestial device of his has an evasive spirit. However, to activate it would not be easy. Plus he is injured. I have a feeling; as long as we put in a bit more effort, we can find him. Do you understand?!"


    "Yes, I understand!" the Shrimp-headed Demon did not dare to say more. He once again ran out, ordering his subordinates to search all corners meticulously. This time was more thorough than before.


    "Interesting. Since Master Jin Hua is so sure that Yu Nantian is at Winding Bay, then it must be eighty percent true that he is here!" Zhou Bao thought briefly and observed Master Jin Hua''s subordinates carefully. The subordinates he had brought obviously weren''t of a very high level. Besides Master Jin Hua who is of a Four-tribulation True Immortal status, the strongest one there was only a Genuine Immortal. There wasn''t even a Venerable. The numbers weren''t big too. There were only about fifty to sixty people and most of the demons were of Level Eight or Nine Cultivation. Those that have surpassed the Mysterious Realm had only about ten people. With this kind of strength, they could defeat a dynasty at the Seven-deity Regions; but placed in the Sea Area, especially with someone like Master Jin Hua, the assistant region master at 18 Dragon-bone Regions, it did seem a bit inadequate.


    "Master Jin Hua doesn''t seem to be too pleased with his place at 18 Dragon-bone Regions. He only brought these many people to kill Yu Nantian. Seems like I have a chance! However...!"

 Chapter 455: Battling Jin Hua

    Chapter 455: Battling Jin Hua


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Zhou Bao had wanted to make his move immediately but he began to hesitate.


    Worse come to worse, it would not succeed. Master Jin Hua, who was a Four-tribulation True Immortal, was present. There was also another Genuine Immortal present. Just with these powers it would be hard for Zhou Bao to deal with them. Needless to say, it would be even harder with tens of Level Eight or Nine experts.


    "If Yu Nantian is really here and if he is smart enough, there isn''t anything to be scared of if I make a move now. The only thing to fear is the case that Yu Nantian isn''t here or the case that he is a stupid fool who won''t know how to seize the opportunity. That would indeed be troublesome. Seems like it would be better to think of ways to bait Master Jin Hua away. I am already trained in the Primitive Dragon Chimera''s Second Primordial Spirit; activating that here would not be inferior to the natives in the sea. I would have enough chances to bait him away!"


    Having thought of all these, Zhou Bao slowly withdrew his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. He then purposely released a few breaths.


    Master Jin Hua was a Four-tribulation True Immortal and thus was extremely sensitive to spirits in the sea. Immediately after Zhou Bao released a few breaths, Master Jin Hua picked them up.


    "Who?!" He turned his head aggressively and looked towards Zhou Bao''s hiding place. Zhou Bao, as if like a shocked shrimp, hastily ran away and disappeared in the sea.


    "Chase!"


    Without much thought, Master Jinhua chased in the direction Zhou Bao disappeared to like a shark who had smelled blood. Together with him was the Genuine Immortal. As for the demons, they obviously reacted slower at first but eventually caught up and followed closely behind Master Jin Hua and the Genuine Immortal.


    "They really chased!" Seeing Master Jin Hua''s men behind him, Zhou Bao smiled faintly and gently waved his Furnace of Immortality. A gust of faint smell originating entirely from the power of the fairy weapon wafted outwards. Although his Furnace of Immortality was different from Yu Nantian''s, be it Master Jin Hua, the Genuine Immortal or the demons who all had never seen real fairy weapons before, they would not be able to discern the difference in their weapons.


    After this gust of spirit wafted outwards, although it was only temporary, it made Master Jin Hua all the more certain of his target.


    "Yes, it is this feeling. This damned fella. He''s already on the cusp of being caught yet still dares to use his fairy weapon. Psh, he won''t be able to persist for long!" Master Jin Hua could not help but be pleased after detecting the fairy weapon''s spirit. Unknowingly, his pace began to increase. He was a Four-tribulation True Immortal; his strength easily exceeded the bunch of Genuine Immortals behind him. Now that his speed had increased, no one was able to keep up with him. Zhou Bao was running in front while he chased from the back. Gradually, the distance between Master Jin Hua and his subordinates increased. Under the bait of the fairy weapon, Master Jin Hua did not sense anything at all. Or should one say, did not care at all.


    He was confident enough in his own abilities. Although he had no fairy weapons on him, he had accumulated more than one Pure Yang Celestial Devices after so many years, especially from the bunch of people from the Seven-deity Regions, where he had benefitted greatly from. Plus, his inherent cultivation was on pair with Yu Nantian''s. Even if Yu Nantian had fairy weapons, it did not bother Master Jin Hua.


    Hence, he was calmly in pursuit.


    After chasing for about an hour, the two men were miles away from Master Jin Hua''s subordinates. For the purpose of losing Master Jin Hua''s subordinates in their pursuit, he had intentionally taken a few detours as he ran ahead. With so many twists and turns in his track, it was easy to cause Master Jin Hua''s subordinates to go dizzy and lose them easily, leaving only Master Jin Hua behind him.


    "It''s here, it should be good!"


    A huge oceanic trench lay ahead. Zhou Bao''s speed began to slow down because this was his chosen battlefield.


    "Run, why aren''t you running kid? Have no strength left?!" Seeing that Zhou Bao had stopped running, Master Jin Hua secretly heaved a sigh of relief. Zhou Bao''s persistence today surprised him. But now that he saw Zhou Bao''s speed decreasing, he naturally assumed that Zhou Bao''s strength had depleted.


    Zhou Bao did not answer. He only walked slowly towards the oceanic trench.


    "What''s the problem kid? You want to run into the oceanic trench? Go ahead, jump. If you jump, I won''t chase you anymore. I do want to see how long your fairy weapon can last and resist the attack of the Black Filarial."


    Yes, Black Filarial. Black Filarial grew abundantly in the oceanic trench. In fact, from ten feet onwards, the oceanic trench teemed with Black Filarial.


    The Black Filarial was a typical kind of marine organism. It was considered typical because it was a lowly creature that resembled a strand of human hair. The longest kind could grow up to ten feet while the smallest kind was not even an inch long. They grew on the rocks on the bottom of the ocean and on corals. They had no form of intelligence and relied on microscopic organisms for living. Their lives were short, up to about a year only.


    The threat posed by a Black Filarial was not even comparable to an ant''s. But when the Black Filarials are in a considerable number, they would become a nightmare, a real nightmare.


    Besides absorbing microscopic organisms, they can also absorb pneuma. They could absorb any kind of pneuma found between heaven and earth, including Internal Qi, Real Essence, Dharma Power and even life. Regardless of the kind of living organism, they would turn into a corpse if they ever fell into a lump of Black Filarial and do not try to save themselves. There were no exceptions.


    It was the same for strong experts. Even if they practiced to the realm of Genuine Immortals, they could only choose to escape in the face of a significant amount of Black Filarial. This was because no amount of pneuma attack had any effect on Black Filarial. To kill them, one needed to use an attack based on the most straightforward and easy physics principle: to slice them into pieces. The oceanic trench ahead of them was the gathering place for all Black Filarial. No one knew how deep the oceanic trench was; neither did anyone know the precise amount of Black Filarial in there. However, everyone knew that there was once a Genuine Immortal of Lord of Heaven Realm that explored this oceanic trench; ten days later his corpse floated up to the water surface. Even his primordial spirit could not escape. Fortunately for him, his Genuine Spirit was on the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. After he was reincarnated, there was no longer any news of him.


    Hence, in this Sea Area, everyone knew that one should not visit this oceanic trench for no good reason at all. Aside from the Black Filarial in the oceanic trench, there were many more of its kind within a thousand mile radius from the oceanic trench. Plus, occasionally there would be a surge of Black Filarial ejected from the oceanic trench, causing a huge amount of Black Filarial to rise to the surface of the water. Unlucky ones who meet with a surge of Black Filarial will have a difficult experience.


    Hence, hardly anyone visited the area of a hundred miles radius from the oceanic trench. It was usually extremely quiet and obscure.


    This was exactly why Zhou Bao chose this location.


    "I won''t jump down. However, I plan to throw your body down after you die!" Zhou Bao stopped himself 100 feet away from the oceanic trench. He slowly turned around and smiled at Master Jin Hua, "Master Jin Hua, it has been a while since we last met!"


    "It''s you?!" Having now seen Zhou Bao, Master Jin Hua''s heart skipped a beat. "It was actually you... You... You have fairy weapons too?!"


    "Hehe, for the Young Master to still have the headspace to think about fairy weapons at this point in time is really surprising. You must be blinded by the potential gains of a fairy weapon. Is it worth it at this moment?!" Having heard Master Jin Hua ask about the fairy weapon, Zhou Bao truly did not know what to say.


    "Nonsense. If it was not for the fairy weapon why would I chase you for so long?!" Master Jin Hua laughed coldly. His gaze revealed a tint of suspicion. He looked around for a while and said, "You seem very confident in yourself to lure me to such a place. I suspect you want to fight with me? However, you think that you can battle with me just by luring me here? You are merely at Level Nine. I, on the other hand, am a Four-tribulation True Immortal. Do you think that you can fight me just because you have one fairy weapon? What a joke!"


    "Joke or not, we will know when we fight!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. He did not continue bantering with Master Jin Hua and disappeared.


    "Hollow travel. Is this your ultimate move?!" As Master Jin Hua saw Zhou Bao disappear, he felt a gust of wind blew towards him. He only laughed coldly.


    Boom!


    A roar as loud as thunder was heard. The surrounding waters set off a surge of waves. Zhou Bao''s fist became apparent but it did not touch Master Jin Hua. Instead, it was blocked off by a screen of light rays.


    "Hey!" Zhou Bao grunted loudly. He retreated and let the impact of his blow reverberate in his blood.


    "What a strong fist power. No wonder you are so confident! However, there is just too great a difference between our realms. Hurry and use your fairy weapon. Or else, you''ll never win against me!" Master Jin Hua retreated two steps, his expression betraying a trace of surprise. Although Zhou Bao''s fist did not hurt him, its inherent power did surprise him. It was the kind of power that a person who did not surpass the Metaphysic Realm could not possess. Only an Individual Immortal or above could possess it.


    "I don''t think I need to use a fairy weapon to win against you!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly. He stretched out his five fingers and five rays of golden light leaped around Master Jin Hua, immediately shattering his screen of golden light.


    It was the Great Fusion Technique!


    Master Jin Hua''s expression immediately changed. Seeing the rays of light leaping around him, he dare not be complacent again. After a bit of twisting and condensing, the trace of the light rays disappeared.


    "Not good!" Zhou Bao''s heart tightened. Without waiting for him to respond, a huge gust of pressure as heavy as a mountain pressed down on his head.


    "Oh!" A strange sound was heard. Zhou Bao''s heart vibrated strongly while his body oddly depressed a few feet.


    "What?!" Master Jin Hua let out a cry of surprise. The blow he delivered just now should have suppressed Zhou Bao. If not, it could at least have harmed him. But who would have thought that he only suppressed a silky earthworm! With a slip of his fingers, Zhou Bao slithered out. Without waiting for his response, Zhou Bao delivered another blow.

 Chapter 456: Skythrough Sword for Killing Master Jin Hua

    Chapter 456: Skythrough Sword for Killing Master Jin Hua


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang!


    For a while, Zhou Bao and Master Jin Hua punched each other by fists and feet in the sea. Both did not wield any magic weapon nor arts and were totally engaged in hand-to-hand combat by their own strength. Their fast-changing tactics made the combat furious.


    "Great, good, good. You really are something! Boy, Level Nine strength. A combat capability at Individual Immortal peak level. You can even keep fighting against me for such a long time. Amazing! Amazing!"


    Now Master Jin Hua had to admire Zhou Bao, who was just at a disadvantage after several rounds of close combat in the sea. If he wanted to defeat Zhou Bao, he would have to make a great effort, which was far beyond his expectation.


    Zhou Bao gained praise but he did not feel good.


    Master Jin Hua really had powerful strength. Level Four Individual Immortal was not just for show. Master Jin Hua was not inferior to Zhou Bao. Instead, he was far superior to Zhou Bao. He showed same competence in terms of the body strength. After all, as a Level Four Individual Immortal, his body strength, after being body-strengthened by thunderstorms four times, had already reached a level which Zhou Bao could not imagine.


    Thanks to him, Zhou Bao successfully practiced Real Body of Zhuyan, which made his body and strength dozens of times stronger than before. Otherwise, he could not hold on for a long time.


    However, scores of rounds made it difficult for him to continue fighting. Master Jin Hua greatly surpassed him in the aspect of punching skill and strength.


    Without his wonderful fist intent which defused the crisis at several crucial moments, he would have been beaten several times.


    He had the fist intent, so did Master Jin Hua. Zhou Bao''s fist intent was abnormal while Master Jin Hua''s was more mature. Compared with Zhou Bao''s incomplete fist intent, Master Jin Hua was in a dominant position. After all, it''s undersea. Even if Zhou Bao wanted to play his Black Sun Fist Intent, it would be subject to failure in the vast sea. Master Jin Hua''s fist intent was weird. It was a giant vortex and infinitely powerful when being wielded. Thanks to the good opportunity and favorable geographical location, Master Jin Hua had an advantage because it was a right place for him to play this fist intent. After several rounds, Zhou Bao was at a disadvantage.


    Feeling that he was suffering an unfavorable condition, Zhou Bao withdrew the fist intent. With his body curled, he flew against Master Jin Hua''s attack. At the same time, he fought back with three continuous movements of the Great Fusion Technic.


    "Boy, it''s undersea. Your Divine Sense is formidable, though, its power will be weakened. Do you think you can hurt me?"


    "I''m just playing for time!" Zhou Bao gave a brittle laugh. He pointed at Master Jin Hua. Then numberless tiny Sword Qi in black and white quickly shot towards Master Jin Hua, forming a storm.


    Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Sword storm!


    "Good time!" Seeing the overwhelming Sword Qi from Zhou Bao, Master Jin Hua slightly squinted and used his fist intent to form a giant vortex and attacked against the sword storm.


    Swish, Swish, Swish!


    "Gurgle, Gurgle¡ª!"


    The sword storm collided with the vortex of fist intent while the water current was continuously surging. Both smashed into each other. However, Zhou Bao did not stop. While he was thinking, a faint killing intent was sent forth from him. The surrounding sea started to retreat before the strange killing intent. Under the sea, a waterless area within a hundred-feet radius emerged around Zhou Bao. The Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword rose from behind Zhou Bao. An invincible Sword Qi appeared from Zhou Bao''s body.


    "Mighty Sword Qi! Strong killing intent!" Even though Master Jin Hua had great experience, his facial expression could not help changed when Zhou Bao was launching the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    At the moment when the Natal Sword appeared, Master Jin Hua''s face instantly changed.


    Such a strong killing intent could not be from a Level Nine expert.


    "Sh*t!" Master Jin Hua scolded in a low voice, as colorful rays of light bloomed over him.


    Zhou Bao suddenly blinked and stared at Master Jin Hua. He almost laughed because Master Jin Hua looked like a gigantic rose with the light.


    Phew! Phew! Phew! Phew! Phew! Phew! Phew! Phew! Phew!


    The soft sword voiced nine times. Nine Sword Qi shot on the dazzling rays.


    "How could it be?" When the Sword Qi was almost approaching, Master Jin Hua gave a sudden cry. The reason was that each Sword Qi emitted by Zhou Bao broke his rays and pierced his body at fast speed.


    "Pure Yang Celestial Device?" Zhou Bao also had a comfortable feeling when the Sword Qi just cut the glaring rays. "Pure Yang Celestial Device can''t resist my Sword Qi!"


    Indeed. Pure Yang Celestial Device could not withstand Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, even if the celestial device was pure Yang and preventive.


    The dense Sword Qi ripped the gorgeous rays apart as if ripping paper. Meanwhile, the unbeatable killing intent also penetrated into his body.


    "Puff!"


    Master Jin Hua only felt a great pain while the strong power moved inside his body. Although he had quick response and rushed out in a light shape, it was too late. The pores were covered with a blood fog; blood was also oozing from the Seven Apertures. If he had not escaped rapidly, his body would have been annihilated by this Sword Qi filled with killing intent.


    "Fresh Flower Armor! My Fresh Flower Armor. It''s impossible! You''re only at Level Nine. How could you break my Fresh Flower Armor!" Master Jin Hua shouted strangely due to partly body pain and partly inconceivability.


    "Fresh Flower Armor?" Hearing the Pure Yang Celestial Device''s name, Zhou Bao suddenly recalled that he had once watched a boring film. Thinking of the money spent for that cinema ticket, he felt very angry.


    "Fresh Flower Armor? Right? As I see, you''re fresh. You''re fresh. You''re taking off and wearing clothes!" Zhou Bao spoke words which were beyond everyone''s understanding, with the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi dancing in his hands.


    Swish, Swish, Swish!


    For a while, he tore Master Jin Hua''s Fresh Flower Armor into small pieces and bared his scales.


    "You''re dead meat!" Since the successful cultivation of the Four-tribulation True Immortal, Master Jin Hua had never been insulted. Although getting severely wounded by Zhou Bao''s Sword Qi attack, he still howled. Then a cyan Flying Sword was spat from his mouth.


    After the Flying Sword flew from his mouth, the Sword Qi sprayed in all directions.


    Zhou Bao sneered with an eye corner jerking and said, "Sword practitioner, playing sword in front of my Sword Qi?"


    The disdain was not only expressed in words but also on the face.


    Even though Master Jin Hua was a Four-tribulation True Immortal and owed immensely powerful Dharma power, his skill was nothing before Zhou Bao. It was not because of Zhou Bao''s excellent sword technique and the domineering sword. Instead, the reason was attributed to his strong Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword


    which had been practiced.


    The Natal Sword was just about 17cm long, looking like a transparent dagger which would easily be smashed. However, the Sword Qi of the ordinary Flying Sword was not a patch on this Natal Sword''s power.


    Zhou Bao began to launch the Natal Sword again. This time, he was really launching the sword spirit of the Natal Sword, not like what did in the past where he just wielded murderous intent and Sword Qi emitted by the Natal Sword.


    The sword spirit launched by the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword immediately made Master Jin Hua feel that everything turned red before the eyes. The Flying Sword which had just been spat out from the mouth and flown toward Zhou Bao was cut down by the blood. A sanguine Sword Qi came towards him before he could make a response.


    "You¡ª!"


    The voice stopped. He died.


    With the sword spirit turning into a sanguine stripe and killing Master Jin Hua in a second, his primordial spirit disappeared.


    Nevertheless, it did not come to an end. The sword spirit directly dashed forward in the sea and broke the oceanic trench at a short distance into two parts.


    BOOM!


    The water current flowed in a turmoil and surged. Endless black creatures, like hair, sprang up from the oceanic trench.


    Worm Tide!


    Zhou Bao''s action not only killed Master Jin Hua momentarily, the Four-tribulation True Immortal, but it also triggered the complex pneuma under the oceanic trench and the terrible Worm Tide undersea within an area of 5,000 km long.


    However, now Zhou Bao could not care so much. After the sword spirit came out, he felt that the Real Essence of the nine acupoints fiercely flew to the Natal Sword, like the flood which was discharged. A giant Dantian formed by the nine acupoints began to move and changed into a big stimulus to accelerate this process.


    It was only a streak of sword spirit!


    He almost consumed 90% Real Essence for it!


    It made Zhou Bao exhausted because it was nearly a battle for three hundred rounds between him and a well-matched opponent.


    Taking a deep breath and gathering his strength, Zhou Bao caught unlucky Master Jin Hua''s two broken bodies one by one and then disappeared in this Sea Area before the Worm Tide surged towards him.


    "I''ve never expected I need so much Real Essence to launch the Natal Sword!" Under the sea, Zhou Bao, whose face was pale, was running in a hurry with black fire light covering him, looking like an outcast.


    It was the first time for him to use the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword to fight against the enemy. Such a great power was beyond his imagination. Only an attack killed a Four-tribulation True Immortal. However, it was a great energy consumption for him. After that. he did not have strength to give a second attack. The most important thing was that the excessively strong attack triggered a Worm Tide, which would attract others'' attention. In this case, the best solution for him was to leave this hellish place.


    Raising the Real Essence forcibly, Zhou Bao launched the Three Realms Division six times continuously without knowing the direction. He stopped at a place which he did not know. He felt the Real Essence seemingly recovered. But it was not enough for him. Therefore, for his safety, he transformed the whole Real Essence into the Dragon Chimera''s Demonic Qi and then burrowed into the sea silt. The silt could not form any resistance as if meeting the most serious nemesis before the Dragon Chimera''s Demonic Qi.


    Burrowing was one of the earthworm''s best skills. It could be said that the Primitive Dragon Chimera was the earthworm''s ancestor in the world. Burrowing was one of their instincts. Under the sea, burrowing by using Dragon Chimera''s Demonic Qi he would not suffer any difficulty.


    Utilizing Dragon Chimera''s instinct, Zhou Bao soon burrowed into this remote Sea Area. He enclosed the cave mouth and made a space at a distance of a thousand meters deep. Seeing this safe place, he felt assured and put down the two corpses.

 Chapter 457: Pure Yang Celestial Device — Fake Gold Bracelet

    Chapter 457: Pure Yang Celestial Device ¡ª Fake Gold Bracelet


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Master Jin Hua was a Four-tribulation True Immortal, whose physique was quite tough and almost on par with Zhou Bao''s current strength. Unfortunately, he encountered the all-conquering sword essence of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, which had nearly exhausted 90 percent of Zhou Bao''s Real Essence in just one move. Additionally, there was a killing intent on the sword that could obliterate everything in its path. Therefore, Master Jin Hua, a Four-tribulation True Immortal, was killed by this single move, not only his physical body, but also his soul. This move was so swift and violent that Master Jin Hua had no time to use his strength against Zhou Bao before he was killed.


    Zhou Bao took Master Jin Hua''s two remaining body parts with him. His intention was not to maim the body; all he wanted were the treasures (Pure Yang Celestial Devices) which were attached to the body, and at one time had belonged to Ji Yeyue.


    Generally speaking, any Genuine Immortal who had achieved progress in cultivation would have a spatial celestial device in possession, just like the ruby ring on Zhou Bao''s finger. The reason was that practitioners would usually carry their valuables with them rather than store them in a treasure house.


    Treasure houses, Immortal''s Caves, and treasures.


    Only in novels about immortals did they write that such items were stored in treasure houses. In reality, for a real practitioner like Master Jin Hua, his body was his biggest treasure house, where all his devices were stored.


    Sitting in the mud hole on the seabed and looking through the items before him, Zhou Bao''s facial muscles were twitching involuntarily.


    He could not distinguish Master Jin Hua''s items from that of his companions.


    There were 18 Pure Yang Celestial Devices, 192 bottoms of elixirs, a number of strange refining materials, 67 cultivation manuals, some other odd items, and lastly, a mound made of gold.


    Yes, it was a pure gold hill which was over 3,000 feet high. No one could figure out how much gold there was.


    After much thought, Zhou Bao threw the gold hill into the space that was fixed to his Furnace of Immortality and then placed all the other items in his Space of Segmented Realms.


    After that, he created a fireball to incinerate Master Jin Hua''s corpse.


    "Oh, he is merely a fancy carp monster who has been practicing for numerous years. I guess it''s the will of heaven that I killed him!"thought Zhou Bao.


    With the raging black flames burning fiercely, Master Jin Hua''s corpse was soon transformed into a giant fancy carp. Watching this scene, Zhou Bao gave a wry smile. The body strength of a Genuine Immortal was beyond his expectation. But for the Demonic Fire of Dragon Chimera, he would not have been able to burn his body.


    Zhou Bao felt greatly relieved as he saw the corpse gradually turn into a heap of black ashes. Deep in his heart, he could not help having mixed emotions. After all, Master Jin Hua was a Four-tribulation True Immortal!


    However, he had died under such simple and direct circumstances!


    "It doesn''t matter whether his death was due to carelessness or weakness, there is no way I want to end up to be a heap of ashes like him in the future. This is a world that lays emphasis on strength. I will not be trampled on by others and be reduced to ashes only if I continuously improve my strength. No matter what kind of opponents I''ll meet, I cannot afford to be careless, let alone impetuous, otherwise, I might meet the same fate as him, without knowing why I have to die!" thought Zhou Bao.


    Even a Four-tribulation True Immortal was likely to be killed, let alone a Level Nine expert who had not reached the Mysterious Realm, just like him.


    From this moment on, Zhou Bao was more determined than ever to increase and improve his strength!


    Strength determined everything!


    It was an ironclad universal law!


    Killing Master Jin Hua was just the first step. The second step was to find the Third Prince and wrest from him the other half of celestial devices and treasures. As for the returning of the items, that was another matter altogether.


    In fact, at present, the Pure Yang Celestial Devices that seemed to be very precious to other people meant nothing to Zhou Bao at all.


    He himself possessed more than one Pure Yang Celestial Device. Meanwhile, to him, the powers that the Pure Yang Celestial Devices displayed had become considerably weaker. They were not as good as the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. In terms of attack, he possessed the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, Great Fusion Technic, Infinite Trembling Contemplation, Nine dragons Heavenly Fire Shield, Demonic Fire of Primitive Dragon Chimera, and horrible fist technique. Moreover, in terms of defense, he had an extremely tough body, the offense-defense fusion of Infinite Trembling Contemplation, Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Gang, Phantom Body Skill, Slippery Body Technique and many others. He had nothing to worry about and he even had a pair of strange eyes in his possession.


    Most important of all, the greatest advantage of the Pure Yang Celestial Devices meant nothing to him.


    After being refined, Pure Yang Celestial Devices were extremely powerful. Furthermore, when compared with magic arts and Divine Sense which had the same amount of power, the power they would use up was much lesser. However, Zhou Bao had opened Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints and absorbed the remaining body of Innate Deity, and thus, he possessed tremendous Real Essence Energy, which was enough to keep up with the consumption of his powerful skills, just like the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi. In terms of lethality, the Pure Yang Celestial Devices Zhou Bao possessed were no match for it. With a single move, it could easily break a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Although it would be depleted over time, Zhou Bao''s tremendous Real Essence could still handle it.


    Because of this, Pure Yang Celestial Devices were therefore not that appealing to Zhou Bao.


    Moreover, Zhou Bao was not lacking in Pure Yang Celestial Devices because he already possessed several Pure Yang Celestial Devices and even had two fairy weapons. Therefore, he was not as curious about Pure Yang Celestial Devices, unlike the others. With all the above factors added up, one could easily figure out that Zhou Bao did not value Pure Yang Celestial Devices much.


    However, this did not mean he would return these Pure Yang Celestial Devices without any resistance. There was a saying "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated". Although he did not like these devices, he thought it would be good to know how they worked.


    Zhou Bao cleaned up the mess and took a long time to scrutinize the 18 Pure Yang Celestial Devices, out of which only two items really held his attention. One was an odd-looking circular item which was made of gold and was similar to Wang She''s Invisible Dragon Rod. It looked like a very basic item, but Zhou Bao could feel some obscure space waves moving around when he shook it.


    "Is it a spatial celestial device?" While fingering it, Zhou Bao could not help thinking of that. Except for the strong material, he could not figure out if it was anything special. The main body was bare, without even a scratch on it, neither did it have the many talismans and formations that other Pure Yang Celestial Devices usually had.


    "It''s interesting. I''d like to see what function it has!" Zhou Bao thought to himself. He sent one thought wave into the circle. All of a sudden, through the telepathic connection of his thought, he could feel that everything had changed within.


    "Is it a void?"


    This circle seemed to be a very basic device, but it was connected to a void. That was to say, it worked the same way as the Furnace of Immortality which was connected to a spatial rift. The space Furnace of Immortality was connected to was a complete spatial rift with abundant spiritual qi. If Zhou Bao wanted, he could evolve it into a micro world similar to 33 Heavens. Unlike it, the void that this golden circle was connected to was very strange and fragmentary. Most important of all, this void had great suction powers, which Zhou Bao was very familiar with because it resembled the black hole he had evolved from his fist intent!


    "Can it be that this circle is connected to a black hole? Wouldn''t that be amazing?" Zhou Bao was startled. However, he did not believe that this circle was really connected to a black hole because he knew that, once it was connected to a black hole, it would be a fairy weapon rather than a celestial device!


    Only a fairy weapon had the ability to completely connect or suppress a complete space or celestial body.


    Just like his Furnace of Immortality that could suppress the gray space he found, only a fairy weapon could suppress a black hole and take it for its own use.


    The circle before him was indeed good, but it was not a fairy weapon, therefore, even if it could connect to a black hole, it must be one that was not wholly complete yet.


    "Anyway, I should refine it first!" While thinking, Zhou Bao began working on it.


    There was nothing special about the refining process. Master Jin Hua had already been killed by him, leaving only a little Genuine Spirit on the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. Although this circle still carried the brand of his spiritual sense, it was easy to erase it. With Zhou Bao''s current strength and strong spiritual sense, he quickly erased Master Jin Hua''s remaining spiritual sense and changed it to his own. Later, he took a deep breath and sent his Divine Awareness into this Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    A faint psywave came into Zhou Bao''s mind. It was about this Pure Yang Celestial Device''s information.


    "I''m wondering why it was connected to an incomplete void. It turns out that it is only a replica!" After digesting the information about this circle, Zhou Bao mulled about it in his mind.


    The main information left by its maker showed the details and usage of the device.


    It was called Fake Gold Bracelet because it was made by a necromancer from antiquity times, who copied the legendary fairy weapon named Gold Bracelet.


    Golden Bracelet had two characteristics, one was its solidity; it could be used like a brick, and no matter who was hit by it, he would be severely injured. The other was suction; it could suck up everything. No matter if it were weapons or energy, all would be sucked and suppressed by it.


    However, this fairy weapon had disappeared from the scene a long time ago already; all that was left were some bad myths about it.


    This necromancer had a good deal of interest in the fairy weapon, therefore, he had made this Pure Yang Celestial Device in accordance with the instructions from the legends of old. The space that this circle connected to was created by him. He was a powerful person who had refined a giant fireball in the void. According to the formation principle of the black hole, he finally managed to evolve it into an incomplete celestial body much like the black hole and connected it to this circle, so that its function was to suck everything up. This was somewhat similar to the simulated black hole in Zhou Bao''s fist intent. However, the black hole in Zhou Bao''s fist intent was just alike in spirit, while in this circle, it was alike both in spirit and appearance, and only then could it be considered as a small black hole.

 Chapter 458: Rolling Dragon Palace

    Chapter 458: Rolling Dragon Palace


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "The necromancers of old are really amazing. They could even produce a sun!" Zhou Bao secretly praised them in his heart. However, this was not the time to be envious of the ancient necromancer''s strength. Studying the functions of the golden dummy bracelet, Zhou Bao could not help being intrigued by it. It was an extremely useful thing and the only Pure Yang Celestial Device in which Zhou Bao was interested in among the 18 Pure Yang Celestial Devices.


    The other celestial devices were built to be used for attack or defense only, which was not attractive to him at all due to its lack of creativity.


    When he harbored a thought in the heart, the golden circle immediately changed into a bracelet and wrapped itself round Zhou Bao''s left wrist. "Hump, one day, when we have a son, I will let him wear this as a necklace. And give him a Red Armillary Sash, a Fire-tipped Spear, Wind Fire Wheels. Cosplaying Third Prince Nezha!" All these thoughts were in his heart. "Oh, yes. Third Prince. I almost forgot about you. I will also rob you!"


    Without any further delay, he left. With a spinning motion, he drilled his way underground.


    The sea was a bit choppy. Zhou Bao''s body was like a black fish, swiftly swimming in the sea and fully utilizing the speed of the Primitive Dragon Chimera.


    Rolling Dragon Palace was located in the center of the Rolling Dragon King Sea Area. There was an underwater basin here.


    What was the underwater basin?


    It meant the Palace was surrounded by a ring of mountains on three sides and on a trench on the other.


    The entire Rolling Dragon Palace occupied an area that stretched thousands of meters long in the underwater basin. It was very luxurious. Even the track leading to the Palace was paved with pearls.


    Under the sea, although pearls were of no value, it was not easy to find a completely formed pearl the size of a fist.


    Now, it was noisier than the norm in the Rolling Dragon Palace. A big defensive formation had been raised, forming a giant egg-shaped canopy and it covered the whole basin.


    Above the transparent egg-shaped canopy, lights of different colors were continuously flashing. Meanwhile, earsplitting roars could be heard.


    Boom, boom, boom!


    The loud thunderous roars went on and on unceasingly.


    A rogue pneuma wave scattered the turbulence in all directions and leveled the hilltops surrounding the Rolling Dragon Palace.


    At first, the Rolling Dragon Palace was in the middle of the three undersea hills. However, now, the three hilltops had been razed by a violent energy. The demons at the Individual Immortal levels could not get within a radius of a thousand meters. Only those who were at the Level of True Immortality could approach only within an area of a hundred meters of the Palace. Very few could get close to the core area.


    Now there were 152 people in total attacking this egg-shaped canopy, including two Genuine Immortals of Lord of Heaven Realm. Nobody knew how long the fierce attack had been going on. Zhou Bao noticed that the egg-shaped canopy was quivering and some of its energy was depleted each time it suffered a hit.


    "Wonderful guys. They have cut off the surrounding earth veins. This formation could not effectively absorb the earth vein''s spiritual qi. The strong celestial device is used continuously to consume the energy of the defensive formation until the stored energy is used up. Hehe. What a great idea!"


    "What a great disturbance!"


    Genuine Immortals, among which two were at Lord of Heaven Realm and the other at Venerable Realm, were staking out the Rolling Dragon Palace and had destroyed the earth vein; they now had the upper hand.


    However, Zhou Bao did not think that they could win that easily. After all, the Rolling Dragon King had been the dominant ruler in this Sea Area for many years. He probably held the winning cards in his hand. The prisoners had been under attack for such a long time already. But the Rolling Dragon King did not show up. He must have his own plan. Moreover, the Rolling Dragon King was not the only one controlling this Sea Area. The other four Dragon Kings were not to be trifled with. Even if they were happy to see the Rolling Dragon King get into trouble, the escaped prisoners also included their enemies. They had governed the Five-dragon Regions for many years and were not willing to see it fall into everlasting chaos. Now the most chaotic place was in the Rolling Dragon King''s Sea Area, plus some extended area around it. If the chaos were to affect the other Dragon Kings'' territories, they would certainly take measures.


    Therefore, although the escaped prisoners from the Dragon Abyss Prison showed tremendous fighting spirit, Zhou Bao was not optimistic about them winning the battle. Five-dragon Regions was a Sea Area which was in stable order and this made it difficult for it to be torn apart for such a reason. This time, the Dragon Abyss Prison Incident had happened so suddenly that nobody responded to the situation immediately, which resulted in the chaos at the Sea Area. However, the actual chaos occurred only at the Rolling Dragon King''s Sea Area. All this had been going on for sometime. After a while, some people left the Rolling Dragon King Sea Area and some escaped. The chaotic situation began to settle down. It was becoming more settled. To protect their own interest, the prisoners of the Dragon Abyss Prison had also started to fight against each other. Up till now, Zhou Bao did not often get the chance to see a situation whereby the prisoners of the Dragon Abyss Prison handled the Rolling Dragon King''s subordinates. Instead, he always saw the prisoners fighting against each other for their own good.


    It was not a good situation!


    Chaos, only sustained chaos would give the prisoners their chance. However, now, the chaos was gradually brought under control. That meant a counterattack opportunity was coming. Either the Rolling Dragon King or the other four Dragon Kings or the Region Masters of the 18 Dragon-bone Regions, as the rulers in this Sea Area, did not expect that the chaos would carry on in such a manner. It was not in accordance with their interests. The prisoners from the Dragon Abyss Prison had stronger abilities than could be imagined. However, since they lacked the spirit of cooperation, then the rulers of this Sea Area could crush them one by one.


    They had not taken any action till now not because they feared the prisoners, but because the opportunity was not there.


    Perhaps, as time went by, this opportunity would be a possibility.


    Zhou Bao held his breath and relaxed his whole body with the help of the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, silently watching the egg-shaped canopy above the Rolling Dragon Palace and appearing to be deep in thought.


    The other four Dragon Kings were so calm and had worked out a deliberate plan. Obviously, they were very confident of the defensive formation made by the Rolling Dragon Palace. The earth vein, though broken, would give them enough time before the counterattack. Once they began to attack, Zhou Bao did not think that he would have a chance to seize the treasure from the Third Prince.


    "Catch them on the wrong foot! Since you''re so confident with the egg-shaped canopy, let me destroy it. You''ll lose the Rolling Dragon Palace. By then, Rolling Dragon Palace will be in a greater chaos. I just need to capture Third Prince!"


    At this thought, Zhou Bao started getting into action. He set about setting up the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    The conditions under the sea were different from that in the Seven-deity Regions. For the practitioners in the Seven-deity Regions, they normally absorb the spiritual qi and pneuma from the air because it was convenient and within reach. However, things were slightly different under the sea. There was not much air and water in the surroundings. The physical structure of the demons and living creatures in the sea also differed from that in the Seven-deity Regions. Although they could absorb a little bit air from the seawater, it was impossible to separate the spiritual qi and pneuma from this type of air.


    The demons and living creatures in the sea cultivated themselves by relying on the earth vein.


    Compared with the Seven-deity Regions, the spiritual qi and pneuma of the earth vein were all covered and coated with thick soil. However, the earth vein, which was a thin layer, could be easily discovered and taken. The pneuma and spiritual qi in the earth vein were the basic and most important thing for the demons to practice on. Moreover, absorbing and utilizing the pneuma of the earth vein were just a matter of instinct for them.


    Hence, Rolling Dragon King used the pneuma of the earth vein to form a big defensive formation. Now the prisoners had cut off the pneuma and were still attacking strongly. However, the formation was made by the Rolling Dragon King many years ago and had absorbed the earth vein''s pneuma, which had been stored for many years. In such a way, even if the pneuma was cut off, the formation still had a formidable defensive power, which made it difficult for the prisoners to win the battle.


    Since the earth vein''s pneuma had been cut off, the Rolling Dragon Palace which had been engulfed by the egg-shaped canopy could not gather all the pneuma in that short while. And the prisoners of the Dragon Abyss Prison were in full attacking mode and not there just for practicing. Consequently, both sides in the fight did not pay attention to the underwater earth vein.


    Zhou Bao had taken note of it. In addition to that, he would take advantage of it to set up his own formation: Yin and Yang Dust Formation!


    Personal strength was limited while the original energy of the heaven and earth was infinite. Now that the formation at the Rolling Dragon Palace was constructed based on the energy of the heaven and earth, it could also be destroyed by the same energy.


    The formation at the Rolling Dragon Palace was a defensive type. It was not mysterious but practical. However, Zhou Bao had a much more superior formation: Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    Certainly, it was impossible to set up a complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation. The lucky thing was that Zhou Bao had an Innate Qi Talisman at hand. Furthermore, he was in an environment where he could directly guide the earth vein''s pneuma. From this pneuma and spiritual qi, he could easily set up a formation which could destroy the formation here. It was also his purpose.

 Chapter 459: Setting The Formation

    Chapter 459: Setting The Formation


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    This bunch of criminals of Dragon Abyss Prison had escaped from prison for a long time. After being lost for quite some time, Rolling Dragon King finally reacted. He made an initial plan, whereby stabilizing with the help of the formation plays a huge part. What Zhou Bao needed to do was to break up this part of the plan and make a mess.


    At the foot of a mountain, Zhou Bao chose an earth vein and inserted a pennant there with a wave of his hand. Later, he moved and disappeared. When he showed up again, he was at another earth vein 300 miles away.


    He moved continuously and felt relieved only after he inserted all the 49 pennants in 49 spots.


    Standing beside the 49th pennant, Zhou Bao smiled gently and puffed out a mouthful of Green Qi onto the pennant.


    Influenced by the Green Qi, the pennant vibrated suddenly and emitted a layer of green light. After that, the rest of the pennants began to radiate a similar light, as if they sensed the same spirit. The green light seeped into the water and joined together. Meanwhile, inside the earth vein of Rolling Dragon Palace, the pneuma surged gradually, as if it was called by an unknown power.


    Under the earth vein were countless earth vein branches. They were like roots of an old tree, fine and innumerable. They contained a huge amount of invisible and untouchable pneuma, which were inexhaustible. They not only nourished living creatures in the sea but also powered the practice of many demons. It flowed from ancient times, following the most basic rule between heaven and earth.


    Now, being stirred by Zhou Bao''s 49 pennants, the pneuma changed its direction of flow and began to converge on the node of those pennants. As time passed, the abnormal pneuma caused the green light on those pennants to grow brighter and the seawater to ripple strangely.


    "Oh no. The pneuma is way too strong!" Suddenly, Zhou Bao seemed to notice that something was wrong and his expression grew solemn. This was his first time setting a formation and stirring pneuma through formation flags at the bottom of the sea. Never had he expected that the pneuma here was so immense and everything went so smoothly in the process of guiding the pneuma. In just a short while, these pennants were satiated. The flags were made delicately to withstand strongly. However, they did not work well under the sea, which made Zhou Bao feel depressed.


    However, he had no other choice. The condition at the bottom of the sea was different from that of the Seven-deity Regions. If he was in the Seven-deity Regions, he would be lucky enough to guide one-tenth of the pneuma within such a short period.


    Therefore, while on land in the Seven-deity Regions, Zhou Bao had never set any Formation Eye seriously. But now, he had to. If he did not set Formation Eyes to suppress Yin and Yang Dust Formation, it will collapse. Nevertheless, there were some disadvantages of setting Formation Eyes. Firstly, once someone found the Formation Eye and destroyed it, this formation would fall apart immediately. Secondly, the Formation Eye cannot be an ordinary object, otherwise, it could not repress the raging pneuma. For example, an Innate Qi Talisman and a fairy weapon are needed to set up a fairy formation like Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Formation. The former was required to function as a guide, and the latter as the Formation Eye. Only in this way could this formation be complete. The problem was that he could not find a fairy weapon. Even if he did, he dared not do it lest it results in something irreversible. The only thing he could do now was to use a Pure Yang Celestial Device as the Formation Eye. Thankfully the Yin and Yang Dust Formation was incomplete, otherwise, a Pure Yang Celestial Device could never suppress it.


    However, using a Pure Yang Celestial Device as the Formation Eye would lead to another problem. Though the formation was incomplete, it was a fairy formation after all. Guiding the pneuma would be too draining if he used a Pure Yang Celestial Device as the Formation Eye. Although he could succeed in setting this formation, it also meant that his Pure Yang Celestial Device would become useless afterwards. Zhou Bao did have many Pure Yang Celestial Devices which he did not value that much, but sending them to his friends would be a better choice. He would feel sad if he wasted a Pure Yang Celestial Device just to break the formation. Just because of this reason, he was in a bad mood. But there was no use crying over spilt milk.


    Zhou Bao took out a random Pure Yang Celestial Device from his space. It turned out to be a colorful and gorgeous fan. One look was enough to tell that it was not an ordinary object. Although it was not refined yet, Zhou Bao had heard of its origin. It was knowns as the Five-flame Fan, a Pure Yang Celestial Device that belonged to Divine Wind Palace earlier. With one move, it could generate five powerful flames that could melt gold and iron. It has overwhelming power. Furthermore, once it was nourished carefully, it could improve his constitution and nourish his tendons and meridians. All in all, it was a wonderful Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    "Alas, no matter how amazing it is, I will have to sacrifice it! I guess the bastards from Divine Wind Palace will be able to understand me!" As he was thinking, Zhou Bao looked at the Five-flame Fan and had a strange smile. Later, he shot his hand up and threw it in the center of the formation.


    After the Five-flame Fan became the Formation Eye, the superfluous pneuma in the 49 pennants swarmed towards the Five-flame Fan crazily, as if it suddenly found an evacuation route.


    The colors emitted by the fan glittered and gradually infused into the cyan pneuma. A strange energy fluctuated and spread over all directions.


    "Haha, something fun is happening!" Zhou Bao gaze flickered and shot one divine thought in the fan. He then moved and disappeared without a trace.


    At the same time, there was a powerful demon who was attacking Rolling Dragon Palace''s protective formation. It was sensitive about spiritual Qi and finally sensed something unusual.


    "Eh? Beicang, did you feel that something is wrong?" One of the two Lords of Heaven who was attacking Rolling Dragon Palace stopped what he was doing. He looked very serious and said, "I sensed a tremendous power that is moving towards us. How about you?"


    Lord of Heaven Beicang was in a trance and could not help but quiver. "That''s right. I sensed it too. Besides, I can feel that it''s an overwhelming and irresistible power which terrifies me. I haven''t had such a feeling for many years!"


    "Yeah, it seems that something is going to happen...!" Before he finished speaking, the Lord of Heaven''s expression suddenly changed, as if he had realized something. "Hurry up. Go back, everyone! I know, I know. Someone, someone is activating the spiritual Qi of the earth vein. It seems that he''s going to attack the protective formation of Rolling Dragon Palace!"


    Beicang also realized what was going on. Without wasting time thinking, he asked the surrounding True Immortals at the Venerable Realm, who were attacking the formation, to leave quickly. His reaction was comparably slower and less sensitive as compared to the other Lord of Heaven. However, he knew what did the attacking of formations with spiritual Qi meant.


    It meant that many people would die here!


    They were making a sally port by gathering so many True Immortals at the Venerable Realm to attack the protective formation of Rolling Dragon Palace. Nothing serious would happen after their attack. However, using one formation to break another by activating the pneuma was a face-to-face fierce battle. Its aftermath could kill True Immortals at the Venerable Realm. As True Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm, they would be severely injured as well.


    From ancient times till now, human power was no match for nature''s power, no matter how powerful the practitioner was!


    Therefore, they retreated very quickly and rationally, successfully avoiding death. While they were retreating, Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Dust Formation took shape. It violently stirred seawater within a radius of 100 miles.


    Wheeze, wheeze, wheeze...


    The calm seawater began to surge. Those living creatures swimming lightheartedly were affected by the water flow. Even giant whales, sharks, and monsters felt helpless in the surging tidewater, let alone ordinary living creatures. Besides them, the surrounding demons were influenced by it too. Born and living in the sea, these helpless demons suddenly found themselves no longer able to control the familiar seawater and utilize it freely. They could only drift along with the water. Only demons who had broken through the Mysterious Realm were barely able to control their actions and swim to places with weak current, in hopes of avoiding death.


    The influence of the surging tidewater kept growing. Led by two Lords of Heaven, criminals from Dragon Abyss Prison retreated further and further. They sensed something unusual as well.


    "How unique this method is! What a powerful formation! I wonder who is the helper?" Lord of Heaven Beicang said and sighed as he felt Zhou Bao''s power.


    "Could it be the person named Qiu Hai, who you guys encountered in Dragon Abyss Prison?" The other Lord of Heaven asked. Known as Lord of Heaven Jiangchuan, a True Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm, he once launched a joint attack with Lord of Heaven Beicang toward Rolling Dragon Palace. He was quite powerful, and he hated Rolling Dragon King very much. He was trapped by him 2,000 years ago and was imprisoned in Dragon Abyss Prison. Since he escaped from the prison, he tried to be the first to harm Rolling Dragon King.


    "Qiu Hai?" Lord of Heaven Beicang was confused, and he thought of the mysterious man he had met in Dragon Abyss Prison. "That''s possible. Although he''s not so powerful, I cannot see through his true strength. But if it wasn''t for him, we wouldn''t have escaped from the prison. Since he knows Divine Senses like Infinite Realms Teleportation, I guess he probably knows one or two powerful formations. However, I doubt if he can launch this formation!"


    "Watch and you''ll figure it out!" While they were talking, the surrounding situation changed again. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation has been formed completely. As an Ancient Miraculous Formation, it affected the pneuma of the earth vein to concentrate. The surrounding water was shaped by an incredibly strong power to form a huge vortex. The door of the hollow was opened, and strands of tiny black threads appeared in the vortex. This was a special phenomenon that only appeared after the space was opened. Countless water flow entered the infinite hollow through these black filaments. Later, it was spat out by a mysterious power and turned into ice. Soon, the water in the vortex gradually turned blue. Spat out by these black filaments, numerous tiny broken ice that looked like blue crystal reacted with the seawater and formed a formidable torrent that rushed towards the Rolling Dragon Palace.

 Chapter 460: Breaking the Formation

    Chapter 460: Breaking the Formation


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Boom...


    The blue torrent ferociously attacked the transparent egg-shaped canopy, and with that, a stream of tremendous power came pouring down; it seemed as if the whole seabed was rocking violently.


    A thudding sound could be heard from the seabed and the transparent egg-shaped canopy sunk.


    It was like a spile that had been erected on the ground, but due to being hit by a great force, a part of it became embedded in the earth.


    The transparent egg-shaped canopy suddenly dipped.


    Rolling Dragon Palace had suffered heavy attacks. Although it was protected by the egg-shaped canopy, it could not hold up to the tremendous power anymore. Slowly, it started to sink. The blue vortex became larger and within a few seconds, its diameter had already exceeded 50 miles. It rotated at a decreasing speed and the blue crystals inside it continuously increased. At last, it froze and formed a huge vortex-shaped icicle, which then hit the transparent egg-shaped canopy with all its might. Everything came to a standstill.


    The raging pneuma of the earth vein stopped and the egg-shaped canopy became motionless. The huge icicle became still as well.


    Squeak, squeak, squeak!


    An unpleasant grating sound burst out and the icicle moved a little. Soon, the surface of the egg-shaped canopy began to ripple. Some thin and imperceptible cracks appeared on the top of the egg-shaped canopy.


    Gradually, these cracks grew bigger, longer, and deeper.


    Creak, creak, creak...


    The further the icicle sunk, the deeper the cracks on the egg-shaped canopy became. Finally, the canopy could no longer bear the force of the tremendous power wrought by the icicle. It had reached its limitation and the cracks suddenly expanded.


    With a crash, the canopy collapsed instantly under the heavy pressure.


    "Hiss!"


    Watching this scene, everyone present gasped. None of them had expected the egg-shaped canopy that had rendered them helpless to be so easily destroyed.


    Everything had happened so unexpectedly. Those two Lords of Heaven looked at each other speechlessly, not knowing what to do next, even though they already realized what had just happened.


    "Is he the mysterious man named Qiu Hai? What''s his background? How can he be that powerful? Not only does he know secret skills such as Infinite Realms Teleportation, but he is also capable of destroying the protective formation of Rolling Dragon Palace which we could not find a way to break. Is he the enemy of Rolling Dragon King who intends to kill him with our help?" Lord of Heaven Beicang asked in total confusion.


    "Don''t think too much. Both of us are the enemies of Rolling Dragon King. We''ll seek revenge against Rolling Dragon King even without his help. Therefore, it''s far from taking advantage of us. We can benefit from what he did as well. Now, since the defensive formation of Rolling Dragon Palace has been destroyed, we''d better attack the palace quickly. Haha, we''ll attack Rolling Dragon King while his defenses are down. I guess he has never thought that his defensive formation will be destroyed so easily. This is our opportunity!"


    "Right. Who cares about his background? As long as he''s the enemy of Rolling Dragon King, we''re friends of the same side. We don''t need to bother about his origin and purpose. What we need to do now is to seek revenge!" Lord of Heaven Beicang seemed to realize this fact belatedly. Without hesitation, he summoned his subordinates and started a violent attack on Rolling Dragon Palace.


    Pop, pop, pop...


    After the 49 loud pops had burst, those 49 formation flags could not withstand the pressure of the earth vein anymore and exploded. They all turned into ashes, scattering about onto the surrounding currents.


    Their mission was over.


    Under the pressure of the terrifying icicle, Rolling Dragon Palace''s defensive system was completely destroyed.


    "Roar¡ª!"


    A loud roar of shock and anger sounded from Rolling Dragon Palace. Anger was spilling out from the voice.


    "Who? Who did this?" This roar together with the unparalleled coercion echoed throughout the sea. It was a purely spiritual coercion that was exerted by a high-level living creature to a low-level one.


    Due to the coercion, half of the Venerables attacking Rolling Dragon Palace lost their fighting capacity. A kind of fear had seeped into their hearts and suppressed their skills, causing them to lose their strength and they were unable to fight back.


    "Eight-tribulation True Immortal?"


    Lord of Heaven Beicang and Lord of Heaven Jiangchuan looked at each other in fear. "Isn''t Rolling Dragon King a Seven-tribulation True Immortal? How did he suddenly pass through the eighth Thunder Tribulation?"


    Passing the Thunder Tribulation was not easy. The Thunder Tribulation that Genuine Immortals had to pass through would get more violent each time, especially after he reached the Lord of Heaven Realm. The tribulation would be extremely hard to pass and it was an earth-shaking affair. The sixth Thunder Tribulation was called Six Directions Thunder Tribulation, the seventh one was named Evil Thunder Tribulation, the eighth one was Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder Tribulation, and the ninth one was Nine Heavens Purple Thunder Tribulation. These were the last four Thunder Tribulations and also the most crucial stages when a Genuine Immortal was going to turn into a Human Immortal.


    There were two main differences between Genuine Immortals at the Saint Realm and at the Venerable Realm, as well as Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm and at the Lord of Heaven Realm. In terms of human body, the more Thunder Tribulations one passed, the tougher his body would be. While in terms of Real Essence and Dharma power, the Divine Qi contained in every Thunder Tribulation was different.


    Divine Qi was the collective name of spiritual qi in the world of immortals. While undergoing the first Thunder Tribulation, Metaphysic Individual Immortals'' body would be forged by thunder, and at the same time, he would feel Divine Qi, through which he purified his Real Essence. After that, Real Essence would turn into Dharma power with some amazing Divine Senses. Just like some spiritual creatures who had gifted powers from birth, Dharma power had Divine Senses too.


    However, the Divine Senses one could acquire through the first Thunder Tribulation were not powerful and the quantity was limited. That was to say, the first Thunder Tribulation just enabled a person to possess ordinary Dharma power. As a person progressed, he would be able to feel more spiritual qi before the advent of the sixth Thunder Tribulation.


    One could experience plenty of Divine Qi through the first five Thunder Tribulations, however, it was one of the most ordinary types of spiritual qi, the one like the Sacred Roots qi, which Zhou Bao''s wife, Yan Yunfei, was able to produce. It was the most ordinary and common spiritual qi in the world of immortals.


    Since Zhou Bao had a wife who could produce the Sacred Roots qi, he was able to advance his Dharma power to the level that was equal to Five-tribulation True Immortals'' without having to pass any Thunder Tribulations, but that was it. His wife could not help him if he wanted to break through the Lord of Heaven Realm. The Divine Qi that Six Directions Thunder contained was better than spiritual qi. With the exception of the Six Directions Thunder, there were also Evil Thunder, Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder, and Nine Heavens Purple Thunder. The Divine Qi that every holy thunder contained was one level lower compared to the latter. While passing the sixth Thunder Tribulation, not only was your body required to suffer the attacks of thunderbolts that were five times stronger than the fifth Thunder Tribulation but it also needed to withstand the tear of Divine Qi that was more powerful than spiritual qi. The one who succeeded would be a Lord of Heaven, while the one who failed would die.


    Therefore, since the sixth Thunder Tribulation, every Thunder Tribulation was a crucial point of life and death. Once you succeeded in passing it, your strength would increase by leaps and bounds.


    It was just like Zhou Bao''s battle with the Four-tribulation True Immortal named Master Jin Hua when he was just at Level Nine. Relied on numerous lucky chances, he was able to fight against Master Jin Hua for some time. However, if he had encountered a Six-tribulation Lord of Heaven, he would have been sent flying by a single hit, and this was the gap between a Four-tribulation True Immortal and a Six-tribulation True Immortal.


    Lord of Heaven Beicang and Lord of Heaven Jiangchuan were Six-tribulation True Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm. However, Rolling Dragon King was a Seven-tribulation True Immortal at that time. Therefore, they were defeated by him in those days. The gap between the Sixth Tribulation and the Seventh Tribulation was quite huge.


    However, this gap could be narrowed if there were a large number of experts. Except for these two Six-tribulation True Immortals, there were hundreds of True Immortals of the Venerable Realm, whose numbers would be enough to tire out Rolling Dragon King and kill him. They could easily escape unscathed after destroying Rolling Dragon Palace and trying their best to destroy the effective strength of Rolling Dragon Palace, even if they failed to kill Rolling Dragon King. All these were based on the fact that Rolling Dragon King was a Seven-tribulation True Immortal, but now, he had unexpectedly achieved the level of an Eight-tribulation True Immortal.


    "It''s impossible. He can''t be an Eight-tribulation True Immortal! If it''s true, the Five-dragon Regions should have come under his control!" Lord of Heaven Beicang was in a state of shock. Later, he seemed to recall something and spoke out loud, "If he''s an Eight-tribulation True Immortal, he should have subdued us for the first time rather than create such an uproar when we were escaping from the prison!"


    "How about the Qi Power he just released?" Although Lord of Heaven Jiangchuan knew what Lord of Heaven Beicang said was true, the Qi Power emitted from Rolling Dragon Palace was quite terrifying. Moreover, the coercion and Qi Power were exactly the same as that of Eight-tribulation True Immortals.


    "Humph. He must have used some unknown means to temporarily advance his strength to the level of Eight-tribulation True Immortals. It won''t last long!" Lord of Heaven Beicang''s eyes flickered. "We''d better drain his energy now. We may gain no merit, but we could avoid making mistakes. He cannot maintain this state all the time."


    "That''s the only thing we can do now!" Lord of Heaven Jiangchuan sighed gently. Although he was unwilling to fight against an Eight-tribulation True Immortal, since that being the case, he had no choice but to have a go at it. He hoped what Lord of Heaven Beicang said was right, otherwise, he would be in trouble.


    While these two Lords of Heaven summoned hundreds of Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm to attack Rolling Dragon Palace, Zhou Bao swung into action as well.


    However, this time, the one that sprang into action was his Second Primordial Spirit, the incarnation of the Dragon Chimera, rather than his body. The latter sheltered in the grey space and continued with its cultivation.


    The reason he used the incarnation of the Dragon Chimera rather than his body was that, although his Real Body of Zhuyan had been successfully cultivated already, it was still in an unstable condition. Therefore, as he withdrew the Second Primordial Spirit, he entered into a strange state. Though he finally entered a wonderful state and achieved a Divine Sense similar to some restricted accesses, his two Real Bodies could not live in harmony.


    Zhou Bao knew that was because his Real Body of Zhuyan had just formed and he had not fully studied the essence of it, therefore, he needed to do some closed-door training.


    Furthermore, another important reason was that he had used the incarnation of the Dragon Chimera previously and felt there was nothing special about the Dragon Chimera Fire inside his body when the defensive formation of Rolling Dragon Palace was destroyed. Rolling Dragon King''s coercion was overwhelming. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao had not reached the Metaphysic Realm. Logically, he should be affected by it, however, he was not. He became so obsessed with it that he wanted to engulf it together with its master. Just at this time, Zhou Bao thought of one thing.


    It was the Dragon Chimera!

 Chapter 461: Devouring Food (a)

    Chapter 461: Devouring Food (a)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Primitive Dragon Chimera!


    It was a Fierce Beast that fed on dragons. Previously in the Seven-deity Regions, it could not find any dragon, but now, in the Sea Area, there were plenty of dragons. At least in the Five-dragon Regions, there were five Dragon Kings. However, they were so powerful that Zhou Bao did not have the guts to eat them.


    At present, the defensive formation of Rolling Dragon Palace had been destroyed and the strong spirit of the real dragon was oozing out from the palace. Just then, Zhou Bao realized that, in the palace, there were numerous dragons including the Dragon King.


    Rolling Dragon King had many children, such as the hapless Fourth Prince, the Third Prince, who was the apple of the eye of the Dragon King, and many more. Zhou Bao could not defeat Rolling Dragon King, but he could win over his children. Moreover, he was tempted by those "delicacies" readily available now, therefore, he could not control himself.


    He exercised his Phantom Body Skill and swam in the sea undetected. Within a few seconds, he successfully entered Rolling Dragon Palace.


    Rolling Dragon Palace was not only a palace, but more like a city, a huge and luxurious one. But for the events happening, Zhou Bao probably would have been interested in taking a stroll around the palace. However, going by the current situation, Zhou Bao was definitely not in the mood to do so.


    He was completely consumed by the "hunger" in his heart. At this time, two Lords of Heaven had already summoned their subordinates and rushed into the palace. Although Rolling Dragon King''s coercion frightened some experts at the Venerable Realm, now, when he faced attacks from those two Lords of Heaven, he could not wait to withdraw his Qi Power instead of releasing it like before. To him, it was a total waste of strength.


    Those two Lords of Heaven were Six-tribulation True Immortals, but they were not enough to harm the Dragon King. However, once they summoned hundreds of Venerables to rush forward, it was a lot of work that could be quite troublesome. Those who followed the two Lords of Heaven were able to bear the Dragon King''s coercion, and they were considered as real experts among those Venerables. Those who could not withstand the coercion had vanished into thin air as the coercion disappeared. However, there were still a great number of people who had already rushed into the palace.


    Being the headquarters of the Rolling Dragon King''s territory, Rolling Dragon Palace was heavily guarded with many experts. However, no matter how strong these experts were, they were just some Genuine Immortals, among which few had already attained the Venerable Realm. Obviously, in terms of both quantity and strength, they were no match for experts in Dragon Abyss Prison. That was why Rolling Dragon King instantly built a defensive formation after those criminals escaped from the prison. Without doubt, he was powerful. However, when it came to the overall strength, criminals in Dragon Abyss Prison were far superior to his subordinates. Currently, the defensive formation of the palace had already been destroyed and he was under siege from the two Lords of Heaven. His subordinates could not withstand their enemies'' attacks anymore. Therefore, in a short period of time, the palace had fallen into total chaos as the defensive systems collapsed one by one.


    Zhou Bao transformed into a black shadow and flitted around the palace.


    "Ah! There are delicacies to be found!"


    Suddenly, he saw several figures fighting with each other, some distance away from him. Five or six experts at the Venerable Realm were attacking a One-tribulation True Immortal, whom Zhou Bao considered to be a tasty morsel.


    This Genuine Immortal was really powerful. Although he was supposedly the underdog and totally besieged by those Venerables, he remained utterly composed as he defended and attacked, and in a short period of time, he was out of danger.


    After observing for a while, Zhou Bao finally figured out the reason why this Genuine Immortal could withstand attacks from his enemies for such a long time. There was nothing special about his cultivation, instead, it was because he possessed a strong body, which far surpassed that of those Venerables, both in toughness and strength. To put it simply, he was able to put up with the attacks.


    What interested Zhou Bao most was the physical appearance of the Genuine Immortal. Generally speaking, as demons became more powerful, their appearances would become very similar to that of human beings. When they reached the Realm of Genuine Immortality, they almost resembled a human and would not have the half human, half beastlike look, unlike most of the demons in the sea. Often, they would possess some features which indicated what their Real Body was. What this Genuine Immortal possessed was a horn on his forehead. Although it was small, people could recognize it straight away.


    "It''s a dragon!" thought Zhou Bao. There was no need for him to think further, for the flickering Dragon Chimera Fire inside his body had already confirmed the fact and its desire as well.


    "Eat him, eat him, eat him...!"


    Deep in his heart, the Demonic Fire repeatedly chanted these words to influence his mind and ignite his desire to eat. Zhou Bao suddenly sped up, and all of a sudden, he had entered the "battlefield" where the six people were, appearing like a wisp of black smoke.


    "Wha...!"


    The Phantom Body Skill was so speedy and strange that all that six Genuine Immortals, among whom five were at the Venerable Realm, saw was the flash of a black shadow before they could react. Later, they heard a screech which suddenly tailed off.


    The Genuine Immortal of the Dragon tribe died before he was done screeching.


    Not only did he die on the spot, but his essence disappeared as well, leaving behind only a desiccated dragon-shaped corpse.


    "Hiss...! What''s this?"


    Those five Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm could not help gasping in shock after the incident.


    What was this? What had just happened?


    Everything was going well for the Genuine Immortal of the Dragon tribe. However, in a blink of an eye, as the enemy of those five Venerables, he died in a most horrible manner, and all they had seen was only the flash of the black light.


    After that, the Genuine Immortal fell to the ground and his original body appeared. However, it was just an extremely withered corpse. If the Dragon tribe at the Realm of Genuine Immortality showed their original body, they were at least 1,000 feet long. What about the corpse on the ground?


    It was less than 10 feet long and was hundreds of times smaller than the actual body of a Genuine Immortal.


    "Damn it. I meant to capture him alive. I didn''t expect that...!"


    "Shut up! We''d better go somewhere else and have a look!"


    Just as one of those five Venerables was going to speak, another one with a somber look, stopped him and signaled to him to stop talking.


    Those who were at the Venerable Realm were by no means simple people. They were able to read each other''s body language. Therefore, that Venerable immediately stopped talking and his eyes flickered. He lifted up the corpse, and then, the Venerables moved off and began a new search. It was as if nothing had happened.


    On the other side, Zhou Bao never thought he would receive such a result. He had confidence in his strength and knew that he would clearly be the victor when facing a One-tribulation True Immortal, but he still needed to work at it. Never did he think he could pull it off so easily. Perhaps it was because at that moment the True Immortal was solely focused on battling those Venerables, and thus neglected to be on the lookout for any sneak attack. Anyhow, it was a totally smooth and weird affair.


    Zhou Bao had only crept close to the Genuine Immortal''s side and launched the Demonic Fire of Dragon Chimera, but before he could do anything else, the Demonic Fire suddenly engulfed that immortal, much like what dried firewood would be in the face of a Raging Fire. Soon afterward, it absorbed all the essence of that immortal, and it almost caused Zhou Bao to choke.


    However, Zhou Bao was not to be blamed. Although he had acquired the Demonic Fire for many years, this was his first time using it to absorb a real dragon. He lacked the experience, but everything would improve in the future.


    After it had absorbed all the essence of that Genuine Immortal, the Demonic Fire immediately began to purify it into the purest pneuma, which later was infused into the Demonic Fire. Suddenly, Zhou Bao felt the Demonic Fire building up in him, and he himself felt very comfortable, as if he was Zhu Bajie in the novel Journey to the West, who had eaten ginseng fruit. His every pore was relaxed, and his Demonic Qi was greatly nourished and became thicker.


    "If I eat more dragons, my strength will increase by leaps and bounds! It''s just my incarnation, and once it''s refined successfully, it will give me the power that is the equivalent of an Individual Immortal. Once added with the gifted powers of Primitive Dragon Chimera and my former accumulation, it will reach the peak of the Individual Immortal Realm. If I absorb more Genuine Immortals of the Dragon tribe and use their power to nourish my body, although I cannot reach the Realm of Genuine Immortality without experiencing Thunder Tribulation, my Demonic Qi will become more immense. Oh my God! It''s just like Star-sucking skill. Oh no, it''s more like Divine Power of the North, which has no side effects. The Demonic Fire can turn all the essence of Dragon tribe into the purest pneuma to replenish my Demonic Qi. Great! I wonder whether any other creatures have this type of function as well." thought Zhou Bao.


    All of a sudden, Zhou Bao started having numerous thoughts and decided to start experimenting with them. He set out to find other demons, but his purpose did not go well. The first demon he found was also a One-tribulation True Immortal, whose Real Body could not be deciphered by him. However, this demon seemed to be a shellfish in the sea, and a lot of hard work was required before he could kill it. But it was a pity that it did not react to his Demonic Fire. His Demonic Fire even showed signs of impatience because it sensed the spirit of the Dragon tribe again.


    "Damned! Dragon Chimera, you really live up to your reputation, for your preference of eating dragons only!" Zhou Bao swore in his heart and gave up the idea of trying again. He dashed in the direction that the Demonic Fire had sensed because he could not wait to kill another dragon.


    Rolling Dragon Palace was in a total mess. The fighting had evolved into a unilateral massacre, in which criminals from Dragon Abyss Prison now had the upper hand. They had eliminated most of the experts in the palace, while the remaining demons had not reached the Metaphysic Realm. They were obviously no match for those ferocious and enraged experts at the Venerable Realm. Their corpses were piled up high, and the smell of blood permeated the air. The entire Sea Area was a sea of red.


    In the red sea, following the telepathic connection of his Demonic Qi, Zhou Bao rushed toward the headquarters of the palace.


    In the center of the palace was a luxurious hall which was the only one place that was able to defend itself against enemies. Guards here were fighting back desperately, relying on the powerful formations and inhibitions.


    "Oh no, the dragon isn''t here. He''s inside the hall!" though Zhou Bao. He flashed across myriads of inhibitions and entered the inner part of the hall to find his target, but he soon discovered that there was something not quite right here. The Demonic Immortals here did not belong to the Dragon tribe and they did not have any bloodline linked to the Dragon tribe at all. Even if they did, it was very weak, and this was not enough to tempt his Demonic Fire.


    "Humph. Trying to escape? I won''t let you go that easily!" Zhou Bao seemed to realize something. He ignored the fighting going on in the hall and used the Phantom Body Skill to enter the basement of the palace and bypassing dozens of inhibitions. At last, he arrived at his destination.

 Chapter 462: Lunar True Thunder (b)

    Chapter 462: Lunar True Thunder (b)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "It''s all thanks to my Demonic Fire of Dragon Chimera, otherwise, you guys will be able to escape!" thought Zhou Bao.


    Under the Rolling Dragon Palace there was something that was a bit of a mystery. It was an underground palace about 1,000 feet under the ground. Compared with the palace above the ground, it was not so expansive, but it was built like a complicated maze. More than 30 Demonic Immortals of the Dragon tribe were there, deep in discussion about something.


    "Big brother and second elder brother, we cannot stay here all the time. We must go out and help our father!"


    These Demonic Immortals'' cultivations varied. Those with the highest cultivation were two Three-tribulation True Immortals, who looked cold and solemn. The one with the lowest cultivation had not reached the Mysterious Realm yet.


    What interested Zhou Bao most was that the statuses of these Demonic Immortals were not determined by their strength. Those who were in the center were three people who were not that powerful, among whom, the most powerful one was just a Metaphysic Individual Immortal at the Blood-Changing Realm, while the weakest one who had just reached the Mysterious Realm, was also the one who was doing the talking.


    "Third brother, be quiet. Do not show disrespect for your elders just because you are favored by father. It''s father who told us to hide in the underground palace. He''s so invincible that there is no way he can be defeated by those criminals from Dragon Abyss Prison. He did so because that he doesn''t want our presence to be a hindrance to him, and thus spare him any further problems. You have just entered into the Mysterious Realm, therefore, there is nothing you can do. You will merely be an encumbrance to him!"


    Amongst these three people, a Demonic Immortal of the Dragon tribe who seemed to be 20 years old was scolding a teenager aged 16 or 17 in a low tone.


    "The teen flushed due to the scolding. He glared at the person who scolded him and replied in outrage, "I don''t care about that. I definitely will go and help father. You can stay here if you''re too scared. I''m not afraid of them, I can...!"


    "Third brother, shut up!" Another person about the age of 25 or 26 shouted before the teen could finish speaking. "Don''t think too highly of yourself just because some celestial devices have been bestowed on you by our father. You''re only an Individual Immortal, therefore, even if you are able to barely operate these devices, you will not be able to withstand attacks from so many Venerables. Your second brother is right. If you go out now, you will only make a bigger mess!"


    "Big brother, but...!"


    "Stop talking. If you''re disobedient, I''ll ask Long¢ñand Long ¢ò to subdue you and take the Heaven and Earth Bag from you. Then, let''s see what you can do to help father!"


    Upon hearing that, the teen did not raise any more objections. With a discontented look on his face, he turned away angrily.


    "They should be the three princes of Rolling Dragon King. Damned. The Third Prince just looks like a child, therefore, the Fourth Prince should be younger than him. How did he try to flirt with Ji Yeyue, thinking he could get her?" Zhou Bao doubted that, but his senses were quickly taken over by the Demonic Fire inside his body, and he was overwhelmed by the desire to eat dragons. There were so many Demonic Immortals of the Dragon tribe, which was more than enough for him to have a really good meal.


    "Oh no, someone is here on a raid...!" Just when Zhou Bao moved, the two Three-tribulation True Immortals named Long¢ñand Long ¢ò respectively felt Zhou Bao''s murderous intent, and their expressions changed greatly.


    "You''re quite perceptive, but it''s too late!" thought Zhou Bao.


    Stimulated by the spirit of the Dragon tribe, Zhou Bao''s Demonic Qi began to grow. The Demonic Fire encircled him and turned into more than 30 jet black stripes, rushing toward the Demonic Immortals of the Dragon tribe in the underground palace.


    Although these Demonic Immortals had been told to be cautious, Zhou Bao''s speed was so fast that they could not avoid the Demonic Fire. Most important of all, Zhou Bao''s black Demonic Qi was born to suppress them.


    There was a saying that was similar to the relationship between Zhou Bao''s Demonic Qi and the Dragon tribe, which said, "everything has its vanquisher, just like bittern to tofu". No matter how powerful these Demonic Immortals were and how strong their Real Essence was, they could not activate their power once they encountered the Demonic Qi. Within a few seconds, all the Demonic Immortals were tightly bound by Zhou Bao''s black Demonic Qi.


    "Oh, no...!"


    "Oh my God...!"


    "Nooooo!"


    After a short burst of screechings, immense pneuma was absorbed by the Demonic Fire. Those Demonic Immortals, including three princes, without exception, were all turned into dried up corpses due to the Demonic Fire.


    "Oh, no...!"


    Above at Rolling Dragon Palace, Rolling Dragon King was fighting fiercely against Lord of Heaven Beicang and Lord of Heaven Jiangchuan. In an instant, his expression greatly altered and he started to roar as if he had a premonition that something was wrong. Golden light was glittering around his body, and the two Lords of Heaven could clearly feel an increase in pressure.


    "You all must die. I''ll kill you! I must kill you!" Rolling Dragon King roared. The golden light around him was shining brightly, and his Qi Power suddenly skyrocketed as if it was a massive balloon.


    "Damn it! Rolling Dragon King is putting up a desperate fight!"


    "What happened? Why did he suddenly go crazy?" The two Lords of Heaven looked at each other and felt extreme fear deep in their hearts.


    Danger and death were just around the corner!


    The spiritual mind and strength of Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm saved their lives. They glanced at each other and withdrew at once.


    Although they knew nothing about what had happened, they clearly understood that, if they lingered any longer, they would definitely die.


    They retreated so fast that they had no time to warn the surrounding Venerables.


    As they were retreating at full speed, a destructive power exploded from Rolling Dragon King.


    Boom!


    Sounding like a clap of thunder, a sound rang out and the golden light became much more dazzling, as if something within it had exploded. The two Genuine Immortals who were retreating felt a blast of ice-cold power rushing toward them.


    Crack, crack, crack...


    The sound of cracking of bones spread to their ears. After a while, they both felt a sharp stabbing pain.


    "It''s Lunar True Thunder. Holy shit! What happened? Why did Rolling Dragon King use this?"


    Feeling the power that could destroy them internally, they smiled bitterly at each other. However, they forcibly gathered the Dharma power that could still be of use and broke through the void, losing the courage to look back.


    Of course, they did not dare to look back. In fact, just when the Lunar True Thunder exploded, Zhou Bao fled as well. Utilizing the weird Demonic Qi of the Dragon Chimera, he had killed more than 30 Demonic Immortals of the Dragon tribe and absorbed all their essence. At that moment, he was overwhelmed by a great sense of danger, therefore, without even thinking twice, he displayed Three Realms Division and was transported to the seabed 1,000 miles away from the palace. However, that apparently was not enough because he could still feel the danger, and thus, he displayed Phantom Body Skill and escaped to the Sea Area in the far distance. He turned around in curiosity, only to find a scene that was enough to freak him out.


    The seawater behind him had frozen thoroughly from the seabed 30,000 miles deep to the surface. All this process had happened in an instant. Furthermore, the freezing process continued and spread out towards all directions very rapidly. It was so fast that the speed of Zhou Bao''s Phantom Body Skill was no match for it. Before the seawater froze, the chilly air started to eat away at Zhou Bao''s tendons and meridian, hence, he had no choice but to gather his Demonic Qi. He forcibly operated Three Realms Division and transported himself to the Sea Area a hundred miles away. This time, the freezing process gradually slowed down, but within a short span of time, the seawater behind him had started freezing again.


    At this time, Zhou Bao had no other choice. In order to avoid further problems, he directed his Furnace of Immortality to break open the hollow and entered his space. In this way, he did not have to be afraid of anything.


    Rolling Dragon King was a strong man, 30 feet tall in height with a brass-colored face. Unlike the Demonic Immortals of the Dragon tribe that Zhou Bao had encountered earlier, he did not have a horn on his forehead. The only feature that gave way his identity was his nose; it was big and eye-catching.


    He wore a bright yellow robe which was embroidered with a variety of scenes of mountain-like clouds. Behind his back was a map of the beautiful landscape. Usually, his appearance alone could frighten many people.


    "God-damned! No matter who you are and what kind of background you come from, I swear I''ll kill you! No one can protect you now! You are already a dead man!"


    The angry roar reverberated over the sea and even broke through space, echoing around the surface of the Five-dragon Regions.


    "You can kill me if you are able to find me!" thought Zhou Bao. He now appeared to be a bit embarrassed. As the Lunar True Thunder exploded, he sensed the danger and knew that he would not be able to withstand attacks from the overwhelming thunder, therefore, he entered into his independent grey space. However, it was not easy for him to get out. Luckily, he knew Infinite Realms Teleportation and through this, he had deduced the location of an uninhabited island where he had bid farewell to Ji Yeyue, otherwise, he could not come out of it.


    Just when he came out, he heard again the roar of Rolling Dragon King that echoed in the sky around the Five-dragon Regions. The vicious killing intent inside it made Zhou Bao shrink in immense fear.


    Although he had killed Demonic Immortals of the Dragon tribe in secret, he could not conceal this fact from the Dragon King. After all, his purpose was to seize the treasures that belonged to the large sects of the Seven-deity Regions from the Third Prince. Once he returned them to these sects, he would be exposed.


    "Rolling Dragon King is a True Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm whose strength is beyond anyone else. Obviously, I''m unable to harm him. Besides, his last move possesses an amazing lethality. If it had been executed in the Wuyang Region, no one would have survived. I have killed three of his sons and so many of his subordinates, who are all Demonic Immortals of the Dragon tribe, therefore, his hatred towards me is totally beyond reconciliation. If I were him, I would definitely seek revenge. Therefore, I must never let him know that I''m the killer. I absolutely cannot reveal the treasures I acquired from the Third Prince and other people, otherwise, I will have to bear the anger of a True Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm. That''s no joke. Genuine Immortals of the Lord of Heaven Realm are quite rare. Very few have reached this realm amongst all the experts in the Seven-deity Regions!" Thinking about this, Zhou Bao made up his mind secretly. He had taken back his treasures, and he could never show the celestial devices he had acquired from the Third Prince, but at the very least, he would return Master Jin Hua''s treasures.

 Chapter 463: Malicious Scheme

    Chapter 463: Malicious Scheme


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "The Five-dragon Regions have become disordered. Since I''ve already achieved my main objective, I''d better return quickly, otherwise, something bad is bound to happen. Ji Yeyue and her companions couldn''t have gotten far!" Zhou Bao thought. Without the Void Traveller, coupled with the fact that the Five-dragon Regions were in total chaos, they could have never walked through this place so easily. After all, they hadn''t even reached the Mysterious Realm yet!


    "I''ve got to find them first, then I can finally return the things I received from Master Jin Hua to pacify them just a bit. As for everything else, I''d best put them aside for now." While thinking, he suddenly sensed something. When he looked up, a hint of confusion flashed through his eyes.


    "Aye, what''s that? What a strange spirit!"


    Whilst it was faint and vanished quickly, he had managed to sense it. Just that brief moment was enough to make his Demonic Qi tremble.


    "A fairy weapon, it''s a fairy weapon! Dear God! Although its spirit is different from my Furnace of Immortality, both are equally immense and amazing. That was unquestionably the spirit of a fairy weapon. Could it be that Yu Nantian is just around the corner?" Just as such a thought struck Zhou Bao''s mind, he immediately devised a malicious scheme.


    Yes, a malicious scheme!


    "I wonder what the consequence will be after the man from the Divine Wind Palace possessed a hatred of life and death with the Rolling Dragon King!" While thinking of the powerful strength and unfathomable schemes of the Divine Wind Palace together with the overwhelming power of the Lunar True Thunder that the Rolling Dragon King had displayed just now, Zhou Bao thought of a good idea. He displayed his Phantom Body Skill and directly flashed toward the location he had sensed the spirit but a moment ago.


    The area was an uninhabited island quite far away from the center of Rolling Dragon King''s Sea Area, with a distance of 300 or 400 miles at the very least. Although the Lunar True Thunder was really quite powerful, it failed to freeze this Sea Area because the power had simply not reached here. However, just as Zhou Bao dived into the water, he immediately felt the piercing chill flow into his body.


    The Primitive Dragon Chimera was a Fierce Beast of antiquity, which lived in the boundless sea. However, just as living environments in the sea varied, so did the living creatures within. With the powerful Demonic Fire, the Primitive Dragon Chimera usually favored a warm environment. As such, it occupied the area surrounding an underwater volcano as its domain. It seldom ventured out into the cold zone which was covered by glaciers. Now, however, through the bombardment of the Lunar True Thunder, this area of the sea had also become an icy ocean. Even though the entire Sea Area, spanning tens of thousands of miles, was not completely frozen, the incarnation of the Dragon Chimera simply could not move as smoothly as it once had.


    "Damn! What Divine Sense did the Rolling Dragon King display on earth? It''s so powerful that even the Sea Area that spans tens of thousands of miles was affected in an instant. Perhaps even Ye Qingtian''s North Pole Frozen Wheel could not display such a power. Could it be that the Rolling Dragon King displayed this power by using a fairy weapon as well?"


    Such a simple idea, however, vastly underestimated the unimaginable power of Ye Qingtian''s North Pole Frozen Wheel and fairy weapons as a whole.


    The fairy weapon was so powerful that it was capable of destroying both the heavens and earth itself, with its full might unleashed. Restricted by their own cultivation, both Zhou Bao and Ye Qingtian were unable to display the real power of their fairy weapons. If its power could be fully unleashed, it would almost certainly far surpass the power of the Lunar True Thunder. Such a weapon could be a hundredfold or even a thousandfold powerful than something like the Lunar True Thunder. This knowledge, of course, was yet unknown to Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao himself just sighed with emotion on this matter because he did not wish to waste so much time pondering such things in the freezing water. He fully tapped into his spiritual mind and carefully searched the area within an area of just over 1,000 feet.


    "Rationally speaking, Yu Nantian was severely injured when he escaped from other''s pursuit and had even activated his fairy weapon forcibly. Thus, he could never have recovered in such a short time. Instead, he can only hide himself away like a mouse walking across the street. There was no way could he ostentatiously reveal the spirit of his fairy weapon. However, would he dare to entice his enemies by doing so?"


    After searching for half a day, Zhou Bao still could not find any clues. The only thing he could sense was the faint chill around him, and the lifelessness of his surroundings. From the plant life, the seaweed, moss and the coral, to the teaming aquatic creatures swimming the sea, including the fish, the shrimp, and shellfish, all had died. Even the faint life of plankton had been snuffed out.


    All kinds of corpses floated through the seawater towards the seafloor, including the corpses of whales that were 1,000 feet long and bugs that were smaller than ants. The icy blue seabed had turned into a graveyard for the creatures that died from the sharp frost. Although Zhou Bao was quite powerful, he still felt frightened before such an unnatural sight.


    The Rolling Dragon King killed countless creatures by using the Lunar True Thunder, which would undoubtedly earn him an unbelievable amount of bad karma. As a practitioner, slaughtering creatures on such a large scale was a great taboo.


    "Damn it! Since the Rolling Dragon King had the guts to do this, he must hate me to his very bones. I absolutely cannot reveal myself. I wonder whether a part of this negative karma will be mine to bear. If it is, then I will certainly have many troubles in the future!"


    He didn''t know that his future troubles were much more than he had ever thought. The Lunar True Thunder had not only slain ordinary living creatures in the sea but also hundreds of Genuine Immortals that had besieged the Rolling Dragon Palace, among which only two Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm escaped, namely Lord of Heaven Beicang and Lord of Heaven Jiangchuan. Therefore, it was a heavy karma indeed. Although he had not launched the Lunar True Thunder, he was the reason it had been fired. Hence, some of the negative karma would be passed unto him. Furthermore, more than 30 Demonic Immortals of the Dragon tribe had been slain with such cruel means, and thus, the Thunder Tribulation he would have to undergo in the future would be quite fierce and terrifying. Of course, this was a story for another time further in the future.


    Because all ordinary living creatures in the Sea Area had died from the frost, Zhou Bao did not encounter any obstacles whilst searching for the fairy weapon with his spiritual mind.


    Suddenly, a light flashed through Zhou Bao''s eyes as if he had sensed something. In that very instant he darted toward a dark place and silently hid himself.


    "He''s around here somewhere. Hah, he is right here!" After several seconds, an exciting voice came from a place not too far away from where Zhou Bao was hidden. "Outsider! The outsider from the Seven-deity Regions, do you honestly believe that you can escape from here? What a joke! You actually dared to intrude into the Rolling Dragon Palace. Did you really think that it would be so easy to break in? After being secretly captured by us, you even tried to escape. Can you escape now? If you''re wise, you''d come out and hand over your fairy weapon to me so you won''t have to suffer nearly as much, otherwise, I''ll show you what misery really is!"


    "The outsider from the Seven-deity Regions? The fairy weapon? This guy is pursuing Yu Nantian and now successfully uncovered his whereabouts." Zhou Bao thought secretly. As he saw the figure coming closer, his eyes widened. "Even if he finds Yu Nantian, how dare he come here alone? Didn''t he know that Yu Nantian possesses a fairy weapon? Does he have some trump cards to protect himself?"


    Pursuing a man with a fairy weapon was not necessarily a good thing. One could easily be hurt by his enemy during any part of this process. Now, if Zhou Bao was asked to pursue Yu Nantian, he was unwilling to do so. Especially because he did not know what fairy weapon Yu Nantian had in his possession, nor did he know what it was capable of. However, if he was asked to kill Ye Qingtian, he would be more than happy to oblige.


    At this moment, the figure came much closer and Zhou Bao could see his appearance clearly. Short and skinny, he was a Demonic Immortal in his 30s. He had 16 fingers, and each of them was like a dry branch which was quite unpleasant to the eye. He was exuding a spirit that felt extremely dangerous.


    "A Two-tribulation True Immortal? He seems to have just reached the Venerable Realm, and what on earth is he going to rely on?" As Zhou Bao uncovered the first guy''s cultivation, he was a little shocked. As a Two-tribulation True Immortal, he could do anything he liked in the Seven-deity Regions, however, in the Sea Area where Demonic Immortals were commonly seen, he was just a nobody. Where was he getting this confidence?


    Soon after, he got the answer.


    That Demonic Immortal searched the surroundings for a while but failed to find anything. However, it did not upset him and he did not leave either, instead, a sarcastic sneer flashed past his face. He took a brocade pouch out from his waist and patted it. A dozen of earthworm-like golden creatures crawled out of it and quickly spread out in all directions.


    "What are they?"


    Watching that scene, Zhou Bao was a little bit frightened. He shrunk his body into a crack in the stone. After a while, he clearly felt delicate fluctuating waves had swept through his body, as if it was searching for something. However, it did not find anything special because Zhou Bao had already activated the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill.


    "Dear God! What the hell is this kind of thing? The fluctuation of their spiritual minds can not only affect things within a wide range but also can continue searching for a long time. The spiritual minds emitted by those creatures can nearly cover the entire seabed, even penetrating nearly 2,000 feet deep. Moreover, their detection can last for a long time. Under their detection, any living creature that emitted a little spirit will eventually be found."


    As expected, after a little while, that Demonic Immortal seemed to find something. He let out a sneer and darted toward a huge coral.


    Swish! A shining black light flashed by and beat the Demon Immortal back. Watching this black light, Zhou Bao''s heart beat violently.


    The spirit of the fairy weapon! Again, he felt the spirit of that fairy weapon. Then, he saw the appearance of the fairy weapon that was treated as a treasure and kept secretly by Yu Nantian.


    It was a black Jade Plate with a soft and creamy luster, floating wistfully in the water. The current around it was repelled by the black light emanating from the fairy weapon.


    "Damn! I came here with an incarnation of the Primitive Dragon Chimera without my Fiery Eyes, otherwise, I could see it more clearly!" Zhou Bao stared at that black Jade Plate and the sheer magnitude of his greed was about to overwhelm him.


    It was a fairy weapon, one that possessed overwhelming power!


    It was something that everyone would instinctively crave! Although Zhou Bao already had one in his possession, he still could not suppress his greed when he was presented with the chance to obtain another.

 Chapter 464: The Scheme Succeeded

    Chapter 464: The Scheme Succeeded


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Once the Jade Plate started rotating, the entire Sea Area seemed to be frozen. In other words, the time came to a standstill at the Sea Area.


    "No, I can''t do this. This is something that will land me in trouble. Even if I obtain it, I cannot use it. God knows what Divine Wind Palace has done to it. Since I''m not a Demonic Immortal in the sea, I cannot stay in the sea forever. If I wrest it from Yu Nantian, I might have a showdown with Divine Wind Palace in advance if they should find out I was the grabber!" Zhou Bao cautioned himself secretly. There were plenty of good things in the world, and it was impossible for him to have them all, especially something that would only bring trouble. Only fools would rush to grab it at this moment.


    "Haha...!" Upon seeing the black Jade Plate, the Demonic Immortal was overjoyed. He asked, "Are you willing to come out now? Have you finally decided to stop hiding?" While he was talking, he guided a dozen quaint creatures back to his brocade pouch.


    "How dare you pursue me by yourself !" From under the black Jade Plate, Yu Nantian gradually emerged. After a few days, his face had become much paler and his hair was in a disheveled state. He was no longer so supercilious and had become much more mature.


    "I have always been the timid type. However, if I had known that it was that easy to get hold of your fairy weapon and still did not turn up to try and get it, wouldn''t I be like a fool?" Looking at Yu Nantian''s appearance, the Demonic Immortal sneered at him and added, "Hey, don''t pretend that all is well in front of me. Do you think that I don''t know what you have gone through? You were severely injured at the start, but you concealed your injury and pretended to be fine. Later, you suffered a serious blow from the Lunar True Thunder when you were in Rolling Dragon Palace. Although you were protected by your fairy weapon, you were extremely exhausted. Do you think that I''m afraid of you? You look strong in appearance only but I think you are really very weak already!"


    "Lunar True Thunder? Oh, is that what it is known as? I thought it was a kind of Thunder Technique. I did not expect that a Thunder Technique can be so powerful. It seems that I need to do more research into it when I go back!" Zhou Bao thought to himself after he heard what that Demonic Immortal said.


    "Humph, the Lunar True Thunder was really powerful, but I was safe due to the protection of my fairy weapon!"


    "Haha...!" The Demonic Immortal laughed wildly and said, "You''re really cunning, but you cannot hide your injury from me. Although I wasn''t in Rolling Dragon Palace at that time, I put more than 30 Golden Earthworms around the palace to keep a close watch on you. Rolling Dragon King launched the Lunar True Thunder so suddenly that you did not even have time to use your fairy weapon. Even though you survived largely due to the protection of your fairy weapon, you were still badly injured. Do you think that I don''t know that? How dare you forcibly operate your Real Essence to launch your fairy weapon? It seems that you really have a death wish!"


    "Really? How would you like to test and see if I''m really that badly hurt?"


    "No, there''s no need for me to do so. I will just stand here and wait. Let''s see how long you can maintain your current state. As soon as your energy is exhausted, I''ll take all your belongings. Haha...!"


    The Demonic Immortal laughed wildly again.


    "You are truly contemptible!" Yu Nantian appeared to be panic and swore in a low voice. "Since you are trying to take advantage of me, let''s see whether you have the ability or not!" While speaking, he pointed at the black Jade Plate above his head, and the latter gradually began to rotate. At this moment, Zhou Bao felt something was wrong.


    Everything around him stopped moving. He could not move either. He seemed to be constrained by an invisible force. Worst of all, his mind too, seemed to be frozen.


    "No... Way...!"


    Zhou Bao had a great shock. He had quickly launched the Furnace of Immortality when he first felt that something was not quite right. Luckily, with the help of this fairy weapon, the constraint he experienced was counteracted by its power.


    However, the Demonic Immortal was not that fortunate. He was frozen by the fairy weapon.


    Thanks to the Furnace of Immortality, Zhou Bao was able to ward off the effects of the Jade Plate. He had tried to use his Pure Yang Celestial Devices, but none of them could be activated, even the Poison Cold Shield, which he had refined and used for so many years; they remained motionless, as if controlled by an invisible strength.


    "Oh, it has the power of bringing time to a standstill. Good heavens! This fairy weapon can freeze time. It''s really an awesome treasure!" Greed arose in his heart again. His body even started to edge forward, trying to get hold of the Jade Plate.


    As he moved, another problem occurred. He could not rush toward Yu Nantian because the surrounding area was in a frozen state. The Furnace of Immortality was able to protect him from being affected by Yu Nantian''s fairy weapon; however, its power was limited and so was its area of coverage. If it was required to cover wider areas, it would use up more Real Essence and Dharma power. The confrontation between two fairy weapons would require a lot of Dharma power. He managed not to let his greed get the better of him and stopped operating the Furnace of Immortality with his Real Essence after being affected by the powerful constraint brought by Yu Nantian''s fairy weapon. He chose to stay where he was.


    All these things had happened very quickly. Zhou Bao abandoned the idea of robbing Yu Nantian of his fairy weapon and chose to analyze the situation rationally from the sidelines.


    "Since you have activated your fairy weapon under these circumstances, I''d like to see how long you are able to maintain your current state!" This was Zhou Bao''s second thought.


    All these thoughts flashed fleetingly across Zhou Bao''s mind. Yu Nantian took a deep breath and his pale face was flushed because he was already worn out. He took a step forward and stopped. However, that was not due to the influence of his fairy weapon, but because he could not keep himself upright any longer.


    Suddenly, he staggered and fell headlong into the slime and lost consciousness.


    Due to that, the black Jade Plate went out of control. It lost its luster and gradually stopped rotating.


    "This is my chance!" Zhou Bao was delighted. He forcibly operated his Furnace of Immortality and broke the inhibition of the black Jade Plate.


    Since the Jade Plate slowed down, the constraint it had on time also became weaker and weaker. Therefore, he easily came up behind Yu Nantian''s back and hid there. He waited until the Jade Plate stopped rotating and everything around him had returned to normal. Then, he propped Yu Nantian against a huge coral reef in such a way that it looked like Yu Nantian was holding on to the coral reef for support and to prevent himself from falling down.


    "Haha, damn you. How dare you flaunt your superiority in front of me. Your fairy weapon is powerful indeed, but you forcibly operated it even when you were unable to do that. Are you aware of the consequences it brought?" After being released from the constraint, the Demonic Immortal laughed loudly.


    In fact, under the constraint of the black Jade Plate, he noticed that Yu Nantian had taken out the plate, but before he could operate it, he was unable to stand upright due to his injury and had to hold on to the coral reef for support, leaving no strength to operate it.


    "Now, the magic weapon belongs to me!" Watching the whirling black Jade Plate floating above Yu Nantian''s head, the Demonic Immortal had extreme greed written all over his face. However, he didn''t act recklessly, instead, he stared at Yu Nantian and suddenly shot out a flash of black light toward Yu Nantian with his raised hand.


    "Good!" Yu Nantian who was severely injured suddenly looked up as if he had miraculously recovered from the injury and became excited. Streaks of cyan light shone around him, not only blocking out the black light but also sending the Demonic Immortal flying dozens of meters away.


    Luckily, he was a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm, otherwise, he would have been killed by the cyan light.


    "A Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    The Demonic Immortal suddenly looked up, but before he could do anything, a golden boat suddenly appeared before Yu Nantian. It immediately expanded and covered Yu Nantian with its golden light and then disappeared within a few seconds.


    A breeze swept through the sky. The Golden Void Traveller moved rapidly in the air. On the boat were 14 experts from the Seven-deity Regions, including Zhou Bao, with Yu Nantian as the leader.


    Yu Nantian frowned and had a puzzled look on his face.


    It had been 10 days since Rolling Dragon King had launched the Lunar True Thunder. During those days, he had been in a confused state. What had happened 10 days earlier?


    He could not remember anything!


    His injury almost had healed 10 days ago. Therefore, by relying on the power of his fairy weapon-the Time-fixing Plate, he was able to secretly enter Rolling Dragon Palace and witness an epic battle. Under the attacks of hundreds of Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm and two Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm, Rolling Dragon King should not have been the underdog. Just when the battle seemed to be going his way, Rolling Dragon King suddenly went berserk without anyone knowing the reason for it. The Dragon King then launched the Lunar True Thunder, a Thunder Technique that was forbidden and instantly killed all living creatures within a radius of 5,000 kilometers. Rolling Dragon Palace being at the center, the Sea Area within a radius of 5,000 kilometers was frozen to the core, resembling a huge ice ball. If the Time-fixing Plate had not been there to protect him, he would have been among the dead.


    However, under these circumstances, even though he had the Time-fixing Plate to protect him, he was severely injured and was on the verge of death. Although he finally managed to escape from the palace, his energy was totally spent. He did not expect that a Venerable who was adept at tracking people would be able to find him using his Golden Earthworms. Trying to frighten the Venerable away, he forcibly operated the Time-fixing Plate, but that man did not fall for it. However, after he exhausted his Real Essence due to operating the Time-fixing Plate, he fell to the ground. At that moment, he thought he would most certainly die.


    However, all these events seemed like a dream to him. When he woke up, to his surprise, he found that he was on the Void Traveller, which was floating aimlessly above the sea. Beside him was a bag filled with treasures, containing celestial devices, treasures, and materials that were stolen when they had been captives of Master Jin Hua. Although there were some missing, most of them were intact. To his surprise, he gradually recovered from his injuries. Although he was not fully healed yet, he was still able to operate the Void Traveller.


    Everything seemed like a dream which made him totally bewildered.

 Chapter 466: The Secret of the Seven-deity Regions & Moon Deer of Extended Nets Request (b)

    Chapter 466: The Secret of the Seven-deity Regions & Moon Deer of Extended Net''s Request (b)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Similar gossips and speculations were flying around. Everyone knew that Zhou Bao had acquired a Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. However, they could not figure out how his sword could be so powerful.


    At long last, they attributed all these to his good fortune. Perhaps he was just lucky enough to find two kinds of powerful Evil Qi to refine his sword and thus the sword had such powerful qualities.


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was one of the most powerful special techniques in the world that was well known to everyone. There were two reasons for this: one was that the two kinds of Yin and Yang-property Evil Qi he chose were of the best quality; the second reason was that after the infusion of these two kinds of Evil Qi, a streak of congenital killing intent was produced. Once these elements were combined, an amazing effect would take place, just like what Zhou Bao had shown while he was slaying those Demonic Immortals.


    "This guy must have found two kinds of powerful Evil Qi by pure luck, and fortunately he understood the workings of the congenital killing intent. Only in this way can his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword be so powerful and amazing. He''s really fortunate. How is it that he has not been killed by the Evil Qi and congenital killing intent?"


    Most of the people came to this conclusion and all of them envied Zhou Bao.


    "You have really worked hard this time. Although you did not manage to achieve our original purpose, it''s excusable. It''s really good to have you back alive!"


    In the yard which was booked by Immortal Palace, White Tiger looked at Zhou Bao and Moon Deer of Extended Net and comforted them, saying, "What''s more, failing to cross the sea is a good thing for us, at least we don''t need to face Ye Qingtian and his North Pole Frozen Wheel. Humph, who can ensure that you will come out alive after the collision of two fairy weapons?" "I guess you guys have heard that Yu Nantian broke in Rolling Dragon Palace solely with his fairy weapon. He robbed Rolling Dragon King of most of his treasures and killed half of his relatives. Hum, how could a Level Nine lad be so powerful? Could it be due to his fairy weapon?"


    "You all are aware of this matter, right?"


    "Of course. This matter has already elicited much discussion among all the people. He is disorganized and is always very ineffective in handling his affairs. This time was no exception. After he robbed Rolling Dragon King of his treasures, he was captured by other people. Although he finally managed to escape, his whereabouts was made known to all!"


    Although White Tiger did not tell him the full details, Zhou Bao had already figured out the so-called truth which the others believed in from his words. He was delighted that his scheme had worked. The one who had pursued Yu Nantian would be the best witness. As a Demonic Immortal at the Venerable Realm, he clearly witnessed that Yu Nantian had escaped via the Void Traveller. The truth was that it was Zhou Bao who had helped Yu Nantian to escape by taking the Void Traveller, and no one had discovered that it was him. Therefore, Yu Nantian had been made the scapegoat for Zhou Bao''s actions.


    "How could Yu Nantian be so bold by doing such a crazy thing? Isn''t he afraid of Rolling Dragon King''s revenge?"


    "Of course he is not afraid, because Rolling Dragon King is a Demonic Immortal in the sea and cannot enter the Seven-deity Regions!"


    "What? Demonic Immortals in the sea are not allowed to come ashore?" Zhou Bao was stunned. He forcibly concealed his disappointment and asked, "Why?"


    "After returning from the Sea Area, I guess you already know how powerful those Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area are. Not only the Demonic Immortals in the entire Sea Area, but even those in the Five-dragon Regions are also extremely powerful. If they want to wage a war against the Seven-deity Regions, do you think we can withstand their attacks?"


    "Of course we can''t!" Zhou Bao thought carefully and shook his head, saying, "They''re much too powerful!"


    "Yeah, the power of the Sea Area far surpasses that of the Seven-deity Regions. Although there are huge sects in the Seven-deity Regions and they have some mighty Elders and Highest Elders, they are still no match for the Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area. Then, can you guess why the Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area don''t attack the Seven-deity Regions?"


    "The Sea Area is rich in natural resources and has much more spiritual qi and pneuma than on land. Furthermore, the Sea Area is too wast and they will definitely look down at small places like the Seven-deity Regions. Most important of all, they are so used to living in the sea, that it will be hard for them to live on the land."


    "What you said sounds reasonable, but it''s just an opinionated view." White Tiger shook his head and added, "Yes, the Sea Area is wide with abundant resources and pneuma, and the Demonic Immortals there are indeed used to living in the sea, but it''s also a good choice to build a villa on the land. Although there are fewer resources on the land, there are some rare treasures that cannot be produced by the Sea Area. Although they cannot live on land for too long, they can always occupy a place and use it as a base for cultivating Magic Herbs. Think about it, if you can have a herbal garden in the sea, will you give up this opportunity?"


    "Of course not!" Zhou Bao replied.


    "Men are insatiable, so too are evil beasts, especially those Demonic Immortals. They''ve lived for so long and most of them have advanced their strength by killing others. Let''s say each one of them needs an acre of land in the Seven-deity Regions, they can also divide up the whole land. In this case, why would there be so many living creatures and human beings?"


    "Are there any other reasons?"


    "Yes. The reason why the Seven-deity Regions are called the Divine Regions is that there is a prohibition laid down by the Innate Deities. Because of this reason, powerful Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area are not allowed to go ashore. If a Demonic Immortal''s cultivation breaks through the Mysterious Realm and enters the Realm of True Immortality, besides going ashore, if he were to erroneously enter the Sea Area, which is 5,000 kilometers away from the Seven-deity Regions, he will be bombarded by the Heavenly Thunder. The closer he is to land, the more ferocious the Heavenly Thunder will be. Even if he manages to rush ashore, he will be bombarded to death by the successive thunder attacks. Moreover, if there should be more than 100 demons from the sea who do not have the cultivation of True Immortality, yet appear in the Seven-deity Regions at any time, the Heavenly Thunder will attack them randomly until their numbers are greatly reduced. Therefore, over these years, demons in the Sea Area dare not go ashore. Even if they were lucky enough to land on the Seven-deity Regions, they would be blasted to death by the Heavenly Thunder!"


    "Oh no, is there really such a thing?" This was the first time Zhou Bao had heard of this, so he looked at White Tiger in amazement, saying, "Why did Innate Deities do this?"


    "No one knows. This prohibition has existed since long ago. Everyone is accustomed to it already after so many years. No one knows the reason, even the so-called orthodox Ancient Celestial Court--Divine Wind Palace, has no record of it in their ancient books. Therefore, no one knows the real reason for it and there are no rumors and speculations as well because it is already an age-old problem!"


    "Does that mean Rolling Dragon King definitely cannot come ashore?"


    "He can''t if he uses his Demonic Dragon Body that is at the Lord of Heaven Realm. However, this time, Yu Nantian has gone too far. Since he has destroyed Rolling Dragon King''s base, no one can be sure that Rolling Dragon King will come ashore by using other means, for example, by refining an Outer-body Incarnation with lower cultivation or concealing his cultivation with secret skills. Actually, he doesn''t need to come ashore. All he needs to do is to offer a reward for the capture of Yu Nantian. He''s quite wealthy and he always takes his rare treasures with him. If he offers a dozen Pure Yang Celestial Devices as a reward for the capture of Yu Nantian, there will definitely be someone who is willing to take this risk!"


    "That makes sense!" Although Zhou Bao was somewhat disappointed, after hearing White Tiger''s words, he felt a little better now. All his hard work would be paid off, although it seemed that its effect was not what he had expected.


    "Well, we will stop there. Have a good rest and we''ll go back tomorrow!"


    "Tomorrow?" Moon Deer of Extended Net looked up and asked. He didn''t expect that they would go back so quickly.


    "Well, how long do you want to stay here?" Upon seeing Moon Deer of Extended Net''s expression, a gleam flashed across White Tiger''s eyes. He added, "What other things do you want to do?"


    "Nothing, I just didn''t expect that we''ll be going back so quickly!" Moon Deer of Extended Net replied hurriedly. He continued, "We just arrived today!"


    "Yes, you did, but we have been here for several days already. Every food in this place smells of the sea. What else can we do except to leave?" After he had finished speaking, White Tiger showed Zhou Bao and Moon Deer of Extended Net out.


    When Zhou Bao was about to go to his room, Moon Deer of Extended Net stopped him.


    Zhou Bao had neither a bad or favorable impression of Moon Deer of Extended Net. He felt sorry for his misfortune. As a Family Head whose family had been eliminated, he had wanted to take revenge but had no equivalent strength. He wanted to find some opportunities but failed each time. If not for the protection of Immortal Palace, he would have already been killed by the Wang family. Therefore, Zhou Bao always sympathized with him.


    Likewise, Moon Deer of Extended Net also envied Zhou Bao a lot. However, he clearly knew that they were at different levels. As a Level Nine expert who had easily killed a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm, Zhou Bao had a quite bright future ahead of him. He could not figure out what Zhou Bao would be in the future and dared not belittle him.


    Therefore, he treated Zhou Bao with great respect and spoke to him very politely.


    "Excellency Zhou, if you don''t mind, could you come to my room, please. I hope that you can do me a favor!"


    "Haha, no need to be so courteous. We''re all members of Immortal Palace, so you''d better call me Junior Leopard! That sounds better." Zhou Bao smiled and followed Moon Deer of Extended Net into his room, saying, "I surely will help you if I can!"


    "In fact, it''s very simple. You know what happened to me because you and Golden Rooster saved me from people of the Wang family!"


    "Yeah, I know!" Zhou Bao wore a wry smile as if he knew what Moon Deer of Extended Net was going to say. He added, "Are you asking me to avenge you? I can''t do that. I might be one of the 28 constellations of Immortal Palace and also the Earl of Jin, but I am not a killer!"


    "Of course I know. I''m not that stupid to ask you to avenge me. I''ll do it myself. I just hope that you can slowly lessen the power of the Wang family!"


    "What do you mean?"


    "You''re powerful and as the Earl of Jin, your relationship with the Wang family is not that good. Therefore, creating trouble for them should not be a problem for you. If you want to boost the development of the Wuyang Region, you need to expand your power; if your Anyuan Store wants to develop, you need to have conflicts of interest with the Wang family. In this case...!


    "Does that mean you want me to be the enemy of the Wang family, or you want me to show my stance to all the people?"


    "That''s right. However, you don''t need to display any attitude directly. With your current status and strength, you just need to be show animosity towards the Wang family and they will be in trouble soon!" said Moon Deer of Extended Net.


    Zhou Bao did not have that kind of influence previously. However, everything changed after he possessed the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword that could kill a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm with a single move.


    "That will not be a difficult task, however, as a millennium family, they are...!"


    "I''ll offer you a good price!" Moon Deer of Extended Net added, "You will definitely be satisfied with it!"

 Chapter 465: Return (a)

    Chapter 465: Return (a)


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    After floating above the sea for several days, Yu Nantian met Great Dark Lord Du and the others and led them to the Void Traveller. At the same time, he received a shocking news--Zhou Bao had killed Master Jin Hua. He had managed to regain parts of their missing treasures and had returned them to their rightful owners.


    When they saw that Yu Nantian had brought some of their treasures back as well, they were quite shocked. They looked at him in awe. It was as if their opinion of him had undergone a sudden change and they were just starting to get to know him. On one hand, he enjoyed the adulation. On the other hand, too many weird things had happened. Therefore, he did not offer too many explanations.


    It was due to this reason that he felt more perplexed these days and even felt that something was not quite right, but he could not put his finger on it.


    "Who on earth saved me? Why did he save me? Why did he return all the treasures to me? He did not even take my Time-fixing Plate. It''s a fairy weapon, how could he not be tempted by it? Did he really turn his nose up at the chance of possessing a fairy weapon? Or could there be other reasons?"


    "Nantian, what are you thinking of?" Seeing Yu Nantian standing at the prow of the boat, looking as if he was in a daze, an expert from Divine Wind Palace came up behind him and asked him gently. This expert was a member of the Yu family, being a collateral relative of Yu Nantian. He was Yu Manlou, a trusted subordinate of Yu Nantian. Lately, he could feel that there was something wrong with Yu Nantian, but he didn''t want to ask him about it. Now, it seemed that Yu Nantian was really in a plight, therefore, he came to check on him.


    "Oh, nothing. I was just trying to figure out something!" Yu Nantian shook his head and did not give him any further explanations. Having enjoyed being the center of admiration for more than 10 days, he was now too embarrassed to tell the truth. Thus, he just laughed and answered perfunctorily.


    Yu Nantian was not a fool. He was just momentarily dazzled by all the adulation he was receiving. After he came down to earth, he knew that there was something wrong. Because of his animosity toward Zhou Bao, he had initially suspected Zhou Bao of framing him. But it was a pity that this time, Zhou Bao had covered his tracks well and had a perfect alibi. When he was being pursued by that Demonic Immortal, Zhou Bao''s Real Body had been present with Great Dark Lord Du and other people. The location they met was thousands of miles away from where he was pursued. Even though he suspected that Zhou Bao was the one who framed him, he could not confirm that it was Zhou Bao, because Zhou Bao would not have the time to do so.


    Because of this, Yu Nantian did not like Zhou Bao. However, since Zhou Bao already had a perfect alibi, he was too embarrassed to ask him.


    The Void Traveller flew eastward. Yu Nantian still did not want to let the matter rest. However, as the saying goes: "Whether the water is hot or cold, only the one who drinks it knows". He knew that his strength had been greatly sapped even though he had almost recovered from his injury. Even if they could fly across the Five-dragon Regions, pursuing Ye Qingtian now, would be a joke.


    Rolling Dragon Palace was in an utter mess and the sea-closing order was of no use at all. However, since so many Demonic Immortals had escaped from Dragon Abyss Prison, the Five-dragon Regions had become much more disorderly, even their seniors of the same sect could not fly across the sea, let alone them.


    Anyhow, this situation was fine. They could not fly across the sea, and Ye Qingtian, who had already escaped to the center of the Sea Area, would not be able to find them either. They would both live in peace for the moment. This situation was good, however, it wasn''t due to them.


    "Given the current speed, we shall arrive at the Seven-deity Regions in about 10 days. We really made a mess this time, and I don''t know how to explain it to my seniors!" Great Dark Lord Du stated helplessly as he saw Yu Nantian standing at the prow and walked toward him.


    "Yeah, we really messed up this time around. Luckily, we didn''t suffer that many losses!" Yu Nantian wore a wry smile while saying this. He was a changed person after this experience and was no longer as arrogant and foppish as before.


    He was much more mature now. After coming across so many powerful Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area, he realized that his strength might be powerful in the Seven-deity Regions, but it amounted to nothing much in the Sea Area. No matter how arrogant he was, he had to face up to this reality.


    "Not bad. We''re really lucky to be in such a good condition still even after going through such an ordeal!" Great Dark Lord Du laughed and added, "Thanks to you and Zhou Bao, we didn''t suffer too many losses this time. Zhou Bao''s strength is unfathomable, he killed Master Jin Hua, a Four-tribulation True Immortal, who was ranked the top 10,000 in the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. Master Jin Hua is an expert even among Genuine Immortals who are at the Venerable Realm. I didn''t expect that he would be so easily killed by Zhou Bao!"


    "Unfathomable!" After hearing Great Dark Lord Du''s comments, Yu Nantian glanced at Zhou Bao, who was at the stern, basking in the sun.


    Zhou Bao''s strength was truly immeasurable. Yu Nantian had been framed by others and thus was able to bring those treasures back. However, Zhou Bao had killed a Four-tribulation True Immortal using his own strength and brought other treasures back. It was clear to Yu Nantian who was more powerful here.


    If not for Zhou Bao''s alibi, which was too perfect, he would think that it was Zhou Bao who had framed him.


    Indeed, he had been framed!


    At present, the Five-dragon Regions was in chaos. Very few people would bother about the sea-closing order or about the Void Traveller flying 50,000 feet above the sea.


    However, that didn''t mean the Void Traveller had gone unnoticed.


    During these few days, there were some Demonic Immortals who were supposedly here to stop them, but they had all been killed by Zhou Bao.


    This time, without bothering to conceal his strength from others, Zhou Bao displayed the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword for all to see. Its sharp Sword Qi was very invincible. Even people like Great Dark Lord Du who thought they were familiar with Zhou Bao''s power was filled with great awe.


    It was so powerful that in a single move, Demonic Immortals at the Venerable Realm would be sliced into two, let alone ordinary Demonic Immortals.


    If they had not come across so many powerful Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area during these few days, they would have been even more shocked. After all, the most powerful experts in the Seven-deity Regions were Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm. Even those who were in power in various sects were almost Individual Immortals who were about to break through to another realm or Two-tribulation True Immortals. Three-tribulation True Immortals were rarely seen there, let alone Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm.


    Perhaps Yu Taixu from Divine Wind Palace and some of the secluded older ones were Three-tribulation True Immortals. However, most of them scarcely turn up, as if they were afraid of something.


    Zhou Bao had killed all the Demonic Immortals who were on their way to stop them. Yu Nantian received a shocking news, which made him very angry.


    Someone had entered Rolling Dragon Palace, killed all the relatives of Rolling Dragon King, and robbed him of all his belongings. Because of this, he was so furious that he launched the Lunar True Thunder in desperation and swore that he would take revenge on the culprit.


    Initially, when they heard this news, everyone, including Zhou Bao, looked at Yu Nantian as if he was a monster. Although Yu Nantian wanted to deny the matter, he couldn''t because he knew that he had been framed by someone, but did not know who the person was.


    "This time, you have become the sworn enemy of Rolling Dragon King. He''s so powerful and he''s a top expert even in the boundless Sea Area. You really should be careful!"


    "Of course I will. However, he''s a Demonic Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm who cannot enter the Seven-deity Regions!" In the beginning, Yu Nantian was in a state of panic. However, he soon calmed down. He said, "If I don''t go to the Sea Area, he will not be a threat to me. Furthermore, his Sea Area is currently in an utter mess, and it''s hard to tell whether he will be able to survive or not. Even if he can, his reign over the Sea Area is not as wide as before. He has made a lot of enemies all these years!" Yu Nantian narrowed his eyes and carefully evaluated Rolling Dragon King''s strength.


    "It makes sense, but you''d better be careful! You can stay at Divine Wind Palace indefinitely, but Divine Wind Palace and other sects in the Seven-deity Regions are closely linked and their disciples may go out. Once Rolling Dragon King goes berserk and creates trouble in the sea, I''m afraid that you''ll be under a lot of pressure!"


    "I see, but...!" Yu Nantian sighed and added, "since this is the case, I have no other choice. I hope that I can return to the Seven-deity Regions earlier and report this matter to my seniors. Perhaps they can come up with some better ideas!"


    "Yeah, there is nothing we can do about it right now!" Great Dark Lord Du sighed and fell silent.


    Everything went well. After a month, exhausted after the long and tiring trip, all of them arrived at Borderline Mountain in the Central Mainland Region and entered Forever Peace Town.


    "You are finally back! We were so afraid that you will not make it back!"


    Once the Void Traveller entered the town, many people from different sects came to welcome them. When they saw that most of them were back, they felt a great sense of relief.


    Led by an Elder from Divine Wind Palace, there were a total of 10 people in the welcoming committee. The Elder was also a member of the Yu family. He brought them into the inn and sighed with emotion.


    "This time, we''re not well-prepared. We didn''t expect that Rolling Dragon King had you all marked from the beginning. Just as you set off, he issued a sea-closing order. Moreover, we didn''t expect that such big events would take place in the Five-dragon Regions all at the same time. If you had come back a little later, we would have sent out a search party to look for you at sea!"


    "Uncle Jian, we really had a narrow escape this time and two people have died on the road. We failed to get across the Sea Area and we had to turn back, it is really shameful!" Yu Nantian looked embarrassed as he said this.


    "It''s no big deal. You were really unlucky to have encountered a once in a lifetime event--Criminals escaping from Dragon Abyss Prison. Haha, it seems that the situation in the Five-dragon Regions has changed dramatically!"


    Uncle Jian patted Yu Nantian on the shoulder and comforted him, saying, "Nantian, I am delighted that you''ve become more mature after going through this ordeal!"


    Uncle Jian went round comforting people from Divine Wind Palace, and the others from the other sects did the same too. Each sect formed a clique and returned to their private areas. They set up inhibitions and started to discuss the incidents that had happened, amongst themselves.


    "Is Zhou Bao really so powerful that he was able to kill Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm with his Sword Qi?"


    "He killed a Four-tribulation True Immortal and helped you to regain your treasures. Is that really true?"


    "Powerful black-red Sword Qi! What kind of Divine Sense it is?"


    "Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword! It must have been the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword! It''s nothing new that he is familiar with the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword because Wang She knows it as well. It''s strange that how his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword could be so powerful? What kind of Evil Qi did he use to refine it?"

 Chapter 467: The Forgotten Memories

    Chapter 467: The Forgotten Memories


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "A reward that will definitely satisfy you!"


    When Moon Deer of the Extended Net said that, Zhou Bao had a few misgivings.


    "Reward? Why would I want your reward?


    "Is there something I am lacking?


    "I have Fairy Weapons and Celestial Devices. If someone wants riches, I have already stolen numerous rare treasures from the Rolling Dragon Palace which currently sit in my ruby ring. I am now richer than the entire Jin Dynasty combined, so how can anything be a threat to me?


    "A cultivation method?


    "Hehe, I am familiar with the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique of the 3,000 Great Ways. And practicing the secrets of the 3,000 Great Ways means that everything here is a piece of cake for me. Unless you have a secret realm in your family?


    "So what if there is a secret realm! I now have my own private space. Soon, I will seize the Azure Heaven. An average space is not worthy of me!"


    Zhou Bao considered it carefully. He suddenly felt that nothing in this world could move his heart again.


    "I know that you want to take revenge. I also know that you despise the Wang clan. However, you must understand that although I seem very powerful now, once I return, be it the Divine Wind Palace, the Bigwheel Temple, or even the Dragon Thunder Palace and the Jade Pool, they will all suppress my mind. I can no longer be as free as I was before!"


    "That I understand. However, your cultivation has not yet reached the Mysterious Realm. Even if they wanted to suppress you, it would not be an easy task for them. Plus, I am not asking you to attack the Wang family directly; I only wish that you can help hinder the progress of the Wang family!" Having said that, he looked deeply at Zhou Bao. "If news of your performance in the Five-dragon Regions were to be known all across the lands and if you were to express your disapproval of the Wang family, then their every step would be much harder and my purpose will have been achieved!"


    "Hmm, that''s not a bad idea. I have been feeling a bit resentful of the Wang family for a while now. If it is just to suppress them, then I think I can manage that!" Zhou Bao nodded.


    Seeing that Zhou Bao had nodded in agreement, Moon Deer of the Extended Net was ecstatic. He forcefully inhaled a breath of air, as if sealing his determination. He took out a small box from his clothes and placed it into Zhou Bao''s hands. "Since you''ve agreed, I have nothing more to say. You will find my reward in this box. I promise that you''ll definitely love it!" After speaking, Moon Deer of the Extended Net turned and walked away. He walked off with decisiveness, leaving Zhou Bao a little embarrassed. Zhou Bao understood why he walked off with such decisiveness. It was entirely because Moon Deer of the Extended Net could not bear to give this jade box to him. Moon Deer of the Extended Net was afraid that he would regret it once he saw it again. Therefore, he had to leave quickly.


    "Regardless of what one says, this Moon Deer of the Extended Net was the Family Head of a well-known family and one of the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace. Although his strength may be weak, his knowledge of the world is broad. What could concern him so much?!" Zhou Bao thought to himself and opened the jade box.


    "Huh? Why is it this object?!" Having seen the object in the box, Zhou Bao was shocked. He thought for a moment and his spiritual mind focused on the ruby ring in his hand. After rummaging around for a while, he finally found a piece of goat-skin scroll.


    "I have had this object for quite a number of years now. However, the words on this scroll are still incomprehensible to me. Who would have thought that I would obtain another one of these? But Moon Deer of the Extended Net treated it like a treasure. Could it be that this thing really has the value of a rare treasure?!" Zhou Bao took out his goat-skin scroll and compared it with the one in the box. The quality of the two scrolls was similar. One of them was given to him by Moon Deer of the Extended Net while the other was obtained from the dead body of Xue Wuya after the battle with him.


    For a long time, Zhou Bao never understood what this thing was. As his strength increased and his cultivation methods diversified, this goat-skin scroll obtained from a long time ago was almost wiped from his memory. If not for today, when Moon Deer of the Extended Net passed him a goat-skin so akin to the one he had obtained from Xue Wuya, he would not have recalled this object.


    "I have checked the words on it before and they didn''t seem to be words. Now that I look at it, they seem to resemble talismans. However, they seem to be really simple talismans with no power at all." They were like drawings of ghosts and were not interesting to Zhou Bao.


    "This Moon Deer of the Extended Net didn''t clarify what this object was either. For him to regard this object so highly and swear on the value of this object, then it is definitely not worth any less than a Pure Yang Celestial Device. But no matter how I look at it, I just can''t see how this thing could be worth a Pure Yang Celestial Device. What on earth is this thing?!" Zhou Bao cursed in his heart. He kept the two scrolls of skin in his space, intending to ask Moon Deer of the Extended Net about them when the opportunity arose.


    On the second day, after everyone had bid farewell to each other, they all left Forever Peace Town. Zhou Bao''s urge to return home was strong as he had been gone for a few months already and had no idea what the situation was like back home. The pressure that White Tiger gave people was seriously too much. Zhou Bao did not want to interact with him anymore. Even if in truth he wanted to avoid looking suspicious, he also did not want to be too close to White Tiger.


    The three of them parted ways halfway on their journey together. White Tiger and Moon Deer of the Extended Net had to return to the Immortal Palace. Zhou Bao, on the other hand, wanted to return directly to the Wuyang Region. With White Tiger by his side, it was not appropriate for Zhou Bao to ask anything. Helplessly, he suppressed the suspicions in his heart and headed directly for the Wuyang Region.


    With great Gang Wind, Zhou Bao broke open the space and left a mark of a shining black line in the space running from the central mainland all the way north. Within the span of half an hour, he reached the Wuyang Region.


    Even after a few months away, the Wuyang Region was still the same. There was not much change visible, except it was more prosperous than when Zhou Bao had left. Yan Yufei''s stomach had grown much bigger and Zhou Bao could almost sense the vitality that emanated from her belly.


    Having been apart for a few months, the husband and wife''s reunion naturally was filled with joy. After meeting his wife, Zhou Bao then met with a few of his subordinates. As he began to understand the events from the past few months, his heart grew more at peace.


    Over the past few months, nothing significant happened in the Central Mainland Region. Everything was very peaceful. His Wuyang Region and Anyuan Store had progressed significantly and the entire western region also seemed to gradually have more respect for his Wuyang Region. Although Zhou Bao did not do or say anything, everyone knew that these events were due to Zhou Bao''s admirable strength.


    "Your Excellency, your departure this time really worried us. The strength of the Wuyang Region is all due to you. Without you in this town, it has been really hard to talk about the situation here!" Seeing that Zhou Bao had returned safely, his subordinates were the happiest. When Zhou Bao had left, it was as if they had no leader. They were afraid to hear any bad news, lose their leader, and see the entire Wuyang Region fall into the hands of others.


    "Stop spewing nonsense, am I that unlucky?!" Zhou Bao joked, "What do you mean by that? Did something happen around here?"


    "Yes, Your Excellency. This matter doesn''t seem to be a big deal, but it isn''t small either!"


    "Go ahead, speak!"


    Casting his gaze upon Jiang Xiao, Wang Cheng looked vicious. "Once Your Excellency left, Wang Hua started plotting behind our backs. He sent many people, including masters of martial arts, to spy on our Wuyang Region. They almost shocked Madam!"


    "What did you say?" Zhou Bao''s gaze turned cold and the entire atmosphere in the hall was filled with murderous intent. "What did you just say, almost shocked Yunfei? Wang Hua?!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" Shaken a little by Zhou Bao''s murderous intent, Wang Cheng almost fell to the ground on his butt. Jiang Xiao, who stood by the side, also trembled a little. His master''s power had become more serious.


    "What on earth is the matter? Speak clearly!"


    "When Your Excellency left initially, it was nothing much. However, after a month, the Wang family seemed to receive some news. That rascal Wang Hua seemed extremely excited. He galvanized a few people secretly and frequently sent people to spy on the Wuyang Region. In the beginning, we gave them some warnings. But this rascal exploited the Wang Family''s power and continued to send people here. Our Wuyang Region only just started progressing, so the masters of martial arts that stand on our side aren''t many. Plus, we cannot control the villa side. We went to seek advice from Chief Wang and he told us not to act rashly and to observe the situation instead. We saw that he did not dare to oppose us publicly, so we set up some defenses. In the end, that rascal Wang Hua grew even more brazen. There was one night when he sent three Level Seven experts to spy on Lord Mansion. It was Chief Wang who found out and ordered them to retreat. If he hadn''t, Madam would have been shocked!"


    "It seems like they are really bored with their lives!" Zhou Bao commented. The murderous intent that permeated the hall just now disappeared in an instant as he said, "Alright, all of you may leave. I will settle this matter!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" Wang Cheng and Jing Xiao bowed and took their leave.


    Zhou Bao sat in his chair and tapped his fingers on the back of the chair. After a while, he suddenly spoke. "Chief Wang, what is the matter?"


    "Actually, there isn''t anything. The Wang Family seemed to have received some news of the attack on you in the Five-dragon Regions and that you were missing. He seemed to have gotten some guts then, gathering people while waiting for definitive news before he started his mission!" Wang She''s voice could be heard from the left. She revealed herself from the shadows, saying, "You must also know that the Wang Family and my Tian Long Taoism have strong ties. Just like the Wu family, their ancestors came from our Tian Long Taoism. There are also many disciples in their family that worship Tian Long Taoism. Therefore, news travels fast!"


    "Because of Tian Long Taoism''s ties with the Wang Family, you did not attack them and only frightened them away?!"


    "Yes. It is precisely because of those ties that I did not attack. You must understand that even though I am the Chief of Tian Long Taoism, I am the weakest among the three chiefs. Plus, the internal situation in Tian Long Taoism is not solid, so I did not want to be too passive!" Wang She reasoned. "Anyway, everything''s ok as long as your wife is safe. We wanted to wait for you to come back to discuss it. Now that you''ve returned, it is easy to discuss. I have also heard about your performance in the Sea Area. I never thought that you could push a Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword to such heights!"


    "Hehe, there are even more things that you can''t imagine. Since you could not attack, then leave that to me. Hmph, that Wang Family, I haven''t even created any trouble for them but they have for me. Not bad, not bad, this is a good excuse!"


    "You want to attack now?!"


    "I''ve received their blessings so, of course, I must attack!" Zhou Bao smiled. "Initially, I had wanted these guys to live for a few more days. But since they attacked me first, I will naturally not spare them!"


    "Then go ahead and attack. It''s just nice that the Divine Wind Palace wants to restrict you. This Wang Family ultimately still has ties with Tian Long Taoism and can be considered a part of the Immortal Palace. If you attack them, I think the Divine Wind Palace will be very happy!"


    Zhou Bao smiled and nodded as he said, "That''s true!"

 Chapter 468: Kill All Spoils of War

    Chapter 468: Kill All Spoils of War


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "What? Zhou Bao has returned and he''s alive? Didn''t you say that Zhou Bao stirred up a lot of trouble in the Sea Area and was punished by the Powerful Divines there?"


    At the fringes of the Wuyang Region where the Wang family''s territory lay, Wang Hua''s face was ash white. He slammed the table top and viciously eyed the four experts standing in front of him as if he was about to swallow them whole. "Now what? All of you, tell me, now what? That guy is crazy, just crazy! Now that he is back and knows that I have been spying on his land, he will definitely attack me!"


    "Be calm. Just look at yourself! Are you behaving properly? You are a lord now and you have a status in court. You''re just a rank lower than that Zhou Bao. What''s there to be scared of?"


    "Aunty, how can I not be scared!" Wang Hua looked up at Wang Yue-er who reprimanded him and his expression grew even more gloomy. "He is Zhou Bao. He dared to stir trouble in Mingyi School and even harmed the Elders! I can''t deal with that kind of person. I said before that we should only make a move once we have reliable news. You couldn''t be bothered to listen! Now he''s back and he''s coming for revenge. How can I not be scared?!"


    "That will not solve the problem!" one of the four experts sitting across from Wang Hua said with a sigh. "We can''t avoid a misfortune. Who would have thought that Zhou Bao could have escaped from the chaos in the Sea Area!"


    "Could that not have been foreseen? Could that not have been foreseen? Do you think you can pacify me with that excuse? Don''t forget that it was because of all of your confident vows that Zhou Bao would fall right into the trap that I decided to work with Kunlun Mountain. Look at what has happened now! Look...!"


    "So Kunlun Mountain is also involved!"


    Just when Wang Hua was raging, a humorous voice drifted to their ears from the door. Subsequently, Zhou Bao''s figure elegantly appeared in the house.


    "Zhou Bao?!"


    "Zhou Bao!"


    "Zhou...!"


    ...


    Time seemed to have frozen all movement. Everyone''s eyes were fixed on Zhou Bao.


    "It''s good that all of you are present here. That saves me the trouble of searching for each of you one by one!"


    "What... what do you want to do?"


    Wang Hua stood up and looked timidly at Zhou Bao as his body retreated subconsciously.


    "Nothing much. I only just want to kill all of you!" Zhou Bao grinned sinisterly.


    "Swish, Swish, Swish!"


    As if pre-arranged, the four experts who hailed from Kunlun Mountain stood up in a flash. Wang Yuebai also stood up hastily. His gaze bore a trace of vigilance, and with a wave of his hands, he broke an eccentric Jade Talisman.


    "Interesting!" Seeing the Jade Talisman crumble in Wang Yue-er''s hands, Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed as if he had seen something interesting. He reached out his hand and caressed it.


    In the instant that Wang Yue-er crushed the Jade Talisman, a ray of green light instantly wrapped around Wang Yue-er. At the same time, there were also odd spatial vibrations surrounding the green light, as if it had opened a strange passageway.


    But just as Zhou Bao reached out his hands, the green light froze immediately. The spatial vibrations also disappeared in a flash and the strange passageway had been cut off.


    "Snap!"


    The fragments of the Jade Talisman fell to the ground. Wang Yue-er stood astonished and eyed the smiling Zhou Bao in shock. "You... what do you want to do?"


    "Bang! Bang! Bang!"


    Just as Wang Yue-er was speaking, a few sounds were heard. The four experts from Kunlun Mountain were slashed into pieces by a mysterious, formless Sword Qi. The fragments of their bodies fell to the floor and the smell of blood permeated the entire house.


    "What do I want to do? Kill all of you of course!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly, eyeing Wang Yue''er''s forehead.


    "Bang!"


    Along with another faint sound, a layer of golden light appeared in front of Wang Yue-er with a tap of Zhou Bao''s fingers. But under the control of Zhou Bao''s fingers, the golden light was like a punctured balloon. A popping sound was heard and, subsequently, Wang Yue-er''s body was seen to be rigidly upright, trembling a little here and there.


    "What... what do you want to do... you... you did what... no.. this... this has got nothing to do with me! It was not my idea, it was all theirs! They should be your targets, not me! Let me go, please, let me go!"


    The scene was so odd that it shook Wang Hua to his bones. Upon facing Zhou Bao, he had already harbored hidden fears. And now that he had seen Zhou Bao''s true strength that he used to kill his protectors, the experts from Kunlun Mountain, without even moving, he almost collapsed. As he saw Zhou Bao approaching him, he pleaded incoherently.


    "Hmph!" Zhou Bao had no interest in talking to him. With a gentle caress of his sleeves, Wang Hua immediately turned into a waft of bloody mist, diffusing into nothingness.


    "I didn''t know that you had a rare treasure to protect you. However, its quality is nothing like a Pure Yang Celestial Device. How can it protect you from death?!" After killing Wang Hua, Zhou Bao then fixed his gaze on Wang Yue-er. He could not see through this woman. She seemed to carry a few Celestial Devices with her that deflected the tap of his fingers just now. But who could deflect Zhou Bao''s attack so easily?


    After Zhou Bao''s monologue had ended, he watched Wang Yue-er''s body dissolve, as if by the wind, and turn into dust that disappeared from the reaches of the earth.


    "So what if you were not directly involved? You''re the one who brought up the idea to spy on me and that was caused by your foolishness! Wang family, I murdered your family''s disciples and direct descendants, what reaction do you have? And Kunlun Mountain, previously I showed you mercy and now you have the guts to attack me?! You must be purely looking for death!"


    Thinking about the four experts sent from Kunlun Mountain, Zhou Bao''s eyes flared with rage. Since he had already killed the Wang family, he might as well kill Kunlun Mountain also!


    However, Zhou Bao was destined to be disappointed. When he reached Kunlun Mountain, he helplessly discovered that it had already been turned into a wasteland. Upon closer inspection, it was ruined only recently. It was as if it had anticipated Zhou Bao''s revenge and in response, it prepared itself by galvanizing all its residents to move away and to leave a barren land behind.


    "Kunlun Master is outstanding. Decisive thoughts with efficient news sources. It seems that he had anticipated my revenge and took this step as a defensive measure. Hmph, I don''t believe that you can hide from me your entire life!"


    Standing on the barren lands of Kunlun Mountain, Zhou Bao shouted.


    Long live the Jin Dynasty for 3 years, 4 months!


    The scene was peaceful. Nothing could be detected.


    The news of the joint plot of a few sects to murder Ye Qingtian was naturally not known to the average martial arts practitioner. The average man also was not in the know. The only news that interested the people and was related to the killer Zhou Bao was this¡ªafter being imprisoned for 3 months, this killer once again went on a rampage and killed the Wang family''s Wang Hua and took Wang Hua''s land as his own.


    Zhou Bao had also killed Wang Yue-er, which was sure to be of interest to the martial arts world.


    Wang Yue-er was not only a direct descendant of the Wang family, she was also the first beauty in the martial arts world 20 years ago that attracted many handsome lads. Although 20 years had passed, Wang Yue-er''s beauty had not faded with age. Conversely, she had gained an aura of charisma. For Zhou Bao to kill such a beauty was such a terrible loss!


    "What a vicious man! A vicious man that destroyed something so precious! This Zhou Bao is really vicious!"


    "This Zhou Bao is a nut, a truly crazy man. He actually dared to do this, to kill the entire Wang family''s descendants with his own hands?! Does he take the Wang family to be nothing? The Wang family is a well-known family and one of the Jin Dynasty''s most powerful!"


    "What nonsense! What well-known and powerful family? Don''t forget, Zhou Bao severely hurt the Wang family''s first master of martial arts three years ago. The Wang family didn''t have the guts to do anything then. For someone as talented as Zhou Bao, within 3 years, his capability would have improved by leaps and bounds! You think he''d still be scared of the Wang family? He dared to attack Mingyi School!"


    "That''s true. Zhou Bao did attack Mingyi School single-handedly. Why would he care about the single Wang family? The Wang family has played with fire this time. Let''s see how they handle this matter!"


    Over the following few months, the entire Jianghu was talking about Zhou Bao''s violent murder of the Wang family. Everyone was discussing how the Wang family would deal with him. Even if they could not win a fight against him, they had to at least make a fierce response.


    Unexpectedly, the Wang family remained silent, extremely silent. They had no reaction, not even a fierce response. They acted as if nothing had happened. Their response was truly unsettling.


    It was not only the Wang family that did not speak up. Everyone began to realize that only the people of low ranks discussed this matter. All high ranking officials and powerful families that lasted for millenniums did not make any response about this matter. Regardless of whether one was friend or foe of the Wang family, there was no response at all.


    It was not normal. It was extremely abnormal.


    The oddness of the lack of response added to the gossip among the people of Jianghu. This topic persisted among the people for many months before it died down and was replaced by another significant event in Jianghu.


    Zhou Bao and the Wuyang Region also calmed down. They made no moves. In fact, Zhou Bao had no time to kill anyone else. He was busy cleaning the spoils of war brought back from the Five-dragon Regions.


    The spoils of war were satisfying beyond measure.


    For a practitioner, the best treasure one had would always be kept on them. In the underground palace of the Rolling Dragon Palace, Zhou Bao had killed 30 Demonic Immortals of the Dragon tribe and seized all of their treasures. Except for the old items that he returned to Ji Yeyue, he kept all of them for himself.


    And these 30 Demonic Immortals from the Dragon tribe were the core support of Rolling Dragon King''s family. One of them was Rolling Dragon King''s most beloved Third Prince. Their treasures were bountiful, leaving Zhou Bao delighted with surprise.

 Chapter 469: Sorting the Biggest Harvest

    Chapter 469: Sorting the Biggest Harvest


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Out of the 30 Demonic Immortals, 25 of them had Pure Yang Celestial Devices on them. Moreover, each of Rolling Dragon King''s three princes had more than one Pure Yang Celestial Device! The eldest had three, the second had three, and the third prince had a whopping six Pure Yang Celestial Devices! Altogether, Zhou Bao had gained 35 Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Adding in the Pure Yang Celestial Devices that had been obtained from Master Jin Hua''s and his own, Zhou Bao, after some calculation, silently realized that he had over 50 Pure Yang Celestial Devices with him!


    50 Pure Yang Celestial Devices!


    What...?


    It was enough to build 50 sects belonging to Tian Long Taoism. If Zhou Bao wished to establish a new sect, he would be able to do so immediately.


    Of course, it was not the right time to reveal that he had seized 35 Pure Yang Celestial Devices from the Demonic Immortals of the Dragon tribe. However, it was still enough to shock people.


    Plus, besides the Pure Yang Celestial Devices, those weapons in the Mysterious Level and Psychic Level were countless. Adding all those scattered pieces up would exceed 200 items. This was the weapons side.


    There were also numerous cultivation methods of the Demon tribe, their panacea, many medicinal herbs that had long been extinct from the Seven-deity Regions, Spiritual Stones, Mysterious Objects... When they were all added up, they could fit into several houses.


    Wealth. Enormous wealth.


    In the past, when Zhou Bao used to hear gossip about the Dragon Palace''s riches, he thought they were all just rumors. But now, seeing the wealth that lay before him, Zhou Bao finally understood. The Dragon tribe was richer than any legend boasted them to be. The wealth he had seized from 30 or so Demonic Immortals was enough to rebuild four or five Jin Dynasties. Which was also to say that even if his own Anyuan Store were to collapse, he had enough wealth to build a dynasty not at all inferior to the Jin Dynasty. However, Zhou Bao had no interest in these matters. If he did, it would only be a few years before he built a Wuyang Dynasty from the northwest region with riches like no other.


    "If I take these items out, it will definitely cause inflation!" Zhou Bao held a Pure Yang Celestial Device in his hand as he kicked away a bag of golden pearls.


    From all the precious materials he had gathered, Zhou Bao was the most interested in the Mysterious Objects.


    All these things were seized from Rolling Dragon King''s subordinates. If they were not precious treasures, they would have never had the face nor the guts to offer them to Rolling Dragon King.


    "All these materials are rare elaborate works. What is this? Could it be a dragon pearl? I can''t believe I can actually hear the sound of the sea in these pearls. Imagine how long it must take for a pearl to achieve this state!


    "This is Heavenly Peach Wood. No, no, this is even stronger than Heavenly Peach Wood. Damn, if I used my strength, I could crumble a Wizard Weapon with this!


    "Is this cold iron that has been at the bottom of the sea for 10,000 years? No way, this thing belonged to the heaps of trash at the bottom of the sea. How could the Third Prince be interested in this? It''s definitely not cold iron from the bottom of the sea!


    "Damn, what power is this? Radiation? No way, if they offered this to the Crown Prince, wouldn''t it be tantamount to stealing money and murder?


    "And what is this bone? So odd, why do I sense such a strange aura from this bone? Interesting, I can''t even break it...!"


    ...


    Zhou Bao identified each item over the span of three days. It was only then that everything was labeled clearly. Besides the fact that he had many excited doubts, he finally understood the feeling of immense happiness mentioned in those western fantasy novels.


    People might not be thieves, but the temptation of wealth was simply too strong.


    "These secret cultivation methods are not bad. What a pity though that the most suitable is the best out of all. It''s just like the Jade Original Power Gang that I practice; no matter how hard I try, I cannot reach the highest realm. However, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire and the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique complement each other and, magically, they suit me so well even though the Demonic Immortals that practice this are quite high!" Looking at the heap of secret cultivation methods that lay before him, Zhou Bao furrowed his eyebrows gently. This time, he had amassed 65 books of cultivation techniques. However, only four or five books genuinely interested him.


    "It seems like Rolling Dragon King really loved his youngest son the most! He even passed this kind of cultivation method to him!" Picking up a book that had obviously been copied manually, Zhou Bao''s mouth shaped into a smile. "Dragon Flame Technique, not bad, not bad. This is one of the ways among the 3,000 Great Ways. My Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique was reborn from this. Only someone at the same level as Rolling Dragon King could control all of these. I never thought that he would actually pass them on to the Third Prince. It seems like he is set on having his third son inherit his throne!"


    Of course, out of all the cultivation methods, Zhou Bao was most interested in the Innate Qi Catching Skill that he had gotten from Master Jin Hua. It was a special technique and its capabilities were also very simple. One only needed to concentrate Evil Qi, practice into one big hand that could catch the Flying Sword Magic Weapon, and practice until the skill was solid. Once he saw this special technique, Zhou Bao thought of the hand that ripped open the Hollow in the Dragon-taming Ruins. He could not help sighing.


    "Hehe. The Innate Qi Catching Skill. Legend has it that it is the most simple and, simultaneously, the most complex special technique. It holds infinite possibilities of special techniques. I never thought that I would one day get to use it!" Hugging the cultivation method of the Innate Qi Catching Skill, Zhou Bao could not help smiling.


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was known as the special technique with the strongest potential to kill, while the Innate Qi Catching Skill was known as the most practical special technique. It was known as such because, in this world, most of the Evil Qi could be used to practice the Innate Qi Catching Skill. One could even use numerous different types of Evil Qi to practice the Innate Qi Catching Skill because this type of special technique only required one to concentrate pneuma to form a big hand.


    What was that hand? The hand is the part of a man with the most nimble parts and also the part that is most frequently used. With a pneuma hand, one could perform a lot of actions that the human body could not. If a pneuma hand was used flexibly, it was even stronger than Divine Control. The most important point was that one could add even more powers to the pneuma hand. From a certain standpoint, the Innate Qi Catching Skill held infinite possibilities of usage. It was not like the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword killing style, which, besides chopping a man dead with a sword, had no other use at all.


    However, the Innate Qi Catching Skill was different. It had infinite possibilities for cultivation methods and an infinite potential. When the Innate Qi Catching Skill was practiced to the highest realm and the legendary Void-catching Technique was achieved, one could then use his own pneuma to rip hollow space, using the limitless space to achieve what he wanted. Only one hand was required for all problems to be solved.


    This was the Innate Qi Catching Skill. It was also the special technique that Zhou Bao had always wanted. And now, he had it.


    "Flickering Light Evil Qi, if you want to be cultivated into the Void-catching Technique, you''d better infuse Flickering Light Evil Qi into Evil Qi. In this way, the battle is half won!" Zhou Bao thought to himself secretly, "However if the Innate Qi Catching Skill''s Evil Qi is too complicated, that''s not good either. The purer the better!"


    The Dragon Flame Technique and the Innate Qi Catching Skill were Zhou Bao''s greatest rewards and also the ones that interested him the most. Aside from these, he was not interested in any other cultivation methods.


    "I practice the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire, which is as wonderful as the Dragon Flame Technique. Therefore, if I practiced the Dragon Flame Technique, no one would suspect anything. As for the Innate Qi Catching Skill, I obtained that from Master Jin Hua, so practicing that would not be suspicious also. As for those 30 or so Demonic Immortals from the Dragon tribe, I''d better be steady about that. Rolling Dragon King could not possibly enter the Seven-deity Regions, but that doesn''t mean that he would not have other means. A Lord of Heaven Realm Immortal who lost everything would go crazy. If it were me, I would find all ways to get revenge!"


    Looking at the heaps of treasures in front of him, Zhou Bao felt a little bit helpless. In the end, he stored all of them in his own space.


    Although his adventure to the Sea Area did not achieve his initial purpose, what he gained was very shocking. His greatest reward was definitely the Primordial Demonic Ape''s Real Body. With that alone, he could return home. Plus, he also seized so many precious cultivation methods. But the most important thing of all was that Zhou Bao recognized his own weaknesses, which got him to see his future direction in life.


    "I practice way too many things and some of them are frivolous. A lot of cultivation methods and Divine Sense have to be used together. That''s so inconvenient! Plus, it is precisely because of these sophisticated cultivation methods and Divine Sense that my potential for progress was impeded!" In the midst of stealing treasures from Rolling Dragon King''s palace, besides the cultivation methods and Divine Sense, there were also a lot of personal letters from Demonic Immortals. These personal letters contained many high-ranking Demonic Immortals of Venerable Realm''s journeys and insights. Seeing these personal letters allowed Zhou Bao to realize his shortcomings and to work on them.


    Miscellaneous but not refined; miscellaneous but not pure; greedy but not inferior¡ªthis was his biggest problem now.


    "I have already practiced the Nine Dragons Heavenly Technique to the extreme. I actually mastered the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon. Now with the guidance of the Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique and the Dragon Flame Technique, over time I will be able to completely perform the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon. Subsequently, the Nine Forms of the Real Dragon that emerges will be swallowed by the Dragon Chimera. Then my outer physique will certainly strengthen. Practicing the Dragon Flame Technique will be most effective. I won''t practice the Flying Sword as that would only waste time. I do need to work on my punching and hammering skills though!"


    The punching and hammering skills had been discovered before at his home. But as his opportunities increased, the methods he could use also increased. He almost threw them away, but now that they crossed his mind, he felt extremely ashamed.

 Chapter 470: What is the Most Advantageous?

    Chapter 470: What is the Most Advantageous?


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    He was no longer the child that he once was. He now knew, better than anyone, the value of insight. With the hammering skill, he had achieved an insight. With the punching skill, he had also gained another insight. These two instances of insight were sufficient enough for him to attain the highest realm of both the punching and hammering skills. One had to understand that even for lucky practitioners, an instance of insight in one''s life was sufficient enough to attain significant achievements. What more would be for him having gained two insights?


    In addition, he had now cultivated the Real Body of Zhuyan, the Primordial Fierce Beast. The Demonic Ape Zhuyan was known as the Great Strength Ape, the most vicious beast that people knew. This kind of fierce beast did not have much Divine Sense. However, even with only two types of Divine Sense, it had boundless Qi and a robust body.


    Zhuyan could prey on any form of animal for food. Regardless of what he ingested, be it living creatures, pneuma, energy, or some other thing, Zhuyan could transform it into his own flesh and for his own power. Thereotically speaking, this kind of Qi of an Evil Beast could increase exponentially and his own body had the capacity to strengthen exponentially as well. With this kind of Divine Sense, Zhou Bao could enjoy the same powers after he infused himself with the Real Body of Zhuyan and cultivated up to the Mysterious Realm. He would have the same robust flesh and the same hammering and punching skills. Was he a fool!


    "The killing power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword is boundless. However, it''s very energy-consuming as it requires continuous insights. The Infinite Trembling Contemplation''s offense-defense fusion is not a bad secret skill. Once my body strength and Real Essence are strong enough and I can complement the new insights I gained in the Sea Area about the realm, my power will grow even stronger!" Zhou Bao thought to himself and slowly began to gain clarity. "It seems like I need to make another metal hammer again. No, wait, there''s no rush. Let''s wait until I have arrived at the Azure Secret Area and attained another profound level before I think about the metal hammer. After merging with the Real Body of Zhuyan, my strength will definitely multiply. If I make a metal hammer now, it might be too light for me later. I should really seek Green Spirit''s advice on this. Although that old monster''s strength is nothing admirable, he has great experience and perspective. Perhaps he can give me some good advice!"


    ...


    The next few days were terrifying. Zhou Bao''s murder of Wang Hua and Wang Yuebai meant that the land under the Wang family was under Zhou Bao''s control. A few months had passed and yet the Wang nobility did not raise any suspicion at all. However, the Imperial Court''s reward was once again delivered. Zhou Bao''s status had once again risen another rank and the Wang family''s land was now legally given to Zhou Bao.


    "It seems like you''ve been living well recently. There''s so much chaos outside and yet you have the peace of mind to drink tea here?!"


    On this day, Zhou Bao was accompanying Yan Yunfei, whose pregnancy had her tummy increase another size, to drink tea and chat. The rascal Wang She appeared in front of them both.


    "Say, Chief Wang, can''t you tell us first that you''re coming in?!" Dissatisfaction was written all over Zhou Bao''s face.


    "I may not have informed you beforehand, but do you really not know that I''m here? With your capabilities now, as long as I don''t use the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, I''m sure I cannot hide from you!"


    Zhou Bao smiled. He did not linger on this topic any longer, but said, "Chief Wang would not come here without a reason. What''s up, did something significant occur?"


    "Something big has happened in Jianghu. I thought you''d be interested in it!"


    "Are you talking about the incident of the Wang family!"


    "That''s right. You killed them all so quickly, you even directly killed Wang Yue-er. That woman is rather complicated. 20 years ago, she was the most beautiful woman in Jianghu. She was eyed by that old pervert and she was also Jianghu''s secret. It wasn''t a big secret though. Now that you''ve killed the woman of that old pervert, even if he envies your power, he will have to say something. If not, everyone will think that he is scared of you!"


    "Without the guts to come and find me directly, he must be scared of me. Hmph! What''s the point of being so secretly manipulative! Is he expecting me to respond to him?!"


    "Whether you respond or not, I am only here to pass the news onto you. Although that old pervert is my First Elder among the Elders, the news I''m passing concerns only his personal plans, which have no relation to Tian Long Taoism. Do whatever you deem fit!"


    "No way. You''re so heartless. Ultimately, this guy is still your First Elder among the Elders and has been doing business under your Tian Long Taoism''s name!" Zhao Bao sniggered.


    "I don''t care whose name he is working under. I know this guy is aware of our good relationship. Accommodating his worries about a woman is none of my concern. That is the Sect Leader''s decision. Therefore, don''t have any apprehension!"


    "Ok, I understand!" Zhou Bao nodded and said with a smile. "I will handle this matter properly. Don''t worry, I will also take into consideration Tian Long Taoism''s face. I will make sure it doesn''t end up like Mingyi School''s!"


    Wang She said with a laugh, "Oh yes, the Divine Wind Palace has been getting more aggressive recently. The rumor concerning their plans to conquer all the dragon veins on earth has left them rather embarrassed and agitated. The Azure Secret Area is about to open again¡ªthis is the real big news!"


    "Ah, this is big news. But I''m sure you also know that I''m not a big person. I can''t possibly be responsible for something like this. So, please help me tell Elder Qing and White Tiger that I won''t be the leader for this mission!"


    "Not being the leader is a good thing!" Wang She laughed and disappeared into the shadows.


    "Exactly what has happened that required Chief Wang to come down in person?!" Yan Yunfei was curious as she saw Wang She leave. Although she was not involved in big incidents, she still had a curious heart. Plus, she loved to hear about all the strange things that happened in Jianghu.


    "Nothing big. Sometime over the past few days, the First Elder of the Elders created a ruckus. He was a Mysterious Realm Individual Immortal. He suddenly received the Wang family''s First Young Master as a disciple and even brought him back to Tian Long Taoism. This incident created some discussion in Jianghu. The original discussion about the turbulent power of the Wang family has also ceased!"


    "A Mysterious Realm Individual Immortal?!" Yan Yunfei''s face turned pale white immediately. A Mysterious Realm Individual Immortal in the Sea Area was nothing significant, but to be in the Seven-deity Regions under the Jin Dynasty was shocking. During their heyday, the Three Grandmasters of the Jin Dynasty only had Level Nine cultivations and yet they guarded the peace and security of Northern Yuan for hundreds of years. Plus, in the Jin Dynasty''s Jianghu martial arts world, the strongest was rumored to be only a Level Nine expert. A Mysterious Realm Individual Immortal was only heard of in folklore and never seen in reality. Even in Mingyi School, there were only a few Mysterious Realm guards. This piece of news could easily shock the entire Jin Dynasty.


    "It''s nothing big. It''s only a dummy who wants face only. Keeping Tian Long Taoism''s face in mind, I won''t argue with this guy. But if the Wang family thinks that bringing in an Individual Immortal can threaten me, I will make sure they die an ugly death!" With regards to Tian Long Taoism''s First Elder''s behavior, Zhou Bao was still very unsatisfied. Although he could not deny his dissatisfaction, Zhou Bao ultimately was not a member of Tian Long Taoism and thus had no control over the intake of disciples there. Neither did he had any reason to. Plus, his identity was too sensitive now. Although in theory, he had a Level Nine cultivation, his combat capability was comparable to a Venerable Realm Genuine Immortal. People like this were strange breeds. In the past, he was a shit-stirrer in many people''s eyes. But now, nobody dared to treat him like a shit-stirrer anymore. He had now become a person with the capacity to disrupt power dynamics. Even the Divine Wind Palace''s attitude toward him changed a little. They no longer wanted to use him like before. This could be easily inferred from Li VII''s current treatment of him. If it were not for the Divine Wind Palace''s plan to focus all their energy on eliminating all the rumors about them conquering the dragon vein, they might have focused on ways to suppress Zhou Bao.


    The Seven-deity Regions forbade any person with a Mysterious Realm cultivation and above to interfere with the matters of the normal world. Since time immemorial, although there had always been one or two people in each generation who were shit-stirrers like Zhou Bao, their powers were limited. They were, at most, comparable with the Genuine Immortals of above-average people. There was never anyone like Zhou Bao, a creature of an odd species who was a Venerable Realm Genuine Immortal. If people like that were not suppressed, peace on earth would certainly be destroyed.


    Every kind of stability was built on a solid foundation. Once a solid foundation was broken, then stability no longer existed and chaos would befall. To those who loved chaos among mankind, chaos was a good thing. But for those in power, stability was the only thing that kept everything in place.


    Therefore, a threatening presence had to be suppressed. There was no room for debate.


    The problem was only a matter of time.


    "Once the Divine Wind Palace suppresses those rumors about the dragon vein and obtains the Azure Secret Area, they will definitely restore order. I will then be on their blacklist. If I were the Divine Wind Palace, I would certainly think of ways to quickly raise this guy to the Mysterious Realm and channel his spirit into the Golden Book Fate in order to control him. Even if it is difficult to raise one to the Mysterious Realm immediately, I would still invite the other big sects to suppress me too. For a guy like me to exist is not a good thing for those sects. Suppress, control, and then finally, imprison in order to restore stability again. That''s what all people in power do! If I don''t submit myself to them, then they will use brute force to coerce me to. I''m definitely not afraid of them, but now that I have a family, I have to weigh my decisions carefully!" Zhou Bao stroked his chin and gazed at the worried face of Yan Yunfei. "Sigh. It seems like I have no other choice but to take the Azure Secret Area into my hands and disrupt the Divine Wind Palace''s plan. Stir up some conflict between the sects and the Divine Wind Palace. Conflict is the most advantageous for me!"


    To stir up conflict, he had to control the Azure Secret Area. Zhou Bao could not do that by himself. His combat capability was not bad and his strength was also good, but it was not good enough to defeat every enemy. To achieve his goal, he needed assistance. The Origin of the Great Ways in the Azure Secret Area was already under his control. The Azure Secret Area had a lot of evil beasts that had settled on an agreement with him. It was apt to say that he was in a good position of power and peace over his networks. Yet, as for the exact plan of action, he needed to find someone to work on it together.

 Chapter 471: Doing One Thing Under the Cover of Another

    Chapter 471: Doing One Thing Under the Cover of Another


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Snow Mountain, Bigwheel Temple.


    It was one of the biggest sects in the Central Mainland Region and currently, there was a prevailing tense atmosphere. People were discussing the attribution of the Azure Secret Area.


    At present, except for Living Buddha Ba Siba, who had passed away, the other 12 Buddhas of Bigwheel Temple had gathered in the side chamber of the Mahavira Hall. All of them looked somber as they discussed the attribution problem amongst themselves in low tones.


    "We cannot hand over the Azure Secret Area to Divine Wind Palace. What the people from Divine Wind Palace did in Taiyuan Heaven previously is totally outrageous!. Now, they are even plotting to take control of Azure Heaven. Do they think that they really belong to the Heavenly Court and are the dominators of the world? They have really gone too far this time around. Eldest Living Buddha, I strongly disagree with this matter!"


    The voice resounded around the side chamber. It belonged to Vajra Buddha, the fourth Buddha among the 13 Living Buddhas. With a strong cultivation, he had undergone a Thunder Tribulation and had the cultivation of Genuine Immortals. However, he was a hot-tempered and outspoken man, who had no qualms about airing his thoughts out loud.


    The Eldest Living Buddha sat in front of all the Living Buddhas. He was their oldest brother and was a Three-tribulation True Immortal named Carefree Buddha.


    Among the 13 Living Buddhas of Bigwheel Temple, Carefree Buddha was the oldest Buddha with the highest cultivation, who enjoyed high prestige and universal respect.


    He was very skinny and resembled a hemp stalk as he sat there. He closed his eyes as if he was musing over something. Upon hearing Vajra Buddha''s voice, he smiled and said, "Divine Wind Palace is determined to get the Azure Secret Area this time. Besides, the price they are offering is tempting!"


    "Yes, it''s tempting. However, have you ever thought that once they get the Azure Secret Area, how their strength will grow in the future?" Vajra Buddha said quickly and added, "If they were to take control of Azure Heaven, all the resources in the Azure Secret Area will belong to them. In this way, their strength will increase by leaps and bounds, and within a short time, we''ll be no match for them!"


    "We have never been able to contend with their strength!"


    At this moment, another Living Buddha named Chakravarti Buddha who was ranked ninth in line, chimed in, "We''ve never been a match for the people from Divine Wind Palace. Furthermore, their acquiring of the Azure Secret Area doesn''t mean that we''ll lose it. They promised that even if they get the Origin of the Great Ways of the Azure Secret Area and take over the control of this micro world, we can still enter it at any time. All the entrances will be open to us just like before. Moreover, you guys know that there is an Essential Qi Tide in it, so even if they get the Azure Secret Area, they cannot obtain too many benefits. Controlling Origin of the Great Ways doesn''t mean that they can eliminate the Essential Qi Tide!"


    "Hum, how simple-minded you are. Even if they cannot eliminate the Essential Qi Tide, their disciples will enter the Azure Secret Area during the period when the Essential Qi Tide is surging, after they take control of the Origin of the Great Ways. If the Origin of the Great Ways and Golden Book of Fate cannot even do this, their reputation will truly be ruined!" Vajra Buddha heckled in a loud voice.


    "Haha..!" After listening to their discussion, Child-endowing Buddha suddenly laughed and said, "Don''t think it is that simple. How sure are you that Divine Wind Palace will succeed? Didn''t they fail in Taiyuan Heaven?" "They even lost their copy of the Golden Book of Fate. Unlike Taiyuan Heaven, if they want to obtain the Azure Secret Area, they definitely need to put in more effort. This time, they''re not even sure if they''ll succeed. If we agree with their requirement, but they cannot succeed in the end, we''ll gain considerable benefits!"


    "Child-endowing Buddha, I gather that you''re muddleheaded because of your womanizing ways. If they''re not sure, why would they offer us such a tempting price? They have the Golden Book of Fate and they can try as many times as possible. Will they give up easily? Once they get our permission, they''ll never stop!"


    "Well, that depends." With a malicious smile on his face, Child-endowing Buddha added, "It''s hard to obtain a copy of the Golden Book of Fate. The reason why they can do that is that they possess most of the rights for the control of the Golden Book of Fate. However, looking at the terms that they offered us this time, they gave us more rights to use it, with Jade Pool and Immortal Palace being no exception. If they fail this time, do you think that they will have the opportunity to make another copy?"


    "It makes sense!" After hearing this, Chakravarti Buddha was the first one to approve the idea. "If they fail this time, all we and some other big sects need to do is to hold onto the Golden Book of Fate securely. In this way, they won''t have another opportunity to make a copy. This will be a good chance to lessen their power!"


    "A good chance?" Vajra Buddha pounded the table so heavily that it rocked from side to side due to the impact. He added, "I guess you just want the benefits offered by them. Do you think that they''re as stupid as you by doing something they''re not sure of? They failed in Taiyuan Heaven the last time because a man with the Fiery Eyes intervened. Do you think they''ll not be on their guard this time? Do you believe there will be another guy with the Fiery Eyes who will intervene again?"


    "Perhaps!" Child-endowing Buddha murmured and looked at Vajra Buddha with great interest. The Child-endowing Buddha was actually Green Spirit, who had taken over the former''s body. He didn''t know much about the complex relationship and interpersonal relations of Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. It just seemed that Vajra Buddha didn''t like Divine Wind Palace much.


    ...


    The debate went on for an entire day, but they did not manage to reach an agreement. Child-endowing Buddha was accustomed to this type of situation. Since the emissary of Divine Wind Palace had left, Bigwheel Temple had been caught up in this debate for several months already. Those 12 Living Buddhas had held more than 10 meetings since, and they were inclined to accept the terms offered by Divine Wind Palace as time went by. Before long, this matter would come to an end.


    Returning to his own palace, Child-endowing Buddha was all ready to carry out the Mandkesvara Dhyana with his beauties and concubines. Just as he stepped into the palace, his expression altered. He asked his servants and all the beauties he was about to sleep with, to leave. Then, he raised his hand to set some prohibitions and finally felt a sense of relief.


    "What are you doing here? Why did you not inform me first? This is Bigwheel Temple, not your Wuyang Region. Do you think that no one would be on the lookout for you?"


    "Of course they are not, otherwise, I won''t be able to look for you." Zhou Bao came out of the shadows and revealed himself. "I''m here for the Azure Secret Area!"


    "Bigwheel Temple cannot take the pressure wrought by Divine Wind Palace!" Child-endowing Buddha, who was actually Green Spirit, smiled and said, "People in Divine Wind Palace have offered a tempting price as they are determined to succeed!"


    "Really?" Zhou Bao smiled as he heard these words. He added, "This result has met my expectations. When will Divine Wind Palace be preparing to take action?"


    "It won''t be long. By the time Bigwheel Temple agrees on this matter, Dark Sect will follow suit because it has fallen into decline and will not dare to offend Divine Wind Palace at this critical period of time. Jade Pool is made up of women who have no ideas of their own and are not reliable at all. People in Dragon Thunder Palace don''t really care about this matter at all, and thus, they will not oppose it too violently. The only resistance comes from Immortal Palace, but it cannot fight against Divine Wind Palace on its own, unless they combine all their strength. However, that is something not in line with their style of handling matters. Therefore, this plan will succeed finally and it should not take long. It''s time for us to make some plans!"


    Green Spirit stared at Zhou Bao and gave him an odd smile, saying, "I heard that you''ve gained a lot of treasures in the Sea Area this time. Can you set the Yin and Yang Dust Formation in the Azure Secret Area? In this way, we have a better chance to succeed!"


    "Of course I can. The items I gained from the Sea Area are enough to set up two complete Yin and Yang Dust Formations! But the problem is, I cannot use them!"


    "What do you mean?"


    "Hum, I don''t want to be pursued by Rolling Dragon King for thousands of miles and coming ashore to create problems for me!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly and added, "Furthermore, the formation map of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation is in my hand and this is a known fact to Divine Wind Palace. If I set the formation in the Azure Secret Area, I''ll have two powerful enemies on my back right away and I don''t even know how I will meet my end this time!"


    "If we kill everyone from Divine Wind Palace in Azure Heaven, no one will know that you''re the one who had anything to do with the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!" Green Spirit said grimly.


    "What? If that is the case, how about the people from other sects?"


    "This time, the people from Divine Wind Palace have learned their lesson well. They demanded that all the sects seal off their entrances to the Azure Secret Area so that they are the only ones who can enter it. At that time, under such heavy pressure, I guess the entrance to your Wuyang Region will be closed as well."


    "Will this work? Do you think the other sects will agree with this kind of arrangement?"


    "Of course it will. You don''t know the price Divine Wind Palace paid and how much effort they made in order to achieve this purpose. They''re determined to achieve their goal this time, therefore, those who are going to enter the Azure Secret Area should at the very least be Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm or even at the Lord of Heaven Realm! They''ll never send someone like Taihai Sage there anymore!"


    "At the Lord of Heaven Realm? Are there any Old Weirdos at the Lord of Heaven Realm in the Seven-deity Regions?"


    "All sects like Divine Wind Palace, Immortal Palace, and Bigwheel Temple have at least one or two Old Weirdos at the Lord of Heaven Realm!" While speaking, Green Spirit displayed his feelings of envy towards them and added, "Usually, they will not venture out. However, this action concerns the foundation of Divine Wind Palace, therefore, the Old Weirdos at the Lord of Heaven Realm will possibly need to take some action. That is why I am asking you to set the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. This is a tough battle and there is no chance for us to succeed unless we can do it as sneakily as before!"


    "Does this mean we need to have a head-on clash with the Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm?"


    "And also their fairy weapons!"


    Zhou Bao had come over to discuss this matter with Green Spirit, but little did he expect that his plans were all going down the drain after listening to Green Spirit. Fairy weapons and Old Weirdos at the Lord of Heaven Realm, together with other experts from Divine Wind Palace were a great source of discouragement to him. To put it simply, he was overwhelmed by this knowledge.


    "This is the reason why I said it will be a tough battle. It will not be easy to win. I''m telling you if you insist that you are unable to set the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, I do not want to be involved in this matter!"


    "Fine, since this is the case, I will set up two formations without much further ado!" Zhou Bao said aggressively and added, "Are you sure that no one, except us and the people from Divine Wind Palace, can enter the Azure Secret Area?"


    "Even if there is anyone else, it will not be a big issue. We can kill them as well!" Green Spirit looked ferocious and added, "Boy, you don''t seem like the soft-hearted type!"


    "Haha, my wife is pregnant and thus, I have become more mellow!" Zhou Bao chuckled and continued, "But take it easy. I know what my priorities are!"


    "Good!" Green Spirit stared at him and continued, "I know that your wife is pregnant, but you definitely cannot wait until the birth of your baby!"


    "Uh?"


    "You''d better prepare for the closed-door training now and then broadcast the news that you''re going to break through to the Mysterious Realm. Then, you need to enter Azure Heaven in secret. The Essential Qi Tide there is about to stop surging. Once it stops, people from Divine Wind Palace will spring into action!"


    "I see!" Zhou Bao nodded in agreement and added, "Fine, I''ll go and arrange it now. However, after I enter the Azure Secret Area, please take care of everything for me here!"


    "Don''t worry, everything will be all right!" Green Spirit nodded and continued, "If you fail this time, you''d better prepare to face a life of endless pursuit!"


    "I know!" Zhou Bao nodded his head and turned into a streak of black light and departed.


    "Alas, this boy is really a troublemaker, however, he''s also a man who can create quite a stir in the world. Perhaps I can obtain what I couldn''t get over the past years by cooperating with him!" Looking at the direction where Zhou Bao had disappeared to, Green Spirit wore a weird smile and continued, "Maybe he''s the key to the next era!"


    ¡­


    Zhou Bao returned from Bigwheel Temple with a heavy heart. Divine Wind Palace was paying more attention to Azure Heaven than they did previously, which was totally not what he expected. Even though he possessed the Origin of the Great Ways of Azure Heaven now, he knew that he would have a tough battle with people from Divine Wind Palace, therefore, he could not afford to waste any more time.


    Hence, he declared that he would do the closed-door training as soon as he returned to the Wuyang Region. However, he did not follow Green Spirit''s suggestion to announce that he would be breaking through to the Mysterious Realm but only said that he was about to study an abstruse Divine Sense lest he aroused suspicions if he did not reach the Mysterious Realm when his training was done. He attached a great deal of importance to this closed-door training and set up a powerful Yin and Yang Dust Formation around his practice area. Although it was incomplete, it had taken up 80% of the treasures he had acquired from Master Jin Hua and was enough to ward off the attacks from several Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm.


    After setting the formation, Zhou Bao secretly entered the Azure Secret Area. Currently, he did not need to enter through the fixed gateway. One reason was that he possessed the Origin of the Great Ways of the Azure Secret Area and the other was that he had learned the Infinite Realms Teleportation Skill. Therefore, entering the Azure Secret Area was like entering that gray space to him.


    He already knew the coordinates of the gray space, the Azure Secret Area, and this world by heart. If he wanted to, he could move freely around the three spaces.


    In Azure Heaven, the Essential Qi Tide was still surging. Zhou Bao slipped into it as easily as a fish in the water. After he possessed the Origin of the Great Ways of Azure Heaven, the Essential Qi Tide could not do much harm to him, therefore, he could move around swiftly in the Azure Secret Area without the help of the Air-frozen Bead.


    "Good! The Essential Qi Tide is currently in disorder. This is a great disaster for others, but for me, it''s a good opportunity to practice. All kinds of spiritual qi are intermingled with different pneuma, among which is various pneuma with Spatial Attribute which is good for me to practice my Phantom Body Skill. But due to the time limitation, I''d better start on my Phantom Body Skill and hone it to perfection here!" Zhou Bao''s body flitted around the endless tide as he pondered. "Since they have no Fiery Eyes, they cannot sense the Origin of the Great Ways from the Essential Qi Tide, therefore, when it comes to setting the formation, I have to find a place that will make it easy for them to take note of the Origin of the Great Ways, similar to the situation in Taiyuan Heaven. Only when they arrive at that place will they be able to take the Golden Book of Fate out. According to the information provided by that damn whale the last time, that place should be called Azure Towering Mountain, which is located at the bottom of the Azure Spirit Sea. It seems that I can only set the Yin and Yang Dust Formation there. Humph, Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm with fairy weapons, I''d like to see whether you can outlast my fierce and lethal formations!" Zhou Bao thought ruthlessly and moved towards his destination quickly.


    With the tide filling the whole sky, there arose a huge golden mountain under the depth of the Azure Spirit Sea. At the foot of the mountain were a few people talking with each other. If Zhou Bao had seen them, he would have been shocked because they all carried Air-frozen Beads. Due to the power of the beads, they were able to move around easily in the tide. Compared to Zhou Bao''s Air-frozen Bead which was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, their beads were only celestial devices at the Mysterious Level. Although they were at the peak of the Mysterious Level, there were significant differences between their beads and Zhou Bao''s bead.


    "There should be the Azure Towering Mountain and also the center of the entire Azure Heaven. Humph, I''m afraid that those people have never expected that we''ll spring into action when the Essential Qi Tide is surging. Our negotiation with them is just a way to create confusion."


    "Haha..!" The triumphant laughter did not carry far in the Essential Qi Tide. But the owner of the voice was not aware that the laughter, even though it went unnoticed, was transmitted out through the tide.


    "Uh? There seems to be sounds of laughter?" Zhou Bao, who was indulging himself in the wonderful changes of the Phantom Body Skill and flying towards Azure Towering Mountain, suddenly heard a sound which was similar to a human laugh. He was on the alert immediately and slowed down.


    "How can there be someone in it since the Essential Qi Tide is surging? Damn it! Perhaps they are from Divine Wind Palace!" He was astonished and immediately used his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and Three Realms Division, and darted towards his destination.


    "Right, no one thought that we''ll take action when the Essential Qi Tide is still surging. People from Immortal Palace are really foolish. They always think that they have inherited the Primordial Magic Arts System, but they were not aware that they possessed such a valuable treasure. Having owned the refining method of the Air-frozen Bead for so many years, they''ve never realized that it enables them to travel freely in the Essential Qi Tide. If they had figured it out earlier, they would not have stayed in the central mainland like what they are doing now!"


    "Yeah, Immortal Palace has as many treasures as Divine Wind Palace. But it''s a pity that people in that sect lack the spirit of enterprise, otherwise, our palace will not have been the number one sect in the Seven-deity Regions!"


    "Fine, stop this nonsense now! We''d better proceed with caution even though the Essential Qi Tide is raging!" said a voice which sounded cold and totally lacking in emotion, bringing dread to the hearts of people.


    The expressions of those two men who were talking changed immediately. Respectful and yet frightened, they lowered their heads hurriedly.


    "This action leaves no room for error. Although our Lord''s plan is almost flawless, we still need to be cautious. Haven''t you realized that the Azure Secret Area is different from what it used to be? It seems that there are some unexplainable things in the essence of the world here. We need to be careful lest any accident happens. If it does happen, none of us will be able to account for it. Now, go and set up the formations!"


    "Yes!" The two who were in a discussion were experts at the Level of True Immortality. Although they had not reached the Venerable Realm yet, they were no weaker than Taihai Sage. With such a cultivation, they could do anything they want in the Seven-deity Regions. However, when faced with the glacial demeanor of the man now, they had no options but to obey his order. The reason was that the glacial man was an expert at the Lord of Heaven Realm who could easily kill them with a single finger.


    "Damn it! Some people from Divine Wind Palace are already here. It''s ridiculous but those large sects are negotiating with other people from Divine Wind Palace. What a good move! Doing one thing under the cover of another! Perhaps the instigator of this method (Han Xin) is not as smart as you!"


    While thinking, Zhou Bao executed his Three Realms Division and arrived at the nearby regions of Azure Towering Mountain within several seconds. Upon his arrival, he discovered that there was someone at the foot of the mountain and he was startled. Trying his best to conceal himself, he came up close to them and overheard their conversation clearly.


    "An expert at the Lord of Heaven Realm is setting up formations here! Good gracious! If I had not made my way here, I would not have known about this matter. However, the Origin of the Great Ways of Azure Heaven is in my hand, and I''d like to see whether you are capable of obtaining it!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly in his heart. Since he had discovered what the real purpose of Divine Wind Palace was, he now had to change his plan.


    He planned to set two Yin and Yang Dust Formations around Azure Towering Mountain to kill the disciples of Divine Wind Palace, but it was too late now. However, it was a good thing that Divine Wind Palace sent only three people here. Although they were quite powerful, except for the Old Weirdo at the Lord of Heaven Realm who was the only one that could pose a threat to him, he could easily finish off the other two men. He was not being arrogant in that sense because his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was lethal and destructive.


    "The only problem is how I can go about making it confusing for the others. Every entrance to the Azure Secret Area has yet to be closed. If I just make a small mess, that will be fine. However, if I create a big uproar, I guess Divine Wind Palace will definitely notice it."


    He did not believe that experts in Divine Wind Palace would not be aware of his secretive actions.


    "Perhaps they have asked other people to hide in the dark. If I were them, I would surely do so. The scheme of doing one thing under the cover of another is indeed good, but it has its risks as well. Once discovered by others, it will incur many problems. Therefore, they must have some experts hiding in here. Humph, with Divine Wind Palace''s wealth, once they have the secret of the Air-frozen Bead, they definitely will refine more beads. Even I was able to gather enough materials to refine an Air-frozen Bead, so I guess they can easily refine hundreds of beads basing on their resources and wealth!" Zhou Bao thought about it and tried to think of a plan. "Unlike them, I''m alone, therefore, the situation is really against me and I have to find some people to help me. No matter how many people from Divine Wind Palace are here, they''re no match for the Demonic Immortals in the Azure Secret Area in terms of numbers. However, I cannot let them set up the formations easily!" Zhou Bao made up his mind and followed those two Genuine Immortals in secret.

 Chapter 472: Taking Action

    Chapter 472: Taking Action


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Zhou Bao was not afraid of being discovered by the people who were hiding in the darkness from Divine Wind Palace. Even the Old Weirdo at the Lord of Heaven Realm would need the Air-frozen Bead to sustain himself in the surging tide, apart from everyone else.


    Even if there were people hiding in the darkness from Divine Wind Palace, they were just there to observe the actions of the Old Weirdo at the Lord of Heaven Realm and they did not really bother about the others. Moreover, Zhou Bao''s plan was not to kill the two Genuine Immortals but just to break up their defensive formation.


    While Zhou Bao was taking cover in his hideout in the darkness, he saw the two Genuine Immortals taking out numerous materials for setting up the formation from a ring which was similar to the sacred relic belonging to the Black Wolf Tribe. He was so surprised that his mouth fell open.


    "The Yin and Yang Dust Formation?" Upon seeing their method of setting the formation, Zhou Bao nearly gave himself away by shouting aloud. However, he quickly shook his head and murmured, "No, it can''t be the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, they don''t have the complete formation map after all. It''s a combination of the two elements¡ªthe Illusion Gate and Death Gate, in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, and also it''s a derivation of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation which was called the Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation!"


    After observing them for some time, Zhou Bao finally figured out what kind of formation the two Genuine Immortals were setting up.


    As a world-renowned formation, Yin and Yang Dust Formation had been passed down from antiquity times. However, only a handful of people had the capability of setting up a complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Since antiquity times, it was rumored that only the biggest sword school in the medieval period had been successful in setting up the complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Due to this, it flourished in the medieval period, but now it was merely an age-old myth.


    However, human beings were smart. Although they were unable to set up a complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation due to various limitations, the formation map that was passed down had all the complete information. Over hundreds of thousands of years, many genii had created a dozen formations according to the complete formation map and under their own conditions and resources. Although these formations were no match for the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, they were quite powerful as well. The Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation was one of the most famous formations, and also one of that used up the most materials for its formations.


    "Divine Wind Palace is really good at plotting schemes. Haha, if I were to undermine their plans this time, they will definitely pursue me to the ends of the world once they know I''m the culprit!" In the darkness, Zhou Bao quietly watched the two Genuine Immortals meticulously setting up the Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation. Waiting till they were done setting the formation and already departed from the area, Zhou Bao, with a malicious smile, began altering the formation they had just set up.


    "Initially, I was not sure whether I would be able to set up the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. But since you have already built the Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation here, I can construct a complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation using your materials. Don''t blame me¡ªit''s you who started it!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. He was not afraid of being discovered by the people who were hiding in the darkness from Divine Wind Palace because he possessed the Origin of the Great Ways of the Azure Secret Area and he had a powerful spiritual mind. Furthermore, the Air-frozen Bead was able to stir up the surrounding Essential Qi Tide. They could be using their secret skill that was similar to the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to conceal their spirits while in hiding, but once they moved, they would be detected by Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind. Therefore, Zhou Bao could take his time to do the alterations for the formation here.


    It was showtime for Zhou Bao. The Two Genuine Immortals had previously set up the formation, but he altered the formation by adding and reducing some materials here and there. Five days later, when the two Genuine Immortals were done setting up the Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation, Zhou Bao too, had finished altering the formation. Presently, he just needed to put in an Innate Qi Talisman. Once he was done, he could launch the complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation. At that time, he would give those Genuine Immortals from Divine Wind Palace would a great surprise.


    As soon as everything was done, the two Genuine Immortals came up beside the Old Weirdo at the Lord of Heaven Realm.


    "Lord of Heaven Taicang, the Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation is finished. It is ready for your use at any time!"


    "Do not be in rush!" Lord of Heaven Taicang narrowed his eyes as if he was thinking of something. "These days, I''m always thinking that although it''s a clever move for us to take action in the Azure Secret Area, it might attract the attention of those big sects if we were to act recklessly since the entrance of the Azure Secret Area has not been fully closed yet!"


    "Don''t worry! The Essential Qi Tide is in raging, therefore, no matter what we do, those sects will not be aware of our actions!" A Genuine Immortal laughed and added, "What''s more, even if they do, they can do nothing. The initiative is in our hands and if we successfully control the Azure Secret Area, they can do nothing even if they join forces to fight against us!"


    "Well, that''s true!" Lord of Heaven Taicang glanced at the two Genuine Immortals and nodded in agreement, saying, "Launch the formation!"


    "Yes!" The two Genuine Immortals replied. A little cyan pennant appeared in each of their hands simultaneously, and the four pennants had something in common with Zhou Bao''s 49 pennants in the Sea Area. As the two waved the pennants, a layer of cyan colored fog rose from the nearby area. Without being affected by the Essential Qi Tide, it formed an egg-shaped cyan canopy and covered the entire Azure Towering Mountain.


    "Well, it''s action time!" Watching the cyan canopy rising up, with a smile, Zhou Bao put his Divine Awareness into the Origin of the Great Ways of the Azure Secret Area and gave notice to the Demonic Immortals who were scattered about in the Azure Spirit Sea.


    After the cyan canopy took shape, a cloud of golden light shot out from Lord of Heaven Taicang''s hand. It slowly changed and formed into a mysterious golden talisman. As it appeared, Zhou Bao felt that his Origin of the Great Ways acting up, it felt as if it was tugged by something.


    "Using the copy of the Golden Book of Fate to pull the Origin of the Great Ways is really a good method. But it''s a pity that you''ve used this style in Taiyuan Heaven previously. Well, everybody, time to start attacking now!"


    As Zhou Bao gave the order in the Origin of the Great Ways, a roar emanated from the surging Azure Spirit Sea. Even the raging Essential Qi Tide in the Azure Secret Area failed to muffle the sound. At the same time, due to this unexpected roar, the entire Azure Heaven fell into total chaos.


    The thunderous roar resounded through the sky. As massive torrent pelting down, it was ear-splitting.


    Boom!


    The Essential Qi Tide that had been raging in Azure Heaven for several months nearly ceased flowing because of this roar.


    "What happened?"


    "What is that sound?"


    "Is that the roar coming from the evil beasts? No, something seems to be wrong. Why is the sound so loud?"


    "Oh, no, here comes the evil beasts!"


    "Noooo... They are not evil beasts but Demonic Immortals!"


    "Demonic Immortals? They are Demonic Immortals!"


    Upon seeing several figures appearing forth in the Azure Spirit Sea, the two Genuine Immortals were completely dumbfounded. Those coming towards them were not evil beasts but Demonic Immortals!


    "Why would there be Demonic Immortals? It''s a complete world without the thunderbolt, and thus, no matter how powerful the evil beast is, it is impossible for it to become a Demonic Immortal!"


    "Damn it! Stop them!" As an Old Weirdo at the Lord of Heaven Realm, Yu Taicang was clearly aware of what had happened outside of the Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation although he was at the center of the Azure Towering Mountain and facing a critical situation. His expression suddenly darkened.


    It was beyond belief that so many Demonic Immortals had put in an appearance in Azure Heaven. Did they manage to sneak into this space from the outside world? Impossible! These days, Divine Wind Palace''s main focus was always on the Azure Secret Area and they would never have allowed so many Demonic Immortals to enter.


    "Excellency Taicang, something is wrong! The evil beasts in the Azure Secret Area are running amok!"


    The two Genuine Immortals were terrified by the Qi Power revealed by the Demonic Immortals and evil beasts. They had never come across such a scene before in the Seven-deity Regions.


    Led by a tall Demonic Immortal in blue, almost 100 Demonic Immortals at the Venerable Realm rushed towards Azure Towering Mountain. They were followed by countless evil beasts from the sea which were at the Mysterious Realm and could not change their shapes. And that was the reason why they were so scary. Their enormous bodies and crazy Qi Power made the two Genuine Immortals gasp in horror. Within a few seconds, they had all rushed to the Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation.


    "Don''t panic! You''ve finished setting up the formation, therefore, no matter how powerful they are, it will take time for them to break the formation!"


    Before Lord of Heaven Taicang could finish speaking, he heard a loud noise. The cyan light curtain of the Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation shook violently and then a hundred Demonic Immortals together with more than 10,000 evil beasts rushed in at the same time.


    "That''s impossible!" At this moment, Yu Taicang was equally startled. The two Genuine Immortals from Divine Wind Palace were the first to be massacred. Before they could utter a word, they were turned into a bloody cloudbank from a single punch executed by the blue-robed man.


    A punch, just a single punch!


    The blue-robed man was merely a Two-tribulation True Immortal who had recently entered the Venerable Realm. However, his single punch seemed to be so overwhelming that the two Genuine Immortals were turned instantly into a bloody cloudbank without any chance or power to retaliate.


    The blue-robed man took a step forward!


    Just one single step!


    Then he came up to Yu Taicang!


    He raised his hand and punched Yu Taicang!


    "How dare you!" Yu Taicang''s facial expression changed and he was beside himself with fury. The unparalleled Qi Power suddenly emanated from his body and a golden wall of light rose in front of him.


    "Boom!" The blue-robed man hit the golden wall and retreated backwards as his expression changed. At the same time, a hundred Demonic Immortals launched their attacks. Some used their fists, following the example of the blue-robed man, while others fought with weapons and celestial devices. Glittering with assorted lights, these weapons were used to attack the golden light wall in front of Yu Taicang.


    Plink, plunk...


    The golden light on the wall kept glittering as it staved off all the attacks. However, the light on the wall gradually darkened.


    "Oh no!"


    Yu Taicang''s strength was really amazing as he had merely used a single wall of light to block off all the attacks. However, he felt uneasy for he still needed to control the Golden Book of Fate, and he had already sensed that something was not right at the moment.


    He was in a dilemma!

 Chapter 474: Highest Heaven Celestial Device & Fairy Weapon

    Chapter 474: Highest Heaven Celestial Device & Fairy Weapon


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    "You...!" Yu Taicang had never been scolded in such a manner in his life and instantly became furious. "Ok, ok, ok, Zhou Bao, don''t think that your one small move allows you to act as you wish!"


    With a furious roar sounding out from Yu Taicang''s body, a golden Dharma Laksana True Body rose from it. This Dharma Laksana True Body was eighty feet tall and had three heads and six arms. The six shoulders altogether held six Extreme Yang Level Celestial Devices and weapons. And the three heads had three eyes; each opened with indignation. Three golden red light rays directly shot out of them and focused on the Golden Book of Fate''s copy.


    "Golden Book of Fate, come back here!"


    With a loud bang, the golden light rays, which originally radiated from the Golden Book of Fate''s copy, were concentrated together and began to oppose the energy from Zhou Bao''s Fiery Eyes.


    "Fiery Eyes External Elixir!" Seeing the golden red light ray, Zhou Bao was shocked and a gush of intense killing intent flooded his head.


    "That''s right. It''s the Fiery Eyes External Elixir. It can exploit the Fiery Eyes in your species, hahaha. It''s so useful. The energy from the Fiery Eyes is indeed strong!" After suppressing the energy radiating from Zhou Bao''s Fiery Eyes with three of the Fiery Eyes External Elixir, Zhou Bao could finally laugh with a wicked delight. "Zhou Bao, rest assured. After I kill you, I won''t kill your whole family. I will catch your entire species, imprison them, and keep them in the Divine Wind Palace. When their bloodlines are in order, I will then dig out their eyes and use them as External Elixirs. Right, if I recall correctly, your wife is pregnant. That''s such excellent news. The baby is your truthful heir, so he must have Fiery Eyes since he was born. Rest assured, I will definitely treat him well. I won''t kill him. I will even nurture him until he is grown and use him to spawn more offspring with Fiery Eyes for our Yu family. Hahaha!"


    "Well, tell me about that after you escape!" Zhou Bao gritted his teeth and lit the red light between his eyebrows. Immediately, he fully activated the Fiery Eyes External Elixir and another ray of red light fell on the Golden Book of Fate.


    "Hmm? Fiery Eyes External Elixir? That''s impossible! How can you have a Fiery Eyes External Elixir? The Fiery Eyes species sternly forbid its people from practicing with the Fiery Eyes External Elixir. You...!"


    "Stupid fool!" Having heard Yu Taicang''s words, Zhou Bao silently cursed him. How could there be a Fiery Eyes species in this world? they were just a few inferior individuals. And what kind of stupid rules?! Besides the sect in the Divine Wind Palace that researched the Fiery Eyes species, who else would know about such things?


    Now, both sides had three Fiery Eyes. It could be considered quite equal. However, Zhou Bao knew that ultimately he would be in the advantageous position. His two Fiery Eyes were on him and connected to his bloodline. Hence, it was smoother in its operation and Apprehension than Yu Taicang''s. He very quickly grasped its sense; and while battling with Yu Taicang, he slowly began to snatch his advantage back.


    "Hehehe, Mr. Yu, what did you say just now? That you won''t kill my whole family? Sorry, I''m not as magnanimous as you. Based solely on what you said just now, I will obliterate your entire family. Don''t worry, I will not only preserve the Fiery Eyes External Elixir, I will also make sure your eyes are intact so that you can see me kill your entire Yu Family''s bloodline and terminate your Divine Wind Palace''s descendants'' line!" Zhou Bao shouted menacingly.


    Zhou Bao''s words once again infuriated Yu Taicang. His Dharma Laksana True Body shook and the six arms that held the Pure Yang Celestial Devices tore apart.


    Crack, crack, crack...


    A sound wave causing one''s teeth to jitter ripped through Zhou Bao''s ears. The six Pure Yang Celestial Devices in the six arms were actually beginning to affect the source of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    "Interesting. You can''t be thinking that this Yin and Yang Dust Formation is made of paper right?!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. He reached out both of his hands and two flags appeared out of them. As he waved them vigorously, a swirl of light dust was formed. Subsequently, the roar of waves could be heard.


    "This is...!"


    BOOM!


    It did not wait for the audience to react. The blizzard that swirled in the sky previously had disappeared, and in its place was a monstrous wave!


    The remaining eight Venerable Realm experts were swallowed instantaneously by the wave. The enormous wave was tens of feet tall and it ceaselessly rushed towards Yu Taicang and his Dharma Laksana True Body.


    The Dharma Laksana True Body could no longer manage to tear down the surrounding space. It used all its might to defend itself against the gigantic wave that was coming towards them. Due to this defense, the Dharma Laksana True Body''s movements were a bit slow. Zhou Bao was quick to take advantage of its slow reaction. With a flash of red light in the Fiery Eyes, a blood red region opened and instantly pulled the Golden Book of Fate into it. At the same time, it broke the connection between it and Yu Taicang''s Dharma Laksana True Body.


    "Not good!"


    Feeling that he had lost the connection with the Golden Book of Fate, Yu Taicang panicked. One must understand that even though the Divine Wind Palace had some control of the Golden Book of Fate, its control was not unlimited. After the Golden Book of Fate made a copy, the book needed at least five thousand years to fully recover. For this day, they had planned for ten thousand years. Taiyuan Heaven had failed; if the Azure Heaven were to fail too, he would become a criminal of the Divine Wind Palace. By then, even with a strength of the Lord of Heaven Realm, he would still be severely punished. The most important point was that once he failed, the Divine Wind palace would lose a lot. In the Seven-deity Regions, the advantage they had over others, which had been accumulated over thousands of years, would be lost to other sects. Then, the enemies of the Divine Wind Palace would also take advantage of their weakness to attack. This whole chain of disasters was not something he could take responsibility for.


    Therefore, he knew that he had to give his all no matter what.


    The True Body with three heads and six arms turned around aggressively. The six Pure Yang Celestial Devices then merged together to form a lotus-like shape.


    "Golden Buddhist Lotus, plant your roots!"


    With his roar, the Buddhist Lotus that arose from the merging of the six Pure Yang Celestial Devices shot down at the ground. Rays of golden light seemed to stretch out and penetrate the ground. It was just as Yu Taicang screamed; it planted its roots.


    However, Zhou Bao knew that the light rays were not rooting on the ground but rather in the space of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Although it did not break the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, it still severely destabilized it.


    Although the strength of the Buddhist Lotus formed from the six Pure Yang Celestial Devices far exceeded that of a Pure Yang Celestial Device''s, it was not a fairy weapon after all and thus could not break the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. However, although the current Yin and Yang Dust Formation was a complete formation, it was formed only because Zhou Bao used the power of the Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation. As it was formed in a hurry, it had some weaknesses that provided opportunities for the Buddhist Lotus to take root.


    Through the Buddhist Lotus'' suppression, the enormous wave disappeared immediately. The flags in Zhou Bao''s hands danced again, preparing to create another world. However, the operation of the formation began to feel extremely jerky, and it was not as smooth as before. If it was forced to operate, there was the possibility that it might collapse. It could only rely on slowly eliminating the Golden Buddhist Lotus'' power to recover.


    But Yu Taicang would not give him such an opportunity.


    After the Golden Buddhist Lotus obstructed the Yin and Yang Dust Formation''s operation, a smile of relief finally appeared on Yu Taicang''s face.


    Zhou Bao knew what he was laughing about. In his heart, he was also laughing at him secretly.


    "Seems like he has to use Fairy Weapons now!"


    Yes, Yu Taicang was about to use Fairy Weapons!


    Since the Yu family''s power had to be protected this time around, Yu Taicang naturally brought along Fairy Weapons. That was why Zhou Bao strategized from the start to plant two Yin and Yang Dust Formations just in case. Planning could never catch up with adapting, however. Before he found the chance to plant two Yin and Yang Dust Formations, he saw people from the Divine Wind Palace coming. Knowing that the sects from the Seven-deity Regions were ruthlessly played around with by the Divine Wind Palace, his plan naturally did not work out.


    However, this did not mean that he has not had a chance. The Divine Wind Palace might have played all the sects, but at the same time, their plan was a secret this time. Therefore, they would not have activated an entire army of people and might have even avoided placing any experts in obvious positions so that they can deceive the public. In this way, the number of people entering the Azure Secret Area would be little. Anyway, the Divine Wind Palace only controlled one gateway. At such a critical juncture, all sects must be eyeing it.


    It was precisely the small number of people that gave Zhou Bao an opportunity to attack.


    Zhou Bao was one step ahead of the Divine Wind Palace in obtaining the Origin of the Great Ways. In the process, however, he unintentionally created blizzards in the Azure Secret Area. To have struck an agreement with the Grand Demon in the Azure Secret Area could be said to have disrupted the peace between man and earth. However, in hindsight, the gigantic Grand Demon from the Azure Secret Area was mainly there as a sidekick. Surprisingly, this sidekick was very useful. At least he helped him hold back the nine Venerable Realm Genuine Immortals. He had helped him a huge deal. Although Zhou Bao now had to face a Lord of Heaven Realm Genuine Immortal one-on-one, there was the Yin and Yang Dust Formation present. He would not be losing too much even if he were to fight him. Plus, with his secret attacks, Fiery Eyes, and the Origin of the Great Ways, he could be considered on par with Yu Taicang.


    However, Zhou Bao had never once relaxed before. What he did beforehand was merely warm-up, only a show. The real deal that would decide whether he succeeds or fails was only one thing ¡ª a Fairy Weapon!


    A gigantic roulette wheel emerged from the top of Yu Taicang''s head. Zhou Bao''s smile grew even wider.


    Fairy Weapon Time-fixing Plate!


    It was the Fairy Weapon with the ability to stop time that Zhou Bao saw at the Sea Area. Zhou Bao was relieved that he was facing a familiar Fairy Weapon.


    "So what if he has a Fairy Weapon? Are Fairy Weapons that amazing?"


    "I have one too!"


    Zhou Bao also had a Fairy Weapon. It was one that he refined himself; and at least on the operational level, he had a greater advantage over Yu Taicang. Yu Taicang''s advantage over him was not the Fairy Weapon itself, but rather his cultivation at the Lord of Heaven Realm. The massive gap between their cultivation status was something hard to bridge, but evidently, Yu Taicang did not know that Zhou Bao had a Fairy Weapon on him. So he naturally would assume that the greatest difference in abilities was due to the Fairy Weapon.


    Having the order of power turned around, trouble naturally came.

 Chapter 473: War

    Chapter 473: War


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Don''t look at his eyes; one glare from him crumbled the golden wall that blocked hundreds of Venerable Realm Genuine Immortals from approaching. It might have seemed very impressive, but in reality, his suffering was unspeakable.


    The copy of the Golden Book of Fate had been offered as a sacrifice, and it was necessary to control it. The reality was way too odd. The moment when all the Demonic Immortals and Evil Beasts charged into the Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation was just right. It was such an opportune moment that Zhou Bao could not respond in time.


    If it were not for the fact that he was a Lord of Heaven Realm Genuine Immortal, the Demonic Immortals would have charged in.


    "They''re still not coming out! Block them!"


    Yu Taicang shouted in anger. With a wave of his hand, rays of piercing golden light glowed from the copy of the Golden Book of Fate. The way the golden light filled the Ying and Yang Illusionary Formation was as smooth as flowing water.


    With Yu Taicang''s rage, nine shadows suddenly emerged from the shadows. All of them were surprisingly Genuine Immortals from the Venerable Realm. The one with the highest cultivation was even a Four-tribulation True Immortal, no different from Master Jin Hua and Lan Shui''er.


    These nine people charged out; and with no intention of being polite, they each wielded a Pure Yang Celestial Device in their hands and furiously charged at the blue-robed man who they targetted.


    "Good time to come!" Seeing the nine Demonic Immortals charging towards him, the blue-robed man was not alarmed. In fact, he was delighted. His two enormous fist fluttered up and down in the air before ramming them directly into the nine Venerable Realm Genuine Immortals, fighting them in melee combat.


    "Don''t fight with him in melee. Stop!" One of the nine Genuine Immortals shouted, and the shadows of the nine Immortals fluttered. Their nine Pure Yang Celestial Devices rose up in the air, emanating dazzling rays of light that reflected from each other, resulting in a formation in the end.


    Nine Heavens Demon-subduing Formation


    Once the formation was in place, the blue-robed man felt a formless pressure that rushed towards him. The intense Pure Yang Qi carried a threatening force that helped to encircle and suppress their opponent.


    "Defend!" The man did not struggle to escape by brute force; he only sputtered out the word "defend".


    In reality, if he really wanted to battle by brute force, relying solely on the Nine Heavens Demon-subduing Formation was not enough for the nine Genuine Immortals to defeat them. However, he was only here as a sidekick. His main purpose was to create attacking opportunities for Zhou Bao and not to battle with them. If he fought them with brute force, his team might have won. But even if they won, it would come at a bloody price. They might as well defend properly. Since Zhou Bao had already obtained the essence of the Origin of the Great Ways, he naturally would have means to defeat the Lord of Heaven Realm''s Genuine Immortals. If he could not defeat them, it would be fruitless to talk about controlling the Azure Heaven.


    eeing that the blue-robed man had been captured by the Divine Wind Palace, Zhou Bao also started to act.


    Once Yu Taicang threw out his copy of the Golden Book of Fate, its golden light emanated in all directions. The same property found in Zhou Bao''s Origin of the Great Ways was therefore activated.


    Zhou Bao had already seized and cultivated the essence of the Origin of the Great Ways. Hence, he was extremely sensitive to any changes in the Origin of the Great Ways.


    "Okay, there is already a connection between the two. Then, let''s start!" Zhou Bao thought to himself. He rolled his eyes and they turned blood-red. At the regions surrounding his eyes, a layer of black lines transformed into a circle of weird thorns. A strange power akin to sea waves spread in all four directions, and Zhou Bao shouted abruptly. With Zhou Bao''s scream, two rays of red light beamed from his two eyes and focused on the Golden Book of Fate.


    "Fiery Eyes?!" Yu Taicang, who was operating his copy of the Golden Book of Fate with full concentration, appeared nervous. The book that was firmly under his control had now become extremely hard to control under the power of the mysterious Fiery Eyes.


    "Damn it!" Yu Taicang swore. He would never have thought that a guy with Fiery Eyes would appear in Azure Heaven.


    "Could it be that the Fiery Eyes species is flourishing again?" He swore secretly to himself. His Genuine Immortal spiritual mind sensed that something was not quite right. He was starting to lose control of the situation. Even though he still had full confidence in himself, he broke a Jade Talisman, which had always been hidden in his sleeve, just to be safe.


    The Jade Talisman in Yu Taicang''s hands was used to send an emergency message to the Divine Wind Palace. It contained some kind of divine thoughts. One only needed to break the Jade Talisman and the wave of divine thoughts would break open any hollow and send it to the Divine Wind Palace. The transmission speed was incredibly fast and its mode of transmission was also secretive. No average man could stop it.


    If the Essential Qi Tide were at play, Zhou Bao would not have been able to detect such a minute vibration in space. But now, in the Yin and Yang Illusionary Formation¡ªno, it should be called the Yin and Yang Dust Formation; and under the Qi Talisman''s operation, Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind was able to detect this vibration even though it was very tiny.


    Zhou Bao was a cautious man. He had never once suspected the Divine Wind Palace''s power. In the Dragon-taming Ruins, that big hand that rose out of nowhere could still strike fear into him up till today. If he were facing that big hand with his current strength, Zhou Bao thought to himself that he could activate the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, and then perhaps there was a chance that they would both die together. He did not know who that hand belonged to, but he knew that it was not something that he could defeat.


    And now he knew that that big hand was the Void-catching Technique, which was an effect of cultivating the Innate Qi Catching Skill to the highest realm.


    The Void-catching Technique could break through numerous voids and arrive at the Dragon-taming Ruins to stir trouble for itself. Therefore there must have been a way to enter the Azure Secret Area. This was also the reason for Zhou Bao''s apprehension. For such a big sect like the Divine Wind Palace, there were tens of thousands of accumulated skills that a small fella like him could never fully imagine. If an incident occurs at the Azure Secret Area, sending news out was not impossible. Therefore, Zhou Bao had always been on guard. Now that he had detected a minute spiritual vibration in space, a smile flashed across Zhou Bao''s face.


    Almost at the same moment as the minute vibrations were felt, Zhou Bao reached out his hand, and it disappeared and traveled through space.


    His Space-escaping technique was a profound attainment regardless of whether he was in the Three Realms Division or the Infinite Realms Teleportation. The divine thought to seek help was captured by Zhou Bao directly after he broke through space. With some force, this thought was diminished to nothingness; and hereafter, Zhou Bao activated the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    Cyan rays of light filled the sky and incisively bloomed under the light. The entire space beneath the Azure Towering Mountain shook for a moment, scattering the cyan ripple like waves, making heaven and earth change color.


    "What is this? Yin and Yang Dust Formation?!"


    The surrounding environment transformed instantaneously. What stood before one''s eyes now was no longer the Azure Towering Mountain; one was no longer in the Azure Secret Area. Rather, it was another world, a world of icy lands and snow!


    The icy winds in the air carried uncountable crushed ice pieces and formed two tornados, which connected heaven and earth. The tornados were traveling towards the people of the Divine Wind Palace. It was not just Yu Taicang; the other nine Venerable Realm Genuine Immortals in the Nine Heavens Devil Formation were also implicated.


    "Be careful! This is not a real icy wind - it''s Sword Qi!"


    The expression on Yu Taicang''s face changed. As he moved both his hands, a golden light ray shot towards the sky, defending his body. He could no longer bother about the copy of the Golden Book of Fate. Like a big bird about to take off, a shuttle-shaped celestial device shot out between his eyebrows and flew directly to the tornado that was speeding towards him.


    BOOM!


    The shuttle-shaped celestial device was engulfed by the tornado. The tornado stopped abruptly with a golden light ball in its midst.


    Yu Taicang''s golden shuttle was a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Even faced with a real tornado, it had the capability to totally destroy it. Yet, in this Yin and Yang Dust Formation, that tornado has not been destroyed, but it seemed to compete with it.


    On the other hand, the other side with the nine Venerable Realm Genuine Immortals had no luck. The Nine Heavens Devil Formation had been completely destroyed. Fortunately, all of them had Pure Yang Celestial Devices on them that could minimally, with much strength, help them stave off the threat for a while. As for the gang of Evil Beasts and Demonic Immortals, they had also sensed the oddness of the situation. Although they were not under the suppression of the nine Venerable Realm Genuine Immortals, they still did not dare to move. Neither did they dare to attack.


    Especially the blue-robed man. He looked at the blizzards in the sky and his eyes seemed to twinkle as if he was in deep thought.


    "Break for me!"


    Seeing that his Pure Yang Celestial Device was not in an advantageous position in the tornado, Yu Taicang began to grow nervous. With a flash of determination in his eyes, he screamed in anger and the golden light in the blizzard instantly exploded.


    Boom!!!


    A loud bang was heard. Even the controller of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Zhou Bao, could not resist the dizziness that such an explosion brought about.


    "What a lad. He dared to destroy his own Pure Yang Celestial Device - this was a Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    The strong force released from the explosion of the Pure Yang Celestial Device was not at all inferior to that from a nuclear explosion found in Zhou Bao''s past life. An enormous cloud of ash and smoke engulfed the sky and swallowed the entire tornado. Even in the blizzard, a trace of its own destruction could be seen.


    Destroying the tornado did not make Yu Taicang happy. His spiritual mind was completely open and focused on the explosion. His hand once again held the Jade Talisman. As long as a small gap was detected in this space, he would crumble his Jade Talisman without hesitation!


    However, reality disappointed him!


    Although the force released from the explosion of the Pure Yang Celestial Device was huge, it was still not enough to break open the Yin and Yang Dust Formation''s individual space.


    Death and disillusionment were like bubbles; both waited to become dust and ashes.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation''s magic far exceeded Yu Taicang''s estimation.


    The icy winds in the sky swiftly traced the scars from the Pure Yang Celestial Device''s explosion. Just when Yu Taicang wanted to proceed to his next step, an agonizing cry filled the air. Looking up, one could see the last Venerable Realm Genuine Immortal being sucked into the tornado. He was only fast enough to let out a cry of agony before being ripped into pieces.


    Thus, a Venerable Realm Genuine Immortal perished in such an absurd way.


    "Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Hmph, Zhou Bao, this Zhou Bao, damn it! You are actually the Fiery Eyes'' remnant!"


    "You, bastard, are a cunt and the Divine Wind Palace''s remnant!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. His voice traveled through space and the entire Yin and Yang Dust Formation.

 Chapter 475: Each Divine Sense Used & Dharma Laksana True Body

    Chapter 475: Each Divine Sense Used & Dharma Laksana True Body


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    Yu Taicang was a Lord of Heaven Realm Genuine Immortal. Thus, it could be considered that he can operate some magical properties of Fairy Weapons. His Time-fixing Plate started spinning, and be it on the basis of effect or power, it was much stronger in both than the one in Yu Nantian''s hands.


    The black wheel was suspended in the air. Everything was silent. Beside Yu Taicang stood an enormous wave about thirty feet tall. There were glimmers of sword light in the enormous wave which actually originated from the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. As long as this wave crashed on Yu Taicang, he would still be hurt even though he was a Lord of Heaven Realm Genuine Immortal. However, the wave was unable to descend at that moment.


    The time within the Yin and Yang Dust Formation had been halted.


    Striding out from the enormous wave, Yu Taicang''s indifferent face finally expressed a trace of a chilling smile.


    The eighty feet tall Dharma Laksana True Body with three heads and six arms began to move once again. The Fiery Eyes on its foreheads flared up with a burst of energy, and as it expanded in all four directions, it began searching for traces of the Golden Book of Fate.


    Although Zhou Bao had some lucky chances, he still was very unskilled. He thought too lowly of the Divine Wind Palace''s cultivation and the Fairy Weapon''s power.


    Maybe it was because his Yin and Yang Dust Formation blocked the North Pole Frozen Wheel the previous time. He did not consider that despite Ye Qingtian''s strength, he was ultimately only a Level Nine practitioner after all. How could he utilize the full potential of the North Pole Frozen Wheel? To have used just a thousandth of its strength was already remarkable.


    But now, although the Time-fixing Plate in his hands was not his own Fairy Weapon, his Lord of Heaven Realm status should allow him to draw out one percent of the Fairy Weapon''s power. In addition, his Highest Heaven Celestial Device Golden Buddhist Lotus should be able to manage any unexpected factors that arise.


    That''s why he was so confident!


    "It is a Fairy Weapon indeed. It''s so powerful that it could suppress my Yin and Yang Dust Formation. I currently can''t even use my Innate Qi Talisman. Remarkable, truly remarkable!"


    "You...!"


    Yu Taicang''s smile froze. He stared in disbelief at Zhou Bao, who was enveloped in a layer of golden light and appeared not too far away from him.


    "Fairy Weapon, you have Fairy Weapon! It''s you; the one who appeared at the Dragon-taming Ruins is you!"


    Zhou Bao''s gaze flashed. As his thoughts spun, he understood what was going on. "That''s right. So that damn place is called the Dragon-taming Ruins. Locking up so many Heavenly Dragons can indeed scare people!"


    "Oh, so were you also the one who was spreading the rumors?!"


    "Of course. Your entire Yu family has no standards at all. I don''t know whether your brains are spoilt, but all of you actually want to conquer the entire world. Such damn fools!" Zhou Bao sneered mercilessly.


    "You are looking for death!" Yu Taicang could no longer restrain himself and shouted in rage. The formation with three heads and six arms trembled and the root-planting Golden Buddhist Lotus exploded into a burst of light. A projection of the Buddhist Lotus radiated out from the Golden Buddhist Lotus and in a blink of an eye, it dissolved into numerous golden petals that shot towards Zhou Bao.


    "What a cheap trick. You have a Lord of Heaven Realm cultivation. Why are you using such a useless move?!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. He made no attempt to dodge and the incoming golden petals were deflected by the golden light he was enveloped in.


    "Hmph!" Yu Taicang coldly snorted. He was only testing the waters with his previous move. Although Zhou Bao was not restricted by the Time-fixing Plate, it might not be due to the weapons on his body. After all, there were countless strange weapons in this world. What if there were one or two weapons that could withstand the control of the Time-fixing Plate? That would not be unexpected. Therefore, he decided to test the waters. Evidently, his luck-based idea was not accurate. Zhou Bao indeed possessed Fairy Weapons. Even if it was a premier class Pure Yang Celestial Device, it would still not be able to defend itself from the Time-fixing plate and suppress the energy from the Golden Buddhist Lotus at the same time.


    "Good, very good. It really was a good move. I did not think that you would have a move like this. Looks like we really did look down on you!" Yu Taicang gritted his teeth and glared fiercely at Zhou Bao. "However, do you think you can win over me by relying on your Fairy Weapon? No matter how strong you are, you only have a Level Nine cultivation. Even if you have a Fairy Weapon, how much of its power can you utilize? I am already on the Lord of Heaven Realm. I don''t even need a Fairy Weapon. I can squash you to death with just one finger!"


    After saying that, Yu Taicang indeed extended one of his fingers towards Zhou Bao.


    "Perfect timing!"


    The finger was right on Zhou Bao''s forehead where the Fiery Eyes External Elixir laid. Zhou Bao smiled. His entire body exploded with golden light, and this light from the Furnace of Immortality blocked the attack from the finger.


    Just at that moment, Zhou Bao''s expression changed drastically. The power from Yu Taicang''s finger seemed to have exceeded his expectations by far.


    The golden light around Zhou Bao''s body seemed to grow more intense. In the end, as if it was tangible, it transformed into a dark golden membrane. This dark golden membrane started to ripple like water, dispersing the pressure from Yu Taicang''s finger.


    Yu Taicang laughed coldly. He stubbornly laid his finger on the golden light on Zhou Bao''s forehead and refused to remove it.


    "This is my Three Realms Piercing Finger Skill! Can you defend yourself from this?!"


    The Three Realms Piercing Finger Skill was one of the strongest skills ever. Legend has it that at the highest realm, one finger could penetrate through three different realms and there was no way to defend against it. However, Yu Taicang still could not reach that realm. But as a Lord of Heaven Realm Genuine Immortal, the power released from his secret skill, which he had been practicing for hundreds of years, still exceeded Zhou Bao''s imagination.


    However, Zhou Bao still blocked it.


    "Your Three Realms Piercing Finger Skill is indeed amazing. But I''m afraid it must be draining. I think it would be best to move back your finger. If you die from exhaustion, that''s not my problem!"


    After three breaths, Zhou Bao''s face revealed a smile. In contrast, Yu Taicang''s gaze revealed a shocked expression.


    He still did not go easy on Zhou Bao. After realizing what a troublemaker Zhou Bao was, he had immediately used his most murderous Three Realms Piercing Finger Skill in the hope of killing Zhou Bao with one move. From his perspective, although Zhou Bao had a protective Fairy Weapon, Fairy Weapons were in the end only Fairy Weapons. How could a Level Nine expert understand the secret of using such a Fairy Weapon and fully utilize its powers?


    At most, it might be because Zhou Bao was lucky to have mastered a few functions of the Fairy Weapon. He had practiced his own Three Realms Piercing Finger Skill for so many years. It could be said that with one touch of his finger, even a Pure Yang Celestial Device would melt. Fairy Weapons were more powerful than Pure Yang Celestial Devices by multiple folds. However, for a Level Nine expert, a body-shielding light may not be more powerful than a Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    But the result proved that his prediction was wrong.


    "I forgot to tell you that this Fairy Weapon was refined by myself!" Zhou Bao seemed to have looked through his thoughts and smiled slightly. Golden light was still radiating abundantly from the top of his head, and a shadow of the Skull Elixir Furnace emerged. "My luck isn''t bad. The last time when I was at Taiyuan Heaven, I received a corpse of an Innate Deity. I also happened to know the Furnace of Immortality''s practice method so I decided to try. Surprisingly, it worked! Although my cultivation isn''t high, this is still something that I refined myself after all. It is convenient to use in times of need. Even if I cannot utilize all of its power, I can at least utilize thirty percent of it!"


    "Thirty percent!!"


    After hearing Zhou Bao saying "thirty percent", Yu Taicang knew that things were not turning out well. However, Zhou Bao would never give him time to react. With a forceful activation of the Furnace of Immortality, seven different colored lights radiated from the Furnace of Immortality and wrapped tightly around Yu Taicang.


    This was the Tusita Fire.


    Tusita Fire was a replica made by the necromancers of ancient times using the nine Heavenly Fires. Although it was inferior to the nine Heavenly Fires, it definitely could replicate their power within a short span of time. If it was put on Zhou Bao, it could manage, with some effort, to activate the high energy of the Purple Dazzling Heavenly Fire and the engulfing power of the Ancient Black Flame. To put it in the Furnace of Immortality would be a different story. Under the warmth of the Furnace of Immortality, Zhou Bao realized strangely that the Furnace of Immortality could actually activate the power of the nine Heavenly Fires. Although it cannot last for long; if all nine Heavenly Fires were activated at the same time, how powerful would that be?


    In the past, Zhou Bao never had a chance to try. Now, an opportunity had arisen.


    Purple Dazzling Heavenly Fire


    Ancient Black Flame


    Mysterious Extreme Yin Fire


    Holy Golden Flame


    Black Freezing Flame


    ¡­


    The nine Heavenly Fires formed nine stripes. Each displayed its strongest strength and wrapped around Yu Taicang.


    "Hey, let me go!"


    Yu Taicang shouted in fury. He felt that the nine eccentric fires were using different ways to melt his body. If he did not use any other tricks, there was a high possibility that he would melt under these eccentric flames. If that would really happen, what a big joke that would be.


    The Divine Wind Palace had many tricks. As the Divine Wind Palace''s First Elder he had, of course, many protective tricks. However, a lot of them had no use at this time.


    He really had met with a strong opponent this time. However, this strong opponent, this enemy, only had a Level Nine cultivation. He had not even practiced to the Mysterious Realm. In front of such an opponent, he really had no face to use those escapist methods. He really could not lose his face for that. Plus, it was not as if he had no other methods to deal with Zhou Bao. He was a Lord of Heaven Realm Genuine Immortal after all, and he also was a member of a massive sect¡ªthe Divine Wind Palace. His family background was richer than so many ordinary people''s.


    A cry of anger was heard before a cyan and transparent mask exploded out from his body. This transparent mask merged with his Gang Qi and expanded violently, blocking the nine stripes successfully.


    "Kid, if you want to kill me with your abilities, you are still too weak!" Yu Taicang screamed and leaped forward aggressively. His formation of three heads and six arms leaped forward accordingly too.

 Chapter 476: Heavenly Jade Technique & Immortal Body Technique

    Chapter 476: Heavenly Jade Technique & Immortal Body Technique


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    This one move brought a great enough momentum as if it could shatter the earth with one foot. Thereafter, an extremely thick light column appeared on the formation''s hand. Looking again at Yu Taicang, he had a white jade pestle in his hand and shot it towards Zhou Bao''s head.


    "Another Extreme Yang Level Wizard Weapon!" Zhou Bao could quickly discern the white jade pestle''s level even though he did not know its history. It was surprisingly a Wizard Weapon at the Pure Yang Celestial Device level, and it was purely focused on strength as well. Almost simultaneously, Zhou Bao could feel a familiar and extreme energy wave radiating from the column.


    "Heavenly Jade Technique, Immortal Body Technique, break everything!"


    A sense of enormous threat overwhelmed Zhou Bao''s entire body. Zhou Bao was shocked, and he fiercely pulled his head back, forgetting the idea of escaping via the Three Realms Division under the pressure. With a raise of his hand, twelve rays of light flashed past and flew towards the jade pestle that descended from the sky.


    "Pure Yang Celestial Device, break for me!" Zhou Bao shouted in agitation and caused twelve Pure Yang Celestial Devices to break consecutively.


    Boom!


    With intense light rays and a sound that shook the heavens, Zhou Bao was still heavily impacted even though he had fully activated the energy from the Furnace of Immortality. The attack, as if tangible, broke the Body-shielding Light from the Furnace of Immortality and also broke the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. It even affected the Time-fixing Plate Fairy Weapon by slowing its operation down a little.


    However, it was merely delayed for a little - nothing more. The time was still standing still.


    It was exactly because of the time being at a standstill that whatever happened was not revealed to the outside world and that even though the Yin and Yang Dust Formation had been damaged. Under the power of the Time-fixing Plate, the time that passed in the outside world would be equivalent to a blink of an eye no matter how long the battles on the inside lasted. From the perspective of the outside world, Yu Taicang only did one thing which was to draw and wield the Time-fixing plate. As for the time period that was covered by the Time-fixing Plate, it had all disappeared.


    With an explosion that destroyed twelve Pure Yang Celestial Devices at once, Zhou Bao desired to die even though he was wealthy. However, from Zhou Bao''s perspective, it was all worth it.


    Zhou Bao had practiced the Heavenly Jade Technique for tens of years already. Nobody knew the power of this eccentric secret skill better than him. A Lord of Heaven Realm Genuine Immortal had used the Heavenly Jade Technique to attack him; and even if he had the Body-shielding Light, he still could not defend himself. After all, no matter how strong a Fairy Weapon was, as long as it was mind-linked, some of the pressure exerted by the Fairy Weapon would be transferred to his mind. If the power was extremely strong, the Fairy Weapon may still be alright, but his mind would suffer some serious damage.


    And the power released from the Heavenly Jade Technique was definitely one that could severely damage him. Additionally, besides the Heavenly Jade Technique, Zhou Bao felt a foreign yet familiar energy from the pestle.


    It was indeed an energy that belonged to the Seven Wonderful Techniques. However, it was not the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill that he knew of, but rather another skill of the Seven Wonderful Techniques.


    As for some of the legends about the Seven Wonderful Techniques, Zhou Bao was aware of them and was also a practical user of them. Those eccentric yet complete sets of secret skills were like the ones in the game Diablo. The fusion of two skills would bring about an additional energy boost. When the Heavenly Jade Technique fused with the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, there seemed to be a strange psychotic effect. Only heaven knew the effect that fusing the Heavenly Jade Technique with one of the Seven Wonderful Techniques together would yield.


    Now he knew!


    It breaks every magic!


    Aside from some physical destruction, there was also the ability to break magic. That was why it was so easy to destroy the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and also weaken the power of the Body-shielding Light, eventually letting him be severely damaged.


    If it was not for his well-timed action to explode the twelve Pure Yang Celestial Devices to disperse the pressure on him, Zhou Bao believed that he would have already been squashed to jam by the White Jade Pestle. However, the current situation was not any better too.


    Under an explosion that could almost have destroyed the entire world, Zhou Bao''s tendons and meridians had already suffered a lot of damage and his Real Essence Dharma Power had also been messed up. Due to the enormous explosive power, flesh and blood could be seen and many parts exposed jade-white bones covered with cracks. Currently, even if it''s just a slight movement of his muscles, his entire body would hurt so much that he is almost unable to move anymore.


    "Kid, you''re really good. You actually know that you have to destroy so many Pure Yang Celestial Devices. It seems like there is an eighty percent chance that you''re responsible for what happened at Rolling Dragon Palace!"


    "Hehe!" Zhou Bao looked at the evenly pitiful Yu Taicang and laughed. But just these two laughs used some of his muscles so that they were aching all over, and he didn''t want to talk anymore.


    "Well, well, well! So you put the blame on Nantian! By the time when the Rolling Dragon King has nourished their pneuma, they will come for my Yu family first. What a strategically good move!"


    "That''s right, it was indeed a strategically good move!" Just for a little while, Zhou Bao''s body started its speedy recovery. His greatest harvest at Taiyuan Heaven was not the Innate Deity''s skull, but rather the body absorption of the Innate Deity''s remains. He not only grew much stronger so that he could be considered on par with the other Genuine Immortals, but the most important thing was that he gained incomparable recovery abilities. In the previous moment, he was almost about to die from the pain. But in the next moment, his body recovered so quickly that he could stand up and battle with Yu Taicang.


    Seeing Zhou Bao''s wounds healing with a speed visible to his naked eyes, Yu Taicang''s expression grew more ugly. "Looks like I''ve been looking down on you!"


    "I''m also looking down at you!" Zhou Bao smiled slightly. With minimal effort, his body''s wounds recovered by a huge amount. From the outside, it seemed like he was no longer injured.


    "You''re really good. You can actually force me to take out my Mysterious Jade Buddhist Pestle. To die under my Mysterious Jade Buddhist Pestle is a privilege in your life!"


    "I have no plans to die at such a young age!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly and spread out his five fingers.


    Bang bang bang bang bang


    Zhou Bao fired off five Great Fusion Techniques in a row, and the five rays of light radiated together. Yu Taicang retreated backward in irritation. Even Lord of Heaven Realm Genuine Immortals could only retreat in the face of the Great Fusion Technique. But at that time, he had retrieved the Golden Buddhist Lotus from his body. With the pestle in one hand and the brightly glimmering Golden Buddhist Lotus in another, most of the Great Fusion Technique''s energy was deflected.


    Zhou Bao naturally did not want to give in. And two rays of black and red Sword Qi surged into the sky. One of them was flying directly towards Yu Taicang while the other transformed into a blade storm before rushing towards him.


    "Good move!" Seeing Zhou Bao use the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword so naturally, Yu Taicang admired in low tones. His Dharma Laksana True Body''s Golden Buddhist Lotus shook violently for a moment and layers of golden light radiated out, which covered his entire body.


    Swish, Swish, Swish!


    Hu, hu, hu¡ª!


    Two rays of sword light simultaneously hit the film of light, and the fearful Sword Qi shattered the film instantaneously. However, because the film of light had blocked the Sword Qi, the speed of the Sword Qi was delayed for a bit. Just this slight moment was enough for Yu Taicang to escape the Sword Qi.


    However, Yu Taicang also made his attack at that moment. The Golden Buddhist Lotus began to rapidly spin in his Dharma Laksana True Body''s hands, and countless rays of light shot out towards Zhou Bao. Yet these rays of light were also deflected by Zhou Bao''s body-shielding light.


    "The cultivation difference between Yu Taicang and me is truly too big. The few moves that I can threaten him with are only the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and the Great Fusion Technique. However, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword is too pathetic as its attacking methods are too limited. As for the Great Fusion Technique, its power is slightly limited and thus can be deflected by Yu Taicang''s Pure Yang Celestial Device. Although my other moves are impressive, there is a gap in our cultivation that makes it hard for them to pose a threat to him!"


    Zhou Bao secretly pondered in his heart. The only difference between Yu Taicang and him was in cultivation where the Metaphysic Individual Immortal, Saint Realm, and Venerable Realm laid between them. If it were someone else than Zhou Bao, that person would have been easily squashed dead by Yu Taicang.


    It was precisely because of such a massive gap in their cultivation that Zhou Bao did not have many ways to battle with Yu Taicang. This was also the area that Zhou Bao found the most troublesome.


    Similarly, Yu Taicang also had limited means to attack Zhou Bao. The difference in their cultivation was indeed large, but it is undeniable that Zhou Bao had Fairy Weapons. Plus, these were Fairy Weapons that he refined himself. Zhou Bao''s use of his weapons was much smoother than him using his own weapons. The power Zhou Bao gained from using such weapons could not be ignored. In particular, the body-shielding light, which was like an impenetrable turtle shell. He must play his strongest hand to have any effect at all. And he had already dealt such one once, which was the fusion of the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Immortal Body Technique. It not only could release a scary amount of energy, but it also possessed the ability to break magic. To use it to deal with Fairy Weapons would, therefore, be most fitting. The only problem was that this kid was too smart and had the most vicious moves. Once he saw that something was not right, he immediately destroyed twelve Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Not only did he nullify Yu Taicang''s attack with this, but he also used his strong body to recover insanely fast. And what about Yu Taicang?


    Although he was the attacker, that massive explosion, which could have annihilated the entire realm, also injured him. It was just not as serious as Zhou Bao''s. So, then, the greatest problem was that Zhou Bao still had many Fairy Weapons in his hands.


    A Pure Yang Celestial Device was indeed precious. However, the guy in front of him had raided the entire Rolling Dragon Palace. Who knows how many Fairy Weapons he had on him?


    If he still had a few dozen Pure Yang Celestial Devices, he would explode all of them if he would be threatened. Yu Taicang could not accept that after some reflection. But now, the situation was difficult. Not only were both sides of a pleasant countenance, but it was the kind of battle where no one was willing to give in until the other one was dead. If he did not kill Zhou Bao, he would not be able to complete this mission. And if Zhou Bao did not kill him, his own secret would be leaked and the entire cultivation world would be in a ceaseless pursuit of him. And at this point, everyone was clear about those things.

 Chapter 477: Highest Heaven Celestial Device

    Chapter 477: Highest Heaven Celestial Device


    Translator: TransnEditor: Transn


    They both were wise men. From what happened till now, they all had a general idea about each other''s aces in the hole and skills. And they were also confident enough to kill each other.


    "Zhou Bao, let''s see how many Pure Yang Celestial Devices you can explode!" Yu Taicang said after he regained some pneuma. He did not want to beat around the bush and wait anymore, so he lifted the Jade Buddhist Pestle up and directly hit Zhou Bao. With the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Immortal Body Technique combining in the pestle again, this unremarkable blow carried an overwhelming power. It aimed to destroy Zhou Bao''s protective divine light and kill him even if he would have taken out one more Pure Yang Celestial Device and explode it without hesitation.


    "Good!"


    Zhou Bao shouted in a low voice, and a strange and invisible airflow emanated from his body. Then, his body instantly emitted a tremendous Qi Power no weaker than Yu Taicang''s.


    Yu Taicang was so sensitive that he felt that something was wrong. However, his attack was just like a nocked arrow on a bow and had to be sent out. Without stopping, his Jade Buddhist Pestle hit Zhou Bao ferociously.


    Zhou Bao stared intensely at the Jade Buddhist Pestle. And just as it was about to hit his Body-shielding Light, he threw a punch.


    "Is he crazy?!" Upon watching Zhou Bao''s fist, Yu Taicang thought that he must have misread it.


    Yu Taicang had heard that Zhou Bao had great strength and also knew powerful punching skills. However, the difference between their strength was huge. No matter how powerful Zhou Bao''s punching skill, fist intent, and strength were, he would still be unable to fight against the Jade Buddhist Pestle. This was Yu Taicang''s common sense rather than his arrogance.


    The cultivation methods in this world emphasized the importance of balancing the inner and outer cycle. The higher cultivation one possessed, the tougher one''s body would be. No matter how many fortunate encounters Zhou Bao had had, his body must have been weaker than Yu Taicang''s, which had already undergone six Thunder Tribulations. Neither in terms of physical strength nor power were they on the same level.


    His action of blocking Yu Taicang''s Jade Buddhist Pestle with a bare fist was equal to an egg punching a rock.


    Yu Taicang even pictured that Zhou Bao was smashed into pieces by his pestle.


    Everything happened in a flash, less than a ten-thousandth of a second.


    Zhou Bao''s fist collided with Yu Taicang''s Jade Buddhist Pestle.


    Boom!


    As the fist struck the pestle, they seemed to be glued together. The surrounding space of the impact was smashed into pieces as if it was made of glass that had been hit by a great force.


    "That''s impossible! This is... ugh... !"


    Yu Taicang''s body quivered and he felt an invisible, great force strike him followed by the pestle. His body''s tendons and meridians, which were cast in solid steel, could not resist this force at all and were dislocated. Furthermore, his internal organs, which were harder than diamonds, were also severely hit. Additionally, as his blood flowed backward, he felt the smell of blood in his mouth and spat out a mouthful of dark golden blood. Then, his face became pale all of a sudden.


    That''s impossible!


    While watching Zhou Bao''s almost intact fist and sensing the overwhelming power it exerted, Yu Taicang''s heart roared once again.


    "I don''t believe it, I don''t believe it! Immortal Body Technique, restore my pneuma! Heavenly Jade Technique, destroy!"


    Yu Taicang roared. He had completely gone crazy and lost his composure. Therefore, he executed the Immortal Body Technique to rapidly restore his severely injured body. Meanwhile, the Jade Buddhist Pestle in his hand hit toward Zhou Bao again.


    Zhou Bao seemed fine, but his body was badly hurt when his fist met the pestle. However, he possessed a horrifying resilience which was equal to that of the Innate Deity. Even if he did not know the Immortal Body Technique, he was able to recover much quicker than Yu Taicang. And maybe that was the only point where he was superior to Yu Taicang. When he saw Yu Taicang hitting him with the pestle again, he snorted coldly and hit back.


    Bang, bang, bang...


    The pestle and the fist hit each other nine times and completely shattered the surrounding space. Under the Time-fixing Plate''s effect, the transparent space debris floated in the air, looking quite weird.


    Such a scene looked extremely strange.


    Zhou Bao had to admit that he was lucky. Any ordinary space could not bear the attacks executed by them. If Yu Taicang hadn''t launched the Time-fixing Plate earlier, what was going on there would have been known to others. In a sense, Yu Taicang was trapped by his own fairy weapon. Under the current circumstances where the Yin and Yang Dust Formation was already broken, if he could send his Message-delivering Jade Talisman in secret, Zhou Bao may not catch it. But it was a pity that with the Time-fixing Plate operating, he was unable to send the Message-delivering Jade Talisman. And Zhou Bao would naturally not give him the time and opportunity to withdraw the Time-fixing Plate.


    The Time-fixing Plate was a fairy weapon that did not belong to him. He just had refined it a little bit, so how could he be able to use it smoothly?


    Now, he was fighting fiercely with Zhou Bao. Obviously, Zhou Bao would never offer him the opportunity to retrieve the Time-fixing Plate.


    After Zhou Bao''s fist had collided with the Jade Buddhist Pestle for nine times, he was severely wounded. But he had completely figured out Yu Taicang''s strength. Yu Taicang, however, was constantly losing his confidence.


    "The Heavenly Jade Technique! Why do you also know the Heavenly Jade Technique? -No. You still know another technique among the Seven Wonderful Techniques!"


    After hitting Zhou Bao head-on nine times, Yu Taicang finally found that something was wrong. He was unable to sense anything special from Zhou Bao''s punch at first. Only when the fist and pestle collided with each other could he faintly feel an overwhelming power from Zhou Bao''s fist, which felt similar to the Heavenly Jade Technique.


    "You really do live up to your reputation as an expert of the Divine Wind Palace by suddenly figuring it out. Not bad. I indeed know the Heavenly Jade Technique. Moreover, I learned another technique among the Seven Wonderful Techniques!"


    "Did you learn it from the Immortal Palace?" Yu Taicang gently exhaled as if he had recalled something and said, "Only the Immortal Palace is capable of possessing techniques among the Seven Wonderful Techniques!"


    "Not bad. You''re right again. But what''s the point of that?" While watching Yu Taicang, whose injuries recovered as rapidly as him, Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes and said, "Do you think you can defeat me after you recovered from your injury?"


    "No, I just have some doubts in my heart!" Yu Taicang shook his head and continued talking. "No matter if I win or not, it''s over. It''s the last hour that I can manage to operate the Time-fixing Plate. After that, it will automatically stop working and I''ll suffer a severe backfire. Therefore, I must kill you within an hour, otherwise, I definitely will die!"


    "You mean that is your last wish?" Zhou Bao smiled coldly. He was uncertain about Yu Taicang''s words. Perhaps Yu Taicang was using his words to confuse him. After all, a Genuine Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm could do anything in order to save his life.


    "Believe it or not, I''m telling the truth!"


    "Fine, ask away!" said Zhou Bao. He doubted that Yu Taicang was buying time to recover from his injuries. However, at that time, he was also severely injured and still needed some time to recover from his injuries. It would do no harm to him even if Yu Taicang bought more time.


    "Even if you know the Heavenly Jade Technique, you would not be so powerful. I can feel that you not only have the bloodline of humans, but also the spirit of the Innate Deity. Thus, I''m sure that you have obtained more than just a skull that had been refined into a fairy weapon in Taiyuan Heaven!" While saying this, his eyes shone and he looked at Zhou Bao. "You must have obtained the remains of the Innate Deity and absorbed its power!"


    "You have a good discerning eye!"


    By now, Zhou Bao had to admire Yu Taicang''s insight.


    "It''s not about insight. I have seen the remains of the Innate Deity before, so I can feel it from your spirit. Adding on to your body''s strange resilience, I can easily figure that out. However, I don''t understand one point. Although you have obtained the remains of the Innate Deity, most of its power has not awakened yet because your body cannot make full use of it. Therefore, it can only transform your body to your limitation and will only be discovered by you step by step as your cultivation advances. You can''t do that all at once. Hence, in terms of physical strength and power, you are no match for me because I have undergone six Thunder Tribulations, especially when I became a Lord of Heaven after the sixth Thunder Tribulation. My physical strength is beyond your imagination. Such a power together with my Dharma Laksana True Body, as well as the Jade Buddhist Pestle, can only barely be on par with your strength. It''s really amazing!"


    "It turns out to be about this!" Zhou Bao chuckled. At that moment, his body had fully recovered. He continued, "Do you want to know? Then you''d better fight with me again with your full strength. I think you can force me to take out my ace in that way!"


    "Fine, let''s fight!" Since he had gotten answers to his doubts from Zhou Bao, Yu Taicang smiled too. He wielded his jade pestle again and activated his Golden Buddhist Lotus, saying, "Fellow Taoist Zhou, be careful. Here come my last three attacks. If you can withstand them all, you''ll win, if not, you''ll definitely die!"


    Fellow Taoist Zhou!


    Zhou Bao smiled bitterly upon hearing this address. Not everyone in this world was deserved to be called Fellow Taoist. Yu Taicang calling him so illustrated that he finally put Zhou Bao on the same level and was ready to put up a decisive battle in which he would make every effort to harm him.


    "Fellow Taoist Zhou, I want you to know that the Golden Buddhist Lotus and Mysterious Jade Buddhist Pestle is a pair of Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. However, with my current cultivation, I''m barely able to control it, so I usually use them separately. But now, I have to go all out and use them both!"


    While he said that, he tossed the Golden Buddhist Lotus into the air and it shone brightly all of a sudden. Strands of golden, scattered light poured down and dropped on the Jade Buddhist Pestle. Originally, the pestle was white, but now it turned out to be gold. At the same time, strands of gold light wrapped around the pestle as if it was the pestle''s hair.

 478 Killing Yu Taicang

    "The aura and strength of this Highest Heaven Celestial Device are nearing that of a Fairy Weapon!" Zhou Bao finally had a change of expression after realizing the incoming strength and Qi power. The gigantic Jade Buddhist Pestle was coming at a fast speed. The golden scattered light coming from above the Golden Buddhist Lotus had formed a golden cage that was coming straight for Zhou Bao.


    "This trick is not common!" Looking at the incoming cover, Zhou Bao squinted his eyes. Highest Heaven Celestial Devices were divided into two types - big and small. Those that were made up of many Pure Yang Celestial Devices and have stronger powers than that combined, were known as Highest Heaven. The eccentric thing that Yu Taicang was waving in his hands now was a Highest Heaven.


    Zhou Bao felt the regular space fluctuations. What just came down from the skies was not just a rod, it was an enclosed space, and Zhou Bao was trapped in it. He was starting to hear things. He could hear chantings, as if thousands of deities were chanting beside him.


    "This is actually a Buddhist celestial device!" Very quickly, Zhou Bao felt that things were not quite right. With a turn of space, he has entered a complete golden world. He was surrounded by floating Buddha Garan. A soft buddhist halo was shining down from the skies and shining on Zhou Bao''s Body-shielding Light. Strangely, the halo did not deteriorate his Body-shielding Light. Instead, the warm power shone on Zhou Bao''s body, lifting his spirits. He felt comfortable and that nothing was important anymore. He did not feel the need to compete.


    Time passed by strangely. In a thousandth of a split second, it was as if millions of years have passed.


    While Zhou Bao was soaking in this magical feeling, the gigantic Jade Buddhist Pestle was hitting him soon.


    "Oh no!" Zhou Bao only reacted when the Pestle was nearing him. He subconsciously lifted his hand to avoid it.


    Boom!


    After a loud bang, Zhou Bao was sent flying. Half of his body was already smashed to pieces. Only his skeleton, which looked like white jade, remained, and there were visible cracks on it.


    "Damn it!"


    The deeply-injured Zhou Bao cursed softly. The Furnace of Immortality started to rise violently. Nine flashes of Heavenly Fire Stripe shot out and went straight after the incoming Jade Buddhist Pestle.


    Yu Taicang saw the bothered Zhou Bao and joy was visible in his eyes. Facing the incoming nine flashes, he did not budge. He forcefully activated the Heavenly Jade Technique and Immortal Body Technique. He stirred the broken space and harshly hit the nine flashes of Heavenly Fire Stripe. He planned to end Zhou Bao on the second strike.


    "You want to kill me?!"


    "You want to snatch my Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "You want to snatch my Fiery Eyes!"


    "You want to imprison my people and dig out their eyes. You want to ruin everything I have!"


    ...


    The blood vessels in Zhou Bao''s eyes were very visible. He flew backward quickly, thanks to his body that was recovering at a visible speed. He murmured, "Do you think you can get away with this?"


    "Do you think I have no ace?!"


    "Why do you think I was able to snatch your Golden Book of Fate?!"


    "Why do you think I want to snatch your Golden Book of Fate?!"


    The low roars started to rose. A layer of faint white smog appeared behind him and gradually began to condense...


    "Then I''ll show you my true ace, then I''ll tell you why I am able to possess the ability to fight against you who are in the Lord of Heaven Realm, then I''ll let you see why I have been doing this with you for so long!"


    When the second attack was about to hit Zhou Bao, Yu Taicang''s expression changed.


    The Jade Buddhist Pestle hit harshly on the white smog. The seemingly think smog only moved a little and did not disperse. Yu Taicang felt that it hit on the hardest granite to exist, and the strong repulse force shook his body. His legs became jelly and even the imaginary buddha country made with the Highest Heaven Celestial Device almost collapsed. This was only a small repulse force.


    After being frightened to his core, he wanted to retrieve back the Jade Buddhist Pestle. However, what happened next made him even more aghast. That white smog had turned into a gigantic monstrous claw and held onto the Pestle tightly. It was impossible to retrieve it back.


    "Roar!"


    The white smog surged, and a roar that shook the heavens was heard. Yu Taicang looked at the white smog around Zhou Bao that was gradually condensing. That gradual formation, that suffocating pressure, that terror from primitive times. That fierce and dominating fear known to all heavens and earth.


    "Primordial Fierce Beast!!!"


    Yu Taicang may be a Genuine Immortal in the Lord of Heaven Realm, but he was unable to refrain himself from shouting out loud.


    The white smog had condensed to form a giant beast shadow of 300 feet tall. It looked like a giant ape that has a horn on its head.


    A pair of claws grabbed onto the Jade Buddhist Pestle tightly. That pair of golden gaze fixated onto Yu Taicang with no feelings. It was as if it was eyeing prey.


    "I really have to thank you. If it wasn''t for the enormous pressure you gave me, I wouldn''t have understood the secret of Real Body Combination so quickly! If it wasn''t for you beating me into pieces just now, I wouldn''t have found a chance to combine with the Real Body! Hahahahaha, since you''ve done me such a huge favor, I will let you die quickly and suffer no pain!"


    Zhou Bao''s body has completely integrated into the white smog. After an extreme Qi Power rose, the 300-feet tall Real Body of Primordial Fierce Beast also rose.


    400 feet.


    500 feet.


    600 feet.


    800 feet.


    1000 feet.


    1200 feet.


    ...


    1800 feet.


    The Real Body of Demonic Ape rose to 1800 feet high before it stopped growing. Standing in front of him, Yu Taicang''s Dharma Laksana True Body was like an ant, waiting to be stepped to death by Zhou Bao anytime.


    The Qi essence was so huge it began to surge in the white smog. The Qi Power of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan started to take the form of a mountain, pressing down on Yu Taicang.


    Crack! Crack! Crack!


    The golden light from Golden Buddhist Lotus was shining brightly. As the transparent gigantic mountain started to press down, cries could be heard from below it. The light rays gradually began to grow weak.


    "Oh no!" Yu Taicang''s expression turned pale. Extreme panic, fear, and prediction of death were taking over his heart.


    He shouted loudly and bit his tongue, spitting a mouthful of essence and blood onto the Golden Buddhist Lotus. It buzzed and with a loud bang, the golden light shook violently, as if it wants to break free of the suppression. However, extreme power caused all these efforts to be in vain.


    "Now do you know why I can fight against you with a Level Nine Cultivation and body? Now do you know my ace? Now do you know why I''m so confident?"


    A loud voice came from the mouth of the Primordial Demonic Ape. It rang loudly inside Yu Taicang''s ears. "It''s all thanks to you! If you haven''t given me so much pressure, I wouldn''t have broken through so quickly and achieve the Mysterious Realm!"


    "Real Body Combination, Mysterious Realm!" As Yu Taicang stared at Zhou Bao''s Real Body that shot up to 1800 feet, his Dharma Laksana True Body shifted backward violently. The Jade Buddhist Pestle had already left his hands and was in the ape''s possession. Only a teeny tiny strand of scattered golden light was connected to the Golden Buddhist Lotus.


    "Roar!"


    The Real Body of Demonic Ape gave a loud yell once again. With a wave, its sharp claws tore apart the scattered light and pulled out the Jade Buddhist Pestle from the Golden Buddhist Lotus. Once the connection was lost, the glow from the latter shook violently and gradually dimmed.


    "Poof!" Yu Taicang suffered a huge blow and spit out mouthfuls of blood.


    "Looks like this is your Natal Celestial Device. Hehe, I''m so sorry!" Zhou Bao''s voice came from the air. The ape''s sharp claws, that are as big as a field, fell from the air and aimed directly for the Golden Buddhist Lotus.


    Naturally, Yu Taicang would not allow him to get away. He murmured a string of words that seemed like a curse. As a result, the golden light of the Golden Buddhist Lotus shone again. The bright rays shone from the Buddhist Lotus and landed on that sharp claw.


    However, compared to the claw, the preventive measure of this light seemed very weak. The white claw did not pay any attention to the buddhist halo. Without any changes in power, it grabbed onto the Buddhist Lotus in just one swing. Its white smog immediately enveloped the Lotus.


    Yu Taicang felt that the connection between his spiritual mind and the Golden Buddhist Lotus was cut off by a strong force. His spiritual mind suffered a huge blow and was unable to withstand it anymore. It wobbled suddenly and he almost fell head-first. Although he managed to balance his body eventually, it was obvious that he looked lifeless. Behind him, the Dharma Laksana True Body shook and dispersed. He lifted his head and looked at Zhou Bao''s gigantic Real Body of Demonic Ape with no energy. Suddenly, he became speechless.


    After having the Golden Buddhist Lotus, the Real Body of Demonic Ape did not even spare a look before tearing up the hollow with the Jade Buddhist Pestle in his other hand. He stuffed it into the gap between the two worlds. After which, he stretched out his hands and grabbed for the Time-fixing Plate.


    "Stop!"


    Seeing that the ape was aiming for the Time-fixing Plate, Yu Taicang yelled loudly and raised his hand, as if he wanted to do something. However, before he even launched anything, the ape used his free hand to smash him down.


    "Poof!" Yu Taicang was smashed into fine powder very seamlessly. It was a pity that he was a well-respected fellow but had fallen in the Azure Heaven for no reasons. There were only three Fiery Eyes left of him, floating in the space.


    After Yu Taicang was killed, no one would be able to stop Zhou Bao from contaminating the Time-fixing Plate!

 479 Taihua Mountain

    "Hualalalala!"


    In the extravagant Divine Wind Palace, an angry roar rang in the air again.


    This time round, the roar was much more powerful and scary.


    The anger contained in the roar had turned into matter, enveloping the whole of Divine Wind Palace. In this hollow, even the airflow had been affected by the anger and turned sanguine.


    Outside the palace, there were initially a number of Genuine Immortals passing by. However, they were suddenly suppressed by the power that exploded from the Palace. All of them were unable to move.


    "What devastating matter caused Yu Taixu to be this angry?!" Amongst the crowd of Genuine Immortals, there was a young man who wore a light golden patterned robe. He was also suppressed by the immense power, but his facial expression was unlike the others. Instead of being paranoid, he stared at the giant palace with a scornful look.


    Boom!


    Suddenly, a silver thunderbolt shot up to the sky and pierced through the hollow before disappearing.


    "Yu Taixu has left!" This young man''s eyes suddenly lit up, as if he saw something incredible. However, what was more important was that he saw a chance!


    "No matter why Yu Taixu left, this is definitely a good chance. Initially, we might have to wait for decades, but the chance is here early. I must certainly grab it!" The young man murmured to himself.


    ...


    Central Mainland Region, Taihua Mountain


    Taihua Mountain is located at the intersection of Jin and South China. It is a small mountain range. There are neither valuable beasts on the mountain nor valuable unique plants. Of course, there will not be any precious minerals. In short, this is a very typical small mountain range.


    The only interesting thing about this place is that if you look down at the mountain from the skies, you would realize that the mountain is strangely shaped like a teacup.


    There were only a few people who were able to do so. Even if they did, they did not mind the common status of the mountain. The area was very peaceful, precisely because it was common. Apart from the human flow at the town centralization for the past thousands of years, even hunters were rarely seen here.


    However, on this very day, a loud bang that shook the skies broke the peace and quiet. A silver thunderbolt flashed across the sky. It happened so suddenly and its Qi Power was immense. The sound waves caused by the loud bang caused the majority of the town to pass out immediately. Some even died from it. A minority of them, who were either healthy or have martial arts background, only felt dizzy. One by one, they turned their head towards Taihua Mountain and only had a thought in mind: Does it mean that there is a treasure on Taihua Mountain?


    Subsequently, everyone got excited and wanted to look for it. However, this ''want'' was only starting to bloom before something even eerier happened.


    They saw the big Taihua Mountain disappear without a trace. The original location had been replaced with an empty vast land. It was chilling to look at.


    At the same time, an eccentric mountain that looked like a giant teacup was floating in the endless hollow.


    This eccentric mountain was the exact Taihua Mountain that was located at the intersection between Jin and South China.


    Now, this giant teacup was enveloped by a layer of light white spirit. Even in the pitch-black hollow, the mountain was still bright. The beasts did not turn on their spiritual intelligence. They obviously were oblivious to what had happened and were still running around freely.


    On the top of the "giant teacup", there was a small hut. In it sat a kid wearing a red crib and a middle-aged man clothed in a golden robe. The two of them drank tea while playing a game of chess. They were having fun on their own.


    Beside them, there was a young man who wore a golden coat. This young man looked like he was in his twenties. His long hair was neat and tidy. His expression was cold. His jawline was as sharp as a saber, accentuating his coldness in attitude.


    His eagle-like gaze was fixated on the kid and his expression showed dissatisfaction.


    "Yu Taixu, do not look at me like this, it is useless! This whole thing has nothing to do with me, not a single bit!" The kid was starting to feel uncomfortable with Yu Taixu''s gaze and unwillingly lifted up his head and said, "Furthermore, I will not care!"


    "In this world, other than you, I can''t think of anyone that is capable of this!" Yu Taixu''s expression turned black. "Taicang is my younger brother and also one of the three Lords in the Yu Family. I cannot let him disappear without any reason. Also, the Azure Heaven was our plan for so long, but now it''s gone, on top of a Fairy Weapon and nine Venerable Realm Genuine Immortal. I need an explanation for this!"


    "If you need an explanation, that''s your own problem, it has nothing to do with me!" The kid found it really funny and glanced at Yu Taixu, "I really don''t understand why you''re here to find me?!"


    "It really has nothing to do with you?"


    "What a joke, do you think I''ll have any benefits from this? You guys from the Divine Wind Palace treat the Azure Secret Area like a treasure. But to me, it is worth nothing. Why would I even want it?!"


    Yu Taicang looked at how Fate Creation Boy talked so carefreely, but could not tell if he was lying or not. He could only sigh, "Fine, I believe you, this has nothing to do with you...!"


    "Yu Taicang, I think you have been the head of Divine Wind Palace for too long, so much that your brain is all messed up. What do you mean by you believe me? Do I need you to believe me? If I say no, it''s no. Even if you don''t believe, the answer will still be the same!" Fate Creation Boy''s expression suddenly looked gloomy. "Regarding this matter, you''ve found the wrong person. If there''s nothing else, you can leave now, I''m not done with this game of chess!"


    Yu Taixu was flushed by the words of Fate Creation Boy. As the lord of Divine Wind Palace for so many years, there was not a single soul that dared to speak to him like that. However, he knew that this was not a place to claim his rights. He inhaled deeply and looked at Fate Creation Boy, saying, "I want to know who is responsible for this?!"


    "Hehehehe, you want to know who did this? Let me tell you, I do too!" Fate Creation Boy laughed out loud and looked at him scornfully, "Yu Taixu, Lord Yu, right now I can only tell you that I wasn''t the one behind this. As to who it was, I have no idea!"


    "If there''s one last person on this earth that knows the truth, that person would definitely be you!" Yu Taixu was not giving up and stared deadly at Fate Creation Boy. "State your conditions, as long as you can tell me the truth, I''ll satisfy your needs!"


    "I really do not know!" Fate Creation Boy shook his head. "You also know that I''ve been staying out of things for very long. It used to be like this and it is still like this. I only want to play some chess and relax. Don''t come to me for stuff like this!"


    "I did not want to disturb you, but I had no choice. This is a very serious issue. I can''t tank it on my own, so I''m here to ask for help!" Yu Taixu was not giving way. "In this world, only you can solve my troubles!"


    "I remember that I''ve warned you guys a long time ago to not even think about the Azure Heaven. But you guys didn''t listen. Now that things are screwed up, you come running to me. Don''t you find it funny?!"


    "I''m here exactly because we did not heed your advice back then. I know that you will know what''s happening!"


    "The only thing I can tell you is that this whole incident has something to do with the plan by the Emperor of the Azure Heaven. Among the 99 Emperors of antiquity times, none of them is easy to deal with. There must be a reason why the Azure Heaven became the Azure Secret Area. How can it be so easy for you to acquire it? You think that you few sects will be able to call it your abode just because you can enter it freely? Let me tell you this, that is impossible!"


    "Emperor of the Azure Heaven? It really has something to do with him? The 99 Emperors of antiquity times really did not fall?!"


    "This bunch of fellas, each one of them are troublemakers. It would be hard to want them dead. It seems like just a few of them died during that year. However, don''t think that the Divine Wind Palace can rule the heavens and earth. There are a lot more powerful people out there on earth that you are of no match!"


    "Taixu has gained knowledge!" Yu Taixu''s expression changed for a while. In the end, he sighed and gave a deep bow to Fate Creation Boy and disappeared.


    "The plan of Emperor of the Azure Heaven? Why did you tell him that?"


    "Did I say anything wrong? The Demonic Immortals in the Azure Heaven and Azure Secret Area are all chess pieces left by the Emperor from that year. Hence, for whatever that happens in Azure Secret Area, whether it is in the Emperor''s control or not, I can say that it has something to do with his plan. Am I wrong?!"


    No, no!


    Venerable Black Turtle, who was sitting opposite him, immediately shook his hands in denial. "You were right, it does have something to do with the plan. Even amongst the 99 Emperors, this Emperor of the Azure Heaven is ranked quite high up. Ordinary people are unable to solve his plans!"


    "That''s what I''m saying, how can ordinary people understand his plan? The Divine Wind Palace is very obnoxious. They think they know it all and can rule the world after getting a little control over Heavenly Court. Their pitfall has yet to come, let them delight for a while!"


    "Let''s not bother about Divine Wind Palace. But what about Zhou Bao? Regarding him and Emperor of Netherworld...!"


    "That''s his own problem, I''ll not meddle into his things with Emperor of Netherworld. That little friend of yours is a freak and a monster. We''re unable to predict his directions!" Fate Creation Boy smiled as he waved his hand.

 480 The Jade Plate of Fate

    In the Azure Secret Area, the crazy battle has ended. It ended so abruptly and came out unexpected.


    Even Zhou Bao did not expect things to end so soon.


    The Real Body of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan was bigger and scarier than he thought. Truth to be told, he knew that inside the body was the effort of the Real Body of Demonic Ape Zhuyan and also the stored up powers of the Innate Deity.


    As what Yu Taicang had said, his body was unable to effectively digest the powers in the skeleton of the Innate Deity. These powers are sunk deep in his body and were slowly giving him strength. However, it is his body that was unable to process the powers. His Real Body of Zhuyan was able to. Demonic Ape Zhuyan was a Primordial Fierce Beast after all. Their ancestors were created out of chaos, just like Innate Deity and Primordial Demon. They are almost the same in terms of strength. Furthermore, Zhuyan itself had the ability to engulf the essence of the world and turn them into power. While Zhou Bao''s body was united with the Real Body, he captured the stored energy of the Innate Deity from his body by instinct. This was the exact power that allowed Zhou Bao''s Real Body to be completely matured and grown, hence possessing unbeatable power from the start.


    While Yu Taicang may be an expert of Lord of Heaven Realm, compared to a Primordial Fierce Beast, there was still a huge gap. If there was no power from the skeleton of Innate Deity, he could have still withheld for a while by relying solely on Zhou Bao''s Real Body of Zhuyan. However, after Zhou Bao was pressured by Yu Taicang and united his Real Body with his body, he entered the Mysterious Realm and activated the power of Innate Deity in his body. Then, both their strength were pulled to a next level.


    Truth to be told, Zhou Bao had a similar feeling when he entered the Mysterious Realm. That is, his power was increasing by multifold, and there was something hot flowing from his body into his Real Body. The latter was getting gigantic and strong, with powers increasing non-stop.


    When it reached an extreme, Zhou Bao felt that his power had defeated all things of threat to him, including Fairy Weapons.


    In such a situation, he stretched out his hands without hesitation and killed his enemies with one and aimed for the Time-fixing Plate with another.


    Actually, even though he was aiming for the Time-fixing Plate, he did not know what he was going to do.


    Coincidentally, at the moment when he was completely in the Mysterious Realm, the copy of Golden Book of Fate that he had snatched away, was completely infused with the Origin of the Great Ways in Azure Secret Area. The union was evolving non-stop. The Origin of the Great Ways has already been refined by Zhou Bao. It was connected to him mentally. This connection caused Zhou Bao to be in a strange situation and evolve together with the union. At this moment, Zhou Bao was the Origin of the Great Ways, and the Origin of the Great Ways was Zhou Bao. The Origin of the Great Ways was in control of the Way of Heaven, Great Ways, and everything else in Azure Secret Area. What is beneficial, what is best and what to do at this point in time?


    These were all called fixed factors in the unseen world, and have to go through Zhou Bao.


    And in the big and small worlds, these fixed factors of the unseen world have to be paired with the power of Great Ways to influence those that know they are alive. The fixed factors will slowly guide them to help themselves accomplish. It was nowhere fast and furious like now.


    This ''fast and furious'' was reflected in another meaning. At this short instant, Zhou Bao was Way of Heaven, and Way of Heaven was Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao had telepathic connection to the fixed factors of Way of Heaven, and Way of Heaven had telepathic connection to everything Zhou Bao had.


    When Zhou Bao''s Real Body grabbed onto the Time-fixing Plate, the space in the top of his head shooked violently and a gateway appeared.


    Once the door appeared, a huge amount of grey spirit gushed out through the small spatial crack Zhou Bao caused in the hollow.


    Bang!


    A loud bang was heard. Zhou Bao gave a tight slap. This slap was not purely his own strength, but also the strength of the Real Body of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, as well as the strength of the Way of Heaven in the whole of Azure Secret Area. The power of the slap represented the wish of the whole Azure Secret Area, it represented the fixed factor of a world!


    Even though the Time-fixing Plate was a Fairy Weapon, it shattered into pieces as a result of the slap.


    Yes, shattered into pieces!


    It was not a part of this world to begin with, but because it had such strong powers, it was able to stop the time of this world. Its powers were incompatible with this world. From the Azure Secret Area''s point of view, it was like a fishbone on the neck waiting to be gotten rid of.


    Fairy Weapons were strong, but they cannot be compared with the strength of a world. Hence, this slap from Zhou Bao represented the slap from all the fixed factors of this world. Hence, Time-fixing Plate shattered into pieces.


    Right after it was destroyed, the time in Azure Secret Area started moving again. The evil beasts and Demonic Immortals all regained their freedom. Also, the three to four Venerable Realm Genuine Immortal that survived in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, as well as the Yu family, were all free to move again.


    By right, at this point in time, the Venerable would either fight till death or spread the news if they spot that something was amiss. However, the problem now was that they have recovered from a stop in time, not a spell to restrict their body movement. Hence, they did not witness anything that happened just now. To them, what happened just now did not happen.


    This bunch of poor fellas. In their memory, they were fighting against the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, the Demonic Immortals from Azure Secret Area. The evil beasts were still fighting and were on the losing end. When they were just about to be defeated, the war situation suddenly changed drastically.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation suddenly disappeared and the space was shattered. A crazy pressing pressure came sweeping from the skies with such fierce Qi power, that they were restrained and could not even lift up their heads.


    Under such huge pressure, under this fierce aura, they could not even gather the thought to move their fingers, let alone transmit a message. Their thoughts were almost frozen, how are they supposed to send messages!


    They remained like this until their thoughts disappeared.


    The Origin of the Great Ways and the Golden Book of Fate were still evolving. The gateway was also getting bigger. In the endless hollow, the stagnant spatial crack started to move. It tore the space and the hollow started to shatter. It was just like how a huge tree was being pulled from the earth slowly, bringing along endless dirt and dust.


    In another hollow, the Azure Heaven that had close connections with the present world started to move too. The passageways that linked to the present world disappeared in the whole tearing process. All passageways were now all shut.


    At the same time, in Jade Pool, Bigwheel Temple, Mingyi School, Dark Sect, and Zhou Bao''s Wuyang Region, six to seven Pure Yang Celestial Devices started to give out a cry. This type of loud cry alarmed the guards and the sects.


    In the yard of Wuyang Region, a Pure Yang Celestial Device, the Gate of All Manifestations, started to shake violently in a huge underground space. Afterward, its light dimmed. On the blue and white door, fine prints and evidence of it being broken before started to appear. This also happened in the other sects. The Pure Yang Celestial Devices that were tied with the Azure Secret Area all had strange changes. Space passages were all cut off almost at the same time. The Pure Yang Celestial Devices tied to them were severely affected.


    "What, what happened?"


    ...


    In just a short while, all the sects started to get chaotic. Nobody knew what was happening. The bunch of Living Buddhas from Bigwheel Temple who were having a talk with the ambassadors of Divine Wind Palace had stiff expressions.


    When some monks of lower ranks came and report the matter to them, saying that the passageways to Azure Secret Area had been closed, their expression towards the ambassadors were turning horrible, as if they want to eat them alive.


    The so-called Old Human Spirit and Ghostly Old Soul are all Living Buddhas who have lived for so many years. They were still able to think fast. In just a short moment, they guessed what had happened. They guessed that this thing had something to do with Divine Wind Palace, and also guessed what they were doing.


    This is a backstab, an obvious backstab!


    While discussing issues together with the Living Buddhas, they secretly sent people to enter the Azure Secret Area and take over the place. Were they not playing a fool with Bigwheel Temple? Were they not making things difficult for Bigwheel Temple?


    On top of that, the representative from Divine Wind Palace was of a high rank. Since he knew about the plan and the interconnectedness between the two parties through the passageways, he assumed that the plan was successful. He was smiling to himself inside, while maintaining a fixed posture on the outside. However, he could not escape the spiritual mind of the Living Buddhas. Now, the Bigwheel Temple was furious, especially Child-endowing Buddha. He was on his feet and just about to have a fight. If he was not pulled back in time there and then, he would have gone full force. Even though the fight did not take place, this knot was tied for sure.


    What everyone did not know was that at the same time, in the endless hollow, the two individual spaces were starting to infuse together. A big change was brewing.


    While the two chaotic spaces were infusing, a gigantic ape was sitting cross-legged in mid-air, staring at the shining Jade Plate carved out of Jade Colored Glaze. It slowly squinted its monkey eyes and smiled, "From now on, I''ll call you Jade Plate of Fate!"

 481 The New World

    Right now, Zhou Bao may be having the most arrogant and delightful moment of his current life. Driven by Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, he controlled Jade Plate of Fate, micro world, and the union of the two. At this moment, he felt like he owned the whole world.


    However, he was not in the mood to think about these things. He had connected his spiritual mind with the Jade Plate of Fate. Now, he was emotionless, as if he had cultivated for thousands of years. His heart was like still water. He was like an old monk, like the only pail of clear water left in an old well. He reflected the heaven and earth on his head alone.


    Presently, to Zhou Bao, that heaven and earth were the Azure Secret Area and grey space. He wanted to infuse the heaven and earth completely.


    As one of the 33 Heavens, the Azure Heaven has a unique place. His Divine Energy of Azure Clouds may seem useless on Green Spirit, but actually, this kind of Divine Energy of Azure Clouds contain the essence of Innate Yi Wood. It was beneficial for the growth of plants. Precisely because of this, many plants in the Azure Heaven evolved into evil beasts, even Demonic Immortals. Hence, Azure Heaven, which was inside 33 Heavens, was the world with the most precious spiritual plants.


    As to the grey pneuma in Zhou Bao''s space, there was nothing much to say. The only thing worthy to be praised was that these pneumas were all the purest. They can directly be infused with Divine Energy of Azure Clouds. After infusion, the pneumas in the world would be thicker and purer.


    The infusion of two worlds was a big event, but the two worlds were not equal. Azure Secret Area was a complete micro world with its own Origin of the Great Ways. After it was infused with the copy of Golden Book of Fate, it would complement the absent Dharma and rule of the Central Plains in the Azure Heaven. It would form a complete Jade Plate of Fate, one that could represent Way of Heaven. As for the grey space, it was after all just a spatial crack in a space. The so-called infusion was just it being swallowed up by the Azure Heaven.


    After which, the spiritual qi in Azure Heaven grew thicker and concentrated by ten times. Its area expanded and the borderless Azure Spirit Sea expanded its territory again.


    When the infusion was basically completed, the ape stood up again. He had been quietly having a telepathic connection with the Jade Plate of Fate and organizing the spiritual qi and pneuma in the new world.


    Once he lifted up his hands, an invisible suction force appeared and gathered the shattered pieces of the Time-fixing Plate into his hands.


    "This Time-fixing Plate is a rare Fairy Weapon that can control the law of time. Although I have refined the Jade Plate of Fate and complemented the lacking Dharma in the world, there are still many things that need to be fixed. At the same time, this is a good chance. Since this thing is in my hands, why not make use of it!"


    Zhou Bao thought to himself. With another lift of his hand, a light grey light was taken out from the Jade Plate of Fate by him.


    After that, the whole space was still again. Then, he lifted out his hand and grabbed the jade colored giant mountain from the Aure Spirit Sea. It was thousands of feet tall. Once the mountain was in front of him, the Jade Plate of Fate let out colorful scattered lights. Under the shine of these lights, the mountain melted like a lit candle. What remained was a jade stone that was about ten feet wide in radius.


    Zhou Bao pointed his finger and the jade stone was smashed into small pieces. It infused with the scattered pieces of the Time-fixing Plate. After which, the colorful scattered light appeared again and shone on the pile of mess.


    Where the light shone, the shattered pieces infused into a ball similar to glue. It kept on surging and raging. Several abstruse talismans shot out from the scattered light and hit on the glue. Slowly, the glue took shape and turned blue-black. After a couple of hours, a wheel-like object appeared in front of Zhou Bao. It was as big as a face basin and rotated slowly. It was made of a material that was neither gold nor wood.


    "You are made by condensing the law of time I took from the two worlds and the law of time from the Time-fixing Plate. I shall call you the Wheel of Time. From today onwards, you''ll be in charge of the time in this new world!" Zhou Bao said lightly. He pointed to it and layers of spatial waves started forming on its surrounding. In the blink of an eye, Jade Plate of Fate and Wheel of Time disappeared into this space.


    After all was done, Zhou Bao took a deep breath. Even though he was using the Real Body of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, he still felt overwhelmingly tired. Once he relaxed, the Real Body of Zhuyan immediately dispersed and showed Zhou Bao''s Real Body. It disappeared in the Azure Secret Area after his gaze flashed.


    After Zhou Bao disappeared, the Wheel of Time started to turn slowly in a deep place in the endless hollow. Time started running again.


    As time returned to normal, so did everything in the Azure Secret Area.


    Those Demonic Immortals and evil beasts suddenly realized that the spiritual qi in the surrounding world suddenly became ten times thicker. Although they had no idea what happened, they were very happy about it. Right when the leader, a blue-clothed man, was shocked and wanted to find out what happened, a shapeless divine thought pierced into his brain.


    After receiving the information provided by this divine thought, the blue-robed man''s expression lit up. He stood there in a daze for a while. When he finally came to his senses, he realized that he was surrounded by those Demonic Immortals and evil beasts.


    "What are you looking at, there''s nothing to look at. It''s all over, go back!" As he spoke, he waved his hand violently and left.


    After his departure, the chaotic Azure Secret Area became peaceful again. The Essential Qi Tide started to surge, as if what happened before was just a dream.


    To Zhou Bao, it was indeed like a dream.


    He got hold of the Jade Plate of Fate of the new world and also understood the Infinite Realms Teleportation. With just a thought, he returned to Wuyang Region. He did not look for Yan Yunfei or anyone else first. Instead, he returned to the place where he had closed-door training. He sat down on the floor first thing and was exhausted.


    "F*ck, f*ck! I was controlled by the Jade Plate of Fate that I refined. Such bad luck, so god-damned unlucky!"


    Although Zhou Bao clearly remembered all that had happened in the Azure Secret Area, he barely believed that those things were really done by him. After the Real Body of Zhuyan disappeared, he returned to the present world first thing. Exhaustion was taking over his soul but he knew deep down that it was not the time to rest. He had to think back to how he killed Yu Taicang and to be sure of what happened to him exactly.


    "That was not me, at least not the complete me. Not only my actions, even my thoughts were controlled by Jade Plate of Fate. Or should I say, it exposed some of my inner thoughts and desires. It influenced me to do all those things!" Zhou Bao thought to himself. Indeed, the Zhou Bao in the new Azure Secret Area was not completely him. It was a Zhou Bao driven by some of his thoughts, or a new thought derived from his sub-consciousness working with Jade Plate of Fate after evolving the new world.


    This feeling let Zhou Bao felt the shadow of ancestor Hongjun in the legends of his previous life. However, it was only a shadow. If he was asked to repeat, he would not be able to do it. Not only that, it might even be backfired by the scary power of Jade Plate of Fate and endanger his spirit.


    "Jade Plate of Fate is indeed magical. Too bad I don''t have enough power. The power of Innate Deity did not completely infuse with Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan. Real Body of Zhuyan also did not grow completely. Hence, it wasn''t able to control the Jade Plate of Fate. Who knows how long I''ll have to wait. But this is good too. The Jade Plate of Fate is too strange. Even if I can control it completely, I will enter the emotionless state. I may not even recognize my children. What''s so good about it?!" Zhou Bao thought through the pros and cons on his own and shooked his head in distress.


    "However, this time I''ve completely gotten control over Azure Secret Area. I even accidentally combined it with the grey space. Now, I''m like the Great Ancient Emperor, owning one of the 33 Heavens. Hehe, be it the Magic Drugs or the materials, all that is inside Azure Secret Area are now mine! Damn it, I can do anything I want!" Thinking about these made Zhou Bao so excited. Although it was his greatest regret was not being able to completely control the Jade Plate of Fate he refined, he knew that strictly speaking, he did not refine it himself. Its appearance was also the result of the infusion of the Origin of the Great Ways of two worlds. Compared to them, his effort was just minimal.


    Apart from owning a brand new micro world, this time round, Zhou Bao''s greatest accomplishment was to forcefully infuse with Real Body of Zhuyan under pressure from Yu Taicang and enter the Mysterious Realm. Since he entered the realm while he was in Azure Secret Area, he was not affected by the present world Jade Plate of Fate. Not a single bit of Genuine Spirit entered it, if not, it would be yet another chaos.


    Precisely because he did not put any Genuine Spirit into Jade Plate of Fate, not a single bit of Genuine Spirit would be affected by it when he goes through Thunder Tribulation and enters the Realm of True Immortality.


    That is to say, he had completely escaped from the present world''s Way of Heaven. Furthermore, because he infused with the Real Body of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, and his body was altered by the skeleton of Innate Deity, once he enters the Mysterious Realm, his cultivation would reach the peak immediately. That would also be the completion status of Marrow-Cleansing Realm. If he was willing, he could go through Thunder Tribulation anytime.


    "Let me wait a while more. Such a big thing happened at Azure Secret Area. Divine Wind Palace lost a Lord of Heaven, nine Venerables and a Fairy Weapon. They will certainly be investigating like a mad dog. If I behave abnormally, they will certainly suspect me. Now is not the time for a face-on battle!"


    Thinking about what he did in the Azure Secret Area, Zhou Bao felt comforted.


    Suddenly, as he thought of something, he raised his hand and three sanguine pupils appeared in front of him. "Fiery eyes, Eternal Eyes. Indeed they are top works made by necromancers of antiquity times. They remained intact under the ape''s attack. Hehe, that may be the case, but you guys are highly searched for right now, like the Golden Buddhist Lotus. I cannot use at all!"

 482 The Extreme Realm of Force: the Crushing Vacuum

    Looking at the three Fiery Eyes, Zhou Bao sighed and put them back into his Space of Segmented Realms. He had benefited a lot, but at the same time, the events that had happened at the Azure Secret Area had been a wake-up call for him: he realized that dealing with the powerful influences in the world was not easy as they were all very sharp people.


    The Divine Wind Palace''s superior stratagem had all the sects fooled. However, Zhou Bao''s inadvertent intervention resulted in them having to pay a double penalty. Due to this, neither the Divine Wind Palace nor the other sects would take it lying down. A ferocious battle was definitely on the cards. It was hard for him to escape from the whirlpool of this struggle, though he badly wanted to.


    "The most important thing now is never to let anyone discover that I have entered the Mysterious Realm!" With this top priority in mind, Zhou Bao examined his body thoroughly and couldn''t help laughing, "Interesting, it''s really interesting! Haaaa, Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, you really helped me a lot!"


    It was because even though he was now at the level of Mysterious Realm, at the Full Closure stage, it was totally invisible, externally and physically.


    When a Level Nine expert ascended to the Mysterious Realm, his whole Internal Qi would turn into Real Essence. However, that was just the general case. Zhou Bao''s Internal Qi had a tremendous quality. Even though he was at the early stage of Level Nine, his Internal Qi had already turned into Real Essence of the highest level and possessed the Dharma power and Divine Sense. This fact was known to almost all the people from some big sects who had been studying him, so it was nothing new to them. Now, he had entered the Mysterious Realm, and all his Real Essence was only about three times more refined than before, and there had been no qualitative change. Thus, he would not arouse any suspicion at this point. This was due to the role of the Natal Power of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan. His Real Body was that of Zhuyan, and at the time of fusion, the Innate Deity''s strength that had accumulated in his body had flowed to every crevice of his body. This allowed his physical strength to evolve to an unbelievable degree. In fact, Zhou Bao was not really aware of how much strength he possessed. He just sensed that he seemed to have unlimited powers. He believed that he was able to smash a mountain with a single casual blow. What if he launched the Heavenly Jade Technique?


    Zhou Bao did a little experiment. Using the Heavenly Jade Technique, he unimpededly broke through the hollow and Space Ramparts with his fist. In the unending hollow, a meteorite measuring about ten thousand feet in diameter, made entirely of iron, was shattered, while his hand remained unharmed.


    "Hiss!"


    Zhou Bao gasped at the strength of his blow. He slowly withdrew his fist and felt a little embarrassed.


    "My pure physical strength alone is almost one millionth of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan. God, I can kill a Lord of Heaven with one blow! I have nothing to fear now!" All these thoughts echoed in his heart.


    "No, no, better keep a low profile, I should keep a low profile. It''s better to lie low these days!"


    After smashing a meteorite to smithereens with one blow, Zhou Bao had felt the obscure, near infinite repulsive force emerging from the depths of the hollow. If it had happened prior to the fight in the Azure Secret Area, he would not have known what the power was, but now, he was wiser. Just as the Azure Secret Area had repelled the Time-fixing Plate at that time, now it was the Principle of Great Ways of the whole universe that repelled him. The strength from his fist was able to destroy the structure of the world now.


    Since his fist strength had affected the structure of the whole world, the world retaliated by producing a powerful repulsive force. If he were to strike again, it would now be against the world''s most original power. Accordingly the result would be disastrous, just like the incident with the Time-fixing Plate in the Azure Secret Area.


    "Go easy on it, I''d better go easy on it. Although my strength is formidable, it is impossible to compete with the world''s original power now, even with the Critical Hit of the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. I understand now what the crushing vacuum is all about. To break the world''s original power with one blow is the real crushing vacuum!"


    The crushing vacuum!


    It was a state passed down from the antiquity times, known as Extreme Realm of Force!


    The so-called Extreme Realm referred to a state that could break apart the world''s original power and principle. And the Extreme Realm of Force was clearly the highest level for pure strength.


    When Zhou Bao was a young child, he had experienced such a state and even executed this kind of punch when he first understood the power of the Universe Fist Intent. But that blow was not his power but the power of the universe from his previous life. It was the power, similar to that of the split of the universe and the Big Bang, that caused his blow to carry a trail of crushing vacuum and kill his enemy in an instant.


    However, he was too young to know what that punch meant then. Now in retrospect, Zhou Bao remembered that he seemed to have been suppressed by an obscure force after that punch. But he activated his fist intent instantly and managed to break free of that repression. That was really an outstanding blow.


    "It was a good thing that I didn''t die after that punch! How lucky I was!" Thinking back to the situation at that time, he congratulated himself inwardly.


    "Although now I can''t reach the Extreme Realm of Force, the crushing vacuum, I can still sense it, which will allow me to study it. By the time I fully understand how it works, I will not be far from the crushing vacuum. Yeah, the crushing vacuum. I will undergo Thunder Tribulation after a thorough study of the crushing vacuum. Soon I''ll have the ability to get through nine Thunder Tribulations in a row in order to reach the other worldly Realm of Human Immortal that is talked about in legends. Then, I don''t have to worry about anyone else!"


    With these thoughts going through his mind, his eyes sparkled with a thin ray of light and then slowly closed. He began to recover his pneuma.


    ...


    Apart from the fact that Zhou Bao had already escaped from the Azure Secret Area and was now recuperating in his cave, and that Yu Taixu didn''t gain anything from Fate Creation Boy, the sudden closure of the passageway of the Azure Secret Area caused a major disturbance among the big sects of the Four Eastern Regions.


    The underhanded tactics of the Divine Wind Palace were also exposed to the public. Even as they were negotiating with these big sects, they had sent someone to sneak into the Azure Secret Area to try to capture it. This had undoubtedly aroused the anger of all the big sects. What made these sects even more furious was that after the passage was closed, the Divine Wind Palace readily admitted their role in this scheme. Divine Wind Palace was really in serious trouble now.


    "Damn you!" In the Immortal Palace, with a snarl, three emissaries of Divine Wind Palace were sent flying by a powerful force. White Tiger punched an emissary in the face and knocked him to the ground. Then he lifted his foot and kept stomping on the emissary, "Bullshit, bullshit! Damn it, how dare you trick me! What''s the matter with you Divine Wind Palace? Go back and tell Yu Taixu to restore the passage to the Azure Secret Area immediately! Otherwise, I''ll never let you go!" He roared in extreme rage and turned to beat up the other two.


    "Stop it, White Tiger! If you go on like this, you''ll kill them!"


    "So what if I do? Tell Yu Taixu to come to me!" White Tiger shouted angrily, although he eased up on his beating. Watching the three golden-robed men gasping for their lives, he grinned and yelled at them, "Get out of here! Now! From now on, no one from Divine Wind Palace is allowed to come to the Central Mainland Region. Go back and tell the bastards of Mingyi School to get out of this land, or I''ll go to Mingyi School in person!"


    "How, how dare you!" The leader of these emissaries was still recalcitrant despite having several of his bones broken by White Tiger. Perhaps this was the problem prevalent in the Divine Wind Palace.


    "Well, you wait and see! Three days, you only have three days. In three days, I''ll kill the people of Mingyi School, who are still in the Central Mainland Region!" White Tiger gave a roar of anger and with eyes inflamed with rage shouted, "Somebody, somebody, throw them out, throw them out!"


    Hearing White Tiger''s roar, three Level Seven experts jumped out of the shadows and carried the three emissaries out.


    "White Tiger, you''re really too impulsive!" Elder Qing, who had been looking on, sighed in despair after the three experts had carried those emissaries out.


    "I''m too impulsive? Humph, if I''m not impulsive, the Divine Wind Palace will think we Immortal Palace are real pushovers!" White Tiger, who still looked furious, had regained his composure. But his eyes were like chips of ice, and a terrifying chill emanated from him. "Divine Wind Palace went too far this time. Who does Yu Taixu think he is? How dare he do such a thing! And putting the blame on us who are actually the victims!"


    "He didn''t put the blame on us. Maybe Yu Taixu really didn''t gain any benefits in the Azure Secret Area this time!"


    "So what? Old Qing, I will not back down this time! If we continue to back down, they will become even more uncontrollable."


    "I know it, of course. If not, I would not have just been a spectator while you kicked those three guys around!" Elder Qing said with a nod. "You take charge of the expulsion of Mingyi School. And I will go to Taihua Mountain!"


    "Good!" White Tiger nodded.


    "Haaa, are we finally going to show our true colors after being in the background for so long?"


    In Wuyang Region, Zhou Bao was looking at the information in his hands and an odd smile flashed across his face. Mingyi School had been defeated overnight by a mysterious expert. Three of their Individual Immortals had died in battle. It was said that a shadow of a huge white tiger appeared in Mingyi Lane that night. The growl of the tiger reverberated through the sky, and a white light passed through the moon. The West Capital was shocked.


    Needless to say, it was White Tiger.


    It seemed that all the big sects of the Central Mainland Region had been very unhappy with what Divine Wind Palace had done and had started to retaliate. The expulsion of the Mingyi School was just the first move.

 483 Impacts

    In Wuyang Earl''s Mansion, Zhou Bao, leaning on a chair, looked at Jiang Xiao standing before him and said with a smiling face, "Let''s stay out of this matter. It has nothing to do with us. As the saying goes, mortals suffer when immortals fight. Just leave it alone!"


    "But Your Excellency, the sudden attack on Mingyi School has caused panic in the world. It''s also affecting our business!"


    "What''s the impact? Is there anyone who dares to threaten our Anyuan Store now?" Zhou Bao smiled. He did not think that there was anyone in the world who dared to pick a fight with him unless that person had a death wish.


    "No, there isn''t!" Jiang Xiao hurriedly answered, "But we are doing business. The whole world is in chaos, and it has affected the supply of goods and transportation. As a result, the cost has increased greatly!"


    "I can do nothing about it. The chaos is a matter of the world. I can''t be bothered really. What, do you expect me to settle the problem?" Zhou Bao stared at Jiang Xiao, "Don''t you think it''s an opportunity? You''ve always said the northwest side is barren. Now that the world is going chaotic, everyone else is jittery. It will be a good opportunity for us to increase the population. Ask Anyuan Store to publicize Wuyang Region. Then the northwest region will soon become more prosperous. Isn''t this good?"


    "Yes, Your Excellency is right. We have started doing it already. And we''ve really recruited a lot of talent these days. Your Excellency, would you like to meet them?"


    "No, it''s up to you to make these arrangements!" Zhou Bao shook his head, glancing at Jiang Xiao who looked slightly disappointed, and sighed, "Alas, don''t you know that I''m also in the midst of the storm. There are more people keeping an eye on me than on Mingyi School, I''m afraid to act carelessly now!"


    "You mean there are people who want to create trouble for Your Excellency?" What Zhou Bao said surprised Jiang Xiao. Now that the development of Wuyang Region was getting bigger and bigger, their lives, family possessions and future were tied to Zhou Bao. Whatever happened to Zhou Bao would affect them directly too.


    "You look so worried. No one is going to tangle with me. It''s just that I''ve caused a few problems at sea, and somebody is trying to get back at me. Don''t worry about that. I can handle it. Go back!" Zhou Bao waved Jiang Xiao out. Jiang Xiao had good abilities and was a very suitable agent, but only on the secular level. He could not help Zhou Bao at Zhou Bao''s level. Besides, Zhou Bao did not want them to be exposed to the upper classes of the Seven-deity Regions.


    As a result of the actions of the Divine Wind Palace, there were now some conflicts between the biggest sects in the Four Eastern Regions. The two sides were on the verge of a fight. Actually, Zhou Bao knew that a fight would occur sooner or later. That was why he was afraid to act carelessly. After all, he was really powerful and his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was enough to kill a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm. In the eyes of these sects, he was, so to speak, equivalent to a Genuine Immortal at Venerable Realm, who was unruly and had no clear intentions. No one in these sects would like to see him go into action.


    Of course, that didn''t mean other people would want him to be passive either.


    At least the Immortal Palace had hoped that Zhou Bao would do something. Although it was not necessary for him to reveal his identity as a member of the Immortal Palace, it was good to show where his loyalties lay. All in all, it was now made known to the upper classes of the Four Eastern Regions that there was an expert in the Central Mainland Region, who was not on the Golden Book of Fate but who was able to kill the Venerable. He was such a wild card!


    "I received a letter from my father!"


    No sooner had he returned to the inner courtyard when he saw Yan Yunfei, his heavily pregnant wife, looking at him with a worried look on her face.


    Zhou Bao frowned slightly, took the letter, and gave Yan Yunfei a comforting pat and said consolingly, "Yunfei, I told you, just ignore the mess outside. I''ll handle it. As for your father, heehee, he is the First Sage-Emperor of the Jin. What could possibly happen to him?"


    When Zhou Bao mentioned the First Sage-Emperor of the Jin, there was a hint of sarcasm in his tone.


    "Zhou Bao, I''m serious!" Yan Yunfei shot Zhou Bao an angry glance. "About the sudden attack on Mingyi School, do you know who the culprit is?"


    "I know, of course, but it''s none of my business!" Zhou Bao laughed helplessly.


    "You know about it? Who was it and why did he do it?"


    "Mortals suffer when immortals fight. Mingyi School is nothing but a hapless pawn to bear the wrath of immortals. It is not a big deal!" Zhou Bao shook his head.


    "But¡ª!"


    "I know that the Jin is closely linked with Mingyi School, and have to rely on their power in many cases at court. But now this power is no longer dependable, it has collapsed. Your father has to reconsider the power at court!"


    "Is there really no room for negotiation?"


    "Yunfei!" Looking at Yan Yunfei''s eager expression, Zhou Bao sighed helplessly and sat down beside her. "You know, this is no longer a contest between secular forces, but a conflict between the most elite sects of the Four Eastern Regions. Mingyi School is only a small branch of Divine Wind Palace, so it''s normal for them to bear the brunt of it. As for your father, he is too involved with Divine Wind Palace, and he has too many things on his mind. If you really want him to stay well, try to persuade him to abdicate!"


    "To abdicate?" Yan Yunfei screamed, looking at Zhou Bao in disbelief. "How could that ever happen? Father is in the prime of his life, and has eliminated a great enemy, the Northern Yuan. It''s only now that he gets to do something big. How could he abdicate?"


    "So as I''ve said, I can''t do anything about this matter!" Zhou Bao shook his head helplessly. "Your father is one of those crazy people who is always insistent in putting forth his own ideas. He thinks of himself as the greatest person in the whole world. How is it even possible for him to abdicate quietly?"


    "Then how should he do it?"


    "How to do it? Rebel, get rid of all the "evil" ministers! Don''t you have a brother who is the Crown Prince? Ask him to rebel, using this as an excuse to clean up those around the emperor." Zhou Bao said indifferently, "There should be some important officials around him. Ask the Crown Prince to accuse those that he doesn''t like of treason and set his troops to wipe them out!"


    "How can that work? You shouldn''t regard it as a mere trifle!" Yan Yunfei said coldly after hearing what Zhou Bao said, resisting the urge to ground him to death with her foot.


    "A mere trifle? Heehee, I''m telling you, in my eyes, the Jin is a trifling matter, and in the eyes of others, it''s the same. Now there are two forces in the Central Mainland Region that are closely related to Divine Wind Palace. One is Mingyi School, and the other is your Jin. Divine Wind Palace has already aroused public anger this time, and it is natural for someone to have to suffer the wrath of these elite sects. It''s not enough to have Mingyi School alone, but it will be enough if the Jin is included. This is the best way to save your Jin. Although your father is my father-in-law, I need a reason to plead his cause, right?"


    "A reason?"


    "Yeah, as long as your father abdicates, I can save the Jin. I still have the face. But if your father is standing there like a stone in a pit, the whole Jin will reek of Divine Wind Palace. Thus, it''s not easy for me to convince others!"


    "Is there really no way? You know my father, if you ask him to abdicate, you''re killing him. He...."


    "Which one do you want to save, the Jin or your father?" Zhou Bao asked. His fingers were tapping lightly on the table, and the sound irritated Yan Yunfei.


    "I don''t know. I just don''t want my father to worry too much, and don''t want his life''s work to go up in smoke as well!" Yan Yunfei said hesitantly.


    "His life''s work?" A wry smile appeared on Zhou Bao''s lips. "I neither understand nor approve of his shoddy Emperor''s Intention anyway, but I know that the only way to save his life''s work is to get him to step down. By any means, as long as he abdicates, I can find a way to save the Jin. If he doesn''t abdicate, I can only save the Yan Family, not the Jin. Just tell him and let him choose!" At this point, Zhou Bao''s tone became firm. Now it was not a question of whether it could be saved or not. If he was really not afraid of losing face, both could be saved. However, he did not really like Yan Yuntian, so there was no need to lose face for him. And it was only for the sake of Yan Yunfei that he was willing to help him.


    Zhou Bao''s expression and tone made Yan Yunfei understand that as Zhou Bao had said, there was no room for negotiation. She could only sigh and keep quiet.


    "Yunfei, don''t be frustrated. All will be fine. When your father abdicates, I can bring him here. If he still wants to be emperor, I''ll put Wuyang Region in his charge. After he has managed it, he can build up a strong army again and go back to the restoration!" Zhou Bao could not help laughing as he pictured this.


    "What are you talking about? This is a total mess!" Yan Yunfei, though in a bad mood, was amused by Zhou Bao''s words. She tapped him a few times.


    Laughing together with Yan Yunfei, Zhou Bao said, "Yunfei, don''t think too much. You''re only two months away from having a baby. Taking care of yourself is the most important thing. As for your family, I can assure you that neither your father nor anyone else will be in danger!"


    "Okay!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s promise, Yan Yunfei nodded and did not ask any more questions.

 484 Leaving

    "Oh, my god, it is never ending!" Zhou Bao complained. This was because after comforting Yan Yunfei in the Inner Yard, he had returned to the hall. Before he could even sit down, along came Golden Rooster. And at the sight of him, Zhou Bao knew that it would not be good news.


    "Why, has someone been here before me?"


    "You''re the third, Jiang Xiao, Yunfei, and now you! Hey, what''s the matter with White Tiger? Suddenly destroying Mingyi School and causing a great deal of chaos. Is he trying to be funny?"


    "An agreement has been reached among the Immortal Palace, Bigwheel Temple, Jade Pool, Thunder Palace and the Dark Sect. We are planning to drive Divine Wind Palace out of the Central Mainland Region," Golden Rooster said flatly, "There''s going to be a war!"


    "What? So soon?" Zhou Bao was not surprised when he heard about the agreement. If the four big sects did not do anything yet, they would be labeled as cowards for life. "Do you want me to reveal my identity?"


    "No!" Golden Rooster shook his head, "It''s not time yet. Although the war is about to break out anytime now, it will only involve Metaphysic Individual Immortals at the most. People at the Level of True Immortality will not be involved. And your combat capability and identity are very sensitive issues. Once you are revealed to be one of the 28 constellations of Immortal Palace, I''m afraid that Divine Wind Palace will go all out to kill you at any cost, so, you''d better keep your present ambiguous state."


    "Oh?" Upon hearing these words, Zhou Bao''s ears pricked up, "Did you say Divine Wind Palace will try to kill me? Who will they be sending?"


    "I don''t know. Though I''m one of the 28 constellations in Immortal Palace, you know, I''m only a Level Eight expert. How would I know so much about the top?"


    "Alas, after hearing this, I suddenly have the urge to fight. Golden Rooster, help me to find out who will be my assassin if I reveal my identity."


    "What are you going to do?" Looking at Zhou Bao who was squinting and smiling viciously, Golden Rooster had a bad feeling in his gut.


    "I want to kill him first!" Zhou Bao answered simply.


    "Don''t even think about it. You are powerful but only equivalent to a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm. You''re so visible because you haven''t yet stepped into the Mysterious Realm. Once you step into this realm, and your Genuine Spirit is included in the Golden Book of Fate, you''ll know what "no choice" means. The Divine Wind Palace has countless masters, especially in the inner palace, not to mention the Genuine Immortal of the Venerable Realm, even Genuine Immortals of the Lord of Heaven Realm are no less than 10 in number. If you go, you''ll meet your death!"


    "Since they''re so strong, why do they restrict fighters? If they send those Lords of Heaven to fight, won''t the battle come to a quicker end?"


    "Humph, they wish! Don''t forget that the Golden Book of Fate is not in their hands. Although no one has as much authority over the Golden Book of Fate as they do, we''ll have more control over it if the four of us work together. Over the years, they indeed have absorbed many great powers, but what these restrained Genuine Immortals and Individual Immortals fear is the Golden Book of Fate, not Divine Wind Palace. Now that the control of the Golden Book of Fate has changed hands, those guys won''t be stupid enough to work for Divine Wind Palace. Then Divine Wind Palace can only rely on themselves. Thus, the fight isn''t going to be too great a battle!"


    "But it involved a lot. The world is in turmoil because White Tiger destroyed Mingyi School!"


    "In turmoil? Humph, this is just the beginning. They''ll just have to give in this time, or they''ll have a bigger problem ahead!"


    "What, a bigger problem? Golden Rooster, seriously, what do you know?"


    "Nothing, but Elder Qing told me this. Last time I came to see you, you were doing a closed-door training, so I didn''t want to bother you. Now that you are out, I''ll tell you what Elder Qing said."


    "What''s he going to tell me?"


    "Wait and see!"


    "Wait and see? So I should not get involved?"


    "Don''t get involved as long as other people don''t mess with you. But if someone should provoke you, it doesn''t matter if you kill him!"


    "Okay, got it, wait and see. By the way, there''s one thing I have to ask you."


    "What is it?"


    "About my father-in-law, what are you going to do about the Jin?"


    "Hehe, White Tiger is in charge of all this, but I think he''s going act soon. The Golden Book of Fate limits his freedom when it comes to having a hand in worldly affairs, so he is now choosing an agent!"


    "Well." Having thought for a moment, Zhou Bao touched his forehead and said with some embarrassment, "Then, is it possible for you to leave the Jin alone?"


    "Leave the Jin alone?"


    "Yeah, the Jin does have something to do with Divine Wind Palace, but they also have something to do with Immortal Palace. We Immortal Palace support the well-known family, and have been competing with the imperial power supported by Mingyi School. Now that Mingyi School has fallen, the power of the well-known family will inevitably expand. The forces on both sides are already out of balance. Don''t you think that it''s the same whether there is a change to the Emperor or not?"


    Golden Rooster looked at Zhou Bao for a long time and laughed, "Haha, you''re right. It''s the same whether we change the Emperor and the dynasty or we do not. And the victor is not yet in sight. No one knows who will win the world. But you should know, your father-in-law and Divine Wind Palace are too close. White Tiger will not let him go as long as he is the emperor. Don''t forget, he is the card up the sleeve for Divine Wind Palace, and he is also known as the most promising Candidate for Human Emperor."


    "You mean, ultimately, my father-in-law will be swindled by Divine Wind Palace?"


    "If he didn''t think of it, no one would be able to swindle him. But if he had the thought, he would swindle himself even without others!"


    "Indeed, but you know, my wife is pregnant now. It''s not good for her to be worrying. So, is there room for changes?"


    "You have to ask White Tiger!"


    "Then do you know what his plan is?"


    "He has already found several well-known families and wanted to unite with them to overthrow the Jin!" Golden Rooster shrugged his shoulders and gave a smile, "You know, Tian Long Taoism has always been connected with those big well-known families. This is not the first time!"


    "Those well-known families?" There was a twinge of foreboding in Zhou Bao''s heart at Golden Rooster''s words, "Not including the Wang Family, right?"


    "Actually they are included and are even taking the lead position!"


    "What exactly does White Tiger want to do? Doesn''t he know that I have a grudge against the Wang Family? Or is he planning something against me?"


    "I''m not sure about that. If you want to know, you''d better ask him yourself!"


    "Ask him directly? Humph, come on, I might as well just go and destroy the Wang Family!" Zhou Bao replied coldly, "You go back and tell him he''d better give up the Wang Family, otherwise, I will not care about giving him face!"


    "So serious?"


    "Serious? Isn''t this what he wants? He deliberately looked for an influence that had a grudge against me, and this will inevitably push me to the other side. It would give Divine Wind Palace the advantage of taking me in, and then when I''m taken in, I should act as Infernal Affairs. In that case, I''ll follow his script, but my tactics will be more drastic. If something happens, don''t blame me for not telling you in advance!" As Zhou Bao said this, his voice grew cold and gloomy. Zhou Bao was very disgusted with White Tiger''s intention, so he was not prepared to give him any face.


    "I don''t want to be involved with you two!" Seeing the vexation in Zhou Bao''s eyes, Golden Rooster waved his hands repeatedly. They were all members of the Immortal Palace. In terms of status, White Tiger was slightly higher than Zhou Bao. However, due to the special organizational situation of the Immortal Palace, neither White Tiger nor Elder Qing had much binding force on Zhou Bao. Most of all, Zhou Bao had the combat capability equivalent to a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm, and no one in the 28 constellations could beat him, including White Tiger and Elder Qing. His combat capability, so to speak, was the first in the Immortal Palace. It was not easy to take advantage of such a person. In fact, in the view of Golden Rooster, neither Elder Qing nor White Tiger seemed able to control Zhou Bao now. And he did not know what would happen in the future, so he did not want to be involved.


    "Well, since you don''t want to get involved, I won''t bother you. By the way, now that the entrance of the Azure Secret Area has been closed, you guys in the yard will be leaving, right?"


    "Yes, we''ve put away the Gate of All Manifestations and are ready to leave!" Golden Rooster smiled, looking at Zhou Bao, "What, now that you''re strong, you want to get rid of us, huh?"


    "Heehee, I''m not you, a rooster, with wings to fly. I''m just speculating on the behavior of White Tiger. How can you all stay here if you want to distance yourselves from me? I think it''s not just me and even Wang She has to leave, right?"


    "You''re really smart. Right, those from Tian Long Taoism have to leave. But they''ll leave a little later than us, and will find a good reason for their departure." Golden Rooster looked at Zhou Bao meaningfully.


    "Well, I know!" Zhou Bao nodded, stood up and took Golden Rooster to the door. Just when Golden Rooster was about to leave, Zhou Bao asked, "Hey, Golden Rooster, who do you think will win this time?"


    Golden Rooster gave him a wry smile. "I don''t know. Although the four big sects have joined forces and gained an advantage, we are not united internally. Perhaps the alliance will collapse when Divine Wind Palace plays their winning card!"


    "So, Divine Wind Palace doesn''t even care about this alliance!"

 485 In the Wind

    "Whether they care or not, establishing a coalition is better than not doing anything!" Golden Rooster sighed, "To what extent it will develop depends on luck!"


    "Yes, it depends on luck!" Zhou Bao smiled as he watched Golden Rooster leave.


    ¡­


    It was the fourth year of Yongping of the Jin.


    Mingyi School, one of the three biggest sects of the Jin, had been destroyed by a mysterious expert. The first pillar of the Jin had collapsed. Afterwards, there were frequent and unusual travel activities within every well-known family. In the end, the situation at the Jin that had been full of promise was now becoming very odd.


    For this time the destruction of Mingyi School was different from the last time when Zhou Bao broke into it. Last time, Zhou Bao defeated their experts but was driven away by their Individual Immortals. Mingyi School lost face, but did not lose its foundation. However, all their Individual Immortals were killed this time round. It had lost its foundation. And so many of its experts were either wounded or had fled. Just as the saying goes, when the tree topples, the monkeys will scatter.


    Mingyi School fell, and the whole of Jin was in chaos.


    After all, Mingyi School was not just any ordinary gang in Jianghu, nor was it a sect among the common world. The imperial court was too deeply involved in it. For thousands of years, in the land of the Jin, the name of Mingyi School was synonymous with great righteousness and truth. Not only its military, almost all the literati in the land when it was governed by the Jin and even the dynasties before the Jin regarded Mingyi School as a holy place of worship. Countless learned men and scholars came from there, and innumerable students were proud to attend the lectures conducted there. Even at the current imperial court, two of the three Ducal Ministers were disciples of Mingyi School. Moreover, its disciples also worked in the Six Ministries and served as governors. It could be said that 80 percent of the officials, from major figures in cabinet to inferior officials in villages, were affiliated to Mingyi School and bore its imprint with pride.


    Now their holy place had fallen. Its collapse had led to chaos throughout the Jin.


    It could be said that the situation led to a maelstrom of changes.


    What would happen after this? Suddenly there was a change in the leadership at court. Those well-known families that had been under suppression previously were now in full control. They arrested all the local officials related to Mingyi School and replaced them with their own officials through a series of edicts to the throne. At the same time, nine of the largest well-known families of the Jin jointly wrote a pronouncement, which directly accused Mingyi School of poisoning the world with its evil theories and thus should be banned. They also said that there were still many remnants of Mingyi School at the current court, occupying high positions, who had evil intentions, and they should be replaced and denounced. The list included the Three Ducal Ministers, the principal officials of Four Ministries of the Six Ministries, officials in each Yamen (government officer in Feudal China) and local governors, totaling more than 1,200 persons. This shocked the whole world.


    The northwest of the Jin became a Pure Land at a time when the whole world was in trouble. Great changes were taking place in this desolate land known as Wuyang Region. Every day, there were countless caravans carrying goods and numerous people to Wuyang Region in an endless stream. Outside Yunzhou, there was a direct road that led straight to Wuyang Region. This road was perceived to be the biggest miracle that had happened in the entire Jin for thousands of years. The road was 100 feet wide and hundreds of thousands of kilometers long. At every 15 kilometers, there was a courier station. Thus, along the road, 20 to 30, 000 courier stations had been built specially as a guide for the goods and human traffic that traveled to Wuyang Region.


    Therefore, this road was also called Wuyang Road.


    It was the longest and safest road in the Jin, even the Central Mainland Region and the Seven-deity Regions. Anyuan Store would guarantee your safety as you traveled on this road. It didn''t matter if you were a refugee, a homeless person or a beggar. As long as you were on this road and were willing to stop at Wuyang Region to settle down, Anyuan Store would ensure that you had a safe arrival to Wuyang Region. Whether you had a skill or not, as long as you were willing to work hard, you would be able to find a job in Wuyang Region and even start a family. This was definitely good news for people who were displaced.


    Could there anything better than that?


    Hence, since the road was constructed, the number of travelers on the road had gradually increased. At the beginning, it was mainly merchants. To merchants of the Jin, Wuyang Region in the northwest was undoubtedly a treasure. It was a bit desolate, but there were lots of mines that could not be found anywhere else in the Central Plains. In particular, the northwest regions were extremely rich in some rare mineral deposits. Above all, the road was safe for businesses. It was altogether a safe and profitable place.


    Thus, for a long time, most of the people on this road were businessmen, until the Jin greatly changed all that two months ago. This occurrence had taken place ever since Mingyi School had been destroyed by a mysterious expert, and the nine well-known families signed a joint edict and had asked the emperor to get rid of "evil" ministers and existing remnants. From then on, the Jin became restless. These well-known families suppressed local officials who were related to Mingyi School. Naturally, these local officials would not take it lying down. Mingyi School had a very deep foundation in this land, and it was not easy to uproot it. As a result, the conflict between the two sides quickly escalated into war. In just two months, the Jin was in the throes of war, so to speak. Wuyang Road was gradually filled with people.


    Many a times, this Wuyang Road, which was 100 feet in width and hundreds of thousands of kilometers in length, acted as a haven.


    Why was this the case?


    It was because no conflict or killing was allowed on this road. This iron clad rule was made by Wuyang''s Earl, Zhou Bao, the son-in-law of the current emperor and the most powerful man of the Jin. No one was allowed to defy it. Even the nine biggest well-known families of the Jin would not resort to pursuit and murder on this long road of hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Therefore, this road was also called Peace Road and Bodhisattva-blessing Road by the common people of the Jin.


    No matter who you were, what kind of difficulties you encountered, once you were on this road, you were basically on safe ground.


    It sounded absurd but was true. At first, some people were skeptical about this, and some groups of robbers pulled off several robberies on the road. A few days later, the heads of these robbers were piled up at the scene of their crime, on display for all to see. There were even some Level Five and Six masters of martial arts among the dead robbers. No exceptions were given and no pity shown to these criminals.


    The members of the well-known families trod carefully on this road. Even the most arrogant disciples of well-known families dared not stir up trouble here and cause any provocation.


    But one day, six hours after the sun rose, the rule seemed to have been violated.


    "Gee, geeÒ» "


    Six swift horses galloped out of Yunzhou, the dust from their hooves swirling around on Wuyang Road.


    "Get out of the way, get out of the way, we''re from the Qin Family, get out of the way!"


    These boisterous horses went so fast that they did not pay heed to anyone at all. And since it was the busiest time on the road, many people were knocked down by these rampaging horses. The noise was so loud that men walking in front were alerted to the situation behind and scampered to get out of the way. The passageway ahead was cleared only after 13 people had been hit by the six horses.


    These knights thought they got away with this, but an hour into their journey, they were stopped in their tracks.


    It was a common looking middle-aged man who stopped them. The man''s Qi Power was not very strong. He seemed to have practiced martial arts with cultivation of Internal Qi just at Level One or Two. He stood in the middle of the road with a serene face and blocked the knights'' way.


    "We''re from the Qin Family, get out of the way!" Seeing the situation ahead, the leading knight roared in anger. At a distance of 30 feet from the man, he suddenly raised the whip in his hand. The whip turned into a black shadow which swung violently towards the man in gray.


    The man''s expression changed abruptly. He reached out to his waist, as if trying to get something, but it was too late.


    By the time his hand touched his waist, the whip had hit him. The black whip curled around him like a snake and caused him a lot of pain. Then, feeling lightheaded, he was thrown into the air by the whip and landed 100 feet away. After struggling for a short while, he fainted.


    "Humph, how dare you stand in the way of our Metal Horse Carriage of the Qin Family!" The leader took back his whip and glanced at the man in grey icily. Then without slowing down, he sped on as if nothing had happened.


    What they didn''t notice was that after their departure, the faces of passers-by who had witnessed the whole process had changed.


    "God, who are they? How bold they are!"


    "Yes, not only did they ride into Wuyang Region and hurt people, they even injured Wuyang Region''s ancient courier. Are they looking for trouble?"


    "Heehee, there will be a showdown soon. They will get their comeuppance then!"


    "Not necessarily. Didn''t you hear them saying that they were from the Qin Family? The Qin Family in South Mountains is one of the nine biggest well-known families in the Jin. Maybe they really have something important to do!"


    "Humph, the nine biggest well-known families are nothing. They should remember who built the road and who sets the rules here!" Another person said with a sneer, "Isn''t the Wang Family one of the nine biggest well-known families? But he didn''t give them any face and even swallowed up their territory!"


    "SHH, shut up. Don''t say dumb things. Who told you that he swallowed up the Wang''s territory? The emperor gave it to him!"


    "Yes, you''re right, the emperor gave it to him. Whose side do you think he will be on this time? The emperor or the well-known family? Though he is the son-in-law of the emperor, he is also a man of Tian Long Taoism. And Tian Long Taoism is closely related to these well-known families!"


    While chatting, they deviated from the original theme. Then there was a heated discussion.


    The six knights went on riding for more than 15 kilometers after they had wounded the man in grey robe. Suddenly, the leading knight''s expression changed, and he pulled up the reins sharply.


    Yu Yu YuÒ»[this was the person giving his command to the horse]


    The boisterous horse that he was riding on gave a long whinny because of his sudden tug. The horse backed up, and its front hooves kicked wildly in the air for several times before it slowed down.


    The five knights behind him did the same thing.


    They stopped their horses and looked sullen.


    There was no one on the strangely quiet Wuyang Road. The wind was blowing strongly, and Wuyang Road appeared to be very bleak and empty.


    The six knights had an intense look on their faces as they felt the murderous intent hovering in the air, even though no one was in sight.


    They were in a valley of a low mountain.

 486 The Killing and Robbery Begins

    One must understand that although Wuyang Road had been constructed to be expansive, it was still not completely flat, as the road originated from Yunzhou and was headed towards the northwestern region. There were still some mountain ranges, lakes and even rivers within it. Although the mountains were insignificant compared to the towering Misty Mountain, in the past it still was a hostile desert. Now, this place where the six knights lived was now a small hill within a mountain cave. Besides the main road in the middle, short mountain ranges flanked its sides. Although these mountain ranges were not tall, they were sufficient enough to hide people. Bandits in the past used to hide in these mountains. However, wasn''t it said that the bandits of Wuyang Road had all been killed already?


    The expression on one of the big fellow''s face was grim. As if hoping to detect any irregularity, his sharp gaze scanned the surroundings. However, the two sides of the mountain range were only filled with green shrubbery such as trees and bushes that swayed peacefully. It would be too easy to hide someone here. Even if the fella was a Level Five master of martial arts, it would still be impossible to detect anything irregular.


    He only raised his hand gently, signaling to the five men behind him to be wary.


    "I''m Qin Muyun from the South Mountains. I''m wondering if there are any friends here...!"


    Before he could finish his sentence, he heard sharp sounds of "Xiu. Xiu. Xiu".


    "Military God-killing Crossbow!"


    Seeing what was shot towards him, the expression on the man''s face changed drastically. Without a care for formalities, he immediately rolled under the belly of his horse. The cane in his hands was also thrown away and without knowing when, a glistening long knife was held in his hands. Rays of light danced on the knife while the man guarded himself with the knife firmly.


    "Clank, Clank, Clank!"


    "Bang! Bang! Bang!"


    ¡­


    Following the sounds of bows ripping flesh, three out of six men in the Metal Horse Carriage were sliced apart by the bow. Two others were heavily injured. The bow had penetrated through his hands and feet and now he laid on the ground howling in pain. The only one left with any capacity for battle was only the man. This was because firstly, he had quick reflexes and could hide quickly. Secondly, his cultivation was not low. He was very capable, using the light rays that reflected from the knife to shield himself from multiple attacks. However, luck all had a part to play. Under the might of the Military God-killing Crossbow, he still suffered from some injuries, especially on his left arm. A lump of flesh had been sliced away and the bone was visible.


    As for his combat capability, it had become a joke after the attack of the crossbow.


    "Sheesh, what kind of person are you to be so audacious?! You know we are from the South Mountains...!"


    "The Qin Family of South Mountains!" A clear voice finished the sentence. Subsequently, the trees at the mountain ranges rustled, revealing two to three hundred fully armed soldiers with weapons. The leader of them all was a seventeen to eighteen-year-old youth. He had a cold and stern expression. He condescendingly scanned Qin Muyun for a moment. "I know you are from the Qin Family of South Mountains. Disregard that. Even if you are from the Yan Family in the West Capital, you would still die in this ravage plains!"


    "You...!" Qin Muyun''s eyes flashed and wanted to reply. However, the young man offered him no such chance. With a wave of his hand, he raised his bow once more to attack. This time round, Qin Muyun was no longer so lucky. Although he had the saber light to protect him, a few robust bows still penetrated his saber light and eventually through his body. The disbelief and discontentment in his widened eyes gradually faded into a helpless blankness. His body slumped slowly towards the ground.


    "Cut off all of their heads and place them at the gate of Qinlingjun City!" The young man ordered.


    "Seventh Young Master, these are people from the Qin Family of South Mountains. They are not pirates! To do that...!"


    This is the rule at Wuyang Road! This Wuyang Road belongs to the Wuyang Region. Just like what Fourth Cousin said, no matter who comes to the Wuyang Region, they are all looking for death!" the young man asserted coldly. "This is the rule of the Zhou family!"


    "Yes, Seventh Young Master!"


    The man beside him answered.


    If Zhou Bao was by his side, he would surely have laughed. This young fella really knows how to flaunt one''s power. Although this young man belonged to the Zhou family, he was not a brother of Zhou Bao. In fact, he was Zhou Bao''s nephew. In the Zhou family, that wasn''t considered very close. Nevertheless, they were still related by blood, however distantly, so they still called each other brothers.


    The Zhou''s produced such a bringer of misfortune as Zhou Bao and reflected the saying: a man''s relations follow the rise and fall of a person. The Zhou''s were currently living in northwestern Yunzhou. That was during the apex of their power. Although their history was not thousands of years long, its power was comparable to those millennium families. Although their foundation seemed a bit weak, it was also like a gigantic beast that displayed its power at all times.


    At the northwestern Zhou family, their power was sufficient to rule nine well-known families. It was only because their foundation seemed a bit weak so there were not many people who possessed the grace and class. All of them needed to train. The ten-thousand-mile long Wuyang Road was a good training spot. Zhou Bao was in charge of the disciples from the Zhou family ranging from the Qinlingjun City to five hundred feet away from the small mountain. In Zhou Bao''s past life, the department in charge of the roads always had the most oil. At the same time, it was the department with the strongest resilience. Although this Wuyang Road was not like those in his past life where fees had to be collected, the road''s regular maintenance and care were all on par. Even the guards and oil were of good quality.


    However, what made Zhou Bao happy was that his family did not lack people who craved riches and at the same time did not lack people who wanted to do real work. An example was Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao was one of the most outstanding people. He was decisive, strong-handed and had the temper of Jiang Xiao. One must understand that Zhou Bao was bringing his knowledge of his previous life into this current life. He truly had no sentimental feelings of attachment to the Zhou''s. Plus, he was lazy to meet with some of the relatives he met along the way after he achieved success. All these matters were pushed to the Seneschal Jiang Xiao to oversee.


    Jiang Xiao, as an outsider, naturally did not dare to ill-treat the Zhou''s. Any arrangement that could be as proper as possible was done as properly as it could be. In truth, in the northwestern region, there were many other supervisors in the Wuyang Region besides the Zhou''s that were surrounded by many clansmen. These clansmen formed many small families that together with Zhou Bao, coalesced together to form a profit organization.


    Of course, all these were just mundane matters. Zhou Bao usually did not care for such things. Anyway, as long as he had this aura of deterrence, then there would not be any person who was silly enough to involve him. In fact, it was only after he cultivated in the Wuyang Road and expressed this to his people that the Wuyang Road belonged to the Zhou''s. It was the land of the Zhou''s. Whoever dared to land a foot on this land all had to die.


    Zhou Hai listened completely to Zhou Bao''s orders. That was why he was so ruthless and merciless.


    "Seventh Young Master, look, this was what I found from their bodies!"


    At this time, a soldier ran to Zhou Hai and passed him a brocade pouch.


    Zhou Hai did not think much of it at first. He casually opened the brocade pouch and was shocked to find a letter within. He could not help but feel excited. Without much consideration, he opened the letter and began reading its contents. Just two lines in, his expression had visibly changed. Thereafter, he skimmed through the whole letter. By the time he reached the end, his expression had grown solemn. He furiously crushed the paper into a ball and hastily stashed it into his clothes.


    "Chen IV, I must return to Wuyang Region immediately. You guys stay here and watch closely. No, go and order the brothers to disperse to different stations. Wait for my news. Inform them that if any mishaps were to happen to me, then immediately tell them that it definitely has to do with the Qin Family of South Mountains!"


    "Seventh Young Master, you...!"


    "Do as I say. And prepare the horses, quick!"


    "Yes!"


    Chen IV who stood beside him did not dare to fool around. He immediately ordered his subordinates to prepare the best horse for Zhou Hai. Seeing Zhou Hai gallop off into the distance, he gathered his subordinates and explained everything to them as Zhou Hai ordered. A group of ancient couriers immediately left without caring to deal with the corpses.


    After two hours, a ray of blue light from the southern direction was shot and landed near one of the stations.


    At this time, there was a crowd on the road already. That ray of blue light landed on one of the small hills. Now the blue light had revealed itself to be a middle-aged man. This middle-aged man had a gloomy expression. Seeing the crowd on the road, he gathered himself. He no longer used Gang Qi but exerted the average effort of walking on the road. He dispersed the crowd and upon looking within, he got a shock.


    "Damn it!" Seeing the ripped chests of the soldiers, the eyes of the blue-robed man flashed coldly. With a turn of his body, he dispersed the crowd. In the process, he grabbed a passerby by his shoulders when others were not watching. He used his magic to bring the both of them away from the roadside and into the forest between two hills. The crowd could not even tell how they left.


    "Please spare me, your highness! Please spare me!"


    The man was randomly pulled out of the road and so thought that he had met a pirate. He begged earnestly for his life.


    "Shut up. I will ask you some questions and you will answer. If you dare tell me any lies, I will kill you!"


    The murderous intent that permeated those words immediately sealed the lips of the man. He could only look fearfully at the blue-robed man.


    "What happened on the road? Who killed those men?!"


    "It was... it was... it was the ancient couriers of Wuyang Regions. These knights were running people down on Wuyang Region and even injured the ancient courier on Wuyang Road. That was why they were killed!"


    "The ancient courier of Wuyang Region?!" The eyes of the blue-robed man flashed. "Can they kill people as they wish?!"


    No... no... no, it was because they harmed people on the Wuyang Road or committed something criminal. That was why the ancient courier acted!"


    "Then where is the ancient courier now?!"


    "I don''t know!"


    "You don''t know?!"


    "Yes, I really don''t know!" The man was almost about to cry. "Every post on Wuyang Road has two ancient couriers. There are also special armed ancient couriers called... called... urban management that specially looks into these kinds of disputes. For the average person, they will deliver the heads of the people back to the city they originated after killing them. But this time round it''s a bit strange that they did not treat it as per tradition. That was why there was a crowd!" The main cried.


    "Urban management?!" The blue-robed man pondered over these two words and revealed a look of incomprehension for a moment. In the next moment, his fierce demeanor returned. "Then who controls the urban management?!"


    "That I don''t know!" The man shook his head.


    Rage filled the man''s eyes and with a punch, smattered the man''s head into pieces.


    Then, he gazed out at the winding Wuyang Road. He felt a little indecision in his heart but eventually, he gritted his teeth and with the blue wind, flew towards the sky and headed in the direction of the Wuyang Road.


    After an hour, he saw Zhou Hai galloping on his horse. A grin spread across his face. He landed from the sky and grabbed the galloping Zhou Hai''s head and lifted him up.


    Without allowing Zhou Hai to speak at all, he continued to fly and started to rummage through Zhou Hai''s clothes. In the end, he managed to feel the shape of the secret letter. He let out a smile. With a crush of his fist, he smashed Zhou Hai''s head which transformed into blue light. He then continued to fly towards the northwestern region.

 487 Zhou Baos Weakness

    Three days later.


    In the Inner Yard of Wuyang Mansion.


    Zhou Bao was in the Mansion pacing up and down agitatedly. Behind him stood his father Old Zhou, who was as equally worried as him. Besides these two people. the others in the courtyard were all Old Zhou''s relatives. Today was Yan Yunfei''s delivery date for her child. Naturally, the whole family had prepared everything properly. Everyone had arrived already and were all waiting anxiously for the child.


    Suddenly, a cry was heard from outside the courtyard. Zhou Bao jumped in surprise. Subsequently, he saw Jiang Xiao racing into the courtyard anxiously with a letter in his hand. Zhou Bao expression was gloomy. His face bore traces of displeasure as he walked out of the courtyard.


    He walked straight towards Jiang Xiao who was heading for the courtyard.


    "What''s the matter?!"


    "Your Excellency, something has happened to Zhou Hai!" Jiang Xiao announced agitatedly after seeing Zhou Bao and handed over the letter in his hands to him.


    ...


    It was the fourth year of Yongping of the Jin.


    At a time when the entire world was in a state of ceaseless panic, the Jin Dynasty''s Wuyang Region was however in a state of joy. That was because Wuyang Region''s lord Zhou Bao had a child.


    This result had calmed the original fury in him that was just about to explode. Not only had he calmed down, but Zhou Bao who now had a child seemed to have matured and was more thorough in his considerations.


    In the next ten days, Zhou Bao was either accompanying Yan Yunfei or playing with his child. When he had nothing to do, he would chat with Old Zhou, painting a perfect picture of blissful filial piety. This scene agitated Jiang Xiao very much.


    "Your Excellency, do we really want to dismiss this matter? That Qin Family was so audacious to not only stir up trouble between Kunlun Mountain and the Palace of Destruction Demon, but also in plotting to bring misfortune to Elderly Master and in killing Zhou Hai. This...!"


    "I understand what you mean. Of course, I won''t dismiss this matter, but there''s no rush to deal with it now!"


    Today, Zhou Bao finally walked out of the courtyard and met Jiang Xiao whose face was flushed with worry. Their encounter allowed the above conversation to take place.


    "But..."


    "Alright, you don''t have to say anymore. I''ve already asked my father to stay in Wuyang Region. They will not be moving back and forth as per usual, so you don''t have to worry that anyone will harm them. Unless they dare come and find trouble right here at Wuyang Region? I don''t think so. As for Kunlun Mountain and Palace of Destruction Demons, they are just one of the many possible victims. If they are dead then forget them!" At this point, Zhou Bao lifted his head and glanced at Jiang Xiao. "Jiang Xiao, you''ve served me for quite a number of years. I appreciate all your hard work!"


    "What kind of words are those Your Excellency! It is my honor to work for Your Excellency. Plus, without your support, I would not have the status that I have today. Everything that I have now is given by Your Excellency. Nothing is hard work!"


    Jiang Xiao was speaking the truth. Originally, he was just a small fly in the Navy of Jiang City. It was nothing like the glamour of being Zhou Bao''s subordinate. Almost all his responsibilities involve those of a Seneschal. It was a job only given to one out of hundreds and thousands of people. Plus, Wuyang Region has been growing more and more prosperous. It could be said that he had a part to play in its success. Seeing an abandoned land transform into a flourishing one filled him with a sense of satisfaction. Hence, listening to Zhou Bao say those weird sentences left him feeling a little edgy.


    Was there something in the letter that he missed? Hints that His Excellency had to send them away? Or was it that His Excellency had provoked someone important and was looking for a scapegoat?


    "Don''t think so much. I''m just saying that because I see that your cultivation has been stagnant at Level Six!" Seeing Jiang Xiao''s worried looks, Zhou Bao perceived that his words may have caused some misunderstanding in his prone-to-overthinking subordinate.


    Jiang Lan''s expression changed, as if understanding something. He suppressed the anxiety in his heart.


    "This is a jar of Bone-Forging Pill and a jar of Pulse-Setting Pill. After you return, settle the subordinates'' matters and start your closed-door cultivation training. These two jars of pills are sufficient to break through the bottleneck and achieve Level Seven Expert Realm!"


    "Thank... thank you, Your Excellency!" Jiang Xiao responded profusely. He had long known that Zhou Bao had elixirs that could help others elevate their cultivation. But Zhou Bao had always prioritized cultivating that Zhu Ba fella. This Zhu Ba inherently had better combat capability than him, so Jiang Xiao never said anything about the preferential treatment. Plus, in retrospect, this kind of elixir was extremely valuable and hard to come by. To use it on one person was already a significant move. He was not up to standard yet so not obtaining that elixir was also expected. Of course, only a thorough thinker like Jiang Xiao would reason this way. If it was someone else, they might have been filled with envy and rage.


    "Use the elixir with a peace of mind. Don''t worry. Also, there are also some other elixirs here with me. Please help me pass them to Wang Cheng. Handle the subordinates'' matters and practice with a peace of mind. It is fundamental to raise your own abilities!"


    "Yes!" Jiang Xiao once again received the jar of elixir. His expression had returned to normal and even had traces of respect and honor in them. Although Zhou Bao was not preparing to send him off, handing him such precious elixirs so suddenly was truly beyond his expectations. It seemed like His Excellency had a plan. Then, it was only natural for him to follow his orders.


    After sending Jiang Xiao away, Zhou Bao dismissed everyone else and sat quietly on one of the chairs in the hall. His eyes that twinkled with joy and magnanimity slowly turned into a brooding mood.


    "Who on earth is responsible for this? White Tiger, or Zhi IX!" He calculated secretly in his heart. "Do they think that using such poor technique they can force me to admit defeat?!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly in his heart. "However, I must admit that they are pretty smart. They can see my weakness. Hehe!"


    ...


    "The key of this plan was not implicating Kunlun Mountain or the Palace of Destruction Demons. It was also not about adding more enemies for Zhou Bao. It was mainly to trap Zhou Bao!"


    At this point, in the West Capital of the Royal Capital and in a secret basement, a white-clothed man pretending to be an intellectual sipped his tea and expressed a look of peace and comfort.


    "Trap him? Why? If we could convince Zhou Bao to help us out, that White Tiger would not have been a threat with Zhou Bao''s abilities! Indeed, Zhou Bao has the ability to slay a Venerable Realm Genuine Immortal!" It was the Jin Dynasty''s Emperor Yan Yuntian who was speaking this time. He had a vicious look on his face and compared to last year when Zhou Bao last met him, he had aged much. He no longer had the same charismatic aura as before. This couldn''t be blamed on him. A year ago, he was the first saintly soldier in all of history. But with two unexpected attacks, his legendary saintly soldier status was eroded by the millennium families into a dizzy soldier. His power had been shrinking rapidly and now, his field of command did not exceed the West Capital and not even the Royal Capital. If it was not for his Expert Realm cultivation, he would have been overthrown by now. However, his situation now is not any better than being overthrown.


    To fall from a Nine Five Venerable Realm to such a pathetic figure did not seem like a situation that anyone could adjust to. How then could we expect such an adjustment from a person of such high ambitions?


    Therefore, he naturally wanted to turn the situation around. He thought and thought and finally thought of Zhou Bao. That was why he sent his pregnant daughter to send a letter. At the same time, he was thinking of other methods to trap Zhou Bao but who knew that that letter had no effect at all? On the other hand, the joke had been on his side. The ambitions of the Qin Family of the South Mountains were stirred up and they were led to contact Kunlun Mountain and Palace of Destruction Demon to collaboratively defeat Zhou Bao. It was now that he finally understood that the Qin Family of South Mountains, one of the great millennium families, was the secret weapon of the Divine Wind Palace.


    This not only caused him deep dissatisfaction. This was because this time round, out of all the nine well-known families, only the Qin Family of South Mountains was the fiercest. Plus, with Zhi IX responsible for leading the Qin Family to commit something like this, it was obvious that the intention was to offend Zhou Bao, to confuse him and to prompt him to question.


    After the boy heard Yan Yuntian''s words, he was not confused at all. He only smiled, "In the end, Zhou Bao is ultimately from Tian Long Taoism and has a strong relationship with Tian Long Taoism''s Wang She. From what I know, before Zhou Bao had undergone cultivation, it was Wang She who was always protecting him. Now that he has cultivated successfully, he is ruling the lands of the northwest region. Tian Long Taoism even sent his subordinates and Wang She over and built a harbor of sorts! Only Heaven knows how close Zhou Bao and Tian Long Taoism really are. Do you really think he would lend us a hand in defeating Tian Long Taoism and those failing well-known families? I think it would already be a blessing if he does not attack us!"


    "If that is the case, then why are we provoking him?!"


    "I have my own reasons for doing so!" Zhi IX''s eyes twinkled, "The conflict this time round had risen too quickly. Be it us or the four great sects, no one had any adequate preparation. However, we five biggest sects ultimately know ourselves. No matter how much we battle, we all have some sense in us to not harm our pneuma. Plus there is a Golden Book of Fate above us, so no one would dare make any big moves. However, this Zhou Bao is different. He is only of a Level Nine cultivation, he''s not in the list of fairies, the Golden Book of Fate has no restrictive power on him whatsoever and his combat capability is way too scary! If things really go in his favor, we will have no room for action left. Therefore, we must think of a way to trap him, to not allow him to act as he wishes. It is only with this way that we will not have more worries!"


    "No worries? So you came up with such a pathetic technique?!"


    "Pathetic?" Zhi IX smiled. "Even if it''s pathetic, but it''s so useful! At least in our conflict with the four great sects, we can be assured that Zhou Bao will not interfere!"


    "You''re so sure?!"


    "Of course. Zhou Bao''s strength is indeed extreme. At the same time, his weaknesses are very obvious!"


    "Weaknesses?!"

 489 Zhou Bao Enters Mountain City & Yan Family Patriarch

    "What benefit does it have? From what I know, it is precisely because Divine Wind Palace''s lack of loyalty to their belief that the tracks of Azure Heaven of the 33 Heavens were lost. Plus, the Divine Wind Palace also tried to capture Taiyuan Heaven the last time. The benefits of these two incidents are seriously too significant. I can''t think of anything else in this world that is more valuable than the sum of both the Taiyuan Heaven and the Azure Heaven!" A black-clothed man was sitting on a chair. This man was the manager of the Qin Family, Family Head Qin Zheng.


    "Hmph. The things you are ignorant about in this world far exceeds that! Although the 33 Heavens are valuable, they are not unique!"


    "Do you mean that they have found one of the 33 Heavens?!"


    "Not sure!" The Elder spoke, "After all we are only a well-known family in the Jin Dynasty. From the time this family was established, there has only been about a history of three thousand years. Although it seems that we have a longer history when compared to other well-known families, but in fact, it''s insignificant when compared to these powerful families. There are so many secrets in this world that we don''t know!"


    "Then are we really going to let this go? We have really broken relations with the Yan Family this time round!" an Elder grumbled.


    ¡­


    Black ragged mountains stood amidst the leisurely drifting clouds.


    The Mountain City of the Qin Family stood at the foot of the South Mountains and in the heart of Leizhou. The whole mountain city was built along the mountains and winds up from the bottom of the mountains to the very peak.


    3000 years ago, these mountains were called Toutuo Ridge. Each ridge was 5780 feet tall. At present, it has long been concentrated with buildings. For a mountain city to emerge from such an uncivilized place was indeed shocking.


    3000 years, hehe, a well-known family with a history of 3000 years! Based on the average man''s capabilities, this seemed like the furthest it could go to have such a strong foundation and to build such a sprawling big mountain city!"


    Today, a cyan-clothed man appeared in front of the ten feet tall city gate of the Mountain City of the Qin Family. This cyan-clothed man was about eighteen or nineteen years old. He had a pleasant and refined look. If he had held a folding fan or a book in his hand, he would surely have been perceived as a scholar on his way to take his exam in the Western Capital. However, for a man poor in the humanities, it was doubtful whether he would be able to make it to the Western Capital.


    As he ambled his way to that city gate, he saw that along the fringes of the gate stood a line of soldiers. Two of them stood by the two sides of the city gate, each holding a gun looking powerful. There was another team of about ten soldiers that was patrolling around the city gate. One of the soldiers among them was of a Level Three cultivation even though he was rather young. Plus, he looked like he was about to transcend Level Three to become a Level Four master of martial arts already.


    Originally, they did not care about this cyan-clothed scholar. It was only that soldier who, after laying his eyes on the scholar, immediately froze and grew suspicious of this scholar.


    "Freeze!" The cyan-clothed scholar stopped in his tracks obediently and looked at that soldier.


    "Who are you? Why are you trying to enter the city?!"


    The cyan-clothed scholar smiled faintly. "I am only a passer-by. I have heard that the Mountain City of the Qin Family is incomparably majestic. I was curious so I dropped by to take a look. Is there something wrong with that?"


    After hearing those hearing those words, the soldier furrowed his eyebrows.


    This was the Mountain City of the Qin Family. It was the center of politics and governance in the South Mountains. There has never been anyone who dared to create trouble here. This soldier could be considered experienced. He had been around for about seven or eight years. He had definitely seen many types of people and never once had he come across someone who answered in the same way as the cyan-clothed man. He immediately felt that something was amiss. As he was getting ready to shoot him, he suddenly came into eye contact with the man and immediately panicked.


    On the other hand, the cyan-clothed man only smiled. He nodded politely and walked past him. The surrounding soldiers thought the situation was a little odd and cast their gaze on that particular soldier. However, that soldier only looked apprehensively at that cyan-clothed man. It was only until he lost sight of the cyan-clothed man among the officers and soldiers that he regained his composure.


    "Leader Lin, what''s wrong? Just now that cyan-clothed guy...!"


    "What cyan-clothed man? What are you guys lazing around here doing, stand straight immediately!" After Leader Lin regained his composure, he saw that the subordinates around him had all surrounded him. With a change of his expression and his shout, he immediately scared the crowd of people back to their stations, scurrying back fearfully as mice would.


    "This Mountain City of the Qin Family is indeed solid!" Walking along a spacious road in the mountain city, an eccentric smile spread across the cyan-clothed scholar''s face. In his spiritual mind, he already had some telepathic sensing of strong messages that were hidden in numerous obscure corners of this city.


    "Six experts. This is much more than the average millennium families! Seems like this Qin Family of the South Mountains is well-armed. I just don''t know what kind of men they are hiding as back-up. They even had the audacity to mess with the north-west!"


    This cyan-clothed scholar was actually Zhou Bao. This time round, he left his home in the northwest precisely because he wanted to take revenge on the Qin Family. However, he was no savage man. Since the Qin Family dared to mess with the northwest region, they must have a plan. Hence, he did not directly knock on their door like the previous time. Instead, he took his time to understand.


    As the largest city of the South Mountains and Leizhou, this Mountain City of the Qin Family is not any smaller than the metropolis in his previous time. Numerous roads intersected with one another and along the streets were stalls of all different kinds that drank and laughed ceaselessly.


    Zhou Bao walked along the road. A smile was plastered on his face and he seemed to be meandering aimlessly around. He had strolled for about two to three hours before finding a suitable inn to live in.


    "This guest officer, from your accent it seems that you''re not local?"


    After giving the staff five ounces of silver, the staff''s attitude completely shifted to an affectionate tone that one would use with one''s grandfather.


    "That''s right. I am indeed from a foreign land. Why, is there something wrong?!" Zhou Bao glared at the waiter with a trace of coldness in his eyes. "No, no, guest officer, please don''t misunderstand. I was only curious!"


    "Curious? What is there to be curious about!"


    "Hehe... nothing, nothing!" After meeting Zhou Bao''s sharp gaze, the waiter immediately muttered.


    "Nothing?" Zhou Bao''s eyes twinkled. Once the waiter''s eyes met his, the waiter felt his mind go completely blank. After a while, he finally regained his composure. He wore a perplexed expression on his face. Thereafter, he bowed politely to Zhou Bao and left.


    For Zhou Bao, an eccentric expression was on his face, "Too careless, I''ve been too careless. Even the waiter could see through me! It seems like the entire Mountain City of the Qin Family is filled with spies. They must have detected that I''m rather out of place!"


    Just now, he had used his spirit to shock the waiter. After being shocked by Zhou Bao, the waiter naturally did not say anything more and did as Zhou Bao ordered. Now Zhou Bao understood that he had lost his facade. It made sense now that he thought about it. A weak scholar with a foreign accent trying to stay in an inn without even one backpack and with a huge bag of silvers too. Anyone would have found that weird. This waiter had been working in the inn for so many years. He naturally would have been able to sense something was flawed with Zhou Bao at one glance.


    If he saw something suspicious about Zhou Bao, others would have naturally detected something suspicious about him.


    "No wonder so many eccentric fellas had been eyeing me during my entire journey! It''s because I''m such an inexperienced person!" Zhou Bao laughed awkwardly. He was catapulted to fame when he was very young and strictly speaking, he had never walked on Jianghu before. Therefore, he was not familiar with concealing his identity successfully when he was at Jianghu. However, he also did not want to intentionally conceal his identity. He did not think that this slip would be significant.


    "I heard from a long time ago that all the nine well-known families all have a portrait of me. Seems like the Qin Family is no exception. Not sure if the Qin Family can identify me. If they could, what kind of reaction would they have? Hehe, how interesting!"


    Zhou Bao laughed heinously to himself, secretly calculating his moves.


    At this point, at the house of the Qin Family Elder, the Qin Family''s Qin Zheng and a few queasy elders of the Qin Family who had dispersed not long ago had reconvened again. On the table in front of them stood a portrait of Zhou Bao.


    "Family Head, are you sure this cyan-clothed man is Zhou Bao?!" The atmosphere was extremely solemn in the room. The oppressive mood was very uncomfortable.


    Time passed without awareness. It was then that a wrinkled old man beside Qin Zheng sighed.


    "I''ve already shown this portrait to Intelligence. They have all confirmed that Zhou Bao looks exactly like the man drawn in this portrait." Qin Zheng looked extremely uneasy, as if he had lost a loved one.


    "Didn''t Zhi IX promise us the previous time that he had already found out Zhou Bao''s weakness and guaranteed that he would never leave the Wuyang Region? Why did he run all the way from the northwest region to the East Sea?!"


    "Hmph. What kind of a question is that? Obviously, he is looking to create trouble here by coming to the East Sea!" Another Elder said brusquely. "I''ve already told you all the previous times that we should not provoke this guy without reason. None of you wanted to listen and even said that with the Divine Wind Palace''s guarantee, nothing would happen. Look at where we are now. He has come to look for us directly! Let''s see how you can deal with him!"


    "So what if he had come to find us directly? Zhou Bao indeed has a big name, but we the Qin Family do not go gently either. Would he really obliterate our entire family just because of such a trifling matter?!" shouted another Elder.


    "Why not? Think about the fate of the Master of Golden Lights and the Mingyi School. If it wasn''t for his envy for the Individual Immortals in those schools, Mingyi School would never have to wait for their natural death. Now that he has the ability to kill Venerables, why would he not attack the Qin Family?!"


    "So what if he can kill Venerables? My Qin Family is not easy to bully!" The stubborn Elder asserted. It was as if he was showing off his loyalty and confidence to his own family and was unwilling to cool his anger.


    "Do you mean that you really want to invite the ancestors? Don''t forget that the ancestors are also exception Immortals. They would not deal their hand easily!"

 488 The Infinite Star Sea Half of the Void Map

    "That''s right. Zhou Bao has two significant weaknesses. His rise was too fast and he''s also very young. Therefore, he has many blood relatives, including your daughter and the recently born child. Even without the restrictions of the Golden Book of Fate, he has much to weigh in his considerations. This is his first weakness. The second weakness is that he virtually has no subordinates. Zhou Bao''s rise was over the span of about ten years. He now has owns a large portion of the riches of the world, a vast plot of land and even some talents. However, he doesn''t have any strong subordinates. Out of all his subordinates, there''s only a man with the last name Zhu that is of a Level Seven Expert Realm. The rest are all at best Level Six. With this kind of capabilities, it is possible to conquer the mundane world but he stands no chance at all when confronting the Four Eastern Regions and the five biggest sects. As long as we take advantage of these two weaknesses, it will be easy to trap Zhou Bao. So you see, my technique may be pathetic but it works!"


    Yan Yuntian slowly closed his eyes. He was not a stupid man. He lost his composure for a bit just now only because of the shock of receiving the news. After listening to Zhi IX''s analysis, he thought for a bit and understood. He slowly began to nod his head in agreement and decided to move on from the topic of Zhou Bao. "Then, how confident is the Divine Wind Palace this time?"


    "Confident? Hehe, they don''t stand much chance in this. The four biggest sects and we have been established for so many years and fought for equally long. The biggest problem among us was just the question of where power lay. Now that White Tiger has made his move so furiously, it seems like he will not rest until he gets what he wants. But he''s only putting up a show to scare others. Let me tell you, as long as you announce your abdication of the throne, he has no more reason to be furious. Haha, the world will then achieve peace in the fastest way possible. Sadly, you won''t do that!"


    "Of course I won''t do that. Those rebels, villains and evil ones really think that they can overthrow me by forming a coalition? That they can make me succumb to them? Dream on!" A trace of indignation flashed across Yan Yuntian''s face. This sparked an interest in Zhi IX.


    "Oh, it seems like you have other plans. What''s up? Are you going to turn the situation around?!"


    "Turn the situation around? Hmph, of course, I can''t turn the situation around by myself. However, with your Divine Wind Palace''s help, there might be a chance of doing so!"


    "To be honest, you don''t have much practical value to me now. I''m sure you understand the reason why the Divine Wind Palace is helping you. We''re not exactly the most cohesive internally. All these years there have been people who were willing to help you, but they were also people who were your enemies. Now you''re really in a tight situation. You can''t even exit the Royal Capital. Is there any use that we can make out of you?!"


    "Infinite Star Sea, Half a Void Map. How''s that?!" Yan Yuntian glared at Zhi IX and bared his teeth.


    "What? Infinite Star Sea Void Map? How audacious!" Zhi IX''s expression changed immediately after hearing the two words of Void Map. The steadfastness and calmness in his tone previously were lost.


    "Audacious, haha, nothing audacious about that. It''s only half a Void Map. Seems like Your Excellency is interested?!"


    "Good, very good, excellent! Half a Void Map!" Zhi IX almost seemed to be grinding his teeth in disbelief. "This matter is significant. It''s no longer inside my purview. I will return and report to my lord and he will decide with the elders. But let me warn you first. If you don''t have the Void Map...!"


    "If I don''t have the Void Map, will there be any meaning in this conversation?!" Yan Yuntian laughed coldly. "As long as all of you help me regain the throne and rein in the nine well-known families, I will offer half a Void Map to you. However, I have one more condition!"


    "What condition?!"


    "Three months. This has to be done within three months. If the situation doesn''t change after three months, I will destroy the Void Map and we shall all go our separate ways!"


    "Deal!'' Zhi IX decided after considering for a while. "Within three months, everything will be settled!" After speaking, he did not stay for long. He transformed into a gust of grey mist and disappeared from the face of Yan Yuntian.


    "Hmph, what fairy nonsense and what superhuman masters? They''re all just a bunch of average Joes. Except that they live two years longer than regular humans and have slightly stronger powers. One day, one day I will get back all I lost and more! Just wait!" Yan Yuntian steeled his face and stood there mumbling to himself murderously.


    ...


    "Damn it, what''s the problem? Have you played house before? It''s not played like that!"


    Two months later, Zhou Bao oddly sat in the hall analyzing the intelligence report. Below him stood Jiang Xiao and Wang Cheng who had already attained Level Seven. Both of them stood respectfully, wishing to speak but yet suppressing the desire to do so.


    "Your Excellency, this matter is indeed rather weird. But ultimately, it''s just an agreement between two parties. It''s nothing big!"


    "Reach an agreement? Do you think it''s easy to reach an agreement here? To reach an agreement there must be a huge benefit during both sides. Do you understand why both of them are starting a war?" "Do you know how significant the benefits are?" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. "However, this situation is good too. Since they''ve already reached an agreement, then I don''t have to worry as much as I do now!"


    "Your Excellency means?"


    Zhou Bao did not speak. With a wave of his hand, two rays of cyan light projected from his hand and landed in both of his subordinates'' hands.


    "This is the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Grabbing any one of these pieces will immediately activate it and protect you. With your current abilities, you are able to operate this Yin and Yang Dust Formation. I''ve also passed the instructions for operating this Yin and Yang Dust Formation to you. So, even if I''m not here, I know nothing can harm Wuyang Region."


    "Your Excellency, where are you going?!"


    "Going where? Hmph, I''m not letting a member of my Zhou family die in vain! Were the rules I set on Wuyang Road for naught?!"


    "But Your Excellency, didn''t you say you want to take a long-term view?!"


    "That was the past. Now I have no time to discuss a long-term strategy with them!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. "I didn''t make a move initially because I was scared that something would happen in the Wuyang Region. Now that both of you can operate the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, I have nothing to fear! Both of you better remember this. After I leave, as long as there is trouble, activate the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. This dust formation has been linked to me and the earth, it has an endless supply of pneuma to operate itself. Defense shouldn''t be a problem. As for attacking other formations, you guys know what to do right!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency, we know what to do!!"


    "Good. Please leave then!" Zhou Bao waved his hand to signal his dismissal of the two men. A ray of cyan light flashed across their body and they disappeared into the clouds while Zhou Bao also disappeared from the hall.


    ...


    South Mountains


    Was a place that covers a whole lot of land. It was not specific at all. It meant the Jin Dynasty''s southern region, Yuntian Mountains. As for Tianyun Mountains, they belonged to the Misty Mountains in the north. They were similar in size to the central Heavenly Dragon Mountains and also occupied a large boundary of land that extended up to five continents of the Jin Dynasty. As for the South Mountains, it referred to two continents.


    Minzhou and Leizhou!


    Tianyun Mountains in the Jin Dynasty was closer to the east with connections to the Sea Area. However, its land was extremely poor. A lot of them were saturated with salt and no plants grew in these soils. They were close to the sea, so Minzhou and Leizhou both had a gigantic salt field. Eighty percent of these salt fields belonged to the Qin Family, who was one of the nine well-known families in the Jin Dynasty. The Qin Family monopolized at least forty percent of the salt routes in the Jin Dynasty.


    Therefore, based on combat capability alone, the Qin Family may not be ranked first. But in terms of wealth, they were superior to everyone.


    The Qin Family had done business in the South Mountains for more than three thousand years. It could be said that they have strong roots here. Most importantly, the Qin Family had great foresight and maturity. The other well-known families often got into squabbles over profits. But for the Qin Family, who had the Yuntian Mountains as a barrier to smooth trade and an abundant supply of salt, they never had to fight with the other countries for anything significant. Therefore, they had always managed the two continents as solidly as steel. No matter who sat on these Mountains in Jiang, they all showed face to the Qin Family. As for the governance of the two continents, they were all members of the Qin Family from the governors to the elders in the village. If not, they were people of very close ties with the Qin Family. The imperial court was like a symbol of the monopoly. The court was merely just a process.


    The Head of the Qin Family was called Qin Zheng. He could not be considered a man of great foresight. Yet, he was a protector of the place. Five years ago, he made full use of the fall of the Northern Yuan.


    In that battle, the Qin Family had expended much energy. A few expert Elders had all shown themselves. At Yunzhou, they posed a threat to the people in the northern plains. It was only because they promised their win of the Qinlingjun City. Thereafter, Yan Yuntian also offered a piece of land in the northern plains to the Qin Family. However, the Qin Family was not moved by this act of graciousness. They dismissed this gift and used it in exchange for other benefits. It was precisely these benefits that, within a span of five years, allowed the Qin Family''s status to rise up another notch. It was only then that they vaguely had the aura of being the first well-known family.


    As for Qin Family''s head Qin Zheng, it seemed like because of the rise in his family''s power that he had sprouted a few new ideas. In the recent political drama, he had involved himself in it and who would have thought that in the most crucial moment, he actually facilitated an agreement and understanding between the Divine Wind Palace and the four great sects. This left them feeling unprepared and at the same time, completely messed up their plans.


    "How could this be? The four great sects are too cowardly! With such a big obstacle posed by the Divine Wind Palace, they actually could strike an agreement and understanding with them. Don''t they have any aggressiveness in them?!"


    "Hmph, aggressiveness. What damn aggressiveness! It must be because the Divine Wind Palace promised an even bigger reward. It''s just that we don''t know!"


    At this point, at the Qin Family''s Elder home in the mountain city of the ambitious Qin Family, the six great elders of the Qin Family had convened with the Family Head. Everyone did not look good. The sudden peacemaking between the Divine Wind Palace and the four great sects had completely caught them off guard. Plus, their understanding and agreement also signaled the disruption of their long-term plan. Although there are some benefits in this current circumstance, it was not enough to compensate for the losses.

 490 Attacks the mountain city & Uses the Flipping Sky Seal

    "Yes, we cannot act rashly. However, if we know that a genocide is going to take place, we must act immediately. Furthermore, even if our Martial Ancestor is not going to take any action, there should be another way to defeat Zhou Bao. Don''t forget, no matter how powerful he is, he is merely a Level Nine expert. Even if he is able to slay Venerables, it is all due to his powerful Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. I believe there must be someone who is powerful enough to do battle with him!"


    "Does this mean, you have come up with a plan to defeat him? Tell us about it!"


    "Actually, I haven''t. I think we must report this matter to our Martial Ancestor because there are many things that need his intervention. We''re not capable nor authorized to make any decisions when it comes to these affairs!"


    "Haha, how is it that you only remember our Martial Ancestor at this moment? When you decided to unite with the Divine Wind Palace, you did not even bother to ask for his permission."


    "Qin Yueming, you''ve gone too far. Don''t forget that our family is badly in need of the Mysterious Gold Mine, and acquiring it is also a task given by our Martial Ancestor. I did it in order to fulfill his objective! Do you think that I did it for myself?"


    "Alright, that''s enough!" While listening to the two Elders arguing, Qin Zheng looked very annoyed. He hit the table hard and interrupted their argument.


    "This matter is of great importance, so we must report it to our Martial Ancestor and come up with some plans!" After he had finished talking, he stood up and prepared to leave. Suddenly, a voice rang out in the room, saying, "There''s no need to do that. I''m aware of it already."


    "Martial Ancestor!" Everyone in the room was shocked. They all stood up and knelt down in obeisance.


    "All right, get up! I''m going to meet with that rising star. You just stay here and wait for the news!"


    In the Crane-lingering Inn which was located at the Mountain City of the Qin Family.


    A sardonic grin flashed across Zhou Bao''s face as he looked out at the mountain city. He was quietly enjoying the night scene outside the window. After a few seconds, a resonant voice came into the room.


    "South Mountains Qin Haoran, paying my respects to Fellow Taoist Zhou!"


    "Interesting! I''ve never expected that there will be an expert at the Venerable Realm in Qin Family. What a surprise!" thought Zhou Bao. He smiled and waved his hand. Automatically, the door opened and he said, "Come in."


    A black-robed elder appeared in Zhou Bao''s room. In his 60s, this man looked dapper even though he was not very tall. From his eyes, Zhou Bao could easily tell that he had a shrewd character. Although Zhou Bao did not show him any courtesy, he could sense the dangerous vibes emanating from Zhou Bao, as he was an expert at the Venerable Realm. It was a feeling he had not experienced for centuries.


    "Haha, good! As expected, the younger generation will surpass the older. Even at such a young age, your cultivation is already on par with mine. God takes good care of talented people. I really admire you!" Qin Haoran eyed Zhou Bao''s youthful appearance with envy.


    "There is nothing worthy of admiration. It is only because luck is always on my side. Senior, I too admire you for having lived such a secluded life." Zhou Bao wore a smile and added, "No wonder the Qin Family is able to dominate the South Mountains for 3,000 years!"


    "You really hold me in high esteem. I''m just an old bag of bones!" Zhou Bao let him in but did not offer him a seat, which was quite rude. However, the old man was not bothered about his lack of manners. With a humble look, he said, "I am here for two reasons: first, I''d like to clear up the misunderstanding between us; second, I would like to share a great benefit with you as an atonement for my past behavior. What do you think?"


    "As people age, they become craftier, and you''re no exception. What makes you think that I''ll make a deal with you? Originally, the purpose of my coming here is to kill several experts of the Qin Family to avenge my cousin''s death and to teach your family a lesson. However, I didn''t expect that you would come to me. Haha, you''re a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm. If I killed you, your family''s strength will definitely plummet to the depths of utter decline!"


    "How dare you...!"


    Zhou Bao suddenly disappeared. Noticing that, Qin Haoran''s expression changed abruptly and, in a flash, a purple ray shot out from his body.


    Boom!


    The entire floor of the inn that Zhou Bao was at collapsed. A purple shadow shot out toward the peak of the Mountain City of the Qin Family. But before he could do anything else, he was drawn into a maelstrom made up of black-red Sword Qi.


    "Zhou Bao, how dare you! Oh, no..."


    Qin Haoran roared in great alarm, the sound emerging strongly from the midst of the maelstrom. He had never expected that Zhou Bao would be so unreasonable as to attack him even before he had finished speaking.


    However, little did he expect that Zhou Bao was sneering at him.


    He wanted to lure Zhou Bao by promising him a great benefit, but he was not aware that Zhou Bao had just obtained the Azure Secret Area and had the experience of creating a world. Zhou Bao''s vision was far beyond his imagination.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao did not think that Qin Haoran would be able to offer him any tempting benefit. Even if he could, it did not matter.


    He possessed many cultivation methods, resources, and some fairy weapons. Additionally, he was quite powerful. So, even if Qin Haoran were to offer him a fairy weapon, it would not be of any great value. Killing Qin Haoran would give him more pleasure.


    But he had not expected that Qin Haoran would be able to fend off his attack.


    "Why am I afraid to kill you? I did not expect you to possess a protective Pure Yang Celestial Device. However, even so, you will still die under my Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!" Zhou Bao laughed grimly and his laughter reverberated around the mountain city.


    "No!"


    "It''s our Martial Ancestor!"


    "He fell into a trap!"


    "How bold Zhou Bao is that he dares to attack the Qin Family!"


    "Hurry up! Go and activate the City Protection Formation!"


    Although Zhou Bao and Qin Haoran had just commenced fighting, they created such a ruckus that everyone could hear. The mountain city was the headquarters of the Qin Family in South Mountains, hence, there were a dozen experts whose cultivations were above Level Seven and, some Elders were level Eight or Level Nine experts. They were all shocked by the fighting. They immediately swathed themselves in the Gang Qi and flew up into the sky to surround Zhou Bao completely. But given Zhou Bao''s power, no one had the guts to approach him.


    "It''s really good to have you all here, so I won''t have to hunt for each of you. Members of your family had killed one of my family, therefore, I definitely will take revenge against his killers. Otherwise, you will not understand the value of my family!" Zhou Bao uttered these words grimly and flicked one of his fingers. The surrounding air suddenly vibrated violently, as if a giant object had been forcibly sucked out of the water.


    As the air vibrated, the surrounding space immediately gave out a "buzzing" sound, and invisible ripples rolled out everywhere.


    "Oh, no...!"


    "Depart immediately!"


    "What the hell is this?"


    28 experts from the Qin Family came to hold Zhou Bao under siege and they could all sense the great danger at this moment. Three of the most intelligent Elders who were at the highest cultivation-Level Nine, hurriedly retreated toward the city as they felt that something was not quite right. However, the other 25 experts were barely aware of the faint ripples penetrating their bodies before they realized that something was happening. Soon afterward, they fell unconscious, without even having time to give their last screeches.


    The three experts who had managed to escape in good time witnessed a most bizarre scene; the bodies of the 25 experts suddenly froze in mid-air and abruptly disintegrated into fine powder, and then disappeared in the wind.


    "What kind of skill is that?"


    "How could it be so powerful?"


    "It''s Infinite Trembling Contemplation, the legendary Infinite Trembling Contemplation! How is he able to use this secret skill?"


    Some of the more knowledgeable Elders had managed to figure out the skill that Zhou Bao used, but it was already too late.


    The 25 experts were the backbone of the Qin Family, and the one who was still trapped in the maelstrom was their key resource. However, in a short while, all of them had been wiped out. The members of the Qin Family were in a state of utter turmoil, having no time to react at all and not knowing what to do next.


    Below the mountain, several experts who were responsible for protecting the mountain city had activated the City Protection Formation as their last resort.


    Watching the purple light rising from the city and Qin Haoran who was struggling in the maelstrom, Zhou Bao smiled grimly. He pointed at the center of the maelstrom and, a cloud of dark-golden flame surged upward in the Sword Qi.


    A short muffled groan rang out. The Sword Qi disappeared, and the Martial Ancestor of the Qin Family, Qin Haoran, was turned into a human torch falling from the sky. His life ended with him turning into ashes in mid-air.


    It was the Great Fusion Technique!


    By now, members of the Qin Family had finally realized what had happened.


    "Zhou Bao, we are now at daggers drawn!" In the Mountain City of the Qin Family, Qin Zheng shouted in a great rage.


    "Oh? Then I must kill you too!" Zhou Bao replied with great indifference. His green robe was blowing strongly as if in a gale and his eyes glittered. Although he had felt an invisible pressure emanating from the purple light in the city which was headed toward him, he merely smiled and clapped his hands together to make an Incantation Gesture.


    As the Incantation Gesture took shape, an enormous strength emanated from Zhou Bao''s body and totally warded off the surrounding pressure. Zhou Bao''s power was invisible yet at the same time extremely strong. It attacked the City Protection Formation of the Qin Family with full force. The formation failed to exert enough pressure on Zhou Bao, but it was about to collapse anytime due to his enormous power.


    Meanwhile, a giant gold seal that was completely made of Real Essence floated in front of Zhou Bao.


    It was the Flipping Sky Seal!


    This was Zhou Bao''s first time to use the Flipping Sky Seal after he had reached the Mysterious Realm. He had never thought that it would have such an amazing effect.


    The giant seal grew larger in the wind and instantly turned into a 100¨Cfoot tall creature. It glittered with a golden light and complex talismans emerged from it. It was really a dazzling sight to behold.


    Watching this scene, Zhou Bao was somewhat surprised. He had never expected that the Flipping Sky Seal would be so large. The most important fact was that he could feel unusual movements of the Real Essence inside his body this time. Originally, he needed to guide the Real Essence to follow the working flow of the Flipping Sky Seal and this was the only way he could use it. However, this time, the experience was quite different from before. After the seal took shape, it continued to absorb his Real Essence in a mystical way. He figured out that within a few seconds, the Real Essence of a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm would be totally spent. Luckily, he had opened Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints and possessed the essence of the Innate Deity in his body, so the quantity of his Real Essence far surpassed that of ordinary experts. Otherwise, he could not afford to be continuously absorbed by the Flipping Sky Seal.

 491 The Power of Flipping Sky Seal

    The gold seal did not expand anymore nor did it fall down. As Zhou Bao infused it with more and more Real Essence, its power increased overwhelmingly and the surrounding air seemed to have solidified. The City Protection Formation of the Qin Family was so good that even if it encountered a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm, it was still capable of fighting back. But now, everything had changed after it came into contact with the power of the Flipping Sky Seal. At first, the seal merely prevented the pressure brought by the formation from approaching Zhou Bao. But later, as Zhou Bao infused more and more Real Essence into it, its spirit gradually connected with the pneuma of the formation and streaks of spirit seeped out of the seal, hooking the pneuma in tightly. At that moment, Zhou Bao felt the output of the Real Essence gradually reducing. However, at the same time, a strange change came over the City Protection Formation of the Qin Family¡ªthe purple light darkened gradually.


    "What on earth is going on? Why can''t I control the Six Ways Formation? Why? What kind of celestial device is it? Is it a Pure Yang Celestial Device or a fairy weapon? Why is it absorbing the power of our formation?"


    At this moment, Qin Zheng, who was at the center of the City Protection Formation, emitted a loud roar. It had been the last resort of the Qin Family but it did not work now. The Six Ways Formation had protected the Qin Family over the past 3,000 years, but it was not able to do its job this time around, so Qin Zheng was totally flustered by this. And this was not helping him at this point in time.


    "How interesting! My seal absorbs the pneuma of the surrounding earth vein and the world through that formation and, finally, it is able to forge many formation talismans. This is a total surprise!"


    Zhou Bao felt greatly relieved after he sensed that the seal no longer absorbed his Real Essence but instead turned to extract the pneuma of the surrounding earth vein. Suddenly, he had a strange look on his face and said, "Oh, it solidified!"


    The seal came to a standstill after it had absorbed an enormous quantity of the essence of the world and the earth vein. At this moment, it no longer glittered and instead darkened. The talismans floating above it disappeared, all having been absorbed into the seal. The horrifying coercion coming out of the seal disappeared too, leaving only a 100 feet long dark gold seal floating in mid-air.


    The dark gold seal did not send forth any spirit essence now and suddenly, Zhou Bao felt a tremor in his heart.


    Soon after, the seal fell.


    It fell from the sky without a sound.


    "Zhou Bao, how dare you? Stop!" As the Flipping Sky Seal fell, a golden light flashed past the eastern horizon and shot towards the Mountain City of the Qin Family. Zhou Bao paid no heed to those words, letting the seal continue to plummet.


    Boom!


    The seal landed with a loud bang and expanded to a size of 1,000 feet in height. It hit Toutuo Ridge directly¡ªthe headquarters of the Qin Family, where the Formation Eye of the City Protection Formation was located.


    After that, the whole of Toutuo Ridge was razed to the ground. The entire mountain was flattened and looked like the runway of a small airport. Meanwhile, the managers and Elders of the Qin Family who were staying at Toutuo Ridge as well as the treasures that the Qin Family had accumulated over the years, including two Pure Yang Celestial Devices, were turned into ashes under the onslaught of the seal attack.


    By then, the golden light finally approached and witnessed this scene before her eyes. She said, "Zhou Bao, you really have a death wish!"


    With a loud roar, a golden stripe shot toward Zhou Bao.


    However, Zhou Bao executed his Great Fusion Technic instantly without even looking at the woman.


    Swish! The Great Fusion Technic warded off the golden stripe. At the same time, the Flipping Sky Seal scattered and turned into pure pneuma.


    This surprised Zhou Bao to a certain extent.


    Flipping Sky Seal was a secret skill and also a method used to kill enemies. It should have disappeared after it had fulfilled its mission, just like the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and Infinite Trembling Contemplation. However, this time was different. After all the pneuma had disappeared, a strange talisman flew into the place between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows.


    "What''s this?" Zhou Bao had never seen such a thing before, but there was no time for him to think about it now. The golden stripe shone brightly and reached out to strike him again.


    "Are you done with your attacks?" While uttering these words, Zhou Bao''s face darkened. He had just caught a glimpse of the appearance of the newcomer¡ªit was a beautiful woman who was dressed in court apparel. She was glaring at him with a death stare.


    Zhou Bao did not give much thought to this woman''s strength, but he felt uncomfortable under her scrutiny.


    He saw the stripe heading toward him. It was a Flying Sword at the Pure Yang Level. With only a simple shape, the old sword emanated golden light and waves of scorching spirit, showing an amazing Qi Power.


    Zhou Bao frowned in annoyance and raised his hand. A golden circle shot out from his hand and directly blocked the way of the Flying Sword.


    Swish! The Flying Sword fell into the golden circle and disappeared.


    "Ah?" The beauty exclaimed in shock. She waved her hands as if trying to retrieve the Flying Sword, but it had disappeared just like a clay ox entering the sea and melting away. The connection between herself and the sword had already been severed.


    She panicked. The Golden Flame Sword was one of the three Pure Yang Celestial Devices of the East Sea Chaotian Palace. Although it was not supposed to be used in this way, its specialty was its attacking mode. She had won the favor of the Palace Leader and was promoted to the role of hostess there because she was the only one who possessed the rare Raging Fire Bloodline over the past 1,000 years. She was able to practice the Golden Flame Technique and was in control of the Golden Flame Sword.


    She had never thought that as soon as she was in a battle with Zhou Bao, her Pure Yang Flying Sword¡ªthe Golden Flame Sword, would be taken away so easily.


    She was doing her closed-door training in Chaotian Palace. Suddenly, an unsettling emotion came over her. The Mind-connecting Talisman which she always carried with her suddenly broke apart. She knew then that her older brother must have encountered a great calamity. Thereafter, she used a Teleportation Talisman to transport herself to the Mountain City of the Qin Family from the Chaotian Palace. As soon as she showed up, she saw that a man in the sky had broken through the City Protection Formation of the Qin Family and was using a dark gold seal to destroy the headquarters of Qin Family. She was quite familiar with the appearance of that man. He was Zhou Bao of Yunzhou, the most flamboyant genius in the Central Mainland Region over the past 10 years. It was then that she exclaimed in shock.


    However, she had never thought that Zhou Bao would ignore her. He directed the seal to press down and destroyed Toutuo Ridge. Furious at his daring, she released the Golden Flame Sword twice. Her first attack was warded off by Zhou Bao, and at the second time, Zhou Bao took her sword away directly. By now, she realized that Zhou Bao''s strength was immeasurable beyond the rumors about him.


    Although she was furious and wanted to tear Zhou Bao to pieces, she was clearly aware of the huge gap between their strengths. Therefore, she dared not act recklessly but stared at Zhou Bao with a terrified look.


    "Who are you? How dare you intervene in my affairs? Do you really have a death wish?" Zhou Bao stared coldly at the woman who had a murderous look on her face.


    The woman trembled in fear as she sensed the killing intent emanating from Zhou Bao, even though she was already a Genuine Immortal. As she was about to speak, Zhou Bao''s face darkened and he asked, "Humph. My friend, you''ve hidden there and watched our fighting from the sidelines for so long, don''t you want to come out now?"


    "Who? Who else is there?" The woman was shocked. Even with her cultivation, she had failed to sense that someone was hiding behind her. She could not imagine how powerful that person would be.


    "It''s true that the man with fame is in no way the weak. Zhou Bao of Yunzhou, you really live up to your reputation!"


    A gentle sigh rang out, and the space behind the woman rippled like water. Then, a white-robbed middle-aged man appeared in the sky.


    "Leader!" The woman shouted in surprise as she saw this middle-aged man.


    The man was her husband, the leader of the East Sea Chaotian Palace. Of course, Zhou Bao was not aware of that.


    "Leader?" Zhou Bao touched his chin and cast a confused glance at the man, saying, "Haha, I never expected that there were so many talents hiding here. I''ve just killed a Venerable and, another Venerable comes now. No wonder the Qin Family had the guts to plunder my northwest region!"


    "Have you really killed my older brother?" The woman''s expression changed greatly as she heard what Zhou Bao had just said.


    "Silence!" The Palace Leader scolded the woman coldly and smiled at Zhou Bao, saying, "Don''t get me wrong, Fellow Taoist Zhou. I''m Lin Kong, the leader of the East Sea Chaotian Palace. I am only distantly related to the Qin Family. This is my wife Qin Mengyao, who was born in the Qin Family, so that is why she behaved so rudely to you just now. If she has caused any offense, I beg your pardon."


    "Qin Mengyao? Lin Kong? Chaotian Palace?" Zhou Bao''s eyes narrowed. When it came to the East Sea Chaotian Palace, he recalled what had happened in Small Thunder Temple as the Ancient Ruins showed up that year, and there seemed to have been some friction between him and people from Chaotian Palace. However, judging by Lin Kong''s attitude, it was obvious that he did not want to be Zhou Bao''s enemy. Of course, Zhou Bao had the same idea. Chaotian Palace was not a sect in the Central Mainland Region but one in the East Sea. After having witnessed the strength of the Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area, no matter how bold Zhou Bao was, he did not want to be the enemy of the Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area.


    However, Qin Mengyao was born in the Qin Family and, he had just destroyed all the powerful experts in the Qin Family, including a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm. Moreover, Toutuo Ridge had been turned into a desolate wasteland due to his seal. Therefore, he had slain almost the entire Qin Family.


    As one of the nine well-known families, Qin Family had a monopoly on sea salt, which already was the envy of others. But for the strong backup from their powerful experts, other influences would have vied for the monopoly of salt with the Qin Family. At present, the powerful experts of the Qin Family had all been killed by Zhou Bao and he had even destroyed their City Protection Formation. Even if Zhou Bao did not kill the remaining members of the Qin Family, the Qin Family would now be at the mercy of other influences. It definitely would vanish before long. Even if Qin Mengyao alone was able to prevent some clansmen from being killed, the glory of the Qin Family over the 3,000 years would have been gone with the wind. In that case, how could she not hate Zhou Bao?


    Because of this, Zhou Bao would consider Qin Mengyao to be a menace as well. Hence, he cast an unfriendly glance at Qin Mengyao.

 492 Another Fiery Eye

    Lin Kong became increasingly nervous as he met Zhou Bao''s icy-cold stare. Qin Mengyao was his wife, but most important of all, she possessed the Raging Fire Bloodline, and as such, she was the best person for controlling the Golden Flame Sword. Furthermore, she was one of the most significant fighters of Chaotian Palace. Naturally, Lin Kong did not want anything bad to happen to Qin Mengyao. However, after what he had seen, he figured out that Zhou Bao was much more powerful than what the legends said about him. He had actually felt fearful when he confronted Zhou Bao. It was an innate fear coming from deep inside his heart and his bloodline, which was a feeling he had not experienced for a long time.


    But for this fear, he would have taken action as soon as Zhou Bao had taken the Golden Flame Sword away.


    "Fellow Taoist Zhou, you have my assurance. Although Mengyao was born in the Qin Family, she has been married to me for a long time already and has nothing to do with the Qin Family!" While speaking, he cast a sharp glance at Qin Mengyao before she could make any remark. Qin Mengyao was extremely unhappy with this situation, however, under Lin Kong''s coercion, she dared not open her mouth to utter any retorts.


    "Really? I don''t think so. If she is not involved, she would not have been here now, and why did she launch an attack on me?"


    Lin Kong smiled. At this very moment, he had regained the dignity and manner of a Palace Leader. He said, "That was earlier. She will not do that again. I promise you that Mengyao will not cause you any more trouble in the future. If she does, you can just kill her!"


    His words sounded very simple. To Qin Mengyao, however, those words swept through her very bones and heart like a cold wind blowing. Subconsciously, she glanced at Lin Kong, only to be met by his icy glare. Submitting to the fear deep inside her heart, she lowered her head and dared not say anything.


    "Since this is the case, I''ll give you some face. I promise you that if she does not cause any trouble, I will not go after her!" Zhou Bao nodded his head in agreement.


    "However, there is another thing that I need to bother you with!" Lin Kong was delighted he could get Zhou Bao to agree on this matter without the slightest hesitation.


    "Do you want that sword back?" Zhou Bao sneered as if he knew what Lin Kong was thinking about. "That would be a bit troublesome. Though that sword means nothing to me, it''s part of my loot. I''ve already spared your wife''s life for your sake. If you still want me to return the sword, other people would think that I''m afraid of the East Sea Chaotian Palace once this matter is made known publicly. I''m afraid that something is very wrong here!"


    "Of course I understand. I won''t ask for the sword back for nothing!" Lin Kong said confidently and added, "I''ll offer you a reasonable compensation!"


    "A compensation?" Zhou Bao smiled and continued saying, "All right. I''d like to know what you have to offer me?"


    Lin Kong smiled and took one item out of his chest pouch, and said, "Well, will this be enough to make amends for your losses?"


    "A Fiery Eye?" Upon seeing the fiery pupil, Zhou Bao was startled.


    "Yes, it''s a Fiery Eye that has the name of the Eternal Eye. Look...!"


    Before he could even finish speaking, Zhou Bao flicked the circle in his hand with his fingers. Soon after, a golden light flashed and shot toward Lin Kong directly.


    Lin Kong was overjoyed when he saw this. He loosened his hold and let Zhou Bao take the Fiery Eye away.


    Just as he was about to say something, Zhou Bao disappeared.


    "How fast he is! Zhou Bao is really powerful. No wonder His Majesty told me not to create any problems!" Lin Kong felt frightened as he had not noticed Zhou Bao''s departure.


    "Leader...!"


    "Well, that''s it. Go back!" Lin Kong cast a cold glance at Qin Mengyao, saying, "This will be the first time and also the last time. I hope it won''t happen again, otherwise, your days in Chaotian Palace are numbered!"


    Qin Mengyao dared not utter a word. She followed Lin Kong and left the South Mountains obediently.


    As for the fate of the Qin Family, it was not something that she dared ask about at the present moment.


    "Haha, I can''t believe that I have another Fiery Eye. Now, I have four Fiery Eyes in addition to my External Elixir. Shall I turn all of them to External Elixirs? I''ve opened Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, therefore, why would I want so many External Elixirs for?" Zhou Bao pondered on this in his heart.


    The Fiery Eye was indeed the best material for refining the External Elixir. Zhou Bao had already opened Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints and possessed immense Real Essence. If he liked, he was still able to open other secret acupoints. However, all this meant little to him because once an acupoint was opened, he would possess immense Real Essence and Dharma power, but this would take up too much of his time in order to absorb the Real Essence and Dharma power. At present, the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints and the Fiery Eye External Elixir had already reached his limitation. If he should open one more acupoint, or refine one more External Elixir, he had to double the amount of time he spent practicing every day at the very least. If he were to refine two External Elixirs, he would spend his entire life doing nothing except to practice.


    As a person who owned a few Fiery Eyes, he was very familiar with how the Fiery Eye worked. Furthermore, he found that as he became stronger, he attached more importance to it. This was due to a feeling that came from deep inside his bloodline. Therefore, he was badly tempted by it whenever he came across one.


    "Forget it. I''d better take it back first. The Fiery Eye can control the Golden Book of Fate, thus, I''m afraid that it may involve some secrets from antiquity times. The damn Green Spirit has been sealed for quite some time already and is not familiar with some of these things. Otherwise, I could have asked him about these matters!" Zhou Bao was furious as he thought of the legendary Great Ancient Demon¡ªGreen Spirit.


    With his current strength, especially after he had refined the Real Body of Zhuyan and created the Azure Heaven, he always had a kind of internal secret worry whenever he thought about the events that had happened during antiquity times. This worry was groundless and it was all due to his Fiery Eyes.


    After he had taken control of the copy of the Golden Book of Fate, he clearly realized that something wonderful had happened to his eyes. It was a feeling that he was going to break through to another level, but he still lacked the opportunity. Furthermore, he could not tell what would happen after he broke through to another level. Since then, every time he thought of the 33 Heavens and things that had happened before, he could feel an uneasiness coming from his eyes.


    It was this unease that propelled his desire to accelerate the process of enhancing his power. But it had not been easy for him to do so, for his strength had reached another bottleneck. Neither his Second Primordial Spirit nor his body was ready for a Thunder Tribulation. He still needed to accumulate enough experience.


    If he merely wanted to undergo one or two Thunder Tribulations, it would be just a piece of cake for him. However, he was quite ambitious, for he wanted to undergo six Thunder Tribulations at once at the very least and directly attain the Karmic Rank of a Lord of Heaven. He even had a higher ambition¡ªto undergo eight or nine Thunder Tribulations. However, all of this would require a stronger accumulation of practice. Even if he had the Real Body of Zhuyan in his possession, he was not sure that he would be able to undergo so many Thunder Tribulations at one go. Therefore, he still needed a lot of time to accumulate his own knowledge and slowly understand the workings of his own mind and power. In that case, he would surely succeed.


    However, the process of accumulating knowledge and experience was extremely long, longer beyond Zhou Bao''s imagination.


    "It seems that I need to look carefully before taking each step!" He sighed in his heart and suddenly, his expression changed and a chilly smile appeared on his face. "Haha, I can''t believe that there are some people who are not afraid of death and have actually dared to launch an attack on my headquarters in this world!"


    With a quick move, he transformed into a cyan streamer before disappearing into the sky.


    At the same time, in the northwest Wuyang Region, with the Lord Mansion in the center, the area within a radius of 300 miles of it was completely enveloped in a cloud of cyan mist.


    Dozens of experts with various types of wizard weapons and celestial devices plunged headlong from different directions into the mist. But somehow, they could not get out of the mist but were trapped in the endless illusions produced by the mist.


    "Damn it! How could this be? Didn''t Zhou Bao depart from here already? Is there someone else who is able to activate this damn formation?"


    The leader roared in anger. The Pure Yang Celestial Device in his hand was emanating a red light to protect him, however, its protection was limited to him only.


    Beside him was a man holding a wheel-shaped Pure Yang Celestial Device who looked coldly from the sidelines at his exasperated appearance. Suddenly, the man wielded the celestial device in his hand as if he had just made up his mind. The celestial device immediately turned into a gold rainbow which helped him rush out of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and then disappeared into the sky.


    The leader cursed furiously when he saw this, but that did not last long. A blue rainbow flashed past the sky in the distance and was followed by an icy-cold and merciless killing intent.


    It was the ninth year of Yongping of the Jin.


    The Wuyang Earl of the Jin, Zhou Bao, on the grounds of the Qin Family''s killing of a member of the Zhou Family arbitrarily, had wiped out the South Mountains and slain nine experts of the Qin Family, including some Elders and the Family Head, Qin Zheng. He had used the long-lost secret skill¡ªFlipping Sky Seal, to raze the headquarters of the Qin Family¡ªToutuo Ridge, to the ground. Rumors had it that Zhou Bao had also killed the Patriarch of the Qin Family¡ªa Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm. However, since this rumor was highly beyond anyone''s belief, very few people believed the tales told.


    The attack seemed to be long-premeditated. As soon as Zhou Bao had departed from the Wuyang Region, with the Second Elder of the Kunlun Mountain to be the leader, the two sects of the Northern Yuan¡ªthe Kunlun Mountain and Palace of Destruction Demon, launched a joint attack against the Wuyang Region, trying to raze it to the ground at one go. But no one had ever thought that Zhou Bao''s most trusted subordinates, Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao, had already reached the Expert Realm and had become Level Seven experts at the same time. They activated the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and trapped dozens of experts in it to await Zhou Bao''s arrival. During the attack, the Young Master of the Palace of Destruction Demon was the only one who managed to escape. All the 48 experts, including the Second Elder of the Kunlun Mountain, were completely annihilated. Zhou Bao hung their heads up on the city wall of the Wuyang Region, and it became a center of attention there.


    Since then, one of the nine well-known families of the Jin Dynasty, the Qin Family, had disappeared overnight. Led by the Li Family of Pingzhou, the three families which were closest to the South Mountains, all of them had a hand in dividing up the South Mountains. In the next three years, the South Mountains gradually belonged to them.


    However, after the battle, the powers of both the Kunlun Mountain and Palace of Destruction Demon were greatly sapped. They all hid themselves to avoid Zhou Bao''s pursuit.


    Meanwhile, in the Four Eastern Regions, Divine Wind Palace and the four biggest sects had managed to reach a settlement. The rest of the eight well-known families did not push the Royalty of the Jin anymore and most of the ministers in the court remained. Although there were frictions every now and then on the local level, most of the time, a fragile balance had been successfully maintained.


    Everything seemed to have calmed down, but behind this calm, there still lurked a very mysterious situation.


    One month later, one of the three Chiefs of the Tian Long Taoism, Wang She, and one of the 13 Living Buddhas of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, Child-endowing Buddha, secretly entered the Wuyang Region and met with Zhou Bao.

 493 Infinite Star Sea

    "You really stay up to date with the latest news. I''m indeed going to be a king, King of Wuyang. It''s my wife who told me the news. You should have known about it before I did!"


    "Recently, everything in Jin is in a mess and its all thanks to your father-in-law. I thought that he would not have been able to turn his life around. But I never knew that he had such a secret advantage and was able to even up the odds. He is really a skillful schemer!"


    "Hey, what did my father-in-law do to make you give up the Azure Secret Area?"


    "Regardless how amazing the Azure Secret Area was previously, it is lost to us now. Even if we turn Divine Wind Palace over, we will get nothing. We fell out with Divine Wind Palace because we felt we had been wronged and wanted to avenge our defeat. But now things are different. Your father-in-law managed to get the half of the Void Map in one direct swoop!"


    "The Void Map? What''s that?"


    "The Void Map, just as its name implies, is a map of the endless void!"


    "What? A map of the endless void?" Zhou Bao was immediately intrigued. In his mind, the endless void was the same as the universe from his previous life. It was infinite and extremely vast. He had seen the map of the universe in some science fiction and back then it was known as the star map. Had the experts managed to come up with a drawing of the void in this world?


    Looking at Zhou Bao''s astonished expression, Wang She laughed suddenly and his face had the look that said: "I knew you''d be totally surprised by this information." "This so-called Void Map is not referring to the complete map of the void but the map of a small part of the void. In antiquity times, there were many Void Maps, which had been drawn by the Ancient Mighty Experts while they were traveling in the void. Some of these maps are extremely valuable, but some are totally worthless!"


    "Why?"


    "The void is so big that it does not come as a surprise anymore. Even the area that the Ancient Mighty Experts and the legendary 99 Emperors had explored was just a tiny part of the whole void. In this small area, some places are unoccupied. Some are filled with worthless meteorites and some possess superlatively amazing spiritual qi, which is superior to that in the 33 Heavens. As long as we can find such a place, naturally, it can cover the loss of Azure Heaven. But the risks of accidents are high in the boundless void. There are even places that seem vacant but are actually death traps. If experts at the Lord of Heaven Realm can end up dying there, what about ordinary Individual Immortals and Genuine Immortals? Furthermore, most parts of the void have no spiritual qi and pneuma, so Genuine Immortals or Human Immortals are unable to stay there for a long time. The void gets its name because most of the void is empty and there''s no place for anyone to set foot in it. Therefore, once anyone gets lost in the void, it is as good as being dead. Thus, if anyone wants to explore the void, the Void Map is a must. But the Void Map has been lost for a long time already. Even those which have been preserved are some residual parts only. Although your father-in-law offered us half of the Void Map, it is only another portion of the part we five biggest sects have in our possession. The whole part is the map of the Infinite Star Sea."


    Zhou Bao appeared to be in a daze now.


    The Star Area and Infinite Star Sea!


    Although he had long suspected that this world was a huge planet, he had never been able to prove that. Even if he had the Divine Sense and Dharma power to travel around the void, and had occasionally entered into the void just to have the experience, such a void travel could be achieved only by tearing the void apart. How would he be able to have a clear view of the world he was in when there were layers of spaces and space rifts in between?


    It was a known fact that the Law of Space was extremely mysterious. Due to its countless layers, it looked like many rooms of all sizes, which came with both thick and thin, hard and soft walls. Divine Senses such as the Three Realms Division and Infinite Realms Teleportation were all created after going through many trials and errors by the ancient experts and necromancers over the years. They were like formulas that you could use freely even if you did not understand the theory. A simple example would be: one plus one equals two. Even a three-year-old child knew this formula. As long as you knew the formula, you could use the simplest mathematical method to calculate the result. However, no one had ever been able to do prove the theory.


    The Three Realms Division was a method for traveling about in a space, for example, in a room. Although it involved the transformation between different spatial layers, it was as simple as the mathematical method "one plus one equals two". Therefore, even though Zhou Bao did not know the exact principle, he still knew how to use it.


    That was how Zhou Bao was able to travel the void by using his Divine Senses and special techniques even though he did not fully understand the actual secret of the Law of Space.


    The Infinite Realms Teleportation was a way to move through different spatial levels. Frankly speaking, it was just another method to get from one room to another and was even more difficult than just moving around in the same room. Specific coordinates were required, and you couldn''t go into any random space.


    Legend had it that if one could go across the Nine Heavens Gang Wind, he would be able to enter the void directly from this world.


    But, would it be that easy to break through the Nine Heavens Gang Wind?


    The first layer of Gang Wind was 90,000 feet off the ground and the second layer of Gang Wind was 90,000 feet above this level. The rest had the same layout. There were nine layers of Gang Wind in total. Each layer was more powerful than the previous layer. Even the first layer of Gang Wind had the ability to crush a Level Nine expert. Thus it was evident that it would be very difficult to go across the nine layers of Gang Wind.


    The most important fact to take note of was that from the fourth layer onwards, the Gang Wind contained space debris which was capable of ripping the space into pieces. Due to this, there were countless numbers of space cracks amongst the debris. However, the Gang Wind''s activities were unceasing, so even if the space here had self-healing powers, it was no match for the unending and violent Gang Wind. Therefore, the place where the fourth layer of Gang Wind was at was an absolute death trap. It was impossible for anyone to pass through the fifth or sixth layer of Gang Wind, even it was a Genuine Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm; or even guys like Zhou Bao who was proficient in Divine Senses such as the Three Realms Division and Infinite Realms Teleportation. To execute spatial Divine Senses in such a chaotic space was simply seeking a death wish.


    Coupled with the fact that the void was too vast, thus, whoever managed to get through the nine layers of Gang Wind would face only emptiness. Therefore, over the tens of thousands of years, no one had been able to pass through the nine layers of Gang Wind, nor were they able to see the true colors of this world.


    Of course, over hundreds of thousands of years, the true colors of this world meant nothing to those Powerful Divines and great practitioners of antiquity times. Those who had received their inheritance, be it sects, experts or Genuine Immortals, knew what the real world was like.


    The Powerful Divines of antiquity times had explored the void and discovered many resources, power and living creatures that were not available in this world today. They kept a record of what they had seen and heard, including the places that they had explored and the wonders they had encountered on their journeys. And that record became the Void Map.


    The Void Map was a very good piece of work and everyone was aware of that. But few had been passed down from antiquity times and even lesser people were able to enter the void even if they had the map.


    People like Zhou Bao who had minimal knowledge of some Spatial Divine Senses and only a slight understanding of some Laws of Space, were able to tear through the void and live there for some time. However, it was still hard for them to pinpoint their positions there because the voids they tore apart each time were always in different positions, with some being very close to their own world and some being thousands of miles away. These things happened all the time. Thus, how would they dare to wander around such a void?


    Even if you had three or four Void Maps in your possession, it was useless because you would not be able to tear into the very position that was recorded on the Void Map.


    In fact, most of the Void Maps that had been passed down from antiquity times were of no use. After all, compared to before, there were fewer people in the current world who were able to pass through the Nine Heavens Gang Wind to enter the remote void like those Powerful Divines.


    Therefore, there were few Void Maps that were really useful to the practitioners in the present world. The Infinite Star Sea Map in Yan Yuntian''s hands happened to be one of those that was of some value.


    The Infinite Star Sea was not near the present world. However, according to the records, there was a slightly smaller star near the large star that this world was located in; this was the moon that people saw from the ground. On it was a Transmitting Formation from antiquity times, which was able to send people to the Infinite Star Sea Area directly from the moon. This information had been confirmed by people from the five biggest sects tens of thousands of years ago. They had attempted to do so once only. The problem was that the five biggest sects only possessed half of the Void Map and lacked the other half that the Transmitting Formation was located on. Therefore, no one was brave enough to explore the Infinite Star Sea even with half of the Void Map. The Transmitting Formation was located on an enormous and remote meteorite, which occupied the same area as the Central Mainland Region did. However, there was no pneuma and spiritual qi on this meteorite at all. It was directly exposed in the void, and near it were dense clusters of meteorites that were visible to the naked eye. Through these meteorites, one could vaguely see a large star surrounded by numerous meteorites. But because the other half of the Void Map was missing, no one could tell what was on the large star, and therefore, no one dared to explore it.

 494 Analysis

    For thousands of years, the five biggest sects had been searching for the other half of the Infinite Star Sea Void Map. Once they had the other half of the map, they would be able to enter the Infinite Star Sea and do some explorations. There was a chance that they would be able to find some rare treasures from olden times. What was so special about the treasures was that even the 33 Heavens had not been able to find them. Because of this, the five biggest sects set up some strict rules. No matter how high ranking a person was, as long as one found the other half of the map, he had to report the find to the respective sects. Then, the five sects would share the map, and the one who found it would be greatly rewarded. No one would have thought that the map would eventually end up with Yan Yuntian. The cunning fellow, however, did not report his find to his sect and kept it a secret. At the most crucial moment when he was in trouble, he had used it to save himself.


    This act stunned everyone. However, the five biggest sects did not really bother about it. Now, their primary focus was on analyzing the complete Void Map. Once they came up with something, they would send in their experts to explore and make up for the loss of Azure Heaven.


    "Well, do you have any ideas?" Seeing that Zhou Bao was still in a daze, Wang She smiled and asked, "Would you interested to take a look together?"


    Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows and asked hesitantly, "Are you sure this half of the Void Map is the real thing?"


    "Of course, it is impossible to forge the Void Map. Be it the materials or the text, they can only found in olden times. Even if one found them and tried to recreate, without the other half, how would he ever do it?"


    "That''s true!" Zhou Bao thought, a whole map would be easy to recreate but it would be a joke to create only half. No idiot would attempt to recreate without looking at the other half.


    "You know, my ambitious old father-in-law did a complete turnabout. He went against the orders of the five biggest sects. So will you all close one eye and not punish him?" Zhou Bao asked with a smile.


    "Your father-in-law should know right from wrong and will definitely have made plans for himself. Do you think he will willingly hand over the map to us? I''m sure there will be conditions attached and if we don''t meet his conditions, he will destroy everything indiscriminately. The old guy has suffered too much and has become a little crazy. We do not have the time to dally with him," Wang She said softly. There was scorn in his voice as he said, "so, even though the old guy has angered us, no one is willing to bear the consequences, so we agreed to his conditions!"


    "Eh, indeed, the older, the wiser. It would be quite a show!"


    "Indeed, one of Yan Yuntian''s conditions was that from today onwards, no one from the five biggest sects should interfere in Jin''s matters, directly or indirectly. This made Tian Long Taoism very upset. He had been preparing to rebuild Mingyi School and sanction the nine well-known families. Oh, sorry, it should only be eight of them now!"


    "That''s nonsense, he does not have that much power!"


    "Do you think he will look for you?"


    "Yes, he definitely will, but he will also know what my answer will be. But according to his character, as long as there''s a slight chance, he will go for it. This is what I admire most about him."


    "He is your father-in-law, of course you would admire his character. But it would be better not to get involved. He may decide to do an about turn again, but it is still far from achieving his big dream. This time around, he has basically offended the five biggest sects, especially Divine Wind Palace. It supported him in the past, but now there are too many people inside that are angry with him. Hence, if he wants to become a candidate for the Jade Emperor, it would be much more difficult than before!"


    "Is that title really so important?"


    "Of course it is! If not, there wouldn''t be so many people fighting for it. At least the emperors of the strongest countries in Four Eastern Regions are fighting for it. They want their dynasty to last forever!"


    "How can there ever be such a dynasty?" Zhou Bao laughed coldly, "They''re just a bunch of daydreamers!"


    "That is where you''re wrong. You''re too powerful, so in your eyes, this emperor position means nothing to you. You can even kill the emperor in whatever way you want in just a blink of an eye. However, you''re missing an important point and that is, one man''s effort is very limited. You can be the strongest person, but you''ll still be on your own. You have to do everything by yourself, like getting the elixir when you''re practicing, or getting your equipment when refining celestial devices. Do you still remember when you refined the Air-frozen Bead? You spent so much time and effort just to compile the ingredients and had to stop your practice because of that. Once one becomes the Jade Emperor, things would be different. With just a single command, anything you ask for will be brought to you and anything you need to be done will be taken care of instantly. With such a resource, would there be anything to worry about when you are practicing?"


    "Don''t forget, this is different from the past, the human emperor cannot rule the heavens and realms!"


    "Don''t forget too, when the descendants of the emperor practice, they can do it at the fastest speed and enjoy the largest resources. They do not have to think of anything else except to focus on their practicing. Hence, the number of experts in the royal family will definitely not be less than that of the nine well-known families of Jin, and so too their power!"


    "You mean to say that there are Genuine Immortals of Venerable Realm in the royal family?" Zhou Bao was thinking about the Qin Family of South Mountains especially that of the Venerable Patriarch in the Qin Family of South Mountains.


    "Huh, of course not!" Upon hearing that, Wang She stopped for a moment. An awkward expression came across his face. "The Qin Family of South Mountains was an exception. That old man is extraordinary. Apart from the Qin Family, there is at least one Individual Immortal from Mysterious Realm in each of the other eight well-known families. Of course, the power of an Individual Immortal is insignificant to you, but it is enough to deter the Great Jin. Furthermore, there are three of them in the royal family of Great Jin. Each of them possess a Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Speaking of which, he looked at Zhou Bao meaningfully, "You have to think about it, the Yan family may be royalty, but when compared to the nine well-known families, they''re just like newcomers. However, within a short span of less than 500 years, they''re able to amass such great power today. As for the families with thousands of years of history, they are not even comparable to the Yan family. This is what royalty is all about!"


    "When compared to genocide, this little benefit is so insignificant! Becoming a royal would definitely put one in the spotlight. When the time comes to have a change in the royal family, that would be the day when they all die!"


    "That is why, for every dynasty, each ambitious Emperor would look forward to the grand unification. They all dream of reliving the legendary glories of the Heavenly Court and of being in control of all heavens and realms. This is to prevent future incidents of genocides!"


    "No matter how glorious the Heavenly Court is, or how great their influence was, didn''t they all disappear?"


    "The destruction of the Heavenly Court was done by the tribulation of the earth. Back then, even Immortals would suffer. There was no way the Heavenly Court would only protect itself. Furthermore, even though the Heavenly Court was destroyed, the Uniform Dao was passed on. Also, didn''t that Yu family proclaim repeatedly that they''re the descendants of the Yu Emperor? At least the family did not go into extinction!"


    "Listen to what you''re saying, they are saying that they''re the descendants, who knows if it''s true? We need evidence right? Even if there is, after so many years, how will we know if it''s real or not?"


    "But this at least explains why the Heavenly Court did not completely disappear. Look at the dynasties before Great Jin. How many people actually remember them and reminisce about them?!"


    "Let''s not talk about unimportant things, I''m not interested in building a dynasty. Even if the place I am at is the site of Nine Dragons convergence, I will not turn the Zhou family into royalty, that''s too dangerous!"


    "You may say it now, but what if your family wants it in the future?"


    "I will kill the person with one blow!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly, "I will see who would dare to do it!"


    "Okay, fine, let''s not talk about this. Back to the Void Map. So are you interested in the Infinite Star Sea or not?"


    "What, you just got hold of the Void Map and now you want to explore the Infinite Star Sea already?"


    "Not exactly, However, we must have a plan. You know that not everyone can enter the hollow. Even if we want to explore the area, we need at least a Genuine Immortal from the Venerable Realm. The Four Eastern Regions cannot be compared to the Sea Area. There are less than 100 Genuine Immortals from the Venerable Realm in the five biggest sects. Even the strongest, Divine Wind Palace, only has about 50. And they can''t all go together!" Suddenly Wang She laughed in a weird manner. "Think about it, even if we have the Void Map, the deep ends of the Infinite Star Sea is very dangerous. We won''t be safe even if a Venerable is with us. Those from the five biggest sects who are going are all Genuine Immortals from the Venerable Realm; The strongest fighters in each sect will all be together in the Infinite Star Sea. Won''t that make us more powerful? It is possible for someone else to make use of this chance to eliminate a sect, and what will happen if we don''t send anyone there? What if someone else found some rare treasure in the Infinite Star Sea, comes back with more power and then proceed to destroy us? Hence, this matter requires the five biggest sects to sit down and settle certain issues : like how many and who to send, who to stay here and so on. All these need to be discussed so that nobody loses out and nobody takes advantage of anything. I think this won''t be settled that easily, it will take at least another few years."


    "Yes, there are no dumb people on this earth, especially in big sects like yours. Those who call you dumb are the dumb ones! Are you looking for me because Elder Qing wants me to be involved?!"


    "Indeed, but it all depends on you. If you want to go, nobody will stop you. If you don''t want to go, nobody can force you!"


    "Oh, how come you are so accommodating?"


    "Many people want you dead in the Infinite Star Sea. There are also many who would like to have you on their side. The opinions are divided inside the Immortal Palace.

 495 Stirring All Nations

    "Who is out to kill me?"


    "I do not know, it was only a rumor. But I did find out about the guy who wanted to make use of you!"


    "Who?"


    "Zhi IX!"


    "The fifth supervisor of School of Five Virtues?"


    "That''s right, that''s the guy. He initially wanted to keep you as an unknown factor in the Wuyang Region. Who knew that your father-in-law would suddenly produce half a Void Map halfway and became so powerful! He also didn''t think that there would be two additional experts in your Wuyang Region who could control the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. He gave you the task of taking care of the Qin Family of South Mountains, but he didn''t expect you to be so ruthless, destroying them all at once, and also killing the Patriarch of the Qin family. Hence, Zhi IX lost his wife and his soldiers and the Divine Wind Palace also lost a good pawn. Hehe!"


    "What did you say? The Qin Family of South Mountains is on the same side as Divine Wind Palace?"


    "You can''t really tell which side they are on, but for sure there''s a connection somewhere!" Wang She said harshly, "Well, things are not looking good now. They lost their pawn, but you have to be careful. The sister of their Patriarch is called Qin Mengyao. She is the wife of Lin Kong, the Palace Leader of East Sea Chaotian Palace. You have to look out for the actions of Chaotian Palace!"


    "This I know. I''ve met Qin Mengyao and Lin Kong!"


    "What? You''ve already met the two of them?" Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Wang She was obviously very taken aback. While the Qin Family of South Mountains was near to the East Sea, it was still a great distance from Chaotian Palace. What a coincidence it must have been for Zhou Bao to run into them. Perhaps Chaotian Palace also want to take advantage of the chaotic situation in Central Mainland Region?


    "That Qin Mengyao and the Patriarch of Qin Family must have some kind of telepathic communication with each other. Once one is in trouble, the other will be informed immediately and will use spatial Divine Sense to rush over. However, it was still too late. I''ve done all that I should. She wanted to fight with me, but Lin Kong appeared and stopped it!"


    Zhou Bao described the situation to Wang She, including how Lin Kong had given him a Fiery Eye in the end.


    "What? He gave you a Fiery Eye?" Wang She was shocked. After that he had a strange look on his face.


    "Yes, look!" Zhou Bao nodded and took out the Fiery Eye. He placed it on his palm and showed it to Wang She.


    Wang She stared at the blood red ball in Zhou Bao''s hand. In the center of this vibrant ball, there was a black dot which gave out a faint flashing golden light. It was both striking and enchanting and gave people the urge to want to possess it.


    "Hmm, such a strange Fiery Eye, it is stranger than the one I got for you in the past!"


    "You can feel it too, right? This Fiery Eye is different from the one I had in the past. There seems to be a huge force building up inside, but there seems to be no damage!" Zhou Bao''s expression showed confusion. He said, "I have a feeling that if I start to refine this Fiery Eye now, I will either reap some huge benefit or end up in huge trouble!"


    "Put it away, if I continue looking at it, I may not be able to restrain myself!" Wang She took a deep breath and asked, "What are you trying to do by showing me this thing?"


    "Nothing much, I just want you to help me spread the news. This way, I can make use of my Fiery Eyes External Elixir without any qualms, as I have obtained it in a just and honorable way!" Zhou Bao''s had an awkward expression on his face. "You know too, the other Externa Elixir had been stolen from the Wu Family. If this news starts to spread, even though nothing much may happen, it will not look good for me, so...!"


    "I didn''t expect you to be so concerned about the outcome of your own actions! If you go on like this, it will be better for you!" Wang She said after hearing Zhou Bao''s words.


    "Yes, I am more concerned about things now!" Thinking about Yan Yunfei who had just delivered his son, Zhou Bao had a bitter smile on his face. "You''re still living lavishly; you''re not married and can do anything you want. You don''t have many responsibilities and even if you face a setback, you can start over again. I can''t!"


    "Every family has their own set of problems!" Wang She saw how depressed Zhou Bao was and tried to console him. "Look at me, even though I''m single and appear to be free as a bird, but does anyone understand my loneliness and hardship?"


    "You freak!" Looking at Wang She''s expression, Zhou Bao felt his stomach surging and felt like vomiting. "You can tell that to Prince Xiaoming, perhaps he can get rid of your loneliness!"


    At the mention of Prince Xiaoming, Wang She''s expression changed drastically. He looked confused. "What...what do you mean?"


    "Hey, don''t think I can''t see it. When the two of you are together, that expression, that attitude, that flirtatious looks between the two of you as if you are both in love...I''m not blind!" Seeing Wang She''s expression at the thought of his relationship being exposed, Zhou Bao almost laughed out loud. "Still having secret relationships at this age? Still so pure too! Perhaps the Chief of Tian Long Taoism was still inexperienced? Maybe, he''s still a virgin!"


    Thinking of this, he could not help laughing hysterically.


    Hahahahahaha, you, you, you ---!" Zhou Bao pointed at Wang She and said breathlessly "I, I, I say, Chief Wang, you, you, you aren''t a virgin right, hahahahahaha!"


    "Shut up!" Wang She shouted angrily, as if his privacy had been invaded. Blood rushed to his pale skin and his face turned red with embarrassment. He lifted his leg and kicked Zhou Bao in the chest.


    With a loud boom, a strange thing happened. Zhou Bao was actually sent flying. Wang She''s strength had broken through Zhou Bao''s defense.


    "Er---!" Zhou Bao stopped laughing. His Real Essence Internal Qi quickly blocked this strength of the kick. He did a somersault in the air and landed on the ground. He looked at Wang She with a half-grin.


    "Good leg work!"


    After experiencing Hongjun''s power, Zhou Bao''s confidence had risen tremendously. He did not even bother with common people, like the shitty Sage Venerable. He did not even acknowledge their existence. Right now, only that Genuine Immortal of Lord of Heaven Realm could instill fear in him. However, even if they met and Zhou Bao was the loser, he was still confident that he could make a quick escape. Furthermore, he had his fairy weapons. By taking one out, even a Lord of Heaven could be destroyed. Hence, although Wang She was a Level Nine expert, a fact that awed people, to Zhou Bao, this was not a big deal. However, he did not expect to be sent flying with just one kick.


    Although he was not injured, the thunderbolt-like kick had Zhou Bao worried. He had not able to avoid the kick. He did not even feel any danger beforehand. Maybe this was because Wang She did not display any killing intent towards him. However, Zhou Bao was still shocked that he felt a telepathic connection only before getting kicked.


    Wang She''s cultivation was only at Level Nine. Zhou Bao knew that he would have some other tricks hidden up his sleeves, tricks that could tackle Individual Immortals from Mysterious Realm. Zhou Bao had even overestimated his own capabilities, believing that he could escape easily from a Genuine Immortal. However, he never thought that Wang She would able to defeat him now.


    This proved that he had underestimated the Chief of Tian Long Taoism.


    Based on the kick, if the other party had wanted to kill him, it would have been impossible, but inflicting a severe injury would have been very easy.


    "Hmm, little fella, you''re not the only one that has all the luck. Without some tricks, how could I take up the position of Chief of Tian Long Taoism? And how do you think I was able to secure a place in the Immortal Palace?" Wang She laughed coldly.


    "That''s true!" After Wang She''s attack, Zhou Bao did not touch on that sensitive topic again.


    Having given Zhou Bao a piece of his mind, Wang She decided to leave. It was too embarrassing for him. Being teased by Zhou Bao was too humiliating to him, being a senior.


    However, just as he was about to leave, Zhou Bao''s expression suddenly changed. He exclaimed in confusion. His face showed a few changes in emotion.


    "What''s wrong?" Wang She asked when he saw Zhou Bao''s strange expression.


    Before Zhou Bao could open his mouth to reply, Wang She heard a voice by his ear saying, "Nothing much, just that he realized that I am here, an unwelcome guest!"


    "Who is that?" Now, Wang She''s expression changed too. He was shocked to hear someone speaking so near to him. That would mean that the other party''s cultivation was way above his. When he saw who the person was, his expression changed. It was a fat monk with a pair of peach blossom eyes.


    "Bigwheel Temple, Child-endowing Buddha?" Wang She recognized the monk at one glance. His nerves tightened, but what happened next totally blew his mind.


    "What brings you here?" Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes. His facial expression showed that he had a mild shock, but was not alarmed. On the contrary, his tone sounded like they were very familiar with each other, as if Zhou Bao was talking to Wang She himself. Wang She was very curious.


    A few years ago, Bigwheel Temple Child-endowing Buddha attacked Wuyang Region and killed Yu Ergui. This matter was not a secret. Wang She knew about it. He also knew what kind of a person Child-endowing Buddha was. This kind of person was the type that irritated Zhou Bao. By not killing him, Zhou Bao was already giving face to Bigwheel Temple. Why was Zhou Bao even associating with him?


    "The reason why I''m here is the same as Chief Wang, so I will get to the point directly. You know about the Void Map!" Child-endowing Buddha was very rude. After entering the house, he sat on the chair that Zhou Bao had been sitting on earlier. He leaned back, his body size making it creak. He reached his hand for the teapot and poured tea from the spout directly into his mouth.


    "Good, I''m so thirsty. I have not drunk a single drop of water since I left Bigwheel Temple!"


    "Even if it was for the Void Map, there''s no need to be in such a hurry!"


    "The Void Map is just a minor matter. Just for the sake of finding the site to enter Infinite Star Sea, the five biggest sects will be at war with each other for the next three to four years. I came to tell you this, and to remind you to be careful!"


    "What do I have to look out for?"


    "The general consensus to have you killed has already gained the majority of the votes in the five biggest sects, I voted for it too!" Child-endowing Buddha smiled, "You should understand, since we have long standing grudges between the two of us!"


    "Oh, were there no compromises formed? Do they plan to kill me once I enter Infinite Star Sea?"


    "You''re right, they are planning to do that. So you''ll certainly be in the list to enter the Infinite Star Sea!"


    "What if I don''t go?"


    "They will think of ways to make you go!"


    "Who''s in charge of this?"


    "The Divine Wind Palace, the School of Five Virtues, Yi IV!"


    "Hehe, seems like he''s still holding grudge against me for what I did at Mingyi School previously!"


    It''s not due to that. Your power is now beyond control and your combat capability is making them feel insecure. Zhou Bao, sometimes, being too strong invites competition, especially for those who are beyond control. This is also why a compromise has been reached!" Child-endowing Buddha laughed heartily, "Looks like your supervisor, White Tiger, also voted for it. Although he may be trying to hide your actual relationship with Immortal Palace, he should have told you first! That''s not right!"


    "What did White Tiger do to you to make you come all the way here and spread tales about him?"


    "I don''t like his look, he''s too proud, and tries to act very high and mighty in front of me! If I don''t take this chance to teach him a lesson, I''ll never forgive myself. You''ll help me right?"


    "We''ll have to see how things turn out. You are an immortal, you should be very clear about the Void Map right?"


    "Of course, I''ve already been to the Infinite Star Sea once or twice, but only stayed at the sidelines because it was too dangerous inside!" Speaking of this, Child-endowing Buddha seemed to remember something and a sinister smile crossed his face. "These five silly biggest sects, they are so full of themselves. They think that they can explore the Infinite Star Sea with just a Void Map! They do not know the dangers lurking in the sea!"


    "You''re not Child-endowing Buddha!" Hearing the pair''s conversation, Wang She''s expression changed as he shouted at Child-endowing Buddha while pointing at him.


    "Of course I am, don''t I look like him?" Child-endowing Buddha''s smile brightened even more. "I have just gained more insights about life, accepted the reformation of my Buddhist teachings and turned over a new leaf!"


    "Enough, no need to put on a show here. Since you''re here, there''s nothing else to hide!" Zhou Bao laughed faintly and said to Wang She, "The real Child-endowing Buddha died in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. This guy took over his body, inheriting everything, even his women!"


    Wang She was alarmed but nodded as if he understood. This made sense to him. If the two of them really had any grudges, they would not be on such good terms with each other.


    "It''s hard to tell that you have so many secrets!"


    "No matter how many secrets I have, they can''t compete with your kick!" Zhou Bao looked on serenely. "Looks like Chief Wang''s ability could be ranked first, if not second, in Tian Long Taoism!"


    "Since when were you so interested in Tian Long Taoism?"


    "I have no choice. Didn''t you hear that many people want me dead? I''m planning my escape route!" Zhou Bao laughed half-jokingly. Soon, his expression sobered. "Jokes aside, things are not so simple. Since the upper heads have already reached a consensus, even if they don''t take action immediately, they will start to put pressure on the influence of Wuyang Region and myself. That is not good news for me!"


    "If I were you, I''ll start afresh. Hehe, five biggest sects of Four Eastern Regions, why can''t there be a sixth sect?" Child-endowing Buddha was all for advocating peace. He said, "The five biggest sects want to beat you. They want to go against you because your power has grown beyond their expectation and they feel like they can''t control you anymore. They''re also afraid that your unrestrained fury will cause trouble for them, that''s why they are all against you. You may be powerful, but to them, as long as their minds are set, they can send a few people from Lord of Heaven Realm to kill you. Furthermore, the Infinite Star Sea is full of unpredictable danger. Hence, once you enter the area, you''ll be in danger. If you don''t go, the five biggest sects would naturally come up with other ways to make you go, although I don''t know how. That Ren II is very confident. If you want to fight back, you cannot stay silent. Not only that, you must make them quake with fear!" Speaking of which, he looked at Zhou Bao and said, "No matter how strong you become, you are only one person. That''s your biggest weakness. However, I know you have ways to make your subordinates increase their cultivation in a very short time. If you''re lucky, you may increase the number of experts among them. What do you think?


    "I''ve already started!" Zhou Bao understood what Green Spirit meant. "However, if too many experts appear at the same time, it might attract people''s attention!"


    "So what? If I were you, I will reveal the prescription for the elixirs to the whole world. Think about it, what chaos there will be if you release the long-lost prescriptions of Bone-Forging Pill, Tendon-Changing Pill, Pulse-Steadying and Marrow Cleansing Pill?


    "What did you say? You have those prescriptions!" Child-endowing Buddha had just finished talking and Wang She was shocked. He looked at Zhou Bao in bewilderment and was speechless. Could there anything more shocking than this? The long-lost prescriptions from olden times were actually in Zhou Bao''s hands! No wonder he was able to cultivate so quickly and improve his abilities that well. So it turned out that he had these back-ups.


    "See, what I mean? Once you announce this news, the whole world will go crazy!"


    "What has that got to do with me?" Zhou Bao laughed coldly," Then wouldn''t I be hunted down?"


    "Are you stupid? I didn''t ask you to tell everyone they''re in your hands. Just use your influence and spread some rumors. No one would ever suspect that you have them. They''ve been lost for so many years and are so effective. Once someone discovers that they''re still around and learn about its effects, what do you think will happen?"


    Zhou Bao sat in silence with furrowed eyebrows, as if he was thinking about something. His face was blank. At last, he relaxed and looked at Child-endowing Buddha, "Damn, Green Spirit, you''re indeed an Old Demon, coming up with such a scheming plan. Apart from the ingredients of Bone-Forging Pill, the rest are all hard to find. Perhaps only places like 33 Heavens would have them. Even in the Sea Area, there wouldn''t be a lot. Even if we could find all of them, we probably won''t be able to stockpile them. I do not need to release all the prescriptions. I think the prescriptions of Bone-Forging Pill and Tendon-Changing Pill will leave the whole world in a chaos, or at least the martial arts world!"


    "Not bad, for you, causing chaos is the best choice. Only when there is chaos would you be able to carry out your plans sneakily. Besides, think about it, if the four sects got hold of the prescriptions, without the Magic Drugs, they will blame Divine Wind Palace for all this. Also, in order to snatch the Magic Drugs, the five biggest sects will have to quicken their pace and start on the exploration of Infinite Star Sea immediately. Then, even if they want to kill you, they may not be well-prepared enough to do that. With your hidden back-ups and my help, it wouldn''t be a problem to turn the tables on them!"


    "I''m not crazy! It will be the end of me if I were to go to Infinite Star Sea and kill everyone!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly, "Do you think I''m that dumb? While your idea may be evil, I think it is a good choice. Okay, I will do so accordingly. I will first release the Bone-Forging Pill. Hehe, I''ve secretly stocked enough medicinal herbs from Anyuan Store during these past few years. Without the Bone-Forging Pill prescription, nothing big will happen. Once it is out, not only will the prices rise like crazy, there may even be bloody fights!"


    "Right, these medicinal herbs are rare items. However, once the prescriptions are out, the demand for it will soar. There are so many martial arts practitioners out there, they will surely want to increase their cultivation and become masters and experts!" "There will be a huge fight for sure. The Bone-Forging Pill will cause the lower level martial arts practitioners to fight. The prescription for the Tendon-Changing Pill will definitely catch the attention of all the well-known families. These families are reliant on the number of experts they have. Even if they don''t want to fight for it, they have to! Once the time is right, you can then release the Pulse-Setting Pill. By then, even the Divine Wind Palace will not sit still!"


    "That''s what I want, if not my prescriptions will be wasted!"


    Wang She stood aside and listened, cold sweat dripping from his brow. These two guys were too callous. At the same time, he was able to gather some secret information from their conversation. "Obviously, if Zhou Bao were to team up with Child-endowing Buddha, they could confidently kill all of the Venerable Genuine Immortals and Lord of Heaven Realm Genuine Immortals sent by the five biggest sects to the Infinite Star Sea. How was that possible? What was the background of this Child-endowing Buddha? Just how far along was Zhou Bao''s cultivation? Why was he so confident?"


    Wang She thought hard but could find no answers to his own questions. Looking at how the duo were so engrossed in a heated discussion about a topic that made him afraid, Wang She could not help but laugh bitterly. These two did not regard him as an outsider at all.


    After their discussion, they then set up this plan. Child-endowing Buddha took a glance at Wang She and laughed. Without even saying a goodbye, he turned into a whirlwind and disappeared from the room.


    "Hoo, good job, you have really kept this well hidden!" Wang She had no choice but to respect Zhou Bao. Quietly and secretly, he had managed to plant a spy in Bigwheel Temple.


    "It''s just pure luck. If Child-endowing Buddha had not come to challenge me, Green Spirit that Old Demon would not have able to get anything!" Zhou Bao said faintly, "Chief, you overheard my conversation with Green Spirit just now. What do you think, is it possible?"


    "Yes, of course, if there really is such a prescription, the world will certainly become a chaotic place because of you. But a word of warning, you better not let anyone find out that you were the one holding onto them. If not, you''ll be the main target!"


    "Of course I know that, I''m not that dumb!" Zhou Bao smiled. "If I have to execute this plan, I will do it transparently. Nobody will ever know they came from me!"


    "That''s good!" Wang She nodded. He then had a small chat with Zhou Bao and left. He turned into a ball of green light and disappeared into the skyline.


    "Five biggest sects, hehe, five biggest sects. Do you want to trick me? I''ll let you have a taste of this water I used to wash my feet!" After Wang She left, Zhou Bao paced back and forth in the house. He was weighing the pros and cons in his heart. Lastly, as if his mind had been made up already, a sinister smile was seen on his face. He then left the room.


    For the next two months, Zhou Bao remained in Wuyang Region. Most of the time he stayed at Lord Mansion and played with his children in the Inner Yard. He looked like he was enjoying this family life. Sometimes he would come out to welcome guests, such as lords from the north. This was because he was now a crowned king.


    For someone of a different surname to be crowned king was an extremely rare event on earth. In the dynasty, this hardly happened. Hence, this matter was a cause of alarm for many, but no one objected to it.


    Once Zhou Bao became king, he would hold the highest position among the northern lords. Besides, his ability has already been proven. Wuyang Region also possessed enormous wealth and owned the Great Ways that led from Yunzhou to Wuyang Region. It basically laid claim to all territories and no one dared to raise any objections or tried to provoke him.


    Initially, people did not understand why Zhou Bao built this Great Ways. They thought that it was unnecessary. However, after it was built, all of the territories in the northwest gained huge benefits from it and they then understood the need for it. They knew, but they were not afraid of meddling. Although Zhou Bao never collected road tolls, the destination was his Wuyang Region. Hence, Wuyang Region became an important logistics distribution center as well as a transfer station. In just a few years, with the lords of Wuyang Region in the center, they formed three towns.


    For anything or anyone to get to the northwest, they would have to pass by Wuyang Region. It was only after fulfilling the demands of Wuyang Region, that they were able to proceed to other territories. All resources, minerals, and unique products from the northwest region had to pass by Wuyang Region to get to Central Plains. In this process, they had to be careful not to upset them. If they triggered Zhou Bao or said something unkind, Zhou Bao did not even have to raise a hand. All he needed to do was to give an order, and these people could die of hunger on their own territory. In such a situation, who would dare to not give him face? Once Zhou Bao was crowned king, who would dare not to come and celebrate with and congratulate him?"


    In the past, when this kind of events happened, Zhou Bao did not really bother about it. However, this time, Zhou Bao really went overboard. He followed Old Zhou''s lead and had a lavish celebration. Lord Mansion held a 10-day feast. He himself appeared a few times and welcomed a few bigger lords. Zhou Bao''s irrational behavior had many people worried.


    "What is he up to?"


    Wasn''t he always obsessed with practicing? Why did he suddenly learn how to socialize? Perhaps he was now interested in that seat in Western Capital? Or does he want to engulf all of the lands in the northwest and western region? Yes, this guy was already a baron. He had so much power, it was not impossible to do so!


    Within a short while, all the speculations about Zhou Bao had spread around, but none of them could be confirmed.


    At this moment, in the southern part of Jin, a man dressed in black suddenly appeared in Zhuzhao City.


    Zhuzhao City was a small town in the south.


    It was not big and not strategically located. It was not worth fighting for. It was located on the edge of South China. There were no beautiful mountains nor vast oceans or lakes. The population was very small, about 30,000 people at most. Other than some aborigines, most were inns owned by foreign businesses. In the big mountains of South China, some rare materials and resources which were not available in Central Plains were made there. In the eyes of these mountain villagers, these items were worth less than food and salt. Although transactions were small, they were enough to give small businessmen some income. As the only small town nearby, Zhuzhao City did have some wealth. It was a prosperous and peaceful place.


    However, on the eve of the fifth year of Yongping, this peace was shattered.


    During sunset, Zhuzhao City looked like it was covered with gold. With the faraway mountains as a backdrop, Zhuzhao City had a very peaceful and harmonious look. Ma Erdong was a waiter working at Immortal Inn, one of the three biggest inns in the city. Their version of"big" meant that the house was a three storied building.


    As one of the small towns near the wilderness of South China, Immortal Inn had quite a good business. Although they did not have full occupancy all the time, the guest rooms were always booked.


    On this day, Ma Erdong received an odd guest.


    This was a young guest. But he could not see what this person looked like. This man was dressed in a black robe which was made out a strange material. It was neither cloth nor silk. It looked silky and there was faint black smoke coming out of it.


    Ma Erdong was curious, but he dared not ask too many questions. The southern region was under the reign of Sect of Flame.


    For thousands of years, the Sect of Flame ruled across the southern region. According to the geographical concept of Jin, the southern region referred to the south of three rivers. The three rivers were in the southern part of Jin. They were the Black Water River, the Heavenly Peace River and the Tonghua River. They were not connected to each other, but divided Jin into the southern and northern parts. Tonghua River was the one at the most southern end. The southern part of Tonghua River had seven states. They were all territories of the Sect of Flame. Of course, this did not mean that they governed the area. The seven states were all ruled by government officials. Half of the people were in Sect of Flame and worshipped the Venerable Flame. Hence, the Sect of Flame became very powerful among them. Like what people in Zhou Bao''s past life would say, the Sect of Flame won the hearts of people.


    Because of that, their influence was very strong. Their control was comparable to that of the imperial court. Often, there would high-ranking members of the Sect walking around. Truth be told, in Zhuzhao City, the three biggest gangs were under the control of the Sect of Flame. Hence, Ma Erdong often saw lots of martial arts practitioners. He was even lucky enough to witness a team entering the wilderness to kill evil beasts. They were led by Level Seven Experts. Hence, he was indifferent to these practitioners.


    However, this guest he received today looked a bit strange. The Qi Power was not as strong as that of the Level Seven Experts that he had encountered before. No, it was not even near that of a Junior Master. However, once he saw him, he already could feel a sense of danger brewing in his heart. He did not know what to make of it.


    "Why, are you full today?" Seeing Ma Erdong in a daze, the black-clothed man asked in a husky voice.


    "Oh, no, no, no, of course not, there are more, there are two more rooms upstairs, please come with me!"


    Upon hearing that, the black-clothed man nodded. He followed Ma Erdong into the backyard of the inn. When everything was settled, Ma Erdong came out of the room. He sighed in relief and realized that he was sweating in fear.


    "Erdong, Erdong, come quickly!"


    Wiping away his cold sweat, Ma Erdong rushed to the yard door. He walked a few steps and heard a low voice calling him.


    Ma Erdong lifted his head and saw the other waiter of the inn, Chen Biao. He was hiding behind the door of the arched shape yard and waved to him.


    "Why are you behaving in such a sneaky way?" Ma Erdong asked as he walked over, feeling very annoyed.


    "The man who was here earlier, the one who was dressed in black, the one whose face could not be seen?" Just as he reached the yard door, he was pulled aside by Chen Biao. Chen Biao looked over at the backyard in fear. Seeing that there was no one, he asked him cautiously.


    "That''s right, is there a problem?" Hearing Chen Biao''s tone and seeing his expression, Ma Erdong felt nervous. He was thinking if this was a problematic guest.


    "That''s good. Erdong, you just came back today and didn''t know what happened. Let me tell you, this guy was the black-clothed man that killed the Second elder of Thunder Fire Gang. Now they are searching for him everywhere. I didn''t expect him to come so boldly to our inn.


    "What, Zha the Second is dead?" Ma was shocked. Thunder Fire Gang was one of the three biggest gangs of Zhuzhao City. Zha the Second was the second-in-charge of Thunder Fire Gang. He was a master of martial arts in Level Four. With his kung-fu skills, he would have been ranked fifth in Zhuzhao City. How could such an individual be killed?


    "Why are you so shocked? No matter how strong he is, he will not be stronger than a Level Seven expert!" That black-clothed man was a Level Seven expert. Three days ago, he barged into Thunder Fire Gang and then he disappeared. Thunder Fire Gang had already asked Wang Changping and Li Mo, the two Elders, to do this together. They''ve been searching frantically for this guy these few days!"


    "Then we''re in deep trouble!" Ma Erdong laughed bitterly. He was the one who brought him into Immortal Inn. If a couple of experts were to fight here, the inn would definitely be damaged. If his boss wanted to find out who was the one who caused it, he would be in deep trouble.


    As if he understood his predicament, Chen Biao patted his back comfortingly. "Erdong, don''t be scared, I know how to save you!"


    "How?" Ma Erdong''s eyes glinted.


    "Now that the Thunder Fire Gang are searching for him, we''ll go and inform them. Then, not only will we receive the reward money from Thunder Gang, boss Qi wouldn''t put the blame on you too!"


    Upon hearing this, Ma Erdong''s eyes at first brightened up. Then, he looked at Chen Biao with an odd expression. "Chen Biao, you are not going to trick me right? If this is such a good deal, why didn''t you go and do it yourself, instead of waiting for me?"


    "I wasn''t sure if he was the same person! You were the one who brought him in; you should be more familiar with him. If I go there like this, it''s fine if I was right. But if I identified the wrong person, it will be the end for me!"


    "You''re quite cautious about this!" Ma Erdong looked at Chen Biao and said, "Okay then, let''s go together!"


    As they spoke, the pair rose and walked out of the Immortal Inn, heading straight for the headquarters of Thunder Fire Gang. At the same time, in the upper room, the black-clothed man had an odd smile on his face.


    "Looks like the Thunder Fire Gang is really anxious. But they should have discovered the item I left in the house of Zha the Second by now. Hehe, who knows how long they will keep this secret?"


    The black-clothed man on the bed was Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit, the incarnation of Dragon.

 496 Strange Changes to Incarnation

    In this world, nobody knew that he owned the Second Primordial Spirit and an Outer-body Incarnation; even Wang She and Green Spirit were not aware of this. His body was out in the Wuyang Region welcoming the arrival of the different Lords, while his incarnation was thousands of miles away in Zhuzhao City. He was not here for leisure, he was here to release the prescription for the Bone-Forging Pill and Pulse Setting Pill.


    The prescriptions for both the Bone-Forging Pill and Pulse-setting Pill were very precious. If they were lost, the effects would be worse than them being picked up from the ground by a stranger. It goes without saying that this effect would be too small. By right, when one picked up a prescription, he would keep it safe like his own treasure. He would keep it to himself only and enjoy it alone. Hence, whether it would even be leaked out was unknown.


    He had been hiding the prescriptions for so many years. Apart from him, who else had known about it?


    Not a single person.


    So, releasing this secret would just create a mini chaos. It would definitely not cause any huge problems in the short run. In order to create more chaos, the situation had to be magnified. Of course, there were certain limitations and considerations to follow. If not, he might be exposed. Hence, Zhou Bao thought long and hard about it, before deciding to head for Zhuzhao City.


    Zhuzhao City was located in South China, far away from the center of Jin. However, because it was the territory of Sect of Flame, the influence of the imperial court there was very weak. Hence, each influence placed many spies and secret agents here, so as to gain first-hand information on any incidents occurring here.


    On the other hand, they were merely spies. None of them had any decent skills. They would be considered weak. It was due to this that Zhou Bao decided on this place. While he could attract the attention of the people around, there would also be no big incidents.


    The unfortunate Vice Gang Chief of the Thunder Fire Gang was his first target. Zhou Bao had been spying on him for many days before deciding to choose him as the victim.


    He was called Zha the Second, and was just a Junior Master in Level Four. He was an ordinary person, but Zhou Bao noticed that he collected old books. That was surprising because he had a big build, a hairy mole, was a pervert and did all kinds of evil stuff. Who knew that he had a streak of refinement in him? Using this reason, Zhou Bao found a breakthrough point.


    At first, Zhou Bao pretended to start a fight with him over a book at a Book Fair. As the number one bully of the city, Zha the Second did not let this incident go easily. He got his book in the end. That night, Zhou Bao sneaked into Thunder Fire Gang and had a "so called fight" with him. He killed him and stole the book. Meanwhile the Thunder Fire Gang found some "clues" left behind in his room. They used the clues to trace them immediately.


    Zhou Bao, on the other hand, was very bold. He snuck back to Zhuzhao City even though the security was very tight. This piece of information was very important.


    "Chief, do you think what the fellow from Immortal Inn said was true?"


    Right now at the headquarters of Thunder Fire Gang, a tall and tanned man who appeared to be very anxious and worried, looked at the middle-aged man who was seated comfortably.


    "He will not dare lie to us!" This middle-aged man was the Gate Master of Thunder Fire Gang. His cultivation was already at Level Five, and he was one of the masters of martial arts of the city. He was a very calm and sturdy man; it had taken him over 20 years to develop the Thunder Fire Gang from a small gang on the streets to what it was today - one of the four giants of the city. He was considered as one of the strongest pillars of the gang.


    "Then what are we waiting for?" "Let''s go and surround the Immortal Inn and get the prescription back," the brute shouted.


    "Why are you panicking?" The middle-aged man looked at him and said," Third, we cannot afford to be hasty now. I have to think this through carefully!"


    "Eldest brother, what is there to think about? Second elder brother had already been killed by him. Even if there''s no prescription, there is already bad blood between us. We have to kill the guy to avenge his death! Furthermore, he has the treasure in his hands. If other people should get hold of it first, our efforts would be wasted!"


    There was an underlying meaning in the brute''s words. They were not the biggest sects in Zhuzhao City; there were three other influences. Two of them were very much like them, following the Sect of Flame. Even so, they had different interests. Furthermore, when Thunder Fire Gang was rising in power, they became enemies with the other two. Now that they were in trouble, their enemies would surely be aware of it.


    If they discovered the truth, then it would be very difficult for Thunder Fire Gang to gain any benefits.


    In actual fact, the Chief was not thinking about this problem. Hearing the shouts, he looked like his mind was focused on something else. "Third, get the scholar to copy the prescription at once; then send it to Elder Wen and explain to him in detail about the incident!"


    "What? Why?" When he heard those words, the brute stood up abruptly. He shouted at the middle-aged man, "Brother, this is...!"


    "We are not equipped to handle this!" The middle-aged man looked at him and said quietly,"I''ve taken a look at the prescription for the Bone-Forging Pill; the ingredients are very rare. We may be able to find them all, but even with our influence, it would be impossible to get hold of such a large quantity all at once. If one Bone-Forging Pill alone would require so many ingredients, then the Pulse-Setting Pill would require even more. Keeping this would not bring us any benefits, it would only bring trouble to us instead!"


    "But...!"


    "Okay, there is nothing more to be said. I''ve already decided," the middle-aged man said determinedly.


    He knew this brother well. When it came to fighting, there was nothing to say. However, when it came to decisive thoughts, there was a great difference between him and Zha the Second.


    "Alright!" The brute saw his determined look and knew that he had made his decision. He did not argue anymore and departed like a gust of wind.


    "Strange, strange, this incident is very strange indeed. Since his power is so strong, then why didn''t he just snatch the prescription from Second Elder at the bookshop? Why did he give it to him instead and then come back to kill him? I just can''t figure this out. Did he perhaps have a reason for this? Then what''s his purpose?" The middle-aged man thought of Zhou Bao''s actions and found the whole incident too strange for words. It was a pity that he was not Zhou Bao and did not know what was in his mind. Naturally, he would not be able to figure out what was actually happening.


    Zhou Bao''s Dragon Chimera incarnation was sitting in the main room in the Immortal Inn. It looked like a wooden statue. Only the eyes had a faint light in them.


    Suddenly, its eyes flashed with a creepy green light. With a ''whoosh'', it turned into a black spot and disappeared from the room. The prescription on the table, with the ink still wet, fluttered in the breeze.


    Northwest, Wuyang Region


    Zhou Bao sat cross-legged on the stone bed. In a flash, a thought seemed to hit him and he opened his eyes. Instantly he shot out two bolt-like light rays, hitting a target about ten feet away from him.


    In the distant southern sky, a black light quivered violently and immediately disappeared into his body. Zhou Bao took a deep breath and his whole body started to emit strands of faint black smoke. That black light was his Dragon Chimera incarnation. He was totally taken aback by its return.


    He had not expected this at all. He had planned to make use of this incarnation to create a ruckus in Zhuzhao City. He was not even aware of this. It had happened so suddenly during his practice. Suddenly, he felt something in his heart and the incarnation in Zhuzhao City had sensed unusual movements in his body. Hence, it returned immediately.


    This was why Zhou Bao was troubled. After refining the Second Primordial Spirit, he was still not fully skilled in controlling it yet. In reality, the cultivation of the Second Primordial Spirit was extremely high. It had already reached the peak of Mysterious Realm. It was very powerful in terms of combat capability as well. It would not be at a disadvantage even when facing an expert from Venerable Realm. However, when he used it, he always felt uncomfortable. He always felt like something was not quite right whenever he controlled it.


    This feeling was not due to the unfamiliarity between the body and the incarnation. It was the exact opposite; they matched each other too well, so much so that the Divine Senses and Dharma power owned by Zhou Bao and Dragon Chimera were all fused together. This meant that their contact became even closer. However, it also meant that they would be more likely to have an adverse effect on each other. Currently, Zhou Bao was exploring the Dragon Flame Technique he obtained from the Sea Area. It somehow became entangled with his understanding of Dragon Chimera Fire. Hence, his incarnation felt a telepathic connection and flew back on its own.


    "This cannot go on!" Zhou Bao said coldly and a creepy red light flashed in his eyes. "My body has possessed the Real Body of Zhuyan. Looks like the Dragon Flame Technique is not that compatible. Otherwise, there wouldn''t be this huge misunderstanding, such as sending my incarnation back to me from thousands of miles away! This is too embarrassing!"


    He felt the Real Essense and Dharma power in his body boiling furiously. Some were infusing and some were clashing with each other. Dragon Chimera''s Demonic Fire, Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique''s Real Essence and Dharma power, as well as Nine Heaven Yuan Yang Technique - all these were water-based infusions. However, Zhou Bao still possessed the mysterious Dharma power of Innate Deity in his body. He also practiced the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit and the Demonic Qi of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan. These things, when combined, may be very powerful, but when he concentrated on practicing, it could make him lose his focus. This had happened earlier, when he was practicing the Dragon Flame Technique. He was almost possessed by the demon. If the incarnation had not come back in time to save him, he would have died from the clash between Zhuyan Demonic Qi and Dragon Chimera Demonic Fire.


    "Seems like I have to make up my mind!" Zhou Bao sighed to himself. He straightened up and spat out a black flame. Suddenly a black light appeared behind him. A ball of black qi formed a dark cloud and hovered above his head. In the cloud, a pearl that flashed with a creepy green light could be seen. Around the pearl was the shadow of Primitive Dragon Chimera.


    After Zhou Bao had spat out that black flame, the shadow on the pearl shook violently. Then, it pounced onto the ball of red flames with the speed of a lightning bolt. At the same time, Zhou Bao opened his mouth and again spat out another ball of substantial black flame. It enveloped the pearl and the shadow in no time.

 497 Divine Tribulation Strikes

    After he was done, Zhou Bao was exhausted as all his energy had been depleted. This time round, he had made up his mind to spit out all the kindling of Dragon Chimera Fire and infuse it into the incarnation of Dragon Chimera.


    This Demonic Fire Seed had been with him for close to 10 years and they were now practically one body. It was without doubt the most indispensable part of his body. Usually, it would impossible to separate them totally. If separation was done forcibly, Zhou Bao''s pneuma would be affected, and his body would be injured.


    His body had already merged with the Real Body of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, just like the Primordial Fierce Beast. Both had their advantages. Dragon Chimera''s incarnation was Second Primordial Spirit and had been dispersed. Zhou Bao''s body was then infused with Real Body of Zhuyan. Hence, in his body, Zhuyan''s bloodline would naturally be at an advantage. Zhou Bao could not bear to part with the Demonic Fire of Dragon Chimera as it was useful. Who knew it would lead to such a huge commotion.


    He did not think that the superiority of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan''s bloodline would cause the already-rooted Dragon Chimera Fire in his body to infuse completely with the Real Essence and Dharma power. The one-body Demonic Fire Real Essence had a crack and there were hidden dangers planted in it. This time, he did a closed-door training to explore the Dragon Flame Technique. All at once, the hidden dangers were exposed. If it were not for Second Primordial Spirit''s speedy return, Zhou Bao might have died.


    This was why he had set his mind on using the Demonic Fire of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan stored in his body. In one breath, he spat out Dragon Chimera Fire along with the kindling. It rushed into the Outer-body Incarnation of Second Primordial Spirit.


    He regretted it immediately.


    It had happened too fast and he did not realize that the kindling had already taken root in his Dantian. They were very closely connected. He almost spat out his whole Dantian and it nearly tore his body apart. His facial muscles were twitching from the pain and he was close to cursing and swearing.


    All of his energy was absorbed from him in a flash. Across from him, the Dark Female Pearl that relied on the Second Primordial Spirit attained a huge boost in energy. It started to spit out black fire light, surging and changing with the power.


    "Psst!" All of a sudden, Zhou Bao took in a cold deep breath. A chilling immense power flowed out from his nine acupoints. It filled up his dried-up tendons and meridians.


    "Golden Real Essence Energy?"


    Zhou Bao was shocked when he felt the Real Essence flowing from his gigantic Dantian into his body. This essence had been stored in his Dantian after he absorbed the remains of Innate Deity in Taiyuan Heaven. It had turned into a golden-yellow solid mass.


    He knew that this mysterious power stored in his body had an infallible power. However, he did not have any chance to utilize it until today. When he completely ejected the Dragon Chimera Fire in his body, the tendons and meridians had dried up as well. The golden power could finally be utilized. It co-worked with the Demonic Qi in Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan. Slowly, they seeped into his tendons and meridians.


    Of course, the Real Essence that flowed out was an extremely small portion of the whole thing - it was merely a trickle. After infusing into Zhuyan''s Demonic Qi, the Demonic Qi of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan also turned golden-yellow. It started to repair the broken Dantian, tendons and meridians. It also replaced the original Real Essence of Dragon Chimera Fire. However, at this moment, Zhou Bao was having a hard time.


    After spitting out the Demonic Qi of Dragon Chimera Fire, Zhou Bao felt like his body was coming apart. His body and essence were not affected, but his tendons, meridians and Dantian had been severely hit. This time round, the golden-yellow demonic spirit started to restore them. Although it was beneficial to him, it felt like someone was pouring salt water on his wounds. It was a good but painful healing process.


    The pain he felt was twice as painful as that of pouring salt water on a wound.


    "Ouch, ouch, I shouldn''t have been so eager, I did it too hurriedly!" Zhou Bao scolded himself inside his heart. Although it was said that men should be harsh on themselves, sometimes being too harsh can lead to misunderstandings.


    Luckily his nerves were already well trained; if not he would have been screaming in pain by now.


    On the other hand, after his body attained the kindling, it started to undergo strange changes.


    "No way, so much pain?"


    Zhou Bao had many painful thoughts. It was hidden in the unstable rays of the black fire light of Dark Female Pearl. It was obscure. Complex thoughts ran through Zhou Bao''s senses. Dragon Chimera''s shadow gradually condensed.


    At the same time, in Wuyang Region in the northwest, a dark cloud suddenly appeared in the sky of Jilei Mountain. The clouds were surging and were so low, they looked as if they could touch the earth. Lightning flashed everywhere and muffled rumblings of thunder could be heard.


    This dark cloud and thunderbolt did not appear to be anything special to ordinary people. However, to Zhou Bao''s ears, it came as a very violent shock.


    A weird feeling traveled from his heart to his body and also to the Dragon Chimera''s incarnation. At that moment, he recalled what Green Spirit had said to him when he was in Taiyuan Heaven.


    This golden-yellow power he felt was actually a Dharma power. He would be alright if he did not touch it. Once he did, a Divine Tribulation would be set off. However, he had forcefully suppressed this extreme power earlier on. For every strand of Golden Dharma Power that seeped in, he had infused it with Zhuyan''s Demonic Qi. He had also used Zhuyan''s Natal Power to turn the power into energy to strengthen the body. He thought that was it, but now, as the thunder sounded in the sky, the hairs on his arms stood up and chills traveled up and down his spine. This effect could not have been caused by any ordinary being.


    "No, this Thunder Tribulation seems like it''s not aiming for me, but the incarnation of Dragon Chimera!" Suddenly, Zhou Bao realized something. His gaze instantly gathered on the incarnation. At this moment, the Dark Female Peal was completely enveloped by the shadow of Dragon Chimera. The Dragon Chimera gradually became more concentrated, the whole body exuding a vast and indistinct smell.


    "No, my incarnation cannot go through Divine Tribulation here. If someone should sense it, I''ll be in deep trouble!"


    His Second Primordial Spirit, Outer-body Incarnation, was still a secret. It was not in the Golden Book of Fate yet. If it suddenly underwent Divine Tribulation, while unknown to ordinary people, the guys in the other four sects, as well as the Divine Wind Palace, would definitely know. If they find out, they might just expose his little secret in front of all the mighty ones.


    That was not what he wanted.


    With this in mind, the Dark Female Pearl shook violently and shot out a mysterious green light. It then shredded a hole in the space. When it repeated the action, it was already in a deep area on Misty Mountain, which was hundreds of thousands of miles away. At the same time, Zhou Bao''s real body appeared at the same place.


    Along with the duo''s appearance, the originally clear sky started to undergo weird changes. A faint layer of cloud appeared. In half a breath, these clouds gathered to form a big dark cloud that spread across the whole sky. In another half a breath, the clouds grew thicker and lightning flashed in the clouds.


    "Damn, the Almighty is indeed great! What a fast change of mood," Zhou Bao thought to himself. While he did that, dark clouds had already gathered into a vortex. A thunderbolt shot down from the sky.


    Zhou Bao''s eyes narrowed slightly. He did not move at all. The Dark Female Pearl seemed to sense something. It did not even budge but went straight to the thunderbolt.


    "Boom!" The thunderbolt struck the pearl. There was no reaction. A cloud of black fire cloud emerged from the pearl and captured the second thunderbolt.


    Boom, Boom, Boom!


    As time passed, the vortex grew bigger and bigger. More and more thunderbolts dropped from the cloud. It was as if it was raining thunderbolts.


    However, all the strikes did not affect the Dark Female Pearl. It spat out a ball of black fire light which formed a secure protection for itself as the thunderbolts kept striking continuously. As soon as the thunderbolts landed on the fire cloud, they were absorbed into its midst.


    The fire cloud had by now engulfed a huge amount of thunderbolts. In a moment, the shadow of Dragon Chimera, which was in the black ball, was seen surging, struggling and becoming more active.


    Zhou Bao, who had been standing at the side, felt the same. However, he could only stare in disbelief. The one who went through Thunder Tribulation was his Second Primordial Spirit, but his own body was also undergoing the same experience. He initially thought that it would be a difficult task and the chances of dying would be high. Who knew that it would be so easy? It was not only easy but the thunderbolts were actually beneficial to Dragon Chimera.


    As the Demonic Fire absorbed more thunderbolts, Zhou Bao felt an obvious surge in the intelligence of the Demonic Fire. It automatically turned into a black net, completely formed by fire light, and aimed for the tribulation clouds. In a few moments, it managed to capture all the thunderbolts and the thunder stopped.


    The big black net turned into a fire cloud at the same time. The cloud shrank gradually. Suddenly, a shadow of Dragon Chimera emerged from the Dark Female Pearl and swallowed the fire cloud in one gulp.


    After that, the Dark Female Pearl quivered, turned into a green light and entered the body of Dragon Chimera. The shadow of Dragon Chimera was turned into a dark cloud. After surging for a while, it turned into a black-clothed man. It was Zhou Bao''s Outer-body Incarnation.


    However, this time around, when the incarnation appeared, Zhou Bao felt something strange.


    Practicing the Second Primordial Spirit Outer-body Incarnation Skill had been passed down from olden times. It was originally a backup plan to be used as a method to escape from the control of Golden Book of Fate. It was not hard to practice. One would need to find a treasure to keep a part of the primordial spirit. By refining it daily, the heart and mind would be connected and eventually, the Real Body Dharma Laksana would be formed.

 498 Doub

    In this way, if there were no special encounters, the power of Outer-body Incarnation would no longer be able to develop. It would only serve as a backup plan to escape from the Golden Book of Fate. When the body and soul were about to perish, Outer-body Incarnation helped to retain a bit of Genuine Spirit and prevented it from being controlled. It was still unsure about how much combat capability it had.


    Later on, people gradually discovered that this could be developed further using some special techniques, so as to cultivate some power in incarnation and turn it into a good source of self-help. However, it would be extremely hard to do that.


    What kind of Dharma Laksana True Body you practiced depended largely on your cultivation method.


    For example, Zhou Bao was practicing Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. By right the Dharma Laksana that he was cultivating should be a Fire Dragon, or at least, one of the Nine Forms of Real Dragon. But he possessed the remains of Innate Deity and at the same time found the Primordial Fierce Beast, Demonic Ape Zhuyan, so he was able to get the Real Body of Zhuyan. If he hadn''t found the Demonic Ape Zhuyan, the other thing he could cultivate would be the Real Body of Dragon Chimera. It was due to this that he had the Real Body of Zhuyan and his Second Primordial Spirit could be the Real Body of Primitive Dragon Chimera. He had been extremely lucky to receive such favorable opportunities. Other people would have been lucky if they could successfully practice the Dharma Laksana True Body of their bodies. How often do they get the chance to practice their Second Primordial Spirit as well?


    Everyone knew that the Second Primordial Spirit and Outer-body Incarnation were incredible Divine Senses and had magical properties. But it was hard to practice them to perfection. For all the hard practice they put in, all they achieved was just an incarnation less powerful than the people themselves. Therefore those incarnations could only be used as a means to escape from catastrophes.


    No one could be as lucky as Zhou Bao to have the incarnation of the Primordial Fierce Beast in such a short time.


    It was because the incarnation of Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit was too powerful that Zhou Bao was able to sense that something was not quite right.


    It seemed that this incarnation of Second Primordial Spirit was not working in harmony with him.


    In other words, his Second Primordial Spirit had been affected by the Primitive Dragon Chimera itself, and it became extremely brutal and cold-blooded. That brutal and cold-blooded spirit had even taken over his spirit, suddenly turning him likewise into a brutal and cold-blooded being. The killing intent surged from his body.


    "Oh, no! I almost lost a grip on my spirit!"


    Just when the fierce power in Zhou Bao was about to explode and turned him into a mass murderer, suddenly a stream of gentle power flew out between his eyebrows and calmed down his murderous intent.


    "Ah!"


    Zhou Bao took a deep breath and expired again. With this breath, the brutal and cold-blooded intent inside him was completely dissolved.


    He suddenly raised his head and looked right into the cold eyes of the incarnation of Dragon Chimera. The eyes of incarnation of Dragon Chimera flashed and a sparkle of light flashed through those dark golden eyes. Feeling that something was not quite right, Zhou Bao did not hesitate and looked up. A sanguine ball erupted from his hand and shot right between the eyebrows of his second incarnation.


    That red ball was one of the three Fiery Eyes which he had taken from Yu Taicang. When the Fiery Eyes was injected into his incarnation, the second incarnation spurted Demonic Fire and pushed it into the Fiery Eyes. All of a sudden, the Fiery Eyes flashed and started to take in and send out the essence of the world. In a moment, the Fiery Eyes had been cultivated into an External Elixir.


    "Excellent, excellent, excellent!" Zhou Bao couldn''t help repeating himself. Happiness was written all over his face.


    Back in the old days, he had spent considerable time in turning the Fiery Eyes into an External Elixir. But now, since the incarnation of his Dragon Chimera had passed the Thunder Tribulation and possessed the power of a Genuine Immortal, an External Elixir could be cultivated without using any excessive power and could be done in a blink of an eye.


    Once the Fiery Eyes was practiced into an External Elixir by Demonic Fire, it completely disappeared into the incarnation between its eyebrows leaving no trace behind. That incarnation was transformed into a black flame and smoke which became a black fire merging into the Fiery Eyes between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows.


    Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed as his Second Primordial Spirit, the Outer-body Incarnation, was magically transformed into a floating black flame which burned slowly above the Pure Yang Waterball.


    It was only now that Zhou Bao finally felt a sense of relief.


    It was still a treasured experience for him to have undertaken a Thunder Tribulation with his Second Primordial Spirit. The flows of Divine Qi generated from the shattered space when it had been ripped out by the thunder benefited him a lot too.


    "It is Divine Spirit Qi. Though it is the same as the Divine Spirit Qi in Yunfei, it has larger quantities which is of great help to my Dharma power. Now that my incarnation has also been through the Thunder Tribulation and possesses the power of a Genuine Immortal, I can be called an Immortal as well. Well, this Second Primordial Spirit was created to get rid of Golden Book of Fate, but now I have already possessed the cultivation of a Genuine Immortal, I don''t have to be a legal Immortal. However, I have undergone the Divine Tribulation here. Though I did not make too much noise, it will still be noticed by others. I have to go now."


    Thinking to himself, Zhou Bao sliced through the hollow space and vanished. A few seconds later, the space where Zhou Bao had been was ripped apart and a solemn man dressed in gold appeared. He looked around and snorted coldly. Then he returned into the hollow and left Misty Mountain.


    "There is really no necessity to go back to Zhuzhao City. It''s been a long time since I was last there. The prescription of the elixir I left on the table should have been found by others, and some people might have noticed what I have done. News travels fast. It won''t be long before I can boldly refine the Bone-Forging Pill to enhance the overall strength of those kids. Hey, I''ve asked Jiang Xiao to store many medicinal herbs for years, which should be enough to refine tens of thousands of Bone-Forging Pill to be used for sometime!" Zhou Bao thought to himself and again returned to his Immortal''s Cave. But this time he didn''t practice Dragon Flame Technique. He didn''t know what cultivation method should be practiced after he himself had given up the kindling of Dragon Chimera Fire and all Real Essences.


    There were nine acupoints in his body, the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, which formed a giant Dantian. But now, all the Gang Qi had gone.


    However, he had to do that.


    Primordial Fierce Beast, the Demonic Ape Zhuyan had an extremely special Divine Sense and its demonic spirit had been devouring and assimilating the Real Essence of Demonic Fire in Zhou Bao. At first, it just engulfed the Real Essence bit by bit, so the Dragon Chimera Fire was able to resist it because of the kindling.


    However, as the state Zhou Bao was in became more and more stable and the bloodline of the demonic ape in Zhou Bao became more and more intense, the kindling of Dragon Chimera in Zhou Bao''s Dantian struggled to survive. When the Demonic Fire was devoured and assimilated, it was mostly used for strengthening the bloodline in Zhou Bao''s body. The bloodline of the demonic ape in Zhou Bao had become stronger as the Demonic Fire melted. In the end, Zhou Bao was upset to find out that the Real Essence of Demonic Fire of Dragon Chimera and even the Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang he had spent much time on had been totally assimilated and engulfed.


    That''s why he thought of studying the Dragon Flame Technique to see if there was a possibility to make up for it. Unexpectedly, he was almost caught in the spell because of the Dragon Flame Technique and he even drew upon his Outer-body Incarnation. Therefore, he had to eject the weaker Demonic Fire Seed. If he didn''t give it up, Zhou Bao believed that his kindling of the same quality of engulfing would be assimilated by the Demonic Qi of Zhuyan.


    This was not due to the fact that the Demonic Fire of Dragon Chimera was inferior to the demonic spirit of Zhuyan. It was because Zhou Bao had assimilated the bloodline of Zhuyan, and the demonic spirit of Zhuyan was the dominant one in the battle. Though the Demonic Fire of Dragon Chimera was strong, it had no roots in Zhou Bao''s body, so it was suppressed by the demonic spirit of Zhuyan. As for Zhou Bao, he didn''t care about the Demonic Fire, but he was concerned about the precious kindling. The Demonic Fire made him what he was today. If the Demonic Fire of Dragon Chimera was devoured, it would be a huge loss for him. Therefore he had to expel the kindling to be melted into his Outer-body Incarnation.


    And with this kindling, the Outer-body Incarnation of Zhou Bao had completed the most crucial stage. It became an intact incarnation of Dragon Chimera and finally brought in the Divine Tribulation. Everything had gone beyond Zhou Bao''s expectations, and all went well. At least, he had found his inner peace and became an Individual Immortal with the Real Body of Zhuyan, and he left no traces of the Primitive Dragon Chimera at all.


    If it had not been for the massive amount of the golden energy he gained from the remains of the Innate Deity, he would have been surrounded by the Demonic Qi of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan.


    That golden Dharma power was indeed the inheritance of the Innate Deity from olden times. Although it was assimilated by the demonic spirit of Zhuyan, it also affected the demonic spirit and weakened the Demonic Qi of that demonic spirit, making the demonic spirit positive and peaceful. Most importantly, it strengthened the power of the demonic spirit and made it more effective and at the same time enhancing the body.


    "Power, the great power. The Primordial Demonic Ape was called the Supreme Divine King Kong Ape. The name came from the King Kong in Buddhism and also evolved from the characteristics of this fierce beast. It was certainly something special. No, it contains infinite power!" Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Zhou Bao felt the demonic spirit of Primitive Dragon Chimera slowly infusing into the bloodline of his body. After a few seconds, the demonic spirit that he had just practiced was already dying out.


    "No, if I go on like this, the demonic spirit I practice will not stay in my body. Then I will not be able to use either my secret skills or Divine Senses. I can only use my physical power to fight against others. Though I may not lose most of the time, it is inconvenient!"


    With the demonic spirit in his body decreasing steadily, Zhou Bao looked a bit weird. "If this goes on, all I can do is to practice the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword in my External Elixir to battle against my enemies. What will become of me if I have to rely on the power of others?"

 499 The Mysterious Divine Ligh

    In the midst of the confusion, the demonic spirit of Zhuyan had devoured the Flickering Light Evil Qi. Thus Zhou Bao doubted whether he would be able to use the Three Realms Division again or not.


    The Three Realms Division was a fundamental skill for Zhou Bao to escape and fight against others. Without it, how could he ever have peace of mind?


    After going through a Divine Tribulation and expelling the kindling of Dragon Chimera, Zhou Bao found that the merging of the Real Body of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan and himself had been a hasty and reckless act.


    Now, every stream of demonic spirit that he practiced was unable to stay in his body for long and they would then merge into his body. Thus his tendons and meridians became tougher, even a thousand times tougher than cowhide. His body also became stronger to the extent of being deemed indestructible. Zhou Bao was able to resist a Pure Yang Celestial Device with his body. As long as he was not dealing with a powerful and deadly secret skill like the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, he had nothing to worry about.


    However, Zhou Bao, who was somewhat timid and afraid of death, had always put his safety first. Even though he could use only one punch to smash a Pure Yang Celestial Device with his indestructible body, he had no interest in doing that. There could always be another person stronger than you. Only an idiot would attempt to resist a Pure Yang Celestial Device using his own body. Even if he managed to deal with a Pure Yang Celestial Device, how would it be possible to fight against a fairy weapon?


    If a person owned the Dharma power of Real Essence and had Gang Qi as protection, he could melt down a living person merely by raising his hand. That was really an amazing feat to have!


    But, what about now?


    He found that except for the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, he was now unable to activate the skills controlled by Internal Qi and Real Essence, such as Three Realms Division, Infinite Trembling Contemplation, the Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill of Seven Wonderful Techniques and Flipping Sky Seal. How could he activate those ways without Internal Qi and Real Essence?


    "Wait, the Flipping Sky Seal!"


    Suddenly, something seemed to occur to Zhou Bao and he sunk his Divine Awareness into Dantian.


    On that day in the Mountain City of the Qin Family, he had activated the Flipping Sky Seal to release the protective formation of the Mountain City of the Qin Family. At that time, the Flipping Sky Seal seemed to have been stimulated and had transformed into a talisman, flying back to Zhou Bao''s Dantian. That talisman looked like a handwriting letter "ɽ" (mountain), but it was made of numerous filaments of pneuma and looked quite complicated. Even when Zhou Bao had utilized his Divine Awareness to probe it, he still felt dizzy after doing that. There was a solemn and overriding spirit to it. When that talisman was formed, it became easier for Zhou Bao to activate the Flipping Sky Seal. The moment he had planned to use the Flipping Sky Seal, the talisman in his Dantian would transform the Dharma power of Real Essence in the Dantian into Flipping Sky Seal in a relatively short time. The strong power and attack force of the Flipping Sky Seal were equal to that of a Pure Yang Celestial Device. That had made Zhou Bao both delighted and confused, wondering how this could happen.


    Yet he had a lazy nature and did not want to try to figure out what caused this confusion. Whenever he sensed that something had gone wrong, he would only try several times to find the solution if it captured his interest. If it did not, he could not be bothered with it.


    Now, there was no demonic spirit left in his body and his Dantian was also empty. He had even spit out the Demonic Fire Seed. Was that talisman still in his Diantian?


    "Eh?" When Zhou Bao plunged his Divine Awareness into his Dantian, he found it odd that the talisman was still in there. Not only that, the talisman was shimmering with a golden color.


    "The Golden Dharma Power?"


    It was impossible to tell when the talisman had been infiltrated by the Golden Dharma power in his giant Dantian composed by his nine acupoints. That talisman looked simple and austere but it was emitting a spirit that spelled dominance.


    Seeing this talisman, Zhou Bao couldn''t help feeling completely overwhelmed by it.


    "Great! But now I only have this talisman. Apart from the useless Dharma power, I have nothing in my Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints. How can I activate the Flipping Sky Seal? Damn it! Though this demonic ape is powerful, I have to rely on myself in the future. Without any demonic spirit, why did I open so many acupoints?"


    "I don''t feel right. There should be a way to practice it. Such a Primordial Fierce Beast like this should have inherited its blood and have been equipped with all the cultivation methods and Divine Senses. Since I have absorbed everything of this Primordial Fierce Beast, it''s impossible for me to have lost all knowledge of everything"


    With this in mind, Zhou Bao completely sunk his Divine Sense into his body and took a deep breath, causing a ripple to go through his bones and muscles. Finally, Zhou Bao gave off a stream of savage spirit. All of a sudden, the mysterious information residing in the bottom of the bloodline was activated and was transferred to his brain. After receiving it, Zhou Bao''s face twisted in a grimace.


    "Damn, how did I ever forget this!"


    Yes, how could he have forgotten about that incident?


    The acupoints of Zhou Bao were the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints he gained from the Dragon Flying Technique. With the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, he had accumulated a large amount of Dharma power of Real Essence. Almost no one at the same level could defeat him. Zhou Bao was even able to challenge others regardless of their ranks. All this should contribute to the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints. Now the problem was that he had formed the Real Body of the Primordial Fierce Beast, the Demonic Ape Zhuyan, and unified his Real Body and Dharma Body, reaching the Mysterious Realm.


    There were three stages in the Mysterious Realm, namely Pulse-Steadying, Blood-Changing and Marrow-Cleansing, which were called the Three Big Realms. It would be a huge progress to be able to pass through each stage.


    Ordinary people reached the Mysterious Realm to practice their Real Bodies. Those Real Bodies consisted of their Internal Qi and a bit of spirit. Different cultivation methods would form different Real Bodies and Dharma Laksana with different degrees of power. Whether it was in Pulse-Steadying, Blood-Changing or Marrow-Cleansing stage, it did the human body no harm to use the body structures of the ancient supernatural animals, divine beasts and fierce beasts to refine the acupoints, regardless of their powerful Dharma Laksana True Bodies. However, Zhou Bao was unique. He had eaten a whole Zhuyan egg, and thus he could merge Zhuyan into his Demonic Qi and his bloodline. The Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints he had practiced didn''t combine well with his body at all due to Zhuyan, so the demonic spirit he practiced was unsuitable and could not be recognized by his bloodline. Nevertheless, it ultimately activated a certain characteristic in Zhuyan''s bloodline which could devour and refine everything and absorbed all those demonic spirits.


    "Damn it. If I want to form the Real Essence, I have to reopen the acupoints and the three acupoints of Zhuyan. Otherwise, no matter how hard I try, the demonic spirit I practice will be absorbed by the body. Only the demonic spirit practiced by the three acupoints of Zhuyan can stay in my body. Even if I had opened the secret acupoints in my body, the demonic spirit will be absorbed as well!" Realizing this fact, Zhou Bao smiled bitterly.


    This Zhuyan was indeed a Primordial Fierce Beast which was quite different from others. Normally, the more acupoints one had, the more powerful he would be. However, there were only three acupoints in Zhuyan''s body, namely the upper acupoint, the middle acupoint and the lower acupoint. They were like three Dantian in a human body, according to their positions. In fact, Zhou Bao had already refined these three acupoints, but they had unified with the other nine acupoints and formed a giant Dantian. Therefore, the demonic spirit they practiced had merged with the demonic spirits from other acupoints and at the same time were rejected by Zhuyan''s bloodline.


    "I have to separate these three acupoints and other six acupoints and use the other six acupoints as External Elixirs to strengthen my body. As for those three Dantian, they can then be used to evolve the demonic spirit of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan." However, it didn''t mean that Zhou Bao would able to use the three Dantian all at once.


    The information coming from Zhuyan''s bloodline was very basic and did not contain much useful content. There was only the original way of practice of Zhuyan Race, in other words, the basic way of practice in the information. After all, Zhou Bao had only absorbed an egg of Zhuyan rather than a teenage or adult Zhuyan. Although the bloodline of Zhuyan was endowed with the inheritance of the Zhuyan Race, it took time to investigate that inheritance of the Zhuyan Race. It was impossible for each Zhuyan to have mastered everything when it was born. It needed time to grow up and mature steadily, so as to be able to master the Divine Senses and skills of Zhuyan Race. The baby Zhuyan only knew how to practice the three acupoints according to their instinct.


    The demonic spirit from these three Dantian was their Natal Demonic Spirit. Different from other demonic spirits which were taken in to strengthen the body, this Natal Demonic Spirit had another name, the Mysterious Divine Light. Just as the Gang Qi of Evil Fire Kylin, it contained an incredible Divine Sense. The so-called incredible Divine Sense was the only Divine Sense of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan which could refine everything to enhance itself.


    Now the Divine Sense that Zhou Bao showed was just the beginning-refining the pneuma of the world so as to enhance himself.


    In addition, the Mysterious Divine Light was also a high-quality demonic spirit. When it was activated, it was as same as other Real Essence. It was good to use it to activate the secret skills and special techniques.


    The secret skills and ways were originally the profound operational ways of the pneuma in the body. Pneuma, Internal Qi, Real Essence and even Dharma power could be used to help to perform the power of the secret skills as long as they complied with the ways of secret skills. The only difference was the degrees of power they had used.


    However, the special techniques were different. They needed the Evil Qi of the world to activate their power. That was to say, if one wanted to achieve the special techniques, he needed the original Evil Qi. The special technique was a combination of Evil Qi and the inner pneuma. Yet the Mysterious Divine Light would engulf everything and refine all pneuma. Therefore they were inconsistent. But in the inheritance of Zhuyan''s bloodline, Zhou Bao felt that the Zhuyan Race also possessed a way which was similar to the special techniques. Different from the normal special techniques, when the Mysterious Divine Light was refining the Evil Qi to strengthen itself and enhance its power, the body of Zhuyan should have gained some special power of those Evil Qi. For instance, if he refined a certain amount of Flickering Light Evil Qi, he could easily rip the space apart. Then coordinating the way of Three Realms Division, he could activate the Three Realms Division. Because this capability was possessed by his body, it was easier for him to utilize the special techniques than simply operate the Evil Qi.

 500 Getting Involved in the Mire

    Unlike human beings and ordinary evil beasts, the Primordial Fierce Beasts are powerful living creatures that were born with much more talent than human beings. In primitive times, some Primordial Fierce Beasts that had evolved to the perfection were even on par with Innate Deities and Primordial Demons.


    There were fewer varieties of Primordial Fierce Beasts in primitive times, but each variety had produced many famous and mighty living creatures. Not to mention others, at least at the beginning of their lives, the human being, who appeared much later, could not be compared to them.


    Exactly because of this high starting point were there essential differences in practice between the Primordial Fierce Beasts'' ones and humans'' ones.


    While practicing, humans focused on balancing the inner and outside cycle. No matter if it was the Internal Qi, Real Essence, or Dharma power; all of them required a strong physical body. Whether the pneuma was strong or weak depended on its quantity and quality. Opening more acupoints was a solution to the problem of quantity, and practicing powerful cultivation methods could solve the problem of quality. However, whether it was quantity or quality, the most fundamental factor was physical strength. You could open thousands of acupoints and practice a top-notch cultivation method like the 3,000 Great Ways. But in the end, if the body was not strong enough, you would also end up exploding yourself.


    Thus, the humans'' practice was divided into Three Big Realms and Three Small Realms. Only those who had finished these three realms could truly detach themselves from worldly affairs.


    However, for the Primordial Fierce Beasts, their bodies would never be the bottlenecks of their practice. Even the weakest one possessed at birth a physical strength no weaker than that of an ordinary Genuine Immortal. As for the Demonic Ape Zhuyan, who was born to fight using its physique, was a Fierce Beast whose body was extremely tough, and, at birth, its physical strength had far surpassed that of an ordinary Venerable. As time went by, it gradually became more powerful and began to practice its demonic spirit¡ªthe Mysterious Divine Light. Regarding all this, it no longer needed to consider the physical problem.


    Humans may have to practice for hundreds or even thousands of years to reach the realm that Primordial Fierce Beasts could achieve at birth. Furthermore, the long life that human beings could only get after a long time of practice was just a piece of cake for them. And maybe the time they spent sleeping was equal to the lifetime of a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm.


    The tough body, horrifying strength, and long lifespan made Primordial Fierce Beasts the dominators of the entire primitive times, lasting over hundreds of millions of years till the rise of human beings.


    The reasons for the humans'' rise and the end of the Primordial Fierce Beasts'' era were unable to be investigated. After the primitive times, Primordial Fierce Beasts had almost disappeared and scarcely showed up. It was just like the Innate Deities and the Primordial Demons who had dominated over heaven and earth in the Primordial Origin. Even if some of their traces could still be found, they would be blurred after all. To be honest, after the humans'' rise in antiquity times, no one had obtained two Real Bodies of Primordial Fierce Beasts in one fell swoop like what Zhou Bao had done.


    Therefore, in this aspect alone, Zhou Bao had created a miracle.


    Of course, that was still by far not enough. Zhou Bao had gained all his knowledge about Primordial Fierce Beasts almost entirely from the Bloodline Inheritance.


    The knowledge one had received through the Bloodline Inheritance may seem quite real, but it had limitations as well. Because if you were not strong enough, all you could inherit was just a small part of the memories. When your strength had reached a point where you could meet the demands of your bloodline, only then would you be able to obtain a complete inheritance. However, Zhou Bao was just like an infant now, so how could he be able to obtain so much inheritance?


    He had just received three basic Dantian refinement methods from his bloodline with the Mysterious Divine Light being the most basic cultivation method. Besides that, he knew that every Primordial Fierce Beast had a Natal Demonic Spirit with a special function and a unique name. For example, Zhuyan''s Natal Demonic Spirit was called Mysterious Divine Light, and the Primitive Dragon Chimera''s Natal Demonic Fire was called Mysterious Black Fire. Once practiced to perfection, they would be endlessly powerful.


    In the Azure Secret Area!


    The Essential Qi Tide that had surged for more than half a year had finally disappeared and everything was calm again. But at the same time, everything had changed.


    Although nothing special could be noticed on the surface, all Grand Demons and masters of the Real Bodies in the Azure Secret Area knew that everything had changed.


    In just these few months, hundreds of evil beasts had passed through the Thunder Tribulation and become Demonic Immortals at the Level of True Immortality. However, they did not look joyful, because they clearly knew that this world was different now.


    As the Jade Plate of Fate appeared, the Azure Secret Area was no longer a micro world as it was in the past. Now, all the Principles of Great Ways had become complete. Strictly speaking, the Azure Secret Area was already a macro world, which shared the same nature with the world Zhou Bao was born in. It was just that it had not finished evolving yet.


    Similarly, their fate was no longer in their own hands, but in the hands of a strange creature who was called a human being by a bunch of the most senior Demonic Immortals in this world.


    This human being''s cave was located at the depths of the Azure Secret Area. It was a place called Sea of Divine Power. In the Azure Secret Area, except for several mighty Demonic Immortals, no one knew where the Sea of Divine Power was at and when this human being appeared.


    The Sea of Divine Power did not completely belong to the Azure Secret Area. It was a space formed by the essence of this world after the grey space that Zhou Bao had captured and this world fused together. Outside of this space were countless spatial faults, rifts, and spaces, which were used to separate it from this world. Without Zhou Bao''s permission, no one was able to enter it. The spiritual qi and pneuma there were more than tenfold denser than those in the Azure Secret Area.


    The Sea of Divine Power was a boundless, blue sea with immense spiritual qi. It resembled a micro world that was entirely covered by a blue ocean. In the center of it was a huge mountain, which stretched out from the bottom of the sea and penetrated the sky. At the top of the mountain was Zhou Bao''s Dharma Laksana of Zhuyan, which was 1,000 feet tall. And it was inhaling and exhaling the pneuma.


    Zhou Bao exhaled an immense amount of pneuma. Every time he inhaled, he absorbed all the spiritual qi within a radius of a thousand miles and let a vacuum zone take shape. Soon after, the spiritual qi a thousand miles away would replenish the zone again before he took another inhalation. His exhalation''s breath would form huge, green-black clouds over his head, completely covering the sky within a radius of a thousand miles.


    Zhou Bao finally opened his eyes and exhaled slowly, not knowing how long he had been practicing. His 1,000 feet tall body suddenly shrunk to the size it was before.


    "No wonder the Primordial Fierce Beasts had disappeared long ago. The spiritual qi of my world simply could not meet their needs for survival. The essence of the world in the Sea of Divine Power is tenfold denser than that in the Azure Secret Area. But it''s just enough to meet my basic requirements of practice. I''ve opened three Dantians and stored some Mysterious Divine Light in them. If I were in my world, I couldn''t have done this even if I had practiced for a hundred years!" Zhou Bao sighed in his heart.


    He now had this macro world''s Jade Plate of Fate in his possession. But he did not have the courage to use it, because he knew that once he started using this weird thing, he would no longer be who he was.


    However, it did not prevent him from having the highest position in this macro world. He was just familiar with a few Demonic Immortals in the Azure Secret Area, and the most familiar one was the whale that Green Spirit had introduced to him long ago. Led by the whale, the Demonic Immortals revered and feared him a lot after they had witnessed the battle between him and Yu Taicang. It should be noted that Zhou Bao had displayed the Real Body of Zhuyan when he killed Yu Taicang. As a Primordial Fierce Beast, Zhuyan was an inborn deterrent to these Demonic Immortals. Additionally, Zhou Bao had launched the Jade Plate of Fate afterward to evolve the world and complete the Dharma of this micro world to make it a macro world. All these things, which other people do not speak of, were seen by that whale.


    So naturally, the whale feared Zhou Bao a lot. And, at the same time, he understood that he could not fight Zhou Bao in the Azure Secret Area because he had no opportunity at all.


    Zhou Bao kept his promise to those Demonic Immortals as well. He sealed a little bit of their Genuine Spirit that was placed on the Jade Plate of Fate and swore that he would never threaten them with it.


    Given Zhou Bao''s status in Azure Heaven, such a vow could certainly be recognized by those Demonic Immortals. Otherwise, once his mental barrier came into existence, his strength could not go further anymore.


    "Your Excellency, over the past few days, some Demonic Immortals have once again survived the Thunder Tribulation! And I guess that their Genuine Spirit is on the Jade Plate of Fate. How about...!"


    The person who was talking was that whale. He had shapeshifted himself into a blue-robed man and was more polite to Zhou Bao than before. Now, he was looking at Zhou Bao with a smile.


    However, Zhou Bao didn''t dare to take his politeness seriously. The whale''s strength was unmeasurable, so, the reason he was polite to him was mainly due to his control over the Jade Plate of Fate. And there was also the mighty power that he had executed when he killed Yu Taicang.


    "Look, don''t call me Your Excellency. Just call me Zhou Bao, please." Zhou Bao smiled and added, "Why? Do you also know those guys?"


    "Not all of them, but some. I have quite a good relationship with them, so I think...!"


    "I''ll seal all of their Genuine Spirits!" Zhou Bao wore a smile and continued, "It''s no big deal. I just want to find some resources in the Azure Secret Area and practice some cultivation methods that I can''t practice in my world. Everything that happened later is just a coincidence. I have neither the ambition nor the ability to control a macro world, but there''s no other choice. I''m bound by the damn Jade Plate of Fate, and thus, I cannot help doing something. Furthermore, you know that I don''t belong to this world, so I can''t stay here forever. No matter now or in the future, you can just make a list of your friends who successfully pass through the Thunder Tribulation and just hand it to me directly when I enter this world! What do you think?"


    "Then thank you so much!"


    The Whale was shocked after he heard Zhou Bao''s words. He stared at Zhou Bao, not knowing why Zhou Bao would do him such a favor and show him so much respect.


    "For now I have another matter that needs your help!"


    "What matter?"


    "Recently, I''ve sensed that there is something not quite right with the Azure Secret Area, and it seems that someone would like to play some little tricks!" Zhou Bao stopped for a while and glanced at the man, saying, "I don''t think it''s necessary. What do you think?"


    "Yes, it''s unnecessary!" The blue-robed man was startled and then nodded his head in agreement as he laughed.


    "All right!" Zhou Bao patted him on the shoulder. Then, his body flashed past and vanished into thin air.


    The blue-robed man stood there for a long time as if he was thinking about something. After a good while, he sighed and left the Sea of Divine Power.


    "Hey, have you noticed anything special?"


    Although Zhou Bao had left the Sea of Divine Power, he did not leave the Azure Secret Area, instead, he arrived at the entrance of it. As the Azure Secret Area evolved into a macro world, the entrance was no longer useful. Green Spirit had waited for Zhou Bao for quite a long time right at that entrance.


    "There''s indeed something strange about the Azure Secret Area that they don''t want me to know. However, I have the Jade Plate of Fate in possession, therefore, they cannot hide the things they want to do from me completely!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly and added, "But I don''t want to get involved either!"


    "It relates to the secrets of antiquity times after all. Don''t tell me that you don''t want to know?"


    "I wish so. The most powerful Demonic Immortals in the Azure Secret Area are the right hands of the Emperor of the Azure Heaven. And, it is the Emperor of the Azure Heaven who had turned Azure Heaven into the Azure Secret Area. How scheming he was! Some important and big events are involved in it. Damn it, the Azure Secret Area inexplicably has become mine now, and I''m wondering which Ancient Mighty Expert is pissed off by me. I can''t wait to hide now!"


    "Well, it''s nothing major. Even if there''s a conspiracy, I don''t believe that the 99 Emperors of antiquity times are still alive after so many years!"


    "Then how did you manage to stay alive?"


    "To be precise, it''s not that case. I was repressed by others and my body had long perished. I survived because some of my Genuine Spirit had fused into a Pure Yang Celestial Device. However, they are different. Given their pride, they would rather die than live as long as I did!"


    "That''s not necessarily true. After all, a living dog is better than a dead lion!" Zhou Bao smiled. He thought of the Emperor of Netherworld that he had met within the Sea Area and what he had told him. So he asked, "Right, have you ever heard of the Fate Creation Boy?"


    "The Fate Creation Boy?"


    Upon hearing this name, Green Spirit''s face darkened greatly. He looked very strange and asked, "How do you know this name?"


    "You know of him as well?"


    "The Fate Creation Boy is a mysterious and low-profile person. I had heard of his name by chance in antiquity times but don''t know much about him. I just know that he has an even higher status compared to the 99 Emperors. Although I''m a Grand Demon, you know that I was not at the top layer in antiquity times, so there are some things I don''t know!"


    "In that case, the Fate Creation Boy must have had a highly respected status in antiquity times, didn''t he?"


    "I don''t know!" Green Spirit shook his head and looked quite helpless. He looked at Zhou Bao strangely and asked, "You haven''t cooperated with him, have you?"


    "Of course not!" Zhou Bao shrugged and added, "I just heard of his name by accident and that''s why I asked you about it!"


    "Yeah, all right. Haha, haha!"


    The two laughed, but neither of them knew what each other really thought.


    "Right, have you found the thing you are looking for?"


    "Yes, of course. I must admit that there are plenty of resources in your Azure Big World. It didn''t pale even in comparison with antiquity times!"


    "If you feel satisfied with it, come in at any time!" Zhou Bao replied.


    "Then thank you!" Green Spirit was overjoyed. Later, Zhou Bao executed Infinite Realms Teleportation to send both of them to their world.


    "Eh?"


    When the two appeared at the peak of Jilei Mountain at the same time, Zhou Bao exclaimed as if he had discovered something unusual.


    "What''s the matter?"


    "Oh, nothing. It''s just that I had a little discovery when I was executing Infinite Realms Teleportation just now!"


    "A little discovery? Haha, the Three Realms Division and Infinite Realms Teleportation are the most excellent and basic kind of Divine Senses among the Great Way of Heavens and Realms. Well, have you learned the Great Way of Heavens and Realms from them?"


    "I''ll tell you first if such an excellent thing should happen!" Zhou Bao shook his head.


    "I see you are not in the mood to tell me about it, so I won''t bother you anymore!" Green Spirit smiled as he noticed that Zhou Bao seemed to be lost in thought. He bid farewell to Zhou Bao, shapeshifted into a cloud of golden light, and left Jilei Mountain.


    "I have a visitor who seems to be a big shot. It seems that my plan really worked!"


    Zhou Bao stayed in the Azure Secret Area for 10 days and again refined the three acupoints that he had already refined once according to the information he had obtained from Zhuyan''s memory. As he got more familiar with these three acupoints, the detection zone of his spiritual mind expanded once again. At the peak of Jilei Mountain, he could easily detect the spirits of strangers in his Lord Mansion with it. He could even smell the spirits through his nose.


    "Damn. I''ve really become a beast and even have a better nose than a dog!" Zhou Bao mocked himself and swore. His body shook and then appeared in the Lord Mansion.


    "Your Excellency, it''s so nice that you''re back!"


    Right at that moment, Renzhen Cuo was giving others an order in the Lord Mansion''s Outer Yard. He was startled upon seeing Zhou Bao. But shortly after, there was a joyful smile on his face.


    "Is there a guest coming to visit me?"


    "Yes, Your Excellency. His Highness the Prince has come!"


    "The prince?" Zhou Bao nodded, asked Renzhen Cuo to leave with a motion of his head, and walked into the Inner Yard directly.


    "Haha, Zhou Bao, you finally come back!"


    As soon as Zhou Bao entered the Inner Yard, he heard the prince''s hearty laughter. For those who did not know their relationship, they may think the two had been good friends for years.


    "So it is the Crown Prince who came. I hope you can forgive my sin for not welcoming you in person earlier!" Zhou Bao saluted the prince. Although he said these words, both his manner and his tone of voice showed no signs to ask for forgiveness.


    The prince did not care about it, instead, he greeted Zhou Bao with a big smile and said, "It''s my visiting you so abruptly that is rude!"


    "Your Highness, what are you doing here?"


    Zhou Bao asked him as they two sat down in the room.


    "Nothing special. But there is one thing where I want to ask for your help."


    "What thing?"


    "Well, there''s a town in the south called Zhuzhao City and something has happened there recently. I heard that the prescriptions of the Bone-Forging Pill and Pulse-Setting Pill have appeared, and I wonder whether it''s true or not!"


    "The Bone-Forging Pill and Pulse-Setting Pill?" Zhou Bao looked quite surprised and added, "That''s no small matter, Your Highness. Are you sure?"


    "It''s just a rumor. You know that the south has always been controlled by the Sect of Flame, and the influence of the imperial court there is quite weak. In many places, the decree cannot go out of the Yamen. But I think this news is to 80 percent reliable!" The prince glanced meaningfully at Zhou Bao and continued, "I know that these two prescriptions are of no use to you because your cultivation is already beyond my imagination. But I guess your subordinates need them."


    "Right. If the prescriptions are genuine, I''ll manage to get it unquestionably!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed and he added, "Your Highness, you seem to know my weakness very well!"


    "No, no. This can''t be considered a weakness. Where are you weak? It''s just that your subordinates have some weaknesses!"


    "Your Highness, you came here just to tell me about this matter?"


    "I need the prescriptions as well, and that''s why I came here. But I know if you go for the prescriptions, no one can win over you. However, if you want to obtain them, you need to know the specific situation!"


    "You mean..."


    "I''ll offer you the information of the prescriptions and set the target for you. After it''s done, let me take a copy of them. What do you think?"


    "No problem! Now tell me where the prescriptions are, and I can obtain them tomorrow!"


    "Okay, that''s great!" The prince was delighted. He added, "Currently, the prescriptions are in the hands of ''Lone Walker'' Pei Qitian, a famous thief in the south. His cultivation has already reached the peak of Level Six and is about to step into Level Seven¡ªthe Expert Realm. And now he has the prescriptions in his possession, and obviously, it''s a great opportunity for us, so...!"


    "The Lone Walker? It sounds like his Lightness Skill is quite good!"


    "He''s famous for the Lightness Skill, and it''s also his last resort. With his excellent Lightness Skill, he has survived other''s pursuit for many times. Besides, he''s adept at the Hiding Skill!"


    "That''s not a problem. I just need to know where he''s at!"


    "He''s still on the way to escape. But I guess his final destination should be Qingzhou State because it''s the largest trading spot of the Jin. Yun Meng Mountain of Qingzhou State is the largest producer of medicinal herbs in the Jin. You just have to find a Yamen when you arrive there, and they''ll tell you where Pei Qitian is at!"


    "A Yamen?"


    "Yes, a Yamen!" The prince smiled and added, "Why? Is there anything wrong with that?"


    "No, nothing. The prescriptions will be yours tomorrow morning!"


    "No, it''s not mine. It''s ours!" The prince wore a formulaic smile and rectified Zhou Bao''s words.


    Zhou Bao wore a self-deprecating smile and nodded his head, not saying anything.

 501 Coercion I

    In June of the fifth year of Yongping of the Great Jin, the world''s situation changed once again.


    This disturbance occurred in Jin''s Zhuzhao City, which was located in the south. The prescriptions of the two unique elixirs¡ªthe Bone-Forging Pill and Pulse-Setting Pill, which had been lost for tens of thousands of years, appeared once again. After a frantic scramble for them, they finally fell into the hands of "Lone Walker" Pei Qitian, a famous thief in the south. After obtaining the prescriptions, Pei Qitian fled toward Qingzhou State and finally disappeared.


    Just after all the schools and well-known families had searched for three days in vain for the prescriptions, two 100-feet-long white streamers suddenly appeared on the city gate of Huaining City in Qingzhou State. And they clearly recorded the prescriptions of the Bone-Forging Pill and Pulse-Setting Pill.


    This matter made a great stir in the whole world!


    The long lost unique prescriptions of the Bone-Forging Pill and Pulse-Setting Pill resurfaced and spread in a very short period of time.


    Since then, the scramble for the prescriptions was over, but, a greater chaos had only just begun.


    In the following year''s battle for medicinal herbs, the prices of all kinds of medicinal herbs related to these prescriptions rose crazily, and the rising prices of these medicinal herbs drove up the prices of other herbs. In order to compete for medicinal herbs to refine elixirs, the Jianghu fell into a scene of total chaos with saber light and blood shadow intermingled with each other. The killing spree went on non-stop.


    Zhou Bao, the reason for all this, was in trouble now. He was facing the emissaries from the five biggest sects and eight well-known families in the Guest-meeting Hall of the Wuyang Region with a cold face.


    As a part of the Sea-calming Palace, the Guest-meeting Hall was newly built. It should have been called Immortal-meeting Hall, but obviously, it was not very suitable for the Wuyang Region.


    The Guest-meeting Hall was at the hillside of Jilei Mountain. It was a fantastic position because sitting in the hall, you were able to see the panoramic view of the entire Sea-calming Palace clearly through the window.


    Although it was known to all that Zhou Bao had built plenty of buildings in the Wuyang Region during the past two years, it was not until they saw the layout and arrangement of the Sea-calming Palace in person that they were really startled.


    Putting the work amount aside, the cost of this project was astronomical. After all, it was a project that was dozens of times larger than the Royal Capital in Western Capital. How did he manage to build so many buildings in just a few years?


    Although it was not completely finished yet, it could be seen from its outline that it was not a project that could be completed in a year or two. But just the finished part would never pale in comparison to the Royal Capital.


    Everyone knew that Zhou Bao had made a fortune from the Cool Breeze Gang, and rumors had it that he had obtained the treasure of the Northern Yuan Black Wolf Tribe. But even though having all that, it still would be extremely difficult for him to afford such a large project. Perhaps he has some unknown wealth?


    "The Wuyang Region is really imposing. Enormous palaces such as the Sea-calming Palace have never appeared in Jin!"


    Just as the crowd was pondering over the matter and sighed with emotion, a strange and sinister voice rang out. When they saw the source of it, everyone laughed. But why?


    It turned out that the speaker was neither from the five biggest sects nor from the eight well-known families. He was a Jin Royalty, the fourth son of Yan Yuntian, Prince Yan Yucheng.


    Zhou Bao frowned. He did not know much about Prince Yan Yucheng, nor was he familiar with him. However, Zhou Bao felt very uncomfortable as he heard his sinister voice, thus, he laughed coldly and said, "So what? Today, I''ll help you broaden your horizons, you country bumpkin. How should you thank me?"


    "You...!" Yan Yucheng''s handsome face flushed suddenly as he heard these words. No one else had expected that Zhou Bao would sneer at Yan Yucheng so sharply without showing him any respect. But they did not expect that Zhou Bao was not finished with him yet. Before Yan Yucheng could reply, Zhou Bao continued, "I don''t know what your father is thinking by sending such a stupid b*tch here. Why do you still want to fight for the throne? I really cannot figure it out. I think you''d better save your breath and be an idle prince obediently. In that case, you may live a few years longer. If you overrate your strength to vie for the throne, I would pull you down from the throne and give you a good beating even if you succeed in obtaining the throne!"


    "You...!"


    No one had expected Zhou Bao''s words to be so tart. Prince Yan Yucheng suddenly stood up from his chair and pointed at Zhou Bao exasperatedly. But he was unable to say any other word apart from the word "you".


    "All right, shut up and sit down!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flickered, and then, an immense power immediately swarmed to Prince Yan Yucheng. The latter seemed to be struck by a lightning and was numb with shock. He sat down in the chair. His eyes looked dull and could not recover for a long time.


    "I''m sorry, everyone. My brother-in-law is sort of feverish. Don''t mind him!"


    After he successfully frightened Yan Yucheng, Zhou Bao wore a big smile on his face and added, "Since I''m caught off guard due to your sudden visit, please forgive me for not being so considerate!"


    "There is nothing to pardon. King Wuyang, you''re too courteous. It''s so rude of us to visit you abruptly this time!" said the leader of the people from the five biggest sects, the eight well-known families, and the royal Yan Yucheng¡ª14 people in total.


    "Mr. Ren II, shall I call you the master of the School of Five Virtues? Or shall I call you the Eldest Master of Mingyi School?" Zhou Bao glanced at the man who was talking just now. Dressed in a white robe and holding a folding fan in his hand, the man looked gentle and quiet, just like a weak scholar who resembled Zhou Bao a lot.


    "Just call me Ren II. The name is just a code and not my real name. As for my real name, haha, no one has ever given me a name!"


    "Since such being the case, I''ll call you Mr. Ren II." Zhou Bao nodded his head in agreement and added, "Why exactly did you all come here so aggressively?"


    "King Wuyang, you''re exaggerating. We''re just here to pay you a visit. We''re not aggressive!" Ren II opened his folding fan and continued, "This time, we''re absolutely sincere in this visit!"


    "I don''t know the reasons for your visit yet. So don''t you think it''s too early to tell me your sincerity?" Zhou Bao''s eyes narrowed and he smiled coldly, saying, "You guys came here with much fanfare, so I guess that you had come here for a big deal, right?"


    "Yes, it truly is a big deal!" Ren II smiled and added, "We came here mainly for King Wuyang this time!"


    "For me? Why?"


    "Your Royal Highness must know that in this world anyone whose cultivation exceeds Level Nine and reaches the Mysterious Realm will cause an astronomical phenomenon and a strand of his Genuine Spirit will be placed on the Golden Book of Fate. Furthermore, he will be a listed immortal and live forever!"


    "Of course I do!" Zhou Bao wore a big smile and continued, "To be honest, I really envy those listed immortals who can live forever. Haha, it''s really desirable. Unfortunately, I''m too weak and my practice also hit a bottleneck. I don''t know when I can reach such a state!"


    Upon hearing his words, all the people sitting here rolled their eyes. You were powerful enough to kill Demonic Immortals at the Venerable Realm, and now you said that you envy those Individual Immortals? What a joke!


    Although Zhou Bao''s cultivation was at Level Nine, he was able to break through to the Mysterious Realm at any time if he wanted to. It was only because he was too young (only 20 years old). So, with his current cultivation, he could still live for at least a few hundred years even if he did not step into the Mysterious Realm. Coupled with his horrifying combat capability, there were basically no influences or people who could threaten him. Therefore, he was not eager to be a listed immortal, and this was known to all. No one knew whether they could achieve eternity or not after they became listed immortals. But it was true that a bit of their Genuine Spirit would be bound by the Golden Book of Fate if they did become listed immortals. No matter how nice the words said by the five biggest sects were, their fates were no longer in their own hands. After searching through their hearts, everyone here would make the same choice as Zhou Bao did if they had a strength and combat capability like him. They would not be dying to make a breakthrough and become listed immortals.


    "If I am right, Your Royal Highness could already enter the Mysterious Realm and became a listed immortal who can live forever. I don''t know what else Your Royal Highness worries about?"


    Zhou Bao became alert and glanced at Ren II, saying, "It''s my own business. I''m afraid that Mr. Ren II doesn''t have the right to interfere in it, right?"


    "Of course. I certainly don''t care much about such things. But your strength has already gone beyond the limits of the secular world. If you keep butting in worldly affairs, you''re going to cause a lot of trouble. For example, you got the prescriptions of the elixirs out to the public lately and caused an uproar in the world, stirring up terrible and bloody battles. Most important of all, many people already could not afford medical treatment due to the rising prices of the medicinal herbs.


    "What a joke! I obtained the two prescriptions and made them public, and thus, spared many people the terrible and bloody battles over them. How dare you slander me venomously! It''s so ridiculous! Ren II, it seems that you came here today to find fault with me!"


    "I would not dare!" Ren II stayed calm after he had sensed Zhou Bao''s fury from his words. He continued, "It''s true that the publicity of the prescriptions did solve people''s battle over them, but it has brought a bigger problem as well. Just like what I have said a moment ago, the publication of the prescriptions has set Jin''s medicinal herbs market in such a mess. The battles for medicinal herbs are much more fierce and bloody than that for the prescriptions. Given Your Royal Highness'' intelligence, I guess you should have noticed that!"


    "So what? I didn''t ask them to do that!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly and his face darkened. He added, "When does your Heavenly Court begin to take charge of secular slaughters?"


    His words made the emissaries of the other four sects look bad. It was known to all that Divine Wind Palace hoped that the majesty of Heavenly Court could reappear. But to be honest, this idea was quite unreliable. Furthermore, it went against the interests of all other sects, and therefore, all the people resisted it. It was just that they always kept this feeling in their hearts. However, due to Zhou Bao''s outspoken remark on this matter, the atmosphere here became weird.

 502 Coercion â…¡

    Ren II''s face was stiff with shock because he had never expected Zhou Bao to be so straightforward. However, as the master of the School of Five Virtues and the Eldest Master of Mingyi School, he would naturally not fall out with Zhou Bao simply because of his words. And soon enough, his stiff face returned to normal.


    "Your Royal Highness has misunderstood us. I''m not in charge of the secular slaughters. It''s just that Your Royal Highness'' action has already caused a great impact on the world''s stability. Both, the matter about the prescriptions of the elixirs and the matter about Mountain City of the Qin Family, show that you are no longer suitable for interfering in worldly affairs!"


    "Haha, interesting. As far as I know, only those who have become listed immortals will be restricted. And I''m just at Level Nine expert¡ªnothing more. Isn''t Your Excellency overstepping the boundaries?"


    "It''s because you''re a Level Nine expert and not an Individual Immortal that we several big sects came here together!" Ren II smiled again. His smile gave others a pleasant feeling as if they were bathing in the spring wind. He added, "Having it talked through, we''re here to show you the attitude of our sects. It''ll be nice if you can step into the Mysterious Realm a little earlier. But if it''s not possible, everything will be all right as long as you promise us you will not meddle in the worldly affairs!"


    "So, why don''t you just say it a little bit earlier? Why bother pretending to be mysterious? I thought that you really came here to visit me!" Zhou Bao''s eyes emanated some strange light. "Since the emissaries of all sects are here, I guess you should be the one representing your sect, right?" Zhou Bao''s gaze swept across all these people and finally fixated on White Tiger. "White Tiger, you should be the one representing the Immortal Palace, right?"


    "Of course!" White Tiger nodded at Zhou Bao and added, "However, I have nothing to do with you today. I''m just here with some others to bear witness!"


    "To bear witness? Does that mean you will not voice your opinions?"


    "Of course we won''t. Do you think we are that stupid?" White Tiger laughed coldly and glanced at Ren II, saying, "Therefore, this matter mainly involves you, Ren II, in addition to the School of Five Virtues, and the Divine Wind Palace. You don''t have to care about us!"


    White Tiger''s words made Ren II''s eyes surge with Evil Qi. But they instantly returned to normal, and he said, "Brother White Tiger, you''ve really gone too far. We, the five biggest sects, have already negotiated this matter with each other earlier, so it does not just involve my sect!"


    White Tiger just ignored him. He turned his head and looked like a rascal, which left Ren II in a desire to kick his ass.


    "All right you two. Stop provoking an internal strife. Since you don''t want me to meddle in the worldly affairs, you must show me some sincerity. Even if I show you some respect and agree with your suggestion, once this matter is revealed, other people may say that the five biggest sects openly violated the Law of Heaven and pushed me into doing so. In that case, everyone will feel imperiled. That''s definitely not what you want!"


    "Pff... !" Upon hearing that, White Tiger could not help laughing. He pointed at Zhou Bao and nodded repeatedly, saying, "You''re right. You''ve got a good point. The five biggest sects are quite reasonable, especially the Divine Wind Palace. It has deep pockets and will meet all your requirements if you have any. There''s nothing that the Divine Wind Palace can''t do in this world!"


    "Brother White Tiger, this matter does not just involve the Divine Wind Palace. Don''t forget that King Wuyang is in the Central Mainland Region. Even if he turns the Central Mainland Region upside down, it has little to do with the Divine Wind Palace!"


    "Mr. Ren II, your words mean more than you say!" White Tiger tilted his head and glanced at Ren II, saying, "Do you mean that we shall make the stake clear to everyone here?"


    "White Tiger, don''t go too far!"


    "I haven''t. But your Divine Wind Palace has gone too far!" Not yielding an inch, White Tiger retorted and smiled coldly. However, Zhou Bao, who was supposed to be the main character, sat on a chair while drinking tea and watched the drama.


    "We''ll talk about it later!" Ren II took a deep look at White Tiger and then turned to the coldly smiling Zhou Bao as he said awkwardly, "What King Wuyang said just now makes sense. We, the five biggest sects, are by no means unreasonable. We would never let you suffer any losses!"


    "Oh, is that so? I''d be interested in hearing how you would like to compensate me!"


    "If you promise us you''ll never meddle in worldly affairs, we eight well-known families will acknowledge the Zhou Family in the Northwest of Jin to be the ninth well-known family. Your family will be on par with ours, and this title will be handed down from generation to generation!" Before Ren II could reply, a voice came from the chair beside Zhou Bao.


    "Hahahaha... !" Zhou Bao burst out roars of laughter, lasting about the time taken to drink half a cup of tea.


    "The ninth well-known family in this world? What a joke! I can crush your Wang Family into dust with a single foot! So why is your Wang Family on par with mine?!" Zhou Bao pointed at the guy who was speaking just now and asked him with a harsh voice, "Now that I have the Anyuan Store in addition to the Bone-Forging Pill''s and the Pulse-Setting Pill''s prescriptions in possession, I can train a lot of experts whose power will not be inferior to that of your family members at any time if I want to. With myself being included, why is your family qualified to be on par with mine?"


    "This...!" Just like Yan Yucheng, the emissary of the Wang Family flushed due to Zhou Bao''s reproaches. He pointed at Zhou Bao but could not say a word.


    Without looking at him even once, Zhou Bao turned his head to Ren II and said, "I don''t think it''s a good condition. It''s not sincere enough!"


    "So, what does Your Royal Highness think is sincere enough?"


    "It''s pretty simple. I guess you know that I recently left the Wuyang Region and then it was attacked by Kunlun Mountain and Palace of Destruction Demon. At that time, something bad nearly happened to my family. Since I''m alone, I cannot attend to so many things. Therefore, I need the five biggest sects to promise me that you can ensure my family''s safety no matter when, where, and why!"


    "This... !" Zhou Bao''s condition was too rich in content. It sounded simple, but once you thought about it carefully, you may find that the five biggest sects were almost like free bodyguards to Zhou Bao''s family if they agreed to this condition. Furthermore, the word "family" covered a wide perspective. They could be his parents, his wife, and even his descendants. To put it simply, whoever was related to Zhou Bao by blood would be his family. If they would really agree with him on this matter, then there would certainly be too much trouble in the future.


    At the thought of this, Ren II looked somewhat embarrassed. He said, "Your Royal Highness, I know you''re worried about your family. But there''s no such limit in the Law of Heaven, which is used to prevent any Individual Immortal and even Genuine Immortal from interfering in the worldly affairs because of one''s family. Once one''s family is threatened, even if one has become an Individual Immortal, no one will stop it. Instead, they would even help in it!"


    "The problem is that I''m not an Individual Immortal!" Zhou Bao waved his hand and continued, "Well, I know it''s hard for you because I haven''t voiced it specifically. I''ll set a time limit of 100 years. From the next 100 years, you shall take care of my family and spare me any future worries. If you agree on this condition, I will not meddle in the worldly affairs. How about it?"


    "I have no problems with that!" White Tiger was the first one to take his stand. He added, "In the end, both you and the Immortal Palace''s base are at the Central Mainland Region. If you make a mess in the Central Mainland Region, it''s also the trouble of the Immortal Palace and the other three families. Therefore, I agree with that. How about other people?"


    "Agreed!" Yukun Buddha, who was from Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, thought for a while and nodded his head in agreement, saying, "I have no objection to this proposal!"


    The emissaries of the Dragon Thunder Palace and Jade Pool nodded their heads in agreement successively. For them, to secure the Zhou''s from dangers for 100 years was just a piece of cake. Their hard work would be worthwhile if Zhou Bao no longer caused any trouble for them. Moreover, if they thought about it carefully, they would find that it was nothing. Given Zhou Bao''s prestige, and coupled with the power of the Wuyang Region, no one would be that stupid to cause trouble for the Zhou Family directly. As for the little troubles behind the scenes, the five biggest sects would certainly handle them. Even if there were some people who didn''t take orders from the five biggest sects and would like to threaten the Zhou Family, judging by the information channel and influence of the five biggest sects, their tricks would be easily discovered before they could even take action. So it was very easy to nip their actions in the bud. Furthermore, time was fleeting and 100 years would pass in a flash. Otherwise, if they failed to reach an agreement on this matter, the "shit-stirrer" Zhou Bao would definitely keep being a Level Nine expert for more than 100 years because that was quite simple for him. In that case, they would suffer great losses by then.


    "How about you, Mr. Ren II?" Zhou Bao turned his head and asked. It seemed that he was quite satisfied with the other four sects'' attitudes.


    "Since everyone has no objection, surely, I have no objection as well!" said Ren II. Of course, he would not object to it at this moment. "But should we have a nice chat with you about the details?"


    "That''s for sure!" Zhou Bao continued, "We''d better make everything clear!"


    Wearing a satisfied smile, the emissaries of the five biggest sects and eight well-known families left there six hours later. However, Yan Yucheng left grim-faced. Obviously, he was still furious about being humiliated by Zhou Bao in public.


    "Your Royal Highness, for what reason did they come here?"


    In the entire Wuyang Region, only Zhou Bao knew what the five biggest sects and the eight well-known families came here for. It was because he had driven all his subordinates away before they started to conduct the conversation.


    After those people left, Jiang Xiao and the others discovered that Zhou Bao did not look well, so they asked Zhou Bao the question cautiously.


    "For what?! For pushing me to make a decision!" Zhou Bao waved his sleeves angrily and continued, "They came here for pushing me into staying out of worldly affairs. In other words, you guys can''t come to me for anything in the future!"


    "Eh? Why? Your Excellency, how about us...!"


    "You guys can rest assured. I''ve made a deal with them. Do everything the same as you did before. It''s no big deal. I''ve suffered a big loss this time, but I shall regain it in the end. Humph, no one can easily profit at my expense!" Zhou Bao''s tone got grimmer and grimmer.

 503 The Odd Change of the Flipping Sky Seal The Craziness of Secret Skill Part 1

    "Hey, you''re still here?" After going through some matters with Jiang Xiao, Zhou Bao returned to the Inner Yard, and found to his surprise, that White Tiger was in his study room, waiting for him.


    "I was just curious to find out how this matter was resolved so easily!" White Tiger gave Zhou Bao a puzzled look. "Before I came, I was worried that things would get out of control!"


    "Do you think I''m that silly?" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. "Your stance is even more aggressive than the Palace''s. Even if I had full confidence in myself, I would not be so silly as to take on the five biggest sects all at once!" At this point, a glum expression came over Zhou Bao''s face. "If I recall correctly, I am also a member of the Immortal Palace. I''m even one of the 28 constellations. Why does the Immortal Palace consider me to be an enemy? They even dared to scheme against me at the Infinite Star Sea!"


    White Tiger''s expression remained unchanged. He smiled. "You''ve misunderstood. The one who schemed against you at the Infinite Star Sea was Divine Wind Palace, not the Immortal Palace. At that point, we thought that concealing your identity would be hugely advantageous, so that''s why we cooperated with them. As for the details, I was about to explain to you in person, but little did I realize that you''ve already received the news!"


    "I also know that that damn Zhi IX has been stirring up trouble among us!"


    At this moment, White Tiger was finally convinced. "I have really underestimated you. Even Wang She is probably not aware of this news. Likewise for Golden Rooster. Seems like you have a better source for the latest news!"


    "Don''t try to test me. It would be useless. You''re right, I do indeed have other news sources. But I won''t share them with you!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. "Why exactly are you still here?"


    "Mainly because of what you told me earlier. But I must correct one point: Zhi IX is indeed plotting against you, but only on the terms that you do not accept today''s condition!"


    White Tiger added gently, "In fact, I had a discussion with him before I came here. Even if you were to disagree, we would not fight with you directly. Zhi IX has already drawn up a list of attacks to use against you. They have prepared themselves very well, but they did not expect that you would agree immediately. All his set-ups are of no use now. Seems like after Zhi IX received the news, he had a firsthand experience of what it feels like to be defeated!"


    "Am I Zhi IX''s enemy? Why is he treating me like this?"


    "Zhi IX is on very good terms with Mingyi School. He thinks he is an intellectual and likes everything to be meticulously planned. He pursues the kind of world where every move and every thought are like chess pieces; all within his control and every move is calculated. And you, you are the disobedient chess piece that messed up his entire plan. Of course he wants to eliminate you. It''s nothing personal."


    "Damn, how unlucky I am to come across a lunatic like him!" Zhou Bao swore. "Then, is there a way to eliminate this Zhi IX? He is really a thorn in my side! If he could not find trouble with me now, he would definitely try to find trouble with me the next time. Why not eliminate him once and for all?"


    "You want to fight with Zhi IX? It will not be easy. Although his cultivation and strength are both not very impressive, he''s one of Yu Taixu''s top man. If something happens to him, Yu Taixu will definitely come after you!"


    "Yu Taixu?"


    "That''s right. Yu Taixu, Lord of Divine Wind Palace, Family Head of the Yu family!" At this point, White Tiger seemed to recall something and immediately flashed a huge grin. "I heard that Divine Wind Palace incurred huge losses this time at Azure Heaven. Not only did they lose quite a few Venerable Realm Genuine Immortals, but Yu Taicang lost his own blood brother as well. The Lord of Heaven Realm, Yu Taicang, has been stuck in the Azure Secret Area and his fairy weapon has gone missing. That caused a great damage to his pneuma!"


    "No...? Is this some sort of trick played by Divine Wind Palace? A Genuine Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm could easily kill a Venerable Realm Immortal with a mere snap of his fingers. He''s still trapped even though he has a fairy weapon?" Zhou Bao had an odd expression on his face with a hint of incredulity. "I think Divine Wind Palace is releasing such false news so that they can keep the Azure Secret Area to themselves. You guys may have fallen into their trap. Anyway this would not be the first time!"


    Hearing Zhou Bao''s ruthless snide remarks, White Tiger looked a little unhappy. However, he didn''t know how else to explain it either. The defeat of the four great sects by Divine Wind Palace at the Azure Secret Area was an indisputable fact. Whenever this subject was brought up, the four great sects always felt completely mortified. Divine Wind Palace was much more powerful than them and this was the outcome.


    Of course, the only reason why they were able to clear the scene so easily was because Divine Wind Palace had honored their commitment and to the enormous losses at the Azure Secret Area.


    "This news is accurate. In Divine Wind Palace, Yu Taicang is presumed to be dead already. Recently Yu Taixu has been busy trying to reincarnate what is left of Yu Taicang''s spirit in the Golden Book of Fate. News has it that he is furious!"


    "Reincarnating his spirit!" Zhou Bao''s eyes twitched. "If that is so, then he must be aware of the events that took place in the Azure Secret Area right?"


    "Psh, I doubt. Although that little bit of Genuine Spirit had once been connected to Yu Taicang, it had been severed by a huge gust of energy when he entered the Azure Secret Area. Therefore, nobody knew what had actually happened in the Azure Secret Area. One only knows that Yu Taicang had perished together with his fellow Genuine Immortals, leaving Divine Wind Palace much weaker now.


    "A few Venerables and a Lord of Heaven Realm Immortal shouldn''t matter too much to Divine Wind Palace right?"


    "Doesn''t matter? The entire Divine Wind Palace has only three Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm. There are a limited number of Genuine Immortals of the Venerable Realm. With such a huge loss occurring at the same time, it can be considered an enormous damage even to Divine Wind Palace!" A hint of sadistic joy could be detected in White Tiger''s speech.


    "Can this really be confirmed? A Genuine Immortal of the Lord of Heaven Realm with a fairy weapon, together with so many other Venerables, perishing at the Azure Secret Area. How is that possible?"


    "I can only say that Divine Wind Palace really had rotten luck this time. Now everyone is speculating that there could be an Ancient Mighty Expert hidden in the Azure Secret Area. We did not encroach on his territory the previous time we were there, so that''s why he allowed us in. But with Divine Wind Palace''s ambitious plans, of course they would end up in a situation like that!"


    "Ancient Mighty Expert?" Zhou Bao looked solemn as he coughed out the four words, resisting the urge to burst into laughter. "Is that even possible?"


    "Why not? The 33 Heavens have their own masters. Plus with Azure Heaven becoming so eccentric over time, it is highly possible that the Emperor of the Azure Heaven has been asleep all this while in Azure Heaven. Perhaps he is already in control of the Origin of the Great Ways in the Azure Secret Area. When Divine Wind Palace brought in the copy of the Golden Book of Fate and their fairy weapons, they were like feeding meat buns to chase away dogs! They were totally helpless!"


    "Now that you''ve put it this way, it is highly possible. Hehe, feeding meat buns to dogs. There is no going back. This time Divine Wind Palace has really met with misfortune. Their strength has been seriously diminished and they even lost a fairy weapon. Given that they have to compensate the four great sects for so many things, they must have suffered a huge loss in their pneuma!"


    "I know what you are thinking about. However, don''t be over positive. This time Divine Wind Palace had been very decisive in their judgment, playing a game of benefits that easily trapped us. At the same time, they also took out the Infinite Star Sea''s Void Map. Most importantly, even though Divine Wind Palace has suffered damage, they are still stronger than the four great sects combined. They had three Lord of Heaven Immortals. Now they have lost one and are left with two. The other four great sects, besides us Immortal Palace, only have one Lord of Heaven Immortal. As for Venerables, the Divine Wind Palace is definitely in the lead. Therefore, unless the four great sects come to a consensus to collaborate and are willing to pay a huge price in order to defeat Divine Wind Palace, there is no way we can control them!"


    White Tiger''s words were realistic and at the same time had a trace of helplessness. Zhou Bao could detect traces of melancholy and despair in his tone. Divine Wind Palace had been acting on their own terms for too long already. However, their strength was seriously very powerful. Although Immortal Palace was second in terms of power, they still lagged far behind Divine Wind Palace. More importantly, it was difficult for Immortal Palace to form a collaboration. In fact, among the five great sects, the rules in Immortal Palace were the most liberal. Everyone had a lot of leisure time and everyone was impossibly idle. One of the two Lord of Heaven Realm Genuine Immortals mentioned by White Tiger was truly a lazy bum. It was possible that even if Immortal Palace was in a state of fatal danger, he would not bother to lend a helping hand.


    "It seems that Divine Wind Palace, ultimately has the greater advantage!"


    "That''s right. In the end, Divine Wind Palace has the upper hand!" White Tiger lamented helplessly. "I wanted to help you in secret for today''s affair. But I did not expect that you would be so good with your words - I wouldn''t know how to do you a favor!"


    "Forget it. You''ve already helped me so much this time!" Zhou Bao smiled, "if it was not for your secret support, we would not have struck a deal!"


    "You are a smart guy. I will not say anything more. Your sudden cooperation this time really messed up Zhi IX''s plan. At the same time, you allowed us to act without any worries. I believe after a while, it would be time to travel to the Infinite Star Sea. Are you planning to go?"


    "I am very interested in the Infinite Star Sea. However, with what is left of my little life, I''d better take it easy. I won''t be going to the Infinite Star Sea. Recently there have been some obstacles in my practice. I would need some time to break through that."


    "Obstacles? You are planning to break through the Mysterious Realm?" White Tiger asked, smilingly.


    "No, I''m not that silly. If I surpass the Mysterious Realm so quickly, people would come after me. However, even if I don''t surpass the Mysterious Realm, I need to get more information about some things" At this point, he scratched his head helplessly. "I have been improving my strength really quickly. But It feels like my foundation is a bit weak!"


    "Good that you can see that. However, I don''t seem to see any signs of weakening in your foundation!" White Tiger looked at Zhou Bao. "Alright, since you have stuff to do, I will not force you any longer. The voyage to the Infinite Star Sea would start in three years If you change your mind, inform me at least half a year in advance. I will make the arrangements!"


    "No problem!"

 504 The Odd Change of the Flipping Sky Seal The Craziness of Secret Skill Part 2

    After sending White Tiger off, Zhou Bao''s expression became gloomier.


    It seemed like this time round, all the parties were happy. Everyone had reached their objectives. However, it was the five great sects together with the eight well-known families that had visited the palace. It was only after Zhou Bao understood the situation that he agreed.


    To put it bluntly, it was basically a treaty signed under coercion.


    Zhou Bao was not a gentleman, but he understood that he would incur losses if he did not capitalize on the situation now. Now that he had lost the opportunity, he felt very bitter. Regardless of whoever the person might be, no one would be happy to be coerced into signing a treaty.


    It was due to the bitterness and dissatisfaction in his heart that Zhou Bao was unable to focus on his practice. When he was regulating his breathing, he felt the urge to go on a rampage to relieve the frustration in his heart.


    "Hooo---!"


    Zhou Bao heaved a sigh of relief as he sat on his bed. His eyes were opened wide and his gaze was filled with helplessness.


    "This will not do. The amount of pneuma in this world is too low. It is not suitable for practicing the Primordial Fierce Beast at all! Next time, it would be best to practice in the Sea of Divine Power. It is only there that I can truly practice in a normal way!"


    At this point, he cupped both his hands to set up a mysterious formation. As the formation took shape, an ancient seal made of the Mysterious Divine Light appeared in front of him.


    It was the Flipping Sky Seal!


    The Flipping Sky Seal did not automatically absorb the surrounding essence of the world this time round. It was made up purely of the Mysterious Divine Light. As the dark red light swirled, rays of ancient talisman flickered as they emerged. This Flipping Sky Seal was only as big as a fist, but the surrounding spirit was not able to suppress it.


    "Spirit, damn it. This Flipping Sky Seal contains a trace of my spirit. When exactly did this happen? How did a trace of my spirit manage to merge with this?" Zhou Bao had an odd expression on his face as he connected telepathically with the spirit emerging from the Flipping Sky Seal.


    "Why does the Flipping Sky Seal seem more and more like a celestial device rather than a secret skill? Could it be¡­?"


    All of a sudden, a strange idea popped into his mind. As his divine thoughts wavered, the golden light radiating from his fingertips started to flash. Amidst these rays of golden light, a golden seal as big as the palm of his hand appeared in front of Zhou Bao. Its light rays returned to the ruby ring on his fingers.


    The Dragon Seal, made primarily of adamantine that is thousands of years old, contains ninety nine thousand and eighty types of rare jade essence. Together with a Black Dragon''s soul, this is the Rolling Dragon King''s Elder''s token. Although it was not a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it could definitely be considered as a supreme Mysterious Level Celestial Device. Even its solidity was not any lesser than that of a Pure Yang Celestial Device. "Hehe, token, of course this kind of token is strong. It should be sufficient!" Zhou Bao thought to himself. As he released his hand, he saw the Mysterious Divine Light that made up the Flipping Sky Seal melt into a swirling light that traveled directly towards the Dragon Seal.


    "Bang!"


    A solid bang. What a pity that the Dragon Seal which was made of rare and strong adamantine had shattered into pieces.


    "Damn!" Zhou Bao swore beneath his breath. His fingers were once again aglow with bright lights. This time, another huge seal appeared in front of him.


    This was not a Mysterious Level Celestial Device. It was a Pure Yang Celestial Device. It was one of the Pure Yang Celestial Device that had been stolen from the unfortunate Master Jin Hua: the Earth-enveloping Seal.


    The Earth-enveloping Seal was also a big seal. This seal radiated a golden light. Once Fu Yi appeared, a gust of warm air permeated the place. Zhou Bao did not take his eyes off the seal. When this big seal appeared, he felt an obvious transformation in the Flipping Sky Seal he had hit. At the same time, the Earth-enveloping Seal also underwent a mysterious change. The two devices seemed to be attracted to each other and this connection seemed to be the same as the attraction between two lovers.


    "This is...!"


    All of a sudden, Zhou Bao saw a talisman flashing in the golden light of the Earth-enveloping Seal. Another followed and subsequently another. In the end, there were six talismans gathered together in a formation.


    "This is the core talisman formation of the Earth-enveloping Seal. Why are there only six of them? Shouldn''t there be nine? Damn it, it seems the same as the talisman in the Flipping Sky Seal. Maybe they are from the same source. No, these six talismans were all carved from the talisman of the Flipping Sky Seal. They are broken talismans. Only the ones in the Flipping Sky Seal are complete!"


    When Zhou Bao finally saw all of the six talismans clearly, he nearly jumped up in surprise.


    The core of all Pure Yang Celestial Device was composed from this talisman formation.


    Although he had been in this world for about 20 years already, Zhou Bao still didn''t know what a talisman was up to this point. Neither did he know what they were.


    Even though he had practiced a Pure Yang Celestial Device by himself before: The Golden Flame Mirror.


    During that time, when the Golden Flame Mirror was still in its formation process, it naturally formed a talisman formation. Green Spirit called it the core of the Pure Yang Celestial Device. That talisman formation consisted of nine talismans arranged in an odd fashion. They were all formed naturally and not intentionally carved by Zhou Bao. Therefore, Zhou Bao did not understand what each talisman meant. Rationalizing to himself that as long as he could use it, he did not pursue further the meaning of the talisman. However, he seemed to sense something different today. Yet this feeling was extremely vague. Just as he was about to investigate further, the Flipping Sky Seal and the Earth-enveloping Seal merged into one. At this moment, Zhou Bao''s eyes bulged. His entire being seemed to be immersed in this strange fusion.


    He did not know what material the Earth-enveloping Seal was made of. However, when this huge seal fused with the Flipping Sky Seal he had punched, a strange picture came into his mind. The talisman in the Flipping Sky Seal seemed to have swallowed the six talismans in the Earth-enveloping Seal. However, these six talismans seemed to be unhappy with the situation and began to fight back fiercely.


    If it was a one to one match, Zhou Bao could be sure that the swallowing of the six talisman had happened in a blink of an eye. Even if there were three, being swallowed completely only required a moment''s effort. However, these six talismans seemed to have lives of their own. The talisman formation seemed to be battling with the Flipping Sky Seal. The six talismans tried to protect themselves and the Flipping Sky Seal could not handle that for a moment.


    Just when a stalemate was about to be reached, he suddenly felt his own Dantian shake. The Mysterious Divine Light in the Dantian was suddenly sucked out by a huge gust of energy. And this gust of energy was precisely that of the Flipping Sky Seal he had hit.


    "No way!" Zhou Bao wailed, yet he was unable to stop this move. He was extremely curious to know the outcome.


    The talisman in the Flipping Sky Seal was boosted by the Mysterious Divine Light from Zhou Bao. It immediately burst out in light rays and suddenly, engulfed the talisman formation made of up six talismans.


    "What? It''s this easy? What an anti-climax!" Zhou Bao swore secretly. He initially thought that the matter had been resolved. However, he did not expect the next occurrence which was when the Flipping Sky Seal underwent a mysterious transformation.


    It actually started to decompose.


    "No way!" Zhou Bao''s expression was glum. One must understand that the Flipping Sky Seal had been punched by him. It was not only intricately connected to his own body, but had also fused with his spirit. Any changes to this talisman would also affect Zhou Bao''s inner spirit and pneuma.


    Zhou Bao suddenly felt dizzy. His Internal Qi had started to act up but at least he was vigilant. Together with something as eccentric as the Fiery Eyes, he was extremely sensitive to any changes in his spirit and Internal Qi. That was why his reaction was so fast. He slowly began to operate the secret skill of the Flipping Sky Seal in order to suppress and calm the storm within him. At this point, the floating Flipping Sky Seal and the Earth-enveloping Seal had completely fused into one. The engulfment of the Earth-enveloping Seal''s talisman by the Flipping Sky Seal had started to decompose badly, forming three talismans in the end. These three talismans were unlike the original ones in the Flipping Sky Seal nor was it the same as the ones in the Earth-enveloping Seal. They were slightly more intricate than the other two talismans but they were not as complicated as the ones in the Flipping Sky Seal. It fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, forming an entirely new talisman.


    Following the fusion and the decomposition of the talisman, the Flipping Sky Seal and the Earth-enveloping Seal had by now completely fused together. The Earth-enveloping Seal''s original golden light had turned into a faint golden red color. It gently caressed the seal in his hands and a feeling of blood-deep connection seemed to flow out.


    The new seal was totally red in color. The shape was the same as the original one in the Earth-enveloping Seal but it was smaller in size. Zhou Bao was able to cradle it in his hands, just like an egg.


    Suddenly, Zhou Bao seemed to realize something. As he opened his hands and stretched out his five fingers, the Earth-enveloping Seal transformed into a golden red streamer and flew towards his Dantian.


    Once the Divine Awareness had entered his Dantian, the Earth-enveloping Seal wrapped itself around him and quietly nourished him.


    "Now I understand!"


    Zhou Bao began mumbling to himself. As he operated the secret skill of the Flipping Sky Seal, the Mysterious Divine Light began to move and the seal in his Dantian flew out instantly and floated in front of him.


    Its speed was much faster than the original Flipping Sky seal. As for its power, Zhou Bao knew without even trying. The Flipping Sky Seal that existed after engulfing and fusing with the Earth-enveloping Seal was definitely much stronger than the Earth-enveloping Seal and also stronger than the Flipping Sky Seal he had used at the Mountain City of the Qin Family.


    The most important fact was that his own Mysterious Divine Light would not be depleted. In other words, he would not have to use up his own Real Essence Internal Qi and Dharma power. There would not be any additional strain to his tendons and meridians.


    "Is this the foundation of the real secret skill? This secret skill is not a fighting scene though. Unless it is a way to practice celestial devices?"


    Zhou Bao stood up and walked towards the door. As he pointed at the golden right seal, he saw the seal travel towards him. It rose to form a square and suppressed everything. Everything on the Heavens and Earth turned into fine powder and flew towards him. With Zhou Bao''s current power, he did not even flinch.


    "Although it is not comparable to a fairy weapon, it is definitely much stronger than an average Pure Yang Celestial Device!"

 505 The Secret of the Void Map Part 1

    "It seems that there are different rankings for Pure Yang Celestial Devices. And the ranking corresponds to the number of talismans in the talisman formation!"


    Zhou Bao had a sudden flash of insight. He owned numerous Pure Yang Celestial Devices but did not have the time to refine them. In reality, he did not dare to take them out. The Earth-enveloping Seal belonged to Master Jinhua, not the Rolling Dragon King. Although he had obtained many valuable treasures from the Rolling Dragon King, it took too much effort to use them. He did not even have the energy to refine them.


    As for the Earth-enveloping Seal, he had tried it once or twice. Although it was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, based on its power alone, it was comparable to the Flipping Sky Seal. Therefore, he did not see a need to flaunt it. However, he did not expect to come across such a situation. To discover such a secret was completely beyond Zhou Bao''s imagination.


    The discovery had been a coincidence. The talisman in the Earth-enveloping Seal originated from the Flipping Sky Seal. This was why it succeeded so easily. If it was not for this, the Earth-enveloping Seal might have met the same outcome as the Dragon Seal.


    Looking at it now, the Flipping Sky Seal that had fused with the Earth-enveloping Seal, when compared to the original Earth-enveloping Seal and Flipping Sky Seal, was a whole lot stronger. This was not a mere coincidence. At the same time, it sparked off several ideas in Zhou Bao''s head.


    "Since the Flipping Sky Seal could be operated this way, what about the Infinite Trembling Contemplation? And the Seven Wonderful Techniques?"


    Was it possible that if he could really find a corresponding Pure Yang Celestial Device, or even create his own corresponding Pure Yang Celestial Device, he could fuse it with another Celestial Device just like the Flipping Sky Seal?"


    Once this idea emerged, it stayed rooted in his mind. It was impossible to dislodge it. He stood at one spot in a dazed manner, deep in thought. After an extraordinary amount of time had passed, he was finally shaken out of his reverie by the first rays of sunshine rising from the east.


    "Damn, what have I been daydreaming about? The Eight Words have not been defeated yet. I have been very lucky this time round. Who knows how long I would have to wait until another chance like this comes again. Still, with this new Flipping Sky Seal, my combat capability has definitely increased!"


    "Wasn''t that a big deal?"


    The last time he used the Flipping Sky Seal, the one composed entirely of pure Real Essence, it not only depleted an enormous quantity of the Real Essence, but it also exerted a huge strain on his tendons and meridians. Of course, with Zhou Bao''s superior Real Essence, strong tendons and meridians, this was something he could easily ignore. Still, making a Flipping Sky Seal would require time. Was it a good time now?


    It was a totally different matter now that the two seals have fused and were being sustained in his Dantian. On the one hand, one seal would be strengthened by the Mysterious Divine Light''s sustenance and slowly increase in strength. On the other hand, the Flipping Sky Seal''s old spirit which was able to suppress all things would also be in contact with his Mysterious Divine Light and thus could also increase its strength. Plus, the Pure Yang Qi received from that was also hugely beneficial for Zhou Bao''s body. Although Zhou Bao was not too concerned about this benefit, having some was still better than none.


    Zhou Bao wished that something as good as this would happen more regularly. However, he did not have that many secret skills now. He only had the Infinite Trembling Contemplation and the Seven Wonderful Techniques. Although these two secret skills were powerful, they did not have the fixed formation when it was in use, unlike the one that characterized the Flipping Sky Seal. Without a fixed formation, there was no target. Only the Heavens knew what their fixed forms looked like.


    Forget about the Infinite Trembling Contemplation. Zhou Bao believed that once he gained the knowledge of the secret skill, it would eventually fix its shape. But what about the two types in the Seven Wonderful Techniques?


    Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Technique - would these two techniques have a fixed formation as well?


    Zhou Bao did not know!


    "Forget it. Stop thinking too much. This is not going to help me. This big seal would be useful for now. Hehe, this thing should be called the Flipping Sky Seal and not the Earth-enveloping Seal. I would love to find a chance to use this seal''s power. I just need someone to test this Celestial Device on. It would come in useful if I need to hit someone. Sigh, when will that person appear so that I can try this out? I am really looking forward to that moment!"


    Zhou Bao pursed his lips and gazed at the rising sun on the eastern horizon. He had many random thoughts running through his mind. Finally, he sighed helplessly and left.


    ¡­


    In the infinite hollow, there was a flash of a strange white color.


    At Taihua Mountain which was drifting in the hollow, Fate Creation Boy sat cross-legged. His smooth eyebrows were now tightly furrowed. He seemed to be deep in thought.


    Venerable Black Turtle had a helpless look on his face. "What if we tell the sects about the Infinite Star Sea matter? Maybe they will not go anymore!"


    "That won''t do. Those are all quick-witted men. Especially Yu Taixu from Divine Wind Palace - he''s way too greedy. If we were to tell him the secret of the Infinite Star Sea, it would only increase his greed. When the time comes, there will be huge trouble."


    "But this is not the way either. They are preparing to leave for the Infinite Star Sea soon. Once they remove the restrictions, there would be so much trouble!"


    "I know. That''s why I''m having a headache now!" Fate Creation Boy laughed. "We have invested so much effort and put in a lot of sacrifices in order to seal the Infinite Star Sea back then. Who would have thought that such an accident would happen? How frustrating!"


    "Squeak!" Just when Fate Creation Boy was racking his brains, an odd sound could be heard. A streak of grey flashed by and a squirrel-like creature scurried onto his shoulder. It was squeaking non-stop at him, as if trying to comfort him.


    If Zhou Bao was present, he would have shouted aloud. This was because the grey creature was the same one that was able to operate the Three Realms Division; the one he encountered at Misty Mountain. The creature smelt really bad, yet the two of them were able to get along well. But when Zhou Bao returned to Misty Mountain once more, he could no longer find it. He genuinely felt a bit sad. He did not expect that it would have gone to Taihua Mountain.


    As for the Venerable Black Turtle, his eyes shone once he saw the creature. "You''re right. Why not get Zhou Bao to help us keep an eye on it. This guy''s skills are really so impressive that even I don''t know how strong he really is. Plus, he isn''t really on good terms with the sects, especially Divine Wind Palace. Their conflict is simply not something that can be easily mediated and resolved. Look!"


    "This..." Fate Creation Boy grabbed the little creature on his shoulders and began stroking his head. He sighed heavily, "I did think about that. But just like what you said, I no longer know what he is like now. This guy is keeping a huge secret and he always has great luck. I really don''t want to have too much interaction with him in case I get embroiled in it too!"


    "But you are already deeply involved!" Venerable Black Turtle sighed. "Don''t forget you saved his life back then. Both of you are also connected in the Sea Area. He knows that you exist. To get out of this situation would not be easy. This matter is significant. Unless you are willing to sever all ties with the five sects, then you have no power to stop this. Why not let Zhou Bao help? Perhaps you''ll stand a chance then. As for implicating Zhou Bao, that isn''t so important!"


    "Squeak squeak"


    The little creature responded to Venerable Black Turtle''s words by making squeaking sounds


    "You little creature, are you trying to be involved too?" Fate Creation Boy joked. "However, it does seem like the only way now. I just don''t know if Zhou Bao will be willing to accept. He had only recently been bullied by the five biggest sects. He must be feeling very bitter now!"


    "It is precisely because of this bitterness that he would be willing to make the five biggest sects suffer!"


    "Then try. Give him all the information. If you really want to form ties with this fellow, then you have to provide him with specific details. To involve yourself with a man of such good fortune would not be an easy feat. If something messes up, there would be lots of trouble in the future. Therefore, you have to explain to him clearly!"


    "I understand!"Venerable Black Turtle nodded. "So, you''re not preparing to show yourself?"


    "Yes. You have worked with him before. You are the best person to do this. Oh right, bring this creature along too. It also has some ties with Zhou Bao previously. Plus, he is talented and will be able to gain insights about the Great Way of Heavens and Realms. There are not many places that are off-limits to him in Heaven and Earth. Getting him to be the messenger is a great choice!"


    "Ok!" Venerable Black Turtle nodded and frowned at the little creature. He pinched his nose and gently carried it.


    "Alright, little fella. Don''t fart. I''m going to bring you to someone you once knew!"


    ...


    At this point it was already morning. Zhou Bao returned to the Inner Yard of King Wuyang''s place. Yan Yunfei and her children were sound asleep. Zhou Bao did not dare to disturb them. Instead he returned to his study room and felt a strange sense of relief arising spontaneously.


    Although this time he was not in an advantageous situation and had been coerced to sign a treaty, he somehow felt relieved after signing it.


    For him, the biggest difficulty was ensuring his family''s safety. From a certain perspective, this was the responsibility he had to carry for a three-thousand-year-old family. It was a huge burden to his cultivation and mental state. One could not possibly practice cultivation and at the same time worry about a family''s safety. And as his powers grew stronger, the number of enemies also grown. His worries had increased greatly but now everything was alright. With a treaty and within a span of a century, he did not have to fear for his family''s safety. He had completely resolved all his worries. This huge sense of relief had elevated his mental state and the Mysterious Divine Light within him had progressed greatly.


    "I don''t know if this is a curse or my fate!" Zhou Bao laughed at himself. "But it''s good this way too. Although my combat capability had long surpassed that of the Venerable Realm, my cultivation is still at the Mysterious Realm. Having fused with the Real Body of Zhuyan, my status is equivalent to the peak in the Pulse-steadying Realm. Why not use this chance to get my Mysterious Divine Light and my body to surpass the Blood-changing Realm; to use a human body to surpass the Three Big Realms? My strength can then be transformed totally. Who knows what it will be like to be the Real Body of Zhuyan in the future? Hey, why is it so smelly?"

 506 The Secret of the Void Map Part 2

    A pungent odor pervaded the entire study room within a short time. Suddenly, Zhou Bao felt like vomiting.


    "This spirit, this smell. Damn it. It smells just like that little monster!"


    The smell triggered a memory that had long been sealed in the recesses of his mind. He first felt surprised, then shock, and suddenly he shouted. He could not stand the smell anymore and started to vomit.


    Just as he was throwing up, his body flashed and the Three Realms Division appeared. In an instant, it broke through the hollow and emerged in his spiritual mind which had a telepathic connection with the source of the odor.


    "It''s you!"


    Venerable Black Turtle had been prepared for Zhou Bao''s sudden appearance. Just when Zhou Bao''s figure was fading, he moved forward about three feet from his original position. He held the little monster in his hand. He greeted Zhou Bao who was smiling, "It''s me. I brought an old friend along!"


    As soon as the little monster saw Zhou Bao, it began to squeak. Obvious signs of joy could be felt from its cries. It wrestled away from Venerable Black Turtle''s hands and with a squeak, disappeared. Subsequently, a wave of pungent odor followed.


    "Damn you!" Zhou Bao shouted. He had to use the Three Realms Division to avoid the force of the little monster''s pungent odor.


    "Black Turtle Elder, why are you with this little monster?"


    "When you left Misty Mountain that year, Fate Creation Boy thought it was rather interesting. So he kept it at Taihua Mountains and trained it to practice the Great Way of Heavens and Realms. I only brought it with me here this time round because of a crucial matter !"


    "Practising the Great Way of Heavens and Realms?" Zhou Bao was shocked. He looked at the little monster with envy. "What a lucky fellow!"


    "Squeak, squeak!" the little fellow''s intelligence had been highly developed. Although it could not speak, it had a quick mind and could understand interaction between men. Hearing the jealous tones in Zhou Bao''s words, it sat back on its haunches and with bulging cheeks, made a funny face at Zhou Bao.


    "Haha, this little fellow!" After seeing the little monster, Zhou Bao''s jealously dissipated. It was as if he was back to the days when he was practicing the Three Realms Division together with the little fellow; when they fooled around and ate roasted meat together. Zhou Bao immediately felt his spirits lifting. Reaching out, he broke through the hollow and grabbed the little fellow.


    The little fellow was shocked by Zhou Bao''s sudden move. It squirmed and tried to escape. However, it did not expect that Zhou Bao''s hand had sealed off the surrounding hollow. This prevented it from going anywhere. Zhou Bao had successfully captured it, much to its surprise.


    However, Zhou Bao did not do anything else. He only picked it up and placed it on his shoulder. He turned around and spoke to Venerable Black Turtle, "The Elder''s presence must signify something urgent. Please tell me more when we are in the study room!" As he spoke, Zhou Bao flipped his hand and a large slab of roasted meat appeared out of nowhere. He handed it over his shoulder.


    The little fellow was still upset to have been caught by Zhou Bao. He wanted to release another fart but then smelt the roasted meat. Its face instantly broke into a grin. It grabbed the roasted meat, sat on Zhou Bao''s shoulder and began chewing it, no longer thinking about Zhou Bao or Venerable Black Turtle.


    Venerable Black Turtle looked at the little fellow, laughed and entered the study room together with Zhou Bao. When they were in the study room, both of their eyebrows instantly furrowed. The smell of the little fellow''s fart still lingered in the study room. The two men had forgotten all about this and inhaled the pungent odor. They lifted their sleeves and swept out the lingering odor. At the same time, everything in the room was also overturned.


    They placed the chairs back with wry smiles. Zhou Bao and Venerable Black Turtle were worried that the little fellow might threaten them again. He brought out another piece of roasted fish and handed it over his shoulder. It was only then that he smiled at Venerable Black Turtle, "Elder, I wonder what orders you may have?"


    "No orders. I just need your help with something!" Venerable Black Turtle smiled. Although Zhou Bao had extraordinary abilities and was not in the service of Venerable Black Turtle, he always maintained a respectful attitude towards him. This pleased Venerable Black Turtle immensely. Although at Zhou Bao''s phase he need not have any worries, he still maintained an objective yet accommodating attitude towards everything. His respectful attitude would come in useful.


    "I''ve come to ask you for a favor!"


    "Elder, you must be joking. If you have any orders, please state it. What''s with the choice to help or not!" Zhou Bao laughed and waved his hand.


    "Hehe, it''s not the same, it''s not the same. This matter concerns us. However, it is hard for us to interfere due to a number of reasons. This is why I am here. It is a huge favor to ask of you. We would not ask you to carry out any insignificant task!"


    Hearing Venerable Black Turtle''s solemn tone, Zhou Bao felt a little nervous. Yet, he received the news with a smile, "I wonder what can cause Fate Creation Boy to be in such a difficult position?"


    "Sigh, it''s all for that Infinite Star Sea Void Map!" Venerable Black Turtle laughed wryly. "We are desperately in need of the Infinite Star Sea. All this while Fate Creation Boy has been governing it. This is because there was only half a Void Map. Although the five greatest sects could reach the Infinite Star Sea, they could not enter it. For the sake of convenience, Fate Creation Boy has always kept the secret of the Infinite Star Sea. But who would have thought that the five greatest sect was able to get their hands on a complete Void Map! If they enter the Infinite Star Sea and mess up the inhibitions within, then we will be in big trouble!"


    "What kind of inhibitions are there in the Infinite Star Sea?" Zhou Bao asked, confused.


    "A Primordial Demon is sealed in the depths of The Infinite Star Sea!" Venerable Black Turtle''s words did not scare Zhou Bao.


    Primordial Demon?


    This was a creature that was on the same level as the Innate Deities. If one met the Primordial Fierce Beast, one had to retreat as it had an aggressive streak. It was also beyond reason and understanding.


    What does it mean to be beyond reason and understanding?


    A simple example would be: is the Lord of Heaven powerful?


    The Primordial Demon could squash a hundred and even a thousand Lord of Heavens by using just one finger. The two parties were not even on the same level. One need not bother to attack at all if one ever came across a Primordial Demon. The Demon could disperse one''s spirit with just one gaze. The Lord of Heaven, Fiery Eyes and Pure Yang Celestial Device were all useless against it.


    Perhaps only a fairy weapon could deal with it. But a fairy weapon was not something that could be easily refined. Even if one had a fairy weapon in hand, it was not possible to activate all its potential. If a Lord of Heaven were to use a fairy weapon to attack the Primordial Demon, a likely outcome would be that the fairy weapon would be destroyed by the Demon and the Lord of Heaven would be squashed to death. The ending was very straightforward. There were no other possibilities.


    "Since it''s such an important place, why didn''t you tell the five biggest sects so that they can give up the idea of traveling to the Infinite Star Sea?" Zhou Bao asked. He believed that the five biggest sects were not fools. If they could not prioritize, then they would be overwhelmed by greed.


    Venerable Black Turtle sighed. "We have tried. But it is impossible now!"


    "Why?" Zhou Bao asked, confused.


    "It is not like what it was before. The Fate Creation Boy that we know today is not the same Fate Creation Boy in the past. Since Primordial Time, the thousands of realms have all sealed a total of 108 Primordial Demons. These 108 Primordial Demons were kept a secret even in ancient times. Each of the 99 ancient emperors were all responsible for guarding one region. As for the Ancient Celestial Court, they suppressed nine of the strongest demons. For hundreds of thousands of years, all was peaceful. However, since the ancient tribulation, the Heavenly Court and the 99 ancient emperors all sensed something would happen in the future. They could also foresee that after the tribulation, the strongest force on earth would disappear. They would then have no ability to fight the Primordial Demons. Even if the weakest Primordial Demon appeared, it was sufficient to destroy all living things on earth. Out of fear that men may mess with the inhibitions and release these Demons, they sealed these secrets and destroyed all the Void Maps that suppressed these 108 Primordial Demons. Everything was predicted to be peaceful from then on. However, no one would have thought that an officer from the Ancient Celestial Court by the surname of Cao had other plans. Although he was a low ranking officer and did not know the secret of the Void Map, he made the Void Map his family treasure after seeing them. In fact, he made copies of all the 108 Void Maps. If it was not for the Great Tribulation, all the 108 Void Maps would have been copied. After this crime was known, the Ancient Celestial Court was enraged and shattered his spirit. Unfortunately, the 99 Void Maps could not be found. They had been scattered all over the place. After the Great Tribulation, there were not many ancient experts anymore. Those who knew about the secret of the Void Maps were all dead or lost. While the world experienced its most chaotic era, the Void Maps were passed on as secret treasure maps. Every time it appeared it would trigger a heated debate that would inevitably end in bloodshed that disappeared with the flow of time." At this point, Black Turtle Elder sighed again. "People nowadays have long forgotten the strength of the Primordial Demons. Once they know where the Primordial Demons are sealed, the first thought in their minds is not to run, but rather how to take down the beasts and reap the benefits. Hehe, this applies not only to the humans; even the demon tribes would think this way! If we tell them the truth now, they would in fact rush to remove the seal!"


    "Then what kind of a person is Fate Creation Boy? How is it that he knows about the secret of ancient times and even told it to you?"


    "The identity of Fate Creation Boy is extremely special. He is a fortunate remnant of the Ancient Might Expert from the Ancient Tribulation. Although he was fortunate to have survived, his abilities have degenerated by 70% to 80% of his original strength. And, in order to protect the Void Map''s secrets back then, no one knew what the real history of Fate Creation Boy is. Even the five greatest sects see him as a mysterious Lord of Heaven Realm Genuine Immortal. Although this Lord of Heaven status is there for the five greatest sects to be envied, controlling them is another matter. As for me, I was originally the mountain-guarding holy beast belonging to Fate Creation Boy who had suffered serious injuries from the Great Tribulation. I''ve only recently recovered a little of my strength!"


    "What exactly is the tribulation of ancient times?" Zhou Bao asked curiously.

 507 The Tribulation Happened in the Antiquity Times, the Dharma Power-restoring Skill I

    "The tribulation that took place in antiquity times is called Necromancer''s Tribulation. It''s all because of those damned necromancers!" When it came to talking about the tribulation, Mysterious Turtle Sage''s face turned gloomy. "Those necromancers have nothing better to do except to cause troubles. I don''t know what happened exactly. But it is said that a group of necromancers managed to create something extraordinary, and one of them was a puppet. In fact, it''s not clear whether it was a puppet or an incarnation. Anyway, this thing suddenly turned evil and rebelled. It not only killed all the necromancers who had made it, but also started a worldwide massacre. Initially, this was not a big deal as there were a lot of great men who accomplished many things in antiquity times. This thing''s cultivation was equivalent to that of a Human Immortal, which was good but not strong enough to create a lot of problems. However, it had an unexpected ability: to devour the vital essences of living creatures which would in turn strengthen its ability. This ability was passed down from the Primordial Fierce Beasts. There was a limitation to the ability which were confined only to Primordial Fierce Beasts, but not on these things that these necromancers had refined. Thus, after devouring the flesh and blood of some immortals, its power would grow tremendously. Eventually no one could stop it. Most of the 99 Emperors at the time had intervened, and even the Heavenly Court sent in a powerful force. But it was so cunning that it lured all the people to one place and set off a Highest Heaven Celestial Device that had been developed by the necromancers. It then trapped 99 percent of the pursuers, leaving those who manged to escape seriously injured and died shortly after!"


    "No way! A Highest Heaven Celestial Device but not a fairy weapon?"


    "Yes, it was a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, not a fairy weapon. It''s not a fairy weapon, because even though it was powerful, it was a disposable type of weapon. After one use, it would disappear without a trace. Its single use power, though great, was not as powerful as a fairy weapon. But it had a very unique function that could cause abnormalities in a particular area. Who knows how those necromancers came up with it, and why they made it!" At the mention of the necromancers, Mysterious Turtle Sage''s face became fierce and his tone was full of hate. "As soon as this abnormality appeared, it churned up heaven and earth and caused a tribulation. Immortals were unable to escape, and could only put up a struggle. After the tribulation, less than one tenth of the experts survived, and the Uniform Dao of antiquity times gradually declined."


    "How could there be such a thing?" As Zhou Bao listened to the secrets of this tribulation, a thought suddenly occurred to him that these necromancers were much like the scientists from his previous life. They always studied unexplainable things, such as nuclear weapons or the black hole. A mistake could have destroyed the earth. Thinking of these scientists in his previous life, Zhou Bao gave a wry smile and quite understood Mysterious Turtle Sage''s feeling.


    However, Mysterious Turtle Sage was only a mountain-guarding holy beast from antiquity times. He did not have access to the true core secrets, having only a general idea about the event. But this was much more than what ordinary people knew, so Zhou Bao was able to get a glimpse of the tribulation.


    "So, should you meet a necromancer in the future, no matter who he is and what he is doing, just kill him, in case he harms others, understand?"


    Talking about necromancers, Venerable Black Turtle gnashed his teeth in anger and urged Zhou Bao to take his advice. Not wanting to offend Venerable Black Turtle who was talking of his own grievances, Zhou Bao just nodded his head repeatedly.


    Venerable Black Turtle had related to him the events from the past, and Zhou Bao could only nod and agree.


    As Venerable Black Turtle had said, people were now blinded by greed. If the five biggest sects knew that there was a Primordial Demon sealed in the Infinite Star Sea, they would probably bring along their own fairy weapons to battle against it. No one gave any thought to the danger should they fail. Even if someone did think about it, they were not aware of the full extent of the horrors of the Primordial Demon because it had been so long ago. In the end, driven by greed, people would likely take the risk.


    "Then what do you want me to do; Stop them?"


    "No, it''s too dangerous and risky. Aren''t you a member of Immortal Palace? This time the five biggest sects are working together to explore the Infinite Star Sea. It''s their first exploration, so they should not venture too far into that sealed off place. All you have to do is follow them and get the message through in time!" Then he pointed to the little monster, which was gnawing on a fish bone on Zhou Bao''s shoulder, and said, "This little monster has mastered the Great Way of Heavens and Realms, and has previously used a Rampart-passing Grass. If anything should go wrong, just ask him to deliver the letter. There should be no inhibitions in the world that could trap him!"


    "So awesome?" Zhou Bao looked up at that little monster. Thinking that he had sealed the space around it with only one hand and rendered it helpless so easily before, Zhou Bao asked, "But, just now...!"


    "You did it so suddenly that it caught him by surprise. Give him time, he can escape in a hair''s breadth!"


    "Really?" Zhou Bao smiled, quickly raised his hand, and tried to catch the little monster again. This time his action was faster and more violent than the last one.


    Shoop!


    With a gentle sound, the little monster disappeared from their sight. Even though Zhou Bao had sealed the space this time, the little monster slipped through the space wall easily. Then Zhou Bao discovered that the little monster''s fat ass was pointed at his head.


    Instantly, he launched the Three Realms Division and flashed out. The stench permeated the study room again.


    "Fate Creation Boy asked me to give you this Highest Infinite Talisman. No matter how badly hurt you are, as long as you''re still breathing and conscious, you''ll recover completely from any injury. And your spirit, the demonic spirit and Internal Qi will return to their original state. But there''s only one, and you can only use it once, so keep it well!"


    "The Highest Infinite Talisman, how great!" Zhou Bao marveled in his heart and took the Talisman in his hand. Its material was neither silk, nor was it cloth or paper, and there was a layer of green light flashing from it. Zhou Bao didn''t feel any different when he got it. Obviously, all its effects were blocked by the green light. There was also a faint talisman on it, which was as complex and mysterious as that of his Flipping Sky Seal. The only difference was that it was disposable, and his Flipping Sky Seal could be reused.


    He felt a twinge of dizziness as he scrutinized the talisman carefully. He couldn''t make out the details.


    "Forget it. Even Fate Creation Boy could not make out what it says, let alone you!" Finding Zhou Bao staring at the talisman so intently that his eyes seemed about to pop out, Mysterious Turtle Sage laughed, "Put it away!"


    "Okay!" Zhou Bao looked embarrassed and put away the Highest Infinite Talisman.


    "In addition, you''ve refined two of the Seven Wonderful Techniques, the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. I know Dharma Power-restoring Skill which is also one of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. I''ll impart it to you now, as a compensation for your help!"


    The Dharma Power-restoring Skill!


    The Seven Wonderful Techniques!


    Zhou Bao was delighted to hear that. The Seven Wonderful Techniques were his most handy secret skill, which contained endless mysteries. With only two of them, he had benefited a lot. Now he had the opportunity to practice the third one. It was a great surprise.


    "What will happen if I use the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill together? Umm, if there''s a chance, I must get the Immortal Body Technique from Divine Wind Palace. Then I''ll have four of the Seven Wonderful Techniques, heehee!"


    Venerable Black Turtle certainly had no idea that Zhou Bao would come up with the idea of getting the Immortal Body Technique. He immediately taught the way of Dharma Power-restoring Skill to Zhou Bao.


    Although the Seven Wonderful Techniques were very complex, the pithy formula and mental cultivation methods of each technique were pretty simple. This was in accordance with the principle that the greatest truths were often the simplest. The text of the Dharma Power-restoring Skill had more than three hundred words, and it filled Zhou Bao with joy. The Heavenly Jade Technique would increase his strength; the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill could retrain his spirit and the Dharma Power-restoring Skill could increase the speed of Qi restoration.


    In short, when the Real Essence in Dantian was used up, normally Zhou Bao would need four hours of meditation to fully recover, and to replenish the Dantian with pneuma. Now, if he practiced the Dharma Power-restoring Skill to the extreme, his pneuma could be replenished in a few breaths. There would be no problem with pneuma consumption.


    It was much more outlandish than the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skills.


    However, the condition was that it had to be practiced to the extreme. As for Zhou Bao, a beginner, he found that the speed of his Qi restoration tripled in an instant after he made a slight attempt to use the Dharma Power-restoring Skill. As for the effect of the combination with the other two wonderful techniques, it remained to be discovered.


    "It is great! And the Seven Wonderful Techniques really lives up to its name. They''re really wonderful!"


    "Well, I''ve told you everything and now all the tasks have been completed. You''ve learned the Dharma Power-restoring Skill. I have to go!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s surprised look, Venerable Black Turtle realized that his purpose had been achieved, so he took his leave. "This little monster will stay with you. Whenever necessary, put him on display. In Taihua Mountain, Fate Creation Boy never showed it to anyone, so no one would see your connection to us through him!"


    "Okay, no problem. Leave this little monster to me!" Zhou Bao stroked the little monster''s head and laughed.

 508 The Tribulation Happened in the Antiquity Times, the Dharma Power-restoring Skill II

    After sending off Venerable Black Turtle, Zhou Bao could not wait any longer and started to practice the Dharma Power-restoring Skill. Having acquired a lot of benefits from the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, he was now more enthusiastic about the Seven Wonderful Techniques than the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. However he was disappointed by the final result. The Seven Wonderful Techniques were really wonderful techniques. His recovery was faster when he used it than when he had used the Mysterious Divine Light. He believed that as long as he continued to practice it, he would have a greater advantage in restoring his combat capability if he should meet with a formidable enemy in the future. However, when he used the Dharma Power-restoring Skill together with the other two wonderful techniques, he did not receive any reaction. He found that although the Seven Wonderful Techniques could be used as a combination, the effect depended largely on the situation. The Heavenly Jade Technique was used to exert power, and the function of the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to restrict the spirit also worked for the Internal Qi and demonic spirit. However, the Dharma Power-restoring Skill was used to restore Qi, which was the exact opposite function of the other two skills. After all, it is not possible to restore and launch your Qi at the same time.


    Thus, they could not be used at the same time; let alone producing specific effects.


    "What are the other three wonderful techniques? And is there a technique that can coordinate with the Dharma Power-restoring Skill? It would be awesome if there were!" Not having achieved the desired effect, Zhou Bao began to speculate.


    "Your Royal Highness, the eight biggest well-known families have sent you gifts to celebrate your birthday. Would you like to meet them?"


    Jiang Xiao came in through the door, bowed and asked him this question.


    "No, take the gifts and let them go!" Zhou Bao had been in a good mood, but when he heard the news of the eight biggest well-known families, he looked extremely annoyed. He wondered why Jiang Xiao had asked him this question. He was well aware that Zhou Bao did not like the eight biggest well-known families and should have known what his answer would be.


    Thereafter, Jiang Xiao continued, "Your Royal Highness, this time the young aristocrat Li Xiu has been sent by the Li Family of Pingzhou!"


    "Li Xiu? That guy?" An image of a proud and aloof teen came to Zhou Bao''s mind. However, when he met him the second time, he had become an adulterer who had seduced Prince Ning''s fiancee. In Taiyuan Heaven, Li Xiu had fully matured. As a famous teen expert in the world, he had initially cultivated his own Qi Power. What changes would there be in him this time?


    "Tell him to wait in my study room and send the others away!"


    "Yes, Your Royal Highness!"


    It had been some time already in the study room of Zhou Bao''s Inner Yard.


    Li Xiu looked at Zhou Bao, who was in a green robe and looked very much the same. A complex look flashed in his eyes. The young man, who was his peer, had grown very much stronger over the years and had now become a deterrent to the world.


    Yes, a deterrent to the world, now that Zhou Bao had grown in strength.


    Although Li Xiu did not know the extent of Zhou Bao''s enormous strength, he thought over these facts: that the world''s most powerful five biggest sects and the Jin''s eight biggest well-known families had barely managed to restrain him and managed to do that only through joining forces; that the Qin Family of South Mountains, the strongest family among the nine biggest well-known families, had been destroyed by him alone. Li Xiu realized that Zhou Bao, now, in the Jin, and even in the whole Central Mainland Region and Four Eastern Regions had become a legend.


    Li Xiu thought he was the leader of the younger generation, but he was filled with a sense of powerlessness when he came face to face with Zhou Bao.


    "Hey, don''t stare at me like that. You''re not a woman!" Seeing the strange look in Li Xiu''s eyes Zhou Bao gave an involuntary shiver, and sat directly opposite him. A folding fan appeared in Zhou Bao''s hand and he snapped it open.


    "Hey, do you think I should read more books? I have heard many people say that I''m such a boor and an unlearned man, yet I am dressed like a scholar. Heehee!"


    "Uh!" Li Xiu''s expression changed. He didn''t expect Zhou Bao to make such a comment in his opening sentence. Then he answered, somewhat ashamed, "Your Royal Highness, you must be joking. Who would dare to say this based on your present power?"


    "Really? I don''t think so. Well, why are you here today?"


    "I came to Wuyang Region mainly to congratulate you. At the age of 20, Your Royal Highness has attained such an achievement. You are a role model for the world!"


    "I thought you were here to make fun of me!" Zhou Bao glared at him, "It''s my 20th birthday and I''m so young. I know you are all wishing that I will grow old and hopefully die within the next few years, don''t you?"


    "No, no!" Li Xiu''s face was covered with sweat, "You misunderstood me, Your Royal Highness!"


    "Well, forget about my birthday then. I am just having a bowl of plain noodles on my birthday. There''s no need to celebrate. Is there anything else? Going by your character, if there were nothing else, you would not come all this way just to see me!"


    At this, Li Xiu became serious, he stood up and bowed to Zhou Bao, "I am here to apologize to Your Royal Highness on behalf of our Family Head. It wasn''t my family''s intention, but...!"


    "You were intimidated by the five biggest sects and the seven other well-known families. There was nothing you could do about it. Anyway, you''re a big family!" Zhou Bao gave a strange laugh.


    Then he continued, "I felt bad about it, but it was good too because it took away my worries." At this point, a strange look appeared on Zhou Bao''s face. "When I was alone, I didn''t bother too much. Now that I have my own family, I have more to worry about. Now that''s a good ending, isn''t it?"


    "Yes, yes!" Li Xiu replied. He was somewhat surprised at Zhou Bao''s attitude. In his memory, Zhou Bao was not a man willing to accede to losses. Although what he said was reasonable, it was not in accordance with Zhou Bao''s character.


    Seeing Li Xiu''s hesitation, Zhou Bao laughed again and said, "People change. Dude, I remember the first time I saw you, you were much haughtier than Lu Shaoyou was, and how about now?"


    The words made Li Xiu blush. When he was a teenager, he, like other boys of his age, admired the legendary White Blademaster. To attain the white robe and the formidable Qi Power was his ultimate dream, but now everything had changed.


    Harsh reality had taught him that it was foolish to imitate others. There was only one White Blademaster in the world, and there was only one Li Xiu. In the same way, he could change, and so could Zhou Bao.


    Technically, Zhou Bao was superior to him, both in strength and mind. Otherwise, he would not have made such a big deal in Jiang City, nor would he have become so powerful in such a short period of time, standing far above those millennium families and even the Royalty.


    He breathed a secret sigh of relief at the thought. Among the eight biggest well-known families, the Li Family of Pingzhou was the weakest in terms of strength and the least ambitious. In recent years, they had maintained a good relationship with Zhou Bao and had managed to achieve considerable development. Pingzhou and Wuyang Region had become semi-allies, each having a stake in each other''s state. Therefore, once their relationship with Zhou Bao deteriorated, they would suffer more losses than the other eight biggest well-known families. They would be taken over by others who had already been eyeing them covetously.


    Li Xiu was relieved to find Zhou Bao was not disgruntled at the Li Family.


    "Although you''re generous, we Li Family are to be blamed this time, so...!"


    "All right, let''s stop using this kind of diplomatic language! I know what you mean. It would be impolite for me not to accept your sincere apology. Today is my twentieth birthday. You''re just in time to have a drink with me!"


    "Good!" Li Xiu was relieved to hear that. Zhou Bao had invited him to drink, which showed that Zhou Bao did not intend to anger the Li Family, so Li Xiu was willing to accompany him.


    "20 years old, hehe, 20 years old, I''ve been in this world for 20 years. Damn, why do I always feel like I''ve lived for more than 100 years already?" Having sent away excited Li Xiu, Zhou Bao sat alone in the yard, staring dazedly at the full moon over his head. How rare to see such a round and clear moon. This thought suddenly occurred to him while he was holding a pot of wine. All of a sudden, all sorts of feelings welled up in his mind.


    "Your Royal Highness!" At this point, Yan Yunfei came to Zhou Bao with their two children. "What are you thinking about?"


    "Nothing, nothing!" Zhou Bao smiled, picked up the two babies in Yan Yunfei''s arms, and began to play with them.


    "Your Royal Highness, I know, you''ve been in a bad mood lately...!"


    "It was because I could not figure it out before. Now, that I have, I feel so much better." Zhou Bao smiled when he heard Yan Yunfei''s words. "However, so many people are here to celebrate my birthday, and I''m only 20 years old. Hehe, I''m still not used to it!"


    "That''s because your fame is growing so fast!" Yan Yunfei also smiled. Although she did not care much about the affairs of the outside world, she had never heard of anyone whose 20 year old birthday could rouse such feelings in eight biggest well-known families at the same time, not even for her Brother Prince. With the exception of Li Xiu, Zhou Bao did not see anyone and sent them back.


    "Well, it''s cold. Take our babies in!" Playing with the two babies for a while, Zhou Bao gave them back to Yan Yunfei, "Is there a letter from the Western Capital?"


    "Father and Brother Prince have both sent letters, but they were all family letters and there were no mention of official business!" Yan Yunfei took the two babies, smiling helplessly. "However, some of my brothers have written to me, and my sister Yunyan has asked someone to bring a letter to me the day before yesterday saying that she would be coming to see me soon."


    "Let them do it!" Zhou Bao smiled, "I can''t handle worldly affairs at all, so I left them to you. If you feel tired, hand them over to Renzhen Cuo and Jiang Xiao. Don''t worry too much about these things!"


    "Yes!"


    "Yes? We''re husband and wife, not a superior and vassal. Don''t be so distant!" Zhou Bao took Yan Yunfei and his two babies in his arms with a smile on his face, "Now, I really don''t think the treaty signed under coercion is that annoying!"

 509 The Wind Blew, the Evil Fire Kylin

    After staying out of touch with worldly affairs, Zhou Bao seemed to have all the time in the world. In his spare time, he usually played with his two children in the inner yard and slept with Yan Yunfei. When he was in the mood, he would exercise in order to tone his muscles. Sometimes, he really felt like a retiree.


    But was that the actual situation?


    For the entire three months, he spent most of his time in the Sea of Divine Power, honing his punching skills and practicing the Mysterious Divine Light. Meanwhile, he began to pay attention to all the happenings in the Azure Big World.


    After all, he had no choice!


    He had been wondering ever since Mysterious Turtle Sage told him the secret of the Infinite Star Sea. When the 99 Emperors in antiquity times suppressed the Primordial Demon, would the said Primordial Demon have anything to do with Azure Heaven?


    It was unlikely, though. For there was a Void Map in the Sealed Land of every Demon. But what if the Emperor of Azure Heaven had gone mad?


    Primordial Demons had the power to destroy the world, but their bodies were filled with treasures. If someone could refine them completely, he would reap numerous benefits. Therefore, once the Emperor of Azure Heaven came up with this idea, it was possible for him to link his Azure Heaven, one of the 33 Heavens, to the Sealed Land.


    Due to the Wheel of Time, the time in the Azure Heaven was twice as long than the outside world. Taking this opportunity, Zhou Bao combed the whole Azure Heaven thoroughly during the three months. He discovered many mysteries, but he was not satisfied until he had confirmed that these places had little or nothing to do with the sealed Primordial Demon.


    As for the problems in the Azure Big World, Zhou Bao did not want to intervene. Now, the Azure Big World had begun to look like a macro world. Inside, the Yang True Fire and the Yin Evil Qi had turned into a sun and a moon, alternating between day and night. It was only in the early stages, but it seemed to be working well. Besides, the Essential Qi Tide had begun to ebb as the rules of Great Ways were completed. Life at the bottom of the food chain had more room to live, and other creatures had opened their spiritual intelligence to absorbing the Sun and Moon Essence.


    Above all, the endless resources and spiritual things in Azure Heaven were available to him. Most of these things didn''t work for him, but they were good for building up his subordinates'' strength.


    But he dared not overdo it. No one in Azure Big World dared to question his actions in such a macro world. What his Wuyang Region needed was only a drop in the ocean. However if he did it too conspicuously, it would certainly arouse the suspicions of those who had been keeping an eye on him. Zhou Bao was not really bothered by it, but if word got out, it would cause a lot of trouble.


    Over the course of three months, there had been a bizarre scramble for medicinal herbs in the Jin following a leak of prescriptions for the elixir. Big store druggists and small drug dealers made a fortune. And the most aggressive buyers, of course, were the nine biggest well-known families, as well as Anyuan Store.


    Anyuan Store had shown a tremendous amount of financial power in the race to procure medicinal herbs. They had snapped up a third of the medicinal herbs on the market used to make two kinds of elixirs. In addition, they also bought up a lot of medicinal herbs that were not on the prescription list of the elixirs. However, no one cared about this.


    Neither the nine biggest well-known families nor some martial arts schools dared to speak out against Anyuan Store. Although Anyuan Store was a merchant store, the medicinal herbs were not for sale but were shipped to Wuyang Region through Wuyang Road. For hundreds of thousands of kilometers, the escorts were just a few masters and soldiers with cultivation less than Level Seven. However, no influence dared to attack them to get the much sought after medicinal herbs.


    It was because they heeded the warning after the incident of the South Mountains.


    Crazy Zhou Bao had mercilessly destroyed the Qin family, which had existed for thousands of years. The reason being that their men had attacked several ancient couriers on Wuyang Road. And these influences were aware that they were not as powerful as the Qin Family.


    Of course, they did not know that Zhou Bao had been forced by the five biggest sects and eight biggest well-known families to keep out of worldly affairs or, it might have been a different story. Even those who knew that Zhou Bao was now under restraint, did not dare to act rashly. The five biggest sects didn''t care. As for the eight biggest well-known families, although they were rooted in the secular world, the strongest in these families were all immortals. If they did something, Zhou Bao would not find fault with the family, but would fight against their Metaphysic Individual Immortals and kill them. In this way, it was not considered a worldly affair. By that time, they would have regretted it already.


    A millennium family without Individual Immortals would not have enough strength to rule its roost and could only be called a second-rate well-known family. Hence, the eight biggest well-known families did not dare to play any tricks in secret. They could only watch as Anyuan Store''s carriages passed through Wuyang Road continuously.


    In fact, even if they did not care about these, they did not have the courage to act on Wuyang Road, because there was a clause in their agreement with Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao had added a condition which was in his favor. That was, if anyone should create trouble in the territory of Wuyang Region, for whatever reason, they would be pursued by Zhou Bao. This was also the unspoken rule in each family. The Patriarchs of Individual Immortals of the family did not usually intervene in family affairs, but once the family was under attack, they would then make a move. Otherwise, what was their use?


    The five biggest sects had no objection to this condition. However there was a limit on the scope of Wuyang Region, which was now under the jurisdiction of Wuyang Region, regardless how much the territory expanded in the future. Or else, if Zhou Bao wanted to become an Emperor on a whim and start attacking all the territories, every area conquered by him then would belong to Wuyang Region. In the event he should seize the whole of Central Mainland Region, then it was within his rights to intervene in everything in the Central Mainland Region.


    Zhou Bao agreed, but included Wuyang Road, which stretched for hundreds of thousands of kilometers, into the territory of Wuyang Region. This condition, though initially disputed, was finally agreed on.


    Emissaries of the eight families had no right to interfere at that time. Had it not been for the sake of the five biggest sects, Zhou Bao would have driven them all out and talked only with the emissaries of the five biggest sects. Therefore, although these eight families were present at this historic meeting, they had no say at all.


    Even so, they dared not voice the slightest dissatisfaction, for fear of offending Zhou Bao, in case he turned capricious and decided to kill someone on the spot.


    Carriages filled with medicinal herbs were sent to Wuyang Region. Think of the number of Bone-Forging Pills and Pulse-Setting Pills that would be refined! And the number of masters and experts that would be cultivated!


    No one could figure it out, because no one knew exactly how much medicinal herbs Anyuan Store had snapped up. Due to the substantial purchases and monopoly by Anyuan Store, the competition for limited medicinal herbs had multiplied. Three months had already passed and there was still no sign of stopping. The eight biggest well-known families, however, were already overwhelmed and started to negotiate. However, these were all worldly affairs, and Zhou Bao didn''t pay much attention to them. Neither did he pay much attention to the amount of medicinal herbs entering his territory. The prescriptions of Bone-Forging Pill and Pulse-Setting Pill had been leaked out, so it was not difficult to refine them. Besides, he had been able to make them since he was a mere child. It was therefore impossible for Wuyang Region, with the resources, not to be able to make it.


    Over the years, Wuyang Region had set up a complete management system. Even if something eventful happened, he did not have to deal with it, because his subordinates would handle it. His responsibility was to protect the territory at critical times and give a general rule on how to use elixirs. After all, the dynamics and direction of the whole Wuyang Region still needed to come under his control.


    Zhou Bao was a little tired of this, but had no choice.


    The fifth year of Yongping passed amid the hustle and bustle.


    One day, Zhou Bao felt very idle and went to do a closed-door training. All of a sudden, he felt his heart blood surging, as if something vital had happened. He frowned.


    After nearly a year of practicing, he had almost broken through to the Blood-changing Realm. However, for some reason it seemed as if there was always a thin line between the Pulse-steadying Realm and the Blood-changing Realm, which he could not get through. This made him a little anxious. Now, suddenly, he had a bad feeling. He did not have the skill of divination, but he had his own ways of finding out. Immediately leaving the Sea of Divine Power, Zhou Bao returned to Wuyang Region, where he summoned Jiang Xiao and asked him for updates of world happenings that had occurred recently. He did not have a good grasp of the events, but he did learn something through his questions.


    "Traces of divine beast Kylin have been found in the underground fire vein of the Greensword Mountain in Sui Province?" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows and looked at Jiang Xiao, "Is it true?"


    "I don''t know. This news has been going around. Even if it''s not true, it has become true. Tian Long Taoism and Sect of Flame have sent some people there. The eight biggest well-known families and the newly built School of Five Virtues have also sent many experts. As for Anyuan Store, I arranged several masters to go there. But I only asked them to go and confirm the facts and not to fight."


    "I see. You did a good job. You can go back!"


    "Yes!" Zhou Bao had suddenly summoned him, and immediately asked him to leave. This made Jiang Xiao feel little odd, but he did not dare to disobey the order, so he bowed and left.


    It was not because Zhou Bao had no further questions to ask, but because when Jiang Xiao mentioned the divine beast Kylin, Zhou Bao clearly felt a strange message coming from his bloodline.

 511 The Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty & Splendid Landscape Map

    The Tomb-sweeping Day was a good time to visit the graves to honor the dead. But now, under Greensword Mountain, no one was concerned about it anymore. Everyone had only one thing in their mind: the Evil Fire Kylin.


    The Evil Fire Kylin was a Primordial Fierce Beast and also an auspicious beast in antiquity times. Every part of its body was a treasure, but capturing it was merely a dream. A little bit of its essence and blood was enough to help the better part of the martial arts practitioners here to break through their bottlenecks. Legend had it that its essence and blood enabled people to obtain an amazing ability. Just because of these rumors, more and more people gathered under Greensword Mountain. Many people always had the mindset that they would be the protagonists in this world and would have some lucky chances. So they would never miss such an opportunity. But they hadn''t expected that there were just too many looters for a limited wealth, and not everyone was the protagonist in such an event. Most people chose to ignore this fact because of greed and came here for acquiring benefits. However, it turned out to be what it was now.


    These days, these people kept searching for the Kylin in some secret places on the mountain. In the beginning, there were even some conflicts between them and the people from the Redflame School. But now, to their surprise, they found out that the people from that school were all gone overnight. There was not even a soul in the headquarters of this school. After the initial surprise, they disregarded all this. Since they had no place to live, some people with good strength occupied the headquarters of this school and lived there, thinking of themselves as the master there.


    At this moment, Greensword Mountain had already fallen into inexplicable chaos and anxiety.


    The sun was shining brightly today, and the sky was cloudless. As usual, a group of Jianghu people climbed mountain after mountain and descended fire vein after fire vein. When they were desperately searching for the Kylin, the sky suddenly darkened. Those who had entered the fire vein didn''t know what was going on outside, but those who were searching for the Kylin on the mountain saw it clearly. The originally cloudless sky darkened over their heads. And then a circular cyan light curtain fell from the sky. These martial arts practitioners were just nobodies, so how could they figure out what the light curtain was? Before they could figure it out, the light curtain fell onto Greensword Mountain. The downfall of it changed heaven and earth.


    The entire Greensword Mountain disappeared without a trace.


    "What''s going on?"


    "What happened?"


    "What was that? What was that thing that fell from the sky?"


    "Look! Guys, be quick! The mountain, the mountain disappeared. Greensword Mountain disappeared!"


    "How is that possible? How did the mountain...!"


    "No way! Am I dreaming? Am I seeing ghosts? How could Greensword Mountain disappear?"


    There were too many martial arts practitioners gathering under Greensword Mountain. Only those who were powerful enough were qualified to go up the mountain and enter the fire vein. And those who were weak could just act as onlookers and didn''t go up the mountain. They were just waiting for the news under the mountain. Now, they were secretly glad that they had not ventured to go up the mountain. Otherwise, it would be too late for them to regret. Currently, they were in a state of shock and could not believe what had happened in front of them. Looking ahead, there was a huge mountain a moment ago, but it had already disappeared without a trace. Most people couldn''t help but pinch their flesh to make sure that they were not dreaming.


    Not resigning himself to the unpleasant situation, the master of the Redflame School, who had been peeping down on the mountain these days, swallowed a few mouthfuls of water. His heart was still fluttering with fear. Secretly, he thought that if it wasn''t for his Patriarch gaining insight into this matter and evacuated the people of the Redflame School earlier, he wouldn''t know what would have happened to himself and his men.


    "It''s not too late to feel frightened now!"


    "Teacher, who did this? How mighty he is!" The master of the Redflame School was shocked and then turned around, hurriedly asking Raging Fire Ancestor, who was standing behind him and looking in the direction of Greensword Mountain helplessly.


    "It''s nothing but a Pure Yang Treasure, the Splendid Landscape Map of the Youxian Temple. Haha, I never expected that the Youxian Temple in the Three Western Regions would act first!"


    "Pure Yang Treasure, Youxian Temple, and Splendid Landscape Map?" The master of the Redflame School felt confused upon hearing these words. However, Raging Fire Ancestor didn''t plan to explain it to him; instead, he rolled up his robe sleeves and covered the master''s body with them, saying, "Let''s go. The real battle is about to begin and don''t get in the way here, lest you suffer great pain and cry!"


    "Humph, you guys of the Youxian Temple really have guts! This is the place of the Four Eastern Regions rather than that of the Three Western Regions! And you dare to act first!" Just as Greensword Mountain vanished, several figures with golden robes appeared in the air. That robe was the standard uniform of the Divine Wind Palace. The leader looked quite cold. Unlike the robes of the three men behind him, his robe presented a touch of gold and was embroidered with an unknown supernatural animal that had immeasurable Qi Power. The leader was an expert at the peak of the Venerable Realm, and he would achieve the Karmic Rank of Lord of Heaven after he underwent one more Thunder Tribulation. The three behind him were all Venerables, with the weakest one being a Two-tribulation True Immortal.


    "Lord Xuan Long, little did I expect that people of the Youxian Temple would use the Splendid Landscape Map. It''s a Highest Heaven Celestial Device that ranks only second to fairy weapons. It''s so mighty, if...!" said a man standing behind the leader.


    "It doesn''t matter. The Youxian Temple is not the only one who has a Highest Heaven Celestial Device. Both the Divine Wind Palace and we, the Hong Family, have one too." Lord Xuan Long waved his hand to stop that Venerable from talking. He added, "I''m determined to acquire the Evil Fire Kylin this time. No matter who it is, it cannot stop me. Although the Youxian Temple is powerful enough and the Splendid Landscape Map is quite famous, here is the Central Mainland Region after all. They are not capable of stopping me!" He let out a sneer, and then a cyan light flashed through his sleeve. The light streaked through the air, and the space cracked like a rag. To their surprise, they saw a boundless and splendid landscape rather than the void through the crack.


    Of course, what surprised the three people the most was the cyan light.


    "Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin! An Upper-Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device! Never did I expect that the Family Head would give the Eldest Master the sword. It seems that he''ll choose the Eldest Master to be his heir. Otherwise, he wouldn''t do so!" thought the three golden-robed men behind Hong Xuanlong. They all felt startled as they looked at the sword shining with cyan light, and the expression in their eyes changed suddenly.


    "Let''s go!" After breaking the Splendid Landscape Map with a single blow, the cyan light in Hong Xuanlong''s hand vanished. Hong Xuanlong summoned the three behind him and got into the crack. The three followed him and entered the Splendid Landscape Map as well.


    "Master, the members of the Hong Family have all entered the map!"


    After the four people went into the map, the space wall of the sky was torn open again, and five or six men wearing golden robes showed up. They were from the Divine Wind Palace as well, but they were not in the same group as the previous four. Zhou Bao was quite familiar with their leader. It was Yu Nantian, who had failed to cross the sea and had to return to the Four Eastern Regions in disgrace.


    "Hmph, I didn''t expect that the Hong Family should send Hong Xuanlong here. It seems that they''re determined to obtain the Evil Fire Kylin!" said Yu Nantian who was staring at the place where the four men had stood earlier in a cold way with a terrible look.


    "Master, this Hong Xuanlong is the strongest competitor for the next Family Head of the Hong Family, and his cultivation is immeasurable! What should we..."


    "What? Do you think I would feel frightened because of him?" Yu Nantian''s face darkened and he stared at the man behind him unfriendly.


    "No, no, no! I mean...!"


    "Okay, I understand what you mean. Since we didn''t come here for the Evil Fire Kylin, just let the Hong Family show off their mighty this time. However, that depends on whether they have the ability or not!" Yu Nantian laughed coldly and took a white slip out. With a gentle shake, a white light flashed past, and a crack appeared on the Splendid Landscape Map. A ray of white light shot out of that crack and shone on their bodies. And soon as the light vanished, they vanished with it.


    On this very day, a lot of similar things had happened on Greensword Mountain with every one of them being secretive. Some had broken the Splendid Landscape Map with a powerful Pure Yang Celestial Device just like Hong Xuanlong, and some were absorbed by the map after showing a strange white slip, such as Yu Nantian.


    Over Greensword Mountain, space was torn apart once again at noon. Wearing a cyan robe, Zhou Bao appeared in the sky of Greensword Mountain. But he was stunned right as he appeared there.


    "Eh? What happened? Has the mountain been removed?" Soon after, some faint red light appeared in Zhou Bao''s eyes. In this world, there were many ways to practice some special body parts, with the eye being one of the most frequently practiced parts, such as Black Water-Genuine Pupils and Golden-gaze Fiery-eyes. A better part of the people who practiced their eyes would emanate red light when they used them. Zhou Bao didn''t dare to use his Fiery Eyes recklessly before due to his poor cultivation. But with his current cultivation, even if his eyes showed something unusual, no one would think that they were Fiery Eyes.


    His expression suddenly turned strange after he had seen the scene in front of him.


    "No wonder I feel that this space is strange. It turns out that it has been covered by someone with a mighty celestial device thus forming a secluded space similar to the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. I don''t know who is so generous with treasures. But I can''t help it. I''m hellbent on obtaining the Evil Fire Kylin. Whoever you are, we''ll have to fight with each other!" thought Zhou Bao. A red light flashed past the place between his eyebrows and then a black-red Sword Qi shot out of it, breaking the space directly. Zhou Bao turned into cyan light and went into the Splendid Landscape Map!

 510 The Eight Nine Mysterious Skill

    There was an underground fire vein in Redflame School on Greensword Mountain in Sui Province. And an Evil Fire Kylin was hiding in the depths of the fire vein.


    No one knew this better than Zhou Bao, for his Great Fusion Technic was from this Fire Kylin, and his original Kylin Gang was from the bloodline of this Evil Fire Kylin. He had always thought that this kylin had been practicing in the depths of fire vein and hiding in a lava lake, so it would never be found. He didn''t think it would expose itself and send the world into a frenzy.


    Just as he was thinking, his heart blood surged. Then, a cultivation message came to his Divine Awareness.


    "Eight Nine Mysterious Skill? Damn it, no wonder I can''t break through to the Blood-changing Realm! There is really such a thing!"


    It turned out that during the period when Zhou Bao had been practicing, there had been an ample supply of the Mysterious Divine Light Pneuma in the Sea of Divine Power, even slightly more than in antiquity times. Thus, it was enough for him to practice. But his Mysterious Divine Light still lingered at the peak of the Pulse-steadying Realm. The line between the Pulse-steadying Realm and the Blood-changing Realm seemed like a thin layer of gauze, but somehow he still could not break through it. He always felt that there was something he didn''t fully understand about it yet. Now, he seemed to know the reason, and this made him astonished.


    The message he received was from the bloodline of Demonic Ape Zhuyan, and it was a way called Eight Nine Mysterious Skill.


    Zhou Bao was stunned and appeared lost. However, he soon got over the astonishment, because he had thought of the key to practice the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill.


    It was the Evil Fire Kylin!


    For this cultivation method, the Inner Elixir of Evil Fire Kylin was necessary.


    In fact, the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill not only needed the Evil Fire Kylin, but also needed the Inner Elixir of Divine Gang Jade Kylin in order for it to achieve the highest state.


    Zhou Bao had a clue with regards to the Evil Fire Kylin, but where could he find a Divine Gang Jade Kylin?


    "Well, I''d better solve the problem of the Evil Fire Kylin first!"


    After getting the cultivation method, Zhou Bao had a better understanding of the Primordial Fierce Beasts. Compared with human beings, these beasts were not stupid at all, and in many cases were much smarter and more cunning. Their ways of practicing were no less impressive than those of human beings, and they were even better when it came to abstruse, important points.


    For example, the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill was a method that used the Mysterious Divine Light to strengthen the body, but it was different from what Zhou Bao was practicing now. Now Zhou Bao used the Mysterious Divine Light to strengthen his body purely by instinct.


    This instinctive practice was equivalent to the most basic skills of practicing human Qi. It had some effects, but was not very good. The Eight Nine Mysterious Skill was different. It was a unique skill which was completely directed at the characteristics of the Mysterious Divine Light and the only Natal Power of the Demonic Ape Zhuyan. It was also Zhuyan''s recognized skill that had been passed on from generation to generation. The wisdom of the Primordial Fierce Beasts could be seen only from the mystery of this cultivation method.


    In the final analysis, the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill was a unique skill that could bring the Mysterious Divine Light and Zhuyan''s Natal Power into full play. If a man really practiced it to the Advanced Realm, he could tear the Innate Deity and the Primordial Demon to pieces with his bare hands, which was what Zhuyan had done.


    However, to reach the highest state, the conditions were very critical, because the Mysterious Divine Light had to use refined creation. If you practiced too much, you would inevitably encounter obstacles, which would be troublesome sometimes. For instance, Zhou Bao was now able to perform the Three Realms Division because, after refining the Flickering Light Evil Qi, his body carried some of its characteristics. This was extremely convenient when the quantity was small. However, if you really absorbed a lot of pneuma of the world and different kinds of Evil Qi, and once the Mysterious Divine Light reached a certain level that it still could refine creation on its own, then there would be trouble. Although at times, the refining of pneuma would retain some of its subtle characteristics. However, with the increase of the refining, there would be some misconceptions. These misconceptions were greatly multiplied. Later on, although it might not cause you to possessed by the devil, it would still be a minor annoyance for any further development.


    As a matter of fact, his Eight Nine Mysterious Skill would not able to progress any further without first overcoming this problem. No matter how many treasures of heaven and earth he refined, there was still little effect. In theory, when you refined a piece of treasure of heaven and earth, your physical strength would increase by 30%, but when you met with an obstacle, your physical strength could not even increase by 5%. Your practice would slow down sharply, and the power of the Mysterious Divine Light would not increase much.


    In order to solve this problem, the ancestors of the Primordial Demonic Ape and Zhuyan made countless explorations, and finally found that there was a supernatural animal called a kylin that could solve this problem.


    There were two kinds of kylin, one was the Evil Fire Kylin, and the other was the Divine Gang Jade Kylin. Their origins were not known. The Inner Elixir of Evil Fire Kylin could help Zhuyan purify its body, while the Inner Elixir of Divine Gang Jade Kylin could help Zhuyan purify the Mysterious Divine Light. Once he ingested these two kinds of Inner Elixirs, Zhuyan would then be able to practice their own Eight Nine Mysterious Skill to the extreme.


    In primitive times, no Zhuyan was aware of this, because at that time, these two kinds of kylin roamed between heaven and earth in large numbers, and they were one of Zhuyan''s sources of food. Those Primordial Zhuyan ate countless kylin all their lives, so they did not meet such an obstacle when practicing. Later on, the number of kylin steadily decreased and some of the new generation of Zhuyan had never eaten kylin at all, and this was when they encountered this obstacle in their practices. These occurrences came to their attention. Then came the massacre of Zhuyan against kylin. The number of kylin that had started to dwindle dropped even more dramatically. By the middle of the primitive times, there were very few kylin left.


    "The Evil Fire Kylin, and the Divine Gang Jade Kylin! Alas, let me settle the matter at hand first, and get the Evil Fire Kylin!"


    Indeed, Zhou Bao''s first priority now was to get the Inner Elixir of the Evil Fire Kylin. Now the Evil Fire Kylin had revealed its whereabouts, attracting all the major influences, including the five biggest sects, each wanting to get a piece of the action.


    "Humph, although there''re many worldly forces involved this time, it''s not a worldly affair. After all, the Evil Fire Kylin is as powerful as an Individual Immortal. It''s not illegal for me to steal it. Heehee, it will be better if I meet people of the five biggest sects. Then I can snatch the Evil Fire Kylin from them, taking advantage of this opportunity to give vent to my anger, in case they don''t take me seriously!" Having made up his mind, Zhou Bao did not hesitate. He broke through the hollow and went straight to Sui Province.


    On Greensword Mountain, Sui Province.


    It was originally a desolate place, but now it was quite buzzing with people. There was not even a proper marketplace under Greensword Mountain, and only a few villages which were already full of people. Some of the bold and unconstrained practitioners who couldn''t find a place to live simply slept in the open. Of course, they were also ordinary people in Jianghu, who were mainly there to see what the fuss was all about. Whoever had a high position and a backstage supporter came well prepared. They set up temporary accommodations with luxurious tents. In just one month, it had become a huge gathering place for bold and unconstrained practitioners, people from well-known families and rich families under Greensword Mountain.


    "Patriarch, it can''t go on like this! Those guys are so outrageous, just camping in our mountain as they please. They''re really despising us Redflame School!"


    At this time, the headquarters of the Redflame School had raised a ruckus. The Leader of Redflame School was rushing around frantically. It was the day of Raging Fire Ancestor''s exit, so he came to see him in a hurry.


    After the Leader finished, a look of great surprise appeared on Raging Fire Ancestor''s face, and then he laughed bitterly, "You''re thinking about this at this time? Tell your subordinates to leave here!"


    "Leave, leave here?" The Leader thought he had heard the wrong thing, staring at Raging Fire Ancestor, "Patriarch, you said...!"


    "I said, tell your subordinates to leave here! We can''t stay in Redflame School now. Ask everyone to pack up and leave as fast as they can, and come back when it''s over here!"


    "Ah? Doesn''t that mean we are showing them that we are afraid?" the Leader cried. He was the most beloved disciple of Raging Fire Ancestor, and had a bad temper.


    "You''re not afraid, I''m afraid!" Hearing his words, Raging Fire Ancestor almost kicked him over, "It is the Evil Fire Kylin! Among all Primordial Fierce Beasts, it cannot be called strong, but in the present world, it is an extremely horrible creature. Even the weakest Primordial Fierce Beast is born with the power of the Mysterious Realm. I''m only a Level Nine expert. You know what Level Nine means? Can I compare myself to it? Those people down the mountain are all cannon fodder, idiots, not worthy of our fear. But we can''t provoke those who come to fight for the Fire Kylin. Not only us, but Sect of Flame dare not provoke those people. It''s going to be a fierce struggle, you know? This is a great disaster. You should want to take advantage of it and show your authority! Are you seeking death? We''re leaving now to avoid trouble, and we''ll come back when it''s over here. Once we''re really kicked out, it''s hard to come back. Hurry up, do as I said. Leave Greensword Mountain within three days!" Raging Fire Ancestor roared loudly. There was some reluctance in the Leader''s heart, but the accumulated influence of Raging Fire Ancestor made him reluctant to argue. So he had to agree in a low voice and backed away.


    This arrangement was sufficient to show that Raging Fire Ancestor had foresight and knew when to advance and retreat. This really saved the Redflame School from a terrible disaster.

 512 The World in the Map & Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin

    "What a strange place!" Zhou Bao was stunned right when he entered the Splendid Landscape Map. Soon after, he felt that he was bound by a great force. Before he could react, he saw that a mountain in this fairyland, which was nearest to him, rose straight from the ground and hit him all of a sudden.


    "Alright, come on!" Zhou Bao let out a sneer as he looked at the onrushing mountain peak.


    Although he was bound by a great force in this strange space, which unexpectedly made the demonic spirit revolving inside his body slow down, it was no big deal. He now had Zhuyan''s bloodline infused, which meant that he did not only rely on the Mysterious Divine Light in the face of danger.


    As the mountain peak came toward him, he directly hit back with his fist.


    Boom! With a loud bang, the 1,000 feet tall mountain shattered due to his single blow. His body shook violently, and the Mysterious Divine Light inside his body was forcefully activated by him. Like a surging river, it broke the force that this space had on him instantaneously. After that, he made no further moves, but immediately executed the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to cover his spirit and disappeared from this space.


    After several seconds, three streamers flashed past and appeared at the place where Zhou Bao had just shown up. The three were all dressed in Daopaos, which were carefully painted with various strange patterns. Their gestures and expressions demonstrated a sense of detachment.


    "Third senior brother, it seems that he was just here!"


    There was a woman wearing a pale blue robe among the three people. Her robe simply could not conceal her graceful figure; she had a pretty face and spoke very softly.


    "Mmm, I can feel that. This person is not weak. Not only did this person get rid of the constraint, but this person also shattered the mountain. This person is at least a Venerable. We''re not capable to fight with this person, so we''d better wait here for our teacher''s orders!"


    "Fine!" The other two nodded their heads in agreement and stood in the air vigilantly, not daring to run around.


    "Where did these three cowards come from? They don''t look like people from the five biggest sects. Are they from abroad? Strange, really strange!"


    Zhou Bao had already hidden his spirit and landed in the endless mountains. This space mainly consisted of mountains and rivers. The endless mountains were joined together, and between the mountains were raging rivers flowing against rocks. A puff of water vapor rose from the mountains and formed an enormous amount of mist. With many places being covered by dense mist, this space looked just like a fairyland.


    However, Zhou Bao knew that such a fairyland-like place must be filled with hidden dangers.


    This space seemed to have its own intelligence. No matter if it were the mountains, rivers, or living creatures; they were all controlled by a unique Dharma. Once there was a spirit that didn''t belong to this world, all of those things would certainly gang up on him. It was pretty much like what had happened to him when he entered this space. Because his spirit didn''t match the Dharma in this map, a great force invaded his body immediately and sealed the Mysterious Divine Light inside his body. Directly afterward, he was attacked by that mountain. This was absolutely not a sudden occurrence, but the whole space was against him.


    If it were someone else who suddenly broke into this space with its inside breath getting locked in it, and then got hit by a mountain; it would surely end in severe injuries if not death.


    But luckily, it was not so hard for Zhou Bao to handle the rule of this space, and it could only hinder his mobility momentarily. Perhaps it was because all the prohibitions in this space had not been activated yet, so Zhou Bao was able to get rid of the rule easily.


    However, after he easily removed the rule, Zhou Bao didn''t believe that the attack just now was the whole power of this space. That was why he withheld his spirit for the time being and hid there cautiously.


    Looking at the three people in the sky, and listening to their conversation; Zhou Bao realized that they were the creators of this space. But currently, Zhou Bao was not in the mood to get to the bottom of this issue because he was going to look for the Evil Fire Kylin.


    The Evil Fire Kylin was in the underground fire vein of Greensword Mountain. An unknown spatial celestial device immediately covered the space around the mountain, but it didn''t mean that the mountain was removed. It was still there. It was just that after he had entered this space, it was moved to somewhere unknown by the rule of this space.


    Furthermore, in order to avoid the risk of causing trouble, he didn''t dare to run about in such a place.


    "Well, I might as well wait for their teacher and see if I can find that earth vein by following them!"


    Before long, a streamer flashed past the sky, and then a middle-aged gentleman showed up in front of the three people. He was a little bit shocked seeing them waiting for him there. But after he figured out the reason of it, he shook his head and said, "Leave him alone. The appearance of the Evil Fire Kylin has already made a great stir this time. But the ones who are really qualified to intervene in this matter are the five biggest sects in the Four Eastern Regions and several Individual Immortals. We should mainly focus on the Evil Fire Kylin rather than these people. No matter how powerful they are, they can only die if we launch the Splendid Landscape Map. Unless they possess some mighty magic weapons to protect themselves, they are in a dead end."


    "Yes!" The three replied in chorus. They followed the middle-aged man and flew straight westward without noticing the man far behind them.


    They flew extremely fast; and within an hour, they had already reached their destination, which was a place surrounded by mountains.


    "It''s Greensword Mountain!" Zhou Bao observed the place surrounded by mountains attentively and found that in the center of it was a small lake. And there was an archipelago in the center of this lake; it was Greensword Mountain.


    "How wonderful the Law of Space here is! I didn''t expect that Greensword Mountain shrank to such a size due to its power!"


    Naturally, with Zhou Bao''s current eyesight, he could figure out that instead of it shrinking, Greensword Mountain was surrounded by space-times. It looked like it was close at hand, but in fact, no one knew how many space-times were in between.


    Around the islands, dozens of Taoists stood in the air. The weakest one was a Metaphysic Individual Immortal, and the strongest one was at the peak of the Venerable Realm, which was on par with that of Hong Xuanlong.


    Including the four who had just arrived there, they now were 18 Taoists in total. They surrounded Greensword Mountain, and according to their standing positions, it seemed that they were launching a formation, which made Zhou Bao didn''t dare to act recklessly.


    Although Zhou Bao was determined to obtain the Inner Elixir of the Evil Fire Kylin, he was not reckless at all. Obviously, it was not a good choice to attack rashly in the face of a bunch of unknown Individual Immortals and Genuine Immortals. So, he just waited there. He didn''t believe that the domineering five biggest sects in the Four Eastern Regions would really be frightened by this foreign power.


    And it turned out that he had made the right decision.


    After a few seconds, a jet of cyan light shot straight toward the formation with a menacing Sword Qi pressing forward with an indomitable will as if it was going to penetrate the entire space, leaving no room for maneuver.


    "Who are you?"


    Amongst the 18 Taoists, the one with the highest cultivation, a Venerable, looked differently. He didn''t take any action, but the surrounding mountains suddenly flew up from the ground and headed right toward the cyan sword light.


    Swish, swish, swish!


    Ignoring the mountains coming toward it, the sharp cyan light immediately pierced through all the mountains and shot straight at that Taoist.


    "It''s the Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin. They''re from the Hong Family!" The Venerable felt the nippy killing intent and saw the sword light clearly, but he didn''t care about it. All of a sudden, the water in the lake under his feet was lifted up and turned into a long water dragon, rolling straight toward the cyan light.


    "The Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin is powerful, but you''re in the Splendid Landscape Map now. It''s undoubtedly not the place where you can run wild!"


    Sizzling...


    The cyan light of the Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin collided with the water dragon. But this time, the sharp Sword Qi could not cut through the water dragon as easy as piercing through those mountains from before. The reason was that, at the same time, the water dragon broke apart and became more and more tiny water dragons that intertwined with the Sword Qi.


    What a poem said was true: "Cut running water with a sword, it will faster flow." Therefore, being surrounded by these water dragons, the speed of the cyan light slowed down.


    Suddenly, there came a cold snort from the cyan light. The cyan light no longer moved forward, instead, it turned around as agile as a serpent and turned into countless cyan Sword Qi streaks, bypassing the water dragons and rushing to those Taoists.


    "Turning the Sword Qi into streaks! I can''t believe that your sword skill has reached such a level!" While watching the Sword Qi streaks coming closer, the Venerable''s expression changed and he finally acted.


    He waved his sleeve, and the water dragons were then gathered together and formed a huge Water Vapor Canopy. It turned around and wrapped the scattered Sword Qi streaks in it.


    The canopy was so vast that it enveloped all the Sword Qi streaks in one move. In the dark, Zhou Bao''s face darkened as he saw the Water Vapor Canopy.


    This was not Water Vapor Canopy, but layers of space-time turbulences. Even those Individual Immortals and Genuine Immortals would get lost in the endless space-time turbulences if they were drawn into the canopy, let alone those Sword Qi streaks.


    The Sword Qi streaks that were rushing to those Taoists seemed to fear the Water Vapor Canopy, so they changed their directions and condensed together. The cyan light flared and suddenly stabbed at the canopy. Then, the mighty Sword Qi directly pierced through the space-time turbulence in the canopy. As a result, the cyan light blinked for a while, and then it passed through those countless space-times.


    "Hahaha. Yun Tianhe, you''ve been fooled by me!"


    Suddenly, a burst of laughter came from the center of the lake, and the cyan light that had pierced through the void earlier shoot fiercely toward the center of the lake.


    Not good!


    Yun Tianhe was astonished, and his jade-like face flushed. The center of the lake was an important area of the Splendid Landscape Map. The lake below him was made up of Water of Origin, which was born to absorb space-time debris and turn them into an endless space-time turbulence. This was one of the most significant powers of the Splendid Landscape Map. Originally, using the lake, which was made up of space-time debris, to suppress Greensword Mountain was a perfect idea. But just now, in order to attack the Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin, he had pumped a smaller part of Water of Origin out from the lake. It was this part of Water of Origin that rendered the lake flawed. The Water of Origin in the lake could no longer fit together perfectly; and thus, this offered Hong Xuanlong an opportunity.


    "Now is a good chance!"


    Zhou Bao understood the current situation in a split second. Without a second thought, he launched the Three Realms Division and moved toward the place over the lake.

 513 Gathering

    Yun Tianhe was in a state of shock and anger. And unexpectedly, another figure showed up, which made him shocked again. But before he could react, the crack that Hong Xuanlong had created before was torn open again by that person before it could completely close. And then, that figure went into the crack.


    It was not until the end of all this that Yun Tianhe finally reacted to it.


    "Hmph. Since you''re courting death, I won''t stop you!" Ashen-faced, Yun Tianhe waved his sleeve, and the canopy in the air turned into a water dragon again, falling into the lake. For a short while, the surrounding space-times of Greensword Mountain were brutally suppressed again.


    "Uncle Tianhe, what kind of Divine Senses did that man use just now? How could he move so fast?" After watching Zhou Bao flash by, the people standing behind Yun Tianhe were all shocked. Amongst them, a woman asked him the question curiously.


    "He didn''t use any Divine Senses. He only used the power of his body to break the space apart!" Yun Tianhe looked quite serious. He added, "Judging by the figure of this person, it must be Zhou Bao of Yunzhou, the most powerful man of the young generation in the Central Mainland Region in recent years. Originally, I thought the reason he became a rising star is that he had some lucky chances. I hadn''t thought he would be able to pose a threat to me. But now it seems that he''s much stronger than I imagined!"


    "Zhou Bao of Yunzhou? I have heard of him too. Rumors have it that he possesses a special technique, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, and is capable of killing Venerables. Is that true?" The woman asked in surprise and exclaimed, "Is that him?!"


    "It''s not terrifying to kill a Venerable with a special technique. It''s just like people in antiquity times could kill Genuine Immortals by skipping ranks with a powerful magic weapon. The horrible thing is that Zhou Bao is able to tear the space apart with bare hands. This shows that in addition to that special technique, his physical strength is also beyond our imagination!" Yun Tianhe said with a solemn look.


    "Then what should we do? He has already entered Greensword Mountain!" The woman looked quite anxious when she saw Yun Tianhe''s expression.


    "It''s no big deal; after all, we''re just the first line of defense. Even if he enters Greensword Mountain, it''s not easy for him to find the Evil Fire Kylin. No matter how strong he is, he is still alone and can therefore not do anything big."


    In the underground fire vein of Greensword Mountain.


    Countless tunnels branched like the roots of a tree straight down into the depths of the fire vein. 10,000 feet below the fire vein were torrents of lava, which rolled in like a raging river that went on and on. Except for a major river channel, which was about 1,000 feet wide, numerous root-like branches formed as the lava flowed. These branches stretched out and formed an underground fire vein with a radius of thousands of miles under Greensword Mountain. There were various Spiritual Stones of the fire-property, adamantine, and lakes that were entirely made of lava. All these mysterious objects were emanating fire-property spiritual qi and Evil Qi, covering the entire earth vein with it.


    Here was definitely a holy place for practicing Fire Way Methods.


    If a Powerful Divine were here to see through the layout of the underground fire vein with a single glance, then it would be easy for that person to figure out that the lava of this underground fire vein was not scattered randomly. In fact, all the root-like magmatic torrents were distributed fairly regular and happened to coincide with the Way of Heaven. Hence, a formation was formed, and that was why there was such an earth vein.


    In the deepest part of this formation was a lava lake that was different from all the other. If observed carefully, one would find that all the magmatic currents in this underground fire vein would get together in it. Therefore, it was abundant with Spiritual Energy of Fire, which was almost materialized into liquid. There was a thick, cloud-like, red mist floating above the lake in which a golden red light flickered. And obviously, the mist was the top Fire-property Evil Qi.


    This was the place where Zhou Bao had encountered the Evil Fire Kylin in those years, and it was also the lair of that Kylin.


    Of course, that was why Zhou Bao felt strange. Since the Evil Fire Kylin''s lair was so secluded, he would not have found it if he hadn''t been lucky enough. So, how could this Evil Fire Kylin be found?


    That was Zhou Bao''s first concern. His second concern was related to Greensword Mountain. Since it was the territory of the Redflame School and, with a Level Nine expert, Raging Fire Ancestor, guarding the underground fire vein, it was impossible for ordinary people to get in. Being lucky, Zhou Bao could sneak into the fire vein with Prince Xiaoming that year. But after that event, Raging Fire Ancestor further strengthened the defense of the entire Greensword Mountain. Under such circumstances, it was quite difficult to sneak into the fire vein without a certain strength. So how could other people find traces of the Evil Fire Kylin?


    At least when found, the finder of the Evil Fire Kylin should be the people of the Redflame School. The school took control of Greensword Mountain; and once they found such a treasure, they definitely would not tell others about it. They would just keep it a secret.


    There were a lot of smart people in this world, as so were the ones who had the same doubts as Zhou Bao did.


    There was a saying: "When greed enters the door, reason flies out of the window." So even if they knew that there was something odd about the news, those who were confident enough in themselves still rushed there without hesitation.


    Even Zhou Bao came there.


    At this moment, the deepest part of the lake was not as smooth as a mirror. With many ups and downs, assorted deep trenches led straight down to the depths of the earth.


    With a miserable expression, the Evil Fire Kylin was on its hands and knees in a low-lying area, looking at the black light in front of it in terror.


    "You don''t need to be afraid. I just use you to attract my enemies this time. As long as I kill them, I''ll let you go!" The black light didn''t make a sound. It just delivered its divine thoughts into the Evil Fire Kylin''s mind.


    "Will your enemy really come? It''s been so many days!" The Evil Fire Kylin asked cautiously. It was really unlucky because it knew nothing about the black light. It just knew that the black light possessed a horrifying strength that it was unable to fight against. It was controlled as soon as the black light appeared, and the light didn''t give it any chance to defend itself.


    "He will definitely come!" The Kylin received this hard and cold message from the black light. Even in the rolling magma, it still could not help but shiver and didn''t dare to ask anymore.


    Once again, the bottom of the lava lake became calm. And the Kylin laid with its stomach on the ground, not moving an inch.


    Not knowing how long it took, the Kylin suddenly opened its sharp and ferocious eyes. It had lived in the underground lava lake for many years and had almost combined with the lake. Therefore, nothing that happened in the lake could be concealed from it.


    "Someone is sucking the water out of the lava lake!"


    What was happening above the lake naturally affected the Kylin under the lake. If it had been ordinary times, the Kylin would have gone out long ago. But now, it could only shake its head and bend down helplessly. Its blood-red eyes were looking straight into the broad ditch not far away. The ditch directly led to the ground. If it wasn''t for the mysterious, black light ball that had controlled it, even if it were discovered and hunted down by others, it could get into the ditch and wouldn''t have to worry about being caught. It should be noted that the dangers underground were no less, or even more, than in the void.


    Now, it was very helpless. It didn''t dare to move after being controlled, let alone run away.


    It had tried to resist the black light ball before, but it only brought it an undesirable feeling that it would never forget. And now, it had to stay there and wait for the final result.


    There was a beautiful white-robed Taoist Priestess with an expressionless face standing above the lake. She was holding a Purple Golden Gourd in a downward gesture. A purple glow emanated from the gourd and swept around the lake.


    Both the golden red cloud cluster above the lake and the magma in the lake were directly taken into the gourd continuously. No one knew how broad the space in the gourd was. Perhaps it could suck in the entire magma of the lake.


    "It''s the Purple Golden Gourd of Origin, a Pure Yang Celestial Device of antiquity times! Who is this woman? Is she from the Youxian Temple? Mmm, right. The pattern on her robe is exactly the mark of the Youxian Temple!"


    Undoubtedly, the mysterious, black light ball knew what was happening above the lake. The sight of the Taoist Priestess and the gourd in her hands made the black light ball think, "The Youxian Temple doesn''t belong to the Four Eastern Regions. So what are they doing here? Oh, I remember that one of its Divine Senses requires the essence and blood of the Evil Fire Kylin. Haha, no wonder they would come here!" Thinking of this point, he laughed bitterly in his heart. His target was not the Youxian Temple. But since he had leaked the news of the Evil Fire Kylin, naturally, there would be all sorts of people coming here. And that was meant to happen. He was ready for it, but he was still a little bit surprised. However, he didn''t care that much about it.


    "Ah, what''s that?! Such a powerful gourd! She looks like a member of the Youxian Temple. When did they come to the Central Mainland Region?!"


    As the black light ball showed up, another spatial wave appeared near the lake. After that, a lot of holes appeared from which many people came out one by one.


    They were from the Divine Wind Palace, Immortal Palace, Dragon Thunder Palace, Jade Pool, and Bigwheel Temple. In short, the five biggest sects in the Four Eastern Regions had all discovered this underground fire vein and its Formation Eye. They arrived here almost at the same time.

 514 Wolf Howl

    With the exception of those from the five biggest sects, some other people who were not part of the sect were also here. They were the Old Weirdos who had been in seclusion for many years and had already reached Venerable Realm stage. Some hid in the shadows, largely unnoticed, and some appeared openly. A moment later, the underground fire vein started coming alive.


    "Isn''t that our Mr. Hong from Divine Wind Palace? You are here in person. That is totally unexpected. Seems you have high aspirations for the Evil Fire Kylin!"


    "Humph. We did not expect that Dragon Thunder Palace would be interested in the Evil Fire Kylin. It is really unusual! Didn''t Dragon Thunder Palace say they don''t care about worldly affairs?"


    "That is not true. Can''t we catch the Evil Fire Kylin even if we don''t care about worldly affairs?" The leader of Dragon Thunder Palace looked extremely young. He seemed to be in his twenties or thirties. However, he was dressed in a youthful way with a handful of hairs on the head and a shiny golden necklace around his neck. He watched Hong Xuanlong with a teasing smile.


    Humph!" Hong Xuanlong stopped talking to him and gave a brittle laugh. He then turned around and glared at a beautiful Taoist priestess, who was standing above the lake, absorbing the essence of the magma lake. This magma lake surface had already sunk within a short time, because the lake had been absorbed by her gourd.


    "My friend, if I''m not mistaken, you''re from Youxian Temple?"


    "So what?" The Taoist priestess, who was suspended in the air, did not bother to answer. However, several Taoist priests at the lake suddenly rushed to the crowd and set up a formation, "Our Youxian Temple is performing some rites here! Please leave!"


    "Hahahaha!" Laughter was heard even before the Taoist priest''s voice had died away, from a fat monk who was standing a short distance away "Where do you think you are? It''s Four Eastern Regions, Central Mainland Region. Not your Three Western Regions. Don''t try to brag!"


    "Who are you?"


    "I''m your grandfather!" The fat monk was actually Child-endowing Buddha. His red kasaya ballooned suddenly and he turned into a red cloud and flew directly towards the four Taoist priests.


    Obviously they had not expected that Child-endowing Buddha would attack, so they were shocked. The experts of Youxian Temple were well-trained. Besides, they had already set up the sword formation. Even if this monk had a high cultivation, it would be impossible to break up the formation in such a short time.


    No matter how strong the monk was, everything would become easy to resolve only if they could hold on for a while and wait for Martial Uncle Bai Lan, who was in the center of the lake, trying to regain his strength.


    However, they had apparently underestimated the monk. Even though they utilized four Sword Qi, they were totally no match for him. The red cloud wrapped itself around the divided sword lights and suddenly blinding golden lights radiated from his big fat body.


    "What''s this...?"


    "No...!"


    "What is he doing? Is he crazy? Is he starting a fight now?"


    Generally, people who came to this lake were experts in the immortal list. Even those who had low cultivation were at the Level of True Immortality. Although some had not reached Venerable Realm, they were also regarded as Genuine Immortal of Sage. Metaphysic Individual Immortal was the lowest level among them. They got where they were today by being shrewd and having a clear sense of priority. Nobody would be so foolish as to rush into such a so-called complex situation.


    This Child-endowing Buddha did not look seem like a foolish person. Why did he suddenly act in that way?


    This question emerged in other peoples'' mind. Several monks who came from Bigwheel Temple together with Child-endowing Buddha, were also taken aback.


    Child-endowing Buddha dashed ahead and warded off the sword light from the sword formation using a red cloud. Golden lights reflected off his body and in their midst, a crop of golden lotuses sprang up. Sutra chants filled the people''s ears. A 20-meter-high Golden Buddha emerged and he instantly extended a giant palm towards that Taoist nun. At the same time, a sniggering voice could be heard above the sutra chants, "Lady, give me a child!"


    The voice pealed like a great bell, echoing and mingling with the sutra chants. The meaning was really obscene, but it was recited in a very serious tone, which startled all the experts.


    "Lady, give me a child!"


    The voices were reverberating all around and in a short while, penetrated everyone''s minds.


    "Heavenly Dragon Zen Song! Oh no. He''s using Heavenly Dragon Zen Song to do that!"


    The Heavenly Dragon Zen Song, as a Divine Sense, had been used to convert the devil and to spread the teachings of Buddhism. Its great sound vibrated in one''s heart. It was the one and only way to promote the Buddhist teachings. However, now Child-endowing Buddha took advantage of this Divine Sense to broadcast an obscene message in such an open way. The other monks standing behind him felt so ashamed that they wanted to bury themselves deep underground and vanish from sight to avoid all the astonished and strange looks they were receiving.


    If Child-endowing Buddha had not been higher than them in rank, they would have scolded him.


    "Imagine Bigwheel Temple fostering such a Living Buddha. It''s hard to say it''s a good or bad thing!" Such a thought had also occurred to others. Anyway, they had no intention to join the fight. Since Child-endowing Buddha had taken the lead, they would take this opportunity to test Youxian Temple''s strength.


    Youxian Temple did not belong to the Four Eastern Regions'' sects. Instead, it was from Great Tang in the Three Western Regions. Great Tang was the strongest dynasty in the Three Western Regions and ten times more powerful than the Li dynasty in Penglai Region. With a long history dating back thousands of years, it was called the first dynasty in the Seven-deity Regions. Youxian Temple was the state religion in Great Tang and also the first sect. It was very famous, alongside with extremely strong sects like Fifth Manor and Palace of Eternal Life in the Three Western Regions. It was also at the same level with the five biggest sects in Four Eastern Regions.


    Only the five biggest sects in the Seven-deity Regions had connections with the Three Western Regions. But they did not have a comprehensive knowledge about their strength. Now somebody was the leading the attack, which was a most welcome opportunity.


    "You are asking for death!"


    Seeing the monk dashing recklessly towards her and spouting obscene words, the Taoist nun''s serene face turned ugly. The Purple Golden Gourd, whose mouth had been turned down, lifted up abruptly. A purple light instantly shot out towards Child-endowing Buddha.


    "What a cruel lady you are! You''re murdering your husband!"


    Seeing the lights coming towards him, Child-endowing Buddha uttered a strange cry. Was this cry made through the Heavenly Dragon Zen Song? A silver stream shot out from him, turned into a bright starry river and flew into the purple light.


    Sky-measuring Star Ruler!


    White-robed Taoist Priestess'' Purple Golden Gourd was formidable and powerful as it was a Pure Yang Celestial Device from olden times. However, the Sky-measuring Star Ruler was not a weak weapon either. It was also a Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade. It had been buried in the Constellation Sea for many years. This time it was set off by Child-endowing Buddha. A stream of unending star forces immediately formed a resplendent starry river and flew into the purple light.


    Both were Pure Yang Celestial Devices of Upper Grade. One was the Purple Light while the other was the Star River Essential Qi. The two devices were so well-matched that neither could gain the upper hand. When the light collided with the starlight, the underground fire vein, which had been dim and lifeless, immediately turned brighter. The thunderous collisions took everyone''s breath away.


    Everybody present were immortals in the immortal list. Those with low cultivation were a little bit scared when they saw the great collision between two Pure Yang Celestial Devices. They stepped back because they did not want to be killed in this duel between two Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade.


    "Is that the Sky-measuring Star Ruler? Ye Qingtian''s device was taken away by Yunzhou Zhou Bao. How come Child-endowing Buddha has it now? Did he take it from Zhou Bao? It does not make sense. Wasn''t he trapped by Zhou Bao with Yin and Yang Dust Formation? Later, Yukun Buddha rescued him. Isn''t that the way it is?" Some people had these thoughts.


    Seeing the Sky-measuring Star Ruler, some knowledgeable people were speechless with astonishment. They could not figure out why this thing was in Child-endowing Buddha''s possession.


    "Sh*t! This f*cking little devil!" Zhou Bao, standing in the dark, could not help cursing when he saw Child-endowing Buddha wielding the Sky-measuring Star Ruler without hesitation. He had asked Child-endowing Buddha to help him secretly. However, Child-endowing Buddha had rushed ahead and shown off the Sky-measuring Star Ruler as if he wanted others to know that he was on good terms with Zhou Bao.


    However, there was nothing he could do. It was useless to get angry. He had to stay hidden and wait for the right opportunity.


    The Sky-measuring Star Ruler and Purple Golden Gourd were equal in power. Neither Child-endowing Buddha nor White-robed Taoist Priestess was willing to stop the battle.


    Seeing Child-endowing Buddha using the Sky-measuring Star Ruler to block her Purple Golden Gourd, brought a surprised look to her face. Then, swathes of silver silk emerged behind her and wrapped itself around Child-endowing Buddha.


    "Lady, give me a child!"


    Child-endowing Buddha shouted those words again. He extended his hands to reach out to the silver silk, and seemed to be entangled by the silver silk on purpose.


    White-robed Taoist Priestess instinctively felt that something was wrong. At that moment, she had no idea why Child-endowing Buddha acted in such a way. Yet, she had every confidence in her Pure Yang Celestial Device. Her face had a very cold expression. Meanwhile, out of the Buddha''s giant hands shot forth sharp silver light which shredded the giant palms into pieces. Now those silver silk showed their true features: silver whisk.


    "Primordial Unity Horsetail Whisk!"


    Hong Xuanlong was astounded when he saw the actual features of the whisk. As the direct disciple of the Hong Family, the second family in Divine Wind Palace, he was very familiar with the sects in Three Western Regions. Therefore, he recognized the history of the whisk.


    "It is Primordial Unity Horsetail Whisk. Youxian Temple should have given it to that woman. I would be more cautious!" Hong Xuanlong thought.

 515 Take Action

    "The Primordial Unity Horsetail Whisk, hehe. The Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin finally meets its match!" Yu Nantian, who was hiding in the dark, like Zhou Bao, recognized the whisk, sniggered.


    When he saw the Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin in Hong Xuanlong''s hand, he hesitated for a while. Now he was able to relax after he saw the Primordial Unity Horsetail Whisk.


    Everything in the world had a mutual function, which was to reinforce and neutralize each other. Apparently, the Primordial Unity Horsetail Whisk was created to suppress the Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin of the Hong Family.


    Soon his beautiful dream would be ruined by the brutal reality.


    It was totally ruined.


    Within seconds, the Primordial Unity Horsetail Whisk had chopped the hands and body of Golden Buddha into pieces. As Golden Buddha lay shattered, the Primordial Unity Horsetail Whisk then formed a vacuum.


    The debris from Golden Buddha melted and merged into millions of golden streamers, which covered up the whole area. Golden lotuses bloomed and flashed with golden lights and waves of sutra chanting rang out. However, the chant sutras were soon transformed into only one line, which said, "Lady, give me a child! Lady, give me a child!"


    The chants made White-robed Taoist Priestess turn pale. She felt very confused and her movements seemed awkward and unnatural.


    "The Lotus Flower on the Tongue for delivering all living creatures from torment. Damn it, he really practiced it so well that he could reach this level. He even used the Buddha dharma at that level to do such things!"


    At this point, several monks behind the Child-endowing Buddha looked very shocked.


    The Lotus Flower on the Tongue for delivering all living creatures from torment is the supreme state of Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. Over the span of tens of thousands of years, there were less than 5 people in Bigwheel Temple who were able to reach that state. Although Child-endowing Buddha was one of the 13 living Buddhas of Bigwheel Temple, those great monks could not believe he was able to reach that level. But now, he had done it.


    How did that happen?


    Throughout these years, there were so many great monks and Living Buddhas in Bigwheel Temple who had attempted to reach that state and failed to do so, despite having practiced for so many years. That state had become somewhat like a legend. Now the most stubborn and obstreperous Buddha of 13 Living Buddhas had succeeded in reaching that state.


    A patch of blossoming golden lotuses sprang up in the sky.


    "Lady, give me a child!"


    ...


    In that short period of time, this line was repeated at least a thousand times. That Taoist priestess appeared to be in a trance. Even when the people around her, who were all immortals with unfathomable cultivation, heard that repetitive lines, they subconsciously felt sorry that Taoist priestess was not able to give him a child.


    "Wow, what an excellent skill! I almost got caught in its trap!"


    Only those who had the highest level of cultivation could isolate themselves from the persistent repetition of the chanting of Child-endowing Buddha. In terms of cultivation, that priestess was ranked among the top here. However, the voice of Child-endowing Buddha was specifically directed at her. She was completely overwhelmed by this direct attack from Child-endowing Buddha. Even with her high cultivation, she was powerless to stop it.


    At this moment, just when everyone thought everything was going well, something happened.


    The waters of the magma lake below them started to churn. The roaring magma surged violently and developed into a giant wave, surging towards them.


    At the same time, a red light shot out from the lake and rushed upward to the fire vein.


    This incident brought everyone back to reality.


    "Evil Fire Kylin! This is the Evil Fire Kylin! Hurry up! Hurry up! Go and get it! Don''t let it escape."


    "Evil Fire Kylin! Go and catch it!"


    When the people with the highest cultivation saw the red light, they immediately abandoned the battleground and rushed towards the direction of the red light.


    With the emergence of Evil Fire Kylin, there was a massive outpouring of Evil Earth Qi from the magma lake. After she was hit by the Evil Earth Qi, the priestess was jolted out of her confusion. She raised her eyes, only to find that the giant hands of Child-endowing Buddha were about to land on her chest.


    All of a sudden, she had an insight into the incident that had happened, and she started screeching. Millions of silver silks of Primordial Unity Horsetail Whisk started to sweep everything away and enclosed her whole body in a silver cocoon, protecting her. Yet the purple golden gourd transformed into a shimmer of purple light, ripping into the giant cocoon. When the first subordinate of Child-endowing Buddha touched the silver cocoon, he withdrew his hand hurriedly, as if he had been stung by an insect.


    "Damn it!" Child-endowing Buddha cursed when he saw that all of his efforts had been in vain and withdrew his Sky-measuring Star Ruler. Now that the priestess realized what happened and started using her absolute defenses, there was no point having this confrontation. Child-endowing Buddha turned himself into a red cloud, laughed hysterically, and flew towards the area where the red light had been.


    In the blink of an eye, the only people left at the magma lake were Child-endowing Buddha and his subordinate monks, the white-robed Taoist priestess and her experts from Youxian Temple.


    "Why don''t you show yourself and help me? I must get her!" Seeing that the people were leaving, Child-endowing Buddha suddenly yelled, "If you can help me, I will get the Inner Elixir of Evil Fire Kylin for you!"


    "What, he''s got help?"


    The subordinates of the white-robed Taoist priestess looked surprised. But they were unable to help her, because they were busy dealing with the monks of Bigwheel Temple.


    "Child-endowing Buddha, does your Bigwheel Temple really want to become an enemy of Youxian Temple?" A Taoist priest with the highest cultivation, accompanied by several monks, confronted Child-endowing Buddha, "If you dare to hurt Martial Uncle Bai Lan, we Youxian Temple will not let you go so easily!"


    "Hahahah, how can I hurt such a beauty like her. Just relax, very soon we will become one big happy family!" Child-endowing Buddha laughed out loud. He utilized the power of Sky-measuring Starred Ruler and bumped into that silver cocoon of Taoist Priestess Bai Lan. "Come and help me! Or else, my Evil Fire Kylin will be taken by others!"


    "F*ck you!" Zhou Bao, who was hiding in the dark, suppressed his impulse to kill this guy and soared upwards suddenly. He turned himself into a streak of jade light and rushed directly into the silver giant cocoon.


    "Who is it? How dare you!"


    When Child-endowing Buddha was speaking, the head of the people from Youxian Temple felt that something was not right. Obviously, Child-endowing Buddha was not calling on his subordinates. He was sending messages to someone hidden in the dark and asking for help. Sure enough, when Child-endowing Buddha spoke for the second time, the person hiding in the dark finally showed up.


    In terms of their overall strength, those Genuine Immortals of Youxian Temple were much stronger than the great monks of Bigwheel Temple. The great monks that Child-endowing Buddha brought with him were mostly at the level of an Individual Immortal. It was only because Child-endowing Buddha was powerful and had with him a Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade that they were able to help and withhold those Genuine Immortals of Youxian Temple. But could things continue to go so smoothly as that?


    The name of the head Taoist priest was Ming Fa. He was also an expert at Venerable Realm who had undergone the second Thunder Tribulation. However, he only showed the power of a Genuine Immortal who had only undergone one tribulation. He was reserving his power.


    Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty had made a lot of preparations for the Evil Fire Kylin. After all, this was not their territory, and due to the ancient protocol between the Three Western Regions and Four Eastern Regions, there shouldn''t be more than three experts of Venerable Realm entering each other''s territories at one time, regardless of any reasons or any incidents. This time, they had brought with them three Venerables, two of which were at the top of Venerable Realm. Ming Fa was one of those two. The other one was outside the earth vein, leading 17 Genuine Immortals of Saint Realm and controlling the Splendid Landscape Map. Within the earth vein, Taoist priestess Baimei Lan was battling against the Evil Fire Kylin with two ancient Pure Yang Celestial Devices, the Purple Golden Gourd of Origin and Primordial Unity Horsetail Whisk. They thought that with these two Pure Yang Celestial Devices of Upper Grade and the high cultivation of Taoist Priestess Bai Lan, the Evil Fire Kylin would be within easy reach. Since they had activated the Splendid Landscape Map to block this area, they did not worry that the people from Four Eastern Regions would be here for the treasure. In this Splendid Landscape Map, they possessed favorable geographical conditions. Unless there was someone who would be using a fairy weapon, they were no match for them. Although the Evil Fire Kylin was precious, it was far more inferior in strength than a fairy weapon. Now the sect of five biggest sects in Four Eastern Regions would be disgraced if they were to use a fairy weapon to catch the Evil Fire Kylin. The Evil Fire Kylin was not as important as what others thought. Therefore, the people of the five biggest sects might be doing Youxian Temple a favor and let them take away the Evil Fire Kylin.


    But, how about now?


    Child-endowing Buddha of Bigwheel Temple had been extremely rude and ignored the stances of both Bigwheel Temple and Youxian Temple. He started spouting an obscene chant at Taoist Priestess Bai Lan and fought hard against her, as if he wanted to become an enemy of Youxian Temple. Yet the skills and power of Child-endowing Buddha were beyond his imagination. Child-endowing Buddha was stronger than what he had heard and he had even made it to the state of Lotus Flower on the Tongue for delivering all living creatures from torment, completely overshadowing Taoist Priestess Bai Lan.


    This was entirely beyond the expectations of Youxian Temple. It was a huge accident. However, Taoist Ming Fa was clever to conceal his real power at first, letting Child-endowing Buddha underestimate his strength. Now when the helper of Child-endowing Buddha turned up, he could finally show what he was really capable of and would spare no mercy.


    "Go to hell!" Hearing the yells of Taoist Ming Fa, all that the people could see was a cyan light shooting at the jade light in the dark.


    "Another Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade. It seems that Youxian Temple is indeed wealthy!" And odd laugh came out of the jade light. Suddenly Taoist Ming Fa saw a fist in front of him, as pure as a piece of white jade.


    "Bang!"


    With a thunderous sound, Taoist Ming Fa suddenly relaxed and found that all connections between himself and those Pure Yang Celestial Devices of Upper Grade had been severed. He himself was thrown backwards as if he was weightless.


    "No way!" This was the first thought that crossed his mind. Before he could have second thoughts, his body was smashed into pulp by the incomparable power of the fist.


    "Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!"


    Seven explosions occurred simultaneously and seven figures were thrown backwards, exactly like what had happened to Taoist Ming Fa. They were blown into pieces, both their bodies and minds.

 517 Show Up & Explode

    "No, something must have gone wrong!" Seeing no traces of Bai Lan, Yun Tianhe''s heart sank. "Ming Luo, Ming Chen, unlock the seal of Greensword Mountain!"


    "What? Uncle Tianhe, how can... " Ming Luo and Ming Chen were astounded when they heard what Yun Tianhe said. That was not what they had planned. In their plan, Bai Lan was to deal with the Evil Fire Kylin, while Yun Tianhe was in charge of the Splendid Landscape Map. His task was to make sure nothing would go wrong. The Splendid Landscape Map was not only a Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade, but also a Highest Heaven Celestial Device. It could not be defeated so easily.


    Though these disciples had solid cultivation, without Yun Tianhe, they were reluctant to manipulate this Highest Heaven Celestial Device.


    "Shut up. Can''t you see that something must have happened to Junior Sister Bai Lan? Otherwise, she would have been here already!" Yun Tianhe''s voice suddenly became harsh and serious. "Our master has attached great importance to Junior Sister Bai Lan. If something bad happens to her, will you be responsible for it?"


    After hearing Yun Tianhe''s words, Ming Luo and Ming Chen were both terrified. It was true. Bai Lan''s position in their sect was even higher than Yun Tianhe. Therefore, Yun Tianhe''s role was to assist Bai Lan to implement this action. Now the Evil Fire Kylin had appeared, but there was no sign of Bai Lan. They were also confused about that. If Bai Lan was fine, she would have been the first to show up and fight in the front line. Why hadn''t she shown up yet?


    Thinking about it, they dared not say anything more. Exchanging several eye contacts, they took over from Yun Tianhe. Yun Tianhe snorted and unlocked the restriction on Greensword Mountain, dashing into Greensword Mountain and rushing to the Evil Fire Kylin.


    The Evil Fire Kylin was on the run. It utilized the Earth-escaping Skill to flee under the ground, feeling very sure that no one would be able to catch it. Suddenly, it felt the earth around it hardening, becoming as solid as metal.


    "The Golden Touch Skill?"


    It sneered and was soon surrounded by a layer of metallic light.


    The Gold-escaping Skill!


    Evil Fire Kylin was an expert in using the Escaping skill of Five Elements. Fire-escaping Skill, Earth-escaping Skill, Gold-escaping Skill, Wood-escaping Skill and even Water-escaping Skill were all part of its Natal Powers.


    "It doesn''t feel right!"


    The Gold-escaping Skill it used this time didn''t seem to enable it to walk as freely under the ground as it should. Instead, it was difficult to move even a single step.


    "That wasn''t the Golden Touch Skill!"


    While it was still in a confused state, suddenly a tremendous power propelled it up from the ground below. Then a giant hand made of pneuma shot from the sky, captured it and imprisoned it in the middle of its palm.


    "Who is it?"


    "What a terrifying power!"


    "Is this the Splendid Landscape Map?"


    "Damn it. The people of Youxian Temple has released the Splendid Landscape Map and covered the Greensword Mountain!"


    Everyone who was present was shocked by this incident. After a while, they realized that it was the people from Youxian Temple who had activated the Splendid Landscape Map and taken control over the entire Greensword Mountain.


    "Are those people of Youxian Temple going crazy? How can they take control the Splendid Landscape Map now that they have opened it ?"


    They were not too bothered that Youxian Temple had sealed Greensword Mountain with the Splendid Landscape Map. They thought that Youxian Temple was only able to separate the underground fire vein from Greensword Mountain. It was not a big deal. Youxian Temple had not included the entire Greensword Mountain into the Splendid Landscape Map.


    Sealing a mountain was different from including a mountain into the Splendid Landscape Map. Sealing a mountain would only allow Youxian Temple to take advantage of being a host. However, if Greensword Mountain was included into the Splendid Landscape Map, it meant that Youxian Temple was totally in charge. It was like they were playing the role of God in the Splendid Landscape Map. Everything would be under their control.


    But it was not easy for them to include both Greensword Mountain and underground fire vein into the Splendid Landscape Map. As a top player in Pure Yang Celestial Devices and as a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, unless one could completely refine the Splendid Landscape Map, there was no way one could control the Splendid Landscape Map with the power of a Lord of Heaven. The Splendid Landscape Map was the most precious treasure of Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty. Even though it was refined, it had not been wholly refined by Bai Lan and Yun Tianhe. Therefore, they very reluctantly manipulated a part of power of this Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade, shared the work and cooperated with one another.


    Now Yun Tianhe, discovering that something had gone wrong, had then completely opened the Splendid Landscape Map, so as to take advantage of its uses.


    Of course, he knew that Ming Luo and Ming Chen could not hold on for too long.


    Therefore, he must quickly resolve this issue.


    "Splendid landscape, divide the sky and the earth!"


    Yun Tianhe utilized pneuma to form a giant hand in the Splendid Landscape Map. After he abruptly grabbed Evil Fire Kylin, he gave a loud roar. At the same time, everyone sensed that the space around them had changed and waves of power coursed over them. The sky and the earth were also magically changing.


    The sky, pneuma, mountains, rocks, flowers, grass and living creatures were all on full display, leaving no possibility for anyone to hide from the light.


    Several Genuine Immortals who had been hiding in the dark all this while had to show themselves. Those Genuine Immortals who were chasing after the Evil Fire Kylin also stopped reluctantly due to encountering multiple obstacles ahead of them. Even the escaping light and Gang Qi were reduced by a layer of an intangible restraint.


    "What a bad day. The god damn Youxian Temple, how dare you create chaos in my Central Mainland Region?" Child-endowing Buddha had already withdrawn his Fire Cloud Kasaya and yelled angrily before anyone could react to it. He activated the Sky-measuring Star Ruler and hit the giant hand which had grabbed the Evil Fire Kylin.


    "Stop! I didn''t mean it!"


    Seeing the Sky-measuring Star Ruler coming at him, Yun Tianhe suddenly turned pale. He was afraid of the star force contained in the Sky-measuring Star Ruler.


    Child-endowing Buddha wouldn''t listen to him. In the depths of earth vein, except for White-robed Taoist Priestess, every person from Youxian Temple was dead. Although they had been killed by Zhou Bao, Zhou Bao had turned up only after everyone had left. There were only people from Bigwheel Temple and people of Youxian Temple left. They would naturally think that he was the one who had killed all those people. Although he didn''t do it, he was unable to walk away from it.


    Since Youxian Temple had suddenly unleashed all power of the Splendid Landscape Map, it had to figure out what had happened here. So he had to attack first, before everything was revealed and Yun Tianhe had fought with him.


    Therefore, he activated his Sky-measuring Star Ruler.


    "Bang!" The Sky-measuring Star Ruler, a weapon made up of a mass of starlight with incredible powers, struck the giant hand. In a flash, silver starlight was seen everywhere, as if a huge firework had exploded in the sky. That giant hand was smashed immediately.


    Once the giant hand disappeared, the Evil Fire Kylin appeared in front of everyone. The Evil Fire Kylin had wanted to escape as soon as it could. However, without the escaping skills of five elements, it was impossible for it to run away from so many Genuine Immortals.


    Staring at the Evil Fire Kylin, the eyes of the people were filled with greed. It seemed like they wanted to eat it alive. Even though the Fire Kylin was from a pure and extraordinary race from the olden times, it couldn''t help shivering in fear when faced with this menacing crowd.


    When Yun Tianhe''s giant hand was ruined by the ruler of Child-endowing Buddha, he flew into a huge rage. At this point, he forgot about Bai Lan and gave a mighty roar. Suddenly millions of mountains sprang up and surrounded Child-endowing Buddha.


    Child-endowing Buddha didn''t dare take the risk. He recalled the Sky-measuring Star Ruler to protect himself. All that the people could see was a layer of starlight sparkling around him as he smashed all the swirling mountains.


    Due to this, he could not keep an eye on the Evil Fire Kylin. On the other hand, the Genuine Immortals would definitely not let the Evil Fire Kylin escape. Hong Xuanlong was the first to take action.


    They were all within the Splendid Landscape Map and were more or less restricted by this Highest Heaven Celestial Device. However they all had mastered unique techniques or even owned Pure Yang Celestial Devices since they were all Genuine Immortals. In a twinkling of an eye, they managed to release themselves from the Splendid Landscape Map and rushed at Evil Fire Kylin.


    Millions of people were scrambling for one treasure!


    Before anyone could touch Evil Fire Kylin, everyone was fighting against each other for it. Pneuma was overflowing with Evil Qi flying around, together with wizard weapons and celestial devices.


    Everyone was involved in the battle with a few exceptions. Only those who lacked the confidence and the ones who had evil intentions in mind, like Zhou Bao and Yu Nantian, did not join in the attack. However, they could not conceal their bodies and spirit in the Splendid Landscape Map.


    Although the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill was magical, it was only a skill to conceal one''s spirit. However, it was not enough to conceal his spirit only.


    "I didn''t expect you to be here, Brother Zhou. What, are you interested in the Evil Fire Kylin, too?"


    Yu Nantian was also forced to reveal himself. Noticing that Zhou Bao was also there, Yu Nantian''s facial expression changed and then he cupped his hands and smiled.


    "Heyhey, I''m not interested in it. I am here because I''m inexperienced and ignorant. The Evil Fire Kylin is a precious race and my curiosity drove me here." Zhou Bao also smiled and cupped his hands in greetings. "But that you, First Young Master of Yu Family, are here, is a real surprise for me. Divine Wind Palace has attached so much importance to this Evil Fire Kylin that it dispatched two groups of people here. What a perfect plan!"


    The cultivation of Hong Xuanlong was the highest among all people. With his Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin, he defeated everyone who was contending with him and approached the Evil Fire Kylin. Though he was in a battle, he was still aware of the happenings beyond the battlefield, and he noticed that Yu Nantian was also here. After hearing what Zhou Bao said, Hong Xuanlong sneered. Ignoring Yu Nantian and other people, he slashed at the Evil Fire Kylin as the sword light of his Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin flashed.


    "Go to hell!"


    When the sword light was about to cut the Evil Fire Kylin, a shout echoed all the way up to the sky. Suddenly a stream of freezingly cold spirit flooded the place.


    It was the Lunar True Thunder!

 516 Succeed

    "Are you insane? You killed my people, too!" Child-endowing Buddha cried out as he struggled to break free from the giant silver cocoon. Zhou Bao''s movements were faster than lightning. One blow was all it took to kill one person. He killed all the priests of Youxian Temple, and even the monks of Child-endowing Buddha were not spared.


    "Cut the crap. Just settle this woman first." Zhou Bao was in a bad mood. He reached for the Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade activated by Taoist Ming Fa and put it into his Space of Segmented Realms. Then he hit out at the silver cocoon.


    "Don''t kill her!"


    Seeing the power and impact of the blow from Zhou Bao, which was strong enough to break the hollow, Child-endowing Buddha''s heart froze. What kind of magical encounters had Zhou Bao gone through that made him so powerful right now? Although his subordinates were not that powerful, they were all at least at the peak of the state of Individual Immortals and the priests were all experts at the level of True Immortality with one Venerable. They had all been killed by Zhou Bao even before they could stand up to him. It was way beyond his expectations.


    He was in a state of uncertainty and disbelief and not sure what to do next. Zhou Bao started hitting the silver cocoon.


    "Bi¡ª¡ª"


    When his punch collided with the giant cocoon, a glimmer of silver light came out from the giant cocoon.


    "Hiss--" Suddenly a shower of silver needles flew out from the giant cocoon and stuck deep into his hands. It was so painful that he had to take several deep breaths.


    This pain didn''t deter him, rather it stimulated the brutality inside him.


    "Break up now!" he thundered


    Combining the power of Heavenly Jade Technique and Mysterious Divine Light, he was able to exert an incredible effect. The silver silks which formed into that giant cocoon, were cut off by his brute force. The silver light dimmed. Child-endowing Buddha''s jaw dropped and hit the floor. A Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade had been so badly damaged by Zhou Bao''s single punch that it could not be recovered anymore.


    "What are you waiting for?" When Child-endowing Buddha heard the angry shouting coming from Zhou Bao, he suddenly recovered and screeched loudly. A golden Buddha and a giant palm flew towards Taoist Priestess Bai Lan.


    "Lady, give me a child!"


    Following his weird screams, a golden palm fell from the sky and totally engulfed Taoist Priestess Bai Lan, who had reacted too slowly.


    The Heaven and Earth in the Palm!


    "Hahaha. Woman, how can you get away from my palm?"


    Child-endowing Buddha activated a skill, the Heaven and Earth in the Palm, to trap Taoist Priestess Bai Lan and he jeered loudly, "Zhou Bao, your power is getting more and more unfathomable. You can kill a Venerable in a blink of an eye without having to use the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword now!"


    "Hump, I can only trick those Venerables. If I encounter Lords of Heaven, I have no way to deal with them." Zhou Bao sneered. "Alright. Stop all this show now. Go and chase after the Evil Fire Kylin. I must get its Inner Elixir!"


    "No problem. Still, I stood out and you are still hiding in the dark" said Child-endowing Buddha. He unfolded his Fire Cloud Kasaya and turned himself into a red cloud, and ran towards the place where the Evil Fire Kylin had disappeared into. "But you should be careful. This place is within the Splendid Landscape Map. Try not to expose your actions!"


    "Hump, you were the one who wanted me to turn up, right?"


    "It is different now." Child-endowing Buddha laughed loudly. Without saying anything more, he turned and vanished into the depths of the earth vein.


    "Hump, ''It is different now ''. This guy really knows how to sail with the wind. But my control over him is weakening. I have to do something to make him realize who is the master and who is the subordinate!"  Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed in anger. He transformed into a cyan streamer and flew into the depths of the earth vein without uttering a word.


    "They are coming. They are all here. Though Divine Wind Palace did not send the one I was expecting, I have a feeling that he is near, the foe who slaughtered my race. Even if he is in hiding, he can never get rid of my Innate Divination. Hump, no matter who you are, no matter how strong the power is behind you, I will hunt you down and kill you!" In the depths of the magma lake within the earth vein, a black shining ball was emitting waves of vicious psywave. Then with a sudden flash of light, it disappeared into the bottom of the lake.


    "Go, just go. Step into the trap I set. Then those people from Seven-deity Regions will discover what will happen when they offend my Sea Area and me, the Rolling Dragon King. I am going to teach you all a lesson you will never forget!"


    The black shadow turned out to be the Rolling Dragon King.


    In the Sea Area, Rolling Dragon King had been tricked by Zhou Bao, so he was not aware who his real foe was. However, in the Sea Area, whoever had the strongest fist would be the boss. Although Rolling Dragon King had strong powers and a powerful celestial device in hand, he was unable to fight against two experts. Moreover, his base had been ruined by Zhou Bao, so his strength had been drastically reduced.


    The decline in power had led to a diminished influence. The Five-dragon Regions were originally dominated by five Dragon Kings. He, the Rolling Dragon King, was one of them. Now that he had been greatly injured, the other four Dragon Kings naturally took advantage of this opportunity to expand their influence and excluded Rolling Dragon King.


    Rolling Dragon King did not fight back. Rather, he started to give tacit consent to the other four Dragon Kings and brought a small group of his trusted subordinates to stay with him in his territory, the Sea Area of ten thousands li.


    But the other four Dragon Kings seeing that Rolling Dragon King had given in, did not push him any further. As the old saying goes, do not push a person too hard in case you need his help one day. Although Rolling Dragon King was badly injured, he was still a Lord of Heaven with the strength of Lord of Heaven Realm. Even in the Sea Area, he was an overbearing figure. Since his race had been massacred, he really had nothing to lose. If they made him angry, they would not be capable of dealing with this crazy and insane Genuine Immortal of Lord of Heaven Realm.


    Therefore, after they had reaped huge profits, they did not persecute Rolling Dragon King anymore.


    Zhou Bao and his team did not finish what they had to do in the Sea Area, but threw the entire Five-dragon Regions into disorder. After Rolling Dragon King had stabilized his territory, he would not let go of it. Though theoretically the experts in the Sea Area were not allowed to set foot in the Seven-deity Regions, Rolling Dragon King, as one of the masters of the Five-dragon Regions, could find ways to do this.


    Only Heaven knew what skills he had used to transform himself into a black light. Then he was able to enter Seven-deity Regions and utilize the Evil Fire Kylin to create chaos.


    Unfortunately, he did not know that his real foe was Zhou Bao, so he went for Yu Nantian instead. Therefore, he released the information about Evil Fire Kylin hoping to lure Yu Nantian.


    Actually Rolling Dragon King was not even sure that he would be able to lure his foe. However, Rolling Dragon King had mastered a Divine Sense called Innate Divination.


    This Divine Sense was a skill from the olden times, which could predict good or ill luck. However, this so-called divination could not predict everything accurately. If it did, Rolling Dragon King would not have suffered such a disaster. Innate Divination could only give a rough prediction. For instance, this time he went to Seven-deity Regions, because the divination predicted that the Evil Fire Kylin would be able to lure his foe out, but the divination was unable to pinpoint a specific identity. That was why Rolling Dragon King did not attack Zhou Bao when Zhou Bao showed up.


    Coincidentally, Hong Xuanlong was leading the people of Divine Wind Palace this time and Yu Nantian tagged along. Therefore, even with what Rolling Dragon King was capable of, he did not suspect Zhou Bao.


    "Why is it that I am always having this very bad feeling?" Ever since Evil Fire Kylin showed itself, Zhou Bao, sneaking in the dark, had felt somewhat uncomfortable. He had his doubts about the emergence of Evil Fire Kylin and suspected that there was someone behind all these sightings. When he arrived at the spot, people from five biggest sects had gathered there for the Evil Fire Kylin. It meant that the person behind all the activities was definitely not from the five biggest sects. So who could it be?


    In the East Three Realms, which party could be capable of setting the five biggest sects up?


    None!


    So Zhou Bao felt somewhat relieved and pulled himself together to track the Evil Fire Kylin down.


    The Evil Fire Kylin belonged to Primordial Fierce Beasts. It was a supernatural animal and was an auspicious beast in the olden days. However, its power and levels were way less than those of Zhuyan. Now its strength was only at the state of an Individual Immortal and did not even reach the peak of the state. It seemed impossible that it was able to escape the tracking of many Genuine Immortals and even of the Genuine Immortals of Venerable Realm, let alone being trapped in the Splendid Landscape Map of Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang. Dynasty.


    But what about things in reality?


    There were so many Venerables and Sages here, but no one could track it down, or even get close to it.


    "It was the Earth-escaping Skill. That Evil Fire Kylin is proficient in using the Earth-escaping Skill!" Those Venerables who were following that flame were so worked up as they tried to snuff out this tiny flame, but no one was able to do it.


    Speed, fast speed and extremely weird body movements


    And the techniques that had been long lost, the Fire-escaping Skill and Earth-escaping Skill.


    The Evil Fire Kylin had an incredible knowledge of these two escaping skills. No matter what skills the Venerables and Sages used to catch it, it was all in vain. Even if Hong Xuanlong had unfolded his Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin to break apart the space around it, he could not push it out.


    The weird situation here had already caught the attention of Yun Tianhe outside the Greensword Mountain.


    "Something is not right. Since the Evil Fire Kylin had appeared, why haven''t I seen my Junior Sister Bai Lan?" Yun Tianhe and other disciples were manipulating the Splendid Landscape Map to suppress Greensword Mountain. If anything happened in Splendid Landscape Map, they would know. However, they had no idea about the happenings in the underground fire vein of Greensword Mountain. Otherwise, they would not have been so relaxed and keeping apart from those affairs.


    But Yun Tianhe was not an idiot. He knew something had gone wrong in the underground fire vein of Greensword Mountain after he noticed that Bai Lan had not come out.


    "No, something must have gone wrong!"

 518 Obtaining the Inner Elixir

    A blast of icy cold air swept over the sky and land, destroying everything in its path.


    The scenario was such a group of Genuine Immortals were fighting to capture Evil Fire Kylin. Child-endowing Buddha and Yun Tianhe were locked in battle. From the sidelines, Zhou Bao, Yu Nantian and the others were watching the battle taking place, hoping to get off lightly.


    Before the incredibly dark blue rays could tear the sky apart, everyone fled with all the speed they could muster.


    Boom!


    An explosion shook the heavens and earth, and the Splendid Landscape Map was in a complete mess. The two who were left in control of the map, namely Ming Luo and Ming Chen, suffered massive injuries from the ferocious attack. Their blood sprayed wildly in all directions. They were very disheartened, because they had no more control over the Splendid Landscape Map after the attack. This map was a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, Upper Grade Pure Yang quality, and contained its own micro world within itself. The impact from the explosion of the Lunar True Thunder was so great that it actually blew a hole in this flawless little world. This gave the Venerables and Sages within a chance to escape.


    Shrouded within the blue beam of light, streamers appeared one by one, bursting straight out of the hole. Zhou Bao was the first to leave followed by Child-endowing Buddha and Hong Xuanlong. These three were not badly injured. Child-endowing Buddha had a Sky-measuring Star Ruler to protect him. He had also received a Gourd of Origin and a Primordial Unity Horsetail Whisk¡ªtwo Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices with additional protection power. Hong Xuanlong had a Pure Yang Celestial Device: an Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin. Even though it was mostly used as a killing celestial device, with the wave of one''s hand it could counteract some of the power of the Lunar True Thunder. And Zhou Bao? He was the embodiment of a Fierce Beast, and with his super strong recovery powers and the Flipping Sky Seal and Gold Bracelet to protect him, he was not too badly injured either, and still managed to escape.


    Just as the three were just about to come out of the Splendid Landscape Map, they looked at each other. They ripped it open with one stroke. Each stayed vigilant, paying close attention to their surroundings. Close behind them was another guy who had managed to escape: Yu Nantian.


    There was a purple light glowing all over Yu Nantian''s body; it was obviously a protective shield. Only now, after the bombardment from the Lunar True Thunder, this protective shield had lost its luster completely. His face was also very pale, and specks of blood could be seen at the corner of his mouth. He was in a bad state.


    But all this didn''t matter. The important thing was that he came out alive.


    When he saw the exit to the Splendid Landscape Map appearing right before his eyes, a look of joy could be seen on his face. But this joy soon turned into panic.


    "I want to leave, but it''s not that easy!" he thought.


    A roar was heard from within the Splendid Landscape Map. Behind him emerged a ghostly black smoke, which turned into a black rope. It stretched out and coiled itself tightly around him. "You from Divine Wind Palace, today you will die!", it bellowed.


    "The Rolling Dragon King!", he thought. The actual face of the black rope was not visible. But how was it that Zhou Bao was not aware of the Lunar True Thunder explosion?


    "F*ck, Rolling Dragon King has come ashore, he was the one that set this up!", he thought.


    In that instant Zhou Bao realized what had happened. Even though there were a few things he did not understand, he knew that the Greensword Mountain had been set up by the Rolling Dragon King. It was something he was very certain of.


    "Damn Hong Xuanlong, isn''t he going to save me?" he thought.


    Helplessly entangled in the ropes, Yu Nantian let out a raging roar and with eyes fixated upon Hong Xuanlong, he said, "If you don''t save me, you will pay for it as well."


    "Such a waste!" Hong Xuanlong muttered to himself, eyes flashing. Although he really detested the rich and spoilt Yu Nantian, he could not afford to have something happen to him under his nose; then there really would be trouble.


    The Yu family was the first family in Divine Wind Palace, and the Hong Family was the second. The two families had fought and schemed for many years already. It had not been easy to get to this generation. With Hong Xuanlong gone, Yu Nantian of the Yu family would be completely overpowered. However, one or two men of outstanding talent were not enough to make the family more powerful. If he really let him perish today, and word got out, then his remaining days at Divine Wind Palace would be difficult. Child-endowing Buddha and Zhou Bao stood at the side, watching the drama. At last, he reluctantly cast aside the thought of killing and silencing Yu Nantian. The green light in his hand flashed, and he sliced through the black rope.


    "Boy, you are courting death!"


    Rolling Dragon King had captured Yu Nantian, and in his eyes there glittered thoughts of revenge. How could he let it go so easily? Seeing Hong Xuanlong approaching with his sword, he roared and out of the black smoke, a mass of blue appeared and instantly engulfed him within its depths.


    "Another Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device!", Child-endowing Buddha said, standing at the side, seemingly not too impressed about the continual appearances of Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices.


    However, it was obvious that Rolling Dragon King had underestimated Hong Xuanlong''s strength. The greenish-black light of the Immortal-eliminating Sword of Origin was extremely sharp, and immediately sliced open the blue mass. It cut the black rope, and Hong Xuanlong could be seen stretching out his hands and searching for something. He pulled Yu Nantian out, and a green light shot out from him. With this full-body protection, he escaped from the binds of the Splendid Landscape Map.


    Rolling Dragon King couldn''t have imagined that Hong Xuanlong could be this swift and the sword in his hand so sharp. Seeing Yu Nantian escaping from the bonds, he bellowed once more with rage, and the black smoke turned into a giant, black hand, reaching out for the two men.


    The huge hand almost grasped hold of them, and the Splendid Landscape Map was in a state of turmoil. The hole opened up by the Lunar True Thunder explosion closed in an instant.


    "No...!"


    The Rolling Dragon King gave a determined roar, but the black hand was severed by the Splendid Landscape Map. It dispersed and drifted off in the air.


    Meanwhile, a series of upheavals were happening inside the Splendid Landscape Map. This infuriated Yun Tianhe¡ªwhat had happened was totally out of his control. The clap of Lunar True Thunder had almost destroyed his plans. Fortunately, though, he had enough control over the Splendid Landscape Map to be able to track down the Rolling Dragon King. Mustering all the control he had over the map, he closed straight in on the Rolling Dragon King.


    "B*stard, b*stard, b*stard!"


    After a spate of cursing, all the mountain peaks in the Splendid Landscape Map split open and turned into a host of sharp blades. The rivers and springs of the map became surging waves, engulfing Rolling Dragon King. The ground burst open, and lava spewed from the insides of the underground fire vein. They formed streams of Fire Dragons, whizzing and screaming and flew towards Rolling Dragon King. The pneuma burst forth from its dormant lair and formed a raging gale.


    The black sheen that Rolling Dragon King had created dimmed from the repeated strikes. However, after a short while, it turned into a billow of black smoke and dust and disappeared into thin air.


    "Damn you both, Divine Wind Palace and Youxian Temple! I, Rolling Dragon King, swear I am not done with you yet!"


    Rolling Dragon King''s soul let out a series of roars and gradually disappeared. Meanwhile, millions of miles away in the Five-dragon Regions, within the original Rolling Dragon Palace, Rolling Dragon King was sitting on the jade bed with his legs crossed. He violently spewed forth a mouthful of blood and felt dizzy. He opened his bloodshot eyes, which were filled with bitter resentment. He snarled, "Divine Wind Palace, Youxian Temple, you just wait!"


    Rolling Dragon King''s snarling had no effect on Zhou Bao, Hong Xuanlong and Child-endowing Buddha.


    Once the hole in the Splendid Landscape Map opened up again, Zhou Bao and Hong Xuanlong, their bodies almost moving as one, went through it. Several rays of light glimmered, and again the Splendid Landscape Map opened up and its space was inhibited. They went inside.


    The only one left was Child-endowing Buddha. Acting as if nothing had happened, he laughed mischievously. He turned into a red cloud, broke through the space and left.


    By now the map was a true mess. The Splendid Landscape Map, once a picturesque scene, slowly regained its power. But who knew how long it would take to recover?


    Apart from the few who had managed to escape in time, the five biggest sects and Youxian Temple had suffered heavy losses from the aftermath of Lunar True Thunder.


    More than half of the people were killed instantly. Those who did not die were badly injured. Yun Tianhe was the only one who did not have any injuries.


    The unfortunate Evil Fire Kylin was also severely injured. He laid down on a broken mountain peak, panting heavily. His purple eyes were flashing wildly as he sought to escape.


    This was its best chance. Those who had taken the trouble to come and look for it were now too severely injured to help. Yun Tianhe had exhausted his energy controlling the Splendid Landscape Map. The only thing it had left to do was to search for a way into the underground fire vein of Greensword Mountain. That was its domain. It believed that, having lost its captive Rolling Dragon King, it would not be found in the depths of the underground fire vein.


    Only, heaven did not always indulge in one''s wishes, especially those belonging to the kylin.


    Just as it was preparing to flee underground, a burst of green light broke through the space and cut straight into its head.


    "Whoosh!"


    There was no room for resistance all. The green light flashed, and its head flew into the air. A spurt of hot blood sprayed a hundred feet up but did not fall back down to earth. Instead, it was swept into a glowing, golden mass. This golden mass took most of the kylin''s essence and blood and its dead body as well.


    "How dare you?"


    Seeing what had happened, Yun Tianhe roared and instantly engaged the Splendid Landscape Map. The torrential pneuma immediately turned into a huge, white hand, reaching towards the golden glow.


    The golden glow seemed to realize the threat coming towards it. With a sharp contraction, it retracted into the green light. The green light suddenly grew longer and with a clear pealing sound, cleaved the giant hand in two. Not bothering with the kylin''s body, it broke through the space, cut a hole in the Splendid Landscape Map, and disappeared into the horizon.


    "Hmph!" Yun Tianhe sneered, watching Hong Xuanlong fleeing. Although Hong Xuanlong wrapped up and kept most of the Evil Fire Kylin''s essence and blood, he left some of it behind along with the kylin''s body. But it was enough for him to stop bothering about Hong Xuanlong. The giant hand that had been severed by the green light melded into one mass, and reached out to grab the Evil Fire Kylin''s corpse.


    As the hand was about to seize the Evil Fire Kylin''s body, it transformed and regenerated.


    A pure white jade fist emerged from the hollow, and struck the giant hand with a powerful blow.


    This fist had stronger powers than the green light. It immediately smashed the pneuma''s giant hand. Then another strike shattered the Evil Fire Kylin''s skull to dust. The hand then grasped hold of the fire-red Inner Elixir and disappeared.

 519 Dash out of the Splendid Landscape Map

    "No! Splendid Landscape Map, overturn the sky and the earth!"


    Yun Tianhe could not help but roar in fury after he had lost the Inner Elixir of the Evil Fire Kylin. Suddenly the pneuma in the Splendid Landscape Map surged forcefully. Zhou Bao snatched the Inner Elixir, but just as he was about to break through the space of the map, he found that it had become much harder to break through as compared to the previous time. Later, he felt as if the whole world was going against him as layers of pressure fell upon him. For a moment it seemed as if all the mountains had fallen from the sky and done their utmost to pin him down on the map.


    "Humph, are you capable of suppressing me?" Zhou Bao let out a cold snort and made an Incantation Gesture with his hands. As the Incantation Gesture took shape, the golden light on the Flipping Sky Seal in his Dantian suddenly shone brightly and the seal appeared above his head.


    With a loud bang, the seal destroyed the power that was pressing down on Zhou Bao. Then, it directed a huge blow against the sky. Within the space of the Splendid Landscape Map, the earth rumbled and the mountains swayed, and a huge gap appeared in the sky.


    "How cruel you people from Youxian Temple are! I can''t believe that you intend to suppress us all here. It''s not over. We''ll just have to wait and see!" With a strange cry, Zhou Bao turned into a whirlwind and took all the living Genuine Immortals and Individual Immortals out of the Splendid Landscape Map.


    "You...!" Initially, Yun Tianhe barely managed to operate the Splendid Landscape Map. Having been badly shaken up by Zhou Bao''s Flipping Sky Seal, both his body and spirit had been badly hurt. His whole body was shaking violently and he almost fell to the ground.


    "Martial Uncle Yun, are you alright?" At this moment, Ming Luo and Ming Chen had recovered slightly from their injuries. As soon as they saw that Yun Tianhe was about to fall, they rushed forward to hold him up. Although Youxian Temple did not suffer any severe losses, they had heavy casualties. After being bombarded by the Lunar True Thunder, their Splendid Landscape Map was in an utter mess. Their leader, Taoist Priestess Bai Lan, seemed to have disappeared. It was apparent that they would not able to account for this matter when they returned to Youxian Temple. It would be good if Yun Tianhe was still alive. In that case, they would not be blamed for what had happened. However, if Yun Tianhe should die, the two of them would have a lot of explaining to do upon their return.


    Although they were only juniors compared with Yun Tianhe, they were nevertheless Genuine Immortals after all. Therefore, they were crafty and had figured out the order of priority immediately.


    "Don''t panic. I''m still alive!" Seeing their expressions, Yun Tianhe knew what was going on in their minds. He shrugged off their hands and stood up.


    "Go and check who is still alive and bring them over here. We''ll go back right away!"


    "But Martial Uncle Yun, we haven''t found Martial Uncle Bai Lan yet!"


    "Shut up. I''ll account for this matter to the Chief!" Yun Tianhe shouted angrily and interrupted Ming Luo, saying, "Hurry up. If we don''t go back as soon as possible, we will become a prey to others, just like the Evil Fire Kylin!"


    After hearing Yun Tianhe''s words, Ming Luo and Ming Chen looked tense, but they understood what he meant. They dared not talk anymore but tried their best to operate the Splendid Landscape Map, disappearing into thin air instantly.


    This time, the Evil Fire Kylin had shown up and attracted the five biggest sects in the Four Eastern Regions to fight for it. Besides, it also caught the attention of a big sect, Youxian Temple, in the Three Western Regions.


    The people from Youxian Temple were extremely ruthless. They directly exerted the Splendid Landscape Map, an Upper-grade Pure Yang Celestial Device, to cover the entire Greensword Mountain. They thought that they could acquire the Evil Fire Kylin in this way, but it turned out that things were not so simple. Not only did they misjudge the strength of the five biggest sects in the Central Mainland Region, they were also caught in a trap from the beginning.


    It had never occurred to anyone that this incident was an insidious scheme plotted by Rolling Dragon King in the Sea Area by virtue of the Evil Fire Kylin. He had already laid more than 10 Lunar True Thunders in the underground fire vein of Greensword Mountain. Waiting till his enemy appeared, he triggered the Lunar True Thunder, hoping to seek revenge. Although he did not manage to avenge himself in the end, he did cause the five biggest sects and Youxian Temple to suffer great losses. Most of the Genuine Immortals and Individual Immortals who were there to capture the Evil Fire Kylin had died and only a few lucky ones were able to get out of the Splendid Landscape Map alive. Most of the essence and blood of the Evil Fire Kylin had been taken away by Hong Xuanlong from Divine Wind Palace. The Inner Elixir of the Kylin had been carried off by Zhou Bao of Yunzhou. Naturally, the headless corpse of the Kylin and the remaining parts of its essence and blood had gone to Youxian Temple.


    No one dared to take the essence and blood of the Kylin away from Hong Xuanlong, nor were they able to do that. Meanwhile, no one would go after Zhou Bao''s Inner Elixir because he was the one who had rescued the survivors of the five biggest sects from the Splendid Landscape Map while he was snatching the Inner Elixir. They all knew that even if Zhou Bao had not saved them, the people of Youxian Temple would not do anything to them.


    However, under these circumstances, Yun Tianhe was already exasperated. He could have killed some of them in anger even if he didn''t kill them all. Perhaps they would be left behind as a bargaining chip for him to negotiate with the five biggest sects. Unquestionably, Zhou Bao had spared the five biggest sects a big problem by rescuing all the survivors. They had to accept this favor. Furthermore, it was not so easy to get hold of Zhou Bao''s stuff.


    Basing on the strength Zhou Bao had displayed when he rushed out of the Splendid Landscape Map, he would not be that easily bullied.


    Since then, the five biggest sects in the Four Eastern Regions and Youxian Temple had become enemies. This time, 50 percent of the blame for such a heavy loss fell on Youxian Temple. However, Youxian Temple would not give in that easily. The Chief of Youxian Temple was furious due to the disappearance of the Taoist Priestess Bai Lan. Although Child-endowing Buddha was the most likely suspect, Youxian Temple did not have any hard evidence. Coupled with the fact that both sides were made at each other, they couldn''t reach an agreement. Though he was furious, the Chief of Youxian Temple could do nothing much since they were thousands of miles apart.


    However, in the Four Eastern Regions, the relationship between the five biggest sects had also become estranged. If Youxian Temple should bear 50 percent of the responsibility for this loss, everyone agreed that of the remaining 50 percent of the responsibility, Divine Wind Palace should account for at least 40 percent because the target of Rolling Dragon King was their member, Yu Nantian.


    Rolling Dragon King was a local bully in the Sea Area. No matter how powerful and confident the five biggest sects were, they dared not send a punitive expedition against him to avenge themselves in the Sea Area. Since they could not vent their anger upon Rolling Dragon King, they would naturally direct their anger toward Yu Nantian, the initiator of the incident.


    To bully the weak and fear the strong was human nature.


    If it wasn''t for Yu Nantian who had overdone the things in the Sea Area, why would Rolling Dragon King be so furious? The latter then came to the Seven-deity Regions, risking his own life, to plot trouble for the five biggest sects.


    "When the city gate catches fire, the fish in the moat suffers from it." This was the best description of this matter. If Yu Nantian had died in the ensuing battle, that would be plausible. However, although the city gate was on fire, it had not been totally burnt. Instead, half of the fish had perished. How could the remaining fish have no objections?


    Coupled with the things that Divine Wind Palace had done before, the reconciliation between the five biggest sects due to the Void Map no longer existed. Their relationship became subtle again.


    "Damn it. How ruthless you are, Rolling Dragon King!"


    After this battle, the five biggest sects were once again not on good terms and held trials that pitted their strength against each other. However, Zhou Bao returned to the Wuyang Region without any further delay, after he had snatched the Inner Elixir of the Evil Fire Kylin.


    The Inner Elixir of the Evil Fire Kylin was a great help to him in practicing the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill. The Eight Nine Mysterious Skill was a cultivation method of the Primordial Fierce Beasts, Zhuyan. Although they were beasts, they were as smart as humans. Some who had a stronger Bloodline Inheritance would be even more cunning than humans. Like Innate Deities and Primordial Demons, these Primordial Fierce Beasts were born from the essence of heaven and earth. They were born with powerful Divine Senses and intelligence which were superior to those of human beings. Therefore, having been passed down from generation to generation, the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill was certainly better than any human''s cultivation methods. The cultivation methods of the Fierce Beasts were all created based on the characteristics of this race and had a high pertinence to beasts. As the saying goes, "A specialist is a master in his own special field". Therefore, the more highly the cultivation method was targeted, the better the effect.


    The Eight Nine Mysterious Skill specialized in practicing the body and the Mysterious Divine Light, while the Inner Elixir of the Evil Fire Kylin majored in purifying the body. Although his body was quite strong, it had many impurities that had to be removed. His body was considered strong among the human race. However, it was inferior to the body of a newborn female Zhuyan if it was compared with a kind of Primordial Fierce Beast, the Demonic Ape Zhuyan tribe.


    The Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan was a high-level Fierce Beast, while the Kylin, together with other legendary divine beasts and supernatural animals in primitive times, were just low-level Fierce Beasts. Generally, high-level Fierce Beasts such as Zhuyan would be born with the strength of a human Venerable. There was no need for them to practice at all. They would obtain the strength of a Lord of Heaven at the adolescent stage merely by eating and drinking every day. Once becoming an adult, each Zhuyan could easily break through to the Human Immortal Realm, known as the moment of life and death by human practitioners.


    However, the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan was not a fool that merely ate and drank. It knew how to practice as well. Their opponents, of course, would not be the human practitioners because they could not be compared to each other. After many years of accumulation and inheritance, the Zhuyan tribe had a unique cultivation method in possession¡ªthe Eight Nine Mysterious Skill.


    As the high-level Fierce Beasts in primitive times, their opponents were Innate Deities and Primordial Demons. The Eight Nine Mysterious Skill also existed because of their opponents.


    The cultivation method that targeted the Innate Deities and Primordial Demons was undoubtedly not as simple as the ones Zhou Bao had practiced before. With Zhou Bao''s intelligence, it was quite hard for him to understand the quintessence and subtle point of this cultivation method. In the final analysis, Zhou Bao was considered not a particularly clever man.

 521 Human Emperor & Ultimate Strength

    "You are saying that I''ve been played?!" Zhou Bao''s expression darkened, showing a rare stern face.


    "Of course you were played!" Child-endowing Buddha seemed completely helpless and shrugged his shoulders. "During that time, I didn''t know there were so many secrets. Now that I entered the Bigwheel Temple, I know a lot more. This is how I predicted their plan. Your birth destiny is special. But even though it being eccentric, you''re not a celestial being and therefore not a Candidate for Human Emperor. However, your children are different. They have you as a shield, bear the blood of the Yan Family, and have as their birthplace the Nine Dragons convergence, a place where dragons rise. Considering all this, their birth destinies are so precious, they could frighten one to death!"


    "So what if it''s a celestial''s life or a demigod''s life?!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly, "As long as I don''t agree, it will be impossible to think of using my family - even for the Immortal Palace!"


    "That''s easy for you to say now, but when the time comes, the decision will not be up to you!" Seeing Zhou Bao putting on a face, Child-endowing Buddha broke into a weird laughter. "Immortal Palace has already done what needs to be done! They only need your children to have the birth destiny of a celestial being. On top of that, the Nine Dragons convergence will cause their fate to soar. You won''t be able to stop their fate from blossoming in the future. Even if you want to stop them from taking that road, you won''t necessarily be able to!"


    "What exactly do you want to say?!"


    "Cooperation. Let''s pressurize Immortal Palace together!" Child-endowing Buddha also felt that he was straying away. He said directly, "Soon, the journey to Infinite Star Sea will begin. Nobody knows what will happen. Hence, before that, the position of the Human Emperor must be settled. This time, your father-in-law will definitely compete for it. However, you also know about the things that happened before. His chances are not high. What I want you to do is to help your old father-in-law to get the Human Emperor position no matter what!"


    "Why exactly are people fighting for this Human Emperor''s position?!"


    "After you won the fight, you will know that Human Emperor is not just a title. He represents the ultimate power. And as for what this ultimate power is, hehe, you can take a look after you fight a little!"


    "Why should I listen to you?!"


    "Because when you get the Human Emperor position, you''ll have such great benefits - so great you can''t even imagine them!" Child-endowing Buddha said mysteriously, "You might even get to overturn the case of the Fiery Eyes tribe from that year?!"


    "This is impossible!" Zhou Bao did not even think before continuing, "Whatever unlucky thing happened to the Fiery Eyes tribe was caused by Divine Wind Palace. And they''re also responsible for the candidates for Human Emperor. So, why would they backstab themselves?!"


    "Hehe, their misfortune was indeed caused by Divine Wind Palace. But speaking truthfully, it happened because of the Human Emperor candidate back then. Divine Wind Palace search for candidates so eagerly, the ultimate goal is to control him completely. For so many years, Divine Wind Palace had maintained their superior benefit over other four big sects. This benefit originated from their initial control over the candidate and the ultimate strength!"


    "Controlling the Human Emperor and ultimate strength?!" Zhou Bao raised his hand and glanced at Child-endowing Buddha, asking, "Then how am I supposed to help that old guy?!"


    "I don''t have to teach you how to do it. When the time comes, the old guy will definitely ask you for help. He will naturally tell you clearly how he wants you to help him. Then, you will only need to discuss some conditions with him. I''m here just to remind you of this in case you get tired of him and refuse him immediately and therefore miss out on this great chance!"


    "Helping him snatch the Human Emperor position is not considered as involving myself in earthly matters, right?!"


    "Tsk, of course not!" Child-endowing Buddha shook his head frantically. "You could kill all Human Emperor candidates and it wouldn''t be counted. As long as you can kill them, that is!"


    "I will take your blessings!" Zhou Bao gave a martial arts hand salute and disappeared in a flash in front of Child-endowing Buddha without saying goodbye.


    "This fella is indeed impatient!" Seeing Zhou Bao leave, Child-endowing Buddha was not angry. On the contrary, he shook his head and smiled as if he could understand what Zhou Bao was going through.


    However, Zhou Bao returned to Wuyang Region. The first thing he did was to run into the Inner Yard and look for his children with the birth destiny of a celestial being. However, his fire-like Qi Power shocked Yan Yunfei.


    "What happened to you? Why are you in such a rush?!"


    "Oh, nothing much. I''m just taking a look at them!" Seeing Yan Yunfei''s shocked yet coquettish look, Zhou Bao had a rush of adrenaline. He laughed, hugged her tightly, and said, "Just now there was a bastard who tried to see into their future. He said that their birth destiny is much more precious than mine, so I''m here to take a look!"


    "What nonsense! How could there be a birth destiny more precious than yours!" Yan Yunfei pinched his waist harshly, however, Zhou Bao did not have any reaction. Instead, Yan Yunfei gave a shocking cry of pain, originating from the reverse force of Zhou Bao''s body.


    "Urgh!" At this moment, Zhou Bao thought that it was a tragedy. His body was just strengthened by the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill, and he had not gotten used to it yet. These few years, Yan Yunfei''s skills improved tremendously, even without her putting in much effort. Under Zhou Bao''s guidance, she drank a few bottles of medicine and then went from the peak of Level Six Realm to Level Seven Expert Realm. Her strength took a qualitative leap. If that would not have been the case, she would be seriously hurt from just now.


    However, even so, Zhou Bao didn''t dare to be intimate with her. He smiled awkwardly and pretended to ask a few questions. After that, he ran out drenched in sweat and sat in the study room all night long. The whole situation was beyond ''embarrassing''.


    On the second morning, Zhou Bao heard some noises coming from the bedroom. He rose up and ran to the bedroom with a sinister laughter.


    "Wife, I - your husband - am coming!"


    "Pow!" He was met with a big, red pillow.


    "Wife, don''t be angry. I - your husband - am here to talk to you about a serious matter!"


    "A serious matter?! What kind of serious matter did you come to me for?!" Yan Yunfei shouted angrily. Obviously, she was still pissed from the night before.


    "Hehe, what else other than about our old father-in-law?!" Zhou Bao leaned towards her with a smile on his face while holding the second pillow to avoid it from being thrown.


    "Wife, did your father, His Excellency, write to you recently?!"


    "Royal Father?!" Yan Yunfei froze. Then, she looked at him with an eccentric gaze. "How did you know? A letter from Royal Father did come yesterday, saying that he wants to meet you. I was worried that you''ll feel troubled, so I didn''t tell you!"


    "Haha, so this is the legendary saying ''Daughters married away are like water carried away,'' favoring an outsider instead of someone''s own?!" said Zhou Bao as he heard that and laughed out loud.


    "Screw you!" shouted Yan Yunfei as she heard that and blushed. She stretched out her hand, unconsciously wanting to give him a strong slap. However, the thought of what happened last night flashed through her brain, and she withdrew her hand. She stared harshly at Zhou Bao and could not stop herself from smiling. "What dumb idea are you thinking of again?!"


    "What do you mean by ''dumb idea''? I kept on hearing news about my father-in-law. I thought that according to his personality, he would come to me for such matters, so I''m just asking!"


    "You are smart indeed, knowing that Royal Father will come to you. But it is not for sure that you will help him!"


    "What do you mean by that? Since when do I not help Royal Father? Let me tell you, I might actually help Royal Father a lot this time!" Zhou Bao said assuredly. He might as well also tap on his chest as a sign of assurance.


    "Really?!" Yan Yunfei was surprised by his sudden change in attitude. She looked at Zhou Bao in disbelief and said, "What dumb idea are you thinking of again now!"


    "Oh god, my dear wife. The injustice towards me is killing me! I only want to help you to do something out of filial piety, but you mistake my good intentions for ill intent! Forget it, forget it. This is hurting my pride. Let''s not talk about it. I''m not giving a damn anymore!" Speaking of which, Zhou Bao turned around and walked away with a face of disappointment.


    "Hey, wait!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s pretense, Yan Yunfei did not know whether to be mad or laugh at it. "Come back, stop acting!"


    Zhou Bao turned around and smiled, trying to get on her good side. "Wife, when His Highness father-in-law said he wanted to meet me, did he specify a time?!"


    "He didn''t give any details, but from what I could read between the lines, it seems to be as soon as possible. Tell me, why does Royal Father want to see you so urgently to even hide the matter from his own daughter!" Yan Yunfei''s voice was filled with dissatisfaction and jealousy.


    "From what I can tell, it isn''t anything big, but its just connected to too many other things. Even if he wants to tell you, it''s not convenient for him to mention it in the letter. If you really want to know, why don''t you go with me to Jing?!"


    "To Jing?" Yan Yunfei was sold for just a moment and then laughed bitterly. "I''ll pass this time. After both kids are bigger, we''ll bring them there, also making Royal Father happy!"


    Mentioning their children, even the space between Yan Yunfei''s eyebrows was joyful. Unexpectedly, Zhou Bao laughed sinisterly. "Who knows if you''ll be pregnant and unable to walk by then!"


    "Screw you!" Now, Yan Yunfei was really annoyed, but she still feared the eccentric status of Zhou Bao''s body. After taming her anger, she touched him gently. She found a Green Sheath Dagger on his body and mercilessly stabbed it into his body.


    "Isn''t this a Divine Weapon! Wife, you''re really intending to murder your own husband!" Zhou Bao screeched and dodged.


    "Right, today I want to murder my husband. What''s wrong with that!" Yan Yunfei shouted and ran towards Zhou Bao while still holding onto the sword...


    ...


    Jin, West Capital, Royal Capital.


    The evening breeze blew like a mournful zither under the setting sun. In the midst of this evening breeze, Yan Yuntian stood before the extremely big window of the Imperial Study. There was some harshness in the middle of this quite breeze, but he did not bother about this very cooling breeze. Looking at the sun setting in the west, he murmured to himself, "It''s coming soon, it''s coming soon!"

 520 Precious Beyond Words

    Holding onto the Evil Fire Kylin''s Inner Elixir, Zhou Bao started to slowly think about the mysteries of the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill. After an hour, he opened his eyes and looked at the fire red Internal Elixir in his hand. He took a deep breath, utilized all his strength, and crushed the Internal Elixir into pieces. A gush of golden red essence rose up into the sky, but it was then absorbed into Zhou Bao''s Mysterious Divine Light.


    After absorbing the essence of the Internal Elixir and waiting for it to sink into the Dantian, Zhou Bao activated the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill. Mysterious Divine Light shot up from the Dantian; and after a few rounds of circulation, it penetrated into the Twelve Regular Vessels and Eight Extraordinary Meridians. The three Dantians bloated up at the same time. The essence in the Evil Fire Kylin''s Internal Elixir was immediately melted by the Mysterious Divine Light, turning into a scorching hot energy and drilling into Zhou Bao.


    "Sss~~!" Zhou Bao sucked in a cold breath. At that moment, this scorching airflow spread across his whole body. From skin to bone marrow, from tendons and meridians to blood; these places were as if being washed by the scorching air.


    Zhou Bao felt an indescribable lightness in his whole body. He could ''see'' that the thread of Flickering Light Evil Qi left in his original body, as well as all the Evil Qi and pneuma he had ever absorbed, were all wiped out cleanly. Each pore, each cell, and each muscle were filled with the most primitive and instinctive power.


    Yes, power, endless power. Apart from power, there was nothing else. Just pure power.


    "Power, Extreme Realm of Force, and crushing vacuum; those things are the final goal of the Zhuyan tribe. Apart from crushing vacuum, everything else is in vain!" Zhou Bao suddenly understood something. He gradually began to realize some things from the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill and also found the goal of cultivation.


    "The Primordial Fierce Beast is indeed different, even its way of cultivation is so extreme, simple, straightforward and powerful. It is much stronger than human beings, but that''s inevitable. The conditions of Primordial Fierce Beasts are so much better than humans''. It is not surprising that they can create outstanding and powerful cultivation methods that point to the very essence of it. Eight Nine Mysterious Skill, hehe, this skill is comparable to 3,000 Great Ways!"


    Zhou Bao sighed out a long breath and suddenly disappeared from the room. After a split second, he reappeared on a hill hundreds of miles away.


    "Hmph, even if I don''t have the Flickering Light Evil Qi, I can still tear the space apart with the strength in my body. And if united with the Three Realms Division, I am much faster and can do it even further. As for other special techniques, except for the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, I do not need anything else. Messy and unprecise, that''s not how I want to do things. As long as I practice the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill and crazily increase my strength and power, I can defeat anything with just one punch, be it special techniques or secret skills. Same with celestial devices. I don''t give a damn!" Standing on the hill and embracing the wind, Zhou Bao''s eyes glittered. "In antiquity times, the powerful Demonic Ape Zhuyan could even defeat Supreme Fairy Weapons with its physical body. Perhaps that phase was the legendary ''crushing vacuum'', haha~!"


    As he was deep in thoughts, his expression suddenly changed and annoyance was seen on his face. "Child-endowing Buddha, since you''re here already, why keep hiding like a fart that you are? Come out!"


    "Hehehehehe, it seems like the benefits of the Evil Fire Kylin are indeed not bad. You unexpectedly detected my spirit so quickly!" A weird laughter was heard and Child-endowing Buddha came out with a protruding, fat belly.


    "Hmph. In terms of benefits, you have so much more than me. Not only did you get two Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices, you also got a beauty. By the way, I haven''t asked you yet. What''s so special about that woman that makes her worth so much to you?!"


    "Nothing much, nothing much. She''s just a beautiful woman, and I like beautiful women. That''s all!


    "Tsk!" Zhou Bao sneered and gave a scornful look. "Come on! Just a woman? If she''s really just a woman, then why are you so nervous? Why did you take action in front of so many people? Green Spirit, this is not your style!"


    "I too can''t do anything about it; I also don''t believe it. But sometimes, you have no choice but to believe that love at first sight really does exist!" Child-endowing Buddha said with a bitter look, "I even have to thank you for doing me such a great favor. If it wasn''t for you, this woman may not even have surrendered to me!"


    "There''s so much hypocritical nonsense coming from you! You stole a beauty! You ran from a peaceful countryside miles away to come to my Wuyang Region. Don''t tell me this is just to show off your new woman?!"


    "Of course not! I''m won''t be that lame! I''m here to discuss something with you!"


    "Discuss? What is there to discuss with me?!"


    "Its time to give the Divine Wind Palace some pressure!" Child-endowing Buddha did not care about Zhou Bao''s sarcasm, and his expression became serious. "This is a good chance. This time, all five biggest sects have suffered a lot. The person to blame is Rolling Dragon King, but no one would be dumb enough to find trouble with him. Eventually, all this anger will be directed to Yu Nantian. This would be a good chance for us to attack the Divine Wind Palace!"


    "Divine Wind Palace is so easily attacked?!"


    "This time around, things are different. There is a fight between two internal big families. We just need to add oil to the fire. Hehe, both Yu family and Hong family are not easy to handle. If they both fight with each other, it would be beneficial to us!"


    "Do you think they are dumb enough to let you benefit out of this?!"


    "Of course they''re not stupid! We also cannot expect the fight to really happen. But it would be possible to drill a nail between both families, and cracks will build up over time. And when the time is right, it will crumble on its own. To deal with the Divine Wind Palace, we must target both the inside and the outside of it!"


    "You''re just a fake Child-endowing Buddha. Why are you so concerned with the five biggest sects instead of playing with some women in Bigwheel Temple? Is it possible that you really want to become the Bigwheel Temple''s leader?!"


    "Hmph. Based on my current power and potential, it is not impossible to become Bigwheel Temple''s leader!" Child-endowing Buddha became proud. "But you know already know that I''m really not interested in the position. Now that everyone knows that my cultivation is practiced regularly and has become a divine intervention, my status in the Bigwheel Temple has soared very much. Now, the Bigwheel Temple will ask for my opinion on many decisions. So in order to secure my spot, I should do something for them too. The higher I go and the more secure my position is, the more advantages you have, no?!"


    "So you chose to go against Divine Wind Palace?!"


    "I need to show some results. Although I did gain a huge benefit and showcased my ability, my accompanying monks all died in Splendid Landscape Map. This requires an explanation, and the best explanation would be to pressurize Divine Wind Palace and get something out of them."


    "Haha, it is always easier said than done. How are you going to do that? Don''t tell me you want me to join hands with you?!" Zhou Bao gave a cold laugh. "Child-endowing Buddha, I don''t know what you''re thinking, but I don''t want other people to know our past relationship!"


    "This I understand, of course. I am not asking you to go with me. For a big school like Divine Wind Palace, even if both of us pressurize them together, there wouldn''t be much effect. All we need to do is to show our stance. I will go there and ask for a compensation for my poor monks. You, on the other hand, have to deal with them using another method!"


    "Which method?!"


    "Candidate for Human Emperor!"


    "Why does this involve the Human Emperor again?!" Zhou Bao frowned.


    "Isn''t this all coincidental?!" Child-endowing Buddha gave a cold smile. "You should know, Divine Wind Palace has always wanted to regain the power of the Ancient Celestial Court and bring back the Human Emperor''s position, ruling the whole country. However, it is not easy to bring back the position. Apart from huge power, a strong fate and birth destiny are required."


    "This I know, a supreme being''s life is needed!"


    "Nonsense. That is for the Emperor of a dynasty, not a Human Emperor. For a Human Emperor, you''ll need the life of a celestial being. Just like your daughter and son, they have it! Only those with such birth destiny are suitable candidates for being a Human Emperor!" Speaking of which, he glanced at Zhou Bao and broke into laughter. "However, the life of a celestial being is not easy to get! This is also why Divine Wind Palace brought this idea to Dragon-taming Ruins. They wanted to make use of the strong earth vein fate there to mass produce a group of candidates with the life of a celestial being. Although they did not succeed completely, after so many years, there are a few candidates that became candidates for the Human Emperor, just like your old father-in-law!"


    "What did you say? Yan Yuntian was brought up by Divine Wind Palace?!"


    "Obviously, if not, why do you think his birth destiny is so good and his fate so smooth-sailing? His mother, your wife''s grandmother, is surnamed Yu!"


    Hearing this, Zhou Bao froze. He stood there and said not a single word.


    "Not only Yan Yuntian, a few emperors from various dynasties in Li dynasty of Penglai Region, as well as two other regions, are all from Divine Wind Palace!"


    "They are also related to the Yu family?!"


    "No, no, no, no, no. There is not just one Yu family in Divine Wind Palace. There is at least one more Hong family. Other than that, there are other families!" Speaking of which, Child-endowing Buddha scanned Zhou Bao. "If not, why do you think Immortal Palace is so interested after finding out your land is the place of Nine Dragons convergence? Why did they build the Sea-calming Palace here to press down the dragon vein without any consideration for costs? They have the same idea as Immortal Palace. Your children''s birth destinies, hehe, are costly beyond words~!"

 522 Li Dynasty Senior Grand Tutor Hong

    Western Capital was about 4.3 million miles away from northwest Wuyang Region. At Zhou Bao''s current speed, it would be covered within an hour so he could take it leisurely.


    The central of Great Jin was really different from what he remembered.


    After two big incidents, the current West Capital could no longer be as peaceful as it was after annihilating Northen Yuan. Subtedly, an unspeakable serious murderous vibe could still be felt in the air.


    "Such heavy killing atmosphere!" Just sais as he got closer to Western Captial and started to already feel that horrible atmosphere.


    In just a short period of time, two catastrophes had struck the city. Although Western Capital was not completely destroyed, the nearby Mingyi Lane was a complete ruin. When Zhou Bao neared Mingyi Lane, he realized that it had already started to be rebuilt: A grand hall 100 times more imposing than the original Mingyi School was being built right there. The main pillars were already in place, and the giant signboard above said "School of Five Virtues". Zhou Bao saw it and a sinister smile flashed across his face.


    School of Five Virtues!


    After Mingyi School went through a complete defeat with huge destruction included, the School of Five Virtues behind it finally surfaced. It was definitely much stronger than Mingyi School, but most importantly, it meant that Divine Wind Palace was finally going to strongly intervene in the matters of Central Mainland Region.


    In the past, Mingyi School represented the justice and orthodoxy of the Jin dynasty, and regardless it was still just a small branch of the School of Five Virtues, so it was not directly related to Divine Wind Palace. Hence, the Palace did not bother too much about a small school like that one. However, the School of Five Virtues was different. It was an influence directly under the Palace. While the four sects may have the courage to fight and kill in Mingyi School, or even to destroy Uniform Dao, once the sign changed to School of Five Virtues, they would be unable to do so. Even if they want to fight the School of Five Virtues, they are forced to avoid a face to face encounter and think of more mischevious ideas as the Divine Palace could use the school to justify its intervention in the conflict.


    "So, after all, these rough people who only know how to fight may look like they have gained an advantage but eventually, they''ll still be cheated by Divine Wind Palace. The signboard of the School of Five Virtues up means the flag of Divine Wind Palace is flying!" Zhou Bao said as he smiled helplessly to himself. He swayed his body and walked away.


    "Who is that person spying over here? Catch him!" Just when Zhou Bao turned his body and was ready to leave, he heard a shout followed by horses galloping. A team of generals immediately rushed in front of him and surrounded him.


    "Who are you? How did you come in? Didn''t you know that Mingyi Lane has already been sealed off?!"


    "Whoosh!" A cold light flashed and a snowy bright sharp gun was pointed against Zhou Bao''s throat.


    Zhou Bao furrowed his eyebrows. He looked at all these knights in heavy armors. They all had obvious killing intent, and their Fierce Qi shot out of the roof. What amazed Zhou Bao was that the armors were not of Jin''s. Their abilities were unpredictable. It was not that Zhou Bao could not see through them, it was just that they were too strong. The knight holding the gun against him was a Level Eight expert!


    Level Eight expert!


    Such a powerful warrior was surprisingly a soldier, even a riding soldier was too low for his strength. Among the other knights, half of them were Level Seven experts and the other half were all at the peak of Level Six!


    The Jin dynasty was indeed powerful. However, it would be impossible to come up with such knights. These people, when placed in any big family, were to be served by the elders, they did not have to suffer being mere soldiers.


    However right now, he could clearly feel that these people were not temporary knights, they had the killing instinct of someone who spent their lives on the battlefield.


    "Interesting!" Zhou Bao murmured. He did not try to cover his voice. Instead, he was even snickering. "Who are you guys, can''t you see that I''m a soldier of Great Jin!"


    "Huh?!" The leading knight squinted his eyes and stared at Zhou Bao intensely. Things were not as easy as he thought. Zhou Bao was not a scholar who unintentionally stepped into that forbidden place as he first guessed. Moreover, even though he was ready to kill Zhou Bao, this blue-clothed scholar did not even twitch under his killing intent. Instead, he was very curious. He did not even care about the gun pointing against his throat. To be that confident in that situation he must have some secret weapon. However, what could it be? Perhaps he was the emperor''s relative?


    Thinking of this, he smiled coldly. He had seen the emperor''s relatives, even killed some himself. Does this idiot not know?


    Therefore, he did not bother about Zhou Bao any longer. He retrieved his long spear violently and shouted some orders. "Fu Sheng, take him down, send him to the Emperor of Jin, let him be punished!"


    "Yes!" One of the knights answered loudly. He reached out his hand and went to grab Zhou Bao by the collar.


    "Seems like you guys are indeed not people of Jin!" Zhou Bao said, and then he smiled very heartily. He suddenly lifted his hand and aimed for that knight named Fu Sheng.


    "Poof!"


    In just a split second, the two hands went into the knight''s body. It was as if the man was made of mud.


    Right after, flesh and blood flew all over the place. When the crowd of knights finally processed what just happened, there was not even a single piece of flesh of Fu Sheng left.


    "Shit, shit, why has my temper become so bad after refining the Real Body of Zhuyan? Killing is so cruel, this is too much!"


    Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows. Ever since he practiced the Mysterious Divine Light, his personality had become more violent. When he first arrived there, he was nothing but a calmed gentleman. But now? What had he turned into?


    In the last 20 years, he seemed to have left that gentleman behind and he was an all-evil guy who would kill and set fires. He could even play several tricks while carrying out his murders. Not thinking as he did was an instant death now.


    While he was in deep thought about himself, the knights started to shout. No one would have thought that this skinny-thin blue-clothed scholar had such amazing skills. The violence and cruelty in his attack made everyone panic and their weapons were sent flying to Zhou Bao.


    "No!"


    It all happened too fast. The leading knight was not able to stop it at all. Several long spears landed on Zhou Bao''s face, chest, crotch and the rest of his body.


    "Bang! Bang! Bang!"


    Then, a sound similar to watermelons being shot down started to rumble over and over. After the 18th time, every single knight except for the leader was shattered into pieces, only their skulls left. 32 eyes filled with fear turned to empty holes in an instant.


    "No-!" The leader roared. These loyal subordinates were his direct descendants, they were his trusted companions. They had followed him into many seas of dead bodies. These people had a deep fellowship with him. They were superior and subordinates on the outside, but brothers on the inside. However, just like that, Zhou Bao had killed all of them, and he did not even know how. However, no matter how furious he was, no matter how much he hated Zhou Bao, he knew that he would not be able to fight him. He came to this conclusion based on Zhou Bao''s performance just now. his power was terrifying, it was indescribable. He would be dead meat for sure if he picks on a fight now.


    "You, who exactly are you?" Using up all the courage he had, the knight blurted out this question.


    Seeing how he was holding on to his long spear with desperation, nervously biting on his teeth, and his eyes filled with hatred, Zhou Bao suddenly had a rush of adrenaline. This kind of feeling, having someone''s life on his hand, almost intoxicated him.


    "Falling, falling!" Zhou Bao reflected on his psycho mindset. The smile on his face became wider. He was like a humble scholar meeting his mentor.


    "Who are you?" Zhou Bao reverted the question quietly. His warm gaze landed on the knight.


    "Li dynasty, Divine Cavalry, General Zuo, Che Renmei!"


    "Li dynasty?!" Zhou Bao was shooked for a second. He could almost guess what was going on exactly. However, he pretended to be completely lost. "Li dynasty is a few million miles from Jin, there is also an endless sea in between. What are you guys doing in Jin?!"


    Zhou Bao was questioning Che Renmei in a tone one would use with a prisoner. Any other day, Che Renmei would have given the other person a tight slap. However, right now, he did not dare to do so, as he could feel the pressure from Zhou Bao suffocating him. He felt like he was not dealing with a smiley scholar, but a Fierce Beast who ate humans. His life, thoughts, mission, secrets, were all under the threat of Zhou Bao.


    "Following the orders of Senior Grand Tutor Hong, I came to supervise School of Five Virtues. This was agreed by your Emperor of Jin!"


    Mentioning Senior Grand Tutor Hong caused some relieve on him. He decided to hold onto that, and his already-bent waist started to straighten while Zhou Bao''s pressure felt also less heavy.


    "Senior Grand Tutor Hong?!" Zhou Bao said with disbelief. "There''s no evidence. You said that the Emperor agreed to this. How about this, I will bring you to see him and we shall find out the truth!" As he spoke, he did not even wait for Che Renmei''s consent and grabbed him by the collar. He lifted his body up and quickly disappeared.

 523 Zhi IX

    "Yo, isn''t this General Che? What is going on, why are you here?"


    Yan Yuntian was deep in meditation in the imperial palace of Western Capital. However, his calmed expression suddenly changed when he turned his head and saw Che Renmei being thrown out of a portal. He rolled into Imperial Study with a shocked face. Yan Yuntian went from joy to a slight fear.


    "So you two do know each other, I thought he was lying!" Zhou Bao''s voice rang in his ears. His body emerged from the dark portal. "I passed by Mingyi Lane just to see, but I was surrounded by his men. I noticed that they were not from Jin, so I brought him here!"


    "Zhou Bao, it''s you-!" Seeing that it was Zhou Bao Yan Yuntian''s horror turned into joy once again. "I have written a long time ago, I thought you were not coming!"


    "Oh, I was busy with the Inner Elixir of Fire Kylin, wasn''t I? I didn''t know you were looking for me. Now that I''m done being busy, I''m here, right?!" Zhou Bao smiled and greeted Yan Yuntian politely. No matter what, this guy was his elder, his father-in-law. Manners could not be avoided.


    "Your presence is enough, no need to be so polite!" Yan Yuntian could not contain his joy. The two began to chat and forgot about Che Renmei. When Che Renmei heard Yan Yuntian say Zhou Bao''s name, his expression finally changed.


    "Zhou Bao, you''re Zhou Bao of Yunzhou, damn it, how dare you? Although you are not listed as a fairy, you are no longer entitled to meddle with earthly matters. How dare you fight me? You''re dead meat, you will be punished, you will be!" Che Renmei pointed at Zhou Bao and shouted.


    "Is there something wrong with your brain? Yes, I am no longer to entitled to interfere, but how did I interfere exactly? Do not forget, you were the one who brought your men and surrounded me, it was you who first picked up the fight. You guys searched for your own death. Who can you blame me when it was you who were just sick and tired of living?!" Zhou Bao managed to shut him up with just this one line. After that, he did not have to bother about Che Renmei anymore. He furrowed his eyebrows as he asked Yan Yuntian, "What is exactly happening? Why did the knights of Li dynasty come to the territory of Jin, and yet still so self-proclaiming?!"


    "It is a long story!" Yan Yuntian was always filled with anger while talking about this. He used to swallow his anger and wait for it to fade away, but now, seeing how pathetic Che Renmei was, an indescribable joy started to replace the bad feelings. He also found Zhou Bao more pleasing to the eye.


    "If it''s a long story then take your time. I have plenty of it since I can''t meddle with earthly matters anymore. It doesn''t hurt to listen to stories. Right, father-in-law!"


    "Yes, yes, yes!" Yan Yuntian nodded his head continuously. "Follow me, let''s chat while we drink something!"


    "Good!" Seeing Yan Yuntian''s excitement, Zhou Bao could not help but to also smile. He turned and once again grabbed Che Renmei by the collar to follow Yan Yuntian outside.


    "Zhou Bao, you cannot do this, you cannot ridicule me. I am here to follow the orders of Senior Grand Tutor Hong. The repairment of School of Five Virtues is a big thing. You doing this means you''re against the School. Yan Yuntan, make him let go!"


    Yan Yuntian''s expression turned ugly. Zhou Bao, on the other hand, seemed like he was laughing, almost as if he was watching some kind of joke unfold.


    A knight from another dynasty who had become a prisoner dared to shout out the Emperor''s name loudly. Moreover, there was a hint of threat in his tone. That ordering tone was going to bring about a lot of problems.


    "Damn it! I did not want to kill you, but what I hate the most is idiots shouting nonsense. Since you want to die so badly, I will fulfill your wishes!"


    Before Yan Yuntian could react, Zhou Bao''s slap had already landed on Che Renmei''s helmet.


    With a boom, Che Renmei followed his fellow subordinates to death.


    "Good, now the world is quiet and clean!"


    "You-!" Yan Yuntian did not expect Zhou Bao to kill just like that. He could not hide his laughter, "This is fine too, him being dead is good, he was an eyesore!"


    "Yes, he was indeed an eyesore. But my father-in-law is not someone who can withstand this kind of thing!"


    "It was before and it is still now too!" Yan Yuntian sighed. He patted Zhou Bao''s shoulders and pointed to the hut in front, "Come on, let''s go over and talk!"


    "Fine!"


    The duo arrived at the hut, where a maid was already serving tea and desserts. The wind was soothing and refreshing, and Yan Yuntian started his tale, "You already know this, but the last time well-known families broke into a fight, Mingyi School was destroyed. However, not all was lost. Mingyi School may be gone, but a more powerful School of Five Virtues is coming!"


    "School of Five Virtues entering my Central Mainland Region is a bigger threat to the four big sects. I have no idea what that old bastard was thinking, letting them in!"


    "Hmph, what else is there to do other than coming in?!" Yan Yuntian smiled coldly. "The Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony is coming soon. This has been organized by the Divine Wind Palace for millions of years. If we don''t let School of Five Virtues in, I will not have the entitlement to partake in the competition. Although they are not a decisive factor, they have a pretty huge influence. The theory of a Human Emperor has always been preached by the School of Five Virtues in the Four Eastern Regions. That was how Mingyi School came about. In each dynasty, the four Divine Regions have big influence!"


    "Then what has the Li dynasty got to do with this? If I remember correctly, the Emperor of Li dynasty seems to be your rival!"


    "You''re right, he is indeed the most suitable candidate. He is also the biggest target of the support from Scool of Five Virtues. However, they will not bet all on just one competitor. After all, they don''t have control over the whole ceremony!"


    "You are their other target, so you have no choice but to give in!?"


    "You''re right. Their main bet is on Emperor Yang. The roots of the School of Five Virtues are very deep among the Li dynasty. In fact, they have been inseparable from the Li dynasty for a long time. Senior Grand Tutor Hong of Li dynasty is from the Hong family of the Divine Wind Palace. At the same time, he is also a supporter of the School of Five Virtues. The Divine Cavalry is formed by his direct descendant. This time around, the School of Five Virtues wanted to set up some influence in Jin, that''s why Senior Grand Tutor Hong sent Che Renmei and his men. I was in no place to reject, but I was also scared that they would cause trouble. That''s why I sealed up the land of Minyi Lane. I could''ve never guessed that you would go there and even run into them!"


    "Sealed up the place? Even if you seal it up, it is still land of the Jin dynasty and the Central Mainland Region. A foreigner is in no place to be so arrogant!" Zhou Bao said with a bitter smile. He lifted up his cup and took a big gulp. "Father-in-law, I''m not complaining, but you can''t go easy on people like that. Once you do, they''ll take advantage of you and do all sorts of things!"


    "Indeed, you''re right, this is the land of Jin, I cannot be polite to them!" Yan Yuntian slapped the table violently. He pointed at Zhou Bao and shouted excitedly, "Kid, you and I agreed for the first time. Come, let us replace wine with tea, cheers!"


    "Okay, cheers!" Zhou Bao smiled and lifted up his cup, but before he could finish his tea, an angry voice rumbled across the room.


    "Who is it, who had the guts to do such an evil thing!" A white-clothed man appeared in front of the hut in a flash. He looked at the two of them with a sick expression. He placed Che Renmei''s headless corpse on the ground. "Who, who did this?!"


    "Who is this again?!" Zhou Bao scanned the man unconsciously. His smile widened.


    "This is an Individual Immortal. Even if we kill him, no one can say anything."


    "This fella has such strong murderous intent. I just arrived and he already wants to kill me. Shit, if such a guy exists in Central Mainland Region, something bad is going to happen to our plan!" Sensing Zhou Bao''s crazy eagerness to kill, the man''s expression changed. He tried to relax his stern expression, but you could still see the tension on it.


    "Zhi IX of the School of Five Virtues, I''ve come to see Brother Yan!" This guy was Zhi IX, he greeted Yan Yuntian and then looked at Zhou Bao. "If I haven''t seen wrongly, Your Excellency must be Zhou Bao of Yunzhou? Indeed, you live up to your name. However, you come and kill my people in the Divine Wind Palace, don''t you have an explanation for me? This time, Divine Cavalry came to repair the School of Five Virtues but also to help with the alliance of the Li and Jin dynasties. Is this how Jin dynasty treats our alliance?!"


    "This...!" Zhi Xi was offended and demanded an explanation. Yan Yuntian was after the Human Emperor''s position, so he had to give a thought to this ''explanation''. "Now some of your potential allies are killed in your territory, you must have had a reason, right?" After being asked by Zhi IX, Yan Yuntian froze. Before he could even form a sentence, Zhou Bao, who was beside him, sneered.


    "Alliance? Alliance my foot! Who would ever want an alliance with that asshole''s Li dynasty!" Zhou Bao said that with complete disdain. "Hundreds of miles away, that''s where I want that alliance!"


    Now, it was Zhi IX''s turn to respond. He stared at Zhou Bao, "You''re the King Wuyang of Jin, that I know for sure, but I didn''t know you were also the Emperor of Jin. If you say that the alliance is broken off, will it really be off?!"


    "I was just joking!" Zhou Bao smiled, "But Your Excellency, I feel that this is really strange!"


    "What''s strange?!"


    "I killed those guys because they knocked into me, that''s why I started the fight. It''s not against the rules of meddling with earthly matters. You, Zhi IX, are an Individual Immortal. You should have been out of the three realms a long time ago, no longer in the five elements. What has the relationship between Jin dynasty and Li dynasty got to do with you? What are you doing here? Aren''t you afraid of the Law of Heaven? Oh yes, you have already gone against one, now I think I have to punish you!" Zhou Bao widened his grin and broke into a weird almost psychotic laughter.

 524 The Human Emperors Secre

    "You¨D!"


    Zhi IX''s facial expression suddenly changed as he pointed to Zhou Bao, seeming to be provoked by what he just said. But after seeing that Zhou Bao looked at him with a murderous stare, he immediately realized that his guy would probably kill him if he couldn''t make it. No matter if he dies or not dies, gets injured or not injured, can get away or can''t get away; he would be truly ashamed and bitterly humiliated.


    He was the enormously powerful Zhi IX of School of Five Virtues, but that didn''t mean he was an impulsive person. Instead, he was remarkably levelheaded with a sense of propriety. If not so, he would not have survived till then.


    He took a deep breath and said, "I didn''t intend to meddle in the affairs between the two countries. Actually, I was just sent to build the School of Five Virtues. Since the Divine Cavalry, who were my subordinates, have been killed; I would without a doubt go to the bottom of their death. But now that I found out that it was them who offended you first, let''s forget it then. The death of ants is an unpitied sacrifice. But the point is, we cannot stop building the School of Five Virtues. If the progress is affected badly, I''m afraid it might cause some unnecessary trouble. Am I right, Your Majesty?"


    "That''s it, that''s it¨D!" Yan Yuntian nodded with a slight twinge of worry. Since the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony was sponsored by Divine Wind Palace, he didn''t consider himself superior to others and didn''t gird for a tough fight. If Zhou Bao were to defend everybody from Divine Wind Palace, he would definitely regret not getting a chance to fight. Besides, Zhi IX''s words had clearly pointed this out to him. He couldn''t help himself but take a worrying look at Zhou Bao.


    "There is one thing I''ve been very curious about!" Zhou Bao suddenly said, "Divine Wind Palace belongs to the five biggest sects - or let''s say it''s the head of the five biggest sects. It is the largest hidden sect among the Four Eastern Regions, and there are many celestial beings in the palace. So, why do they still meddle in worldly affairs?!"


    "Divine Wind Palace never intervenes in the worldly affairs directly!" retorted Zhi IX. "Whether it be Mingyi School or School of Five Virtues, they just exert an impact on the world with their own strength. And this kind of strength doesn''t include those celestial beings. Even if an Individual Immortal or a Genuine Immortal were to be sitting in their courtyard, there is only one purpose - to defend rather than attack. As long as the fundamental interests of the school haven''t been threatened, the celestial beings above Mysterious Realm will never take action!"


    "So what about the Human Emperor? Isn''t the so-called Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony also a kind of worldly affair?"


    "The Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony is an exception. In fact, this doesn''t break the Law of Heaven. No matter if it is the Divine Wind Palace or the five biggest sects, both have a right to intervene in the affairs of the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. If Your Excellency wants to get involved in it, nobody can oppose that!"


    "So, I wouldn''t really break the Law of Heaven if I do, would I?"


    "Of course not!" Zhi IX smiled as if he could see through Zhou Bao''s mind. "Why? Does King Wuyang want to get involved in this matter too?"


    "Why? Can''t I?"


    "Of course you can. But the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony cannot be settled with merely one''s own strength. Whether it be the five biggest sects or the masters hidden from the world, the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony wields a lot of influence. So, you can''t imagine how complicated the interests are, and there is no lack of masters of the Lord of Heaven Realm. King Wuyang, are you sure you want to join?"


    "It''s not a bad idea to go around a bit and gain experience!" Zhou Bao smiled and didn''t worry at all, even though Zhi IX had already pointed out that there would be some masters of the Lord of Heaven Realm involved, which he was no match for. But he thought he could manage to escape if he would get a chance. After coming into this world, he had gained little understanding of the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. What does a Human Emperor even stand for? And that damned Green Spirit also speaks in riddles. Zhou Bao thought it was not a bad idea to figure it all out by himself and have a look, even though he couldn''t help Yan Yuntian out.


    "Okay. I won''t hold you back since you''ve made up your mind. Good luck, Your Excellency!"


    "Thank you for your blessings!" replied Zhou Bao while doing a martial arts hand salutation.


    "How unexpected! You are willing to help me?!" Yan Yuntian gave Thou Bao a complicated look after Zhi IX left. As one of the most popular candidates for being the Human Emperor, he knew that Zhou Bao had shown a lot of potential so that the five biggest sects made an alliance against him. After paying too much of a price, Zhou Bao finally compromised not to intervene in the worldly affairs. That was why Yan Yuntian thought that Zhou Bao would keep a low profile and dedicate his heart and soul to the development of Wuyang Region.


    With this concern, he never expected that Zhou Bao would help him in the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony, even if he hoped he would. As Zhou Bao has established a solid foundation in the Northwest region and his status has been on equal terms with those celestial beings, he was undoubtedly more superior than himself ¨D the Emperor of Jin. Although he was Zhou Bao''s father-in-law, Zhou Bao has helped him a lot over the past few years. So, he didn''t see any reason to ask his son-in-law for help, but Zhou appeared unexpectedly and helped him. After realizing that Zhou Bao intended to get involved in this incident, he felt slightly delighted in his heart, but he also felt a passing sense of vigilance.


    Nobody in this world was a fool, especially those who were able to survive till now. So, Zhou Bao''s sudden appearance can''t be without a reason. It was great that he would help him, but what did he want?


    After realizing this, he deeply sighed in his heart.


    "Don''t think too much, Father. Actually, I''ve been wondering what a Human Emperor is. What does it stand for?" Zhou Bao laughed gently. "So, I''d like to take this opportunity to find it all out."


    "Legends about the Human Emperor vary from the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony to the Human Emperor''s position. As far as I know, it represents a symbol of order." Seemingly understanding what Zhou Bao meant, Yan Yuntian started to explain without hiding his weakness. He took a sip of his tea and pointed to the darkening sky. "Look at the sky. The sun''s and moon''s rotation are an order of nature. The changing, four seasons; rain, snow, wind, frost; those are all orders of nature too. And naturally, the order of nature can''t be manipulated by us. However, living creatures are different from nature. Be it deity or spirit, human being or goblin, demon or monster, or even one without a spiritual sense; all living creatures follow the law of the jungle, in which the weak are prey to the strong. But what if the living creatures get their spiritual intelligence?!" said Yan Yuntian with a faint sneer. "Then that order wouldn''t work anymore. The Human Emperor''s position is, after all, an existence that can replace the universe to restrain these living creatures with spiritual intelligence and make rules for them."


    "Aren''t that some big words? To constrain living creatures, and to set rules for those with spiritual intelligence?" Yan Yuntian felt a bit overwhelmed after hearing Zhou Bao''s words.


    "They aren''t big - not in the least!" Yan Yuntian smiled while shaking his hand disapprovingly. "The phrase; "The weak are prey to the strong," is enough to describe the ordinary living creatures struggling to survive; they are of no concern at all. But if a living creature develops its spiritual intelligence, the whole situation will be completely different. The smarter it gets, the more desires it gains. For there are unlimited desires, it will be encouraged to constantly take. If it''s not controlled, even more treasures or pneuma will be taken from the universe in no time. So, something is needed to restrain all those living creatures that have developed their spiritual intelligence and control them to not to take any more. Their activities will be based upon certain rules, and they will be severely punished if those rules are broken. This is the origin of the Human Emperor''s position."


    "That is to say, the Human Emperor''s position is the mandate of Heaven?!" said Zhou Bao with a simple flick of his eyebrow. "So you''re saying that God is a real existence, right?"


    "Nobody knows whether God exists or not. But willpower does exist, and perhaps this is a self-preservation will of the universe. No matter if God exists or not, the Human Emperor''s position does exist!" He cast a meaningful eye over Zhou Bao and said, "Have you ever heard of Qi of heaven and earth?"


    "Qi of heaven and earth?!" Zhou Bao pondered a bit and asked, "It seems to be a spiritual qi!"


    "You can call it spiritual qi, though. It has the same functions as ordinary spiritual qi does. But you''ll never find this kind of spiritual qi in the universe - never!"


    "If it can''t be found, then how do you know that this kind of spiritual qi exists?"


    "Because this kind of spiritual qi is everywhere, but you can''t feel it or use it. If you make efforts to accomplish all the merits and possess great qualities, only then can you feel it and turn the Qi of heaven and earth to your advantage."


    "Actually, I''ve done no small amount of good deeds for those past years!" Zhou Bao said and smiled.


    "Merits are not that easy to obtain. It''s widely believed that people can possess great qualities by doing good or saving others, but actually, they have taken it wrong. Being good or evil, it is all decided by human beings and living creatures with spiritual intelligence. Being good or evil cannot really be called merits. A real merit is a criterion that you do something meaningful to the universe that benefits the universe''s lifecycle. For example, in antiquity times, there was a great saint who educated tens of thousands of living creatures to be sensible and well-behaved. Those living creatures were taught not to recklessly destroy Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth, and to be a giver rather than a taker. This is a real merit that is recognized by the Way of Heaven. You will finally gain insights into the Qi of heaven and earth and gain a higher cultivation the longer you practice. In this way, the more you take from the universe, the bigger you impact the Way of Heaven. To put it simply, you would have broken yourself away from the universe, so the genius living up there will descant a Thunder Tribulation. However, it''s said that he is incredibly kindhearted and merciful, and he will probably spare you. Anyway, the point is, you would be able to survive the Divine Tribulation in the end!"

 525 Trouble

    "Heaven is most merciful?" Initially, Zhou Bao wanted to laugh at this statement, but after thinking about it for a while, he thought it was true. All living creatures in the world depended on heaven and earth, without which there would be no living space. Heaven and earth provided infinite vitality, food and shelter, and never asked for anything in return. The only requirement was to know one''s limits and not ask for too much. Even if you took too much and Heaven punished you by sending thunder to strike you, it would still leave you with some hope and benefits. Thus, who could be more merciful than Heaven? Zhou Bao thought that if it were him, there would never be so many good things available to all and he had already killed quite a number of creatures in the world, leaving only one or two to toy with.


    Thinking of this, he finally nodded and sighed, "Well, you''re right. Heaven is indeed most merciful. Hehe, so, is the so-called Human Emperor in charge of all living creatures in this world and also in charge of keeping them under restraint?"


    "This is the ideal throne, also known as the perfect throne. But how could there be such an ideal thing in the world? The Human Emperor''s position is only one of the many emperor positions between heaven and earth, and it is the easiest one to achieve. However, this supposedly most accessible seat has been vacant for tens of thousands of years. My goal is only to obtain a candidate for the Human Emperor."


    "Then, what''s the advantage of being a Human Emperor?"


    "Being a Human Emperor, the chances of gaining success on the job will increase rapidly. As long as you do well, you''ll gain a lot of merit, and thus you can refine the Qi of heaven and earth. The Qi of heaven and earth is both majestic and powerful, and can ward off countless evil spirits. Second, the Human Emperor is, in principle, the ruler of all mankind, and master of innumerable resources. Most importantly, even if you are weak, you can rely on the rules of Way of Heaven to protect yourself. You can even kill your enemies and challenge people by bypassing their ranks. It does not matter if your opponent is one level or two above you, you will still be able to kill someone several levels above you, just like what you have done!"


    "So overbearing?"


    "Yes, it is that high-handed. And once you become the Human Emperor, you''ll have great power. You represent heaven and earth. Even immortals and experts, who can kill you easily, will not dare to fight with you. They''ll even be on good terms with you, regardless!"


    Now, Zhou Bao understood the situation. This throne was like the imperial envoy''s majestic sword that was often mentioned in dramas from his previous life. No matter what your grade is, as long as you had the sword, you were entitled to behead anyone. Therefore, it was not the throne that people were fighting for, but the prestige and power that the emperor represented.


    "Of course, the real Human Emperor''s position isn''t as simple as what I have described. However, what I am fighting for now is the candidate for the Human Emperor, not the real Human Emperor, so, there isn''t so much stress."


    "That''s good. What are the requirements for this candidate?"


    "13 emperors are in the running for this position. But the real threats to me are Emperor Yang of the Li dynasty, Emperor Wolf of the Wu Dynasty and Ashoka of the Peacock Dynasty." Yan Yuntian''s face twitched a few times when he recalled the incident. "I was originally the strongest contender, but with so much happening in the Jin recently, my competitive edge has weakened considerably. Although some people support me in Divine Wind Palace, there is no additional advantage unlike before. As a matter of fact, of the four emperors, the most promising is Emperor Yang. The Li dynasty is the most powerful dynasty under the control of Divine Wind Palace, and it''s also the most closely connected with Divine Wind Palace. Their interests are united, so Emperor Yang gets the most support."


    "How can I help you?"


    "This will not be known until the time of the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. The Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony is the key to everything. Until then, any speculation is useless! "


    "When will the Ceremony begin?"


    "Half a month later, in the Haitian Pavilion of Penglai Region."


    "What, I have to go to Penglai Region?" Zhou Bao paused. The Four Eastern Regions were four separate continents, and from the Central Mainland Region to the Penglai Region it was necessary to cross the sea. Zhou Bao, who had made the journey by sea previously, still had a lingering fear from the experience.


    Yan Yuntian smiled, seeming to understand Zhou Bao''s concern, "Don''t worry, Four Eastern Regions are one. The Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony is a great event in Four Eastern Regions, so they will be using the Transmitting Formation!"


    "Transmitting Formation? Isn''t that formation lost already?"


    "It''s just that no one was able to set it, but we can still use it. Now every region of Seven-deity Regions has at least one Transmitting Formation. Since the cost of each transmission is so great that even the five biggest sects find it costly, it won''t be activated until an important event takes place."


    "You mean, there are several Transmitting Formations from Central Mainland Region to Three Western Regions?"


    "Exactly!" Yan Yuntian answered. Then, as if recalling something, he laughed, "You can''t blame the five biggest sects for this. To use the Transmitting Formations, the two ends must cooperate. If Three Western Regions doesn''t agree, we can''t start it. Three Western Regions and Four Eastern Regions have a lot of conflicts and Three Western Regions won''t agree to start the Transmitting Formation just for Ye Qingtian and Fiery Eyes. It was good enough that they let you go to Three Western Regions."


    "Damn it, next time either send us over with the Transmitting Formation, or I won''t go, to prevent myself from dying without knowing the reason for it!"


    Yan Yuntian smiled without saying anything.


    "So, the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony won''t begin until half a month later. I have nothing to do here. Well, then, in 15 days, I''ll come back here and travel with you to Penglai Region. What do you think?"


    "Good, I won''t keep you. Go back and stay with Yunfei. We''ll see you in 15 days, okay?"


    Zhou Bao nodded and cupped his hands in a farewell gesture. Then he launched the Three Realms Division and disappeared in front of Yan Yuntian.


    "Alas!" It was not until Zhou Bao had disappeared for a while, in the time it took to burn a column of incense, that Yan Yuntian finally breathed a sigh of relief. His grave expression slowly relaxed.


    "Father!" Silently, a voice rang in his ear. Yan Yuntian frowned but did not look up.


    "Why are you not reading in the study room. What are you doing here?"


    "Father, I want to persuade you to give up this Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony."


    "Give up?" Yan Yuntian turned away with a sneer, "Why? I''ve been waiting for this opportunity for years. Now you ask me to give it up. How can it be?"


    "Father, I do this for our Jin and our Yan Family!"


    "If it is for the Jin and the Yan Family, you should be helping me to get the candidate of Human Emperor with all your heart, rather than try to persuade me to give it up. When I ascend to the throne of the candidate of the Human Emperor, the throne of the Jin is yours. I don''t understand why you are so stubborn!"


    There were many others in the world who were as stubborn as the Crown Prince. However, Zhou Bao was not a stubborn person. He was actually a man who was easily persuaded.


    In his previous life, someone had said that he was easily swayed. He was then a small civil servant with no power, so no matter how amenable he was, he would not cause much trouble. However, it was different now. After coming back from the West Capital, he felt that something was wrong and realized that his decision to attend the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony was a bit impulsive. Green Spirit had given him some sketchy information about the event but did not tell him the whole story. He was really too easily persuaded!


    "Damn Green Spirit, now that you are independent and know a little about me, you want to take advantage of me. Humph, if I get my chance, I''ll get even with you!" Zhou Bao muttered curses under his breath.


    He was in a bad mood and didn''t feel better until he had cursed Green Spirit very thoroughly. Then he sat down on the bed, "Urging me to meddle in the affairs of the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony, he must have something up his sleeve. As an Old Demon, why does he care so much about the candidate for the Human Emperor? He should care about the demon throne like that of the Sea Emperor." Thinking of this, Zhou Bao froze for an instant, "Demon Emperor of Sea Area, Yan Yuntian has said that there were many emperors between heaven and earth, so the Sea Area should have a Demon Emperor similar to the Human Emperor...!"


    According to Yan Yuntian, Zhou Bao knew that the throne between heaven and earth was closely related to the Way of Heaven. Both the Human Emperor and the Celestial Emperor of the Sea Area were tightly bound by the rules of heaven and earth. Zhou Bao realized that Yan Yuntian had deliberately kept some information from him. There were definitely more benefits to being the Human Emperor than what Yan Yuntian had told him. With the mindset of a former civil servant, Zhou Bao first thought was of the advantages he could gain from it.


    Yes, advantages!


    In the final analysis, this throne was the dominant will between heaven and earth. It was an insurance that the almighty, who no one could be certain whether he existed at all, had set up in order to prevent intelligent living creatures from seizing it without the proper controls. Then, as the agent of this insurance, the Human Emperor naturally had the right to withhold some of the resources, spiritual qi and treasures which he had helped to preserve in heaven and earth. This was perfectly justified, and perhaps was the greatest benefit of the throne.


    Plus, Yan Yuntian did not elaborate on the mysterious quality of the Qi of heaven and earth. Zhou Bao was certain that he had omitted to mention some very important facts.


    "It seems that I must attend the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony! Eh? What is happening?"


    Just as he was thinking about the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony, his body started to tremble violently and his face darkened. "Someone is making trouble in Azure Big World!"

 527 The Void-breaking Bridge & the Wheel of Time

    Beyond the Azure Big World, the silver castle turned into a silver filament; it broke through the hollow and headed straight into the Azure Big World.


    "Bang!" Traveling at high speed, the silver filament plunged into the continuous space outside the Azure Big World.


    Seen from the outer hollow of the Azure Big World, the Azure Big World looked like a big bright azure star. Its infinite space was covered with a thin layer of light gauze. It looked like it was in hiding, covering up its face, out of shyness.


    Of course, it was just a feeling. Standing outside the Azure Big World, this big star seemed not too distant, but as soon as the silver castle entered the space, everything changed.


    There was no big fantastic star, no specific target in sight. Everything in the space appeared to be a mystery.


    However, having used such a Highest Heaven Celestial Device to cross the hollow, it was obvious that the two people were not ordinary people. They didn''t panic when they saw the endless space ahead. Instead, they seemed to take it for granted.


    The man named Tai Shang was not bothered by the incessant space-time storms. The silver castle had such strong protection that the surrounding space-time storms could not harm it. They were easily shattered by the castle''s silver light.


    "Void-breaking Bridge, show up!" As he raised his hand, the castle gate dropped suddenly. A silver light gushed out and turned into a silver bridge that stretched all the way into the depths of the hollow.


    "Swish!" With the appearance of the silver bridge, the castle seemed to find its way easily, following the track of the silver bridge. In a blink of an eye, it broke through the barrier of spaces and the Nine Heavens Gang Wind of the Azure Big World. It dropped and appeared in the azure sky of the Azure Big World.


    "Hiss!" When they first appeared, their expressions froze, their eyes widened and their pupils shrank to needle points. The muscles on their faces twitched involuntarily due to their excitement.


    "No way, no way!"


    Looking up at the azure clouds, both of them seemed puzzled and shocked. It was a long time before they reacted and cried out in amazement.


    "It is impossible for, for, for the Sacred Land to have such a strong essence of the world!" Tai Shang''s voice trembled with excitement.


    Yu Tong, who was beside him, could barely contain her excitement. "Yes, yes, it''s ten times stronger than that of the Sacred Land. Besides, this is not a small space, but a macro world. Tai Shang, we''ll really reap huge benefits here. We don''t have to do anything, just report it to the sect, give them a path map, and in return we''ll get a lot of rewards, numerous rewards!" Yu Tong''s eyes glittered as she pondered on this glorious prospect of their bright future ahead.


    "This news must be reported to the sect, but before that we must plunder some of the booties before we make the report. Every macro world has boundless territory and enormous resources. And such a newly born macro world, just like the beginning of heaven and earth, will surely have a lot of precious materials. If we don''t take this opportunity to take the loot, there won''t be many opportunities in the future!"


    Neither Tai Shang nor Yu Tong had any intention of taking over this macro world. They were great practitioners, who had practiced for many years. They clearly understood that it was impossible for them to monopolize such great benefits alone. Their best option was to take the biggest bite out of this cake and then report it to their sect for a reward.


    "Yes, Tai Shang, you''re right. We must get all the benefits first before we report this to the sect!" Yu Tong''s eyes brightened in greed.


    "Great, look at the abundance of spiritual qi, pneuma and resources. My god, what is this I see? Azure Mysterious Stones, those are Azure Mysterious Stones. It''s a mountain made entirely of Azure Mysterious Stones!"


    "Did you notice the sea at your feet? It''s not ordinary water at all!"


    "You''re right, this is the Azure Spirit Sea, the legendary Azure Spirit Sea! Where on earth is this place? Is it possible that there is such an incredible world? Azure Spirit Sea, right?


    Yu Tong seemed to recall something unpleasant, her face suddenly set, "Is this a world that evolved from the fabled Azure Heaven?"


    "The Azure Heaven, one of the 33 Heavens in the legend, the Emperor of the Azure Heaven''s Azure Heaven?"


    "Yes, it is. You remember that legend, right?"


    "I do remember the legend, but how many years has that been?" Tai Shang shook his head, "The idea of a micro world evolving into a macro world is just a theory; no one has ever done it. What''s more, even in theory, it takes too long. In the olden times, necromancers have calculated that it would take at least 10 billion years for a micro world to evolve into a macro world. During this period of time, no matter how terrifying the existence is, it will disappear. Even if he could control the time, he could not have achieved it up to this degree. It''s only been a few million years. It''s a long way off. It can''t be the Azure Heaven!"


    "It makes sense. It can''t be the Azure Heaven. This is the Desolate Ancient Star Area containing ruins from ancient times. This macro world might have been a world seed left over those times, and it became a macro world by luck. It''s a good decision to enter the depths of the Desolate Ancient Star Area. It has such great benefits!"


    "Well, let''s not waste any more time. We should look for the creator of this macro world right now. You must have felt the wild spirit. The creation of the world, though complete, should remain in a state of chaos. It will be good for our future development if we get some chaotic pneuma and creation Dharma. It will be easy to undergo six Thunder Tribulations and become a Lord of Heaven!"


    "As long as we get a little bit of chaotic pneuma, we can easily undergo six Thunder Tribulations, acquire the Karmic Rank of Lord of Heaven and become the Elders in the sect!" Yu Tong nodded repeatedly, discovering for the first time that Tai Shang was so much more intelligent and calmer than she was.


    "Fortunately, this time we''re using the Silver Frost Castle, otherwise, how could we ever have encountered such a lucky chance and benefits!" Tai Shang patted Yu Tong gently on the shoulder. Yu Tong glanced at him and restarted the Void-breaking Bridge.


    The silver bridge stretched forth from the Silver Frost Castle into the depths of the Azure Big World.


    In the tower of the Silver Frost Castle, Tai Shang and Yu Tong both looked long and hard at the Azure Spirit Sea at their feet. They stared at the mountains made entirely of Azure Mysterious Stones and at the endless treasure, and reluctantly tore their eyes away. Then they urged the Silver Frost Castle into the depths of the Azure Big World.


    Meanwhile, the expression of Jing XIII, who was in consultation with a group of Demonic Immortals, suddenly changed, "Oh no, some outsiders have entered the Azure Big World!"


    "What, outsiders have entered the Azure Big World?"


    Several Demonic Immortals who had been sitting around stood up instantly. Most of them were subordinates of the Emperor of the Azure Heaven in the antiquity times. They knew a lot about the secrets of the hollow and the world, and they certainly understood the value of the Azure Big World. The Azure Secret Area was a marvelous place, but it was hidden away in the depths of an endless hollow and overlapped with countless space cracks. Therefore, it was impossible to find it amidst the hollow, and only those who had the coordinates could enter. Moreover, most of the time, the Azure Secret Area was covered by Essential Qi Tide. Without a celestial device like the Air-frozen Bead, only a person with Cultivation of True Immortality could survive there. Unlike it, the new macro world was very ostentatious in this Star Area. Fortunately, the Azure Big World was located in the Desolate Ancient Star Area. Very few people came by this way, or it would have been discovered long ago.


    Although Zhou Bao was in charge of the Jade Plate of Fate of the Azure Big World, he had no intention of intervening in this world. Instead, he transferred some of the responsibility to Jing XIII and asked him to do the work. It was not because of trust, but because he knew too much about the Jade Plate of Fate. He was aware that even if he handed it over to Jing XIII, Jing XIII would not pose any threat to him.


    Even though Jing XIII had managed to make use of some of the functions of the Jade Plate of Fate, as Zhou Bao expected, he never abused its powers. Jing XIII only used it occasionally to monitor the whole macro world to see if anything was wrong. That was how he noticed the appearance of the Silver Frost Castle.


    He was able to see it, not because he was powerful, but because the Void-breaking Bridge stretched out, broke through the hollow, and went straight towards the Sea of Divine Power. The Sea of Divine Power was the heart of the whole Azure Big World. There were a lot of secrets hidden there. It was Zhou Bao''s practice place; the Wheel of Time and the Jade Plate of Fate were also hidden in its depths. As soon as it was disturbed by the Void-breaking Bridge, it naturally gave cause of alarm to Jing XIII and Zhou Bao as well.


    They arrived at the Sea of Divine Power almost at the same time.


    Simultaneously, they saw a silver bridge with unparalleled powers breaking through layers of spaces and touching down on the Sea of Divine Power.


    "Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness?" At the sight of the silver bridge, Jing XIII''s face clouded over. Before he could react, the Silver Frost Castle broke through the hollow.


    "It''s not, it''s a replica!" Jing XIII breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the Void-breaking Bridge clearly, but upon seeing the Silver Frost Castle, his face darkened.


    "It''s a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, damn it!" With a low curse, he moved swiftly. Without saying a word, he turned into a ten thousand feet long whale, and dashed violently against the Silver Frost Castle.


    "A Demonic Immortal, it, no...!" Tai Shang and Yu Tong''s faces paled at the sight of the oncoming huge whale.


    They were all Five-tribulation True Immortals, at the peak of Venerable Realm. Even within their own sect they were heavyweights. But coming face with Jing XIII, an ancient demon, they were totally shocked.


    Yet, despite the shock, they were not intimidated by this huge demon in its original form. Suddenly Tai Shang patted the wall in front of him and the whole Silver Frost Castle shone with a dazzling silver light.


    Boom!


    Jing XIII and the Silver Frost Castle collided violently. The earth shook and the mountains swayed; the whole Sea of Divine Power seemed to be shaken up.


    This time, Jing XIII, whose form was ten thousand feet long, was sent flying, and the Silver Frost Castle, which was shaking violently, retreated hundreds of feet away.


    "This is the core guardian evil beast of this macro world. Hurry up, release Silver Frost Divine Light and bombard it quickly!" Tai Shang''s face changed when he saw that Jing XIII, who had retreated due to the impact of the collision, had not been badly hurt. He roared out loud and a ghostly blue light flashed from the top of the tower of Silver Frost Castle.


    "Damn it, Silver Frost Divine Light, it''s a replica of the Ancient Sacred City. This Highest Heaven Celestial Device must have melted the fragments of the Ancient Sacred City. Hurry up, stop them. We can''t repel the Silver Frost Divine Light!" When he heard Tai Shang''s shout, Jing XIII, instantly comprehended the origin of the Silver Frost Castle, and howled in anger.


    "Damn it!" Seeing the blue light had been emitted, Zhou Bao dared not neglect it. He cried in a low voice, tearing the hollow. In the hollow of the Sea of Divine Power, a great wheel loomed, spinning slowly.


    Almost at the same moment, the blue light from the tower of the castle gathered into a deep blue light column, and fired a shot at Jing XIII.


    A big hand flashed through the hollow, and grasped the slow spinning wheel so that it stopped abruptly.


    And the blue light column that shot at Jing XIII was fixed at a distance of three or four meters from his Real Body. Everything around them became still, as if they were held in the grip of something.


    "What a bother! Where on earth did these two guys come from, and how did they get into the Azure Big World? They don''t look like people from Four Eastern Regions. Are they from Three Western Regions?" Zhou Bao frowned and looked at the immobilized duo and the silver castle. His face turned ugly. "Bang¡ª!"


    While Zhou Bao was still wondering about the two, the silver castle shot out another beam of blue light and began to shake, as if it had broken free from some kind of bondage. However, the Silver Frost Divine Light dissipated in the process.


    "What a wonderful celestial device! It is able to break free of time!" When the Silver Frost Castle moved, Zhou Bao felt a strong force passing from the Wheel of Time and bouncing off his hand. Then the wheel spun slowly again.


    "What is it?" Now, Tai Shang and Yu Tong saw the wheel looming in the hollow. Though they did not know what the wheel was, their faces changed at the sight of a faint spirit coming forth from the wheel. This made the Silver Frost Castle tremble, and the Silver Divine Light disappeared suddenly.


    "A fairy weapon, it''s the spirit of a fairy weapon. Only a fairy weapon can have such a strong spirit and power!" Tai Shang''s face suddenly turned pale as he thought of something.


    "A fairy weapon, how could that be? It''s a new macro world. How could there be such a fairy weapon?" Yu Tong screamed.


    "No, let''s go, this macro world has been controlled by somebody. This fairy weapon is used to suppress the creation of the world. Damn it, let''s get out of here and tell the sect, ask Highest Elder to fight for this place!" Tai Shang understood instantly, and without hesitation, he pushed the wall in front of him forward. Once again the Silver Frost Castle shone with dazzling silver light, and the Void-breaking Bridge reappeared, rushing into the depths of the hollow.


    "Don''t let them go, or there will be interminable trouble ahead!" Jing XIII cried.


    Zhou Bao knew that setting a tiger free would cause calamity for the future. He sneered when he saw the Silver Frost Castle trying to leave. "Trying to escape? It''s not that easy!"


    Boom!


    A thick golden light column suddenly emerged from the hollow and hit the Void-breaking Bridge. With a loud boom, the silver bridge was shattered.


    "What is this? No way, it''s, it''s, it''s a fairy weapon, another fairy weapon!"


    The two in the tower stared at the golden light falling from the sky. In such a short time, they had seen two fairy weapons, which was really incredible. At this point, they, though alarmed, did not lose their heads. They had heard what Jing XIII had said, and understood his thoughts. Places as precious as the Azure Big World needed to be kept secret at all costs. Thus, the only way was to kill them both; It was a foregone conclusion.


    Sure enough, the golden light column did not stop after it shattered the silver bridge, but revealed its true shape. It was a golden skull furnace, the Furnace of Immortality that was made of the head of the Innate Deity by Zhou Bao.


    Having shattered the silver bridge, the Furnace of Immortality continued its rampage. Its Seven Apertures burst into flames almost simultaneously. After the flames gushed out, they formed seven ropes made entirely of flame light and rolled fiercely towards the Silver Frost Castle.


    "Gosh, start the Highest Heaven, endless Silver Frost!" When he saw the seven ropes of flame, which seemed to able to melt hollows, Tai Shang gave a roar of anger. This time, instead of pushing the wall in front of him, he swung around, turned into a light and fell into the castle, together with the woman beside him. One after the other they plunged into the depths of the castle. At the same time, a deep blue wave emerged from the depths of the castle and covered the whole Silver Frost Castle. The seven black flames collided with the deep blue wave, producing a wheezing sound and sending forth a heavy puff of white smoke. The seven black flames shot through the deep blue waves, but were not able to touch the castle itself. They fell into an infinite space.


    "Is this the space in their Highest Heaven Celestial Device?" Sensing that the black flames from the Furnace of Immortality seemed to be lost in space, Zhou Bao sneered. He hit the Furnace of Immortality with one hand, and a purple light shot from its eyes.


    Pure Purple Heavenly Fire!


    It was only a flame, but at the touch of the deep blue wave, the seemingly continuous blue wave was ignited in a flash. With a hiss, a white mist like substance rose into the air. The wave was enveloped by the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire. Then the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire went straight into the space of the Silver Frost Castle.


    Whirring, whirring, whirring, whirring...


    The Pure Purple Heavenly Fire burst into flames as soon as it entered the hollow. Zhou Bao applied the Great Fusion Technic while producing Pure Purple Heavenly Fire by using Furnace of Immortality. Now his body was full of Mysterious Divine Light, unlike the previous Dragon Chimera Fire and the Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang, which allowed him to launch it at will. But after all, the Great Fusion Technic was a great Divine Sense to use with fire. It could be launched by using the Demonic Fire and Real Essence of Dragon Chimera, and it could also be launched by using the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire. Moreover, in terms of temperature alone, the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire was one of the Nine Heavenly Fires, and its temperature was much higher than that of the Primitive Dragon Chimera. As soon as the Great Fusion Technic was launched by Zhou Bao, it immediately began to completely fuse the surrounding hollow, and the Highest Heaven Space in the Highest Heaven Celestial Device started to collapse.


    "Oh, no, trying to fuse the Highest Heaven, it''s an amazing Divine Sense!"


    At this time, in the depths of the Silver Frost Castle, in a large and rigidly fortified silver palace, Tai Shang and Yu Tong were both pale with fright. In front of them was a circular formation about ten meters in width. The pattern of this formation was dense and complex. At each of the six nodes of the formation, there was an egg-shaped groove, which were all empty, as if waiting to be filled with something.


    Although there was nothing within those grooves, they emitted a faint dark blue light. In the blue light, a space pattern of the Silver Frost Castle appeared, and in fact, that was the center space of the castle that was about to be fused.


    "Tai Shang, are you really sure you want to start Grand Protective Formation?"


    "Of course, otherwise, we can''t get out of here!" Tai Shang looked gloomy. At this point, he was holding a fist-sized spear, which shone with a mysterious color. "Didn''t you notice the Highest Heaven Space of the celestial device has been fused? Only by starting the formation and giving full throttle to all the power of the Silver Frost Castle can we build up the golden bridge and get rid of that fairy weapon. Or else, we''re all going to die here!"


    "But it''s a Divine Origin Stone¡ª!"


    "Precious as it is, is it worth more than our lives?" Finding that Yu Tong was still thinking about the value of the Divine Origin Stone, Tai Shang snapped at her with a gleam of anger in his eyes.


    "But¡ª" Looking at the Divine Origin Stone in Tai Shang''s hands, Yu Tong was still reluctant.


    "What a moron!" With a muttered curse, Tai Shang ignored the foolish woman and broke the Divine Origin Stone into six pieces, which fell onto the six nodes of the formation. The moment they fell into the grooves, they shone brightly.

 526 A Castle Crossing the Hollow

    The original Azure Heaven had become a macro world, which was at the same level with the world that Zhou Bao was born in. The only difference between them was that this world was new. Although all Dharma had been completed by Zhou Bao using the Jade Plate of Fate, it was not perfect and was still in its infancy stage.


    World, space and hollow.


    They were a trinity. The so-called hollow was actually a huge conceptual space. However, it was not a complete whole, but formed by overlapping, countless spaces of different sizes. These spaces were interwoven with each other and frequently collided with each other, forming all sorts of strange spatial derivatives. Some were cracks, just like the grey space that Zhou Bao had; some were microworlds, like the 33 Heavens; some were macro worlds, like the world that Zhou Bao was born in, and the present Azure Big World. Time flowed like water into this hollow. Since the hollow was not a true whole, time was not evenly distributed in all its worlds and spaces, some having more and some less. Where there was more time, the velocity of time was slow; where there was less time, the velocity of time was fast. This was something that resembled the Time-fixing Plate. Besides, the Wheel of Time, which Zhou Bao had condensed with the fragments from the Time-fixing Plate, was the governor of time.


    The biggest difference between a macro world and a common space crack or a micro world was that rules in a macro world were perfect. Perfect rules that appeared in the hollow formed a complete big star, which was tightly wrapped in the Nine Heavens Gang Wind formed by pneuma. In addition to endless pneuma flow, the Gang Wind also included numerous fragments of time and space. They were stacked one after another, just like a small maze in which one could lose oneself after entering.


    So too with the Azure Big World. Since its rules were completed and already fully formed, a big azure star had appeared and was surrounded by endless Gang Wind. This big azure star was very conspicuous. As a result of its initial formation, it appeared dazzling, though not as deep and convergent as any other macro worlds.


    "What''s that?"


    "Eh? It''s a macro world, and it''s a newly formed macro world. How is that possible?"


    In the infinite hollow, a silver filament shot out from the midst of the darkness, stopping at the edge of a space-time storm nearly millions of kilometers from the Azure Big World. When the silver filament stopped, it turned out to be a silver castle.


    Yes, a silver castle that resembled the old European castles from Zhou Bao''s previous life. The style was very similar, but it was not made of stone, but made entirely of a kind of silver metal, giving it a cold yet dignified air.


    In the highest tower of the castle stood a man and a woman. The man was tall, handsome, with shoulder-length hair that glowed with a golden sheen. His eyes were big and wide, with an upward tilt. All this made him like a god, standing tall and looking down at all mankind. Beside him was a tall, beautiful woman with blue hair, which looked like the waves of the sea. Each strand of her hair exuded a powerful original energy of water. Her golden eyes stared at the Azure Big World and lit up.


    "It is a macro world! I didn''t expect to encounter a macro world on this trip. Tai Shang, this time, we will reap huge benefits!"


    "Yes, it''s a macro world that has just evolved. It is very fragile, and the creation in it may not be fully developed yet. Mastering its nature is equivalent to mastering the whole macro world. In this way, our strength will inevitably increase to immeasurable degrees!" At this point, the man named Tai Shang trembled with excitement, and his deep blue eyes flashed with greed, "Seize it, Yu Tong, we must take this macro world."


    "You''re right. We must take it." The woman named Yu Tong nodded excitedly. She hit the wall before her with her mighty Dharma power. The silver castle shook violently, turned back into a silver filament and headed straight for the Azure Big World.


    In the Azure Big World, the Essential Qi Tide had stopped completely. Above the earth and in the Azure Spirit Sea, life had been restored. As a result of the complete Dharma, a large number of evil beasts in the Azure Spirit Sea had undergone Thunder Tribulations and became Demonic Immortals. Although Zhou Bao controlled the Jade Plate of Fate, he had an agreement with the evil beasts in the Azure Heaven from the start, so he did not care much about this world. Thus, in this new world, all kinds of Demonic Immortals and Demon tribes were still in a primitive state.


    For those Demonic Immortals who had recently undergone Thunder Tribulations, although most of them had inherited their bloodlines, their animal nature remained unchanged and their spiritual intelligence low. They started killing each other to protect their own interests. The high-grade Demonic Immortals in the Azure Heaven, such as the whale and his subordinates, turned a blind eye to these fights and just watched quietly, as if waiting for something to happen.


    "Senior General, should we really listen to that boy and stick to our agreement with him on not interfering in the affairs of others?"


    Deep in the Azure Spirit Sea, the whale''s home was no longer the immense hole that Zhou Bao had first seen. It had been furnished; A relatively small space was isolated in the originally cavernous cave, forming an Immortal''s Cave.


    The layout of this Immortal''s Cave was extremely simple; it only had a jasper stone table and a few stools. However, if anyone were to see the materials of the table and stools, he would be overwhelmed, because they were Refining Weapon materials that had long been extinct in the temporal world.


    "Humph, don''t call me Senior General, I''m not one now. I don''t have the luck to enjoy the title. Just call me Jing XIII!" The man in blue, who called himself Jing XIII, looked at the six Demonic Immortals at the Venerable Realm sitting in his cave, and sneered, "As for that guy, what are you going to do if you don''t keep your agreement with him? Kill him? Don''t forget, he is the controller of the world''s creation, the master of everything here. And you saw how he killed that Lord of Heaven. His power is no ordinary power. Can you beat him? Can you kill him?"


    "I can''t do it alone, but if we work together...!"


    "It will not work!"


    "I mean if we can...!"


    "Shut up...!" As if he knew what he was going to say, Jing XIII''s face suddenly darkened, and he looked at that man with an exceedingly cold and stern look. A ferocious smell emanated from him and assailed the Demonic Immortal.


    Just when the Demonic Immortal turned pale with fear, Jing XIII''s expression suddenly changed and he roared, "What is it? How dare you break into the Sea of Divine Power?"

 529 The Macro World & The Heaven Realm

    "Not good!"


    Zhou Bao, who was originally using the Furnace of Immortality to suppress the golden bridge, saw two people entering the hollow. As he was about to activate the Flipping Sky Seal to break open the hollow and kill those two people, the Silver Frost Castle began to shake violently. Zhou Bao felt that the Silver Frost Castle seemed to have become an enormous volcano that could erupt at any time. The threat of a sudden outburst lied present, and once this volcano did erupt, the consequences were not by any means anything Zhou Bao could stop.


    "Wheel of Time, suppress it!"


    Without thinking about it, he shouted at the top of his lungs, reached his hand out, and the Wheel of Time appeared from the hollow above the Silver Frost Castle. The Wheel of Time came to a halt and seemed to be like a huge mountain that brutally suppressed the Silver Frost Castle from above.


    As the Wheel of Time stopped its operation, time in the entire Azure Big World stopped and the violent movements of the Silver Frost Castle also ceased completely.


    "Damn it. This guy is actually willing to blow up a Highest Heaven Celestial Device. I must not let such a ruthless man run loose!" Zhou Bao thought secretly to himself. The two men that ran away were both at the peak of the Venerable Realm and had Pure Yang Celestial Devices. However, since Zhou Bao could suppress a Highest Heaven Celestial Device like the Silver Frost Castle, he naturally would not care about those two at the peak of the Venerable Realm.


    The Wheel of Time firmly suppressed the Silver Frost Castle. The Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness, which extended out of the Silver Frost Castle, had been pulverized by the Furnace of Immortality without a sound.


    No one was controlling the golden bridge elsewhere, and there was also no energy from a magic formation that was sustaining it. So even if Zhou Bao did not use the Furnace of Immortality, this golden bridge would have shattered sooner or later.


    After the golden bridge had shattered, Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed and the Furnace of Immortality was reactivated, smashing fiercely towards the side.


    Space had been completely shattered at that moment.


    Looking up, it was as if space was plate glass that had been shattered by an enormous force. With the Furnace of Immortality as the center, countless fine fragmented remnants extended outwards into the boundless hollow. Two swift figures appeared in the hollow; they lost the Silver Frost Castle, and now they were using their Upper-grade Pure Yang Celestial Device to fly.


    "Want to run? But it''s not that easy!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. With a push of the Furnace of Immortality, it transformed into a ball of golden light that flew outwards. In the blink of an eye, it appeared on the heads of the two men and pressed down on them like an incomparably gigantic mountain.


    "Nooo~!" Seeing the Furnace of Immortality above him, Tai Shang''s expression changed and he shouted, "I have enormous benefits, enormous benefitsss~!"


    "People like you have no damn benefit!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. Not being tempted by Tai Shang''s words at all, he dropped the Furnace of Immortality straight down on both of them.


    Following a loud crash, Tai Shang and Yu Tong were instantly crushed to pieces. Zhou Bao did not give them a chance to turn the tables back on him at all.


    In a distant space-time, a huge Star Area floated in the middle of the hollow.


    If Zhou Bao had the ability to cross hollows and stand outside of the Star Area, he would be surprised to find out that this huge Star Area was exactly like a galaxy he had seen in his past life''s universe. Stars and planets, countless as the grains of sand in the Ganges, floated in the hollow. All these stars and planets were similar to the ones in the universe of Zhou Bao''s previous life. It was not like the one of the Azure Big World where the outside was parcelled with countless space-times. In fact, the entire Star Area was in the same space-time except for the one big star in its center.


    At the center of the Star Area was a giant, purple planet that was surrounded by countless stars. This vast planet was a macro world, and it was hundreds of times larger than the Azure Big World. Layers of space-time storms repeatedly surged in its surroundings, and amidst them, there were vague displays of monster spirits showing their true faces. They would leave these space-time storms to guarded this vast planet.


    "Who?! Who dared to kill Yu Tong! Who?!"


    At this time, a loud voice boomed from the gigantic, purple macro world that seemed to have reverberated throughout the entire world.


    "What? Yu Tong has been killed?! Haha, who has such guts?!"


    "Now we''ve got a good show to watch. I heard that Tai Shang and Yu Tong went to the Desolate Ancient Star Area as ordered by that old fella. It''s only been a few days; so why is there already news of their death?!"


    "It should be true! For so many years, I''ve never heard such a roar. He must be very angry - extremely angry!"


    "That''s right. This old fella had always been moody. This time around, it does seem like he is really furious. Hahaa~!"


    In the depths of this gigantic, purple macro world, countless ancient beings had heard this roar. Each one of them took delight in this suffering and were using their divine thoughts to communicate about it with each other.


    "No matter who it is, I''m afraid that that person is unlucky this time. This old fella is excellent at divination, so he should be able to figure out who the murderer is. Everyone, let''s go back and check whether it was done by one of our own men. If it is not, then forget about it. If it is, then think of some countermeasures!"


    "Yes, Elder Jun is right. We should go back and check in order to prevent any further troubles...!"


    After bouts of divine thoughts were exchanged, calmness once again returned to the vast planet as if nothing had happened.


    "Desolate Ancient Star Area, at the Desolate Ancient Star Area, something happened to Yu Tong at the Desolate Ancient Star Area!" In the depths of the macro world, there laid a jade tower. It had a height of 9,990 feet and was made completely of White Jade. At the top of the jade tower, there was a jade platform, and on this platform, a man with a superior yet eccentric uniform sat in front of the black jade table with bamboo chips scattered in front of him.


    "It''s the Desolate Ancient Star Area. They met with enemies there. To be able to suppress the Silver Frost Castle, murder Tai Shang and Yu Tong, and not allow either of them to send any message - this can only be done by someone at the Lord of Heaven Realm! Lord of Heaven, Lord of Heaven, how can a Lord of Heaven appear in a place like the Desolate Ancient Star Area? Unless it was by accident? That''s impossible. Damn it! Why is my Innate Divination only able to tell me that the accident happened at the Desolate Ancient Star Area and nothing else?!" His face showed signs of annoyance and he slapped the black jade table in front of him. "The fairy weapon in the Infinite Star Sea is about to show up. Now there is no time to talk about this matter. I will send Yu Tong and Tai Shang to undergo a reincarnation first. Once the matters at the Infinite Star Sea are settled, I will make a trip to the Desolate Ancient Star Area and do a thorough check myself. I will have a look who has such guts to kill my men!"


    He furiously slapped the jade table into pieces and disappeared from the jade platform.


    ...


    "We should do some planning!" In the Azure Big World, the Wheel of Time had returned to its normal operation. The Silver Frost Castle, on the other hand, had been moved to the center of the Sea of Divine Power. Zhou Bao looked at this enormous Highest Heaven Celestial Device. In his gaze, traces of delight could be seen. However, Jing XIII, who stood next to him, completely shook him out of his reverie.


    "Do some planning? What kind of planning?!"


    "The Azure Big World has only just formed. Although you have now mastered the Principle of Great Ways of the Azure Big World as well as its fate, in the end, it is still a new macro world. Once we are found out, we will become a highly popular cash cow target!"


    "A highly popular cash cow target?!" Zhou Bao whispered. "There shouldn''t be anyone from the real world that can find out about us!"


    "Aren''t we already found out? It''s just that we were decisive in our moves that we prevented them from leaking out the message. That''s how we prevented an enormous disaster from happening!"


    "Do you know the origin of those two people?!"


    "No. However, owning such a Highest Heaven Celestial Device means that their origin certainly is out of the ordinary!" Jing XIII cast his gaze to the Silver Frost Castle. "This time, they were really unfortunate to have been suppressed by you before they could even summon the full potential and power of this Highest Heaven Celestial Device. Reason being that you had two fairy weapons in your hands and could master the Principle of Great Ways of the macro world. Otherwise, we would not be able to deal with this Highest Heaven Celestial Device!" Jing XIII spoke fearfully. "A Highest Heaven Celestial Device crossing the hollow; its uses are more diverse than the usual fairy weapon. It''s also very powerful. It''s just that such Upper-grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices are hard to come by!"


    "What did you just say? This Highest Heaven Celestial Device has fragments of the Ancient Sacred City? What is that?!"


    "Not sure. According to legend, the Ancient Sacred City is a Supreme Fairy Weapon. For some unknown reason, it broke into fragments and dispersed in all directions. Some of them landed in some necromancers'' hands. Then, these necromancers combined them with their Highest Heaven Celestial Devices to increase their power!"


    "Sacred City, broken fragments. Does this mean that there are multiple Highest Heaven Celestial Devices like that?!"


    "No? There were not many who were successful. Even if it''s fragments of the Supreme Fairy Weapon, it would not be easy to handle it. Only the master necromancer could successfully combine them. The castle was one of them!" Jing XIII said.


    "Then, do you have any clues about those two people?!"


    "No. I was in Azure Heaven since the day I was born. I saw Azure Heaven turn into the Azure Secret Area, and now I have seen the Azure Secret Area become the Azure Big World. I''ve only left this place once a long time ago, and heard about the Ancient Sacred City''s matter at that time. After that, I stayed in Azure Heaven!"


    "These two men had exceptional powers. However, I''ve never heard of them, so they were not people from our world. Could they have come from another macro world?!" Zhou Bao mumbled to himself. He suddenly lifted his head and asked, "How much do you know about other macro worlds?"


    "Other macro worlds?!" Having heard Zhou Bao''s words, Jing XIII was momentarily shocked and then smiled. "I don''t know much. I only know that originally all the macro worlds in this world all revolved around your world and took orders from the main world. Your world was termed the main world. The Heaven Realm, to rule heavens and realms, is the highest form of existence!"


    "The Heaven Realm? No wonder the Divine Wind Palace is thinking day and night of restoring the glory of the Heavenly Court. It was from here!" Zhou Bao stroked his chin and mumbled to himself. "This means that it is very likely that these two men came from another macro world. With a cultivation at the peak of the Venerable Realm and Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, it seems that this world is not average!"

 528 The Furnace of Immortality Suppressing the Gold Bridge

    As soon as the Divine Origin Stone was in place, bright light flowed all over the formation. The hollow of the Silver Frost Castle, which was being fused, suddenly solidified. The mass of Pure Purple Heavenly Fire appeared to collapse under the enormous space pressure and the seven black flames that had penetrated the Highest Heaven were extinguished immediately.


    The Highest Heaven re-stabilized itself. The silver light of the castle shone brightly, and a thick essence seeped out. At that moment, even Zhou Bao thought that the castle was a living thing.


    From the top of the tower, a silver light erupted and headed for Zhou Bao.


    "How ridiculous!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly when he saw the silver light coming at him. At the same time, a thick golden light gushed forth from the Furnace of Immortality located in front of Zhou Bao.


    Boom!


    The Silver Divine Light bombarded the golden light, breaking up the surrounding space.


    "Powerful, but it''s just a Pure Yang Celestial Device. It is trying to break through the defense of a fairy weapon; dream on!"


    "Tai Shang, don''t waste your power. That''s a fairy weapon. We can''t break it!"


    "Yes, I know, of course, that it is a fairy weapon" Tai Shang was seething with anger. He was becoming increasingly put off by Yu Tong''s behavior. She seemed smart enough ordinarily, but when it came to matters of life and death, she was incredibly stupid. However, this was not the time to lose his cool. He still had to depend on her to plan their escape. "I''m just stalling for time, hurry up, open the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness, and get us out of here!"


    "Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness? Are you crazy? Once the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness is opened, the whole Highest Heaven of the Silver Frost Castle will collapse. How would we explain this to the Elders?"


    "If we don''t open the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness, we''ll die here!" Tai Shang could not stand it any longer and yell at her, "Do you want to die here?"


    "But¡ª!"


    "Go, break the Highest Heaven, open the Golden Bridge and get us out of this damned place!" Tai Shang roared at her in anger.


    His fierce face frightened Yu Tong, who had never seen Tai Shang behaving so aggressively before ever since they had known each other.


    She was too frightened to retaliate. She made an Incantation Gesture with both hands and a blue light shot out of her hands and hit the center of the formation.


    "Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness, show up!"


    Boom!


    The Silver Frost Castle shook violently, and a golden bridge rushed out of it and plunged into the deep hollow.


    "It''s the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness! Stop him, quickly!" Seeing the appearance of the golden bridge, Jing XIII, who had taken on a human form, cried out loudly. He launched a double punch and a demonic light hit the bridge directly.


    Zhou Bao''s face changed. He did not know what the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness was, but he could feel its force as soon as it appeared. The Highest Heaven Space inside the Silver Frost Castle was shattered almost instantly. The surging force generated by the space crush combined with the Golden Bridge, which in turn issued forth an unstoppable Qi Power. It broke through the blockade of the Furnace of Immortality at once.


    "Great!"


    While Jing XIII hit out desperately the Golden Bridge with his fists, Zhou Bao cried out in a low voice, and launched his Furnace of Immortality with all his strength; he then dashed it against the bridge.


    "Silver Divine Light, break!" Deep in the Silver Frost Castle, Tai Shang started to make full use of his capabilities. Biting off the tip of his tongue and with all his Dharma power surging, he struck his hand against the magic formation in front of him. As the magic formation flickered, the Silver Divine Light from the tower suddenly turned into a thick column of blue light and pounced on Zhou Bao.


    "Flipping Sky Seal, break!"


    Seeing the Silver Divine Light coming at him, Zhou Bao did not use the Furnace of Immortality to stop it as Tai Shang had envisaged, but launched the Flipping Sky Seal immediately.


    The Flipping Sky Seal was a peerless lethal weapon, and like the Silver Frost Castle, it was a Pure Yang Celestial Device at Upper Grade. The difference between them was that one had Highest Heaven Space, and the other didn''t. The Silver Frost Castle, with its Highest Heaven Space, was relatively hard to activate. Above all, the castle was not Tai Shang''s, so even if he could manipulate it, it would not be with the ease with which Zhou Bao used his Flipping Sky Seal. The Flipping Sky Seal rushed over and directly scattered the Silver Divine Light. Then it kept going and hit the Silver Frost Castle.


    By this time, the Highest Heaven Space of the Silver Frost Castle had been broken. Tai Shang and Yu Tong went pale with fright when they saw the Flipping Sky Seal breaking the Silver Divine Light and then bombarding the castle. They fought hard to restart the magic formation and once again the Silver Divine Light in the tower ignited.


    But it was too late.


    The Furnace of Immortality had already hit the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness, but this time it did not directly smash the bridge, unlike the previous time. Instead, it stood on the bridge and repressed the whole bridge with an unparalleled power.


    Splash! Splash!


    Around the Golden Bridge came the sound of waves. The shattered Highest Heaven Space had produced incomparable space tides and waves ranging hundreds of feet high, rolled under the Golden Bridge. Waves formed by space fragments and space force, dashed wildly against the Furnace of Immortality, that seemingly thin layer of golden light, trying to push the huge furnace down.


    "Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness, it really lives up to its reputation!"


    Everything happened so fast. The moment the Furnace of Immortality suppressed the Golden Bridge, Jing XIII''s two fists were also pummelling the bridge.


    In Zhou Bao''s opinion, the two fists did not seem to have much power. There was a big difference in the attack force of the two fists and that of his Furnace of Immortality. However, much to Zhou Bao''s surprise, the force from the two punches actually managed to shake up the Golden Bridge, and at the target point, cracks started appearing on this noble, beautiful Golden Bridge.


    "Amazing!" Seeing the effects of the punch, Zhou Bao praised it secretly in his heart.


    "Cheap trick! It is a pity that the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness has not been destroyed. Fortunately it has been suppressed, and the Silver Frost Castle was not able to come up with any more tricks!" Jing XIII was secretly relieved when Zhou Bao had suppressed the bridge with his Furnace of Immortality.


    Boom!


    In the midst of their conversation, the Flipping Sky Seal had fallen into the Silver Frost Castle and hit the tower of the castle. The protection from the silver light of the Silver Frost Castle could not withstand the powerful blow of the Flipping Sky Seal and broke instantly. Then the Flipping Sky Seal smashed into the tower and shattered it. The tower was the highest level of the Silver Frost Castle, and when it was smashed, the castle sank immediately.


    The Silver Frost Castle shook, and it appeared to be collapsing.


    The Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness had been set up, but under the suppression of Furnace of Immortality, it could not move at all. The space force under the bridge formed by raging waves, could not shake off the Furnace of Immortality. The Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness was launched in order to break through the hollow and bring the whole Silver Frost Castle out of the hollow. In such a case, this could not be effected at all. To make matters worse, the power of the suppressed Golden Bridge had been shattered, and there was no way a passageway could be constructed between the spaces.


    "That''s impossible! Why is that? Silver Frost Castle is the most powerful Highest Heaven Celestial Device. It cannot be suppressed so easily! No way!" Yu Tong looked incredulously at the sight, "How could he even suppress the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness?"


    "It''s a fairy weapon, Yu Tong, a mighty fairy weapon, which can suppress Heavens!" Tai Shang was not surprised and looked gloomily at the scene before him.


    "What do we do now?"


    "Now? We have to negotiate!"


    "Negotiate?"


    "Yes, either we negotiate, or we surrender!" Tai Shang gave a slight sigh, "His strength is unfathomable. He has not only mastered the creation of the macro world, but also possesses various fairy weapons. We can''t defeat him. Now, even the Silver Frost Castle has been suppressed and immobilized. Do you think we have any other options?"


    "But¡ª!" Yu Tong wanted to say something, but before she could finish her sentence, she heard a rumble above her. A large, shiny gold seal smashed through the top of the castle and pressed down on their heads.


    "Stop!" At the sight of the great seal, Tai Shang went deathly pale and roared.


    "Wishful thinking!" Zhou Bao heard his cry, but had no intention of releasing them. The Flipping Sky Seal seemed about to squash them.


    Neither Tai Shang and Yu Tong could sit still. They shouted out at the same time and took out their celestial devices; Tai Shang''s was a long saber.


    The silver¨Ccoloured knife gave off a strong sense of murderous intent and aggressiveness that felt like it could cut off everything. Yu Tong''s was a little blue bell. The sound of the bell was clear and tinkling, and every time it rang, it shattered the surrounding hollow. She tried to escape from the shattered hollow, but she could not get out of the areas that had been suppressed by Flipping Sky Seal anyway.


    "Damn it!" With a roar of rage, Tai Shang swung his long saber and struck the Flipping Sky Seal.


    "Boom!" The saber lit up brightly and hit the Flipping Sky Seal. The golden light of the Flipping Sky Seal flickered, and paused in the air. The force from the suppressing space weakened slightly. Using this opportunity, Tai Shang rushed to Yu Tong''s side, picked her up and hit the bell in her hand with all his might.


    "Clang¡ª" The little bell pealed loudly after his punch. With a loud bang, the space around them was completely shattered.


    "Silver Frost Castle, explode!" Tai Shang howled and turned around, hitting the magic formation behind him with a blue light.


    "Tai Shang, you are crazy!" Seeing what Tai Shang had done, Yu Tong screamed. However, he ignored her shrieks and objections. Instead he grabbed her and ran into the dark hollow.

 530 The Supreme Fairy Weapon & Another Fragmen

    "I don''t care about your capabilities. The pressing matter now is to conceal the Azure Big World!" Jing XIII looked solemn. "Although those two men chanced upon the Azure Big World, it at least shows that there still could be passersby in this hollow. We can''t kill one after another - we don''t have that power!"


    "Conceal it?! How?!" asked Zhou Bao. Concealing an entire macro world really did sound a little hard to imagine.


    "You are the creator in control of this world. You naturally have a way to conceal it!" Jing XIII looked at Zhou Bao. "The Jade Plate of Fate is currently in your hands. With it, you can move the entire macro world!"


    "Move the entire macro world?" Zhou Bao felt like he had heard a joke. He was a self-aware man who knew his limits. Even if he could summon the Primordial Fierce Beast - the Real Body of Demonic Ape Zhuyan, and coordinate with the Jade Plate of Fate; he did not have the ability to conceal the Azure Big World.


    "You are wrong. You can conceal this Azure Big World!" Jing XIII seemed to understand what was going through Zhou Bao''s mind. He said gently, "You can even use this as an opportunity to refine a Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    "What did you say?!" Zhou Bao lifted his head and stared at Jing XIII. "A Supreme Fairy Weapon?! You really good at talking big. I currently have two fairy weapons on me. And my Furnace of Immortality is a Taihao Fairy Weapon. Due to the intimate relationship between the Wheel of Time and the Azure Big World, perhaps its class is slightly higher, but ultimately it is still a Taihao Fairy Weapon. I have never even seen an Upper-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, let alone a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. Now you are telling me that I can refine a Supreme Fairy Weapon?! Are you playing with me?!"


    "Of course not!" Jing XIII laughed as he shook his head. "Even if I were that stupid, I would not play with you. You are the current master of the Azure Big World. Even if you don''t admit it, it''s still the truth. How stupid would I have to be to play with you?!"


    "Then what do you mean?!"


    "This Highest Heaven Celestial Device originated from a Supreme Fairy Weapon. It even contains some fragments of the Ancient Sacred City. The Ancient Sacred City was a good-quality Supreme Fairy Weapon. Even if there were only one fragment, it would be enough to refine a Fairy Weapon. And you have a Highest Heaven Celestial Device in your hands. Although its Highest Heaven Space has already broken, if you replace the broken space with the Azure Big World, this average piece of Highest Heaven Celestial Device will be elevated to the Fairy Weapon level to become a Supreme Fairy Weapon. Its power need not be higher than a Heavenly Fairy Weapon''s; it does not even need to be higher than a Taihao Fairy Weapon''s power. In fact, the difference between a Supreme Fairy Weapon and a Heavenly Fairy Weapon lies in their functions. It''s just like the difference between a Pure Yang Highest Heaven Celestial Device and an average Pure Yang Celestial Device!"


    "Functional differences?!" Zhou Bao was slightly shocked. As he thought about the difference between the Highest Heaven Celestial Device and the Pure Yang Celestial Device, he gradually understood. "Do you mean that if I add this macro world into the Highest Heaven Celestial Device, it will become a Supreme Fairy Weapon?!"


    "I don''t mean that!" Jing XIII shook his head. "There are 3 massive differences between a Highest Heaven Celestial Device and a Fairy Weapon. The first is its material composition. The Highest Heaven Celestial Device incorporates fragments of the Ancient Sacred City, hence its effects are not significant. As for the two other differences, one of them concerns the Highest Heaven Space. The Highest Heaven Space of the Highest Heaven Celestial Device is only an average space with no special features. On the other hand, the Highest Heaven Space of the Supreme Fairy Weapon is a whole world, which can be either a macro world or a micro world. The quality of the Highest Heaven Space directly decides the quality of the Supreme Fairy Weapon. The last difference is the source. By source, I mean the magic formation in the Highest Heaven Celestial Device that powers the Celestial Device. It is the power source of the Highest Heaven Celestial Device and the Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    When he spoke to this point, he looked at Zhou Bao and a wry smile flashed across his face. "The Highest Heaven Celestial Device and the Supreme Fairy Weapon are not the same as normal Fairy Weapons and Celestial Devices. To activate them would require an enormous amount of energy. The core of this castle''s formation is a well of energy. To really activate the power of the Highest Heaven Celestial Device, it would need a sufficient amount of power. Those two people don''t have any power source of that kind at all. They only have one source stone; and with it, they won''t even be able to activate one percent of the Fairy Weapon''s power. If they would have a sufficient power source, they could hit and punch the people at the Venerable Realm to death. And even if they met with a Lord of Heaven, that person would also have to retreat."


    "What about the Supreme Fairy Weapon?!" Zhou Bao asked.


    "The greatest difference between a Supreme Fairy Weapon and a Highest Heaven Celestial Device is their power source. The core of the Highest Heaven Celestial Device only has one magic formation that requires a ceaseless inflow of energy. But the Supreme Fairy Weapon is different. It uses its own power source. The real Supreme Fairy Weapon can extract energy from all kinds of spaces to power itself. It doesn''t need any fixed external power source at all. It can even condense a source stone!" said Jing XIII. This wasn''t a secret back in the ancient times. However, as time went by, even Pure Yang Celestial Devices could be used to suppress fate, let alone Fairy Weapons. One Fairy Weapon was enough to suppress an entire world. Who then would know the difference between Fairy Weapons and Celestial Devices from the ancient times?


    Zhou Bao understood after listening. The Supreme Fairy Weapon could be imagined as a tank or an aircraft carrier full of gunships, which were heavily armed military helicopters. Meanwhile, normal Celestial Devices and Fairy Weapons were each a weapon of a different kind and different model. Deciding which one was more powerful ultimately depended on the final power. If you were to use an AK to fight against an aircraft carrier, it would be suicide. However, if you were to use an atomic bomb against the aircraft carrier, then the result would be hard to say.


    Weapons like AKs were just like normal Celestial Devices. As for more superior weapons like the Heavenly Fairy Weapon, they were even worse than nuclear weapons. And of course, the Supreme Fairy Weapon was way worse than an aircraft carrier. Still, the principle remained.


    Be it AKs or grenades, they didn''t need any energy. However, an aircraft carrier was different. It needed a powerful engine.


    "Now we can solve both the material quality problems and Highest Heaven Space problems. But what about the source problem?!" Zhou Bao thought briefly. "That Supreme Fairy Weapon has been missing for so long. Where would I have to go to find its power source?!"


    "This question is simple. You can use the Azure Spirit Sea to replace it. Of course, you would have to refine the Azure Spirit Sea for a bit!" Jing XIII said. "Power sources are ultimately just pneuma - a massive amount of pneuma. To replace the Highest Heaven Space with a micro or macro world would naturally require us to resolve the issues of energy sources. The Azure Big World has just formed and, hence, possesses a massive amount of pneuma, which is enough to drive the Supreme Fairy Weapon!" At this point, Jing XIII thought to himself and seemed to have reached a resolution about something. "All Highest Heaven Celestial Devices'' magic formations are the same. It is a Pneuma-Gathering Formation, the core of the energy source of a Supreme Fairy Weapon. With this magic formation, coupled with sufficient pneuma, it is enough to create an energy source. The Azure Spirit Sea already has a nearly endless amount of pneuma!"


    "Converting the Azure Spirit Sea into an energy source won''t affect the living creatures in it, right?!"


    "There will be no consequences. The Azure Spirit Sea is already the energy source for the Azure Heaven. It is a naturally formed energy source whose energy can be extracted every day. Even if you successfully make a Supreme Fairy Weapon, it would be a Supreme Fairy Weapon of the lowest grade. It won''t even be comparable to a Taihao Fairy Weapon. Hence, it won''t require a lot of energy!"


    Seeing the passionate Jing XIII made Zhou Bao suspicious. It was an instinctive worry, a fundamental suspicion. However, in the end, he did not speak of it. This was because he had a freakish idea regarding the problem of the Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    "Since you''ve already said that, let me give it a try!" Zhou Bao glanced at Jing XIII and no longer asked any questions. His body flickered; and in a flash, he appeared below the Silver Frost Castle''s core. In the hall, he saw the magic formation placed on the core as well as the Wheel of Time''s shadow suppressing it from above!


    It acted as the Azure Big World''s time-controlling core. Even Zhou Bao was unable to stop time forever with it; after all, it was still a Middle-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, of which the control required massive amounts of energy. It was already an achievement for Zhou Bao to stop it momentarily.


    As the master of the entire Azure Big World, the uncrowned king Zhou Bao could still use the Wheel of Time''s shadow to stop time in one region without wasting a lot of energy.


    The reason why this magic formation was suppressed was that when Tai Shang escaped, he had used a drastic measure to explode the magic formation so that it might be used as the power source of the Highest Heaven Celestial Device. Once this magic formation exploded, the entire Highest Heaven Celestial Device would blast into pieces. Therefore, Zhou Bao naturally needed Fairy Weapons to suppress this place in order to prevent things from being destroyed.


    "That Tai Shang is really one ruthless character. Although the divine thunder he struck was not very powerful, it was enough to destroy the balance of the entire magic formation and release the energy that laid within it. Good move, good move!" Zhou Bao reached out his hand to catch the blue divine thunder that almost fell onto the magic formation. This divine thunder had actually been activated by Tai Shang already. If it would not have been suppressed by the Wheel of Time''s shadow, it would have exploded by now.


    As Zhou Bao sensed the state of the divine thunder, his gaze had a tinge of regret. Raising his hand, he broke open the hollow and threw the divine thunder into it.


    "Boom!" The divine thunder exploded just when it was thrown out. The space that was instantly healed had exploded again. If Zhou Bao would not have been prepared in advance, he definitely wouldn''t have allowed to get his head and face filthy with grime.


    As he smoothened the cracks in space once again, he waved his hand and dispersed the Wheel of Time''s shadow. The magic formation in the Silver Frost Castle began to operate by itself. He did not speak but used his spiritual mind to thoroughly sense the principles of this Pneuma-gathering Formation. After a long while, he lifted his head and looked at Jing XIII. "Alright, I admit that what you said is reasonable. Now, tell me, tell me what I should do to turn this thing into a Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    "As you wish!" Jing XIII smiled and took out a silver fragment from his body. "This is a fragment of the Ancient Sacred City. I think it will be helpful to you!"

 531 First Prototype

    A quaint material quality, a refined talisman, a marvelous feeling, as well as that faint scent of the wild - all these left Zhou Bao in constant shock.


    The Highest-grade Supreme Fairy Weapon with a fragment of the Ancient Sacred City!


    This was what Zhou Bao felt when he first saw that fragment.


    Sure, it was only a fragment the size of a palm. But it blessed Zhou Bao with a beautiful sense of perfection. It was as if it was not a fragment but rather a whole piece that had been painstakingly refined by a master artist. One couldn''t bear to touch it, harm it, or defile it.


    Seeing Jing XIII pick it up carelessly with his big hand, Zhou Bao could not help but roll his eyes, thinking, "What a brute!"


    "Haha, when I first saw something like this, I felt really strange. In the end, however, this thing is still a defective product and not of the real Ancient Sacred City. Although it may be composed of Fairy Dharma of the Ancient Sacred City, it is no longer possible to revive the glory of those days. Therefore, after a long time, there isn''t much to feel!"


    Zhou Bao did not say anything; he just received the fragment from Jing XIII. But as soon as he touched it, a wave of thoughts from the fragment entered Zhou Bao''s mind, and he was slightly shocked as he received them. He finally understood why Jing XIII said that refining the Supreme Fairy Weapon was not difficult - these thoughts already contained the way to refine the Supreme Fairy Weapon. As long as the conditions were met, one could refine the Supreme Fairy Weapon. Of course, according to Zhou Bao''s current strength and conditions, anything he could possibly refine would be of the lowest grade. At the same time, he also managed to resolve a question in his heart; or in other words, confirmed an idea in his heart.


    The most important distinction between Fairy Weapons and Pure Yang Celestial Devices were in their talismans. Pure Yang Celestial Devices, like the top Upper-grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices, including Zhou Bao''s Flipping Sky Seal, required three talismans to form a talisman formation. As for Fairy Weapons, the core was not composed of a talisman formation, but rather a simple talisman. Of course, this single talisman had another name: Immortal Character. Every Immortal Character represented a particular Fairy Dharma. It was the core of the Fairy Weapon, just like how the core of Zhou Bao''s Furnace of Immortality was like. Same goes for the Wheel of Time. As for the Jade Plate of Fate, only heaven knew what that blinding light in its core was.


    Taihao Fairy Weapons and Heavenly Fairy Weapons were like that, and the same goes for the Supreme Fairy Weapons.


    Immortal Characters were different from talismans and normal characters. Be it talismans or normal characters, all of them needed a sequence of multiple strokes to form a sentence and convey a complete meaning. On the other hand, an Immortal Character could convey countless meanings. It could convey the meaning of one character, or it could convey the meaning of an entire sentence. An Immortal Character could even convey the meaning of an entire book series thoroughly - how did it do that?


    It could do that based on one thing - insights!


    The more insights one had about an Immortal Character, the more meanings it could convey and the more powerful it was.


    With every increase of insights about an Immortal Character, the Immortal Character would evolve according to the nature of one''s insight after a certain level, and one''s rank and power would grow larger and larger. Of course, it was too early to speak of these things. Be it the Furnace of Immortality or the Wheel of Time, the Immortal Characters on them were all formed naturally. Zhou Bao had neither an opportunity to gain any insights nor could he have derived any insights from them. The Immortal Character from the Ancient Sacred City''s fragments in front of him was the same; he was unable to gain any insights about it. However, he could use those prior thoughts to refine one Supreme Fairy Weapon. Of course, on the condition that he had such an opportunity. Right now, he could only do a rough sketch at best.


    Moreover, the process of refining a Supreme Fairy Weapon was extremely difficult.


    "You don''t have that much time. Maybe I can help you in operating the Wheel of Time!" Jing XIII said.


    "It''s ok. I have a method to operate it!" Zhou Bao looked at Jing XIII and said, "After I refine this piece of Supreme Fairy Weapon, I will not forget to help you with it. But for now, you can go back!"


    "Seems like you still don''t trust me very much!"


    "Of course I don''t trust you. There has been no incident that proved our affections and disproved traitorous ways. I don''t think our relationship is deep enough for me to trust you with something like this. If you have any requests, just say them!"


    "I don''t have too many requests, and I haven''t even thought of any requests I can make!" Seeing how defensive Zhou Bao was around him, Jing XIII felt a little disappointed. However, he naturally did not display such disappointment on his face. "Perhaps I will need a favor from you in the near future. Please do not reject then!"


    "As long as I can do it and it does not hurt me, I will do my best!" Zhou Bao did not promise immediately, but neither did he reject. He only gave a conditional reply, which still pleased Jing XIII immensely. "Alright then, I shall leave now. I wish you success!"


    After saying this, his figure flashed and disappeared in front of Zhou Bao.


    "This guy has big ambitions. He has helped me so much in such a short amount of time. I must be careful in case he takes advantage of me!" Zhou Bao warned himself. A red light flashed from his eyebrows, and the Primitive Dragon Chimera''s incarnation appeared by his side. Raising its hand without any words, numerous Fire Dragons shot out of it, breaking the void apart and entangle them in the Wheel of Time. Under the control of the Dragon Chimera''s incarnation, the rotation of the Wheel of Time suddenly sped up. Zhou Bao took a deep breath and exited the Silver Frost Castle. At the same time, the Jade Plate of Fate appeared in front of Zhou Bao.


    As he gently flicked the Jade Plate of Fate, it reverberated with a clear sound. Subsequently, the Azure Big World shook as if it had been agitated by something.


    Zhou Bao took a deep breath, and a wave of wild primitiveness radiated from his body. Then, waves of white airflow surrounded Zhou Bao''s body as a Primordial Fierce Beast taller than thousands of feet appeared.


    Once the Primordial Fierce Beast Demonic Ape Zhuyan''s Real Body appeared, it leaped towards the Jade Plate of Fate. At the same time, the Mysterious Divine Light within Zhou Bao began to flow like crazy. Rays of mysterious Incantation Gestures radiated from his hand to the Jade Fate of Plate. As the Incantation Gestures flowed, the Jade Plate of Fate grew brighter and more glaring. A ray of purple light gushed out from the Jade Plate of Fate. Following the surge, the boundless space-time in the Azure Big World actually began to condense and shrink.


    As space-time condensed and shrank, the entire Azure Big World began to shrink as well. And the Silver Frost Castle, which had about a third of itself damaged, exited from the boundless space-time of the Azure Big World.


    "Sssh, sssh, sssh, sssh, sssh~!" Now that Zhou Bao had activated the Real Body of Zhuyan, he could not help but let out a burst of low screams. The Mysterious Divine Light within him was depleting rapidly. If he did not have the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, he would not have been able to sustain it for so long. Now, the recovery speed of the Dharma Power-restoring Skill was lagging behind the rate of the expenditure of his energy.


    "Damn it!" As he felt the Mysterious Divine Light within him dry up, Zhou Bao swore fiercely under his breath. He stopped making Incantation Gestures and started activating the Mysterious Divine Light within him to activate the Golden Dharma Power from the Innate Deity that laid deep within his Dantian. Under the relentless attack of the Mysterious Divine Light, the Golden Dharma Power began to flow, fuse with the Mysterious Divine Light, and, through the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill, transformed into the Mysterious Divine Light. However, this transformation was not complete as Zhou Bao simply could not wait for that to happen. When he stopped inputting the Incantation Gesture into the Jade Plate of Fate, he had already begun to feel the slight movements of the Jade Plate of Fate. The ball of space that he previously condensed also began to recover and expand while its pressure weighed on Zhou Bao with the force of a massive mountain.


    Even if he used the Real Body of Zhuyan now, he could only surrender in the face of such a massive force. He was not able to suppress it, and no one had the time to deplete the power of the Golden Dharma Power with the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill.


    "If this is the case, let''s keep trying everything in this desperate situation, like giving medicine to a dead horse!" Zhou Bao looked more resolute. He began to directly transfer the Golden Dharma with the Mysterious Divine Light into the Jade Plate of Fate.


    With the help of the Golden Dharma Power, the space-time around the Azure Big World began to condense and shrink much faster than expected. Within a short period of time, the entire Azure Big World shrank to the size of a watermelon.


    Of course, the so-called watermelon size was from the perspective of Zhou Bao only. He had exceptional powers then and his horizons were also broad. Naturally then, he understood that every world, even those as small as a grain of sand, was real. Sizes were only relative. The real Primitive Might could condense a macro world into a micro one, which is thousands of times smaller, in an instant. Furthermore, no Jade Plate of Fate was needed. As of now, he used the Power of Fate within the Jade Plate of Fate and the Origin of the Great Ways to condense and shrink the space-time of the Azure Big World into the bare minimum needed for the Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    At this point, the Silver Frost Castle also began to move. Under Zhou Bao''s control, it began to near to the Azure Big World inch by inch. Just when both of them were about to touch each other; a very, very tiny black hole suddenly appeared in the Silver Frost Castle and instantly swallowed the Azure Big World.


    Zhou Bao saw clearly that the entire Azure Big World had landed in the magic formation of the Silver Frost Castle. It had morphed into a ball of glaring, azure light and instantly filled the entire Silver Frost Castle.


    Subsequently, the Silver Frost Castle began to melt into a ball of water-like, silver liquid - like mercury. It began to constantly churn and change into different shapes vigorously; but no matter how it changed, it was not able to solidify.


    "Seems like Jing XIII does have a deep knowledge on how to refine Supreme Fairy Weapons. If not, he would never hand over this fragment of the Ancient Sacred City!" Zhou Bao slowly lifted the fragment of the Ancient Sacred City. He vigorously shook it and threw it directly into the constantly changing mass of mercury.


    Once the fragment was added, the mercury suddenly calmed down, no longer being as chaotic as before. In fact, it began to take shape slowly; and eventually, a perfectly streamlined, massive battleship appeared in front of Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao''s finger was lifted again. The Jade Plate of Fate lit with a little light, covering the massive battleship. And the battleship, smooth as silver, had mysterious patterns engraved on it.


    Within the battleship, where originally was no formation, now was an endless, azure abyss. Surrounding the abyss were numerous complicated deity lines forming a pattern. An almost boundless amount of pneuma poured out through those deity lines and powered the entire battleship.


    After seeing this battleship, Zhou Bao let out a sigh of relief. This Supreme Fairy Weapon finally had its first prototype!

 532 A Different Royal Capital

    The ship had a length of 1,290 feet. It had a sleek and silver-gray hull with dark blue patterns engraved on it. Besides these patterns, there were also some honeycomb-like patterns.


    1,290 feet, this was the fixed length of the battleship after it had appeared.


    Yes, this was its fixed length. That is to say, this Supreme Fairy Weapon could either be taken into Zhou Bao''s body or remain as it currently length where its size would not change.


    Eyeing the gorgeous and peerless battleship in front of him, Zhou Bao took a very deep breath, waved his hand, and watched the battleship shrink rapidly. In the blink of an eye, it changed to a silver dot the size of a rice grain and swiftly entered between his eyebrows.


    Boom!


    Once this fairy weapon entered his body, Zhou Bao felt the place between his own eyebrows explode with a blast. The pneuma arising from the fairy weapon surged out as if there was a sudden opening in the big Yangtze River''s flow. Gushes of pneuma rushed into his body, tendons, meridians, and Dantian, threatening to explode his body.


    "Poof!" The Real Body of Zhuyan also could not help but tremble. Under such a powerful force of pneuma, even the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan''s tendons and meridians could not resist it. However, at this point, Zhou Bao was in a difficult situation. He used all his might to activate his Eight Nine Mysterious Skill to absorb and refine the gushes of pneuma from the Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack...


    The originally thousands of feet tall Real Body of Zhuyan inflated once more. Within a span of a few breaths, its size multiplied by one fold, two folds, three folds, four folds!


    It was only when it reached a height of 8,000 feet that it finally stopped.


    "What is this?! A greeting?!" Zhou Bao groaned inwardly. Under Zhou Bao''s control, the Azure Spirit Sea within the battleship was firmly locked, and there was no trace of pneuma leaking out at all. However, the pneuma within Zhou Bao still needed further digestion. Otherwise, if it would wreck chaos in his body, he would die without knowing how he died.


    With great difficulty, these pneumas were finally transformed into Mysterious Divine Light. It was incorporated into Zhou Bao''s body and strengthened it. Simultaneously, Zhou Bao''s expression grew increasingly solemn.


    The benefits were so great, too great.


    Just like keeping a Pure Yang Celestial Device within one''s body could nourish one''s tendons and meridians, fairy weapons could do that too.


    As for an average practitioner, possessing one Pure Yang Celestial Device was sufficient to nourish one''s body even if one was a Venerable Realm Genuine Immortal. The longer the time frame, the stronger the body would become under the nourishment of Pure Yang Qi. However, for Zhou Bao, his body had already strengthened to an unbelievable degree after practicing the Real Body of Zhuyan. An ordinary Pure Yang Celestial Device could not nourish his body anymore. This had been the bottleneck of Zhao Bao''s practice for a long time. If he were to practice in the real world, every inhalation of pneuma could exhaust the entire Wuyang Region''s pneuma, and it would still not be enough to meet his needs. Hence, what he truly needed was to do closed-door training to practice within the Sea of Divine Power in the Azure Big World. It was only places like the Azure Big World that could meet his needs for practicing.


    Usually, he relied on the Furnace of Immortality to carefully nourish his body. The Furnace of Immortality was, after all, a fairy weapon; it still had great nutrition value for Zhou Bao''s physical body as well as for the Real Body of Zhuyan. However, this nourishing property was less than the one from the newly refined Supreme Fairy Weapon; it simply paled into insignificance by comparison.


    This Fairy Weapon would not talk reason at all. If one did not control it, it would directly provide large amounts of pneuma from its energy source for your cultivation. It was Zhou Bao''s luck that he had the Real Body of Zhuyan. If not, his body would have exploded under the previous attack of pneuma.


    However, this newly refined Supreme Fairy Weapon was, after all, still made by Zhou Bao, and thus had his brand of life. Therefore, to control the Supreme Fairy Weapon''s pneuma airflow was not an extremely difficult task.


    "Seems like I can enjoy all the benefits of this Supreme Fairy Weapon endlessly!" Zhou Bao laughed in his heart. "However, this thing''s power is too great, and it attracts too much attention. With this Supreme Fairy Weapon, I can even kill a Genuine Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm. Damn, I can kill that bunch of bastards!"


    It was very beautiful to dream of this scene. Yet, Zhou Bao knew that it was wiser to go easy. "Does that Jing XIII think that I can''t see it myself? Using the Azure Spirit Sea to replace the energy source would only solve problems temporarily. To really activate this Supreme Fairy Weapon and use all its power would require huge amounts of pneuma. Although pneuma from the Azure Spirit Sea can''t be used up, for an endless pit like this Supreme Fairy Weapon, it was not possible to use it unlimitedly even if pneuma from the Azure Spirit Sea and the entire Azure Big World was used. Perhaps after a long time, the Azure Big World would become like any ordinary physical world: devoid of pneuma.


    Hence, for Zhou Bao to fully take advantage of this Supreme Fairy Weapon, he would require the secret of the Supreme Fairy Weapon''s core, which was a magic formation that could automatically absorb energy from the hollow.


    Currently, the Pneuma-gathering Formation in his Supreme Fairy Weapon was only the most rudimentary form of a magic formation and incomplete.


    "Seems like I have to look very slowly for an opportunity. The current Pneuma-gathering Formation can only sustain the most basic operation of the fairy weapon. From a Highest Heaven Celestial Device to a Supreme Fairy Weapon - its rank has indeed increased, but so has its energy expenditure. If I don''t use the energy in the Azure Spirit Sea, its speed will only be a tiny fraction of the Silver Frost Castle''s, which could only barely cross the hollow with its speed."


    If one really wanted to be like Zhou Bao and kill a bunch of bastards, then it was a must to absorb pneuma from the Azure Spirit Sea.


    However, Zhou Bao did not plan so much in advance. The refining of this Supreme Fairy Weapon was already a surprise, but this surprise brought its own concerns. From this matter, Zhou Bao was sure that Jing XIII harbored secret plans against him. This Supreme Fairy Weapon was only a seductive bait. He knew that with Zhou Bao''s greedy nature, Zhou Bao would definitely be lured in. Once Zhou Bao swallowed this bait, he would have an easy time in the future. Before he tasted the sweetness of the Supreme Fairy Weapon, Zhou Bao would at least execute his plan regarding the energy source. At that point, it would be easy to manage other affairs.


    Zhou Bao could see his secret intentions clearly, but he did not really care about them for now. This world was a world that based itself on capabilities. Zhou Bao''s current capability was far greater than Jing XIII''s. Even the two men at the Azure Big World had been absorbed into his Supreme Fairy Weapon to form Highest Heaven Space. The Azure Spirit Sea had been turned into an energy source, and therefore, Zhou Bao was not worried that Jing XIII would play tricks on him.


    After receiving the Supreme Fairy Weapon, Zhou Bao looked at the faintly dark hollow surrounding him and swallowed a strong urge to explore it. His body twitched, and with the Infinite Realms Teleportation, he instantly returned to the Wuyang Region. At this point, a total of 10 days had passed.


    Refining a Supreme Fairy Weapon seemed easy on the surface. But in reality, the process was super complex. 10 years had passed in the making of the weapon. If it was not for Zhou Bao''s use of the Primitive Dragon Chimera to fixate the Wheel of Time where the flow of a year in that world would only be equivalent to the passing of a day in the real world, he would have returned back to a world where he knew no one after he successfully refined his fairy weapon.


    10 days were not very long. However, it was still a few days closer to the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. After returning to the Wuyang Region, Zhou Bao did not see anyone. He returned to the Sea-calming Palace where he slowly reviewed the insights gained from the 10 years of refining this Supreme Fairy Weapon in closed-door training. It was only after he felt confident of his mastery that he stopped his training, opened the hollow, and headed for the Western Capital.


    This time around, he did not go to Mingyi Lane. Instead, he headed straight to the Western Capital''s Imperial City. After the previous punishment they went through, the people in the School of Five Virtues should know better than to stir trouble here again.


    "What is this? What a rich sense of fate!"


    Unexpectedly, just when Zhou Bao tore through the hollow and entered the Royal Capital, he was assaulted by a huge spirit that almost caused him to fall from the air.


    His heart suddenly shook. With a flash of his body, he used the Three Realms Division to direct himself to Mingyi Lane. As he gazed towards the Royal Capital, he got the shock of his life.


    You know why?


    In the sky above the Royal Capital, there was a trail of purple Qi that stretched from the heavens to the earth. That vast, purple Qi had enshrouded the entire Royal City, preventing all evils from invading.


    Sure, no evils could invade it. Under this strange Purple Qi in the Western Capital, even a Metaphysic Individual Immortal would be trapped by this Qi. Anyone below the rank of a Genuine Immortal would not even be able to fly with their Gang Qi in the Royal Capital.


    Similarly, under this mist of purple Qi, the space around the Western Capital seemed to have gained another layer of protection. For people like Zhou Bao who had the ability to hollow travel, it was not possible to do so in the Western Capital unless one had terrifying powers like Zhou Bao. If not, one could only be suppressed.


    "Is it that Yan Yuntian has already become the Human Emperor that there''s such a dense fate?!" Zhou Bao suspected. As he watched the Royal Capital, which was enshrouded in purple Qi, his body flashed again once more, forcibly broke open the hollow, and entered the Royal Capital.


    "Who is so audacious to intrude into the Royal Capital?!"


    This time, just when he appeared, he heard a shout beside his ear. Following it, a sharp palm wind hit him from his back.


    "Stop~~!"


    "Noo~~!"


    "Be careful~~!"


    Bang~~!


    A series of shouts followed by a rumbling sound sounded out. A group of shadows were blown hundreds of feet away by a gust of energy and landed on the ground unconsciously.


    Facing this sharp palm wind, Zhou Bao neither avoided it nor did he use his Gang Qi; instead, he let it hit his body. Although he did not use the Real Body of Zhuyan, his body had been strengthened by the Mysterious Divine Light and even had the Zhuyan''s bloodline. Who could destroy it?


    That man was only of the Level Eight cultivation. His palm punch on Zhou Bao was for him like being bitten by a mosquito. It was, in fact, the Mysterious Divine Light''s massive recoil force that caused that man to suffer.


    "My distinguished father-in-law, what a great display of your might! And why? Are you ready to ascend to the position of the Human Emperor?!" Zhou Bao turned his head and looked with a slight smile at Yan Yuntian as if he was the core figure and everything revolved around him.

 534 The Grand Transmitting Formation & Being Treated with Contemp

    Zhou Bao saw a familiar face as he accompanied Chen Shoubai and Yan Yuntian to the Penglai Region to participate in the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. It was Elder Chen, who was the only other person he knew well apart from Yan Yuntian. Given Elder Chen''s standing position and that of Chen Shoubai, the elder was the most special one among this group of people. He was behind Chen Shoubai and Yan Yuntian but was closer to Chen Shoubai than all his disciples. This made Zhou Bao a little bit confused. Could it be that Elder Chen was related to the Chen Family''s ancestral temple?


    However, he did not feel like spying on others'' privacy at this moment. He just needed to mind his own business.


    Wearing a green robe, Zhou Bao looked like a weak scholar. He directly stood next to Chen Shoubai and a little bit behind Yan Yuntian. He didn''t want to steal the attention, after all, Yan Yuntian was going to contend for the position of the Human Emperor. However, he didn''t care that much for Chen Shoubai.


    A young man named Yuanlong gave a cold snort as he saw Zhou Bao''s rude behavior. He leaned forward as if he was going to cause trouble to Zhou Bao. However, he gave up on this idea due to Chen Shoubai''s cold stare. Others did not know Zhou Bao''s strength, but Chen Shoubai did. Zhou Bao looked like an expert at Level Nine, who had not reached the Mysterious Realm, but his combat capability was quite terrifying. Moreover, he didn''t care about rules. Chen Yuanlong was the hope and also a promising trainee of the family branch that Chen Shoubai belonged to. Unquestionably, Chen Shoubai would not be willing to see such a talent die groundlessly in Jin.


    "Haha, Mr.Shoubai, it seems that your disciple is ill-tempered!"


    "It''s normal for young people to be ill-tempered!" Chen Shoubai glanced at Zhou Bao and replied indifferently. He suddenly took a step forward and simply passed by Zhou Bao and Yan Yuntian. Then, he continued, "The Transmitting Formation leading to the place holding the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony is quite far from here. I''m afraid no one can arrive there in one day except Zhou Bao. Let me take you there!" As he was speaking, he waved his hand and then, a blue ray flew out of his sleeve. The blue light was fixed in the air and expanded against the wind. It turned out to be a carriage about 300-foot long.


    Yes, it was indeed a carriage. However, it seemed to be quite weird because it was a carriage floating on the air without any horses.


    It was a Highest Heaven Celestial Device!


    It was of the lowest grade, but a Highest Heaven Celestial Device nonetheless, which was the same as Yu Nantian''s Void Traveller.


    "It''s a Highest Heaven Celestial Device! I''ve long heard about how miraculous they are, but I''ve never expected that I would be so lucky to see one!" Zhou Bao rolled his eyes as he heard Yan Yuntian''s exclamation. He had never expected that as the emperor of Jin, Yan Yuntian would have such a narrow horizon. After all, it was just a lowest-grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device.


    Just like the Pure Yang Celestial Devices and fairy weapons, the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices were also divided into Upper, Medium, and Lower Grade. The grade of the Highest Heaven Celestial Device was determined by its Highest Heaven Space. The Highest Heaven Space of the Lower-grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device was just like the void. It was merely a piece of space debris with a single function; to enlarge the inner space of the celestial device, just like this carriage. The space in the carriage looked like an area of 30 feet from the outside, but once you got into it, you would find that it was enormous, maybe even broader than Jin. However, such a Highest Heaven Celestial Device did not help much in practice. There was a lack of pneuma inside it, and thus, it was not suitable for practicing. In a way, the Medium-grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device was the Holy Land for practicing. Its Highest Heaven Space was like the gray space captured by Zhou Bao. It possessed immense pneuma and a part of Dharma, which was a great help to practice some certain cultivation methods and understand some more about Dharma. As for the Upper-grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device, it was the same as the Silver Frost Castle. It had not only a huge amount of pneuma for practicing but also many indigenous creatures. Furthermore, the Dharma inside it was almost complete. The Silver Frost Castle''s Highest Heaven Space also had some weird creatures. However, Zhou Bao bombarded it with his Furnace of Immortality and Flipping Sky Seal unreasoningly and directly shattered its entire Highest Heaven Space, leaving no chance for these creatures to exert their power at all.


    The carriage-shaped Highest Heaven Celestial Device in front of them had an independent space in it, but the pneuma there was insufficient, and it couldn''t be regarded as the Holy land for practicing.


    As Chen Shoubai controlled the strange carriage, everyone got inside very quickly. Yan Yuntian couldn''t help but marvel at the enormous space inside the carriage. In fact, not just Yan Yuntian, but Zhou Bao too revealed an odd expression.


    It indeed was a low-grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device, but under the careful arrangement of Chen Shoubai, it had become quite special. Rows of archaic bookshelves filled the enormous space and emanated wafts of the aroma of books. It looked like a palace for reading books, a tremendous library.


    "This Speedy Flying Carriage was a gift from my father when I achieved a considerable success in school at the age of 20. It is more than 100 years old, and all the decorations in it have been elaborately arranged by myself during all these years!" While speaking of the carriage, Chen Shoubai felt quite proud. It really took him a lot of efforts to make this empty space a palace for reading.


    "It''s no wonder that his strength has always remained in the present state. It turns out that all this stuff has distracted his attention from practice!" Zhou Bao thought as he saw the dense arrays of bookshelves.


    The Speedy Flying Carriage moved very fast and it did live up to its reputation. It only took several hours to arrive at a place hundreds of thousands of miles away. During those hours, Zhou Bao just sat quietly on the chair, without even standing up. Obviously, Chen Shoubai''s disciples were afraid that he would discover the secret of the Speedy Flying Carriage, so they stood by his side all the time. They also stared at him vigilantly from time to time, as if they were afraid that he would suddenly rush out of the carriage and find out the secret of this Highest Heaven Celestial Device.


    This was a secret to most of the people in this world, but not Zhou Bao. The information about how did the Highest Heaven Space form and how did the Highest Heaven Celestial Device work was only in the hands of a few influences and families, just like the high technology of his previous life.


    However, without Jing XIII, Zhou Bao wouldn''t have known the secret of the Highest Heaven Celestial Device. He planned to check out the Highest Heaven Celestial Device right after he entered it, but now, he gave up on it. Yan Yuntian coveted this celestial device a lot, so he looked around and was very interested in this space. However, under the "strict supervision" of Chen Shoubai''s disciples, he did not have any chance to explore the mysteries of it.


    Right when Yan Yuntian was itching for observing it more carefully, the carriage stopped suddenly.


    "Well, here we are." Chen Shoubai walked out of the Speedy Flying Carriage first and glanced at Zhou Bao and Yan Yuntian.


    "Is this the right place?" Zhou Bao and Yan Yuntian got out of the carriage. In front of them was a towering and perilous peak.


    "The Grand Transmitting Formation is right on the peak of Chuyun mountain. There is a powerful inhibition around the mountain, and thus, my Speedy Flying Carriage cannot land directly on the peak. However, don''t worry, someone will pick us up soon!" Before he could finish his words, two human figures dashed down from the peak.


    "Chen Yuanfeng and Chen Yuangu, pay respect to the third deacon!" The two figures fell from the sky and saluted Chen Shoubai, without looking at anyone else.


    "Fine. I''ve brought Yan Yuntian, the emperor of Jin here. Now open the inhibition!"


    "Yes!" These two disciples of the Chen Family glanced at all the people behind Chen Shoubai, but they gazed a little longer at Yan Yuntian and Zhou Bao. Then, they took one jade card out respectively and pushed them towards the huge mountain.


    Under their push, the surrounding space immediately produced waves of ripples, just like the water that was spreading out. After that, an entrance was revealed.


    Everyone entered in succession. Not after too long, they arrived at a palace deep in the mountain through a deep tunnel.


    This palace was old and delicate, and everyone knew that it had been built at least tens of thousands of years ago at the first sight. It was simple in design, with a black stone staircase that was thousands of feet long connecting the hall and the passageway suspended in the air. Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes as he stepped onto the passageway because he discovered that as soon as he stepped onto this thousands of feet long construction, the surrounding space was blocked by a mysterious force. The force was not that powerful but was quite mysterious. Zhou Bao came to the conclusion that it''d be easy for him to break the space, but he would get lost in the void immediately as soon as he did it. Only those who possessed a deep understanding of the Law of Space could survive. Zhou Bao was certain that he was incapable of doing that.


    "That means I cannot get here through the hollow travel even if I know the coordinates of this place and I can only walk up the peak one step at a time. It seems that the Divine Wind Palace really cares about the Transmitting Formation. I just wonder whether I have the chance to observe the Space Formation. If I do, I can take this opportunity to figure out the secrets of it and try to copy it!" Zhou Bao walked through the staircase step by step with such wishful thoughts.


    In the empty hall, with dazzling starlight, a Transmitting Formation stood in front of Zhou Bao with countless lines interwoven on it. With a single glance, these lines made Zhou Bao feel quite dizzy. In fact, being so focused on the formation made him trip and almost fall into it. Luckily, he finally managed to keep his balance, though his actions were seen by all the people present.


    "Haha, there comes another uppity idiot. Do these people really think that this Transmitting Formation can be learned so easily and they can remember it by just looking?"


    "This guy is much luckier than the last one, do you remember? The last one directly spat blood and became unconscious. He failed to stand on the Transmitting Formation and was directly carried out of the palace!"


    "Haha, you''re right. That guy seemed to be an idiot of the Immortal Palace who has become a Metaphysic Individual Immortal. Haha!"


    "Damn it, I am despised by them!" Even though Zhou Bao already had a sharp hearing, it was obvious that Chen Yuanfeng and Chen Yuangu wanted to be heard. Thus, although they talked to each other in a low voice, they deliberately did not hide their voice from the crowd. At the very start, everyone held back their laughter. However, not too long passed when constant laughter rang out and within a few seconds, all the people present burst out laughing.

 533 Chen Shoubai from Chens Ancestral Temple

    Many people clustered around Yan Yuntian, just like how stars cluster around the moon. The aura he exuded was also completely different from Zhou Bao''s. The old Yan Yuntian practiced the Way of the Emperor, so his Qi Power was extremely astonishing. Even if he just stood there, without being angry, he would exclude power that was intimidating at first glance. However, that was only true for ordinary people and the average practitioners. In Zhou Bao''s eyes, he was nothing at all.


    But today, Yan Yuntian was obviously different. Even from the outset, he gave Zhou Bao a forceful attack.


    Instead of wearing the yellow robe today, he wore a black cloak. This black cloak was a celestial device that exuded a suppressive Qi Power. Of course, the item that attracted most of Zhou Bao''s attention was the crown on Yan Yuntian''s head. This crown had 12 ornaments constituting unknown materials that looked deep and remote. The ones on top were black like the color of his cloak. The others were of a rare red color. Zhou Bao knew that the black color of the ornaments on top was a symbol of heaven and the red color was a symbol of earth. The entire crown was a symbol of heaven and earth. The 12 ornaments each had five jade diamonds arranged in the color sequence of pink, white, grey, yellow, and black. The distance between each jade was about 1 inch. Hence, each sequence was about 12 inches along.


    Heavenly Crown of Peace!


    Seeing the Heavenly Crown of Peace on his head, Zhou Bao finally recognized that the Jin Dynasty''s Yan Family had two Pure Yang Celestial Devices. One of them was the pagoda that Zhou Bao stole to give Li Xiu. The other device was this Heavenly Crown of Peace that suppressed the fate of the entire Royal Yan Family.


    Although Zhou Bao had a Pure Yang Celestial Device on him, he could not help but let out a sigh when he saw the Heavenly Crown of Peace. Disregarding its power, its purple radiation alone could firmly suppress the entire Western Capital. Just this property alone defined it as on par with other Pure Yang Celestial Devices.


    There were also a few unfamiliar people that surrounded Yan Yuntian. And there was surprisingly no one from the Royal Yan Family.


    "You must be Yunzhou Zhou Bao. So it is as the legend says - your power is incredible!" said a middle-aged man standing beside Yan Yuntian slowly while looking at Zhou Bao. This man, although being neither handsome nor tall, was about 1.7 meter in height if Zhou Bao could use a measurement from his previous life. But it was precisely this man that gave Zhou Bao a sense of danger.


    Was he very powerful?


    No, he wasn''t. This middle-aged man only had a cultivation of Level Nine; yet, the aura he exuded was so strong. It was as strong as a mountain, as big as a sea, and as firm as a rock. Nothing could move it.


    "This man''s will is seriously too strong. If he can break through the Mysterious Realm and reach the Genuine Immortal realm, he could probably pass through six to seven Divine Tribulations in one go and become a figure of the Lord of Heaven Realm!" Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind was extremely sharp; he could see with one look that the middle-aged man in front of him had a willpower that was beyond one''s imagination. His heart was very strong, even stronger than Zhou Bao''s. It was exactly because he had such a strong heart and mind that he could let Zhou Bao feel such a strong pressure from him.


    However, no matter how strong the heart may be, it would not last long in the face of absolute strength. After hearing the man''s voice, Zhou Bao smiled faintly. "I''m not too strong. It''s just your subordinate''s strength is way too weak. What kind of people are you? Don''t tell me these are men from the Royal Capital. The last time I came to the Royal Capital, I didn''t sense any of your spirits!"


    "I am Chen Shoubai, the Divine Wind Palace''s third deacon in Chen''s ancestral temple. The purpose of my visit to your Central Mainland Region''s Jin Dynasty this time is to participate in the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony!" Chen Shoubai announced in a calm and firm tone.


    "Chen''s ancestral temple?!" Even Zhou Bao knew that the Divine Wind Palace possessed a lot of influences and families, the intersection place of power politics. But when he heard the three words "Chen''s ancestral temple," Zhou Bao could not help but feel strange. "Ancestral temple? Do not all those people live in the ancestral temple?"


    "Zhou Bao, the ancestral temple is the Divine Wind Palace''s special location for the Human Emperor-selecting ceremony. All its rules and procedures are under the purview of Chen''s ancestral temple. Mr. Shoubai is responsible for escorting me over to the Penglai Region to participate in the Human Emperor-selecting ceremony this time. All these people are the students of Mr. Shoubai!" Yan Yuntian pointed at the surrounding people.


    Mr. Shoubai!


    This name was somewhat interesting. Zhou Bao thought about it again, and he felt that this Mr. Shoubai was not a martial arts master or an expert. Instead, he looked like a great scholar who only read poetry books. As for his students, although all of them had reasonable skills and power, they all lowered their head in front of him and had an expression of humility on their faces.


    "The Divine Wind Palace will surely stir up trouble. Chen''s ancestral temple seems like the Ministry of Rites in the imperial court. They may not have much power or authority, but its role is indispensable and one that no one dares to look down on. This is because many things in the Ministry of Rites cannot afford to go wrong. Even if there would be one tiny mistake, the punishment would be death. Say, a general who lost on the battlefield still has a chance to redeem himself through good service. If there were a conspiracy with others, a web of connections could even save the entire army from punishment. However, if it would be on the birthday of the Emperor or on a day when a Queen dies, one would definitely die if a tiny mistake would be made regardless of how strong your relationships were with the court or how strong one''s support was. In the worst case scenario, all your offsprings would be involved.


    Hence, when all is said and done, it was a very troublesome existence.


    "So it''s Mr. Shoubai!" Zhou Bao smiled and put his hands together in greeting. He looked at the man who flew out and was then rescued just now and said, "He is your student?!"


    "Yes, Yuanchu is my student!" Chen Shoubai nodded his head. He did not seem to be upset that Zhou Bao had hurt one of his students.


    "I know you are very powerful and thus have nothing to worry about. The dignified Imperial City symbolizes the authority of the Jin Dynasty and it''s not appropriate for you to casually move through time-space!"


    "I am a brute, accustomed to rudeness!" Zhou Bao smiled faintly.


    "It was okay in the past. But now that Your Majesty wants to be a contestant in the Human Emperor-selection, you cannot be so rude anymore. The Human Emperor-selection is a selection by the Gods. Even an immortal would be controlled. You are a citizen of the Jin Dynasty and the son-in-law of the emperor; it is expected of you to be a good example for everyone else!" Chen Shoubai said directly. His tone was strict as if he was teaching his own disciple.


    "I don''t need you to tell me what to do!" Zhou Bao looked quite unhappy. "If you really don''t like me, you can teach me a lesson if you have the skill for that!"


    "What big guts!" A subordinate of Chen Shoubai furrowed his brows and stood up. "Then let me teach you a lesson!"


    "Yuanlong, stop!" Without waiting for Zhou Bao''s reply, Chen Shoubai glared at that man and interrupted him. Then, he looked towards Zhou Bao with a smile and said, "My disciple is a bit rude. It must have been a joke to you. What I''ve said is for your own good. The power of the candidate of the Human Emperor will not bear any provocation!"


    The light in Zhou Bao''s eyes froze and he murderously glared at Chen Shoubai. He said very sinisterly, "Your Excellency must be mistaken. I do not intend to provoke the candidate for the Human Emperor. Currently, the Human Emperor candidate has not even been selected yet. How can I provoke? Even if he were to be selected, it must be my father-in-law. I don''t have any reason to provoke His Highness, don''t you say so?!"


    "That''s right, that''s right!" With Yan Yuntian''s shrewdness, how could he not understand what Chen Shoubai was truly saying? But there is a saying: "People who are under the care of someone have to bow their heads." And now he was under Chen Shoubai''s care. In the Human Emperor-selection, Chen''s ancestral temple did not have the right to say much. But if one would really offend this fella from Chen''s ancestral temple, kicking the offender out of the selection was an effortless move. Therefore, Yan Yuntian had to fear Chen Shoubai a bit.


    "Hahahaha, great. It is rare that Your Excellency has so much faith in yourself. Seems like, with your help, His Majesty''s chance of obtaining the Human Emperor''s position will increase manifolds!" Hearing the two''s words, Chen Shoubai knew that his true motives had been seen through by them. Yet he still looked undisturbed. He only laughed, brushed the matter aside, and said, "Your Majesty, don''t waste time anymore. Since the person you''ve been waiting for has arrived, then please be on your way. Anyway, you have already handed over what is needed!" Chen Shoubai said gently. However, there was an air of indubitably in his tone.


    Regarding this, Yan Yuntian did not object and nodded. "That fine too. Zhou Bao, what about you?!"


    "Alright. There''s nothing much that''s worth seeing for me in this Royal Capital anyway!" Zhou Bao smiled and glanced at the Heavenly Crown of Peace. "But don''t you think bringing that thing with you is too ostentatious?!"


    "That''s not a matter. The Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony is based on one''s Qi Power. If I lose out on Qi Power right from the outset, then it will be hard to win it back. You have not experienced something like this before. But once you get there, I''m sure you''ll understand. The Human Emperor''s position is very competitive. Those who are qualified to fight for it are all emperors who are very successful. Everyone practices the Way of the Emperor, and there are even some who have broken through Level Nine and entered the Mysterious Realm. Without sufficient power, fighting for the Human Emperor''s position is a self-defeating pursuit!" Chen Shoubai said as he looked at Zhou Bao, seemingly implying something. "Moreover, the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony is not a place for fierce battles. The Human Emperor must be a well-refined man. A person who relies on brute force is not suited to be the Human Emperor!"


    "Chen Shoubai stands on our side. Chen''s ancestral temple has a special position in the Divine Wind Palace. Its rules are also extremely eccentric. Him escorting me this time around is a symbol of his support for me. If I can gain the Human Emperor position, he will also gain huge benefits. But obviously, he doesn''t think well of me!" Just when Zhou Bao was curious about this Chen Shoubai, he received a wave of thoughts from Yan Yuntian.


    "So he''s an unlucky duck that has been driven onto a perch!" Zhou Bao felt Yan Yuntian''s thoughts and couldn''t help laughing.

 535 Let Me Teach You

    A burst of laughter with evident mockery came to Zhou Bao''s ears and pissed him off, while a terrified Yan Yuntian stood not far away from Zhou Bao. He was afraid that Zhou Bao would be unable to control his emotions and lose his temper, resulting in him killing all the disciples of the Chen Family who had just burst into laughter. That would be awful.


    He stared at Zhou Bao nervously and was quickly thinking about possible solutions to the problem.


    However, to his surprise, Zhou Bao was just a little bit unhappy. He neither lost his temper nor showed any sign of irritation. Instead, he fixed his eyes on the Transmitting Formation again. But this time, he was not as careless as before. While he was focusing his attention on it, his mind worked quickly to analyze the lines that were engraved with the mysteries of the space. Like a work of nature, these talismans rotated in his mind.


    "This is the part of breaking the void. The crystal stones in this formation must contain the Flickering Light Evil Qi or a kind of space-property pneuma that is more effective than it. it uses these stones to break the void at the moment the formation is activated!"


    Zhou Bao continued to observe the formation and slowly analyzed its mysteries. While doing so, he lifted one of his fingers up and did some strokes in the air.


    The laughter died away. All the people''s attention was on Zhou Bao''s fingertip now. As they watched the invisible lines he had drawn in the air, their expressions changed.


    "After breaking the void, there comes the second part: the talisman formation that is used to locate the position. It does have some unique features, but I guess it''s not so difficult to determine the position because there is another fixed Transmitting Formation in the Penglai Region. Although it''s somewhat subtle and unique, it''s the lowest-grade talisman formation for locating the position, which is of little value!" Zhou Bao just thought all this in his mind at first, but as he drew the lines in the air, he gradually spoke and made sure that everyone could hear him.


    While he was drawing the lines in the air, he was uttering words at the same time, as if he was sleep-talking. However, his voice possessed a penetrating power that enabled everyone to hear each of his words clearly. The most terrifying thing was that everyone could remember and understand everything he had said.


    Yes, they could understand what Zhou Bao had said. At this moment, Zhou Bao was explaining the design principle of the Grand Transmitting Formation to them.


    Even the one with the lowest cultivation, a Level Seven expert, could understand what Zhou Bao was saying. He had already immersed himself in Zhou Bao''s explanation.


    "Oh no!" Chen Shoubai was startled as he discovered that Zhou Bao''s words seemed to have been engraved in his mind. It should be noted that the Transmitting Formation between different regions was a secret of the Divine Wind Palace. Even he, the third deacon of the ancestral temple of the Chen Family, and a person who had such a prominent position in the Divine Wind Palace, could not get to know this secret. He knew nothing about the lines of this magic formation. Only those who had a good understanding of the Law of Space could be affected by its complicated lines and suffer an embarrassing incident as Zhou Bao just did.


    Due to a lack of a thorough understanding of this formation, Zhou Bao thought it wasn''t really complicated and didn''t pay much attention to it, which led him into a trap and was laughed at because of this. Maybe other people would have let out their rage, but he was different. His soft and firm personality mixed with his ability to come up with wicked ideas for revenge made him return all the ridicule to them in his own way. Those who knew nothing about the Law of Space would have no reaction when they looked at the formation, but those who had a good knowledge of it could be affected by the formation. For those who felt dizzy as soon as they saw the formation, the ones who laughed at him merely took ignorance for fun. Therefore, Zhou Bao felt it was very necessary for him to teach them how it worked so they could appreciate such a formation in the future and feel as dizzy as him.


    Thus, in his voice, Zhou Bao applied a cultivation method that could shake people''s spirit. As soon as the voice spread out, it entered in their minds along with Zhou Bao''s understanding of this Transmitting Formation. The poor Chen Shoubai clearly knew that what Zhou Bao had done broke the rules and he sought to resist the voice, however, he failed to do that because Zhou Bao''s voice was rather tempting. Zhou Bao gave an extravagantly colorful description of the key points of this formation paragraph by paragraph and his description didn''t pale in comparison to Child-endowing Buddha''s skill¡ªLotus Flower on the Tongue, a pure spirit cultivation method. What Zhou Bao spoke out this time also included the maxim of the Law of Space. In a few words, his voice plunged all the people here deep in thought.


    "Well, the skill applied in building the passageway is also good and worth studying, but there is something wrong with the hollow travel. I''m afraid that in order to seek absolute stability and safety, its speed and efficiency will be decreased. In this way, the people who are going to use the formation will inevitably bear some pressure and only those experts who have reached Level Seven and refined Gang Qi can get through such a formation. Otherwise, they would be crushed into powder before they could arrive at their destination. If this Transmitting Formation could be improved with the way of the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness in antiquity times, it would be perfect. However, it''s a pity that it had been long lost and no one in the Seven-deity Regions knows it!" There was a deep regret in Zhou Bao''s words. After he finished speaking, he directly stepped into the Transmitting Formation.


    Then, he smiled at everyone in front of him.


    With a blank look on their faces at the very start, these people finally came to their sense after a good while.


    "Ah!"


    "What''s up? What happened?"


    "The Law of Space. I didn''t expect that it would be so profound... !"


    "Little did I expect that I would be so lucky to have this chance to get hold of such a mysterious spatial cultivation method... !"


    "I really have gained greatly this time. Such kind of cultivation method is of great help to my practice!"


    After they had come to their sense, there were waves of admiration and exclamation around Zhou Bao.


    Almost all of them had forgotten that they had laughed at Zhou Bao and, as they looked at him, something different could be seen from their eyes. Especially those who had just mocked Zhou Bao. They all looked quite embarrassed.


    Of course, there were some people who thought they were smart. They began to fix their eyes on the Transmitting Formation under Zhou Bao''s feet after they had comprehended Zhou Bao''s explanation. But soon after, tragedies took place successively.


    "Ouch!"


    "Ow!"


    "Plop!"


    A sound similar to objects falling down started bursting around the room. Eighty percent of the people present fell down and looked as if they were drunk. Only three people stood straight; they were Chen Shoubai, Yan Yuntian, and Elder Chen. They were fine because they hadn''t looked at the Transmitting Formation.


    "Zhou Bao of Yunzhou, it had never occurred to me that you would get the hang of the Law of Space. I really respect you!" Chen Shoubai took a deep look at Zhou Bao and sighed. He said nothing and directly entered the Transmitting Formation. Yan Yuntian and Elder Chen both gave a wry smile and stepped into the formation successively.


    As for Chen Shoubai''s disciples and subordinates, they had not yet recovered from the impact of the formation. With their spirits being shaken and legs feeling numb, most of the people were so feeble that they could not even stand up due to the powerful impact.


    "Yuanfeng, Yuangu, we''ll go first. After you two recovered, you shall send them to our destination!" Chen Shoubai created an Incantation Gesture with his two hands in the Transmitting Formation to launch it.


    Zhou Bao noticed that Chen Shoubai''s hands stopped for a while as he was making the Incantation Gesture. He couldn''t help but laugh in his heart. It seemed that Chen Shoubai had been affected by him as well. He could have only made this Incantation Gesture by copying it slavishly before, but now, after Zhou Bao''s explanation, he had a very deep understanding of the Law of Space. Therefore, when he utilized this Incantation Gesture, he would inevitably recall the principle of it and feel the power it represented. Therefore, he took more time making the gesture than he used to.


    "Excuse me!" Chen Shoubai was also aware of his mistake and could not help but laugh bitterly. As the Transmitting Formation shone, he said to Zhou Bao, "Originally, I had little hope for His Majesty to become the candidate for Human Emperor, but now the possibility is something to be taken into consideration. If you can defeat Senior Grand Tutor Hong, you''ll very likely obtain the position of the candidate for Human Emperor!"


    "Senior Grand Tutor Hong?" Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes and added, "Do you mean Senior Grand Tutor Hong of the Li dynasty? I''ve heard of him, but I don''t know much!"


    "Originally, Senior Grand Tutor Hong ought to be the Family Head of the Hong Family in the Divine Wind Palace. With a mighty power, he is equal to a Lord of Heaven. He is not only the Senior Grand Tutor of the Li dynasty but an important figure in the Divine Wind Palace as well. He failed to be the lord of the Divine Wind Palace, a position that he has contended for with Yu Taixu. His loss was not because he was too weak but because the Hong Family was inferior to the Yu family. After that failure, he renounced his family and gave up the position as the Family Head. Then, he set off for an adventure to the Li dynasty and became the Senior Grand Tutor Hong we know now!"


    "You must be kidding me. The Li dynasty is a secular dynasty and I was told that anyone who has reached the Mysterious Realm could not interfere in the affairs of the secular world. Don''t tell me that the one who was qualified to vie for the position of the lord of the Divine Wind Palace haven''t reached the Mysterious Realm, will you? As you have said, he is equal to a Lord of Heaven!"


    "Just like you now, Senior Grand Tutor Hong is at Level Nine. However, he has killed a Lord of Heaven. So, he is technically equal to one of them!"


    "Has he really killed a Lord of Heaven? With a Level Nine Cultivation?" Zhou Bao looked affected all of a sudden and in his heart, he cursed, "What a damned terrifying talent!"


    Senior Grand Tutor Hong''s strength was indeed terrifying. Zhou Bao himself had also killed a Lord of Heaven in a face to face encounter with a fairy weapon and some Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, but he had taken advantage of the geographical situation. The entire Azure Secret Area and the Jade Plate of Fate were in his possession. After a hard fight, he finally won by a neck and killed Yu Taicang. If Zhou Bao was asked to fight Yu Taicang in other places, the chances he would win were quite slim, or we could just say that he would have no chance of winning. The only way for him to survive would be to escape. He never expected that Senior Grand Tutor Hong would be so powerful as to kill a Lord of Heaven face to face with just a Level Nine cultivation. Of course, such a man was worth visiting.

 536 Surprise Attack

    "This Zhou Bao really is a character!" Seeing the change in Zhou Bao''s expression, Chen Shoubai subtlely nodded. Usually, after someone has heard about the Senior Grand Tutor''s war stories, even the most self-confident ones find it hard not to feel humbled. However, Zhou Bao did not feel humbled at all, he just changed his expression a little bit. Furthermore, his face revealed a slight eccentric smile. Chen Shoubai understood what this smile meant: confidence mixed with a great interest. Through this smile, Chen Shoubai could make out what Zhou Bao was thinking.


    "Look at his grandeur. He looks like a good match for the Senior Grand Tutor Hong, but honestly, I don''t know if his confidence is well-founded or based on ignorance!" He secretly sighed in his heart. "I hope it''s not the latter. If he does not understand the true wrath of the Genuine Immortal Lord of Heaven Realm, he could easily die in the hands of the Senior Grand Tutor Hong!"


    The rays of the Transmitting Formation completely cloaked the four men. Space began to vibrate and a faintly black passage appeared in front of them emitting a strong suction force which would absorb the four of them. Only Chen Shoubai and Yan Yuntian could be seen using their Protective Gang Qi. Chen Shoubai lifted up and wrapped Elder Chen entirely within his own Protective Gang Qi. Accompanying him was Zhou Bao''s agile figure.


    After the tunnel and all the rays disappeared, space stopped vibrating and held steady, the four men sensed a light; they had already arrived.


    Chen Shoubai looked at Zhou Bao''s nonchalant expression. His eyes were fierce and bright. He had clearly noticed that while traveling with the formation, Zhou Bao did not use his Gang Qi, but used his own physical body to hold up the pressure exerted by space. What was he thinking? After practicing and practicing, he should know! Although it is said you should balance the inner and outside cycle, it has become common knowledge among all practitioners that strengthening from physical practice is not as strong as using Gang Qi, and not as strong as meticulously cultivated pneuma, inner strength, and Dharma power.


    A mere Level Six master can break gold and shatter iron with the help of the Internal Qi, and that is nothing compared with a Level 7 using the Internal Qi from the Gang Qi.


    Zhou Bao''s predecessors, The Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang, could even fuse hollows. Any type of wizard weapon steel was a piece of cake for a Gang Qi. So, to be able to physically and firmly hold up the pressure from the space of the Transmitting Formation, there was only one explanation. Zhou Bao must know an extremely tough way to strengthen his body, and that he had trained his body to an unimaginable level so that in his every movement there was immeasurable power. Only that could have produced this kind of result. With this, Zhou Bao became a lot more valuable in Chen Shoubai''s eyes.


    Chen Shoubai, returning to his own thoughts, counted on his own small abacus. Zhou Bao and Yan Yuntian were contemplating their surroundings.


    Unlike the Transmitting Formation built on the mountainside, this Transmitting Formation was built on a half-mountaintop.


    What was a half-mountaintop?


    It was a mountain with the top removed, leaving only the bottom part. Where the cut had been made, a platform was formed as smooth as a mirror. The ancient powers often did things like this to demonstrate their architectural skills, and to build their own spaces.


    This platform was obviously the signature of an Ancient Mighty Expert''s skill. After so many years, the smooth as glass half-mountaintop had turned into a cluster of palaces.


    Well, more than a cluster of palaces it looked more like a small market town; a little noisy and disordered. Common people were starting to gather around them. It had not occurred to Zhou Bao and Yan Yuntian that there was here a magic formation that could transfer them to another region.


    "This is Mountainside Town, the territory of the Chen Ancestral Temple. Most of the people here do not practice martial arts because they do not have the aptitude for it. They are just ordinary people, but our Chen family''s bloodline flows through their bodies. While they live here, they learn about many things. If they succeed in learning, then they can descend the mountain and use the Transmitting Formation to go to another region and make their way in the world; to go and give their all. Once they have made their way, found success and recognition, they can come back, but we shall not force those who are not willing to descend the mountain. At the bottom of the mountain, the weather is good and there are vast acres of fertile land. There, no-one shall starve!" Chen Shoubai saw the suspicion in Zhou Bao and Yu Yuntian''s faces, and said indifferently, "For many years cold weather has prevailed from here, hasn''t it?"


    "Forty-three years!" added the Elder Chen at this side, looking at Mountainside Town and his surroundings with a slightly vacant gaze. "I hadn''t realized forty years had already passed. This area has not changed even a single bit. And I have no idea whether the old folks from back then are still alive."


    "Go back there and you will find out!", Chen Shoubai said with a smile. As far as Elder Chen knew, the Chen Ancestral Temple welcomed and highly valued those who went out on their own and achieved great things.


    "Well, the three deacons are right, go back and see it!" Elder Chen smiled and bowed to Chen Shoubai. "If you say so, then I will take my leave. Your Majesty, King Wuyang, take care!"


    "You too should take care!" Yan Yuntian smiled. He had also only recently learned of Elder Chen''s history, but he did not mind at all. The Chen Ancestral Temple was not at all known for its power, but Chen bloodlines branched over all the Seven-deity Regions, not to mention the Four Eastern Regions. Their traces could also be found in the Three Western Regions, with their astounding potential. The branches of the Chen family''s bloodline are not all loyal to the Divine Wind Palace. Each person had their own loyalties, and each person had their own opportunities. It could be said this was a great family.


    After sending off Elder Chen, Chen Shoubai led the two remaining to the largest building in Mountainside Town, a branch of the Chen Ancestral Temple.


    It was said that was the original place of the temple, but that was really long ago and the place had undergone countless changes since then. The Chen''s family nest had already moved elsewhere, and this served just as the family''s gathering place. Naturally, there was a branch of the clan responsible for the temple''s security and looked out for any talent arising among the Chen kinsmen. This was a noble service, as for this type of family, every new talent that arose helped increase the family''s influence. Even though they had no desire to take over the Divine Wind Palace, they wanted to maintain a superior position there, and power was absolutely essential for that.


    Chen Shoubai was an outstanding figure in the family. He ranked among the top five of the Chen family in terms of power.


    Being such an important person within the family, the leader of the temple could not neglect him and had to welcome them.


    "Chen Yuhai of the Chen Ancestral Temple in Mountainside Town is visiting the three deacons!" Chen Yuanhai was a very capable middle-aged man, who looked almost as old as Chen Shoubai. However, in terms of actual age, Chen Shoubai was much older and held a more senior position.


    "Well, let me introduce His Majesty the Emperor Yan Yuntian from the Central Mainland Region of the Jin Dynasty. This powerful contender for the throne of Human Emperor is King Wuyang Zhou Bao of the Jin Dynasty, a man of immeasurable power!"


    "I have met His Majesty and King Wuyang!" Chen Yuanhai''s complexion changed slightly, and being neither servile nor overbearing, bowed to the two people. Zhou Bao and Yan Yuntian both bowed back. It did not matter what Yan Yuntian''s status was, he was now in someone else''s territory. He was many miles away from the Jin Dynasty, and his title of emperor was not of great use here. As for Zhou Bao, he just did not want to cause trouble. He was not arrogant and seeing bystanders bow to him, it was natural that he should bow in return.


    "Is the accommodation arranged?!"


    "It has been arranged, in the South Court. Should His Majesty and King Wuyang have any requests, please tell us and we will oblige."


    "There is no special requirement. As long as you can accommodate us, all is fine!" Yan Yuntian was modest and maintained a low profile. However, his clothes, especially the Heavenly Crown of Peace on his head, showed off his formidable greatness, and he could not keep a presence as humble as he wished.


    "Old Eagle, look at the purple air in the sky. It seems someone else has come to attend the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. How about we go and have a look, shall we?"


    "Yes, let''s see what qualification he has to come and attend the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. If he happens to die, we might even be gifted with his fate instead, which would be very beneficial to His Majesty''s great cause."


    Deep in the mountains hundreds of miles away, the figures of two half-man-half-creatures were watching the purple cloud lying over Mountainside Town while having this conversation.


    One of them, muscled and sturdy, had a human shape. However, his face was like a fierce tiger and on his forehead faintly appeared the Wang character. He had a long golden tiger tail dropping from behind. He indeed was morphing into a tiger.


    The other man, slender and well-proportioned, was one head taller than his companion. His skin was extremely white, almost the color of milk, and his face was surprisingly handsome. It was his eyes that grabbed the most attention. They faintly gleamed with a golden light, as if they could see through all the things of this world. He had a pair of mighty golden wings on his back, as if cast from gold itself.


    These two monsters were daring. They knew that there was a Transmitting Formation there. They had been hiding there for several days, watching the guys appearing for the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. As soon as Zhou Bao and Yan Yuntian showed up, the purple cloud from the Heavenly Crown of Peace grabbed their attention, immediately increasing their desire to kill.


    Their bodies turned into two streams of light. In a flash, they arrived at Mountainside Town. The real, terrible inhibition was outside of the Transmitting Formation, but nowhere in Mountainside Town itself had any special type of inhibition, so there was nothing to block the way of these two Demonic Immortals. They rushed forth and stopped just in front of Zhou Bao and the others.


    They were too quick. Yan Yuntian or Chen Shoubai had no time to react, only Zhou Bao did.


    The tiger demon smiled strangely and stretched out his giant claw. He grabbed the top of Yan Yuntian''s head without letting them react. Behind him, his tail cracked like a whip, and with it, he thrashed Yan Yuntian''s body.

 537 Double Demons in the South Mountains

    What a fierce fellow!


    The tiger demon suddenly appeared, violently snatching towards the Heavenly Crown of Peace on the top of Yan Yuntian''s head. Zhou Bao was gazing faintly, but he could not help but sigh at the tiger demon''s power. However, he did not move, not even an inch.


    To his side there was a winged bird-man, glaring at his prey. His eyes were dead fixed on them, warning them not to make any sudden moves. It was very hard to say whether Zhou Bao should take the winged bird-man seriously or not.


    "The Heavenly Crown of Peace is still an Upper-Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device, no matter what! With it, you can take whatever you want!" Zhou Bao said coldly as he watched the tiger demon''s movements.


    Sure enough, just as the tiger demon went to grab the Heavenly Crown of Peace, it emitted a purple scattered light, blocking the tiger demon''s fierce claws.


    "Daring!" Now that the scattered light from the Crown of Peace blocked the tiger demon''s fierce claws, Yan Yuntian reacted. He shouted and punched violently.


    "Ugh!" The tiger demon could not strike. Seeing Yan Yuntian''s hand coming, he did not panic, but snorted coldly and withdrew a paw. Curling up, he hid from the hand, while noticing the protective Heavenly Crown of Peace. For the moment, he could not grab the candidate for Human Emperor no matter what, so he turned to Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao looked vulnerable in his green robe. His appearance cried "come and bully me", making the tiger demon''s heart itch endlessly. And so with his second strike, he went for Zhou Bao.


    "It seems you want to die!" Seeing the tiger demon''s second claw coming towards him, Zhou Bao just smiled coldly and raised his hand to grab the claw.


    This tiger demon was fairly well cultivated, and had already undergone the Thunder Tribulation, and assumed the form of a Demonic Immortal. Although he had not reached the level of Venerable Realm, he was much stronger than a normal Genuine Immortal who had undergone the Thunder Tribulation. His combat capability was equivalent to that of a Venerable Realm level Genuine Immortal. This kind of power usually was enough to deal with opponents, only this time he was facing Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao''s palm reached out to the tiger demon''s paw. Both demonic beasts had a really bad feeling about that slender and apparently harmless palm.


    "This isn''t good!"


    The tiger demon felt that something was not right, and went to take his paw back. However, Zhou Bao did not give him the chance and he swiftly stretched out his hand. As both their hands collided sparks came out in the air.


    Crack! Crack! Crack!


    A crackle of shattering skeleton resounded.


    Meanwhile, the bird-man at his side hissed viciously as his wings quivered slightly. Like lightning, he charged at Zhou Bao without thinking. Grasping his claws, he pounced directly at Zhou Bao''s face where he was most vulnerable, relieving some of the pressure on his companion.


    "He is quite fast!" A light voice spoke in Zhou Bao''s ear, warning him. A sense of big danger pounded in his heart.


    "You''ve found your mortal match" That thought flashed in his mind. The birdman''s advancing claw stopped, he flapped his wings, and suddenly not a trace of him was to be seen.


    Suddenly, a shriek resounded. Zhou Bao''s hand had already smashed the tiger demon''s paw to pieces. Seizing the opportunity, he stepped forward and, swiftly and forcefully, clutched at the tiger demon''s chest.


    "Ah! Ah!" The fierce pain instantly made the tiger demon roar. He never thought that this seemingly weak teen in cyan clothes in front of him could have been this powerful. With only one hit, he had smashed his attack and dealt him some serious injuries.


    After Zhou Bao''s sharp attack, the tiger demon fled as fast as he could. He roared fiercely deadly ripples spread from his mouth.


    Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!


    The formless ripples hit Zhou Bao''s hand, and he absorbed their power. The tiger demon turned into a ray of light and dashed away.


    "Haha, these two guys can run fast!"Zhou Bao didn''t go after them. Instead, he lifted his eyes and looked in the direction in which the bird-man had escaped. He looked more interesting to him than the tiger demon.


    "The Roc Flying Freely method, one of the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds, has never before involved this body movement. I didn''t think it would be this quick. It cannot be outdone by the Three Realms Division. A thousand miles in a flash, how interesting! Worth looking into!" Zhou Bao had just recognized the movement used by the bird demon when he escaped, it was actually one of the types of Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds he had just learned. The Roc Flying Freely method was allegedly one of the quickest body movements in heaven and on earth. It was from a Fierce Beast from primitive times and it was claimed that the special ability of this legendary golden-winged bird was to travel hundreds of thousands of miles away in a flap of its wings.


    Although the bird-man did not use it to its full potential, it had already traveled countless hundreds of miles and was back looking at Zhou Bao from afar with greedy eyes.


    After the two Demonic Immortals left, Zhou Bao turned to look at Chen Shoubai, and with a slight sneer in his eyes said, "Deacon Chen, the defenses in Mountainside Town are far too lax! Anything can just come in and attack at will!"


    "This matter was caused by the thoughtlessness of the Chen Ancestral Temple. It was us who let them in!" Chen Shoubai did not at all try to shift the blame. His face was slightly white, his expression was stern. "Rest assured that the Chen Ancestral Temple will give you an explanation!"


    "Ok, then. However, I think that with guys like that, the more the better. If they kill off all the other competition, how can that be bad? Haha!", Zhou Bao laughed thoughtlessly.


    "If such a good thing were to happen in this world, then I would also compete for the throne of the emperor!", Chen Shoubai laughed coldly. "Well, now that this is all basically over, I think with you by his side, His Majesty won''t have to worry about his safety, right?!"


    "I''m here to watch the bustle, not to act as a bodyguard!", Zhou Bao replied indistinctly. "When we get to your territory, our safety is your responsibility, isn''t it?!"


    "Okay. Then from now on, I promise that no one will dare attack you again!", Chen Shoubai shouted before storming off.


    "That''s more like it!"


    "Zhou Bao, you can''t be too nice, this is someone else''s territory after all!" Yan Yuntian, seeing Chen Shoubai''s storming off with a face full of shame, couldn''t help but try to urge Zhou Bao.


    "It is because it is their territory that they have to take responsibility. In my opinion, the Chen Ancestral Temple has seen too many peaceful days. They haven''t taken even the most basic precautions, it''s really disappointing!" Zhou Bao ranted uncontrollably. Hearing this, Yan Yuntian frowned and felt that today there was something wrong with Zhou Bao''s attitude.


    He heard a strange sound from outside, but he continued his conversation. "You can''t blame the Chen Ancestral Temple entirely for this, the Penglai Region and your Central Mainland Region have also been peaceful for a long time, and with the Temple right in the middle of the Divine Wind Palace, there is no one foolish enough to come over looking for trouble. So you can take it easy!"


    "Who would come over looking for trouble?" Yan Yuntian went pale.


    He was the leader of the Jin dynasty, and was a candidate for Human Emperor in the Four Eastern Regions. He cultivated himself to Level Nine and was only one step away from the Mysterious Realm. He was extremely powerful with only a few losses in his record. Everything was fine now that they had arrived in the Penglai Region. They had barely seen the scenery and a tiger demon appeared and nearly snatched and killed them. Then, when they had barely caught their breath, some guy surreptitiously snuck in beside them. How could he not be annoyed?


    "How did His Majesty not recognize me?" A figure flashed in front of their eyes.


    "Brother Yu, is it you?", Yan Yuntian showed a pleasantly surprised expression when he realized who was coming, "How come you''re here?"


    "If you''re coming to attend the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony, I''ll come along too for sure!" The person who appeared was a man dressed in black. It was the same guy who was in the middle of Imperial City¡ªWestern Capital, who Yan Yuntian called Brother Yu. This man was one of the Yu family, his name was Yu Nancheng and he was considered a senior. He was Yu Nantian''s cousin and was in the second generation of the Yu family. However, he was by no means young. He was a whole 40 years older than Yu Nantian. His father, Yu Taixuan was the older brother of Yu Taixu, the owner of the Divine Wind Palace. This branch of the Yu family had died off so long ago, and even though he was in charge, it was not powerful at all. It was nowhere near as powerful as Yu Taixu''s branch, nor Yu Taicang''s. But ever since Yu Taicang was killed by Zhou Bao, in Yu Taicang''s branch has never again appeared such a man as him, and it started to fall apart. Yu Nancheng also took this opportunity to reclaim all things he lost to this branch for so many years, and he grew in power.


    "This guy must be the leopard from Yunzhou, haha! Seeing is believing, right!? He scared away the Double Demons in the South Mountains, and really dealt a blow to the White Forehead Tiger! So amazing!"


    "Are those two famous?!", Zhou Bao asked.


    "The Double Demons in the South Mountains are quite known in the Penglai Region. I thought you knew. The power of the Demon tribe in the Seven-deity Regions is no match for those in the Sea Area. There simply is no space for them. They are all Demonic Immortals capable of rampant behavior in the Seven-deity Regions. Most of them might even have some skills. Those Double Demons we saw just now have a reputation. One is called the White Forehead Tiger and is a millennium tiger demon, the most ferocious of all. The other is the Golden-winged Eagle, probably a little younger than the White Forehead Tiger, but he is a Primordial Fierce Beast of the legendary golden-winged bloodline. The Roc Flying Freely method, allegedly the fastest in the land, was passed down to him. They''re all difficult creatures to deal with. You came to the Penglai Region and scared them away. It won''t be long until your name spreads around here!"


    "Famous in Penglai?" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "This is not my territory. My name should not be known like this!"


    "You destroyed the White Forehead Tiger with your own hands. There''s no way you won''t be famous!" Yu Nancheng smiled. "The Double Demons in the South Mountains are the White-feathered Demon King''s sidekicks. The White-feathered Demon King will not take what happened lying down!"


    "Isn''t Penglai Region within the territory of your Divine Wind Palace? Divine Wind Palace is the biggest of the five big sects, with unrivaled power. How does Penglai still have a demon king? This is the first time I''ve heard of such a thing!", Zhou Bao was puzzled.

 538 The Situation

    Yu Nancheng laughed bitterly at Zhou Bao''s question, "You''re right. Divine Wind Palace is the most superior among the five biggest sects, controlling Penglai Region and outshining others. But these Grand Demons are not people to be trifled with. They''re all powerful, and each has his own rare treasure. It''s not hard to defeat them, but it will be hard to get rid of them. Even though Divine Wind Palace is a large sect, its internal forces have deep rooted differences. Our power is divided and won''t be united unless there is a crisis of extermination. For the sake of gaining territories and resources, all forces are fighting both openly and in secret, even colluding with those Demon Kings!"


    "That would mean to say, Penglai Region isn''t indestructible. That''s good news!"


    "You''re very blunt, King Wuyang!" Yu Nancheng was rendered speechless by Zhou Bao''s thoughtless remark made in the presence of experts from Divine Wind Palace.


    "Besides White-feathered Demon King, are there other Demon Kings in Penglai Region?"


    "With four directions and heaven and earth, there are eight Demon Kings in Penglai Region; the White-feathered Demon King is only one of them. Every Demon King is in league with an influence of Divine Wind Palace such as a branch of our Yu Family, the Hong Family, and influences like the Chen''s ancestral temple, and even secular dynasties. Their bonds are strong and extremely deeply rooted."


    "Eight Demon Kings? This place must be really messed up!"


    "It can''t be called a mess. After all it is Penglai Region where the Demon tribes'' powers have been seriously weakened. The existence of the eight Demon Kings is only due to the needs of Divine Wind Palace. If one day we don''t need them anymore, it will not be hard to kill them or kick them out of Penglai Region. The most powerful among them is only at the peak of Venerable Realm, none of them have reached the level of Lord of Heaven Realm!"


    In the temporal world, Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm have top combat capabilities, so true big influences would have a Lord of Heaven. Otherwise, it wouldn''t be described as a big sect. The reason why there were only five biggest sects in the world, and no sixth, was because other influences and sects had no Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm. Thus, they had no choice but had to attach themselves to the five biggest sects.


    "It sounds like Penglai Region isn''t as harmonious as legend makes them out to be!"


    "Things are rather complicated in Penglai Region, otherwise it would not have been disgraced by White Tiger of Immortal Palace!" Yu Nancheng said, "But you don''t have to worry about the eight Demon Kings. Double Demons in South Mountains had caused a riot in Mountainside Town and Chen''s ancestral temple won''t let them off so easily. It will be a big problem for White-feathered Demon King. Even if Double Demons in South Mountains were not the scapegoats, they are in for a difficult time. In addition, Divine Wind Palace has made its stance very clear and the eight Demon Kings are not supposed to create any problems. You''re all safe during the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony!" Then he looked at Zhou Bao, "What''s more, it''s not easy for anyone to get you into any trouble!"


    Zhou Bao smiled noncommittally, "You two seem to have something important to discuss. I''d better not get involved!"


    "No need, it concerns Your Majesty''s candidacy for the Human Emperor. It''s not easy to get elected. There is a rule that each competitor can only bring one person. Your achievements must be impressive enough to suppress the other competitors. In this respect, Your Majesty has the greater advantage, but no one could have foreseen the two events that created such a turmoil in the Jin that eliminated your advantage. Now, in terms of ability, you''re even on the losing side. However, personal achievement isn''t the decisive factor. The final decision lies in the hands of the five biggest sects. In addition to the five biggest sects, the other qualified sects from Four Eastern Regions, such as those at the level of your Tian Long Taoism and those who know the secrets, will be here for the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. Besides them, other strong sects like Fifth Manor, Palace of Eternal Life and Youxian Temple will certainly attend as well!"


    "They are here just to watch the ceremony. However, if the five biggest sects are unfair, they will lose face!"


    "In other words, even if the five biggest sects are biased, they can''t do anything!"


    "Indeed. Although there are many secular emperors vying for the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony, only a few of them stand a chance!"


    "The five biggest sects hold the key to the election results. Divine Wind Palace has the strongest voice, but, there must have been disagreement within Divine Wind Palace, or you won''t be here. In this way, the attitude of the other four biggest sects will matter too!"


    "You''re right. The other biggest sects are not as large as Divine Wind Palace, and their internal influences are not as complex as Divine Wind Palace. They have less say, but if you have the support of one or two of them, your chances of success will increase dramatically. The problem is that it''s not easy to get their support. The other four biggest sects have been constantly monitoring the situation and will support the strongest one!"


    "The four biggest sects are fence-sitters. It is in their interest to choose the strongest one. And for Divine Wind Palace, internal competition is their key!"


    "Not necessarily, someone has successfully wooed the four biggest sects before!" Yu Nancheng said, "However, not all of them were won over, only two. The man took the lead and defeated the favored competitor of Divine Wind Palace. Since then, every time the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony was held, Divine Wind Palace will always do their best to assess the power of the four biggest sects."


    "Really?" Zhou Bao listened without expression, but thought, "I''ve got to talk to the people of Immortal Palace privately. And Child-endowing Buddha seems to be the leader of Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. His position in Bigwheel Temple has been greatly enhanced since he showed his ability in using Lotus Flower on the Tongue. The main criteria of Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony seems to be based on verbal skills. He is so eloquent that he is the best fit for it!"


    "In addition to personal achievement, the power from one''s supporters is also important. We, the practitioners, in the end, have to rely on strength. Without strength, everything is hopeless. Moreover, the candidate for the Human Emperor has to manage the world and practice the Way of the Emperor of the 3,000 Great Ways. He will not be able to take care of everything by himself. So he must have a competent assistant. It is important to have a good army, no need to have a large one. Therefore, participants should only bring the strongest person for the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. Problems will crop up if there are too many people. At the end of the day, the contest between supporters is the real battle."


    "Like Senior Grand Tutor Hong of the Li dynasty!"


    "You''re really well-informed! You''re right, Senior Grand Tutor Hong is one of them. In addition, there is Atu Sage of the Peacock Dynasty and King Liuli of the Wu Dynasty. These three people are your biggest rivals!"


    "Then, what can you do to help?"


    "I can assure you that my influence can give you unreserved support, and besides that, I can woo a number of people in Divine Wind Palace. And Li VII of School of Five Virtues seems to think highly of you. The five Eldest Master of School of Five Virtues are not united. Li VII has always been ambitious!"


    "I''m afraid it will not be enough to have Li VII''s support only!"


    "Li VII has a good relationship with Chen''s ancestral temple. If he''s willing to do his best, he will surely be able to win over a lot of supporters from Chen''s ancestral temple!"


    "Oh, even with your influence, Li VII and part of Chen''s ancestral temple''s strength, it''s still not enough, far from it. Apart from the others, Emperor Yang of the Li dynasty also has the support of Senior Grand Tutor Hong. The Hong Family is second only to your Yu Family in Divine Wind Palace and Senior Grand Tutor Hong is the Family Head, whom everyone in the Hong Family has to obey. With this, his strength is far more than what you just said of the three!"


    What Zhou Bao said was the truth. Of all the influences in Divine Wind Palace, the most powerful was the Yu Family. And in the Yu Family, the most powerful person, holding most of the family''s resources and power was not Yu Nancheng, but Yu Taixu and Yu Taicang, who were at the Lord of Heaven Realm. After the death of Yu Taicang, Yu Nancheng took advantage of his influence. Would Yu Taixu be so stupid as not to do anything? In fact, Yu Taixu was the one who benefitted the most from Yu Taicang''s death. He now controlled more than 70 percent of the power of the Yu family, becoming the most dominant person, while Yu Nancheng''s power was at most one-twentieth the power of the Yu family. Li VII''s influence in the School of Five Virtues was not strong. Chen''s ancestral temple would not agree to support Yan Yuntian purely because of Li VII. In the end, Yan Yuntian will still be at a great disadvantage.


    "My voice in the Yu Family is indeed strong. However, you know, the biggest opponent of Divine Wind Palace is not you, but the Li dynasty. The Hong Family wants to strengthen their power by means of the Li dynasty, which our Yu Family would not allow anyway. Thus, even if the Yu Family doesn''t support us, it won''t support Emperor Yang of Li dynasty."


    "Then who on earth will your Yu Family support?"


    "Not you definitely!"


    "Why?"


    "Because the foundation of the Jin is in Central Mainland Region, which is the weakest part in the Four Eastern Regions of Divine Wind Palace. They will never take a man from Central Mainland Region as a candidate for the Human Emperor!"


    "And you want to take this opportunity to build up your strength!"


    "Each one will do what needs to be done!" Without concealing his thoughts, Yu Nantian looked at the two men in front of him, "I''ll give you my support, my full support, but I can''t guarantee that it will help you too much. The most important thing is your performance at the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. I guess, King Wuyang can do it alone!"


    "Why?"


    "You will know when you see Emperor Yang. Senior Grand Tutor Hong will never allow him to make a fool of himself!" Yu Nancheng smiled, "Senior Grand Tutor Hong is a cruel man. In order to overthrow our Yu Family, he even agreed to assist such a character. You know, the Li dynasty has ruled the secular world of Penglai Region for tens of thousands of years, known as Divine Dynasty. But no matter how strong the dynasty is, it declined after tens of thousands of years. 60 years ago, it was in a crisis. Heroes appeared continually and the Li dynasty was almost replaced. In the end, Senior Grand Tutor Hong suppressed them all and established his supreme authority, even turning Emperor Yang into his puppet. Now, he wants his puppet to fight for the Human Emperor''s position. He-he, what a big plan! He''s so arrogant!"

 539 The Beginning of the Ceremony

    Early in the morning, sunlight filtered through a layer of pale white clouds onto the land. There was a very strange looking mountain in Yin Zhou of the Li dynasty, located in the southwest of Penglai Region.


    It was called Turtle Back Mountain. How did it come by this name?


    The reason being it resembled a turtle shell.


    The resemblance was remarkable.


    The mountain looked like a piece of smooth green black jade. There was no vegetation growing on it, and it was studded with all kinds of odd markings, which looked like the pattern on the shell of a turtle.


    Turtle Back Mountain was about ten thousand feet long and nestled on top of a huge peak.


    It was true that the mountain lay on a huge peak. The huge peak reached tens of thousands of feet above the sky and was the highest peak in the southwest of the Li dynasty. When viewed from a distance, Turtle Back Mountain with its high peak resembled a huge mushroom.


    The peak was so high that only top experts were able to reach the mountain. If your cultivation level was not up to Level Seven and your Gang Qi was not condensed, it was impossible for you to climb that peak. This condition applied even if you were a Level Six master and purportedly had super strong physical strength.


    Turtle Back Mountain was usually an inaccessible place, but today it was crowded with people. A group of people, who had reached Level Nine at least, gathered around but there was an empty space in the center.


    This group of people was very particular about the seating arrangements.


    Located at the north direction, there was a throne which faced south. The throne looked as if it had been made out of gold; It gleamed in the morning sun, and exuded a distinguished hue.


    "Gosh, it seems to be a Highest Heaven Celestial Device at Upper Grade, which is not inferior to Silver Frost Castle. No wonder so many people are vying for the throne of Human Emperor. Even the chair alone is worth fighting for!" Zhou Bao was standing just west of the top of Turtle Back Mountain, and Yan Yuntian was sitting in front of him. This was where the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony was held, at Turtle Back Mountain.


    In addition to the throne, to the east were people from the five biggest sects and super sects from the Three Western Regions; while to the west were some small and middle schools, sects and well-known families from the Four Eastern Regions. These people were all here for the ceremony.


    To the west where Zhou Bao was, was where the participants for the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony were located.


    These participants were all the emperors of the secular super-dynasty. They were all privileged, and all carried rare treasures, which were similar to the Heavenly Crown of Peace. These could enhance their owners'' birth destiny and fate. Thus, Turtle Back Mountain was now covered with purple qi, and a person with discerning eyesight like Zhou Bao, could see a towering solid purple glow hovering above the mountain from a distance. Several golden dragons with five claws loomed in the purple light, roaring and hissing. The Qi Power was at its peak at this moment.


    Given that the emperors from all the dynasties were carrying different kinds of rare treasures, it was reasonable to see an enormous amount of purple qi gathering on the west. And on the eastern side, the atmosphere was like that of a boundless sea, deep and bottomless. It was because there, led by Yu Taixu, the lord of Divine Wind Palace, sat the power holders from Immortal Palace, Dragon Thunder Palace, Jade Pool, the Dark Sect and Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple and spectators from Youxian Temple, the Fifth Manor and Palace of Eternal Life. To Zhou Bao''s amusement, the spectators from Youxian Temple were seated right behind the spectators from Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple which was led by Child-endowing Buddha. Therefore, the atmosphere there was somewhat hostile and dissonant.


    The spectators from Youxian Temple glared fixedly at Child-endowing Buddha''s bald head with murderous looks. However, Child-endowing Buddha seemed oblivious to them. There was a woman in white beside him and he was chatting and laughing with her.


    As for Yu Taixu, the lord of Divine Wind Palace, the one whom Zhou Bao was most concerned about, after seeing him for the first time, Zhou Bao gave up any further thoughts of challenging him to a fight.


    "This guy is so scary. Who knows the extent of his training? I''m afraid I can''t beat him even with my Furnace of Immortality, unless I launch a Supreme Fairy Weapon, but he would have his own fairy weapon. Humph, perhaps I can''t defeat him even with a Supreme Fairy Weapon. I think it''s only possible to fight with him when my Eight Nine Mysterious Skill has reached the Basic level and I have mastered the power of Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan." Zhou Bao thought to himself.


    Yu Taixu was a handsome, middle-aged man, who did not appear to be a practitioner because he seemed to have no Qi Power. His appearance was even more regal than the emperor and he always had a gentle smile on his face. Whoever he looked at instantly felt very warm and welcomed.


    Whoever he nodded to would feel happy, as if he had been bestowed a great honor.


    "His cultivation may have reached the limit of the Lord of Heaven, and he comes within an inch of entering the fabled Realm of Human Immortal. Umm, only by having such formidable skills can he become the lord of Divine Wind Palace, overpowering all influences within Divine Wind Palace and suppressing the other four biggest sects. Hehe, this time, the other four biggest sects did not send any of their chiefs in. Maybe it''s because they do not want to see Yu Taixu and lose their confidence!" Zhou Bao thought about it for a moment and then understood why Child-endowing Buddha and Elder Qing were the representatives of the four biggest sects. Child-endowing Buddha was now a leading player at Bigwheel Temple, and Elder Qing had a very high status in the Immortal Palace. However, these two people were not the actual power holders from their sects, and so too with the Jade Pool and Dragon Thunder Palace.


    "Even a man at the Lord of Heaven Realm is not aware of his strength, let alone me. He is just sitting there squinting and no one dares to move!" Zhou Bao looked at Yu Taixu with horror in his heart, and turned his eyes to another man, Senior Grand Tutor Hong, who was on the west side, like him.


    He, the power holder of the Hong Family which was the second powerful family in the Divine Wind Palace, was a totally different person from Yu Taixu. Zhou Bao could not make out what Yu Taixu was like at all, but he saw through Senior Grand Tutor Hong from the first glance. It was as if Senior Grand Tutor Hong had no secrets. His cultivation was Level Nine, but his cultivation methods was of first-class quality. He might be the best of Level Nine experts, but Zhou Bao firmly believed that he did not have the strength to challenge bypassing ranks. However, Senior Grand Tutor Hong had killed people at the Lord of Heaven Realm in a confrontation before. What did that mean? What was going on?


    Zhou Bao couldn''t understand this, but he didn''t think much about it. Since Senior Grand Tutor Hong was the enemy of Yu Taixu, it was up to Yu Taixu to deal with him. He didn''t need to worry too much. What he most wanted to know now was who Yu Taixu''s favorite Candidate for Human Emperor was.


    Zhou Bao couldn''t understand this, but he didn''t think too much about it. Since Senior Grand Tutor Hong was Yu Taixu''s enemy, it was up to Yu Taixu to deal with him. That was not his concern. What he was eager to know now was who Yu Taixu''s favorite Candidate for Human Emperor was.


    There were 13 emperors who were eligible to participate in the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. One of the most prominent was Emperor Yang of the Li dynasty. It was not because he was tall, but because everyone knew that he was the one who had the support of the Hong Family and he was also Senior Grand Tutor Hong''s puppet.


    After seeing Emperor Yang, Zhou Bao understood what Yu Nancheng meant. The Emperor Yang looked about 50 years old, and was not a cultivator. He did not have any trace of Internal Qi. He was a bit plump and had a slight paunch. Obviously, he was accustomed to living high on the hog and must have consumed many panaceas. Otherwise, he wouldn''t be so well preserved for his age. After all it was hard for a man in his 70s, who had never practiced Internal Qi at all, to look like he was still in his 50s.


    Zhou Bao took one look at him and looked away. No matter how intelligent he was, it was useless. In such a place, without Senior Grand Tutor Hong, he would be killed easily. Zhou Bao might as well turn his attention to others.


    Ashoka of the Peacock Dynasty was another strong enemy of Yan Yuntian. Zhou Bao''s first impression of him was that he was very young, at least 20 years younger than Yan Yuntian and around his own age. He was full of energy. What he practiced was the Way of the Emperor and he had reached the peak of Level Nine. His Qi Power and dignity showed in his every gesture. An imperial jade seal hung at his waist, which was a Pure Yang Celestial Device that could suppress fate just like Yan Yuntian''s Heavenly Crown of Peace, and it complemented his turquoise imperial robe. Beside him was a scrawny monk.


    The monk was very thin, swarthy, and stood no more than 1.5 meters tall. At first glance, he looked like a skeleton.


    Zhou Bao did not dare to look down on this skeletal old monk, for his strength had reached the Venerable Realm.


    With fairy weapons, Zhou Bao would certainly ignore the Venerable during ordinary times, but now, under such circumstances, Zhou Bao did not dare to take his fairy weapons out. He remembered clearly that in the Dragon-taming Ruins, he launched his Furnace of Immortality to escape from Yu Taixu''s Void-catching Technique. Now, he was in Yu Taixu''s territory, so he would be in great trouble if he showed the Furnace of Immortality.


    His new warship was a Supreme Fairy Weapon and would be able to suppress everyone here if he showed it. But then what would happen to him? Zhou Bao could imagine that he would be in constant trouble from now on. At that time, maybe even the Immortal Palace would covet it.


    As a result, none of his two fairy weapons could be used. Then what if he were to fight the Venerable using pure strength only?


    That would work. With his current strength, he was sure he could defeat at least ten of the Venerables. In that case, however, he could not conceal the spirit of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan and people would find out that he had condensed the Real Body of the Primordial Demonic Ape. It would also be a hassle.


    Now it seemed that Zhou Bao could only use Pure Yang Celestial Devices. He had a lot of Pure Yang Celestial Devices, but the only thing that was really effective was the Flipping Sky Seal, the Gold Bracelet and the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.

 541 The Blackstone Ship & the Golden Throne

    It happened so suddenly, but none of the people present were ordinary mortals, and they all reacted immediately.


    "Who is it?"


    "How dare you!"


    "Bastard!"


    "..."


    "..."


    Voices filled with surprise and anger rang out. A number of figures from the eastern crowd jumped up. At the same time, the space around Turtle Back Mountain fluctuated violently, and many people dressed in golden armor appeared and sealed off the space around the mountain.


    "Ahhhh, is this the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony of your five biggest sects? You are nothing but a bunch of crap! Yu Taixu, do you really want to rely on these people?"


    A burst of wild laughter came from the sky, following the remarks made. It was insulting and felt like a slap on the face of five biggest sects.


    The 360-degree view of the Fiery Eyes clearly reflected the situation in the sky back to Zhou Bao''s mind.


    A large dark cloud settled over Turtle Back Mountain, and it engulfed the whole mountain. An evil force filled with a strong and incomparable spirit was spewing forth from the clouds.


    Zhou Bao frowned slightly, "How powerful the spirit is! Each of them is the Venerable at the top. And all that the strong power fluctuations coming from the celestial devices, what''s going on? Can it be the eight Demon Kings? No, it is common knowledge that the eight Demon Kings of the Penglai Region and Divine Wind Palace are closely connected. Some of them are even supported by Divine Wind Palace. Then how did this happen? Internal conflicts?" Zhou Bao could not understand even after he mulled through the happenings. But he didn''t have time to figure it out, because the onslaught had come from the sky.


    "What''s that?"


    "God, it''s so big...!"


    "How powerful! What the hell is that?"


    "It''s a ship?"


    "It''s a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, an Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device!"


    ...


    Exclamations rang out and suddenly a large figure emerged from the cloud.


    "A Highest Heaven Celestial Device, Upper Grade, at the same level with Silver Frost Castle? Damn it, how could this be?"


    When the big, dark towering ship appeared in the sky, Zhou Bao''s expression immediately changed.


    Boom!


    Simultaneously when the loud noise rang out, Zhou Bao pulled Yan Yuntian up and vanished from the scene, along with Emperor Yang, Emperor Wolf, Ashoka and the young emperor.


    A column of light about thirty feet in diameter, emerged from the black towering ship and pierced through the enclosed space on Turtle Back Mountain. It struck the right western side of the mountain and split it apart. Except for a few quick ones who managed to escape, all the other emperors who were there to take part in the ceremony disappeared under the thick column of light.


    One corner of Turtle Back Mountain had been destroyed.


    "What the hell?"


    Before the people even knew what was happening, a man appeared and sat on the golden throne. Zhou Bao was startled. He did not even see how the man had appeared, and the golden throne started to rise.


    "Who is that?"


    "It''s him!"


    "The Emperor Xuan of the Great Xuan Empire!"


    The Emperor Xuan was the young emperor that Zhou Bao had noticed before. He was sitting on the throne with his hands on the armrests. The throne emitted a strong golden light, and flew up abruptly, and crashed violently into the black ship.


    "F**k!"


    Boom!


    The force fluctuation caused by the collision of two Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices made Turtle Back Mountain shudder violently.


    The force of the attack broke through the mountain''s inhibition, which had not been fully restored yet. Another group of people died from this attack. They were the ones from the middle- or small-sized sects and were either too weak, or had no time to escape. They could not withstand the impact of the collision, and most of them died instantly.


    "Blackstone Ship? It''s Yu Xiuluo, damn you, how dare you, Yu Xiuluo! How dare you be so treacherous! Aren''t you afraid of being pursued by the five biggest sects?"


    After the collision of two Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices, the Elder of the Chen''s ancestral temple eventually recovered his breath. He pointed to the Blackstone Ship in the sky and swore angrily.


    "Ahhh, who do you think you are, Chen Jinzhong? This time our eight Demon Kings have decided to unite forces. The Seven-deity Regions belongs not only to humans, but also to Demons. You carried out the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony without even considering our demon candidate. Today we are here to teach you a lesson. We will kill all your candidates for the Human Emperor, and make our Demonic Emperor the candidate for the Human Emperor!"


    "Shut up!" Chen Jinzhong was furious, "Choose one of you Demons to be the candidate for Human Emperor? What high ambitions you have! I''d like to see what you can do. How dare you talk nonsense!"


    He roared angrily, suddenly bending over the ground of Turtle Back Mountain and hitting it with all his might.


    Boom, boom!


    The mountain began to tremble, and the ground gave off a glistening haze. Gray smoke spiraling in eerie patterns rose into the air.


    "Infinite Universe, Borrowing Power from Heaven and Earth, the Real Body of Black Turtle, show up!" At Chen Jinzhong''s roar, the grey stream of air under the control of his Incantation Gesture actually transformed into a thousand-foot-long old Black Turtle.


    When the Black Turtle materialized, an ultimate terrifying pressure surged forth. Some of the weaker people were overwhelmed by the pressure, including Yan Yuntian, next to Zhou Bao. Emperor Yang was in an even worse condition. He had wet his pants in fright.


    Just after the formation of the Black Turtle, the Blackstone Ship emitted another column of light and hit the back of the Black Turtle.


    Boom!


    The loud noise rang out, but this time it did not break the back of the turtle. Instead, after being hit hard, the Black Turtle let out a violent roar and stood upright to push the column back.


    The huge Black Turtle was now about the size of the Blackstone Ship and its movements made it sway as it hovered in the air. Its huge body flew above the middle clouds. It slammed severely against the already unstable Blackstone Ship.


    The collision was stronger than the previous collision with the throne. The solidified shape of the Black Turtle, suddenly grew lighter, and grey airflow appeared in many of its parts. The Blackstone Ship was hit at a distance of thousands of feet away. Before the Blackstone Ship stabilized, a large amount of golden light appeared in the sky. It was the young Emperor Xuan who was controlling the throne and hovered over the Blackstone Ship, suppressing it in the air.


    Facing the throne which had been suppressed from the air, the Blackstone Ship certainly was not just simply awaiting its doom. It moved sideways and avoided the attacks from the throne.


    Neither the golden throne nor the newly emerged Black Turtle was as big as the Blackstone Ship, but the ship was extremely flexible and fast. Its massive body was as light as a feather; it moved sideways and easily avoided the attack.


    However, as it made its escape, the Black Turtle launched another attack, forming a two-to-one formation with the golden throne. At once, the Blackstone Ship was facing a difficult task. It was busy putting up a resistance and did not retaliate.


    "No, something is wrong!"


    Zhou Bao was watching the magnificent battle going on in the sky. But he suddenly had a strange feeling.


    "What is this?"


    "The Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony is the most important event in the Four Eastern Regions, and a candidate for the Human Emperor will be chosen in the ceremony. This candidate will be nominally the supreme leader at this stage in the Four Eastern Regions. This is a grand ceremony of great significance. With the power of Divine Wind Palace, it''s inevitable that all things will be done without any hitch. Then how could there be Demons here? Several assassins killed off most of the emperors with an Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device. It''s so funny. It''s like watching a game in a movie!"


    "No, there wouldn''t be so much drama in the movies! Is God a movie director. It seems too ridiculous!"


    Realizing this fact, Zhou Bao took another look at the golden throne in the sky. Then he thought for a second before grabbing Yan Yuntian and rushed to Yu Nancheng.


    "Is there any other special significance to that throne besides being an Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device?"


    Yu Nancheng was also apparently frightened by the sudden change. He did not respond immediately. Seeing Zhou Bao suddenly appearing beside him and asking him a question with such a menacing air, he subconsciously replied, "That''s a Golden Throne, a replica of the Jade Emperor''s Highest Jade Throne. It''s not only the symbol of the Human Emperor, but also the symbol of the candidate for the Human Emperor. Only the candidate for the throne is qualified to sit on it and operate it!"


    "Fu**k!" Zhou Bao suddenly understood, he shouted angrily, and turned his eyes to the east. Yu Taixu was just sitting there, not doing anything, not even moving.


    Looking at him, Zhou Bao was so angry that he almost rushed to him to kill him.


    But when he saw the other man, his impulse vanished, and his sullen face turned into a sneer.


    "Why should I be angry? The candidate has little to do with me. Even if Yan Yuntian loses the election, I won''t incur any loss, but someone may be mad!"


    "Yu Taixu, you''re too much!"


    As Zhou Bao had expected, Senior Grand Tutor Hong, who had been guarding Emperor Yang, was very vexed. With a roar of rage, a pair of huge hands appeared in the sky. One hand grabbed the Golden Throne, and the other was going for Emperor Xuan who was sitting on the Golden Throne.


    "Boy, are you worthy to sit on this golden throne? Get off!"

 540 An Assassination

    Not wanting to expose his fairy weapons and his bloodline of Zhuyan, Zhou Bao felt very constrained.


    "Damn it, some day, I will definitely take out my fairy weapons in a just and honorable way and give these bastards a shock!" It was one of Zhou Bao''s heartfelt wish but he knew he was not strong enough and it was not the right time.


    In addition to Emperor Yang and Ashoka, Emperor Wolf of the Wu Dynasty was another of Yan Yuntian''s strongest rival.


    The Wu Dynasty did not belong to the Penglai Region, but to the Fangzhang Region. This dynasty was very similar to the Northern Yuan, both of which were grasslands territories, fierce and aggressive, and had a wolf as their totem. It had been at war with another dynasty in the Fangzhang Region, the Zhao Dynasty, for tens of thousands of years. Finally, Emperor Wolf ascended the throne and conquered the Zhao Dynasty, occupying a quarter of the Fangzhang Region and establishing a new dynasty. In Zhou Bao''s mind, they were like the savage prairie tribes who conquered the central plains dynasty in ancient Chinese history. The funny thing was that Emperor Wolf seemed to yearn for the civilization of the Zhao Dynasty. After conquering the Zhao Dynasty, he changed the rules and regulations of the Wu Dynasty so that it was similar to that of the Zhao Dynasty. But he failed in his mission. Who knew how long this dynasty would last? However, there was no doubt that the new dynasty had great power. In terms of merit, Emperor Wolf was equal to Yan Yuntian who had destroyed the Northern Yuan. In terms of ruling power, he was even more superior because there was no trouble in his domain.


    On closer inspection, Zhou Bao found Emperor Wolf to be a homely man, short, about 1.6 meters tall, thin and with a few pockmarks on his face. He had the cultivation of Level Five. Thus, as far as his strength was concerned, it was nothing to worry about. However, after careful observation, Zhou Bao was surprised to find that Emperor Wolf had strayed from the Way of the Emperor.


    It was true that he was the odd one among all the stronger candidates. Perhaps he was able to fight against Level Seven or Eight experts with his Level Five strength; he had a kind of Qi Power in his Internal Qi that seemed to be superior to everything. It was as if he were the ruler of heaven and earth. It was just like one had developed one''s fist intent and could use it to his advantage in a fight.


    But in Zhou Bao''s opinion, Emperor Wolf was not a man who could do great things.


    "Damn, he''s a psycho! If he had been born Human Emperor, he might have been able to achieve something, but now the race is for the candidate for Human Emperor. Hehe, don''t forget Divine Wind Palace. Do you think Divine Wind Palace will allow such a neurotic candidate to ascend the throne?" Zhou Bao thought sarcastically.


    Beside Emperor Wolf, there stood a man. This man was shirtless, muscular, and bareheaded. His head gleamed brighter than that of Child-endowing Buddha, but there were no markings on it.


    "Wow, he is at the Level of True Immortality as well. He should be King Liuli. It seems that Fangzhang Region also has many masters. The world is so big and is filled with strange people and odd events. I used to stay within Central Mainland Region and have only a very limited view of the world. It''s good to take this opportunity to observe the different types of heroes around the world." With this thought in mind, Zhou Bao continued to observe other emperors who had come to participate in the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. These men were Divine Sons whose every word carried weight in their own dynasty, the best emperors of their dynasty for countless years. They were imposing in their every gesture and expression. Among them was an emperor, aged only 20 years old, who caught Zhou Bao''s attention.


    The young emperor was handsome with a genial smile on his face, which made people feel at ease with him. What most surprised Zhou Bao was his poise and confidence in the way he carried himself.


    Yes, his confidence.


    In the present situation, it could be said that no one was as confident as he, even Emperor Yang of the Li dynasty. As if aware of Zhou Bao''s gaze, the young emperor turned his eyes slightly to Zhou Bao and nodded to him. He seemed to know Zhou Bao and was showing his amity.


    Zhou Bao smiled and nodded in return.


    "This guy is interesting!" he thought. He then turned his eyes to watch the face of Yu Taixu who was sitting nearby.


    "Eh? The two guys look quite similar. Is he Yu Taixu''s illegitimate child and secret weapon?" Zhou Bao pondered.


    Generally speaking, the candidate for the Human Emperor was of great importance even to Divine Wind Palace. Now that the Hong Family had a candidate to support, the Yu Family should likely have a favorite candidate too. Out of the four most likely candidates for the throne, the Yu Family seemed to have no intention of favoring any of them. It was said that the Yu Family liked Ashoka of the Peacock Dynasty most, but after meeting him, Zhou Bao believed it was impossible because he felt they were not the same kind.


    Just when Zhou Bao was pondering on this, someone came out.


    It was a thin old man. Zhou Bao suspected that he was an Elder of the Chen''s ancestral temple and might even be the power holder. Like the reports Zhou Bao had heard about in his previous life, the old man introduced all the guests and candidates in a formal manner and explained to all the people the importance of the candidate for the Human Emperor. He asked all the sects and influences to choose carefully. Then he laid out the rules and regulations of the competition in detail. These were the requirements of the competition, so Zhou Bao did not register the information.


    Once the Elder finished his speech, the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony began. The first game, of course, was for the competing emperors to speak to the public about their achievements, just like the work reports in Zhou Bao''s previous life. Everyone, including Yan Yuntian and Emperor Yang, were satisfied with what they had done during their reign. They exaggerated quite a number of points, almost claiming that they were the First Sage-Emperor of all times. It was extremely boring. Zhou Bao did not listen at all, but closed his eyes to relax, wholeheartedly preparing for the second contest.


    The second contest was the key factor. He must defeat everyone and show that he had the strength to help Yan Yuntian suppress the experts in the Four Eastern Regions. This was to ensure that Yan Yuntian would not fail. As for all the empty talk now, who could not help but brag? Even the young emperor who had been noticed by Zhou Bao was giving a very flowery speech. Could he even achieve all that at his age?


    Therefore, Zhou Bao showed his disapproval.


    Zhou Bao did not know the order of the report. The people who described their personal accomplishments were afraid that they would appear inferior to others. Hence, their words were like an old woman''s foot-binding cloth, long and winding and full of crap, making listeners drowsy. After eight or ten hours, it was the turn of the seventh emperor.


    It was Emperor Yang.


    Emperor Yang himself had neither talent nor strength, and he depended entirely on Senior Grand Tutor Hong for his present position. However, due to his long reign as emperor, he had cultivated a sense of dignity and spoke in an impassioned tone. Although restricted by his physical condition, he was breathless with excitement; his speech had both emotion and humor from time to time, which gave Zhou Bao a better impression of him.


    Just as he came to the exciting part of his story which caught Zhou Bao''s interest, Zhou Bao suddenly heard a faint rustling sound, like some cloth that was moving. The sound was so faint that it would have been impossible for Zhou Bao to feel it if his spiritual mind had not reached the extreme level. To Zhou Bao''s greatest surprise, there was a familiar spirit in the sound.


    "Snake-like Breath Holding Skill!"


    It was the spirit of the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. Its origin was mysterious, and it was one of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. When launching it, the user''s spirit was gone. No matter how powerful your spiritual mind was, it was impossible to find the user. However, this user was far less proficient in using Snake-like Breath Holding Skill than Zhou Bao, nor was he as powerful as Zhou Bao, so Zhou Bao was keenly aware of his spirit.


    Zhou Bao smiled when he noticed it.


    It seemed that the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony would not be a smooth sailing affair.


    As Zhou Bao had expected, almost as soon as he sensed it, a dark beam burst from the hollow, aiming straight at Emperor Yang.


    "Ahh¡ª!" As an ordinary man who did not have any martial arts skill, Emperor Yang''s only response to the sudden attack was to scream.


    At the crucial moment, a hand appeared in front of Emperor Yang and blocked the dark beam.


    "Interesting!" Zhou Bao clearly saw the hand which appeared out of thin air next to Emperor Yang. The space rippled like a wave for a short while, and a person with a deadpan expression appeared in front of Emperor Yang. He was the owner of that hand.


    "Isn''t it a rule to bring only one person? How come these two guys came out at the same time?" Zhou Bao frowned, but soon found out that something was very wrong. Not only was the strange man expressionless, but he had no breath at all. It was a corpse.


    Soon, Zhou Bao''s attention was diverted from the strange guy because something bigger had happened.


    12 dark beams appeared at the same time, shooting at the other 12 emperors.


    "Poof, poof, poof¡ª!"


    After hearing several muffled sounds, six emperors were hit by the dark beams and died instantly. The other two were blocked by people close to them, but they suffered serious injuries. Only Emperor Yang, Yan Yuntian, Ashoka, Emperor Wolf and that young emperor, who had caught Zhou Bao''s eye, were not injured.


    "This is interesting, but you''re courting death when you do this in my presence!" Zhou Bao caught the dart, which was targeted at Yan Yuntian a few seconds earlier, in his fingertips and shot back. Then he heard a muffled groan. The stealthy assailant had been stabbed to death by him.


    Zhou Bao had no intention of leaving them alive, nor of tracking them down. It was not his business, but Divine Wind Palace''s.


    He was not the only one who had this idea. The rest of the attackers were killed on the spot, leaving no survivors.

 542 Debu

    "Hong Taihe! How dare you!"


    When Senior Grand Tutor Hong was ranting away, Yu Taixu, who had remained composed up to now, suddenly reacted strongly. He raised his hands and pointed to the sky.


    "Pop, pop, pop...!"


    The giant hands in the sky immediately turned into fine powder. But this did not pose as a threat to Emperor Xuan at all.


    "Humph!" All of a sudden, Senior Grand Tutor Hong stood up and waved his hands as if he had been prepared for this situation already. At this moment, hundreds of figures appeared around Turtle Back Mountain.


    "Oh no, they''ve brought their troops!"


    Zhou Bao was struck dumb with astonishment. Hundreds of giant figures were at the peak of Metaphysic Individual Immortal. Among them were some who were even at the Level of True Immortality. All of them flew towards the sky. They were not going for the Blackstone Ship. Instead, their target was the Golden Throne where the young Emperor Xuan sat; he was still battling against the Blackstone Ship.


    "Hong Taihe! You really colluded with Eight Grand Demons to murder all the Human Emperor candidates!"


    So many people were rushing up now. Even if Yu Taixu had mystical powers, he could not stay where he was and rose instantly to his feet. With a flick of his sleeves, a great number of streamers appeared in the sky and transformed into black insects: although they were only the size of a fist, they were ferocious in their attacks.


    Those supernatural insects pounced on the figures and stuck tightly to them.


    Those figures did not seem to be aware of the insects and continued their charge at the Golden Throne. However, this time, their dash to the throne was unlike the previous occasion when the two giant hands had suddenly appeared. They raced to the Golden Throne but before they were able to take any action, they were suddenly scattered in all directions by the protective golden light which surrounded the Golden Throne. Some figures with low cultivation were even split apart and thrown in the air.


    "Those insects can absorb a human''s cultivation!"


    A moment ago, Zhou Bao saw that the figures'' cultivation was sharply depleted after the fist-sized insects had stuck to their bodies. Some figures'' cultivation had dropped from Mysterious Realm to Level Nine in an instant. There were even several figures'' cultivation who dropped from Cultivation of True Immortality to Mysterious Realm. Such changes were really shocking. Their strength could not reach the Highest Heaven Celestial Device of Upper Grade.


    "Did you collude with Eight Grand Demons or is it me?" Even though his figures were destroyed, Senior Grand Tutor Hong was not affected. He began to argue with Yu Taixu. "Aren''t you the one who brought Yu Xiuluo here? As a love child, you clearly know he can''t be the Human Emperor candidate, so you used such despicable tactics. You colluded with Yu Xiuluo. You let them create trouble here and then hoped that he could gain the Golden Throne in the ensuing chaos. You would then support him as the emperor because the Golden Throne will have a new owner. In this way, you can spare him all the disadvantages. Yu Taixu, you are too much!"


    "Shut up!"


    In the air, hearing the words "love child" and "bastard" repeatedly spoken by Senior Grand Tutor Hong, Emperor Xuan, who was in the Golden Throne, became very angry and stopped his attack on the Black Stone Ship. He manipulated the Golden Throne and rushed out. Numerous beams of golden light shot out from the Golden Throne towards Senior Grand Tutor Hong.


    "Humph. A bastard indeed! You are asking for death!" Senior Grand Tutor Hong had uncovered Yu Taixu''s plan in a few words. Seeing the Golden Throne racing towards him, the corner of his mouth curled in a sneer. He did not dodge but dashed ahead.


    Boom!


    Meanwhile, blue arc-like lights gleamed all around Senior Grand Tutor Hong. They turned into a blue electric dragon which encircled the Golden Throne.


    "Hong Taihe! Don''t you dare!" Seeing Senior Grand Tutor Hong displaying a powerful tactic, Yu Taixu did likewise. Numerous black streamers turned into a great cloud of bugs and lunged for Hong Taihe''s blue electric dragon.


    Compared with the innumerable figures which had just appeared earlier, the blue electric dragon was much more formidable. Even though there were a lot of insects, only a few were able to get near enough to stick to their bodies. The supernatural insects took advantage of their large quantity and rushed out of the power grids.


    At the same time, the Golden Throne was knocked down.


    Roar...!


    Bang!


    The blue electric dragon roared loudly. It collided with the Golden Throne, creating a massive explosion. The sky and earth were shaking violently. Before anyone realized what had happened, another boom from the sky was heard. The Black Turtle was tussling with the Blackstone Ship. Blackstone Ship released a big destructive column of light but the Black Turtle did not surrender so easily. He spat out another black column of light to counter the attack. The two columns collided with each other. Neither side had the better of the other.


    It was hard to know who was right and who was wrong. It was a total mess. Besides, those who joined the fights were experts at the level of Highest Heaven Celestial Device of Upper Grade or of the Lord of Heaven Realm. Also, some of them were Fierce Beasts from the olden times. Therefore, other people found it difficult to lend a hand.


    Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed while he was deep in thought. Nobody dared to do anything rash because they could not predict the ending while watching the two parties having such an intense battle in the sky. However, Zhou Bao did not have such thoughts. He rolled his eyes and watched for a while. Later, as if having made up his mind, he suddenly raised his hand and thundered: "Monster! How arrogant you are! Come here!"


    With an angry shout, a golden light emerged, formed a big seal in the sky and ferociously attacked Blackstone Ship.


    It was the Flipping Sky Seal!


    "Eh?"


    "No!"


    "Damn it! Who?"


    The Eight Grand Demons in the Blackstone Ship were astonished when they saw the growing seal and its overwhelming power. It was really beyond their expectations that someone would dare to join in the battle, in this situation. And the surprising fact was that he had the capability to do so.


    Although their Blackstone Ship was the Highest Heaven Celestial Device of Upper Grade, the big seal was an equally good Pure Yang Celestial Device with a single function and great power. It revealed a kind of Qi Power which could suppress everything in the world. When the seal locked in on the ship, the ship could felt the impending great threat and began to shake.


    "Who''s that person? How come he has such a strong Pure Yang Celestial Device?" In the Blackstone Ship, Yu Xiuluo, the leader among the Eight Grand Demons, swore and launched the ship to flee from the Flipping Sky Seal. However, it was not that easy. A Flipping Sky Seal meant nothing to him. However, there was also a Fierce Beast in front of him. It was Primordial Black Turtle''s physical body. Chen Jinzhong, who was controlling the Black Turtle, was very happy but dared not relax because Zhou Bao''s seal could possibly pose a threat to the Blackstone Ship. The Black Turtle gave a loud cry and suddenly threw itself onto the ship, regardless of the hurt brought by the columns of light radiating from the ship. In this way, it would be much more difficult for Blackstone Ship to get rid of it. Simultaneously, Zhou Bao''s Flipping Sky Seal did not miss this chance and immediately dropped to the ship.


    Boom!


    Crack! Crack! Crack!


    The Flipping Sky Seal broke through the Blackstone Ship''s protection and fell on the ship roof. There were nine floors in the castle inside the Blackstone Ship. Zhou Bao''s Flipping Sky Seal smashed through six floors.


    The cracking sounds resonated clearly. A hint of steel flashed in Zhou Bao''s eyes. He wielded the Flipping Sky Seal again.


    "How could it be?" In the Blackstone Ship, White-feathered Demon King, one of Eight Grand Demons, exclaimed. The ship was the Highest Heaven Celestial Device of Upper Grade with infinite power. It was also a precious treasure which the Demon tribe in Penglai Region relied on for their survival and continuity. Thanks to this ship, the Demon tribe in the Penglai Region could gain some survival space when the Human Tribe dominated the area. Even the Eight Grand Demon attributed its fame to the ship.


    Now, it could do nothing before this powerful seal.


    It was not true that it could do nothing. Actually, it was caught off guard and suffered a loss. But it was a great loss. Seeing the golden seal being activated again, the Eight Grand Demons understood that the ship would be totally destroyed if it suffered another attack. The ship shook violently. Black lights appeared and drove the Black Turtle away. Then, the Eight Grand Demons managed to launch the Blackstone Ship which gave off a huge column of light again and attacked the Flipping Sky Seal.


    Boom!


    "Uh!"


    The column collided with the Flipping Sky Seal at a fixed position. The seal flipped over a few times due to the collision. Zhou Bao''s heart felt the vibration because his mind was linked with the Flipping Sky Seal. All of a sudden, he wobbled and nearly fell.


    "Good chance!" Seeing this, the Blackstone Ship turned back and stopped attacking.


    "Hahahaha...Is this the so-called Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony? Human beings attacking each other and all the internal fighting. Hahaha. We had our fun. When the winner emerges, come look for me!"


    Harsh voices could be heard coming from the Blackstone Ship. Apparently, Senior Grand Tutor Hong was still fighting with Emperor Xuan.


    "Leaving now? It''s not that easy!" Zhou Bao''s plot came true. Nobody could see the smile in his eyes because his eyes were half-closed now.


    Yes. His plot had succeeded.


    In the sky, the Blackstone Ship changed direction. A vibration reverberated through the hollow. When the ship almost broke down the hollow and left, suddenly a fierce pressure could be felt.


    "Aye?"


    "Em?"


    "This..."


    "What''s this?"


    Everyone felt the force by telepathic connection. This time, the force was a thousand times greater than the one that had occurred from the collision between two Highest Heaven Celestial Devices.


    Except those who were Genuine Immortal, the others, including immortals who were the top players at Individual Immortal levels, were too terrified to move.


    "No!"


    For a moment, Yu Taixu seemed to recall something and tried to take action. However, it was too late.


    "Boom!" With a huge bang, the Blackstone Ship, which was attempting to break up the hollow, suddenly bumped into a streamlined battleship emerging from the hollow.


    The ship was totally ruined!


    It turned instantly into dust. All the Eight Grand Demons failed to escape from the disaster.


    Momentarily, this beautiful battleship came into people''s eyes and rammed the Golden Throne.


    Boom!!!


    The Golden Throne together with Emperor Xuan was instantly turned into fine powder.


    "No!" Yu Taixu, the master of Divine Wind Palace, turned pale with fear. Nevertheless, it was too late.


    Supreme Fairy Weapon debuted!

 543 Crush Into You

    "Impossible! This force. This power. It''s a fairy weapon. A Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    In that instant, only a few people realized what had happened. But they did not know what they should do next.


    That strange battleship had destroyed the Blackstone Ship and the Golden Throne, which showed its awesome power. It was unique.


    All the people stood, staring in amazement. While they were still in that state of surprise, the battleship in the sky relaunched itself. With a bang, the Black Turtle, the only thing still alive, turned into gray pneuma and disappeared from this world.


    It was not the end though, far from it.


    The battleship''s next target was Yu Taixu.


    Seeing both the Golden Throne and Emperor Xuan reduced to ashes, Yu Taixu was heartbroken. Although he could not openly admit it, Emperor Xuan was his natural son, his secret love child and also his trump card. He had been determined to support him as the candidate for Human Emperor. How was he to know that his son and the throne would be reduced to ashes by the Supreme Fairy Weapon before his plan could be accomplished. How could he not be anxious and angry?


    However, the matter was irreversible no matter how he felt. It was useless even if he wanted to counterattack. He had the capability of the Lord of Heaven, so he had almost reached the Realm of Human Immortal. Granted that he was a Human Immortal, he could only flee when faced with the Supreme Fairy Weapon which could not be defeated by ordinary people.


    "Is this a real Supreme Fairy Weapon?"  he thought.


    In his heart, he was hoping for a lucky break. Perhaps it was just an extremely strong Highest Heaven Celestial Device.


    Therefore, even though the battleship was heading towards him, he was deep in thought and failed to notice it. Thus, at the very last moment, he lost the chance to escape. He was a sitting duck and his hairs stood on end. He felt a sense of extreme danger.


    Colorful streamers emerged from him, sending forth intensive Pure Yang Qi. Things like a golden pagoda, a bronze mirror, a white imperial jade seal and blue sword light were giving off strong Pure Yang Qi. Each of them was a Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade. Panic stricken, Yu Taixu threw every weapon he possessed at the battleship as if they were of no value to him at all.


    It was all in vain. No matter how good those celestial devices were and how strong their Pure Yang spirit were, they were smashed to bits even before they reached the battleship.


    "Come on!" Yu Taixu seemed to realize this. When he saw that all the Pure Yang Celestial Devices had been destroyed, his face was expressionless and he gave a mighty shout. A silver stripe quickly appeared and flew towards the battleship.


    "Fairy weapon!"


    The silver stripe revealed a strong power. It wrapped itself around the battleship as if trying to stop its movements.


    It was a fairy weapon!


    Zhou Bao had a serious look on his face. "Just a Taihao Fairy Weapon. How could it defeat my Supreme Fairy Weapon?"


    Indeed. A Taihao Fairy Weapon could not defeat a Supreme Fairy Weapon!


    What mattered was the force and the strong power, not the quality. When one used a bomb to attack an aircraft carrier, it would not succeed unless it was a nuclear bomb.


    As expected, a harsh sound like the tearing of cloth could be heard. This Taihao Fairy Weapon only resisted for a second and was ripped into pieces. Meanwhile, two black dragons suddenly rose from the battleship and absorbed the pieces into the battleship.


    "This¡ª!" Yu Taixu''s pupils suddenly dilated. Just as he was counting on this last desperate measure, the battleship suddenly stopped. It not only stopped but also began to shiver.


    The battleship was not the only one shivering, so was the whole world.


    "What''s going on?"


    At this moment, Zhou Bao felt as if the power of the world was rejecting his Supreme Fairy Weapon and driving him out.


    "Supreme Fairy Weapon. Impossible! How can this happen in this world? It doesn''t coexist with the world!" Just then, Child-endowing Buddha shouted at the top of his voice as if he had been grabbed by the neck. He yelled at the battleship, "Are you an idiot? Do you want to perish together with this macro world?"


    Zhou Bao faintly sensed Child-endowing Buddha glancing at the place where he was. However, even if Child-endowing Buddha did not do that, Zhou Bao understood that the Supreme Fairy Weapon was a fairy weapon which could not be used in the macro world. It should exist only in the hollow.


    If the macro world was regarded as a big planet, what would happen if the two planets were so close? There would definitely be a connection, right?


    He was in a macro world while the Supreme Fairy Weapon was also in another macro world. Those two macro worlds were so close to each other. How could they avoid such a close encounter?


    Thinking of this, Zhou Bao sighed deep in his heart. Then he found that Yu Taixu had already taken advantage of this opportunity and escaped. He sighed secretly and gave up all plans of killing Yu Taixu. All of a sudden, the Azure Spirit Sea around the battleship began to surge, causing the battleship to break up the surrounding space and fade into the hollow.


    "Hehe, is it the legendary Heaven Realm? It seems so ordinary. Hahahaha!"


    This voice came from the hollow where the battleship had disappeared to. The battleship did not disappear completely until the broken space had recovered. Scenes of devastation were seen across Turtle Back Mountain.


    Due to the onslaught of strikes from great powers, the whole of Turtle Back Mountain was in a mess. A lot of people had died. Half the mountain had been razed to the ground. Among the emperors, only Yan Yuntian, Ashoka, Emperor Wolf and Emperor Yang survived. Others who were from the small sects had also died. One or two were severely wounded even though they were still alive. The Golden Throne and Emperor Xuan, as the representative for the Human Emperor candidate, had been reduced to ashes. Those who stayed in the east were lucky. They were from the five biggest sects and the strongest sects in Three Western Regions. Their cultivation were at top levels and they were the least affected. Thus, most of them were safe. Even so, they all looked as if they had suffered great losses.


    Supreme Fairy Weapon! It was the absolute Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    Supreme Fairy Weapon could be driven away by the power of the world, namely, the essence consciousness of this macro world where they lived now. Only this power of the world could force the Supreme Fairy Weapon to depart. Besides, only the Supreme Fairy Weapon was qualified to let the whole macro world use its power to do so.


    In this way, that strange battleship was certainly the Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    Supreme Fairy Weapon was a legend even during the olden times.


    Indeed, the Supreme Fairy Weapon was only a legend because it could not release its power in the macro world. Otherwise, the power of the two macro worlds would clash with each other. Either the Supreme Fairy Weapon was defeated or both two weapons would suffer great losses. There were only two situations. Thus, in a sense, the Supreme Fairy Weapon could function only in the hollow. Only in the hollow could it totally exploit its strong power.


    In this world, even from the olden times, nobody knew where it existed. There was no information about it. From the five biggest sects in Four Eastern Regions, Three Western Regions to the Sea Emperor, all they only heard had been rumors. Nobody had expected and believed that this legendary thing really existed.


    But today, people saw it. It appeared at the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony, killed most of the candidates for the Human Emperor selection and even destroyed the Golden Throne. However, that was not the most shocking thing. What astounded people most was the words that the people heard when the ship was disappearing.


    "Heaven Realm was just so ordinary!"


    "What was the Heaven Realm?"


    The macro world where they lived now was the Heaven Realm which suppressed worlds in the olden times. However, it had declined after a long while. From the medieval period, the name of the Heaven Realm had disappeared in history. Only the sects of long standing like Divine Wind Palace knew the real meaning of the Heaven Realm.


    It was a symbol of honor, a pressure and also a crisis.


    A serious crisis!


    "We have problems now!" Staring at the direction in which the ship disappeared, Senior Grand Tutor Hong showed a gloomy face. However, he was a bit happier when he saw Yu Taixu panicking.


    "Yu Taixu, what''s all this about? You owe us an explanation!"


    "Explanation?" Yu Taixu was in a very terrible mood. Hearing this, he suddenly raised his hands and reached for Senior Grand Tutor Hong. "I will give you an explanation now!"


    "Bang!" A giant figure emerged before Senior Grand Tutor Hong and prevented him from being grabbed. Unfortunately, the figure was blown into pieces.


    "Yu Taixu, even though you are the Divine Wind Palace lord, you shouldn''t be so arrogant. To think that such a thing happened at the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. You have to give us an explanation. Many emperors died suddenly. Won''t Four Eastern Regions fall into chaos?" Senior Grand Tutor Hong gave a brittle laugh and helped Emperor Yang stand up. "Those lords from the small sects, they all died here. It will not be easy to cover up this happening!"


    "Divine Wind Palace will surely give you an explanation about this thing. But, Hong Taihe, remember, you''re also a member of Divine Wind Palace!"


    )"Yes I am. I''m a member of it. But, you should also know the Hong Family was not involved in Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony during the earlier days!" Senior Grand Tutor Hong laughed scornfully. "And, no matter what happened, it''s the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony now. Even though some unexpected events happened, it still has to go on. As I see it, we''d better choose a candidate for Human Emperor as soon as possible!"

 544 The Ceremony Continues, Kill Emperor Wolf

    While many emperors had perished during the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony, a considerable number had survived. It was crucial to persevere so that those who had died did not do so in vain.


    What had just transpired made it obvious that Emperor Xuan was Yu Taixu''s favorite. Yu Taixu would be unable to find a replacement for the recently deceased Emperor Xuan in such a short time. Continuing with the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony would benefit Senior Grand Tutor Hong as he had a higher chance of winning without Emperor Xuan in the picture. Senior Grand Tutor firmly believed that he could make Emperor Yang the next Human Emperor.


    "No. This isn''t a trivial issue. We need to discuss this immediately. With the Golden Throne, demolished, we cannot proceed with the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. I suggest postponing it!"


    The first person who voiced his concerns was not Yu Taixu but Chen Jinzhong. As the head of Chen Ancestral Temple, he was in charge of all the procedures of the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. He felt ashamed that such an accident had happened and he did not think that the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony was able to continue.


    "Hehe, it''s not that simple. Put it off? Then when will it be held? 500 years later? Don''t forget the effort that went into choosing suitable candidates. If we postpone the ceremony, we have to find another group of candidates. Even if we succeed in finding new candidates, they''re unlikely to be better than these four. They survived that battle, which demonstrates that they have outstanding power and loyal subordinates. Is that not enough to prove their mettle?" Senior Grand Tutor Hong stared at Chen Jinzhong as he rebutted him.


    "Furthermore, it was the Eight Grand Demon who initiated the conflict during the ceremony. Regardless of their reasons for causing trouble here, they can''t do so anymore as they''ve died. If we delay the Ceremony, we''re giving those who want to sabotage the ceremony time to prepare. The dignity of our five biggest sects will be at stake!"


    "That makes sense!" Child-endowing Buddha responded abruptly after receiving a suggestion from Zhou Bao.


    "Lord Yu, Senior Grand Tutor Hong and Mr. Chen. We have no reasons to delay the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony since the earlier disruptions have been resolved. We should select the right person to be the Human Emperor as soon as possible, in case something unexpected happens again!"


    "That makes sense. You saw what happened just now. This ceremony is important. And we may not have time for such a huge ceremony in the future. Why don''t we just finish it today? It may become more and more troublesome as time goes by!" said Elder Qing.


    Two of the four sects had taken a stand. Though Dragon Thunder Palace and Jade Pool didn''t declare themselves, they agreed with this idea inwardly. They were clearly on the side of Immortal Palace and Bigwheel Temple. Dark Sect, despite its enormous power, was not recognized by the five biggest sects. As such, they could not comment on the incident. Instead they gloated at the disagreement among the five sects.


    Yu Taixu looked even paler now.


    Chen Jinzhong was speechless. He reconsidered the issue and found that the points raised were valid. Because of the accident, the five biggest sects would not have time for the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony if it were postponed. They would also not be able to find better candidates than the current selection. Why not finish the ceremony today? Though things would not be as perfect as they expected, at least, they could take a great weight off their minds.


    He reluctantly nodded and glanced at Yu Taixu. Yu Taixu glared at Senior Grand Tutor Hong, who returned his look boldly with sarcasm in his eyes.


    "Yu Taixu, this time, you racked your brains and colluded with the Eight Grand Demons to disrupt the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony so that your illegitimate son can take hold of the Golden Throne and become the next Human Emperor. As the old saying goes, ''Man proposes but God disposes''. You could never have foreseen that such an accident would happen in the ceremony. That someone would break in here with a Supreme Fairy Weapon, kill your son and destroy the Golden Throne. And you almost died. Hehe, you lost a lot this time. I''m afraid that your power of discourse in Divine Wind Palace will ebb!" Senior Grand Tutor Hong grinned from ear to ear as he looked at Yu Taixu''s furious face.


    "Well, since everyone agrees, we will proceed with the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony." Yu Taixu clenched his teeth, thought for a while, nodded and said, "The candidates of the next Human Emperor are crucial. There are only four emperors left and they have proven themselves to be the best candidates. Then we will choose the best one out of these four emperors!" Having said his piece, Yu Taixu returned to his seat and closed his eyes.


    "It makes things easier now. Yu Taixu will never let Emperor Yang be the next Human Emperor. A battle is inevitable. I just need to be that sparrow which can easily win everything. In terms of Ashoka and Emperor Wolf," thinking of these two people, Zhou Bao looked vicious, "Atu Sage and the King Liuli? I don''t mind sending them back to their home!"


    Chen Jinzhong was inwardly relieved when he heard Yu Taixu''s words. Chen Jinzhong could not afford to offend either Yu Taixu or Hong Taihe. Although the Chen''s ancestral temple enjoyed some prestige in Divine Wind Palace, it was inferior to Yu family and Hong Family. It didn''t want to be caught between the two families.


    He cleared his throat and looked at Turtle Back Mountain. His heart ached when he thought of the suffering and distress there. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. He calmed his emotions by activating the Dharma power in his body.


    "Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony is a grand gathering of our Four Eastern Regions. It is held every 500 years. Although an accident has happened, it helped us identify our four best candidates. We will choose one to be the next Human Emperor to rule the world. Do you have any questions?"


    "No!"


    "No."


    "That''s fair."


    "No."


    Though it had been perilous just now, the incident had helped them annihilate all their rivals. The four Emperors now seemed quite relaxed and spoke briefly and clearly.


    "Alright. Please, four Emperors, show us what you are capable of and prove to us that you are qualified to rule the world!" Chen Jinzhong walked off the field and stood on the east side.


    The battlefield stood standing in the middle of Turtle Back Mountain, looking deserted and uninviting.


    Senior Grand Tutor Hong was the first to take action. He slowly headed to the battlefield with a confident smile, "Guys, just come to me together!"


    Innumerable figures appeared in the hollow behind him. Every figure emitted powerful spirit and possessed the strength of an Individual Immortal.


    "These are not living creatures, but puppets I have refined. There are 3780 of them. All of you, as long as you can survive my puppet formation, you win. Otherwise, you die!" Senior Grand Tutor Hong squinted at Zhou Bao and said, "Zhou Bao from Yunzhou, I''ve heard about you and I know you are extraordinarily powerful. But I didn''t expect that you would have such a powerful Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade. You are the strongest one here other than me. You go first. How about that?"


    "Hehe, that''s fine. Let me beat the hell out of you!" Zhou Bao didn''t think twice, activated his Flipping Sky Seal and threw it to Senior Grand Tutor Hong. Meanwhile, Atu Sage also wielded his walking stick. It emitted a subtle golden glow as he pointed it at Senior Grand Tutor Hong.


    "Well done!" Senior Grand Tutor Hong complimented them quietly as he saw their moves. Then the puppets behind him moved and surrounded him. Dozens of puppets of Individual Immortal level dashed toward the Flipping Sky Seal.


    "Bang!"


    With a huge noise, the puppets were smashed by the Flipping Sky Seal, but the power of Flipping Sky Seal was reduced. Senior Grand Tutor Hong had vanished into the puppets, while Atu Sage was engaged by dozens of puppets and couldn''t break free.


    At the same time, King Liuli Wu Dynasty, the bareheaded man beside Emperor Wolf, took action. His target was not Senior Grand Tutor Hong but Zhou Bao. King Liuli dashed toward Zhou Bao recklessly with clenched fists.


    With an angry yell, King Liuli drew close to Zhou Bao and a huge Dharma Laksana appeared behind him. It was a giant white elephant. Following King Liuli''s movement, it lifted its feet and stamped on Zhou Bao.


    "Good job!" Zhou Bao groaned. He raised his hands and black-red Sword Qi poured out from his fingertips. Millions of chopped swords formed a black-red tornado and smashed the feet of the giant elephant.


    "Eh." King Liuli had not expected that Zhou Bao would be that strong. His fists were smashed by the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword of Zhou Bao. As he retreated with a groan, Zhou Bao suddenly vanished in front of him.


    "No!" King Liuli was on his guard as he couldn''t see a trace of Zhou Bao. He turned around to defend himself, anticipating Zhou Bao''s attack. Instead, he suddenly heard the roar of Emperor Wolf.


    "Oh shit!"


    That was indeed terrible. Zhou Bao did not intend to fight King Liuli. Instead, he wielded the Three Realms Division, moved to Emperor Wolf and punched him.


    "How dare you!" Emperor Wolf roared. The necklace around his neck glowed with golden light as 18 jade skulls of the necklace suddenly darted towards Zhou Bao.


    "Go to hell!" Zhou Bao smiled and maintained his fist stance. He abruptly broke Emperor Wolf''s attack and sent back the 18 jade skulls. His fists hit hard on Emperor Wolf.


    "No!"


    The roar was cut off abruptly. Emperor Wolf had been smashed by Zhou Bao''s fist!


    Emperor Wolf had been killed by one punch. Zhou Bao flashed and reappeared behind King Liuli.


    "Go to hell!" King Liuli had watched helplessly as Emperor Wolf was killed by Zhou Bao. He was roar in fury and leaped toward Zhou Bao.

 545 Who Is the Stronger One

    King Liuli of Wu Dynasty was a trusted subordinate and bosom friend of Emperor Wolf. He would never be what he was today without Emperor Wolf. Their friendship was beyond life and death. Emperor Wolf was his benefactor and his master. Now Emperor Wolf had been beaten to death by Zhou Bao right in front of him. How could he reign in his anger?


    Grim-faced, Zhou Bao shot several Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi at King Liuli as the latter headed toward him. The Sword Qi soared. As he watched the Sword Qi, his face suddenly changed. The fatal spirit in Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword scared him into dodging it.


    Zhou Bao was an unforgiving person. Now that he had a grudge against King Liuli, he wouldn''t let him walk away easily. Zhou Bao divided his Sword Qi and turned it into a storm of swords. That storm, emitting endless destructive spirit, scattered and flooded King Liuli.


    King Liuli paled. He had to admit that Zhou Bao did have something to show off. Though King Liuli possessed the power of Genuine Immortal, he could not defeat the young man in front of him and this made him angry and helpless.


    "Asshole, go to hell!" King Liuli roared as though he had been driven to desperation by Zhou Bao. A thick cloud of black smoke puffed out of his mouth.


    Initially, Zhou Bao didn''t take the black smoke seriously. He manipulated the Sword Qi of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and rushed forward to disperse the black smoke. But he didn''t expect that the invincible Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword would have no effect on it. The appearance of the smoke also coincided with a faint scent. Zhou Bao felt sudden dizziness overpowering him.


    "Poison?" Zhou Bao was startled. He was equipped with the Poison Cold Shield at the Pure Yang Realm. The core of the Poison Cold Shield was Poison-absorbing Green Bead and it was indestructible. He had met those who were skilled at poisoning, but none of them had been able to injure him. When he was attacked by poisonous substances, his Poison Cold Shield would be triggered automatically to absorb and refine the poisons. He had therefore never worried about being poisoned. This time, though Poison Cold Shield had been activated, it had been unable to completely neutralize the strong poison. Fortunately, Zhou Bao''s Mysterious Divine Light had been activated and picked up the slack by transferring the poison into Poison Cold Shield, preventing him from being poisoned.


    "Bang!"


    Just as Zhou Bao was surrounded by the poison gas and was busy refining it, a chilling light appeared and stung at Zhou Bao.


    After King Liuli spit out the black smoke, he continued to attack. He took out a strange-looking bending saber that emitted a blue light. With the saber, he struck hard at Zhou Bao.


    With King Liuli''s cultivation of Genuine Immortal and a bending saber at Pure Yang Celestial Device level, Zhou Bao was knocked into the air. Intense pain and prickling numbness from his wound overwhelmed him.


    After King Liuli had injured Zhou Bao with his saber, he stopped his pursuit and attack of Zhou Bao. He dashed toward Yan Yuntian and cut Yan Yuntian with his saber.


    Dang!


    There was a loud crash. King Liuli''s attempt was foiled by the Flipping Sky Seal in front of Yan Yuntian. King Liuli rebounded off the Flipping Sky Seal.


    "No!" Seeing his saber cut on the Flipping Sky Seal, King Liuli didn''t feel right. When he was thrown into the air, his bending saber flashed and formed a curtain of blue light around him. This curtain, together with the protective Gang Qi, developed into a thick and solid barrier.


    But how could it hinder the furious Zhou Bao?


    "Now that you are not going to hide, I will send you into oblivion!" Zhou Bao growled and raised his head, only to see that black-red Sword Qi had sliced the sky and cut hard on King Liuli with unparalleled power.


    "No--!" As the Sword Qi was about to touch his body, King Liuli finally felt that death was impending. He roared, but it was too late.


    The Sword Qi broke his defense and cut his body into half, as if it was just cutting a thin piece of paper. Blood was all over the place. Meanwhile, the Sword Qi was scattered into innumerable tiny swords and formed a black-red flood of Sword Qi, which vaporized the remains of King Liuli.


    "Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast. Damn it. It was the Nine-headed Fierce Beast..." A Genuine Immortal failed to finish his words and his body melted into a puddle of turbid water in a short time, just like a burning candle.


    It had taken two seconds when King Liuli had spread the black smoke, dashed to Yan Yuntian and was killed by Zhou Bao. That poisonous smoke had not dissipated yet and its weird scent spread slowly. As King Liuli was killed by Zhou Bao, the scent had reached another person and its reach did not stop there.


    That Genuine Immortal had been only the first who was melted into turbid water. Soon, the effect was seen in others. In this moment, the entire Turtle Back Mountain was turned upside down. Many tried to resist this eccentric poison gas, but in vain.


    The toxicity of the black smoke was extremely high. Zhou Bao could clearly see that it eroded everything in this place and they became dim and gray. Anything which touched that smoke was fused or simply died. There were many people near him who died.


    "Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast?" Zhou Bao had never heard this name. But at this point, he had already felt the greed of Poison-absorbing Green Bead.


    The willpower was so strong that the Poison Cold Shield had activated itself and formed Green Mist around Zhou Bao. Amid this cyan mist, a pink substance cast an enchanting and overwhelming effect on all present.


    "This is -- the Poison Cold Shield, a weapon of Pure Yang Celestial Device level. And it has even refined the Peach Blossom Miasma!" Most of those present were very experienced and were able to recognize the mist around Zhou Bao. They looked uncomfortable.


    "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha¡­"


    At this point, a strange voice rose from the crowd, "Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast. It is the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast. Haha, God blesses me!" Before the voice died away, a black skull suddenly sliced the hollow and appeared in front of the black smoke. It opened its big mouth to devour the smoke.


    "This is mine!" Zhou Bao sneered and raised his hand. Flipping Sky Seal was activated to repress that black skull.


    "Kid, how dare you go against me?" The voice from the skull was as harsh as the rustling of sand.


    Zhou Bao looked relentless, "It should be me saying that. How dare you make trouble in Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony? Even if I kill you, you deserve it!" While he talked, the gold light on Flipping Sky Seal shone brightly as it smashed on that black skull.


    Boom, boom, boom, boom...


    When Flipping Sky Seal collided with the skeleton, the crash sounded like a bronze drum being punched. Although the skeleton didn''t break, there were cracks on it. It wailed and then stepped back.


    "Kid, how dare you..." A roar rose. Chilly wind broke through the space and another black skull materialized.


    Zhou Bao''s eyes looked ruthless. He threw a punch at that skull and yelled, "Damn, are you dead? This guy openly spoils the ceremony, and no one cares?"


    Boom!


    The punch hit hard on the skull. Zhou Bao flew to Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast as if a withered leaf, looking grim. The Green Mist around him turned around and withdrew the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast.


    "Elder Yao, please be quiet!"


    As Zhou Bao withdrew the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, Yu Taixu, who was standing aside, gently raised his hands. The two skulls were sent back to the hollow. "If you have any grievances, you can address them after the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony!"


    Yu Taixu continued to close his eyes after he finished his words. Elder Yao who had attacked just now, uttered no words.


    In the field, after Poison Cold Shield had absorbed the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, something changed inside it. But now it was not the time to practice it. Zhou Bao took a deep breath, withdrew Flipping Sky Seal back to his Dantian and then subdued Poison Cold Shield and Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast.


    Meanwhile, in the battlefield, Atu Sage was in peril as he was being attacked by innumerable puppets. He could only defend and was unable to fight back. It would only be a matter of time before he met a gruesome death at their hands.


    Seeing this, Zhou Bao chuckled. He didn''t help Atu Sage, instead, he took an ill-disposed look at Ashoka.


    Ashoka was chilled by Zhou Bao''s glance. Thinking about Emperor Wolf who had his body smashed to pieces, he rose from the chair.


    "I quit. I quit the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony and will no longer attend the election campaign of next Human Emperor!"


    The cultivation of Ashoka was high enough. Even though Zhou Bao had suppressed all people here, Ashoka was able to make everyone hear every word he said.


    Senior Grand Tutor Hong and Atu Sage also heard it. Atu Sage bent his body and vanished among the puppets. He then turned into a cloud of dark beam, broke the space and sullenly showed up in front of Ashoka. Atu Sage glanced at Zhou Bao, sighed but said no more, giving tacit acceptance of Ashoka''s choice.


    One of the rules of Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony was that candidates who quit the selection would no longer be able to be involved in the ceremony.


    "Well then, there are only you and me left, Senior Grand Tutor Hong." Seeing Peacock Dynasty quit the campaign, Zhou Bao gloated and turned to those puppets, "Let''s see who is the stronger one!"

 546 Puppet, Celestial Device, Punch

    It was time to find out who was better!


    While the voice was not very loud, it was filled with a strong will and the fullest confidence.


    Zhou Bao proceeded to step on a hollow. His green robe fluttered in the wind. With his hands behind his back, he looked like a scholar standing on a mountain peak, enjoying the cool breeze and high-spiritedly giving his two cents about everything.


    "You''re indeed not bad. Who knew that a strong young man would come out of Central Mainland Region! This is beyond my expectation!" Senior Grand Tutor Hong was not going to admit defeat. He reappeared in mid-air, wearing a dark red robe, a jade belt and a Violet Gold Cap. He also had an inch-long moustache. He looked at Zhou Bao in admiration. "However, it may not be that easy to defeat me!"


    "There''s no other way, we have already come this far. Let''s fight!" Zhou Bao showed his relentlessness. He looked at the happy Yan Yuntian and said, "Did you not see that my old father-in-law is already preparing to celebrate?!"


    "Hahaha, good, I like young people like you. Let''s stop chatting. I shall find out about your capabilities!" As he spoke, Senior Grand Tutor Hong disappeared again. The thousands of puppets that had been behind Senior Grand Tutor Hong approached Zhou Bao in a frenzy.


    Zhou Bao smirked. He raised his hand and a storm of swords evolved from Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi rolled towards the puppets and knocked them all down.


    Boom!


    Flesh and blood flew, while limbs were scattered everywhere. Although Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was powerful, there were too many puppets and they were of extremely high cultivation. The sword storm was unable to stop them all. After killing hundreds of the puppets, Zhou Bao found himself surrounded by another thousand of them.


    Bang bang bang bang bang!


    Despite being surrounded by the horde of puppets, Zhou Bao was not afraid. He swung his fist and all of them were defeated. Regardless of their levels of cultivation, all of them dissipated into a fog of blood. This effect of his fist was comparable to Flipping Sky Seal and Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword.


    All he had done was swing his fist around to strike the puppets. The puppets were no match for him, but Zhou Bao was unable to locate the Real Body of Senior Grand Tutor Hong among the crowd.


    While he could not find his Real Body, Zhou Bao believed that it was in the crowd. With his keen eyesight, it would not be difficult for him to clearly distinguish the faces of each puppet. Even so, he was uncertain which one was Senior Grand Tutor Hong.


    After a few attempts, Zhou Bao realized that he needed to use a different approach.


    With a twist of his body, he managed to escape from the puppets. As he looked at the crowd of puppets leaping towards him, he gave a cold smile. He flipped his hand and a gold circle appeared in his hand. He then threw it into the air.


    "Jeet!"


    As Zhou Bao growled, the golden circle flashed violently. An incomparable suction force was released from inside the circle. The puppets were unable to resist the huge force. Their footsteps became unstable and all of them flew towards the circle. As the puppets disappeared into the circle at increasing speed, the number left standing decreased exponentially. In the blink of an eye, half of them had been sucked in.


    "Gold Bracelet!"


    The display of power from the circle drew numerous gasps. Everyone looked at Zhou Bao with incredulous expressions. Yu Taixu''s eyes were no longer narrowed. Instead, he stared at Zhou Bao with a strange look.


    First, it had been Flipping Sky Seal, then it was Poison Cold Shield, now it was Gold Bracelet. This guy had just taken out two Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices. He then thought of the three Pure Yang Celestial Devices that Zhou Bao stole, as well as the rumored devices, such as Golden Flame Mirror and Golden-Scaled Cudgel. It was amazing that Zhou Bao owned so many Pure Yang Celestial Devices despite his young age, to the extent that he could be considered a treasure himself!


    However, this was not the time to dwell on this. Zhou Bao might have gained the upper hand when he produced the Gold Bracelet replica, but the fight was far from over. Senior Grand Tutor Hong was someone who had the ability to snatch the position of lord of Divine Wind Palace from Yu Taixu. It was probable that he had powerful assets too.


    When Hong Xuanlong had fought for the Inner Elixir of the essence and blood of Evil Fire Kylin, some of those assets had been exhibited. Surely, as the real ruler of the Hong Family, Senior Grand Tutor Hong would be no less powerful than Hong Xuanlong.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao started to get more nervous when fake Gold Bracelet dispatched half of the puppets.


    As expected, a red light suddenly flashed from the crowd of puppets. The red light continued to flash violently and enveloped the Gold Bracelet in a few seconds. The suction force disappeared and the remaining puppets were scattered.


    Zhou Bao stared and realised that the red light had been emitted by a small, sleek, long-necked jade bottle. The bottle looked primitive and was formed from a ruby. There were faint lines on its body and strong Pure Yang Qi was coming out of it. This was an Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    "I found you!" Zhou Bao saw that the fake Gold Bracelet had been blocked, but he was happy. In a flash, his body disappeared.


    "Urgh!"


    As Zhou Bao disappeared, a succession of strange cries was heard from the puppets. A shadow shot out from the crowd, with copious amounts of blood uncontrollably spurting out from it.


    "Good!" As these events unfolded, even Yu Taixu could not help but stand and applaud Zhou Bao. But soon, his eyebrows furrowed.


    Zhou Bao doubted that Senior Grand Tutor Hong had been defeated by that punch. The punch had been too easy. Furthermore, Zhou Bao had felt an odd resistance when he delivered the punch. It was as if his punch had landed on an object instead of a human body.


    Hence, out of caution, he did not try to catch up.


    "Fella, you''re not bad!" Indeed, Senior Grand Tutor Hong was the figure that had been retreating. Although he was losing blood, his voice was still strong.


    "This cunning guy!" Yu Taixu hissed quietly. Zhou Bao''s facial muscles twitched. Indeed, Senior Grand Tutor Hong was a cunning guy. The figure he had just punched was merely a puppet.


    The truth was, Senior Grand Tutor Hong had never arrived at the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. It had been his puppet masquerading as him all along.


    It was possibly because of this charade that people suspected that Senior Grand Tutor Hong''s cultivation was only at Level Nine and had not yet reached Mysterious Realm.


    Abruptly, the atmosphere became strange. In the sky, only the fake Gold Bracelet and the Long-necked Red Jade Bottle remained. Zhou Bao was in a stand-off with the puppets. While the bracelet had taken down a huge number of them, the remaining puppets posed a formidable threat. With his temper, Zhou Bao would have started the fight by now. However, he did not do so. as he could not figure out what Senior Grand Tutor Hong had up his sleeves. If Zhou Bao killed all the puppets, he would have to be wary of the tutor. If he found the chance to kill Yan Yuntian, then all that he had done just now would be in vain. He was reluctant to admit this to himself, but he realised that what he had done just now had not been a wise move.


    While it seemed like Zhou Bao was in a stand-off with a large number of puppets, he was really worried about poor Yan Yuntian!


    The stand-off continued for a while as if they were appreciating each other. There were no other actions taken. This made Child-endowing Buddha raise his guard.


    "I say, are you two being match-made? If you want to fight, then please do it! I''m already done with my popcorn, if you''re not gonna do it then I''m going home!" Child-endowing Buddha shouted strangely. While it seemed like he was shouting strangely, he was actually using the secret way of Lotus Flower on the Tongue. It startled Zhou Bao and Senior Grand Tutor Hong felt apologetic.


    There were so many people watching. The authority figures from the five biggest sects, as well as the audience from the big sect of Three Western Regions, were all watching. Senior Grand Tutor Hong was a long-standing public figure. He had been famous long before Zhao Bao''s great-great-grandfather of the fella existed. While his name was spread around the world, Zhao Bao''s great-great-grandmother was still drinking milk!


    Right now, the stand-off had lasted too long. They were evenly-matched and he had even suffered a bit. This was indeed embarrassing. If he did not settle this soon, he could forget about the fight with Yu Taixu. He would have lost his pride even if he helped Emperor Yang take the throne!


    "This thief is actually quite smart!~" Zhou Bao also noticed the same point. After Child-endowing Buddha shouted, he was extra careful. But soon, he found out that he was being overly cautious.


    This was because Senior Grand Tutor Hong had chosen to fight a real fight and not use sneaky tricks in order to prove himself.


    Yes, his own strength.


    A pair of iron fists emerged from the hollow. It was accompanied by a boundless exploding Qi Power and the belief to destruct everything in sight. It appeared in the hollow and came straight for Zhou Bao.


    Fist!


    Having felt the coldness and killing intent of the fists, Zhou Bao''s gaze focused.


    Lord of Heaven!


    Yes, Lord of Heaven!


    This punch alone had already frozen the space on Turtle Back Mountain. This punch alone had separated Zhou Bao from the space around him. At this moment, Zhou Bao felt like he was an insect trapped in resin. He could not budge at all.


    He could only let Hong Taihe and the fist bombard him to death.


    "Good timing!" Zhou Bao''s body was unable to move. He did not try to escape from the frozen space. He only flashed between the eyebrows and a black and red Sword Qi shot out, aiming for the fists.


    Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!


    Boom!


    As the fists met with the sword, the sword light instantly dispersed. The fists stopped for a while, before aiming for Zhou Bao again.


    "Good punching skill!" In the small pause, Zhou Bao understood the beauty of this move.


    Zhou Bao''s eyes began to shine so brightly!

 547 Fist Intent Beyond Imagination

    Zhou Bao knew about punches. His expertise was in magic weapons and fists. When he saw Senior Grand Tutor Hong''s fist coming for him, he was ecstatic. However, his instinct also told him that something was amiss. His hunch was proven right when he used the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword to test the waters.


    Senior Grand Tutor Hong''s fists had demolished the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!


    Was this the fist power of a Lord of Heaven?


    No, the wonder of this punch was because of the word ''change''.


    Yes, change. Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was undefeatable. It demolished everything in its way. Its intrinsic killing intent could annihilate anything and everything, but it was not very versatile.


    Until now, he could only evolve the Sword Qi into sword storm, expand the area of attack and the force of it.


    However, the two punches from Senior Grand Tutor Hong were extremely variable. On the surface, it had seemed like they met with Zhou Bao''s Sword Qi. The reality was that the fists had smashed the space. There were innumerable tiny time and space lapses around his fists. The tutor had destroyed a countless number of them with just a swing of his fist. These spaces were not visible, but on contact with the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi, thousands of years and miles were traversed in what seemed like a short moment in the present world. How could it not be weakened? How could it not collapse from the punch?


    Perhaps the collapsed Sword Qi had not disappeared completely but sank into the space around his fist.


    Because of the immense power of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, it was able to stop Senior Grand Tutor Hong''s fist momentarily. Other skills might not have been able to do the same.


    Both of them were well-versed in fists and punches. Senior Grand Tutor Hong''s attack had startled Zhou Bao. The incoming punch had small time spaces that overlapped with each other, and came at Zhou Bao''s face like an all-sucking black hole.


    Zhou Bao squinted and lifted his chest.


    Crack! Crack! Crack!


    The area surrounding his body had already been broken into pieces by the constrained space. As the punch drew near, Zhou Bao moved. He did not dodge, but welcomed Senior Grand Tutor Hong''s fist with his fists instead.


    A punch for a punch!


    "Good fella, you''re daring!" Yu Taixu who was sitting in the east and watching, saw Zhou Bao strike with his fist. His eyes flashed and he almost jumped up to applaud.


    Zhou Bao was brave to fight Hon Taihe''s fist head-on although his cultivation was only at Level Nine. Not many people would have dared to do the same.


    Yu Taixu was not aware that Zhou Bao''s cultivation was not at Level Nine but Mysterious Realm. While Yu was lost in admiration for Zhou, a gush of strong energy from Zhou Bao caused his expression to become eccentric.


    Vast, ethereal, endless, unfathomable, endless variation!


    An unbelievable aura came from Zhou Bao as he struck with his fist. The strange aura enveloped him and it seemed as if there were endless time spaces vibrating and distorting. On a closer look, Zhou Bao''s surrounding spaces had not changed at all. That was just an illusion from the Qi Power, that led one to feel palpitations and shock.


    This was fist intent!


    An extremely vast fist intent!


    Yu Taixu was a Genuine Immortal of the peak of Lord of Heaven. He was very close to stepping into the realm of Human Immortal. This kind of cultivation, power and thought was as unchanging as a thousand-year-old glacier. It was impossible to move and melt.


    He would have been able to face a fist intent and assess the situation for what it was. However, Zhou Bao''s fist intent made him feel lost and confused!


    "What is this fist intent?!"


    He could not stop himself from rising from his chair. He stared at the scene, as if he wanted to figure out something from Zhou Bao''s punch.


    As Zhou Bao threw the punch, the people sitting in the east had all stood up like Yu Taixu. Those who were already standing waited with bated breath and hammering hearts.


    They did not have powers like Yu Taixu to follow their heart and see through the situation. All they could see was Zhou Bao''s fist intent, a very unpredictable fist intent.


    At this moment, Zhou Bao was emotionless. He struck with both his fists. Both Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill were unleashed. That pair of fists was so clean, pure and complete, as if they were art pieces being carved out by a master. They looked as if they were meant to be protected.


    Boom!


    Four fists met each other almost at the same time!


    A strange sound rang in the air and the space surrounding his fists disappeared suddenly. Zhao Bao''s body was sent backwards, as if he was hit by a big truck. Senior Grand Tutor Hong''s fists were untouched, but the surrounding layers of space were as if stopped by a powerful force and shattered to pieces. That fist that had surfaced from a hollow also started to crack. Soon after, the skin and pores of the fist exploded and golden blood spurted everywhere.


    "Immortal, good, good fight!" Yu Taixu could no longer contain his praise.


    He had to do so. Zhou Bao''s punch had not crushed the vacuum but it showed some sense of immortality.


    This was a respectable state!


    What was considered immortal?


    Ignoring time and space, from birth till death, from beginning to end, neverending...that''s immortal!


    These two punches by Zhou Bao crushed the space surrounding Senior Grand Tutor Hong''s fists. In the layered space, from beginning to end, the power was still the same. No matter how much time passed or how far the distance was, the punch was still the same, this was what immortality was like.


    "Hiss!"


    Zhou Bao took a deep breath as he was thrown back. He had used all his energy in the punch, and was still feeling grateful. However, he had not been lucky enough to land a critical hit.


    Otherwise, he would not have been forced back. Then again, this was already enough. He had suffered a blow from Senior Grand Tutor Hong, but his combat capability was still intact.


    Senior Grand Tutor Hong''s punches were very unpredictable but the strength was constant, similar to the amount used for Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill combined. The only concern had been the variability of the punches. This ceased to be an issue now that his punches could give immortal effects.


    As for the consumption of his Real Essence Dharma power, the nine Dantians in his body were preserving this huge force of Real Essence Dharma power. However, he had his Dharma Power-restoring Skill, which meant that no matter how much he consumed, he could replenish them in no time. Hence, there was no need to worry about Real Essence Dharma power at all.


    Hence, when he was sent backwards, Zhou Bao was happy instead of alarmed. After suffering from the hit, Senior Grand Tutor Hong finally revealed his location. The vibration from the powerful punch would make even Lords of Heaven expose themselves. Using his superhero spiritual mind, Zhou Bao found out where he was hiding. He dared not delay any further. He stopped his body from moving backwards, opened Three Realms Division and disappeared in mid-air.


    "Senior Grand Tutor Hong, stop hiding, come out!"


    As his body disappeared, Zhou Bao could be heard gloating. He appeared in an area to the west of Turtle Back Mountain. With a punch, he destroyed the surrounding space. A dark hollow was exposed, into which a big shadow flashed and disappeared.


    "Now that you''re caught, you''re still trying to run, you''re too naive!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. He completely cast out the Three Realms Division and reappeared in the hollow, both his fists already in action.


    Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.


    Each punch led to the destruction of a space. The body of Senior Grand Tutor Hong was seen escaping in broken pieces. No matter what, he could not escape Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind.


    "I''m telling you not to hide anymore, you''re still hiding, damn it. You''re a Lord of Heaven, the Family Head of the Hong Family, and a Senior Grand Tutor of Li dynasty. But yet you are such a coward and only dare to make sneaky attacks in the dark. Are you afraid of having a face-off with me?!" Zhou Bao shouted loudly, "You can''t hide anymore, even with your hollow travel skills, you can''t run away from me!"


    "Kid you''re going overboard!" A roar was heard from the hollow. Following that, Senior Grand Tutor Hong no longer dodged Zhou Bao''s punch. Instead, he fought him head-on. His body reappeared in the air, no longer hiding.


    "Haha, good timing~!" Seeing his body appear, Zhou Bao laughed heartily. This was the effect he wanted.


    "Good fella, this Hong Taihe is indeed one from Lord of Heaven Realm. Shit, he is so shameless, using a puppet to replace his body for so many years. He also told others that he did not breakthrough Mysterious Realm, what a cunning fella!" Looking at Senior Grand Tutor Hong reappear and the waves of layers of space, those watching, including Child-endowing Buddha, were gritted their teeth. Their facial muscles were beyond their control. They really wanted to rush up to Hong Taihe and give him a few tight slaps. This guy really had no conscience.


    "Hmm, Yu Taihe, Yu Taihe, things have already become like this, let me see how qualified you are to fight with me. This time, you will lose even your underwear!"


    Yu Taixu gently stroked his mustache and smiled confidently. He no longer had to worry. Although he had lost an illegitimate son and the Golden Throne, Hong Taihe and Senior Grand Tutor Hong were no longer concerns, regardless of who became Human Emperor eventually.


    In the fighting ring, Senior Grand Tutor Hong and Zhou Bao were inseparable. But it seemed like Zhou Bao of Level Nine had a slight advantage.


    Senior Grand Tutor Hong was powerful. With a cultivation of Lord of Heaven Realm, he had perfectly mastered the space of Self-world. Unfortunately, he had ended up facing off with Zhou Bao the maniac. His fists, force and punch had been cultivated to the level of immortality. Self-world was nothing. Zhou Bao could hurt his body easily and there was nothing Senior Grand Tutor Hong could do about it.

 548 Self-world

    Self-world!


    This was the standard to enter Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven Realm. After going through six Thunder Tribulations, one would have an extremely deep understanding of the Dharma between heaven and earth. However, alongside with the sixth Six Directions Thunder Tribulation, the body would change drastically. The most important change was in the eyes. By then, the eyes would be capable of seeing the spatial flows clearly. Although it would not allow one to understand the Great Way of Heavens and Realms as well as Zhou Bao, one could derive the spatial Dharma based on what they saw. They could also collect the broken spatial pieces from the hollow. The luckier ones with higher cultivation may even collect big pieces of spatial slits and integrate those into their own Gang Qi. Refining Law of Space into their own Gang Qi could get them the Gang Qi of Law of Space, which would be much stronger than normal Gang Qi. Refining Law of Space was the biggest difference between Genuine Immortals who had passed six Thunder Tribulations and those who had only passed five. This was why they were called Lord of Heaven after the sixth tribulation. Lords were the kings of heaven. In the space they refined, they were the kings, hence they were called Lord of Heaven. Once one fully understood and comprehended the Dharma of space, they could accept the seventh Thunder Tribulation, Evil Thunder Tribulation. In the thunders, they would understand the spatial Dharma. They would also receive the broken time pieces. They would integrate into the flow and supplement the original space, creating a real world. The Gang Qi would evolve into the essence pneuma of this world. After being forged by the Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder Tribulation, space and time would become one to form Self-world. That would be an Eight-tribulation True Immortal, Lord of Heaven Realm.


    Once the Self-world was cultivated, the Gang Qi surrounding the body would evolve into an endless space. It would provide protection when dealing with someone of lower phase without him having to do anything. The person would be sucked into this spatial turbulence where there was no way out.


    Hence, with a cultivation of Lord of Heaven, even if it was a Six Tribulations one, even a Venerable would not be able to defeat him. Regardless of how many Venerables joined the fight, they would all be sucked into the broken spatial pieces. Even if this Lord of Heaven remained at the Six Tribulations forever, one would spend the rest of his life lost in the endless spatial pieces. By the time he reached Seven Tribulations, the flood of time will flow into the space. The Lord of Heaven would control his own time. With just a little effort, he could make two hours in the outside world become a hundred years, or even a thousand. You would die in it.


    For someone whose cultivation has reached the level of Lord of Heaven, numbers were just a joke when facing people of ranks lower than him.


    This was also why Senior Grand Tutor Hong was so confident when facing Zhou Bao. He was an Eight-tribulation True Immortal. His Self-world was already complete. He had all the time, space and pneuma in the area surrounding his body. No matter how many Venerables he ran into, with just a sway, he could trap them till death in his Self-world. Zhou Bao could not even reach Mysterious Realm, how could he be respected as an opponent by him?


    But both parties had not expected Zhou Bao''s punches to be so hard, as his phase and cultivation were not advanced. His punches were not only hard, they were strange too. He delivered immortal punches, and his body was as strong as a Lord of Heaven. Most importantly, his fist intent was strong and full of substance. It literally destroyed Hong Taihe''s protection. He had closed the distance between Individual Immortal, Sage, and Venerable. He had gained the upper hand just like that, shocking many people.


    "Hundreds of years of reputation has been destroyed just like that!"


    Yu Taixu and Senior Grand Tutor Hong held grudges against each other. But looking at this situation, they could only sigh and feel genuinely sad. As the old Chinese saying went, "The young will replace the old"; the ''young'' would die today, and that would be Senior Grand Tutor Hong.


    This was already obvious to a bystander like Yu Taixu; it would be even more glaring to the two opponents. Senior Grand Tutor Hong had already lost his stability and generosity, he had become bad-tempered.


    Things had already gone out of hand and he knew that he was doomed. He was going to die in the hands of a young man...


    Even though he was the one who had made Emperor Yang a candidate for Human Emperor, he no longer had the chance to fight with Yu Taixu. Furthermore, whether or not he would win was still unknown, because Zhou Bao was giving him too much stress.


    After a close fight with Zhou Bao, he realized how formidable Zhou Bao''s close combat skills were. His fists were so scary, and his fist intent unfathomable.


    One by one, spaces fell apart from the impact of his fists. They reformed and broke repeatedly. They were not even able to reform completely. Everytime he suffered a punch, his protection was weakened by a level and his internal Dharma power diminished. His Dharma power had already been half-depleted. His muscles and bones were becoming weary too. Unlike him, the young man in front of him was still happily going at it with that pair of fists that looked like White Jade. They looked like an art piece, but when fighting, they were vicious. There was a wide variety of moves and all of them were powerful. Most critically, every now and then, his strength would abruptly increase ten-fold.


    What kind of a concept is that?


    Each punch of Zhou Bao''s that met with his was not weaker than his. Suddenly, his fists were ten times heavier, which was equivalent to ten times of an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven''s full shot. If he had not only cultivated the Self-world but also wore a defensive Pure Yang Celestial Device treasure coat and own several defensive weapons, with ten times the Critical Hit, he would have been injured severely.


    How could this be accomplished by a Level Nine expert?


    This kind of monster was nowhere seen hundreds of years ago!


    "Damn it, a set of old bones, old elbows and old legs, how dare you waste my time. If I don''t tire you out I won''t be a Zhou!" Zhou Bao thought harshly in his mind. Fighting until now, he also felt that the other party was tired out. Deep in his heart, he was smiling coldly.


    Tiredness was non-existent to him.


    After absorbing the scary recovery ability given to him by the skeleton of the Innate Deity, the bloodline in Demonic Ape Zhuyan lifted his recovery ability to the maximum. The Dharma Power-restoring Skill boosted his Internal Qi Dharma power. In such a situation, whoever dared to fight a long fight with Zhou Bao closely, was trying to die.


    Even though his fists were still unable to give a critical hit to Senior Grand Tutor Hong who had cultivated a Self-world, his threat was becoming bigger gradually.


    If not for the fact that Senior Grand Tutor Hong had cultivated the Self-world, if it had been another Seven-tribulation True Immortal or a Six-tribulation True Immortal, the battle would already have been over.


    "Are you not gonna use your last move? If you don''t, it''ll be too late!" Zhou Bao used the Three Realms Division and continually shifted his location. His insidious fists threw punches from all sorts of angles. He might as well have punched a hole in his ass. However, he did not dare to punch him to death. It was not because he was scared of the Hong Family coming after him. Instead, he knew that with Grand Senior Tutor Hong''s identity, position and power, it would be impossible for him to not have a secret weapon. Hence, he kept his guard up, preventing Senior Grand Tutor Hong from being too anxious and pulling it out. He was risking the possibility of there bring two casualties and him tanking it all. That would be not beneficial at all. Right now, the situation was beneficial to him. Hence, he was not in a rush, but waited patiently for Senior Grand Tutor Hong to get mad.


    Indeed, once he hit again, Senior Grand Tutor Hong could no longer tolerate it. With a whoosh, his body moved backwards violently, trying to escape from Zhou Bao. Before that, he did try to do this several times, but had always failed. Zhou Bao had already played Three Realms Division to the extreme, he was not someone one could escape from. But this time around, things were different. When he was moving backwards, a golden shadow appeared in front of him and blocked Zhou Bao''s continuous attacks.


    Puppet, a golden puppet. Golden spatial waves were coming at Zhou Bao.


    "A puppet of Lord of Heaven Realm?!"


    This was a puppet that was 30 feet high. It looked like it was made of pure gold and its gaze could not be more alive. It did not look like a puppet at all, but an expert with consciousness. Its surrounding skies were also very strange. It was shining golden light. Countless time spaces were shining endless golden light. It was very sharp. The brightness increased according to the puppet''s actions. Eventually, the puppet seemed to have become a small sun. Zhou Bao felt his vision being affected; there was no doubt that it was producing the same effect in others.


    This was not even it. The golden puppet was skilled at saber technique. Once it appeared, it was holding a weird short blade. Without doubt, that blade was not only a Divine Weapon, but also a Pure Yang Celestial Device. That golden puppet was smooth in its moves. His sleek moves with his saber caused bright light to shine everywhere. He then rushed towards Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao''s fists and body were strong and his Eight Nine Mysterious Skill was amazing, but he was not impervious to knives. Once he saw the puppet play with its knife, he began to start flash hiding. In the midst of that, Senior Grand Tutor Hong made his move. He was going to join hands with this Lord of Heaven Realm level puppet to bring Zhou Bao down.


    While this looked ugly, it was better than dying in Zhou Bao''s hands.


    "Hong Family, hehe, Hong Family, Senior Grand Tutor Hong, your thousand-year reputation is going down!" Seeing the situation, Child-endowing Buddha started to whistle. This embarrassed the Hong Family but they were not in a position to rebuke him, so they could only stare at him in fury. Child-endowing Buddha did not bother about them and stared back.


    Over at another side, Zhou Bao, who had been sandwiched by Senior Grand Tutor Hong and the puppet, started to counterattack. His body moved here and there and he managed to escape from them. He then disappeared.


    Yes, he disappeared completely. He left the other two bewildered. They could only look at each other helplessly.


    This fella, had he escaped or was he waiting for the perfect chance to launch a surprise attack?

 550 World-solidifying Skill & the Human Emperor Palace

    Senior Grand Tutor Hong was defeated.


    When seeing that Hong Taihe had solidified his Self-world without hesitation, Yu Taixu felt greatly relieved. He slowly closed his eyes and sat down, with his back slightly leaning backward. He leaned against the chair without uttering a word for a long time.


    Likewise, Zhou Bao turned his five fingers into claws. On his fingertips, there were wisps of smoke that was faintly visible. He didn''t keep taking action because he knew that Hong Taihe had admitted defeat the moment he solidified his Self-world.


    He had heard of something about the battles between Lords of Heaven from Jing XIII in Azure Big World. Without a doubt, he was aware of the World-solidifying Skill, the last resort of Lords of Heaven.


    Therefore, as the purple crystal appeared, a hint of a smile flashed across Zhou Bao''s face. By giving his body a shake, Zhou Bao landed on Turtle Back Mountain earlier than Senior Grand Tutor Hong did.


    Shortly after he had landed on Turtle Back Mountain, he heard a loud bang. The purple crystal fell to the ground and bounced up and down twice on the earth. Later, the crystal broke apart and, pale-faced, Senior Grand Tutor Hong showed up before the crowd.


    "You have won this battle!" Taking a look at Zhou Bao, Senior Grand Tutor Hong didn''t know what else could he say. He had solidified his Self-world, however, not only his Self-world had been destroyed, but the Gang Qi that he had practiced for a long time had also disappeared totally. He was unable to fight with Zhou Bao anymore. Under such circumstances, if he still refused to give up, it would look as if he was acting shamelessly.


    Given his identity and position, he could not save his face since he had lost to Zhou Bao, a teenager, so easily today. Unquestionably, he would be embarrassed to stay here any longer. Hence, he waved his sleeve and withdrew his ruby flask and the golden puppet. Without saying any word and looking at anyone, he directly left Turtle Back Mountain with Emperor Yang.


    "Haha, it seems that I have offended him badly!" Zhou Bao grinned and took his Flipping Sky Seal and Gold Bracelet back as well. Looking around, Zhou Bao felt that the expressions in the eyes of the people present became utterly different. A smile crept up the corner of his mouth. He turned back and asked Chen Jinzhong, "Excuse me, may I know if the candidate for the Human Emperor has been decided yet?"


    Chen Jinzhong took a deep look at Zhou Bao and nodded his head in agreement, saying, "Yes, of course, now that you have won the battle, this matter is settled. However, the Golden Throne has been destroyed and it''s just not realistic to create a new one. Furthermore, it will take quite a long time to make a substitute. So I guess you need to wait for several days before the coronation."


    "I''m not in a hurry!" Zhou Bao waved his hand and laughed, asking, "My dear father-in-law, are you in a hurry?"


    It looked as if Yan Yuntian was dreaming presently. At Zhou Bao''s words, he shook his head hurriedly and replied, "No, no, I''m not!"


    "Haha...!" The crowd couldn''t help laughing as they watched this scene. It seemed as if all those that had taken place on the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony today had drifted away with their laughter.


    "The Divine Wind Palace. Is this the Divine Wind Palace?"


    Looking at the glorious and magnificent palace, Zhou Bao was greatly impressed by it. The Divine Wind Palace, be it scale, standard, or imposing manner, was much better than his Sea-calming Palace.


    It was a completely separated micro world, within which the density of the spiritual qi was on a par with that in the 33 Heavens, such as Azure Heaven. However, this space was much similar to the rift of the gray space he had fused together with the Azure Secret Area and later became the Sea of Divine Power. There was nothing but spiritual qi. Such a place was the best choice to be used to build palaces and practice sites.


    Presently, this space was completely used to build the Divine Wind Palace. Moreover, after so many years, void of the least breath of life, this space had turned into a place full of vitality, with the existence of assorted exotic flowers, rare herbs, divine beasts, and rare birds. Around the Divine Wind Palace was even a dense primeval forest which stretched out to a far greater distance away, with Divine Qi overflowing everywhere.


    Zhou Bao''s reaction would be justifiable. But Yan Yuntian, who had never seen such a scene, was stunned by it for the moment.


    After all, he was the candidate for the Human Emperor. Although he could not take the throne immediately because the Golden Throne had been destroyed, him becoming the Human Emperor was a hard and fast matter. Thus, in terms of position, he was neck and neck with the mighty experts in the five biggest sects.


    Of course, he was just nominally on par with them. Now look, none of the suzerains of the five biggest sects were here, and even the lord of the Divine Wind Palace, Yu Taixu, was absent. Chen Jinzhong was his only companion, and following them were the spectators from the other four sects.


    Yan Yuntian''s position had been greatly improved after he became the candidate for the Human Emperor. He stood at the very front of all the people and was followed by Chen Jinzhong, who lagged behind half step. While walking, the latter was introducing him to the situation of the Divine Wind Palace. Behind them were Elder Qing, Child-endowing Buddha, and other people, who were from the five biggest sects. As for Zhou Bao, he had already reached the top of the steps and was now looking up at the huge plaque hanging over the palace.


    The Human Emperor Palace!


    Yes, this was the Human Emperor Palace, rather than the Grand Divine Wind Palace!


    The Divine Wind Palace and the Grand Divine Wind Palace were two different concepts. The former was the name of a sect and also this small space, while the latter was one of the untold palaces in the Divine Wind Palace and also the grandest one.


    At the first sight of the Human Emperor Palace, it looked a little out of place with the surrounding buildings. Although it was also splendid and magnificent, it didn''t carry an air of simplicity and great antiquity like the other buildings did and lacked an inborn atmosphere of history. It looked as though it was a place for upstarts among the building complex here.


    Yes, it felt like a place for upstarts.


    Of course, it was just Zhou Bao''s feeling. At present, Yan Yuntian had already gone into raptures. He thought that the Human Emperor Palace was very pleasing to the eye. Why would others say that it was not suitable for him?


    Chen Jinzhong was a conscientious worker just as his name implied. Because he still kept introducing the situation of the Divine Wind Palace to Yan Yuntian while walking.


    Originally, Yan Yuntian wanted to walk with Zhou Bao, but obviously, Zhou Bao was short of the consciousness to be his subordinate, for he was enjoying the scenery alone. Except for giving a wry smile, Yan Yuntian had no other choices.


    He had thought that he could borrow the power of this position to frighten Zhou Bao and even make him his hatchet man after he had become the candidate for the Human Emperor.


    But after watching the battle between Zhou Bao and Senior Grand Tutor Hong, he gave up even the slightest idea.


    The candidate for the Human Emperor had great influence and was authoritative. In a sense, he was in the name of the will of heaven. What was that?


    The will of heaven was not the Right Way, the awe-inspiring righteousness or the virtue of the God, said by those fusty scholars. Plainly speaking, as its name implied, it was the willpower of the heaven. After conducting a series of complicated rites in the coronation, the candidate for the Human Emperor could receive the fated willpower from the heaven. If he acted according to it and enforced justice on behalf of heaven, he would possess great power and even obtained fate and an immense amount of Qi of heaven and earth while he was taking action. If he was unwilling to do it himself and handed it over to someone else, then the one who did it would also gain great benefit. This benefit was invisible, but one could feel it at the same time. Therefore, it was the favorite thing for practitioners to enforce justice on behalf of heaven because they could benefit a lot from everything they did. In that case, if someone else had control of the Human Emperor completely, how much benefit could he gain?


    They could gain untold benefit. And that was why the Divine Wind Palace was bound up in the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony for so many years. Once they controlled the candidate for the Human Emperor, they were equal to have an ace in the hole. It would be of great help to their actions.


    However, everyone had misjudged the result this time.


    Yan Yuntian looked like a man of power and prestige and was promising. But in the eyes of so many mighty experts, he was just used to make up the number. Therefore, usually, they didn''t keep in contact with him frequently. However, the other influences in the Divine Wind Palace, for example, the group led by Yu Nancheng, had associated with Yan Yuntian in secret. They just considered Yan Yuntian''s contending for the candidate for the Human Emperor a game and hoped to see that all of Yan Yuntian''s efforts were in vain, just like drawing water with a bamboo basket.


    However, they had never expected that Zhou Bao actually drew water successfully by sealing up the leaks on the bamboo basket.


    As Zhou Bao succeeded in drawing water with a bamboo basket, it meant that Yan Yuntian''s position now was utterly different. Presently, Zhou Bao became quite famous.


    "Hey, can we change places? How about we move to the Grand Divine Wind Palace? The Human Emperor Palace looks like a place for upstarts!" As Chen Jinzhong took the crowd to the door of the Human Emperor Palace, Zhou Bao had already stood at its door. He said these words unhappily at the sight of Chen Jinzhong.


    At these words, Chen Jinzhong felt like kicking Zhou Bao. He was afraid that only Zhou Bao, for so many years, dared to say that the Human Emperor Palace was a place for upstarts and he wanted to move to the Grand Divine Wind Palace.


    The Grand Divine Wind Palace, however, was the place for the lord of the Divine Wind Palace. The candidate for the Human Emperor may be of power and influence, but in the end, the real master of the Divine Wind Palace was the lord here rather than the candidate for the Human Emperor.


    Chen Jinzhong had to shook his head helplessly as he saw the smile on Zhou Bao''s face. He said, "King Wuyang, you''re joking. The Human Emperor Palace is specially made for the candidate for the Human Emperor, who is in charge of the whole world. Only the Human Emperor Palace is able to demonstrate the majesty of the Human Emperor!"


    "Oh, is there any reason about it?"


    "Not really. The place that was specially chosen to build the Human Emperor Palace is the place for celestial beings. There is just no better place in this world!"


    "Isn''t the Grand Divine Wind Palace better than it?"


    "The location of the Grand Divine Wind Palace was settled in antiquity times. Its layout is abstruse and no one is able to see through it and get to know whether it is weal or woe!" Speaking of this, he glanced at Zhou Bao, whose face was filled with disbelief, and gave a wry smile. "You shouldn''t just focus on how domineering and prestigious the lords of the Divine Wind Palace are. In fact, since antiquity times, merely half of the lords ended well. However, since the Human Emperor Palace came into being, every candidate for the Human Emperor have died a natural death."


    "Is that true?" Zhou Bao had never heard of this information. But he knew that Chen Jinzhong would not lie to him. If so, the location of the Human Emperor Palace really was of a good Fengshui.


    "Your Majesty, your coronation will be delayed for some time because the Golden Throne has been destroyed. But since you''re the settled candidate for the Human Emperor, the Human Emperor Palace belongs to you from now on!" Chen Jinzhong said reverently. Unlike Yu Taixu, he was the man in the power of Chen''s ancestral temple and also belonged to the branch of the Human Emperor in the Divine Wind Palace. Therefore, he dared not to be rude to Yan Yuntian, the candidate for the Human Emperor.

 549 Six Royals

    All of Zhou Bao''s enemies had to come to terms with an indisputable fact.


    That is, if Zhou Bao wanted to leave, no one could stop him. He had not reached Lord of Heaven Realm and could only rely on his strength to completely understand the Law of Space. Nevertheless, he still understood the Ways of Space in the 3,000 Great Ways, and that was the Great Way of Heavens and Realms. It was impossible for those below the Lord of Heaven Realm to understand anything spatial. Hence, apart from those who could exceed Zhou Bao in his understanding of the Law of Space, they would be powerless to stop him.


    Senior Grand Tutor Hong was very strong, his Self-world was beyond perfect. However, his understanding was not better. Hence, when Zhou Bao hid in the hollow, he had no idea what to do.


    On other occasions, defeat would have been inevitable. Sliding into hollow was not something to be praised. On the contrary, it showed helplessness. But in this specific situation, Zhou Bao''s move was deemed as acceptable and extremely comforting.


    Yes, comfortable, pleasant!


    You two from Lord of Heaven Realm are surrounding a Level Nine, were you not intending to let him hide for a while?


    Just like that, Senior Grand Tutor Hong had no idea what to do.


    "Zhou Bao, why are you hiding? Come and fight for real, are you scared?!"Senior Grand Tutor Hong had lost all his manners. He was bad-tempered and shouted loudly. His surrounding heaven and earth vibrated and swept through the hollow as if he wanted to ferret Zhou Bao out. Despite his attempts, he could not locate Zhou Bao''s exact position.


    After repeated tries, Senior Grand Tutor Hong gave up his search. With his Self-world protecting him, he said to Chen Jinzhong, "Old Zhong, look at the situation now. It is Zhou Bao who is hiding from me, do I have to wait for him?!"


    "This-!" Chen Jinzhong was hesitant. Although Zhou Bao''s move made him feel good, in such a situation, as a host, he could not just let things be. He could not let Senior Grand Tutor Hong wait, right?


    "Who said I''m hiding from you? I''m just looking for a weapon to defeat you!" While Chen Jinzhong contemplated his dilemma, Zhou Bao''s voice rang in the crowd.


    "Eh?"


    "What happened?"


    "What is this force of oppression?!"


    "What is this?!"


    "No way, what is this force, why is it crumbling the space?!"


    "..."


    "..."


    Just as Zhou Bao''s voice rang in the air, a huge pressure arose. A huge canopy crumbled the space and went in the direction of the puppet.


    It was the Flipping Sky Seal!


    Zhou Bao had once again chosen to display the Flipping Sky Seal.


    Just now, he used Poison Cold Shield to absorb Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, but its poisonous nature had been unexpected. Poison Cold Shield had been unable to refine even the Poison-absorbing Green Bead. He had used Flipping Sky Seal to repress it in his Dantian. Hence, he could not use his Flipping Sky Seal and Poison Cold Shield.


    But just now, he had made use of the sandwiched-opportunity to return to the hollow and directly went into the Supreme Fairy Weapons. He activated the Wheel of Time and accelerated the time in Sea of Divine Power. Half a year had elapsed for him, in what was a short moment in reality.


    This was way beyond Zhou Bao''s expectations. He definitely did not think that just cultivating the Elixir of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast would take up three whole months. He then took another half a month to completely infuse it with Poison Cold Shield. The core of Poison Cold Shield, Poison-absorbing Green Bead, collapsed due to its inability to withstand the poison from Nine-headed Fierce Beast.


    Luckily, there were some old Grand Demons in the Supreme Fairy Weapons. For example, there was Jing XIII the Humpback Whale. When Zhou Bao was desperate, it gave the most accurate advice, helping him to successfully refine the Poison Cold Shield.


    It was also at that time that Zhou Bao finally understood the power of Nine-headed Fierce Beast.


    Nine-headed Fierce Beast was an upper position Primordial Fierce Beast and its poison dominated the world!


    Just like Zhuyan, Nine-headed Fierce Beast was an upper Primordial Fierce Beast. It was the ruler of primitive times. The splitting of levels among the primitive Fierce Beasts was very strict. To be exact, there were only six types of upper Primordial Fierce Beasts among the countless number of Primordial Fierce Beasts. They were called the Six Royals.


    Zhuyan and Nine-headed Fierce Beast were two of them. The Primitive Dragon Chimera that Zhou Bao got in the past was strictly speaking a middle Primordial Fierce Beast. Although it was powerful, it had several shortcomings.


    Zhuyan was the best in both strength and body and was called the strongest in primitive times. Whereas for Nine-headed Fierce Beast, it was known for its poison and to be capable of poisoning anything.


    A real Nine-headed Fierce Beast that had released its toxin could let it spread far and long. Even Innate Deity and Primordial Demon could be poisoned to death. It could pollute the time and space of a macro world and turn it into a death zone.


    Zhou Bao did not know where King Liuli had obtained the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast or how he had refined it into his body. Although not pure, the correct way of refining had been used. Apart from Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, he had also refined other strange poisons and refined this ball of black Qi. Even though other strange poisons may not be comparable to the elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, but they were still the top-notch poisons in the present world. While the poisons were not pure, together with the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, their combined strength was overwhelming.


    While Poison-absorbing Green Bead was known to be the most poisonous one on earth, there was still a limit to everything. It was able to out-poison almost every other poison out there except for Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, which was known to be incurable in primitive times. Luckily, in that black smoke, that of the elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast was only a strand. If not, if all of them were of Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, King Liuli would not have been about to reign it in and it would have been enough to kill 99% of the people there. That is, only Yu Taixu and Zhou Bao would have chances of surviving while the rest would perish.


    However, even if it was just one strand, Zhou Bao may not be able to take it completely. When Jing XIII saw this, he was in great shock. It taught Zhou Bao the way to refine a devil fairy weapon, Archaic Black Flag. Of course, Zhou Bao would not be able to refine it just by relying on a bit of Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast and Poison Cold Shield. He could only make a replica of it, the upper Pure Yang Celestial Device Archaic Poisonous Flag, which had the nickname Infinite Poison Banner.


    Jing XIII was only so generous because he knew that Zhou Bao would not be able to refine the Archaic Black Flag. From his point of view, if Zhou Bao was lucky, he would only be able to refine a lower class Infinite Poison Banner. After all, even in the Azure Big World, there was a limit to Pure Yang Qi. Unexpectedly, while Zhou Bao was not able to refine the fairy weapon, it produced an upper Pure Yang Celestial Device very easily. It was a talisman formation set up by three talismans. It reflected the ferocity from primitive times. Jing XIII''s heart beat very fast when he saw what was going on.


    After refining the Infinite Poison Banner, Zhou Bao naturally did not waste any more time. He had raised the Wheel of Time to the maximum level where he could still exert control. In the present world, he should be fighting with someone else. If he was gone for too long and others thought that he had escaped, he would lose more. Since he had already come so far, he would not give up half-way. Hence, after refining the Infinite Poison Banner, he opened the hollow and returned to the present world. He heard Senior Grand Tutor Hong shouting. Since his Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast had been refined, his Flipping Sky Seal automatically was released. Without further ado, it lifted up the seal and smashed onto the golden puppet very harshly.


    That golden puppet saw the Flipping Sky Seal coming for it and gave a low growl before punching it.


    Boom! Its fist met with the Flipping Sky Seal. The seal stopped momentarily before smashing down again. The golden puppet became shorter as it was pressed down by the Flipping Sky Deal. It could not move.


    "Senior Grand Tutor Hong, now, it is only the two of us, is it time to get intimate?!"


    Seeing the Flipping Sky Seal trapping the golden puppet, Zhou Bao laughed. Without waiting for an answer, he pointed and a green light shot towards Senior Grand Tutor Hong.


    "Hmm!" Seeing that green light, Senior Grand Tutor Hong laughed coldly. He swung the robe he was wearing and brought his Self-world to protect him. He plunged towards Zhou Bao, with no intention to dodge the light.


    Seeing this move, Zhou Bao smiled.


    That smile was so bright and so unfathomable. Just when everyone was still trying to process what just happened, Senior Grand Tutor Hong suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He let out a piercing and furious scream. His body fell from mid-air into Turtle Back Mountain.


    Now, everyone was shocked. They did not expect Senior Grand Tutor Hong to have a situation so soon after Zhou Bao came back.


    Zhou Bao would obviously not let this opportunity slip past. He understood the Poisonous Hitching Post too well. It could create wonderful effects, but not for long. Its greatest benefit was that it could create an opportunity to kill for Zhou Bao. Now was the time.


    His body flashed and Zhou Bao reappeared where Senior Grand Tutor Hong had landed. His big hand was aiming towards him harshly. At the point in time, Senior Grand Tutor Hong was in an excruciating pain. But, he was an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven after all. His instinct told him there was imminent danger. He clenched his jaw and used all his energy to activate his already-perfect Self-world. It formed a layer of purple light around his body. Its space and time became one in just a split second and formed a body that looked like purple crystal.


    "World-solidifying Skill, is he crazy? His phase will fall below Lord of Heaven!" Seeing the purple crystal, the crowd was shocked.


    Even Yu Taixu stood up in shock.


    This unifying of the space and time in Self-world and forming a layer of solid crystal was the last resort of Lord of Heaven. It was called World-solidifying Skill. It was known to be the strongest defense among those below Human Immortal. It was indestructible too. However, the price paid for this was huge too. It was redeemed using Self-world. After using it once, the Self-world will self-destruct and the Lord''s phase will drop to below Lord of Heaven. Recovering his cultivation would be more difficult than for those who had naturally worked their way up. It was known as a Lord of Heaven''s last resort to save himself. Some in Lord of Heaven did not want to use this even when they were faced with death.


    But Senior Grand Tutor Hong used it today.


    That also meant that he had lost!

 551 Seeing Ji Yeyue Again

    Such troublesome days!


    Sitting on the roof of the Human Emperor Palace, Zhou Bao stretched himself. He felt that the days were really boring. After the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony, there came the coronation. However, the coronation which should have been held immediately after the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony had been put off for 10 days due to the ruin of the Golden Throne, which had cast an ominous shadow over the coronation.


    Fortunately, no more chaos occurred during these 10 days and the result was reasonable. Now that such an accident had already taken place in the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony, the Divine Wind Palace wouldn''t dare to call itself the head of the five biggest sects if there was something wrong with the coronation again.


    Without any accident, the coronation was like calm water. Yan Yuntian also fulfilled his wish and successfully took the throne. Compared with the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony, the coronation was extremely extravagant. The suzerains of the five biggest sects had all come here, including Yu Taixu from the Divine Wind Palace, Thunder Dragon Venerable from the Dragon Thunder Palace, Jade Pool Golden Mother from the Jade Pool, Sakyamuni Buddha from the Bigwheel Temple, and Star Master from the Immortal Palace. This was the first time that Zhou Bao saw the Star Master of the Immortal Palace. He was still one of the 28 constellations in the Immortal Palace now, but his combat capability was at the Lord of Heaven Realm. Furthermore, he was able to defeat Eight-tribulation True Immortals. Hence, he would certainly not hold the Star Master in awe like he was before.


    But to his surprise, like Yu Taixu, he could not see through the other four suzerains'' cultivations. He could only feel a hint of pressure in the face of them.


    It was because of this pressure that Zhou Bao would not be presumptuous in public.


    After a series of strange rites, Yan Yuntian formally became a candidate for the Human Emperor that was on a par with the five suzerains. After the coronation, the five suzerains suggested exploring the Infinite Star Sea.


    It was not until this moment that Zhou Bao finally realized the exploration of the Infinite Star Sea required the approval and leading of the candidate for the Human Emperor.


    That was to say, the exploration of the Infinite Star Sea could begin only when the candidate for the Human Emperor had been determined.


    "What logic is this?"


    Zhou Bao could not understand. In fact, he already felt dizzy and exhausted due to the complicated etiquette and old system of the coronation. When no one else was around, he ran out to catch a breath.


    "King Wuyang, it''s been a long time since I last saw you!"


    Just as he felt bored and troublesome, a clear voice sounded close to his ears.


    "Oh, it turns out to be Lady Yeyue. We indeed haven''t met each other for a long time!" Turning around, Zhou Bao saw Ji Yeyue standing gracefully not far behind him.


    "This time, I wonder whether King Wuyang will go explore the Infinite Star Sea or not?"


    "Me? Haha, I''d like to. But I heard that someone wanted to kill me in the Infinite Star Sea, so I''m still considering it!"


    Evidently, Zhou Bao''s words were beyond the expectations of Ji Yeyue. "It seems that King Wuyang is really well-informed. But now, it''s merely an old story!"


    "An old story? Why?"


    "In the past, the five biggest sects did not like your behavior, and at the same time, they were afraid that you would grow up so rapidly that you may threaten their status and be out of control. So they wanted to kill you secretly before you have fully grown up. But they changed their ideas after they witnessed the battle between you and Senior Grand Tutor Hong!" Ji Yeyue gave a wry smile. "Senior Grand Tutor Hong is an Eight-tribulation True Immortal, but he was defeated by you. Therefore, no one can be sure that he can get rid of you. After all, even the candidate for the Human Emperor''s greatest power is only to nominally mobilize those Venerables. As for the Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm, they themselves are the masters of a field who don''t need to care about the candidate for the Human Emperor. There are no more than 10 Lords of Heaven in the five biggest sects and not every one of them is an Eight-tribulation True Immortal, just like Senior Grand Tutor Hong. They are all big shots in the Four Eastern Regions and every movement of theirs is able to make the ground shake. Your defeating Senior Grand Tutor Hong means that there is no one able to threaten you in the Four Eastern Regions and even in the Seven-deity Regions. Even if they want to join hands to harm you, it may be easy for them to defeat you, but it would be impossible to get rid of you. Therefore, congratulations! From now on, you are also a big shot!"


    A big shot!!!


    Zhou Bao smiled bitterly upon hearing Ji Yeyue''s remarks. He said, "I''m just excellent in combat capability. When it comes to cultivation, I am really not that good!"


    "You''re so modest!" Ji Yeyue laughed. "May you take care of me on this trip to the Infinite Star Sea?!"


    "Why? Aren''t you a member of the Jade Pool? Are you going to the Infinite Star Sea as well?"


    "Yes, the list of the Jade Pool about who shall go to the Infinite Star Sea has been settled. I''ll go there with several Martial Uncles to seek the Divine Fate!"


    "I don''t mind cooperating with you. But as you just said, I guess I don''t have the opportunity to go there!" Zhou Bao shook his head with a smile on his face.


    "No opportunity? Why?"


    "Now that they are unable to get rid of me, they surely don''t want me to gain so many benefits. If I am right, the trip to the Infinite Star Sea this time will be led by a Lord of Heaven, but it won''t be me!"


    Ji Yeyue was no fool, after all, she immediately understood the hidden meaning in Zhou Bao''s words after thinking for a little while. Her face darkened but recovered instantly. She said, "Yeah, I''m stupid. Given your powerful strength, the five biggest sects will never let you gain any benefit for nothing because you''re not a member of it!"


    The two of them remained silent after they finished speaking.


    "Oh, Yeyue, you''re here. I''ve been looking for you for a good while!" An untimely voice came suddenly right at the moment when the two were silent. Zhou Bao frowned slightly, however, Ji Yeyue''s face spoke of a wry smile.


    "What are you doing here?"


    "I''m here to look for you. I haven''t seen you for a good while!" The newcomer burst out laughing. "You''re King Wuyang Zhou Bao, right? You really enjoy a well-deserved reputation, for actually defeating Senior Grand Tutor Hong and being the son-in-law of the candidate for the Human Emperor. Without your help, your father-in-law couldn''t have taken the throne. I guess the Seven-deity Regions will certainly be your world after some time too. Congratulations!"


    The newcomer spoke these words out in a loud voice. And naturally, his voice spread to the Human Emperor Palace under their feet. At this moment, Yan Yuntian was holding a banquet to treat the people from the five biggest sects. Although he had just taken the throne there, he had been the emperor of the Jin dynasty in the secular world for so many years and thus was able to handle these matters smoothly, without investing the least effort in it. 10 days were enough for him to keep the Human Emperor Palace in order and control it.


    Now, he was in high spirits. But never had he expected that such an untimely voice would ring out above his head when he was happily drinking wine.


    What does it mean by saying that without his son-in-law''s help, he couldn''t have taken the throne?


    Although these words were close to the truth, whoever heard it would still feel uncomfortable. Other words, for example, "The Seven-deity Regions will certainly be your world after some time." were unpleasant to the ear as well. The Seven-deity Regions were the worlds and also the private possessions of the five biggest sects, and this was known to all the people coming to attend the coronation. Under the circumstance that all the suzerains of the five biggest sects were present, these words evidently had already offended the sensibilities of the five biggest sects.


    What would the five suzerains think since you had spoken so highly of Zhou Bao?


    Therefore, just as these words were heard by the people in the palace, the noisy Human Emperor Palace unexpectedly came to an awkward silence.


    "What a nuisance!"


    The awkward atmosphere vanished shortly after. All the people present were extremely shrewd and deep. As they realized that the atmosphere there was not quite right, those who were skillful at breaking the ice were going to say something to ease the tension. Right at this moment, they heard a loud bang and saw a human figure fell from the sky, breaking the roof.


    "Who brought this guy here? How ignorant he is! How dare he say anything he likes and blatantly alienate me from the five biggest sects? Heck!" Zhou Bao appeared in the palace almost at the same time as that guy did. He looked around with an icy cold smile on the corner of his mouth.


    There came to a silence again.


    After a good while, a voice with mixed feelings of shock and anger was heard from the crowd. "Zhe-er!"


    Just like a gust of wind, a human figure made its way through the crowd to the man lying on the ground. Noticing that he just fainted and was not in life-threatening danger, that figure felt relieved. Suddenly, she looked up and said, "Zhou Bao, you''ve gone too far!"


    Obviously, Zhou Bao stunned. It had never occurred to him that it would be a woman in fine clothes. However, Zhou Bao could not help but shiver while seeing her malicious eyes. "Bad luck!" He thought to himself. But he would never yield an inch. He said, "How have I gone too far? As long as you''re not deaf, you should have heard what he just said. He uttered these words for fear that the world would not be in chaos, and he caused trouble intentionally. Moreover, he alienated me from the five biggest sects and the candidate for the Human Emperor. Shouldn''t such a guy die? I spared his life because today is a red letter day. Otherwise, I would have trampled him to death!"


    "Shut up!"


    "Hold your tongue!"


    The woman''s voice was interrupted by another resonant voice before it had died away. "Hurry up, carry this unfilial son out. Do you intentionally want to make me feel deeply ashamed of him?"


    Zhou Bao took a glance at the speaker and was a little shocked because it was Yu Taixu, the lord of the Divine Wind Palace. "Is this the son of Yu Taixu?"


    Upon hearing Yu Taixu''s words, the woman no longer dared to say a word. She immediately held the man called Zhe-er with her arms and then glanced at Zhou Bao maliciously. Without turning back, she helped the man out of the Human Emperor Palace and disappeared.


    "This woman is somewhat troublesome!" Zhou Bao touched his nose gently and looked up at the big hole in the roof of the Human Emperor Palace, saying, "Eh, everybody, I''m really sorry. I got a little excited just now and I''m here to beg your pardon!"


    "There is nothing to pardon!" Everyone burst out laughing.


    Blame him? You must be kidding! What difference would it make to blame him? They could not offend this guy, but they could hide from him. Were they really as stupid as Yu Nanzhe?


    "I won''t blame you, but since you''ve made a mess of my Human Emperor Palace, you''re responsible for repairing it!" Sitting in the seat of honor, Yan Yuntian took a sip of wine and laughed.


    "Okay, no problem. All the expenses are on me!" Zhou Bao laughed. He turned around and happened to meet Yu Taixu''s eyes, deep and enigmatic.

 552 Taking the Opportunity to Expose Himself

    Yu Taixu was the lord of the Divine Wind Palace, the most distinguished person in the Four Eastern Regions, and an uncrowned king.


    Even though the candidate for the Human Emperor had already appeared, he had little scruples about everything and simply did what he had to do as usual. The candidate for the Human Emperor was a little bit distinguished, though, in the end, he was merely a high-level puppet of the five biggest sects. The only difference was whether the Divine Wind Palace had more or less control over him.


    Due to the miscalculation of the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony, the Divine Wind Palace had already lost the opportunity to completely control the candidate for the Human Emperor. However, even if the candidate for the Human Emperor wasn''t from the Divine Wind Palace, he would be bound by the five biggest sects. In particular, the Human Emperor Palace was in the Divine Wind Palace and, most of the subordinates of the candidate for the Human Emperor were from the Divine Wind Palace. Although they would obey him in ordinary times, at the most critical moment, they would take sides with the Divine Wind Palace. The Divine Wind Palace could make the candidate for the Human Emperor a mere figurehead at any time and let him become a commander of no power.


    Thus, even if he himself was not the candidate for the Human Emperor, Yu Taixu had nothing to worry about.


    He was still the lord of the Divine Wind Palace who could control everything.


    His position was the most distinguished and terrifying one as well.


    "Oh, it turns out to be the son of the lord. Haha, he''s far worse than Yu Nantian!"


    "Nantian often talks to me about you. He said you''ve done him a lot of favors in the Sea Area. He''s a lot more mature after he came back from there!" When Yu Nantian was mentioned in their conversation, Yu Taixu, who was always serious, wore a smile on his face. "I heard that you have helped him a lot when he was in the Sea Area!"


    "Everyone was in a precarious state in the Sea Area. We were just supporting each other, and it was far from doing anyone else a favor."


    Zhou Bao and Yu Taixu were totally unrelated to each other before. Furthermore, there was a huge gap between their positions. If it was 10 days ago, Yu Taixu would not even bother looking at Zhou Bao seriously. But now, he spoke to Zhou Bao frankly with assurance in the Human Emperor Palace, as if they were old friends. The reason was that Zhou Bao had defeated his old rival, the Family Head of the Hong Family, Hong Taihe, in one fell swoop.


    No one had ever thought that Hong Taihe was actually an Eight-tribulation True Immortal and the Level Nine Senior Grand Tutor Hong, who was usually shown in front of the public, was merely a puppet.


    Any practitioner who had reached the Mysterious Realm would violate the Law of Heaven if he interfered in the worldly affairs. Let alone an Eight-tribulation True Immortal who was at the Lord of Heaven Realm?


    However, with hindsight, everyone thought it was just normal. If everything went well, there was no need for Senior Grand Tutor Hong to worry about the punishment of violating the Law of Heaven.


    The Golden Book of Fate had always been controlled by the five biggest sects, among which the Divine Wind Palace was the most powerful one. As the second largest family of the Divine Wind Palace, the Hong Family had certain control over the Golden Book of Fate as well. Therefore, it was not difficult for it to use this control authority to conceal Hong Taihe''s true cultivation level.


    On the other hand, the candidate for the Human Emperor controlled the general trend of the world and was on behalf of justice. Thus, he had the right to rule the Law of Heaven. Nominally, though, as long as he insisted on forgiving a man who had broken the Law of Heaven, it would be quite easy.


    An Eight-tribulation True Immortal had already practiced the Self-world to perfection. With such a strength, Hong Taihe was absolutely able to get Emperor Yang the Human Emperor''s position. If everything went well, Emperor Yang would ascend the throne. At that time, Hong Taihe''s puppet would definitely pardon Hong Taihe for interfering in the worldly affairs earlier, in the name of the candidate for the Human Emperor. It would be done quite easily. After all, Hong Taihe had a sense of propriety and hadn''t gone too far even though he had intervened in the worldly affairs. The Li dynasty was originally a dynasty with great fate. Strengthening its position with the help of the imperial power may have exerted a lot of influence on the secular world, but it failed to affect the interest of the five biggest sects. Therefore, the other four sects would not put Hong Taihe in a pickle and they would surely turn a blind eye to this matter.


    Of course, the so-called "everything went well" meant that everything would occur in accordance with Hong Taihe''s plan.


    However, no one had ever expected that there would be accidents at the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony.


    In the end, among the two accidents, one was evidently caused by Yu Taixu and the other was a real accident. Even if such accidents occurred, Hong Taihe''s plan had not been affected. His combat capability had suffered no damage and these two accidents had unexpectedly helped him to get rid of more of his competitors. Instead, the situation became more favorable to him. At that moment, he thought he was the strongest person among all the competitors, and that was why he required the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony to be continued. However, to his surprise, he had suffered a setback due to carelessness and was defeated by Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao had defeated Hong Taihe head-on. He displayed both his terrifying attack force and inscrutable hollow travel body movement.


    What surprised these experts in high positions was that they could only think of Zhou Bao employing such a weird hollow-travel power to assassinate Hong Taihe rather than fighting him head-on with his own horrifying attack force. Who was able to ward off Zhou Bao''s attacks if he acted according to these experts'' thoughts?


    Perhaps even a Lord of Heaven could not do that, unless he executed the World-solidifying Skill, just like Hong Taihe.


    The World-solidifying Skill!


    Although it could save one''s life, it would ruin the majority of one''s cultivation. Hence, no one was willing to use it except at their last gasp.


    It was for this reason that Yu Taixu would be so polite to Zhou Bao. The assassination executed by Zhou Bao''s was also a big headache for Yu Taixu. Not to mention that the five biggest sects had previously reached an agreement to kill Zhou Bao, the shit stirrer, in the Infinite Star Sea secretly.


    All the people present were cunning old foxes. After they had witnessed that Zhou Bao had shown such a horrifying strength and talked to Yu Taixu happily, the four suzerains winked at each other in secret and tacitly removed Zhou Bao''s name from the list on which were people who would go explore the Infinite Star Sea this time.


    It didn''t take too much time to repair the Human Emperor Palace. Everyone present possessed many Divine Senses and even the maids and servants who waited upon them were experts at Level Seven, at least. Therefore, within a few seconds, the Human Emperor Palace, which had appeared somewhat disorderly, was cleaned up, and the big hole in its roof was fixed up in the shortest time. Zhou Bao returned to his seat which was a little bit behind those of the suzerains of the five biggest sects and was in the same row with that of Elder Qing. In fact, he was sitting next to White Tiger.


    "King Wuyang, you''ve shown us your invincible power this time and have greatly widened our horizons!" As soon as Zhou Bao seated himself, White Tiger took up a glass of wine and asked, "I wonder whether you are interested in joining the Immortal Palace or not?"


    There was another interval of silence in the Human Emperor Palace.


    Except for the members of the Immortal Palace, all the people present glared at White Tiger. How could he do so? He was so bold to think nothing of the other sects by drawing Zhou Bao to his side blatantly. Zhou Bao''s combat capability was universally recognized. If he joined the Immortal Palace, the Immortal Palace''s strength would certainly surpass the other sects even though it was no match for the Divine Wind Palace. This was far from a good thing for others.


    "The Immortal Palace!" Zhou Bao put on an appearance of hesitation by touching his nose. "Haha, I really admire the Immortal Palace. I''m especially interested in the way it employs in handling matters. But among the 28 constellations, which constellation will I be once I join in it?"


    "Haha, in the Immortal Palace, there are also Four Signs except for the 28 constellations. Both Elder Qing and I belong to the Four Signs. You are much stronger than us now. I guess you should be at least one of the Four Signs!"


    "One of the Four Signs? What, are you going to give me your position?" Zhou Bao said jokingly.


    "Haha, there are many vacant positions among the 28 constellations and Four Signs over the years. Thus, there is no need for me to give you my position. You can choose to be the Scarlet Rosefinch of the South or the Spirit Tortoise of the North at will!"


    "Forget it. The 28 constellations don''t need to run the affairs of the Immortal Palace, but the Four Signs do. Do I look like a person who can handle these affairs?" Zhou Bao shook his head and continued, "I cannot even handle my own business well, so naturally, I''m unable to handle the affairs of the Immortal Palace. How about you find me a position from the 28 constellations?"


    "The 28 constellations?" White Tiger thought for a while and added, "Fine. There is a vacant position in the 28 constellations¡ªWater Leopard of Winnowing Basket. Your name happens to be Zhou Bao(Bao is a Pinyin which means leopard.) How about this position? Meanwhile, you shall temporarily replace the position of the Spirit Tortoise of the North. Your status will be equal to that of the Four Signs and ranks only second to our Star Master in the Immortal Palace. What do you think?"


    "That''s nice. I like this proposal!" Zhou Bao nodded his head in agreement and smiled. He drank all the wine in the glass in one go and added, "Well, we''ll be members of the same sect then!"


    "Yeah, we''ll be members of the same sect then!" White Tiger let out roars of laughter, while the other people present all froze there and did not know what they should say.


    It had never occurred to them that such a show would be put on in the Human Emperor Palace after the coronation. This show, at any rate, seemed to be scheduled by these two men. They echoed each other as if they were acting in an opera. No one had ever thought of such a result.


    A bright light flashed through Yu Taixu''s eyes, as if he had suddenly realized something. He laughed for a good while, took his wine glass, and held it up in front of the Star Master of the Immortal Palace next to him. He said, "Haha, good. Really good. Star Master Mo, you really are a scheming man. I''m far from being your match!"


    Star Master Mo smiled and held his wine glass up, saying, "Lord of the Divine Wind Palace, you''re too modest. The Four Signs and the 28 constellations have already made me a mere figurehead. Although nominally, I''m still the master of the Immortal Palace, I cannot control them at all. You see, in a few words, they''ve settled the position of the 28 constellations and Four Signs at one go. Furthermore, that guy shall hold a concurrent position. But they don''t even bother to ask me for advice. I really ashamed of this!"


    "What a cunning bastard he is!"


    Upon hearing Star Master Mo''s words, everyone present began to curse him secretly. It was only by then that all of them began to realize that Zhou Bao was actually a hidden secret weapon of the Immortal Palace!


    Having thought about it carefully, however, this result was quite reasonable. If it wasn''t for having powerful influences, just like the Immortal Palace, to back him up, how would Zhou Bao be so arrogant? How could he rise in such a short time and how could his strength be so terrifying?


    The reason why Zhou Bao would have such a horrifying strength had always been the biggest question in people''s minds. Was it really because he was so lucky? Now they finally understood that it was because he had the Immortal Palace to back him up. Perhaps, only with powerful influences such as the Immortal Palace sparing no effort in supporting and cultivating Zhou Bao would he be a young man who had such a mighty power in such a short time.

 553 Repercussions after the Ascending Ceremony

    "Damn! You have just discussed with us how to get rid of this unstable factor by the trip to Infinite Star Sea. What was all this about? Play us for a fool?"


    Since Zhou Bao was from the Immortal Palace, he seemed to have known about them secretly plotting against him. It would be rather crass to offend such a guy without a reasonable excuse.


    Everyone present was grinding their teeth as if their eyes could turn into knives and kill people from Immortal Palace.


    However, the people from Immortal Palace wore a smiling face as if nothing happened. When the crowd watched Zhou Bao, White Tiger, and the sophisticated Elder Qing talk and smile, they almost went mad with anger and nothing could calm them down.


    "Bang!"


    When everyone was filled with fury, they heard a loud bang and glanced up. It turned out to be Child-endowing Buddha who stamped the front table into pieces.


    "Shit! You fucking wily tortoise! Fuck you, little fox!" Kicking over the table, Child-endowing Buddha swore in rage but they didn''t know whom he was cursing. Then he passed fleetingly and rushed towards the Human Emperor Palace.


    "Damn it! Don''t tell me what I should do." Everyone knew whom he referred to, even though Child-endowing Buddha didn''t say his name. Star Master Mo could pretend not to hear him, but Zhou Bao could not. Crushing the wine glass in his hand, he immediately went after Child-endowing Buddha with a flying leap.


    "Amitabha. May Buddha bless you." A grand Buddhist name sounded suddenly, and a huge golden lotus with thousands of scattered lights loomed up in Zhou Bao''s way. "Calm down please, Master Zhou. Child-endowing Buddha is fiercely hot-tempered. If there are any inappropriate and offensive words, I apologize in his name!"


    The crowd took a closer look and saw that it was Sakyamuni Buddha, the abbot of Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple who stopped Zhou Bao.


    With Zhou Bao''s combat capability he could easily blow out Child-endowing Buddha. However, Child-endowing Buddha was one of the most promising ones who could reach Lord of Heaven among the 13 Living Buddhas in Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, so Sakyamuni Buddha didn''t want him to get in trouble. Since nobody may stop Zhou Bao, he had to do it in person.


    "Humph! Apologize for him? Come on! You gave me three Pure Yang Celestial Devices last time you offended me. So how many will you give me this time?"


    Zhou Bao''s expression was truly fierce, Sakyamuni Buddha hadn''t expected Zhou Bao to lose his temper in front of others. "Buddy, you''re too exaggerated. Our Bigwheel Temple obviously couldn''t even be compared with your Immortal Palace. According to our financial capacity, three Pure Yang Celestial Devices is our limit."


    "Forget it, Zhou Bao. He is nothing but a narrow-minded bald ass. It''s a fairly good day and your father-in-law is going to be the candidate of Human Emperor. Don''t care much about these suckers for the family. I know you''re horribly angry with them, but let''s just kill them next time."


    "Okay, not a bad idea. I''ll kill them next time I meet them so that they won''t upset me anymore." Zhou Bao was suddenly apathetic. "Well, so be it." Then he cast a bitterly rancorous eye to Sakyamuni Buddha and glanced back at the golden lotus as if he was considering something in his mind. He snorted loudly and sat back drinking and ignoring the people around.


    After such a thing happened, nobody wanted to drink anymore.


    "Hehe, good trick indeed! I didn''t expect Zhou Bao was from Immortal Palace. It seemed like we had been played as a fool before."


    Many people began peeping at Yu Taixu. Zhou Bao was Yan Yuntian''s son-in-law and had helped him ascend to the throne of Human Emperor. He was also a rare man with strength reaching Lord of Heaven Realm. Now having Immortal Palace as his supporter, he may change the whole competitive landscape of the Four Eastern Regions if he made the most of Immortal Palace.


    The background of the Divine Wind Palace was very profound and powerful, so was Immortal Palace which was one of five biggest sects in Four Eastern Regions. Zhou Bao assisted Yan Yuntian in making it to the throne of Human Emperor. This meant that the Human Emperor candidate had the fervent support of Immortal Palace, and he had no need of looking for Divine Wind Palace''s approval. If Immortal Palace fully supported the Human Emperor candidate, Yan Yuntian''s authority was bound to increase greatly. Combining his just reputation and the sect''s tremendous strength, it was very likely that the foundation of the Divine Wind Palace would be truly shaken.


    Even though everyone had a different personality, whether it was Thunder Dragon Venerable or Jade Pool Golden Mother or even Sakyamuni Buddha who had nearly clashed with Zhou Bao, they all had a weird look. Moreover, the spectators who came to the Dark Sect seemed to also have something in their mind.


    Yu Taixu might not have anything wrong in his expression, but the flickering sparks in his eyes revealed his truly unsettled heart.


    The banquet ended with an eerie atmosphere because everyone had his their own axe to grind.


    "It''s not that easy. It''s hard to shake Divine Wind Palace." After the banquet, everyone went back to their own residence. Thunder Dragon Venerable, Jade Pool Golden Mother and Sakyamuni Buddha happened to gather together, and each of them looked pretty grim.


    "I know the Divine Wind Palace has been influential for more than 100,000 years and it''s not that easy to shake its position, but it might be the chance for us."


    "It''s a great opportunity indeed, but we may end up with nothing." Thunder Dragon Venerable said in a bleak voice, "Divine Wind Palace used to have no rival before, but now Immortal Palace is flourishing. The whole situation has been much more complicated since then."


    "Humph! I am much more comfortable with the current situation. It''s our only chance to fish in troubled water." Jade Pool Golden Mother said.


    "In the past, this would have been great news; we could just have waited to see Immortal Palace take action, but that''s not the case today. You know, a Supreme Fairy Weapon has already appeared and the master of it is aware that this place was the Heaven Realm. If we touched off some internal trifle without thinking about the consequences, the result will be terrible."


    "You''re right. I would have never expected the Supreme Fairy Weapon and the Heaven realm were actually real. What surprised me the most was that there is still somebody remembers this name after so many years."


    "Humph! You don''t remember!? Every realm knew it when the Heaven Realm ruled heavens and realms. However, after the tribulation, the Jade Emperor cast a great spell of Divine Sense to move the entire Heaven Realm from the Central Star Area to escape from a disaster, or the Heaven Realm could have already been taken by other macro worlds and we could have been enslaved. Through all these years, even we have almost forgotten the glory of the Heaven Realm and now we ironically run into it. You guys may know the legend about Supreme Fairy Weapon, so you might also know the Supreme Fairy Weapon can never belong to this macro world. Think again what he said before leaving, don''t you get it?"


    "Well, it''s quite clear! Our macro world including all the details has been found by someone else, and I think a catastrophe is coming right to us!" Thunder Dragon Venerable exclaimed.


    "So it''s time to stick together rather than to have internal strife. We should not only cooperate with the five biggest sects but also work hand in hand with Three Western Regions. But as for now, I doubt..."


    Everyone went silent when he stopped talking. If our world gets destroyed, all of us will follow the same fate. Everything would eventually dissipate if something bad happened, even though the five biggest sects at present had a good prospect in the Four Eastern Regions. No inheritance, no glory, nothing left.


    "Well, it''s useless to talk about it any more. Things have already happened. What Yu Taixu practices is also the Way of the Emperor, and he is close to finishing. He is not a person who can be persuaded at all. Now Immortal Palace shows that it can threaten him, he will suppress Immortal Palace at any cost. Although Immortal Palace kept a low profile in the past few years, its hidden strength is amazingly enormous, even not much worse than that of Divine Wind Palace. Both of them are not the ones we can persuade, and it''s ridiculous just the thought of challenging them."


    "So the best way is to protect ourselves first." Taking a deep sigh, Thunder Dragon Venerable left shaking his head.


    "Yes, let''s think about how to protect ourselves first. The earlier the better!" Jade Pool Golden Mother and Sakyamuni Buddha looked at each other and left respectively. The Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony which has startled the Seven-deity Regions was finally over.


    However, after it, everyone realized it was a real start of trouble rather than an end. The aggressiveness of Zhou Bao, the tricks of Immortal Palace, the miscalculation of the Divine Wind Palace... All of these things indicated that the Heaven Realm would witness an unprecedented storm.

 554 The Statements of Human Emperor on Antiquity Times and Heavens

    "I tried but still failed!" Zhou Bao didn''t care about so many things, nor did he consider so many factors like the suzerains of the three major sects. Moreover, the Supreme Fairy Weapon was actually made by him, so he had nothing to worry about.


    However, after the two-man show he performed with White Tiger during the banquet, the other four sects were obviously even more scared of him and more determined about their trip to the Infinite Star Sea. Even if Immortal Palace was increasing its great influence, it could not reverse the determination of the four sects. Speaking of Yan Yuntian, he was known as the candidate of Human Emperor, but he has just taken the seat. Even though he has not made up his mind which side to support, he had no say in the matter.


    So when Zhou Bao heard this news three days later, he said with a rueful smile. "As you are the candidate of Human Emperor and act as the host of the Infinite Star Sea Exploration, how can you have no say at all?"


    "Of course I have the right to speak, but I still hope you to stay and help me stabilize the situation. How would I let you go?" Yan Yuntian said with a smile, "I didn''t expect you would hide so thoroughly! How is it possible you are from the Immortal Palace!"


    "Sounds weird?" Zhou Bao shrugged, "Have you ever thought that how could I ever have made such a big fuss without the support of the five biggest sects?"


    "Yeah, your growing strength did astonish me! Nobody would believe it if you didn''t have supporters behind, but I never thought the one behind you was Immortal Palace!"


    "Well, Immortal Palace helped me in a very secret way. Neither Immortal Palace nor I want it to go public. Still, we''ve not found a good chance to let you know until now."


    "Until now?"


    "Yeah, we couldn''t tell you till now." Zhou Bao said with a smile.


    "Well, what do you want to say about me, the candidate of Human Emperor?"


    "I''m on your side, and so is Immortal Palace naturally, but you know that it is impossible to expect the Immortal Palace to act like Divine Wind Palace. However, if you need help, they will provide you with what you want, and if you have something inconvenient to show up, Immortal Palace will also help you do what you want."


    "I see."


    Yan Yuntian was finally relieved after hearing his words because they meant that Immortal Palace wouldn''t lord it over him as Divine Wind Palace did. Furthermore, they would even give him a favor and compete with Divine Wind Palace when he needed help. Anyway, it was still too early to consider these things.


    Human Emperor Palace was within the sphere of influence of Divine Wind Palace and was someone else''s territory. The dragon, as said, does not oppress the local bully. If the relationship with Divine Wind Palace was rocky from the very beginning, he would be the only one who suffered from it.


    As he realized all this, he decided to sit back. It was said the candidates of Human Emperor on the history always suffered natural deaths, but if he really irritated Divine Wind Palace, he was likely to get himself killed.


    "By the way, I heard that you did a good job in the Northwest. The whole northwest region now has centered on your Wuyang Region and also built lots of palaces!" After thinking about it, he decided to drive this matter away for now and changed the subject.


    "I built a Sea-calming Palace!" Hearing Yan Yuntian suddenly mentioning it, Zhou Bao felt puzzled for a moment and immediately understood what he truly wanted. "Why? Father wants to move the Human Emperor Palace into Wuyang Region, don''t you?"


    "Not really, but I do have the right to decide where my temporary imperial abode is located at as the candidate of Human Emperor, don''t I?"


    "Your temporary imperial abode? that''s not a good excuse. However, how is it possible to stay in your temporary imperial abode for a lifetime?"


    "So what? It''s no big deal to be a bad emperor. I suppose Yu Taixu of Divine Wind Palace wouldn''t like to guard me all day long." Yan Yuntian laughed.


    "I don''t know if he would like to guard you all day long, but I don''t like to see you all day long! " Zhou Bao shook his head. "You just got to be the candidate of Human Emperor. I think you''d better take it easy and stay here for a while. Don''t get yourself in trouble."


    Yan Yuntian hearing Zhou Bao putting it so bluntly, let out a wry smile across his lips. "Hey, boy! Can''t you be a little more tactful?"


    "You''re not even a beauty. Why should I be that tactful?" Zhou Bao rolled his eyes and continued, "Since I can''t go to the Infinite Star Sea, I''ll go back first. I''ve been wasting a lot of time here. Yunfei might be very worried about me. I have to be off now!"


    "Fine, go away. Since I''m already crowned I should not have anyone daring to hold a grudge against me." Yan Yuntian changed his joyful expression for a sadder one as he heard Zhou Bao was leaving.


    Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony has come to an end, and he had successfully become a candidate of Human Emperor and mastered the justice and power of the whole world. However, it was all merely nominal. He was a bit reluctant to accept it, but he knew clearly that he could do nothing. Even if he didn''t want to, it was not possible to take back all the authorities at once. Since he could do nothing, the only thing he could do was to wait silently for the best opportunity to rise again. After so many years of being an emperor, he has grown as a man with foresight.


    "By the way, there is one more thing I have to tell you! " Yan Yuntian seemed to think of something important, and he suddenly looked grim.


    "What is it?"


    "About that Supreme Fairy Weapon and our macro world, I know some secrets of them!" Yan Yuntian looked up and said in a low voice to Zhou Bao. "Although I don''t keep power, as a candidate of Human Emperor, however, along these three days I have been informed of a lot of extremely secretive news, and only the five biggest sects know them clearly!"


    Zhou Bao nearly burst out laughing when he heard about the weapon. He just wanted to hear some secrets about the macro world from Yan Yuantian himself, and it seemed to have worked great!


    Yan Yuntian had no option but to tell Zhou Bao about this matter and the secrets of the macro world. He was the candidate of Human Emperor indeed, but at the same time, he was just a commander without soldiers. Looking around, none of them in Divine Wind Palace subordinated themselves to him, and none could be used by him. Only Zhou Bao, his talented son-in-law, who assisted him in ascending the throne, could be trusted. In addition to this, he expected to take advantage of Zhou Bao''s connections to make close contact with Immortal Palace to be able to compete against Divine Wind Palace in the future. Immortal Palace would not conceal anything from Zhou Bao due to his strength and influence for too long. If he waited until the Immortal Palace would tell him everything clearly, he was going to be in a passive position by that time. In fact, what he was most worried about before was that Zhou Bao had already known something, but now he saw Zhou Bao''s expression which indicated he had no clue about it. He was greatly relieved.


    "You''ve already seen the power of the Supreme Fairy Weapon, but it has some restrictions and can''t exist within our macro world."


    "The Supreme Fairy Weapon, as its name implies, has a superior power" Whenever Yan Yuntian said "Supreme Fairy Weapon", Zhou Bao''s eyes glittered with jealousy and, of course, a hint of admiration.


    "The weapon itself is not necessarily that important, but the point is I had no clue what the messages it left meant the first time I saw them."


    "Do you understand them now?" Raising his eyebrows, Zhou Bao looked a bit curious. "I remembered the Supreme Fairy Weapon was saying something like the Heaven Realm as it left. What was it all about?"


    "The macro world where we reside was the one where the Heaven Realm was located in antiquity times." Yan Yuntian tried to calm down. Every time he thought of this matter, he actually couldn''t help but tremble with fear.


    Indeed, the Heaven Realm which ruled heavens and realms was such a powerful world. What does it look like?


    However, the Heaven Realm was no longer what it used to be, it has completely declined, it was a mere shadow of what it used to be.


    "You must know something about the 33 Heavens, right? The Taiyuan Heaven, which you''ve been to, is also a micro world." Looking at Zhou Bao, Yan Yuntian explained unhurriedly. "Although there are a few Principles of Great Ways in the micro worlds, they are not complete, so they cannot be called a real world. The world in which we live can be called a macro world. The Principle of Great Ways of the macro world is complete, and there are sun, moon, thunder, independent will, and endless space and time. This is a true macro world!"


    "In the endless hollow, there are countless macro worlds similar to ours. Some of them are very strong and some are very weak. However, in antiquity times, the most powerful macro world was ours, also known as the Heaven Realm. The ruler of the Heaven Realm was the Jade Emperor who not only ruled over it but also all the heavens and realms of the universe. Almost all the macro worlds were subjected to him. At that time, there were countless macro worlds around the Heaven Realm divided into 99 Star Areas. These Star Areas were controlled by the 99 Emperors of the antiquity times. Each of them had an immeasurable influence, and they could even determine if a macro world lived or died. They were extremely imposing!" His eyes involuntarily showed a hint of yearning as if he recalled the glorious days of the Heaven Realm.


    "What happened then?"


    "Then that tribulation came upon us. Unfortunately, no one knew the details of this tribulation, even the five biggest sects have no clue. They just know that tribulation was called the Necromancer''s Tribulation. After that, the strength of the Heaven Realm was greatly damaged, the 99 Emperors lost more than half of their strength, and the rest were seriously injured. At the same time, the strength of each macro world was booming. Seizing the opportunity, they began to plot together secretly. The Jade Emperor noticed that something was wrong and decided to take a bold step and move the entire Heaven Realm from the Central Star Area into an unknown space by casting a surprising Divine Sense of Great Way of Heavens and Realms!"

 555 Borrowing Treasures

    Yan Yuntian remained in the Divine Wind Palace; so did the suzerains of the five biggest sects. Ever since the Supreme Fairy Weapon first appeared, their sense of crisis had suddenly increased. They were desperately in need of something to make them feel safe. The exploration of the Infinite Star Sea became the life-saving straw. However, no one really knew what these crafty guys were secretly planning.


    Zhou Bao didn''t have that much pressure and was in a good mood. He had successfully diverted the attention of the people from the five biggest sects, people who might otherwise have other intentions towards him. This was a relief.


    Before he could decide what to do, an unexpected visitor caught him unprepared.


    "What do you think of my Wuyang Region? Isn''t it wonderful? Look! The Sea-calming Palace is over there. The Immortal Palace has paid for it!" Zhou Bao pointed a large area of palaces on the Jilei Mountain out to Ji Yeyue. "If the northwest region could be regarded as well governed under my hand, then I should be good at governing the world. Don''t you think?"


    Looking at Zhou Bao, who was pointing vigorously, Ji Yeyue covered her mouth and chuckled. "King Wuyang you are truly awesome! You''re the best in both governance and martial arts. You should have a place among the Human Emperor candidates!"


    "Hahahaha, that''s what I was thinking when I was in the Human Emperor Palace. But I still had a lot of things to do at home. I was too busy!"


    "I know you are a busy man. I would not have come to see you today, but I had no choice!"


    "Don''t say that. The Wuyang Region is honored by your presence. I''ve been longing for you to visit!"


    "That''s so sweet!" Ji Yeyue shook her head and smiled bitterly. "To be honest, I do have a favor to ask!"


    "What is it? As long as it''s within my power, I won''t refuse!" Zhou Bao said confidently, as if there was nothing he couldn''t do.


    "I''ve come here to borrow something from Your Royal Highness!"


    "Borrow something?!" Zhou Bao was confused. "What do you want to borrow?"


    "The trip to the Infinite Star Sea will be full of opportunities, Divine Fates and danger. I''m not powerful enough. Without a celestial device, I will probably die out there. I would like to borrow some Pure Yang Celestial Devices from you for protection!"


    "I see. You''re one of the people exploring the Infinite Star Sea!" Zhou Bao nodded. Everyone knew he had many treasures. In addition to the several Pure Yang Celestial Devices he already possessed, he had gathered three more from the Bigwheel Temple. It was said that even though they had been defeated in the Sea Area, he had killed a Four-tribulation True Immortal and benefited greatly. The treasures he had collected included many Pure Yang Celestial Devices. The two Pure Yang Celestial Devices he displayed in the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony were enough to be the envy of everyone present. They were both Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices.


    "You want to borrow a weapon. That''s easy!" Zhou Bao smiled and added, "I have many celestial devices. Do you want to pick them yourself?"


    "I''m so flattered!" Ji Yeyue was taken aback. Zhou Bao was doing such a huge favor for her, she didn''t dare to ask too much. "I don''t have much power. Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices would be beyond my capabilities. I couldn''t give the fullest play to their functions. It would be a waste."


    "Then, you mean..."


    "I just want to borrow two Medium Grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices, the ones from the Bigwheel Temple. One is the Evil Knife Thousand Snakes Pill and the other is the Tower of Seven Treasures!"


    "The Evil Knife Thousand Snakes Pill and the Tower of Seven Treasures!"


    Zhou Bao would have forgotten about these if she hadn''t mentioned them. They were among the three Pure Yang Celestial Devices that the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple had compensated him with. The Evil Knife Thousand Snakes Pill, though powerful, was much too evil and was therefore confined in the Tower of Seven Treasures. Although Zhou Bao had the power to tame it, he had never found the time; he was too busy. It was surprising that Ji Yeyue would pick these two weapons.


    "I can offer you the Evil Knife Thousand Snakes Pill anytime you want, but not the Tower of Seven Treasures. I''ve been studying the Divine Sense of Buddhism and the Tower of Seven Treasures could be very useful to me!" He glanced over Ji Yeyue and continued, "I accidentally received another Pure Yang Celestial Device specifically used for defense. It is as effective as the Tower of Seven Treasures. What do you think?" He moved his fingers. A silk scarf surrounded by cyan light appeared in his hand.


    "I took it from the people of the Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty when I was fighting for the Inner Elixir of the Evil Fire Kylin. It has great defense performance. If I wasn''t a master in fists, I probably wouldn''t be able to break through it. It is even better than the Tower of Seven Treasures in terms of defense!"


    "The Green Plain Brocade!" A bright light flashed in her eyes when Ji Yeyue saw the scarf, "Did the Youxian Temple lose this celestial device?!"


    "Yes, it''s very effective. You can have a try!" Zhou Bao handed the scarf to her immediately.


    "Wow! Thank you!" Ji Yeyue didn''t refuse. She took the scarf. "Thanks so much! When I return from the Infinite Star Sea, I will come and express my thanks again!"


    "Then you have to come back alive!" Zhou Bao smiled. He took out the Evil Knife Thousand Snakes Pill and wiped the evil Qi out from the sword body. "The Thousand Snakes Pill is very evil. I could have eliminated all its evil Qi, but it seems that some Divine Sense of this knife is related to it. I better not do anything until I discover all its secrets. That''s why I suppressed the evil Qi for the time being. Now that you''ve asked for it, you should know how to handle it. It''s all yours!"


    Ji Yeyue took the Thousand Snakes Pill. A grateful look spread across her face. Suddenly, her expression changed. She cupped her hands, bid farewell and quickly disappeared.


    "Hehe, why does she have such a reaction at the sight of my wife? Does the little beauty have feelings for me?" Zhou Bao couldn''t help laughing. He rubbed his chin, turned around and asked smilingly, "Yunfei, why are you here?"


    "Oh, nothing. They said you were here, and I just wanted to see if you''re alright!" Yan Yunfei said. She spoke insincerely, betrayed by her expression.


    "Hehe, that was not a visitor, just an old friend. Ji Yeyue, Jade Pool''s proud disciple. She enjoyed a reputation equal to me once upon a time. We were among the Top Four Teen Experts of Jin. You must have heard of her!"


    Seeing Zhou Bao''s frank expression, Yan Yunfei was rather relieved. "The Top Four Teen Experts of Jin. I remember. One of them is my cousin. I heard his reputation in the martial arts world is growing higher and higher. Three months ago, he reached the Level Eight Expert Realm. He is among the few experts in the world now!"


    "Really?!" Zhou Bao was a bit surprised. He hadn''t heard about it. In recent years, his focus had been on a much higher level. He cared little about people below the Mysterious Realm, except for some intimate friends. He had never thought that guy, originally a Level Seven, would be able to become a Level Eight in just a few years.


    It should be noted that only his combat capability had improved. His cultivation, on the other hand, had not progressed so quickly. After all, not everyone could be as lucky as Zhou Bao. They didn''t have a macro world, a fairy weapon, and a Primordial Fierce Beast at the same time. These things were legendary for ordinary martial arts practitioners.


    Now, Zhou Bao''s personal contacts were all great figures above the Mysterious Realm. Some of them were even Venerables or Genuine Immortals. This was a matter of level. When he was a Level Seven, he only knew a few experts, aside from the Venerable Black Turtle. His first actual contact with Mysterious Realm experts had happened when he harassed the Mingyi School. The Mysterious Realm Individual Immortals had scared him away without even showing up.


    This was strength.


    He was able to acquaint himself with this many Genuine Immortals and Venerables only because his strength had reached a certain level. On the contrary, if he had not reached this level, it would be nearly impossible for him to see a Mysterious Realm expert.


    Without an opportunity like his, it was extremely difficult for one to continue moving up after achieving Level Seven. The boy in the Yan Family had reached Level Eight within just a few years, indicating that he did have some strength and was worthy of the name, Top Four Teen Experts.


    "In that case, your cousin is quite capable!" Zhou Bao smiled, "Have you come to see me just to tell me this?"


    Looking at the teasing smile on his face, Yan Yunfei blushed with shyness. She cast a fierce glance over him. "I''m not talking to you anymore!" Just as she was about to turn around and leave, Zhou Bao grabbed her hand and held her in his arm.


    "Your father is a candidate for the Human Emperor now, just as he had expected. He probably won''t have the energy to be the emperor of Jin. I wonder if your Brother Prince is prepared!"


    "How come you are suddenly interested in such things?" Yan Yunfei asked curiously. Zhou Bao had always been indifferent to the current events of the kingdom, no matter if there were other people around or not. He had seemed to only care about his Wuyang Region in the northwest. What was happening to him? She didn''t understand her father''s intention of competing for the candidate of the Human Emperor either. She only knew that it was important. Zhou Bao''s interference then was understandable. But there was no need for him to care about the Emperor of Jin. Why was he suddenly interested in it?


    "Nothing. I''ve just been interested in the Way of the Emperor recently!" Zhou Bao smiled. As he became more and more powerful, his horizons expanded and his attitude changed. He no longer turned his nose up at the throne. In fact, things like strength and birth destiny were becoming more and more mysterious to him. There seemed to be something hidden behind. He had once believed that everyone had an equal chance of becoming the emperor. But his understanding turned out to be wrong. It was impossible that as long as he had enough strength, he could do whatever he wanted. God had his own plan. Ever since the Supreme Fairy Weapon had shown up, the hostility from the entire macro world was too clear for him to ignore. He was far from able to contend against such almighty power of the weapon. This was the reason he had chosen to retreat. Otherwise, he would not have been in a rush. He should have killed Yu Taixu before everything else.

 556 Mutual Suppor

    "You might not know why the Necromancer''s Tribulation happened, but I do." Zhou Bao said in his heart. Then he remembered when he''d seen Silver Frost Castle in the Star Area of Azure Big World that day. "It seems Silver Frost Castle is really from another macro world. When I encounter it, I got carried away by my greed. However, it was not that bad for me actually because the people there didn''t take action due to their suspicion, but unfortunately, if those two guys hadn''t died, I could have found out some secrets from other macro worlds as well."


    It was indeed a pity, but since it has already happened and cannot be changed, Zhou Bao would not keep lamenting about it anymore. There would be many chances in the future.


    At present, the most compelling problem for them was the Infinite Star Sea. Nobody would guess that the Supreme Fairy Weapon had been created by him, so he was in a good position. What''s more, nobody would believe him if he made a confession. The Supreme Fairy Weapon, after all, was a mere tale. Even the suzerains from the five biggest sects who were passed on by their ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago have never seen such a thing. Thus, all these suzerains felt as he did when he saw a UFO or aliens in his previous life: with confusion and anxiety. They would also consider it as an opportunity to leave the Heaven Realm and to explore other macro worlds and Star Areas as well as manage the power from other macro worlds. As a result, the trip to the Infinite Star Sea was scheduled in advance.


    "Do you really think you can stop me from going to the Infinite Star Sea, huh? Come on! All I need to do is to have the coordinates and then I can go without a Transmitting Formation. It won''t take too long with the power of the Great Way of Heavens and Realms added to the Supreme Fairy Weapon." Zhou Bao thought in his mind. "But since they want to stop me, I''m convinced they won''t take me to the magic formation. So should I take this chance to sneak there?"


    Touching his chin, Zhou Bao was pondering the possibility of reaching the Infinite Star Sea from Penglai Region to the Transmitting Formation of the Central Mainland Region.


    "Are you still thinking about going to the Infinite Star Sea?" asked Elder Qing, watching his frowning face.


    "Yes. I think it will be a great experience to explore other Star Areas. You know, I''m the kind of person who has some luck. If I make it to Infinite Star Sea, maybe I will run into some Divine Fate or Supreme Fairy Weapon!" he joked.


    "Hahahaha, stop dreaming!" Elder Qing laughed after hearing what Zhou Bao said. "You think the Supreme Fairy Weapon is cabbage, don''t you?"


    "Of course not, and neither is the Pure Yang Celestial Device!" Zhou Bao smiled.


    "Totally different!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Elder Qing seemed confounded a moment and then his eyes flashed with a bizarre look. "Celestial devices and fairy weapons are two entirely different things. One with mere fate would not easily get fairy weapon. Get real, buddy! The Infinite Star Sea is not a place you can explore."


    "Is there anything else about Infinite Star Sea you know?"


    "No. All I know is that there used to be only half a Void Map and the other half was missing, so we couldn''t explore it deeply. However, the five biggest sects have explored around the Transmitting Formation and the conclusion we got was extremely dangerous!"


    "Since it is so dangerous, why did you take positive action?"


    "Because we achieved a lot, too!" Elder Qing sighed as if it reminded him of something from long ago. "As a Star Area, the Infinite Star Sea is different from the Azure Heaven. Micro worlds like Azure Heaven and Taiyuan Heaven are just full of spiritual qi and endless resources, but the Infinite Star Sea is quite exceptional. The first time we tried to explore it, Divine Wind Palace surprisingly got a fairy weapon which was the leaf-shaped one you saw on Taiyuan Heaven. Moreover, other sects got lots of Pure Yang Celestial Devices, magic weapons, materials, classics, celestial devices from antiquity times and even smelting methods of fairy weapon."


    "You''re kidding me?" Zhou Bao was really surprised. He hadn''t expected they would have achieved so much by just exploring around the Transmitting Formation. If he himself dug deeper, there would be probably more. Zhou Bao suddenly became more tempted.


    "It was because of these achievements we got, that all of us were fully prepared to go deeply to the Infinite Star Sea again. However, we suffered great losses that time. We had hundreds of people who were Individual Immortals higher than Mysterious Realm. In the end, less than ten people made it back, the others were all stuck in the Infinite Star Sea."


    "What''s wrong? Have you got into any troubles?!"


    "I don''t know. I was there only for the first time. For the second time, only two people came back alive. One of them was seriously injured and the other went mad. When all the information was gathered together, we found out there were many restricted areas in Infinite Star Sea, and all of these restricted areas were extremely dangerous. Accidents would happen unless you were really careful. And there were incredibly powerful and mysterious creatures above a huge star in the Infinite Star Sea. These creatures were stronger than Metaphysic Individual Immortals, and some of them even reached the level of Lord of Heaven. Our people were no rivals at all against them. Since then, no one dared to go deep into Infinite Star Sea, but the surrounding area of the Transmitting Formation was completely explored several times. Therefore, it would be useless to go again because we could get nothing there. We have been searching for the other half of the Void Map and no one expected that it would be in Yan Yuntian''s hands!"


    "My father-in-law seems so sophisticated!" Zhou Bao smiled. "How could he screw around on me and achieve everything only with that half of the Void Map!"


    "You''re wrong. It was due to your strength that he finally got everything. The Void Map was just an excuse." Shaking his head, Elder Qing replied. "Now everyone believes you''re the trump card cultivated by our Immortal Palace, but you know you also have another identity. The real one behind you is the Fate Creation Boy rather than us."


    "How could you know it!"


    "Fate Creation Boy has been so mysterious. I actually have no interest in him, but this time he hid behind us as a shield. I''d say he owed us a favor."


    "How could your Immortal Palace care about him with your current strength?" Zhou Bao smiled, "Actually, I knew little about him too."


    "Of course I know that. In terms of his acting style, everything he does means a lot. So it''s quite natural he would not tell you his real purpose!"


    "That''s true!" Seeing Elder Qing agree with him, Zhou Bao secretly breathed a sigh of relief and continued. "Since the Infinite Star Sea is so dangerous, why did you send only one Lord of Heaven?"


    "It''s no use sending too many people!" Elder Qing shook his head and continued, "the biggest problem for us to Infinite Star Sea is just that there is no ideal path. We suffered a good loss last time because we didn''t have the Void Map. We were so impulsive and ended up in the forbidden place. Actually, the forbidden places are labeled on the other half of the Void Map. If we had the complete map, we could''ve avoided these places."


    "Does Void Map really have such effects?"


    "It is the result of the ancestors'' exploration. Where they could go, where they couldn''t, and where there is any danger. They are all clearly marked one by one, even in some strange places, vanity maps will automatically refresh and clearly tell the most detailed situation of that place!" his eyes showed yearning and admiration as he spoke."In ancient times, this was the celestial world. Countless great supernatural beings left our world to explore the endless vanity, and these vanity maps were handed down at that time. Every great avatar who returned safely will see and hear what he saw. In addition to those who really want to explore the unknown regions, there are many immortals who''d like to roam the void. Vanity map is an essential tool! "


    "I didn''t expect that Void Map was so important!" Shaking his head, Zhou Bao finally realized why the five biggest sects cared about it so much.


    "So you must know something about the Infinite Star Sea from the Void Map, right?"


    "Not too much. The Void Map can only react and covey more messages when it''s within the Infinite Star Sea." Elder Qing smiled and continued, "But don''t worry. We just have to try this time. If we get on well this time, I''m sure we''ll have many opportunities when we have the complete Void Map in the future."


    "I''m afraid the most benefits will be taken at the first time."


    "Maybe. However, the Infinite Star Sea is pretty big. It is not easy to take away everything in one shot. I believe you will succeed in reaching into the Infinite Star Sea with your current strength and the help of the Human Emperor." As the implication in these words was very clear, Zhou Bao comprehended what he meant. He smiled and replied, "The candidate of Human Emperor still needs my support at present, so how could he support me? However, I have to admit that I do need your help. After all, we need to help each other, right?"


    "Right! Right! We''d better support each other." Elder Qing nodded his head with a look of complete satisfaction.

 557 Boundless Sea Area and Prime Minister Zhong Jr.

    "Although it is said the Heaven Realm has already declined, the original power of this macro world is still enormous. The Azure Big World is also some kind of macro world, but it is much poorer in comparison. Anyone without a strong willpower would be shattered by its tremendous power. Ordinary people can never compete with that!" Earlier in the Azure Big World, the flow of horrific messages from the Jade Plate of Fate conveyed to him was still engraved deeply in his mind.


    Now that it has been determined that in the macro world there was some kind of unseen destiny which could dominate everything, he could no longer act recklessly.


    Except for the five biggest sects, the nearest to the unseen destiny in the whole world was the throne.


    That is the throne of the emperor.


    One who could beat all the rivals to the throne is undoubtedly the chosen by destiny, and only such a person could secure the throne. Some other people may work hard to secure a place in the world. However, it was certainly sheer luck. They could never secure the most distinguished position and would eventually end up descending from the throne.


    On the other hand, Zhou Bao had already witnessed Yan Yuntian full of auspicious fate which could even overshadow the fate of the Heavenly Crown of Peace when crowned as Human Emperor. At that moment, Zhou Bao could even feel the dark purple fate surrounding him nearly condensed into substance, and he also wafted a strong smell of Qi of heaven and earth. Although he has despised his father-in-law, he had to treat him with caution and cared much about Jin. Nowadays, Jin was said to be the biggest dynasty in the Central Mainland Region, so the throne no doubt has been the center of attention.


    Since Yan Yuntian had reached the peak of his strength, his power weakened severely after two accidents. However, he remained in firm control of the whole situation. Now that he became the candidate of Human Emperor, he would be considered dead for the dynasty. So who should succeed to the throne of Jin?


    The Crown Prince should be the one to succeed to the throne, naturally.


    Yan Yuntian had many sons who were in the prime of life and full of ambition, and even each one of their birth destinies was rather imperatorial.


    Anyway, all went according to one''s strength, and the one who had this was only Yan Yuntian.


    Now nobody could doubt his position. As he gave up the throne, his son would succeed to the throne of Jin as expected.


    Regardless of the opposition of his other sons, they could not do anything as nobody would support a Prince who has lost his power and influence at the risk of offending the candidate of Human Emperor.


    Fortunately, the Crown Prince was a merciful person. He wouldn''t criticize severely his ambitious brothers. Instead, he put his heart and soul into affairs of his state. As the Regent of Jin, he hasn''t ascended to the throne now for he had to wait until the ascending ceremony, and the candidate of Human Emperor must be in the ascending ceremony.


    ince the trip to Infinite Star Sea was the main focus of Yan Yuntian, he didn''t even bother to think about the big changes of Jin. This was the reason why the Crown Prince had the buffer time to get himself prepared.


    "Brother Prince has already prepared himself, but I guess he wants to wait for our father. Do you think my father is so busy that the ascending ceremony will have to be delayed, Zhou Bao?"


    "Of course he''s busy. He''s up to something of utmost importance!" Zhou Bao smiled bitterly and continued, "The present cannot compare with the past. Your father now is not only the King of Jin but also the leader of the entire Four Eastern Regions. All the chiefs in the world should obey him. What he does is for the entire Four Eastern Regions rather than just Jin. So I suppose it doesn''t really matter to delay the ascending ceremony. As long as Brother Prince is patient and doesn''t act on impulse, everything will just be fine."


    "What are you so worried about?"


    "As long as he doesn''t offend me, nobody will be able to threaten his throne. Otherwise, nobody can protect him from me." Zhou Bao said in a flat voice which showed his sheer confidence and dignity.


    "How would it be possible to offend you? I don''t think Brother Prince would lose his mind to do so."


    "Yes, I believe in him, so his throne is as steady as Mount Tai."


    "Mount Tai? What do you mean?" Yan Yunfei was confused and her question somehow embarrassed Zhou Bao, because the customs and language here were similar to ancient China but there wasn''t a Mount Tai in this place.


    "That is just a mountain in the Penglai Region. If there is a chance, I''ll take you there."


    "Really?" Yan Yunfei''s eyes lit up. Since she got married in the Wuyang Region, she has never left there except when she went back to the capital city. Although Wuyang Region became more and more prosperous, powerful and majestic and it gave a weird sense of achievement, she was eagerly looking forward to walking around out of the Wuyang Region.


    Zhou Bao looked at her cheerful face and felt a flicker of interest. He knew Yan Yunfei has been trapped in the Wuyang Region these years after she had married to him. Zhou Bao himself was not the one who managed household affairs in the family, but Yan Yunfei kept all the things in perfect order. He suddenly felt he owed her a lot. However, he was reluctant to express his own emotions, so he didn''t pour out all his feelings and just said, "Penglai Region means nothing. If possible, I''ll take you far away and have a look at a completely different world."


    "A completely different world?"


    "Yes! I promise as long as you won''t be scared then." Zhou Bao said, grinning at her. Then he patted Yan Yunfei''s back softly and they cuddled together in the garden, in a warm and sweet moment.


    The white storm heaved huge waves up to the sky.


    Undoubtedly, the sea was the most extensive and powerful area among the Heaven Realm.


    Likewise, as the Celestial Emperor in the Sea Area had such power and endless resources and subordinates, he could easily be the strongest figure in the entire Heaven Realm.


    To put it bluntly, Seven-deity Regions was simply the largest island and maintained the most special status within the sea in the Heaven Realm.


    For human beings in Seven-deity Regions, the Sea Emperor has been a mystery so far. Since antiquity times, speculation has been growing about him either by the Four Eastern Regions or by the Three Western Regions. The Elders, Highest Elders and other suzerains in large sects have also had a growing interest in the Sea Emperor, but nobody was able to dig out anything about him.


    It could be said that the Sea Emperor was the most mysterious figure in the Heaven Realm.


    It was known to all that the Sea Area was boundless, but there were quite a few formidable figures in the Seven-deity Regions like Genuine Immortals of Lord of Heaven Realm who mastered Dharma of space and had a superhuman power like teleportation. It was natural that the vast Sea Area could not hold them back, but actually, only these powerful Lords of Heaven knew that the activity range of human beings was limited in the Seven-deity Regions among the Heaven Realm, approximately 1,800 kilometers.


    No matter how high your accomplishment was or how strong your strength was, your activity range in the Heaven Realm was only 1,800 kilometers centered on the Seven-deity Regions.


    It was really no big deal for ordinary people, but such range was more like a huge prison for these Lords of Heaven.


    It was nothing less than a shame for those who knew the ropes. Since antiquity times, many facts have proven that you would be attacked furiously by Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area without exception once you stepped out the range, no matter how unwilling or shameful you were.


    Therefore, nobody knew what it was exactly 1,800 kilometers away from human beings in the Seven-deity Regions.


    Nobody knew what it was 1,800 kilometers away, and nobody knew how big the macro world actually was. Thus, the Sea Emperor seemed more of a mystery.


    At that time, there was an island more than 150 million kilometers away from the Seven-deity Regions. The island was different because it was extremely dark blue entirely, like a huge blue jade.


    This blue island was rare in the Sea Area, without a single building or grass and full of spiritual Qi.


    "What is wrong with those Human Tribes in the Seven-deity Regions again? How dare they bother Prime Minister Zhong so we had to rush here?"


    At this moment, several shadows were looming on the horizon, approaching swiftly to the island. These shadows looked brilliant and dazzling and each of them looked like a good-looking human being. However with a second look, it was clear every single one of them had non-human characteristics.


    For example, some had scales on the forehead, and others had gills behind the ears or horns on the head. These features clearly indicated that they were Demonic Immortals who had pulled from Thunder Tribulation and transformed from the Demon tribe, rather than Human Tribe.


    "I don''t know. As Prime Minister Zhong Jr. called a meeting in person, I guess there must be something happening." A young and handsome man who had o horn on his forehead said, "Maybe it was related to the abnormal weather earlier, I guess."


    "I think so. What else could the Human Tribe do, since they have lost their influence?"


    "I have no idea. Let''s wait and see how things go."


    They said that while walking. When they had almost arrived, they were suddenly shrouded by several blue rays that came out from the island. After a while, all of them have vanished as the lights faded.

 558 Shocking News

    "What? The Supreme Fairy Weapon is arriving?"


    Blue light pulled them into an unknown space.


    It was a pure blue space where the blue pneuma in the form of substance was everywhere. In front of them was a blue vortex consisting of blue pneuma. This vortex was thousands of meters wide and was slowly and silently revolving around a deep singularity.


    A blue mirror suspended itself above the vortex. The mirror clearly showed the situation when the Supreme Fairy Weapon appeared at the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony.


    Even the arrogance of the battleship was also shown. People there were all Genuine Immortals of Lord of Heaven Realm. However, they dared not to take a deep breath under the pressure of the Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    "Don''t worry. This Supreme Fairy Weapon has already left because it got frightened by the Heaven Realm''s essence willpower. But nobody can guarantee what the outside macro world will do once they find the weapon''s specific position!" That powerful vortex released a formidable consciousness which was greatly impressed on those Lords of Heaven''s mind. "This time, I called you up here not only for this thing. Human beings in the Seven-deity Regions have already found the complete Infinite Star Sea Void Map. They are going to enter the Infinite Star Sea some day. It''s an opportunity for us. You just pick up some people and bring them to the transmission platform. I can send them to the Infinite Star Sea. I''m going to let them watch for the proper moment for action and seize back the Void Map in Infinite Star Sea."


    "Yes, sir!"


    "Only one of you go. It''s not good to send too many people there!" The Sea Emperor''s idea echoed in their heads. "But, you must bring back the Void Map. Even if you kill the whole Human Tribe, I don''t care!" After the words, the surrounding blue pneuma began to surge and sent all of them out of this eccentric space before they agreed.


    "Lady Du, want to seize the Void Map with us? It''s a shady thing. You''re good at it!" The voice came from the space outside the island. A handsome man laughed with a horn on his head.


    "What do you mean? What''s ''shady''?" Lady Du''s look changed. A bright red flashed in her red scale between the eyebrows. Her eyes also became stern. "Humph. I won''t be involved in this. If you want to go there, just do it. Don''t forget you''re managing the Tianya Sea, and the Seven-deity Regions are in your control. Last time, your subordinate suffered a great loss. So, you can send him there!"


    "You don''t mind my subordinate taking all the credit?"


    "If he has the ability to do so, just do it. I don''t care about sh*t credit!" Lady Du rolled her eyes and stopped talking any more, leaving with the wind.


    "What do you think?"


    "Since your people regard them as enemies, just let him do it. Thus, even if he killed all of them, he has a reasonable excuse. Otherwise, once the Human Tribe in Seven-deity Regions makes trouble, it will be hard to handle!"


    "In the past years, the Human Tribe has been restless. They startled Prime Minister Wan because of the Golden Book of Fate. And this time, even Prime Minister Zhong. It''s time to give him a lesson!" The handsome person with a horn on his head said. However, when raising his head, he found that others had already left, leaving him alone muttering to himself.


    "Hehe. Those guys. Don''t you know I know your thoughts? You think you can escape this. After I get those benefits, don''t expect me to share them!" The handsome man sneered and also disappeared with the wind. Only the rough sea and mysterious blue island were here now.


    A layer of black smoke was floating in the air, turning into different forms. Finally, it slowed into a single form and coiled around Zhou Bao'' waist as if it was a snake.


    It was Infinite Poison Banner, a Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade. Although its name was Infinite Poison Banner, it did not have a uniform form. In other people''s eyes, it was just a mass of black smoke.


    As the refiner for this Pure Yang Celestial Device, Zhou Bao could clearly feel through telepathic connection that, in the black smoke, the talisman formation, which consisted of three evil and strange talismans, faintly reflected the shadow of a Primordial Fierce Beast.


    The Fierce Beast looked like a giant snake with nine ferocious heads, revealing a savage, grim and terrible air. It was the Nine-headed Fierce Beast, a Primordial Fierce Beast, one of the Six Royals. Around it was many strange things circling. Actually, they were the poisonous things absorbed by Zhou Bao''s Poison Cold Shield. After having been refined by the Infinite Poison Banner, it became more pure and intelligent, so it formed shadows. Nine-headed Fierce Beast''s shadow was mainly reflected in the visional shadows, which was attributed to its great poison. A thin scarlet fog wrapped the shadows, which exactly showed the final state of Peach Blossom Miasma.


    Those shadows and omens were from the talisman formation with an evil spirit which was at the center of the Infinite Poison Banner.


    "This Infinite Poison Banner is really amazing!" Thinking of the final moment when he was fighting against Senior Grand Tutor Hong, Senior Grand Tutor Hong was attacked by the Poisonous Hitching Post and fell down because of great pain. He intended to use the Infinite Poison Banner. However, Senior Grand Tutor Hong was obviously a person with strong spiritual mind. He felt Zhou Bao''s intention and unhesitatingly launched his final preventive World-solidifying Skill and Divine Sense. What did it mean?


    It meant that Senior Grand Tutor Hong absolutely understood: If he touched the Infinite Poison Banner, he would almost die, let alone cultivation improvement.


    "Even though my Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword is powerful, it''s still hard for me to become a Genuine Immortal of Self-world level when meeting the weapon of Lord of Heaven Realm. I can''t do anything with him, unless I''m willing to consume my pneuma greatly and use the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword''s Natal Sword. Now, this Poisonous Hitching Post and Infinite Poison Banner together could become those Lords of Heaven'' nemesis. And with the help of Flipping Sky Seal and Gold Bracelet, I''m confident to win when facing an Eight-tribulation True Immortal. Now, except for my influence and strength, it seems nobody can affect me!" Zhou Bao thought. Thinking of it, another question occurred to him. "I''m Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket in the Immortal Palace and also Spirit Tortoise, one of the Four Signs. Immortal Palace and I are almost a whole. It''s also unknown even if I plot for the Star Master position. In that Bigwheel Temple, Child-endowing Buddha is also likely to be the Bigwheel Temple''s abbot. And Jade Pool. If I can defeat Ji Yeyue and support her to the Jade Pool Golden Mother, three of the five biggest sects in Four Eastern Regions will be at my side. Besides, with Fate Creation Boy''s strength and Yan Yuntian''s justice fame, it''s easy to suppress Divine Wind Palace and even harm its pneuma and destroy it. Maybe, erm, it''s time to figure out Divine Wind Palace''s strength and bluff!"


    Zhou Bao thought secretly. For many years, it was the first time that he had felt the hope of being able to overthrow the Divine Wind Palace. At that moment, he lost himself in the thought. Meanwhile, his expression was a little bit eccentric. "Seemingly I should overthrow Ji Yeyue before overthrowing Divine Wind Palace. But I don''t know whether I can succeed. If I fail, would she have an opportunity to be the Jade Pool Golden Mother?"


    At the thought of it, Zhou Bao showed an evil smile. At this moment, a peculiar smell suddenly came into the room. He frowned and raised his hands, catching the little monster, dodging from place to place, into his hands. Upon knowing that he was not in the list of those who were qualified to go to the Infinite Star Sea, he sent the little monster to bring the message to Fate Creation Boy. Obviously, the little monster came back now. And Venerable Black Turtle was also here.


    As of his deduction, when he caught the boy, Venerable Black Turtle broke up the space and showed off.


    "Venerable, this time I got into trouble through clever means. Hehe!" Zhou Bao smiled embarrassedly. The only pre-requirement that Venerable Black Turtle had for teaching him the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, one of the Seven Wonderful Techniques, was that Zhou Bao helps him to enter the Infinite Star Sea. But now, their plan went wrong, which made him embarrassed.


    "It doesn''t matter. We just underestimated your strength. We''ve never expected that you would reach such a level. You supported Yan Yuntian to be the Human Emperor candidate and also defeated Hong Taihe!" Mentioning this, Venerable Black Turtle stared at Zhou Bao in a strange way. "Hong Taihe is a Genuine Immortal and has experienced Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder Tribulation. His Self-world was almost perfect. But he had still lost to you!"


    "That only means he''s unlucky!" Zhou Bao shrugged. "Normally, I can''t break up his Self-world. But I practiced Poisonous Hitching Post. It doesn''t kill a person. But it''s completely penetrable. Self-world is no exception. And I also practiced Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast in a good time. It''s an extremely poisonous Pure Yang Celestial Device. I guess Hong Taihe fears that Pure Yang Celestial Device very much, so he has the World-solidifying Skill!"


    "Ah? Hong Taihe is an Eight-tribulation True Immortal. What poison can kill him?" Venerable Black Turtle was interested. He was well-informed. He had already known the fact that Zhou Bao had defeated Hong Taihe and helped Yan Yuntian become the Human Emperor candidate. Nevertheless, he did not have detailed information about the whole story. Now, since Zhou Bao said it, he wanted to know about this poisonous Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    Because Venerable Black Turtle would like to have a look, Zhou Bao thought that it was not good to hide it. Hence, he showed the Infinite Poison Banner. "I accidentally learned a way to practice a poisonous fairy weapon. But I don''t get enough elements, so I merely practiced this Pure Yang Celestial Device. It''s strong. That''s beyond my expectation."


    "Nine... Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast?" He felt a spirit from the Infinite Poison Banner. Pointing at it, Mysterious Turtle Sage suddenly shuddered and cried loudly.

 559 Discouraged and Angry

    Venerable Black Turtle had never expected that Zhou Bao would have refined the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast.


    Although it was a Powerful Divines'' mountain-guarding holy beast at antiquity times, it was not a Primordial Fierce Beast. It just had some blood relationship with Primordial Fierce Beast. The Nine-headed Fierce Beast was one of the Six Royals. The Primordial Fierce Beast at antiquity times greatly surpassed him in terms of the strength and level. Therefore, when Zhou Bao was showing the Infinite Poison Banner, he sensitively felt the Primordial Fierce Beast''s ferocious spirit. He was so scared to have suddenly jumped, like a cat''s tail was stepped on.


    "Yes, It was the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast. But it''s not pure. So, it''s easily refined." Zhou Bao was startled by Venerable Black Turtle''s reaction and explained to him in detail.


    "No wonder... no wonder Hong Taihe used the World-solidifying Skill. This Infinite Poison Banner, if I''m not mistaken, you used Archaic Black Flag''s way for refining the evil Fairy Weapon. But, due to insufficient elements, you refined it to a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Right?"


    "I''m really curious. It seems you guys from the antiquity times know how to refine the celestial device and the way of a Fairy Weapon. Are these ways worthless at antiquity times?"


    "It''s what the necromancers did!" Hearing Zhou Bao mentioned it, Mysterious Turtle Sage''s face showed hatred. "At antiquity times, there were too many necromancers. They researched different strange ways and communicated with others to do tests. The way of refining Fairy Weapons was their main topic. So, at that time, those ways were very popular. People who had a little bit of strength and position could grasp one or two ways, let alone Pure Yang Celestial Device. Archaic Black Flag had the lowest requirement to the elements. But its power was among the strongest ones. It''s typically cheap and fine, so it''s popular!"


    "Really?"


    "Humph. The materials for Archaic Black Flag are basic ones for refining Fairy Weapons. It''s easy to get them then. The most important thing is its poison. If one can get enough poison and refine it to the flag, the flag will be greater and more poisonous. But, even at antiquity times, it''s hard to find Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, for it''s a rare thing. Hong Taihe''s failure is reasonable. Unless he took quick action and intensify his World-solidifying Skill, your poison would dissolve his Self-world. Who know where you found it!"


    Zhou Bao smiled and told him everything about the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. After the description of the whole thing, Mysterious Turtle''s face instantly clouded.


    "Why is there such a thing? This Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast belongs to King Liuli in Fangzhang Region. But you got it. And the Supreme Fairy Weapon showed up. No wonder Fate Creation Boy has not been happy in the past several days. Now I know the reason!"


    "Fate Creation Boy also know the news?"


    "After the Supreme Fairy Weapon showed up, he must know it. But he didn''t tell me. If you didn''t tell me, I would have been living in the dark till now!" Venerable Black Turtle was stroking his chin as if thinking something. After a while, he did not come up with good solution and sighed. "Erm. Well then, since it''s about the Supreme Fairy Weapon, you and I can''t control it. Even Yu Taixu can''t survive the attack of the Supreme Fairy Weapon. Luckily, this time the Supreme Fairy Weapon showed up in the Heaven Realm. If it appeared in the hollow, Yu Taixu couldn''t have escaped it!"


    "Yeah. I''m also curious. I saw that the Supreme Fairy Weapon crashed into the Golden Throne. Then Blackstone Ship ran after Yu Taixu. How did it suddenly disappear?"


    As the Supreme Fairy Weapon''s owner, he clearly knew the reason on this weapon''s disappearance. However, before Venerable Black Turtle, he had to pretend that he was also confused.


    "Of course, it should disappear. Supreme Fairy Weapon can''t be used in the macro world. Otherwise, two Dharmas will come. And the collision of two essences will end up disappearing together!" Venerable Black Turtle said. But he did not tell Zhou Bao at length and changed the topic after a rough explanation. "This time, you''re not in the list. Obviously, the four sects are jealous. With your strength, you''ll certainly gain the best profits once you enter the Infinite Star Sea. So, for balance and fairness, they don''t want to send you there. But it doesn''t matter. They won''t easily touch the seal and inhibition of antiquity times in the Infinite Star Sea. You''re one of the high leaders of Immortal Palace, so you must have a chance to go there in the future!"


    "What if they touch the inhibition of antiquity times?"


    "It''s not a big thing. I saw the list. The most capable person just reached Lord of Heaven Realm. They can''t have any effect on the inhibition of antiquity times!"


    "Now that you''re so confident, I''ve nothing to say. If I have a chance to enter the Infinite Star Sea, I will keep an eye on them!"


    "OK. That''s good. There''s not much to say. Take care!" Venerable Black Turtle seemed to be in a hurry. Obviously, after he had heard Zhou Bao''s descriptions about everything at the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony and also the Supreme Fairy Weapon, he could hardly retain his composure. He wanted to go back and know the details from Fate Creation Boy.


    "Little monster, listen, don''t fart when meeting me next time. It''s impolite. Got it?" After Venerable Black Turtle left, Zhou Bao suddenly lifted the little monster and said angrily.


    "Pu¡ªPu¡ª!


    Another smelly fart made Zhou Bao shiver. He hurled the little monster away and suddenly sneezed. A moment later, the little monster had disappeared. He could not find it anymore.


    "D*mn boy. One day, I will soak it in the cesspit!" Zhou Bao thought furiously.


    Time went by day by day. In the Seven-deity Regions, one more person, Crown Prince Regent of Jin, became the Human Emperor candidate. It was a big change. Anyway, it could not influence Wuyang Region and its development. With Zhou Bao here, neither the imperial court nor the sect was willing to trigger troubles for him.


    Zhou Bao also had several calm days. When he was free, he played with children and Yan Yunfei, improved cultivation or went for a stroll. He really enjoyed it. Time flew! Three months had passed. One day, Zhou Bao and Yan Yunfei were looking into the far-off distance and sunset. Suddenly, he frowned, extended his hands and broke up the hollow. A figure was taken out from the hollow.


    "Golden Rooster? Why are you here?" Junior Leopard said.


    Zhou Bao just felt the unusual movements of the surrounding space as if somebody was approaching him and Yan Yunfei through hollow travel. Those spaces were folded. Force could not cheat Zhou Bao. He just wanted to take the person from the hollow and figured out who it was. However, that person was Golden Rooster.


    Golden Rooster was also shocked after being taken out by Zhou Bao. However, he relaxed when seeing Zhou Bao. All of a sudden, he seemed to think of something and immediately shouted, "Come on! Quickly! Go to Grand Transmitting Formation! Go to Divine Wind Palace! A big thing happened!"


    "What happened? A Human Emperor candidate passed away? Ouch¡ª!" Before finishing his words, he felt his waist was pinched by two fingers and could not help cried out strangely. "You, you used Pure Yang Celestial Device to pinch me!"


    "Humph! How could you feel pain if I didn''t use it?" Yan Yunfei raised her eyebrow. Her left hand touched her right hand. Then a light golden glove disappeared into her sleeve.


    This light golden glove was one of the spoils of war after he had killed Master Jin Hua. It was a Pure Yang Celestial Device of medium level with good power. It was also easy to use secretly, so he gave it to Yan Yunfei for self-protection. However, he did not expect that Yan Yunfei often used it to deal with his waist. When his words made her unhappy, Yan Yunfei would treat him in this way. Like what she had done, she pinched him because he said Yan Yuntian had died.


    Of course, Golden Rooster did not want to be involved in their happy talk and said, "All those who reached the Infinite Star Sea died. Only Wang She came back, but he got seriously hurt!"


    "What? Wang She is dying?" Zhou Bao suddenly stood up, a gloomy spirit radiating from him.


    "Hiss!"


    Zhou Bao''s Qi Power was so strong that it almost terrified Golden Rooster to slump on the ground, even if he was a Level Nine expert.


    "He''s really worthy of an expert who defeated Lord of Heaven. This guy is increasingly unpredictable!" Golden Rooster said in his heart. Yan Yunfei left after hearing that her father was safe. Since Yan Yuntian was in a good condition, she would not be involved in Zhou Bao''s thing. It was her principle.


    "Serious wounds! But he can be saved!" Golden Rooster knew that Zhou Bao and Wang She were close friends. "But now there''s trouble. Many people went there and only he came back. Divine Wind Palace doubted him and detained him for interrogation. They were immovable. Even though White Tiger argued but failed!"


    "Argue for sh*t! Just get him back!" Zhou Bao said angrily, gnashing his teeth. He instantly turned into a green light and disappeared before Golden Rooster.

 560 Breaking In

    "No, this really won''t work, Zhi IX. You shouldn''t bully people. Wang She is one of the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace. I cannot leave him with you at the Divine Wind Palace, I will take him with me."


    "White Tiger, this is not up to you. So many people have gone to the Infinite Star Sea, and now only he has returned alive. This is very serious. We need to find out what happened. Before this is cleared up, he can''t leave the Divine Wind Palace!"


    "You''re joking! Even if we check in the Immortal Palace, when would it be your turn to check in the Divine Wind Palace?" White Tiger''s voice grew even angrier. "I think you have an ulterior motive!"


    "None of this vicious slander!"


    "Hmph, slander? Don''t think that I don''t know! Your School of Five Virtues has been messing around with the Dark Sect for a long time. Their Pneuma-sucking Skill is no secret to you...!"


    Before White Tiger finished speaking, Zhi IX interrupted in exasperation. "I''m telling you, Wang She will stay here. When things will become clear, he will leave...!"


    "I must take him away!"


    "You can try. But I''m going to see if the renowned Penglai White Tiger has the ability to do something shocking."


    This was the Treasure Light Tower in the Divine Wind Palace. White Tiger and Zhi IX did not listen to each other. And those present except those from the Divine Wind Palace and Immortal Palace, and every single man from the other four major sects, all seeing clouds of resentment, seeing both sides quarrel, the light in their eyes constantly shifting moods, did not know which side to support.


    One side of Treasure Light Tower erupted in uproar, and the other side, by the Grand Transmitting Formation, was stifled with worry.


    The candidate for Human Emperor, Yan Yuntian, was sitting in the main seat, with his eyes lowered. He didn''t know what to make of it either.


    "I''m sorry, King Wuyang, what about our friends at the Immortal Palace? Please go back. Right now in the Divine Wind Palace, every sect of suzerain is discussing official business with the Elders. They can''t be disturbed. Please don''t embarrass us!"


    Beside the Grand Transmitting Formation, the four Genuine Immortals of the Venerable Realm from the Divine Wind Palace made a simple battle array and surrounded Zhou Bao and the Golden Rooster to try and force them back to the Formation. But when they saw Zhou Bao''s glare, they were filled with fear. This guy defeated Hong Taihe. The Eight-tribulation True Immortals and the Lord of Heaven Realm are not adversaries to him. How could the four Venerables control him? They depend on the Divine Wind Palace after all. They are all betting that Zhou Bao would not dare cause trouble on Divine Wind Palace territory. At the end of the day, although he is powerful, the Divine Wind Palace is not weak. A powerful dragon cannot defeat a snake in its own domain. Here in the Penglai Region, Zhou Bao will not destroy everything around him just to fight.


    urprisingly, Zhou Bao did not buy it at all. He glanced at them severely. "Golden Rooster, just stay there chatting. Meanwhile, I''ll work on getting us out!" Then, he ignored them. In an instant, the Three Realms Division that was being used right between the four people disappeared, and the four Venerables were bound and helpless. Their gazes all settled on the Golden Rooster.


    This Golden Rooster is a Level Nine. Even the Mysterious Realm had not trained to this level. Facing the pressure from the Venerables, how could he resist? He sat down on the floor. He was not at all terrified, not even afraid. He just smiled mischievously. "Gentlemen, I bear no malice, and do not want to storm the Divine Wind Palace. I will just wait here. What do you think?"


    The four men exchanged a look, and there flashed a trace of hopelessness in their eyes. "Okay then, but you''d better not move, otherwise, we can''t guarantee we won''t teach you a lesson!"


    Actually, it was their dereliction of duty to let Zhou Bao out of their control. But this dereliction of duty was to be expected. They would only be reprimanded once they got back, if at all, so they didn''t care.


    For Venerables, being placed in the Seven-deity Regions was indeed an amazing existence, but in a place like the Divine Wind Palace where there were as many immortals as dogs, they were only upper-middle class people. There were four of them, no more, no less.


    But Zhou Bao said that he had come once to the Divine Wind Palace. With his current power and understanding of the Law of Space, he had found the palace quickly. However, this time the Divine Wind Palace was obviously very wary of outsiders, and they started to enforce a strict ban.


    "F*ck. This must be on purpose. D*mn Divine Wind Palace. Don''t tell me you want to go to war with the Immortal Palace?!" Zhou Bao cursed to himself in rage. Seeing the Sword Qi coming to attack him head on, he dodged it.


    But the inhibition of the Divine Wind Palace is not at all easy to deal with. This Sword Qi was just the beginning. After Zhou Bao dodged the Sword Qi, his surroundings changed suddenly, and the hollow he had been facing turned into a world of ice and snow. Endless blizzards swept, and a torrential hurricane raged from the ground to the sky, seeming as if it could at any time split open the earth and drag him into it.


    Zhou Bao wanted to avoid it, but there was no way, because in this space everything was engulfed by the hurricane. Inside the hurricane, all the pneuma was condensed and formed into ice crystals. These ice crystals were compressed by intangible forces, forming blades harder than diamonds, rotating at high speed, filling the space between heaven and earth.


    "Cheap trick!" The ice blades filling the sky wreaked havoc. But Zhou Bao was not intimidated. He deployed the Gold Bracelet, which protected the front of his body. All around were ice blades, slashing towards him within 100 feet. They all cut into the Gold Bracelet, and were all destroyed. None of them posed any threat to Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao scanned the area, carefully observing the space around him. There was a hole. He slowly narrowed his eyes.


    "What a formidable inhibition. It was almost a perfect space. It did not have even a tiny hole. Even in the normal world, this couldn''t happen!"


    The mightiest force was the force of nature, it was boundless. Even if it was released perfectly, it would influence space and time. But in this inhibition, it can be said time and space perfectly coalesced into one place. The power of heaven and earth within the inhibition simply could not be shaken.


    However, Zhou Bao was not an ordinary person. He had the Gold Bracelet protecting him, and did not fear the endless attacks inside the inhibition at all. As soldiers are countered by arms, like must be met with like. Although the Gold Bracelet was just a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it was refined with the strangest of methods. The inside was actually connected to a black hole, a real black hole, which could absorb everything. The icy hurricane could do nothing to stop Zhou Bao. The surroundings changed again into a different scene: giant waves engulfing the sky.


    The surroundings turned suddenly from an icy world with ferocious winds to a boundless ocean, with enormous waves billowing to the sky, morphing into the shapes of countless supernatural animals. Snarling, they threw themselves onto Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bai was like an ant among the waves rising thousands of feet high and the supernatural animals forming in front of them. It seemed at any time he could be smashed by the huge waves. But in front of him, the Gold Bracelet was stimulated, and expanded to more than ten times its size. Just like the hurricane, the fierce supernatural animals could not get to within 100 feet of Zhou Bao. Any wave or supernatural animal that got to within 100 feet of him was absorbed by the bracelet, with no escape.


    This was the first time Zhou Bao had deployed the Gold Bracelet''s full protective power, the first time the Golden Bracelet was used at maximum power.


    He blinked. Although he was a little anxious, he was extremely happy with the Gold Bracelet''s performance.


    "This Pure Yang Celestial Device is powerful, if used in the right spot it could save countless effort. If I were to break in with force, even if I wasn''t injured, I could still be worn out. But now, with the Gold Bracelet, this inhibition can do nothing against me, I will suppress it without wasting my power. And the formation! It could have the chance to break it!"


    With the Gold Bracelet protecting him, Zhou Bao really did save a lot of effort. He calmly looked around, telepathically connecting with the timeflow and ripples around him, slowly scanning for a tear in the formation. While he was searching, the scene transformed several times, but no matter what, Zhou Bao''s Gold Bracelet could not be broken.


    "D*mn it, where did this boy find such a strange celestial device. With its protection, our formation cannot even touch him!" Then, in the myriad rooms of the Divine Wind Palace, the four Elders of the Divine Wind Palace were ashen-faced, looking into their mirrors. There before them stood Zhou Bao''s figure.


    "This appears to be the fabled Gold Bracelet. But it is not genuine, it is a replica. Just another Extreme Yang Level celestial device, that''s all. Nevertheless, it is of exceptional quality, an Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device. I''m afraid it wouldn''t be easy at all to break!" Someone among them knew of the history of the Gold Bracelet, and his face darkened. "Only if we can borrow the Bottle of All Manifestations from the Hong family, then can we overcome the power of the Gold Bracelet!"


    "The Bottle of All Manifestations? Don''t even think about it! If Hong Taihe were to lose it, we would have nothing to bargain with. The Yu family are already hated, how could we borrow from them the Bottle of All Manifestations?"


    "It''s not impossible. Don''t forget, who did Hong Taihe lose to? No other than Zhou Bao. If he hadn''t used the Bottle of All Manifestations to control the Gold Bracelet, he might have lost!"


    "That was totally different. He was defeated by Zhou Bao, and his pneuma was seriously damaged. The Hong family''s power was diminished again, and although the Yu family lost the Emperor Xuan, their pneuma was not harmed. He is eager for the Divine Wind Palace to be lost in chaos. Why would we lend him a helping hand?" Another Elder sneered. "But supposing it had nothing to do with the Gold Bracelet, that the inhibition couldn''t harm him no matter what? All we need to do is trap him. The Gold Bracelet can withstand anything, but it can only protect his body. It can''t help him break open the inhibition. Well, what is he going to do?"


    While the four men were discussing, the reflection in the mirror changed. In front of Zhou Bao appeared a layer of black haze. The haze was thin, but formed a 30-foot tall and 15-foot wide drape.


    "What is that?" The four men were startled. Seeing the black drape, their hearts were struck with an ominous feeling.


    They started to hear strange sounds emanating from the mirror.


    Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!

 562 The Green Pith Leaf & Reappearance of the Fairy Weapon

    Although others didn''t know the might of the Void-catching Technique, it was very familiar to Zhou Bao because he had once suffered a loss from it when he was in the Dragon-taming Ruins. At that time, however, because of the appearance of this giant handprint, he had to use his Furnace of Immortality. Therefore, he was still afraid to show his trump card above board in front of the crowd until now. His fairy weapon would surely cause a stir. Although he was now much more powerful than he was at that moment, he could not have the slightest neglect in the face of this Void-catching Technique.


    As soon as he raised his hand, the Infinite Poison Banner flew out. After that, a cloud of black smoke went to wrap itself around the giant void handprint.


    Sizzle! Sizzle!


    No sooner than the black smoke wrapped the handprint, a scratching sound rang out.


    "Aye?"


    The void handprint that was about to grasp Zhou Bao suddenly came to a stop. Made of pneuma, the crystal-like and perfect hand suddenly turned into a withered and black one, without any luster. Wisps of black air swirled around the giant hand, and it seemed as if it was about to break the giant void hand apart completely.


    "The Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast and Infinite Poison Banner!" As the lord of the Divine Wind Palace, Yu Taixu was well-informed, and naturally, he realized what had happened as soon as he saw this situation. "You''ve refined the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast!"


    "Your time is limited!" Instead of answering Yu Taixu''s question, Zhou Bao just held up Zhi IX, who had been struggling in his hand, and in this way, told Yu Taixu, who had not yet shown up, that Zhi IX''s life could not last long.


    "Zhou Bao, don''t go too far. Release Zhi IX right now!" Yu Taixu couldn''t give in in front of so many people, otherwise, the dignity of the Divine Wind Palace would be trampled underfoot.


    "As long as you hand Wang She over to me, I''ll let him go!" Zhou Bao said calmly, without yielding an inch.


    "Zhou...!"


    Just when Yu Taixu was about to say something more, Zhou Bao clenched his hand and Zhi IX''s struggle suddenly became violent.


    "It''s impossible for us to let Wang She go, even if you kill Zhi IX. We five biggest sects have sent a total of 49 people on this trip to the Infinite Star Sea. Each of them was of the top elite and has carried with them Pure Yang Celestial Devices which were used to suppress the fate of their sect. But finally, only Wang She managed to come back. If we failed to figure out this matter, how can we account for it to other sects?"


    "Not necessarily!" Before Zhou Bao could reply, Child-endowing Buddha, who was sitting next to him, suddenly spoke, "It''s another matter, right? It won''t make any difference whether Wang She is at the Divine Wind Palace or at the Immortal Palace. We''re all friends, why should we let this matter sour our relationship?"


    Child-endowing Buddha''s words successfully attracted everyone''s attention. How strange it was! How would he speak for the Immortal Palace and even Zhou Bao? It should be noted that he had historical grievances against Zhou Bao, and that was known to all. There was a deeply ingrained long-standing resentment between them. Although it was far from being absolutely irreconcilable, he had once completely lost his face due to Zhou Bao. Therefore, at this very moment, it was strange enough for him not to kick Zhou Bao when he was down, let alone he actually spoke for Zhou Bao.


    "Amitabha. Everyone knows that there are some small frictions between me and Zhou the Almsgiver, and I''m always looking for a chance to teach him a lesson. However, the order of priority should be paid more attention to since the enmity between us is only personal. But if Lord Yu really clash with him, it is likely to evolve into a battle between the Immortal Palace and the Divine Wind Palace. The appearance of the Supreme Fairy Weapon and the accident that happened in the Infinite Star Sea are all matters of great importance. They not only relate to the five biggest sects but also the Seven-deity Regions and even the entire Heaven Realm. In the face of such great events and such a great crisis, the grudge between me and Zhou Bao is of nothing important!" Filled with compassion, Child-endowing Buddha''s argument was watertight. All the people widened their eyes and stared at Child-endowing Buddha''s face. Yu Taixu, who had been sitting on the throne in the Grand Divine Wind Palace, nearly fell off.


    What had he said?


    What did he mean?


    This monk must have been kicked in the head by a donkey!


    How could he say such high-sounding, just, and honorable words here? By saying these words, his realm of thought appeared loftier than those of the other Elders and experts in the five biggest sects.


    These words would sound plausible whoever said them. But since they were said by an extremely nasty monk, the moral standards of the five biggest sects in the Four Eastern Regions suddenly plummeted to an all-time low.


    Even a nasty monk would have such a brilliant opinion and know how to see the whole picture. What about others? Did they live in vain for all these years?


    Although everyone knew that there must be some reasons for Child-endowing Buddha suddenly to keep friends with Zhou Bao and the Immortal Palace, they felt ashamed to raise any objections now that Child-endowing Buddha had said these words.


    "Yeah, Child-endowing Buddha has a point. It''s not the time for us, the five biggest sects, to clash with each other. Since the Immortal Palace and King Wuyang insist on bringing Wang She back, I think we''d better let them do it. It won''t make any difference no matter where Wang She is at. We''re all sects in the Four Eastern Regions and Wang She is one of the 28 constellations in the Immortal Palace, so it won''t be appropriate for Wang She to stay at the Divine Wind Palace all the time...!"


    At this moment, a Highest Elder of the Dragon Thunder Palace also voiced his opinion. With him taking the lead, all the people in the other three sects nodded in agreement in a row. All of a sudden, the situation that the Divine Wind Palace joined hands with the other three sects collapsed.


    "Boom!" Sitting in the Grand Divine Wind Palace, Yu Taixu violently punched the golden table in front of him and it shattered. He took a deep breath and said, "Since everyone thinks so, then...!"


    "No, absolutely no! Zhou Bao, you''re too arrogant. Do you really think of the Divine Wind Palace as the Central Mainland Region?" Before Yu Taixu could finish speaking, his words were interrupted by a shriek. With an air of exasperation, the voice came out of the blue, as if a newly obtained treasure would be taken away right now.


    "Who is she?" Zhou Bao''s heart throbbed. Instinctively, he felt this voice was somewhat familiar. After thinking for a while, he recalled that it belonged to the woman who was sitting next to Yu Taixu in the Human Emperor Palace the day he made "Zhe-er", who had satirized him, unconscious with a single blow.


    Apparently, everyone but Zhou Bao heard this voice clearly and recalled who was its owner. Suddenly, the Treasure Light Tower had been plunged into a weird silence again.


    Right at this moment, Zhou Bao said with a grin, "Haha, Zhi IX, it seems that this woman really holds a grudge against you and wants you to die quickly. Since such being the case, I won''t bother talking with you any longer. Go to the...!"


    Before Zhou Bao could speak the word "hell" out, he saw a green light coming straight at his hand which was holding Zhi IX.


    "Humph!" Zhou Bao snorted. The Infinite Poison Banner once again went to wrap itself around the green light.


    "Sizzle!" The black smoke of the Infinite Poison Banner suddenly broke the green light apart, but the sneer hanging over the corners of Zhou Bao''s mouth froze.


    It was because that after the sizzling sound, the green light suddenly broke through the Infinite Poison Banner. At the same time, Zhou Bao also felt as if his Infinite Poison Banner had been restrained by the green light. Although the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast in the banner was trying to withstand it, it was so powerful that the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast and Infinite Poison Banner simply could not withstand it.


    "It''s the Taihao Fairy Weapon, Green Pith Leaf!"


    Suddenly, Zhou Bao saw the true features of that green light clearly and recalled its name.


    It was a green leaf known as Green Pith Leaf, which had been used by Taihai Sage Wen Yida in Taiyuan Heaven in that year. Therefore, Zhou Bao was quite familiar with it.


    Zhou Bao shook his body suddenly and executed the Three Realms Division, trying to avoid that green leaf.


    "Boy, do you think you can do whatever you want in the Divine Wind Palace just because you''ve defeated Hong Taihe? Do you think you can come and go freely through the Divine Wind Palace just because you know a hollow-travel Divine Sense? If I don''t teach you a lesson today, you will think that the Divine Wind Palace can be offended arbitrarily!"


    Filled with enmity, the voice resounded through the Divine Wind Palace. In an instant, the green light shone violently and Zhou Bao felt that the surrounding space immediately became sticky. The Three Realms Division that would work every time failed to help him move even half a step this time.


    When the green light was about to hit him, Zhou Bao shouted in a low voice. A light flashed through the place between his eyebrows and black-red Sword Qi shot out rapidly and met the green light.


    "Pfff!" The black-red sword light flashed past and disappeared, but the green light shone weirdly and kept moving forward.


    "Damn it. I''m restrained again!" Zhou Bao sensed that his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi had disappeared and then shouted angrily. He threw Zhi IX forward to meet the green light.


    The green light touched and enveloped Zhi IX''s body. In an instant, Zhi IX recovered from his injuries strangely.


    "Thank you for your help, mistress!" Zhi IX spoke out after he had recovered from his injuries. He had lost his dignity today, but luckily, he had survived this crisis. Therefore, he glared at Zhou Bao and withdrew.


    Zhou Bao''s strength was far better than his own and obviously, he was no match for Zhou Bao now. But now, his mistress attacked Zhou Bao with a fairy weapon. No matter how powerful Zhou Bao was, he could not manage to escape. Even if he wouldn''t die this time, he shall shed a layer of skin. Suddenly, Zhi IX was in a happy mood and began to think about how would he torture Zhou Bao after he was captured.


    "Mistress? Damn it. This woman should be Yu Taixu''s wife! With a fairy weapon in hand, she seems to be determined to kill me!" Zhou Bao felt angry. He withdrew the Infinite Poison Banner and turned it into a cloud of black smoke to protect himself.


    "Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle, sizzle, sizzle...!"


    The Green Pith Leaf was a Fairy Weapon, but his Infinite Poison Banner was merely an Upper-grade Pure Yang Celestial Device. Most important of all, this Green Pith Leaf contained an immense amount of spirits of life which was just suitable for suppressing the Infinite Poison Banner. Therefore, the Infinite Poison Banner could never resist the attacks of the Green Pith Leaf and instantly broke apart. A green leaf fell on Zhou Bao''s head and shone vigorously, aiming to suppress Zhou Bao here.

 561 Killing the Chicken to Warn the Monkey

    Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!


    The sound was strange and clear. It was like a dropping a big ladle of water into a scalding hot deep fryer.


    As the sound continued, something happened which stunned the four men. Zhou Bao started to wave the black drape. Wherever the black drape flittered, the solid space started to fall apart piece by piece.


    The black drape melted the edge of the damaged space, like wax under a high heat, turning it into a monstrous green-yellow color like pus extruding from an ulcer. The men watched, eyes filling with panic.


    But the thing that truly sent chills through them was that the edge of the space had no way of healing itself. Under the black drape, this perfect, stable space would be damaged forever.


    "What on earth is that thing? How could it have such a terrible force? Where did he get hold of this strange object?!" One of the Elders shouted. When he looked back into the mirror, Bao Zhou''s figure had already disappeared.


    "Oh god, he broke the inhibition! Quick! Back to the Treasure Light Tower! Go, go!"


    The quarreling continued in the Treasure Light Tower. White Tiger''s exasperated ranting and Zhi IX''s leisurely drawl melded into a bright and beautiful harmony.


    Any discerning person would know at first glance that even with his glib speech, White Tiger was at the losing end. This was the Divine Wind Palace, Zhi IX''s home ground. What was more, Zhi IX ripped off the tiger skin from the other three great sects. With every sentence, "Us Four Great Sects", he would suddenly push the tiger skin to the opposite side of the four great sects. If he was holding the tiger skin, he needed to set about the task. But this was the Divine Wind Palace, Zhi IX''s nest. If he was going to start, there was no way he would get what he wanted. For a while, there was no other way. It was urgent. The more he spoke, the more he was driven. As if he were holding the pearl of wisdom, soon when Zhi IX seizes total victory in this quarrel, it would all change.


    "Who would dare break into the Treasure Light Tower!?" From the outside the Treasure Light Tower came fierce shouting.


    "Get out of here!"


    Zhou Bao simply had no intention of chattering with the gatekeeper. He just stormed straight into the Treasure Light Tower.


    This was the Treasure Light Tower of the Divine Wind Palace. Even if the gatekeeper was an Individual Immortal from the Mysterious Realm, he would not allow Zhou Bao to break in. Holding celestial devices, they beat Zhou Bao back.


    "Such an undiscriminating thing!" Seeing the celestial devices coming for him, Zhou Bao''s complexion turned cold, and with one in each hand, used the two celestial devices the men were holding to break into the palace.


    "Zhou Bao, how did you get in!?"


    Two figures flew in from outside the tower. Two thuds followed. In his fists, Zhou Bao grasped the dark energy. Even though the two men were Metaphysic Individual Immortals, they were beaten down by Zhou Bao, and for a while could not get back up.


    When Zhi IX saw the figure storming in, his heart clenched with anger. But seeing the men of the Four Great Sects in the Treasure Light Tower, his resolve was strengthened. He shouted fiercely, asking:


    "White Tiger, you''re really getting old, nattering on so much! Why don''t you just bring people straight in?"


    "You!" Even if Zhi IX had some self-restraint, he was still angry at seeing Zhou Bao completely ignore him. Zhou Bao, who do you think you are? Just a powerful and lucky young lad. Your father wasn''t even born when I was roaming unimpeded throughout the world. And now you dare ignore me, look down on me. It really is so arrogant!


    "Haha! King Wuyang, you think so highly of yourself! It brings me straight back. Could it be that our people died in vain?" At that moment, a wretched voice came from one side.


    Zhou Bao stared. It turned out to be a man wrapped from head to foot in a layer of black air. The eerie, dense air was terrifying. Whisps of dark air radiated from his body. From one glance he could tell that it was a master of martial arts of the Dark Sect.


    "A member of the Dark Sect?!"


    "Qiao Huai of the Dark Sect!"


    "Qiao Huai?!" Zhou Bao had never heard this name, but others did.


    "Qiao Huai. It''s really Qiao Huai, the Supreme of Demons!"


    "Yes, I never imagined he was Qiao Huai, the Supreme of Demons. He had been shrouded in the black air all day long, I thought it was the Dark Lord!"


    "How could it be the Dark Lord? How did you imagine the Dark Lord could enter the Divine Wind Palace?"


    "I guess you''re right!"


    "But it was actually the Supreme of Demons!" Zhou Bao was a little surprised, the Dark Lord was a Genuine Immortal of the Venerable Realm. The Dark Sect''s methods were furtive, and their practice methods were brutal beyond compare. So when they were undergoing the Thunder Tribulation, their power was two, even three times that of a Genuine Immortal. After they had undergone the Thunder Tribulation, their power was still much stronger than that of a Venerable.


    However, Zhou Bao had no qualms about all this. He looked Qiao Huai, the Supreme of Demons up and down, and laughed strangely. He lurched towards Qiao Huai, startling him. "This is not good", Qiao Huai mumbled to himself. Before the thought even cleared his mind, Zhou Bao''s hand had already breached his protective Dark Gang, and he was holding him up by the neck.


    "Ugh, ugh, ugh..." As a Supreme of Demons, he held a position of respect in the Dark Sect. Over the past centuries, he always had his way. How did it end up like this?


    Zhou Bao''s speed and strength completely broke Qiao Huai''s confidence. Even if he wanted to speak, he could not. With one strike, Zhou Bao had shattered the Dark Gang protecting his body. Clutching him by the neck, Zhou Bao lifted up the withered man.


    A frigid cold desire to kill emanated from Zhou Bao''s eyes. In his merciless smile was a glint of mockery, deriding the Supreme of Demons overconfidence, ridiculing how he walked the path to his own demise.


    "I can now tell you, that your men of the Dark Sect died in vain, just like you will!" Zhou Bao''s gentle voice resounded in the ears of everyone present. Seeing Qiao Huai, Supreme of Demons'' body, they all started to struggle. But Zhou Bao did not move an inch. As he was holding up Qiao Huai, Supreme of Demons, the Treasure Light Tower was hushed, and you could hear a pin drop.


    As each moment passed, Qiao Huai, Supreme of Demons struggled more and more slowly, until eventually, his legs kicked violently twice, and he stopped breathing.


    There was dead silence.


    It was as if Qiao Huai''s last kicks hit the others straight in their hearts. Rays of light settled on Zhou Bao, like demons that had emerged from the depths of hell.


    The five biggest sects gathered together in the Treasure Light Tower of the Divine Wind Palace. The Supreme of Demons of the Dark Sect, noble of the Divine Wind Palace, was strangled alive in the presence of The Elders and the Highest Elder.


    Indeed, it was neither a punch nor a celestial device that killed him. He was strangled alive by bare hands. He was strangled alive like any ordinary person.


    This way of killing was not bloody, and not exciting. But it was dull and depressing to the extreme. Qiao Huai, Supreme of Demons shook violently and struggled frantically. Each movement, each second was printed in their minds. They had seen the whole ordeal as Qiao Huai struggled to survive, from his initial surprise, to his panic, to his disbelief, and finally to his pleading expression. All of it was entrenched in their memories. Qiao Huai was the Supreme of Demons. He was stronger than anyone there. But because of one sentence that was spoken, this was how things came to be. They grieved for their fallen companion, but they were also deeply scared.


    This Zhou Bao was far too unruly.


    Zhou Bao really did not want to follow the rules of others. He broke into the inhibition of the Divine Wind Palace, stormed into the Treasure Light Tower, and heard White Tiger fiercely cry, "Your School of Five Virtues has long colluded with the Dark Sect. Their Pneuma-sucking Skill is no secret to you!"


    Zhou Bao did not know what Pneuma-sucking Skill was, and did not know why the School of Five Virtues was colluding with the Dark Sect. But he had instinctively worked out that the Dark Sect was involved.


    Therefore, after Qiao Huai''s provocation, he killed him without hesitation. It was because he wanted to gain prestige, but also, the Dark Sect was not at all one of the five biggest sects. Even though it had some strength, it was not in league with the five biggest sects, because within was a complicated array of influences, not like in the Divine Wind Palace. Killing him would cause much less trouble than killing someone from the five biggest sects. This Qiao Huai practically walked into danger on his own accord.


    Of course, it was not fair that it was Qiao Huai who died. He could not have imagined that Zhou Bao would have wantonly killed someone in the Divine Wind Palace without saying a word, and in such a way.


    "Where is Wang She now?!" In silence, Zhou Bao turned to look at White Tiger.


    "I don''t know!" White Tiger took a deep breath, he clearly had no response. "As soon as someone came back, they were detained by the School of Five Virtues!"


    "Is that so? Zhi IX, was detained?"


    "Zhou Bao, you''ve have gone too far!" Zhi IX responded at last. He screamed, pointing at Zhou Bao, "So brazen, how dare you just so wantonly kill people in the Divine Wind Palace. Who gave you the right? Who... ugh...!"


    No one clearly saw Zhou Bao move. Just like before, he was grasping, holding Zhi IX up by his neck.


    "Zhi IX, I hope your subordinates are able to bring Wang She to you before you die!"


    Zhi IX whimpered and flushed red. Just like Qiao Huai, he began to struggle.


    "Zhou... Zhou Bao! We need to speak, but please put him down!"


    Now White Tiger was scared. He was a fearless person, except that he was afraid now. As arrogant as he was, and as annoying as he was, that was all in the Penglai Region. This, this was the Divine Wind Palace, the family''s headquarters, teeming with experts and immortals. There was no space here for such disgraceful behavior.


    Zhou Bao said nothing. He just glanced at him in silence, his gloomy, cold eyes sending a shiver down his spine.


    Then, Li VII came out of nowhere, and said to Zhou Bao, "Zhou Bao, if you kill Zhi IX, there''s no redeeming the situation!" This guy seemed to have a look of schadenfreude on his face.


    "This situation was never redeemable," Zhou Bao said indifferently, "You let them go, and I''ll let him go. If not...!"


    Before he finished speaking, an angry roar burst out, and a hand reached through the space towards Zhou Bai, clutching for him.


    The Void-catching Technique!

 564 The Pneuma-sucking Skill & Failure to Succeed for Lack of a Final Effor

    "That d*mn woman, would you dare to come out and fight with me¡ªthe king, for three hundred rounds?"


    This angry shout startled the heaven and earth and made the supernatural beings cry. All the people present were in a daze due to this shout.


    Zhou Bao was King Wuyang of the Jin dynasty. It was appropriate for him to call himself the king, but it would be quite rude to call the woman who had attacked him "that d*mn woman".


    Hidden in the darkness, the woman was also startled by Zhou Bao''s angry shout. But soon, she flew into a rage.


    She was a woman of blue blood and looked extremely distinguished. Later, she married Yu Taixu. She had by far got everything she wanted. No one dared to speak to her in bad language and act so arrogantly in her presence.


    "Zhou Bao, you''re courting death!"


    Therefore, after the woman reacted to these words, Zhou Bao heard a hysterical voice. A golden streamer broke through the void and came directly toward his face.


    "Stupid!" Zhou Bao just let out a sneer as he saw that golden streamer. The Natal Sword above his head shook once and then, some sword light flashed past, shattering the golden light.


    The woman must have gotten stupid due to his words. It should be noted that even the Taihao Fairy Weapon could not do much harm to him. Exasperated, she attacked him with a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Did she really have a death wish?


    And this attack, evidently, had exposed her position. The sword light of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword split up immediately and formed an invisible storm of sword blades, shattering that space entirely.


    "Ouch...!"


    Obviously, the woman hadn''t expected that Zhou Bao would be so merciless. Being caught off guard, she was unable to withstand the attack, and thus, exclaimed in shock.


    "How dare you, little b*stard!"


    In the Grand Divine Wind Palace, Yu Taixu could no longer sit in his seat with ease. After all, this was the Divine Wind Palace, his territory. If Zhou Bao injured his wife here, the Divine Wind Palace certainly would suffer great humiliation. Therefore, he was obliged to take action.


    "Lord Yu, you finally showed up!" Feeling the wind on Yu Taixu''s fist coming closer, Zhou Bao just let out a sneer. However, this time, he didn''t use the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword anymore. To everyone''s surprise, he withdrew the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword in his body and let the black smoke of the Infinite Poison Banner gather around him.


    "Sizzle...!" The wind hit the Infinite Poison Banner and made it shake sharply. But the banner managed to disperse the whole power of the fist.


    "What an idiot! Why did you hit me with your fist since you know nothing of punching skills? I don''t know what you are thinking about!" Warding off this attack with his Infinite Poison Banner, Zhou Bao despised the lord of the Divine Wind Palace a lot on his attainment of punching skills.


    After this blow, Yu Taixu showed up with dazzling golden light emanating from all over his body. Behind him was an ashen-faced woman in white, who was staring at Zhou Bao with a malicious gaze, as if she was going to devour him alive.


    "Lord Yu, how hot-tempered you are!" Zhou Bao directly ignored the gaze of that woman and fixed his eyes on Yu Taixu.


    "At least I''m better than you!" Looking at Zhou Bao''s strange facial expression, Yu Taixu''s face was a little bit darkened. Thus, he said these words in an unfriendly way.


    "Of course I''m hot-tempered. Wang She is a member of the Immortal Palace. No matter what he did, we''ll handle it. When did the Divine Wind Palace have the right to punish him?"


    "He came back alone from the Infinite Star Sea. So we need to figure out a lot of things from him!"


    "He surely will account for this matter to all of us, but not in the Divine Wind Palace!" Zhou Bao said determinedly, "I''ll take him back. What do you think, Lord Yu?"


    "That''ll be fine. However, Wang She is severely injured. I''m afraid that his pneuma will be greatly undermined if he were taken away now!"


    "Lord Yu won''t need to bother about that!"


    "Well, there''s one more thing."


    "What?"


    "You burst into my Divine Wind Palace and arbitrarily killed people here. Do you really think of the Divine Wind Palace as the Immortal Palace?"


    "All right. Don''t try to reason with me. There''s nothing to reason about. Since it''s your territory, you can determine how you would like to handle it!" Zhou Bao said these words decisively.


    Yu Taixu smiled and replied, "Okay, since you have said so, I will surely teach you a lesson. I need you to know that the Divine Wind Palace is not a place that you can act wildly!"


    Just when Yu Taixu finished speaking, the light in the Treasure Light Tower was extinguished suddenly. All the people in the Treasure Light Tower were Individual Immortals or Genuine Immortals, who were able to see everything around them clearly even without a light. But now, they could see nothing.


    Everything before them was pitch-dark as if they were trapped in an environment of emptiness.


    The Self-world!


    With a keen mind, Zhou Bao felt a slight fluctuation in the surrounding space. His expression changed and quickly unfolded the Infinite Poison Banner.


    Sizzle... Sizzle...


    "Eh?!" Obviously, Yu Taixu had underestimated the power of Zhou Bao''s Infinite Poison Banner. It was extremely powerful because it was able to corrode the inhibition of the Divine Wind Palace.


    As was known to all, Yu Taixu was very confident of his Self-world.


    In terms of hardness, he thought it was not inferior to the protective inhibition of the Divine Wind Palace. But the problem was that he had misjudged a matter.


    Except for the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, there was also the Peach Blossom Miasma in Zhou Bao''s Infinite Poison Banner.


    What a saying said was true: "A specialist only masters his own field." Although the Peach Blossom Miasma was less toxic than the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, it was something that was specifically used for destroying the pneuma.


    Based on the Gang Qi, the Self-world still required two other elements, which were time and space. Not a single one could be omitted.


    The Infinite Poison Banner could, for a moment, do nothing to the space and time of the Self-world, but it managed to engulf all the pneuma inside Yu Taixu''s Self-world. Immediately, it ruined the foundation of his Self-world.


    Yu Taixu was quite decisive. He immediately withdrew his Self-world after giving an exclamation. "It''s the Peach Blossom Miasma. I didn''t expect that you would infuse such an insidious thing in the Infinite Poison Banner!"


    "It doesn''t matter if it''s insidious or not. It''s good as long as it can work!" Zhou Bao''s fingertips moved slightly. The Infinite Poison Banner, which had expanded to a height of more than 100 feet, was now transformed into a wisp of black smoke, circling around his fingertips. "Lord Yu, there is indeed something unique about your Self-world, but it won''t be that easy for it to trap me!"


    Yu Taixu now looked terrible. He stared at Zhou Bao and finally sighed helplessly. "Right, you''ve grown up and become quite powerful now. It''s not easy for all the people in the Divine Wind Palace, or even for me, to wipe you out. Besides, if I do that, I''ll have to pay some price. It''s not worth doing that for Wang She alone!"


    "Taixu, you...!"


    "Don''t say that anymore. It''s not the time to fall out with the Immortal Palace!" Yu Taixu waved his hand and sent a strong divine thought into the mind of that woman. "Where did you imprison that man?"


    The woman''s facial expression looked quite terrible. She glanced at Yu Taixu and sent a divine thought back.


    Yu Taixu''s expression changed suddenly and he looked at the woman in anger and shock.


    Obviously, others didn''t know the specific content of the spiritual communication between them. But Zhou Bao realized that things were positively much more complicated than he had thought as soon as he saw the change of Yu Taixu''s expression. The woman seemed to have done something without telling Yu Taixu. Zhou Bao''s expression immediately changed and he asked, "What on earth did you do? You''ve already killed him, right?!"


    "That''s impossible. But it''s somewhat troublesome. Come with me!" said Yu Taixu to Zhou Bao. He had already regained his composure at this moment and cast an angry glance at that woman.


    While Zhou Bao was acting wildly in the Treasure Light Tower, something was happening to Wang She in the depths of the Phantom Sea Pavilion of the Divine Wind Palace where there was an unknown space hidden inside.


    This unknown space was not big. It just looked like a huge jail, in the center of which was an altar. Cast entirely in black iron, it was emanating evil spirit.


    It was a circular altar with a diameter of about 30 feet. Carved on it were many talismans, with each of which were emanating extremely evil spirit.


    These talismans formed patterns of vicious animals which had all sorts of strange looks. Without exception, they were ferocious and hideous, emanating dense murderous intent and smell of blood. With a lower cultivation, one would inevitably be trapped in illusions and even don''t know the reason of his death once he came nearer to it.


    Inky black water gushed from the surrounding area of the altar and pervaded the entire space-time.


    Wang She was tied to a tall and huge totem pole on the altar. Countless hairlike veins were all over the body and they all connected to the totem pole. A young man was sitting atop the totem pole. If Zhou Bao were to see this man, he would find it was the lad named "Zhe-er", who had been humiliated by him in the Human Emperor Palace on that day.


    "Yu Nanzhe, you... You are crazy..., You really want to stir, stir up the battle, between, between the Divine, Divine Wind Palace, and the Immortal Palace?" Wang She looked extremely pale now and his spirit was quite weak. Everyone could be aware that he was severely injured at the sight of him. His pneuma was greatly damaged.


    "Wang She, don''t exaggerate it just to scare me. Hmph, you''re lucky. Not only did you return alive from the Infinite Star Sea, but you obtained so many benefits. So many elites, from the five biggest sects, including a Lord of Heaven, entered the Infinite Star Sea, but only you came back alive. Why don''t you think about whether the other people will let you go or not? I guess you might as well die here. Haha, anyway, you were already severely hurt when you came back, and it will be quite normal for you to die here without living through it!"


    "It''s just your wishful thinking!" Wang She let out a sneer. Although he was seriously injured, he was no pushover. He forcefully activated his Real Essence, but it all flowed out along his hairlike veins as soon as it was activated.


    "It''s useless. The more violently you struggle, the more pain you''ll suffer. Be obedient and let me absorb your Kunpeng Bloodline. You can save yourself a lot of trouble if you die this way. Hahaha, little did I expect that you could profit from a misfortune and thus obtained the Kunpeng Bloodline. As long as I rob you of your Kunpeng Bloodline, I shall have the opportunity to enter the Genuine Immortal Realm and even the Lord of Heaven Realm. At that time, I''ll certainly let Zhou Bao die miserably. Hahaha...!"


    "I don''t think you can wait for that day!"


    As Yu Nanzhe was laughing triumphantly, a palm suddenly appeared in the void and hit him right in his face.

 563 That D*mn Woman, Would You Dare to Come out and Fight with Me—the King, for Three Hundred Rounds

    Zhou Bao knew very well about the might of fairy weapons. He had encountered some fairy weapons before. For example, Ye Qingtian''s North Pole Frozen Wheel. But at that time, Zhou Bao was able to use his Furnace of Immortality. In this way, the power of the North Pole Frozen Wheel would be offset by his Furnace of Immortality and would then pose little threat to him.


    But things were different today because he did not dare to use his Furnace of Immortality in the Divine Wind Palace. Although he came here in a threatening manner, to be honest, he was not ready to fall out with the Divine Wind Palace completely. Hence, the first man he killed was Qiao Huai from the Dark Sect rather than Zhi IX.


    At present, the Green Pith Leaf was pressing down directly and he couldn''t think of anything but to activate his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. A black-red glow flashed suddenly across the back of his head and in the glow, a transparent little sword that seemed to be forged by rare glaze, rose and hit right at the Green Pith Leaf.


    "What''s this?"


    "Why is it void of spirits?"


    "It''s so speedy!"


    "This sword is so weird!"


    Zhou Bao had nourished it carefully in his body and had never used it ever since he successfully practiced the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. After so many years, the Natal Sword had lost all its murderous intent.


    All the killing intent and murderous intent were ultimately condensed into one single streak which looked harmless and fragile, but it was this Natal Sword that didn''t fear the suppression of the Green Pith Leaf. With a single sword movement, it actually overturned the Green Pith Leaf.


    Yes, it overturned the Green Pith Leaf!


    After all, it was a fairy weapon. Under the attack of the Natal Sword, it suffered no damage at all. But overturned by the attack, the Green Pith Leaf which could have suppressed Zhou Bao in one fell swoop, seemed to have been greatly stimulated by the Natal Sword. It shone vigorously first and then darkened, advancing straight to envelop the Natal Sword.


    Looking like a big net, the green light covered the Natal Sword. However, the Natal Sword was not weak either. It wandered around like a snake and wherever it went, the green light would be extinguished. The leaf and the sword were so well-matched that neither could gain the upper hand.


    "No, what is that sword? Is it a Fairy Weapon too?"


    "I don''t think so. It doesn''t look like a fairy weapon but a sword made from his pneuma!"


    "It''s impossible. He''s merely at Level Nine, so how can he form such a Natal Sword in his body?"


    "Wait, it seems that I know this object!" There was a sudden cry of surprise in the midst of all these discussions. A shriek rang out as if its owner was Columbus, the person who had discovered a new world. "It''s the Natal Sword, the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword! How can this guy be capable of practicing the Natal Sword successfully?"


    "What, the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword? How many people did he kill? Where did he get that much murderous intent?"


    "He actually formed a Natal Sword. How many people on earth did he kill to enable him to form the Natal Sword?!"


    "No wonder the Natal Sword could fight with the Green Spirit Leaf for so long! The Green Spirit Leaf contains the Dharma of life and is full of vitality, but the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword is made of a streak of congenital killing intent that takes shape when the Yin and Yang pneuma meet with each other. Such a Natal Sword happens to be the nemesis of life!"


    "There are a lot of people who practice the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword in this world, but I have never heard of anyone who actually managed to create this legendary object. Are you sure?"


    "Yeah, it''s impossible! How can he be so murderous? He is so young!"


    An intense discussion rose for a moment. They didn''t know that the reason why Zhou Bao was able to create this Natal Sword, was entirely due to the infinite killing intent of that Heavenly Fairy Weapon, the red gourd. He succeeded in condensing the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword in one go because he had comprehended the Way of Killing Dharma within the Immortal Character on the red gourd. Presently, he was not capable of using the red gourd. But this time, in order to withstand the attacks of that fairy weapon, he was obliged to give full play to the power of his Natal Sword. However, to his surprise, he found that his Natal Sword actually related to that Heavenly Fairy Weapon in a mysterious manner. Originally, with his attainment on the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, he was able to use the Natal Sword twice at most. However, in order to fight with the Green Pith Leaf, he fought without any distractions and could vaguely feel a little change happening to the red gourd. By connecting to this Heavenly Fairy Weapon, his Natal Sword could then fight neck and neck with the Green Pith Leaf.


    The dense vitality contained in the Green Pith Leaf tangled with the all-eliminating killing intent within his Natal Sword. The colliding of these two extremities, namely, life and death, enabled his heart to have a mysterious change. A wonderful insight came into his mind.


    A strange poem echoed in his mind.


    Everything was born to feed the human, but the human had contributed nothing in return. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!


    In Zhou Bao''s previous life, everything was born to feed the human, but in this life, the human was not the only protagonist in this world. However, the reason was the same.


    The heaven was the most kind-hearted mother who gave birth to, and nourished all things. But as soon as the living creatures with spiritual intelligence, the best among all things, appeared, they broke the balance between heaven and earth. They only knew how to ask for things but knew nothing of return. They indiscriminately slaughtered everything to meet their desires. It not only hurt themselves but also the foundation of heaven and earth.


    In this way, the Thunder Tribulation, Law of Heaven, Human Emperor''s position, and infinite killing intent came into being.


    The appearance of all these was not to destroy everything, nor to manifest the majesty of heaven, nor to show heaven favored who and thus gave him the power. The sole purpose of all these was for balance and survival.


    With the change of Zhou Bao''s state of mind, the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword also began to change, and so did the red gourd that had been nourishing carefully in Zhou Bao''s Dantian. Although Zhou Bao hadn''t refined it yet and was unable to use it presently, it kept linking to his mind inevitably. Now, Zhou Bao''s wonderful state of mind was exactly in line with the Dharma of the Way of Heaven in the Heavenly Fairy Weapon and was gradually influencing the red gourd. Although the red gourd was unable to rush out to help Zhou Bao, it could do much to help the Natal Sword.


    Originally, Zhou Bao''s Natal Sword was dashing in all directions in the net made of that green light. It looked formidable but could not break the green light net in any way. The reason was that it was merely a streak of pneuma. Although it was condensed by the congenital killing intent that took shape the moment when Yin merged into Yang, its foundation was still weak. However, the Green Pith Leaf was a fairy weapon with the complete Dharma of the Way of Heaven, and the Immortal Character within it pointed directly at the Way of Life which was of tremendous momentum. Hence, undoubtedly, the newly born congenital killing intent could not withstand it. The Natal Sword looked rather formidable, but in fact, it couldn''t withstand the attack any longer.


    But now things were different. Just when Zhou Bao had a moment of enlightenment, the murderous intent in the red gourd rolled in like a mighty river and it all swarmed into the Natal Sword. The Natal Sword shone vigorously all of a sudden. Less than one foot, the sword body suddenly shone with black-red sword light and the murderous intent within it rose straightly up toward the sky. Crack! It instantly tore the green net made from the Green Pith Leaf apart and stabbed right at the leaf.


    "Ding...!" With a clear sound, the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword suddenly smashed. Zhou Bao took three steps backward as if his body was severely injured. Meanwhile, blood seeped out through his mouth and nose. But the Green Pith Leaf was not much better. The green light dispersed at the place where it was stabbed by the Natal Sword and a crack appeared on the green leaf. As soon as the crack emerged, a stream of green spirit swept around this place, and in the blink of an eye, the Treasure Light Tower, completely made of jade, was turned into a palace full of greenery. Huge trees rose abruptly out of the ground and there was plenty of grass that was dozens of feet tall on the ground. For a moment, the imposing palace was turned into a primeval forest.


    "No!" With quite a discerning eye, all the people present exclaimed in shock as they saw that the Green Pith Leaf was hurt.


    Of course, it was not a good thing!


    The Green Pith Leaf was one of the three fairy weapons of the Divine Wind Palace. Although it was not used for suppressing fate, it was one of the trump cards that the Divine Wind Palace had to frighten the Seven-deity Regions. However now, this fairy weapon suffered a huge loss and its pneuma was greatly undermined in the face of Zhou Bao, which was entirely out of everyone''s expectation.


    Looking at Zhou Bao then; although he was bleeding heavily from his face and his spirit was disordered, he still wore a strange smile, from which anyone was able to see his irrepressible surprise, as if he had discovered some precious treasures.


    "Could it be that he had a moment of enlightenment?"


    Enlightenment meant insight. Most of the time, due to many lucky chances, a practitioner may, in a very short time, comprehend some of the mysteries of the Dharma of the Way of Heaven. And by comprehending them, his strength would advance by leaps and bounds. Had Zhou Bao just gained an insight into something while he was under the pressure of the Green Pith Leaf?


    Just as everyone was filled with astonishment, they saw Zhou Bao take a step forward suddenly and then, a black-red storm encircled him. Wherever the storm went, the life there would be eliminated.


    "Everything is born to feed living creatures, but living creatures has contributed nothing in return. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!"


    Each of his words penetrated everyone''s heart and cracked their minds. Just like seven terrible magic spells, these seven "kill" words lingered in their ears. Even those who were at the peak of the Venerable Realm would fly into a rage the moment they heard these words.


    However, what made them more terrified has yet to come. After Zhou Bao had recited a Seven-kill Song that was quite similar to a poem, everyone saw that surrounding him, the black-red Sword Qi rotate violently. It gathered around him and kept surging. In a few seconds, a 30-foot tall Natal Sword took shape over his head. Encircling him, the black-red Sword Qi became an integrated whole and then turned into colorless sword light. The murderous intent there raged for a moment. Formed by the pneuma gushing out of the Green Pith Leaf, the primeval forest withered quickly due to the killing intent. The greenery here all turned into dead twigs and withered leaves, without a trace of vitality.


    Soon after, the sword light died out and the 30-foot tall Natal Sword was condensed into a one-foot little sword, which was much more compact and reserved than the earlier one. But at the same time, it was more dazzling. It was now rotating vigorously above Zhou Bao''s head.


    "D*mn it!" Zhou Bao swore in a low voice. Ungracefully, he directly wiped his face on his sleeve and wiped up all the blood that had oozed from his mouth and nose. Then, he raised his hand and pointed at the void, saying, "That d*mn woman, would you dare to come out and fight with me¡ªthe king, for three hundred rounds?"

 565 Undoing the Inhibition

    "Haaa, that explains the matter. No wonder your Divine Wind Palace stopped us from taking Wang She. It turns out that you''re playing such a deep game here!" White Tiger laughed in anger by the sight, staring at Yu Taixu''s face. "Lord Yu, I didn''t know your Divine Wind Palace had such a deep relationship with Dark Sect. Pneuma-sucking Skill, it is Pneuma-sucking Skill...!" White Tiger was outraged. He had mentioned the Pneuma-sucking Skill when he was bargaining with Zhi IX, just to bring back Wang She, but now...


    It turned out to be a prophecy. Divine Wind Palace really was absorbing Wang She''s pneuma with Dark Sect''s Pneuma-sucking Skill.


    This was beyond the limits of White Tiger''s tolerance, beyond the limits of any big sect.


    Not only White Tiger, but the experts, immortals and Elders from Jade Pool, Bigwheel Temple and Dragon Thunder Palace beside him all went pale. At this point, the same spirit of vengeance formed in their souls.


    The five biggest sects had been high above others in the Four Eastern Regions for more than a hundred thousand years. However, Divine Wind Palace was the only one of the five biggest sects that could really claim to be the dominant one. They seized the opportunity of the first candidate for the Human Emperor, greatly enhanced their strength, and controlled three regions of the Four Eastern Regions over a period of more than one hundred thousand years. The other four biggest sects, although powerful, ended up stuck in the Central Mainland Region, ostensibly having the name of the five biggest sects, but Divine Wind Palace was already above them.


    Divine Wind Palace was not an influence that was arrogant and mindless. Although their power was extremely horrible and their behavior tended to be domineering, they kept a bottom line and were very polite to the other four biggest sects. They took a step-by-step plan and slowly swallowed them. Those four biggest sects, partly because of fearing their power, and partly because they did not use aggressive coercion, had been at peace with them.


    But what they saw today was well beyond the limits of what the four biggest sects could tolerate. If Divine Wind Palace could treat the people of Immortal Palace in such a way, then they might use the same means against the other sects in the future, which was totally unacceptable to these sects.


    "Haha, Divine Wind Palace is really ambitious. Take what others get in the Infinite Star Sea. Does it mean that even if people come back from the Infinite Star Sea, they have to leave the good things in Divine Wind Palace before they leave?" A sarcastic voice rang out in the crowd and the crowd found it was Child-endowing Buddha. Everyone could not help but be surprised. Child-endowing Buddha had a great enmity against Zhou Bao, but today it was like a change of person, with him helping Zhou Bao in all respects.


    They were surprised, but no one would ask Child-endowing Buddha stupidly, yet the woman standing beside Yu Taixu could not help it anymore.


    "You''re courting death, Child-endowing Buddha!" She screamed, and hundreds of sword lights flashed from her body towards Child-endowing Buddha.


    "How dare you!"


    Yu Taixu scolded in a low voice and rolled up the hundreds of sword lights she shot with his sleeve.


    "Stand down!"


    The woman seemed to be hit hard, and suddenly became dispirited. She retreated thousands of feet to the sacrificial altar and bowed down. Yet, she still looked resentfully at Zhou Bao and Child-endowing Buddha.


    "Mother, father, you¡ª!"


    "Slap!"


    Yu Nanzhe had just been slapped out by Zhou Bao and landed on the edge of the altar, unhurt. He saw clearly that the woman had been stricken down the altar by Yu Taixu, so he cried. But before he finished what he was going to say, he received another slap, which struck him directly into the dark water under the altar.


    "I''m unfortunate to have such an unfilial son!" Yu Taixu sighed. As he moved his finger slightly, those hairlike blood vessels that were around Wang She were cut off. Then, with a raise of his hand, the wounded Wang She was sent to Zhou Bao.


    "I don''t know this before, but as the lord of Divine Wind Palace and Zhe-er''s father, I''ll give you a satisfactory solution. You take Wang She back. As for my unfilial son, I will leave him at your disposal and not get involved. What do you think?"


    His words seemed so stern, and the crowd, though full of righteous indignation, was at a loss for the manner in which he allowed his son to be dealt with. Everyone looked at Zhou Bao, but Zhou Bao was not that broad-minded, and he laughed at Yu Taixu''s words.


    "Good, I''ll kill him first, then¡ª!"


    "Wait!" A weak voice cut in.


    With a frown, Zhou Bao glanced at Wang She beside him, "Chief Wang, you mean...!"


    "It''s my business. I''ll settle it!" Wang She took a deep breath and turned his eyes towards Yu Nanzhe who was climbing up the altar from the dark water, "I''ll remember it for the time being and avenge myself in the future!"


    "Okay!" Zhou Bao nodded slightly. It seemed that this time Wang She was so humiliated by a junior that his self-esteem was touched and if he didn''t get it back by himself, he would have no face in the Four Eastern Regions.


    "In that case, then give him a break today!" Zhou Bao said bitterly, "Lord Yu, if there''s nothing else, we''ll leave!"


    Yu Taixu''s face twitched, and he answered, "Okay, goodbye!"


    At this time, even if he hated Zhou Bao very much, he could not stop him, and he had no reason to stop him. He could only force a smile and wait for these people to leave before making plans.


    "Are you leaving like this?" Child-endowing Buddha asked Zhou Bao suddenly and looked at him with hatred, which caused Zhou Bao''s heart to beat fast.


    "Will you treat me to dinner if I don''t leave?" Zhou Bao replied in a bad manner.


    "I kind of did you a great favor, didn''t I?" Child-endowing Buddha grinned, "So, can you undo the inhibition you imposed on me? I don''t want to be inhibited all day!"


    The audience burst into an uproar.


    No wonder he was acting strangely today, beating the drum for Zhou Bao like his footman. It turned out that he was inhibited by Zhou Bao.


    The two had never been on good terms. In the Human Emperor Palace, Child-endowing Buddha made a mockery of Zhou Bao. Though they did not fight on the spot, no one could restrain them after they left Divine Wind Palace.


    It was not difficult for Zhou Bao to defeat Child-endowing Buddha. However, instead of killing him on the spot, he inhibited him. His intentions should be considered.


    As soon as Child-endowing Buddha spoke of this, several Living Buddhas of Bigwheel Temple in the presence stared at Zhou Bao with unkind eyes. After all, Child-endowing Buddha was the most promising Living Buddha in Bigwheel Temple, and it was a provocation for the Temple that Zhou Bao tried to control him with inhibition.


    "You!" Zhou Bao was angry immediately upon hearing it. "Well, good, that''s true, you did me a great favor. I will certainly undo the inhibition!" As he spoke, he flicked his hand, a faint firelight flashing from his fingertips toward Child-endowing Buddha''s forehead.


    Child-endowing Buddha smiled at the coming firelight and did not avoid it. When the firelight fell upon his forehead, a buddhist halo shone all over him, and an invisible shackle fell off his body. He was instantly relieved.


    "Amitabha, thank you for your mercy!" Child-endowing Buddha chanted and gave a gentle salute to Zhou Bao. In an instant, despicable Child-endowing Buddha, the most adulterous monk in the world, became a respected, eminent monk, as if he were a new man.


    "Humph, there''s no need for thanks. As the call sounds, so does the echo. As long as you do not provoke me in the future, I will not trouble you!" Zhou Bao gave him a sneer.


    He wondered why Child-endowing Buddha acted out of character today. It turned out that he had such a plan.


    This guy was brought out from the underground palace of the Small Thunder Temple by Zhou Bao and attached to the green lamp. Although he occupied Child-endowing Buddha''s body, to some extent, he was still inhibited by that green lamp. In other words, Zhou Bao''s inhibition could bring him great trouble.


    To Zhou Bao''s surprise, he took this opportunity to ask him to undo the inhibition. Although Zhou Bao was a bit of a disgrace, the recent wars had made him a great man throughout the Seven-deity Regions. Thus, this was not a very embarrassing thing.


    "You cunning bald ass!" After undoing the inhibition, Zhou Bao cursed inwardly. Then, he followed White Tiger and left Divine Wind Palace without saying a word.


    Not only did the people of Immortal Palace leave, but all the others of the three sects also left. Their faces were somber, because the behavior of Divine Wind Palace was too unorthodox.


    "We suffered great losses on the trip to the Infinite Star Sea. As you can see, although Wang She came back alive, he is on the verge of death. I''ll take him back to Immortal Palace right away. If you''re anxious to know what has happened, you can come with me and stay at Immortal Palace. When his condition improves, he will be able to tell the whole story at once. What do you think?" Away from the Transmitting Formation, White Tiger proposed to the men of the other three sects.


    "Good, let''s go to Immortal Palace for a few days!" The First Elder of Dragon Thunder Palace was the first to speak.


    People from Bigwheel Temple and Jade Pool also nodded in agreement. As for Divine Wind Palace, the four biggest sects did not ask their opinion at all. Moreover, White Tiger said that Immortal Palace did not welcome the people of Divine Wind Palace and told them to go back and wait for news, which made the Elder of Divine Wind Palace blow a fuse. But they were in the wrong, so he could not resist and returned sullenly.


    Now that Wang She had been rescued, Zhou Bao didn''t want to stay here too much, ready to leave, but White Tiger caught him. "Zhou Bao, come back to Immortal Palace with me and find out what happened in the Infinite Star Sea first!"

 566 The Only Way

    Three days later, with all kinds of panaceas, Wang She recovered at last and spoke slowly about the trip to the Infinite Star Sea under the eager gaze of a group of people.


    This event was extremely simple, simple and chilling. The so-called exploration of the Infinite Star Sea did not take place at all. As soon as they came out of the Transmitting Formation and the rays of the formation disappeared, they greatly suffered.


    A Lunar True Thunder exploded on the spot. Then the Rolling Dragon King led dozens of Venerables to strike a vicious blow on these explorers from the five biggest sects.


    Half of the elites of the five biggest sects died on the spot, while the other half fled separately and were badly hurt because of the Lunar True Thunder. Facing the pursuit of dozens of Demonic Immortals at the Venerable Realm, their results could be imagined.


    Of course, it could only be imagined now. Given the situation, Wang She was extremely lucky to survive. His cultivation and strength did not stand out among those elites of the five biggest sects, but he was proficient in the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, and had a few unknown tricks. All these helped him dodged a bullet, but he could only protect himself, unable to figure out what was happening to the others.


    Thanks to his modest strength, he did not attract the attention of those Lords of Heaven like the Rolling Dragon King, so he escaped successfully from the pursuit, and got Kunpeng Bloodline in a mysterious place in the Infinite Star Sea. Then he refined the bloodline and got a huge benefit.


    However, in a place like the Infinite Star Sea, no matter how much benefit was gained, it was useless. When Wang She had recovered from his wounds, he thought it should be all right for him to use his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and his newly acquired power to pass through the Transmitting Formation, because all the Venerables brought by the Rolling Dragon King had gone after other survivors. Therefore, he went back to the Transmitting Formation to find a chance to return.


    Everything was going well, and only two of the Venerables were there, and they weren''t very attentive. After all, with their strength, everything within 50 kilometers of the Transmitting Formation could not be hidden from their spiritual minds.


    Wang She launched the Transmitting Formation with his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill under their noses. But these Venerables were not good-for-nothings. As soon as that Transmitting Formation started, they found Wang She and struck him seriously. However, as the Transmitting Formation was launched, the two Venerables were afraid to follow too much to cause a rebound of the five biggest sects. That was the reason for Wang She''s lucky return.


    "Others either died or ran away, and you not only got Kunpeng Bloodline, but also came back alive. If I were Yu Nanzhe, I would become madly jealous as well!" In the silence, Child-endowing Buddha spoke, and looked at Wang She with a spurious smile, "How lucky you are!"


    "Yes, I was lucky, but thank you for standing up for me that day!"


    "No, I should thank you. Without that opportunity, I couldn''t have been able to ask Zhou Bao to undo my inhibition. Isn''t it, Zhou Bao?"


    Zhou Bao gave him a cold snort and left without uttering a word.


    "He really has a bad temper." Seeing Zhou Bao leave, Child-endowing Buddha grinned, "White Tiger, that guy is now one of the Four Signs of your Immortal Palace. If he''s always in this temper, it''s easy to make things get out of hand and irreparable!"


    "What do you mean?" White Tiger threw Child-endowing Buddha a displeased glance.


    "I mean he was so impulsive that he almost killed Yu Taixu''s son on the spot. Fortunately, he didn''t do it. Or else, do you think Yu Taixu would have put up with it?"


    "So what? We Immortal Palace can do what Yu Taixu did. It''s no big deal. Are we timid people?"


    "Of course you are not timid, but now we''re in a troubled time. It''s not good for us to have disputes within our five biggest sects!" Child-endowing Buddha gave a meaningful expression, "The matter of the Void Map of Infinite Star Sea was very much a secret, and so was the Grand Transmitting Formation of Infinite Star Sea. How could Rolling Dragon King know it? What''s more, Rolling Dragon King has deep hatred for us. It''s not that simple. Do you really think they stumbled across it?"


    "It''s certainly impossible for them to stumble across it!" When it came to this, White Tiger got serious, "There is reason in it. The Sea Area is vast and mysterious. From the words left by our forefathers, we can see that they have a strong power that we cannot match. Likewise, we don''t have to worry too much, because the Seven-deity Regions have a strong inhibition. Even if Demonic Immortals of the Sea Area has formidable power, they won''t be able to enter the Seven-deity Regions and baffle us, or, with their power, they could have swept away our Seven-deity Regions long ago. How could they have kept us alive for so many years?"


    At this point, White Tiger looked at Child-endowing Buddha with an odd look, and his voice grew louder with a tone of determination and fierce. "Besides, even if the Sea Area tries to deal with our Seven-deity Regions, we Immortal Palace will never sacrifice our own people for the sake of the so-called righteousness and overall situation. At the worst, we die with them. So don''t talk nonsense in front of me!"


    "Er¡ª!" The muscles of Child-endowing Buddha''s face stiffened, and he cast an awkward glance at White Tiger and left.


    White Tiger looked around at those people of the other three sects, as if he had not seen Child-endowing Buddha''s ugly look. "Now that everything is clear, what do you think we should do?"


    "Damn it, that f**king White Tiger, I was only play acting. He was so mean!" Child-endowing Buddha muttered in a low voice, wandering about. He, although leaving the hall, did not leave Immortal Palace.


    "You were play acting, so was White Tiger. You''re just two actors!" Just as he muttered, Zhou Bao suddenly appeared beside him, "What do you think of this event in Infinite Star Sea?"


    "Eh?" Child-endowing Buddha was surprised by Zhou Bao''s sudden appearance, "I thought you were going to turn against me as soon as we met!"


    "Humph, your inhibition has been undone. It''s no use turning against you. You know a lot of my secrets. How can I turn against you?"


    Looking at the sneer tugging at the corner of Zhou Bao''s mouth, Child-endowing Buddha smiled, with a twist of his face, "All the secrets I know won''t work. You''re now able to stand up to an Eight-tribulation True Immortal on the surface. If I am not mistaken, you must have used some of the power of that Heavenly Fairy Weapon when you were dealing with that Green Pith Leaf. Thus, it''s no longer a threat to you. Now, even if Divine Wind Palace knows your secret, I don''t think they will dare to act. I know you. You definitely have a bluff that I don''t even know. If I really dare to threaten you with your secret, you could kill me in return!"


    "I''m not that powerful!" Zhou Bao shook his head with a smile, "We don''t really know each other very well, but we''re old friends. Stop talking nonsense! Tell me, do I have a big chance to go to the Infinite Star Sea this time?"


    "This is a big deal and the Sea Area is involved. Even if we have the map of Infinite Star Sea, the five biggest sects will be very cautious. It''s not easy to start the Transmitting Formation to Infinite Star Sea again!"


    "I don''t think so!" Zhou Bao shook his head again, "I''m sure the second trip to Infinite Star Sea will start soon!"


    "Why?"


    "The reason is simple; there''re other people alive, but they''re not as lucky as Wang She was and didn''t come back. Most importantly, although Wang She is seriously injured, he got Kunpeng Bloodline. Kunpeng is a kind of Primordial Fierce Beast. Over time, his power will inevitably grow and his potential will be limitless. What does that mean? This means that there''re treasures in the Infinite Star Sea and we can benefit greatly from there! Do you think they will leave the vast benefits to the Sea Area alone?"


    Child-endowing Buddha nodded with approval, "It makes sense. Wang She really had some fate. He actually got Kunpeng Bloodline! It''s enough to arouse everyone''s greed. In the face of such huge benefits, the danger can no longer stop them. You might be on the list for a second exploration, but chances are slim!"


    "Why?"


    "The first reason is the benefits. The huge benefits in the Infinite Star Sea have been proved by Wang She. You''ve already offended the two biggest families of Divine Wind Palace, and your combat capability is formidable. Then will they easily allow you to try your Divine Fate in a place full of treasure? Second, they think you''re still at the Level Nine, and no one knows you have broken through into the Mysterious Realm. They worry that if you really get the lucky chance there and break through to the Mysterious Realm in one go, you will not be bound by the Golden Book of Fate because you''re not in this macro world. That''s what Divine Wind Palace doesn''t want to happen, so your biggest obstacle this time is Divine Wind Palace!" At this point he paused and said, "If you really want to go to the Infinite Star Sea, the only way is to get the full support of Immortal Palace!"

 567 Just Reaching the Infinite Star Sea

    Here is the Infinite Star Sea.


    Now, Zhou Bao was in the immense hollow, looking around the boundless sea of stars, with all kinds of thoughts surging in his mind.


    This was not the first time he had stayed in the hollow. Last time, he stopped at the Desolate Ancient Star Area, which was a remote, backward Star Area and the region where the Azure Big World laid in. Even in primitive times, it was a mysterious place with a special topography and infinite space. Once caught up in it, Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm and even Human Immortals could hardly come out. The two who drove in Silver Frost Castle that day dared to break into the Desolate Ancient Star Area with confidence entirely because of their Silver Frost Castle.


    That Silver Frost Castle was an Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device. In a sense, however, it was no less valuable than an ordinary Taihao Fairy Weapon, because there was a Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness in it. Although it would take lots of energy to launch the golden bridge, and even though the Silver Frost Castle could only launch it once, most of the time, they did not really need to launch the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness and only needed to launch the Void-breaking Bridge that evolved from the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness. Although the Void-breaking Bridge could not be compared to the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness, it could ensure that they escaped from any space trap, so they dared to enter the Desolate Ancient Star Area.


    This was, of course, off-topic.


    It was not until he arrived here that Zhou Bao understood the meaning of Infinite Star Sea.


    This really was a wonderful Star Area. Standing outside the Transmitting Formation, you would get an eyeful of starlight. The twinkle and rotation of immeasurable starlight formed a vast sea.


    "This really is a great place. How surging the star force flows! If Child-endowing Buddha were here, he would look like a duck to water. Hehe, with the help of the infinite star forces here, his Sky-measuring Star Ruler, even if unable to exert the same power as the Taihao Fairy Weapon, will be at the top of all Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Unfortunately, he is now too low in cultivation to come to this Infinite Star Sea."


    It was true that Child-endowing Buddha''s cultivation was too low. It was not easy to come here, as Child-endowing Buddha and Zhou Bao expected.


    There were huge benefits in the Infinite Star Sea, as you could see from Wang She''s gains.


    There was great danger in the Infinite Star Sea as well, as you could also see from Wang She''s experience.


    For the five biggest sects, the Rolling Dragon King was not a big threat. He was just a Lord of Heaven, and the Seven-deity Regions also had Lords of Heaven. Although the Seven-deity Regions had fewer Lords of Heaven in the Seven-deity Regions than the Sea Area, the Rolling Dragon King did not represent the entire Sea Area.


    In the camp of the Rolling Dragon King, there was only one Lord of Heaven and dozens of Venerables. The Seven-deity Regions concentrated the power of four regions and found five Lords of Heaven, so that the Seven-deity Regions could defeat the Sea Area.


    Yes, there were five Lords of Heaven coming here. There were no more than 10 Lords of Heaven from all over the Four Eastern Regions, plus the hermits and those who were far from the world. This time they were almost out in force. If the matter remained unresolved, there would be no need for the Four Eastern Regions to exist.


    The five Lords of Heaven should come from the five biggest sects respectively. And as the head of the five biggest sects, Divine Wind Palace was duty-bound to send another one. Besides, Dark Sect also sent a Venerable because they had no Lord of Heaven at present.


    Immortal Palace did not send a Lord of Heaven, but sent Zhou Bao.


    Although everyone thought Zhou Bao was only a Level Nine expert, he showed unparalleled combat capabilities and killing power when he defeated an Eight-tribulation True Immortal. As a result, even though he was not a Lord of Heaven, he was duly recognized by the five Lords of Heaven.


    Just as Child-endowing Buddha said, to send Zhou Bao, Immortal Palace this time had put in a great deal of effort. People of Immortal Palace were puzzled why Zhou Bao firmly insisted on entering the Infinite Star Sea. However, he now was not only one of the 28 constellations, but also one of the Four Signs. Considering his high status in Immortal Palace, and his terrifying combat capabilities, Immortal Palace aggressively pursued a chance for him, even though others didn''t quite understand what he was thinking. Divine Wind Palace had some complaints about this, but Zhou Bao got this chance at the insistence of Immortal Palace.


    Then he came to the Infinite Star Sea.


    "King Wuyang, here is the Infinite Star Sea. It deserves its name, doesn''t it?" Just as Zhou Bao was feeling the magnificence and vastness of the Infinite Star Sea, an extremely soft and magnetic voice sounded in his ear. Zhou Bao trembled slightly from fright, and then a smile spread over his face.


    "Yes, it does deserve its name. Infinite Star Sea, Infinite Star Sea, a sea of stars. Only nature could do such a feat!" He sighed with feeling, "I heard you''ve been here before, Lord of Heaven. You must be very familiar with the Infinite Star Sea!"


    The man who spoke to Zhou Bao was a middle-aged man who looked gentle and dressed in black clothes. He was elegant and unsophisticated, with a black iron crown over his head and eyes as unfathomable as endless pools.


    He was the Highest Elder of Dragon Thunder Palace, and also the only Genuine Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm in his sect, named Yuan Tiangang.


    The five Lords of Heaven from the Four Eastern Regions had different attitudes towards Zhou Bao. Lords of Heaven from Dragon Thunder Palace and Jade Pool were very kind to him. The Highest Elder of Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple was neither indifferent nor warm to him. He did not show enough kindness, nor did he show malice. However, the two Lords of Heaven from Divine Wind Palace and the Venerable from Dark Sect showed obvious hostility to Zhou Bao.


    One of the two Lords of Heaven of Divine Wind Palace was Hong Taihe, who was defeated by Zhou Bao last time. The other one was both the Highest Elder of the Yu Family and the Highest Elder of Divine Wind Palace, named Yu Changmen, a Seven-tribulation True Immortal. In order to save Wang She, Zhou Bao offended the Yu Family and Divine Wind Palace in public, so he naturally had no favor to Zhou Bao. The Venerable of Dark Sect was the Patriarch in Dark Sect in the Four Eastern Regions. He was the teacher of the Supreme of Demons Qiao Huai killed by Zhou Bao, and so with such a deep hatred for Zhou Bao, he certainly didn''t have a good attitude towards him. However, he knew that Zhou Bao was better than him in terms of actual strength, because although he had great confidence in himself, he could not compete with an Eight-tribulation True Immortal, let alone defeat an Eight-tribulation True Immortal. Therefore, he just glared at Zhou Bao.


    In fact, regarding the choice of coming to the Infinite Star Sea, several Elders of Immortal Palace did not agree with Zhou Bao''s request at the very beginning, fearing that he would be hurt by others. If Zhou Bao had not insisted, his request would have been rejected.


    Therefore, when they arrived in the Infinite Star Sea and sighed at the magnificent scene, the atmosphere among the several people became a little embarrassed.


    After a period of silence, Yuan Tiangang sighed, "It seems difficult for us to cooperate, but I believe we all have our own methods and it should be easy to find each sect''s survivors. Rolling Dragon King isn''t a fool. After Wang She ran away, he should have expected that the Four Eastern Regions will not give up and will find him to settle accounts. So, either he''s gone now, or he''s hiding in the Infinite Star Sea far away, and he''s not going to go after survivors any more. Let''s find those survivors separately!"


    "Good!" Before Yu Changmen could speak, Hong Taihe answered with indifference, and disappeared into the air with a flash.


    Yu Changmen''s face twitched, but he did not speak anything and also disappeared with a flash.


    Then, so did the Highest Elder of Bigwheel Temple and the Dark Lord Red Blood of Dark Sect. Without saying a word to the others, they all turned into a stream of light, heading in different directions to the Infinite Star Sea. Obviously, they had sensed the position of their surviving elite disciples through different ways.


    "Hehe, they can''t wait. Then, I''m leaving, too!" Yuan Tiangang laughed, cupping his hands to say good-bye to the rest, and disappeared on the spot. Now, there were only Zhou Bao and the Highest Elder of Jade Pool around the whole Transmitting Formation.


    "King Wuyang, there''s something I want to ask you!" The Highest Elder was a very kind, but very thin old woman. Zhou Bao had seen many horror stories in his previous life, and was always in awe of such an old woman. Now at her words he felt a chill in his heart but forced a smile, "Please tell me your advice, Grandma Loulan!"


    "It''s not advice. As far as I know, before Yeyue left, she borrowed two Pure Yang Celestial Devices from King Wuyang, didn''t she?"


    "Yes, she did borrow two Pure Yang Celestial Devices from me, and I can sense the position of those two Devices!" Zhou Bao laughed, "I think she''s fine!"


    "Good, good, Yeyue is the hope of our Jade Pool''s future. Haha, it''s good that she''s fine!" Grandma Loulan smiled joyfully, "I guess that since the two celestial devices you lent Yeyue were powerful, and she was protected by them, I can''t sense her position for the time being. Thus, I have to bother you, King Wuyang."


    "No problem!" Zhou Bao nodded, "She''s not far from here!"


    Together they set out, turning into a green stream of light and a white stream of light, flying into the depths of the Infinite Star Sea.


    The Infinite Star Sea was a vast Star Area. Zhou Bao saw a sea of stars before the Transmitting Formation, but god knew how long it took to travel from one star to the other.


    However, no matter how vast the Infinite Star Sea was, it was none of Zhou Bao''s business because he was looking for Ji Yeyue. Besides, there were not many people from Immortal Palace entering the Infinite Star Sea last time, and only Wang She survived under the attack of the Rolling Dragon King''s Lunar True Thunder.


    In his haste Wang She did not see what happened to the others, but saw clearly what happened to the members of Immortal Palace at his side. Therefore, unlike others, Zhou Bao had no mission to save the members of his sect, and he was not that eager to explore the Infinite Star Sea. He thought it would be good to find Ji Yeyue first and get some information about the Infinite Star Sea.

 568 The Remains of a Lord of Heaven

    Grandma Loulan was a Seven-tribulation Lord of Heaven, the Highest Elder of Jade Pool, the Junior Sister of Jade Pool Golden Mother''s teacher, and also the bluff of Jade Pool.


    As to whether she was the real bluff, only she and Jade Pool knew.


    The two Pure Yang Celestial Devices that was carried by Ji Yeyue were borrowed from Zhou Bao, so he was able to sense their position as soon as he came out of the Transmitting Formation.


    It was not far from the Transmitting Formation, but it was in a strange place.


    "The Infinite Star Sea is indeed worthy of its name. We would be stuck if we have no Void Map."


    Indeed, such a place was, so to speak, alarming. Both Zhou Bao and Grandma Loulan could tear through space and travel through the hollow, but they dared not to use it here, because they might be trapped in an endless space puzzle at any time.


    Grandma Loulan smiled bitterly, "Yes, the Infinite Star Sea is so mysterious and so strange that we have suffered a loss. We only explored a radius of 300,000 kilometers before, and then gave up because it was too dangerous, but we still gained huge benefits. This time we have the Void Map, and there''re all kinds of thoughts in everyone''s mind. The last time those people were sent here was mainly to find the way, and to train the young disciples of each sect and to make them try their Divine Fate. We thought that having a Lord of Heaven leading and holding the Void Map, they would not have big problems. Unexpectedly, they were plotted in by the Rolling Dragon King...!"


    "The Rolling Dragon King is nothing to be feared!" Zhou Bao smiled. He was a little afraid of the Rolling Dragon King, especially of his Lunar True Thunder. But he got the Silver Frost Castle and studied both the Void-breaking Bridge and the Gold Bridge of the Sea of Bitterness. Now, he learned a lot about the Law of Space, and believed that he could avoid the Lunar True Thunder in time, even if it were to burst in front of him.


    "That Lunar True Thunder is awesome!" Grandma Loulan sighed.


    "Here we are. This is the place!" Zhou Bao suddenly stopped, and so did Grandma Loulan, but she looked doubtful. "Is it here?"


    "Yes, it is!" Zhou Bao nodded, frowning and looking around. There was a flying meteorite before them, and they were in a meteorite belt.


    The massive meteorite was grey-brown in color, more than a thousand feet in diameter, and was shaped in an irregular circle, like a flying potato.


    Not knowing what material it was made of, neither Zhou Bao nor Grandma Loulan could penetrate this seemingly ordinary meteorite with their spiritual minds.


    "I sense the two Pure Yang Celestial Devices in this meteorite, but the stone seems a little odd!" Zhou Bao slightly frowned.


    "Let me see!" Grandma Loulan said. Then she moved the purple jade stick in her hand, and a jet of purple light shot from the end of the stick and hit the meteorite.


    "Poof!" There was no damage to the meteorite after the faint sound, as if the blow had been mere play. Grandma Loulan felt awkward. At any rate, she was a Seven-tribulation True Immortal, a senior Lord of Heaven and the Highest Elder of Jade Pool. Ji Yeyue was protected by Zhou Bao''s two Pure Yang Celestial Devices, and she could not sense where Ji Yeyue was. Thus, she had no choice but to turn to Zhou Bao for help, which made her embarrassed enough already. Now, she really didn''t want to lose face before Zhou Bao.


    Therefore, she did not care about anything, and cried out. The purple stick in her hand suddenly gave out bright purple lights, hitting that meteorite.


    "Boom!"


    With a loud crash, the meteorite, which had been flying at high speed, stopped.


    "Gosh, she deserves to be called a Seven-tribulation Lord of Heaven. Such a large meteorite at such a high speed has stopped after her touch. Hehe, look at her thin body and her movements, it is really not like what she could do. She''s much scarier than the old women in horror stories." Seeing this, Zhou Bao lifted his eyebrows a little and thought of something irrelevant.


    After stopping the meteorite with her stick, Grandma Loulan didn''t say anything but flashed and stood on top of the meteorite, beginning to search carefully. However, she did not find any clues after a long time, and had to say to Zhou Bao with a sullen face, "There''s something wrong with this thing, and it''s a big problem!"


    The meteorite did have a big problem. Although she did not find any abnormality, neither did she find any trace of Ji Yeyue. Even when tapping the meteorite with her purple jade stick, the meteorite did not have any damage, not even a drop of dust when she launched her Dharma power on the meteorite. It was incredible!


    Seeing that Grandma Loulan was stumped, Zhou Bao was a little surprised too. Then with a flash, he jumped upon the meteorite. After he gave a few casual taps on the meteorite, his face moved slightly, "This is not a meteorite, but a solidified Self-world!"


    Zhou Bao had seen the World-solidifying Skill once. It was a desperate attempt for a Lord of Heaven to save himself, which he saw when he defeated Hong Taihe. So as soon as he started tapping, he had a very familiar feeling, which was exactly the same feeling when Hong Taihe launched the World-solidifying Skill.


    There were too few Lords of Heaven in the Four Eastern Regions. They were all so high up that they barely participated in the fight. Even if they participated, they would kill their opponents in seconds. They would not be defeated, and would not be forced to use the World-solidifying Skill. Grandma Loulan was a Genuine Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm and knew how to use the World-solidifying Skill, but she had never used it or even seen it. Thus she didn''t know what it was.


    "What? Is it the World-solidifying Skill? You mean it''s a Lord of Heaven''s World-solidifying Skill. It has always existed, then it means...!"


    "Yes, this should be the remains of a Lord of Heaven, not the last means of survival, which Hong Taihe used, but that a Lord of Heaven died naturally."


    At this point, Zhou Bao found that Grandma Loulan''s face darkened.


    A Lord of Heaven was a Genuine Immortal, but the remains meant that a Genuine Immortal was not immortal, just had a longer life.


    Generally speaking, the lifespan of a Metaphysic Individual Immortal was around 1,000 years. Having experienced a Thunder Tribulation, the body of a Genuine Immortal was reborn, and a Genuine Immortal''s life could exceed the limit of 1,000 years, up to 3,000 years; 3,000 years was the limit of life of a Genuine Immortal who was below the Lord of Heaven Realm. No matter how strong you were, as long as you were at the Venerable Realm, you could only live up to 3,000 years. And once you broke through the Venerable Realm, you would have a huge leap in life expectancy that would last 5,000 years. An Eight-tribulation True Immortal could live as long as 9,000 years.


    9,000 years was the limit of the Lord of Heaven''s life. No matter how high his cultivation was, the life of a Lord of Heaven would never exceed 10,000 years.


    Ten thousand years was the lifespan of a Human Immortal. You could live more than 10,000 only if you had undergone nine times of Thunder Tribulation and gained the Human Immortal Karma Rank.


    Grandma Loulan was a Seven-tribulation Lord of Heaven, whose lifespan was seven to eight thousand years. It might sound long, but it was nothing in time. Now, she was nearly 5,000 years old, so, seeing the remains of a Lord of Heaven, she felt sad for the loss of her kind.


    "Unexpectedly, it''s the remains of an elder Lord of Heaven. I wonder how many years it''s been since this senior died, that the solidified Self-world has become like this. Are you sure Yeyue is in this meteorite?"


    This meteorite was only over a thousand feet in diameter. At the beginning, Grandma Loulan suspected that Zhou Bao had made a mistake, but she believed it after she knew it was a solidified Self-world. The solidified Self-world was a complete space and world. On the surface, it was only about a thousand feet in diameter, but the space inside could be tens of thousands of kilometers, or even hundreds of thousands of kilometers. What''s more, it could even be a micro world if the Dharma was complete.


    "If this is really the remains of a Lord of Heaven, there should be that thing in it!" When Zhou Bao spoke this, his look slightly changed.


    The World-solidifying Skill was the last defense means of a Lord of Heaven, and almost nothing could break through it. However, legend had it that, in primitive times, there was a kind of supernatural sect, known as Space-corroding Sect, which could break through and enter into it, and use it as a habitat for reproduction. If Ji Yeyue was really in it, she must have strayed into the nest of Space-corroding Sects.


    Space-corroding Sects belonged to the Primordial Supernatural Sect and were quite mysterious. Although not as strong as Primordial Fierce Beasts, they were also at the top of the food chain in primitive times. Space-corroding Sects were famous in primitive times for their threat level, and they were able to secrete a peculiar venom which, by nature, had the power to corrode space, and in sufficient quantity, could corrode any space, even the solidified Self-world. They liked to find some hidden space in the hollow to hide, and they especially loved this kind of solidified Self-world of the remains of a Lord of Heaven.


    "If they''re really Space-corroding Sects, it''s all right. As long as we find their entrance, we can enter it!" Zhou Bao faintly said, "And I can feel my two Pure Yang Celestial Devices still working. In other words, that defensive Pure Yang Celestial Device has spatial property, but it''s not purely defensive by the Law of Space. Therefore, the venom of Space-corroding Sects is powerful, but it is of a single nature, and it''s hard for it to break down the Device''s defenses."


    "I know it. Let''s find the entrance quickly!" Grandma Loulan said. Space-corroding Sects had weird venom, but the size of them was not large and the amount of their venom was not much. Above all, their venom was like a bee sting, and except for the Queen Sect, common Space-corroding Sects'' venom could not reproduce when it used up, so once they found a nest, they would leave a passage for access.


    What Zhou Bao cared about most was the venom of Space-corroding Sects.


    "With the help of my Infinite Poison Banner and the venom of Space-corroding Sects, I can defeat a Lord of Heaven, even after they used the World-solidifying Skill!" Zhou Bao thought to himself.

 569 Absorbing the Venom

    "Huh, the Seven-deity Regions are so generous! So many Lords of Heaven came to deal with me!"


    Shortly after Zhou Bao and the others left the Transmitting Formation, around the formation there was a sparkle, and the Rolling Dragon King''s figure floated into view. "By the way, your circle is by no means united. You''ve actually fallen apart, giving me a good opportunity to attack. Unfortunately, this time I''ve found a huge secret in the Infinite Star Sea, and I''ll be sure to hurry back. This is indeed a great service I have provided. I won''t say it was His Majesty, there are several husbands who wouldn''t mistreat me in any way. If I have gained recognition and support from the several husbands, and not only will they help me with my little enmity, but also to conquer the Seven-deity Regions." When the Rolling Dragon King thought about this, a severe cold smile appeared. "Well, that might give you something to be proud of for a few days. But you won''t remain giddy with pride for too long!"


    Then, his body flickered and disappeared along with the tens of Venerables he brought with him. Not a shadow was seen. After he disappeared, the space around the Transmitting Formation started to surge again.


    There was a loud cry. A huge Golden Lock emerged vibrating from inside the hollow, and immediately shattered the space to pieces with its vibration. It formed a huge void, a chaotic void.


    Whoosh!


    As soon as this void was formed, the countless meteorites and celestial bodies surrounding the Transmitting Formation were sucked towards it by a huge gravitational force.


    But none of the objects were sucked into the void. When they got close to the Golden Lock, it emitted a golden light, shattering them.


    "This is the place, the Transmitting Formation!" Just after the golden light emitted by the Golden Lock disappeared and the space recovered, two people appeared on top of the lock.


    "I didn''t expect there to be this type of Transmitting Formation on the fringe of the Infinite Star Sea! It was really well hidden!"


    The two men that appeared were both Genuine Immortals of the Venerable Realm. Looking at the Transmitting Formation that was a stone''s throw away from them, a strange expression appeared on their face.


    "You see this magic formation, it seems like somebody used it recently."


    "You''re right. It seems that someone else from the macro world has come here to get in on the action, haha. Interesting. Who from the macro world do you think it could be?"


    "Mmm, it must be a nameless macro world, otherwise the Transmitting Formation would not be set up in such a remote location. But since they have already arrived, they won''t want to go!" The man was called Lei Hai. He was a strong and sturdy man, looking about 30 years old, and clad with muscles like chunks of iron. In fact, this guy looked completely piled up with muscles. The other looked a bit thinner and weaker, and his slender eyes were the feature that most stood out, slender like a willow leaf. From time to time a wisp of yellow light flickered.


    "You''re right. Since they''re here, they don''t want to leave. Let''s block this Transmitting Formation first so that they can''t escape. Then we''ll sort them out, find out their story. If their powers are not strong, and they can open the formation, then we''ll enter their macro world through it and find out what the situation is. I can''t say whether we can occupy this macro world or not."


    "If we can, then this would be a great contribution." Hearing what the weak man said, Lei Hai laughed out loud. "Controlling the macro world, and subjugating them to our rule would be a great contribution. If we have this opportunity, wouldn''t it be a lot better than running over here to fight for the Devil Fetus of the Primordial Demon?"


    "Yeah. How is the Primordial Demon''s Devil Fetus worth fighting for? As far as I know, this time many powerful worlds have sent people for the Devil Fetus, and they were all Genuine Immortals of the Lord of Heaven Realm. Even a Human Immortal himself gave it a go!"


    "A human Immortal himself gave it a go? No way! How could a Human Immortal himself give it a go? Don''t tell me they''re not afraid...?"


    "Every world has its own secret means. Even though the Void Thunder Penalty is terrifying, there''s still ways to avoid it. Don''t forget, this time it''s the birth of the Primordial Demon''s Devil Fetus," he laughed mischievously, "The Primordial Demon''s Devil Fetus, eh? This would be a huge windfall for the Dark Sect. Suppose they got hold of this Devil Fetus, it could grow into a Primordial Demon. Such huge potential. But as for the Demon Monarch, if he got hold of this Devil Fetus he could directly advance to the level of Human Immortal, even to the highest phase! Did you think they wouldn''t be interested?"


    "Yes, of course, they would be interested! Also, what the necromancers said was true. This so-called practice was only to plunder this world. You only need to plunder so much, then you have seniority at the negotiations in this world. But if you don''t plunder enough, then you are fated to be punished by this world. Although the Void Thunder Penalty is tremendous, it does not frighten everyone. Neither you nor I obtained the Lord of Heaven''s Karmic Rank. It seems ordained that this time, there''s no way to obtain it. Rather than throw away our lives, it would be better to take advantage while nobody notices, and snatch some riches and gain some honor!"


    "You''re right. This is a place of unspeakable wealth and honor. We''ll just wait here patiently!" While they were speaking, the huge Golden Lock vibrated again and disappeared into the hollow. Then a huge lock shadow descended from the sky, landing on the Transmitting Formation. The Transmitting Formation flashed brightly for a second, then dimmed again.


    If at this time the Lords of Heaven of the five biggest sects come back, it would be a very alarming event. This Transmitting Formation has been locked by a mysterious force, and can no longer be used.


    But for the meanwhile, they could not return.


    Just like Zhou Bao at the moment, they were caught up in something.


    "The passageway is here, but it''s too small. Only a Space-corroding Sect can get through!"


    In the large, meteorite-shaped World-solidifying Skill, Zhou Bao looked strangely at the opening to the cavity, which was at worst about the size of a grain of rice.


    Space-corroding Sects were already very small, also about the size of a grain of rice. They were not very poisonous, but they always gathered together in the thousands. Thousands of Space-corroding Sects are much more poisonous, enough to corrode a large hollow. What''s more, in their social structure existed Queen Sects.


    Generally speaking, the social structure of the Space-corroding Sect was similar to that of a beehive, only that this type of supernatural sect, having originated in primitive times, did not have such a particular division of labor. The only other type was the Queen Sect.


    Like a Queen Bee, there was only one Queen Sect in each tribe who was specialized for the role of producing offspring. But Queen Sects were much stronger than queen bees, and they were hundreds of times bigger than common Space-corroding Sects. They were tremendously venomous, and their bodies were solid and enduring like metal and stone. But the main thing was that they were more venomous than their ordinary counterparts. The venom, as well as being able to corrode space, also had other insidious functions. If you could obtain the venom of a Queen Sect and perfect the Infinite Poison Banner, then the power of the Infinite Poison Banner will inevitably increase greatly to that of a fairy weapon. Of course, Zhou Bao did not want to miss out on this kind of advantage.


    Right now those advantages were in right front of him, there for the taking. But he calmed himself down and kept his eyes fixed on Grandma Loulan. "The opening to the passageway is not very big, but I don''t think it should be able to stop you, right?!"


    "It certainly couldn''t stop me!" Loulan replied, shaking her head, "It''s just that I can''t tell whether that little girl Yeyue is alive or dead. I''m afraid that it might not be good if we just rush in."


    "It seems you still don''t trust me. In that case, I''ll just go ahead!" Zhou Bao, smiling, did not wait for Grandma Loulan to speak. His body transformed into a cyan streamer, and delved into the tiny opening.


    A little embarrassed at Zhou Bao''s bluntness, Grandma Loulan smiled slightly, transformed into a white light, and went into the hole.


    Zhou Bao went through the passageway in the World-solidifying Skill, and once he reached that world, he stared in disbelief.


    "So it''s actually the Seven Tribulations Lord of Heaven''s Self-world, and it''s not big!"


    It was a space where the spiritual qi was just about to dry up. It had a perimeter of thousands of miles, an unbelievably solid perimeter that screened off the space. Perhaps before it was solidified, it could have been said that this space was truly endless. But now, it only had a perimeter thousands of miles long. This space was completely packed with Space-corroding Sects, but there was also a strange type of green-black plant. Zhou Bao knew that this plant was called bitter vine, and that it was the staple food of the Space-corroding Sects.


    The biggest differences between the Primordial Supernatural Sects and the Primordial Fierce Beasts were that Primordial Fierce Beasts had such a tyrannical power, and also had great wisdom. It was an inborn wisdom greater than that of Innate Deities and Primordial Demons. But the Primordial Supernatural Sects did not possess great wisdom, merely depending upon instinct to survive. Just like the Space-corroding Sect, apart from the wise Queen Sect, the supernatural sects had no spiritual intelligence whatsoever.


    So as soon as Zhou Bao appeared in this space, these rice grain-sized supernatural sects immediately started attacking him. A black cloud of buzzing Space-corroding Sects swarmed towards him, and in a second were surrounding him. Then, streams of black mist spurted from their bodies, forming a black Qi web enshrouding Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao smiled. As the black mist covered his body, it turned into a huge, black drape in no time. In a second, the black drape bound together all the Space-corroding Sects within the perimeter.


    "Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!"


    Falling to the ground with a strange sound, all of the Space-corroding Sects were turned into pus by the hugely poisonous Infinite Poison Banner, and their venom was absorbed by it. All that could be seen was a black mist revolving around Zhou Bao, and there emerged a beam of cyan light.


    Okay then!


    Zhou Bao seemed to have sensed something telepathically. He gave a low-pitched cry and raised his hands. The black mist swirled and rose, and picked up into a gust of black wind. The black wind gusted all around, and wherever it blew, the Space-corroding Sects turned one by one into pus. All of their venoms were absorbed, and they couldn''t offer the slightest resistance.


    "It seems I was right to have come to the Infinite Star Sea!" Inwardly, Zhou Bao had great satisfaction upon witnessing this scene.

 570 Finding Ji Yeyue

    He certainly had a reason to be happy. These Space-corroding Sects were a type of Primordial Supernatural Sect, with a strange type of toxicity. They gathered together and sprayed venom, even a Lord of Heaven could not withstand it. Their Self-world would be eroded by this poison spray, and that was to say nothing of someone less cultivated than a Lord of Heaven.


    Even if they were strong and their attack was fierce, when their space was eroded and broken, they had no place to survive. They suffered badly. To add, the Queen Sect did not possess any more plentiful intelligence, but her strength was enough to contend with a Genuine Immortal of the Venerable Realm. Some Queen Sects had evolved to even have the strength of a Lord of Heaven Realm, so it was very difficult for a Lord of Heaven to enter the nest of Space-corroding Sects.


    But this was not the case with Zhou Bao. He has the Infinite Poison Banner. Although this banner was not a fairy weapon, it was a replica of one, an Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device, with the core of a Poison-absorbing Green Bead. Although it was shattered now, the fragments of the Green Beads had already formed a mist which mixed into the Infinite Poison Banner and naturally restrained the Infinite Poison. For this reason, it was basically the nemesis of the Space-corroding Sects. The Space-corroding Sect of this world were seemingly made to refine Zhou Bao''s Infinite Poison Banner. In a short about of time, all of the Space-corroding Sects within the thousand-mile periphery were destroyed by Zhou Bao, and his Infinite Poison Banner shone all the more brightly.


    "So cool. It really is so cool!" Zhou Bao exclaimed in his heart. At that moment, it was if he had returned to the time where he had frantically used the Poison-absorbing Green Bead to absorb the poison from the legendary venomous insect in South China. It was just like the time he had first refined the Poison Cold Shield.


    It was the same type of small, strange insect that he overcame. It really was so cool. Seeing this solidified world, completely covered with Space-corroding Sects, if only he completely exterminated them, he thought, and upgraded their venom, could he really increase the power of his Infinite Poison Banner, and even increase it to near the level of fairy weapons. It was all possible, how could he not be excited?


    As Zhou Bao was plundering and killing like mad, these Space-corroding Sects didn''t notice anything unusual. They just swarmed towards him wave upon wave. But it was not long before a piercing, shrill hiss filled the space.


    "Come on then, Queen Sect!" Zhou Bao did not panic when he heard this hiss, but his expression showed a hint of expectation.


    The Queen of the Space-corroding Sect was viciously poisonous. Not only could it melt away space, but it was also devoid of form or matter, and was extremely difficult to defend oneself against. But all Zhou Bao thought about was whether he could absorb the Queen Sect''s venom into his Infinite Poison Banner. If he could, then his banner could become even more insidious.


    Of course, if he wanted to do this, he first had to vanquish the Queen Sect.


    The Queen Space-corroding Sect was several times bigger than common Space-corroding Sects, but as it appeared before Zhou Bao, it was not that huge. It was about the size of an egg, and its entire body was black. Whereas common Space-corroding Sects had one pair of wings, this one had eight, so it was extremely fast. In flight it looked like a black arrowhead, zooming up to Zhou Bao''s face.


    "Come on!" Zhou Bao quietly shouted, while brandishing the Infinite Poison Banner.


    At this time, the Infinite Poison Banner, having no idea how much poison it had absorbed, had almost completely turned cyan and in one swoop covered the Queen Sect.


    At the same time, the Queen Sect spurted black venom, and extended its sharp claws to viciously slash at the Infinite Poison Banner.


    Its claws were dazzlingly shiny, but Zhou Bao was not intimidated. He just smiled as a black-red Sword Qi was thrust forth, chopping off the claws.


    "Buzz¡ª¡ª!" The Queen Sect, smothered by the Infinite Poison Banner, let out a blood-curdling screech. It started to struggle out of the banner''s hold, but it wasn''t easy at all.


    This Queen Sect and her tribe had lived in this World-solidifying Skill for tens of thousands of years, and were reasonably powerful. They were supernatural sects of the Venerable Realm, but they had never encountered before such an eccentric and valiant opponent like Zhou Bao. They had no room to resist while under the control of the Infinite Poison Banner. The initial bout of struggling did not last long before all noise subsided. Zhou Bao''s Infinite Poison Banner gradually became brighter and brighter, and the cyan light became paler and paler until it was condensed into three cyan talismans.


    "It worked! The venom from the Space-corroding Sect will really be of great use to my Infinite Poison Banner!" Zhou Bao was pleased as he withdrew the Infinite Poison Banner. But this time, sensing the queenless Space-corroding Sects becoming restless and fleeing in chaos like headless flies, Zhou Bao looked for the Queen Sect''s spirit. Of course, he couldn''t let go of this opportunity. He took out the Infinite Poison Banner again. With the essence of the Queen Sect''s venom, the banner would have even greater control over the Space-corroding Sect. Within a short time, he would completely exterminate the Space-corroding Sects within the area, leaving only a small space.


    "She must be there. I really don''t know what Yeyue was carrying that could have drawn so many Space-corroding Sects to come and attack her!"


    Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind was extremely strong. After clearing the entire space in the World-solidifying Skill, it was very easy for him to find Ji Yeyue''s tracks. If at this time she was being cornered by a big swarm of Space-corroding Sect in a thicket of bitter vine, and she had used her borrowed Green Plain Brocade to protect herself, then it would be difficult for her to get out.


    "Yeyue!" When Grandma Loulan found Ji Yeyue, she cried out in surprise. She advanced into the swarm of Space-corroding Sects while brandishing her walking stick. At that moment the buzzing sects dispersed.


    Ji Yeyue emerged, her body covered in a cyan light. She was a lot thinner now than the last time they met, face much paler. Her eyes were closed and her expression was fearful. She had long been unconscious.


    "Yeyue, are you all right?" Grandma Loulan was shocked when she saw that Ji Yeyue was not in a good way. She went over to pick her up, but as soon as she held out her hand, it was blocked by the cyan light enveloping Ji Yeyue. She looked up at Zhou Bao. "King Wuyang, this¡ª¡ª!"


    Zhou Bao smiled. He took the Green Plain Brocade into his hand, and without its support, Ji Yeyue fell softly to the ground.


    Grandma Loulan stepped forward right away and held Ji Yeyue up. "Yeyue, Yeyue! What''s wrong? Are you alright?"


    She called a few more times, but Ji Yeyue did not come around. Grandma Loulan''s expression grew heavy as she lifted a hand and placed her finger on Ji Yeyue''s forehead.


    A flash of light streamed through her fingertip, but Ji Yeyue still didn''t move. Finally, Grandma Loulan''s face turned somber.


    Ji Yeyue was born in this millennium in the Jade Pool, and the only person who has the chance of stepping into the Karmic Rank of Lord of Heaven. She was the hope of the Jade Pool for thousands of years to come. If something were truly to happen to her, then the future of the Jade Pool would not be good at all.


    "My elder, it seems that Yeyue has been hit by the inhibition. At the moment, it''s difficult to know for sure, but I think we''d better leave this place first!" Zhou Bao said. This solidified Self-world is, to put it plainly, the tomb of a Lord of Heaven, there''s not much spiritual qi. For some people, it''s not a bad place for it can be used to refine hoarding-type celestial devices. But for Zhou Bao it had no value at all, but he also had no intention of taking it away. Besides, it was meaningless to idle around in the tomb, and somewhat unlucky.


    "Yes, that''s all we can do," said Grandma Loulan, standing up with a bleak face. "Now that we''ve found Yeyue, I''ll take her back. Please, King Wuyang, don''t feel obliged."


    "My elder, I feel that something is not quite right. Take this Green Plain Brocade to protect Yeyue."


    "Okay." Grandma Loulan felt obliged to agree, and she understood what Zhou Bao meant. This was the Pure Yang Celestial Device that Zhou Bao had lent to Ji Yeyue. It was only reasonable that Ji Yeyue herself give it back to him, instead of him taking it from her body. This protection was only a polite courtesy. She was a Seven Tribulations Lord of Heaven, coming from the Infinite Star Sea through the Formation Tower to her own macro world. How could she even run into danger?


    "In that case, I will leave now!" Seeing Grandma Loulan take the Green Plain Brocade, Zhou Bao bowed and left this solidified world.


    Grandma Loulan was not at all surprised by Zhou Bao''s departure. Zhou Bao was different from her. She had come to the Infinite Star Sea mainly for Ji Yeyue, and now that she had found her, she had no real reason to stay.


    But Zhou Bao clearly had another reason to come here. He understood when he saw the Immortal Palace spending so much effort to compete for him to enter the Infinite Star Sea.


    Therefore, she did not count on Zhou Bao being willing to go with her to send Ji Yeyue back. But as a Seven Tribulations Zhou Bao, she did not need Zhou Bao to escort her. She was very confident in her own strength. Her body was also ideal for this solidified world. Zhou Bao''s departure demonstrated to her that he had no interest in this World-solidifying Skill. So the whole World-solidifying Skill belonged to Grandma Loulan alone.


    When she thought of this, even though the Ji Yeyue she was carrying to her bosom was still unconscious, she smiled.


    Bao Zhou thought, "This Infinite Star Sea was indeed strange. Ji Yeyue had been struck by some sort of inhibition, and not even the Green Plain Brocade could protect her. But the Jade Pool was one of the five biggest sects, so Ji Yeyue should not have any major difficulties. As for me, though, why do I always feel quite so uneasy, like something big is happening? So strange!" Bao Zhou left the World-solidifying Skill. His figure flashing continuously in the hollow, he shot into the depths of the Infinite Star Sea.


    Zhou Bao had seen the Void Map of the Infinite Star Sea before, so he did not encounter any real obstacle along the way, and certainly did not gain any advantage, either. In front of him appeared a blue celestial body, and just as he was getting ready to enter it, it suddenly mutated.


    "Interesting, it was a lad who had just broken through into the Mysterious Realm. Such audacity to turn up in the chaotic space of the hollow, even if you''ve grasped so little of the secret methods. Do you just not want to live anymore?"


    Along with a voice came a huge sack, coming straight for Zhou Bao.

 571 The Devil Fetus I

    Zhou Bao felt shocked. He had indeed achieved the Individual Immortal Karma Rank and reached the Mysterious Realm. However, even the lord of the Divine Wind Palace, Yu Taixu, could not see through his cultivation. Who the hell was this man? Unexpectedly, he figured out his cultivation in one fell swoop. It turned out that he had got quite a discerning eye.


    Nevertheless, Zhou Bao knew that it was not the proper time to admire the other''s discernment. While watching the white-gray cloth bag covering his head, he grinned and took out his Infinite Poison Banner.


    After being refined by the venom of the Space-corroding Sects, the Infinite Poison Banner had almost been transformed into an immaterial substance. It looked like a wisp of cool breeze now.


    But all things would disappear when they met this wisp of cool breeze.


    The white-gray cloth bag was a good Pure Yang Celestial Device which contained the Dharma and debris of space and time. Whoever was enveloped by it would feel like they were being trapped in a space-time puzzle which was quite difficult to get out of.


    Nonetheless, this bag encountered its nemesis this time. Originally, Zhou Bao''s Infinite Poison Banner was the nemesis of all kinds of Laws of Space. After absorbing the venom of the Space-corroding Sects, it became much more virulent. Therefore, as it unfolded, it left no chance for the cloth bag to fight back.


    Sizzle! As the bag met the banner, it made a noise. The banner directly corroded the bag and left a big hole in it. But that''s not all; the poison gas of the banner turned into wisps of cyan smoke that directly went deep into the bag.


    A burst of sizzling rang out along where the bag was corroded. Before the owner of the bag could react, half of the bag had already been corroded by the poison gas. All the spiritual qi, Dharma of space and time within flew into the void. Within a few seconds, a Pure Yang Celestial Device was destroyed.


    "Oh, my Innate Precious Bag! You little brat! That''s my treasure!" Obviously, the owner of the bag didn''t know what was going on for a moment. But by the time he realized that something was wrong, his Innate Precious Bag had started to collapse. When he knew that the space in the bag had been broken and as there was no way to fix it, he exclaimed angrily all at once.


    His shout exposed his position. Zhou Bao did no more waste moves but instead, directly corroded the space that the bag owner was hidden in with his Infinite Poison Banner.


    Sizzle! Sizzle!


    "What celestial device is it? Why does it so insidious?!"


    The bag owner had never expected that Zhou Bao''s Infinite Poison Banner was so powerful and lethal. By the time he tried to fight back, it was just too late. The cyan smoke had already turned into a gust of wind which enveloped around his whole body. Even if he just moved one of his fingers, he would inevitably touch the cyan smoke. His instincts and spiritual mind told him clearly that he should never ever touch this damn smoke, otherwise, he would die in the same way as his Innate Precious Bag.


    "Who are you? Why are you in the Infinite Star Sea? Why did you attack me?" Zhou Bao had already seen the man clearly. It turned out to be a short and stout Taoist who was not quite as tall as his chest but was three to four times bigger than him. His body was very comical just like a large-sized balloon.


    "Who are you? There''s no such young man like you in the Alliance of 13 Realms. Obviously, you''re somebody since you have such an odd celestial device. Could it be that you''re not a member of the Alliance of 13 Realms? That''s interesting. I can''t believe that the news of the birth of the Devil Fetus has already been leaked to the place outside of the Alliance of 13 Realms!"


    Zhou Bao frowned his eyebrows because he couldn''t understand most of the words that the guy had said. However, he had obtained some news from his words; the guy must be a Taoist who came from the Alliance of 13 Realms and, there was a Devil Fetus that was born near the Infinite Star Sea. There couldn''t be such a coincidence, could it?


    "Humph, certainly, I''m not from the Alliance of 13 Realms! I just came here by accident and I know nothing about the Alliance of 13 Realms nor the birth of Devil Fetus. Hey, tell me more about them. Don''t try to hide anything from me. I''ll spare your life if I''m satisfied with your explanations. Otherwise, you''ll end up in the same way as your Innate Precious Bag!" Zhou Bao said ferociously.


    The stocky Taoist glanced at Zhou Bao and sighed helplessly. He said, "How unlucky I am! I just wanted to take this opportunity¡ªthe birth of the Devil Fetus, to gain some benefits in the Infinite Star Sea, but I never thought that I''ll lose my life here too. Hey, will you let me go if I tell you everything I know?"


    "Of course I will. I''m always a man of my words. I can''t help it if you don''t believe me. But if you lie to me, don''t blame me for being cruel."


    "I don''t need to deceive you since the thing you''re asking about is no secret!" The stocky Taoist said helplessly. He continued, "My Dharma name is Tian Zhao. I''m the chief of the Yuqing Temple in the Small Spirit Realm. The Small Spirit Realm is a member of the Alliance of 13 Realms and the latter is made up of the 13 most powerful macro worlds in the Purple Scorpion Sea Area!"


    "The Purple Scorpion Sea Area?" Zhou Bao was somewhat shocked. After hearing Taoist Tian Zhao''s words, he seemed to see a door that he had never thought of before opening in front of him.


    "So what about the birth of the Devil Fetus?"


    "There''s a Primordial Demon that had been sealed in the Infinite Star Sea. It''s one of the 108 Primordial Demons that had been sealed by the mighties in primitive times and, it cannot break the seal easily. However, every 10,000 years, it will give birth to a Devil Fetus. If anyone can obtain the Devil Fetus and successfully refine it, it will be of great help to them!" Taoist Tian Zhao told Zhou Bao the details honestly. He added, "Since the Purple Scorpion Sea Area is closest to the Infinite Star Sea, many people had come here!"


    "That is to say, in addition to the Alliance of 13 Realms, there are also people from other Star Areas here?"


    "Sure. The Milky Way Realm will certainly send someone here!" Speaking of this, Taoist Tian Zhao glanced at Zhou Bao and added, "The Milky Way Star Area is 10 times larger than the Purple Scorpion Sea Area, but there is only one macro world¡ªthe Milky Way Realm. Hey little brother, it seems that you''re not from the Milky Way Realm either!"


    "Yeah, I''m not from the Milky Way Realm. Is there something wrong with that?"


    "No, of course not!" Taoist Tian Zhao shook his head repeatedly and added, "That will be the best. If I were you, I would act secretly and not interfere in the battle between the Milky Way Realm and the Alliance of 13 Realms. The Milky Way Realm has always wanted to annex the Alliance of 13 Realms. However, for tens of thousands of years, the 13 realms protected themselves by allying with each other. So, Milky Way Ancestor cannot gain benefits from any realm. In recent years, the conflict between the two sides has become more and more fierce. I''m guessing there will be a war soon. Little brother, you''d better not get involved in it!"


    Within a few words, Zhou Bao''s address was changed from "little brat" to "little brother" in the mouth of Taoist Tian Zhao. Zhou Bao burst into laughter as he saw Tian Zhao''s earnest expression.


    "Of course I''m not going to meddle in the affairs of either Star Area. Aside from these two Star Areas, who else is likely to come here?


    "That''s all. I guess there are only these two Star Areas!" Taoist Tian Zhao shook his head repeatedly. Although it was recorded in various secret collections that there were assorted worlds, expert, and mysteries in the void, since antiquity times, neither the Purple Scorpion Sea Area nor the Milky Way Star Area had discovered the fifteenth macro world. Except for the Alliance of 13 Realms, there was only the Milky Way Realm. Occasionally, though, there were some mysterious experts coming from the other world. After checking up on them, people in these two Star Areas found that they all came here by chance. They had gotten involved in the space-time torrent and thus would come to these two Star Areas by mistake. These hapless guys were of little use, except to prove that the records in antiquity times were correct. Therefore, Taoist Tian Zhao gathered that Zhou Bao was the same as those unlucky guys who were caught up in the space-time torrent and brought into the Infinite Star Sea.


    "So, does this mean you have come to the Infinite Star Sea for the birth of the Devil Fetus?"


    "Hey hey, that''s not the case!" Taoist Tian Zhao shook his head repeatedly after he had heard Zhou Bao''s question. He added, "I have neither time nor the ability to snatch that Devil Fetus. I''m merely a Three-tribulation True Immortal. Although I''m somebody in the Small Spirit Realm, I''m just nobody in the Alliance of 13 Realms and the Milky Way Realm. How could such a fabulous thing fall into my hands? I''m just here for a windfall!" He looked at Zhou Bao with an expression that Zhou Bao should know what he was thinking about.


    Zhou Bao did understand him. Thinking of this guy covered him with his cloth bag when he saw him, Zhou Bao knew that he must be very familiar with killing others and robbing them of their treasures. Obviously, he had done such things many times. Zhou Bao understood that his so-called windfall was the treasures he was going to obtain through killing and looting in the chaos of the Infinite Star Sea.


    Looting would definitely arise in the process of the birth of the Devil Fetus. In fact, such a fabulous thing would only fall into the hands of those geniuses except that you had unparalleled luck. The other people who had come to the Infinite Star Sea were just treated as cannon fodder. This was made known to all. But every time something like this happened, it was inevitable that countless people would go after it one after another. However, not all of them had the idea of leaving things to chance. A lot of people harbored the same idea as Taoist Tian Zhao did. They didn''t aim at the Devil Fetus but at other practitioners.


    It should be noted that a practitioner whose cultivation had reached a certain level would carry one or two celestial devices of Law of Space with them, even if they hadn''t cultivated their Self-world successfully. They would carry all their valuables with them. Once you killed one practitioner, you would get everything he had. Such a good thing was certainly worth doing.


    Therefore, at this moment, the entire Infinite Star Sea would become a real killing field. The Alliance of 13 Realms was made of 13 macro worlds with numerous sects of all scale. However, the Milky Way Realm was bigger than the 13 macro worlds added up together. Similarly, this realm had a forest of sects and gangs. Those who had achieved the Karmic Rank of Individual Immortal would certainly come to join in the fun!


    Only those with a cultivation equal to, or greater than that of the Individual Immortals were qualified to participate in the fight. In both the Alliance of 13 Realms and the Milky Way Realm, anyone who left their world before they had achieved Individual Immortal Karma Rank would be treated as a fool. Only small sects that had neither strength nor background would do such a thing.


    Zhou Bao gave a wry smile as he thought about this. Quite a few disciples in the five biggest sects who had not reached the Mysterious Realm joined the trip to the Infinite Star Sea last time. He felt deeply ashamed about this.

 572 The Devil Fetus â…¡

    The five biggest sects were the dominators of the Four Eastern Regions. But according to what Taoist Tian Zhao had said, they were merely some small sects and a bunch of green and inexperienced bumpkins in the endless void.


    "Does this mean that in order to contend for the Devil Fetus, the 13 macro worlds and the Milky Way Realm will send all their elites to loot out the Devil Fetus?"


    "Not really. Perhaps some d*mn Human Immortals won''t come here. Just like mortals, Human Immortals can''t leave the macro world casually. Mortals are incapable of doing so, while Human Immortals will suffer the Void Thunder Penalty once they leave the macro world. If the latter fails to go through the Void Thunder Penalty, they''ll turn into ashes, but if they undergo it successfully, their pneuma will also be severely sapped. Just because of some lucky chances and great fate, they are able to reach the Realm of Human Immortal. Thus, although the Devil Fetus is precious, it''s not precious enough to render them to go after it at all costs. Therefore, the people who come here, at most, are at the Lord of Heaven Realm!"


    "Lords of Heaven?"


    Zhou Bao was barely able to rest assured after hearing these words. He didn''t know much about Human Immortals, but he clearly knew that he was no match for them. However, he was not afraid of Lords of Heaven because he had defeated an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven once. He just couldn''t believe that such a thing¡ªthe birth of the Devil Fetus, would happen to him on the journey to the Infinite Star Sea.


    The main purpose he came here for was that Venerable Black Turtle had entrusted him to see if the seal on the devil was affected or damaged. But he hadn''t expected that every 10,000 years, the Infinite Star Sea would give birth to a Devil Fetus, which would attract the two Star Areas near the Infinite Star Sea to contend for it. Neither did Venerable Black Turtle would have thought that such a thing would happen.


    "Human Immortal! There should be Human Immortals in the Alliance of 13 Realms and the Milky Way Realm. It seems that these two Star Areas are more powerful than the Seven-deity Regions. But it won''t have a big difference. Since Human Immortals'' power is limited in the void, the Lord of Heaven Realm will be the top combat capability. This is almost the same as the situation in the Seven-deity Regions. However, the number of Lords of Heaven there must be far greater than that in the Seven-deity Regions. After all, the Seven-deity Regions were merely a small part of the Heaven Realm. But if we add on the strength of the Sea Area...!" Thinking of this, Zhou Bao shook his head and criticized himself for being a busybody in his heart. The power of the Heaven Realm, other Star Areas, and these macro worlds were none of his business at present.


    "I know the Sealed Land of the 108 Primordial Demons. But it''s my first time hearing about the birth of the Devil Fetus. Since there is a Devil Fetus coming into the world, I guess the inhibition of the Primordial Demon has become loose, right?"


    "That''s not necessarily true. At first, the appearance of the Devil Fetus truly surprised us. All of us thought that the inhibition must have become loose. At that time, the Alliance of 13 Realms haven''t been formed yet and the Milky Way Realm was not as powerful as it is now. The two Star Areas teamed up to send someone to observe the inhibition, but finally, they found that it hasn''t broken and there was no sign of it coming loose. The birth of the Devil Fetus over the next few times also rose many people''s doubts. But as time went by, people began to understand the deeds of those Devil Fetuses. The inhibition hasn''t come loose, but the sealed Primordial Demon seems to have found a loophole in it. The Primordial Demon gives birth to a Devil Fetus every 10,000 years. It will put one divine thought in the fetus and send the fetus out of the inhibition. When the fetus grows strong, it will be able to find a way to break the inhibition from the outside.


    "Everyone''s attention was focused on the Devil Fetus after realizing this. As time went on, the first few fetuses have all grown up and become extremely powerful beings. Of course, there were also a few who haven''t grown up at all and were refined by some people, but those who had refined them unconsciously had become mighty beings, with some becoming the lord of a realm and establishing the Dark Sect. This made the experts in the two Star Areas terribly hungry for the Devil Fetus. Every time the fetus shows up, all the sects in the two Star Areas will vie for it. As for the Primordial Demon, no one will pay attention to it anymore."


    "What about the first few Devil Fetuses that haven''t been refined and have become extremely powerful?"


    "They were refined one by one later!" Taoist Tian Zhao looked odd when he mentioned these Devil Fetuses. He added, "They were extremely powerful and almost had the strength of Human Immortals, but they were controlled and refined by those guys who had refined the other Devil Fetuses and established the Dark Sect. It is they who have promoted the strength of the Patriarchs of the Dark Sect to perfection. These Patriarchs are now Human Immortals!"


    "Is that true?" Zhou Bao was shocked. He continued, "Wasn''t the Dark Sect passed down from antiquity times?"


    "What you are talking about is the Ancient Dark Sect. The Ancient Dark Sect has lost its inheritance long ago. The Dark Sect in these two Star Areas, or we can say, in these 14 macro worlds, was established by those three Patriarchs. It''s called the Dark Sect of Late Antiquity!"


    "The Dark Sect of Late Antiquity!" Zhou Bao gently caressed his chin, as if he was thinking about something. "It seems that these two Star Areas are different from the Heaven Realm. The Dark Sect in the Heaven Realm inherits the Uniform Dao of the Dark Sect in antiquity times. However, the Dark Sect of Late Antiquity turns out to be created by the three people who had swallowed and refined the Devil Fetuses. No wonder so many people care so much about the Devil Fetus. It turns out that the Devil Fetus actually has such an amazing effect. If Dark Lord Red Blood of the Dark Sect knows of this, he will definitely risk his life to loot this Devil Fetus!" Thinking of this, his gave a strange smile. The main purpose of his journey to the Infinite Star Sea had already been realized. There were no problems with the inhibition of the Primordial Demon. The Primordial Demon had just found a loophole in the inhibition. But was this loophole really that simple? The Primordial Demon had worked so hard in finding a flaw in the inhibition, was it possible that it did all this just for the sake of strengthening the cultivation of those people who came here to seek treasures and making them more powerful? It was the Primordial Demon, not Lei Feng, after all!


    Taoist Tian Zhao grinned as he saw the confusion on Zhou Bao''s face. He said, "Little brother, I know what you''re thinking about. In fact, people in these two Star Areas had the same doubts as you do now. However, it''s already too late. The Dark Sect has already taken shape and it hasn''t given any handle to anyone for so many years. Neither the Alliance of 13 Realms nor the Milky Way Realm can do anything to it. As for the Devil Fetus, hey hey, not only the people in the Dark Sect but also those in the Alliance of 13 Realms and the Milky Way Realm are eager to obtain it. Several Devil Fetuses were born over the past tens of thousands of years, but the Dark Sect hadn''t obtained all of them. Most of them had been taken away by the big sects in the two Star Areas. These sects had also come up with some methods to receive great benefits from the Devil Fetus without having to practice the incantations of the Dark Sect. Therefore, such a situation would appear!"


    "After all, everybody is greedy!" Zhou Bao sighed. If any intelligent man thought about the Devil Fetus carefully, he would find that there must be hidden dangers in it. However, no matter the big sects in the two Star Areas or the Human Immortals there, they all focused on the benefits that the Devil Fetus could bring to them. They directly ignored these hidden dangers. At best, they were confident in themselves, and at worst, they were blinded by the love of gain.


    "Since I''ve already possessed the Real Body of a Primordial Fierce Beast¡ªthe Demonic Ape Zhuyan, and the Fierce Beast Dragon Chimera, which all don''t pale in comparison with the Devil Fetus. So, I''d better not get myself involved in this matter, and in this way, save myself from future troubles. Now that the main purpose I came to the Infinite Star Sea has been achieved, I might as well go for a stroll here. In that case, I can enjoy the scenery here and figure out the difference between the practitioners in the two Star Areas, the Purple Scorpion Sea Area and the Milky Way Star Area, and those in the Heaven Realm!" Thinking of this, Zhou Bao took his Infinite Poison Banner back and disappeared right in front of Taoist Tian Zhao, without even looking at him once.


    "This lad is skilled at disguising himself as a pig to eat the tiger! He is quite adept at letting his opponent take him lightly by hiding his strength and pretending to be stupid!" Upon seeing that the constraint on him disappeared along with Zhou Bao, the stocky Taoist finally felt greatly relieved. By then, he discovered that he was completely wet with cold sweat, as if he had been just fished out of the water. Even so, his heart was still throbbing violently.


    "It was almost going to become a desperate situation. What is his background? Why does he have such a horrifying and toxic celestial device? It looks like the Infinite Poison Banner of the Dark Sect, but the latter can''t have such an effect. How strange it is!" Taoist Tian Zhao touched his round belly with a bewildered look on his face and continued thinking, "Unlike those who had strayed into the Infinite Star Sea, he knows this space. Are there other people who possess the Transmitting Formation to the Infinite Star Sea except for the people in the two Star Areas? The chances are quite slim. If this is the case, why only the practitioners in the two Star Areas have been contending for the Devil Fetus in this Star Area for so many years?"


    Taoist Tian Zhao was quite confused. He had never expected that it was because that for hundreds of thousands of years, the Heaven Realm only had half of the Void Map. Furthermore, the Transmitting Formation leading to the Infinite Star Sea from the Heaven Realm was located on the edge of the Infinite Star Sea. It was the most remote area that was of little value, thus, no one had ever discovered it for hundreds of thousands of years. Until recently, however, the Heaven Realm had scraped together a complete Void Map and came here.


    "Ah? Where is my Void Map?" Suddenly, he seemed to have realized something. He searched his chest pocket for the Void Map, but he got nothing. His face darkened and he felt very depressed.


    "The Purple Scorpion Sea Area and the Milky Way Star Area have long explored the Infinite Star Sea. In other words, the Infinite Star Sea has already become their backyard. Therefore, the value of it has been drastically reduced. The valuables are already in the hands of the people in these two Star Areas. However, there are some strange areas marked on this map that are worth exploring!" At this moment, Zhou Bao held a Void Map in his hand. It was a Void Map of the Infinite Star Sea, but he had obtained it from Taoist Tian Zhao rather than the five biggest sects. "Soul-silencing Star is the closest to this place. Let me see how mysterious and amazing it is!"

 573 Soul-silencing Star

    The Void Map was actually a map of Star Areas. However, even though the Four Eastern Regions had a complete Void Map of the Infinite Star Sea, it was out of date.


    It was inherited from antiquity times and therefore reflected the entire Infinite Star Sea, but of that time, and it sure had changed quite a bit.


    But still, people in the Heaven Realm were not aware of those changes. In fact, their Void Map was quite different from the one in the hands of the five biggest sects.


    "The Purple Scorpion Sea Area and the Milky Way Star Area had already occupied and exploited Infinite Star Sea!" said Zhou Bao, looking at the map and smiling bitterly.


    The difference in power between the two Star Areas was very obvious just looking at the map.


    The Milky Way Star Area was more centralized than the Purple Scorpion Sea Area. Many of the different powerful groups within the Milky Way Realm were far more powerful than those in Heaven Realm, but they were nothing compared to the Purple Scorpion Sea Area.


    The Purple Scorpion Sea Area belonged to the Alliance of 13 Realms, and each realm contained many powerful groups. The continuous alliances and conflicts between those groups had brought Infinite Star Sea into a total mess.


    None of that could be seen from the Void Map that the Seven-deity Regions had. Instead, according to the Void Map provided by Taoist Tian Zhao, the Infinite Star Sea belonged to someone.


    If that Void Map was correct, then the east part of Infinite Star Sea would belong to the Alliance of 13 Realms in the Purple Scorpion Sea Area, while the west part would belong to the Milky Way Realm in the Milky Way Star Area.


    Lastly, the center of Infinite Star Sea would be the biggest forbidden ground ¡ª the sealed land of the Primordial Demon.


    Even though the Infinite Star Sea was divided into those main regions according to that map, they did not have total control over their whole land.


    Infinite Star Sea was incredibly huge, and practitioners from the two main powers were all over Infinite Star Sea. However, unlike what people had believed, they could not control every inch of land. Within the huge Star Sea, there were still many forbidden grounds where ordinary practitioners could not enter.


    Furthermore, many other powerful groups were also present in there, such as the Dark Sect. Besides, there were still some unexplored mysterious places where different spaces overlapped. They were empty and hollow.


    The biggest forbidden ground in Infinite Star Sea, needless to say, was the land where the Primordial Demon which had been sealed. However, there were thousands of forbidden grounds, big and small, some of which were known to the practitioners of the two Star Areas, but some were a complete mystery to them. Schools of the two main areas, when needed, would send their competent subordinates to explore these grounds and try to discover the secrets there.


    ome of the forbidden grounds had already been explored many times and the ones that were proved to be less dangerous were called small forbidden grounds. Some other forbidden grounds were used by powerful groups and schools to train their younger disciples. They could be explored and explorers managed to go back in the end, but always with some kind of injuries. Even practitioners in the Lord of Heaven Realm dared not go too deep inside. These places were called big forbidden grounds. The third kind of forbidden ground was called death place, where no one could come out alive, including the people in the Lord of Heaven Realm.


    Soul-silencing Star was one of the big forbidden grounds.


    Located in the southeast of Infinite Star Sea, this forbidden ground was controlled by Alliance of 13 Realms. However, since there was nothing valuable there, they had no interest in it.


    The Soul-silencing Star might be worthless to the Alliance, but to Zhou Bao, it was not only the nearest big forbidden ground but also the most useful one.


    That''s because the Soul-silencing Star was famous for its toxicity.


    Zhou Bao''s Infinite Poison Banner was a very handy celestial device that would get benefitted from that place. It grew very fast and became easier to use and more powerful as it absorbed more toxicity.


    Thousands of years of exploration had proved that Soul-silencing Star contained a huge amount of toxicity. Once caught in, even a Lord of Heaven might be severely hurt, let alone an ordinary practitioner. The Alliance of 13 Realms once organized a group of Lord of Heavens with the Highest Heaven Celestial Device to break into the Soul-silencing Star and see if there were any treasures in that toxic star. However, they came back empty-handed. Moreover, the Highest Heaven Celestial Device they took broke down after not too long. After that, profiting from that star was no longer in the mind of anyone.


    Of course, there were some exceptions: for people who were practicing with really toxic celestial devices or highly toxic cultivation methods, like Zhou Bao, Soul-silencing Star was the best place for it. However, there was something to take into consideration: people who dared to practice there ended up poisoned to death and their celestial devices destroyed.


    After knowing that, no one dared to practice even near Soul-silencing Star for 100,000 years. That was also why it was surrounded by complete emptiness. On the Void Map, it was represented by a huge red dot.


    "It is indeed a really weird planet!"


    It was just an ordinary planet standing in the middle of the empty and hollow void and surrounded by crimson airflow, yet it made Zhou Bao frown now that he was in front of it.


    Just as it was said in the legend, Soul-silencing Star was a planet made up of highly toxic gases. There was nothing except poison; no fragments of space or rules of time. Everything was hollow.


    Zhou Bao squinted his eyes as he thought, "It''s impossible! It''s totally impossible! Such strong poison could definitely fuse space, as well as my Infinite Poison Banner. But how do they still exist in the hollow? The space rampart is not strong but rather thin. I can destroy it with just one fist. The poison on this planet is several times stronger than that of my Infinite Poison Banner. How could everything stay so calm and not being corroded? There''s something wrong here!" He shook his hand, and the light cyan Infinite Poison Banner unfolded again and flew toward Soul-silencing Star.


    This time, his Infinite Poison Banner stretched to almost one thousand feet wide. But compared to the entire Soul-silencing Star, it was still too small, like a tiny drop of water against the vast ocean.


    The cyan banner began to billow when approaching the toxic star. Zhou Bao steered it toward the livid smoke in the sky at full speed.


    Boom!


    When the Infinite Poison Banner threw itself toward the livid smoke, Zhou Bao, who was mind-linked with it, felt a bang on his head. He felt as he had become the Infinite Poison Banner, watching a large amount of poison gas surging toward it and then absorbing it.


    "Hu, hu, hu, hu, hu¡ª!" Thick livid gas was condensed into liquid and formed streams of venom, pouring into the Banner.


    Infinite Poison Banner absorbed the poison wildly and began to glow as if it had swallowed some tonic. Three talismans gradually appeared, rolling and changing as if they were alive.


    Images of ancient times were timidly starting to appear on the three talismans: wild beasts, spiritual creatures, and even fierce beasts vividly showed in the flame of the talisman formation. Some eccentric creatures seemed to have become alive and they began to jump as if trying to rush out and become real living creatures.


    Only one of those strange creatures seemed familiar to Zhou Bao. He searched in his mind and realized that it was the poisonous beast that the Poisonous Dragon Emperor in the antiquity times used for pulling carriages. There were thousands of them glimmering in the flame of the talisman formation. It was one of the most inferior creatures. Other weird ones were out of his imagination, but judging from their shapes, actions, and expressions Zhou Bao understood that they were of superior intelligence and high toxicity.


    "Hiss!" while he was lost in his mind, Zhou Bao sensed a sudden pause of the venom absorption by his Infinite Poison Banner followed by a sudden pain in his head. A strong feeling of repletion, together with powerful energy, filled his body. The talisman formation on the Infinite Poison Banner sparkled with ecstasy while digesting the energy. However, it had reached its limit and could not take any more in. Zhou Bao knew that if this continued, the Infinite Poison Banner would explode and the poison released would probably hurt him.


    "I''d better stop now. Anyway, I''ve already benefited enough!" Zhou Bao let out a soft sign and folded the still glittering Infinite Poison Banner. He looked at it and smiled bitterly. Three talismans on the banner showed a sign of infusion. Once the three talismans fused together to form an immortal character and after a laborious and hard process, it would become a fairy weapon.


    Fairy weapon was totally different from pure Yang celestial device. His Infinite Poison Banner, in terms of both material and refining technique, was still far from a fairy weapon.

 574 An encounter on Culumus Star

    Zhou Bao knew that his Infinite Poison Banner could not absorb any more poison because it was not a fairy weapon yet.


    For now, he was not planning to refine it into a fairy weapon, and had given up the thought of exploring the Soul-silencing Star because of what had just happened. The Infinite Poison Banner could have been fatally poisoned if he hadn''t taken it back in time. That would have been a big joke. Besides, no matter how powerful he was, his chances of coming out alive from that toxic star was miniscule. He was smart enough not to risk his life.


    "Forget about it! Even the Purple Scorpion Sea Area and the Milky Way Star Area cannot enter. I should stay out of it. The Void Map shows that there are some other interesting places. I''d better go and have a look around. I''d like to see the differences between our Seven-deity Regions and the other exotic macro worlds." Zhou Bao thought.


    The two star areas had occupied all the habitable stars and spaces on the Infinite Star Sea. Some suitable for human habitation, some suitable for practicing, some suitable for growing spiritual grasses and trees, and some suitable for raising creatures. The abundant resources had helped to create many great practitioners here. Practitioners in the Mysterious Realm were everywhere. Genuine Immortals'' power was seen as merely above average. Only the Venerables could be regarded as masters. The number of Lord of Heavens, the most powerful fighters, in the two star areas far exceeded that in the Seven-deity Regions. Human Immortals, who were legendary in the Seven-deity Regions, were not rare here, and stories about them could be heard in different sects. Famous Human Immortals in the two areas even outnumbered Lord of Heavens in the Seven-deity Regions.


    This world was thousands of times bigger than the Seven-deity Regions, and had much more complicated rules, sects, regions and systems, which attracted Zhou Bao greatly.


    There were no rulers nor explicit laws in the Infinite Star Sea. Here, the strongest became kings and only the fittest survived. Especially now when the Devil Fetus was about to be born, this place became even more chaotic. People of different backgrounds gathered here and some of them, such as Zhou Bao, even came from other star areas.


    "Perhaps it''s not a good thing to have the Void Map and Transmitting Formations now. Although people who came from the Seven-deity Regions to the Infinite Star Sea this time are very strong, the previous ones are rather weak in strength. Once captured, they''re very likely to reveal the whereabouts of the Seven-deity Regions, which could cause much trouble. The two star areas are powerful enough to open the passageway toward the Seven-deity Regions through Transmitting Formation. Some mighty guys could even calculate the specific coordinates of the Heaven Realm and arrive there directly through Highest Heaven Celestial Device. If that happens, the Seven-deity Regions will be in great danger."


    Zhou Bao''s worry turned out to be right.


    In the Infinite Star Sea, there were countless Transmitting Formations, which were built by different sects from the two star areas. After all, not every practitioner was as powerful as Zhou Bao, who could stay or move in the hollow for a long period of time.


    Billions of miles away from the Soul-silencing Star, there was a Transmitting Formation built by the True Spirit Sect, a relatively powerful sect. This Transmitting Formation led to the Cumulus Star, a medium-sized planet controlled by the True Spirit Sect.


    In this realm, planets and worlds were quite different. A planet, such as the Soul-silencing Star, did not have its independent rules of space and time, and was surrounded by some pneuma and spiritual qi at most. Everything on a planet was synchronized with the hollow and it was as big as it looked. However, a world had its own independent rules of space and time, and was surrounded by endless spaces. It might look like a satellite no bigger than the moon, but in fact endless spaces and times were inside. A micro world, such as the Azure Heaven, was countless times bigger than an ordinary planet. Macro worlds, such as the Heaven Realm, the Milky Way Realm or the 13 macro worlds in the Alliance of 13 Realms, were even bigger. The whole space a macro world covered could be much larger than its own star area suggested.


    A planet, like a world, had its own creatures and resources such as spiritual grasses and spiritual stones, which were related to practice. Therefore, the more planets one controlled, the more resources one possessed, and the more powerful one could become.


    The Cumulus Star was an ordinary planet in the Infinite Star Sea with only one specialty, that being a large amount of clouds. The clouds in the sky accumulated and changed between day and night, reflecting various strange lights. Aside from that, it was quite ordinary, inhabited by common people who had immigrated from the Purple Scorpion Sea Area thousands of years ago. For those people, whose ancestors had lived here, the Cumulus Star was their home.


    There were not much in the way of resources on the Cumulus Star. The spiritual mines had been mined out by True Spirit Sect more than one hundred thousand years ago and the spiritual qi here was not suitable for growing spiritual grasses. It was because of this that it was not an ideal place for practitioners. The True Spirit Sect occupied this place only for its unique location.


    The Geographical location alone was quite important, even though Transmitting Formations were available. In fact, geographical location of different planets in the hollow became more important because of Transmitting Formation. Since the size, gravity, revolving direction and speed of a planet''s orbit might affect the transmission and the law of space.


    Located on a main artery of traffic, the Cumulus Star was located at a great position, which had made it a famous natural trading place. A place to exchange goods and commodities within the Infinite Star Sea.


    Most of the common people on the Cumulus Star made a living by providing trade services.


    When the transmission ended and the green light from the Transmitting Formation disappeared, Zhou Bao saw two pairs of eyes staring back at him.


    When he was about to leave, one of the two stopped him and said, "Eh, well, five Spiritual Stones for one transmission!"


    Zhou Bao smiled, handed out five Spiritual Stones and then left.


    Spiritual Stones were regarded as Mysterious Objects in the Seven-deity Regions, because they contained strong spiritual qi and pneuma. With spiritual stones, practitioners were able to practice even in a place without any pneuma. This was a secret in the Seven-deity Regions, but common sense in the Infinite Star Sea.


    Since the two star areas had vast territory and abundant resources, spiritual stones were also used as currency.


    In the beginning, Zhou Bao did not have any spiritual stones. However, since he controlled the Azure Big World, where spiritual stone mines were not rare and few people would bother to exploit them, it was quite easy for him to get spiritual stones.


    Of course, he learned all this from the Void Map.


    Within the map, there were many spots which were marked as production locations for spiritual stones. Though, many also had a note saying that they were depleted.


    "After all, human beings and intelligent living creatures are greedy. Their development is based on pillage. But when they plunder everything and there is nothing more, all that is left is extinction!" Zhou Bao thought cynically, walking on a broad street.


    The Cumulus Star had broad streets, many big cities and countless common people. Its pneuma level was almost the same as that of the Seven-deity Regions. There was nothing special in terms of architectural styles and languages. This had revealed that this planet, even the two star areas, shared the same origin with the Seven-deity Regions.


    At this moment, Zhou Bao was wandering in one of the biggest cities of the Cumulus Star, the Five Rivers City.


    The name was given because of the five big rivers that joined here.


    Five Rivers City was the second largest city in the Cumulus Star and also its trade center. The core of this city was the transmission pavilion which controlled various transmissions.


    There were different kinds of Transmitting Formations within the pavilion, where transmission took place every second. Some transmitted people while some transmitted goods. People from every corner of the Infinite Star Sea had come here to do business. Zhou Bao felt as if he had entered a huge, and noisy, commodity market.


    He had seen many practitioners along the way who were practitioners under the Mysterious Realm, but most of them were common people.


    In the Five Rivers City, most of its population were common people. There were at best one or two Individual Immortals to settle disputes. After all, the main job of practitioners was practicing. They should not get involved in the petty squabbles of merchants.


    "It''s the same as markets in the Seven-deity Regions. There''s nothing special except that people are also selling celestial devices. Eh¡ª¡ª, what a coincidence!!" Just as Zhou Bao was whispering to himself, a strange smile suddenly went across his face, as if he had discovered a new continent.

 575 The Exposure

    Zhou Bao''s eyes were sharper than that of any eagle''s. He could have had a panoramic view of the entire planet if there were not so many buildings.


    There were many tall buildings on this trade star. Common people could seldom see the immortals inside the buildings, but Zhou Bao had felt at least ten spiritual minds going through his body within such a short time. Those guys were all Individual Immortals and above. Knowing that Zhou Bao was only a Level Nine expert, none of them showed any interest, all except for two.


    After all, the Cumulus Star was full of common people. A Level Nine expert had the ability to bring great destruction to this satellite if desired.


    A mysterious Level Nine expert like Zhou Bao would have been carefully examined on other planets. However, on a trade planet like this, where so many different power groups collaborated with one another, such a practice was quite unlikely. Even the True Spirit Sect only acted as a supervisor without any absolute authority. On the Cumulus Star, thousands of immortals and common people arrived through Transmitting Formation every day. They came from different power groups and had different backgrounds. Therefore, it would violate the rules here if someone was questioned based solely on the merit that he or she was a stranger.


    They would only pay more attention to Zhou Bao, a common mortal with strong power. But so long as he behaved himself and didn''t break what few rules existed, no one would realistically care about him.


    "This young man looks unfamiliar. He has reached Level Nine at such a young age. He is probably the young master of a powerful group and has some special background."


    In a nearby tall building, two divine thoughts communicated, apparently surprised by the power Zhou Bao achieved at such a young age.


    "There''s nothing to be surprised at. Remember, the Devil Fetus is about to be born. That thing has attracted the attention from the two areas, 14 macro worlds and countless micro worlds. It is said that the young masters of several macro worlds are all staring at the Devil Fetus. Like always, the big masters want to train their next generations through this opportunity. Many hidden young masters have shown up. We''d better be careful not to offend them, lest we find ourselves in trouble."


    "You''re right. We''d better continue the closed-door training. Having conflicts with those young masters is just like playing with fire."


    After the communication, the two divine thoughts seemed to reach an agreement and then disappeared.


    Zhou Bao could have heard the communication between the two divine thoughts if he wanted. However, he was not interested in it and didn''t care about the two spiritual minds on him. What he cared about was the silver carriage not far away behind him.


    Yes, the silver carriage.


    It was a luxuriant carriage pulled by eight tall steeds. A husky fellow, who was over 30 feet tall, oversaw the others even though he was sitting on the shaft. He gave off an oppressive feeling, like that of a mountain.


    "A top Individual Immortal served only as a driver!" Zhou Bao was chocked by the cultivation of this big fellow. He paid special attention to this carriage not because the silver carriage itself was a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, nor that the driver was very powerful, but because of a very familiar spirit inside the carriage.


    They were the Great Dark Lord Du of the Dark Sect and Yukun Buddha of the Great Wheel Temple in the Snow Mountain.


    Zhou Bao could feel their weak breath through the carriage.


    "Interesting! They were still alive and were captured!"


    They were indeed captured. Zhou Bao wouldn''t believe that they were the masters of this carriage or that they were friends of its owner. Otherwise, they would not have been confined within the carriage.


    All the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices had their Highest Heaven Spaces. This silver carriage looked luxurious, but Zhou Bao was sure that it was only a low-grade one because its Highest Heaven Space was not complete. He knew that he could break the carriage with just one fist and rescue Great Dark Lord Du and Yukun Buddha.


    But the Infinite Star Sea was not his territory. If he made a move now he would definitely cause chaos and catch the attention of some powerful figures. Therefore, Zhou Bao decided to take no actions for the moment and follow the carriage to its destination first.


    After making the plan, Zhou Bao returned, went inside a store selling celestial devices and looked around.


    The Cumulus Star was a trade center and the shopkeepers also had powerful connections. There could be no doubt about the qualities of the celestial devices in the shops.


    However, most of them were only low-grade Psychic Celestial Devices or Mysterious Celestial Devices. Although people could not see Pure Yang Celestial Devices in the market, Zhou Bao could still feel them in this shop. That was so said, Pure Yang Celestial Devices could be bought in shops here, which was unbelievable in the Seven-deity Regions.


    In the Seven-deity Regions, Pure Yang Celestial Devices, which were believed to bring good luck, were hidden by the powerful houses. None of the houses would sell them for some spiritual stones, except Zhou Bao.


    However, with a second thought, Zhou Bao understood that he was willing to sell the Pure Yang Celestial Devices only because they were robbed from the Sea Area, which was far more powerful than his Seven-deity Regions. Maybe in the Sea Area, Pure Yang Celestial Devices could also be sold as goods, but this should not be his concern at the moment.


    The silver carriage moved toward a residence with tall buildings. Zhou Bao frowned a little bit because he could feel more than ten strong spirits from the ordinary house. The owners of the spirits were all Genuine Immortals. Some of them were in the Venerable Realms, among which there were two Lord of Heavens.


    "My Goodness! What''s the background of this carriage and who are the powerful people living inside?" Feeling the strong spirits, Zhou Bao turned on his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to hide his breath and then sneaked in.


    "Law of Space! There''s a Law of Space here!" Once inside, Zhou Bao observed carefully and discovered a very familiar formation ¡ª magic matrix of the Dust Formation.


    "This will be interesting! Other formations would probably be very troublesome for me, but since it is the Dust Formation... hehe!" Zhou Bao thought and laughed secretly. He went through the formation without any difficulty and ran directly toward the center of the house.


    Across the formation, there was a wide manor. The silver carriage was right in front of the manor, but with no one inside.


    Zhou Bao no longer cared about the carriage. He went into the manor without any hesitation.


    The Great Dark Lord Du and Yukun Buddha were held in a quiet room.


    There wasn''t any rope around their bodies, but it was obvious that they were chained. They were kept in an unguarded quiet room because they could not practice any power and were as weak as common people.


    "Respected Elders, I need to see my uncle now. There''s something very important!" Zhou Bao heard these words just as he was hesitating about rescuing the two.


    "My young master, the First Master is having closed-door training. He had ordered not to be disturbed by anyone!"


    "I have important things to report. You are the ones to blame if the message is delayed!" The young master raised his voice after being rejected and said, "Quick! Inform the First Master immediately, or I''ll kill you both!"


    "He is just a Level Eight. How dare he boast to kill the two Individual Immortals! Only I can do such things!" Zhou Bao snickered, thinking that such bold but cute guys were everywhere.


    However, to his surprise, those two Individual Immortals did not get angry at all. They, instead, looked very embarrassed.


    "Young master, it''s not that we want to stop you, but the First Master has ordered so. As you know, he found a Mysterious Object on the Cumulus Star and is studying it in closed-door training. If someone disturbs him at such a moment¡ª¡ª!"


    "Am I such an unreasonable man?" The young master''s face darkened and his eyes sharpened. "I know closed-door training is an extremely important thing for my uncle, but I have something more important. Do you think I''m just being reckless?"


    "I dare not!"


    "Then inform my uncle right away. You''re just two Individual Immortals. If the message is delayed, you cannot take the responsibility."


    "Really? How important is it?" A low and heavy voice came just as the young master finished.


    "First Master!"


    "Uncle!"


    Hearing the voice, all three changed their countenance. The two Individual Immortals kneeled down immediately, and the young master bowed respectfully.


    "Qing Chan, there''s no strangers. Say what you want. What have you discovered? Is it really more important than my closed-door training?" The voice was soft, but powerful and authoritative. The young master shuddered, but steeled his nerves at the thought of his discovery and said, "Uncle, I found the Transmitting Formation to the Heaven Realm!"


    "What?" With a slight swing of the air, a slim figure suddenly appeared in front of the young master and lift him up by the collar, saying "What did you say? Say it again!"


    "Uncle, I found the Transmitting Formation to the Heaven Realm!" the young master said, word by word, looking at his uncle.

 576 Take Action

    It was the Transmitting Formation to the Heaven Realm!


    Those nine words, like nine thunderbolts, gave the Lord of Heaven quite the deep shock. With an extremely complicated light burning in his eyes, he slowly set the young master down.


    "Qing Chan, do you know what you are talking about? Are you sure that you discovered the Transmitting Formation to the heaven realm?!"


    "Of course! I''m sure that you will see the truth as long as you come with me. Those two guys are quite strong and they come from the Heaven Realm. You will know the truth if you soul-search them. The Heaven Realm has already declined, so this is a great opportunity for us, isn''t it?"


    "Hum!" The man pulled his hand away, releasing Qing Chan. Then, he strode towards the quiet room while Qing Chan followed with a triumphant smile.


    Of course, Qing chan was proud of himself, why shouldn''t he?


    Based on the contributions he made today alone, he would be granted far more advantages than the other contenders when it came to competing for the position as the Family Head in the future. If his family were to gain an advantage from this situation, then the position as the Family Head would be his without question. There would no longer be room for his brothers to shake the foundations of his ascent no matter how much power they attained.


    "It truly is troublesome and even soul-searching is necessary. I will have to take action, but this is the Cumulus Star. It seems that they have an influential backer. If I were to take action here, then perhaps, just perhaps, it will attract the attention of others!" After hearing the conversation between the two, Zhou Bao raised his eyebrow slightly. In an instant, he came to a realization and vanished with immense speed.


    "Here it is! It should be here! This should be the core of the magic matrix!" When Zhou Bao appeared again, he was already trapped in an array of endless magic.


    The center of Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword''s magic matrix was a massive sacrificial altar. There were a mirror and a sword on the altar. Both of them were Low-grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Two Individual Immortals sat upon the side of the mirror and the sword respectively. Their eyes closed as if they were meditating. They were obviously the ones manipulating the entire magic matrix.


    "They even let Individual Immortals manipulate the magic matrix directly! Together with two pure Yang Celestial Devices in the Formation Eye, they are certainly being very cautious!" Zhou Bao silently praised the other party''s caution, but outwardly, he was determined to take fierce action. A green light flew out from his sleeve and it turned into two serpents that rolled toward the two immortals.


    The attack was absolutely silent. They were Individual Immortals, and thus there was not even the slightest sign of a reaction before the green light had consumed them. Within that same instant, the two were turned into lumps of rotting pus.


    "The Infinite Poison Banner really is useful!" Zhou Bao summoned the green light back before reaching the top of the altar. He didn''t even bother checking what was left of the immortals. Instead of moving the two Pure Yang Celestial Devises, he waved his hand to summon forty-nine cyan flags and nailed them firmly to the altar.


    When the flags appeared, there were subtle changes in the flow of pneuma within and without the whole of the magic matrix. It was so subtle that most other people would never realize the difference.


    Perhaps it was fortunate that the matrix itself was a Yin and Yang dust formation. Zhou Bao didn''t even need to do anything to the formation itself. He added a killing and death formation to the original formation to surround the entire house and control it.


    "It is difficult to end the battle without attracting other people''s attention, as my opponent is a Lord of Heaven this time. With the help of Yin and Yang dust formation, however, I can proceed with my plans freely."


    When the formation was arranged, Zhou Bao''s sleeves began to ruffle. The mirror, which was used to suppress the Formation Eye, was suspended in air and appeared before him.


    Zhou Bao touched the mirror gently with his finger. As he did so, a burst of waves appeared on the surface of the mirror. After which, a scene within a quiet room appeared right before his very eyes.


    "Is it the two of them?!" At this moment, Zhou Bao saw the true face of the Lord of Heaven. The Lord was very thin with a broad face and dark skin. He was not handsome, but the two Individual Immortals who followed him were good-looking.


    "Yes, uncle, it''s them, they come from the Heaven Realm. According to what they said, there were many other people from the Heaven Realm aside from just the two of them. However, their cultivations are varied. Most of their people are just commoners that have failed to even break through the Metaphysic Realm. The Heaven Realm isn''t aware of the current situation of the Infinite Star Sea and they sent those people just because of an ancient Void Map. It seems that they just want to take this opportunity to find some resources to facilitate their future development."


    Qing Chan was someone born with a unique way of words. He was able to explain the general situation with just a few words.


    "Hum, according to your statement, they are only some aborigines on an island. The truly powerful people are not in what they call the Seven-deity Regions, but rather the Sea Area. Weren''t they also countered by people within the Sea Area and thus fell into your hands?!" The Lord of Heaven was capable of much more profound thoughts than Qing Chan could. He saw something fishy about the Heaven Realm in such a short description.


    "That''s right!" Qing Chan, however, was not a fool. Upon hearing those words, he also understood the facts laid out before him. He scratched his head awkwardly and added, "Uncle, you are so thoughtful."


    "Anyway, it seems that the matter of the Heaven Realm is settled with this. It''s of great importance, I will report this immediately!" After saying this, he cast a meaningful look at Qing Chan, "You can make a great contribution this time!"


    Hearing this, Qing Chan immediately smiled. "I have always relied upon Uncle''s help!"


    After hearing Qing Chan''s words, he smiled and stretched out his hand to grab the bald head of Yukun Buddha. His fingertips were black, which indicated that he was going to search Yukun Buddha''s soul.


    Yukun Buddha''s cultivation was much higher than Great Dark Lord Du''s. As well, his position in the Heaven Realm was obviously higher than that of Great Dark Lord Du. Therefore, the information he knew far exceeded that of the latter. For this reason, the Lord of Heaven searched his soul from the very beginning.


    Just as his fingers touched Yukun Buddha''s bare head, a bright light appeared from the hollow and shed on the back of his hand like a flash.


    "What?!" The Lord of Heaven''s face changed and he immediately shook his hands. He gently stroked his black sleeves and the bright light disappeared before it could pierce into his hand.


    This, however, was only the beginning of the crazy events that yet to come.


    Zhou Bao had completely taken control of the formation in this house. He also added a death formation and killing formation to the magic matrix. If the three formations combined to one, it would have infinite power. The moment when the bright light was destroyed, all of the sword Qi that had been left up in the sky came crashing down. The sight of it was akin to a lethal rain.


    Kill!!


    This silent roar resonated within their hearts, a sensation akin to thunder.


    Poor Qing Chan only had a Level Eight cultivation and had never had such experience. With a single violent strike, his eyes immediately looked blank and foam flowed from his mouth. Such was the end result of Qing Chan''s heart as it encountered such an incredible shock.


    A level eight master could comprehend the mystery of the spirit, and even know the effects of divine thought. It was the perfect time to nourish one''s spirit. Qing Chan was of noble birth, practicing the best cultivation method available and even using the best medicine since his youngest years. In addition, he possessed a deeper understanding of practice than others. Therefore, he focused on the careful nourishment of his spirit a long time ago. However, his cultivation, even now, was still too low. As someone who attained the eighth level, even if he paid attention to the cultivation of his spirit to the best of his abilities, his spirit''s strength was limited. Therefore, his spirit was almost shattered by Zhou Bao''s attack.


    If Qing Chan hadn''t sided with the Lord of Heaven, there was little doubt that his spirit would have shattered and faded from this reality.


    "Qing Chan, wake up!"


    Qing Chan regained his sanity, albeit still in a daze. A thunderclap, akin to the fist of a god, echoed next to his ear, and yet his waning spirit did not fade completely. In his eyes, he could only see that his uncle was in an extremely solemn expression. As his eyes rested upon the figure of the man, he felt himself flying up.


    At this point, his collar was caught by his uncle, while the other hand of his uncle tore the surrounding space open. The dar hollow revealed as if they were ready to get away from the void.


    "Hum, if you could so easily escape from here, it would not have been called the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!" Zhou Bao, in the formation eye, smiled scornfully and moved his fingertips. As he did so, a small cyan flag wobbled. The space torn just now was closed before their bodies could escape through it. Just as the rift closed, a mist appeared and spread throughout the entire house.


    "This is bad!" The Lord of Heaven said as his face grimaced. At first, he believed it was a sneak attack, but now he fully understood the situation. The other party has already taken control of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and had also strengthened the power within it.


    This was absolutely the last thing he wanted to see, and without a doubt, the most dangerous situation possible.


    "I am Qing Cheng of the Yuelang Cliff, who dares to make such a joke in my presence!?" Qingcheng shouted loudly and unfolded his Self-World to protect himself. In the strong mist, his voice seemed very clear. His thin body also became extremely tall in the same moment.


    "Go die!"


    Zhou Bao ignored him and directly launched the formation. As soon as the formation was launched, the mist in the house began to flush with mysterious force¡ªDeath Qi. In a flash, all living creatures in the house that came into contact with the mist were dead. Their vitality would be sucked out by the mist, and even the immortals, who had Individual Immortal karma rank, were no exception.


    When the formation was launched, only Qing Cheng, Qing Chan¡ª who was under Qing Cheng''s protection, three or four Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm, Great Dark Lord Du and Yukun Buddha survived. The whole house was in a state of utter death.


    "hu, hu, hu, hu, hu¡ª!"


    "No, the mist is really too weird. It contains the full essence and power of death itself. Our Gang Qi is useless!"


    "Why it is like this, my celestial device, even my celestial device is also being eroded by this essence of death!"


    "This is impossible, what is going on? What the hell happened!"


    Bouts of screaming came from these Venerables. Under the strong power of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, their guards began to collapse one after another.


    However, Qing Cheng didn''t spend any more energy but sat down and fully unfolded his Self-World after he hadn''t received any answers. At the same time, he sent Qing Chan into his own Self-World. After this, Qing Cheng was ready to launch a protracted war with Zhou Bao.


    "Delaying this confrontation any longer would mean great amounts of trouble. Did you really think I would give you a chance to survive this? If this formation can''t kill you quickly, then allow me to poison you myself!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly after looking at Qing Cheng''s fearless expression.

 577 Killing the Lord of Heaven and the Return Journey

    "I''ll poison you to death!"


    Seeing Qing Cheng confronting the Yin and Yang Dust Formation with his Self-world in composure, Zhou Bao knew that this man was prepared for this. In addition, although Zhou Bao had taken control of the formation in this mansion, this place was, after all, Qing Cheng''s territory, so no one could be sure that they had not set up other tricks other than this formation. It was also possible that they had already notified their companions via some special technique. Thus, it was better to fight a quick battle.


    The deadly Qi and murderous intent of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation could not take down Qing Cheng''s Self-world for the moment, but the Infinite Poison Banner could. Zhou Bao immediately launched his Infinite Poison Banner. Unlike the faint jet of gold streamer it used to be after being launched, the present Poison Banner emitted cyan streamer and turned into a hideous Fierce Beast, baring its fangs and brandishing its claws while posing a vague silhouette of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast on the ground. This beast let out violent roars and dashed at Qing Cheng.


    At first, Qing Cheng thought of this supernatural animal made of cyan airflows as nothing menacing at all. But when it rushed into his Self-world, he failed to stifle down his scream of astonishment.


    His Self-world was melting down under the corrosion of the unimaginable powerful toxin! The cyan Fierce Beast had wormed into his Self-world and was stretching its body. Any place in his Self-world where this beast had set foot on had begun to vaporize into clouds of rising mist on account of this highly toxic poison. These clouds of mist also gave off an alien fragrance which was very intoxicating. Gently inhaling a mouthful of that fragrance, Qing Cheng felt his heart and mind becoming flustered, all his Dharma power started functioning in disorder, and his body was so weak and sore that his legs even could not support his body anymore.


    "This...!"


    Before Qing Cheng could come to his senses, the toxins of Infinite Poison Banner had dissolved half of his Self-world. Now, a fierce sense of crisis took hold of him. Qing Cheng did not dare to think more of this or make other attempts, but gritted his teeth and started to solidify his Self-world at once.


    The World-solidifying Skill was a unique skill of a Lord of Heaven, normally the last resort. Witnessing that Infinite Poison Banner breaking down his Self-world without any difficulty, Qing Cheng began to realize its formidableness. Even though he had several extremely powerful celestial devices at hand, he was not able to use them to block this outrageously toxic poison because those celestial devices were better used for attacking rather than defending. Therefore, he chose to use the World-solidifying Skill immediately.


    "Sizzle! Sizzle!"


    In that instance when the World-solidifying Skill was cast, the shadow of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast, which was transformed from the Infinite Poison Banner, seemed to have bumped into some kind of barricade. But very soon, the shadow spotted a breakthrough point, and the originally scattered poison gas started gathering, condensing into one cloud, and finally, turned into a drop of cyan liquid the size of a soybean. Then, this cyan drop landed itself on the solidified world. Instantly, as if there was strong acid dropping onto the ground, fits of sizzling noise sounded. Soon afterwards, a phenomenon that could startle Qing Cheng to death revealed itself. Qing Cheng saw that this drop of cyan liquid had burned a small hole out of the solidified world that had cost him a great deal of cultivation to take form just now!


    The World-solidifying Skill was supposed to produce a perfect and stable space. However, now that this space had a small hole in it, it was neither perfect or infallible anymore. In fact, when that drop of cyan liquid burnt a small hole in the solidified world, it transformed into cyan mist again, creeping into that hole and spreading in all directions.


    "No! You can''t do this to me! D*mn it! I am the First Elder of Yuelang Cliff, a member of the Luosheng Realm Senate. You can''t kill me! If you do so, you''re making yourself an enemy of the entire Luosheng Realm, an enemy of the Alliance of 13 Realms, an enemy of..." Qing Cheng''s voice came to a sudden stop. After launching the World-solidifying Skill, his strength was significantly reduced. In spite of his protective celestial device, how could it ever be possible to fend off the violent poison of the Infinite Poison Banner?


    With the impact of the Infinite Poison Banner, his body began to melt like wax under heat. In the end, Qing Cheng turned into a puddle of pus, and Qing Chan, who he had brought into the Self-world earlier, met the same ending as he did.


    "Luosheng Realm? Yuelang Cliff? F*ck you!" After killing these two, Zhou Bao finally revealed himself. He slightly waved his sleeves and the surrounding gray mist disappeared into nowhere, showing a complete picture of this mansion.


    At this moment, in the silent room, Yukun Buddha and Great Dark Lord Du were staring at the suddenly-appearing Zhou Bao with disbelief written all over their faces. Just when Qing Cheng intended to cast the Soul Searching attack against Yukun Buddha a moment ago, these two determined that they have to strike out even though they would definitely lose their lives. But to everyone''s surprise, a bright light showed up and mist rose into the air. In a few seconds, the whole situation had changed. The Lord of Heaven, who had amazingly overbearing power and could kill them merely with his deterring force, was killed by Zhou Bao! In such a short time! With such a weird method!


    Zhou Bao was no stranger to these two. They had even secretly studied Zhou Bao. But now, after this event, when looking at Zhou Bao, the eyes of these two demonstrated a trace of terror and awe.


    "OK, you two, let''s stop chit-chatting and quickly go back. The state of Infinite Star Sea is much more complex than we expected. Let''s go back first and tell others about this place so that they can be prepared in case someone forces into our doors when they still don''t know a thing!" Zhou Bao said. He waved his left hand gracefully and the inhibition imposed upon these two was instantly lifted.


    These two shot a glance at each other and inwardly felt a sense of relief.


    "King Wuyang is right. We''re safe now, but this does not mean that others are safe, too. Maybe at this time, the matter of the Seven-deity Regions has already been disclosed. Since the strength of this Infinite Star Sea is far above that of the Seven-deity Regions, if they mastered the Transmitting Formation, the consequences would be unimaginable!"


    So far they had stayed in this Infinite Star Sea for a while, so they had a relatively intuitive understanding of the Infinite Star Sea, or even of the Purple Scorpion Star Area and the Milky Way Star Area. Accordingly, they both knew that with its pathetically weak power, Seven-deity Regions had no chance to defend against attacks made by the Infinite Star Sea, the Purple Scorpion Star Area nor the Milky Way Star Area. They were just lucky to meet Zhou Bao and get rescued. However, what would happen to the others?


    Figuring this out, these two naturally felt anxious to start the return journey as soon as they could.


    Although Zhou Bao still wanted to explore this Infinite Star Sea a bit more for his other agendas, he had to admit that these two had made a fair point. Hence, he nodded and said, "Right, let''s go back together!" While speaking, Zhou Bao did a beckoning gesture, and the silver carriage that was staying outside the yard came over. "This Highest Heaven Celestial Device is not bad. Though it''s an inferior class, it is more than capable to transport us through the hollow. Considering the enormous distance between Cumulus Star and Infinite Star Sea, I''m afraid we have to go back by the means of this thing instead of using our feet!"


    "Yeah!" These two nodded, both taking Zhou Bao as their leader.


    Three days later, a silver carriage appeared before the Transmitting Formation that led to the Heaven Realm.


    "Look! Isn''t it Yuelang Cliff young master Qing Chan''s Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle? How on earth did it get here? Could he know of this Transmitting Formation?"


    The moment the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle broke through the hollow and appeared in front of the Transmitting Formation, the two men who were hiding in the dark altered their expressions.


    Unlike Zhou Bao, they came from the Infinite Star Sea, thereby knowing about the origin of Yuelang Cliff and the flying vehicle. Initially, they sort of planned to wait there for windfalls, but to their surprise, they caught sight of the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle.


    "Just wait and see. Qing Chan, the young master of Yuelang Cliff, is known for his fussiness. If he truly found out about this place, I''m afraid we would be in trouble!"


    "D*mn it! I don''t buy it. Even if he is the real Qing Chan, so what? Anyway, we''ve already sent the news back, in no time our men will come here. Thus, we don''t need to fear that Yuelang Cliff, do we?"


    "If it is only the young master of Yuelang Cliff that has arrived here, we''ll have nothing to be afraid of. But the problem is that we have few forces right now. If those who just arrived are not only Qing Chan and his subordinates, but also that old man Qing Cheng, this will be tricky to deal with. After all, that old man is a Lord of Heaven!"


    "Qing Cheng might come here, too?!"


    "There is a possibility, because Qing Cheng has always been a supporter of Qing Chan!"


    The two men were speedily exchanging their divine thoughts, while their eyes were nervously fixated on that Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle.


    "Eh? These two guys are a bit odd. They are not Yuelang Cliff''s force!"


    The two who stepped out of the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle were Great Dark Lord Du and Yukun Buddha, whose spirits were easily distinguished from those of Yuelang Cliff''s men. Since the two hiding in the dark were not ordinary guys, they detected this difference with only one glance.


    "Interesting! This Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle is the most precious treasure of Qing Chan, how could he suddenly give it to others?"


    "Could it be that these two took this vehicle by force?"


    "Impossible! Although that guy Qing Chan only has a Level Eight strength and hasn''t even made it to the Individual Immortal Karmic Rank, he has Genuine Immortals around him for protection. Thus, how could he be robbed of his car by these two men!"


    Indeed, neither Great Dark Lord Du nor Yukun Buddha had such strong strength to deal with that bunch of immortals around Qing Chan.


    "No matter what, just wait and see!"


    While the two were communicating by their divine thoughts, Great Dark Lord Du and Yukun Buddha also got into action. Now, Spiritual Stones were shooting out of their body and landing on the node of the Transmitting Formation, as if they were going to turn the Transmitting Formation on.


    However, something eccentric happened when those Spiritual Stones fell into the magic formation. Those Spiritual Stones, which should have beamed out lights and started shining, were now quietly lying there as if they were reduced to normal stones. No matter how hard these two tried to urge those stones, they still could not make them sparkling and shining.


    "What the hell is this?" Great Dark Lord Du said, taken aback. Then, he turned to Yukun Buddha and found that his expression was also a little solemn. "This Transmitting Formation has been constrained by some other kind of power!"


    "Who is there? Come out!" In that instant, Great Dark Lord Du realized something. He slightly narrowed his eyes and let out a fierce snap.


    "Boy, it turns out that your reaction is not that slow!" Hearing the voice of Great Dark Lord Du, Lei Hai gave a soft snort. Then, he raised one hand and grabbed at these two.


    Yes, he only used one hand to grab two people at the same time. This Lei Hai was a very powerful Venerable, whose strength could be said to belong to another realm when compared with the strength of Great Dark Lord Du and Yukun Buddha. Hence, he made light of them and took hold of these two in his huge hand with one grab.


    Meanwhile, his other hand also lifted, aiming at that Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle to seize it.


    "What? No one is in it?" Grasping the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle was so easy that Lei Hai hardly felt any resisting force, which actually startled him. It never occurred to him that this inferior Highest Heaven Celestial Device could be so easy to catch hold of.


    "The vehicle is a trap! Quickly loosen your grip!" Just when Lei Hai was still stunned by this fact, the anxious yell of his companion floated into his ears. However, before he could let go of the vehicle, the hand that was clutching the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle went numb.

 578 The Golden Lock of Eight Doors and The Returning

    The companion of Lei Hai had noticed something fishy, but it was too late. Lei Hai had already directly grasped the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle with that one grab, which meant he seized the Infinite Poison Banner as well. The Infinite Poison Banner could easily poison a Lord of Heaven to death, not to mention a Venerable like him. Thus, there was no suspense about Lei Hai''s death. In horrified shock, Lei Hai watched his arm dissolved and disappear at great speed as if it was a burning candle...


    "No...!" Lei Hai cried out in fear and lost his consciousness before he could exercise any of his Divine Senses or magic weapons. His spirit was eager to get away from his body, but that was not possible due to the fact that his spirit had blended in with his body under the poisonous effect of the Infinite Poison Banner.


    "Crap!" The companion of Lei Hai, who was hiding in a secretive place in the time-space, had a clear view of what was happening. Taken by a sense of tremendous crisis, he abruptly tapped his forehead without giving it another thought and a dot of golden light flashed out, which turned out to be a shining Golden Lock. At this moment, he could not pay attention to hide his figure anymore, because he saw the cyan mist that just dissolved Lei Hai already turning itself into a gigantic Fierce Beast and melting down the space surrounding himself, whirling straight at him.


    "Golden Lock of Eight Doors, open the Living Door for me!" He roared. The huge shadows of the Golden Lock burst out rays of dazzling golden light while the Golden Lock was violently vibrating, producing a wonderful crashing effect in the space nearby the Golden Lock. Powerful attraction force came out from those holes the Golden Lock formed by vibration and started tearing at that cyan Fierce Beast as well as slowing down its attacking speed. At the same time, an eccentric door appeared over the Golden Lock, which was even out of the expectation of Zhou Bao. Actually, he also had no idea about what this door was and where it led to.


    This door looked ancient and desolate. It was as high as about thirty feet, covered in a consistent bronze color with mysterious patterns inscribed on its surface. Right now, this door was sending the information of the wondrous world behind that door to the entire hollow through its gateway.


    "What the hell is this?" Zhou Bao, who was hiding in the dark, slightly scowled and urged the Infinite Poison Banner towards that Golden Lock. However, it was one step late, for the Golden Lock had slipped into that door speedily and disappeared. After that, the door which was open closed itself shut. And almost simultaneously, the shadow of Nine-headed Fierce Beast wrapped around the two-piece bronze door.


    "Boom!"


    A wave of peerless surging power struck out from that door, which almost shattered the Infinite Poison Banner into pieces.


    "Gosh!" Zhou Bao gasped fiercely and withdrew his Infinite Poison Banner. With his heart fluttering with fear, he looked at that gradually disappearing door and murmured, "What''s this thing? How can it be so strong that even my Infinite Poison Banner can''t touch it?!"


    Zhou Bao knew about the power of his Infinite Poison Banner. But now seeing his Infinite Poison Banner being defeated by this wondrous door, he could not help but feel amazed by this.


    "The inhibition on this magic formation disappeared!" A pleasantly surprised yell from Yukun Buddha sounded from the side of the Transmitting Formation.


    Streamers started glittering. After the Golden Lock disappeared, the Transmitting Formation lost its inhibition and began to function at once.


    Yukun Buddha and Great Dark Lord Du were overjoyed by this. Although they were prestigious figures in the Seven-deity Regions, their huge pride that was formed while living in the Seven-deity Regions had long dispelled after staying for those days in this Star Area of Infinite Star Sea. Now, they just wanted to get rid of this d*mn place and go back to the Seven-deity Regions as soon as possible.


    Catching sight of the excited expressions on these two, Zhou Bao revealed an unbidden smile. He did not stop them from going but had his figure start flashing as he entered the Transmitting Formation. Now, the Transmitting Formation was in full operation. Basked in fits of bright light, the three of them finally disappeared from the Infinite Star Sea.


    Soon after the three disappeared, the Transmitting Formation suddenly shivered, and then all of its shining patterns dimmed down. If anyone ever appeared beside this Transmitting Formation at this time, no matter how many Spiritual Stones he had, he would never be able to initiate it, because on the other end of the space this magic formation had been destroyed.


    "What a bunch of cowards! You even destroyed the Transmitting Formation on the other end! But did you really think by doing this you can stop others from peeping into the secrets of the Heaven Realm?"


    The instant the Transmitting Formation lost its function, in the hollow not far from this Transmitting Formation, a middle-aged man appeared. This middle-aged man looked pretty disheveled, for his face was buried in stubble, his clothes were also quite shabby, and his waist had a rusted iron ruler hanging to it. This iron ruler, who knew how long it had been hanging on his waist without getting a cleaning, was completely covered in green rust so its original look was concealed from view.


    "Infinite Poison Banner? That guy looks very young, how could he have gotten his hand on the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast? How audacious! He even dared to go to the Soul-silencing Star and blatantly refine his own celestial device. What on earth is that old poisonous man thinking? Why didn''t he keep this guy?" The disheveled middle-aged man whispered to himself while thoughtfully casting his eyes onto that Transmitting Formation. His brain was spinning fast, numerous thoughts and ideas flitting across his mind and shuttled through his spirit. Finally, he let out a soft sigh and said, "Fine, now that the old poisonous man did not intervene in this, there is no need for me to act as the bad cop. This Transmitting Formation had been in existence for so many years without being discovered, but now it is exposed, a turmoil must be around the corner. Or maybe, this is also an opportunity!"


    "Are you out of your mind? Why did you destroy the Transmitting Formation? Do you really know what you''re doing? Those Highest Elders haven''t come back yet!"


    On the other end of the Transmitting Formation, the two Venerables who were responsible to guard the Transmitting Formation were now stamping the ground with fury and balefully goggling at Yukun Buddha and Great Dark Lord Du. The great Qi Power of the two Venerables locked down the entire space in the vicinity, forcing the two to freeze.


    Beside them stood Zhou Bao, who was at a loss about whether to cry or to laugh. He never expected the psychological impact of this matter left on these two was so deep that once they stepped out of the Transmitting Formation, these two decisively made a strike to break the magic formation. They did this without any hesitation as if this were planned a long time ago.


    "Elders, please let me explain, this matter¡ª" Yukun Buddha, who was unable to move a bit under the pressure of the Qi Power of the two Venerable, was not panic-stricken. Just when he was about to explain his behavior, he seemed to have thought of something and asked, "Elders, what did you say just now? Highest Elders?"


    "Some accident happened to you guys in the Infinite Star Sea and Wang She escaped death by sheer luck and fled back here to tell us what happened. In order to save you guys, the Highest Elders of our five biggest sects went into action simultaneously and headed into the Infinite Star Sea to help you. Except for Grandma Loulan, the Highest Elder of Jade Pool, no other Highest Elders have come back yet. But the second you got back, you destroyed the Transmitting Formation. How dare you!"


    "Really?" Both of them were startled. They turned around to look at Zhou Bao, but only to see Zhou Bao displaying a wry smile to them. It never occurred to Zhou Bao that these two would have made such a swift strike that it was impossible to stop them.


    "What else do you have to explain?"


    "About this matter, we will give a clear explanation!" The faces of these two were as white as a sheet now. Unlike Zhou Bao, they were bigwigs and elites of their respective sects, so they could not be more than familiar with the insides of the five biggest sects and naturally knew the magnitude of the word "Highest Elder". Those Highest Elders were all Genuine Immortals in the Lord of Heaven Realm. Those men entered the Infinite Star Sea for the sake of rescuing them, but before they could go on their return journey, the Transmitting Formation connecting to the Infinite Star Sea was ruined by these two, which meant those Highest Elders were caught up in the Infinite Star Sea. It was a really big deal!


    "All right, now whatever you say, it''s too late. The Transmitting Formation is already destroyed, let''s try to see if we can find some method to fix it, shall we?" Seeing the ferocious expressions on the two guarding Venerables, Zhou Bao felt sort of helpless. He waved his hands and dashed into these four in a flash, separating the Qi Power of the two Venerables from the other two. Then, he said, "I know something about why these two destroyed the Transmitting Formation. Let''s see, just take them back and let them explain everything!"


    Despite that the two Venerables thought of murdering those two on site, they were not that silly to actually execute this thought because they knew this was not something they could decide. Although the Transmitting Formation was not damaged by them, they would still assume great responsibility for this given that they were the guards of this formation. In this case, of course, they could not just get rid of the two culprits. Otherwise, nobody could share the liability with them. Therefore, they just resentfully gave a cold snort and agreed on Zhou Bao''s proposal.


    One hour later, in the Immortal Palace.


    The hall was as silent as the grave. All eyes were concentrated on Great Dark Lord Du and Yukun Buddha. Well, of course, from time to time some people would glance sideways at Zhou Bao, who was wearing a thoroughly innocent look.


    "Hey, what are you looking at? What''s so funny? I can beat you up right now, wanna try?"


    All of a sudden, Zhou Bao''s voice sounded in the quiet hall. He pointed at a young man in the crowd and barked with annoyance, "F*ck! Ever since I''ve walked in, you have been staring at me all this time. Is there a flower or something sticking onto my face?"


    "You..." Being scolded by these words of Zhou Bao, the white handsome face of that young man suddenly reddened, and he pointed at Zhou Bao while yelling, "You... you... you, how dare you!"


    "Which family does this kid comes from? Where are the adults? Quickly take him outside, or else, don''t blame me for being relentless!" Zhou Bao gave a cold shout, his tone was full of indisputable dignity.


    "King Wuyang, please calm down. My son is young and naive, please forgive him for his inconsiderate behavior!" Then, a big hand grabbed that teen by the shoulder and forcefully dragged him out.


    With one glance, Zhou Bao recognized the owner of that hand. That man was Yu Taiming, the most powerful Venerable in the Yu family of Divine Wind Palace. He had an extremely high cultivation and had undergone five Thunder Tribulations, merely enjoying a status inferior to Yu Taixu and Yu Taicang in the Yu family. Well, since Yu Taicang already died, as the number two figure of the Yu family as well as the actual controller of the Yu family, this Yu Taiming, compared with Yu Taixu who had gone mad in practicing the Way of the Emperor, was the direct executive officer of all matters in the Yu family.


    And that teen was his only son, Yu Nanchuan.


    Zhou Bao had never met Yu Nanchuan before, but the look Yu Nanchuan shot towards him disturbed him a lot. In Yu Nanchuan''s eyes, there was visible hostility.


    "That girl Ji Yeyue is close to you. This Yu Nanchan and that Yu Nancheng who we met the other day both have some feelings for Ji Yeyue. Naturally, seeing you here is an unpleasant view to him!" Just while Zhou Bao was still confused, White Tiger''s voice floated into his ears.

 579 Closing a Deal

    "His cultivation hasn''t even reached Level Eight, but he still dares to eye on Ji Yeyue?" Hearing White Tiger''s explanation, Zhou Bao almost burst into laughter.


    "But his status is equivalent to Ji Yeyue''s, and he is the fittest candidate in the Yu family to become her husband!" White Tiger insisted, apparently believing this could actually happen. "Yu Nantian and Yu Nancheng are both legitimate sons of Yu Taixu, while Ji Yeyue is a talent of Jade Pool who has the greatest chance to be promoted as a Lord of Heaven over the past 10,000 years. Judging by the character of Yu Taixu, he will never allow his son to become a son-in-law of Jade Pool for merely a woman. On the other hand, Jade Pool will never allow the wedding of this great talent they encountered once in a blue moon, either. Therefore, if the Divine Wind Palace really wants to get on good terms with Jade Pool, that Yu Nanchuan shall be the fittest guy to be a son-in-law of Jade Pool!"


    "Then, I''d better kill him!" Giving it a thought, Zhou Bao said straightforwardly. "Do you have any good advice?"


    "You aren''t really having an affair with Ji Yeyue, are you?"


    "So far we are just friends. However, if later she asks me for help, I will certainly stick up for her. I prefer to deal with him right now since he hasn''t been alarmed yet rather than letting him strike out later!" Zhou Bao said snickering. "Anyway, this guy is craving for what he is not worthy of. Death just serves him right!"


    "Serves him right? How could you say this with such playfulness!" Hearing that, White Tiger almost hoped he could give Zhou Bao a hard kick. "Now it''s not the time for thinking of only those mere trifles, let''s figure out how to handle the matter of the Infinite Star Sea. You''ve been there once and rescued those two back, so tell me, is this Infinite Star Sea really a tricky place as it is described?"


    "I''m afraid it''s even trickier than that!" When they mentioned the Infinite Star Sea, Zhou Bao forced a smile and said, "To be honest, this Infinite Star Sea has been in complete control of the Purple Scorpion Star Area and the Milky Way Star Area, neither of which is something that we''re able to fight against. The Purple Scorpion Star Area has 13 macro worlds, which constitutes a huge alliance. Though we cannot say that it resembles the area in antiquity times, where Genuine Immortals were as plenty as clouds and Human Immortals were as numerous as raindrops, those who have become immortals there are still unparalleled regarding of those in our Seven-deity Regions. Moreover, it is said that there are still some Human Immortals living in these two Star Areas today!"


    "Human Immortals?" White Tiger said, whose expression obviously went depressed. "If it is true, this matter will be kind of troublesome. However, those two guys are truly reckless, they ruined the Transmitting Formation the moment they got back. Could this Infinite Star Sea really be that formidable?"


    "Well, they''re not to blame. They''re just terrified by that place." At this time, Zhou Bao even started to put in good words for these two. "They were caught by an influence called Yuelang Cliff, whose strength is beyond my imagination. This simple influence placed a Genuine Immortal in the Lord of Heaven Realm in the Cumulus Star. Do you know what this means? Look at those Lord of Heavens in our Seven-deity Regions. All of them just lie in their own nest to conduct closed-door training and comprehend the ways of the world. Have you ever seen any of them show their faces in public like those in the Infinite Star Sea did? The reason for these two destroying the Transmitting Formation so fast is that they''re worried that maybe someone can find out our location in the hollow through that Transmitting Formation and bring us more troubles!"


    "Well, you cannot talk like that, but those two are too afraid of facing challenges, and they even destroyed the Transmitting Formation that our Highest Elders need to get back to the Seven-deity Regions, causing such a loss for us all of a sudden. No matter what, this is something we can never afford!"


    The secret conversation between Zhou Bao and White Tiger was conducted in a low volume, but their words still could not be concealed from those in the surroundings, because those who were qualified to participate in the discussion in this hall were all experts at or above Level Nine, most of which were even immortals.


    Looking up, Zhou Bao saw the man who spoke just now was an Elder of the School of Five Virtues in the Divine Wind Palace. This Elder was not the supervisor of that school, but his cultivation was not weak at all. He was a Genuine Immortal who had undergone one Thunder Tribulation and his face demonstrated pure righteousness.


    Zhou Bao merely gave a smile and ignored him. He had no good impression from guys of the School of Five Virtues, but now it was not a good time for starting conflicts. Thus, Zhou Bao just pretended he hadn''t not heard his previous words.


    Seeing Zhou Bao not evening bothering to spare a glance for him, the Elder of the School of Five Virtues instantly displayed his anger on his face. However, thinking about the dreadful combat capability of Zhou Bao, his anger immediately turned into a stream of grievance and rushed right into his mind.


    "Well, they''ve told you all about the Infinite Star Sea, and I have nothing else to say. As to this matter of the Transmitting Formation, you guys do as you see fit. Anyway, it''s not me who destroyed it!" Saying this, Zhou Bao turned around and intended to depart.


    "Wait for a second! King Wuyang, you cannot leave for the moment!" This time, it was Yu Taiming who spoke. "The matter of the Infinite Star Sea is of great importance. Among those who are present today, you are the one who knows the most about it. Therefore, there are some issues I need to consult with you!"


    "What to consult? Now that the Transmitting Formation has been ruined, do you still have any other way to get to the Infinite Star Sea?"


    "Indeed, the Transmitting Formation connecting to our Seven-deity Regions has been ruined, but it is not the only Transmitting Formation connecting the Infinite Star Sea with the Heaven Realm!" Yu Taiming said, shaking his head. "King Wuyang may have forgotten, but the Rolling Dragon King from the Sea Area has arrived in the Infinite Star Sea as well, and he could not have done this by using the Transmitting Formation of our Seven-deity Regions, could he?"


    "Sea Area? You want to use the Transmitting Formation of the Sea Area?" Zhou Bao felt a bit confused.


    "We need to know the real strength of the Infinite Star Sea!" Elder Qing suddenly opened his mouth at this moment. "For those Highest Elders who have gone to the Infinite Star Sea, we can''t leave them there. But temporarily we can put aside the thought of using the Transmitting Formation of Sea Area and try to negotiate with the Three Western Regions so as to borrow their Transmitting Formation!"


    "Three Western Regions also have a Transmitting Formation leading to the Infinite Star Sea?" Right now, Zhou Bao was really confused.


    "Since there is one in the Four Eastern Regions and one in the Sea Area, then, there must be another in the Three Western Regions!" Elder Qing answered with certainty. "Years ago when the Jade Emperor launched his Great Heaven Divine Sense to move me from the Central Star Area in the Heaven Realm to this Star Area, that action was mainly for evading the upcoming disaster. However, he didn''t cut off any passageways connecting to other Star Area or the chance to return to the Central Star Area. Now it seems that this Infinite Star Sea is the most crucial link that Jade Emperor left for us to return to the Central Star Area. Meanwhile, the Seven-deity Regions and the Sea Area have been in existence since antiquity times. Thus, I believe, there must be a Transmitting Formation in the Three Western Regions!"


    "You are not asking us to go to the Three Western Regions again, are you?"


    "Right, we do have this idea. The strength of the Infinite Star Sea is matchless. Even though our Highest Elders have excellent cultivation, they are outnumbered by their enemies. In such a strange Star Area, it is easy for them to get in danger. Thus, we have to send someone to come to their aid. This matter not only concerns our Four Eastern Regions but also concerns the overall strength of the entire Seven-deity Regions or even the Heaven Realm itself. Therefore, the Three Western Regions definitely shouldn''t just sit back and watch all of this. Well, of course, we will coordinate everything so you guys won''t have to travel across the vast Sea Area like you did the last time!"


    "Hold on, you said what? ''You guys''? You are not sending me there again!"


    "Taking account of your strength and your experience, you are our best choice!" Elder Qing let out a sigh of resignation, and then looked at Yan Yuntian, who had been sitting in the center of the hall but had not said a word, and asked, "Your Majesty, I beg your advice!"


    "Yes, he is indeed the best choice!" Yan Yuntian nodded as well. "King Wuyang, an able man is always busy. This matter shall be handled by no one other than you!"


    "Are you sure? I just got back, and now I have to go out again?" Extreme unwillingness crossed Zhou Bao''s face. "How about this...Great Dark Lord Du and Yukun Buddha also just got back from the Infinite Star Sea, and they can be said to be pretty familiar with that place. Plus, they just stirred more trouble here, why not send them there so that they can also redeem themselves by making new contributions? If so, you can kill two birds with the same stone, can''t you?"


    "We''re willing to go!" Yukun Buddha and Great Dark Lord Du were not fools. Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, they both yelled at the same time. Right now, they could not pay attention to think about how dangerous this Infinite Star Sea was. After all, they had already ruined the Transmitting Formation on a whim and put themselves in an extremely dangerous situation. Despite that they enjoyed high status in their respective sects, when compared to those Highest Elders, they were as unimportant as ants. Not killing them on site after they made such a blunder was already an exceptionally lenient treatment for them. If they further refused to help fix this, even if they somehow managed to stay alive, the consequence they should bear would not be much better than death either.


    "Of course they should go. However, their strength is too low to accomplish this. Thus, we still need you to do this in person!" Elder Qing said while shaking his head. Then, he glared at these two and went on, "Relax, this time it won''t be risky to go to the Three Western Regions. All you need to do is just to take those Highest Elders back. Plus, we won''t let you do this for free!"


    "So that means there are some benefits for me, right?" After giving this a thought, Zhou Bao still kept shaking his head. "I''m afraid this can not be that simple. I''ve breed deep enmity with the Yuelang Cliff by killing one Lord of Heaven and one young master of them last time. Although they may not know it was me who did this yet, with their resourceful means they can certainly find out the cause and effect of this matter. If I guessed right, now the entire Infinite Star Sea is in action. They are ferreting out foreign arrivers like us. Maybe conflicts have already incurred. So this time, going to the Infinite Star Sea will be much riskier than the last time!"


    "That''s why you have to go!" Elder Qing sighed. "Previously, in order to aid them in the Infinite Star Sea, a large portion of our Highest Elders from the five biggest sects have gone to the Infinite Star Sea. Therefore, our strength is now considerably reduced. At present, given that the situation of the Infinite Star Sea is so complicated, you are all we''ve got!"


    "What about the benefits?" Zhou Bao asked while slightly squinting his eyes.


    "A Taihao Fairy Weapon!"


    "What? No, this can''t be!"


    "Are you kidding me?"


    "Fairy weapon! How could this be possible? No!"


    The moment Elder Qing said those words, the crowd in the hall started an uproar. They were all taken aback by Elder Qing''s words. One fairy weapon? He must be kidding!


    "Yes, one fairy weapon. As long as you accomplish this mission smoothly, we, the five biggest sects and the Dark Sect will jointly send you a fairy weapon as a reward. What do you think?" Ignoring the clamor around him, Elder Qing just fixed his eyes on Zhou Bao and asked.


    "Deal! But, I won''t take that Green Pith Leaf!"

 580 Young Master Qi, The History of Being Disappointed

    No one expected a fairy weapon would be the reward for entering the Infinite Star Sea once again. Everyone knew clearly how valuable a fairy weapon was. One was enough for the Highest Elder of the five biggest sects to offer his life, why were they benefitting Zhou Bao so much?


    Thinking about this, they began to be unkind. Just because Zhou Bao was one of the Four Signs of Immortal Palace, Elder Qing had to give him a fairy weapon just like that? Was there really such an easy job on earth?


    Hence, when Zhou Bao said "deal", voices of opposition arose.


    "Elder Qing, this is going against the rules!"


    "Yes, Elder Qing, we''re talking about fairy weapons, they are the most important assets of our sects, how could just give away one just like that!"


    "Yes, yes!"


    These voices grew louder gradually and they only meant to convey a message. That is, fairy weapons were too valuable, they could not be given to anyone anyhow.


    Elder Qing scoffed and scanned his surrounding with a cold gaze. A strong Qi power arose and instantly shut everyone up.


    "Fine, you guys are right, fairy weapons are indeed too valuable and cannot be given to anyone. If that''s the case, can everyone please think, other than Zhou Bao, who else is suitable to do this? If you can think of anyone, then voice it out, and let''s see what conditions he has to offer?!"


    One sentence was all it took to shut them up.


    It was understandable that they used to not know about the situation in the Infinite Star Sea. Now that they fully understood what was going on and were fully aware of the great strength and the influence in the Star Area, no one was willing to risk going in. Even if a fairy weapon could lure the Highest Elders of Lord of Heaven Realm, their own sects would be unwilling to let them take the risk.


    A Lord of Heaven acted as a deterrence to enemies for each sect of the Seven-deity Regions. They were indispensable. Now that the Four Great Sects have already lost a Highest Elder of Lord of Heaven Realm each, they would not agree to lose one more even if they could gain a fairy weapon.


    Hence, everyone shut up after hearing Elder Qing''s words.


    The palace was filled with silence.


    "Okay, since that is the case, then it has been decided!" Seeing that no one voiced up, Yan Yuntian, who had been observing quietly from the side, finally said something. "Zhou Bao, we''ll give you a fairy weapon in exchange for you entering the Infinite Star Sea one more time. Those sitting here are all Elders of each sect. They value good-hearted people. No matter how valuable a fairy weapon is, they''ll make sure they take great care of you!"


    "Hopefully!" Zhou Bao scanned the eyes of those present and was able to see all their strange expressions. He did not say much and only smiled lightly before he left the palace. That smile of his triggered the crowd who were smiling scornfully at him.


    "What, a fairy weapon, you''re saying the five biggest sects of Four Eastern Regions are going to give Zhou Bao a fairy weapon for him to go to the Infinite Star Sea again?!"


    "Yes, Young Master Qi. Based on Zhou Bao''s personality, he''ll ask for the fairy weapon before he set off!"


    Right now, far away, in the Three Western Regions, two young good-looking men were talking in a palace in an old holy mountain. Their topic of conversation was Zhou Bao.


    If Zhou Bao was here, he would be shocked to realize that one of them was his old enemy Ye Qingtian. Now, Ye Qingtian''s cultivation had already surpassed the Mysterious Realm. Furthermore, he had amazingly reached the peak of it. From head to toe, he gave a fairy-like aura, very unfathomable. The young man in front of him was mysterious too. His cultivation had even reached the Venerable Realm and he gave off a distinguished aura.


    "That is to say, if we take action, can we acquire a fairy weapon?!"


    "No, not just one, Zhou Bao is not as easy as he looks, he has his own fairy weapons too!"


    "What did you say, fairy weapons? He has fairy weapons already?!" Young Master Qi was shocked and almost jumped.


    "That''s right. Not many people know about this, but I do clearly. I once went to his Wuyang Region to destroy it. Unexpectedly, he used a vibrant golden light to block my North Pole Frozen Wheel. I was very certain based on the feeling that golden light imposed on me, only a fairy weapon would have such a pressure, only a fairy weapon can resist another fairy weapon!" Ye Qingtian was very sure of what he was saying. "This fella is hiding too well and has too many secrets. Thinking about how he rose to fame till now, it took him less than 10 years. This is incredible. I bet he is just like me, having inheritance from an emperor from antiquity times, and is a complete heir of one of the strongest emperors. If not, how can he achieve something like this in such a short period of time!"


    "We did already suspect what you just said!" The white-clothed young handsome man whom Ye Qingtian referred to as Young Master Qi continued to speak eloquently. "This Zhou Bao became successful too fast and too soon. His power is beyond crazy. He even defeated Hong Taihe and an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven at the Human Emperor-selecting Ceremony. Even though this happened in the Four Eastern Regions, we cannot give up on our investigation on him. Besides, he did have some interaction with Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty!"


    "Then, Young Master Qi, you''re trying to say..."


    "This is a good chance, although it is hard to grab. The Transmitting Formation was discussed between the five biggest sects of the Four Eastern Regions and the five biggest sects of my Big Western Region. Hence, even if you want to use it, it will be impossible for us the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain to show up. You guys can only use your own strength. This Zhou Bao has fairy weapons and the ability of an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. Do you guys have confidence?!"


    "What we need is an opportunity!" Hearing Young Master Qi''s tone, Ye Qingtian was delighted. "We will definitely not pull you into the dirty matters. After everything is done, you will definitely enjoy your share of his fairy weapons!"


    "Good, if that''s the case, then I''ll wait for you guys'' good news, but I do hope your big brother has the capability!"


    "Please just wait for the good news!" Ye Qingtian cupped his hands and said confidently.


    "Haha, seems like the Four Great Sects are really giving their all this time, even taking out their fairy weapons!" Zhou Bao caressed the warm fairy weapon in his arms. His tone contained an obvious mockery.


    "Do you think you got it for free? If you can''t bring those Lords of Heaven back, we''ll take it back! Furthermore, the Four Great Sects and the Dark Sect may even find trouble for you!"


    "Pshh, find trouble for me? How? If they die now, what has that to do with me?!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly and put the fairy weapon in front of his eyes. "Back to topic, the style of this fairy weapon is quite unique, what is it?!"


    "We don''t know either!" Speaking of which, Elder Qing shooked his head slightly. "This fairy weapon was found 83,000 years ago in some Ancient Ruins by us the five biggest sects. We don''t know its purpose and its usage and we can''t even refine it. We only know that it''s a fairy weapon, a Taihao Fairy Weapon!"


    "Are you guys playing with me?!" Zhou Bao spoke faintly. In his tone, there was no anger. Instead, it was more like a negotiation.


    "This is not playing. When I listed the conditions I knew that they would eventually give you this one!" Elder Qing smiled as if he became a sly fox. "Strangers may not know about its history, but I do know a bit. This may be related to an old tribe from antiquity times. However, the stories from back then are useless now, I only know this small detail!"


    "An old tribe from antiquity times?"


    "Yes, you should also know that the world history is split into antiquity times, the medieval period and the present. Antiquity times refers to 100,000 years ago. From 10,000 to 100,000 years ago, 10,000 to 1,000 years ago, that''s near antiquity times. From a certain perspective, near antiquity times was almost meaningless. People are familiar with the history of near antiquity times, and even the medieval period. They are more interested in the antiquity times."


    The antiquity times, about 10,000 years ago, was an unfathomable era filled with pneuma and with many strong fighters. The 99 Emperors ruled the earth and the Jade Emperor ruled the worlds. It was an era where the universe was still unified. Uncountable small worlds and experts were ruled by the Heaven Realm. They listened to its orders and dared not go against them. If it wasn''t for the Necromancer''s Tribulation, perhaps, the glory of antiquity times would have continued til now.


    However, the current situation was very different.


    "After the tribulation, history was layered. People in the present day only knew about antiquity times. They did not know that there are older eras before that. Thousands of years of history turned from a large river to just a small wave!" Speaking of which, Elder Qing sighed, "To be specific, antiquity times spanned across 810,000 years. The beginning of which was 910,000 years ago. Before that, it was the ancient times. That does not matter anymore. It could even be said that the Ancient Celestial Court is deliberately removing that part of history!"


    "The Ancient Celestial Court deliberately wants to erase it?!"


    "That''s right. Primordial Origin, primitive times, ancient deities, Ancient Celestial Court, strictly speaking, from Primordial Origin to Necromancer''s Tribulation, there were four phases; each longer than the previous and also more mysterious. What we know now is the era of the Ancient Celestial Court. Before that, we''ve heard of snippets of the Primordial Origin and primitive times, but regarding ancient deities, we haven''t heard of anything. That''s because after the Ancient Celestial Court had been established, that part of history was forcefully wiped out. Even the items, civilization, information were all demolished completely. If I hadn''t had the chance when I was young, I wouldn''t have known about this ancient deities era after the primitive times. This rare era spanned across 3,600,000 years. That''s way longer than the rulership of Ancient Celestial Court! This scepter originated from ancient deities era, its a scepter from a deity!"


    Zhou Bao''s gaze brightened. Looking at the scepter in his hand, it was made of bronze and less than three feet long. There was a cyan lotus carved onto its head. Its body was thick and sturdy and it was very minimal. The detailed carvings portrayed a great harmony.


    "This thing is indeed not bad, it would be handy when using Asura Destroyer Pole!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly.

 581 Refining the Scepter

    The scepter had not many uses to the present day, Zhou Bao could only feel it would help with the Asura Destroyer Pole, but other than that nothing important. Nonetheless, he still did not give up, as he was determined to find its uses sooner or later. Besides, carrying a fairy weapon couldn''t be harmful at all. What''s more, when he first touched the Scepter, he could feel the apparently useless Golden Dharma power he had absorbed from that Innate Deity''s skeleton react. Up until then, that power had been of no use unless there was an emergency, but with this fairy weapon, he should try to see what happens. However, he could not do that with Elder Qing in front of him, so he pretended to be cold, and talked with extreme sarcasm.


    "Asura Heart-Killing Stick Technique?!" Elder Qing wobbled slightly. Afterward, he started laughing bitterly. "Aye, whatever you say, no matter what, the thing is now yours. Although not everyone is happy about this, I have already discussed with them. If you successfully bring the people back, then we''ll add in more rewards for you!"


    "Another fairy weapon?!"


    "Do you think fairy weapons are cabbages, that we can give it to you so freely!" Elder Qing was frustrated, "You should give thanks that you even have one. Although not everyone is happy about this, you''re indeed a weird kid, maybe you''ll crack the secret behind this and gain something beneficial from it? As for the other rewards, they may not be fairy weapons, but when you''re back, we''ll be sure to satisfy you!"


    "Elder Qing, I''m holding you to your words, don''t play with me!"


    "Who''s playing with you!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s dissatisfaction, Elder Qing was extremely helpless. "Okay, there is no point debating over these meaningless things. We''ve already contacted the Three Western Regions. It would be best if you could set off as soon as possible. Divine Wind Palace, Dragon Thunder Palace and Bigwheel Temple are on their toes!"


    "Don''t you think that this is a good chance to tackle Divine Wind Palace?!" Zhou Bao squinted his eyes and laughed heartily. "Be it Hong Taihe or Yu Taiming, those two are some really tough guys. Perhaps, they''ve already put on a fight with the strong influence in the Infinite Star Sea. Even if I go now, I may not be able to see them alive!"


    "Kid, you better not play around. You''re right, this may be indeed a good chance, but the threat of the Infinite Star Sea is greater. You''ve been there, you know the ability of the Alliance of 13 Realms and the Milky Way Realm. If we go and cause a scene now, we really are no match for them. Precisely because of this, the five biggest sects of the Three Western Regions agreed to let us use their Transmitting Formation!"


    Zhou Bao listened and did not say a word. He gave it another thought and said, "Since that''s the case, then I have not much to say, but it''ll be better if I go alone. Great Dark Lord Du and Yukun Buddha should stay here. Their abilities are not enough, they''ll be a burden to me!"


    "We''ve considered this problem too and arrived at a similar conclusion. They are indeed not powerful enough. Also, they have already caused enough trouble. We''ve decided to imprison them first and when you bring the people back, we''ll then do something about them!"


    "Then that has nothing to do with me, that''s great!" Zhou Bao was elated. "Then I''ll return and prepare to set off tomorrow!"


    "Fine, I will not disturb you anymore. Tomorrow morning, someone will be there to pick you up!" Elder Qing nodded and glanced at Zhou Bao with a deep look. "If this time around, you''re able to bring the Elders back, you''ll receive so many benefits for your future use. They owe you a big favor, even if things fall out with Divine Wind Palace, you don''t need to worry much!"


    "Then, let''s hope that''s the case!" Zhou Bao did not know why Elder Qing would mention something about this. However, since he was so sure that he would fall out with Divine Wind Palace if he himself had said that Zhou Bao should just take it naturally.


    Seeing the shadow of Elder Qing gradually disappear in front of him, Zhou Bao held onto the scepter tighter. The space surrounding his body vibrated and he disappeared on the spot.


    "Good stuff, this is good stuff. A scepter from the ancient deities, a buried history, hehe, this good stuff is indeed not easy!"


    Zhou Bao reappeared in the Sea of Divine Power. At that point in time, his Supreme Fairy Weapon, a huge space-boat, was parked in a hollow that was millions of miles away from the Heaven Realm. There was a countless number of time spaces in between. Not far away from the space-boat, there was a planet. While his Supreme Fairy Weapon was fairly large, when compared to a planet, it was really tiny. Right now, it was hiding in the shadow of the enormous planet. It was hidden in the core of a giant meteorite. It was surrounding this lifeless planet and nobody knew about that, in this ocean of meteorites, there was a Supreme Fairy Weapon that was able to make countless cultivators in a macro worlds go crazy.


    By then, the Sea of Divine Power had completely changed. It was almost independent of the Azure Big World. There was a giant palace in the middle of it. The palace did not have a name, nor signs of any living things. There were only extremely thick pneuma and big empty halls. There were also two powerful fairy weapons hidden in it, the Wheel of Time and the Jade Plate of Fate.


    Zhou Bao sat quietly in the center of the palace. His hand gently caressed the Bronze Scepter as he silently activated the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill. With that, he slowly led the Golden Dharma Power from his body into the scepter.


    Initially, the Bronze Scepter did not have any reactions at all. That little bit of Golden Dharma Power was like a needle in a haystack, very insignificant. Zhou Bao waited for half a day and there were still no reactions. Uncontrollably, he started to worry. For 83,000 years, no one has found out its real usage. No one was able to activate it either. Perhaps, there were also people like him, whose Real Essence in their body had unusual movements when they touched it. However, they were unable to activate the scepter at all. If that was the case, he would have suffered a huge loss.


    Thinking about this, his facial expression started to turn ugly. However, he was not totally disappointed because his Golden Dharma Power was in a state of excitement. Initially, it was just like a vortex in his giant Dantian that was formed by nine acupoints. It rotated slowly and seemed calm. As it came into contact with the Bronze Scepter for a longer time, the calm surface started to surge, as if being attracted to the Bronze Scepter. Some liquid Golden Dharma Power started to evaporate, forming strands of golden mist, roaming around in Zhou Bao''s body.


    "Now is a good chance!"


    Although his Eight Nine Mysterious Skill had managed to refine some Golden Dharma Power in the past, the quantity was too small. While the vortex in the Dantian looked like liquid, it was undoubtedly a solid. Moreover, it was harder than a diamond! During the first time using the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill to activate the Golden Dharma Power, it was like using a gold diamond to sharpen a bigger diamond. Now the situation was better. Part of the Golden Dharma Power had started to oxidize after being attracted by the Bronze Scepter. Since it was already in gas form, Zhou Bao naturally took advantage of it and used the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill to engulf them. All nine of his acupoints started working together at the same time to bring the Dharma power into them. Through the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill again, the rest was transformed into Mysterious Divine Light to nourish the body.


    Hiss, hiss, hiss!


    Hissing sounds came out of Zhou Bao''s body. As the Golden Dharma Power evolve, the Mysterious Divine Light in Zhou Bao''s acupoints became thicker. As compared to the practices, this time around, he easily got the effects of 10 years of practice after what took him just a mere couple of breaths. Soon, Zhou Bao started to feel his body becoming stiff. In just a few seconds, his skeleton, blood, skin, and flesh strengthened by 10 times. Outside of his skin, a resin-like crystal was formed and quickly covered Zhou Bao''s body. He was just like an insect trapped in an amber.


    "What?"


    Suddenly, Zhou Bao who had kept his eyes shut opened them again. His body shooked.


    Plak, plak, plak!


    The crystal broke into pieces and became power. He stood up straight and infinite joy was seen in his eyes. He raised up the Bronze Scepter in his hand.


    Boom!


    A silent buzzing sound was coming out of the Scepter. An unsubstantial explosion was happening inside it as well. The strand of Golden Dharma Power that Zhou Bao inserted into the Bronze Scepter had undergone some kind of guidance as he was trying to use the skill. The power exploded and had a reaction with the energy that had been asleep in the Fary Weapon for an unknown period of time. The Bronze Scepter started to emit faint scattered light. This light gradually lit up as it flowed along the primitive prints on the scepter''s body. Those prints gave off the vibes of everlasting and non-changing. Finally, the whole Bronze Scepter was lighted up. The cyan lotus flower sitting on the top of the scepter was also giving off a mesmerizing glow. Clear yet primitive messages were sent from the scepter deep into Zhou Bao''s spirit. His gaze also became bright.

 582 Ancient Deities

    "I see, I see, now I understand. This is a scepter belonging to a Bronze Deity of the ancient deities who was from the western divine world. So this was how the western and eastern ancient deities categorized themselves, nine positions in three ranks, interesting! This is so interesting, but it is a pity that this deity fell too early and doesn''t know much of the matters of the Ancient Celestial Court. Otherwise, I could have also taken advantage and get to know their secrets!" Zhou Bao thought to himself.


    There were not many messages from the Bronze Scepter. This was after all just a scepter, a fairy weapon, and not the skeleton of a real and living deity.


    Hence, Zhou Bao did not receive much information. However, the little he received was very important.


    Elder Qing only knew that before the Ancient Celestial Court, there was an era of ancient deities. However, he only heard about it and did not have much understanding of the era itself. Zhou Bao, on the other hand, had received much more information from the Bronze Scepter. He knew clearly about the basic information of the ancient deities. They were split into five big divine worlds, namely the Eastern, Western, Southern, Northern and the Central. The first two were neighbors. According to the strength of bloodline, the deities were split into three ranks and nine positions. The three ranks were the Bronze Deity, Silver Deity, and the Gold Deity. Each rank also had three sub-ranks, the Upper God, Middle God and Lower God.


    This Bronze Scepter belonged to an Upper God of the Western divine world.


    The ancient deities were from the primitive times. In other words, they were the descendants of Innate Deitys, Primordial Demons and Primordial Fierce Beasts from primitive times.


    The three of them were races born during the Primordial Origin. Truthfully speaking, there were no living creatures that had spiritual intelligence in the Primordial Origin. It was a process, a slow evolvement. In this process, countless numbers of congenital spiritual creatures, resources, pneuma and spiritual intelligence slowly evolved.


    The birth of spiritual intelligence meant the end of the Primordial Origin and the start of primitive times. A countless number of living creatures who had spiritual intelligence was born, they were demons that caused chaos. Afterward, as time passed, they were split into three big tribes and ruled the whole primitive times. They were the Innate Deitys, Primordial Demons, and Primordial Fierce Beasts. These three big tribes fought with each other, merged, destroyed and caused the end of the primitive times. They then entered the era of ancient deities. The three big tribes united with each other, and alongside with the living creatures born later, they then created the five big divine worlds and gave birth to the ancient deities.


    This scepter belonged to a Bronze Deity of the Western divine world. Although this Bronze Deity was a Lower God, his skills were equivalent to that of a Human Immortal.


    Yes, Human Immortal!


    A Western deity of primitive times, the lowest rank among the Bronze Deities, while he was a Lower Rank Bronze Deity, he still had the skills of a Human Immortal!


    Lord of Heavens could only be called demi-god.


    However, this was just a comparison of skills. Gods and Immortals were different. To be exact, it was all about who they were born as. The bloodline of deities flowed all the way back to primitive times. They were the Bloodline heirs of the three big primitive tribes. Hence, they were born with strong skills already. Those who had pure bloodline inheritance were born at least a Bronze Deity. This inheritance referred to those that existed after two deities unite together. If a deity united with a normal living creature, then only half of the blood of their newborn would be from the deities. Although it was still quite powerful, they could not become deities, and could only be called demi-god.


    A demi-god was enough to make Zhou Bao anxious. They were born with skills that were of Lord of Heaven Realm. After practicing, they might even become deities.


    From a certain perspective, bloodlines decided power, status, and the majority of the era of ancient deities. Practicing was just a supplementary method.


    The deities who were born with Divine Sense did not have to practice at all. Who would not want to have the power to rule the world?


    "Such an era ended just like that, their history was even erased and abandoned by the Ancient Celestial Court. What does such a deliberate action mean? Perhaps the Ancient Celestial Court was the one who destroyed and buried the ancient deities so that they could build the Heavenly Court? If that''s the case, then the Ancient Celestial Court is too powerful, their great powers are unimaginable!"


    Zhou Bao shuddered at the thought of the amount of strength and skills needed to bury the ancient deities. Just how much strength was needed? What was the background of this Heavenly Court of antiquity times?


    Of course, Zhou Bao did not know this information. That was because the owner of the Bronze Scepter, a lower rank Bronze Deity, only lived in the era of the ancient deities. After being defeated in a divine war, he did not survive until the era of Ancient Celestial Court. Hence, he knew nothing about it.


    The era of ancient deities referred to when the deities ruled heavens and realms. In that era, there were also all kinds of living creatures, but those that had spiritual intelligence were mainly humans.


    Humans were born with spiritual intelligence but did not have much power. Hence, they were the ideal slaves for the ancient deities. However, while humans'' living environment was not the best, if they met with a brutal deity, they would be in deep trouble. Zhou Bao was glad that he did not live in that era. In most times, those days were not suitable for humans to live in. As compared to them, Zhou''s way of living was no kick, it was like living in heaven.


    Zhou Bao did not have any good feelings towards the deities, but he was interested in their strength. Ancient deities were born with Divine Sense. Their ranks, class, and power were basically all determined once they were born. An old Chinese saying goes like this, "See the future when you''re three". For these deities, they could see their future once they were born. They did not have much space and opportunity to go higher up in rank. For a Lower Bronze Deity to move up to Middle Bronze Deity, the level of difficulty was equivalent to a normal human being practicing until he reaches the realm of a Human Immortal. It was extremely difficult.


    Hence, ancient deities generally did not practice, nor did they have any cultivation method to talk about. Their way of attack was basically using their instincts, strong body and Natal Power. Be it the strong body or Divine Sense, they were all related to Bloodline inheritance and Zhou Bao could never master them. However, he had a fairy weapon that could show him something.


    Deities were born with Divine Sense, but it was not easy to go higher up. To increase the strength of their body, they liked to search, forge and refine their own divine devices. Divine devices could refer to the weapons used by the Western Ancient Deities. It could also refer to assistive tools. There were different levels of powers among the divine devices. They were also categorized into ranks and classes just like that of the deities'' skills. They were split into bronze, silver, and gold and each had sub-ranks of lower, middle and upper.


    Even the lowest bronze divine device was equivalent to that of Taihao Fairy Weapon.


    The ancient deities of the Western divine world did not have the method of refinement like those in the Eastern divine world. Their method was very simple, which was to use their own blood. This meant not just using one''s own blood to refine, but also using a part of one''s physical body to infuse into the divine device. That way, they could gain total control over the divine device.


    Because of this, there was a limit on how many divine devices a deity could control. After all, there was only so much one could give and sacrifice from his physical body.


    Just like how a Gold Upper Divine King of the Northen divine world gave up one eye for the control over a Gold Upper-rank divine device, the Everlasting Door, if he was offered another Gold Upper-rank divine device, he would not give up his other eye for it.


    This way of blood refinement led Zhou Bao to realize a flaw in the system, and what did that mean?


    To the deities in the Western and Northen divine worlds, a part of one''s body may remain literal like that. However, to practitioners like Zhou Bao, it not only included his physical body, but also the celestial devices, fairy weapons, living creatures, or anything that had been refined by themselves. This meant that as long as practitioners like Zhou Bao were willing, they could control any type of divine devices that was near them and for as much time as they wanted.


    Thinking of this, Zhou Bao took out something: it was a Fiery Eye.


    Other than the two Fiery Eyes growing on his body, this fella refined another one as an External Elixir. At the same time, he had three more. Any of the three could become the said part of his body after refinement. One of them had already been refined by Zhou Bao.


    It was originally planned to be an External Elixir, but now it seemed like he could infuse it with the Bronze Scepter and let him control it.


    Thinking through this, Zhou Bao did not feel any pity. He immediately placed it on top of that cyan lotus flower on top of the scepter.


    Once the two items touched each other, a loud humming noise started ringing in Zhou Bao''s mind. The Golden Dharma Power swirling in his giant Dantian suddenly surged. Originally, it was just slightly affected by the Bronze Scepter and some power evaporated. But now, it was triggered and became like boiling water. It flowed violently into the Bronze Scepter through that Fiery Eye.


    Likewise, the Bronze Scepter was also triggered. The fine patterns on the body started to light up and gave off a mesmerizing glow. The divine device that had been sleeping for millions of years had suddenly woken up in an instant.

 583 Entering

    "Is this territory of the Three Western Regions?!"


    When the light of the giant Transmitting Formation dimmed, Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes and started to stare at his surroundings. He couldn''t hide his curiosity at all.


    "The spiritual qi in the Three Western Regions is not much thicker than in the Four Eastern Regions, I thought it would be much thicker!" As he sensed the essence of the world, Zhou Bao twitched his mouth.


    "King Wuyang, this stretch of the Transmitting Formation is under the control of our Palace of Eternal Life. However, the Transmitting Formation used to enter the Infinite Star Sea is not here!" Seeing Zhou Bao looking around, a wide-robed man reminded gently from behind him.


    "I know, I know!" Zhou Bao replied quickly.


    The Transmitting Formation to enter Infinite Star Sea would definitely not be in the Palace of Eternal Life. Among the five biggest sects in the Three Western Regions, it had the best relationship with the five biggest sects of the Four Eastern Regions. Firstly, the Palace of Eternal Life believed in world peace. Secondly, their territory was not conflicted with the Four Eastern Regions. Unlike them, the Fifth Manor had many conflicts with the Four Eastern Regions. The lack of clashes in profits made their relationship relatively good.


    Hence, the transaction between the Four Eastern Regions and the Three Western Regions this time also chose the Transmitting Formation in the Palace of Eternal Life.


    However, that formation was in the Seven-deity Regions. That Transmitting Formation that led to the Infinite Star Sea was like that of the Four Eastern Regions, situated in a place with no living souls. Basically, there was no one to look after the formation.


    However, this time around, the Four Eastern Regions got hold of the Void Map of the Infinite Star Sea. It gathered the attention of the Three Western Regions. Quite a number of guards appeared in that area of the Transmitting Formation. These guards were all outstanding disciples, inheritors, and elders of the five biggest sects. They were managed by a Genuine Immortal of Venerable Realm.


    "King Wuyang, the Transmitting Formation of the Infinite Star Sea is too far from here, and we lack a stable formation to travel there. Therefore, we will need to walk for 3 days. What do you think about resting for a day before going?!" A young practitioner from Palace of Eternal Life asked him. He looked like he was in his thirties. He had a clean face and was calm as he approached Zhou Bao, with no sign of inferiority.


    This man was actually Xiao Sheng, the top disciple of the leader of the Palace of Eternal Life.


    "Then I''ll have to bother Brother Xiao to arrange for it!"


    It could be said that Zhou Bao was very polite towards this Xiao Sheng. Although the latter did not have skills of a Lord of Heaven, he at least was of Venerable Realm and he was not even 50 yet. He was widely recognized as the most potential candidate for the next lord of the Palace of Eternal Life. Zhou Bao was not willing to offend such a character.


    The Palace of Eternal Life put in a lot of effort in accommodating Zhou Bao. Although this fella''s cultivation was only at Level Nine, everyone knew that his combat capability could compare with that of an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. Right now, he must also have surpassed Level Nine in the Star Area and entered the Mysterious Realm. However, the Star Area of the Infinite Star Sea was not part of the Heaven Realm, so by stepping into Mysterious Realm there, that little amount of Genuine Spirit of his would not fly to the Golden Book of Fate in Heaven Realm. Once he entered the realm, Zhou Bao''s abilities would surely increase a lot. When he was still at Level Nine, Zhou Bao could already defeat an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. Then, now that he was in the Mysterious Realm, no one was clear about how his cultivation and abilities have improved.


    When facing this kind of characters, even the Palace of Eternal Life had to be extra careful. Moreover, he was carrying great responsibilities on his shoulders now.


    "King Wuyang, although you are very strong, there are some things that I still have to remind you. Not everyone hopes that you would be successful in this operation. Your Four Eastern Regions had lost so many Lord of Heaven. The Sea Area is not the happiest, it is us, the few sects in Three Western Regions, including our Palace of Eternal Life!"


    "Brother Xiao is being quite practical!" Zhou Bao listened and smiled. He did not think that he would meet such a pragmatic person here.


    "I''m not being practical, this is the truth!" Xiao Sheng smiled faintly," No matter what, I am a disciple of the Palace of Eternal Life. This time it is mainly my palace working with you, naturally, I wouldn''t want any accidents to happen!"


    "Accidents?!" Zhou Bao''s gaze flashed and he looked at Xiao Sheng. "Brother Xiao thinks that there will be an accident?!"


    "I''m saying it just in case, King Wuyang, you do not need to take it seriously!" Xiao Sheng laughed and led Zhou Bao into a part of the palace. He worked efficiently at arranging Zhou Bao''s accommodation. Since he was only spending one night, and also because he was a practitioner, there was not much to organize. He only gave the handyman some orders and smiled as he took his leave, as if nothing happened.


    "Accident? Seems like this time around the Infinite Star Sea is not peaceful at all!"


    After giving it much thought, Zhou Bao was able to understand. The five biggest sects of the Four Eastern Regions and that of the Three Western Regions have been enemies for so many years. Their grievances could be piled up onto countless numbers of trucks if they were solid. This time around, the Four Eastern Regions had made such a careless mistake, causing the powers of the five biggest sects to fall by half. The five biggest sects were already forgiving enough to not pick on a fight, how would they be willing to lend a Transmitting Formation so willingly to save their enemies'' people? Perhaps the people of the Four Eastern Regions could use the safety of the Seven-deity Regions as an excuse, but would the people of Three Western Regions believe them?


    No, not necessarily.


    They only agreed to the request of the five biggest sects of Four Eastern Regions because of some individual private transactions. In such transactions, the five biggest sects of the Three Western Regions gained huge profits, which was why they agreed to it. If not, even if the sky scattered, they would not agree.


    And now, even after agreeing, Zhou Bao heard those worrying words from Xiao Sheng.


    "Perhaps there may be some variables inside the sect?" He thought to himself while remaining calm. "That is good anyway, then I''ll use this chance to try how strong the divine artifact is after infusing it with my Fiery Eye! I have just gotten control of it. While it is fully functional, I am still not familiar with it. I can use this opportunity to familiarise myself with it, that''s not bad!" Thinking about this, he smiled.


    No words were spoken for the rest of the night. On the second day, as soon as the sun started to rise, Xiao Sheng appeared in front of Zhou Bao''s room. He gazed into his eyes and smiled. An earth-color wind started surging beside him. It turned out to be his Gang Qi. Breaking through space at an amazing speed, in just a moment, they were hundreds of miles away. Zhou Bao was obviously not scared of the speed, but he did not want to pick up a fight there. He followed Xiao Sheng calmly and flew in the skies at an alarming speed for a few hours before arriving at their destination.


    It was another island on the sea.


    "This is that goddamn place, where there''s nobody!" Both of them landed on the island. Zhou Bao''s eyebrows were slightly raised. The isolated condition of the island led him to start to worry.


    Beside him, Xiao Sheng''s expression started to turn ugly. He took out a token from his chest and lifted it to the sky. The surrounding space shooked and a gateway opened.


    "Eh? Junior Brother Lin, what is going on!" Once the gateway opened, Xiao Sheng''s expression froze before Zhou Bao even had time to react. Xiao Sheng''s body entered the gateway in a flash and Zhou Bao followed closely behind. What he saw were four corpses lying on the ground. After Zhou Bao entered, the gateway suddenly disappeared, trapping the two of them in that mysterious space.

 584 The Power of the Divine Device

    "What happened? Who did this? What a bold person he is!" Xiao Sheng, ashen-faced, looked at the corpses strewn all over the place. These were the corpses of the men who had been sent by the five biggest sects in the Three Western Regions to guard the Transmitting Formation in the Infinite Star Sea. Every one of them had been a very trustworthy practitioner of great strength. They all died in extremely miserable circumstances, including some practitioners at the Venerable Realm. Each of them had a bloody, fist-sized hole in the chest and forehead. Their eyes were blank and staring, precisely the sign that their spirits had left them.


    Xiao Sheng clenched his fists, and a fierce light shone from his eyes. "The Jade Shuttle, it''s the Jade Shuttle. These wounds have been caused by the Jade Shuttle. The Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain did it!" He growled in a low voice, and a menacing air emanated from his body. "Qi Miaoyi, Qi Miaoyi, come out! I know you did this! Come out!"


    "Hahaha, Xiao Sheng, I''ve been here all this while. You can''t see me because your cultivation is not high enough. No need to yell so hysterically. Shame on you for causing the Palace of Eternal Life to lose face!" A shrill voice sounded in Xiao Sheng''s ear. Later, the figure of a youth appeared before them.


    "Qi Miaoyi from the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, paying my respects to King Wuyang!" The moment when the youth named Qi Miaoyi showed up, he saluted Zhou Bao with a very benign smile. But in the eyes of Zhou Bao, his smile was as treacherous as that of a poisonous snake.


    "The Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, Qi Miaoyi, interesting!" Zhou Bao nodded his head. "It seems you''re not happy that I am here!"


    "Don''t misunderstand me, King Wuyang. It''s not me but one of my friends who is not happy with you. But since you''re already here, you might as well stay on!"


    "Qi Miaoyi, are you crazy? Do you really want to become the enemy of the Four Great Sects by doing this? Does the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain have the power to fight against the Four Great Sects at the same time?"


    A trace of disdain flashed across Qi Miaoyi''s face as he looked at the furious Xiao Sheng. He said, "King Wuyang, I am here mainly for you. To be precise, I''m here for your two fairy weapons. As long as you hand over the two fairy weapons to me, I promise I''ll let you pass through the Transmitting Formation!"


    Zhou Bao laughed. He replied, "I was wondering why you are here, and it turns out that you are here for my fairy weapons. Interesting. They are with me. However, it''s hard to tell whether you have the ability to get them or not!"


    "Hmph, Zhou Bao, do you think this place is your Wuyang Region?"


    Before Zhou Bao''s voice died away, quick as a flash, Ye Qingtian showed up and said, "I''ve laid many traps here to attack you, so you''d better not expect to get out alive today!"


    "Ye Qingtian, haha. How wonderful! I finally found you by chance after traveling far and wide in search of you. Just let me capture you first!" While talking, Zhou Bao suddenly raised his hand to grasp Ye Qingtian.


    The Innate Qi Catching Skill!


    Due to the ferocious power of the cyan giant hand, it instantly broke through Ye Qingtian''s Protective Gang Qi and was about to blow him up due to its great force.


    "What a cheap trick!" Ye Qingtian''s Gang Qi collapsed at the first blow, but he had fairy weapons in his possession as well. The moment when Zhou Bao''s giant hand destroyed his Gang Qi, a deep blue halo appeared in a flash. It rotated quickly and cut the cyan hand violently in half.


    The chilly air pervaded the whole space and the surrounding temperature dropped dramatically.


    One degree Celsius.


    Minus 10 degrees Celsius.


    Minus 30 degrees Celsius.


    Minus 100 degrees Celsius.


    Minus 200 degrees Celsius.


    ¡­


    Within a few seconds, the pneuma in the secluded space condensed into floating, colorful ice crystals. Even Xiao Sheng, a practitioner at the Venerable Realm, was ashen-faced now. He desperately activated his Dharma power to envelop himself and condensed his body into a mass to protect himself from the bitter cold.


    "It''s the North Pole Frozen Wheel!"


    The deep blue halo warded off Zhou Bao''s Innate Qi Catching Movement and slashed repeatedly at Zhou Bao. It cut the space between Ye Qingtian and Zhou Bao in half along the way and exposed the infinite void in this space. Then, a huge crack with a strong suction power was formed. It sucked all the colorful ice crystals into the space.


    "Ding!"


    All this happened in the blink of an eye. The North Pole Frozen Wheel had already rushed to Zhou Bao''s front, but it failed to slash him because it was blocked by the scepter in his hand.


    It was a fairy weapon, the scepter of a Bronze Deity. It had grown a little bit longer than its original length. Now it was more than three feet long, closer to four feet. There was no big change in its appearance. But atop it was a lotus flower, on which a blood-red bead could be seen.


    The Fiery Eye!


    Now, after the scepter had blocked the North Pole Frozen Wheel, a weird red beam glowed from the top of the Fiery Eye and the patterns around the scepter glittered as well.


    "God said, let there be light!"


    Sounded oddly resonant, the voice rang in Zhou Bao''s ear. The blood-red light emanated from the Fiery Eye on the top of the scepter and pervaded the entire space instantly. Covered by the blood-red light, the chill of the North Pole Frozen Wheel faded away quickly.


    "What''s this? Is it your newly acquired fairy weapon? Are you able to use it already? No, it''s impossible. You''ve just obtained it!" Both Ye Qingtian and Qi Miaoyi salivated in greed as they saw the strange scepter in Zhou Bao''s hand. Apart from showing their greed, they were quite shocked too.


    This fairy weapon was obviously the one Zhou Bao had obtained from the deal with the five biggest sects. It had only a day or two since he had it in his possession, so how was he able to use it straight away?


    What kind of means on earth had he adopted that enabled him to master the usage of this fairy weapon?


    "Hmph, this fairy weapon is destined to belong to me, so it acknowledged me as its master automatically. Isn''t that a reasonable explanation?" Of course, Zhou Bao would not tell them the truth about the scepter. He just sneered while operating it.


    The blood-red light expanded and condensed into a red egg-shaped canopy, which covered both Zhou Bao and Xiao Sheng.


    The Grand Light Canopy!


    The master of this Bronze Scepter was a light deity from the most powerful Divine Tribe, the Arthur Divine Tribe, among all of the western Divine Tribes. Although he was a deity of the lowest rank, what he had acquired was the inheritance of the most orthodox Light Divine Skill.


    The Grand Light Canopy was the most powerful protective skill of the Arthur Divine Tribe.


    Because of the special materials in this divine device, Zhou Bao not only had absolute control over it, but he had the mysterious power in the Fiery Eye infused in it after he had refined it with the Fiery Eye. All the functions of that Fiery Eye had been activated.


    However, Zhou Bao felt ashamed and regretted what he had done; for the Fiery Eye he had used for refining this scepter was neither the Emperor Wheel Fiery Eye nor the Thorn Wheel Fiery Eye, but the most ordinary Fiery Eye of Five Elements.


    The Fiery Eye of Five Elements, just as its name implied, was the Fiery Eye that possessed the power of the five elements: namely, metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. Nevertheless, the Fiery Eye of Five Elements was merely a general term. As long as it had the power of the five elements, it would be called the Fiery Eye of Five Elements, which was the most popular and also the most common Fiery Eye.


    The quality of all Fiery Eyes of Five Elements differed. The lowest was the Fiery Eye with a single property of the five elements. The better ones had two properties. The strongest and the best, of course, possessed all the five elements. This kind of Fiery Eye was able to stand up to the other three kinds of Fiery Eyes. But the Fiery Eye he used for refining the scepter was merely an ordinary one among the Fiery Eyes of Five Elements. With the power of the fire property, it was born to control the spiritual fires around the world. Though it was powerful, its power, however, was not that terrifying.


    Thus, although all its power had been activated, its strength was equivalent to that of a Taihao Fairy Weapon.


    Of course, Zhou Bao was the only person who was a little disappointed with the power of the Taihao Fairy Weapon. If it had been anyone else, they would have been extremely delighted.


    The combination of the Fiery Eye and the Bronze Scepter also fully activated the power of the latter. Two Taihao Fairy Weapons combining and working together, produced a power that was no longer "one plus one equals two", but far greater than two.


    The blood-like canopy was extremely strong. It stood firm and allowed the North Pole Frozen Wheel to tear the space apart and freeze the attack of the space-time.


    "Ye Qingtian, I told you that you were unable to control the North Pole Frozen Wheel and make full use of all its functions. Such a treasure is wasted if it is in your hand. Give it to me now!"


    While speaking, Zhou Bao raised the scepter in his hand lightly and continued, "God said, my light shines in the sky and disperses all spirits!"


    Blazing blood-red light shot out of the Fiery Eye as quick as a flash. In an instant, the Fiery Eye seemed to be the incarnation of the sun in the sky. The blood-red light surged and enveloped the entire space.


    "No!" Ye Qingtian and Qi Miaoyi exclaimed at the same time. There were two different types of rays protecting them. Ye Qingtian was protected by the North Pole Frozen Wheel, while over Qi Miaoyi''s head, a purple jade shuttle appeared and turned into a purple halo, keeping out the light of the Fiery Eye.


    "A fairy weapon?" Zhou Bao''s eyes lit up as he saw the purple shuttle. "No wonder you are so bold. It turns out that you have two fairy weapons. Do you really think these fairy weapons are able to prevent me from leaving here?"


    Zhou Bao''s eyes burned with greed. He raised the scepter in his hand and a tremendous power began to flow through his body.


    It was not the Mysterious Divine Light but the Golden Dharma Power.


    "God said, God creates everything and God controls the world!"


    "God said, since the water flows forward, so should everything advance forward too?"


    Zhou Bao sang out the ancient incantation in a loud voice within the midst of the strange magic power. Due to his voice, the blood-red light shone brightly and looked very magnificent. The inexhaustible blood-red light broke through the protection of those two fairy weapons in a flash and hit Ye Qingtian and Qi Miaoyi directly.


    "Oh, no!"


    The scorching light was coming near them. They knew that something was wrong, but enveloped by the blood-red light, they could neither find a place to hide nor fight back. It seemed that this would be the end of it for them.


    "It''s impossible! How can he be so powerful? How can this fairy weapon be so mighty!"


    Their minds, for a moment, were full of doubts.


    Just when they were in this helpless state, an angry roar rang out. "How dare you refine the eyeball of my tribesman. Even a thousand deaths could not atone for your crime!"


    Along with this roar, two rays of blood-red light tore the void open and hit the jade-like light canopy. The canopy of extreme hardness darkened abruptly.

 585 Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven

    Two thin rays of scarlet light hit the crimson-jade-like canopy with an unexpected hard force. The canopy that seemed extremely strong shook and its surface rippled.


    "Eh? Interesting. The Emperor Wheel Fiery Eyes are powerful indeed; they were able to suppress the power of my Fiery Eye of Five Elements totally. It seems that this man has mastered well the power of his Fiery Eyes, otherwise, he couldn''t have exerted so much pressure on me!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flickered. When he saw the light in the Fiery Eye atop his Bronze Scepter beginning to fade, he instantly withdrew the Bronze Scepter.


    However, he didn''t back out from the fight. He took the scepter back and put it across the front of his body merely to accumulate more power. The Bronze Scepter surpassed any ordinary Taihao Fairy Weapon. Combining the Fiery Eye of Five Elements with the Bronze Scepter, he could obtain a power that was greater than the power generated by mechanically adding the two items together. Although the power of the Emperor Wheel Fiery Eye could suppress that of the Fiery Eye of Five Elements, it was less effective when the two were combined.


    "God said, his radiance will warm the whole world!"


    God said, "The world should have the power to bear all things!"


    As he was chanting, various mysterious talismans glittered on the body of the scepter. The blood-red canopy stabilized and blocked off the two scarlet rays of light. Unlike the previous situation, the canopy was now powerful enough to withstand the power of the twin rays.


    "God said, light creates order, and light illuminates heaven and earth!"


    Clank! The scarlet light ripped open the void and a robust figure appeared. It was wrapped entirely in a red robe, which matched the surroundings. However, his appearance was concealed from everyone. The only part visible was a pair of eyes shining with a strange red light.


    "God said,


    "light illuminates everything."


    "Under God''s glory,


    "All sins will be disclosed!"


    Swish! The figure in the red robe suddenly revealed his face.


    The man was not that old. His face, as handsome as that of a Roman statue, showed his surprise. Obviously, he had never expected that Zhou Bao would be able to exert such enormous power by merely using the scepter in his hands.


    "God said,


    "when everything falls apart,


    "Judgment Day is approaching!"


    Boom!


    A magnificent stream of blood-red light exploded in the void and at that moment, hundreds of suns seemed to be born and destroyed at the same time. The scorching spirit ripped apart the void and everything turned into smoke and dust.


    "Ancient divine device and ancient divine skills!"


    By now, the man in the red robe finally realized the origin of the divine skills Zhou Bao had just used. All of a sudden, his face darkened and his robe rippled, turning into countless layers of space-times. Like waves, these space-times, although located at the center of these divine skills, were able to ward off and offset the power and eliminated everything.


    At last, not knowing how many space-times had been destroyed, people saw the power of Judgement Day had been finally dissolved. That red-robed man''s face, however, appeared much paler than before.


    "It''s the Self-world. I didn''t expect that you would have the power equivalent to that of the Lord of Heaven now!"


    Zhou Bao gasped slightly when he saw the red robe giving off a reddish light. He grasped the scepter, which had been put in a transversal position in front of him, and leaned it on the ground, saying, "I''m not sure that I can defeat you, now that you possess the Emperor Wheel Fiery Eyes and the strength of a Lord of Heaven. However, I''m afraid it will be impossible for you to defeat me. How about calling a truce?"


    "I told you that I will not let you off because you have refined the eye of my tribesman!" The man in the red robe leaned forward and walked into this world from the unknown void. "Even if I can''t defeat you, I still need you to pay the price!"


    As he was speaking, two rays of scarlet light flashed from his eyes, and a strange aura spread in all directions. In an instant, it covered the whole world.


    Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes as he sensed that the surrounding aura had changed. No one knew this feeling better than he did. This was the mystic domain of the Fiery Eyes, which he himself could display and was aware of its power too. But now, he did not feel so good when he was in another person''s domain.


    "God said, he who believes in God, will stay away from all impurity and evil."


    "God said, at the end of the road of betrayal and perversion, all the glory you have stolen will be taken from you!"


    The blood-red canopy strengthened due to Zhou Bao''s chanting. Like a flood, the Golden Dharma Power in his body swarmed into the scepter and then turned into invisible power gushing forth from the scepter.


    Boom!


    The invisible Golden Dharma Power and the domain of the Fiery Eyes collided head-on, making the world break apart instantaneously.


    Clap! Clap! Clap!


    A sound like pearls falling onto a jade plate and the breaking of glass could be heard.


    The pleasant sound rang in everyone''s ears. Endless time-spaces appeared around Zhou Bao and his figure turned ethereal. Even the man in the red robe could only make out Zhou Bao''s shadow instead of his actual position.


    "Let''s call it a day. Since I still have other fish to fry, I don''t want to fight with you anymore. If you want to fight with me, wait for me to come back from the Infinite Star Sea, and I shall fight with you to your heart''s content!" As Zhou Bao was speaking, the Transmitting Formation at the center of this world lit up. He disappeared together with Xiao Sheng, in the radiance of the Transmitting Formation.


    The eyes of the man in the red robe flickered as if he wanted to launch his strikes again. However, he did not make any further moves. He did not let out a sigh until the light of the Transmitting Formation was gone. He pointed one finger at the space that had been completely shattered by the attacks of Zhou Bao''s divine skills and it began to recover.


    "Elder brother, why are you here?"


    At this moment, having recovered from the shock, Ye Qingtian appeared before the man in the red robe and asked him in a tone of surprise.


    "Hmph, if I weren''t here, you''d have been a prisoner by now!" The man in the red robe sneered, without even glancing at the ashen-faced Qi Miaoyi beside him. "This Zhou Bao has many tricks. Without my permission, no one is allowed to provoke him from now on!"


    "Yes!" Ye Qingtian replied in a hurry. He muttered to himself, "I''m afraid that even if you ask me to provoke him in the future, I would not dare to do so. How could he be so formidable and where on earth did he learn that strange Divine Sense he had just used? I have not even heard of it!"


    Thinking of the light divine skills that Zhou Bao had just displayed, Ye Qingtian was filled with doubts.


    He looked up again, only to see that the man in the red robe had already disappeared. Beside him, Qi Miaoyi gazed blankly at the disorderly world and his face gradually turned livid with rage.


    "Young Master Qi, are you all right?"


    "I''m fine, how can I be fine?" Young Master Qi came to himself upon hearing Ye Qingtian''s question. "Damn it. After spending so much effort and taking such a big risk, I gained nothing and even let them escape, especially Xiao Sheng. If he tells others about what has happened there, I shall bear the consequences even though I am the young master of the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain!"


    AAt his words, Ye Qingtian also came to realize the problem. They had been fully confident that they could ambush and kill Zhou Bao, for each of them had a fairy weapon. Besides their own fairy weapons, Young Master Qi had covered this world with a Highest Heaven Celestial Device in advance. He also had with him, in addition to that fairy weapon, another Highest Heaven Celestial Device and a high-grade Pure Yang Celestial Device. With their combined strength and devices, they should have the ability to contend with and even defeat any Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. But they did not expect Zhou Bao to be so fierce and vicious. They had never encountered or even heard of his mysterious attack techniques before. Therefore, they were caught unprepared. If it were not for the man in the red robe who had shown up and helped them, they might have been captured already. Their celestial devices and fairy weapons would have become Zhou Bao''s spoils of war. If this was the case, they would just resign themselves to their fates. However now, even though they had been rescued in the nick of time, Zhou Bao and Xiao Sheng were safe and sound. Hence, their hearts were filled with panic.


    The Transmitting Formation in the Infinite Star Sea was of great significance to the Three Western Regions. The people who guarded this place were elites among all the practitioners from various sects. However, in order for them to attack Zhou Bao, they had set a trap and killed all the practitioners there.


    Their purpose was to kill or capture Zhou Bao and Xiao Sheng. By doing this, they could escape detection or any leakage of information. Even if the five biggest sects were to investigate this matter, without any evidence and clues, they could not get to the bottom of it.


    But now, they failed to achieve their purpose because Zhou Bao and Xiao Sheng were still unharmed. If it was only Zhou Bao who was testifying against him, Qi Miaoyi was sure that he would be able to muddle through. After all, Zhou Bao was merely an outsider, while he was the young master of the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. However, things would be totally different now that Xiao Sheng was there. He belonged to the Palace of Eternal Life. Deeply valued by the lord of the Palace of Eternal Life, Xiao Sheng was also a very prestigious figure among the five biggest sects in the Three Western Regions. If Xiao Sheng came out to testify against him, he would be ruined. Even his father Qi Shuming, the master of the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, would not be able not to save him. Thinking of this, his heart was filled with dismay.


    "No, we can''t just go back like this!" Different thoughts flashed across his mind, and finally, he came to a decision.


    "If we can''t go back like this, then what should we do?"


    "Since they are going to the Infinite Star Sea, we should make our way there too. Anyhow, we have to kill Xiao Sheng, otherwise, there will be no place for you and me in the Seven-deity Regions!" Qi Miaoyi said angrily.


    "Go to the Infinite Star Sea? But, Zhou Bao''s strength..." Hearing this, Ye Qingtian could not help but hesitate. He had just witnessed Zhou Bao''s strength. Even if they combined forces to attack him, they were still no match for him. They had barely survived just now and it was largely due to the help of the man in the red robe. Besides that, they would be isolated and weak at the Infinite Star Sea, which was a unfamiliar territory to them. They would definitely die if they were discovered by Zhou Bao.


    "Hmph, don''t worry. We don''t need to incur a head-on confrontation with Zhou Bao at the Infinite Star Sea. Aren''t they going to save people? We won''t let him achieve his goal. Let''s use the local power of the Infinite Star Sea to attack him. We just need to hide in the dark and look for an opportunity to kill Xiao Sheng!" Qi Miaoyi said in a sinister tone.

 586 Refine the Scepter Again

    In the Infinite Star Sea Area.


    Starlight could be seen all over the sky.


    In an isolated galaxy, a giant planet revolved around the sun, following a course that had not changed at all since ancient times. Around this planet was a ring of meteorites which formed a circular meteorite belt. Numerous meteorites, large and small, were flying rapidly in the void, forming a sea of meteorites. There was a black meteorite with a diameter of about 10,000 feet in the sea. Mixed together in the meteorite piles, it looked quite inconspicuous. Like all other meteorites, it was bathed in starlight.


    All of a sudden, the ordinary looking meteorite which had been flying rapidly, exploded. It was blasted from the inside by a huge force. With a loud noise, debris flew in all directions and half of the meteorite was blown apart in an instant.


    Two figures emerged from that meteorite and walked through the meteorite belt. They looked like two tiny ants, looking around from left to right, and seemed very embarrassed.


    Finally, after dashing through the mass, the two men found a huge meteorite which flew relatively smoothly and made their landing.


    The two men were Zhou Bao and Xiao Sheng, who had been sent by the Transmitting Formation in the Three Western Regions.


    They managed to get through successfully via the Transmitting Formation. However, it was obvious that the Transmitting Formation had been affected when Zhou Bao fought with the red-robed Lord of Heaven. Although they got there, some problems had occurred during the transmission process, due to the fierce energy collision and space storm. Thus, they were not sent to the correct Transmitting Formation. On the contrary, they had landed in the center of a meteorite. Fortunately, Zhou Bao and Xiao Sheng were both practitioners of the Level of True Immortality, otherwise, they would have suffocated in the meteorite. Even so, the two of them were greatly shocked.


    "Where is this place? Is it the Infinite Star Sea?" Seeing the soft starlight around him, Xiao Sheng breathed a sigh of relief. Although he was asking, the iconic starlight around him had already given him the answer.


    "This is indeed the Infinite Star Sea, however, we may have gone off the track a little!" Zhou Bao took out the Void Map to check it against the surrounding environment, and there was nothing he could do except to give a wry smile.


    "Why, what''s wrong with that?"


    "This is not the place where the Transmitting Formation in the Three Western Regions was supposed to send us to. We have been sent to the other side of the Infinite Star Sea!" said Zhou Bao. He withdrew the Void Map and stood up. At the same time, he raised his hand and then, the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle appeared in front of them.


    "We need to go to the nearest Star Area which is inhabited and ask for information there. Now that the Devil Fetus has been born in the Infinite Star Sea Area, so there will be a mix of good people and scumbags. As long as we are careful enough, no one will find out about us!" Zhou Bao said in a confident tone.


    "Fine, then everything will be at King Wuyang''s disposal!"


    "Haha, don''t call me king here. Just call me Zhou Bao, please!" Zhou Bao smiled and led him onto the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle.


    The Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle sailed off, leaving a silvery trail behind and disappeared into the vast starry sky.


    The Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle was a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, and it had its own space inside. Although it was inferior to Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon, the space inside it was quite huge.


    After entering the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle, Xiao Sheng wanted to talk to Zhou Bao, to get some basic information about the Infinite Star Sea. But unexpectedly, he heard Zhou Bao say, "This area is very remote. Even if I have a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, it will still take me several days to reach the nearest animate planet. I will take this opportunity to digest the experience I have just gone through when I fought with that red-robed man. Brother Xiao, please make yourself at home!" After he finished speaking, Zhou Bao disappeared into a thin mist, making it awkward for Xiao Sheng to say anything more.


    Of course, Zhou Bao was not looking for an excuse to ignore Xiao Sheng. What he had told him was indeed true.


    In the fight with the red-robed man, Zhou Bao had exerted the extreme powers of the Bronze Scepter and the Fiery Eye. At the same time, during the process of manipulation, he repeatedly displayed Arthur Divine Tribe''s light skills. All this gave him a good understanding of the fighting methods and application of the power of some ancient deities.


    Before the fight, Zhou Bao had received only scanty information through the Bronze Scepter, which was a completely different concept from total mastery of its skills. Meanwhile, during the battle, his repeated launching of the divine light skills had brought about a wonderful change in the Golden Dharma Power of the Innate Deity contained in his body; it started to merge with the Bronze Scepter in his hand.


    The Golden Dharma Power came from the Innate Deities, while the Bronze Scepter was the divine device of the ancient deities. The ancient deities were the descendants of the Innate Deities. Their power, to a large extent, was borrowed from the power of the Innate Deities. Therefore, the Golden Dharma Power and the power of the Bronze Scepter were barely a match. Of course, his Mysterious Divine Light could also make use of the Golden Dharma Power. The fact was that the Primordial Fierce Beasts and the Innate Deities were both powerful creatures in the primitive times. However, as the most ferocious beast among all the Primordial Fierce Beasts, Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan was also one of the most powerful Six Royals. Therefore, in a sense, Zhuyan was even higher in rank than the Innate Deity Zhou Bao had encountered. Hence, it was not appropriate to refine the Golden Dharma Power with the Mysterious Divine Light. However, the power of the ancient deities, inherited from the Innate Deities, gradually merged with the Golden Dharma Power.


    As a matter of fact, after the previous battle, the Golden Dharma Power that had been trapped in Zhou Bao''s body had already been used up. All the Golden Dharma Power had been injected into the scepter and integrated with the latter, like two passionate lovers. It seemed that there was no possibility for the Golden Dharma Power to leave the scepter and return to Zhou Bao''s body. As for the huge Dantian composed of nine acupoints, it had now become the residence of the Mysterious Divine Light. But it was a pity that the quantity of the Mysterious Divine Light was much less than that of the Golden Dharma Power. Thus, it could only turn into a light mist which dwelled in the Dantian.


    Zhou Bao was very satisfied with the reaction of the scepter to the Golden Dharma Power. He clearly knew that if it were not for the support of the Golden Dharma Power, he could never have been so relaxed during the battle with the red-robed Lord of Heaven. However, the battle was over and it was time to analyze the outcome. Moreover, the scepter had undergone some strange changes after the battle, thus, Zhou Bao needed to have a detailed understanding of it.


    He was obliged to know more about it because the Bronze Scepter was showing signs of instability at this moment. Given the knowledge and memory Zhou Bao had obtained from ancient deities, this sign seemed to mean that the Bronze Scepter was going through an upgrade.


    This was a divine device of Low Rank of Bronze. Now, it seemed that it would be advanced to Middle Rank of Bronze. Once it succeeded, its power would definitely be doubled or even tripled.


    Coincidently, they were sent to this place that would take some time for them to arrive at the inhabited Star Area, in the Infinite Star Sea. Zhou Bao would make good use of this period of time to enhance his own strength.


    Therefore, after Xiao Sheng had settled down, Zhou Bao entered directly into the Sea of Divine Power, took out the scepter and shot his divine thoughts into it.


    The Fiery Eye atop the scepter had become a bit dim. Obviously, it had been affected by the Emperor Wheel Fiery Eyes and had not recovered yet.


    "The Emperor Wheel Fiery Eyes are indeed powerful. If I haven''t broken open his domain in time, I''m afraid that my Fiery Eyes would have turned up. It''s really dangerous!" Zhou Bao''s heart was full of shame when he thought of the pulse that his Fiery Eyes experienced when the red-robed man had launched his Fiery Eyes domain.


    The Emperor Wheel Fiery Eyes and Thorn Wheel Fiery Eyes were the two strongest types of Fiery Eyes. They were of equal strength with each other in nature, but the cultivations of their owners varied. The red-robed man obviously knew the strength of his Fiery Eyes very well and had mastered them completely. In contrast, Zhou Bao restrained the power of his Fiery Eyes all the time. For a long time, he did not rely on the Fiery Eyes in any battle because he was afraid that he would reveal his flaws. As a result, his control of the Fiery Eyes was certainly not as good as that of the red-robed man.


    Although the Fiery Eyes were mighty, if he were to rely too much on them, it may bring him trouble instead. Furthermore, he didn''t want to rely too much on any power that would bring trouble to him.


    At this moment, a large amount of Golden Dharma Power was surging within the Bronze Scepter. The patterns on the scepter kept twinkling. When the Golden Dharma Power touched a certain point, the corresponding pattern would light up, glittering in a strange way.


    The Golden Dharma Power was merging with the Bronze Scepter, but this kind of merging was incomplete. It was very much like the situation Zhou Bao encountered when he received the Golden Dharma Power for the first time. His body could not absorb such an enormous amount of power at that time, so the Golden Dharma Power could only be stored temporarily inside his body. The information that was transmitted to him together with the Golden Dharma Power was also stored in the depths of his soul.


    Zhou Bao had never been able to understand that ancient information.


    Now that he had the Bronze Scepter in his possession and had this divine device completely refined, he understood only a small part of the information. It was merely a Divine Sense, or just a divine skill. But this divine skill alone, was undoubtedly a great bonus for Zhou Bao.


    Due to this divine skill, he had an understanding of the operating methods and principles of the divine skills of the ancient deities. Thus, he was able to apply it quickly and exert the full power of the Bronze Scepter.


    "Unfortunately, with my current strength, I still can''t use that divine skill, otherwise, I can kill the two guys at one go and seize their fairy weapons!" Zhou Bao secretly felt sorry about that matter in his heart. At this time, within the scepter, the surging Dharma power had reached a limit and the entire scepter started to vibrate. Zhou Bao projected his mind into the scepter to look at the fusion of the Golden Dharma Power and the scepter''s own strength. Some of the materials that made up the scepter had been shattered, refined, and reshuffled, and during this time, strange messages had been transmitted to Zhou Bao''s spirit. His hands quickly made a series of Incantation Gestures. All of a sudden, the space between his eyebrows flickered and a black light shot out of it, turning into a vicious Dragon Chimera about the size of a finger. Facing the Bronze Scepter, it suddenly spat out a mouthful of black flame and sprayed it directly onto the Bronze Scepter. The Bronze Scepter seemed to melt instantly. Rays of dazzling light shone on it and it began to change. Finally, the talismans on its surface slowly rearranged themselves and disappeared. After a few seconds, these talismans melted and transformed into fine lines which appeared on the scepter. At the same time, the color and thickness of the scepter also changed. After several hours, it slowly took the shape of a Green Bamboo Stick.

 587 News

    Bang!


    A loud crash could be heard in space. The Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle had slammed into a space-time storm on the peripheral of a galaxy. A strange wave of energy whizzed by.


    "Eh?"


    The Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle came to an abrupt halt. Moments later, Zhou Bao got out of it.


    "Who are you? How dare you break through the Canglan Region!" The moment Zhou Bao appeared, he heard a cry of anger.


    "Canglan Region?" Zhou Bao''s eyes flickered. He had not heard of the name before, but this place was clearly marked in the Void Map. It was the stronghold of an influence, which was smaller than average, of the Alliance of 13 Realms in the Infinite Star Sea. Located at the edge of the Infinite Star Sea, it was even worse than Yuelang Cliff in the Luosheng Realm. It had 34 animate planets and the main business here was mineral mining. The lord of Canglan Region was a practitioner at the Venerable Realm, a Five-tribulation Venerable and one of the strongest below the Lord of Heaven.


    Zhou Bao had little regard for a practitioner at the Venerable Realm, but this was the man''s territory. He was a stranger here and did not want to get into trouble. Therefore, he emerged, removed the inhibition that was in place and hauled out the man who had shouted at him. It was a practitioner at the Level of True Immortality, a One-tribulation True Immortal. Since he had not undergone the second Thunder Tribulation, he could not be called a Venerable yet.


    Upon seeing Zhou Bao''s ability to remove the inhibition in an instant, he looked grave, "Excuse me, you are..?"


    "I''m just passing by. Since when was the Canglan Region closed? It is not accessible to everyone?"


    "It sounds like you haven''t been to the Infinite Star Sea for quite some time!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s fearless expression and what he had just done, the practitioner was a little startled. But when he saw the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle behind Zhou Bao, his expression altered slightly. A knowing light flashed across his eyes and subconsciously, he lowered his head.


    Just as he was about to raise his head, he suddenly felt a hand gripping his neck. He was unable to speak and could only look at Zhou Bao in horror.


    "If you recognize the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle, then it''s a problem!"


    Zhou Bao had seen his look when he saw the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle, and realized that he recognized the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle. Zhou Bao had stolen the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle from Yuelang Cliff''s young master Qing Chan. Yuelang Cliff was a well-known influence in the Luosheng Realm. The fact that a Lord of Heaven and a young master from Yuelang Cliff was killed could not be concealed from people. Zhou Bao had expected that the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle would be recognized, so he had planned to put it away after entering the animate planet. It had been exposed for this man to see before he entered the planet. Zhou Bao didn''t want any attention to be drawn to it so soon.


    "You have a pair of sharp eyes!"


    "Eh, eh¡ª!" Held in such a tight grip, the Genuine Immortal groaned unconsciously, his eyes beseeching Zhau Bao for mercy. Zhou Bao felt something unusual from his spirit.


    "You have something to tell me?" Zhou Bao slowly loosened his grip, but his eyes were still fixed firmly on the Genuine Immortal''s face.


    "I, I, I, have a grudge against Yuelang Cliff!" The man stammered out these words, "I have no intention of betraying you!"


    "Your words are not really convincing!" Zhou Bao grinned.


    "I know where you are from. You are strangers in the Infinite Star Sea. It will be good for you if you spare me!"


    "You know where we are from?"


    "Yes, I know you are from the fabled Heaven Realm, which is in decline now!"


    "I think I really will need you!" Zhou Bao loosened his grip on the man. At the same time, an eccentric Qi shot out from his hand and hit the man between the eyebrows. The Qi split into two, one into his Dharma power through his tendons and meridians, the other into his spirit.


    Shortly after, Zhou Bao called Xiao Sheng out, withdrew the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle and entered the Canglan Region under the man''s guidance.


    There were 34 animate planets in the Canglan Region. The one at the extreme edge was the Remote Red Star. This star was large and when seen through the hollow, was wholly red in color. There was life on it, but the environment was harsh and the spiritual qi there was scarce. It was occupied by the Canglan Region because of its abundant Red Scorching Ore.


    Red Scorching Ore was one of the basic materials for the refining of spiritual weapons and celestial devices, so the demand for it was enormous. Most of the people in this star were ordinary people and miners made up a majority of the population. The whole planet seemed like a big construction site, with only a few towns serving as trading venues.


    This Genuine Immortal, whom Zhou Bao had under his control, was named Jia Huaiyu. As a Genuine Immortal, he was an Elder in the Canglan Region. Unfortunately, he had offended Yuelang Cliff. Yuelang Cliff did not have the power to order the Canglan Region to kill their Elders, but it was easy for them to ask the Canglan Region to suppress him. As a result, the hapless Jia Huaiyu was sent to guard the most remote and unprofitable place of the Canglan Region. He had been there for 300 years. How could he not be angry?


    Therefore, his focus was totally on Yuelang Cliff. He was delighted to hear that Yuelang Cliff had lost a Lord of Heaven and their young master in the Cumulus Star. This incident had shocked the whole Infinite Star Sea, though he was far from the Cumulus Star. He paid great attention to the details of the matter and knew that Yuelang Cliff had lost not only two men, but also a Highest Heaven Celestial Device.


    The two men who died were not only of high status, but also of great strength. Qing Cheng was a Lord of Heaven. Even in large influences like Yuelang Cliff, there were very few Lords of Heaven. He was a strategic figure who normally wouldn''t get involved in fights. Inexplicably, he died in the Cumulus Star. This caused Yuelang Cliff to lose almost a quarter of their strength. Their vitality had been greatly weakened.


    "Actually, you don''t have to worry about it. Everyone knows Yuelang Cliff has got into trouble in the Cumulus Star, but no one cares as much about it as I do and knows as many details as I do. Besides, the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle, though precious, is not the only one. Each strong influence owns a Highest Heaven Celestial Device. As long as you remove the markings of Yuelang Cliff on this Flying Vehicle, no one will doubt you. It''s so far away from the Cumulus Star that it''s just a topic of conversation for others." Along the way, Jia Huaiyu was very cooperative, giving Zhou Bao all the facts and reassuring him.


    "Is it only because you have a problem with Yuelang Cliff that you cared so much about them and recognized us?" Zhou Bao asked, puzzled, "How do you know we''re from the Heaven Realm?"


    "The happenings in the Heaven Realm is now a great event in the Infinite Star Sea, only second to the birth of the Devil Fetus. In fact, more people care about the Heaven Realm than they care about that Devil Fetus!" Jia Huaiyu said excitedly, "It was caused by a group of strangers, and it didn''t attract much attention at that time, because these strangers were not powerful, and most of them are just ordinary people who possessed good strength. But then something happened. A small school called Soul-evoking Palace inadvertently captured one of them. They are, you know, the branch of Dark Sect that captures the soul of the living. They found an unusual memory in the man''s soul; he did not come from the Alliance of 13 Realms, nor from the Milky Way Realm or the Infinite Star Sea, but from a place called Seven-deity Regions; he belongs to a school called Dragon Thunder Palace, and was a very important figure in the school. Thus he knew that the macro world where the Seven-deity Regions is located is actually the Heaven Realm that ruled all the realms in the antiquity times." At this point, he glanced at Zhou Bao and was relieved that he did not have any particular expression on his face. Then he continued, "Soul-evoking Palace wanted to keep it a secret, but before long, their branch in the Infinite Star Sea was attacked and destroyed by a Lord of Heaven. This event was nothing extraordinary. Soul-evoking Palace isn''t a powerful school, and their lord is only a Three-tribulation Venerable. If they provoke a Lord of Heaven, there is no doubt that they will die. Moreover, this Lord of Heaven only destroyed a branch of Soul-evoking Palace in the Infinite Star Sea, and their headquarters was not damaged. However, when they heard about this, the lord of Soul-evoking Palace believed this was related to the soul they had captured, and reported it to the upper levels of Dark Sect."


    He stopped and sighed, "The upper levels of Dark Sect is like a sieve, filled with all kinds of people. This news leaked out immediately, and caused a great disturbance in the two big Star Areas and the Infinite Star Sea!"


    "So now everyone knows about the Heaven Realm?"


    "Yes. In addition to that, more than half the people in the Infinite Star Sea are on the lookout for those who have entered the Infinite Star Sea from the Heaven Realm and the Transmitting Formation to the Seven-deity Regions. This is because all the big sects are surreptitiously offering huge rewards for them!"


    "Humph, they''re really that interested in the Heaven Realm!"


    "Although the Heaven Realm has declined, being the former ruler of all realms, there are many secrets hidden there. It has been said that the secrets of the 33 Heavens are there. This is why the big sects are so positive about this!"


    "Em, what happened later?"


    "Later, a Lord of Heaven from Yuelang Cliff was killed in the Cumulus Star and several Genuine Immortals appeared in the Infinite Star Sea. They destroyed those schools that had captured the people from the Heaven Realm. Now, everyone in the Infinite Star Sea is targeting the Heaven Realm. The Alliance of 13 Realms and the Milky Way Realm have sent powerful Lords of Heaven into the Infinite Star Sea, and they are said to have caught a Lord of Heaven from the Heaven Realm."

 588 An Identity

    Zhou Bao had expected trouble for those who came from the Seven-deity Regions, but he had not expected the matter to be known so publicly.


    It seemed that the whole Infinite Star Sea had already known about the Seven-deity Regions of the Heaven Realm, and "Seven-deity Regions" had even replaced "Devil Fetus" as the most talked about topic in the Infinite Star Sea.


    "Now we''re kind of passive!" Zhou Bao thought as he followed Jia Huaiyu into the heart of the Remote Red Star.


    As the saying goes, among the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Banished to the frontier, as a Genuine Immortal and the elder of the Canglan Region, Jia Huaiyu was one of the highest ranking people in the outlying Remote Red Star. He could have been the mine chief in Zhou Bao''s previous life. He could make inquiries about others, but others were not qualified to check up on him.


    Therefore, his return to his own manor with two strangers aroused some people''s curiosity, but no one had any reasons to doubt his activities.


    "Wow, you really know how to enjoy life. What a luxurious manor you have!" Arriving at Jia Huaiyu''s manor, Zhou Bao was stunned. It was not so much a manor as a vast cluster of palaces. It was as good as his Sea-calming Palace. It was just that it was not built in accordance with the Way of Heaven and formations like Sea-calming Palace, which had an unmeasurable momentum. However, in terms of magnificence, it far exceeded that of his Sea-calming Palace.


    "You must be joking. Being banished to a place like this, I feel sorry for myself if I don''t treat myself well. This Remote Red Star is a mine star with plenty of miners and it''s not difficult for them to build such a manor."


    His words revealed the general situation here. He was the local Emperor of the Remote Red Star and everything on this planet was under his control. Building a palace on such a large scale here might come across as a bit exorbitant, but over here, it would not cause much criticism. In the eyes of many immortals, ordinary people were not different from pigs and dogs. It was their duty to build palaces for immortals, and if they refused, the immortals would kill them all.


    Although Zhou Bao did not practice this, he was powerless to change these practitioners'' values.


    He laughed at Jia Huaiyu''s words, "So, in many cases, misfortune is what happiness depends on; happiness is where misfortune lies. It''s a little out of the way, but you''re in charge of everything here. You''re more comfortable here than in the Alliance of 13 Realms!"


    "Yes, I''m free and unfettered here!" Jia Huaiyu agreed, and the three of them went to a pavilion in the deepest part of the manor and rested.


    As they sat down, the servant brought tea. Zhou Bao sipped it and found it to be good. He nodded gently and asked, "Good, is it made here?"


    "No, it''s from the Green Leaf Star. Unlike the Remote Red Star, it''s full of exotic flowers and rare herbs and is the largest source of Magic Drugs in the Canglan Region. This tea is also from there!"


    "Well, you said a Lord of Heaven was captured in the Infinite Star Sea. Do you have any specific details about this?" Zhou Bao asked, changing the subject suddenly.


    "It¡ª!" Jia Huaiyu hesitated, "I don''t know much about that. You know, this place is not very up-to-date with the latest information. And I don''t care about anything except Yuelang Cliff. I''m only a One-tribulation True Immortal. I can''t get any benefits from things like the Devil Fetus or the Heaven Realm. I don''t dare to benefit from them, so I didn''t pay much attention to them."


    "Then from now on, pay more attention and get the precise information, understand?"


    "Yes, I''ll do it right now!" Finding that Zhou Bao''s face had turned somber, Jia Huaiyu stopped making excuses, bowed to Zhou Bao and retreated.


    "King Wuyang, is he trustworthy?"


    "In my opinion, yes. He is under my inhibition and will never expose us unless he''s stupid. We''re strangers in the Infinite Star Sea. It''s better to have a local bully help us than to find out for ourselves."


    "You''re right!"


    "Brother Xiao, I want to check out the place before he comes back with any news; you just stay here and watch him. I''ll tell you the method of inhibition. In this way, even if something happens, we have a way out. Do you think that is alright?"


    Xiao Sheng considered for a moment and nodded, "Okay, that''s a good idea. I am worried that my strength is not enough to help you, but will make matters worse."


    Zhou Bao smiled, satisfied that Xiao Sheng understood.


    After all, Xiao Sheng didn''t belong to the Four Eastern Regions. Zhou Bao had only borrowed the Transmitting Formation from the Three Western Regions but he was not working with them. Thus, Xiao Sheng certainly was under no obligation to help Zhou Bao. It was a sudden change of plans that brought him to be with Zhou Bao.


    Xiao Sheng was top of the Seven-deity Regions in strength. Venerables like him enjoyed the highest status, except for those Lords of Heaven and Old Weirdoes who had lost interest in worldly affairs for countless years already. However, the Infinite Star Sea was obviously much more powerful than the Seven-deity Regions. The situation was so complicated here that it would have been much easier for Zhou Bao to act alone. Additionally, Zhou Bao had a lot of secrets, so it was not so conducive for him if he was followed by a practitioner at the Venerable Realm. These were the reasons Zhou Bao offered to keep him here. Xiao Sheng did not want to get involved in this matter, so he agreed.


    After a long while, Jia Huaiyu returned with a somber face.


    "What, any news?"


    "That Lord of Heaven has been suppressed in the Pond of Illusive Ripples by Patriarch Taiyuan of the Milky Way Realm and Lord of Heaven Chiyang, the deputy leader of the Alliance of 13 Realms. The news has spread all over the Infinite Star Sea. In addition, many other practitioners from the Heaven Realm were arrested and their origins have been found out. They are said to be the disciples of Ancient Divine Wind Palace from antiquity times, Dragon Thunder Palace, Bigwheel Temple and Ancient Dark Sect. They are now all confined to the Pond of Illusive Ripples. It seems that they intend to use them to attract reinforcements and then focus on battling with the reinforcements." Jia Huaiyu told Zhou Bao everything he knew. "What''s more, all influences, schools and branches in the Infinite Star Sea are now on the alert to check on the entry and exit of strangers."


    Speaking of this, he took a look at Zhou Bao, "Although there are numerous practitioners and influences in the Infinite Star Sea, with such careful checking, everyone''s identity can be clearly found. Now the Transmitting Formation can only be used after one''s identity has been confirmed. Any suspicious person will be reported immediately.


    "I can''t believe the Infinite Star Sea is attaching so much importance to that bunch of suckers!"


    Zhou Bao cursed inwardly. The Infinite Star Sea had reacted too quickly and took the news about the Heaven Realm too seriously. The Infinite Star Sea was so vast that Zhou Bao had to rely on the Transmitting Formation to get from one side to the other, or else, he would get lost in the boundless hollow even if he had the Void Map. In fact, he had another option, which was to use the Supreme Fairy Weapon, but that would just blow things up. It was easy to hide a Supreme Fairy Weapon as long as it was not activated. Once activated, it was easily perceived by those on the other side of the Infinite Star Sea due to the amount of power it exuded. Then that would terrible indeed.


    In order to look for people, save them and complete his task in the Infinite Star Sea, Zhou Bao''s best choice was still the Transmitting Formation.


    "I need an identity, an identity that is completely legitimate and real. It shouldn''t be hard for you, right?" Zhou Bao looked at Jia Huaiyu.


    "No problem, no problem!" As a Genuine Immortal who was relegated to this backward place, Jia Huaiyu had great power here and it was quite easy for him to make up an identity. Now he was controlled by Zhou Bao, he was unable to resist, and he could only obey his orders. Soon, he issued Zhou Bao with a new identity.


    Jia Qingping, male, 22 years old, was an Individual Immortal at Rank Two. He was a practicing genius who broke through to the Mysterious Realm at 19, and three years later, he broke through again to reach Rank Two. He was also the nephew of Jia Huaiyu, the Elder of the Canglan Region.


    This identity was not fabricated, but real. Jia Huaiyu had his own family in the Alliance of 13 Realms, which was a strong practitioner family. Jia Qingping was indeed his nephew, the son of his younger brother Jia Huaisheng.


    Jia Huaisheng was Jia Huaiyu''s younger brother. Jia Huaisheng was born with a weak constitution and unfit for practice. Even in a family of practitioners, he was only a commoner and had been despised from an early age. Fortunately, he had an older brother who was a practicing genius. Under Jia Huaiyu''s protection, he was able to grow up without any problems. There was a close bond of affection between the two brothers.


    Though Jia Huaisheng was unfit for practice, Jia Huaiyu had been doing his best to help him. At last, when Jia Huaisheng was 25 years old, Jia Huaiyu found a Magic Drug, which improved Jia Huaisheng''s physique and allowed him to practice. Although he started late, it was better than not practicing at all. In addition, given the fact that when Jia Huaiyu joined the Canglan Region and became the key training object, he received numerous Magic Drugs and elixirs. Jia Huaisheng benefited a lot from these, too. His cultivation even reached Level Nine, only one step away from the Mysterious Realm. It was a pity that he could not enter the Mysterious Realm by the panacea alone. And ever since Jia Huaiyu had offended Yuelang Cliff and was demoted to the Remote Red Star, his comfortable life too came to an end. However, he was a thoughtful and knowledgeable man. He knew that he was nothing without the protection of his elder brother, so he resolutely followed Jia Huaiyu to this desolate place. He took on his fair share of the burdens for Jia Huaiyu. Then he married a wife and had children here. This was Jia Qingping''s background.

 589 The Encounter

    Jia Qingping was a real person, but he was by no means a genius, who reached the Mysterious Realm and ascended to Rank Two, as Jia Huaiyu had put it in his information. In fact, he was as weak as his father, but at least he was luckier than his father. He got help from his uncle, who was a Genuine Immortal, from birth and was able to practice at the age of five. Now he was 22 and a Level Four master, much better than his father.


    However, he had been in the Remote Red Star since he was born and had never been anywhere else. His condition was reported to the family by Jia Huaiyu upon his birth. For a variety of reasons, Jia Huaiyu only reported his basic information and did not report his aptitude, physique and any other information of note.


    Therefore, there was a man named Jia Qingping in the Infinite Star Sea now. Besides, he came of a decent family and had powerful connections, but no one knew him but the man from the Remote Red Star.


    Added to the fact that Jia Qingping, though having no aptitude, had been obsessed with practice and rarely went out, thus, except for the people in Jia Huaiyu''s manor, almost no one knew him. Within the manor Jia Huaiyu was the supreme ruler, so he was not afraid that someone would leak this matter.


    Therefore, overnight Zhou Bao became Jia Huaiyu''s nephew, a genius to achieve the Rank Two of Mysterious Realm.


    The practice system in the Infinite Star Sea, the Alliance of 13 Realms and the Milky Way Realm was similar to that practiced in the Seven-deity Regions. However, there were a large number of Individual Immortals here, and they were not as mysterious as in the Seven-deity Regions. As a result, cultivation of the Mysterious Realm was divided into nine ranks, three ranks of Pulse-Steadying, three ranks of Blood-Changing, and three ranks of Marrow-Cleansing.


    Zhou Bao''s strength was at Rank Two, the second rank of Pulse-Steadying. At this age, he was literally a Junior Master.


    His reason for leaving the Remote Red Star was simple. He wanted to try and experience his Divine Fate.


    A practitioner must go out to experience, and a practitioner who did not go out at all was not a good practitioner to begin with. Such a person would never have a bright future, at least when practice was concerned.


    This was a good and reasonable reason. With the proof that was written by Jia Huaiyu, Zhou Bao faced no suspicion, with neither a simple interrogation nor examination as he reached another animate planet of the Canglan Region.


    However, Zhou Bao''s target was not any of the 34 planets of the Canglan Region, but the Pond of Illusive Ripples. This planet was just another springboard.


    The first planet he reached from the Remote Red Star, through the Transmitting Formation, was the Blue Sea Star. As its name suggested, this planet was covered by vast oceans. Without stopping, Zhou Bao went on and passed through the Transmitting Formation, in the Blue Sea Star, to the main planet of the Canglan Region, the Canglan Star.


    Compared to the Blue Sea Star and the Remote Red Star, the Canglan Star was undoubtedly more magnificent, powerful, and prosperous.


    The number of Transmitting Formations in the Transmitting Hall was comparable to that of the Cumulus Star, and the various interrogations, examinations, and observations here were, by far, more rigorous.


    "You''re from the Jia Family?"


    Zhou Bao was stopped by a middle-aged practitioner in front of a Transmitting Formation. He looked at the jade identification card carefully, then at Zhou Bao and then back to the card. "Jia Huaiyu is your uncle, you have been living in the Remote Red Star since childhood, and you haven''t come out to experience it before entering the Mysterious Realm, is that right?"


    His skepticism was justified. Going from Level Nine to the Mysterious Realm not only needed a ludicrous amount of both strength, and luck, but also required near endless inspiration. It was basically impossible for a practitioner to step into the Mysterious Realm without going through unbelievable levels of struggle, and achievement.


    "When I entered Level Nine, I had been practicing in the Remote Red Star. There are many harsh environments with many powerful supernatural animals which became my training tools. It was very beneficial, and both served to benefit of my cultivation."


    "Well, that makes sense. There are a lot of tough supernatural animals in that damn place." The middle-aged man nodded, seeming to agree with what Zhou Bao said, but Zhou Bao was startled, "Have the middle-aged man, who is at Rank Seven of the Mysterious Realm, ever gone to the Remote Red Star? Who the hell is he?"


    "All right, boy, you''re through. You can go. Since you''re from the Jia Family, I suggest you do not rush to train, go back to the Jia Family first. Although they were unfair to your father and uncle, there was no other choice. Even the Canglan Region cannot resist the pressure of Yuelang Cliff, not even trying to mention the Jia Family."


    "Yeah, Yuelang Cliff did put a lot of pressure on the Jia Family, and they can''t fight them. In that case, I''d better not go back and save the family trouble. Don''t you think so?" Zhou Bao replied with a smile. The middle-aged man certainly recognized the strong resentment in Zhou Bao''s tone. He forced a smile, and tried to persuade him, but finally sighed and waved Zhou Bao away.


    This was only a minor incident, but it further reassured that man. When Jia Huaiyu and Jia Huaisheng were banished to the Remote Red Star, the Jia Family was pressured to sever ties with them. This made the relationship with their family deteriorate to the point that when Jia Qingping was born, Jia Huaiyu only informed the family by convention. If it were not for the chance to put Jia Qingping in the family tree, Jia Huaiyu would have refused to inform the family. This showed how deep their feud had become.


    Zhou Bao had no intention of interfering in the feud, but since he pretended to be Jia Huaiyu''s nephew, and in order not to show flaws, he had to act as if it mattered to him.


    The Transmitting Formation in Canglan Star could lead to many places of the Infinite Star Sea. However, instead of leaving at once, Zhou Bao intended to remain here for some time to inquire for real news. After all, the Canglan Star was one of the 10 main stars in this Star Area. It not only had vast financial power and material resources, but also served as a gathering place for all kinds of information.


    The Transmitting Hall was located in one of the five biggest cities of Canglan Star, Dragon Ear City. It was a large city, with thousands of kilometers around. Hundreds of millions of people lived here, including practitioners and common people. The city was alive with excitement.


    However, common people were in the majority, and very few practitioners had truly reached the Mysterious Realm and the proportion was almost equal to that in the Seven-deity Regions. Furthermore, the so-called practitioners were mostly people of the martial arts world, the Level Seven experts.


    There were five families in Dragon Ear City and they ruled this city. Every leader came from the five families without exception.


    The Jia Family was among the five families, but with the departure of Jia Huaiyu, their influence had greatly declined.


    Walking along the largest commercial street in Dragon Ear City and watching the vendors along the street, the restaurants, teahouses, brothels and a flood of people, Zhou Bao curled his lips, "Damn it, there is no urban management here to keep order. It''s really disharmonious. Missing out on such a bonanza!"


    He sneered while walking and felt at ease. When passing a restaurant, which appeared good, Zhou Bao walked straight into it.


    As soon as he entered the restaurant, the mouthwatering aroma of food drifted to him.


    "I haven''t had a good meal in a long time. I truly have such a hard life!" The delicious food whetted Zhou Bao''s appetite. About 70 percent of the seats in the restaurant had been taken. Zhou Bao found a corner, ordered some wine and dishes. Whilst helping himself, he eavesdropped on a conversation from amongst the customers.


    "Damn it! Who says the restaurant is the information center? Bullshit!" After listening for a while, Zhou Bao was almost speechless. He had often read in novels that anything confidential could be heard in inns and restaurants. As long as you sat inside for a while, you could even learn the biggest school Leader''s most favored concubine''s underwear color. However, what was the truth?


    It was all about useless small household affairs. For example, the man sitting there was mystically whispered about the incest of his neighbor''s father; that man was bragging about how powerful he was to make his fifth concubine pregnant with a third child. Nobody talked about anything important!


    The food and wine tasted good at least.


    Zhou Bao gave up on getting news here and ate and drank with ease.


    "Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?"


    A man came to the table and asked him when he was enjoying himself.


    Zhou Bao looked up and saw a middle-aged man with pale skin and no beard smiling at him.


    "Venerable Black Turtle?"


    Seeing the man''s appearance clearly, Zhou Bao was surprised to find that he was Venerable Black Turtle. He shaved his beard so that Zhou Bao did not recognize him at first.


    Besides, the whole temperament of Venerable Black Turtle had changed in an odd way, and he looked like a practitioner who had just stepped into the Mysterious Realm.


    Seeing Zhou Bao''s surprise, Venerable Black Turtle grinned and sat down, "What brings you here?"


    "What, that should be my question to you." His words made Zhou Bao somewhat speechless. The upper levels of the Seven-deity Regions knew why he came here, and Venerable Black Turtle could not have been unaware.


    "I know what you''re doing here, but didn''t you come through that Transmitting Formation in the Three Western Regions? Have those guys of the Infinite Star Sea set traps in the Pond of Illusive Ripples for you? Why do you come to the Canglan Star?"


    "Nothing can be hidden from this guy, but he knows I came through the Transmitting Formation of the Three Western Regions. He should know that there was something wrong with that Transmitting Formation!"


    The thought of this made Zhou Bao''s face contort. "Don''t you know that Qi Miaoyi of the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain and Ye Qingtian joined forces against me, killed all the practitioners who guarded the Transmitting Formation, and almost killed me. I''m fine, but there was something wrong with the Transmitting Formation, and it sent me to this fu**ing barren place!"


    "I see. It explains it!" Venerable Black Turtle was just taken aback, seeming to have figured out something.

 590 A Deal and the Secret Store

    Zhou Bao, a male of 21 years, was the most powerful practitioner of the younger generations, with a cultivation at the peak of the Mysterious Realm, in the Seven-deity Regions of the Heaven Realm. He had two Taihao Fairy Weapons and had defeated an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. His combat capability was beyond just formidable.


    The portrait of Zhou Bao was vividly painted on a three-foot-long scroll. Even his Bronze Scepter was clearly painted on it, accompanied by a note: this is an ancient divine device of great power.


    Zhou Bao''s eyes turned cold. If he did not happen to meet Venerable Black Turtle in the Canglan Star, and if Venerable Black Turtle did not have this scroll, he would definitely be recognized in two or three Transmitting Formations.


    He had not been recognized until now, because the Canglan Region was a remote place, and this portrait had not reached here.


    "What happened? Why would my picture come here?"


    "The portrait is now spread across at least half the Infinite Star Sea. The Canglan Region is far from the center of the Infinite Star Sea, and no one thinks you will come here, so it has not been sent here yet. But it will come soon, five days at the most, three at the shortest."


    "Then how did you get it?"


    "I have my ways." Mysterious Turtle Sage smiled, "At first I wondered who had such a great power to cause this to happen. Now I figure that Qi Miaoyi and Ye Qingtian have likely arrived in the Infinite Star Sea too. But they just weren''t as unlucky as you were, being sent to the wrong place, and they spread your portrait as soon as they reached the Infinite Star Sea. According to their fast speed and the widespread range, they absolutely have the support of the local forces in the Infinite Star Sea. Their purpose was to prevent you from going back, because once you go back, they will have no authority in the Three Western Regions."


    "Hmm, they still want to be in the Three Western Regions? Now that they''re here, they can''t go back!" The killing intent came from his heart, and with a burst of strength in his hand he shattered the portrait.


    "Venerable elder, I remember you once said that the predecessor of the Fate Creation Boy has been monitoring the Infinite Star Sea, watching over the suppressed Primordial Demon here, so you must know most about the situation."


    "Yes, of course. We have witnessed the Infinite Star Sea evolve from a barren Star Area into what it is now. But I advise you not to expect our help. The Fate Creation Boy is responsible only for guarding and suppressing. We will not meddle as long as the Primordial Demon doesn''t come out, even if ten thousand Devil Fetuses are born in one day, and even if the Infinite Star Sea is destroyed by the Milky Way Realm and the Alliance of 13 Realms." Venerable Black Turtle smiled and touched his smooth chin, "So don''t count on us."


    "Haha, that''s not quite right!" Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes slightly, "When I came in, I found a place called Secret Store. With such a name, is this store not for business?"


    "Secret Store is an old and famous store in the Infinite Star Sea, specializing in selling all kinds of information. Of course, it also runs a variety of businesses!" The smile of Venerable Black Turtle deepened. "I just said you can''t count on us, which means we don''t offer free information. Besides, I''ve made an exception showing you that portrait!"


    At this point, Mysterious Turtle Sage did not look like a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm, but like a profiteer, touching his chin and smirking.


    Zhou Bao smiled, "So, in other words, with enough money, I can buy information from the Secret Store."


    "Most of the information, yes. But if you want to buy the core materials of the Alliance of 13 Realms, I''m afraid you can''t afford it."


    "What do I need that information for?" Zhou Bao gently shook his head, "I just need some basic information about the Infinite Star Sea and about my action. As to the specific cost and billing method, you decide."


    "Deal!" Mysterious Turtle Sage was not a hockey man. After hearing Zhou Bao''s words, he considered it for a moment and answered, "The basic information of Infinite Star Sea isn''t expensive. Do you want detailed or general information about your action? The general information isn''t expensive either. But the detailed information, about the layout of Pond of Illusive Ripples, the character and strength of Patriarch Taiyuan and Lord of Heaven Chiyang of the Milky Way Realm and so on, all involves secrets and is quite valuable."


    Then he looked up at Zhou Bao, "I don''t think you have that many Spiritual Stones."


    "I don''t really carry a Spiritual Stone with me, but you said Secret Store also runs all sorts of other businesses besides selling intelligence. Then would you buy the Pure Yang Celestial Device?"


    "He-he, yes, of course we would. We are willing to buy as much as possible!" Venerable Black Turtle said with a weird smile on his face, "I''ve heard you got a great deal of goods from the Sea Area. You should have a lot of things with questionable origins, yes?"


    "This is Infinite Star Sea, not the Heaven Realm or the Sea Area. No matter how questionable it is, it should be okay here!"


    "No matter how confidential and core the information you want, two Upper-Grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices can be exchanged. In the Infinite Star Sea, an ordinary Pure Yang Celestial Device is probably worth 100 Top Grade Spiritual Stones, that is, 10,000 Low-Grade Spiritual Stones. The value of an Upper-Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device may reach 1,000 Top Grade Spiritual Stones!" Mysterious Turtle Sage gestured with his fingers, "It depends on your celestial device!"


    "I''m certain you will be satisfied with my goods!" Zhou Bao smiled and lightly rubbed the ruby ring.


    Splash! Splash!


    The light was flashing. In the blink of an eye, a mountain made of celestial devices appeared between them. These celestial devices included Psychic Celestial Devices, Mysterious Celestial Devices and Pure Yang Celestial Devices. The Pure Yang Celestial Device alone had more than 50 pieces. Venerable Black Turtle was a man of knowledge, but still surprised. He looked up and stared at Zhou Bao, "You killed all the descendants of the Rolling Dragon King?"


    "What, to make a deal with Secret Store, do I have to tell you where my celestial devices come from?"


    "No, you don''t. There are so many celestial devices and I''ll calculate the value!" Venerable Black Turtle seemed to have calmed down, "Are you sure you want to sell them all?"


    "Of course not, I''m going to choose a few for my own use. Most of them can be sold off though." Zhou Bao thought for a while, and then chose a few Pure Yang Celestial Devices for himself. "Value these things!"


    "60,000 Top Grade Spiritual Stones for the lot. Deduct your information cost 1,200 Top Grade Spiritual Stones, a total of 58,800 Top Grade Spiritual Stones!" Venerable Black Turtle estimated.


    "61,200 Top Grade Spiritual Stones for everything, after deducting the information cost, it is exactly 60,000 Top Grade Spiritual Stones." Zhou Bao said, clearly bargaining.


    "This..."


    "You''re only making 1,200 Spiritual Stones less!" Zhou Bao became impatient.


    "Do you really think we make money easily?" Mysterious Turtle Sage sighed but stopped arguing. Then he took a white card, which seemed to be carved out of crystal, from his chest bag, rubbed it and handed it to Zhou Bao, "This is the crystal card of our Secret Store. The 60,000 Top Grade Spiritual Stones are already in it. You can pay with it anywhere in the Infinite Star Sea."


    "It seems that Secret Store is very trusted in the Infinite Star Sea." Zhou Bao smiled, took the card and put it away. Looking at Venerable Black Turtle pick up the celestial devices on the floor, Zhou Bao asked, "Do the Secret Store publish public information?"


    Venerable Black Turtle slightly narrowed his eyes, "What do you want to do?"


    "An eye for an eye." Zhou Bao said in a grim tone, the cold killing intent rising from him, "The way to deal with rumors is more rumors. I want to spread the information of Qi Miaoyi and Ye Qingtian to the whole Infinite Star Sea as soon as possible. They''re carrying fairy weapons, many Pure Yang Celestial Devices and the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. They''re wealthy. I want them to be the target of the whole Infinite Star Sea!"


    "This will, of course, be an additional charge."


    "Also, I want you to find a way to make the information about me a rumor. To make the whole Infinite Star Sea think it''s a rumor, not a fact!"


    "That''s a problem. Now a third of the people in the Infinite Star Sea are looking for you. Changing that is difficult, and quite easy to expose. Not only are you easy to identify now, we would also be affected, so, we will have to decline this business. I suggest you try a new look, and don''t take out that bronze divine device." After consideration, Venerable Black Turtle refused Zhou Bao''s request and gave him advice instead, "We have the best mask celestial device. Put it on, you won''t be recognized."


    "I don''t care, but the trouble is that I was seen coming out of the Transmitting Formation. He knows I came from, and that my identity was false. All of which is quite troublesome..."


    "It''s easy to handle... But of course, the charge."


    "What!? Why do you charge for everything?!" Looking at Venerable Black Turtle suddenly become a gigman, Zhou Bao found it both funny and annoying.


    "I can''t help it. The Fate Creation Boy owns the store, and he made the rules. If you have a complaint, go straight to him!"


    "Well, I''ll pay it!" Zhou Bao shook his head with a bitter smile. When facing the Fate Creation Boy, Zhou Bao always felt as if seen straight through by him. His perfectly clear eyes seemed to hide away a magic capable of seeing through the entire world. Zhou Bao would rather face a Lord of Heaven than face such a mysterious guy.


    "Well, I have calculated the cost of requirements you just put forward. If they are all completed, it will cost about 600 Medium Grade Spiritual Stones, that is, six Top Grade Spiritual Stones."


    "Only six?"


    The gap in prices surprised Zhou Bao.


    "We are not profiteers!" Venerable Black Turtle gave Zhou Bao a grim look.

 591 Heavenly Feather City and the Striking

    The Secret Store was not a place where illegal activities took place, and neither was Fate Creation Boy a dishonest merchant. Indeed, they cheated no one while doing business. Zhou Bao had stayed in this Dragon Ear City for three days and had acquired some knowledge about the pricing of commodities in the Infinite Star Sea. Now he knew what the "60,000 Top Grade Spiritual Stones" would fetch.


    In comparison to the Seven-deity Regions, the Alliance of 13 Realms and the Milky Way Realm, which had dominated an entire Star Area, had abundant resources. They had more resources than the endless Sea Area in the Heaven Realm. However, like the Heaven Realm, the quantity of pneuma in their world was significantly reduced since the Necromancer''s Tribulation in olden times. Owing to their vast land area, they had very rich resources. In these two Star Areas, medicinal herbs for strengthening bodies were readily available, and people never lacked for elixirs like the Bone-Forging Pill. The items they lacked were Upper-Grade Spiritual items, Pure Yang Qi, and Pure Yang Celestial Devices.


    However, in terms of ordinary and lower level resources as well as the number of spiritual weapons and celestial devices, these two Star Areas had the advantage over the Seven-deity Regions. In respect of Top Grade resources, they were not better off than the Seven-deity Regions. The total number of Pure Yang Celestial Devices they owned could be more, but taking into account their vast land and great popularity, the number per capita was even less than that of the Seven-deity Regions. Therefore, Pure Yang Celestial Devices became more valuable. Thanks to the huge benefits they obtained when exploring the Infinite Star Sea, some giant schools even acquired fairy weapons. That was why they were always ranked higher than the Seven-deity Regions in terms of the number of fairy weapons and Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Otherwise, they would be considered inferior to the Seven-deity Regions.


    Compared to the Seven-deity Regions, the only advantage these two Star Areas held was the abundance of Spiritual Stones. These two Star Areas owned many mine veins of Spiritual Stones. Therefore they were able to extract a lot of Spiritual Stones, which were called "Mysterious Objects" in the Seven-deity Regions. Meanwhile, in the Heaven Realm, regardless whether it was the Seven-deity Regions or the Sea Area, their mine veins of Spiritual Stones had been depleted a long time ago. As a result, Spiritual Stones could only be used as Mysterious Objects instead of currency.


    But there were still plenty of Spiritual Stone mine veins in the Purple Scorpion Star Area, the Milky Way Star Area and the Sea Area. This guaranteed a sufficient supply for the daily circulation among practitioners. Of course, we are only talking about Low-Grade Spiritual Stones.


    Medium Grade and Top Grade Spiritual Stones were really precious, let alone the legendary Supreme Grade Spirit Stones.


    After the Necromancer''s Tribulation incident, the exchange ratio between Low-Grade Spiritual Stones and Medium Grade Spiritual Stones in the medieval period was 1:10, and so too between Medium Grade Spiritual Stones and Top Grade Spiritual Stones.


    In the present world, this ratio had increased 10 times. Now, the number of Low-Grade Spiritual Stones that one Medium Spiritual Stone could be exchanged for had risen from 10 to 100, while the number of Medium Spiritual Stones that one Top Grade Spiritual Stone could be exchanged for had climbed from 100 to 10,000. As time passed by, the value of Low-Grade Spiritual Stones continued to increase, and its purchasing power was highly enhanced. Now, no matter if it was in the Infinite Star Sea, the two Star Areas, or in the 14 macro worlds, the purchasing power of Low-Grade Spiritual Stones was also ten times higher than that in olden times.


    And that was the reason why only 100 Top Grade Spiritual Stones were required in order to buy an ordinary Pure Yang Celestial Device. Now 100 Top Grade Spiritual Stones could represent the entire fortune of a medium school. If you offered 10,000 Top Grade Spiritual Stones in the market, it was more than enough to disrupt the fragile financial order of the Infinite Star Sea or even the two Star Areas.


    Therefore, though Venerable Black Turtle made only a bit of profit for the Secret Store in this dealing, in general, the prices were pretty fair.


    Right now, the 60,000 or more Spiritual Stones that Zhou Bao was carrying cost a colossal sum of money. It was equivalent to a large part of the treasury owned by a super large school. Even for a super large school, it had been impossible to raise this sum of cash in such a short period. Just like those rich men in Zhou Bao''s previous life, people like Bill Gates and Buffet who claimed to own assets worth billions of dollars, they still would not have been able to raise 20 billion dollars in one day even if you ordered them to do so. That kind of act would surely devastate the market!


    Now, Zhou Bao suddenly released more than 50 Pure Yang Celestial Devices and over 200 various celestial devices into the market, which meant the market had been dealt a hard blow. But fortunately, the Secret Store bought a large portion of those celestial devices. Otherwise, that would have caused quite a stir in the Infinite Star Sea. However, buying those devices from Zhou Bao had created some problems in the capital turnover for the entire Secret Store. Of course, those issues were beyond Zhou Bao''s current expectations.


    Even if he had thought about those problems, they were not his problems.


    Now, carrying a large sum of money, and having made slight changes to his appearance, Zhou Bao, with the information obtained from Mysterious Turtle Sage from this deal, headed for the Transmitting Hall with a sinister smile.


    He had made minor changes to his appearance. He did not change his clothing but carried a Green Bamboo Stick in his hand, which was actually the Bronze Scepter, which had evolved into a Medium Grade Bronze divine device. With this stick in hand, Zhou Bao looked like an Individual Immortal or a practitioner who was living a free and unfettered life.


    His identity had not been changed. Mysterious Turtle Sage, a middle-aged man who had known his true identity in the Transmitting Formation, had promised to take care of this problem. Thus, his identity was that of a man named Jia Qingping.


    After going through a transmission from the Transmitting Hall which took several rounds, Zhou Bao finally arrived at the Heavenly Falling Star, the one nearest to the Holy Maiden Star where the Pond of Illusive Ripples was located.


    This was a planet with thin spiritual qi. Normally, very few people inhabited it. But recently, this bleak and inauspicious planet was packed with visitors, most of them practitioners with quite high cultivations. If your cultivation had not reached the Mysterious Realm, then, you would not be able to step onto this planet.


    The cultivation Zhou Bao currently displayed was in the second stage of the Mysterious Realm, which was not a very impressive level. But considering his young age, no one dared to underestimate him.


    "Those guys are really smart. The Pond of Illusive Ripples is the place where that wretch has been suppressed. It looks like a key focus point. However, those guys are actually focused on planets like this Heavenly Falling Star. Now, there are in total three planets that have Transmitting Formations leading to the Holy Maiden Star, and one of them is Heavenly Falling Star. If I didn''t have any scruples, I would launch my Supreme Fairy Weapon, fly directly to that planet and knock them out! How dare they trick me like this!"


    Heavenly Falling Star was one of the three planets leading to the Holy Maiden Star. The main reason Zhou Bao chose to go to this planet was that, according to the information from the Secret Store, Qi Miaoyi and Ye Qingtian were on this planet right now.


    These two were not idiots. On the contrary, they were quite crafty. The moment they arrived in the Infinite Star Sea, they managed to take control of a small school secretly. As it was in the Seven-deity Regions, schools here were so numerous that nobody ever knew the exact numbers. The strength of those schools varied, too. Thus, with their high cultivation and fairy weapons at hand, it was easy for Qi Miaoyi and Ye Qingtian to control one or two lower-level schools on this barren planet. After that, these two started spreading rumors about Zhou Bao through unique channels that were exclusively owned by this school. And then, like Zhou Bao himself, they fabricated their identities in the Infinite Star Sea and hid among ordinary people living in this Infinite Star Sea. They went undercover so they could ambush Zhou Bao in secret.


    All these information were obtained from the Secret Store.


    After exploring the Infinite Star Sea for a while, Zhou Bao now figured out that this Secret Store was, in fact, the biggest intelligence merchant in the Infinite Star Sea. Their intelligence institution and branches had spread all over the Infinite Star Sea, but their influence was limited to the Infinite Star Sea because they had only a few branches in the Purple Scorpion Star Area and the Milky Way Star Area.


    However, based on the strength this Secret Store had demonstrated, even if it was not as powerful as those super large sects, it was a fairly large school with superior strength. Moreover, since their influence was merely limited to the Infinite Star Sea and they had always acted in an amicable way instead of fighting for profits with those super large sects, they had led a quiet life for a long time and no one ever tried to pick on them.


    "The threshold for entering Heavenly Falling Star is the lowest one, which means this star is the easiest passageway to enter the Pond of Illusive Ripples. They chose to wait here, which obviously shows that they are waiting for me to fall into their trap and then take advantage of this. Well, this, in turn, saves me a lot of work!" Keeping this information in mind, Zhou Bao left his temporary residence without hesitation and set out for the hiding place of the two.


    Heavenly Falling Star was not a large planet. Furthermore, due to the extremely thin pneuma, this planet was frequently hit by shooting stars or meteorites. Consequently, it was covered with various-sized meteor craters like the moon from Zhou Bao''s previous life, which was a unique feature of Heavenly Falling Star.


    Also, on account of the thin pneuma, the rays of the sun was very strong during the day. Thus, normal people could not survive on this planet at all because the exposure to such strong sunlight would do great harm to them.


    Walking in the blazing heat, Zhou Bao slipped through the crowds as if he was just a wisp of smoke and headed for one of the most luxurious buildings in this city.


    There were not many native living creatures on Heavenly Falling Star, and the places inhabited by human beings were even lesser. On the entire planet, there were just six big cities. The lack of pneuma, resources, and scarce population rendered this planet a place with no commercial or other utilization value. Any medium-sized schools would not want to dispatch their forces here. Therefore, the six big cities on this planet were all built up by six small schools. One of them was under the control of Ye Qingtian and Qi Miaoyi, which was the one Zhou Bao was in right now. This big city was Heavenly Feather City.


    With the accurate information provided by the Secret Store, Zhou Bao had his target in plain sight.


    Boom!


    A deafening bang resonated throughout Heavenly Feather City.


    A sweeping spirit and waves of menacing pressure instantly encompassed the whole of Heavenly Feather City.


    The power of this spirit was extremely strong, fierce and totally overbearing.


    Now, even the expressions of several Genuine Immortals who had reached the Venerable Realm darkened, and their spirits were in disorder.


    "Lord of Heaven!"


    "This is the kind of spirit pressure that only a Genuine Immortal in the Lord of Heaven Realm can possess!"


    "When did a Lord of Heaven appear in Heavenly Feather City?"


    "The two Lords of Heaven from the Purple Scorpion Star Area and the Milky Way Star Area have been suppressed in the Pond of Illusive Ripples, haven''t they? What is a Lord of Heaven doing in Heavenly Feather City?"


    "Could it be the legendary Lord of Heaven from the Heaven Realm?"


    Thinking of this, the eyes of the crowd brightened and their minds became excited, but very soon they pushed all those speculations out of their minds.


    They were greedy but not stupid. If they ran into a minor person, they certainly would not mind taking him down. However, this time the one they encountered was a Lord of Heaven!


    The one they were facing was a man as fierce as a shark or a whale, who could eat them up. How could they possibly set up any attack without embarrassing themselves?


    "Hahahaha, Qi Miaoyi and Ye Qingtian from the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain! You two small fries, stop hiding and come out; hand over your fairy weapons and Pure Yang Celestial Devices without any further delay. Then, I may show my mercy, spare you from death and let you go back to the Heaven Realm this time. If not, I will rip your souls out and let you beg for a death!"


    Just when the crowd in the city was trying to figure out what had happened, this booming voice ignited the lust of all practitioners in the entire city.


    Fairy weapon, Pure Yang Celestial Device, small fries from the Heaven Realm!


    Even fools could figure out what the three phrases meant.

 592 Appearance of the Second Primordial Spiri

    Fairy weapon, Pure Yang Celestial Device, and small fries from the Heaven Realm.


    A resounding voice reverberated over the entire Heavenly Feather City for a prolonged time. Simultaneously at the main official residence of Heavenly Feather City, a dark blue halo suddenly appeared and a jet of extremely freezing spirit instantly swept across Heavenly Feather City. This spirit emitted blasts of extremely cold winds, which cast coatings of frost upon the entire Heavenly Feather City within seconds. The overbearing pressure it exerted was so intimidating that it made everyone tremble in fear, and it even brought a change to the visages of all those who had accomplished the Individual Immortal Karma Rank or above.


    Fairy weapon! It was truly a fairy weapon!


    Only a genuine fairy weapon could emit this type of powerful pressure in such a short time. However, it also meant that the one who launched this fairy weapon had not fully mastered the art of handling it and lacked the strength to control it; thereby allowing the spirit of his fairy weapon to spread all over the city. If the man who initiated this attack had truly mastered this fairy weapon, practitioners in Heavenly Feather City would merely feel a bit of pressure produced by this fairy weapon at most.


    "Qi Miaoyi and Ye Qingtian! They are the two practitioners from the Heaven Realm mentioned in the recent rumors, aren''t they?"


    "Yes. They were supposedly carrying fairy weapons and Pure Yang Celestial Devices with them, and I thought it was merely hearsay. But now it seems to be true!"


    "Right, right. Look at the power coming from it, it is indisputably a fairy weapon. And it is apparent that this newcomer is not strong enough to take control of this fairy weapon!"


    "I wonder what''s the background of this Lord of Heaven. He even found these two before we did! What a windfall it is! All of a sudden, we may even get two fairy weapons!"


    "Heihei, we''d better forget about the fairy weapons. Didn''t you notice that this Lord of Heaven has hidden his real identity? I guess even though he is a Lord of Heaven, someone might still covet this fairy weapon after he obtains it. That''s why he is so cautious, right?"


    "Exactly. Even if he is really a Lord of Heaven, he has to be extra wary after taking the fairy weapon. Seems that today''s combat is going to be a quick battle. Otherwise, if this should alert the two Lords of Heaven in the Pond of Illusive Ripples, it won''t be so easy for him to seize the fairy weapon!"


    "Alert them? It''s impossible. Didn''t you notice this Lord of Heaven has cast an inhibition on the Transmitting Hall?"


    After Zhou Bao left for the main official residence, his Dragon Chimera incarnation had been released and it wrapped up the Transmitting Formation of Heavenly Falling Star with his Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Since that moment when the Transmitting Formation had been blocked, anyone wanting to leave Heavenly Falling Star had to use the most direct method¡ª traveling in the hollow. But even though one had this ability as well as the necessary Highest Heaven Celestial Device, it would take him at least three days to arrive on Heavenly Falling Star from the nearest planet through the hollow.


    "Hahahaha, you two small fries from the Heaven Realm! Do you really think I can''t find you even if you are hiding here? Do you really believe you can avoid being tracked down by hiding on this planet? And you even tried to mislead the public! You must be dreaming!"


    "Zhou Bao, it''s you! How did you find us? Why are you here?" A furious voice roared from the main official residence of Heavenly Feather City. Although the voice was very loud, it had no way to filter out of the main official residence under the blockade exerted by Zhou Bao.


    "Clang!"


    Almost at the same time when the enraged roar was heard, the green bamboo stick Zhou Bao was grasping had already fended off the infinite chilling light sent forth by the North Pole Frozen Wheel.


    "Humph, you two idiots! You really think it''s so easy to venture into the Infinite Star Sea? And with a couple of fairy weapons, you think you can do as you please? How na?ve you both are!" Zhou Bao said in a chilling tone.


    In the blockaded main official residence, the faces of Qi Miaoyi and Ye Qingtian were gloomy.


    Ye Qingtian had exercised all his power to launch the North Pole Frozen Wheel and he ramped up the power of this fairy weapon frantically. This time he really felt the sense of facing a huge crisis. The killing intent Zhou Bao emitted filled him with an ominous sense of foreboding in the depths of his mind.


    "The North Pole Frozen Wheel! What a pity this fairy weapon should land in your hands! It''s a reckless waste of God''s good gifts!" Watching the North Pole Frozen Wheel rapidly spinning in front of his eyes, Zhou Bao''s face darkened. He could not restrain himself any longer. A jet of golden light shot out from the place between his eyebrows, swirled about in the wind and finally turned into a golden skull, diffusing endless rays of scattered light. Then, it abruptly bore down upon the main official residence.


    "This is another fairy weapon!" Sensing the enormous pressure transmitted from the sky, Ye Qingtian let out a distorted bellow. "You''re still not striking us? If you do, both of us will die here today!"


    The Furnace of Immortality weighed down upon them while spewing forth continuous strong flames, turning the main official residence into a sea of fire.


    Flames emitted from the Furnace of Immortality contained the infusion of Tusita Fire, so its power was infinite. It was only because Ye Qingtian and Qi Miaoyi had rare treasures to protect themselves that they did not die instantly. With the exception of these two, all the other living creatures in the main official residence died instantly from this single strike. The whole building was also reduced to ashes, leaving behind a pile of thoroughly vaporized ruins.


    From the outside, the main official residence was completely submerged in the light from the sky. No one had a clear view of the inside of this residence, nor could anyone see what had just happened in there.


    When Zhou Bao launched his Furnace of Immortality, Qi Miaoyi instinctively knew that something was wrong. Thus, he growled simultaneously, and his handsome face and porcelain skin twisted in a snarl and his expression became intimidating. Suddenly, he opened his mouth and a jet of black light gushed out and expanded in the wind. Soon, it turned into a black mountain, and rushed headlong towards the Furnace of Immortality, intent on knocking it down.


    Boom!


    The collision between the black mountain and the Furnace of Immortality created a deafening clang, which reduced the surrounding areas within 10,000 miles into ashes. Heavenly Feather City naturally bore the brunt of it. The clash of the two fairy weapons cracked the sky and produced a hollow passageway, thousands of miles long and nearly 1,000 miles wide. Meanwhile, on the ground, rays of black and golden lights swept out, killing everyone in Heavenly Feather City and those within the vicinity of 10,000 miles. Apart from the Venerables who had entered the Venerable Realm, no one else was spared.


    In Heavenly Feather City, there were a total of three Venerables. Two of them had planned to go to the Pond of Illusive Ripples, and the remaining one had been living in seclusion for a long time already. None of them had ever expected something like this to happen in Heavenly Feather City. The two sides engaging in combat obviously paid no heed to others living in Heavenly Feather City.


    Numerous living creatures had been reduced to ashes from the first strike. As for the three Venerables, they were also badly injured from the powerful blast waves produced during the collision of the two fairy weapons. Even if they wanted to retaliate, they did not have the capability. In this case, all they could do was to sigh helplessly, turn on their Gang Wind and depart from the place as soon as possible.


    After the gigantic black mountain collided with the Furnace of Immortality, Zhou Bao''s expression changed. The power that the black mountain possessed was unimaginably tremendous. Although it seemed that the two sides exerted equal power, in fact, it was the mountain that had the advantage. After all, his Furnace of Immortality had never encountered such a forceful collision before.


    As for the black mountain, it was hanging over the head of Qi Miaoyi, giving him total protection.


    "Zhou Bao, you''re truly powerful. But you obviously didn''t think this through. We have two fairy weapons, and so do you. But there are two of us using the fairy weapons on our side, while you are alone on your end. Do you really think you can handle two fairy weapons all by yourself?"


    "What a pure asshead!" Zhou Bao cursed instead of giving a direct reply. Suddenly, a dot of black light flitted between his eyebrows and a figure in a black robe appeared out of nowhere. This figure raised a hand and made a grab at the Furnace of Immortality, which started shrinking instantly. At last, it became as small as a fist and was taken by the black-robed figure.


    A whirring noise could be heard.


    At this moment, the black-robed figure seemed to be integrated with the Furnace of Immortality. Myriads of black flames poured out from that figure, transformed into numerous Fire Dragons which danced in the sky in a formation!


    It was the Sky-burning Dragon Formation!


    At the same time, the shadow of a golden skull surfaced in the sky, and then abruptly plummeted. This time, it was not headed for Qi Miaoyi, but at Ye Qingtian and his North Pole Frozen Wheel.


    Over 10,000 black Fire Dragons, emitting flames of fire, encircled the area within 100,000 miles around Heavenly Feather City and neatly suppressed the infinite chillness of the North Pole Frozen Wheel.


    "Puff!"


    Ye Qingtian''s face suddenly went chalk white, and a gush of blood spurted from his mouth. Instantly, the brilliance of the North Pole Frozen Wheel was dimmed.


    Yes, it was completely dimmed. Despite the fact that Ye Qingtian''s strength had increased greatly, it was still not enough for him to fully operate the North Pole Frozen Wheel. Imagine a seven or eight years old child playing with a weapon weighing 50 kilograms or more; even if he had enough strength to hoist and move the weapon, once he was attacked, if he could not use the weapon to defend himself, he would not only fail to make full use of the power of this weapon but there was also a high chance he could injure himself.


    Now, this was the exact circumstance Ye Qingtian was facing. Since the power of the North Pole Frozen Wheel was too strong, he had barely been able to operate it all this while. At present, considering Zhou Bao had released his Second Primordial Spirit of Dragon Chimera to repress the North Pole Frozen Wheel with the Furnace of Immortality, Ye Qingtian immediately ran out of viable solutions.


    "Outer-body Incarnation! Second Primordial Spirit! Damn, how could you have a Second Primordial Spirit? How did you foster a Second Primordial Spirit? Why is its power so strong? No, this is impossible!"


    The Second Primordial Spirit of Zhou Bao appeared, operated the Furnace of Immortality and subdued the North Pole Frozen Wheel. All of this had happened at lightning speed. Therefore, it was not until Zhou Bao had squashed the North Pole Frozen Wheel that Qi Miaoyi registered what had happened and had a clear view of the Boundless Hand Technique Zhou Bao had exercised. Instantly, an incredulous expression appeared on his face, which was also mixed with traces of terror.


    This was too horrifying. Zhou Bao had even accomplished the refining of his Second Primordial Spirit, the Outer-body Incarnation. "How was this possible? Who on earth is this man? What kind of experience had he gone through that he could possess such strength?"


    "Humph, anyway, you are a dead man. Why are you still asking so many questions?"Zhou Bao said with a sneer. Now that Ye Qingtian was suppressed, he could deal with Qi Miaoyi easily. Qi Miaoyi was a total stranger to Zhou Bao, but he had made some moves to hurt Zhou Bao for no reason, which rendered him the kind of man that Zhou Bao hated most. Therefore, Zhou Bao decided to finish him off.

 593 Bombarding to Death

    Right now all the color had drained from Qi Miaoyi''s face. Although he had his fairy weapon for protection, his heart was still filled with immense terror.


    Zhou Bao was so formidable that he could suddenly conjure up a mysterious Outer-body Incarnation, which was able to synchronize with the fairy weapon and fully utilize its powers. This was very frightening.


    However, much to his horror, there were even more frightening attacks in store for him.


    Zhou Bao''s killing desire had been ignited. Being in the Infinite Star Sea, he no longer had any principles. For the sake of fool proofing his attack, this time he wielded his full powers. The Mysterious Divine Light rapidly circulated within his body, and then a stream of extremely savage spirit began surging out from his body.


    Wheezing, wheezing, wheezing...


    Gradually, his breathing became heavier. By means of this puffing and blowing, he sucked up all the pneuma within 1,000 miles of the area. A huge shadow began to form behind him and slowly blended into his body. Finally, it turned into an upright and invincible Primordial Demonic Ape!


    "What...what is this?" Qi Miaoyi, as the young master of the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, was well informed of the ways of the world, but when he saw the Primordial Fierce Beast of Demonic Ape Zhuyan that Zhou Bao had transformed into, a deep set terror took hold of him. His knees gave way and Qi Miaoyi suddenly knelt down.


    Yes, he went down on his knees, and so did Ye Qingtian. Amid the unparalleled sense of ferocity diffused by Demonic Ape Zhuyan, they both knelt down.


    Clouds were surging over Heavenly Feather City. The rich Qi of aggressiveness emitted from this Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan swept rampantly through the planet, covering the surfaces and the interior of Heavenly Falling Star as well as the outer layered hollows.


    "What the hell is this?"


    "So powerful!"


    "What on earth is happening? Did a Primordial Demon show up?"


    "No way! In this world how could you find such a dreadful object? Am I dreaming or what?"


    "This is impossible! Absolutely impossible!"


    "Damn it. Is this the birth of the Devil Fetus? No, no way. Or is that Primordial Demon breaking out of its inhibition? How could such a thing happen?"


    There was more than one big city on Heavenly Falling Star. In addition to Heavenly Feather City, there were five other big cities. When the Primordial Demonic Ape of the Fierce Beast Zhuyan appeared, its ferocious power instantly engulfed the five big cities as well. Within the five cities, there were also some practitioners in the Venerable Realm, who were at certain levels of existence and holding strategic positions. But now, all their faces were dreadfully pale, their expressions were full of trepidation and every one of them was so flustered that they could not even decide where to hide.


    Since they had entered the Venerable Realm, their spirit powers also underwent a wonderful change¡ªthey could, though not very accurately, foresee fortunes or misfortunes that would happen to them. Thus, they would have a rough prediction about imminent crises. At this moment, all these Venerables had a vague sense of unease, almost simultaneously¡ªthat there was huge danger lurking around the corner. But as to what kind of danger it was and how to prepare for it, they had no clue, because their cultivation had not reached that level yet.


    "Damn, the Transmitting Hall is blocked! What kind of formation is this? How come it''s so odd?"


    Within a few seconds, there were several Venerables standing in front of the Transmitting Hall of Heavenly Falling Star. They were all rooted to the spot, gazing at the Transmitting Hall which had been enveloped by white mist. No one dared to take a step forward.


    "It''s full of murderous intent!" A Venerable commented.


    "The Murderous intent is growing wild in this formation. This is not a good place to stay. If you want to enter forcibly, it will be very hard!" The man who spoke was a cultured-looking guy. He fixed his eyes on the Yin and Yang Dust Formation while consecutively moving his fingers but soon gave up.


    "Let''s just leave. This formation is blocked and we have no way to break it; this whole event must have been planned in advance. Even if we all stay here, we will only be awaiting our doom. We should all leave now. Just leave Heavenly Falling Star!" said a white-bearded old Venerable, who seemed to enjoy the highest prestige and possessed the highest cultivation among them. This old Venerable then gave a slight flick of his sleeve and a luxurious carriage showed up in front of the Transmitting Hall.


    It was a Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle. In comparison to the one belonging to Zhou Bao, this Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle looked more refined and sophisticated. The number of talismans inscribed on this vehicle was double of that on the one that Zhou Bao had.


    In this short period, Venerables on Heavenly Falling Star had assembled before this Transmitting Hall, including the three badly injured Venerables from the affected Heavenly Feather City.


    Catching sight of the three unlucky guys, those Venerables standing in front of the Transmitting Hall were all dumbstruck, but no one asked any questions. They all stepped onto the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle. Thus, just in a few seconds, the clearing in front of the Transmitting Hall was empty again. Soon after, that Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle violently took off to the sky, turned into a silver streak and disappeared over Heavenly Falling Star.


    It turned out that they had made the right choice.


    When Zhou Bao launched his Mysterious Divine Light, he found that he could not control his actions!


    Howl!


    Fierce growls burst forth from his mouth and echoed all the way to the heavens.


    The Real Body of Demonic Ape Zhuyan looked up and let out a long howl, and then one of its huge claws swiped at the black mountain which was protecting Qi Miaoyi.


    Boom!


    Although Qi Miaoyi was on the verge of collapse under Zhou Bao''s menacing attack, he was, after all, the young master of the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain with a cultivation at the Level of True Immortality. His mind was still quite lucid. Seeing that huge hand of Demonic Ape reaching for him, Qi Miaoyi launched all his power to urge the black mountain to fight against it. Rays of jet black light shot out from the mountain and formed a cover, which provided a shield for the mountain as well as Qi Miaoyi. This time round, Zhou Bao grabbed the light cover and his hand smashed into it, producing a loud bang that shook heaven and earth.


    "Hoo!"


    Primordial Demonic Ape did not quite reach its target. Instead, it forcefully pressed against the light cover. Now, the two sides seemed to be in a deadlock, but the eyes of Zhou Bao''s Real Body of Demonic Ape had already turned red. All of a sudden, the Demonic Ape gave a shudder as if it had been struck by something. Then, it opened its blood-red mouth and clenching its other sharp claw into a fist, relentlessly punched away at the black light cover.


    Another loud bang could be heard. This punch smashed through the whole light cover. Even the spaces surrounding it shattered into pieces and disappeared, leaving only a void place.


    Fierce energy waves formed into the shape of real waves. Heavenly Falling Star, a planet frequently under attack from shooting stars, looked like a condemned world filled with violent energy vibration and collisions.


    Energy light balls, with diameters of hundreds of or even thousands of meters, exploded consecutively in the heart of Heavenly Feather City. Columns of black light soared straight to the sky and just as abruptly disappeared.


    The loud bangs were already capable of splitting the hollow, what more for the collision of the physical energy.


    All living creatures on the planet were wiped out in an instant. Whether you had spiritual intelligence or not, whether you were a common person or a practitioner, you had no chance to survive or escape the devastating energy explosion.


    Only the limited number of Venerables who took quick action previously were spared. But now, they were all looking downwards from their Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle which was suspended in the hollow. When they saw the flickering light emitted from Heavenly Falling Star and the increasing pressure, their faces whitened and they broke out in cold sweat.


    "This is the end for Heavenly Falling Star!" A Venerable murmured. "It''s truly finished!"


    No one replied. An unusual silence fell on the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle. It was the kind of silence that told you there was no life in existence anymore.


    All of a sudden, all the Venerables started shivering, and they all gasped almost at the same time. After an extremely loud bang, Heavenly Falling Star broke apart!


    Yes, it broke apart!


    A corner of Heavenly Falling Star, a planet located in this Infinite Star Sea, broke off. Now, it looked like an apple with one side being eaten, while the other side was jagged at the edges.


    The gigantic shadow of the Primordial Demonic Ape straightened up and stood upright. Qi Miaoyi had already passed out, because the last punch Zhou Bao delivered was too powerful. It had sent the black light cover back into the underground level of Heavenly Falling Star, together with Qi Miaoyi.


    And that was not all. When it noticed that its punch had failed to break the light cover of the black mountain, the Demonic Ape instantly went wild, letting out harsh roars.


    Bang, bang, bang...


    Its enormous fist started hammering the place where the light cover had sunk into, like a pile driver. It was determined to reach it even if it had sunk to the bottom of the underground level.


    The sounds from the bombardment lasted for so long that the bunch of Venerables who were watching from the hollow had become immune to it. All at once, the entire hollow seemed to be vibrating. Heavenly Falling Star which had a crack in one corner had been hit by a barrage of continuous pounding from the fist attack of Primordial Demonic Ape. The black mountain could not take the pressure anymore. It gave a plaintive whine and its black light cover finally disappeared.


    The Demonic Ape reached for the peak of the black mountain and pulled it out with a jerk. It suddenly opened its mouth and a strong force poured out, sucking the black mountain into its mouth and disappeared.


    "No, you can''t do this! It''s a fairy weapon from my Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, it belongs to my Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain! You can''t just take it away! If you do that, you are the sworn enemy of my Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. No matter if it''s on heaven or earth, no matter what world or what realm you live in, we will pledge our lives to hunt you down! Regardless where you flee, how powerful your background is or how impressive your strength is, we will hunt you down until you are dead!"


    Qi Miaoyi still retained a bit of sobriety in his mind. Seeing Zhou Bao taking away the mountain, his divine thoughts poured forth a stream of hate.


    "Whatever your Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain might do with me, you will not be able to see it happen!" The Primordial Demonic Ape cracked a smile and started grinning. Then, its huge hand stuck out and gripped Qi Miaoyi. "You stupid thing! You dare to go against me! You really don''t know the immensity of heaven and earth, do you? Do you regret what you''ve done? But now it''s too late. Bloke, you are a dead man, a dead man! There is no way for you to be rescued even if all the Lords of Heaven and Venerables rushed here. You''re certainly a dead man today, but you won''t even have a proper burial place! You, the young master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, are no better than a piece of shit now!" Zhou Bao bellowed, and the hand gripping Qi Miaoyi suddenly clutched tighter. This time, with a puff, both body and spirit of Qi Miaoyi were crushed and gone before he could even send out a single divine thought.


    Meanwhile, on the other side, the war was already over as well.

 594 ...

    A total of 10,000 black Fire Dragons gathered into a formation, besieging the North Pole Frozen Wheel and Ye Qingtian. Tongues of fire spurted from the mouths of the Fire Dragons and wrapped themselves around the North Pole Frozen Wheel, gradually refining this Taihao Fairy Weapon.


    Ye Qingtian''s face paled. He sat cross-legged in the hollow under the North Pole Frozen Wheel. As the faint blue light of the North Pole Frozen Wheel started fading bit by bit, his expression grew more and more nervous.


    "Don''t look so tense. Ye Qingtian, I won''t kill you!" Zhou Bao''s figure flashed, the Real Body of Primordial Demonic Ape disappeared, and he changed back to the green-robed man again. Clutching a Green Bamboo Stick in one hand, Zhou Bao strolled to his Second Primordial Spirit. He smiled, and the Second Primordial Spirit transformed into a jet of black light and leaped into the place between his eyebrows.


    "What on earth do you want?" Although the Second Primordial Spirit had been withdrawn by Zhou Bao, the Sky-burning Dragon Formation and the Furnace of Immortality were still there, functioning at a slower speed but still imposing a full suppression upon the North Pole Frozen Wheel. Ye Qingtian could not move a muscle. When he saw Zhou Bao reducing Qi Miaoyi, the young master of the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, to ashes, he was totally shocked. His heart brimmed with desperation, and he had even considered blowing up the North Pole Frozen Wheel so that he would perish together with Zhou Bao. But when he heard that Zhou Bao was not going to kill him, he abandoned the idea.


    Even small ants would try all means to survive, let alone a human being. As a prodigy for cultivation, Ye Qingtian had encountered precious good luck in order to achieve such a high level at his age. Thus, how could he be willing to die for nothing on this desolated Star Area billions of miles away from his hometown?


    Zhou Bao did not give in to his momentary frustration to kill Ye Qingtian. Instead, he said, "The reason why I won''t kill you is, of course, not that I favor you, but because of your boss¡ªthat man in the scarlet robe. You go back and tell him Divine Wind Palace is not that easy to deal with, but I''d like to cooperate with him. We can jointly take on Divine Wind Palace with each other''s help!" After his speech, Zhou Bao took out a little box from his clothes and went on, "The thing in this box is something I obtained by accident. You deliver this to him as a token of my sincerity for this cooperation. But, if he is unwilling to cooperate, then I am afraid we will have to stay as enemies!"


    After saying all this, Zhou Bao lifted a hand and took his Furnace of Immortality away. The formation constituted by 10,000 Fire Dragons also disbanded on their own accord. Black Fire Dragons turned into countless fine flames and gushed into the Furnace of Immortality.


    Ye Qingtian exhaled a sigh of relief. His Qi and blood were surging in his body, and all his strength was gone. Now, he was so weak that he did not even have the strength to retrieve the North Pole Frozen Wheel. He just sat slumped in the hollow, totally exhausted.


    "Someone is coming, faster than I expected!" All of a sudden, Zhou Bao''s eyes glittered, as if he had detected something. With a flick of his sleeve, Ye Qingtian and the North Pole Frozen Wheel were both gone. He exercised his Three Realms Division and transferred them out of the ruins of Heavenly Falling Star.


    "Leave the fairy weapon!"


    Surprisingly, just when Zhou Bao split the hollow, a sharp yell floated into his ears. A huge hand appeared out of the hollow, filled with boundless power and made a grab for the North Pole Frozen Wheel that Ye Qingtian had failed to withdraw.


    "How dare you!" Zhou Bao gave a sneer but did not make any move. However, a huge black hand suddenly appeared over his head out of nowhere, and flipped towards that huge hand.


    Snap!


    The two hands made contact with each other in the hollow. The huge black hand stood steadily, while the other hand that had targeted the North Pole Frozen Wheel gave a great shudder. Jets of black spirits started wrapping around the huge hand, forcing it to fade away.


    "Huh? This is..?"


    Infinite Poison Banner! It was the Infinite Poison Banner! Apart from refining the Green Bamboo Stick in the Sea of Divine Power, Zhou Bao had also worked on the Infinite Poison Banner. In the end, he infused the whole Infinite Poison Banner into his Innate Qi Catching Skill and produced a poisonous black hand, which possessed infinite power.


    The one who had struck out in the dark had a cultivation at the level of the Lord of Heaven Realm, but apparently, he did not foresee that Zhou Bao could refine such a poisonous hand. Due to this negligence, the Hollow Catching Hand that he had developed after innumerable trials and hardships, had been badly damaged.


    Zhou Bao had practiced the Innate Qi Catching Skill for some days. With his strength, fitting the pneuma into a huge hand should be a piece of cake, but he felt that there had been a problem in doing so, and the result was the unsatisfactory power it displayed.


    The Innate Qi Catching Skill was very useful, and it did not require a high cultivation to practice. As long as you knew how it worked, even if you were at Individual Immortal Karma Rank or an even lower level, such as a Level Eight or Level Nine expert, you were qualified to practice this skill. But the power of the huge hand you produce varied. If it had a strong power, it would naturally be more formidable, like the one that Yu Taixu accomplished, which could even contend with the Furnace of Immortality. However, in most cases, the Innate Qi Catching Skill could not be used as a primary attacking measure but merely as a scare tactic or some other emergencies or for some tasks the body itself refused to do. But curiously, the feature of this special technique was that it had limitless room for improvement. The stronger the pneuma you used, the smarter the refining technique you employed, the greater its power would be.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao decided to refine the Infinite Poison Banner into it directly. A point to take note of was that his Infinite Poison Banner already contained a powerful killer, the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, and a kind of wicked pneuma, the Peach Blossom Miasma. The Innate Qi Catching Hand of the opponent was also composed of that pneuma. But let''s put the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast aside for now and focus on the Peach Blossom Miasma, whose specialty was to break down all sorts of pneuma and Gang Qi. When it touched the huge hand that had appeared in the hollow, its power worked instantly and almost destroyed that huge hand.


    "How could this happen?" The opponent obviously did not expect that the power of Zhou Bao''s Innate Qi Catching Skill was so strong and could create so much trouble. He was a Lord of Heaven and had spent a fair amount of time and effort in practicing this Innate Qi Catching Skill. This hollow hand was made from 81 rare types of pneuma he collected, which had worked smoothly everywhere. Even when it encountered an opponent who was also a Lord of Heaven, it could still exert a strong lethality, let alone dealing with a guy like Zhou Bao, whose cultivation was several tiers below him.


    However, after defeating this raider, Zhou Bao did not relax his vigilance but continued in hot pursuit.


    "Poof, poof, poof¡ª!"


    In an instant, the huge black hand had torn through numerous layers of space blockades. Along the route where its opponent had come from, the hand broke through the hollow and hovered over its opponent''s head.


    "How audacious!"


    Seeing the huge black hand bearing down upon him from the hollow, the man''s face was livid, and a jet of white light shot out from behind his head. In the midst of the while light, a glazed bead about the size of a pigeon egg sent forth an abundance of scattered light. In the light, white lotuses could be seen, which rapidly held the huge black hand up.


    Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!


    Although the white lotuses were able to hold the huge black hand up, that did not mean they had succeeded in blocking the hand. On the contrary, strips of black Qi dropped from the huge hand and mingled with the light, producing sizzling sounds. Then, the white lights gradually dimmed and the lotuses started fading away.


    "Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast?"


    The man sensed the waves of spirit wafting from the huge black hand, and his face changed immediately. He stuck out a finger and abruptly pointed to the place between his eyebrows. All at once, the fading white light re-ignited; jets of scattered light wrapped around the black spirit and digested all of it. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao had detected an immense power fermenting in that glazed bead. Hastily, Zhou Bao took back the huge black hand.


    "Haha, enough playing around for today! Bye-bye!" After withdrawing the huge black hand, Zhou Bao gave a cackle and suddenly accelerated his moving speed. The hollow around Zhou Bao broke into pieces. In an instant, Zhou Bao had time-traveled through countless spaces and arrived at another world.


    "Kid, I''ve caught your trail, yet you still want to escape?" When he saw Zhou Bao retrieving the hand, the man grew more enraged. "Chi Yang, you stay put here, I''ll fetch that kid back!" After saying this, without even bothering to wait for the Chi Yang''s reply, he turned into a jet of light and disappeared.


    "Sage Taiyuan, you..." Not far beside him stood a man who was covered in a flaming robe, even his face was coated with a film of red light. This man was just about to talk some sense into him, but he took off in a flash without giving Chi Yang any chance to speak, which made Chi Yang seem a bit helpless.


    "Humph, this idiot, following me on his own? Seems that this Alliance of 13 Realms is just like Divine Wind Palace, both so arrogant! Do they really think they''re invincible in the world?" As he was traveling through spaces, Zhou Bao felt the distorted spatial state behind him. An odd smile flitted across his face.


    Sage Taiyuan, the vice president of the Alliance of 13 Realms, a Lord of Heaven who had undergone Seven Tribulations, had inherited the Uniform Dao of White Lotus Sect. And the Taihao Fairy Weapon White Lotus Glaze Bead he owned was a halidom of the White Lotus Sect made in olden times, whose power was beyond imagination. Apart from the White Lotus Glaze Bead, he also carried several Pure Yang Celestial Devices with him. His strength was enormous, his character was also very haughty and greedy. He was known for his bossy manner in the Alliance of 13 Realms, and he was bad-tempered as well, even a little dispute would set him off.


    The above was the information about Sage Taiyuan that Venerable Black Turtle had given Zhou Bao. Based on those files, Zhou Bao was able to prepare his plans.


    A tight dragnet had already been set up in the Pond of Illusive Ripples by influences in the Infinite Star Sea. Even though he had the ability, it would cost him an arm or a leg to force his way through. Undoubtedly, that would be very unwise. Therefore, in order to settle the matter of the Pond of Illusive Ripples, Zhou Bao should rely only on his intellectual skills instead of his combating skills.


    Accordingly, Zhou Bao had decided to use the trick of luring the enemy away from his base to disrupt the defense in the Pond of Illusive Ripples. However, how could it be so easy to mess with the defense in the Pond of Illusive Ripples?


    Fortunately, he still had Qi Miaoyi and Ye Qingtian.


    These two were not important people. They were just two small fries, but the fairy weapons and valuable Pure Yang Celestial Devices they carried were sufficient to attract the attention of any Lord of Heaven. That was why Zhou Bao asked Venerable Black Turtle to try all means to spread the news about the treasures the two had with them. By doing so, he could mess up the present situation on one hand; on the other hand, he would arouse the greed of Sage Taiyuan, who was guarding the Pond of Illusive Ripples. The voracity of this Lord of Heaven was well-known, even in the two Star Areas. Even if it was merely an ordinary Pure Yang Celestial Device, he would do anything he could to get it, what more for two fairy weapons and a pile of Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Plus, Ye Qingtian still had the Uniform Dao with him.


    That was the Uniform Dao of Big Dipper Emperor, one of the 99 Emperors in the olden times. Who would not want it?


    The reason that nobody dared take action was just that these two had themselves hidden too well and no one could verify this news brought by the Secret Store. But after Zhou Bao made such a scene on Heavenly Falling Star, even if this news was false, people started to believe that it was true because only a collision between fairy weapons could destroy a planet like Heavenly Falling Star. Furthermore, the whole process had also been witnessed by a bunch of Venerables. Hence, after this event, this news could be said to be true. And the only problem left was to figure out when this Sage Taiyuan would strike.


    In this regard, Zhou Bao had miscalculated.

 595 The Prison-suppressing Stele

    He didn''t expect that Taiyuan Sage would be that fast. He just punched through the Heavenly Falling Star and quashed Ye Qingtian. Before he could even take a short break, Taiyuan Sage had gone after him.


    His actions were certainly fast, which showed that people in the Pond of Illusive Ripples had been keeping an eye on all the planets that were linked directly to the Pond of Illusive Ripples.


    But Zhou Bao had no plans to go to the Pond of Illusive Ripples for now. Now that Taiyuan Sage had shown up so abruptly, it fitted in exactly with his plans.


    Any normal person would run as far away as he could, if he was pursued by a Seven-tribulation Lord of Heaven. This was exactly what Zhou Bao was doing. He was striving to rip apart space after space and leaped over one space-time after another, trying to hide from Taiyuan Sage.


    "Kid, don''t run!" Taiyuan Sage was furious when he saw Zhou Bao flying back and forth in the space-time, trying to hide from him. Each time when he was about to catch Zhou Bao, Zhou Bao slipped away like an eel, which made him extremely annoyed. Taiyuan Sage couldn''t help roaring. "You think you are powerful enough, right? You''ve got the Second Primordial Spirit and Outer-body Incarnation. Why don''t you just fight with me?"


    "You think I''m an idiot? You are a Seven-tribulation Lord of Heaven, but me? I have not even reached Genuine Immortal Karma Rank. Even if I possess the Second Primordial Spirit, you can kill me with just one blow. Do you really think I''m that stupid?" Zhou Bao responded loudly.


    "Humph, kid. Don''t pretend to be weak. If I am right, your Real Body of Demonic Ape is Zhuyan, the Primordial Fierce Beast, isn''t it? With the Real Body of Zhuyan, you are qualified to have a real fight with me. Stop being so humble!"


    "It takes a lot of strength and pneuma to use my Real Body. It is very exhausting. I''ve just been through a battle. Do you think I still have the strength to use my Real Body to have a battle with you?" Zhou Bao screeched. "Taiyuan Sage, the vice-leader of Alliance of 13 Realms and a Seven-tribulation Lord of Heaven, why are you chasing me? It is just one or two fairy weapons. Your Alliance of 13 Realms already has a large armory, why do you still want these weapons. Just let me go!"


    "Kid, nice try. Hand over those two fairy weapons. I may let you go. Otherwise, don''t blame me for being ruthless!" Taiyuan Sage was determined to get those fairy weapons. He growled and moved his hands. Streaks of scattered light and lotuses gushed out of his body and flooded all of the space-time.


    The space-time became sticky and it became more difficult to rip the hollow apart. Zhou Bao had to slow down.


    "Just stop!"


    The glass beads rose from Taiyuan Sage''s head and then a giant White Lotus appeared above Zhou Bao, pinning him down.


    "Furnace of Immortality, attack!" Seeing the White Lotus above him, Zhou Bao''s face became grim and the Furnace of Immortality rose from his head. As his incarnation of Dragon Chimera flashed by, he activated the Dragon Flame Technique and summoned millions of black dragons, forming a giant formation to block the attack of the White Lotus.


    "Haha, how can you ever escape?" Seeing Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit appearing and the activation of the Dragon Flame Technique, Taiyuan Sage was not astonished; instead, he was pleasantly surprised. This meant that Zhou Bao would not run away any more and he could have a real battle with Zhou Bao.


    In this world, no one would abandon his Second Primordial Spirit unless his life was at risk.


    "Hehe, I don''t know where this kid is from. He obtained the bloodline of the Demonic Ape Zhuyan and Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast and succeeded in refining them. What a lucky dog. However, he is just a foolhardy boy. He has got rid of the control of the fairy weapon. Although he made it out, his pneuma was badly damaged. Now he is bold enough to go against me. He must be prepared to die!"


    Taiyuan Sage had been the vice president of Alliance of 13 Realms for a long time, so he had a profound understanding of all experts of the Infinite Star Sea and the two planets. Zhou Bao was neither a Lord of Heaven nor a famous and strong Venerable; he had never heard of him before. He was apparently a rising star with plenty of luck.


    As for Taiyuan Sage, a rising star meant extra money, fortune and even opportunity. He had met many rising stars like Zhou Bao during his life. They were all lucky before they encountered Taiyuan Sage. Then they ran out of luck.


    4,900 years ago, before Taiyuan Sage had made a vast fortune, he was only a Level Nine expert. Ever since he robbed a world-renowned rising star, he had become more and more powerful. Now he was a Seven-tribulation Individual Immortal. Even his Uniform Dao of White Lotus Sect in olden times was something he had robbed from others.


    The abundant resources and treasures belonging to Zhou Bao were a temptation to a greedy bandit like him.


    Seeing the Sky-burning Dragon Formation block the White Lotus in the sky, Taiyuan Sage sneered and moved his fingers. Suddenly, a grey monument appeared and was about to suppress Zhou Bao from the sky.


    "Hmm..."


    Feeling the power of the monument, Zhou Bao looked terrified. This was something beyond his expectation.


    It was another fairy weapon!


    The Secret Store did not mention that Taiyuan Sage had a fairy weapon with him. He had indeed inherited the Uniform Dao of White Lotus Sect in olden times and was bequeathed the White Glass Bead, a sacred weapon of White Lotus Sect. Although this sacred weapon had the same power as a Taihao Fairy Weapon, he had only one weapon like this. How come he had another fairy weapon now? The grey monument was covered with ancient nicks and an air of vicissitude was surging on it. There were numerous Fierce Beasts, supernatural animals, and even ferocious-looking human figures with wings on their backs, long horns above their heads, three heads and six arms, or even being covered in strange scales. It was hard to tell whether they were human beings or beasts. In addition to these supernatural animals and strange figures, there were talismans appearing on this monument. The ancient nicks seemed to represent the dictum of heaven and earth. Odd talismans came out of the nicks and in the end, an ancient engraved font was formed in the air.


    "Immortal Character? It really is a fairy weapon!" Seeing the ancient font, Zhou Bao lost all his illusions. He raised his Green Bamboo Stick and threw it into the air. The flashing cyan light scattered and the frozen space started to crack.


    "God said, God creates everything and God controls the world!"


    Following Zhou Bao''s voice, the scattered light pervaded the space and held up that grey monument and the ancient font in the sky.


    "The divine device, the divine device from ancient times. You are Zhou Bao!" Noticing the odd bamboo stick and how it worked, Taiyuan Sage suddenly turned pale when he saw that Zhou Bao was able to hold up the monument. He remembered the news that had spread throughout the Infinite Star Sea recently.


    "God said, since water flows forward constantly, then everything should advance forward, too."


    Swish!


    The scattered light shone and brushed against the sky, making the monument and the Immortal Characters wobble. The cyan stick appeared above Taiyuan Sage.


    "How dare you!" Seeing the stick appearing unexpectedly, Taiyuan Sage waved his hands and the monument in the sky vanished abruptly. Then it reappeared in front of him.


    Boom!


    The stick crashed into the monument with a loud noise.


    Zhou Bao was the loser in the battle between the two fairy weapons. The Green Bamboo Stick and the scepter were not made for attacking, while the monument was made to suppress these two weapons.


    With one blow, Zhou Bao was flung into the air by the huge power, flapping about like a tattered old bag.


    Taiyuan Sage seized this opportunity. He moved his hands to draw Incantation Gestures and smashed them on the monument.


    "The Prison-suppressing Stele, overwhelms the heaven and the earth, suppress it now!"


    The carvings of animals and figures etched on the grey monument roared desperately.


    The space around them changed magically. As the hollow was compressed, the Dharma of the space was crushed by a powerful strength and started to collapse. When the Dharma collapsed, the space started to recover. One was on the verge of collapse and the other was reborn. Two Dharmas, containing two different powers, weaved together and formed a solid and independent space.


    Zhou Bao was in this independent space and felt desperate.


    Yes, desperate. This space, just like the hollow, had no pneuma or living creatures.


    No matter what, there was always some matter in the hollow, such as shooting stars, planets, storms, light, Star Areas and all kinds of space-time. But here, it was only darkness. If it was all he had to put up with, it was nothing to him. However, apart from the endless darkness, there was a huge pressure, an odd twisted kind of power, which could trap anything in the space and nothing was able to move here.


    At this moment, since Zhou Bao was in this space, the Green Bamboo Stick sent out some light to resist the pressure and wrap Zhou Bao inside, so that Zhou Bao could recover his qi and blood loss from the collision between the bamboo stick and monument.


    "Prison-suppressing Stele. Is this space a prison?"


    Zhou Bao frowned when he saw the abnormal scene around him and sensed the strange power. He had figured out what was going on here with the help of his Second Primordial Spirit. This vast and boundless space in here was just an arched space outside. Above this space was a grey monument, suppressing the space. The Immortal Characters on the monument were sparkling. It draws the magic power from the hollow to support the monument and formed a perfect circle.


    It was the Prison-suppressing Stele!


    The so-called prison was the exact space under this great monument.


    Once a person was imprisoned by it, even if he had the power of a Lord of Heaven, it was extremely hard for him to overcome it. This was because the Immortal Characters on the divine monument were able to draw the mysterious power from the hollow. If someone tried to resist it, he would be confronting the entire hollow, which was particularly difficult, unless he possessed the incredible and amazing power that could turn the world upside down.


    Most importantly, Taiyuan Sage did not think this was the end. There was no way that he would merely imprison Zhou Bao there. No way!


    At this moment, the killing intent popped up in Taiyuan Sage''s eyes.

 596 Stele Breaks and Ruler Appears

    Taiyuan Sage used to rob prodigies like Zhou Bao, who became famous at a very young age. He knew that people like Zhou Bao were lucky; if he slackened in any way, he would lose out. Therefore, once he obtained the things he wanted, he would never let go.


    Seeing Zhou Bao struggling away, his face was like a mask as he moved his hands. Suddenly, all his fingers were coated with and smelt strongly of blood; He then smeared them on the Prison-suppressing Stele.


    Stimulated by the smell of blood, the scratches on the grey monument started giving off an unearthly glow. The shadows of the monsters and supernatural animals floating about turned into solid bodies. They appeared in the space and rushed to attack Zhou Bao.


    The twisted power in the space seemed to have no effect on these strange living creatures. When the real bodies of these living creatures entered the tortoise-shell space, those creatures increased in numbers and surged towards Zhou Bao.


    "Why are there so many of them and why are they so strong?" Zhou Bao suddenly turned pale as he noticed what was happening. He looked around and found that these supernatural animals and monsters were everywhere. They were packed tightly together and were releasing huge surges of power as if trying to slice through the scattered lights from the Green Bamboo Stick. It was terrifying to see their strength. Some of them even possessed the powers of Level of True Immortality and were extremely strong.


    The level of Genuine Immortals!


    Even in the two great Star Areas, there had never been such an incident before, like what was happening in the space. It was as if thousands of Genuine Immortals had gathered together and they seemed to be good at what they were doing. When they marched together, they looked like an army unit.


    Now Zhou Bao could not take it anymore. Though the Bronze Sceptre had been upgraded to a divine device of Middle Rank of Bronze from Low Rank of Bronze, it could barely withstand the attacks as many as the hairs on an ox. But it could not solve this dilemma. As the old saying goes, millions of ants could devour a huge elephant.


    What about the strength between an elephant and an ant? It was beyond comparison. But if an elephant encountered a plague of ants, it would have no other choice but to run away.


    A quantitative change would ultimately lead to a qualitative change, be it through an attacking force or defensive power.


    The divine device of Zhou Bao was so powerful that it could manipulate the Golden Dharma Power at will. But when it was confronted with millions of desperate attacks, it could not stand up to them for long.


    Even if this divine device succeeded in withstanding the attacks, Zhou Bao was not able to. He had only nine Dantians now, but even if had 90 Dantians, it would not be enough for him to defend himself.


    Faced with this situation, Zhou Bao knew that he could no longer hide his strength. This weird space was creating such powerful living creatures. These living creatures were just like fish in water and their power had intensified to such an extent in this space that it was beyond his imagination.


    When these living creatures were on the exterior of this space, they were just a bit terrifying due to their spirit. They could scare ordinary people but possessed no real strength. Once they came across someone stronger than them, they could do nothing. However, in this odd prison, everything changed. The strength of these creatures greatly increased in here. Zhou Bao figured out that it was the twisted power which was behind all these. Even though he knew what was going on, he still felt the fear inside him because he himself was also affected by the twisted power.


    At this moment, he could not hide his strength any more. He knew that if he continued to conceal his strength, he would lose the battle.


    Having made up his mind, Zhou Bao threw his Green Bamboo Stick into the air.


    "God creates everything and controls the world. Anyone who offends the dignity of God will be imprisoned!"


    At this moment, the scattered light from the Green Bamboo Stick shone brightly and formed four columns of light. These four columns immediately created an independent space inside the odd space and formed a golden prison.


    Yes, a golden prison. This independent space, formed by four columns of light, trapped all the monsters and turned itself into a golden cage.


    The prison was golden and looked quite luxurious from the outside. But Zhou Bao knew that it would not last long, because there were too many monsters in it. And this space was an extra space inside a space of others without any solid foundation. However, he had no time to worry about it as this prison was only a temporary measure.


    Taiyuan Sage had two fairy weapons whose powers were beyond Zhou Bao''s imagination. Zhou Bao had nothing else but treasures. Now since the Furnace of Immortality had trapped the White Glazed Bead and the Green Bamboo Stick was able to block the attacks inside the prison-suppressing space, he could now show what he was truly capable of. A white light shot out behind his head and transformed into a short Natal Sword. Black-red Sword Qi was streaming out from that Natal Sword. A black-red sword light burst from it and ripped the world apart.


    Swish!


    The space under the Prison-suppressing Stele had been cut into half by this sword.


    Taiyuan Sage clearly did not expect Zhou Bao to be that powerful. He only saw a mass of black-red Sword Qi rising and his eyes were overwhelmed by the sight.


    No!


    Taiyuan Sage was astounded and backed away abruptly. The Sword Qi was pursuing him relentlessly now, despite his breaking through numerous space-time barriers and the distance he had run. When the fatal killing intent and the terrifying murderous intent sliced through the space, it looked very much like a blade cutting through a piece of tofu. And its speed was faster than the speed he had used to break through the space. Now, as he was about to be caught, he clenched his teeth and spat out a mouthful of golden blood.


    "Prison-suppressing Stele, protect me!"


    With this roar, the Prison-suppressing Stele reappeared in front of him.


    Boom!!!


    The Sword Qi hit the Prison-suppressing Stele directly. Again the body of Taiyuan Sage retreated and he spat out blood on the Prison-suppressing Stele. And the stele gradually dimmed with its color turning to ash black from grey. The ancient etchings and the talismans on it were sparkling. The shadows of monsters around this stele vanished. It now looked like a normal stele.


    The Prison-suppressing Stele was quite busy just now. Zhou Bao''s Green Bamboo Stick had activated a golden prison to trap those monsters. This stele would not give in to the Green Bamboo Stick. It kept transferring its powers to those monsters and fought against the Green Bamboo Stick. They were in a deadlock, like what happened between the Furnace of Immortality and the White Glazed Bead.


    When Zhou Bao sliced open the space, the pneuma of the stele had been damaged. Taking advantage of its position, the stele was well-matched against the Green Bamboo Stick. However, it was like a fight between two martial experts using their internal forces. When one martial expert used all his powers, in the critical moment of the fight, he would end up damaging his pneuma. Now the stele had not only had its pneuma damaged but also suffered from the attack of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. What the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword contained was not the normal Sword Qi but the one of the congenital killing intent in the red gourd, a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. It was as powerful as a fairy weapon.


    After being attacked by these two weapons, the Prison-suppressing Stele was finally defeated. This also caused Taiyuan Sage to be badly injured, as he was connected to the spirit of the stele.


    "No! This is not what I expected!"


    When confronted with this situation, Taiyuan Sage was inwardly astonished, but he did not show it. Instead, it seemed that he was encouraged by this sword attack and made up his mind. He roared with wrath and his face turned red. As his White Glazed Bead shone, the white lotus on it blasted off and shook off the Sky-burning Dragon Formation comprising of the Furnace of Immortality and Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit. Then it turned into a white light and disappeared between the eyebrows of Taiyuan Sage.


    "Kid, I will not forget what happened today. Just wait and see!" Taiyuan Sage decided to leave. With the Prison-suppressing Stele as his protection, Taiyuan Sage went through millions of space-time and vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving the space around him shaking.


    "You are not the one who determines the start or end of a fight! It is not that easy." Zhou Bao sneered. A giant black hand appeared out of the sky and smashed the hollow. It was not like any black hand that had appeared before. There was a cyan light glowing on each finger, which made it look extremely creepy.


    "Ah!"


    In the hollow, Taiyuan Sage thought he had traveled far enough to escape captivity. When he saw the black hand, he did not think twice and threw out his Prison-suppressing Stele as though it was an invincible shield.


    Boom!


    The black Giant Void Hand grasped the stele tightly. The stele was crying and trembling. There was no way it could get away from this giant hand. But if sacrificing one fairy weapon would enable Taiyuan Sage to escape, it was worth doing so. Unfortunately, Taiyuan Sage was unable to flee. When the black Giant Void Hand got hold of the stele, five azure lights flashed from the fingertips of the giant hand and instantly transformed into an azure Qi, and stabbed Taiyuan Sage.


    Although Taiyuan Sage had opened the Self-world, strangely, his Self-world could not block off the azure Qi. He was paralyzed and intense pain overwhelmed him. He had never felt such pain in his life. And he had never felt every part of his body hurting like this; his Eight Extraordinary Meridians itched and every bone in his body ached. It was not any normal pain. Even though he was a Seven-Tribulation Lord of Heaven, he couldn''t help crying out in pain. He stopped moving and his body went into violent spasms.


    The black Giant Void Hand was turned into innumerable streaks of black Qi and trapped the damaged Prison-suppressing Stele, so that Zhou Bao was able to pocket it. Zhou Bao was happy that he had obtained two fairy weapons this time. Just when he was about to get Taiyuan Sage out of the way, he heard a loud noise.


    Clang! A black iron ruler dashed out from the hollow, hit the black Giant Void Hand and shattered it. Although the hand reassembled immediately, the Prison-suppressing Stele had vanished.

 597 The Immortal Character Emerged

    "Who''s there?"


    Seeing the iron ruler suddenly emerge, Zhou Bao''s face changed greatly. His plan was messed up. How couldn''t he be angry? What astonished him the most was that he had not felt its sudden emergence. Obviously, that person knew better than him the Law of Space.


    Besides, he broke up the hollow with a ruler, which showed his strength.


    "Boy, enough. Don''t be so greedy. Don''t be ruthless. You''re in the Infinite Star Sea here. Not Heaven Realm. Not your Seven-deity Regions. Going too far causes troubles!"


    A lazy voice came from behind him. Then, a light flashed. A strange figure appeared in the hollow with that Prison-suppressing Stele in his hand, standing opposite to Zhou Bao. Going by what he wore, he did not look like a master at all. Instead, he looked like an uninhibited man in this secular world. His face was full of stubble. He watched Zhou Bao with teasing eyes. "You, haven''t you left the Infinite Star Sea? Why are you back?"


    "Who are you?"


    Zhou Bao was completely nervous, so his face took on a ghastly expression.


    "It doesn''t matter who I am. What matters is you!" That man laughed. Raising a hand, he moved Tai Yuan Sage, who was trembling due to the great pain in his hand, to his hand as if holding a dead dog. The Prison-suppressing Stele was raised and abruptly hit his head.


    With a smack, blood splattered. However, the Prison-suppressing Stele disappeared.


    "Poisonous Hitching Post. Heihei. I haven''t seen it for many years. I never thought you would be able to refine such an insidious device. Other than the Poisonous Hitching Post, there''s also the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast and the Peach Blossom Miasma. If I hadn''t known your background, I would have thought you were that Old Poison''s offspring!" Speaking of it, he paused. "Oh, I almost forget. You''ve once practiced in the Soul-silencing Star. Thanks to the poison gas there, you quenched your Infinite Poison Banner. As a matter of fact, you are almost Old Poison''s offspring! But you don''t even know it!"


    He spoke a lot. However, every single one of his sentences made Zhou Bao shocked. This strange person was indeed brilliant and he seemed to completely know Zhou Bao''s action. Therefore, he was curious who that man was.


    "What''s your feeling, Bro? Afraid? I said a lot because I want you to feel afraid. Otherwise, you would maybe want to deal with me!" Seeing an astonishment in Zhou Bao''s eyes, that poor man was pleased after he had achieved his treacherous plot.


    "I tell you. I don''t care you create disturbance in this Infinite Star Sea. But keep in mind, whatever you do, there are two forbidden things. First, don''t kill the Genuine Immortals of the Lord of Heaven Realm. Don''t rob them, even if they have good stuff. Second, Devil Fetus. Don''t step in it. It''s none of your business. These two points. You''d better remember them!"


    His words sounded like a joke. But his tone revealed a mandatory obedience. Even though Zhou Bao had an excellent cultivation and unfathomable strength, he could not help but shiver. He then showed a serious expression to the poor man.


    However, his anxiety did not last long. After saying those words, he ripped the hollow and directly left as if nobody had ever been nearby, leaving Zhou Bao standing there alone for a while. Nobody knew how long it had been. Zhou Bao finally sighed and shook his head with a bitter smile, leaving the hollow.


    One hour later, several figures broke up space and appeared in the hollow. Among them, some were competitive Lords of Heaven and some were Genuine Immortals at Venerable Realm stage. They searched for a while but found nothing.


    Half a day later, the Alliance of 13 Realms released a piece of news: Tai Yuan Sage, one of their vice chiefs, suddenly realized something and began a closed-door training. He would pay no attention to the affairs of human life in a hundred year, which astounded the world.


    Certainly, all this had nothing to do with Zhou Bao.


    Nobody could kill Tai Yuan Sage and take their fairy weapons. Even though Zhou Bao felt regretful, he was more terrified. The person who had just suddenly appeared had a strong strength, which made it difficult for him to fully understand that man. Hence, Zhou Bao began to act cautiously. In addition, the duel with Tai Yuan Sage sapped his strength. He did not take instant action and decided back to the Sea of Divine Power.


    As for Ye Qingtian, Zhou Bao had let him go with three Fiery Eyes and the North Pole Frozen Wheel. Ye Qingtian did not know what to say. He was very confused because he did not believe that such a good thing happened to him. When he was caught by Zhou Bao, he had already predicted that he may be killed. However, he did not lose anything, in fact, he had even benefitted, which made him even more confused.


    Zhou Bao did not worry at all about clearing Ye Qingtian''s doubts as he was in a hurry to enter the Sea of Divine Power to know more about the black mountain peak which he had robbed from Qi Miaoyi. After he got an answer about the transmission formation from the Infinite Star Sea to the Three Western Regions, he sent Ye Qingtian away.


    Qi Miaoyi, as the young master of the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, had many good items, but based on Zhou Bao''s insight, only the black mountain peak, a Taihao Fairy Weapon, fascinated him.


    With his current strength, it was not hard to refine this mountain black peak. However, it was not as easy as he had thought.


    Though owned by Qi Miaoyi, this fairy weapon was actually controlled by a Highest Elder at Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. Qi Miaoyi was the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain host''s natural son and also Highest Elder''s disciple, which explained that he always carried the weapon with him.


    Now Qi Miaoyi was already dead, but Zhou Bao still felt a resistant spirit from this fairy weapon when taking it. Without his excessively strong strength, this fairy weapon would have already flown away earlier.


    After Zhou Bao had gained this fairy weapon, he had a strange feeling as if he had a connection with it, but he could not tell the reason.


    It was strange and left him really intrigued.


    Seeing this eccentric fairy weapon in the shape of a black mountain peak, Zhou Bao had a feeling that it had some connection with his practice. However, he had not figured it out yet.


    Now he was in the Sea of Divine Power. The Wheel of Time was running. Everything was in calm. He just took out this fairy weapon and started to carefully research it.


    It was totally black and almost three meters high, looking like a tiny mountain peak. Actually, when people wielded it, it would become a giant mountain peak, like the Prison-suppressing Stele.


    When facing attacks, it could be used to block attacks. It was indeed a fantastic fairy weapon with a great defensive capability. However, Zhou Bao was not interested in its guarding properties. What he really cared about was the fairy weapon itself: the Immortal Character in it.


    Immortal Character!


    That was what Zhou Bao gave most importance to.


    Every Immortal Character was invested with a complete Law of Heaven and Earth, and each of them interpreted a whole Law of Heaven and Earth.


    The complete Immortal Character stood for the full Law of Heaven and Earth.


    When all the talismans and magic formations of a celestial device integrated totally and transformed into an Immortal Character, a fairy weapon was finally formed.


    The talismans on the Pure Yang Celestial Device did not symbolize a complete rule. Those talismans merely contained a little bit of Dharma force. The magic formation, which consisted of talismans too, was just used to get the Dharma force in the talismans together and let the force be close to an intact rule with the Immortal Character effect. However, compared with a whole Immortal Character, a Pure Yang Celestial Device was greatly different, like a pure gold bar and a fake one. In terms of the function, and appearance they might have a little resemblance, but there was a big gap between them in essence.


    Zhou Bao had several fairy weapons now, but he just understood the Immortal Character of the Furnace of Immortality. That was the Immortal Character of antiquity times: refine. He simply knew this character. It was still a long time before he could handle it skillfully. As for his Green Bamboo Stick, nobody understood its Immortal Character. Luckily, Zhou Bao gained the Innate Deity''s remains and blended it with the Green Bamboo Stick. If not, how could he be so awe-inspiring now?


    When the Immortal Character on the black mountain peak appeared before Zhou Bao, he felt a shock deep in his soul: pulse.


    This Immortal Character seemed to trigger some power in Zhou Bao''s bloodline spirit and arouse his resonation.


    "What on earth? It should activate my fist intent. What''s it?"


    With the black mountain peak suspending in front of Zhou Bao, his eyes sparkled. Red lights flickered. A thorn emerged in his eyes center. Then bright red light filled the space and covered the whole mountain peak.


    In the Sea of Divine Power, Zhou Bao launched Fiery Eyes regardless of the surroundings.


    "Who? How dare you to covet my Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain fairy weapon!"


    When the Fiery Eyes'' Region was released, a light flashed between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows. A glittering thought flew into the black mountain peak.


    After the thought went into the mountain peak, an overwhelming wave of the divine thought swept the area.


    "Humph!" Feeling the strong spirit wave through a telepathic connection, Zhou Bao gave a cold snort. That thought turned into his shadow. "What the hell are you? You''re tricking me! Come out!" Raising hands, a vortex with sharp bright suddenly appeared.


    Soul vortex!


    "Erm? You¡ª"


    Obviously, that divine thought did not expect that Zhou Bao would deal with it cruelly because he used the Divine Sense to fight against the spirit. Before it could make any response, it had been already engulfed in the vortex. The figure just flashed and then turned into a sparkling thought. Finally, it was destroyed in the vortex.


    "Trick me!" It was beyond Zhou Bao''s expectations that he could defeat the enemy. In spite of that, he did not care whether it was a surprise. The Immortal Character in the deep mountain peak emerged after the thought had been engulfed.

 598 The Sudden Evolution of the Fist Inten

    Infinite Star Sea, Soul-silencing Star.


    The age-old planet, which was wrapped by the endless poison gas, seemed to had lost its previous peace.


    The mystery poor man, who had taken Tai Yuan Sage from Zhou Bao, stood in the hollow around the Soul-silencing Star carrying Tai Yuan Sage like a dead dog.


    ''''Old Poison, I''ve something to talk with you!"


    "Old Poison! Don''t hide. I know you can hear me!"


    "Old Poison. Fu*king hide from me? If you don''t come out, I will destroy this Soul-silencing Star! I''ll see how you can continue your practice!"


    Several angry screams later, a sound came from the Soul-silencing Star with a green-black pneuma rolling up like a mat. An old Taoist in a green-black priest frock appeared before the man. He cast a strange look at Tai Yuan Sage, "Wan Tiancheng, what''re you doing?"


    "I''m not doing anything! I just come to you for demanding a debt!" Wan Tiancheng carried Tai Yuan Sage to the Taoist. "Do you still remember the boy who refined the Infinite Poison Banner in your Soul-silencing Star?"


    "Him? What''s it to you?"


    "It''s none of my business that he practiced in your Soul-silencing Star. However, he has severely hurt my subordinate by using the Infinite Poison Banner which he refined here. You should answer for it!"


    "Your subordinate?" Old Poison had a look at Tai Yuan Sage with his eyebrows frowning. "He''s the vice president of the Alliance of 13 Realms. When did he become your subordinate?"


    "He has a Prison-suppressing Stele. Even though he''s not my subordinate, he''s a chess piece. Not everyone can hurt him!"


    "What''s the matter with me?"


    "You say. His Infinite Poison Banner is so formidable. He can play it in the hollow. If he had not practiced it in your Soul-silencing Star, how could it be so powerful?"


    "Wan Tiancheng. Don''t cause trouble for me here. This Soul-silencing Star doesn''t belong to me. I''m just practicing here. The benefits he gains shouldn''t be on me! As for the grievances between you and this chess piece, it''s also not for me!"


    "Old Poison. Don''t go too far! About this thing, don''t try to avoid your responsibility!"


    "I didn''t mean to avoid my responsibility, but this boy serves Fate Creation Boy. Or else you think I would let him practice in the Soul-silencing Star at ease?" The old Taoist in the green-black frock showed a scornful look. "So, I don''t need to avoid any responsibility. If you really want someone to answer for that guy, just go to him!"


    "Fate Creation Boy? He serves the Fate Creation Boy?"


    "I don''t want to repeat the same words. Don''t put your chess piece here. It''s really humiliating!" Old Poison rolled his eyes and took a look at Tai Yuan Sage. "And, the Alliance of 13 Realms and the Milky Way Realm have already found the clue to the Heaven Realm. It will be a big trouble, so I suggest you act cautiously! Don''t expose!"


    After a thought, Wan Tiancheng said, "As you see, will I gain some profit from this thing?"


    You have so much time and energy. You''d better think how to deal with the forthcoming Devil Fetus. Many years have passed. Devil Fetus conveyed Primordial Demon''s willpower. Now the Dark Sect has already got somewhere. Don''t let your guard down!"


    "Because I should be careful, that''s why I''ve arranged so many chess pieces. However, who knows if you''re really grateful for my kindness!" Wan Tiancheng was angry. "Well, since he serves Fate Creation Boy, I won''t disturb you anymore. If I have time, I will go find him. That''s it!" After the words, he turned into a streamer without saying goodbye to the Taoist, disappearing in the hollow around the Soul-silencing Star.


    "Alas. Wan Tiancheng really has many worries. Why? Why bother?" Old Poison sighed. He flashed and went back to the remote Soul-silencing Star. Everything was in calm again as if nothing had happened just now.


    ...


    In the Sea of Divine Power, Zhou Bao killed the Highest Elder''s thought of the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. Seeing the Immortal Character and a talisman formation emerging above the mountain peak, his face changed.


    Clearly, this mountain peak had not only a complete Dharma but also an incomplete Dharma which a Pure Yang Celestial Device of Upper Grade could own.


    In addition to that Immortal Character, the magic formation was composed of three talismans. That was a kind of top talisman under the Immortal Character.


    In other words, this fairy weapon possessed two Dharmas: a complete one and an incomplete one.


    What made him feel strange was no other than the complete Immortal Character.


    Staring at it, Zhou Bao slowly squinted. He had a feeling that the Mysterious Divine Light inside his body was triggered and was flowing in his tendons and meridians. It was the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill.


    The Eight Nine Mysterious Skill was an extremely eccentric cultivation method. It was not judged by the level and the practice. The level of the skill was determined by the essence of the world that one absorbed and refined as well as the strength and the intensity that one could bear.


    All the cultivation methods before primitive times were like that. At that time, strong living creatures such as Innate Deitys, Primordial Demons, and Primordial Fierce Beasts practiced these methods. They were not like human beings who had to practice step by step, made a conclusion about their practice and divided them into phases. With this time, one would rather enjoy delicious food and drinks than spending a long time on cultivation.


    "What''s the meaning of this Immortal Character? Why is my Eight Nine Mysterious Skill running now? I¡ª"


    When he was pondering it, an eccentric and indescribable impulse came from his bloodline. He suddenly stood up with fists clenched. He began to practice martial arts. Mysterious Divine Light became weird.


    "Heavenly Jade Technique! It''s the Heavenly Jade Technique!" Following his feeling, Zhou Bao suddenly came to understand that this Immortal Character would attract the Heavenly Jade Technique when he finished the martial art practice.


    The power of the Heavenly Jade Technique was running. Gradually, Zhou Bao lost himself in it. That Immortal Character was also engraved in his mind deeply. His body began to move unconsciously. A black sun rose up behind him, and the fist intent appeared.


    Hu, hu, hu, hu, hu.


    Bang bang bang bang bang


    Gradually, his every fist released great power and shattered the surrounding hollow with a miraculous charm. The fist intent was also evolving with his fists movement.


    Various celestial bodies, such as the meteor, moon, planet, star, stellar system, giant galaxy, star cloud, magnetic storm, black hole and even the time and space, were gradually forming.


    Ordinarily, Zhou Bao could not evolve his fist intent smoothly. Even if he used the Primordial Demonic Ape''s Real Body, he would not succeed, let alone in his current state. However, the Immortal Character in the mountain peak became clearer in Zhou Bao''s spirit. It was faintly emitting the power of the complete Dharma and seemed to support Zhou Bao and endowed him with endless power, like that mysterious power permeating in the fist intent. In fact, it was running regularly. It contained the routes and rules of the Principle of Great Ways and slowly blended with Zhou Bao''s punching skill.


    Ahem!


    All of a sudden, Zhou Bao felt that his power converged, like a torrent of seawater spewing out when it flowed to a vent. At the same time, Zhou Bao''s fists were also moving with the change. All the fist intent, power, and Mysterious Divine went to one position and shot towards a point before him.


    Boom!


    The punch crashed to the Immortal Character above the black mountain peak.


    "Crack!"


    The most incredible and eerie thing happened: That Immortal Character broke up. Not only it was smashed but also the black mountain peak.


    An acute pain awakened Zhou Bao who had been fascinated by the punching skill.


    In a moment, the power and fist intent totally disappeared. After Zhou Bao recovered, he first saw the broken Immortal Character and a number of tiny talismans vanishing. And that black mountain peak was also cracking.


    "Oh my God. How could it be? Do I have such great power? I smashed this fairy weapon?"


    Seeing this situation, Zhou Bao was astonished for a moment. He could not believe what he had just seen. He thought that it was a dream.


    Soon, the two cracked mountain peaks told Zhou Bao that it was not a dream but a reality. This fairy weapon was indeed split into two parts by his fist. However, the broken Immortal Character which had just turned into countless tiny talismans began to compose and decompose over and over again. Finally, they formed two magic formations. Both consisted of the three new talismans. Exactly the same!


    Meanwhile, the magic formation which was made of the previous talisman above the mountain peak divided into two three-talisman formations as well.


    Heavy!


    In an instant, an abstruse feeling occurred to his spirit. He suddenly understood the meaning of that Immortal Character.


    That was a word: heavy!


    He also apprehended the meaning of the magic formation. If that magic formation could evolve into a complete Immortal Character. Its meaning would be: solid.


    Heavy and solid!


    They were the essential power of this black mountain peak.


    "Heavy" meant it could suppress everything!


    "Solid" meant that it was indestructible!


    Momentarily, Zhou Bao seemed to realize something. His eyes kindled with excitement!


    ...

 599 The Success in Refining the Twin Hammers

    Now, in front of Zhou Bao were the two sections of the broken peak, a sight not very pleasant to the eye. The Immortal Character on them had been destroyed by Zhou Bao, but he could never underestimate them. It was because that even if the Immortal Character was destroyed, these two sections of the peak were still similar to Upper-grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices. Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. His eyes gleamed and his breathing became even heavier.


    "I get it. The Immortal Character "heavy" has been carved in the mountain peak by its refiner and it is also the key for the peak to become a fairy weapon. However, the magic formation of the word "hard" is natural. It is owned by the original material of this peak, which means, the original material of this peak is a spiritual object at the level of an Upper-grade Pure Yang Celestial Device. Only such a spiritual object can easily be refined into a fairy weapon, just like my Furnace of Immortality. Although the Immortal Character of the peak is broken now, its magic formation of the talisman is still strong. All I need to do is refine it, and in this way, I will be able to get two handy weapons!"


    A really handy weapon!


    That was what Zhou Bao had always wanted. But as his strength increased day by day, it became much more difficult for him to obtain one. He had used the Golden-Scaled Cudgel and had also learned the 72 Style Earthly Fiends Cudgel Techniques, but there was always a lack of flexibility as he used it and those moves were too stiff. As for the sword, he had already refined the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Thus, even the sword of the Pure Yang Celestial Device Level would not increase his fighting capacity. As for the fairy weapon, whether it was the Furnace of Immortality or his Green Bamboo Stick, neither were used as weapons nor could they be taken out to show off at any time. They were fairy weapons and were used only when he ought to make the most lethal moves, especially the Furnace of Immortality. When he was not sure enough to uproot the entire Divine Wind Palace, he''d better use it less frequently. As for the Green Bamboo Stick, its power was indeed extraordinary and it had also moved up a grade. However, its biggest disadvantage was that a load of nonsense was required to be talked, which did not completely conform to Zhou Bao''s style. Most important of all, Zhou Bao had now refined and merged Zhuyan''s bloodline with his. All the Golden Dharma Power in his body had been injected into the Green Bamboo Stick. In a sense, his future way had been clear, that was, the way of pure strength. He would pursue the Extreme Realm of Force and crush the vacuum.


    This was the most favorable future way and also the most suitable for him. Therefore, the Green Bamboo Stick was destined to be only a means for him to attack the enemy rather than an object that he could rely entirely upon. In a certain sense, when his cultivation reached a certain phase and his strength was further enhanced, be it the Furnace of Immortality, the Green Bamboo Stick, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword or even the Heavenly Fairy Weapon¡ªred gourd, could not increase his fighting capacity. When he fully practiced Zhu''s Real Body and evolved the real Dharma Laksana of Zhuyan, he would be able to fight the Heavenly Fairy Weapon. It was precisely for this reason that it was even more difficult for him to find a quite handy weapon that was able to improve his combat effectiveness. It could be said that such an opportunity may come by with some luck, but not by searching for it.


    Now he could find such a weapon!


    These two sections of the mountain peak were the best choice. Of course, to be precise, they were merely the best materials.


    They possessed two kinds of the most basic Principles of Great Ways. They did not have any attack force in the hands of others, but as long as they were used appropriately, for example, in Zhou Bao''s hands, they were two lethal weapons. Of course, if he wanted to use them, he must first refine them into real handy weapons.


    With this in mind, Zhou Bao no longer wasted his time. He summoned his Second Primordial Spirit directly and took out the Furnace of Immortality as well.


    His Second Primordial Spirit was the Primitive Dragon Chimera, which was a good match for the Furnace of Immortality. Therefore, Zhou Bao had always let it refine the Furnace of Immortality in order to make it understand the Dharma of "refine" in the furnace and the extreme fire. When the right time came, he would let it undergo the Thunder Tribulation and achieve the Genuine Immortal Karma Rank. Although he was not sure whether it could go through six or seven Thunder Tribulations and become a Lord of Heaven or not at one go, he was confident that it would become at least a Venerable easily.


    At this moment, it was sitting upright on the Furnace of Immortality. Several black Fire Dragons swarmed out of Zhou Bao''s body to lift the two sections of the peak and throw them into the furnace. After that, it closed its eyes and started the refining process.


    It was Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit who was refining the mountain peaks. Although it was independent, it had evolved from his spirit after all. Therefore, it had a special connection with Zhou Bao. As a result, it knew Zhou Bao''s thoughts very well. Thus, when it refined the mountain peaks, it was able to obtain double the result with half the effort. Under the rotation of the Wheel of Time, time passed like flowing water. In the outside world, only one or two days had passed, but in the Sea of Divine Power, it had been exactly 81 years.


    In those 81 years, the incarnation of the Dragon Chimera had not moved an inch. He had been sitting atop the Furnace of Immortality to control the entire refining process.


    Did he succeed?


    Zhou Bao also came to himself from the meditation. During the 81 years, he had been meditating on the evolution of his own fist intent and digesting the fist intent inspired by the mountain peak. Meanwhile, he had been understanding and perfecting that technique that imitated the universe. When he opened his eyes, endless changes of the void were flashing in the depths of his eyes. In a very short moment, it seemed as if he had gone through the process that the whole universe had experienced from the Big Bang to the evolution of all things and the moment when everything turned into chaos at last. By then, in his eyes, the universe showed what it really looked like.


    "It will be wonderful to succeed!" He stood up, only to see that the Second Primordial Spirit of the Dragon Chimera suddenly came to a standstill. Together with the Furnace of Immortality, it turned into a stream of black light and hid in the place between his eyebrows. Where the Furnace of Immortality dwelt before, two clouds of green light were emanating a spirit that would overwhelm everyone.


    What surprised Zhou Bao the most was that he found that a shadow of an Immortal Character was looming above the two clouds of green light. Although it was illusory, it revealed a complete Principle of the Great Ways.


    "It seems that the level of these two weapons is still above that of the Upper-grade Pure Yang Celestial Device. After all, these two weapons used to have complete Immortal Characters and a Principle of Great Ways. Even if they were broken, they would be complete if they were put together!" Zhou Bao was very satisfied with this phenomenon. He lifted his hands and then two clouds of green light flew into each of them respectively. They revealed their true appearances, and it turned out to be two green hammers.


    "How heavy!"


    As soon as the hammers reached him, Zhou Bao felt that his hands sank a little bit. The two hammers looked small, merely the size of ordinary watermelons. In fact, they looked exactly like two newly ripe watermelons. The reason why they emitted such a green color was that they had absorbed too much pure pneuma during the refining process in Azure Heaven.


    Whoosh!


    A wave of Zhou Bao''s hand stirred up a gust of wind. Then, a strong suction appeared along with the flying trajectory of the hammers. With a gentle wave of these hammers, Zhou Bao smashed the Space Rampart.


    "Good, very good. With such a weight and power, I can also smash a Lord of Heaven to death with a hammer move!" As he felt the various messages conveyed by these hammers, a strong self-confidence arose from his heart. He could, indeed, kill a Lord of Heaven with just one hammer move. With the power of these hammers and his own hammering skills, coupled with the power of the Heavenly Jade Technique, even a Lord of Heaven who had solidified his Self-world would not be able to bear such a force if a few more Critical Hits were added.


    "Power, sheer power. Under sheer power, all cultivation methods and skills are merely nothing!"


    Zhou Bao''s eyes were flickering. The corners of his mouth moved and his face revealed a murderous smile.


    ...


    The Infinite Star Sea would no longer be calm.


    The Heavenly Falling Star was suddenly destroyed by powerful forces and the deputy leader of the Alliance of 13 Realms, Taiyuan Sage, disappeared, making the situation that had already become a foregone conclusion get extremely weird all of a sudden. Of course, at this moment, the news that Taiyuan Sage had returned to the Alliance of 13 Realms together with his declaration of a closed-door training had not yet spread. Everyone knew that Taiyuan Sage had fought another Lord of Heaven in the Heavenly Falling Star. Finally, he pierced the Heavenly Falling Star and disappeared with that mysterious Lord of Heaven. He had never shown up since then. All this was enough to attract people''s attention.


    All that people also focused their attention on the Pond of Illusive Ripples, where there were originally two Lords of Heaven sitting to suppress a Lord of Heaven from the Heaven Realm and take him as a bait to attract other Lords of Heaven from the Heaven Realm to court death. However, Taiyuan Sage had disappeared, leaving only Divine Lord of Red Sun alone, and thus, whether he could suppress him or not was still a question. If other Lords of Heaven from the Heaven Realm came to aid that one, how could Divine Lord of Red Sun deal with this matter? It was another great question.


    "The Infinite Star Sea is gradually being plunged into chaos, but I don''t believe there is no other arrangement in the Pond of Illusive Ripples!" Zhou Bao, at this moment, had returned to the Infinite Star Sea. Unlike what he was before, there were some changes in his dress now. Although he still looked like a weak scholar, there were two green hammers hanging behind his butt. While he was walking, the two weapons hit each other and made a series of cling-clang sound, clear and pleasing to the ear.


    "That little bastard, stop now!"


    With two small hammers hanging behind his butt and a Green Bamboo Stick in his hand, Zhou Bao looked extremely weird. He was walking along an official road of the Thunder Crab Star.


    It was one of the several planets that possessed a Transmitting Formation leading to the Pond of Illusive Ripples. It was named like that because it was rich in an exotic animal called Thunder Crab.


    This planet was under the jurisdiction of the Alliance of 13 Realms. Compared with the Heavenly Falling Star, this planet had more pneuma and was more suitable for practice. Therefore, the number of the practitioners here was not small. There were dozens of big cities, all of which were guarded by practitioners, among which there was no lack of great practitioners at the Venerable Realm.


    Since the accident happened in the Heavenly Falling Star, the whole Thunder Crab Star had strengthened its defenses. More than a dozen Venerables showed up overnight, and the scrutiny of major cities had become extremely strict, the big city with the Transmitting Hall in particular. It was heavily guarded and all kinds of protection measures were taken.


    Zhou Bao, however, was stopped before he even entered the city when he was heading toward the Transmitting Hall.

 600 Imprisoned

    The person who stopped Zhou Bao from walking looked very fierce. He was a brute with muscles all over his body; even the muscles on his face grew wild. He carried a big black axe in his hand, and it turned out to be a wizard weapon of Pure Yang Celestial Device Level. Looking at his cultivation, this person, who looked like Li Kui, was unexpectedly a real master. He was an Individual Immortal at the Mysterious Realm and was about to achieve Genuine Immortal Karma Rank by undergoing the Thunder Tribulation. All this implied that you couldn''t judge a person by appearance, just as you couldn''t measure the sea with a pint pot.


    Standing in front of the city gate, he stared at Zhou Bao intensely and asked, "Who are you? What are you doing in Yunzhong City?"


    "What?! Can''t I enter Yunzhong City casually?"


    "You could do so previously, but not now!" When he saw Zhou Bao giving him no straight answer, the brute''s face darkened. "Do you have anything to prove your identity?"


    "No, I don''t!" Zhou Bao shook his head. Although he already had a legal identity in the Infinite Star Sea, now that he had decided to act rashly, that identity was therefore not needed anymore. He even changed his appearance to the original one. It was quite normal for him to be found out since he had walked swaggering in the Thunder Crab Star. If no one were able to find him out, that would be abnormal.


    Seeing that the brute was dumbfounded by his bold and forceful answer, Zhou Bao laughed. "What? Haven''t you recognized me yet? As far as I know, my wanted poster has already been drawn and is now spreading through the Infinite Star Sea. As one of the most direct portals to the Pond of Illusive Ripples, I guess people there have no reason not to know me, right?"


    "You are Zhou Bao?!"


    Upon seeing Zhou Bao''s fearless appearance, the brute finally confirmed the speculation in his heart, and he held the two axes horizontally in front of him. In any case, everything had already been said clearly in the wanted poster. Zhou Bao seemed to be an Individual Immortal, but he had the combat capability to fight against an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. Although he didn''t believe that, he didn''t dare to be careless when he was facing Zhou Bao.


    "Right, I am Zhou Bao, the authentic one!" Wearing a smile on his face, Zhou Bao moved his body forward and pointed the Green Bamboo Stick in his hand at the brute.


    The brute immediately looked serious and held the two axes as fast as the wind in front of him to block the Green Bamboo Stick.


    BANG~~


    There was a loud bang that could shake the heaven. Under Zhou Bao''s attack, the brute''s tough body flew swiftly backward just like a kite with a broken string and collided heavily with the thick city wall. Not knowing how many forbidden skills were added to it, the city wall suddenly shone with a dazzling brilliance, but it still couldn''t stop his momentum. He slammed heavily into the wall, leaving a big human-shaped hole in it, and then finally, his momentum was stopped. He spat a mouthful of blood and slid down to the ground along the wall. Under Zhou Bao''s attack, the two thick, black axes in the brute''s hands were broken into pieces and scattered everywhere, leaving them completely destroyed.


    "Enemy attack!!!"


    It was not until the brute''s body slid down the city wall that other guards in Yunzhong City reacted to it. They let out a shrill cry and sounded the alarm at the same time.


    On the huge wall of Yunzhong City, a faint glow began to appear. Although it looked very weak, it was more bright than the brilliance gave off when the brute hit the wall just now. The pressure it transmitted was much stronger.


    "Who are you?! How dare you behave presumptuously in the Yunzhong City!"


    Several loud shouts came from the city. And before the sound came, the people had arrived.


    To Zhou Bao''s surprise, there were seven or eight of them, with all of them being at the Venerable Realm. Each one of them was a fierce-looking person. And they were staring at Zhou Bao with a somewhat nervous expression.


    "Is this the Infinite Star Sea?! How odd it is!"


    Zhou Bao was sure that these guys had recognized him at first glance, therefore, they were a little nervous. However, obviously, the practitioners in the Infinite Star Sea didn''t believe the rumor on the wanted poster. In fact, Zhou Bao himself would not believe it either if that wanted poster was put in front of him. How could a Level Nine expert have a combat capability equal to an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven? Anyhow, it just sounded like a fantasy story. The gap between these two levels was too big, even to the point where a fairy weapon could not bridge that gap.


    Think about it, actually, there was no need to consider whether a Level Nine expert could operate a fairy weapon or not. Even if he were able to do that, once he met a Lord of Heaven, his fairy weapon would only end up being captured by that Lord of Heaven. So how could he contend against a Lord of Heaven?! Furthermore, it was an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven who was only one step away from stepping into the Realm of Human Immortal!


    This was simply a joke, a load of nonsense!


    However, even if everyone thought so, the Infinite Star Sea still gave great importance to Zhou Bao.


    Of course, this kind of attention was not given to Zhou Bao personally, but to visitors from the Heaven Realm. In their view, with two Lords of Heaven guarding the Pond of Illusive Ripples and by sending some more Venerables here, it would be enough to suppress the influences of the Heaven Realm in the Infinite Star Sea. After the incident happened in the Heavenly Falling Star, they were more vigilant about the visitors from the Heaven Realm. They sent many more Venerables to guard this place, but they had not yet sent any practitioners of the Lord of Heaven Realm here.


    "Are you Zhou Bao, the one from the Heaven Realm?!"


    The leader asked with a darkened face as he looked at the trail of destruction left on the thick city wall of Yunzhong City and the faint but strange Qi Power that the cyan-robed scholar before him emanated.


    "Yes, I am Zhou Bao from the Heaven Realm!" The corners of Zhou Bao''s mouth slightly curved up, turning into a sneering smile. "I''m going to head toward the Infinite Star Sea; you all get out of my way!"


    "Brat, how arrogant you are!"


    None of these practitioners at the Venerable Realm had expected Zhou Bao to be so arrogant. In the time it took to utter just a sentence, Zhou Bao successfully incited everyone''s killing intent.


    "Haha, arrogant or not, you''ll know it after you have witnessed my strength!" Zhou Bao sneered. As he saw a practitioner at the Venerable Realm rushing toward him, he just gave a smile and didn''t move the Green Bamboo Stick in his hand at all. Instead, a giant black hand appeared out of thin air and greeted that Venerable.


    The Venerables in front of Zhou Bao had also practiced the Innate Qi Catching Skill. However, they had not taken it as an active attack method all this time. On the contrary, they refined it merely to enable their actions to be conducted more conveniently. From their perspective, the Innate Qi Catching Skill was indeed convenient, but if they really wanted to cultivate its real power, they were required to immerse themselves in it for a long time. It would take them too much time and energy and couldn''t do too much good for their cultivation. Hence, they hadn''t paid too much attention to it. It was exactly because of this that the Venerable who was rushing toward Zhou Bao just smiled but didn''t take that giant black hand seriously when he saw it appear.


    It looked as if that Venerable was rushing straight toward Zhou Bao, but in fact, he had executed a great spatial Divine Sense to jump between countless space-times and block the ways Zhou Bao may go to at the same time. No matter how Zhou Bao dodged, he would definitely hit him when he finally stopped.


    But unfortunately, he made a huge mistake and misjudged Zhou Bao''s Giant Void Hand.


    Whoosh!


    The giant black hand instantly penetrated countless space-times. Zhou Bao grasped the Venerable rushing toward him before he appeared in front of him.


    The Venerable''s face suddenly changed when he saw the giant hand unexpectedly breaking through numerous space-times and find him. He realized that Zhou Bao''s Giant Void Hand was not an ordinary thing. All of a sudden, gleams of brilliance shone all over his body and a small golden bell appeared above his head. Meanwhile, a bell-shaped shadow protected his whole body. When the giant black hand grasped him, his whole body had already been covered with golden light. Sizzle, sizzle...


    Sizzle, sizzle~~


    The giant black hand grabbed the little golden bell; and suddenly, a sound similar to boiling oil hitting the ground rang out. The little golden bell was also a Pure Yang Celestial Device, but under Zhou Bao''s giant black hand, its golden light suddenly dimmed. Within a few seconds, the golden light was exhausted by the black hand.


    "That''s impossible! What was that? How could it possess such a great power?"


    "Yeah, that Infinite Changes Bell is a replica of a Taihao Fairy Weapon called Infinite Changes Bell of Heaven and Earth. It is an Upper-grade Pure Yang weapon with infinite power. How could it have been defeated so quickly?!"


    "What kind of pneuma was exactly used to refine that Giant Void Hand?! How can it be so powerful?!"


    ¡­


    Upon seeing such an unexpected scene, all the Venerables present screamed out in surprise one by one and they finally realized that perhaps the rumor was not false. They came up with the idea of lending a helping hand to that Venerable. However, things went completely beyond their expectations. When they were ready to help him, it was already too late.


    That was because the Infinite Changes Bell had already become a pile of metal scraps under the pressure of the giant black hand. Strips of black spirits hung down and tied up that Venerable''s hands and feet. His protective celestial device and Gang Qi simply could not resist this mighty poison. In a burst of shrill shrieks, the Venerable who took the lead to attack Zhou Bao turned into a pool of pus and disappeared from the world together with his soul.


    The other people who had planned to take action all stopped in their tracks at this strange and amazing scene and looked at Zhou Bao with eyes full of very deep fear.


    Perhaps that rumor was still somewhat exaggerated, but this guy did have the power to kill Venerables. Maybe this was not his power, but the power of the Giant Void Hand. Nevertheless, the situation was very clear to everyone. With no fairy weapons, the power of that Giant Void Hand was enough to frighten everyone and keep them from taking rash actions.


    "Brat, do you think you can simply fight all of us with your Innate Qi Catching Skill? Look, there are exactly eight Venerables, and what about you? You are merely a Metaphysic Individual Immortal!"


    In the awkward silence, a Venerable finally spoke.


    "Well, you''re right. It''s indeed a little difficult to fight you eight people with only the Innate Qi Catching Skill. If that''s the case, then I''ll do it another way!" While Zhou Bao was speaking, the black Giant Void Hand suddenly disappeared without a trace.


    Right when the crowd was shocked and bewildered, they saw Zhou Bao holding up the Green Bamboo Stick.


    "God creates everything, and God controls the world. Anyone who offends the dignity of God shall be imprisoned!"


    Gleams of white and golden light shed down from the Ninth Heaven along with his voice.


    "Not good!"


    "Hurry, leave!"


    "It''s a fairy weapon!"


    The eight Venerables felt that something was not quite right and immediately started to leave, but it was already late.


    A white-golden cage completely encircled and imprisoned their bodies. No matter what kind of spatial Divine Senses they displayed, they were simply unable to escape from that cage.


    "You guys just stay right here. I''m going to take a look inside the Transmitting Hall!" Zhou Bao smiled and walked directly into Yunzhong City without even glancing at them.

 601 Breaking the Illusive Ripple with Three Hammer Moves

    Boom!


    The loud bang spread to the sky from Yunzhong City just like a loud crash of a thunderbolt in an extremely clear sky.


    The whole ground in Yunzhong City shook three times. All the practitioners whose cultivations were below the Genuine Immortal Realm, even the Individual Immortals, were bleeding heavily from their mouths and noses due to the soundwave and shockwave. Even Genuine Immortals who hadn''t reached the Venerable Realm suffered the surge of their qi and blood and were unable to stand steadily.


    "What happened?!"


    "What is going on?"


    "Everyone, look! The Transmitting Hall collapsed!"


    "Impossible, the Transmitting Hall actually collapsed!"


    ¡­


    Just when the loud bang sounded out, all the practitioners with good eyesight had seen clearly that the Transmitting Hall in the center of Yunzhong City collapsed and turned into ruins. But then, there was a strange light flashing over the ruins, rising up into the sky.


    "It is the Transmitting Formation leading to the Pond of Illusive Ripples!"


    "Transmitting to the Pond of Illusive Ripples? Hasn''t this Transmitting Formation been blocked?"


    "Yes, there are more than a dozen Venerables guarding it! Why did it open again?!"


    ¡­


    Crazy discussions spread from inside the Yunzhong City to the outside until the light of the Transmitting Formation disappeared. Only then did a courageous practitioner enter the Transmitting Hall. But the situation inside it made him shudder.


    The Transmitting Hall had already been turned into a field of debris. A bunch of Venerables who were originally responsible for guarding the hall now looked pale and sat on the ground; the brilliance on their bodies no longer existed. It looked as if their qi and blood had been exhausted from their appearances. They were all severely injured and fear could easily be seen through their eyes and expressions as if they had seen the most terrible thing in their life.


    Perhaps this was indeed the most horrible and dreadful thing they had ever seen. When Zhou Bao constrained several Venerables in front of the city gate of Yunzhong City, they found out that something was wrong. They wanted to come out to check, but before they could get out of the Transmitting Formation, a huge, green hammer shadow appeared in its horrifying form. With a boom, it hit the top of the Transmitting Hall.


    This was the origin of that loud noise. Even these Venerables didn''t dare to recall the might of that hammer again. In their long life, they had seen many powerful celestial devices and even fairy weapons. But even the most powerful celestial devices and fairy weapons that they had seen had not brought them the huge shock that the shadow of that hammer had brought to them.


    It was a kind of power that ignored everything, went forward with indomitable will, and could destroy heaven and earth.


    Under the hammer, all the defenses of the Transmitting Hall had been torn apart like a piece of paper, leaving no room for it to resist the attack. Even though the hammer was not aimed at them, these Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm still looked dejected and depressed, and they were badly injured just due to the wind brought by the hammer. They could do nothing but watch the man in cyan with two green hammers hanging behind his butt leisurely launch the Transmitting Formation and send himself straight to the Pond of Illusive Ripples. The worst thing was that after his transmission, the light of the Transmitting Formation immediately dimmed, and he, obviously, had destroyed the formation.


    Lord of Heaven, this was definitely the strength of the Lord of Heaven Realm. The information on that image did not lie to them. This person was Zhou Bao, who had been mentioned in that image. He indeed had the combat capability to fight against an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. This was the truth rather than bragging.


    But unfortunately, it was too late and also useless for them to know this now.


    Zhou Bao had entered the Pond of Illusive Ripple at that moment.


    The Pond of Illusive Ripples was a name for a place. It was a strange place in the Infinite Star Sea. A long time ago, it was a deathtrap. Even the Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm were unable to come out if they entered it. In the beginning, the rulers of the two Star Areas thought that there must be some treasures hiding in the Pond of Illusive Ripples and that that place was quite valuable. Therefore, they launched their continuous explorations. And finally, 50,000 years ago, the matter was cleared up.


    It didn''t contain some kind of treasure at all. It turned out to be a graveyard of a specific species of Primordial Fierce Beasts: the Giant Clam.


    Primordial Fierce Beast, Giant Clam.


    It was very famous even among countless Fierce Beasts in primitive times. Although it was not one of the most powerful Six Royals like Zhuyan and Nine-headed Fierce Beast, it was also known as the king of Illusionary Techniques and was born to be skilled in those techniques.


    Originally, the Pond of Illusive Ripples was merely a slightly larger meteorite, but in primitive times, not knowing when exactly, it became the place where all the Giant Clams in the nearby Star Areas died. Not knowing how many years had passed, it became the Pond of Illusive Ripples then. But because Giant Clams were the kings of Illusionary Techniques, even though all these Fierce Beasts had died and kept piled up over the years, their corpses still had a strong hallucinogenic effect. Powerful Illusionary Techniques enveloped the whole meteorite. Looking at it from a distance, it seemed like a pool of water in the hollow. It was very eye-catching and also made people feel extremely curious.


    This kind of curiosity killed countless lives. After tens of thousands of years, the practitioners from the two Star Areas finally solved the mystery and found a solution to it. At last, they built this place into a very special prison especially used for suppressing the powerful practitioners from other areas. These practitioners were totally unfamiliar with this place, and undoubtedly, they knew nothing about the mystery of the Pond of Illusive Ripples. Once they fell into the pond, even if they were practitioners at the Lord of Heaven Realm, ninety percent of them may not be able to get out. If there were more people, the two Star Areas would send another Lord of Heaven to suppress them. Before long, the Lords of Heaven who had fallen into the deathtrap would either die in the Pond of Illusive Ripples or tell all their secrets under the influence of Illusionary Techniques - no exception.


    This time around, it was also a very natural thing for them to lead the expert practitioners from the Heaven Realm to the Pond of Illusive Ripples.


    The Transmitting Formation of the Pond of Illusive Ripples was very weird. Zhou Bao just came out of the formation and then a piece of beautiful - unreal beautiful - prairie came into his sight. Luckily, Zhou Bao had already found out the truth of the Pond of Illusive Ripples before he came here. Otherwise, he would perhaps fall into the trap.


    "Damn." Looking at the endless beautiful prairie in front of him, Zhou Bao swore in a low voice. A green light flashed through his hand, and then, a hammer shadow swept over the sky.


    BOOM!!!


    Heaven, earth, space, and pneuma.


    All of these were dispersed at the moment when he flung his hammer into the air. The boundless illusory dreamland disappeared immediately, and the true colors of the Pond of Illusive Ripples were revealed: It was a white and foggy continent.


    "As expected, when one''s power is strong enough, everything in front of one is nothing but floating clouds!" Since the illusory dreamland had been destroyed with a single move from the hammer, Zhou Bao felt very comfortable. He stretched his right hand backward and took another hammer.


    "Hihi, to besiege the enemy post in order to attack reinforcements coming to its aid, this is indeed a good idea. But unfortunately, you encountered me today!" Zhou Bao conducted no other action but just swang two green hammers ruthlessly at the ground with great force.


    "It''s merely a damn meteorite. I will smash you directly and we will see how you continue to execute Illusionary Techniques!"


    BOOM! RUMBLE!!!


    Heaven collapsed and earth cracked apart!


    God knew how much strength he had exerted when he had swung these two hammers at the ground. Anyway, the ground suddenly broke apart, not knowing how deep the crack was. However, the crack was rapidly extending forward. The surrounding white fog had long been completely dispersed, and the pneuma had dried up.


    The whole meteorite shook as if a magnitude 10 earthquake had occurred.


    "Who?"


    "What big guts!"


    "What do you want to do?!"


    ...


    Such a big noise must have stirred up the whole Pond of Illusive Ripples. Currently, the pond was only guarded by the Divine Lord of Red Sun, a Lord of Heaven. Nonetheless, there was also a large crowd of practitioners around him. And all of them were startled by the sudden shock.


    A blazing divine thought swept over the Pond of Illusive Ripples. Not knowing what method that person had used, the powerful illusion in the pond exerted no influence on his divine thought. Zhou Bao had tried once too, but his divine thought could not go beyond 100 feet. The interference that the illusion caused on his divine thought was too heavy. It was exactly because of this that he was too lazy to conduct a detailed investigation and chose to destroy the illusion directly.


    "Hmph, is it the Divine Lord of Red Sun?" Sensing this blazing divine thought, Zhou Bao smiled. The moment he heard his name, he could tell that the Divine Lord of Red Sun must be skilled at using fire. Zhou Bao himself was good at using fire too. If it weren''t for today''s bad timing, Zhou Bao would like to fight with him to his heart''s content. Unfortunately, it was not a good opportunity now. Although he had two terrifying hammers in his possession, he still knew that there was always someone stronger. At this critical moment, he didn''t want to set off unnecessary problems.


    After he made up his mind, Zhou Bao swang the two hammers fiercely and pounded them at the blazing divine thought when it was about to focus on him.


    Boom~~ssh~~!


    The hollow collapsed.


    Invisible ripples spread out and slammed into the divine thought of the Divine Lord of Red Sun.


    Puff!!


    Thousands of miles away, with his eyes shot wide open, the Divine Lord of Red Sun looked quite surprised and fiercely spat out a mouthful of blood. This gush of blood was so sudden that no one could react to it in time, and the blood sprayed all over the face of a Venerable in front of him. Meanwhile, his face turned bluish white and his spirit seemed to be badly damaged.


    "Divine Lord, are you alright?"


    "Damn it! Go, hurry up! This guy is not someone we can fight with!" The Divine Lord of Red Sun managed to stand up and say these words with effort. His red face had completely turned bluish white. His fiery red beard, which was like steel needles, also drooped and no longer had the usual imposing manner.


    BOOM!!!


    Before the practitioners next to him could react and find out what had happened to this Lord of Heaven, there was another loud noise far away. This time around, the earth at their feet finally began to crack. The illusion, which filled the whole Pond of Illusive Ripples at first, began to collapse completely. The practitioners who were trapped in the illusion finally let out a cry that shook the whole place.


    "I don''t know which friend saved me. Huan Ri from the Bigwheel Temple, have my thanks!"


    "Hong Taihe from the Divine Wind Palace, have my thanks!"


    The two voices were heard from far, far away, and the two powerful Qi Powers rose from the hollow too.


    "F*ck, it turns out to be Hong Taihe that bastard. I wouldn''t have come so early if I knew that!" Hearing Huan Ri''s voice, Zhou Bao didn''t have any special feeling. However, when he heard Hong Taihe''s voice, he felt that he really had bad luck. He just wanted to do something good, but unexpectedly, he saved his enemy.


    In a bad mood, he didn''t answer either of them but directly swang his hammers for the third time. This time, he infused the Heavenly Jade Technique in his hammers!!


    Rat-a-tat!!!!


    After a violent tremor, the Pond of Illusive Ripples was no longer able to withstand the destruction of Zhou Bao''s big hammers and finally collapsed completely.


    ..

 602 Successful Rescue

    In the Pond of Illusive Ripples that had been torn apart, there were some mingled white powders and shadows of Primordial Fierce Beasts. Like a predator who spotted its prey, Giant Void Hands were grabbing all the broken pieces - the left rushed about, the right dashed around, resolute to grasp those white powders and fully refine them. These hands were exactly the Giant Void Hands of Zhou Bao.


    After having shattered the entire Pond of Illusive Ripples by three hammer strikes, Zhou Bao''s eyes had instantly turned to the white powders, the remains of those Giant Clam Primordial Fierce Beasts left many years ago. This was also the underlying reason why this meteorite could evolve into the Pond of Illusive Ripples in the first place.


    People in the two Star Areas did eye those remains at one time or another, but those remains were left too long ago. If you only collected a bit of them, it would be of little power. If you collected an awful lot, the power of the Pond of Illusive Ripples would be offset. Furthermore, those remains were the common property belonging to both Star Areas. Therefore, all of it was still stored in the Pond of Illusive Ripples, allowing Zhou Bao to acquire another gain.


    Standing beside Zhou Bao were Monk Huan Ri from the Bigwheel Temple and Hong Taihe.


    They did not make many movements but just silently gawked at the Giant Void Hands of Zhou Bao dashing about among the remains of that Pond of Illusive Ripples and gathering all of the remains into them for refining while the shocking scene that happened just now was still replaying in their minds.


    The moment the whole meteorite exploded was the most impressive picture to them. The Divine Lord of Red Sun and his subordinates fleed in a rush, having no chance for revenge at all. Later, when all the clouds and mists had dispersed, the only scene they could see was Zhou Bao clutching an eccentric Green Bamboo Stick in his hand while ordering his Innate Qi Catching Hand to collect the remains of the Giant Clams. There was no trace of any other person there.


    Obviously, these two were saved by Zhou Bao. But how did he do that? They may never know.


    These two both fixed their eyes on the two green hammers that were hanging on Zhou Bao''s hips, each hammer having the size of a watermelon. And a trace of doubt could be found in their gazes.


    For sure, they were rescued by Zhou Bao, because in this Star Area there were just Zhou Bao and these two left. Zhou Bao was on the same side as them. But there was just one thing they were uncertain of: did Zhou Bao truly have such a powerful strength to accomplish such a thing?


    Huan Ri was a Seven-tribulation Lord of Heaven while Hong Taihe was an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. Of course, Huan Ri had already solidified his Self-world. As for Hong Taihe who had lost his Self-world, we shall just address him as a Venerable. Now, those two did a little self-examine and came to one conclusion: even if Hong Taihe had not solidified his Self-world and still maintained a standard strength at the level of an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven, provided that there was no further pressure, it would still be extremely difficult for him to break out of such an eccentric place like this Pond of Illusive Ripples, let alone making such a scene like Zhou Bao did.


    Hong Taihe had fought against Zhou Bao once. Although he lost that fight, he was confident that he had seen Zhou Bao''s limit. Thus, now, he was at a total loss. "Was I really saved by Zhou Bao? Does Zhou Bao truly have such a capability? When he confronted me last time, he never revealed such strength. Otherwise, I would be smashed into meat paste long before. Could all this be attributed to the two newly-added hammers behind his butt?"


    The two watermelon-sized hammers hanging behind Zhou Bao''s butt were quite conspicuous. When he moved, these hammers would plink and plunk like a symphony corresponding to his movements, so it would be difficult to make them less eye-appealing. The two hammers did look like something fancier than ordinary weapons, but could they really be that powerful?


    In contrast to Hong Taihe''s confusion, Monk Huan Ri took a more clear-cut action. He said, "It turns out that King Wuyang personally gave us a helping hand. I, Huan Ri, owe you one for your kindness!"


    "It''s nothing worth mentioning, Hierarch Huan R. You praise me too much!" Zhou Bao gave a smile and cupped his hands at Hierarch Huan Ri. "It''s just like lifting a finger. Anyway, this time the reason I came here is exactly for you two!"


    "Oh? For us? How come?!"


    Right then, Zhou Bao had finished gathering all the remains of the Giant Clam Primordial Fierce Beasts. And he withdrew the Giant Void Hands and accounted the cause and effect of the whole matter with a smile.


    When they had heard that Yukun Buddha and Great Dark Lord Du were scared out of their wits and destroyed the Transmitting Formation connecting the Four Eastern Regions with the Infinite Star Sea, the two had been so furious that their faces went greenish. Hierarch Huan Ri was even more indignant because, if we had a closer look to find out, Yukun Buddha was his nephew. Now that Yukun Buddha had committed such an embarrassing misconduct, Hierarch Huan Ri felt quite embarrassed.


    "Such an accident is really out of everyone''s expectations!" Hong Taihe, who was standing nearby, also gave a sigh. He looked up at Zhou Bao and continued saying, "King Wuyang, it seems that this time we have no choice but to be in your debt!"


    "Don''t say that. As I have said a moment ago, the reason I did this is that the five biggest sects have offered me a fairy weapon as my compensation. It is just a deal. If you have to express your gratitude, just say those words to your respective sects!" Speaking of this, he gave Hong Taihe a significant look. "Senior Grand Tutor Hong, your Self-world has been solidified. But then, you didn''t conduct a closed-door training at the Divine Wind Palace but went here to fight and kill. Why is that?"


    When Hong Taihe heard that, he displayed a trace of a wry smile. "I''m a member of the Divine Wind Palace. Accordingly, I know it would still be impossible to recover my Self-world even if I stayed in the Divine Wind Palace. That''s why I came to this Infinite Star Sea, hoping that I may run into some upper immortal and get a chance to fix my problem. However, I am far from meeting an upper immortal, almost fell into a serious trap, and now, owe you a big favor!" Saying this, he raised his head to look at Zhou Bao. "King Wuyang, last time, we were just fighting for our own masters. Although you ruined my Self-world, I have no complaints about that. This time, you even saved my life. Thus, the animosity between you and our Hong Family shall be written off once and for all. From now on, regardless of what the Divine Wind Palace will do, our Hong Family will definitely not be your enemy. Additionally, whenever you need help, our Hong Family will exert all our effort to help you. What do you say?"


    Zhou Bao felt a bit taken aback by this reply. The commitment Hong Taihe just made was a big one, and the change of his attitude was really surprising too. But giving this a second thought, Zhou Bao figured it out. Despite that the Hong Family claimed to be the second biggest family in the Divine Wind Palace, its strength was far below that of the Yu family. There were three Lords of Heavens in the Yu family, namely Yu Taicang, Yu Taixu, and Yu Taixuan. Meanwhile, the Hong Family only had one person with a Lord of Heaven cultivation, and that was Hong Taihe himself. Now that his Lord of Heaven cultivation had been downgraded by Zhou Bao''s strike, keeping the Hong Family''s position as the second biggest family would be a problem itself, let alone competing with the Yu family. The conflict between the Hong Family and the Yu family had been growing bit by bit over many years; it had been irreconcilable. But the conflict between Zhou Bao and Hong Taihe was not very deep. Now, Zhou Bao obviously had made a great accomplishment. And his strength was extraordinarily strong, so it would be unwise to go against him. Hence, Hong Taihe had decided to compromise in the first place.


    ''A great man shall be able to take temporary setbacks.'' After being a Senior Grand Tutor for so many years, Hong Taihe naturally knew about this little principle.


    Hearing that Hong Taihe caved in, a surprised look appeared on Hierarch Huan Ri''s face but soon faded away. Then he said, "King Wuyang, now that this matter has gone so far, we''d better find others. Our whereabouts have already been exposed, and our backgrounds also have been detected by those in the two Star Areas. Let''s hurry up and go back to the Heaven Realm. If we wait any longer, some unforeseeable event may happen to us!"


    "Right. After all, the Infinite Star Sea is someone else''s territory. We are vulnerable and outnumbered here; we can''t accomplish much. If we stay here for too long, we will get caught up instead. Now the most pressing task is passing this news to others: Try everything possible to rescue the disciples of our sects, go back to the Seven-deity Regions, and close up the Transmitting Formation. And in no case shall we allow practitioners from the two Infinite Star Seas to acquire the location of the Heaven Realm. Otherwise, the Heaven Realm will certainly face an immense catastrophe!"


    "That''s hard to say. Even if the sky falls down, there are those tall guys who can prop it up. Don''t forget that the Seven-deity Regions is only a small part of the Heaven Realm. The major part belongs to the Sea Emperor. Maybe when the time comes, the Sea Area will come out and handle this!" Zhou Bao smiled, expressing his disagreement with Hierarch Huan Ri''s view. "But Hierarch does have a point. No matter what, we are not those ''tall guys,'' so it''s better to pull back our people as soon as possible. It''s just that this Infinite Star Sea is too huge; I really have no clue about how to contact others. So, how should I look for them?"


    "No need to worry about this. We have a way of contacting each other. And they must have heard that we were trapped in this Pond of Illusive Ripples. They might be waiting in the vicinity to meet us right now. You''ve made such a scene this time, and it certainly has attracted their attention. I believe we are able to go back in no time!"


    "I wonder how the others are doing in the search for their disciples!" Hong Taihe said with a sigh.


    "At this point, no matter whether they have found their disciples or not, they have to go back!" Hierarch Huan Ri heaved a sigh. "Moreover, for the sake of our safety, when we return to our region, we have to send those sects'' disciples who are stuck in the Infinite Star Sea to their reincarnation!"


    When those words were said out loud, Zhou Bao''s eyes immediately focused. He got what Hierarch Huan Ri was saying. Those sects'' disciples who were stuck in the Infinite Star Sea were all elite disciples from their respective sects. They knew a lot of secrets of their sects, particularly those Individual Immortal disciples whose cultivation had reached the Mysterious Realm. Once those disciples fell into the hands of the two Star Areas, it was inevitable that other influences would exercise some means to dig out those secrets from them. If so, secrets of various sects would not remain secrets anymore. Thus, it was better to annihilate their life by directly using the power of the Golden Book of Fate and send those Individual Immortals whose Genuine Spirits still clang to the Golden Book of Fate to step on their journey of reincarnation. That would be a neat move. As for those expert disciples who had not reached the Individual Immortal Realm, since the number of secrets they knew about were much less than of those of Individual Immortals, they could not reveal much confidential information even if they were caught by others.


    Those words of Hierarch Huan Ri were indeed relentless, but his views were seconded by Hong Taihe. "Well, now that there are no alternatives, that''s the only thing we can do!" Hong Taihe said and heaved a long sigh. "Let''s go. I''ve sensed that someone is approaching us. Let''s meet them!"


    Zhou Bao and Hierarch Huan Ri both nodded. As their figures started to flash, the three of them vanished from the hollow.


    ...

 603 Five Ranks of Immortals

    "Those guys are truly ruthless!" Five days later, on an extremely secluded and bleak planet in the Infinite Star Sea, Zhou Bao was watching a bunch of thinly scattered and crestfallen-faced people nearby while wearing a wry smile. The number of elite disciples, experts, and Individual Immortals who entered the Infinite Star Sea for the first time had been reduced to less than a half. But to top it all off, even one of the Lords of Heavens and Venerables who entered the Infinite Star Sea for the second time was lost, and two were badly injured. This time, the Heaven Realm''s trip to the Infinite Star Sea could be said to be a total failure and disgrace.


    "All right, all those who we rescued are here. Now we may turn on the Transmitting Formation!" Glancing at those people, Yu Taixuan did not look very pleased. But since this matter had gone so far, the five biggest sects would have no choice but to take responsibility for it. He marched in front of the huge Transmitting Formation accompanied by Hong Taihe and Hierarch Huan Ri, and all of them put their own Spiritual Stones into the magic formation. As jets of shining rays rose up, the Transmitting Formation was finally activated.


    Everyone looked at each other in silence and quietly walked into the Transmitting Formation. Jets of light flashed, and eventually, they all disappeared from this obsolete planet.


    Shortly after the last person was transmitted back to the Three Western Regions, the Transmitting Formation started to emit a faint and flickering halo, and then it imploded, disappearing into nowhere. At that point, the two Transmitting Formations connecting the Seven-deity Regions with the Infinite Star Sea had both vanished.


    Just a few seconds after the Transmitting Formation imploded, a figure suddenly appeared on this planet.


    "Humph, so thoughtful to simply destroy the Transmitting Formation on the other end! However, you guys still did not strike hard enough to destroy this planet with it. If you did so, maybe I really couldn''t have discovered the track of the Heaven Realm. But now, hehe, you have no way to cover up your whereabouts!" A clear and melodious voice sounded from the Transmitting Formation''s ruins, and the figure had turned from a fuzzy shadow into an incredibly beautiful girl around 18 years old. This girl looked stunningly gorgeous. She was wearing a light yellow colored, flimsy garment, and chains with golden bells spanned between her left hand''s wrist and her five fingers. The bells jingled in the gentle wind, sending forth fits of pleasant sounds.


    "I didn''t want to go through all these troubles at first. But there is no other way. The thing I want only exists in the Heaven Realm. Thus, I have to tug you out from the depths of the hollow!" That girl murmured to herself. She gently waved her hand with the golden bells and melodious jingles turned into waves of luxurious rays, which softly swept across the Transmitting Formation. Soon enough, a three-dimensional Void Map appeared in front of that girl. It was an extremely complex Void Map which was constantly changing, galaxy after galaxy, star cloud after star cloud. And finally, after a long period of time, the map went to a halt, showing the outside of a blue macro world.


    The land of this blue macro world was peerlessly vast. Surrounding it were the year-round space storms, the universe magnetic storms, and the hollow thunderbolts. Those violent spirits almost blocked up all the direct communicating channels between this macro world and the outside. Additionally, outside this blue macro world, you could have a vague view of the infinite space changes. In every moment, time and space were undergoing various changes and producing diverse twists. That girl seemed to have foreseen that once she stepped into the surrounding space of that blue macro world, she would get lost in the endless space-time maze. This space-time maze was much more formidable than that in the Pond of Illusive Ripples. If you were caught up in it, you might never get out, or worse, you could even be engulfed or killed by those monsters derived from the space-time in no time, and your body and spirit would both vanish.


    "Heaven Realm, it surely is the Heaven Realm, the legendary Heaven Realm! Wow, what on earth is this place?! In which Star Area is it located?!" All of a sudden, the girl swayed her body before the Void Map and it actually started to vaporize like steaming water.


    "Interesting. To dare to play such a trick in front of me!" A chilling light flitted through the eyes of the girl and the golden bells in her hand abruptly started ringing.


    Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle...


    Sweet jingles rang out. Fits of bell ringings transformed into physical waves and the Void Map in front of her became clear once more.


    At the same time on the Taihua Mountain in the depths of the hollow, the Fate Creation Boy, who had been sitting with his legs crossed, opened his eyes, and a trace of terror flickered through his gaze.


    Then, his originally glowing face, which was as healthy as a baby, suddenly went greyish and streams of blood trickled down from the corners of his eyes, ears, mouth, and nostrils.


    All of a sudden, he fiercely bit on the tip of his tongue, which triggered his strong potential. With a quick wave of his hands, a faint, shapeless, thin veil enveloped the entire Heaven Realm. Meanwhile, on the nameless planet in the Infinite Star Sea, a thin veil film unexpectedly showed up in the Void Map before the girl. This time, before the girl could react, the Void Map turned fuzzy.


    "Damn it!" Seeing the Void Map vanish in front of her eyes, the girl''s face instantly went sullen. A trace of a chilling spirit shrouded her body.


    "In fact, you don''t have to be so angry. If it really were that easy to find the Heaven Realm, then it wouldn''t be called Heaven Realm!" A carefree sigh sounded out beside her.


    "Why did you old bastard come out of the mountain?" That girl asked without even turning her head around. Her eyes were still transfixed on the ruins of the Transmitting Formation before her.


    "The reason I, the old bastard as you said, came out of the mountain is, of course, for the sake of the Heaven Realm!" Space shivered slightly and a cattle was the first to come into view. The cattle slowly walked out of the hollow and on its back sat a hunchbacked, skinny, old man. He was gently stroking the few yellow beard hairs on his chin, and his eyes slightly closed as if no life was in him at all. If it were not for the voice coming out of him, at first glance, he looked just like a corpse.


    "The Heaven Realm, hihi, how hard to come by!" The girl sneered. She seemed uncomfortable to be in the same place as him. Without further words, she simply disappeared into the hollow.


    "Then take your time to find it. Let me know if you succeed!" The voice spread afar.


    "Hehe, how could it be that easy? Even if you find the Transmitting Formation, you will still have a hard time in locating its specific location!" The skinny, old man heaved a sigh while his eyes were rigidly stuck to the ruins to thoroughly memorize the location of them. "However, I can''t use the direct way to ascertain the location of the Heaven Realm. But I can take the most stupid method to slowly deduce the location based on the rule of space!" The old man sighed. He raised a hand and disrupted the distribution of the ruins. Then, he spanked the butt of the cattle and disappeared from the planet.


    Later, several batches of mysterious people appeared on this planet in succession but soon after disappeared. The thing interesting them the most was, naturally, the ruins. But after finding out that someone had messed with the ruins, every one of them reluctantly departed while calling names.


    ...


    "You''re badly injured! Are you really OK?!" Right now on the Taihua Mountain, Venerable Black Turtle was staring at the Fate Creation Boy with a worried look. Ever since he knew the Fate Creation Boy, he had never seen him being so severely injured.


    "It''s fine. It''s just that my spirit got injured by that odd fairy weapon. Who knew there was such a strong fairy weapon in the world! Even in antiquity times, only the Jade Emperor could have one of that kind!"


    "Who is the guy that hurt you? Did you figure it out?!"


    "No. All I know is that his power is unfathomable. If he makes up his mind, he can easily bombard me to death even though we are separated by numerous space-times."


    "Is he that powerful?! Could he be a Human Immortal?!"


    "A Human Immortal can''t do that as well. Even if he were a Human Immortal who has completed the Gathering of Essence - Qi and Spirit in Acupoint, he couldn''t have possessed such power!"


    "It can''t be! We''re living in the new era! How could an Immortal still exist in this era?" Hearing the words of the Fate Creation Boy, the expression of Venerable Black Turtle suddenly became weird and his tone was filled with disbelief. "If he really is an Immortal, then we won''t bother to try and fight back because he could use just one finger and poke us to death!"


    "That''s quite reasonable, but we can''t say that for sure!" The Fate Creation Boy said, shaking his head. "Although there was one universal tribulation, it''s certain that some Immortals are still living in the world and the hollow, including even more higher-leveled Earthly Immortals or Celestial Immortals. However, their form of existence and time of appearance must be subject to the restriction of the entire Law of Heaven and Earth. Think about it. There are Human Immortals living in the Infinite Star Sea and those two Star Areas, aren''t there? But Human Immortals can''t leave their macro world at will. Otherwise, they would be punished by the Void Thunder Penalty. Even Human Immortals are bound by such a restriction, let alone Immortals at higher ranks or even Earthly Immortals or Celestial Immortals. The five ranks of Immortals are namely the Celestial Immortal rank, the Earthly Immortal rank, the Divine Immortal rank, the Human Immortal rank, and the Ghost Immortal rank. Only when one reaches the Divine Immortal rank can one surpass everything. Nevertheless, the so-called surpassing is merely another form of being subject to different rules. Thus, how could we say they enjoy the true freedom? I''m afraid they''re less free and comfortable than us Ghost Immortals, for at least we can fly freely in the hollow. But the only issue is that our speed is too slow. Maybe only if one fully comprehends the real Supreme Great Way and deposits oneself into the hollow can one obtain true freedom. But unfortunately, I can never reach that state. You still have a slim chance, but, hihi..."


    "But my chance is even slimmer than an ant becoming a human being by practice, right?" Venerable Black Turtle did not feel annoyed despise of the Fate Creation Boy. On the contrary, he gave a self-mocking smile and said, "I know how much I''m worth. There is little hope for me to break through into the Human Immortal phase. Being promoted to a Lord of Heaven is already my great luck!" The Mysterious Turtle Sage chuckled. "But actually, it is the kid named Zhou Bao that I can''t see through in these days. What about you?


    "He does have some issues, but no big ones. Maybe he is a pawn devised by a certain might from primitive times, or maybe he is simply born to be a guy who stirs up trouble. People like us can''t even have a clear look at the chessboard set up by those mights from primitive times. So, how can we recklessly give comments or speculations?"


    ...

 604 The Master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain

    "Zhou Bao, give me back my son!"


    As the Transmitting Formation flashed, a Venerable at the peak level appeared along with several Lords of Heaven including Hierarch Huan Ri, Yu Taixuan, Hong Taihe, Yuan Tiangang and Dark Lord Red Blood, one after another. Their faces were grave. They were accompanied by a small number of elite disciples.


    After these people came out, the light of the Transmitting Formation darkened, and Zhou Bao and Xiao Sheng emerged. As soon as they appeared, they heard a loud howling. A large white jade-like hand came straight toward Zhou Bao.


    "You''re really courting death!" Before it reached him, a large black hand appeared out of thin air and hit it. It dissolved with a sizzle.


    It all happened so suddenly that the fight was over before the Lords of Heaven and the Venerable who had just emerged, could react.


    The large black hand had melted the white Giant Void Hand. It vanished, leaving a group of silent people in its place.


    "Who is this guy?"


    "He is the Master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. He tried to kill you because you killed his son," Xiao Sheng answered beside him.


    "How does he know I killed his son?"


    "They are not fools. We went there and looked what happened. Do you think the sects of the Three Western Regions are willing to suffer in silence? Qi Miaoyi may be capable, but he''s an idiot when it comes to doing anything. He must have exposed something!" Xiao Sheng said faintly. He looked at the people who had been waiting a long time around the Transmitting Formation. Of these people, Elder Qing of Immortal Palace was the only one from the Four Eastern Regions. The rest were the elites of the large sects from the Three Western Regions. Though none of them were Lords of Heaven, they were all the great Venerables and were significant in their sects.


    "Xiao Baidi, did Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain make a deal with you? Is this why you stopped pursuing Qi Miaoyi?"


    "Xiao Sheng, it''s...!" Xiao Baidi looked awkward. After all, Qi Miaoyi had gone too far this time, enough to cause the other sects in the Three Western Regions to launch a joint attack on Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. It was evident, however, that Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain were very tactful. Once the matter was cleared up, they would keep a low profile, and pay a great price for the forgiveness of the other large sects. But it was unfair to Xiao Sheng and Zhou Bao.


    "You don''t have to explain it to me. I was not killed by Qi Miaoyi, nor am I the Leader of Eternal Life Palace!" Xiao Sheng laughed at himself. Having lived in a sect, of course, he knew that the sect''s interests went above all else in these large sects. If Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was willing to offer something highly beneficial, everything was negotiable.


    Elder Qing did not look good. The Master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was aiming at Zhou Bao and Zhou Bao was his companion. It was too bad that they were now in the Three Western Regions instead of the Four Eastern Regions. The large sects in the two places had always been at odds. This time, the Three Western Regions had lent the Transmitting Formation to the Four Eastern Regions mainly because the Four Eastern Regions had paid a sufficient price.


    His face fell but he kept his temper under control. He was ready to tell everyone to leave.


    "Are you sure it was the Master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain?"


    Xiao Sheng lifted his eyebrows and looked at Zhou Bao with something unusual in his eyes, "I''m pretty sure it''s him. I''m also sure that even if he didn''t make it this time, he won''t let you off the hook. Qi Miaoyi was his favorite son, and he had the most potential. You killed Qi Miaoyi. He''ll never let it go!"


    "Then I have to go to Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain!" Zhou Bao''s face darkened, and he glared at everyone with his sharp eyes.


    All the practitioners who made eye contact with Zhou Bao felt a chill in their hearts. Telling the frosty killing intent from his eyes, they were frightened.


    "No way. This guy has only reached the Individual Immortal stage. How can he cause us such anxiety? We may not be Lords of Heaven, but we are Venerables. Our cultivation is many times higher than his. Is the rumor true? Does he really have the power to kill a Lord of Heaven?!" They wondered.


    "What are you going to do? Zhou Bao?" Elder Qing sensed from Zhou Bao''s tone that something bad was going to happen.


    "Elder Qing, go back with them. I''m going to settle with Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain!"


    "Don''t act on impulse, Junior Leopard!"


    "I am not being impulsive!" Zhou Bao shook his head. Without explanation he made a move. He tore space and chased after the white hand.


    He had attained perfection in Infinite Realms Teleportation. The hand had appeared abruptly, but its faded appearance in the hollow showed him the direction to follow.


    "What a fast body movement!"


    "Great space power!"


    "His mastery of the Law of Space is already beyond our comprehension!"


    Zhou Bao''s actions aroused excitement in the nearby practitioners.


    In fact, what happened here was soon to be discovered when Zhou Bao and Xiao Sheng left the Heaven Realm via the Transmitting Formation. As the saying goes, domestic shame should not be made public. Now that Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain had made great amends, the matter was shelved. Soon after, another group of elite practitioners came to guard the Transmitting Formation. But the practitioners of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain were not included.


    The Four Eastern Regions were not to be trifled with. They got the news a little late, but not much later. Elder Qing came over as soon as he heard. Unfortunately, this was not the Four Eastern Regions, and the large sects here did not care about the five biggest sects from the Four Eastern Regions. Elder Qing was furious, but there was nothing he could do, except stay with the practitioners, watch the Transmitting Formation and wait for it to shine again. Finally, it began to shine again, but before he could rejoice, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain''s attack came. More to his surprise, Zhou Bao''s strength had improved greatly and had stopped a blow from a Lord of Heaven with only one strike. He let out a sigh of relief.


    Whereas before Elder Qing was completely relieved, Zhou Bao suddenly began to pursue the attacker, and he seemed to get back at the Master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. Elder Qing could not take this anymore, but Zhou Bao''s strength was far beyond his imagination. When he tried to stop Zhou Bao, it was too late.


    "Don''t worry, Elder Qing. We don''t know what will happen to Zhou Bao. His combat capability is probably far more powerful than that of a Lord of Heaven!" Hierarch Huan Ri comforted Elder Qing, as if he understood his concern.


    "But..."


    "It''s no use worrying. There''s nothing you can do about him now. Let''s go back. I don''t think we''re welcome in the Three Western Regions." Hong Taihe looked around and interjected in a gloating tone, "We don''t want to be here anymore. What do you think?"


    Elder Qing didn''t know why all these people suddenly had such great confidence in Zhou Bao, but for now, he was powerless to stop Zhou Bao. He was powerful, but he had not reached the Lord of Heaven Realm and was not as good as the people in front of him. He nodded slightly, intending to go back and do something about it. Reckless as Zhou Bao was, he was too formidable to be defeated quickly by Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain.


    "BOOM!" As they prepared to leave, they heard a loud boom. Xiao Sheng had blown up the nearby Transmitting Formation.


    "Xiao Sheng, are you crazy?" Xiao Baidi shouted. Xiao Sheng''s sudden behavior startled everyone. They all looked at him with astonishment.


    "Humph, this Formation will be a scourge. We have made a mighty bother in the Infinite Star Sea this time and we can''t compete with them. I''ll explain when getting back!" Xiao Sheng sneered, glancing at the crowd and walked away, while no one present dared to stand in his way.


    "We should leave, too. This is an internal affair of the Three Western Regions. Let''s not get involved." Elder Qing sighed and shook his head.


    Zhou Bao reached Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain.


    It was a very secret place. In fact, of the several super large sects in the Three Western Regions, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain had always been the most mysterious one, which could be known from its name.


    Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain.


    This was a mountain that existed outside heaven. In a sense, it was detached from the whole macro world, in an inexplicable space.


    Still, it wasn''t hard for Zhou Bao to find it. The Mountain Master had attacked him through the Law of Space. The Innate Qi Catching Skill had definitely left its trace while passing through the layers of space. And as long as it left a trace, Zhou Bao could track it.


    The Master apparently did not expect Zhou Bao to track him directly. He assumed that if Zhou Bao was not beaten to death, he would be severely injured, and would return to the Four Eastern Regions with Elder Qing and the others. There had been several Lords of Heaven next to Zhou Bao, so he had stopped his attack temporarily. He had intended to continue to deal with him once he returned to the Four Eastern Regions.


    This was what he expected. For Zhou Bao to find him in this nameless space was unimaginable.


    "Hey, Qi Ningbi, this is the fairy weapon I took off your son after he died, and I made him into my weapon. Now, try this weapon on. If you were crushed to death, I would not be responsible!" Zhou Bao shouted blatantly, brandishing two green hammers.

 605 Seven Stunning Hammer Strikes and the Long-eyebrowed Patriarch

    Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was in an inexplicable space. However, for Zhou Bao, it was not a challenge to find it. No matter how secret its location was, it was impossible to go beyond the entire Heaven Realm or the Seven-deity Regions. From the top of the Nine Heavens Gang Wind Belt, to the 90,000 kilometers underground and sections of the Sea Area, all belonged to the Seven-deity Regions. Everything was within these regions, including Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. It was not hard to find the mountain.


    The space was enormous and empty and there was nothing special about it. A dazzling golden mountain floated alone in the void space.


    It was Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain.


    As soon as Zhou Bao entered, arrows of golden light shot toward him from the mountain, as if he had touched something forbidden. The arrows came at him quickly.


    "Get out of the way!" Zhou Bao said coolly. A small green hammer was already in his left hand. With a gentle sweep, all the arrows disappeared without trace.


    He gazed at the mountain and began to approach it. However, it suddenly twisted several times. The seemingly independent space produced an infinite amount of space, as if it had connected with the vast universe. As a result, Zhou Bao was unable to lock its exact position for the time being.


    "Humph, cheap trick!" Zhou Bao squinted slightly and discovered that it was an automatic avoidance mechanism that was not being manipulated by anyone. Once someone intruded into the space without consent, this reaction would occur.


    Zhou Bao believed that Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain already knew that he had entered the area.


    "Zhou Bao, how dare you break into the forbidden grounds of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain!"


    Just as he expected, a sonorous voice rang out before he could make another move.


    He realized it was the exact same voice he had heard when he emerged from the Transmitting Formation. He grinned, "Hey, Qi Ningbi, this is the fairy weapon I took off your son after he died, and I made him into my weapon. Now, try this weapon on. If you were crushed to death, I would not be responsible!" Zhou Bao shouted blatantly, brandishing two green hammers.


    "You''re courting death!"


    The Mountain Master was clearly irritated. Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain shook violently, and a golden light, 30 meters in diameter, appeared before Zhou Bao.


    "Great!" He used his twin hammers to block in front.


    BOOM! BOOM!!!


    The whole space shook, and Zhou Bao was forced back more than 30 meters. When he withdrew his two hammers, the golden light was completely blocked. He remained unscathed.


    "Ha ha, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain is not that powerful!" Zhou Bao laughed grimly and raised the hammers.


    The two hammers were cute, like two delicate watermelons. They were so pleasing to the eye, one had a desire to cut and eat them.


    However, when Zhou Bao waved them, they generated a terrifying momentum. The shadow of a planet appeared behind him.


    It was a planet, a planet from the void. It seemed remote, but the stress it brought was real. As soon as it appeared, the whole space began to vibrate.


    This area was one of the myriad spaces in the Heaven Realm. It was just a space, not a world. A planet, on the other hand, no matter its size or pneuma, was a complete world. A planet was much better than a space. It was similar to when Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon could not coexist within a macro world, because there was a macro world inside the Supreme Fairy Weapon and something would go wrong if two macro worlds were too close.


    Now there was an entire planet in this space. Although the planet was only a manifestation of Zhou Bao''s Hammer Spirit and a projection of the planet in his Fist Intent Space, the space could not bear it and started to reject the outsider. The repulsing force did not come from Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, but from the entire space.


    The planet''s shadow did not disappear from the force. On the contrary, it became real. With a howl, it broke through layers of space and smashed down on Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain as the green hammers moved.


    BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!!


    The almighty crashes and echoes went on and on, as if nuclear bombs were exploding. Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was shaking violently. Its golden halo rose desperately to ward off the ravages of the falling planet.


    This was a major destruction for Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. It had never encountered such a powerful attack.


    After all, it was being hit by a planet. This so-called planet, although it had become a solid, in the end, was just a projection. And it was only one tenth the weight of a real planet. Even so, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was badly damaged.


    Like all other sects, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain had a strong defensive power, magic formations and lots of mysterious machines. Even a dozen Lords of Heaven joining forces to try and break down its defenses would not succeed. Unfortunately, for them Zhou Bao was quite unique.


    Zhou Bao broke down all kinds of attacks with almost complete brute strength when he used his hammers.


    He had extreme power, the Extreme Realm of Force.


    That was the path he''d chosen. The path he was going to take. This decision would never change.


    No matter what the magic formations, inhibition, mysterious machines or means, he did not need to worry. He had only one thing to do, and that was to destroy by force all that stood in his way.


    He might not have been able to do it with his fists. But he had two hammers.


    The effect was different!


    Before the deafening crash and the echo of his first hammer ended, Zhou Bao''s second hammer came crashing down, followed by a third, fourth, fifth, sixth and, finally, seventh.


    With his Eight Nine Mysterious Skill, the infusion of the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skills, the Dharma Power-restoring Skill recovering the speed of the Mysterious Divine Light, his super bloodline of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, his fist intent of simulating universe at the Basic level, which he had a preliminary grasp of, and the weight and material of the twin hammers in his hands, he could make 16 hammer stricks in one breath and hit 10 breathes in a row. This meant he could make 160 strikes before he was exhausted. Eight hammer strikes were enough to destroy a small planet. He stopped on the seventh because it was a Critical Hit!


    Less than half a breath.


    Everything fell silent. In fact, by the time he hit the third, sound had vanished. The terrifying impact force had completely shattered the space. In the infinite space of the Heaven Realm, a huge hole formed, a hole of nothingness. There was nothing here. The area surrounding Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was gone, the space did not exist. All vitality and matter, gone.


    Hence, no matter how loud the sound was, it could not be transmitted.


    So the changes that followed on the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh hammer strick could only be described in one word.


    Crush!!!!


    Crush, crush, crush and crush again!!!


    All went to nothingness and all went to oblivion!


    Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain itself was an Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device. It also possessed a myriad of forbidden skills and was very formidable. However, in the face of Zhou Bao''s attacks, especially after the seventh Critical Hit hammer strike, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain could no longer take it. The surrounding golden light shattered and disappeared. Huge cracks appeared on the mountain.


    "Stop it! Stop it!" Dozens of divine thoughts came out.


    "Four Lords of Heaven and 28 Venerables, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain is really powerful. Hmm, what power is this?" Zhou Bao''s eyes twinkled. Among the divine thoughts, there was one imposing one, that carried the power to mend Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain when it came. Zhou Bao felt a vague instinctive fear of this power, for this divine thought was much more profound and obscure than those of the four Lords of Heaven. But he only feared it briefly. His hands, which held the twin hammers, tightened and he emanated a bloodthirsty battle intent.


    "Who are you? Why are you attacking our Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain?"


    Just when Zhou Bao''s battle intent broke out, the divine thought again showed wonderful power. It created a circle, and that actually produced a separate space. Zhou Bao was contained within the circle.


    Zhou Bao knew that although the space was independent, it was not solid. With a little force, he could shatter it. But he didn''t, because the owner of the divine thought was attempting to speak with him, not trap him.


    "Humph! Ask your Mountain Master why I attacked Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. Ask him what he did." Zhou Bao laughed wryly. This obscure divine thought was extremely strange, and also extremely powerful. It was easy to separate it from the divine thoughts of the four Lords of Heaven and 28 Venerables. Clearly the owner of this divine thought was more powerful than a Lord of Heaven.


    In such a world where power was respected, the stronger a person was, the higher his status would be.


    The Master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was a Lord of Heaven. This person''s position in Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was obviously above the Mountain Master. He was probably a Highest Elder who had been in a closed-door training deep in space. His sensitive nerves had been touched by Zhou Bao''s attack, so, worried that something would happen to Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, he had come out.


    "Oh, is that so?" The divine thought pondered for a moment, as if the owner understood. "You''re Zhou Bao. This is really our fault. I will give you an explanation. How about you come to our Divine Mountain and sit for a while. Do you mind?"


    "Long-eyebrowed Patriarch, no!"

 606 Ancient Treasure Ruins

    "Long-eyebrowed Patriarch, no!"


    The four Lords of Heaven and 28 Venerables were aware of the Long-eyebrowed Patriarch''s offer.


    No sooner had he put forward the invitation when one man objected strongly.


    "Humph, Qi Ningbi, as the Master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, you do not lead by example, and you did a poor job of educating your son, causing him to behave violently. This has caused so much trouble and huge losses for Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. Do you still not distinguish between public and private? You are dragging Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain into this quagmire!"


    The Long-eyebrowed Patriarch was beside himself with rage. He berated the Master sharply, despite his high standing position.


    In this world, the Leader of a sect held great power, but this didn''t mean he could dominate everything. In an analogy between sects and companies, the Leader would be the general manager, the professional manager; the Elders would be the shareholders; the Highest Elders would be the board of directors, and the strongest would be the chairman, the president of the board. After all, few chairmen would have the misfortune to be sued by the company, and not many general managers would betray the chairman.


    Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was a very traditional school that had always respected the old customs. The Mountain Master, holding great power, was greatly restricted. However, since he was also a Lord of Heaven, he was similar to an extremely powerful board member. As a result, his authority was so great that he acted with great arbitrariness. When his son made mistakes, he was used to solving them with the power of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. But this time, he encountered difficulties.


    As the saying goes, rude people are afraid of reckless people, and reckless people are afraid of those who dare to fight with their lives.


    Qi Miaoyi was a rude man, while Zhou Bao was a reckless man. Zhou Bao usually acted rashly, without thought. No matter who it was, the young master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain or the disciple of the Highest Elder, if someone annoyed him, he would kill them. If someone''s father messed with him, he would kill the father. If a sect caught his fury, he would destroy the sect.


    This was his simple logic, and that was how it was!


    Faced with such a reckless person, the Master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain had initially wanted to kill him to avenge his son, so he had attacked Zhou Bao unscrupulously. To his surprise, Zhou Bao found him instead, and shocked the Long-eyebrowed Patriarch, who was already beyond the world, with mighty power.


    Perhaps it was because the Long-eyebrowed Patriarch had not been paying attention to secular affairs for so many years, and because having been the Mountain Master for so many years, he had become so accustomed to dogmatism that he had forgotten the Long-eyebrowed Patriarch''s power and authority and questioned him in public. He was immediately reprimanded.


    In fact, everyone knew it was more than a reprimand. It was very likely that Qi Ningbi''s position as Mountain Master would soon come to an end. In any company, once the chairman found that someone confused work and private affairs, this person would be finished. Qi Ningbi was no exception.


    All of a sudden, an intersecting network of lights flashed out of the stricken Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain and covered Zhou Bao. The space around him was changing unpredictably. Then he found himself in a large hall.


    It was the Extraterrestrial Divine Palace!


    Three words were elegantly written on the high horizontal inscribed board. More than 30 people sat according to their level of strength. An old man with long eyebrows in the middle of the hall caught Zhou Bao''s attention.


    Was he a Lord of Heaven?


    No, he was more powerful, unfathomable and eccentric than a Lord of Heaven!


    "A Human Immortal?" He stared at the long-browed old man.


    "You''re a Metaphysical Individual Immortal!" The long-browed old man was also staring at Zhou Bao, with a strange light in his eyes. "It''s almost impossible for a Metaphysical Individual Immortal to have such combat capabilities!"


    Zhou Bao didn''t reply. He quietly walked to a chair and sat down, as if waiting for something.


    "As the Master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, Qi Ningbi has repeatedly abused his power for personal gains, ignoring the interests of Divine Mountain, and caused a disaster. We shall remove him from the position of Mountain Master and make him an Elder. Does anyone have any objections?"


    "No!"


    "No!"


    "No!"


    "...No!"


    The old man''s voice was quiet, but full of majesty. He glanced coldly at the pale middle-aged man before him and turned his eyes to Zhou Bao, "In addition, you may request anything you wish. If it is possible, we will try our best to comply with your requests!"


    Everyone gasped at this big promise. As one of the biggest sects in the Three Western Regions, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain possessed exceptionally great power, and held influence throughout the Three Western Regions. The four Lords of Heaven and 28 Venerables were powerful enough to wipe out most of the influences in the Seven-deity Regions, while in the Seven-deity Regions, there were few sects as powerful as it.


    Now, the true leader of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain had inexplicably given Zhou Bao this pledge in front of all the senior people. Even if they had offended Zhou Bao first, he did not need to be cajoled so deliberately. What was more, Zhou Bao had just made an attack on Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. He should be their enemy. Why make this promise to him? Was this young man so powerful?


    Although his combat capabilities were formidable, he was still only a Metaphysical Individual Immortal. They did not need to fear him. After all, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain had four Lords of Heaven and a Human Immortal. He had just demonstrated his terrible attack force, but could that kind of attack force last?


    There was no certainty. However, they did not dare to question him. The Long-eyebrowed Patriarch was the real decision maker, the real backbone and the real boss.


    "Funny, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain doesn''t look like a sect that gives in easily. What are you trying to do?"


    The offer was very tempting, but Zhou Bao was not yet arrogant enough to think a Human Immortal would be afraid of him.


    Compared to an Individual Immortal or a Genuine Immortal, the Human Immortal was on a whole different level. Zhou Bao had even heard that the strength between a Human Immortal and a Lord of Heaven was an even bigger gap than the strength between a Lord of Heaven and a newborn baby.


    There was no comparison at all. Moreover, there were secrets that could only be known once one reached the Human Immortal Karma Rank. Zhou Bao had not even broken through to the Individual Immortal Karma Rank, so it was impossible for him to know.


    Technically, even with all his efforts, Zhou Bao could barely beat a Human Immortal. Without even releasing his Qi Power and spirit, the old man had given Zhou Bao an unfathomable impression that caused fear. When he was on his guard, the old man was so modest that Zhou Bao felt weird.


    "Don''t be suspicious, King Wuyang. I made this promise partly because it is indeed our fault, and partly because I want to cooperate with you!"


    "Cooperate with me?" Zhou Bao blinked, "My Wuyang Region is located in the Central Mainland Region. We can''t do business with the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain even if I wanted to. After all, the Sea Area is between us!" Zhou Bao said in a puzzled tone.


    "I''d like to invite you to explore an Ancient Ruin!" The old man said bluntly. "I think you know very well that in antiquity times this macro world was the Heaven Realm. It has declined, but the myriad spaces in it remain. In antiquity times, many powerful schools and influences were built here, just like our Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. Less fortunate than us, they have declined or disappeared. But their ruins are still here, and occasionally appear in the present world. They are Ancient Ruins. These Ruins are a great opportunity for secular practitioners. However, secular practitioners are not capable enough to search and detect them. They have to wait for Ancient Ruins to appear accidentally in the occasional space-time turbulence. A practitioner at the Venerable Realm is able to actively seek these Ancient Ruins in space-time mazes. Few people have this ability. Only those who have reached the Lord of Heaven Realm can guarantee personal safety in space-time mazes and are qualified to look for treasure!"


    "I am beginning to understand. But are you sure there is treasure in the Heaven Realm now? After all, it''s been years!"


    "It''s not easy to get into Ancient Ruins. Even if you find one, it takes great effort to get in. Moreover, the larger and more valuable an Ancient Ruin, the more powerful its curtailment is and the more elusive it is. It''s hard to break though. Since the end of antiquity times, generations of predecessors have discovered and excavated many Hidden Treasures. But there are six Ancient Treasure Ruins in this macro world that have not been discovered for tens of thousands of years that have never been broken. My goal is, with a group of friends. to go after the Hidden Treasure. Are you interested King Wuyang?"


    Zhou Bao''s eyes gleamed. He gazed at the old man for quite some time, but finally shook his head. "I''m not that ambitious, and I''m not interested in the Ancient Ruins Treasures. Forget about your second pact. As long as your Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain don''t provoke me, I won''t provoke you. I''m going to leave now!"


    He saluted the old man. The space around him fluctuated and he vanished into thin air. The four Lords of Heaven in the hall were unable to stop him. And all the barriers of the vast Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain were virtually useless against him.


    "Patriarch, that guy is too arrogant!" Qi Ningbi sprang to his feet and growled in a low voice.


    "That''s enough. From now on, Jin Gu will be the Mountain Master. All, go down!" Long-eyebrowed Patriarch waved his hand at them, keeping an impassive face. The four Lords of Heaven and 28 Venerables gave him a salute and left with changed expressions.

 607 News of the Devil Fetus

    Ancient Treasure Ruins.


    A group of friends.


    A Human Immortal.


    These words revealed a message to Zhou Bao: he did not know that much about the world. The world was not as fragile as he thought, and there were some extremely powerful people, even if it wasn''t said. Also, there were Human Immortals outside the Sea Area.


    "Human Immortals" should not be looked down upon. The existence of Human Immortals meant that the Seven-deity Regions would be all right, even if they did not destroy the Transmitting Formations that led to the Infinite Star Sea. A Human Immortal could not leave his own macro world for too long; otherwise, he would suffer the Void Thunder Penalty. In other words, even if people from the Infinite Star Sea wanted to capture the Seven-deity Regions, the strongest person would be a Lord of Heaven at most. The difference between a Lord of Heaven and a Human Immortal could be compared to the difference between an Individual Immortal and a Genuine Immortal; a Sage and a Venerable; or a Venerable and a Lord of Heaven. Unless you met a special case like Zhou Bao, the former, no matter how many of them there were, could not compete with the latter.


    What was more, it could be gathered from the Long-eyebrowed Patriarch''s words that there was more than one Human Immortal in the Seven-deity Regions.


    This was not surprising. A Human Immortal''s lifespan was much longer than that of a Genuine Immortal. Even a Lord of Heaven did not live as long as a Human Immortal. Perhaps it was because of the lack of pneuma that no one in the present world had become a Human Immortal. But tens of thousands of years ago, a select few people had had the chance to become Human Immortals. They had powerful ways to keep and extend their lives. Thus, it was normal for a Human Immortal to still be alive. In fact, they would continue to live for quite some time.


    Zhou Bao was at the Mysterious Realm, but his life was far beyond that of an Individual Immortal because he had refined the bloodline of Zhuyan. Zhuyan was a type of Primordial Fierce Beast, one of the Six Royals, and had a lifespan much longer than that of a Human Immortal.


    Therefore, it was not surprising that there were Human Immortals in the Seven-deity Regions. On the contrary, it would be strange if there were no Human Immortals.


    Zhou Bao didn''t care if he met a Human Immortal. Although he was not sure he could defeat them, he was sure he could run away. And even if he failed to escape, he could use his Supreme Fairy Weapon to deal with them.


    It was precisely because of his immense strength that he was oblivious to the six Hidden Treasures.


    What if he could explore them and have countless treasures?


    Were there Supreme Fairy Weapons?


    "I have a Supreme Fairy Weapon, a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, two Taihao Fairy Weapons and two Big Iron Hammers that are invincible. Why should I care about ancient Hidden Treasures?"


    "I am a Hidden Treasure myself. Why should I bother looking for Ancient Hidden Treasures with a bunch of old men?"


    That was his thinking when he refused the Long-eyebrowed Patriarch, and it was true. With all that he had now, he didn''t have to seek the Hidden Treasures. Although it was compelling, they could not offer him any real help.


    If it had been a few years ago, he would have been interested because he had not found his way to the future at that time. It was different now. He had identified the path he would take and the path for future practicing. There might not be anything in the Hidden Treasures that would suit him, so he refused without hesitation.


    In the days since Zhou Bao''s departure, Wuyang Region had not changed much except to become more prosperous. It was already a large city, and the form of a huge city wall and moat had appeared. On the official road, people, carriages and horses were streaming in. It was lively but orderly. Zhou Bao had never cared about his territory, but he had made a development plan, based on his knowledge from his previous life. This development plan had meant nothing to him in his previous life. However, it achieved good results in Wuyang Region.


    Now, the whole northwest region had united, forming a profitable organization dominated by Wuyang Region, with other northwest lords as members. The situation was a bit like the middle ages in Zhou Bao''s previous life. When there were conflicts between these lords, Wuyang Region would mediate. There was no major conflict, and no wars like there had been in the dark middle ages.


    On the whole, the entire northwest region was at peace. This was certainly not what the rulers of the Jin wanted to see, but there was nothing they could do.


    Zhou Bao''s strength had already surpassed the secular bearing ability. It seemed that no one in the world was able to restrain him now. For most people, King Wuyang who could not only cause trouble, but also find fault, was the last man they dared to offend. The large sects had agreed that as long as he did not disturb them, they would not take action against Zhou Bao.


    There was literally no one who would say no to him now, even if he ran amuck in the Four Eastern Regions. But he would not do something so mundane.


    After all, a man had to do something meaningful.


    Such as accompanying his wife!


    In the eyes of outsiders, Zhou Bao fell into a comfortable life after he came back from Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. The only thing he cared about from day to day was his wife and lovely twins.


    For half a year, Wuyang Region was quiet. There was no trace of Zhou Bao in the martial arts world or the higher-level practitioner world. He did not stir up trouble either. It was as if he had disappeared. It was a relief to everybody. Someone as powerful as Zhou Bao really put a lot of pressure on everyone in the Four Eastern Regions. Even if he was now one of the Four Signs as well as one of the 28 constellations in the Immortal Palace, the Immortal Palace had no way to suppress this powerful young man.


    "You have made it easier for the five biggest sects over the last six months. Are you enjoying it?"


    In the back garden of the Lord Mansion, in Wuyang Region, Zhou Bao was sitting at a stone table, with a child in each arm. The two children were playing, oblivious to the depressed Wang She sitting opposite.


    "I don''t care if things are easier for them. I don''t want to meddle in too many affairs anyway!" Zhou Bao said lightly, "Your strength has improved rapidly in the last half year. You must have thoroughly refined your Kunpeng Bloodline. You''re ready to break through the final hurdle, aren''t you?"


    "Yes, that''s why I came to see you. I don''t want to be in the Golden Book of Fate!"


    "What do you want?"


    "I want you to help me. The Child-endowing Buddha said you could help me."


    "It''s not difficult. You just need to refine your Real Body in the hollow. Outside of the Heaven Realm, when you break through to the Three Small Realms, your Genuine Spirit isn''t affected by the Golden Book of Fate!" After some contemplation, Zhou Bao realized Wang She''s intention. "But you''re clearly offending the five biggest sects. Aren''t you afraid you''ll get into trouble with them?"


    "Humph, I think they can hardly look after themselves now!"


    Zhou Bao lifted his eyebrows, "Why? What happened?"


    "It''s very strange!" Wang She answered. "You know what happened in the Infinite Star Sea last time?"


    "Yes!"


    "A disciple from Divine Wind Palace was acting very strange after he came back, causing a lot of trouble. Now he is out of the Divine Wind Palace!"


    "Really?!" Zhou Bao was surprised. As the head of the five largest sects of the Four Eastern Regions, Divine Wind Palace not only had powerful strength, it also had very strict rules. No matter which influence this disciple belonged to, he would not gain anything by betraying his sect, and he would surely die. Divine Wind Palace was rich in resources and very generous to its disciples. It was much better to be in Divine Wind Palace than to be a stray practitioner. It seemed incredible to Zhou Bao that a disciple would betray the Divine Wind Palace. Zhou Bao was extremely powerful, but still retained his identity as one of the Four Signs and one of the 28 constellations in Immortal Palace because this identity gave him great protection.


    "Did he do the unthinkable because he failed to seduce Yu Taixu''s wife?"


    "The unthinkable" was Zhou Bao''s view on the matter.


    "He got a Devil Fetus and brought it back to the Heaven Realm. The Devil Fetus likely controls him completely now!" Wang She forced his face into a smile.


    "Damn!" Zhou Bao got up abruptly. "He brought a Devil Fetus back to the Seven-deity Regions? No wonder he rebelled. Half a year is enough long for a Devil Fetus to become too powerful for anyone to suppress. He had no way of fully refining it, so he had to run away!"


    "Exactly! An Elder of Divine Wind Palace discovered his demonic qi and tried to question him. Unexpectedly, he killed the Elder and left. It startled the whole Divine Wind Palace."


    "Divine Wind Palace is really unfortunate to come across such a thing. No wonder you say they don''t have time to care about you. He-he, the Devil Fetus was brought to the Heaven Realm. I think Dark Sect should be eager for action!"


    "Umm, yes. But the only Lord of Heaven in Dark Sect died in the Infinite Star Sea six months ago. Their power is greatly reduced. How could they be indifferent?"


    "What? A Lord of Heaven in Dark Sect? Didn''t they only have Dark Lord Red Blood? He was an expert at the peak of the Venerable Realm and had not reached the Lord of Heaven Realm."


    "It''s one of Dark Sect''s secrets. For thousands of years, it''s true that no one in Dark Sect has been able to break through to the Lord of Heaven Realm, but there was a Lord of Heaven in Dark Sect a hundred thousand years ago. It''s been a long time. As his life was drawing to a close, he sealed himself using Dark Sect''s secret method. He was kept by the Highest Elder, the one with the highest cultivation in Dark Sect. Dark Lord Red Blood has the highest cultivation in Dark Sect, so he entered the Infinite Star Sea with him."


    "Then he died there!"

 608 A Crazy Idea

    For Dark Sect''s only Highest Elder at the Lord of Heaven Realm to die in the Infinite Star Sea was really quite unfortunate.


    This matter could not be hidden from the five biggest sects and eventually they became a laughing-stock. To everyone''s astonishment, before Dark Sect had fully swallowed this bitter pill, an even bigger joke appeared. But this time it was Divine Wind Palace, not Dark Sect.


    It might have been a great joke and an ultimate insult to Divine Wind Palace, but it gave Dark Sect hope. Dark Sect''s cultivation methods had been born out of the cultivation methods of the Primordial Demons. The Devil Fetus had authentic Bloodline Inheritance from the Primordial Demon. If Dark Sect got the Devil Fetus, they would have a chance of revival.


    This was a fact, not fantasy. Hadn''t macro worlds as powerful as the Alliance of 13 Realms and the Milky Way Realm united in attempt to capture the Devil Fetus? In the two larger Star Areas of the Infinite Star Sea, the practitioner who had the Devil Fetus had established a new Dark Sect. It was much more powerful than Dark Sect in the Heaven Realm. It was impossible for Dark Sect to resist the urge to capture the Devil Fetus.


    As for the other four biggest sects, they certainly had their own ideas. It could be said that all the powerful influences of the Four Eastern Regions were now firmly focused on the Devil Fetus. No one was in the mood to pay attention to Wang She.


    "If you want to avoid trouble, come with me!" Zhou Bao asked his servants to take the two children away. He went to the top of Jilei Mountain with Wang She. He pulled out his hammer and smashed it forward.


    The space before them shattered, and a dark hollow appeared.


    Wang She shot into the hollow. Zhou Bao followed, smiling.


    There were a variety of ways from the Heaven Realm into the hollow. The stupidest way was through the Nine Heavens Gang Wind. This way was the most difficult, because the Nine Heavens Gang Wind was far more formidable than the Self-world of the Lords of Heaven. Even Zhou Bao was not sure how to go through. The simplest way was to knock the space out of a hollow entrance as Zhou Bao did. This was quite a convenient way, but it had the disadvantage of not being able to determine direction and coordinates. After entering the hollow in this way, it was difficult to return, and one would almost certainly get lost in the endless hollow. Only people like Zhou Bao, who had practiced the Infinite Realms Teleportation and had a profound understanding of the Law of Space, could find their way back.


    Whizz, whizz, whizz, whizz, whizz¡ª


    Once in the hollow, Wang She released his Real Body of Roc. The shadow of a huge bird was ten thousand ten feet in length, with two large wings flapping up and down as if from the sky. A great deal of power emanated from the roc. Completely wrapped in the roc''s shadow, Wang She began to refine the Real Body.


    The main purpose of ascending from Level Nine to the Mysterious Realm was to integrate the Real Body with one''s own body, thoroughly changing one''s form. For those who had never seen or heard of it, this process was wonderful. For those who had experienced it and had great strength like Zhou Bao, it was extremely boring.


    As the roc was of a noble nature and rare even among Primordial Fierce Beasts, Zhou Bao guarded Wang She by his side, fearing that this enormous Qi Power would draw strange creatures from the hollow.


    There was no pneuma in the hollow, but there were strange living creatures. Their strength at large was not high, at the Mysterious Realm at most, and they would never be able to overcome the Thunder Tribulation to achieve Bodies of True Immortality. However, a creature at the Mysterious Realm was enough to cause great trouble for Wang She, who was ascending to a higher level.


    Thus, Zhou Bao had to protect him here, and wait for the end of what he thought was a very boring process.


    The great roc swallowed everything in the hollow. Due to the lack of pneuma, all the small flying heavenly bodies surrounding it were eaten, attracting some large heavenly bodies.


    "Damn it, I have to protect you. It''s not worth coming here!" Zhou Bao muttered. He flashed as he moved around Wang She and crushed the heavenly bodies that had been drawn to the roc.


    Instead of using his green hammers, he bombarded them with his fists.


    As the appetite of the roc grew, and more and more heavenly bodies approached, Zhou Bao had to strike faster and faster. Meteorites, rubble, strange heavenly bodies, and even small planets were all shattered under his fists. Even the wind behind his fists was enough to shatter flying meteorites.


    "No, damn it!"


    Suddenly, Zhou Bao''s heart began to tremble; he saw a giant planet approaching.


    It really was a planet, although it looked small. Looking with the naked eye, Zhou Bao found that it was about the size of the earth in his previous life. It meant nothing in the hollow, but compared to it, both Zhou Bao and Wang She, even Wang She''s Real Body of Roc, were as small as ants.


    This planet was still a long way off, but Zhou Bao and Wang She could feel its enormous power and influence. It was a feeling of dread and despair. Zhou Bao had an inkling of what it felt like when others were being bombarded by his hammers.


    Watching the planet get closer and closer, Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes. He held his twin hammers and swung rapidly towards the approaching planet. Wang She was ascending to the Mysterious Realm, and Zhou Bao was certainly not about to attack a planet in his vicinity.


    "Damn it, we''re out of luck. This planet isn''t approaching us because roc power, but because we''re in its orbit. What bad luck!" The closer Zhou Bao got to the planet, the clearer his thoughts became. Suddenly, a bold and crazy idea came into his mind.


    "My fist intent is to simulate the universe, and my Hammer Spirit is an extension of fist intent. My hammering and punching can barely hit the projection of the planet, far from the actual planet. If I capture it and try to fit it into my fist, then¡ª!"

 609 Refining

    The idea of incorporating planets into his fist intent sounded crazy at first. It could even be said that it was almost impossible. However, if one thought carefully about it, he would find that nothing was impossible.


    The so-called fist intent, in the end, was the manifestation of the combination of spiritual power and one''s own Dharma power. Although the spirit was invisible, once it was strengthened to a certain degree, it could be condensed into thoughts and could solidify. Presently, Zhou Bao had condensed 18 glittering and translucent thoughts, one of which had even been refined by a kind of mysterious purple lightning and thus possessed many wonderful usages. As a result, this thought was very clear about the relationship between a spirit and entity.


    Since a spirit could achieve instantiation, it was possible to transform entities into incarnated spirits. As a matter of fact, many people had done this to strengthen their fist intent. Nevertheless, no one had ever done anything so crazy as trying to take a planet and refine it into the fist intent.


    After this idea occurred to Zhou Bao, more absurd thoughts began to fill his mind. Yes, even more absurd.


    If he could succeed this time around, he would, in the future, have the opportunity to absorb more planets and refine them into his fist intent; not only planets but also other celestial bodies. Once his strength reached a certain phase, he would even be able to absorb fixed stars, white dwarfs, giant red stars, and all the celestial bodies, into his fist intent. If that happened, it would be possible to turn the simulated universe in his fist intent into a real one.


    Of course, this was merely a crazy thought. Looking at the planet getting closer and closer, Zhou Bao clenched the two hammers in his hands. Suddenly, a light flashed through his eyes as he thought of something. He withdrew the two hammers from his hand.


    "How stupid am I! I''ve grown so accustomed to hitting people with my hammers recently that my mind is almost full of muscle. Even now I want to fight with force, I''m really...!" Zhou Bao swore in a low voice. There was already a skeleton like yellow jade in his empty hand.


    It was a Taihao Fairy Weapon.


    The Furnace of Immortality.


    A planet traveled along its orbit at the slowest speed of dozens of kilometers per second. If it moved faster, its speed could reach hundreds or even thousands of kilometers per second. Its weight and the lack of pneuma in the void, would cause even a Lord of Heaven to be smashed to bits if he was hit by the planet.


    At this moment, the difference between a fairy weapon and a Pure Yang Celestial Device came out. Although his two hammers were very powerful and were Upper-grade Pure Yang Celestial Devices, strictly speaking, they were just half-fairy weapons. In the face of such a planet, the best thing they could do would be to explode a powerful force and smash it. However, a fairy weapon was different. It didn''t need to face the planet head-on because having a complete Immortal Character was equal to having a complete Principle of Great Ways. No matter which great way it was, it was simply not something a planet could resist.


    Zhou Bao patted the skeleton''s head. Like serpents, seven black flames shot out of the skull toward the planet.


    The Furnace of Immortality possessed a complete Principle of Great Ways.


    The Law of Refinement; refine the heaven and earth!


    Facing the planet, Zhou Bao displayed the full power of the Furnace of Immortality. The seven black flames were like seven pitch-black chains. They suddenly entangled themselves with the planet.


    The planet had been flying towards them rapidly. Now, all of a sudden, it was pulled by seven black chains, and it slowed down. Meanwhile, the seven black chains extended as the planet moved forward and began to diffuse across its surface. At last, when its entire surface was covered in black flames, it stopped flying.


    Hiss!!!


    Zhou Bao took a deep breath. Several glittering and translucent divine thoughts flew out from the place between his eyebrows toward the planet. At the same time, a black sun rose slowly behind him. The surrounding void began to twist and deform, as if repelled by a strange force.


    "What a large planet!"


    Nine divine thoughts flew into the black flames. The Furnace of Immortality in Zhou Bao''s hands flew above the planet at the same time. It turned into a giant Elixir Furnace and came down fiercely.


    BOOM!!!


    The Principle of Great Ways was extremely mysterious. As the Furnace of Immortality fell down, the planet gradually became smaller. Of course, in Zhou Bao''s eyes, it did not become smaller. Instead, the whole space began to compress; the space around the planet was affected by the Furnace of Immortality. So, the planet only looked smaller.


    The Furnace of Immortality had a complete Law of Refinement. It also had spatial power. Otherwise, there would be problems refining everything. The actual volume of this planet was too large and Zhou Bao was in the void, meaning he wouldn''t have been able to borrow enough spatial force. Although the Furnace of Immortality was a fairy weapon, it had only reduced the size of the planet to one-tenth of its original size. The flames were blazing and operating the Law of Refinement to start refining the planet.


    "I can''t go on like this. I don''t have much time to waste here!" Zhou Bao said to himself. The present situation would not exhaust him too much for this was all done using the power of the Furnace of Immortality. If he had more time, he could refine it slowly. But time was limited. If he wanted the Furnace of Immortality to exert more power, he needed to use his own Real Essence and Dharma power to operate the furnace.


    He pointed lightly to the top of the Furnace of Immortality. The black flames that encircled the planet suddenly surged. Then, they began to transform into purple flames and the space around the planet began to melt.


    One after another, huge holes appeared, sending out a powerful suction, but they failed to suck the planet into them.


    Pure Purple Heavenly Fire!


    As one of the strongest Heavenly Fires, the temperature of the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire was extremely high. When using it to refine substances, it could not be used for too long. Otherwise, it would vaporize everything. Converted from the Tusita Fire, the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire was a replica. Although its power was certainly not as strong as that of the real one, one-tenth of its power was enough to deal with everything.


    The purple Heavenly Fire burned for ten breaths and then finally disappeared. In this short period of time, Zhou Bao''s nine divine thoughts successfully fused into the planet.


    The first step to refining substances and treasures into one''s fist intent was similar to refining a magic weapon. The substances and treasures needed to be refined into one''s magic weapon and then one could integrate their divine thoughts into it. This was what Zhou Bao was doing.


    The planet was too large. It was not that simple to refine it. Once the nine divine thoughts integrated into the planet, Zhou Bao felt an enormous amount of power suddenly expand in his spirit and fill within.


    "Good, very good!" Zhou Bao was pleased but not shocked. This meant that his nine divine thoughts had completely merged with the planet. Although his spirit swelled slightly, it was not serious. This meant his spirit was powerful enough to support a magic weapon of this size.


    The following step was quite crucial.


    He needed to refine the newly-refined magic weapon into his fist intent.


    He activated the Mysterious Divine Light in his body, to be precise, his nine Dantians, and they started to swarm out. The black sun behind him was blazing. In the depths of the void of his fist intent, stars were twinkling. The shadows of countless celestial bodies, together with a complete scaled-down universe surrounded him.


    All of a sudden, his body began to shake. A giant ferocious looking ape suddenly appeared in his fist intent. It had long snow-white hair all over its body. The giant ape stretched out its huge paws and grabbed the planet that was being suppressed and refined by the Furnace of Immortality.


    "Ah¡ª"


    As the giant ape''s paws moved toward the planet, the planet suddenly shrank allowing the giant ape to grab it.


    BOOM!!!!


    Zhou Bao felt a strong shock all over his body, and a feeling of contraction emanated from the depths of his body. The huge shock made his chest feel tight and his whole body was boiling with qi and blood. A mouthful of blood would soon be squeezed out of his mouth.


    "PLOP!"


    He forcibly suppressed the feeling of vomiting blood. He had never known the throat could make such a loud noise from swallowing saliva.


    He had the feeling ordinary people would have if they suddenly swallowed a watermelon in one gulp. It could not be any worse.


    Although it was terrible, he had to endure it. One could not become fat in one bite, but the present situation was that Zhou Bao was now the size of an elephant.


    His expression was very strange. He had forcibly put the huge watermelon (planet) into his mouth and swallowed it with all his strength. It entered his esophagus through his throat and filled his mouth, throat, and esophagus. It took a long time to swallow it. Wherever the watermelon went, the blood vessels would be torn apart. The process was extremely painful, but there was no other choice except to endure the pain.


    Not knowing how long it took, he finally swallowed it. His body was damaged. He thought he would feel a little better, but after he looked carefully, it turned out not to be as simple as he had imagined.


    The planet was successfully integrated into his fist intent. But as soon as it was integrated, it began to evolve inside his fist intent. Except it didn''t evolve into the planet he had imagined. Instead, it formed a strange celestial body which stayed quietly in his fist intent. It simulated the center of the universe and rotated on its own axis at an extremely slow speed. Zhou Bao felt anxious just looking at it. He estimated it would take at least three years for each rotation.


    Three years for one rotation was quite slow. Nonetheless, Zhou Bao could feel that his fist intent seemed to have solidified considerably. As the planet rotated, a subtle power emitted from this strange celestial body. It integrated into his fist power through his fist intent.


    BOOM!!!


    With one quick punch, hundreds of kilometers away, a meteorite was smashed. However, almost half of the Mysterious Divine Light in his body was consumed in this one punch.


    "I see!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed and then dimmed immediately.

 610 Five Years

    Zhou Bao forcibly absorbed the planet into his fist intent. Although he succeeded, the final result was not as simple as he had imagined.


    Once the planet was refined into his fist intent, it became the center of his fist intent and transformed into an extremely strange ochre star in the center of the whole simulated universe. This star was countless times larger and more powerful than all the celestial bodies in his simulated universe. Although its rotation speed was very slow, it produced an incomparable great force that filled the whole fist intent. Zhou Bao felt that his fist intent seemed to have come alive.


    Yes, it was alive!


    Before, his fist intent had been the product of a combination of his spirit, Dharma power, willpower, etc. It was virtual. Although it possessed unparalleled power when it was operated, it was not as terrifying and powerful as a living creature.


    "I see. I still need some time to comprehend these mysteries!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed as if he was aware of something. He shook and held back his fist intent. Once again, he transformed into a young man dressed in cyan. He held the Furnace of Immortality in his hand and soon disappeared.


    "Wang She should have entered the Mysterious Realm by now!" Zhou Bao turned around and saw Wang She. With his eyes closed, he was sitting cross-legged in the void and all his essence, qi, and spirit were completely restrained as a whole. He had already reached the Advanced Level of the Mysterious Realm. At the same time, with the help of the power of the roc''s Real Body, he had directly advanced his cultivation to the peak of the Mysterious Realm¡ª the Marrow-Cleansing Realm. He was only one step away from undergoing the Thunder Tribulation and becoming a Genuine Immortal.


    In fact, he had accumulated enough power to undergo the first Thunder Tribulation. However, he had the same plan as Zhou Bao. Once he had accumulated enough power, he would undergo several Thunder Tribulations in one go and become a Venerable.


    WHOOSH!


    Sitting in the void, Wang She seemed to have sensed Zhou Bao''s return. He breathed a sigh of relief and opened his eyes. He looked at Zhou Bao and a fierce bright light shot out of his eyes. "What''s wrong with you? What happened?!"


    Although only a short period of time had passed, the impression Zhou Bao gave now was completely different. His body was emanating an extremely horrible impact force, as if it would bounce back with just a glance. It exerted a huge pressure on Wang She, who had reached the peak of the Individual Immortal Realm.


    Wang She knew that this only occurred when one''s strength was greatly improved but could not be controlled. Had Zhou Bao''s strength improved again in such a short period of time? How had he made such a huge improvement? Zhou Bao must have encountered something while he was engaged in meditation and practice.


    "Oh, nothing. I just gained an insight into something and did something stupid!" Zhou Bao laughed bitterly and changed the subject. His current state was not good. Refining the planet caused a huge impact. His qi and blood had not recovered, and his Mysterious Divine Light was completely consumed. The planet exerted a huge amount of pressure on him too; the tremendous force brought about by its slow rotation was invading his spirit like waves. He was like a strong man carrying a five thousand kilogram stone. He was barely able to bear its weight. It would still take a long time to adapt and walk freely.


    "It seems that your purpose has been achieved, so we''ll go back now and save ourselves from more trouble!" Zhou Bao forcibly restrained the pressure and cast a glance at Wang She. Breaking the void apart directly, he employed the Infinite Realms Teleportation and returned to the Wuyang Region with Wang She.


    When they returned, Zhou Bao did not even say goodbye to Wang She. He merely announced that he would do a closed-door training which lasted for five years.


    Five whole years!


    For five years, Zhou Bao locked himself in the stone room on the peak of Jilei Mountain in order to gain insight into the mystery of fist intent. He didn''t come out even once.


    Five years passed quickly. Although Zhou Bao was doing the closed-door training, no one was foolish enough to cause trouble in the Wuyang Region. The area developed as usual. It developed faster and better. It became the ruler of the whole northwest. It governed not only the northwest but also the Western Region and the whole north. It could be said that since the fall of Northern Yuan, another huge influence had emerged in the north. Compared with Northern Yuan, this influence was more powerful, more civilized, and also more mysterious.


    The Jin dynasty felt the pressure. But such pressure did not make them worry, because the right of speech of this influence was now in the hands of the Jin Emperor''s younger sister and the candidate for the Human Emperor Yan Yantian''s daughter, who had always maintained friendly relations with Jin. Moreover, unlike Northern Yuan, this influence did not require more horses and population every year. The Wuyang Region and even the whole northwest were closely connected with Jin. A road hundreds of thousands of kilometers long linked them together. The traffic was smooth and there were no checkpoints on the way. This area was very prosperous, and the population kept increasing every year. Hence, it was no longer the way it was in the beginning when there was a shortage of manpower. The population of the entire northwest region had exceeded a hundred million; there was no shortage of manpower at all. Coupled with the covert operation of Anyuan Store, the economic interests of Jin were closely linked with those of the Wuyang Region. A strange situation in which they were bound together for better or for worse had taken shape.


    Over the past five years, the Wuyang Region had been completely stable but it had been developing quickly. This attracted the attention of many major influences in the Central Mainland Region. Not only the official influence, the imperial court, but also many sects in the Jianghu, had their branches established in this newly rising place. Many businesses had set up their strongholds here too. Public security here had always been orderly.


    That was because there was a competent urban management team here.


    This team was very efficient. Since Zhou Bao controlled the Azure Big World, he had a steady stream of resources. He also had complete recipes for the elixirs in his possession. In these five years, elixirs had been coming out of the Lord Mansion like running water. Even the lowest-level team members were now at Level Four, not to mention the captains, who were all experts at Level Seven. The leader of all the captains, Zhu Ba, who was also known as Green-eyed Eagle, was already a Level Nine expert. The urban management system in the Wuyang Region made them able to compete with the super-large sects like the Tian Long Taoism and the Sect of Flame.


    This was indeed incredible. It had only been eight years since the Wuyang Region had been established. The super-large sects, like the Tian Long Taoism and the Sect of Flame, which had been established for 6 to 7,000 years with a deep foundation, were in the same state. Within eight years, the Wuyang Region had achieved what had taken the others thousands of years. This was indeed surprising. Of course, despite their surprise, everyone knew it was because of the creator of all these miracles, the Lord of the Wuyang Region, King Wuyang Zhou Bao.


    From the time Zhou Bao revealed his outstanding talent to the present, it had only been a short period of just over 10 years.


    In 10 years, Zhou Bao had become a myth, a myth of the martial arts world.


    However now, fewer and fewer people saw the myth. Every year, there were countless martial arts practitioners and hot-blooded youngsters arriving in the Wuyang Region from all over the world in order to visit the mythical figure. They were all refused at the entrance.


    This rendered all kinds of rumors about Zhou Bao. He was more and more mysterious and more difficult to understand.


    However, none of this was Zhou Bao''s concern. For the growing fan base in the Jianghu, he had no choice but to wear a wry smile.


    "You did a closed-door training for five whole years and handed everything over to me. Do you think I have lived a good life?"


    In the Lord Mansion of the Wuyang Region, Zhou Bao was lying on the bed naked with a wry smile on his face. People always said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. The couple hadn''t seen each other in five years, and inevitably, they vented their passion. Afterwards, Zhou Bao faced endless darkness.


    Bitterness and exhaustion!!!


    For 10 hours, he had been lying on the bed as Yan Yunfei scolded him. From his irresponsibility regarding the education of his children to his bad behavior in the construction of the Wuyang Region. Yan Yunfei shed bitter tears as she spoke, and her words caused Zhou Bao to feel ashamed.


    Yan Yunfei was also a Level Nine expert. Over the past few years, she had managed the entire Wuyang Region very well. With a Sacred Root, she was able to practice at a fast pace. She had also absorbed a lot of Qi of heaven and earth. As a result, an air of nobility radiated from all over her body and her cultivation was unmeasurable in the eyes of others. Even Zhou Bao''s first expert, the Green-eyed Eagle Zhu Ba, would lower his head and be as honest as a peasant before his mistress. It was precisely because of her strong cultivation that she was not parched after 10 hours of continuous scolding.


    "My dear wife, have you finished scolding me?"


    "You...!" Yan Yunfei''s face turned pale. She looked awkward and unhappy.


    "Hey hey, it''s not that big a deal. I just spent five years doing closed-door training. We still have plenty of time together!" Zhou Bao laughed. Raising his hands, he held her in his arms with great force.


    Although Yan Yunfei was a Level Nine expert, she was unable to resist Zhou Bao''s strength. Before she could react, she was in his arms. Zhou Bao turned over and they were immersed in their love.


    "So, over the past five years, the Central Mainland Region was not calm!"


    After they had vented their passion, the Lord''s bedroom finally became quiet. The two of them lay quietly in bed, enjoying their little chat.


    "Yes, a disciple of the Divine Wind Palace has been possessed by the devil, stirring up a widespread uproar throughout Jianghu. However, only a few people know his origin and what the Divine Wind Palace is. They just fear this newly-emerged devil in the martial arts world!"


    "Have the Divine Wind Palace adopted any action?"


    "Yes, they have. But, it''s not very effective. The disciple is too cunning. Moreover, he was originally an elite of the Divine Wind Palace and very familiar with everything about the palace. He can always escape at the most critical time. Besides, the Divine Wind Palace is also tied down by the other Four Great Sects, so...!" Just then, Yan Yunfei suddenly uttered a cry as if she remembered something. She stood up fiercely and said, "Oh, I just remembered, there is one more thing related to you!"


    "Related to me?"


    "It''s about your old friend Wang She. Lu Shaoyou has challenged him to a duel!"

 611 An interlude

    "What? Lu Shaoyou wants to duel with Wang She?" Zhou Bao blinked, not realizing what had happened right away. Yan Yunfei smiled and explained the ins and outs of the incident to him. Zhou Bao finally understood what was going on.


    It turned out that after Wang She entered the Mysterious Realm, he began to cause trouble for Lu Shaoyou. Whether it was intentional or unintentional, it had been entirely aimed at Lu Shaoyou. Lu Shaoyou was not a person who could be trifled with either. Although his teacher, the Master of Golden Lights Cave, had been beaten badly by Zhou Bao and thus didn''t dare exit the closed-door training, he still had the School of Five Virtues to back him up. Undoubtedly, he would not show weakness. The two of them had fallen out with each other.


    "Well, is there a deep hatred between Wang She and Lu Shaoyou?"


    "Why would you ask that?"


    "Because the whole thing was stirred up by Wang She. He provoked Lu Shaoyou first. Furthermore, lately, in the Jianghu, rumor has it that when you attacked the Mingyi School, Wang She snuck into the forbidden area of the school and dug up the grave of the Man of Honor Ji Zhongtang''s beloved wife. This is another factor in why Lu Shaoyou wants to fight with him!"


    "Beloved wife? Haha, haha...!"


    Hearing "Ji Zhongtang''s beloved wife", Zhou Bao burst out laughing. In this world, apart from Ji Zhongtang, Lu Shaoyou, and Wang She, Zhou Bao was probably the only one who knew how Ji Zhongtang''s wife had actually died. While Zhou Bao was attacking the Mingyi School, Wang She had taken his mother''s remains, but Zhou Bao felt there was nothing wrong with that. On the contrary, it was worth pondering how this Jianghu rumor had come out.


    "It seems that Wang She is ready to make things clear and bring this matter to an end with his father!" Zhou Bao contemplated some more and soon understood. However, this was someone else''s private matter. Since no one knew the truth, he felt it was inappropriate to explain it to Yan Yunfei. He just smiled and said, "I can''t miss something so interesting. When will they fight?" ...


    "Three days from now, at the top of Dragon Gate!"


    "Dragon Gate?" Zhou Bao was slightly confused. "What on earth is that?"


    "It''s Ji Zhongtang''s hometown. It is exactly where Ji Zhongtang exchanged Lu Shaoyou with his own son and also where his wife was killed. I guess the reason Lu Shaoyou chose this place is he wants to avenge Ji Zhongtang''s wife''s death. After all, Wang She destroyed her remains!"


    "I see. Dragon Gate, interesting. This is a good drama. Yunfei, would you like to go with me and watch?"


    "Sure, in any case, I have nothing to do now!" Yan Yunfei happily agreed to this proposal. For so many years since they married, Zhou Bao had always gone wherever he needed to go alone. No matter what he did, he had never thought of taking her out with him. Of course, she was overjoyed to hear him putting forward such a suggestion now.


    "Well, pack up your things. We will set off tomorrow and look around on the way. You must be bored staying in the Lord Mansion all these years!" Zhou Bao said with a smile. He looked at Yan Yunfei whose eyes were shiny.


    The next day, after handing the affairs of his territory over to others, Zhou Bao left the Wuyang Region with his wife. He broke the void and arrived close to the Dragon Gate in Jin.


    A distance of hundreds of thousands of kilometers was a piece of cake for him.


    Dragon Gate was a market not so prosperous. It was even a little bit shabby. Ji Zhongtang was somewhat famous in the martial arts world in those days, but his strength had only reached the Expert Realm. He lived here with his wife and son, wanting to enjoy a peaceful life. Unfortunately, his peaceful life had been ruined.


    Zhou Bao wore a cyan robe and carried a Green Bamboo Stick in his hand. From time to time, he hit the ground and looked around. The two hammers behind him clanged, attracting some attention.


    In fact, what really attracted people was not the tinkling sound that the two hammers made, but Yan Yunfei beside him.


    Yan Yunfei was a beauty in her own right. Since marrying Zhou Bao, she had given birth to two children. Furthermore, she possessed unparalleled strength and was a Level Nine Expert. She held an air of dignity that only Level Nine experts could carry. Moreover, as a young woman in the Wuyang Region, she was delicate and charming. When all these factors were added together, only the words "unsurpassed beauty of a generation" could describe her.


    Followed by an eccentric scholar in cyan, such a gorgeous beauty appearing in a small town like Dragon Gate... If it was an ordinary time, it would definitely have caused a sensation throughout the entire town. However, since the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou and Wang She were due to fight in two days, Dragon Gate had long been crowded with all kinds of people. A month ago, all the inns in the small town were fully booked, and so were all the residences. Some residents even moved out of their houses and rented their houses to Jianghu guests who came to watch the scene at a high price. It was only because Zhou Bao''s Anyuan Store was very powerful, that it could acquire a house with four yards for him and Yan Yunfei to settle down.


    As soon as they arrived at Dragon Gate, rather than resting, they went out shopping together. Although the marriage between them could be called a typical political or arranged marriage, Yan Yunfei was still very satisfied with him. Marital life over the past few years had also caused the affection between the two to grow deeper and deeper. Nevertheless, under great pressure, Zhou Bao had always been on the go for so many years. Never had the two been so idle in the streets as they were today. From time to time, they stopped on the street to buy trinkets for fun.


    Yan Yunfei was very happy, and her face revealed her satisfaction.


    She was a gorgeous woman by nature. Now the smile on her face came from the depths of her heart, enveloping her in endless charm. The street in Dragon Gate was bustling with people everywhere. It was already very crowded. When Yan Yunfei smiled, people found it even harder to move forward. Countless pairs of eyes stared at her, with saliva dripping to the ground.


    Zhou Bao was annoyed. He raised his eyebrows and snorted coldly. An invisible ripple emanated from his body hitting the spirits of her admirers.


    BOOM!!!


    The men staring at Yan Yunfei froze as if they had been struck by lightning.


    Zhou Bao knew how far to go and when to stop. He only frightened their spirits; he did not hurt them.


    "Yunfei, let''s go back. If we continue wandering on the street, all the men of Dragon Gate will come out!" Zhou Bao suggested helplessly after frightening the onlookers.


    "All right!" Yan Yunfei covered her mouth with her hand and smiled.


    Zhou Bao took Yan Yunfei away from the bustling streets, but they did not return. Yan Yunfei obtained a veil out of nowhere and put it over her face to cover her appearance. The two of them again wandered about in the suburbs of Dragon Gate.


    After strolling for a while, Zhou Bao frowned his eyebrows slightly. Yan Yunfei also seemed to be aware of something; her expression changed as well.


    "Interesting, it seems his target is us!" Zhou Bao said to Yan Yunfei, suddenly smiling.


    Someone was secretly approaching them. The attacker had a very good cultivation and was a Level Five Expert. For Zhou Bao and Yan Yunfei, Level Five Experts were nobodies. However, in the Jianghu, a Level Five Expert was also a local ruler and famous character. Zhou Bao couldn''t remember when he had offended such a guy. Even if he had offended him, who would have the guts to cause trouble for him?


    "Perhaps he''s attracted by your beauty?" Zhou Bao glanced at Yan Yunfei with a mischievous grin.


    "Hmm!" Yan Yunei cast a sharp glance at Zhou Bao and fiercely raised her hand. A ribbon rose up in the air and stretched 100 feet away. Obviously, the person in the dark did not expect Yan Yunfei to have martial arts skills, never mind martial arts skills that were so unmeasurable. There was no room for him to resist at all. He was entangled in the ribbon and brought before them.


    "Who are you? Why did you approach us secretly?"


    Zhou Bao looked at the man in front of him with a sullen face.


    "Who, who the hell are you?"


    The man was in his 30s and looked quite dignified, but at this moment, there was a look of sheer terror on his face. Yan Yunfei''s moves were really quite strange. He was a master at Level Five and not too old, thus, he was very confident in his own strength. He did not expect that he would not have the power to fight back in front of this woman.


    "Who are we? Interesting, who are you then?"


    "I''m the Leader of the Wuyi Sect of Dragon Gate. You''d better let me go, otherwise, you will suffer the consequences!"


    "The Wuyi Sect?" Zhou Bao looked blank. He had never heard of this sect. However, he had not heard of many sects in the martial arts world.


    "The Wuyi Sect is the largest sect in Huangzhou. Its Master is a Level Eight expert who is very influential in Huangzhou, a man of his word!" Yan Yunfei put in beside him.


    "You know quite a lot about it!"


    "Humph!" Yan Yunfei let out a cold snort from which great dissatisfaction was revealed. Zhou Bao immediately shut up; the look on his face was somewhat embarrassed. In recent years, he had been engaged in the closed-door training, and thus, the important matters in the Wuyang Region and Anyuan Store were all decided by Yan Yunfei. Of course, she knew much more than he did.


    "Is the Leader of the Wuyi Sect really something?" Zhou Bao curled his lip. "Come on, why on earth did you approach me and my wife in secret?"


    "I came here under the orders of my Young Master!" While saying this, he looked up at Yan Yunfei.


    Zhou Bao blinked and glanced at Yan Yunfei too. He understood what the man had come for. Yan Yunfei was flushed with embarrassment. She understood what was going on.


    "Alas, people in this world are tempted by beauty too easily. Yunfei, it seems that this is the trouble you caused!"


    "Humph, what should I do?"


    "What should you do?!" Zhou Bao sneered and said in a high-sounding tone. "Just look at what he has done, I can infer that his Young Master is not a good guy, without even knowing how many people have been harmed by him. I wouldn''t care if I hadn''t encountered this matter personally. Now that I''ve encountered it, it is inevitable for me to enforce justice on behalf of heaven!"

 612 Enforcing Gods Law

    The small town of Dragon Gate had suddenly become popular, which had never happened here before. All the fame had risen because of a duel that was about to happen, a duel between the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou and one of the Chiefs of Tian Long Taoism, Wang She.


    In the martial arts world, the two names were legend, and their owners had been the biggest shining stars for nearly twenty years. In the past ten years, their positions in the martial arts world still couldn''t be shaken even though they were completely overshadowed by a bigger star.


    Zhou Bao, King Wuyang and brother-in-law of the Divine Son, was like a myth. In fact, he was regarded as a king that held the same position with the Divine Son because he controlled the entire northwest. Such a figure basically had no more connection with martial arts practitioners and did not seek adventures in the martial arts world. The troubles he caused would not become the gossip of ordinary practitioners. Besides, after five years of closed-door training, he was no longer a focus in the martial arts world.


    Since both fighters were top experts, the duel had attracted martial artists from all over Jianghu. These people had never in their lives seen real experts and would definitely not miss the opportunity to see a duel between two Level Nine experts.


    Yes, Level Nine experts!


    Up until now, no one knew that Wang She had reached the Mysterious Realm five years ago. Neither did anyone know that he would become as powerful as a peak Individual Immortal once he broke through with the help of roc. If the news spread, the number of people coming to the Dragon Gate would probably double.


    With so many masters gathering, the Dragon Gate became a dangerous place full of constant troubles. Since it was a small place, local officials, only a few constables, didn''t have much power and couldn''t control the martial artists. Luckily, a branch of Wuyi Sect, the biggest sect in Huangzhou, was there to help the officials out.


    Wuyi Sect was the biggest sect in Huangzhou, mainly because its Master, Yang Tianchi, was a Level Eight expert. A genius in martial arts skills, Yang Tianchi had reached the Level Eight Realm at the age of fifty. With two Level Eight experts, Yang Tianchi and a Highest Elder, Wuyi Sect was almost second to none in power, except the super sects like Tian Long Taoism.


    And because Yang Tianchi was a Level Eight, he became one of the few mighty Masters in the martial arts schools. His only son, Yang Yuhe, was also a genius. At the mere age of thirty, Yang Yuhe was already a Level Six master. Given time, he would no doubt reach the Expert Realm and have no competition among the younger disciples of Wuyi Sect. It was foreseeable that in two or three decades time, Yang Yuhe would become the Master of Wuyi Sect, which pleased Yang Tianchi greatly. The only problem was that even though Yang Yuhe was powerful and talented, he had one defect¡ªlechery. Since the age of thirteen, he had played with countless females. He had not been killed as a rapist only because his father was Yang Tianchi.


    As he grew older, he carried this habit forward. The only difference was that he no longer played everywhere, but this was because his standard had improved. Therefore, Yang Tianchi gradually felt relieved, thinking that his son had finally become sensible. At the same time, his practicing speed had improved, leaving him no time or energy to care about his son. Not only that, he had assigned power to his son, apparently wanting him to take over Wuyi Sect in the future. Although this practice seemed unconventional, the Elders and disciples all turned a blind eye. After all, no one in Yang Yuhe''s generation was qualified to compete with him.


    That being the case, Yang Yuhe enjoyed a luxurious life. However, his happy days were coming to an end today.


    Tomorrow was the day of the duel between the White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou and Wang She. Martial arts practitioners who had been waiting here for several days were too excited to sleep. They wandered about the streets early in the morning and were astonished at what they saw.


    In the busiest market of Dragon Gate, a pole had been erected by someone, no one knew whom. A naked man of more than thirty was hung upside down on the pole. He looked funny because the four words written on his face read "I am a rapist", and there was a turtle drawn on his forehead. Besides that, a big banner was hung on the pole with the words:


    "Enforcing God''s Law".


    Everybody laughed at the scene at first, but soon they realized something serious and stopped laughing. The man''s eyes were wide-open as if they were going to pop out. He kept struggling but it was useless. His Internal Qi was inhibited and there was no way for him to escape.


    "Is this Yang Yuhe? He is a Level Six master. Who can do this to him? When did such an expert come to Dragon Gate?" someone asked.


    "It''s easy to understand. Wang She and Lu Shaoyou are both Level Nine experts. Their friends, who must also be experts, would definitely have come to see the duel. Moreover, Tian Long Taoism and the School of Five Virtues are both giant sects. It''s not surprising that they would send a few experts here to control the situation!" another one said.


    "You''re right. Normally, experts like that would not show up. There are so many great figures hiding in the Dragon Gate now. I wonder which of them was offended by Yang Yuhe?"


    "I agree. Even though Wuyi Sect has great power, they are in trouble if they offend the giant sects. Did he offend Nian Wushuang? It is said that Chief Nian is an unsurpassed beauty. This guy deserves this if he has offended her!"


    "I don''t think it was Chief Nian. Otherwise, he would not be hanging here anymore but long dead. Do you think Chief Nian would do something so boring?"


    "True. Then who was it?"


    "Get over it. Right now, the Dragon Gate is a dangerous and strange place. We''d better be careful. You should understand that experts are all very eccentric. You could annoy them with just one word and get yourself into big trouble!" Hearing the warning, everybody lowered their voices.


    "Look, the people from Wuyi Sect!" At that moment, a group of black-clothed men hurried toward the market. The guy in the front was extremely angry and carried a hacking knife in his hand. He rushed to the pole quickly and waved his knife toward the rope by which Yang Yuhe was hung.


    "BANG!"


    The knife gave out a strange sound when it touched the rope. The man was thrown into the air as if he had been severely struck. He spit some blood and fell to the ground, causing turmoil in the crowd.


    This time, even a fool could see that the rope was not ordinary. The black-clothed man, a Level Five master, was the vice-leader of the Dragon Gate Branch of Wuyi Sect. His hacking knife, though it looked very common, was a terrific Secondary Heavenly Weapon. The rope remained intact, yet he was knocked hard enough to spit blood. Undoubtedly, this was no ordinary rope.


    Since the rope was not ordinary, neither was the pole standing in the center of the market.


    Their suspicion was soon confirmed. An hour later, Li Chunrong, Vice Master of Wuyi Sect and a Level Seven expert, came to the spot. After several attempts and without any comment, he ordered the men of the Wuyi Sect to enclose this part of the market and find a piece of cloth to cover Yang Yuhe. After that, he rode on his Gang Wind and left quickly.


    Seeing the furious and murderous guards, most onlookers chose to leave, even though they were still full of curiosity.


    There was nothing more to look at now, just a naked man. The most enjoyable thing was not to look, but to talk about it after going back. It would be exciting to talk about which great figure the Young Master had messed with and what a miserable ending he had brought to himself.


    There was another topic of conversation, an extremely exciting one, for the martial arts practitioners in the Dragon Gate now.


    An hour later, a loud and clear voice resounded, "I am Yang Tianchi of the Wuyi Sect. If my son has offended any master or expert, please show yourself and accept my apology in person!"


    The voice was confident, even a little majestic.


    "It''s Yang Tianchi, the Master of Wuyi Sect!"


    "Yang Tianchi, a Level Eight expert has arrived. It''s getting more and more interesting!"


    "This is strange. The guards are still there. Could it be that even Yang Tianchi cannot save his son?"


    "You''re kidding me! Yang Tianchi is a Level Eight expert. Even he can do nothing?"


    The discussion spread throughout Dragon Gate, some overt, some covert. Yang Tianchi asked three times but got no reply, provoking his anger.


    Just as he became furious, a clear and cold voice wafted in the air of the Dragon Gate, "Disperse your guards and let this guy hang there till tomorrow. That will be the end of this. Otherwise, you can take care of this by yourself!"


    Yang Tianchi''s face changed. "Your Excellency, you''ve achieved your aim and should be more generous. Aren''t you going too far by doing this?"


    "You''re not in a position to bargain with me!" The voice was still clear and cold, but with more severity. Hearing this, Yang Tianchi suddenly changed his face, as if suffering from great stress. His majestic face turned red with anger. Glancing at Yang Yuhe who was still hanging, he squeezed out one sentence, "Let''s go!"

 613 The Gambling

    The sun was bright and the sky was clear.


    When it was broad daylight again, the pole and rope disappeared, together with the banner. Yang Yuhe fell to the ground, like a drowned mouse, and was carried back by the people from Wuyi Sect. However, no one cared about his ending now, because all the attention was drawn to the Dragon Gate Rock outside the Dragon Gate.


    Three kilometers away from the town of Dragon Gate, beside the Dragon River, where the terrain was steep, lay a big rock, called the Dragon Gate Rock. It was quite famous in the Dragon Gate area but had no reputation beyond. Even though the rock itself looked spectacular, there was nothing nearby for sight-seeing. Today, early in the morning, someone discovered a figure on the Dragon Gate Rock. He was dressed in white with a single sword, as if waiting for something.


    The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou!!!


    It was only known that the duel would take place in the Dragon Gate; no specific site had been given. Therefore, even though the Dragon Gate was full of martial arts practitioners, no one had known the exact location. Now that Lu Shaoyou appeared on the Dragon Gate Rock, there was no doubt that this would be the venue. Under such circumstance, no one cared about the Young Master of Wuyi Sect. Everyone was heading to the Dragon Gate Rock.


    In a very short time, the entire Dragon Gate Rock was mobbed by huge crowd.


    However, all the onlookers were kept three hundred meters away from the Dragon Gate Rock.


    There seemed to be an invisible screen, keeping everyone outside.


    "This is the power of Level Nine experts!" People praised and sighed.


    Under the invisible pressure from Lu Shaoyou''s Qi Power, no one could enter the three-hundred-meter wide fighting zone. The entire area became deathly quiet. Everyone was gazing at Lu Shaoyou with enthusiasm.


    "Make a bet! No pulling back!"


    A strange voice suddenly broke the solemn and peaceful atmosphere. Everyone turned in the direction of the sound and was stunned at what they saw. Among the crowd, behind a table, sat a young man. He was dressed in cyan clothes and looked smart with two bright eyes. He was shouting passionately, starting a gambling business among the crowd.


    It was strange that the tense and depressing atmosphere, due to Lu Shaoyou''s Qi Power, disappeared without a trace because of the young man. Although the onlookers were still kept outside the fighting zone, their discussion grew louder and some bold ones even made bets with the young man, who took the business happily.


    The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou felt the change in atmosphere. He looked in the direction of the youth, who seemed to have noticed his attention and looked up. When the two pairs of eyes met, the youth smiled and then turned back to his business. "No pulling back! No pulling back! The more you buy, the more you''ll win!" He shouted, paying no attention to Lu Shaoyou who was staring at him.


    Recognizing the young man''s face, Lu Shaoyou thought for a second and then turned his eyes away, pretending not to have seen anything. This subtle movement didn''t escape the eyes of the onlookers. Even a fool could tell that the young man was not an ordinary being. Otherwise, Lu Shaoyou, who was always arrogant, would never allow such a thing under his nose. After this, the young man''s business grew very fast. Some people bet on Wang She while others on Lu Shaoyou, making the host busy but pleased.


    "I bet ten thousand taels on Wang She!" A rough voice came from the crowd, followed by a huge guy, who walked through others and went to the young man, putting a small cloth bag on the table. The people around stared at the bag with wide-open eyes. Golden light shone at the opening. It was easy to see that the bag was full of gold.


    The young man took the bag without even raising his head, repeating "Bet on Wang She. The odds are ten to one!"


    The big guy was taken aback and shouted immediately, "Ten to one! Are you kidding me?"


    The young man looked up at him for a second and lowered his eyes, saying "Twenty to one!"


    "Eh!!" The big guy got sulky and gave him a stern look. "Okay, twenty to one!" After saying that, he pushed others aside and left, as if venting his anger toward the people around.


    Those being pushed began to stagger. One of them, a hot-tempered man, was about to curse when someone behind stopped him. The hand covering his mouth didn''t come off until the big guy was far away.


    "F*ck, Wang Mazi. Are you looking for trouble?"


    "I was looking for trouble, but you were looking for death. Do you know who that guy is?"


    "Who is it? Could he be Wang She?"


    "He''s not Wang She, but there''s not much difference!" Wang Mazi looked at the husky figure fearfully. "He''s Lei Xu, one of the three Chiefs of Tian Long Taoism. I dare you to curse him!"


    The people surrounding gave off gasps of surprise, feeling lucky that they hadn''t said anything stupid just now.


    Unlike Wang She, Lei Xu seldom appeared in the Jianghu. However, everyone knew that his reputation was above even that of Wang She. He was the only candidate for the next leader of Tian Long Taoism and he had an unfathomable cultivation. If this big guy was Lei Xu, then who was the young man that had just ignored him and made him speechless?


    All of a sudden, the young man was viewed with different eyes, as if he was a rare treasure.


    "What are you looking at! Make a bet or go away!" He felt uncomfortable being stared at by a group of people. Just as he finished these words, another white bag embroidered with luxurious patterns fell on his table. "Bet on Wang She. A hundred thousand taels. The odds are one to one!!"


    After saying this, the graceful figure disappeared.


    The young man looked at the white bag and complained, "Oh, no! There''s no profit for me at all!" He took the bag, mumbling things to himself.


    "That was Nian Wushuang from Tian Long Taoism!"


    "Right. Now, two of the three Chiefs of Tian Long Taoism are here. When Wang She comes, it''ll be a feast in the martial arts world!"


    "Yes, that''s right!" everyone agreed.


    Lei Xu and Nian Wushuang both had very deep cultivation. The three hundred meter boundary couldn''t hold them. They approached the Dragon Gate Rock one after another, found a good location for each of them and watched Lu Shaoyou with cold eyes. At this moment, someone remembered that Lei Xu also had a personal dispute with Lu Shaoyou, about his wife.


    Back then, Lu Shaoyou had been engaged to the daughter of Ma Tianchang, the Governor of Yunzhou. But the bride had been robbed by Wang She on the wedding day. At first, everyone had thought that Ma Linglong, Ma Tianchang''s daughter, had had an affair with Wang She. However, to everyone''s surprise, it was another Chief of Tian Long Taoism, Lei Xu, that had had an affair with her. If such was the case, the dispute between Lu Shaoyou and Lei Xu was much deeper than that with Wang She. As the saying goes, the person who killed your father and took your wife were the biggest enemies. Wang She hadn''t kill Lu Shaoyou''s father, but Lei Xu had taken his wife!


    In a short time, the atmosphere became strange. The onlookers grew excited, as though looking forward to seeing a fight between the two as a warm-up.


    Just as everyone had guessed, the moment Lei Xu showed up, Lu Shaoyou''s poker face changed. His eyes grew sharp.


    "Your enemy today is Wang She, not me. After today, you can end our dispute with me anytime you want!" Lei Xu noticed the change of expression on Lu Shaoyou''s face. He waved his hands carelessly and said generously, "I won''t take advantage of you today!"


    "Hehehehe!" His words silenced everyone, but the young man in cyan burst into laughter. In the deathly silence, his laughter sounded rather harsh. Nevertheless, no one dared to stop him because no one knew who he really was. However, judging from Lu Shaoyou, Lei Xu and Nian Wushuang''s reaction, the young man was not an ordinary one. Since the party involved showed no discontent, others were not stupid enough to stand out for him.


    "Bet on Lu Shaoyou, a hundred thousand taels!" Another voice came as everyone was still stunned. A gracious-looking middle-aged man appeared in front of the young man, putting a golden bag on the table.


    The young man took the bag and said, "Good! Bet on Lu Shaoyou. The odds are one to thirty!"


    Hearing this, the middle-aged man almost fell to the ground. "How can you change the odds so randomly?"


    "You know too much inside information. I''ll lose too much if the odds remain unchanged!" The young man waved his hand toward the middle-aged man, and said without even raising his head, "Go away! Don''t get in the way of my business!"


    The man looked helpless. He walked through the crowd into the fighting zone.


    At this moment, everyone began to understand that ordinary practitioners didn''t have the ability to enter the fighting zone. Those who did were all experts with deep backgrounds. It was rather interesting that the first thing the great figures did here was to make a bet on the young man''s gambling table, with a stake of at least ten thousand taels. Some bet on Wang She, some on Lu Shaoyou. In a short time, the young man had collected more than a million taels, receiving much jealousy from the people around.


    "Bet on Wang She, a million taels!" Just as everyone was envious of the young man''s money, another voice rose, catching all the attention.

 614 The Duel

    Bet on Wang She, a million taels!


    These words shocked everyone.


    All the eyes suddenly turned to the man who made the bet.


    "Wang She!!!"


    "The Chief of Tian Long Taoism, Wang She!"


    "It''s him!"


    "He''s here!!"


    The appearance of Wang She caused a stir. Unlike Lei Xu, Wang She was frequently seen in the Jianghu and was recognized as soon as he showed up.


    "A million taels?" The young man dressed in cyan frowned. "Are you kidding me? Take your money away!"


    "Why?"


    "You''re the fighter and can influence the result of the duel. It''s too much risk taking your bet. But here''s a solution. If you can persuade that guy over there to bet on himself for one million, that''ll be a fair play!" The young man rolled his eyes and said calmly, "Otherwise, sorry, I can''t take your bet!"


    "You''re such a damned kid!" Wang She took back the black bag from the table and said angrily, "Boy, I hope you lose all your money!"


    "I hope you''re right, but according to the current situation, I''ll lose all the money only if you''re killed by Lu Shaoyou!" the young man said arrogantly, without moving a muscle on his face. Wang She had nothing to say and left indignantly.


    "Good. The troubles are all gone. Who else wants to make a bet?" The young man continued his business without even looking at Wang She.


    However, apparently, his business had come to an end. All the attention was now focused on the fighting zone. Lu Shaoyou had been here for a long time. Now that Wang She was here too, the duel was about to begin. Who cared about a bet at a moment like this?


    "Finally, you''re here. I thought you didn''t have the guts to come!"


    "Why not? It''s not easy to force you into this!" Looking at Lu Shaoyou, Wang She smiled cunningly.


    "Force me?" Lu Shaoyou had never thought that Wang She would say such a thing and was a little surprised.


    "Of course. If I didn''t reveal the secret, how could you know?"


    "That being so, the rumor is true. It was you that destroyed my aunt''s remains?" Lu Shaoyou''s face grew more and more ugly. "Why did you do it?"


    "Why? Hahahahahaha! You ask me why?" Wang She laughed nonchalantly, with a feeling of fulfillment. All of a sudden, he stopped, and his smile disappeared. He stared at Lu Shaoyou for a long time. "I won''t tell you!"


    "Humph! Wang She, everything is clear now. Don''t ever think about playing tricks with me!" Looking at Wang She''s cunning face, Lu Shaoyou had a faint feeling that something was wrong. However, this was the day of their duel and there were so many people around. He didn''t want to turn it into a joke.


    "Good! I won''t play tricks. Make your move!" Wang She showed no expression and looked at Lu Shaoyou firmly. His eyes were strange, cunning and ambiguous, frightening his opponent a little. Lu Shaoyou did not say anything more and raised his sword. In a second, endless Sword Qi shot out, rushing toward Wang She''s face. The sword power around him rolled up and was in front of Wang She, even faster than his Sword Qi. He lifted his hand and pointed his fingers. A streak of sword light flew out, aiming between Wang She''s eyebrows.


    Fast, so fast!


    It was so fast that few of the people present had a clear view of Lu Shaoyou''s actions. They only knew that Lu Shaoyou raised his hand and the golden light shining at his fingertips was about to reach Wang She''s eyebrows.


    Wang She did not move at all. He wore a cunning smile and waited for Lu Shaoyou''s finger.


    "What''s happening?"


    "It cannot be true!"


    "Is Wang She crazy? Does he want to die today?"


    Such a situation shocked even the experts within the three hundred meter fighting zone. Judging from the attack, they knew that Lu Shaoyou had surpassed Level Nine to the Mysterious Realm. Even though they could withstand this hit, they had to pay a great price. However, Wang She didn''t dodge at all, potentially putting himself in danger.


    Nian Wushuang frowned as if intending to give a hand. Lei Xu, who was not far away, came over in an instant and held her by the shoulder, sending out a piece of divine thought, "Hold on!"


    Nian Wushuang focused her attention and stopped her move. Lu Shaoyou''s finger seemed to have touched Wang She''s eyebrows.


    It was so weird! Wang She''s cunning smile seemed to twist space. Lu Shaoyou''s finger went through Wang She over his forehead, as if hitting empty air.


    Holy crap!


    Hitting on nothing, Lu Shaoyou realized something was wrong and retreated quickly.


    "Aye, it''s too late!" the young man in the crowd shook his head and sighed.


    BANG!


    Lu Shaoyou received a heavy blow and flew backward. However, he was protected not only by the invisible sword power, but also by a layer of white light. Wang She''s attack blew him back, but the strike wasn''t deadly. After flying backward more than thirty meters, he rolled several times in the air and landed on the ground, safe and sound, but his eyes were full of astonishment.


    "You reached the Mysterious Realm too!"


    "I did that long ago. Not here, but in the hollow. The Law of Heaven cannot restrain me!" Wang She took back his fist and said simply, "What surprised me is you! Your Inner Armor is quite fabulous!"


    Inner Armor!


    Lu Shaoyou''s white clothes had broken to pieces, revealing the soft armor that kept out all the power from Wang She''s fist. Lu Shaoyou could have been badly hurt without the armor.


    "In the hollow!!" Hearing this, Lu Shaoyou became more distressed and looked toward the young man in the crowd.


    "Why are you looking at me? Hit him, or you''ll die!" The young man looked impatient.


    BANG!!!


    Before the young man finished his words, there came another thud. This time, Wang She had approached him quietly, attacking him with a hard blow that sent him flying. "You! Don''t be distracted again, or I''ll hit you right on the face next time!" Wang She didn''t continue his attack, but watched him fall to the ground. Coldly, he continued, "Don''t think you''re invincible with your Inner Armor, a Pure Yang Celestial Device. To tell you the truth, it won''t take me much effort to break the shell!" Wang She sneered and raised his hand. Several cyan electric arcs sprang from his body.


    Pipa, Pipa, Pipa...


    The electric lights sent out a crackling sound.


    Jade Original Power Gang!


    Under the reflection of the Jade Original Power Gang Spirit, Wang She looked like a devil from a far-reaching death place. He wore a vicious smile and moved toward Lu Shaoyou. "The White Blademaster, Lu Shaoyou, hehe! Show your ultimate skill, or you''re no match for me. I don''t think you''re ready to die under my hand like a coward!"


    Lu Shaoyou''s face became sullen. "As you wish!" A bright sword light soared into the sky.


    The sword light was piercingly cold. It formed the shadow of an ancient sword above his head. The old sword was more than a meter long with a rather primitive and simple shape, giving out a quiet and weather-beaten air.


    The Natal Sword?


    The young man in the crowd squinted his eyes and sneered, saying "What a poor move! I could break your Natal Sword with just one hand!"


    Of course, he said this quietly to himself. For a sword practitioner, it was the highest achievement to have a Natal Sword. The entire area around Dragon Gate Rock was filled with a fierce and threatening air because of the Natal Sword. Although Lu Shaoyou was limiting the power, ordinary practitioners three hundred meters away were still affected greatly. How could they withstand the Qi Power generated from an Individual Immortal of the Mysterious Realm?


    He had reduced the power, but the ordinary people still couldn''t bear it.


    "The sword technique is too scattered and disordered!" The young man sighed a little and suddenly shouted, "Wang She, end this! No matter how deep the hatred is, it''s boring to keep playing with him like this!"


    "That''s true!" Wang She gave out a lopsided grin and stretched out his five fingers. A cyan power grid suddenly took shape, flying toward Lu Shaoyou with fury, intending to cover him. At the same time, the ancient sword shadow above Lu Shaoyou''s head stabbed toward Wang She.


    WHOOSH!


    The sharp sword pierced through space, leaving a dark line in the air, facing the power grid!


    Papapapapapapa!


    The bright sword light pierced through several layers of power grid, but there were too many. After the fifth layer, the sword light was exhausted and gradually disappeared. The power grid shot forward, enshrouding Lu Shaoyou in an instant.


    It seemed to have taken a long time. However, the whole process happened in just a blink of the eye. Seeing that he had lost his advantage, Lu Shaoyou kept dodging, as if to retreat. How could Wang She let him escape?


    The power grid covered everything, blocking every escape route!


    Yes, escape route!


    Every expert present could see that once the power grid covered Lu Shaoyou, the destructive power within was enough to kill him a hundred times.


    "How could Wang She be so powerful as an expert of the Mysterious Realm? Lu Shaoyou is not weak!"


    "What an awesome power grid! Is the Jade Original Power Gang so strong?"


    There were countless guesses within a short time, but everyone understood that Lu Shaoyou was doomed.


    "Stop!" Just as everyone thought that Lu Shaoyou had no more chances, an azure light appeared, covering him.


    BOOM! ! !


    Instead of hitting Lu Shaoyou, the power grid struck against the azure light. The entire Dragon Gate Rock seemed to explode with the strike.


    "Finally!" Wang She didn''t look away, but smiled cynically.

 615 Reveal

    Wang She''s display of strength took everyone completely by surprise.


    He had actually gone into the hollow to advance to the Mysterious Realm without telling anyone.


    Since the hollow was not part of the macro world, the Golden Book of Fate was not able to stop anyone from advancing to the Mysterious Realm there. There were people who had done it in the past too. However, not one bit of Genuine Spirit was able to enter the Golden Book of Fate, which meant that if one was badly beaten from head to toe, there would not be the slightest chance of rescue by the Golden Book of Fate. Death would be the only answer.


    Besides, for a strict macro world like the Heaven Realm, a Level Nine expert was not able to enter it.


    Only those that had reached the Genuine Immortal Realm could barely break open the space and enter the hollow.


    However, those whose cultivation had reached the Realm of True Immortal and had Genuine Immortal Karma Rank, were named in the Golden Book of Fate. In order to maintain the seriousness of the Book, the five biggest sects banned Genuine Immortals from bringing people into the hollow to breakthrough into the Mysterious Realm.


    Another thing to note was that after one advanced into the Mysterious Realm inside the hollow, he would have to undergo the Void Thunder Tribulation in the hollow in order to get the Genuine Immortal Karma Rank. The Void Thunder Tribulation in the hollow was ten times stronger than the Thunder Tribulation in the macro world. Hence, for the past thousands of years, while there were cases of people actually doing so, it was very rare.


    Everyone knew that Wang She and Zhou Bao had a close relationship. They also knew that Zhou Bao, the bastard, did not care about the Law of Heaven and its bans at all. Hence, he could bring Wang She into the hollow anytime. It was just that no one thought that Wang She would actually do it. After all, never mind the bans of the five biggest sects, the future Thunder Tribulation was enough to kill.


    "Finally there''s interference. This so-called duel can be interfered by by-standers!"


    The power grid collided with the azure light and blew up Dragon Gate Rock. Wang She did not attack further. Instead, he sneered. Lu Shaoyou''s face was flushed red. He wanted to fight back, but nothing came out of his mouth. If someone had not blocked him from the attack just now, he would have been injured for sure.


    "Wang She, don''t speak so soon. You''re immoral. You went against the Law of Heaven and entered the Mysterious Realm in the hollow. Now, everyone is entitled to kill you. Any method will be deemed as appropriate!"


    A stern voice came from the hollow.


    "Bullshi*t!" As soon as this stern voice finished speaking, a teen in the crowd dressed in cyan clothes started to scold scornfully. He whispered the word softly, but his voice traveled everywhere. Everyone heard him clearly.


    The crowd went silent instantly. Everyone stared at the teen incredulously. He seemed to be oblivious and gave a cold disdainful smile. "You want to fight and you f*cking just do it straight away. We''re going according to rules here, what the f*ck are you doing, siding with one person? As if that''s not enough, you f*cking act all high and mighty and mysterious. You think that by knowing a few spatial Divine Senses you get to be mysterious? Get you''re a$$ out here!"


    As he spoke, the teen moved his finger lightly. An equally red and black Sword Qi shot out. The Sword Qi opened the space and a purple shadow flashed out from the hollow.


    "PSSST!"


    The sound of cloth tearing could be heard. The expensive purple robe was half-torn revealing his white undergarment.


    His stern face was flushed red and his whole body was shivering. His hand shook as it pointed in the direction of the teen. He pointed to him for a long time without being able to say a word.


    The teen did not care about his boiling anger. He lowered his head down again as he sorted out the bets on the table. "Damn it, I collected so much and was ready to earn a big sum. Now it''s all gone because of you!"


    This was initially supposed to be a non-stop duel where one party had to admit defeat and lose his combat capability. Now that this purple-clothed man had come and stirred things up, nobody could tell for sure who had won and who lost.


    Although on the surface it seemed like Lu Shaoyou was not able to handle the power grid, it did not hit him at all. Who knew if he had a strong celestial device or methods to stop it?


    Nobody knew!


    Hence, it was not easy to determine the outcome of the duel. The bets were now invalid. As the owner of the betting den, he was naturally in a bad mood.


    After such a stir-up, the man in purple was extremely embarrassed. The Qi Power to say something now as-a-matter-of-factly was gone. He just stared harshly at Wang She. After a long while, he asked, "Just what grudge do you have against me? Why did you destroy my beloved wife''s skeleton!"


    After a long day, this was the main point!


    The Man of Honor, Ji Zhongtang, was the most loyal person in the martial arts world. His reputation traced back to the Guan Yu in his previous life. He was Lu Shaoyou''s Yi uncle, or to be exact, he could even be called Lu Shaoyou''s Yi father or biological father in the afterlife. The reason Lu Shaoyou had gone to look for Wang She for a fight was that Wang She had destroyed the skeleton of Ji Zhongtang''s late wife. Lu Shaoyou wanted to avenge his Yi father. This should have been Ji Zhongtang''s matter to take care of. Hence, Lu Shaoyou not defeating Wang She, and Ji Zhongtang coming in to save him, while not morally correct and against the rules, was acceptable in regards to this favor.


    This was also why Ji Zhongtang dared to take a side so obviously in the duel.


    Wang She listened to Ji Zhongtang''s question and raised his eyebrows. He looked calm and was not as agitated as Zhou Bao had imagined him to be. Wang She only scanned Ji Zhongtang with one look and broke into laughter suddenly. "Your beloved wife, hehe, I can''t believe you can really say these two words out loud! You were the one who beat your wife to death! Is this how you should treat her?!"


    "You-!" Ji Zhongtang''s initial furious expression instantly became stunned. Only three people in the world knew the truth. Himself, his son, and Lu Shaoyou. How could Wang She know about it? Even if he did, why had he chosen to bring it up now in this situation? He was stunned.


    "Hehe, the Man of Honor Ji Zhongtang, I don''t think your nickname is very good. It should be the Man Who Killed His Wife Ji Zhongtang. I did not destroy my mother''s skeleton. I only moved her to a place she loved. I don''t think the elderly would want to stay in that sh*tty moral shrine, don''t you think?!"


    "You, you are...!"


    "I am Wang She, why, do you have any problems?!" Wang She was still smiling as he stared at Ji Zhongtang.


    "You, you are Tianyuan, you are Tianyuan...!" Ji Zhongtang was very agitated. His biological son had passed away many years ago and had suddenly appeared again, how could he not be agitated? The possibility of Wang She posing as him was a joke. There was no reason for Wang She to pose as his son. Wang She was the Chief of Tian Long Taoism and an Individual Immortal of the Mysterious Realm. Be it identity or status, he was nowhere worse than Ji Zhongtang. Why would he pose as his son?


    Also, regarding his looks, initially he had not felt this way, but now as he looked, he did look fairly similar to his wife. Thinking about his behavior all along, after processing his thoughts, he finally realized what was going on.


    After the initial agitation, he finally calmed down. He sighed. "I can''t believe you are still alive!"


    "Of course I am. However, Ji Tianyuan is dead, I am now Wang She!" Wang She''s smile grew vibrant gradually. "The duel was started by The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou but was taken over by you. No matter what, you are still my senior, I am of no place to attack you. I think today''s duel should end here!"


    No one would have thought that Wang She would be so easy to talk to. One sentence was enough to reveal the whole story. Of course, what was even more surprising was the relationship between Wang She and Ji Zhongtang, as well as the secret he revealed today.


    So actually, Ji Zhongtang''s son had not died back then. He had even become the Chief of Tian Long Taoism. Also, Ji Zhongtang''s wife had not died being chased by killers. Rather, she had been killed by Ji Zhongtang himself. As for his reason for killing her, it wasn''t hard to figure out. What kind of mother would be willing to send her own child to die in order to redeem another''s son''s life?


    None!


    So Ji Zhongtang had killed her!


    "This Fight For Justice is really straight to the point!"


    The crowd had understood and their view towards Ji Zhongtang changed. The atmosphere right now at Dragon Gate Rock was very strange. Were they putting on a show of two enemies at a face-off or were they having a father-son reunion moment? Why were they not able to understand what was going on?


    "However, I will not let go of this guy. My mother died because of him, so he must die. That way, my heart will be at peace. Not only has he got to die, I have to torture him slowly. Today is just a start!" Wang She smiled. He nodded towards Ji Zhongtang, turned into a rainbow and disappeared, not giving a damn about the crowd''s feelings.


    "Tianyuan, Tianyuan...!" Ji Zhongtang did not expect Wang She to just leave like that. He had not given him a chance to speak at all. He called out to him twice and got no response. Wang She had already flown far away. Ji Zhongtang''s outstretched hand had no more energy. He waved it twice in the air and gave a long sigh. He had nothing to say.


    "Hehe, the real show is just starting!" The teen in the crowd swung his sleeves, grabbed his betting stand and left swiftly. Afterwards, the crowd gradually dispersed too. The experts who were close to the fighting scene either rode on the winds or turned into rainbows and left. Eventually, Ji Zhongtang and Lu Shaoyou left with troubled looks on their faces. Dragon Gate Rock became peaceful once again. This time, however, it had disappeared. Only a big hole was left in the mountain.


    "Is Wang She really Ji Zhongtang''s biological son? He did not die falling down the cliff? He is back to take revenge on his father, is that true?!"


    Perhaps women were naturally born with a passion for gossiping. Once she learned the truth, Yan Yunfei bombarded Zhou Bao with questions.


    "Yes, yes, their relationship is fine, they are father and son. However, now they''ve become enemies too. This topic has already spread very far, I do not know more than those spreading it!" Zhou Bao was obviously annoyed. "Regarding anything prior to this, I have nothing to say. As for the future, I can only tell you that the real show has just started!"

 616 Ancient Ruins of a Sect from Antiquity Times

    Indeed, the real show was just starting!


    Wang She was the Chief of Tian Long Taoism. At the same time, he was also one of the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace. Ji Zhongtang, on the other hand, was a training target for the Divine Wind Palace. He was much stronger than Lu Shaoyou.


    This was because he had met Yi IV from the School of Five Virtues. Yi IV had really liked this guy who was Fighting For Justice and gave him many advantages. He helped Ji Zhongtang enter the Mysterious Realm and also passed many Divine Sense celestial devices on to him. When giving them to him, Yi IV had said clearly that he should not pass them on further to other people. Hence, Ji Zhongang hadn''t dared to pass them on privately. Because of this, his powers were much stronger than Lu Shaoyou. This was how he had managed to help Lu Shaoyou block the power grids.


    "Seems like you have an overall plan. If not, you wouldn''t have left so recklessly back there!" Zhou Bao smiled as he looked at Wang She who was sitting opposite him.


    "Could I have stayed? After all, Ji Zhongtang is my biological father. Should I have punched him to death? I''m afraid several tribulations would have dawned upon me immediately! Besides, what good would it do? Will it bring my mother back? Will the hatred in my heart be eased?!"


    "Enough, enough, stop talking about it, stop!" Zhou Bao waved his hand frantically and stopped him from continuing. He knew that Wang She liked to act mature. However, after getting to know each other better, whenever they talked about their family problems, Wang She became hysterical. He would often bawl uncontrollably. Jing Tao''s brother was nothing compared to him. He got goosebumps watching Jing Tao''s brother in his past life, he did not want to continue this with a Sect Master in this life.


    "Anyways, if there''s anything I can help you with in the future, feel free to tell me. I will let you know if it''s ok!" Zhou Bao said. "But I see that you''re not here about your private matters today!"


    "I will take care of my private matters on my own. I will come to you for help only when I have no other way out. This time around, I''m here for another important matter!"


    Something important!


    Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows. For Wang She to deem something as important, it would for sure be significant. However, apart from the family reunion drama recently, there seemed to be no major events, be it in the Jianghu or in the practitioner world. With Zhou Bao''s current status, he should have more sources for such news than Wang She. Just what did Wang She know that he didn''t?!


    Zhou Bao could not help but wonder.


    "I am here about the issue with the Devil Fetus!"


    "Devil Fetus?!" Zhou Bao felt a plunge in his heart. Ever since the Devil Fetus attached itself to the disciple of Divine Wind Palace, he had stirred things up in the Heaven Realm. He had tried to exert power in the Heaven Realm. However, in the Seven-deity Regions, this power could not be developed, especially with the pressure from the Four Eastern Regions. This Devil Fetus was very resilient. He built up his power upon a piece of desolated land somewhere in the endless Sea Area. It was unclear when the Devil Fetus had started to cross the endless Sea Area. According to rumors, the disciples he attracted were mostly in Demonic Cultivation. God knows how he did it. However, since he was not causing trouble in the Seven-deity Regions, apart from the Dark Sect, other sects in the Seven-deity Regions were too lazy to care about him. The Devil Fetus lived quite a free life. Why was Wang She bringing this up now? Perhaps he wanted to use him? It did not seem likely; Wang She was not a hot-headed person.


    "Why are you interested in the Devil Fetus?!"


    "I am not interested in the Devil Fetus, but the place where he built his power, the desolated land!"


    "What do you mean?!"


    "It is the entrance to an Ancient Ruin, and it belonged to a large sect in the antiquity times!" As he spoke, Wang She opened a map and laid it on the table.


    Zhou Bao''s expression changed as he looked at the map. It was different from a regular map. In addition to the terrains, there were also eccentric traces and symbols. Zhou Bao knew that these represented time spaces.


    The Heaven Realm was a macro world enveloped by layers of time spaces. It contained countless time spaces. While it may have looked messy and mysterious, there was some pattern and order to it. Back in the antiquity times, powerful practitioners and Powerful Divines had explored these patterns and came up with a conclusion. A few strong sects even used these patterns to help them hide in the deepest part of this seemingly endless time space. Using these patterns, they had set up all kinds of protective formations to guard the door to the mountain. This way, the sects were safe and protected, as if they were in the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain.


    The Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was initially an outer division of a strong sect, Sky Outside of a Sky, in the antiquity times. After the tribulation, this particular sect had disappeared, and the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was kept protected. After developing for thousands of years, it became one of the strongest sects in the Three Western Regions.


    The location of each sect''s mountain door was a mystery. These sects would set up a Bodhimanda in the present world in the macro world. They would then set up a transmitting magic formation within the Bodhimanda. Only the most powerful officials could go in and out of the real mountain door through the Transmitting Formation. Regular disciples could only interact with the other sects in the Bodhimanda. Those who did not know the truth would mistake the Bodhimanda as the mountain door.


    In the medieval period, which was after the antiquity times, the exploration of sects from antiquity times did not stop. One by one, maps of the sects began to circulate, just like the one Wang She had now.


    "Ancient Ruins from the sects of antiquity times, since when were you interested in these things? You already have the roc essence and blood, so probably also inherited the roc bloodline. This type of inheritance from the Fierce Beasts of antiquity times is just as good as that from the sects of antiquity times. It also suits your cultivation. I don''t think there''s a need to do more than is required!"


    "If it was just some neighboring sect I wouldn''t care, but this sect is different. It affects our ability to surpass the Void Thunder Tribulation!"


    "Void Thunder Tribulation?!" Now, even Zhou Bao''s expression changed. He was different from Wang She, in the sense that he had entered the Mysterious Realm through the Azure Big World. By right, he should undergo the Thunder Tribulation in the Azure Big World. However, he also possessed the Jade Plate of Fate from the Azure Big World. The tribulation would be of no use to him. If he wanted to enter the True Immortal Realm, he had two choices. One was to combine the macro world of fate with the Jade Plate of Fate. He would not need to undergo any tribulation and could directly become the highest existence in the Azure Big World. The other way was to undergo the Thunder Tribulation in the hollow and enter the realm of Genuine Immortal.


    He had naturally given up on the first choice. It was too strange. There might have been benefits from becoming the highest existence of a macro world, but he subtly felt that there would be several problems. It would definitely not be as easy as the rumors in the outside world led it to be. He would have to grab hold and control everything, much like the responsibility a Human Emperor held. There would be more responsibilities too. Right now, Zhou Bao was frightened at the idea of being responsible for more things. He already had more than enough on his shoulders and did not want to add any more pressure onto himself.


    Hence, going through the Thunder Tribulation in the hollow had become his best option. The reputation of the Void Thunder Tribulation had been spreading around for many years along with its benefits. Everyone knew that it was not easy. Hence, Zhou Bao was very cautious about this matter too.


    After five years of difficult practice, he had finally trained his body to be in its best condition, the peak of Mysterious Realm. At the same time, after inserting the star into his fist intent, he had spent five years understanding and mastering it. He finally understood how bold he had been with his punching skill and fist intent before. He realized he had yet to see the best and worst of the world.


    Putting a star into one''s fist intent would obviously cause its powers to increase multifold. However, the problem was that one needed power to activate this source of energy. Zhou Bao had already synchronized the Zhuyan bloodline completely. He had also refined the Real Body of Zhuyan and practiced the Mysterious Divine Light. He could use a fraction of the Primordial Demonic Ape, Zhuyan''s power and capability. However, to control a star was difficult. Zhou Bao could also see that the faster the star spun, the greater its powers. To make it spin quickly, the Mysterious Divine Light was needed to boost it. Zhou Bao had nine acupoints and very thick Mysterious Divine Light, but the word ''thick'' was very subjective. When facing a normal Individual Immortal, it could be used. But when facing a star, could one even use the word ''thick''?


    Of course not. He had to be a coward.


    Zhou Bao had already calculated this. Based on his body''s condition, if he launched all of his fist intent to boost the powers of the star, he could punch once. It would be a very forceful punch and Zhou Bao was confident that one punch was sufficient to break the bones of a Human Immortal. For example, he could punch the Highest Elder of the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, who was of Human Immortal rank, to death. However, after the punch, Zhou Bao''s fist would shatter as well. His internal Mysterious Divine Light would be sucked out completely and his body would be severely injured. He would end up on the verge of dying.


    If he activated his two hammers and relied on their strength, he could give a complete third shot. However, he could control the first shot, but he would not be able to control the accuracy of the second or third. After the third shot, it would be just like his fists after punching - the Mysterious Divine Light would be all used up. However, one advantage to this was that his body would not be severely injured.


    This was the benefit of having a strong weapon.


    At the same time, he also knew that his biggest problem was the lack of Dharma power.


    The best way to increase Dharma power was to undergo Void Thunder Tribulation and get a Genuine Immortal Karma Rank. However, deep down in his heart he was scared.


    He was really scared. The Void Thunder Tribulation was not easy at all, especially for people like him and Wang She, whose bodies were infused with the bloodline of Primordial Fierce Beasts. The bloodline could trigger the Thunder Tribulation considerably. It could even cost them their lives

 617 The Pool of Thunder Tribulation

    "What is going on exactly? There''s something in this Ancient Ruin that can help us undergo the Void Thunder Tribulation?!" When Wang She mentioned the problem of undergoing the Void Thunder Tribulation, Zhou Bao became flustered.


    "This is what I heard. In this Ancient Ruin, there is a Pool of Thunder Tribulation, if we can get it, then...!"


    "Pool of Thunder Tribulation?! Are you sure?" Zhou Bao''s gaze changed, and he stood up instantly. He knew about the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Its history was not that important, but not only could it help people get through the Thunder Tribulation, it could, most importantly, be used as an energy source for Supreme Fairy Weapons. If Zhou Bao could move the Pool of Thunder Tribulation into his Supreme Fairy Weapon, he would not need to extract pneuma from the Azure Big World anymore. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation could run it normally and he could even use it to launch big moves. All along, however, Zhou Bao had always assumed that it was just a legend. He did not expect to hear of such news from Wang She today. How could he not be excited?


    "I can''t be sure, but there''s a possibility!"


    Zhou Bao contemplated Wang She''s statement, but he had no choice. No one could be sure of such things just from looking at the map.


    "The entrance to the Ancient Ruin is on the Devil Fetus'' Desolate Island. How is there such a coincidence in this world?!"


    Looking at the map, Zhou Bao recovered from his excitement and began to ponder, deep in thought. "The Devil Fetus only occupied the desolated island for a few short years. Do you think it is the Divine Wind Palace trying to stir thing up releasing this? Perhaps they want to attract treasure-hunters to fight with the Devil Fetus and then take advantage when both sides are heavily injured?!


    "It''s possible, but unlikely!" Wang She shook his head. "The Divine Wind Palace would not do such a thing, it''s not their style!" Speaking of which, he was deep in thought again. "The Dark Sect would, but the Divine Wind Palace wouldn''t!"


    "You seem to trust that bunch of bastards in the Divine Wind Palace quite a lot!" Zhou Bao laughed.


    "They may be pricks, but...!"


    He stopped talking before he finished his sentence.


    "His Royal Highness, Zhu Excellency is requesting to see you!" At this moment, an announcement came from outside the yard.


    "Let him in!" Zhou Bao replied.


    After becoming a Level Nine expert, Zhu Ba was much more mature than he''d been in the past. A few glances at him also revealed a sense of masculinity. However, he hid this side of his personality in front of Zhou Bao. "Hehe, His Royal Highness, big matter!"


    "Big matter? What big matter?!"


    Zhu Ba glanced at Wang She and appeared hesitant.


    "Stop hesitating, speak up. Will Chief Wang not know what you know?!"


    "Hehe!" Zhu Ba smiled awkwardly. He took something out and presented it to Zhou Bao. "Your Royal Highness, this is a map. Apparently, it has something to do with an Ancient Ruin from antiquity times. There is a huge benefit inside, something to do with a thing called the Pool of Thunder Tribulation!"


    "What?!" Both Wang She and Zhou Bao were shocked. They were not expecting Zhu Bao to deliver such news. Furthermore, he also had a map.


    Zhou Bao lifted his hand and delivered the map. He opened it and the two scanned the map. Both their expressions became strange, especially Wang She, who appeared slightly distraught and embarrassed. This was understandable. What he thought was a big secret that he''d ran to share with Zhou Bao, was delivered to him just like that in the blink of an eye. Furthermore, he had a map too.


    "Where did you get this map?!"


    "From an escort agency!" Zhu Ba replied and began to tell the whole story. It turned out that an unknown person had requested the top escort agency in Jiang province to deliver this map. The person paid a hefty sum, the biggest the agency had received since their establishment 200 years ago. Naturally, they dared not take the matter lightly. Precisely because of the extra caution, it attracted people''s attention. There were no bandits on Wuyang Road, but there were at other places. Before the map was delivered to its destination, it was robbed.


    There were not just bandits. After a round of snatching, it eventually ended up in the hands of people from Anyuan Store. Before long, news of the transaction, especially the part about the Ancient Ruin and Pool of Thunder Tribulation, was spreading like wildfire. After hearing the news, Zhu Ba did not want to lose out. He returned to Wuyang Region as fast as he could and delivered it. He did not expect Wang She and Zhou Bao to be discussing the exact same matter.


    After listening silently to Zhu Ba''s narration, Zhou Bao waved his hand, signaling him to retreat. He turned his head towards Wang She and asked, "What do you think of this?!"


    "It''s a trap!" Wang She seemed somewhat discouraged.


    "Or rather, it''s bait. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation is bait to lure us to the Desolate Island!" Zhou Bao replied calmly. "Or maybe the Ancient Ruin really does have what we want?!"


    "You mean...!"


    "Let''s go and take a look! After all, we have nothing to lose!" Zhou Bao smiled faintly. "After such a big ruckus, if we don''t go there personally, we''ll be looked down upon instead!"


    "Okay, when should we set out?"


    "Now, but before we go to the Desolate Island, we need to find someone. Maybe he''ll have some news that will interest us!"


    "Who?!"


    "The Child-endowing Buddha!"


    The Child-endowing Buddha was living a very comfortable life in the Bigwheel Temple. To a certain extent, he was already an internally fixed successor of the Bigwheel Temple and had been greatly elevated by the Hierarch Huan Ri. No one knew what kind of a method he used to gain his favor. As for Zhou Bao and Wang She''s arrival, he seemed to have already predicted it. He had already prepared tea and snacks in his waiting room. He was waiting for them in ease and comfort.


    "Damn monk!"


    Breaking open the hollow, Zhou Bao appeared in the waiting room. When he first saw the Child-endowing Buddha, he cursed silently. "I say, you continue to be relaxed. If you ever die on a woman''s stomach, nobody will save you!"


    "Hahahaha, no way! But you, you will likely end up dying because of greed!" The Child-endowing Buddha rebutted Zhou Bao''s sneer with a sharp tone. He glanced at Wang She. "You guys are here for the entrance to the Ancient Ruin on the Desolated Island, right?!"


    "Then, the Ancient Ruin really does exist!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flashed. He understood the underlying meaning in Child-endowing Buddha''s words.


    The Child-endowing Buddha waved his hand, signaling his servants to leave. He took out a map. "I know, you guys do not lack this, right?!"


    "Seems like no one does!" Zhou Bao smiled.


    "This is the map from the Thunder Emperor''s palace from antiquity times, there is indeed a Pool of Thunder Tribulation inside!" He smiled. "I think I even know who let this piece of information out!"


    "Who?!"


    "Devil Fetus!"

 618 The Origin of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and A Scrupulous Plan

    The Thunder Emperor''s palace!


    Hearing the words "Thunder Emperor''s palace", both Zhou Bao and Wang She went dumbstruck on the spot.


    There had been 99 Emperors in antiquity times, and indisputably, the top ranked among them was the Jade Emperor. He had suppressed various heavens, ruled different worlds, and assumed personal command over the Central Star Area. However, though Jade Emperor ranked first and was peerlessly powerful, he actually enjoyed a status similar to a Human Emperor, similar to what Yan Yuntian was experiencing. The main trend of events and justice favored his side. To some extent, the position he took up had special meaning, and covered up his true strength. Except for a handful of people, no one actually knew how strong the Jade Emperor was. And, he seldom came out to show his power. When he finally made an all-out strike, he moved the Heaven Realm out from the Central Star Area! He had an astonishingly powerful Divine Sense that few men could exercise, but unfortunately, it was already too late.


    In antiquity times, aside from the Jade Emperor who had been commonly acknowledged as the most powerful among the 99 Emperors, no definitive rankings of the rest of the emperors had ever been made. It would have been difficult to do so, but it was relatively easy to select multiple Emperors whose strength was evidently stronger than others and do the rankings.


    And the Thunder Emperor would have been one of those selected.


    Among the 99 Emperors in antiquity times, the Thunder Emperor was one of the best. In fact, according to many legends, his combat capability was ranked first. He controlled the Thunder Tribulation Heaven, one of the 33 Heavens, and possessed the ability to manipulate Thunder Tribulations.


    By virtue of the Thunder Tribulation Heaven, the Thunder Emperor could impact the power, degree, and even time duration of Thunder Tribulations. This was basically a means used by the Ancient Celestial Court to restrict immortals. If a person behaved, their Thunder Tribulation would be an easy one. If not, their Thunder Tribulation would be several times harder than others. It could be said that the authority the Thunder Emperor had in the Ancient Celestial Court was, in many cases, equal to that of the Jade Emperor, and sometimes even more.


    As an old saying went, a public official was actually more influential than the head of a county government. As long as someone controlled the means of governing you, he would be your boss, your God.


    In antiquity times, this was the role the Thunder Emperor had played.


    "The Thunder Emperor was the only emperor that could create the Pool of Thunder Tribulation in antiquity times!" The Child-endowing Buddha said faintly. "Also, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation could only be produced in his Thunder Tribulation Heaven. It''s not surprising that you heard about the Pool of Thunder Tribulation in the Thunder Emperor''s palace!"


    "How do you know this so well?" Wang She asked, slightly bewildered. He was increasingly startled by the Child-endowing Buddha''s background. After all, in respect to this type of highly confidential information about antiquity times, even the Divine Wind Palace might not be as informed.


    "The Divine Wind Palace must have known this. It''s just that they never expected the information to spread like this!" The Child-endowing Buddha sneered. "The guy possessed by the Devil Fetus was once a core disciple of the Divine Wind Palace. That''s why he knew about these secrets!"


    "Then, why didn''t the Divine Wind Palace take action before?"


    "The Divine Wind Palace knows this, but that doesn''t mean they know the exact location of the Thunder Emperor''s palace. They likely have a minimal intelligence about the Thunder Emperor at most. As for the information about the Thunder Emperor''s palace, I''m afraid it was disclosed by the Devil Fetus!" The Child-endowing Buddha answered, slowly squinting his eyes. "Although our Seven-deity Regions belonged to the Heaven Realm in antiquity times, they have been on the wane for ages and many of their secrets are long lost. Compared to other macro worlds and Star Areas, knowledge about our Seven-deity Regions is much less abundant. You should note that other macro worlds and Star Areas have passed down their heritage directly from antiquity times, and lots of secrets are still in their hands. The Devil Fetus was born in the Infinite Star Sea by a Primordial Demon who was oppressed there. He knows more secrets. This time he came to the Heaven Realm, it''s absolutely certain that he has his eye on the Heaven Realm''s precious heritages from antiquity times!"


    "That is to say the rumors are true. But frankly speaking, this is a swindle set up by the Devil Fetus. I assume he does know about a few wonders of the Thunder Emperor''s palace, but not enough to find all the wonders by himself. He spread the news to draw worldwide attention and is waiting to profit from others'' endeavors."


    "Humph, he seems to be very confident in himself. Could he really rake in huge benefits under the noses of so many people?" Zhou Bao questioned in disbelief.


    "Since he has the guts to do so, I presume he must have some kind of assurance, or maybe he is bluffing about knowing secrets that others do not!" The Child-endowing Buddha said composedly. "Powers and living creatures passed down from antiquity or even primitive times always carry loads of secrets. Some of those secrets, or even just a sentence in them could change the entire developing trend of a macro world, provided that you have the ability to dig out the secrets first. Although the Devil Fetus knows the secrets exist, he doesn''t have the ability to dig them out; he needs others'' help. However, the moment he resorts to others'' help, the variables increase. This move will attract men harboring evil intents, such as the three of you."


    All three of them were reduced to silence, quietly brooding over their own agenda. After a while, Zhou Bao finally posed his question. "Okay, so if we go there, do we have a good chance of obtaining benefits?"


    "That depends on your strength!"


    "I do have some confidence about my strength!" Zhou Bao said casually. Worst case scenario, he might have to wield his hammers and make fervent smashing attacks. He did not believe that anyone in the Seven-deity Regions was able to bear the strike of his two hammers.


    "Then surely you will gain benefits!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s confident countenance, the Child-endowing Buddha nodded and went on, "Now since you''re so confident, the next issue we need to consider is how to deal with the green-eyed powers throughout the Seven-deity Regions once the whole thing is over!"


    If they actually got anything from the Thunder Emperor''s palace, never mind the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, even if they merely obtained some Pure Yang Celestial Devices or fairy weapons, the large sects would be jealous. They might even plan some other hidden agenda. Despite the vast land area of the Seven-deity Regions, there were only a few powerful sects. Having one more fairy weapon than other sects would indicate a great advantage. It was something any lucid man could figure out. Thus, obtaining assets became a tough job. Even if one sect had no chance of taking hold of the assets, it would attempt all means to rob the other sect the chance of obtaining them. That was the way human beings behaved; it was human nature. If only one sect got the windfall, other sects would definitely ally together to impose pressure, forcing it to share among the rest. This had become sort of a customary practice over the past thousands of years. The Divine Wind Palace in particular had grown into a master of this collaboration game, common players were no match for them at all.


    That was why the Child-endowing Buddha reminded them of the foregoing. They were merely three men, but they possessed immense strength. Zhou Bao and Wang She were both at the peak of the Individual Immortal Level, but since one had the Bloodline of the Primordial Fierce Beast Zhuyan and the other had the Bloodline of the Primordial Fierce Beast Kunpeng, their combat capabilities were far above that of ordinary Individual Immortals. If Wang She went all out in combat, he was more than enough to serve as a Venerable, not to mention Zhou Bao who could defeat even an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. However, what about the Child-endowing Buddha?


    In recent days, he had been rapidly recovering his strength. Attributing to the several unique skills he still grasped, if he got into a fight, his power would not be much less than a Lord of Heaven. The combined strength of these three was sufficient to take on a super large sect.


    It wouldn''t matter if it was the five biggest sects of the Four Eastern Regions or the super large sects of the Three Western Regions, even if they knew the numbers of their enemies and dispatched a large sum of forces, among them there would at most be one Genuine Immortal at the level of a Lord of Heaven Realm. The rest of them, be it Venerables or Genuine Immortals, were merely playing supporting roles.


    But now looking at the three of them, they had a combat capability equivalent to that of one and a half Lords of Heaven or even two Lords of Heaven. It was very impressive! So, now the issue they had to think over was not whether they could obtain benefits but how to take on the pressure deriving from various other influences.


    "Let''s take it easy and act with prudence. Just try our best to prevent others from spotting our flaws!" Zhou Bao was slowly knocking the table with the tips of his fingers. A chilling light flitted through his eyes. "If I get the Thunder Tribulation Heaven, I will see who on earth dares to ask me for a share of it!"


    Zhou Bao''s words were brimming with such an assurance that the Child-endowing Buddha''s eyes brightened. "Looks like the closed-door training you conducted over the last five years was quite fruitful, wasn''t it?"


    "I wouldn''t have left if it wasn''t!" Zhou Bao replied. Though it was said to be five years, who knew how many years Zhou Bao had spent in the Azure Heaven, perhaps it was 50 years. Otherwise, how could he have digested the power of a whole planet?


    "Relax, don''t worry about the Lords of Heaven, or be afraid that our power may be insufficient. We only need to focus on how to get the benefits, and that''s all!" Zhou Bao waved his hands in a heroic spirit, expressing very clearly that if they bumped into Lords of Heaven or other strong enemies, he could totally handle them. The other two just needed to search for the benefits!


    This declaration caused a stir in the other two.


    "It couldn''t be better. However, to do so, you have to really have such strength. The Thunder Emperor''s palace is not a place we can trifle with. In addition to the Seven-deity Regions, the Sea Area won''t let us off the hook, either!" The Child-endowing Buddha''s expression turned stern. "Considering our Seven-deity Regions are not a match for the Sea Area, and the Desolate Island sits within the territory of the Sea Area, if this news is leaked within the Sea Area, even the Sea Emperor will be unable to curb his lust. I believe that our biggest challenge will be in the Sea Area, not the Seven-deity Regions. The Sea Emperor is a highly secretive man, and no one can verify his true identity. But there is one thing I''m sure of¡ªhis strength is definitely at the Human Immortal phase or above. It''s possible it has surpassed the Human Immortal phase and entered the Divine Immortal phase!"


    "The Five Immortal Realms are the Celestial Immortal, the Earthly Immortal, the Divine Immortal, the Human Immortal, and the Ghost Immortal. But nowadays, even Human Immortals are extremely rare. Could a Divine Immortal actually exist?"


    Talking about phases like the Human Immortal and the Divine Immortal, Zhou Bao''s expression turned slightly solemn. He was not the newbie who had just stepped into Jinghu as he was before. He had assumed a high ranking position in the Seven-deity Regions, and the mysterious secrets about practitioners were no longer secrets to him. He already had a fairly complete understanding of the Five Immortal Realms.


    The so-called Five Immortal Realms referred to five realms that were divided into the Celestial Immortal, the Earthly Immortal, the Divine Immortal, the Human Immortal, and the Ghost Immortal. The Ghost Immortal ranked lowest among all the immortals, while the Celestial Immortal ranked highest. It was just that even back in antiquity times, no one had ever achieved becoming a genuine Celestial Immortal. In the times of ancient deities, the cultivation of most deities usually stagnated in the Divine Immortal Realm. Only if one broke through to a higher realm and stepped into the legendary Realm of Master Deities could he claim to be an Earthly Immortal.


    As for the Celestial Immortal, which was one realm higher than the Earthly Immortal, it was the Realm of supreme experts selected from Primordial Demons, Innate Deities, and Primordial Fierce Beasts. If one broke through the Earthly Immortal Realm, he would be called as a supreme expert. Based on accounts of ancient deities, only supreme deities could possess the Karmic Rank of the Celestial Immortal. As a result, in terms of the so-called Karmic Rank of the Celestial Immortal, Zhou Bao had taken a wait-and-see attitude.

 619 Going Into Action Without Delay

    Among the Five Immortal Realms, the one at the lowest level was the Ghost Immortal Realm, which was also known as the Genuine Immortal Realm. But why did people call it the Ghost Immortal Realm?


    This was because the Thunder Tribulation produced after you broke through the Three Big Realms would have the greatest influence upon the spirit; this would solidify your spirit and render it powerful and intelligent. Even if your spirit was separated from your body, your flesh would not decay or disappear. That was the reason why the people there were known as Ghost Immortals. In comparison, though the Thunder Tribulation was quite useful in perfecting your body, the effect it had on the spirit was far more beneficial.


    Therefore, Genuine Immortals were actually Ghost Immortals. But it was just that the pneuma was extremely rare in the present world, therefore becoming a Genuine Immortal was ultimately the most ambitious dream a practitioner could have. Anyway, the name "Ghost Immortal" did not sound auspicious, so these Ghost Immortals began to call themselves "Genuine Immortals" and categorized themselves by the number of Thunder Tribulations they had gone through. Frankly, all the Sages, Venerables and Lords of Heaven were Ghost Immortals.


    As for the Human Immortal who was one rank higher than the Ghost Immortal, the circumstances were very different. He had to undergo Tribulations as well. However, what he needed to endure were not merely Thunder Tribulations but also Fire Tribulations, collectively called "Thunder-fire Tribulations". The Thunder-fire Tribulation also had a forging effect on the spirit, but its main function was the opposite of a sole Thunder Tribulation¡ªit was used to forge the flesh. This was exactly what the "Thunder-fire Bath breeds Golden Body" meant.


    There were nine Thunder-fire Tribulations for a person to undergo. In the end, when a Human Immortal obtained the Three Flowers above the Head and Five Kinds of Qi by practice, he would then be able to refine his golden body and get ready to advance to the Divine Immortal Realm. Thinking in terms of the Earthly Immortal who was superior to the Divine Immortal, let''s think about how hard it is to attain the Master Immortal level from a High-ranked Immortal level and the answer would be rather obvious. As for advancing from an Earthly Immortal to a Celestial Immortal, which meant being promoted from a Master Immortal to a Top Immortal, nobody knew what kind of process this was. It would easily take 100 million years, which was not something Zhou Bao, a guy whose ages in two life spans did not even add up to 50, could imagine.


    Let leave those high-ranking living creatures alone and instead look at the inferior ones. Those ranked below the Ghost Immortals were common people, such as Individual Immortals. In fact, this title was just a fancy name that the common practitioners invented for themselves. The Mysterious Realm was called "False Immortal Realm" or "Sham Immortal Realm", which clearly indicated that those immortals were not actually immortals. Though they possessed some abilities of authentic immortals, their Real Bodies were still not immortals. To transform into a real immortal, one had to start with one''s spirit. Only if the spirit had gone through the Thunder Tribulation and survived could one become a true immortal. But before the Thunder Tribulation, no matter how powerful you were or how great your strength was, you were just a common human being, or at most a powerful common human being. Thus, technically, the three of them in the room were all common people, who were equipped with impressive combat capabilities.


    "Divine Immortals certainly exist. I am quite sure that the Sea Emperor is actually a Divine Immortal. But there is no need to worry, because the laws of the world impose more restrictions on Divine Immortals than Human Immortals. Human Immortals can''t casually step out of the scope of the macro world, while Divine Immortals, haha, must obey rules that are 10 times more stringent than that. When you become a Divine Immortal, you cannot even appear in the macro world. At most, you may reveal yourself in the form of incarnation or projection in the present life. Otherwise, your body will be badly injured. Therefore, we don''t have to worry about those Divine Immortals. What we need to watch out for are those Ghost Immortals and Human Immortals in the Lord of Heaven Realm who work for that Sea Emperor!"


    "There must be some Human Immortals in the Sea Area!" Thinking about this, Zhou Bao said, "Even the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain has some Human Immortals. But the strength of the Sea Area is much stronger than the Seven-deity Regions, so, how could they not have any Human Immortals?"


    "Right, even our Seven-deity Regions have Human Immortals, what more for the Sea Area!" Child-endowing Buddha nodded, smiling. "Therefore, do you still believe you can kill all of them to achieve your goal?"


    "Yes, if it''s worth it!" Thinking about this for a while, Zhou Bao looked at Child-endowing Buddha and went on, "If it''s worth it, I do not mind taking down all of them, provided I can get the Pool of Thunder Tribulation!"


    "Then it''s no problem!" Child-endowing Buddha gave a smile. "Now, let make a plan. Anyway, it''ll take some time for this news to spread all over the Seven-deity Regions and the Sea Area. If my guess is right, this time there will be another joint operation. The Seven-deity Regions will join forces with the Sea Area forces to go to Desolate Island and seek the Pool of Thunder Tribulation!" Speaking about this, something seemed to occur to Child-endowing Buddha. "Be alert about Divine Wind Palace. Their craving for the Pool of Thunder Tribulation is much stronger than yours. As the authentic heir of Divine Wind Palace in the olden times, Grand Divine Wind Palace has remained quiet for a long time. If they manage to obtain the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, then, no one, at least in the Heaven Realm, will be able to confront them!"


    "Divine Wind Palace has a Supreme Fairy Weapon?"


    "Of course, Grand Divine Wind Palace itself is already a Supreme Fairy Weapon; the only problem is just that it is dilapidated and battered, and has not been used for a period of time. If they install the Pool of Thunder Tribulation in it, then, it will at least perform some of its powerful functions, which will be enough to deter the other sects! "


    "So we cannot let Divine Wind Palace obtain the Pool of Thunder Tribulation no matter what. If necessary, we have to wipe out all the members of Divine Wind Palace!" Zhou Bao bellowed with a murderous look. Although not all of his secrets had been disclosed, the conflict between him and Divine Wind Palace was irreconcilable. Now, he was in the dark while Divine Wind Palace was in the daylight, so he was determined to use every opportunity that could significantly cripple the strength of Divine Wind Palace. Weakening Divine Wind Palace while enhancing his own strength had been a good practice of Zhou Bao all this time. He had ruined the scheme of Divine Wind Palace to take control of Taiyuan Heaven and Azure Heaven, murdered one of their Lords of Heaven, robbed them of one fairy weapon, and defeated and killed another one of their Lords of Heaven. He also disrupted the plan Divine Wind Palace had on the Dragon-taming Ruins, and even sent the position of Human Emperor candidate to his own father-in-law by manipulation, which had made Yu Taixu fume with rage. Those were all Zhou Bao''s achievements, but he knew that these were not enough, far from enough. In order to throw out a super large sect that had dominated the world for thousands of years, these were just what needed to be done, and there were more tasks for him to accomplish. For example, in this journey to Desolate Island, he had the idea that he should disrupt Divine Wind Palace and he was not going to let Divine Wind Palace seize the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Even if he could not obtain the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, then he had to ensure it was destroyed to prevent Divine Wind Palace from obtaining it. And this was the present mindset of Zhou Bao.


    It would not be easy to achieve this. Therefore, the three pondered on this for quite a while in silence before leaving separately.


    Surely, after 10 days, the matter on the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode should have spread across the entire martial arts world as well as the whole practitioner realm. Once they heard that the Ancient Ruins might be the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, the strongest of the 99 Emperors in antiquity times, immediately turned green-eyed with envy. They were all rubbing their fists and wiping their palms, wanting to rush into Desolate Island immediately and search island wide for the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode inch by inch.


    But gradually, everyone noticed that something fishy was going on, because Desolate Island was not located in the Seven-deity Regions but in the depths of the Sea Area. Every knowledgeable man knew how dangerous the Sea Area was. In the Four Eastern Regions, apart from the five biggest sects and the Dark Sect, no other influences had the capability to cross the Sea Area. Thus, how could the five biggest sects just sit back and let other people obtain such a great benefit?


    That was the situation now. Their behaviour was rather strange. Probably, they intended to let the others be the primary targets.


    Therefore, this kind of matter had to be pondered over carefully before deciding if it was worth it!


    Giving up your life for merely an illusionary Ancient Ruins did not seem to be worthwhile!


    As a result, this news had simmered to its extreme by the 10th day. After that, the enthusiasm of the martial arts practitioners began to fade. Once again, just like what they did previously, everyone sat back and waited to see how the five biggest sects would react.


    The reaction from the five biggest sects was pretty vehement, or precisely, the reaction of Divine Wind Palace, the leader of the five biggest sects was very violent. That was because the Devil Fetus that took over Desolate Island was initially a core disciple of Divine Wind Palace. The reason why the Devil Fetus could find the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was probably because he utilized some intelligence from Divine Wind Palace. Once they realised the issue, Divine Wind Palace felt very displeased. And then, they thought, "This Thunder Emperor''s touring abode should belong to us. Given the huge benefit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, if we need to take some undesirable measures, we will do it. If we truly obtain the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and turn on Grand Divine Wind Palace, haha, then, who in the Seven-deity Regions can ever compete with our Divine Wind Palace?"


    Accordingly, when it came to this matter, Divine Wind Palace was the one that responded most actively. But meanwhile, they knew without doubt that the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was not that easy to take on. Without considering other sects in the Seven-deity Regions, the Sea Area alone was enough to give them a headache.


    Even for the vast Sea Area with its unrivaled strength, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation in the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was still a rare and precious treasure that would cause a commotion in the influences of the Sea Area. If you were concerned whether the Sea Area was able to get the news, well, no one need to say more. Over the years, the Sea Area had never relaxed its vigilance over the Seven-deity Regions. Every movement of the Seven-deity Regions was reported to the Sea Area, what more for this kind of big news. It had taken a while for this news to spread, then, how could the Sea Area be unaware of this? Plus, this time the action would be happening right in the Sea Area!


    "No matter what, we shall find the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode and get the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. That is the biggest guarantee our Seven-deity Regions could ever obtain for self-protection. As long as we have the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, we can tap on the power from Grand Divine Wind Palace, and that is a Supreme Fairy Weapon. With this Supreme Fairy Weapon at hand, even if we run into some enemies who have a Supreme Fairy Weapon, it''ll still be possible for us to confront them!" That was what Yu Taixu had said in front of everyone during the conference of the five biggest sects.


    However, the moment he finished speaking, the retorts came swiftly.


    "Grand Divine Wind Palace is merely a broken Supreme Fairy Weapon; the macro world inside it was already damaged during the tribulation. Even if you get the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, it will at most be upgraded to a powerful Highest Heaven Celestial Device. That kind of device also can be found at our place. Thus, why should we let you Divine Wind Palace have the Pool of Thunder Tribulation?"


    When profits were involved, everyone started arguing back and forth in their own interests. At last, it was Yan Yuntian, the newly appointed Human Emperor candidate, who, though, had little connection with the five biggest sects but enjoyed a superior status, stood up and made an announcement, "No matter which sect the Pool of Thunder Tribulation belongs to in the end, the basis of this issue is that our operation has to succeed. Our Four Eastern Regions are just trying to prepare for this task through discussion. But now, even before seizing the target, inside disputes have occurred. That is highly inappropriate. The power of our enemies is quite strong, and that is self-evident. As the old saying goes, unity makes us stronger while splitting up makes us weaker. Now, the five biggest sects of our Four Eastern Regions should unite and exert their powers to seize the treasure first. As to how to distribute the benefits, we shall settle this among ourselves after we have successfully retrieved the treasure!" After this, the dispute was brought to an end.

 620 Being Engulfed by Space-time Torrents

    The dispute had been settled. But before this problem ended, another conflict surfaced¡ªthe five biggest sects, once again, started tussling with each other over the selection of candidates that they intended to dispatch.


    Unlike the last time, the mission this time embodied heavy responsibilities and no negligence would be allowed. Every sect had to send their topmost elites on this mission. Therefore, Yu Taixu proposed that each sect dispatch one Genuine Immortal in the Lord of Heaven Realm accompanied by multiple Venerables with strong combat capabilities. People gave their consensus on this proposal, but one question was still not settled - which candidates should be sent on this mission?


    In light of the significance of this event, Yu Taixu and Yu Taixuan from Divine Wind Palace were both going. Their capability to dispatch two Lords of Heaven at one time, highlighted the strength of Divine Wind Palace. Be it Bigwheel Temple, Jade Pool, Dragon Thunder Palace, or Immortal Palace, they only had one Lord of Heaven Realm in their respective sects. With one Lord of Heaven dispatched by each of the sects while two were dispatched by Divine Wind Palace, even if the rest of the sects sent several additional Venerables, the strength of each sect would not be equal to that of Divine Wind Palace. Coupled with other scruples they had to consider, once again, the five biggest sects had disagreements.


    However, this time Divine Wind Palace demonstrated their absolute determination on winning and refused to reach any compromise. At last, no concrete agreement was reached even after a lengthy quarrel. Finally, Yu Taixu pounded the table and shouted, "This mission will not tolerate any errors, so each sect shall dispatch their most powerful forces and that gives no cause for criticism. Therefore, this meeting will not be the deciding factor for the final candidates of each sect!"


    These words clearly conveyed the underlying meaning of Divine Wind Palace, which was "Divine Wind Palace doesn''t give a damn who the other sects intend to send, and you should not intervene in our choice of candidates, either!"


    Having heard this, what else could the others say anyway? "Moreover, even if they really got into a fight for this, how different would the results be? This time, Divine Wind Palace displayed its domineering side again, leaving every sect furious but also helpless. However, Immortal Palace seemed to be indifferent on this issue. The old bastard Green Dragon walked out of the Human Emperor Palace with a relaxed expression and he thought to himself, "You guys can do whatever you want, anyway, I shall merely send Zhou Bao and everything will be settled!"


    It was true that ever since Zhou Bao joined Immortal Palace, it had been easier for them in terms of handling matters. With this trouble-stirring guy on their side, Immortal Palace was able to resist pressure from Divine Wind Palace with skill and ease.


    "It''s really within our expectations! In this kind of situation, Immortal Palace will certainly send you; you''re their magic weapon!"


    The choice of Immortal Palace was not a surprise to Zhou Bao. Immortal Palace would naturally dispatch Zhou Bao, especially when Divine Wind Palace had given up interfering in candidate selections from other sects so as to ensure that all its elites would be on this task. The strong combat capability of Zhou Bao had been evident during the fight with Hong Taihe a long time ago. In the Infinite Star Sea, Zhou Bao also demonstrated his strong techniques in front of several Lords of Heaven. His combat capability was beyond comparison, thereby there was no ground for complaints when Immortal Palace decided to dispatch him.


    What disturbed Zhou Bao was the other Lord of Heaven that Immortal Palace had chosen to send¡ªMr. Feng IX.


    There were Four Signs and 28 constellations in Immortal Palace.


    This Mr. Feng IX was one of the Four Signs, specifically, the Scarlet Rosefinch. He was surnamed Feng, so everyone called him Mr. Feng IX. This Mr. Feng IX had been practicing and doing closed-door training in the depths of space-time in Immortal Palace for more than 300 years already. He never came out once or inquired about the affairs of the mundane world during the 300 years. But now, for the sake of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode on Desolate Island, he finally exited his training.


    Mr. Feng IX was also the first Genuine Immortal in the Lord of Heaven Realm that Immortal Palace had paraded in front of the five biggest sects over the last 1,000 years. 300 years ago when Feng IX started his closed-door training, he was still at the peak of a Venerable. But to everyone''s surprise, when he came out 300 years later, he was already a Lord of Heaven.


    At first, everybody assumed that sending Zhou Bao alone was enough for Immortal Palace, but who knew that they would be sending an additional person! With Feng IX plus Zhou Bao, their top-level combat capabilities were no less than that of Divine Wind Palace!


    Normally, members of Divine Wind Palace would already leap to their feet in opposition. Even if they did not express their objection openly, they would still be up to no good behind the scenes. However, this time round, Divine Wind Palace did not take any action but maintained their silence, which had the rest worried. They were all wondering whether Divine Wind Palace was planning something or not.


    Of course, no matter whether Divine Wind Palace was preparing some secret plans or not, every sect was on the alert internally. Desolate Island was not a place like the Four Eastern Regions where Divine Wind Palace could do whatever they want. The news this time not only stimulated the Seven-deity Regions, but also the Sea Area. In comparison, the Sea Area was the most fearful opponent they would face.


    Over so many years, no one in the Seven-deity Regions had ever discovered the real strength of the Sea Area. Thus, how strong the strength of the Sea Area was on earth remained unknown.


    For Genuine Immortals in the Lord of Heaven Realm, the vast Sea Area extending to thousands of miles afar was not a barrier at all; so too for Genuine Immortals whose cultivation was at the peak of Venerable Realm. They had some power to break the hollow. Adding the one or two Pure Yang Celestial Devices they carried with them, this time to travel from the Four Eastern Regions to Desolate Island, they would not need to ride on a Highest Heaven Celestial Device like the one Zhou Bao rode when leading a bunch of rookies to go the Three Western Regions previously. At that time, the Highest Heaven Celestial Device they rode was one with an extremely poor capacity for attacking and defense; this caused them to make a fool of themselves and they were almost captured in the Sea Area.


    This time the circumstances were different. Inside Divine Wind Palace, over 20 people from the five biggest sects gathered together. Each of them was an expert at the peak of Venerable Realm or above, and nearly 10 of them were Lords of Heaven. As the only one whose cultivation was at the peak of Individual Immortal Realm, Zhou Bao seemed to stand out among them, but no one dared voice out any dissent about his participation. During these years, Zhou Bao had proved his value and qualifications by his strength. Of course, this incurred lots of secret criticisms from Yu Taixu of Divine Wind Palace. As far as Yu Taixu was concerned, Zhou Bao was the same kind of guy as Wang She who always refused to play by rules, for he stealthily refined his Real Body in the hollow and entered the Mysterious Realm so that he would not subject to the restrictions of the Golden Book of Fate. The existence of this kind of guy made Yu Taixu very bad-tempered, and he kept cursing these two bolshy guys, hoping they would die in the Void Thunder Tribulation as though this could dissolve his hatred towards them.


    Zhou Bao certainly could sense this emotion in Yu Taixu, and he also knew Yu Taixu was always unfriendly towards him. But Zhou Bao did not care. No matter what cards Yu Taixu had up his sleeve, it could not frighten him anymore, because the advantage he had at hand was more solid. The present question was merely about what sort of good opportunity could he take advantage of so as to completely upset Divine Wind Palace.


    "Well, now that everyone is here, let''s get started!" Yan Yuntian, as the candidate of the Human Emperor, naturally played a very crucial role in this important event. But for a role as imminent as this, he was never going to be the lead person but merely responsible for the flag-waving and slogan-shouting on the sidewalk.


    Despite the fact that everyone had the ability to break the hollow, their strength still varied. Considering the long distance to Desolate Island, even if they could break the hollow, it would incur a great deal of energy. Furthermore, Desolate Island was not a safe place at all. What if they were under attack once they broke through the hollow upon their arrival?


    Hence, it was unrealistic to let everyone travel to Desolate Island using their own strength. In this case, the sects in the Four Eastern Regions had made sufficient preparations. When everyone was at this gathering, a Highest Heaven Celestial Device appeared in front of them.


    This celestial device was about 30 feet in length, 15 feet in height and looked like a warship.


    Every Highest Heaven Celestial Device owned a Highest Heaven Space, and that was why it could fly in the hollow. Therefore, the appearance of most Highest Heaven Celestial Devices resembled transportation vehicles from various worlds, such as the Silver Spirit Flying Vehicle Zhou Bao took hold of in the Infinite Star Sea for the Void Traveller he used to travel across the Sea Area last time. Those Highest Heaven Celestial Devices were similar to transportation vehicles, while others like the Silver Frost Castle were usually classified as Upper-grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices.


    At present, the warship in front of them was the Seven-color Warship, a Medium-grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device. Although it could not match the Silver Frost Castle, when compared to the Void Traveller belonging to Yu Nantian, its defensive power and attack force were both significantly enhanced.


    "Let''s get on board. This Golden Embroidered Warship is the Highest Heaven Celestial Device that has the most complete functions from Divine Wind Palace. Its speed is also the fastest. It only takes several seconds at most to reach Desolate Island from here, which will save you all the fatigue of normal traveling!" After displaying the Seven-color Warship, Yu Taixuan said with a smile, his tone revealing a trace of pride in it.


    In the five biggest sects, only Divine Wind Palace had the strength and confidence to own multiple Highest Heaven Celestial Devices and also list them by categories to enable them to select the most suitable one for a certain operation.


    As the words of Yu Taixuan faded away, the Golden Embroidered Warship emitted a faint light which had seven colors. This light enveloped the crowd and then vanished. Following that, dozens of those Lords of Heaven and Venerables also vanished and instantly appeared on the warship. Their leader Yu Taixu nodded slightly at Yan Yuntian, and then the warship immediately broke the hollow and disappeared from the space-time of Divine Wind Palace.


    Evidently, this Golden Embroidered Warship did have an extremely powerful capability to do hollow travels. It shuttled so smoothly in the hollow that it seemed to be an agile fish swimming in the water. It broke through the multi-layered hollow all at once and headed straight to their destination.


    "Seems that this ship does have the ability to arrive at the Desolate Island in a few seconds! Yu Taixuan was certainly not exaggerating!"


    Watching the flexible movements of this warship, Zhou Bao thought to himself. But before this thought faded away, his expression suddenly altered.


    "Watch out!"


    "Boom!"


    Just like the Titanic colliding with an iceberg, the Golden Embroidered Warship hit an unknown object. It started shaking violently and stopped abruptly in the hollow.


    It should be highlighted that this ship was designed specifically for hollow travels. Now it abruptly stopped moving, which meant trouble was just around the corner. They were surrounded by space-time torrents, which looked like huge waves. In the blink of an eye, those huge waves of space-time torrents completely engulfed the Golden Embroidered Warship.


    "Watch out, we''ve run into space-time torrents!"


    The Golden Embroidered Warship stuck in space-time torrents was not very different from an ordinary ship in a sea storm. It was surging, tossing and churning among all the space-time torrents. But thanks to the Highest Heaven Space inside it and the strong cultivation its passengers possessed, everyone was still alive. Otherwise, their bodies would have long been torn apart under such violent vibrations.


    Haha, dumbasses from Seven-deity Regions, just take your time to drift in those space-time torrents and leave the Hidden Treasure on the Desolate Island to us Sea Area!"

 621 Demonstration of Strength

    This was a pretty knotty issue.


    Yu Taixuan''s face burned with embarrassment. Moments earlier he had been bragging to the crowd about how fantastic his ship was with all its wonderful functions. But in the blink of an eye, an accident had occurred and all of them had been carried into the space-time torrents. As people often said, retribution in this life comes quickly. Now that his boasts were proven wrong, he felt like he had been smacked in the face.


    Fortunately, this Seven-color Warship had a Highest Heaven Space in it. Thus, no matter how violently this warship was heaving around, they would not feel the bumps in the Highest Heaven Space, which at least secured a little dignity for Yu Taixuan.


    However, even though this ship was a Medium-grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device, the protective seven-color light around it was still bearing immense pressure from the space-time torrents. In space-time torrents, there were not only high waves of space-time torrents, but also infinite space-time storms. These space-time storms and space-time torrents had different strengths, but when they came together, even the Highest Heaven Celestial Device was overwhelmed by their combined power.


    "Crap, we''ve been carried to an unknown space-time!"


    After enduring a series of violent vibrations, the Seven-color Warship was sucked into a strange space-time. Storms died down, torrents ebbed away, but their situation was not very much improved.


    This was because the strange space was full of meteorites. Huge meteorites were flying through this space at high speed. Looking from a distance, all you could see were these rapidly flying stones. These stones were made of unknown substances, and the smallest of them was about one thousand feet in diameter while the largest one even reached a few thousand feet in size and looked like a whole continent.


    Vibration, faint vibrations!


    There were no fixed patterns for the movements of these flying meteorites in this space-time. They were just zooming around and colliding with each other. Every few seconds there were some meteorite collisions happening, which were similar to the normal meteorite collisions. However, given that every second, there would be some meteorites crashing into each other, the energy they produced was sufficient to impact the entire space-time, which was in a vibrational state from the collisions.


    The Seven-color Warship had preliminarily steadied herself, but sailing across this meteorite-filled world was not safe. Every now and then, a meteorite would bump into the ship. But thanks to the fact that this Seven-color Warship was a Highest Heaven Celestial Device and its dimensions was quite streamlined, it finally managed to navigate through the gaps of the numerous meteorites. At the same time, the defensive power of this warship was good. Once a meteorite hit the warship, it would bounce off due to the seven-color light. Therefore, the warship was not severely affected by those meteorites.


    Nevertheless, all these features were only effective in the beginning. Although this Highest Heaven Celestial Device could slip through cracks between meteorites easily, it was inevitable that it would be hit. After enduring several hundred collisions, the seven-color light around this warship gradually dimmed.


    "We can''t let this go on anymore! Though the Golden Embroidered Warship is a Medium-grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device, it will not last for long if it gets hit so frequently by those meteorites. We must come up with something else!" Facing the myriad of attacks from the meteorites, Yu Taixuan''s face was already a bit pale.


    "Didn''t you say your ship could do hollow travels? If so, why do we have to stay in this space-time?" Hierarch Huan Ri, the ancestor of Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, asked, in bewilderment.


    "The first collision was too severe. From that time the warship was already damaged. This, together with other factors from the space-time torrents has disabled the Golden Embroidered Warship''s ability to do hollow travels for now!"


    "It can''t be! Is this Highest Heaven Celestial Device another defective product of your Divine Wind Palace?" Zhou Bao let out a mournful howl, his face thoroughly gloomy. "So it was with the Void Traveller I rode last time. It almost caused us to fall into the Sea Area. But this time, it''s even worse. You are making us drift around in this endless space-time on purpose, aren''t you?"


    His expression was a little too dramatic, and it was very inconsiderate of him to rake up the past incident of Divine Wind Palace in front of all these people. If it were some else who had made this remark, Yu Taixu would have instantly cut him off. But seeing Zhou Bao''s aggressive appearance, Yu Taixu''s eyes merely twitched for a few seconds and he remained silent.


    Yu Taixu had gained quite a comprehensive knowledge about the combat capability of Zhou Bao through various avenues. In particular, the power of the two hammers hanging from his hips that Zhou Bao had used in the Infinite Star Sea battle, and his attack on the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain and throwing out their Mountain Master were all telling Yu Taixu that the combat capability of Zhou Bao was not inferior to his anymore.


    It was hard for Yu Taixu to accept this, but it also made him reluctantly tolerate certain kind of behaviors from Zhou Bao. Otherwise, if Zhou Bao was angry and started a fight, Divine Wind Palace would have to pay a high price and even if they won, this would, in turn, allow others to attain some benefits.


    Hence, Yu Taixu made a huge effort to stifle his anger and kept quiet. Then, he shot a meaningful look at Yu Taixuan.


    "King Wuyang, no need to worry. Just some small malfunction, I''ll soon fix them. But before that, this ship is unable to take anymore heavy blows, so..."


    The meaning Yu Taixu wanted to convey was pretty clear already. Now that the Highest Heaven Celestial Device was damaged, there should be no serious disruption during its repair work. It would be very difficult to repair it in the current situation where stones were zooming around and explosions were happening at any time. The hidden meaning between the lines was just that everyone on the scene should chip in and try to keep the warship intact amidst the collisions and damage.


    "How much time do you need to repair it?"


    "Without any major disruptions, six hours will be enough. But if..."


    "Good, then, I''ll help you to block off those disruptions for six hours!" Zhou Bao interrupted Yu Taixuan. The figure of Zhou Bao flashed, and then he directly broke through the Highest Heaven Space in the Golden Embroidered Warship and appeared over it.


    "Whirring!"


    The moment Zhou Bao went out, a meteorite with the diameter of three or four miles, hurtled towards him.


    "Hum!"


    Zhou Bao snorted, and a small azure hammer appeared in his hand. He threw it directly at the meteorite.


    With a flash of azure light, the meteorite was instantly reduced to a pile of powder and dispersed among the space-time.


    Since there was no pneuma or air existing in this strange space-time, even if you made a sound, it would not be transmitted. Thus, those inside the warship merely saw a huge meteorite turning into smoke and disappearing, but they did not realize what had happened. Later, as their eyes fell on the small hammer in Zhou Bao''s hand, a chilling sensation rose in their hearts. "If a hammer like this was thrown at me, how would I take it?" They thought to themselves.


    Legend had it that this boy smashed an asteroid with only three strikes using these hammers, and seriously damaged Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain with seven strikes. They used to think that the story could be an exaggeration. However, since they had seen it with their own eyes, they discovered that perhaps all those rumors had actually belittled Zhou Bao''s ability. Judging by his present power, perhaps now Zhou Bao was able to do what three strikes could do in the past with only one strike. If he launched three strikes, he might defeat the defense of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. Therefore, it was better not to be the enemy of such a monster.


    That was exactly the effect that Zhou Bao wanted, and also the real reason why he volunteered to block out the meteorites for six hours.


    "This boy is really good at seizing opportunities to demonstrate his strength!" The Lords of Heaven and Venerables started to have mixed feelings when they watched the twin hammers waved by Zhou Bao hacking every meteorite into pieces.


    Power! This was absolute power!


    Supposing it was not Zhou Bao defending those meteorites now; if we did not count those Venerables, those Lords of Heaven should also be able to hold up for six hours. But would they be able to achieve that as easily and so perfectly as Zhou Bao did?


    No, they couldn''t!


    Over half of his strength came from the two hammers in his hands! Two hours passed, and the crowd gradually comprehended what they were watching. While they were shocked by Zhou Bao''s strength, they started concentrating on the pair of hammers he was holding.


    "I heard that those hammers were refined by virtue of splitting a fairy weapon!" A guy on the warship said. He was either a Venerable or a Lord of Heaven, and so were the others. Accordingly, each of them was powerful and prestigious and well-informed about all sorts of news. As for the grievance Zhou Bao held against Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, they also had a good understanding of it.


    For that matter, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain had been seriously humiliated. Not only did they lose a fairy weapon and a son of their Mountain Master, but even their Mountain Master with a cultivation in Lord of Heaven Realm was also forced to step down. It was said that the top levels of the Seven-deity Regions were all astonished by this. This was the reason why those Lords of Heaven had been so polite to Zhou Bao. This boy not only had strong combat capability but was very uninhibited. He was like a walking time bomb, which could explode once you touched it. Look, anyone who had the slightest bit of sanity would not rush to fight against a super large sect like Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain as Zhou Bao did. After all, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain was not a sect like Mingyi School but the top player of all sects in the Three Western Regions. Moreover, they had hidden among layers of space-time. But even with all the above facts, Zhou Bao did not give up but made his strikes and returned safe and sound. If one of those sects on the scene ever made Zhou Bao so annoyed that he had to repeat his actions, that victim sect would certainly lose their face, which was not something they could afford.


    Yu Taixu did not participate in the repair work. He just sat on his chair with his eyes transfixed on the pair of azure hammers in Zhou Bao''s hands. "Power, pure power. Seems that this boy has decided to take the road to pure power development. What a big problem! If one day I really have to deal with him, the brutal power he has will truly be a headache. But the most important thing is that pair of hammers. How useless Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain is! They lost their fairy weapon but did not dare to voice any complaint. If not, how could this boy be so arrogant now? His power is growing too quickly, his strength is also advancing at an odd speed. He must have come across some secrets about practicing. It looks that I have to make a final decision when this thing is over. Either I shall completely drag him to our side, or totally destroy him. There is no third option!" Making up his mind, Yu Taixu clenched his fists in secret. He had already started planning how to handle the threats that Zhou Bao, a monster who was miraculously on the rise, could bring to him.

 622 Pure Jade Liquid

    To deal with a man who posed as a threat to Divine Wind Palace, the best method would be to destroy him mentally as well as physically.


    It was not the first time that Divine Wind Palace had to do this kind of thing. They had done this many times already!


    Zhou Bao''s rising fame was believed to be quite unusual. At first, Zhou Bao did not catch the attention of Yu Taixu. But by the time that he took notice of Zhou Bao, Yu Taixu found that he might not be able to tame this guy without first having to pay a great price. Then, when Yu Taixu finally made up his mind to get rid of him with his own Upper-grade Pure Yang Celestial Device, he belatedly realized that he could not get rid of him at all. This fact made him feel very depressed and dispirited. Now that Zhou Bao''s strength had grown to such a high level, he had no choice but to stop his secret actions and lie low. After all, how could one continue an operation when he knew it was bound to fail?


    This was not Yu Taixu''s usual style.


    "How lucky Immortal Palace is! They''ve found such a strong hatchet man, who has even reached the Mysterious Realm. It seems that over the next few hundred years, there will be nothing for Immortal Palace to worry about. Plus, if this kid really survives the Void Thunder Tribulation and achieves the Genuine Immortal Karma Rank, hehe, perhaps Immortal Palace will become an upstart in the Seven-deity Regions!"


    Staring at the majestic-looking Zhou Bao, the crowd exclaimed inwardly. In this world, frankly speaking, strength was everything. The strength Zhou Bao demonstrated was convincing and intimidating, and that was enough. Moreover, they also hoped that Zhou Bao would challenge the supremacy of Divine Wind Palace. That would be great news for the rest of the Four Great Sects, truly great news. In particular, for Grandma Loulan, who was even considering letting Ji Yeyue get close to Zhou Bao so that maybe after while she could marry him, uniting Zhou Bao with them and becoming one family.


    Of course, she was merely considering this. Grandma Loulan had no intention of bartering off her female disciple. Ji Yeyue was highly talented, and had been one of the best among all the disciples for the past thousand years. It was because of the appearance of such an abnormal being like Zhou Bao that Ji Yeyue seemed a bit inferior in terms of skill. Otherwise, the No.1 prodigy, whom the entire practitioner realm was now talking about, would have been Ji Yeyue.


    Time passed slowly as everyone, immersed in their own thoughts, watched Zhou Bao''s fabulous performance outside the warship. Three hours later, the Golden Embroidered Warship finally recovered. After the seven-color brilliance started to shine again, Zhou Bao went back inside the warship.


    "Alright. Now we can do hollow travels. Although those stones are not so hard to deal with, there are still too many of them. They''re coming at us ceaselessly!" Zhou Bao complained. Seeing his sulky face, all the rest laughed.


    "King Wuyang must be the only one who finds those stones easy to fend off. If I were you, even if I exert all my efforts, I would not have done such a great job!" A Venerable chuckled, obviously trying to butter up Zhou Bao.


    "Bang, bang, bang!"


    Just at the moment when Zhou Bao appeared on the warship, dozens of meteorites relentlessly bumped into the warship again. The seven-color light flashed and resisted the huge impact caused by the collisions. Yu Taixuan was concerned about their safety, so he immediately turned on the hollow travel function of the warship and they took off from the space-time.


    "Boom!"


    Shortly after they crossed this space-time, a loud crack could be heard. Suddenly the warship started vibrating again. This time, she vibrated even more strongly than the last time when they were within the space-time torrents. This time round, the Highest Heaven Space inside the warship was also affected.


    "Hey, what the hell? What is the problem with this ship?" Zhou Bao suddenly screamed at the top of his voice. "Divine Wind Palace is the leader of the five biggest sects. You should not try to deceive us!"


    Yu Taixu stood up all at once, a wisp of Green Qi flitting across his face. He shot Zhou Bao a fierce look, and then, surprisingly, he forcefully suppressed his rage and said, "Since we were carried into the space-time torrents, we''ve already been lost in the infinite space-time of the Heaven Realm. Now, we are basically caught up in a space-time maze. If we want to find the exit, it will take some time. This is not some regular place. This is a Space-time Vortex formed by space-time torrents and space-time storms. Thus, it''s more troublesome than before. But don''t worry, we will soon travel out of this vortex!"


    It was easy to explain what a Space-time Vortex was, but when you were actually experiencing it, it was quite terrifying. Even though those on the warship who were either Lords of Heaven or Venerables, could not help but feel frightened when they saw this work of nature.


    It was a huge black vortex which extended as far as 10,000 miles and whirled around slowly.


    The Golden Embroidered Warship which measured about a few feet in length, looked like a dead leaf in this vortex, arduously bobbing about among the enormous space-time fluctuations. Facing the odd but powerful space-time distortion force, the warship kept surging up and down. Everyone on the warship was very concerned, for it felt like one vibration could break this warship into pieces.


    "Rumble!"


    All of a sudden, another deafening sound floated into the ears of the crowd. As they looked up, amazingly, they saw that from the very bottom, within the depths and the surroundings of this vortex that stretched to 10,000 miles, milk-white smoke had slowly started amassing. The smoke flowed out continuously and before they knew it, the next thing that squirted from this vortex was no longer milk-white smoke, but real liquid.


    "Pure Jade Liquid, it''s Pure Jade Liquid!" At the initial glimpse of the milk-white smoke, the crowd did not sense anything at first. But suddenly, as if realizing something, Yuan Tiangang from Dragon Thunder Palace let out a shocked cry, which really startled the others.


    Pure Jade Liquid!


    How could that be possible! How could there be so much Pure Jade Liquid!


    All the Lords of Heaven and Venerables on the warship were totally taken by surprise.


    The Pure Jade Liquid, a rare Mysterious Object in the world, was technically a kind of pneuma between heaven and earth. But this was not any ordinary pneuma. It could only be bred in certain extremely uncommon areas, so it was a precious treasure, whose function was similar to the Flickering Light Evil Qi. They were both pneumas with Spatial Attribute, but the power of the Pure Jade Liquid was much stronger than that of the Flickering Light Evil Qi. The latter could assist Zhou Bao in practicing the Three Realms Division, whereas, it would not suffice if Zhou Bao wanted to practice the Infinite Realms Teleportation. At present, Zhou Bao merely comprehended a few principles of the Infinite Realms Teleportation and was able to utilize his teleportation skills in one macro world or among several adjacent micro worlds. This achievement neither depended on how skillful his technique was, nor how wonderful the Flickering Light Evil Qi was. Instead, it was purely attributed to the great improvement in his understanding of space knowledge. Meanwhile, thanks to his huge strength, Zhou Bao could do long-distance hollow travels and tear space up simply by using his own power.


    However, if he could attain the Pure Jade Liquid, the whole thing would be different¡ªhe would be able to travel across spaces without difficulty and deepen his understanding of the Law of Space with the aid of the special properties of the Pure Jade Liquid. In the end, he could even work out one of the 3,000 Great Ways¡ªthe Great Way of Heavens and Realms¡ªby backward induction.


    The Great Way of Heavens and Realms was one of the most basic ways in the 3,000 Great Ways, serving as a fundamental way of the rest of the Great Ways. If he could figure out how to use it, it would have a profound impact on Zhou Bao''s future development. When he survived his sixth Thunder Tribulation and reached the Lord of Heaven phase, Zhou Bao might even employ his understanding of the Dharma to infuse an entire macro world into his Self-world and reset the earth fire and the wind fire.


    Of course, these were merely wishful thinking; it was the ideal state to be in. After all, infusing a macro world with a cultivation in the Ghost Immortal Real was just a glorious legend. From antiquity times till now, no one had ever heard of any deed like this being done.


    Well, we are straying from the subject. But no matter what, the Pure Jade Liquid surging out of that enormous vortex was indeed a precious commodity, which could even not be found in the Seven-deity Regions at all. Even in the endless Sea Area, the Pure Jade Liquid was still very rare. But in this vortex, it seemed that the Pure Jade Liquid was as common and cheap as cabbages, you could easily scoop large quantities anywhere.


    Finally, someone could not resist the temptation. A Venerable from Dragon Thunder Palace suddenly shook his body, and a faint yellow halo appeared around him instantly. With one leap, he crossed the Highest Heaven Space inside the Golden Embroidered Warship and appeared outside. He was holding a jade bottle in one hand. After touching the bottleneck, a layer of yellow light shone and threw itself at the nearby Pure Jade Liquid. The moment the Pure Jade Liquid connected with that yellow light, a bit of it got corroded, and then was completely absorbed into the jade bottle. Everyone who was watching felt a bit envious.


    After watching this, more people were about to do the same thing. But very soon, they sensed that something was wrong.


    Except for the Venerable who had leapt out recklessly, none of the other guys with the highest cultivation moved at all, and they were all looking at that Venerable as if they were watching a dead man. Even Yuan Tiangang, the Lord of Heaven from Dragon Thunder Palace, had a trace of sneer on his inscrutable face. That guy was one of the Highest Elders of the Dragon Thunder Palace, but he was so weak when facing temptations that he literally hurtled out without telling anyone. That little jade bottle was meant for collecting treasures in Dragon Thunder Palace; instead he was using it to collect the Pure Jade Liquid for himself. Furthermore, how could it be so easy to collect the Pure Jade Liquid? If so, those Lords of Heaven who were present would have rushed out already. How could he, a Venerable, get the chance?


    Suddenly, just when that Venerable was happily collecting the almost inexhaustible Pure Jade Liquid, the already liquidized Pure Jade Liquid finally crept near him.


    "Er...What''s going on?"


    Before he realized what was happening, the Pure Jade Liquid already covered his entire body. In the blink of an eye, his body was cut into chunks. A Genuine Immortal in the Venerable Realm had just been dismembered by this seemingly pure white Pure Jade Liquid.


    The already liquidized Pure Jade Liquid has another name¡ªthe Jade Saber, which is one of the sharpest substance in the world. For it, cutting space was as easy as cutting through a chunk of tofu. Even if a Lord of Heaven had solidified his self-world, he would not have been able to defend himself against the sharp Jade Saber. How daring this guy was! Even jumped directly into it!" Staring at the Venerable who had been hacked into pieces, a mocking smile flitted across the face of Hierarch Huan Ri.

 623 Suffer An Attack

    He was just an ignorant person. Although his cultivation had already reached the Venerable phase, he was still foolish and ignorant, probably due to being shut away in his closed-door training for such a long time. He had just been hacked into pieces, in front of so many people.


    "It''s not the Seven-deity Regions! You''re in the infinite space-time. There are so many good things here, but it is not easy to get them. You just saw his ending. One can''t obtain the Pure Jade Liquid with such low strength!" Yu Taixuan laughed coldly. "However, we can''t let this opportunity slip by us. If I am not wrong, we came here at the adjustment time of the Space-time Vortex. So, we encountered this occurrence. Such a chance must not be missed. Let''s gather it through our own ability!"


    The last sentence revealed his true intentions. The Pure Jade Liquid was indeed a good elixir and extremely beneficial to everyone. However, it was hard to get it. Therefore, they had to use their individual efforts to obtain it!


    After these words, he flashed a smile and went through the Highest Heaven Space in the warship to the vortex. Compared with the Venerable who had died there, he was much more dexterous. The most bizarre thing was that he did not do what that dead Venerable did - which was to absorb the Pure Jade Liquid with a celestial device. Instead, he suddenly opened his mouth before everyone. The Pure Jade Liquid in its liquid and gaseous states were then absorbed into his system.


    "Those who have the Self-world really have an advantage!" Zhou Bao thought, his eyebrows raised in wonder when he saw Yu Taixuan''s action. After all, not every Lord of Heaven''s Self-world could contain the Pure Jade Liquid. However, it was obvious to every Lord of Heaven like Yu Taixuan who were brave enough, that their Self-world could contain the Pure Jade Liquid.


    The flow of the Pure Jade Liquid in the Space-time Vortex was purely a coincidence. They happened to be there at the right time. Furthermore, the Self-world could contain the Pure Jade Liquid. Could there be anything better than that?


    Therefore, Yu Taixuan was overjoyed. At this moment, the Lord of Heaven in the warship and the other Lords who knew about the Pure Jade Liquid leaped into action. They came out of the warship. Everyone used their special prowess to gather this mystical pneuma when the Space-time Vortex was almost inundated by the Pure Jade Liquid.


    So did Zhou Bao. He insinuated himself into the crowd and took out his Green Bamboo Stick and mumbled some words. The Green Bamboo Stick started to absorb the surrounding Pure Jade Liquid. At the same time, the Azure Big World was also absorbing the Pure Jade Liquid. He connected these two fairy weapons through the secret time-space passageway. Zhou Bao was able to absorb it completely if he wanted to, which he did. But he knew that it was not good behavior to do that. Moreover, though the Pure Jade Liquid was a good thing, too much of it was of no use to him. He could not use all of it. Consequently, after having absorbed enough Pure Jade Liquid, he went back to the Golden Embroidered Warship and began to regulate his breathing. He integrated the Pure Jade Liquid into his Mysterious Divine Light to assimilate the two. Using his divine thoughts, he contemplated on the mystery of this wonderful pneuma.


    Boom!


    Finally, with a violent jerk, those who were from the Seven-deity Regions left the vortex and the Pure Jade Liquid reluctantly and returned to the warship. The Golden Embroidered Warship passed through the vortex and the time-space. They came to another time-space.


    "OK. We''ve already adjusted the warship''s direction. We''re approaching Desolate Island. Get ready, everyone. We might encounter an attack. We have to work together on this!"


    "Yes, of course. We will!"


    All the people were pleased and immediately agreed because they had just gained great benefits. Yu Taixuan was pleased with their response. He relaunched the warship and broke through the hollow again.


    The Golden Embroidered Warship certainly lived up to its reputation as a Highest Heaven fairy weapon of upper grade. Thanks to its rapid speed, it went through the countless time-spaces without any obstruction and they finally arrived at their destination.


    When the warship reached a vast time-space, all the people were excited by what they saw. They saw lots of flashing lights coming from various gleaming celestial devices on the ground. From these celestial devices, including the Pure Yang Celestial Device, there came a surge of power, which was directed at the warship.


    "Oh no!"


    "Be careful!"


    "Watch out!"


    ...


    The attack they encountered this time was very different from the torrent and storm attack in the space-time maze. Although the space-time torrent and the space-time storm were both powerful, they were not aggressive. Therefore, it was not difficult to escape once people took the right measures. In that instance, not only had they escaped from the Space-time Vortex but they benefited greatly from it. But now they faced a different type of celestial device attack; it was a really ferocious attack. Its goal was to finish them off.


    It would not stop until everyone was dead. Faced with this kind of situation, the passengers in the warship were not willing to give up so easily. They pounced on the colorful celestial devices.


    Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang!


    Instantly, the sound of explosions reached the people''s ears.


    The collision among the celestial devices sent forth streams of lights. There were also the cries from the practitioners involved in the battle. Attacks that were targetted at bodies were warded off. There was a whole cacophony of sounds.


    Zhou Bao moved among the lights of the celestial devices and shuttled about in the space among the weapons. Sometimes he raised the hammer to hit some strangely shaped weapons. However, he did not exert his whole strength. Instead, he wandered about in the battlefield. He was scrutinizing the terrain.


    However, he did not get a good look at the surroundings. He found that the whole of Desolate Island was covered by a giant inhibition. The Golden Embroidered Warship had not completely entered into Desolate Island. It was stuck in the inhibition. Thus, they had to deal with double attacks, not only from their opponents in the inhibition but also the attack of the inhibition. They were in severe trouble.


    "The inhibition of the Demon tribe? It seems the Demon tribe living in the Sea Area for many years has some tricks up their sleeves!" Zhou Bao sighed deeply. He tried to find ways to break up the inhibition.


    Zhou Bao could be regarded as a Grandmaster in terms of his understanding of the formation. Through his profound knowledge of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, he now had a deep insight of the formation. The inhibition in the Desolate Island set up by the Demon tribe was very eerie and was filled with evil spirits. But it was also filled with a strange power, primitive, mysterious and remote, as if the devils from the deep hell were showing their fangs. It was extremely evil.


    At the same time, Zhou Bao could faintly feel that some strong spirit was hiding in the deep formation. The formation seemed to be waiting for a good time to strike a lethal blow to the Lords of Heaven and Venerables from the Seven-deity Regions.


    What type of feeling was that?


    It was like a poisonous snake that was hiding in the dark and could reveal its sharp fangs at any time!


    Zhou Bao closed his eyes and a pair of small hammers appeared in his hands. His hands cupped them and started to move.


    He raised the hammers. A green light emerged as they shot across the sky. Suddenly it erupted. The whole of Desolate Island shook after his hammers appeared.


    "Boom, boom, boom... "


    The great roar deafened everyone''s ears. Even the Genuine Immortals at Lord of Heaven Realm could feel the blast in their ears and the buzzing in their heads.


    A huge hole emerged in the inhibition on the island after his smash. A cyan mushroom cloud rose into the sky, enveloping the area for many kilometers.

 624 The Sea Area

    The Desolate Island was located at the vast Sea Area and belonged to the Sea Area. There were lots of islands there. The size of these islands varied, some were small and some big. Some of them were inhabited by creatures. It was a complex situation at the Sea Area. However, when people really understood how the authorities ran the organization of the Sea Area, they would find that the affairs of the boundless Sea Area were not complicated at all.


    The Sea Emperor divided the immense Sea Area into many sub-areas which were like the states of the land. They were similar to the provinces in Zhou Bao''s previous life where each sub-area was managed by a special Grand Demon. Every Grand Demon had the capability of a Lord of Heaven Realm. Take the Five-dragon Regions where Zhou Bao had passed by, as an example; it only had an area as small as a city. Though the Sea Area was a huge place with many experts, not every city needed a Lord of Heaven. However, the Five-dragon Regions was a little bit special in terms of its location because it was in the Seven-deity Regions. Without a Lord of Heaven, this area would have gone out of control. Therefore, the Sea Emperor arranged for five Lords of Heaven to be there. Even though there were not many Lords of Heaven in the whole Seven-deity Regions, five Lords of Heaven kept guard here. That was the reason why the experts of the Seven-deity Regions kept away from the region.


    Above the sub-areas, there was actually a unified regulatory management institution which was equivalent to the imperial court.


    Unlike the imperial court, the position there was decided by one''s ability. In addition, there was fierce competition among the Demon tribe at the Sea Area. This tribe had been around for a very long time. Every Grand Demon who had reached such a level was a very cunning creature. Compared with the human beings in the Seven-deity Regions, they were more devious. Hence, the big Sea Area was always managed well.


    Desolate Island was the biggest island at the Sea Area with an area equal to the Central Mainland Region and it played an important role in this Sea Area. Thus, this Sea Area was also known as the Desolate Sea Area.


    From the perspective of its geographical position, Desolate Sea was at the remote southwest part of the Seven-deity Regions. It was also lacking in pneuma and was inferior to the Seven-deity Regions. In the big Sea Area, Desolate Sea also had a bad reputation. Those Demon tribes that had fallen out of favor had all been banished there.


    However, in recent days, the Desolate Sea Area had suddenly become popular.


    A Grand Demon at the Lord of Heaven Realm dominated Desolate Sea Area. This Grand Demon was a cuttlefish who had practiced in the deep sea. After undergoing many difficult trials, he finally reached the Genuine Immortal Karma Rank. Luckily, after he became a human, he had a handsome face. He did not have a name at first, so he named himself Young Master An. However, he had a bad habit. He enjoyed dallying with women. He would flirt with the good looking female demons.


    Consequently, he offended many demons.


    Thanks to his extraordinary talent, he sailed through the Thunder Tribulation six times before he finally reached the Karmic Rank of the Lord of Heaven. In the Sea Area, once someone had reached the Karmic Rank of the Lord of Heaven, it was similar to the rank of a scholar who had succeeded in the civil service examination in Zhou Bao''s previous life. The Lords of Heaven certainly occupied an important position in the big system of power in the Sea Area. They were powerful, sly and ferocious. In many ways, they were united as one.


    This was a privileged group. Regardless where one was from or whatever one''s background was, he could only become a member of this interest group if he reached the Lord of Heaven level. Each Lord of Heaven, whether good or bad, would then own a territory with corresponding power. It was true of Young Master An.


    However, he had offended and seduced too many demons, so he was not very popular. Finally, he was sent to the Desolate Sea.


    To the other Lords of Heaven, being in this hellish place was no different from being exiled. But Young Master An did not care too much. His focus was on the beautiful women there. He did not mind where he was as long as there were beauties there. Although the Desolate Sea Area was bleak and desolate, it had an area of thousands of kilometers wide. Within this big area, there were many beautiful demons. Therefore, Young Master An enjoyed an easy life here. Every night a beautiful female demon accompanied him.


    What made him angry was that his happy days came to an end a month ago. All this could be attributed to the devil brat at Desolate Island.


    Three years ago, a demon from the Seven-deity Regions came to Desolate Island. He came to Desolate Island to hide and heal himself. At that time, Young Master An did not pay much attention to him. One reason was that he was an easy-going person. The other reason was that he did not want to tire himself out with micro-managing everything at the big Desolate Sea.


    However, later, everything gradually went wrong. It seemed that this demon had a remarkable ability. He had been there for only a short while and had started building up his influence. Young Master An also did not attach much importance to him because there were too many things happening at that time. There were lots of islands in the Sea Area. Most of them were not much smaller than any of the regions in the Seven-deity Regions. Many demons also lived on those islands. Seriously speaking, those demons and islands should be under the charge of the Sea Area. However, the Sea Area ignored them because they were not the demons from the sea. The Sea Area let them have their own way only as long as they did not create any trouble in the Sea Area. These monsters built up many of their own influences on the big islands, like what the human beings did in the Seven-deity Regions. Some influences were countries. Some were only hills. Those monsters respected each other based on their own level. They had lesser needs than humans. Therefore, even though there were many influences outside the Sea Area, they did not often start a battle or a massacre. That led to a prosperous situation among the influences of the Demon tribe outside the Sea Area. There were also some experts at Lord of Heaven Realm. In terms of the strength, they were better than the people in the Seven-deity Regions.


    This was the case of the demon who came to Desolate Island. Young Master An did not pay any attention to him. After the demon had set up his own small influence, he sent many beauties and sexy ladies to Young Master An as gifts. He was aware of Young Master An''s weaknesses. Although he had some capabilities, his influence was just a low end influence at Desolate Island. Because of his actions, Young Master An was happy to help him secretly.


    He had never expected that this demon would create such problems for him!


    Ten days ago, a rumor started going around the Desolate Sea Area. It said that the entrance of the Thunder Emperor''s temporary imperial abode was at Desolate Island. He was one of the strong emperors among the 99 Emperors from antiquity times. The demon came to Desolate Island to look for the Treasure in the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. Apart from him, Administrator Zhang also arrived at the Sea Area.


    The Administrator had an influential backing. It was mentioned before that the Sea Area were divided into many parts, like the provinces. The Sea Area was vast. The sea in the Sea Area was much large than the continent. Even in many places, the area of a province was far beyond that of the Seven-deity Regions. Take the Desolate Sea Area as an example. It was three times larger than the Seven-deity Regions. The Grand Demons and the Lords of Heaven who controlled such a Sea Area were called as the Pacification Officer in the Sea Area. For instance, Young Master An was a Pacification Officer in the Desolate Sea Area. He gave him a name Young Master An and he was also titled as the Pacification Officer. However, it sounded strange if he was called the Pacification Officer An. It was the reason why nobody called him the Pacification Officer An. They just used his original name: Young Master An.


    The Administrator was above the Pacification Officer. They did not only manage one province or a Sea Area. They normally managed dozens of Sea Areas and had complete control over everything. The Desolate Sea Area was under the charge of Administrator Zhang. He was responsible for more than 70 such Sea Areas. He did not manage areas like the Desolate Sea Area which was not welcomed by the Pacification Officer because he could not gain any profits there. However, this time round he had no choice but to administer to this area. After all, if the entrance of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was located in the Sea Area which was under his management, how could that not make him feel excited and joyful?.


    Having abundant resources in the Sea Area, the experts were widely respected here. Some had strict rules while some did not. Each expert owned a fixed territory and profit which ordinary people could not interfere with. For example, when a Pacification Officer found some Treasure in the Sea Area, other Pacification Officers would not have a share. At least, they could not directly have a hand in it. However, Administrator Zhang, as their superior leader, had a reason to intervene in it because the Desolate Sea was under his territory and administration scope. Above Administrator Zhang was the chancellor. The chancellor was only a form of address in the Sea Area. This position was similar to the Prime Ministers in the human line of rule; they were the actual controllers at the big Sea Area.


    There were totally nine Prime Ministers in the vast Sea Area, collectively known as the Nine Chancellors.


    Young Master An, Administrator Zhang and Prime Minister Wan!


    The three were in the same boat. They were the legal owners of Desolate Island. Prime Minister Wan was powerful. Administrator Zhang had many treasures. However, compared to the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, what they possessed was just a small amount. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation from the legend would be extremely useful to them. Prime Minister Wan''s power was unknown. Either Administrator Zhang or Young Master An was also the Demonic Immortal at Lord of Heaven Realm. It was only a dream for them to experience nine Thunder Tribulations and reach the Realm of Human Immortal. But their dream would come true only if they could get the Pool of Thunder Tribulation.


    From antiquity times, the Thunder Emperor controlled the Thunder Tribulation, so he had great authority. It was easy for him to get through the nine Thunder Tribulations that scared the Lords of Heaven, and which had made Administrator Zhang and all the Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area go nuts.


    To avoid the unexpected, Administrator Zhang brought over 30 Lords of Heaven to Desolate Island when he heard the news. He also set up the Celestial Demon Octo-formation there.


    It was the formation where Zhou Bao, along with his group, had once been caught in when they passed through the hollow. Only Zhou Bao broke it with a hammer.

 625 Meeting His Match

    For Administrator Zhang it was both annoying and unexpected.


    As the Administrator of the Sea Area, he was used to looking down on the Human Tribe of the Seven-deity Regions. The Human Tribe had long declined in the Heaven Realm. Had it not been for the ancient inhibition in the Seven-deity Regions, the Seven-deity Regions would have been occupied by the Sea Area. Grand Demons in the Sea Area were well aware that the power there was far inferior to that of the Sea Area. One Administrator here was enough to wipe out the human beings there many times over.


    He had brought 34 Lords of Heaven to the island to deal with the Thunder Emperor''s palace, and this was still not his full strength.


    The total number of Lords of Heaven in the entire Seven-deity Regions was probably less than 17. To the Grand Demons in the Sea Area, the humans of the Seven-deity Regions were like monkeys fighting over a toy they didn''t care about. Now a great treasure had been discovered that could help him enter the Realm of Human Immortal. Right now, nothing in the world was more important to him than obtaining it. Yet these damned inferior humans wanted to fight for it too. How could that be!


    "I can''t do anything in the Seven-deity Regions because of the ancient inhibition. Now there''s treasure in the Sea Area. You humans are courting death trying to compete with me for it."


    Thus, the moment the Golden Embroidered Warship appeared, it was attacked by numerous celestial devices. The Celestial Demon Octo-formation also launched an attack. Great Ancient Demons and strange beasts became entities, striking the warship violently. Zhou Bao swung his hammers to force them back.


    The whole island was shocked from the blow of his hammer.


    A mushroom-shaped cloud rose high into the air. Four Demonic Lords of Heaven were hammered badly and had to retreat with shame. A Demonic Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm was crushed. His spirit did not survive.


    "RUMBLE, RUMBLE!"


    A thundering sound shook the whole island. The Celestial Demon Octo-formation completely collapsed. Neither the attacker nor the victim expected such an outcome.


    In a constant burst of energy, a young man dressed in cyan clothes stepped down slowly from the Seven-color Warship. He had twin hammers in his hands and a gentle smile on his face.


    "The boundless Sea Area deserves its reputation. There are so many Lords of Heaven. I can display my full capabilities now!" The young man smiled and swung his hammers. With a quick flash he appeared next to another Demonic Lord of Heaven. An azure light flashed.


    "BOOM! ! !"


    The Demonic Lord of Heaven was hit. He died, his spirit gone forever.


    "Who are you?"


    Administrator Zhang finally came to realize what was happening. Silvery gray tentacles appeared out of thin air and struck Zhou Bao.


    "Eh?" Zhou Bao''s face twisted slightly. He lifted the twin hammers against the tentacles.


    "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"


    Loud bangs echoed across the sky. Astonishment appeared on Zhou Bao''s face. These tentacles were so bizarre. They didn''t break completely after being hammered. Although he didn''t attack with all his strength, each hammer was enough to seriously injure a Lord of Heaven. However, these slippery, apparently flesh-and-blood tentacles were exceptionally powerful. Not only were they tough and flexible enough to defuse his hammer strikes, they also recovered quickly from severe damage.


    It was far beyond Zhou Bao''s expectations and this excited him. He had just exited training and now had the opportunity to battle such a formidable opponent. This trip to the Sea Area was worth it.


    "Great, awesome! Show me your ultimate power!" Zhou Bao cried. He leaped to his feet, wielding two hammers and heading in the direction of the attacker.


    "This guy!"


    Administrator Zhang''s expression had become quite odd.


    He was no less shocked than Zhou Bao. To be the Administrator, he was by no means a simple character. He was a Blue-scaled Octopus, with the bloodline of a Primordial Fierce Beast. He had existed in the depths of the Sea Area since antiquity times. Through numerous years of practice, he had succeeded in undergoing six Thunder Tribulations in one fling and achieved the Karmic Rank of Lord of Heaven after the Necromancer''s Tribulation in antiquity times. Hundreds of thousands of years later, he had passed through the eighth Thunder Tribulation. His great strength was more than a young man like Zhou Bao could imagine.


    He had seen Zhou Bao break the Celestial Demon Octo-formation with a hammer, and kill several Lords of Heaven, each with one blow. He immediately realized that Zhou Bao''s hammers were fairly strange and powerful. That was why he used his Real Body against the hammers. But to his surprise, the hammers could destroy his Real Body, even carrying a devastating force that left his tentacles unable to recover.


    "I have finally met my match!"


    This idea crossed both of their minds simultaneously. However, Zhou Bao always seemed to move faster than he thought. He had located Administrator Zhang and was swinging his hammers.


    With a spirit of destruction, the two hammers fell straight down. They drew a black line in the air with the sound of shattering. It was the sound of space being completely torn apart by the hammers.


    Administrator Zhang narrowed his eyes. He was a Blue-scaled Octopus, very large with a giant face and a rounded chin. But as his small eyes narrowed, his Qi Power became strange. He felt an unspeakable chill arising. Looking at Zhou Bao rushing toward him, he stood still.


    "BOOM!!!"


    Just as Zhou Bao''s twin hammers were about to strike, something weird happened.


    Zhou Bao felt as if a slippery force was blocking his twin hammers so that they could not fall. The slippery power changed the direction of the hammers. He was shocked. He saw a black light.


    "Damn, that''s lousy!"


    With a move of his mind, Zhou Bao disappeared with his twin hammers, which carried mighty force. It looked as if he had never even been there. Only the slowly closing black space lines indicated traces of his past.


    When he reappeared, he was on a high cliff three hundred meters away from Administrator Zhang. The smile on his face was replaced by cool irritation.


    He had been too careless.


    It had been so easy lately that he was a bit cocky.


    It never occurred to him that there was anyone in the world who could withstand the accumulative force of his hammer. Although Administrator Zhang was clearly not feeling well, he had attacked Zhou Bao from behind.


    It was true. Zhou Bao had been attacked by him.


    In the instant that he''d found something was wrong, he had felt a chill cross between his ribs. When the black light came, he was quick to hide, but his clothes were still torn. And in between his ribs, there was a wound, from which a chill spread throughout his whole body. Even his super strong healing power could not suppress the chill. This was totally unexpected.


    "Cough, cough¡ª"


    Administrator Zhang flushed with cough, his face full of shame and anger. Before coming to the Desolate Island, he had never expected to encounter such an evildoer, someone who hurt could him with just two hammer strikes.


    "Boy, you''re dead! You''re dead!" Administrator Zhang screamed. He pointed ungracefully at Zhou Bao, holding the dagger that had just sent out the black light.


    "I''m dead? Really?" Zhou Bao gave an arrogant sneer. Although the chill was spreading all over his body, he didn''t care. He was not afraid of poison. He had refined the Infinite Poison Banner and put it into the Innate Qi Catching Skill. It contained the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast, the deadliest poison. Thus, there was no poison in the world that could do anything about him. Though he was astounded by the coolness, deep down, he knew he would be all right soon. It was only because the toxicity was so intense. He didn''t care about Administrator Zhang''s threat.


    Administrator Zhang paused. He had never met anyone so confident and arrogant.


    "Since you want to die, I''ll help you fulfill this wish!" He smiled wryly. He waved his hands again and again. Numerous tentacles shot out from behind him toward Zhou Bao.


    Facing the tentacles again, Zhou Bao did not despise them as before. He was going to fight back, but he still felt the chill seeping through his body. The Infinite Poison Banner had no effect on it.


    "Is it poison?"


    Zhou Bao''s heart tightened. Before he could react, the silvery gray tentacles were in front of him.


    "Damn it!" He muttered a curse. He launched the Three Realms Division and disappeared with a whoosh.


    "Eh? It''s¡ª" Just as he broke the hollow with the Three Realms Division, something strange happened. The hollow was also full of the silvery gray tentacles, forming a silvery gray cage. The cage was so fierce that it instantly enveloped him.


    Zhou Bao was astonished. The thin tentacles wrapped around him like ropes.


    "Damn it, break!" Zhou Bao snarled. With all his strength, he struggled to free himself of the tentacles, but he found that the chill had penetrated his whole body. Not only were his veins frozen, but even the Mysterious Divine Light was hard to operate. He was unable to exert even twenty percent of his strength.


    "F**k, what the hell is this?" Zhou Bao''s face finally darkened. The chill was beginning to eat away at his spirit, as if to freeze it. He couldn''t even think.


    Things had just gotten serious!

 626 Brutally Suppressed

    "These damned things!"


    Trapped by the silver-gray tentacles, all Zhou Bao''s tendons and meridians and the Mysterious Divine Light were frozen by the strange chill. He was unable to move, completely halted. A harsh light with shrilling hisses shot straight towards the space between his eyebrows.


    "Good!" Zhou Bao''s face was overcast. A white light suddenly appeared behind him. In the light, his glass-like Natal Sword headed for the sky. A dark red Sword Qi shot out from between his eyebrows to meet the harsh light.


    "SWISH!"


    The moment his Sword Qi hit the harsh light, it dissolved. The Sword Qi burst into several small Sword Qi fragments, forming a crimson sword blade storm. It broke the barriers between spaces, and then returned to the present world.


    The blade storm expanded, cutting all the tentacles that trapped him into pieces.


    Although Administrator Zhang''s tentacles were extremely resilient, their internal structure had been damaged by the murderous intent in the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. They could not be restored.


    "What a tough guy! How powerful his Sword Qi is!" Administrator Zhang sighed. His gray eyes flew open. He was heartbroken to see his tentacles destroyed. These tentacles were the result of painstaking practice. They were powerful and changeable and could normally heal quickly after being injured. Now, they were completely destroyed. They would never be recovered. How could he not be angry?


    He gave a low roar and a blue light rose from his body, immediately covering Zhou Bao.


    "This is his Self-world!"


    The Self-world!


    Every Lord of Heaven had his own Self-world. It was like a small space with an endless interior. Once one was drawn in, the only way out was to break the world.


    For a Lord of Heaven, it was the most effective means to fight an enemy, but also the most dangerous. If the Self-world was destroyed by a strong enemy, the Lord of Heaven would be seriously injured.


    Obviously, Administrator Zhang had great confidence in his Self-world, so he trapped Zhou Bao in it without hesitation.


    Trapped inside, Zhou Bao soon understood why he was so confident in his Self-world.


    His Self-world was an ice sea.


    He was trapped in a sea of ice.


    It was freezing cold in here!


    The sharp cold suddenly struck him, creating an immense chill in his body. Almost immediately, he was frozen into an ice sculpture. Now he was slow to think and slow to react. He was in a trance, as if he was sleepwalking.


    Administrator Zhang still seemed worried. He released the black dagger in his hand and turned it into a black light.


    The black dagger looked small, but as soon as it entered the Self-world, it became a black iceberg, descending from the sky to suppress Zhou Bao. At first, Administrator Zhang seemed to want to crush the frozen Zhou Bao, but he failed. Zhou Bao''s body was much stronger than he thought. So he changed his strategy, using the black iceberg to suppress Zhou Bao to the deepest ice sea. He intended to refine him slowly.


    After suppressing Zhou Bao, he turned his eyes to the others.


    His fight with Zhou Bao had taken only a moment from start to finish. It stunned the people from the Seven-deity Regions.


    In their eyes, Zhou Bao''s power was extremely eerie and powerful. He could defeat an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. No one could have imagined, therefore, that he would be repressed so quickly by such a fat guy. Zhou Bao was not even making a sound. It was obvious that he was in danger.


    How long had their battle lasted?


    A round or two!


    After showing his great power of destruction, Zhou Bao had been suppressed. This was completely beyond the expectations of the more than 20 Lords of Heaven and Venerables from the Four Eastern Regions. They were at a loss.


    Administrator Zhang looked at them with a cruel smile on his face.


    "Kill them all!"


    With his command, more than 30 Lords of Heavens and 80 Venerables on the island began to attack them. Their horrific Qi Power shattered the defense of Yu Taixu and others instantly.


    "Wow!" Looking at the celestial devices and lights coming towards him, Yu Taixu opened his mouth. A green light came out.


    It was the Green Pith Leaf!


    As soon as the fairy weapon came out, the green light flickered and stopped all the attacks. As the green light passed over the sand, plants began to grow like crazy. Vines ascended up to the sky to entwine the attackers.


    Illuminated by the green light, all the attackers'' celestial devices failed at the same time, trembling, as if completely subservient to the Green Pith Leaf.


    If launched by Taiyuan Sage or others, the fairy weapon could not play its full power; But now, in the hands of Yu Taixu, all of its power was fully displayed.


    "Is that a fairy weapon?"


    The boundless green light had by this time turned into a strange energy, spreading out, and taking control of all the plants in the Desolate Island. It turned them into terrible weapons against Administrator Zhang''s subordinates.


    "It''s a fairy weapon! It really is a fairy weapon! I can''t believe these guys from the Seven-deity Regions are so rich. They dare to bring a fairy weapon to the Sea Area!" Seeing how the Green Pith Leaf completely inhibited his Lords of Heaven, Administrator Zhang was not startled. He smiled.


    "Guys, these Demonic Immortals are too powerful. Let''s take this opportunity and get out of here and into the depths of the Desolate Island before we make a plan!" Yu Taixu said solemnly to the Genuine Immortals on the warship.


    The Four Eastern Regions had sent almost all their elites for this journey into the Desolate Island, but as soon as they entered the island, they were met with a powerful attack. Zhou Bao with the most powerful combat capabilities among them, had been suppressed quickly. It was not a good start. In order to fight against these Demonic Immortals, Yu Taixu had to launch his Green Pith Leaf straight away. It stopped the attack and even gained the upper hand, but given the number of enemies and their strength, Yu Taixu was not confident enough to stay here any longer.


    To start a fairy weapon took a great deal of Dharma power. Besides, his enemies were Lords of Heaven and Venerables. Unless he was invincible, the only thing he could do, was to retreat.


    "Go!"


    Making up his mind, he pointed at the Green Pith Leaf and urged it with his Dharma power. All of a sudden, it grew larger. It was now a huge 15 feet long green leaf with large clear veins. A number of strange talismans flew out from the green light, drawing the Golden Embroidered Warship into the green light. Then, under the gaze of a group of Demonic Immortals, the huge green leaf flashed green and disappeared into the depths of the Desolate Island.


    "You want to run away? Humph, it''s not that easy. If you still want to seize the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, you cannot escape!"


    Administrator Zhang sneered and did not chase them. He looked at the disappearing light with confidence, as if everything was in his control.


    "Lord Yu, we have escaped but what about Zhou Bao?"


    It was obviously a bit of a surprise that Yu Taixu had escaped so soon. Especially to Mr. Feng IX from the Immortal Palace, who questioned him with a sullen face.


    "I don''t have enough Dharma power to fully activate the Green Pith Leaf. As you can see, they are more numerous and stronger than us. Their leader, in particular, is much more powerful than us, both in strength and in combat capabilities. Even if we use a fairy weapon, we may not be able to subdue him. The longer we stay, the more danger we are in. We had to leave!" Yu Taixu answered him coldly.


    "He is right, Mr. Feng IX. What happened to Zhou Bao was an accident. No one thought that the creatures in the Sea Area would be so strong, nor that they would send such a strong force against us!"


    Yu Taixuan also said, "Besides, King Wuyang has superior strength. Even though he''s down now, he probably still has the means to come out. But if we got stuck there, we''d be in real trouble!"


    "Humph!" Mr. Feng IX gave a cold snort, the anger in his eyes unrelieved. "I hope he''s all right, otherwise our Immortal Palace won''t let it go!"


    It was extremely cold!


    Trapped in Administrator Zhang''s Self-world, Zhou Bao felt a long-lost pain and cold. Ever since he had made great achievements in his practice, he never thought that he would be suppressed in an ice sea.


    "Damn it, isn''t the Mysterious Divine Light capable of refining everything? Why can''t it digest a small chill?"


    He shouted inwardly, "Even my thoughts are frozen. My mind can''t move. Will I be completely suppressed here today? Wait, isn''t my mind frozen? Why am I still thinking now?"


    Squashed beneath the iceberg, Zhou Bao was a bit confused. But unlike when he was just suppressed, he could think now.


    He felt a great pressure from his surroundings. Ice blue flames flickered and blazed, trying to refine him.


    "Whatever!" Feeling his increasingly numb body, Zhou Bao decided to summon his Supreme Fairy Weapon. Whatever the consequences, he intended to tackle the immediate crisis first.


    "Huh? My Mysterious Divine Light is refining these chills!"


    He seemed to suddenly realize something. A flicker of doubt crossed his face. "It seems that these chills are also refining my Mysterious Divine Light!"

 627 Mysterious Icy Divine Ligh

    The Mysterious Divine Light was slowly devouring the immense chill in Zhou Bao''s body. At the same time the chills seemed to be devouring his Mysterious Divine Light. They interacted, gradually merged, and gave rise to a new Dharma power.


    The new Dharma power seemed to be exactly the same as the Mysterious Divine Light, but there was a chill to it.


    "The Frost Giant''s Natal Qi, is this the Natal Qi of Frost Giant?"


    Two kinds of pneuma absorbed each other and mingled together inside his body. A thought flashed through his mind as he was feeling the two strands of pneuma.


    "What a coincidence!"


    Ever since Zhou Bao mastered the Mysterious Divine Light and the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill, he had gained more and more memories from the bloodline as his cultivation deepened. He had a decent understanding of the primitive times and was particularly clear about the practice of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan.


    But he knew that the present world could not be compared to the primitive times. In the primitive times, Zhuyan had been fierce and ran amuck in the world. In addition to the superiority of bloodline, the resources also mattered more.


    The Mysterious Divine Light had the function of refining everything in the world for its own use. But the effect was different depending on what it refined. In the primitive times, the essence of the present world would be considered worthless; the Primordial Demonic Ape would be disdained to refine it. Fortunately, Zhou Bao had the Azure Big World, which had sufficient Divine Energy of Azure Clouds. Although the Divine Energy of Azure Clouds was still inferior to the pneuma in primitive times, it could just barely meet the practice demand of the Mysterious Divine Light. Unfortunately, the speed of practice was incredibly slow. The Eight Nine Mysterious Skill was accumulating pneuma all the time, but there was no sign of advancement. Zhou Bao couldn''t do anything about it.


    In theory, the Mysterious Divine Light had no special properties. It was the purest power and focused on breaking power by force. But that was not to say that the Mysterious Divine Light had no other utility. If one refined the proper pneuma with the Mysterious Divine Light, the lethality could be added to the Mysterious Divine Light without damaging its nature. But the so-called proper pneuma simply could not be found in the present world.


    As one of the Six Royals, the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan was superior to other Primordial Fierce Beasts. Even in primitive times, no living creature''s Dharma power or pneuma had surpassed the quality of the Mysterious Divine Light. Due to its nature, even the Innate Deity''s divine power and the Primordial Demon''s demonic Qi would be refined by it once they met.


    Only when the quality of the pneuma was higher than that of the Mysterious Divine Light, or it had a unique function, could the Mysterious Divine Light be endowed with more power. Even in primitive times, it was rare to see such pneuma. Even if one saw it, it was difficult to collect. The Frost Giant''s Natal Qi was one of them.


    The Frost Giant''s Natal Qi was extremely cold. It had evolved from the origin chill in the Primordial Origin, also known as the Icy Divine Light. Once it was combined and melted with the Mysterious Divine Light, it would further upgrade the Mysterious Divine Light, transforming it into the Mysterious Icy Divine Light.


    As the name implied, the Mysterious Icy Divine Light not only had all the properties of the Mysterious Divine Light, it also had the function of freezing everything. It was much more powerful than the ordinary Mysterious Divine Light.


    However, it was extremely hard to get the Frost Giant''s Natal Qi. The Frost Giant was one of the Chaos Giants, the rulers of the Primordial Origin. And the Chaos Giants were the origin of all congenital living creatures in the legend, so, they were also known as the Ancestor Giants.


    Unexpectedly, Zhou Bao had met a Giant with the Ancestor Giant''s Natal Qi. Realizing this, he almost cried in excitement.


    This was incredible!


    Administrator Zhang had the Frost Giant''s Natal Qi and had put it into his Self-world.


    No wonder he was so powerful and could suppress Zhou Bao.±£´æ(Ctrl+Enter)


    It was a pity that his Primordial Fierce Beast bloodline was inferior to the Mysterious Divine Light. He was unable to fully refine the Frost Giant''s Natal Qi and could only infuse it into his Self-world. His Self-world had become a weapon that could freeze everything. This was why he was so confident in his Self-world.


    Knowing this, Zhou Bao gave up the idea of killing him with his Supreme Fairy Weapon. If his Supreme Fairy Weapon broke the Frost Giant''s Natal Qi, the Icy Divine Light, it would be a huge loss!


    Although Zhou Bao seemed to be gaining strength to refine him, he was not easy to deal with. The Mysterious Divine Light had recovered its strength and began to merge with the Icy Divine Light. His mind had recovered as well. It was extremely easy for him to resist.


    What was more, in addition to the Supreme Fairy Weapon and the broken Heavenly Fairy Weapon, he was also carrying two Taihao Fairy Weapons. The Furnace of Immortality was a fairy weapon of Fire Attribute. It was formidable, but water restricted fire. It wouldn''t have much effect in this situation. The Tusita Fire in it, though supposedly modeled after the Heavenly Fire, was not real. It was bound to be weakened when dealing with the real Icy Divine Light.


    The other weapon, the Green Bamboo Stick could be used in this situation. It was a Medium Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. It had absorbed the Golden Dharma Power of Innate Deity and had mighty power. Thus, even in this Self-world with the Icy Divine Light, it could be operated with ease.


    As Zhou Bao ran his divine thoughts, incantations passed through the Green Bamboo Stick in his hand!


    "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water."


    "He who believes in God, will stay away from all impurity and evil."


    "Everything in this world is given by me. I can give or take anything back."


    A dazzling green light came out with the incantation. The icy water suddenly parted, and the black iceberg above Zhou Bao was lifted by the light.


    The green light of the Green Bamboo Stick shone brilliantly as it released its power from primitive times. A faint glow of golden light lifted Zhou Bao up and suspended him over the water that had already parted. The chill in his body had already been absorbed and melted by the Mysterious Divine Light.


    The Mysterious Divine Light flowed through his tendons and meridians like water, repairing his damaged tendons and strengthening them.


    "Wow, great, it''s so comfortable!" Zhou Bao took a deep breath, with a flash of understanding in his mind.


    "Be humble, and let all things bow their heads before the glory of god!"


    "BOOM!!!"


    The water around him changed dramatically. The dark mountain held by the green light changed in strange way.


    Small specks of light began to glow in the sea and iceberg, looking like tiny grains of ice. They were not pieces of ice, but aggregates of glittering pneuma, each emitting a soft white light. However, Zhou Bao was very clear that these seemingly soft and fantastic white lights contained very bitter chills. It was a huge issue even for Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm.


    It was the Icy Divine Light.


    Administrator Zhang was a Blue-scaled Octopus in the far north sea of the Heaven Realm. He had been there since antiquity times. No one knew how deep the sea was, or how many secret treasures there were. He had gained numerous advantages by living on the sea floor, and before becoming a Demonic Immortal, he had been lucky enough to find the corpse of a Frost Giant from the Primordial Origin.


    The Frost Giant was a type of Ancestor Giant, living on the northernmost moor. No one knew how it died or how long it had been dead. After countless years of vicissitudes, it sank to the bottom of the sea, but retained a mouthful of Natal Qi, which the octopus finally obtained. Thanks to the Natal Qi, practicing was smooth. Now he was the Administrator of the Sea Emperor, and he was quite domineering.


    He even wanted to undergo the ninth Thunder Tribulation with the help of the Icy Divine Light and attain the Realm of Human Immortal.


    In fact, it was not impossible. Even though he had had the Icy Divine Light for hundreds of thousands of years, he had been unable to refine it. So, he used it to turn his Self-world into an ice world. In this way, he didn''t need a celestial device at all. If he met an enemy, he only had to roll him into his Self-world. Even if their cultivation was better than his, they could not resist under the suppression of the Icy Divine Light.


    Before he developed his Self-world, he had put the Icy Divine Light into a celestial device, which had given him victory in all battles. He had handled numerous celestial devices, some of which were Pure Yang Celestial Devices, but he was not interested in them. They were of no use to him.


    With the Natal Power as a Demonic Immortal, the Self-world with the Icy Divine Light and the Dharma power at the Lord of Heaven Realm, he was one of the best in the Sea Area; he didn''t need celestial devices. Too many celestial devices would become a burden to him. That was what he had thought before. But now he was regretting that he''d been too cocky to carry a few powerful celestial devices.


    He really was too cocky. The man he had suppressed in his Self-world had a fairy weapon, and it was refining his Icy Divine Light!


    It was a total shock to him that such an incredible thing could happen.


    Noticing the changes in his Self-world, he turned pale.

 628 Have A Talk

    "Great, it''s so great!"


    In the Self-world, the light of the Green Bamboo Stick in his hand covered a range of thousands of feet. Specks of light from the ice sea and the black iceberg flooded into the green light. They were gathered by the green light, forming a thin stream of energy that poured into Zhou Bao''s body. Now, it was the pure Icy Divine Light.


    Before, all his tendons and meridians might have frozen to ice powder, but now, the situation was different. His Mysterious Divine Light had merged with the Icy Divine Light and refined the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. In addition, his tendons and meridians had been greatly strengthened, enhancing their tolerance to the Icy Divine Light.


    His tendons and meridians had adapted to the chill of the Icy Divine Light and carried a tinge of ice. In addition, the Mysterious Divine Light kept running and refining the Icy Divine Light that was all over the Self-world. Everything was going well.


    After all, in Administrator Zhang''s Self-world, there was only a bit of Icy Divine Light, scattered here and there. Zhou Bao''s Mysterious Divine Light was more powerful. When the two mixed, of course, the Mysterious Divine Light had the upper hand.


    Thus, once the Icy Divine Light was refined and circulating in his body, there was only one word Zhou Bao could use to describe it: awesome!!


    Zhou Bao felt great, but Administrator Zhang was angry.


    "How can this be? It''s impossible!"


    The Mysterious Divine Light was his key to achieving the Human Immortal Karma Rank. His trump card was being absorbed by Zhou Bao. Surely, he couldn''t bear it.


    "Boy, you''re too much!" He roared and his Self-world suddenly changed. The calm waters surrounding Zhou Bao surged and swelled, thrashing against the Green Bamboo stick''s green light.


    "Does it work?" A wry smile flickered across Zhou Bao''s mouth. He had the upper hand now. The Green Bamboo Stick was a Medium Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon.


    The fairy weapon was much more advanced than an ordinary Pure Yang Celestial Device. It had complete Immortal Character and Dharma. In addition, it had absorbed the Golden Dharma Power of the Innate Deity and could be fully started. Thus, Administrator Zhang, a Demonic Immortal at the Lord of the Heaven Realm could not handle it.


    Zhou Bao sat cross-legged in the middle of the green light confidently, absorbing the Icy Divine Light and watching the iceberg overhead.


    It had been formed from a black dagger, which, though not a fairy weapon, must have been an Upper Grade Pure Yang Celestial Device. Otherwise it would not have been able to hold a trace of the Icy Divine Light.


    At this point, the Icy Divine Light from the iceberg had been completely absorbed. The blue octopus began to manipulate this Pure Yang Celestial Device to attack the Green Bamboo Stick. How could a Pure Yang Celestial Device defeat a fairy weapon? What was more, the Icy Divine Light in it had disappeared. What Administrator Zhang was doing was a waste of effort.


    "Hey, stop it. I''ll leave when I''ve finished absorbing the Icy Divine Light. For the sake of your Icy Divine Light, I won''t destroy your Self-world. What do you think?" Zhou Bao asked leisurely.


    In the Self-world, nothing could be concealed from Administrator Zhang. After all the world was his. At Zhou Bao''s words, his face paled with anger, and his thick lips trembled.


    "Boy, you''re courting death!" He bellowed. His Self-world changed again. A great repulsive force generated and tried to push Zhou Bao out of the Self-world.


    "You''ve forgotten I have a fairy weapon!" Zhou Bao sighed. The green light flickered, and the great repulsive force melted into it.


    "Fairy weapon, fairy weapon, damned fairy weapon. Of course you have a fairy weapon!" He gritted his teeth but could do nothing.


    Logically speaking, Zhou Bao was in his Self-world, so he was the boss. But now the situation had completely reversed. Administrator Zhang could only watch as Zhou Bao ran amok in his Self-world. He had no way to deal with him.


    "Administrator, are you all right?"


    The first battle on the Desolate Island had ended. The Sea Area creatures won, but they could not rejoice much. Their enemies had fled. On the contrary, in the beginning they had lost several Lords of Heaven under Zhou Bao''s hammer. It was fair to say they had suffered a lot. Now that the enemies had fled, the faces of these Lords of Heaven and Venerables were ugly. They were ready to run after them, just waiting for the order from the Administrator Zhang. However, Administrator Zhang just stood there, his face changing, not giving orders.


    Finally, a Demonic Immortal realized that something was wrong and ventured to ask him.


    "There''s no need to chase them. They''re here for the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. We will know when they open the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode is opened, and then we''ll find them!" He raised his eyes. "Gui Wucang, investigate who they are, right now. Especially the guy who used the hammers!"


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" Gui Wucang was a Demonic Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm. He had regular features and an unsophisticated manner.


    "Your Excellency, isn''t that the guy you suppressed? You can just torture him. There''s no need to investigate him!" An inopportune voice was ringing in everyone''s ears. Everyone looked up at the speaker. Their expressions changed. The speaker was the master of the Desolate Sea Area, Young Master An.


    Young Master An was a cuttlefish spirit, but he was good-looking. His peach blossom eyes wandered over Administrator Zhang and the crowd around him. No one knew what he was thinking.


    Administrator Zhang felt a pang of anger when he saw Young Master An. He had been the furthest away from the battle, watching with relish like a bystander, with no intention of fighting. He didn''t seem to care if there were casualties on his side, which made Administrator Zhang want to hit him. The question touched Administrator Zhang''s sore spot, and his fat face darkened.


    "I have my plan for this, and you do not need to question me. But you, Young Master An, the Desolate Sea Area is under your control. There''s something going on here, yet you don''t even know what''s happening. You even knew about the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode from me. What is that you do as a Pacification Officer?"


    "Administrator Zhang, you have to be kidding. The Desolate Sea Area has never had an accident under my rule. As for the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, hehe, the Thunder Emperor of antiquity times is mighty. With my meager strength, how could I know that there might be traces of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode here? If I was that capable, I would not be the Pacification Officer of such a small place. I would be an officer in the Office of Political Affairs. Don''t you agree?"


    "Humph!" Administrator Zhang gave a snort of contempt. What Young Master An said was not worth listening to, but it made sense. The entrance to the Ancient Ruins, whether in the Seven-deity Regions or the Sea Area, was a secret. It was not easy to find. There were many people who had been practicing here all their lives yet did not know that the ruins of the ancient sect were at their feet. Even though he did not like Young Master An, he could not use it to punish him.


    In theory, the Administrator ruled several parts of the Sea Area. But he generally did not have much control over others except for a few that were directly under him. The whole power structure was very loose.


    The boss had no absolute power over his subordinates.


    "Leaving aside the past, the practitioners are in your jurisdiction. You will investigate their whereabouts. As soon as you find any trace of them, report it to me. Do you understand?"


    "I understand, rest assured, Your Excellency!" Young Master An smiled and saluted him with his hands folded. Then he left, ignoring Administrator Zhang''s evil glare.


    "Your Excellency Administrator, he is too outrageous! Should I¡ª!" Discontented with Young Master An''s manner, Gui Wucang squinted with a murderous look, and approached Administrator Zhang.


    "Don''t rush. The Thunder Emperor''s touring abode matters are of great importance. Don''t create side issues!" Administrator Zhang shook his head.


    "Yes!" Gui Wucang answered. He left to investigate details about Zhou Bao as Administrator Zhang ordered.


    Administrator Zhang looked up. He waved his sleeves, and said to the Demonic Immortals around him, "You can go now."


    "Yes, Your Excellency!" The Demonic Immortals left at once, and Administrator Zhang was left alone in the moor.


    "Boy, let''s have a talk, okay?"


    Administrator Zhang had been thinking. He had an air of authority before the Demonic Immortals, but in his heart he was very annoyed. Anyone in his place would be annoyed. Zhou Bao was collecting his Icy Divine Light, something he cherished as his life in his Self-world, and he had no way to drive him out. He had to consult with Zhou Bao keeping a low profile.


    "Have a talk? About what?"


    "About the Icy Divine Light. You know, it''s very precious to me. If you take it all, I will lose at least 70 percent of my strength. Please go easy on me!"

 629 Reaching an Agreemen

    "To consult with me!"


    These words were totally beyond Zhou Bao''s expectation.


    Although he was now in Administrator Zhang''s Self-world, he was undoubtedly in an invincible position at this moment.


    This Fatty Blue had a cultivation at the Lord of Heaven Realm and was a demon practitioner born with infinite strength. However, according to Zhou Bao''s estimation, although he was an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven like Hong Taihe, 10 Hong Taihes added together would still be no match for him. Furthermore, this was under the condition that he didn''t employ his Self-world. If he did use his Self-world, no matter how many Hong Taihes came to fight him, they would only meet a dead end. After all, the power of the Icy Divine Light was really terrifying.


    Not everyone ran around with fairy weapons on them like Zhou Bao did.


    Similarly, it was precisely because Zhou Bao carried fairy weapons that Administrator Zhang could do nothing to him.


    He was just a Lord of Heaven, a Ghost Immortal. In other words, he had not yet reached the realm of the Human Immortal, so he was unable to resist fairy weapons.


    Even if Zhou Bao was unable to fully operate the fairy weapons he had due to the limitation of his own cultivation, he might still have a chance, just like what had happened in the Dragon-taming Ruins. At the time, although he had employed the Furnace of Immortality, he was almost caught by Yu Taixu from another space. This was the reason he had almost been captured. He was unable to exert all of the fairy weapon''s power. However now, even though the Green Bamboo Stick in his hand was still one level higher than the Furnace of Immortality, he was able to fully exert its power and completely control Administrator Zhan''s Self-world, making a mess of it. Thus, Administrator Zhang had no choice but to give in. He hoped to consult with Zhou Bao instead.


    However, could such a thing be able to consult?


    Zhou Bao was busy absorbing the Icy Divine Light and not paying attention to Administrator Zhang.


    Feeling that he had not been sincere enough to tempt Zhou Bao, Administrator Zhang took a deep breath and said, "The Icy Divine Light is very important to me. Please show mercy to me!"


    "Haha, interesting. We seem to be enemies. Besides, your Icy Divine Light is also essential for me. Why should I leave it for you?"


    "The Icy Divine Light is indeed mysterious, but I don''t think you can absorb so much!" Fatty Blue seemed to realize something and added gently, "The Icy Divine Light you have absorbed should be enough for you. Even if you absorbed all the Icy Divine Light in my Self-world, I''m afraid it wouldn''t do much more good to you than it does now!"


    "Then, what do you want to exchange for my remaining benefits?" Zhou Bao smiled gently, without stopping his absorption of the Icy Divine Light. Obviously, he wouldn''t discard his remaining benefits without some incentives. He held the upper hand. If Administrator Zhang wanted to consult with him, he should offer him some practical benefits. Otherwise, who would pay heed to him?


    "I''ll offer you the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. I know that you came to the Desolate Sea Area for the palace, and even for the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. But I''ll tell you now that it''s impossible for you to obtain the treasures inside the abode, be it the Pool of Thunder Tribulation or anything else!"


    "I''ve seen the strength of your Sea Area. You''re right. With their strength, it''s impossible for them to get any benefit from the abode or even to leave unscathed unless they have a trump card. However, what does this have to do with me?"


    Zhou Bao didn''t care about other people''s lives. Furthermore, although he was in Administrator Zhang''s Self-world, what was happening outside simply could not be hidden from him. Yu Taixu and the others could not resist the attacks and had run away. Evidently, they had abandoned him. In this case, he didn''t have to worry about them.


    "It seems that your relationships with them are not very good!"


    "Nonsense! My relationships with them are excellent!" Zhou Bao grinned and continued, "Don''t beat around the bush with me. Just say what are you going to exchange!"


    "The Pool of Thunder Tribulation!"


    "What? The Pool of Thunder Tribulation? Hahaha, do you think I believe you?" If Administrator Zhang had said anything else, Zhou Bao might have believed him.


    The Pool of Thunder Tribulation was really too precious. It was even more valuable than the Icy Divine Light. Moreover, judging from the current situation, the Sea Area was the strongest among all the influences and had the upper hand. Neither the Four Eastern Regions nor the Three Western Regions could compete with it. Therefore, there was a 60 to 70 percent possibility the Pool of Thunder Tribulation would fall into the hands of the Sea Area. Now the other party was saying it would abandon the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Naturally, Zhou Bao didn''t believe him.


    "Don''t you think that the Pool of Thunder Tribulation will eventually fall into our hands?" Administrator Zhang gave a wry smile as if he knew what was going through Zhou Bao''s mind. "The matter related to the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode is quite important. It''s only because it happened in my territory that I get to handle it. How could such a treasure fall into my hands?"


    "Since it won''t fall into your hands, you''re going to use it to make a deal with me?"


    "Yes. This is the Sea Area. Even if you obtained it, you would not be able to take it away. The Prime Ministers will definitely take action and even His Majesty too. Once the Celestial Emperor takes action, you''ll have no opportunity to obtain it at all!"


    "In that case, how can you help us?"


    "I surely have my ways!" Administrator Zhang said, "however, I can''t guarantee you a complete success. But at least I can make your competition go smoothly. My subordinates will help you to hinder the other''s movements. In this way, you can snatch treasures with no worries. As for whether you can leave the Sea Area or not in the end, it depends on your luck!"


    "Oh? That''s a good idea, but how can I trust you? You are a powerful Lord of Heaven in the Sea Area. If you break your promise...!"


    "I will make the Great Vow of the Heart Demon and promise that I will not expose you. Neither will I put you in an awkward situation nor retaliate against you in the future!" Administrator Zhang said hurriedly.


    By now, Zhou Bao had already figured out that compared to all the treasures in the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode and even the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, the Icy Divine Light was the most important thing to Administrator Zhang.


    "Well, make the vow right now. I will come out once you do and leave some Icy Divine Light to you!" said Zhou Bao.


    "Okay, I''ll do it now!" Immediately, Administrator Zhang made the vow in front of Zhou Bao.


    The Great Vow of the Heart Demon was widely spread in this world. It was the most impossible vow to break. It had a very fixed format. Fatty Blue only needed to change some of its content in order to make a vow.


    Zhou Bao did not have a desire to put up a desperate fight. After listening to the vow, he jumped out of the Self-world.


    Seeing Zhou Bao come out and feeling the Icy Divine Light, which had become extremely thin but still existed in his Self-world, Administrator Zhang breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you for your mercy!"


    "No need to thank me. We just take what we need. All right, since this is your territory, what do you think we should do next?"


    "I''m afraid you''ll be treated poorly for a period of time to pretend you''re my subordinate. Wait till the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode opens, you can enter it directly. When people begin to snatch treasures, I''ll have my subordinates attack other people and you just have to go and obtain the Pool of Thunder Tribulation!" Looking at Zhou Bao''s extremely young face, Administrator Zhang sighed deeply. Even if Zhou Bao''s two lifetimes and the days when he operated the Wheel of Time in Azure Heaven were added up, he was still less than 100 years old. He himself was an old monster who had lived for hundreds of thousands of years. He was well aware of the ways of the world and had seen many things. The reason he was still alive today was that apart from possessing an unmeasurable strength, he still had an eye for the situation. Since he was defeated today, he''d better throw in the towel. Otherwise, if he really provoked Zhou Bao, even if both of them weren''t wounded severely, once he lost his Icy Divine Light, his strength would be badly damaged. That meant he could lose his status in the Sea Area. This was something he could not tolerate in any case.


    Relatively speaking, for him, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was merely a flower in the mirror and the moon in water. It was visible but unavailable and thus no big deal to him. He would be quite fortunate if he obtained it, but if he failed to acquire it, he could only sigh. It would be a great misfortune if he damaged his foundation for it.


    Anyway, he had been an invincible being in the Sea Area for many years and naturally had some means. In a very short period of time, he helped Zhou Bao to obtain the identity of a personal bodyguard.


    Given his strength, personal bodyguards were irrelevant to him. However, as a senior officer in the sea, it would be shameful if he didn''t go in for pomp. In fact, personal guards, to a great extent, played the role of secretaries.


    Administrator Zhang had a total of eight personal bodyguards. Under his guidance, Zhou Bao secretly controlled one of them. By using a unique illusion skill, Administrator Zhang made him look like this bodyguard. Everything was settled. The only remaining thing was to wait for the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode to be opened.


    For the sake of convenience, Administrator Zhang and other people all lived in Young Master An''s Crystal Palace.


    Although it was an extremely remote place, Young Master An was, after all, a Pacification Officer in this area and still had great power. Therefore, the Crystal Palace was also extremely luxurious. It didn''t even pale in comparison with the Crystal Palace of the Rolling Dragon King in the Five-dragon Regions. Of course, the most distinctive thing in the palace was the beauties flitting about the crowd.


    Seeing everything in front of him, Zhou Bao almost started to shout and curse.


    Imperial Harem, this was the legendary Imperial Harem. Looking at all the creatures in the Crystal Palace, except for Young Master An, all the other creatures were female. This caused Zhou Bao to blush with shame.


    Seeing Young Master An greet them in a loud voice, as if he was very proud of this, Zhou Bao was extremely jealous!


    He wanted to kick Young Master An in the face and tread on it mercilessly!

 630 The Appearance of the Thunder Emperors Palace, A Bad Star

    As Administrator Zhang''s personal bodyguard, Zhou Bao showed the power of a Venerable. Although he was far from being a Venerable, his Qi Power was extremely powerful. No one would look down upon him. Those who learned that he was lower than the Venerable Realm would think that he was hiding his cultivation or had practiced some special skill. In short, no one doubted him.


    Doubt him?


    No way! Administrator Zhang had ruled this vast area for at least a hundred thousand years. What did a hundred thousand years mean? A hundred thousand years ago, the Seven-deity Regions had been in the medieval period, which was now a legend. That was to say, if the old octopus lived in the Seven-deity Regions, he would have become a legend.


    More than a hundred thousand years ago, he had become famous in the Sea Area, without a single defeat. He had an accumulated influence of more than a hundred thousand years. His authority was arguably greater than that of the Emperors of the Seven-deity Regions.


    It was precisely because he had such strong authority that none of his subordinates dared to question him, nor did they dare to put forward different opinions. His subordinates followed his orders and obeyed him absolutely. He was sure that he could help Zhou Bao get the Pool of Thunder Tribulation.


    Things were easy for Zhou Bao over the next few days. Undisturbed, he waited for the Thunder Emperor''s palace to be opened, and then went to seek profit. While he waited, he picked up his companions with the help of Administrator Zhang.


    His companions were Wang She and the Child-endowing Buddha.


    When they arrived, they were amazed at how close Zhou Bao had suddenly become to such a powerful man of the Sea Area.


    "It has been discovered that, when you came out of the Seven-deity Regions, the man who attacked the Golden Embroidered Warship was the Rolling Dragon King. We don''t know how he got your information. Together with the other four Dragon Kings of the Five-dragon Regions, he laid a trap in space to make a sneak attack on you. He wanted you to be lost at the end of space. Unexpectedly, you guys came out, although it was a little late."


    "Humph, the Rolling Dragon King is going crazy. He was too preoccupied with revenge to care about anything. Had it not been for the barrier of the Seven-deity Regions, he would have attacked the Seven-deity Regions. Alas, Yu Nantian is out of luck!"


    "That''s good. The Divine Wind Palace has their hands full with the Rolling Dragon King. They are having a difficult time, but it gives us a chance to move in the dark!"


    "The Divine Wind Palace may actually be about to fall on hard times. It would be unfortunate if they lost some men in the Thunder Emperor''s palace!" the Child-endowing Buddha said faintly. "If I were you, I would do everything possible to keep Yu Taixuan and the Divine Wind Palace Venerables in the Thunder Emperor''s palace forever!"


    "What about Yu Taixu?"


    "He''s the lord of the Divine Wind Palace. He not only has a special status, he also knows the secrets of the Ancient Celestial Court and has mysterious fate. Even if you try your best, I don''t think you can kill him!" The Child-endowing Buddha shook his head. "Maybe you''ll both be weakened. That''s not a good way. The best way to deal with a colossus like the Divine Wind Palace is to slowly chip away at its power, as we have been doing. Take them one by one and cut off their wings before they realize it. Then the final blow is sure to wipe them out!"


    "As I killed Yu Taicang!"


    "Yu Taicang was the first, not the last. Because of the profound nature of the Divine Wind Palace, killing one of their Lords of Heaven and dozens of Venerables won''t harm their strength, nor will it arouse much attention from them. We can only weaken them slowly, and to a certain extent, we can collapse them. If Yu Taixuan and the Venerables were to die here, the Divine Wind Palace would be badly weakened and Yu Taixu''s leadership would be in doubt. By then, the Divine Wind Palace will be unstable, and we''ll have more opportunities!"


    "What if I kill Hong Taihe too?"


    "Hong Taihe is an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven, but he has refined the World-solidifying Skill, and he was defeated by you. His combat capability is at the level of a Six-tribulation Lord of Heaven. He is nothing to worry about. He might even be able to make trouble for the Yu Family!" Wang She shook his head at the idea. "Now, let''s plan what to do in the Thunder Emperor''s palace!"


    "The Thunder Emperor''s palace is very important, but now I am in league with Administrator Zhang. We have the advantage of position and support. When the Thunder Emperor''s palace shows up, we''ll act according to circumstances!"


    "That''s what worries me the most. You are working closely with Administrator Zhang, but is he reliable? If this guy betrays us, we can''t go on. His subordinates are so powerful, damn it. He alone is enough to conquer the entire Seven-deity Regions and beat down the so-called super sects. Can you guarantee that he won''t cheat us?"


    "He made a Great Vow of the Heart Demon. He won''t dare to play tricks in the dark, unless the Great Vow of the Heart Demon can be broken!" Zhou Bao answered lightly. He looked at the Child-endowing Buddha, as if to ask if the Great Vow of the Heart Demon could be broken.


    "Then we don''t have to worry!" The Child-endowing Buddha could not think of a way to break the Great Vow of the Heart Demon. "But we can never let down our guard. The Grand Demons of the Sea Area are all strange and unpredictable, and the Thunder Emperor''s palace and the Pool of Thunder Tribulation are by no means insignificant. I think even the Sea Emperor will be alarmed. So even though Administrator Zhang has a high status in the Sea Area, we can''t depend on him completely!"


    "I agree!" Zhou Bao nodded. He wasn''t totally dependent on Administrator Zhang, and he had never tried to be. His plan was simple and straightforward. As soon as he found any traces of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation in the Thunder Emperor''s palace, he was going to take it with his Supreme Fairy Weapon, and then leave. This could potentially bring great disaster to the Heaven Realm due to the close contact of the two macro worlds. However, Zhou Bao believed that as long as he handled it well, the disaster could be kept to a minimum. Once in possession of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, he could use several of the Supreme Fairy Weapon''s functions. By then even the Sea Emperor would not scare him.


    After measuring his gains and losses, Zhou Bao knew he had to get the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. He could not let anyone else get their hands on it. Whoever dared to prevent him from getting the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was his enemy, and he would not hesitate to kill them.


    It was a very clear day with no clouds in the sky.


    Such fine weather was rare on the Desolate Island. However, it was completely destroyed by a pale grey film between heaven and earth.


    This layer of film was the barrier of the Celestial Demon Octo-formation.


    Zhou Bao had destroyed it with his hammer before, but Administrator Zhang soon repaired it.


    After all, the Thunder Emperor''s palace was important. Although the territorial division of the Sea Area was strict with its own rules, it could not be ruled out that someone was playing tricks. Besides, it was likely that the palace contained more than just the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. As a Great Ancient Emperor and one of the most powerful Great Emperors, he had to have fairy weapons.


    Although it was only a palace, there were probably at least one or two fairy weapons. And they would not be low-level fairy weapons. There could even be Heavenly Fairy Weapons.


    Of course, this would only happen if they were fortunate. In fact, even if there were Heavenly Fairy Weapons, they would not be able to launch them. Even if they got them, they could not take them away.


    Therefore, Administrator Zhang was careful. He was worried that someone would play tricks on him and he would be in trouble.


    He was already very upset. Although Zhou Bao had not completely absorbed his Icy Divine Light in his Self-world, he had only a little bit left, resulting in a great decline in his strength. Though he very much wanted the treasure in the Thunder Emperor''s palace, he was no longer sure of winning it. His only hope was that Zhou Bao, who was a plague to him, would hurry away and that he could finish the business of the Thunder Emperor''s palace as soon as possible. He was feeling a little overwhelmed. He could not bear any more trouble. So he was very cautious, trying to nip any incongruity in the bud.


    "BOOM!"


    An earth-shattering bang rang throughout the Desolate Island.


    The loud bang echoed like thunder across the island in an instant.


    And after this thunderous sound, the Celestial Demon Octo-formation which covered the entire island completely collapsed.


    "No!" Zhou Bao had been doing self-cultivation in Young Master An''s Crystal Palace, when all the people in the Crystal Palace started paying attention to the situation on the Desolate Island. They gathered in front of a small Transmitting Formation in the palace. It could transmit people directly to the Desolate Island without breaking the island''s barrier.


    But ironically, by the time people arrived, it had been completely destroyed by a mysterious force.


    "That''s too bad. The Celestial Demon Octo-formation collapsed, and so did the Transmitting Formation inside the Desolate Island. The Transmitting Formation here won''t work!" The blue octopus''s gaze flickered over everyone present. Then, with a flash, he took the lead to break through space and ran straight to the Desolate Island.


    Naturally the Lords of Heaven and Venerables from the Crystal Palace did not dare to slight him but followed close behind. They were all sullen. The destruction of their carefully arranged Celestial Demon Octo-formation suggested that they had no power to prevent others from entering the Desolate Island.


    "This is really a bad start! Looks like there''s going to be trouble ahead!" With a sigh, Zhou Bao also broke through the hollow and entered the undefended Desolate Island.

 631 The Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar

    A beam of light rose from Desolate Island to the sky, connecting the sky with the earth. Were it not for the fact that it was too small, it would definitely be considered as the pillar supporting the sky.


    It was a bright and thick beam of lightning. It was almost tangible rather than a pillar supporting the sky.


    It had become a physical object!


    This was the most surprising place.


    When Zhou Bao and the others set foot on Desolate Island, they saw only the last flash of lightning. Soon after, the lightning turned into a cyan jade pillar which connected the heaven with earth.


    A cyan pillar that looked like it was made of blue jade.


    It was emanating a power that made people tremble. This power swept across the entire island.


    Those with lower cultivations were unable to approach it at all.


    Wang She and the Child-endowing Buddha were powerful enough to act recklessly in the Seven-deity Regions, but under the power of this cyan jade column, they didn''t look so good. Luckily, they had their own unique methods. They could still move forward on the island. If it were other Individual Immortals, they would have knelt down long ago.


    There were indeed some people on the island who were kneeling down.


    After the light column appeared, it shattered the Celestial Demon Octo-formation, exposing Desolate Island to everyone. Countless Demonic Immortals had gathered outside the island. Their lowest cultivations were at the Venerable Realm and more than 10 of them were Lords of Heaven. Like Zhou Bao and the others, they had all come for Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. Most of them had very high positions in the Sea Area; some of them were even Eight-tribulation Lords of Heaven and managed several Sea Areas like Administrator Zhang.


    However, because they were afraid of the rules in the sea, they could not openly interfere in the matter related to the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. Nevertheless, no one could prevent them from causing stunts in secret.


    With their cultivations, it was quite easy for them to change their appearances and cover up their spirits. Although they could not come here with great fanfare, it was okay if they came alone. As long as they announced that they were going to do a closed-door training, no one knew what they were really doing. That was what Zhou Bao used to do.


    Therefore, in a short period of time, myriads of Demonic Immortals gathered around Desolate Island. When they found the whole island had been blocked with the Celestial Demon Octo-formation, they all yelled and cursed. Even if they could break through the formation, given their strength, they would inevitably alert the guys who had set the formation. In this way, their whereabouts would be exposed. Hence, no one dared to take action.


    Just when they were getting impatient, there was a sudden loud thunder in the sky, and the formation collapsed immediately. There was no way to resist the force at all.


    They were overjoyed. Without thinking twice, they turned into innumerable rays of light and emerged from the sea surface or the seafloor and entered the island as soon as the formation collapsed.


    Zhou Bao and the others stepped onto the island at the same time and discovered the unwelcome visitors. But none of them stopped the Demonic Immortals because they simply could not stop them.


    "The water is getting muddy and now it''s muddier than ever!" Feeling the pressure from the rays of light, Zhou Bao sighed gently. It was right at this moment that he also felt a great pressure coming from the flashing thunder pillar.


    "The Seven Evils Cyan Thunder, it''s the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder!" Standing in front of him, Administrator Zhang seemed to have discovered the nature of the thunder pillar and gasped with shock.


    The Seven Evils Cyan Thunder!


    Genuine Immortals, or in other words, Ghost Immortals, were divided into three major levels: Sages, Venerables, and Lords of Heaven.


    After one had broken through the Mysterious Realm and undergone the first Thunder Tribulation, he would become a Sage. When one had passed through the second Thunder Tribulation, they were qualified to be called a Venerable. When a Venerable had undergone the fifth Thunder Tribulation, he would reach the peak of the Venerable Realm. After he had undergone the sixth Thunder Tribulation, he would then become a Lord of Heaven.


    Different from the previous five Thunder Tribulations, after the sixth Thunder Tribulation, every Thunder Tribulation would be executed by powerful Heavenly Thunder. The sixth Thunder Tribulation was called Six Directions Red Thunder, and the seventh was the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder. The eighth was the Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder, and the ninth was known as the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder. After one had undergone the ninth Thunder Tribulation, he would become a Human Immortal.


    Now, there was a cyan jade-like pillar supporting the sky in front of the crowd. It was a physical object entirely made of the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder.


    What?! How could that be possible?


    When they looked at the jade pillar, everyone''s eyes turned dull. An air of incredibility was revealed in their eyes.


    How could that be?


    Even when one was undergoing the seventh Thunder Tribulation, there would only be a few bolts of thunder coming down from the Immortal Realm. However, already more than 90 percent of the Lords of Heaven''s bodies were smashed to pieces.


    But now, only God knew how many bolts of Seven Evils Cyan Thunder were in the thunder pillar in front of them and how powerful it was.


    Perhaps even the power of the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder that one had to bear during the ninth Thunder Tribulation would still be no match for the tremendous power that this many bolts of Seven Evils Cyan Thunder possessed.


    It was a fact, rather than something that would probably happen.


    The Nine Heavens Purple Thunder, at most, only consisted of nine bolts of thunder. However, it was impossible to form this pillar without tens of thousands of bolts of Seven Evils Cyan Thunder.


    Even Human Immortals would have their bodies smashed into pieces or even ashes by so many bolts of Seven Evils Cyan Thunder.


    "I should go there first and see whether this is the TThunder Emperor''s touring abode or an attractive trap!" Everyone was affected by this tremendous coercion. Even Zhou Bao gasped secretly. However, no matter how terrified they were, they were obliged to do something. In any case, they wanted to go and see what was going on in the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode.


    Obviously, there were quite a few people who had the same idea as Zhou Bao. Hundreds of rays of light rose from all directions of the island and gathered toward the column. Genuine Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm and the outstanding ones among the Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm were able to fly in the sky, despite the great pressure. With a wry smile, the Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She gave a hint to Zhou Bao, indicating that they were unable to do that.


    Zhou Bao didn''t care.


    He knew that he could not count on them as soon as the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar appeared. This pillar was only the first test of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. If they couldn''t withstand the coercion of the pillar, they would not be qualified to enter the abode.


    "That''s ok, at least I won''t have to worry!" Zhou Bao sighed secretly and dashed straight toward the pillar.


    The pillar was located in the northernmost part of the island. The island itself was extremely vast. Under the pressure of the pillar, no one dared to fly at top speed. As a result, it took quite a few seconds before anyone arrived at the pillar.


    The closer one got to the pillar, the greater the pressure. Hundreds of people rose to the sky, but less than 50 people were able to reach the pillar. At this moment, aside from Zhou Bao, there were no Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm or Six-tribulation Lords of Heaven. Even Seven-tribulation Lords of Heaven were very rare. Those who were able to reach the pillar were almost all Eight-tribulation Lords of Heaven. Except for the several Lords of Heaven coming from the Seven-deity Regions, the rest of them were all suffused with Demonic Qi, but no one could recognize their true appearances.


    That was because they had hidden their appearances in the heavy fog. Everyone was looking at the cyan jade pillars. They did not communicate with each other or even catch a fleeting glimpse of the others.


    There were only two Lords of Heaven from the Four Eastern Regions together with Zhou Bao. One was Yu Taixu and the other was Feng IX from the Immortal Palace. Perhaps the other people could not bear the pressure here, and thus, did not come near.


    "Feng IX is an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. It seems that the Immortal Palace has indeed hidden a lot of force. It simply cannot be underestimated!" Deep in his heart, Zhou Bao felt surprised. Apart from the two Eight-tribulation Lords of Heaven, obviously, there were many other people from the Three Western Regions. Just like the Four Eastern Regions, only two people Zhou Bao didn''t recognize could reach the cyan jade pillar. He could only tell that they came from the Three Western Regions because of their costumes and Highest Heaven Celestial Devices.


    The others were all Demonic Immortals from the Sea Area. To Zhou Bao''s surprise, Young Master An also arrived at the pillar. Although he seemed to have done this with great effort, he finally reached it.


    "Humph!" Administrator Zhang''s eyes swept over the crowd and he let out a heavy snort. Needless to say, these guys were all powerful Demonic Immortals and Administrators of the sea. However, unfortunately, they all had concealed their appearances. Otherwise, Administrator Zhang would have cursed them long ago.


    Nonetheless, now was not the time to clash with these Lords of Heaven.


    The pillar rose straight from the ground and pierced through the sky. No one knew whether it had ever crossed the Nine Heavens Gang Wind. There was a huge, pitch-dark hole 10 times the size of the pillar on the ground. It was from this hole that the pillar shot out.


    "Is the entrance to the TThunder Emperor''s touring abode in this hole?" For a while, almost everyone harbored this idea, but no one dared to jump down first.


    This must be a joke. God knew what was down there. One could be sucked into the pillar the moment they jumped down, and no matter how many lives they had, they would only die.


    Swish! Several shadows shot into the hole. They were stones around the Lords of Heaven. They were throwing them, as if they wanted to see what kind of reaction the hole would have.


    The pillar did not have any reaction. It just stood there, as if it had existed since ancient times. After waiting for a long time, there was no echo. None of them looked very good.


    The Eight-tribulation Lords of Heaven were old monsters who had lived for many years. They cherished their lives and were unwilling to jump down to explore the way. They felt regret for not having brought subordinates to explore the way for them.


    As soon as this idea occurred to them, someone immediately put it into action. A dozen rays of light flashed again, and more than 10 people left the cyan jade pillar. After a few seconds, they came back again with several guys in their hands. These guys were Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm, but in the face of the Eight-tribulation Lords of Heaven, they simply could not resist. They were thrown into the hole. All of a sudden, shrieks came from the hole.

 632 Entering the Hole

    Although the shrieks sounded miserable, no one paid any attention to them. These were not the screams of being at death''s door, but a natural reaction of being frightened by the coercion emanated by the nearby Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar.


    People whose cultivations had reached the Venerable Realm were not different from ordinary people. For the latter, the former was enigmatic and had a long lifespan and strong strength. Thus, the latter thought that they were simply not creatures of the same kind. However, when facing people with cultivations equal to or even higher than theirs, there was not much difference between their interactions. In the face of unknown fear, their reactions were the same.


    With their cultivations, the Venerables were unable to get close to the pillar. And now they''d been thrown into a space only 30 meters away from it. When they felt the terrifying force, their spirits were badly injured, and their first reaction was to scream. How could they care about anything else?


    Since the Venerables were all strong Genuine Immortals, they didn''t need to take a breath when they screamed. Their screams lasted a long time, longer than it took to drink a cup of tea. These screams suddenly came to a halt and vanished.


    Needless to say, nothing had happened to these Venerables. They weren''t necessarily hurt. They might even have entered the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, right?


    In any case, knowing that nothing happened during that period of time was enough. Among the crowd, several courageous and energetic Lords of Heaven finally took action and jumped into the hole. With a few people taking the lead, naturally, others would follow suit. Almost everyone had jumped down by the second or third round.


    There had been dozens of Lords of Heaven in the beginning, but within several seconds, only a dozen people were left, including Zhou Bao, Administrator Zhang, and the four Lords of Heaven from the Seven-deity Regions.


    Finally, Yu Taixu couldn''t help waiting any longer and winked at Mr. Feng IX. Both of them jumped. The two Lords of Heaven from the Three Western Regions also followed suit.


    "We might as well jump too!" Zhou Bao said, looking up at Administrator Zhang. Since this was the case, they were obliged to do so. Zhou Bao had reached a conditional agreement with Administrator Zhang. Therefore, he couldn''t let Administrator Zhang die. Furthermore, the Great Vow of the Heart Demon that Administrator Zhang had made was also very clear; he would not prevent Zhou Bao from seizing the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and would do everything he could to help him. However, there was also a precondition; his own life would not be harmed.


    If things were dangerous enough to harm his life, he had the right to back off from the action. After all, for these old monsters, nothing in the world was more precious than their own lives. Even the fairy weapons were nothing compared to living.


    The danger of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was far greater than anyone could have imagined. The Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar, an extremely terrifying thing, had appeared when the abode opened. Who knew what kind of treacherous things would exist in the abode? As a matter of fact, the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar alone was likely to kill Administrator Zhang. Zhou Bao attached no extravagant hope in receiving help from him.


    Obviously, Administrator Zhang was also well aware of this. He grinned and as quick as a flash, his fat body disappeared into the hole.


    Zhou Bao followed closely behind.


    The hole was extremely deep, but it was not dark. The Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar was flashing a misty cyan light that lit up the surroundings. They entered the hole and were even able to see things dozens of meters below clearly. If their eyes moved downward continuously, they would suffer the burning of lightning. No one was willing to bear that feeling.


    Once one''s cultivation reached Level Seven, he could fly in the sky with the help of the power of Gang Qi. Now, as Administrator Zhang was an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven and Zhou Bao was a talented freak, although the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar not far away was sending out a powerful force, it was very easy for them to control their speed.


    They drifted down like two feathers. Their destination was not far anyway.


    In the time it took to drink a cup of tea, a few Venerables fell to the bottom of the hole. Hence, the distance between the entrance to the hole and its bottom was a kilometer at most. It didn''t take long before they arrived at their destination.


    "It is as I expected!" The two of them exchanged glances and revealed tacit expressions.


    There was a small Space-time Vortex about 750 meters below the hole. The Thunder Emperor''s touring abode might be in it. However, no one could be sure what the consequences would be if they entered it. They could go into the abode directly or be transported to an unknown space-time, wandering in the void forever. Thus, many people gathered around once again, but only a few bold ones had already gone into it. After all, not everyone was as confident about their mastery of the Law of Space like Zhou Bao was.


    This time, without a second thought or giving a sign to Administrator Zhang, Zhou Bao went directly into the small Space-time Vortex.


    TheThunder Emperor''s touring abode was not in the present world. If one wanted to get in, they had to travel through a space-time. Everyone knew this very clearly. However, they were frightened by the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar, so they were hesitant when facing this vortex. Nevertheless, since all of them were Lords of Heaven, once they thought it through, they would all surely go in. If Zhou Bao hurried, he would have the opportunity to seize the initiative, so he entered quickly.


    Zhou Bao felt dizzy as soon as he entered. However, things were different now. He had already refined and absorbed a considerable amount of Pure Jade Liquid before coming here. In addition, in Young Master An''s Crystal Palace, he had completely absorbed and refined the Icy Divine Light he had seized from Administrator Zhang. He had managed to practice the Mysterious Icy Divine Light successfully and his strength had greatly improved. Thus, he only suffered a sudden dizziness due to the vortex. After that, he got his bearings. It was a space-time channel leading directly to an unknown area, which was very likely to be the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. Suddenly, Zhou Bao became serious and he operated the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. At the same time, he grasped the Green Bamboo Stick. Green light emanated from the stick and instantly enveloped him.


    Within a few seconds, he arrived at the end of the channel. A powerful suction came from the end of the channel and sucked him into it.


    Rumble, Rumble...


    When he passed through the channel, bursts of muffled thunder sounded in his ear. The sounds were getting louder and louder, almost deafening him.


    And it got worse. Together with the thunder, bolts of authentic lightning hit the green light of the Green Bamboo Stick with loud noises, making it ripple. However, Zhou Bao, finally made the current situation out.


    This huge palace was presumably the legendary Thunder Emperor''s touring abode.


    It was hundreds of kilometers long and dozens of kilometers wide. It was built on a continent suspended in the void.


    The most bizarre thing was that there was a large mass of dark clouds above the palace. It was the size of or even slightly larger than the continent where the palace was located. It completely covered the whole continent. Bolts of lightning fell from the dark clouds like raindrops, hitting the continent and the palace.


    The main structure of the whole palace was made of white jade. The thunder hit it like light shining on a mirror and reflected off without causing any damage. At the top of the clouds, there was a black vortex the size of a person. It was the entrance to the passage of this space-time.


    It looked exactly toward the White Jade Square in front of the main hall of the palace. This square was where Zhou Bao and the others had fallen when they entered the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode.


    There were already several bodies, including the Venerables who were thrown into the hole, on the square. Lords of Heaven were operating their celestial devices to protect themselves. Those poor Venerables had passed through the vortex and come to this place, only to die of thunder strikes without any preparation.


    Of course, they would die of thunder strikes. These guys were Venerables, not Lords of Heaven. Above the square, each thunderbolt was similar to the one in the third Thunder Tribulation. When a Genuine Immortal underwent the Thunder Tribulation, the number of the thunderbolts increased by nine in each tribulation until the sixth Thunder Tribulation. Furthermore, the power of each thunderbolt also increased. Before a Metaphysic Individual Immortal could become a Genuine Immortal, he had to endure nine thunderbolts. Before a Sage became a Two-tribulation True Immortal, he had to suffer 18 thunderbolts. When a Two-tribulation True Immortal became a Third-tribulation True Immortal, he had to withstand 27 thunderbolts. The rest had the same layout. A Five-tribulation True Immortal had to undergo 45 thunderbolts.


    No one knew how many thunderbolts were above this square. The thunder struck down like raindrops. Without any preparation, these Venerables had been struck by innumerable thunderbolts when they entered. How could they have withstood these attacks?


    Take Zhou Bao for example. Standing on the square, he had already been hit nearly a hundred times. If he hadn''t had the fairy weapon to protect himself, he would have hidden.


    Those who could survive were all Lords of Heaven with extremely high cultivations. They were not only powerful, they were also experienced in undergoing Thunder Tribulation. Moreover, they possessed Pure Yang Celestial Devices. They were barely able to survive in such an environment, but they would not be able to withstand the attacks for long.


    "It can''t go on like this. The Heavenly Thunder here is endless. If we don''t find a way out, we will all die of thunderbolts!" A Lord of Heaven couldn''t help opening his mouth. "Why don''t we all rush into the hall in one go and figure the rest out later?"


    "Well, that will be fine!" Not far away from him, another Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven said, "There is a weird barrier. We can neither fly nor travel the space-time; we can only run on our legs. If we make any noise, more Heavenly Thunder falls. I think we should combine all the celestial devices first and then rush toward the hall together. Only then can we have a chance to live!"

 633 Kill One to Warn A Hundred

    The Heavenly Thunder here was extremely weird!


    Looking at the thunder, Zhou Bao was astonished. He secretly doubted that the clouds were connected with the legendary Thunder Tribulation Heaven causing the Heavenly Thunder to appear.


    Compared to other restless people, he was not worried. With the fairy weapon to protect himself, he didn''t care how much thunder there was. Looking at the colossal palace again, he found it very quiet. No one had even made it inside.


    "Damn! Should I take the lead or take a wait-and-see approach?" Zhou Bao wondered to himself. It was true that he could go into the palace any time he wanted, but the pros and cons of being the first to go inside were still uncertain. There was a chance he might benefit greatly. There was also a possibility he could die.


    "Okay, I can wait for a while until Administrator Zhang comes down." Zhou Bao made up his mind. Although he wasn''t sure whether Administrator Zhang would come or not, he thought there was some possibility. Since the Thunder Emperor''s palace was somewhat of a treasure-house, Administrator Zhang had to be interested.


    As expected, Administrator Zhang didn''t disappoint and soon appeared. After a few breaths, he drilled into the space.


    Apparently, he hadn''t expected the space to be strange. He was struck by lightning as soon as he came out. After a strange cry, countless silver tentacles poked out from the hollow behind him and formed a huge silver net protecting him firmly and thoroughly.


    However, although his huge net was robust, it would very likely be destroyed under the influence of Heavenly Thunder.


    Zhou Bao smiled and flickered slightly but he was caught by the green light of the Green Bamboo Stick next to him.


    BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!


    The power of Heavenly Thunder immediately came into effect. With a bang, countless Heavenly Thunderbolts formed together and hit against the rays of cyan.


    The smoke-like and fog-like cyan kept churning but never collapsed. Rather it looked more and more efficient.


    "It''s a fairy weapon! How could it be a fairy weapon!"


    "Who is that guy? Why does he have a fairy weapon to protect him?"


    "It really is a fairy weapon. He looks like Administrator Zhang''s bodyguard. How is that possible? The octopus doesn''t even have a fairy weapon!"


    "Indeed, it is quite strange. How did the guy with the fairy weapon come about?"


    Zhou Bao sheltered Administrator Zhang under the green light without hesitation and didn''t care about the Heavenly Thunder attacking him. The Demonic Immortals from the Sea Area had fully figured out the Green Bamboo Stick in his hands. Out of greed, they kept staring at it, wishing they could go and snatch it.


    And they knew by now that Zhou Bao''s being safe and sound could be completely attributed to the Green Bamboo Stick. His cultivation was that unfathomable; he was below anybody among them.


    They would have rushed over and snatched his fairy weapon. However, they did not dare to behave recklessly now and had no alternative but to stare at Zhou Bao with envious eyes.


    In the face of so many eyes, Zhou Bao said with a wry smile, "Administrator Zhang, let''s go into the palace first, shall we? It''s very uncomfortable to be watched by so many eyes."


    "All right!"


    Administrator Zhang had also noticed the greedy eyes around him.


    Zhou Bao had changed his form and appeared as his bodyguard. Others may not have known all his ins and outs, but they could recognize him. They got away, but the annoying thing was that nobody knew what these guys would do to get the fairy weapon.


    At the thought of the endless trouble that might arise in the future, the conqueror of the sea looked extremely seedy. Hearing Zhou Bao''s call, he nodded without hesitation.


    "There are only a few people. Damn! Before we leave, I''ll have to kill them all so that they won''t bother me anymore." Administrator Zhang''s small grey eyes flashed angrily.


    Zhou Bao didn''t have time to care about Administrator Zhang''s thoughts. After hearing his approval, he didn''t delay, and a green light skimmed into the palace.


    At this moment, everyone else got into a flap.


    There had been quite a few people, but none of them could make their way into the palace. Actually, it was not a big deal for them to waste time under the sky of thunder and lightning, but one of them had unexpectedly broken into the palace. Although they were aware of the danger in palace, some people thought the first one would get all the benefits. So Zhou Bao''s action was like igniting a stick of dynamite, motivating all the Demonic Immortals in the square to take action. Several lights began to flash, gathering into a cluster of colorful brilliance.


    Sure, all of this came at a price. Zhou Bao witnessed three Demonic Immortals die under the Heavenly Thunder. There cultivations had been lower, they had only gone through Six Tribulations and couldn''t keep up under the constant attack of Heavenly Thunder.


    There was no barrier in the palace, so neither Zhou Bao and Administrator Zhang nor the Demonic Immortals encountered trouble and all of them managed to get into the palace.


    Unlike the thunder that pervaded everywhere outside the square, when they entered the palace, they felt a cool and refreshing air. The previous sense of scorching and irritation had vanished.


    Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but soon the atmosphere became weird.


    It was an extremely spacious palace. Both its length and width exceeded thousands of meters, revealing a dense and majestic atmosphere.


    The floor was white jade, and each tile engraved with exquisite motifs. These patterns seemed only to be decorated rather than to act as talismans. And all the motifs were grouped together, forming into a huge design, like a landscape of a shrinking world. When they looked up, they saw that the three-hundred-meter high roof was also full of decorative patterns, composed of clouds and rain. In the picture, a high-crowned immortal looked inspiring and impressive. Lightning flashed between his hands, turning it into endless thunderbolts and spilling it onto the ground.


    "Is this the legendary Thunder Emperor? He seems to have a good momentum, but there is nothing special about it." Zhou Bao thought. He suddenly noticed that everyone was looking at him.


    "Haha, Administrator Zhang! You''re really somebody! What kind of history does your bodyguard have? Why the hell does he have fairy weapon? It really makes me jealous," said a Demonic Immortal shrouded in black fog, revealing a greedy tone.


    "Haha, it''s you! Administrator Tu! Why do you have a fog? Aren''t you afraid I will kill you? Don''t worry! You can''t go out because I''ll kill you right here!" Administrator Zhang laughed in a strange way, and eight silver tentacles appeared behind him. They suddenly flew toward Administrator Tu and wrapped around him.


    "How dare you!" Administrator Tu glared at the blue octopus without saying a word. With a long cry, his body turned violently. A large cloud of smoke rushed out, spinning the eight tentacles into a lump. Zhou Bao took action immediately. With malicious eyes, he appeared to the right of the smoke. The Green Bamboo Stick in his hand had been replaced by a small green hammer which slammed into the black smoke.


    "BANG!"


    With a loud bang, the thick smoke turned into an entity. The black-clothed man was blasted away fiercely. His seemingly strong body was shattered to pieces, melting into a blood fog and fading away.


    "HISS!!!"


    Everyone in the palace gasped at the ghastly sight before them. Even Administrator Zhang was astonished.


    Although he had behaved maliciously, he was not sure that he was able to kill Administrator Tu. What surprised him was the way Zhou Bao killed him with his hammer with no mercy. Such a living Lord of Heaven smashed into pieces, simple and cruel.


    However, it was also this simple and cruel means that astonished and terrified all the witnesses.


    "Where the hell did this guy come from? How can he be so powerful?"


    "How is it possible? I reckon his cultivation is less than a Genuine Immortal. How is it possible to kill a Lord of Heaven with a hammer?"


    "Yes, it''s impossible! He must be hiding his cultivation, right?"


    For a while the identities were hidden in the palace, but several acquainted Demonic Immortals communicated with other each in their mind and became more scared when they looked at Zhou Bao.


    A hint of cruelty flashed through his eyes. The reason he had struck to kill with no mercy was to subdue the other Demonic Immortals in the temple. He also saw that these people had a strong desire for the fairy weapon in his hands. And they didn''t turn their nose up at his cultivation. If he was not able to subdue them in one blow and make them fear him, then this trip to the Thunder Emperor''s palace would inevitably lead to a lot of unnecessary trouble.


    He decided to apply thunderbolt means to show his real strength. He needed to make them fear before he could rest assured.


    "Hmm, it''s a Lord of Heaven who just went through Seven Tribulations. He can''t even stand my hammer. How dare he challenge the Administrator? He must be suicidal!" he said with a cold snort. He went behind Administrator Zhang, trying to project a humble and loyal image.


    "Haha!" Administrator Zhang forced a smile to his lips. He was in a complex mood and didn''t want to say anything more or see these Demonic Immortals. He just looked to the deep tunnel leading to the rear of the house.


    There was nothing worth clinging to. If one wanted to get benefits, he had to move on. But no one knew where those deep passages would lead and what danger was waiting for him.

 634 The Shadow in the Tunnel

    There were several passages behind the hall, and each of them led to a different direction. One could see that the route of each passage was winding and there was a turn almost every three hundred meters. No one could make out what was behind the tunnel and what was going on there.


    "Let''s go. We''d better pick a passage and go quickly. Let''s not waste time here!" Administrator Zhang caught several glimpses of these passages. He didn''t pay too much attention to the surrounding Demonic Immortals. He believed they would be cautious in their actions after the lesson of Administrator Tu.


    At this moment, lights began to flash. It turned out to be more Demonic Immortals gathering above the square outside the hall. They entered the hall in the same way and had also lost a lot of people.


    Zhou Bao saw that Yu Taixu and Mr. Feng IX were among them. When they saw the hammers in Zhou Bao''s hands, they looked surprised. They felt Zhou Bao''s sharp eyes sweeping over them, so they cleverly closed their mouths and shifted their eyes to other directions.


    "Good bloke, you didn''t die!"


    "Damn it, why didn''t he die? Moreover, he is standing with Administrator Zhang. Have they reached an agreement?"


    Mr. Feng IX and Yu Taixu harbored completely different thoughts. However, Zhou Bao didn''t care what they were thinking. He gave Administrator Zhang a wink and they dashed toward one of the tunnels at the same time. After a few body movements, they disappeared.


    The Demonic Immortals in the hall naturally did not want to lag behind, but no one followed the two of them. Instead, they each chose a tunnel that was pleasing to the eye.


    Yu Taixu winked at Feng IX and entered the same tunnel Zhou Bao had.


    As soon as Zhou Bao and Administrator Zhang entered the tunnel, they immediately felt that something was wrong. The pneuma surrounding them seemed to be unusually dense. If they had been in the air, then the air in this space was so thick that it would be liquid.


    Nonetheless, it was merely air, not special pneuma or spiritual qi. If anything, the only thing there was the strong and dense Thunderbolt Qi.


    The two of them frowned at the same time.


    The strong Thunderbolt Qi mingled in the thick air, like specks of light on the water. Unlike water, the air here was not electrically conductive, so it was no threat to them.


    In order to be on the safe side, Zhou Bao once again took out his Green Bamboo Stick. Its light flickered and protected them all the way. Every three hundred meters, they took a turn. Not knowing how many turns they had they taken, they finally saw a pool of light ahead of them.


    "Watch out!" Administrator Zhang saw the light and his eyes turned stern. He instinctively felt that an unprecedented crisis had appeared in front of them.


    Zhou Bao''s expression also changed suddenly. Without thinking, he created a wonderful Incantation Gesture to hit the light.


    Boom!!!


    A shaft of golden light flashed, and a golden seal appeared in front of them, smashing straight toward the light.


    The Flipping Sky Seal!


    The Mysterious Divine Light in Zhou Bao''s body had been completely transformed into the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. When he executed the Flipping Sky Seal, it was not only as powerful as it was before, it also sent out a biting cold air with a might that could freeze everything.


    There was a faint gleam of deep blue light in the golden light of the Flipping Sky Seal. It instantly froze the thick air, including the thunderbolts that permeated.


    "Aye?"


    An exclamation sounded. A loud bang rang out. The earth trembled and the mountains swayed!


    The Flipping Sky Seal collided with a crack of black light, causing a huge quake. The surrounding pneuma suddenly dispersed, and a strange vacuum zone appeared.


    Yes, a vacuum zone.


    If it were anywhere else, such a terrifying collision would have shattered the space and exposed a void rather than a vacuum zone.


    However, in this place, the collision between the Flipping Sky Seal and the black light only shattered the surrounding air. The space here was as solid as a rock.


    "Hahahaha, what an interesting young man! You have practiced the Flipping Sky Seal to this level; it almost has one percent of the power of the genuine one. Since you are able to freeze the void, I consider you a talent. Unfortunately, I am not the one who cultivates talents but the one who specializes in killing them! Hahahaha!"


    A burst of strange laughter echoed through this space and a dark figure completely blocked the light in front of Zhou Bao. Simultaneously, a big hand made up of black mist grasped straight toward the Flipping Sky Seal.


    Zhou Bao sneered. Another big black hand stretched out of the void and rushed to grab the big black mist hand. Guided by this hand, the Flipping Sky Seal turned over and hit the black mist hand.


    Sizzle!


    Swish!


    "Nooooo!"


    Under the attack of the poisonous hand transformed by the Infinite Poison Banner and the Flipping Sky Seal, the shadow uttered a short scream and quickly dashed backward. Its destination was the white light.


    Zhou Bao would surely not allow him to escape. His body moved and then he appeared behind the shadow. He wielded the twin hammers and hit the figure mercilessly.


    Boom!


    The black figure who had turned into mist showed his real body under the power of Zhou Bao''s green hammers. The figure let out a muffled sound and struck toward Administrator Zhang.


    Obviously, Administrator Zhang would never miss such a good opportunity. He sneered and immediately executed his Self-world. A shaft of blue light flashed and covered the black shadow.


    "What the hell? It''s not a big deal!" Upon seeing how easily Administrator Zhang had trapped the figure in his Self-world, Zhou Bao was somewhat disappointed. He realized the figure''s behaviors had been all show and no action.


    However, before they could move forward any further, Administrator Zhang''s expression changed sharply. He shouted in his sternest voice and launched his Self-world once again. A beam of black light flew out of his Self-world.


    "It''s the Icy Divine Light. How is it possible? Who are you? How did you obtain it?"


    The tone of the shadow was no longer as relaxed as it had been before. He hadn''t paid much attention when he saw that Zhou Bao''s Flipping Sky Seal froze the surrounding air into ice blue powder. After all, there were a lot of things that could freeze the pneuma in this world. He only felt a little strange when he was attacked by the Flipping Sky Seal. Later, when he was trapped in Administrator Zhang''s Self-world, he realized that the frozen air was the legendary Icy Divine Light. It was at this moment that he attached great importance to the two Ghost Immortals in front of him.

 635 Thunder God

    Administrator Zhang was ashen-faced and his small gray eyes revealed sheer horror.


    "Who is this shadow? He rushed right out of my Self-world and even the Icy Divine Light didn''t influence him much."


    Although Zhou Bao had taken away ninety percent of the Icy Divine Light in his Self-world, the remaining ten percent had completely merged with his Self-world. In terms of power, his Self-world was much stronger than it was before.


    Moreover, he was extremely confident that once he fully integrated the Icy Divine Light with his Self-world, he was able to go through the ninth Thunder Tribulation and was very likely to achieve the Human Immortal Karma Rank.


    However now, his Self-world could not constrain the shadow and thus enabled him to rush out. Moreover, he could vaguely feel that there was a power about this shadow that caused him to shudder. This was a kind of suppression on cultivation. There was only one type of people who could suppress him¡ªan Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven, in this world.


    Human Immortals!


    He was a Genuine Immortal, which meant his cultivation was at the peak of the Ghost Immortal Realm. There was only one kind of person who could repress his cultivation.


    Human Immortals!


    It turned out that the shadow in front of him was a Human Immortal!


    He was shocked and terrified.


    He was an Administrator of the Sea Area, not a bumpkin from the Seven-deity Regions. He had seen Human Immortals. The Prime Ministers in the Sea Area were Human Immortals. They were so powerful that even he, an aged Demonic Immortal, would feel deeply distressed around them.


    Human Immortals and Ghost Immortals were completely different. There was a huge gap between them.


    To refine the Self-world when one was a Ghost Immortal was just a beginning. They were able to, at most, refine something similar to the prototype of the world, while Human Immortals were capable of refining complete worlds.


    This was the terrifying thing about Human Immortals.


    It was very normal for the Self-world to be unable to control a Human Immortal.


    However, after the initial surprise, Administrator Zhang seemed to have realized something again and his dark eyes shone at once.


    "Yes, if that shadow is a Human Immortal, my Self-world will not be able to trap him. He can even crush it with his own world."


    "Even if there is Icy Divine Light in my Self-world, it''s not a problem for a Human Immortal who has refined a complete world. On the contrary, it''s a tonic for him. He can absorb it into his own world and use it to enhance the power of his world."


    "However, he didn''t. He rushed directly out of my Self-world. Except for being shaken, my Self-world did not suffer great damage. This is worth considering."


    "The Icy Divine Light is a very rare thing, even for Immortals and Earthly Immortals, let alone Human Immortals. It is even useful for Celestial Immortals. How is it possible that he should be indifferent to it?"


    "There are only two reasons that can explain his behaviors; either he is really a person of high moral character, or he is unable to do it."


    "He could rush out of my Self-world and exert pressure on me, but he failed to crush my Self-world with his own world. Then, there is only one case left."


    So many things flashed through Administrator Zhang''s mind. Finally, he figured it out.


    "It''s a Human Immortal, a handicapped Human Immortal. He has the cultivation of Human Immortals, but his own world has been shattered."


    When Administrator Zhang realized this, he suddenly felt excited.


    "Kill him, be quick. He is a Half-human Immortal and his world has become incomplete. Kill him, snatch the fragments of his world and integrate them into our Self-worlds. In this way, there will be a much better chance for us to survive the Thunder Tribulation and our Self-worlds will be more stable and powerful!" Administrator Zhang roared.


    A Half-human Immortal, a handicapped Human Immortal!


    How could such precious nutriment be ignored?


    Nevertheless, he also understood that a Human Immortal, even if he was handicapped, would not be someone he himself could easily deal with. However, it didn''t matter because he had a helper.


    Wasn''t Zhou Bao here with him?


    Was there any hatchet man more suitable than him?


    After hitting him with two hammer strikes, Zhou Bao discovered the problem as well.


    This guy was extremely strong.


    He was certain that his two hammers were powerful enough to smash any Lord of Heaven into powder, and even monstrous Eight-tribulation Lords of Heaven like Fatty Blue would also be badly injured. However, this shadow was obviously much stronger than he had thought, be it his cultivation or body.


    This made Zhou Bao somewhat depressed.


    When he was in the Seven-deity Regions and even in the Infinite Star Sea, his two hammers had been invincible. While in the Sea Area, they had suffered two setbacks in succession; the first time was when he was handling the tentacles. Fatty Blue''s tough and soft tentacles caused a lot of trouble, so finally, he had executed the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword to cut them off. However, Zhou Bao had thought it was no big deal because his hammers had failed to hit the opponent''s body directly. He was convinced that as long as his hammers actually hit him, he would surely die. He was confident in these iron hammers.


    However, now his confidence was swayed. The two hammers smashed heavily against the shadow, and he had fully executed the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. Although no Critical Hit was formed, the two consecutive hammer moves did hit the shadow. Such power was able to split a small planet into two halves.


    Nonetheless, when such power hit the shadow fiercely, with the exception of a minor wound, the shadow did not have much of a reaction.


    "What a strong body! Damn it. It''s much more powerful than mine, even though I''m merged with the Primordial Demonic Ape. What the hell is that?"


    These were Zhou Bao''s thoughts when Administrator Zhang trapped the shadow into his Self-world. He had never expected that Administrator Zhang''s Self-world would fail to trap it or that it would be able to rush out. The shadow dashed toward him and startled him.


    Even though the shadow was not fast, Zhou Bao still panicked a bit. He didn''t pose much threat to Zhou Bao, so without thinking, Zhou Bao faced him directly with the hand transformed by the Infinite Poison Banner.


    The shadow had already suffered one loss. How would it be willing to suffer a second loss?


    It turned around in mid-air, and a cloud of black light appeared on it.


    Splash!!!


    The black hand grabbed the black light, as if grasping a mass of running water. It splashed and slipped through the giant fingers.


    The big hand caught the black light, but it was not the shadow''s true body.


    Under the successive attacks of Zhou Bao and Fatty Blue, the shadow finally revealed his real body. It turned out to be a short, thin monster with large black wings, a protruding mouth, and monkey-like cheeks.


    It was kind of like a large bird, except that aside from its wings, its whole body was human-shaped. It was extremely thin, mostly skin; there was very little muscle. Both its hands and legs had four toes with claws like hooks.


    It reminded Zhou Bao of Lei Zhenzi, or Thunder God, a mythological figure in his previous life.


    "Thunder God, he is the Thunder God!" Administrator Zhang, who was standing not far away, exclaimed. Zhou Bao was surprised because this monster turned out to be called the Thunder God.


    "Junior, you have a really discerning eye!" The Thunder God emanated strange laughter when he was recognized by Administrator Zhang. He folded his arms and a mass of dark clouds appeared above his head. "Since you have recognized me, your ''grandfather'', you''d better give in quickly, so as to save me from attacking you!"


    Bolts of silver Heavenly Thunder hovered among the clouds above him. The thunderbolts flashed and crackled, about to strike down at any time. They emanated bursts of heavy pressure that came straight towards them.


    "Humph. They are just a few damn thunderbolts, nothing serious in my eyes!" Zhou Bao sneered and put his two hammers across his chest. He rushed toward the Thunder God rashly, without the slightest hesitancy.


    The Thunder God revealed a trace of anger on his face. His hands moved slightly. Immediately, six Heavenly Thunderbolts struck towards Zhou Bao.


    Although the six Heavenly Thunderbolts seemed tiny, there was a faint red light in each one. In terms of power, they were equivalent to, or even mightier than the nine Heavenly Thunderbolts that Individual Immortals underwent in the first Thunder Tribulation.


    Pop!


    The thunderbolts hit Zhou Bao''s hammers. They formed a tangible lightning net, trying to block his hammers. The power of the thunderbolts invaded his body through the hammers. Electric snakes that were visible to the naked eye swirled around his body.


    "Hmm!" Zhou Bao gave a cold snort, as if the electric snakes were unable to influence him. He shouted in a low voice and wielded his hammers to tear the lightning net into pieces. Then, he tossed his hammers to the Thunder God.


    Boom!!! Obviously, the Thunder God hadn''t expected Zhou Bao''s attack to continue or him to charge at him. Presently, he was unable to dodge Zhou Bao''s hammers and half of his body was exposed. He pushed his hands forward quickly to meet the hammers.


    "Courting death!" Seeing the Thunder God stretch out his hands to stop the hammers, Zhou Bao laughed crazily. He operated the Mysterious Icy Divine Light inside his body.


    Whoosh!


    The green hammers turned into two green shadows and suddenly collided with the hands.


    Crack, Crack...


    The sound of bones cracking rang out and the Thunder God flew back. Zhou Bao wasn''t about to let him go. He wielded his hammers continuously and the green hammer shadows distributed densely like a storm. They chased after the Thunder God and hit him wildly.


    Boom, Boom, Boom...


    A second, in a mere second.


    Zhou Bao smashed the Thunder God 87 times. There were three Critical Hits.


    Fatty Blue looked first at Zhou Bao, who had landed on the ground and regained his calm, and then at the Thunder God, who had been smashed to pieces and turned into a mass of meat.


    A drop of cold sweat flowed down his head.


    "You have shattered his World Law as well!" After being struck dumb for a while, he finally uttered a sentence.

 636 The Thunder Sea

    Yes, it was really shattered into tiny bits!


    Administrator Zhang had lived for hundreds of thousands of years and never seen such a fierce fellow.


    Even the Demonic Immortals who were known for their strength in the Sea Area; even the Prime Ministers who were Human Immortals in the Office of Political Affairs, had never behaved so fiercely as Zhou Bao did.


    He was too ferocious.


    Without telling right from wrong, he had smashed a living Half-human Immortal into a mass of meat. The latter hadn''t even had a chance to fight back. His spirit and the world he had created had all been smashed to pieces. There was nothing left, just a mass of mangled flesh and blood, to show that he was once a living creature in this world. This sent a chill through Administrator Zhang.


    Looking at the small green hammers stained with blood and minced flesh in his hands, Administrator Zhang gulped down a mouthful of saliva. He did not dare to complain about anything. He only murmured, "You have broken his World Law!"


    "He was way too strong. Besides, I don''t know what trump card he might have had. No way I was going to show him mercy. As for the World Law; it was just a broken world, it''s of little use!" Evidently, Administrator Zhang could not conceal his murmur from Zhou Bao. The latter added gently, "Did you say that he is a Thunder God?"


    "Yes, Thunder God. According to legend, the Thunder Emperor governed 300,000 Thunder Gods. They were in charge of the thunderbolts of the heavens and the earth, and even Thunder Tribulations. Even the one with the lowest cultivation was a Human Immortal. I guess he is one of them!"


    "300,000 Thunder Gods and even the lowest is a Human Immortal!" Zhou Bao blinked, and his expression became strange. "Isn''t the Thunder Emperor''s strength and influence extremely powerful?"


    "You''re right. Among the 99 Emperors in antiquity times, he was second only to the Jade Emperor. Of course, his strength is extraordinary!"


    "It''s no use talking about these things now. Let''s see what''s ahead of us!" Zhou Bao said.


    Now that the Thunder God had been crushed to death, the light area that he had been blocking appeared in front of them. Apparently, it was an exit. They rushed out one after the other.


    As soon as they exited, they both gulped at the same time. Bursts of pneuma full of thunderbolts pervaded this place. Administrator Zhang even let out a strange cry. He shook his body and a cloud of blue mist formed around him, lifting him up.


    Zhou Bao could easily see that he was trembling with fear; sweat was dripping from his face like rain.


    Zhou Bao''s heart was throbbing with excitement. There was water at the end of this channel, at the exit.


    A sea!


    It was a vast sea. However, this was no ordinary sea, it was a sea composed entirely of Heavenly Thunder. Endless thunderbolts intertwined together and turned into liquid. It surged with torrential waves and flashed with mystic but dazzling light.


    Thunderbolts surged and flashed. Bursts of crackling sounds came out like the roar of waves, resounding in their ears.


    There were mysterious red cloud clusters above the Thunder Sea with red electric snakes slithering mystically. Every now and then, several electric snakes would fall from the sky. Unlike what was going on at the square in front of the hall, though, thunderbolts still fell from the sky frequently. From time to time, a thunderbolt would fall over the Thunder Sea. Maybe one day, a flash of lightning would fall from the cloud over their heads and kill them.


    "It''s the Six Directions Red Thunder. The Six Directions Red Thunder is in the red cloud!"


    Administrator Zhang was a Lord of Heaven who had undergone six Thunder Tribulations. He knew well what the red lightning falling from the sky represented.


    "The Six Directions Red Thunder? If that''s the case, shouldn''t the legendary Pool of Thunder Tribulation be located right below it?"


    "No, it''s not the Pool of Thunder Tribulation; just a Thunder Sea formed from endless thunderbolts from Thunder Tribulation Heaven by the Thunder Emperor!" Administrator Zhang said helplessly, taking a deep breath.


    "A Thunder Sea?" Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes slightly and glanced at Administrator Zhang. "It seems that Administrator Zhang knows quite a bit about the Thunder Emperor!"


    "I am far from knowing him; this was just common knowledge in antiquity times. Although I was just a small demon who failed to transform my shape at the time, I still knew some of the legends about him." Administrator Zhang continued in a faint voice, "These pieces of information were common knowledge in antiquity times, however, together with some rumors, they have become secrets in the present world. I''m afraid that there aren''t many people who know things like this except those who have lived as long as me!"


    "Tell me please. Help me broaden my horizons!"


    "The Thunder Emperor took charge of the Thunder Tribulation Heaven. In fact, the Thunder Tribulation Heaven evolved from the Original Thunder in the void in primitive times. Some of the Original Thunder evolved into the Thunder Tribulation Heaven and the rest of it evolved into the Chaotic Thunder. The Chaotic Thunder continued to evolve and finally merged into the Way of Heaven, becoming the source of all Thunder Tribulations between heaven and earth. In other words, the so-called Thunder Tribulation Heaven and Void Thunder Tribulation were actually like siblings. It was because of this that the Thunder Emperor, who controlled the Thunder Tribulation Heaven, could affect the function and effect of the Void Thunder Tribulation on a great scale. Furthermore, he was able to execute the Thunder Tribulation on behalf of the heaven. Due to this, the Ancient Celestial Court has established its ruling authority over other realms and it was also the premise that the latter submitted to the Heaven Realm. However, although the Thunder Emperor was mighty and invincible, the other realms covered an area so vast that numerous people were undergoing tribulations every day in these worlds, big and small. Thus, the Thunder Emperor was too busy to care about all of them even if he was extraordinary. Even if he could, he would not really immerse himself in such things. After all, he still had to practice. So, he governed 300,000 Thunder Gods. In order to enable them to control the Thunder Tribulation, he refined several unique Highest Heaven Celestial Devices which later turned out to be the Thunder Emperor''s touring abodes. According to legend, every abode had the power to guide thunderbolts in the Thunder Tribulation Heaven. These thunderbolts formed Thunder Seas in the abodes. Thunder Gods, however, controlled the seas and abodes so they could walk in different realms and execute Thunder Tribulations. The seas could not only breed ordinary Heavenly Thunder, they could also breed the Six Directions Red Thunder, Seven Evils Cyan Thunder, Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder, and Nine Heavens Purple Thunder. Look, there in the sky is the Six Directions Red Thunder. And the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar is outside the abode. Perhaps this abode was used by the Thunder Emperor to strike the Six-tribulation or Seven-tribulation Ghost Immortals in those days!"


    "Damn it. There are such things in this world. My horizons have really been broadened today!" Zhou Bao was left speechless with wonder. He hadn''t expected that this boundless Thunder Sea was not the Pool of Thunder Tribulation.


    "Well, where is the Pool of Thunder Tribulation located then?" Zhou Bao asked curiously.


    "Not every abode had a Pool of Thunder Tribulation!" Administrator Zhang shook his head with a wry smile. "Legend has it that only the most powerful abode, the one that breeds the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder possesses such a pool!"


    "What do you mean? Only the abode that breeds the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder has the Pool! There are only the Six Directions Red Thunder and Seven Evils Cyan Thunder here, does this mean there are no such pools?"


    "Not necessarily. The abodes that breed the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder will definitely have them, but other abodes might too!" He glanced at Zhou Bao. "There are a total of 18 legendary pools, but only nine abodes breed the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder!"


    "That is to say, there are another nine pools in other abodes. How can we find them?"


    "The pool is generally located in the depths of the Thunder Sea!"


    "F*ck!"


    Zhou Bao couldn''t help cursing. "The pool is at the bottom of the Thunder Sea! Are you kidding me?"


    He was certain that with his physical strength, he was able to withstand a few Heavenly Thunderbolts. Nevertheless, he lacked the courage to go deep into this horrifying Thunder Sea.


    Even if he took out a fairy weapon to protect himself, he might not be able to bear the attacks of the thunderous water all over the ground!


    "If you had told me earlier that we have to go deep into the Thunder Sea to acquire the pool, I would not have come here!" Zhou Bao looked quite depressed.


    "Well, there is another way to obtain it!" Administrator Zhang felt awkward. "It''s impossible to go down to the depths of the Thunder Sea. Even if one has a fairy weapon to protect himself, he will only hit a dead end. However, if one can activate the pool outside the Thunder Sea, it''s possible to get the pool out!"


    "Activate the pool? How?"


    "The Thunder Sea possesses intelligence. If it is attacked, it will fight back and create torrential waves. The surging waves will trigger the reaction of the pool in the depths of the sea. Once that happens, one can take measures to obtain it!"


    "Trigger the reaction of the pool? How?"


    "I''m not sure. I''m just telling you the rumors from the medieval period. The Thunder Emperor''s touring abode appeared during that time and this matter made a great clamor. However, in the end, no one can truly obtain the pool!"


    "Does that mean this legend is unreliable?" Zhou Bao rolled his eyes. "Does anyone else know about this?"


    "Some old guys in the Sea Area do. Besides, there should be a record of it in the super large sects, like the Divine Wind Palace, in the Seven-deity Regions!"


    "The fact remains that I came here courting death to obtain an unavailable treasure!" Zhou Bao laughed bitterly. If he could be sure that there was a Pool of Thunder Tribulation under the Thunder Sea, he wouldn''t mind striking it with his Supreme Fairy Weapon. However, what if there was no such a pool? The appearance of his Supreme Fairy Weapon would inevitably lead to a chain reaction and even attract the attention of the Sea Emperor.


    He was well aware of the strength of the whole Sea Area. The Sea Emperor was getting more and more enigmatic. If the Sea Emperor saw him and forced him to stay here, even with a Supreme Fairy Weapon, he still had to think twice about the consequences.


    He only worried that the Sea Emperor also had a Supreme Fairy Weapon!

 637 A Sudden Attack

    The Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was a problem that was stickier than he had originally thought.


    He should have had two helpers, but neither of them was here due to the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar. This messed up his plan to some extent.


    There was a saying, "The older you are, the timider you''ll become." Zhou Bao was exactly a case in point. The higher his cultivation was, the timider he became.


    Zhou Bao was no longer innocent. He knew he was just a variable, someone who had been inexplicably favored by fate.


    He had never thought that he was the only lucky one. Rather, he thought he was the latest lucky one. The Sea Emperor, a mighty person who had ruled the whole Sea Area of the Heaven Realm since antiquity times, was probably luckier than him. Zhou Bao had managed to scrape together a Supreme Fairy Weapon, so it was highly possible that this ruler possessed a Supreme Fairy Weapon as well. Moreover, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was a vital thing for the Supreme Fairy Weapon. Therefore, it would surely attract his attention and even make him covet it. Under such circumstances, if Zhou Bao rashly revealed his trump card, he could die and never have a chance to stage a comeback.


    As a result, he was very ambivalent about the current situation and had become quite cautious.


    "The situation is not quite right. There are many tunnels in this abode, aren''t there? Why are we the only ones standing above the Thunder Sea? Where are the others? Do their tunnels lead to other places? Is there more than one Thunder Sea in this abode?"


    "It''s impossible. Every abode has only one Thunder Sea!" Administrator Zhang also seemed to have realized something.


    "I don''t believe that we are so fortunate as to have picked the right route and reached the abode while the others were unlucky and chose the wrong way!" Zhou Bao said with an odd expression, "Are we so lucky?"


    Both of them remained silent.


    Luck may have truly existed, but those who had the ability to enter the abode without dying were also extremely fortunate. Otherwise, they would not have been so powerful. However, there was no reason for the luck to go to them as soon as they appeared!


    Their eyes turned strange. They looked up at the red clouds covering the sky and then down at the lightning rushing at their feet. Just as they were preparing to figure out what was wrong, they stopped at the same time as if they had felt something. Two figures rushed out of the tunnel and exclaimed simultaneously. Like Zhou Bao and Administrator Zhang, they appeared above the Thunder Sea.


    "The Thunder Sea, it''s the Thunder Sea. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation is right at the bottom of it!"


    It was Yu Taixu and Mr. Feng IX. Upon seeing the present situation, Yu Taixu, the Lord of the Divine Wind Palace, could not help crying out.


    The Thunder Sea looked exactly the same as what had been recorded in the scripture of the Divine Wind Palace. According to the record, the legendary Pool of Thunder Tribulation was at the bottom of this sea!


    "Hey hey, interesting guys, do you think that we will share the Pool of Thunder Tribulation with you?" Hearing Yu Taixu''s shriek, Administrator Zhang laughed insidiously. He stared at Yu Taixu, his eyes flashing sinister light.


    The hairs all over Yu Taixu''s body stood up suddenly.


    It was killing intent, naked and undisguised.


    "WHOOSH!"


    A green light flashed and the Green Pith Leaf appeared in front of him. The green light shone and protected his whole body.


    "Zhou Bao, what do you mean?"


    Zhou Bao did not intend to deny his identity. The two small hammers in his hands had already betrayed him.


    "Nothing. I have reached a small agreement with this Administrator Zhang, but it is a matter between the two of us, not including the third person. Hey hey, now you are the third person, so I think you''d better leave."


    "Zhou Bao, don''t go too far!" Yu Taixu''s face was overcast with anger. "Don''t forget, you are a person from the Seven-deity Regions, not a Demonic Immortal of the Sea Area. If you collude with Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area, you will have no place in the Seven-deity Regions."


    "Interesting!" Zhou Bao''s eyes emanated cold light and he glanced at Yu Taixu. "Lord Yu, do you think this is the Seven-deity Regions where you can command the wind and rain? Well, if you want to do so, see if you can summon the Pool of Thunder Tribulation!"


    "You...!"


    Yu Taixu''s expression changed. In the Seven-deity Regions, as the Lord of Divine Wind Palace, only old bastards who held high status dared to speak to him like this. However, they still maintained due respect in front of him. Zhou Bao, by virtue of his mighty strength, did not respect him at all and even ridiculed him wantonly. This was unforgivable. "Zhou Bao, don''t think that you can get too big for your boots just because of your strength. Don''t forget, you are still a person from the Seven-deity Regions. Your family and your territory are all there. Do you want to betray the Seven-deity Regions and human beings?"


    "What I want to do is not decided by you!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly and looked at the ruler of the Four Eastern Regions. "Who do you think you are? Your words are not law. Don''t forget, I''m a member of the Four Signs of the Immortal Palace, isn''t that right, Mr. Feng IX?"


    Feng IX narrowed his eyes slightly. He had a trace of doubt in his heart. "What the hell is this guy trying to do? Does he want to stir up a conflict between the Divine Wind Palace and the Immortal Palace here? No, he is not so childish to think that he can stir up a fierce fight between the two big sects in the Seven-deity Regions with a word or two. If not, what does he mean?" A doubt flashed passed his mind and he took a deep breath. "Lord Yu, Zhou Bao is right. He is a member of the Four Signs of my Immortal Palace, rather than a disciple of your Divine Wind Palace. He''s just cooperating with this guy now. You don''t need to speak so harshly, do you?"


    "Humph. Don''t tell me you didn''t feel the killing intent on him!" Yu Taixu sneered. "Don''t forget that when we first arrived at the Desolate Island, that guy attacked us and captured Zhou Bao with his subordinates, and now Zhou Bao is standing here, safe and sound. Isn''t there something fishy about that? Do you really think they have converted into friends? Is there such a coincidence in this world? Is there anything more ridiculous than that?"


    "This...!" Mr. Feng IX was speechless.


    Indeed, this matter was odd.


    "Administrator Zhang was indeed the one who ambushed us on the Desolate Island. And Zhou Bao also killed several Demonic Immortals at the Lord of Heaven Realm with his hammers at that time. Did they really become friends in such a short time? Is there anything more ridiculous?"


    "If not, what Yu Taixu said is actually possible. Perhaps Zhou Bao has a complicated relationship with the Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area from long ago. Although all the sects in the Four Eastern Regions investigated his miraculous rise, they never discovered anything unusual about him. This is not quite normal. Is Zhou Bao a spy who has been placed in the Seven-deity Regions by the Sea Area?"


    As soon as this idea came into his mind, it got out of hand, as if a seed had sprouted.


    "If you are out to condemn me, you can always trump up a charge!" Zhou Bao was aware of Mr. Feng IX''s doubt. Leisurely, he revealed the truth. "The reason I am cooperating with Administrator Zhang is very simple. If he didn''t agree to cooperate with me, I was going to destroy his Self-world. Hence, he had to make the Great Vow of the Heart Demon to help me snatch the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Am I right, Administrator Zhang?"


    "This fellow seems a little strange!" Seeing Zhou Bao behave so frankly, Administrator Zhang was a little confused. However, he smiled helplessly and nodded his head in agreement, saying, "I didn''t expect him to have a fairy weapon with him. I trapped him in my Self-world, but I was caught in a difficult situation. In despair, I was coerced by him. This is true!"


    Yu Taixu and Mr. Feng IX frowned. They looked a little surprised, but when they thought about it carefully, they found it was in accordance with their expectations. Zhou Bao had a fairy weapon, and that was known to all. Moreover, this fairy weapon had been given by the five biggest sects because they thought it was a chicken rib at the time. They hadn''t expected that it would have such a huge effect in Zhou Bao''s hands. Except for the Immortal Palace, the other four sects probably regretted it now.


    "That explains it. In this case, Administrator Zhang has the same purpose as us!" Feng IX secretly breathed a sigh of relief and laughed.


    "It was the same before. Nevertheless, for the sake of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, Administrator Zhang seems to want to kill Lord Yu now!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly, and a faint red light began to flash in his eyes. "My constraint on Administrator Zhang is only limited to searching for the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. As to who he''s going to kill, I have no power to control nor interfere. Am I right, Mr. Feng IX?"


    "This...!" Feng IX froze. He didn''t know what Zhou Bao meant, but Administrator Zhang understood.


    "You want me to kill Yu Taixu!"


    "If you help me to kill him, you will have fulfilled the agreement, whether the Pool of Thunder Tribulation exists or not. We will obtain it on our own!"


    The two of them had a short communication through divine thoughts. From this short communication, Administrator Zhang could clearly feel Zhou Bao''s undisguised killing intent.


    "Are you really going to kill him?"


    "Yes, I just want to kill him here!" All of a sudden, Zhou Bao''s expression turned serious and he disappeared.


    "BOOM!"


    "You bastard!"


    Almost the moment he disappeared, Yu Taixu let out a roar as green light flashed violently around his body. He was sent flying; he landed in the Thunder Sea.


    "Yu Taixu, it''s your time to die today!" As quick as a flash, Zhou Bao chased after him. His eyes were flashing with a weird red light!


    The Fiery Eyes!!!

 638 This is the Best Opportunity

    "Fiery Eyes, the Fiery Eyes, you''re the remaining Fiery Eyes'' tribesman!"


    This was totally unexpected.


    Neither Yu Taixu nor Feng IX expected to face such a situation.


    Zhou Bao possessed Fiery Eyes!


    This was something no one had ever thought of.


    "Yes, the Fiery Eyes. Yu Taixu, I am the remaining Fiery Eyes'' tribesman. What the heck can you do to me?" Zhou Bao burst into laughter. He held his two hammers across the front of his body and launched the Three Realms Division. Like a virus in the bones, he moved beside Yu Taixu.


    Bang! Bang! Bang!


    A series of bangs sounded over the Thunder Sea. As if affected by this powerful force, the Thunder Sea and the Red Thunder Clouds in the sky seemed to churn.


    The Green Pith Leaf was a fairy weapon, but under Zhou Bao''s crazy continuous attacks, it seemed to be unable to hold up.


    Yu Taixu was calm. He infused all his powerful Dharma power into the Green Pith Leaf. He no longer wanted to waste his breath on Zhou Bao. Once Zhou Bao had shown his Fiery Eyes, he knew clearly that Zhou Bao had made up his mind to kill him. However, how could he be sure that he would be able to kill him?


    "Mr. Feng IX, why aren''t you doing anything? This Fiery Eyes'' tribesman is the root of the disasters in the Seven-deity Regions. Do you really think he wants to join your Immortal Palace?"


    Yu Taixu displayed his body movements and the golden light appeared. In the light, a huge golden dragon emerged and showed its formidable imposing manner. The people here only saw a huge dragon encircle Yu Taixu. Even the Six Directions Red Thunder falling from the sky seemed to fear the golden dragon and did not dare to touch it.


    It was the Way of the Emperor among the 3,000 Great Ways!


    Yes, Yu Taixu had cultivated the Way of the Emperor to the Basic Level, and no tribulation could harm him.


    "Mr. Feng IX, the killer of the Fiery Eyes Tribe was the Divine Wind Palace. It has nothing to do with the Immortal Palace. My enemy is only the Divine Wind Palace. Does the Immortal Palace also want to put a finger on it?" Zhou Bao naturally would not let Yu Taixu woo Mr. Feng IX, so he shouted out.


    "Haha, I won''t interfere in the grievances between the two of you!" Seeing this situation, Feng IX just smiled. He was the Highest Elder of the Immortal Palace, so he must consider the interests of the Immortal Palace in whatever he did. The Divine Wind Palace''s future had nothing to do with him. For him, it would be best if Yu Taixu died, for it would save him from looking at him all day and night. It was evident that it would not be an easy thing to get along with a guy who had practiced the Way of the Emperor.


    The saying that "accompanying a sovereign can be like accompanying a tiger" was commonly used everywhere. The problem was that Yu Taixu considered himself as a sovereign, but the one who stood beside him, Mr. Feng IX, did not have the manner of being a subject. Along the way, Yu Taixu pretended to be a person with a high status who treated talent with courtesy. He looked very modest, but in actuality, he had the air of an emperor. It made Feng IX feel uncomfortable and he was eager to beat him badly.


    However, it was not realistic for him to help Zhou Bao attack Yu Taixu unless Zhou Bao was able to show an overwhelming advantage and drive Yu Taixu to the well. He would not make a move. He just took two steps back with a smile and stood with his hands folded behind his back. He wore a look of watching a drama. In this way, he told everyone present that he would not meddle in.


    As soon as he made his position clear, both Zhou Bao and Administrator Zhang smiled. A blue figure flashed past; Administrator Zhang had joined Zhou Bao in attacking Yu Taixu.


    Although Yu Taixu was the Lord of the Divine Wind Palace and an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven with unmeasurable strength, Administrator Zhang''s strength was not inferior to him. When it came to strength and its profoundness, Administrator Zhang was far better than Yu Taixu. Thus, when he joined Zhou Bao, Yu Taixu was no longer able to withstand the attacks, even with his Fairy Weapon.


    Nevertheless, Yu Taixu was not someone who could be easily harmed. Otherwise, he would not be the Leader of the Divine Wind Palace, the first sect among the five biggest sects in the Four Eastern Regions.


    He let out a deep low sound and the Green Pith Leaf transformed into a green ray. Wherever it reached, vines and branches appeared in mid-air, turning into a vine net in attempt to cover Zhou Bao and Administrator Zhang.


    "Haha, do you think this is the Seven-deity Regions?" Seeing Yu Taixu take out the Green Pith Leaf to ward off enemies, Zhou Bao burst out laughing. He wielded his hammers and with only one strike, he smashed the net.


    Bang! It hit the golden dragon that was encircling Yu Taixu.


    Ashen-faced, Yu Taixu gave a muffled cry and was sent flying. Silver-gray tentacles suddenly appeared behind Administrator Zhang and bound him.


    "What''s going on?"


    It happened so abruptly that Yu Taixu could not react. The Green Pith Leaf''s vine net was vulnerable. It was like a flash in the pan, for it withered immediately after appearing. This was simply impossible, like a dream. How had this happened?


    "Why do you think I would suddenly plan to kill you!" Zhou Bao''s voice resounded above his head. "Your fairy weapon cannot tear the space open to absorb energy from the void here."


    "WHOOSH!!!"


    A green ray flew toward his head. Zhou Bao attacked him without mercy.


    "Damn it, block it for me!"


    Yu Taixu was entwined in countless silver-gray tentacles and could not move, but Zhou Bao''s attack was so violent and powerful that he had to put the Green Pith Leaf above his head again. The golden dragon that surrounded him rushed toward Zhou Bao''s two hammers.


    Boom, boom!


    Two loud noises were heard one after the other. The space vibrated, and the Thunder Sea together with the red clouds in the sky roared under the tremendous force. Billows of thunderbolts roared and surged up to wrap the people in the sky.


    Zhou Bao hammered the Green Pith Leaf. The Green Pith Leaf''s light suddenly dimmed. Fine cracks appeared. It slowly fell from the sky. Before Yu Taixu could retrieve it, a wave of the Thunder Sea appeared and absorbed it.


    Zhou Bao hit the golden dragon with another hammer.


    Unlike the Green Pith Leaf, the golden dragon was transformed by the power of Yu Taixu''s Way of the Emperor. Although his power of the Way of the Emperor had reached the Basic Level, the dragon still couldn''t help but wail when Zhou Bao smashed it with a hammer. At last, it fell apart bit by bit.


    Poof!!


    Yu Taixu''s face turned pale and a mouthful of golden blood gushed out. Two hammer moves; one had destroyed his fairy weapon and the other had ruined half of the Way of the Emperor he had spent thousands of years refining.


    He had every reason to be angry and hateful. What surprised and frustrated him the most was that the space of this Thunder Sea was so thick that even the fairy weapon could not rip it open. He realized this fact as he saw Zhou Bao wielded the hammers crazily.


    If it were in the outside, with Zhou Bao''s strength, he would tear the space apart when he wielded the hammers and the space around them would be smashed. Nonetheless, above the Thunder Sea, such a thing did not happen. In other words, the space here was several times harder than that in their world.


    This was also why the Green Pith Leaf was so vulnerable. It was a fairy weapon, but its power was not inexhaustible. To operate it required a great deal of pneuma. However, it had an advantage, that was, it could voluntarily break through the void and root in the depths of the void. In this case, it was able to absorb nutrients and energy from the depths of the void to exert its full power.


    However, obviously, he had been fooled by Zhou Bao and had fallen into his trap. He believed what Zhou Bao had said; the Green Pith Leaf could not tear the hard space here open. Under this circumstance, his own strength would run out if he wanted to exert its power. Evidently, he would not be willing to do so, for it was a great consumption for him. Moreover, he also believed that given the quality of this fairy weapon, it should be able to block Zhou Bao''s hammer move, offering him a bit of time to take a short break.


    However, he had misjudged the situation. The green leaf indeed blocked Zhou Bao''s hammer move, but it was wrapped in the thunderous waves. Furthermore, the silver-gray tentacles that bound him were much stronger than he had expected. It was hard for him to break free. Besides that, Zhou Bao''s second hammer had hit his golden dragon transformed by the Dharma power directly. The power of this hammer was completely beyond his expectation. Not only did it result in the golden dragon''s instant collapse, but it also badly hurt his tendons and meridians. And the same thing happened to his spirit too.


    "Humph, why do you think I would fall out with you here and be certain that I can kill you?" After wielding two hammer moves, Zhou Bao looked at the ashen-faced Yu Taixu, his eyes flashing with more vigorous red light. "I chose to turn against you here because you couldn''t break through the void and leave!"


    Yes, this space was extremely hard. When Zhou Bao fought with the Thunder God, he discovered that in this space, the spatial Divine Senses were weakened to the minimum level. It was even difficult for him to execute the Three Realms Division. Strictly speaking, the Three Realms Division was a technique that enabled him to move in the same space. It was still difficult to move in the same space, let alone to tear this space open.


    When he discovered that this space was extremely hard, he had tried it with the Infinite Realms Teleportation. This Space Rampart seemed to be made of countless diamonds. It could not be broken apart simply with personal strength. Even if one was proficient in the Great Way of Heavens and Realms, he still couldn''t rip it open, and neither could the fairy weapon.


    And this was why he suddenly decided to kill Yu Taixu here.


    Both the Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She had told him that if he had an opportunity, he should kill Yu Taixuan in the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode to weaken his influence. Zhou Bao suddenly realized it was the best place and also the best opportunity for him to kill Yu Taixu!

 639 Everyone Shows His Special Prowess

    This was the best opportunity.


    As the Lord of the Divine Wind Palace and the ruler of the Four Eastern Regions, Yu Taixu was an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven, only one step away from passing through the ninth Thunder Tribulation. In fact, someone had asserted that he would undergo the ninth Thunder Tribulation and become a Human Immortal after this trip to the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode.


    It was almost impossible to kill such a person, even if Zhou Bao did have unprecedented luck. When people had such a cultivation, breaking through the void was an easy task. All Human Immortals, more or less, knew several kinds of spatial Divine Senses and took them as their last resorts. Zhou Bao himself was a good example. He had mastered the Three Realms Division and the Infinite Realms Teleportation Skill, ensuring that he could escape safely when he was in danger. Furthermore, in addition to Yu Taixu''s strength, the Divine Wind Palace possessed a very powerful force. Although Zhou Bao had thrown his weight about in the Divine Wind Palace several times before, he was well aware that the reason he remained unharmed was that the Divine Wind Palace didn''t intend to turn against him. Otherwise, the Divine Wind Palace''s barrier alone would have been quite an ordeal for him.


    It was almost impossible to kill Yu Taixu for everyone.


    However now, Zhou Bao saw an opportunity to annihilate him.


    Was there any better place and stage to kill him than the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode?


    No. Absolutely not.


    All the Genuine Immortals that might disturb Zhou Bao were blocked out by the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar. Under the power of the pillar, among all the Genuine Immortals from the Four Eastern Regions, only three had entered the abode, and two of them were from the Immortal Palace. Inside the abode, the Space Rampart was so hard that even one who possessed the spatial Divine Senses was unable to break through the space. It was not so much a palace as a natural jail, where Zhou Bao could attack Yu Taixu with all his might without worrying about him escaping.


    Most important of all, Zhou Bao had a helper. He had expected that once the situation completely unfolded, Administrator Zhang would help him, but Mr. Feng IX would not help Yu Taixu. Fatty Blue''s strength was excellent. Coupled with his own strength, if everything went well, Yu Taixu would die.


    Yes, Yu Taixu would surely die. For him, this was a sudden dead end.


    A dead end that no one had ever expected!


    Yu Taixu finally had a sense of crisis. His golden Gang Qi and Dharma power shone like the sun and a burst of scorching breath emanated from his body to burn the silver-gray tentacles. Although the tentacles were tough, they began to melt under the golden flame.


    "It''s the Asura King!" Zhou Bao didn''t see anything unusual when the golden flame appeared, but Fatty Blue exclaimed in shock.


    "Yes, this is the Asura King Fire. You really are quite knowledgeable!" The flame burned the tentacles off, freeing Yu Taixu at last. His body was wrapped in the Asura King Fire. He raised his hand and a faint green light came rushing out of the endless Thunder Sea. It was the Green Pith Leaf which had been swept away by the thunder waves. It was dimmer than before. It could only send out a faint green light now. Yu Taixu carefully put it in his bosom.


    "Zhou Bao, it turns out that you are the damn Fiery Eyes tribesman. It''s indeed beyond my expectation. However, do you think the two of you can kill me? What a dumb joke!" He laughed. The Asura King Fire around him suddenly surged and transformed into a huge golden tower.


    "The Asura King Tower, suppress it!"


    The tower was shining with golden light covered in talismans. Atop the tower, there was a pearl the size of a pigeon''s egg emitting a faint light. It was a fairy weapon, to be precise, a middle-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, just like Zhou Bao''s Green Bamboo Stick.


    "Alright, come on!"


    Zhou Bao smiled. A golden light shone around his body as well, and a giant Skull Elixir Furnace suddenly appeared above his head and charged toward the Asura King Tower.


    "BOOM!!!"


    The Furnace of Immortality was sent flying. After all, it was merely a low-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, no match for the Asura King Tower. If it weren''t for its special material, it might have been smashed by the Asura King Tower.


    However, as it flew back, seven black flame jets shot out of the skull furnace''s Seven Apertures, transforming into seven black chains. They wrapped around Yu Taixu.


    "It was you...!"


    Yu Taixu''s expression altered greatly. He remembered what had happened in the Dragon-taming Ruins a few years ago. It was precisely because this weird fairy weapon had appeared that he hadn''t had time to catch the troublemaker. Later, he had been furious and ordered everyone in the Divine Wind Palace to track down its source, without success. He didn''t expect to see it again now, and moreover, in Zhou Bao''s hands. What did it mean? It was evident.


    The person who had messed up the Divine Wind Palace''s important matter in the Dragon-taming Ruins was the man in front of him.


    "Haha, Yu Taixu, I guess you finally recognized me. Yes, I destroyed your dragon vein. In addition, my Wuyang Region is a dragon vein where the Nine Dragons converged. How do you feel? Are you very upset?"


    "Bastard, I must kill you!"


    Yu Taixu gave a loud shout and operated the Asura King Tower. The tower sent out endless flames that shot toward Zhou Bao. The seven black chains coming out of the Furnace of Immortality were burned off by the Asura King Fire.


    "Humph, god knows which one of us will die!" Zhou Bao sneered and jumped up to face the river of Asura King Fire. "I''m going to show you what I can do today!" He wielded the two hammers toward the long river of flames.


    "Come on, Furnace of Immortality. Administrator Zhang, help me to kill him, and then the vow you made will end!"


    "Alright!"


    The wind and clouds surged vigorously above the Thunder Sea, and the Furnace of Immortality collided with the Asura King Tower. Zhou Bao wielded his green hammers and forcefully paved a way in the long river of flames in the sky. Administrator Zhang''s silver-gray tentacles flew all over the sky and tied Yu Taixu up firmly. They fought with each other and obviously, Yu Taixu was at a disadvantage.


    Power, absolute power!


    This time, Zhou Bao did not conceal his strength. He displayed the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to the extreme and opened a way in the long river of flames.


    A tremendous spirit emanated from his body and waves of mystic fluctuations started to spread.


    Pressure, incomparable pressure!


    The long river of Asura King Fire was retreating under this pressure. It was not that the flames were not powerful enough, but because of a suppression coming from the origin of the universe. As a result, the long river of flames was no longer lethal!


    "This kind of flame is good. I''ll take it!" Zhou Bao sneered and activated the Furnace of Immortality. It suddenly withdrew from fighting with the Asura King Tower and emitted a spark of light, completely absorbing the entire river of Asura King Fire. He jumped up and wielded the green hammer in his right hand to hit the Asura King Tower.


    "Explode, damn fairy weapon!"


    "BOOM!!!"


    This hammer move had an incredible power. Yu Taixu, who was involved in a fierce fight with Administrator Zhang, suddenly revealed an expression of sheer horror.


    The Asura King Tower was a middle-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. It was also the second fairy weapon that he had refined. Since it connected to his mind, Yu Taixu could sense whatever the tower felt.


    Zhou Bao''s hammer move showed a weird scene about the void, but what really terrified him was that the scene finally froze on a vast planet.


    Yes, it was a vast planet wandering in the void and it was launching toward the Asura King Tower at breakneck speed.


    Crack! Crack! Crack!


    Zhou Bao was able to clearly hear the scratching sound that the strong Space Rampart made. The Space Rampart that even the fairy weapon could not tear open finally responded to him. He wasn''t worried; it was just a small response. It was still a long way from smashing it.


    Feeling the unmeasurable solidity of this space, Zhou Bao was more confident about killing Yu Taixu.


    "BOOM!"


    Another earth-shattering noise sounded. The green hammer finally collided with the Asura King Tower.


    A golden ray shot out suddenly and blasts of airflow surged, sweeping the surrounding thunderbolts and the red clouds away. Like blood, bolts of scarlet Six Directions Red Thunders snaked their way in the air but couldn''t come near the airflow.


    With Zhou Bao and the golden tower as the center, a vacuum zone formed between heaven and earth. Time seemed to be frozen at this moment.


    Bang!!!


    Zhou Bao retreated violently with an unusual flush on his face. A strong impact numbed his hand that held the hammer. He had not felt such a feeling for a long time. He stared at the Asura King Tower as if waiting for something.


    Snap!


    A clear sound rang out. Zhou Bao flew back thousands of meters. The Asura King Tower finally burst dazzling golden light and cracked.


    Yes, it broke apart!


    A middle-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, the Asura King Tower, had broken apart from one hammer strike!


    "It''s impossible!" Watching from the side, Feng IX suddenly straightened his body, eyes full of disbelief.


    "Ugh!!!"


    Yu Taixu, who was fighting with Administrator Zhang, let out a muffled groan. A silver-gray tentacle pierced his body.


    "Haha, you''re so bold that you still dare to distract your attention from our fight. Are you courting death?" Administrator Zhang had succeeded in attacking Yu Taixu, hence, he burst out laughing.


    As an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven, having his body pierced was not a fatal injury to him. It was not even a serious injury.


    "Zhou Bao, you pushed me to do this. You have to pay the price. All of you have to pay the price. Great Constellation Palace, come out!!!" An angry roar resounded throughout the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode.

 640 The Almighty Great Constellation Palace

    "You''re digging your own grave, you really are. The Great Constellation Palace, come out!"


    Yu Taixu, injured by the tentacles, shouted with fury. A streak of starlight flew out from his forehead, and cast a thousand beams. Almost at the same moment, a great pressure, no less than what Zhou Bao had released with his hammer, suddenly arose. The pressure showed no signs of fading away, and continued to build and grow. The Qi, thunderbolts and red clouds were all affected by the pressure.


    A force, which seemed strong enough to destroy the whole world, pushed the three people away.


    Due to the pressure, the rolling Thunder Sea gradually calmed down. The red clouds and Six Directions Red Thunder stopped roaring. Everything around the Thunder Sea was quiet.


    Administrator Zhang, who was still shocked and confused, shouted first, "The Supreme Fairy Weapon! It''s impossible!"


    Yes, impossible and unbelievable!


    How can it be possible?


    How could a Supreme Fairy Weapon show up in the present world?


    But it did.


    The starlights turned into an illuminated palace above the Thunder Sea. The lights were so hazy that only the shadow of a palace made of starlights could be seen. No one could recognize the clear shape of this palace.


    "You want to kill me? Hahahaha! Zhou Bao, do you want to kill me? Who do you think you are? Do you think you can achieve everything with some power? Do you think you''re invincible now? Do you think you can really kill me?"


    The body of Yu Taixu had disappeared, and his loud laughter came from the palace. Zhou Bao stared thoughtfully at the starlight palace, his Fiery Eyes shining with a strange light. No one knew what he was thinking.


    However, Yu Taixu didn''t care about his plan right now.


    "Fiery Eyes! Hahaha, you''re the last remaining of Fiery Eyes. Zhou Bao, I should thank you. A long time ago we got rid of all the people from that family and collected their Fiery Eyes. However, after thousands of years, those eyes were all used up. Now because of you, I don''t have to worry about it anymore. Believe me! After you die, I''ll take care of every member in your family, dig out their eyes and make them into External Elixir. Hahahaha!" The crazy laughter roamed above the Thunder Sea. "You want to kill me? So arrogant! You''re playing with fire!"


    While he was shouting, a huge starlight fortress appeared from above his head, powerful and unstoppable.


    "We''re in trouble!" Seeing this, Mr. Feng IX got cold feet and wanted to retreat, because he never imagined that Yu Taixu had a Supreme Fairy Weapon on hand. How could this happen? The most surprising thing was that Yu Taixu, only a Ghost Immortal, could handle the Supreme Fairy Weapon!


    Not only him, but the Fatty Blue was also withdrawing to the entrance. Normal people would never think about fighting with the almighty Supreme Fairy Weapon. He was only a Ghost Immortal and was far from capable of dealing with such an abnormal object.


    "There''s no way to escape!" Seeing that Administrator Zhang was running away, Yu Taixu sneered. It was too late to run.


    Administrator Zhang was one of the strongest Demonic Immortals in the Sea Area. Yu Taixu could greatly improve his prestige if he took Administrator Zhang back to the Seven-deity Regions.


    He didn''t intend to kill Feng IX, who was the Highest Elder in the Immortal Palace. There was no need. Besides, he wanted Feng IX to spread the message that he was in possession of a Supreme Fairy Weapon so that the entire Seven-deity Regions would be afraid of him.


    Yes, that was what he needed to do. Recently, he always felt something was wrong. In the Four Eastern Regions, the Divine Wind Palace had suffered a blow in both reputation and power. Even his brother Yu Taicang, a Genuine Immortal of Lord of Heaven Realm, was defeated, which angered him and made him realize that someone was plotting against him, with the Divine Wind Palace in secret. After the incident with Taiyuan Heaven, he believed that the person who was against with him was collaborating with Ye Qingtian and had a pair of Emperor Wheel Fiery Eyes. Today, when Zhou Bao revealed the Fiery Eyes, he finally realized that his enemy was the popular King Wuyang, Zhou Bao.


    He had hated Zhou Bao''s guts and blamed the death of Yu Taicang on him, even though Zhou Bao didn''t admit to it. Yu Taicang died in the Azure Heaven, which probably meant that the failure of their last plan was due to Zhou Bao. In the Azure Heaven, the Divine Wind Palace had lost not only a Lord of Heaven and dozens of Venerables, but also a fairy weapon, the Time-fixing Plate.


    However, he was not in the mood to pursue past issues now. It was better to solve the current issue first.


    At this moment, Administrator Zhang ran to the entrance. He could escape with just one jump. However, strangely enough, he stopped and froze with a sullen expression.


    A destructive force had locked him.


    The Great Constellation Palace! The Great Constellation Bomb!


    He knew that the destructive force could tear him into pieces if he moved.


    This was possible. He had lived for hundreds and thousands of years. However, to be honest, he was only a Ghost Immortal, not even a Human Immortal. How could he escape from the attack of the Supreme Fairy Weapon?


    Therefore, he had to stop.


    "I''m surprised to see a Supreme Fairy Weapon in the Seven-deity Regions. No wonder they are all afraid of the mention of the Seven-deity Regions!"


    "The Demon tribe in your Sea Area is powerful, but the Human Tribe in our Seven-deity Regions is not to be trifled with!" Seeing that Administrator Zhang had stopped, Yu Taixu smiled and said, "Relax! I won''t kill you. If Zhou Bao could cooperate with you, so can I. Now Zhou Bao who used to be under my control, will be a dead man soon. Your vow is useless now, but as long as you do what I say, I promise to keep you alive!"


    "Do what you say?" Fatty Blue''s gray eyes flashed with anger but it soon disappeared. "I don''t think you have the power!"


    "You don''t think so? Hahahaha. I have the Supreme Fairy Weapon. Good! Since you want to see my power, I''ll show you how I take the Pool of Thunder Tribulation."


    The Pool of Thunder Tribulation!


    That was the most important thing. Neither Zhou Bao''s nor Yu Taixu''s Supreme Fairy Weapon was a complete or perfect one. Great energy had to be consumed to activate the weapon. Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon needed to absorb energy from the Azure Big World. The Great Constellation Palace also had a macro world. Unlike Zhou Bao''s Azure Big World, which had a complete Dharma, the macro world of Great Constellation Palace was not a complete one, and was between a macro world and a micro world. That was why Yu Taixu, unlike Zhou Bao, was more desperate for the Pool of Thunder Tribulation.


    Because he was so desperate for the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, he didn''t pay any attention to Zhou Bao after confining him.


    It was true. Was it necessary to care about a person confined by a Supreme Fairy Weapon? All he could think about was the Pool of Thunder Tribulation.


    The Pool of Thunder Tribulation was his ultimate goal in the Sea Area this time.


    Other things were all meaningless to him. As long as he planted the Pool of Thunder Tribulation into his Great Constellation Palace, he would truly be powerful enough to control the Seven-deity Regions. Both the Three Eastern Regions and the Three Western Regions had to listen to him. Neither the Lord of Heavens nor Human Immortals could challenge him.


    With the power of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, his Great Constellation Palace would have no rivals at all.


    Suddenly, it sent out a streak of starlight that took in Administrator Zhang.


    "The Pool of Thunder Tribulation, come here!"


    After catching Administrator Zhang, the starlight around the Great Constellation Palace formed a silver light column and exploded above the Thunder Sea.


    Boom!


    The entire Thunder Sea was divided into halves. The waves of thunderbolts rolled and roared. However, in front of the starlights, all the thunderbolts and waves turned into clowns. They could not hurt the starlights and had to make way for them.


    "What''s going on?"


    Right after the silver starlight column went into the Thunder Sea, a strange thing happened. All the objects around changed. The sea was still there, so was the red thunder clouds. However, the sea seemed to shrink thousands of times into a small pool, and the thunder clouds above turned into ordinary small ones like those outside the palace.


    Thunderbolt Pond, and small pieces of red thunder clouds!


    The events were totally unexpected for Yu Taixu.


    "What we saw before was just a dream, this is reality" Mr. Feng IX narrowed his eyes and said, "We were in dreamland just now!"


    "Dreamland? What a powerful dreamland! We would probably still be in dreamland were it not for the Great Constellation Palace!"


    "That''s true. If I''m right, this should be the long lost magic matrix of the antiquity times. We were lost in the dreamland just now!" said Mr. Feng IX.


    "Mr. Feng IX is an expert in the art of illusion. What do you think we should do now?"


    Mr. Feng IX looked at him and said, "Now that the matrix is broken, let''s move forward."


    The magic matrix was broken, but not by powerful magic. It was broken by the destructive force of the Great Constellation Palace. The fairy weapon not only broke the magic matrix but also the solid space, which looked incomplete and shabby now.


    It seemed like the end of the world.

 641 The Kunlun Mirror

    Even though the dreamland was powerful and the space was solid, they could not withstand the attack of a Supreme Fairy Weapon like the Great Constellation Palace.


    "No wonder Zhou Bao wanted to kill me in this place. The Space Rampart here is rather strong!" Yu Taixu said proudly, realizing the difference of the space. "He would never think that this is where his body will lie!"


    When the Great Constellation Palace pressed upon them, Zhou Bao didn''t resist, at least not intentionally, and allowed this Supreme Fairy Weapon to fell on them. Yu Taixu''s Supreme Fairy Weapon really surprised him.


    It was not surprising that the Divine Wind Palace had a Supreme Fairy Weapon. Zhou Bao had always thought their Supreme Fairy Weapon was the broken Grand Divine Wind Palace, about which he knew everything. The macro world inside was also broken, it was no match for even the Highest Heaven Celestial Device. Because of that, it was remained in the endless time and space of the Heaven Realm. No one knew that Yu Taixu had another Supreme Fairy Weapon, the very handy Great Constellation Palace.


    "The Great Constellation Palace is rather weird. Its starlights are more powerful than Ye Qingtian''s weapon, but apparently both are of the same origin. Is the Great Constellation Palace related to the heritage that Ye Qingtian received?"


    Right now, Zhou Bao stood confined within the Great Constellation Palace, which was a strange place. There was nothing around, just some gentle starlights pouring down from the air. The star lights were not random. Every light fixed on an important acupoint of Zhou Bao, and one of them fixed even right between the eyebrows, completely freezing him.


    Technically speaking, being fixed like this, Zhou Bao shouldn''t be able to think and move his divine thoughts at all. He should be like a dead body. However, even though fixed, his eyes kept moving around, thinking who knows what. Just then, with a movement of the light, the figure of Fatty Blue suddenly appeared among the star lights. Like Zhou Bao, the Fatty Blue stood fixed on the starlights, hanging upside down. His gaze completely transfixed with a blank expression and no reaction at all. Even his divine awareness and thoughts fixed on the hypnotic starlights.


    "Poor guy!"


    Zhou Bao understood the state of this guy with just one glance. He smiled and thought, "This could also be good for me. The Thunder Emperor''s touring abode is not easy to break through. With a Supreme Fairy Weapon in hand, Yu Taixu would definitely become bold and confident. All I have to do is wait and harvest the fruit!" Zhou Bao felt the space filled with stars was between a micro world and a macro world. Its Dharma not as complete as his Supreme Fairy Weapon. He had his fairy weapon, the Green Bamboo Stick, protecting him, so the starlights could not penetrate into his divine awareness and totally take control of him. Besides, if he wanted, he could break through the confine of those starlights at any moment. However, he thought it unnecessary to get rid of the starlights and free himself right now.


    Zhou Bao made his plan in the Great Constellation Palace, "Let that arrogant Yu Taixu clear the obstacles for me. When you get to the Sea Emperor, I''ll get rid of both of you!"


    After the dreamland was destroyed, Yu Taixu became fearless.


    "The Heavenly Thunder and Six Directions Red Thunder, although small in amount, are both good things!" Yu Taixu thought about it and raised his hand, collecting the thunderbolts and thunder clouds into the Great Constellation Palace with the help of the starlights. After that, the Great Constellation Palace changed again into a small starlight and went inside him between the eyebrows.


    "It seems that we''re in the wrong place!"


    "Yes, there should be only one tunnel leading to the real Thunder Sea, where the Pool of Thunder Tribulation lies. Here and now, it''s just a dreamland used to puzzle us."


    "We don''t need to hurry. Even though someone arrived here before us, it''s not easy to find the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Look around, there are so many thunder crystals." Even if they couldn''t find the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, it would still be worthwhile to have broken through the dreamland!


    Once Yu Taixu collected the red clouds and thunderbolt pond, the true face of this space was revealed. Standing and hanging around the space, which was not large but looked like the end of the world, were countless transparent and red crystals, called the Thunder Crystals. For practitioners, Thunder Crystals were invaluable. When used to practice cultivation method with the property of thunder, they greatly improve the practicing efficiency, decoupling the return with only ten percent of the effort. When used for passing the Thunder Tribulation, they could also increase the success rate. These crystals proved to be treasures for practitioners, but were piled in this space like wastes.


    "Mr. Feng IX, why don''t you take some?"


    "The dreamland was broken by you, my lord, so the treasures belong to you!"


    "Hahahaha! Good! Very good!" Looking at Mr. Feng IX, who smiled bitterly, Yu Taixu laughed with pride and said, "How I wish all those guys in the Immortal Palace could be as sensible as you!"


    Feng IX didn''t continue the subject, neither did he ask about Zhou Bao, but instead turned his eyes toward the entrance. "Lord Yu, whether those Demonic Immortals could break the dreamland and inhibition or not, we''d better move fast to avoid unnecessary troubles."


    "That''s reasonable!" Yu Taixu said, smiling as he entered the tunnel. In a second, they returned to the palace, chose another tunnel and walked through again.


    All the tunnels looked the same, but apparently the Demonic Immortals entering this tunnel were not as powerful and lucky as them. Within the tunnel, they discovered three bodies, one of Thunder God and two of Demonic Immortals.


    "They seem to have perished together. But the celestial devices of the two Demonic Immortals are gone. There must be another one who has entered this tunnel!"


    "That''s the best!" Yu Taixu smiled calmly. Ever since he showed his Supreme Fairy Weapon, Yu Taixu completely changed. Before that, he was proud because of his statue. Experts who were as powerful, like Mr. Feng IX, did not take him seriously. However, today, he was proud because of his oppressive power. Under such circumstances, even a Lord of Heaven like Mr. Feng IX had to be careful of him.


    Yu Taixu seemed to have read his mind. He didn''t talk anymore and forged deeper into the tunnel.


    Both of them were very fast. They reached the end of the tunnel in a moment.


    "What an unlucky guy!"


    At the end of the tunnel, there was also a vast Thunder Sea, like the previous one, with red thunder clouds floating in the air. However, between the Thunder Sea and the red clouds, a Demonic Immortal shouted and screamed, fighting against the red clouds and occasional waves.


    "He seems to have triggered the inhibition!" Yu Taixu glanced over the Demonic Immortal and gave out a faint smile. His Great Constellation Palace also triggered the inhibition. However, as a Supreme Fairy Weapon, its power far exceeded the inhibition. Therefore, he not only triggered the inhibition, but also destroyed it.


    This Demonic Immortal had triggered the inhibition of the dreamland, but did not have the power to destroy it, which embarrassed him.


    "Let''s go! This is not real!" Mr. Feng IX said after watching for a while.


    "Oh? How do you know that?"


    "The thunderbolts and red clouds look strong and massive, but the power of every attack is almost equal. The power of the thunderbolts is almost the same as the power of all the thunderbolts in the dreamland combined. It looks huge and impressive only because the dreamland combined all the limited power!"


    "I see!" Yu Taixu said, recognizing its trick with Mr. Feng IX''s explanation. "Don''t worry, when the guy is killed, we''ll collect the thunder crystals. This time, each of us will take half. What do you say?"


    "That''ll be good!" Mr. Feng IX said, nodding without a word while still watching the Demonic Immortal fighting the thunderbolts with all his power. However, the Demonic Immortal noticed the two, and suddenly, a red thunder struck the top of his head, breaking his protection ray into pieces. The Demonic Immortal growled a little and his body thrown out toward the two.


    "Someone wants to die!" Yu Taixu seemed to have seen through his purpose and remained unmoved, but Mr. Feng IX narrowed his eyes, sighed a little and raised his hands toward the Demonic Immortal.


    Shua!!!


    A crimson light was shot out from the Demonic Immortal, aiming at Mr. Feng IX between the eyes.


    "Hum!" Mr. Feng IX gave a cold snort. A light layer of fluorescence floated on his hands. The fluorescence was so smooth that the crimson light on it was reflected back. The Demonic Immortal didn''t expect this and made a quick twist while flying back. Before he had time to stretch out, Mr. Feng IX made a move first. A smooth surface of a mirror appeared above the Demonic Immortal and fell on him. After that the two both disappeared.


    "The Kunlun Mirror. I didn''t expect to see that fairy weapon on you!" Seeing the unexpected mirror, Yu Taixu''s confident face suddenly turned serious.


    Mr. Feng IX smiled, but said nothing!

 642 Another Encounter with Thunder Gods and the Fairy Weapon Showed Its Power

    Only Lord of Heavens with Seven Tribulations and practitioners with higher cultivation were capable of entering the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode.


    Besides, they were Demonic Immortals in nature and had unfathomable power. Although they were struck by the thunder, they still had the strength to fight. Such an expert was completely helpless in front of the Kunlun Mirror and was put down by it.


    Even Yu Taixu was afraid of its power.


    The Kunlun Mirror was not an ordinary fairy weapon but a Heavenly Fairy Weapon from the legends. Legend had it that it was severely damaged in the antiquity times and fell to a lower phase, but still, it was at least an Upper-Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. After falling into the hands of the Immortal Palace for so many years, it probably had turned into a supreme Taihao Fairy Weapon. As a Heavenly Fairy Weapon - a broken one though - it would still hold some fairy spirit inside it. In that case, even though it was no match for the Great Constellation Palace, Feng IX could easily get free safely. In other words, though Yu Taixu had a huge advantage with the Supreme Fairy Weapon, Feng IX was not afraid of him.


    "It''s a pity that the Kunlun Mirror has been damaged!" Seeing the strange expression on Yu Taixu''s face, Mr. Feng IX sighed slightly, but secretly, he smiled. "Your Divine Wind Palace had created a Supreme Fairy Weapon with thousands of years of accumulation, but the Immortal Palace will not be bullied. Without the Supreme Fairy Weapon, we still have a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, which, though broken, gives us a great advantage compared to an ordinary Taihao Fairy Weapon."


    After taking in the Demonic Immortal, Feng IX pointed at the mirror, which immediately shined with colorful lights. A second later, the entire Thunder Sea and red Thunder Clouds disappeared. Only thunder crystals were left, spreading all over the ground. It looked exactly the same as the light at the end of the previous tunnel.


    Although Yu Taixu had promised to equally split the thunder crystals with Mr. Feng IX, he didn''t take any this time. The one who took in the Demonic Immortal and broke the dreamland was Mr. Feng IX. It was not necessary to offend him by being selfish now.


    After collecting all the thunder crystals, the two went into other tunnels and repeated the procedure. With the Kunlun Mirror and a fairy weapon at hand, they took turns in the fight and captured a dozen Seven- and Eight- Tribulation Lord of Heavens at one fell swoop in the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. This is something neither of them had thought of. And this had never happened before in the Seven-deity Regions and the Sea Area.


    "Good! This is wonderful! One more Demonic Immortal and then each of us will have captured six Eight-Tribulation Lord of Heavens. Hahahaha, we really ruthlessly slapped the face of the Sea Area this time!"


    "Right. This will give the Sea Emperor a bad headache!" Mr. Feng IX also smiled, and his eyes flashed with a cold glimmer. God knows what he was thinking about.


    "What?! This here is..." At the end of the thirteenth tunnel, they were both stunned because there were no Demonic Immortals inside, only the Thunder Sea. But this one looked different from the previous ones.


    "Mr. Feng IX, do you see anything strange in here?"


    "Mmm, it''s strange, very strange!" Feng IX nodded and felt a murderous intent rushing directly toward them. Both of them were shocked and took a step back.


    "Gagagagagagaa! Two more! It seems that my brothers and I truly can have a feast today!"


    Just when they were drawing back, they heard shrill cackling. Dozens of black shadows rushed out from the Thunder Sea and instantly locked them both with their powerful Qi.


    "Thunder Gods!!"


    "Human Immortals!!"


    "Human Immortals who achieved ''Gathering of Essence, Qi, and Spirit in Acupoint'' and ''Five Qis Collecting in Mind''!!!"


    The horrifying pressure was like the one of a mountain falling from the sky. Both of them were Eight-tribulation True Immortals and Karmic Rank Lord of Heavens, but both were terrified by every one of the black shadows.


    Those dozens of shadows coming from the Thunder Sea were all of the Human Immortal cultivation level. The leading three even reached the legendary states ''Gathering of Essence, Qi, and Spirit in Acupoint'' and ''Five Qis Collecting in Mind.'' Yu Taixu and Feng IX were totally helpless in front of them.


    Gathering of Essence, Qi, and Spirit in Acupoint, and Five Qis Collecting in Mind!


    Human Immortals like them could put down or even kill an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven with just one look. Killing a person with a look was no longer a joke.


    Luckily, both of them had fairy weapons to protect them. Otherwise, under such circumstances, they would have no opportunity to fight back and would have been waiting to be eaten alive by these Thunder Gods.


    "Damn it! We actually came to the Thunder Gods'' nest!" The two cursed silently, but then their eyes lit up.


    "This is not a dreamland. This is the real Thunder Sea. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation is probably in there!"


    "Hahahahahaha, not bad, not bad! You have some knowledge! You''re right! There is the Pool of Thunder Tribulation inside the Thunder Sea. But it has already sunk into the deep sea. Even my brothers and I do not have the ability to dive toward the depths of the Thunder Sea. You''re just two Ghost Immortals. How could you get to the Pool of Thunder Tribulation?!"


    Thunder Gods were living creatures like humans. Normally, they were thin, short, no more than five feet high when standing up, and their wings were a little more than five feet wide when unfolded. However, the leading three Thunder Gods were all huge and strong, with firm muscles like common people. They didn''t have sharp mouths and monkey-like chins as other Thunder Gods but looked like normal people with thick brows and big eyes. Of course only if they do not have two goat horns on their heads.


    "It is really here! The Pool of Thunder Tribulation is really here!" When his guess was confirmed, Yu Taixu was overjoyed and lost his patience with the Thunder Gods. He shouted in a low voice, and the tiny starlights rose again from his body. Beside him, Mr. Feng IX wielded the Kunlun Mirror, and the light shielded his whole body.


    "The Kunlun Mirror. How could you have the Kunlun Mirror!" In the beginning, the Thunder God didn''t notice the starlights on Yu Taixu''s body but his attention was attracted by the light of the Kunlun Mirror. They were surprised by the weapon at first and soon looked with great greed at it as if they wanted to swallow the weapon.


    "Good, good, good! This is very good! I didn''t expect to have a chance to get the Kunlun Mirror. Hahahaha!" The leading Thunder God laughed loudly. And he stretched out his hand, sparkling with a purple electric light, for the Kunlun Mirror.


    "Kunlun Mirror, shield me!"


    Compared with Mr. Feng IX, the Thunder God''s cultivation had already reached the point of ''Gathering of Essence, Qi, and Spirit in Acupoint'' and ''Five Qis Collecting in Mind.'' Those achievements are much higher than those of Mr. Feng IX. Normally, he could kill Mr. Feng IX ten thousand times with one finger. Therefore, he didn''t care about Mr. Feng IX even though he was holding the Kunlun Mirror.


    Mr. Feng IX didn''t dare to take risks. He held out the Kunlun Mirror, shouted in a low voice, and the lights of the Kunlun Mirror shot directly toward the big hand.


    "Humpf, what a cheap trick!" The Thunder God did not bother to look at it and said, "The mirror light is nothing compared to my Purple Thunder Claw! You are self-destructing!"


    "Ta!" The hand went through the light and got hold of the Mirror.


    "Eh!" Mr. Feng IX''s face turned pale. The sudden force almost knocked his spirit out of his body. He bit the tip of his tongue, steadying his mind, and spat a mouthful of essence blood onto the Kunlun Mirror.


    Suddenly, the mirror light got larger and sent the big hand back.


    "Good, very good! You''re very tough! I guess you have not gone through the ninth thunder tribulation, hahaha!" When his hand got sent back, the Thunder God did not get furious but looked as if he had seen a somewhat interesting toy and laughed. He stretched his hand out and reached into the red thundercloud in the air and began to stir. "Brat, let me help you out. Let''s see if you can survive the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder Tribulation and become a Human Immortal!"


    As his hand was stirring through it, the red thundercloud began to change color. In a moment, the cloud turned from red to cyan to gold, and finally, to a frightening purple.


    BOOM!!!


    A purple thundercloud was formed, and then a purple thunder column struck down from the air, hitting the Kunlun Mirror right in the center.


    Puff!


    After being struck by the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder, Mr. Feng IX''s short-lived fight ended. He sunk into the ground and the light of the Kunlun Mirror dimmed.


    However, the Thunder God didn''t want to give him an opportunity. He shouted in a low voice and the second lightning struck down.


    This time, the purple lightning missed its target and directly struck a stream of starlights.


    "Great Constellation Bomb, attack!!!"


    Facing a dozen Thunder Gods who were more powerful than ordinary Human Immortals, Yu Taixu didn''t dare to hide his strength any longer and released the power of the Great Constellation Palace with all his effort.


    The real body of the Great Constellation Palace stayed above Yu Taixu''s head. And even though it was only as big as his head, it shot out dozens of silver lights at those Thunder Gods.


    Fast! It was too fast!


    Unbelievably fast!


    It only took an instant for the silver lights to lock on and hit their targets.


    "ASupreme Fairy Weapon?! How is this possible?!"


    The leading Thunder God was hit just when he was about to trigger the third Nine Heavens Purple Thunder. Thus, he kept stepping backward under the pressure of the Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    No one escaped from the Great Constellation Bomb. Half of the Thunder Gods were bombarded to death immediately. Among the other half, most were severely injured and dove into the Thunder Sea with weird and shrill cries.

 643 In the Depths of the Sea, a Trace of the Thunder Pool

    "Good, very good! A Supreme Fairy Weapon! No wonder you want to the Pool of Thunder Tribulation!" The three leading Thunder Gods glanced over the Great Constellation Palace, exchanged a look, and unwillingly dived into the Thunder Sea, disappearing from their sight.


    "Huuu!" Yu Taisu exhaled a sigh of relief as he that saw all Thunder Gods were gone. He had undertaken too much pressure when triggering the Great Constellation Bomb just now. However, it was not the time to relax now. He pulled out a tiny bottle from his clothes and poured out a crimson elixir the size of a longan fruit. After swallowing the elixir, he took another one and handed it to Mr. Feng IX.


    "What?! The Red Ginseng Restorative Elixir?!"Mr. Feng IX was surprised at the sight of the elixir.


    Red Ginseng Restorative Elixir!


    It was made of a ten-thousand-year-old red ginseng and several other extremely precious medicinal herbs. Just one Red Ginseng Restorative Elixir could help any practitioner below Human Immortal to instantly regain their Dharma power. What a rare thing!


    "Isn''t it a long-lost elixir? I can''t imagine that the Divine Wind Palace still has some in stock!" Mr. Feng IX sighed and then swallowed it without thinking. The elixir melted the moment it was in the mouth, transformed into a warm stream, and restored all the Dharma power in his six acupoints. Even his spirit had been greatly improved.


    "Good stuff!"


    "The Divine Wind Palace has many good things. If you''re interested, why don''t you think about joining our Divine Wind Palace?" Yu Taixu smiled and said, "My humble self will leave a position reserved for you!"


    "My lord, you''re kidding!" Mr. Feng IX bowed with his hands and left the topic there, but he did have some doubts. After the tour of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, Yu Taixu could, without a doubt, stun the entire Seven-deity Regions with his Supreme Fairy Weapon. What was more, after he obtained the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, the whole Seven-deity Regions, and even the Heaven Realm would have to listen to him. At that time, the Immortal Palace has to make a new choice, and the situation would change dramatically. No one could tell what would happen then.


    The problem was that if the Divine Wind Palace would want to make it hard for the Immortal Palace because of Zhou Bao, it would be quite troublesome for the latter. However, the Immortal Palace was not a sect afraid of troubles.


    "I must find a way to send out the message about Zhou Bao. After all, he belongs to the Immortal Palace. I can''t let him be destroyed by the Divine Wind Palace!" Mr. Feng IX had a pretty good impression of Zhou Bao until now, but the problem was that their situation was not good. It was Zhou Bao who wanted to kill Yu Taixu in the first place, so it was the Immortal Palace who had been in the wrong. Therefore, he hadn''t pleaded in Zhou Bao''s stead or even mentioned him; he only secretly planned his next move. Within the powerful space of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, neither he nor Yu Taixu was able to send out a message. That was unless Yu Taixu used the power of the damn Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    And this was another troublesome thing. The Supreme Fairy Weapon itself had a macro world, and even though it was broken, it was still in great conflict with the Heaven Realm. Luckily, the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, which was located in the endless space-time maze in the Heaven Realm, was incomparably strong. Otherwise, the two macro worlds would have rejected each other and brought up a disaster. However, Yu Taixu still couldn''t use the Supreme Fairy Weapon at will in the touring abode or else the Heaven Realm''s macro world would be affected and it would cause disaster.


    Anyhow, no one would deny that the Supreme Fairy Weapon was strong enough to let everyone cower in fear. It was a great weapon in both antiquity times and the present time.


    No one could overlook its effect, and no one could deny its almighty power.


    "Zhou Bao, that damn brat, was too impulsive. Does he have no brain? He should have known that Yu Taixu, as the lord of Divine Wind Palace, must have one or two weapons of mass destruction. He showed his cards too early and openly offended him. And in the end, he was confined by Yu Taixu. He not only destroyed himself but also dragged others down with him. What an idiotic jerk!!" Mr. Feng IX was furious when he thought of it.


    "Mr. Feng IX, the Thunder Gods have run away and now they hide in the Thunder Sea. Let''s make our move now. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation is really important. We can''t wait any longer lest new troubles will arise!" Yu Taixu grew that confident after defeating dozens of Thunder Gods with his Supreme Fairy Weapon. And with a single jump, he reached the top of the Thunder Sea. "Those Thunder Gods couldn''t reach the bottom of the sea, but it doesn''t mean that we couldn''t either." While he was still talking, the Great Constellation Palace shot out a streak of starlight that shone on them both. Mr. Feng IX blinked and let the starlight shine on him. Both of them were taken into the Great Constellation Palace, and it continued shrinking and shrinking. Within a minute, it was as small as a sesame seed. And just like a dust particle floating in the air, it floated above the Thunder Sea before it suddenly dove into it.


    "Is this inside of the Thunder Sea? Lord Yu, are we going to have trouble?!"


    Within the Thunder Sea, uncountable Heavenly Thunders and Crazy Thunders mixed together into a water-like liquid. The sea made up of liquid thunderbolts was almost the same as ordinary seas. There were even some exotic creatures similar to fishes swimming freely in the sea of thunderbolts.


    "What a strange place! The fish here have enough electricity to kill a Metaphysic Individual Immortal in the outside world; but in this sea, they were just food for others!" Yu Taixu sighed as he saw the different kinds of exotic creatures. And before his sigh even ended, a huge, whale-like shadow crossed their path. It opened its huge mouth and deeply inhaled. All the creatures around them were sucked into its mouth within a second. Yu Taixu steadied the Great Constellation Palace in time so that they would not become its food.


    "Lord Yu, we have no time to enjoy the scenery. Let''s find the Pool of Thunder Tribulation immediately!"


    Yu Taixu smiled and asked, "Why? Are you worried about Zhou Bao right now?"


    Mr. Feng IX froze for a second and then smiled bitterly, saying, "Forget about him. It''s all that brat''s fault! He was so arrogant and caused so much trouble! It''s useless asking about him. And it''s unlikely that Lord Yu will release him because of me!"


    "It''s not impossible as long as you think about my previous suggestion!"


    "Hahahahaha! My lord, you flatter me! But there is no room for discussion about it. I belong to the Immortal Palace and won''t join the Divine Wind Palace no matter what!"


    "Then I can do nothing about it!" Yu Taixu said regrettably and no longer mentioned Zhou Bao.


    The Great Constellation Palace, which shone with faint and soft starlight, was speeding up its descendence. When they were a hundred thousand feet below the sea, they found the Thunder Gods'' nest. However, the Thunder Gods didn''t see them, and the two also did not want to bother them.


    At a depth of 200,000 feet, they saw creatures as powerful as those leading Thunder Gods who reached the states "Gathering of Essence, Qi, and Spirit in Acupoint" and "Five Qis Collecting in Mind."


    At a depth of 300,000 feet, there were almost no creatures at all. There was only a great pressure coming from a mysterious creature. The creature was so strong that its domain covered up the whole lower part of the Thunder Sea. Even the Supreme Fairy Weapon could not hide its spirit under such pressure and was discovered.


    A tyrannical divine thought without equal glanced over, and the starlight in the outer shell of the Great Constellation Palace was shaking constantly as if it was going to explode. And the two people inside it got frightened by the cracking sounds of the thunderbolts.


    "Not good! What was that?!" Feeling its hostility, Yu Taixu became nervous and hurried the Great Constellation Palace to sink deeper in a try to get rid of this dangerous situation. The mysterious creature seemed to have no intention of attacking and watched the Great Constellation Palace with its divine thoughts until it sunk to a depth of more than 500,000 feet.


    "Interesting! There''s a broken Supreme Fairy Weapon, which seems to be the Great Constellation Palace of the Big Dipper. Is it looking for the Thunder Pool? In that case, it is a great chance for me to get out of here!" Somewhere in the depths of the Thunder Sea, a mysterious object, whose eyes were filled with wild impulsions, was staring closely at the Great Constellation Palace. It was trying very hard to calm down and said to itself, "Wait, wait, wait. Let me see if they can tame the Thunder Pool!"


    At a depth of 500,000 feet, the liquid thunder had changed to a dark cyan color and shined with a faint golden light. Both of them gasped at the sight. In fact, they felt their scalp tingling as the Supreme Fairy Weapon went deeper. Yu Taixu, the lord of the Divine Wind Palace, who would always remain calm no matter what happened, was now wearing a pale face void any blood and his forehead was oozing drops of cold sweat. He operated the Great Constellation Palace with intense care, afraid that they would fall into the Thunder Sea and entirely vanish because of just one mistake.


    Correct, one would vanish when falling into the Thunder Sea. There were no other possibilities. A Lord of Heaven with eight tribulations or even eighty tribulations was no exception of that.


    Under such a situation, even a Human Immortal who had reached "Gathering of Essence, Qi, and Spirit in Acupoint" and "Five Qis Collecting in Mind" had no other choice but death. Those Thunder Gods all lived no more than 100,000 feet below the surface. Those who had reached "Gathering of Essence, Qi, and Spirit in Acupoint" and "Five Qis Collecting in Mind" could at most make it to 200,000 feet deep. Only the Supreme Fairy Weapon had the capacity to go as deep as 500,000 feet below the surface.


    "Damn! How deep is it exactly? I''m afraid the Great Constellation Palace can''t hold on any longer if we go deeper!" When the Great Constellation Palace reached a depth of 700,000 feet, Yu Taixu felt a lack of Dharma power within his body. The more water pressure the Great Constellation Palace had to bare, the more Dharma power it required. He was extremely regretful that he had generously handed a Red Ginseng Restorative Elixir to Mr. Feng IX because he only had three at the beginning. Now the only one left was the one prepared for an emergency after discovering the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. He had never thought the pool was so hard to find. And just when he was about to give up, Mr. Feng IX grew delighted and shouted, "We''re here! We''re at the bottom of the sea! Look over there, isn''t that the Pool of Thunder Tribulation!!!"

 644 Pool of Thunder Tribulation

    The two people who had grown bored in the Thunder Sea became excited at the sight of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation.


    "This is really unexpected. Is it really the Pool of Thunder Tribulation?"


    When the Great Constellation Palace reached the bottom of the Thunder Sea and was in front of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, neither of them dared to make a sound.


    The Pool of Thunder Tribulation, as its name suggested, was just a very small pool. In fact, it was too small to be called a pool; it was rather a puddle of water.


    The entire pool had an oval shape with a length of no more than ten feet and a width of only five feet. The color of the water inside it was just like the one at a depth of 100,000 feet. The silver thunderbolt was nothing special, but the two Lord of Heavens didn''t dare to treat it lightly. Instead, they looked rather serious.


    At the bottom of the Thunder Sea, they were sure about one thing: the entire Thunder Sea was evolved from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation''s Thunderbolt Qi!


    The endless sea was entirely evolved from the Thunderbolt Qi that came from that very small pool. What a weird and shocking fact!


    Think about how much Thunderbolt Qi and energy had been needed that such a small pool could create such a vast sea!!


    No wonder it was said that the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was the best energy source for Supreme Fairy Weapons. The legend was totally true!


    Looking at the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, Mr. Feng IX took a deep breath and asked, "Lord Yu, we found the pool. What should we do now?" In fact, at this moment, Mr. Feng IX was not stupid enough to think that he could handle the Pool of Thunder Tribulation by himself. The treasure was not for ordinary people. It was too powerful for a Lord of Heaven like him. Some of those Thunder Gods were peak Human Immortals who reached "Gathering of Essence, Qi, and Spirit in Acupoint" and "Five Qis Collecting in Mind" but were still unable to go deeper than 100,000 feet below the sea''s surface. Today, were it not for the Great Constellation Palace, he definitely could not have reached the bottom of the Thunder Sea and have the opportunity to see such an amazing scene. He was lucky enough to be able to see the pool. It would be crazy to think about owning it. He should probably stay still and see what Yu Taixu was going to do.


    When Yu Taizu saw that scene, he was also shocked but was soon filled with ecstasy.


    They were so lucky this time.


    The Pool of Thunder Tribulation deserved its reputation. It was completely capable of helping the broken Great Constellation Palace to recover and even increasing its power. At that time, who could be more powerful than him?


    Not only the Divine Wind Palace but also the entire Seven-deity Regions or the Sea Area would have to listen to him then.


    Yes, the Sea Area!


    If he would restore the power of the Great Constellation Palace, he would be able to challenge the Sea Emperor.


    The Sea Area had a lot of Demonic Immortals and therefore a quantitive advantage.


    Its numbers of Genuine Immortals and Lord of Heavens both exceeded those of the Seven-deity Regions. However, once the Great Constellation Palace is repaired, their numbers would no longer be an advantage but may even be a burden.


    Within the Sea Area, only a few could contend against the Supreme Fairy Weapon. In that case, his authority within the entire Heaven Realm would greatly improve and he would become the most powerful lord of the Divine Wind Palace in history. And when that day would come, he could even discard the candidates of Human Emperors and replace the Emperor himself. It would not be a problem.


    "Good! This is too good! This time, I must have the Pool of Thunder Tribulation!" As the lord of the Divine Wind Palace, he should have remained calm. However, when faced with such a treasure, he was lost in endless wonders. It seemed that the pool was already in his hands.


    Mr. Feng IX was staring at Yu Taixu and watching his every move. Anyway, it was not an easy job to take the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Therefore, his eyes were fixated on him so that he would not miss any of his actions.


    Yu Taixu understood Mr. Feng IX''s intention and didn''t care about that. He smiled and raised his hands. Countless starlight arose from around the Great Constellation Palace and gathered in his hands. At last, they formed into a transparent globe shining with starlight, like an ordinary crystal ball. Even Mr. Feng IX saw nothing special about the ball.


    "This is the All-Controlling Black Crystal! Hehe, I use it to control the Great Constellation Palace. I don''t have the power to take the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, but the Great Constellation Palace does!" Yu Taixu smiled at Mr. Feng IX and said, "There are no secrets inside!"


    Mr. Feng IX blushed. He remained silent and focused all his attention on the Great Constellation Palace.


    Yu Taixu gently tapped his finger on the Black Crystal, and the transparent crystal gleamed with a light silver flame. The starlight around the Great Constellation Palace flickered and the strange silver flame gathered like a stream of water into a silver ring. The ring sparkled while flying out from the Great Constellation Palace, which was as small as a sesame seed, and wandered through the endless purple thunderbolts. It seemed to be absorbing the Thunderbolt Qi and grew larger and larger. And finally, when the silver ring was right above the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, it was large enough to cover it.


    "This is the Star Ring, a fairy weapon originally used to control the energy source of the Great Constellation Palace. It was broken during a tribulation in antiquity times, but it is the best tool to subdue the Pool of Thunder Tribulation!"


    "A fairy weapon?" Mr. Feng IX said thoughtfully while looking at the Star Ring.


    Unlike ordinary fairy weapons, Supreme Fairy Weapons were not a single unit but were formed by different parts, many of which were fairy weapons. These fairy weapons were different from ordinary ones in that they didn''t have any defensive power or attack force. They were not used by practitioners and their power could only be released through the Supreme Fairy Weapon. The Star Ring was used only to control and link the energy source. It was a fairy weapon very useful to the Great Constellation Palace, but when used alone, it was probably inferior to a Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    Under the control of the Great Constellation Palace and Yu Taixu, the Star Ring descended, encircling the slightly smaller pool, and began to shrink rapidly. Soon, it shrank the edge of the thunder pool and came in touch with it.


    BOOM!!!


    The Star Ring was sparkling violently as soon as it touched the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. A large stream of powerful energy rushed into the Star Ring.


    The Star Ring gleamed with a much brighter light. The Great Constellation Palace shook fiercely and grew from its prior tiny size to more than a hundred feet high. Being on top of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, it seemed as if it was going to fall downward at any moment. Yu Taixu, who was very relaxed and confident just now, turned extremely serious. He no longer chatted with Mr. Feng IX but operated the Black Crystal with all his attention, looking a little helpless.


    The Pool of Thunder Tribulation really was too powerful. It released an unimaginable energy immediately after being tied by the Star Ring. The power rushed into the Great Constellation Palace and filled the exhausted weapon with new energy. However, Yu Taixu was not able to control it within such a short time, allowing the Great Constellation Palace to swell larger without control.


    "Oh my! Not good!"


    Right now deep inside the Great Constellation Palace, Zhou Bao, who pretended to be restrained, suddenly noticed that the surrounding starlight was several hundred times brighter than before. Fatty Blue was confined by the starlight ropes from the beginning, but Zhou Bao was not. However, when the scattered, bright starlight shot between his eyebrows, it broke through Zhou Bao''s defense and targeted his Upper Dantian. This was no laughing matter. If the starlight would penetrate his Upper Dantian, Zhou Bao''s pneuma would be greatly injured no matter how powerful he was. And he didn''t want to see this.


    Thinking about this, Zhou Bao''s eyes turned red and the Mysterious Icy Divine Light within his body was quickly activated. Eight Nine Mysterious Skill!


    At this moment, he started channeling his Eight Nine Mysterious Skill.


    And when his Eight Nine Mysterious Skill was channeled, his Upper Dantian completely disappeared. What was left was the purest Mysterious Icy Divine Light, which turned the scattered starlights into itself when they came into touch.


    "Did Yu Taixu attack me because he has discovered my plan?" "No, that''s not right. If so, there would be no need to make such a scene. Even the scattered starlight around Fatty Blue was stronger. It looks like a change of the Great Constellation Palace. Has the Great Constellation Palace caught the Pool of Thunder Tribulation? That''s unlikely; it shouldn''t be so easy!" Zhou Bao pondered after taking care of the scattered starlight.


    Zhou Bao was entrapped within the starlight now. It would be quite simple to get out, but to do that unnoticed by Yu Taixu would not be easy. Therefore, he had been waiting for an opportunity. He had never believed that Yu Taixu could get the Pool of Thunder Tribulation without any troubles. The trip to the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was weird from the beginning. The reason was that it was related to the Sea Area, the Seven-deity Regions, and the traitor of the Divine Wind Palace who had gained the Devil Fetus. Apart from these three, there seemed to be another mysterious force. The disciple who got the Devil Fetus took no action up to now. Maybe it was because of the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar, but Zhou Bao didn''t think so. The Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was also too weird. The only troubles they got there were from the Thunder Gods, which after the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar, but no other obstacles, which was so abnormal. That was why Zhou Bao believed things could change at any moment. The best thing for him to do was to hide here and wait for a change to happen.


    "I should be more careful from now on. An opportunity is ought to come soon!" Zhou Bao said to himself, his eyes shining with red light.

 645 Heavenly Fairy Weapon and Devil Fetus

    Opportunity favors only the prepared minds.


    And Zhou Bao had always been prepared.


    Yu Taixu had a weapon of mass destruction, and so did he. The difference was that Yu Taixu''s weapon had been exposed, but his was still unknown to others, waiting for the best time.


    Right now within the main hall of the Great Constellation Palace, Yu Taixu was carefully operating the Star Ring in order to take the Pool of Thunder Tribulation.


    Was everything going to work out as he had expected?


    Impossible!


    Just as the Star Ring was sparkling violently and was about to fuse with the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, a strong willpower fell on the center of the pool.


    "Who?! Who dares to approach the thunder pool?! Who?!"


    With the arrival of this willpower, the Thunder Sea began to roar. The purple thunder liquid above the pool began to spiral and formed a vortex, drawing the Great Constellation Palace into it in a second.


    Not good!


    Yu Taixu''s face turned pale. He was still operating the Great Constellation Palace, trying to maintain stability in the vortex, but the willpower was too strong and too sudden. Most importantly, when the willpower had arrived, the thunder pool seemed to become alive and sent out a strange force. The Star Ring had been pushed away by the force and was unable to get closer ever since. Everything was changing so fast. The Great Constellation Palace lost the great power it had just obtained and was drawn into the torrent of thunderbolts before Yu Taixu realized it.


    However, a Supreme Fairy Weapon was a Supreme Fairy Weapon after all. When Yu Taixu came to his senses, the situation was quickly under control and the Great Constellation Palace flew out of the vortex of thunderbolts. And at that moment, Yu Taixu could not hide his ferocious face.


    Yes, a very ferocious face.


    Mr. Feng IX would have never expected to see such an expression on Yu Taixu''s face. As the lord of the Divine Wind Palace and as someone at the basic level of the Way to the Emperor he had seen the world and knew how to hide his true feelings. However, Mr. Feng IX was sure that the ferocious expression on Yu Taixu''s face reflected his true feelings at this moment. And this was totally understandable.


    "A Heavenly Fairy Weapon! The Pool of Thunder Tribulation is a Heavenly Fairy Weapon with a complete device spirit!"


    When the strong willpower fell on them, Mr. Feng IX and Yu Taixu knew instantly what had happened. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon that was quite different from a Taihao Fairy Weapon. The reason for that is that it had gathered a device spirit, also called fairy spirit, and had its own independent willpower. It was a living creature now. The most frightening thing was that the Heavenly Fairy Weapon with its own device spirit was an independent living creature, meaning that it could release the entire power of the fairy weapon. One had to subdue the device spirit if one wanted to own the fairy weapon. This was doable for the Powerful Divines in antiquity times, but it was simply a fantasy for the practitioners at the present time.


    It was for both Yu Taixu and Feng IX impossible.


    "As we have expected, it''s not that easy. If the Pool of Thunder Tribulation would be easy to obtain, it wouldn''t still be here today!" Hiding inside the Great Constellation Palace, Feng IX sighed and said, "I wish the Great Constellation Palace could withstand the attack from the Heavenly Fairy Weapon!"


    "Damn it! The Pool of Thunder Tribulation has turned into a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. How could that be possible?! Even though Pool of Thunder Tribulation has strong powers, it is just a tool after all - a supreme Taihao Fairy Weapon one at most! How could it become a Heavenly Fairy Weapon?! How?!" Different from Mr. Feng IX, Yu Taixu had heard a lot about the Pool of Thunder Tribulation in the Divine Wind Palace and knew the nature of the weapon. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation was created by the Thunder Emperor in the Thunder Tribulation Heaven. It was said to be the most powerful fairy weapon in antiquity times. It was so powerful that it was impossible for the Pool of Thunder Tribulation to evolve a device spirit.


    However, even though it didn''t have a device spirit, the weapon was not something to be looked down upon. That was because it was controlled by the Thunder Emperor who created it and knew better about it than anyone else. Therefore, even the Powerful Divines with Heavenly Fairy Weapons didn''t dare to compete with their own Heavenly Fairy Weapons against the Pool of Thunder Tribulation.


    Now that the Thunder Emperor was gone, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was at most a Taihao Fairy Weapon that failed to evolve a spiritual sense. The Great Constellation Palace should be powerful enough to suppress it. However, the change in the situation was out of his expectation.


    He had never thought that the Pool of Thunder Tribulation could become a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. But after feeling shocked, he was filled with strong ambition.


    "If I could suppress the thunder pool, my power and the power of the Divine Wind Palace will definitely be above all. At that time, the Heaven Realm and even the other macro worlds in the hollow - like the Infinite Star Sea, the Milky Way Star Area, the Purple Scorpion Sea Area, and the other Star Areas - could all be conquered by me. After that, I could probably achieve the Advanced Level on my Way to the Emperor, and I could even have the opportunity to...!"


    Greedy thought fueled his ambition, and Yu Taixu had lost all his calm and demeanor as the lord of the Divine Wind Palace. All he could think of were those four words: Pool of Thunder Tribulation.


    "Great Constellation Bomb, attack!"


    He activated the Great Constellation Bomb with a shout.


    BOOM!!!


    Under his operation, the Great Constellation Palace gave off endless scattered lights and blew all the purple thunderbolts away. An empty space was created and the starlight covered the entire Great Constellation Palace, keeping the purple thunderbolts outside. In the meantime, Zhou Bao, who was in the starlight world, felt a sudden and extremely obvious decrease in the starlight''s power. It seemed as if it was drawn out by some force.


    "Yu Taixu is using the power of this macro world to activate the Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    Zhou Bao, who was also an owner of a Supreme Fairy Weapon, immediately understood what was happening. The corners of his mouth turned upwards into a sinister smile. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for.


    The Great Constellation Palace had absorbed the pneuma of this stars world, causing a chaos here. The scattered lights around Fatty Blue and Zhou Bao were not touched, but under such circumstances, Yu Taixu didn''t have any extra power to detect their movements. Zhou Bao took a deep breath and the Mysterious Icy Divine Light was triggered, forming an invisible screen around his body. The screen was not like an ordinary shied that blocks scattered lights but one that had the same shape as Zhou Bao''s body. When the screen was completed, he smiled and got out of it. It then transformed into the appearance of Zhou Bao and stayed fixed within the scattered lights.


    This was another usage of the Mysterious Divine Light: instantiation.


    After having absorbed the Icy Divine Light, Zhou Bao had achieved the Basic level of the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill and had a deeper understanding of the skill. The Mysterious Divine Light was so miraculous that it could instantiate different forms according to Zhou Bao''s mind, just like the seventy-two transformations in the legends. Even though it was only a form, it could be mistaken for the real Zhou Bao. He performed the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and left the space made of stars.


    He couldn''t break the space of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, but the space of the star world was much easier to break. After several Infinite Realms Teleportations, Zhou Bao reached the main hall of the Great Constellation Palace where Yu Taixu and Mr. Feng IX were standing. One could see everything that was happening outside the Great Constellation Palace from there.


    "Is Yu Taixu insane?!" Zhou Bao couldn''t help but feel confused when he saw Yu Taixu extracting the energy from the star world and using the created Star Rings to tie up the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. At this moment, he could also feel the strong willpower emanating from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation.


    "Hahahaha, as I said, the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation must be damaged or it won''t just hide like a turtle and bluff. Hahahaha!" Yu Taixu laughed loudly, looking as if the whole world was within his control.


    "Humph, stupid human! If I wouldn''t be sparing energy to suppress the Primordial Demon, you wouldn''t be breathing now. Thunder Sea, attack!" The Pool of Thunder Tribulation''s willpower roared and the surrounding vortex of thunderbolts began to shrink. The process was so quick that one could see it with bare eyes. Several seconds later, a thunderbolt crystal of 100,000 cubic feet in size appeared, falling toward the Great Constellation Palace.


    At the same time in the Desolate Island, the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar, which linked heaven and earth, began to shake violently and rumble loudly. Suddenly, the cyan pillar cracked and showed a fine fissure that quickly extended around the entire Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar. And in the end, the pillar crushed and burst apart, turning into thunderbolts that swept over the Desolate Island where everything became destroyed in an instant.


    "Hahahaha, you''re here! You''re finally here! The damn Thunder Emperor had set so many barriers at the exit. Humph, do you think this can stop me?!" On the Desolate Island filled with countless thunderbolts, the voice sounded rather arrogant. A young man in rags appeared. Any practitioner from the Divine Wind Palace could recognize the young man. He was the one who took the Devil Fetus, and betrayed and left the Divine Wind Palace; it was the former disciple of the Divine Wind Palace called Yu Qinghua.

 646 Wugu Hou

    Yu Qinghua was considered a handsome guy. But now, this handsome guy was not looking good at all. He was completely enveloped in Black Qi, and the bulging veins on his face made him look very hideous. However, this expression was a sign of his great joy.


    After getting rid of the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar, Yu Qinghua was not aware that he looked so terrifying. He burst out in hearty laughter. Then, seeing the thunderbolts on the Desolate Island gradually dying down, his eyes turned to the huge pothole.


    "As expected, Divine Wind Palace has started eyeing the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Heihei, with their great strength, even if they can''t force the huge spirit to surrender, they will surely create a lot of trouble for it. In this way, it''s almost impossible to suppress Mr.Hou, and I''ll naturally be the one who will take all the credit for this huge contribution. Hahahaha, what a genius I am! What a genius!" Laughing dementedly, Yu Qinghua turned into a streak of black smoke and floated into the depths of the pothole.


    "What happened?"


    "Look, the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar has vanished!"


    "Yes, it is gone. It happened during the thunderstorm; the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar just disappeared!"


    "Good, this is good! Thank God we escaped in time, otherwise, it would be not easy to resist the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder!"


    "Look at that, the pothole is still there! Let''s go and have a look; perhaps we can get some amazing benefits!"


    "Right, let''s go and have a look!"


    Since the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar had already displayed some peculiar signs before its explosion, those Genuine Immortals who were waiting on Desolate Island, including Venerables and Lords of Heaven, thought that something fishy would happen. This was during the short spell when the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder Pillar started to mutate and they fled from Desolate Island. Thus, the thunderstorm that razed the whole Desolate Island to the ground did not affect them at all.


    Standing among the Genuine Immortals, Wang She and Child-endowing Buddha looked at each other, and then stared at the streaks of light shooting into the pothole from every direction and both started smiling.


    "Hee hee, it appears that there are plenty of guys hoping to gain extra advantages. Well, shall we go and liven things up?"


    "Of course, how could this kind of event happen without us?" Wang She smiled. The two launched their Divine Senses almost at the same time and flew directly to the pothole.


    Due to the mutation of the Thunder Sea, the space where the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was located had already changed in a mysterious way. The vortex passageway leading to the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode had narrowed, and streaks of thunderbolts streamed through the passageway. A dozen Venerables and Lords of Heaven were standing outside the entrance of the passageway, their faces solemn, their eyes transfixed on the thunderbolts that kept whizzing through the passageway. No one knew whether they should go in or just leave this place.


    "Interesting. Seems that something has gone wrong with the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode!" Rushing to the entrance of the passageway, Child-endowing Buddha glanced inside and his eyes brightened. Instantly, he started communicating with Wang She through their divine thoughts. "Dude, do you have the guts to accompany me to go down there? Hee hee, there are many good treasures in the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, and the Pool of Thunder Tribulation is just one of them."


    "Why not?" Although Wang She did not know the origins of Child-endowing Buddha, he was pretty sure that Child-endowing Buddha must have an extraordinary background and a great knowledge of secrets from antiquity times. Now that he had refined the essence and blood of the roc and achieved the Real Body of Roc, he had already developed his own skills so he had no fear of anyone''s tricks. Accordingly, the two headed off immediately; they transformed into two streaks of light and zoomed right into the passageway without waiting for the others. Following their example, the Genuine immortals in the surroundings also gave in to their greed and leaped into the passageway, fast on the heels of the two. Several seconds later, over half of those Genuine immortals had already entered the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode.


    At this moment, the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was in a dilapidated state. Its previously luxurious palaces had been destroyed, and what remained was just a pile of ruins.


    Thunder clouds that had gathered in the sky before, disappeared, leaving only the greyish sky behind. When other Genuine Immortals arrived at the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She were long gone. Actually, Child-endowing Buddha was quite familiar with the place; he led Wang She inside the palace and started plundering the treasures with great ease.


    In the depths of the Thunder Sea, a crystal composed of pure thunderbolts sent out a noise that set one''s teeth on edge and bore down on the Great Constellation Palace.


    The protective starlight belonging to the Great Constellation Palace was already stretched to its limits under the unbelievably powerful pressure imposed by those crystals. The starlight dimmed and looked as if it could die out at any moment.


    "Humph, listen, Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Even though you''re using a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, so what? How can you compete with the power of a macro world?" Yu Taixu sneered, not bothering about the state of the gradually declining Great Constellation Palace. Instead, he focused his ernormous power on the Black Crystal in order to absorb the energy of the Star Macro World.


    "Whirring, whirring, whirring¡ª"


    Right now in the Star Macro world, short bursts of noises similar to that of an air blower could be heard. Immense energy instantly flowed into Great Constellation Palace; it was even more powerful than the energy from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation that came from the Star Ring a moment ago. Then, the Great Constellation Palace shone brightly, and shots from the Great Constellation Bombs were fired, bombarding all the surrounding Thunder Crystals which shattered into pieces. The broken Thunder Crystals then transformed into jets of thunderbolts which started whizzing around the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. Thus, in an extremely short time, the defense of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode had already crumbled.


    "Pool of Thunder Tribulation, you shall surrender to me obediently and join my Great Constellation Palace. That''s the only way you can attain the strongest power!" By virtue of Great Constellation Palace, Yu Taixu let out an unearthly howl.


    "You stupid human being!" the Pool of Thunder Tribulation roared. Its Thunder Water started raging, and jets of dark purple thunderbolts shot out from the Thunder Crystals, aiming directly at Great Constellation Palace.


    "Rumbling, rumbling¡ª"


    In an instant, the entire surroundings of Great Constellation Palace were engulfed by the overwhelming attacks of thunderbolts; it resembled a doomsday scenario.


    "It''s in vain. You Pool of Thunder Tribulation, it''s all in vain. Do you really believe you can contend with a macro world with your own power?"


    "Realm-annihilating Thunder Formation of Five Elements!"


    The Pool of Thunder Tribulation chose to ignore Yu Taixu and instead changed its strategy. Shots of colorful thunderbolts appeared within the Great Constellation Palace and evolved into a huge formation. In a split second, Yu Taixu''s heart was filled with a sense of impending crisis.


    "This is Realm-annihilating Thunder Formation of Five Elements, a thunder formation specifically designed for destroying a macro world. The five elements mutually reinforce and neutralize each other, they then evolve in an unbroken line, and thus have endless power!" As amazement took hold of Yu Taixu and Mr. Feng IX, the Realm-annihilating Thunder Formation of Five Elements had already taken shape. Huge pressure gushed out from the thunder formation, making the whole of Great Constellation Palace vibrate violently.


    "Great Constellation Bomb, World-devastating Star Bomb!" Sensing the terrifying power of the Realm-annihilating Thunder Formation of Five Elements, Yu Taixu adamantly refused to admit his inferiority. He used his hands to make the Incantation Gesture to rapidly propel and control the Black Crystal, and his long hair fluttered under the effect of his Dharma power. Yu Taixu did not look like himself anymore. Now, with his hair hanging loose, he had a dark and ferocious look about him.


    A jet of silver starlight dashed out of Great Constellation Palace and turned into a starlight column as wide as 1,000 feet, and charged ruthlessly into the center of the Realm-annihilating Thunder Formation of Five Elements.


    This was the World-devastating Star Bomb!


    "Boom!"


    Being bombarded by two powerful fairy weapons, the initially highly steady space of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode finally began to fall apart. Spatial cracks appeared in the surrounding space, but when jets of thunderbolt flashed consecutively, those spatial cracks were soon fixed.


    "This seems tricky. Though these spatial cracks have been fixed, it''s still not that easy to restore the space to its original steadiness. I''m afraid I have to work this issue out in order to wipe out Yu Taixu!" Zhou Bao thought to himself while hiding in the dark under the protection of his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and quietly observing the battle between the two fairy weapons. Now, all he could think of was the calculation of timing for him to strike, the various possible disadvantages that might be detrimental to his actions as well as the relevant solutions.


    He had made up his mind that no matter what, he would leave Yu Taixu in this Thunder Emperor''s touring abode; let his spirit and body both die so that he would have no chance to rise to power again. If not, there would be no end of trouble in the future.


    "How dare you!"


    The moment Yu Taixu''s World-devastating Star Bomb hit the heart of the Realm-annihilating Thunder Formation of Five Elements, the latter began to collapse. A furious bellow mixed with astonishment could be heard from the thunder formation. Shortly afterwards, a huge hand made up entirely of black thunderbolts reached out from the Pool of Thunder and headed straight towards Great Constellation Palace.


    Yu Taixu bit his lips and readied himself, awaiting the attack. The starlight around the Great Constellation Palace condensed into one spot in a second as if waiting to fend off the striking punch of the thunder hand.


    "Bang!"


    An awful rumbling could be heard, but it was not caused by the punch that Yu Taixu was waiting for. Just when that punch was about to reach Great Constellation Palace, a thunderbolt crystal about 10,000 feet wide, suddenly exploded. This explosion shook the heavens and startled everyone on earth. It then completely tore apart the space of Thunder Emperor.


    "Hahaha, a million years, it''s been a million years! Thunder Emperor, you''ve suppressed me for a million years. But today, you finally set me free, hahaha¡ª"


    An unbridled growl frightened the world and a willpower that was a hundred times or a thousand times more savage than that emitted by the Pool of Thunder Tribulation descended. Inside this willpower, an invincible force throbbed. Upon its arrival, the willpower of Yu Taixu was now totally subdued, and he even forgot to operate his Great Constellation Palace. Meanwhile, the huge hand which was made of black thunderbolts which had stuck out from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation broke down and disappeared from sight.


    "Wow, impressive, impressive! Oh my god, what on earth is the background of that guy? How uncanny he is! How impressive he is! Wugu Hou...Never heard of that name. Being suppressed for a million years but still so alive and powerful, he is truly very impressive!"


    At first, Zhou Bao also fell onto his knees from the pressure of this willpower. But soon, as his Dharma power started working, a stream of vague fist intent started dispersing out of his body and directed this willpower into his fist intent and expelled the pressure imposed on him.


    "This time Yu Taixu has made a huge blunder! He is going to hit the skids!" Although Zhou Bao had no idea who this Wugu Hou was, it was pretty obvious that he was not someone Yu Taixu was able to take on. This was a Powerful Divine from antiquity times that had been suppressed by the Thunder Emperor since millions of years back.


    "Great Constellation Palace, come to me!" Zhou Bao murmured mentally, and his willpower sent out a clear signal. As if answering a summon, the Great Constellation Palace soared right into the heart of the thunderbolts that filled the sky.

 647 A Fierce Battle

    There were enormous thunderbolt crystals which had transformed into real thunderbolts and thunderstorms filled the whole sky.


    An intangible huge hand had tried to attack Great Constellation Palace, while the broken Space Rampart of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode had not been repaired yet. A series of gigantic black holes could be seen. Now, these black holes had become the perfect outfalls for these unending thunderstorms.


    In the Great Constellation Palace, Yu Taixu and Mr. Feng IX had both lost their abilities to come back with any counter-measures. Though their minds were still conscious, they could not move a step due to the impact of the powerful pressure.


    After his strange fist intent had absorbed the willpower affecting him, Zhou Bao was the only one who could move at will. At the sight of the petrified Yu Taixu, Zhou Bao jumped out without hesitation and hurtled towards him, wielding a pair of green hammers.


    "You!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s sudden appearance, Yu Taixu and Mr. Feng IX were both taken aback. "Hasn''t Zhou Bao been suppressed in the depths of the Great Constellation Palace? How come he was able to break out? And he is still so alive and aggressive!"


    However, Zhou Bao did not give them any chance to ask any questions. When he was in front of Yu Taixu, Zhou Bao kicked him hard in the face.


    With a loud thud, Yu Taixu, a prestigious lord, was thrown into the air and landed hard against a wall of the Great Constellation Palace. He left a human-shaped dent on it and slowly collapsed to the ground.


    "Hee hee hee, Lord Yu Taixu, you never expected that you would meet your death today, did you?" Zhou Bao asked with a sneer.


    "Humph!" However, something happened that was beyond Zhou Bao''s expectation. Zhou Bao thought that Yu Taixu had already lost the ability to fight back, but surprisingly, Yu Taixu, who seemed to have fallen under the grip of the powerful willpower, was now freed from its paralyzing power and had regained full use of his body. Once that happened, he naturally could operate the Great Constellation Palace. At this moment, Zhou Bao was right inside the Great Constellation Palace! Yu Taixu sneered, and instantly, multiple streams of starlight emerged out of thin air, turned into snake-like ropes which coiled around Zhou Bao, and tied him up.


    Zhou Bao, do you think that since you''ve escaped once, you''re able to escape again? Go to hell!"


    Yu Taixu was the lord of Divine Wind Palace. He had been ruling over the Four Eastern Regions for numerous years, solely by using his own strength. When had he ever been beaten up like today? His face had been kicked. Yes, kicked, not slapped. Thus, how could he hold back his fury?


    "World-devastating Starlight, kill him!" A jet of silver starlight formed over the head of Yu Taixu and fired right at Zhou Bao.


    "Free me from these ropes! " Zhou Bao had witnessed the power of this World-devastating Star Bomb before. Hearing the word "World-devastating Star", he could not help but shudder. Now, he had no intention to continue this encounter with Yu Taixu anymore. Abruptly exerting all his strength, his Mysterious Icy Divine Light was initiated and freed him from all the starlight ropes that bound him.


    "Yu Taixu, I don''t want to tussle with you now. Let me see how you get through this ordeal!" Zhou Bao let out a strange sounding yell. His body shifted in a flash and avoided the fire of the World-devastating Starlight. Then, he crept into the depths of the Great Constellation Palace and disappeared.


    "Damn it!" Having missed this strike, Yu Taixu was furious. He wanted to search for Zhou Bao, but the present situation was different from before. Previously, he had control over the Great Constellation Palace and possessed the home advantage, thereby he could take his time to find Zhou Bao. Even if Zhou Bao employed his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, he would not be able to hide from Yu Taixu in this Great Constellation Palace. But now, Yu Taixu, having been severely injured and the Great Constellation Palace under attack by an unknown person, how could Yu Taixu focus on the issue of locating Zhou Bao? The current priority for him was to take back the control over the Great Constellation Palace, and that seemed the best strategy. Should he ever lose the Great Constellation Palace, even if he could survive this and come out of it alive, those Highest Elders of Divine Wind Palace and other large families would never let him off the hook.


    At present, Yu Taixu was in a dangerous situation. He would either win the battle and dominate everything or lose everything without getting any second chances. At this point, he had no time to settle his grievances with Zhou Bao.


    "Humph, I shall see how capable you are. Dare to rob my Great Constellation Palace!" Yu Taixu leaped to the front of the controlling Black Crystal in a flash. He bit the tip of his tongue and a mouthful of golden essence and blood sprayed onto the Black Crystal. The Black Crystal lighted up immediately and the Great Constellation Palace also started quivering. In the midst of the endless thunderbolts, the size of the Great Constellation Palace grew rapidly. In a few seconds, it had grown into a colossal palace as high as 10,000 feet, and it covered the heavens and the sun. The Great Constellation Palace did not retreat but advanced. With a sudden acceleration, it dashed in the direction of the mysterious man. "No matter who you are, I''ll give you a taste of the power of my Great Constellation Palace!"


    "What? Good boy, you do have some guts!" Seeing the Great Constellation Palace rushing towards him, the mysterious Wugu Hou let out a cry of amazement. He then set the thunderbolts around him to block the way of the Great Constellation Palace and formed a huge Thunder Crystal Wall, effectively blocking the onslaught of the Great Constellation Palace.


    "Boom!"


    The Great Constellation Palace crashed into the Thunder Crystal Wall with all its might. The Thunder Crystal Wall shattered into pieces, but the impetus on the Great Constellation Palace was just as strong. When the Great Constellation Palace came to a halt, a purple hand emerged out of nowhere. This hand was coarse and strong, and was about 10,000 feet long. All at once, it cupped the Great Constellation Palace, tightly grasping the Great Constellation Palace across its starlight. It exerted an incredulous amount of force and seemed about to snatch away the Great Constellation Palace in the next few seconds.


    "Primordial Demon, he is a Primordial Demon! Damn it, there is a Primordial Demon oppressed in this Thunder Sea!" At the sight of the purple hand, Yu Taixu''s face instantly paled. After having read various martial books in Divine Wind Palace, he could recognize that the hand firmly holding on to his Great Constellation Palace belonged to a Primordial Demon. This was a genuine Primordial Demon, not a nobody like the Devil Fetus. It never occurred to him that in the infinite space-time of the Heaven Realm there would be a Primordial Demon oppressed by a magic seal.


    The Great Constellation Palace was already a little worn out from the attack of the purple hand. Just when it was about to be dragged off into an unknown space by the demonic hand, a stream of dominant energy flew into the Great Constellation Palace from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Instantly, the starlight of the Great Constellation Palace shone brilliantly, and with a jerk, it shook off the purple hand.


    "Alas!" A long sigh floated into his mind. "This is not a regular Primordial Demon, but the aristocracy of the Primordial Demons, a Marquis-leveled Primordial Demon with the strength of an Earthly Immortal. A million years ago, he was seriously injured by the Thunder Emperor. But the Thunder Emperor was not able to kill him, so he suppressed him here!"


    "Pool of Thunder Tribulation, you''re Pool of Thunder Tribulation!" Sensing this powerful intent, Yu Taixu, who was as pale as a sheet, looked appalled, horrified, and furious. His expression was changing unfathomably, but all of a sudden, his eyes brightened and he said, "Senior Pool of Thunder Tribulation, it''s too late to do anything. But we still have a chance. Although this guy is a Primordial Demon, he must have become a lot weaker after being suppressed for so many years by you, Senior. Since I still have my Supreme Fairy Weapon, I may be able to suppress him again, as long as you and I work with each other..."


    "Hum, don''t bother saying anymore!" Realizing what Yu Taixu was going to say, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation gave a snort and interrupted him. "Suppressing this Primordial Demon is my task. Now that things have gone so far, there are no other options. Now, your Great Constellation Palace and I will combine into one, but since your Great Constellation Palace has been badly damaged, even if it combines with me, it cannot be repaired in a short space of time. Therefore, you only have the power to strike once. You must seize that chance, got it?"


    "I got it!" Yu Taixu answered, quite overjoyed. He could not have ever foreseen that this matter would be so dramatic. In order to suppress this Primordial Demon, this Pool of Thunder Tribulation even agreed to combine with his Great Constellation Palace on his own accord, which almost made him burst out in laughter on the spot.


    "Pool of Thunder Tribulation, it''s been a million years. Well, are you attempting to subdue me again?" Watching the endless thunderbolts shooting from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation which had withdrawn all the surrounding Thunder Tribulations in it and then fed them back into the Great Constellation Palace, the mysterious Wugu Hou sneered. "Do you really believe combining with that broken Great Constellation Palace is enough to suppress me?" "Don''t forget that back then, Big Dipper Emperor was in a deadlock with me even when he was using a fully functioning Great Constellation Palace. So, how could you have the capability to repress me now?"


    "It''s useless to say more!" Pool of Thunder Tribulation said indifferently. Now, the entire Pool of Thunder was floating in the air, flying towards the Great Constellation Palace under the lead of a Star Ring.


    "You''re biting off more than you can chew!" Looking at this scenario, Wugu Hou cursed under his breath and a jet of purple cloud appeared, which blocked the progress of Pool of Thunder Tribulation absorbing thunderbolts in its vicinity. "You''ve locked me in for a million years, so how can I not know you well? You think I''ll just let you absorb all the power?"


    "Even if I don''t use all the power, I can still put you back there!" The Great Constellation Palace had already started combining with the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. It began to sparkle with infinite starlight, which even outshone the lights of the thunderbolts and purple clouds. At that moment, the Great Constellation Palace seemed to have recovered the glory it had when it was still a Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    Inside the Great Constellation Palace, Yu Taixu''s face was almost distorted by his mad laughter. As the Pool of Thunder Tribulation continuously sent out its energy, the damaged Great Constellation Palace recovered bit by bit. The Star Macro World was also absorbing greedily the steady flow of thunderbolt power generated from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation as if it were a dried-out pond.


    Great Constellation Bombs were set off, and everything in the surrounding area was flattened. Everything near the Great Constellation Palace and Wugu Hou, be it the thunderbolt, the purple cloud, or the space, were all gone. The true appearance of Wugu Hou, which had been hidden at first, was revealed as well. His body had reached 10,000 feet in height, and he had started contending with the Great Constellation Palace.


    "A dramatic twist, what a dramatic twist! But this is not the script I want. The Great Constellation Palace cannot really combine with the Pool of Thunder Tribulation! Or else, I''ll be in deep trouble. Thus, should I let my little precious out?" Zhou Bao muttered inwardly. Seeing the present scene, he could not remain silent any longer. Once Yu Taixu took command of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, then, even if he had a Supreme Fairy Weapon, he would have to back off. Furthermore, his bluff would be exposed as well. When that time came, he would have no alternative but to run and bring the entire Wuyang Region along. There would be no other way out except that. Considering he did own the Azure Big World, he was totally able to flee with the whole Central Mainland Region, let alone just the Wuyang Region, but that would make him feel too aggrieved. He did not want this kind of thing to ever occur.


    "No way! I shall never allow the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and the Great Constellation Palace to merge into one!" Just when he had made up his mind to start a ruthless fight, a jet of inconspicuous black smoke suddenly appeared in the space. On account of this, a mutation started to develop.

 648 Sea Emperors Striking in the End

    Accidents always happen inadvertently.


    Yu Taixu had totally underestimated Wugu Hou''s power. Due to the huge gap between their ranks, even though Yu Taixu had a Supreme Fairy Weapon, he still lacked the strength to fight back. Similarly, although the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, Wugu Hou''s power was too strong for it to confront him alone. Due to these factors, a united front was the best solution.


    If the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, could successfully combine with the Great Constellation Palace, it would be possible to use up to eighty percent of the original power from the Great Constellation Palace in an instant. Although it could only strike once, that would be enough.


    After being oppressed for so many years, Wugu Hou''s power was now at half of its original strength. He needed time to recover. Years ago, his fight with Big Dipper Emperor who wielded a perfect Great Constellation Palace had ended in a draw. But now, a million years had passed, his strength had also significantly dwindled, so he probably was not able to survive the one strike fired by a Great Constellation Palace, even though it was exerting only eighty percent of its power.


    At present, the Great Constellation Palace had turned to face Wugu Hou. He was the target of the Great Constellation Bomb, whose intimidating Star World-devastating Aurora was set to fire. When this one strike hit its target, Wugu Hou would be peeled off like a layer of skin, even if he was lucky enough to die on the spot. He would be suppressed in the Great Constellation Palace instead of the sea of thunderbolts once again.


    "Bravo, bravo, bravo!" Seeing the moves taken by the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, Wugu Hou said "bravo" three times consecutively. "I never thought that you would have such great determination. To suppress me, you even agreed to infuse into the Great Constellation Palace. But are you aware that once you infuse yourself into the Great Constellation Palace, you''ll never be able to free yourself from it?"


    "My sole destiny is to suppress you. As long as you can be suppressed, where I am is not important!"


    Apparently, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation had resolved to put this Primordial Demon under restraint. But now, its own power was insufficient to do that, and that was why he had made up his mind to merge with the Great Constellation Palace so that it could use the power of the Great Constellation Palace to subdue this Primordial Demon.


    But all of that was based on the premise that the two could really merge into one.


    With the energy support of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, the starlight from the Great Constellation Palace condensed into myriads of starlight crystals. In this instance, attacking had become a great challenge for Wugu Hou; even escaping was not a viable choice. Although the space of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode had already been destroyed and he could flee to the hollow at any time, given his current state, he would not be able to escape the clutches of the Supreme Fairy Weapon even after running into the hollow.


    As to how terrifying the combination of the Great Constellation Palace and the Pool of Thunder Tribulation would be, Wugu Hou knew it perfectly well. Just when he was brooding on how to deal with this tense situation, a mutation happened.


    A jet of black smoke appeared in the space unexpectedly. It broke through the starlight crystals and scattered shots of thunderbolts, going straight for the Star Ring.


    "Your Highness Hou, your subordinate Wugu Tiancheng is here to help you!" A divine thought from the black smoke traveled through the starlight crystals and thunderbolts and could be heard by those on the scene.


    "Puff!"


    Almost at the same time when this divine thought arrived, the swirl of black smoke landed on the Star Ring with a sizzling sound similar to that of a pot of porridge boiling over and splashing onto the cooking stove. Immediately, it corroded a large part of the Star Ring, which nearly broke off.


    "Celestial Demon Corroding Technique!" At this eerie sight, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and Yu Taixu were both petrified. They realized what had just happened.


    This move, the Celestial Demon Corroding Technique, was a strike that was made when a Primordial Demon had reached the end of his life, one that was designed for a Primordial Demon to die with his enemies. Once this move was cast, even if the Primordial Demon was fighting against an opponent several ranks higher than himself, he would be able to create huge trouble for the opponent or even maul the enemy to death. This Star Ring was a fairy weapon, but when faced with this mere strike, it was already severely damaged.


    No one knew where this guy who called himself Wugu Tiancheng came from. The moment he appeared, he launched this move and startled everyone on the scene. With the Star Ring severely damaged, Yu Taixu found himself in another tricky circumstance¡ªthe main energy transportation from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation had broken off while the new Star Ring had not taken shape yet. Now, during this interval, how could Wugu Tiancheng give up the opportunity to attack?


    "Good, Wugu Tiancheng. I''ll keep you in my mind. When I am free, I''ll give you enormous rewards to thank you!" Unlike Yu Taixu and the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, Wugu Hou could see through the Real Body of the black smoke, which had been transformed by a Devil Fetus. Thus, Wugu Hou was overjoyed. Of course, he would not want to miss out on such a good opportunity. Then, as he let out a furious bellow, a pair of large purple hands was sent skywards, with purple clouds lingering on its palms and fingertips.


    "Heavenly Devils, corrode the Devine! Fierce Demons, dominate the primitive times!"


    His two palms flipped outwards, and two gigantic purple balls appeared under them and suddenly bore down upon the ground.


    "Crap!" Seeing the two huge purple balls, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation started surging at once. A jet of silver light crept out of the pool and turned into a human being. Actually, it was more of a sturdy Thunder God than a human being. This was the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, which suddenly plunged into the Great Constellation Palace.


    "Nine Heaven Thunder, heed my call, obey my orders instantly as if they were the law!"


    When the device spirit jumped into the Great Constellation Palace, it let out a howl of incantation. As it roared, jets of starlight began to condense into crystals once again and they vigorously dashed into the two purple balls.


    "Boom!"


    The space started vibrating and seemed to be falling apart; endless thunderbolts and starlight storms swept through the place. Among these storms, there were wisps of purple smoke mingled in the mass. Those bits of purple smoke were extremely potent because anything they touched in their tracks melted under the effect of their corrosion. Everything near them disappeared totally. Compared to the Infinite Poison Banner of Zhou Bao, the purple smoke had the same power but was even more poisonous than it.


    Under the effect of the powerful vibration, the Great Constellation Palace retreated several hundred miles backwards, and cracks appeared on the starlight crystals, looking as if they could burst open at any time. Meanwhile, Wugu Hou was not in a better condition than them, either. His originally exuberant face had paled and the scarlet light in his eyes was fading.


    In the Great Constellation Palace, Yu Taixu had collapsed onto the ground. As though being squeezed by a great force, his Seven Apertures was displaying several few blood spots and his eyes were also turning red. His utmost excitement was reflected amidst the redness.


    This strike seemed to have wounded both sides, but it was the Great Constellation Palace that had gained the upper hand.


    "Senior Pool of Thunder, let''s redouble our efforts and combine into one. We''ll teach him a good lesson!" Forcibly propelling his Dharma power, Yu Taixu suddenly got on his feet. Without giving a thought about his injuries, Yu Taixu yelled elatedly.


    "Great, let''s finish him off!"


    A new Star Ring had formed in the starlight and started the real process of combining with the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. At this point, Wugu Hou sprang into action. A trace of extreme malice flitted across his eyes, countless blood fog oozed from his pores and his eyes were fixed on the Great Constellation Palace as if he was going to swallow it with his stare.


    "This is bad! He is getting desperate. Quick, World-devastating Starlight, move!" Seeing that, the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was shocked. It let out a growl and the starlight of the Great Constellation Palace began to gather once more. The World-devastating Starlight fired instantly. This time, the World-devastating Starlight Bomb that was fired was wider, more solid, and stronger than the weapons that were used in breaking the Realm-annihilating Thunder Formation of Five Elements.


    At the same moment when the World-devastating Starlight fired, Wugu Hou started his moves as well. He folded his hands in front of his chest and gathered all the purple smoke coming out from his body into a mass. His Dharma power, blood, and spirit were poured into that mass. After that, the round ball-like smoke began to expand and turned into a long purple-gold spear. This spear was covered with a naturally-formed matchless mysterious pattern. Its tip was as sharp as a tusk of a Primordial Fierce Beast, while at the end of this spear, surprisingly, there were two small purple wings. This spear looked quite odd and simple, and emitted boundless pressure.


    "Deity-killing Spear, it''s the Deity-killing Spear!"


    At the sight of this purple gold spear, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation involuntarily let out a cry. Soon, the Deity-killing Spear and the World-devastating Starlight crashed into each other.


    "Boom, boom, boom..."


    This crash was even more violent than the previous one. The starlight crystals around the Great Constellation Palace shattered, and the whole Great Constellation Palace was scattered around in pieces. The starlight was flickering, sending forth a frantic spirit as if it would explode at any second.


    The space between the Great Constellation Palace and Wugu Hou was bombed as well. No matter if it was the limitless starlight or the raging thunderbolts, they were all sucked into the endless starry sky and vanished from sight in an instant.


    At this moment, the sturdy space where the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode sat had been badly mauled all over; even its recovery speed had been reduced to an incredibly slow rate.


    Wugu Hou looked very bitter¡ªhis originally strong body had shrunk, his hands and left leg were already gone, and the remaining parts of his body were drifting about at the border of the hollow and the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. If his eyes had not been still glowing, Yu Taixu and the Pool of Thunder Tribulation could certainly believe that this Primordial Demon had already died.


    Both sides were severely mutilated, no one had the strength to battle again. They were both taking deep breaths, resting and relaxing. This time, the Great Constellation Palace was in an outstandingly advantageous position.


    Without any interference from Wugu Hou, the merger between the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and the Great Constellation Palace went unexpectedly smoothly. In a surprisingly short time, the process was almost completed. Seeing the two was just about to combine into one, Wugu Hou realized that he had no way to stop it. After thinking for a few seconds, he threw away all his scruples and suddenly wriggled his half-handicapped body and leaped into the endless hollow. Wugu Hou knew that once that Great Constellation Palace recovered a bit of its strength, it would go all out to destroy him. Now, all he could do was to flee. Although this might not work, this was the best option he had.


    "Trying to flee? That''s not so easy to achieve! Catch him!" Seeing Wugu Hou''s intention to run away, there was no way that Yu Taixu and the Pool of Thunder Tribulation would let him go so easily. With the almost inexhaustible energy provision from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, the Great Constellation Palace started functioning once again, and it immediately hurtled in the direction where Wugu Hou had fled into.


    "Great Constellation Palace of Big Dipper, Primordial Demon with Marquis title. That''s really interesting!"


    Just when the one side was chasing the other, an elderly voice sounded out of the hollow.


    Huge torrents that almost reached the sky appeared in the hollow out of nowhere and whirled around the bodies of the two sides which were both 1,000,000 feet high. Looking afar, the hollow was filled up by seawater and became a vast ocean.


    "Boundless Sea Area! It''s Sea Emperor!"


    "Vast Sea Emperor!"


    Simultaneously, Yu Taixu and the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder shouted out in terror.

 649 One Show Finished with Another One Coming on the Scene

    Sea Emperor!


    Vast Sea Emperor!


    Both names were sufficient to leave the world awestruck.


    Vast Sea Emperor was one of the 99 Emperors from antiquity times, who was famous in various worlds and had suppressed numerous Star Areas. Meanwhile, Sea Emperor was just a legend in the present world, a highly mysterious figure. Everyone knew that he was King of the endless Sea Area, but no one had ever known his real strength and identity. In fact, since the structure of the Sea Area and the Seven-deity Regions was formed after antiquity times, nobody had any knowledge about the true power of this Sea Emperor, and no one had ever seen him in person or even heard him making any strikes.


    But today, to everyone''s surprise, when the Supreme Fairy Weapon Great Constellation Palace was battling it out with the Primordial Demon Wugu Hou, with both sides incurring great losses, this mysterious figure had stepped in and made a strike!


    Once he struck out, both sides were whirled into the infinite Sea Area. Falling into the raging seawaters, both the Primordial Demon and the Great Constellation Palace were utterly defenseless.


    "Vast Sea Emperor, I''ve never offended you. Why are you doing this to me?" Wugu Hou yelled as he struggled to control his mutilated body, with a sullen look on his face.


    "You are the Marquis among all the Primordial Demons. Thus, you are considered a great enemy of our Heaven Realm. If you were not the one I should target, who else would it be?"


    "Are you really capable of making me suffer? I''ve already been suppressed for a million years, I definitely don''t want this to happen again. Vast Sea Emperor, if you let me go today, I swear I will never ever step into the Heaven Realm. Otherwise, you shall just go down with me! Although I''ve been suppressed for a million years and my strength has declined, it will still be quite hard for you to capture me alive!"


    "Fine, although you are the sworn foe of Big Dipper and Thunder Emperor, you have nothing to do with me. I will let you off the hook!" Vast Sea Emperor replied, unexpectedly in a good mood. "However, you must make the Great Vow of the Heart Demon to swear that you will never go against our Heaven Realm!"


    "Of course!" Wugu Hou agreed immediately without any hesitation. In front of all present, he made the Great Vow of the Heart Demon, and then, as a crack appeared in the boundless Sea Area, Wugu Hou instantly slipped into it and disappeared into the infinite hollow.


    "Vast Sea Emperor, you can''t let him go, he..."


    "Little device spirit, you''re speaking out of turn in telling me what to do!" Vast Sea Emperor interrupted the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Then, the overbearing torrents gathered together and turned into myriads of water arrows, shooting relentlessly at the Great Constellation Palace.


    Those water arrows looked ordinary, but their power was astounding. Although each water arrow was merely the size of a sewing needle, the vandalizing power it displayed was not inferior to the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword of Zhou Bao.


    "Wham, wham, wham..."


    Numerous claps sounded, and the blazing starlight around the Great Constellation Palace gradually paled under the attacks and then completely died out. In an instant, the Great Constellation Palace was in fragments. In spite of the energy provision from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, due to the lack in timely repairs, it teetered on the brink of collapse.


    "Sea Emperor, have you forgotten the alliance treaty made by the Seven-deity Regions and the Sea Area years ago?"


    "Hahaha, you''re a really funny junior. That alliance treaty is just a joke. Anyway, the alliance treaty merely regulates that we should refrain from invading each other''s territories. But this time it''s you guys from the Seven-deity Regions who invaded our Sea Area and caused trouble. Plus, you''ve taken away my subordinate. Well, do you really think you can escape my punishment by virtue of that lame treaty?" Vast Sea Emperor laughed maniacally. The water arrows suddenly stopped their attacks and disappeared, but torrents of water surged and flooded the Great Constellation Palace. Furthermore, even though the fine water arrows shot a moment ago seemed incapable of incurring any great harm to the Great Constellation Palace, they actually created numerous minute holes in the protective starlight crystals around the Great Constellation Palace. The starlight was not able to fix those small holes, and now as the Great Constellation Palace was sucked into violent torrents, seawater conveniently seeped into the inner spaces of the Great Constellation Palace, including the Star Macro World.


    "Crap, Vast Sea Emperor is taking this fight seriously this time. We''re absolutely no match for him!" Feeling that the situation was not going well, the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation hastily screamed. "Yu Taixu, I''ll pump the power of the Black Thunder into your Great Constellation Palace. You have to launch your Great Constellation Palace and fire the most powerful Void-shattering Bomb and run away from this Sea Area. But whether we can escape or not depends on our fate!"


    "What? You''re nuts! In this way, the Great Constellation Palace will be ruined!" Yu Taixu shouted. "Based on the present power of the Great Constellation Palace, if I force it to fire the Void-shattering Bomb, it will definitely collapse!"


    "There is no other way. I''ll do all I can to preserve the Great Constellation Palace and stop it from falling apart. But if you don''t take any action now, once it has been filled up by the power of the vast sea, we will have no chance at all!" This device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was from antiquity times, so he knew how horrible this Vast Sea Emperor, one of the 99 Emperors, could be. The power of Vast Sea Emperor was definitely way above his Heavenly Fairy Weapon or the damaged Supreme Fairy Weapon. Further, Vast Sea Emperor also had his own Supreme Fairy Weapon, but he had not used it so far.


    "Stop these meaningless struggles, Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Well, I''ve collected four Pools of Thunder Tribulation, but all of them were merely Taihao Fairy Weapons. But to my surprise, there is a Pool of Thunder Tribulation at the level of a Heaven Fairy Weapon in this place. Maybe Thunder Emperor has at last grasped the wonder of the impermanence of life. Now, let me subdue you first and have a good look at how powerful you are on earth!" As he spoke, the endless Sea Area abruptly stagnated for a second, and then the seawater which had entered the Great Constellation Palace turned into strands of silken threads which came alive and wrapped themselves around the device spirit with great agility.


    "Vast Sea Emperor, if you think you can make me surrender with this little trick, you''re largely mistaken!" The device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation sent out jets of black lightning bolts to cover itself. Meanwhile he said, "Yu Taixu, if you don''t strike now, we won''t be able to walk away alive!"


    Yu Taixu had long lost his prestige as the lord of the Divine Wind Palace. Currently, he was in a disheveled state, ashen-faced and gritting his teeth. His hair fluttered wildly as he kept his hands firmly on the controlling Black Crystal.


    "All the heavens and worlds, assemble your starlight and shatter the hollow!" Yu Taixu howled in fury. The controlling Black Crystal suddenly shone brightly and the Great Constellation Palace started raging. Waves of starlight rolled around and formed a bright-red light ball which was extremely small and nestled on top of the Great Constellation Palace.


    "Void-shattering Bomb, fire!"


    As his bellow rang out, the red light ball suddenly ejected a glowing streak of red in the space and opened up a pitch-dark spatial tunnel in the sea. At the same time, the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation also let out a growl and the black bolts of lightning that were wrapped around it quickly transformed into a black lightning ball, which exploded in the Great Constellation Palace.


    With this explosion, the black lightning expelled all the weird seawater that had seeped into the Great Constellation Palace so that it could not impose any threat upon the device spirit. The starlight around the Great Constellation Palace instantly condensed, and then, speedily slipped into the passageway created by the Void-shattering Bomb and vanished into the vast hollow.


    "Emperor, why did you let them go?"


    In a mystical place at the endless Sea Area, a green-robed young man was sitting on a black stone, casually playing with a piece of emerald jade in his hand. Beside him stood a bony old man, carrying a heavy black turtle shell on his back. This old man was dressed exactly like the Turtle Prime Minister that Zhou Bao had seen in fairy tale cartoons in his previous life. The two whisks on either ends of his mouth were moving about and his two pupils were swirling around, which gave him a comical look.


    "I''ve sensed the spirit of Azure Heavens!"


    "Azure Heavens? Emperor of the Azure Heaven?" That old man was startled, his eyes filled with terror. "Emperor, are you sure..."


    "Of course!" The green-robed man was actually the Sea Emperor, who was also known as Vast Sea Emperor in antiquity times. The space they were in was quite narrow and looked like a seabed cave less than 30 square meters wide. The cave was free of water but the air inside was significantly stale, as if the cave had not been ventilated for many years. There was little spiritual qi in it as well. In front of the black stone which the green-robed man was sitting on was a small pond. This pond was tiny, even less than 10 square meters across. The black stone, the pond, and the two persons were all that occupied the inside of the cave.


    "The Emperor of Azure Heavens is my close friend. I also know that he had some good ideas back then. But after all these years, I believed he met his downfall. I am hoping that he is still alive. Or at least, he still has the will to live!" the green-robed young man said with a faint smile. "Perhaps his situation will be better than mine. After all, he won''t be stuck in a cave like me. In this case, why not let him seize the opportunity?"


    "You mean..."


    "Even if I get that Pool of Thunder Tribulation, what else can I do with it, except use it as an extra plaything? Do you actually believe I can use its power to get out of this dilemma?" The green-robed young man sneered. "One Heavenly Fairy Weapon that has bred a device spirit is incapable of breaking the restraints imposed on me!"


    "But at least, it can enhance your power!"


    "No matter how strong my power gets, it won''t be able to alter the fact that I''m stuck here. But I''m way better off than that Wugu Hou, for he has been stranded for a total of a million years. Haha!"


    The old man let out a wry laugh and fell silent. Then, his figure gradually faded away.


    "Emperor of the Azure Heaven, I hope you''re still alive, or at least have the chance of staying alive." After the old man with the turtle shell disappeared, the green-robed young man showed a gloomy face. He rubbed his head and laid down on the sewage-covered ground. Several seconds later, he fell asleep and started dreaming.


    At this moment, let''s take a look at the endless hollow.


    The Great Constellation Palace had almost fallen apart under the recoil force of the Void-shattering Bomb, but the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation had taken certain measures that even Yu Taixu could not figure out and managed to successfully stabilize the Great Constellation Palace. However, Yu Taixu noticed that both sides had exerted all their efforts in trying to fight their way out, and both were so badly injured that recovery was not that easy.


    The surroundings contained nothing but the hollow and the endless hollow did not reveal any clear route.


    "Let''s just find a place to rest. When the Great Constellation Palace is fully repaired, I shall look for the route back to the Heaven Realm!" Yu Taixu muttered in his mind. "And that Zhou Bao is really ignorant! When I am settled, I''ll put him in suppression again, let him watch me kill all his family and relatives and dig out all their pupils to refine into..."


    "Boom!" Just when Yu Taixu was immersed in his evil fantasy, the Great Constellation Palace suddenly shook violently. Then, a beam of vague red light instantly enveloped the entire Great Constellation Palace.


    "Haha, now it''s my turn to get a bargain, hahaha!"

 650 Bluff!

    Zhou Bao had waited for this opportunity for a long time already.


    Since the first sneak attack failed, Zhou Bao had been lurking about in the Great Constellation Palace, observing the happenings inside the Great Constellation Palace. At the point when the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and the Great Constellation Palace merged into one, he could barely stifle his urge to strike out. However, before he could do so, Sea Emperor had made his strike first. Thus, out of dread, he withdrew his head that was stuck halfway outside the palace and watched an amazing combat taking place as his heart thumped madly. It was only when Yu Taixu launched the Void-shattering Bomb in the end and jumped into the hollow with his Great Constellation Palace that Zhou Bao finally felt relieved, truly relieved. Meanwhile, he knew that his best opportunity was coming.


    Although the Great Constellation Palace and the Pool of Thunder Tribulation had broken free from a tribulation, rushed out of the space of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode or even the scope of the Heaven Realm Macro World, and entered the infinite hollow, both of them were severely injured. Let''s put the Pool of Thunder Tribulation aside first and look at the appearance of Yu Taixu''s Great Constellation Palace. It seemed that even if the Great Constellation Palace had not completely exhausted its strength, there was not much power left in it to deter anybody. Therefore, it was time for Zhou Bao to strike once again.


    "Humph, Zhou Bao, did you really think that I was not aware of your existence? That I did not foresee your potential attack? You believed you had it all planned out, but today I''ll let you know, you will never ever defeat me. You lot with the Fiery Eyes will always be my vanquished opponent and will always be trampled by me!"


    Seeing a vague red light appear, a trace of a cruel and frenetic smile flashed across Yu Taixu''s eyes. As he bellowed, a red glowing eyeball appeared in front of him.


    Then, a second one...


    A third one...


    A fourth one...


    The 18th...


    The 320th...


    The 3000th!!!


    3,000 eyeballs! In a blink of an eye, a total of 3,000 red eyeballs gathered around Yu Taixu, and formed into a mysterious pattern.


    All at once, a stream of copious pressure permeated the Great Constellation Palace. Zhou Bao''s expression altered instantly, the red light in his eyes disappeared, and his body which was originally hidden in the dark revealed itself in front of Yu Taixu.


    "This..."


    "This is a fairy weapon I refined by using 1,500 clansmen from your Fiery Eyes lot. It''s called ''Heavenly Magic Eye''!" The red light was still shining. It did not come from the Thorn Wheel Fiery Eye of Zhou Bao but the 3,000 Fiery Eyes around them. The fiery red light constituted a completely independent world, while above this world there emerged another quaint red eyeball. This eyeball ejected a jet of light which locked Zhou Bao in a tight grip.


    "You bastard!"


    "I am truly a bastard!" Yu Taixu said with a smile and slowly walked in front of Zhou Bao. "Do you know why I massacred every member of the Fiery Eyes clan years ago? It was just for creating this Heavenly Magic Eye!"


    Heavenly Magic Eye!


    Zhou Bao had heard that name before, because Child-endowing Buddha, also known as Green Spirit, had mentioned it to him. The so-called Fiery Eyes bloodline was basically created by those necromancers in antiquity times for the purpose of stealing the bloodlines of Innate Deities. Among the bloodlines of Innate Deities, one of them was the Heavenly Magic Eye. But surprisingly, Yu Taixu also knew about this and had even refined the Heavenly Magic Eye with 3,000 Fiery Eyes. It was evident that Yu Taixu''s knowledge of Fiery Eyes far exceeded his.


    "The Heavenly Magic Eye is one of the most powerful Divine Senses that Innate Deities have. Thus, you should feel privileged that you are about to be subdued by this Heavenly Magic Eye. Heavenly Magic Eye, subdue his spirit!"


    Before the words faded away, Zhou Bao felt a blast of suction shooting out of the eye over his head, which directly affected his spirit. It felt as if it would suck his spirit out from his body.


    "Humph, Yu Taixu, you''ve overestimated the power of this Heavenly Magic Eye. Eight Nine Mysterious Skill, Mysterious Divine Light, set me free!" As Zhou Bao let out a growl, the Mysterious Divine Light wrapped around Zhou Bao and shielded his spirit. Zhou Bao broke through the blockade of the Heavenly Magic Eye and threw a forceful punch at the shadow of the Heavenly Magic Eye hanging in the sky.


    "It''s impossible!"


    "Of course it''s possible!"


    Zhou Bao had gone all out to launch this punch. When the 3,000 eyeballs emerged, Zhou Bao already knew that his planned plot on using his Fiery Eyes to humiliate Yu Taixu could not be carried out. But that did not matter. Even though Yu Taixu had the Heavenly Magic Eye, so what? His Mysterious Divine Light was also one of the strongest Divine Senses of Primordial Fierce Beasts, which was not inferior to the Heavenly Magic Eye. He had also infused the Icy Divine Light of the Frost Giant into it, so the power of his Mysterious Divine Light was even more impressive.


    "Boom!"


    The punch landed. Zhou Bao had effectively broken the shadow of the Heavenly Magic Eye into pieces, and the surrounding 3,000 eyeballs started vibrating under the impact of this punch, unable to stay in their respective positions any longer. But Zhou Bao did not intend to grab those Fiery Eyes, for he had figured out that among those 3,000 eyeballs, 2,999 eyeballs were not real eyeballs but mere shadows. The real substantial object was the fairy weapon Yu Taixu referred to earlier¡ªthe Heavenly Magic Eye. He must have long refined the 3,000 eyeballs into one.


    "You refined Fiery Eyes, which was renowned as Eternal Eyes, into one eye. Seems that your knowledge of the Fiery Eyes is much more in-depth than mine. But all this while I am not relying on the Fiery Eyes, so if you think you can defeat me by merely using Fiery Eyes, you''re largely mistaken!" Zhou Bao sneered. Suddenly, he took a big step forward and directly strode over to Yu Taixu.


    "Crap!" Yu Taixu never thought Zhou Bao could destroy the Heavenly Magic Eye in such a short time.


    That was something unimaginable for Yu Taixu. The punch Zhou Bao gave broke the shadow of the Heavenly Magic Eye and made the fairy weapon vibrate. This affected his own spirit as well. Thus, his reaction was a bit slow in the duration. Due to his delayed reaction, Zhou Bao managed to approach him in that split second, and smashed him with his pair of iron hammers.


    It was too late for Yu Taixu to escape.


    "You kid, get back!"


    Luckily, he was not alone in the Great Constellation Palace, and had an ally there. Taking in the situation, though the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was a bit taken aback, it managed to strike out on time. Immediately, a bolt of black lightning descended upon Zhou Bao''s head.


    Zhou Bao cursed loudly. He swiftly held up his hammers and forcefully fended off the lightning attack.


    "Clap!"


    The black lightning flashed after it made contact with the hammers and it simultaneously reached Zhou Bao, flinging him several feet away.


    "What?"


    The bolt of black lightning hit Zhou Bao, and the impact spread to his body through his iron hammers. But against everyone''s expectation, Zhou Bao was minimally harmed.


    However, Zhou Bao apparently did not give them any time to react or contemplate.


    "Pool of Thunder Tribulation, this is none of your business" While speaking, Zhou Bao strode forward, wielding his hammers. However, this time his target was not Yu Taixu but the device spirit of that Pool of Thunder Tribulation. At this point, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation had not fully combined with the Great Constellation Palace. Although the combination was not completed, the device spirit had appeared in the Great Constellation Palace due to the confrontation against Sea Emperor. Now being out of the Heaven Realm, it made its strike subconsciously when it noticed that Yu Taixu was in danger.


    "Zhou Bao, do you really think this place is the same as your Wuyang Region? Go to hell!" Seeing Zhou Bao behaving so arrogantly in the Great Constellation Palace, coming out twice to attack himself and ruining his Heavenly Magic Eye, Yu Taixu flew into a shameful rage. Right now, seeing that Zhou Bao had attacked the device spirit, he could not bear it anymore. In this case, it seemed like his Great Constellation Palace was becoming Zhou Bao''s backyard where he could come and go at his will, wouldn''t it?


    Roaring in great rage, Yu Taixu chose to ignore the current state of his Great Constellation Palace and directly mobilized the copious energy transported from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation to launch the Star Aurora inside the Great Constellation Palace, which shot straight onto Zhou Bao''s body.


    "This is the moment I''ve been waiting for!" When the Star Aurora hit Zhou Bao, he had already leapt next to the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Before his hammers fully landed upon it, a layer of golden light glittered around Zhou Bao''s body¡ªhe had launched his Furnace of Immortality for protection. The Start Aurora hit the Furnace of Immortality but failed to cause any severe damage.


    Seeing Zhou Bao bringing out his Furnace of Immortality again, Yu Taixu''s face was sullen. He suddenly beckoned at the surrounding Fiery Eyes, which then disappeared in an instant and reappeared as one big sanguine eyeball and returned to the top of his head. "Zhou Bao, you''re really an ungrateful wretch. Are you trying to court death?"


    Watching Zhou Bao''s reaction, Yu Taixu asked him coldly, and a sense of anxiety came over him. Zhou Bao''s behavior was too unusual. He was doing something everyone knew would fail. Did he truly believe he could kill the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation right inside the Great Constellation Palace?


    Wouldn''t that be too na?ve of him?


    After all, the Great Constellation Palace was Yu Taixu''s Supreme Fairy Weapon, and it was just about to combine with the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Now that the combination was one step away from being completed, even if Zhou Bao had a shocking capability or even was a Human Immortal, it was still impossible for him to take any action inside the Great Constellation Palace. Any of his actions would be equal to courting death. Judging by his previous combating style, Zhou Bao was not a stupid guy. But why did he choose to do so?


    Was he out of his mind?


    "Seems that you have seen through me. But, it''s a bit too late!" Detecting the softened tones of Yu Taixu, Zhou Bao also laughed. With the Furnace of Immortality hanging over his head, Zhou Bao smiled widely at Yu Taixu and said, "Do you know what''s the biggest mistake you''ve made?"


    Hearing Zhou Bao pose such a question to him as if it were a joke, Yu Taixu felt his heart dropping into his stomach, and he asked subconsciously, "What is it?"


    "It''s that you failed to fully finish the combination between Pool of Thunder Tribulation and Great Constellation Palace in time!" Zhou Bao grinned. All of a sudden, his expression altered and he started shouting, "Black Pearl, crash it!"


    "Boom!"


    As Zhou Bao''s cry rang out, the Great Constellation Palace gave a big shudder and started to vibrate. A titanic warship cut through the Star Macro World of the Great Constellation Palace and emerged inside the Great Constellation Palace.


    "This is...a Supreme Fairy Weapon...It was you!"


    At the sight of this warship, Yu Taixu''s face went wild with fury. He abruptly pointed a finger at Zhou Bao.


    "Clap,clap,clap..."


    "Boom, boom, boom..."


    Before Yu Taixu''s voice faded, the Black Crystal which was controlling the Great Constellation Palace shattered into pieces.


    After the first one, there came the second one, the third one, the fourth one...


    The main body of the Great Constellation Palace started caving in, started falling off in pieces.


    The Azure Big World and the Star Macro World collided without anything to cushion the impact.


    The two completed macro worlds and their completed World Laws collided violently. Now, Zhou Bao disappeared from the Great Constellation Palace and reappeared in the Sea of Divine Power within the Azure Big World.


    In the Sea of Divine Power, the Wheel of Time was swirling, emitting fits of the complex power of time. It then began to attack the entire Star Macro World. Meanwhile, at the deepest bottom of the Sea of Divine Power, the Jade Plate of Fate started dispersing scattered light, which traveled through numerous space-times and landed in the Star Macro World.


    The Star Macro World started to collapse!


    Yu Taixu''s face revealed a sense of desperation.


    The Great Constellation Palace was battling against the Black Pearl!


    One Supreme Fairy Weapon was attacking another Supreme Fairy Weapon!


    But just in three seconds, the Great Constellation Palace was completely defeated!

 651 The Great Time-elapsing Millstone, Refining Yu Taixu

    Zhou Bao was a very cautious person. His caution had reached a point were, so to speak, had turned to monumental cowardice when it came to his life.


    Thus, he would never joke about his own life. When he found that the Space Ramparts in the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode were so tight that even those who knew the Divine Sense of space could not easily break through space to escape, he came up with the idea of killing Yu Taixu by using the geographical advantage. This idea was, of course, not a whim.


    He had planned countless times in his mind to kill Yu Taixu. He had thought about all the factors and variables, but had never found a perfect chance to kill him.


    The Thunder Emperor''s touring abode gave him a chance, so he acted immediately. However, it was only a test, and instead of revealing his bluff, he put out many decoys, including his Fiery Eyes.


    No one knew the Fiery Eyes better than Yu Taixu did, and knew its horror better. Therefore, as Zhou Bao exposed them to him, he subconsciously believed that the Fiery Eyes were Zhou Bao''s trump card and that all because of the Fiery Eyes, Zhou Bao''s strength improved rapidly in a short time.


    In fact, after Zhou Bao exposed his Fiery Eyes, Yu Taixu was really impressed by them.


    However, Zhou Bao had not expected Yu Taixu would be so afraid of the Fiery Eyes as he promptly launched the Great Constellation Palace to suppress Zhou Bao and Administrator Zhang, leaving no room for the Fiery Eyes to struggle. This depressed Zhou Bao a lot.


    Zhou Bao could destroy the Great Constellation Palace with his Supreme Fairy Weapon, but he chose not to. The appearance of the palace gave Zhou Bao a chance to watch Yu Taixu fight. In the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, he was uncompetitive, compared to many of the giants that had survived from antiquity times, but with the Great Constellation Palace, things were different.


    It was a Supreme Fairy Weapon. Technically, it was impossible for it to appear ostentatiously in the endless void of the Heaven Realm World. However, the fact that the macro world of stars in it was a broken macro world, even though still complete, its power was no match for a real macro world, only a bit more advanced than the Highest Heaven world in the Highest Heaven Celestial Device. Hence, it could stay for a long time in the endless void of the Heaven Realm World, and helped him to get through the difficulties and obstacles on the road, find the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, and fight with the tribulation, Wugu Hou and even the Sea Emperor, the former Vast Sea Emperor.


    Zhou Bao was greatly delighted to see all this.


    Things exceeded his expectation, but more smoothly than he had guessed. The whole process seemed to be specially designed for Zhou Bao. After discovering the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, the Great Constellation Palace experienced three battles, each of which severely weakened its power. When the Great Constellation Palace rushed into the void, its power was almost exhausted and on the verge of collapse, which gave Zhou Bao a chance.


    During that time, Zhou Bao rushed out to kick Yu Taixu in order to test whether he still had some trick up his sleeve. However, Yu Taixu did not need any other bluff in the Great Constellation Palace, which was out of Zhou Bao''s reckoning. When he thought it over, he felt it was reasonable. After all, there was no weapon more powerful than the Supreme Fairy Weapon. Zhou Bao was so confident and unbridled also because he had a Supreme Fairy Weapon of his own.


    As for Yu Taixu''s Heavenly Magic Eye, he exposed it perhaps because forced by Zhou Bao he had no way out, and his Great Constellation Palace was seriously damaged. As a fairy weapon, it was not complete, or not yet fully refined. How could the supposedly indestructible Eternal Eyes be refined so easily?


    Zhou Bao could break the power of the Heavenly Magic Eye with either his Mysterious Divine Light of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan or the Frost Giant''s Icy Divine Light as they were not inferior at all to the Heavenly Magic Eye.


    When Yu Taixu launched his Heavenly Magic Eye, Zhou Bao knew that he was at his wit''s end. Now that Yu Taixu had shown all his cards, Zhou Bao believed that he had no need to hide his own trump card. Furthermore, God knew what would happen if the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and the Great Constellation Palace were fully united. Zhou Bao never wanted to encounter that accident again, so he did not hesitate to launch his Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    This was when the Great Constellation Palace was at its weakest, in both defensive power and attack force. Besides, Yu Taixu put all his energy into the fight against Zhou Bao inside the Great Constellation Palace, never thinking of the sudden attack from outside. So many factors together led to Yu Taixu''s complete defeat.


    It was a debacle, a debacle that left him doomed eternally!


    Rumbling, rumbling, rumbling, rumbling!!!


    The incessant explosions reverberated through the surrounding space. The Great Constellation Palace had completely collapsed. Yu Taixu''s mouth dropped open and his face was covered with golden red.


    All this gold red stuff was the blood oozing from his pores. Yu Taixu was not just bleeding from all the Seven Apertures of his head but from every pore of his body. The blood of the Lord of Heaven should be gold, but now, it had slowly become red, which meant that his life was passing, not only physically, but also spiritually.


    "A Supreme Fairy Weapon, a Supreme Fairy Weapon, it is a Supreme Fairy Weapon. You, it was you that day¡ª!"


    He suddenly pointed at Zhou Bao and screamed, as if he was having a nervous breakdown.


    "Yes, it was me, of course. Otherwise, do you think there will be such a coincidence?" Zhou Bao sneered, "And do you feel familiar with the macro world in my Black Pearl?"


    "The Azure Heaven?"


    "Yes, it was the Azure Heaven, but it is the Azure Big World now. Divine Wind Palace wants to seize the Azure Heaven, but you didn''t expect that it would fall into my hands, did you?"


    "Then..."


    "I killed Yu Taicang, and I took the Time-fixing Plate and the copy of the Golden Book of Fate. And thank you, if it weren''t for these two things, my Azure Big World wouldn''t be so complete, and my Black Pearl wouldn''t be so powerful!" Zhou Bao smiled and continued, "I''m really sorry to have ruined all your plans!"


    "I''ll kill you!!!" Yu Taixu finally broke down completely, screaming and running toward Zhou Bao.


    Swish!!!


    An azure light flashed and fell, sealing Yu Taixu firmly inside.


    "Does lord Yu still want to play tricks with me at this point?" Zhou Bao sneered again, "Learn from the past, I won''t give you any chance to turn over!"


    Yu Taixu''s expression had already become fixed, rigid, with his mouth slightly open, seeming to want to say something. And his powerful divine thoughts were waving as if he tried to express something to Zhou Bao. However, all these were sealed in the azure light column. Then, Zhou Bao pointed to the azure light column, and a shadow of the Wheel of Time appeared in it, spinning rapidly.


    The Wheel of Time turned faster and faster and Yu Taixu changed more and more inside the column. As an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven and the lord of Divine Wind Palace, he mastered numerous secret methods that had made his life far longer than that of an ordinary Lord of Heaven.


    Yu Taixu looked like a dignified man in his thirties, but slowly he looked like forty, then fifty. He aged at a rate visible to the naked eye. An hour later, he had become a man of seventy or eighty, with white hair, withered skin, and dull eyes.


    "The lord of Divine Wind Palace is really equal to his reputation. It''s been 320,000 years, and you''re still alive! Wheel of Time, speed up!" As Zhou Bao saw Yu Taixu''s change, his eyes became colder and colder, and once again he moved the Wheel of Time.


    Boom!!!


    Then, 15 minutes later, Yu Taixu''s body had completely decayed and had lost all breath of life.


    "Keep on!!!" Zhou Bao was unmoved.


    "Zhou Bao¡ª!" Suddenly, a strong spirit wave came out of the cyan light column. And Yu Taixu, who seemed to have lost his life, fiercely opened his eyes, glaring at Zhou Bao with hatred.


    "I told you I wouldn''t give you any chance. Of course, I''ll kill you in the most reliable way!" Zhou Bao laughed grimly.


    The cyan light column trembled violently, seeming to be squeezed from within by a great force.


    "Are you putting up your deathbed struggle? It''s no use. Even if the Wheel of Time is destroyed here, I will kill you by consuming your life!" Zhou Bao gave Yu Taixu a sinister smile and suddenly pointed to the cyan light column. Then the column became instantly stable.


    "No¡ª!"


    However, an unwilling idea suddenly burst out of the light column, directly breaking the stabilized light pillar. At the same time, Yu Taixu''s body had completely aged and broken apart, shattering the column.


    Then, seven rays of light shot from his body in all directions.


    "Haha, I knew you''d do this, but it''s no use!" Zhou Bao laughed loudly. Then a large black hand formed out of thin air, covering the space where the original light column was, and two shadows of the Wheel of Time appeared. The bottom one was motionless, while the top wheel was spinning at top speed, like a huge milestone.


    "This is my ultimate weapon, Yu Taixu. Great Time-elapsing Millstone, kill his spirit!!"


    "Zhou Bao, you''ll die¡ª!!!"


    His last spirit wave suddenly stopped. The spirit of the lord of Divine Wind Palace Yu Taixu finally died.


    "1.73 million years! Gosh, he was just a Lord of Heaven. How could he have such a long life?"


    "Longevity-maintaining Technique, he had actually practiced the Longevity-maintaining Technique!!"

 652 Too Great Benefits

    The Longevity-maintaining Technique.


    Among the 3,000 Great Ways, it was one of the most mysterious ones, and abreast of the Great Way of Heavens and Realms. One was the Way of Time and the other was the Way of Space.


    The Longevity-maintaining Technique had been lost since antiquity times. Unexpectedly, Yu Taixu got it and had practiced with it to the Basic level.


    A life of 1.73 million years!


    The thought of it made Zhou Bao feel ashamed, while others would feel horrible.


    Yu Taixu''s 1.73 million years of life had been consumed by Zhou Bao in only four hours. In particular, the Great Time-elapsing Millstone that Zhou Bao launched at the last moment accelerated time to an incredible degree, wiping out all his years of life in an instant. Although everyone knew that this method was only suitable for use in the Azure Big World if someone was really suppressed by the Supreme Fairy Weapon, who could survive?


    "Mr. Feng IX, are you sure it is the Longevity-maintaining Technique?"


    "Yes, of course, or else he could not have such a long life, nor could he have withstood the passage of time!" Mr. Feng IX sighed and looked at Zhou Bao with a complicated look, and then he continued, "but what surprises me most is you!"


    "Me? Heehee, I just keep trying to live longer. This is not surprising!" Zhou Bao replied with a smile, looking up and pointing to the rays of lights that burst from Yu Taixu''s body. Then a green cloud swept these lights into the Azure Big World. All of them were celestial devices, including fairy weapons, in Yu Taixu''s Self-world.


    There were not many fairy weapons, and the few were not even rare. The sanguine Heavenly Magic Eye was the one Yu Taixu had used before, and everything else were celestial devices. However, in the identity of Yu Taixu, the Pure Yang Celestial Devices collected in his Self-world were certainly superb, and there were even a few Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, but Zhou Bao no longer considered them precious.


    "When I go back, I''ll give these weapons to my subordinates. And bring them to the Azure Big World to practice. Then a few hundred years later, there will be dozens of Individual Immortals or even Genuine Immortals. In terms of the resources in the Azure Big World, this is not difficult!" Zhou Bao thought.


    At this point, the Great Constellation Palace collapsed under the impact of the Black Pearl, and debris began to fall around. Soon, the scattered trend became regular and began to merge with the Black Pearl, further solidifying and strengthening it. At the same time, the Dharma of the macro world of stars had been completely broken and absorbed by the Azure Big World. The light of the Jade Plate of Fate Jade had been like a huge sun, suspended in the Azure Big World, and under its influence, the originally azure sky in the Azure Heaven began to flash starlight, and the essential light of countless stars started to merge in the Divine Energy of the Azure Clouds.


    Various living creatures in the Azure Spirit Sea seemed to have sensed the more and more powerful spiritual qi in the Azure Heaven, jumping out and absorbing the rare Essential Light of the stars.


    "Administrator Zhang has been trapped for a long time. When are you going to let him out?"


    "Go back first!" Zhou Bao lightly answered. Regardless of the integration of the Azure Big World and the macro world of stars, he returned to the main hall of the Black Pearl. The device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was so tightly bound by a dark green light that he could not break free.


    By the time Zhou Bao''s Black Pearl hit the Great Constellation Palace, the interior of the Palace had already been seriously damaged, and the fusion of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was at a standstill and not complete. So after the Great Constellation Palace was destroyed, the Black Pearl cloaked the star world, also bringing the Pool of Thunder Tribulation into it. But apparently, the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was not willing to cooperate with Zhou Bao. He launched the black lightning, wrapped himself in layers, fighting the pressure from the Black Pearl.


    "You''re wasting your time. You have to give in, or I will refine you!" Watching him struggle to resist, Zhou Bao looked calm, but his tone was showing a trace of disdain. "I need the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, not its device spirit!"


    "How dare you! Do you think you can control the Pool of Thunder Tribulation without my consent? And without my help, would you be able to integrate it? You''re too naive!"


    "The naive one is you, device spirit. Do you think you can control everything of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation just by being the device spirit? Do you think you can stand up to my Black Pearl?"


    "Hahaha, boy, do you think the Supreme Fairy Weapon can really suppress the Heavenly Fairy Weapon? The Supreme Fairy Weapon just has one more macro world than the Heavenly Fairy Weapon. Your macro world is complete, but it is delusional to suppress me. Mysterious Thunder Realm-breaking Axe, bombard!"


    Wham, wham, wham¡ª


    A burst of black lightning flashed and formed a black lightning axe, then splitting the suppression of the Azure Big World. He turned into a black streamer and rushed out.


    "Can you escape? Do you really think mine is a common Supreme Fairy Weapon?" Zhou Bao looked at the device spirit with a sneer on his face. As the black streamer flashed violently and was about to burst through the hollow, a streak of colorful brilliance suddenly enveloped him.


    Not knowing what that was, the device spirit launched his Mysterious Thunder Realm-breaking Axe again, trying to break it.


    Boom!!!


    The Axe unexpectedly disappeared without a sound after hitting the colorful brilliance doing nothing to it.


    "No way!"


    Seeing this weird situation, the device spirit cried out, his voice full of disbelief.


    "It is true. I think you''ve heard of the Ancient Sacred City?"


    "Ancient Sacred City? Impossible!" The device spirit did not show his feelings a lot, but after hearing "Ancient Sacred City", he finally let out a strange cry.


    "Of course it''s impossible. But I got fragments of the Ancient Sacred City, and have fused them with my Black Pearl! You''re a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, but I don''t think you''re that high level. Do you think you can break through my Azure Big World?"


    "You have fused fragments of the Ancient Sacred City!" The device spirit was dumbfounded, and after a long time, he sighed and said, "Well, what do you want me to do?"


    "The answer is obvious. As you can see, my Supreme Fairy Weapon, though has a complete macro world and the fragments of the Ancient Sacred City, lacks a real energy source. What I want you to do is what you did to the Great Constellation Palace!"


    "Since your Supreme Fairy Weapon has fused with the fragments of the Ancient Sacred City, even if it were fully integrated with the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, it would not be able to exert all its power, but could only play one-ninth of it!" The device spirit''s flickering eyes spluttered as if he had thought of something. Then he continued, "To exert all its power, you have to gather nine Pools of Thunder Tribulation. Nine combined to form a Unified Formation. So that it can be really driven, and exert incredible power!"


    "I do not need to use all of its power now. One-ninth is fine I guess. When necessary, I will drive it with the power of the Azure Big World." Zhou Bao said faintly, "So, will you drive my Supreme Fairy Weapon?"


    "Your Supreme Fairy Weapon has fused with the fragments of the Ancient Sacred City. My resistance is useless!" The device spirit said helplessly.


    "Good!" Zhou Bao smiled and pointed to the colorful brilliance. It instantly flashed and disappeared, letting the device spirit free.


    He made no attempt to escape this time. Instead, he obediently manipulated the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and entered the Black Pearl.


    Boom!!!


    As soon as it returned to its position, Zhou Bao felt a huge, unimaginable force flowing through the Black Pearl. The Black Pearl''s body began to shake slightly, and the talismans on the outer wall gradually lit up. Supported by the massive energy of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, the speed of its fusion and absorption of the Great Constellation Palace and the macro world of stars significantly increased.


    "Is destruction and creation the essence of thunderbolt?"


    Due to the combination of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and the Black Pearl, Zhou Bao sensed the Pool''s enormous power and the secret of it.


    The thunderbolt represented not only destruction but creation. Innumerable forces were annihilated, and at the same time, countless forces were born in the depth of the Pool. These forces included energy as well as living creatures.


    Whirring, whirring, whirring¡ª


    When the Pool and the Black Pearl fully fused, dozens of dark shadows rushed out of the Pool and knelt in front of Zhou Bao. Their divine thoughts of faithfulness came to Zhou Bao''s spirit.


    "Thunder Gods?"Zhou Bao was startled. These kneeling people were Thunder Gods in the Thunder Sea, and each of them had the cultivation of a Human Immortal. The first three were unfathomable. As Zhou Bao stood in front of them, his heart beat faster. In fact, they were the Thunder Gods that Yu Taixu and others had met in the Thunder Sea. The first three Thunder Gods had the cultivation of Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint and Five Qis Collecting in Mind.


    "They''re all raised by the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. They are, so to speak, appendages of it. I was one of them. Now that you''ve taken the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, you''ve taken them!"


    "Oh, I see!" Zhou Bao was totally tongue-tied. For a moment, he didn''t know what to say.


    "Then the benefits seem too great!!!"

 653 The Void Immortal Realm

    The benefits were so great that Zhou Bao didn''t know what to do for a while.


    It was already really good that his Supreme Fairy Weapon had found a new powerful energy to support it, but getting dozens of Thunder Gods at the Realm of Human Immortal was actually an incredible benefit.


    Now, all those Human Immortals and those Demonic Immortals in the Azure Big World all surrendered to him. Zhou Bao suddenly found that his own strength seemed to have exceeded the Four Eastern Regions, even the biggest sects of the Seven-deity Regions, and was even more powerful than their joint strength.


    There were at most a few Human Immortals standing behind those super sects, but suddenly he had dozens of them. It was almost like a joke.


    "Mr. Feng IX, what if I go back now and destroy Divine Wind Palace?"


    Looking at the dozens of Human Immortals kneeling in front of Zhou Bao, Mr. Feng IX suddenly swallowed, pressing down the impulse of nodding his head. He answered, "It''s not a good idea. You have enough strength now, but lack accumulation. Elimination of Divine Wind Palace will cause a series of chain reactions. Besides, these Thunder Gods are strong, but they''d better not show up. Otherwise, the Void Thunder Tribulation alone will be enough for them to suffer!"


    "Void Thunder Tribulation? Are you kidding? They are Thunder Gods!"


    "So what? You can ask them if they can leave the Pool of Thunder Tribulation." Shaking his head, Mr. Feng IX continued, "It isn''t antiquity times, and you aren''t the Thunder Emperor. With so many Human Immortals suddenly appearing, the balance of the whole Heaven Realm could be broken really quickly, which is not what the Void Immortal Realm would like to see, so¡ª!"


    "Void Immortal Realm? Does the Immortal Realm really exist?"


    "Yes, sure. I wouldn''t have said that to you otherwise!" Mr. Feng IX said, "If you take these Thunder Gods back, you will be able to unify the Seven-deity Regions. But then you must suffer the wrath of the Void Immortal Realm, which you cannot bear!"


    "Void Immortal Realm, I thought it only existed in the legends. Does it really interfere in the affairs of the Seven-deity Regions?"


    "Hum, the Void Immortal Realm has indeed been absent for millions of years, but don''t think of it as just a decoration. Don''t forget, to achieve the Immortal Karma Ranka, practitioners must be baptized by the Thunder Tribulation, and at the same time, they must receive the tendon washing and marrow striking from the Divine Qi of the Immortal Realm. The Divine Qi is seeped out of the Void Immortal Realm. You know, in the vast world, only the Immortal Realm owns the Divine Qi. The Sacred Roots that your wife owns are a special case!"


    "How do you know it?" Mr. Feng IX''s words shocked Zhou Bao.


    "Immortal Palace is the most powerful sect in the Central Mainland Region, after all. Not many things can be hidden from us. It''s just that we don''t care about it!" Mr. Feng IX smiled. At this time he was no longer so worried, and he appreciated Zhou Bao more and more. "In a few years, this guy quietly overturned Divine Wind Palace." Mr. Feng IX thought with awe.


    Zhou Bao had truly overturned Divine Wind Palace. He had killed dozens of Venerables and two Lords of Heaven, one of whom was even the lord of Divine Wind Palace. Besides, he took several fairy weapons from Divine Wind Palace, and destroyed and plundered a Supreme Fairy Weapon. Mr. Feng IX did not know the secret weapons of Divine Wind Palace, but he knew the ones Immortal Palace had, and if Zhou Bao had dealt with them the same way he had with Divine Wind Palace, Immortal Palace would have been powerless to resist. However, Divine Wind Palace might be stronger than Immortal Palace, but it was limited. Otherwise, they would have eliminated the other Four Great Sects. Therefore, Divine Wind Palace would never be stronger than the other Four Great Sects.


    What did this mean?


    This meant that the Four Great Sects that had been suppressed for tens of thousands of years were about to turn over. If the Four Great Sects were more aggressive, the five biggest sects in the Four Eastern Regions were likely to become the Four Great Sects. This was an ideal state. No one knew better than Mr. Feng IX that it was not easy to break the habit of tolerance after tens of thousands of years of repression.


    But in any case, Mr. Feng IX had to admit that the supremacy of Divine Wind Palace in the Four Eastern Regions had completely disappeared after Yu Taixu died. From now on, Divine Wind Palace was no longer the overlord of the Four Eastern Regions!


    How could he not thank Zhou Bao, who created the situation, for the tens of thousands of years of stress that suddenly and eerily had become nothing? But now Zhou Bao seemed a little confused about what was going on, so he had to warn him so he didn''t do something stupid.


    "Have you ever had contact with the Void Immortal Realm?"


    "I don''t know. Although I''m the Highest Elder of Immortal Palace, I have not yet reached the level of contact with the Void Immortal Realm. However, I''m sure that Divine Wind Palace has contact with them, and even has received their will. Or else, they could not have been so accurate to the development direction of the whole Heaven Realm, and suppressed our Four Great Sects!"


    "The Immortal Realm does not interfere much in the affairs of the world, does it?"


    "Of course not. They don''t care about anything except the cultivation of Human Immortals. In antiquity times, even the common Thunder Tribulation was managed by the Thunder Emperor of the Heaven Realm!" At this point, Mr. Feng IX thought something, and sighed, "At that time, the Heaven Realm existed as an extension of the Immortal Realm, but since the tribulation of antiquity times, the Immortal Realm and the Heaven Realm basically cut off contact. Therefore, the spiritual qi here was constantly disappearing, and it was becoming less and less suitable for practice. In the end it became no different from the other macro worlds, and even worse than some other powerful ones."


    "In other words, as long as these Thunder Gods are not exposed, the Immortal Realm won''t care about me, right?"


    "The Immortal Realm certainly won''t care about you, unless your strength has reached the Realm of Human Immortal. But even if your strength ever reaches that realm, as long as you do not leave the Heaven Realm, the Immortal Realm will not trouble you. However, Thunder Gods are not fit for this rule. They are the powerful beings born out of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Their presence in any macro world will trigger the telepathy of the Immortal Realm, which will lead to the Void Thunder Tribulation."


    "Void Thunder Tribulation!" As Zhou Bao looked at the kneeling Thunder Gods and then associated with the Void Thunder Tribulation, his face was gloomy. A feeling of depression hit him really hard.


    "Well, it doesn''t matter even if they cannot show up. At least you''re way ahead of our big sects. Have you ever seen a Human Immortals easily leave their sect? Even in their own macro world, they may inadvertently cause a Void Thunder Tribulation. You may as well run your Wuyang Region as a sect. With your Supreme Fairy Weapon, who would dare to provoke it. I think in a few years, it will become the biggest sect of the Four Eastern Regions, no, the Seven-deity Regions!"


    "My way isn''t the Way of the Emperor. I''m not that ambitious!" Zhou Bao shook his head and said, "I have no interest in dominion or slavery. I just want to enhance my strength and extend my life!" Then he looked at Mr. Feng IX. "I''m interested in the Longevity-maintaining Technique!"


    "The Longevity-maintaining Technique is a branch of the Way of Time, which can slow down the rate of aging and greatly extend life, but I think it is of little use to you!"


    "Why?"


    "Your cultivation follows the path of the ancient Powerful Divines. After becoming an Individual Immortal, you''ll capture the spirit of the Primordial Fierce Beast into a Genuine Immortal. The Primordial Fierce Beast lives millions of times longer than a human. It''s no worse than the practice of the Longevity-maintaining Technique. The Longevity-maintaining Technique also has a strong effect on Primordial Fierce Beasts, but you should know that there will be a tribulation between the heaven and the earth at regular intervals. Before the tribulation, strength will be everything. If you only practice the Longevity-maintaining Technique but ignore the practice of strength, you will lose the gain in the end, and may even die in the tribulation."


    Feng IX''s blunt words were patient admonition. Zhou Bao paused and gave a wry smile. He said, "You''re right, thank you!"


    "You don''t have to thank me. On the contrary, the several big sects in the Four Eastern Regions should thank you!" Mr. Feng IX faintly said, "You killed Yu Taixu, have broken the balance of the entire Seven-deity Regions. When we go back, there will be a new struggle for interests. And you''re entitled to a whole bunch of benefits!"


    "I don''t have any other ideas. The only thing I have to do is to drive the influence of Divine Wind Palace completely out of the Central Mainland Region. I''m not ready to show up yet. There should be no problem with that, right?"


    "No, of course not!" Feng IX smiled, "You''re so powerful, but you''re so careful!"


    "Originally I wanted to show off, but after you said there was the Void Immortal Realm, I lost interest. Mr. Feng IX, do you think the Void Immortal Realm will know I killed Yu Taixu?"


    "It''s hard to say. Although it has not been concerned about these type of things for centuries, Yu Taixu was the lord of Divine Wind Palace with a strong and special fate. His death is bound to cause great shock. But you killed him in the Supreme Fairy Weapon, which has been infused with fragments of the Ancient Sacred City. I don''t think the Immortal Realm would know you did it!"


    "What do you know about the Ancient Sacred City, Mr. Feng IX?"


    "Not much, in ancient times, there were three Sacred Cities, the Origin Sacred City, the Creation Sacred City and the End Sacred City. I only know these three names." Mr. Feng IX smiled bitterly and went on, "And I don''t know much about the Void Immortal Realm either. If you want to know about them, I suggest you improve your cultivation quickly. When you break through the Realm of Ghost Immortal and reach the Realm of True Immortality, you will have the opportunity to receive the will from the Void Immortal Realm!"

 654 The Upheaval Started in Divine Wind Palace

    To receive the will from the Void Immortal Realm!


    Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes slightly, and said with a smile, "Does that mean a Genuine Immortal is able to know the Immortal Realm?"


    "Not knowing, but a will, the higher your cultivation is, the more wills you will receive. But these wills are mostly some understanding and perception of the Dharma of Great Way of Heaven and Earth, rather than the understanding of the Void Immortal Realm."


    "How about the Human Immortal?"


    "Maybe they know more than Genuine Immortals do, but I don''t know exactly. Don''t you have many Human Immortal subordinates now? Why don''t you ask them?"


    Then Zhou Bao looked at the Thunder Gods, with an inquisitive look in his eyes.


    "Master, we''re living creatures born out of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Our power comes from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and what we can communicate is not the Void Immortal Realm, but the Thunder Tribulation Heaven of the Thunder Emperor." The device spirit answered, "We accept power, the feelings and the will of the Principle of Great Ways from the Thunder Tribulation Heaven, and have nothing to do with the Void Immortal Realm!"


    "Well, do you know where the Thunder Tribulation Heaven is?"


    Greed had no limits. Zhou Bao had just killed Yu Taixu, fused the Great Constellation Palace and gotten the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Now he took considerable interest in the Thunder Tribulation Heaven. How greedy he was!


    The device spirit was speechless for a moment. Then he answered truthfully, "Master, the Thunder Tribulation Heaven is the biggest secret of the Thunder Emperor. No one ever knows where it is, and we can only receive some wills from the unseen!"


    Zhou Bao was disappointed, but that was to be expected. As Mr. Feng IX said, after becoming a Genuine Immortal, separated from the three realms and the five elements, one would receive the will from the Void Immortal Realm. But obviously, even if you could accept the so-called will, you still could not figure out where the Void Immortal Realm was.


    Afterward, Zhou Bao asked the device spirit and these Thunder Gods to go back to the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Then as he looked up, he found out that his Black Pearl had basically digested the Great Constellation Palace, and a smile of true satisfaction flashed across his face.


    "Mr. Feng IX, shall we go back now?"


    "Yes, Yu Taixu''s death could not be concealed from the others. I guess now the Four Eastern Regions is shocked. We''d better go back as soon as possible and deal with the matter!"


    "Eh, will they know so soon?"


    "Certainly, Yu Taixu was the lord of Divine Wind Palace. It can be said that his life and death are related to the interests of the whole Four Eastern Regions. Besides, they have the Golden Book of Fate¡ª!" Then he gave Zhou Bao a complicated look. "Yu Taixu was one of the masters of the Golden Book of Fate. You could have never killed him if he had not entered the hollow by mistake. His Genuine Spirit in the Golden Book of Fate should have been taken out."


    "Does his Genuine Spirit know everything that had happened to Yu Taixu?"


    "It is certainly not known now. But the Golden Book of Fate is too mysterious. His Genuine Spirit contains all his memories and perceptions. Once he grows up, he will gradually get all the memories from Yu Taixu''s birth to death. And the higher his cultivation, the clearer the memory."


    "Humph, that will depend on whether he can grow up!" The smile on Zhou Bao''s face became even crueler. "Is there any way to find him?"


    "Out of the question. There is no way to find the reincarnation of the Genuine Spirit. The only way is to wait for him to grow up, restore a bit of memory, and connect with Divine Wind Palace."


    "Then there''s no need to worry. Who knows when he will really grow up. I think we won''t have to worry about Divine Wind Palace by then!"


    "We don''t have to worry about them already!" Mr. Feng IX said, "Let''s go back, first to Desolate Island. I have to think about how to explain it. After all, Yu Taixu entered the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode with me!"


    "Just fasten the responsibility on the mysterious Supreme Fairy Weapon. Anyway, Divine Wind Palace should know you are unable to kill Yu Taixu."


    "I hope so!" Mr. Feng IX sighed helplessly, "Divine Wind Palace was used to overbearing. Now it is devastated, but the members'' temper could not be changed so quickly. In the end, it is likely that Immortal Palace would have to sort this out. As the Highest Elder of Immortal Palace, Mr. Feng IX did not want to have a showdown with Divine Wind Palace so soon.


    With Zhou Bao''s Black Pearl and Great Way of Heavens and Realms, the return trip was smooth. In a matter of seconds, the Black Pearl appeared in the hollow beyond the Heaven Realm. After putting away the Black Pearl, Zhou Bao and Mr. Feng IX launched the Great Way of Heavens and Realms, forced their way into the Heaven Realm and appeared near Desolate Island.


    That time, the Desolate Island was not like a mess anymore, but more like a ruin. The huge island had been blasted to an area of almost 250 meters radius. The sea around the island was covered with dead fish, dead shrimp and dead people. A strong smell of corpses hung over the sea. Clouds blackened the sky, and the bitter wind was blowing. The whole island was enveloped in a solemn and somber atmosphere.


    "Damn it, now you bastards are satisfied! My Desolate Island is ruined, and my Crystal Palace is half destroyed. Damn it, you bastards, if you don''t pay for my loss, you will never leave my Desolate Sea Area!"


    The sea echoed with Young Master An''s angry sound.


    "The guy seems to have lost a lot!" Zhou Bao laughed at Young Master An''s words, but he had no intention of compensating him. He arched his hands towards Mr. Feng IX before he turned into a streamer and shot at an island ten thousand kilometers away from Desolate Island. The island was now a staging post into the Desolate Sea Area; Countless practitioners and Demonic Immortals who came back from the defeat of Desolate Island rested on this island. Thus, Zhou Bao''s presence was inconspicuous.


    "Where is this? Where am I?" In a secluded place, Zhou Bao waved the forty-nine formation flags, setting the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, hiding in a mysterious white mist, then he released Administrator Zhang.


    As soon as Administrator Zhang regained consciousness, he sat up, his eyes blazing, but his tone was tense.


    "Don''t worry, Yu Taixu is dead, and you''re safe now!"


    "Yu Taixu is dead? I''m safe. Did you save me?"


    "We''re both lucky!" Zhou Bao answered him with a smile, "Yu Taixu found the Pool of Thunder Tribulation but encountered the sealed Primordial Demon in it. Then he was attacked and defeated by your Sea Emperor and had to enter the hollow where he ran into another Supreme Fairy Weapon. Afterward, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was taken, and he was killed." In a few words, Zhou Bao told Administrator Zhang what had happened. The story was adapted as Zhou Bao had arranged with Mr. Feng IX. It was mostly true. However, Zhou Bao cheated him that the Supreme Fairy Weapon belonged to a mysterious man, who smashed the Great Constellation Palace with his Black Pearl, and that the macro world of stars was destroyed and absorbed and Zhou Bao was free from restrictions in time and brought him out.


    Administrator Zhang was dubious about what Zhou Bao said. According to Zhou Bao, although he was restrained, he never lost consciousness and even knew clearly what happened to Yu Taixu, which Administrator Zhang thought was quite incredible.


    To all his doubts, Zhou Bao only smiled without saying anything. When facing people like Administrator Zhang, It was better to maintain a certain sense of mystery instead of being unreserved.


    Anyway, it was true that Zhou Bao saved Administrator Zhang, so he owed Zhou Bao a favor. Besides, he won the Pool of Thunder Tribulation without his help and it was yet another favor. He was bound to return the two of them.


    "I admit my defeat. If you need help in the future, please don''t hesitate to ask me. If you have something to do in the Sea Area, I will do it for you and will never let you down. How about it?"


    "That''s a deal!" Zhou Bao''s smile was like that of a fox who had just stolen a chicken.


    Unsurprisingly, Yu Taixu''s death caused a stir in the Four Eastern Regions and even across the Seven-deity Regions.


    Most eerily, the stir was highly irregular. Actually, Divine Wind Palace was overwhelmed by the too sudden and too unexpected fact. No one could have predicted the death of Yu Taixu. Carrying three fairy weapon, one of which was a Supreme Fairy Weapon, and another one was able to come back alive even to the Void Immortal Realm, not to mention the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. Then why did he die in the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode?


    Yu Taixuan had to be asked about this, and Mr. Feng IX, of course, because Mr. Feng IX was the only one who entered the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode with Yu Taixu.


    Feng IX was prepared and had memorized the whole story he was going to tell thoroughly. This tale omitted the fact that they met Zhou Bao and Administrator Zhang as well as the Black Pearl belonging to Zhou Bao, but everything else was true. It made perfect sense. And what Feng IX said was confirmed by many practitioners who later entered the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. As for the question of why Feng IX came back alive, Feng IX''s answer was more airtight. He said, "It was Yu Taixu who controlled the Great Constellation Palace and was the main target of the enemy. And at that time, the two Supreme Fairy Weapons met. The Great Constellation Palace was damaged, and the Black Pearl was seriously broken. I took the opportunity to escape with my secret methods." As for secret methods, who knew what could they be.


    In this way, Divine Wind Palace obviously could not press Mr. Feng IX further. The upheaval caused by Yu Taixu''s death had already begun inside Divine Wind Palace!

 656 The Fate Creator & Void Immortal Realm

    "Hehehe, you fella, after 10 years of closed-door training you''re still restless!"


    It was drizzling in Wuyang Region. A palace of average size was situated on the main peak of Jilei Mountain. As compared to the Sea-calming Palace, it was much simpler. From the outside, it looked like a giant pavilion. Sitting inside the big hall, the breathtaking view of the surrounding unfolded before one''s eyes.


    "How am I restless? You didn''t expect me to stay in a closed-door training for 10 years, did you?!" Zhou Bao asked between smiles.


    "That makes sense!" Sitting opposite him, Wang She lifted the cup of wine off the table and drank to his heart''s content.


    "Since both of you came to find me together, I assume you guys are prepared!"


    "That''s right, it''s time to undergo the Void Thunder Tribulation!" Child-endowing Buddha nodded his head lightly. "I felt my power will be exceeding its limit soon, now is the best time to undergo the Void Thunder Tribulation. If we delay any longer, my morale will be defeated. By then, I may not be able to go through as many tribulations!"


    "That makes sense!" Zhou Bao nodded. "I did closed-door training in order to stabilize my current phase and train my body to be in the best condition for the Void Thunder Tribulation. I''m not sure why, but I have this hunch that we will not be successful this time!"


    "You also felt it?!"


    "Why, you too?!"


    "No, but someone went to the Bigwheel Temple!" Child-endowing Buddha smiled. "10 days ago, Yu Taixuan from Divine Wind Palace went to the temple, he wanted to join hands with them to defeat you!"


    "Defeat me?!" Zhou Bao''s gaze gave a chilling light. "Why is this happening? Why did he suddenly want to defeat me?!"


    "Although you''ve been quiet this 10 years, Wuyang Region has been developing too quickly and its powers increased tremendously. Look at your subordinates and your influence. Now, other than the five biggest sects, who else in Central Mainland Region is qualified to be your opponent? Even the big sects like Tian Long Taoism and Sect of Flame are not as strong as you. In just a short 10 years, you grew from a small territory to what you have today. Then what about 10 years, 20 years later? How would your Wuyang Region have grown? Besides, you''re too young. Let''s not talk about when you''re 30. Based on your cultivation, you could even live up to tens of thousands of years! With your support, as time passes, there might be another big sect in Central Mainland Region in less than 100 years. This is not good news to us five biggest sects."


    "So you want to get rid of me now?!"


    "Not us, it''s the Divine Wind Palace who has joined hands with the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain and the Youxian Temple from the Three Western Regions. They are preparing to come for you!"


    "What? They even joined hands with the big sects from Three Western Regions?!"


    "Hmph. The few big sects from the 74 Regions have a much more complicated relationship with you. Both Jade Pool and Dragon Thunder Palace have expressed their stance clearly that they do not want to become enemies with you. Everyone knows that us Bigwheel Temple have grudges against your Wuyang Region. That was why he went to find the Bigwheel Temple. He probably thought that even if the temple doesn''t agree to join him, they wouldn''t tell you about his plans. Besides, our relationship with you wasn''t good in the past. As for Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty and Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, both of them more or less have some grudges against you. Of course, they would not be so silly to be played by Divine Wind Palace. The palace sacrificed a lot to bring them on board!"


    "And they wanted to pull you guys on that boat?!"


    "Bigwheel Temple did not agree!" Child-endowing Buddha smiled.


    "Then how would the Divine Wind Palace know that I''m going to undergo Thunder Tribulation?"


    "The necromancers!" Child-endowing Buddha''s expression began to look bad as he spoke. "There are necromancers in Divine Wind Palace. We should have thought of this earlier. Be it Dragon-taming Ruins, or the Infinite Star Sea, there are traces of necromancers in them. It''s just that we haven''t been giving them much attention all along. Now that I think about it, there were many events in Divine Wind Palace that were secretly controlled by the necromancers behind the scenes."


    "Do the necromancers still exist now? Didn''t those bastards all disappeared after the Necromancer''s Tribulation?!"


    "There are some things that cannot be wiped out. These necromancers were actually quite smart to hide in the Divine Wind Palace. Hehe, based on your situation, they can use the Celestial Mystery Skill to calculate the timing and location of you undergoing Thunder Tribulation!"


    "Location... I haven''t chosen the location myself, how would they know?"


    "The necromancers have mystery skills that we cannot understand. Perhaps they really could calculate the location!" Speaking of Celestial Mystery Skill, Child-endowing Buddha gaze upon Zhou Bao became strange. "I received some information from Little Way, it says that you have got something to do with Yu Taixu''s death?!"


    "What?" Zhou Bao looked up instantly and stared at Child-endowing Buddha fiercely. "Who said that?!"


    "I have some ears in Divine Wind Palace. This information was leaked from the highest officials of the palace. You have to know that there is a real Divine Design master in the palace who can accurately calculate any matter!"


    "If this fella is really so accurate, Yu Taixu wouldn''t have died!"


    "Yu Taixu''s status is too precious. Besides, I heard that during those days, the Divine Design was hindered by a mysterious force, hence he was unable to calculate. Yu Taixu''s visit to the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was all because of his huge ego. He thought that he could suppress all things with a Supreme Fairy Weapon. This led to his death eventually. Now, things are different. With Yu Taixu''s failed attempt, you wouldn''t have much chance!"


    "Aye, hear your own words, you''re just exaggerating as if I could really have killed Yu Taixu!" Zhou Bao smiled and continued, "Divine Design master, hmph. Does he think he can randomly give himself a title? We need evidence for matters like this, especially when it is related to the murder of a leader. If they dare to come at me without any evidence, then I''ll kill them all!"


    "What if they have evidence?!"


    "I will still kill them all!" Zhou Bao said calmly, "One can always say something bad about a man and have him killed! Who doesn''t know anything about fake evidence? If they dare to make fake evidence, they''ll die!"


    "Well said, who cares about whether they''re real or fake!" Child-endowing Buddha laughed heartily, "However, we better be careful. These necromancers, especially the Master of Celestial Mystery, are known for their accuracy. If we''re being eyed by them, we have to be extra careful!"


    "Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, Youxian Temple, Divine Wind Palace...these three want to kill me while I undergo the Void Thunder Tribulation. Then let them come, I cannot wait any longer!"


    "Hmph, don''t let your guard down. Let me tell you, there is a high chance that once you chose your location to undergo the tribulation, the Master of Celestial Mystery can calculate it. Don''t look down on him!"


    "Fine, fine, fine, I know. I will never look down on him!" Zhou Bao smiled.


    "Then, have you chosen your location already?!"


    "Not yet!!"


    "No matter what, there is something that I''ve to tell you!" Child-endowing Buddha suddenly said, "Before you undergo the tribulation, its best that you visit Fate Creation Boy!"


    "Fate Creation Boy?!" Zhou Bao''s gaze faltered. He thought of the mysterious character who wore a red bib and resembled a red child. "I still do not know his background!"


    "I am not sure of it, but I have a guess!"


    "What guess?!"


    "He most likely is the device spirit of the Golden Book of Fate!" Child-endowing Buddha spoke wisely, "This is why his words and actions have such a great impact on the whole macro world the Heaven Realm. He is also the clearest about some hidden traps in the Heaven Realm!"


    "The device spirit of Golden Book of Fate? Interesting, but it is not a good thing to be eyed by a guy like him. Why should I go and see him?!"


    "He wants to meet you on Taihua Mountain!" Child-endowing Buddha had a helpless look as he looked at Zhou Bao. "I have been sensed by him. He directly sent me a thought using the power of the Heaven Realm''s Dharma while I was practicing. I cannot resist it!"


    "The Dharma of the Heaven Realm?!" Zhou Bao slightly narrowed his eyebrows. For a guy in control of the Jade Fate of Plate of a macro world, this was not something new. In the Azure Big World, as long as he infused his spirit with the Jade Plate of Fate, he could feel everything that was happening in it. Of course, during that time, Zhou Bao would lose consciousness of himself. It was a very strange feeling. During that time, he could clearly understand his memory and know who he was but he would also be self-doubting in the deepest part of his spirit. He would describe himself as a nouveau riche who had time-traveled here. From time to time, he would even have the urge to be a satirist. This scared Zhou Bao, so much so that he even doubted this to be a sign of mental disorder. Hence, he had only infused once. From then on, he only used the Jade Plate of Fate as a tool.


    That was already enough for Zhou Bao. He did not need to become an all-knowing god, he only needed to be in control of a macro world. As to what happened in the macro world, he would not care about that as long as it did not infringe on his benefits.


    However, precisely because of this nonchalant method, Zhou Bao was unable to fully understand his Jade Plate of Fate. In the macro world of the Heaven Realm, both the Golden Book of Fate and the Jade Plate of Fate were similar. It would not be a bad choice at all to try to understand more about it through Fate Creation Boy.


    Thinking of this, Zhou Bao smiled. "It could work this way too. I also want to pay a visit to this highly mysterious Fate Creation Boy. Although I met him once, that was when my cultivation was still low and I could not see his powers. I hope to be able to do so this time around!"


    "As you wish, as you wish, the Fate Creator of Azure Big World!"


    As Zhou Bao spoke these words, a column of light came out from the hollow. It landed and enveloped him. After which, it disappeared.


    ...


    Taihua Mountain.


    As always, Zhou Bao was wondering around in the endless space-time maze. A bright line shone from the hollow and Zhou Bao remained in a sitting position. As the light shone down, a chair was prepared. Zhou Bao then appeared on the chair in the original sitting position.


    "Fate Creation Boy, senior, you''re really thoughtful!"


    "Fate Creator Zhou Bao of the new macro world the Azure Heaven, you do not need to be polite with me. As a Fate Creator myself too, there is no senior-junior difference between both of us. Our ranks are equal in this holy hall!" The voice of Fate Creation Boy rang gradually beside Zhou Bao''s ears.


    Zhou Bao''s gaze faltered, "I apologize for the stupid question, but what does this Fate Creator rank mean?!"


    "A Fate Creator is the Controller of creation, for example, Your Excellency. Or it can also refer to a spiritual intelligence born of creation, like me. Or it can also refer to those who are unconsciously united with the Great Ways. Just like how the condition Your Excellency was in when you evolved the Azure Big World, these are all Fate Creators. They all have a place in the holy Fate Creation Palace!"


    "What is the Fate Creation Palace?!"


    "After you evolved the Azure Big World, you were entitled to enter the Fate Creation Palace. However, after the Heaven Realm of antiquity times was broken apart, the Fate Creators lost all their respect for it. The control that the palace had also disappeared. Thinking about it, perhaps the palace is already covered in a thick layer of dust?!" Speaking of this, Fate Creation Boy laughed to himself. "But as the 19th Fate Creator and the 6th Controller of fate in the past 1,243,000 years, you need to go on a trip there!"


    "I don''t understand!" Zhou Bao shook his head, "Perhaps I''m too young so I don''t understand some things. What do you mean?!"


    "As I said just now, there are three types of Fate Creators, Controller, guardian, and Listener. Your Excellency is the Controller of fate. I am the device spirit of a Fairy Weapon of Fate, which makes me the guardian of fate. Listeners of fate are those that become one with a Fairy Weapon of Fate!" Fate Creation Boy said, "Young Controller, do you have any more questions?!"


    "I do have many, but I believe that you''ll answer them all for me!"


    "Of course!" Fate Creation Boy smiled, "As a guardian, my mission is to find new Controllers in the world and protect them, we naturally assume the task to guide them the palace!"


    Zhou Bao said nothing but he was very interested in this so-called Fate Creation Palace and this weird encounter.


    "If Your Excellency does not have any other questions, let''s set off!"


    "I''ll listen to a senior!" Zhou Bao said faintly as he stood up.


    "The Fate Creation Palace is situated deep in the hollow. It was the address of the holy city of fate from antiquity times!" Zhou Bao watched as Fate Creation Boy gently lifted his hands. A black hole started spiraling in between his hands. In the blink of an eye, the black hole turned into a big black jade door.


    "Young Controller of fate, please. This is the entrance leading to the Fate Creation Palace, the only remains of the holy city of creation!"


    Zhou Bao felt the ancient spirit from the door and he took a deep breath. He suddenly had a premonition, as if he would face an entirely different world once he stepped in.


    "Immortal Realm? Perhaps this Fate Creation Palace is in the Immortal Realm?!" An eccentric and absurd idea emerged in Zhou Bao''s mind. It immediately disappeared. He did have some theories about the Immortal Realm, but if anyone was to tell him that he could simply take a step and enter that legendary realm, he would find it hard to believe.


    "''The Fate Creation Palace is in the Immortal Realm, so please be mentally prepared!" The voice of Fate Creation Boy rang in Zhou Bao''s ears just as he was about to step in. Zhou Bao halted suddenly and lifted up his head in shock. "What did you say? The Fate Creation Palace is in the Immortal Realm? This black jade door leads to the Immortal Realm?!"


    "What''s so surprising about that? This Immortal Realm was originally the resting place for us Fate Creators. As time passed, it became a world full of competition for selfish desires. But these selfish people will not be able to remove our rights to enter the Immortal Realm!" As Fate Creation Boy spoke, he sounded helpless and angry, but also strongly arrogant.


    Zhou Bao closed his lips tightly and said nothing. Deep down in his heart, he was extremely curious about the title of Fate Creator.


    There was a hall behind the black jade door. The vast hall was filled with Divine Qi.


    Divine Qi!


    This was the pneuma that all practitioners long to have. They could only get some of it when they undergo the Thunder Tribulation and the thunder in the sky connects to the Immortal Realm. This pneuma was used to change the body and strengthen the spirit. However, the Divine Qi in this palace was like air in the Heaven Realm, filling everywhere. Apart from Divine Qi, there was also another pneuma that was even more precious and antique than Divine Qi. By inhaling just a small amount, Zhou Bao could feel his Mysterious Icy Divine Light being ecstatic.


    "A day spent practicing here equates to me practicing for a year in the Immortal Realm, and I can get even more benefits. Is this what Void Immortal Realm is like?!" Feeling how amazing this place was, Zhou Bao''s expression began to fell.


    "This place used to be the highest place of the Void Immortal Realm where many Fate Creators had meetings. Now, it has already been isolated for a very long time!" Looking at the palace, Fate Creation Boy sighed again. "I once saw a countless number of Fate Creators sitting here. We discussed the future of the hollow and the atmosphere was very lively. But in the following 10,000 or 100,000 years, not one Fate Creator was willing to come back." He raised his head and saw Zhou Bao smiling as he absorbed the pneuma. He laughed, "Don''t be so anxious. After you go through the Void Thunder Tribulation, stay here for a few days. This pneuma will be no different to those in the Heaven Realm to you!"


    "I can''t believe that I''m in the Immortal Realm so soon!"


    "Don''t be so happy too early. You''re only here because you''re a new Fate Creator. Your boundary is limited to this Fate Creation Palace. As for other areas in the Void Immortal Realm, you''re forbidden to enter!"


    "Why is that so?!"


    "Because this is the last piece of clean land in the Immortal Realm. This is also the last place where some Fate Creators can exercise their authority!" Fate Creation Boy laughed, "The Immortal Realm has already become a private land belonging to the Listeners. For a Controller like you and a guardian like me, we are no longer allowed to step into the Void Immortal Realm anymore!"


    "Listeners!" A scene of Zhou Bao evolving the Azure Big World flashed in his mind. He could not help but fight a cold war.


    "You''re very lucky, being able to wake up from that kind of situation and return to your own body. But also, unfortunately, you''ve lost your entitlement to enter the Void Immortal Realm forever!"


    "Only Listeners can truly enter the Void Immortal Realm?!"


    "That''s right, only Listeners have the authority!" Fate Creation Boy said, "But you don''t have to worry about it. There is actually nothing much in the Void Immortal Realm. The pneuma here is about the same as in other places around here. You should just stay as long as you want!"


    Zhou Bao shook his head and did not continue the conversation. He looked around and observed the big palace.


    This so-called Fate Creation Palace was very spacious. It was floating in an eerie section of the hollow. Or, it could also be said that it was separated by an eerie section of the hollow. Standing at the top of the palace, Zhou Bao could even see what was going on at the other side. A cloud was hovering above it, giving it a more mysterious vibe.


    "That is the Void Immortal Realm!"


    "This indeed is the Void Immortal Realm, although just a small part of it. However, even those Listeners cannot deny that the palace is not a part of the Immortal Realm anymore!"


    "Those Listeners can also enter the palace?!"


    "Of course, but they''ll definitely not!"


    "Why?!"


    "Because they''re Listeners!" Fate Creation Boy gave a very strange answer. He pointed to the countless number of high back chairs in the spacious palace and said, "Do you see them? Those chairs belong to Fate Creators. Every time a Fate Creator is born, there will be one more chair. Every time a Fate Creator enters eternal sleep, their chair will become dim."


    Zhou Bao looked and saw that it was indeed the case. There were a countless number of grey high-back chairs here in the ginormous palace. They were of different shapes and sizes, but only a minority had some glow in them, perhaps only 3,000.


    The 3,000 macro worlds were less than a tenth of all these chairs, perhaps even less than a twentieth.


    This signified that there were once tens of thousands of macro worlds. However, only 3,000 were left standing today. This also meant that there were no more than 3,000 Listeners in the Immortal Realm now.


    "Why do I feel like I''ve seen this place before? Oh yes, there seemed to be a similar setup the last time I went to the Immortal Palace. What is the relationship between Fate Creation Palace and Immortal Palace? Perhaps the Fate Creation Palace is the starter and also a Fate Creator?!"


    Of course, all these thoughts were just his casual assumptions. At this moment, Fate Creation Boy brought a glowing eerie sapphire high back chair towards him and said, "This is your chair. I brought you here this time to firstly, bring you into the Fate Creation Palace and secondly, to prepare you for your Void Thunder Tribulation. You have to understand that as a Fate Creator, the Void Thunder Tribulation would be different than that for normal people."

 655 Ten Years

    After returning to the Seven-deity Regions, Zhou Bao was not disturbed, not that anyone would dare to do so.


    Other than Mr.Feng IX, no one else knew about their experience in Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. However, Wang She and Child-endowing Buddha both benefitted quite a lot from the journey and went home smiling. Looking at the two''s relationship, they seemed to be much closer after the incident.


    However, Zhou Bao had no idea that the two had gained a huge advantage under the guidance of Child-endowing Buddha during their journey. Could their relationship be bad when everyone had gotten a fairy weapon?


    Hence, upon returning, both quickly started their closed-door training to refine their fairy weapons. Where could they find the time to stir up shit in Seven-deity Regions?


    Zhou Bao did not care about the chaos in the Seven-deity Regions, as he needed time to practice. After gaining the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and strengthening The Black Pearl, he had a deeper understanding of the capabilities and power of the Supreme Fairy Weapon. He also understood several ways of practicing changes, which naturally meant that he had to do closed-door training to secure this foundation and understand his current phase. This was to prepare for future Void Thunder Tribulations.


    He also knew from Mr.Feng IX that it would be best to undergo the Void Thunder Tribulation if he wanted to feel the willpower of the Void Immortal Realm. The power of the Thunder Tribulation was significantly lower in the macro world. At the same time, however, one could only accept the extremely blurry willpower of the Immortal Realm, perhaps even ignore it. This was not what Zhou Bao needed.


    Furthermore, he was not like other people who only underwent the Thunder Tribulation once. He wanted at least six Thunder Tribulations at once and get the Karmic Rank of a Lord of Heaven. That meant that he would face bigger pressure. Even with his current cultivation and capabilities, he did not have enough confidence to undergo them successfully. In fact, if he had not attained the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, he would not have been that confident. The biggest difference between undergoing several Thunder Tribulations all at once from going one at a time was that the former would allow one to feel the continuous willpower of the Immortal Realm, otherwise it would feel discontinued. In the present world, it seemed like not much difference. However, for someone like Zhou Bao who practiced as a Powerful Divine from antiquity times, the change was huge.


    3,000 Great Ways was the willpower of Immortal Realm experienced by the practitioners in the antiquity times who underwent numerous Thunder Tribulations. Initially, the practitioners who underwent Void Thunder Tribulation had felt just minor secrets of the Divine Sense. Once they continuously underwent three Thunder Tribulations, they could feel one of the 3,000 Great Ways. Of course, one would have to undergo the Thunder Tribulations six times consecutively in order to feel the complete 3,000 Great Ways. By going one step further for the seventh time, one would then be able to get a Divine Sense, which would be linked with what he felt earlier. If one managed to undergo the tribulation eight times at once, then he would have to be congratulated for completing all that was necessary to instantly reach the peak of an eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. He could undergo the ninth tribulation anytime, hence securing his Karmic Rank of a Human Immortal.


    Do you want to undergo the Thunder Tribulation nine times in a row to become Human Immortal?


    Sorry, you do not have the chance. Even if you had the capabilities, the Void Thunder Tribulation could only be used for eight times. Even if you wanted to, you would not know where to go.


    This was the benefit of undergoing several Thunder Tribulations at once. If separated, they would not give that many benefits, especially the seventh time. Even if one was able to feel the Divine Sense, it might not be suitable for him. It could even be a trap, causing him to be unable to practice anymore. If one underwent eight Thunder Tribulations at different timings, he would only be a beginner eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven at the end. It would be difficult for him to reach the peak of it. Without thousands, or even millions, of years of practice, it would be impossible to jump from beginner to peak. There was a huge difference between the two ranks.


    Of course, the above-mentioned could only be attained on the basis of accepting the Void Thunder Tribulation. In an independent macro world, even if one underwent the Thunder Tribulation eight, or even eighty times, he would be unable to receive the willpower of the Void Immortal Realm. Also, he would not be able to completely understand any of the 3,000 Great Ways at all.


    Ten years passed gradually. Actually, in the present world, it was ten years. However, for Zhou Bao who was practicing in the Sea of Divine Power, it was 300 years.


    The Wheel of Time could control the flow of the Azure Big World. However, after the Azure Big World received the macro world of stars, its powers increased incredibly. The Principle of Great Ways was one step nearer to completion. Even Zhou Bao could not activate the Wheel of Time as he pleased anymore.


    Now, his limit was adjusting the time ratio with the present world to 30:1. For 10 years that this continued, he would have to stop for a year, that was the limit. If he forcefully activated it further, then the Principle of Great Ways of the entire Azure Big World would be destroyed.


    Although Zhou Bao was in control of the Principle of Great Ways of the Azure Big World, he was unwilling to destroy it. Who was he trying to fool? This stuff belonged to him and his world. It was not worth it to forsake it in exchange for a short duration of time to spare. To a practitioner in the present world, time was never enough. However, for the under-thirty Zhou Bao, time was exactly what he had in excess.


    "Father, you finally came out of your training! Uncle came many times but didn''t manage to see you. He seemed to be in a bad mood!"


    "Don''t bother about him, he''s the Emperor of Great Jin, why is he always coming to my Wuyang Region!?" After going out from his training, Zhou Bao looked at the well-built teen welcoming him and said, "Eggie! It''s only been a few days since we met and your cultivation has improved so much! You''re reaching Level Eight soon!"


    This teenager was his and Yan Yunfei''s son, Zhou Mu, nicknamed Eggie.


    Apparently, Zhou Mu was not very pleased with this nickname. His expression shooked, "Father, I''ve told you many times, don''t call me Eggie, I am already a Level Eight expert. It''s embarrassing!"


    "Hahahaha, why shouldn''t I? What''s wrong with Eggie!" Zhou Bao had a sinister smile plastered on his face. "Where''s Dinosaur? Why can''t I see her?!"


    "Father, don''t forget, sister had already said that if you continue to call her Dinosaur she''ll ignore you!"


    "This little girl, what''s wrong with being called Dinosaur? No one would dare to bully her in the future!"


    "Even if she''s not called Dinosaur, no one would dare to bully her!" Zhou Mu murmured at the side.


    "Why, are you guys dissatisfied with your nicknames!"


    Zhou Mu had nothing to say. Honestly, it was useless talking sense into his legendary-like father with extremely sinister interests. Think about it, a normal father would never name his twin children Dinosaur and Eggie? Together, they sounded like Dinosaur Egg, which was such a joke. However, Zhou Bao went ahead with these nicknames and even called them using these names from young till now.


    When they were young, they did not think about it much. But as they grew older, they started to realize the inappropriateness of their nicknames. However, Zhou Bao, as usual, did not care about their feelings at all.


    Perhaps this was the only resentment the two had against Zhou Bao.


    "Oh, by the way, did anything interesting happen during these few days when I had my closed-door training?!"


    "Nothing interesting, I heard that Lei Xu has succeeded as the Leader of Tian Long Taoism, and Uncle Wang became the top Elder. Also, the Infinite Star Sea is seeping heavily into the Seven-deity Regions these few days. Unknown experts have appeared in many places. Even some Individual Immortals from the few big sects have encountered some trouble. I heard that another three Individual Immortals from Divine Wind Palace had been killed!"


    "The Divine Wind Palace has had their heyday, nobody cares about them anymore. For the past ten years, their real experts hid in the Grand Divine Wind Palace and dared not come out. They will still remain strong no matter how many Individual Immortals are killed!" Zhou Bao waved his hand and glanced at Zhou Mu''s handsome face. He looked helpless. "Eggie, only you''re here to welcome me today, is your mom throwing a tantrum again?!"


    "Can the elderly not get mad at the way you treated uncle?!" Zhou Mu blinked and laughed.


    "If you call her elderly again she''ll appear in front of you immediately and give you a good lesson!" Zhou Bao laughed heartily. "Let''s go and visit the ladies of the family and see what they can do to me!!!" As he spoke, Zhou Bao tapped his son''s shoulder, pulling him towards the backyard of his palace.


    10 years was not long too for a cultivator, but it could also change a lot of things. For example, his daughter had grown from a toddler to a teen; a dynasty could die and a new one could be born, or another new generation of experts could grow and shine. It could also happen that the influence of the Divine Wind Palace could shrink totally.


    This was what could have happened in 10 years.


    After returning to Wuyang Region from Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, Zhou Bao stopped asking about worldly matters. He had close relationships with the cultivators who were in contact with Wang She openly and with Child-endowing Buddha secretly. He did not care about the rest.


    With him guarding the Wuyang Region, whether he was present or not, not a sane soul would come and cause trouble. The addition of a suitable pathway had made the Wuyang Region the northern lord. Just like the Northern Yuan back in the days, the whole Northern area fell under his feet. As compared to Northern Yuan, the capability of Wuyang Region was even much stronger and had more deterrence.


    However, Zhou Bao hadn''t taken the chance to unify and rule the northern area. If so, it would become an enfeoffed country. He had never wanted to touch the profits of the enfeoff elites. He even favored them a little at many instances. This led the northern leaders to take his orders. As for the Jin that enfeoffed them back then, these lords had already long forgotten about them.


    The world changed very drastically, likewise for the world of cultivation. In the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, the Divine Wind Palace lost their lord. There was huge internal chaos.


    When Yu Taixu used to be around, he could still control the fights between different gangs in the palace using his strong capabilities. But with him dead, internal chaos arose in the Divine Wind Palace and divisions started to appear. If it was not for the intervention of the Highest Elder who stopped the disputes using his thunderbolt hands, perhaps Divine Wind Palace, who had reigned the Heaven Realm for thousands of years with its power, would really fall into pieces.


    Even though forcefully controlled the internal problems, there was increasing pressure from outside.


    Mr.Feng IX, who entered the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode with Yu Taixu, came back alive and told everyone all that happened in the journey. The remaining Four Great Sects, even the few greatest sects of Three Western Regions, all heard about how Yu Taixu, the lord of Divine Wind Palace had fallen. When they heard that a Supreme Fairy Weapon had also disappeared, they secretly sucked in a cold breath and started getting into action.


    By losing multiple fairy weapons, a Supreme Fairy Weapon and a lord, without doubt, the capabilities of Divine Wind Palace must have fallen tremendously. Although no one was sure how much, at least they knew that the Divine Wind Palace was not all high and mighty like it used to be. Indeed, as expected, the heavily-injured Divine Wind Palace could not gain back their previous status. Their influence had shrunk tremendously. Apart from giving up the Central Mainland Region, the Divine Wind Palace also gave up another region in the Four Eastern Regions. That was how they managed to secure the Four Great Sects.


    In the Central Mainland Region, Zhou Bao initially expressed with a stern attitude that he would give up the influence of the School of Five Virtues. The majority of the Divine Wind Palace and the royalty of Great Jin all expressed their anger. However, there was nothing the royalty could do. As for the School of Five Virtues, after Zhou Bao and Wang She jointly-fought for it, its influence had greatly declined and returned to its home base, the Divine Wind Palace. This lost influence had been supported on The Man of Honor Ji Zhongtang and The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou.


    The previous Chief of Tian Long Taoism was now the top Elder. The grudge between Wang She, The White Blademaster Lu Shaoyou and The Man of Honor Ji Zhongtang had already become the most talked-about in the Jianghu. It was not only passed by mouth, numerous busybodies even invented their own stories and spread them in restaurants. People were interested to find out what will be the ending of the trio''s grudge.


    However, they could not know that Wang She had revealed to Ji Zhongtang his identity 10 years ago. After leaving with a cold smile, both parties seemed to not have any more dealings. When Zhou Bao and his team returned from Thunder Emperor''s touring abode and fought against the School of Five Virtues, Zhou Bao and Wang She displayed an overwhelming power. Eventually, the ending was marked by the recognition from the School of Five Virtues. There was no drama of any sort that the public wanted to see.


    The influence of the Four Great Sects had expanded to two regions and it no longer pressured the Divine Wind Palace. As the internal chaos in the palace ceased, the Four Great Sects and Divine Wind Palace was, once again, at an awkward stage of balance. This was a fragile yet delicate balance that could be broken anytime. However, no one knew who would break it first.


    In the past ten years, the largest events that had happened would be the seeping of Infinite Star Sea''s influence as well as the exploration of the Ancient Ruins. In the second year since Zhou Bao returned from Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, a series of strange events happened in the martial arts world of Jianghu. Many talkative experts emerged all of a sudden. Even Individual Immortals and Genuine Immortals started to appear in inexplicable places. Their strange appearances always caused a huge ruckus. Initially, the practitioners did not notice it. Once, a Level Nine expert was unconsciously drawn by a strange energy from a nearby mountain. He went to take a look and found a heavily-injured practitioner. This practitioner''s attire was very strange. Being extremely hurt he was still trying to snatch the expert''s body to be reborn again. Eventually, he failed to succeed because of his wounds. However, this expert managed to suck away a part of his memory, which revealed a big secret.


    It turned out that these practitioners came from the Infinite Star Sea and have entered the Heaven Realm macro world. When the Four Great Sects from Four Eastern Regions picked themselves up from their previous defeat and entered the Infinite Star Sea to explore, the practitioners from Infinite Star Sea were attracted by the Heaven Realm. Behind the Infinite Star Sea was the Milky Way Star Area and the Purple Scorpion Star Area, as well as the strength of 14 macro worlds.


    These macro worlds have been passed from antiquity times. They were not like the macro worlds from Heaven Realm that have been broken for generations, hence losing their inheritance. These ones have been passed down continuously. Thus, they were very clear about the secrets from antiquity times. They knew every single detail about many of the secrets in the Heaven Realm, just like how the guy who got possessed by Devil Fetus knew where the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode was. There were even many schools of these macro worlds that started from the Heaven Realm.


    Hence, after discovering the secret of the Heaven Realm, the strong sects and higher officials from these macro worlds started to come up with endless ideas to search for the traces of the Heaven Realm, which had been lost for thousands of years. Eventually, they found a clue in the Infinite Star Sea. They did some reverse engineering using the two destructed Transmitting Formation. Although they did not manage to calculate the exact location of the macro world, they luckily managed to recover one of them. They then worked on it and made it a one-way Transmitting Formation.


    A one-way Transmitting Formation did not require to be connected to another magic formation from the macro world where you planned on going. By directly using the Law of Space, a one-way Transmitting Formation would forcefully transport the practitioners from the Infinite Star Sea to the Heaven Realm. This method was very dangerous. It could even be called a no-return method.


    Unless necessary, no one wanted to do this.


    But that was nothing to worry about for them. The highest officials from the two powerful Star Areas and 14 macro worlds have thought of a few methods. They provided a large sum of money and also equipped the people with secrets of the Ancient Ruins that were passed down from the sects and gangs from the antiquity times. There used to be countless inheritances from the sects in antiquity times. However, they were well hidden in the endless space-time mazes of the Heaven Realm. As long as one of the secrets was acquired, one could increase his capabilities tremendously. Precisely because of this, many practitioners who were unable to improve further were attracted. At the same time, they even thought of an extremely cunning method to get the most out of it. There were a large number of practitioners in the 14 macro worlds, plenty more than in the Seven-deity Regions. When the grass patch is big, you get all kinds of sheep. In the 14 macro worlds, there were many black sheep who have triggered many to be after their lives, or simply were failures. The highest officials actually allowed these people to enter the Transmitting Formation and even promised on their own name that they would be able to return safely. Their sins were washed away once and for all, even if they raped the favorite daughter of the highest official from each of the 14 macro worlds, they would still be forgiven. This made many bastards who had been pushed to the limit to choose this.


    That Level Nine expert, for example, was a subordinate of the Dragon Thunder Palace. He understood the seriousness of the matter and immediately reported back. The palace did not waste any time and also notified the other Four Great Sects instantly.


    This incident was sort of a breather for the Divine Wind Palace on a certain level. They regained their footing and from then on, the five biggest sects fought hand in hand to kill these practitioners from the Infinite Star Sea.


    Initially, their tactic was very obvious but still effective. However, everyone soon realized that there were too many practitioners from the Infinite Star Sea. They also found out that the Transmitting Formation randomly chose the places where it transported the people into Seven-deity Regions. This caused the task of finding intruders much more difficult. Most importantly, because these intruders knew many secrets of the Heaven Realm, they would usually appear at places with ancient sect inheritance. This ancient sect inheritance was much more worth than the price of their intruding. Soon, the killing plan became a search-for-treasure kind of plan. After a Genuine Immortal found two Pure Yang Celestial Devices and a broken fairy weapon in an Ancient Ruin, the act of digging for ancestors'' treasures became common in the Seven-deity Regions. Now, they no longer killed intruders directly. Instead, they would ask them for the secrets of the Ancient Ruin. In just a short 10 years, 23 Ancient Ruins had been discovered. Among them, seven were useless. However, the remaining 16 had things like Pure Yang Celestial Devices and Highest Heaven Celestial Devices buried in them. Many extinct mysterious objects like Spiritual Stones and medicinal herbs were also found there. The pioneers and leaders of this search for Ancient Ruins was marked by Child-endowing Buddha of Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, finding a huge medicinal garden and a fairy weapon in the ruins of a sect from antiquity times.


    A Fairy weapon, it was a complete fairy weapon.


    Although it seemed immoral, the benefits were very attractive. At least the few big sects from the Seven-deity Regions have more or less gained one or two fairy weapons, as well as numerous Pure Yang Celestial Devices. They even had countless new Magic Drugs and Spiritual Stones. In just 10 years, the whole Seven-deity Regions seemed to have returned back to the medieval period.


    However, the situation had cooled down. Instead, the cultivation of the Four Eastern Regions had changed drastically.


    A large amount of higher rank practitioners from sects other than the five biggest sects were coming out. They ranged from Level Seven experts to even Individual Immortals. The large number was far too big for the five biggest sects to be able to stop them all. For such a thing to happen, one of the reasons was Zhou Bao sinisterly releasing that few pieces of prescription of elixir. This made becoming an expert master of martial arts no longer an impossible feat for normal martial arts practitioners. Ten years ago, teen experts like Zhou Bao and Ji Yeyue were enough to cause a sensation in the Central Mainland Region. Now, however, in these 10 years, there were at least 50 teen experts rising from just Jin of Central Mainland Region alone. They were increasing by hundreds. As a result, the price of medicinal herbs required to make Bone-Forging Pill, Tendon-Changing Pill, Blood Exchanging Pill and Marrow Cleansing Pill all increased tremendously. The market for medicinal herbs in the Seven-deity Region was taken over by chaos for a period of time. As for Anyuan Store, it had already stockpiled a huge amount of medicinal herbs, hence earning a huge benefit out of them. Furthermore, with the support of Zhou Bao''s Azure Big World, these low-level medicinal herbs were always obtainable to him. He could have whatever amount he wanted. However, there is always an extent to all issues. If the ground was made of gold, then gold would not have any value anymore. Hence, Zhou Bao did not sell his medicinal herbs.


    The slow 10 years passed by in an instant. The Seven-deity Regions changed drastically. It no longer looked like it used to.

 657 A Different Void Thunder Tribulation

    For the ordinary person, the Void Thunder Tribulation would be something different!


    Zhou Bao felt decidedly nervous and had a bad feeling.


    "What''s the difference?"


    "The Fate Creator goes through the Thunder Tribulation together with the whole macro world!" Speaking about that, he glanced at Zhou Bao. "A macro world has to go through the tribulations before it can be formed. But your Azure Big World, after its successful evolution, had been absorbed into the Supreme Fairy Weapon before it experienced the Void Thunder Tribulation. So, you will have to undergo a harder Thunder Tribulation than the ordinary person. Luckily, you have the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Otherwise, I will advise you not to experience the Thunder Tribulation!"


    "Is it really that troublesome?" Zhou Bao immediately felt stressed.


    "Do you know what''s your biggest weakness?" Fate Creation Boy asked with a smile. "Your biggest weakness, as well as the biggest problem, is that you are used to having things come your way easily. Sometimes you do come across some difficulties. Actually they''re nothing when compared to your achievements. Besides, people who have lost to you, like Hong Taihe, Yu Taixu and Yu Taicang, have all survived the Void Thunder Tribulation. So you must be thinking you should get through it easily, right? "


    "Yes. I think so!" Zhou Bao had to admit that Fate Creation Boy was correct. Indeed, he was strong enough to kill the Eight Tribulation Lords of Heaven. He also had about ten Human Immortal Thunder Gods, plus the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, a Supreme Fairy Weapon and several other fairy weapons. He had an abundant accumulation. Hence, in his opinion, if it was possible, he wanted to continuously go through nine Thunder Tribulations and gain the Karmic Rank of the Human Immortal, rather than one or two Thunder Tribulations only.


    However, based on the current situation, the Thunder Tribulation was not going to be as simple as he thought.


    He had been too dismissive of the Void Thunder Tribulation.


    "For most of the practitioners, the Thunder Tribulation intensity doesn''t change. Whether you get through the small Thunder Tribulation in the macro world or you experience the Void Thunder Tribulation in the hollow, you will face similar powers for both. Although they have different strengths when they experience the Thunder Tribulation, they can only experience it up to a maximum of eight times at most. The Divine Qi in the Thunder Tribulation and Void Immortal Realm is enough to refine their body and spirit, especially the spirit, and finally this will make them Ghost Immortals. But there''s an exception. For example, you''re a Fate Creator and you have too much accumulation. It''s wonderful that the common Void Thunder Tribulation is not able to refine your spirit. Even if you had gone through the Thunder Tribulation eight times, the Divine Qi that you absorb from the hollow can''t change your spirit and make you a Ghost Immortal!" Having said that, Fate Creation Boy cast a strange look at Zhou Bao. "If I''m not mistaken, your Real Body is a Primordial Fierce Beast. It''s the Demonic Ape Zhuyan, right? Do you think the common Void Thunder Tribulation can forge your Real Body into that of a Ghost Immortal?"


    "What should I do?"


    "Two ways. One is that you don''t undergo the Thunder Tribulation. After all, in terms of your combat capability, you should not have any fears. Nothing in the world could trouble you! The other way is that you force yourself to experience it. But you should be mentally prepared. You have to undergo a Void Thunder Tribulation which is a thousand times stronger than the other two. Think it over!"


    "So, is there any difference between the two ways?"


    "Of course. If you don''t experience it, you will end any future cultivation you might have!"


    "What else can I do? I have to do it!" Zhou Bao smiled bitterly. "As for the Fate Creator to experience the Thunder Tribulation, do you have any suggestions?"


    "Don''t do it in the macro world of the Heaven Realm. Otherwise, the macro world will be destroyed after several Heavenly Thunders!"


    "Certainly. I have decided to experience the Void Thunder Tribulation!"


    "If you think you are well-prepared and you''re confident you can get through it, then just do it. The more you delay, the more setbacks you''ll have!"


    "Got it. I''ve another question. If I challenge the Void Thunder Tribulation, what will the power of the Thunder Tribulation be like?"


    "No idea. From the olden times, there has never been such a situation. Not only have you practiced the Real Body of the Primordial Fierce Beast of top grade; you also became a Fate Creator and created a Supreme Fairy Weapon. There''s never been such a case. I can only say your Thunder Tribulation will be an extraordinarily violent event!"


    "I''m afraid that I''ll get into trouble!" Zhou Bao''s face slowly turned gloomy. "As far as I know, in the Seven-deity Regions, some people are hostile towards me and they seem to create problems for me whenever I''m in the Thunder Tribulation. I''m not too bothered about it. But, now you said..."


    "Ignore them. Your Thunder Tribulation is a different one. With their abilities, they can''t get close to you at all, so they should not be a threat to you at all!" Fate Creation Boy seemed to think of something and his eyes flashed slightly. "But it is a possibility. There is a Master of Celestial Mystery at Divine Wind Palace. Be careful!"


    "Child-endowing Buddha also mentioned something about the Master of Celestial Mystery. Who are they?"


    "They''re also necromancers but different from the ordinary ones. They research the fates and Divine Designs!" Talking about it, Fate Creation Boy smiled helplessly. "Even though we are the Fate Creators, our knowledge about the fate and Divine Design is limited. Those guys found a method. They can''t change everything. But they can foresee a little bit of the future through the river of time!"


    "You mean that they can see through time!"


    "Hahahaha. Time. Do you think it''s easy to see through it?" Fate Creation Boy gave an odd laugh when he saw how Zhou Bao was suddenly enlightened.


    "Do you believe that in the macro world where you govern, after you have mastered the time Dharma, you are able to control the time?"


    "Isn''t that so? At least, I know a little bit about this time power!"


    "It''s not enough!" Fate Creation Boy seemed to set on discouraging him. "You can control the time flow because of your Fate Creator identity and the time fairy weapon. At this moment, time is only a tool for you. For a tool, you just need to know to operate it. Not to know its Dharma and principles!"


    "But¡ª!"


    "The Time Dharma is the hardest Dharma to grasp and also the most terrifying!" Fate Creation Boy interrupted Zhou Bao with a cold smile as he sensed that Zhou Bao did not quite agree with him. "You can operate the time flow. The time in the Azure Big World has only a speed problem. Are you able to see the event that did not happen yet through the time flow? Were you able to change the forthcoming event with your strength? When you operate it, will everything will finally run according to the time flow and will never be able to get away from it? Now that there is no torrent of time, it''s useless to talk about understanding the time Dharma"


    Zhou Bao was silent. "According to what you said, the Master of Celestial Mystery is able to tell the future through the time?"


    "Exactly!"


    "So, the future is set?"


    "No. The future is changeable. Thus, it''s not easy to steal the Divine Design. The future that the Master of Celestial Mystery can see is a possible future with the help of his information and the time power!"


    "What if his information is not complete?"


    "Then what he sees is just an illusion!"


    "Alright. The sects in the Seven-deity Regions don''t know what cards I am holding in my hand!"


    "They don''t need to know that. They just need to play their own cards well!" Fate Creation Boy said, shaking his head. "Don''t think that the Master of Celestial Mystery is able to see clearly into the future. In fact, they only have a vague sense of the future. They can only tell the general outcome. If they want to know more about a person who is stronger than them and also for important events, all they can see will be even vaguer. Based on your current strength, the Master of Celestial Mystery in the Divine Wind Palace will not be able to see your future clearly!"


    "Then why should I be concerned about it?"


    "He can see Wang She''s future. Everyone knows that he''s close to you. And he reached the Mysterious Realm with your help. So, he''s bound to come to you when he gets through the Void Thunder Tribulation!"


    "For you, Wang She is not an important person. Yet, you still care so much about him!"


    "Since you''ve already governed the Azure Big World, I have to pay more attention to you and the person whom you care about!" Fate Creation Boy did not conceal his attitude. "As a Fate Creator born in the Heaven Realm, that''s my responsibility. So, I have to do it whether you want it or not. Well, once you leave the macro world of the Heaven Realm, whatever you do will be none of my concern!"


    "Leave the macro world? If I leave, I will carry the whole Wuyang Region with me, and everything else!"


    "No problem. It''s also OK if you move the Seven-deity Regions to your Azure Big World. Those guys like to make trouble daily. Especially Divine Wind Palace. They think that they have the Golden Book of Fate and often come to my Taihua Mountain. They seem to have a lot of respect for me. But they just want to reach their goal with the Golden Book of Fate as a threat to me. If I think there is no glimmer of hope to combine the Golden Book of Fate, Ranking of Demons and Immortals and the Immortal-burying Pool into one, I would have ignored them earlier!"


    Zhou Bao understood a little of what he had said. The macro world in the Heaven Realm was divided into three parts. The first one was the Golden Book of Fate; the second one was the Ranking of Demons and Immortals in the Sea Area; the last one was the Immortal-burying Pool in the Three Western Regions. It was no wonder that Fate Creator Boy had been keeping a low profile. Nobody knew who he was. As a defender, he divided the creation into three parts. This decreased the macro world''s power. Moreover, the three parts were possessed by the experts in this macro world. It was really a humiliating thing. Suddenly, Zhou Bao thought of another thing.


    "Does it mean there are at least three Controllers in the macro world besides you?"

 658 The Fate Creation Boys Worry

    "The Sea Emperor, the Human Emperor candidate and the Fairy Pool Hunter. Judging from their position and power, they can be regarded as the Controllers. But they''re not really the ones in control because they have not fully grasped the creation process. Therefore, they are not qualified to enter the Immortal Realm and the Fate Creation Palace!" Fate Creation Boy walked to a chair and sat down. He was short and when he sat down, his feet could not touch the ground, which looked very funny. "But they still have hopes. They can combine the three parts into one and kill me with their formidable strength. Then they can manage the creation of the macro world and become the new Fate Creators in the Heaven Realm. So, in the future, I will need your help!"


    "They are not that strong now?"


    "The Sea Emperor is the Vast Sea Emperor among the 99 Emperors from antiquity times. He had the strength to kill me. However, after the antiquity times, he''s been trapped in a secret place in the Heaven Realm. He can''t get out of there. Even if he was able to leave, he would not be interested in the creation Controller. But the Fairy Pool Hunter is altogether a different story. He has a mysterious background in the Three Western Regions. I also don''t know what his background and strength is. I am only sure that he has the Immortal-burying Pool under his control. If he has a chance, he will likely try to challenge and kill me and take control of the creation for himself!"


    "I don''t think so. What will happen if he kills you? After all, the creation of the macro world has three parts!"


    "He just needs two parts to evolve the creation again!" Fate Creation Boy glanced at Zhou Bao. "That''s my main worry. To the Vast Sea Emperor, no matter how strong the Ranking of Demons and Immortals is or how wonderful the creation is, he is not interested in it. However, once two of the Fairy Weapons of Fate are combined into one, he can then escape. By then, if the Fairy Pool Hunter gives him some favorable conditions, he will possibly combine the three parts!"


    "Really? It''s not easy to get the Golden Book of Fate!"


    "This time, Youxian Temple and the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain have joined forces with Divine Wind Palace to get rid of you. Do you know the reason? I''m afraid that they have already reached an agreement!"


    "Impossible. Only Divine Wind Palace can''t decide on the Golden Book of Fate. The other Four Great Sects won''t agree!"


    "Humph! Divine Wind Palace has been controlling the Golden Book of Fate for many years. Its strength is gradually declining. The Golden Book of Fate is also shared with the other Four Great Sects. Do you think that they won''t ensure there is an escape route for themselves? Why do the Four Great Sects fear to use excessive force on Divine Wind Palace? They certainly fear perishing together. By then, when the Fairy Pool Hunter combines the Golden Book of Fate and the Immortal-burying Pool, do you think the Four Great Sects can defeat the Fairy Pool Hunter? Besides, if the Fairy Pool Hunter seeks the help of the Sea Emperor, the Vast Sea Emperor will be sure to lend a hand to him in return for aiding his escape. In addition, with the support from the Three Western Regions, the Four Great Sects will not be able to resist them!"


    "Seriously?"


    "What do you think?" Fate Creation Boy cast a helpless look at Zhou Bao. "Since the Fairy Weapon of Fate has been divided into three parts, I''ve lost my control of the macro world creation. I became a bystander. And, because I''m a defender, I can''t interfere with many things. I really have no choice but to see the situation worsen."


    "So you need me to help you handle the Fairy Pool Hunter?"


    "Right. Black Turtle has already gone through the Divine Tribulation seven times with my help and reached the Karmic Rank of Lord of Heaven. But his strength is still weaker than the influences in the macro world. And he can''t give me much help, so I will have to rely on you. If you succeed in getting through the Void Thunder Tribulation, your strength will increase drastically. You can even face the Vast Sea Emperor on your own. By then, with your strength alone, I can gain the control over the macro world!"


    "Don''t you worry I will take this opportunity to control the Heaven Realm!"


    "You can''t do it. You''re the Controller over the Azure Big World, not the Listener. The only way to manage two macro worlds simultaneously is to integrate them. You must become a Listener to make it happen!"


    "But I just¡ª"


    "The Great Constellation Palace was destroyed during the antiquity times. The star macro world has already been in a decline and its Fate Creator also died in the battle. So, seriously speaking, the star macro world should only be called a micro world. It will be an easy task for you if you want to combine the micro world with the macro world. Fate Creation Boy seemed to know what Zhou Bao wanted to say and shook his head. "However, the Heaven Realm is a different thing. It''s a complete macro world. Besides, its creation is divided into three parts. It leads to many changes. During the antiquity times, the macro world is close with the Void Immortal Realm. Thus, you can integrate the macro world and the new-established Azure Big World if you are a senior Listener. Otherwise, you can''t do it!" Speaking of this, Fate Creation Boy paused for a second. "Or, if you are willing to give up the Azure Big World to control the macro world, it''s also possible!"


    "I''m not a fool!" Zhou Bao shook his head. "I''ve evolved the Azure Big World. I know more about it than the macro world. And the macro world came from the antiquity times. Who knows how many karmic loops there are in it? Do you really think I want to control it?"


    "Right. The macro world is not better than your Azure Big World. Your world has only one Karma. It''s not the same as the Heaven Realm where there are countless Karmas! You can''t solve them!"


    "What? The Azure Big World has a Karma. How come I don''t know about it?"


    "The Azure Big World evolves from Azure Heaven. Azure Heaven is the Emperor of the Azure Heaven''s micro world. He''s one of the 99 Emperors from the antiquity times. You took his micro world and evolved it into a macro world. Thus, a Karma was forged between you and him. What is so strange about that?"


    "You mean that I have a Karma with the Emperor of Azure Heaven? He''s still alive?"


    "All the 99 Emperors from the antiquity times are not simple people. They would have ensured that they left behind enough descendants before they died. Otherwise, Azure Heaven won''t be in this current situation. Regrettably, I can''t read the mind of the Emperor of the Azure Heaven, so I can only remind you to be careful!"


    "Got it!" Zhou Bao nodded and was instantly on the alert. Even though he was the creation Controller of the Azure Big World, he was not yet familiar with the area. However, he had a relatively correct grasp about the situation in the macro world. Besides, he had this feeling that the Demonic Immortals in the Azure Big World were always acting oddly. It seemed that they had some secrets. However, he had not really found out what they were up to. After all, those demons were once the Emperor of Azure Heaven''s subordinates. He was just a young person and was not a match for the Great Ancient Emperor. Consequently, he guessed the reasons why they were not convinced. He understood that they had some secret plans. In addition, he owned the Jade Plate of Fate and Wheel of Time, so he had no worries even if those Demonic Immortals took some unknown measures. However, after hearing Fate Creation Boy''s words, he felt a little bit anxious. If the Emperor of Azure Heaven was not dead but was hiding out in the Azure Big World or somewhere in the hollow waiting for an opportunity to gain his Jade Plate of Fate, he would be faced with a big problem!


    "Don''t worry. The Emperor of Azure Heaven is the Demonic Emperor from antiquity times with strong powers and ambition. However, their tribe was the main problem in that war. He''s the leader. Even if he''s alive, he''s not capable of causing any trouble. The so-called Karma doesn''t mean that the cause must lead to a result. You still have a long time. The Karma between you is ten years long. You don''t need to worry it!"


    "Even if I don''t have to worry, I should still be cautious. Now the Azure Big World is filled with demons and those old guys are the leaders. It''s not a good thing. I have to figure out some way to prevent any unexpected dangers!"


    "OK. Just do your practices here for several days. The Divine Qi and various pneuma will be greatly useful to you. Once you feel the improvement, you can leave. You''re the Fate Creator and have been to the Fate Creation Palace. You don''t need any directions if you need to leave." As he was speaking, the black jade door opened again and Fate Creation Boy exited.


    "Wait. Master. May I bring other people here?"


    "You figure it out!" Fate Creation Boy did not stop and left him to ponder on his answer. Then, he disappeared through the jade door.


    Zhou Bao was confused. At this moment, an ancient willpower suddenly emerged in the Fate Creation Palace and seeped into his spirit.


    "Oh my God! Only the Fate Creator could enter!"


    After a while, he sighed after he had recovered from his state of disappointment.


    The willpower only existed in this Fate Creation Palace, which was part of the Fate Creation Holy City, one of the three Holy Cities. It was a pity was that only a small part was left over. The ancient Holy Cities had their own willpower and device spirit. However, the device spirit had lost its powers and rendered The Holy Cities incomplete. Only a little willpower was left in this palace and it was used to control the way that the Fate Creator entered the palace. This was an ancient spatial way. Only a Fate Creator like Zhou Bao could enter it because he could release his creation power. The non-Fate Creator could not do it due to the lack of the creation power.


    Therefore, it was a pity that he could not bring others here. If it was allowed, he would bring some people here daily to inhale the Divine Qi and ancient pneuma. In this way, his subordinates would be able to make great progress in their cultivation. Perhaps he could take advantage of this opportunity to bribe lots of practitioners to serve him. However, all these could only come true in his dreams!

 659 The Thunder Tribulation Begins

    A jade-green gate suddenly appeared in front of Zhou Bao. This one was even more dazzling than Fate Creation Boy''s black gate which was made of precious stones. When Zhou Bao looked at it, he could feel that something was lacking; it was as if his accumulation was not enough.


    "Unfortunately, it seems that because the creation time for Azure Big World is too short, this is the only way to go about it." He sighed and stepped through the gate.


    "Oh? How interesting!" When he went through the gate, Zhou Bao stared blankly for a second, then he laughed.


    It turned out that the gate did not lead to Taihua Mountain where he had come from, but led instead to the Sea of Divine Power of the Azure Big World.


    "I''m confused. This gate is linked to my Power of Fate, so it should lead to the Sea of Divine Power. It looks like the Fate Creator''s other gates lead to the most critical points in their own macro words. If this is so, even if they could bring people into the Fate Creation Palace, no one would be willing to go at any given time and place. But what if I don''t even want to be here. It is actually good that they can''t bring people in, as it would save me from a lot of struggles!" Zhou Bao thought to himself. He did not stay there for long. He stepped out again and returned to Jilei Mountain.


    Wang She and Child-endowing Buddha had not left yet; they visited Zhou Bao frequently and were protected from the inhibition. Therefore, they were at home and wanted very much to cross the Void Thunder Tribulation. It would not be possible however, without Zhou Bao''s help, so he remained there most of the time.


    Zhou Bao had spent three days at the Fate Creation Palace. This had given him many advantages, but it was still not enough. The higher his strength, the stronger the thunder bolts would be. Therefore, if his strength had gained a level during his three days at the Fate Creation Palace, so too would his Void Thunder Tribulation. He really could not tell if this was a good thing or not.


    "You''re finally back! If you hadn''t come back, Wang She and I would have been totally desperate!" Seeing Zhou Bao appearing in front of them, Wang She heaved a sigh of relief, and so did Child-endowing Buddha. "You took so long! What did the old bastard want with you?"


    "I''m afraid I won''t be able to cross the Thunder Tribulation with you."


    "What, why?"


    "There''s a small problem with my Thunder Tribulation, it''s not like yours. If I cross the Thunder Tribulation with you, you''ll be struck to death!" He laughed bitterly.


    "It''s fine, we can cross the Thunder Tribulation using our own strength. We came to look for you because after the Thunder Tribulation there will be a recuperation period where we will be very weak. We''re concerned that someone could take advantage of this and cause trouble, so we wanted you to be our protector. And you know, we need to find a good location to cross the Void Thunder Tribulation, and thus we need your help."


    "No problem!" While he was listening to Wang She, Zhou Bao''s eyes flitted about as if he had just thought of something. He smiled. "No problem at all!"


    For Zhou Bao, looking for a place in the hollow to cross the Void Thunder Tribulation was no problem at all with a protector.


    The place to cross the Thunder Tribulation had to be chosen carefully as you could not choose any random place. It was best to find a location with no living creatures, like a vast planet with no pneuma. This way, if the tribulation was too strong, there would be minimal effect if it destroyed the whole planet. And if there was no pneuma, there would be no spiritual qi, and this would reduce the effect the thunder would have on the space. As far as those crossing the tribulation were concerned, nothing much could go wrong.


    There were lots of vast planets in the hollow. But looking for a vast planet like this in such an expansive hollow would be a difficult task.


    Or at least it was for Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She.


    This was why they traveled thousands of miles to find Zhou Bao.


    It was much easier for Zhou Bao to find such a place. If there was nothing else, there were still lots of these places in the Desolate Ancient Star Area. For Zhou Bao, it was no difficulty at all.


    "You see, there are many vast planets in the Desolate Ancient Star Area, and none of them have any life or pneuma. It''s the best place to use to cross the Void Thunder Tribulation. I think each of you should choose one planet, that way you won''t get in each other''s way and create more problems. What do you think?"


    "Well, it''s up to you. I''ll choose that ochre vast planet. What about you, Wang She?"


    "I''ll choose the cyan planet!"


    The three men stood in the void, and in front of them was a small galaxy. In its center, a large fireball burned brightly, and around it revolved four vast planets. Wang She and the Child-endowing Buddha would part ways between their chosen two planets.


    After they each had chosen a crossing point, the two men did not delay. They split ways and traveled to their planets, and Zhou Bao placed himself directly in the center of the hollow. There the divine thoughts could cross over, and Zhou Bao could channel the two planets into his Divine Awareness.


    "Having been reborn for so many years, I didn''t think that today I would be able to channel the two planets so easily into my Divine Awareness. I wouldn''t have dared think about this kind of thing in my previous life. I wouldn''t have imagined that this universe was where the Earth was. It would be good if it was. If I had the chance, I would go to the Milky Way, and show off my strength on Earth. After all, why not?"


    Of course, this was just pure fantasizing on his part. In this universe, in this world, things were not the same as on Earth. The only shape above him that he could recognize was the Big Dipper and it looked completely different too. Everything here was so different from his previous life.


    Just as he was losing himself in thought, he felt a little tremor in the hollow surrounding him. Then, in the complete void where there was not even the tiniest bit of pneuma, suddenly there burst forth a thousand tiny cracks. The cracks were so fine that if his divine thoughts had not been so finely cultivated and if his spiritual mind was not so sharp as to have attained the level of Innate Deities and Primordial Fierce Beasts, he would not have felt the change in the hollow.


    "Is this the Void Thunder Tribulation?" Feeling this bizarre change, Zhou Bao focused all his attention on the tribulation. Zhou Bao saw an entrance slowly opening. The fine cracks covering the two vast planets had joined together to become a huge magic formation on the planet. A boundless energy flowed from the cracks at the middle of the formation. Under the power of the formation, huge formation maps were created.


    The formation maps on the two planets looked basically the same, although a closer look revealed a number of differences.


    Crack! Crack!


    Thunderbolts began to gather in the middle of the hollow and started evolving.


    Under the control of the formation map in the middle of the hollow, the clouds on the two vast planets underwent rapid changes. They billowed in the breeze, which suddenly turned into a huge gale. The clouds from the two vast planets then gathered into one huge mass, and huge thunderbolts erupted from them and aimed at the ground.


    The thunderbolts emerged non-stop from the evolving magic formation. The two men on the vast planets brandished their celestial devices to block off the attacks. For them, the last few Thunder Tribulations presented no danger, until it came to the fifth one. On the cyan vast planet, a brilliant color emanated from Wang She, which protected his whole body. It was the power from the fairy weapon he had obtained at the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode.


    With the protection of the fairy weapon, he was safe during his fifth Thunder Tribulation. Child-endowing Buddha, however, looked to be in a bad state. It might have been due to his poor moral standards, or because he had erred too much in his previous life. The Thunder Tribulation he experienced was several times worse than Wang She''s. But fortunately, because he was so highly cultivated, he did not have to use his fairy weapon until his seventh Thunder Tribulation.


    "No wonder these two guys are so anxious! They each have a trump card in their hand and were certain they could gain the Karmic Rank of Lord of Heaven. Haha, they don''t even know what the 3,000 Great Ways are that they possess, or Divine Sense either!" Zhou Bao muttered to himself. He closed his eyes and contemplated using his own divine thoughts to get a sense of the willpower in the Immortal Realm coming from the Thunder Tribulation.


    But the divine thoughts passed in a chaotic flurry. He couldn''t get any information. The only thing that was a certainty was that as the two men''s Thunder Tribulations were getting stronger and stronger, there was more and more Divine Qi flowing from the cracks, and it started to transform into the two men''s spirits.


    "For me this Thunder Tribulation was nothing. I could easily get through it. But I was told quite clearly that my next Thunder Tribulation wouldn''t be overcome so effortlessly." Seeing that the ochre planet had already been half destroyed, Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows slightly. "It seems like I will have to choose my tribulation crossing point a bit more carefully. Normal vast planets are not good enough, they can be smashed to pieces with just a few strikes of heavenly thunder."


    Just as he was thinking, his eyes suddenly flashed and he stared fiercely at the distant hollow.


    There was nothing inside the hollow, but Zhou Bao sensed a peculiar spatial fluctuation. He smiled ever so slightly. "It seems they''ve arrived ¨C the guys who are hoping to pick up some stuff for themselves!"


    A dazzling, resplendent warship came cruising through the endless hollow. On the ship there were more than ten men on board. These men, sitting and looking around in awe, were Genuine Immortals of the Lord of Heaven Realm. They were led by one man with a dark complexion and whose spirit carried a vague trace of violence. He was Lord Yu Taixuan of Divine Wind Palace.


    The Yu family had been in control of Divine Wind Palace for tens of thousands of years. In all these years they had never been as desperate as they were now. Their powers were waning; two of the three senior Lords of Heaven had died in a short amount of time. Their Supreme Fairy Weapon had been destroyed, and the youngest generation of the Yu family had not reached maturity yet. If it were not for the old timers who paid no heed to real-world matters during closed-door training, it was possible the Divine Wind Palace could have been taken over. But even with the support of several Highest Elders, Yu Taixuan could not maintain a secure hold on his status as lord, so he had been very troubled these past ten years or more.


    "My lord, we will soon arrive at the place, according to the master!", a servant dressed in golden clothes, said quietly to him.


    "Yes, I know!"

 660 The Response of the Divine Wind Palace

    This was the place where the Master of Celestial Mystery of Divine Wind Palace had predicted that Wang She would cross the tribulation.


    Divine Wind Palace had been passed down through tens of thousands of generations. It had been dominated for thousands of years by the Four Eastern Regions school, who had countless tricks and strategies. For Zhou Bao to destroy this leviathan was not an easy task at all. Even if he had the strength to fight a Human Immortal, he couldn''t just kill them without putting too much thought to it first; he could only make small, surreptitious moves to slowly weaken their power.


    Maybe it was because of his strength, or maybe it was due to luck, but everything Zhou Bao had done until now had gone through without a hitch. Even though there some twists and turns, he had not run into any severe difficulty or danger.


    Because of this, Zhou Bao looked down on Divine Wind Palace.


    But he did not know that inside Divine Wind Palace there were countless people, aside from the powerful masters, who for thousands of years had spared no effort in cultivating strange talents. These talents in antiquity times were called necromancers, and these necromancers had stopped their activities during those times. The necromancers cultivated now at Divine Wind Palace were naturally no match for those from antiquity times, but they still had many strange powers, as did the Master of Celestial Mystery.


    Yu Taixu was the lord of Divine Wind Palace. It had been a daunting prospect for him to go personally to the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. Before he left he went to look for this Master of Celestial Mystery to get a prediction of how it would go. Unfortunately, at that time the Grand Design had been concealed by some mysterious force. The Master of Celestial Mystery could not foretell Yu Taixu''s future, so he urged him to be careful. Yu Taixu had faith in his strength and he had his Supreme Fairy Weapon with him, so he didn''t believe that he could come to any harm. If something bad should happen, he believed he could easily escape. So he didn''t heed the warning from the Master of Celestial Mystery, but went resolutely ahead and perished as a result.


    Yu Taixu''s death had caused a huge uproar at Divine Wind Palace and even throughout the Seven-deity Regions. Of course, Divine Wind Palace could not do anything about it. Mr. Feng IX concluded it was an accident and summed it all up as due to Yu Taixu''s misfortune. But in fact, it was a true tragedy. How could a guy from Divine Wind Palace be so naive?


    The Master of Celestial Mystery did not predict anything about Zhou Bao, but he came to the conclusion that what Mr. Feng IX said had nine truths and one lie in it. If any part was untrue, which part was it? It was clear that he was hiding something. Could it be that he was the one who had killed Yu Taixu?


    The Master of Celestial Mystery quickly ruled this out, so then what had really happened at the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode?


    This mystery of Yu Taixu''s death was a source of frustration for the high levels of Divine Wind Palace, and they blamed Mr. Feng IX for it. This guy had clearly concealed the truth about Yu Taixu''s death and given his version of it, but they had no way of forcing him to come clean. Feng IX was no ordinary person, he was the Highest Elder of Immortal Palace, an eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven with unspeakable strength. At Immortal Palace he had sublime status. With Divine Wind Palace''s current strength it was unwise to fall out with Immortal Palace, so they had no choice but to go about the matter in another way.


    But the Master of Celestial Mystery was also no ordinary man. He had figured out the intentions of all the men who had gone to the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. He didn''t suspect any of them, but what about Zhou Bao?


    He could not figure it out!


    He could not make sense of Zhou Bao''s behavior, so Divine Wind Palace could not make a judgment. Zhou Bao''s strength exceeded that of Yu Taixu and Feng IX. The Master of Celestial Mystery noted that Zhou Bao''s strength was much more than anyone had imagined, and also worked out that there were numerous untruths in what Mr. Feng IX said. The master considered Zhou Bao a suspect, but it was just a suspicion. The Master of Celestial Mystery reckoned that Yu Taixu died from trying to resist two Supreme Fairy Weapons. Because the loss to the Great Constellation Palace was so huge, the Supreme Fairy Weapon was no match for the suspect, and so he perished.


    They also imagined at one point that the suspect who possessed the Supreme Fairy Weapon was Zhou Bao, but it was just speculation. Once Zhou Bao had come onto the scene they had his background checked thoroughly. Perhaps he was just a local born-and-bred guy from the Heaven Realm macro world who had just been lucky? This type of person, lucky as he may be, could never master a Supreme Fairy Weapon. Besides, the last time a Supreme Fairy Weapon was used in Divine Wind Palace, Zhou Bao had not been around. Therefore, in the end, Immortal Palace was the biggest suspect.


    Immortal Palace!


    This suspicion was unexpected, but after careful thinking, it was justifiable.


    What was Immortal Palace like?


    It was one of the five biggest sects in the Four Eastern Regions, with powers second only to Divine Wind Palace. Its Uniform Dao had been passed down from antiquity times. It had an immeasurably long history. A Supreme Fairy Weapon was hidden inside the palace, which even though was surprising, was not difficult to believe.


    It was just pure speculation, but if it were true, it would explain many things.


    How did Zhou Bao emerge so suddenly with such unimaginable powers? Previously, Divine Wind Palace believed that Zhou Bao had someone with greater powers supporting him, but they were clueless as to who this was. But when the secret relationship between Zhou Bao and Immortal Palace was exposed, Divine Wind Palace then had many more clues to go by. This Zhou Bao could have been secretly raised by Immortal Palace to deal with the weapons in the palace. This way, many of the unfathomable things that happened around Zhou Bao could then be explained.


    Once it was explained, everything became very clear.


    At last, after the elder had deduced everything, the whole matter became like a story. The reason was that Immortal Palace was dissatisfied with Divine Wind Palace having full domination over Heaven and Earth, so they raised Zhou Bao, a man of exceptional talent, and placed him where he could cause trouble. He provoked people and attracted a lot of attention which, intentionally or not, was directed to Divine Wind Palace. They waited until people stopped paying attention, and got to work eradicating the peripheral power of Divine Wind Palace and secretly killing their experts. He finally availed himself of the Supreme Fairy Weapon, and when it was least expected, in one fell swoop, overthrew the Lord of Divine Wind Palace. Although Mr. Feng IX did not kill Yu Taixu himself, his actions this entire time did not help him. But, he said that when Yu Taixu finally entered the boundless hollow at the Great Constellation Palace, how could he have just happened to come across another Supreme Fairy Weapon? The only credible explanation was that Mr. Feng IX was at work behind the scenes. He informed the suspects so that they would emerge at the Great Constellation Palace''s weakest moment, and dealt them a fatal blow. Only this could explain things. If not, why would Feng IX keep to himself the reason he survived the showdown between the two Supreme Fairy Weapons, and when he finally did give a reason why did it sound so dubious?


    Now the truth was clear!


    But even though it was clear, it could not be revealed!


    Because they had no proof, they were only speculating, and the speculation was made by the Master of Celestial Mystery, so it was ill-advised to make it public.


    Ordinarily, they would not care whether they had proof or not, they could just come straight out with it. But it was no longer like the old days. Even though Divine Wind Palace was a powerful sect of the Four Eastern Regions and they had many strategies they could employ, when compared to yesteryears, their power was declining, and they did not have the absolute superiority they had before. What was more, if it truly was Immortal Palace who had done all this, then they was really more powerful than they had previously imagined.


    Under these circumstances, having an all out war with Immortal Palace would not be good for Divine Wind Palace. If anything else, it would merely spur Immortal Palace to action. The fact of the matter was, that once the Supreme Fairy Weapon was used, what could Divine Wind Palace do?


    Therefore, Divine Wind Palace had to hold themselves back; they could not go all out to attack.


    Since you stabbed me in the back, so I''ll stab you back too.


    Zhou Bao was raised by you. Although initially, it was to attract our attention, he has since grown and not only holds a high position at your Immortal Palace, but he has strong combat capabilities and is your ace card. And it is a most powerful card. If I were to destroy this card of yours, I think you would regret it for quite a while, right?


    But this Zhou Bao was not easy to understand, and he was carrying at least one fairy weapon, as well as several Pure Yang Celestial Devices. God knows how many more secrets he had. Killing him would not only cause serious trouble to Immortal Wind Palace, but would also mean one less general for them, which would be a good advantage for Divine Wind Palace.


    But now that Zhou Bao has already come of age, it would not be that easy to get rid of him.


    Therefore, Divine Wind Palace started plotting in secret, and asked the Master of Celestial Mystery to make a carefully thought-out calculation. They concluded that waiting for Zhou Bao to cross the Void Thunder Tribulation would be the best time to overcome him.


    Because of Zhou Bao''s current situation, crossing the Void Thunder Tribulation would surely be difficult. Even if he had the fairy weapon for protection, he would inevitably have a period of weakness, and this would be the best moment to strike.


    But the hollow was so vast, how would they know where this guy was actually going to cross the Void Thunder Tribulation?


    This was another problem.


    But it was not difficult for Divine Wind Palace to deal with Zhou Bao. They had already investigated Zhou Bao so thoroughly that they found out about Wang She.


    Wang She was one of the 28 constellations of Immortal Palace and was closely linked to Zhou Bao. Before Zhou Bao came of age, Wang She helped him a lot. And after Zhou Bao rose to power, he in turn helped Wang She a lot. He helped Wang She in the hollow to rise to the Individual Immortal Karma Rank. So when it came to crossing the Void Thunder Tribulation, of course Zhou Bao would help him. At the very least, the two of them could cross together. The two men were in the same phase. So, wherever Wang She was crossing the tribulation, it was very likely Zhou Bao was going to be there.


    That was why there were a lot of men on the ship today.


    The Master of Celestial Mystery had figured out where Wang She was going to cross the Void Thunder Tribulation and that was at the Desolate Ancient Star Area.


    Once he had figured out the location and had gained enough strength, he would at least be able to force the eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven into submission, even someone with the power of a Human Immortal!


    Why is this so? Because ten years ago Zhou Bao had already overpowered Hai Tonghe, an eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. Although he could not reach a very high phase because he had not crossed the Thunder Tribulation, at the speed he was growing, his combat capability could reach terrifying levels. What was more serious was that he was carrying a fairy weapon.


    After crossing the Void Thunder Tribulation he would have a period of weakness, but how weak would he actually be then? It was ill-advised to be complacent.


    Therefore, Divine Wind Palace started a policy of alliances with surrounding states, but this policy was not effective in the Four Eastern Regions. But supposing Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, which had the worst relationship with Zhou Bao, didn''t want to get involved, there would be no choice for Divine Wind Palace but to resort to teaming up with the Three Western Regions.


    The relationship between the Four Eastern Regions and Three Western Regions was not great, in fact, they were having a feud. But this did not mean they could not find allies there. The Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty and the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain all had an interest in Zhou Bao. It was due to this great interest that Divine Wind Palace managed to draw Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty and Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain into the situation. Then they could begin the operation.

 661 Wang Shes Thunder Tribulation and the Supreme Thunder Canopy

    As Zhou Bao felt the power of the space breaking open in the hollow, his cold smile grew wider.


    "Come on Divine Wind Palace, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, Youxian Temple! Since you want to play with me, I''ll play along with you!" Suddenly, Zhou Bao shrank and disappeared inside the hollow. After the last piece of his spirit disappeared, it was as if he had never been there at all.


    A few moments after he left, the space inside the hollow started to ripple, and a golden warship burst forth from the depths of the hollow. On it were a group of men from Divine Wind Palace.


    "Look! Sure enough, they''re crossing the Divine Tribulation!"


    As soon as they entered the hollow, the men on the ship could feel a strong Divine Tribulation spirit surrounding them.


    All these men were cultivated to the level of Lord of Heaven, and no-one was more familiar with crossing the Divine Tribulation than they. Only, most of them had crossed the Divine Tribulation in the Heaven Realm macro world. This was the first time they witnessed someone crossing the Void Thunder Tribulation. They were shocked when they first felt the huge Thunderbolt Qi.


    "Is this the Void Thunder Tribulation? It truly lives up to its name. This is a hundred times stronger than the Thunder Tribulation crossing in the Heaven Realm macro world. Zhou Bao must be really confident, thinking that he can cross the Thunder Tribulation here!" A man from Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty raised his eyebrows slightly and there was an air of regret about him.


    "And Wang She, too. He''s just as reckless. But Zhou Bao has the support of Immortal Palace and has accumulated a vast amount of power. Why does Wang She feel he can be as audacious? Maybe he''s just courting death!" But it was a Lord of Heaven at Divine Wind Palace who said this, a Highest Elder. He was not from the Yu family, nor the Hong family, but from another part of Divine Wind Palace ¨C the Splendid Jade Hall.


    This Splendid Jade Hall did not have much of a reputation in the Central Mainland Region. But it was incredibly famous in the three other regions that Divine Wind Palace controlled, because it was there that Splendid Jade Hall had a monopoly over most of the gemstone trade. This Highest Elder was called Shi Shengyan, and he was the one who had established the Splendid Jade Hall branch.


    This Splendid Jade Hall had never been more powerful than the School of Five Virtues in the entire history of Divine Wind Palace. It had been an affiliate of the Yu family for a long time now. But as an affiliate it could extend its sphere of influence, which was the reason why its elders and rulers wanted to take part in this operation.


    "That''s not necessarily true. Wang She''s accumulation may not be as great as Zhou Bao''s, but don''t forget he has received the essence and blood of a roc. These rocs, of which he is now an incarnation, were the strongest of the Primordial Fierce Beasts. Although they''re not as powerful as the fabled Fierce Beasts of the Six Royals, with this incarnation he doesn''t have to rely on anything to cross the Void Thunder Tribulation!" Yu Taixuan gave a slight sigh.


    "What Brother Yu said is true. You see, it must be Wang She who is crossing the tribulation on that vast planet!" At Yu Taixuan''s side there was a bald guy from Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. He was one of the more radical Lords of Heaven. When Zhou Bao slammed the twin hammers over Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, he was in the pro-war faction. But he was restrained, so he continued to harbor a deep-seated hatred for Zhou Bao. This enmity had been stifled within him for ten years, and only now did he have the opportunity to express it. This was the first time that he had seen the might Zhou Bao had, and was all too aware of his combat capability. So he made sure he was well prepared for this operation so they were not worse off afterwards than when they began.


    The vast planet he was pointing at was indeed the place where Wang She was crossing the tribulation. A huge roc shadow appeared on the star, seemingly about to engulf its whole surface.


    He was not even aware of how huge this roc was. Even though its shadow covered the whole vast planet, it was its partial shadow. Its huge mouth was opened wide, spread over the formation map that had appeared in the hollow of the sky and it was swallowing a vast swathe of thunderbolts.


    The Thunder Tribulation in the sky seemed to be feeding the shadow. With every gulp, the thunderbolts from the formation map disappeared but its body grew bigger and its Qi Power became more invincible.


    "Four Thunder Tribulations, and he actually crossed the Void Thunder Tribulation!" Seeing the thunderbolts, which were hundreds of times larger than those in the Heaven Realm macro world, one of the men finally exclaimed, "He''s already crossed the Thunder Tribulation four times, and there is so much Divine Qi in this tribulation. He''ll have absorbed so much Qi by the time he''s finished!"


    Indeed, the Void Thunder Tribulation was incredibly powerful, thousands of times more powerful than a Thunder Tribulation in a normal macro world. However, if he could withstand it, he would reap a thousand times more benefits than from a normal macro world. If nothing else, the amount of Divine Qi cascading from within the Void Immortal Realm was incomparably more than that in a normal Thunder Tribulation. Whoever was crossing this tribulation would gain bigger benefits than what he would gain from crossing a normal tribulation. His strength would also be tremendous.


    A Genuine Immortal crossing a Thunder Tribulation in a hollow generally has to be a level stronger than one crossing a Thunder Tribulation in a macro world. The challenge of bypassing ranks was extremely simple. As Wang She crossed the Void Thunder Tribulation using only his own combat capability, he had far surpassed the power of a normal Venerable. For him, defeating a six- or seven-tribulation Lord of Heaven was not an impossible feat. If he happened to have two fairy weapons he could use, he could even face an eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven.


    Although it is said that crossing the Thunder Tribulation six times can allow someone to practice up to the level of the Self-world, it would need much more strength than what an ordinary Venerable possessed. It was a qualitative leap in strength. But for a Venerable like Wang She who had crossed the Void Thunder Tribulation, he would have enough power to break the space in the Self-world, and so could defeat a Lord of Heaven. Therefore, by crossing the Thunder Tribulation, he had already accumulated enough power.


    "The Void Thunder Tribulation really lives up to its reputation. We cannot allow such a guy to survive it and return to the Heaven Realm macro world alive. Otherwise, it could cause too many problems for us. After crossing the Thunder Tribulation for the fourth time, he would have absorbed so much Divine Qi that if we gave him enough time to cross it five or six times, how would we ever maintain our current standing?"


    Almost all of the Lords of Heaven who witnessed Wang She crossing the tribulation were filled with envy. They did not have this kind of power, nor were they brave enough to cross the Void Thunder Tribulation. Evidently in the future, he would be much more powerful than them. Naturally, their assumption was that he would kill them.


    On the vast planet, Wang She had successfully crossed through the Thunder Tribulation, and he would soon start on the fifth crossing.


    The fifth crossing would be much more frenetic than the fourth, but the main thing was that he had covered the vast planet with his roc shadow. After the final bombardment of thunderbolts in the fourth Thunder Tribulation, it had already started to collapse. The power of the roc had clearly reached its limits and it would not be able to withstand any more attacks.


    After watching the last onslaught from the fourth Thunder Tribulation, the men on the warship thought that Wang She''s tribulation was already over. But none of them realized that Wang She was totally ready to start the fifth Thunder Tribulation.


    "Is the guy crazy? Does he want to die? There''s no way he could cross a fifth Thunder Tribulation in his current state!"


    Although none of them had ever crossed a Void Thunder Tribulation, they could visibly discern that Wang She''s roc incarnation had reached its limit and would not be able to withstand much more before it totally gave way under the onslaught. In this case, even if Wang She had successfully crossed the fifth Thunder Tribulation, if he should collapse, all of the Divine Qi that he did not absorb would just burst open, and the spirit would disappear. If this happened, the tribulation crossing would be deemed a failure.


    "Look, what''s that?"


    Shengyan pointed at a layer of golden light emerging slowly from the vast planet.


    "That''s...!"


    As this golden light emerged, all of the men felt a surging force that totally resisted the fifth Thunder Tribulation and even made it vanish into thin air.


    "Fairy weapon, it''s a fairy weapon!" Yu Taixuan cried out in alarm.


    "The Thunder Emperor''s Supreme Thunder Canopy, how did he manage to get hold of such a powerful fairy weapon?"


    Yu Taixuan was the leader of these Lords of Heaven, but the most powerful man was an old man who sat silently at his side. His power had reached the peak of an eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. He only needed to experience one more Thunder Tribulation to reach the Human Immortal Karmic Rank. It was said that his accumulation was already enough, and he was already preparing to initiate the tribulation. After he completed this important step, he would become a Taoist Chun Feng of the Tang Dynasty Youxian Taoist Temple.


    This Taoist Chun Feng was extremely old and wise in judgment. When he saw the light emerging from the vast planet there was a look of concern on his face, which was a contrast to his normally dispassionate expression.


    "Supreme Thunder Canopy, how is this possible? This is the fairy weapon which the Thunder Emperor of antiquity used to carry to control the innumerable thunderbolts. How could Wang She have it?"


    "It seems that Wang She had entered the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode and benefitted enormously!" Taoist Chun Feng took a deep breath and calmed himself, but he still could not conceal his bitter envy.


    The Supreme Thunder Canopy was the fairy weapon of the Thunder Emperor and it was used to control the innumerable thunderbolts. This was the best thing to use to cross the Thunder Tribulation. With this item he would not need any accumulation, and he could easily and safely cross the ninth tribulation and become a Human Immortal. Would there be anything this world that could move this old bastard more than becoming a Karmic Rank Genuine Immortal? No, there was none.


    "I want this Supreme Thunder Canopy!" the Taoist Chun Feng blurted out, silencing the whole group of Lords of Heaven.


    After a while, Yu Taixuan took a deep breath. "I have no say in this matter, I just want Wang She and Zhou Bao killed, then the fairy weapon will be yours!"


    "Well then, what about the rest of you?" The Taoist Chun Feng nodded in satisfaction and turned to the several Lords of Heaven from Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain.


    "Hmph, only the predestined shall be able to receive the fairy weapon. Fate will decide who gets it, not His Elder the Taoist Chun Feng." It was not easy for Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty to speak with the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain together in the same place in the Three Western Regions. The bald brute replied, "When the time comes, it''ll depend on each of our ability."


    "Okay. Then I''ll just see what kind of ability a guy from the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain has!" Upon hearing this, the Taoist Chun Feng''s expression turned cold, and he felt an insatiable desire to kill.

 662 The Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth Appears

    "Now, you two! This is not the time for infighting!" It only took a brief exchange of words for Youxian Temple and Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain to start a fight. Yu Taixuan had mixed feelings. The good thing was that the two big sects from the Three Western Regions had a disagreement, which would no doubt benefit Divine Wind Palace. The bad thing was that they still had not started the operation, and internal fighting would be of no help.


    "Yes, my lad from Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, what you say is true. When the time comes, we''ll each get what we can according to our own ability. And if your guys at Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain can obtain the device, then so can I, Li Chunfeng."


    "Fine." the bald brute smirked, staring at Taoist Chun Feng with a glowering expression. He turned to look at Wang She crossing the Thunder Tribulation on the vast planet.


    By now, the sky on the vast planet was completely covered by the golden light of the Supreme Thunder Canopy. The stormy fifth crossing of the Thunder Tribulation had been completed with no difficulty at all. And now the formation map in the hollow was starting to emit a faint red glow.


    "Quick, look! It''s the Six Directions Red Thunder. He''s in the hollow, crossing the Six Directions Thunder Tribulation. Oh no! This guy is going to attain Lord of Heaven Karmic Rank with the help of the Supreme Thunder Canopy. We need to kill him, we need to kill him! Otherwise, we''ll be no match for him once he''s secured this phase." Seeing the red glow, Taoist Chun Feng screamed in rage.


    Crack, crack.


    While Taoist Chun Feng was shouting, the red thunderbolts had already spread over the entire sky. In the middle of the magic formation of the hollow, it looked like a black hole which had opened up and lead to the Void Immortal Realm. The hole looked like an entrance to an ancient site; a continuous stream of Divine Qi was flowing into it, like a long, backward-flowing river. In this torrential stream of Qi floated golden lotus flowers, carried along by the boundless Six Directions Red Thunder, cascading towards the Supreme Thunder Canopy.


    "The Essential Qi Golden Lotus! It''s the Golden Divine Qi solidified into a physical form. Just one flower is all it takes to withstand all the Divine Qi that I have absorbed. He now has ten times the power than he had before! And so many flowers, too. Damn it, why is that guy so lucky!" Taoist Chun Feng watched the golden lotuses floating in the stream, and roared once again in anger.


    Splash! Splash!


    None of the others could stand it either. They gulped. It was so alluring, even one measly flower would greatly increase their level of cultivation. Suddenly faced with this multitude of flowers, enough to increase their power countless times over, how could their hearts not be filled with avarice?


    They were all Lords of Heaven, but having been cultivated for thousands of years, they clearly understood the severity of the situation. Even for the strongest of them, Taoist Chun Feng, facing this Six Directions Thunder Tribulation would be the road leading to their demise.


    "We need to kill him, we need to kill him. Not only do we need to kill him, we also need to take away all of his pneuma! Then we can get this over within an instant!"


    Yu Taixuan gulped audibly as he watched the group of men react. What he feared most was that nothing would come out from all their efforts. It now looked like they were not there to help him, but instead were greedily eyeing Wang She''s fairy weapon and pneuma. He did not need to say anymore. He started to think about his own situation, and pondered on the advantage Divine Wind Palace could gain from what Wang She was carrying.


    "Look, he is going to start the seventh Thunder Tribulation!" While he was still pondering, Shi Shengyan pointed at the vast planet again and yelled.


    Although the Supreme Thunder Canopy was an ancient fairy weapon belonging the Thunder Emperor, it had the power to control the innumerable thunderbolts. But Wang She''s power was limited; there was no way he could refine his skill when he was using the weapon, so it had limited capabilities. Therefore, after he survived the Six Directions Thunder Tribulation, his sixth tribulation, the glow on the planet would slowly fade, making it was clear that the fairy weapon''s power had been used up.


    "This guy is too reckless. Starting the seventh tribulation under these circumstances? He really is completely oblivious to his forthcoming demise!", Taoist Chun Feng said with a stern laugh.


    In their eyes, Wang She really had no idea that he was courting death.


    After this guy has crossed this Void Thunder Tribulation, having gone through six tribulations and achieved the rank of Karmic Rank Lord of Heaven, his combat capability will have quickly exceeded all of the Lords of Heaven present. And yet he was still insistent on completing the seventh Thunder Tribulation to obtain the Divine Sense!


    If this guy gained Divine Sense after absorbing so much Divine Qi, ancient pneuma and Golden Divine Qi in the Void Thunder Tribulation, then this Divine Sense would be so earth-shattering that no ordinary person could ever hope to withstand it. Maybe this was the reason he was so keen to initiate the seventh Thunder Tribulation?


    But doing so would undoubtedly be very dangerous, and this made Wang She even more reviled among these Lords of Heaven.


    Why even more reviled?


    It was plain, common jealousy. This band of Lords of Heaven burned with envy, seeing Wang She moving straight on to the sixth Void Thunder Tribulation. Seeing his insatiable greed, they really wanted to thrash him.


    Just when they thought there was no way Wang She could survive the seventh Evil Thunder Tribulation, the magic formation in the hollow suddenly started shaking. The entrance in the middle of the black hole suddenly became more distinct; countless cyan thunderbolts evolved into streams of cyan thunder dragons surging towards the Supreme Thunder Canopy. The light from the Supreme Thunder Canopy disappeared under the onslaught of these thunder dragons. The light that had covered the entire vast planet vanished, revealing Wang She who was on the brink of collapse under the pressure, in the form of a recovering Real Body of a roc.


    Boom, boom, boom...


    A million thunder dragons pummeled the roc''s Real Body. They ripped to pieces what almost become the True Body of a roc-panther.


    On the vast planet, Wang She grimaced in fury as streams of light converged onto his head. It turned out he had several Supreme-Class Pure Yang Celestial Devices. These Pure Yang Celestial Devices emitted a faint light as they provided Wang She with solid protection.


    Even fairy weapons could not protect Wang She now. But what about several Pure Yang Celestial Devices?


    Crack!


    Boom!


    Several deafening rumbles could be heard. The Supreme-Class Pure Yang Celestial Devices completely disintegrated under the onslaught of the thunder dragons. All that was left of them was dust which dispersed in the breeze.


    "It''s over!" Barely able to control their emotions, the Lords of Heaven on the ship closed their eyes. There was no doubt now that Wang She''s tribulation crossing had failed. There was absolutely nothing left. The pneuma, countless Pure Yang Celestial Devices, his roc Real Body ¨C were all gone. All that remained were the fairy weapon and the Supreme Thunder Canopy.


    The ship was suddenly filled with an eerie atmosphere, and the men of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain and the men from Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty eyed each other cautiously, each fearing that the other side would make the first move to kill the other. All of them cursed repeatedly. This Wang She was foolish. He crossed six Thunder Tribulations and gained the Lord of Heaven Karmic Rank, but it wasn''t enough. Why did he have to initiate the seventh Thunder Tribulation and destroy himself? Did he really think that crossing this Void Thunder Tribulation would be so easy?


    "No, look. His roc Real Body is still there!"


    Just as the men of the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain and the men of the Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty were glowering at each other and about to start a brawl, Yu Taixuan pointed at the vast planet.


    "That''s impossible. How come his roc Real Body has not disappeared? Why is the Thunder Tribulation not over?"


    On the vast planet, the Evil Thunder Tribulation was not only ongoing, but was getting more and more intense. With the relentless attack from the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder, the Divine Qi was no longer a normal Divine Qi, but turned into streams of black pneuma as they cascaded down onto the vast planet.


    "What is this pneuma? Why do I have such a bad feeling about this?"


    "It''s Original Essential Qi. It''s the only ancient pneuma in the Void Immortal Realm. It is a grade higher than Divine Qi, and stronger. It is the only pneuma available for someone practicing at ranks higher than Immortal Karma Rank. I didn''t think that this type of pneuma could be found in the seventh Thunder Tribulation. This means that if he gets through this tribulation safely, he will have the power to fight an immortal."


    "No way!" The men on the ship were shocked to hear this from Taoist Chun Feng.


    The power to fight an immortal? Maybe he could even crush them with one finger.


    This fuelled their desire to completely eradicate Wang She.


    "I didn''t think a Void Thunder Tribulation could have such a powerful effect! This kind of thing with Zhou Bao and Wang She absolutely cannot happen again. Otherwise, this Heaven Realm macro world will fall into complete chaos. Damn Immortal Palace, secretly raising such a formidable foe. Do they really want the Heaven Realm macro world to fall into chaos?" Watching the Original Essential Qi billowing sent a chill through Yu Taixuan. He had become accustomed to holding the highest rank. It seemed that Zhou Bao and Wang She could destroy the original order and equilibrium, and therefore must be eliminated.


    Hiss!


    A long hissing sound came from the vast planet as a large snake leaped into view. This snake was thousands of feet long and its scales glittered with flashes of cyan light. Each scale covering the snake was the size of a grain of rice, but each scale had an exquisitely delicate ancient decorative charm etched on it. Once the snake emerged, it absorbed all of the cyan thunder dragons attacking it in an instant. Each thunder dragon disappeared as soon as it touched a scale. These scales could absorb every bit of power from the Seven Evils Cyan Thunder. The snake grew bigger with every thunder dragon it absorbed. Its mouth gaped open and swallowed all of the Original Essential Qi that was flowing downwards. Once the seventh Thunder Tribulation was over, the snake, having grown enormously, wrapped itself around the entire vast planet. It watched the golden warship with its towering head as its body coiled around the planet. In its cold eyes flashed a contemptuous smile.


    "The Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth¡ª¡ª!" All of the men were stunned as they watched the giant snake, except Taoist Chun Feng who cried out in fear, his face pale with panic.

 663 The Divine Sense Reaching the Advanced Level and Gobbling up Enemies in One Go

    Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth!


    When they heard this cry from Taoist Chun Feng, the expressions of all the Lords of Heaven altered swiftly.


    In the beginning, there were no demons in the world. Those so-called demons were given that name in order to differentiate the alien races, by human beings who had gained the upper hand during primitive times.


    Due to the rise of the Human Tribe, the name "demon" was gradually accepted by the public. At last, a demon race came into being, and during antiquity times, numerous Demon Tribe experts and Demonic Emperors appeared on the scene.


    Frankly, the conceptual scope of the phrase "Demon Tribe" was much wider than that of "Human Tribe". Technically, the Human Tribe was just a small tribe back then, which later gradually rose to domination and differentiated themselves from the Demon Tribe.


    It could be said that in the beginning, the entire primitive world belonged to the Fierce Beasts and the Demon Tribe. However, somewhere in the middle of these primitive times, an originally inconspicuous race among the Demon Tribe in the Central Plains started to flourish. As if being favored by God, this race successfully flourished at an incredibly high rate, gained their independence from the huge Demon Tribe, and named themselves the Human Tribe. By the end of these primitive times, this Human Tribe even managed to repress the Demon Tribe on their own without any help. They became the largest tribe at that time as well as a leader of hegemony in antiquity times. This supremacy lasted till the end of antiquity times when the Heaven Realm Macro World disappeared from the Central Star Area.


    On account of the disappearance of the Heaven Realm Macro World, since antiquity times, the Heaven Realm Macro World had no knowledge about other macro worlds. However, the embarrassing part was that the current Heaven Realm Macro World almost became a world dominated by the Demon Tribe, except for the palm-sized Seven-deity Regions where the Human Tribe was still ruling. Furthermore, if it was not for the powerful inhibition imposed on the whole Seven-deity Regions, perhaps today, the Human Tribe in the Seven-deity Regions would also have been reduced to becoming slaves of the Demon Tribe.


    This was the reason why the highest level of the Seven-deity Regions harbored an intense fear of the Demon Tribe, but they also understood them pretty well.


    The Demon Tribe comprised of countless races, and the Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth was one of them.


    Among the Demon Tribe, the Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth was not the strongest but they were the most troublesome, for the size of its members was too enormous.


    Let''s think about the meaning of "Heaven and Earth".


    This so-called "Heaven and Earth" referred to the whole world. The Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth was a huge demon that could engulf the world and swallow it wholly.


    This tribe actually had another name in primitive times¡ª the Rare Python Tribe.


    This was a race derived from the Serpent Tribe. The greatest features of this tribe were the gigantic bodies of their members. Their favorite pastime was to stretch out and wrap up the world they were in, just like what Wang She was doing now on the vast planet below.


    This kind of activity was, of course, unwelcomed by others. No matter if it was a macro world, a micro world or a vast planet, there were still other creatures living in them. Once the huge demon coiled it up and defecated on it, how could others keep living in it? It was really disgusting!


    For this reason, the Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth was disliked by all among the Demon Tribe, too.


    Unfortunately, not only did the Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth have colossal sizes and nasty habits, but they were also extremely strong.


    If they did not have that sort of strength, they could not have grown to that size in the first place!


    Thus, the sizes of their bodies were proportional to their strength level. A Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth that could wrap an entire macro world would possibly possess a strength as powerful as a Celestial Immortal, while the one that was able to wrap a micro-world would have a strength at the level of an Earthly Immortal. As for the one like Wang She, who was able to wind around a vast planet at one go, his strength would be about the same level as that of a Divine Immortal.


    This was utterly beyond their expectations.


    "How could that be?"


    "Isn''t Wang She one of the Human Tribe? How come he has turned into a huge demon?"


    "And what he transformed into was a Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth with strength on par with a Divine Immortal!"


    Yu Taixuan''s face darkened, and rivulets of cold sweat dripped from him. This situation was completely unexpected. They had believed that with the combined strength of so many Lords of Heaven, it would be more than enough for them to exterminate both Wang She and Zhou Bao, who were still weak after undergoing the Void Thunder Tribulation, for good. But now, in the blink of an eye, they had become the prey of their designated victims. How did that happen? Catching the viciousness flitting in the ice-cold pupils of the Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth, Yu Taixuan snarled out his orders without any further delay.


    "Hurry, let''s get out of here, hurry up!"


    At this point, be it the legendary Thunder Emperor''s fairy weapon, or the wish to kill Bill, oh sorry, to kill Zhou Bao, or to kill Wang She, all these became the lowest priority in their minds. The only thing that mattered right now was to run for their lives.


    "Trying to run away now? Don''t even think about it!"


    A stream of mighty willpower was released from the Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth. Its coiled body suddenly straightened up and it looked exactly like a python out hunting for its prey. Abruptly, it swooped forward, opened its giant mouth and swallowed the golden warship in one gulp. In the process of swallowing, the demon paused for a second as if something had lodged inside its throat, but thereafter, the warship slipped down its maw and disappeared. Divine Wind Palace had gone to a lot of trouble to invite all the Lords of Heaven from Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain and Youxian Temple, but now, they had all been swallowed by Wang She. Even Zhou Bao would find this kind of thing unbelievable, let alone Divine Wind Palace.


    "How could that be? It''s impossible!"


    "Is this the same Wang She we know? He has merely undergone seven Void Thunder Tribulations, how come his strength has grown to such an extent?"


    "Whoosh!"


    The giant python Wang She had transformed into seemed to have had quite a meal. It let out a huge burp, and then its body started shrinking rapidly. In the end, it disappeared out of sight. Zhou Bao was the only one who had a clear view across the atmosphere and clouds which enveloped the vast planet. He saw the huge demon disappearing and it reappeared as Wang She. His face was deathly pale and he laid in a pit which had been created by a thunderbolt strike on the vast planet, weak and panting intensely.


    "Digestion problem?" Zhou Bao appeared next to Wang She, displaying a trace of a creepy smile.


    "You should have a go at swallowing it!" Wang She snapped. Then, he attempted to force himself into a sitting position but instantly collapsed and sprawled on the ground.


    "Hee hee, engulfing heaven and earth! Never thought I could obtain such a Divine Sense when going through the seventh Thunder Tribulation! Otherwise, it would not have been so easy for me to punish those guys!"


    "Compared to the Divine Sense you recently acquired, I''m more interested in your transformation as a Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth!"


    "What is so interesting about that? Did you really think it was an interesting event when a mere kid of five or six years of age, fell from a cliff after being hit by a treacherous palm attack? No, it was just that I was lucky at that time, because at the bottom of that cliff stood a den belonging to a Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth born in antiquity times. I don''t know what happened, but when I woke up, I was already a Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth!"


    "No way!" Hearing Wang She''s tale, Zhou Bao''s expression turned increasingly odd. "Wang She''s experience sounded just like a story of a character in a legend. His soul time-traveled to this world and possessed an egg. When it hatched, Wang She was born as a descendant of the Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth race. Then, he successfully transformed into a human being by constant practice and sneaked into the Human Tribe. Considering his eagerness to take on Divine Wind Palace, could it be that this guy''s final objective was to eliminate the Human Tribe?"


    Zhou Bao started musing on these far-fetched ideas. At this point, the horizon suddenly seemed to quake and a blazing light soared into the sky. Looking up, Zhou Bao saw a burst of starlight coming from the northern part of the sky. The light was so bright that Zhou Bao''s eyes were dazzled by its brilliance.


    "Child-endowing Buddha also survived the Void Thunder Tribulation, and probably had endured eight Void Thunder Tribulations at one time." Wang She sighed. This time he underwent seven Void Thunder Tribulations but failed at the eighth, which means that if he still wants to overcome the eighth Void Thunder Tribulation, he would have to face a severe hardship, numerous times more severe than this time, when they underwent the Void Thunder Tribulations together.


    "Eight Thunder Tribulations? Yeah, that''s right. With the strength he has been concealing, it was actually difficult for him to not conquer the eighth Thunder Tribulation!" Zhou Bao said. Then, he wheeled around to look at Wang She and went on, "Are those guys really dead?"


    "No, three of them managed to escape!" Wang She shook his head. "The Divine Sense of gobbling up the world is indeed impressive. However, I only grasped it a short time ago, so when I first cast it out, I was not careful enough and let some expert with fairy weapons on that ship break through the space and escape. But don''t worry, they must have been badly hurt in my space of engulfing. Even though they fled, their strength would have been significantly reduced!


    After speaking, as if something had occurred to him, Wang She opened his mouth and released a jet of cyan light. From this light, several shining Pure Yang Celestial Devices and a fairy weapon popped out.


    "In terms of fairy weapons, if we count the two they used in their escape, in this operation, they were carrying three fairy weapons! How extravagant of them!" Wang She stuck out his hand and grabbed the column-like object flickering with a white light. "But luckily, I was the one who took all the advantages!"


    "This time, Divine Wind Palace certainly suffered a great loss, let alone Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain and Youxian Temple. We can let the latter two go free, but not Divine Wind Palace. Though Yu Taixuan escaped, the rest are all dead. It''s a good time for us to round up the whole Divine Wind Palace at one go."


    "Are you going to wipe out Divine Wind Palace by making use of this opportunity?" Wang She was a little stunned. "Boy, don''t say I didn''t warn you. Although it might seem pretty remarkable when you saw me gobbling them up, you should know I only achieved that with the help of the Qi Power I got after undergoing the Thunder Tribulations and comprehending the Divine Sense. If you asked me to do this all over again, it would be impossible. What''s more, the inhibition in the Seven-deity Regions won''t allow me to do so there, either!"


    "Humph, it doesn''t matter if you can turn into your original form. When you launch your Real Body of Roc, your strength won''t be inferior to your Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth form, or perhaps it will be even more powerful!"


    "You do have a point. To me, transforming into my original form is merely a makeshift strategy. The really powerful technique is my Real Body of Roc. However, I just survived many Thunder Tribulations, so it will take a long time for my Real Body of Roc to evolve into the Original Spirit of Roc. As you just witnessed, my original form is not a man but a Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth. Thus, I have to exert greater efforts to turn the Original Spirit of my original form into the Original Spirit of Roc!"


    "Dude, be patient. Now, with our combined powers, it''s not impossible to turn Divine Wind Palace upside down, but the chain reaction as a result of this is not something we can afford!" At this moment, the voice of Child-endowing Buddha could be heard. "Therefore, don''t do anything rash!"

 665 Starting to Go Through Thunder Tribulations

    Zhou Bao did not believe the story Child-endowing Buddha had just told him. Study room attendant of the Thunder Emperor? When had the Thunder Emperor ever needed an attendant? He didn''t really need one, right?


    However, even though he did not tell them the complete story or the true story, he did find a way for Zhou Bao to safely undergo the Void Thunder Tribulation.


    Staring at the Innumerable Thunderbolts Formation in front of him, Zhou Bao suddenly looked up and said, "Better early than late. No need to wait to schedule a date, today is the best time. Now that I''ve got the formation map, it won''t be too hard to set up the Innumerable Thunderbolts Formation. Let''s get going!"


    Wang She exchanged a look with Child-endowing Buddha. Then, they both nodded and replied, "Fine. As the saying goes, a long delay may give rise to more trouble. When you and your Supreme Fairy Weapon survive the Thunder Tribulation, we can swagger our way back to the Heaven Realm without having to fear anything!"


    "You''re right. Once I get through the Void Thunder Tribulation, we will truly have nothing to fear!" Zhou Bao cast a cool look at Child-endowing Buddha. "Humph, Innumerable Thunderbolts Formation. But don''t forget, I also have the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!" As he spoke, Zhou Bao lifted his hands, and 49 cyan flags shot out from his sleeves, zooming around him.


    These 49 formation flags were not the same as those that Zhou Bao had used in the Sea Area. These flags were produced after Zhou Bao overcame great difficulties during his 300 years of closed-door training in the Azure Heaven. To make these flags, Zhou Bao had gathered every kind of the highest-graded resources in the Azure Big World. The materials used in refining these 49 flags was ample enough to refine a fairy weapon. It was just that Zhou Bao''s strength had not reached the phase whereby he could refine fairy weapons, so this time there was no fairy weapon being produced. However, he had refined all these 49 flags into Pure Yang Celestial Devices and soaked them in Pure Yang Water. Thus, every flag was a highest-graded Pure Yang Celestial Device. When Zhou Bao cast any one of them out, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation would appear in a stretch.


    The fame of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation was definitely not inferior to that of the Innumerable Thunderbolts Formation. In fact, the rarity of the former considerably exceeded the latter.


    To enhance his strength to its present degree, Zhou Bao had exerted great effort in working on the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation made up of the 49 flags had achieved the basic level. Even though it had not reached the terrifying level where it was able to let life and death end in bubbles and make the Yin and Yang World return to dust yet, it had no problems trapping all the living creatures in the Heaven Realm Macro World.


    If not for the fact that this Yin and Yang Dust Formation was not a pure defensive formation, Zhou Bao would certainly grit his teeth and work harder on the 49 flags so as to utilize the formation to go safely through seven or eight Thunder Tribulations.


    "Life and death ending in bubbles, the Yin and Yang World all return to dust!" Watching the 49 flags shoot out and land on the vast planet which sat on the farthest periphery of this galaxy, Child-endowing Buddha''s eyes brightened. He immediately grasped what Zhou Bao was thinking.


    "Good, good idea. What a profound idea you have! Now, it''s not impossible for you to undergo eight Thunder Tribulations at one go!"


    "Whether it will work depends on my luck!" Zhou Bao said faintly. Indeed, it depended on luck, and also on whatever secret agenda Child-endowing Buddha was contemplating.


    It was a known fact that going through the Thunder Tribulation was the utmost priority for every practitioner. Accordingly, those who were going to assist him must be trustworthy guys. If so, the practitioner would really have nothing to worry about when undergoing the Thunder Tribulation. But now, between the two men standing before Zhou Bao, Wang She was the one Zhou Bao trusted completely, while Child-endowing Buddha was not so reliable. This dude knew most of Zhou Bao''s secrets, and his background was also highly suspicious. Even though for most of the time, he had provided Zhou Bao with a lot of help, it was still impossible for Zhou Bao to trust him unconditionally.


    "Boy, I know you don''t trust me. And I admit that I have hidden the truth from you in terms of many things. But that''s also my prerogative, right? I have no obligation to let you know my innermost secrets. Everyone is just trying to acquire what they need through cooperation. Now, it''s still a long way for us to go against each other, thus, I won''t trick you!" Child-endowing Buddha had detected Zhou Bao''s concerns, so he explained to Zhou Bao without beating around the bush, "If you still have some misgivings, it''s fine. I can take a Great Vow of the Heart Demon and guarantee you that I don''t have any other agenda during your Thunder Tribulation this time and the Innumerable Thunderbolts Formation I gave you is the authentic one. But in return, you shall make a commitment to me as well, promising that you''ll go all out to help me in the future as long as your own interests are not jeopardized!"


    "Help you do what?" Zhou Bao asked suspiciously.


    "This is not the right time. I''ll tell you after you are done with your Thunder Tribulations!" Child-endowing Buddha shook his head, beaming. "It won''t do you any good if you know it right now!"


    "Humph, how mysterious you are!" Zhou Bao snorted in discontent, but he stopped asking questions. Now that Child-endowing Buddha had been so upfront and having made the Great Vow of the Heart Demon, Zhou Bao also threw his cautions to the wind. Then, he waved his hand, and the climate on that vast planet instantly changed; it was now covered in a layer of thin fog¡ªthe Yin and Yang Dust Formation had been turned on.


    "According to the formation map of the Innumerable Thunderbolts Formation, it can be set up by the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and 18 Thunder Gods. Thus, I won''t bother you two to help me out now. You just wait outside and stay as far away as possible. As you said, the Thunder Tribulation I''m going through will not be a normal one!"


    "Yes, it''s not the usual type!" Child-endowing Buddha''s mouth twitched; he pulled Wang She by the hand and said, "Let''s withdraw, leave this small Star Area!"


    "It can''t be that drastic, right?" Wang She was taken aback at this. A moment ago, he thought his own Void Thunder Tribulation was already powerful, but even so, he did not blast the vast planet where he was located into nothing. But now, they were going to leave this Star Area? How could the consequence be so serious?


    "You''ll know it when you witness it!" Child-endowing Buddha, still holding hands with Wang She, gave a good jerk, and the two vanished from the Star Area.


    "Now, it''s my turn!" With no one around, Zhou Bao took a deep breath, and then leaped onto the vast planet in a flash and disappeared into the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    "Boom!"


    Just several seconds after Zhou Bao entered the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, the whole Star Area suddenly shuddered as a blast of thunder was heard.


    The two who had just appeared outside the Star Area were startled by this.


    "What the hell?" Wang She asked in shock. But soon, his shock escalated to terror, because an overwhelming spirit that felt as if it could crumble the world suddenly enveloped the entire Star Area.


    "Crap, we didn''t retreat far enough!" Child-endowing Buddha bellowed. He gave another jerk at Wang She''s sleeve and the two disappeared again.


    A few seconds after they disappeared, a tremendous hollow magic formation emerged over the galaxy.


    In the hollow, theoretically, there was no concept of directions, be it right and left, or up and down. But it was natural to use those concepts based on everyone''s own position. After all, human beings were self-centered creatures. That was nothing new.


    After withdrawing to a distance the length of another galaxy, Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She finally came to a halt. They stared in the direction of the galaxy where Zhou Bao had been with their mouths wide open, temporarily losing the ability to speak. Compared to the Void Thunder Tribulation they had just gone through, this time the magic formation that appeared when Zhou Bao was doing his Thunder Tribulation was several times larger and it covered the entire galaxy. In terms of size, this formation was not only several hundred times but certainly multiple thousand times larger.


    "Tell me, are you sure your Innumerable Thunderbolts Formation or whatsoever will work?"


    "I don''t know!"


    "Then why were you so confident just now?"


    "How could I know it would be so terrifying when the Supreme Fairy Weapon was going through the Thunder Tribulation? Even in antiquity times, no such thing has ever happened. I did my deduction based on the magnitude of our Thunder Tribulation, but who knew his Thunder Tribulation could be so enormous!" Child-endowing Buddha muttered, his face going a bit pale. "But relax, that boy is not an idiot. Even if he cannot go through seven or eight Thunder Tribulations like we did, at least he could survive one or two. After that, his combat capability will more or less be raised to the Immortal phase, won''t it?"


    Wang She did not speak but just fixed his eyes absent-mindedly on the magic formation that appeared in the hollow, in which stood an ancient huge gate.


    When the two did their Thunder Tribulation, the black hole in the magic formation only revealed a shadow of a huge gate. But now, the gate that appeared in this galaxy was a completely substantialized gate, quite real and tangible. This gate was much powerful than theirs and every detail of the ancient patterns inscribed on it was clearly visible.


    "Er...Puff!"


    All of a sudden, Wang She''s face went dreadfully pale and he spat out a mouthful of blood. He then staggered about.


    "You idiot! Don''t look at that gate. That''s the projection of the Gate of Origin. Every pattern inscribed on it represents a complete Dharma of Immortal practice. Seeing too many of them will make you confused, and your spirit might be overwhelmed and will shatter!"


    "Why didn''t you tell me before!" Wang She yelled angrily. He shifted his focus and started to regulate his breathing to repair his damaged spirit.


    "Boom!" Just when this old Gate of Origin appeared, black pneuma surged up like seawater, poured from the gate into the magic formation, then cascaded onto the vast planet.


    "Original Essential Qi? No way! This first Thunder Tribulation hasn''t appeared yet, but there''s already so much Original Essential Qi!" At the sight of the raging Original Essential Qi rushing through the Gate of Origin, Wang She forgot himself once more.


    The Original Essential Qi had not been to transmitted to Wang She until his sixth or seventh Thunder Tribulation. But unlike him, during Zhou Bao''s first Thunder Tribulation, there was already so much Original Essential Qi which surged and spilled forth, instantly engulfing the entire planet.


    "How could there be such a wonderful thing in the world? Seems that this time Zhou Bao is really in deep trouble!" Child-endowing Buddha exclaimed, when he saw the Original Essential Qi as well as the great destructive spirit pouring forth along with it.


    Destruction and creation were the true essence of the power of thunderbolts. No matter if it was during primitive times, antiquity times, or the present world, the main power of thunderbolts demonstrated was still destructive. As for creation, well, who would bother about that?


    When the first thunderbolt flashed, both Wang She and Child-endowing Buddha''s hearts jumped to their throats. Sure enough, the thunderbolt that descended along with the Original Essential Qi was not the normal one, but the Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder.


    The golden thunderbolt shot through the magic formation and struck the fog-surrounded vast planet directly. Instantly, the fog started raging, and the entire galaxy seemed to be on the verge of collapse in the light of this golden thunderbolt.

 666 The Emerge of a Mysterious Figure

    "Boom, boom, boom¡ª!"


    Jets of golden thunderbolts pierced the hollow like sharp swords. The poor galaxy was already in a dilapidated state, with the exception of the vast planet on which Zhou Bao had chosen to undergo his Thunder Tribulation.


    Three bolts of the Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder shot down in succession, but they were all dissolved and absorbed by the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    From the viewpoint of Wang She''s lot who were standing outside the tribulation, it seemed quite severe; however everything was actually going on well inside the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. After it was turned on, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation diluted the energy of the Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder into numerous fine strands and made them disappear by absorbing them. Everything was going on in an orderly way, and the tribulation had not caused any damage to the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    "The Yin and Yang Dust Formation really lives up to its reputation! It''s not specifically designed for defense, but its defensive power is much stronger than all formations I know!" Zhou Bao was sitting cross-legged at the location of the Formation Eye and brooding. In front of him, a sanguine ball, which was a Fiery Eye, was floating in the air. This Fiery Eye had been refined by him into a formation hub that could control the whole Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    By virtue of this Fiery Eye, he could manipulate all parts of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation to disintegrate the power of thunderbolts while absorbing the abundant Original Essential Qi.


    Above his head suspended the Black Pearl which was now only about one foot long. It was surging in the air, with intensified and thin streaks of golden thunderbolts curling around it, emitting streams of a wonderful essence.


    "Bang!"


    When the ninth shot of the Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder landed, Zhou Bao felt the entire Yin and Yang Dust Formation brimming over with the power of thunderbolts. Since the Original Essential Qi had already filled up every part of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Zhou Bao was now immersed in the sea of the Original Essential Qi. This, mingled with the streaks of power from the thunderbolts was essentially the spirit of the Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder. Compared to the thunderbolts descending from the sky, the present thunderbolts in the Original Essential Qi were much milder, and they seeped gradually into Zhou Bao''s body.


    "Sizzling, sizzling, sizzling!" Zhou Bao felt so comfortable that he even closed his eyes to enjoy the sensation. The streaks of thunderbolt power were finer than hairs and softer than silk and they filled every inch of his body, right down to his pores. Even his blood and bone marrow were awash with the golden thunderbolts. As he was being purified by these thunderbolts, he sensed his body growing stronger at an incredible speed.


    Of course, in comparison, the biggest change was to his spirit!


    When exiting the Three Small Realms and obtaining the Individual Immortal Karma Rank, Zhou Bao had already successfully refined the Spirit Sea of Consciousness. In contrast with the Spirit Sea of Consciousness of an ordinary man, Zhou Bao''s Spirit Sea of Consciousness was wider and contained more ferocious spirits. When he refined the Real Body of Demonic Ape Zhuyan, a place similar to a continent emerged in this fierce Sea of Consciousness, which was exactly where the Real Body of Zhuyan existed. Furthermore, after absorbing sufficient Icy Divine Light, this continent became an icy-cold land and the power of the Real Body of Zhuyan increased in strength. Doing his penance in the Sea of Divine Power for 300 years, Zhou Bao had finally ingested the Icy Divine Light absorbed in this Sea Area so that his Icy Divine Light had combined perfectly with the Mysterious Divine Light. As his Eight Nine Mysterious Skill kept improving, the area of this continent increased in size as well. However, over this continent stood a weird vortex. On the surface, the vortex looked quite similar with the soul vortex Zhou Bao used to cast out. But in comparison with the soul vortex, it was more profound, more austere and it was infused with a highly mysterious spirit.


    That was the power of the Heavenly Magic Eye!


    Heavenly Magic Eye!


    Zhou Bao obtained this fairy weapon made by Fiery Eyes after he defeated and killed Yu Taixu. Then, he spent 300 years to successfully infuse it into his External Elixir between his eyebrows; thereby it became another hidden ace card for Zhou Bao.


    The Heavenly Magic Eye had not been used to its full potential in the hands of Yu Taixu. One reason was that his opponent Zhou Bao was too powerful and whose strength was way beyond his estimation. The other was that Yu Taixu had not thoroughly figured out how to use it after this fairy weapon was refined. After all, he was not a man who possessed the Fiery Eyes bloodline, so his power and the power of this weapon did not blend together very well.


    But Zhou Bao was different from him¡ªZhou Bao actually had Fiery Eyes and was an heir of the Fiery Eyes fire vein. Thus, after he infused the Heavenly Magic Eye into himself, he was like a tiger with wings and he soon mastered the usage of this fairy weapon. Therefore, such a vortex was reflected in his Sea of Consciousness.


    That was the original state of Zhou Bao''s Sea of Consciousness. As the Thunder Tribulation went on, his spirit started its purification process.


    Technically, the Genuine Immortal Thunder Tribulation should be called the Ghost Immortal Thunder Tribulation, for its greatest use was not to purify one''s body but to purify his spirit and turn it into an Original Spirit, which was the main reason for becoming a Ghost Immortal.


    The Real Body, to be honest, was just an illusion condensed by willpower, Dharma power, and bloodline. Although it could exude great power, it was not substantial and was not truly permanent. Like the soul of a normal man, it would disperse after the man died. The small number of men who became ghosts were those who either had extremely firm willpower, were holding deep grudges or were clinging on to their unrealized dreams. But these ghosts were quite insubstantial as well. In cases of rain, thunder or lightning, these ghosts were easily destroyed and in strong gales, even easily blown away. Even if the weather was good, as time went by, they would still gradually disperse into nothing. Even though a Real Body was not much stronger than a ghost, the two were essentially the same.


    However, the Original Spirit was not like that. After experiencing the purification of Thunder Tribulations, the Original Spirit would become substantial. Thus, even though one''s body was destroyed, as long as his Original Spirit escaped, the man would not actually die, and even his cultivation would not decline. Once he found a suitable body, he could live a life full of vigor and vitality again. It was said that when a man reached the Genuine Immortal phase, he then became a true immortal, free of the restrictions of his body. Some Genuine Immortals would even stop practicing their bodies after going through Thunder Tribulations; instead, they would focus on practicing their Original Spirits. At last, their Original Spirits would become much stronger than their bodies, which would be useful in fighting or undergoing other Thunder Tribulations. There were indeed a few precedences of that kind.


    It was just that after antiquity times, the Thunder Tribulations immortals endured were all from their respective macro worlds. Thus, the overall effect on spirits could not be achieved to that degree. Those Thunder Tribulations would at most mould your spirit into an Original Spirit and that was all. Therefore, in the present world, practitioners still attached great importance to their physical bodies.


    But unlike others, what Zhou Bao was undergoing was the Void Thunder Tribulation and he was doing this together with his Supreme Fairy Weapon. The benefits he got was too immense. Very soon, his Sea of Consciousness was suffused with the power of thunderbolts. When the power of thunderbolts was purifying his spirit, it did not leave out any single part. It gradually blended into the Sea of Consciousness and purified every part of the sea, including even the continent floating in it.


    "Woo-hoo!"


    This spirit purification was totally beneficial, had no menacing effect and was a highly pleasant experience. For a moment, every part of Zhou Bao''s body felt as if he had arrived into heaven; the feeling was so blissful.


    But all too soon, this blissful experience came to an end.


    Nine shots of Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder disappeared into thin air. His Yin and Yang Dust Formation had successively dissolved the Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder and helped him overcome the first Thunder Tribulation. However, in the galaxy where the vast planet he chose to undergo his Thunder Tribulations was located, three other vast planets were on the brink of falling apart. Those planets looked like war zones that had undergone battles much like the scientific movies he had watched in his previous life. Well, galaxies were all the same, and now the only intact planet in this galaxy was the one he was standing on.


    Sitting in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Zhou Bao did not pay any attention to the other vast planets. After launching the first Thunder Tribulation, he then initiated the second one without hesitation.


    "Boom!"


    The magic formation in the hollow suddenly brightened. In a split second, its light grew a thousand times brighter than the star. In the center of the magic formation, the projection of the Gate of Origin started quivering, and the thin crack between the door and its frame suddenly doubled in width.


    Deafening roars echoed from the gate, and jets of solid purple thunderbolts shot out from inside.


    "Splash! Splash!"


    It turned out that the second Thunder Tribulation waiting for Zhou Bao was a thunderstorm comprising of the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder!


    The Nine Heavens Purple Thunder normally appeared in the tribulation when a Ghost Immortal was about to transform into a Human Immortal. But now, it popped out at the second Thunder Tribulation of Zhou Bao.


    Furthermore, nobody had ever encountered such a Nine Heavens Purple Thunder like what Zhou Bao was handling now ¡ªthe thunderstorm was pouring down in torrents, drenching every corner of the galaxy.


    "Boom, boom, boom¡ª!"


    Due to this, the whole galaxy was suffering. The vast planets that had already been shattered, dissolved under the bombardment of the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder, including the center star.


    Meanwhile, the vast planet where Zhou Bao was undergoing his tribulations began to vibrate as well. Facing the boundless purple thunderstorm, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation felt an overbearing pressure!


    The Fiery Eye in front of Zhou Bao started shining blazingly. Then, 49 jets of azure light rose from the 49 flags, merged into the red light of the Fiery Eye, and formed six jets of light which instantly zoomed out of the formation.


    The six colorful jets of light constituted a gorgeous cover which enveloped the whole vast planet. Numerous space-times dissolved and then reappeared. In this second, the vast planet seemed not to be only a vast planet; instead, it became a complete macro world with countless space-times forming around it, together with lots of space-time mazes. Meanwhile, once these purple thunderbolts dropped onto the six colorful jets of light, they rapidly vanished into those space-times. Their power was dissolved, and their menacing effect on the entire vast planet started to wane.


    "Making life and death end in bubbles and turn everything in the Yin and Yang worlds into dust! What a Yin and Yang Dust Formation! It is able to conjure a macro world to fend off the enemy! No wonder it is so famous!" Watching the method Zhou Bao exercised to resist the Thunder Tribulation, Child-endowing Buddha could not stifle his praise and amazement.


    "Beautiful technique, truly beautiful technique. It never occurred to me that in this life, I could have a chance to witness such a Void Thunder Tribulation. How blessed I am!" In a hollow not far from Wang She and Child-endowing Buddha, a trace of obscure fluctuation emerged, and a human shadow abruptly leaped out from the hollow. With an astonished expression, this person was staring at the place where Zhou Bao was doing his Thunder Tribulations while saying, "Who on earth is that extraordinary person undergoing his Thunder Tribulations in this Desolate Ancient Star Area?"

 667 The Passageway Leading to the Immortal Realm and the Eccentric Divine Tribulation

    The World of Thousand Swords in antiquity times was a world similar to the Heaven Real Macro World in the medieval period. At that time, most of the practitioners were sword practitioners. They were extremely strong, and the method they used in pursuing the Great Ways was quite simple¡ªthe Supreme Swordplay, which was a form of sword technique that everyone talked about in streets. For this same reason, the act of killing was highly popular in that world. When men in that world underwent the Divine Tribulation, they always chose to wield their swords and hack the thunders in the tribulation into pieces.


    Since antiquity times, the Heaven Realm Macro World had been isolated from the other macro worlds. Thus, no one in the Heaven Realm Macro World had any clue about what other macro worlds had evolved into after hundreds of thousands of years had passed. Right now, after sensing a whiff of Sword Qi of an extinct Sword Master from the woman who appeared out of nowhere, Child-endowing Buddha was nonplussed as well. He tugged Wang She and they both jumped into a bank of meteorites to hide. But the woman who had appeared unexpectedly appeared to be so fascinated by the Thunder Tribulations Zhou Bao was going through that she paid no attention to the two men lurking in the vicinity of the magnificent Thunder Tribulations.


    She stared at the direction where Zhou Bao was at, and with a flash, she turned into a shot of cyan Sword Qi, charging straight for the galaxy where Zhou Bao was experiencing his tribulations. Then, she reappeared on the verge of the galaxy, narrowly avoiding the influence range of that hollow magic formation.


    "Power, what violent power! What''s that formation? It has the ability to evolve into a complete form of a macro world! It is using a virtual macro world to confront the Void Thunder Tribulation!" The woman approached the margin of the galaxy. Watching the majestic thunders in the sky, she gasped inwardly. Faced with this kind of natural powers, she dared not act recklessly for fear of courting danger. Therefore, she would merely be a silent bystander there.


    At this moment, inside the Thunder Tribulation, Zhou Bao, who had ordered the Yin and Yang Dust Formation to evolve a macro world, was completely at ease. The purple thunderbolts coiling around his body had been completely subdued; the same as what had happened to the Eight Trigrams Golden Thunder. Those thunderbolts were now forging his flesh, quenching his spirit, while jets of complex willpower were spreading from the Divine Tribulation and flowing into his spirit.


    "Icy Yin Thunder, Earthly Emperor Fist, Celestial Demon-subduing Sword...What is all this?"


    After he received the willpower transmitted from the Immortal Realm, Zhou Bao started cursing soundly. He was not aware that those Divine Senses and secret techniques he received during his first Thunder Tribulation were all great Divine Senses and techniques that Wang She obtained only after enduring seven Thunder Tribulations. Just like the world engulfing skills Wang She had acquired, the quantity of this new knowledge was too enormous. Therefore, Zhou Bao did not pay much attention to the new skills and just flung them into the depths of the Sea of Consciousness. Under the purifying effect of the Thunder Tribulation, they turned into jets of bright starlight and fell into the sea. In the future, if Zhou Bao was interested in any of those Divine Senses, he could learn to use it at any time. The reason why he melted them into the Sea of Consciousness was that Zhou Bao was not in the mood to grasp those great Divine Senses now. When the second Thunder Tribulation started, he again received the willpower of the Immortal Realm. But this time, it was quite clear. "Mysterious Ice Way, Grand Ice Technique!" The technique that descended along with the second Thunder Tribulation was a complete way out of the 3,000 Great Ways¡ªthe Mysterious Ice Way, which was also called Grand Ice Technique. This technique corresponded with the Icy Divine Light inside his body, and thus, another complete way of the 3,000 Great Ways was imprinted onto his spirit.


    It was the Dark Blue Way of the Void and the Grand Void Technique!


    The Vacuum-shattering Way, and the Extreme Realm of Force!


    Two kinds of Great Ways were imprinted onto his spirit at one time.


    "The Vacuum-shattering Way with the Extreme Realm of Force is the top-ranked way among the 3,000 Great Ways!" Zhou Bao''s spirit started trembling with excitement.


    The 3,000 Great Ways had actually been ranked all this while. However, no one knew about the rankings or the true power of the 3,000 Great Ways. Now, as the Vacuum-shattering Way was marked in his spirit, another strong willpower was also attached to it, which stated that the Vacuum-shattering Way was the number one way of the 3,000 Great Ways. That was utterly beyond Zhou Bao''s expectations.


    The one that was ranked first was the Vacuum-shattering Way!


    "This is only my second Thunder Tribulation. But the Vacuum-shattering Way has already been handed to me. Then, what will they give me for the third Thunder Tribulation?"


    Thanks to the impressive power of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Zhou Bao pulled through the second thrilling Thunder Tribulation. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation still had some power remaining, while Zhou Bao was focused on digesting the profound meanings of the Mysterious Ice Way and the Vacuum-shattering Way he had received. Then, he gently flicked his hands and triggered the third Thunder Tribulation.


    "Rumble!"


    The huge magic formation in the hollow instantly collapsed the moment Zhou Bao initiated the third Thunder Tribulation and so did the gate of the Void Immortal Realm which had appeared along with that magic formation. In that instant, the entire hollow was reduced to dust, and a huge crack appeared over the galaxy. Inside that crack, a bizarre world could be seen indistinctly.


    This world was incredibly immense. All sorts of ancient pneuma were surging in it, pouring down like floodwaters that had breached a dike. Behind all the pneuma, there were many high mountains that were partly hidden and partly visible. Each of them seemed like an ancient deity, sending forth a spirit that made one shiver. All the pneuma also seemed to be alive and rigorous, and it seemed to be staring at the hollow through the crack, swirling about as if it was curious about its surroundings.


    Jets of overwhelmingly strong willpower swept down and spread throughout the hollow. Suddenly, the woman from the World of Thousand Swords appeared unexpectedly, as well as Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She who were hiding in the dark; they started feeling anxious, scared, weak and powerless when surrounded by those horrible jets of willpower. But fortunately, Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She had just undergone seven or eight Thunder Tribulations, and their combat capability had reached the phase of a Human Immortal or even a Divine Immortal. Otherwise, they would have been robbed of their senses by the sweeping willpower fluttering from that weird world and turned into two walking corpses.


    "Void Immortal Realm, that is Void Immortal Realm! He, he even penetrated the passageway leading to the Void Immortal Realm by force!" Eyes agog and staring at the huge crack suspended in the hollow, Child-endowing Buddha nearly jumped out of his hiding place to announce this amazing news out loud.


    This was the third Thunder Tribulation of Zhou Bao. This time, he got through the passageway connecting this universe with the Void Immortal Realm! Was that even achievable?


    Now, even Zhou Bao was petrified. Suddenly, his expression turned unusually ugly, because he just realized what had happened.


    "Damn, I knew it couldn''t be so simple! How could they release the most powerful way of the 3,000 Great Ways when I was merely going through my second Thunder Tribulation!"


    He now understood what was going on.


    The Void Thunder Tribulation was delivered from the Void Immortal Realm through that huge magic formation. Generally, no matter how intimidating a Thunder Tribulation was, the hollow magic formation would still be able to hold it. It could bear up to eight or even nine Thunder Tribulations at a time. After all, the power of a man was not inexhaustible, whereas, Zhou Bao, who was unaware of this rule, was doing his Void Thunder Tribulation together with his Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    Even during antiquity times when heroes were coming forward in multitudes, there had never been any instances of a practitioner carrying a Supreme Fairy Weapon to undergo Thunder Tribulations. This kind of thing only happened during primitive times. Therefore, in terms of Zhou Bao''s attempt this time and the details of his Thunder Tribulations, even Fate Creation Boy had no concrete knowledge of it. Fate Creation Boy and Child-endowing Buddha only knew that going through Thunder Tribulations with a Supreme Fairy Weapon was highly dangerous. Child-endowing Buddha did not have a first-hand knowledge of this kind of thing; all he knew were gained from hearsay only; For his part, Fate Creation Boy was born after the Heaven Realm Macro World had endured its Void Thunder Tribulations so both of them had no idea about the in-depth details.


    Normally, a Supreme Fairy Weapon could only undergo two Thunder Tribulations. The first one would quench the fairy weapon and its inside macro world, just like Zhou Bao enduring a Thunder Tribulation. The second one would show some creation power of thunderbolts, for after going through the purification of thunderbolts, the Supreme Fairy Weapon could produce its device spirit. For example, Fate Creation Boy was actually a device spirit created over the hundreds of thousands of years after the Heaven Realm Macro World had endured two Thunder Tribulations.


    Accordingly, in the light of a Supreme Fairy Weapon or a macro world, they both came to an end after experiencing two Thunder Tribulations. At that time, they would not, or to be accurate, could not trigger any more Thunder Tribulation on their own accord. In primitive times, when someone brought his Supreme Fairy Weapon to go through Thunder Tribulations, the master of that Supreme Fairy Weapon would have already known that doing this together with his Supreme Fairy Weapon meant he actually needed to survive only two Thunder Tribulations. The two Thunder Tribulations would incorporate all the challenges contained in nine Thunder Tribulations and after the two Thunder Tribulations he would directly transform into a Human Immortal; this was more effective than going through eight Thunder Tribulations one by one. Thus, only those true Powerful Divines could trigger the third Thunder Tribulation.


    But how could Zhou Bao know about this? Given that he had obtained loads of benefits so far, Zhou Bao was so confident that he immediately triggered the third Thunder Tribulation. To his great surprise, this hollow magic formation was far from being able to hold the third one, which was actually a method designed for Powerful Divines in antiquity times to communicate with the Void Immortal Realm; It enabled them to draw strength from the ancient Ancestral Thunder Power inside and wash their bodies so as to turn their bodies into Imperishable Golden Bodies.


    The Ancestral Thunder Power was unparalleled in its strength. Even a wisp of it contained much greater power than the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder. Thus, it was not something that a normal hollow magic formation or space could sustain. Once this power was triggered by Zhou Bao, it instantly destroyed the hollow magic formation and went through the passageway connecting this universe with the Void Immortal Realm.


    After that, Zhou Bao was in trouble!


    This time Zhou Bao was really in serious trouble! It was not an exaggeration at all!


    A black thunderbolt mixed with a kind of wonderful pneuma suddenly sprang out of the Immortal Realm. Zhou Bao sensed it was not going well, so he let out a bellow and started urging his Yin and Yang Dust Formation frantically to protect the vast planet under his feet.


    "Boom!"


    That black thunderbolt pierced right through the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, and the Fiery Eye in front of Zhou Bao dissolved into ashes in the blink of an eye.


    The Fiery Eye, renowned as the Eternal Eye, failed completely when faced with the Ancestral Thunder Power.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation burst open, and so did the vast planet under Zhou Bao''s feet.


    At this point, Zhou Bao was forced to throw all caution to the wind. He let out a series of sharp roars and the Supreme Fairy Weapon the Black Pearl over his head started shining brightly. Meanwhile, his body was also growing larger and larger at a great speed and turned into a Demonic Ape reaching a height of 100,000 feet. Simultaneously, his Eight Nine Mysterious Skill was also functioning at full swing and it swiveled around him with great momentum. Suddenly, a huge change came over his surroundings¡ªa stream of majestic and energetic spirit shot out from his fist and flew right at the black thunderbolt.


    "Wham!" His fist crashed into the black thunderbolt and the surrounding hollow was silently reduced to ashes, while the Law of Space was sliced into the smallest chunks of the original Law, without any hope of recovery.


    Time stood still from this moment.


    This strike was the integration of all the energy, spirit, and willpower of Zhou Bao. In that split second, Zhou Bao had assembled all the fist intent which simulated the power of the universe into this fist and cast such an appalling strike. It successively froze the surrounding space-time and blocked the black thunderbolt, but that was not enough, far from it.


    When the fist touched the Ancestral Thunder, everything within the diameter of thousands of kilometers was destroyed.


    Time seemed to come to a standstill for just a second, but it also felt like billions of years. When the vast world broke apart, the giant body of the Demonic Ape abruptly hurtled towards the depths of the hollow and immediately disappeared like a shooting star. After that, the Ancestral Thunder disappeared as well.

 668 The Situation

    "Is he dead?"


    The galaxy in front of them suddenly turned into a vacuum, taking on an eerie and terrifying state. Both the woman from the World of Thousand Swords and Zhou Bao, hidden among the meteorites, were filled with doubt.


    Was Zhou Bao dead?


    "Enough!!" A strong will from the Void Immortal Realm spread throughout the entire hollow in a short time, and could be sensed by the practitioners whose cultivation was above the Lord of Heaven in all the macro worlds.


    The passage connected to the Void Immortal Realm vanished at a speed that was visible to the naked eye. The shattered void was not restored; it floated eerily above the galaxy, witnessing the destruction and horror of the strike.


    "Gosh, why is that thunderbolt so powerful?"


    Zhao Bao was sent flying hundreds of millions of kilometers away due to the impact of his punch and it felt like his whole body was falling apart. His scarlet eyes were fixed on a black thunderbolt that came hurtling towards him.


    The black thunderbolt had been largely destroyed by Zhou Bao''s punch, but the pieces left behind followed him like insects from a plague. Zhou Bao believed he would die if he was hit by this black thunderbolt in his current physical condition.


    By this time, he had dismissed the idea of summoning the fourth Thunder Tribulation. Instead he called out the Innumerable Thunderbolts Formation that had been set.


    In an instant, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation appeared in front of him.


    The device spirit and dozens of Thunder Gods of the pool rushed out of it.


    The Thunder Gods formed a huge magic formation in front of the pool, which was centered on the device spirit, and drove back the mighty power of the thunderbolt.


    "Ancestral Thunder Power!"


    The device spirit screamed at the sight of the black thunderbolt. He raised his hand at once, and the Pool of Thunder Tribulation turned over, the mirror-like smooth pool surface facing the Ancestral Thunder. Then waves of liquefied thunderbolts surged out of the mirror and rushed towards the black Ancestral Thunder Power.


    BOOM!!!


    The Ancestral Thunder Power was about the size of a pinkie now, but it still had the power to subdue innumerable thunderbolts. It broke through the waves easily and headed directly for the device spirit in the center.


    With folded hands, the device spirit suddenly shouted and manipulated the huge waves in the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. The water became solid, forming a jade-like mirror in front of him.


    Clap!!!


    The Ancestral Thunder Power struck the mirror, and shattered it after a short pause. The device spirit and the Thunder Gods took advantage of the break to fling themselves forward. They made intricate gestures with their hands, fingered incantations and all of them had their palms facing the Ancestral Thunder Power.


    After that an invisible barrier appeared around the Ancestral Thunder Power, and enclosed it.


    It tried its hardest to seek a way out. However, as the saying goes, a man who has lost his position and influence may be subjected to much indignity. Although the Ancestral Thunder Power was of high quality, it was too small. As a result, under the almost inexhaustible power of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, it could not get rid of the invisible barrier, and was totally bound.


    "Whoo, my God, nailed it!" Looking at the imprisoned Ancestral Thunder, Zhou Bao heaved a sigh of relief. Then he turned to the Thunder Gods gratefully and thought, "Thanks to the Innumerable Thunderbolts Formation, otherwise, I would have died today!" Then he stretched out but found that he was aching all over, bruised and powerless to stop his retreat. Reluctantly, he managed to put away the pool and the Black Pearl, and let his body drift rapidly in the hollow. Without the threat of the Ancestral Thunder Power, he didn''t care if he were to hit something he couldn''t break.


    Finally, after smashing countless meteorites, he fell into a vast planet, sinking several hundred thousand feet into its interior, and didn''t stop until the huge impact broke the planet apart.


    In the absence of pneuma in the hollow, Zhou Bao was not negligent. Although he only underwent two Thunder Tribulations, the benefits were inestimable. As for the third time he had barely survived and had little to gain except for the Ancestral Thunder Power seized by the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and the great will of the "enough", but he did not care.


    The device spirit had just sent Zhou Bao a message that the Ancestral Thunder Power was of great help to him, and that if it could be refined successfully, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation would be so much more powerful that it would at last completely rouse his Black Pearl. It was a great boon to Zhou Bao.


    He certainly craved the mighty power of a complete Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    Sitting cross-legged in the hollow, Zhou Bao began to heal his battered body. He first mobilized the Mysterious Icy Divine Light to flow through his body. Now he knew that his receiving of the two of the 3,000 Great Ways was not for nothing. The Grand Ice Technique corresponded with the characteristics of his Icy Divine Light, and the Vacuum-shattering Way corresponded to his Mysterious Divine Light, which was also the practice direction of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan.


    Mastering the two Great Ways, his understanding of power reached a new level. Besides, as a result of the purification of the Thunder Tribulation, the recovery of his body and spirit did not suffer any side effects due to the lack of pneuma in the hollow. Thus, with the help of the Mysterious Icy Divine Light, his body and Original Spirit soon recovered.


    "Eh? God, why is my body so strong? It''s even not inferior to my Original Spirit. Am I a Ghost Immortal? Why do I feel like I''ve undergone nine Thunder Tribulations and have reached the Human Immortal Karma Rank?"


    After several cycles of the Mysterious Icy Divine Light through his body, he felt his body and Original Spirit had been fully restored, and he had a strange look on his face. "Oh, I remember, the second Thunder Tribulation I went through was the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder which seems to show up only when a man goes through the ninth Thunder Tribulation. The Nine Heavens Purple Thunder is to purify the body. Once a person undergoes it, his or her body is at the level of a Human Immortal. That would mean to say, I am already a Human Immortal!" Zhou Bao blinked his eyes, which reflected incredible joy, as if he had thought through something. The outcome was a big surprise to him.


    "Where''s Zhou Bao? He''s not really dead, is he?"


    Not being able to locate Zhou Bao, Wang She and Child-endowing Buddha were worried. "What was that lightning just now? It was black. Why did I feel a breath of terror from it?"


    "If I''m not mistaken, it''s the Ancestral Thunder Power from the Void Immortal Realm. But don''t worry, Zhou Bao''s punch has already removed most of its power, and the Innumerable Thunderbolts Formation can handle the rest of it. He will be fine." Child-endowing Buddha thought for a moment before he went on, "He''ll come to us when he''s recovered. Let''s see what the woman wants to do first. Hehe, Quietus Sword Sect, the World of Thousand Swords. The Heaven Realm has long been isolated from the other macro worlds. Maybe we can get a clue about the other macro worlds from her!"


    "You want to look for clues about the other macro worlds? What are you going to do?" Wang She asked, looking at Child-endowing Buddha in surprise.


    "Don''t you see it? Times are changing!" said Child-endowing Buddha with a smile, "in the antiquity times, the remote antiquity times and even the primitive times, people like Zhou Bao are called a variable or an evildoer. The appearance of such a person usually means that there will be great changes between heaven and earth. Didn''t you see him break open the passage to the Void Immortal Realm? The violent will from the Immortal Realm must have spread throughout all the macro worlds. All the powerful practitioners would now have hope!"


    "Hope, hope of what?"


    "The hope of flying up to the Immortal Realm!" A cool smile played across Child-endowing Buddha''s mouth. "Flying up to the Void Immortal Realm. The passage of the Void Immortal Realm burst open. Now it has recovered, but many cracks have formed in the depths of the hollow so it is not visible. The mighties in the Immortal Realm can pass at will through those cracks and do something they could not do before. Previously, the other macro worlds did not know the location of the Heaven Realm World; But now since the passage to the Immortal Realm has opened up, the location of the Heaven Realm World is no longer be concealed."


    "You mean..."


    "The Heaven Realm World will not remain in such a calm state anymore. It was a branch of the Void Immortal Realm, communicating with the Immortal Realm, so it was powerful and had many secrets. When the Jade Emperor found that something had gone wrong, he directly closed the Heaven Realm access to the Void Immortal Realm, thus removing the Heaven Realm World and causing many people''s efforts to go to waste. But it would not go away so easily. For hundreds of thousands of years, there are always people looking for the Heaven Realm, but they all failed. We were exposed in the Infinite Star Sea, and now the passage to the Void Immortal Realm has been opened. Someone will find the Heaven Realm soon, and by then, it is not clear whether the Sea Emperor can withstand it."


    "The Sea Emperor?"


    "The Sea Emperor, of course. He is the strongest in the Heaven Realm World. Do you expect the practitioners of the Seven-deity Regions to resist the attack? Will they be able to resist it?" Child-endowing Buddha sneered, "What''s more, both of us have now undergone the Void Thunder Tribulation and reached the Lord of Heaven Karmic Rank. Our true combat capabilities are at the level of Immortals, so we definitely will bear the brunt of it!"


    "What?" Wang She was startled. He asked, "Is there no other strong practitioner in the Heaven Realm?"


    "Yes, there is, the Sea Emperor. Besides him, there should be one or two guys in the Sea Area who are as strong as us. That''s all. I''m telling you, the only people in the Seven-deity Regions whose combat capability is at the level of Immortals are Zhou Bao, you and me!"

 670 The Black Mountain World & the Old Demon of Black Mountain

    There was no doubt that they would take revenge.


    For a practitioner, the most abhorrent thing wasn''t being robbed by criminals or enemies, but being disturbed and even attacked in the midst of a tribulation, especially after a successful one. It was because almost everyone had to go through a period of weakness after a tribulation, during which, if one was targeted, all their efforts were most likely going up in smoke. No one wanted to have the feeling of falling from paradise to hell, specially these towering practitioners.


    Therefore, in the world of the practitioner, it was the most abominable thing to disturb someone right after they have gone through a tribulation, or to take advantage of the weak period after one of them. Facing this kind of tactics, the practitioner might not survive; But if they did, an undying hatred would go towards the attacker!


    For three years after his return from the Desolate Ancient Star Area, and for decades in the Azure Big World, Wang She had been keeping his temper. He now would not rest until he vented his anger.


    Zhou Bao was also furious at this matter. He had even made trouble for Divine Wind Palace in secret, but it was all hushed up and Divine Wind Palace didn''t know he was the troublemaker. In the absence of any evidence, Divine Wind Palace dared to commit a semi-public attack on him when he was going through a tribulation. He felt belittled.


    People always believed they were the right one and thought from their own standpoints not minding anyone else. Zhou Bao never thought that what he had done to Divine Wind Palace in the light over the years would be enough for them to kill him, much less what he had done in the dark. That was the way it was: the law of the jungle. Killing people didn''t have to be reasonable.


    "Can''t you two get into less trouble?" Child-endowing Buddha was amused to see the two murderous guys. "We''ll definitely get back at Divine Wind Palace, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, and Youxian Temple, but not now!"


    "Do we have to wait for them to come to us?"


    "We need them to be our shield!" Child-endowing Buddha answered, "It has been three years. It has been three years since you opened the way to the Void Immortal Realm. The fast-moving macro worlds should have done something already!"


    "Is it that serious? Will the other macro worlds really invade our Heaven Realm World?"


    "Sure, the Heaven Realm World was the spokesperson of the Void Immortal Realm. It was the first macro world. There are many Taoist rites of mighties of the antiquity times and even the primitive times in the endless space-time mazes here. You''ve all been to the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. In addition, in the ancient deities times, the Heaven Realm World was the central world of the deities; And in the antiquity times, someone found the palace of the ancient deities." Speaking of this, Child-endowing Buddha paused and a smile flashed across his face before he continued, "Perhaps the palace of an ancient deity lays in a speck of dust on the ground beneath our feet. It''s not impossible!"


    "Do they know the whereabouts of these Taoist rites and palaces?"


    "Unlike the Heaven Realm World, which has lost all the information about itself, the sects, that have existed since the antiquity times, know a lot about that. That''s the strangest thing. The loss of the antiquity times information is understandable because of the Necromancer''s Tribulation. But why is there no information about the medieval period? None of this is mentioned in the ancient books nor in the records of the Bigwheel Temple. The major sects in the Seven-deity Regions seem to have risen out of nowhere. It''s too weird. There may be some big secrets that even people like us have no way to learn!" At this point, worry appeared on his face. Then he went on, "If you had extracted all Yu Taixu''s spirit when you killed him, we would have known some of the secrets of the Heaven Realm World!"


    Child-endowing Buddha''s indifference chilled Zhou Bao and Wang She. The fake monk who always smiled like Maitreya was really vicious. He dared to say so bluntly to extract the spirit of the Divine Wind Palace Lord.


    "It''s too late for that. Forget it. At that time, in fact, I could not stay for too long, and I did not have time for spirit extraction and refining." Zhou Bao smiled bitterly, "Cut the crap. You don''t approve of us going after the three sects for revenge?"


    "No, I just don''t approve of you fighting them too hard. It will do no good to either of you if you are harmed. The other macro worlds are likely to take advantage of this!" His grinning face grew calmer. "Aside from others, the two Star Areas associated with the Infinite Star Sea have actually found the Heaven Realm World through the Transmitting Formation. If they get the will from the Immortal Realm, hehe, their strength is big enough to construct a two-way Transmitting Formation. But they haven''t moved in three years. This is not normal at all!"


    "Could it be that they joined up with other Star Areas?"


    With a moment of wit, Zhou Bao asked.


    "It''s possible but still unlikely. Don''t you see that the two Star Ares have had fewer and fewer people sneaking into the Heaven Realm over the years? Maybe, that number has never decreased, but they know how to hide now. They might hide in the shadows, waiting for the chance to attack from the inside!"


    "You''ve got a good point!" Zhou Bao suddenly stood up, as if he had thought of something.


    "What''s wrong?"


    "No wonder I felt a little strange when we came out. My Wuyang Region seems to have added a lot of experts, as well as some characters with a strange spirit. I didn''t care at first, but after listening to you, I find these people really suspicious!"


    "Your Wuyang Region is now an influence in the Seven-deity Regions, more powerful even than the Jin. It''s normal for them to come there for news!" Child-endowing Buddha said drily, "And this is originally a territory with all kinds of people. It has no checkpoint that anyone could enter, so it''s not surprising that they came in."


    "You''re right. My Wuyang Region really has to take precautions, in case the alien race comes in!"


    "Don''t rush to deal with that. Just get someone to keep an eye on them. They are only a few small characters and won''t cause much trouble!" As they talked, both Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She examined Wuyang Region with their divine thoughts. Now their combat capabilities were all beyond the Human Immortals, and at the level of Immortals. Together, the three of them were able to sweep the entire Seven-deity Regions, and even the super sects couldn''t compete with them, so they didn''t care about the small characters.


    "Better not to despise the enemy. These small characters don''t seem to be making big trouble, but if I don''t watch out, they''re probably going to do something messy!"


    "You''re being careful. Are you going to do it yourself?"


    "No, just keep my men on guard!"


    Although Zhou Bao didn''t mind dealing with the small characters himself, Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She thought he was clearly overqualified for such an insignificant task.


    Fortunately, he now had a lot of powerful men under him. After over 10 years, Zhu Ba had become an Individual Immortal, and he led a group of experts. He was the best man to do such a thing.


    The three of them continued talking in high spirits for a while. However, Child-endowing Buddha suddenly gave a cry and his face became strange.


    "What''s wrong?" Zhou Bao and Wang She were both startled by Child-endowing Buddha''s quick change of expression.


    "There seems to be an old friend of mine here!" Child-endowing Buddha squinted and there was a glimmer in his eyes.


    "An old friend?" Zhou Bao was well aware of Child-endowing Buddha''s experience. He had no old friends in the temporal world. Then this one definitely came from the antiquity times.


    "What''s going on lately? Not only do people of the other macro worlds appear, but also the Grand Demon of the antiquity times itself!"


    "Humph, he is not a man of the Heaven Realm World, but of the Black Mountain World!" Child-endowing Buddha coldly told Zhou Bao and Wang She, "Guys, do me a favor and kill him!"


    "Who the hell is this man? Can''t you kill him alone?"


    "He has gathered the Three Flowers above the Head and collected Five Qis in Mind in the antiquity times. It has been hundreds of thousands of years, and he must have at least attained the cultivation of an Immortal. He has several treasures, so I can''t beat him by myself. And if we fight him here, your place is going to be a mess. I don''t think you want that to happen."


    "Then, you mean..."


    "I know that the Yin and Yang Dust Formation has been laid around your Wuyang Region. How about we make an opening on it and take him into the hollow?"


    "You seem to hate him so much. Who the hell is he? What''s his background?" Zhou Bao asked. According to Child-endowing Buddha, now it is a very delicate moment. He didn''t want to antagonize an Immortals at the moment, especially when he didn''t know where the other was coming from.


    "He is Hei Chou, the son of the Master of the Black Mountain World, the Old Demon of Black Mountain. We had a great deal of bad blood in the antiquity times. If he had not been the son of that bastard, I would have killed him. What a coincidence that he also happened to come to your Wuyang Region!"


    "The Old Demon of Black Mountain? Who is he?"


    "He''s the Master of the Black Mountain World, just like the Milky Way Ancestor of the Milky Way World. It is said that he is an unfathomable Earthly Immortal. He''s an elder, and I have never seen him show his power."


    "What? You want us to mess with such a mighty man?" After listening to what Child-endowing Buddha said, Zhou Bao did not want to participate at all in his plan. Not long after becoming an Immortal, challenging an Earthly Immortal so soon was the last thing he wanted to do, even if it was a challenge of bypassing ranks.

 669 Exposing

    Times were changing!


    When the Thunder Tribulation that Zhou Bao underwent broke the passage to the Void Immortal Realm, Child-endowing Buddha felt the strong will from the Void Immortal Realm and knew that times were indeed changing.


    While Wang She and Child-endowing Buddha were communicating through divine thoughts, the woman from the World of a Thousand Swords, with a serious look on her face, seemed to reflect for a moment before she suddenly changed into a sword light and disappeared into the hollow.


    "She is going back to tip off the World of a Thousand Swords. Let''s find Zhou Bao and get out of here as soon as possible. Other macro worlds finding the Heaven Realm is one thing, but being exposed after we have undergone the Thunder Tribulation here is a whole different thing. Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon is our bluff. We can''t be exposed so quickly!" Child-endowing Buddha said.


    "You mean, we''re going to be in trouble again!"


    As they were ready to search for Zhou Bao in this Star Area, he suddenly and mysteriously appeared in front of them.


    "God, you''re incredible!" Wang She was startled, but Child-endowing Buddha''s eyes lit up when he saw Zhou Bao.


    "The Human Immortal, haha, you''ve undergone the ninth Thunder Tribulation and become a Human Immortal, right?"


    "Yes, you''re right. I also wonder why I suddenly became a Human Immortal!" Zhou Bao smiled at them. Now he felt relaxed and sensed a qualitative leap in his strength. He tried several times on the planet that he had absorbed in his fist intent, and found that he could move it with ease, instead of his body being overwhelmed.


    He knew that it was a huge change brought by the two Thunder Tribulations, especially the second one, which completely strengthened his body to an incredible state. His body was no longer unable to withstand powerful attrition as before.


    Now it had also been reinforced into the Realm of Human Immortal.


    He owned the body of a true Human Immortal!


    "Let''s go back. We need to prepare for a few things." Child-endowing Buddha said with a sigh.


    "We''ve been through the Thunder Tribulation, and of course we should go back, haha!" Zhou Bao grinned. The benefit of the Thunder Tribulations for him and his Black Pearl was beyond his expectation. Thus he was quite satisfied.


    Then, the three of them left contented. However, what they did not expect was that soon after their departure, the woman from the World of Thousand Swords suddenly showed up not far from where they had been.


    "They are from the Heaven Realm World. Just now that man was on Thunder Tribulations with a Supreme Fairy Weapon, and he succeeded. This is terrible. I must tell the bad news to the sect and get them ready. Damn, that undiscerning jerk wants to keep company with the old bastard from the Milky Way World and to fight against the Heaven Realm. The three men alone are not so easy to deal with!" With a little worry on her face, she disappeared again.


    If the three had seen this, they would have cried out, for it was the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill that the woman used to hide her spirit. By virtue of this secret skill, Zhou Bao and Wang She had acted much more conveniently. They had no idea that one day a person would use the same skill to eavesdrop on their secrets.


    But that''s another story. The woman knew that the secret she had heard today was too great, so she thought it pointless and unnecessary to make it public, and that she only needed to tell it to her sect. There were some old fogeys in the sect who knew how to use this secret for their own maximum benefit.


    The Heaven Realm World was now raising a rumpus.


    However, Divine Wind Palace, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, and Youxian Temple were reigned by dead silence.


    The three sects joined forces to fight the three men who underwent the Thunder Tribulation, but they overreached themselves and were all swallowed by Wang She.


    It happened so suddenly and Wang She''s strength was so amazing that the three sects were speechless and didn''t know what to do.


    Wang She appeared as the Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth and performed his devouring Divine Sense, which was equivalent to the power of the Immortals.


    The three sects were well aware that no one''s combat capability in the Seven-deity Regions had reached the level of the Immortals.


    Some old fogeys in their sects were only Human Immortals.


    And overall, only one or two people had gathered the Three Flowers above the Head and collected the Five Qis in Mind. Allowing such ancestors to challenge Wang She whose combat capability was at the level of the Immortal was literally straight up suicide.


    What was more, Zhou Bao was with Wang She. According to the description of Taoist Chun Feng, the Thunder Tribulation that Zhou Bao went through was no less fierce than that of Wang She, which meant that Zhou Bao was as fearsome as Wang She. The three sects were completely powerless in front of them.


    In fact, Taoist Chun Feng mistook Child-endowing Buddha for Zhou Bao. If the three sects knew the truth, they would be even more terrified.


    But the results were already so far beyond what they could afford, so they all kept the news to themselves.


    In particular, the Divine Wind Palace now was facing a formidable enemy, afraid that Wang She and Zhou Bao would retaliate against them as soon as they returned to the Heaven Realm World. The shattered Divine Wind Palace was no longer able to fight against the two men who had succeeded in Thunder Tribulations.


    Most of all, the campaign was the Divine Wind Palace''s initiative. Although the other sects had joined voluntarily, their great loss was due to Divine Wind Palace''s neglect not checking Wang She''s true strength. Otherwise, they wouldn''t have been hit so hard.


    How could Youxian Temple and Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain cope with the loss of almost half their Lords of Heaven?


    Their response, of course, was to ask for reasonable compensation.


    The compensation was what Divine Wind Palace had offered for the two sects, but they were unable to give them now.


    When they made the treaty, they decided that it would be carried out after the success of the operation. Now that they had suffered a crushing defeat and an enormous loss, Divine Wind Palace proposed a reasonable compensation for the two other sects, but the Golden Book of Fate was not mentioned at all.


    However, the other two sects did not relent on this. Then they reached a stalemate, and there was even a serious conflict.


    Although Divine Wind Palace was greatly weakened, as the most powerful sect of the Four Eastern Regions that had ruled the Four Eastern Regions for tens of thousands of years, it had a strong foundation. Therefore, Divine Wind Palace was at a disadvantage, but they did not suffer significant losses. In the course of their struggles, the two sides began to negotiate, and it took three years for the terms to be settled. In the end, Divine Wind Palace made huge concessions and compensated them with a lot of resources and magic weapons. In fact, no amount of resources and magic weapons were able to replace those unfortunate Lords of Heaven, but the two sects knew that they could not really afford to destroy Divine Wind Palace and that if they continued to fight, the matter still could not wind up. Thus, they had no choice but to give up.


    The two sects were so greatly undermined that Fifth Manor, Palace of Eternal Life and other sects took the opportunity to erode their interests. It was really a self-defeating.


    When Zhou Bao, Wang She and Child-endowing Buddha returned, they did not go directly to Divine Wind Palace to make trouble, as they had feared. It was true that they had successfully undergone the Thunder Tribulations and enjoyed great improvement, but they had just made it through and their states were not yet secure. Therefore, they entered the Azure Big World to practice. Zhou Bao again launched the Wheel of Time, allowing the three of them to have enough time to consolidate their strength.


    A few years in the Azure Big World was enough to achieve that and take it to a new level.


    "Hey, Junior Leopard, your Azure Big World is too boring, especially the Demonic Immortals. They seem to have nothing to do with you and they think of the Azure Big World as theirs. It''s too much!"


    After coming out of the Azure Big World, Wang She complained to Zhou Bao.


    There were more and more living creatures in the Azure Big World every day, but they were all native creatures, and there were no human beings. With complete Dharma and abundant pneuma, many evil beasts there had advanced to Demonic Immortals and had taken over as they ruled many parts of the world. During the practice period, Wang She visited some places in the Azure Big World but had some conflicts with those Demonic Immortals, which caused him to be quite dissatisfied with them.


    "They''re the living creatures here. Me taking and perfecting the Azure Big World doesn''t mean it''s mine. I don''t mean to get involved in its development. Let nature take its course. Who is to blame for what you have done yourself?" Zhou Bao laughed, "Besides, didn''t you lose?"


    "I mean, now that you get the macro world, manage it well. Don''t forget, there are so many Demonic Immortals here and they are no less powerful than in the Seven-deity Regions, or even any influence of the Heaven Realm. With such power, you can sweep the Heaven Realm!"


    "When did you begin to take an interest in dominating the world? Do you want to practice the Way of the Emperor?"


    "Not really, I just studied it a little bit. It''s a pity that you don''t realize you have such valuable treasures."


    "You don''t know, Wang She, he''s too cautious!" Child-endowing Buddha laughed at Wang She''s words and said, "If he had no scruples, he would have let out the Demonic Immortals in the Azure Big World!"


    "Scruple? What scruple does he have? Has he not mastered the whole Azure Big World?"


    "The Azure Big World is the micro world of the Emperor of the Azure Heaven. There must have profound meaning to him to evolve it into the Azure Secret Area. Now the Azure Secret Area has turned into the Azure Big World, but Zhou Bao is still not aware of the Emperor of the Azure Heaven, so he doesn''t dare to be too presumptuous in the Azure Big World!"


    "Child-endowing Buddha is right. The more skilled I am at controlling the Azure Big World, the more I feel there is something wrong with it. Thus, I cannot let my guard down!" Zhou Bao said.


    Looking at the two men who had identical ideas, Wang She gave a wry smile and said, "Well, forget about it. Now our states have achieved the Advanced Level, and should we get our revenge, shouldn''t we?"

 671 The Will of the Immortal Realm

    "Junior Leopard, it''s for your own good!" Child-endowing Buddha said, "Now that the Old Demon of Black Mountain has his eye on your Wuyang Region, do you think you can still live in peace with him around?" Then he closed his eyes and again launched his divine thoughts. "Hei Chou is under Jilei Mountain and observing the Sea-calming Palace. If I''m not wrong, he is pleased with your Wuyang Region and Sea-calming Palace!"


    "What? My Wuyang Region and Sea-calming Palace?"


    "The Black Mountain World is the most famous bandit amongst all the macro worlds. And the Old Demon of Black Mountain is the King of bandits. He will do anything to get whatever he desires. Now that the location of the Heaven Realm World has been exposed, there will be more and more powerful experts wanting to seize the Heaven Realm, and the Old Demon of Black Mountain is one of them. Apparently, this time he sent his son to find a stronghold in the Heaven Realm. And it seems that Hei Chou is going to take your Wuyang Region as his!" Speaking of this, Child-endowing Buddha was no longer in hurry, "If we don''t act first, he will!"


    Zhou Bao''s face was set, because he also felt Hei Chou. He found Hei Chou hiding his breath, sneaking into his Sea-calming Palace, and walking toward his yard where he used to have closed-door training.


    Few people in the world knew that he had a Supreme Fairy Weapon, so every time he went into the Azure Big World to practice, he used the closed-door training as an excuse. And the yard where he stayed during that training was the strictest most forbidden land of Wuyang Region, even Yan Yunfei would not enter at will. But Hei Chou sneaked in there. Even fools knew this guy had an ulterior motive.


    "He''s courting death!" Although Zhou Bao did not want to get into trouble or be the pioneer of Child-endowing Buddha, Hei Chou''s behavior had clearly angered him.


    "He is indeed courting death!" Child-endowing Buddha said with a dark smile, "To my surprise, the first old friend I get to meet is him, and I have a chance to kill him myself. It''s so exciting!"


    "Why do you hate him so much?" Seeing the murderous look of Child-endowing Buddha, Wang She was curious. The fat monk was always smiling, even when he wanted to kill someone and was calculating, but now he didn''t even hide his killing intent.


    "The matter is unclear now. Anyway, as long as we meet, we will try our best to kill each other. I have the advantage this time. He must have thought that I was already dead and would not have guarded against me."


    "Are you going to sneak up on him?"


    "I''m sure of hiding in the dark!" Child-endowing Buddha said justifiably.


    "Well, let''s do it now!" Zhou Bao''s eyes held a stern look. As they talked, Hei Chou had broken the inhibition of the yard and entered it. Zhou Bao''s absence seemed strange to him. After checking that there was nothing unusual in the yard, he actually began to advance into the inner yard.


    The inner yard of the King Wuyuan Palace was the residence of Zhou Bao''s family. His wife, four children, and parents all lived in there. "What does this bastard sneak into the inner yard for?" Zhou Bao cursed him in his heart.


    No matter who he was and where he came from, his behavior now had completely infuriated Zhou Bao. He pointed casually with his finger in the air and the green light shone in his sleeve. The forty-nine green flags that were set up and the Yin and Yang Dust Formation were started.


    Hei Chou did come to the Heaven Realm World to make arrangements at the behest of his father the Old Demon of Black Mountain.


    Three years ago, after Zhou Bao had opened the passage between the Void Immortal Realm and this world, the Immortal Realm''s will, which had been cut off for hundreds of thousands of years, once again came to almost all the macro world. The message of these will was very consistent: it was the message of the Heaven Realm World that had vanished for countless years.


    It was the will of the Immortal Realm!


    The will that a practitioner sensed after breaking through the realm and underwent the Thunder Tribulation was a kind of feeling obtained by touching the original rules of the universe. It was something destined to happen. Unlike this kind of will, the will of the Immortal Realm was the will of those Fate Creation Listener in the Void Immortal Realm. It was a very real thing.


    Zhou Bao had learned some truth about the Void Immortal Realm from Fate Creation Boy. There was a group of Fate Creation Listeners in there, all of whom were with the fate creation of a macro world, possessing mighty power. But at the same time, they would fall into a strange state of no sorrow, no joy, no life and no death, just like what happened to Zhou Bao in the evolution of the Azure Big World. Zhou Bao didn''t like that, so he broke away from that state and instinctively chose to be a Controller rather than a Listener. In short, his affinity was not yet finished.


    What Zhou Bao did not know was that if he had not broken out of that state and had chosen to become a Fate Creation Listener, the gate of the Void Immortal Realm would have opened in the first time and lead him to come in.


    The essence of the Void Immortal Realm was evolved from the most essential point of the universe at the time of its origin, which contained the most essential Great Mysterious Way of the whole universe and various original pneumas at the time of the Primordial Origin. To comprehend and practice in the Void Immortal Realm was of great benefit even to those Fate Creators.


    There were three kinds of Fate Creators, and the Listeners were the least favored when it came to the affairs because they were heaven and earth, fate creation and Dharma. They would not show up unless their own macro world faced a real catastrophe.


    Their absence didn''t mean they didn''t care about anything though; They managed little things, but these things were big deals.


    For the Fate Creator, especially the Listener, the only thing that mattered to them was their macro worlds. And the macro world had the course of life, old age, disease and death. The so-called immortality was only relative to the whole macro world. These Fate Creators would die as the destruction of their macro worlds, so it was impossible for even Fate Creation Listeners to sit idly and watch their own macro worlds go wrong. Finding ways to prolong the life and increase the power of their macro worlds was the only and most important thing that Fate Creation Listeners cared about.


    Therefore, in the antiquity times, the Fate Creators sometimes brought the most powerful and promising practitioners in their own macro worlds to the Immortal Realm for practice, so as to enhance the strength of their macro worlds. This was the ancient legend of flying up to the Immortal Realm. Hence, there were many powerful practitioners in the Void Immortal Realm. They were generally Immortals, and some of them were Earthly Immortals, even Celestial Immortals.


    But once they became Earthly Immortals, the Fate Creation Listener could no longer control them, and they were completely free from the bondage of fate. The Earthly Immortals lived as long as the macro world, or even longer. So, once they reached the Earthly Immortal realm, they would break away from the Listeners and find a place in the Void Immortal Realm to comprehend the Great Ways of Celestial Immortals.


    However, ever since antiquity times, the flying up to the Immortal Realm stopped. The Heaven Realm World was originally in the Central Star Area and had a mysterious connection with the Void Immortal Realm through a passage that was the only way for all practitioners to fly up. The Jade Emperor moved Heaven Realm World with his Divine Sense, which cut off the way of the practitioners to fly up to the Immortal Realm. No one but the Fate Creators, even the Earthly Immortals and the Celestial Immortals, could enter the Void Immortal Realm. At first, the passage was opened by a Fate Creator of an ancient macro world, who got a piece of Divine Design by accident, by the end of the ancient deities times. He had intended only to help the practitioners in his own macro world, but it was highly coveted by the other Fate Creation Listeners in the Void Immortal Realm. Together they killed him and took the passage for the practitioners of all macro worlds to fly up to the Immortal Realm.


    As a result, the Jade Emperor cut off that passage to the Immortal Realm after the Necromancer''s Tribulation too. Now, no one but the Fate Creators could enter the Void Immortal Realm. Similarly, there was no way for the Earthly Immortals and Celestial Immortals who were practicing in the Void Immortal Realm to leave.


    Therefore, all the macro worlds had been looking for the traces of the Heaven Realm World. Innumerable mighties had participated in the calculation of the location of the Heaven Realm World. But the Jade Emperor hoodwinked the Divine Design when he moved the Heaven Realm World, so no one could figure it out. That was where trouble started.


    For exactly 810, 000 years, no one in the macro worlds had ever flown up to the Immortal Realm.


    And the practitioners who practiced in the Void Immortal Realm could not return to their own micro worlds either.


    Furthermore, no macro world could communicate with the Immortal Realm.


    For 810,000 years!!!


    It could be said that the Jade Emperor had offended all the macro worlds in the whole universe.


    Although the Fate Creation Listeners could freely enter and leave the Void Immortal Realm like what Zhou Bao did in the Fate Creation Palace, once the Listeners started leaving the Void Immortal Realm and entered their own macro world, they became one with the Great Ways, and became part of the operation Dharma of the Way of Heaven, unable to appear in front of the world like the Controllers or Guardians anymore. From then on, they represented the Principle of Great Ways of their whole macro world, namely the Way of Heaven, and lose their true self. They could only carry on the unchanging running of the Way of Heaven, neither delivering the will nor interfering with the running of the macro world, which was why they were called Listeners.


    This time, as Zhou Bao underwent the Void Thunder Tribulation alone with the Azure Big World and the Supreme Fairy Weapon Black, the passage between the Void Immortal Realm and the heaven and earth was opened, and the will of the Immortal Realm once again descended upon all the macro worlds. Although after three years the opening of the passage had already been closed, and the will of the Immortal Realm could not be passed on anymore, that period of time was more than enough.

 672 Hei Chous Appearance

    "The Heaven Realm World, King Wuyuan Palace, Zhou Bao!"


    A faint figure walked into the King Wuyuan Palace. By then, he had already arrived at the gate of the inner yard. Although people were coming and going around, even some Level Eight or Nine experts patrolling, no one sensed his presence.


    "There is something in the palace. Such a secret formation is laid in the inner yard! This little trick can stump others, but can''t stump me!"


    The name of Hei Chou was weird, meaning black and ugly, but he surprisingly looked the opposite of his name''s meaning. He was tall and white. His fantastic purple hair fell over his shoulders and his face was very delicate. If he showed up, he would definitely be regarded as a stunning woman. No one could tell he was actually a man.


    "This formation, though not very marvelous, is quite ingenious. It can effectively isolate the inquiry of the Divine Awareness. Zhou Bao seems to take his family very seriously. Haha, young people all have this shortcoming. If I should have his family under control, I would have a much higher chance of blackmailing him. He has a high position in the Seven-deity Regions. To control him is of great help to my Black Mountain World. Well, I''ll do it. Take control of his family first!"


    As a matter of fact, as the son of the Old Demon of Black Mountain, Hei Chou was the oldest Crown Prince in the Black Mountain World. He might look very young, but he had started a feud with Child-endowing Buddha in the antiquity times. The antiquity times had ended about 810,000 years, so he was at least a million years old. He was also one of the 10 most important and powerful men in the Black Mountain World.


    This time the Old Demon of Black Mountain sent him to the Heaven Realm World with great hope and an important mission.


    The Black Mountain World, unlike many other macro worlds, had been under the control of the Old Demon of Black Mountain since the antiquity times. He could be said to be a peerless expert, the one who got all the fate and dragon vein of the Black Mountain World.


    The Old Demon of Black Mountain had dominated his macro world for a really long time and was second only to the 99 Emperors of the antiquity times, so he knew a lot of secrets. In addition, he had a deep understanding of the Heaven Realm World, and he was well aware of the many famous sects and Taoist rites of the antiquity times and knew a little about their secrets too. Therefore, he had great confidence in seizing the Hidden Treasure in the Heaven Realm World.


    It was because of this that he sent Hei Chou here to get the most out of the Heaven Realm World before other macro worlds reacted.


    After coming to the Heaven Realm World, instead of acting rashly, Hei Chou spent months surreptitiously learning the secrets of it. He learned that much of the Heaven Realm World was now ruled by the Sea Emperor, who was no less powerful than his father, and that he was so mysterious that no one knew exactly where he came from. By contrast, the power distribution of the Seven-deity Regions ruled by humans was very clear.


    For him, it was not difficult to kill an Individual Immortal or even a Genuine Immortal in the Seven-deity Regions, and then draw and refine his or her spirit to get the information he wanted.


    So, in the shortest possible time, he had investigated the situation of the Seven-deity Regions.


    Then Zhou Bao caught his attention.


    Compared to other sects that were deep-rooted, unfathomable, with many bluffs and complex internal relations, Zhou Bao''s Wuyang Region was much simpler and didn''t have much foundation. In his eyes, Zhou Bao''s hard work in the last over 10 years was nothing. The whole Wuyang Region was built and supported by Zhou Bao himself, so Zhou Bao had complete ownership and absolute dominance of this territory. Then to control Zhou Bao was equivalent to controlling the whole Wuyang Region which was extremely important in the Seven-deity Regions.


    So, as a matter of course, he had his eye on Zhou Bao. As for Zhou Bao''s strength, he simply ignored it.


    Although Zhou Bao had been getting stronger and stronger over the past few years, and his strength had surpassed the Lord of Heaven and reached the Human Immortal, in Hei Chou''s opinion, the Human Immortal didn''t deserve any scruple.


    250,000 years ago, he had broken through to the realm of Immortal.


    However, he could not fully demonstrate his power of an Immortal in the Wuyang Region or even in the hollow. Wuyang Region was in the domain of the Heaven Realm World. Once he fully exerted his combat capability, he would be suppressed by the rules of this unique macro world, which meant he fought against the whole Heaven Realm World. And if he wandered around carelessly in the hollow, there would be the Void Thunder Tribulation.


    He must have been prepared for it. The Old Demon of Black Mountain would not allow him to come to the Heaven Realm World alone unless he brought some secret skills along with some Pure Yang Celestial Devices or even fairy weapons to enable him to exert his greatest combat capability for a long time.


    He secretly sneaked into Wuyang Region for fear of attracting attention, because he wanted to subdue Zhou Bao stealthily.


    Obviously, his wishful thinking was too good to be true.


    It was because in the Heaven Realm World, although Zhou Bao was very famous, only a few people knew his real strength, and even his wife Yan Yunfei was not quite certain about it. Though the Individual Immortals and Genuine Immortals caught by Hei Chou knew about Zhou Bao, they never thought that Zhou Bao had such strength and good fate. As a result, Hei Chou underestimated Zhou Bao''s power, which became the root of his tragedy.


    Having made up his mind to threaten Zhou Bao with his family, Hei Chou immediately went to the inner yard of King Wuyuan Palace. But just as he stepped one foot, a light mist suddenly appeared.


    The mist had appeared without warning, and Hei Chou''s spiritual mind had not even noticed how it rose. But he realized it at the moment it appeared. With a slight trembling, he changed into a faint black mist and ran straight toward the inner yard.


    "You are so stubborn!"


    The moment he turned into the black mist, a clear voice sounded in his ear. Then he found that the space around him got confused.


    The power of space was not mysterious for practitioners like them. The Ghost Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm could condense out the Self-world, so needless to say, he could do it, too. The layers of space around his body fluctuated like ordinary micro-worlds. And when one became an Earthly Immortal, they could even condense out their own macro world.


    After Earthly Immortals condensed out their own macro worlds, they were as Fate Creators, so the Fate Creation Listener could not control the Earthly Immortals anymore. With more effort, they may even be able to condense out something like the Jade Plate of Fate, which could allow them to enter the Immortal Realm freely.


    Yet, few Earthly Immortals were willing to condense out their own complete macro worlds, because there were too many Dharma in a complete macro world, and some mysteries of creation were involved, so complete macro worlds were not practical. Each Earthly Immortal''s macro world had their own characteristics, and only when they became Celestial Immortals could they make their macro worlds perfectly. That was why the Celestial Immortal was also called a creator.


    But even in the antiquity times, no one had ever seen a Celestial Immortal, let alone now.


    As the practice went on, the practitioners would encounter more and more difficulties, and the pace of the practice would slow down. No matter who it was, in the early brave and diligent efforts, the cultivation may advance rapidly, but after breaking through to the realm of Human Immortal, the speed of cultivation and phase would slow down greatly. It usually took hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years to ascend one rank.


    When Zhou Bao, who owned powerful foundation and fate, broke through from the Realm of Ghost Immortal to the Realm of Human Immortal, it had only been 10 years in the temporal world, but he spent more than 300 years in the Azure Big World, where had superior conditions. In addition, when consolidating the state, he spent nearly 100 years with Wang She and Child-endowing Buddha.


    From the evolution of the Azure Big World to his practice to the present state, Zhou Bao had spent nearly 500 years practicing intensely and with almost optimal conditions.


    500 years was enough for the Monkey Sun to come out of the Five Elements Mountain.


    It took him nearly 500 years to reach his present state. It would definitely take longer if he wanted to keep improving.


    Anyway, those whose cultivation was as high as Hei Chou and Zhou Bao''s had their own Self-world, and the mystery of space was not very profound for them. At least the ordinary means of space could not affect them. The surrounding spaces seemed to be invisible doors that were open to him, but as the mist rose, the doors suddenly closed. But it didn''t bother him because he could open them at any time. However, with the doors closed, the original road was lost, and the location of the doors all changed. In a word, what was once a very clear and organized space was now a space-time maze, a mess.


    Hei Chou''s brows drew together in a frown, and a hint of foreboding came into his mind. No matter who unknowingly did this, it was enough to draw attention to him.


    "I''m Hei Chou from the Black Mountain World. Please tell me who you are."


    "Humph!" He heard a cold snort. Then the space around him suddenly shattered and vanished into the hollow.


    Hei Chou''s face became gloomy. He was led into the hollow before he knew it.

 673 The Duel with Hei Chou

    "I''m not your friend, nor is this a joke!"


    Zhou Bao did not hide his figure in the void but showed up naturally, not far from Hei Chou. "Your Excellency, why are you secretly watching my Wuyang Region and intruding into the forbidden area?"


    "Are you Zhou Bao?" With these words, Hei Chou looked at the young man in front of him and his heart flickered.


    He had heard of Zhou Bao''s fame and had also investigated him in detail, but now observing him with his own eyes, he knew that all his previous investigations had been in vain. Zhou Bao gave him the feeling that he was definitely a strong opponent, even if he showed that he was merely a person who had newly stepped into the Human Immortal Realm. However, he had the Dharma power on him that was deep like the sea, as well as a burst of barely uncontrollable raging spirit, all of which clearly told Hei Chou that the guy in front of him was by no means ordinary.


    "Oh, it turns out to be King Wuyang. I''m Hei Chou, the great commander of the Black Mountain World!" Hei Chou held his fist in the other and laughed, saying, "The Heaven Realm is really unfathomable. It seems that I miscalculated this time!"


    "Black Mountain World, Hei Chou!" Zhou Bao slowly muttered and his face suddenly turned solemn. "I don''t care where are you from or who you are, but you must account for the fact that you sneaked into my mansion and even entered the inner chamber!"


    "What? Account for it? Hahahaha!" Hei Chou burst out laughing. Although he had always been very humble, it did not mean that he was a good-tempered man. In fact, as the great commander of the Black Mountain World as well as the biological son of Black Mountain Old Demon, he was very arrogant. This was his inborn character, not to mention that he was over 1,000,000 years old now, and even if he was 10,000,000 years old, perhaps he would not change his personality. Zhou Bao''s performance was beyond his expectations, even to the point that it made his eyes light up, but that was all. He had enough confidence and strength to kill Zhou Bao with just one finger. But upon hearing Zhou Bao, in the face of this absolute strength, require him to give an explanation, he could not help laughing like crazy.


    "Explanation? Give you an explanation? For you alone? Hahahaha! Boy, it''s okay for you to be arrogant in small places like the Seven-deity Regions. But how dare you quack like a duck in front me?! You really don''t know how to spell the word ''death''?" Hei Chou shouted and raised his right hand, moving toward Zhou Bao to grab him. Zhou Bao, however, saw only a hand completely made of black fog grabbing at his head directly.


    "Alright, come on!" At the sight of this hand, Zhou Bao laughed. The space above his head suddenly distorted and another big black hand appeared, rushing toward Hei Chou''s hand.


    "Snap!"


    "Sizzle!"


    The two hands collided with each other in the void. Being highly toxic, Zhou Bao''s Giant Void Hand immediately corroded the better part of Hei Chou''s big hand.


    "Huh? The Elixir of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast and Peach Blossom Miasma? Where did you get such insidious things?" Hei Chou was greatly shocked. At this moment, he withdrew the big hand that he had evolved from Zhou Bao''s Giant Void Hand. His hand then turned into numerous black threads finer than those of spiders, which bypassed Zhou Bao''s black hand and directly shot at him.


    Zhou Bao, however, did not show weakness either. Instead of withdrawing his big black hand, he guided it toward Hei Chou. As for the black threads shooting at him, he did not pay them any attention. The Furnace of Immortality then appeared over his head and its golden light enshrouded his body.


    "A fairy weapon!"


    Hei Chou was also very afraid of Zhou Bao''s Giant Void Hand. If it was the Peach Blossom Miasma alone, that would not have been so bad for him. However, the last thing he wanted to do was touch the Elixir of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast.


    The Nine-headed Fierce Beast was one of the most powerful Six Royals among all the Primordial Fierce Beasts. Its poison was even lethal to the legendary Celestial Immortals. Nonetheless, he was merely an Immortal. Although there was not a lot of Elixir of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast in this guy''s big hand, he still did not want to touch it, for he knew that it was not only poisonous, but it was also hard to detoxify even if he was able to withstand it for a while.


    The Elixir of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast was not only the most poisonous thing in this world but also a poison that was the most difficult to detoxify. Even if one really got rid of all the poison, there was a very good chance that internal injuries would be left in one''s body. Only a fool would touch such a horrifying thing.


    However, this had also aroused his curiosity thoroughly. How could this fellow obtain such a poisonous thing? And even so, how was he able to use it? It seemed that this guy really did deserve his attention because he actually could use this kind of poison so smoothly.


    However, this was not the time to think about it. The guy in front of him could not only utilize such an insidious Giant Void Hand so smoothly, but he also had a weird fairy weapon that easily blocked his attacks. And most important of all, this fairy weapon was not the one he had inquired about.


    All the practitioners whose cultivations were above the Genuine Immortal Realm in the Seven-deity Regions knew that Zhou Bao had a fairy weapon. Nevertheless, it was just a Lower-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon handed down from the ancient deities. Hei Chou had a distinguished status in the Black Mountain World, but he only had two fairy weapons in his possession. Therefore, at this time, he meant to snatch Zhou Bao''s fairy weapon by causing him trouble.


    Fairy weapons, in every macro world, were extremely important resources with great combat capability.


    However, evidently, Zhou Bao was much powerful than he knew.


    At the very start, instead of taking out that well-known fairy weapon, Zhou Bao took out another one.


    "It seems that everyone has underestimated you!" Hei Chou did not move an inch, but there was a burst of vague spatial fluctuations rippling around him. Zhou Bao''s Giant Void Hand failed to catch him and it fell directly into his Self-world around him.


    The Self-world of an Immortal was not able to be called a small world, but rather a Self-universe.


    As soon as Zhou Bao''s Giant Void Hand came near Hei Chou, it was trapped inside it.


    The Self-universe of an Immortal was much stronger than the Lord of Heaven''s Self-world. Even Hong Taihe''s Self-world would not dare to touch the poisonous gas on Zhou Bao''s Giant Void Hand.


    However, this Self-universe was completely different. It instantly caught Zhou Bao''s hand. And if Zhou Bao was not so clever and his Giant Void Hand did not possess such tremendous toxicity that was powerful enough to fuse the void, perhaps his void hand would have been seized by that guy.


    "The Self-universe, what an amazing skill!" Withdrawing his void hand, Zhou Bao could not help admiring that skill. He then fiercely manipulated his Furnace of Immortality to strike Hei Chou directly.


    He was a Human Immortal now and was qualified to refine a Self-universe, but he had not done that. He did not even think of it when he was practicing in the Azure Big World for over 100 years.


    He had found the path he would take in the future¡ªthe Extreme Realm of Force and Vacuum-crushing Skill. Compared with this goal, the so-called heaven and earth, the world, the universe, and even the void were just some things that could be shattered by a single blow. Thinking too much about them was simply useless.


    Because of that, he had even changed his fighting style. The Furnace of Immortality was a fairy weapon that was used especially to refine weapons and elixirs. He, however, directly used it to strike people.


    "What was that skill?" Obviously, Hei Chou had not expected Zhou Bao to attack him in this way. As he saw the Furnace of Immortality coming close at a high speed, he had no other choice but to evade it. Unlike this furnace, the Giant Void Hand was merely a stream of powerful pneuma; something that would be restrained by space. Although Zhou Bao''s Giant Void Hand had melted some of the space in his Self-universe, he did not suffer any big loss. Moreover, he was able to capture this hand if he wanted to. However, to be hit by a fairy weapon was something different. First of all, every fairy weapon possessed a complete Immortal Character. Furthermore, this skull-like furnace was made of weird materials¡ªthe skull of an Innate Deity. If he were to be hit by it, his Self-universe would surely suffer a heavy loss.


    "The skull of an Innate Deity! How can this be possible? How can you have such a thing? You refined the skull of an Innate Deity into a fairy weapon! You are blaspheming. How vicious you are! The Celestial Deity World will never let go of you!"


    "The Celestial Deity World!" Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes and could not help having deep admiration for Hei Chou''s sharp eyesight. Many people had eyed this fairy weapon, but no one had figured out its materials at first sight as he had. This showed that, at least, Hei Chou''s eyesight far exceeded the practitioners'' in the Seven-deity Regions. However, what was the Celestial Deity World that he was talking about?


    Upon seeing that Hei Chou had dodged the Furnace of Immortality, Zhou Bao grinned and leaped toward him. Without doing anything fancy, he directly punched Hei Chou with his fist.


    "What?!"


    This punch left a strange trail in the air. Hei Chou felt the power contained in this punch and wanted to dodge it once more, but he quickly found this thought impractical.


    That was because he was not capable of dodging it. Although it was merely a punch, it seemed to have covered the whole universe. It came close to him as if it was a universe that was pressing against him.


    He had never had this kind of feeling¡ªbe it in the course of his life of more than 1,00,000 years, or in the battles that he had been involved.


    "What kind of punching skill is this? He actually used it to openly fight against my Self-universe. Did he go crazy, or did someone give him such confidence?"


    He looked at Zhou Bao with a heavy heart as he noticed that there was a touch of indifference in Zhou Bao''s eyes. Those who had such a look, even though would be lunatics, were by no means normal lunatics. This guy, who was able to execute such a powerful blow, was not that arrogant even though he wanted to go up against his own universe head-on.


    "Since you like fighting head-on, then let''s do that as you wish!" Hei Chou narrowed his eyes gently and then a bronze mirror popped up in front of him.


    Boom!!!


    Zhou Bao''s fist fiercely smashed into that mirror.


    This great force caused Hei Chou, along with his mirror, to retreat dozens of miles away, and the mirror, which had been shining with an unearthly light, suddenly dimmed. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao also felt that a weird force was trying to bounce him away and a strong force was creeping over his arms.


    "The mirror? It''s a fairy weapon?"


    Without a doubt, the bronze mirror was a fairy weapon whose grade was not low. The reason being that, if it was a Pure Yang Celestial Device, it would have been smashed by Zhou Bao''s blow; however, if it was a Low-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, it would not have been able to send Zhou Bao flying such a long distance.

 674 The Sharp Saber Dharma King

    <p>Zhou Bao punched the bronze mirror and was then sent flying to the void dozens of miles away. However, he jumped toward that mirror again with no intention of dodging it after standing firmly on the ground.</p><p>The Extreme Realm of Force and Vacuum-crushing Skill required such an indomitable spirit and aggressive momentum. The power to smash everything in front of oneself with one''s own strength was required as well.</p><p>"Bang!!"</p><p>As the second punch struck the mirror, Zhou Bao did not step back much. Nevertheless, Hei Chou''s face turned pale and he continually stepped back along with his mirror. There was also a look of surprise in his eyes.</p><p>How could this be? The Divine Wizard Mirror in his hand was a Middle-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. It had many wonderful uses and was not used as a shield. However, in the face of the current situation, he simply had no other choice.</p><p>He had heard how powerful Zhou Bao was and was also aware that his punching skill was excellent. He even knew that Zhou Bao possessed a terrifying fist intent from a Genuine Immortal from the Divine Wind Palace. But never had he thought that Zhou Bao''s fist would be so horrifying.</p><p>The Divine Wizard Mirror was his protective treasure. Generally speaking, it was able to absorb and bounce back every kind of attack. When he had encountered powerful enemies before, as long as he took out this mirror, it could almost always block off the first round of attacks and was also able to bounce their attacks back. That meant he was almost invincible. After his enemies discovered the wonderful uses of this mirror, they would normally not attack again; instead, they would think of other means.</p><p>However, Zhou Bao was unusual because he continually attacked again and again.</p><p>Punches fell like raindrops, with each one of them being incredibly powerful. Moreover, Zhou Bao did not seem to care about the power that was bounced back by the mirror.</p><p>The mirror had the power to rebound almost every attack, but these attacks were mainly Divine Sense attacks and energy attacks.</p><p>However, when faced with physical attacks, this power would decline. After all, the most it could do was simulate the physical form of the attack with a powerful energy. Thus, its attacking force would decline by at least 50% compared to its original attack. If the weapon of the other person involved was also a fairy weapon, its attacking force would be 30% of the original attack at most.</p><p>Instead of using the fairy weapon, Zhou Bao used his fists to attack continuously.</p><p>This limited the rebounding power of the Divine Wizard Mirror. For Zhou Bao''s current body, the remaining 20% of the attacking force was useless and could not threaten him at all. On the contrary, it stimulated his ferocity.</p><p>"Bang, bang, bang...!"</p><p>As a series of impacts resounded out, Hei Chou''s face completely turned pale. The radiance of the mirror in front of him grew dim and then finally disappeared.</p><p>"Crack, crack¡ª!"</p><p>At last, after being attacked by Zhou Bao''s Critical Hit, the mirror finally split into two and was sent flying far away.</p><p>"Pfft!!!"</p><p>Meanwhile, Hei Chou''s mind was badly hit. He spat out a mouthful of black blood with a strange luster and his body twisted violently.</p><p>"Hmm... Self-universe? Break!" As Zhou Bao saw that waves of ripples had been stirred up in the space around Hei Chou as he twisted, a disdainful smiled crept over the corners of his mouth.</p><p>What a damn Great Ancient Demon!</p><p>His fists moved extremely fast, as if they were meteors that never stopped in the void. He was able to execute countless punches in an instant without giving Hei Chou any chance to breathe. The mirror was a Middle-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. Apart from being able to act as a shield and to rebound force, it had many other wonderful uses. However, Zhou Bao disrupted Hei Chou''s rhythm with quick punches. Therefore, there was no opportunity for him to utilize the other functions of the mirror. After his mirror was sent flying, Zhou Bao did not stop attacking him, sending one punch after another.</p><p>This was real hand-to-hand combat!</p><p>Although Hei Chou had a cultivation at the Immortal Realm and his strength was unmeasurable, moreover, he was a Great Ancient Demon with a strong body, only God knew how many years had passed since he had encountered anything like this. The opponents who fought him using purely hand-to-hand combat were very rare even in antiquity times. After that, such kind of thing had never happened. That meant he had not fought anyone like this for 81,000 years. Now, however, he joined Zhou Bao''s fighting rhythm by accident. Under Zhou Bao''s tempestuous attacks, he had no other choice but to brace himself and fight Zhou Bao with his bare hands.</p><p>"Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!"</p><p>Zhou Bao moved and appeared in front of Hei Chou. Step by step, he made his steps mysterious in the void, and one punch after the other, he attacked Hei Chou fiercely. However, his punches failed to hit Hei Chou and he completely fell into his Self-universe.</p><p>Every blow was extremely close to Hei Chou. But instead of hitting him, they all hit in his Self-universe.</p><p>It looked as if Zhou Bao was flogging a dead horse, but Hei Chou was unable to speak of his bitter suffering.</p><p>His Self-universe could not resist Zhou Bao''s attacks at all.</p><p>Zhou Bao''s first punch shattered a large area of spacetime and destroyed his Self-universe. He was now busy repairing it. How could he have the time and opportunity to fight back?</p><p>However, he still underestimated Zhou Bao''s punching force. Zhou Bao had integrated a giant star in his fist intent, so every blow of his was equivalent to the power of a giant star. Besides, the most terrible thing was that his fist intent, which imitated the universe, had concentrated on his fists. Thus, the fluctuations caused by each punch seemed to be a huge Universe Void that repressed Hei Chou''s Self-universe.</p><p>The Dharma of his Self-universe simply could not bear the heavy load and it started to collapse.</p><p><em>"Impossible, it''s impossible. He''s merely a Human Immortal, a guy who has just stepped into the Human Immortal Realm. How can he have such terrifying strength? He even nearly smashed my Self-universe!"</em></p><p>After several breaths, Zhou Bao still did not stop punching Hei Chou. By now, Hei Chou felt really frightened and realized that the crazy boy in front of him was really going to kill him with his fists.</p><p><em>"Goddamned, damn it! If I were given two seconds... no... a split second, just a split second, I can definitely kill him. F*ck, what the hell is this power and what kind of punching skill is it? The punches never cease and I cannot get away from them!"</em></p><p>Facing Zhou Bao''s punches dropping like meteors, Hei Chou retreated continuously and cursed in his heart. He was no longer the handsome man with an easy grace from before.</p><p>"Boom!!!"</p><p>At last, after Zhou Bao had moved 81 steps, he executed a Critical Hit once again!</p><p>"Rumble!!!!"</p><p>Hei Chou''s Self-universe was shattered.</p><p>"No¡ª!"</p><p>Hei Chou uttered a shrill scream. His neat hair hung loose and his eyes went red. He stared at Zhou Bao maliciously and watched the fist growing bigger in front of him.</p><p>"Zhou Bao, you will be dead soon. I will kill you and everyone you know. I will kill all the creatures in the Heaven Realm World. I''m going to kill you!!!" Hei Chou roared crazily and a strange shadow appeared behind him. "Sharp Saber Dharma King, come out!!"</p><p>"Boom!!"</p><p>Zhou Bao could only feel his fist being caught when he was about to hit Hei Chou, as if he had hit a thick wall. His entire fist became numb due to the impact. Compared with the power rebounded by the Divine Wizard Mirror a moment ago, this was much stronger.</p><p>The Sharp Saber Dharma King!!</p><p>Zhou Bao did not know what it was. He retreated more than a dozen miles and then was able to make out the strange giant shadow in front of him. It was similar to the mystical Buddha statue of Esoteric Buddhism in his previous life. It had a wild-eyed face, three heads, and eight arms, with each of them holding an odd weapon. What stunned Zhou Bao the most was that these weapons were all fairy weapons. They emanated a strong air of celestial majesty that made Zhou Bao unable to keep from frowning.</p><p>However, Hei Chou was not paying the least attention to whether Zhou Bao was frowning or not. "Sharp Saber Dharma King, kill him!"</p><p>At this point, Zhou Bao saw the scene clearly. A purple-gold alms bowl appeared in Hei Chou''s hands, and he had no idea when it got there. It looked like the bowl that Tang Sanzang used to beg for food in a television series named <em>A Journey to the West</em>. However, it was much more powerful than that.</p><p>"A Heavenly Fairy Weapon!" Eyeing this alms bowl, Zhou Bao was stunned with shock, but then immediately recognized what it was. It had to be a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, and the Sharp Saber Dharma King had to be its device spirit.</p><p>"Boy, you are sure to die miserably today. I''m going to refine your soul and make you watch me kill everyone that you know one by one!"</p><p>Hei Chou detested Zhou Bao. Since his birth, he had never suffered any big loss like this!</p><p>Not only had the Divine Wizard Mirror, which had been given to him by the Old Demon of Black Mountain to protect himself, become badly damaged, but his Self-universe had been shattered by Zhou Bao as well. His pneuma was injured severely and was almost impossible to recover it without tens of thousands of years'' practice. Even if it did recover, there might be some hidden dangers. For him, a guy who sought to enter the Earthly Immortal Realm, it only meant that it would be much more difficult for his goal to come true. His hope of success was very slim from the beginning. Now, however, he was badly injured by Zhou Bao and this almost certainly meant that he had no chance to step into the Earthly Immortal Realm in this lifetime. He surely would bitterly resent Zhou Bao.</p><p>In his almost-hysterical roar, the Sharp Saber Dharma King attacked Zhou Bao crazily. The alms bowl hung over Hei Chou''s head and sent out rays of golden light. Every nine rays of light were condensed into a talisman, and every talisman gathered on the wizard weapons held by the Sharp Saber Dharma King.</p><p>The Sharp Saber Dharma King stretched out its eight arms and they crisscrossed in the void, drawing various mystic arcs to envelop Zhou Bao in them.</p><p>"A Heavenly Fairy Weapon, hmm!"</p><p>Zhou Bao snorted and waved his hands, where two green hammers appeared. Then he said, "I''d like to see whose weapon is more powerful. Is it your Heavenly Fairy Weapon or my hammers?"</p><p>While speaking, he wielded his hammers toward the Sharp Saber Dharma King without hesitation.</p>

 675 The Reappearance of the Immortal Body Technique

    "Bang, bang, bang...!"


    Zhou Bao wielded his hammers toward the Sharp Saber Dharma King. Without showing weakness, his hammers collided with the fairy weapons held by the eight hands of the Sharp Saber Dharma King.


    In the blink of an eye, the pair of hammers had made close contact with all the fairy weapons in the Sharp Saber Dharma King''s hands.


    This round of fighting directly repulsed the aggressive Sharp Saber Dharma King. Of course, Zhou Bao also did not feel so good. But even though his hands were numb, his eyes were shining.


    "They are not real fairy weapons but something that has been condensed and refined purely by the Dharma of that Heavenly Fairy Weapon."


    The fairy weapons on the Sharp Saber Dharma King''s eight arms were not real. They were made by the scattered light of the Heavenly Fairy Weapon. But even so, their power was not inferior to that of any fairy weapon, and each of them had its own unique use.


    Regardless of their wonderful uses, Zhou Bao directly handled them with absolute strength. He successfully repelled all the fairy weapons, but he himself did not feel so comfortable either.


    Upon seeing Zhou Bao using hammers at the Pure Yang Celestial Device level to repel fairy weapons successfully, Hei Chou no longer appeared confident.


    He stared at the hammers in Zhou Bao''s hands, as if he was going to tear them apart with his eyes and see the structure inside them clearly.


    Without a complete Immortal Character, a Supreme-class Pure Yang Celestial Device was merely able to resist a fairy weapon for a while. However, Zhou Bao''s hammers had withstood the attacks from eight fairy weapons in a row but still were not at a disadvantage. He had never heard of such a thing.


    Although the fairy weapons on the Sharp Saber Dharma King''s arms were condensed by the scattered light of the purple-gold alms bowl, their power was by no means inferior to that of ordinary Taihao Fairy Weapons. With the help of the power of the Heavenly Fairy Weapon, these eight fairy weapons were even more powerful than ordinary Low-grade Taihao Fairy Weapons.


    And when they were used at the same time, their power was incredible mighty. He did not expect that Zhou Bao would be able to easily handle such power with two inconspicuous hammers.


    Was it due to his strength or the hammers in his hands?


    Although Hei Chou was astonished at this moment, he did not panic. In any case, he had taken out the purple-gold alms bowl and released the Sharp Saber Dharma King. He was now in an invincible position. After Zhou Bao had repelled the Sharp Saber Dharma King, he still stood where he was and did not continue to attack. Seeing this, Hei Chou could not help laughing.


    "Hey, boy, you don''t dare to attack me now? Weren''t you so arrogant a moment ago?"


    "I''m not so stupid to bother with a device spirit!" Hearing Hei Chou''s triumphant voice, Zhou Bao''s expression turned solemn. The Sharp Saber Dharma King was by no means an ordinary device spirit. Moreover, it held eight fairy weapons. Even if Zhou Bao really wanted to fight it head-on, he also needed some skills.


    "Boy, save your words. Let''s see your ability through your actions!" While speaking, the alms bowl hovering over his head radiated brilliant light and covered the surroundings. Before Zhou Bao could react to it, the purple-gold light went above his head.


    "Go to hell!" Zhou Bao coldly looked at the light approaching him. He fiercely wielded his hammers upward to strike it.


    "BOOM!!"


    Zhou Bao''s first hammer struck in mid-air, which meant that he seemed to have hit into a mass of extremely dense semi-liquid, semi-gaseous substance. He even felt an extremely strong suction that was going to suck his hammers away. If he had not had the bloodline of the Primordial Demonic Ape and his arms had not had immense power, his hammers would have been swept away by the purple-gold light.


    One of his hands withdrew quickly. At the same time, the purple-gold light had arrived in front of his face and his second hammer had also struck out.


    This time around, he struck something solid!


    It was some solid substance!


    After that weird thing had happened when he swung his first hammer, he wielded his second hammer with all his strength.


    The Snake-like Breath Holding Skill!


    The Heavenly Jade Technique!


    The fist intent that simulated the universe!


    The planet that was integrated into the fist intent!


    The Mysterious Icy Divine Light fully operated under the stimulation of the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill!


    The Grand Ice Technique!


    Each of the power mentioned above was a Divine Sense that was able to frighten other Realms. Zhou Bao integrated all of them into a hammer at one go and transformed them into a torrent that could destroy everything. It hit the purple gold scattered light.


    Destroying skills with sheer force!


    The purple scattered light was invisible and it illuminated just like the sun shining on a body. It looked ordinary but contained infinite spacetimes. These kinds of spacetimes were different from the one around the macro world. Although the spacetime around the ordinary macro world was infinite¡ªit was not that dangerous and was even harmless to practitioners at Zhou Bao''s level as long as they did not get lost in it. However, the spacetimes in the scattered light were different. Judging from the suction, Zhou Bao figured out that every spacetime in the scattered light had a complete Principle of Great Ways and a Dharma.


    If Zhou Bao were to be sucked into the spacetime with only a Principle of Great Ways, he would have to accept the consequences and would surely end up severely injured if not dead. Furthermore, this was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon with a strong device spirit, so he would certainly be suppressed if he was sucked into it.


    That was why he needed to wield his second hammer with full strength!


    The light seemed to be invisible, but in fact, it was tangible. It just had a different form. As long as the power was strong enough to affect tiny beings, it could make the invisible thing tangible.


    Zhou Bao''s first hammer had taken effect. It had not directly pierced through the purple scattered light. The force formed by the hammer''s wind had influenced its most subtle essence. Therefore, the result was that the hammer had gotten stuck in it.


    Zhou Bao had learned a lesson from his first hammer and he swung his second hammer along with the Grand Ice Technique. His Mysterious Icy Divine Light, in a very short time, had frozen the purple scattered light that emanated from the Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    Of course, the current power of his Grand Ice Technique and Mysterious Icy Divine Light were only able to freeze the scattered light for a moment. But within that brief moment, he had swung the second hammer.


    This time around, he hit something solid!


    The void changed sharply.


    After a loud noise, the purple scattered light broke inch by inch as if it was something tangible. Countless spacetimes exploded and vanished in the broken light. In the end, a huge torrent of energy instantly formed. It transformed into infinite Space Storms and sucked Zhou Bao as well as Hei Chou into it. The purple alms bowl hanging above Hei Chou''s head suddenly shook and a long, drawn-out sound rang out from it.


    "How can this be possible?"


    Hei Chou was petrified. He could not believe his eyes and his ears. He could not even believe his instinct.


    "Is it possible?"


    His Heavenly Fairy Weapon, the Purple Demon-conquering Alms Bowl, was broken.


    That was right, it really was broken now.


    In the past, the alms bowl had been a damaged Heavenly Fairy Weapon and its device spirit had long disappeared. Later on, the Old Demon of Black Mountain obtained it. At that time, it was a Middle-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. Although it had degraded, it was still powerful and its materials were suitable to create a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. Just like the fragments of the Ancient Sacred City, they could be used to create both the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices and Supreme Fairy Weapons.


    At first, the Old Demon of Black Mountain had no way to restore it to a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, but no one had ever thought that 100,000 years ago, he had discovered a survived Original Spirit in the era of ancient deities, in an unknown space. It was the Sharp Saber Dharma King. Although it had lost most of its power, it had a strange power. It seemed to be the inborn device spirit of the purple gold alms bowl. The Old Demon of Black Mountain took a lot of effort to capture it and merge it into the alms bowl. It then became a new device spirit.


    As the alms bowl became a Heavenly Fairy Weapon once again, both its present power and functions were very much different from the original one. But in any case, it was also a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. The Old Demon of Black Mountain then gave it to Hei Chou, his most beloved son.


    Ever since Hei Chou had received this fairy weapon, he had never been defeated. Thus, he had always relied heavily on it and greatly valued it. Moreover, he had considerable confidence in it. But he had never expected that his confidence would be destroyed by Zhou Bao today.


    Using his hammer, Zhou Bao shattered the Primordial Purple Light in a weird way and heavily damaged the Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    The Primordial Purple Light was the foundation of the purple-gold alms bowl. When it was broken, the Sharp Saber Dharma King was also influenced. The shadow of its huge body started to fade.


    Although Zhou Bao was also affected a little bit, his foundation was unhurt. He was clearly aware of the saying: "To kill one when he is in a pickle". Therefore, he just paused for a moment and then wielded his hammer at Hei Chou again before he could recover from his panic.


    "Oh no!"


    Hei Chou was, after all, an Immortal. Although his Self-universe had been smashed by Zhou Bao and his two fairy weapons had been partly destroyed as well, he still retained a certain strength. When he saw the hammer striking toward him, he shouted loudly and a layer of golden light covered him.


    "Clang!!!"


    That hammer fiercely hit him and a loud clanging sound rang out. With only 70 to 80% of Zhou Bao''s power, this hammer failed to kill Hei Chou. However, blood gushed out of his mouth. Like a golden meteor, he was sent flying thousands of miles away in the blink of an eye and transformed into a golden light.


    "Ah? Interesting!"


    "That is the Immortal Body Technique among the Seven Wonderful Techniques!" At this moment, the Child-endowing Buddha''s voice resounded. He turned into an ochre light and dashed straight to the meteor.


    The Seven Wonderful Techniques and Immortal Body Technique!


    Zhou Bao''s eyes were shining with excitement. The Seven Wonderful Techniques were marvelous. He had practiced three of them, including the Heavenly Jade Technique, the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. The Immortal Body Technique had always been the one he wanted the most. After he had killed Yu Taixu, he did not have time to take his soul out and refine it. So, he could not get this secret skill from him. However, he did not expect to see it appear on Hei Chou''s body.

 676 The Old Demon of Black Mountain Acts

    When he heard "Immortal Body Technique", Zhou Bao''s eyes shone with greed. He dashed past the Child-endowing Buddha and directly appeared in front of Hei Chou.


    He raised his hand and pressed Hei Chou''s head. "Come out, Immortal Body Technique!"


    "Boom!!!"


    The swiftness and ferocity of Zhou Bao''s action were completely beyond the imaginations of Hei Chou and the Child-endowing Buddha. At first, Hei Chou became severely injured. And upon suffering such a violent attack, without any room at all to fight back, his spirit was pulled out by Zhou Bao.


    "Boy, how dare you!"


    Hei Chou screamed in a miserable tone. Meanwhile, a cold shout rang out from his spirit and a whiff of extremely dense black smoke shot out as well. It transformed into a glaring sword light that shot out to between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows.


    "I always have the guts!" Zhou Bao did not jump out of the way but just let the sword light stab him. Without dropping his guard for a second, he forcibly took Hei Chou''s spirit out.


    Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds!


    Turtledove''s Claw!


    "Bang!!"


    Just when Zhou Bao took out Hei Chou''s spirit, the black sword light hit the place between his eyebrows and a clear sound rang out. His head quickly jerked back, and the sword light disappeared without a trace.


    "Are you crazy?!" exclaimed the Child-endowing Buddha upon seeing Zhou Bao withstand this attack without trying to dodge it. "That''s the Carefree Impermanent Sword Qi of the Old Demon of Black Mountain. It''s not inferior to your Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!"


    "Hmm, it''s nothing more than a small trick!" Zhou Bao slowly stood up straight. There was blood oozing from between his eyebrows, but it quickly disappeared. The Child-endowing Buddha did not know that there was a Heavenly Magic Eye in that place. Refined by countless Fiery Eyes, the Heavenly Magic Eye was much more firm than ordinary Fiery Eyes. Moreover, it was a fairy weapon, which could not be shattered easily by a streak of Sword Qi, even if the Sword Qi was executed by an expert at the peak of the Immortal Realm.


    The Sword Qi was a lifesaving tool that the Old Demon of Black Mountain had left to his son. Its power was equivalent to 80% of all his might when he struck a blow. Having a detailed knowledge of the present Heaven Realm World, he thought such a power was enough to defeat all the people in this world. He had not expected that there would be a freak like Zhou Bao in this world who could withstand this powerful blow with his head without even dodging it.


    "It''s getting more and more difficult for me to ascertain his real strength!" Witnessing Zhou Bao withstand this Sword Qi attack easily with his midbrow, the Child-endowing Buddha gulped.


    The midbrow? What was that place?


    It was called the upper Dantian, one of the most essential three acupoints of all living creatures.


    Each kind of creature in this world had different acupoints. And whether they had many or few, or were complicated or simple, they all had one thing in common¡ªall of them had the three most basic acupoints. The positions of those three acupoints were fixed. They were the upper Dantian, the middle Dantian, and the lower Dantian. The upper Dantian was in the midbrow. It was the practice foundation of every practitioner. Once it was destroyed, the consequences could be disastrous.


    However, Zhou Bao did not care about this so much. Then, what the hell did he rely on?


    "Well, don''t look at me. You might as well look at this guy!" Hei Chou had recovered his original shape¡ªa huge fox-like evil beast. There were myriads of evil beasts in this world. Zhou Bao did not know which kind of evil beast this guy belonged to.


    "Haha. Hei Chou, I never expected you to come to such a miserable end. Hahahaha!"


    Before Zhou Bao was able to watch Hei Chou carefully, he heard the Child-endowing Buddha''s strange laughter.


    "Junior Leopard, give him to me. I will soon hand over the secret of the Immortal Body Technique to you along with all his secrets, cultivation methods, and treasures!"


    Zhou Bao did not look up, but the Child-endowing Buddha''s strange expression made him shudder. He muttered under his breath, "Do you really have such deep-seated hatred for him?!"


    "You don''t need to care about that! I will handle this matter to your heart''s content!"


    "Alright!" Zhou Bao did not ask anything further. Obviously, this matter involved the Child-endowing Buddha''s personal animosity. Since he was unwilling to tell him, Zhou Bao would not force him. He put Hei Chou''s spirit into the Child-endowing Buddha''s hand. "You''d better be quick!"


    "Send me to the Azure Big World and I will hand all the secrets over to you tomorrow!"


    "Fine!"


    Zhou Bao nodded his head in agreement. A green light flashed and absorbed the Child-endowing Buddha along with Hei Chou''s spirit into the Azure Big World. The two fairy weapons that Hei Chou had just used were left in the void.


    A Middle-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon and a Heavenly Fairy Weapon!


    The Middle-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, the Divine Wizard Mirror, had been hacked in half by Zhou Bao. However, it was a fairy weapon. It restored itself back to its original shape after a short time. The two pieces had integrated together, but it was no longer so lustrous. It seemed that Zhou Bao had severely damaged it. He took it in his hand, glanced at it, and then put it in the Azure Big World as well.


    The purple-gold alms bowl was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon that had a device spirit. Although it had been repelled by Zhou Bao, its power did not weaken very much. In fact, if Hei Chou were not defeated so quickly, it should have had the power to fight back. However, Hei Chou had been intimidated by Zhou Bao. When he saw Zhou Bao''s fist and iron hammers destroy his two fairy weapons in a row, he lost both his confidence and intention to fight. Therefore, he was not able to exert all his might and was defeated easily.


    However, that did not mean that the Heavenly Fairy Weapon was defeated. The Sharp Saber Dharma King roared. Its huge body suddenly returned into the purple-gold alms bowl. All of a sudden, the alms bowl expanded and quickly became extremely large, approaching Zhou Bao in an attempt to envelop him. Numerous gods and demons roared and danced in the alms bowl. The eight fairy weapon held by the Sharp Saber Dharma King earlier appeared in different spaces. They were emanating a much more powerful spirit than they did in the outside world, as if they were displaying their strength to Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao frowned. He was not afraid of the Heavenly Fairy Weapon. What he feared was the endless odd spaces and worlds inside it. No matter how powerful his hammers and fists were, it still required a lot of time to destroy them. He was unwilling to do such a troublesome thing.


    At this point, the huge alms bowl had completely covered the surrounding void. An unrivaled suction was pulling at Zhou Bao. Moreover, countless gods and demons were charging at him with threatening gestures. However, instead of showing weakness, he wielded the twin hammers and violently smashed the surrounding space.


    "Bang, bang, bang...!"


    Within a dozen hammer strikes and under that absolute power, all the gods and demons rushing toward him had been smashed into pieces. And under his fierce attacks, the space covered by the alms bowl revealed a hole. As quick as a flash, he came out through it and reappeared somewhere 300 miles away from that alms bowl. However, the alms bowl still kept expanding. The Sharp Saber Dharma King''s huge body appeared above it. An ancient and august Qi Power emanating from all over its body made everyone''s mind shudder.


    "Don''t look at it anymore. You''re unable to obtain it unless you can kill the Old Demon of Black Mountain and erase the brand that he left on it!" said Wang She after coming from nowhere and appearing right beside Zhou Bao.


    "You are really scheming. You just hid in the dark!" As soon as Zhou Bao saw Wang She, he could not hold his anger back. They had thought of a way to attack Hei Chou¡ªZhou Bao came out to fight him openly and Wang She hid in the dark so that he could seize an opportunity to launch a sneak attack. Of course, they just wanted Hei Chou to think that Wang She was hiding in the dark and waiting to attack him secretly. It had been quite a few days since they had sneaked into the Heaven Realm World. Hei Chou definitely knew that Zhou Bao and Wang She had a good relationship. Hence, he would surely be on guard against Wang She. Nevertheless, their real trump card was the Child-endowing Buddha, who was hiding much deeper.


    Zhou Bao had not expected that he could defeat the arrogant and terrifying Hei Chou so neatly and quickly. There was nothing Wang She could do, let alone the Child-endowing Buddha.


    Wang She was somewhat depressed. When he heard Zhou Bao''s complaint, he replied with heavy sarcasm, "I did want to come out. But did you give me an opportunity to? You smashed an Immortal with just a few hammer strikes. What good does it do to have me ambushing by your side? Are you playing tricks on me?!"


    "That''s none of my business. The Child-endowing Buddha said that it''s quite difficult to harm this guy. Otherwise, I wouldn''t have had such an arrangement. But whoever expected him to be so vulnerable?!" Zhou Bao stared at the alms bowl again and continued, "Stop talking about this. Let''s see if there is any way to obtain this Heavenly Fairy Weapon!"


    "Are you daydreaming? I''ve told you that it belongs to the Old Demon of Black Mountain. As long as he is alive, no one is able to take this fairy weapon from him!"


    "Boom!"


    While they were speaking, the Sharp Saber Dharma King above the alms bowl shook and looked at Zhou Bao and Wang She with a weird black light in its eyes.


    "Not good!" Upon seeing the strange spirit emanate from the shadow of the Sharp Saber Dharma King, Zhou Bao was startled. He held up his hammers and dashed toward the Sharp Saber Dharma King. "Old Demon of Black Mountain, you mother f*cker, go to hell!"


    "Brat, you are courting death!"


    A fierce black light shot out of the Sharp Saber Dharma King''s eyes. It held eight arms up to strike Zhou Bao''s hammers.


    "Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang!"


    In the blink of an eye, Zhou Bao''s hammers had struck the Sharp Saber Dharma King 18 times.


    As if being hit by heavy hammers, Zhou Bao flew back as quickly as an arrow leaves a string. The Sharp Saber Dharma King''s eight arms were destroyed by Zhou Bao. It retreated into the alms bowl, and the alms bowl began to shink. At last, it turned into a black light and vanished in the void.


    "Zhou Bao, I will never forget you. You must die a dog''s death!"


    As the alms bowl disappeared, a voice full of resentment came from the distance.

 678 Discussions & Another Clue

    Personally, Zhou Bao was eager to wipe out the Divine Wind Palace. But it was not the right time. The Heaven Realm World was suffering from both internal trouble and outside aggression. It would be destroyed by powerful practitioners from other macro worlds if it was not careful. He did not want to get into any trouble at this point.


    Super sects like the Divine Wind Palace were definitely the main forces in fighting against the macro worlds that had a conspiracy against the Heaven Realm World. No matter how strong he was, he was merely a person. Even adding in Wang She and the Child-endowing Buddha, they were only three Immortals. And even though they were mighty, it was impossible for them to influence so many macro worlds. He would not be so confident to consider themselves the main force of the Heaven Realm World. They had never ever harbored that idea.


    Therefore, after seizing all of Hei Chou''s treasures and failing to find the so-called Ancient Divine Palace, Zhou Bao launched the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    The formation enveloped the entire Wuyang Region. Of course, it did not mean that he had sealed up the entire area. In fact, after the formation was launched, there was only one path left for passers-by to get in and out of¡ªthe endless Wuyang Road that led to his territory from the main gate of the Wuyang Region. It might cause trouble for those who went in and out of the Wuyang Region, but it would make his territory a safe place to the maximum extent.


    His behavior had stirred up great reactions in the entire Heaven Realm World, and those reactions and influences were known by many other macro worlds.


    "What? Zhou Bao launched the Yin and Yang Dust Formation to cover the entire Wuyang Region!"


    Inside the Divine Wind Palace, Yu Taixuan crumbled the purple-gold wine glass with great force and stood up excitedly. "What does he want to do? At a time when the Heaven Realm World is in great peril, he directly closed his territory. As the strongest practitioner in the Heaven Realm World, shouldn''t he take on the responsibility that he is supposed to?!"


    "Well, Yu Taixuan, knock it off. Even if you file a lawsuit against him in the Immortal Palace, it will turn a deaf ear to what you say!"


    At this moment, the Divine Wind Palace was packed with people.


    Ever since Yu Taixuan failed to kill Zhou Bao in the void, such meetings had been held many times. In the beginning, they had even arranged many plans in order to wage a life-and-death battle against Zhou Bao, lest he get revenge on them. But in the end, it turned out that he did not attach any importance to them and did not even say anything. He simply closed the Wuyang Region suddenly and did not plan to cause them any trouble.


    The Divine Wind Palace had ruled the Seven-deity Regions for many years and had quite a bunch of cunning guys. When they thought of what had happened in the Heaven Realm World recently, they immediately figured out most of Zhou Bao''s thoughts¡ªhe meant to let the Divine Wind Palace resist the disasters for the Heaven Realm World.


    The Divine Wind Palace''s strength had been greatly weakened during its recent failures. However, it still was the top sect in the Four Eastern Regions. After all, a starved camel is still bigger than a horse. When something bad happened in the Heaven Realm World, the Sea Emperor would be the first one to handle it. If he did not take action or failed to resist it, then the Seven-deity Regions would be the second one to cope with it.


    In the Seven-deity Regions, super sects such as the Divine Wind Palace, the Immortal Palace, and the Palace of Eternal Life would be the first to be affected.


    "Hmm. Don''t forget that the Immortal Palace is also a super sect in the Heaven Realm World. As a member of the Four Signs of the Immortal Palace, Zhou Bao can never shirk his responsibility!"


    "He did not mean to shirk his responsibility, he simply closed his territory. Brother Taixuan, it''s his private affair, do you want to have a hand in it?!" Hong Taihe looked better compared to the time when he was defeated by Zhou Bao. Although he was quite unlucky, the Yu family was much unluckier than him. After a few collaborations, he suddenly realized that the Yu family seemed to have only two or three powerful practitioners left. Publicly, they had only one practitioner¡ªYu Taixuan, at the Lord of Heaven Realm. Their next generation had not grown into powerful practitioners yet. If it were not for the few old bastards who had been immersing themselves in the Single-minded practice in the depths of the Divine Wind Palace, he would have overthrown the Yu family''s dominant position in the Divine Wind Palace.


    But now, the Hong family''s situation was not so good either. Hong Taihe''s son was a little bit more promising than the boys of the Yu family, but in the end, he did not have as many resources as the Yu family. Moreover, it was a harsh time, so he did not fall out with them. But as he heard Yu Taixuan censure Zhou Bao, he could not help making a sarcastic remark.


    Presently, Zhou Bao would never be someone that the Divine Wind Palace could provoke!


    "Junior Leopard did it for the sake of the safety of his Wuyang Region. I guess he does not have other intentions. And just like Lord Yu said, he is still a member of the Four Signs of the Immortal Palace, the Water Leopard of the Winnowing Basket. So, he would never cast the matters concerning the Heaven Realm World aside!"


    The speaker was Yan Yuntian, the Human Emperor candidate. Compared to his predecessor, he had a much greater say and right, which was due to him having a good son-in-law.


    As Zhou Bao''s strength increased¡ªbe it the Immortal Palace, the Jade Pool, or the Dragon Thunder Palace¡ªthey all had strengthened their support for him, intentionally and unintentionally. As a result, his authority was elevated to a new level. Coupled with the fact that he acted on behalf of the justice of the Heaven Realm World, even the Divine Wind Palace did not dare to do anything to him. It was even obliged to offer him more palaces and areas. He performed his duty to rule the Heaven Realm World and he also made Lord Yu a mere figurehead. He was now an authoritative and fair Human Emperor candidate.


    "The will of the Immortal Realm suddenly fell and led to great confusion in the Heaven Realm World. However, it''s also an opportunity. Our world has been away from the Central Star Area for 810,000 years. Perhaps it''s a good thing for us to communicate with other macro worlds. Maybe we are able to make the glory of antiquity times reappear."


    "The glory of antiquity times?!"


    Yu Taixuan burst out laughing when he heard Yan Yuntian''s words. "Yan Yuntian, do you still want to be the real Human Emperor? The glory of antiquity times! There were 99 emperors in the Heaven Realm World at that time, and each one of them was an Earthly Immortal. How about now? The most powerful practitioner in our world is a Human Immortal... do you understand? A Human Immortal!"


    "Sure, that''s the strongest combat capability in our Seven-deity Regions, but not the Sea Area!"


    "Hmm, the Sea Area is indeed powerful, but it is impossible to be the enemy of so many macro worlds. You''d better abandoned that stupid idea. The Heaven Realm World can no longer make the glory of antiquity times reappear. We''d better discuss how to handle the scouts from other macro worlds!"


    "They are not powerful and are easy to handle. The problem is how we should deal with the macro worlds behind them!" Hong Taihe squinted and looked at Yan Yuntian sitting in the center and Yu Taixuan sitting near the left side. "I think it would be best to hold a meeting in the name of the Human Emperor candidate, which all the big sects in the Four Eastern Regions must attend, including the Immortal Palace, the Jade Pool, the Dragon Thunder Palace, the Bigwheel Temple, and the Dark Sect. We''d better think up a plan!"


    "It sounds reasonable. The Divine Wind Palace should not be the only one to worry about this. We don''t have to worry too much if so many sects collaborate. We and other sects in the Three Western Regions can even unite to think of a solution!" Yu Taixuan did not object to Hong Taihe''s words this time, which was rarely seen. Instead, he quite approved of what he had said. "Zhou Bao must come here too. He is so powerful, he should take the responsibility to protect the Heaven Realm World!"


    "Then, we will rely on you to persuade him!" Hong Taihe smiled. There was a hint of irony in the depth of his eyes. Yu Taixuan was over-confident. He even thought that he had a way to control Zhou Bao at this moment.


    "But that''s just fine. He should suffer a huge setback!" Hong Taihe thought secretly.


    "What a damn meeting! Why should I have to attend?!" Zhou Bao was giving directions to his son and daughter on martial arts and Divine Sense in the Wuyang Region. When he heard the news, he looked quite angry. "I will never attend it. Tell them to get lost and that I have no time to entertain them!"


    "Yes!"


    Zhou Bao had absolute authority in the Wuyang Region. His subordinates would never question any of his decisions. After receiving his order, they immediately drove the messengers away.


    "Are you taking it too far? In any event, my father''s seal is in the letter!"


    "Your father is not a puppet anymore. How can he still be influenced by that bunch of bastards in the Divine Wind Palace and ask me to go there? He is not a fool. He surely knows that the reason I closed the Wuyang Region was to avoid trouble. However, he seems to want me to be involved in trouble. He''s really very ''kind''!"


    "Actually, he cannot do things of his own free will!"


    "What? Did he send you a letter too?" When Zhou Bao saw Yan Yunfei''s awkward facial expression, his face suddenly fell. "You haven''t promised him, have you?"


    "Of course I haven''t. Without your promise, I will not agree on this kind of matter privately!" Yan Yunfei rolled her eyes at Zhou Bao. "However, you should also consider my father''s standpoint!"


    "What damn standpoint! He is muddleheaded due to practicing the Way of the Emperor. I can definitely see through what is going on in his mind. Tell him not to think too much. He should be content with being the Human Emperor candidate. He can never get rid of the title of being a candidate in his entire life. He''d better give up his wishful thinking!" Zhou Bao waved his hand repeatedly. "Moreover, starting tomorrow, you are not allowed to leave the palace for the next 10 days!"


    "Why?!" Yan Yunfei was someone who could not bear staying indoors, especially after having children. She liked to take them out to run around. Now Zhou Bao suddenly made her stay in the palace for 10 days. She simply could not accept it.


    "I''m going to conduct a thorough clean-up in the Wuyang Region. For the sake of your safety, I''m not allowing you to leave the palace!" Zhou Bao waved his hand and added, "Many dangerous people have sneaked into the Wuyang Region. If I don''t wipe them out, I cannot ensure your safety!"


    "You''re right. By the way, my father made me tell you one more thing!"


    "And what''s that?!"


    "He knows a clue to one of the Ancient Divine Palaces!"

 677 Obtaining the Immortal Body Technique

    "Hmm, am I afraid of you?!" Hearing the loud voice, Zhou Bao revealed a contemptuous sneer. He felt a pressure that was transmitted from another space, but he just turned his nose up at it. No matter how powerful the Old Demon of Black Mountain was, he was merely an Immortal.


    Not to mention that he was unable to leave the Black Mountain World, and even if he could, it would be nothing serious. After all, Zhou Bao was never someone that could be trifled with.


    His duel with Hei Chou had given him so much confidence. He was convinced that if he exerted all his might, he would even probably be able to escape if he encountered an Earthly Immortal at his current strong power. The Old Demon of Black Mountain''s cultivation was at the peak of the Immortal Realm, but he was not an Earthly Immortal. Meanwhile, he had no complete macro world, so Zhou Bao did not fear him. In fact, even if he did have a complete macro world, Zhou Bao would not be afraid of him either because he was the Fate Creator and had his own macro world. It was just that the macro world did not belong to him at the beginning. The way he chose to practice was different from others.


    When he was crossing the Thunder Tribulation, he obtained two Great Ways contained in the 3,000 Great Ways. One was the Grand Ice Technique. If he practiced it to perfection, he could condense a Grand Ice World. The other was the best among all the 3,000 Great Ways. It was the Extreme Realm of Force¡ªthe Vacuum-crushing Skill. Moreover, it did not need to practice the Self-universe. What it practiced was the sheer power in this world. It advocated using absolute power to smash everything¡ªbe it world, universe or vacuum.


    Since he had chosen this second Great Way to practice, he did not care too much about the Grand Ice World.


    He knew that as long as he constantly advanced his power, he could rule myriads of macro worlds if he wanted to when his power reached its limit. The Old Demon of Black Mountain was merely an ordinary guy in the numerous macro worlds. There was nothing to fear about him.


    "Well, Hei Chou was very vulnerable, and our plan has not been carried out. Let''s go back and wait to see if the Child-endowing Buddha can gain something good from his spirit tomorrow!"


    What Zhou Bao cared about most was the Immortal Body Technique. He had experienced a lot of the advantages of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. The more he practiced, the more mysterious the Seven Wonderful Techniques seemed to him. Whatever kind of cultivation method or Divine Sense had its limit in terms of effects, the Extreme Realm of Force had also. However, the Seven Wonderful Techniques seemed to have no limit.


    Take the Heavenly Jade Technique for example. If he kept practicing all the time, his power would increase without any limit, as long as his body could bear it. In theory, he was able to shatter the whole universe with a punch. This was presumably abnormal. When he practiced the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to perfection, he even could transform himself into dust that was the same as the ordinary dust in the universe. Furthermore, when the Dharma Power-restoring Skill was practiced to perfection, the consumption of the Dharma power would never concern him. There was a saying: "Believe in Brother Chun and you are able to revive on the spot". Similarly, the Dharma Power-restoring Skill could instantly restore the Dharma power on the spot. Coupled with the immense amount of Dharma power stored in his giant Dantian, he was convinced that no one in this world was able to exhaust him if he was involved in a prolonged battle.


    According to this speculation, if he practiced the Immortal Body Technique to perfection, it should have the same function as Brother Chun and he would be able to revive on the spot.


    According to the effect that Hei Chou had shown, this secret skill could also enhance defensive power. It was so practical that he could not wait for the Child-endowing Buddha to come back.


    "It''s the secret of the Immortal Body Technique. In addition, there are the Black Mountain Undisciplined Skill and all the extraordinary secret skills Hei Chou mastered. Moreover, there are 12 Supreme-class Pure Yang Celestial Devices, 37 Pure Yang Celestial Devices of upper, middle, and lower grade, and a total of 178 bottles of elixir!"


    The Child-endowing Buddha''s expression looked quite strange. He put everything he had gotten from Hei Chou in front of Zhou Bao. "I also got a message from him; the Old Demon of Black Mountain knows the location of an Ancient Divine Palace, so he sent Hei Chou to the Heaven Realm World as a pioneer to make arrangements in advance. That''s why Hei Chou took a liking to your Wuyang Region. After occupying it, he would be able to snatch that Ancient Divine Palace without anyone knowing it."


    "Ancient Divine Palace?!" Zhou Bao looked somewhat grave. Be it the things that happened in the Primordial Origin or in primitive times, there were still some rumors about them that remained. However, the era that ancient deities had lived in was an enigma for people nowadays. They only knew that such an era did exist in the past and there were some legends about the deities from that period. The detailed information about them was all buried under the long river of time. People would forget this era if Zhou Bao had not had a middle-grade divine device.


    The Divine Palaces of the ancient deities were enigmas, just like that era. Some said that there were a lot of treasures, but others said that there were dangers lurking on every side. However, they had to admit that all the practitioners that had once entered the Ancient Divine Palaces would certainly become Earthly Immortals as long as they could come out alive.


    Of course, that was also a legend!


    The Divine Palace was the target of the Old Demon of Black Mountain. He had stayed in the Immortal Realm for quite a long time, and he had even had the thought to hang himself. In any case, he had been unable to find a way to enter the Earthly Immortal Realm. When the message leaked out from the Heaven Realm World, he saw a glimmer of hope. As long as he could pin down the exact location of the Divine Palace, he would surely have his way to get to the Heaven Realm from the Black Mountain World and enter the Divine Palace to acquire the mysteries of stepping into the Earthly Immortal Realm.


    However, he had not expected Hei Chou, who possessed a Heavenly Fairy Weapon and a Middle-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, to be killed.


    Hei Chou was killed by his own self-confidence.


    In his opinion, he could snatch a ready-made place without making an effort in the Heaven Realm World, where there was a lack of Spiritual Qi and the most powerful practitioners were merely Human Immortals. Nonetheless, he had never expected that there would be a freak like Zhou Bao. Being careless, he was killed by Zhou Bao and the Child-endowing Buddha, and all his treasures and collections fell into their hands.


    "These celestial devices are useless to me. But I have a lot of subordinates, so I''d better keep them and put them with the Pure Yang Celestial Devices I''ve obtained from the Sea Area." Although Zhou Bao was extremely wealthy, he was badly in need of elixirs and magic weapons. As his subordinates were ever-increasing and getting more powerful day by day, they should at least have one or two celestial devices. He did have many celestial devices, but when they were distributed to his men, each one of them could only get a few weapons. It really confirmed the saying: "The head of the household knows the cost of fuel and rice". Although he scarcely took charge of affairs at home, he still felt highly pressured. He felt he would never have enough celestial devices. Therefore, he did not bother to be that courteous in front of the Child-endowing Buddha as he accepted all the things. After all, it was he who had defeated Hei Chou. He just left Hei Chou at the Child-endowing Buddha''s disposal. All those things were supposed to be his. He had satisfied the Child-endowing Buddha''s desire to get revenge on Hei Chou, so the Child-endowing Buddha should repay him for his kindness.


    Of course, if the Child-endowing Buddha were not here, even if he could take out Hei Chou''s spirit, he would not have been able to get so much information from his spirit. That was an easy task for the Child-endowing Buddha, who easily got what Zhou Bao wanted.


    "What did you do to his spirit?"


    "There will be no such person as Hei Chou in this world again. Even though the Old Demon of Black Mountain controls the entire Black Mountain World, he cannot let Hei Chou reincarnate fully intact!" When mentioning Hei Chou, traces of hatred intermingled with excitement flashed through the eyes of the Child-endowing Buddha.


    "Zhou Bao, since you gave me this guy''s spirit, I owe you a big favor. You can ask me to do anything in the future, and as long as I am able to do it, I will not refuse!"


    "What a cunning guy! What do you mean that you will do whatever you can for me? If you cannot do anything, will all my efforts have been in vain?" Zhou Bao complained in his heart. He knew it was quite difficult for the Child-endowing Buddha to make such a promise judging by his personality.


    "Do you know the exact position of the Divine Palace from the era of ancient deities?"


    "The exact situation is only known to the Old Demon of Black Mountain. He has two tasks; find a safe place in the Seven-deity Regions and settle down, and ascertain the strength there. It seems that he planned to lurk in the Heaven Realm World for a long time. Therefore, I guess the location of the Ancient Divine Palace should be very secluded and it should be extremely difficult for anyone to discover. Otherwise, given his character, he would never adopt this approach."


    "The Old Demon of Black Mountain no longer can threaten us, unless he recklessly runs to the Heaven Realm World to avenge his son; otherwise, we can ignore him for the time being!" Zhou Bao thought for a while and added, "Even if the other macro worlds already know some things about the Heaven Realm World, including the exact location of the Divine Palace, they will never be willing to take the initiative to act and be the enemy of the Heaven Realm World. In that case, we don''t have to act ostentatiously like we did today. As long as they don''t provoke us first, we don''t need to care about those troublesome matters. Anyway, there are still the Sea Area and the few big sects in the Seven-deity Regions to worry about these things!"


    "That sounds reasonable. But given your current status in the Seven-deity Regions, you are the focal point of others. No matter what the origins of the guys coming to the Heaven Realm World are, they have to take your attitude into consideration, as do the sects in the Seven-deity Regions!"


    "Hmm, let those sects run their courses. I will not care about other sects except for the Immortal Palace!" Zhou Bao sneered and continued, "Especially the Divine Wind Palace. Were it not useful, I would have exterminated it. How can I allow its disciples to lord it over others in the Seven-deity Regions?!"

 679 The Secret that Everybody Knew

    Resplendent lights flashed in the boundless hollow. They were star lights that converged into one endless stream, reaching through the entire hollow.


    In this stream, innumerable vast planets formed galaxy after galaxy; and macro worlds surrounded by endless space and time.


    That''s right, macro worlds. Among the huge galaxies made up of countless small galaxies were dozens of macro worlds.


    The Celestial Primordial World.


    The Innate World.


    The Martial Thunder World.


    The Celestial Dragon World.


    The Myriad Illusions World.


    The Majestic Treasure World.


    The Carefree World.


    The Pure Land World.


    The Green Hill World.


    In the depths of the starry river was the Void Palace.


    The palace towered majestically in the center of the starry river. Rays of light moved around it, forming the names of each large world, one after the other. With each name a formidable practitioner appeared in the hall. Within a short time, 23 formidable practitioners had been cultivated to the Immortal level.


    "My Lords, it''s been a while since we have last met!"


    After the last ray of light appeared, there was a feeling of change in the air as voices resounded in the hall. The entire crowd of Immortal level practitioners bowed towards the center of the hall. "Hail, Divine Realm Lord!"


    "Perhaps everyone is aware of what has occurred in the Heaven Realm!" The Divine Realm Lord had not come into view yet. The 23 lords of the macro worlds could only see a mass of purple light, which they had no problem with.


    "We have all accepted the will of heaven. We know where all the macro worlds of the Heaven Realm are and have sent scouts to each one!" said the Celestial Dragon World respectfully. He was the tallest of the 23 lords, and on his head grew two dragon horns. "It''s just that the macro worlds of the Heaven Realm are located in the Desolate Ancient Star Area. Not only is it a long way, but we would have to travel through several great Star Areas. It''s not easy to communicate across such a distance!"


    "I''m aware of this. Hmph, the Desolate Ancient Star Area! The Jade Emperor really planned it well when he moved the Heaven Realm there and cut off our contact with the Void Immortal Realm. We have great skills, yet we cannot find the whereabouts of the Heaven Realm. I could not have imagined that, after 810,000 years, someone could just cut off the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm. We know the location of the Heaven Realm, but it seems fate has scuppered our plans!"


    "That''s right. Man proposes but heaven disposes," a master lamented. "It was because the Jade Emperor wanted to preserve the Heaven Realm, but it took a lot of effort!"


    "No matter what, we can see a small trace of the macro worlds of the Heaven Realm so we need to act!" The mass of purple light, the lord of the Celestial Deity World, continued to speak, "No matter what, this Heaven Realm macro world is the most important of all the macro worlds, the only passageway for us to communicate with the Immortal Realm. The most important thing is that in the boundless time and space of the Heaven Realm macro worlds are precious properties left over from the gods of that era; Which are what I need most if I am to ascend to the realm of Earthly Immortals. So we cannot lose this chance, no matter what! Finding the Divine Palace from ancient times is our opportunity to ascend to the Earthly Immortal Realm!" He paused. "What does everyone think?"


    "Of course we should all work together!" called the 23 masters in unison. Their enormous collective willpower condensed to form a soaring pillar of light, splitting open the entire starry river and penetrating into the depths of the hollow.


    "What is The Ancient Divine Palace again?"


    Wuyang Region, the Central Mainland Region, the Seven-deity Regions, the Heaven Realm World.


    Zhou Bao frowned slightly. He muttered to himself, thinking about what Yan Yunfei had said. The Ancient Divine Palace ¨C this was the second time he had heard news from this place. The first time was from the Child-endowing Buddha. It seemed the Old Demon of Black Mountain from the Black Mountain World knew of the Ancient Divine Palace''s location and secrets, so he had sent his own son, Hei Chou, to the Heaven Realm macro worlds to find out. He ended up in Zhou Bao''s hands.


    And now Yan Yunfei had revealed a clue about the Ancient Divine Palace. Could they be the same place; the Ancient Divine Palace she was talking about; the one Hei Chou knew about; and the one the Old Demon of Black Mountain was looking for?


    Although it seemed slightly unimaginable, it was not impossible.


    Actually, these had happened too close together in time. He could not help but associate them in his mind.


    "Your father, the emperor, told you about the Ancient Divine Palace. Does anybody else know?"


    "No. Father said that it was one of the things passed down to him when he inherited the candidacy of the Human Emperor."


    Inherited the candidacy of the Human Emperor? Interesting. He was not the only candidate for Human Emperor and was not the only candidate to receive an inheritance. How come no one else had dug out the secrets of the Ancient Divine Palace? Zhou Bao thought to himself. "Never mind, I''m not bothered about some Ancient Divine Palace inheritance. We live in exceptional times. I don''t want to stir up trouble, and I don''t want to deal with outside matters."


    Zhou Bao thought carefully before saying, "Whether or not the matters of the Ancient Divine Palace are true, the Wuyang Region cannot get involved."


    "Okay then." Yan Yunfei had nothing else to say. She had been married to Zhou Bao for so many years she knew his character inside out. Once he had made up his mind about something, no one could change it.


    What was more, she had come to have a completely blind trust in him. She did not care about status, she cared only that their family was safe. It did not matter how much upheaval it caused, ultimately so long as Junior Leopard could keep his family safe, that was enough for her. She had turned her nose up at Yan Yuntian''s Way of the Emperor for some time. His Way of the Emperor was so strong, so powerful and yet, in the end, hadn''t he come to depend on Junior Leopard?


    So when Zhou Bao said he did not want to bother with it, she just nodded her head and said nothing.


    Zhou Bao sat at the stone table, knocking on it lightly as he watched her leave. His son and daughter were standing next to him and did not know how to react.


    "Daddy, what are you thinking about?"


    Zhou Mu saw that Zhou Bao was thinking, so he didn''t dare say anything. But his daughter, Zhou Qing could not stand it. His so-called son had been raised in poverty, and his daughter raised in wealth. This little girl had been spoilt by Zhou Bao from an early age. She was not afraid of her dad at all. But while Zhou Bao was practicing and occupied with many things, he usually did not have much of a chance to guide their practice. It was okay now, but it was not easy for Zhou Bao to get the chance to show them how to practice. Zhou Bao stared blankly, how could he make her happy?


    "Nothing. I just had something small on my mind," he said, looking at his daughter who was already growing into an elegant young lady. He laughed. "My Dinosaur, have you found a boyfriend yet to bring and show to your dad?"


    Zhou Qing scowled. She lifted her leg and stamped violently on his foot. She snorted, turned around and walked away, ignoring him.


    Seeing Zhou Qing turn a corner in the courtyard, Zhou Bao scowled and asked, "Eggie, is there anybody your sister has been rather close to recently?"


    "Uh...!" Zhou Mu had lived under Zhou Qing''s shadow since he was little. Hearing this question, the little darling suddenly jumped, lowered his head, and muttered something indiscernible.


    "F*ck. She is only 13 years old. What has happened to my little girl?" As soon as he saw the look on Zhou Mu''s face, Zhou Bao knew that it was not good. For a while, it felt like his head was swimming. Before, if Zhou Bao joked like this with Zhou Qing, she would not have acted like that. So when she left, he had a bad feeling. He looked at his son. He looked so immature, he felt like he could almost kick him.


    "Speak! Who is it? What is going on?"


    "Father, it''s not as serious as you think. She''s just taken a liking to someone, that''s all. His name is Feng Xuan. I think he''s from the old Wang family of the Northern Yuan. He has been wandering destitute in the prairies. He hasn''t reached 17 yet, but already has a Level Six cultivation. He gained all his skills from fighting, but he''s a decent person."


    "From the old Wang family of the Northern Yuan?" Zhou Bao blinked. "A Level Six master of martial arts. Only Level Six? The girl has always cared for experts, she could crush a Level Six boy with her little finger. Why is she so fond of this boy?"


    Zhou Mu broke out in a sweat.


    Although neither he nor Zhou Qing were very old, they were indeed at Level Eight peak cultivation. With a bit more effort they could break through to the ninth level. They were Zhou Bao''s children, the offspring of the first evildoer since ancient times. They had been raised from a young age on all kinds of panaceas and practiced with the cultivation methods of the world''s top players. Their success was not surprising. But Feng Xuan? Wandering the prairies since he was a child? No panaceas and no unique cultivation methods? A small child surviving numerous fights? It was a miracle he had reached a Level Six cultivation.


    What was more, his cultivated strength was maybe no more than that of his older brothers and sisters. But fighting on the prairie since childhood would have given him an intrepid spirit, and he would be a match for any man. He was especially masculine, and this, frankly, was what his daughter found most attractive about him.


    Zhou Bao rubbed his forehead. "I don''t have time to deal with this. Can you keep an eye on that boy for me, and make sure Dinosaur doesn''t come to harm? You can have this fairy weapon. If there is any problem you cannot solve, you just need to give it a wave. I will receive the message telepathically come right over." He placed the Divine Wizard Mirror into Zhou Mu''s hands.


    "F... fairy weapon?" Zhou Mu looked down, stunned at the Divine Wizard Mirror in his hands. He did not think his father could be this generous, giving him a fairy weapon. "Yes. Now, don''t look so hopeless. Your sister''s wellbeing depends on you. If you do something wrong and something happens to her, I will never forgive you!"


    "Don''t worry, father. As long as I''m around, nothing will happen," Zhou Mu promised with excitement.


    Raising a daughter was not easy!

 680 Incompetent Urban Managemen

    Zhou Bao had a fearsome reputation that had spread throughout the Seven-deity Regions and even the Heaven Realm macro worlds. But when it came to his kids, the problems they caused were like a flea on his head he could not scratch away.


    This kind of thing had never happened to him before, so he had no idea how to solve it and this irritated him. They were getting older and getting into situations that gave him headaches. His son could not be helped. If he were to f*ck himself to death with some woman, so be it. But he could not just stand by while his precious baby daughter was cheated by some b*stard.


    "Feng Xuan, Feng Xuan! Damn it! I want to know, what ability you actually have to allure our thirteen-year-old daughter away?" When this thought came to him, Zhou Bao could not sit still. After pacing around his room a short while, he changed his clothes and left the King Wuyang Palace.


    Wuyang Region was his territory. Since it was established it had rapidly developed into the most flourishing territory in the Jin Dynasty and even the Central Mainland Region. What had been a small town underneath Jilei Mountain had grown into King Wuyang City, and around King Wuyang City grew various other cities big and small. The whole area was now bustling and affluent.


    The streets were full of traffic. Although Zhou Bao looked refined and handsome, there were many other such men here. So among the bustling streets of King Wuyang City, Zhou Bao did not look particularly special.


    What was more, although he was the leader of the Wuyang Region, he had never appeared before the people there. The ways of the world here were different to those in his previous life. In the age of the television screen, newspapers and internet, a celebrity''s face could be spread across the entire world overnight. When Zhou Bao became famous, his portrait had been circulated among every powerful family of the Central Mainland Region, but not among the common people. The Wuyang Region was his territory, who would dare spread his portrait around?


    Unlike in his past life, people who distributed portraits of leaders could be prosecuted, and this could ruin families. Therefore, walking on the street in his green robe, Zhou Bao looked like a harmless scholar, and nobody recognized him.


    His cultivation had reached the Human Immortal level, and his Dharma power coalesced and covered his whole body. He did not need to use the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, he just needed his Dharma power tied into one strand so that not one thread of spirit leaked out. He looked like a mere scholar with no martial arts skill.


    When he came out it was noon, the busiest time in the market. Wherever he walked, the streets were crowded with people. There were people everywhere, setting up stalls, selling, and smashing down stalls.


    Smashing down stalls?


    Were they smashing down stalls!


    Yes. In Wuyang Region there were urban management officials smashing down stalls.


    Zhou Bao had created a position in urban management to uphold order in the markets, particularly in King Wuyang City. You had to be strict with the guys setting up stalls, otherwise you could not walk the streets for there would be too many vendors in the way.


    The urban management fulfilled their role by smashing down stalls.


    "F*ck, this urban management thing. It doesn''t matter which world you go to, it''s all the same!" Zhou Bao thought to himself. He wanted to take care of it, but then he had second thoughts. It was he who had set up the urban management. If he were to put an end to stall smashing, enforcement would not be as strict. It would not be good for the city to fall into disorder. He decided to let the matter be. Besides, even though they were smashing down stalls to enforce the law they were still acting reasonably. As long as they were not indiscriminately beating people, he could turn a blind eye.


    Zhou Bao was allured by the street scene, and he strolled about for a bit. Suddenly, he came around. "Damn it, I came out to look for the unlucky fellow courting my daughter, not to have a stroll!"


    He was embarrassed when he realized that he was so out of sorts that he had not asked her any questions. He only knew that the boy was called Feng Xuan. He did not even know what he looked like or where he was. Who was this unlucky fellow he was looking for?


    Just as he was thinking about this, a man appeared at his side. "Please come inside, Sir!"


    "What?" Zhou Bao turned and smiled, but he did not know what to say. It seemed he had come to a tavern with a huge entrance.


    "Cloud Crane Tavern. Good name!" Zhou Bao smiled. Since he was here, he might as well get a bite to eat.


    He had reached the Realm of Human Immortals, eating food meant nothing to him. That being said, he still enjoyed a bit of good food.


    Zhou Bao frowned when he walked in. It was noon, peak time. The place was packed, there was not even space to walk. There was a waiter outside bringing customers in, but he didn''t know where to put them.


    But business was business. Zhou Bao was worried, but the waiter was not. He just led Zhou Bao this way and that through the restaurant to a free place in the corner. There were still people in the corner, just fewer. There were people crowded around the table. Zhou Bao smiled as he realized this.


    "I''m at a table with strangers, I didn''t think the business in this restaurant would be so good! The food here must be excellent," Zhou Bao thought as he sat looking forward to his lunch.


    He did not refuse to share a table with others; he sat straight down. As he did so, he started scrutinizing the restaurant. He was quite surprised, out of every ten people in the restaurant, eight or nine were scholars. None of them seemed to be acquainted with one another, in fact, they were all sat with strangers. This roused Zhou Bao''s curiosity.


    Zhou Bao looked at the person sitting opposite him. He too was a scholar, quite old, about forty. It seemed this scholar had seen many changes. Beside him was a huge trunk of travel-worn books.


    "Brother Sun, I didn''t think you''d get here before me!"


    "Brother Gu, you weren''t exactly late, either!"


    This Brother Sun and Brother Gu were loud and obviously did not mind disturbing the other diners. It was only when they realized their voices were attracting the attention of those around them that they quietened down, went to a space by the window and spoke quietly.


    The atmosphere suddenly transformed turned into a clamorous noise.


    "Brother Xiong, you still have a loud voice, then?"


    "I''m sorry!" Brother Xiong laughed, shaking his head. "Brother Sun, do you know what grade you got in the Imperial Examination?"


    "Oh, Brother Gu, do you not know what my scholarly skills are like? Even though I studied for three years solid, I only got a grade four. What about you, Brother Gu?"


    "Me? Haha, I got a grade three, which is okay. There are lots of opportunities in Wuyang Region, but the requirements are high. For people like us buried in history and poetry books, the range of opportunities is just as narrow."


    "That''s right. Our wings were clipped before we even began. I intended to study mixed disciplines. Although I read history and poetry since I was young and learned the path of righteousness, now that I want to read mixed disciplines I cannot carry on learning no matter what. It''s a shame. Who would have thought that the Mingyi School and School of Five Virtues would suddenly go bankrupt? If it weren''t for that, you and I could easily have become famous for our talents."


    "Brother Sun, you should be careful what you say!"


    "Right, right! Sorry, it''s just too much, I lost control over myself. I''ll drink as a penalty." Brother Sun seemed to realize he had said these words at just the wrong moment. He picked up his glass of liquor and took several mouthfuls one after the other.


    "Hmph, why should I be careful what I say, anyway? In these troubled times of powerful martial warriors, everything is in total chaos. Such unhappy times."


    Just as Brother Sun realized he had said something wrong and drank several mouthfuls of liquor again as punishment, a scholar at a neighboring table suddenly stood up. He seemed worked up. "The Mingyi School brought about its own misfortune. Sages have been run out of town in shame. Nowadays the Jin Dynasty is no superior state, because of all you sages reading your books and coming to a place of villains and scoundrels to look for fame. You make me ashamed to be a scholar!"


    This scholar had a majestic appearance and spoke passionately. When he stood up and spoke these words, all the people in the Cloud Crane Tavern fell silent, as if shaken.


    "Who do you think you are, to think you can just..." But this was not enough to scare everybody. After a while, a scholar among the crowd stood up suddenly. He was pointing at his nose and about to curse. But a waiter at his side whispered something in his ear, and he immediately calmed down. Although he was incensed, he did not dare say a word.


    Zhou Bao raised his eyebrow because he heard what the waiter said.


    "He''s a friend of Feng Xuan!"


    On hearing this, the scholar swallowed all his anger.


    "It seems this Feng Xuan is quite famous. One mention of his name and the whole tavern falls silent and dares not speak. All of the men in the tavern were students of the Imperial Examination. Is there now an Imperial Examination system here in the Wuyang Region?" Zhou Bao had a strange thought. He suddenly felt as if he was not up to the task of being lord of the region. There was an Imperial Examination system in his territory and he had no idea.


    But before he could finish reflecting on this, he was distracted because the scholar who was standing up was saying more and more shocking things. After he spoke he pointed to himself, almost pointing to his nose and cursing. What the f*ck was this? This was the Wuyang Region, the territory he himself had established. Who was this rookie who thought he could point at his head and let out a torrent of abuse? Urban management officials were standing nearby inside the tavern with their arms crossed, watching and laughing as if it were a joke. They did not deal with the situation at all.


    This, this, this...


    This was too f*cking disrespectful!!!


    These urban management officials were not taking their job seriously at all. How was this Zhu Ba b*stard being dealt with? This professional service was not up to par.


    "Shut up, you little b*stard!"


    When he realized he could not count on the urban management, His Excellency King Wuyang finally spoke up.

 681 The Strategy

    By this time Zhou Bao was in a very bad mood.


    Anybody who encountered a situation like this would go crazy. If Wang She or the Child-endowing Buddha heard about this, they would split their sides laughing.


    Someone shouted and swore at him in a crowded tavern in his very own Wuyang Region. The damn urban management officers did not do a thing but just stood there laughing. What kind of f*cking urban management was this?


    They were basically soft and powerless.


    Seeing Zhou Bao suddenly stand up among the crowd, pointing at his nose and swearing, the scholar was stunned at first. He then reacted. Straightening himself up, he asked, "Who do you think you are, daring to rant and rage in the Cloud Crane Tavern?"


    "F*ck!" Zhou Bao cursed quietly. No longer saying anything, he lifted his hand. There was a cracking sound. The scholar who had just been shouting was slapped twice.


    Now, the whole tavern was silent.


    "It''s not a case of daring. I can do what I want," Zhou Bao said coldly. In a moment he was by the scholar, clutching him with his hand. "Boy, you should know there''s a price to pay for swearing!"


    "Your Excellency has such skills, why would you make things difficult for a scholar? Maybe all the feats you learned could be used to show this weak scholar your might?"


    "Hmph, you finally appeared? I thought you were hiding upstairs!"


    "If you hit my brother, of course I will come out!"


    Zhou Bao smiled. This Feng Xuan really had the capital to attract women. He was tall, handsome, and masculine. Zhou Bao thought about his own appearance, and looking at this boy, he got even angrier.


    "F*ck, what does this boy think he can gain from being so handsome? Does he think he can seduce my daughter with that damn handsome face?"


    This Feng Xuan had grown to be a talented person, very smart and very attractive. When Zhou Bao looked at him, anger burned inside him.


    His daughter was only thirteen years old and she was tempted by this boy. This was not comfortable to live with. Out of the corner of his eye, Zhou saw a short blade glint strangely at the boy''s waist and had a very familiar feeling.


    "Sh*t, is that the Pure Yang Celestial Device grade wizard weapon I dredged up from the Sea Area? How could this boy have it on his waist?" Looking at the short blade, Zhou Bao''s anger reached its limit. "So you are Feng Xuan?"


    "Yes. I am Feng Xuan. May I ask Your Excellency, what is your name?"


    "Look, Feng Xuan is talking with someone again!"


    "Quick, quick! Go to the Cloud Crane Tavern, there''s going to be another fight!"


    "It''s Feng Xuan again. It''s the seventh time this month. This time something big will go down!"


    "The owner Li Yunhe has no idea what kind of place this is. Every day there''s a commotion. Saying that in Wuyang Region everything was really bad. And he still has the nerve to slander His Excellency King Wuyang. If it was anyone else, he would have been taken away by the urban management right away!"


    "Oh. Don''t tell him, let him think he has a good brother!"


    "But Feng Xuan is too arrogant. There is nobody in Wuyang Region as arrogant as him."


    "It''s not his fault he looks down upon everybody. I don''t know why, but the Great Commander Jiang is very lenient with him."


    "Yes. I don''t know what kind of upbringing Feng Xuan had. But Great Commander Jiang is too tolerant of him. Could it be Feng Xuan is his illegitimate child?"


    "What are you saying? If he was his illegitimate child, Great Commander Jiang would not be able to protect him so openly. No, I think he must be the illegitimate child of His Royal Highness!"


    "Well, I suppose it''s possible. Great Commander Jiang and Zhu would not tolerate him so much otherwise!"


    "Yes, but this boy is so arrogant. Do you think that maybe he has support from somewhere in the Wuyang Region that''s allowed him to survive this long?"


    While Zhou Bao and Feng Xuan were talking, the place was in a commotion. People were saying all kinds of things. Zhou Bao understood Feng Xuan''s actions in some way. This scholar was in the tavern all day wantonly proclaiming Zhou Bao''s shortcomings, saying bad things about him, and saying that Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba did not care about him. As for why they did not care, Zhou Bao imagined what the reason could be. In the beginning, they could not be said to care as such. It was Zhou Qing who had stepped in so that this boy could survive until now, with all his arrogance.


    This made Zhou Bao even angrier. He could not stand to look at him.


    "You are not qualified yet to know who I am!" Zhou Bao said coldly. "I see the short blade on your waist. It''s a nice design. Where did you steal it from?"


    "Steal?!" Feng Xuan looked angry. Ever since he started out, from a small Level Two fighter to the Level Six master of martial arts he was today, about to make the key step into the Level Seven Expert Realm, he had killed, but never stolen a single thing. All his life, the people he hated most were thieves. And yet, here was Zhou Bao telling him right to his face he was one. He was incensed.


    "Touch a dragon''s scales and you will be killed. Don''t anger me!"


    He bellowed, and the blade flashed, dazzling Zhou Bao.


    "Clang!"


    There was a sound of metal clashing and sparks flew everywhere. Cutting into Zhou Bao''s forehead with the sturdy Pure Yang Celestial Device grade short blade was like cutting into an indestructible diamond. His body was shaken by a strong force. The blade flew back and smashed through a window on the second floor of the tavern, crashing to the ground.


    "Dragon? Hmph, what a joke. How could a person with your stupid face call himself a dragon? F*cking dragon scales? Who taught you that if you say a few words, you are suddenly invincible?"


    "Who the hell are you, anyway?" Feng Xuan knew that he had encountered a master of martial arts. His face grew severe. The short blade in his hand was a Pure Yang Celestial Device grade wizard weapon. He had used all his strength to hit this guy where it would hurt, yet it had been repelled away by him. What kind of power was this? How strong was this man? A normal expert could not reach this level of strength. Even a Level Nine expert who had developed a Real Body could not resist this type of Extreme Yang Level wizard weapon. Could this guy be an Individual Immortal?


    If he was, then he must be one of the commanders of the Wuyang Region.


    But he knew the Wuyang Region well, and he had never heard of there being such a commander here. Perhaps he was new here?


    "Who am I? Why should I tell you, boy? You dare to create a scene with such little skill? And your dragon scales, did you know that in Wuyang Region the most worthless and least welcomed of all things are dragons? If you are indeed a dragon, then I give you two choices. One is to die here in Wuyang Region, the other is to leave and never come back!"


    "Your Excellency, you have spoken a little too much!"


    Although Feng Xuan was proud and skilled, he was not stupid. He knew that he was facing a psycho and could not hold his own. But he also didn''t want to lose his reputation or lose face. His body flashed, and once again he jumped onto the tavern building. "This is the Wuyang Region, you don''t have the final say here!"


    "So you do know that this is the Wuyang Region? You have been getting more and more reckless and you will come to harm. Running your mouth and spouting nonsense in the Cloud Crane Tavern, one day you will reap what you sow. Why don''t you just stop now?"


    "This is the Wuyang Region, not a bandit''s lair. It''s true when they say it''s a bit hostile, but it''s not a place where you can be convicted for your words!"


    "Maybe not before, but it is now. What you say puts me in a bad mood, and because I am in a bad mood, scripture courses this year have been canceled!"


    "What?!"


    When Zhou Bao said this, everyone stared blankly. What did he mean?


    Could he cancel the scriptures courses just like that? Who was this man?


    "This weak and powerless boy is swearing at me in public, but it doesn''t matter. I will be generous and consider this an act of ignorance. I will spare him his life but will not condone what he says. I do not want to argue with him, so the Imperial Examination will be canceled instead to save trouble. That''s right, it''s not just scripture classes in Wuyang Region, but in all of the Jin Dynasty. From now on they are completely canceled. The nonsense that spreads from sages of the School of Five Virtues and Mingyi School, and their books, they will all be eradicated from the Central Mainland Region. I didn''t want it to be this way, but what this boy said has made me very angry. I''ve made my decision, and no-one can oppose it!" Zhou Bao chuckled. He spoke these words so politely, like a cool breeze brushing the face. But it blocked the path of every scholar who had been reading sacred books since they were little.


    "You are King Wuyang!"


    Feng Xuan looked again at his expression. His face sank, and in his eyes there was a glint of astonishment. He suddenly remembered rumors he heard about Zhou Bao at Jianghu. Could the King Wuyang, Zhou Bao, of these rumors be the man standing right in front of him? The guy wearing a green robe all day, in the guise of a scholar? Embarrassing people for no reason, not letting you express your anger and stifling you? Was this the way it was now?


    "Haha, I thought you would straight out say my name, boy! Come and find me at the king''s chamber tomorrow afternoon at twelve forty-five, and I''ll make a deal with you. And I''ve had enough of you, Zhu Ba, you b*stard. Get out of my sight!"


    "Hehe, Your Royal Highness, I''m not in..."


    "Did you not understand what I just said? From now on, scripture exams in the Wuyang Region and Jin are canceled. Pass this news on to my brother-in-law and tell him how it happened!"


    "Yes, Your Royal Highness!"


    Zhu Ba nodded at once. When he lifted his head again, Zhou Bao had already left, as if he had never been there in the first place. And the crowd in the Cloud Crane Tavern never looked at the scholar in the same way again.

 682 An Offer That Cannot Be Refused

    "You, boy, are really lacking in respect. Once this news gets out, the pitiful scholar that you are will not survive for long."


    "Yes, he destroyed the future of every scholar in the Central Mainland Region on an impulse. If it were me, I would have killed him too!"


    At noon the next day in the pavilion of King Wuyang''s palace, Zhou Bao, the Child-endowing Buddha, and Wang She were lying comfortably on couches. But this time the Child-endowing Buddha looked different. He was wearing a rich landowner''s garb, and nobody could see his portly figure. He was a monk of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple but looked like the boss of a brothel ship.


    These two men did not know where the rumors came from, but today at the break of dawn they hurried to see Zhou Bao, as if they wanted to hear his jokes. "I think your boy was harmed enough. He just swore at you a couple of times, and for that, you turned him into the single greatest enemy of all the scholars!"


    "Hmph, he was that type of person, arrogant and young. I already gave him plenty of face by not killing him there and then!"


    "His current problem is a lot more wretched than it would have been had you killed him there and then. Now, not only does he have to face every angry scholar in the realm, but he also has to face himself. Because of his few words, the sage''s path he believed in his whole life was cut off in all of the Central Mainland Region. If he can''t take it, he might kill himself!"


    "That doesn''t mean a damn thing to me! Don''t start what you can''t finish." Zhou Bao shrugged his shoulders and sneered. "By the way, what are you two up to today?"


    "We heard that you were going to see your son-in-law today. We are quite interested in seeing how it will go!"


    "Son-in-law? Hmph, figures. Since you two are here, I will give you a good show for free!" Zhou Bao said indifferently.


    "A show? Will you split up the happy couple? My boy, be careful not to provoke your daughter''s ire, she will hate you for a lifetime!" The two unscrupulous guys beside him fanned the flames.


    "A long punishment is better than a short one. This Feng Xuan boy is offensive to the eye. Also, my daughter is too young. If she were to find somebody else in two years'' time, that still wouldn''t be too late!" He suddenly stopped speaking as Zhou Mu arrived.


    "Father¡ª!"


    "Come in and sit down. There are many benches." Zhou Bao cast a shady glance at him. "Where''s your mother?"


    "She''s in the rear court consoling my sister!"


    "Consoling her? Why is she consoling her? Go and call them in!"


    "Huh? Father, you¡ª!"


    "If I ask you to go, you will go. Today we will all sort this out face to face!" Zhou Bao looked at him resolutely.


    "Yes!" Zhou Mu saw that Zhou Bao was in a bad mood and did not dare say anything else. He ran straight to the Inner Yard.


    "Oh, is that Feng Xuan? He''s not bad looking. He''s young, well cultivated. It seems he''s carrying with him a little secret. Not bad! Quite suitable as a son-in-law!" The two men were still lying on the divans, but with their cultivation, they only had to scan the place with their divine thoughts and they could ascertain all the details big and small. It was almost twelve forty-five, and Feng Xuan was hurrying over to King Wuyang''s palace. At the speed he was going, he would arrive just in time.


    "This boy sure has an air of haughtiness. If you made anyone else come here, they would be waiting at the entrance of King Wuyang''s place before the break of dawn!" Wang She smiled.


    "I think we should play with him a little, set up some obstacle to make him arrive late. Then it''ll be easier to justify yourself to your baby daughter!"


    "I know how I''ll handle this, don''t you worry about it. Just worry about watching the show!" Zhou Bao glanced between his two guests.


    "Father, you can''t do this! Feng Xuan and I are just friends. How could you do this?!"


    "Are you telling me what I can and can''t do?!" Zhou Bao looked straight in front of him at his willful daughter, Zhou Qing. It seemed helpless, he had really spoilt her. "You must understand, the boy provoked me first, he attacked me first. If it weren''t for you, he would not even have a corpse for you to find. Do you think that if someone is rude to your daddy, I will just sit back and watch?"


    "No, I mean¡ª!"


    "It doesn''t matter what you mean. I won''t kill him, I will even give him a great deal. All I want to know now is whether you''ve really taken a liking to him?"


    "Father, you¡ª!"


    Hearing this, Zhou Qing turned bright red and glared resentfully at her father. She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Wang She and the Child-endowing Buddha. "How could you do this, ask your daughter such questions in front of guests?"


    "Don''t worry, those two are your elders. Whatever they think, whatever they say, it doesn''t matter!" Zhou Bao said without a hint of worry. "Have you or have you not taken a liking to the boy?"


    "Yes, yes!" Zhou Qing had been spoilt by Zhou Bao since she was little, and there were no taboos between them. But admitting this kind of thing in front of so many people was embarrassing. She lowered her head shyly, face as red as a baboon''s bottom, eyes fixed on the floor wishing she could disappear into it. She also resented her father terribly for this. What type of father would do this? Even Yan Yunfei by her side couldn''t help but feel resentful, but she didn''t show it in front of so many people. She just comforted Zhou Qing by placing her hand on her shoulder.


    Who knew whether Zhou Bao would ask more questions?


    "So, do you think he likes you too?"


    "I don''t know!"


    "That''s no problem. Wait for him to come over, then ask. Eggie, the boy has arrived at the door. Can you bring him in here?"


    "Yes, father!"


    "Zhou Bao, don''t you think this is a little inappropriate? Whatever happened, Feng Xuan is still a guest here. You bring him all the way here just to ask him such a question to his face. It''s really...!"


    "Yunfei, some things are better to deal with face to face, it''s clearer that way, especially with this type of thing. If we cannot open up and talk about, then the only person that suffers is our daughter!"


    "But¡ª!"


    "Okay, that''s enough. We''re doing it this way!" Zhou Bao interrupted Yan Yunfei. He leaned back, closed his eyes and regained his composure.


    When he was like this, Yan Yunfei could say nothing, she just had to let him have his way.


    A short while later, Zhou Mu arrived at the front of the pavilion with Feng Xuan.


    "Greetings, King Wuyang, Queen Wuyang." Feng Xuan actually did know his manners. As he walked up to the crowd, he first greeted Zhou Bao and Yan Yunfei. Then he looked at Wang She and the Child-endowing Buddha. "If I am not wrong, this gentleman must be the first Highest Elder of Tian Long Taoism, the elder Wang She!"


    "Good eye!" Wang She laughed with great interest. "If your eyesight is so good, can you tell me who this chap is?"


    "This¡ª!"


    This really stumped Zhou Bao. He was only a Level Six master of martial arts, he had not even reached the Level Seven Expert Realm. Although he had had some adventures, they were nothing like Zhou Bao''s. He could easily recognize Wang She, but only because his and Zhou Bao''s relationship was the secret that everybody knew.


    Even if he could not recognize the man, he could guess who he was. The Child-endowing Buddha had a relationship with Zhou Bao that was more like an underground love affair. Who could know that Zhou Bao would be messing around with this monk who didn''t follow the rituals? Furthermore, today he was dressed like a stout landlord. Who would have thought he was the Child-endowing Buddha of the Bigwheel Temple?


    "Boy, pay no attention to me, I don''t want to be acquainted with you, either!" the Child-endowing Buddha said, swaying his fat head. Ignoring Feng Xuan, he went to sit down.


    Feng Xuan raised his eyebrows. He wanted to say something but stopped himself. He understood that if he was here sitting together with Zhou Bao, with people talking so casually, he should not provoke the situation.


    "I have brought you here for one reason, and that is my daughter. I know that my daughter is interested in you. So, I want to ask you, are you interested in my daughter?"


    Feng Xuan was visibly stunned. He was not at all prepared for this. He had no idea how to respond to the question that Zhou Bao had so brazenly asked in front of so many people. He stole a glance at Zhou Qing; her face was bright red. He glared resentfully at Zhou Bao. But he quickly felt Zhou Qing''s eyes glancing at him in anticipation. Her eyes met with his. Her face became more pained with embarrassment and she looked straight down at the floor.


    "Well, boy? Say something!"


    Feng Xuan grew more nervous as he suddenly raised his head. His eyes shining and with a resolute expression, he said, "King Wuyang, I like your precious daughter very much!"


    "Haha, so he isn''t simply interested, he likes her very much!", Zhou Bao laughed mischievously. Seeing that Feng Xuan still had not said anything, he raised his hand and continued, "Then, I will tell you the condition. You cannot like, no, must not be interested in my daughter!"


    "Father¡ª!"


    "Shut up!" As Zhou Bao glanced over, he felt the desire to be more unreasonable. Zhou Qing could not say a word. Zhou Bao looked again at Feng Xuan. "Come on, make an offer!"


    "Junior Leopard, this is too old a trick. Even an idiot would know you''re testing him. I can answer for him now, that he will not agree to any offer you propose!" Wang She stretched and said lazily.


    "Is that so? Well then, you don''t need to reply, I will state the offer. You are now a Level Six, but I will immediately make you a Level Seven, no, Level Eight of the Expert Realm. And I will give you three Pure Yang Celestial Devices. How does that sound?"


    "Your Highness, you really look down on me. I am being sincere. I¡ª!"


    Zhou Bao did not wait for him to speak. "Within ten days, you can enter the Individual Immortal state under my protection. And I can get you to the Individual Immortal peak elixir within ten years. And I''ll give you five Supreme-class Pure Yang Celestial Devices!"


    Now Feng Xuan was completely stunned. Zhou Bao''s offer was completely beyond his imagination. To be promoted to the Individual Immortal realm elixir within ten years, with five Supreme-class Pure Yang Celestial Devices? What did this mean?


    This was essentially the capital needed to establish a new sect. With this he could establish a huge sect comparable to the Tian Long Taoism.


    He almost nodded, but he stopped himself. He raised his head slightly, still not speaking, and listened to Zhou Bao as he continued. "In addition, I will guarantee that you will be able to transition through two Thunder Tribulations within the next twenty years and ascend to the state of Venerable Realm Genuine Immortal. I will also add this Pure Yang Celestial Device with the potential to be promoted to a fairy weapon. And before you become a Venerable, I will protect you to make sure nothing happens to you. This is the final offer. Do not bargain, if you do not agree, I will break you in two.


    There was complete silence.


    With the pavilion in complete silence, a while passed before Feng Xuan finally sighed. On his face appeared a bitter smile as he said, "King Wuyang, I have no choice but to accept your offer!"

 683 Permeating

    "Now you''ve fully offended your baby girl. Don''t you fear that she will resent you for a lifetime?"


    At this moment, only Zhou Bao, Wang She, and the Child-endowing Buddha were sitting in the pavilion. Seeing how Zhou Bao had chosen to handle this matter, Wang She and the Child-endowing Buddha were both dazed.


    "I said that people would rather suffer acute pain for a short while than mild pain for a long time. My daughter will not hate me for a whole lifetime, perhaps a few hundred years at most. Even if she does, so what? Time flies, several hundred years will pass in an instant. Anyway, this is better than letting her live a whole life with a jerk!" Zhou Bao said, waving his hands casually. After all, his little girl was just 13 years old, what could she possibly know about marriage? Zhou Bao was determined to break this couple up.


    "If that boy refuses to leave your daughter, what will you do?"


    "That would be better, I really hope he will behave in that way!" Zhou Bao said, raising his eyebrows. "If that happens, I''ll draw his soul out in front of everyone; make every bit of his life since he was born visualized; and dig out his true purpose for approaching my daughter. Hee hee, that would be quite pleasant!"


    The Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She gazed at each other but failed to say anything. They both made up their mind in secret that they would never let their acquaintances pursue the King''s daughter. It simply equated to courting death¡ªwhenever things went wrong, Zhou Bao would be blustering about drawing someone''s soul out.


    "Well, you two, the show is over. You can tell me your real agenda now. You''ve traveled from such a distant place, it can''t be that you''re just here for the show?"


    "Not just for that. We''re here to express our awe and respect to you!"


    "Express awe and respect to me?" Zhou Bao was nonplussed. "What do you mean?"


    "Your assumption was right. There is something fishy about the Ancient Divine Palace. It turns out that not acting rashly was the correct choice, so we''re here to express our gratitude to you!"


    "Well, it''s nothing at all!"


    "That is the first issue. And there is a second one."


    "Judging by your behavior, you must be embarrassed about the second issue."


    "Guys from other macro worlds are already contacting the influences in our Heaven Realm World!" Wang She said with a flustered expression. "Some small and medium well-known families have ganged up with them for extra benefits. They are building up their power in secret. Undercurrents of trouble are surging!"


    "That''s not strange. If I were them, I would adopt the same method to make my influence permeate the Heaven Realm World. After all, though the strength of the Heaven Realm World is extremely powerful, combatants at the level of the Human Immortal are unable to leave their own macro world at will. Thus, the strongest combatants they can send out are merely Lords of Heaven. Indeed, Lords of Heaven are hard to deal with, but they must be joking if they expect to take over the Heaven Realm World solely with Lords of Heaven. Adopting this slow permeating method to foster their own influences in the Heaven Realm is undoubtedly the best measure."


    "This can''t be kept from the public. Well, do the great sects having any plans regarding this matter?"


    "Right. No matter which school or well-known family they are helping or contacting, what they are doing is something that will shake the foundation of the Heaven Realm. We definitely can''t let things drift."


    "So?"


    "So, regardless of identity, family or school, if anyone secretly contacts influences in other macro worlds, we will just wipe them out!"


    "That won''t work. If we can''t fight them openly, we will fight in the dark. Right now, they are all in the dark. And I believe a major part of powerful and ambitious small and medium schools and well-known families have already found their respective partners. If we truly wipe them out, hee hee, we may already be severely injured before someone else tries to take us on!"


    "That''s why we need to punish someone as a warning to others!"


    "Who is this unlucky guy we should punish?"


    "Five in total. Three are in the Penglai Region, they are all medium-sized schools. One is in the Yingzhou Region, a family. And there is one in our Central Mainland Region as well¡ªthe Li Family of Pingzhou!"


    "The Li Family of Pingzhou?" The families in the Central Mainland Region did not arouse Zhou Bao''s interest, but hearing the Li Family name, Zhou Bao involuntarily raised his eyebrows. "The Li Family of Pingzhou? Who made this suggestion?"


    "This information was disclosed from the Divine Wind Palace. As you know, the Human Emperor Palace is located inside the Divine Wind Palace. Nowadays, the influence of the Divine Wind Palace is declining while the power of the Human Emperor is growing. Therefore, all the important news in the Four Eastern Regions comes from the Human Emperor Palace!"


    "Really? Then, that means this is my father-in-law''s suggestion, isn''t it?"


    "That I could not know. But it''s possible. As his power grows, his practice of the Way of the Emperor becomes more and more profound. Plus, the location of the Human Emperor Palace is covered in rising purple Qi, which is the place where the emperor destiny will descend. Adding the fate of the Jade Emperor from antiquity times, the speed of his Way of the Emperor practice is extremely fast. Perhaps now his cultivation has already broken through the Individual Immortal Realm and reached the Genuine Immortal or the Venerable Realm. So, he probably has become a Genuine Immortal in the Lord of Heaven Realm, right?"


    "Even if he becomes a Human Immortal, so what? Could he possibly be ignorant of the relationship between me and the Li Family of Pingzhou?" Zhou Bao''s face darkened completely. "Fu*k! Dying to show off his authority at a time like this, how stupid!"


    "Then, what are you going to do?"


    "Me? I will do nothing. I will see who dares to challenge the Li Family!" Zhou Bao said with a sneer. "If the Li Family has contacted other macro worlds, there is no reason that the Wang clan in Cenzhou hasn''t made connections with the influences!"


    "The Wang Family in Cenzhou did offend you in the past. But now, given that so many years have passed, and they have not messed with you recently, you''re truly heartless to think about massacring the whole family!"


    "I''m just making a proposal. As one of the Four Signs of the Immortal Palace, I think I still have the right to make proposals!"


    "You''d better go to the Human Emperor Palace and visit your father-in-law to figure out what is going on. Although Wang She and I have both undergone the Void Thunder Tribulation, since I did it in secret, I am still not a top-ranked member of the Bigwheel Temple despite my prestigious position. Thus, a lot of secrets are not open to me. As for Wang She, he went through the Void Thunder Tribulation and everybody knows that. But as you know, the requirement of being a high-level member in the Immortal Palace is quite demanding. Though his strength is qualified, his experience is not, so, just like you, he doesn''t know the deepest secrets either. Therefore..."


    "Therefore, I''d better go and visit my father-in-law to find out his status quo, right?" Zhou Bao asked with a sardonic grin.


    "I know you are contemptuous of the Human Emperor''s position and the so-called Way of the Emperor, but I want to remind you that the Way of the Emperor is the one of the 3,000 Great Ways. It enjoys the most exceptional advantages and possesses the richest fate. The Way of Heaven also acquiesces in the fact that this way is the orthodox way. Accordingly, even though its strength is not so strong, once you violate it, you will become the enemy of the entire Way of Heaven. This kind of consequence is not something you can afford!"


    "Hmm, maybe you do have a point. But the Way of Heaven in the Heaven Realm World has long been on the wane, I don''t need to pay much attention to it. As for my father-in-law, just let him do whatever he wants. As long as he leaves the Li Family alone!"


    "If you merely say so to your father-in-law, he won''t accept it!" The Child-endowing Buddha shook his head and laughed. "The fact that he has obtained his present position is partially attributed to your contribution. But if you do so, it''ll be evident that you are claiming credit for yourself and growing so arrogant that you reserve no respect even for your father-in-law. How could he not feel disgraced?"


    "So which does he want to save¡ªhis face or his power?" Zhou Bao started getting impatient. Was Yan Yuntian out of his mind? Provoking him now, what was he up to? Did he really believe that since he had obtained the fate of Human Emperor he was able to command anyone in the world?


    "Well, you can decide how to deal with this matter. We''re just delivering the news to you. The specifics are for you to manage!"


    "Fine, I will pay a visit to Pingzhou and figure out which macro world has stretched its arms into our world!" As he was speaking, Zhou Bao straightened up from his chair. Then, in a flash, he vanished from their sight.


    "Alas, this kid is still so short tempered. Always does what he wants immediately. Well, let''s go and have a look, in case he kills everyone dispatched by the Human Emperor Palace and makes the Human Emperor lose all his face!"


    "Wang She, you just like manipulating others, don''t you? Why should the Human Emperor''s dignity have anything to do with me? I won''t go. If you want, you go. I will not step into this trouble!" The Child-endowing Buddha shook his head consecutively, stating his unwillingness to get involved in this mess.


    "Fine, fine. Then I will go by myself!" Wang She knew that the Child-endowing Buddha did not want to expose his relationship with Zhou Bao. He put on a forced smile, gave a shudder, and disappeared as well.


    Pingzhou!


    This was an extremely busy city in Jin. When the young master Li Xiu gained control of the Li Family, both Pingzhou and the Li Family had achieved great development. The Li Family of Pingzhou had even become the most well-known family, second only to the Royal Yan Family. However, the development was not attributed solely to Li Xiu''s own talent but the fact that Li Xiu had made an important friend, Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao did not have many friends. Those known to the public were even fewer. Actually there were only two. One was Wang She from the Tian Long Taoism, the other one was Li Xiu in Pingzhou.


    As Zhou Bao''s influence and reputation grew, Li Xiu''s status also rose in Jianghu. In addition, Li Xiu was already one of the four teenage experts in Jin as Zhou Bao had been since the beginning. So after experiencing the martial world for over a decade, he had also stepped into the Individual Immortal Realm.


    Nowadays, Individual Immortals were not as precious as they had been decades ago, when they were as rare as pandas, but they were not so abundant as cabbages, either.


    Although Zhou Bao had publicized the recipes for the elixirs he acquired, the formulas merely increased the chances for men in the Seven-deity Regions to become experts and the base number of men qualified to try the Individual Immortal Realm. With the enlarged base number, it was natural that the number of Individual Immortals had gone up. However, it was not easy to enter the Mysterious Realm as an expert. Only one or two out of 10,000 experts could successfully cross that barrier. Therefore, the number did not rise sharply.


    Over the past 10 years, each school and well-known family in Jin had fostered one or two experts who entered the Mysterious Realm in succession, which was already great news for them. Hence, in light of the total number of Individual Immortals, it did increase, but the rise was not too extraordinary.


    And Li Xiu was one of the new Individual Immortals.

 684 The Li Family of Pingzhou

    Recently, something had been bothering Li Xiu. He was worried, truly worried!


    Over the past decade, he had never felt so upset.


    He had always been a lucky guy. And it could be said that the greatest luck he had had so far was from becoming friends with Zhou Bao.


    Befriending Zhou Bao was a great bargain for Li Xiu, for this could bring him huge profits. Being a friend of Zhou Bao undoubtfully rendered him the most competent successor of the Li Family of Pingzhou and helped his strength advance by leaps and bounds, easily surpassing his peers. Things that he had once reckoned to occur in the far future had already happened. But now, something unexpected had arrived.


    The Li Family of Pingzhou had a thousand-year-old history. This family had branched out into numerous small families, even the main branch consisted of many sections. Li Xiu''s father was the Family Head of the Li Family of Pingzhou, which belonged to the branch of direct descendants. When it came to the next generation, considering Li Xiu''s extraordinary strength and the fact that he had befriended a high-ranking man, there was no doubt that Li Xiu would assume the post of the Family Head. In effect, it had happened in real life. Over the past decade, Li Xiu had gradually taken control of the family. Although he was not that interested in gaining power. In light of such a huge family, keeping everything running in proper order was already an achievement worth celebrating.


    However, to everyone''s surprise, the situation had started to change in recent years. Li Xiu''s uncle Li Xian, who had been working for his father all these years, gradually stood out. Not only was his strength making rapid progress, he was also forming cliques within the family and dividing the influence subordinated to Li Xiu.


    At first, Li Xiu had been dismissive about it. As far as he was concerned, the Li Family of Pingzhou was as firm as a sheet of iron. No matter how capable Li Xian was, it was impossible for him to stir up too much trouble.


    Nevertheless, this matter was not as simple as he had thought.


    As two years went by, the influence Li Xian had expanded considerably. Today, he could even stand up to Li Xiu as an equal.


    Li Xiu had also heard news that his uncle seemed to have developed close relationships with people outside the family. These people were quite mysterious, but their strength was intimidatingly strong. Li Xiu had sent batches of agents to explore their backgrounds, but no messages were ever sent back to him. Apparently, the agents had all failed their missions. After that, Li Xiu had kept a constant vigilance, but he still couldn''t do anything about his uncle.


    Li Xiu had taken the controlling power of the family bit by bit. Since his father was also the Family Head who was in power, he had to behave more scrupulously in case someone got something on him or detected his negligence.


    Moreover, despite the fact Li Xian had formed cliques and furtively fostered his own influence, he had never done anything to jeopardize the Li Family. He had even made several contributions during the past few years, rendering the Li Family widely famous. Now, as a family hero, Li Xian was becoming more and more important to the whole family.


    Therefore, facing such a hero and a crucial family member, if Li Xiu could not discover any solid evidence, he and his influence really could do nothing about him. All they could do was sit aside and watch as he expanded his gangsters and built up his strength.


    If what upset Li Xiu in the past was a potential concern, then, what he needed to deal with today was an imminent problem.


    Recently Li Xiu had obtained news that Li Xian would take a major action during the Ancestor Worship Ceremony, and the target was precisely him.


    Li Xiu had a premonition that Li Xian was going to usurp his throne.


    If Li Xian did that, he would not care much about it. First, he did not attach too much importance to his post. Second, his strength had already entered the Individual Immortal phase. He possessed enough strength to counter any tricks the other side might throw at him.


    Yes, absolute strength could subdue everything!


    This was the motto Li Xiu believed in. This motto actually came from his friend, Zhou Bao, who had stabilized his position in the northwest precisely with his invincible strength, hadn''t he?


    Li Xiu had faith in his own strength!


    As a man who had entered the Individual Immortal phase before the age of 30, Li Xiu naturally had enough faith in himself. If not, then, almost no one in the world would have the faith to live their lives.


    "First Young Master, First Young Master, something went wrong, seriously wrong!"


    Although Li Xiu had faith in himself, it did not mean he had faith in others as well. Right now, shortly after he sat down, a panic-stricken voice fluttered to his ears before he could have a quiet moment. Then, a cyan-robed footboy rushed in.


    "Why so much panic?" Li Xiu scowled, showing a trace of unfriendliness.


    "First Young Master, it''s really bad! Second Master, Second Master, he..."


    "What''s up with Second Uncle?"


    "Second Master led a bunch of helpers and headed for the manor of Miss Die Yi! He sai-said, he was going to arrest the evildoer!"


    "What?" Li Xiu stood up at once. He clenched the cyan-robed footboy by the collar. "What did you say? Go to Die Yi''s manor? What a jerk!"


    His figure flashed and vanished from the yard. When he materialized again, it was in a small manor about eight kilometers from the Li family''s house.


    The manor was quite exquisite and luxurious. It was well located, too. It sat at the foot of a hill and beside a stream. It could be said to be a very peaceful and tranquil residence.


    But right now, the beautiful scenery of this peaceful land was completely ruined by a series of clamors.


    "Second Master, what are you up to by doing this? This is the Fragrant Butterfly Manor, the side premise of the First Young Master. You shall not break into this place without permission!"


    "Break in? Humph, you, who are you? Dare to get in my way? Li Xiu has colluded with an evildoer, the woman staying inside this manor. Today, I, the Second Master, am here to take down this evildoer. It doesn''t matter if this place is merely Li Xiu''s side premise, even if it were the premise of our Family Head, for the sake of safeguarding the reputation of our Li family, I''m definitely breaking in!"


    The man who was talking so confidently was a robust middle-aged man. With an air of condescending pride, he did not even bother looking the man blocking his way in the eye. Standing next to him were two men in snow-white robes. They were looking steadily forward and emitted an overbearing pressure. Their cultivations were already at the peak of Level Nine. With such strength and combat capability, they were indisputably the top practitioners in the Li Family of Pingzhou.


    Although now with the formulas Zhou Bao had brought to the world, the overall strength of the martial arts world had advanced considerably, no major change could have occurred in the past decade alone. Above all, after a decade of wild plundering and refining, many of the medicinal herbs required in the tinctures had become rare. Maybe in a few years, the common medicinal herbs in the elixirs would become precious as well. Then, the Heaven Realm World would be restored to its original appearance. In that way, the elixirs would have been merely a small wave and the Heaven Realm World would still be galloping along the downhill road.


    Take the Li family as an example. It was already a huge surprise to have an Individual Immortal in the family. In addition to the Individual Immortal Li Xiu, there were more than 10 people breaking through the Expert Realm, two of whom even ranked among Level Nine experts. All at once, the strength of the Li Family had soared up and outstripped the Wang clan in Cenzhou, becoming the first-placed well-known family in the world, second only to the Royal Yan Family and super schools like the Tian Long Taoism and the Sect of Flame.


    Hence, with a strength at the peak of Level Nine, nobody could match the two except for Li Xiu in the Li family. Now, these men in snow-white robes had obviously grown impatient at Li Xian''s slow progress.


    "Where did you pop out of? How dare you! Blocking our way into the manor!" The man in a snow-white robe on Li Xian''s right suddenly darkened his expression. He lifted one hand and threw the footboy barring their path into the air. "Let''s go quickly, we will not let that evildoer get away!"


    "How are you going to achieve that? Second Uncle, you''re really crossing the line now, even daring to force your way into my manor?"


    With a whoosh, an invisible Sword Qi swooped down and charged at the man in snow-white robes.


    The man suddenly went sullen. Sensing the fierce momentum of this Sword Qi, he did not have the guts to take it straight on. He shifted aside and evaded the attack. However, his snow-white robe was not so lucky. It was sliced into small pieces that flew in all directions like snowflakes.


    "How dare you!" yelled the other white-robed man. Seeing this getting troublesome, he raised both his hands and two jets of golden light shot out, aiming at Li Xiu who had just appeared.


    "What a cheap trick!" Li Xiu merely sneered. He released two shots of Sword Qi towards the golden light. The man reached out in an attempt to fend off the Sword Qi, but was forced to take several steps backward and withdraw his celestial device.


    "Xiu, why did you do that?" Seeing Li Xiu reveal himself, Li Xian questioned him with a tense expression.


    "Why did I do that? I should ask you that question. Second Uncle, why are you breaking into my manor, beating my subordinate? What on earth are you up to? Starting a rebellion?"


    "Don''t go too far. No matter what, I''m still your Second Uncle. I see no respect for the elder in your words!" Li Xian barked. "Answer me, who on earth is living in your Fragrant Butterfly Manor?"


    "This is my manor, and I have no obligation to explain anything to you. Please leave!"


    "Humph, you don''t have the courage to answer me, right? You may think I have no idea, but I do. I know the woman living in this manor is a demonic woman, an evildoer. You, a disciple of our Li Family, have ganged up with an evildoer! How humiliating! I came here today to get rid of this evildoer and protect the reputation of our family. Back off!"


    "Are you done? If you''re done, just get out! If not, I''ll beat you out of this place!" Li Xiu''s face was chilling. His voice also revealed a sharp stream of killing intent.


    "You!" Li Xian bolted up and glared at Li Xiu without cowering. He had no intention of backing off. It seemed they were on the verge of breaking into a fight.


    "Well, Li Xiu, you have no regard for superiors and discard our family''s moral standards. But today I won''t degrade myself to your level. When the Ancestor Worship Ceremony comes, I will settle this with you, humph!" Li Xian tossed his sleeve backward and wheeled around, leading his subordinates out of the Fragrant Butterfly Manor, displaying a show with a fine start but a poor finish.


    Li Xiu squinted at them, his mind racing. "Coming with determination but returning in low spirits. What on earth is Li Xian up to?"


    "They came here to get your number. Seems that your manor has entertained many hidden secrets!"


    While Li Xiu was contemplating, a thin voice as weak as a mosquito sounded in his ears.


    "Zhou..." At this voice, Li Xiu''s gloomy expression abruptly rejoiced with wild excitement. He hastily looked up and opened his mouth.


    "Okay, don''t attract anyone''s attention. I''ve got something to share with you, let''s talk in private!"

 685 Rising in Revol

    It was summer in Pingzhou. Hot air was sweeping the land and the sun was scorching every corner as if it was a huge fireball. Even the shadiest stretch of land was flooded with a sultry and irritable spirit.


    Holding the Ancestor Worship Ceremony on such a hot day was simply asking for suffering, wasn''t it?


    Zhou Bao did not understand why the Li Family of Pingzhou insisted on it, yet the ceremony would still take place as scheduled, for the Li Family of Pingzhou had done this every year for several thousand years.


    On the morning of June 21st, everyone in the Li Family of Pingzhou''s mansion was busy. Although careful preparation and the preliminary work had been taking place for half a month, the Ancestor Worship Ceremony still did not start until noon.


    The vast ancestral hall of the Li Family mansion was already packed with visitors, all family members from the many branches of the Li Family. The several thousand people attending were not all the members of the Li Family. The three generations of direct descendants living in Pingzhou were all present, but for the branches who were not living there, only their principals were qualified to participate in the ceremony.


    The rules and procedures for offering incense to ancestors in the Jin were highly cumbersome. Furthermore, every year they would hold a small-sized worship ceremony, every five years they would stage a medium-sized one, and every 10 years there would be a grand worship ceremony. Hence, members of the Li Family were quite used to it. After suffering for about six hours, all the procedures were more or less carried out, and the only item left was the Family Head''s concluding speech. After that, the meeting would be dismissed. However, today''s Ancestor Worship Ceremony was bound to be unusual.


    Just as the Family Head of the Li Family, Li Xiu''s father, was about to boast the Li Family of Pingzhou''s great achievements over the last year, someone in front of the crowd suddenly let out a snarl.


    "Hang on!"


    "What?!"


    The Family Head was taken aback by this disturbance. He looked up. "Ah, it''s Second Brother. Well, what''s the matter?"


    "Big Brother, please forgive me!" Li Xian answered, cupping his hands toward the Family Head. "There is something that I originally did not want to disclose. However, considering that it is relevant to the good reputation of our Family, I have no choice but to report it to you!"


    "Really? A serious matter that concerns the Li Family?" The Family Head was slightly stunned by this, and his heart suddenly pumped faster. He knew that Li Xian had broken into Li Xiu''s Fragrant Butterfly Manor but given that the two did not really confront each other, he had not taken the incident to heart.


    This kind of thing had occurred several times in the past. It always ended with Li Xian being thoroughly suppressed by Li Xiu''s outrageous strength with no leeway for Li Xian to fight back. Thus, Li Xian had never had a chance to stir up trouble at the Ancestor Worship Ceremony. But now, if Li Xian was daring to cause dispute, he must have somebody to back him up. Taking another glance at the men standing behind him, the Family Head noticed that they were not members of the Li Family even though they were wearing the Li Family uniforms. His face went slightly sullen.


    "Second Brother, just tell me what you know. Don''t be concerned. But before you start, I want to ask you a question. Which branch do the group of men behind you belong to? Why have I never seen them before?"


    "This gentleman is Mr. Long from the Tiandao Alliance, not a member of the Li Family. The reason he came here today is that he has something to discuss with me!"


    "Second Brother, you''re growing increasingly audacious. Today is the day of our Ancestor Worship Ceremony. It''s a family event. No matter what, you should not have brought an outsider." The Family Head''s tone grew increasingly critical. Zhou Bao, who had been watching all this in the dark, could not help giving him the thumbs-up.


    Smart, that was truly smart!


    It was a strategy of reversing positions and gaining the initiative. Regardless of his true agenda, the Family Head simply pointed out the opponent''s wrongdoings to disrupt his actions. Well, sure enough, old birds were not to be caught with chaff.


    "The Tiandao Alliance, what school is that? In which macro world is it located?"


    Hearing the name Tiandao Alliance, Zhou Bao began to wonder.


    What Zhou Bao did not know was that the Tiandao Alliance was a large school of the Tiankun World and enjoyed a high-ranked standing there. However, since there were too many influences creeping into the Heaven Realm World, many of which had a frightening background, the Tiandao Alliance did not dare to behave as they wanted despite their impressive strength. After researching thousands of families, they had handpicked the Li Family of Pingzhou, a famous family second to none in the Jin, as their partner to help them gain a foothold in the Heaven Realm World.


    However, although they planned to gain their foothold with the assistance of the Li family, the Tiandao Alliance had also spotted a problem with this plan¡ªthe Family Head of the Li family and his son could control the entire family without relying on anyone else. Accordingly, the Tiandao Alliance had come up with another idea. After doing some secret investigating, they found that in his heart, Li Xian was unwilling to obey the Family Head and his son. So, the Tiandao Alliance was attempting to support Li Xian in overthrowing the Family Head and his son and then taking control of the entire Li family.


    In the eyes of a large school like the Tiandao Alliance, the strength of the Li family was not even worth mentioning. They had only two Individual Immortals. If they hadn''t been totally unfamiliar with the place and the people, they could have sent a random guy to turn the Li family upside down, sparing them a lot of trouble.


    Well, it turned out that Li Xian did not disappoint them. He was quite a talent, not a lame duck. Very quickly, Li Xian detected mistakes made by the Family Head and his son. Indeed, partly due to the fact that the Li family had had a few smooth years, the Family Head and his son had gotten somewhat carried away by their success. They never thought someone in the Li family would dare to start a rebellion. Accordingly, they always did everything in open, thereby letting Li Xian get some dirt on them. A few days ago, when Li Xian broke into the Fragrant Butterfly Manor, he had not actually expected to take away the woman, Die Yi. He had been aiming to lay the groundwork for today''s agenda. Since the story of Li Xian breaking into the manor had spread across the Li family within half a day, every relevant family member was well aware of it. If Li Xian brought the matter up today and pointed out Die Yi''s real identity, he could frame a case against the Family Head and his son by claiming that they had colluded with an evildoer. Then, he would be able to cause the downfall of the Family Head and his son with the help of the Tiandao Alliance. If that happened, his goal would be realized.


    That was the plan Li Xian had prepared. But to his surprise, the Family Head of the Li Family was a crafty old scoundrel. He gave the first blow and forced him to swallow everything he was going to say.


    "Family Head, your words are not completely correct!"


    Although Li Xian was defeated by his words, the man next to him from the Tiandao Alliance, Long, was not so easy to deal with. He stood out from the line, cupped his hands at the Family Head and announced, "Our Tiandao Alliance is a great school dating back to antiquity times. We have made it our mission to eliminate all evils and demons. We have come to Pingzhou just to hunt down an evildoer. According to our investigation, this evildoer is taking refuge in the Li family, and is being protected by your young master Li Xiu. That''s why we came straight to your place today to explain all this to you. I beg the young master, please leave the evildoer alone and do not interfere in this matter. Please let me take this evildoer back to give an acceptable account to the public!"


    How beautiful this speech was! What a smart speaker!


    He had even said, "give an acceptable account to the public".


    Of course, what mattered was not giving an acceptable account or anything of the sort to the public. What really mattered was the strong spirit that swept through the place when the man spoke. Even Li Xiu''s spirit was repressed by his, leaving him unable to move.


    The whole Li family fell into silence.


    "What''s going on? How come someone from the Tiandao Alliance has appeared in our territory?"


    "Yeah, what on earth is the background of this Tiandao Alliance? How could a random guy of them have such a strong strength?"


    "Yes, yes! This spirit and this Qi Power are much stronger than our First Young Master!"


    "Rubbish! Of course, he is more powerful than our First Young Master! Didn''t you see that our First Young Master was repressed by him?"


    "I wonder where Li Xian found these guys! How damn stupid he is! Trying to usurp the control of our family by resorting to outside forces. Even if he succeeds, the control would fall into the hands of outsiders, wouldn''t it?"


    "These people are so impressive. If they truly gained control of our family, how could the Li family remain the same?"


    Although being subdued by the Qi Power of the man surnamed Long, the crowd was still actively communicating with each other through eye contact.


    By virtue of a few looks, countless information poured out. Nevertheless, under the presence of such a strong power, they did not have the guts to speak their minds, even if they wanted to. After all, the men in the highest positions at the scene were not them, but Li Xiu and his father.


    Li Xiu had narrowed his eyes. When Long spoke, his eyes were transfixed on Li Xiu, so 90 percent of his Qi Power actually landed on Li Xiu alone.


    "Hee hee, a strength at the peak of the Individual Immortal. It''s truly impressive. If you guys had made a strike earlier, I would really find this a bit tricky. But now..." Thinking of Zhou Bao who was hiding in the dark and enjoying the show, Li Xiu''s lips curved into a smile.


    "Evildoer? Hee hee, Second Uncle, you said the reason why you brought guys from the Tiandao Alliance in was that I had ganged up with an evildoer, correct?"


    "Exactly! That''s what I said!" At the sight of Li Xiu''s composed look, Li Xian had a dim feeling that something was wrong. But taking the great strength of the Tiandao Alliance into account, his flustered mind turned unruffled again.


    "That is to say it is you who courted these guys from the Tiandao Alliance, isn''t it?" Li Xian suddenly bolted up from under the immense pressure cast out by Long and fixed his eyes on Li Xian with determination. "Second Uncle, are you aware that bringing these strange guys here is the equivalent of courting a huge disaster to the Li Family of Pingzhou?!"


    "What?!" Seeing Li Xiu''s chilling glare, Li Xian could not help but shudder inwardly.


    "Li Xiu, don''t talk nonsense! It''s clear that it''s you who colluded with an evildoer first. And yet now you are claiming that it is me who courts disaster to our family. You, you are making an unfounded attack on me!"


    "You will know soon whether I am making an unfounded attack on you!" Li Xiu sneered. He did not speak further. He strolled towards his father and whispered something into the ears of the Family Head.


    After hearing the mysterious words Li Xiu said to him, the Family Head abruptly raised his head, and his originally kind gaze turned ferocious. Glaring at Li Xian, he stuck out a trembling finger and pointed it at Li Xiu, and then snarled, "Second Brother, you, you, you did what..."


    "I, I, I did what?" Now, Li Xian felt guilty. However, after reviewing every procedure of his plot in his mind, Li Xian failed to find any flaws. He started wondering what was going on with the Family Head and his son, and why they behaved as if he was the one who should feel sorry for what he had done. What on earth was happening?


    But before Li Xian could figure it out, Long, who was standing next to him suddenly altered his expression and yelled, "Who is it? Friend, you are already here, why not reveal yourself?"

 686 Whose Fairy Weapon Was It?

    "Deacon Long Qingtian of the Tiandao Alliance of Tiankun World, your senses are really sharp!"


    No sooner had Long Qingtian''s words faded, than a sportive voice rang from all directions of the Li family''s mansion, the source of which was impossible to locate.


    "You must have great strength. But if you keep behaving in such an ominous manner, people will say that you are not a frank man!" Long Qingtian said. His expression turned ugly, and he withdrew the domineering Qi pressure he had sent forth a moment ago. He assembled all his energy and spirit as if preparing to combat against a formidable enemy.


    "Don''t be so nervous. It''s useless to get so tense. Your Tiankun World has invaded our Heaven Realm, colluded with the Li Family of Pingzhou, and intends to carry out a malicious agenda. Now, under the order of the Human Emperor, I''m here to exterminate all of you. Tell me, do you prefer to commit suicide or to let me do you in. I think you will feel more comfortable if you commit suicide. Because when I do it, you guys will suffer!"


    "How arrogant!" Long Qingtian''s expression became frosty, two jets of golden light shot out from his eyes. "Come out!"


    "Fire Golden Pupil Sword! Bravo! But you used it at the wrong time!"


    The place where the two jets of golden light hit was an artificial hill. Under the impact of the golden light, the artificial hill was reduced to pieces, but no figure was revealed.


    "Bang!"


    No one in the mansion had figured out what was going on yet. A muffled thud sounded, and Long Qingtian was thrown into the air by a stream of invisible force. Meanwhile, above the mansion a layer of colorful light emerged, perfectly encompassing the entire mansion.


    "Ambassador of the Human Emperor Palace, what are you doing besieging the mansion of our Li Family?"


    Seeing the mansion sealed by a newcomer, the members of the Li Family in the ancestor hall panicked instantly.


    "Humph, Family Head Li, the Li Family of Pingzhou has been in league with an evildoer from the Alien Realm. Do you really believe the Human Emperor will continue to tolerate your behavior?"


    The newcomer gave a cold smile. He had a cultivation at the Genuine Immortal level. Although he was a Genuine Immortal who had only underwent one tribulation, his power was sufficient to conquer anyone in the Li Family.


    After all, the strongest combatant in the Li Family of Pingzhou was only an Individual Immortal.


    Individual Immortals could only play the hero in front of ordinary people. Since they had not gone through any Thunder Tribulations, he could crush them with a finger. As for Long Qingtian from the Tiandao Alliance, also an Individual Immortal, he could kill him with one slap. Thus, in the face of questioning from the Family Head Li, he did not intend to explain anything at all.


    "All members of the Li Family, come and hide behind me!" At this precise moment, Li Xiu''s expression altered, and a huge Elixir Furnace suddenly appeared above his head. The Elixir Furnace looked like an enormous skull, but it could not have been a normal man''s skull, for it was extraordinarily huge. Between its eyebrows was a mirror, in which bright light was revolving. Jets of mysterious light shot out from the mirror, hanging in the broad sky as if mocking the newcomer.


    "A fairy weapon? This is a fairy weapon! How can it be! How come you have a fairy weapon?!" At the sight of the Skull Elixir Furnace, the Genuine Immortal could not maintain his unfathomable image anymore. He abruptly jumped up and pointed his finger at Li Xiu.


    "This fairy weapon is a gift from King Wuyang, specifically for ensuring the safety of the Li Family of Pingzhou!"


    "Bullsh*t! This is precisely the treasure our Human Emperor Palace lost 10,000 years ago. Today it will be returned to its original owner!" The Genuine Immortal declared with a serious look. He raised a hand and grabbed at the Elixir Furnace.


    "You''re courting death!"


    Watching as the Genuine Immortal targeted the Elixir Furnace, Li Xiu merely sneered and remained motionless. A shot of black flame spurted out from the eye sockets of the Skull Elixir Furnace and charged at the Genuine Immortal, trying to enclose him.


    "Crap!" The moment the Genuine Immortal touched the black fire, he felt something was wrong and hastily withdrew his hands. But the flame advanced on him persistently as if it had intelligence.


    "Get back!" Just when the flame was about to hit the Genuine Immortal, a cold snap sounded. Seconds later, a gust of vile wind arrived, blocking the two flames. A tall figure emerged in front of the Genuine Immortal, and a discontented voice rang in his ears.


    "You idiot! King Wuyang is Zhou Bao. You dare to snatch his fairy weapon! Do you wish to end your life?"


    Hearing this, the Genuine Immortal''s expression altered dramatically.


    He had once been a Genuine Immortal working for the Divine Wind Palace and had put all his energy into protecting the interests of the Divine Wind Palace. He knew who Zhou Bao was, but had no way of knowing the other identities Zhou Bao assumed in the Central Mainland Region. So when he heard the title "King Wuyang", all he felt was despise, assuming it must be a nobody in the Central Mainland Region. However, realizing that King Wuyang was Zhou Bao, he almost bounced up. Zhou Bao had demonstrated his majestic power at the Human Emperor Selection Ceremony and easily defeated Yu Taihe. When he rescued Wang She, he had nearly demolished the entire Divine Wind Palace. And when the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain upset him, he had rushed to their base and taught them a good lesson.


    This kind of guy was absolutely not someone this One-tribulation Genuine Immortal could deal with.


    "I am Yu Hui from the Divine Wind Palace. Hereby I pay my tribute to Family Head Li!"


    The Genuine Immortal revealed his figure and politely cupped his hands toward the Family Head of the Li family, "Family Head, please don''t get me wrong. Our reason for coming here today is to catch the demons from the Tiandao Alliance, not the Li family. Although we adopted certain measures, we were just preventing the demons of the Tiandao Alliance from running away with their collaborators. If we have offended you in any aspect, please forgive us!"


    Even though he was addressing the Family Head of the Li Family, he was staring at Li Xiu.


    "Ambassador, no need to be so courteous. Now that our family has fostered such a vile spawn who disgraced our ancestors, I should be blamed for being incompetent as the Family Head. However, the reputation of the Li Family of Pingzhou, which has stood for a thousand years cannot be ruined by a few black sheep. Ambassador, you may continue. This fairy weapon only protects my family, the demons are all yours!"


    "Thank you for your help, Family Head!" Yu Hui smiled. With a fling of his hand, several figures materialized out of the hollow and hurtled in all directions. Soon, numerous roars sounded and a dozen light columns shot from the Li family mansion but were blocked by the colorful glaze cover. The Li family mansion was rendered into a fully separated space by the colorful glaze, which was actually a Highest Heaven Celestial Device.


    Since it was impossible to flee, the only choice left was to battle.


    Among the members of the Tiandao Alliance who had invaded into the Heaven Realm, the most powerful ones were three Genuine Immortals at the Venerable Realm level. In addition to them, there were 10 One-tribulation Genuine Immortals and dozens of Individual Immortals. With such strength, they could easily dominate a district in the Seven-deity Regions. But the Human Emperor had obviously made careful preparation as well. Including Yu Hui, he had sent five Venerables, plus 30 One-tribulation Genuine Immortals but no Individual Immortals. The strength of this team was much superior to that of the Tiandao Alliance, thereby it only took them a few seconds to arrest all the members of the Tiandao Alliance and kill those who refused to cooperate.


    "Family Head Li, there is another thing I have to discuss with you. I wonder if you could spare some time for me!" After catching the whole lot of the Tiandao Alliance in one go, Yu Hui came to Li Xiu and his father again and asked with a smile.


    "Venerable Yu, please go ahead!"


    "The Human Emperor ordered me to come to the Li Family not only for the purpose of arresting the demons from the Tiandao Alliance but also to escort their collaborators to the Human Emperor Palace. Family Head, please inform me whether you would mind!"


    "Don''t worry, Venerable Yu. Given that this matter involves the interest of the entire Heaven Realm, I will not be partial to those traitors who colluded with demons from the Alien Realm. They are not worthy of the Li family''s protection, either. Seniors of our family, I would like to know where you guys stand on this matter!"


    "The Family Head has a point. Those in league with demons, of course, do not merit our protection." A Highest Elder in the Li family said slowly. "However, Family Head, Li Xian is, after all, your younger brother as well as a direct descendant of the Li family. Even if he should be punished, I think it should be our family to conduct the punishment, rather than bothering outsiders!"


    "It''s you, Elder Moli!" Hearing the voice, Family Head Li screwed up his eyes slightly. This Highest Elder was on good terms with Li Xian, and his grandson worked directly for him as well. He had also contributed considerably in helping Li Xian form the cliques to betray the Family Head. This was why he was standing out to shield Li Xian.


    Family Head Li wished Yu Hui could also arrest the Highest Elder as one of the accomplices of the Tiandao Alliance. However, he knew that if he let the Highest Elder be taken away, he would seem discriminatory against those who held different views in front the whole family. He had to hold his horses. "Elder Moli, this matter is not only relevant to the Li family, but also the entire Heaven Realm. It involves too many interests. As far as I''m concerned, it''s better we let the ambassador of the Human Emperor Palace deal with it!"


    "Humph, you''re just getting rid of dissidents. Li Xian found evidence that your son is colluding with an evildoer. That''s why you want to take him down, push him into a corner. Given such a mindset and such a sense of responsibility, are you truly qualified to be our Family Head?"


    "Enough, Elder Moli! You shall say no more. It''s not your turn to judge me in respect of whether I am eligible to be the Family Head!" Family Head Li''s expression suddenly grew distant. He shot a glance at Li Moli and then turned to Yu Hui. "I''m so sorry about that. The traitors are all members of our Li family. But we will not punish them, because we''re about to bother you to do it, Ambassador!"


    "It''s nothing!" Yu Hui smiled. He waved a hand and the Genuine Immortals standing behind him started moving. Within seconds, they had captured Li Xian and his lot, including Li Moli''s grandson. Seeing his own grandson being arrested, how could Li Moli stifle his anger? His body shook and he was about to rush forward, but Li Xiu appeared behind him and pressed him down by the shoulders.


    "Elder Moli, stay calm. Your grandson deserves this. Let him atone for his crimes. You will stay here. Do not make any more trouble for our family!"


    "You!" Li Moli bellowed. His eyes widened, exerting all his efforts to break free. However, he was no match for Li Xiu. No matter how hard he tried, he could not move a bit. He could only watch as Yu Hui''s subordinates took his grandson away.


    Li Xiu did not loosen his grip on Li Moli until all the men from the Human Emperor Palace and the Divine Wind Palace had left and the colorful glaze cover hanging over the mansion had disappeared.


    "Li Xiu, go to hell!"


    The second he let Li Moli free, he flipped out. He flashed his sharp knife and thrust it right at Li Xiu''s neck.

 687 The Halfway Ambush

    "Brother Yu, the Human Emperor did ask us to wipe out the Li Family of Pingzhou as a warning to others, didn''t he? Why did we only capture a few of them?"


    "Rubbish! You go and try. Didn''t you see the fairy weapon Zhou Bao cast out? If we attack that fairy weapon, Zhou Bao will sense it instantly. And then, he will kill us!" Yu Hui said tartly. He wondered why this guy failed to clue into the other''s facial expressions, and how he had become a Genuine Immortal.


    "Brother Yu, you misunderstood me. I''m just confused. The Human Emperor is well aware of the relationship between Zhou Bao and the Li Family of Pingzhou; why does he still want the Li Family of Pingzhou to take the brunt of the punishment?"


    "Well, now that the superior has decided, he must have his reasons. His foresight is not something we can speculate!" Yu Hui glared at him. Although Yu Hui himself did not wholeheartedly agree with some of the Human Emperor Yan Yuntian''s decisions, he was a man who knew how to grasp the big picture. Now that Yan Yuntian was a Human Emperor, he should naturally do whatever the Human Emperor told him to do.


    However, he was not worried about being unable to wipe out the Li Family of Pingzhou so as to finish this mission; it was not his fault. He had already arrested the doomed guys from the Tiandao Alliance. As for how to torture them, this would be decided by the Human Emperor when they went back.


    "Don''t overthink it. I think this matter is a scuffle between the Human Emperor and Zhou Bao. We''d better not get involved. We can not afford to piss off either one of them. But if we have to, I am more reluctant to upset Zhou Bao!"


    His words made sense. Any man who had heard even a little about Zhou Bao would definitely avoid offending him!


    "But we failed to wipe out the Li Family of Pingzhou. Do you reckon the Human Emperor Palace will assign us a new mission to wipe out other families?"


    "It''s possible. Many influences in the Central Mainland Region, the Penglai Region, and the other two regions have ganged up with the Alien Realm. It would be easy to pick one and wipe them out. But we should not act without authority!"


    As they made their way back, they kept calculating the gains and losses of this journey. The vehicle they rode was a Highest Heaven Celestial Device that looked a lot like a Void Traveler. But it was more lavish, and it had a distinct logo on the outer surface¡ªthe logo of the Divine Wind Palace.


    Over the past few millenniums, the Divine Wind Palace had never really differentiated itself from the Human Emperor Palace. Despite the fact that the current Human Emperor candidate Yan Yuntian had gained some strong forces to back him up and become fairly independent from the Divine Wind Palace to foster his own influence, in light of most infrastructures, the Human Emperor Palace still shared a lot with the Divine Wind Palace. And they would have to share those infrastructures for some time. Take vehicles as an example. Since not every Individual Immortal or Genuine Immortal had the ability to travel thousands of kilometers in a second like Zhou Bao did, and most of the issues they needed to handle were urgent and crucial, the use of transportation vehicles became indispensable. Further, they had to assure that the vehicles could send them to their destination in time and the vehicles themselves had to be durable. In the end, they agreed that the most suitable transportation vehicles were the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices like the Void Travelers.


    However, a Highest Heaven Celestial Device was not easy to possess. Even the large influences and sects did not have many, let alone Yan Yuntian. When they finally found one and delivered it to the Human Emperor, it was actually tailor-made for the Human Emperor himself. When a Genuine Immortal like Yu Hui went out to run errands, the Human Emperor Palace had to find him another vehicle. Anyway, how could the Human Emperor Palace keep asking others to work for them but not pitch in at all? It would not be a big deal if it merely happened once or twice, but if it occurred frequently, who would be willing to do their best to get the work done?


    This was the same as the reform of government cars that was launched in Zhou Bao''s previous life. Why had it been so difficult for the reform to proceed? It was because no civil servant was willing to go on a business trip without a government car.


    Accordingly, the Genuine Immortals were all riding a Highest Heaven Celestial Device for the journey. This Highest Heaven Celestial Device did not belong to the Human Emperor Palace, but the Divine Wind Palace.


    If Yu Taixu were still alive, judging by his aggressive character, there was no way he would allow this Highest Heaven Celestial Device to be given to the Human Emperor Palace. But now he was gone, and the Divine Wind Palace was in a fragile period. Yu Taixuan thought it was necessary to be on good terms with the Human Emperor Palace. So they had offered this Highest Heaven Celestial Device to the Human Emperor Palace.


    And it became the ride of Yu Hui and his lot.


    The Void Traveler was a Highest Heaven Celestial Device. Once they went left the Li Family of Pingzhou, Yu Hui and his lot boarded the Void Traveler with the Tiandao Alliance men they had captured and flew straight towards the Penglai Region, where the Human Emperor Palace headquarters were located.


    This Void Traveler was much faster than the one Zhou Bao and the others had ridden when traveling to the sea for the first time. They had covered half of the journey in just two hours. Now, approaching the Penglai Region, the Genuine Immortals appeared to be very relaxed. Some were practicing, some were chatting as casually as Yu Hui and the Genuine Immortal had a moment earlier. Considering that the mission was over, regardless of the final result, it had nothing to do with them anymore.


    Just when everyone was thoroughly relaxed, the Void Traveler suddenly started to shake.


    "Boom, boom, boom!"


    Explosions sounded.


    "Attack, we''re under attack!"


    Shots of powerful divine thoughts burst out, and the practitioners, all of whom were at the Level of True Immortality, instantly knew everything.


    "Attack, we''re under attack!"


    A serious attack!


    It turned out that the Void Traveler which was originally flying across the sea between the Central Mainland Region and the Penglai Region had arrived in an unknown space-time. Several hundred practitioners emerged outside the Void Traveler and enclosed it. The opponents had five Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, whose ranks were all equal or superior to that of the Void Traveler. One of the Celestial Devices was shooting blazing light spheres at the Void Traveler. This incurred huge explosions and caused the Void Traveler to shake.


    "Who are you? Dare to get in the way of the Human Emperor Palace!" Inside the Void Traveler, Yu Hui''s face was livid. He sent out a divine thought which swept across the whole space but did not attack anyone, for this divine thought merely disclosed his identity.


    "Hahaha, how hilarious! Human Emperor Palace and Divine Wind Palace, your Heaven Realm is interesting. Do you think we are still living in the same world we were 810,000 years ago? And your Heaven Realm is still the top macro world ruling all the heavens and realms? What a joke! You''re from the Human Emperor Palace? So what! Obviously, we''re here to deal with you stooges from the Human Emperor Palace!"


    As the divine thought swept across the scene, the opponent also sent out a divine thought.


    "You''re practitioners from the Alien Realm?!"


    "Right, we''re practitioners from the Alien Realm as you said. Now, be smart and release the Tiandao Alliance members. If you do, we might show you some mercy and let you go back. If not, don''t complain if we leave you stooges stranded here!"


    "Your Excellency, are you being too ambitious?"


    "Ambitious? Hahaha, look around. We have more than 30 Venerables, 108 Genuine Immortals, and five Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. If we want, we can bombard you to dust in a second. Do you really believe we are too ambitious?"


    "Don''t forget that you''re still in the Heaven Realm World. If you do that, the Heaven Realm World will certainly get back at you, and you will lose your foothold in the Heaven Realm!"


    "You''re just bluffing!" The opponent sneered. "We actually do not want to go forward, but who asked you to take action so soon? Want to punish someone as a warning? If we allowed you to have your way, our operations would be tricky. Today, we will keep all of you stooges here. Let''s see how your Human Emperor Palace reacts. Guys, attack!"


    The five Highest Heaven Celestial Devices fired simultaneously at the Void Traveler. Most of the 30 Venerables and the 108 Genuine Immortals charged forward.


    "Boom, boom, boom!"


    Loud sounds echoed in every corner. The Void Traveler was glowing a faint purplish gold, but its light was growing dimmer and dimmer under the attack of the five Celestial Devices. The Void Traveler was constantly shaking as if about to explode at any second.


    "Brother Yu, we can''t let this go on any longer. The Void Traveler is focusing all its energy on defense, but it cannot hold on much longer!" The Genuine Immortal in charge of operating the Void Traveler yelled at Yu Hui.


    Facing such fierce attack, its energy was being rapidly consumed. In spite of the huge pile of Spiritual Stones stored within, its energy was still insufficient to power through such combat.


    "We have no other choice. We have to go out and fight!"


    In such perilous conditions, Yu Hui could only make this kind of decision in haste. However, outside the space-boat were 108 Genuine Immortals with unknown strength. In fact, they all knew that the Genuine Immortals were likely to have minimal roles. They might simply be here as witnesses and would not make any strike at all, because the main attacking force was the 30 Venerables.


    30 Venerables were powerful enough to annihilate everyone on the Void Traveler, regardless of if there were Venerables or Genuine Immortals inside. The advantage in numbers the opposite side possessed was superior to any individual''s power.


    "Damn it, how can it be! The Alien Realm influences are invading our Heaven Realm World and have collaborated with each other. They even know our actions. They are going to close in and kill us all! What should we do?"


    Yu Hui finally lost his composure and bellowed, "Attack! It''s our only chance. If we continue to stay trapped in the Void Traveler, we will die!"


    "Right, that''s the only alternative we have!"


    The expressions of several leading Venerables were extremely distorted. They had no attention to spare on their missions or spoils of war. Nearly a hundred men reached a consensus. The Void Traveler burst open. They gathered together and stormed out to the spot where the fewest enemies were stationed.


    "Boom!"


    "Kill them!"


    "Running away? How could it be so easy? I''ll make all of you stay here!"


    The opponents had apparently outguessed their final choice, as they had been observing what was going on inside the Void Traveler. Once they saw them rush out, all the enemies immediately fired at them.

 688 Killing with One Punch

    Colorful light mingled with a deadly spirit had imposed an all-dimensional blockage on the Genuine Immortals of the Heaven Realm World. Shots of peculiar light zoomed out, lighting the entire sky. All the Genuine Immortals had cast out their special celestial devices and magic weapons. After all, at such a life-or-death moment, no one could think about hiding their secret skills anymore. They launched all their weapons and formed a protective wall around themselves.


    "Boom!"


    The two sides finally collided with each other. Charging out from the Void Traveler, several Genuine Immortal with fairly weak defensive power were crushed into fine powder on the spot. Facing such a large-scaled collision of practitioners, individual power appeared to be insignificant.


    The opponents had built up sufficient strength for this ambush while the Heaven Realm had been defending in haste. It was no wonder that the latter would suffer great loss.


    At first, the host of practitioners thought that they might break through the besiegement by uniting as one and concentrating their power. But after this one strike, their hopes were smothered, for the team they formed was broken up.


    This offered a good opportunity for the practitioners from the Alien Realm. Except for the strongest Venerables, who were out of the formation, the rest of the practitioners hurtled over to attack them. With multiple Alien Realm combatants for every one Heaven Realm practitioner, in only minutes more than half of the Heaven Realm practitioners were killed or badly injured.


    "Damn it, damn it! How can this be happening! Am I really going to die in this damn space?"


    Yu Hui considered committing suicide. He had believed that he was carrying out a small mission. It never occurred to him that it could be so life-threatening. Thanks to the defense-oriented Supreme-class Pure Yang Celestial Device he had brought with him, he was not dead yet. Otherwise, he would have been crushed into powder. But, he could not keep relying on the defensive weapon, because he was about to run out of Dharma power. The three Venerables would simply keep besieging him and then kill him when his Dharma power was depleted.


    "Is today really going to be my doomsday?" Yu Hui asked himself, desperation filling his heart. But at this precise moment, the situation suddenly changed.


    The surrounding space started to shake violently. Soon, the unknown space was shattered into pieces, and a combat field appeared above the Sea Area.


    "You guys from the Alien Realm are really audacious. Do you think our Heaven Realm is that easy to bully? How dare you attack the ambassadors of the Human Emperor Palace! Did you forget how to spell the word ''die''?"


    An overbearing willpower descended, followed by a huge white hand emerging from the sky. The huge hand plummeted towards the ground and instantly crushed a third of the Alien Realm practitioners as if they were ants.


    "Lord of Heaven!"


    Several Venerables who were busy fighting for their team turned ashen-faced. This Giant Void Hand could only have been produced by a Lord of Heaven. Otherwise, it would not be so powerful. Now that a Lord of Heaven had arrived, there was no need for words. All they could do was flee!


    After all, not everyone was like the freak Zhou Bao, daring to bypass ranks and challenge Lords of Heaven. For an ordinary Genuine Immortal, a Lord of Heaven represented absolute authority.


    Venerables could never be a match for a Lord of Heaven who had accomplished his Self-world, regardless of their numbers. Therefore, after seeing the huge white hand, their first instinct was to run away.


    However, it was quite difficult to escape the attack of a Lord of Heaven. Before they could take their departure, the huge white hand had already grabbed them. The five fingers stretched out and drew back repeatedly and the space-time around them was locked up. The Venerables now resembled beetles trapped in a chunk of amber, unable to move.


    "Please show some mercy!"


    Just when the huge hand was about to grip the Venerables, another willpower streaked the sky. A huge golden hand emerged out of thin air and collided into the white hand.


    "Clap!"


    Two palms slapped against each other!


    The overwhelming impact force crumpled the surrounding space. Cracks appeared in the hollow, letting in gusts of wild wind. An immense gravitation spread across the field from the hollow. If those present had not been Genuine Immortals, they would have been sucked into the cracks in the hollow.


    After the collision, the two huge hands vanished. But soon, they reappeared as if nothing had happened.


    "What a fu*king mess! Who is this? Disturbing my quiet life!"


    Just when the two huge hands were ready to make another collision, a lazy voice suddenly sounded. Shortly after that, everyone heard sizzling noises from the surrounding space.


    A huge black hand ripped open the space that had just closed and seized the golden hand.


    "Scum of the Alien Realm, you''d better behave yourself. Do you really believe this Heaven Realm World is at your full disposal, like your backyard?"


    "Uh, ah...!"


    The black hand clenched the golden hand but the two did not appear to contend against each other. Seconds later, a short but terrified cry spread out from the hollow, and the golden hand began to dissolve as though it was made of snow. It melted so fast that its owner had no chance to fight back or withdraw it.


    "Who is this? How dare you!" The owner of the golden hand came to his senses and roared from the depths of the hollow. A golden light broke through the space and hit the black hand.


    The black hand gave a slight shudder and a nearly invisible pink spirit swept out, neutralizing the golden light.


    "Peach Blossom..."


    "Got you!"


    In the endless space-time of the Heaven Realm World, before the owner of the golden hand stopped screaming, a calm voice echoed in his ears. Soon, the space in which he was located started vibrating. A gigantic fist rose up out of nowhere and punched him in the chest before he could react.


    "Wham!"


    The man''s body suddenly imploded; he was reduced to blood fog. A yellowish spirit rushed out from the blood fog, but it only flew for a few meters and then dispersed into nothing.


    Both his body and spirit had died under this one punch.


    Afterward, a figure in cyan materialized in the space-time.


    "A six-tribulation Lord of Heaven is really not qualified to be my playmate!" It was Zhou Bao. He looked around and sent out his divine thoughts. His expression changed to one of disappointment.


    "Son of a bit*h! What a powerful punch! Now, everything is gone, there are no spoils of war for me. Even if there were any, they would probably be worthless. Yeah, can''t even take one punch, he must have had defective goods! "


    "How powerful he is! How intimidating! I''m afraid his strength is on par with the Realm Master himself!" Shortly after Zhou Bao took off, the space that his attacks had swept through suddenly started to contort, and a wretched man appeared. The man was short and ugly, but he had a cultivation at the Lord of Heaven Realm. Similar to the guy Zhou Bou had just killed in one punch, he was also a Six-tribulation Lord of Heaven, but his eyes revealed a trace of sophistication and craftiness.


    "I can''t believe there is such a guy in the Heaven Realm World aside from the Sea Emperor! I must report this immediately. He looked at me just now, so he must have noticed me. But why didn''t he strike?" The man gave it some thought and then put on a wry smile. "Let it go. Why should I, an inferior Ghost Immortal, speculate the mind of such a high-ranking figure! I will just deliver the news in case they come here unprepared and suffer a great loss!"


    In the sky over the Sea Area.


    After Zhou Bao murdered the Lord of Heaven with one punch, the white hand performed its magic again, killing most of the Alien Realm practitioners who were trying to besiege the Void Traveler and capturing the rest of them. Without any interference, Yu Taixuan soon got everyone under control.


    "Thank you so much for your rescue, Lord Yu!" Seeing the white hand nailing it in no time and that the mysterious golden hand had been completely dissolved by the black hand, Yu Hui hastily expressed his gratitude.


    "Save it. Stop with the empty words and return quickly!" Yu Taixu''s voice rang in everyone''s ears. His huge white hand scooped up two of the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices the opponents had brought, leaving the other three untouched.


    "Thanks for your help King Wuyang!"


    "No need to be so polite, Lord Yu!" And Zhou Bao did not pretend to be polite at all. His Giant Void Hand reached out and grabbed the other three Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, and then disappeared.


    "King Wuyang! The black hand was Zhou Bao''s. It turns out that he has always had an eye on us. Thank God we did not ask for too much when we were at the Li family mansion. Otherwise, what could we do if he killed us all?"


    The Giant Void Hands of Lords of Heaven always came and went without leaving any trace or even casting a shadow. Although Yu Hui knew where the huge hand was from, he merely voiced his exclamation mentally and quietly led the bunch of mutilated Genuine Immortals to board the damaged Void Traveler. They flew straight towards the Penglai Region.


    "I never knew you could actually restrain yourself a bit! I thought you intended to teach Yu Taixuan a lesson!" Wang She beamed from hundreds of meters up. "You''re never keen to get involved in matters that are none of your business. So why are you helping the Divine Wind Palace?"


    "Am I not a guy who cares for the big picture?" Zhou Bao shot a look at Wang She. "Those practitioners from the Alien Realm went too far this time. Moreover, if Yu Taixuan was defeated, they would have become more audacious. That would not be good news for the large sects or my Wuyang Region. So, I stood out and helped."


    "After this lesson, perhaps the practitioners will find a more secluded place to hide."


    "Maybe so, maybe not. But I''m sure about one thing¡ªneither the Human Emperor Palace nor the Divine Wind Palace will take similar actions any time soon. Everyone can enjoy a calm life for a while!"


    "You mean the calm before the storm?"


    "Let''s just see how violent this storm can be!"

 689 The Biggest Problem

    Sometimes, it was necessary to make a gesture regardless of one''s true mindset.


    For example, in the incident of the Li family, Zhou Bao had saved the Li family on account of his friendship with Li Xiu. But that did not mean Zhou Bao would protect those who colluded with practitioners from the Alien Realm. Therefore, when the practitioners of the Human Emperor Palace and the Divine Wind Palace were besieged, Zhou Bao also made a strike, showing where he stood. Zhou Bao was a member of the Heaven Realm World and he would never ever stand with the Alien Realm practitioners.


    As to why he did not strike until a Lord of Heaven appeared, the answer was evident. Considering his identity and cultivation, his opponent should also be a practitioner in the Lord of Heaven Realm or above. If you asked him to fight against a practitioner below that, it would have been beneath him.


    Indeed, if he had to battle with guys lower than the Lord of Heaven, he would be awfully busy.


    "After this, the Alien Realm practitioners should know to behave themselves. They attacked the Human Emperor Palace and Divine Wind Palace in broad daylight. How dare they!"


    "They''re not so daring. They''re just fearless. They do not regard the Seven-deity Regions as a decent match, even the Sea Area is worthless in their eyes!"


    "The strength of the Alien Realm practitioners is truly high above that of the Heaven Realm World. But don''t forget that everyone who appears in the Heaven Realm World must be subject to the restriction of its Dharma, especially Human Immortals, who actually have no way of entering the Heaven Realm World, therefore..."


    "Even though Human Immortals can''t enter, Lords of Heaven can!" Something seemed to occur to Wang She, and his eyes started to shine. "As far as I know, other macro worlds can even limit the entry of practitioners in the Realm of True Immortality!"


    "This is the trickiest thing. The fate of our Heaven Realm World is declining. In my personal view, the Heaven Realm World is very sick, unable to fend off invasions from the outside worlds. If there were no Void Thunder Tribulations, even Human Immortals would be able to creep into the Heaven Realm World!"


    "That''s no good!" Wang She said slowly, his tone appearing to contain a deeper significance.


    "There seems to be more to it than what you just said!"


    "Well, if even you and I can grasp this point, then, can the Divine Wind Palace, the Three Western Regions, and the Sea Area really be unaware of it?"


    "You have a point. They all know, and they all want to fix it. But even though only Lords of Heaven are allowed to enter the Heaven Realm World, if all the Lords of Heaven from other macro worlds come here together, they could indeed demolish the Heaven Realm World. We would only be able to take on so many Heaven Realm Worlds at the same time if we resorted to the Power of Fate of the entire Heaven Realm World!" Zhou Bao nodded slightly and went on, "Are you saying that everyone has their eyes on the Fate Creator?"


    "Right, the Golden Book of Fate, the Ranking of Demons and Immortals, and the Immortal-burying Pool have divided the fate into three parts. The device spirit Fate Creation Boy pays no attention to mundane affairs and his Power of Fate has been slashed, so the Heaven Realm World is on the wane. Now that others macro worlds are coveting the Heaven Realm World and many of their influences have crept in, the Heaven Realm World is actually unable to deal with them. Surprise attacks like today''s are bound to happen more frequently, so..."


    "So, we''d better combine the three parts into one as soon as possible!" Zhou Bao sneered. "You knew that already, didn''t you? You''re just trying to talk me into it!"


    "I''m not here to talk you into anything. I''m just telling you the truth. Today you killed a Lord of Heaven, tomorrow you may kill another one, and the day after that one more, but can you really kill them every day?"


    "I also barricaded the Wuyang Region. I can do that for now, but can I really do that for good?" Zhou Bao chimed in, laughing. "You''re still saying you do not want to persuade me. Just spit it out, who sent you here?"


    "No one asked me to say these things. I''m just telling you what''s on my mind!" Wang She smiled. "By the way, I want to remind you that very soon, all the influences will take action in light of this incident. Your father-in-law, the Human Emperor candidate, may have a chance to become Fate Creator, and you..."


    "Him? Forget it! He can never become Fate Creator!" Zhou Bao shook his head decisively. "If this kind of psycho becomes Fate Creator, there will be trouble!"


    "In that case, you will support the Fate Creation Boy, won''t you?"


    "The Fate Creation Boy is the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate of this macro world. He is also the Guardian of Fate. Nothing about that is disputable!" Zhou Bao gave a cold grin. The Fate Creation Boy and Venerable Black Turtle had made great contributions in helping Zhou Bao achieve today''s accomplishments. It could be said that without the two, Zhou Bao would not have enjoyed his current status. Whatever objects they had, Zhou Bao knew that he had to return the favor they offered to him.


    "Yeah, it seems so. But the Fate Creation Boy always holds himself aloof from the world and acts unpredictably. He may not serve the best interests for the influences of the Heaven Realm World!"


    "Forget it! Those bastards dare to reckon themselves as the masters of the Heaven Realm World! If they piss me off, I can make them drown with my spit!" Zhou Bao swore resentfully. "Now if you''re not going to persuade me to do anything, why did you bring this up? Does this have something to do with you?"


    "Unlike me, you have a macro world at your disposal. You have room to attack as well as to defend. I was born in the Heaven Realm World. Although it is getting weaker and weaker, I do not want to see it get destroyed!"


    "No one wishes that. But the final ending of the Heaven Realm World is not something that I can control!"


    "That is also the reason why I''m telling you this!" Wang She said, casting a look at Zhou Bao. "I need to know how you feel about it, and Child-endowing Buddha too!"


    " What do you mean?"


    "Each of the three of us has a combat capability parallel to a Divine Spirit. You could even destroy the entire Heaven Realm World. If we form a team and move forward together, our voice will dwarf the super sects!"


    "Haven''t we already been on one team together?" Zhou Bao scowled. "Are you going to expose the Child-endowing Buddha?"


    "It''s best for now if only you and I stand in the open, while the Child-endowing Buddha hides in the dark!"


    "Then why did you come to me?"


    "I''m just thinking that this matter is extremely urgent, so I''d better make sure you''re prepared for it. Even though you have chosen to support the Fate Creation Boy, there are some issues you still need to discuss with him. Otherwise, if something happens, it will be more troublesome. Now that you''ve made up your mind, I will say no more!"


    Zhou Bao gave a smile. Watching Wang She disappear from sight, he shook his head slightly. It was true that he had been negligent about this matter. The Fate Creation Boy had visited him earlier, but he hadn''t mentioned any of this. He subconsciously knew that the fate of the Heaven Realm was divided into three, and the complex issues relevant to that fact had existed for hundreds of thousands of years and evolved into a real mess. There was no way this mess could be resolved in a short time. But who could have known that the biggest weakness of the Heaven Realm World would be exposed by the Alien Realm practitioners? Now that the weakness had been revealed, they had to sort it out.


    After all, they could not allow Lords of Heaven from other macro worlds to run free in the Heaven Realm.


    Aside from the Sea Area, in the Seven-deity Regions, the strongest combatants were Human Immortals, and they were really rare. Then, there were Lords of Heaven, but their total number was less than a hundred. Compared to the Alien Realm practitioners, they were obviously outnumbered.


    If each of the macro worlds dispatched a dozen Lords of Heaven, the Heaven Realm would not be able to contend with them. But that was not the most important part. The thing that mattered most was that if the Fairy Weapon of Fate of the Heaven Realm World was intact, then, the Heaven Realm could use it to block out the Lords of Heaven or even Venerables. Only a few Lords of Heaven or Venerables could invade using special means, but there would not be very many. Further, under the monitor of the Dharma of the Heaven Realm World, even if they entered, they would not dare to make blatant strikes and murder practitioners of the Heaven Realm World. This kind of thing simply could never happen to other macro worlds in the first place.


    If this surprise attack had occurred in other macro worlds with intact Fairy Weapons of Fate, they would have been killed by Thunder Tribulations as soon as they launched their strike.


    "What Wang She said was right. After this attack, the biggest problem is that the Heaven Realm World was exposed. For both the Sea Area and the Seven-deity Regions, having an intact Fairy Weapon of Fate means they can fight off hordes of troops. Accordingly, the repair of the Fairy Weapon of Fate will be a priority soon. Then, a new Fate Creator will emerge. They will be selected from the Sea Emperor, the Human Emperor, the Fairy Pool Hunter, and the Fate Creation Boy. Only one of them can be chosen. The Fate Creation Boy is the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate, and once he loses this competition, he will be controlled by the new Fate Creator. When that time comes, our secrets will not remain secret. This is not good. Unless I leave the Heaven Realm World, I will still be subject to numerous restrictions and hidden troubles. I cannot let anyone else be the new Fate Creator, whether it is the Fairy Pool Hunter, the Sea Emperor, or my father-in-law. None of them can take the position!"


    Zhou Bao clenched his fists and made up his mind. In fact, it was not such a hard decision. In order to maximize his personal interests and minimize damage, the Fate Creation Boy was definitely the best choice.


    Father, Dinosaur hasn''t eaten anything in three days!"


    The moment Zhou Bao returned to the Wuyang Region, his son poured out his woes to him with a bitter expression, "Mother is also not feeling well. She has had no appetite for several days, either!"


    "Really? A Level Eight expert won''t starve to death even if they don''t eat several days. What''s your mom thinking!" Zhou Bao gently raised his eyebrows.

 690 Fairy Pool Hunter

    King Wuyang Palace of the Jin.


    For the past few days, the air in the Inner Yard of the palace had been quite solemn. Ever since Zhou Bao banished Feng Xuan from the Wuyang Region, the yard had been shrouded in a solemn atmosphere.


    Jiang Xiao and Zhu Ba were both grim-faced.


    This time they had really lost face. In the Cloud Crane Tavern, a scholar had cursed Zhou Bao undauntedly, but the urban management outside had not reacted at all. If Zhou Bao hadn''t been there, it would not have been such a big deal. But unfortunately for them, Zhou Bao had been sitting right there in the tavern and heard every word. He had also noticed the inaction of urban management. Although Zhou Bao had not said anything afterwards, his silence was precisely the reason the two were perturbed, very perturbed.


    In fact, the two could not take full blame for this incident. In the beginning, they did try to stop the man from swearing and beat him up, almost killing him on the scene. However, the scholar had been a friend of Feng Xuan, and Feng Xuan had struck out and rescued him. In the Wuyang Region, a Level Six expert could certainly enjoy some fame, but if he went against the Wuyang Region, he would be courting death.


    No matter how unbelievable a genius Feng Xuan was, he could be as arrogant and domineering as Zhou Bao was at his age. His cultivation was also not as high as Zhou Bao''s had been back then. With a cultivation at Level Six, his combat capability allowed him to fight against a Level Seven expert at most. How could he be a match for the urban management, who could flatten the whole region?


    Nevertheless, some things simply could not be elaborated by words. No matter how impressive the urban management was, it could never prevail against a man who had gained the favor of the princess.


    Zhou Qing had been protecting Feng Xuan, regardless of what he did. If Zhou Bao was the boss of the vast Wuyang Region, his wife and children were second in command.


    Yan Yunfei never bothered to care for this kind of trivial matter, and Zhou Mu had been educated to give way to Zhou Qing since childhood. In this way, as long as he had the protection of Zhou Qing, nobody dared to discipline Feng Xuan, even if he incurred a catastrophe!


    Gradually, people started getting used to it. Since Zhou Qing did not mind, others did not want to upset her for this kind of thing.


    This was what had happened.


    They had not upset Zhou Qing, but they upset Zhou Bao. And that was worse.


    Once they upset Zhou Bao, they had to pay a price. Although Zhou Bao did not say anything that day, Zhu Ba had sent the urban managers who stood by and watched the scene that day away from the Wuyang Region and arranged for them to serve as guards in the Anyuan Store, which meant they were severely demoted. And Jiang Xiao also took action. He announced that all literacy subjects in the Imperial Examination in the Wuyang Region were canceled. The only subject being tested was miscellaneous. This now meant many people''s life-long studies had been in vain. Three days later, Jin made the same decision as well.


    Now, every scholar in the Jin of the Central Mainland Region remembered this name: Lin Feng.


    The man who cursed King Wuyang furiously in the Cloud Crane Tavern that day had been Lin Feng. In a rage, King Wuyang had canceled all the literacy examinations, cutting off the road for millions of scholars to become government officials and ruining their futures.


    It was quite evident what kind of ending this Lin Feng would have.


    Of course, Zhou Bao did not care about any of this at present. What concerned him most were two unhappy faces.


    Yan Yunfei''s and Zhou Qing''s.


    "Yunfei, why are you so upset about this little girl. I''m just acting in her best interests. She may be too young to understand, but how could you be so naive as well!"


    "Can you please try to get rid of the damn mindset that you are the world''s number one authority? She is your daughter, not your enemy. Why can''t you just talk some sense to her? Instead you took this unexpected measure and banished Feng Xuan, how can you expect her to bear it!"


    "I''m just trying to solve this mess as quickly as I can. Anyway, that boy certainly approached our Dinosaur with his own agenda. Dinosaur is still young, and if we didn''t get him away, he would cause major trouble for her in the future!"


    "Yes, now he can''t make any more trouble. But your daughter is so troubled that she has stopped eating!"


    "So what? A Level Seven expert is able to refrain from eating grain forever. Never mind the fact that she has only starved herself for three days!" Zhou Bao said indifferently. "Fine. Stop showing your sullen face, I''ll go and see what I can do!"


    "She is in the inside room. Now that you''re here, let''s see how you can make peace with her!" Yan Yunfei rolled her eyes.


    "Fine, let me see what I can do!" Zhou Bao pushed the inner door open and entered his daughter''s room. The setting in this room was highly exquisite and quite refreshing. Zhou Qing was sitting by a table with her back to the door, so Zhou Bao could not see her expression. But he heard that she was whimpering alone.


    "Enough, Dinosaur, there is nothing to cry about. I know you must have visited that boy as well. It''s he who failed to restrain himself and succumbed to temptation. You can''t blame it on me!"


    "If it''s not on you, who else should I blame! Succumb to temptation? Humph, do you really think I don''t know that you would have killed him if he did not succumb!" Zhou Qing abruptly wheeled her head around and glared at Zhou Bao.


    "Phew! That''s my girl! You could detect this!" Facing the glare of his little girl, Zhou Bao did not feel a trace of fear. On the contrary, he smiled with curiosity. "I guess you did see that the boy harbored some ill intent, right?"


    "Yes, I saw it!" Zhou Qing answered with a lower voice, her head drooped.


    "If that''s the case, then why are you behaving like this? Starving yourself and everything!"


    "I''m just unhappy. And it''s your fault, you did this to me!" Zhou Qing swiftly got to her feet and yelled at Zhou Bao. She wanted to run towards him and punch him.


    "Yeah, I did this to you!" Zhou Bao nodded thoughtfully. "Just vent out your feelings now. Don''t you find me annoying? Well, you can regard everything in this room and this whole King Wuyang Palace as me and beat them up with all your strength. Then you will feel much better. If not, you''ll get sick!"


    "You¨D"


    Hearing this, Zhou Qing did not know how to respond. Staring at Zhou Bao, she gritted her teeth, wishing she could give him a sound thrashing.


    "I would also want you to beat me up if that could reduce your anger. However, since I am your father, you are not allowed to beat me up unless you want to be hit by a thunderbolt. Another thing is your father is invincible. Even if you beat me, I won''t feel a thing. And that may, in turn, exhaust you. Thus, you''d better pretend that other articles are me and do what you like!" Zhou Bao shrugged his shoulders and walked out with a smile. No sooner had he stepped out of the room then he hear a loud bang behind him, and then, Zhou Qing''s entire room collapsed.


    "Hee hee, this little girl is a fast learner! After unleashing her fury, her mood will soon grow better!" Zhou Bao thought, leaving the Inner Yard of the King Wuyang Palace, beaming. As he took off, a series of explosive blasts came out behind him. It appeared that Zhou Qing was truly going to demolish the whole King Wuyang Palace.


    "Father, Dinosaur¡ª"


    "It''s nothing, she''s just demonstrating her talent as a grumpy dinosaur. When she''s done, she will be in a better mood. Let it be!" Zhou Bao shot a look at Zhou Mu and asked, "Eggie, you''re a big boy now, have you ever thought about going out to see the world?"


    "Going out to see the world?" Zhou Mu was taken aback by this. But soon, his face began to shine with joy. "Father, are you asking me to leave the Wuyang Region?"


    "Yes, leave the Wuyang Region and go experience the world. Although the Wuyang Region is a great place, it is merely a corner of the Central Mainland Region. It would be great if you''d like to travel around and see different things. Your cultivation has already reached the peak of Level Eight, and you''ve also got several Pure Yang Celestial Devices and a fairy weapon. You''re okay to travel anywhere!"


    "Well, I''ve been dying to do that for a long time, but mother..."


    "I''ll talk to your mother!"


    "Great. But, what about Dinosaur?"


    Zhou Bao''s eyes widened, and he snarled, "Do you really think that I''m just asking you to go out and see the world? What I mean is for you to take Dinosaur out and drive away her concerns. She just vented out her anger and is probably in a good mood now. If you take her out and let her meet more people and experience more interesting things, maybe she will return a happy girl!"


    "I knew it! You couldn''t be so nice to me and simply let me out to experience the world!" Zhou Mu mumbled, but still he could not hide the excitement in his eyes. He had been longing to leave the Wuyang Region and gain more experience for years. However, considering his age and Yan Yunfei''s refusals, he had had to stay here until today. But now that Zhou Bao had given his permission, and Yan Yunfei was going to be busy since she recently found out she was carrying her third child, Zhou Mu would have no difficulty in realizing this dream. He was as free as a fish in the sea or a bird in the sky. The moment Zhou Bao left, he hurried toward the Inner Yard to deliver the great news to Zhou Qing. Zhou Qing had just dumped out all her negative feelings, so when she heard the news, her lingering trace of annoyance rapidly dispersed. They left the tidying up of the whole King Wuyang Palace that she just vandalized to the help. ...


    "Well, no one comes to the temple without a reason. Brother Ye, why do you hide in the dark, refusing to reveal yourself?"


    Zhou Bao headed into the depths of the mountains along a path on Jilei Mountain. Halfway through his journey, he suddenly came to a halt and laughed at the stone wall on his right.


    "It''s been years since we last met, but your strength has grown increasingly unfathomable. It seems that the effect of the Void Thunder Tribulation is much stronger than the Thunder Tribulation in the Heaven Realm World!" A sigh came out from the stone wall, and Ye Qingtian''s figure gradually emerged. Ye Qingtian looked at Zhou Bao, his eyes revealing a complex significance. When they first met, his cultivation had been much higher than Zhou Bao''s, and so was his combat capability. But today, though he had broken through the Genuine Immortal Realm and even entered the Venerable Realm by undergoing multiple Thunder Tribulations, the gap between Zhou Bao and him was getting wider and wider. He had not seen Zhou Bao for a long time, but he had heard of his combats. He knew that Zhou Bao had defeated the Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven Hong Taihe single-handedly and broken into the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain by himself and forced their Mountain Master to step down. Considering this kind of strength and strategy, he was left too far behind to catch up.


    "Brother Yu, you didn''t just come here today to butter me up, did you?"


    "Of course not. I came to you today about the upcoming Fate Creator competition in the Heaven Realm World!"


    "Fate Creator competition in the Heaven Realm World?" Zhou Bao''s eyes shone. "Well, Brother Yu, are you interested in the position of Fate Creator as well?"


    "Of course, I''m interested, but I''m not qualified."


    "Then, who did you come here on behalf of?"


    "The Fairy Pool Hunter!"

 691 A Clear Stance

    Zhou Bao found this really funny. Actually, he thought it was a joke.


    The Fairy Pool Hunter had sent a man to visit him?


    For the purpose of getting the position of Fate Creator? Zhou Bao had nothing to do with the Fairy Pool Hunter, so why did the Fairy Pool Hunter expect Zhou Bao to vote for him?


    Moreover, if he wanted Zhou Bao''s support, he should at least visit Zhou Bao in person, but he had sent Ye Qingtian instead. Even though Ye Qingtian had a cultivation at the level of a Venerable, to be honest, he was not qualified to handle such an important matter.


    However, those were just Zhou Bao''s thoughts. He did not reveal any of this on his face. He wore a genial smile and greeted, "Fairy Pool Hunter! Hee hee, come here, have a cup of tea and let''s talk about this!"


    As the old saying went, he who had a thorough knowledge of the enemy and himself was bound to win all battles. Now that Zhou Bao was determined to help the Fate Creation Boy contend for the post of Fate Creator, he had to be serious about the matter. Further, it also concerned his own interests. He certainly could not sit on his backside and watch. Ye Qingtian had come over to him of his own accord, Zhou Bao naturally had to take advantage of this precious opportunity.


    "Come in, have a seat. You''re in my place now, just make yourself at home!" Leading Ye Qingtian into the Sea-calming Palace, Zhou Bao held up a cup of tea and said, "Brother Ye, though we have had our differences in the past, since so many years have passed, let''s just throw them to the wind and start over. What do you say?"


    "Of course, of course. If I offended you, King Wuyang in the past, please forgive me!" Ye Qingtian answered hastily and also raised his teacup.


    "I know that the willpower of the Immortal Realm has spread through the hollow, causing the location of our Heaven Realm World to be exposed. Practitioners and experts from the Alien Realm keep invading our Heaven Realm World, and due to the damaged Fairy Weapon of Fate, our Heaven Realm World doesn''t have basic protection. So, the Four Eastern Regions, the Three Western Regions, and even the Sea Area are all proposing to select a new Fate Creator who will combine the three divided parts of the Fairy Weapon of Fate into one and regain control of Heaven and Earth, right?"


    "Of course King Wuyang knows everything, especially regarding such a critical issue!" Ye Qingtian replied with a smile. "I guess you must also know that only four men are eligible to contend for the post of Fate Creator, and the Fairy Pool Hunter is one of them!"


    "But my father-in-law is also one of them!"


    "Hee hee, the Human Emperor indeed is a competitive candidate for the post of Fate Creator. But don''t you think that his influence is too shallow? And what he practices is precisely the domineering Way of the Emperor. If he turns it into the Way of Fate, I''m afraid you won''t be able to live a comfortable life anymore, will you?"


    "Well, that''s true. The Way of the Emperor could really bring me a lot of trouble. If a man practicing the Way of the Emperor becomes the Fate Creator and then achieves the Advanced Level of the Way of the Emperor with the help of the Power of Fate in the Heaven Realm World, that won''t be good for anyone!"


    "I''m confused. Have you forgotten the Sea Emperor? The Ranking of Demons and Immortals is in his hand. If he wants to become the Fate Creator, considering his strength, no one else will have a chance!"


    "I don''t know the reason, but the Fairy Pool Hunter told me that the Sea Emperor would never fight for the position of Fate Creator!"


    "Oh? Really?" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows but was actually not surprised. The Sea Emperor had been called the Vast Sea Emperor in antiquity times and had achieved Earthly Immortal Karmic Rank back then. Thus, to an Earthly Immortal like him, the position of Fate Creator was just a burden, not worthy of fighting for. He probably had loads of business to attend to, so why would he want to contend to be Fate Creator?


    "Then, the last candidate is the Fate Creation Boy!" Zhou Bao said with a faint smile. "The Fate Creation Boy left me a pretty good impression, so I''m going to back him up!"


    Ye Qingtian''s expression altered quickly. He was shocked by Zhou Bao''s straightforwardness. After remaining silent for quite some time, he finally opened his mouth, "The Fate Creation Boy is the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate, and he is indeed the fittest to become Fate Creator. But we should remember that the Fate Creation Boy has been suppressed for a long time, since antiquity times. Although he is playing the role of a Fate Creator, he is not very competent. That''s why the Heaven Realm World has been driven to this point!"


    "There are many factors causing the decline of the Heaven Realm World. We cannot blame all of it on the Fate Creation Boy. In antiquity times, the Heaven Realm World was controlled by the Jade Emperor and the other 98 emperors. Every one of them had a strength at the level of the Earthly Immortal, but none of them cared about the Fate Creation Boy!" Zhou Bao smiled. "Although he was treated this way, the Fate Creation Boy still continued to maintain the entire Heaven Realm World. Even when the Heaven Realm World moved away from the Center World, he continued monitoring the Primordial Demon in the Infinite Star Sea!" Zhou Bao shot a look at Ye Qingtian before continuing, "Don''t forget that the Infinite Star Sea is the only Alien Star Area connected to the Heaven Realm World by a Transmitting Formation. If it was not for him dealing with the Venerable Black Turtle in the dark, secrets of the Heaven Realm World would have long been disclosed instead of surviving till today!"


    "In that case, nothing I can say will make a difference. You''ve already made your decision!" Ye Qingtian realized that he had made this visit in vain. Apparently, Zhou Bao and the Fate Creation Boy had a profound relationship. Otherwise, he would not have known so much.


    "Right, no matter what you say, I''ve made up my mind!" Zhou Bao nodded. "I''m sorry that you have to travel all the way here and go back fruitlessly!"


    "Never mind. I actually did not hold high hope when coming here!" Ye Qingtian also gave a smile. They had been enemies so long, he naturally did not expect he could merely make a speech and turn Zhou Bao into a friend. Ye Qingtian knew he did not have that kind of influence.


    But he had wanted to come here anyway because besides the dim hope of gaining Zhou Bao''s support he also intended to find out which side Zhou Bao had taken. And now that he had heard Zhou Bao''s answer, his goal had been achieved.


    There was nothing left to say. Ye Qingtian did not choose to push harder. He stood up and took his leave.


    "The Fairy Pool Hunter? Hmm, why did he think of coming to me? Why would I agree to help him? What a joke! If he was just sounding me out, that would be even more hilarious. He might have underestimated me too much. Even though I showed him my true opinion, so what? Does he have any chance of winning?"


    Just like the selection of Human Emperor before, the significance of the Fate Creator appointment was enormous.


    Frankly, this time they were not merely selecting a new Fate Creator, because there was already a ready-made Fate Creator in the Heaven Realm World. What mattered now was combining the three parts of the Fairy Weapon of Fate into one, but this involved intricate issues. Each influence was trying to select a Fate Creator that represented their own interests.


    From Zhou Bao''s point of view, it was impossible to achieve. Whether it was the Human Emperor Yan Yuntian or the mysterious Fairy Pool Hunter, neither one could represent the interests of everyone at the same time. Therefore, the chances of one of them assuming the position were quite dim. The Fate Creation Boy still had the highest chance of winning. To start with, the Fate Creation Boy was already a Fate Creator, and he had never interfered with other influences, which satisfied their needs. Moreover, it was not easy to subdue the Fate Creation Boy. Although he had only the Venerable Black Turtle backing him, he was the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate. Who knew how strong his strength was? If he refused to surrender, the influences would have to go through a fair amount of trouble to pin him down. Above all, Zhou Bao knew the Fate Creation Boy possessed energy that enabled him to enter the Void Immortal Realm at any time. Therefore, if something did happen to him, he could at least hide in the Fate Creation Palace, a place no one else in the Heaven Realm World could enter except for Zhou Bao.


    Yes, no one else could enter!


    Hence, as far as Zhou Bao concerned, the Fate Creation Boy had taken an unconquerable position, unless...


    Contemplating for a while, Zhou Bao considered one other possibility. Unless Yan Yuntian or the Fairy Pool Hunter had gained the support of the Sea Emperor, an Earthly Immortal who had been the Vast Sea Emperor in antiquity times. If the Sea Emperor clearly showed his support, even Zhou Bao could do nothing about it.


    At present, he was definitely not a match for an Earthly Immortal.


    "It appears that the Fairy Pool Hunter knows a lot about the Sea Emperor. Could they have reached an agreement?"


    At the thought of this, Zhou Bao felt the matter was getting tricky. He quickly broke through layers of hollow and arrived at the Taihua Mountain.


    The Taihua Mountain was still floating in an unknown space with a handful of people living there. There were still two important people on the Taihua Mountain: the Fate Creation Boy and the Venerable Black Turtle.


    "I was just thinking, it''s about time you came!"


    The Fate Creation Boy knew that Zhou Bao had arrived the moment he revealed himself on mountain. Zhou Bao did not intend to hide his arrival from him anyway.


    "There are some issues I need to confirm with you, please!" Zhou Bao smiled. In a flash, he appeared in front of the Fate Creation Boy and Venerable Black Turtle.


    "Venerable Black Turtle, you do not look well. Have you met something disturbing?" Zhou Bao asked with a big-hearted smile when he saw the livid-faced Venerable Black Turtle.


    "Yes, big trouble!" The Venerable Black Turtle answered, apparently in no need to perform social formalities before Zhou Bao. "As you might have heard, those guys want to merge the parts of Fairy Weapon of Fate into one!"


    "That''s good. Restoring the Fairy Weapon of Fate to its original state can not only enhance the strength of our Heaven Realm World considerably, but also help the Fate Creation Boy recover his power. It''s great news!"


    "Great news? Well, if it went smoothly, it would surely be great news. However, they do not want the Fate Creation Boy to be their Fate Creator, and they''re even going to select a new Fate Creator. What a bunch of jacka*ses!" The Venerable Black Turtle suddenly pounded the stone table in front of him. It instantly shattered into pieces.


    The Venerable Black Turtle had been raised solely by the Fate Creation Boy, so he undoubtedly stood by the Fate Creation Boy''s side. When they talked about this matter, he wanted to wipe out all the other candidates. But unfortunately, he did not have that capability.


    "I''ve also got some news on this matter!" Zhou Bao said, beaming. "Ye Qingtian came to me a moment ago and asked me to back the Fairy Pool Hunter!"


    "What? Him again?" The Venerable Black Turtle blurted out in astonishment.


    "Well, the Fairy Pool Hunter didn''t just pay a visit here, did he?"


    "He just took off!" The Venerable Black Turtle snapped. "Dared to threaten us on our Taihua Mountain. If the Fate Creation Boy hadn''t stopped me, I would have killed him already!"

 694 Visitors from the Fifth Manor

    "Take this!"


    Seeing the sanguine flash of light aiming straight at him, Zhou Bao gave a nonchalant cold smile. He thought that this fella was really going overboard, even trying to perform a sneak attack on him. Between his eyebrows, a light flashed and an evil sanguine eye appeared, shooting out a stream of sanguine light.


    The moment the two streams of light met, a cruel vibration rang. With a loud ''bop'', the bloody-robed man took three steps back, whereas Zhou Bao stayed still.


    "If you want to fight a real fight, I would like to see what methods you have!"


    "Zhou Bao, you may have strong capabilities, but you''re undermining mine. This is the ancestral star of my Fiery Eyes tribe, I would naturally have ways to deal with you!" As he spoke, the bloody-robed man put his palms together and violently slammed against the ground.


    "BOOM!!!"


    The earth shooked and space began to crumble.


    "Interesting!" The evil eye in Zhou Bao''s mid-brows began to flash violently, almost as if he was attracting some kind of power. A column of red light shot out and aimed straight for the deepest parts of this vast planet.


    Once space was completely shattered, the real side of the planet was exposed.


    "Hell, no!"


    It was only during this time that Zhou Bao finally realized that he was standing on a gigantic fire-red eyeball.


    The fairy weapon in his mid-brows, the Heavenly Magic Eye, was attracted to this eyeball. Its energy started to overflow and fell onto the huge eyeball. It was the same for the power in his pair of Fiery Eyes.


    It was a suppression, a complete suppression!


    In front of this gigantic eyeball, even his fairy weapon, the Heavenly Magic Eye, struggled let alone his pair of Thorn Wheel Fiery Eyes.


    "Seems like you''ve been planning to defeat me for a long time!"


    "Just in case!" The bloody-robed man laughed. Obviously, he had control over the core of this vast planet. Hence, he did not suffer of the suppression at all.


    "This ancient planet was curated using my first ancestor''s own Fiery Eyes when the tribe was on the brink of extinction. One eyeball formed this vast planet, and another eyeball formed the ever-living bloodline of our Fiery Eyes tribe. This gave them a non-destructible characteristic. Here, your powers will be completely suppressed!"


    "That may not be the case!" Zhou Bao gave a faint smile, "Do you think I am like you, where all my powers are reliant on my eyeball? Let me tell you, all along, I have limited my reliance on this eyeball!"


    As he spoke, the evil eye in Zhou Bao''s mid-brows closed and cleanly cut off its connection with the gigantic eyeball. "Also, although this has evolved from the first ancestor''s eyeball, it was not refined. Its Immortal Character is all over the place, which makes it just a high-class Highest Heaven Celestial Device. It cannot compare to my Heavenly Magic Eye!"


    The evil eye in Zhou Bao''s mid-brows opened again and a flash of blurry red light seeped out, enveloping his whole body. He began to float mid-air, completely disconnected from the vast planet beneath his feet.


    "You¨D!"


    Seeing Zhou Bao escaping from the planet''s influence so easily, the bloody-robed man was very taken aback. He stared intensely at the evil eye, "This is impossible, this is...!"


    "This is a fairy weapon!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly and threw a punch.


    This punch was not accompanied with a whooshing sound. It hit the bloody-robed man straight in the face.


    Oh no!!


    The bloody-robed man''s expression fell drastically. Before he even got over the shock from Zhou Bao''s Fiery Eye in his mid-brows being a fairy weapon, he felt an earth-splitting Qi Power coming straight at him.


    He could not avoid this punch, not only was there nowhere to escape to, he had no time to escape too.


    At this critical instant, he let out a violent cry.


    "Stagnate!"


    After saying that, Zhou Bao felt his surrounding stagnating, as if turning into a transparent diamond rock. His fist froze.


    "Open!"


    There was nothing that his fist could not break. After freezing temporarily, it vibrated and opened the stagnated space, causing it to break into countless spatial debris that eventually disappeared. The power of the fist was still intact but the bloody-robed man had already taken advantage of his momentary stagnation to run far away. He had disappeared into the sea of eerie time space.


    "Zhou Bao, you can spend your time getting lost in this maze! By the time you come out, the fight for the Fate Creator of Heaven Realm World would have been set already!" The voice of the bloody-robed man was heard from the distance.


    "Yes, such wishful thinking you have! Forget about a space-time maze in a place smaller than a macro world, even one in the Heaven Realm World cannot trap me!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly and made a punch with his right hand. The punch was aimless and casual, and he hit on an empty spot.


    Boom!


    The punch struck as thunder!


    Just like that, Zhou Bao opened a hole in this eerie time space. He twisted, turned and came out through the hole into the hollow.


    It happened all too fast. Although the bloody-robed man knew that Zhou Bao had strong powers, he never thought that with just a casual punch could break the hollow, much less directly enter it.


    "Hahahaha, fella, you''re really over-confident. Did you think that by entering the hollow you''re free? The hollow has no boundary, it is much more complex and bigger than the space-time maze in the Heaven Realm World. You can spend some time wandering around here!"


    The bloody-robed man laughed heartily as white cloud appeared outside of the ancestral star beneath his feet. He pointed to the already-sanguine huge eyeball and it transformed again into an ochre vast planet.


    "This fella has some skills, blocking off the bloodline of almost all his relatives. But he left a promising power for my Fiery Eyes tribe. After I return to the Heaven Realm World, I will put together this power and revive the glory of our tribe!"


    From what he could see, Zhou Bao had fallen into the endless hollow. He would not be able to return for at least 1,800 years. Since he cannot return, then in the Heaven Realm World, the Wuyang Region will lose their main backer. Then it would be really easy for the Fiery Eyes tribe to successfully get hold of the remaining bloodline.


    Of course, all these would have to wait until the fight for Fate Creator has been settled. Without Zhou Bao as a strong force of opposition, the Fairy Pool Hunter had 80% to 90% chance of gaining the title. Thus, the revival of the Fiery Eyes tribe would be possible.


    Thinking of the promise that Fairy Pool Hunter made to him, the bloody-robed man became excited. He could not contain the excitement any further and rode on a cloud, heading towards the Heaven Realm World.


    "Quite a nice cloud he got, I wonder where he got that, it could probably barely count as a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, but it is quite fast!" After the bloody-robed man left, Zhou Bao''s body shape reappeared lazily from the hollow. Looking at the planet, the corners of his mouth gave away his cold snicker. "Hehe, ancestral star... brought me all the way here just for this, he''s indeed a weird fella. But I''ll definitely not let you get your way. Don''t you want the Fairy Pool Hunter to get the position and help you revive the Fiery Eyes tribe? Then I''ll kill him and let your wish become a disappointment. Hehe, this time around, I begin to finally understand what Wang She was feeling and thinking. Killing your enemy is not the best method. It would be best to destroy his faith and crush his beliefs completely while he''s still alive. It is the best feeling in the world and the most satisfying way of revenge: to watch him die in absolute despair. Although this fella is a bastard, I cannot disagree that what he said makes sense. By letting your enemy die in pain and desperation, they wouldn''t have a peaceful death!"


    Thinking about this, Zhou Bao hesitated no further. His body flashed a few times in the hollow and he went straight towards the Heaven Realm World.


    Heaven Realm World, Three Western Regions, Longevity Mountain, Fifth Manor


    The Fifth Manor undoubtedly had the most mysterious history among the few super big sects in Three Western Regions. It had already existed since antiquity times and no one knew about its real origin. Right after the antiquity times ended and the Heaven Realm fell into chaos, there were only a few Junior Taoist Attendants in the manor. Other people thought that this made the Fifth Manor an easy target to pick on. Besides, the Fifth Manor was situated on Longevity Mountain, one of the rare Fairyland Paradise back then. Hence, many were eyeing on the Fifth Manor. However, in the end, no matter how high the cultivation or how strong the background, all who picked on them returned with only feathers in their hand. They did not even have the chance to fight back. For thousands of years, that sect has fought all kinds of foes, which built their reputation in the whole Seve-deity Regions. For a period of time, it was even declared as the number one sect among the regions.


    However, strictly speaking, it was not appropriate to declare the Fifth Manor as a proper sect.


    Why was that so?


    That was because it was a Taoist temple that looked like normal. It never accepted disciples from outside and no disciples were sent out to get rid of the devils and do good in the jianghu.


    Not only did the Fifth Manor not care about societal issues, but it also did not even bother about the major events in the Three Western Regions. They would only send a Taoist Attendant when their profits were infringed. The Attendant would then calmly stand in front of a crowd and tell them, "You shouldn''t do this, this is affecting the profits of Fifth Manor, we don''t agree".


    The answer after the "don''t agree" didn''t matter at all, every time this happened, the other sects in the Three Western Regions would then kindly change their plans. Usually, after their plans have been amended, the people from Fifth Manor would not come anymore. The plan would then be carried out successfully.


    As time passed, the sects in Three Western Regions became more respectful towards Fifth Manor. Why was that so? Because for so many years, there was only one person from Fifth Manor that came out to face the public. It was that 13 or 14-year old Junior Taoist Attendant by the name of Qing Feng. After tens of thousands of years, he was still a Junior Taoist Attendant, was still called Qing Feng, and was still sweeping outside the Fifth Manor!


    This was scary.


    Even a Lord of Heaven or Human Immortal would change after living for such a long time. However, this Junior Taoist Attendant never changed after even a little bit. Also, it was said that he had already been there since antiquity times. God knows if that was true.


    And because of this, the Fifth Manor had been very peaceful all along. No one has disturbed it, not that anyone dared to do so either.


    The Fifth Manor on Longevity Mountain was as calm as still water!


    But on this day, an uninvited guest arrived.

 695 In the Fifth Manor

    When it came to climbing up the social ladder, it wasn''t just doing great things one day and climbing the next one. It was a far more complex task that required constant effort and results in order the be successful.


    This time around, the Heaven Realm World was coveted by an alien world. It was set for the Fairy Weapon of Fate to be split into three. According to the initial result, it was without doubt that Fate Creation Boy was going to become the only Fate Creator. However, his power was so weak and the human heart was so full of desire and greed that anything could happen.


    A Fate Creator possessed the ultimate authority to control the whole Heaven Realm World. The fate creator could even enter the Void Immortal Realm if he was good enough. No one was willing to give up on such benefits.


    With profits came competition. The higher the profits, the greater the competition.


    More than one influence was eyeing on the throne. Hence, even if Fate Creation Boy was a Fate Creator, they still dared to take up the challenge.


    The Fairy Weapon of Fate was to be split into three and given to three different people. This was no good news for Fate Creation Boy, who was the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate. It was his own body, having it split into three would naturally cause his power to decrease tremendously. Hence, when all the big influences in the Heaven Realm World expressed their interest in becoming the Fate Creator, Fate Creation Boy was so powerless he could only seek for external help.


    And Zhou Bao happened to be his best choice.


    However, it was not enough to rely on Zhou Bao alone. This was because Zhou Bao''s combat capability could only, at most, be ranked third in the Heaven Realm World. No one knew better than Fate Creation Boy about this. There were still the Sea Emperor and another person ranked in front of Zhou Bao. This other person was the grandfather from the Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain.


    Many people knew about him. He gained his reputation in the antiquity times from killing many people who were eyeing on the Longevity Mountain. When the Four Eastern Regions and Three Western Regions were fighting, this grandfather tied up the chief and second lord of Divine Wind Palace before throwing them into the sea. By noon on that day, Divine Wind Palace, who had their eyes set on ruling the whole Seven-deity Regions, returned back to the Four Eastern Regions. That was how the grandfather gained his reputation and the Fifth Manor was declared one of the strongest sects in the Three Western Regions.


    However, no one knew that the real mastermind behind the mysterious sect was actually Fate Creation Boy.


    On this day, Fate Creation Boy was exactly the one that appeared in front of Fifth Manor on Longevity Mountain.


    He was still dressed like a boy. He arrived in front of the Manor but dared not be too careless. He made his way in and upon his second step, he found a cyan-clothed Taoist Attendant approaching him.


    "Qing Feng senior brother, you''ve not changed!" Looking at his Taoist Attendant, who was about 13 to 14 years old, Fate Creation Boy put his hands together and laughed.


    "You''re overcomplimenting me. Old Master has already given his orders with regards to the purpose of the Fate Creator''s coming. Old Master will not interfere in this Heaven Realm World issue. He will not meet anyone, be it you or other people. As long as this issue does not affect the Fifth Manor, then everything will be treated normally. Hence, there is no need for you to worry!"


    "Since that is the case, then I''m relieved!" Hearing what the Taoist Attendant said, Fate Creation Boy nodded his head deeply. Neither did he continue to walk into the Manor, nor did he continue to have any intention to meet the master. He turned around and left with no hesitation.


    Seeing Fate Creation Boy leave, a trace of helplessness was seen on Qing Feng''s face. He turned around and walked into the depths of the Fifth Manor.


    The Fifth Manor was made up of houses that were a few levels tall each. The Taoist Attendant was familiarized with the route to the main house, which consisted of five houses facing south. The houses had carved patterns that were bright at the top and dim at the bottom. The Taoist Attendant pushed open the doors, revealing two big colorful words "Heaven" and "Earth" that were hung in the middle of the wall. There was a bright red table used to put an incense burner and there was a gold stove bottle sitting on top of the table. There were incense sticks on the sides of the stove.


    Before the table, there was another Taoist Attendant that was roughly about Qing Feng''s age. He was using a small cloth to clean the gold stove bottle. Seeing Qing Feng walking over, he asked without looking up, "Has Fate Creation Boy already left?!"


    "Yes, how could he not, when we''ve already stated our stance so clearly!"


    "You''re right, but we''re in the Heaven Realm World! If we do not care about any other matters, then what if in the future-!"


    "Ming Yue, do not doubt the Old Master''s decision!" Qing Feng interrupted. "We do not have to involve ourselves in the messy situation happening in the Heaven Realm World. Even if we do, it''s not the right moment!" Ming Yue nodded his head and said no more. He continued wiping the stove in silence.


    "Qing Feng, come in!"


    As the two spoke, a clear voice sounded in the room.


    "Yes, Old Master!"


    After answering, Qing Feng glanced at Ming Yue before lifting up his leg and walking towards the back of the house.


    The young Taoist was seen walking towards the back door and the space around him seemed to flash and vibrate. As if stepping into a pool of water, he disappeared instantly.


    "Old Master were you looking for me?!"


    Behind the screen of still water was a quiet and small room. The setting was simple: there was a zafu in the center, and a handsome middle-aged Taoist sat cross-legged on it.


    "Come and see!"


    The Taoist swung his hand in the air and a mirror appeared out of nowhere. The area above the mirror vibrated like water ripples. An image started to form on it and a moving picture was shown. If Zhou Bao was here, he would be extremely shocked. The moving picture depicts the scene where he meets a bloody-robed man on the ancestral star of the Fiery Eyes tribe.


    The whole process of the fight was shown with no loopholes and down to the smallest details.


    It was like watching the fight from a camera recording.


    "Old Master, this is -!"


    "Look carefully!" Qing Feng wanted to say some more but was cut off by the middle-aged Taoist. He could only stand there and watch the whole fight without saying a thing. After the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven left, Zhou Bao appeared and left too.


    "How was it?!"


    Seeing Zhou Bao''s battle scene, Qing Feng furrowed his eyebrows slightly. "It is a very violent style of fighting!"


    "Don''t you feel that he''s like another person?!"


    "Indeed, especially if he has a pole!" Qing Feng laughed, "Old Master, did you really call me here just to look at him?!"


    "Not to look at him, but the whole fighting scene. What do you think?!" The middle-aged man smiled as he pointed to the scene. "This bloody-robed man is a helper hired by the Fairy Pool Hunter. He is also the predicted number one thug in the Heaven Realm World according to the Fairy Pool Hunter''s plan. What do you think of him?!"


    "No, this person is too confident, too full of himself, and is extremely under-estimating his opponent!" Qing Feng shooked his head, "He thinks that the force of the ancestral star is enough to defeat Zhou Bao, but he does not know that Zhou Bao is familiar with the Great Way of Heavens and Realms. Hence, the hollow maze does not pose any difficulty to him at all, he is only playing around with his opponent!"


    "Not bad, this Zhou Bao is indeed a rare individual!" The middle-aged Taoist nodded, "He is much stronger than that betrayer! Also, he even has a Supreme Fairy Weapon and owns the Azure Big World! He is a Controller-!"


    "But that Azure Big World-!"


    "Humans can plan but fate is still the one that makes things happen. Whether or not the Azure Heavens can achieve big things depend not on Zhou Bao, but on fate! This applies to Zhou Bao too, his success tomorrow will depend on heaven''s wishes!" The middle-aged Taoist smiled, "Right now, the heaven''s wishes are unclear, we can''t see anything. I called you here to ask you to take note of this young man. Perhaps, he will become a key character in helping you guys achieve enlightenment in the future!"


    "He-!"


    After Qing Feng heard his words, he was taken aback. He pointed towards Zhou Bao''s image and asked, "Old Master, you''re saying -!"


    "This is just what I feel. The Way of Heaven has yet to show itself. If fate is not smooth, then even I cannot make an educated guess. Like what I just said, this is just a feeling!" Speaking of which, he smiled, "I have 48 disciples. Till today, only you and Ming Yue have not become Earthly Immortals yet!"


    "I am stupid, I hope that Old Master will punish me!" Qing Feng heard his words and immediately knelt down.


    "What''s there to punish? If I bring you guys outside, you can already have your disciples, what''s the point of following me!" The middle-aged Taoist sighed, "There is only the stupid oath I made back then, requesting that all my disciples have to become Earthly Immortals before they can leave the Fifth Manor. This made you guys suffer so much!"


    Qing Feng continued to kneel silently, not daring to answer him.


    "Forget it, forget it, there is no need to bring this up again. No matter what, you two have already earned your Immortal Karmic Rank. Although the Earthly Immortal is still a far-away goal, it is not so far as compared to the past. Go!"


    "Yes, Old Master!" Qing Feng dared not say anything else and left the quiet room silently. However, the words of the middle-aged Taoist deeply affected his mind.


    Perhaps, he will become a key character in helping you guys achieve enlightenment in the future!


    These words hit him hard.


    Although the Old Master continued by talking about the Way of Heaven not showing itself and that the fate was not smooth, these were all his small inferences. Given Old Master''s status, for all these years, were his inferences ever wrong?


    No, not even once. Since Old Master said that Zhou Bao was a key character in helping him and Ming Yue become Earthly Immortals, then this should most likely be the case. That was to say, Zhou Bao was an indispensable character now.


    "Maybe I should help him behind the scenes!" He thought about it and left the house. Afterward, he copied a big broom in front of the house and walked out.


    "Qing Feng, what did Old Master call you for?!"


    "What else other than to talk about the Fate Creator and us becoming Earthly Immortals!" Qing Feng used to not keep anything from Ming Yue, so he told her everything the middle-aged Taoist talked to him about.


    "Did Old Master really say so?!"


    "Of course, would I ever lie to you about something like this?!"


    "Then, is this Zhou Bao that crucial to us?!"


    "That should be the case. Old Master did not specify clearly, but I think there''s an 80% chance!"


    "80%, at least 80%. If he isn''t at least 80% sure, Old Master would definitely not bring it up!" Ming Yue nodded her head with much certainty. "Then it seems like we should take more notice of this Zhou Bao!"


    "Don''t make a fuss. Didn''t Old Master say it already? The Way of Heaven has yet to show itself, and the fate is not smooth. Based on Zhou Bao''s speed of doing things, we don''t even need to find him. Very soon, he will be standing in front of us. By then, let''s see if we can help him!"


    "Alright!"

 696 The Fight Brought Up To The Door

    In the Heaven Realm World, a golden shooting star flew across the hollow. It cut through layers of the space-time maze outside the Heaven Realm World before appearing in the upper skies of the Seven-deity Regions. This gold shooting star did not just fall off. It paused in the skies and then fell violently in the direction of the Three Western Regions.


    Boom!!!


    The shooting star fell from the skies, landing in a huge mountain in the Three Western Regions. It shot through the mountain sending waves of violent vibrations through all things within a 5,000 miles radius. In an extremely short period of time, it destroyed everything in the vicinity.


    "Where did this demon come from? How is he so daring to challenge my Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty!"


    This giant mountain was the territory of the Tang Empire of the Three Western Regions. It was named Black Wind Mountain. Although the size of Black Wind Mountain was incomparable to the Misty Mountain in Zhou Bao''s hometown, their difference was not very big. Black Wind Mountain was the intersection point of the Tang Empire and Yinyue Empire. However, the situation on both sides of the mountain was different. There were various sect pools nearer to the Tang Empire. The side nearer to the Yinyue Empire was comparably undeveloped. The bad living conditions caused there to be no human inhabitation. There were even no traces of the Demon tribe''s presence either. Hence, the falling of this shooting star did not affect the Yinyue Empire much.


    The Tang Empire was still under the control of Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty. Hence, Youxian Temple naturally knew that there should not be any strange incidents like shooting stars falling from the skies. Even when a micro world comes from the hollow, it would fall into the endless time space of the Heaven Relm World before it eventually becomes unified. How could it possibly fall and cause such huge destruction? That was totally impossible. Hence, this called for a simple conclusion that someone was looking for trouble for the Tang Empire and Youxian Temple.


    "Evildoer? Hehe, I am not an evildoer. I am here to settle my problems with the Youxian Temple. Damn it, a bunch of bastards. How could you play tricks on me while I was undergoing the Thunder Tribulation? I think you''re sick of being alive!"


    Zhou Bao did not try to conceal his voice. Actually, his voice was so loud, it traveled through half the empire.


    "I am here to find trouble for you, I am here to seek revenge. How? Come and bite me!"


    His arrogant voice started to fluctuate and become sound waves. As it traveled out, the extremely strong willpower swept through the empire, conveying the same message.


    Instantly, all practitioners in the Tang Empire stood up in shock.


    Those who did not know the truth had no idea what just happened. Those who knew it ran towards the Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty mad because they knew that such drama was not common.


    Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty had ruled the Three Western Regions for tens of thousands of years, Although its authority had been challenged before, no one dared to bring the fight to its door so straightforwardly.


    As a practitioner, how could one miss out on such a good show?


    "Zhou Bao, you''re so daring, you really think that there is no one in the Three Western Regions?!" An angry voice roared from within Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty. Similarly, this voice was accompanied by a strong willpower that swept through the Tang Empire. It reached the brain of every practitioner.


    "Hehe, it is too late to call for help now. Besides, what can they do? There is no one in this universe that can save you all!" Zhou Bao laughed out loud. He had already reached outside the Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty. Looking at the temple''s colorful glow and their complete preparation, Zhou Bao sneered.


    "Trying to stay safe from me with such a magic protection formation like this? You guys are looking down on me!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. He began to swing the two green hammers in his hand and smashed them onto the colorful glow without hesitation.


    Boom!


    With just one smash, the protection formation that the temple had put up painstakingly was smashed into pieces.


    "This is impossible!"


    "Impossible? There is nothing that''s impossible in this world!" With just a smash, Zhou Bao''s body dashed into the protection formation. The twin hammers were flashing faint azure light. "I am a very direct person. So, please take out whatever tricks you have. I will take them all."


    Boom, boom, boom...


    As he spoke, Zhou Bao smashed with his hammer. This Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty was a huge sect of the Seven-deity Regions, almost all infrastructures had a formation to protect them. However, no matter what kind of formation, or how complicated it was, they did not escape from Zhou Bao''s hammer. With just one smash, their original form would be shown. At most, two smashes were enough. The first smash would destroy the formation and the second one would smash the body into pieces. It was impossible to need for a third smash.


    Zhou Bao dashed into the Youxian Taoist Temple and started smashing around randomly. In just a few breaths, the building became a complete mess. It was then that the bunch of practitioners finally realized what was going on. But it was too late.


    "You daredevil, my Youxian Temple will never be done with you!"


    A roar as loud as a bomb rung in the sky. Numerous streamers shot out of from deep within the already-destroyed big hall of Youxian Temple. Each of these streamers was as strong as the full force of a Human Immortal. All of them aimed at Zhou Bao.


    The practitioners in Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty were at their wits'' ends because of Zhou Bao. It did not take very long before the whole Youxian Temple became a ruin. If they continued to sit back, perhaps the temple would really disappear by the end of the day.


    Judging from Zhou Bao''s displayed power, normal tricks would not work on him. To defeat him completely, the most direct method would be to win him in terms of strength. The rest were useless because Zhou Bao always used raw power to uncover tricks.


    No matter how strong you were or how fancy your tricks might be, he would destroy them all with strength.


    That was how he had managed to break open all the formations. While the formations were not comparable to Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Dust Formation, they were connected to the heavens and earth. The center of the earth vein could be the whole Tang empire, or it could also be in one small region where there was the most pneuma. The amount of essence of the world that could be used was immense, much more than what the practitioners could imagine. Attacking the Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty was like attacking a whole piece of land. However, this formation was very complex. Not only did it consist of Space Formation, but there was also a magic matrix, as well as many crucial points of properties like ice, fire, water, wind, thunder, mist, sand, and many others. If normal practitioners fell into it, they would at least lose a layer of skin if they somehow managed to survive. Facing Zhou Bao though, this magic formation was completely screwed up. This was because Zhou Bao used random tricks that directly shot out through the two hammers in his hands. For all the tricks mentioned above, no matter how fancy they are, Zhou Bao could settle them with just one smash.


    In just a smash, everything would lose its shape. This was Zhou Bao''s strength.


    Looking into the eyes of the crowd, it could be seen that their hearts had become cold. At the same time, they understood that only strength could work against Zhou Bao. Using extreme strength against him was their only chance of winning. Thus, those old fella hiding in the deepest corners of the time-space in Youxian Temple forgone any societal pressures. They directly gathered all the Dharma power in their body and gave Zhou Bao the strongest strike of their lives. At the same time, the practitioners who were at the center of the protection formation also followed the orders of the ancestors who were doing closed-door training. They started to adjust the whole magic formation and erased all changes. They switched to using the most direct method, by gathering all the pneuma of the earth vein and planning to bombard Zhou Bao to death.


    "They came at the right time!" Seeing the old guys finally coming to their senses, Zhou Bao finally had an urge for war. All along, even when fighting against the strongest Lords of Heaven from all kinds of sects, or even Human Immortals, Zhou Bao did not have any battle desire inside him. This was because he had directly exposed his combat ability but not one single person was able to withstand his full blow. Now that so many old people were coming together to use pure power to defeat him, he felt like he was facing a true challenge!


    "Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty, good, good. You''re thinking of defeating me using strength like this, seems like you''ve finally come to your senses. But if you think you can really defeat with that, then you''re too naive! Your powers are dispersed, seems like you old fellas haven''t been fighting for a long time. How can such powers compete with me!"


    Zhou Bao shouted arrogantly like a madman. He swung his twin hammers again until they formed a complete circle in front of him. He then lifted them up to the sky.


    The Mysterious Icy Divine Light in his body was running wildly. The shapeless coldness concentrated on his hammers.


    Boom, boom, boom!


    Once again, numerous loud explosion sounds were heard. These continuous attacks were all taken down by Zhou Bao. Each smash broke an attack. At the same time, the coldness seemed to have a consciousness, tracing the attacks and firing them back.


    "Ah ¡ª "


    "Poof-!"


    "Oh, no...!"


    "Be careful~~!"


    Numerous loud cries came from deep within the time-space of the temple. A few Elders, who did not have cultivation high enough to withstand Zhou Bao''s Mysterious Icy Divine Light, instantly became frozen from head to toe, losing their breath entirely. Even Li Yuangang, the one with the highest cultivation at the level of a Human Immortal, furiously gathered the Dharma power in his body to avoid the freeze. While withstanding the icy-cold attacks, his face became extremely pale. After his initial cry of shock, he said nothing else.


    Zhou Bao''s attack on the old fellas did not stop there. That was because the magic formation had already been readjusted. It forsook all those useless things and consolidated into one body.


    "Good, good, good. Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty is indeed true to its name, you do have some moves!"


    After breaking the attack just now, Zhou Bao was just about to follow up with another attack when he suddenly felt that his surrounding was filled with strange energy waves. His eyes lit up.


    Strength, powerful strength, immense and undefeatable strength was consolidating above him at this moment.


    One by one, talisman formed using pure strength started to appear and revolved above his head.

 697 A Fierce Battle of Wits

    Numberless and absolute power appeared around him in different forms.


    The power, which was as thin as a wire, began to wrap his feet and tried to bound them together. It was tying his body like a rope. At the same time, a lot of pneumas were concentrating above his head and would eventually turn into a mountain peak. Once the mountain peak formed, formidable power would rush towards him.


    "This mountain peak is very interesting. It''s similar to my Flipping Sky Seal but less abstruse!" Zhou Bao suddenly extended his hands. An overwhelming might spurted and broke the power rope trying to restrain him. With his own power, a layer of frost started to form around him. Slightly raising his head, he was watching the mountain peak that was made from the invisible power. A cold smile appeared around the corner of his mouth.


    "Good! Good! The pneuma from the whole land is collected and transforms into the purest of powers. It''s condensed in such a small area. You''re so brave. Don''t you worry that the power is out of your control and destroys this land?"


    "You''re the evildoer. You offended our Great Tang. The Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty would rather die than live in disgrace. Even if the power plunges the people into misery and suffering, it''s you who should bear the Karma!"


    "Hehehehe! Good idea. I bear all the Karma. But I don''t agree. The Way of Heaven decides who bears the Karma. Except for the Way of Heaven, the Fate Creator has always a say. If they attribute the responsibility to you, it has nothing to do with me!"


    "Fate Creator?" Obviously, the host of the Youxian Temple did not expect that Zhou Bao would mention a Fate Creator. He was a little bit absent-minded, which led to the emergence of a seam.


    Zhou Bao was waiting for that moment.


    Feeling that the power condensed by the pneuma revealed a seam, Zhou Bao suddenly raised his twin hammers. The hammer in his left hand turned into an azure light and crashed on the mountain peak, which was almost done with condensation. Simultaneously, he smashed the invisible power wrapping him with the hammer in his right hand. His feet softly touched the ground. Like a lightning, he shot out of the power sharply and escaped the area covered by the mountain peak.


    "No¡ª!"


    "BOOM!!"


    Seeing Zhou Bao breaking up the power so easily, the Youxian Temple host could not help but cry loudly. And the hammers that Zhou Bao had just thrown reached the bottom of the pneuma mountain peak.


    A resounding crash came to everyone''s ears. The invisible power spread with great destruction. Everywhere it swept, everything was smashed into pieces. The influence was almost equal to Zhou Bao''s Infinite Trembling Contemplation or even stronger.


    But in Zhou Bao''s opinion, those two were totally different things.


    This destructive ripple embodied the absolute power while the Infinite Trembling Contemplation reflected the absolute skill. They were two totally different extremes.


    "Zhou Bao, go to hell!"


    The intangible power was diffusing. However, it did not damage the pneuma mountain peak seriously. The peak was still at the Youxian Temple host''s control. At the remote space in the Youxian Temple, the host was not calm anymore. He had just taken on a True Taoist priest look earlier but now he showed a fierce look with hair disheveled. His previous black hair also instantly became gray and white. His skin was dry and rough with wrinkles sprawling. In a moment, he became an old man.


    "Zhou Bao. We will die together!"


    "Die together with me!"


    Zhou Bao frowned his eyebrows. With his divine thoughts, he clearly saw the situation in the deep time and space inside the Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty. "You are burning your life to temporarily get giant power and to help you control the pneuma mountain peak freely. You want to attack me with the help of the mountain peak''s absolute power. You really have a great determination. But, it''s not enough!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly.


    "Do you think you really have an infinite power? I''ve already collected over 80% pneuma in this region and made it into the pneuma peak. I don''t believe I can''t kill you!" With the Youxian Temple host''s resentful voice, the pneuma mountain was flying to Zhou Bao swiftly as if it hardly had any weight.


    Zhou Bao did not show his weakness. Instead, he raised his hammers towards the mountain peak.


    "Boom, boom, boom!"


    Zhou Bao vigorously hit the mountain peak nine times with his hammers. He stepped back because he did not find a good holding spot in the air. In spite of that, his strength just grew even more.


    The ferocious pneuma flooded to all directions in continuous beats. The Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty was the first victim. It had finally become a complete ruin and was razed to the ground. Most of the Youxian Temple''s disciples had already evacuated to their deep space-time. The others were unluckily bombarded to death.


    The battle also brought disaster to the practitioners who were just "seeing the fun". Among the practitioners who arrived at the Youxian Temple earlier, the first group was close to the Youxian Temple; the second group had high cultivation and the third group was formed by those who had high cultivation but were close to the temple at the same time. The last two groups did not suffer a great loss because they immediately ran away when seeing the catastrophic situation. However, the first group was unfortunate. They did not belong to the Youxian Temple and were not introduced into the Youxian Temple''s time and space, so fleeing away was not an option. Finally, they lost their lives within the violent pneuma.


    In an instant, corpses lied all over the Youxian Temple. This fairyland became a bloody battlefield in the blink of an eye.


    "Kill, kill, kill, kill¡ª!"


    The Youxian Taoist Temple''s host lost sanity and burned his life to the extreme. Tens of thousands of years worth of good life was almost completely extinguished. Only a ten-day life was left. Besides, he still believed that he could kill Zhou Bao with his Dharma power paying this huge cost.


    However, it was beyond his expectation that Zhou Bao could be such a tenacious person.


    He had thrown caution away, burned much of his life and controlled the mountain peak. Yet, he just gained a little bit fo the upper hand.


    He had no idea that Zhou Bao was letting him slightly win on purpose.


    This mountain peak had already gathered over 80% pneuma of the whole land. But Zhou Bao''s fist intent completely absorbed the power of a planet. In terms of the power, Zhou Bao''s was not behind of the mountain peak. Besides, Zhou Bao grasped the Heavenly Jade Technique. If he thoroughly launched it, he could destroy this pneuma mountain peak into pieces within five hits by his hammers. However, he chose not to do so.


    Under the mountain peak''s pressure, Zhou Bao retreated one step after another. However, he did not act like a loser at all. He pretended that he was trying to withstand.


    "Hehehe. Good. You deserve the sect of the bypassing ranks in the Three Western Regions. But how long can you hold on?" "One day, two days, three or ten days. I will see how long the way of burning life can help you!" Zhou Bao laughed wildly. The hammers in his hands, like the raindrops, smashed the mountain peak and broke up the Qi Power of the pneuma mountain peak drastically.


    "Zhou Bao, you''re right. Indeed, I can''t hold for a long time. But how about you?"


    "Well then. Let''s see who will be the winner!" Zhou Bao gave a brittle laugh. His hammers drew a flower. With a flash, he went to the top mountain peak again and fiercely hit it from above.


    "BOOM!"


    This time, the whole mountain nearly dropped to the ground.


    "Hahaha! How about it? I told you. I don''t need to spend much time on resisting you. You have time. But there''s not enough time for your Tang Empire!"


    In a crazy laughter, Zhou Bao cracked again. The mountain peak was closer to the ground.


    "You, you, you''re a bastard!" At this moment, the Youxian Temple''s host would really be a fool if he did not know Zhou Bao''s intention.


    He could hold on for ten days while the others could not.


    Their battle had already triggered a change inside the Tang Empire. It was a fight between the hammers and the mountain peak. The surroundings were being destroyed due to their fierce fight. That was also the reason why the Youxian Temple''s host prevented Zhou Bao from pounding the mountain peak to the ground. Once the pneuma mountain peak touched the ground and the earth vein, the pneuma would explode and then transform into an endless pneuma storm that could perfectly ruin the whole Tang Empire. That was not the most terrible thing though. Actually, even the whole land would suffer the unstable pneuma explosion, and the Seven-deity Regions would soon become the Six-deity Regions. From Zhou Bao''s behavior, he must have planned all this. The Tang Empire did not belong to the Four Eastern Regions and was not his foundation. However, the Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty was different. The foundation of the Youxian Temple located here. Although the temple could be rebuilt and the disciples could be fostered, the territory could not be constructed again. It had been 810,000 years since the antiquity times. Moreover, the profits had been already allocated. All the big sects had their own territory. Once one of them lost it, the sect had to occupy the other sects'' territory for its own survival. If it came to that, no matter how good the relationship was among the sects, they would be enemies if the territory occupation happened.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao did not fear at all, but the Youxian Temple did. Temporarily, the Youxian Temple thought they had Zhou Bao against the ropes. But in fact, it was him who controlled the whole situation.


    The Youxian Temple''s host was obviously affected by his realization. The movement of the pneuma mountain peak was not so flexible. Therefore, Zhou Bao took this opportunity to get a hold over the situation.


    "The Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty is just so-so. Like the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, it''s also the Apple of Sodom. I don''t need to fear them!" Zhou Bao was dominant now, so he laughed with great satisfaction.


    "Young guy. Don''t think you can dominate the world with your capability!"


    When Zhou Bao was in smug satisfaction, a voice came from the sky. A milk-white light emerged. Against the background of the light, the furious pneuma was softened. "The Three Western Regions is not your Four Eastern Regions. You won''t be allowed to do as you want!"


    "Fairy Pool Hunter?" Those in the Youxian Temple heard the voice. Several Patriarchs of high level all showed happy faces.


    "Fairy Pool Hunter? Shit. I''ve done so much work, and you come now to ruin it?" A sly and glad expression came into Zhou Bao''s eyes. However, his body stiffened.

 698 The Death of the Fairy Pool Hunter

    Hearing the Fairy Pool Hunter''s voice, Zhou Bao felt extreme excitement and joy.


    That was what he had been waiting for. He pretended to be a fool and carried his hammers to the Tang Empire to create a pandemonium there. What was the reason? Wasn''t he waiting for this moment?


    The Fairy Pool Hunter was the highest rank in the Three Western Regions. Zhou Bao must find him in order to kill him. But where could he search for him?


    The three Western Regions was a huge area where there were different influences. How could one find him by just looking around?


    Zhou Bao would not search for him in a stupid way. Instead, he decided to attack the Youxian Temple under the pretext that it had some plot going during his Thunder Tribulation experience. In this way, he acted as if he vowed to destroy the Youxian Temple. Of course, if the Fairy Pool Hunter did not lend a hand, Zhou Bao did not mind really ruining this bloody temple.


    To attract the Fairy Pool Hunter''s attention, Zhou Bao racked his brains. Firstly, he deliberately lowered his strength so that others would misunderstand that he, even though a strong person, could not completely destroy the Youxian Temple. Although his strength was formidable enough to threaten other people in this world, it was acceptable for the Fairy Pool Hunter. Secondly, he made such a great chaos to startle the whole Seven-deity Regions and even the Sea Area. Besides, he acted as if he could accidentally destroy the whole Divine Region when intentionally destroying the Tang Empire. He could change the Seven-deity Regions into the Six-deity Regions and the Three Western Regions into the Two Western Regions. He, therefore, forced the Fairy Pool Hunter to interfere. If he did not solve this thing or could not to do so and give an explanation to the world, how could he be qualified to be a Fate Creator?


    Zhou Bao willfully concealed his strength to let the Fairy Pool Hunter make believe he would destroy the land, which brought pressure: He had to intervene!


    That was Zhou Bao''s plan.


    Now everything proved that his plan was indeed very effective.


    The Fairy Pool Hunter finally showed up.


    A milk-white light covered the world. In the light, the pneuma mountain peak, which was gathered by the Youxian Temple host with the temple protection magic formation, was slowly disappearing. The Youxian Temple host also slowly disappeared in the milk-white light. The wild pneuma, the thunderbolt and lightning and the loud bangs which had emerged in the battle were also vanishing.


    It had been a dangerous situation, and it became calm and tranquil instantly.


    The situation changed so quickly that the Youxian Temple host did not even respond to it. However, after he had realized what was happening, the Fairy Pool Hunter had already helped. The Youxian Temple host had resisted the attack with a strong will. Now, after the Fairy Pool Hunter''s arrival, the milk-white light subdued everything. He became a savior to the Youxian Temple host. The host took a deep breath. At first, he burned his life to severely counterattack Zhou Bao and had only 10-day life left. However, he suddenly relaxed and dropped on the ground. For him, the Fairy Pool Hunter''s arrival may even hasten his death.


    Watching the figure walking from the white light, Zhou Bao slightly narrowed his eyes with an uncertain face. "Fairy Pool Hunter!"


    "Yes. That''s me!" It was strange that the Fairy Pool Hunter spoke each word with such a strong Dharma power. The voice was similar to thunder itself, showing his majesty. "King Wuyang Zhou Bao. This is the Three Western Regions, not your Central Mainland Region. Don''t cause any troubles. Last time, you caused troubles at the Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. I didn''t interfere with it because that sect was wrong. But I didn''t expect that you would ever cause trouble in the Youxian Temple !"


    "This time, the Youxian Temple is also wrong!" Zhou Bao said with his eyebrows raising. The voice revealed that he was not confident.


    "Hahaha. What a joke. The Youxian Temple is wrong? Even if it causes troubles for you, you just regard the Youxian Temple as your enemy. Why do you involve so many things in this? You want all the living creatures in this region to go down with you for your own hatred. You''re so vicious. You''re incurring the greatest popular indignation!"


    "Really? Vicious. Hehe. I''m indeed quite vicious. Fairy Pool Hunter. How can you deal with me? Do you think you can defeat me?"


    With a hammer slam at lightning speed, Zhou Bao suddenly stood up in front of the Fairy Pool Hunter.


    The Fairy Pool Hunter''s expression changed. Zhou Bao''s movement was like a thunderbolt. Even he was surprised because he also felt the inconceivable power in that hammer.


    "Stop!"


    The Fairy Pool Hunter was worthy of his position. As the master of the Immortal-burying Pool, he owned the Way of Heaven power to control the Three Western Regions. However, Zhou Bao wielded a mighty hit with his hammer, and The Fairy Pool Hunter could not resist the attack unless he exerted the Way of Heaven power.


    As expected, the hammer stopped after his loud shout.


    However, the second hit actually connected.


    "BOOM!"


    This time, the hammer fell on his head.


    With a bang, the Fairy Pool Hunter''s head was crushed. He did not have a chance to fight back. However, Zhou Bao did not feel lucky. He presented a gloomy expression.


    "Is it a phantom or an incarnation?"


    "Good, good! King Wuyang, you are indeed true to your name. Your impressive strength is really rare. You just broke down my incarnation in a moment. Amazing! Excellent!"


    The Fairy Pool Hunter''s voice came from around. At the same time, space also changed slightly. Momentarily, Zhou Bao was dragged into an unknown time and space by a mystical power.


    "It seems I have to spend a lot of energy to deal with the King Wuyang. The Youxian Temple is not a suitable place!"


    "Yeah. The Youxian Temple is not the right place. Actually, the whole Heaven Realm World is also not a good place either. But you dragged me into this space-time maze. Your real body is not here. What do you want to do?"


    "Nothing. I just want to have a talk with you. We don''t have any deep hatred. Why do you fight so violently for other people''s things?"


    "Not the other''s. It''s my thing!" Zhou Bao smiled gently. "Fate Creation Boy has goods on me. If I don''t support him, I won''t have good days. So, for the sake of my good days, Fairy Pool Hunter, go to the hell!"


    "BOOM!"


    An invisible airflow exploded around Zhou Bao. The space-time maze where he stood burst into pieces. The space-time storm swept towards him. However, in Zhou Bao''s eyes, that was a really small thing.


    A giant and grim figure appeared behind him and integrated with his body.


    "This is¡ª"


    "Fairy Pool Hunter. You control the Immortal-burying Pool. But your strength is equal to a common Human Immortal. Even if you have additional Way of Heaven power in the Three Western Regions, you are no match to me!" Zhou Bao laughed loudly.


    "What?"


    Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, the Fairy Pool Hunter instinctively had a bad feeling. However, he could not clearly predict what would happen.


    He dominated the Immortal-burying Pool and the Way of Heaven in the Three Western Regions. After all, he was not a Fate Creator, so he could not govern the whole macro world as a Fate Creator did. For him, he just had a little bit Power of Fate which gave him a great advantage when meeting ordinary practitioners. However, in the face of a competitive Controller like Zhou Bao, his understanding of the creation was a joke.


    Generally speaking, the Fairy Pool Hunter was currently in the lead. It was his territory and he also possessed part of the Fairy Weapon of Fate. The milk-white light was the strong Way of Heaven power that was given out from the Immortal-burying Pool.


    In the vast Way of Heaven, Zhou Bao kept calm. Although the Power of Fate was strong, it was within his understanding. The terrible energy flooded towards him. His figure was like a boat in the surge. He always dodged the attack in the important moments and counterattacked skillfully. Each counterattack reached to the Fairy Pool Hunter''s weakest defense, which made him very uncomfortable.


    "Who on earth are you?" After several rounds. Fairy Pool Hunter, who was just slow in reacting, felt that something went wrong. In the Three Western Regions, his Power of Fate failed to conquer the man before him, which was a truly weird situation.


    At this time, Zhou Bao had already transformed into the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan. His Fiery Eyes also became bloody scarlet. The snow-white hair stood on end like steel needles. The two hammers also became bigger with his body changing. Zhou Bao used the hammers and a green space formed around them.


    "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"


    The crack and blast happening during the bombardments and explosions changed. They were the explosion of the Dharma, which was shaking the Three Western Regions'' foundation. each of Zhou Bao''s attacks exactly crushed the Law of Heaven and Earth and the root of the Great Ways. Subsequently, some eccentric changes also started to appear in the Three Western Regions. The sky became either red or yellow. The strangest thing was that the fish swimming in the rivers suddenly jumped out and flew into the sky. Besides, some animals which could not swim went to the river and strangely swam.


    A dwelling suddenly caught fire. The dwellers carried the buckets to put out the fire. However, the water was like the oil. It did not extinguish the fire but made it stronger. Such strange things started happening everywhere in the Three Western Regions. The Tang Empire was not an exception. Numerous places suffered from the destruction. In a short time, the whole Three Western Regions fell into a chaos. Only the Fifth Manor at the Longevity Mountain was not influenced.


    "Hehe. Interesting. Qing Feng. The Three Western Regions is in a complete mess. How about going out to have a look? What do you think?" Inside the Fifth Manor, Ming Yue, who was sweeping the floor, seemed to be aware of something and suddenly said that to Qing Feng.


    "Give up your idea! It''s meaningless now. We Fifth Manor should not intervene. Otherwise, we can''t explain to the Old Master if something happens!" Qing Feng shook his head and took a look at Ming Yue. "As I say, you just stay here!"


    "Alas. So troublesome!" Ming Yue sighed and continued to sweep, head lowered.


    Boom!


    All of a sudden, a loud thunderbolt came from the sky. Now Zhou Bao was far superior. The power of the Dharma and Great Ways, as well as the Power of Fate, could not resist the absolute power emitted by his big hammers.


    POWER! This was really absolute power!


    BOOM! CRACK!


    With two bangs, Zhou Bao''s twin hammers hit the Immortal-burying Pool. The cold Qi of the Icy Divine Light froze the Dharma water in the Immortal-burying Pool at once. And the mighty power broke the icy Dharma water in the Immortal-burying Pool into pieces, splashing in all directions.


    Puff¡ª!


    The Fairy Pool Hunter spat blood after his mind had been severely hurt and his body flew out like a decayed leave.

 699 The First Light of the Tree of Seven Wonders

    The body fell slowly, fluttering to the ground like a dead leaf.


    As it fell, a strange light flashed momentarily. A milky white brilliance filled the sky and disappeared; it condensed into a suspended pool of water and emitted a faint light.


    Zhou Bao had made a critical strike with his hammer, the Heavenly Jade Technique, and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. Of course, this was not the main issue. The main issue was that his Mysterious Icy Divine Light was making use of the Seven Wonderful Techniques and it made a fantastic change. He was skilled at four of the Seven Wonderful Techniques: the Heavenly Jade Technique, the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, and the Immortal Body Technique.


    For the longest time, only the Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill could complement each other. They could be used together to create an incredible power. Up to now, Zhou Bao used this force to score his critical hits. But after he practiced the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, Zhou Bao had hoped that it would create a reaction with the other two techniques. But it became clear that this Dharma Power-restoring Skill just worked parallel to the other two beams of light and they could not be combined. So Zhou Bao''s dream went unfulfilled.


    But after he received the Immortal Body Technique, he discovered that this technique and the Dharma Power-restoring Skill greatly complimented each other, and when combined they created a mysterious effect. Of course, the combined results of these two skills were about the same as Zhou Bao''s own power and was no match for the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. None of its skills were visible from the outside. It just had a powerful effect in addition to helping the body to recuperate and for the pneuma to recover.


    This additional skill, used alongside the characteristics of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan and Zhou Bao''s own strength, created a power he could really depend upon, namely the ability to immediately recover with the Dharma power recovery speed. It was of course not an instant recovery but similar to his former life when he would cheat while playing Diablo, carrying a small N-shaped amulet that defied natural order. But he did not need to worry that his Dharma power was not enough, it was extremely powerful. He also did not need to be concerned that it was too big a move, because it could clear all the Dharma power at once.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao had superhuman endurance. It was enough to endure a ten-day battle with a Youxian Temple master, even up to a hundred-day battle. It really made a big difference.


    There was actually too much advantage from combining the Dharma Power-restoring Skill and the Immortal Body Technique. Of course, Zhou Bao needed to keep this benefit to himself, and indeed only he knew about it. He kept quiet about this huge advantage. Originally, Zhou Bao thought that when the Dharma Power-restoring Skill and Immortal Body Technique were combined, the advantages would be the instant recovery process for both the inner-body and Dharma power. But he never imagined that after the intense contest with the Fairy Pool Hunter, he had the ability to operate all four of the skills at the same time. It was just his way of making quick breakthroughs and overcoming obstacles. After he struck the Fairy Pool Hunter, that killing urge turned into a strong belief that was concentrated on his hammer. The four Seven Wonderful Techniques finally infused into one to become a blue light.


    This blue light was very strange and mysterious as it contained all the mysticism of the world and the universe. It contained all the knowledge and had a wide mastery of everything. As his hammer struck, this light instantly shattered the Way of Heaven force, Dharma force, and the Power of Fate surrounding the Fairy Pool Hunter. Zhou Bao''s big hammer was indeed a sturdy weapon.


    Of course, this was not the most important thing. The Fairy Pool Hunter was the one who had mastered the use of the Immortal-burying Pool. Even though Zhou Bao had shattered him to pieces, it was highly possible and not at all odd if he had made a quick recovery on the spot.


    Perhaps all of this would have happened before the blue light was produced.


    However, once the blue light burst into view, not only did it shatter the Power of Fate that the Fairy Pool Hunter relied upon, into oblivion, but it also stripped him of his right to control the Immortal-burying Pool. He had already refined this Immortal-burying Pool and infused into it his own spirit brand. But when he lost the controlling rights over it, it returned to its original state.


    This time it created more trouble for him. He had just stepped into the Realm of Human Immortal, and had gained his influence with the help of the Immortal-burying Pool. He cheated his way through his tribulation, so how would he ever be able to withstand Zhou Bao''s hammer? He had been so dependent on the Immortal-burying Pool that when it was gone, there was nothing else he could do.


    And so, he was swiftly beaten by Zhou Bao and his hammer.


    He really took a pounding!


    His spirit and brand were erased from the Immortal-burying Pool. His spirit suffered heavy losses. A mere Human Immortal had no way of withstanding Zhou Bao''s psycho power and hammer. In one blow, not only did it cause his external body to dissipate from the Power of Fate, but it also created a passive protection and was completely intact. The interior body was completely smashed by the immense power of the strike. All of his organs, blood vessels, and even his skeleton were obliterated. The only part of his body that was left was a layer of skin that drifted to the ground like a withered leaf floating in the wind. This layer of skin falling to the ground was the only thing left to show the people of that world that this person had once existed.


    The space around him was completely shattered but in the next moment it regenerated. However, it was no longer lost in the midst of time, but returned to the current world. The layer of skin landed, and hung on the broken wall surrounding Youxian Temple, fluttering eerily in the wind.


    His soul had disappeared without a trace under the absolute power of the blue light.


    "Is that the Immortal-burying Pool? It is! Since the guy is already dead, does that mean it is mine?" Zhou Bao breathed deeply, after losing his ability to recall the feelings he had when the blue light appeared and lifted his head to look at the Immortal-burying Pool in the sky. He reached out a finger, and the Immortal-burying Pool rotated, and spinning slowly, became smaller and smaller. It moved towards his fingertip and formed a water droplet which he absorbed.


    "Great, even if I didn''t have a hammer, I would still be qualified to be a Fate Creator!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly as he scanned the surroundings of Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty. His sweeping gaze was like an essence that made anyone who sensed it fall silent. His heart fluttered. As Zhou Bao had defeated the Youxian Temple master a long time ago, no one would dare say no. There was no resistance whatsoever.


    They were not fools. Even though they had not seen the confrontation between Zhou Bao and the Fairy Pool Hunter, Zhou Bao had killed him in a very short time. Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty could not withstand this sort of power at all, and because of this, some of the old foxes there secretly came up with an idea.


    What Zhou Bao said next confirmed that their idea was a good one.


    "Haha, today my luck is actually quite good! So many men have died, so I don''t want to kill anymore. Today I will spare Youxian Temple. You will avoid death but will still be punished. There is also Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain who, in vain, attempted to execute some treacherous deeds while I was crossing the Thunder Tribulation. They must confess to this action. I am a benevolent man, but if I let them get away with this, then who else would keep an eye on certain people around me?


    "Well, I don''t know how King Wuyang wants it!" The Youxian Temple master had only ten days left to live. He muttered to himself for a long time and finally sighed. Trembling, he stood up and asked Zhou Bao.


    "It''s not a case of how I want it, but a case of what you should do!" Zhou Bao smiled faintly and said, "I have always been a very forgiving man. If I am satisfied with what you do, of course, I would not look into it." Then, bearing a fierce expression, he raised his hand, which made the Youxian Temple master''s heart pound furiously. It felt like it was smashing the space in front of him and exposing one corner of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. "What about Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain? This is the second time they''ve caused you trouble. However, I''m not willing to do anything about it, but you should do as you see fit."


    He spoke quietly, but they were words that would cause turmoil for Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. Right now Zhou Bao was fierce and formidable. He had swept across the Heaven Realm and killed the Fairy Pool Hunter. This was a power no ordinary person could contend with, and only a fool would confront him now. So, after a while, from within Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain there came a sigh. "Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain cannot let King Wuyang down!"


    "I should hope so!" Zhou Bao looked momentarily pleased with himself as he smiled. Is this what Sun Tzu meant by subduing the enemy without fighting?


    After hearing Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain''s reply, Zhou Bao just smiled. His intention had been to lure the Fairy Pool Hunter out and then kill him at any cost. It did not take nearly as much effort as he had thought was needed to kill him; he did not even use half of his power. He achieved what he wanted by a sheer fluke, was there anything better than that?


    He also had the Immortal-burying Pool in his hands. Although it was only a part of the Fairy Weapon of Fate, it was a very well-refined part. But the Fairy Weapons of Fate of the hegemonic Entire Heaven World had within them a profound meaning, a secret. After enlightenment, they could help him tremendously in perfecting his own Azure Big World. This made him cheerful, and he was unconcerned about other things. He was unwilling to contend with others, and the Seven-deity Regions were certainly not foolish enough to challenge him. As for the Sea Area and the Sea Emperor, haha, the Fairy Pool Hunter was dead already. His father-in-law did not have that much of an advantage. The Vast Sea Emperor himself could not become a Fate Creator. Therefore, even if looking on in despair was of no use, he knew the most important thing was that once the Immortal-burying Pool and the Golden Book of Fate were united, it could create an absolute restraint on the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. When the time came he would make a few advantageous concessions, have a few discussions, and things would be fixed.


    "So, nothing much has to be done about this so-called Fate Creator. Things would be settled after having a discussion with a few people. What''s the point of doing a lot about it?", he pondered silently as he slowly disappeared into the horizon. All that was left were ruins as far as the eye could see.

 700 The War Dead and the Counterattack

    "What, Wang She went to stir up trouble at Divine Wind Palace? He created a fracas at Divine Wind Palace and finished off Lu Shaoyou on the spot?"


    Zhou Bao received this message as soon as he returned to Wuyang Region. He was stunned.


    He really had not foreseen that Wang She would suddenly go berserk. The most important thing was that this guy had the same ideas as Zhou Bao, and that was to plan a treacherous scheme when he was crossing the tribulation in a secret place.


    He took advantage of others who were plotting treacherous schemes while he was undergoing the tribulation. Among practitioners, this was considered the most malicious of techniques, and the most feared. Therefore, if a practitioner used this type of scheme to get back at someone, not even their friends would consider helping them out. Not that Divine Wind Palace had any friends, anyway.


    Wang She had made use of this good opportunity and swung into action at the same time as Zhou Bao. Although the power that Wang She demonstrated was not as extreme as Zhou Bao''s, he still managed to kill three Human Immortals who were hiding in the depths of spacetime. He had severely injured Yu Taixuan, and with the Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth''s enormous body, almost destroyed the entire Divine Wind Palace. Also, in front of his father, The Man of Honor Ji Zhongtang, he completely annihilated Lu Shaoyou who, by then, had already entered the Venerable Realm. There was no chance of his recovery. Finally, when an indignant Yu Taixuan launched the Golden Book of Fate to bring him down, Wang She had walked away, howling with laughter, and now the once mighty super-sect of the Four Eastern Regions was completely incapacitated. At first, everyone thought that only Zhou Bao was capable of performing such impressive feats, but actually, it had all been done by Wang She.


    In this battle, Wang She showed a combat capability comparable to that of the Immortal Level. The enormous body of the Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth, as well as the terrible power of the roc Real Body he had demonstrated, swallowing and spitting out the whole world, could not be rivaled by anyone in Divine Wind Palace. The pneuma taken in by the impervious fairy weapon of the Giant Demon of Heaven and Earth''s body, the Primordial Fierce Beast, and the roc Real Body, had totally destroyed Divine Wind Palace''s protective magic formation. There was no man in Divine Wind Palace who could match his power and combat capability on a one-on-one basis. In the Heaven Realm World, only Zhou Bao was a match for him.


    Of course, everybody in the world knew, the terrible fact was that Zhou Bao and Wang She were the best of friends.


    Each of their individual strength was enough to sweep across the Heaven Realm, what more if they combined forces?


    The mere thought of it made one afraid.


    Everyone knew that nobody could deal with these two men, except perhaps the enigmatic Sea Emperor and the mysterious master of Longevity Mountain Fifth Manor.


    The Longevity Mountain Fifth Manor kept themselves aloof from such matters. But the Sea Emperor, haha, would this guy take care of the problems in the Seven-deity Regions? Would he come and contend with Zhou Bao and Wang She?


    What a joke!


    Therefore, the super-sects in the Seven-deity Regions felt very helpless. Each party with power, tacitly acknowledged that, unless they left, no matter what they did, they could do nothing to control these two guys.


    But among these supreme influencers there existed something special, the Immortal Palace.


    Wang She was one of the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace. Zhou Bao was not only one of the 28 constellations, but also one of the Four Signs. The two men had very close connections with Immortal Palace. To begin with, the power of Immortal Palace increased due to these connections; however, Immortal Palace did not use this to expand their own power. Instead, their power decreased, making the situation even more mysterious. Of course, they were not completely uninvolved with what the two guys were doing and that was messing up everything in the world. In fact, they announced to the outside world that these two guys represented the palace''s own attitudes; that their ideas were the palace''s own ideas. It may seem to be a trifling matter to let the two guys practically decide on Immortal Palace''s attitudes, but those who clearly understood the situation were less than supportive of Immortal Palace''s schemes and ideas.


    Soon, Zhou Bao and Wang She would be beyond control. Even though they belonged to Immortal Palace, if they were in any way dissatisfied with any decision the palace made, they could refuse to go along with it. If they expressed a different view, Immortal Palace would greatly lose face. The palace could not use their influence in its relationship with these two great experts. But since Zhou Bao and Wang She came from Immortal Palace, surely they would not deliberately work against the interests of the palace, right? Or supposing they did at some point in time, go against the interests of the Immortal Palace in some way, with their strength would they not make up for the harm? The Immortal Palace did not need to worry about any conflicts of interest.


    If this type of situation had happened in other sects, even though it may not harm their interests, it would not look good to outsiders. But Immortal Palace was a special case. Basically, their attitude was that they were raising their experts liberally and they would usually not get involved in their affairs. This meant that this type of situation not only did not harm Immortal Palace''s reputation, but also served to highlight the palace''s open-handedness. Their freedom and respect for the experts'' attitudes attracted many independent practitioners. Therefore, after a time, one by one, many outstanding and strong independent practitioners who understood the Heaven Realm World, joined forces with Immortal Palace, and the palace''s strength greatly increased. Despite this, the palace kept a very low profile when carrying out their activities, meaning that others had no grasp of their true power. Of course, all this will be discussed later.


    "This Wang She guy is not a fool. He took this opportunity to reveal his strength and intimidate the Heaven Realm World. Quite commendable!" Zhou Bao said, swallowing a mouthful of tea in a pavilion at the peak of Jilei Mountain. He had an odd smile. "What about the man in the blood-stained robe? After he came back and heard news of the Fairy Pool Hunter''s death, we didn''t know if he would go crazy. Haha, it was a total shock to the Fiery Eyes family. Revitalizing a bloodline is not as simple as you would think!"


    Zhou Bao actually appreciated this Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven who was from his own family, and his courage and confidence in revitalizing the Fiery Eyes bloodline and his perseverance for so many years. But he was not comparable to Zhou Bao, and Zhou Bao did not approve of his approach.


    Radical, it was too radical, as well as too high-profile.


    His behavior would only make the Fiery Eyes family the target of attacks from all sides and be pushed aside by others. It would finally lose power or even disappear. He would put the Fiery Eyes family back onto the path to oblivion.


    Zhou Bao had investigated and exposed what had happened when the Fiery Eyes family nearly went extinct several thousand years ago.


    It all originated from their mysterious eyeballs. Their powers were too effective. The most annoying thing was that they could have been refined to a Supreme Class Celestial Device, Pure Yang Celestial Device, External Elixir, or even a fairy weapon.


    But this would cause their downfall as it attracted the envy of others.


    It was as if they were evil beasts. The Demon tribes back then were actually not cruel, but because humankind took a liking for their very effective demon elixir, they would kill the demons to extract it. Even now, they were killing demons in no small amount for their elixir. How could the Heaven Realm World become so poor? It was not because they had plundered all kinds of resources. The Eternal Eyes were also a resource for the Fiery Eyes family, and a very useful resource. How could the other clans not covet them?


    Not only were the Eternal Eyes a thing of envy, but they also defied the natural order due to their efficacy. Practitioners with the power of the Fiery Eyes often challenged the bypassing ranks, and it made them particularly arrogant. They would often use their red eyes to pick a fight just to show that the other person was inferior to them. I am the face of the noble Fiery Eyes family, is there anyone who can withstand me? Also, the commander of the Fiery Eyes family at that time was power crazy. He wanted to become a Human Emperor candidate, and take over a seat at Divine Wind Palace and control the Seven-deity Regions. This obviously drew repercussions from the all of the super-sects.


    Rome was not built in a day. It took many years of experiencing this type of behavior before the eyes attracted people''s envy and gave them a sense of crisis. They had ambitions far beyond their strengths, and this caused the downfall of the Fiery Eyes family. This once outstanding and mighty tribe of the Seven-deity Regions was annihilated overnight.


    Very few survived. Zhou Bao was one of them, and the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven was another. Only, Zhou Bao and the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven were totally different. The Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven was taught from a young age how to revitalize the Fiery Eyes family and to make the family one of the noblest tribes of the Seven-deity Regions; to become royalty and to rule over all the land. But Zhou Bao was simply not interested in this bloodline, and did not consider it a noble bloodline at all. He was also aware of the greed of others, and of how terrible the outcome could be due to jealousy. Therefore, he always hid his power and quietly became rich. In his mind, even if his fellow clan members were to rule the world, they could not hide their secrets, abilities, and defiance of the natural order, or prevent other family members from revealing them the outside world. Only by creating a terrifying sense of mystery could they survive in the long term.


    Therefore, in the end, Zhou Bao held the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven in contempt for his actions. They were the actions of an inexperienced fool, who had not learned the lessons of his predecessors. Zhou Bao was not willing to cooperate with him, and they went their separate ways.


    It was only now since he had killed the Fairy Pool Hunter that he had no choice but to consider how the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven would react. He was not in the least bothered even if the guy revealed to the world about how Zhou Bao had the Fiery Eyes bloodline. But if this information did leak out, he would have to use the thunderbolt method to uproot Divine Wind Palace. Only in this way could he intimidate everyone and make it known that he, Zhou Bao, would use the Fiery Eyes method. But this would cause Divine Wind Palace to push ahead and change their disaster plans.


    Having undergone the massacre at Wang She''s hands, Divine Wind Palace no longer had the power to avoid disaster. But, after all, they had had the Golden Book of Fate for many years, and Divine Wind Palace had some hidden powers and bluffs that other sects did not. Therefore, Zhou Bao was not willing to uproot them without first milking them of all their remaining value!

 701 The Fate Creation Boy Returns to his Position, Endless Spacetime Changes

    Within three days everything had settled down. All the rumors about the Fiery Eyes did not come to light, but on the fourth day after Zhou Bao had killed the Fairy Pool Hunter, the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven came, unannounced, to Wuyang Region. Sporting an agitated expression, he had an in-depth discussion with Zhou Bao, but they ended up leaving on bad terms.


    Things had turned sour, and there was nothing more to be discussed.


    Because of Zhou Bao''s strength, the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven made a concession, and promised that he would never reveal Zhou Bao''s Fiery Eyes bloodline to anyone. But he also proposed that he would like to choose from one of Zhou Bao''s clansmen, and teach them to restart the bloodline and continue his legacy. Zhou Bao had no objection to that; he only stipulated a condition that this clansman would not practice the Way of the Emperor.


    The Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven was not happy to accept this condition. However, he was of a weaker standing, and he clearly understood the situation which involved the Fairy Pool Hunter whom Zhou Bao had effortlessly gotten rid of. This meant that Zhou Bao''s combat capability was above that of a Human Immortal, and was comparable to that of an Immortal. There was also the power that Wang She displayed when he nearly overturned Divine Wind Palace. So even though he was not comfortable with it, he had no choice but to agree. Once the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven accepted his condition, Zhou Bao naturally allowed him to proceed. Apart from his two children, he allowed the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven to choose whoever he wanted from among his clansmen. He finally chose a boy from a collateral branch of the Zhou family and took him away.


    Zhou Bao thought that this boy''s aptitude was nothing special, but after his bloodline was restarted, the boy would astonish Zhou Bao with his capabilities. This boy, Zhou Haifeng, possessed the Emperor Wheel Fiery Eyes, just like the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven.


    He was forced to admit that the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven had remarkable foresight.


    The Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven stayed with Zhou Bao in Wuyang Region for ten days. During these ten days, Zhou Bao could safely say that he had uncovered some of the Fiery Eyes family''s deepest secrets. Of course, the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven had no desire to hide these secrets.


    Realizing that Zhou Bao''s combat capability far exceeded his expectations, his desire to confront him grew weaker. But now that he had a disciple with the Emperor Wheel Fiery Eyes, he was satisfied. Zhou Bao had also assured him that as long as the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven did not interfere in his interests, he would not interfere in his. His promise was enough.


    Zhou Bao''s influence encompassed the Four Eastern Regions, more precisely the western part of the Central Mainland Region. It was clear that this guy with a fearsome combat capability was not overly ambitious, otherwise, he would not have spent so many years cloistered within Wuyang Region. But he was already satisfied with his influence in the Three Western Regions. Zhou Bao had destroyed Youxian Temple in the Tang Empire, and in the Tang Empire there was inevitably a power vacuum. Evil forces got to work, and he took advantage and established his own influence there. He had no way of interfering with the Fate Creator, and his preparation for his goal of revitalizing the Fiery Eyes family.


    Once Zhou Bao had killed the Fairy Pool Hunter and the news spread that he had obtained the Immortal-burying Pool, everybody knew that they had no right to say anything regarding the Fate Creator''s candidacy. Zhou Bao had the right to choose, and there was only one man qualified to negotiate with him, namely the Sea Emperor.


    Other men could only watch the situation develop, and had no choice but to accept.


    "Now there is only the Ranking of Demons and Immortals left!"


    When he saw Zhou Bao on Taihua Mountain throwing the Immortal-burying Pool around in front of him like he was throwing away trash, Fate Creation Boy''s eyes flashed with an irrepressible joy.


    For so many years he had been the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate. But he had never taken the Fairy Weapon of Fate seriously once it was divided into three parts. His body strength relied on the Fairy Weapon of Fate, and after he lost it, he grew weaker day by day. He was afraid that if it weren''t for the fact that the Fairy Weapon of Fate still existed in this macro world, he would have disappeared long ago. Now, Zhou Bao would be bringing one of the three parts of the Fairy Weapon of Fate, which would be a huge advantage for him.


    The Immortal-burying Pool had already turned into a droplet. He watched Zhou Bao pointing his finger, moving the pool by his feet and then turning it into a lotus flower seat. Fate Creation Boy crossed his legs and his body started to change visibly.


    "Is this the power of the Guardian?" Formless ripples emanated from Fate Creation Boy''s body. They did not disperse far, only within thirty feet and formed a lotus-shaped shield. At this point Zhou Bao could clearly see Fate Creation Boy and understood that the boy was completely protected by the lotus-shaped shield. If he wanted to attack his body, he would have to first destroy the invisible lotus flower surrounding him. However, in this Heaven Realm World, the only person who could do this, apart from Zhou Bao, was the Celestial Emperor of the Sea Area.


    "Okay, that''s really good. With the Immortal-burying Pool, I can make a few adjustments to the Dharma of the Heaven Realm World. At least now I can prohibit all Lords of Heaven from openly letting Ghost Immortals enter the Heaven Realm World. The Lords of Heaven who have already entered the Heaven Realm World will now have to show me their true appearance!"


    As he was speaking, his body floated and he held a lotus in his hands. Milky white lotus flowers were forming around him, breaking through the open spacetime. He started to repair the holes in the Dharma of the Heaven Realm World. As he moved, the endless spacetime around the Heaven Realm World changed.


    For Zhou Bao, the endless spacetime surrounding the Heaven Realm World had always been in a disordered and chaotic state. But this state made it difficult to leave once somebody had entered it. But a guy with Zhou Bao''s combat capability only had to rely on brute force as it would not be difficult to break open a path.


    However, as the milky white lotus flowers disappeared, with his Divine Awareness Zhou Bao clearly sensed the endless spacetime around the Heaven Realm World starting to exhibit regularity.


    It was very regular, as it seemed to faintly coalesce into an immeasurably huge formation map. But this formation map was evidently incomplete. But with the power that the endless spacetime originally did not have, at least it was not possible for someone to enter the Heaven Realm World by brute force alone.


    The most important thing was that Zhou Bao was sensing an increasingly sensitive telepathic connection from the Power of Fate of the Heaven Realm World to the Ghost Immortals of the Lord of Heaven Realm. It directed the power particularly towards the practitioners of the Lords of Heaven Realm. Zhou Bao could also sense the Power of Fate of the Heaven Realm World and the power of the Dharma faintly linking up with the depths of the endless hollow, to the point that he could invoke the Void Thunder Tribulation.


    These practicing Lords of Heaven Realm who were focused on receiving the Power of Fate had to be careful not to provoke Fate Creation Boy. If they annoyed Fate Creation Boy, he could communicate with the Void Immortal Realm at any time, and invoke the Void Thunder Tribulation.


    "Is this the ability of the Fate Creator? Was this the trump card that gave him the assurance and confidence in blocking the Lords of Heaven from entering the Heaven Realm World?"


    Even if the Lords of Heaven were powerless when faced with the Void Thunder Tribulation, Zhou Bao had experienced its power personally. Of course, the Void Thunder Tribulation he faced was different from the ones the others had faced, but the Lords of Heaven could not even withstand the power of the Thunder Tribulation that Wang She had faced. And what if Fate Creation Boy ordained that the Lords of Heaven should face the Void Thunder Tribulation not once, but several times? These were, just regular Lords of Heaven. It would be presumptuous of them to think they could become like Wang She.


    Of course, if you had the ability to hide your spirit and enter the Heaven Realm World and remain undiscovered by the Power of Fate, there would be no problem. However, only very few Lords of Heaven had this capability. They could do it if they had Zhou Bao''s Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, but what if in the endless hollow there were several who could understand these mysterious Seven Wonderful Techniques?


    "This is only one third of the Fairy Weapon of Fate, if you obtain the other two thirds then nobody would be able to contend with the Heaven Realm World!"


    "My current strength is only that of a peak Immortal, I have not arrived at the realm of Earthly Immortal. With help from the power of the Immortal-burying Pool, I can just about deploy the strength of an Earthly Immortal. So I am a bit stronger than you!" He looked at Zhou Bao. "However, if you were to use the Supreme Fairy Weapon, I could only give way in the face of your superior strength!"


    "I think the endless spacetime of the Heaven Realm World is in operation now. It seems to have its own regularity. This is how matters stand, the Azure Big World is now...!"


    "The Azure Big World is a newly-formed macro world. The living creatures inside cannot be compared to those in the Heaven Realm World. And the Azure Big World is far from being a naturally nascent macro world. The space-time maze naturally cannot be compared to the Heaven Realm World; the endless spacetime surrounding the Heaven Realm World has been adjusted by the mighty as early as the ancient deities and primitive times. Otherwise, how do you think this Heaven Realm World could have become the head of the Entire Heaven World, the first macro world?"


    Hearing about the Entire Heaven World, the first macro world, Fate Creation Boy smiled bitterly. "If your Azure Big World resembles the Heaven Realm World, then doing this would naturally be easy, but with you as the Fate Creator of the macro world, I fear it would be quite difficult!"


    "The slave bullies the master!" Seeing how distressed Fate Creation Boy was, Zhou Bao understood and laughed mischievously.


    "In fact, you don''t need to worry too much. Your Azure Big World has just been formed and is nowhere near completion. You just need enough time, and the spacetime around the Azure Big World will create a natural magic formation. This is the first formation, the fundamental magic formation of the macro world space-time maze. Once this fundamental magic formation is created, it will be possible to adjust the space-time maze of the macro world and change it according to your wishes. If the fundamental magic transformation is not created, then it would be difficult to adjust the endless spacetime, which would not be ideal."


    "If this is how it is, then it seems I do not have to worry too much!"


    "No. Having the endless spacetime of a macro world naturally create a magic formation is the highest priority, because every macro world has different properties. The properties hiding in the depths of the world are evolving, you have to respect them and allow them to generate naturally, that is the best way!"

 702 The Seven Wonderful Techniques are Born, The Flipping Sky Seal is Formed

    "So, for a macro world, endless spacetime is actually the biggest guarantee!"


    "Yes, exactly. The Fairy Weapon of Fate is the core controlling the endless spacetime of the macro worlds. Controlling the Fairy Weapon of Fate is akin to controlling the boundless changes of the endless spacetime. It is even possible to make the spacetime create one micro world after another, each with its own distinctive characteristics. In primitive times, some Fate Creators even took advantage of these characteristics to divide one macro world into a million individual micro worlds. All that remained were tiny interconnected passageways, just like a kaleidoscope!"


    "Is it okay to do that?"


    "It''s not a case of being ''okay'' or not, everyone has their own ideas, just take the Fate Creator!" Fate Creation Boy smiled slightly. Having obtained the Immortal-burying Pool, he had visibly regained the self-confidence he had before, and appeared to be much more satisfied. "Now that I have obtained the Immortal-burying Pool, it''s time to take back the Golden Book of Fate!"


    "Do you not need my help for that?"


    "No, I don''t!", the Fate Creation Boy said, laughing. "I don''t need your help with everything! But, I''m afraid I will need you to help with the Ranking of Demons and Immortals situation."


    "You know, I don''t want to have any dealings with the Vast Sea Emperor!" Zhou Bao looked at the Fate Creation Boy again. "Furthermore, I think that after getting the two parts of the Fairy Weapon of Fate, getting the Ranking of Demons and Immortals would be no trouble at all for you, even if the Vast Sea Emperor should be prejudiced against you!"


    "You''re right. I''ve got the two parts of the Fairy Weapon of Fate, and I will master the rights to control the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. Even if the Vast Sea Emperor is stronger, and I must admit that he is, I can still successfully get hold of the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. But there will be a lot of problems with that!"


    "What kind of problems?"


    "My relationship with the Vast Sea Emperor will deteriorate, and as far as I''m concerned, that is not a good thing! If a Fate Creator and an Earthly Immortal should fall out, it is often the Fate Creator who eventually loses out!"


    "I don''t want to have anything to do with the Vast Sea Emperor. You know this very well!"


    "Yes, I understand, but I don''t think the Vast Sea Emperor would be prejudiced against you. He could even offer you some advantages. For him, the Ranking of Demons and Immortals is of no value, you just need to promise that after reassembling the Fairy Weapon of Fate, the structure of the Heaven Realm World will not change a bit. It will stay as it was before, and everything will be fine!"


    "Why would he want to help me?"


    "Why would I want to help you?" Fate Creation Boy gave a mysterious smile. "Old guys like us are somewhat restricted, especially ancient entities such as Earthly Immortals. There are some things which you should not intervene and there are some things which you cannot intervene. Sometimes intervention is out of the question!"


    "What you are saying is that he has something he wants me to help him with?"


    "That''s right. He certainly wants your help, maybe he hopes you can get him out of trouble!" The Fate Creation Boy smiled. "Also, I think you need him, too!"


    "What do you mean?"


    "Although your current combat capability is incredibly strong, you are still only in the realm of Human Immortal, and you are just starting to enter this realm. You need to know that the Human Immortal phase has a total of nine stages. You are at the first stage, having just entered the phase. The remaining eight stages can each be summarised in one word. Three stages involve Gatherings of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint, and five stages involve Collecting Qis in Mind. In each stage of this phase, the strength and comprehension of the phase is different. The strength of each stage is relative to that of the last, and the chasm between each stage is difficult to cross." He gave Zhou Bao a strange look. "Of course, for this you have the Supreme Fairy Weapon and the Zhuyan bloodline. According to the Icy Divine Light guys, crossing this chasm is not difficult, but having more strength is always a good thing, right?"


    "The Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint, the Five Qis Collecting in Mind, what are all these?"


    "For the first one, its simply these three flowers: Essence, Qi, and Spirit. The Five Qis are your Five Qis in the Chest. For this, you have a huge advantage over other human immortals, because you can understand the Seven Wonderful Techniques. These Seven Wonderful Techniques are very mysterious, particularly the Immortal Body Techniques, the Dharma Power-restoring Skill and the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill which correspond to the flowers of Essence, Qi, and Spirit accordingly. If you can master the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill, then you can absorb the essence of the Three Flowers in the shortest time. Then they can coalesce into the Three Flowers above the Head within a brief period. Once the Three Flowers above the Head are formed, haha, that is equivalent to having three more lives!"


    "And the Five Qis in the Chest?"


    "Five Qis in the Chest relate to the comprehension of the depths of the soul. It is an important hurdle for practitioners. If you don''t have enough time to accumulate it, then you won''t be able to comprehend it. I need not explain this to you!" The Fate Creation Boy looked slightly embarrassed. "I am not a human practitioner, so I''m not completely sure of the specifics of the Five Qis in the Chest. All I know is, every practitioner that can cultivate the Five Qis in the Chest can forge a telepathic connection with strong Dharma on an entire macro world. This means you can use a part of that macro world''s Dharma. When you use this Darma, I cannot block it, at best I can only weaken it!"


    "Are you sure that the Vast Sea Emperor has the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill?"


    "Of course, the Vast Sea Emperor has mastered the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill!" Fate Creation Boy continued, "Of course, he is using the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill, the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, and the Immortal Body Technique to achieve the Three Flowers above the Head. The Seven Wonderful Techniques has historically not been reliable, and no one has been able to combine all seven techniques into a whole. In antiquity times, the mighty of primitive times, and the best of the experts seemed to have tried their best to prevent it from occurring. So, young fellow, you''d better be careful. You have already mastered four of the Seven Wonderful Techniques, and if you obtain the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill you will have mastered five. Whatever the reason, you should not let anyone know you have these skills. If you do have to use it, then you need to kill the one who has seen it. You must keep it secret, just like you did with the Fiery Eyes!"


    "I understand, thank you for warning me about this!" Hearing what he had to say, Zhou Bao was a little surprised. These Seven Wonderful Techniques were certainly very strange. When he was in combat with the Fairy Pool Hunter, the cyan light appeared suddenly and nothing could stop him. With one stroke of the cyan light, the Power of Fate could be shattered. There was no chance for resistance. The strangest thing was that he had discovered that in the dantian where his qi resides, something odd had happened.


    It involved practice in the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints. There were nine acupoints, which were nine dantians. The nine dantians moved slightly to surround one spot in a mysterious array. They then lined up to form a perfectly huge dantian in his body.


    All this while, even though it had seemed to be a huge dantian, it had the characteristics of a normal dantian. But when he was fighting the Fairy Pool Hunter, he found that as he was frantically employing the Seven Wonderful Techniques, this huge dantian had formed. This dantian was like a huge ocean of Dharma power, with a Mysterious Icy Divine Light rippling inside it. But his Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints seemed to fuse together and evolve, connecting the tendons and meridians in his body, and it was then that their connection to the huge dantian became even clearer. They interacted distantly, forming seven clear estuaries, and in the center of this Dharma ocean grew a small, jade-green soft shoot.


    Yes, a small, jade-green soft shoot. Or at least it looked like it in Zhou Bao''s Inner Vision. Of course, it was not quite so simple; this small, jade-green soft shoot could be seen on the surface of the Dharma ocean, but underneath the surface of the jade-green ocean, this soft shoot had grown innumerable roots, densely packed and it anchored itself in the depths of this huge dantian. Finally, they fused into his tendons and meridians. This small, soft shoot had four leaves which evoked a very familiar feeling in Zhou Bao.


    He was feeling the fourth of the Seven Wonderful Techniques!


    Zhou Bao''s intuition was not wrong, it was definitely one of the Seven Wonderful Techniques.


    Zhou Bao was not clear about the reason, but he understood that this change was good for him. He could foresee that after the advanced level of the Seven Wonderful Techniques, this shoot would sprout seven leaves, or rather, seven branches, just like...


    "The Tree of Seven Wonders!"


    This name has popped into Zhou Bao''s mind only at this moment. In legends from the novels in his previous life, there were certain objects the mighty ones used. Could these have arisen from within his own dantian?


    Pondering about the Tree of Seven Wonders, he thought of something else. The Flipping Sky Seal!


    Like the Seven Wonderful Techniques, the Flipping Sky Seal was a secret skill he had. It was similar because he had practiced this secret skill until the Advanced Level of the phase, and it had already coalesced into a real entity. Its power would develop alongside his own power, growing stronger step by step. And now, its attack and killing forces far exceeded that of an ordinary Pure Yang Celestial Device, and was close to that of a fairy weapon. If he used it to its full capacity, its destructive force could even exceed that of a fairy weapon.


    "Maybe this secret skill is the way to refine pure pneuma into a magic weapon?"


    It was only a vague idea that he had and the specifics were a mystery. He was not willing to investigate further, nor did he want to. He was not like one of the necromancers of old, whose researches often produced terrifying and astonishing results.


    "Is really possible to get hold of the Vast Sea Emperor''s Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill and obtain its way of practice? Is it reliable?" Zhou Bao contemplated on this and suddenly lifted his head. "The Vast Sea Emperor is one of the 99 Emperors of antiquity, why would he be trapped? How could he be so certain I can help him?" "When he was trapped, the Fairy Weapon of Fate had already been separated into three parts, and I was forced to lie low for a short time. What was the reason for his being trapped there? I''ve already made a bet on the answer to this second question, it was like I made a bet on you. Could I have had a big win?" "It does not matter whether you can help him out of his situation; what matters is whether he thinks you can help him. If he thinks it''s possible, then everything is fine. But I think he has the same thoughts as I have.


    "Why?"


    "You are a variable. Old guys like us are bound by rules for countless years, and the things we like most are variables! Variables represent opportunities, they represent lucky chances!"

 703 Prime Minister Wan

    A bright beam of golden light soared from Zhou Bao''s fingers into the air, and flashed like a golden meteor. Then it turned into a large seal about 100 feet in diameter and dropped violently to the ground.


    "BOOM!!!"


    With a loud noise and a violent shaking of the earth, a small island about five kilometers wide, located in the sea, was smashed into bits and disappeared beneath the waves.


    "Hey, are you done? There aren''t that many islands left in my territory for you to bomb. This is already the fifth island!"


    "Just listen to yourself, you''re the Administrator who runs a part of the Sea Area. Even if you don''t have 10,000 islands of this kind, you have at least 8,000. I merely destroyed five islands!"


    "Yes, you''ve only destroyed five islands so far, but you''re on a roll right now, and along the way, you''re likely to destroy 50, 500, 5,000. When will you stop?" Standing beside Zhou Bao, Administrator Zhang smiled sadly.


    As an Administrator of the Sea Area, he was second only to the Prime Ministers of the Office of Political Affairs, who were rarely around. Therefore, the Administrator was as domineering as the Emperor in the Sea Area, but now he followed Zhou Bao around, like a newly married woman who was being bullied.


    "Alright, I will stop. I have just finished refining this magic weapon, so I wanted to try it out. Since you value your territory so much, I will stop my trials!" Zhou Bao gave a slight wave, and the gold seal obediently returned to his hand and simultaneously became smaller and smaller. At last it became like a little paperweight, and disappeared.


    "It''s good stuff. It is as powerful as a fairy weapon, isn''t it?"


    "In terms of its attacking powers, the ordinary Taihao Fairy Weapon is inferior to it!" A flash of complacency crossed Zhou Bao''s face. After the Flipping Sky Seal had ascended to the Advanced Level, its power could be fully utilized and it was indeed comparable to the fairy weapon.


    "It really is a formidable weapon. You have achieved impressive results because of the good stuff you have on hand, King Wuyang!" In the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, Administrator Zhang had seen many incredible resources belonging to Zhou Bao, but Zhou Bao had not used this gold seal at that time. And now, Zhou Bao was showing off this fairy weapon, using it like a brick to smash stuff. Administrator Zhang turned green with envy.


    "Cut the crap. I''m not here for your flattery!"


    "I know you''re coming to see the Sea Emperor about the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. But I have never seen His Majesty, and it would be difficult for me to arrange a meeting with His Majesty for you."


    "Is it really that difficult?"


    "It''s a matter of ability!" Administrator Zhang smiled bitterly, "In the Sea Area, only the Prime Ministers of the Office of Political Affairs can contact His Majesty, and His Majesty controls the Sea Area through them. I''m just a little Administrator!"


    "Then take me to the Prime Ministers!" Speaking of the Prime Ministers, Zhou Bao''s eyes twitched a few times. With the Office of Political Affairs, Prime Ministers and even Administrators in the Sea Area, the official positions were similar to those of the Song dynasty in his previous life. He wondered if the Sea Emperor had also traveled through time from the Song dynasty in his previous life.


    With these thoughts going through his mind, Zhou Bao followed Prime Minister Wan to a rather odd place.


    "In fact, it''s fine to take you to meet the Prime Ministers. What we Demon tribe value most is power. Your power would have surpassed the Prime Ministers, so it''s not a problem for you to meet them. But what you''re going to do is troublesome. The news that you killed the Fairy Pool Hunter and took the Immortal-burying Pool in the Seven-deity Regions has spread all over the Heaven Realm World. And a few days ago, the Dharma of the Heaven Realm World suddenly changed in a strange way. Those of us who like to go to the infinite spaces have felt the changes in the infinite spaces around the Heaven Realm World. Obviously, you have given the Immortal-burying Pool to Fate Creation Boy. With the Immortal-burying Pool, the Golden Book of Fate must also be his possession. Now the Ranking of Demons and Immortals is all he needs. But the Ranking of Demons and Immortals is tied to the interests of the entire Sea Area, so it is not so easy to give it to you. Now there are proposals in the Sea Area to capture the Seven-deity Regions!"


    "I know about that. The Sea Area around the Seven-deity Regions has not been peaceful recently." Zhou Bao nodded and said, "I can assure you that this time we are only trying to reassemble the Fairy Weapon of Fate so that the Heaven Realm World will be able to defend itself, and the interests of the Sea Area will not be damaged!"


    "That''s what you say, but it is the others that have to be convinced!" Administrator Zhang gave Zhou Bao a wry smile and added, "The Demon tribe in the Sea Area has been accustomed to freedom. No one wants another ruler!"


    "Fate Creation Boy is not a man who likes to dominate other people!"


    "Who knows, it''s none of my business anyway. If you want to see His Majesty and get the Ranking of Demons and Immortals, you have to convince the Prime Ministers first!"


    "Maybe I don''t have to convince them." Zhou Bao slightly shook his head and explained, "The Ranking of Demons and Immortals is in the hand of the Sea Emperor. I need to meet the Prime Minister of the Office of Political Affairs in order to see the Sea Emperor, but their opinions aren''t important."


    Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Administrator Zhang felt a chill in his heart. Apart from the strength of the Prime Ministers in the Sea Area, their status was sublime, second only to the Sea Emperor, higher than that of the Leader or even the hidden Old Weirdos of super sects in the Seven-deity Regions. However, these Prime Ministers, in Zhou Bao''s eyes, seemed to be a group of unimportant people.


    "Well, we have different strengths and different visions, so our values are totally different!" Administrator Zhang sighed silently and gave up trying to persuade Zhou Bao.


    The Sea Area was vast, but, Administrator Zhang and Zhou Bao were able to travel from one place to another in only a couple of breaths. Zhou Bao originally intended to try out the power of the fully refined Flipping Sky Seal, whilst enjoying the scenery of the Sea Area at the same time, so they advanced at a slow speed. But there was only water to be seen all the way, except for the island. He was a bit tired after a whole day of watching the same scenery. That, plus the gloomy subject they were discussing made both Zhou Bao and Administrator Zhang quicken their pace. After a few moments, they reached a rather strange place.


    "This is the resting place of Prime Minister Wan. He''s the closest Prime Minister to my territory. If you want to meet His Majesty, you have to meet him first!"


    It was an isolated island, with black smoke and a smell of sulfur. The ground here had been scorched black and there were numerous cracks in the ground, from which flashed sanguine lights. Upon seeing these lights, Zhou Bao knew that these were the smells of the underground fire vein.


    This isolated island was a volcanic island, and probably had an active volcano.


    But that was it. Zhou Bao was curious about the island when he saw that the active volcano looked like the head of a dark and ferocious wolf from afar.


    "King Wuyang, please forgive me for not being here to welcome you. I''m afraid I have been a poor host!" Just as Zhou Bao was standing in the air, and Administrator Zhang was about to inform the island of their coming, a hearty laugh rang out. In a flash, a man appeared before them.


    "Prime Minister Wan!" At the sight of the man, Administrator Zhang bowed so deferentially that his body resembled that of a curved prawn.


    "No need for the pleasantries, Administrator Zhang!"


    He was a thin, tall man in his forties, wearing a long, faded gray gown. His features were plain and his eyes soft and warm, giving off an impression of comfort and sincerity.


    Zhou Bao was certainly not deceived by his appearance, but this first meeting did not give him a bad impression of him either.


    "I''m Zhou Bao, please excuse me for my unexpected visit, Prime Minister Wan!"


    "Please don''t stand on ceremony. It''s my pleasure to have you visit me, King Wuyang!"


    Prime Minister Wan treated Zhou Bao with great courtesy. After killing the Fairy Pool Hunter and getting the Immortal-burying Pool, Zhou Bao had risen in rank to a superior practitioner in the Heaven Realm World from a superior practitioner in the Seven-deity Regions. The Fairy Pool Hunter was no ordinary person. He had mastered a part of the Immortal-burying Pool which was a Fairy Weapon of Fate. An ordinary Human Immortal was no match for him. In some ways, his mastery of the Power of Fate was equivalent to the mastery of the practitioner''s lifeline of a macro world. As long as he did something to the Fairy Weapon of Fate, and the practitioners'' Divine Tribulation, the apperception of the Way of Heaven would be completely different. The Prime Ministers of the Sea Area were only equal to him but could not beat him. However, Zhou Bao had managed to kill such a strong enemy, and even seized his Fairy Weapon of Fate. That was enough to make the Prime Ministers of the Sea Area stand in awe of him. What was more, they had received the instructions from the Sea Emperor that they should take Zhou Bao to see Sea Emperor no matter whom he came to. They did not dare to scorn a man so valued by the Sea Emperor, so Prime Minister Wan acted very politely towards Zhou Bao.


    "King Wuyang, I know why you are here. I have received His Majesty''s instructions the day before yesterday. His Majesty has ordered that should I ever see you, I should take you to him. If you have anything to ask, please talk to His Majesty directly!"


    "Eh?" Administrator Zhang was obviously dumbfounded by what Prime Minister Wan said. It never occurred to him that Zhou Bao had truly given the Sea Emperor cause to be alarmed.


    Zhou Bao looked as if he had known about it already. He said, "Alright and I apologize for bothering you, Prime Minister Wan!"


    "Wait for me here, Administrator Zhang. I have something to tell you after I take King Wuyang to His Majesty."


    "Yes!" Administrator Zhang bowed his head. Facing the Prime Minister, he could only keep his head down and did not dare to speak much.

 704 See the Sea Emperor, A Hidden Danger in the Heaven Realm World

    As legend had it, the Sea Emperor was indeed trapped in an unknown space. The space was one of the many infinite spaces that surrounded the Heaven Realm World, and was filled with turbulent energy.


    With the return of Fate Creation Boy, although the Fairy Weapon of Fate had not been unified yet, the infinite spaces had become more orderly. A huge protective formation was taking shape within these spaces and it was a tremendous formation. Now there was only a part of the formation there, but Zhou Bao clearly sensed the difference after he entered the infinite spaces.


    Due to the disorder at the previous infinite spaces, ordinary practitioners would have no way to go in it, but Zhou Bao had never felt any pressure. Even if he encountered some strange spaces, they had no effect on him. Upon entering the infinite spaces this time, Zhou Bao saw a passage constructed out of the countless spaces. What was incredible was that there was only one access to the unknown space. It meant that whoever was trapped in the infinite spaces was bound to enter this strange passage, and he or she had no choice but to follow it. Zhou Bao''s eyes twitched as he thought of where this passage led, for it led to the hollow beyond the Heaven Realm World. In other words, the passage lead to the exit point.


    "How did this place become like this? Fate Creation Boy must have done it on purpose." Glancing around, Zhou Bao said to himself.


    "Now it''s like a macro world. The original infinite spaces were too scattered; it could not block people at the Lords of Heaven Realm, or bring benefits to the Heaven Realm World." Walking through the passage, Prime Minister Wan told Zhou Bao about it as if he was very familiar with the area.


    "Have you been here before, Prime Minister Wan?"


    "Yes, in the antiquity times. At that time, the Fairy Weapon of Fate was not separated into three pieces, and the infinite spaces of the Heaven Realm World were the most perfect." Prime Minister Wan sighed, "Alas, the Heaven Realm World has been in serious decline, and even with the restoration of the Fairy Weapon of Fate, it''s still far inferior from what it was before in the antiquity times!"


    Looking at Prime Minister Wan''s rueful look, Zhou Bao was slightly surprised. "You''re a practitioner from the antiquity times, Prime Minister Wan? Please excuse my ignorance."


    "Is a practitioner from the antiquity times that great?" Prime Minister Wan laughed at himself, "We just live longer than the average people. But my strength remains the same. After achieving the Realm of Human Immortal, and gathering the Three Flowers above the Head with painstaking efforts, no matter how hard I tried, I have not been able to collect the Five Qis in the Chest."


    "The Three Flowers above the Head!" Zhou Bao understood his words. According to Fate Creation Boy''s classification of practice, Prime Minister Wan should be a Rank Fourth Human Immortal. That meant he had three more lives than the average person. People like him were already the best in the Heaven Realm World, even stronger than the Old Weirdoes of those super sects in the Seven-deity Regions, because at most those Old Weirdoes reached the second rank of the Human Immortal, and only gathered one of the Three Flowers above the Head. Any Prime Minister in the Sea Area could sweep the Seven-deity Regions, without any regard for the fairy weapon, of course. However, considering how long they had lived, Zhou Bao believed they would definitely have fairy weapons. The Sea Area was, after all, famous for its abundance.


    "Three Flowers above the Head and Five Qis in the Chest aren''t easy to practice. Luckily I underwent the Void Thunder Tribulation and ascended to the Realm of Human Immortal, but now I haven''t even gathered a single flower!"


    "You''re in a different situation!" Prime Minister Wan shook his head slightly and said, "You have the Bloodline of Zhuyan which is one of the Six Royals. Your combat capability is amazing. You know, the Primordial Fierce Beast has mighty instincts and doesn''t need to practice its phase. As a Human Immortal, cooperating with the instinct of Zhuyan, you can display the combat capability as powerful as an Immortal, which none of us can compare with. And even if I have four more lives, I still can''t beat you!"


    "You''re too modest, Prime Minister Wan!" Zhou Bao smiled. As they talked, they went further and further in. Gradually, however, the straight passage, whose end could be clearly seen by Zhou Bao, began to change, and a forked passage appeared in front of them.


    "Eh? How interesting!" When Zhou Bao saw the forked passage suddenly appearing before them, his eyes held a steely look. He didn''t think he could do this. What he was adept at was destruction, not creation.


    "Please, King Wuyang!" Seeing the passage''s appearance, Prime Minister Wan suddenly turned very serious, and reached out his hand to show Zhou Bao the way.


    "Eh, Prime Minister Wan, aren''t you coming with me?" Seeing his movements, Zhou Bao had a strange feeling.


    "His Majesty only wants to see you. I''m not so honored!" A bitter smile registered on Prime Minister Wan''s face. "This passage will lead you to His Majesty!"


    "I see!" Zhou Bao nodded, without asking any further questions as it was clear that this was related to the privacy of the Sea Area; it would be impolite to continue asking. Thus, Zhou Bao just smiled and walked down the forked passage.


    This passageway was straight, and Zhou Bao could see clearly that there was a damp, dark cave at the end of it.


    "Is this the place where the Sea Emperor is imprisoned? But why is there not a whiff of inhibition, and why is there such free access?" Within a few breaths, Zhou Bao had stepped into this mysterious place that had imprisoned the Sea Emperor, one of the ancient 99 Emperors, who was at the Realm of Earthly Immortal.


    "Well, are you wondering why I''m being held in such a place?"


    As Zhou Bao looked around, a clear voice sounded in his ear. He looked up and saw an extremely handsome young man dressed in blue, before him. The man smiled faintly and looked at Zhou Bao with great interest.


    The man had absolute strength!


    Although the young man in blue looked quite ordinary except for his good looks, Zhou Bao didn''t dare to underestimate him. The fact that this man managed to appear before Zhou Bao so silently without him noticing showed that he was much stronger than Zhou Bao was.


    But Zhou Bao was not surprised. After all, the man was one of the ancient 99 Emperors, an Earthly Immortal and an old fogey. Even if Zhou Bao was an incredibly lucky time-travel hero and had a chance encounter with such a character, he would usually keep such people at a distance, and would not want to be compared with him.


    "I do wonder. This place doesn''t look easy to open. You''re so powerful, but why are you imprisoned here?"


    "If I had known the reason, I would have gone out already!" The young man in blue forced a smile.


    "Don''t you know either?"


    "I only know a little, but you''re not here to help me out, right?" The young man in blue smiled, "Since you''re not helping me, I don''t want to say things that will make me feel bad. Let''s get down to business!"


    "Okay!" Zhou Bao wasn''t a procrastinator. "Your Majesty, you should know why I''m here. I just want to know how you can give me the Ranking of Demons and Immortals?"


    "What if I am not willing to give it to you?"


    "Then I''ll leave right now!" Zhou Bao said directly.


    "Hehe, you''re really straightforward!" The Sea Emperor smiled, "You are really powerful, but at best your combat capability is at the top of the Immortal. With the Supreme Fairy Weapon, the Real Body of Zhuyan and the Frost Giant Bloodline, you still can''t beat an Earthly Immortal. So, you made the right choice!" His few words debunked all of Zhou Bao''s bluff, without leaving him anything to save his face. Zhou Bao smiled bitterly, "You''re a discerning man, Your Majesty. I admire you!"


    "It''s not worth mentioning. I might be in prison, but there''s nothing about the Heaven Realm World that has been concealed from me. Even Fate Creation Boy knows less about the Heaven Realm World than I do!" Sea Emperor shook his head, spread out his hand, and a scroll appeared in it. Then he carelessly threw it into Zhou Bao''s hands. "This is the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. Take it!"


    "Thank you, Your Majesty!" Zhou Bao took the Ranking of Demons and Immortals, thought of something and then saluted the Sea Emperor. "I''m going to take my leave now!" Then he turned away.


    "Are you kidding?"


    It was not until Zhou Bao was about to leave this damp and stuffy cave that Sea Emperor cried out, "Hey, you''re really good at acting shamelessly!"


    "No, not really, I''m too excited because of the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. Please forgive my gaffe, Your Majesty!" Zhou Bao turned around and lied calmly.


    "You''re too excited? Overlook your gaffe? Hmm, that''s a good excuse. If that is the case, I will no longer stand on ceremony. You can take the Ranking of Demons and Immortals, but you have to do something for me!"


    "As long as it is within my power, I will do my best!"


    "Within your power? Do your best? Damn, you''re so sneaky!" The Sea Emperor muttered in a low voice, "The bastard Jade Emperor did everything possible to move the Heaven Realm World to the Desolate Ancient Star Area so as to hide the Heaven Realm World. But it cannot be hidden now, for an idiot broke open the passage to the Void Immortal Realm when he underwent the Void Thunder Tribulation, causing the will of the Void Immortal Realm to leak into the hollow. You''re responsible for that, right?"


    "Yes, I am. I really regret doing such an idiotic thing!"


    "There is no need for such deference, but there is a need to remedy the situation!" The Sea Emperor rolled his eyes at Zhou Bao''s insincerity and went on, "When the Fairy Weapon of Fate becomes one again and Fate Creation Boy returns, the defense of the Heaven Realm World will increase greatly. Then it will be extremely difficult for the Lords of Heaven from the outside world to enter the Heaven Realm World. As long as the other macro worlds does not attack the Heaven Realm World, the Heaven Realm World will be safe. But now there is a hidden danger inside the Heaven Realm World that must be taken care of!"

 705 Karma Power

    "What do you mean when you say there is a hidden danger inside the Heaven Realm World?" After listening to the Sea Emperor, Zhou Bao had a bad feeling.


    "You''ve gotten huge benefits from the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, right?" Instead of answering Zhou Bao''s question, the Sea Emperor asked about the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. Before Zhou Bao could answer him, he added, "But you only care about the benefit you get, and you don''t know about the effect it has on the Heaven Realm World."


    "The effect it has on the Heaven Realm World?" Zhou Bao blushed. After the huge benefits he had reaped, he really did not think about the impact of his actions.


    "I know you are not aware about its effects!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s expression, the Sea Emperor gave him a knowing look. "You and your friends received benefits from the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, but have you ever wondered how this matter came about?"


    "I remember there was a devil who sneaked into the Heaven Realm World and caused it!" Zhou Bao looked up and answered after he tried to recall the incident.


    "Yes, it was caused by a devil!" The Sea Emperor said, "But do you think he did it for the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode?"


    "Wasn''t he trying to free the Primordial Demon in the Pool of Thunder Tribulation of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode?" Zhou Bao replied, "Marquis Wugu?"


    "Yes, his main purpose was to try to free Marquis Wugu!" The Sea Emperor nodded, "Marquis Wugu is an expert amongst the Primordial Demons in both status and strength. In his heyday, he was far more powerful than an Earthly Immortal, almost as powerful as a Celestial Immortal. However all these years of captivity had greatly reduced his strength, but he still managed to escape. But don''t worry, when I mentioned the hidden danger, I didn''t mean this guy. When his strength is restored, he is not only a danger to the Heaven Realm World, but a danger to all the macro worlds. So you have to worry not about Marquis Wugu but about that devil."


    "Why?" Zhou Bao looked puzzled. Yu Qinghua brought a Devil Fetus in the Infinite Star Sea. Unfortunately, instead of subjugating the Devil Fetus, he came under the control of the Devil Fetus and became the representative of the Primordial Demon. He then returned to the Heaven Realm World, opened the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, and set free Marquis Wugu who had been imprisoned by the Thunder Emperor. Logically speaking, his mission was over, and he should stop. Even if he was going to make trouble again, Zhou Bao never bothered about him. To Zhou Bao, he was just a little devil, and he could kill him with one blow.


    "Do you think there''s any cause for worry as long as he''s in the Heaven Realm World? Don''t forget, he has inherited the memory of the Primordial Demon, and is extraordinarily powerful. Besides, he knows even more than I about the secrets of the Heaven Realm World, and now he is in the dark place..."


    "It doesn''t matter. When Fate Creation Boy returns, he can''t make big trouble." Zhou Bao''s confusion deepened. "No matter how powerful he is, he can''t play tricks under the nose of the Fate Creator. Just tell Fate Creation Boy to keep a close eye on him then. What are you worried about?"


    "My worries? Did you forget that there are inheritors of devils in the Heaven Realm World, too? He is only a little devil, a pawn and a puppet of the Primordial Demon. He doesn''t need to do anything in the Heaven Realm World, he just needs to pass on everything he knows to the devils'' inheritor, the Dark Sect. Fate Creation Boy is a Fate Creator. He is a Guardian, not like you who is a Controller. A Guardian, though having more freedom than a Listener, is also greatly restricted. Fate Creation Boy could not target the Dark Sect all the time, because the people in the Dark Sect are also native creatures of the Heaven Realm World. If Fate Creation Boy deliberately targets them, he will pay a heavy price for it."


    "A heavy price? What do you mean?"


    "The most obvious would be less control over the Power of Fate!" The Sea Emperor told Zhou Bao, "Fate Creators are not as free as you might think!"


    "It doesn''t matter. I can help. They''re just the Dark Sect. If necessary, I can obliterate the Dark Sect from the Heaven Realm World!" Zhou Bao said. For him, such things were really nothing to worry about.


    "Well, young man, is there anything else in your mind besides killing? Will the world be a peaceful place after you kill them all?"


    "Well, that, I think, is the best solution."


    "Nonsense, if you kill them all without any good reason, the Karma Power will form. In this way, you will have a lot of trouble when you try to break through the Realm of Human Immortal to the Realm of Immortal, not to mention the Realm of Earthly Immortal!" The Sea Emperor looked at Zhou Bao and said slowly, "You''re just a Human Immortal. Do you think you will still undergo the Thunder Tribulation when you improve your state in the future? Whether it''s a Thunder Tribulation or a Wind-fire Tribulation, they are external tribulations, and can be resolved with absolute power. But the Karma Power cannot be overcome by brute force!"


    "I will kill them for the Heaven Realm World, which should be a merit. Even if there is the Karma Power, it should..."


    "You''re a Fate Creator, the Fate Creator of the Azure Big World! What does the Heaven Realm World have to do with you?" The Sea Emperor''s mouth was contorted, and he continued, "The Karma Power that was created when you fought for the position of the Fate Creator for Fate Creation Boy, will be borne by him, so you don''t have to worry about it. But if you cause the Karma Power for something else, no one will be able to help you. The merit of the Heaven Realm World will not be given to you, but the Karma Power won''t be lost. You are really stupid!"


    "What? There is such a thing? It''s not considered as my merit?" Zhou Bao cried.


    "Since you have become the Fate Creator of the Azure Big World, the Karma Power and merit, which are formed by what you do in the Heaven Realm World, are not equal!"


    "There''s really such a thing?" Zhou Bao sighed gloomily.


    "You''re different from other people. You are a Fate Creator. There are some things you should pay attention to!" The Sea Emperor gave Zhou Bao a glance and added, "I know you were born and raised in the Heaven Realm World, so deep in your consciousness you consider yourself a man of the Heaven Realm World. But according to your current identity and status, your ideas should change. You''re now in control of the Azure Big World, so it''s best to keep your head down, unless you want to take over the Heaven Realm World."


    "Hasn''t it been said that one cannot be the Fate Creator of two macro worlds at the same time?"


    "You can become the Lord of the Heaven Realm World. When your strength reaches the Realm of Earthly Immortal, even the Fate Creator can do nothing to you!"


    "Likewise, if someone in the Azure Big World becomes an Earthly Immortal, then I can do nothing to him, right?"


    "You''re the Controller of the Fate Creation, and you can improve your cultivation all the time. If you''re strong enough, with the help of the Fairy Weapon of Fate, you will be able to suppress the Earthly Immortal. If they reverse the position and take the Fairy Weapon of Fate, you''ll make a fool of yourself. Just like Fate Creation Boy, he has been repressed by us for many years, but when he finally had the opportunity to get out, the Fairy Weapon of Fate was divided into three parts. Now, he is hoping to regain control of the Fate Creation. And it is relying heavily on outside support. Otherwise, he would lose his position of the Fate Creator. Fortunately for him, he was a device spirit, or he would have taken his own life long ago!"


    "So, I''d better pay close attention to the Azure Big World!"


    "You''re so powerful, and the Azure Big World is a new world. You should be able to control it." The Sea Emperor said, "But you should not take it lightly. After all, being the Fate Creator of a macro world is something that many people dream of. Your Azure Big World was originally created by the Emperor of the Azure Heaven. Maybe he has left one of his own back there. Thus, you should be careful to keep the position of the Fate Creator!"


    "You know something about the Azure Big World. By the way, in the antiquity times, you and the Emperor of the Azure Heaven were the Demonic Emperors. You should have a good relationship. Is he tough to deal with?"


    "He is a bit tough. I don''t know him very well!" The mention of the Emperor of the Azure Heaven made the ancient Vast Sea Emperor''s expression become a bit odd. Then he comforted Zhou Bao, "But don''t worry too much. He has remained in hiding. He always keeps a low profile and is a mysterious figure. Besides, his means is very strange, and your Azure Big World may be just one of the many ways he left behind. It''s a destiny that you get it. Even if the Emperor of the Azure Heaven does come out, he won''t give you a hard time. But if your big blue world is a key part of his plan, you''re in trouble."


    "Then..." Zhou Bao wanted to continue, but was interrupted by the Sea Emperor, "I don''t know much about him either, so it''s no use asking me about him. Let''s talk about the Heaven Realm World. You''re involved in the Heaven Realm World already, and it''s not easy to get away now. The Karma has been formed. It takes a lot of work to finish it. I''ve just said that your Karma Power and merit in the Heaven Realm World are not equal. As the Fate Creator of a macro world, you have to repay the benefits you get from another macro world. What you do well is what you should do, and what you do badly is Karma!"


    "Does this mean I will be the slave for Heaven Realm World?"


    "At least when you help the Heaven Realm World through this crisis, your Karma can be resolved. So, the troubles and hidden dangers of the Heaven Realm World are also yours!"


    "I have to help eliminate the hidden danger, yet at the same time I can''t kill too many people, right?"

 706 The Condition of the Sea Emperor

    Zhou Bao had to handle the hidden danger without harming too many creatures, whether they were evil or not. It was greatly inconsistent with his character. Zhou Bao felt very frustrated.


    "Well, it will be a tricky task!" Zhou Bao sighed, "Your Majesty, do you have any good suggestions?"


    "Me? Hehe, I don''t have any hopes for the Heaven Realm World anymore; however given all the years I''ve been here, there are some things I have to care about. There are three hidden dangers in the Heaven Realm World. The first is the devil. I fear that the Dark Sect in the Heaven Realm World will be bewitched by him and wanted to approach the Primordial Demon in the Infinite Star Sea. The second one is Divine Wind Palace. They have been in control of the Golden Book of Fate for so many years that they must have some leeway left. Your intent is to push them to the brink of ruin, but be careful of their counterattacks. As for the third one, it is me. If I am in a black mood one day, I may destroy the infinite spaces around the Heaven Realm World!"


    "You must be kidding, Your Majesty!" Zhou Bao listened to the first two hidden dangers with a smile, but when he heard the third one, his smile froze.


    "I''m not kidding. Fate Creation Boy is the Fate Creator, but I dislike him. This time, for the best interests of the Heaven Realm World, I gave you the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. But I will not just stand around if he does something improper!"


    "You seem to have a serious conflict with Fate Creation Boy. This matter is between the both of you. I''m not going to be involved!"


    "You''re a smart person. You certainly know what''s best for yourself!" As if he had expected what Zhou Bao would say, the Sea Emperor smiled, "Our official business is over. Let''s talk about private matters now!"


    "Private matters?"


    "I have a favor to ask you!" The Sea Emperor said, "You see, I''m stuck in this place and I can''t get out, so there are a lot of things I can''t do. I can''t trust anyone else to do it, but you''re a good choice!"


    "I''m flattered, Your Majesty. So what can I do for you?"


    "You''ve been the Infinite Star Sea. You know, it is dominated by 14 macro worlds of two Star Areas. Once in a while they will gather the Devil Fetus. And they are so stupid to think that they''ve gained great benefits!"


    "Why, is there something wrong with the Devil Fetus?"


    No, the Devil Fetus is fine. The thoroughly vanquished Devil Fetus will be the greatest help to your practice, and it can increase your strength in a short time!"


    "So if the Devil Fetus is not a problem and is good for practice, why would you call them stupid?" Zhou Bao asked, puzzled.


    "Remember, there''s no such thing as a free lunch. Human greed will never end. The more you get, the more you want. Would the Primordial Demon be so kind to form a Devil Fetus every now and then for the benefit of mankind?"


    "Not everyone is able to subdue the Devil Fetus, and some are controlled by it!"


    "These guys were almost killed, and the ones who did not die did not cause any big problems." The Sea Emperor shook his head and said, "Be wary, however, of those who have surrendered to the Devil Fetus. They are the most dangerous. These guys even re-established a Dark Sect in the two Star Areas and the Infinite Star Sea. After so many years, and with the recent conveying of the will from the Immortal Realm, I think that the benefits from the Devil Fetus are no longer enough to satisfy their greed."


    "You mean someone wants to make use of the Primordial Demon!"


    "Of course, the so-called Devil Fetus is merely the sweet bait that the Primordial Demon puts out!"


    A smirk flashed across the Sea Emperor''s face. "Anyone who has taken the bait has benefited a lot and wants to eat the Primordial Demon as well. And in order to eat the Primordial Demon, you must first release him. You know that, right?"


    "Are all Devil Fetuses baits? The Primordial Demon really has a good grasp of the human mind!"


    "Help me destroy this Primordial Demon!" The Sea Emperor said, "This guy is tough to deal with. Although his power and status in the ancient Devil tribe are not as good as that of Marquis Wugu, he is still very shrewd. Over the years he has bred numerous Devil Fetuses. When a person has merged with a Devil Fetus, whether it''s subdued or it has control over the person, all the spirits and thoughts of that person are open to the Primordial Demon. All of the person''s experiences, ideas and thoughts will be fully revealed to the Primordial Demon. Over the years, he has learned more about human beings and human nature than we do. If he comes out, he will be a bigger threat than Marquis Wugu!"


    "They could not have imagined such a thing happening?"


    "People are greedy. Even though they know they must face terrible consequences, they will never give up their immediate benefits. So too with you!"


    "Yes, I am the same. If the benefits are attractive enough, I will take the risk!" Zhou Bao smiled, "But what does it have to do with you? Do you know the Primordial Demon?"


    "Hum, I have some enmity with him. I don''t want him to come out. If you kill him, I''ll give you the benefits!"


    "What kind of benefits?"


    "Dharma Power-restoring Skill, Immortal Body Technique and Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill, three of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. They can help you gather the Three Flowers above the Head in the shortest time!"


    "The Seven Wonderful Techniques?" A flash of surprise passed through Zhou Bao''s eyes. He did not expect the Sea Emperor to be so generous. He already knew two of the three skills that the Sea Emperor was giving. He only needed to get the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill, but, since the Sea Emperor was going to give him three, he would willingly take them all.


    "I''ve heard how amazing the Seven Wonderful Techniques are, but at the end of the day, they''re just secret skills, and I don''t need them right now. You intend to trade the three secret skills in return for me to deal with a Primordial Demon. You must have a low opinion of me!"


    "The Seven Wonderful Techniques are the most powerful secret skills. Their benefits are absolutely beyond your imagination. And the three secret skills will do you a lot of good in gathering the Three Flowers above the Head!". He looked at Zhou Bao and continued, "If you don''t believe me, you can practice them first. You can help me if you think it''s worth it. I always do things fairly. What do you think?"


    "Well, since you highly recommend these secret skills, it will be good for me to learn them. If they''re as amazing as you say, I will help you." Zhou Bao smiled, "I am a man who never breaks his word!"


    "Good!" The Sea Emperor nodded and immediately imparted the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill, the Immortal Body Technique and the Dharma Power-restoring Skill to Zhou Bao.


    His Immortal Body Technique and Dharma Power-restoring Skill were no different from what Zhou Bao knew before.


    "If you want me to kill the Primordial Demon, you have to tell me more about him, details such as his strengths, weaknesses, unique skills and so on."


    "He is a master of disguise. He usually disguises himself as an ordinary human or a demon. He is not very powerful. He had just stepped into the Realm of Earthly Immortal before he was put down. Now that he''s been locked up for so many years, he has the power of the Immortal at best. You can suppress him!"


    "Easier said than done. He is an Earthly Immortal. Even though he''s been imprisoned for so many years and his strength has waned, he would still have the basics. Would he be so easy to deal with?"


    "His abilities were all in one devil device, but when he was suppressed, all of his magic weapons and devil devices were seized. Nothing should be a threat to you, except his ultimate skill!"


    "Your Majesty, don''t forget, I''m going to kill him. He will definitely launch his ultimate skill!"


    "Hmm, the Primordial Demon has only one ultimate skill, namely Self-harm Skill. This skill allows them to instantly burn their essence and blood and lives, which would increase their strength tenfold or even a hundredfold!"


    "Is the Self-harm Skill convenient to use?"


    "Very convenient!"


    "That''s too bad. His strength is at the level of the Immortal, and he might get desperate at any given time. It''s going to be very difficult to kill him. Besides, do I just go directly to the Infinite Star Sea to kill him?"


    "You''d better go to the Infinite Star Sea right now. I have a feeling that if you''re late, then he will really come out!"


    "It can''t be such a coincidence. He hasn''t been out all these years. You''ve just told me about it, and he might come out?"


    "Don''t forget, Marquis Wugu was saved by his Devil Fetus. Although Marquis Wugu is strong, his strength has been greatly sapped, and he is unable to achieve anything on his own. The man trapped in the Infinite Star Sea was a famous expert amongst the Primordial Demons. Marquis Wugu will of course try to save him first. Otherwise, how could I impart to you the three kinds of the Seven Wonderful Techniques at once? How could there be such a good thing in the world?"


    "So what you are saying is that when I go to the Infinite Star Sea, not only do I have to deal with the Primordial Demon, but I also need to handle Marquis Wugu, right?" Zhou''s eyes were stony, and a sneer appeared on his face. "Humph, I have seen Marquis Wugu''s power, and I am no match for him. Your Majesty, do you want him to kill me?"


    "If I wanted to kill you, I don''t have to rely on anyone else. You''ve just reached the Realm of Human Immortal, but your combat capability is at the top of Immortal. Added to that, your Supreme Fairy Weapon, even if you cannot beat an Earthly Immortal, can easily beat these two stray dogs. Besides, Marquis Wugu is very paranoid. He has just escaped, and he is an extremely frightened person. As long as you display your great strength, he will never dare to fight with you, but will try to run away!"


    "How can you be so sure?"


    "I never do anything unless I am totally sure about it!"

 707 Arranging a Plo

    "Bad deal, bad deal! Sea Emperor, Vast Sea Emperor! Alas, you have really given me a really lousy deal!"


    After he left the Sea Area, Zhou Bao started moaning in his heart. The compensation for the task the Sea Emperor asked him to do was indeed worthwhile¡ªgiving him three wonderful techniques out of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. But the problem was that, in fact, he merely obtained one Wonderful Technique, the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill, so he felt he had made a loss.


    However, Zhou Bao acquired an extra mind''s eye since a delicate seedling had grown in his huge Dantian. Pondering over the words of Fate Creation Boy, who insisted that no one had ever practiced the whole set of the Seven Wonderful Techniques, he thought that it should not be very hard to collect the first five Wonderful Techniques, based on his own experience. But over the past 810,000 years from the end of antiquity times until today and then in the hundreds of thousands of years during antiquity times, how was it that no one had succeeded in collecting the entire package of this Seven Wonderful Techniques? There must be something fishy going on. When he met Sea Emperor, Zhou Bao, who had learned how to conceal his figure since he came to this world, chose to conceal his thoughts as well, without hesitation. But it was precisely due to this concealment that he felt he had ended up with a bad bargain.


    "Things like secret skills are really interesting. Putting the Seven Wonderful Techniques aside, let''s look at the Flipping Sky Seal. I''ve already turned it into a magic weapon. So far, there are three secret skills I mastered¡ªin addition to the Seven Wonderful Techniques and the Flipping Sky Seal, I also know the Infinite Trembling Contemplation, which appears to be impossible to be mastered by human beings. Those who are below the Individual Immortal phase can''t practice it. If it was not for my Real Body of Zhuyan, I would not have achieved it so smoothly. But just like the Seven Wonderful Techniques and the Flipping Sky Seal, merely being able to use some effects of the secret skill does not count as having mastered it. Perhaps if one is able to produce the substantial form of the secret skill, then only can it be said that he has truly grasped it. For example, I have produced the substantial form of my Flipping Sky Seal, but as time passes, its power is growing. Well, I shall see what substantial form my Infinite Trembling Contemplation can take in the end!"


    Taihua Mountain, in the endless space-time of Heaven Realm World.


    Heading out from the Sea Area, Zhou Bao entered Taihua Mountain in the shortest time and handed the Ranking of Demons and Immortals over to Fate Creation Boy.


    "Everything went well?" Taking the Ranking of Demons and Immortals, Fate Creation Boy could not stifle his joyful smile. But unlike the last time, he did not open the Ranking of Demons and Immortals immediately or infuse it with the Immortal-burying Pool on the spot. Instead, he asked Zhou Bao if his trip to the Sea Area had gone well.


    "Pretty well. The Sea Emperor was very candid. He didn''t say anything much but handed this to me directly. However, except for this Ranking of Demons and Immortals, he talked about a lot of issues, including that of Karma Power and the Primordial Demon in the Infinite Star Sea. That really puts me in an awkward position."


    "You don''t have to worry about the Fate Creator. It''s not as mysterious as he told you. Since you''re born in the Heaven Realm World and have become the Fate Creator of another macro world, you''re naturally in debt to the Karma of Heaven Realm World. However, I, the Fate Creator of Heaven Realm World, have a way to help you survive the Karma. Thus, you should not worry too much about this kind of thing. As for the Primordial Demon in the Infinite Star Sea, due to my constant monitoring, I am very familiar with his ways!" Speaking of this, an odd smile flitted across Fate Creation Boy''s face. "If I am not mistaken, did he ask you to kill him directly without giving him any chance?"


    "Exactly. Seems that you know him very well, too!"


    "Humph, the Primordial Demon in the Infinite Star Sea was already quite notorious in antiquity times. Otherwise, when we moved out of the Central Star Area, Jade Emperor would not have reminded me to monitor the Infinite Star Sea in secret. This guy is really a huge source of trouble even though he is being trapped in the Infinite Star Sea. He concocted so many Devil Fetuses and stirred up loads of troubles. Now that this Vast Sea Emperor has asked you to kill him, well, this guy must be really something. He has become the concern of two emperors, and one of them is the top-ranked Jade Emperor!"


    "From what I''ve heard so far, I can tell that this matter involves a lot of tricky problems!"


    "It''s really tricky. But relax, this is none of your business. And I have nothing to do with this as well. My mission is to monitor the Infinite Star Sea instead of striking out. Vast Sea Emperor asked you to kill that demon, so you should just do it. If you can''t kill him, you can let him out so that I won''t have to bother about that da*n place anymore!" Fate Creation Boy said indifferently. "Well, I don''t want to get involved in the complicated game of those big shots. And you''d better not get involved, too!"


    "If I kill the Primordial Demon, I will be involved, right?"


    "Never mind. In fact, whether you kill him or not, you''re already in this game. The Seven Wonderful Techniques are not so easy to obtain. Those emperors in antiquity times are quite canny, no one knows what they are up to. From the day Jade Emperor asked me to monitor the Primordial Demon, I felt that something must be wrong. The number of Primordial Demons subdued by us is colossal, and loads of them are stronger than this demon, but why did he ask me to specifically monitor this one?"


    "Then, what should I do?"


    "Just follow the order. You should go to the Infinite Star Sea and do the Primordial Demon in. No matter whether you succeed or fail, you can show Vast Sea Emperor that you have obeyed his orders. After that, you ought to do a closed-door training instantly and try to reach the phase of the Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint. As your strength grows, your rights in the future will extend farther. Then, you won''t have to attend to those potential threats that he mentioned to you. Now I''ve got the Ranking of Demons and Immortals, I can confiscate the Golden Book of Fate and rebuild the Fairy Weapon of Fate regardless of the opinion of Divine Wind Palace and those sects. Nowadays, in this Heaven Realm World, only two men are capable of threatening me other than you and Vast Sea Emperor¡ªChild-endowing Buddha and Wang She. But I guess, these two are not going to give me a hard time, are they?"


    "That''s beyond my knowledge. But they both know I''m on your side, so Wang She certainly won''t intervene. As for Child-endowing Buddha, well, he might just act as he is a part of this, but he actually does nothing practical. He has done this countless times already!"


    "That will do. When I integrate the Fairy Weapon of Fate, these two will no longer be a threat to me. Then I can completely rebuild the endless space-time of the Heaven Realm World. In that way, Heaven Realm World will become more secure, and no one can enter this world randomly. I''ll also banish all the Lords of Heaven from the Alien Realm. This will serve as a warning to those ambitious schemers from the Alien Realm who are seeking to occupy the Star Area of our Heaven Realm World!"


    "I have no opinion on your specific plans. I still have to pay a visit to the Infinite Star Sea first and settle my problem!" Zhou Bao smiled. Although Fate Creation Boy treated the matter as if it was a piece of cake, Zhou Bao was still wary about the Karma Power that Sea Emperor had told him about. Despite the high status he was enjoying in the present Heaven Realm World and his extraordinary strength, his subtle relationship with Fate Creator and emperors in antiquity times, the deeper this relationship got, the more he came to realize that this game was very intricate. He could not do whatever he wanted as he used to when confronting sects in Heaven Realm World, because now he was facing numerous macro worlds. Furthermore, from what Fate Creation Boy had said, he had a vague feeling that some of the emperors from antiquity times were still pulling the strings behind this event. Those Great Ancient Emperors were all Earthly Immortals. Although Zhou Bao had great combat capability, he could never fight against an Earthly Immortal. Even if he cast out his Supreme Fairy Weapon, he might still get killed in front of an Earthly Immortal. If he was lucky, perhaps he might have a chance to flee!"


    There were no other alternatives. Now that he had been sucked into this bit by bit, it was a little hard to get away.


    "You can visit Black Turtle and ask him for help when you''re in the Infinite Star Sea. He is there to explore the situation of several other macro worlds and the Primordial Demon. I believe he will be able to help you!"


    "Is the Primordial Demon being imprisoned at the heart of the Infinite Star Sea? If I go straight there and beat him to death, then all the problems will be gone!"


    "How could it be that simple? The place he is imprisoned is indeed the heart of the Infinite Star Sea, but it is an area similar to the endless space-time. In that area, weird spaces and time turbulences are everywhere. Besides, there is no fairy weapon suppressing this Primordial Demon except for a powerful suppression formation comprising of 18 Pure Yang Celestial Devices instead. Once you slip into it, the consequence will be nearly the same as walking into the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. What''s more, if you are caught offguard in this formation, you will draw the attention of the two Star Areas and the 14 macro worlds, which will incur great trouble!"


    "No trouble would occur. The 14 macro worlds have gained enormous benefits from the Primordial Demon, so what more do they want? Are they really planning to swallow the body of the Primordial Demon? Is that even possible?"


    "Nothing is impossible. As Vast Sea Emperor pointed out, the Primordial Demon has taken advantage of the greed of human beings and produced Devil Fetuses over and over again during the past thousands of years. He induced mankind to contend for Devil Fetuses and gradually aroused the desires of those practitioners in the 14 macro worlds. In the end, when these desires come to a climax, it will explode. Then, some of those practitioners may overestimate themselves and believe they''re able to subdue this Primordial Demon. Once they swing into action, a worldwide calamity will occur!"


    "Does the 14 macro world know where this Primordial Demon is being suppressed?"


    "Then what use do you think those Devil Fetuses he produced over the past thousands of years serve?" Fate Creation Boy sneered. "By virtue of those Devil Fetuses, the 14 macro worlds have all figured out the location of the Primordial Demon as well as those inhibitions and formations and how to crack them. But the suppression formation with the 18 Pure Yang Celestial Devices is too powerful, and they''re not very certain about taking on the Primordial Demon, so they haven''t acted yet. But once they believe their timing is right and they think they''re capable of dealing with that formation and the Primordial Demon, they will do it without hesitation. But up to now, they haven''t found the opportunity!"


    "Haven''t found an opportunity?" Hearing those words, Zhou Bao was inspired. "Maybe, I can offer them one!"

 708 An Unexpected Encounter on the Remote Red Star

    Infinite Star Sea, Remote Red Star!


    Wearing a cyan robe, Zhou Bao was sitting quietly by the window of a small tavern. Here, he was not Zhou Bao, but Jia Qingping. This was the third time he had entered the Infinite Star Sea, using the identity of Jia Qingping once again.


    At present, this identity he assumed was pretty famous in the entire Infinite Star Sea. Everyone knew that this Jia Qingping was a prodigy, an Individual Immortal of Rank Two. Even some Elders in the Jia Family were very interested in him, intending to recruit him as a disciple.


    But Jia Huaiyu was not keen on this, so the whole thing was giving him a real headache. He announced that Jia Qingping had left the Remote Red Star and was traveling in the Infinite Star Sea and his return date was unknown.


    This was the perfect excuse for a prodigy.


    Although the Infinite Star Sea did not contain any macro world, it included numerous galaxies and vast planets. The essence of the world there might not be as abundant as that in a macro world, but there were myriads of curious creatures and objects hiding in seclusion. Thus, no matter how capable a practitioner was, he could not explore the entire area in one go. Accordingly, many young practitioners chose to travel around once their cultivation had reached a certain degree, and they could take care of themselves. They would experience new things and see different views, and some of them might try out the Divine Fate in the hope of having some amazing adventure or unexpected encounter to take their cultivation up a notch. Of course, there were high risks involved. Potential dangers were everywhere in the Infinite Star Sea. When those practitioners traveled through planets, they would have to face dangerous situations continuously. And the survival ratio was not very high.


    Therefore, for every practitioner, traveling around was very much like a double-edged sword.


    Soon after Zhou Bao arrived in the Infinite Star Sea, he contacted the Divine Design Store to ask about the present state of the Infinite Star Sea. Then, he declined the invitation of Black Turtle and took off.


    With the help of Fate Creation Boy, the strength of Venerable Black Turtle had broken through the Venerable Realm and reached the Lord of Heaven Realm. Although he was only a Six-tribulation Lord of Heaven, he was very satisfied. Adding to that, Venerable Black Turtle knew Zhou Bao had helped Fate Creation Boy acquire the two parts of the Fairy Weapon of Fate and he treated Zhou Bao so well that his attitude was definitely unlike the demeanor of a Lord of Heaven.


    Zhou Bao, feeling a bit overwhelmed by his over enthusiastic welcome, left the Divine Design Store, feeling as if he had just escaped from jail. Then, the first place he traveled to was the Remote Red Star.


    But after staying on the Remote Red Star for one day, Zhou Bao started getting bored. The situation in the Infinite Star Sea was quite simple. After he made a scene here last time, the disturbance continued in the Infinite Star Sea for a while but soon quieted down. No more change occurred until the willpower of the Immortal Realm descended.


    When the willpower of the Immortal Realm descended, the first batch of practitioners who crept into the Immortal Realm were those from the Infinite Star Sea. After all, the Infinite Star Sea was the only Star Area that had a Transmitting Formation leading to the Immortal Realm.


    After obtaining the accurate location of the Immortal Realm, the 14 macro worlds jointly repaired a Transmitting Formation leading to Heaven Realm World and sneaked in. They familiarized themselves with the level of practitioners in Heaven Realm World in a short spell. However, Heaven Realm was not easy to defeat at all. The moment they spotted those alien practitioners, they activated all sorts of anti-invasion means. With the exception of the first batch who returned safe and sound, almost all the other alien practitioners who had stayed in Heaven Realm had to go into hiding. It was hard for them to find an opportunity to leave Heaven Realm World. Even if they did, they were unable to use the Transmitting Formation. Instead, they had to break the endless space-time on the periphery of Heaven Realm World and return to their respective macro worlds or Star Areas by riding a Highest Heaven Celestial Device in the hollow. That would take a lot of time.


    However, this did not cool the zeal of those people from the Infinite Star Sea and the 14 macro worlds; they were dying to enter Heaven Realm World. In the eyes of those people, Heaven Realm World had an incredible amount of rich resources and a huge number of Genuine Immortals and Individual Immortals, much like what it was during antiquity times.


    Although the pneuma in Heaven Realm World had been depleted more severely than in many other macro worlds, there were still many treasures in the endless space-time on the outskirts of the region. A lot of sects in Heaven Realm World had lost their heritage or merely obtained their own heritage. But for those from the Alien Realm, many of their sects originated from Heaven Realm World, and many of them were even formed by the amalgamation of several sects. Thus, they knew much more about the secrets of those sects than the sects in Heaven Realm World. To them, the endless space-time of Heaven Realm World was a treasure house. Accordingly, entering Heaven Realm World meant they had a chance to gain some wonderful benefits and enable their cultivation to skyrocket.


    For this reason, the queue to enter Heaven Realm World was already quite long. But not everyone was able to get in. Apart from those who were willing to spend some pneuma to ride a Highest Heaven Celestial Device and fly directly across the Desolate Ancient Star Area from the Infinite Star Sea to the destination, a majority of those chose to use the Transmitting Formation.


    Nevertheless, the Transmitting Formation was not something you could use limitlessly. It not only cost Spiritual Stones, but also could not function too frequently. Even if you had countless Spiritual Stones, if it had been used too many times, your tracks would be detected by Heaven Realm World. You would then have to destroy the two-way Transmitting Formation that you went through a lot of trouble to build up secretly, which would be a devastating loss.


    Now, some planets in the Infinite Star Sea were packed with practitioners anxious to enter Heaven Realm World, especially those near the Transmitting Formation.


    The Remote Red Star was just a small and desolate planet. But due to the impact of this adventuring enthusiasm, the number of practitioners on this planet also increased, much more than when Zhou Bao first visited this planet over 10 years ago.


    When Zhou Bao arrived at Remote Red Star, he did not go to Jia Huaiyu, because what he needed was just an identity.


    There were several big cities on the Remote Red Star. The one where Zhou Bao stayed now was called Sea-watching City, the only one adjacent the sea and frequented by practitioners. Zhou Bao found the environment here to be quite pleasant, so he decided to spend a few days in this Sea-watching City.


    The purpose of this journey to the Infinite Star Sea was to kill the Primordial Demon.


    But he did not dare to act recklessly. No matter if the Primordial Demon was tricky to handle or not, Zhou Bao did not want to antagonize him yet.


    Now Zhou Bao was in a pickle, a bit at a loss.


    It had been ages since he came to this strange world. His strength and status were growing steadily. His speaking rights was expanding increasingly, but now. he could not figure out where his future lay.


    Looking back at his growing process, in the beginning when he was quite weak, he used to struggle for survival, striving to grow his power. But when he had gone through that stage, he started getting busy, running about for many inexplicable matters, one of them being the Fate Creator competition of Heaven Realm. Initially he had nothing to do with the competition, but owing to the favor that Fate Creation Boy had done for him, he had to stick up for Fate Creation Boy. Now, even Sea Emperor was involved, forcing him to come to this Infinite Star Sea to kill a Primordial Demon. But he did not give a da*n about this Primordial Demon!


    He was helpless!


    Now that the whole thing had come to this point, the only thing he could do was to heave a huge sigh.


    "Since I left the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, I seem to have become a bit arrogant, showing off too much. But this time, I have to lie low when handling this matter of the Primordial Demon. Yes, low-key, must remember that!" Zhou Bao muttered in his mind. Seeing how this matter had started with Fate Creator, then leading to Sea Emperor, and now pointing to the Primordial Demon, deep down, Zhou Bao felt he had become more and more involved in this. He felt his future was heading dangerously towards an unknown realm. He did not like this feeling or the unknown realm.


    Therefore, he decided to lie low this time, to hide behind the scenes instead of rushing to the place where the Primordial Demon was suppressed and killing him straight away.


    If this matter was really that simple to settle, he would not have been so worried.


    "Alas!"


    Sitting by the window, Zhou Bao let out a sigh, took a sip of the alcohol, scooped up a peanut and tossed it into his mouth. He felt that his brain was an utter mess, his strands of thoughts as disordered as the crowds coming and going in an endless flow, outside the window.


    "Hello brother, greetings!"


    As Zhou Bao heaved a sigh, a voice fluttered to his ears, trying to strike up a conversation with him. This was from a man who had been observing Zhou Bao for a while, which Zhou Bao was aware of. But he did not bother about him, for this man was merely a practitioner who had just stepped into the Mysterious Realm. However, it did not occur to him that this man would come over to start a conversation.


    Looking up, he saw a middle-aged man with a seemingly honest face, then he cupped his hands in respect and said, "Greetings, brother, have a seat!"


    The man did not refuse. He threw himself into the empty seat opposite Zhou Bao and said, "As I observed, you are scowling and sighing in despair. You must have met some difficulties, right?"


    Zhou Bao squinted, his face revealing a trace of a forced smile. "Well, brother, please do not laugh at me. I do have some problems and I''m racking my brains to figure out a solution!"


    "Oh? Problems?" The man said with a smile. "You and I are both practitioners. The only type of problems we encounter should only be the difficulties in developing our strength and cultivation. The rest does not matter. Brother, you are quite young, but your cultivation is extremely profound. Thus, you are not worrying about your cultivation. If that''s the case, what else is worth your concern? You will cross the bridge when you get to it. Stop wasting your energy on whatever you are thinking!"


    "Brother, you do have a point!" Zhou Bao was using the identity of Jia Qingping, so he did not hide his cultivation on purpose. He merely lowered the rank that he was demonstrating to the public to Rank Two of the Individual Immortal Realm, which was just a bit higher than this man. And that was why this man dared to strike up a conversation with him. If Zhou Bao hid his cultivation completely and pretended to be an ordinary guy, or fully revealed his cultivation and gave off an overbearing sense of power, this man would not have come near him at all.


    "I am Jia Qingping, a man living on this Remote Red Star. What is your noble name?"


    "Noble name or not, my surname is Jin, and my given name is Yao, I am from the Cumulus Star!"


    "Cumulus Star?" Zhou Bao was a little taken aback. What a coincidence! This Cumulus Star was one of the few vast planets Zhou Bao had visited in the Infinite Star Sea, which was a widely known Trading Star.


    "Cumulus Star is not near this place at all. I wonder why Brother Jin is traveling all this way here for?"


    "Just for a private affair!" Jin Yao gave a mysterious smile but did not elaborate. Zhou Bao did not mind this. He also gave a smile, and his anxious expression faded a bit. He did not ask more questions and started drinking the alcohol.

 710 Cooperation

    Jin Yao was a resourceful man. He had taken a series of measures to conceal the spirit of the Psychic Jade Talisman before he ran away from the Cumulus Star. Just when he thought he was finally off the hook, he bumped into the practitioners who had sold him those celestial devices on this planet. What a small world!


    However, though Jin Yao recognized them, they did not recognize him. That was because he had changed his appearance to avoid being tracked down by the Jia Family. But anyway, they probably would not remember what he looked like at all. No one would bother to remember the appearance of a shop owner unless they were going to do business with him on a long-term basis, which those practitioners were certainly not planning to do so.


    When he saw those practitioners, Jin Yao''s mind started working rapidly. The reason why he fled from the Cumulus Star was that he feared being hunted down by the Jia Family. But if he managed to arrest some of those practitioners and had them hauled before the Jia Family, the whole thing could be explained clearly. Frankly, he was quite unwilling to give up his estates on the Cumulus Star. Thus, to achieve this goal, he secretly followed this bunch of practitioners only to discover an astonishing fact.


    It turned out that they had not lied about the origins of those celestial devices they sold to him¡ªthe did discover a Hidden Treasure, but they were not the only ones who found it. Jia Qinghua, the unlucky direct descendant of the Jia Family, who had hoped to succeed the post of Family Head, together with his maids and guards, had also found out about this Hidden Treasure.


    Sadly, those practitioners killed Jia Qinghua and his subordinates and took away his Psychic Jade Talisman.


    Since those practitioners did not have high-level cultivations, they merely accessed the first level of this Hidden Treasure and obtained some inferior celestial devices. They failed to enter the second level and were trying to find a way.


    After he obtained the information, he managed to figure out the specific location of the Hidden Treasure. Jin Yao immediately swallowed a Three Body Divine Elixir and came to this Remote Red Star to find an old friend of his.


    What was this Three Body Divine Elixir?


    It was an antidote for the Soul Searching practice. As the old saying went, everything had its vanquisher. This Three Body Divine Elixir was an elixir specializing in preventing others from doing Soul Searching on the one who had consumed it. When you took this medicine, once someone started searching your soul, the Three Body Divine Elixir would automatically destroy your spirit, leaving nothing to be found by the person doing the Soul Searching.


    Of course, ordinary people would not take this rather bizarre medicine. Usually, the effects of this medicine would last for one year. Since it directly affected the spirit, it was harmful to a practitioner''s spirit. Accordingly, no practitioner would take it unless out of absolute necessity or in desperate circumstances.


    After taking this medicine, Jin Yao went straight to the Remote Red Star and searched for his old friend. Why did he do that? Because this old friend had some connections with the Jia Family.


    His plan was quite simple: First, he will take the Three Body Divine Elixir to block out any information the Jia Family might discover through the Soul Searching. Next, he would ask his friend to introduce him to a member of the Jia Family and return the Psychic Jade Talisman, together with the truthful explanation about the whole thing. Then, he would lead the Jia Family to the Hidden Treasure and arrest the murderers who had killed Jia Qinghua. In this way, not only would he account for his innocence, but he might acquire huge benefits from the Hidden Treasure. Although the Jia Family was powerful, if his plan was carried out with care, it was possible for him to have a share of the Hidden Treasure. But in order to achieve that, it was crucial for him to find his old friend first. However, to his dismay, that old friend had already left the Remote Red Star to travel around, rendering his plan inviable.


    Of course, he could also go straight to the Jia Family on his own. But without anyone''s introduction, the treatment he faced would be totally different. Even his life might be endangered. Thus, faced with this hopeless situation, he had to keep looking for traces of his old friend.


    Who could tell where a practitioner would be when he started traveling? How much useful information could one possibly find in his original residence?


    Only God would have the answers.


    Hence, after several days'' of fruitless searching, Jin Yao was quite dejected. He went to this tavern to drown his worries in liquor, and ran into Zhou Bao, who was also drowning his sorrow in drinks. He recognized Zhou Bao at once as the prodigy from a branch of the Jia Family, who had stepped into the limelight over 10 years ago. That was how he came up with a new plan.


    Although Jia Qingping was merely from a branch of the Jia Family and had no influence on the direct descendants of the Jia Family, he was a talent that any family would attach great importance to. Anyway, he was not asking much from Zhou Bao, what he needed was just an introduction by this young genius of the Jia Family. This would have the same effect as being introduced by his old friend. However, after talking to Zhou Bao, he changed his mind. He noticed that Jia Qingping was quite a powerful practitioner. Despite that the spirit emitted by this Jia Qingping was merely showing a strength at Level Two of the Individual Immortal, the air of his comportment was telling him this young man was not that weak. Above all, those practitioners who had sold the goods to him were not very powerful, only at Level One or Level Two of the Individual Immortal. Besides, they were now fully focused on tracking the Hidden Treasure and would not be wary of others finding out their secret. At this point, if he could drag Zhou Bao into this team and call in several friends, they could take down those practitioners with their combined strength and take advantage of all the benefits in the Hidden Treasure. All in all, his gains would not be less than that of cooperating with the Jia Family.


    Having these thoughts in mind, he changed his original plan and started enticing Zhou Bao.


    After he heard his story, Zhou Bao was dumbstruck. It took him quite a while to grasp the actual significance of what Jin Yao, the shop owner, was trying to tell him.


    "Hey, it never occurred to me that this kind of thing could actually happen in reality. But Boss Jin, are you sure you want to work with me?"


    "Of course. Apart from you, I will call in some of my old friends as well!" Jin Yao said, revealing a sincere but wry smile. "In fact, if only I had realized it earlier before leaving my spirit on that Psychic Jade Talisman, this matter would not have become so complex. I could merely gather some friends to kill those practitioners and return the Psychic Jade Talisman to the Jia Family. I will just tell them that I snatched it from those practitioners, then, there would be no problem. But now, I have carried this Psychic Jade Talisman for too long, which makes it too hard to explain, so that''s why I was thinking about finding a man related to the Jia Family to discuss this with!"


    "A Hidden Treasure? Well, Brother Jin, do you know what sort of Hidden Treasure it is?"


    "No clue. I was on my own at that time and had to be cautious. I only knew it was at an Immortal''s Cave from antiquity times. This Infinite Star Sea is peerlessly vast, who could ever know whom the cave belonged to. However, leaving an Immortal''s Cave in a place like this Infinite Star Sea isn''t the style of those large sects, so I guess its owner may not have any intimidating background either!" Jin Yao''s assumption did make sense. In antiquity times, the Infinite Star Sea was a stretch of utterly barren land. No one would want this area even if you gave it to them for free. Thus, the one who built up the Immortal''s Cave was probably a nobody. But even if it was merely a Genuine Immortal''s Cave, it could offer endless profits for a Rank One Individual Immortal like Jin Yao.


    "Now that Brother Jin is so honest with me and is offering me a kind invitation that comes with tempting benefits, I certainly cannot refuse!" After giving this some thought, Zhou Bao looked up and said with a smile. "These days I''m having a rough time. Now, I shall just regard this as a chance to go out and channel away my negative feelings. I wonder how many friends you will be calling up, Brother Jin?"


    "Three. Their strength is all above mine, and they are all trustworthy!"


    The most important thing was the last sentence¡ªthey were trustworthy.


    The path of cultivation was certainly very bumpy, during which murdering for treasures were common occurrences. If a man was not trustworthy, the higher his cultivation was, the more dangerous he would be. Thus, after having the assurance that those guys were trustworthy, Zhou Bao relaxed visibly. But then, he raised his head and asked, "Excuse me, Brother Jin. Although I am one of the Jia Family, I''ve never seen the Psychic Jade Talisman as I am just from a side branch. I wonder if Brother Jin can let me have a look at that Psychic Jade Talisman and let my mind be totally blown!"


    The purpose of this requirement was just to verify Jin Yao''s words.


    After all, Jin Yao had no proof of what he had related so far. It called for a further verification to see whether his story was true or not. Since the whole thing was incurred by the Psychic Jade Talisman, then, having a look at it was an easy verification.


    "The Psychic Jade Talisman is such a wonderful device that I do not dare to display it openly!" Jin Yao smiled bitterly. "On the third day after I got this Jade Talisman, it went out of control. It took all of my strength to suppress it and cover up its spirit, but this had already attracted the attention of the Jia Family. Though everything appears to be fine now, I believe the men from the Jia Family must have arrived on the Cumulus Star and tracked down my whereabouts!" Speaking of this, Jin Yao seemed a little helpless. "But I don''t blame you for wanting to see this Jade Talisman. Well, let''s find another time and go to a remote place in the hollow. Then, I will show you this thing and let you verify it, is that OK?"


    "Don''t bother. It''s just a Pure Yang Celestial Device. And I happen to have some means to cover up the spirit. No need to worry about its spirit seeping out, but it is truly not a good place to take it out here!"


    "Oh? Young Brother Jia has some means to conceal the spirit? That couldn''t be better. Well, I shall go and show you at once, the earlier the better. By the way, I could use your help to conceal its spirit better!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Jin Yao was overjoyed. He could not conceal his happiness. "Brother, you should know that to cover up its spirit has made me totally exhausted these days!" While speaking, without waiting for Zhou Bao''s reply, Jin Yao directly dragged Zhou Bao downstairs and hurtled towards the Sea-watching City.


    Such bad luck!

 709 Causality

    The two continued eating and drinking. After a while, Jin Yao''s curiosity got the better of him. Munching a peanut, he turned to Zhou Bao and said, "Brother Jia, you''re so young, but what''s bothering you so much? Tell me, maybe I can help!"


    "Well, it''s nothing, just a few trivia with regards to my family. I felt depressed for a moment and heaved several sighs. Please excuse my poor manners!" Zhou Bao shook his head reluctantly, putting on an embarrassed expression. "Unlike me, Brother Jin has traveled thousands of miles to get here, so you must be entertaining a lofty ambition!"


    "Hee hee, not lofty at all. I''m just a man who is destined to have a life of toil!" Jin Yao gave a wry smile. "The main purpose of my coming to the Remote Red Star this time is to search for a man. But so far I haven''t found him, and now I have to go back and admit defeat!"


    "Looking for someone? I wonder who you are looking for. Although I''m not very capable, I do know some people on this Remote Red Star. It won''t be hard for me to find this guy!"


    "Haha, thank you, Brother Jia. But I already found out that the man I''m looking for has left the Remote Red Star. Even if you dig to the core of the Remote Red Star, you won''t be able to catch him!"Jin Yao laughed. "However, meeting you here is really a pleasant surprise!"


    "Meeting me is a pleasant surprise?" Zhou Bao'' heart jolted as he gave him a startled look. "What is this about?"


    "I will share a secret with you. I discovered a Hidden Treasure, but due to my limited strength, I came to this Remote Red Star to find my friend to help me check it out. However, that friend of mine is traveling around and has long left the Remote Red Star. That''s why I am here. But who knows I should run into you here. Brother Jia, I noticed that you have an extremely high cultivation at such a young age, so I guessed you must be quite remarkable. Then, from your worried face, I thought you might have some difficulties now, so I intruded on your quiet time and came forward to speak to you. I''m thinking if you would like to come with me to search for that Hidden Treasure. You can get some benefits and it will be something to distract your mind now. What do you say?"


    Zhou Bao blinked, totally stunned by this!


    He knew that this Jin Yao must have an agenda in mind when he approached him. But it never occurred to him that this sort of thing could happen to him. How weird it was! Could something like this really happen?


    A man discovers a Hidden Treasure, but since he failed to find his friend to help him, he randomly picked a practitioner on the street and invited him to join him. How could this be true? This was not like the recruitment of soldiers described in the western fantasy literature, where you could drag any guy in the troop to go on missions.


    Looking at Zhou Bao''s astonished and bewildered face, Jin Yao forced a smile and said, "I know. What I''m doing is a bit reckless. But I have my reasons for that!"


    Yes, there should be reasons. Otherwise, this would be really ridiculous.


    "I''m wondering what reasons you have in mind?"


    "If I''m not mistaken, Your Excellency must be the young prodigy in the Jia Family, Jia Qingping. Am I right?"


    "Right, I am Jia Qingping from the Jia Family, but I''m not a prodigy at all!" Zhou Bao answered, his mind racing. Zhou Bao was using the identity of Jia Qingping in the Infinite Star Sea, but he had never thought that someone could recognize this identity.


    Did he find this out from Jia Huaiyu?


    No, it could not be. After all, Jia Huaiyu could not be that silly, could he?


    "I am seldom around in the Infinite Star Sea, but how did Brother Jin know of my background?"


    "Well, as luck would have it!" Jin Yao smiled bitterly. "The Cumulus Star is a very large Trading Star in the Infinite Star Sea, doing business with loads of vast planets, including your Jia Family. In fact, your Jia Family has quite an influence on the Cumulus Star, and I have also socialized with some of the men working for them on that planet. 10 years ago, I heard that a genius practitioner came to the scene from a side branch of the Jia Family. He was named Jia Qingping. By persistent practicing, his cultivation reached the Level Two of the Individual Immortal Realm at the age around 20, which really made many people jealous. At that time, the supervisor of the Jia Family on the Cumulus Star was called Jia Kou. He used to take your picture out to show off before us!"


    "So that''s how it came about!"


    Zhou Bao began to understand what this whole thing was about. When he stole the identity of Jia Qingping and traveled in the Infinite Star Sea, Jia Huaiyu had transmitted his picture to the Jia family for the sake of convenience. But he did not expect that the Jia family would transfer this picture to its numerous branches scattered in the Infinite Star Sea. That was how his identity was disclosed and why he had been recognized on this Remote Red Star.


    He found this a bit annoying, but he could do nothing about it now. "So Brother Jin has known about me for a long time. But you pretended you didn''t at first. Well, you have a drink a cup as punishment!" Zhou Bao said, laughing half-heartedly.


    "Fine, fine, fine. I''ll drink up!" Seeing that Zhou Bao was not angry, Jin Yao drank three large cups in one sitting. Then, he said, "Young Brother Jia, you have been an outstanding figure since childhood. Of course, I remember you clearly!"


    "Hey, no need to be so polite with me. Stop calling me "Young Brother Jia, just call me Qingping. Anyway, I think Brother Jia should be your senior!"


    "Good, good. Young Bro...No...Qingping, you''re an outspoken man, so I won''t stand on ceremony with you!"


    Zhou Bao beamed, nodding his head. "That''s great. Brother Jin, we don''t have to be so polite to each other. But what do I have to do with the Hidden Treasure you just mentioned?"


    "This is a bit complicated!" Jin Yao forced a smile. "To be honest, it really has something to do with your Jia Family!"


    "Our Jia Family is involved? Hee hee, rest assured, Brother Jin. Although I am one of the Jia Family, I am just a disciple of a side branch, growing up on this Remote Red Star and not closely related to the Jia Family. Therefore..."


    "Well, I know that. Otherwise, I wouldn''t have come to you!" Jin Yao said with a smile. "Here is the thing. I''ve opened a store on the Cumulus Star. It''s not large, but enough for me to make a living as well as meeting my needs for practice. But half a month ago, my store received a deal, which was taken care of by one of my employees. This deal involved selling some low-level celestial devices discovered in a Hidden Treasure by several practitioners. The price those practitioners offered to me was quite high, but those were celestial devices, very easy to resell and gain some profit. Plus, one of those celestial devices really caught my eye, so I took them all in. However, who knew this led to a series of trouble..."


    Indeed, he had incurred problems. Of course, at that point when Jin Yao took in all those celestial devices, he did not know that one particular celestial device would later attract his attention. This celestial device appeared to be a low-level device. But Jin Yao was not ignorant. After all, how could guys capable of doing business on the Cumulus Star turn out to ignorant? Very soon, Jin Yao detected that something was wrong, because the one which looked like an inferior celestial device was actually a Pure Yang Celestial Device; a highly famous Pure Yang Celestial Device¡ªthe Psychic Jade Talisman. This Psychic Jade Talisman looked very ordinary, but when some high-ranked practitioner pumps his Dharma power into it, a protective cover will be activated. This is no common cover. Thanks to the material of this Psychic Jade Talisman, the Dharma power injected in it will produce a wonderous mutation, enabling the cover to be immune to any Dharma power attack, unless your opponent is utterly superior to you or is a guy like Zhou Bao who wins by his pure force. Normal practitioners will find this cover extremely hard to break. As rumors have it, this Psychic Jade Talisman was able to resist three all-out strikes made by an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven. Look, an all-out strike of an Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven! And it can fend it off three times! But what mattered most was that when the power inside it was depleted, only if a high-ranked practitioner replenishes it, then it could quickly function again. A celestial device like this one was naturally a treasure!


    Precisely due to its worth, only the direct descendant of the Jia Family who was going to be the next Family Head was qualified to carry this Psychic Jade Talisman. Furthermore, this Jade Talisman contained an inhibition cast by an Elder in the Jia Family, which ensured that he could sense this Jade Talisman wherever it was so as to make sure the holder of this Jade Talisman was safe.


    The fact that the Jia Family had this kind of treasure was widely known in the Infinite Star Sea. Thus, after a thorough examination, Jin Yao confirmed that this ordinary looking Jade Talisman was the Psychic Jade Talisman of the Jia Family, a purely defensive Pure Yang Celestial Device.


    After discovering this, he was overjoyed. But soon his great joy transformed into great sorrow, for he found out there were more than one inhibition imposed on this Pure Yang Celestial Device, which meant more than one Elder was watching this Psychic Jade Talisman. At this, Jin Yao was afraid.


    He did have some estates on the Cumulus Star, but they were in no way parallel to what the Jia Family had. Therefore, after the initial delight faded, he found himself in great trouble.


    This Psychic Jade Talisman should have been worn by the most important disciple of the Jia Family, but now it fell into his hands. Then, where was the real owner of this Jade Talisman? Why was this Pure Yang Celestial Device sold to him as a tradable device, a low-leveled celestial device? What could all this mean?


    Well, in the world of practitioners, even an idiot knew what all this meant. This must mean that the disciple of the Jia Family had been robbed. If it was merely his belongings that had been taken, it would be fine. But if this disciple was killed along the way, then, Jin Yao would be in real trouble.


    Strength always prevailed in the world of practitioners. In their quest to dig out the truth, the Jia Family would certainly not listen to Jin Yao''s explanation. When something like this happened, the most convenient measure they would adopt was the Soul Searching¡ªgetting the information they needed right through your spirit. But as to whether this searching might harm Jin Yao in any way, they did not care.


    In this case, the best solution Jin Yao could come up with was to throw the Psychic Jade Talisman away. But in no time, he found that this did not help the situation, because he had already left his brand on the Psychic Jade Talisman. Although he could cover up the spirit of the Psychic Jade Talisman for a short time, he could not hide its spirit for good. Hence, after thinking over the whole matter, he decided to leave the Cumulus Star and be on the run.


    For an Independent Practitioner like him, this was indeed the best choice. He fled, making it hard for others to track him down for the moment. Along the way, he could take his time to work out a way to wipe off his brand on the Psychic Jade Talisman. And in the meantime, he also possessed a Pure Yang Celestial Device almost for free. He was only too glad to do so!


    But unfortunately, this matter was not as simple as he had imagined.

 711 Inhibitions

    Outside the Sea-watching City was the boundless ocean. But as practitioners, no creatures in the sea could harm them, except for evil beasts.


    Jin Yao dragged Zhou Bao out of Sea-watching City. Once they stepped out of the city gate, they started flying in the direction towards the depths of the sea. Obviously, Jin Yao had installed his temporary den in the sea.


    Sure enough, after flying for over two hours, Jin Yao descended on a desolate island. The pneuma on this island was quite thin. After all, to be able to find a place filled with pneuma like the Azure Heaven within the Infinite Star Sea would just be wishful thinking.


    This was a coral island, with an area around a dozen square kilometers. There were several small hills on the island; it looked a little hazy because of the inhibitions Jin Yao had set upon them. The moment Jin Yao arrived on the island, he broke the inhibitions and led Zhou Bao to his hiding place, which turned out to be a small cave.


    I discovered this place by accident. This cave leads to a place about 10 miles under the sea surface, linked by a tunnel. Though the environment is not very good, it''s a great place for hiding a spirit!" Ushering Zhou Bao into the zigzagged tunnel, Jin Yao explained as they walked ahead. "This cave is a natural cave and it has a cold pool at one end. Thanks to the cold pool, I finally insulated the spirit of the Psychic Jade Talisman by dropping it into the bottom of the pool. If there had been no cold pool, I would have to use my Dharma power daily to suppress it. That would be pretty troublesome."


    "You can just throw this jade piece away. Why go through all this trouble?"


    "How I wish I could just throw it away! At first, I was curious, and thought about refining this Psychic Jade Talisman. As a result, I left my spirit on it. Even if I throw the jade away, your Jia Family still can track me down by examining the spirit lingering in it; this might even be achieved faster than finding this jade itself."


    "You really went for wool and came home shorn!" Looking at Jin Yao''s wry smile, Zhou Bao could not help laughing. This guy was rather unlucky. He thought he had received such a windfall but could not put it to use, and in the end, he was caught in a dilemma and even had to take the Three Body Divine Elixir. How pathetic was that!


    For practitioners like these two, walking through a 10 mile long passageway was no problem. They sped up and arrived at the end of the coral cave in a few seconds. As Jin Yao had described, there was a cold pool there.


    The existence of this cold pool suggested that there should be a spirit vein under the pool. However, since Zhou Bao already possessed an entire macro world, this kind of spirit vein was totally worthless in his eyes. But Jin Yao seemed to be very interested in the spirit vein.


    "The thing is just at the bottom of this cold pool. But before I take it out, I hope Brother Jia can execute some concealing skills first. Otherwise, the second this thing surfaces, the Jia Family will sense it!"


    "No problem!" Zhou Bao smiled. Several jets of azure light shot out from his sleeves and stuck to the vital points of the cave. At once, grey smoke swirled around and the space within the cave became an independent space, totally separated from the outside world.


    "Bravo!" As the change occurred in the place, Jin Yao involuntarily let out an exclamation. Standing in this space, he could not sense any movement from the outside world; even his own divine thoughts were enclosed within the space. But the eeriest thing was that this originally small space appeared to be boundless under the cover of the grey smoke. Meanwhile, he was unable to detect anything peculiar except for the cold pool before him.


    "Just a small trick. But it''s handy to isolate the spirit!" Zhou Bao smiled, ignoring the exclamation of Jin Yao. Today. Considering his cultivation and status, compliments from a low-ranked man like Jin Yao meant nothing to him.


    "Hee hee, if this is just a small trick, then my whole life must be as demeaning as that of a dog!" Hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Jin Yao heaved a sigh, and then he lifted a hand and the cold pool in front of them started rippling.


    Shortly after that, a black iron box floated up from the bottom of the pool.


    No sooner had the black iron box appeared, then Zhou Bao distinctly detected the fierce vibration and the violent fluctuations of Dharma power coming out from inside the box. Due to the power that was locked up in the iron box, only a small portion managed to seep out, and it was this occurrence that had terrified Jin Yao for days. He was afraid that a portion of power would escape and transmit the location of the Psychic Jade Talisman to the Jia Family.


    However, once this portion of power dispersed, the surrounding grey smoke engulfed it immediately. Given that Zhou Bao''s Yin and Yang Dust Formation could mimic a macro world, resist the Thunder Tribulation and trap a Human Immortal, a Pure Yang Celestial Device like this Psychic Jade Talisman did not pose any threat to the formation.


    Feeling the Dharma power in this box being absorbed by the surrounding grey smoke, Jin Yao was finally relieved. He carefully opened it, revealing the jade inside.


    This was a round-shaped milk-white jade pendant, which emitted a mild light. Dense Dharma power swirled about in its milk-white light as if it was about to break out. But there were numerous odd patterns and talismans inscribed on the inside of the box. It was due to those patterns and talismans that the Dharma power had been tightly locked up in the box. But apart from this Psychic Jade Talisman, there were four extra Spiritual Stones in each corner of this box, which shone with a blazing light. At the sight of the lights of those Spiritual Stones, Zhou Bao realized that those were highly rare TopGrade Spiritual Stones. He was surprised that Jin Yao had used those Spiritual Stones in this inhibition. What stunned him more was that even with four pieces of such Top Grade Spiritual Stones, they were unable to wholly suppress the fluctuations of the Dharma power inside the Psychic Jade Talisman. That was why Jin Yao had to resort to using the power of the cold pool.


    "This is the Psychic Jade Talisman! It is really amazing! Brother Jin, I could tell this is a precious item just by one glance. But how could those practitioners sell it to you as a low-level celestial device? And how come you thought about refining it?"


    "I never expected this. At first, it was not so eye-catching as it is now. It looked just like any jade pendant sending forth the fluctuations of a low-level celestial device. But when I tried to refine it, there was a reaction and it became like what it is now. That''s the moment when I realized something was wrong!"


    "I see!" Zhou Bao nodded, and then, he lowered his head as if he was carefully examining this Psychic Jade Talisman. "If that''s the case, I have a way to restore this thing to its original state."


    "Really?" At this, Jin Yao jumped up in amazement. "Young Brother Jia, don''t trick me. I''ve tried out a lot of ways, but none of them has worked!"


    "This is a unique technique of my Jia Family. It''s not hard for me!" Zhou Bao easily made that up. He had discovered the wonders of this Psychic Jade Talisman. But since he was pretending to be an Individual Immortal, he could not just sort out this Psychic Jade Talisman devised by several Venerables. However, if he claimed that he could fix this problem with a unique technique passed down in the Jia Family, that would make sense. Anyway, Jin Yao did not suspect Zhou Bao at all, for it was no secret that powerful families like the Jia Family might have some secret skills.


    As Zhou Bao''s fingertips waved gently, jets of scattered light flashed, then landed on the Psychic Jade Talisman and completely oppressed the fluctuations of the Dharma power in the Psychic Jade Talisman.


    "Perfect, really perfect! Now, I''m finally relieved!"


    "You don''t have anything to worry about and you don''t need to return it anymore!" Zhou Bao cracked a smile.


    "Hee hee!" Hearing this, a trace of greed flitted across the eyes of Jin Yao. For an Individual Immortal like him, a Pure Yang Celestial Device was quite appealing. But soon, he stifled his greed with great determination. Although Zhou Bao explained that the technique was a unique skill of the Jia Family, judging by the incantation Zhou Bao recited and the abstruse hand gestures he had made, Jin Yao was sure that this technique was not something a normal Individual Immortal could master. The fact that Jia Qingping''s strength which was publicly known, was already above his, made him quickly dismiss any greedy ideas he had.


    "This object is indeed precious. But it belongs to your Jia Family after all. Anyway, you are the who erased its spirit. If I continue to refine it, problems may arise. Since keeping it with me would only create problems, I''d better give it to somebody else."


    "That''s reasonable. I didn''t realize that you have so much foresight!" Zhou Bao beamed. He lifted his hands and the Yin and Yang Dust Formation leaped into his sleeves. "Now, could you show me the Hidden Treasure?"


    "Er¡ª" Jin Yao''s expression went a bit slack. "Though most of those practitioners are Level Two or Level Three Individual Immortals and the strongest one among them is merely a Level Four Individual Immortal, there are quite a number of them, so I''m afraid you and I are not strong enough to fight against them. Let me¡ª"


    "I know you''re going to find several other friends, but that''s not necessary. Now, I am quite interested in the Hidden Treasure and those practitioners. Thus, I''m not going to wait any longer!" Zhou Bao interrupted him.


    "Er, but they¡ª" Before Jin Yao could finish his words, a stream of majestic spirit flooded out from Zhou Bao and permeated the entire space of the cave.


    Level Three Individual Immortal.


    Level Four Individual Immortal.


    Level Five Individual Immortal.


    Level Six Individual Immortal.


    Level Seven Individual Immortal.


    ...


    Jin Yao sensed that the rank of Zhou Bao''s Dharma power had soared up at an incredulous speed. In just a few seconds, Zhou Bao transformed from a Level Two Individual Immortal to a Level Seven Individual Immortal.


    Level Seven Individual Immortal!


    At this point, his eyeballs nearly popped out of its sockets in shock. How could Jia Qingping rise from a Level Two Individual Immortal to a Level Seven Individual Immortal in such a short period? Could it be¡ª


    "You have been hiding your actual strength!"


    "Got to. I''m too young to have such strength!" Zhou Bao shrugged and uttered one more sentence, "Tell me, with our combined strength, can we have a look at the Hidden Treasure now?"


    "Sure, of course!" By now, Jin Yao was thoroughly chilled at this discovery. One of the reasons he had approached Zhou Bao was that he recognized him as the prodigy in the Jia Family, but another reason was that he thought he could take advantage of this young man. Despite his outstanding strength, Jin Yao believed that he was fully capable of deceiving this inexperienced boy. However, never could he have imagined that this young teen could possess such strong powers.

 712 A Surprising Encounter and the Identity of the Fierce Owl

    Becoming a Level Eight Individual Immortal at the tender age of 25!


    What kind of phenomenon was this? Even the direct descendants of this large well-known family like the Jia Family could not have such uninhibited strength!


    "Is this guy some sort of monster?"


    In the Infinite Star Sea and the 14 macro worlds, only a handful of men as young as Zhou Bao possessed the strength of a Level Eight Individual Immortal, but they were almost all elites in their own macro world, the future governors of those macro worlds, as well as the best candidates of Realm Lords. However, what about this Jia Qingping?


    He was just a disciple of a collateral branch of the Jia Family. Although the Jia Family was quite a large family, when compared to all the well-known families in the macro world, they were merely at the secondary level and below. Then, how was it possible that this family had fostered such a monster?


    "Is he not a disciple of the Jia Family?"


    This thought flitted across his mind but he refused to think about it anymore. Whatever Zhou Bao''s background was, it had nothing to do with him. The only thing he needed to do was to follow Zhou Bao''s orders and lead him to the Hidden Treasure.


    "Good. Now that Young Brother Jia has displayed such impressive powers, our strength should be enough!" Taking a deep breath, Jin Yao''s face regained its normal color. He put the box holding the Psychic Jade Talisman back into his space and led Zhou Bao out of the coral cave.


    "The Hidden Treasure is located near Yongmai Star. That is the territory of the Lee Family, so we''d better be careful!"


    "The Lee Family?" Zhou Bao was a little stupefied, but soon realized that just like the Jia Family, the Lee Family was also a relatively powerful family in the Infinite Star Sea. Each of these powerful families had carved out a separate niche as their own territory and ruled the area like a district king. This kind of action was often taken by families that were not quite prosperous in the 14 macro worlds. But anyway, keeping a stretch of land for their own family was always a wise move, and that was how the situation was with the Lee Family.


    Even though they were just a secondary well-known family in their macro world, having the ability to own such a remote land suggested that they actually had some powers.


    "It doesn''t matter. The Lee Family is merely in control of this place. If we do not create any trouble here, there should be no problems, right?"


    "Of course!" When he heard Zhou Bao''s words, Jin Yao felt relieved. He was worried that being young and aggressive, this Zhou Bao would despise the style of the Lee Family and start a conflict, which would result in drawing attention to themselves.


    Three days later, Yongmai Star.


    Zhou Bao had an ugly look on his face, while next to him, Jin Yao displayed a wry smile, but he felt relieved at the same time.


    "Well, you should have known that this Lee Family was not a decent family, even from before, right?"


    "The reputation of the Lee Family is well known in the entire Infinite Star Sea!" Jin Yao laughed sourly. "It''s just that I never thought you were not aware of it!"


    "Of course I have never heard of them. For all this time, I''ve been focusing on my practice in the Infinite Star Sea, so why would I care about these trivia!"


    "The Lee Family''s greed and irascibility are second to none in the Infinite Star Sea. Rumour has it that it is because they inherited part of the bloodline of the Evil Dragon in antiquity times. But if that''s the case, they should have long become a first-class well-known family within the Milky Way Star Area. How could they be reduced to the level of a secondary family as it is today!"


    "You do have a point. But I was also trying to avoid any trouble at that time. Otherwise, I would have beaten them to death!" Zhou Bao said indignantly.


    "Fine, fine. Now that this matter has passed and we didn''t suffer much loss, let''s just go. The Hidden Treasure is on the vast planet just ahead of us!"


    The vast planet was actually a gaseous planet.


    Due to the density variations, the volume of a gaseous planet would normally be several times more that of an ordinary planet, and so too with this gaseous planet. But in comparison, this planet was not a place suitable for practice, thereby no practitioners would deliberately travel to it. Accordingly, this kind of star did not even have a name.


    This planet was not far from Yongmai Star, for they were both located in the same galaxy. When Zhou Bao came into the vicinity of the planet, he instantly raised his eyebrows, because he sensed that though this gaseous planet was pretty normal and the pneuma on it was quite common, among all sorts of gas surrounding this planet, the essence of the world, which was the only one useful to practitioners, was hundreds of thousands of times thinner than that in Heaven Realm World. This meant no one could practice martial skills on it, and that was why practitioners never favored this kind of gaseous planets.


    Hence, the possibility of having a Hidden Treasure on this planet was extremely low. Since there was little pneuma, no lasting inhibition could be cast there. Without magic formations or inhibitions, it would be rather easy for others to discover the Hidden Treasure.


    "There is a peculiar spacetime inside, and the Hidden Treasure sits right in it!" As if he understood what Zhou Bao was thinking, Jin Yao explained hastily. "This spacetime is very strange. You can''t spot it from the outside. But if you''re lucky, you may run into it and discover it. I guess it was by pure luck that those practitioners happened to find this Hidden Treasure."


    "How odd this is!"


    Hearing this, Zhou Bao was intrigued. His powerful spiritual sense reached out like an intangible tentacle and explored every corner of this nameless gaseous planet. Sure enough as Jin Yao had said, nothing existed on this gaseous planet except for this scarce and useless gas.


    "That bunch of guys was really weird. Why would they want to come to this gaseous planet?"


    "That''s beyond my knowledge!" Jin Yao gave a forced smile. Yes, not a single practitioner would have any interest in landing on such a poor planet. But why did those practitioners come to this planet in the first place? No one could possibly answer that question.


    "This planet is not easy to locate, either. But I''ve been here once, so we won''t have any problem finding it!" Jin Yao concealed his spirit and started descending onto the gaseous planet. Zhou Bao scowled slightly, but plummeted down as well.


    Although this was a gaseous planet, there were still some obstacles in their way. In fact, there were quite a number of obstacles. Most of them were in the form of violent storms, some of which had thunderbolts and even some space fragments within them. Zhou Bao was not afraid of these things, but Jin Yao was walking on eggshells now because he knew that if he should be sucked into those storms, there would be nothing left of him.


    Nevertheless, Zhou Bao was not worried for Jin Yao, for he saw that Jin Yao had a pretty good protective celestial device, which would work in this circumstance.


    Jin Yao strode forward with immense caution, casting furtive looks at Zhou Bao from time to time. The more he observed Zhou Bao, the more astounded he became¡ªZhou Bao followed him with ease, not even trying to elude any storm or thunderbolt at all. He allowed those storms and thunderbolts to hit him. If he were an ordinary guy, he would already be dead. But now, he was behaving as if nothing had happened. Those storms and thunderbolts that hit him were not absorbed by him, nor did they bounce off him. Instead, they just disappeared inexplicably.


    Anyway, Jin Yao had no way to figure out what Zhou Bao was doing.


    At this point, Jin Yao started to regret messing around with this mysterious guy. But by now, he had already gotten himself into this predicament.


    "It''s here, just ahead. Look at that spacetime!" After several moments, Jin Yao and Zhou Bao arrived at their destination. "Look, they''re still there!"


    Taking a careful look at the place, Zhou Bao felt an unexpected shock as well. There was a spacetime, but it was not well concealed. Its spacious passageway was lying blatantly in front of him. It was such a conspicuous Space Passage, but he could not spot even a bit of it from the outside even though he was so close to it a moment ago. It was only when he stood in front of it and witnessed its appearance that he did ascertain that this thing before him was a real Space Passage, leading to an unknown spacetime.


    "Snake-like Breath Holding Skill! The state of this spacetime has the same effect as my Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. How funny it is!"


    Despite his current strength, phase, and knowledge, Zhou Bao still could not figure out how this spacetime had managed to escape detection.


    "Interesting!" Through that Space Passage, he saw clearly that six Individual Immortals with varied cultivations were trying to break through a huge iron gate as if there was something appealing behind the gate.


    "These are the guys who sold the devices to you?"


    "Right, it''s them!" Jin Yao replied with certainty.


    "What on earth are these two doing in the Infinite Star Sea?" Zhou Bao murmured to himself. It turned out that among those Independent Practitioners, two of them were Zhou Bao''s family members¡ªone was his son, the other, his daughter. He recalled telling those two to travel around and have a change of scenery, but how could they travel to the Infinite Star Sea? That was really messy!


    "You know them?" Although Zhou Bao muttered under his breath, Jin Yao could still hear him.


    Zhou Bao shot a fierce look at Jin Yao. Without pausing to explain, he sent out an intimidating thought right at this Individual Immortal, which threw him into an instant coma. Then, Zhou Bao waved a hand and tossed Jin Yao out of this gaseous planet, letting him land onto a desolate planet. When he woke up, he would forget every detail about meeting Zhou Bao, he would not even remember there was a man named Zhou Bao. As for the Psychic Jade Talisman, Zhou Bao had erased its characteristic Dharma power and spirit marks. Now, Jin Yao could easily refine it, which was the little compensation Zhou Bao offered him.


    "Da*m it! Why is this gate so hard to crack? Big Brother, maybe, we should use that thing!"


    In this unknown space, Zhou Qing, who had struggled for days in front of this gate, finally could not bear this anymore and started communicating with Zhou Mu by divine thoughts.


    "No. Father told us that thing should be used to protect ourselves, and should not be displayed in front of others. We''re in the Infinite Star Sea now, not Heaven Realm World. If we take that out, others may covet it. Then, we''ll be in trouble!"


    "But¡ª"


    "No ''buts''. I definitely won''t use my Pure Yang Celestial Device, let alone the fairy weapon. What''s more, just look at this gate, I''m afraid even that thing won''t work on it!"


    "No way! That is a fairy weapon!"


    "So what? I find this gate to be truly weird. It''s ancient, full of power, and it should not be inferior to the Divine Wizard Mirror!"


    "Kid, your spiritual mind is really getting increasingly sharp!"


    Hearing their conversation, Zhou Bao praised them mentally. Thereafter, he threw a punch right at the gate.


    "Boom¡ª"


    The iron gate produced a deafening bang and sound waves emanated in all directions, flinging all the people in front of the gate into the air. Then, as an odd spatial fluctuation flashed, those practitioners, including Zhou Bao''s son and daughter, were all removed to a planet far away from this gaseous star.


    "Interesting! This gate is so sturdy!" After doing that, only Zhou Bao was left before this huge iron gate and he stared thoughtfully at it.


    This gate was old and weather-beaten, but also revealed an abstruse air. However, what really impressed Zhou Bao was its lack of spirit.


    There was no virtually no spirit in it!


    This feeling was extremely similar to the sensation when he turned on his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill.


    "Is this spacetime capable of launching the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill? No, it can''t be. The only possible explanation is that the man who created this spacetime knows the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, or it could be¡ª"


    In a split second, an odd idea popped out: "Or it could be a Self-world of a jinx practicing the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill!"


    With his current knowledge and comprehension, only this explanation made sense.


    A Self-world of a guy who knew how to use the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill!


    When he realized this was a Self-world, Zhou Bao was not thrilled. After all, a Self-world was merely an existence of the Lord of Heaven Realm, and nothing inside it was worth exploring. However, given that this was a Self-world of a Lord of Heaven who knew the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, it deserved further research on his part.


    "This gate is not bad. But it isn''t a natural part of this Self-world; instead, it is an item transplanted from the outside world. It''s supposed to be a fragment of an ancient fairy weapon. However, it has lost all its power, leaving only an empty shell here. Well, this may scare away others but not me!"


    After being hit by Zhou Bao, the gate did not collapse immediately, but was on the verge of falling apart.


    Zhou Bao strode forward and gave a push and the gate swung open.


    Behind this gate was a vast but empty space.


    "Sure enough. Everything was destroyed when that man died, leaving only this independent spacetime behind. What an unlucky guy!" Seeing the situation in the Self-world, Zhou Bao heaved a sigh and sent out a divine thought that swept across the space.


    Just when he thought there was nothing, a dim fluctuation of thought was sensed by his divine thought.


    "I''m not the Fierce Owl. I''m not the Fierce Owl. I''m not the Fierce Owl¡ª"


    This dim thought kept repeating these words.


    "I''m not the Fierce Owl!"


    Hearing these incomprehensible words though telepathic connection, Zhou Bao felt nonplussed. But soon he laughed¡ªsince the universe was so vast, containing countless worlds, planets, and practitioners, it was only natural for a man to have some secrets. Perhaps this was just a secret of this Lord of Heaven who had grasped the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill.


    No matter what, this was none of Zhou Bao''s business, for he had come here to find the Hidden Treasure. Now that the truth about this Hidden Treasure had been discovered by him and there was nothing he could take away, he no longer wanted to stay here. Thus, he turned around and made to take off. But in that instant, he detected an obscure spatial fluctuation. Intrigued by this, he exercised his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and hid in the space.


    The spatial fluctuation was quite weak. But thanks to the extraordinarily sharp spiritual mind of the Primordial Fierce Beast that Zhou Bao owned, he managed to detect it. If it was anyone else, they would have no way to sense this odd fluctuation.


    A figure swooped out from the spatial ripples. He was standing beside the iron gate that had been pushed open by Zhou Bao; there was an appalled expression on his face.


    "Somebody opened it!" The man mumbled to himself. Without any further observation, he walked directly through the gate. At the same moment, Zhou Bao sensed a hardly noticeable divine thought sweeping through the entire Self-world. If Zhou Bao had not turned into a tiny dust in this space by performing his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to the extreme, he would not have managed to escape this strong divine thought.


    "What a powerful guy! Even more powerful than me! His divine thought traveled 10,000 miles and reached every corner of this Self-world in a second, this speed is nine times faster than mine! Who on earth is this man? What is he doing here?"


    Staring at this mysterious and powerful man, Zhou Bao furiously operated his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. He felt that the divine thought of this guy did not retreat after sweeping the whole space. Instead, it stayed in this space as if it were a cluster of intangible clouds, which was rather odd. Once Zhou Bao made any move or leaked a bit of his spirit, the divine thought would instantly capture it and launch a devastating attack.


    "This is a powerful guy, and a cautious one as well!"


    It was true. Since his guard was still up even after his divine thought had scanned the entire Self-world, he must be a very cautious guy. Well, it could also be that he was here to do something improper that he did not want others to know.


    "I believe you are not the Fierce Owl. But except for me, no one else would buy it. Now, they all believe that the Fierce Owl is dead and they can finally plump up their pillows and have a good sleep!" The man sighed. Then, as if doing magic, he conjured up a small plate with three pieces of steamed white bread, each of which had an incense stick stuck on it.


    He lit the three incense sticks. Looking at the rising smoke, this man gave a gentle sigh, and then he sat down on the ground, casting aside all the demeanor of a practitioner at the level of the Divine Immortal. "1400,000 years. A total of 1400,000 years. It even has been 810,000 years since the Heaven Realm disappeared, but pieces of your divine thoughts are still lingering here. As long as they remain here, I have to do this thing. Mate, this thing is really exhausting. But I think, soon, my suffering will come to an end. Hee hee, you may not know, the Void Immortal Realm was opened again. Don''t know during which idiot''s tribulation had cracked it open. The willpower of the Immortal Realm descended to the hollow. Now, even a fly knows that Heaven Realm World is located at the Desolate Ancient Star Area. You must be very happy to hear this. That son of a bitch, Jade Emperor, had exerted immense efforts to hide that world back then. Unluckily for him, it was still exposed at the end!"


    "Don''t know why, but I always have a feeling that after finishing this thing, the truth will be revealed!"


    ...


    "Milky Way Ancestor and his lot have united a crowd of Realm Lords to launch attacks against Heaven Realm!"


    "A few days ago, loads of people have gone to Heaven Realm World"


    "I heard that Fate Creation Boy had returned to his position, and the damaged Fairy Weapon of Fate had also been combined into one piece!"


    "The Power of Fate of the Heaven Realm is already taking effect. Now, it''s no longer easy to enter Heaven Realm!"


    "... the result of this matter is just around the corner. It seems that that bunch of necromancers is also taking some action. Back then, they triggered tons of troubles and even tried to duplicate the Sacred City of Origin, but it did not have a satisfying ending. I just hope this time they won''t stir up trouble again!"


    The man sat on the floor, watching the burning incense and murmuring to himself. He did not stand up until all the three incense sticks had burned up.


    "Well, my bro, it''s time. I should get going. No matter who that Fierce Owl is, as long as he is still alive, he will give himself away one day! When that day comes, it will be the end of his life!" After saying this, he sighed softly, and then wheeled around and left the empty Self-world.


    An hour later, as the space of this Self-world began to fluctuate again, Zhou Bao revealed himself in a flash. Right now, Zhou Bao''s eyebrows were furrowed in concentration. He had heard all the words that the mysterious man said and bore them in mind, though he did not know what "Fierce Owl" meant; it was obvious that this Fierce Owl was an outrageously powerful guy from antiquity times, a man who lived over a million years ago. And this guy was not dead yet. Further, from the man''s tone, Zhou Bao could tell that there were many guys like this Fierce Owl, who were not dead as the public was told but were still plotting something.


    "This thing is correlated to some events that happened in antiquity times, which are probably confidential but extremely crucial. I''d better stay out of this. After all, I already have plenty on my plate. Ever since I arrived in the Infinite Star Sea, I''ve been swamped with issues that are none of my business, but the thing I ought to do hasn''t even been done yet. If Sea Emperor knows this, he must be so pissed off!"


    When it occurred to him that the target for this journey to the Infinite Star Sea should be the Primordial Demon instead of other messy issues, Zhou Bao declined to think more of this odd scenario. In a flash, he vanished from this eccentric world.


    As for his son and daughter who had sneaked into this Infinite Star Sea, Zhou Bao did not bother to take another look at them. At all events, with their great strength and protective fairy weapons, they would not get into any big trouble. Now that they had both grown up, having a chance to see the outside world would only do them good.


    A long streak of cyan shadow swept across the hollow and zoomed right into the depths of the Infinite Star Sea.


    With the reappearance Heaven Realm World, the Devil Fetus in the Infinite Star Sea that had attracted lasting attention seemed to have taken a backseat. After all, not long ago, the awakened Devil Fetus had been snatched away. It would take a long time before a new Devil Fetus emerged in this world. Accordingly, Heaven Realm World was the only opportunity that everyone could have a go at.


    Surely, though the Primordial Demon has long been suppressed by inhibitions, there were people who really wanted to appropriate it. For all this time, they''ve been preparing for engulfing this Primordial Demon. Dark Sect, how interesting you guys are!"

 713 The Primordial Demon

    The Dark Sect was a very peculiar sect.


    Their initial heritage came from Primordial Demons.


    In fact, practice methods of mankind were passed down from various strong creatures that lived in primitive, ancient times, as well as the period of the Primordial Origin.


    The power of the Dark Sect originated from Primordial Demons. While studying Primordial Demons, they also modified their powers accordingly to fit the body structure of men. At last, they created a set of power inheritance system that was suitable for human beings, and that was the source of the power of the Dark Sect.


    However, unlike mankind, every living creature in primitive times was a unique individual. Although they were classified as the Primordial Demon, the Innate Deity, and the Ancient Spirit, technically each of them had their special power system. Those researching the power of these living creatures in primitive times could only extricate their common general features and then transform those features into something suitable for mankind to practice. This was the origin of all sorts of practice ways in the Dark Sect; in effect, this was also the origin of all the practice ways of human practitioners.


    To some extent, the cultivation of human beings actually came from imitating those of the powerful living creatures. In this regard, those necromancers in antiquity times did not do anything wrong. The only mistake they might have made was that they let their studies go too far, which caused destruction in the end.


    However, that was the idea Zhou Bao held in the past. Now, after hearing the words of the stranger in the mysterious space, Zhou Bao had a vague feeling that the tribulation in antiquity times was not simply incurred by a terrifying object that a necromancer tried to make.


    Or maybe the creation of the Sacred City of Origin merely provided an opportunity for the ending. If there were no Necromancer''s Tribulation, the world with 99 Emperors and Heaven Realm World ruling heavens and realms would come to an end as well.


    Of course, all this was purely his speculation. There was no way for him to find out the truth.


    His target was the Primordial Demon. This time the purpose of his trip to the center of the Infinite Star Sea was not just for killing the Primordial Demon; his agenda was to investigate the actual situation there.


    But before he arrived at his destination, he sensed that there was something quite odd about the regional division in the Infinite Star Sea.


    As he came closer to the central area, the number of practitioners increased. Apparently, the most powerful sects and influences in the two Star Areas and the 14 macro worlds had all set up their own branches in the central area of the Infinite Star Sea, and it happened to encircle this area. On the surface, it looked like any randomly formed circle, and anyone could easily walk across it to enter the center area. But in reality, it was impossible to do so. If you were just a tourist, you could go sightseeing without encountering any problems. But when you approached the forbidden area, you would be subject to intense scrutiny, especially when you entered the deepest region, a place that was wholly taken up by the two Star Areas, the Dark Sect and other sects of the Infinite Star Sea. The Dark Sect, including their various branches regarded this central area as their exclusive domain.


    After walking around the center of the Infinite Star Sea, Zhou Bao had a general idea about the layout of the place. The sects and various branches of the Dark Sect had formed several concentric circles with the Dark Sect at the heart, protecting the vast central area of the Infinite Star Sea.


    Practitioners could access the areas between branches of the Dark Sect and bases of other sects freely. But if you wanted to enter the central area guarded by the Dark Sect, you would have to get through the Dark Sect first.


    Just like in other places, the members of Dark Sect in the Infinite Star Sea and the two Star Areas were not united as one.


    Instead, they branched out and kept competing and fighting with each other. Nevertheless, no matter how hard they competed or fought, they all followed the same rule ¡ª and that was never to allow anyone else to encroach the central area of the Infinite Star Sea.


    Unless it was the season for harboring the Devil Fetus, anyone who sought to enter the center of the Infinite Star Sea would face an all-out attack from every branch of the Dark Sect.


    However, for Zhou Bao, who had achieved the highest accomplishment in the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, hiding from these thickly dotted informants and traps arranged by the branches of the Dark Sect, as well as all kinds of practitioners and experts, was a piece of cake.


    His body turned into a wisp of dust, which wandered about the hollow; it fluttered across the layers of barricades set up by the Dark Sect, and entered the core of the Infinite Star Sea.


    "How impressive! Back then, in order for them to suppress the Primordial Demon, those great emperors really went all out. What a weird formation it is!"


    On the very core of the Infinite Star Sea that was located in the deepest sea, there stood a huge transparent rhombic crystal. This gigantic crystal rhombohedron was about 10,000 feet high. A colossal body was sealed inside the crystal, which made it look like a gigantic piece of amber.


    "Primordial Demon! This is the Real Body of the Primordial Demon?"


    The appearance of this Primordial Demon was about 60 percent similar to a man. The most striking difference was that this Primordial Demon was enormous and he had six strange arms.


    His body stood tall at 10,000 feet and was covered in tiny scales. His six arms were incredibly sinewy. His fingers were like hooks, glistening with an eerie blue light.


    But what shocked Zhou Bao most were his eyes, which flickered with a red light. The deterring brilliance that radiated from his eyes was highly similar to that of Fiery Eyes.


    Were they Fiery Eyes?


    Not exactly!


    They were just the same color as Fiery Eyes. Well, what mattered most was that the pupils were moving.


    He was still alive.


    And he was extremely alert too. Obviously, he felt quite surprised by the arrival of Zhou Bao, an uninvited guest.


    "Snake-like Breath Holding Skill? Interesting. I never expected that someone could practice the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill up to this phase nowadays. Wait, it''s impossible to accomplish this solely by practicing this skill!"


    Although Zhou Bao operated his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill without a break, it was evident that he could not fool this Primordial Demon. An odd divine thought diffused through the crystal and condensed into a strip, which directly invaded Zhou Bao''s spirit.


    "You¨D!"


    "Don''t be so surprised, son. The Seven Wonderful Techniques are not so easy to practice!" The divine thought of this Primordial Demon was curiously mystical and his tone held a touch of seductiveness. "Practicing only one Wonderful Technique will not help you to reach the top level. If a man wants to polish each of his Wonderful Techniques to the highest phase, he must learn all the Seven Wonderful Techniques. Every time he masters a new Wonderful Technique, his understanding of Wonderful Techniques will improve a little. Judging by your performance when using the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, you must at least have grasped four or five Wonderful Techniques. That''s very impressive, son!"


    In such a short spell, he already made a comprehensive observation of the accomplishments Zhou Bao had attained in practicing the Seven Wonderful Techniques.


    After his initial astonishment, Zhou Bao did not find this surprising anymore. Yes, there was nothing surprising if you remembered who this guy was.


    He was as powerful as an Innate Deity. If he could not see through this little trick, Zhou Bao would start to suspect his authenticity.


    "You''re really the Primordial Demon! So far, no one has ever seen through me. Even Fate Creator cannot tell. But you¡ª"


    "Fate Creator? Hahahaha, a guy mastering one macro world claims to be a Fate Creator?"The divine thought of this Primordial Demon was filled with scorn.


    Zhou Bao stood numbly near the huge crystal, staring at the Primordial Demon sealed inside the crystal, speechless. After a while, he said, "Having been imprisoned for numerous years, it seems that you are not in a position to ridicule others, right?"


    "Humph!"


    As if having been provoked by Zhou Bao''s words, the divine thought of this Primordial Demon suddenly heaved and turned into a fine thorn, stabbing right at Zhou Bao''s spirit.


    "Spirit attack? Interesting!"


    Facing this spirit attack, Zhou Bao did not panic at all. The Heavenly Magic Eye between his eyebrows vibrated and transformed into a huge net of Divine Awareness, which swallowed that spirit thorn and eliminated the danger.


    "You''re a Primordial Demon, a creature as powerful as an Innate Deity. It is not right for you to launch such a vicious surprise attack against me!"


    "Not right? Son, if you fail to sustain this little attack, how could you be qualified to keep nagging at me?"


    "So, does this mean you give the same treatment to everyone who comes here?"


    "Not exactly. You''re not in the plan, and you know multiple Wonderful Techniques, so I naturally gave you a special treatment!" Primordial Demon said. "Moreover, my little friend, your traveling all the way here must not be just to get a glimpse of me!"


    "Of course not. Someone asked me to kill you!"


    "There are loads of people who want to kill me, so I won''t try to guess who. The current issue is...do you have the ability to kill me?"


    "Seems I do not!" Zhou Bao glanced at the gigantic crystal and went on, "So now, let me see what I can do!"


    "You are an interesting boy. Perhaps we can be friends!"


    "Friends? I have a lot of friends, but I don''t think I want to befriend a Primordial Demon!" Zhou Bao said, in a very composed tone.


    "You came here, you saw the circumstances in the surroundings, and you met me already. And now, you''re leaving, aren''t you?"


    "You''re right. I''m here to gather information in advance. However, it appears that the situation here is a bit different from what I imagined!"


    "Different? Because you find me still very much alive after being suppressed for so many years?"


    "That''s really beyond my expectation. All this while I reckoned that you couldn''t contact the outside world while being imprisoned. But to my surprise, you can able to release your divine thoughts out of the sealed space at will. In this case, you should find it easy to lure those from the Dark Sect!"


    "That''s why they never come within 10,000 miles near the core region of this Star Area; the limit of the range for my divine thoughts is precisely 10,000 miles."


    "Seems that you''ve lured many people before. If you did it right, perhaps you could have gotten out of here!"


    "Your thoughts are too simple. If it''s that easy, why do I have to go through all the trouble to produce those Devil Fetuses?"


    "Then, what do I have to do to kill you?"

 714 Marquis Wugu Striking Ou

    "Kill me? Do you think it will be so easy? If that was the case, I would have been killed a long time ago, instead of being sealed here!" The divine thought of the Primordial Demon revealed an extremely chilly sensation. "They failed to kill me, you, of course, will fail as well. Though I find your spirit quite strange, you''re actually several ranks below the level that can kill me, my son!"


    "Right, that''s what I thought too. If the emperors from antiquity times could not kill you but was only able to suppress you, how could I do you in so easily!"


    "Now that you''re clear about that, why did you come here?"


    "To find out what you are like. I''m just curious!" Zhou Bao gave a nonchalant smile. "But now that I''ve seen you, my curiosity has been completely satisfied!"


    "Are you leaving?"


    "Do you really think you''ll be able to keep me here?"


    "I can''t force you to stay. You have several kinds of mysterious powers, and each of them is not inferior to mine. Although your power has not matured yet, I''m already unable to force you to do anything!" The Primordial Demon answered candidly. "But if I were you, I would stay and listen to what this demon is going to tell me. Perhaps you''ll find my words pretty helpful!"


    "Primordial Demon, is that the tone you use when trying to lure others?"


    "For those lacking strength and a strong willpower, this is a lure. But to you, a powerful man with unimaginable potential, this is a deal!"


    "You want to make a deal with me?"


    "I can see that you''re young and capable; you have great potential, so making a deal with a guy like you will certainly benefit me a lot in the future!"


    "I don''t want to do so. Dealing with a demon is never a good thing for us innocent guys!" Zhou Bao smiled and resolutely declined the proposal of this Primordial Demon.


    "I can offer you exorbitant profits that are beyond your imagination!" This Primordial Demon did not seem to care about Zhou Bao''s refusal. Many people turned him down initially, but in the end, none of them were able to resist the temptation.


    However, this time, after his divine thought had been sent out for quite a while, there was no response, as if Zhou Bao had already disappeared from the place.


    About one hour later, he finally withdrew his divine thought. There was a curious light flickering in his eyes.


    "He''s gone. So decisive! What an interesting boy! But I know what you''re playing at. You''re taking one step back today for two steps forward tomorrow. You''ll come back. And when you return, you''ll be much easier to persuade. Hee hee, mankind, no matter how clever you are, your natural disposition is hard to change. This applies to all those human emperors in ancient ages, and it applies to you, too!"


    ...


    The area sandwiched between the various sects and the Dark Sect was quite large and spacious. There were 20 vast planets in this area, all of which had creatures living on them, was suitable for practice, and above all, had an abundance of minerals. Therefore, those planets bred all sorts of entangling influences, with different sects and the Dark Sect taking charge behind the scenes. Among those planets, there was one Trading Star, which was way more prosperous than Cumulus Star, and its name was Hidden Dragon Star.


    Zhou Bao was on this Hidden Dragon Star at this moment.


    He left the Primordial Demon in a hurry. Actually, he did not know why he decided to storm off when the Primordial Demon was enticing him with lucrative offers. It was just a gut feeling. This feeling told him that if he were to listen to what the Primordial Demon had to offer, he would not be able to withstand the temptation. In this case, it was better to leave.


    But after he left the central area of the Infinite Star Sea, he started regretting his decision.


    "Even if I make a deal with him, so what? I can just rake in some profits first!" As he sat still mulling over his decision, feeling an urge to head back to the Infinite Star Sea, suddenly a thunderous boom sounded and gave him a great shock.


    "What the hell? Has doomsday arrived? Did the universe explode?"


    Hidden Dragon Star was a Trading Star with crowds of people coming and going every day. Nevertheless, behind the hustle and bustle, there was a lot of chaos. But Zhou Bao knew well that these days it was in a good state, much better than it was a few years ago. Every time when the Devil Fetus was produced, this planet was in a total mess, because experts and practitioners from the Infinite Star Sea, the two Star Areas, and the 14 macro worlds would all congregate in this area to fight for that Devil Fetus. In those days, this Hidden Dragon Star and the rest 19 vast planets were all held in a reign of terror. Of course, the chaos and terror in the world of practitioners would not impact ordinary people. In fact, every time when this occurred, ordinary people would seek shelter in the sanctuary provided by various sects. So long as you stepped into the sanctuary, you would not feel anything even if the outside world had been turned upside down.


    Now, it had not been that long since the last Devil Fetus was produced, so there were still some marks of the devastation left, showing what those vast planets had gone through. But this mess would end in a few years, and now every planet was in the process of recovering. As Zhou Bao in his previous life would put it, everything was getting back on track. At this point, even if some chaos occurred on Hidden Dragon Star, there would not be any serious problems. But now, it was different, because a serious problem had just emerged.


    Zhou Bao had not contacted anyone after he landed on Hidden Dragon Star. He found a desolate hill to calm himself down; to stifle the greedy lust that had risen in his heart.


    He had not felt very excited while talking to the Primordial Demon. But now, after he calmed down, he found that his mental state had been affected by the Primordial Demon subconsciously and his greed was burning like fire. If it were not for the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill he had recently mastered, he would certainly have concluded a deal with the Primordial Demon right on the spot. If that was the case, he would be in deep trouble!


    Therefore, he came to Hidden Dragon Star to gather his thoughts, restore his mental state, as well as go over his plan. However, to everyone''s surprise, a loud boom resonated at this point. In a city not too distant from the desolate hill where he was staying, a huge mushroom cloud rose, lingering in the sky for quite a long time before dispersing.


    "What a fierce power fluctuation! Who on earth is doing this to Hidden Dragon Star¡ª" Before this thought fully emerged in his head, his expression suddenly altered. Standing up, he launched the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to conceal his spirit. Then, in a flash, he disapparated from Hidden Dragon Star by using the Infinite Realms Teleportation. Almost at the same time of his disapparation, a huge emaciated hand with protruding joints appeared out of thin air and grabbed the entire Hidden Dragon Star.


    Yes, this huge hand held Hidden Dragon Star in its palm. Right now, Zhou Bao had just shifted to the hollow outside Hidden Dragon Star, and he saw the whole thing clearly. This huge hand did not seal the space or cast any other special techniques but just made a grab, then, with a gentle pinch, it crumpled the whole Hidden Dragon Star. You can imagine how enormous this hand was, and how outrageous its power was.


    Like Zhou Bao, many strong practitioners also managed to escape from Hidden Dragon Star. However, they were just a small portion of the entire population. Those practitioners, who were all at least in the Lord of Heaven Realm and accomplished their Self-worlds, now appeared in the hollow outside Hidden Dragon Star.


    After crushing Hidden Dragon Star, the huge hand did not stop its attacks. The clenched hand suddenly made a flipping gesture, and several jets of Qi zoomed out from its fingertips, hitting those Lords of Heaven who had just fled from Hidden Dragon Star, with great accuracy. Those poor guys were reduced to nothing by these seemingly tiny shots of Qi before they even realized what had happened.


    What was more, even one shot of Qi was fired at Zhou Bao.


    "Da*n it!" Zhou Bao cursed under his breath. This was the second time today that his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill had failed to conceal his spirit from others.


    "Wham!"


    Zhou Bao flung out a hammer, which collided with the shot and produced another boom.


    He retreated backwards with the speed of a shooting star. Feeling the power this Qi contained, his expression changed.


    "This power is very strong!"


    The opponent felt a bit surprised too when he saw how he had failed to get rid of Zhou Bao in one go. Then, the huge hand stretched across thousands of miles as if there was no distance between the two, and directly encompassed Zhou Bao.


    When Zhou Bao attempted to launch the Infinite Realms Teleportation once more, he found to his shock that the space enveloped by this huge hand had been sealed off by a powerful alien force.


    "Making such a relentless strike, where are your manners?" His face altered, and instantly his body started to become transparent. The huge hand made a lunge but managed to grab only a handful of air.


    It was the Way of the Void, the Grand Void Technique!


    This was a Great Way Zhou Bao received during his Thunder Tribulations.


    This was one of the 3,000 Great Ways. After obtaining this Great Way, Zhou Bao practiced it and successfully grasped all the wonders of this Grand Void Technique. When in the hollow, the Grand Void Technique could temporarily infuse him with the hollow and turned him into a part of it. The huge hand was indeed powerful, but it could do nothing to Zhou Bao now, for he had already employed the Grand Void Technique. Furthermore, when that huge hand realized it did not manage to catch Zhou Bao, it went motionless for a second. And in this precise second, Zhou Bao again exercised his Infinite Realms Teleportation, and this time he made it, transporting himself outside the range of the huge hand. Although Zhou Bao was quite curious about the huge hand, for the moment he preferred to act prudently. Anyway, it was merely a huge hand. Judging by the power it exhibited, the owner of this huge hand should certainly be an impressive guy, a top expert. His strength must be at the level of a Divine Immortal or above, so Zhou Bao was not so anxious to tangle with him now.


    Therefore, when getting out of the devil''s clutches, Zhou Bao did not think but operated the Three Realms Division and the Infinite Realms Teleportation in succession and left this Star Area.


    The huge hand did not try to resume its attack when Zhou Bao took off. In contrast, it flipped around and scratched the hollow, thereafter, five wide cracks emerged in the hollow. On the other side of the five cracks, a mysterious world surfaced, with streams of ancient spirit and willpower pouring out from that world and seeping into this world.

 715 Numerous Fierce Owls

    The five wide cracks in the hollow were healing gradually. But due to each being over 10,000 miles wide, it was not easy for them to heal so rapidly. In the world behind the five cracks, countless interweaving shadows entered the hollow through the cracks and turned into large black clouds, darkening the hollow in which Hidden Dragon Star was located.


    Buzz, buzz, buzz¡ª


    Suddenly intensive buzzing noises filled the whole space. These black clouds were filled with masses of strange creatures. Each of them looked like a lizard with wings. They were about the size of an adult''s fist and they covered every inch of the hollow. When the five cracks finally closed, these odd creatures had already settled on to most of the territories in the Star Area. This had an impact on the rest of the 19 vast planets as well.


    There were many practitioners living on the 19 vast planets. On the most significant planet, there was even a Human Immortal. For the purpose of capturing the monsters that had rushed out from the mysterious space, this Human Immortal called up a dozen of Lords of Heaven to unfold their Self-worlds and micro worlds, but the results were horrifying. These tiny monsters, which looked like a cross between a bat and a lizard, easily nibbled their way through the Self-worlds and micro worlds and broke out, killing all the Lords of Heaven in a revolting fashion. The Human Immortal was the only one who escaped by the skin of his teeth. Though he was not killed, his micro world had been eaten up by those tiny monsters and his power had been greatly undermined. He struggled to break the space and finally fled from the Star Area. As this Human Immortal took his departure, this Star Area became a world filled with these tiny monsters and none of the vast planets were spared.


    In a short spell, everything in this world had been gnawed through. After destroying the 19 vast planets, these tiny monsters clamored for more. They flew towards the actual bases of the sects stationed on the outskirts of the Infinite Star Sea.


    As mentioned earlier, the central area of the Infinite Star Sea was controlled by various sects and the Dark Sect. On the periphery stood the sects from the 14 macro worlds, while the Dark Sect was located at the center, and they formed two concentric circles. The 20 vast planets that had been destroyed sat in between the two concentric circles. Now that the 20 vast planets were gone, those tiny monsters shifted their attention to the circle on the outskirts.


    It might seem to be a small space. But it was not so small after all. The scope of the hollow was extremely wide. It would take at least 20 or 30 days for a Human Immortal to travel across it by using space division ways and without relying on any Highest Heaven Celestial Device. Nonetheless, those tiny monsters were able to reach the bases of those sects in just one day.


    These sects were much more powerful than the 20 vast planets. Even before those monsters arrived, they had already received the news sent through the secret channel by the Human Immortal who was barely alive, thanks to those tiny monsters. The fact that each of the sects had at least one Human Immortal as well as a powerful and protective formation meant that the power of the various sects was unparalleled to the strength of the 20 vast planets. Thus, before those tiny monsters approached, beams of light in various colors shot out from the hollow and lighted up the entire Star Area, making it as bright as daytime. At the same time, a dozen Human Immortals dashed out, but they did not make the same mistake as the previous Human Immortal and his Lords of Heaven did. They hurtled to their individual positions and launched their formations to resist those tiny monsters which appeared seconds later.


    All of a sudden, the hollow turned into a chaotic mess. The shiny magic formations looked like lamps in the darkness, and those tiny monsters were like moths flocking to the light. They threw themselves at the magic formations one after another as if hopelessly drawn to the light source.


    Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle¡ª


    Those formations belonged to different sects and their effects varied as well. Some were purely for defense only, acting like walls. When the tiny monsters bumped into them, they would just bounce off. Then, they would try again and again, until they died from the impact. But the next thing that happened was even more gruesome¡ªthose dead monsters soon became food for the other tiny monsters. In a blink of an eye, they were eaten up by their own kind. Nevertheless, even though those pure defensive formations had extremely strong protective functions, they seemed unable to hold it together under the prolonged attacks from those innumerable tiny monsters. And the trickiest part was that after they had feasted on their own kind, they started to evolve. They did not fly straight ahead as their dead buddies did before. In contrast, when they opened their mouths, streams of dense black slime spurted out. The components of this slime were unknown, but it was highly corrosive. Not only did it corrode substantial objects in its path, but it destroyed the Dharma power and the pneuma as well. When you encountered only one or two of those tiny monsters, they were not much a threat. But when hundreds of thousands of them gathered together, then they became a real problem. Gradually, the lights of the protective formations dimmed under the corrosive attacks of the monsters.


    Some of the other formations were not mainly for defensive purposes only. These formations were able to mobilize all kinds of pneuma and form various killing formations. Now, the Sword Qi shot to the sky while countless tongues of flames and tons of hail poured down, accompanied by a cacophony of noises. The scene looked half virtual and half real. The whole scene resembled a bloody battleground.


    There were numerous black clouds, jets of radiant lights, ear-splitting whinnies, and enraged bellows¡ª it was an odd but magnificent spectacle.


    "What on earth are those monsters? What are they up to?"


    Zhou Bao was hiding inside a meteorite, some distance away, and had exercised his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. Watching this incredible scenario unfolding before his eyes, he was stunned. He had never expected to see this kind of odd occurrence in the Infinite Star Sea. What the hell were those tiny monsters? Who did that huge hand belong to? What kind of place was that strange space that appeared after he tore apart the hollow?


    Those were the niggling questions that bothered him.


    "Fierce Owls? How come we are surrounded by so many Fierce Owls? Why did they come here? What the hell is going on?"


    Suddenly, streams of furious divine thoughts rose from the bases and swept across the whole area. Apparently, the Human Immortals there had finally realized what the tiny monsters were.


    "Fierce Owl? This kind of monster is called Fierce Owl?" Zhou Bao sensed those messy divine thoughts through the telepathic connections and was taken aback. This made him think of the fragment of a divine thought he heard in the Mysterious space, as well as the mysterious figure.


    "I''m sure the passageway connecting our world with the Devil Realm has been opened. How can it be? The passageway leading to the Devil Realm had been blocked for several million years. How come it''s open now!"


    "It is not completely open. It was open for a short time only. Otherwise, there would not be so few Fierce Owls only!"


    "So few? We''re about to drown in them!"


    "Drown in them? We''re not even close. Look, all the magic formations are weakening, they can''t hold on much longer!"


    "Think fast! Either give up this place or ask for help..."


    "Give up and leave this place Immediately. Even if we ask our sects for help, we won''t be able to hold off their attacks before our reinforcements turn up!"


    An overbearing divine thought swept through the space and passed down the order. "With so many Fierce Owls here, it''s meaningless to stay. Just leave this mess to the Dark Sect!"


    All the Human Immortals in charge were in agreement with this advice. They cast out their worlds and all of them sucked their combatants and weapons back in. After that, the protective magic formations suddenly increased in brilliance and their powers increased tenfold. The magic formations burst open at the same time, and the immense powers cracked open bits of the hollow and blasted numerous Fierce Owls into pieces.


    The explosions continued for about ten hours. When everything had died down, half of the clouds made up of Fierce Owls were gone. Now, they were not so numerous anymore; you could see the last line of the Fierce Owl troop. However, this was due to the sharp eyesight Zhou Bao had, because in other people''s eyes, the line of Fierce Owls still seemed endless.


    After the violent explosions, the Fierce Owls lost their target. Suddenly, as if being controlled, they turned around and flew towards the area controlled by the Dark Sect.


    "Now, Dark Sect will be in big trouble!"


    Staring in the direction of those Fierce owls, Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows in confusion.


    "Is someone trying to free the Primordial Demon? Is that why they made such a scene? Well, though that huge hand is powerful, it won''t be that easy for it to get the Primordial Demon out!"


    At first, Zhou Bao was really astonished by the power that devious hand demonstrated. But now, after giving it some thoughts, he realized that despite the impressive cultivation and the strong Qi Power of this opponent, its power did not last very long. If it were so, he would not have been able to escape so easily.


    "Whatever it is, making such a sudden ambush in this place is definitely for the sake of Primordial Demon. Although there were a large number of the Fierce Owls and even though they had a hard time dealing with them, it was still possible to defeat them. Furthermore, now that only half of the Fierce Owls were left, the Dark Sect would surely be capable enough to destroy them if they spared no effort. These Fierce Owls are truly powerful, but they were of not much help in rescuing the Primordial Demon. Then, what''s the purpose of letting them out? Could it be to buy some time?"


    Buy time!


    That was the only reasonable explanation. No matter who the owner of the huge hand was, the only possible explanation for releasing Fierce Owls to attack the bases of all the sects and the Dark Sect was to buy time.


    "Those sects only retreated for the time being. It won''t take long for them to return. When that time comes, I''m certain that they will not only have a few Human Immortals but also some Divine Immortals. No matter how strong the man with the huge hand is, it''s impossible for him to confront the 14 macro worlds at the same time. Thus, his purpose was only to buy more time."

 716 The Real Purpose of Sea Emperor

    What was he buying time for?


    "Maybe he is going to visit the Primordial Demon just like me. Hmm, making such a scene just for a meeting with the Primordial Demon. He is much more determined than I am!"


    Suddenly, comprehension dawned on Zhou Bao.


    "The sealed Primordial Demon can only project his divine thoughts up to a range of 10,000 miles. If a man wants to contact him, he must be within that range. However, the center of the Infinite Star Sea has been taken over by the Dark Sect. There is no way anyone can just walk into that area!"


    The range of 10,000 miles seemed very wide. But in reality, it was only about the size of a sesame seed when compared with the scope of the hollow. It was not easy to enter this area at all. Furthermore, based on the Qi Power emitted by that huge hand, its owner did not mind disclosing his spirit, unlike Zhou Bao. That must be the reason why he chose to make such a scene.


    Now, Zhou Bao had two questions on his mind. One was about the kind of place the world behind the hollow was like; it had appeared after the huge hand ripped the hollow apart. The other one was if Fierce Owls were those tiny monsters that emerged just now; were they the same ones that damaged divine thought he heard in the mysterious spacetime was referring to? In any case, the Lord of Heaven who left that mysterious spacetime could not be one of those alien monsters called Fierce Owl, right? Could it be that people just thought he was a man who evolved from a Fierce Owl?


    "What''s more, my Snake-like Breath Holding Skill has failed me twice. Seems that I really need to proceed with more caution in the future. This Snake-like Breath Holding Skill is not always going to be fool proof. But I wonder if what Primordial Demon said to me is true or not. According to him, the more kinds of the Seven Wonderful Techniques one practices, the more profound his understanding of each Wonderful Technique will be. So far, I''ve practiced five Wonderful Techniques, but since I just started practicing the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill, I still lack some proficiency in it. Perhaps when I fully master this skill, my Snake-like Breath Holding Skill will be taken up a notch. When that day comes, even the Primordial Demon may not be able to detect my existence!"


    "And those Devil Fetuses wandering about are perhaps another means the Primordial Demon uses to seduce people. Or maybe they are also vehicles for information transmission. Regardless of what the side effects of swallowing the Devil Fetuses are, the men who have eaten the Devil Fetuses can instantly dissipate the information this Primordial Demon wants to send out. It''s also possible that all the suppressed Primordial Demons are using this method to transmit information. Interesting, this thing is getting more and more interesting!"


    At this point, he was contemplating the whole thing from an outsider''s point of view, so he might find it funny. But now, the Infinite Star Sea was already in chaos.


    When he hurried to the Secret Store nearest to the central area of the Infinite Star Sea, he found Lord of Heaven Black Turtle looking out anxiously for him. At the sight of Zhou Bao, Lord of Heaven Black Turtle heaved a huge sigh of relief.


    "Finally, you''re here. I thought you might have died there!"


    "Is my life so worthless? How could I die at such a poor place!" Zhou Bao laughed. But seeing his nervous look, Zhou Bao realized something. "Well, did the news really travel so fast?"


    "With all these events happening, how could the news be slow? The passageway connected to the Devil Realm has opened again. This is disastrous for us!"


    "Relax! The passageway to the Devil Realm or whatsoever has not been opened. It''s just that a weird Giant Void Hand scratched an opening on it. But now the crack has closed on its own accord, nothing devastating will occur!"


    "Good, that''s good!" After hearing Zhou Bao''s words, Venerable Black Turtle felt very relieved. "As long as the passageway leading to the Devil Realm is safe, everything will be fine!"


    "Devil Realm? I have never heard of this term before. What kind of place is it?"


    "The Devil Realm is a macro world. But unlike normal macro worlds, it is a macro world that is very similar to the hollow!" Glancing at Zhou Bao, Venerable Black Turtle said this with complete honesty. "This Devil Realm is quite different from other macro worlds. I heard that it came into being during primitive times. It is the supreme headquarters of Primordial Demons and is located at a mysterious place beyond any of the Star Area known to us. The Primordial Demons who appeared in antiquity times and wreaked havoc in the hollow, as well as the Primordial Demons being suppressed, are all from the Devil Realm. Occasionally, due to the change in the spacetime, a mysterious passageway connecting the Devil Realm and some known Star Area would appear. It was through this passageway that the Primordial Demons managed to arrive from all sorts of macro and micro worlds!"


    "Then, what about Fierce Owls?"


    "Fierce Owls? Didn''t you see them? They are a type of demonic creature found in the Devil Realm, the lowest ranked but also the most troublesome of all creatures. I say they are low-ranked because they are not that strong. Even if they go through an evolvement, they can merely reach the peak of an Individual Immortal. They can never reach the level of a Genuine Immortal, that''s the phase of a Ghost Immortal. However, they have thick skin and strong muscles, which even a Genuine Immortal would find hard to kill. Only high-class wizard weapons can work against them. They also have sharp claws and pointed teeth, which basically serve as their own wizard weapons. But they have two more features that make them the trickiest creatures to destroy. First, their claws and teeth can easily tear up space. Secondly, their numbers are huge, and their reproduction speed is amazing. They always operate collectively. Each time they attack, huge swarms of these monsters will flood in. Therefore, every time the Devil Realm invaded us in antiquity times, they always send these Fierce Owls first. They were the spearheads as well as the main force of any attacks, which turned out to be a great problem!"


    "What I want to know is whether there is anything else called Fierce Owl apart from those tiny monsters."


    "No. Fierce Owls only refer to those little creatures. But why do you ask this?" Hearing the question Zhou Bao posed, Lord of Heaven Black Turtle felt a bit bewildered.


    "Oh, nothing. Just asking." Zhou Bao said, shaking his head. "Then, what''s your opinion regarding this incident?"


    "In my view, the culprit is probably the Marquis Wugu!" Venerable Black Turtle spat out his answer without any hesitation. "Think, how did Marquis Wugu get out of the seal in the Pool of Thunder Tribulation? It''s because you guys entered the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode and broke the seal in the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Since that guy surnamed Yu came under the control of a Devil Fetus, it was the Devil Fetus who opened the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. The Devil Fetus was bred by the Primordial Demon locked in the Infinite Star Sea. Ultimately, the Primordial Demon was the one who released Marquis Wugu. This means he must have a long-standing connection with Marquis Wugu. After being suppressed for so many years, Marquis Wugu''s power was significantly lessened. Thus, after getting out of the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, he had to seek a safe place in order to recuperate and build up his strength. When he finally recovered some of his strength and his self preservation was intact, he then reappeared. I am sure he is in cohorts with the Primordial Demon in the Infinite Star Sea!"


    He paused for a second, and then he went on, "The Primordial Demon suppressed in the Infinite Star Sea is called Wu Chen and is famed for his wisdom among all the Primordial Demons. He used to be one of the military counselors when the Devil Realm invaded us in antiquity times, and that was the reason why Jade Emperor asked Fate Creation Boy to monitor the Infinite Star Sea years ago. Jade Emperor became suspicious when Wu Chen was not suppressed by us for his mistakes and instead, allowed himself to be captured on purpose. The reasons involved a huge plot devised by the Devil Realm. But unluckily, up to the end of antiquity times, Jade Emperor still had no clues about the plot."


    "If Jade Emperor failed to figure it out, then, no one could!" Zhou Bao smiled. "I''ve visited the Primordial Demon. He is sealed in a rhombic crystal, but he is still conscious. His divine thoughts can penetrate through the crystal and reach as far as 10,000 miles. Above all, he is really good at luring people!"


    "Demon''s lure is the most difficult to fend off!" Lord of Heaven Black Turtle smiled bitterly. "This time, you refused him before hearing him out. But I believe you must have regretted it once you left, and you certainly thought about returning to that place to do a deal with him or just to hear what deal he would offer you, am I right?"


    "How do you know that?"


    "In antiquity times, a lot of men fell into his trap in this fashion. Among those guys were practitioners who had already reached the Divine Immortal Realm, but they still took the bait dangled by the Primordial Demon!"


    "No way! Seems that I''m in serious trouble!"


    "Not so serious!" Lord of Heaven Black Turtle sneered. "Things are not the same now, unlike during antiquity times. Without the unified governing of Heaven Realm World, all the macro worlds have been filtered and there are not so many rules and restrictions anymore. If the Devil Realm should launch their assault today, over half of the macro world will fall into their hands. When that time comes, no one will care who those Primordial Demons are dealing with. You should just take care of yourself, and make sure that you are not betrayed or killed by that bunch of Primordial Demons. That''s all!


    "I''m still puzzled that Vast Sea Emperor knows I can''t kill the Primordial Demon, yet he still sent me to do the task? Is he out of his mind?"


    "There''s nothing puzzling about it. Maybe this is his way of pushing you to make a deal with the Primordial Demon!" Lord of Heaven Black Turtle began to laugh. "Vast Sea Emperor is a Demonic Emperor. The relationship between our Demon Tribe and the Devil Tribe of primitive times is unlike the one we have with your mankind. The last time when Vast Sea Emperor came forward to restrain Marquis Wugu, I guess he was holding back his powers. Otherwise, given his strength and the fact that Marquis Wugu''s power had been significantly weakened, how could he fail to stop Marquis Wugu?"


    "Are you saying among the 99 Emperors in antiquity times, Mankind Emperor did not get along with other emperors, especially Demonic Emperor?"


    "Of course. Those emperors were from different races and represented different interests. How could they get along with each other?" Lord of Heaven Black Turtle smiled coldly. "Back then, your Mankind Emperor went all out to repress our Demonic Emperor. If it were not for the absolute power of Jade Emperor, how could Heaven Realm World have ruled over all the worlds?"


    "I know little about the things that happened in antiquity times, and I do not have any interest in learning more. Now, I just want to know whether Vast Sea Emperor sent me to the Infinite Star Sea for the purpose of killing the Primordial Demon or is it just for letting the Primordial Demon have a chance to meet me."


    "The latter is more plausible. But anyway, you can just go and ask Vast Sea Emperor yourself!"

 717 Being Manipulated for Real

    Sea Emperor was missing!


    After returning to Heaven Realm World, this was the first news Zhou Bao received. He was so shocked that he did not know how to react, except to laugh grimly.


    "Sea Emperor is missing? That son of a bitch is missing? Along with the space he has been imprisoned in?" Zhou Bao shouted at Fate Creation Boy, thoroughly exasperated. "How can it be? He is a prisoner, locked up in your macro world. You''re the Fate Creator of Heaven Realm World, and you''ve successfully refined three divine devices into one. How could you not know where he is!"


    "Being a Fate Creator is of no help. He is an Earthly Immortal!" Facing a frenzied and raging Zhou Bao, Fate Creation Boy forced a smile and explained, "An Earthly Immortal is already capable of evolving a macro world. I just recovered my powers and I''ve worked very hard to deal with the invasion of the Alien World so how could I have any time to investigate all the events that happened here?"


    "Then what shall I do now? He asked me to kill the Primordial Demon, but I failed to achieve that. Moreover, I''m still a bit traumatized after being lured by the Primordial Demon. What the hell!"


    "When you accepted this mission, you only promised him that you would do all you could to accomplish it. Now that killing the Primordial Demon is beyond your capability, you don''t have to do it!" Fate Creation Boy said carelessly. "But your concerns are reasonable. Perhaps this guy never really expected you to kill the Primordial Demon. He just wanted you to be lured by the Primordial Demon!"


    "You think so, too?"


    "Since he isn''t honest with you, you don''t have to be honest with him. Anyway, the Ranking of Demons and Immortals is now in my hands, so you don''t need to be bothered by all these trivia!" Fate Creation Boy said.


    "Great, I will stop caring about these trivia, and I won''t kill the Primordial Demon, either!" Zhou Bao said fiercely.


    For a Lord of Heaven, figuring out his identity was just a piece of cake.


    "I heard that someone had opened the passageway leading to the Devil Realm in the Infinite Star Sea. Is it true?"


    "That was probably done by Marquis Wugu. I saw it happen!" Then, Zhou Bao recounted the whole story about what had occurred on Hidden Dragon Star on that day, to Fate Creation Boy.


    "That''s what happened! Right, this is something only Marquis Wugu would do. But don''t be too worried. Although Marquis Wugu is incredibly powerful, at present he is not a match for the 14 macro worlds. The purpose of the strike was just to get in touch with Wu Chen!"


    "Are you saying they are plotting something?"


    "Absolutely. Wu Chen spared no pains to breed those Devil Fetuses. He let them spread his news to every corner of the Infinite Star Sea, and then opened the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. As part of his scheme, he released Marquis Wugu. There is something fishy about the whole thing. When Marquis Wugu broke free, the first thing he did was to recover his strength. After that, what he planned to do was simpler¡ªto find Wu Chen. Seems that these two are cooperating very well with each other!"


    "Do you think these two are planning to open the passageway that leads to the Devil Realm?"


    "That''s unlikely. Ripping the passageway apart is only a temporary measure, and I believe he has paid a great price for it. Otherwise, he wouldn''t have stopped chasing you. Furthermore, despite sending out the large flock of Fierce Owls, those Fierce Owls didn''t do anything fatal at all. I''m confident that the 14 macro worlds can easily wipe out those Fierce Owls. They were used to buy more time for the two to meet!"


    "We both arrived at the same conclusion. Then, the next thing that will happen must be some big move to be made by those Primordial Demons!"


    "Don''t be so tense. The Devil Realm is very distant from us. Plus, for creatures like Primordial Demons, it always takes them around a thousand years to turn their plans into real actions. And that''s when they are being efficient. Sometimes, their plans will be delayed for up to 10,000 years, but that''s still a norm to them. Therefore, you can bear it in mind, but there is no need to be overly concerned!"


    Fate Creation Boy had an indifferent expression on his face. Then, as if something really funny had occurred to him, he said, "In contrast, what we need to be prepared for is the event of Heaven Realm World!"


    "Haven''t you regained your post already? When I got back, I saw that the endless space was already fully formed, and has turned into an enormous formation. Thus, everything is ready, what more should we prepare for?"


    "Prepare the solution for potential massive invasions launched by every other macro world!" Fate Creation Boy snapped. "After the willpower of the Immortal Realm descended, do you believe there are merely several Lords of Heaven trying to sneak in? Can that really count as the execution of the willpower of the Immortal Realm? Heaven Realm World has numerous Hidden Treasures and resources. The most important matter is only if one conquers Heaven Realm World, would he be able to restore the passageway leading to the Void Immortal Realm and allow countless practitioners trapped in the Divine Immortal Realm to access the Earthly Immortals'' Great Way. Even if there was no willpower of the Immortal Realm, strong practitioners in these macro worlds could still take on Heaven Realm World!"


    "You''re already the Fate Creator now. Don''t you have a comprehensive knowledge of the Hidden Treasures and resources?"


    "I do know about some of the Hidden Treasures, but they''re not of great value. They''re merely heritages left by some small sects in antiquity times to guarantee the survival of their sects. They do not even have any fairy weapons. As for those heritages that can influence the mighty, they''re beyond my exploration. When a man advances to the Earthly Immortals'' Great Way, even a Fate Creator can do nothing about him!"


    "I still want to know the whereabouts of those Hidden Treasures. After all, though a mosquito is small, it''s still has a bit of meat. Even if there are no fairy weapons, I will accept some Pure Yang Celestial Devices!" Zhou Bao said conversationally. Nowadays, what he needed most in his Wuyang Region were talents. From what Fate Creation Boy had told him, he could tell that those Hidden Treasure would be of no use to him; but to his subordinates, they could mean all sorts of opportunities and lucky chances. If they obtained the heritage from antiquity times, for one thing, they could level up their strength; for another, they could gain a more orthodox status, right?


    "If there is, I''ll tell you. No big deal!" Fate Creation Boy shrugged. As he spoke, he lifted a finger and pointed it at Zhou Bao''s forehead. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao furrowed his brows and pointed his right forefinger at the fingertip of Fate Creation Boy as well, and a stream of secret information was captured by him.


    "Sorry. I forgot that nowadays you no longer receive messages in this fashion!"


    "Did you forget or were you just testing me? Well, I''ll never find out!" Zhou Bao smiled. "You know, even though I am the Fate Creator of the Azure Big World, this world is still not complete. I do not have full control of it but have to rely on Heaven Realm World. And as you''ve learned, I still want to get some benefits from Heaven Realm World. Thus, you should abandon these kinds of unnecessary tests!"


    "Right, you do have a point. I''m being too cautious!" Fate Creation Boy beamed, demonstrating his assent. "What will you do with these Hidden Treasures?"


    "I''ll open some to the public and leave the rest of the good ones to my subordinates. That''s all right, isn''t it?"


    "No problem. Based on today''s urgent conditions, it''s a good thing if Heaven Realm World can have more experts. However, this may require the use of your Azure Big World. That Wheel of Time can accelerate the flow of time, which will be quite helpful for them to make faster progress!"


    "The Azure Big World and the Supreme Fairy Weapon are my ace cards. I do not want that many people to know about them yet, including my bunch of subordinates. Since you''re the Fate Creator of Heaven Realm World, it should be easy for you to pick a random spacetime out of those endless spacetimes and change the flow of time in it!"


    "I''m not you! I don''t have a fairy weapon like the Wheel of Time!"


    "Even though you don''t, you can still manipulate time within Heaven Realm World, especially in a small space. That is not too hard!"


    "I know it''s not hard, but it''s inconvenient and will cost a lot of my energy!"


    "I''m not asking you to speed up a long period of time. When my men obtain the Hidden Treasures, the heritages from antiquity times, all they need is to find a place to do some closed-door training to digest what they learn. This won''t consume much energy!" Zhou Bao smiled faintly. "And don''t forget I am also a Fate Creator. In the endless spacetime inside the Azure Big World, I can also modify the flow of time and make it go faster!"


    "Well, seems that I can''t keep anything from you. Fine, I accept your deal!" In front of Zhou Bao, Fate Creation Boy had no other choice but to agree with him. Although Fate Creation Boy had become the Fate Creator of Heaven Realm World, given that Heaven Realm World had now turned into a target for all, without the backup of a powerful practitioner like Zhou Bao, this world would probably meet its downfall even though he had scraped together all the pieces of the Fairy Weapon of Fate.


    In Heaven Realm World, the items left by the people in antiquity times, such as Vast Sea Emperor, was of no use to Fate Creation Boy. Now, the only one who could help and would help him was Zhou Bao. At present, Zhou Bao had just reached the Human Immortal Realm, but Fate Creation Boy knew perfectly well that the combat capability of this young man was already on par with a prime Divine Immortal. With the fairy weapons he possessed, Zhou Bao could provide him with great assistance. Apart from Zhou Bao, Fate Creation Boy also attached importance to the small group comprising of Zhou Bao, Wang She, and Child-endowing Buddha. The latter two were both Eight-tribulation True Immortals with a combat capability at the peak of the Lord of Heaven Realm. If they were lucky, they could perform at the power of the Divine Immortal Realm as well. These things were the crucial points Fate Creation Boy really cared about. As for those small Hidden Treasures, he truly did not bother procuring them. As a Fate Creator, those things were like passing clouds to him, because he could always find out more. If he had to give them to someone, it was better to give them to Zhou Bao. In this way, Zhou Bao would be more willing to help him. Otherwise, he might not get the help he needed. Now, the help provided by the several super sects in Heaven Realm World was not even close to what Zhou Bao could bring him.


    "I''ll open three Hidden Treasures for all the sects and practitioners in Heaven Realm World to explore and try out the Divine Fate. The others will be left to my subordinates. You don''t mind that, do you?"


    "No, I don''t. Fate Creation Boy answered, without thinking.

 718 Yunzhou

    The generosity from Fate Creation Boy benefited Zhou Bao a lot.


    The three Hidden Treasures had attracted all the sects to try and scramble for them. The practitioners in the Heaven Realm World were crazy about them. However, only Zhou Bao and his trusting subordinates knew that besides those three, Zhou Bao himself had attained already ten of those and shared them with his region. Those who got the Hidden Treasure of antiquity times in the Wuyang Region had practiced for 300 hundred years in a nameless spacetime in the Heaven Realm World. Among them, those who had the lowest cultivation reached the Level Five Tribulation Venerable while those who had the highest cultivation were at the Level Eight Tribulation Venerable. Zhu Ba was one of those.


    His strength sharply increased after he had already completely launched his ancient bloodline. Meanwhile, his phase had reached the Level Eight Tribulation Lord of Heaven. In terms of the combat capability, he was even equal to a Human Immortal.


    Zhou Bao''s former subordinates, like Jiang Xiao, also had a cultivation of the Six Tribulations Lord of Heaven. Wuyang Region''s strength soared to an extremely amazing state. Even without Zhou Bao, who had the strongest combat capability, the combined strength of his subordinates was not lower than any other super sect.


    Certainly, all this went on under a cloak of secrecy. Only those concerned, Zhou Bao and Fate Creation Boy knew about it.


    As time went on, the atmosphere in the Heaven Realm World became more and tenser. Fate Creation Boy went back to his original position. The endless spacetime of the Heaven Realm World was readjusted, which indeed restricted most of the Lords of Heaven from the Alien Realm to enter. However, everything was not as calm as expected.


    In the hollow, there were lots of Lords of Heaven, Human Immortals and even Immortals in many macro worlds. Among them, a small group of them ignored the inhibitions set up by Fate Creation Boy and went through the endless spacetime outside the Heaven Realm World because they had special capabilities. They could hide under the rules of the Heaven Realm World and integrate into it. Although there were not so many people capable of that in one macro world, the combined macro worlds would lead to a substantial quantity. The most annoying thing was that they were cleverer now. After one had reached to the Heaven Realm World, they would instantly look for a legal and secret identity to conceal themselves. The best way to achieve this was to kill a person and get his identity the violent way, which was an easy job to a Lord of Heaven.


    However, their strategy was by no means perfect, and secrets could be easily exposed.


    In the past three months, the disguisers penetrated one by one in the Divine Wind Palace, Palace of Eternal Life and Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain respectively, which made the other super sects in the Seven-deity Regions vigilant. Fright was everywhere. The atmosphere in the practitioner section also grew tense.


    Those big sects only found out two cases, let alone the small sects and the well-known families for cultivation. For a while, every practitioner in the Heaven Realm World felt nervous and scared and looked at others with insecure eyes. Many acquaintances also kept each other at a distance and stopped contact. Everyone was waiting for the ending of this event.


    "It seems something big is going to happen!"


    At a small restaurant in the Qinlingjun City in Yunzhou, Zhou Bao was expressionlessly watching the dark sky and sighing heavily.


    Yunzhou saw three Governors in more than ten years after Ma Tianchang''s resignation from the Governor position. However, all of them hadn''t stood for a long time in this position. One reason was that they were not as capable as Ma Tianchang. The other one was that they did not have Ma Tianchang''s social connections. Therefore, they could only hold that position for a short time. In addition, Yunzhou, which had once been managed by Ma Tianchang with great effort for about ten years, gradually declined. However, the reasons should not be attributed to them solely. With the rise of Wuyang Region in the northwest, Yunzhou was not the only important border in Jin as it had been ten years ago. Meanwhile, the goods exchanged with the south did not take Yunzhou as its trade center anymore. The real trading center transferred towards the northwest. Besides, the Wuyang Road was straight and ten thousand meters long. All this rendered Yunzhou not to be the strategic port anymore. Now, it was only an ordinary inland prefecture. With the effects from several Governors in the past, did anyone rely on it to regain past glory?


    However, some places in Yunzhou still kept its glory, for instance, the Wu Family.


    The Wu Family''s glory profited from Zhou Bao. People all over the world knew that King Wuyang Zhou Bao came from the Wu Family. But they were also sure that his achievements actually had nothing to do with his family.


    Zhou Bao was a grateful person and took care of the Wu Family very well. In particular, after the establishment of the Anyuan Store and Zhou Bao''s control over the Wuyang Region, the ironware business had to go through the Wu Family. So to speak, the Wu Family monopolized the ironware manufacture in the whole northwest area. Zhou Bao''s reputation also supported the business. More than ten years later, the Wu Family''s strength surged and became a strong aristocratic family in Jin. Its strength was not lower than that of the millennium families.


    The previous four smelting families now took the Wu Family as the main one. The Wu Family''s old house in the Qinlingjun City was the second biggest buildings after several expansions. Then, which one is bigger than that monstrous construction?


    Surely, the answer was the Zhou''s yard.


    Zhou Bao came back to the Qinlingjun City for relaxation. His practice had already reached a bottleneck, which made him gloomy. He was a Human Immortal and was going to practice the Three Flowers. However, it was hard to do so. Although the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, Immortal Body Technique and Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill among the Seven Wonderful Techniques were regarded as a shortcut to the practice of the Three Flowers, according to the current situation, even the shortcut was a necessary way. Accumulation was also needed because he could not succeed in one day. Besides, he suffered a plot from the Vast Sea Emperor. He was not calm in the heart after he had been lured by the Primordial Demon Wu Chen''s words in the Infinite Star Sea. If he forced himself to practice and perceive, he would possibly be possessed by the devil.


    Consequently, he came out to entertain himself and improve his restless mental state. Unconsciously, he went straight to the Qinlingjun City.


    Despite Zhou Bao''s great reputation, only a few of people in the world knew his true face. When he lived in the Qinlingjun City before, he was still a child. Other than the Wu Family''s old house, he often went to the bookstalls as well. Even if someone saw him, he, as a boy, would not give others deep impression. Later, when he became famous, he had never openly shown up in Qinlingjun City. Therefore, nobody would really identify him there.


    Where he sat was not far away from the Wu Family''s old house. He was at a table near the window on the third floor inside a restaurant, so he could clearly see the integral building at a short distance.


    "Alas. Looking back, my wish was to practice until Level Seven Expert Realm. Then I would build a small villa in the Qinlingjun City and just stay here quietly for the rest of my life. But who could have guessed what actually happened?" Seeing the endless Wu Family''s old house and the new-built Zhou''s villa which was even more magnificent, Zhou Bao sighed with emotion in his heart. "It seems that''s the street. Right there I got several prescriptions of the elixir. This changed my life and also the practice situation in the world. Hehe. I still remember that I meddled the Dark Sect''s Xue Wuya with the Anesthetic Pill. Someone with a strength lower than Level One won a Level Eight expert. I was indeed a talent!"


    Thinking of those years, Zhou Bao became excited. Especially, having killed Xue Wuya by meddling him with the Anesthetic Pill was really heart-stirring.


    "Em? Who''s that guy?" When Zhou Bao was recalling, he suddenly saw a figure not far away whose face was really familiar. He took a careful look and could not help laughing. What a coincidence it was. That person was his acquaintance. She was Ma Linglong, the Yunzhou Governor Ma Tianchang''s runaway daughter. Later, she married Lei Ming, one of the Chiefs in the Tian Long Taoism.


    Although she was almost 40 years old, she looked like a young lady in her twenties because of her lasting energy. She was still in a hurried state and wandered around the marketplace in Yunzhou.


    "Interesting! Ma Tianchang is not the Yunzhou Governor any longer. Why is she here? No, she got married. However, even if she''s married, she shouldn''t show up in Yunzhou to visit her parents. Does Ma Tianchang own a territory in the north? Although he doesn''t care about it much, it was prosperous. Ma Tianchang and his wife also moved there and stay home now. Nobody knows what they are doing there. But Ma Linglong had a reason to know that. Besides, it seems like her husband is not here. Did she run away from home and came to Yunzhou for relaxation?" Zhou Bao thought.


    Zhou Bao''s strength had greatly increased recently, though he should not belittle Ma Tianchang who had once been the Yunzhou Governor. After all, Ma Tianchang was now the lord in the north and Marquis in the north of the town.


    After all, he had a strong backing too.


    He was from the Fifth Manor at the Longevity Mountain.


    Once, Zhou Bao had been interested in Ma Tianchang and the Fifth Manor much more. Regrettably, based on his current strength, he could not enter the Fifth Manor, at least not yet. He could not even come into the Longevity Mountain. However, he could not figure out Ma Tianchang''s strength. Whatever, Ma Tianchang was a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm.


    A Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm! It sounded like it was nothing. However, more than ten years ago, he was the Yunzhou Governor and managed the whole city alone. At that time, even a Level Nine expert was called a Grandmaster!


    He, as a Venerable, sitting at the city-wall inside Yunzhou, was laughing at others. Thinking back, the fairy weapon Jade Bottle was astonishing the world, Zhou Bao felt that Ma Tianchang seemed to play bad his cards or perhaps he had some hidden purpose.


    If he was just a venerable trying to play his cards against the world, it would be acceptable. However, if he had some other purposes, Zhou Bao had to guard against him in advance.


    The Heaven Realm World was declining due to less and less population. However, after much deliberation, a lot of talented people were still here in concealment. According to Zhou Bao''s current strength and combat capability, he could never be off guard. He would plan each new step carefully because he was afraid that some eccentric expert would appear and ruin everything. Without those misgivings, he would have already leaked out the Fiery Eyes bloodline without hesitation and let it come back to the world even if he had not destroyed the Divine Wind Palace.

 719 Ma Linglongs Capability

    In the Heaven Realm World, the Fifth Manor at the Longevity Mountain was undoubtedly a very eccentric and mysterious influence.


    Ma Tianchang had never made friends with others. However, 50 years ago, he had suddenly emerged. He not only supported Yan Yuntian to gain the imperial throne and also won a high position in Jin and controlled Yunzhou, which violated the limitations of the Golden Book of Fate. A person at the Venerable Realm interfered with the imperial affairs, which was not tolerable to the Divine Wind Palace.


    However, the Divine Wind Palace, as well as other sects, did not comment and surprisingly let it go by. What did it say? It proved that Ma Tianchang was beyond the Golden Book of Fate''s control and was free of the Immortal-burying Pool. It meant that his Thunder Tribulation was the Void Thunder Tribulation.


    Only those who had the experienced the Void Thunder Tribulation knew its awfulness. For this reason, plus Zhou Bao''s confusion about the Fifth Manor in the past, he had to pay attention to Ma Tianchang.


    However, after Ma Tianchang''s resignation, he always stayed home. Did Yan Yuntian award him a large territory? Its area was three or four times bigger than the Wuyang Region. Originally, Yan Yuntian planned to rely on Ma Tianchang to develop his own territory and balance Zhou Bao in the northwest. Later, Ma Tianchang built up a great manor in his territory and brought his wife there. They always stayed in and ignored the affairs in their own territory. They handed over all the affairs to their housekeeper, an old man in his sixties. Therefore, his domain was not prosperous at all and did not see a good development. Despite of that, nobody belittled him and craved for his territory. Therefore, generally speaking, Ma Tianchang''s territory was at peace in the north. Certainly, Zhou Bao did not expect to make fortune there.


    In Zhou Bao''s opinion, Ma Tianchang and the Fifth Manor were a big mystery. However, Zhou Bao was open-minded. Now that he could not find answers to the questions, he would not spend much time on it. Besides, the northern region did not have any influence on his Wuyang Region. Hence, he had never worried too much about it.


    This time, the accidental appearance of Ma Linglong brought surprise and some ideas to him.


    "Maybe I can take this opportunity to get close to Ma Tianchang and see whether the Immortal Zhen Yuan, an Ancestor of Earthly Immortals, is in his Fifth Manor?" He said to himself. Simultaneously, a strange thing happened. When he was thinking, Ma Linglong, who was picking up goods in the marketplace suddenly turned her head and glanced directly at Zhou Bao.


    The distance between them was certainly not small. Zhou Bao could clearly see Ma Linglong only because of his special eyes. But it seemed that Ma Linglong also saw him and even smiled at him. Then, she continued shopping in the marketplace.


    "That''s funny!" Zhou Bao was astonished, but then he quickly burst into laughter. Ma Linglong''s strength had been at the phase of Level Seven expert all the time. However, when she just turned around, Zhou Bao felt a strange wave which could not be emitted by a Level Seven expert. It was the Dharma power wave, a weird wave totally different from the Dharma power that he had felt through the telepathic connection. He had never felt such an eccentric Dharma power in places like the Infinite Star Sea, the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, the Primordial Demon nor with the Innate Deity. However, today, Ma Linglong gave him that feeling.


    Sensing the Dharma power wave, he was more interested in Ma Linglong''s appearance.


    "Has she come to the Qinlingjun City for me? It''s unreasonable. I myself even didn''t expect I would be here. How can she know? Prophecy? Can she see through time?" Zhou Bao thought. "It''s not possible. I''m now the Fate Creator in the Azure Big World. Even an Earthly Immortal can''t predict a Fate Creator''s future. Not even a Celestial Immortal can know my future. She is just a little girl. How could she know?" Zhou Bao thought and touched his eyebrows, feeling a little pain there. Ma Linglong''s smile made him feel more strange. He was increasingly curious about the Fifth Manor.


    Ma Linglong did not have so much consideration. She was just shopping around the marketplace at her pleasure. She unhesitatingly bought what she liked. Quickly, two servants helped her to carry the goods. For a while, one servant left helplessly. A moment later, he came back with a carriage. Obviously, he realized that the two of them could not carry so many things.


    Ma Linglong hanged around in the marketplace from this side to the other and got satisfied after she had filled the carriage with many random goods. She raised her head with pleased eyes and caught a glimpse of Zhou Bao who was still in his original seat. Subsequently, she let the two servants bring her things to her abode. But she directly walked towards the restaurant where Zhou Bao was.


    "You''re so patient! You''ve been waiting for three hours here. Why doesn''t the restaurant drive you away?"


    In a moment, she met with Zhou Bao. Sitting down before him, she asked him teasingly.


    "I have money. Even if I stay here till night, they won''t even try to kick me out. But you, Miss Ma, you''re strange!"


    "Me? Why am I strange?" Ma Linglong laughed and let the waiter add a set of chopsticks and bowl. "I just came here for shopping. Can''t women shop in the street?"


    "Miss Ma, I don''t want to argue with you, but I am guessing you didn''t come to Qinlingjun City only for shopping"


    "Of course not. I''m here for you. But I haven''t bought anything for a long time, so I just shopped around!" Ma Linglong was a foursquare person and did not reveal her purpose. "Old guy let me come to you!"


    "By Old Guy, do you mean Governor Ma?"


    "He''s not the Governor any more! Now he''s just enjoying life at home!" Ma Linglong said with a laugh. "But a bad guy like him will live for thousands of years before he dies!"


    "How did you know I was here?"


    "I inherited my mother''s power. It''s not hard for me to find you!" Ma Linglong smiled. "15 minutes after you arrived, I already found out your position and immediately came here. It''s the fair day today, so, as you just saw¡ª"


    "You also have the ancient bloodline. Sorry, sorry!" Hearing it, Zhou Bao realized that many people who had the ancient bloodline in this world possessed inexplicable skills. Their skills were as useful as Zhou Bao''s Fiery Eyes.


    "Sorry for what? My bloodline is not a match to yours. Your bloodline is Fiery Eyes and Heavenly Magic Eye. They''re excellent!"


    Ma Linglong shook hands and replied with a casual air.


    "Miss Ma knows so much!" Hearing that Ma Linglong spoke about his Fiery Eyes bloodline and Heavenly Magic Eye, Zhou Bao slightly squinted with coldness.


    "Don''t frighten me. I won''t tell others your thing and I can''t do it. Our tribe has this feature. Even if we know your secrets, we just keep them in our own heart. We do never reveal them. Otherwise, our bloodline would lose effectiveness. It''s strange, hum?"


    "Yes, It is." Zhou Bao answered affirmatively. "Well, what''s your purpose this time?"


    "I told you. Old guy let me come to you. But it''s not him wanting you. His teacher wanted to see you. Do you know the Fifth Manor at the Longevity Mountain?"


    Sure. The Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain was one of the super sects of Three Western Regions. However, I''ve never been there."


    "You''ve certainly never been there. Even if you arrived there, you wouldn''t be able to enter!" Ma Linglong laughed.


    "Excuse me. I don''t have that ability so I can''t enter there!"


    "It''s nothing. The Fifth Manor is different from the other places. One can''t enter it without permission. Even Fate Creation Boy can''t enter, let alone you!" Ma Linglong said. "Let''s get down to the important matter. Old guy asked for help from you because he''s entrusted by the Fifth Manor at the Longevity Mountain!"


    "Help?" Zhou Bao fell into silence for a second and showed an eccentric face. "Why does anyone, whoever he is, want help from me? Do you really regard me as a capable person? I''m not that capable!"


    "Don''t be so excited. You won''t do it for free!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s bitter face, Miss Ma was a little bit angry.


    "I know you won''t let me do it for free. But I really can''t do it!" Zhou Bao waved hands and said, "Frankly speaking, I just messed up with a thing. Now I''m tired, so I don''t want to get into any trouble. Your Fifth Manor is too mysterious. I don''t want to be involved in it!"


    "I know you''re now at the Human Immortal phase. But you''re annoyed because you can''t successfully form the Three Flowers above the Head. I promise. You will make it in a short time!"


    "You seem to know everything!"


    "Although we can''t tell others what we know, we''re good negotiators. We know everyone''s limits. So, if you want to negotiate with a difficult person, come to me. I''ll give you a 20% discount!"

 720 The Fifth Manor at the Longevity Mountain

    "Now. I''m much more interested in your tribe!"


    Zhou Bao stared at Ma Linglong. In his opinion, they were really strange because they knew his secrets, which was no detriment for the negotiation. However, Zhou Bao thought that she was not lying to him. This tribe, as what she had said, would not give secrets away even if they knew them. Moreover, Zhou Bao doubted that they would forget the secrets in a short time. Otherwise, this tribe would have been annihilated and no members would be alive. Such an ability, which was superior to the Fiery Eyes, surely brought fear to others.


    As expected, seeing Zhou Bao''s face, Ma Linglong also showed an eccentric expression. "It''s not interesting. Our tribe can easily perceive other''s secrets. The deeper their secrets are, the clearer they are to us. But there''re big limits to our ability. We can''t tell others the secrets. Even though other people use the Soul Searching skill, they can''t know the secrets we know. What''s more, we only know your secrets when we face you. Once you''re out of our sight, our memory about your secrets will disappear!"


    "Though many limits, it''s a truly funny ability, especially in a negotiation!"


    "Yes. That''s the reason why the old guy let me come here. He hates negotiations!"


    "Well. What can I do for the Fifth Manor?"


    "I''ve no idea. They are not in front of me!"


    "You want me to go to the Fifth Manor and negotiate with them?"


    "There''re many good things in that sect. Many treasures beyond your imagination. You won''t suffer a loss there!"


    "It''s not about the loss. You must know the last thing I want is to make trouble. No matter how many benefits I get, I''ll be caught into troubles regardless. I don''t want to see them and I don''t want to do it."


    Nowadays, Zhou Bao really did not want to cause any trouble at all. In his heart, he was a homeboy. In the past, he devoted himself to practicing because he was not capable enough. Now that he had a strong capability, plus the Supreme Fairy Weapon and Azure Big World which could protect him and prevented others from bringing him trouble. Besides, he also had a long life. Such being the case, he did not have a reason to mess with so many dangerous people.


    Of course, he understood that he had been involved in it, so it would be hard to get out. What he could do now was to protect himself from being trapped. That was his only chance.


    "Perhaps after you arrive at the Fifth Manor, you can get answers to your questions. Let''s say your background, why you''re here, the Fierce Owl''s background and the Vast Sea Emperor''s purpose!"


    "I really don''t understand why your tribe is still alive today!" Seeing Ma Linglong, Zhou Bao was suppressing his impulse to wring her neck. She was a horrible person. Her eyes seemed to see through everything. One''s secrets in the deepest of the heart would be exposed accidentally.


    "As I just told you, our tribe has great limitations. Even if I know all the secrets, I can''t disclose them. Even a Celestial Immortal can''t get the secrets from us!" Ma Linglong said with great confidence. "Of course, in the past, some people did not believe us and directly killed our clansmen!"


    "Understandable!" Zhou Bao''s mouth corner moved slightly.


    "Well then, do you believe me?"


    "Believe it or not, I wouldn''t kill you now. The Fifth Manor at the Longevity Mountain is so famous!" Zhou Bao sighed softly. He had heard this name in his previous life. He had never expected that such a place also existed in this world.


    At first, when Zhou Bao heard it, he was very intrigued. Hence, after his successful practice, he hoped to visit the Longevity Mountain. However, he had never had a chance. This time, he was lucky because he had an opportunity to come to the Longevity Mountain and visit the mysterious sect.


    "But I don''t know whether the Ancestor of Earthly Immortals, the Immortal Zhen Yuan is at the Fifth Manor, and the legendary ginseng fruit tree!" Zhou Bao thought in his mind.


    "The Fifth Manor at the Longevity Mountain was established by the Immortal Zhen Yuan! The ginseng fruit tree is also in the yard!" Ma Linglong said when he was still thinking. However, Ma Linglong also showed a weird face. "The world in your previous life is really strange!"


    Again, Zhou Bao clutched his fists and controlled his impulse of hitting her to death.


    The Fifth Manor at the Longevity Mountain.


    It''s located in the Three Western Regions, ten thousand miles away from the Central Mainland Region. The distance was like a small river in front of Zhou Bao though. Although he could come to the Longevity Mountain, he could not enter it. He could only stand at the foot of the mountain. Watching the fairyland and the stone stele which was inscribed with its name. Zhou Bao was suddenly lost in it as if he went back to his previous life in which he had been extremely excited when he had watched A Journey to the West.


    "Longevity Mountain, Longevity Mountain. I''m at the Longevity Mountain!"


    "Let''s go inside. Longevity Mountain is special. We can only reach the mountaintop by foot. It''s about a hundred miles long!" Ma Linglong heaved a sigh aside. She hated it more than him.


    Zhou Bao laughed and followed her. One would probably take a lot of time crossing the long road. However, he would not feel tired. Based on his physical status, he would not be exhausted even if he walked in the rest of his life.


    After a long way, they arrived at the destination: the legendary Fifth Manor.


    It was a Taoist temple of primitive simplicity. The whole temple looked like it had been built up with black rocks. When they walked inside, the gate was already open. A delicate Junior Taoist Attendant, about 13 years old, stood at the gate with a warm smile.


    "I''m Qing Feng. Welcome King Wuyang, you have my respect!"


    "Qing Feng!" Zhou Bao grinned. He dared to accept his respect. "I don''t deserve this. I''m Zhou Bao. Please accept my respect to you. Pardon me for offending you in the past!"


    "King Wuyang thinks too much. Actually, there''re no secrets at the Longevity Mountain. Our master likes peace and quietness, so he set up the inhibition. Sorry about that!"


    With an exchange of greetings between them, they entered the Fifth Manor.


    As well as the outside, the Fifth Manor''s inside was like a very common Taoist temple. If there were two remarkable things about the temple, it would certainly be its huge size and flawless cleanness.


    That was all.


    The Taoist Attendant Qing Feng guided Zhou Bao and Ma Linglong to the meditation chamber and arranged them to have a seat. Tea and fruit were served on the table. Certainly, Zhou Bao''s expectation¡ªthe ginseng fruit¡ªwas not prepared.


    Ma Linglong seemed to feel Zhou Bao''s idea through the telepathic connection, so she curled her lip and gave him a severe kick.


    After the three sat at the table, Ma Linglong''s face changed again. She took on a queer expression.


    "What''s wrong, Linglong? Won''t our negotiation be successful?" Seeing Ma Linglong''s face change, Qing Feng was suddenly surprised.


    "No. I just had a strange feeling!" Ma Linglong answered.


    "Aha!" Qing Feng smiled and turned his head to Zhou Bao. "This time we invited King Wuyang here to ask a favor of you. Please don''t take it amiss!"


    "My pleasure. It''s my honor to have your invitation!" Zhou Bao immediately replied. "Now that I''m here. What can I do for you?"


    "It''s not a big deal. You know, many changes have happened to the Heaven Realm World recently. That has influenced our Longevity Mountain. Some people in the Heaven Realm World are actually from the Alien Realm. They sometimes come here and hang around the Longevity Mountain. It''s really troublesome!"


    "Oh? Is there such a thing?" Zhou Bao asked curiously. He had once seen the formidable inhibition of the Longevity Mountain. Even the Immortals could not enter without permission. Did those of Earthly Immortals from the Alien Realm manage to slip inside? Were they so rampant?


    "The Fifth Manor at the Longevity Mountain has existed in the Heaven Realm World since the antiquity times. But it''s never interfered with the Heaven Realm affairs and the running of it. We are at peace with the world. Despite all this, many people still try to bother us. We don''t care about them. But there is one really troublesome thing!" Speaking of it, Taoist Attendant Qing Feng laughed bitterly. "We once had an enemy. Our inhibition can trap others, but not him. His cultivation is at the Earthly Immortal Level. Even if his body can''t come here, he has eight incarnations. We have news that one of his incarnations has come to the Heaven Realm World secretly. His goal is our Longevity Mountain!"


    "According to the Master''s capability, he can handle an incarnation anytime!" Hearing Qing Feng''s words, Zhou Bao was more cautious. It was hard to know the Taoist Attendant Qing Feng''s high cultivation. He looked only 13 or 14 years old. Nobody knew his age. Although he was strong, he feared the enemy''s incarnation. Apparently, the incarnation''s strength was not something to take lightly. He had to be careful to avoid being caught in this.


    "Originally, we didn''t pay much attention to it. But now we have a problem. Frankly speaking, my junior brother and I are preparing to break through the Earthly Immortal Realm, so we''re now at a critical stage. It''s not good for us to be involved in the trouble! However, in this Heaven Realm World, only you can defeat that person''s incarnation, so¡ª"

 721 A Deal

    Zhou Bao hesitated for a moment. Taoist Qing Feng clearly showed his intentions. He wanted to hire Zhou Bao as a thug.


    Since he was wanted as a mercenary, he would make sure to ask for a high payment.


    Even though he was not willing to serve as a thug for others, he understood that he could not refuse while he was in Fifth Manor. In particular, Taoist Qing Feng talked to him in such an open way. He even did not conceal his cultivation to Zhou Bao.


    Breaking the Earthly Immortal phase meant that both this Taoist and his junior brother had reached Immortal peak phase in terms of the cultivation. Their combined strength was equal to that of the Realm Lords of two macro worlds. The Realm Lord in a macro world was similar to the Jade Emperor at antiquity times. Their strength was at the peak phase of the Immortal. For a very few macro worlds which possessed peerless pneuma and resources, their Realm Lords would likely be the Earthly Immortal. When they reached this phase, they would not be interested in managing the macro world because they''ve already had their own macro worlds. Therefore, their attention diverted to their own macro worlds. When they reached the Earthly Immortal phase, even if they were Realm Lords, they would also retire from the leading position and seldom show up.


    What was their combat capability when they reached the Immortal peak? Zhou Bao did not think that Taoist Qing Feng''s combat capability would remain at the Immortal peak. They must have a strength higher than an ordinary Earthly Immortal. After all, they had different backgrounds and were in a special place. Zhou Bao had a strength of Immortal peak even though he had just reached the Realm of Human Immortal. If the Taoists in the Fifth Manor could not kill the enemies, it would be a big joke to the rest of the world.


    Zhou Bao knew that the experts must experience the Earthly Immortal Tribulation before they reached the Earthly Immortal.


    From Immortal to Earthly Immortal, there was only one Tribulation. However, the Earthly Immortal Tribulation alone was ten times more terrible than the other tribulations combined due to many factors. Therefore, a practitioner who would experience the Earthly Immortal Tribulation could not participate in a battle and kill anything. Even if he stamped an ant to death, the Karma rising from the dead ant would probably escalated to a high level when he went through the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. Moreover, such a thing only happened when one''s cultivation and phase reached the Immortal''s peak and when he was affected by the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. If one failed to feel the chance resulting from the Earthly Immortal Tribulation, killing an ant would still leave Karma unchanged. Zhou Bao came to realize this thing. Now that Taoist Qing Feng told him, he must have already felt an opportunity in the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. Besides, it was also true of Ming Yue, his junior brother. Consequently, they did not want to act and intended to ask for help from a thug.


    "In the Fifth Manor, Are there any other people except for the senior Taoist and your junior brother?"


    "Uh!"Taoist Qing Feng face froze. "It''s a good question. Actually, there''re not many people in the Fifth Manor. Our senior and junior brothers have achieved the Earthly Immortals'' Great Way earlier and left the Longevity Mountain. Only my junior brother Ming Yue and I are still here to research the Earthly Immortals'' Great Way. As for our teacher¡ª"


    Mentioning his teacher, Qing Feng paused for a moment and said, "He doesn''t care about those things!"


    This sentence revealed something which attracted Zhou Bao''s attention!


    Taoist Qing Feng''s teacher was also in the Fifth Manor. Moreover, according to Ma Linglong''s words, their teacher was the Ancestor of Earthly Immortals, Immortal Zhen Yuan, in the legend.


    Obviously, such a big boss would ignore those trivial matters. In his eyes, everything about the Heaven Realm World, including Zhou Bao, was not interesting at all. Maybe, after his nap, the world had already seen a great change.


    "From the antiquity times, my junior brother and I have been managing the Fifth Manor together. We incurred this enemy. He doesn''t even know my teacher, so he''s so bold."


    Hearing this, Zhou Bao realized that their enemy just bullied the weak: the two Taoists. At first, he was curious who was so aggressive to provoke the Immortal Zhen Yuan.


    Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. A person of Earthly Immortal Level who did not know the existence of Immortal Zhen Yuan. Why did Qing Feng easily tell him that? It seemed that Qing Feng did not intend to conceal it from him and was straight up front with him since the beginning. Did he know that Zhou Bao had already heard about the Immortal Zhen Yuan?


    Thinking of it, Zhou Bao instantly cast a suspicious look at Ma Linglong.


    "Please don''t get me wrong, King Wuyang. Our teacher once said you''re special, so we should be frank and sincere to you!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s eyes, Qing Feng knew Zhou Bao''s thought and gave a gentle smile.


    "OK! I think too much!" Zhou Bao said. However, he became nervous. The Immortal Zhen Yuan said that he was a special person. Did the Immortal Zhen Yuan know his background?


    "Ok. King Wuyang. I''ve already told you our requirement. What''s yours? I suppose you won''t demand a high price, right?"


    "I won''t do it!" Zhou Bao laughed and told Qing Feng his thoughts honestly. In any case, being in good relation with Fifth Manor was always a good thing. "But I want to know how strong your enemy''s incarnation is. He''s an Earthly Immortal''s incarnation. He can''t be too weak, right?"


    "His incarnation is a silver fox with the Primordial Fierce Beast''s bloodline. Through rigorous training for many years, its combat capability is almost like an Immortal''s peak at our phase. It''s hard to handle!"


    "I see." Zhou Bao suddenly felt a headache. "You know, I just look like having good combat capability. My skills are not that useful. It''s just OK to deal with an opponent like me. But I may defeat him and drive him away. If that happened, do I make a Karma with that Earthly Immortal? I¡ª"


    "I know what you want to say. Indeed, as you said, you just look strong. But you don''t have a solid foundation and your phase is not enough. You''re asking for a quick death if you fall into the Karma with an Earthly Immortal!" Taoist Qing Feng softly flipped the teacup before him. "However, you don''t need to fear. You''re a Fate Creator. According to your spirit, you''re also a Fate Controller. Whatever your phase is, your position is the same with the Earthly Immortal¡ª"


    "Same position but different strength!" Zhou Bao forced a smile.


    "Yes. But it doesn''t matter. I can assure you that you can help us this time. And, he won''t go to you!"


    "Are you sure?"


    "Sure. The Karma between you two is from our Fifth Manor. We will shoulder the Karma. So, for you, it''s a very easy thing. Just drive him away!"


    At this moment, he took a look at Zhou Bao. "I know you have a good combat capability now. But frankly speaking, you overuse weapons, especially your bluff, the Supreme Fairy Weapon. I admit it has a strong power. But it can only be your bluff. Your phase is too low and you''re just at the Realm of Human Immortal. You haven''t formed the Three Flowers above the Head yet. You can play strong combat capability because you integrated the Real Body of Zhuyan. I believe you''ve got Zhuyan''s inheritance and practiced the Mysterious Divine Light. I can even feel the Icy Divine Light on you!"


    Taoist Qing Feng spoke about Zhou Bao''s strength with concrete exactness. He seemed like he would never stop. "I''m mostly interested in your Seven Wonderful Techniques. You''re young but you''ve got five kinds of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. You even fostered the bud of the Wonderful Techniques in your Dantian. That''s an impressive achievement. Master said you''re a special person. He''s right. When the Mysterious Icy Divine Light combines with the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and the Heavenly Jade Technique, two of the Seven Wonderful Techniques, an overwhelming power can be released. That''s also the best way to reach the Extreme Realm of Force. But you always pay more attention to your Supreme Fairy Weapon. Since you''ve chosen to reach the Extreme Realm of Force, don''t put extra things in your heart. Whatever the Supreme Fairy Weapon and the macro world are, a fist could crash them into nothing!"


    Zhou Bao''s eye corners were convulsed with his face changing. Finally, he slowly said, "Exactly!"


    "Hahaha. Yes. Exactly!" Taoist Qing Feng could not help laughing after he heard Zhou Bao''s response. "Yes, I just said it. Don''t take it seriously. The Extreme Realm of Force is the first Great Way among the 3,000 Great Ways. How can it be easy to be practiced? You chose this way. I don''t know if you''re arrogant or stupid!"


    "I didn''t choose it. It''s just a coincidence. An opportunity!" Zhou Bao said worriedly. "If you let me choose, I''d rather choose an easy way!"


    "Hehe. If you chose an easy way, I wouldn''t be talking with you today. Forget that nonsense. This time, if you can lend a hand to us, first, I assure you that you won''t be caught into the Karma with that Earthly Immortal. In the future, any difficulty you encounter won''t suffer the effects of this thing. Secondly, I can help you form the Three Flowers above the Head within 10 days and guide you to the way of the Five Qis in the Chest. Third, you understand the Seven Wonderful Techniques. Our Fifth Manor doesn''t care. But some guys will make big troubles to you, so I can teach you the way to conceal the Seven Wonderful Techniques. I can also even tell you where you can find out the other two. Lastly, I can answer your two questions if I know the answers. What do you think of that?"


    "Deal!"

 722 Gathering of Three Flowers I

    The offer was exceptionally tempting, and it was infinitely more realistic than the Primordial Demon''s temptation. It was similar to the way he dealt with people who harbored evil intentions towards his daughter previously where he made on offer of irresistible temptation. And now was no different. The Fifth Manor made him an offer he couldn''t refuse, so they made a deal.


    Every offer needed to be fulfilled and that by a first-come, first-served basis. To gather the Three Flowers within 10 days was the first one to fulfill. After all, a hatchet man had to be strong enough; otherwise, he would be beaten instead, which wouldn''t be nice.


    Zhou Bao could not gather the Three Flowers above the Head for the time being, mainly due to the last Void Thunder Tribulation that caused him to be still at the consolidation stage. Besides, the Three Flowers above the Head included the Body, the Qi, and the Spirit. To gather each flower required profound apprehension of the life forces of these three aspects. Zhou Bao''s rapid growth in strength left him far behind in his apprehension of these three aspects, just like the fact that his cultivation had always been behind his combat capability. This was both a good thing and a bad thing.


    As the practice advanced, the apprehension of power and the cognition of the world''s nature became more and more important. If there were a lack of apprehension or cognition, the practice later up would have more and more bottlenecks and troubles.


    Although the Azure Big World allowed Zhou Bao to cheat with time, there were things that could not be achieved even with ample time. To apprehend the three aspects needed constant struggles, apprehension, life and death fights, and rich experiences in the world, especially the Flower of the Spirit. Without thousands of years of experience in the world and seeing through the society and human beings, it was impossible to gather the Flower of the Spirit.


    It was not a matter of time; it was a matter of cultivating one''s heart.


    Having reached such a high state, Zhou Bao, of course, knew of it. And he knew his shortcomings too. So how could he turn down Qing Feng''s offer?


    When Zhou Bao said yes without hesitation, Qing Feng smiled and had an eager expression on his face, saying, "Come with me. I''ll help you to gather the Three Flowers above the Head. Linglong, you can go back now. Tell your father to come back more often. When your granduncle and I achieve the Earthly Immortals'' Great Way, he will be in charge of Fifth Manor!"


    "Yes, granduncle!" Ma Linglong nodded helplessly.


    After following Qing Feng into the backyard of Fifth Manor, Zhou Bao looked around with his head stretched out. He made his Fiery Eyes fully functional just to see if the legendary ginseng fruit tree existed. However, it was obvious that he had done it in vain, for the backyard, though ordinary in appearance, also had an odd inhibition. This inhibition seemed to have no power, but Zhou Bao could not see through it even with his Fiery Eyes and Heavenly Magic Eye.


    You heard right, even the Heavenly Magic Eye, a Taihao Fairy Weapon, could not see through the small yard.


    "You''d better not activate a fairy weapon in Fifth Manor. It''s not good!" Qing Feng, who walked ahead, smiled and softly reminded Zhou Bao of that as if he knew what Zhou Bao was doing.


    Zhou Bao blushed and quickly closed his Heavenly Magic Eye. This was Fifth Manor in Longevity Mountain, not some place else. If he really were to piss off a mighty figure, no matter how many aces he had up his sleeve, those may be of no help to him.


    "Your Heavenly Magic Eye is wonderful, and because of your Fiery Eyes Bloodline, it is, so to speak, your own ability. But you haven''t fitted well with it yet. When you gather the Three Flowers, I''ll give you a hand to make you a perfect match for the Heavenly Magic Eye. What do you think?"


    "Are you serious?" Zhou Bao froze for an instant before a look of ecstasy appeared on his face.


    The Heavenly Magic Eye, which he took from Yu Taixu, was a peerless fairy weapon that Divine Wind Palace spent countless painstaking efforts on refining the Fiery Eyes with all Fiery Eyes'' owners. The fairy weapon had exactly the same function as the Heavenly Magic Eyes of some of the most powerful Innate Deities in primitive times, it was just a little weaker than them.


    The Heavenly Magic Eye mainly had two functions. One was its invincible attack force to the spirit, and the other was the ability to understand everything.


    In the past, Zhou Bao''s Fiery Eyes had the power of soul-summoning. But in the Heavenly Magic Eye, it was actually just a little function. Now with the Heavenly Magic Eye, he knew the Dharma of Immortal practice and had a clear understanding of the Heavenly Magic Eye. Moreover, he could exert much more of its powers than Yu Taixu could, yet, it was still less than 30 percent.


    What did it mean to make him a perfect match for the Heavenly Magic Eye?


    It meant that Zhou Bao would be able to exert all of the Heavenly Magic Eye''s powers, which would significantly boost his strength.


    "It''s no big deal. You have the Fiery Eyes, which should be in accordance with the Immortal practice''s Dharma within the Heavenly Magic Eye. Plus, you''re about to gather the Flower of the Spirit. So you''re definitely able to exert all the Heavenly Magic Eye''s powers then. What I''m going to do is to get rid of the process of further refining the Heavenly Magic Eye after you have gathered the Flower of the Spirit."


    Though Qing Feng said it so easily, Zhou Bao knew exactly how much he would benefit from it.


    As for the quick speed of gathering the Three Flowers above the Head, Zhou Bao still had some concerns.


    After all, a downside of having an unstable foundation will be reflected in many aspects. For example, after breaking through into the Realm of Human Immortal, his Dharma powers would be unstable for a long time, his comprehension of powers would be slow, and so on and so forth. If the Three Flowers above the Head would be forced to gather within 10 days, it could be imagined that he would encounter bigger, higher, and more troublesome bottlenecks in his future practice. But that was not something he could take care of now. The Heaven Realm World had been exposed, and the experts from various Alien Realms were looking at it menacingly. Moreover, he had quite a number of enemies, so with a little more strength, he would have a little higher chance of survival. As for the future, he could only think about it later on.


    Qing Feng took Zhou Bao to a wing room in the backyard - a very large one at that. In it, an incense burner has been lit, and there was nothing in front of it, only a futon, which was for Zhou Bao to use.


    At Qing Feng''s hint, Zhou Bao sat directly on the futon with his legs crossed without further ceremony. Then, following Qing Feng''s instructions, he started launching the Mysterious Icy Divine Light.


    "You have the Zhuyan Bloodline and have integrated the Real Body of Zhuyan in you. Plus, you''ve practiced the Mysterious Divine Light. With exceptional advantages in physical practice, the Flower of the Body is the easiest one to gather for you. Now, run your Mysterious Divine Light. Do as I say and leave the rest alone!"


    As the Mysterious Icy Divine Light had been launched, Zhou Bao began to integrate the Mysterious Divine Light into his body according to Qing Feng''s instructions. Being able to integrate into a body was a great characteristic of the Mysterious Divine Light. He had never done this before because he was afraid that his body would not be able to withstand too much of it.


    Now, however, he had no qualms. This was because as he ran the Mysterious Divine Light, Qing Feng shot a drop of transparent liquid between his eyebrows.


    The liquid was so bizarre that it permeated Zhou Bao''s spot between the eyebrows as soon as it touched it. Almost at the same time, Zhou Bao felt as if his body had become a bottomless pit that could contain the entire Mysterious Divine Light. And, what''s more, his body seemed to have developed a huge attraction and began to absorb the Mysterious Divine Light in his body automatically. Thanks to his huge and fully formed Dantian and the Qi restoration function of the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, he had more powerful Dharma powers than ordinary people. Otherwise, his Dharma powers would soon be drained.


    As his body absorbed the Mysterious Divine Light and changed little by little, Zhou Bao felt his body was indeed becoming stronger and stronger. An overwhelming sense of satisfaction overcame him from the rapid intensification of his body.


    Slowly, his muscles began to swell, and his bones began to stretch. He felt that he might turn into a Primordial Demonic Ape at any moment, but at the very beginning of this change, Qing Feng''s voice sounded out in his ear, warning him eagerly.


    "Do not evolve into the Real Body of Zhuyan! Compress your body, and keep your human form! Only this way can you apprehend the mystery of the body and gather the Flower of the Body!"


    "Sh*t, it can''t be!"


    His originally rosy and moistened face by the Mysterious Divine Light suddenly turned ugly. It was too much for him now.


    At this point, his body was changing as quickly as a high-speed train that was hard to stop. If Qing Feng would have told him earlier, it would have been much easier for him to suppress his body. Now that he was on the right track, it was extremely hard for him to stop and go back.


    However, despite the dilemma, he had to follow the instructions; he was like a drawn arrow¡ªthere was no way back.


    He clenched his teeth fiercely and began to contract his muscles. Then his body shook violently, and a gush of blood came up his throat, oozing out from his tightly clenched teeth. Afterward, clouds of blood seeped out from his body and patches of skin burst open one after another. But the iron bloodline of the Primordial Demonic Ape repaired his broken body at once, but then more patches of skin burst open.


    Like that, his newly swelled body repeatedly burst and repairs several times, and, at the same time, it was slowly shrinking.

 723 Gathering of Three Flowers II —Flower of the Body

    By the time Zhou Bao had fully regained his human form, his body was covered in blood and trembling. This was because his physical instincts were still expanding as they absorbed the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. The intertwining and change of those two completely opposite forces made him feel pretty awful.


    He felt as if there was someone with a blunt saber cutting every inch of his flesh, slit after slit. He could feel the pain coming from every cell so clear-unimaginably clear. But he could only bear it.


    In the acute pain, he was equally aware of the fantastic changes in his body.


    "Gathering the Flower of the Body, in fact, is the process of the body repeatedly undergoing ruptures and recoveries under great pressure. In the process of those recoveries, you can feel your body''s constitution and ultimate mystery, and your bloodline will be refined again and again. Your body will reach its purest state, and the impurities that are hidden in the deepest part of your body, which can''t be purified by the Thunder Tribulation, will be completely cleared out! Sink your spirit into your body and take a closer look inside it!"


    Qing Feng''s wave of divine thoughts was transmitted to Zhou Bao''s spirit.


    Impurities in the deepest part of his body!


    At this time, Zhou Bao''s spirit had fully sunk into his body. He was feeling and observing every change in his own body from the perspective of a bystander.


    "Acupoints, those are acupoints! How come there are so many of them?"


    After Zhou Bao''s spirit sank into his body, the first thing he saw were innumerable acupoints.


    All along, he thought he had a limited number of acupoints inside his body. This included the original Dantian, the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints he detected himself, and the 16 acupoints that he perceived from the Dragon Chimera.


    Zhou Bao hadn''t refined the 16 acupoints because it would have taken too much energy, and after they would be refined, they were likely to conflict with his Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, resulting in his inner Dharma power being in chaos. And that would be terrible. Therefore, Zhou Bao had been practicing the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints.


    But now, during his transformation where his spirit had sunk into his body, he found dense and obscure points one after another; they were as endless as the stars in the sky. But unlike the others, the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints were like nine suns in that sky.


    "Remember these acupoints. Every creature has 36,500 of them. But no creature''s natural acupoints have been all opened, except the first creatures born from the Primordial Origin. The acupoints'' positions subtly differ between every living being and creature. Therefore, the acupoints'' positions of other living beings or creatures, even of your own kind, can only be taken as a reference. The premise of opening acupoints is to sense them, but this is not necessary for Human Immortals. As you gather the Flower of the Body, you will be able to sense the location of each acupoint. The only thing you have to do then is to refine those acupoints in order to open them."


    Zhou Bao did not say a word. He was completely immersed in the uncountable, star-like acupoints.


    Qing Feng did not disturb him. This was the most crucial step for a practitioner; remembering the location of his 36,500 acupoints was the foundation of his future practice.


    After a period of time, Zhou Bao finally let out a long deep breath after having engraved his spirit with the positions of all 36,500 acupoints in his body.


    These were all his acupoints.


    Although human beings were a group, no one could understand its ethnic origins. In primitive times, the primitive ancestors were the most vulnerable group with wisdom, and humans were their descendants.


    Through the course of reproduction, no one knew how many other creatures'' bloodlines had been mixed into the human bloodline. It could be said that every human being had at least dozens of non-human bloodlines. The non-human bloodline of some people, so-called bloodline inheritors, was so dominant that they could exert the characteristics of the bloodline. Meanwhile, some people''s non-human bloodline was recessive so that they could not exert the power of the bloodline hidden in their body.


    But now that Zhou Bao saw the acupoints inside his body during the process of gathering the Flower of the Body, he could activate some of his bloodline''s power. However, that power meant nothing to him and could not be put to action because he had refined Zhuyan. Technically speaking, he was no longer a human being, he was a Primordial Demonic Ape hailing from the Fierce Beast Zhuyan. The bloodline of Zhuyan was so overbearing that it would never allow other races'' bloodline to awaken. The bloodline of the Fiery Eyes was a special case because it hailed from the Innate Deities, which were similar to the Primordial Fierce Beasts, so the bloodline of Zhuyan could not completely overwhelm it.


    "Don''t think about refining acupoints now. Carefully observe your Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints and take a look at what lies in them!" Qing Feng''s divine thoughts were once again transmitted to Zhou Bao''s spirit.


    "There will be something in them? Isn''t that the Mysterious Divine Light?" Zhou Bao was puzzled for a moment and then observed the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints.


    In the past, he had observed the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints but not as carefully as he did now. In fact, at that time, all he felt was the Dharma power flowing through the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints.


    But this time, when his spirit focused on the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, he found something bad.


    "What are these?!"


    For the first time, he saw something other than Dharma power in his acupoints: tiny, filament-like worms.


    There were a lot of worms living in his acupoints. The worms were all dark, covered with fine black hair, and were creeping slowly in his acupoints. Even Zhou Bao, who had powerful strength, a superior statue, and a high state, felt a little creeped out at the sight of these things in his acupoints.


    "They''re protozoa, which are sitting in the acupoints of living creatures. They do no harm to ordinary people because ordinary people have reached the end of their lives before they are fully grown. Generally speaking, it takes at least two hundred to three hundred years for these worms to be fully grown, and they need to be nourished by Internal Qi and Dharma powers to grow. Although you''re young, you should have practiced in the Azure Big World for a long time, coupled with the incomparable Dharma power of your Mysterious Icy Divine Light, they are fattened up by you. To gather your Flower of the Body, you must first remove the protozoa from these acupoints that have been refined open."


    "How can I remove them?!" Zhou Bao had no concerns about the physical pain; he only wanted to remove these disgusting things from his body.


    "With your willpower. These protozoa are generated by the fusion of the dirtiest part of your spirit and your Dharma powers, which are manifestations of your willpower. Remove them with your willpower!" Then an incantation appeared in Zhou Bao''s spirit.


    "Damn, it sounds very mysterious yet it is so easy!" Zhou Bao cursed in his heart. Then he closed his eyes and began to clear the protozoa according to the incantation Qing Feng gave him.


    The incantation was simple, but Zhou Bao found cleaning up the worms not that simple¡ªit was a lot more complicated than he had expected. He had condensed his spirit into a point to clear the acupoints. It reminded Zhou Bao of his previous life when his hands were full of grease as he washed greasy dishes at home with cold water and without dishwashing liquid, but he couldn''t make them clean. It felt really awful.


    To make matters worse, what he cleaned this time were his acupoints and his tool was his own spirit, and every time the hairy, disgusting protozoa were squeezed out of the acupoints, they would slip back due to their extremely greasy body. Even if they didn''t slip back, they swam like fishes through his blood, contaminating it. It was so disgusting.


    In addition, Zhou Bao also needed to be distracted to suppress the intense pain and suppress his body that was about to turn into a Fierce Beast while constantly absorbing the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. How could he bear to do three things at once?


    "Calm down, young man. If you can''t bear the pain, you won''t go far even if you gather the Three Flowers above the Head!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s changing expression, Qing Feng reminded him.


    Zhou Bao took a long breath and closed his eyes tightly, but he was rolling his eyes. At the same time there was a red flash across the spot between his eyebrows, and then he was covered by a bright red light.


    He used his Heavenly Magic Eye, which was very favorable for the spirit. The soul-summoning and the spirit attack were only part of its functions. Now, this red light was calming Zhou Bao''s restless spirit, slowly strengthening its power. Miraculously, the red light flashed and gradually merged into his spirit. Then, he obviously felt that the speed of clearing the protozoa had increased several times than before, without having to feel the previous greasy feeling.


    "Wow, this is a super-effective dishwashing liquid! I should have used it earlier!" Feeling the power and function of the Heavenly Magic Eye, Zhou Bao was greatly pleased and secretly called himself stupid. He knew clearly that the Heavenly Magic Eye had a strengthening effect on the spirit, but he did not use it and did things only by brute force. How could he get twice the result with half the effort in that way?


    As the speed increased, the protozoa in the nine acupoints were all cleaned out in less than an hour. And almost as soon as the clearing of the protozoa was over, all of his Dharma powers were absorbed by his body.


    A feeling of mystery rushed into his mind. With all the protozoa removed, he felt that his body seemed to be much lighter as if it had been released from a bondage. Besides, with his Dharma power consumed, he felt as if his body had undergone a purgatory. Afterward, a flash of insight crossed his mind. As he exhaled a long breath, a sanguine lotus appeared above his head.


    The Flower of the Body was successfully gathered!

 724 Gathering of Three Flowers III —Flower of the Qi

    Great!


    Qing Feng breathed a sigh of relief when Zhou Bao''s Flower of the Body was successfully gathered.


    He actually wasn''t fully confident in helping Zhou Bao gathering the Three Flowers above the Head in ten days as he claimed, because it was something that entirely depended on Zhou Bao. If Zhou Bao was neither strong-willed nor blessed, it would be impossible to gather the Flower of the Body.


    However, Qing Feng did not expect Zhou Bao to gather the Flower of the Body so quickly. He thought Zhou Bao would need at least two days. Only when it took Zhou Bao that long would he be able to remove the protozoa in his acupoints. Qing Feng clearly remembered what happened when he removed the protozoa. In those days, he only had three acupoints opened, and the quality of his Dharma power was far inferior to that of Zhou Bao. He had no idea that the Mysterious Icy Divine Light actually existed.


    However, after witnessing the whole process of Zhou Bao gathering the Flower of the Body, he knew what was going on.


    "The Heavenly Magic Eye really is fabulous!" Qing Feng whispered in admiration before he reached out his finger and dripped another drop of transparent liquid onto Zhou Bao''s Heavenly Magic Eye. As before, when the liquid instantly penetrated his Heavenly Magic Eye, it was obvious to Zhou Bao that the Heavenly Magic Eye had formed an uncanny correspondence with his body.


    "Now practice your Heavenly Magic Eye once again. When you''re finished, it will be an indispensable part of your body!"


    As Qing Feng said, Zhou Bao had never before experienced such a physical connection with his Heavenly Magic Eye and that even though he had refined it.


    "Amazing, it''s amazing! It feels completely different!" said Zhou Bao with his eyes gently closed, feeling the power of his Heavenly Magic Eye within his body. "Thank you for your help!"


    After that, Qing Feng did not help Zhou Bao, because it was a meticulous work. Only thanks to Zhou Bao''s special constitution, the work was accelerated by countless times.


    If one didn''t have a Dharma Power-restoring Skill, the speed of Qi restoration in the Dantian would be slow and the amount of Dharma power would be small. That way, the compression process would be extremely slow, not to mention the apprehension of the pneuma during the process.


    However, Zhou Bao did have a Dharma Power-restoring Skill. When he had received Qing Feng''s instructions, Zhou Bao forced the Dharma power inside his body into action. With sufficient Dharma powers and high running speed, a Dharma power storm formed in the center of his Dantian. The storm swirled like a tornado or an endless vortex, drawing Dharma powers from all over his body.


    There was no pain in the process. Zhou Bao had been brave the entire time, sitting for three days and three nights. In that time, the Dharma power amassing in his Dantian became unmeasurable. And what might be the sapling of the Seven Wonderful Techniques had formed a solid ball entirely made of Dharma power at its tip. But Zhou Bao knew that it was not the time for a qualitative change.


    The solid ball was also a Dharma power vortex, spinning at a rate of millions of revolutions per second, which was completely beyond the limit of the average person''s vision or even the Human Immortal''s vision. But it was not enough. It could only quantitively accumulate Dharma powers, but it could not lead to a qualitative change of the Dharma power.


    Qing Feng could no longer stand by. In his view, Zhou Bao''s Flower of the Qi was long overdue.


    "Well, it looks like he needs another drop. Damn it! Boy, why did you practice the Mysterious Icy Divine Light so perfectly?! Don''t you know that the higher the quality of the Dharma power, the more difficult it will be to break through in the future?! I can only do this much. The rest is up to you in the future!" As he complained, he once again dripped a drop of a transparent liquid on Zhou Bao like before.


    The drop was so wonderful. It immediately penetrated into Zhou Bao''s body, and then it entered his Dantian and melted into his Mysterious Icy Divine Light without any hindrance.


    Zhou Bao''s Mysterious Icy Divine Light was a supreme Dharma power without impurities. Heterogeneous energies or impurities that would be mixed in would be pushed out in a very short amount of time. However, the transparent liquid didn''t seem to be simple. As it melted into the Mysterious Icy Divine Light, the spinning, solid ball at the tip of the sapling suddenly became ten times faster.


    Ten times... you know what that meant?


    The speed of a million revolutions per second suddenly became ten million revolutions per second, causing Zhou Bao to shake and to be unable to maintain the balance of his Dharma power regeneration and attrition. In an instant, all his Dharma powers were drained. The vortex in the center of his Dantian, which had been spinning rapidly with Dharma powers as its source, suddenly lost its support, so it would not last for long, at least it could not maintain such a fast speed. Although Zhou Bao had the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, it took some time to restore the Qi, whereas the bloody spinning vortex in his Dantian seemed to not care about time.


    Still, Zhou Bao got a benefit. After absorbing all of the Dharma powers inside Zhou Bao, the solid ball changed. Wisps of golden lights appeared in the center of the solid ball, and as the solid ball spun, the golden light got brighter and started to spread across the ball. Zhou Bao then felt that the Qi restoration speed of his inner Dharma powers had doubled and was still increasing as the golden lights expanded. When a golden lotus emerged in his Dantian, the Dharma powers that had been drained were fully filled up. Zhou Bao even felt a sense of fullness in his Dantian. The weirdest thing was that the sapling in his Dantian seemed to be stimulated and started shaking. It absorbed a little bit of Dharma power and grew a leaf. And then Zhou Bao felt a strange pneuma seeping from the leaf into the golden lotus.


    The originally thumb-sized golden lotus began to inflate swiftly.


    At the same time, it flew from Zhou Bao''s Dantian toward his head, just like the Flower of the Body did. And then it was opposite of the Flower of the Body.


    It was the Flower of the Qi - one of the Three Flowers.


    With the Flower of the Qi having formed, Zhou Bao found that the Dharma powers in his body were ceaselessly running like a river, and no matter how many Dharma powers were consumed, they could be replenished at once.


    "Oh god, it''s the Flower of the Qi. It really is incredible! No wonder it is said that people who have gathered the Three Flowers above the Head have a strength totally incomparable to the one of ordinary Human Immortals. With just the Three Flowers, a Three-flowered Human Immortal can beat an ordinary one stupid!"


    Qing Feng looked at the huge Flower of the Qi above Zhou Bao''s head with his mouth twitching. The size of Zhou Bao''s Flower of the Body and Flower of the Qi represented their completeness. Most Human Immortal''s Three Flowers started out at the size of a rice grain and were even less likely to release golden lights as his one did. Qing Feng was very depressed.


    "There''s still the Flower of the Spirit! When you refine it, the gathering of your Three Flowers above the Head is successful!" Qing Feng said it in a dispirited tone. Watching Zhou Bao gather the Three Flowers really dented his confidence.

 725 Gathering of Three Flowers IV —Flower of the Spiri

    The Three Flowers referred to the Flower of the Body, the Qi, and the Spirit.


    Zhou Bao''s Flower of the Body and Flower of the Qi had been condensed to completeness even though they had just condensed. Although Qing Feng was prepared for Zhou Bao''s success, he could not help cursing him in his heart. After all, everyone would be jealous. And at that moment, he felt admiration, jealousy, and hatred.


    But despite all of those negative feelings, he had to continue helping Zhou Bao.


    Seeing Zhou Bao opening his eyes, Qing Feng forced a smile and said, "The Flower of the Spirit is the most difficult one to condense because it involves spiritual power. You''re a Human Immortal now. But even though your body, spirit, and inner Dharma powers have all been baptized by the Void Thunder Tribulation and are very pure now, they are still far from perfect."


    To gather the Flower of the Body, one needed to remove numerous protozoa hidden in the body''s acupoints; and to gather the Flower of the Qi, one needed to change the scattered and weak Dharma power and perform a qualitative change. Meanwhile, gathering the Flower of the Spirit is the most troublesome one. The spirit was the source of the consciousness, which was condensed from the soul. If the spirit would be damaged, both the power and the body would be irreparable. For a practitioner, the spirit was the essence of everything.


    Even if someone were to lost one''s body and Dharma powers, as long as the spirit existed, this person could reincarnate, occupy the body of a living being, or even practice the ghost way among the 3,000 Great Ways. Although no one from ancient times till now had ever achieved the Earthly Immortals'' Great Way through practicing the ghost way. But it was famous, and there were many ghost practitioners that had survived for countless years.


    However, once a person lost one''s spirit, everything was over. Even if the one''s body and Dharma powers were intact, that person would only be a living corpse or a puppet.


    In addition, the relationship between spirit, body, and Dharma powers was subtle.


    The spirit and body were one since birth, meaning that the spirit would die with the death of the body. However, when a practitioner became an Individual Immortal and condensed a Real Body, the spirit could be completely separated from the body and be reborn by taking over the body of others. In a sense, the Individual Immortal had an eternal life and would not die as long as there was a way to keep the spirit alive.


    This was, of course, the ideal situation. To any practitioner, the ghost way was a long, winding road with no end in sight. The loss of one''s body was equivalent to the loss of dependence. For a very long time, the spirit would be very fragile, and it could even be dispersed by a gust of wind.


    Therefore, even if a practitioner had reached the Realm of Individual Immortal, and the spirit and the body could be completely separated, the practitioner would not be stupid enough to abandon the body. After all, without nourishing the body, the spirit would slowly wither.


    It was exactly because of that separation between the spirit and the body that those Individual Immortals put more emphasis on tempering the body so that it could provide more nutrients to the spirit.


    When one''s cultivation was at the peak of the Individual Immortal Realm, after receiving the baptism of the Thunder Tribulation, that person would become a Genuine Immortal, namely the Ghost Immortal.


    The Thunder Tribulation to the Ghost Immortal Realm had two big purposes. One was to temper and purify the practitioner''s body, Dharma powers, and spirit. And the other was to make a connection between the separated spirit and the body. And this connection was made of Dharma power.


    The Dharma power was the result of joining the spirit and Internal Qi on the body.


    The same was true for gathering the Three Flowers above the Head. It didn''t matter if one started with the Flower of the Body or the Flower of the Qi, but the Flower of the Spirit was definitely the last one to gather. This was because gathering it required Dharma powers, in other words, the Flower of the Qi. Only in this way could the three be united into one.


    Currently, two lotus flowers were circling above Zhou Bao''s head, one sanguine and one golden, being opposite each other. Moreover, as Zhou Bao''s body shook, a faint shadow rose out from between his eyebrows.


    It was the primordial spirit of the Primordial Fierce Beast Demonic Ape Zhuyan, which was also Zhou Bao''s spirit, and had its shape. Now, he had to gather his Flower of the Spirit from the primordial spirit.


    After Zhuyan''s primordial spirit appeared, it held Zhou Bao''s Flower of the Body and Flower of the Qi with its hands, respectively; and sat cross-legged in the air.


    Then both the flowers began to turn.


    "Great, your primordial spirit has joined your Flower of the Body and Flower of the Qi. Now all you have to do is to try to merge those two flowers with your primordial spirit!"


    "That works?!" Zhou Bao''s primordial spirit moved a little, and a ray of red light flashed from between his eyebrows to his primordial spirit, providing his primordial spirit with a steady supply of powerful energy. The energy was pure spirit power without any impurities.


    Once again, Qing Feng had an ugly expression of envy, jealousy, and hatred.


    Zhou Bao had completely exceeded Qing Feng''s expectations. His Heavenly Magic Eye had helped him eliminating all the protozoa in his acupoints, which was the most difficult step to gather the Flower of the Body. And the leaf of the Seven Wonderful Techniques in his Dantian had assisted him to successfully condense the Flower of the Qi. In addition, when the two flowers had gathered, they were in a perfect state. Now, he was gathering the Flower of the Spirit, and his Heavenly Magic Eye would help him again. It could be said that the Heavenly Magic Eye gave him inexhaustible spirit power. Driven by the inexhaustible spirit power, his primordial spirit could almost merge the two flowers freely, turning what had been the most difficult step into the simplest one. Once the two flowers would be merged successfully, under the joint action of them, his primordial spirit would be extremely stable, and it would also move toward materialization and become the Flower of the Spirit. And finally, the Three Flowers would gather above his head, giving him a skyrocketing rise.


    Sure enough, everything was as Qing Feng predicted it. Under the usage of infinite spirit power, the two flowers began to merge; and in this process, Zhou Bao fell into a wonderful state of apperception with his body and Qi in harmony. While Zhou Bao''s primordial spirit controlled the golden red lotus consisting of the two flowers, he felt the connection between his spirit, body, and Dharma powers. And gradually, his primordial spirit changed.


    Under the feet of the primordial spirit of Zhuyan, an invisible, obscure, and mysterious force began to condense. In the end, it formed into a black lotus as dark as ink without a luster.


    The black lotus, at first, was only about the size of a fingernail, but it began to grow under the influence of the Heavenly Magic Eye''s unceasing supply of spirit power. In the end, it was as big as the golden red lotus in the hand of Zhuyan''s primordial spirit.


    Now, the primordial spirit of Zhuyan still sat cross-legged and motionless with the black lotus under his feet and the golden red lotus above its head.


    It slowly put down its hand that held the golden red lotus, and then the golden red lotus trembled violently and momentarily split into a golden lotus and a sanguine lotus, forming a tripartite confrontation with the black lotus under its feet.


    The primordial spirit of Zhuyan coordinated from the center of this formation, and suddenly, it seemed to feel something and became a white light, going into hiding in the spot between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows.


    The three loti of respectively sanguine, golden, and black color circled slowly above Zhou Bao''s head. Zhou Bao half-opened his eyes, and suddenly his mouth opened. The golden lotus shot into his mouth and appeared above the four-leaved sapling in the center of his Dantian. With that, the black one pierced the spot between his eyebrows and entered his Sea of Consciousness.


    In the Sea of Consciousness, Zhuyan''s primordial spirit sat cross-legged on the black lotus while above his head was now only the Flower of the Body, the sanguine lotus.


    The sanguine lotus slowly circled above its head and descended, finally stopping between its eyebrows. Then it changed into two blood-red lights and shot into Zhou Bao''s eyes. When Zhou Bao fully opened his eyes, they were red and the Thorn Wheels around his eyeballs were flashing. And in the center of the Thorn Wheels was a sanguine lotus.


    "The Three Flowers have all been gathered! Congratulations, King Wuyang!" When Qing Feng saw that Zhou Bao had recovered, the envy on his face turned into a kind smile.


    "Thank you for your help!" With the Three Flowers, Zhou Bao felt as if he had been reborn. As the saying goes, a joyful occasion boosts one''s spirit. He grinned and said, "Could you please tell me what medicine you used to help me gathering the Three Flowers so smoothly?" Zhou Bao referred to the three drops of transparent liquid that Qing Feng dripped on him. He certainly knew it wasn''t ordinary water. Without the three drops of liquid, he would have needed more time.


    "Haha, it''s not because of my liquid, it''s because of your Heavenly Magic Eye. If it weren''t for your miraculous Heavenly Magic Eye, how could you have gathered the Three Flowers so smoothly? You''ve only spent a total of seven days; three days less than I anticipated!" Qing Feng smiled, took out a little porcelain vial, and continued saying, "The three drops were spiritual sap from a ginseng fruit. The ginseng fruit was the treasure of Fifth Manor. Unfortunately, since the Necromancer''s Tribulation of 810,000 years ago, the Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth has been reduced sharply. The ginseng fruit tree here has been fruitless for exactly 810,000 years. This is the only bottle of spiritual sap. It will probably be used up before long!"


    "Ginseng fruit tree, the ginseng fruit tree!" Zhou Bao heard nothing after that, only the words ''ginseng fruit tree'' stayed in his mind. After all, it was a Spiritual Root from the beginning of chaos. But soon he was calm and collected. "There is such a strange fruit tree in the world! Would you mind showing me the tree?"

 726 The Source I

    The ginseng fruit tree! The legendary ginseng fruit tree!


    Zhou Bao frowned at the sight of the withered, fifteen meter wide tree.


    "Is it really the ginseng fruit tree? The legendary ginseng fruit tree? Why does it look like that?" Zhou Bao wondered in his heart.


    "This is the ginseng fruit tree, Fifth Manor''s most precious treasure. It''s a Spiritual Root that dates back from the beginning of chaos. The Heaven Realm World is not what it used to be. Without the essence of the world, even this Spiritual Root has withered!"


    Zhou Bao was a bit disappointed, but Qing Feng did not appear to be bothered. On the contrary, he smiled broadly, "It doesn''t matter. It is withered from a lack of the essence of the world. Once it is moved to a place of abundant essence, it will grow again and it will grow fast!"


    "Really?" Qing Feng''s words reminded Zhou Bao of hisAzure Big World, which had a greater density of the essence of the world than the Heaven Realm World had in antiquity times. The ginseng fruit tree would surely survive in the Azure Big World. But he quickly dismissed the idea. First of all, the tree was Fifth Manor''s treasure. Second, even if Fifth Manor allowed him to move it to his Azure Big World, the tree would drive him mad. It only bloomed and bore fruit once every 3,000 years, which would then take another 3,000 years to ripen. Zhou Bao was not a man of patience.


    Besides, the tree was bound to consume a lot of the essence of the world. What if it sucked all the essence out of his Azure Big World?


    "Oh, King Wuyang, you''re interested in the ginseng fruit tree?"


    "No, no, I''m just curious!" Zhou Bao smiled faintly. Now that he had given up on moving the tree into the Azure Big World, and since the ginseng tree had not produced fruit in exactly 810,000 years, he told Qing Feng what he was thinking. "You''re a senior, Taoist Qing Feng. To tell you the truth, I really am interested in this Innate Spiritual Root, but you know, I don''t have the ability to raise such a big tree!"


    "Hmm, that makes sense. It absorbs a good deal of essence. It can only survive here, in our Fifth Manor. If it''s moved to another macro world, it might exhaust the essence of the world there."


    The muscles in Zhou Bao''s face twitched. He had only said it mainly to be polite, but he did not expect that Qing Feng would have taken the opportunity to abort his attempt. He was a monster that had lived for countless years!


    Now that Zhou Bao had gathered his Three Flowers and seen the ginseng fruit tree, it was time for him to do what he had to do. So he didn''t, and Qing Feng did not urge him either. Instead, they returned to a quiet room in the meditation abode in the front yard and sat down to chat.


    They chatted for hours. For the most part, Zhou Bao asked questions and Qing Feng answered. Thus, Zhou Bao learned many secrets about things that had happened in antiquity times, even ancient deities times and primitive times. He wondered if Qing Feng was telling him on purpose. It was obvious that Qing Feng knew more about antiquity times than the other two eras. After all, he had been born in antiquity times, and thus had not experienced the ancient deities times and primitive times.


    "By the way, I have one more question."


    "Please don''t hesitate to ask. I''ll tell you what I know," Qing Feng replied. It sounded as if he was being generous, but Zhou Bao knew he was just being polite. None of the ancient secrets he had just revealed were of any value. Most of them were old anecdotes. Zhou Bao did not know whether these secrets were true or not, so he took them as stories. However, a strange idea suddenly struck him. "Have you ever heard of the Fierce Owl?"


    "Fierce Owl?" Qing Feng paused for a moment before answering, "It''s a type of creature in the Devil Realm, a very disgusting and annoying creature. It''s one of the most basic and terrifying creatures in the Devil Realm!" He threw Zhou Bao a glance and asked, "You''ve seen it in the Infinite Star Sea, haven''t you?"


    "You know a lot, Taoist Qing Feng! Do you know that there''s a guy in the Infinite Star Sea saying he''s not the Fierce Owl?"


    "What!?" Qing Feng was visibly stunned. His face became distinctly strange. "What? A guy saying he''s not the Fierce Owl!?"


    "Yes, in a ruined Self-world. I thought there was Hidden Treasure, and went in. Unexpectedly, there was only a piece of remnant thought that kept saying, ''I''m not the Fierce Owl. I''m not the Fierce Owl.'' It was unusual!"


    "His remnant thoughts still exist!" Qing Feng put on a look of pity, adding, "He is cursed. No one has confirmed his true identity yet!"


    "This event was well known in antiquity times. After all it implicated 10 Emperors. You know, there were 99 Emperors at that time, and the Jade Emperor ruled. Apart from the Jade Emperor, only the top 10 of the 99 Emperors held any real power in the Heaven Realm. The other Emperors held most of the power in other macro worlds. This is the reason that the Heaven Realm was able to rule heavens and realms. The fact that an event could implicate 10 Emperors speaks volumes!"


    "What happened?"


    "It concerned a spy from the Devil Realm. In primitive times, the three strongest tribes were the Primordial Fierce Beast, the Innate Deity and the Primordial Demon. They fought against each other for control between heaven and earth. In the end, all sides lost. The Innate Deities had a slight upper hand, but they too were badly weakened. The Primordial Fierce Beasts were exterminated because they lacked the organization and coordination of the other two tribes. Even the most powerful of the Six Royals were killed by the strongest of the Primordial Demons and the Innate Deities. In the last war, the Primordial Demons were defeated and sealed by the Innate Deities in an unknown place of oblivion in the hollow. Since then, most of the Innate Deities that survived have fallen into a deep or eternal sleep. Thus, the primitive times came to an end, followed by the ancient deities times. As descendants of the victors, these ancient deities had enormous power, which helped them to rule heaven and earth for hundreds of millions of years, just as humans do now. During this time, they multiplied and divided into numerous tribes. These tribes fought each other for hegemony. They took it for granted that they were the true masters of heaven and earth. No one could have imagined that the Primordial Demons, who had been sealed by their ancestors, the Innate Deities, were ready to move!"


    It was an old story, and Qing Feng told it with emotion. "The Primordial Demons survived for many years in the place of oblivion. Like the Innate Deities, they began to multiply. They merged themselves with the strange creatures there, and, finally, evolved into a Devil Realm, a realm that was incredibly mighty. As their power matured, the Primordial Demons broke the seal and invaded heaven and earth on a large scale, which was the beginning of the end of the ancient deities time. The ancient deities had ruled for far too long. And like humans, they''d become greedy, arrogant and ignorant. They had no idea that their dominance might one day be threatened, much less that the invaders were Primordial Demons, who had long been legends. The vanguard of the invasion was the Fierce Owl. The unsuspecting Innate Deities were caught off guard by the Devil Realm. Soon half of this hollow had fallen, and countless macro worlds had been destroyed, or had fallen into the hands of the Devil Realm and been transformed into worlds to suit them. Some humans and the descendants of the Innate Deities were tempted by the Primordial Demons to join in their camp, which was the creation of the Dark Sect!"


    "This is indeed a distant story!" After all this time, Qing Feng had not gotten to the point, and Zhou Bao did not urge him, for he was quite interested in the ancient tales.


    "Of course, the ancient deities were not all crap. In the hundreds of millions of years of struggle, each Divine Tribe and Lineage had accumulated rich war experience. After the initial panic, they united, held their ground, and launched a counterattack against the Devil Realm. It was a tangled fight that was said to have lasted a hundred million years, so it was called the ''Hundred Million Years'' War''. In the end, the Primordial Demons were driven back into the Devil Realm and resealed. Like their ancestors, the ancient deities were weakened by too much loss. The more powerful the living beings, the more they were destroyed in the war. Finally, they had to fall into a deep or eternal sleep, which led to the rise of ancient ancestors and Demon tribes. Late in the ancient deities'' time, the ancient deities were hit hard and their fertility rates dropped. In order to reproduce, a great number of ancient deities consorted with both human ancestors and the demons, giving birth to numerous demi-gods. Most of these demi-gods were not recognized by the ancient deities, so they could only live as humans or demons. However, they were much more powerful than ordinary humans or monsters. Their bloodlines held the power and memory of the ancient deities, making human beings and the Demon tribe rapidly stronger. The two rulers of the humans and the Demon tribe, who had been in subordinate positions, were not willing to remain under the control of the ancient deities, so they allied with each other. This was the first alliance between humans and the demons!"

 727 The Source II

    "Everybody knows what happened afterwards. The human race and the Demon tribe buried the ancient deities, even buried this period in history. No one knows how they achieved it, but it''s certain that the methods they used were disgraceful. In any case, the ancient deities times was finally over, and the antiquity times began. The antiquity times lasted a long time. Chaos and turmoil still pervaded the hollow during the initial period. Many macro worlds were constantly at war. The alliance between humans and demons came to an end with the finality of the ancient deities times. The tangled warfare began. In this long history, generations of experts were born on both sides. At the height of the war, the Devil Tribe came again. This invasion was almost a reversion of the invasion that happened in the ancient deities times. The human race and the Demon tribe once again allied against the Devil Realm. Fortunately, the war lasted less than a hundred thousand years. After fighting the Devil Tribe off again, both the human race and the Demon tribe were surprised to find that a new way of ruling the world had been formed before they knew it. This is the way of rule that continued to the end of the antiquity times, where the Earthly Immortal had the highest status. If you were an Earthly Immortal, you had the honor of an Emperor. However, only the 99 Emperors had the real power to rule the macro world. Although most of the Earthly Immortals had no interest in the struggle for power, many people wanted the thrones of the 99 Emperors for various reasons. So, the struggle for the thrones of the 99 Emperors never stopped in antiquity times. No one dared to mess with the Emperors in the top ten, like the Jade Emperor, the Thunder Emperor, and the Emperor of Moon Temple, but the other thrones were more or less fought over. It was not rare in antiquity times for an Emperor to be killed." Qing Feng was a little helpless and sad at the mention of this matter. "The struggle for thrones lasted throughout the antiquity times, but beyond that two things happened that were most important to the Emperors. One was entering the Void Immortal Realm and the other was resisting the Devil Realm!"


    "At the end of the day, the Void Immortal Realm is a point amongst the chaos of the beginning of the hollow in the Primordial Origin. It''s a space similar to a macro world, but with more pneuma than all the other macro worlds combined. In addition, there is the ancient and primitive mystery of the hollow, revealing the essence of the hollow, which is most attractive. Unfortunately, even the ancient deities didn''t discover these secrets in the Void Immortal Realm. In ancient deities times, the Void Immortal Realm was controlled by the most powerful of the Divine lineages. Just like the secular macro world, they have their own ruling regions in the realm. They are divided into Five Divine Regions, namely Kunlun in the east, Eden in the west, Mount Olympus in the north, Sudarsana in the south and the most mysterious Purple Heaven Palace in the center."


    "Splat¡ª!"


    Hearing these familiar names, Zhou Bao could not help but spurt out a mouthful of tea, though with high cultivation and strength. "What? Is this the Void Immortal Realm? Why are these names like the division of the world in a fifth-rate fantasy novel?" he taunted in the heart.


    "What''s the matter?" Qing Feng asked Zhou Bao quizzically after pausing for a moment. "Nothing, nothing. Go on, go on¡ª!" Zhou Bao waved his hands.


    "Along with the Five Divine Regions, there were a few small territories occupied by other gods. They could play a buffer role for the Divine Regions, and therefore these Divine Regions existed until the end of the ancient deities times. Thanks to the discovery of the Void Immortal Realm, the Devil Tribe was quickly resealed. In virtue of the rules and mysteries of the Void Immortal Realm, the ancient deities created Supreme Fairy Weapons, among which the most famous are the three Sacred Cities, the Sacred City of Origin, the Sacred City of Fate and the Sacred City of Termination. With the power of these three Sacred Cities, the ancient deities finally achieved victory. However, in the final battle, two of the Sacred Cities were destroyed, and the remaining Sacred City of Fate was badly damaged, leaving only part of the wreckage in the Void Immortal Realm. What puzzled me most is that, even though the two Sacred Cities were destroyed, there was still the Sacred City of Fate. It was impossible for human beings and demons to join hands and bury such powerful ancient deities. Even the Five Divine Regions of the Void Immortal Realm disappeared. Then the Fate Creator appeared!"


    Qing Feng gave Zhou Bao a faint smile at the mention of the Fate Creator, "You must be familiar with the term ''Fate Creator'', right?"


    "Yes, of course. I''ve been to the Void Immortal Realm. Not the real one, but the remains of the Sacred City of Fate!"


    "The ''Fate Creator'' is a very strange term, that appeared in antiquity times. You know, the Innate Deity, the Primordial Demon, the Primordial Fierce Beast and the ancient deities were born with great power. Their power grows as they grow. Even without practice, they will have at least the same level of power as an Immortal in adulthood. For humans and demons, perception and power are crucial. But they acquire these instinctively, so they don''t pay as much attention to practice, to explore and study power as humans and demons do. Mankind and demons need help from outside for their practice. They need abundant essence of the world to grow and to obtain a strong power. Thus, they have a thorough study of power. At the end of the ancient deities times, some of the most powerful human beings and demons explored the essence of macro worlds and mastered the Power of Fate. They found that with this mysterious power they could manipulate a whole macro world and make it work for them. As a result, some of these people began to gather the Power of Fate from a macro world, refine Fairy Weapons of Fate and control the whole macro world. These people claimed to be the Fate Creators!


    Fate Creators can utilize and comprehend the Power of Fate. With the help of the Power of Fate, some of them who had a higher state even understood all the mysteries of the macro world, and perfected the rules of their Self-universe, turning it into a complete macro world. Then they ascended into the Realm of Earthly Immortal and became the first Earthly Immortals. But they soon discovered that the identity of Fate Creator was of little value. Their own macro world was more manageable than the others. So, some of them tried to integrate two macro worlds. Others gave up their own macro worlds, and even their Fairy Weapons of Fate. There were still others who had mastered the Fairy Weapons of Fate, but no matter what they did, they were unable to refine their own macro worlds. Their cultivation has been stuck at the peak of the Immortal. In order to make a breakthrough, they desperately tried to match with the Fairy Weapons of Fate, and finally gained power that was comparable to Earthly Immortals, but they also lost a lot of things. They are the Fate Creation Listeners."


    "Then why did they go into the Void Immortal Realm?"


    "After becoming an Earthly Immortal, they still have a long way to go before they can set foot on the Celestial Immortal''s Way. And only in the Void Immortal Realm can they have the opportunity to comprehend the Celestial Immortal''s Way. In this hollow, you cannot perceive the rules of the Celestial Immortal''s Way. It''s certainly not easy to enter the Void Immortal Realm. In order to keep its mystery, ancient deities joined forces and sealed it, leaving only a passage to the real Void Immortal Realm. This passage is in the Heaven Realm World. That''s why the Heaven Realm World was the most powerful macro world and why the 99 Emperors were there!"


    "But in the end, the Heaven Realm World declined!"


    "Those with the highest power always fall. This is natural law, it''s not surprising!" Qing Feng said lightly, "The 99 Emperors were too overbearing. They controlled the passage to the Void Immortal Realm and certainly offended many people. But, they were too mighty, so no one dared to fight them until the Necromancer''s Tribulation." At this point, Qing Feng gave a sneer. "They were carried away by their arrogance. Eventually they got into trouble that they couldn''t afford!"


    "Why can the Fate Creator enter the Void Immortal Realm at any time?"


    "It isn''t the Void Immortal Realm. It is because of the Sacred City of Fate. The first comprehension of the Fate of the human and the Demon tribe on the Power of Fate took place in the later ancient deities times. It happened in the Sacred City of Fate in the battle with the Devil Tribe. The Power of Fate in every macro world is related to the Sacred City of Fate, so the city can connect with the Fate Creator. The Power of Fate is the most essential power between heaven and earth, and also one of the most fundamental powers in the Void Immortal Realm. Hence, a Fate Creator who has mastered the Power of Fate can resonate and feel with the Void Immortal Realm, and even enter the Void Immortal Realm. The Power of Fate is a key to becoming an Earthly Immortal. Without it, one cannot perfect one''s own macro world and turn it into a complete macro world. Therefore, comprehending the Power of Fate is the only way for an Immortal to become an Earthly Immortal. In antiquity times, if one''s cultivation had reached the top of the Immortal and he had a relationship with the Void Immortal Realm, he would be introduced to the Void Immortal Realm through the passage to the Heaven Realm World. He could then gain the Power of Fate and break through!"

 728 The Source III

    "Thus, when the Void Immortal Realm disappeared, there was great hatred for the Jade Emperor!"


    "This is inevitable. He did not do it properly. He should have blocked the practitioner''s path to advancement. It''s an absolutely irreconcilable enmity!"


    Zhou Bao frowned. He agreed with Qing Feng. If someone cut him off from advancing, he would see that person as a mortal enemy.


    "The two most important things in antiquity times were entering the Void Immortal Realm and resisting the Devil Realm, but wasn''t the Devil Realm sealed then?"


    "Humph. The ancient deities were not as powerful as the Innate Deity. Even the Innate Deity could not seal the Primordial Demon completely. How could they?" Qing Feng''s mouth curved disapprovingly. "The largest entrance and exit to the Devil Realm into the hollow was sealed, but there were many junctions and voids between the Devil Realm and the hollow. The demons often entered the hollow through these spaces, but not in great numbers. Given the rules and the Power of Fate of the two realms, it was difficult for a truly powerful Primordial Demon to enter the hollow. Therefore, when invaders from the Devil Realm entered, they were not very powerful, and the most common was the Fierce Owl. Thus, the Fierce Owl became the most familiar demon creature in the antiquity times. Moreover, rules and the Power of Fate are hard to break, but not impossible. In antiquity times, there were many times when the Primordial Demons rushed into the hollow, each having power comparable to an Earthly Immortal. They naturally posed a great threat to many macro worlds. Each time the Primordial Demons appeared, it was a disaster for the hollow. They were hard to kill, and even the Earthly Immortals could only seal them. The legend is that the 99 Emperors sealed 99 Primordial Demons. As for the Fierce Owl you mentioned, it has to do with this matter!"


    "What does he have to do with it?"


    "As I''ve said before, it is very difficult for the Primordial Demons to enter into the hollow. But during antiquity times, in a very short period of time, several Primordial Demons entered into the hollow in a strange way, causing great damage to the hollow. The incident was so abnormal that it aroused suspicion in all the macro worlds. In the end, the macro worlds agreed that there was a traitor in the human race, or that there was a spy from the Devil Realm in the human race. The code name for this spy was the Fierce Owl!"


    "Was it that hapless Lord of Heaven?"


    "Yes, it was him. At that time, he was just like you are now, a young practitioner with considerable fame and great Divine Fate. He became a Lord of Heaven before the age of 20, and was honored as an unusually lucky person. In the short 10 years after he became famous, a total of 43 Primordial Demons broke the seal and entered the hollow. In the end, all the evidence pointed to him. He denied it, but no one believed him. And later facts seemed to confirm that he was the spy. No other Primordial Demons entered the hollow following his death."


    "So, you think he''s the Fierce Owl?"


    "I wasn''t alone, everyone thought that at the time!" Qing Feng smiled and added, "This matter has nothing to do with me. Fifth Manor has always kept out of worldly affairs, not only now, but also in antiquity times!" He paused a moment before continuing, "But from what you''ve seen, he''s not actually the Fierce Owl and has been wronged. He was out of luck. The antiquity times have ended. Except for men like me, it is likely no one remembers him!"


    "That''s not exactly right. Somebody remembers him!" Zhou Bao told Qing Feng about the mysterious man.


    "Oh? With cultivation at the peak of the Immortal? There are not too many people with such high cultivation now. But if he''s the man''s friend, it''s possible. Alas, another unlucky guy trapped at the peak of the Immortal. The Jade Emperor is indeed hateful!"


    With the information that he had wanted and a lot of ancient secrets, Zhou Bao was an internal storm of contrasting emotions. He rose to leave. Qing Feng did not ask him to stay, he just told Zhou Bao that his enemy would come in 10 days, and asked Zhou Bao to come again then. Zhou Bao nodded in response and left Fifth Manor.


    After Zhou Bao''s departure, the smile on Qing Feng''s face was replaced by irritation.


    "I''m not the Fierce Owl. I''m not the Fierce Owl. It appears that he has been wronged, or that he has been framed!"


    "Qing Feng, come to my meditation abode!" As his anger grew, a faint wave of spirit pulled him back from it. "You are about to enter the Realm of Earthly Immortal. Don''t be so emotional!"


    Yes, teacher!" Qing Feng replied hurriedly. He quickly entered into a secluded meditation abode.


    "Stop thinking about the Fierce Owl. It''s no use. I couldn''t figure it out, why would you!" In the meditation abode, a man who appeared to be the Immortal Zhen Yuan sighed slightly. "If it''s a trap, it''s a trap far beyond your imagination and set by an unknown being that I can''t break. All you have to do now is get into the Earthly Immortals'' Great Way as soon as possible and not lose your temper over someone who has been dead for so many years!"


    "Yes! I understand! I was wrong!"


    "You were not wrong. It''s because it''s too sudden and unexpected. It never occurred to me that such a thing could happen to this young man. Heehee, in such a large hollow, he''s run into a tiny remnant thought of a man who has been dead for years. Haha¡ª!"


    Listening to his teacher''s sneer, Qing Feng raised his head in surprise. "Teacher, you mean..."


    "I didn''t say anything. I just want to tell you that even if it''s a trap, it''s not a trap you can get into. You should pay more attention to Zhou Bao. I not only felt the spirit of the Primordial Fierce Beast Zhuyan from him, but also the spirit of the Innate Deity. That''s kind of weird. Give him more favors when necessary!"


    "Yes! Teacher, in 10 days..."


    "That''s your problem. I''ll look at his combat capability. The Extreme Realm of Force, crushing vacuum¡­. In all these years, I have never seen anyone practice it successfully. Could he be an exception?"


    "He''s a little bit special, a little bit clever, but I don''t think he''s an exception to that!" Qing Feng''s look changed slightly. He knew his teacher was interested in Zhou Bao but did not expect he had such great expectations for him.


    Even the ancient deities and the people in the Ancient Celestial Court had failed to achieve the Extreme Realm of Force of the crushing vacuum!


    "It''s no big deal. I''m just a little curious!" The Immortal Zhen Yuan waved his hand and ordered, "Well, you can leave now. Calm down, you understand?"


    "Yes!" Qing Feng left the meditation abode, but his curiosity grew stronger. He had a strange anticipation for the battle that would happen in 10 days time.


    While Qing Feng was looking forward to the fight, Zhou Bao felt tremendous pressure. The pressure was not from the fight. Before going to Fifth Manor, he might not have been able to beat a man at the peak of the Immortal, but now, he had gathered the Three Flowers above the Head, and was no longer afraid. His combat capability was certainly not as good as that of an Earthly Immortal, but it had been raised several times, almost to the level of an Earthly Immortal.


    Likewise, with the Three Flowers above the Head, he had gained resistance to Ma Linglong''s ability. When Ma Linglong saw him again, she showed a strange expression and Zhou Bao felt strange force fluctuations around her, which he had not seen before. In addition, now, the dark Flower of the Spirit in his Sea of Consciousness was turning on its own accord, completely shutting out all the highly flexible, gossamer-like threads. Zhou Bao was very relieved.


    "You seem to have benefited a lot from Fifth Manor this time!"


    After leaving Fifth Manor, Ma Linglong had completely forgotten all the information she had about Zhou Bao. She only remembered that she had taken him to Fifth Manor, and then watched him make a deal with Qing Feng.


    "A small gain, thank you very much, Miss Ma. If it weren''t for you I wouldn''t have gotten so much benefit!"


    "I love to hear that. So, how are you going to thank me?" Ma Linglong''s eyes narrowed and a sly gleam came into her eyes. "Is the world famous King Wuyang a thankless guy?"


    "With your identity, do you need my help?" Zhou Bao smiled. Although he could resist Ma Linglong''s power, he did not want to stay with her any longer. "How about I give you a promise? You may come to me if you are in trouble in the future. If I am able, I will certainly help you. Of course, the premise is not to harm my interests!"


    "Okay, deal!" Ma Linglong''s eyes narrowed even more. "I trust you. I hope you won''t let me down!"


    Zhou Bao gave a slight nod and disappeared.


    "Come on, you always leave so quickly. Am I really that scary?" Ma Linglong stood, puzzled for a moment before giving a burst of clear and melodious laughter.

 729 The Start of the Battle

    "It''s worth it! Zhou Bao''s promise makes this trip worth it. When my father or Fifth Manor, or even Tian Long Taoism has something to communicate to him in the future, I''ll volunteer to take the task. It''s very pleasant to profit from such nouveau riche as Zhou Bao." Ma Linglong was secretly planning for the future.


    Zhou Bao certainly did not know her plans. He was completely relieved to have left her with his Three Realms Division. Her abilities were too strange and dangerous. He did not want to deal with her if it was not necessary.


    However, he did not go far, because he had to come back and help Qing Feng against his enemy in 10 days.


    The ability to fight Fifth Manor was not common. Qing Feng had told him that the man did not know about Zhen Yuanzi and that the person was one of the man''s incarnations, but the incarnation''s cultivation was at the peak of the Immortal. It clearly indicated that the man was probably an Earthly Immortal!


    An Earthly Immortal shared the same high status as a Fate Creator and was extremely powerful. By no means could Zhou Bao, who had just gathered the Three Flowers above the Head, compare.


    Fifth Manor was in the Heaven Realm World, but Zhou Bao knew that the battle would not take place nearby. The Heaven Realm World simply could not afford a battle of two practitioners at the Immortal level. If they fought here, the Heaven Realm World would be destroyed even without the Alien Realms'' invasion.


    "I have to find a suitable battlefield!"


    Knowing that the battle would definitely happen in the hollow, the battlefield location became incredibly important. Of the three elements of favorable climate, topographical advantages and support of the people, only climate and topography were important considerations in a battle between two.


    Zhou Bao needed to find a battlefield in his favor.


    "Qing Feng said the incarnation is a silver wolf. The wolf is fierce and moves quickly. He might also have powerful Dharma powers. In that case, he will be very good at both close and distant combat. In addition, his combat capability is at the peak of Immortal. To defeat him, I must first overcome his merits. Damned Qing Feng, how could he not know more about his enemy''s incarnation!"


    If you knew the enemy and you knew yourself, you could fight a hundred battles and win them all. Zhou Bao had asked Qing Feng about this opponent in detail. But to his great dismay, Qing Feng had not known the strength of the silver wolf. In the past a different incarnation had battled with him, and he had never dealt with this one. But he had seen the wolf move rapidly, and his attack was violent. Most importantly, the wolf had mighty Dharma powers and had mastered many special techniques and secret skills.


    Since he had only been in contact with the silver wolf once, his intelligence was superficial. He had no idea what the wolf''s strongest card was.


    Was there anything worse than that?


    He didn''t know what the enemy''s card was! What a careless man!


    However, Zhou Bao could not complain in front of the damned Qing Feng. After all, he had benefited a lot from him.


    "Quick, sharp, fierce, these are the characteristics of the wolf. It''s similar to Little Du. However, Little Du had only achieved the strength of the Individual Immortal, not even close to this wolf. Luckily, I knew how Little Du fights, so he couldn''t threaten me, but if his combat capability was the same as mine, it''s not certain. Although I mastered the Three Realms Division, it may not be able to fool an Immortal''s eyes. And my speed¡ª"


    Zhou Bao felt depressed at the thought of his speed. Ever since he had obtained the Three Realms Division, he had been ignoring his body movement and speed. He had only practiced his reaction to the point where he could run the Three Realms Division. Now a well-matched opponent was reminding him of his shortcoming.


    "It''s unrealistic to raise my speed to a high level within 10 days, so I''ll have to limit his speed. Now, should I plan for close combat, or attack and defend him with my fairy weapons and Dharma powers? Close combat has its advantages, but I don''t really have any experience fighting with an opponent at the peak of Immortal who is good at close combat, or who is at the same state. If I attack and defend him with my fairy weapons and Dharma powers, maybe I can buy some time and gain some information about him. Well, that''s settled!" Zhou Bao rubbed his chin and determined his strategy.


    The battle broke out earlier and harder than he expected.


    When Zhou Bao arrived at Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain 10 days later, the whole mountain was being suppressed by a powerful force.


    The force was tremendous and overbearing. And Zhou Bao felt the familiar breath of a Primordial Fierce Beast. However, it was not as pure as the breath of Zhou Bao''s Zhuyan. It seemed to be mixed with other things, which made him worry he was in trouble.


    But this was not the time to inquire. Even the clouds above Longevity Mountain were affected, numerous dark clouds converging on the mountain from all directions. Black-purple thunderbolts struck Fifth Manor like giant ferocious snakes.


    Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble...


    Thunderbolts fell from the sky and hit Longevity Mountain. It looked similar to what Zhou Bao had encountered in the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode, but the thunderbolts here were much less powerful. Clearly, the attacker did not think that the thunderbolts would cause much trouble for Longevity Mountain.


    "Qing Feng, Ming Yue, you two cowards come out!" An almighty roar came from the sky, causing gusts of wind. "Don''t think you can hide inside Fifth Manor. I tell you, if you don''t come out, I''ll destroy the whole Heaven Realm World, and leave your damned Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain without a foothold. Get out, get out!"


    Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows. He was furious. The guy was just too aggressive. He had just threatened to destroy the Heaven Realm World. How defiant he was!


    Although he was now the Fate Creator of the Azure Big World, he had been born in the Heaven Realm World and spent most of his life here. Besides, he had a good relationship with the Fate Creator of the Heaven Realm World. This guy''s swagger gave Zhou Bao an impulse to teach him a lesson. It was his goal today. Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes.


    "Qing Feng, Ming Yue, get out!" Just as Zhou Bao was getting into a bad mood, another roar came from the sky.


    "Damn it, would you stop shouting?" Zhou Bao made a sharp step forward to the stone tablet at the foot of Longevity Mountain. He punched at the strange power that sealed Longevity Mountain.


    Bang!!


    There was a loud crash. The invisible barrier rolled up billows, and a series of gray waves, visible to the naked eye, spread out from the spot where Zhou Bao''s fist had struck. After a few breaths of time, the barrier, which was made up entirely of the Fierce Beast''s spirit, had disappeared.


    With the disappearance of the barrier, the clouds in the sky stopped gathering. Peace was restored between heaven and earth. Apparently, the opponent had not expected a man to come out of the blue and strike such a fierce blow.


    The silence lasted for several breaths.


    "Huh?"


    Zhou Bao was on alert. As he had expected, a subtle wave of Dharma powers suddenly appeared nearby. Aware of the danger, he disappeared in a flash. Almost at the same time, the space where he had been was torn open. It looked as if it had been cut by a sharp edge, and in the place where he had been standing there were three giant hundred feet long cracks.


    "What a powerful movement! It''s silent but deadly!" Looking at the effect of this attack, Zhou Bao heightened his vigilance. "His attack was formidable and silent, as if he is using the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. Does he also know the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill?" Zhou Bao wondered.


    "But if he had launched the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, I definitely would not have been able to avoid it. I would not have gotten away as easily as I did."


    "Eh? Again!" As he was pondering, there was another subtle rumble of Dharma power, and then a great pressure fell from above.


    "Good!" Faced with an attack, Zhou Bao did not evade further. He raised his hand. His fingertips flashed golden lights as he pointed to the top of his head. A huge golden seal appeared out of thin air and smashed into the wave of Dharma powers.


    It was his Flipping Sky Seal!!!


    Zhou Bao had launched the Flipping Sky Seal.


    An invisible pressure immediately permeated all around, just as imposing as the pressure his opponent had just exerted onto Longevity Mountain.


    Boom!!!


    When the seal and the unknown wave of Dharma powers collided, there was a shockwave.

 731 Collaboration

    "You really surprised me!"


    Qing Feng was the first person Zhou Bao met when he returned to the Heaven Realm World. "You did it so easily!" Qing Feng said, looking wild and surprised.


    "Know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat. I knew his character and set a trap for his weakness. If I failed, I might as well die!" Zhou Bao smiled. He won the battle partly because the wolf was so arrogant that he did not expect his opponent was Zhou Bao, and Zhou Bao would use such a despicable means against him. "Now that this incarnation has been destroyed, it will not be easy for him to get into the Heaven Realm World again, right?"


    "Yes. The Fate Creator of the Heaven Realm World has returned to his position, and the rules have been established. If he wants to enter the Heaven Realm World again, he will be rejected by the original rules of the Heaven Realm World. We won''t have to deal with him, and he''ll be in trouble!"


    "You''ve said he is an Earthly Immortal, if he..."


    "My enmity with him, plus the fact that you destroyed his incarnation, isn''t enough to bring him here!" Qing Feng smiled, and waved his hand, "In this universe, an Earthly Immortal is subject to many restrictions. He can''t just do what he wants!"


    "Sure, otherwise, the world would be in chaos!"


    When a Human Immortal left his or her own macro world, he or she would lose the protection of the macro world''s essence and be subjected to the Void Thunder Tribulation. An Earthly Immortal was infinitely more powerful than a Human Immortal.


    "How did his incarnation enter the Heaven Realm World?"


    "It''s not difficult for an Earthly Immortal to send an incarnation here. Don''t forget that there were many loopholes in the Heaven Realm World before the Fate Creation Boy returned to his position. But now the Fate Creation Boy has come back. Only a fool would challenge the authority of a Fate Creator!"


    "What about the Alien Realms? Aren''t they looking for trouble in the Heaven Realm World for the passage from the Heaven Realm World to the Void Immortal Realm?"


    "It''s not that simple. Do you think they can go looking for trouble in the Heaven Realm World as they want? I tell you, other macro worlds are actively sending people here, and the Primordial Demons are ready to make trouble, and the Dark Sects of all the realms are excited. It''s as if they have taken steroids. In the end, everyone still has to sit down and talk slowly. No one can monopolize the Heaven Realm World!" He looked up at Zhou Bao, "Well, King Wuyang, the deal between you and me is done. Goodbye!" He obviously did not want Zhou Bao to enter Longevity Mountain.


    Zhou Bao just smiled, and arched his hands, "Good, goodbye!" After that, he disappeared.


    "This guy has some serious abilities. It seems that he didn''t get where he is by sheer luck!"


    Just as Qing Feng was talking to himself, a figure flashed and Ming Yue appeared beside him, looking at him with a faint smile. "He does have abilities, but they are crude. After being defeated by such means will the guy be pissed off? At least our trouble is over!"


    "Hmm, don''t underestimate him. Don''t forget that our teacher said that he is the key to our way of the Earthly Immortal. I think we''d better watch him for a while before we come to a conclusion!"


    "Not to keep an eye on him but to find him again when the catastrophe in the Heaven Realm World has passed!" Ming Yue said lightly, "If he can''t get through the catastrophe, he''s not the one we need!"


    "We should help him if we can. At this point, even a straw could save a life!" Qing Feng sighed helplessly, then faded into wind, and disappeared.


    "You''ve gathered the Three Flowers?!"


    At the Sea-calming Palace in Wuyang Region.


    The Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She gaped, openmouthed, at Zhou Bao, "And you killed a silver wolf at the peak of Immortal?"


    "As I said, this is just a deal I made with Fifth Manor!"


    "Stop talking about the deal. We just talk about the truth. You''re now a Human Immortal with Three Flowers above the Head. Guy, you''re invincible in the world now, you know?" Child-endowing Buddha said in an exaggerated tone, wriggling his fat body, "You''re invincible! Now you can go and destroy Divine Wind Palace and Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain. Go to the hollow outside the Heaven Realm World, put up a big flag, write, "The all-conquering man in the world", and then no one dare to make trouble in the Heaven Realm World!"


    "All right, stop. Let''s get down to business!" Looking at the Child-endowing Buddha whose face was full of envy, Zhou Bao rolled his eyes at him, "How are things in the Heaven Realm World now? The Fate Creation Boy has returned to his position; everything should be stable, right?"


    "Now that you''ve damaged Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty, do you think the Heaven Realm World can be stable?"


    "That''s good. With so many Pure Yang Celestial Devices, and the ancient Hidden Treasure and inheritance, the Heaven Realm World will be able to resist the invasion of the Alien Realm. Then we''ll have an easy time, won''t we?"


    "You wish! There are so many Alien Realms! How could we have an easy time? If one Alien Realm fails, more will follow. They might even band together, and then no matter how many Pure Yang Celestial Devices we have we won''t be able to withstand them!"


    "I don''t think it will be that serious!" Zhou Bao suddenly thought of what Qing Feng had told him. "At the end of the day, we have to negotiate with them, but we still have to fight, or, we''ll seem like we''re afraid of them, and we''ll have no confidence in the negotiations. Don''t you agree?"


    "Yes, but how we fight with them depends on the Alien Realm''s relationship!" Wang She sighed, "All the macro worlds know where the Heaven Realm World is. None of us knows what they are like. Even if we want to negotiate, we don''t have anyone to negotiate with, do we?"


    "Maybe that''s our chance!" An evil idea occurred to the Child-endowing Buddha.


    "Don''t overthink it! Never mind the chance. If water approaches, a dam is made from the earth; if soldiers approach, we will send soldiers to stop them. Let''s deal with the Heaven Realm World first!" Zhou Bao waved to them to leave the Alien Realms alone. "You said they were trying to elect my father-in-law as a spokesman. Has he announced a strategy yet?"


    "Not yet. Right now, he only holds the power of the Human Emperor Palace. Before long, once the major sects in the Seven-deity Regions are united, I think your father-in-law will be elected as a spokesman. After all, a leader is indispensable!"


    "He''s not a fool. Can''t he say no?"


    "This is his last and only chance, so he will definitely take it. If he succeeds this time, he will have a chance to become a real Human Emperor!"


    "Human Emperor, Human Emperor, he has always wanted to be the Human Emperor!" Zhou Bao grumbled. Yan Yuntian had practiced the Way of the Emperor, which was a useless thing. "Let him be. I don''t care much about it anyway. He''s my father-in-law, and I''ll help him when necessary, but I''ll never be cannon fodder or stick my neck out for him!"


    "Of course, no one expects you to risk your life to do it. But, you know, given your superior combat capability, someone will be trying to get you to do something!" Child-endowing Buddha nodded. "You''re a smart person. You should see things more and more clearly in the future. Under the pressure of the Alien Realm, all the forces of the Heaven Realm World will unite, including the Sea Area and the Seven-deity Regions, to resist the Alien Realm. And you''ll be a thorn in everyone''s side!"

 730 The Stratagem & the Doom

    The surrounding space was shattered in an instant, but Longevity Mountain clearly had a special shield. When this crushing force reached the boundary monument, it was completely absorbed by a mysterious force.


    This was the shield that protected the entire Longevity Mountain. It had no offense at all, but it had a quirky and enviable quality: absolute defense.


    The defensive power was so strong that Zhou Bao''s Flipping Sky Seal did not have any effect on it.


    But the opponent was hurt. He had no idea that Zhou Bao would launch such a severe attack, nor that someone in the Heaven Realm World could threaten him.


    "Hoo..."


    He gave a roar of pain. Numerous waves of Dharma power appeared around Zhou Bao.


    "Crap, no, so weird!?"


    Realizing that numerous sharp edges had emerged on all sides and were stabbing toward him, Zhou Bao dodged hurriedly.


    Swish, swish, swish...


    A silvery shadow encircled him as he dodged. In an instant, Zhou Bao had already been attacked several times. Fortunately, he had now gathered the Three Flowers, the Flower of the Body and the Immortal Body Technique. Otherwise, he would have been sliced to pieces.


    "Damn it, this is one agile guy!"


    The opponent was too fast for Zhou Bao to defend. Even more troubling, his talons had a destructive power at the level of a fairy weapon.


    Although this attack wouldn''t kill him, he did not enjoy being attacked hundreds of times.


    However, he was not that vulnerable. The gold Flipping Sky Seal flew up and down, hurtling toward the point where the waves of Dharma power swung most violently and extinguishing the waves with each hit. In less than a minute, the surroundings of the boundary monument of Longevity Mountain were in a state of semi-hollow. The surrounding space was shattered, and there were unusual signs in the sky. Lightning struck straight down. No one knew what they were aiming for, but each strike was bound to shatter a piece of space, leaving a hollow. The whole scene was like the end of the world.


    Such a big move would certainly cause a stir in the Three Western Regions. Fifth Manor had always been one of the biggest sects in the Three Western Regions. Although it was very mysterious, there were many people eying it at this sensitive moment. Thus, as soon as the mysterious figure sealed Fifth Manor, the most powerful sects in the Three Western Regions were successively informed. They observed from afar in various ways, but they were terrified by what they saw.


    "Zhou Bao? That''s Zhou Bao! The King Wuyang Zhou Bao! Why is he at Fifth Manor?"


    "What''s that seal? A fairy weapon? Why is it so powerful?"


    "Who is he up against? Why does Zhou Bao seem to be in the downwind?"


    "He is really at a disadvantage. His opponent moves so fast!"


    "There will be a showdown soon. Zhou Bao seems to be in trouble!"


    "It''s not just Zhou Bao who''s in trouble. Both of them have a combat capability at the level of Human Immortal. If the fight goes on, the entire Three Western Regions, and even the Seven-deity Regions, will be in trouble!"


    Indeed, the battle had caused great uproar. Clouds already covered half of the Three Western Regions, and thunder boomed in the sky, as if the day of doom had come.


    "I can''t go on like this!" Zhou Bao also noticed the abnormal scene around. He was commanding the Flipping Sky Seal to smash like crazy. A red light flashed in between his eyebrows as he started his Heavenly Magic Eye.


    The red light completely covered the area surrounding Longevity Mountain within a 50,000 kilometer radius. Almost at the same time, Zhou Bao found his opponent. The pale shadow of a silver wolf whirled around him. Based on the wolf''s attack trajectory, he calculated where he would appear in the next instant.


    "Go to hell!" He didn''t use his Flipping Sky Seal; he threw a punch. The punch, unmatched in power, instantly closed the space around the silvery figure. The silver wolf was caught totally off-guard, completely blocked and unable to move. Zhou''s fist, however, did not go down. The wolf was very strange. After sealing him up, Zhou Bao found that the wolf''s body looked both virtual and real. For a moment he could not tell whether the wolf was real or not.


    "Fortunately, I''ve made adequate preparations. It never occurred to me to have a decisive battle with you here. I really don''t know what I''d do with you!"


    The wolf''s strangeness did not surprise Zhou Bao. Instead, he felt like his plan had fallen into place. The silver wolf opposite him didn''t care that he was suddenly trapped by Zhou Bao''s fist intent, because he could transform between the real and the virtual at will. Even if he was hit by Zhou Bao, it wouldn''t hurt too much. Over the course of a few breathes, he had almost figured out Zhou Bao''s power. He knew that Zhou Bao was mighty but could not keep up with his pace. In his opinion, Zhou Bao was not horrible. Even if Zhou Bao could break a macro world with one punch, as long as he didn''t hit him he was not a threat.


    However, unexpectedly, after Zhou Bao sealed him with fist intent, he didn''t strike him but rather withdrew his fist.


    "What''s the matter?" Zhou Bao''s odd behavior alerted the silver wolf. But before he could figure it out and deal with it, the space around him suddenly opened up, and a huge suction sucked him from behind.


    Splash!


    Feeling cold all over, the silver wolf knew he had fallen into water.


    "I know you''re quick, but can you do anything if you''re frozen to ice?" Zhou Bao''s voice spread to his ears. A frightful chill entered his body from every direction. He howled and there was a silvery light all around him. He could not withstand the piercing chill.


    "The Icy Divine Light?" There was a flash of horror in the silver wolf''s eyes as he realized what the chill was. A thought with an unknown emotion rushed to him.


    "Yes, it is the Icy Divine Light!" Zhou Bao appeared not far from him. At this time, the surface of the water in thousands of kilometers had been totally frozen by the Icy Divine Light, but Zhou Bao was as flexible as a fish swimming in the water. "Good eye. But you''re unlucky!"


    Zhou Bao''s fist, together with his thoughts, struck the wolf. He did not intend to give him a single chance to reverse the situation. He had planned everything.


    Zhou Bao had made his plan after learning the strength and character of the silver wolf from Qing Feng. He had connected the space of Longevity Mountain to a vast planet filled with water with the way of the Great Way of Heavens and Realms. Then during the battle, he had broken through the hollow while the wolf was not looking and dragged him to the vast planet. No matter how fast the wolf moved, his speed would surely decrease in water. Most importantly, Zhou Bao had the Icy Divine Light, which allowed him to freeze up to 500 kilometers of water into a block of ice in an instant. In fact, he could even freeze the water-filled planet into an ice planet, but his opponent was a silver wolf with the strength at the peak of Immortal, so ordinary ice would have no effect on him. He had had to concentrate the power of the Icy Divine Light within 500 kilometers to completely freeze the silver wolf. As a result, the Icy Divine Light had not only completely frozen the wolf, it also froze the entire space.


    As soon as he was pulled into the water, the wolf froze. A giant fist drew nearer. It grew larger and larger, and struck him.


    It was a complicated process, but it actually happened in an instant.


    Boom!!!


    The fist inevitably hit the silver wolf. Zhou Bao''s whole power, the Mysterious Icy Divine Light, the Heavenly Jade Technique, the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, as well as his unmatchable fist intent burst out without holding anything back.


    Although the silver wolf''s strength and combat capability had reached the peak of Immortal, and he had the body of a Primordial Fierce Beast, he could not resist the fierce blow. He was blown to smithereens the moment the fist touched him.


    "No...!"


    As wild roar came from a vast planet, many light-years away. The terrifying roar tore through the hollow, resulting in bursts of thunder.


    The roar was like a storm, raging through the hollow for days before it died away. Since it was from a lonely vast planet, located in a remote Star Area, no one knew what had happened, nor had anyone heard the noise.


    "How dare you kill my incarnation? Damn it, damn it, I''ll kill you, I''ll kill you!!!!"

 732 Consultation I

    Everything that happened afterwards was as expected.


    Faced with numerous threats from the Alien Realm, various forces in the Heaven Realm World began to unite. Of course, the so-called various forces referred to the forces in the Seven-deity Regions. The Sea Area had always been under the rule of the Sea Emperor, the Vast Sea Emperor. Each of his Prime Ministers took charge of a locality. Most importantly, though the Sea Emperor was nowhere to be seen, he could secretly command the Prime Ministers to carry out his instructions without any hindrance, which made Zhou Bao gnash his teeth.


    However, there was nothing Zhou Bao could do about it. The Sea Emperor was a Great Ancient Emperor with the strength of an Earthly Immortal. Confined in a secret space, he could easily remain unfound.


    "It is the main trend. I''m certainly not going to be a fool and stand in the way of history!"


    Zhou Bao sighed softly. In just one decade, the Heaven Realm World had changed greatly. The sects and schools, once the most powerful in the world, had declined. The truly influential person was the candidate for Human Emperor who ruled the entire Seven-deity Regions. Under the candidate for Human Emperor, there were more than 10 very large sects, and then there were the millennium sects like Tian Long Taoism and the great dynasties like the Jin.


    In the past, ordinary people had not known about the Divine Wind Palace, the Immortal Palace, Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain and other super sects. Even a practitioner had only minor knowledge about the highest levels of the Seven-deity Regions once he had broken through to the Mysterious Realm. But now an ordinary person could talk about these super sects with familiarity.


    Of course, most of the attention was on the new candidate for the Human Emperor.


    A decade ago, the legendary candidate for the Human Emperor had been the Jin''s Emperor Yan Yuntian, and he had achieved the greatest achievement of the Jin: destroying the Northern Yuan. It hadn''t taken long for him to become the real Divine Son. Now he reigned over the Seven-deity Regions and had influence all over the world, leaving the people of the Jin feeling uplifted. But that was all it was.


    The invasion of Alien Realms had little to do with these ordinary people. As a matter of fact, people with cultivation below Level Seven didn''t know about the Alien Realm at all, confirming that ignorant people were the happiest.


    A Level Seven expert could practice Gang Qi, and therefore met the most basic conditions for cannon fodder against the Alien Realms'' attack.


    They were expendable.


    In fact, if there was a real war with the Alien Realm, the Individual Immortals at the Mysterious Realm were also expendable. The Genuine Immortals were the real backbone. However, there were very few Genuine Immortals in the Seven-deity Regions these days.


    The invasion of the Alien Realm was something that the upper class should be concerned about, and Zhou Bao was now a member of the upper class. In fact, all the sects, whether hidden or visible, large or small, now acknowledged his power. In terms of combat capability, no one in the Heaven Realm World could beat him. That was to say, Zhou Bao was currently the most powerful man in the Heaven Realm World.


    At present, Zhou Bao was sitting on a magnificent long chaise longue. His costume was quite different from the usual. Although he was King Wuyang, the first lord of the Jin, he normally dressed casually, often in a blue robe, with his hair tied up in a bun. Today, however, he was dressed very formally, in a black robe with gold rim that was embroidered with fine patterns.


    His hair was no longer tied up in a bun, and he was wearing a black crown instead of a golden one, making him stand out in the gorgeous palace.


    Zhou Bao was in the Human Emperor Palace. Compared with his first visit, the palace was more brilliant, and there were more people.


    His father-in-law, the greatest Emperor of the Jin, the first candidate for Human Emperor since antiquity times, was now sitting on the most central dragon throne. He was dressed in an ornate embroidered robe and appeared supremely confident. Zhou Bao could see that his self-confidence was from the heart. This was the feeling of blind self-confidence a person possessed when they had practiced the Way of the Emperor to a certain state.


    There were two rows of people sitting on either side of Yan Yuntian. On the left were Yu Taixuan from Divine Wind Palace, Yuan Tiangang from Dragon Thunder Palace, the Child-endowing Buddha from Bigwheel Temple, the Star Master of Immortal Palace and the leader of Jade Pool. On the right sat the current Mountain Master of Extraterrestrial Divine Mountain, the lord of Palace of Eternal Life and the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven.


    Like Zhou Bao, the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven had Fiery Eyes. He had now occupied the sphere of influence of Youxian Taoist Temple of the Tang Dynasty. Although the current Divine Wind Palace hated what he did, they could do nothing about it. The representative of Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain, another major force in the Three Western Regions, was Ma Tianchang, the former Governor of Yunzhou.


    Fifth Manor had always been indifferent to secular things. But as a member of the Heaven Realm World, it was not good to keep silent in the face of such a large problem. Qing Feng and Ming Yue both looked very young, but they were only a step away from the Earthly Immortals'' Great Way, so they could never be here.


    Zhou Bao sat at the end of the right side.


    In contrast to the seriousness of the crowd, Zhou Bao leaned back in his chair, tilted his head wearily, and spat bubbles from time to time. Yan Yuntian frowned slightly at him but did not dare to complain. As a candidate for the Human Emperor, he had learned more about the world. Of course, he understood that without Zhou Bao, he wouldn''t have been able to get any of what he owned now. He hadn''t expected that Zhou Bao had a good relationship with the Fate Creator of this macro world and would even help the Fate Creator recapture his position.


    The Fate Creator was the one who controlled the whole macro world. He had the same power as an Earthly Immortal and could have easily killed everyone present. Yan Yuntian had had a chance to be the Fate Creator, Zhou Bao had ruined it.


    However, he was not angry with Zhou Bao, because he knew very well that without Zhou Bao, his chances of becoming a Fate Creator were very slim, unless Zhou Bao could help him with all his heart and soul.


    But what he practiced was the Way of the Emperor. It was in natural conflict with the ruling strategy of Fate Creators. The Way of the Emperor was about absolute control, while the Fate Creator followed the principle of free development. Even the Fate Creator, who had the most strict control over the macro world, could not control it as the Emperor did.


    The Fate Creator could control the entire Heaven Realm World, but it was not the kind of control he wanted. Therefore, the fact that Zhou Bao had helped Fate Creation Boy to become the Fate Creator again had little influence on him. In addition, the Fate Creation Boy had given him great help afterwards for Zhou Bao''s sake, so he had gathered considerable good fate and became a real candidate for the Human Emperor.

 733 Consultation II

    This had happened because of Zhou Bao, therefore, Yan Yuntian was very tolerant toward him. Yan Yuntian knew, of course, that he could only tolerate Zhou Bao because he could not subdue him.


    "Well, everybody, I made myself very clear. The crisis of the Heaven Realm World is approaching. To ride out the storm, we need to unite all our forces and disregard previous enmity!"


    "Humph!" When Yan Yuntian said "disregard previous enmity", the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven let out a cold snort. He stared at Yu Taixuan with his strange red eyes. Yu Taixuan''s face stiffened for a second, and then returned to normal. "Your Majesty is right! In this time of crisis, we must disregard our previous enmity, for the benefit of the whole Heaven Realm World. We can learn from King Wuyang, who has provided several ancient Hidden Treasures to enhance the strength of the Heaven Realm World. He is really worthy of admiration!"


    Zhou Bao spit out a bubble of saliva, and squinted at Yu Taixuan. He gave him a sneer and didn''t say a word before looking up and spitting out another string of saliva bubbles.


    When the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven noticed Zhou Bao''s expression, a hint of an imperceptible yet meaningful smile flashed through his eyes. Apart from him, no one present knew that Zhou Bao had the bloodline of Fiery Eyes. His initial impression of Zhou Bao had been extremely poor, but now he was in the light, Zhou Bao was in the dark, and he had received a disciple from the Zhou Family. In this way, it wouldn''t be too difficult for the bloodline of Fiery Eyes to flourish once again in the Heaven Realm World. The Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven was excited at the thought.


    "The representatives of the eight major sects in the Seven-deity Regions and the Lord of Heaven Wei of Mysterious Fire Palace are all here. You guys are the overlords and the strongest in the Seven-deity Regions. Everyone is duty-bound to the crisis that the Seven-deity Regions is facing. There''s no objection to that, right?" He glanced around the representatives seated below, as if he were looking at the ministers in the Golden Hall of the Jin from the past.


    "Father-in-law, please cut the bullshit. Everyone here is an overlord, and I don''t think they like to hear you beat around the bush!" Zhou Bao said in a lazy tone as he stretched.


    Yan Yuntian could see gloating smiles on the other nine faces. He glared at Zhou Bao, "Well, I''ll get straight to the point. We have united, but it is only in name. We still lack coordination. Only the big things will unite us. This is extremely inefficient and prone to errors. I would like for each big sect and its subordinate sects, schools and even families to select a few elite men, and form a joint team for unified deployment. We, the Human Emperor Palace, are planning to recruit a few Independent Practitioners. What do you think?"


    The matter was a bit delicate. In short, Yan Yuntian wanted to harness the power of the sects to cultivate his personal power. The sects would never send their elite disciples. At most they would send a few Outer Core, frustrated, or aged disciples who had no room for progress. These people''s sense of identity with their own sects was naturally not as strong as that of an elite disciple. Once they came to the Human Emperor Palace, Yan Yuntian could easily pull them into his camp if he wanted to. They would be his first high-end force. Coupled with the good fate of the Human Emperor, the Human Emperor Palace''s strength would increase considerably.


    Everyone present thought of this, but no one objected. Yu Taixuan of the Divine Wind Palace was the first to agree.


    The Heaven Realm World was facing its biggest crisis in 810, 000 years, since the end of antiquity times. At this time, a leader was necessary, and without Yan Yuntian, Divine Wind Palace would be the leader.


    However, the Divine Wind Palace had been significantly weakened. They weren''t strong enough to lead. Since Yan Yuntian was willing to lead, they would certainly support his proposal no matter what did.


    Once Yu Taixuan agreed, the other seven people would naturally not blatantly oppose him. What was more, they had more or less the same thoughts as Yu Taixuan. They decided to let the candidate for Human Emperor push himself forward.


    The Mysterious Fire Palace, newly established by the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven had very few members. They weren''t even able to control the original territory of the Youxian Taoist Temple, let alone send people over. But he still sent someone to show his sincerity and kindness. The man was Ye Qingtian, one of Zhou Bao''s old rivals, but he was no longer qualified to be Zhou Bao''s rival these days.


    Nevertheless, with the help of the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven, Ye Qingtian was now a Genuine Immortal, and only one step away from the Venerable Realm, which meant that he was able to undertake the task alone.


    Finally, Yan Yuntian''s eyes settled on Zhou Bao. Others may not have known that there were many talents in the Wuyang Region, but he did. Over the course of more than 10 years, Zhou Bao had cultivated a number of experts, and some were even experts at the Mysterious Realm. The whole Wuyang Region was flourishing. Now that even the newly established Mysterious Fire Palace was promising to send a Genuine Immortal, as his son-in-law, shouldn''t Zhou Bao be more supportive?


    Feeling Yan Yuntian''s gaze, Zhou Bao frowned. This made Yan Yuntian a little nervous, but soon, his face became tranquil again. "Lord Yu is right. This is about the Heaven Realm World. Since everybody else has agreed, I certainly have no objection. It''s settled. When I return, I''ll send some of my people over to be at the disposal of the Human Emperor Palace!"


    "Good!" Yan Yuntian was overjoyed at Zhou Bao''s cheery promise. His eyes grew softer as he looked at Zhou Bao and his previous dissatisfaction with his son-in-law was greatly reduced. After all, he was a great help to him. In the future, he would rely on Zhou Bao to gradually solidify his position among formidable enemies in the Heaven Realm World.


    Now that it was settled, there was no need to be so nervous. Yan Yuntian began to relax. He ordered food and drinks and ate and talked with the crowd. For a while, the atmosphere in the Human Emperor Palace appeared very harmonious, but the hidden conflicts remained.


    Zhou Bao''s seat was at the end of eight. There were many other representatives from small- and medium-sized sects and country rulers behind him. Three to four hundred people were toasting and talking jovially in the Human Emperor Palace. It was a lively scene.


    Zhou Bao had no interest in joining them. He drank alone.


    However, his name had resounded throughout the entire Seven-deity Regions, and many strangers came to toast to him, trying to make friends with him. Zhou Bao felt helpless, but still responded to them with a humble smile. Just as he was getting upset, a strange sensation came over him.


    "Interesting!" His eyes flickered as if he had felt something. Almost immediately, an extremely arrogant voice was heard in the Human Emperor Palace.


    "Haha... Is this the Heaven Realm World? Is this the Human Emperor Palace? You''re just a bunch of useless people. It won''t be difficult dealing with you!"


    "Sh*t! fu*k! Damn you!"


    Zhou Bao, who had thought it was interesting just a second ago, suddenly cursed, because after that voice, a devastating force fell from the sky.


    "I''ll beat you this time, Lin Feng. Hahaha, I''m going to take the credit!"


    "Who are you?"


    "How dare you act so wild in the Human Emperor Palace!"


    The people in the palace were not mediocre. Especially those with seats of honor, they had all reached the Lord of Heaven Realm. They shouted at the same time. All kinds of colors and lights shot from them towards the source of the sound.


    Snap!!


    It sounded like bamboo poles were being snapped in half. All the attacks bounced back with a mighty breath of destruction.


    "A fairy weapon!"


    "It''s a fairy weapon!"


    "The attack was from a fairy weapon!"


    "Damn it! How?! How could such a man sneak into the Human Emperor Palace?"


    "...!"


    In a flash, the attackers knew what had happened. They turned blue, as if they had been run over by a giant truck.


    By the time they realized the enemy was attacking with a fairy weapon, it was too late. It was already coming towards them.


    Even Zhou Bao''s Flipping Sky Seal would be no match against this destructive force.


    Zhou Bao knitted his eyebrows. A faint yellow light spread out from his body, covering the entire Human Emperor Palace while the nine attacks failed.


    Boom!!!


    The sound of violent collision erupted.


    One fairy weapon was attacking another fairy weapon!


    One fairy weapon was attacking another fairy weapon!

 734 Capture, Chase, and the Flee

    "Alignment of Stars, launch!"


    Looking pale, Yu Taixuan gave a wild cry. Zhou Bao''s face was mangled too. The collision of the two fairy weapons had seriously injured him, but due to his Three Flowers, he healed immediately.


    "Be careful! There''s more than one enemy!" Zhou Bao advised the others and disappeared on the spot. "I can only handle one!"


    The Human Emperor Palace was in utter chaos!!


    Zhou Bao had blocked the enemy''s fairy weapon with his Furnace of Immortality, and not everyone could withstand the violent collision of two fairy weapons. Most of the men in the palace had fallen, and though still alive, they were in terrible condition.


    Zhou Bao was already in the sky outside, staring hard at a disdainful man not far away. The man looked back, surprised.


    "You were able to fend off a blow from my Celestial Wheel! Who are you?" He snapped, pointing at Zhou Bao.


    "Who are you? You''re so bold!" Instead of answering his question, Zhou Bao posed one in return.


    "His name is Chi Aotian, and he is the Young Realm Master of the Celestial Pool World!" A clear voice sounded behind Zhou Bao. "And I''m Lin Feng, the Young Realm Master of the Jade Dragon World!"


    With this, a sword was pointed at the back of Zhou Bao''s neck. The sword holder was another disdainful young man. He was in high and vigorous spirits, dressed in white and looked outstanding.


    "The Celestial Pool World and the Jade Dragon World?" Zhou Bao had never heard of the two macro worlds. Even if he had, he wouldn''t have cared much.


    As a man who practiced the first way of the 3,000 Great Ways, the Extreme Realm of Force of crushing vacuum, he did not care what magic weapons he or his enemies possessed. Whatever means the enemy might have, he needed only to suppress the enemy with his power.


    That was the kind of situation Zhou Bao was facing now. These two guys were clearly rich boys. They were arrogant and had fairy weapons, but Zhou Bao spurned them in the eye. Ignoring the celestial sword, he reached straight for Lin Feng.


    Lin Feng had never met such an outrageous opponent. The rivals he had met before would recoil at the sight of his celestial sword, even if they were a level or two above him in cultivation. No one had ever ignored his celestial sword like Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao quickly grasped him by the neck. The sword in his hand turned into several sword lights ready to shoot Zhou Bao.


    Ding, ding, ding, ding¡ª


    It sounded as though countless glass beads had fallen to the ground.


    The tiny shots of Sword Qi were blocked by a hazy yellow light, and none of them hit Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao lifted him up with a cold smile on his face.


    "A fairy weapon! He is using a Taihao Fairy Weapon! And it is made from the head of an Innate Deity!" Lin Feng could see the shadow from the Furnace of Immortality floating above Zhou Bao. His thoughts ran quickly. He was filled with incredible emotion.


    "Hehe, good eye! You have fairy weapons, and so do I. How dare you run amok in the Heaven Realm World with two fairy weapons? How dare you look down on the Heaven Realm World!"


    The Alignment of Stars had started up.


    Stars shimmered all throughout the sky.


    The cold starlight transformed the space into a starry sky. Silver starlight fell from the sky and formed a firm cage around Aotian. Aotian had been holding a strange golden wheel-shaped fairy weapon, but once he hit the starlight, it didn''t work. There was nothing he could do about it.


    "The Alignment of Stars is the Divine Wind Palace''s most valued formation. It was also the Heavenly Court''s protective formation. It is by no means inferior to the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. You want to break through it with a Taihao Fairy Weapon? How naive you are!" Yu Taixuan looked furious. He had trapped Aotian from nine directions with the help of the large sect leaders. "If you were to leave alive today, the reputation the Divine Wind Palace has built up over thousands of years would be ruined!"


    "Do you dare kill us?" Aotian was not alarmed at Yu Taixuan''s words. On the contrary, a sneer appeared on his face. "The Heaven Realm World is under attack from all sides. If you are willing to submit to our Holy Alliance, there is a glimmer of life. Otherwise, you can wait until the Heaven Realm World is carved up and destroyed by other macro worlds!"


    "Holy Alliance?" Everyone''s face turned somber. They had domineering influence inside the Heaven Realm World, but they knew nothing about other Star Areas or macro worlds except the Infinite Star Sea. It was the first time they had heard of the Holy Alliance.


    But the fact that the two young guys were each carrying fairy weapons suggested that the Holy Alliance was definitely not weak.


    "Your Majesty, you can handle him!" Zhou Bao didn''t care what Aotian was saying. Seeing Yan Yuntian in the crowd, he immediately threw Lin Feng to him. Lin Feng looked normal and could even move freely, but all his acupoints had been sealed. He was just like an ordinary person.


    There was a flash of anger on Yan Yuntian''s face, but in this case he could only catch Lin Feng.


    "These two men were concocting a plot, and almost caught up with all the most powerful men of our Heaven Realm World. They''re really evil! We can not forgive them easily!" After handing Lin Feng to Yan Yuntian, Zhou Bao continued, "What do you think, everybody?"


    "You make an excellent point, King Wuyang!" More than half of the people present agreed with him. They would have been seriously injured in the Human Emperor Palace if Zhou Bao hadn''t noticed and blocked the attack. Now that the two were trapped, everyone naturally wanted to vent their anger.


    "Can''t forgive us easily? Humph, what high-sounding sentiments!" Aotian sneered and glanced at Lin Feng, who was being held by Yan Yuntian''s subordinate, with a smile of schadenfreude in his eyes. Then he added, "Let''s see what you''re going to do!"


    With this, his body gradually became blurry.


    "Oh, no! He''s trying to escape!"


    Zhou Bao suddenly grew serious.


    Aotian was trying to get away. But it was not easy to escape under the Alignment of Stars. No one knew how many experts had been killed by the unique formation from antiquity times. Even though nearly a million years had passed, the power of the formation had weakened a lot, and it was even incomplete, it was still more than enough to trap a Venerable. What was more, Yu Taixuan, the master of the formation, could even silence Aotian trapped inside, if he wanted to.


    "He has another fairy weapon, and it''s a protective fairy weapon!"


    Yu Taixuan''s face changed. He stimulated the Alignment of Stars and found that Aotian actually had another fairy weapon with Space Immortal Character. And it was helping him break free from the Alignment of Stars.


    "Damn it, a formation from antiquity times?! It even can''t trap a Venerable!" Seeing that Aotian was about to escape, Zhou Bao cursed in a low voice, causing Yu Taixuan to blush. He glared at Zhou Bao angrily. "King Wuyang, what do you suggest?"


    "Your Alignment of Stars can''t even trap him. How can I overcome your Alignment of Stars?" Zhou Bao watched Aotian disappear into thin air with a grim smile on his face. "Lord Yu, it seems that Divine Wind Palace needs a good restructuring. You should not have made a mistake in such an important matter. To be on the safe side, if something big happens again, let''s discuss it somewhere else!" With that, Zhou Bao became more and more blurred, just like Aotian, and disappeared from the Alignment of Stars.


    Yu Taixuan''s livid face completely darkened. But given Zhou Bao''s power, he was afraid to say anything. Apparently, it was their lack of planning that put all of the upper levels of the Seven-deity Regions at great risk. It was a loud slap in the face to Divine Wind Palace.


    "It was supposed to be a banquet with a happy ending. I never thought it would end like this!" After leaving the Divine Wind Palace, Zhou Bao started the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, and closely followed Aotian, who was relying on his space fairy weapon, and didn''t notice anyone was following him. In fact, even if he had been paying attention, he would not have been aware of Zhou Bao, because Zhou Bao had launched the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill.


    "This guy is keeping up appearances to cover up his predicament! At his strength, he is barely able to run the fairy weapon!" Aotian rushed all the way, occasionally emitting a breath of exhaustion. Zhou Bao laughed at him inwardly.


    "Huh?! What''s that?" As he was contemplating whether he should take Aotian alive, he went around a vast planet. He was stunned to see that there was a great fleet on the other side, not far from the Heaven Realm World.

 735 Countermeasure

    It really was a great fleet!


    In the hollow behind the vast planet, there were numerous Highest Heaven Celestial Devices of different sizes. It looked like a space fleet of aliens from the science fiction films in Zhou Bao''s previous life. These Highest Heaven Celestial Devices were placed in a tight formation, full of murderous intent, as if ready to dart into the Heaven Realm World at any time.


    If one looked closely, they would find that the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices belonged to two different forces. They were different in color, location and appearance. They were clearly separated. However, all of the Celestial Devices had the same talisman.


    "Holy Alliance?" In the dark, Zhou Bao slowly narrowed his eyes. "This must be the Holy Alliance. The symbols on the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices must be the symbols of the Holy Alliance. Damn it, what kind of force is this? They have so many Celestial Devices, and they must have traveled through countless Star Areas to get here. These Celestial Devices are by no means inferior ones like the Void Traveler. What are they doing in the formation? Do they really want to take over the Heaven Realm World? Is it that easy?"


    There were at least three to four thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, and the number of people in each was unknown. After a rough estimate of the number of practitioners inside the Celestial Devices, Zhou Bao was shocked to realize that there were thousands of practitioners. In addition, every practitioner was at least in the Mysterious Realm. What were the intentions of the Holy Alliance with such a large number of practitioners and Highest Heaven Celestial Devices?


    "What?! He slipped up and got caught? He has the Defensive Bright Purple Celestial Sword. How could he get caught? Young Realm Master Aotian, watch your language!"


    As Zhou Bao was speculating about the purpose of the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, inside, a heated debate was underway.


    "Senior Lin Qiu, I may be partially responsible for this, but we may have miscalculated the power of the Heaven Realm World!"


    As the Young Realm Master of the Celestial Pool World, Chi Aotian had a high cultivation and strict training in other aspects. In the face of such a thing, he certainly would not shirk responsibility with coarse language, but try to reduce his responsibility to the minimum, "The man who caught Lin Feng can''t be just a Human Immortal. He has a fairy weapon that blocked my Celestial Wheel and Lin Feng''s celestial sword. He was so quick that we couldn''t react. And when we entered the Human Emperor Palace, we did not feel anything, but when we came out, they had launched the Alignment of Stars, which completely halted our retreat!"


    "What? The Alignment of Stars?" The middle-aged practitioner was startled and had a frightful glint in his eyes. "That''s impossible. If it had been the Alignment of Stars, you could not have come back alive even with a fairy weapon!"


    "The formation is incomplete. It has defects, that''s why I got back!" A faint smile came across Chi Aotian''s face. "My Celestial Wheel has detected the Alignment of Stars'' defects, but my knowledge and cultivation are too low to see them clearly and make use of them."


    "Really?!" Lin Qiu''s glance swept lightly over Chi Aotian, before he continued, "So this was a reckless move?"


    "No, not quite!" Chi Aotian paused for a moment before he shook his head. "We simply misjudged their power; it was not a reckless move. The Holy Alliance has deployed such a powerful force and we adopted the strategy of using strength to perform a small feat, just like a lion catching a rabbit. The Heaven Realm World is now a rabbit. Even if they are 10 or 20 times stronger, they are still a rabbit!"


    It was the Holy Alliance''s usual habit to go all out even when fighting a small enemy, and this time was no different. In order to capture the Heaven Realm World as soon as possible, the Holy Alliance had deployed a 30,000 strong fleet from two macro worlds. Their aim was to take the Heaven Realm World quickly before other macro worlds reacted. Now, Lin Feng, the Young Realm Master of the Jade Dragon World had been captured. The problem was becoming more complicated.


    The Holy Alliance contained 36 macro worlds. In terms of strength, the Jade Dragon World and the Celestial Pool World were inferior macro worlds. The will of the Immortal Realm had been passed down, and the Heaven Realm World, which had been lost for nearly a million years, suddenly appeared. With the power of the Holy Alliance, they believed that it would not take much time or energy to deal with the fallen Heaven Realm World. The Jade Dragon World and the Celestial Pool World had been singled out as the forces to take over the Heaven Realm World. The Holy Alliance thought the two macro worlds would able to conquer it. The Holy Alliance intended to stand behind the two macro worlds, so that at least 80% of the benefits they got from the Heaven Realm World would go to the Holy Alliance. After all, the strength of the Holy Alliance was the greatest in the whole hollow.


    "Well, let''s go to the Heaven Realm World and ask them to let Lin Feng go. The longer we wait, the worse it will be for us. There are many means of pulling out and refining souls. If Lin Feng suffers, it will be awkward to tell to his father!"


    "You know it!" Lin Qiu almost swore at Chi Aotian. If it weren''t for Chi Aotian''s special status, he would have beaten him to death. Now, they had no choice but to attack forcibly.


    Lin Feng was the Young Realm Master of the Jade Dragon World and knew some of the most important information about the Jade Dragon World and even the Holy Alliance. If the Heaven Realm World knew this and he revealed this information, he could not be kept alive.


    Thinking of this, Lin Qiu did not dare to delay. He immediately ordered to launch the whole fleet toward the Heaven Realm World.


    Hidden in the dark, Zhou Bao squinted. "Damn it, there are too many! Why are they sending out so many Highest Heaven Celestial Devices at once? Do they really want to take over the Heaven Realm World?"


    Zhou Bao was familiar with Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. They consisted of Internal Highest Heaven Spaces with numerous magic formations and weapon systems.


    The weapon system was the most frightening function. It was as powerful as the weapon systems of starships in science fiction movies in his previous life. Their maximum power was equal to the full power of an ordinary Taihao Fairy Weapon, and could kill Human Immortals, and even Immortals, not to mention ordinary practitioners.


    And now 3,000 Highest Heaven Celestial Devices of various sizes were marching fiercely toward the Heaven Realm World. Would the Fate Creation Boy be able to resist them?


    As it turned out, he could not!


    When the great fleet flew out from behind the vast planet, Zhou Bao felt the divine thoughts of the Fate Creation Boy come to him anxiously.


    This was about the survival of the Heaven Realm World, so Zhou Bao did not neglect it. He launched the Infinite Realms Teleportation and went to the Taihua Mountain.


    "We''re in big trouble!" The Fate Creation Boy didn''t bother with any niceties, he got straight to the point.


    "We''re in big trouble!" The Fate Creation Boy didn''t bother with any niceties, he got straight to the point.


    "No, I just figured them out. If they were normal Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, it would be easy to resist. But they have three of the best Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. Every single blow with its full force is enough to destroy a macro world!"


    "Then what should we do?"


    "Set the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, it''s the only way!" The Fate Creation Boy glanced at Zhou Bao and continued, "Make use of the infinite spaces outside and set the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. It should be able to resist them for a while!"


    "Resist them for a while?!"


    "We need time. So get them stuck first and then slowly handle them. They''ve sent so many Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. There may be a few Human Immortals among them. By trapping them first, we could have a chance to fight back. When that happens, ask the demonic experts of the Sea Area to seize the three Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. Then we''ll turn around!"


    "How can the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices be seized?"


    "It needs your Yin and Yang Dust Formation!"


    "It''s one thing for me to set the Yin and Yang Dust Formation in my Wuyang Region, but don''t you think it''s a little hard for me to seal up the entire Heaven Realm World?"


    "It''s not hard. I''ll help you!" Seeing the embarrassment on Zhou Bao''s face, Fate Creation Boy hurriedly replied, "I know about the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. I just need a strong host now!"


    "Okay, there''s probably no other way!"

 736 Stand on the Sideline and Watch the Figh

    Zhou Bao and the Fate Creation Boy both knew that the best way was to bring out Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon. But it should only be used as a last resort. There were too many Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. Even the Black Pearl, a Supreme Fairy Weapon, could only defeat, not destroy them. It wasn''t worthwhile exposing the Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    There was no other way but to fight back.


    After several flying leaps, Zhou Bao appeared in the endless spacetime that surrounded the Heaven Realm World. With a shake of his right sleeve, he summoned forty-nine small cyan flags. He felt a subtle change in the surrounding spacetime. A layer of fog began to rise throughout the spacetime.


    Once he completed the formation flag, the spacetime around the Heaven Realm World began to change. The entire Heaven Realm World seemed to be covered with a light layer of gauze. He felt an unimaginably huge power transmitted from the Heaven Realm World flow into the formation flags.


    "It''s the Power of Fate, the Power of Essence. Hehe, this time, Fate Creation Boy is really desperate!" Zhou Bao''s eyes lit up when he recognized the nature and origin of this power. A weird smile spread across his face. "Perhaps this is a good opportunity for me to perfect my Yin and Yang Dust Formation. I could cultivate it into a formation plate and carry it with me!"


    Just as he was making plans, a fleet of Highest Heaven Celestial Devices from the two macro worlds approached. They were fearless and aimed straight at the Heaven Realm World. Of course, they didn''t pay any attention to the slight change and fell directly into the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation was a killing formation passed down from the primitive times. All its secrets were hidden in two sentences.


    Death and disillusionment were like bubbles; both could become dust and ashes!!


    The formation was a macro world dominated by the four Dharmas: life, death, illusion and destruction. The four Dharmas were controlled by the manipulator of the formation, Zhou Bao.


    With support from the Power of Essence and the Power of Fate from the Heaven Realm World, Zhou Bao would definitely not go easy on them. He immediately launched the Dharma of Destruction. The sky suddenly filled with rolling smoke. Streaks of gray smoke appeared out of nowhere and blew toward the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices.


    "Sure enough, the Holy Alliance makes the first move. They''ve united the forces from two macro worlds and aim to take the Heaven Realm World down with one attack. Hehe, could it be so easy?!"


    At this moment, in the sky not far from the Heaven Realm World, two figures abruptly appeared in the hollow. "What do you say? Will the two macro worlds win?!"


    It was a man and a woman. The man was extremely skinny and walked with a stoop. He looked to be about seventy or eighty, with a walking stick in the hand. It looked like his life was approaching the end. The woman was actually a young and beautiful girl. With a dainty and exquisite shape, she dressed and looked like a teenager. Her expression also revealed innocence. Upon closer inspection, one would discover that her eyes were shining with a mysterious and rare purple starry river that revolved ceaselessly.


    "It''s not that easy. Haven''t you noticed? The endless spacetime around the Heaven Realm World has changed. Couldn''t you feel the spirit from it?"


    "Gee, you''re right. There''s a small change in the spacetime of the Heaven Realm World. How could it change so fast? I didn''t even notice!" The old man was stunned. Suddenly, his face turned ugly. "Damn! It''s the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. How could they have the complete formation map for the Yin and Yang Dust Formation?"


    "It''s not just the map. The Heaven Realm World noticed them long ago. They are waiting for them to step into their trap!" The girl smiled coldly, "The Holy Alliance is going to be in big trouble!"


    "Yes, indeed! But if the Heaven Realm World takes the two macro worlds down, it is going to be in big trouble, too!"


    "That would be best! Let the arrogant guys from the Holy Alliance find out the strength of the Heaven Realm World first!" The girl smiled coldly. Her eyes wandered. The purple starry river stared at the Heaven Realm World, as if waiting for something to happen.


    Her wait finally paid off. Thousands of Highest Heaven Celestial Devices stepped into the spacetime of the Heaven Realm World. With a flash, a streak of gray smoke covered all the Celestial Devices and they all disappeared at once. Even the two observers could not see where they had gone.


    "It really is a complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation. It just pulled all those Highest Heaven Celestial Devices inside in a mere second. I wonder how the Heaven Realm World will deal with them?!" The girl raised her head. She looked curious.


    "No matter how they handle them, the Heaven Realm World and the Holy Alliance have no room for negotiation. The Holy Alliance has always been overbearing. Even if it suffers a small loss in the Heaven Realm World, it will try its best to make up for it!" The old man sighed slightly. "When that time comes, the Holy Alliance will not have the final say!"


    "That''s right. The Holy Alliance is powerful indeed. But it''s not as powerful as the Heavenly Court was back in the day. It launched the attack and was defeated. It''s understandable that the Holy Alliance wants to get its face back. Also, once it finds out how strong the Heaven Realm World is, the other influences will not be willing to let go. They will surely want their share, whether the Holy Alliance likes it or not!"


    "Don''t forget that the Holy Alliance has always been unreasonable! It''s not easy to take food from its mouth!"


    "Humph. It concerns the interests of every macro world. They will do this no matter if there was one Holy Alliance or ten Holy Alliances!" The girl held her head high and smiled. Suddenly, the endless spacetime that surrounded the Heaven Realm World shook slightly. The aftermath rippled outward, crushing nearby planets into pieces.


    "This is ¡ª!"


    "The Yin and Yang Dust Formation is releasing and transferring the power of the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. This time, the Holy Alliance is sure to be defeated!"


    "Bastard, what''s going on?!"


    Just as the girl said, the Holy Alliance''s Highest Heaven Celestial Devices were already defeated. Actually, the moment they had entered the endless spacetime of the Heaven Realm World, they felt something was wrong. They were not entering an endless spacetime, but a complete and mysterious macro world. The macro world was filled with gray fog. Any object that touched the fog was instantly destroyed.


    Yes, destroyed.


    The gray fog formed a macro world of destruction. Silence, hollow and destruction!


    The Holy Alliance had more than three thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, but only three of them were supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices powerful enough to compete with a fairy weapon. In addition to the three supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, they had over a dozen Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices and more than a hundred Middle Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. The others were all Lower Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. They were only slightly stronger than Yu Nantian''s Void Traveller, with more layers of magic defense formations. However, the magic defense formations were completely useless in front of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. In a short while, the light from the magic defense formations was consumed by the gray fog. The Highest Heaven Celestial Devices turned rusty and like stones that had been beaten for thousands of years, the celestial devices began to weather. They melted into dust and then totally disappeared.


    "Impressive, really impressive! With the support of the Power of Fate and the Power of Essence from the Heaven Realm World, the Dharma of Destruction gives full play of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation''s power!" At the center of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Zhou Bao felt no pressure at all. The Power of Fate and the Power of Essence from the Heaven Realm World came down in torrents like waterfalls. They evolved into a macro world with the help of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation''s power. It was a macro world dominated by the Dharma of Destruction, a world full of the power to destroy.


    More than three thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices turned to ashes in a short time. Only about a hundred Middle and Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices survived. However, with enough time, they would not be able to hold up. It was conceivable that they would disappear soon. Even the dozen Upper Grade and three Supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices would receive a devastating blow.


    Lin Qiu felt like he was going mad. Actually, he was. Now that the three thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices were destroyed, both the Celestial Pool World and the Jade Dragon World would be badly hurt. Even though he held a high position in the Jade Dragon World, it was certain he would be severely punished.


    "How could this happen! What is this? How could the Heaven Realm World be so powerful!"


    In fact, it wasn''t just him. The others couldn''t believe this was real either, especially Chi Aotian. He had been defeated by Zhou Bao once and was severely discouraged. He had believed that the Celestial Pool World and the Jade Dragon World were powerful enough to conquer the Heaven Realm World, because they had so many Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. He would have his revenge when the day came. But who could have known that revenge would be so hard to get and they would be trapped in such a hopeless situation.


    "Attack! Full attack! Launch your most powerful attack and break the damn macro world!" Lin Qiu shouted wildly. The remaining Highest Heaven Celestial Devices sparkled together with bright light. They generated their greatest power, aimed at one area of the macro world, and launched the attack.


    "Good!!!" Zhou Bao had been growing bored within the formation. He sneered and snapped his fingers. The surrounding space distorted. As the space vibrated, the attacking force was removed from the Heaven Realm World and scattered in all directions.

 737 A Resolute Extermination

    No way, no way!


    Lin Qiu''s majestic face turned completely pale. The first full attack had been useless. The world was still a dusty gray, gradually consuming his fleet. They had had more than three thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, but now there were only a dozen.


    Yes, only a dozen. The hundred Middle Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices had put too much energy into the first full attack and were instantly engulfed by the gray fog.


    Now, there were only a dozen Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices and three Supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices left. Watching the light on the Celestial Devices grow darker and darker, his head was about to explode.


    "What do we do now? What do we do now...!"


    Lin Qiu''s face had turned extremely ugly. The Young Realm Master of the Celestial Pool World, Chi Aotian, who was inside the Highest Heaven Celestial Device, also changed his expression.


    In their eyes, the Heaven Realm World was merely a faded world. It had once been the strongest macro world in the hollow, ruling heavens and realms. But today, it had declined in power and was vulnerable. This was the conclusion the Holy Alliance had made after a series of investigations. The most important thing in their conclusion was that they believed they could conquer the Heaven Realm World with just one ordinary fleet. To be prudent, the Holy Alliance had sent out two.


    Chi Aotian and Lin Feng were Crown Princes of the two macro worlds. They had come here to reap benefits, and gain qualifications and experiences. There were endless Hidden Treasures and magic weapons in this macro world, but the Heaven Realm World didn''t have the ability to exploit the resources.


    It was not all about the ability to exploit. Even if the Holy Alliance didn''t have the ability, they could grab some benefits at least. First come, first served. So here they were.


    What was the result?


    They had trapped themselves in a hot pan of oil. Forget about the dozen Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. The people inside them were influential figures from the two macro worlds. They were all above the Lord of Heaven Realm and had super sensitive spiritual minds. When the Celestial Devices fell into the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, a strong sense of crisis had arisen in their hearts. When the three thousand Celestial Devices were destroyed, their sense of crisis turned into desperation.


    They felt deep desperation, a presentiment of death.


    Everyone was dreadfully pale, especially Chi Aotian. He was the Young Realm Master of the Celestial Pool World, waiting to inherit the family''s estate. He didn''t want to die in this hellhole for no reason.


    "What should we do now? Do something! Or we''ll all die! All die!"


    "Shut up!" Lin Qiu was grim-faced now. "We''ve been ambushed by the Heaven Realm World. The formation is too unfathomable. We have to find a way to break it. There''s no use shouting!"


    "Right, right, right, right¡ª We need to break the formation, the f*cking formation!" Chi Aotian muttered to himself. "Use the Void-breaking Bomb, the Void-breaking Bomb. Do we still have any Void-breaking Bombs? We could use the Void-breaking Bomb!"


    "Good, use the Void-breaking Bomb!"


    "But the Void-breaking Bomb can only be used once. Does that mean¡ª!" Beside them, a Lord of Heaven Realm Practitioner appeared to be hesitating.


    "Don''t you recognize the situation? If we don''t break the damn world and space, we''ll all die here!" Lin Qiu yelled. The others couldn''t feel it, but he could. He could feel clearly that in addition to the destructive force, there was a ruthless killing intent somewhere in this world. It made him restless.


    "The Heaven Realm World is so bold! How dare they do this! They want to bury all of us in here. They want to kill us all. How dare they do such a thing! Don''t they worry that the Holy Alliance will destroy the entire Heaven Realm World?!" Lin Qiu''s grim face turned ferocious, "Prepare the Void-breaking Bombs. Bring them all out. Full attack!"


    Under his command, three Supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices glittered with brilliant radiance.


    "Hehe, are they desperate now? They are only Supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. Let''s suppose that they could be more powerful than ordinary fairy weapons under your control, so what? With the help of the Power of Essence and the Power of Fate from the Heaven Realm World the Yin and Yang Dust Formation is almost complete. How could it deserve the name, ''one of the three great killing formations from the primitive times'', if it couldn''t handle three Supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices?!"


    Zhou Bao only sneered. He sat in the center of the formation and repeatedly snapped his fingers. The forty-nine flags hiding in the dark began to wave.


    Woosh, Woosh¡ª


    The movement of the flags affected the fog. With a surge of the fog, the twelve Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices turned to smoke. The three Supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices shot out streaks of dazzling light, aiming toward the center of the macro world.


    BOOM!!!


    The explosive sound spread from the space, but the result was not what Lin Qiu had expected. Normally, three Void-breaking Bombs were enough to destroy half a macro world. They would blast the entire space and the forbidden skills would turn to ashes under such power. But the cruel fact was that the Void-breaking Bomb was useless in this eccentric world.


    Outside the Heaven Realm World, another destructive wave surged. The surrounding hollow which had already been cleared was swept up again.


    "Could this be real? They are shooting the Void-breaking Bombs!" The old man and the girl in the hollow looked ghastly. "Are the people in the Heaven Realm World insane? Are they really going to bury the two fleets in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation?!"


    "Probably not. If they did, there would be no way to save the relationship between the Heaven Realm World and the Holy Alliance!"


    "The Heaven Realm World has been hiding in the Desolate Ancient Star Area for so many years. They have no idea about the influence in the hollow now!" The girl smiled bitterly. "They''re going to be in big trouble!"


    In the meantime, within the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, the practitioners inside the Celestial Devices became gloomy. The Void-breaking Bombs hadn''t worked as they had expected.


    "Damn! Are they really going to kill us? Don''t they want to live anymore?" Chi Aotian screamed. The pressure from the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and the current situation was driving him to the verge of collapse.


    "No. As long as the masters of the Heaven Realm World are not insane, they won''t kill us. If they do, there''ll be no room for negotiation with the Holy Alliance. They won''t be that stupid!"


    "Are you really going to kill them?!" In the center of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, the Fate Creation Boy appeared in front of Zhou Bao. He was hesitating. "Judging from their strength, they must come from a strong influence in the hollow. If you kill them like this, it will probably get us into a lot of trouble!"


    Zhou Bao gave a faint smile, "You''re the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate. You should be controlling fate. Instead, you''ve been oppressed by the Jade Emperor for so many years that you don''t have the power and prestige of a Fate Creator at all. This is a good opportunity to reestablish your prestige. There''s no need to care about where they come from!"


    "But...!"


    "Don''t be hesitant! There''s no need to hesitate! F*ck! They broke into our Heaven Realm World with all their Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. Are they coming for your birthday party? They have no good intention for our Heaven Realm World, and they should be prepared to be killed. They certainly wouldn''t believe that we like to win people by virtue!" Zhou Bao''s words were filled with a cruel coldness.


    The Fate Creation Boy glanced over at the three Celestial Devices. He hesitated for a second, and then said firmly, "Since you have decided, I have nothing to say. Exterminate them!"


    "That''s right!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly. He powered up the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. The three Highest Heaven Celestial Devices had just activated Void-breaking Bombs, consuming all their energy. In a flash, they turned to ashes in the gray fog. He didn''t even give them a chance to beg for mercy.


    "It''s done. Now that we have finished these f*ucking guys, it''s time to deal with Lin Feng. I wonder if they''ve discovered anything from him!"


    "This can''t be real. They destroyed them! Are they insane?!" Outside the Heaven Realm World, the girl and the old man were shocked by what they saw. Their eyes were about to pop out and their faces had turned ghastly pale.


    "This will be troublesome. Hehe! The Heaven Realm World is decisive as usual. We should get back. They are giving the Holy Alliance the perfect excuse to take action. Let''s get back and prepare!" The old man''s skinny face twitched a little. He looked at the girl and said, "Let''s go. If we stay here too long, they will probably kill us too!"


    "Yes, let''s go. We should change our strategy. Perhaps it''s a good idea to sit on the sideline and watch them fight!"


    The thin layer of light gauze that surrounded the Heaven Realm World had disappeared. Still, both of them swallowed nervously due to their lingering fear. They watched the endless spacetime, layer upon layer, and quickly disappeared in the hollow.


    "Gone?!" Zhou Bao was about to leave when the two disappeared. An eccentric smile appeared on his face, "You''d better go. Two Immortals! This will be a warning to others. Let them take back the message. I want to see who else dares to think about doing this in the future. The Holy Alliance! F*uck you!"

 738 Be forced to kill

    "What?! You wiped out all the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices and killed them all?! What about Chi Aotian, the one who escaped? You killed him, too. Don''t you know that he is the Young Realm Master of the Celestial Pool World!!!"


    Inside the Human Emperor Palace, Zhou Bao''s father-in-law, the Human Emperor Yan Yuntian, was flying into a rage. He shouted, "Do you know what you''ve done? You have put the Heaven Realm World into a dead end. Don''t you know anything?!"


    "It seems that you have gained a lot of information from the Young Realm Master!" Zhou Bao revealed a contemptuous smile. "Are you scared by the great influence of the Holy Alliance?"


    "The Holy Alliance is made up of one hundred and eighty-nine macro worlds. The leader of the alliance is a peak Immortal, a half step away from Earthly Immortal. They also have three Highest Elders who are Earthly Immortals. Now you tell me if the Heaven Realm World can compete with the Holy Alliance!" Yan Yuntian had totally lost his temper. He practiced the Way of the Emperor and was good at the Emperor''s Intention. He never betrayed his emotions and believed that he could handle everything with wisdom. But today, he felt helpless. Now that he knew the power of the Holy Alliance, he was clear that the Heaven Realm World was no match. He planned to cooperate right away. He intended to rely on the Holy Alliance''s power and regain a place for the Heaven Realm World in the hollow''s system, among the countless macro worlds. He would even consider entering the so-called Holy Alliance at some cost. It was not a bad thing for the Heaven Realm World anyway. Especially when he heard that the Celestial Pool World and the Jade Dragon World had mobilized more than three thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, he had formed a plan.


    First, he could gather all the power in the Heaven Realm World and defeat the fleet. After a demonstration of the Heaven Realm World''s power, he would negotiate and cooperate with the Holy Alliance. He had already planned his second and third move. He had absolute confidence in his plan and had been waiting to discuss it with Zhou Bao when he turned. But it never occurred to him that Zhou Bao and the Fate Creation Boy would destroy the entire fleet in such a short time. No one had survived, not even the Young Realm Master of the Celestial Pool World. His plan was totally ruined. When he thought about the huge pressure the Heaven Realm World was going to face, pressure from the Holy Alliance with one hundred and eighty-nine macro worlds, Yan Yuntian couldn''t bear it anymore. He yelled at Zhou Bao in front of everyone. It was rare.


    "Look at yourself! How do you think you look?!" Yan Yuntian was like a cat whose tail was trodden by others, Zhou Bao felt this was ridiculous. "Come on, you are the Human Emperor, the master of the Heaven Realm World. Everyone here has to listen to you except the Fate Creation Boy. Look at you now. It''s not a big deal and you look so scared. Right, the Holy Alliance is powerful. So what? Even if they have Human Immortals, Immortals and even Earthly Immortals, the hollow has its own Dharma. The Heaven Realm World has its Dharma, too. The Earthly Immortals can''t interfere as they want, nor can the Immortals come and go at their will. If they could do whatever they wanted, the master of the Heaven Realm World would have long since changed. What are you afraid of?!"


    "I''m not afraid, I just¡ª¡ª!"


    "You are afraid. I know you guys who practice the Way of the Emperor. You are all the same. You bully the weak and fear the strong. When someone stronger shows up, you become weak. Listen, you are the Human Emperor, not the eunuch you once had in your palace."


    "You¡ª¡ª!" Zhou Bao''s words were too insidious. Yan Yuntian was so angry he wanted to slap him in the face.


    "That''s not right. Everyone knows the power of the Holy Alliance. You''re right, the Human Immortals can''t move randomly in the hollow. That may cause the Void Thunder Tribulation. But it''s not completely true. Look at what just happened, the Holy Alliance dispatched more than three thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, a dozen Immortals and a dozen Human Immortals. They came to our Heaven Realm World with nothing to fear, didn''t they?" Yu Taixuan struck in.


    "They have several more Immortals and Human Immortals. So what?! Some of them have already died in my hand!" Zhou Bao sneered. "Isn''t it clear enough? No matter how powerful they are, they can only hide inside their Celestial Devices. Not one of them dared to step out and exert actual strength. That''s why the Fate Creation Boy and I were able to take them down so easily, even with their fairy weapons!" Speaking of fairy weapons, Zhou Bao smacked his mouth. It was such a waste. After all, Chi Aotian''s fairy weapon, the Celestial Wheel, was rarely seen. One could tell from its name that it was not ordinary. Unfortunately, no fairy weapons could survive the Dharma of Destruction. This fact also provided him with a deeper understanding of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation''s power. More than three thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices and a great number of Immortals and Human Immortals had been easily eradicated, without a trace. Just the thought of it brought chills.


    "Yes, they were eradicated by you. You did a clean job this time. What about next time? To the Holy Alliance, three thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices are only two small fleets. They were here to test our strength. Maybe these Immortals and Human Immortals were restricted by the hollow''s Dharma when they left their original macro world and they couldn''t show their real power. If they send more Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, especially if they are Supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, do you think you can stop all of them?" Yu Taixuan seemed to be totally in support of the Human Emperor Yan Yuntian now. He queried loudly.


    "It all depends on luck!" Zhou Bao shrugged his shoulders with an indifferent look. "It seems you guys are all threatened by that brat''s words. Where is he? Bring him over. Let me kill him and hang his head outside the Human Emperor Palace!"


    "Haven''t you killed enough? You''ve already killed one Young Realm Master. If you kill another one...!"


    "So what if I kill another one? Don''t forget, these two guys were planning to kill everyone in the Human Emperor Palace. Were it not for me, most of you would already be dead! The others would have become their prisoners. They wanted to kill you, and yet you want to return evil with good. Ha! I never thought that you could be so merciful!" Zhou Bao sneered. "Look at you now! How do you think you look? What are you thinking? You are all either masters of schools or Patriarchs of sects. But you''re all threatened by a brat and don''t dare to utter of word. How can you keep a practice being like that? Without courage and the determination to progress, you will never break into the Realm of Human Immortal, no matter how long you practice. Even if you were to break into the Realm of Human Immortal by luck, you could never gather Essence, Qi and Spirit in your Acupoints. What''s the point of being alive for you, a bunch of cowards? You''re better off going back and killing yourselves!" Zhou Bao roared with laughter. It sounded rather harsh and fierce to Yan Yuntian and Yu Taixuan.


    "That''s not good. If this continues, his words will shake my mind and create Internal Demons. If that happens, there will be no room for my cultivation to improve!" Realizing this, Yu Taixuan activated his Internal Qi with a sudden shake and growled with all his effort, "Shut up! We know what we''re doing!"


    "Do you? Good. I''ll see if the legendary Divine Wind Palace has enough courage and determination. I''ll see if you really have the capability to rule the entire Heaven Realm World!"


    "Bastard, bastard, you''re a bastard! You''ve never respected us!" Yan Yuntian shouted with fury as Zhou Bao left the Human Emperor Palace with a sarcastic smile on his face.


    "Your Majesty, you''d better quiet down a little bit right now!" At this moment, a lazy voice appeared in the crowd. It was the Child-endowing Buddha of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple. The monk was dressed like a holy man. He was wearing a faint smile which made Yan Yuntian want to give him a good beating. "That bastard Zhou Bao is so insidious. By saying this, he is clearly asking us to kill Lin Feng. Otherwise, our Internal Demons will grow, and we''ll have no way to advance our cultivation!"


    "That''s right. Zhou Bao''s words are so vicious, but what he said is true. We should kill Lin Feng no matter who he is. Kill him and hang his head outside the Human Emperor Palace!" Wang She sighed and stood up. "I don''t want my cultivation to stop here no matter what the future of the Heaven Realm World is!" He walked out of the Human Emperor Palace sluggishly, just like Zhou Bao had.


    "This guy always sings the same tune Zhou Bao does!"


    "No matter whom he sings the tune with, he is right!" An Elder of a sect sighed in the crowd. "Courage and determination to progress. As practitioners, we can''t continue without courage and the determination to progress. Otherwise, there''ll be little room for improvement in cultivation!" He shook his head and sighed, walking away from the Human Emperor Palace.


    The Elders of different sects followed and left, all in a similar fashion. Before leaving the Human Emperor Palace, they all suggested killing the unfortunate Lin Feng. Only in this way could they eliminate the Internal Demons that Zhou Bao had planted in their hearts.


    "It seems that there''s no other way!"


    Soon, there was no one in the Human Emperor Palace except Yan Yuntian and Yu Taixuan. Yu Taixuan sighed helplessly at the situation.


    "Kill him, kill him. Let''s save the worry!" Yan Yuntian knew that it was too late to turn back. These practitioners were the elites of the Seven-deity Regions with the highest combat capability. What they were concerned about most was their cultivation. The lives and interest of the Heaven Realm World came second. It didn''t matter if they offended the Holy Alliance because of what happened today. They were confident that they could leave the Heaven Realm World safely and find a place in another macro world. After all, they were not Human Immortals yet, and had the passageway to leave the Heaven Realm World. They had a way out.


    "These bastards!" Yan Yuntian cursed angrily. Up until now, he had calmed down. "Then kill Lin Feng and be prepared for the revenge of the Holy Alliance. Humph. He''s the one who caused so much trouble, he will surely have to deal with most of the consequences in the future!"

 739 Reaction of the Holy Alliance

    "You mean the fleets from the Celestial Pool World and the Jade Dragon World have been completely annihilated?!"


    In a remote place, deep in the hollow, there was a strange star sea. What was in the center of it was not a planet, a vast planet or even a heavenly body. In the center of the star sea, with a diameter of several trillion light years, lay a super palace.


    It could be called a super palace, because the palace was as large as a macro world, perhaps even larger. If Zhou Bao were to reach the deep of the star sea and see the palace, he would definitely be surprised at the spirit emitted from the palace. The spirit was very familiar to him. It was the spirit of a Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    Yes. It was a Supreme Fairy Weapon, a Supreme Fairy Weapon surrounded by endless vast planets and worlds.


    This was the Holy Alliance Headquarters, and also one of three authority centers in the hollow. It was called the Winter Palace.


    The atmosphere inside the Winter Palace was rather intense. Not long ago, they had received a message. They had decided to gain advantage by striking first, launching a deadly attack on the Heaven Realm World. The two macro worlds'' fleets, which had been holding advantage, were annihilated. No one had survived. The Young Realm Master of the Jade Dragon World, Lin Feng, who had been captured in the beginning, was killed. His head was cut off and hung outside the Human Emperor Palace. Without a doubt, this was to show all the other macro worlds, and also put them on the opposite side of the Holy Alliance.


    "It''s true, Your Excellency. The two macro worlds and more than three Highest Heaven Celestial Devices were all exterminated. They seem to have used the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!"


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation? Are you sure?"


    "Not entirely. The message came from the south. It looks like they have been secretly watching the Heaven Realm World!"


    "Secretly watching. Hehe, those guys in the south. They cannot change their nature. They do everything stealthily, like thieves, even if they are doing something good. But we cannot deny that their information should be true. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation! The Yin and Yang Dust Formation! It''s a surprise that the Heaven Realm World has such a powerful formation map. We should probably change our attitude toward them!"


    "Change our attitude? Your Excellency, both the Celestial Pool World and the Jade Dragon World have just lost their Young Realm Masters. It seems that they are going to regard the Heaven Realm World as their deadly enemy!"


    "I know!" The so-called chief of the alliance was a practitioner who looked like a teen. He wore a white robe and looked very handsome, with a seemingly sick temperament. "The old men''s sons have been killed. If they can''t take their revenge, their men won''t listen to them in the future. But that has little to do with us, doesn''t it? They volunteered to take the Heaven Realm World and were willing to accept any consequences. Now they screw up. They certainly won''t let go."


    "We''re not going to do anything?"


    "Of course we''ll do something. They are members of our Holy Alliance. We cannot just stand by when such things happen. If we don''t do anything, the prestige the Holy Alliance has been building up for hundreds of thousands of years will disappear!"


    "Then, you mean¡ª¡ª!"


    "In order to take revenge and save face, the two macro worlds will not want to rely too much on others. In that case, we''ll give them the opportunity. If they need people, money or information, we''ll give it to them. We''re in full support of them and their revenge. Humph. Losing two fleets has hurt their pneuma, but not their foundations. Let them fight the Heaven Realm World!" Speaking of this, he seemed to remember something. "It will not be a fight. The Heaven Realm World has the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Unless the two macro worlds send their base fleets, it''ll be useless no matter how many people they have!"


    His smile deepened as he gently touched his chin, "Pick some men to support the two macro worlds. Offer them generous terms. Tell them that if they can take down the Heaven Realm World, they have first dibs in dividing the spoils of war. The Holy Alliance will not take action for ten days!"


    "I understand, Your Excellency!" The practitioner speaking to the chief of the Holy Alliance was a young man. Of course, like the chief, he only looked young. He was also an Immortal and no one knew how old he actually was. "However, what if they do defeat the Heaven Realm World?"


    "That would be best. It means the Holy Alliance would gain an advantage by being the first!" The chief began to laugh. "Just give them ten days to plunder. Could they take all the benefits from the Heaven Realm World in just ten days?"


    "Got it!" The young practitioner bowed to the chief and disappeared in the huge palace.


    "The Yin and Yang Dust Formation, the Heaven Realm World. Hehe, this is unexpected. But that''ll be fine. Since they have the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, they won''t be easy to take down. This gives me a chance to get rid of the disobedient guys. That''s not bad!" The chief murmured to himself.


    "Using the enemy''s hand to clear the dissident. This is not the king''s way!!"


    "To hell with the way of the king! I do not practice the Way of the Emperor. Why should I care?" Hearing the unexpected voice, the chief''s face changed. "Teacher, you know that the Holy Alliance''s biggest enemy, the south and the west is not within the hollow. The Heaven Realm World left an awful mess. If we don''t want to take the mess, we could absolutely throw it away, but¡ª¡ª!"


    "We cannot afford any failure in the battlefield of the Extraterritorial Area. Otherwise, there''ll be no space for us to live!"


    "This is what you have taught me. How could I ever forget?!" The chief smiled slightly. "The Heaven Realm World''s greatest value is that it connects the Void Immortal Realm. As long as it can perform this function, it doesn''t matter who it belongs to. This is not the antiquity times. Even if the 99 Emperors resurrect and the Jade Emperor reappears, they cannot repeat the glory of the former Heavenly Court."


    "Maybe this is an opportunity for us!"


    "I don''t seek hegemony in the hollow. For me, the so-called Holy Alliance is also meaningless. I only want to win this war!"


    "The turbulent wind precedes the mountain storm. This will not be an easy task. I believe you''ve also heard the news. The demon sealed in the Infinite Star Sea has been restless recently. This is somehow related to the Heaven Realm World!"


    "Yes. But the sealed Primordial Demon is none of our business. It only has one target, the Heaven Realm World. It is about some interests and secrets from the Primordial Demon. I don''t want to know any of them. Neither do I want to take part in it!" The chief''s words sounded indifferent. "I don''t even want to know the Primordial Demon''s condition. This is not our business, not our responsibility!"


    "This is why the three of us wanted you to be the chief of the Holy Alliance. You can always remain calm in the face of temptation!"


    "So, is it possible that you could help me?" The chief smiled, "No matter what my goal is, what we do regarding the Heaven Realm World cannot fail like last time. Even if we are defeated, we should have our dignity. Otherwise, our Holy Alliance will be forced into a totally opposite position from the Heaven Realm World!"


    "I don''t think it''s right for me, an old man, to attend to such a matter."


    "They have the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. If it is complete, it is useless no matter how many fleets they send. Once caught, they''ll all be eliminated. Only an Earthly Immortal like you would have any chance of getting them out!"


    "Do you really believe the Heaven Realm World will fight against us without scruple?"


    "Lin Feng is the Young Realm Master of the Jade Dragon World. He knows too much about our Holy Alliance. He was captured alive, so the Heaven Realm World could have gotten enough information about us through him. Yet they still killed him in the end. What does it mean? It means the Heaven Realm World doesn''t care about our strength. Or the chief of the Heaven Realm World is a lunatic. Either way, it is not a good sign for our second group of fleets!"


    "What on earth were you thinking? The Holy Alliance is not to be trifled with. You have eliminated all their Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. They are Highest Heaven Celestial Devices! There were more than three thousand of them! If we could¡ª¡ª!"


    "This is not the time to show weakness!" Seeing Wang She''s pitiful face, Zhou Bao smiled coldly. "The Heaven Realm World needs to show its determination and power in front of everyone. We need to tell all the influences in the hollow that we don''t care how powerful they are. If they want to take advantage of our Heaven Realm World, they must also be prepared to pay a high price!"


    "You little bastard. It''s really easier said than done!" The Child-endowing Buddha, who was gnawing on a big meat bone, scolded in a low voice beside him. "You are the Fate Creator of the Big Azure World and have a Supreme Fairy Weapon. The future of the Heaven Realm has nothing to do with you. It''s ridiculous that those stupid guys put the safety of the Heaven Realm World on you, an outsider. They must be braindead!"


    Zhou Bao''s mouth twitched a little. He glared at the Child-endowing Buddha maliciously. "It''s true. Their brains are mush. So what? They need to rely on me now. The Fate Creation Boy also needs to rely on me. This is power. Aren''t you convinced? If you are, you can show your strength. If you show enough strength and can contend against me, those guys will definitely divert their attention and turn to support you!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly.

 740 Visit Again

    "I''ve never thought about that. But I''m very curious. Since when are you so kind that you decide to risk your life for the Heaven Realm World?"


    "I never planned to risk my life for the Heaven Realm World. It''s only that I was born in it and all my influence is rooted in here. I think that at least I could be of some use to the Heaven Realm World!"


    "Do you think I''m stupid enough to believe your words?"


    "Believe it or not. That''s up to you!"


    "You two, stop arguing! Let''s get down to business!" Wang She stopped them in time. "Junior Leopard, since you did this, you must have thought of a complete plan. Talk about it! You should at least let us know what''s going to happen and be prepared for it!"


    "I don''t have a complete plan. It''s just an idea!" Zhou Bao stopped laughing and his voice became serious. "As you know, the Heaven Realm World has been isolated in the Desolate Ancient Star Area for eight hundred and ten thousand years. We didn''t know anything about the hollow until now. Similarly, the influences in the hollow knew nothing about the Heaven Realm World. Recently, after acquiring the specific location of the Heaven Realm World, they sent people to spy on us. But they do not have a clear idea about the hollow of the Heaven Realm World!" Speaking of this, Zhou Bao paused for a second. A sly smile appeared on his face. "Let''s suppose they thought they had figured out the real situation here. After we destroyed their two fleets, their information about us proved to be false. In other words, they can''t figure out the true strength of the Heaven Realm World. That''s what I really want!"


    "Don''t forget that the Holy Alliance will surely come for revenge!"


    "I hope they will!" Zhou Bao smiled indifferently. "I have the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and the power support from the Heaven Realm World. As long as there''s no Earthly Immortals, no matter how many people they send, I am confident I can destroy them all. Last time they sent more than three thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. Once inside the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, be it thirty thousand or three hundred thousand, they have no way out!"


    Zhou Bao''s eyes were cold and murderous. Wang She took a deep breath, "You mean you want to demonstrate your strength through the Holy Alliance, and make the hollow world afraid!"


    "That''s right. The location of the Heaven Realm World has been exposed. It is inevitable it will be integrated with the hollow and have connection with the other macro worlds. This is only the testing stage. If we show weakness now, the other macro worlds in the hollow will all look down upon us. They will treat the Heaven Realm World as a lamb to be slaughtered, not a macro world of equal status!"


    "Therefore, in this situation, being tough is the only choice we have!"


    "We should be thankful for the Holy Alliance. It gives us an opportunity to show our strength to the entire hollow. The Holy Alliance is one of the three big influences in the hollow. If we make them fear us and force them to treat us equally, the Heaven Realm World will have a much easier life in the hollow in the future!"


    "What you said is not wrong. But one or two victories is not enough to guarantee us an equal position with the Holy Alliance. The united power of one hundred and eighty-nine macro worlds is enough to tear the Heaven Realm World into pieces!"


    "That''s true. But the precondition is that the Holy Alliance is united. I''ve done a calculation. With the support of the Heaven Realm World''s power, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation would only break down if the Holy Alliance could gather the power of more than a million Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. That would be a serious threat to the body of the Heaven Realm World. But do you think that''s possible?"


    "A million Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices!" Wang She and the Child-endowing Buddha both inhaled in astonishment.


    Highest Heaven Celestial Devices were not ordinary weapons; let alone Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. No matter how powerful the Holy Alliance was, there would be no more than ten Upper Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices in each macro world. The total number in the entire Holy Alliance would not exceed ten thousand.


    "That is to say the Holy Alliance has no way to break the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!"


    "Only if the Earthly Immortals step in. In that case, we have no choice but to give up. But the truth is there''s no way for the Earthly Immortals to step in!"


    "Right. The rules in the hollow are extremely powerful. Even Human Immortals can''t take action at will, let alone Earthly Immortals!" The Child-endowing Buddha said. "Is your Yin and Yang Dust Formation really that awesome?"


    "To be honest, I''m not sure. Let''s see if it can withstand one or two more attacks from the Holy Alliance. Highest Heaven Celestial Devices are powerful indeed!" Zhou Bao gave out a cool smile. "Now, do you have any other questions?"


    "Of course I do. It''s great that you have the confidence to stop the Holy Alliance. But why should you be the only person to do the job? What about your father-in-law''s Human Emperor Palace and the other sects? Shouldn''t they do something?"


    "I''ve already thought about that and I''ve talked to the Fate Creation Boy. I will help the Heaven Realm World stop the attack from the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. Everything else will be left to the Human Emperor Palace and the sects. They should have the ability to find the appropriate negotiators. This will help in returning a favor to the Fate Creation Boy!"


    "So the real reason is that you owe the Fate Creation Boy a favor!" Wang She laughed weirdly. "I guess so. You are not the kind of person to sacrifice yourself for others. How could you talk about responsibilities! I guess you''re planning to reap some benefits from the Fate Creation Boy again!"


    "Whether I can benefit or not is my business!" Zhou Bao smiled lightly. "I helped the Heaven Realm World avoid a major disaster and stabilized its situation. How could the Fate Creation Boy do nothing about it? Hehe! Last time, he told me the locations of several Hidden Treasures from the antiquity times. I made quite a fortune from it. But he never told me any good places like the Thunder Emperor''s touring abodes¡ª¡ª!"


    "What are you talking about! The 99 Emperors of the antiquity times were all Earthly Immortals and above. The Hidden Treasures they left are beyond the knowledge of the Fate Creation Boy. He doesn''t have the power to locate them. Besides, the Thunder Emperor was extremely high ranking in power among the 99 Emperors. You wanted to take advantage of his temporary imperial abode. I think you made the wrong decision!"


    "Hehe, that''s not necessarily true. After all, he is the Fate Creator and has reorganized the endless spacetime of the Heaven Realm World. He must know the Heaven Realm World''s secrets!"


    "In that case, go and bargain with him. See if he will tell you anything!" Wang She said grumpily.


    Fourteen days later, in the Desolate Ancient Star Area.


    Countless Highest Heaven Celestial Devices went across the hollow and fell on a galaxy that had been neglected for thousands of years.


    "The Heaven Realm World. This is the Heaven Realm World!"


    This was the second fleet of Highest Heaven Celestial Devices from the Jade Dragon World and the Celestial Pool World. But this time, in addition to the main attacking fleets from the two macro worlds, there were five or six smaller ones. These fleets came from close or affiliated macro worlds in the Holy Alliance. They had several hundred Highest Heaven Celestial Devices.


    Of course, the main forces were the fleets from the two macro worlds. This time, they had mobilized eighty percent of their fleets. They looked rather aggressive and intimidating.


    Eighty percent of the fleets from two macro worlds! The number of Highest Heaven Celestial Devices was approaching a hundred thousand.


    There were a hundred thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. There were seven Supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices; more than a hundred Upper Grade; more than five thousand Medium Grade; and the others were all Lower Grade. The seven Supreme devices belonged to the two macro worlds. The affiliated and allied fleets carried at most a dozen Upper Grade Celestial Devices. The two macro worlds weren''t counting on the affiliated worlds to be the main force. They were here to make up the numbers, or rather to show a supportive attitude.


    This time, the huge fleet stayed outside the Heaven Realm World. They didn''t rush into the endless spacetime like Lin Qiu had, but floated in the air surrounding the entire Heaven Realm World.


    Among the seven Supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, the leading one was magnificent. It was in the shape of a streamlined vessel, wearing an old spirit from the primitive times. The suppressive force it created was likely to be mistaken as coming from a Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    "Yes, Realm Lords. This is the Heaven Realm World. But the situation doesn''t look good. Look, the entire macro world is covered in a layer of gauze-like energy. It''s probably the Yin and Yang Dust Formation they''ve been talking about. This is the formation that trapped the two Young Realm Masters last time!"


    "Is this the Yin and Yang Dust Formation? It''s one of the three killing formations from the primitive times. It''s what killed my son!"


    The Realm Lords of the two macro worlds both looked young. In fact, people of their status and power would deliberately make themselves look young. After all, no one liked to be old and ugly except those with special hobbies. Everyone preferred to be young and beautiful. Everyone wished to please the eye.


    Looking at the Heaven Realm World shrouded by gauze, the Realm Lord of the Celestial Pool World narrowed his eyes, "Brother Lin, what do you think we should do?"


    "Humph. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation is a killing formation from primitive times. It''s not that easy to handle. Let''s test the water first!" said the Realm Lord of the Jade Dragon World.


    "That''s reasonable. Feel it out. Let''s see if it is complete and how powerful it really is!" The Realm Lord of the Celestial Pool World nodded, "Tell them to prepare the Void-breaking Bombs. Launch at the same time and target the same spot!"


    "Yes, sir!"


    "The power of different Void-breaking Bombs from a hundred thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices is enough to blast an unprepared macro world into ashes. The Heaven Realm World is only a macro world. It is protected by the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. So what? I''d like to see just how strong the legendary killing formation is!!!"


    The Realm Lords of the two macro worlds had bitter thoughts.

 741 Cower Back

    Outside the Heaven Realm World, the Realm Lord of the Jade Dragon World roared with fury. Suddenly, a dazzling light arose in the hollow, forming a ray of light brighter than ten thousand suns. Its target was the Heaven Realm World.


    There was no sound, only light, a devastating light that enveloped everything. It formed a straight line in the hollow and struck the Heaven Realm World with full force.


    Puff!!!


    The Heaven Realm World swayed for a second!


    Yes, it swayed. At this moment, the Heaven Realm World was no longer an entity, nor a macro world. It became a huge ball of water that had just received a strike. The strong impulsive force didn''t break it into pieces, rather it created a ripple, which in turn unloaded all the force into the surrounding hollow.


    Endless space barriers broke, and endless spacetime disappeared. However, when all this ended, the Heaven Realm World still stood in the hollow, safe and sound. The light layer of gauze surrounding it remained intact.


    "How could this be possible! The power of that many Highest Heaven Celestial Devices and Void-breaking Bombs is enough to smash a macro world into powder!" Seeing the Heaven Realm World intact, the Realm Lord of the Celestial Pool World couldn''t help screaming.


    "It seems that the Heaven Realm World really does have a complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Otherwise, such kind of thing could not have happened!" The Realm Lord of the Jade Dragon World seemed to have guessed the result. He didn''t lose his calmness like his companion, he only sighed a little. "Well then, it''s unrealistic to rely on the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation is one of the three killing formations from the antiquity times. Our only chance of winning is if we have a Supreme Fairy Weapon or enough Supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. Lower Grade ones like these, no matter how many we have, will all be wiped out!"


    "A Supreme Fairy Weapon, Supreme Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. And where do you expect me to find them at the moment?!" The Realm Lord of the Celestial Pool World, obviously an irritable man, jumped right up at those words. "Even the Holy Alliance only has one Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    "Well then, there''s nothing we can do!"


    "Nothing? How can we do nothing? Don''t you want to get revenge for your son? Don''t you want to get our face back? Don''t forget, this is not just a personal grudge. We volunteered to take down the Heaven Realm World. We not only failed, but also lost all those Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. If we fail again, our macro worlds will have a much lower position in the Holy Alliance. We may even become affiliated macro worlds at the bottom. Is that what you want?"


    "What else can we do? Seek our doom? For a primitive times killing formation like the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, it makes no difference if we have three thousand or a hundred thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices. It will destroy them all!" The Realm Lord of the Jade Dragon World lost his temper. "Do you think I don''t want to avenge for my son? Do you think I don''t want to take down the Heaven Realm World and reap the benefits? Aren''t you clear about the situation? The Heaven Realm World is nothing like a declined world. They have a killing formation from the primitive times. It is enough to guarantee them an invincible position. We were misinformed and underestimated their power. This could even be a huge trap set by the 99 Emperors survivors. What are we? To put it mildly, we are the Realm Lords of macro worlds. But in fact, we are only families with a higher status in the Holy Alliance. Who are we to fight against the Emperors of antiquity times?!"


    "Emperors of the antiquity times! What do you know?" The Realm Lord of the Celestial Pool World sensed something from his words and his complexion changed.


    "Nothing. But I heard a rumor!"


    "What rumor?"


    "I believe you know the one in the north, who became an Earthly Immortal five hundred thousand years ago. A few days ago, he lost an incarnation in the Heaven Realm World, his Silver Wolf incarnation with a combat capability of peak Immortal!"


    "What? How is that possible! Why did he go to the Heaven Realm World with such a powerful incarnation? Is there anyone in the Heaven Realm World capable of doing this? Killing the Silver Wolf incarnation! Does it have anything to do with an Earthly Immortal, or the Fate Creator of the Heaven Realm World?"


    "Humph, the Fate Creator? The Fate Creator of the Heaven Realm World is only a device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate. How could it interfere! I heard the one in the north was dealing with an enemy in the Heaven Realm World, and the Silver Wolf incarnation was killed by his enemy. Think about it! His enemy! It was probably a peak Immortal, if not an Earthly Immortal. Or perhaps it was someone who has put one foot in the Earthly Immortal phase. Only such a person could be his enemy. Look at the information we received! The strongest people in the Heaven Realm World are Human Immortals and there are less than a hundred of them. This even includes the Demonic Cultivators in the Sea Areas of the Heaven Realm World! What''s worse is that according to their information, the Celestial Emperor in the Sea Area is at most an Immortal. How ridiculous!"


    "You already knew that the information was misleading. Why did you send your son here? Why did you attack the Heaven Realm World with our Celestial Pool World?"


    "I just learned this!" The Realm Lord of the Jade Dragon World appeared rather annoyed. "If I had known it before, I would never have done such a thing with you. What a dirty job!"


    "That''s enough. Since we are here, we have to finish the job. What should we do next?" The Realm Lord of the Celestial Pool World felt diffident. He grumbled, "If you knew this before, why didn''t you tell me before we came?"


    He was distressed by the death of his son and distressed by the loss of their fleet. But as the Lord of a Realm, he knew how to balance.


    Once he discovered the power of the Holy Alliance, Yan Yuntian, a Human Emperor with a little power in the Heaven Realm World, had weighed his options and almost given up. Yan Yuntian knew how to balance, let alone him, a Realm Lord with real supreme power in a macro world. As a Realm Lord, even if he didn''t practice the Way of the Emperor, he must know a thing or two about calculations and tactics. His ability in weighing pros and cons should not have been lower than that of Yan Yuntian. If he had known the real situation, he surely would have known better than to rush over with so many Highest Heaven Celestial Devices.


    "Do you think the Holy Alliance will interfere if the one hundred thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices are destroyed in the Heaven Realm World, like what happened last time?" The Realm Lord of the Jade Dragon World narrowed his eyes.


    "How could you be planning such a thing?" The Realm Lord of the Celestial Pool World groaned, staring at his accomplice as if he was a monster. "You think that we should sacrifice our macro worlds so that the Holy Alliance will have an excuse to attack. What about us, the Celestial Pool World and the Jade Dragon World? The inheritance, accumulation and status our ancestors spent millions of years earning will be completely wiped out!"


    "I knew you wouldn''t agree. I was just kidding!" The Realm Lord of the Jade Dragon World laughed softly.


    "How can you make jokes in a time of crisis?!" Looking at his expression, the Realm Lord of the Celestial Pool World couldn''t take it anymore and roared in a low voice, "What exactly are you planning?"


    "I''m not planning anything. I''m wondering what the Heaven Realm World is planning!" The Realm Lord of the Jade Dragon World said coldly, "If I''m right, they are expecting our attack. They are waiting for this opportunity to bury us in the Heaven Realm World so that they can show their strength to the entire hollow and earn leverage!"


    "You mean¡ª¡ª!"


    "I mean they are waiting for us to attack and be defeated and eliminated. This will pave the way for the Heaven Realm World to return to the hollow."


    "These bastards!"


    "They are bastards. But their plan is wonderful!"


    "What do you have in mind?"


    "I certainly don''t want such a thing to happen, and neither do you, I assume!" The Realm Lord of the Jade Dragon World continued, "If you ask me, I want to raid the Infinite Star Sea!"


    "Raid the Infinite Star Sea?"


    "As far as I know, the Infinite Star Sea is the only Star Area with a passageway between the Heaven Realm World and the hollow. The power of the Heaven Realm World also penetrates into the Infinite Star Sea. This is also the only passageway linking them with the other macro worlds in the hollow. If we take it, we literally cut off their connection with all the other macro worlds in the hollow!"


    "It might have worked in the past. But don''t forget that the Heaven Realm World is already exposed now. Numerous eyes are watching them. Do you really think we could trap them by raiding the Infinite Star Sea?"


    "Of course not. I''m not trying to trap them. In such a situation, I only want to save face!" The Realm Lord of the Jade Dragon World smiled bitterly. "If we take down the Infinite Star Sea, it means that at least we have a response to their deeds. After that, we could pretend to be resting, saving strength and looking for opportunities¡ª¡ª!"


    "What?!" The Realm Lord of the Celestial Pool World almost shouted, "You call that a plan?"


    "Humph. Don''t forget, there are other influences in the hollow aside from the Holy Alliance. We are only here to lead the attack. Our losses last time aside, the plan of being the first to take down the Heaven Realm World has failed. That being the case, why not wait and see? Take a step back. Although we may lose some face, we can keep our strength. Who would laugh at us anyway?!"

 742 The Steady Road

    "No way. The Holy Alliance cowards actually retreated and took possession of the Infinite Star Sea!" Seeing the Lord of Heaven Black Turtle completely dejected, Zhou Bao''s mouth stretched into a smile. There was no way he could have expected the situation to come to this, that the so-called leader of the three largest influences in the hollow, the Holy Alliance, would retreat so easily and completely.


    "There are indeed some problems with this, but if you think about it, it is not impossible. According to Lin Feng, the Jade Dragon World and the Celestial Pool World are below-average macro worlds. There are also problems within the Holy Alliance itself. So if you look at it this way, it seems that our power in the Heaven Realm World exceeded their expectations, and it made sense for them to retreat."


    "Made sense?" Zhou Bao looked at the Fate Creation Boy and thought to himself. "Is this really happening? We cannot allow them to trick us and then take the opportunity to raid us when we''re not paying attention!"


    "Actually, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation has been laid out. They intended to raid, but they cannot. What is there to worry about?" The Fate Creation Boy shook his head. "I am very familiar with how the Realm Lords commanding the macro worlds think. They have the same flaw as that father-in-law of yours, they are too caught up in the losses and gains, too scared of death, too calculating. It wouldn''t be so strange for them to make this kind of decision!"


    "So this means that the Infinite Star Sea couldn''t stop them!"


    "Of course they couldn''t stop them!" The Black Turtle had a look of trepidation. "More than a hundred thousand Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, who could stop that? Three days, it took just three days for them to wipe out the influence of fourteen macro worlds in the Celestial Ocean Sky Area and the Purple Scorpion Sea Area of the Infinite Star Sea! Although my Secret Store is considered a good foundation, there''s no way it could have any effect in the Infinite Star Sea!"


    "Even if they were to occupy the Infinite Star Sea, they wouldn''t be able to control it entirely because of the Primordial Demon, right?"


    "Do you think the men of the Holly Alliance are really that stupid? Of course, they cannot afford to encounter the Primordial Demon! It would cause them so much bad luck if they aggravated it!" The Black Turtle composed himself and spoke more quietly. "The Holy Alliance is one of the three largest influences in the hollow. The Primordial Demon is obviously no stranger to them. There are ways of dealing with them, but that''s not for us to worry about. My worry is that once they''re done with wiping the Infinite Star Sea out, are we their next target?"


    "The fact that they took out the Infinite Star Sea, shows that they know themselves well. We were the initial target, but they settled for second best. They just wanted to justify themselves. No matter how ugly this justification is, when it is done, the Holy Alliance will not bicker too much. The only thing left would be a personal grudge!"


    "A personal grudge? You mean, the two Young Realm Masters we got rid of?"


    "That''s right, the two Young Realm Masters we got rid of. This time they''ve chosen to avoid the wrath of our Heaven Realm World for a while. But this doesn''t mean that they don''t want to avenge their son''s death, they''re just waiting for the right opportunity!"


    "I won''t give them a chance!"


    "Hmph. Think again! When they wiped out the Infinite Star Sea, their experiment was already finished. The Holy Alliance is one of the three influences of the hollow. When they finished their experiment, it meant that the influences in the hollow were done with their experiment on us. They won''t try again for a short while, but after that, they will really go after us!"


    "Really go after us?" Zhou Bao blinked and laughed. "I don''t deal with this kind of thing!"


    "I never considered making you deal with this kind of thing. Your approach to dealing with things has always been rough and brutal, not appropriate for this situation. However, your father-in-law is a very suitable person."


    "In other words, this has nothing to do with me from now on?"


    "Unless force is needed to deter them, you won''t be needed for this."


    "That''s fine. But I risked life and limb for the Heaven Realm World, fought until I was injured all over!" exclaimed Zhou Bao, seeming very happy about it. "Since I''m not involved anymore, can I go?"


    "Yes, go! If something happens I''ll have Black Turtle come and get you. Anyway, the Infinite Star Sea has been completely wiped out, so he won''t be involved anymore!" The Fate Creation Boy pointed, laughing at the helpless Black Turtle.


    "That''s right. The Infinite Star Sea was finally destroyed!"


    Deep in the hollow, the leader of the Holy Alliance smiled weakly when he heard news of the choice the Celestial Pool World and the Jade Dragon World had made.


    "Indeed, they chose to back down as we expected!"


    "I would have backed down as well. When the enemy''s strength is unknown, I wouldn''t let my subordinates send a child, let alone go myself to my own death!"


    "In that case, there''s no other way. Think of a way to contact the Heaven Realm World. They have the skill to force the Holy Alliance fleet to leave, this means the Heaven Realm World is still qualified to make their voices heard in the hollow. As such, they are obligated to their task!"


    "It doesn''t matter if they make their voices heard in the hollow. I fear it will be difficult to hold them accountable for their task. So many years have passed!"


    "Yes. After all these years, they will fulfill their duties and obligations, but only if they still believe they''ve been stuck in a corner for all these years and will deteriorate from a lack of resources."


    "I see. I will contact the Heaven Realm World immediately."


    "It seems news of the retreat of the two macro words has spread throughout the hollow. There must be other powers besides us who can contact them!"


    "Then should we be the first to act?"


    "That is not necessary. The Heaven Realm World is already well on its way to integrating into the hollow. The advantages of the Heaven Realm World are also being shared with the whole hollow. We do not need to deal with that. However, we cannot lose any more of our Holy Alliance!"


    "I see. So from now on, we just let things take their course?"


    "Yes. Just let things take their course. There''s no point in fighting over things. We''ll focus on something worthwhile. Anyway, what happened when those b*stards got cold feet needs to be investigated, you should send someone to reprimand them!"


    "Yes, leader."


    The return of the Heaven Realm World to the hollow became more delicate after the fleets of the Celestial Pool World and Jade Dragon World. The circumstances they faced were not as bad as they had previously imagined, and in as little as a month, 16 powers within the hollow had contacted the Heaven Realm World and engaged in talks.


    Of course, none of this concerned Zhou Bao. He withdrew from the Holy Alliance, said goodbye to the Fate Creation Boy and disappeared. Nobody knew where he went.


    Even if the Fate Creation Boy wanted to find him, it would take a lot of effort.


    "This world has quietened down," Zhou Bao lamented as he sat cross-legged in the hollow. God knew who this part of the hollow belonged to. He did not want to get overly involved with bad people in dealing with the mess of the Heaven Realm World. He needed to sort out his own situation and was trying his best to do it.


    Although he had learned many things, he had been choosing his future road for a long time. Especially after completing the Three Flowers above the Head, this road was wider, clearer and more stable. He was had given all of the various things he learned before, such as his secret skills, to his Dragon Chimera incarnation.


    His Dragon Chimera incarnation was the device spirit of the Furnace of Immortality rather than his incarnation. He had been secretly practicing the Furnace of Immortality for hundreds of years now and had had the faint feeling of being unified with it. Precisely because of this feeling, he was becoming more skilled at operating it. He believed that once his incarnation was completely unified with the Furnace of Immortality, it would evolve into a Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    This was not his imagination. After hundreds of years of practice, the Furnace of Immortality had turned from a Lower Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon into a Medium Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, and it now had signs of rising to an Upper Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. He believed that with perseverance, he did not need hundreds of years more for the Taihao Fairy Weapon to evolve into a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. With his power, this evolution would produce such a huge upgrade that he would even be able to use it to condense the Five Qis in the Chest.


    The Gathering of Essence, Qi, Spirit in Acupoint, and the Five Qis Collecting in Mind!


    The Five Qis were the Qis of the five elements!


    The three flowers of Essence, Qi, and Spirit had an effect within, and the Five Qis had an effect on the outside.


    Once the Five Qis in the Chest were fully condensed, he would have supreme control over his essence of the world.


    All the pneuma in the world, even the Divine Qi, was evolved from the Five Qis. The pneuma and essence were at a higher level than the Divine Qi and were also evolved from the Five Qis. Once they were condensed into the Five Qis, all the sources of pneuma would be condensed. At that point, it would be possible to ascend to the path of Immortals, and practice at the Immortal Karmic Rank!


    But for now, he had only condensed the Three Flowers above the Head, the first stage of mastering the Five Kinds of Qi. But there was no rush.


    "The method of Dharma power practice is based on the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill. This is the fundamental way. The Icy Divine Light and Mysterious Divine Light have already merged into one to become the Mysterious Icy Divine Light, and they have no need to change again. The punching skill is still the most important in confronting the enemy. Once it is condensed into the three flowers of Essence, Qi, and Spirit, I will gain considerable insight into the hollow. It is not certain whether my fist intent can progress day by day, it is also not certain whether it will actually condense into an entire universe one day. The Seven Wonderful Techniques are the optimal supplementary secret skills. I need to think of a way to get hold of the remaining Wonderful Techniques. After that happens, it is not certain whether they will evolve further. The Flipping Sky Seal and Infinite Trembling Contemplation, and even the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, are good enough to handle normal adversaries!"


    When he thought of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword special technique, Zhou Bao became sad that he had had to give it up. But in the end, he still had the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Although the Natal Sword was extremely sharp, when he moved into the Dragon Chimera incarnation his path was at odds with the sword. He could not use it, and so he had no choice but to let go of it.

 743 Figuring Out the Fist Inten

    When Zhou Bao transferred the last Natal Sword to the Dragon Chimera incarnation, he felt a shock in his head and it felt as if his whole body was being released from a bind. He was a lot more relaxed. The Flower of the Spirit inside the Sea of Consciousness started to spin round and round. Even though it did not evolve, it was permeated with a lively spirit that had not been there before.


    "No way! It turns out it was the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword that was preventing my mental state from growing all along! If I had not chucked it out today, it would have become the biggest obstacle to my future cultivation. F*ck!" He swore quietly as he finally understood what was going on. Since his future path was already decided, he had to press ahead boldly and sweep aside all the obstacles in front of him, whether they came from himself or the people around him.


    "In the past, I only had to use my fist to solve problems, what if I do that now?" Zhou Bao pondered, narrowing his eyes. He suddenly clenched his teeth and took out his two small jade hammers and threw them into the Furnace of Immortality. "Look! Look at my Extreme Realm of Force, will I finally reach the end of my path with the crushing vacuum?" He assumed a fighting stance and launched his fist intent. The fist intent of the simulated universe suddenly shrouded thousands of kilometers of hollow. He began to practice with his fists and feet, apprehending and initiating various changes.


    "That''s right, changes!"


    While practicing his strikes, he suddenly realized a huge problem.


    There were changes in his punching skill.


    With the upgrade in his punching skill, his punching intention was refined. The two were inseparably linked. The changes in his punching moves also changed his punching intention. In the simulated universe, he subconsciously understood that his punching intention was too big, but it was not clear what the implications of this were.


    He had been a professor of Chinese in his past life, not a professor of astronomy. His understanding of the universe was limited, mainly coming from popular science movies and the science magazine he subscribed to for one year in the fifth grade. He did not have a deep understanding of the universe, which undoubtedly limited the development of his fist intent.


    "I can''t go back to the previous universe, but this Void Universe is somewhat similar. There are a few galaxies, some similar Star Areas. They cannot be that different. The Void Universe has a few peculiarities, but it should also be quite familiar. I cannot return, but I can cultivate myself here and explore, and look for the differences and similarities between the two universes. And I can see what useful objects I can bring into my Universe Fist Intent so I can mend it and perfect it!"


    He straightened up and looked at the limitless empty space of the universe with a glint of determination in his eyes. "It doesn''t matter how many there are, this universe is for the experts. If the strength differs a tiny bit, the status differs a tremendous amount. The lives of the weak are decided by the experts. If they want to control their own lives, the best way is, of course, to let their strength stand on the very peak. Although I have a Supreme Fairy Weapon and Fate Creator status, my strength is still not enough. It is like duckweed in the water, it has not found its opponent. If I run into an adversary with the same Supreme Fairy Weapon, I could lose everything and be uprooted. I would have never met this kind of enemy in the past, but now the Heaven Realm World is facing the entire Void Universe. There is always someone stronger and I have to protect myself!"


    It is said that those who do not consider the future will be faced with immediate concerns.


    Before, Zhou Bao had been like a monkey relying on petty shrewdness and luck, declaring himself a king on a mountain without tigers. But the scope of this mountain turned out to be a lot larger, and not only included tigers, but also terrible creatures like lions, elephants, and dragons. In this situation, such a monkey would be reluctant to declare himself king. Instead, he had to think of every way possible to increase his own strength and become the tiger. This way he would not be the monkey declaring himself king in his own domain!


    "That''s it! I will leave my incarnation in the Heaven Realm World. I will wander around in the hollow, looking to see if it can find an opportunity for a breakthrough in my punching skill and fist intent."


    It is said that walking a thousand kilometers is better than reading a thousand books. And so, he was going to walk a thousand kilometers.


    The endless hollow was much larger than a macro world.


    Zhou Bao had once calculated that the volume of a macro world was more than ten times the size of the Sun in his previous life, not counting the surrounding boundless spacetime. For someone with his current level of cultivation, this could be walked across within ten breaths. Beforehand, he was unable to traverse the extremely vast Sea Area. But after he obtained the Infinite Realms Teleportation, this distance was no problem at all, but only in the Heaven Realm World.


    But he was no longer in the Heaven Realm World, he was in the endless hollow.


    This time it really was endless. God knows how big the hollow actually was. It was like in his previous life when there was no way of knowing just how large the universe was.


    The Black Pearl glided through the hollow at an extreme speed, sketching out a golden filament.


    This was the 16th day of Zhou Bao''s departure from the Heaven Realm World. Going at the speed of a Supreme Fairy Weapon, for a long time, he did not know how far he had gone from the Heaven Realm World. He had left his Furnace of Immortality and Dragon Chimera incarnation in the Heaven Realm World, so if he wanted to, he could control anything there. But in the Heaven Realm World everything was going steadily without a hitch. He did not plan to return.


    As for his Dragon Chimera incarnation, everything had been resolved. It had been announced in the Jilei Mountain that he had retired for ten years. Without his instruction no one could come near. The Heaven Realm World was also quiet.


    Allegedly, the evening that His Majesty the Human Emperor and Yu Taixuan, the leader of Divine Wind Palace heard that it would be closed off for ten years, they both laughed and got drunk. Clearly, Zhou Bao did not enjoy popular support.


    After leaving the Heaven Realm World, Zhou Bao sat on the front of the Black Pearl, aimlessly gliding through the endless hollow. He was looking for anything that could provide him with insight, but for 16 days all he could feel was emptiness, complete emptiness!


    In the hollow, the thing that was most present was nothingness. Otherwise, why would it be called the hollow? It contained nothing inside, it was completely empty. In most places of the hollow, nothing existed. It was just a space full of emptiness, nothing more.


    But Zhou Bao still benefitted from being there.


    "The hollow is immeasurable. My fist intent is not yet as mighty as this immeasurable hollow!"


    Feeling the vastness of the hollow and thinking of the tininess of his simulated Universe Fist Intent, he couldn''t help but feel ashamed.


    He lamented, "I still need to come out and expand my horizons. If not, how will I understand my shortcomings? I thought that my fist intent was vast and boundless but traveling in this void I realize that my simulated universe is just a small puddle. How could it be compared to this vast and boundless Void Universe? In the end, one person can only have so much strength. Suppose that all practitioners are the same? An Earthly Immortal can only make a macro world from scratch, that is all. But in this Void Universe there could be limitless macro worlds. And even an Earthly Immortal can have a sense of powerlessness facing this vast Void Universe, that''s for sure." He laughed. "And what of the Great Way of Heavens and Realms and the Infinite Realms Teleportation? Teleporting in the hollow is like an ant jumping about in a macro world. At the scale of the Void Universe it is meaningless. It is just an effective implement for the Transmitting Formation and the Supreme Fairy Weapon. They are only just capable of transporting people around the hollow, and even then, it is only possible to occupy a small part of the vast hollow."


    He came to a realization, and once again spurred on the Black Pearl under his feet. He began to tear through the hollow, traveling in an unknown direction.


    His Black Pearl had already completed the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and could be considered a full Supreme Fairy Weapon. When operating at full power, it would conveniently emit thunder and lightning which split open countless layers of time wherever it was headed.


    Boom!


    It suddenly stopped. Zhou Bao had not expected this. It was like a train stopped by an emergency brake, it nearly threw him off.


    "What happened?" He was highly cultivated and had great strength. When he steadied himself again he found that the Black Pearl seemed to have collided with something. In other words, it had entered into a hollow slightly different from the previous one.


    "The Laws of Space here are hundreds of times stronger than those before. No wonder the Black Pearl had difficulty breaking through this space!" Zhou Bao settled down again. He scanned the area quickly before realizing what had happened. The Black Pearl had entered a strange area. In this area, the Laws of Space were much more refined than those in other places. The Black Pearl took too long to break into the hollow, and it had been traveling quickly. It was as if a high-speed train had collided with a world completely made up of water and could not move.


    After thinking about this, Zhou Bao changed his plan slightly. He drove the Black Pearl a little more slowly and started to carefully examine the strange hollow around him.

 744 Star Palace

    Actually, this hollow was not too different from the hollows in other places.


    It was still made up primarily of nothingness. Every now and then there was a Star Area or two for decoration. The Black Pearl glided through the hollow without running into any obstacles. The only thing different from the outside was the strength of the space.


    The Space Rampart here was solid. Zhou Bao tried. His Three Realms Division and the Myriad Stars Division were not easy to use, especially the Three Realms Division. When he was in the Heaven Realm World he could go anywhere he wanted, but in this hollow, he could only teleport a few dozen meters in any given moment. It could be said that he had to start from scratch again, at the same level he was at as a teen.


    "This space doesn''t seem to have any barrier, it actually seems to be quite natural. A natural space obstacle is quite difficult to overcome!" Zhou Bao thought. In this hollow, the Divine Sense in the space system was inhibited by natural methods. The Great Way of Heavens and Realms had no advantage, but it still roused his interest.


    "The Void Universe is endlessly vast. It seems like this type of mysterious place is quite normal in the hollow. It doesn''t matter to me that the space system Divine Sense has an inhibition. The Black Pearl travels at a good speed, I''ll have a good look around to see if I find anything interesting. The Star Area ahead seems extremely vast, and it isn''t far from here!"


    Zhou Bao drove the Black Pearl forward under his feet and glided towards the nearest Star Area.


    This Star Area was not far from the periphery zone but was it not that close either. He did not want to take any more risks to get there, as the Black Pearl would not be able to break into another hollow. It had traveled in the hollow for a total of three months and had only just arrived at a meteor belt at the very outermost edges of the Star Area.


    "Damn, this place is truly incredible!" Even with the Supreme Fairy Weapon supported by the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, traveling at top speed for a month was difficult. Actually, the device spirit inside the Pool of Thunder Tribulation had had some trouble.


    When he arrived at the meter belt, he stopped. He grabbed the Supreme Fairy Weapon, ready to explore the Star Area on his own.


    Of course, he was not as quick as the Supreme Fairy Weapon, but he had left the Heaven Realm World to gain insight into the limitless changes in the hollow. Even though he had driven the Supreme Fairy Weapon through vast areas of nothingness, now that he was in a Star Area with strange Laws of Space, he had to explore it by himself. Otherwise, he would have come for nothing.


    He sighed to himself as he looked at the vast Star Area. With an electric spark, he leaped into the depths of the Star Area.


    "Who dares to trespass the forbidden ground of the sect!"


    Before Zhou Bao had picked up full speed, and just as he swerved around some meteorites, he heard a voice shouting in his ear. Then several pulses of light came shooting at him.


    "No way. There are people here!" Zhou Bao exclaimed as his body rolled through space. He used a Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds body movement and managed to dodge the attack. He realized that these rays were from celestial devices, several of which were Pure Yang Celestial Devices.


    After he fell, the celestial devices returned to their owner''s hands. Only then did he see clearly that a nearby meteorite was crowded with people.


    This was a small meteorite, with a surface no larger than a thousand hectares. But there were a lot of people, in a glance you could estimate more than 4,000. Half of them had the strength of Genuine Immortals. The other half had not reached that level but were protected by celestial devices, so that they could roam freely in the hollow.


    Among the 4,000 were men and women of all ages. They were all wearing different clothing, but with the same patterns. At a glance, you could tell that they were from a school. Each person had the same expression, scowling at Zhou Bao as if he had committed many evil deeds. Zhou Bao was shocked. He had not done anything wrong, why were they all looking at him like this?


    "Kill him!" the leader of the crowd shouted before he could speak. Shortly after, thousands of rays of light came straight for him.


    "F*ck. A tiger does not display its power. If you think I am a sick cat, you are underestimating my power!" Zhou Bao became angry. He had figured out that these people were here to carry out some shameful act. They wanted to kill him to silence him.


    Unfortunately, they had run into somebody they could not silence. They could not do anything even with their Ruyi Sceptre abacuses. Seeing a mass of celestial devices facing him, Zhou Bao only laughed coldly. Half of the people here had Cultivations of True Immortality, but only about ten of them had arrived at the Human Immortal phase. And only one of them had the strength of Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint. This guy was not even cultivated to Zhou Bao''s level, and he demonstrated little combat capability.


    Seeing countless rays attacking him, Zhou Bao was startled. He subconsciously prepared himself to use the Flipping Sky Seal. But then he had second thoughts about it.


    The Flipping Sky Seal was a good weapon, but it could not be relied upon. Considering this, he raised his fist, and without flinching, used it to repel the countless rays.


    Boom!


    Zhou Bao held out his fist. Rays formed at the top of his head that could shoot massive holes with earth-shattering power. He turned around, and a tunnel opened up. The celestial devices attacking him lost their target and hit the meteorite that had been underneath his feet, immediately smashing it to pieces. Zhou Bao reappeared right in front of the group''s leader and struck him right in the head with his fist.


    Crash!


    It was like a sledgehammer cracking a watermelon. A hideous mess of red, white, green, and a host of other colors spurted out in all directions.


    Zhou Bao was too quick, too sudden. No one in the group had reacted in time, not even the practitioner who, like Zhou Bao, had cultivated himself to the state of Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint.


    "Elder Mu!"


    "What?"


    "It''s impossible!"


    "Elder Mu is dead!"


    "That guy killed Elder Mu!"


    "How is it possible?"


    "Quick, kill him, kill him! To avenge Elder Mu!"


    They hesitated for only a moment. All of the enlightened practitioners present, whether they were Individual Immortals, Genuine Immortals, or Human Immortals, were marked with the same character: fairy.


    Zhou Bao had killed their Elder Mu with his fist. In a flash, the Human Immortal practitioners charged toward him. Of course, they had learned their lesson and donned their celestial devices for protection before attacking.


    "Bang! Bang! Bang!"


    There was an unpleasant sound as all seven practitioners were knocked out by his fist. There was no chance to strike back. Even the celestial devices they were carrying to defend themselves could not block Zhou Bao''s fist.


    "Stop!"


    The practitioner who was cultivated to the phase of Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint realized something was not right. But it was already too late.


    Including Elder Mu, there were eight practitioners in the Human Immortal phase. Facing this mysterious practitioner, they were beaten to a blood fog in the time it took to take a short breath. This was really too big a loss.


    Their sect was considered to be a big player in this Star Area. Despite this, there were only 24 Human Immortal level practitioners within the sect, and only three practitioners had attained the rank of Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint. Because this was a great cause for concern, they dispatched 11 Human Immortal practitioners. However, eight of these were killed by Zhou Bao in a short time, which meant that one-third of the sects strongest combat capability had just been lost. To say that they were greatly harmed by the pneuma was an understatement, they were fundamentally ruined.


    "Who are you to carry out your task so ruthlessly? Do you not fear the wrath of Heaven?"


    "What a joke. People like you are the type I detest the most. Don''t forget that you were the ones to strike first. But since you couldn''t defeat me you try instead to intimidate me with your cr*p about the wrath of Heaven? The extent of your cowardice is really pathetic." Zhou Bao moved swiftly, between bodies. He stood opposite the group in an open space on the meteorite, stifling a wry smile.


    Elder Mu, the Essence, Qi, and Spirit practitioner, the most revered of the group, was dead. Seeing Zhou Bao act so self-assured, they gritted their teeth, anxious to attack this strange guy and shred him to pieces. But Zhou Bao did not waste a second. He had no misgivings about fighting and killing these eight Human Immortals face to face. He understood well that for someone cultivated like him, defeating eight Human Immortals was not difficult. But killing eight Human Immortals as quickly and easily as he had just done would be a serious challenge.


    "This is the forbidden area of my Star Palace. Your Excellency trespassed into the sect''s forbidden area. Do you have a reason?" the Three-flowered Human Immortal said flatly, repressing his rage.


    "The forbidden area of Star Palace, what a joke! This is clearly an unclaimed meteor belt!" How could Zhou Bao believe his nonsense? As he turned his head, he noticed something in the middle of the crowd, and he burst out laughing. "It seems you have found some Hidden Treasure, and you thought you would hide it here? Unfortunately for you, not even the barrier announced my arrival. You wanted to kill me before I found out, right?"


    "You¡ª¡ª!" Zhou Bao had just exposed the Three-flowered Human Immortal''s plans. His expression immediately soured. "Everyone, come on! Kill him!"


    Today I was ashamedly watching a TV series on the Internet while eating. I had accidentally hit pause, and oh my god, an advert for sanitary towels appeared straight away on the page. A huge sanitary towel filled my screen!


    I was eating!


    Such bad luck!

 745 The Broken Arm

    Star Palace!


    Zhou Bao had never heard the name before, but it wasn''t that strange. He didn''t know how many millions of kilometers this Star Area was from the Heaven Realm World, because communication between the two places was difficult. There were no Transmitting Formations, so communication was essentially impossible. It had taken 50 days to get here from the Heaven Realm World, relying on his Supreme Fairy Weapon which could barely manage the job.


    Without a Supreme Fairy Weapon like the Black Pearl, and without the support of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation which had been converted to an Extreme Class Highest Heaven Celestial Device, he would not have been able to get to this Star Area even if he traveled for ten thousand years.


    After entering this area of space, the Law of Space had become exceptionally strong. The most frequently used Divine Sense used by practitioners to speed themselves up was not very effective here. Therefore, the people of the Star Palace thought that Zhou Bao was a practitioner from this Star Area.


    So, when he stumbled across the operation they were carrying out, they wanted to kill him, and quickly.


    The Three-flowered Human Immortal gave the order to kill without hesitation.


    This was different from before, when they were not aware of his power. The order to kill had been issued, and they''d been defeated immediately, losing eight of their Human Immortals. But this time, having seen Zhou Bao''s strength, the Three-Flowered Human Immortal did not hesitate to issue the order to kill, which caused Zhou Bao some alarm.


    "Well, since Your Excellency is so unreasonable, I don''t have any qualms about what I''m about to do next!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly. His figure flashed. The ruthless Star Palace disciples were charging towards him. He hit one person with each strike, and then several people with each strike.


    He was killing them all, like a tiger in a flock of sheep.


    It did not matter how highly cultivated these Star Palace practitioners were, or how powerful their celestial devices were, none of them were a match for his punches.


    Zhou Bao''s punching skill was not like that of normal people. Normal people could injure or kill with their punching skill, it was mostly physical. As long as they were successfully cultivated, their spirit would be firm and stable. If the physical body was destroyed, as long as they had a trace of Genuine Spirit, there was a chance to be reincarnated or reborn. But Zhou Bao''s punch contained an innate killing intent. Those he struck lost their physical body, lost their spirit, lost their Dharma power; they would be completely destroyed without a trace. It seemed he was the first person ever with this sort of strength. Basically, anyone he struck was destroyed spiritually and physically.


    At first, the Three-flowered Human Immortal did not care, his intention was to have his people stall Zhou Bao, giving him time to act. He had an immensely powerful magic weapon on him, a fairy weapon, what was more, an Upper Grade Fairy Weapon. But to act he needed time. So he was stalling Zhou Bao. It should be known that there were three other Human Immortals. So when Zhou Bao sprang into action and killed eight Human Immortals, it was because they had been too careless. They had not realized that Zhou Bao could be this formidable. But now that they were ready and accompanied by so many other practitioners, it would not be as easy for Zhou Bao to knock the other three Human Immortals out.


    The Three-Flowered Human Immortal soon realized that something was wrong. The practitioners Zhou Bao had knocked out did not have the slightest trace of spirit undulating within them, it had all disappeared. What was wrong? What did this mean?


    The Three-flowered Human Immortal was powering up his fairy weapon up to the maximum when he felt that something was up. It wasn''t just him. The other three Human Immortals had the same feeling. But now that they had reached this point, there was no way of going back.


    "Kill!" The Three-flowered Human Immortal''s eyes grew angry as he watched Zhou Bao effortlessly kill one Star Palace practitioner after another. As the oldest of the three Star Palace superiors, could he endure the boundless killing intent in Zhou Bao''s heart?


    A blinding, brilliant radiance erupted from the Three-flowered Human Immortal. It formed a razer-sharp Sword Qi in space that was coming straight for Zhou Bao.


    "Nice sword light!" Zhou Bao shouted in surprise. He wanted to push through this tangle of people. But it was as if the three Human Immortals were connected with the Three-flowered Human Immortal''s soul. By the time the radiance had erupted, each of them had brandished their own fairy weapon, trapping Zhou Bao. He had ample strength, but it was not at all easy to break the inhibition of three fairy weapons in one go. In his moment of surprise, the sword light had already hit him.


    Without thinking, Zhou Bao turned around.


    Whoosh!


    He dodged the sword light as it brushed up against him. He felt his left arm go cool. It had been completely sliced off by the sword light.


    "Hiss!"


    This time it was Zhou Bao''s turn to be surprised. He gasped. His right fist had finally started to crack the three fairy weapons. He had moved to dodge the light, but he had not moved his left arm away in time.


    He was now cultivated to the level of Three Flowers above the Head, and also had the Immortal Body Technique. But it was not easy to reattach his disconnected arm. The biggest problem was that he had already felt a destructive power where the arm had broken off, and it was spreading from the wound to the rest of his body. His arm had come under attack from this destructive force. It started to crack, then it withered and was eroded away.


    Of course, his body was from the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan bloodline. An arm would not be destroyed that easily. It would take a while to destroy this arm, but during this time Zhou Bao only had the strength to ward off the attack. He had no strength to hit back. Actually, he could not even withstand the attacks, but he launched his Three Realms Division. As he started to teleport a short distance, a Sword Qi filled the sky, hidden but fully-formed.


    "Damn! What kind of Sword Qi is this? So powerful, even more so than my Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Whoah, the Nirvana Force in here, the killing intent. It''s much more powerful than the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. But there is still a trace of resemblance!"


    Yes, resemblance.


    All of a sudden, Zhou Bao realized there was a problem. His sword light and the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Apart were similar in every respect apart from the color. They had the same precision, the same incisive power, and the same innate killing intent.


    But there were also differences. The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was refined from two types of pneuma: extreme yin and extreme yang. The killing intent that first emerged from the evolution of the yin and yang was mysterious, but not very powerful. If it were not for the Nirvana killing intent contained within the mysterious Heavenly Fairy Weapon he held, he could not have refined the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword to its formidable state at all. But this was not the case here at all. This Sword Qi was biting. The killing intent and Nirvana Qi it contained were certainly no weaker, and were perhaps stronger, than the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi moistened by the red gourd. This was why it had been so easy to chop his left arm off. It was enough to force him to dodge the attack and not dare ward off further attack.


    "Hmph. So it was the Space Divine Sense. No wonder you caused such a mess! You actually have some assets. But today you have encountered your weaknesses, and in the face of such weaknesses you continued to act so belligerently. I won''t kill you today. But after such weakness, how would you be worthy of such a reputation for brilliant fighting?" The Three-flowered Human Immortal laughed coldly. A cyan Natal Sword was floating behind his head. The luster of this sword illuminated the people around it. It was almost exactly the same as the Yin and Yang Heavenly Natal Sword that Zhou Bao had refined. But there was a difference, namely that in the core of this Natal Sword were tiny, diamond-shaped flecks of gold.


    It was these tiny, diamond-shaped flecks of gold that contained the sword''s immense, incisive killing intent.


    "Hmph. It is not clear where this person came from, but he is powerful. He was strong enough to use the Space Divine Sense with no trouble. It seems like he is no less cultivated than I am. If he ran into anybody else, they would have struggled to deal with him. Unfortunately, he ran into me!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s sorry figure, a cold smile flashed through the Three-flowered Human Immortal''s eyes. There were countless practitioners in this world, but only one in a million had practiced to the level of Human Immortal. And among the Human Immortals, only one in a million practiced the Three Flowers. Those without formidable Divine Fate did not have the countless lucky encounters necessary to reach this state. This Three-flowered Human Immortal, on the other hand, had originally had a pretty normal aptitude and no exceptional qualities. In breaking into the Individual Immortal realm, and achieving the Individual Immortal Karma Rank, he had reached his limit. But, he still had a profound Divine Fate, and received inheritances from a certain sect of antiquity. So in a short time, he had been able to cultivate himself and break into the realm of Individual Immortal, and achieve the Genuine Immortal Karmic Rank. He had originally celebrated this endlessly, unaware that his Divine Fate would not remain indefinitely. Crossing his second Thunder Tribulation to become a venerable was not bad, but who could have expected that his Divine Fate would still remain after he became a Genuine Immortal? While undergoing a routine task, he had obtained mysterious flecks. It was these flecks that changed him and allowed him to accept certain mighty inheritances from the primitive times and even more distant eras. And with these flecks as a foundation, he solidified this cyan Natal Sword, and from then on, his cultivation had gone from strength to strength. He broke into the Venerable state, Lord of Heaven state and ascended to Human Immortal in quick succession, defeating enemies as he rose, before he condensed the Three Flowers above the Head. The speed of his cultivation had decreased, but he did not understand this. He had the flecks to help him, so he wanted to gain another level, and condense the Five Qis in the Chest. It was possible that he could even have stepped into the realm of Immortals. These flecks were his trump card, they were at the foundation of all his practice. No-one except him knew that he relied on this Natal Sword in his practice. He had once killed four Three-flowered Human Immortals at the same level. And now, in his eyes, Zhou Bao would become the fifth!


    "This doesn''t seem right!" Dodging one strike after another, Zhou Bao felt the surrounding Sword Qi become increasingly intense, while his space became increasingly restricted. "If it goes on like this, I will be in big trouble!"

 746 The Flecks of the Immortal-slaying Sword and the Red Gourd Device Spiri

    The Sword Qi grew and became denser. There was a similar commotion to the time when Zhou Bao used his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword blade. There was less space for the Three Realms Division to teleport.


    Looking at the Sword Qi filling the sky, he was unable to dodge the attack anymore, so he stopped.


    "F*ck, get out of here!"


    When Zhou Bao shouted, it made the Mysterious Icy Divine Light within him move. Drawing on the Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, he struck with his fist, hitting the sword light which made a whizzing noise as it approached.


    Bang, bang, bang!


    Suddenly, a sound like rain persistently hitting a banana leaf came to Zhou Bao''s ears as he felt a stabbing pain in his fist. A killing intent thousands of times stronger than before came pouring into his fist, but it seemed to be blocked and could not move forward.


    "So this little power wants to block my mighty punch?", Zhou Bao laughed wryly, evil intent surging in his chest. The operating speed of the Mysterious Icy Divine Light suddenly doubled, and a dull blue ray emerged from his fist.


    Boom!


    There was a clear ringing sound, like the sound of shattering glass. Zhou Bao''s attack broke through all of its fetters and smashed the sword net formed by the Sword Qi.


    "Never mind about the Sword Qi, murderous intent, and innate killing intent. I need to cultivate my Vacuum-shattering Way. I need its power to smash everything in front of me, to smash all my enemies!"


    One punch worked, and Zhou Bao was happy again. Not only had he broken the opponent''s sword net in one strike, but he cleverly broke the bonds restricting him, and he felt a sense of achievement and security.


    In the past, when faced with such a situation, his first choice would not have been to use his fist, but to get out his twin hammers and start smashing frenetically. That way he could easily have broken the sword light and not be hurt, but in the end, he would still be relying on his tools and not his own strength.


    Although he could cultivate the twin hammers into a fairy weapon, this would also restrict the development of his smart thinking. It would make him too dependent on them and not believe in his own body strength. His physical strength lay at the very center of the Extreme Realm of Force and the Vacuum Shattering Way. To smash everything, in some sense, was contrary to the crushing vacuum way. Even if it were possible to reach his optimum attack force, it would be a huge barrier to his future practice.


    Now, while facing the threat of this boundless Sword Qi in this strange hollow, Zhou Bao finally extricated himself from his bind. In one strike he broke the sword net, and also controlled his opportunistic intention, and sought instead to refine his quick thinking.


    This refinement did not immediately improve Zhou Bao''s combat capability, but it was the greatest help to his future practice.


    The Three-flowered Human Immortal clearly did not expect Zhou Bao''s fist to break his sword net. While he was waiting for him to react, Zhou Bao had appeared right in front of him. He was shocked to find that the surrounding space had been completely frozen by a limitless freezing air.


    This was¡ª


    The dim blue ray started to flash in all directions. All of the Star Palace practitioners attacking Zhou Bao, including the three Human Immortals, started shivering uncontrollably. Then, a thick frost started to cover their bodies from head to toe, before turning them all into ice crystals. Then, in just a moment, all of the practitioners were frozen solid except for the three Human Immortal level practitioners who managed to free themselves from Zhou Bao''s Mysterious Icy Divine Light.


    "Ding¡ª!"


    Then a melodious sound rang out as Zhou Bao finally struck the Three-flowered Human Immortal, hitting his cyan Natal Sword.


    Not only did Zhou Bao make a critical hit with his Seven Wonderful Techniques, but he also channeled all of the power of the planet into his punch. It was as if Zhou Bao had not hit the Natal Sword, but the Natal Sword hit Zhou Bao''s hand. And because he could not bear the terrible oppressive force, every pore started oozing with blood.


    The melodious sound came from the cyan Natal Sword. The power of this Natal Sword was of course no less than the Yin and Yang Heavenly Natal Sword that Zhou Bao had refined. With one hit, the Sword Qi came surging and started to frantically cut Zhou Bao''s fist. A boundless killing intent spread into the Sword Qi, pulverizing the punch.


    The Three-flowered Human Immortal looked shocked at the turn of events as he looked at the place where the cyan Natal Sword hit Zhou Bao''s fist. He looked incredulous. "It''s impossible! It''s impossible! Who are you? Your physical body can withstand my Immortal-slaying Sword Qi! It''s impossible, simply impossible!"


    Refining the cyan Natal Sword was his life''s work, closely linked to his spirit. Zhou Bao appeared to be a match for the Natal Sword. In fact, the primordial spirit suffered heavy losses from Zhou Bao''s strike. The Three-flowered Human Immortal turned deathly pale, and blood came oozing up his throat. With great difficulty, he choked it back and did not spit it out.


    "Come on!"


    Now, Zhou Bao''s eyes turned fiery red. Everything turned greatly detailed in front of him. He smiled slightly as he looked at the Three-flowered Human Immortal in his predicament. He raised his fist again and slammed the cyan Natal Sword.


    "Clang!"


    At this point, the Three-flowered Human Immortal''s willpower had completely collapsed as he spat out blood. The cyan Natal Sword was shattered to pieces, the diamond-shaped gold flecks flickered inside the cyan Natal Sword and were laid bare for Zhou Bao to see.


    "It''s¡ª!" Zhou Bao was shocked. A red gourd inside his body throbbed. He had forgotten about this red gourd that had been hidden inside him all this time.


    Yes, the gourd throbbed. It was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon treasure identified by the Child-endowing Buddha. This time it was making its own unusual movements.


    The Child-endowing Buddha knew of the gourd''s origins, but he had some taboo about telling Zhou Bao about it. He had always wanted to get him to talk about the origins of this fairy weapon, but his attempts had all failed. Not only did the Child-endowing Buddha not tell him, but he even told Zhou Bao not to use it without a good reason.


    Zhou Bao was willing to listen to his advice. The Child-endowing Buddha was a Grand Demon of antiquity after all, and if he said Zhou Bao should not use it, then he would not do it. In fact, Zhou Bao was not short of fairy weapons, magic weapons, or strategies he could use against his opponents. Therefore, he never had to use that particular fairy weapon. Moreover, he had quickly forgotten about it. Therefore, he had never given it to his Dragon Chimera incarnation, it was just left behind.


    He would never have thought that it could actually have lead to such a lucky chance precisely because of that. After he had smashed the Three-flowered Human Immortal''s cyan Natal Sword, the red gourd started to react to the diamond-shaped gold flecks inside the sword.


    Ah!


    The flecks started to emit a huge murderous intent that broke free of the Natal Sword''s bind. These gold flecks were so strong, so formidable.


    In the blink of an eye, the Three-flowered Human Immortal was cut into shreds of meat by the Sword Qi and its murderous intent. The three remaining Human Immortals did not manage to escape either, they were all turned into piles of mincemeat.


    "No way! Could it be that this guy did not refine these flecks?" Zhou Bao was completely astounded to see the golden flecks act so ruthlessly against their own master. There was no way he could have expected this to happen.


    What happened next surprised him even more. The endless Sword Qi was coming out as if it had been restrained for countless years. It erupted everywhere as it surrounded the practitioners who were frozen to death by Zhou Bao''s Mysterious Divine Light. The Sword Qi then ruthlessly shattered them. Watching this, Zhou Bao did not dare to move.


    Yes, he indeed did not dare to move.


    He had the Zhuyan bloodline. He had the Immortal Body Technique, the Fiery Eyes, and the Flower of the Body as well. But he did not think that he had recovered enough after he was mangled by the fierce Sword Qi, especially after the spirit was turned into fragments of its Original Spirit. He believed that even if he had not died yet, he might become an idiot and a lunatic.


    The Sword Qi pervaded within a thousand miles crushing everything, including space, into a complete hollow.


    The Sword Qi that these diamond-shaped gold flecks dispersed could have been infinitely stronger than that of his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, and even more powerful than that stimulated by the Natal Sword. But most importantly, the biggest terror about the Sword Qi laid not in its formidable destructive power but in the murderous intent in it. It was this ferocious killing desire that had activated the red gourd.


    At this point, Zhou Bao was high in the sky, and the shadow of the red gourd suddenly appeared behind him, the murderous intent from the gourd spreading outwards. It started to pull the one contained within the Sword Qi, as if luring it, towards the mouth of the gourd.


    On one side, the diamond-shaped gold flecks were releasing their killing desire. On the other side, the red gourd was releasing its own to counter it. The battlerage approached the center between them from both sides, and after a while, the boundless murderous intent was completely dispersed from the Sword Qi, and the murderous intent from the gold flecks finally reached the mouth of the gourd.


    Suddenly, a small white tender hand came stretching out of the mouth of the gourd, grasping the diamond-shaped flecks of gold.


    "Looks like these are the flecks of the Immortal-slaying Sword. No wonder they have such a strong murderous intent!"


    While the small hand was grasping the gold specks, a child-like voice resounded, startling Zhou Bao.


    "Who are you?"


    "I am your little baby. I remember you. I seem to remember you stole my murderous intent to refine your Sword Qi." A thumb-sized baby climbed slowly out of the mouth of the gourd as it spoke. It was wearing over its chest a traditional Chinese red piece of clothing, just like the Ginseng babies in the cartoons of his previous life, pink and tender. After it appeared, it opened up its palm and laughed gleefully as it looked at the gold specks. It dropped the gold flecks into the shadow of the gourd. "How did you get like this? Someone has even taken your arm!"

 747 The Secondary Palace

    The baby was really pink, tender, and surprisingly cute. It looked around with its innocent eyes. But the things it said were not so pleasant.


    Seeing Zhou Bao with only one arm, it curled its lip in contempt. "I say, boy, your arm has not been cut off by the Immortal-slaying Sword, has it? So shameful! Oh, what''s that?"


    Zhou Bao smiled bitterly. The baby immediately recognized the red gourd and knew that it was the red gourd''s device spirit itself. The red gourd was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. After it was heavily damaged, it simply could not exert its original strength anymore. Now it was back to normal. The gourd seemed to have absorbed enough murderous intent that it had somehow awoken. The surprising thing was that an awakening device spirit sounded so strange.


    "Hey! Go and see what that thing is!"


    Zhou Bao quickly discovered the device spirit''s flaw. It had crawled out from the mouth of the red gourd''s shadow, but it obviously could not go far from it. It had sensed that there was something right in front of it but had no way of going over to see. It could only urge Zhou Bao to go over.


    Zhou Bao sneered slightly. He also thought something felt strange.


    Many practitioners from Star Palace were gathered. They certainly were not there to hang around chatting, they had something serious to do. They had most likely found an item like a hidden treasure in this meteor belt. Because the Immortal-slaying Sword had turned everything in a thousand-mile radius into nothingness, no matter how well hidden the Hidden Treasure was, by now it must have revealed its trace.


    "Oh, is it really a Hidden Treasure?"


    Indeed, it was. There were many practitioners in this world. Since the Primordial Origin, there have been countless Powerful Divines who had left behind mysterious treasures. These Powerful Divines could knead the Law of Space like a piece of dough, and the inhibition that they established could only be truly found by those ordained by fate to do so.


    This was just like the Hidden Treasure in front of him. It was hidden in a space the size of a speck of dust. It was uncertain how the Star Palace practitioners had managed to find it.


    After the attack of the Immortal-slaying Sword Sword Qi, there was only one place around where there was a faint light glistening.


    "Do you know what that Hidden Treasure is?" Zhou Bao asked, looking startled at the impatient baby.


    "I don''t know, but it feels very familiar to me." The baby shook his head and turned to look all around. It stretched out its arm and with it swept the surrounding space several times. "It seems this is the Easternmost Land. The Law of Space here is so solid, so it must be the Easternmost land. Let me have a look at that thing!"


    Zhou Bao reached out his hand and picked up the item with its weak rays. In his hands, Zhou Bao could feel that the object was about the size of a speck of dust, but it actually weighed more than forty thousand pounds. He picked it up carelessly and nearly dropped it.


    "Oh, so this is the secondary palace! Interesting. Did the Duke of the East also disappear? How could he have moved the secondary palace here? Even the inhibition is half destroyed!"


    "Who is the Duke of the East?" Asked Zhou Bao.


    "The Duke of the East was an expert from the ancient deities who controlled the Easternmost Land. But he disappeared during the end of the ancient deities period, and he lost his control over the Easternmost Land. He must have been destroyed!" the doll said nonchalantly.


    Zhou Bao had an idea. "Can you break the inhibition of the secondary palace?"


    "Of course I can!" the baby said proudly as a mournful murderous intent shimmered and died out again. The dim rays in his hand were energized, and what had been a tiny speck of light turned suddenly into a huge palace floating in the hollow."


    Is this... a Highest Heaven Celestial Device?"


    In Zhou Bao''s imagination, the secondary palaces of the experts of the ancient deities would have at least been fairy weapons. Even if they were not Supreme Fairy Weapons, they would at least be Taihao Fairy Weapons. But how was this only a Highest Heaven Celestial Device?


    "Yes, it''s a Highest Heaven Celestial Device." The baby looked at Zhou Bao and seemed to realize something. It said with a smile "Do you want some good stuff? In the ancient deities period, the palace of every Divine Tribe was a Highest Heaven Celestial Device, not a single one was a fairy weapon!"


    "Why?"


    "Why? Because a palace is just a place to live. All of the good stuff was hoarded by the ancient deities to build their three holy cities. Ninety-nine percent of the resources of the Void Universe were squandered on the origin, construction, and final fate of these cities. Therefore, they had just enough to suppress the whole world, and just enough to chase the Devil Tribe and the other Extraterritorial Area alien races out of the hollow. Their three holy cities were the only Supreme Fairy Weapons.


    "What you mean is, that this secondary palace won''t have any good stuff?" Zhou Bao looked at the Duke of the East''s dazzling building and was visibly disappointed.


    "It depends on how you think about it. An ordinary divine device is not a small thing, and there are magic weapons, materials, and mysterious objects too. It should be quite a good haul for you! Although this is just a secondary palace, the Duke of the East must have collected some interesting objects here."


    "Okay, then!" Zhou Bao felt inspired. He saw something in the corner of his eye. "There''s someone coming, let''s get out of here, first!"


    As he spoke he waved and channeled the secondary palace into his Supreme Fairy Weapon. His figure flashed. Using the Three Realms Division and quick body movements, he left the hollow that had been destroyed by the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi in an instant.


    After a short while, several Daoists appeared in the hollow. Their clothing was exactly the same as that of the Star Palace practitioners that Zhou Bao had just killed. This time there were not many, but they were all cultivated to Lord of Heaven and above, and led by one practitioner in the Human Immortal state.


    "What happened? Why is there nothing here?"


    "It seems it was Hou Ye''s Immortal-slaying Sword Qi. It has destroyed this hollow, but what happened to Hou Ye''s people?"


    A strange hollow appeared in front of them. Every practitioner in the group looked terrified.


    "Tian Quan, return immediately to the Star Palace and report what you saw here to the Palace Leader. Everyone else, stay here and look around with me. Search the entire meteor belt, then give me any news about Hou Ye and his men so I can find them." This Human Immortal ended up standing in the hollow for half a day and did not find any trace of the people he was looking for. His whole face turned deathly pale, and he screamed.


    "That damn secondary palace, still so damn poor!"


    While the Star Palace practitioners were frantically searching on the meteor belt, Zhou Bao already left. He had used his Infinite Realms Teleportation Skill three times in a row. He had just landed feet first on a vast planet and started to examine the loot he had just obtained from the secondary palace. It clearly was not what he wanted.


    "You''re saying that this guy was an expert of the ancient deities? How was he this poor? It''s all Taihao Fairy Weapons, at best Upper Grade. There is not even an Extreme Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. These Mysterious Objects aren''t bad, but I have no use for them!"


    "This is just a secondary palace of the Duke of the East. Perhaps it was barely worth keeping because it was not important. If it were an important palace, a real Palace of the East, then the inside would have been completely empty by now!" the baby said unhappily. "There''s no less than nineteen Taihao Fairy Weapons! You are not satisfied, yet what would you do with so many fairy weapons?"


    "Is it no good for me to bring them to do somebody a favor?", Zhou Bao said, also unhappily. "And what about you? You''re the gourd''s device spirit, right? How come you have only now come out?"


    "Your vision is pretty good! Yes, I am the gourd''s device spirit, and that is the reason I have only now come out; because I thought you should know about me!" The baby laughed mischievously. "You really didn''t think that you would find enough flecks from the Immortal-slaying Sword. Luckily you did! Otherwise, I would not have come out!"


    "Those flecks, where did you put them?"


    "Those flecks are useless to you, but they are a small advantage to me. I have already absorbed all of their murderous intent." The baby gestured with a nonchalant expression, making Zhou Bao almost irate.


    "Okay, then. I''m not going to ask you for the flecks. But you still haven''t told me what use you have for them!"


    "Me? I have no use for them! But if you get any good stuff, I can help you keep it!" The baby had a crafty look on his face. "There''s nothing else I can do!"


    "Hey, don''t mess around with me! You have such a huge murderous intent, you cannot play such an ordinary role!" Zhou Bao said.


    "Murderous intent? What kind of murderous intent? My murderous intent was produced during the origin of primitive times, do you think you would be able to use it?" The baby curled up its lip in contempt. "I''m telling you, as well as the Sword Qi murderous intent you practiced before, I can help you a bit. But if you want anything else, you can forget about it. I''ve been too badly hurt, I''ve only recovered a little bit of spiritual sense, that''s it. You will need too much Dharma power to activate my body. Your Mysterious Icy Divine Light is of supreme quality, but it is still far from enough. If you activate me by force, it will backfire because of my murderous intent. You would die before you even knew what happened!" The baby said with an expert tone to Zhou Bao, "I see that you have just condensed your Three Flowers. Wait until you are cultivated to the Immortal phase, then you might be able to do it."


    "Really? Is it that difficult?"


    "If you don''t believe me, you can give it a try. When my murderous intent backfires, don''t blame me!" The baby grinned. "I have only just recovered a bit of my Original Spirit, I do not have the strength to restrict my murderous intent. So you cannot count on me to help you out!"


    "So, where did you actually come from?" Zhou Bao could do nothing to persuade him. He wanted to try but was not brave enough. So he had no choice but to give up.


    "I don''t know my origin either. I told you, I have only recovered a little bit of Original Spirit. There are still so many things I can''t remember!"


    "Then how did you immediately recognize that this was the Easter Land and that Hidden Treasure was the Duke of the East''s secondary palace?"


    "Don''t be stupid, I didn''t lose all my memory!" the baby said with an impatient and disappointed expression.

 748 The Strange Baby

    That damn strange baby!


    Zhou Bao didn''t know how many times he swore thinking about that baby, but he had no way of dealing with it.


    He did not know whether the baby was telling the truth about losing his memory, but he could not get a shred of information from him about his origin. Just like the Child-endowing Buddha, he kept his mouth shut.


    Either he was ashamed of his origin, or he really had forgotten!


    After negotiating for a long time with no clear conclusion, Zhou Bao stopped asking about the origin of this thing and stopped counting on that fairy weapon. He started to ask about the situation in this Star Area.


    "You know this is the Easternmost Land, is there anything to be gained here?"


    "The Easternmost Land is the Duke of the East''s private area. All of the good stuff is in his Palace of the East and secondary palace. It''s been such a long time that even if there is good stuff, you won''t be able to get hold of it!" the baby said. "This Star Area is huge, about the same as other places in the Void Universe. Here the Law of Space is very strict. Even if you were proficient in the Great Way of Heavens and Realms, you couldn''t just do as you please here. So the Palace of the East built many Transmitting Formations in the Easternmost Land, which were used especially for communication between all places in all Star Areas. I remember there being one near here!"


    "So, you mean that the strict Law of Space is exactly the same everywhere else?


    "Yes, at least in antiquity!" The baby thought for a moment. "By the way, boy, why did you come to the Easternmost Land? Aren''t you from the Heaven Realm World?"


    "I came to walk around, figure out my fist intent, and to work on my cultivation!" Zhou Bao intended to be clear about his purpose. "I unintentionally refined my simulated universe fist intent. But my punching skill has not changed, so I came to this Void Universe to walk around and find some inspiration to try to advance."


    "What simulated universe are you talking about?" The baby was startled by what Zhou Bao had said. He was just casually enquiring and had found out about this thing. "Your fist intent is in a simulated universe! Quick, let me see, let me see!"


    "Why should I?"


    "I might be able to help you!" the baby said. "I may only be a device spirit, but before, I traveled around the entire Void Universe. Also, I was born in the Primordial Origin period and have a deep understanding of the essence of this universe. I could certainly help you!"


    "Didn''t you say you lost your memory?"


    "I have lost some memories, but I remember things that might help you, okay?"


    "God damn it!" Zhou Bao nearly punched it. "Okay then, if you want to look then have a look. But if you don''t give me any suggestions, then I''ll seal you back up and you won''t see the light of day any time soon!"


    This was not an empty threat. Zhou Bao had the Supreme Fairy Weapon Black Pearl on him, which had the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. It would be no problem to inhibit this Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    While speaking, Zhou Bao launched his fist intent. Immediately, a vast, boundless spirit was dispersed from him. The baby was stunned to find it had come out of the shadow of the gourd into an empty part of the universe. This part of the universe was indeed vast and open, but the things inside it were tiny. In the distance, a small galaxy could be seen shining in the darkness, as well as some starlights. Everywhere else was just space, an endless void.


    "Whoosh!"


    A tiny pulse of murderous intent flashed through Zhou Bao''s body, and his expression changed. Feeling a slight chill flash through his fist intent he shuddered, and the slight chill dispersed. The baby''s Original Spirit returned to the top of the red gourd.


    "Darling, darling, it''s so terrible! You can''t imagine how lucky you are that you actually managed to refine this fist intent. The things inside it might not be so good and has not changed much, but the universe is the essence of your fist intent. My boy, I think you don''t want to spend your entire life replenishing your fist intent. Only if you get to a permanent phase will it be possible!"


    "I am not planning on replenishing my fist intent!" Zhou Bao laughed mischievously. "My fist intent might not be the best, but in this era, it is enough to protect my life. The only thing I want now is for my punching skill to change so that I can slowly improve my fist intent, which can''t be difficult!"


    "It''s not difficult!" The baby thought for a moment. "If you just want to walk around in the Void Universe, look around more, and comprehend the true essence of the universe, then it won''t be difficult. But I have seen the simulated universe for your fist intent. It doesn''t seem to be a Void Universe at all, in some places it seems to be slightly different."


    He laughed. "If I am too young to comprehend my fist intent, then how could I know how the Void Universe looks? The galaxies and vast planets inside are things I added after entering the hollow!" Zhou Bao laughed to divert attention from the matter, but it was clear the baby thought this way. "You are clearly brave, having dared to understand this fist intent when you were so young, and you also have the Zhuyan bloodline, as well as the Icy Divine Light of the Frost Giant. You have practiced your Extreme Realm of Force and 3,000 Great Ways, in addition to your crushing vacuum. Haha, it''s so interesting, I really want to see if you can use the crushing vacuum properly!"


    "But you need such a strong cultivation for the crushing vacuum!"


    "A strong cultivation?" The baby laughed. "Right now you are only a Human Immortal. You need to reach the peak of Earthly Immortal to really comprehend the Extreme Realm of Force and crushing vacuum. To take this step, you need to rise to the level of a Celestial Immortal. Did you know that Celestial Immortals are of the Primordial Origin? They are so rare!"


    "What about the Seven Wonderful Techniques? I''m familiar with those, right?"


    "The Seven Wonderful Techniques?" The baby looked stunned at Zhou Bao. Looking him up and down and sizing him up, he suddenly asked, "How many of the Seven Wonderful Techniques do you know?"


    "Five?"


    "Five? Which five?" the baby jumped up and shouted in excitement.


    "The Heavenly Jade Technique, Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, Immortal Body Technique, Dharma Power-restoring Skill and the Red Scorpion Concentration Skill."


    "No wonder you can condense the Three Flowers above the Head! And no wonder you chose the Extreme Realm of Force! The Vacuum-shattering Way is actually something you can consistently rely on!"


    "Do you also know the Seven Wonderful Techniques?"


    "What the hell do I know? I''m a device spirit, I can''t practice!" the baby said moodily. "Anyway, these Seven Wonderful Techniques are some of the strongest Divine Senses of Primordial Origin. Did you think it was something special? Everyone can use it!" The baby paused. "So have you already condensed your Tree of the Seven Wonders?"


    "My what?"


    "Your Tree of the Seven Wonders! You know five of the Seven Wonderful Techniques, and you have a Human Immortal cultivation. You are qualified to concentrate your Tree of Seven Wonders, aren''t you?"


    "You know quite a lot! There seems to be a strange sapling growing in my Dantian. It doesn''t seem to have a great effect on my Three Flowers above the Head. I have no clue how to use it!"


    "That''s how it is with the Seven Wonderful Techniques, you don''t need to know how to use them!" the baby said. You can''t use it until you have fully learned all of them. Right now you only have two left, but they are not easy to find!"


    "Do you know where I can find them?"


    The baby shook its head. "I don''t know. In any case, they''re not in the Easternmost Land. The Duke of the East was beaten up by someone who knew the Seven Wonderful Techniques, so all the guys who knew them were banished from the Easternmost Land."


    "Unbelievable!"


    "In remote antiquity, all the deities were constantly fighting. The innumerable Divine Tribes were engaged in countless battles of all sizes. Haha, so interesting, right?"


    "You even know so much about the ancient deities. Being born in the Primordial Origin, it seems you are very intelligent."


    "Little baby, I think you are quite smart! That''s not going to get me to tell you about my origin. I can''t tell you, I have forgotten!"


    Zhou Bao grinned. "Well, you know the story about how I came to the Easternmost Land. Do you have any advice?"


    "Keep going. You need to replenish your fist intent, it won''t do you any harm. The Law of Space is rigid in the Easternmost Land, but everything else is no different from the Void Universe. I know of some very strange places I could take you to. There you can gain some knowledge for your fist intent and realize the deep secrets of the universe. But first, you need to find a Transmitting Formation, using the Great Way of Heavens and Realms in this location is not at all convenient for someone with your cultivation and speed. It would take 70 or 80 years to get to the place I am talking about!"


    "You''re right". Zhou Bao knew that what this guy was saying was true. This so-called Easternmost Land was so endlessly vast, that at his speed it would take him a few days or even a few months to travel from one planet to another. This star area had so many vast planets, and the Easternmost Land had countless Star Areas. If he wanted to travel around it with his own strength, heaven knows he would need many months. So, in the end, it was quicker to just use the Transmitting Formation. Of course, they had to find it first.


    "Do you know where the Transmitting Formation is?"


    "This Star Area is at the very edge of the Easternmost Land. You have only crossed the outermost meteor belt!"


    "So what?"


    "I''ve been here before, so I''m quite familiar with it. I remember that within this meteor belt there are in total 1,850 Transmitting Formations. You just need to find one of those!"


    "1,850! So many?"


    "That''s not much at all. Did you see how many vast planets there are around us? This is the outermost region of the Easternmost Land, and that is why the Transmitting Formations are so common. In the Easternmost Land, they are usually installed in one of two types of places. One is important locations, and the other is planets with life. Right now you don''t have a Void Map, so there''s no way for you to be sure which direction the relevant locations are in. So, if you want to find a Transmitting Formation, you have to look for those planets with life. And if I were you, I would follow that group we saw!"

 749 The News

    "Damn it. Follow them! I thought you would know what to do!"


    A boat-shaped Highest Heaven Celestial Device was traveling at high speed in the hollow. From time to time, Zhou Bao could feel the device breaking into one space after another. It folded the space, which was different to the Infinite Realms Teleportation Device and any supreme celestial devices, which just ripped it open. This boat-shaped Highest Heaven Celestial Device jumped in space, and when it jumped it did not break it. This way it did not have to expend too much energy. It was not as extreme as in other places where you would break open millions of miles of space, but it was still much quicker than simply gliding through space.


    By this time, Zhou Bao''s severed left arm had completely regrown. The regeneration capacity of the Immortal Body Technique, Flowers of the Body, Primordial Fierce Beast, and Demonic Ape Zhuyan could all have allowed him to regrow his arm in a short amount of time. If it weren''t for the fact that he needed to dispel the extreme murderous intent from the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi remaining in his body, he could have regrown his arm much earlier.


    "I know there is a Transmitting Formation around here, but I don''t know its precise location. If you search for it using my method, you will surely be able to find it. But it would take too much time!" The baby laughed gleefully. "Following them and hiding in the dark will work as well, and it will also help us understand more the state of the Easternmost Land!"


    The practitioners of the Star Palace searched the meteor belt but found no results. The Human Immortal felt that this part of the hollow was too strange, and so he made the decision that they should go back to the Star Palace. Zhou Bao seized this opportunity to hide with the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill his spirit and followed their Highest Heaven Celestial Device.


    Inside the Highest Heaven Celestial Device, the Star Palace practitioners had fallen into an anxious gloom.


    "Now the Star Palace is in deep trouble!"


    All of the practitioners understood this. Indeed, this time the Star Palace incurred big losses, 12 Human Immortals and a Three-flowered Human Immortal had disappeared without a trace. You could say that this boded complete disaster, and certainly it really did damage the Star Palace''s pneuma. All of the practitioners inside the Highest Heaven Celestial Device were direct descendant disciples of the palace, and their own fate was dangerously bound to that of the palace. It really was the case that if one prospered, they all prospered, and if one suffered, they all suffered. How could they not look distressed?


    "Your Excellency, Marquis Ling Jian is unaccounted for, it is not known whether he is alive or dead. If we go back like this¡ª¡ª!"


    "Marquis Ling Jian has a rare treasure for protection, and he is cultivated to the realm of Three Flowers. Even he has no say over whether he lives or dies, and you think that it would make sense for us to stay in that place?"


    The Human Immortal who was clearly the leader of the practitioners stared angrily at the man who just spoke. "If we lose anything else here, then the strength of my Star Palace in the Easternmost Land will plummet, and we will be reduced to a second-rate clan. Could we really shoulder such blame?"


    "Yes, Your Excellency. I don''t know what I was thinking." The practitioner who made the suggestion went pale and slowly retreated.


    "Ah, this guy is interesting! He clearly fears death, but what he said made it seem like withdrawing would be committing some great crime. Very interesting!"


    "Such a guy will probably not live long!" The baby smiled mischievously. "We just don''t know if this Star Palace is far from here. We don''t even know how long it will take to get there!"


    "Are you in a hurry?"


    "No. It''s just that being stuck in this Highest Heaven Celestial Device gets a bit boring. It''s not as good as¡ª¡ª!" While he was speaking, the baby saw that Zhou Bao bore a strange expression.


    "Hey, what''s up with you?"


    "Shush! Be quiet and listen¡ª¡ª!"


    Zhou Bao hushed the baby and listened carefully.


    "What are you listening to that''s so intriguing?" At that point, he noticed that Zhou Bao had already left the main hall and had gone to one of the side chambers.


    Although the Highest Heaven Space in the Highest Heaven Celestial Device was not as vast as that in the macro world, it was no less than one state of the Jin dynasty. The space inside was huge, and what was more, this Star Palace did not have the space it originally had in the Star Area. The inside was so elegant, with countless halls linked together. The space that this leader occupied was only one main hall. Besides that, there were many side halls. The entire palace was suspended in the air, but there was still some firm ground in its mid-air location, even a few mountains. In addition to the practitioners were also some common people in the Highest Heaven Celestial Device. These were all servants whose job was to watch for the practitioners'' needs. Zhou Bao also found that, strangely enough, there were towns and cities. Many common people seemed to live in them and had never left.


    The Human Immortal that led them was obviously a reclusive character because he drove out all the people out of the main hall after a business was taken care of. All of the practitioners had their own living spaces in the side-halls of the palace. These people were certainly noisier than the leader. They had gathered in one place and started chatting. Zhou Bao realized that they were actually chatting about the Heaven Realm World.


    "I heard that the Holy Alliance of the Central Pole Region wanted to take the lead in dealing with the Heaven Realm World. They encountered just a small difficulty and did not continue any further. Now some of the macro worlds in the Central Pole Region and some of the huge influences like the Holy Alliance have started to get in contact with the Heaven Realm World!"


    "Yes, this time they were showing off. Before that, everybody was saying that the Heaven Realm World were waning and that they had scarce pneuma. No-one had thought that with the appropriate practice they would have shown such ability. I heard that the Heaven Realm World has laid out a Yin and Yang Dust Formation, a killing formation for the big three of antiquity times, and it is still undamaged. My fellow men, if one of these members of the Holy Alliance gets hold of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, there is nothing we can do!"


    "Of course. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation and the antiquity killing formation can be taken care of with some of the Holy Alliance''s fleet. Besides, the Heaven Realm World is now in the West Wilds, very far from the Central Pole Region. I think that even if the Holy Alliance could get their hands on the Heaven Realm World, they wouldn''t be able to keep it for long. The various influences of the West Wilds would unite to resist it."


    "So what if the two of them rise? Did you not see that the Holy Alliance has already occupied the Infinite Star Sea? The Infinite Star Sea is in the West Wilds! And I don''t see anyone daring do anything!", another practitioner said contemptuously. "I''m telling you, the West Wilds have been on the decline for a long time, the pneuma there is of poor quality, resources are scarce, no great power could ever arise there. There''s no way any great influence such as the Holy Alliance could develop there. So don''t take them too seriously!"


    "If the West Wilds is not good enough, then what about the Northern Sea, and South China? What about the Eastern Land? No matter where you go there is someone with exclusive power. If the Holy Alliance really could get hold of the Heaven Realm World, then so be it. How can we know they have not already gotten hold of it by now?"


    "If they haven''t seized it, then so what? Then it ends up with the Eastern Land and not with us. The Heaven Realm World is in the Desolate Ancient Star Area of the West Wilds, but we are in the Easternmost Land. They are in the same boat as us. I think that our biggest advantage over the Heaven Realm World is that our pneuma is sufficient, that''s all. But if we let the Holy Alliance fleet come and attack, then I fear we would not be able to resist it at all!"


    "So what you''re saying is that we are okay, the Palace Leaders are okay, and no-one wants to think about the Heaven Realm World? We cannot be resigned to this! It was not okay before, and now every great influence has started negotiating with them, making our case even more hopeless!"


    "That''s right. After they are done negotiating, I fear the structure of this hollow will change. Haha, the Heaven Realm World can now communicate with the Void Immortal Realm, and their Immortals have the best combat capabilities of all. The Earthy Immortals have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Supposing they came out, with so many Star Areas, such a large hollow, so many elders of astonishing talent, they would not be able to complete the last half-step. Now it is different. If the passageway of the Heaven Realm World were connected, the mightiest of the Immortal Realm would be able to guide every sect of the Immortals into the Void Immortal Realm. It''s no effort to break into the Earthly Immortal way. And supposing the Void Immortal Realm starts to communicate once again with the hollow, with the backing of the Void Immortal Realm, the Void Universe could become greatly more resilient and adaptable. At that point, the Human Immortals would be able to operate freely within the void, just like in antiquity. Allegedly the Immortals could exercise their power in whichever way they wished as it used to be in antiquity, and that was to say nothing of the Human Immortals!"


    "So optimistic! You''re right, if the Void Immortal Realm really is linked together, then it would be possible to restore the prosperity of antiquity. But with your own strength, would you perhaps want to achieve Human Immortal Karmic Rank?"


    "Why would I not be able to achieve Human Immortal Karmic Rank? You don''t know how amazing my luck is. In one move I could become an Immortal, or even achieve Earthly Immortal Karmic Rank!"


    "Forget about it! Do you truly think that Immortal and Earthly Immortal Karmic Ranks are that easy to achieve?"


    "Not necessarily!"


    While listening to the discussion, Zhou Bao unexpectedly came to understand the Heaven Realm World''s situation. The thing that most surprised him was that practitioners in such a strange Star Area could know about the Heaven Realm World. For sure, it was extremely far from here. One was in the far west, and the other one was in the far east, so there was not much communication between the two. But the situation with the Heaven Realm world could not have happened even a month before they found out, maybe even less than a month. This could only mean that the Easternmost Land had communication with every place in the hollow. It was even possible that the practitioners of all of the hollow had formed one entity, and the Heaven Realm World had been excluded from it, but this news had not gotten through. Now the news about the Heaven Realm World had leaked, and that would certainly spread throughout the Void Universe. The only thing that was unknown is whether this would spell good news or bad news for the Heaven Realm World itself.

 750 Five Parties

    Zhou Bao had no idea if Heaven Realm World merging into the huge melting pot, the Void Universe, was a disaster or a blessing. The Highest Heaven Celestial Device had finally stopped after 10 days of flying. In these 10 days, Zhou Bao heard a lot from the practitioners at the Palace about Heaven Realm World. Overall, from the information he received, the situation in Heaven Realm World was still good, leaning more towards the ''very good'' side. After the Holy Alliance failed, no other influence was willing to be embarrassed again.


    Zhou Bao left his incarnation in Heaven Realm World. However, it was kept in a closed-door training situation, which limited its knowledge. Besides, even if the incarnation knew anything, it would only be about some minor incidents happening inside Heaven Realm World. It had no information about the reaction of those in the hollow towards Heaven Realm World showing up again.


    "Seems like Heaven Realm World really lives to its name! After so many years, the Void Universe hasn''t forgotten about it at all! Once it appeared, there was huge chaos everywhere!"


    "Obviously! Heaven Realm World has a passageway to the Void Immortal Realm. With this connection to the Void Immortal Realm, Immortals can walk on a super wide path on their journey to become Earthly Immortals. Who will be willing to give up such good benefits?" The little doll listened to Zhou Bao''s speech and laughed coldly, "In the antiquity times, being an Earthly Immortal was almost like being an emperor. Although it was not included as part of the 99 Emperors, it was enough to rule a Star Area. At the very least, it could allow one to be a Realm Lord. In dire conditions, one could at least cultivate a macro world. As long as enough pneuma had been gathered, one could live forever. There was nothing to fear!"


    "How about Immortals? Didn''t Immortals have to go through tribulations?"


    "No, Immortals themselves do not go through tribulations. They will only have an Earthly Immortal Tribulation when they break through to the Earthly Immortal. Therefore they are the most relaxed ones among the lot. However, this so-called carefree and no tribulations conditions only meant that they themselves have no tribulations. Once the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth starts, these Immortals will be reduced to ashes. Their small worlds cannot withstand the true attack of the mighty powers. Only those Earthly Immortals who have refined a macro world have a chance of escaping from the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth!"


    "Tribulation of Heaven and Earth? What''s that? Is it like the Necromancer''s Tribulation from before?"


    "Necromancer''s Tribulation, hahaha, that was considered as a minor tribulation only. Now, in this Void Universe, only an attack from the Primordial Demon of the Devil Realm is qualified to be called a tribulation. But that is still not the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth. The real one can destroy all things. Even if you have a cultivation of the Celestial Immortal phase, you cannot withstand it totally. Earthly Immortals will suffer greater losses while Immortals cannot withstand it at all! Hence, without an Earthly Immortal cultivation and without refining a macro world, there''s a 99% chance that you will be reduced to ashes when the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth comes. That''s what happens when you have a carefree way of life!"


    "Sounds like you have undergone the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth before!"


    "That''s right, I have undergone the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth before. That is why I ended up like this. If not, why do you think I am such a mess now?" While talking about the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth, the little doll''s face held traces of lingering fear, as if recalling something scary. "I was born during the Primordial Origin. I was carrying the first congenital killing intent back then. I did nothing to receive Karma and wasn''t supposed to be in the tribulation. Hehe, after experiencing the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth twice, I was still fine! After the second tribulation, my spiritual intelligence was suddenly awakened! Once it opened up, I started to think about many things and ended up receiving my karma. I was seriously injured in the third Tribulation of Heaven and Earth. After that, I focused on recovering. But who knew that I would trigger something that I shouldn''t have. I was almost destroyed. Till today, I have only recovered a little bit of my Original Spirit!" Speaking of which, he lifted his head and glanced at Zhou Bao, "The third Tribulation of Heaven and Earth was the downfall of many spirits. It was also the tribulation that ended the era of the ancient deities. I was injured then!"


    "The downfall of many spirits, Tribulation of Heaven and Earth? If that''s the case, then the Necromancer''s Tribulation in the antiquity times cannot be counted as a Tribulation of Heaven and Earth. However, for the past 800,000 odd years, so many things have changed, they are not the same as they used to be. Times are different now!"


    "You''re wrong, the time change only happened in Heaven Realm World; the Void Universe did not change!" The little doll continued, "The whole Void Universe is still functioning like how it used to in Heaven Realm World during the antiquity times; it''s just that Heaven Realm World has disappeared. To you people from Heaven Realm World, the antiquity times may have ended, but for the whole Void Universe, it merely underwent a minor tribulation. 810,000 years, hehe, you need to understand, during the era of the ancient deities, the spirits could sleep way longer than that! It is not too long a time that it should be deemed unacceptable by anyone. Furthermore, the inheritance from antiquity times was not cut off. If I am not wrong, many of the Realm Lords of the macro world, as well as the First Elders who are controlling the macro world from behind the scenes, are still the same bunch of old guys who have undergone the Necromancer''s Tribulation! 810,000 years to them is a joke, just enough to take a snooze!"


    "Hehe!" After hearing the little doll''s words, Zhou Bao laughed drily. 810,000 years was the span of a countless number of lifetimes for ordinary people. However, in the eyes of the little doll, it was just enough time for a quick nap. This was not a small difference!


    The Highest Heaven Celestial Device of Star Palace was located in a fancy and bustling macro world.


    In reality, this Highest Heaven Celestial Device had entered the internal layer of the Star Area on the fifth day. It was then that Zhou Bao noticed the increasing numbers of Highest Heaven Celestial Devices flying into the Star Area. They were of all shapes and sizes and some even had all kinds of symbols on them. They resembled those spaceships that Zhou Bao had seen in the Sci-Fi movies in his past life. The only difference now was that there were no ports for these Highest Heaven Celestial Devices to park in the Star Area. That was because the Highest Heaven Celestial Devices could shrink and expand easily. Once they reach their destination, they could stow in the body. Hence, there was no need for these ports.


    There were no ports, but there were many planets of all sizes that had been created. After entering the inner layer of the Star Area, Zhou Bao was amazed to find that almost all the floating planets in the hollow had buildings on them. Furthermore, they were all densely located. Some were new while some were very old. This was an eye-opener for Zhou Bao.


    When he visited the Infinite Star Sea previously, he had been amazed by how the two Star Areas that occupied the Infinite Star Sea had managed to develop it. However, that was truly a wilderness when compared to this Star Area in front of him now.


    At the same time, he also realized that there were a large number of practitioners in this Star Area. In this Star Area, there were planets just like earth; it had a big atmosphere surrounding it for ordinary people to live in. However, there were also other planets that were either floating in the hollow or simply did not have such a huge atmosphere. Those living in them were all practitioners. It was due to this that Zhou Bao realized another strange phenomenon. The planets in the hollow were mostly refined. Zhou Bao saw, with his own eyes, a small planet that had an extremely tiny surface area but was enveloped by an atmosphere. Not only were there many ordinary people living on it, but there was also even a sect that was in total control of these people.


    "There is nothing strange about this, this is what the Void Universe is truly like. These refined planets in the hollow are all made up of small sects and gangs. Their existence is like ashes, and their strongest fighters are merely Human Immortals. They don''t even have Human Immortals of Three Flower phase. They have very limited numbers of Human Immortals too. For example, Star Palace may sound nice, but in this Easternmost Land, they are not a big school. At most, they can only be ranked as a middle-lower school. Their sect will not be in the macro world but on a naturally-formed vast planet. There may be a micro world that''s full of pneuma inside the sect, that is their source, and maybe Star Palace is the name of that micro world!"


    "This is really an eye-opener!"


    After entering the internal layer of the Star Area, Zhou Bao focused on his surroundings. He had mixed feelings of shock, envy and curiosity. His reaction led the little doll to look down on him. "This is just Easternmost Land; it is considered a rural part of the Void Universe. Not even one Star Area has been developed completely. Once you reach other parts of the Void Universe, not including the Central Pole Region, you''ll notice that even the West Wilds, South China, the Eastern Land, and the North Sea are more prosperous than this place!"


    "West Wilds, South China, the Eastern Land, North Sea, and the Central Pole Region...these seem to be the five directions of the hollow! Were they also known as this too during the antiquity times?"


    "Yes, this is according to the five main spirit fields during the ancient deities era. After their downfall, their names became what it is today. Furthermore, it seems like the present names had not been changed. Hence, after the downfall of the era of the ancient deities, this Void Universe did not have a new Tribulation of Heaven and Earth. If it was a real one, then everything would be changed, whatever that''s left will just be legendary tales!"


    "I don''t care anymore, this place is quite new, let me look around!"


    Just like what the little doll said, Star Palace was really not much of a big school in this part of the Star Area. Hence, their place of origin did not exist in the macro world, but on a vast planet. It was just that this vast planet had such a different amount of pneuma when compared to Heaven Realm World. Its surface area was extremely large as well. However, most of the occupants on this vast planet were ordinary people and practitioners were the minority group. Even so, the ability of this Star Palace was not comparable to those sects in the Seven-deity Regions. The strongest Highest Elder in the sect of Seven-deity Regions in Heaven Realm World, was merely at the Human Immortal rank. In fact, he was a beginner Human Immortal. However, Star Palace had tens of Human Immortals. It also had two Human Immortals who had reached the Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint realm. There were also a few fairy weapons in the palace that was capable of suppressing their fate. This capability was several times higher than the sect in the Seven-deity Regions.


    However, even this ability was considered as that of a lower-middle rank in this part of the Star Area. It could not be compared with the real big sects. Those sects occupied one macro world and had access to an ocean of resources and also possessed a terrifying ability.

 751 Eastern Thunder World

    Zhou Bao looked around as he wandered about the bustling town. He was indeed curious about this Vast Planet that was controlled by Star Palace. There were countless ordinary people, countries and schools of all sizes on this vast planet. However, all these schools belonged to the martial arts world; Only Star Palace was a school for Immortal cultivation.


    Here, there was a stark distinction between ordinary people and the Immortals. To Star Palace, the only purpose the numerous martial arts schools served was their sending over of outstanding disciples every now and then. These pupils helped to increase their number of disciples. Other than that, Star Palace did not care about them at all. And as for the ordinary people, they were not even aware of the palace''s existence at all. Many of them did not even believe that practitioners existed in this world.


    To them, practitioners were the same as con men.


    Hence, those passing by Zhou Bao now, were all ordinary people. Zhou Bao lost all interest in Star Palace. Although his ability surpassed that of the sects in the Seven-deity Regions, that was good news for Heaven Realm World and the entire hollow. Hence, his ability did not have any adverse effect on them.


    "This world is similar to that of Jin, although there are fewer practitioners here. The density of the essence here is also similar. But one is a vast planet and the other is a macro world. Resources wise, they do not match each other at all. Although Heaven Realm World does not have that many resources, it has a huge surface area. The surface area of this vast planet is not even half of a region in the Seven-deity Regions. Furthermore, there are so many people here, how could there be enough resources for all of them to practice!"


    After walking one round, Zhou Bao used his divine thoughts to scan the entire vast planet and was well aware of the current situation. After that, he seemed a bit uninterested.


    Feeling a little annoyed and as he prepared to leave, his expression suddenly changed. He lifted his head, furrowed his eyebrows and looked up at the sky, "What the heck, Highest Heaven Celestial Device?"


    As Zhou Bao lifted his head, a small fleet comprising of more than 20 Highest Heaven Celestial Devices flew in from outside the vast planet that Star Palace was in. "Star Palace, your days of influence are over; surrender quickly, unless you want these countless living creatures to be buried with you!"


    A loud voice thundered and spread throughout the whole vast planet, causing an instant commotion.


    "What is that sound?"


    "Star Palace, what place is that?"


    "What''s happening, is there something wrong with my ears?!"


    ...


    The people around Zhou Bao were ordinary people and naturally did not know what that sentence meant. Most of them even thought that it was a prank played by the martial arts practitioners, using their internal strength to shout. Only those super big sects in the martial arts world, like the Shaolin sect, who were a little aware about the real situation, became very nervous and stunned.


    There was complete chaos in Star Palace!


    "Celestial Sea School, this is outright bullying!" A huge roar came from the main hall of Star Palace.


    The main hall was located at the peak of the tallest mountain on the planet. It was floating among the clouds. It was an upper class Highest Heaven Celestial Device and also the only one in Star Palace.


    "Palace Leader, please calm down; there are numerous strange things about this incident!"


    "Of course!"


    The Palace Leader of Star Palace was still a Human Immortal. His ability was not the strongest among all the Human Immortals, but he was very capable. In just a little under 1000 years, he had managed to get Star Palace back on track. He was also the legitimate son of a Three-flowered Human Immortal. Hence, he had great authority in the palace.


    "Something happened to our people of Star Palace outside of the Star Area and the Celestial Sea School managed to catch up with them so swiftly. What does this say? This means that there''s a spy in our Star Palace!" The Palace Leader had a stern look on his face as he spoke, "Ever since something happened to Marquis Ling Jian, the palace had blocked off all information at once. Furthermore, the disciples who returned from the periphery of the Star Area were also under instant inhibition. Hence, it is only myself and a few Elders who were aware about this information. In such a situation, the news still managed to leak out. This means that the problem lies among the few of us!"


    "You mean to say that there''s a spy among the Elders?"


    "Of course!"


    "Then..."


    "The second eldest of Celestial Sea School has done some deep analysis of the situation, so if he isn''t confident he wouldn''t go out at all. Since he is here now, then that means all support is on standby. Seeing as to how Star Palace''s pneuma has been heavily depleted recently, we are not a match for them!" The Palace Leader of Star Palace was a clear-minded person and after his initial anger, he thought through the key points of the situation. "We''ll go now, get into action immediately! Using Star Palace to kill your way through, hmph. Star Palace is an upper-level Highest Heaven Celestial Device, as long as we are set on leaving, even the Celestial Sea School cannot hold us back!"


    "Ah? Palace Leader, then here - !"


    Seeing the Elder''s shocked expression, the Palace Leader laughed coldly.


    ¡­


    "This is interesting; this is the practitioners'' world, but we have a war among the planets!" Seeing the radiant light shooting out from the Highest Heaven Celestial Device, Zhou Bao could not help but laugh bitterly. These were all Lower Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, except for one Upper-Grade device that was shaped like a loft. Hence, the attack they fired were like Void-breaking bombs. It was like watching the earth being invaded by spaceships from the universe.


    However, the attacks from these Highest Heaven Celestial Devices were much weaker than the Void-breaking Bombs of the Holy Alliance. The power of the bombs were extremely strong, but he did not know that it would also use up a huge amount of Spiritual Stones and Mysterious Objects. The Holy Alliance had a limited influence in the hollow. Thus, it was able to equip itself with these things on its own Highest Heaven Celestial Device. However, be it Star Palace or Celestial Sea School, they were all small influences in the hollow. They did not have that many resources to equip their Highest Heaven Celestial Device with that kind of weapons. In the Easternmost Land, the Void-breaking Bomb was the secret weapon of the Highest Heaven Celestial Device. It could not be used easily.


    "It looks like Celestial Sea School is Star Palace''s enemy. I''m not sure how, but they learned that Star Palace''s pneuma is severely depleted and came over immediately. Seems that they want to take over this vast planet and make it their own!" The little doll also seemed to have sensed something and suddenly appeared.


    "This has nothing to do with us and since it''s going to get chaotic, let''s leave now!" Zhou Bao did not want to bring trouble upon himself.


    "Hurhurhur, you little fella, you are so young yet you are like an old man. What do you mean this has nothing to do with you? Didn''t you kill those Human Immortals in Star Palace?"


    "So what?" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. He did not bother about the little doll anymore and instantly shrank in size. He reappeared again in the hollow. After scanning the dozens of Highest Heaven Celestial Devices that belonged to Celestial Sea School, he found himself uninterested and ready to leave. Just then, a sharp light flashed past the vast planet beneath his feet. After which, Star Palace was seen flying up from the vast planet at an extremely fast speed. With a ''boom'', the Highest Heaven Celestial Device was smashed into pieces before disappearing into the endless hollow.


    "This Star Palace sure knows their timing!" There was no way Zhou Bao could have any idea about what was going on after looking at the situation. He could not help but laugh.


    "Celestial Sea School did not lose much, although they lost some Highest Heaven Celestial Devices and they did gain a vast planet after all. That should be considered as a compensation right?" The little doll also nodded his head.


    "Where there are people, there''s Jianghu. Where there''s Jianghu, there are fights. Seems like fights are unavoidable no matter where they go!" Zhou Bao sighed, "There''s nothing else in the internal layer of this Star Area that''s worthy of my attention. This place has been refined by practitioners and it is not able to show the changes of the hollow!"


    "Let''s go to the nearest macro world. If I am not wrong, it should be called Eastern Thunder World. There''s a Transmitting Formation inside which can transport us to the outside of this Star Area. If there''s a chance, get another copy of the Void Map of this Star Area. That way, you can walk around in peace and gain insights about the changes in this Void Universe!"


    "How did you know about Eastern Thunder World? Have you been there?"


    "Of course, I''ve been there. Eastern Thunder World is not considered a very strong macro world. However, in its endless spacetime, there''s a fraction of it that has been contaminated with congenital killing intent. Back when I was heavily injured, I went there to recuperate. I received some benefits, so I do know a little about that macro world!"


    "That means you''re very familiar with Eastern Thunder World?!"


    "When I was there, Eastern Thunder World was ruled by a sect called the Eastern Thunder Sect. The Realm Lord was the Leader of Eastern Thunder Sect. The macro world was named after the sect. But now, I don''t know if the sect still exists and whether the macro world is still using that name. However, I do remember where it is!"


    "Then let''s go!"


    Eastern Thunder World.


    Eastern Thunder World was located towards the west of the entire Sea Area. It was also one of the nine macro worlds in the Sea Area. It was the only macro world within a thousand-mile radius and was quite well known.


    Although Zhou Bao did not have any contact with the practitioners here, he overheard some things related to this Eastern Thunder World. He knew that the macro world had kept its name. He also knew where the location of this macro world was, and that the Eastern Thunder Sect was still the ruler of this macro world.


    Eastern Thunder Sect was a super school that had ruled over a macro world for thousands of years.


    Zhou Bao was being extra careful precisely because the Eastern Thunder Sect still existed. God knows how many old monsters were still in existence there and how strict were the sect''s ruling over the world.


    As a macro world, just like Heaven Realm World, Eastern Thunder World was surrounded by a dense endless spacetime. However, the one difference about Eastern Thunder World was that there was a giant meteor belt around the circumference of the world. There existed many schools of all sizes on the belt. There were also many Transmitting Formations leading to Eastern Thunder World.


    This was where the practitioners entered and exited Eastern Thunder World.

 752 Ninth Rank

    After Zhou Bao entered Eastern Thunder World, he finally understood what the little doll meant. Indeed, this world seemed unchanged since antiquity times.


    The people and environment in the macro world were almost identical to that of Heaven Realm World. The only difference was that there were more practitioners in Eastern Thunder World than in Heaven Realm World. Furthermore, there were many other influences apart from the leading Eastern Thunder Sect. It was just that the Eastern Thunder Sect occupied the strongest fate and hence ruled over all the other sects. In Eastern Thunder World, the Eastern Thunder Sect was the sole ruler.


    As part of Easternmost Land, in this macro world, the ratio of practitioners to ordinary people was obviously larger than that in the vast planet. Also, incidents of disappearances were more common too.


    The Eastern Thunder Sect was not strict when it came to allowing practitioners to enter Eastern Thunder World. When Zhou Bao entered Eastern Thunder World, he did not use his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to sneak in like a thief. Instead, he entered as a practitioner of Star Palace and strode in confidently through the Transmitting Formation.


    The common people and practitioners of Eastern Thunder World all lived together and almost all the common people knew about the ways of practice. Because of varying aptitudes, everyone had different levels of achievements. Some managed to reach the Individual rank and bid farewell to the ordinary people phase. Some only managed to practice till Level Three or Four and remained at the ordinary stage.


    The difference between Immortals and ordinary people was marked by the Individual Immortal rank. There was a thin line drawn between Immortals and ordinary people.


    Because there were so many people practicing in Eastern Thunder World, the practitioners and common people had a very close relationship. Some of the methods used by the practitioners were also used by the common people.


    For example, the inn that Zhou Bao was staying in used a special material called stone charcoal to generate warmth. This stone was similar to charcoal, only that the stone was a part of the charcoal basin. The interior of the basin was covered with tiny pieces of Spiritual Stones. Energy was transported from outside the basin into it and this kept the stone charcoal constantly fired up. The basin then generated heat and energy which kept the whole house warm. The interior lighting of the house also adopted the same concept by using a light convergence magic formation. It only required Internal Qi to light up the house. When it was time to sleep, the Internal Qi was used to cut off the connection between the pieces of Spiritual Stone and the magic formation. The light was then naturally turned off. Zhou Bao was very amazed at this.


    Similarly, the people were very well- informed about any prominent happenings in Eastern Thunder World. At least whatever happened here, in this part of the Star Area, could not be hidden from the people in Eastern Thunder World.


    Therefore, there was no need for Zhou Bao to deliberately find ways to seek out information. He only needed to sit at the restaurant for a while and all kinds of information from the practitioner world would be filtered to him. Of course, he could only get information about major events. As for things like schools going into hiding, he could never acquire these sort of information.


    "Have you heard? Celestial Sea School invaded Star Palace''s territory and now, without even putting up a fight, the palace has disappeared!"


    "Huh, what kind of news is this? Do you guys know why Star Palace fled without fighting back?"


    "Why?"


    "This was what I heard. Star Palace found a Hidden Treasure at the periphery of the Star Area. It should have been an extremely upper class type. To prevent any unnecessary mistakes, Marquis Ling Jian from Star Palace went there personally. There were 11 other Human Immortals and thousands of elite disciples who went with him on the trip. Three days later, they all went missing. The pneuma of Star Palace was heavily depleted and that''s why Celestial Sea School was able to invade them!"


    "So that''s what happened! No wonder. This Star Palace is quite interesting. Why did they think that it''ll be so easy to acquire the Hidden Treasure from antiquity times? If that was the case, did they think it would be left lying around for them to pick up? Hehe, look at how things turned out. After fighting with Celestial Sea School for 3,000 years, they finally gained the upper hand. Now, in the blink of an eye, they lost everything. Such a pity!"


    "What''s so pitiful about that? Little sects like theirs love to play games with each other and think that they can change the fate of their sect with one or two Hidden Treasures. Their strengths have no foundation and they have no future!"


    "Yes, yes, they are nowhere like our Eastern Thunder Sect that has ruled Eastern Thunder World for 40 million years...!"


    "By the way, have you heard what happened to Heaven Realm World?"


    "Sigh, Heaven Realm World is not news-worthy anymore. But this time around, the middle-level Holy Alliance is really embarrassing. I heard that quite a few Marquis and dukes died in Heaven Realm World!"


    "Hehe, it is the Holy Alliance, one of the strongest influence in the Void Universe. They have many Marquis and dukes! Losing some is nothing to them!" Between these remarks, sinister laughter drifted from within the restaurant.


    Strictly speaking, Eastern Thunder World is a faraway place; it could not be compared to the macro world in the Holly Alliance and was definitely non-comparable to the Holy Alliance itself. However, Eastern Thunder World was not afraid of the alliance. Although the alliance was one of the stronger influences in the Void Universe, their circle of influence was only at the middle level. The location in question was Eastern Land, where they did not have much control over.


    "Everything is still the same as before!" Listening to their conversation, the little doll started to feel nostalgic. This made Zhou Bao''s lips twitch. He knew that the little doll meant the titles for the Marquis and the dukes were still the same as before.


    In antiquity times, all practitioners were separated into nine different ranks based on their cultivation. They were the emperor, king, lord, Duke, Marquis, count, viscount, baron and the yeomen respectively. Once a practitioner reached the Earthly Immortal realm in cultivation, he automatically becomes an emperor. Those who reached the Immortal level were named king or lord. Those who reached the Human Immortal level became Duke, Marquis or count. Those who mastered the Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint and Five Qis Collecting in Mind skills became Dukes. Those that only mastered the Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint skill became Marquises. Normal Human Immortals became counts. A common Genuine Immortal was split into two categories, those with cultivation of Lord of Heaven Realm were named viscounts and the rest with cultivation below that became barons. Individual Immortals had the lowest ranks among the practitioners; they became yeomen, which was only higher than that of common Earthly Immortals. Of course, yeomen were the largest in numbers among the practitioners.


    Hence, there were not many practitioners in a macro world that was above the rank of a count. However, if we were to zoom out to the Void Universe, then the amount would be very startling.


    Zhou Bao''s nickname in Heaven Realm World was King Wuyang. However, that was only used in Jin. In the world of practitioners, he was just a practitioner at Marquis level.


    But in the Void Universe, a Marquis Level practitioner could become a leader.


    "Duke, Marquis, count, viscount, baron!!! Interesting, who sets these rules?"


    "When the Heavenly Court was first established, the Jade Emperor set these rules by differentiating them from the common people. You know very well that practitioners are often the laziest. Also, this kind of categorizing system is very simple and effective. Those of lower rank of nobility may have chances of going up the rank ladder, but it was more difficult for those of higher ranks to go up even higher. Some lucky practitioners had the chance to take up the challenge of becoming a Genuine Immortal when they were at the Individual Immortal phase. They could even possess the combat capability of a Human Immortal. However, in the Immortal realm, there was a stark difference between those in the Lord Level and King Level. Without any powerful treasures, it was impossible to go up in rank. If you are at the Marquis Level, even by giving your best, your combat ability would, at most, be compatible with that of an Immortal in Lord Level. If you want to challenge a Genuine Immortal of King Level, you had to use your Supreme Fairy Weapon so that you could narrow the gap between the two of you. That was the barest minimum to secure a challenge but was also a variable. The Supreme Fairy Weapon, hehe, could cause your combat capability to be infinitely closer to that of an Earthly Immortal. However, there was still some difference between this and challenging an Immortal of King Level. Do you know why?"


    "I don''t know!"


    "Because the gap between an Earthly Immortal and an Immortal was infinite. No matter how many Immortals there are, or how high their cultivation is, even if 10,000 Immortals of King Level came together, they were not worthy opponents of an Earthly Immortal. You may become infinitely closer to an Earthly Immortal, but that is just the same as a common Immortal of King Level!"


    "The Earthly Immortal is really that strong?"


    "If they are not strong, why would so many people embark on the journey to become Earthly Immortals? Why do the Earthly Immortals have a chance of surviving during a Tribulation of Heaven and Earth while the Immortals will only die?" The little doll laughed coldly, "Fella, you were just lucky that you haven''t met an Earthly Immortal opponent. If not, even with your Supreme Fairy Weapon, you will surely die!"


    "I will surely die?" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows and smiled, "Hehe, who cares. Anyway, I will not look for trouble with the Earthly Immortals, and they won''t be foolish enough to look for trouble with me. This is no big deal!"


    "Is that really the case? I do know that you have some grudges with an Earthly Immortal!" The little doll was talking about Silver Wolf who had harassed the Fifth Manor.


    "So what, Earthly Immortals are not able to carry out their usual activities here in the Void Universe. It will not matter even if I have offended him. Can he come and fight with me?" Zhou Bao laughed coldly, "If you have the time to worry about this, why not use the time to think about how to enter the faraway Transmitting Formation of Eastern Thunder World? Damn it, the Transmitting Formations here can only transport to nearby areas, there are none of those big ones that you said could transport over half a Star Area!"

 753 Qing Dynasty, Shengjing City

    This was the 20th-day since their arrival into Eastern Thunder World. They did not realize that the big Transmitting Formation that they were trying to find was actually in Eastern Thunder World. Zhou Bao also did not dare to use his Divine Awareness skill to scan the macro world. Although doing so would enable him to find the Transmitting Formation in the shortest time possible, it would also lead to him being detected by the practitioners in Eastern Thunder World instantly. This was not the tiny planet that Star Palace was in, where there were only two Human Immortals of Marquis Level. This was Eastern Thunder World, where even though there were not many practitioners with cultivation above his, there were still quite a number of them.


    "So what do you think we should do now?"


    "What else can we do, the Transmitting Formation must be in Eastern Thunder Sect''s hands. To enter the Transmitting Formation, we must sneak into Eastern Thunder Sect. You cannot keep on pretending to be part of the common people; you have to interact with the practitioners there. That is the only way to find where the Transmitting Formation is at. If you continue to run around and poke your nose into others'' business, when will you ever find out where it is?"


    "Hey, if I was told earlier about how troublesome this will be, I wouldn''t be in this shitty Easternmost Land but somewhere else instead!"


    "Don''t think so highly of yourself; the space in Easternmost Land is naturally strong. The other places may not be so strong, but they would not definitely be like the hollow surrounding Heaven Realm World and allowing you such free access. Star Areas like this, especially those surrounding macro worlds, have strong spatial inhibitions. The space rigidness there cannot be worse than here! So don''t think that your Supreme Fairy Weapon can allow you to run around easily and travel as fast as before, that is impossible!" The little doll continued, "The stronger the Star Area, the more spatial inhibitions there are in place. Back in those days, the space surrounding Heaven Realm World was like a thousand-year-old iceberg. Even a Supreme Fairy Weapon can''t open it! Although other macro worlds and Star Areas may not be as tough as this, it is still an extremely difficult feat to open the space and yet not cause undue alarm to the people. Hence, you''ll face the same circumstances even if you go to other Star Areas!"


    "Does this mean I can only consider Eastern Thunder Sect?"


    "That depends on how you see it. If you want to waste your time, you can leave this place anytime. At the end of the day, you only need to snatch a Highest Heaven Celestial Device and then leave this Star Area for another. It will only take you a few years and since you won''t be dying anytime soon, it''s workable!" The little doll seemed very indifferent, but his words made Zhou Bao very angry.


    If he wanted to find out where the big Transmitting Formation was at, he had to think of a way to interact with the practitioners in Eastern Thunder World. However, he could not be bothered to come up with a plan. In the next three days, he worked swiftly and managed to get his hands on a few Genuine Immortals. Coincidentally, one of them was from Eastern Thunder Sect and was on a learning journey. Zhou Bao managed to sniff out the location of the big Transmitting Formation from him. At the same time, he also understood that it was basically impossible to launch it secretly.


    That was because the big Transmitting Formation was unlike the small ones in the exits surrounding the Eastern Thunder macro world. To launch this kind of Transmitting Formation that could transport over half a Star Area in the Easternmost Land, would require lots of time and also use up a vast amount of Spiritual Stones. A normal Transmitting Formation only required six to seven Low Grade Spiritual Stones for it to be launched. The Easternmost Land was a little special. For example, to transport one from the exit of Eastern Thunder World ,10 Upper Grade Spiritual Stones was required. That was already the minimum requirement, let alone launching a big Transmitting Formation.


    In Eastern Thunder Sect, there was not just one Transmitting Formation but three of them. The biggest one was in Eastern Thunder Sect and could communicate with 18 other identical big Transmitting Formations in this part of the Star Area. At the same time, it could also communicate with a giant Transmitting Formation in the same Star Area. The other two formations were located in the first dynasty of Eastern Thunder World, the Qing Dynasty, as well as in the Boundless Sand Sea of Eastern Thunder Extreme Land. The Boundless Sand Sea was a piece of extreme land in Eastern Thunder World. The Transmitting Formation there had been left unused for many years. As for the one in Eastern Thunder Sect, it was kept under wraps and strict control. Common people could not even enter the sect, how would they ever have the opportunity to use it?


    Hence, the only Transmitting Formation that Zhou Bao could use was the one in the Qing Dynasty.


    As a matter of fact, it was the one that was frequently used in Eastern Thunder World. It was also the only public giant Transmitting Formation in the world. However, it being public did not mean that anyone was allowed to use it.


    This Transmitting Formation was mainly for the usage of each sect in Eastern Thunder World, or for other strong dynasties. The Qing Dynasty was the first dynasty of Eastern Thunder World, but its world was simply too big. It did not possess a Sea Area as vast as that in Heaven Realm World. The Qing Dynasty was crowned the number one dynasty, but the area of control it had was about a tenth of Eastern Thunder World. It was already as large as it could get. Apart from the Qing Dynasty, there were dozens of other big and small dynasties and sects in Eastern Thunder World. This big Transmitting Formation controlled by the Qing Dynasty catered mainly to these groups.


    This Transmitting Formation could transport to seven spots in the Star Area. Three of these spots were located at the most dangerous area of the Star Area. This place was also where various big sects and dynasties would conduct tests for their disciples. Since the Transmitting Formation used up so many resources, it was only opened once every 50 years. By the time it opened, all eligible disciples would then enter the formation and be transported to a distant Star Area to undergo training for 50 years.


    Coincidentally, three months later, the Transmitting Formation was set to open up again. Now, all sects and dynasties were sending their elite disciples to Shengjing in Qing Dynasty.


    Qing Dynasty, Shengjing?! God damn it, you''re not joking right?" When Zhou Bao first heard these two names, he could not help but curse at the heavens. It was sad enough to know that there existed a dynasty that gave itself such a tragic name. But what was even more sorrowful was that the Emperor, who was the Human Emperor of Eastern Thunder World, was Emperor Kang.


    "Could Kang the Pocked have traveled through time?"


    After hearing this information, Zhou Bao laughed bitterly, "Easternmost Land, more like the Easternmost dynasty! But that''s fine, I only have to wait for three months. After three months, I can enter that god-damned Transmitting Formation!"


    "Those who can enter are the elite of all sects and dynasties. Are you prepared to enter using the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill or will you take on someone else''s identity?"


    "It would be good if I can use the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill as that would save me a lot of trouble. However, the Qing Dynasty is so strict about the Transmitting Formation and there''s also a limit on who can enter it. My Snake-like Breath Holding Skill may not work. Hence, I can only create a fake identity!"


    The little doll laughed, "Then what will you do?"


    "Very simple. Although those that can enter are all elite disciples of sects and dynasties, I''ll pass on those from the dynasties. I can''t afford to tangle with bad luck. But among those from the sects, there should be some people that have identities suitable for me. I''ll just borrow theirs to save myself the trouble!"


    "This is indeed a good plan, but the guy whose identity you''ll be using cannot be from those big sects, so as to prevent getting into trouble again!"


    "I am aware of what I have to do in this kind of situation. I will not cause any trouble for myself. Let''s go to Shengjing first. All the elite disciples are now heading there. It shouldn''t be a problem to find one or two scapegoats."


    Shengjing was the biggest city in Eastern Thunder World. It was said that there existed a bigger city called Thunder Capital, but only a few had ever seen it before.


    The size and glory of Shengjing City was beyond Zhou Bao''s expectations. Zhou Bao had seen many modern cities and architecture in his previous life. In this life, he became an extremely strong practitioner. He saw the capital city of Jin and also Grand Divine Wind Palace. But now that he had seen this Shengjing City, he could not help but be awed by its majesty. The city walls were very high. Zhou Bao frowned as he looked up.


    "This Kang the Pocked must have a faulty brain, why on earth did he build such a high city wall? Is he trying to copy the Hongwu Emperor''s high fortifications? Damn it, there are immortals in this world, even if you build the walls into the clouds, you still can''t block them!" Zhou Bao grumbled as he entered Shengjing City with the surging crowd.


    As the number one big city of Eastern Thunder World, Shengjing City was as grand as it could be. Eastern Thunder World was where practitioners and common people mingled with each other, so there were not many area restrictions. After reaching Level Seven in cultivation, the practitioners could use their Gang Qi to fly in the sky. As the number one city of Eastern Thunder World, Shengjing naturally needed to have rules to keep things in order. Hence, strong air-restriction magic formations were set up in Shengjing and the 1000-mile radius around it. Only some specialized Highest Heaven Celestial Devices were allowed to continue flying in the sky. Other practitioners below the rank of a Human Immortal could not escape from these magic formations. Human Immortals were allowed to fly within the 1000-mile radius. However, while doing so, they would incur a raging wave of pneuma, which would hinder them. Only those at the level of Immortals and above could fly freely and not face any obstacles.


    No matter what their backgrounds were, these disciples were not that stupid to stir up any trouble in this once-every-50-years situation and cause the Qing Dynasty to be unhappy.


    Everyone kept a low profile as they entered Shengjing City. No matter what their background was, there was no display of extravagance.


    "Guys, look, its Zhao Wuji, the young suzerain of Dong Tian Sect! Goodfella, his clothes are so simple today and he didn''t even bring a servant!"


    "Hey, are you sure? Is that really Zhao Wuji! His sect is the biggest in Xuan state and wasn''t it rumored that he was always extravagant? He needed 18 dragon-house carriages when he went out. The servants he brought along were all Genuine Immortals. Look at his blue robe, that''s so shabby, it can''t be him!"


    "What do you think, this is Shengjing City, who would dare to stir up shit here!" Another person laughed coldly, "Only idiots would talk about extravagance in Shengjing City!"

 754 Cundi, Cundi

    All trainees in Shengjing City knew that it was common knowledge not to display any extravagance there.


    13,000 years ago, the rule to train in the periphery of the Star Area had just been passed down. Numerous elite disciples from big sects, especially those young masters, went to Shengjing City to show off. Eventually, they lost all their qualifications. Furthermore, all the sects, or even dynasties, that they were in, died off in the next 100 years. From then on, no one dared to show off in Shengjing City. No matter how arrogant they were, when they arrived at the city, all of them knew they had to restrain themselves.


    Zhou Bao sat at the upper level of the restaurant and stared at the big road in front of it. This road led to Hongyi Pavilion in Shengjing City. This Hongyi Pavilion had been used to welcome visitors from all sects during the Qing Dynasty. Every 50 years, this place became the residential area for the trainee disciples. Zhou Bao sat in the restaurant and observed the area for three days and then in Hongyi Pavilion for another few days. Eventually, he found his target.


    His target was an elite disciple from an average-sized sect. As a matter of fact, he did not represent just one sect, but a total of 12.


    Going to the periphery of the Star Area to train was an extremely grand event in the cultivation world of Eastern Thunder World. If these disciples could come back alive 50 years later, then their ability would surely be increased tremendously. They would also become hot shots in Eastern Thunder World. This training journey was full of danger, yet it presented great opportunities for them.


    Hence, all along, the training slots were very much sought after. It may be nothing much for the big dynasties, but for the little sects, these opportunities did not come easily. The less capable the sects, the harder it was to get a slot. Hence, many sects united and used various means to get a slot collectively. Zhou Bao''s target was the person who would get the slot.


    This guy could have been very popular in their small sects, but in the context of Eastern Thunder World and in Shengjing City, he was a nobody. Hence, Zhou Bao decided to target this guy.


    In order not to raise any suspicions, the guy that Zhou Bao chose must be a loner. Most importantly, his name made Zhou Bao very at ease.


    Cundi!


    This guy was actually called Cundi!!!


    He was called Cundi!


    Taking his name into consideration, it would be Zhou Bao''s loss not to use it!


    Three months later, Qing Dynasty, Shengjing City, inner city!


    The giant parade square that spanned over 100,000 square meters was filled with people. They were the elite disciples from all sects and dynasties that had come to take part in the training at the periphery of the Star Area. Zhou Bao lowered his eyes; even his Divine Awareness was behaving well and did not conduct random scans. As a matter of fact, back when he was still in the restaurant, he had taken a good look at most of these disciples. These people were all below the age of 50. The lowest level of cultivation among them was an Individual Immortal, while the highest one was a Genuine Immortal of Lord of Heaven Realm. Of course, there were not many Lords of Heaven as they were all rare geniuses seen once every few hundred years in their respective sects. They were the ones who received the most attention in this training.


    On the podium of the parade square stood a man of average height, dressed in a gold robe. As he spoke enthusiastically, Zhou Bao, who was standing below him, rolled his eyes and thought to himself, "Bloody Kang the Pocked, are you done yet? I believe that with your connections with my west side, you should be sent there so that you can talk from morning to night!"


    After one to two hours, Kang the Pocked of Qing Dynasty finally finished his speech. After that, he proceeded to open the Transmitting Formation.


    The procedure was not complicated. It had been more than 10,000 years and he had already done it a few hundred times. After a sonorous bang, a light started to radiate from the inner city. It formed a strange talisman above Shengjing City.


    Beside the golden-robed man stood a man wearing a eunuch uniform. He spoke calmly, " Okay, everyone. The Transmitting Formation has already been opened, you can enter now!" His voice was not loud but it resounded like a shock wave into everyone''s ears.


    Following the surging waves of people, Zhou Bao walked near the Transmitting Formation. Rank-differences existed everywhere in the world. Those in front were the real disciples who had an extremely strong background. They had already entered the formation and was transported away. For those without any background like Zhou Bao, they were usually the last to be transported. There were also people who were just unlucky. When it was their turn to be transported, their stock of Top Grade Spiritual Stones was suddenly depleted, causing them to lose their chance to train. Hence, when the formation opened, everyone fought to be transported first. Zhou Bao had the same idea at first. When he was making his way to the front and was just about to use some tricks, his Divine Awareness felt something amiss.


    "Eh? Strange, how come I can feel Devil Qi?"


    Devil Qi was a unique trait of the Primordial Demon. It was brutal, aggressive and filled with the power of destruction. Zhou Bao had dealt with the Primordial Demon before, so he was extra sensitive to this spirit. Although there was only a little bit of Devil Qi coming from the Transmitting Formation, it did not escape Zhou Bao''s Divine Awareness.


    "Perhaps there''s the Devil Tribe at the other end of the Transmitting Formation! Maybe this so-called training is to fight with the Primordial Demon?" Just when Zhou Bao was still pondering over this, the space in the Transmitting Formation suddenly twisted. A black light shot up to the sky and through the clouds. The disciples who were standing on the Transmitting Formation turned into ashes after being seared by the black light.


    "What''s happening, is this a movie shoot? What''s with the big chaos?"


    In the same instant when the black light shot up to the sky, Zhou Bao felt the Devil Qi becoming a thousand times stronger.


    One by one, the Devil Tribe rushed out from the black light. They were ferocious, with black scales on their bodies and came in all shapes and sizes. The first ones to come out were the Fierce Owls, which Zhou Bao had met before. There were other kinds of strange beings from the Devil Tribe among the Fierce Owls. They aimed frantically for the crowd. Everyone did not have time to react, including the golden-robed Emperor Kang.


    "Help, we need help!"


    When a big-sized demon who was about 70% human in appearance pounced on Emperor Kang, he cried out loudly, but was unable to utilize his cultivation of a Genuine Immortal. There were two Genuine Immortals of Lord of Heaven Realm beside him. They stood in front of him immediately, creating a chance to escape for him. That moment was all Emperor Kang needed. It was enough for him to escape from the Devil Tribe''s attack and flee to another safe place. The two Lords of Heaven were immediately ripped into pieces by the demon.


    Obviously, this demon had a very high status among those that came out from the magic formation. After ripping the two Lords of Heaven apart, it immediately looked up to the sky and roared. After hearing the sound, the chaotic Devil Tribe suddenly became orderly. They started to rush towards a specific target.


    "Oh no, they want to control the Transmitting Formation, we cannot let them succeed, quick, cut off the Transmitting Formation!"


    Seeing what the Devil Tribe was doing, someone in Qing Dynasty finally realized what was going on and shouted loudly. However, it was already too late.


    Numerous demons whose cultivation were at the peak of Lord of Heaven were scattered all around. They occupied the strategic points of the formation and started to stuff Top Grade Spiritual Stones into these points as if these stones were of no value. The black column of light became thicker and stronger. Numerous Demon Tribes crawled out of it and formed a black cloud in the sky.


    "It''s the Devil Realm, the Devil Realm is attacking, the Devil Realm is really attacking, get out of here quickly-!"


    Everything happened so quickly that the people in Qing Dynasty had no time to stop it. Or rather, they could not stop it. The Devil Tribe came towards them like a crashing wave.


    The Fierce Owls came together and formed a dark cloud in the sky, covering the whole canopy. More Devil Tribes rushed towards the Transmitting Formation. Outside the formation, they had already formed a sturdy defense line, blocking off anyone that was not from the tribe.


    The scene was getting chaotic; there were just too many Fierce Owls. They attacked the neighboring crowds without hesitation and caused them to scatter. Likewise, Zhou Bao backed off too. At the same time, he gradually subdued his spirit, making himself disappear seemingly.


    "Cundi, you''re Cundi, quickly come and help!"


    Just when Zhou Bao thought that he was about to escape from this mess, someone went up to him suddenly and grabbed him, pulling him towards the opposite direction that he was heading for.


    "No way? She can feel my Snake-like Breath Holding Skill!" The person grabbing Zhou Bao was a 17 to 18-year-old girl. She seemed to recognize the Cundi that Zhou Bao was pretending to be. She even had a good mafic weapon with her, which was why she appeared so skillful despite the ever growing presence of Fierce Owls. While pulling Zhou Bao, she was busy spouting nonsense at him as well.


    "I''ve heard in the past that you stood out in the big competition between 12 sects on the small island. I can''t believe it, to think that you can actually do this, you''re much stronger now compared to when you were little!"


    "Who are you?"


    "What? You can''t even recognize me? I say, Cundi, you''re too much! Look at me again!" The little girl had a cultivation nearing the Venerable Realm, but her character was just like a little girl, quite hard to handle. Once she heard what Zhou Bao said, she stopped immediately and used her animated eyes to stare deadly into Zhou Bao''s. "I say, Cundi, don''t forget, if it wasn''t for me in the past, you would''ve already been kicked out of master''s home gate by the master! How then would you ever end up here? How, now do you remember who I am?"


    Zhou Bao laughed bitterly, "Miss, I''m really sorry. When I was practicing five years ago, I was so into it that my spirit was damaged. I can''t remember anything from that long ago!"


    "Ah?" The little miss was obviously in shock. She did not expect to face such an absurd situation when reuniting with an old friend.

 755 The Big Invasion of the Devil Tribe

    Ruo Lin sounded like a very idol-like name.


    That was the name of the little girl who had pulled Zhou Bao away. She was shocked to find that his spirit had been injured and he had lost most of his memories.


    "Cundi, are you really sure that your spirit was injured and you don''t remember me anymore?" She stared at him with big round eyes and questioned him loudly. However, Zhou Bao saw a trace of joy in her eyes.


    "This girl has a grudge against Cundi!" This thought flashed into Zhou Bao''s mind.


    "It''s okay, it doesn''t matter even if you can''t remember anything. I know everything about you. You know, you were still wetting your bed when you were eight, so embarrassing! During that time, you already had the cultivation of an Individual Immortal!" Ruo Lin said joyfully. "Also, you must remember, I am your older sister, understand? You have been following my instructions since you were young and you have to do the same now. If I tell you to go to the East, you can''t go to the West; if I tell you to go to the South, you can''t go to the North, understand?"


    Seeing Ruo Lin''s satisfied expression, the corners of Zhou Bao''s lips twitched a little. This little girl had nearly reached the cultivation of a Genuine Immortal. She wore a light red dress, which turned out to be a Lower Grade fairy weapon. This was the thing that allowed her to be so swift in evading the Fierce Owls'' attacks. She even helped to protect Zhou Bao against a sudden burst of attack.


    "Okay, let''s not talk too much, come over here quickly!"


    The two talked as they walked towards Shengjing City. Everyone was rushing out of the city but Ruo Lin pulled him towards it instead.


    "Hey, what help can I give? There are too many Fierce Owls inside. Even with your Lower Grade fairy weapon, we can''t withstand them for long!"


    "I know, that''s why I went to look for you. Damn it, if you weren''t my little brother, I wouldn''t have saved you!" The little girl seemed very helpless.


    Very quickly, Zhou Bao understood why Ruo Lin stated that she was saving herself.


    Countless desperate cries for help could be heard. Outside the city, the giant city wall could no longer act as a defense line to protect them. It was a reminder that their lives were at stake.


    "Hmph, this invasion has been planned long ago. The Devil Tribe must have planted a spy here to do something. If not, how is it possible for the Transmitting Formation to be connected so easily!"


    "You''re saying that the people from Devil Realm connected the Transmitting Formation?!"


    "Of course, if not, why were there so many Fierce Owls? Looks like the Devil Realm had planned this carefully. They want to take over Shengjing City and after that the whole of Eastern Thunder World. They even want to take over the whole Easternmost Land! Shengjing was just their first target, it''s impossible for them to fail!"


    "Don''t forget, there''s also the Eastern Thunder Sect!"


    "Seems we cannot escape from this. You can see that the people from Eastern Thunder Sect are already coming. Shengjing City''s magic defense formation has already been launched too. If you run outside, it will be a dead end!"


    "How do you know so much?"


    "Because I''m smart!" The little girl looked very pleased with herself. "We are here, help me to open this freaking big door!"


    "Big door?" Zhou Bao paused for a while as he saw a very strange scene in front of him. Just when all the practitioners and trainees were behaving like headless flies, there was a bunch of people gathered in a secluded corner, trying to force open a small magic formation. They were frantically attacking the wall in front of them.


    Why did this situation look so weird?


    "Ruo Lin, you''re back! You risked your life and ran out just for this fella?"


    Just when Zhou Bao was feeling that everything seemed so strange, a discordant voice rang out.


    "Such strong jealousy! I just arrived and do not want to get involved with such strange affairs!" A young man was speaking. Most of the people present were all young; they looked like they were below 30. From his speech, Zhou Bao could tell that this was someone who had not experienced many worldly matters yet, even with his abilities of a Lord of Heaven.


    "Yes, this is Cundi, I mentioned him to you guys before. He was my senior brother when I was younger so I invited him to help us!"


    "So you are Ruo Lin''s senior brother! Apologies for being rude!" Another young woman had a faint trace of a smile in her eyes. "Cundi senior brother, it''s so great of you to come and help! You see, we have already used up all our energy, yet we still can''t open this wall, can you help?"


    "Wall? Why do you need to open this wall?!" Zhou Bao looked at the wall and then glanced at everyone. There were about seven to eight people here. Among them was a man who stood out from the rest. He wore a robe similar to what Kang the Pocked wore when he was speaking on the podium. However, this guy was not Kang the Pocked, because he was much younger. He had a childlike look about him. He was the only one who had a different expression from the others. It looked like he was not part of this small group.


    "It is to enable us to leave the Royal Capital. There is a Transmitting Formation inside. It is also the last form of escape for members of the Royalty in the Qing Dynasty, which is why it is so well protected. We have to act fast, otherwise, they''ll destroy the Transmitting Formation after they leave."


    As he spoke, some of them started using their magic weapons to attack the wall.


    "This will not work!" Zhou Bao squinted as he took a closer look at the wall covered in fine prints. "This is made of a special material and the fine print is a magic formation. All your attacks will only serve to strengthen it. The more you attack, the stronger it gets!"


    "How do you know this?" There were some who did not believe what Zhou Bao said and started to turn on him.


    "Because I have always been using this magic formation to strengthen the power of my fist!" Zhou Bao smiled and leaned forward. He punched the wall and said, "This kind of magic formation cannot withstand my fist attack!"


    Boom!!!


    The stone wall was shattered by his punch. It opened up to reveal a passageway as well as a few startled people standing inside.


    "Mother!" The man who was wearing the same colored robe as the Emperor, saw a shadow. He let out a shriek and rushed immediately towards it. At the same time, numerous Sword Qi saber lights shot towards the bunch of people who had broken through the wall. This bunch of people started to emit multi-colored lights and rushed headlong into the Sword Qi saber lights.


    "Quick, get in!"


    At this moment, be it Ruo Lin or anyone else, no one thought to ask Zhou Bao how he was able to deliver such a strong punch. They only had one goal in mind and that was to defeat these imperial court martial experts and head to the Transmitting Formation. They could then leave this Royal Capital of Shengjing, which was turning into a hellish place.


    War broke out instantly. The teen in the robe, along with his mother and a few other people, were protected by the "imperial court martial experts" as they ran towards the depths of the passageway.


    Zhou Bao and Ruo Lin were not attacked by the imperial court martial experts. That was because one had a fairy weapon and the other one had a combat capability that was way stronger than those experts. The duo evaded the experts and started to run towards the direction the teen had gone. After a few moments, Ruo Lin''s companions, having defeated their opponents, caught up with them.


    "Wow, Cundi, who knew that your ability was so strong that you were able to settle our problem with just one punch!"


    "Yes, I have heard Ruo Lin talking about you before. Weren''t you an expert in sword skills? How come you have such good punching skills as well?"


    Although the crowd had differing opinions about Zhou Bao, his punch left a deep impression on them. At least in a situation like this, they knew better than to mess around with this guy who had such unfathomable skills.


    "I lost interest in practicing sword techniques, so I changed to practicing punching skills instead!" Zhou Bao laughed. Ruo Lin, however, had an alarmed expression on her face. That was because she saw him hesitate before he replied.


    "Quick, look, it is the Transmitting Formation! We''re here!" At this moment, those eagle-eyed members of the group already spotted the small Transmitting Formation as well as the crowd of people inside of it. These people were probably the Royal members from the Qing Dynasty.


    The Royal members saw them almost at the same time that they saw the Transmitting Formation. They all looked fearful. Hidden imperial court martial experts attacked again and tried to stop them from going into the Transmitting Formation.


    "The Devil Tribe, it''s the Devil Tribe, they are in now! They were the ones who opened the passageway and let the Devil Tribe in!" At this moment, a mournful voice was heard coming from the crowd. In the small space, the flapping of wings and piercing shrieks could be heard from the approaching Fierce Owls.


    "Looks like we really do not have any more time to wait!" Zhou Bao sighed and dived into the formation.


    Bang bang bang bang bang!


    A series of loud bangs could be heard. The imperial court martial experts who ran towards them fell under Zhou Bao''s fist attack and were killed instantly, turning into blood red fog. They had no ways to resist the fist attack.


    After dealing with them, Zhou Bao pulled Ruo Lin, who was beside him and flashed his body continuously. Instantly, he appeared on the Transmitting Formation. He stomped twice and sent everyone on the formation flying. After that, he took over the two main positions and launched the formation.


    These series of actions were as swift as a seagull catching its prey in the sea. After everything was over, the Transmitting Formation was fully launched. Zhou Bao and Ruo Lin, as well as a crew of Royal members from the Qing Dynasty, disappeared into the sea of glistening light.


    "Catch the two thieves!"


    The effect of the Transmitting Formation was a great shock. Instantly, the glowing light started to dim. At the same time, a shriek rang out beside Zhou Bao. In the same instant, Zhou Bao held Ruo Lin''s hand and used his Three Realms Division technique. Before the crowd could even react, they disappeared without a trace.

 756 …

    "Damn it, no way, did the Devil Realm really invade?"


    Standing on an isolated island with no one else in sight, Zhou Bao squinted and set up a tent. He looked at a land that was at a distance from them. Zhou Bao could not make clear what the land looked like. However, it was clear from the Devil Qi permeating the skies that the density of Devil Qi was getting stronger. At the same time, Zhou Bao could also feel numerous strong energies amassing and colliding with each other. It seemed like the great practitioners from the Eastern Thunder Sect had already come out from their closed-door trainings and started battling with the Dark Sect.


    "You are not Cundi, who the hell are you?"


    At this point in time, after thinking through about what had happened, Ruo Lin finally figured out that something was not right. This guy in front of her looked exactly like Cundi, but he was definitely not him. Even with an injured spirit and memory loss, the Cundi she knew, did not have such extensive strength.


    "I am indeed not Cundi; Cundi is here!" Zhou Bao pointed gently to the ground and a cyan light flashed. A man who looked like Zhou Bao''s current image, appeared, and seemed to be in a coma. "I needed to use his identity to enter the Transmitting Formation, so I put him under a spell. But don''t worry, he isn''t dead!"


    Ruo Lin obviously did not appreciate it. She checked out Cundi''s body condition and asked, "What happened to him? Why isn''t he awake yet?"


    "I can wake him anytime, but before that, I have some questions to ask you!"


    "What questions?"


    "It seems like you guys already knew that the Devil Tribe was going to invade. Also, how did you guys know about the Transmitting Formation? I looked at it and it seemed like a secret from the Qing Dynasty!"


    "This isn''t the first time that the Devil Tribe has invaded Eastern Thunder World. All these years, our Eastern Thunder World has always been at war with the Devil Tribe but there was always no outcome. Hence, we were not shocked by their invasion; we just did not think that they would use such a scheme and catch us off guard!"


    "Caught off guard?"


    Zhou Bao''s heartbeat quickened. "Then how about the Transmitting Formation? How did you guys know about that!"


    "Hmph, Emperor Kang has a lot of sons, but not all are accomplished. This time around, we did not come to Shengjing City just to take part in the training; some of us stayed behind to carry out our missions. We were naturally kept up to date about the Royal affairs. We just did not think that such a thing would happen, and neither did we think that we would eventually use this secret to leave Shengjing City." Speaking of which, Ruo Lin laughed bitterly and lifted her head. "Now it''s my turn. Who are you? Based on your abilities, you should be well-known in Eastern Thunder World, or even the whole Star Area. But I''ve never heard about you before, who are you?"


    "I''m just a passer-by. I do like the name Cundi, why not just call me that!"


    "Cundi is not your name!"


    "It was not before, but it is now. I have a name, just not a Taoist one. How about this, from now on, my Taoist name will be Taoist Cundi; you can call me a Taoist, or you can also call me Cundi. I am fine with both!"


    "You...!" Ruo Lin fought the urge to beat up this arrogant guy. Not only was he using another person''s name, he seemed very proud of it too.


    "Fine then, you did save me today. If I didn''t run into you, Cundi might have died in Shengjing City, and you did save Cundi too. Never mind that you used his name, wake him up now. Let''s all head our different ways."


    "No problem, but it is not that easy to wake him up. I did not hurt him but gave him a heavy dose of mystery soup. Judging from the situation, he will need at least 10 days of sleep before he wakes up."


    "10 days? Who are you kidding? In 10 days'' time, Eastern Thunder World would have been destroyed by the Devil Tribe and the Eastern Thunder Sect!"


    "Why do you have so little confidence in Eastern Thunder Sect? No matter what, they are still the number one sect of your Eastern Thunder World!"


    "This has nothing to do with confidence. Eastern Thunder Sect is powerful, but I''m not part of them, so they won''t come all the way just to save me. It does not matter even if I have confidence in them. What is important is that when the Eastern Thunder Sect and the Devil Tribe attack each other, they will definitely call for support from all sects and dynasties. We have to think of a plan, if not, we will become the frontline fighters again. Now that I''ve escaped from Shengjing City, I can go back and ask my teachers to prepare!"


    "If that''s the case, there''s nothing I can do. The mystery soup is not a poisonous drug; we can only wait for him to wake up naturally. Any forceful action to arouse him will only cause harm to his body and even his spirit. If you want his spirit to be injured, to have no recollection of you anymore, then I can do it now!"


    "You-!" Seeing how arrogant Zhou Bao was, Ruo Lin was so mad that she stumbled over her words. "Fine, Taoist Cundi. But I hope what you told me is true. If you dare to lie to me and something should happen to Cundi, I will be able to find you. No matter where you are, I will seek revenge for Cundi!"


    "That would be unnecessary, this kid will get well for sure; there is no problem with that. I do not have to lie to you about this!" Zhou Bao laughed bitterly, "But as for you trying to find me, I''m afraid you will not have the chance. I''m leaving Eastern Thunder World soon. Sigh, I don''t even know if the Eastern Thunder Sect will launch their giant Transmitting Formation!"


    "Although the giant Transmitting Formation is precious, they will definitely use it in this situation!" Ruo Lin continued, "Forget about the rest, they will at least call for help and support from neighboring macro worlds. After all, defeating the Devil Tribe had never been a solo act. By that time, the giant Transmitting Formation will definitely be used. But this seems like it has nothing to do with you. Even if they used it, you might not even have the chance to get a lift."


    "This is where you''re wrong. Since I am set on finding them, I naturally have my ways!" Zhou Bao smiled and with his hands cupped together, said, "Miss Ruo Lin, I am saying goodbye, we will meet again if we are fated to do so!" As he spoke, Zhou Bao dissolved in the breeze, disappearing in front of Ruo Lin.


    "What a strange fellow, I can''t even decipher his cultivation. Perhaps he is already a Human Immortal? But it is fortunate that I ran into him if not, how would I have escaped from Shengjing City so smoothly? This is such bad luck, this is my first time on a learning journey and I have to deal with such a situation. What should I do now? Should I return to the sect? But given the situation now, what help would that be? Now that the Devil Tribe has invaded, the sect will be worrying about it. Forget it, I will find a place to stay out of trouble. I''ll think about it when Cundi wakes up. Taoist Cundi, Taoist Cundi, is this name good? It is such an awkward name!"


    "This is so chaotic!" After leaving Ruo Lin and Cundi, Zhou Bao rode on the thunderbolts as he headed towards the land. At the same time, he also used his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. As he flew, Zhou Bao saw a radiant light shining erratically in the skies. He even saw a few powerful practitioners flying past him and all of them were headed towards the Qing Dynasty.


    "The Qing Dynasty screwed up big time for the training this time. Even if they managed to defeat the Devil Tribe eventually, the big sects and dynasties that had suffered will definitely not go easy on Kang the Pocked. Seems like there''s a good show coming up!" Zhou Bao thought to himself, "Seems like after this incident, Eastern Thunder World is really going to change its regime!"


    "Hahahahaha, I''m out, I''m finally out, after so many years, the King is finally out!"


    A thunder-like voice sounded from the skies. The voice seemed to be filled with strong authority and it triggered deep fear in everyone''s hearts. This led Zhou Bao''s small heart to also tremble in fear.


    No way, so powerful? Who is this person? King? A demon king? God, the guy that was constrained in the tribulation thunder was just a demon Marquis. This guy is a king! In the Devil Realm, their power structure is obviously higher than ours by one to two ranks. So, this "king" should be an Earthly Immortal, or at least nearing the level of one? Yes, indeed, look at this power, it has spread over the whole Eastern Thunder World. He should be at this rank. Hehe, this guy is interesting, can he restrain the whole Eastern Thunder Sect?"


    "Stupid, this is just a Devil King from the Devil Tribe, he isn''t even a Primordial Demon, how can he be an Earthly Immortal?!" The little doll scolded him in a low tone and expressed extreme contempt towards Zhou Bao''s ignorance!


    "He has to restrain them by hook or by crook! We must not let them take over Eastern Thunder World. This is the foundation of the Eastern Thunder Sect. If the macro world is lost, the sect will instantly fall apart. Eventually, like all fallen sects, they will end up becoming a small sect of the lowest rank and get stepped on in the practitioners'' realm!"


    This was the most direct thought in the heart of the Master of Eastern Thunder Sect.


    Yes, the Devil Tribe had invaded, the legendary Devil Tribe had invaded. Although this had long been predicted, they would never have thought that the first to fall prey would be Eastern Thunder World. The macro world was the furthest one in this part of the Star Area. It also had the least resources. The Master of Eastern Thunder Sect could not understand which part of the macro world had caught the eye of someone from the Devil Realm, so much so that they had to come here personally to get it.


    But it was useless to think about these now. The Devil Tribe had already invaded.


    "Use all your forces to open the mountain-protecting magic formation and take out all the fairy weapons and celestial devices from the thunder garage. Also, take out all the elixirs and Mysterious Objects as well. Empty the whole thunder garage! This time around, my Eastern Thunder Sect will fight the Devil Tribe to death!"


    By now, the Eastern Thunder Masters already knew that they had to fight with their lives. As the other main party in this situation, the Masters were observing all these from a passer-by standpoint. They were observing the Devil Tribe, and also the Eastern Thunder Sect.

 757 Zhou Baos Chance

    "The Devil Tribe, eventually we still need to fight the Devil Tribe!"


    The hollow surrounding Eastern Thunder World was also in a messy state. A beam of light was flowing steadily through the Transmitting Formation. People were streaming by in a continuous flow. From afar, the whole Eastern Thunder World, as well as the surrounding vast planets, looked like an enormous complex machine that was working non-stop.


    At the same time, there were also some macro worlds and influences that had received the news, and they were observing Eastern Thunder World closely. By looking at the densely-populated Highest Heaven Celestial Devices surrounding Eastern Thunder World, it was obvious that the devices were ranked from the highest to the lowest. There were even some higher class type of Highest Heaven Celestial Devices among them that had extremely strong capabilities. These devices were extremely handy when it came to dealing with enemies that invaded in large quantities, like the Fierce Owls. However, it seemed that now, the Masters of these Highest Heaven Celestial Devices did not intend to do anything for the moment. They were just observing the situation, or rather, merely gathering information first.


    Among the many Highest Heaven Celestial Devices, there was a grey one that looked very ordinary. However, its grade was not low at all; it was a Medium Grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device. Two shadows stood side by side above the devices and looked at Eastern Thunder World solemnly. "Eastern Thunder World does have strong capabilities, but this time around, we sent out three Devil Kings. They will not be able to defeat them. On the other hand, have we been too rash?"


    "Sigh, I do not want to do this too, but I have no other solution. Just like my plan, there are still about 100,000 years before that Heaven Realm World will be discovered by others. This should have given us enough time to prepare everything. But now we have suddenly been exposed and the Immortal Realm has also expressed their determination. Under such circumstances, I have no choice but to take such rigid measures to counter them!"


    "That''s right, this time around, the passageway in the Immortal Realm was connected suddenly and that was not in our plan at all! But if we do it like this, the Devil Tribe may get out of control!"


    "Rest assured, I know what I''m doing. Besides, the rules of the Void Universe are not easy to mess with. They are too powerful, even the real Primordial Demon could not enter at all. These kings are merely small characters in the Devil Realm. The most powerful ones are only near that of an Earthly Immortal; it''s impossible to have a Primordial Demon from the Earthly Immortal realm!"


    "It may be the case, but there are simply too many of the Devil Tribe. Look at those Fierce Owls; as long as they are given enough time, they can reproduce infinitely and will eventually fill up the whole macro world!"


    "But they cannot fill up the hollow!" A flash could be seen in the other man''s eyes. He had a look of disdain on his face. "The hollow is endless and these Fierce Owls are very weak. They may be able to defeat one or two macro worlds, but when they face really strong opponents, they cannot even take a blow. I am now afraid that some cunning Demons will pretend to be a human or from the Demon tribe. They might even create a Devil Fetus and wait for another few decades for it to evolve into a human or Demon. They will then send them to lurk around in the Void Universe!"


    "Do we even have to think about it? That is bound to happen! You should have thought of it when you made the decision; the Devil Tribe are not fools!"


    "I don''t care anymore, so what if they do manage to slip in? Could they really cause a big commotion? As long as Heaven Realm World re-constructs the Void Immortal Realm, then there should be a problem!"


    "If the Devil Tribe takes over Eastern Thunder World and forms an unapproachable yet widespread influence in this part of the Star Area, then they will naturally bring pressure to the whole Void Universe and macro world. Hehe, when they are overwhelmed by their tasks, that is the time for us to act!"


    "That''s right, we can only take advantage of the mess after we make them lose control due to the overwhelming amount of work. We necromancers have waited for too long for this day already!"


    "Damn, these guys can really go on and on!"


    Zhou Bao let out a roar as he tore a Fierce Owl into half. He used his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to hide his body as he gradually exited from the endless crowd of Fierce Owls.


    This was the fourth day. Four days after leaving Ruo Lin''s small island, Zhou Bao thought he could easily find the Transmitting Formation and get out of this miserable Eastern Thunder World. However, this idea was quickly demolished by a cruel fact.


    In four days'' time, half of Eastern Thunder World had already fallen. The Eastern Thunder Sect had changed their battle plans from strategic attacking to strategic defense. Furthermore, in Zhou Bao''s eyes, they would soon change to strategic shifting.


    More and more high-level Demons appeared from the Transmitting Formation. Demons were changing the Top Grade Spiritual Stones daily in the Transmitting Formation. At the same time, the giant Transmitting Formation on the Boundless Sand Sea that had been forsaken for many years had been launched. There was now a straight line drawn from Shengjing City to the Transmitting Formation on the Boundless Sand Sea. This line was used to mark the boundary. A quarter of the whole Eastern Thunder World had been overtaken by the Demons.


    In just four days, a quarter of Eastern Thunder World had fallen.


    There were more and more resistance, but they were becoming increasingly saturated. Before some of these resisting organizations could even establish themselves, they were already destroyed by the Demons. Initially, there were some things that Zhou Bao did not want to interfere in. However, the things that the Devil King did, pushed him to do so. Although he knew that he could not save the whole world, at least, he did not have to see things that he disliked. And because of this, he caused quite a lot of trouble in these four days. He was even targeted by two Devil Kings and almost had to use The Black Pearl.


    "Sigh, although I didn''t want to say it, at this stage, I have to admit that this is the end for Eastern Thunder World!" Zhou Bao bypassed a group of Fierce Owls and sat in a quiet cloud as he squinted and looked down. "After this Devil Tribe takes over Eastern Thunder World, they will expand further. But it is still unclear exactly how much resources they''ve used this time around. I also don''t know how much they want to take over. The invasion of the Devil Tribe, damn it. Can something like that really happen?"


    At this point in time, Zhou Bao was feeling extremely troubled. He initially came to Eastern Thunder World to enter the Star Area through the giant Transmitting Formation. He wanted to enter the depths, or other parts of the Star Area so he explored the amazing parts of the Void Universe and its nature. He wanted to use these parts to refine his fist intent and enhance its powers. Who would have thought that he would be pulled into this web of unfortunate events.


    "Fella, get your shit together, what are you worrying about? This is the invasion of the Devil Tribe and it is your best chance to gather Merit! The fist intent and punching skills can also be refined when you fight with the Demons. This is the best way to do so. Faced with such a great opportunity, not only are you unhappy, you''re even troubled about it! What are you thinking about exactly?"


    "Merit? I have never felt this thing before, and have never known how it works!"


    "That is because you''ve never used it. But it doesn''t mean that you''ll not use it in the future. Your cultivation is just that of a Human Immortal. To become an Earthly Immortal, you still need to undergo the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. While doing so, you''ll be able to feel the Merits and know that it is a good thing. By then, you''ll regret not having accumulated more. Let me tell you, you can never have too many Merits!"


    "Really?" Looking at the Little Doll''s serious expression, Zhou Bao asked half-doubtingly, "Then how do I gather Merits?"


    "Kill the Devil Tribe! By killing the Devil Tribe, you can earn Merits. The more you kill, the more Merits you earn and the stronger you get. With these Merits, you''ll then gain a great advantage in the Earthly Immortal Tribulation and your chance of surviving it will increase tremendously!"


    "Does this mean I do not have to think of any reasons and can kill the Devil Tribe directly?"


    "That''s right, go and kill, the more you kill, the more benefits you''ll get!"


    Looking at the Little Doll''s innocent expression when talking about such a cruel matter and even showing a hint of hidden excitement, Zhou Bao felt all his pores flaring open. It was as if he was watching a Japanese psycho horror film. The Little Doll gave off a spooky vibe that sent Zhou Bao''s hairs standing on its ends.


    "I say, you don''t have a name yet, right?"


    "What do you mean?"


    "Didn''t I use Taoist Cundi for my Taoist name? I think you should call yourself Little Flower the Ghost Child!"


    "Little Flower, the Ghost Child, what''s that?"


    "Your Taoist name is Ghost Child and your name is Little Flower, when combined, they give you Little Flower the Ghost Child!" Zhou Bao remarked coldly, "I think this Taoist name and your actual name suits you very well!"


    Now, no matter how slow it was, the Little Doll immediately understood that this so-called Taoist name and name did not signify anything good, so its expression fell immediately. "Kid, I''m trying to help you here, how can you take my kindness for granted?"


    "Hehe, kindness? I remember that you are the legendary one born because of the first killing intent that existed. If I kill the Devil Tribe, I will be filled with murder spirit. Those things are extremely helpful to you, right?"


    "Hahaha, kid, you''re smart. Not bad, those murder spirits can indeed help me greatly. But I am not lying, as long as you kill any of the Devil Tribe while in the Void Universe, you will receive those Merits for sure. These Merits are especially helpful to you when undergoing the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. I did not lie to you about that. As to how you choose, it will all be up to you!"


    How to choose...how else can I choose? I can only kill!" Zhou Bao pouted. He started to shift his gaze downwards and felt the Devil Qi between the sky and the earth. "There''re now four Devil Kings that came out from the Transmitting Formation in Shengjing City. There is also one Devil King from the Transmitting Formation in the Boundless Sand Sea. Now that they''ve settled there, let''s go take a look at the Boundless Sand Sea and see if we can demolish these Demons!"

 758 The Big Retreat of The Eastern Thunder Sec

    "Actually, I do not like this kind of meaningless massacre!" After killing a Devil King with a punch, Zhou Bao''s surroundings was so empty, he felt like he was standing at the losing team''s side of a football match. The floor was covered with feathers.


    This was the Boundless Sand Sea of Eastern Thunder World. This had been the eighth day since Zhou Bao entered the Sea. He was already getting tired after eight days of mindless killing. Although the Ghost Child, whom Zhou Bao had named, was enjoying itself, Zhou Bao did not want to continue like this anymore.


    "I think I have had enough. Although there are plenty of Devil Tribe members here, they are not that strong. Even the Devil Kings have only the combat capability of a freshly titled Immortal. This is not a threat to me and does not help much in refining my punching skill!"


    "Yes, the amount of Massacre Qi that I gain after fighting and killing them is depleting rapidly too. Killing the Devil Tribe is like killing chickens, so meaningless!" Although it was enjoying the process, the little doll gradually realized that the amount of benefits it gained was depleting equally fast. This was like medication resistance. At the start, some medication were extremely effective, but when taken in excessive amounts, then the effects would be lessened.


    The little doll knew that it was at a disadvantage and it was necessary for it to be on good terms with Zhou Bao the kid. This was the only way that it could recover its strength in the shortest possible time. Of course, this could take a minimum of about a 1,000 thousand years according to its calculations. So during these 1,000 years, at least, it had to maintain a cooperative relationship with Zhou Bao and continue to build up his trust in it. Zhou Bao had to conduct the massacres under its guidance and orders. Because of all these factors, it was best to maintain a friendly relationship.


    "I know that you want to leave Eastern Thunder World and don''t want to be involved in this mess with the Devil Tribe. You''ve also seen how they''ve restored the Transmitting Formation. However, it cannot go where you want to go. The other side of the Transmitting Formation leads to the Devil Realm. Do you want to walk out of this Transmitting Formation and enter the Devil Realm directly?"


    "Do you think I''m that dumb? Although the Devil Tribe is fated to be a part of our western sect, we are still a long way off from wanting to convert them!"


    "What?" The little doll paused, completely unsure of what Zhou Bao just said. Zhou Bao paused too, and started to laugh, "Joking, just joking!"


    The little doll was not fooled by Zhou Bao''s single sentence. "Just joking...this did not seem like a joke. A part of the western sect...is this kid coming up with some other plans? Interesting, very interesting...perhaps he wants to set up a sect across the whole West Wilds? That''s rather ambitious though, even the Jade Emperor back then did not even have this kind of courage!"


    Zhou Bao swung his fist and destroyed the giant Transmitting Formation in front of him completely. "This Transmitting Formation cannot be used anymore. We can no longer expect anything from the one in Eastern Thunder Sect too. We will have to use the small ones to leave Eastern Thunder World. At most, I''ll just use The Black Pearl to hang around in the hollow. That is way better than being stuck in this horrible place!"


    "You may say that, but I think the Transmitting Formations cannot be used anymore!"


    "What do you mean?"


    "Hmph, actually, all of the Transmitting Formations in Eastern Thunder World are controlled by the Eastern Thunder Sect. No matter what, the sect will not be willing to give up their possessions like Star Palace when something like this happens. They have a vast amount of possessions, which naturally means that they will hope to protect Eastern Thunder World. However, their family is not strong enough to do so this alone, which is why they will take control of these Transmitting Formations to prevent the practitioners from escaping as a whole!"


    "You''re saying that Eastern Thunder World will treat all the practitioners as pawns?"


    That is for sure, if they didn''t have such attractive qualities, they would not have become the biggest sect in Eastern Thunder World!" Ghost Child laughed coldly, "If you don''t believe me, you can go and take a look to find out if I''m telling the truth!"


    That was unnecessary. Eastern Thunder World was already in a mess. When Zhou Bao left the Boundless Sand Sea and returned to the city area of Eastern Thunder World, the first thing he found out was that the Eastern Thunder Sect had blocked off all information about the small Transmitting Formations.


    This news led almost all dynasties and sects in Eastern Thunder World to go crazy. All of them showed obvious resistance, both emotionally and physically. However, under the continued onslaught from the Devil Tribe, these dynasties and sect could not focus their resources on going against the Eastern Thunder Sect. Hence, very quickly, the resistance died down. Since Eastern Thunder World was at the brink of destruction and receiving horrible threats from the Devil Tribe, this kind of resistance was useless and meaningless. Hence, in just a few days, all small sects in Eastern Thunder World became their pawns. They were separated into groups and sent to different parts to withstand the invasion.


    "Oh no, Master, the Devil Tribe''s invasion is seriously too strong, we cannot hold it off anymore!"


    At this point in time, a colorful light shone from the core of the Eastern Thunder Sect. A shadow appeared in the light. "Take a look, should we ask the ancestor to step in? He has already become an Earthly Immortal. If he steps in, he''ll be able to gain control over the Devil Tribe!"


    "The old man had just undergone the Earthly Immortal Tribulation less than three years ago. His pneuma has not been restored yet. If he steps in, he will definitely be disrupted by the Dharma of the hollow and induce greater tribulations!" Standing in the colorful light, the shadow rejected what his subordinate suggested. "The ancestor is the biggest pawn and strategy of my Eastern Thunder Sect, we cannot expose him so easily!"


    "But we are already forced to our extremes. The Devil Tribe has now gained control over the Transmitting Formation in the Qing Dynasty and their labor force is unceasing. There are more and more high grade Devil Tribe members, and their attacks are getting stronger! Even if we gather all the practitioners in Eastern Thunder World, they will not be able to withstand them!"


    "I heard that the Transmitting Formation at the Boundless Sand Sea has already been destroyed?"


    "Yes, it was destroyed by a practitioner who calls himself Taoist Cundi. In the course of a few days, he has killed countless numbers of Fierce Owls. His ability is a mystery, likewise with his background. Our Eastern Thunder World could not trace his roots at all. Hence, we''re suspecting that this practitioner is not from here, not even from Easternmost Land!"


    "That can''t be right, whether or not he is from Easternmost Land, he was still able to defeat the defense put up by thousands of Devil Tribe members and enter the Boundless Sand Sea. He was able to destroy the Transmitting Formation by himself. His combat capability is definitely not below mine. Don''t forget, other than the numerous Demon Tribe members, the Devil Kings are already of the Immortal Level. Their combat abilities are even stronger than normal Immortals. He was able to kill the Devil Kings, which shows that his combat ability is confirmed to be higher than that of an Immortal. Immortals are at least a practitioner at the Lord Level. You can literally count how many Lords there are in the Void Universe!"


    "This guy''s background is a complete mystery. We''ve checked against the known list of practitioners at the Lord Level and none of the entries match his description!"


    "A practitioner at the Lord Level appearing in my Eastern Thunder World out of nowhere. At the same time, the world is invaded by the Devil Tribe. You tell me, how can there be such a coincidence in this world?"


    "You mean to say that the invasion this time round is linked to this Taoist Cundi?"


    "Whether it true or not, he is unable to change the ending of Eastern Thunder World. Go and spread the news, say that the Devil Tribe is too strong for our sect to handle. Eastern Thunder World is on the brink of collapse. In ten days'' time, we''ll re-open all the Transmitting Formations to evacuate the world. In order to prevent the Devil Tribe from ruining our plan, all formations will be set in the Eastern Thunder Sect. Make all practitioners gather there. Late-comers will not be entertained!"


    "After hearing this, the person below the seat of the Master paused for a while as a light of doubt flashed in his eyes. Afterwards, his brains jerked violently as a thought flew into his mind. His body trembled and he lifted his head, turning it towards the colorful light and asked, horrified, "Master, you want to...!"


    "Don''t think too much, go!" The Master of the Eastern Thunder Sect interrupted him and did not give him a chance to ask again. The colorful light shone even more brightly and enveloped the whole shadow.


    "Yes sir!" The Elder felt helpless. He cupped his hands together and left with a horrified expression on his face.


    "What? The Eastern Thunder Sect cannot take it anymore and is preparing to retreat?"


    The news spread like wildfire across the entire Eastern Thunder World. When Zhou Bao heard the news, he was apparently shocked. Although the Devil Tribe was attacking strongly and had gained the absolute upper-hand, Eastern Thunder World did not lack the forces to withstand it. Although they might not be able to fight back, one or two years was all they needed to do so, especially for the Eastern Thunder Sect, the biggest sect in Eastern Thunder World. Among all things, although their protective formation could not be compared to the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, it was not something that the Devil Tribe could destroy simply by having large numbers. Even if there were more Fierce Owls and Devil Tribes, it was impossible to deplete half of the world''s pneuma and the formation within two years. But now, Eastern Thunder World had suddenly decided to retreat. It was beyond Zhou Bao''s wildest expectations that they would throw away the nest that they had guarded for thousands of years.


    "You don''t believe it right?"


    "Of course not! Do you?"


    "Me too. However, since the Eastern Thunder Sect sent out such a message and asked people to gather there, they should be planning on offering an explanation!"


    "But why do I have such an extremely bad feeling about this?"


    An extremely uncomfortable feeling lurked in Zhou Bao''s heart. This was only his intuition, but it made him uncomfortable and even scared.


    "No matter how you feel, let''s go to the sect first. I think all your queries will be answered when we''re there."

 759 Meeting Ruo Lin Again

    Zhou Bao often heard that in the antiquity times, the practitioners were the clouds and the Immortals, the rain. For the longest time, he did not believe it, and could not imagine what the world would be like with so many practitioners.


    But now, he witnessed it with his own eyes. News from the Eastern Thunder Sect traveled fast. These practitioners had their own ways of communication as well. Hence, the news that the sect was going to re-open all the Transmitting Formations were passed to every corner of Eastern Thunder World in just three days. Furthermore, the 10 days'' deadline made it compulsory for all practitioners to put down everything that they were doing and make their way towards the sect.


    At this point in time, although the Devil Tribe had the absolute upper-hand in the Eastern Thunder World, it was only because the practitioners were scattered all over. Now that they heard the news and gathered together, comparatively, the Devil Tribe was now the one that was scattered. For the practitioners, no matter if they had revenge or grudges on their minds, no matter if they knew each other, they were all reunited in this instance and made their way towards the Devil Tribe and launched all kinds of crazy attacks against them. These kind of attacks were not something the Devil Tribe could counter so easily. Hence, very quickly, from all five corners of Eastern Thunder World, groups of practitioners were formed. They were like surging waves heading towards the Eastern Thunder Sects. Zhou Bao was among them.


    "Eh? It''s you, Taoist Cundi! Cundi, look, this was the guy that beat you up! If it wasn''t for me, you would still be his captive.


    Zhou Bao did not expect to bump into any acquaintances as he was trying to blend into the crowd of people. Besides, this acquaintance was not exactly the most friendly one he had expected to meet.


    "Oh, it''s Miss Ruo Lin, you guys are here too?"


    "Of course we are. All practitioners are now heading towards the Eastern Thunder Sect, of course we had to follow!"


    Before she finished speaking, the practitioner beside her roared, "You despicable person, I will kill you!"


    As he spoke, he aimed a glistening saber towards Zhou Bao''s forehead.


    "Clang!"


    The light saber hit Zhou Bao''s mid-brow directly. However, it did not do much damage. A spark was emitted as if it had hit a metal surface.


    "Cundi, hehe, this time around I did not dodge. That is my apology for what happened the last time. But if you dare to do that to me again, I will throw you out!" Zhou Bao looked at the horrified Cundi and smiled calmly. "Also, the name Cundi is not bad. I''ve taken it. In the future, you should change your name, how about that?"


    "You, you, you, you, you...!"


    At this moment, Cundi was speechless. He dared not attack Zhou Bao anymore. He had earlier attacked with total hatred in his heart. He had used a Supreme-class Pure Yang Celestial Device, one meant for attacks. It did not hurt Zhou Bao a single bit. This showed the vast difference between the duo''s combat capabilities. The gap was enough to make Cundi look up to Zhou Bao. Under such a circumstance, Cundi would not be dumb enough to attack Zhou Bao again.


    However, Zhou Bao''s arrogant manner made him frustrated and he found it hard to accept it. Not only for him, but even the little girl Ruo Lin was also enraged by his arrogant ways. "You, you, you, you, you...how can you do this? You, you...how can you steal someone else''s name?"


    "So what if I did?" Zhou Bao rolled his eyes, "Let me tell you, I am Taoist Cundi. Ask this fella to change his name, any name will do, as long as it''s not Cundi. If not, I''ll beat him up every time I see him!"


    "This brother''s hobby is quite interesting. He likes to use other people''s names!"


    "And who are you?" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows as he recognized the guy as the same person who had knocked down the wall with them the other day. He was also the one who had been skeptical about Zhou Bao''s appearance; a guy who could not see things clearly.


    "I am Wu Hao, I''m not sure if Your Excellency would like to use this name!"


    "Piak!" Before he had finished speaking, Zhou Bao punched Wu Hao and sent him flying. He flew out of the crowd, dissolved into a black spot, and ended up in an unknown area.


    "What an idiot! Never interrupt when you shouldn''t!"


    "Are you crazy? Wu Hao is the Young Master of Spirit Tortoise school! He hasn''t returned to his school yet. Now that you''ve injured him, you''re declaring war with the entire Spirit Tortoise school!" Ruo Lin shrieked. The Spirit Tortoise sect was a mediocre school in Eastern Thunder World. The school was much more powerful than the small one that Cundi was in. It was also more aggressive. Seeing Zhou Bao offend Wu Hao to such an extreme, Ruo Lin could not help but shriek loudly.


    "Spirit Tortoise school...haha...Eastern Thunder World may not even exist anymore, who cares about Spirit Tortoise school. Tortoises might not even exist anymore by then!" Zhou Bao laughed sinisterly. "Little girl, which school do you belong to? Why are you with this bunch of guys? I don''t find them pleasing to the eye!"


    "Who''s not pleasing to the eye? You''re the one that''s not!" The little girl pouted and glared fiercely at Zhou Bao, "They''re all my friends. But you, what are you doing here?"


    "Hey, you''re the one who came over. It was that guy who was trying to find trouble. What do you mean by what am I doing here?"


    "You¨D!"


    Zhou Bao''s words left her speechless. She was indeed the one who had spotted Zhou Bao in the crowd. She wanted to help Cundi seek his revenge, but she totally underestimated Zhou Bao''s ability, which led to the current outcome.


    "Hmph, I''m not talking to you anymore. You big bully, let me see how long you can stay so arrogant!" The little girl knew that she could not defeat Zhou Bao, physically or verbally and this made her very frustrated. She glanced angrily at Zhou Bao and together with the crowd behind her, prepared to leave. At this moment, the crowd suddenly turned chaotic.


    "The Devil Tribe!"


    "What''s happening?"


    "The Devil Tribe is attacking us, do they want to die?"


    The Devil Tribe may be powerful, but with so many practitioners gathered together, the Devil Tribe had lost their advantage in numbers. It was really beyond anyone''s understanding as to why they would attack the practitioners at this point in time.


    "Hahahaha, bloody human practitioners. You will all die! With me, His Excellency Barka here, you will all die here today! Hahahaha, it has been a long time since I had such a feast!"


    Piercing laughter invaded the surroundings. It was mixed with a powerful energy that made one''s spirit quake.


    In the crowd, those practitioners of slightly lower cultivation were affected by the laughter. They stepped away from the crowd and fell to the ground. This happened in large batches, just like a melting iceberg.


    Almost at the same time, a large army of Fierce Owls came flying in from all corners. They rushed towards those that were affected by the noise and had their spirits injured. They bit and chewed on them. In just a short time, flesh, blood, and spirit were sent flying all over the place. It was really a feast for the Devil Tribe.


    "The spirit attack, the most direct spirit attack!" The Devil Tribe member had fired the most direct spirit attack. His cultivation was extremely strong since he was a Devil King. Hence, his spirit attack easily affected the practitioners below the Immortal realm who were within a thousand-mile radius. There was also a large group of practitioners who fell. They were the ones below the Venerable Realm. Among the crowd, those who managed to stabilize their spirits did not fall directly, but in the process, their spirits were injured. This caused their combat abilities to decrease significantly.


    "Sigh, this is so troublesome! Eastern Thunder World is already like this, aren''t you guys satisfied yet?" Looking at the situation, Zhou Bao''s expression changed slightly. He began to talk in a soft voice and it rang across like a big bell in everyone''s hearts and minds, pulling their spirits back and keeping them focused. "The brains of the Devil Tribe must be faulty, can you guys even retain everyone here with that kind of ability?"


    "Hahahaha, interesting, this is so interesting! I did not expect a master of martial arts to be here! I thought all of them are at the Eastern Thunder Sect or whatever it is called! This is nice. Your king here has not yet eaten today, so I have chosen you!" As he spoke, a black shadow broke through the crowd and pulled Zhou Bao over.


    "Eat me, do you have the ability?"


    His fist met the black shadow and the corners of Zhou Bao''s mouth curled up.


    Bang bang bang bang bang!


    The duo moved somewhere else to fight it out.


    "Boom!!!"


    The energy from their fists exchanges tore the crowd apart. The duo flashed their bodies and moved away from the crowd.


    "Good, good, good. You are the first human expert I have met, it''s really not that easy!"


    "But you''re not the strongest Devil I''ve ever encountered!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly and his Mysterious Icy Divine Light started to flow at an extraordinary speed. His Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill were launched together instantly. With a punch, he sent the Devil moving backwards continuously. A layer of frost formed all over his injured body.


    "You''re not suitable to be a punching bag. The guy in the Boundless Sand Sea could take nine of my punches. You can''t even take six, how could you call yourself a Devil King? You really don''t know how to live!"


    After leaving the crowd, Zhou Bao released his hands and feet. It was a pity that this Barka could only say a sentence before he lost all his confidence after being beaten up by Zhou Bao. He could not even utter any words afterwards.


    And that was without doubt. He had seemingly lost all his consciousness from the extremely strong punch and a chill that traveled down his spine. He was left with only a tiny will to live. Using the last of his strength left, he launched the Devil Qi in his body.


    "Grug!"


    After three consecutive punches from Zhou Bao, the Devil King was completely shattered. At the same time, Zhou Bao used an incomparably vast spirit to suppress the Devil King''s Qi Power completely. "You cannot make it at all. It was only four punches and you''ve ended up like this. I don''t even need a sixth one. A fifth is enough!"


    The fifth punch came, accompanied by Zhou Bao''s cold laughter. It hit Barka''s chest directly and broke through his body.


    Boom!


    Barka''s body could no longer support himself under such a strong punch. It evolved into a bank of blood fog and disappeared from the earth forever.

 760 Dong Yingtian

    There was an awkward silence pervading the air. The team that was marching toward the Eastern Thunder Sect stopped. All the people present looked so surprised when they stared at Zhou Bao.


    There were numerous practitioners here, including quite a few Human Immortals and one or two Immortals. None of them dared to say that they were able to fight with the Devil King Level Barka for several rounds. After all, he belonged to the Devil Tribe. At least in terms of physical strength and body structure, he was born to be much stronger than human beings. When he fought with humans of the same level, he had plenty of advantages.


    But what had Zhou Bao done?


    He had smashed Barka with six punches in an instant. People now thought more highly of him than ever.


    "A King Level practitioner... he must be a King Level practitioner. Otherwise, how could he be able to kill a Devil at the Lord Level so easily!"


    "Yes. Given his performance, he must be a formidable being among the King Level practitioners!"


    "How lucky we are! We are on the same team as him. Such a practitioner is at the same level as the Master of the Eastern Thunder Sect along with their Highest Elders!"


    "Right, now we don''t have to fear the harassment of the Devil Tribe. They will not harass us anymore!"


    Back among the crowd, Zhou Bao was feeling very uncomfortable and helpless because of being stared at by these burning eyes while he continued to head toward the Eastern Thunder Sect.


    "Hey, are you a King Level practitioner?!"


    In the face of the strong power that Zhou Bao had just revealed, only a little girl named Ruo Lin dared to greet him. After all, she had been with him for some time and she never considered him a vicious person. When they were in Shengjing City, this strange, powerful practitioner, who liked taking others'' names, brought her out of the city.


    "King Level? Haha, that''s the peak of the Immortal Realm. I''m not that powerful!" Zhou Bao pursed his lips and shook his head. He then glanced at Ruo Lin and said, "What? Do you want to avenge your friend?"


    "Yes, I want to help him get his name back. Can I?"


    "No problem. Anyway, I will not change my name from Taoist Cundi. I''ll see if you are able to get it!"


    "Taoist Cundi... you are Taoist Cundi? The one who killed Devil King Qiu Long of the Boundless Sand Sea and destroyed the Transmitting Formation here?!" someone asked in a loud, surprised tone. What he had said made the people around him exclaim.


    "Has the Transmitting Formation in the Boundless Sand Sea been destroyed?"


    "Hasn''t the Boundless Sand Sea been occupied by the Devil Tribe? How could the formation be destroyed?!"


    "I don''t believe it. Devil King Qiu Long had killed the suzerains of three sects in one go when he attacked the sand sea. Those suzerains were at the Marquis Level!"


    "He just mentioned that he had killed a person with nine punches. Is that Qiu Long? What''s the origin of this guy? Why haven''t I heard of a guy with such powerful strength?!"


    "Yeah. Those at the King Level are even rare in the entire Void Universe. Even if he is not a practitioner from the Easternmost Land, we should have heard of him as well!"


    ...


    Those few words made quite a splash. All kinds of messages and divine thoughts instantly resounded in the air, and the team began to slow down.


    "You are really well-informed. I just killed Qiu Long, and you know about it already!" Zhou Bao squinted at the person who had just spoken.


    "Please don''t get me wrong. I''m Dong Yingtian, the Elder of the Eastern Thunder Sect. Although the Boundless Sand Sea is far away from our sect, what happened there cannot be concealed from our men."


    "Dong Yingtian? The Elder of the Eastern Thunder Sect?!"


    All of a sudden, the surrounding atmosphere became weird. These practitioners were heading toward the Eastern Thunder Sect. However, this sect had closed all the Transmitting Formations in the Eastern Thunder World and had treated them as cannon fodder. This had aroused widespread anger. Under these circumstances, no one would have any favorable impression of this sect. Now, however, only this sect was able to provide them with a way out in the Eastern Thunder World. Therefore, they could not resist it. The situation immediately turned odd.


    "I have no friendly relations with the Eastern Thunder Sect!" Zhou Bao smiled and added, "I just want to leave the Eastern Thunder World. Since you are the Elder of the Eastern Thunder Sect, I just want to ask you if the news that your sect released this time is true."


    "Of course it''s true!" Dong Yingtian answered with a wry smile. He knew that they had offended all the practitioners in the Eastern Thunder World. He was also aware that they had no other options. If they had not been pushed to this point, they would not have offended others¡ªespecially so many practitioners. No one wanted to do that.


    "We planned to restart all the Transmitting Formations, but considering that the formations are scattered and many places have been occupied by the Devil Tribe, our Highest Elder executed Supreme Powers to change the spatial structure of the formations and moved all the transmitting locations into our sect. As a result, as long as you guys can arrive at our sect timely, you will be able to withdraw from the Eastern Thunder World. I believe that the Devil Tribe doesn''t have the guts to rush out of the Eastern Thunder World for the time being."


    "Hehe!" Zhou Bao smiled faintly and gave no more response to Dong Yingtian. Suddenly, he increased his speed several times over, leaving the others far behind, and moved straight toward the Eastern Thunder Sect.


    Then, Dong Yingtian felt even more awkward. The reason that he had appeared was due to the horrifying combat capability Zhou Bao just showed and his performance in the Boundless Sand Sea. He had even come up with several ways to gain his friendship, but he had not expected Zhou Bao to leave directly, disregarding his dignity. In any case, he felt humiliated. However, he soon found a new focus.


    "You guys seem to be very familiar with Taoist Cundi!" Dong Yingtian''s body flashed and he appeared in front of Ruo Lin and his friends.


    "Oh, we''re not that familiar with him. We just cooperated once in Shengjing City." The one who spoke was the oldest and the most prudent one among them, rather than Ruo Lin. In any event, the guy in front of them was the Elder of the Eastern Thunder Sect. Although everyone had profound grievances against this sect, the influence it had formed over the past tens of millions of years still existed. Furthermore, they were going to use its Transmitting Formations. Thus, he spoke very politely. "I''m Ma Guangzhou from the Yellow Fate Sect of Bi City, paying respects to Elder Dong!"


    "Yellow Fate Sect of Bi City? Are you all disciples of that sect?"


    "Yes, we came here to attend the trial in Shengjing City. But we didn''t expect to encounter such a thing!"


    "You escaped from there?!" After hearing Ma Guangzhou''s words, Dong Yingtian was somewhat interested in them. This time, when the Devil Tribe first invaded Shengjing City, less than 10% of the practitioners survived the disaster and were able to escape. With about eight members, this group of people had all escaped from Shengjing City. It was indeed beyond his expectation, so he could not help admiring them.


    "We were just lucky enough to bump into Taoist Cundi. Without his help, we couldn''t have survived!" Thinking of the situation on that day, Ma Guangzhou was still nervous and his palms were sweating. Zhou Bao only cared about Ruo Lin and just took her away. However, they could only escape after having a fierce battle with the Royalty of the Qing Dynasty in the Transmitting Formation. When they came out, they encountered Emperor Kang. If they hadn''t all had a few life-saving treasures on them and hadn''t struck him when he was unprepared, they would not have survived even if they succeeded in getting out of the city.


    "That accounts for it." After hearing Ma Guangzhou''s explanation, Dong Yingtian nodded his head. Of course, with the help of a powerful man like Zhou Bao, they could easily break the defense of Shengjing City and make a dignified departure, not to mention simply escape from there.


    But soon after, another question came to his mind. "What did Taoist Cundi do in Shengjing City? Did he go there for the trial? Did he need to take part in it? No, there''s something fishy going on here. I must tell Master the news!"


    "Hmm, I guess he masked his real purpose by participating in the trial. In fact, he wanted to leave the Eastern Thunder World through the Transmitting Formation of the Qing Dynasty. However, being unlucky, he encountered the invasion of the Devil Tribe and stayed there."


    In the Eastern Thunder Sect, one of the Highest Elders laughed coldly as he received Dong Yingtian''s message.


    "That''s not true. Given his strength, it''s very easy for him to leave the Eastern Thunder World even without using the Transmitting Formation. A Duke Level practitioner is able to go across the endless spacetimes around the Eastern Thunder World and enter the void, let alone a King Level practitioner. If he wants to leave the Eastern Thunder World, he doesn''t need any Transmitting Formation!"


    "Then why will he come to our sect?"


    "That''s the key to the problem. We can understand the reason why he went to Shengjing City was that he planned to go into the depths of the remote Star Area or the periphery of the Star Area. He could even take this opportunity to leave the Easternmost Land. But what does he plan to do in our sect? After learning the lessons of what happened in Shengjing City and the Boundless Sand Sea, along with the invasion of the Devil Tribe, we will definitely not activate the Grand Transmitting Formation inside our sect. The message we released just said that we will help practitioners get out of the Eastern Thunder World. But that''s meaningless to him. What is he going to do here?!"


    "This person has a mysterious origin and he does things unconventionally. Moreover, all the things just happened too coincidentally. Maybe he has a connection with the Devil Tribe. Keep a close eye on him to see what his purpose is. I hope he doesn''t harbor any evil thoughts. Otherwise, I will make him regret coming to the Eastern Thunder World!"

 761 The Thunder Capital & the Ten Day Plan

    "This is the Thunder Capital!!"


    If Shengjing City was the most imposing city in the Eastern Thunder World, then the Thunder Capital would be the legendary holy city there.


    This city had a population of about seven to eight million, and all the people here were practitioners. Even the pedlars and menial servants on the street were Level Seven or Eight experts. This was the resource and strength of the Eastern Thunder Sect. But now, all these practitioners were not worth mentioning in front of the great quantity of Devil Tribesmen.


    The number of Devil Tribesmen was so large that no level of quality could overcome such a difference in population between them and the practitioners in this city. Although the Fierce Owls were vulnerable in front of practitioners like Zhou Bao, each one of them had at least the strength of a Level Seven or Eight expert. And the powerful ones even had the strength of Individual Immortals. Even the millions of practitioners here simply could not withstand their attacks. If it weren''t for its first-class defensive magic formation, perhaps the entire city would have been captured by now.


    And the Eastern Thunder Sect would have been taken as well.


    Zhou Bao had thrown off Dong Yingtian and entered the Thunder Capital following the crowd. This city was so large that it could easily accommodate millions of people. Now, even though most of the surviving practitioners in the Eastern Thunder World were here, it was not crowded. Zhou Bao even saw many tiny spacetimes here, with each one of them being able to accommodate hundreds of millions of living creatures.


    "It''s a wonderful micro world. As long as it is given enough time, chances are that it can evolve into a macro world. No wonder it has become the core of the Eastern Thunder Sect!" the Ghost Child said in a surprised tone as he felt the spirit of the Thunder Capital.


    "It isn''t a Supreme Fairy Weapon, is it?" asked Zhou Bao.


    "No, it''s a Top-grade Highest Heaven Celestial Device. Although the power it can exert far surpasses that of an ordinary Taihao Fairy Weapon, it''s a Highest Heaven Celestial Device in the end."


    "Why is the Eastern Thunder Sect so kind as to accommodate all these practitioners?"


    "No matter what their intentions are, at least there''s nothing wrong with it presently. Look, they have sent many people to house these practitioners. They seem to have been fully prepared."


    The practitioners from the Eastern Thunder Sect were busy evacuating the crowd and skillfully guiding different practitioners to different areas. Although there were many people waiting to be guided, they still did everything in good order.


    "It''s actually because that they do everything in an orderly way that I feel somewhat strange about it!" Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes. Along with the crowd, he followed the Eastern Thunder Sect guide and entered the area where he would temporarily live. "It''s so weird. Given their proficiency in this process, they must have adopted an extremely strict training. This cannot be done within one or two days. It''s not been a long time since the Devil Tribe invaded the city. Is it possible that they already knew that the Devil Tribe were going to invade here?"


    "That''s impossible. Even if the Devil Tribe were going to invade here, it would only send a small group. They would never expect that the tribe would invade here on such a large scale this time. If they predicted that, they never would have conducted the trial. The Eastern Thunder World would never allow the Qing Dynasty to activate that Transmitting Formation!"


    "That''s the key to the problem. In that case, how could the people from the Eastern Thunder Sect respond to all this so promptly?"


    "What do you think?"


    "I don''t know. I don''t have all the information."


    "I''m sorry everyone. Everything just happened so unexpectedly and our sect cannot make full preparations for it all. You shall stay here temporarily and someone will come to help you register and arrange for you to leave the Eastern Thunder World. But during this period, I hope all of you can keep calm and be patient. After all, we cannot send all the people away in one go because there are just so many people here!"


    "We understand!" everyone replied in unison. After all, they needed the help of the Eastern Thunder Sect.


    "There''s one more thing... although the Devil Tribe is attacking our sect, with the protection of the ancestral formation, we will definitely be fine. However, if we encounter a massive attack launched by the Devil Tribe, we still have some difficulty resisting it. Therefore, if such a calamity should happen and threaten our formation, I hope that all of you can lend us a helping hand."


    "Of course. We''re obliged to do that!"


    When receiving assistance from another, you should help them likewise. At present, everyone was relying on the Eastern Thunder Sect and were staying in its headquarters¡ªthe Thunder Capital. No one was willing to offend anyone from this sect, so they all echoed that person''s words.


    Right at that moment, a practitioner with a high position dressed in the Eastern Thunder Sect''s uniform arrived at the door. With just a glance, he discovered Zhou Bao and asked, "May I know who are you? Are you Taoist Cundi? I''m Dong Linhai, an Elder of the Eastern Thunder Sect. I''m here to invite you to our sect at the order of our Master."


    "Master?!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flickered. This actually met his expectations. No matter how many practitioners this sect had accepted, as long as they were not powerful, it could handle most of the emergencies with home court advantage. What it feared was someone like him¡ªwho was too powerful to control and who had a mysterious origin. It surely would find out his background first. Even if it failed to do so, it would at least keep a close eye on him to guarantee that he would not make any mess, especially during this special period.


    Therefore, he was not surprised when someone from this sect came to meet him.


    Following behind this Elder, he arrived at the center of the Thunder Capital and also the core of the Eastern Thunder Sect¡ªthe Eastern Thunder Palace.


    "Fellow Taoist Cundi, I''m Dong Muyuan, the Master of the Eastern Thunder Sect. Since I''m doing closed-door training, please excuse me for not welcoming you in person."


    "There is nothing to excuse. Practice is the foundation of us practitioners. How can I blame you for that?!" Zhou Bao laughed and felt greatly relieved as he saw the colorful light.


    Although Dong Muyuan did not appear, Zhou Bao could tell that he was an expert, a practitioner of the Immortal Realm, through the colorful light. However, he could pose little threat to him. In terms of his combat capability, he was no match for him. Thus, Zhou Bao felt relieved.


    "I wonder what instructions Master Dong has by calling me here in the midst of pressing affairs."


    "I don''t dare give you any instructions. You''re so powerful that you destroyed the Transmitting Formation of the Boundless Sand Sea and killed Devil King Qiu Long. I really admire you for that. It''s my pleasure having you here. The situation is critical now and my sect is also at stake. Furthermore, your origin is very mysterious, so I have to guard against you!"


    "I understand." When Zhou Bao heard the words "have to", a smile flashed across his face. "I know Master Dong is afraid that I''m a member of the Devil Tribe. After all, I appeared so abruptly."


    "Yes. Please tell me your background and set my mind at ease."


    "Master Dong, you''re not being straightforward. Since things have gotten to this point, even if I tell you my origin, can you really rest assured?" Zhou Bao laughed. "No one can prove it on my behalf. Whatever I say will be groundless. Wise as you are, you must have expected this."


    "What do you mean?"


    "I''m just here for the Transmitting Formation. I want to leave the Eastern Thunder World. If Master Dong can do me a favor and let me use your formation to leave this world, wouldn''t all your troubles be gone?"


    "Hahahaha, you must be joking?! The Devil Tribe is entering the East Thunder World now through large Transmitting Formations, so these formations are no longer available to us. And the small ones can only send people into the surrounding void. With your strength, you can directly break open the void. The micro worlds around the Eastern Thunder World cannot resist your power, is that right?"


    "Yes, that''s correct. The real reason why I don''t leave this world is that I want to kill Devil Tribesmen and temper my punching skills by fighting with them. In this way, I hope that my fist intent can scale new heights. So, I''ve chosen to stay in this world. There''s nothing I can do if you don''t believe me."


    "Kill Devil Tribesmen, that''s good! The Eastern Thunder World is facing a great calamity and people like Taoist Cundi are badly needed. I won''t stop you from killing them, but for everyone''s safety and to prevent any other misunderstandings, you''d better not undertake any secret actions during this period in the Thunder Capital."


    "I see!"


    "What''s more, since you are here to kill Devil Tribesmen, I guess that you are not eager to use the formation. So, we won''t arrange for you to use it any time soon. What do you think?"


    "That''s fine." At that moment, Zhou Bao behaved like a real Taoist. He bowed to the colorful light with his fists cupped together and then vanished from the Eastern Thunder Palace.


    This startled the Master of the Eastern Thunder Sect and the Highest Elder, who was secretly watching him.


    "What a high speed! No... it''s a Space Divine Sense. It''s hard to believe that he can operate it so quietly in the Eastern Thunder Sect. It seems that we underestimated his strength!" Zhou Bao''s sudden disappearance really shocked the two of them.


    "And what do you think, Elder Yuhua?"


    "He is very powerful. Although he intentionally suppressed his cultivation to a very low level, I can feel that there is a terrifying power inside his body. None of us is a match for him!"


    "Indeed, I also feel the same way. This guy is very dangerous, but we have no way to harm him now."


    "No matter how strong he is, it doesn''t matter. All we have to do is wait another 10 days. We''ll have enough people and the right time will come in 10 days. No matter how powerful he is, as long as he is not an Earthly Immortal, he will be destined to undergo a blood sacrifice!!!" Elder Yuhua came out of the darkness with a cold light emanating from his eyes.

 763 Unusual Movements of the Dark Sec

    Since other macro worlds had contacted with the Heaven Realm World, all sects inside united unprecedentedly, with the Human Emperor Palace at the center. Then, a great deal of labor ensued behind the scenes.


    Each sect contributed its own share and performed unique functions. Yan Yuntian, a man of special skills, knew all about foreign affairs and how to make contact with other countries, considering he was an emperor in the past.


    There were few differences between making contact with other macro worlds and other countries.


    The only difference being he represented Jin in the past, but now, he did everything on behalf of the Heaven Realm World.


    One result of such concerted efforts was the Child-endowing Buddha''s appointment to be the guide in the Human Emperor Palace.


    There were two reasons for that. First, the Child-endowing Buddha''s enormous size and always wearing a smile just like the Maitreya. The second was his otherworldly power and becoming a Lord of Heaven. If chosen to do this job, he could manifest the power of the Heaven Realm World. And although most of the macro worlds in the Void Universe had Human Immortals, Immortals, and even Earthly Immortals, those who could leave their world for other worlds and behave aggressively were merely Lords of Heaven. Only one or two Human Immortals ever performed such a daring feat, but they had to act cautiously. Therefore, only the Child-endowing Buddha was qualified for the work.


    Because he accomplished such a great deal of tasks and guests from other macro worlds could not recognize him, he gained the nickname, "Guide Master." As time passed, even the practitioner who recognized him in the Heaven Realm World referred to him with this moniker. And that depressed him.


    Moreover, he encountered some troubles in the recent practice. Hence, though he always wore a smile while doing the work, when he was alone, he felt immensely sad and miserable, as if he chewed a mouthful of Chinese goldthread.


    "Hey, Guide Master! Why pull a long face every day? It''s unlike you!"


    The Child-endowing Buddha walked out of the Human Emperor Palace. When he went to go back to his room and get some rest, a figure suddenly appeared beside him and said these words with scorn.


    "Oh, it''s benefactor Wang She. May I know what advice you have for me?!"


    Zhou Bao, Wang She and the Child-endowing Buddha colluded together for many years, but now everyone in the world knew that Wang She had a good relationship with Zhou Bao, while the Child-endowing Buddha harbored a deep hatred for Zhou Bao because he had suffered a setback due to him. Thus, the Child-endowing Buddha resented Wang She.


    That was indeed the truth. The Child-endowing Buddha held a post in the Human Emperor Palace, but so did Wang She. However, neither was subordinate nor impediment to the other. But Wang She relished ridiculing the Child-endowing Buddha now and then when he saw his sad face, as if laughing at him would make him feel at ease.


    "Benefactor Wang needn''t bother in my affairs!" The Child-endowing Buddha remained calm and clasped his palms together. "I''m wondering what benefactor Wang is doing in front of the Human Emperor Palace. After all, you''re supposed to do your job at this moment!"


    "Oh, I just received some news and am about to report it to the Human Emperor. I''m very familiar with the path to the Human Emperor Palace, so I needn''t bother master to guide me!"


    "Then please allow me to take my leave!" The Child-endowing Buddha realized that Wang She neither came for something big nor to see him, so he left in a hurry.


    Unlike the Child-endowing Buddha, Wang She mainly carried out intelligence-gathering work. Of course, he did not collect information himself. His responsibility rested on gathering and reporting the collected information to his superiors.


    Wang She walked into the main hall of the Human Emperor Palace, like strolling through a park. Human Emperor Yan Yuntian had just finished all the work at hand. He leaned against a golden chair and refreshed his spirit by closing his eyes.


    After serving as a Human Emperor for such a long time, he looked completely different from before. When sworn in as a Human Emperor, he behaved just like an emperor in the secular world. However now, he was elevated to a new level; a stream of purplish, gold air surged around him, and when he opened his eyes, flashing gold starlight gleamed in them.


    Every time Wang She saw Yan Yuntian, he would sigh and think in his heart. "Truly a lucky man!"


    To be frank, Yan Yuntian was by no means the most outstanding one among the Human Emperors of past ages. In fact, he proved to be an ordinary one, not even as good as most of his emperor peers.


    Nonetheless, he had a good son-in-law and a good chance.


    He did not need to care too much about others'' facial expressions due to Zhou Bao''s strength. In addition, he received an opportunity to integrate the Heaven Realm World when it exposed to the Void Universe once again. He took advantage of it to push his majesty to the peak.


    Similarly, as he gained more authority, his strength advanced, and the Way of the Emperor he practiced became more subtle and profound. Wang She figured out that Yan Yuntian''s strength advanced by leaps and bounds and he stepped into the Eight-tribulation Lord of Heaven Realm within a few dozen days.


    "Such a lucky old man! I''ll rear a good daughter and find a good son-in-law too. If so, I won''t need to struggle in this lifetime!" Wang She thought, walking to Yan Yuntian quickly. "Pay my respects to Your Majesty!"


    "Oh, Chief Wang, please take a seat!"


    When he noticed Wang She''s arrival, Yan Yuntian''s facial expression hardened.


    His position and strength were elevated to new heights compared to before. Yet, he could not do whatever he wished in the Heaven Realm World. Wang She proved to be his worst fear.


    He was not only one of the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace, but also a sworn follower of Zhou Bao. Meanwhile, he had another title¡ªthe second expert in the Seven-deity Regions.


    You may ask, who was the first expert?


    Without a doubt, Zhou Bao, and Wang She the universally accepted second expert. Although he was just an ordinary Genuine Immortal at the Lord of Heaven Realm, he crossed a Void Tribulation instead of an ordinary one. This matter alone enabled him to far exceed all the other practitioners in the Seven-deity Regions.


    With the cultivation of a Lord of Heaven, Wang She exerted a combat capability which matched that of Immortals. At present, he was the most suitable one to represent the power of the Heaven Realm World. Coupled with his background, even though Yan Yuntian was the Human Emperor, he feared Wang She and respected him.


    "It is late. Why have you come, Chief Wang?"


    "I just heard some news that matters immensely, so I am here for wise instructions, Your Majesty!" Although Wang She was an unruly man, he showed due respect for Yan Yuntian because of Zhou Bao.


    "What have you heard?"


    "The Devil Tribe invades the Easternmost Part of the Eastern Land. Soon they will capture a macro world!"


    "The Easternmost Part of the Eastern Land?!" Yan Yuntian stroked his chin in confusion. Since the Heaven Realm World interconnected with the Void Universe once again, he crammed much knowledge about the Void Universe into his brain. Thus, he knew where the Easternmost Land lay. Presently, the Heaven Realm World was located in the most remote place of the West Wilds¡ªthe Desolate Ancient Star Area, while the Easternmost Land, as its name implied, was situated in the most remote territory of the Eastern Land.


    Two wholly unrelated areas.


    Not to mention the Devil Tribe invaded the Easternmost Land and was poised to occupy a macro world. But even if the entire Eastern Land was in a crisis, such matters were none of his business.


    "When the Devil Tribe made a massive invasion into that place, the Primordial Demon in the center of the Infinite Star Sea appeared to have some unusual movements. It is said that another Devil Fetus suddenly formed!"


    "The Infinite Star Sea?!" When Wang She mentioned this place, Yan Yuntian paid more attention to this matter, obliged to do so.


    The Infinite Star Sea was not so close to the Heaven Realm World, but there were several Transmitting Formations connecting each other. Also, it was the only Star Area that the Heaven Realm World could get in touch with when the latter was isolated in the Void Universe. However, it was occupied by two fleets of the Holy Alliance. As for the Heaven Realm World, it proved to be the most sensitive Star Area. On hearing that another Devil Fetus appeared in that area, Yan Yuntian''s jaw dropped in shock. "How is this possible?!"


    "This is the weirdest place. Since the Primordial Demon in the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode has been released, demons appear in the West Wilds now and then, and also in the Eastern Land. I didn''t have any impression of the Dark Sect in the past, but since I took charge of these dealings, I discovered its strength has increased greatly in recent years. However, it didn''t reveal that deliberately. On the contrary, it seemed to conceal something. I always thought there was something wrong."


    "You mean the Devil Tribe will attack the Heaven Realm World too?"


    "I have not the slightest idea. Although the chance that will happen is slim, if the Dark Sect causes trouble in the Heaven Realm World, it would be a disaster."


    "Agreed, I always felt the Dark Sect had done everything in an extremely cruel way, but I didn''t expect they would collude with the Devil Tribe!"


    "It''s just pure speculation. I have no evidence, but I guess it is accurate information!" Wang She''s face turned grave. Since the Heaven Realm World and the Void Universe came into contact again, he discovered the Dark Sect had conducted many big movements. Furthermore, he once felt a spell of subtle and unfathomable Devil Qi. Although it seemed like a flash in the pan, it was more than enough to attract his attention.


    "Say, Chief Wang, what do you believe we should do to remedy this matter?"


    Hearing this, Wang She felt like kicking him down from the throne. "You are the Human Emperor, the one who is responsible for it. What do you mean by asking for my advice? If I can handle it, why do I bother to come to you? This is not my business."


    "I don''t have any ingenious ideas. But if I must propose a solution, I believe the best option is to let Zhou Bao exit the training to clear all unstable factors in the Heaven Realm World away. But it is a pity he will do this closed-door training for 10 years!"


    "Yes, he will do the closed-door training for 10 years."


    In the past, Yan Yuntian thought Zhou Bao to be utterly detestable because he always appeared in front of him but was not obedient to him. Yet now, when something horrific happened, he realized how beneficial it would be if Zhou Bao were in front of him.


    "Well then, can we ask for that person''s advice?" Yan Yuntian asked, pointing upward.


    "Hmm, then we must wait until Zhou Bao exits the training because that person only follows his advice!" Wang She said with a wry smile.

 762 The Blood Sacrifice & Guide

    "The aura of killing, it''s the aura of killing!" As soon as they left the Eastern Thunder Sect, the Ghost Child shrieked in excitement, as if he had found a nice toy. His voice was so harsh that it irritated Zhou Bao''s nerves. "Boy, they have a plot... there''s definitely a plot, a huge plot!"


    "What the hell are you talking about? My spiritual mind is not weak. Why didn''t I sense their murderous intent?"


    "It''s because you''re a fool, idiot!" The Ghost Child''s shadow suddenly jumped out and stood above his head. "That murderous intent is unrevealed and is still fermenting, so you cannot feel it. It would be strange if you could do that. Haha, I finally remember what it is. It''s the aura of a blood sacrifice, the aura of a blood sacrifice!"


    "Blood sacrifice?!" Upon hearing these two words, Zhou Bao felt a chill of fear suddenly rise from his heart.


    "What is that?"


    "It''s an ancient method of offering sacrifices to gods and demons from primitive times and taking advantage of their power. Haha, this method was prohibited at that time because it is done at the cost of numerous lives. I now finally understand why people in the Eastern Thunder Sect would behave so abnormally by guiding so many practitioners into their sect, and why they have arranged so many things in advance with nothing having gone wrong when so many people swarmed into their sect. It turns out that they want to conduct a blood sacrifice, at the cost of the blood and lives of all the practitioners in the Eastern Thunder World, to summon a real Primordial Demon or an Innate Deity. And by relying on this power, they can eliminate the Devil Tribe. Primordial Demons are the ancestors of the Devil Tribe and are also the creators of the Devil Realm, so a Primordial Demon is sufficient to prevent the invasion of the Devil Tribe. However, Innate Deities are the sworn enemies of the Devil Tribe, and once they appear and face so many low-level Devil Tribesmen, they would surely kill all of them without restraint."


    "Are you sure? Does the Innate Deity or Primordial Demon that they are going to summon really have such mighty power?"


    "Of course, the more sacrifices they offer and the more powerful the sacrifices are, the stronger the Primordial Demon or Innate Deity that is summoned will be. This is a principle that has been derived from some of the most basic laws from the Primordial Time, and no one can ever change it!"


    "Do you mean that the Eastern Thunder Sect is going to kill all the practitioners here and sacrifice their lives, spirit, and blood to the Primordial Demon or Innate Deity? Look around, how many practitioners are here now, and how many of them will be here in the end?"


    "If there are more than 100 million practitioners, they can summon a fully developed Innate Deity or Primordial Demon. Given the current scene, I''m guessing there will soon be more than 100 million practitioners. Right, they are waiting for that opportunity to conduct the blood sacrifice. Hehe, I wonder which they are going to summon, a fully developed Primordial Demon or an Innate Deity?"


    "Can an Innate Deity be summoned by using this method?"


    "Of course. I told you that the rite of this blood sacrifice is derived from the oldest laws at the Primordial Origin. If you know its key, you can even summon a Primordial Fierce Beast. But unfortunately, Primordial Fierce Beasts are different from gods or demons. They have their unique characteristics. So, there is a different method to conduct a blood sacrifice to summon them!" the Ghost Child said in a regretful tone.


    "At present, although there are not 100 million practitioners in this city, there must be over 10 million. At this rate, within 10 days at most, the Eastern Thunder Sect can gather together 100 million practitioners. That''s when it should be the perfect opportunity for them to conduct the rite!"


    "Yes, it''s also my opportunity!" The Ghost Child''s eyes shone with excitement. 100 million practitioners! He got excited at the thought of so much murderous intent. Although such an amount of Massacre Qi would not be able to help him return to his heyday, it would be able to restore part of his strength.


    "Damn it, they are summoning gods and demons, what the hell are you so excited about?!"


    "How stupid you are! Why let them summon gods and demons? The rise and fall of the Eastern Thunder World has nothing to do with you. Of course, we should pocket the Massacre Qi. Idiot, the Eastern Thunder Sect is not a big deal. We just need to kill the sect master and snatch the altar. Then, we''ll have the power of a blood sacrifice of 100 million practitioners. With that, I''ll be able to restore part of my power and you can do as you will in the Void Universe!"


    "The blood and spirit of 100 million practitioners can summon a complete god or demon, but it can only restore part of your strength. Does that mean that you''re more powerful than an Innate Deity or a Primordial Demon?" Zhou Bao asked, looking pensive.


    "It''s not gonna work that way, idiot!" As if he had seen the hope to restore his strength, the Ghost Child was somewhat incoherent. He got excited as though he had drunk too much. "The summoned god or demon cannot be with them forever. But I''m different. Once my strength recovers, it will belong to me and no one can take it away from me. Of course, if my strength is fully recovered, killing an Innate Deity or a Primordial Demon will not be a problem for me. And that''s one of the reasons why I exist!" Being so excited, he spilled the beans. He wanted to take back what he had just said, but it was too late.


    "Oh, the reason that you exist is to kill gods and demons!" Zhou Bao smiled and stopped talking about this topic. It was sufficient to know another''s secret. There was no need to know all the ins and outs of the secret by inquiring further. That would only bring trouble to oneself and make the other person feel repelled.


    "However, I think you might be disappointed. Now that I know the plan of the Eastern Thunder Sect, I will never allow it to be carried out!"


    "What? Why?!"


    "I just feel unhappy about it. The Eastern Thunder Sect wants to sacrifice all the practitioners in the Eastern Thunder World to keep its foundation, and that really pisses me off. I''m angry about it, so I won''t allow them to succeed!"


    "What are you talking about? Are you crazy?!" In exasperation, the Ghost Child shouted. He regretted telling Zhou Bao the truth. If he had not been impatient, he would not have loosened his lips and told Zhou Bao about this matter. When the Eastern Thunder Sect launched the blood sacrifice, it would be too late even if Zhou Bao wanted to stop it. He then could devour the killing aura, spirit, flesh, and blood that was prepared for the blood sacrifice in one go by doing some little tricks.


    "You''re crazy, I''m not. Killing hundreds of people is acceptable. But this is 100 million people! Are you insane?!" Zhou Bao glanced at the Ghost Child. "You''d better behave well and have a good rest. I don''t care how powerful you will be when you recover, but don''t look forward to seeing your daydream come true. I won''t help you!" After he finished speaking, he forced the Ghost Child back into the red gourd by using his spirit.


    Although that gourd was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, it had been refined by Zhou Bao. Furthermore, as Zhou Bao had grown stronger, he was able to control it with less effort. As its device spirit, the Ghost Child had just recovered. He was surely unable to fight Zhou Bao. Under Zhou Bao''s might, he could only withdraw his head and go into the gourd obediently, without having even the slightest chance to protest.


    "Good Lord, 100 million practitioners! I cannot handle this matter rashly. The Eastern Thunder Sect has not shown any evidence of this, so it''s impossible for me to publicize this fact directly. Damn it, if I cannot do it publicly, then I''ll do it in secret. I guess I''d better add fuel to the fire and spread the news secretly. Rumors are the most lethal things in the world. If I take the news as a rumor and spread it, the Eastern Thunder Sect will surely be caught unprepared. Hmm, since your plan is so sinister, I won''t show you bastards any mercy."


    After making up his mind, Zhou Bao acted immediately. Two hours later, a message that the Eastern Thunder Sect was going to sacrifice all the practitioners to summon the gods and demons to fight against the Devil Tribe spread throughout the entire Eastern Thunder Sect like a chilly wind.


    In the Human Emperor Palace, Heaven Realm World¡ª


    The Heaven Realm World looked completely different from when Zhou Bao left the last time.


    Due to the failure of the two macro worlds from the Holy Alliance, the other influences did not dare to act arbitrarily, which would land themselves in trouble. Therefore, on the second day after Zhou Bao''s departure, some macro worlds began to contact the Heaven Realm World secretly. Though the Heaven Realm World had long predicted this situation, it lacked adequate preparations.


    For the entire 810,000 years, the Heaven Realm World had separated itself from the Void Universe and wasted time in the Desolate Ancient Star Area. Its sad stories were able to make those who understood feel grieved, and make those who listened shed bitter tears.


    During those 810,000 years, it degenerated into a world where the top experts were only Human Immortals from a macro world that ruled over heavens and realms. The difference between then and now was quite big.


    Human Immortals!


    Moreover, these experts had just recently stepped into the Human Immortal Realm. What did that mean?


    In the entire Void Universe, those who had just recently stepped into the Human Immortal Realm were merely practitioners at the Earl Level. Such practitioners were even very weak on a vast planet, not to mention in a macro world.


    Fortunately, in the Heaven Realm World, powerful practitioners gathered not only in the Seven-deity Regions, but also in the Sea Area. Although the most powerful demons there were also only Human Immortals, their numbers were huge. Furthermore, the Sea Emperor was there to back them up.


    And most important of all, the demons in the Sea Area seemed to be uninterested to contact the other macro worlds in the Void Universe. They handed all those matters over to the Seven-deity Regions. As the Human Emperor, Yan Yuntian became their representative. The Human Emperor Palace handled all the foreign affairs on behalf of the Heaven Realm World, looking quite like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.


    And it was also fortunate that all the sects in the Heaven Realm World knew the significance of this matter. Therefore, by borrowing people and things from each other, they managed to handle it in the end, although all of this was extremely complicated.


    "Guide Master, are you alright?"


    A fat figure walked out of the Human Emperor Palace on this night. It was the Child-endowing Buddha from the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, the one who had worked in collusion with Zhou Bao. He was in low spirits.


    As he heard the man who guarded the Human Emperor Palace call him Guide Master, he looked up suddenly and a pall of sadness appeared on his face. "I have told you many times... my Taoist name is not ''Guide''. I''m just a monk who guides people here!"


    After saying that, he looked much sadder!

 764 The Rumor, Chaos, and Earthly Immortal

    That person, of course, referred to the Fate Creation Boy.


    As the Fate Creator of the Heaven Realm World, no one knew his strength after he integrated with the Fairy Weapon of Fate, especially when he exerted his might to cooperate with the power of a whole macro world.


    Be it Yan Yuntian or the other people in the Heaven Realm World, they all knew very well the Fate Creation Boy was the last and the strongest line of defense in the Heaven Realm World. Meanwhile, he controlled the fate of this world. Therefore, as the Human Emperor, Yan Yuntian had an eagerness to be on intimate terms with this Fate Creator. However, the Fate Creator displayed little respect for him and only listened to Zhou Bao. This made him feel somewhat annoyed.


    However, he understood he had no way to vent his anger. Zhou Bao and the Fate Creation Boy gave him his position. And although he was quite powerful and was a Lord of Heaven now, he was merely a piece of cake in Wang She''s eyes, let alone in the eyes of the two persons.


    As he grew stronger, he felt the profound Dharma power fluctuation on Wang She more clearly. That was something he could not fight against.


    "Damn it. I don''t know what goes on in Zhou Bao''s mind. Why the hell did he choose this time to do a closed-door training that lasts for 10 years? Didn''t he grasp this is the most critical time?!"


    "He has no other choice!" Wang She''s eyes flashed, as if he thought of something. He laughed bitterly and added, "Although he is formidable, the fleets of the Holy Alliance cannot be trifled with!"


    "What do you mean? Does it mean..." Yan Yuntian exclaimed in shock.


    "By joining hands with the Fate Creation Boy, he destroyed the first fleet, but he was injured during that time. Because of good luck, he succeeded in frightening the second fleet away. That explains his anxiousness to do a closed-door training to restore his strength!" Wang She cooked up a lot of excuses. He had discussed this matter with Zhou Bao in advance. Zhou Bao did not want himself to become involved in too many dealings related to the Heaven Realm World. He would like to lend a helping hand at the most critical time. If asked to help as soon as something bad happened in the Heaven Realm World, he would feel vexed. As a result, he departed this world to temper his fist intent, meanwhile, he left one incarnation.


    Whether Yan Yuntian believed it or not, he only sighed deeply.


    Only total chaos existed in the Thunder Capital of the Eastern Thunder World.


    Like the most horrible plague, the rumor the Eastern Thunder Sect carried out a blood sacrifice to summon a God or Demon at the cost of a hundred million practitioners'' lives spread all over theThunder Capital overnight. Almost every practitioner entering the city knew this development.


    Moreover, they believed it too!


    Being trampled by the Devil Tribe and like birds startled by the mere twang of a bow, the practitioners of the Eastern Thunder World finally entered the city and found a shelter in panic. Therefore, in the beginning, none of them believed anything amiss with the Eastern Thunder Sect. Under these circumstances, even those who thought there was something fishy with it did not think about it that way when they noticed so many practitioners pouring into the Eastern Thunder Sect. After all, many hands make light work. There were a hundred million practitioners, so, even this sect was unable to kill all of them.


    What was the smartest creature in the world?


    Without a doubt, the practitioner. Nothing happened without this rumor. But once leaked, those careful guys developed a weird feeling as they thought of the strange things this sect recently did and the dwellings it prepared for them in this city. This city was a no-fly zone with a powerful magic formation. Nonetheless, almost a hundred million practitioners existed and there must be someone who mastered some little tricks. The tricks may be ineffective in the fight, but they had many wonderful uses. This bunch of practitioners soon made out the locations of the dwellings provided by this sect. These dwellings appeared disorderedly distributed and they seemed to be arranged in haste, but upon closer inspection, people with discerning eyes discovered these areas formed an odd formation map.


    No, it was no formation map!


    Though it resembled a formation map, there were numerous key differences between the two.


    Altar!


    It was an altar!


    An ancient altar!


    There was no need for everyone to understand that. Even if only one or two people knew, that was sufficient.


    The truth revealed as the rumor spread. The Thunder Capital plunged into chaos!


    The Eastern Thunder Sect withstood as the supreme authority in the Eastern Thunder World, but that was based both on its strength and historical accumulation since the early stage of primitive times. It proved enough to suppress the whole Eastern Thunder World.


    Now, it faced the Thunder Capital rather than the Eastern Thunder World.


    But within a short time, nearly a hundred million practitioners gathered in the Thunder Capital. They were not people to be trifled with considering their ability to arrive here in such a short time.


    The Thunder Capital remained a disaster after the plot of the Eastern Thunder Sect had been revealed.


    An utter mess!


    The Eastern Thunder Sect was psychologically prepared, but everything just happened so abruptly.


    It was almost impossible to quell the disturbances in such a short time.


    Every practitioner was filled with indignation. They hated the Eastern Thunder Sect so much that they vented their anger on it though it did not deserve the blame for the invasion of the Devil Tribe. As a result, this sect suffered heavy losses¡ªall its disciples and Elders that were responsible for guiding the practitioners were killed in the first place. Furthermore, these practitioners bombarded the Thunder Capital, trying to break the space and leave as soon as possible.


    No one would be so stupid to attack the Thunder Capital at this point as it reigned as the headquarters of the Eastern Thunder Sect and possessed many traps. The Eastern Thunder Sect had been established for tens of millions of years, so, even if a billion practitioners launched a joint attack against it, they would gain no advantage, let alone a mere hundred million practitioners. From this aspect, we determined its might.


    "Taoist Cundi, it''s so wonderful you are still here. Can you find a solution? The restriction in the Thunder Capital is so powerful that so many of us failed to break the space here. Hurry up and please help us!"


    All sorts of thunderbolts bombarded the surrounding space and different light flashed in mid-air. Having been trapped in the Thunder Capital, the practitioners utilized various means in an attempt to flee.


    The Eastern Thunder Sect reacted very quickly. Just when the practitioners caused a disturbance, it blocked the space of the Thunder Capital and ensnared them all inside.


    "Don''t scatter attacks everywhere. Be quick, everybody. We must focus our attacks on one point. I refuse to believe we cannot break this space!"


    "Agreed! We should focus our power on a single point to break this space. Damn it, Eastern Thunder Sect! You mother f*cker!"


    A storm of abuse resounded out. They swore at everyone, from the Patriarchs of the Eastern Thunder Sect to the disciples cleaning.


    However, different people harbored dissimilar thoughts. Thus, it took some time to gather all hundred million practitioners to attack one point of the Thunder Capital. And as time advanced, their unity would falter.


    For six whole hours, these practitioners were still unable to break the lock-up space in the Thunder Capital. Some of them ran around hurriedly to seek a slim chance of survival. It was under these circumstances that Zhou Bao came across Ruo Lin.


    Ruo Lin was overjoyed and grasped Zhou Bao at the sight of him. She exclaimed in excitement and asked him to help her break the space.


    "It''s not easy. The protective formation of the Thunder Capital is the simplest but also the stickiest one. It has only two functions¡ªabsorption and fusion. No matter how powerful the attack is, as long as it doesn''t reach the limit that this formation can withstand, it will be absorbed immediately and transformed into the defensive power of the formation. In other words, you are flogging a dead horse. The more attacks you launch, the stronger the formation will be, the longer it will sustain, and the harder it will be for you to get away!"


    "You don''t want to leave here?" The man beside Ruo Lin asked. After hearing Zhou Bao''s words, he looked extremely displeased.


    Zhou Bao paid no attention. He narrowed his eyes and looked up at the sky. "If I am right, the formation can withstand, at most, an attack of an Earthly Immortal with all his might. Hehe, such attacks are in vain!"


    An attack of an Earthly Immortal with all his might!


    Only God knew how powerful that was. But one thing was certain: the joint attack of all these practitioners could not match 10% of the power of an Earthly Immortal''s one attack.


    How could that be able to break the Thunder Capital?


    "Then what should we do? We can only wait for death? There are a hundred million practitioners, a hundred million! Are they all going to die here? Isn''t the Eastern Thunder Sect afraid of retribution?"


    "Of course it isn''t. Once it manages to summon a God or a Demon, be it the Primordial Demon or the Innate Deity, they will shoulder most of the sin. Otherwise, why would the Blood Sacrifice Summoning Skill be handed down?" Zhou Bao smiled coldly. "However, it''s not easy for it to conduct the blood sacrifice smoothly under these circumstances. It seems that it must adopt a tough measure because it is almost impossible to make a hundred million practitioners cooperate with it obediently!"


    "A tough measure? What is that?!"


    "An Earthly Immortal!" Zhou Bao took a deep breath and said quietly.

 765 Ghost Childs Primordial Spirits of Three Separations

    Earthly Immortals were also known as Great Emperors.


    Since antiquity times, Earthly Immortal was a synonym of Great Emperor. When one''s cultivation reached the Earthly Immortal Realm, he earned the title Great Emperor.


    However, since the Heaven Realm from that era disappeared and the Void Immortal Realm lost touch with the Void Universe, Earthly Immortals were numbered. Only less than 10 Earthly Immortals appeared over the past 810,000 years.


    The Patriarch of the Eastern Thunder Sect was among the last practitioners.


    With his strength, it would prove elementary to exterminate the Devil Tribe that came from the Devil Realm and close the entire transmitting channel in the shortest time. However, for the Eastern Thunder Sect, the loss of this action outweighed the gain.


    In today''s Void Universe, an Earthly Immortal represented the ultimate power, like the nuclear weapon from Zhou Bao''s previous life. It represented an unmatched power of shock and awe. Mighty as the Holy Alliance was in the Void Universe, an Earthly Immortal ranked with the strongest combat capability.


    Except for the super influence Holy Alliance, only the top 10 macro worlds possessed Earthly Immortals. Other macro worlds just had Immortals at the peak level as their strongest combat capability.


    In the Void Universe, the Eastern Thunder World held limited power. It served merely as a macro world situated at the Easternmost Land. In the Void Universe where worlds were as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, it was just so ordinary.


    However, it actually possessed an Earthly Immortal! That meant it became one of the most powerful influences along with the Eastern Thunder Sect.


    That was an undisputed fact. Any Earthly Immortal could refine his own macro world, and once triumphant, he could destroy a macro world without much effort.


    Except for another Earthly Immortal, otherwise, no matter the numbers of Immortals, none could combat an Earthly Immortal.


    However, the Eastern Thunder Sect now faced a special situation.


    Their Patriarch just entered the Earthly Immortal Realm and still needed a long time, at least thousands of years, to consolidate his cultivation. If he used his macro world at this point, he would exhaust much more time to do that. Furthermore, if he were careless and damaged his foundation, his macro world be imperfect. He then had to risk spending tens of thousands of years to repair it. In that case, he lost more than he gained.


    Therefore, instead of bothering their Earthly Immortal, the Eastern Thunder Sect would rather conduct a blood sacrifice, at the cost of a hundred million practitioners, to summon a God or a Demon to get through this crisis. For them, it was worthwhile to sacrifice all the practitioners in the Eastern Thunder World because they believed an Earthly Immortal recouped their losses.


    Moreover, that Earthly Immortal served as their ace in the hole. He only played the biggest role when he remained in hiding.


    Now, however, their plan leaked ahead of schedule. Given their strength, it was not too difficult to suppress a hundred million practitioners but was nearly impossible to force them to stay where they were obediently to activate that huge altar.


    Every practitioner understood what the blood sacrifice meant. Once it started, all their spirits, essence, and blood would be engulfed by the God or Demon it summoned and they could not be reincarnated forever. However, if they died in battle, as long as there was a wisp of the remaining soul, they could be reborn again or possess another''s body. After weighing the two consequences, they surely rather die in battle than give in and be sacrificed.


    Hence, the Eastern Thunder Sect was in trouble now.


    They probably journeyed for wool and came home shorn. Zhou Bao spread the news joyfully because he foresaw this outcome.


    And he almost thought he succeeded.


    He did not alert until the Ghost Child reminded him again.


    The aura of an Earthly Immortal!


    The Ghost Child sensed the aura of an Earthly Immortal when the Thunder Capital plunged into utter chaos, and that was definitely not a good thing.


    He jumped with excitement in Zhou Bao''s Sea of Consciousness.


    "This person has just become an Earthly Immortal. His macro world is not stable and he has not fully mastered his power. Therefore, his aura leaked and I noticed. Boy, this is a good opportunity! Kill him and feed my body with his spirit, essence, and blood. That way my strength will increase greatly. The spirit, essence, and blood of an Earthly Immortal are more effective than those of a hundred million practitioners."


    "How greedy you are!" Zhou Bao swore. "That is an Earthly Immortal, not a nobody. I''m just a Human Immortal who has newly achieved the Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint. I failed to reach the state of Five Qis Collecting in Mind yet. How can I kill him? Crashing him with my Black Pearl?!"


    "I can help you. You need not use your Supreme Fairy Weapon. I have restored some pneuma and am able to gather a wisp of murderous intent that can kill an Earthly Immortal. As long as you seize the opportunity to kill this Earthly Immortal, you can reap huge benefits¡ªyou can snatch his macro world and integrate it into your Supreme Fairy Weapon. It will make the power of your Supreme Fairy Weapon increase by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, you can comprehend the World Law and practice the Five Qis in the Chest." The Ghost Child tempted him into doing it.


    "No! The risk is too high!" Some light flashed through Zhou Bao''s eyes, but he did not agree.


    "Boy, you should be satisfied with that! It''s the best I can do for you now. I haven''t recovered my strength yet, so I cannot kill anyone I want as before. I don''t have that ability!"


    "I don''t have any insatiable demand. The stakes of this matter are too high!" Zhou Bao used his divine thoughts to haggle with the red gourd. "I have made a Supreme Fairy Weapon and have reached the Human Immortal Realm. It''s only a matter of time before I gather the Five Qis in the Chest and advance the power of my Supreme Fairy Weapon. I have plenty of time. I don''t need to risk my life to get something I can obtain in the near future, right? I''m not silly enough to fight an Earthly Immortal!"


    "This is a good opportunity to seize the macro world and the Dharma of an Earthly Immortal. You can reap more benefits than I have told you. At least you can step into the Immortal Realm very quickly after you reach the state of Five Qis Collecting in Mind. Moreover, it will do a lot of good to you while you are crossing tribulation!"


    "Do you think I can''t cross that tribulation?!" Zhou Bao wore a faint smile.


    Indeed, given Zhou Bao''s current strength, the Human Immortal Tribulation was just a piece of cake for him. Even the Immortal Tribulation did not matter to him. He had 50 to 60% of confidence to cross the Earthly Immortal Tribulation with his Yin and Yang Dust Formation and Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    "You must understand that this will make your strength increase dramatically in a very short time!"


    "I have enough time." Zhou Bao said calmly. "In addition, a sudden increase in strength will make my foundation shaky. I''m well aware of that myself. That''s why I left the Heaven Realm World. I did so to temper my fist intent and stabilize my foundation!"


    Zhou Bao asserted eloquently, paying no heed to kill the Earthly Immortal.


    The Ghost Child grew anxious. Be it the killing intent of a hundred million practitioners or the spirits, essence, and blood of an Earthly Immortal¡ªthey all were tonics to him. He could get great benefits, and that was for sure. Now, he faced a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, if he did not grasp it, it would slip away. He had been quiet for so many years and did not want to continue living such a life. He could simply not wait so long to see his strength recover step by step according to normal cases. So, he was eager to seize this opportunity. But considering his current state, he was unable to do that except for relying on Zhou Bao. Nevertheless, Zhou Bao was not satisfied with the benefits he promised him and desired more advantages from him through this matter.


    "Well, you''re right. A sudden increase in strength will make your foundation unstable, but if you really absorb the Dharma of an Earthly Immortal and reshape his broken macro world, your shaky foundation would not be weakened again and it would not increase the difficulties to comprehend the fist intent for you. Of course, I won''t give you so few benefits. You have opportunities, potential, and fate. I''ve been watching you grow up over the years. You have to understand that there existed few people who had such fate like you in antiquity times, let alone in primitive times. You have a very promising future. Therefore, don''t allow the goal to be an Immortal or an Earthly Immortal limit your vision. You will surely be able to enter the Celestial Immortal Realm. The Earthly Immortal Realm is merely a ridge for you. It''s easy for you to break through. You should focus on the Celestial Immortal''s Great Way and that is your ultimate goal!"


    "Celestial Immortal''s Great Way? Do you see me as a stupid wooden club?" Zhou Bao burst out laughing. To be honest, he thought he was a man of great ambition and ideal, but he merely aimed at being an Earthly Immortal. Jesus Christ, did the damn Celestial Immortal''s Great Way really exist?


    "I did not lie to you, boy. You do have the potential to achieve the Celestial Immortal''s Great Way, but you also need my assistance!"


    "I''m not stupid. What you said is nothing more than a pie in the sky. I want something practical that is enough to tempt me!"


    "I can teach you the cultivation method of the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations!"


    "Primordial Spirits of Three Separations?"


    "Yes, boy. You already possess the Dark Female Pearl and an incarnation. But they are just Little Ways and you haven''t practiced them in the right way. Your incarnation has almost become the device spirit of the Furnace of Immortality. It has both advantages and disadvantages. You cultivated a primordial spirit by accident but haven''t used it properly. It''s truly funny!"


    "Don''t make a mystery of it. What are the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations? Tell me everything in detail. I will assist if I think the price is reasonable!"

 766 The Earthly Immortal Acts

    "What? An Earthly Immortal? You mean there is an Earthly Immortal in the Eastern Thunder Sect?!" Ruo Lin jumped up, like a kitten being trodden on its tail. She did not know the secret communication between Zhou Bao and the Ghost Child, but the two words "Earthly Immortal" said by Zhou Bao excited her nerves as well as the people standing beside her. All of them looked extremely grave.


    "Fellow Taoist Cundi, are you sure there is an Earthly Immortal in the Eastern Thunder Sect?!"


    "It is a matter of great importance, so I would not have informed you if I was not sure!" Zhou Bao grinned. "If what I felt is right, there is indeed an Earthly Immortal in the Eastern Thunder Sect. However, he might have just entered this realm and is anxious to consolidate his strength. And that''s why the Eastern Thunder Sect would launch a blood sacrifice. With an Earthly Immortal protecting the Eastern Thunder World, even though the Eastern Thunder Sect kills all the practitioners in this world and even in the surrounding macro worlds, nothing serious will happen. The Eastern Thunder Sect can regain its power and influence of the past at any time and is even able to become one of the strongest macro worlds in the Eastern Land as long as both the Eastern Thunder World and that Earthly Immortal exist. This is its cunning plan. But it is a pity you will become the stepping-stones and cannon fodder of its rise in the Eastern Land."


    "Damn! Things can never go like this!" Zhou Bao vividly described all this with every detail. Coupled with the rumors that had recently spread in the Eastern Thunder Sect, he completely ignited the anger of the few practitioners around Ruo Lin, including the real Cundi.


    "Fellow Taoist Cundi, since you are well aware of this matter, I assume you must have come up with a solution, right? You know our strength. We are the weakest among all the practitioners. Even if you have devised a plan and want to treat others as cannon fodder, you will not choose us, will you?"


    The most steady person among them asked Zhou Bao slowly.


    "Haha, of course I won''t. I have no intention of harming you guys. I warn you because of my friendly relations with you and I occupied Cundi''s name!" Zhou Bao chuckled and looked at Cundi, who looked quite upset. "I occupied your name, therefore, we''re related through Karma. If you are willing to change your name, I don''t mind tiding you guys over this crisis to end my Karma with you!"


    "Why should I change my name?!" Cundi almost jumped in anger. The man in front of him was detestable¡ªnot only did he occupy his name, but also requested him to change his own name. He had never heard of such a rude offer.


    "I do connect with you through Karma by using your name, but that''s not sufficient to coerce me to assist you all and fight that Earthly Immortal. However, if you accept my suggestion to change your name, there should be enough Karma and I''ll have every reason to lend my aid!" Zhou Bao smiled.


    "You...!" Cundi pointed at Zhou Bao and could not utter a word. Suddenly, he seemed to realize something and asked with eyes wide open, "What did you say? You will fight that Earthly Immortal?!"


    "He entered the Earthly Immortal Realm recently and his cultivation is not stable, so he is by no means invincible. Although my cultivation ranks lower than his, I have the means to ensure that I can escape his clutches. It won''t make any difference taking a few people with me. Although I have to take some risks in this case, whether I should take this risk or not depends on your sincerity!" Zhou Bao smiled and then glanced at Cundi.


    "You really can assist us?" After hearing Zhou Bao''s words, the surrounding people all stared at Cundi. Cundi, far from a fool, sighed in his heart and asked.


    "Of course, I''m sure!" Zhou Bao smiled. "As long as you relinquish your name, I guarantee your escape!"


    "So be it. Since you have said that, I will relinquish it so long as you can lend your assistance!"


    "Deal!" said Zhou Bao. "I won''t push you to do that. You can relinquish it after you have escaped. But if you go back on your word at that time, you will bear a consequence that may exceed in severity than that of staying here!"


    "Sure, I understand!" replied Cundi, greatly relieved. Given Zhou Bao''s behavior and tone, he figured that having set his mind to occupy his name, the man in front of him¡ªZhou Bao, was considerably confident about helping them out. Although he did not know why Zhou Bao occupied his name, he would not be so stupid to refuse this proposal of hope and survival in this desperate situation. Moreover, the condition Zhou Bao offered seemed acceptable. If he was allowed to change his name after the dangerous predicament, the risk he faced would be reduced to the minimum extent. Without a doubt he would change his name after that because a man who could fight and escape from an Earthly Immortal was by no means someone a few Genuine Immortals could risk fighting against. There only existed one outcome, whether they confronted Zhou Bao or an Earthly Immortal¡ªthey all would be killed by them with a single finger. When facing a person like Zhou Bao, going back on one''s words simply meant death, and all of them did not even stand a chance to escape.


    "You are really interesting. Does the name ''Cundi'' sound so pleasant to the ear? Why do you have to occupy his name?" Ruo Lin asked discontentedly, scratching her head in confusion.


    "It is not a pleasant name to hear, but it bears meaning to me. I have struggled to grasp it, so it is not convenient to reveal!"


    Of course it had meaning.


    Cundi, Seven Wonderful Techniques, Tree of Seven Wonders, and Eight Nine Mysterious Skill!


    Even a fool knew there was something fishy about these dealings. Zhou Bao was confused and could not tell what it was. However, there must be some connection between them. If he had not heard this name, he would probably not have harbored so many thoughts. However, he heard this name in the Shengjing City and encountered this person by accident. If that was merely a coincidence, then everything would be too strange and coincidental.


    Because of all this, Zhou Bao''s determination to occupy this name grew. There were untold practitioners in the world. Except having their own names, they still owned many Taoist names. Therefore, it was commonplace to have a Taoist name that bore no resemblance to one''s original name.


    Zhou Bao felt as if he was on the right track, but where this track led to and what it brought him was something he could not predict. However, he did not think he would suffer losses because of this name.


    These thoughts swirled around in his mind.


    "Then what should we do now? Stay with you? Everyone is trying their best to break the space of the Thunder Capital. You don''t want to have a go as well?"


    "I mustn''t. Although I can break the space here, I cannot save so many people!" Zhou Bao swept around and waved his sleeve. He covered a group of people in front of him in an independent space. This space was so wondrous that people standing inside it saw everything happening outside clearly, but those standing outside could not see anything within. For others, it appeared invisible.


    "There are too many practitioners. If we act rashly, we might alert the enemy."


    "Alert the enemy? Then are we staying like this now?!"


    "Of course. The Eastern Thunder Sect will not watch the situation worsen. The Earthly Immortal will act!"


    "Really?!" Everyone stared at him in shock. Soon after, sheer fear washed over their faces. And just when Zhou Bao spoke, an enormous willpower appeared out of thin air and descended. It swept across the entire Thunder Capital in an instant. All practitioners lost their consciousness immediately because of it.


    Yes, they lost their consciousness.


    At this point, in the Thunder Capital, the most powerful ones among the hundred million practitioners were at the peak of the Immortal Realm. But they lost their consciousness as well. The more powerful they were, the longer they were able to remain sober. At the moment when they lost consciousness, an extremely strange power swarmed out of the Thunder Capital. It seemed to have been programmed with a sophisticated procedure. It pushed the bodies of these practitioners to certain locations of the Thunder Capital. Like chess pieces, these powerful practitioners were pushed to where they should be by the mysterious power. Then, a huge altar formed.


    "Hmm? Interesting!"


    All of a sudden, the strong willpower discovered something interesting. Two hot and invisible lines of sight shifted to the separated space that Zhou Bao created.


    "What are you looking at?" Zhou Bao raised his hand and punched them.


    "Bang!!"


    His fist hit something solid.


    His face turned pale and he retreated one step. His space suddenly exploded.


    Those protected by the space, including Ruo Lin, turned pale as well. They were pushed away by the strong impact and severely injured.


    Nonetheless, the willpower weakened due to this punch. The practitioners whose cultivation reached the Immortal Realm regained their consciousness soon enough.


    "Hurry up! Open the altar!"


    Obviously, the Earthly Immortal in the Eastern Thunder Sect did not expect Zhou Bao to be so fierce and his punch so powerful. However, at this moment, even though these Immortals regained their consciousness, it was no big deal. In the altar that the Eastern Thunder Sect prepared for so many years, everything proved futile, no matter how powerful they were.


    "A half step to Earthly Immortal! I didn''t expect someone like you would appear here. Hahahaha, I have just reached the Earthly Immortal Realm and am worried about my unstable cultivation. If I can seize you and steal your power, I will stabilize my strength within the next 1,000 years. Hahahaha, what an unexpected harvest indeed!"

 767 The First Round of Battle

    Zhou Bao displayed the power of a practitioner who was a half step to Earthly Immortal in that blow.


    When one was infinitely close to breaking through to the Earthly Immortal Realm, but still had an essential difference between him and a real Earthly Immortal, we called the stage he attained, "a half step to Earthly Immortal".


    However, this half a step proved a journey filled with numerous difficulties and dangers. It impeded countless practitioners.


    For example, Qing Feng and Ming Yue from the Fifth Manor were both a half step to Earthly Immortal. However, they had been stranded in this stage for many years. It was extremely difficult for them to bridge that gap and become real Earthly Immortals.


    "Hmph! Do you think yourself worthy to suppress me because you are an Earthly Immortal?!" Zhou Bao sneered and his eyes flashed with strange, red light. Suddenly, his body floated up, and around him, Ruo Lin, Cundi, and other people disappeared simultaneously¡ªabsorbed into his Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    Of course, Zhou Bao did not expose his Supreme Fairy Weapon, because he directly wrapped them into the Azure Big World.


    In the eyes of other people, they did not take the Azure Big World as a macro world, but mistook it for Zhou Bao''s Self-world.


    Zhou Bao practiced the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill and possessed the Real Body of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, therefore, his cultivation had already reached the Lord of Heaven Realm. However, he had not evolved his Self-world yet. The Azure Big World, obviously, bridged that gap.


    "BOOM!"


    He punched into the hollow.


    "Come out, you old bastard!"


    "How bold you are!" Zhou Bao cracked the space of the Thunder Capital, firmer than a rock, with this punch. Furthermore, he voiced some sarcastic remarks. As a result, the Earthly Immortal hiding in the dark flew into a rage about his insults.


    "Brat, I must kill you. You''re digging your own grave. I''m going to rip your skin off and take your tendons out, so that you can have no chance to free yourself!"


    While boasting, an invisible canopy fell from the sky.


    "Damn, it''s his macro world!"


    Although the canopy was invisible, Zhou Bao''s spiritual mind remained acute. He immediately understood that this Earthly Immortal meant to drag him into his macro world¡ªhis home field. If pulled into it, he would be trampled by him.


    "Break!" Zhou Bao''s ferocity aroused at this point. The attack of an Earthly Immortal was indeed extraordinary powerful. The Earthly Immortal not only enveloped Zhou Bao with his macro world but also constrained the space around him. This kind of constraint appeared different from the space constraint Zhou Bao had seen before. It was more powerful because it directly placed a constraint on the essence of the space. Zhou Bao could do nothing despite the fact he was proficient in the Great Way of Heavens and Realms.


    "You are too naive, Young Man. Do you really believe you can fight an Earthly Immortal being only a half step to Earthly Immortal? Surely you jest! I can crush you with a single finger!"


    "Bullshit!" Without hesitation, Zhou Bao operated the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. His body shook violently and forcefully broke open the diamond-tough space. "Then show me what you can do now! You''d better be careful lest I cut your finger off!"


    "You son of a bitch!" Zhou Bao''s aggressiveness made the Earthly Immortal''s blood boil. The floating clouds surged in the sky and then a huge finger dropped from them. It pressed down on Zhou Bao''s head and threatened to crush him alive.


    "That''s what I want, damn it!"


    Eyeing the coming finger, Zhou Bao did not panic but stood pleased. He devoted himself to practice punching skill and what he liked most was the hand-to-hand battle. It tempered his punching skill and fist intent. No matter how formidable an Earthly Immortal was, the power one of his fingers exerted should not be too powerful. He used that as his touchstone and charged at that Earthly Immortal without hesitation.


    "BOOM!"


    Zhou Bao felt a powerful force creep over his fist and then flew back as quickly as an arrow leaves a string. This impact broke the constraint on the Thunder Capital and he rushed out of this city.


    And the finger that stretched out stopped for a while. The huge impact generated in this fight''s round screeched and teetered the Thunder Capital space.


    At the same time, a layer of deep-blue light covered the finger, and streams of mysterious cold air circled around it as well.


    "How could this be possible? How could this man have such an enormous amount of power? This is the Icy Divine Light. No, it''s more powerful than that. What the hell is this power?!" In the depths of the Thunder Capital''s space, that Earthly Immortal suddenly felt a chill in his finger. Later, a biting chill spread to his body along his finger.


    But he did not care much about it.


    He crossed the Earthly Immortal Tribulation and created a complete macro world. That meant he was no longer afraid of any attack of the Dharma power. He possessed the ability to transform any Dharma power into the pneuma of his macro world without making an effort. Without the power to break a macro world, no one could harm him.


    Although the Icy Divine Light held incredible power, the damage it could do to an Earthly Immortal was limited. Zhou Bao transformed the Mysterious Divine Light contained in his fist into the purest destructive power and that sent a chill through the Earthly Immortal.


    "It seems that I''m really old. Even a little accident can disturb the inner peace of my mind now. After I crossed the Earthly Immortal Tribulation, my pneuma was greatly undermined and I didn''t have enough time to consolidate my strength. It seems that I need to seize the time to do that now!"


    Zhou Bao flew out of the Thunder Capital due to the impact, but he failed to leave the boundary of the Eastern Thunder Sect. He was shocked the moment he stood out of the city.


    "Wow! What a wild scene!"


    At this moment, not only the Thunder Capital, but also the entire inner part of the Eastern Thunder Sect already became a huge altar. The differences were that most of the people in the altar inside this sect were ordinary people and they outnumbered the practitioners in the Thunder Capital. At least tens of billions of ordinary people or practitioners whose cultivation ranked below the Mysterious Realm were stuffed into the Eastern Thunder Sect and became the sacrifices of the altar.


    The altar had been activated.


    Light vital breath lingered inside the Eastern Thunder Sect. Without being noticed, the Ghost Child stretched out his head and inhaled the vital breath.


    "Oh yes, it''s fabulous! Such a strong smell of blood and vital breath are tonics. Boy, you might as well follow my suggestion and allow the Eastern Thunder Sect to launch the blood sacrifice. In that case, I can absorb all the vital breath here in one go. I then can restore at least 30% of my strength and will be able to exert 40% of my strength in a short period. Killing an Earthly Immortal is definitely out of question. What do you think?"


    The Ghost Child did not stop tempting Zhou Bao, nor did he hide his desire for blood.


    "Abandon your wishful thinking. I''ll destroy the altar here first!"


    Destruction was always much easier than construction.


    The Eastern Thunder Sect had two altars used for summoning Primordial Divine Demons, but they never used them. Their masters of past ages did their best to maintain the altars in order to guarantee they utilized them smoothly someday and to prevent any accidents from happening. Therefore, the two altars were perfect and could summon Primordial Divine Demons successfully at any time they wished, with abundant sacrifices of course.


    When the Earthly Immortal attacked Zhou Bao, the two altars¡ªbe the one outside of the Thunder Capital or the other inside the Eastern Thunder Sect¡ªall activated simultaneously.


    For this reason, the Ghost Child took some advantages and absorbed a little bit of Massacre Qi.


    However, no one expected that inside the Thunder Capital, there was someone who could withstand the attack of that Earthly Immortal and break through the constraint on this city. Hence, the altar outside of the Eastern Thunder Sect was not so tightly guarded. Due to the impact, Zhou Bao bumped into the altar, and like a rubber ball, he sprang into mid-air.


    Thanks to his tough skin, he offset the attack force of that Earthly Immortal through these actions.


    "It cannot go on like this. Hiding my strength in front of an Earthly Immortal is like digging my own grave. It seems that I really need to pull no punches!" The Earthly Immortal far exceeded Zhou Bao in strength. If Zhou Bao did not attack him with all his might, he would likely be defeated and even be killed today. After the first round of their battle, he still believed that the Earthly Immortal''s strength was unmeasurable.


    "Ah!!!" Zhou Bao roared in mid-air. The Demonic Ape Zhuyan, more than 1,000 feet tall, appeared behind him and integrated with him.


    "BOOM!"


    With Zhuyan''s large body, Zhou Bao stamped violently on the ground and smashed one of the corners of the altar inside the Eastern Thunder Sect.


    Then, he punched the altar and divided its power into several parts. Within a breath, a burst of thunderous noise resounded out in the Eastern Thunder Sect. The altar''s several critical points turned into ruins under his punching force.


    "Good lord! You''ve wasted such a precious thing recklessly!"


    The altar malfunctioned after its critical points were destroyed. The vital breath it had just gathered dissipated immediately.


    "Damn it, brat! Go to hell!"


    This result was totally out of the expectation of the Eastern Thunder Sect. They had not prepared any remedial measure, so they did nothing but watch Zhou Bao destroy the altar inside the Eastern Thunder Sect with his huge body.


    They could do nothing, but the Earthly Immortal was still mighty.


    "It''s a Primordial Fierce Beast, the Demonic Ape Zhuyan! I''m wondering why do you have the guts to behave arrogantly in front of me. It turns out that you have such a good luck. However, not to mention that the Real Body of Zhuyan you possess is immature, even if it is grown-up, I am able to tear it to pieces if it gets in the way of my plan."


    In a burst of thunderous roars, a huge palm fell from the sky and struck Zhou Bao.

 768 The Power of an Earthly Immortal and Bathing in Blood

    A palm! This time it was a palm, not merely a finger like what had appeared earlier. Zhou Bao had destroyed the outskirts of Thunder Capital, including the altar inside Eastern Thunder Sect. This forced them to make changes in their game plan and also rendered fruitless all their painstaking efforts through the years. Right now, Eastern Thunder Sect hated Zhou Bao with a vengeance. Even their Earthly Immortal could not stand him any longer. Thus, from this moment, the Earthly Immortal started to seriously plan his attacks. He launched his power, ready to bombard Zhou Bao to death.


    "Great timing!"


    Seeing this palm attack approaching with even stronger powers than what was contained in the finger, Zhou Bao did not panic at all. On the contrary, he felt excited. His body suddenly rose up to a height of 10,000 feet and he let out a loud roar. His two fists swung out simultaneously, and charged into the palm.


    "Now, let me test the legendary strong power of an Earthly Immortal!"


    The Mysterious Icy Divine Light started circulating frantically inside his body, and his majestic fist intent emerged. As his fists struck out, glowing dots of starlight glistened and formed the shadow of a universe; this bore down hard onto the palm.


    "Eh? This is..."


    Zhou Bao spared no efforts in this strike. This fist attack was way more powerful than what the old guy had expected. He had already cast his palm out to attack and it was too late to withdraw it.


    "Boom!"


    As his fists collided with the palm, Zhou Bao''s 1,000 feet high body was thrown to the bottom of Eastern Thunder Sect, leaving half of his body lying on the surface. The palm was also tossed dozens of feet high up in the air, accompanied by a vague shriek of shock.


    Invisible ripples spread in all directions, and claimed the lives of all living creatures in Eastern Thunder Sect. These living creatures had narrowly escaped being killed at the altar, but were unable to avoid being destroyed during the duo''s battle. This was really a pity.


    "Damn old man, good show!" Zhou Bao''s injury was not severe. With his newly acquired skills of the Three Flowers above the Head and features of the Primordial Fierce Beast, he was now able to recover instantly as long as he was not reduced to dust. Although the power of an Earthly Immortal was immense, his opponent obviously had not used all of his strength in this instance. Despite his injuries, he was not badly hurt. With a snigger, his hands gave a push against the ground and he vaulted smoothly to his feet.


    "Earthly Immortal, hee hee, is that all you''ve got to show?"


    "How arrogant you are!"


    A streak of light zoomed across the sky, hovered in front of Zhou Bao and nearly pierced his body with its sharp strength.


    The Three Realms Division had already been launched in the shortest time.


    He was pretty lucky. Earlier on when he was battling with the Earthly Immortal, the strength he produced not only snuffed out all the lives in the vicinity but also shattered the space of Eastern Thunder Sect into pieces, leaving no place intact. It was largely due to this that he was able to execute his Three Realms Division move so smoothly here.


    "Boy, hurry up, very soon the altar in Thunder Capital will be launched. I can smell the blood in it now. If you don''t come up with a solution fast, we will fail!"


    "Humph, of course I have a solution!" Zhou Bao sneered. He moved forward with the speed of lightning, aimed his fist at Thunder Capital and blasted a wide opening on the wall. Then, he rushed in.


    "You''re courting death!" Watching Zhou Bao hurtling into Thunder Capital, the Earthly Immortal immediately knew what he was up to. Thus, another palm swept downwards, aiming directly for Zhou Bao.


    "Old man, one palm is not enough to take me down!" Before he finished speaking, the streak of light that he dodged a moment ago reappeared and joined the huge palm.


    Little boy, let''s see whether you''ll die under this strike or not!"


    "Of course I won''t!" Zhou Bao growled. He held up his fists and hit the streak of light.


    "No matter who the hell you are, now you can drop dead!"


    The vast shadow of a universe re-emerged in his fists and collided directly with the light.


    "Bang!"


    A thud resounded and the streak of light disintegrated from the impact of the fist attack. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao felt a stabbing pain spread down his hands.


    In the next second, Zhou Bao caught a glimpse of the true features of the streak of light¡ªit resembled the Demon Devil Needles, but its level was much higher. It was a bronze awl made up of numerous fine needles and was extremely sharp and dangerous.


    Thanks to his tough body, the awl did not penetrate Zhou Bao''s fists when they collided with each other. Instead, the awl was shattered by their tremendous power. That, however, did not mean that Zhou Bao was safe now.


    The scattering of fine needles rained down on Zhou Bao while the palm approached Zhou Bao from behind.


    "Shatter them, shatter, shatter!"


    Zhou Bao bellowed, darting forward like a bolt of lightning. Right now, he was assuming the form of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, and was covered in snow-white fur. In a fit of anger, his fur bristled and stood up as if they had turned into steel needles. Surprisingly, those steel needles fended off every single fine needle that rained from the sky.


    At the same time, a puff of ice-cold Qi was emitted from his snow-white fur. The moment the fine needles came into contact with the icy Qi, they froze.


    Though this freezing effect was temporary, it allowed Zhou Bao to have a breather. He abruptly sped up, launched several successive strikes with his fists and violently smashed the surrounding space. Then, he fled into the hollow to escape the palm which had been relaunched by the Earthly Immortal.


    "There is no way you can escape!"


    The Earthly Immortal from the Eastern Thunder Sect was already fuming. Letting Zhou Bao slip through his fingers time and again not only significantly disgraced him but was also a shock to his shaky Earthly Immortal phase. What was more distressing was that after taking Zhou Bao''s single punch, his pneuma had already been slightly damaged by the pure destructive Mysterious Divine Light that Zhou Bao had.


    That was the pneuma of an Earthly Immortal. Although he did not lose a large amount of pneuma, he did not have much left because he had entered the Earthly Immortal phase only recently. For him, even a tiny bit of pneuma loss could cause serious damage.


    Therefore, at this moment, he made up his mind to destroy Zhou Bao totally, even if he had to pay a huge price.


    He figured out that this Zhou Bao must possess some rare secrets, otherwise he could not have handled his attacks so skilfully. Even a man who was half a step away from the Earthly Immortal Realm could not have fought against an Earthly Immortal like this. Zhou Bao took two of his consecutive strikes without having to resort to any fairy or magic weapon. This naturally made him reconsider Zhou Bao''s true strength.


    "The Primordial Fierce Beast, or the Demonic Ape Zhuyan, has always been known to be the Powerful Magic Ape. But Zhou Bao is not fully matured yet, so he can''t have the power to have a go at me. But his body is very strong, way beyond my expectation, and it is equivalent in strength to the body of an Earthly Immortal. There is something very fishy about it. Now, if I catch him, kill him, and take away all that he owns, perhaps I''ll have a chance to upgrade my level!"


    His fighting spirit ignited by this prospect, this Earthly Immortal from Eastern Thunder Sect decided to give his all in the forthcoming battle.


    When Zhou Bao fled into the hollow, his plan was to take a break before picking on Eastern Thunder Sect and demolishing them there. However, when he just slipped into the hollow, he felt something was amiss.


    The Void Universe was filled with a great pressure. Being squeezed by this pressure, everything in the hollow started moving to the side, giving way to a huge figure that appeared in the hollow. "Boy, you''re a good combatant, and your background is also quite mysterious. But now, seeing that I have spent a large amount of pneuma to hunt you down in the form of my Real Body, even if you die today, you should be able to rest in peace!"


    "Real Body?"


    Staring at the tall figure, Zhou Bao''s eyes almost popped out. The Void Universe had its own set of stringent rules. The power of an Earthly Immortal had long surpassed the range allowed in the Void Universe, so his Real Body normally could not be revealed in the Void Universe. However, this rule was not rigidly followed.


    Everyone knew that there were loopholes in every rule, let alone for a mighty guy who had reached the Earthly Immortal phase.


    But most of the time, a high price had to be paid in order to take advantage of these loopholes. Even for an Earthly Immortal, he would have a headache when facing such a cost. Thus, if it was not due to absolute necessity, no Earthly Immortal would come to the Void Universe in the form of his Real Body.


    However, this time, this Earthly Immortal from Eastern Thunder Sect revealed his Real Body in front of Zhou Bao. This implied that he regarded Zhou Bao as a powerful enemy. But meanwhile, it also meant that he had foreseen the huge benefits he could seize from Zhou Bao.


    "Boy, be careful, this guy is getting serious¡ª"


    "Device spirit of a fairy weapon, do you still want to play tricks under my nose?"


    Before poor Ghost Child could finish his sentence, he was detected by the Earthly Immortal. In an instant, an overbearing divine thought swept over.


    Ghost Child retracted his head and vanished.


    "You''re an interesting boy! You must have taken the path of developing the Extreme Realm of Force and the crushing vacuum skill. Well, that''s the top skill of the 3,000 Great Ways. No wonder you''re so tough. However, from primitive times till today, I have never heard of anyone who succeeded in this path. Do you believe you can really make it?"


    "Well, I''m just about to make it. But today I happened to bump into you, an old guy, insistent on getting in my way!"


    "Hee hee, yes, you bumped into me. Even if you do have the luck to go further in this path, I will not allow you to do so. Boy, be ready to die!" As he spoke, his figure disappeared. At almost the same time, Zhou Bao''s body was tossed into the air by an intangible force, as if it were just a piece of rag; his golden blood splattered in every direction.


    "Even though you''re only a half step to the Earthly Immortal Realm, your phase is still not high enough. You simply have powerful strength, which you haven''t fully mastered yet. Today, having encountered me, how can you possibly have a chance to fight back?" A loud and mighty voice reverberated in the hollow. The intangible power transformed into a tangible one, and it whipped frantically across Zhou Bao.


    A thin layer of dark blue light rose around Zhou Bao. This was the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. Nevertheless, this light was utterly unable to sustain the attack of the Earthly Immortal, and once again, a sense of helplessness stole across Zhou Bao.


    "Earthly Immortal! This is the power of an Earthly Immortal! Faced with this sort of power, I really have no strength to fight back!"


    He began to lose consciousness. "Ghost Child, do something! If not, I''ll be killed. You didn''t trick me into this, did you? If you don''t take action now, I''ll resort to using my Black Pearl. When I get out, I assure you, you won''t have a nice ending!" Among the Sea of Consciousness, the only trace of Zhou Bao''s spirit that remained, roared frenetically.

 769 Murdering an Earthly Immortal with the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi

    "Boy, be patient, just hang on, hang on for one more second. Zhou Bao, your combat capability is way stronger than this!" When he heard Zhou Bao''s roars, Ghost Child put on a calm and composed face and gave him this advice. "Take time to feel what the power of an Earthly Immortal is like. If you want to step into the way of the Earthly Immortal, your experience of facing up to an Earthly Immortal will be very good for you!"


    "Easier said than done!" Zhou Bao was so angry that he almost wanted to snap at Ghost Child. What he just advised was so useless and irresponsible. Take some time to feel the power? But Zhou Bao feared that one more palm attack from this Earthly Immortal would crumble his Real Body of Zhuyan. How could he take time now?


    The only thing he could do at the moment was to combine the Mysterious Icy Divine Light with the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill. Wrapped in an aura of dark blue air, he concentrated all his energy to bombard the external facade.


    "Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!"


    Facing such a desperate situation, Zhou Bao devoted all his attention into pumping his divine thoughts into his fist intent. Every punch he launched contained a virtual universe, and the power of each of his attacks was fatal enough to rip apart all the practitioners who ranked below the Earthly Immortal Realm.


    However, the opponent Zhou Bao was facing was an Earthly Immortal. Although this Earthly Immortal had just entered the Earthly Immortal Realm and had yet to completely consolidate his power, the force this Earthly Immortal just demonstrated was already too powerful for him to deal with.


    "Interesting, really interesting! You are able to integrate the entire universe into your fist intent! But unfortunately, boy, your ambition is too lofty and too wild. You may be able to trigger a part of the mightiest power in the Void Universe, but since your ranking is very limited, you can''t make full use of this power even though you may use it to hurt me. What a pity! What a pity!"


    The Earthly Immortal sighed softly, and flipped his palm in the air and pressed his hand directly at Zhou Bao


    The power of an Earthly Immortal was beyond the imagination of any ordinary practitioner. No one below the Earthly Immortal phase could possibly contend with it.


    When the palm pressed relentlessly on him, Zhou Bao knew he was in real trouble. If he was hit by this palm, even if he did not die, he would be imprisoned in the hand for all eternity and would never have a chance to break free.


    "You come out now!"


    Precisely because he detected the danger of being perpetually repressed, Zhou Bao threw his scruples to the wind and hastily brought out the red gourd inside him.


    Together with his howl, a jet of red light rose from the back of his head and shot towards the palm falling from the sky.


    At first, the Earthly Immortal from Eastern Thunder Sect did not take Zhou Bao''s attack seriously. In his eyes, this was merely a last-ditch effort he was making.


    However, when the red light landed on him, he suddenly sensed that something was very wrong.


    A piercing chill permeated his heart. This red light did not actually touch him, but his body already felt like it had been thoroughly impaled. This light penetrated his body and his essence, cutting off his Earthly Immortal phase.


    "Impossible!" He let out a weird yell. Even an Earthly Immortal with years of consolidated power would be afraid of this eccentric force; one might get into trouble once he was tainted with this force, let alone this newly developed Earthly Immortal.


    "What the hell is this? How did this kind of power come into being?" Right now, he had caught a clear view of what the red light really was¡ªa full red gourd. The spout of this gourd was open, ejecting a fine jet of red light. Meanwhile, a child, who was apparently a device spirit, was staring at his palm with a devious smile.


    "Device spirit! Heavenly Fairy Weapon! You have a Heavenly Fairy Weapon!"


    The Earthly Immortal could not stifle his hysterical cries anymore.


    The Taihao weapon, the Heavenly weapon, and the Supreme weapon were three ranks of fairy weapons.


    The most common one was the Taihao Fairy Weapon. But normally, an Earthly Immortal would merely have several top-level Taihao Fairy Weapons. After all, an ordinary Taihao Fairy Weapon was enough to enable an Earthly Immortal to injure another Earthly Immortal at the same rank, let alone a top-level Taihao Fairy Weapon.


    Accordingly, even to an Earthly Immortal, a Heavenly Fairy Weapon was something that he could come by only through sheer luck.


    Of course, if you have enough patience and luck, you could also upgrade your Taihao Fairy Weapon to a Heavenly Fairy Weapon by fostering the device spirit of the Taihao Fairy Weapon. But that required a lot of time and a large amount of energy as well as resources. Hence, only those ancient and powerful Earthly Immortals could own one Heavenly Fairy Weapon, and this Heavenly Fairy Weapon was the natal magic weapon that would accompany them for life.


    Despite the long history of Eastern Thunder Sect and their standing rule over Eastern Thunder World, Eastern Thunder Sect had not acquired any Heavenly Fairy Weapon yet. All they had were several Taihao Fairy Weapons.


    And this Earthly Immortal, a Patriarch of Eastern Thunder Sect, was also considering which Taihao Fairy Weapon he should choose in order to develop a Heavenly Fairy Weapon as his own natal magic weapon.


    "Fantastic, fantastic! You just offered me what I need! Now, this Heavenly Fairy Weapon is mine!" At the sight of the red gourd, the Earthly Immortal suddenly turned his jealousy into great joy. Then, he stretched out his hand and conjured up innumerable shadows of his hand, which grabbed at the gourd.


    "You''re such an idiot! Do you really believe I''m just an ordinary Heavenly Fairy Weapon?" Seeing the hand reaching for him, Ghost Child laughed coldly. "Though I can''t exercise much energy from the main body, I have the power which I absorbed from the fragments of the Immortal-slaying Sword not long ago. That dumbass knew nothing about the essence of the Immortal-slaying Sword, so it tried in vain to produce a Natal Sword out of it anyway. But unlike him, I''ve been coveting the power of the Immortal-slaying Sword for years!"


    "Whoosh!"


    Bright red Sword Qi rushed out of the fine red light and soared to the sky, decisively hacking away at the approaching huge hand.


    "Swish, swish, swish!"


    The seemingly invincible hand belonging to the Earthly Immortal turned out to be totally useless in resisting the Sword Qi. In the bright red sword light, it was reduced to the original pneuma. But before it could get away, the Sword Qi sucked it in.


    "Hahaha, the essence Qi of an Earthly Immortal! No, it''s not enough, not rich enough. I merely absorbed the pneuma in your hand. Now, I need your body, your whole body!" Ghost Child was laughing wildly. The fine red light cut open the space in a second and traveled to the depths of the vast hollow. Shots of red Sword Qi derived from the red light, and everything stabbed along the direction of the fine red light.


    "What is this? It is¡ª"


    Unbelievable, it was so unbelievable!


    This Patriarch of Eastern Thunder Sect thought that he had seen it all. But this kind of exceptional fairy weapon was something he had never encountered. In fact, right now what worried him most was not this fairy weapon but the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi.


    This was not some attack from Zhou Bao or any other mediocre stuff. This was an extremely unusual power that could kill a Celestial Immortal. Even a sophisticated Earthly Immortal who was about to enter the Celestial Immortal Realm would suffer grievously under the attack of this Sword Qi, let alone this Earthly Immortal with immature powers.


    "Immortal-slaying Sword Qi! This is impossible! How could you have the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi? How were you able to operate it?" Frantic growls sounded from the depths of the hollow and jets of dreadful forces and Dharma power fluctuations began to shrink.


    Meanwhile, Eastern Thunder World also started changing in a weird fashion. All the pneuma were sucked up in an instant, including both the essence of the world and the essence of earth veins.


    The originally pneuma-abundant vigorous Eastern Thunder World suddenly withered. After all the essence of the world and the Qi of earth veins were depleted, the next thing being extracted was the endless spacetime around Eastern Thunder World.


    One second, everything happened in just one second!


    Eastern Thunder World became a vast planet without any trace of pneuma, just like the other vast planets in the Void Universe. In addition to some extremely highly cultivated practitioners, only the Devil Tribe survived. After losing the protection of the pneuma and the endless spacetime, all the other creatures died.


    Eastern Thunder World, the foundation of Eastern Thunder Sect, was gone.


    "Bravo! You really are an Earthly Immortal! To protect yourself and push the growth of your macro world, you absorbed so much power in such a short spell! However, all your efforts are futile. Even a fully developed Earthly Immortal is not my match, not my match at all!


    Ghost Child''s voice grew strangely excited as if he had been provoked. As the owner of this Heavenly Fairy Weapon, Zhou Bao also sensed that the red light sent from the gourd was sucking in some eccentric power as it traveled forward with the surrounding Immortal-slaying Sword Qi. This power was essentially comprised of various negative feelings: terror, shock, suspicion, etc.


    In contrast to intangible feelings of ordinary people, those feelings were actually substantiated and was sucked in by the red gourd at a furious pace.


    "Those were the feelings of the Earthly Immortal! Why did he have such feelings? What on earth is the matter with him?" Zhou Bao''s mind raced with countless thoughts. Suddenly, an amazing picture flitted across his eyes. He saw that the fine red light in the gourd finally broke the hollow and extended to an unknown space. This space was empty, except for a white-clothed Elder sitting in the air. The hair and beard of this Elder were all white, but his face was tender and rosy, which made his complexion look like a child''s. But right now, this ruddy-faced, wise-looking old man was thoroughly terrified, and the fine red light transfixed between his eyebrows, forced him to stay put. Then, myriads of red Sword Qi accompanied the red light and pierced through his eyebrows. Thereafter, much the same like Eastern Thunder World, his body also started to wither. In the end, he turned into a heap of dust, while the space he stayed in fell apart.


    Simultaneously, Zhou Bao felt an enormously rich power pouring into the red gourd. Though this stream of power seemed colossal to him, it was nothing for the red gourd. The red gourd swallowed all the power with one gulp, leaving not a single bit for Zhou Bao.


    "Well, it''s not going to work. This guy is just an ordinary Earthly Immortal. He has just stepped into the Earthly Immortal, so he is not very useful to me!" Ghost Child said, wiping his mouth. His expression was quite delighted, but you could tell he was still unsatisfied.

 770 The Imminent Devil Tribulation

    "Damn!"


    Zhou Bao cursed under his breath.


    All the essence of an Earthly Immortal, the entire pneuma, the Qi of earth veins and the endless spacetime of a macro world were still not enough for Ghost Child. What on earth was the background of this Ghost Child?


    Zhou Bao was truly amazed. But he did not probe any further; he summoned the red gourd back and restored it into his body. The moment the red gourd entered his body, Zhou Bao sensed a stream of powerful Qi flowing into his tendons and meridians.


    "Boy, this is the purest portion of the Earthly Immortal''s Dharma power. Your ranking is too low so this amount of Dharma power is all you can absorb. Well, of course, there are some memories which I think will be helpful to you!"


    As he spoke, a series of odd images streamed into his mind.


    "This is...the Void Universe!"


    Yes, the images that poured into his mind were the actual views of the Void Universe.


    As the Patriarch of Eastern Thunder World, this Earthly Immortal had undergone more experiences in life than Zhou Bao. He had traveled through the Void Universe all by himself and this had expanded his horizon and steeled his disposition. All the things that he had seen, heard, and encountered, were things that Zhou Bao had hitherto been unaware of.


    The Void Universe had always been an attraction for practitioners. Thus, when the Earthly Immortal traveled to the Void Universe, he researched a variety of planets, and now all the wonders he had discovered were being fed back to Zhou Bao through Ghost Child.


    At present, Zhou Bao had already detached from his Real Body of Demonic Ape Zhuyan and assumed his original appearance. He stood motionless in Eastern Thunder World, or to be more precise, the air of Eastern Thunder Planet.


    "Well, everybody, it''s all over now!" As he threw a swift glance at Thunder Capital and the mountain city of Eastern Thunder Sect which had lost all their inhibitions, a trace of an indifferent smile flitted across his face. Suddenly, with his eyes fixed on Cundi, he said, "The Earthly Immortal, the Patriarch of Eastern Thunder Sect, was killed by me. This whole thing is over now. I hope you can live up to your promise!"


    "Of, of course!" A drop of cold sweat trickled down Cundi''s forehead. The name Cundi and you are destined, it naturally belongs to you!"


    "Hahahaha¡ª" When he heard these words, Zhou Bao burst into laughter. "Right, you''re right. This name and I are destined, it''s true, we''re destined!" In a fit of hearty laughter, Zhou Bao''s figure gradually disappeared, leaving the crowd scratching their heads.


    An Earthly Immortal had been killed and Eastern Thunder World had become Eastern Thunder Planet. In this way, what would happen next was already beyond his control. He had obtained a part of the Dharma power of Eastern Thunder Sect''s Patriarch as well as his memories, but he needed time to refine them and to hone his fist intent.


    "The Patriarch of Eastern Thunder Sect was already an Earthly Immortal, but someone still managed to kill him!"


    Zhou Bao left Eastern Thunder Planet in a carefree mood. But to his surprise, once he took off, a great disturbance broke out in the Void Universe


    This was a disturbance that no influence could overlook.


    Earthly Immortals!


    They were the strongest combatants in the current Void Universe.


    They were also the most powerful fighters and patrons of each influence, just like the nuclear deterrent in Zhou Bao''s previous life.


    They were basically infallible.


    It was actually beyond everyone''s expectation that Eastern Thunder Sect was able to foster an Earthly Immortal. However, this Earthly Immortal had been slain by a mysterious Taoist right under everybody''s noses. This caused a big sensation in the Void Universe.


    Although the mysterious Taoist relied on a Heavenly Fairy Weapon to murder the Earthly Immortal, his own cultivation had been far below that of the Earthly Immortal''s. That was the reason why this murder was so sensational as well as so disturbing.


    Who was the mysterious Taoist?


    What type of fairy weapon did he use?


    What kind of Heavenly Fairy Weapon could help a practitioner kill an Earthly Immortal who was several ranks higher than himself?


    If the mysterious Taoist had been an Earthly Immortal, he would not have created such a sensation.


    After the murder, the first thought that came to the minds of all the Earthly Immortals in the Void Universe was to find this murderer, kill him, and take away his Heavenly Fairy Weapon!


    Only by doing this could they set their minds at ease!


    However, the origin of this murderer was simply shrouded in mystery. Even his name was obtained by taking on someone else''s identity.


    Taking on someone else''s name? What did this mean? Everything was so puzzling. The only clue they had was that when the Taoist dueled with the Earthly Immortal of Eastern Thunder Sect, he exposed his Real Body of Zhuyan, the Primordial Demonic Ape.


    This was an important clue. Based on this information, a lot of people could be excluded from the list of suspects. But at the same time, loads of names were on the list, including the name Zhou Bao.


    However, his name was soon scratched from the list.


    One was in the Easternmost Land of Eastern Land; the other was in the most remote land of the West Wilds. Traveling between the two places equated going across the whole Void Universe. Given the kind of distance, no Earthly Immortal could travel from one end to another in such a short time, let alone Zhou Bao.


    In fact, if Zhou Bao did not have any Supreme Fairy Weapon or large-scale Transmitting Formation, it would take him more than several million years to get to such a faraway place. As a result, Zhou Bao was the first one to be removed from the list of suspects.


    In fact, if Zhou Bao did not have any Supreme Fairy Weapon or large-scale Transmitting Formation, it would take him more than several million years to get to such a faraway place. As a result, Zhou Bao was the first one to be removed from the list of suspects.


    Of course, Zhou Bao was not aware of any of this. He had no idea that he had narrowly escaped a disaster. Otherwise, if someone had figured out his background, he would certainly have been the target of all the Earthly Immortals in the Void Universe. If that happened, the only choice he had was to take his family into the Supreme Fairy Weapon with him and flee for his life.


    There would be no other alternatives.


    ¡­


    "This time you really went too far. You created so much trouble for yourself!"


    When Zhou Bao finished his closed-door training and returned to Heaven Realm World, the first thing he saw was Fate Creation Boy''s sullen face.


    "I know I was a bit impulsive this time. But when I went out, I never expected that I would encounter such matters!"


    "In the current Void Universe, everything that involves Earthly Immortals is very sensitive!" Fate Creation Boy said, looking at Zhou Bao who had an equally sullen look on his face. "Your fairy weapon killed one Earthly Immortal. That means you can kill two, three, or more Earthly Immortals. This fear would inevitably be lurking in the minds of others. If you don''t have the power, then you will be in deep trouble. But if you had used the fairy weapon secretly, it would all be fine. However, you exposed your Real Body of Zhuyan as well. If it were not for the fact that there are many other guys who own Real Bodies of Zhuyan in the vast Void Universe, I''m afraid you would have been on the run now!"


    "I didn''t realize how serious these issues were until I got back!" Zhou Bao''s expression was getting increasingly distressed. "But the culprit of the whole matter is this guy!" And with that, he drew out the red gourd.


    "Hee hee, congratulations! You finally got your Original Spirit back!" At the sight of the red gourd and Ghost Child, Fate Creation Boy''s face revealed a trace of embarrassment. He awkwardly greeted Ghost Child.


    "Yes, I have finally recovered. Anyway, thank you for helping me back then and not letting me be destroyed completely!"


    "That''s years ago, it is all water under the bridge now. I was not helping you then, I was just returning a favor!" Fate Creation Boy heaved a quiet sigh. "It''s just that knowing you''ve recovered your Original Spirit at this juncture really makes me worried!"


    "You''re the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate, which is also a type of Heavenly Fairy Weapon. The only difference between you and me is that your responsibility is to guard a macro world but mine is not. That''s why you''re worried. Nevertheless, as you know, I''ve merely recovered a bit of my Original Spirit. If I want to restore my power to the original level, there is still a long way to go. Thus, I need your help!"


    "I can''t help. My duty is only to protect a macro world. If you want your power back, what you need is endless Massacre Qi, which I have no way to provide to you. And I won''t help you!"


    "Don''t give me that crap. Don''t you understand what I''m saying? I know you can''t provide endless Massacre Qi. Even if you can, you won''t offer it to me!" At this point, he gave a smile. "I''m talking about the present situation. Can''t you see it? Even though you want to deny this, it''s true that the return of the Devil Tribulation is just around the corner!"


    The return of the Devil Tribulation?


    Hearing this, Zhou Bao''s heart leaped. He asked, "Are you saying the Devil Realm will be launching a massive invasion again?"


    "Right, the Devil Realm will certainly launch a massive invasion. Compared with the bleak Devil Realm, the Void Universe is a colorful world full of temptations. They''ve coveted our world for a long time. It''s just that in the past, the power of the Void Universe was too formidable, so the Devil Realm''s multiple invasions proved fruitless. In turn, they incurred a lot of trouble for themselves and significantly diminished their own strength. But now it''s different, totally different. The power of the Void Universe has declined to the lowest level, which is even much weaker than it was in primitive times or antiquity times. It is now the feeblest period the Void Universe has ever experienced since the Primordial Origin. If you were Zhao Wuyan, what would you do?"


    "Zhao Wuyan!" As soon as he heard this name, Fate Creation Boy was obviously taken aback. This name seemed to have brought back some of his old memories. "Zhao Wuyan? You know him better than I do. Are you sure he is going to strike this time?"


    "Strike? Is the current Void Universe still worth this kind of move?" Ghost Child laughed aloud. " Or perhaps he is just a pawn. But for the Void Universe, a pawn is enough to take all of your lives!"


    "Well, no matter what, it''s true that the attack from the Devil Tribulation is looming on the horizon, isn''t it?"


    "I''m not sure, but I''ve already smelt a familiar whiff of the event!" Ghost Child answered thoughtfully with a grin.

 771 Practicing the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations

    The Devil Tribulation was an utterly strange phrase to the current Heaven Realm World.


    Over the past 810,000 years since antiquity times, no one had ever mentioned this phrase. It seemed that this matter had slipped everybody''s mind.


    After all, this was the Desolate Ancient Star Area, a place that the Devil Realm would never consider invading, for the pneuma and resources in this area were as scarce as those in the Devil Realm. Even if you gifted this area to the Devil Realm, they would not accept it.


    But today things were a bit different. Zhou Bao had blasted an opening in the Void Immortal Realm when undergoing his Void Thunder Tribulations. Although this opening was already closed, the willpower of the Immortal Realm had slipped through this opening and descended on the entire Void Universe before it was sealed. This exposed the location of Heaven Realm World once again, resulting in its reunion with the Void Universe. Today, the plan of forcing Heaven Realm World to return to the Void Universe was being implemented step by step. Transmitting Formations were set up one after another. Very soon, Heaven Realm World would become just like the rest of the macro worlds. After it reintegrated into the Void Universe, the next thing that would happen would be the reopening of the passageway leading to the Void Immortal Realm.


    If the Devil Tribulation broke out at this point, even though it was in the Desolate Ancient Star Area, Heaven Realm World would inevitably be involved in it. When the time came, innumerable members of the Devil Tribe would come pouring in. This outcome would be too much for Heaven Realm World to deal with.


    Yes, Heaven Realm World had no way to deal with this. Zhou Bao had experienced an invasion of the Devil Tribe in Eastern Thunder Sect before, so he knew perfectly well how horrible a raid from the Devil Tribe was. However, that invasion in Eastern Thunder Sect could not be counted as a Devil Tribulation at all, because it was just a common incursion made by the Devil Tribulation. When a real Devil Tribulation occurred, the Devil Tribe would tear the Void Universe apart and create countless passageways, and then they would swarm out, flooding the entire universe. Only that could be considered a Devil Tribulation.


    There had been many Devil Tribulations in the Void Universe, but the last one dating back to antiquity times happened several million years ago.


    In antiquity times, Immortals were everywhere. They were as common as blackbirds.


    That was an era that was at the height of power and splendor. If not for the Devil Tribulation that had happened during that era, the antiquity times could have maintained its prosperity. But the Devil Tribulation made the Void Universe in antiquity times suffer a lot, especially Heaven Realm World. At last, the 99 Emperors led by Jade Emperor stood up and sealed in as many Primordial Demons as they could. They joined forces and defeated the leader of the Devil Tribe, Zhao Wuyan. That was how the whole Void Universe managed to survive the Devil Tribulation.


    After that war, Heaven Realm World''s power was greatly undermined. In order to recover its vigor and prepare for the next Devil Tribulation, Heaven Realm World and the rest of the macro worlds started to search feverishly for any method that could help them grow in strength. Accordingly, an intelligent group of practitioners who did not see a future in practicing, formed a band of necromancers. These necromancers focused all their energy on researching various magic weapons, which included all sorts of spiritual weapons, celestial devices, and fairy weapons. In the end, they narrowed their research down to Supreme Fairy Weapons. Of course, it was quite difficult to collect the materials for Supreme Fairy Weapons. Thus, they changed tactics and developed Highest Heaven Celestial Devices instead. Unlike normal celestial devices, these Highest Heaven Celestial Devices had boundless possibilities. It was due to the craving needs of upgrading Highest Heaven Celestial Devices to Supreme Fairy Weapons that the Necromancer''s Tribulation finally occurred and resulted in Heaven Realm World going downhill. This also put an end to the entire antiquity times era.


    Therefore, it all came down to the Devil Tribulation.


    Considering that even the powerful Heaven Realm World back then suffered such a tragic fate under the impact of the Devil Tribulation, what more with the current Heaven Realm World that had lost 99 percent of its original strength. What kind of ending would it have should another Devil Tribulation occur?


    Well, everyone knew the answer even if they were thinking with their backsides instead of their brains.


    Fate Creation Boy and Ghost Child were naturally very well aware of this. When they talked about it, the relaxed conversation suddenly turned a little weighty.


    It was disturbingly heavy going.


    "Are you certain that a Devil Tribulation will be taking place soon?"


    "No, I am not sure. No one knows what that Zhao Wuyan is thinking of!" Fate Creation Boy said, shaking his head. "Zhao Wuyan never targets the Void Universe. What he has always wanted is the Void Immortal Realm. Thus, he has remained dormant during the past 810,000 years since Heaven Realm World vanished. The purpose of monitoring the Infinite Star Sea was just to find out whether the jailed Primordial Demon is up to any little tricks; I failed to spot any so far. Well, frankly, it''s all my fault!"


    "You should not consider these Primordial Demons only as some sturdy monsters with big muscles. They are quite crafty. The last time the Devil Tribulation happened, a total of 108 Primordial Demons were sealed in the Void Universe. On the surface, it was the Void Universe that won the battle. These defeated Primordial Demons were merely sealed up instead of being killed. Even though they were debilitated, they were still very much aware of every single movement in the Void Universe. They may have been scheming to conquer the Void Universe for some time already. Though you''re on the alert for that, you have been too arrogant and did not detect their little tricks!"


    "So, it''s highly possible that another Devil Tribulation will happen soon!" Fate Creation Boy had a dismayed expression on his face. "It''s just a matter of time!"


    "Then, what should we do?"


    "What can we do? We can''t do anything. The power of Heaven Realm World is now at its weakest, so we can''t afford to be dragged into this again. This time, the leading player in this event can''t be Heaven Realm World!"


    "We''re not going to be the lead role? Then, we will just be following in others'' footsteps! I like that!"


    Being a follower would mean they had no other responsibilities except for carrying out some easy tasks. Not every follower was as industrious as Zhou Xingxing. Although Zhou Bao shared the same surname with Zhou Xingxing, it was apparent that he was not as hard-working as the latter.


    "Now that you''ve recovered a bit of pneuma, do you have any plans?" Fate Creation Boy suddenly brought up this topic. "Are you still going to hang around with this boy?"


    "This boy is very brilliant and has exceptional good luck. Who else can I hang around with besides him?" Ghost Child cackled. "It is all thanks to him that I finally managed to recover a little!"


    "Boy, are you sure you want to keep this guy around? Though he is powerful, none of his previous masters had a decent ending!" Fate Creation Boy turned to Zhou Bao with a helpless look on his face. "Don''t be deceived by his power; his strength comes at a great price!"


    "I know. But I''ve already refined his body so it''s too late to get rid of him. Even if I can, under this circumstance, I still need the help of his combat capability. After all, as you pointed out, now the entire Void Universe is looking for me. If one day I need to give myself up, apart from the Black Pearl, I will need another last resort. What do you say?"


    "I''ll leave it to you. If you''ve made up your mind, then, I won''t try to stop you. Just remember to be careful!"


    "Fate Creation Boy, what are you saying? Yes, it''s true that all my previous masters didn''t have good endings. But that''s because they didn''t listen to my advice. If they did, they would not have died!"


    "Fine, fine, let''s drop this then. I have other issues to attend to. If you don''t have more matters to discuss, I''ll take my leave first!"


    "Just go, see you!" Zhou Bao nodded.


    The current Fate Creation Boy was very different from who he used to be. Now, he was the true Fate Creator, taking control of Heaven Realm World. Since Heaven Realm World was in the process of rejoining the Void Universe, the number of things he had to handle had increased. This time, he only revealed himself because he heard that Zhou Bao had returned to Heaven Realm World. Otherwise, he would not have bothered to meet anyone.


    "Well, now that the one who is always reproaching me is gone, we can go home as well, right?"


    "Yes, let us go back. I just announced that I will be doing a 10-year closed-door training. When I''m back, I can continue this closed-door training and try to accomplish the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations!"


    "10 years? If you enter your Supreme Fairy Weapon, it will be several hundred years. That''s enough for you to practice the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations. However, you must be aware that though you have built up solid strength, it''s still a bit tricky for you to really master the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations!"


    "I know that. Now I can only practice two Separations. As to what the third Separation will be, I still have no idea. So, I shall just practice the first two Separations."


    "That''s also great. Though the Primitive Dragon Chimera is not one of the Six Royals, its Black Flame used to deter the world. It''s only second to the Six Royals. And your Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword is quite powerful as well. If you practice the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword with the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi, you can produce a Primordial Sword Spirit. With the two primordial spirits, you''ll be able to hold your own even when facing an Earthly Immortal. As for practicing the third Separation, I think you can put it aside for the moment. And regarding your body, I would like to make a suggestion!"


    "What suggestion?"


    "You''ve practiced the Seven Wonderful Techniques, right? If you can find an Innate Sacred Root and plant it inside your body to let it merge with your Tree of Seven Wonders, you may develop a real Tree of Seven Wonders. Only then will you be able to complete your practice of the Great Ways. Even if your third Outer-body Incarnation is a bit weak, it won''t matter at all!"


    "Innate Sacred Root? Tree of Seven Wonders?" At these words, Zhou Bao''s heart sank. Then, with a wry smile, he asked, "How will I ever find an Innate Sacred Root?"


    "Well, even in the Primordial Time, Innate Sacred Roots were extremely rare. When it comes to these times, how could there be any Innate Sacred Root left for you to discover?" Ghost Child laughed. "Forget it, just do your training first. I''m also going to refine the pneuma of the Earthly Immortal. Hee hee, that''s a real treasure!"


    Indeed, the pneuma of an Earthly Immortal was a great treasure. Previously, Ghost Child just sucked in the pneuma but did not fully refine it. Now he had an opportunity to digest it and regain his original strength.


    Meanwhile, Zhou Bao was going to put all his efforts into the practice of the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations.


    The Primordial Spirits of Three Separations was a wonderful way, but the original purpose of its development was quite simple.


    The mighty being who created the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations had some experiences similar to Zhou Bao''s. He also had myriads of fantastic adventures and had a varied collection of skills. But on account of the wide range of his studies, in the later period of his practice, those ways he learned did not help him to gain rapid progress but instead delayed the process of his cultivation growth and made him remain at the same level for a long time. At last, he solved this dilemma by creating the way called Primordial Spirits of Three Separations.

 772 The Innate Deitys Cause of Death

    The so-called Primordial Spirits of Three Separations referred to three separated incarnations which had their own primordial spirit.


    This skill divided all the knowledge one gathered in his whole life into four categories. One could then assign each of them to his three incarnations: primordial spirits as well as his own body respectively. Every incarnation or the primordial spirit it carried, would be used to develop a particular technique and focus on honing its skill. In this way, one man could possess a combat capability equivalent to the combined power of four men. Meanwhile, it would also improve one''s martial phase. Hence, it was a very powerful Divine Sense.


    In fact, the mighty sage who invented this skill did not only study the four categories of martial techniques. At first, he considered splitting his primordial spirit into more pieces. But during his practice, he reluctantly found that no matter how capable he was, the most he could create were three copies of his primordial spirit. And that was the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations.


    However, that was not the end of it. The way of the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations could at most quadruple one''s combat capability. But during his practice and researches, the mighty sage discovered a most amazing secret of the primordial spirit. At last, with this knowledge, he accomplished the Celestial Immortal''s Way smoothly and even went a step further. This was the most valuable feature of the way of the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations.


    The way was constituted by three parts. The first was the way to create the Second Primordial Spirit, which was similar to the evolvement of an incarnation that Zhou Bao had mastered. The difference was that this evolvement could enhance the ways practiced by the Second Primordial Spirit. It could accurately segmentize all the ways and Divine Senses of one''s primordial spirits and nourish them carefully. This was the goal Zhou Bao wanted to achieve. He was seeking to divide his Second Primordial Spirit of the Dragon Chimera and let his incarnation of the Dragon Chimera practice the ways and Divine Senses of the Fire Way exclusively. Then, this incarnation of the Dragon Chimera might become the device spirit of the Furnace of Immortality. He also intended to create another primordial spirit to focus on practicing his swordsmanship. As for the Third Primordial Spirit, it was not something he would contemplate on right now.


    Since the division of the Third Primordial Spirit was out of his reach, the second part and the third part of the way of Primordial Spirits of Three Separations were even more beyond his reach.


    But Zhou Bao was not worried, because he had a lot of time to do it.


    Instead of biting off more than he could chew, he decided to be practical and divide his primordial spirit in two parts instead.


    His existing incarnation and its primordial spirit were already very pure. His Outer-body Incarnation was evolved from the Real Body of a Dragon Chimera, while his Second Primordial Spirit was developed from the Dark Female Pearl. Since Zhou Bao decided to pursue the purification of his power, he merged all his skills into his incarnation, but excluded his punching skill and fist intent. These enhanced the strength of this incarnation considerably. Now, its power was nearly on par with his own body. But due to all the mixed skills it carried, it had made little progress in recent years.


    At present, what Zhou Bao needed was to create another Separated Po to form a pure Fire Way Primordial Spirit.


    In this way, when the Fire Way Primordial Spirit came into being, an extra Outer-body Incarnation would be formed. This would contain all the ways and Divine Senses short of the Extreme Realm of Force, the crushing vacuum technique that his own body was practicing and also the skills that his Fire Way Primordial Spirit was working on. That meant this Outer-body Incarnation would master the Natal Sword of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, the Infinite Trembling Contemplation, a part of the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds, a portion of the Innate Deity''s bloodline and many other skills. This was the challenge Zhou Bao would face when his Fire Way Incarnation was completed. According to Ghost Child''s advice, his second Outer-body Incarnation should be a sword incarnation, for he had practiced the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword since childhood. Due to the fact that this special technique had been passed down from primitive times or even more ancient times, its sword intent was extraordinary, not less than that of the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi. If Zhou Bao could infuse the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi with his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, he would be able to create an extremely impressive technique in swordsmanship. When he achieved that, his second Outer-body Incarnation would naturally become powerful. As for the third Outer-body Incarnation, given that the red gourd had no clue about it, Zhou Bao certainly would not bother to think about it now.


    Practicing the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations was a highly demanding task. The difficulties were in the second and third part. The mighty sage in primitive times had developed the two parts by imitating the process of practicing the Outer-body Incarnation. In plain words, these two parts were just a refined version of the Outer-body Incarnation technique. Zhou Bao had grasped everything about this technique, so he found this refined version easy to master. Soon, he succeeded in producing his Fire Way Incarnation, which was still a ball of black flame. But when he tossed it into the Furnace of Immortality, an amazing phenomenon appeared.


    The true form of this Furnace of Immortality was the head of an Innate Deity, but Zhou Bao did not know what the background of this Innate Deity was. When he obtained the body of this Innate Deity, he could not digest the information this Innate Deity passed to his mind. In fact, up to today, he still could not understand any of the information that had been transmitted to his Divine Awareness. He had sealed it in the depths of his Sea of Consciousness.


    However, this time when he had produced the Second Primordial Spirit of the Fire Way and put it into the Furnace of Immortality, a bizarre change occurred.


    In the past, his Outer-body Incarnation bore a great resemblance to a device spirit. Although its power was immense, it was not very pure and could not infuse with the true form of the Furnace of Immortality, which was a fairy weapon. Thus, the Original Spirit of this fairy weapon could never be attached to his Outer-body Incarnation. Consequently, the Furnace of Immortality never had a chance to evolve into a Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    But this time, it was different. This pure Fire Way Primordial Spirit made from the Dragon Chimera was perfectly compatible with the properties of the Furnace of Immortality. However, with this compatibility, a problem occurred. Well, actually, it was not a problem, it was just an abnormal phenomena¡ªthe Fire Way Primordial Spirit and the Original Spirit of the Furnace of Immortality were attracted to each other instantly and suddenly combined into one.


    To be more precise, Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit swallowed the Original Spirit. Anyway, the Original Spirit of the Furnace of Immortality was still in its primitive phase. Even though it was devoured by Zhou Bao, the Furnace of Immortality did not feel a thing at all. But Zhou Bao sensed something strange.


    After infusing with the Original Spirit, Zhou Bao''s Dragon Chimera incarnation suddenly turned into the device spirit of the Furnace of Immortality. And in that split second, Zhou Bao suddenly realized the most fundamental difference between the Taihao Fairy Weapon and the Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    The best feature of the Taihao Fairy Weapon was its material. But the material was merely an object. If you wanted to improve it, you had to refine it unceasingly, nourish it and pump more power into it. However, the Heavenly Fairy Weapon was not like that, for it had a device spirit. The device spirit was the essential element of the Heavenly Fairy Weapon, and it was also the one who knew this weapon best. It always had a clear view of what the Heavenly Fairy Weapon needed and the direction in which the Heavenly Fairy Weapon should seek more progress. Meanwhile, it could repel some foreign matters in the fairy weapon to purify it and kept it on a constant rising trend. This was one of the most fundamental difference between the two type of fairy weapons. And there was another crucial difference that the device spirit the Heavenly Fairy Weapon possessed. It could also practice skills, manipulate objects, or even become a part of the fairy weapon; this released much greater power than what a Taihao Fairy Weapon could possibly have.


    Now, with Zhou Bao''s primordial spirit of the Dragon Chimera being thoroughly transformed into the device spirit of the Furnace of Immortality, Zhou Bao''s knowledge of the Furnace of Immortality was considerably deepened.


    Frankly, even though this fairy weapon was refined solely by Zhou Bao, the achievement should be attributed to its material, which was the head of an Innate Deity. If he had not come across such a fortune, it would have been impossible for him to develop a Taihao Fairy Weapon on his own.


    Another factor was that due to the enormous power of this Innate Deity''s head, once the refinement was completed, it was converted instantly into a Medium Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. Then, Zhou Bao added the Tusita Fire to it, which further boosted its power. Now, since Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit began adjusting the unconformities hidden deep inside this fairy weapon, out of the instinct of the device spirit, this Furnace of Immortality began to metamorphose.


    Previously, before Zhou Bao set out to refine this head into the Furnace of Immortality, he scanned the whole head with his Divine Awareness. But the scan he did this time was totally different. Last time, he scanned the object as a mere onlooker. Although he examined the head inside out, he did not find anything worth his attention. In contrast, this time round, he was doing the scan as its device spirit. It was as if this head had been put under a microscope; he scrutinized every tiny structure of it and nothing in this head escaped his eye.


    "Oh my goodness, this is really the head of an Innate Deity! Once you have a look at it, you''ll be shocked!"


    As Zhou Bao scanned the head with his Divine Awareness, he found the head to be as complex as the most sophisticated magic formation in the world; it was even more intricate than the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. "Gosh, there were so many acupoints inside the skull that it was hard to imagine how much Dharma power this skull was able to hold. With this amount of Dharma power, even one punch would be enough to devastate a macro world. Impressive, how impressive!"


    "Yes, that''s it, that''s it! Last time I overlooked this point. There are some special tendons and meridians. If I can link these tendons and meridians together, it''ll be more convenient for the circulation of the Dharma power...Eh? Interesting! If I can achieve this, seems that the efficiency of my Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill will increase greatly. Then, the frequency of my Critical Hits can also be improved. Great, it''s really great!"


    Zhou Bao examined the head as if he was poring through a live dictionary. The construction of the head of the Innate Deity was perfect, without a single piece calling for modification. Instead, through this observation, Zhou Bao spotted a lot of shortcomings in his own. Just when he was immersed in studying these discoveries, his Divine Awareness abruptly gave a shudder and he yelled, "Eh? What''s this?"


    Between the eyebrows of the head, that was to say the Furnace of Immortality, stood the first Pure Yang Celestial Device Zhou Bao refined¡ªthe Golden Flame Mirror. After being nourished by the Furnace of Immortality and the Tusita Fire all these years, the Golden Flame Mirror had evolved into a Lower Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, only a step away from becoming a fairy weapon. But right now, what drew Zhou Bao''s attention was not this Golden Flame Mirror, but the thing behind it.


    There was a spacetime hiding behind it.


    Yes, there was a small but deadly silent spacetime.


    In the past, Zhou Bao''s cultivation was not high enough, so he had missed the spacetime when scanning the Furnace of Immortality. But now, after becoming a device spirit, this spacetime could not be hidden from him anymore. Nevertheless, when his Divine Awareness swept across this spacetime, a jet of peerlessly sharp Sword Qi smashed his Divine Awareness into pieces.


    "What the hell is that? How could it be so sharp!"


    Almost at the same time, Ghost Child''s frightened voice rang in his Divine Awareness, "Ah, Immortal-killing Sword Qi, this is Immortal-killing Sword Qi! It was this that killed the Innate Deity!"

 773 Comprehending the Fist Inten

    This was the Immortal-killing Sword Qi! The Innate Deity had been killed by this immortal-killing Sword Qi!


    "This guy seemed to have enjoyed a high status among all the Innate Deities. But in the end he was killed by the Immortal-killing Sword Qi.


    What was this supposed to mean?


    Zhou Bao''s eyes sparkled. Given that Ghost Child was the device spirit of the red gourd which had been fully refined by Zhou Bao, Zhou Bao seldom concealed the truth from him. Considering that he still needed help from this knowledgeable Ghost Child, when Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit evolved into the device spirit of the Furnace of Immortality, Zhou Bao revealed all that he had discovered to Ghost Child. Therefore, Ghost Child was able to see the spacetime inside the head of this Innate Deity as well as the storming Sword Qi in it.


    After letting out a shocked shriek, Ghost Child started cheering. A fine red string was ejected into the space again and it started to absorb the terrifying Sword Qi there.


    "This Innate Deity is really something. Under the incessant attack of the Immortal-killing Sword Qi, his Source Space still exists. He even kept his head intact from the Sword Qi. Bravo, bravo! Boy, you''ve got a windfall. If you absorb this Source Space and put it in your Supreme Fairy Weapon, maybe you''ll be able to produce another device spirit."


    "Source Space?"


    "It''s a space of an Innate Deity''s source. Legends have it that it is the source of all the macro and micro worlds in the Void Universe. But you shouldn''t expect to be able to produce some Innate Deity''s device spirit. Although this Innate Deity used to be so powerful that he courted the deadly attack of the Immortal-killing Sword Qi, it has been many years already; you''ll be lucky enough to produce a Primeval Beast with his remaining Source Space!"


    "Primeval Beast? I''ve heard about it. It is something that is interdependent with a micro world, just like the device spirit of a macro world''s Fairy Weapon of Fate. But what''s the difference between the two?"


    "The Primeval Beast, of course, differs from the device spirit of a Fairy Weapon of Fate. The micro world is not a complete world. It doesn''t have complete Dharma. No matter what kind of micro world it is, it will always have living creatures in it. And frankly speaking, the Primeval Beast is the source of all living creatures. Even though they have no intelligence at all, they''re closely related to the core of their micro worlds. Thus, the Primeval Beast is merely used as a switch to control a micro world. They serve few functions. But the Source Space is different. It''s the source of all the worlds, even more primitive than the micro world and is more pliable. Now, though this Source Space has been depleted, its essence is still here, which can breed all kinds of creatures. Your Supreme Fairy Weapon already has a macro world. However, different macro worlds also have various grades and ranks. If you add this Source Space in that weapon, it can bring about unimaginable changes to your Azure Big World and help you take control of this world in a better way!" Speaking of this, Ghost Child paused for a second with a wacky smile on his childlike face. "Boy, I don''t believe you''re perfectly sure about mastering Azure Big World, are you?"


    "Of course I''m not sure!" Zhou Bao''s face suddenly darkened. "But I feel like I have everything under control and can do whatever I want in this world. But no matter how hard I try, I cannot find any trace of the Emperor of Azure Heaven in Azure Big World. Meanwhile, all his old subordinates are lying low and not giving anything away. To be honest, I really have no assurance about mastering this world."


    "That''s why you should exert all your efforts to fully control this macro world. The Source Space could be your best ace card. With it, you will have better bargaining powers!"


    "According to what you just said, you''re certain that Azure Big World is a backup plan of the Emperor of Azure Heaven, and I am already involved in his game, right?"


    "Yes. But now you''re capable of winning this game!" Ghost Child said composedly, "Regardless what kind of game it is, the player needs real strength to back him up. Although the Emperor of Azure Heaven is an experienced Earthly Immortal, whose power overawed all the worlds in antiquity times, your growth speed is still beyond his expectation. As long as you have enough time, your strength can surpass his. If you have that kind of strength, in the end, all the games or traps he sets up will turn out to be advantageous for you!"


    "That''s great news!" Zhou Bao beamed. After he had battled with an Earthly Immortal, he realized what a huge gap there was between himself and an Earthly Immortal. But he had gained loads of benefits from that battle. He believed that it would not take long for him to enter the Divine Immortal Realm and be able to confront an Earthly Immortal even if he could not become an Earthly Immortal yet. The Emperor of Azure Heaven was indeed a sophisticated Earthly Immortal, but if he continued hiding in the dark, Zhou Bao''s power would one day grow to an extent that would enable him to fight against the Emperor of Azure Heaven.


    "Fine, enough talking. I''ve almost done with the Immortal-killing Sword Qi absorption. You should quickly infuse this Source Space with your Azure Big World. Go! Master this Furnace of Immortality and let it become a Heavenly Fairy Weapon!"


    "Got it!" Zhou Bao nodded. His mind raced, and his Second Primordial Spirit turned into a streak of black flame and instantly engulfed the whole Furnace of Immortality. Then, he tossed the Source Space into his Azure Big World.


    Several hours later, the Furnace of Immortality started to shrink, and the Golden Flame Mirror between the eyebrows of the head was dislodged from its original spot and floated in the air. At this moment, the Golden Flame Mirror was already a Taihao Fairy Weapon. However, due to it being of a different material, it was thrown out by the Furnace of Immortality.


    When the black flame disappeared, the Furnace of Immortality turned into a fist-sized skull, which was suspended in front of Zhou Bao along with the Golden Flame Mirror.


    It was easy to absorb the Golden Flame Mirror into Zhou Bao''s body. The Furnace of Immortality was not so easy to withdraw because it had turned into a Heavenly Fairy Weapon and its device spirit had become Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit. Given this, Zhou Bao did not force it to go back to his body. Instead, he hung it at his waist.


    "Immortal-slaying Sword Qi. Immortal-killing Sword Qi. It sounds that there is some kind of connection between these two kinds of Sword Qi. What on earth are they?" Zhou Bao suddenly posed this question.


    "Ah!" Ghost Child was a little stunned. Then, he answered subconsciously, "These two are the ace cards of the old bastard!"


    "The old bastard?"


    "Yes, the old bastard, the biggest jerk since the Primordial Origin. His murderous intent is even wilder than mine. He has always been arrogant. But don''t worry, he has disappeared since primitive times!"


    "Worry? Why should I be worried?" Zhou Bao was a bit taken aback. He laughed bitterly.


    "Boy, if you want to practice the Sword Way Primordial Spirit, you may have to grasp the workings of the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi and the Immortal-killing Sword Qi. But due to your current level, it''ll be a little hard to comprehend these two kinds of Sword Qi. So you''d better sharpen your understanding of the Sword Qi of your Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword and produce a Sword Way Primordial Spirit first!"


    "To produce a Sword Way Primordial Spirit is not an easy task!" Zhou Bao forced a smile. His Fire Way Primordial Spirit had already taken shape, but he also learned the difficulties during the refining of this Fire Way Primordial Spirit. The Fire Dharma was something he had been practicing since the very beginning. His understanding of the Fire Dharma had always been quite profound. Adding that he had an incarnation of the Primitive Dragon Chimera as well as the help of the black fire, he had achieved this Fire Way Primordial Spirit without any effort. However, producing a Sword Way Primordial Spirit would be totally different.


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was one of the weapons that had helped Zhou Bao rise from scratch. Back then, in order to form the Sword Qi of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, Zhou Bao practiced diligently for a long time. Although the final Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword he accomplished was immensely sharp and powerful, it was not attributed to Zhou Bao''s understanding of the Sword Way. Instead, it was due to the Sword Qi he produced. At that time, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was merely a powerful weapon to Zhou Bao.


    It was true the credit should be given to the weapon itself instead of his talent in swordsmanship. At last, he inadvertently fostered the sharpest Natal Sword, but that did not show how profound his comprehension in swordsmanship was. It required a lasting care and study of the swordsmanship to finally accomplish the Sword Way Primordial Spirit and grasp the gist of this skill. However, Zhou Bao''s understanding of the swordsmanship obviously did not reach that degree, so he could not produce the Sword Way Primordial Spirit yet. Now, Zhou Bao had no choice but to produce another Outer-body Incarnation by virtue of the Outer-body Incarnation Skill. This new Outer-body Incarnation gathered all the power and treasures except for those controlled by his own body and his Fire Way Incarnation. Just like his Second Primordial Spirit, Zhou Bao ordered this new incarnation to start a closed-door training in Wuyang Region to enable him to comprehend the swordsmanship bit by bit. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao himself entered Azure Big World, and attempted to combine the Source Space of the Innate Deity with Azure Big World for the purpose of expanding his control over this world. At the same time, he would do a closed-door training to digest the benefits he had obtained since he last left Heaven Realm World.


    When his Third Primordial Spirit was comprehending the swordsmanship, Zhou Bao himself started to go through the experiences he obtained from the Earthly Immortal of Eastern Thunder Sect; to evolve his fist intent, and to break through the bottleneck in his punching skills.


    "Black hole, this must be a black hole. Never thought this old guy had observed a black hole so closely and comprehended the relevant Divine Sense as well. But unfortunately, his understanding of the black hole is too shallow. Nor did he have a fist intent like mine to integrate the whole universe in it. This observation is bound to be fruitless!"


    "Eh...what''s this? How could there be such a peculiar planet in the universe? It''s too big and too alien. Imitating it is not easy at all¡ª"


    "Galaxy! It''s the essence of the whirling galaxy. It''s the source of the magnetic field and the gravitation of the whole galaxy. It turns out that this is the way it is supposed to be. What I imagined before is wrong. Alas, how I regret that I did not study physics well enough!"


    "Oh, no way, what''s this? Nine stars entangled in one place, what are they doing?"


    "Is this a hole? Why is there something squirting out from it? No, it should be a white hole. Well, is it the exit point of the black hole? Stephen Hawking probably never saw this!"


    As Zhou Bao mused through these experiences, time went by slowly...

 774 Ling Ruo and Fourth Brother

    The hollow was boundless; the universe was vast!


    In the immense Void Universe, except for Heaven Realm World in the Desolate Ancient Star Area, there were also many other macro worlds. During antiquity times, Heaven Realm World ruled the heavens and realms. After that, Heaven Realm World lost its dominance and severed its connection with the Void Immortal Realm. Without its governance, the macro worlds in the Void Universe began to develop by themselves. In about 800,000 years, everything there was very different.


    The Holy Alliance''s headquarters, located at the Central Pole Region in the Void Universe, was one of the strongest influences here. The branches of several other influences were also located at the same place.


    The Central Pole Region meant that it was really at the center of the Void Universe


    However, the hollow and the universe were limitless. How could people know the layout of the Void Universe? How could they decide whether the Central Pole Region was really at the center of the Void Universe?


    People had come up with all these questions. However, from antiquity times, no one paid any attention to all the boring questions; they neither confirmed or challenged that. Anyway, everyone believed that the Central Pole Region was at the center of the Void Universe.


    The Central Pole Region was a macro world where the Holy Alliance had set up its headquarters. Despite having abundant pneuma, only very few people lived there.


    Being the Holy Alliance''s headquarters, the security was very tight. In this big macro world, there were only a few practitioners, let alone ordinary people. Excluding the practitioners, no individual creature existed, neither plants or animals. If there were any, they were the ones fostered by the practitioners here.


    In such a giant world, fewer than 1,000 creatures inhabited the place.


    It was the Holy Alliance''s headquarters: a big and boring world.


    As one of the biggest influences in the Void Universe, its headquarters was not magnificent. Instead, it was housed in an ancient courtyard.


    There were several ornamental plants in the courtyard. They were the only plants in the whole macro world.


    "This matter shouldn''t go on this way. Ling Ruo, such a big event happened in Eastern Land. We shouldn''t just ignore it. An Earthly Immortal was killed. Every person who was capable of doing it should be on the suspect list. Although Zhou Bao was from Heaven Realm World, we shouldn''t let him off.


    "I know that this thing has attracted the attention of all the Earthly Immortals in the Void Universe. A Heavenly Fairy Weapon which can kill an Earthly Immortal makes them very worried. Except for some suspects, Zhou Bao is the only person with the Zhuyan bloodline, and should not be excluded.


    "Well, Fourth Brother, what can I do? Should I go to Heaven Realm World and bring him here?


    "That''s a good idea. Go there and bring him here. Figure this out carefully. It''ll be good if he''s not the killer. Otherwise, kill him. By the way, if the opportunity rises, capture Heaven Realm World as well. To think that we have to negotiate with such a fallen macro world. That is really so annoying!"


    "This guy is from Heaven Realm World, so he can be hard to handle. He''s known to be the strongest person in Heaven Realm World. His strength is at the level of a Human Immortal. Actually, he has the Immortal''s combat capability!"


    "So what? Can''t we defeat him? Anyway, he''s just a Human Immortal!"


    "Fourth Brother, listen to me. Zhou Bao is not simply anyone. I surveyed his background. His rise astonishes me. He has very strong fate. In only 30 years, he rose in practice from being a naughty boy in the village to the most powerful man in Heaven Realm World!"


    "Only 30 years. Bear in mind that we¡ª"


    "We were born with Ghost Immortal bodies. Fourth brother, he was just an ordinary person at birth!"


    "What does this mean?"


    "Our fate was stronger than his when we were born. But now it is weaker than his!" Ling Ruo sighed gently and paced back and forth in the ancient building. "Fourth Brother, we were Ghost Immortals at birth. However, after many years, we''re still at the Immortal phase!"


    "But we can defeat the Earthly Immortal!"


    "So can he!"


    "Oh?" Fourth Brother was slightly taken aback. "You seem to know about it already!"


    "You know, when I had him investigated, I discovered an interesting fact. It''s not something outstanding in his experience. Many people didn''t even notice it. I searched the guy''s soul, so I got it from his memory!"


    "What?"


    Ling Ruo smiled and slowly drew a circle in the air. With his finger movement, a red gourd appeared. "This item. Are you familiar with it?"


    "Oh oh oh oh. Yes. No wonder he can kill the Earthly Immortal!"


    "That''s not the point. The point is that he''s able to make use of it!"


    "We are in trouble now!" Fourth Brother suddenly leaned back. "What''s your plan?"


    "What can we do? I just have to pretend that it never happened!"


    "No, no, no. We shouldn''t do it in this way. Now that it has developed to this current state, we''re responsible for it. We can''t just neglect it!"


    "Then, what should we do?"


    "Now that it has happened, just let it be publicly known. Anyway, I don''t suppose that anyone will be interested in it. What do you think of it?"


    "This will make it hard for us to achieve our plot against Heaven Realm World!"


    "You mean, those old guys will worry about it?"


    "You are also worried about it now, Fourth Brother!"


    "They will know even if we don''t tell them!"


    "Let them do it and suffer a setback! Perhaps it will diminish their strength!"


    "You want to throw the ball into their court?"


    "In such a case, showing weakness is not a disgrace!"


    "In such a situation, we will have internal strife. I guess Zhao Wuyan will be happy to see it!"


    "Zhao Wuyan? You think he will care about the Void Universe? His focus has never changed. In his eyes, we are both unworthy people!"


    "Whether he cares about it or not, the Devil Tribulation is approaching. Your plan will weaken us!"


    "If I don''t do it, won''t our strength decline?" Ling Ruo laughed coldly. "An Earthly Immortal died. A Heavenly Fairy Weapon suddenly emerged. We have a lot of explaining to do. Now, all the Earthly Immortals are like rutting worms and are paying close attention to it. Without an explanation, the Void Universe will always be in a mess. If that''s the case, no matter what great efforts we make, we can''t undergo the Devil Tribulation. Hence, sacrificing several people is unavoidable. It will only make the Void Universe more united!"


    "Like Heavenly Court that year!"


    "It''s impossible now. If my strength is as strong as it is now within the span of 100,000 years after the disappearance of Heaven Realm World, I''m sure I can rebuild Heavenly Court, even though I''m not an Earthly Immortal. But now, everything is impossible. You know what I mean!"


    "Of course, I know. After all this time, the people are becoming ambitious. But what you want to do now is equally troublesome. Although you are not rebuilding Heavenly Court, you still need to divert their attention. It''s not a easy job!"

 775 A Trouble Is Coming

    "What? You want to see Zhou Bao. Now?"


    Yan Yuntian was very upset when he saw the three angry practitioners standing before him.


    Ordinary people would not have dared to talk to him in such a direct way, much less demand to see Zhou Bao. However, the three people in front of him were not just any ordinary persons. One of them had a cultivation of Immortal phase. The other two were both Human Immortals with the skill of Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint and the Five Qis Collecting in Mind. Yan Yuntian could not afford to offend any of them, especially the influence behind them which was the Evil Alliance.


    It was not as strong as the Holy Alliance in the Void Universe but was still a top influence.


    This so-called Devil was different from the Evil Dark Sect, but had a close connection with the Devil Tribe. In contrast, the Evil Way had nothing to do with the Dark Sect. Their practice was the same as the way for the human practitioner. They were just arrogant and unreasonable. In short, their alliance was made up of a group of practitioners. Therefore, they did not have a good relationship with the Holy Alliance. However, they had great powers and they were aggressive. Nobody dared to mess around with them.


    "Zhou Bao is in a closed-door training now. I think you know his position in our Heaven Realm World. Although I''m the Human Emperor, I''m unable to let him exit from his training!"


    "It doesn''t matter. We will wait for him to come out from his training then!" There was a cold smile on the leader''s face. "You should know that we are here in all sincerity, that is why we informed you prior to our coming!"


    "Meaning?" Yan Yuntian felt very stressed and a bad feeling seeped into his heart.


    "As it is, Your Majesty, just forget it. Perhaps Heaven Realm World will be under your control soon. By then, don''t forget to thank us!"


    Yan Yuntian felt the corners of his eyes twitching after they disappeared before his eyes. However, he could do nothing to stop them. After all, he was not a match for one Immortal and two Human Immortals.


    "There''ll be trouble soon!" he thought and there was a sudden change in his expression. He instantly shouted, "Hurry up! Invite Chief Wang She, to the Human Emperor Palace!"


    His fretful voice echoed in the Human Emperor Palace sounding as if he was expecting endless problems.


    The problem had arrived.


    Wuyang Region in Jin was a prosperous place.


    With Zhou Bao as a backer and together with his capable subordinates, it was not hard to make a small territory thrive.


    It was not a large area. Zhou Bao also did not have any great expectations for his territory. Anyway, Heaven Realm World belonged to Fate Creation Boy, not him. It was of no use to him even if he gained the whole of Jin. Besides, he already owned a macro world, so it was unnecessary to covet this troublesome Heaven Realm World.


    Indeed, Heaven Realm World was filled with problems, which made Zhou Bao want to leave. However, he had a deep affection for Heaven Realm World, so he could not leave immediately. Moreover, his Azure Big World was big, he could not really control it as there were many evil beasts and only very few people. For these reasons, he did not attach great importance to Wuyang Region. Therefore, his territory developed but did not expand. Some lords around the area came to him because he was a helpful backer. Zhou Bao naturally entertained them.


    "It''s a fine day!"


    Standing before King Wuyuan Palace gate, Chen VII slowly stretched and then straightened up.


    He was a solider in charge of protecting the palace. He did not have a high position and was merely in charge of guarding the gate. It was a big responsibility. However, he knew that he and his companions were merely ornamental pieces only.


    These soldiers had a Level Four strength and were regarded as masters of martial arts. Did the palace really need their protection?


    In fact, their responsibilities were to report to the master and make money.


    However, they did not report to King Wuyang Zhou Bao directly, but to a supervisor in the palace instead. Those who came to Wuyang Region to visit Zhou Bao never passed through the gate, so the soldiers did not have a chance to do so.


    Therefore, they had a relatively easy life. After stretching, they were astonished at the sight of the three men who appeared suddenly.


    The trio were well-dressed and revealed a formidable Qi Power. In Wuyang Region even though there were lots of talents, he had never seen someone whose Qi Power exceeded theirs. What was more alarming was that even though Chen VII was a Level Five expert, he had been caught unawares by their appearance. What did it show? It showed that the three of them were genuine experts. Besides, they came to King Wuyuan Palace to look for someone. Judging from his experience, they had come to look for several of His Royal Highness'' favorite subordinates. Hence, he was instantly very respectful.


    "I''m Chen VII. Please accept my respects, Your Excellencies!"


    "Eh? A funny guy. Thank you!" The lead magnificently dressed man was surprised when he saw how polite Chen VII was.


    "Please tell me which of His Excellencies are you visiting? I will inform my superior!"


    "That''s not necessary. We will just go directly to the person we want to meet. You''re lucky because we are sparing your life!"


    "Ah?" Chen VII was confounded for a second. Before he could respond, he felt a cold breeze brush by him and totally lost consciousness.


    "Big Brother. He''s only a commoner. Just kill him. Why are you so merciful?" The younger Human Immortal asked when he saw the man in the magnificent garment sparing Chen VII''s life.


    "Shut up! You''ve practiced for many years. Don''t you understand that Evil Practitioners are limited by karma if we kill others out of our own will? This commoner has nothing to do with us. Why should I kill him?"


    Indeed, there were essential differences between the Evil Practitioner and the Devil Practitioner.


    The Devil Practitioner did not pay attention to the karma because they were influenced by the Devil Tribe. However, the Evil Practitioner acted in a contrary manner. They had no qualms about killing a vast number of people in order to practice an insidious way, but they also dared not crush an ant if it was considered as going against the influence of the karma.


    To some extent, the Evil Practitioner themselves were extremely self-contradictory individuals.


    After undergoing renovation in the past years, King Wuyuan Palace was connected to Sea-calming Palace. There were many gates. The gate here was built when Wuyang Region Mansion was first constructed and was still in use.


    Some had questions about this gate.


    It was the Lord Mansion and Zhou Bao had a high status. Why was there only one person guarding the gate?


    To the ordinary people, it was not easy to figure out the reason. However, it seemed very normal in Wuyang Region.


    Wuyang Region did not need common people as its guards. These soldiers were just servants on duty. Neither Zhou Bao or Yan Yunfei liked to show off. Consequently, only one guard stood at each gate for the Lord Mansion here.


    One guard per gate did not mean that there was no security in King Wuyuan Palace. In fact, it was the most secure place in Heaven Realm World and was even better than several strong sects. He had integrated Sea-calming Palace, King Wuyuan Palace and the whole Jilei Mountain with the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    It was the real Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    Based on Zhou Bao''s current strength, he could set up a Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Due to the lack of elements, he could not completely wield the entire power of this mysterious formation. Nevertheless, he could wield about 50% of its powers.


    50% of power should not be belittled. If the power of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation was totally released, the Earthly Immortal could be killed. 50% power would not kill them but could tire them out for a while. Among the three persons, the most powerful one only had a cultivation at the Immortal phase. They rashly broke into the mansion. How could they avoid suffering a loss? The reality of it was that they never predicted that they would suffer a loss.


    "Big Brother, there is something strange here. We seem to have encountered a formation!"


    At King Wuyuan Palace, the most irritable Human Immortal among them had a grumpy expression. King Wuyuan Palace looked like any normal palace. But the odd thing was that they could not feel any creature spirits at all in the palace. Apparently, there was something strange going on here.


    "It seems there''s a formation. It''s the Yin and Yang Dust Formation which destroyed Holy Alliance''s fleet. Shi Jian, have a try. See whether you can break it up!"


    "Yes. Big Brother!" Shi Jian, as a Human Immortal, did not talk much. He raised his hands and a black axe emerged.


    It was a sheer black metal axe. Following Shi Jian''s movement, the Dharma power inside his body started flowing. Golden talismans slowly rose from the axe. Then, the axe sliced through the air as if it could crack the space.


    Actually, it should have been able to slice through the air because of its high level. It was a Taihao Fairy Weapon, so it was equal to the North Pole Frozen Wheel in terms of strength. This axe was very strong. It seemed to be powerful enough to destroy everything in its path. This strike crushed the surrounding space.


    "Hurry up! Get out!"


    Outside the ripped space, some faint figures could be seen. Pavilions loomed. When they saw the scene, they rushed out at once without any consideration for their safety.


    Whoosh!


    Everything around them vanished. When they stopped, their faces were pallid with fear. The surroundings were just the same as before. They saw the same yard, same road, same Pond, same rockery and running water. Nothing seemed different, as if the axe in Shi Jian''s hands had just not been wielded at all.


    At this moment, a giant hand suddenly appeared and extended towards their heads.

 776 Fighting and Discussing Concurrently

    "Interesting, since when did Heaven Realm World have three such weird fellows?"


    Accompanying the mocking voice, a black hand hovered over their heads.


    "Open!" Seeing the big hand coming towards them, the three of them freaked out. Shi Jian roared ferociously and threw his black axe towards the big hand.


    "Whoosh!"


    A strong yet mysterious tearing force managed to rip Zhou Bao''s Poisonous Pneuma Hand apart. The poison in the big hand did not seem to have any effect on the fairy weapon. It only caused the outer layer of the black axe to rot. However, after it rotted away the outer layer, the mysterious force re-emerged from the black axe and restored the axe.


    Zhou Bao did not care.


    His poisonous pneuma big hand could make anything rot. However, when tackling fairy weapons, things do not always go so smoothly. On the other hand, when fairy weapons could not work, he could still aim for Gang Qi and Dharma power.


    All these three people had fairy weapons. Seeing the black hand coming towards them, they did not care that much. However, a split second later, they realized that something was not right.


    After being split open by the black axe, the big hand did not dissipate. Instead, it turned into a big bank of black fog and started spreading everywhere. There was not much effect on the bodies of the fairy weapons; the black fog had limited effects on them. However, be it the pneuma emitted from the fairy weapons or their Dharma power, they all rotted at an alarming speed in the black fog.


    After the strange power, which was the Peach Blossom Miasma, was refined by Zhou Bao, it had been upgraded several times. Even when tackling Gang Qi gel, which had the Dharma power of the Immortal realm, the Peach Blossom Miasma was still able to dissolve the Dharma power like hot water being poured over snow.


    "How is this possible?"


    The three of them did not think that Zhou Bao''s tricks would be so strange and harsh. Despite their powerful cultivations that were higher than Zhou Bao''s, they found themselves helpless in this Yin and Yang Dust Formation, while facing Zhou Bao''s poisonous big hand. They could only use their fairy weapons to protect their bodies as they scurried away.


    Seeing the three of them retreat, Zhou Bao gave a cold laugh, but did not go after them.


    Having entered the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Zhou Bao did not think that they had any possibility of escaping from it.


    Indeed, the three of them retreated at lightning speed. However, the space was empty and the heavens and earth were all different.


    "Damn it, this formation is too powerful, we can''t get out at all!"


    They waved their fairy weapons in the air frantically for three consecutive times but still failed to open the surrounding space. Shi Jian''s face turned blue. "If we continue like this, we will all be trapped here and die. Big Brother, we have to think of a way to get out!"


    "What can we do now?" The man who was called Big Brother, was magnificently dressed. He smiled bitterly and sighed. Initially, he thought that this trip would be very easy, since there was only Zhou Bao to defeat. He did not expect it to exert such a toll on them. Not only did Zhou Bao not appear, but they were also trapped by his formation! He knew that Heaven Realm World was protected by the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, but just like everyone else, he also thought that Heaven Realm World was the work of the Fate Creator and had nothing to do with anyone else. Now, it seemed like that was not the case.


    "I am Tie Yi from the Evil Alliance, I am requesting to meet King Wuyang!"


    After trying numerous times with his fairy weapon, the practitioner by the name of Tie Yi finally gave up. After calling out his name loudly thrice, he finally got a reply.


    "Evil Alliance? Interesting, I heard that whoever is involved with them will usually have a bad ending, am I right?"


    "We do not have any bad intentions, we were under orders to check on some things here. I think you''ve seen that we didn''t even kill your guards!" At this point in time, be it Tie Yi or Shi Jian, they were all glad that they did not start their killing rampage yet. If not, they would have a hard time explaining themselves now.


    "I don''t care if you did, that has nothing to do with me. You trespassed into my King Wuyan Palace and will not be released so easily. You will stay in the formation for some time. When I''m in a better mood, I''ll decide what to do with you guys!"


    "How dare you! We are the law-enforcers of the Evil Alliance, how dare you retain us like this? Do you want to die?" This time round, the voice neither belonged to Shi Jian nor Tie Yi, but to the third guy.


    "Jin Tao, shut up!" Tie Yi had a shock when he suddenly shouted. He hushed him up quickly.


    "Interesting guy. Indeed, I do not want to live anymore. Why, do you want to take my life?" Zhou Bao''s crisp voice vibrated in the surrounding space.


    "I''m very sorry, King Wuyang. My friend here just joined us and has not yet learned how to be civil. I apologize to you on his behalf!" Tie Yi quickly apologized.


    However, after that, they no longer heard from Zhou Bao.


    Tie Yi continued to shout a few times but still did not get any response. Obviously, Zhou Bao wanted to throw them into the formation directly.


    For so many years, Zhou Bao did try doing that. When Wuyang Region was first built, it attracted numerous spies. This was why Zhou Bao set up the Yin and Yang Dust Formation in Wuyang Region. For so many years, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation had opened quite a few times. However, for the past few years, there were fewer spies who risked their lives to come here. But the cases increased again ever since the passageway in the Void Immortal Realm reopened, connecting Heaven Realm World with the Void Universe. No matter what, be it one or two spies, he would still have to entrap them. If it were not for these three''s super high cultivation that had shocked Zhou Bao, he would not even have bothered to talk to them, and just let them die on their own in the formation.


    "King Wuyang, we''re not here to spy on Your Excellency. We are here on the Evil Alliance''s orders to check on some things. Even if you entrap us, the alliance will send a second batch and then a third batch. If you do not want to become enemies with the alliance, let us go!"


    "You guys really don''t know how to live. Do you think that I''m afraid of you just because you''re from the Evil Alliance?"


    "I do not have any intentions to threaten you. I''m just telling the truth and want to help you find a good solution!"


    "You''re a good talker, but I have no dealings with the Evil Alliance, so what do you guys want from me?"


    "Your Excellency indeed does not have any dealings with the Evil Alliance. However, you do have an expert under you who has the Zhuyan bloodline. Not long ago, he murdered an Earthly Immortal at Eastern Thunder World in Easternmost Land. That stirred up a huge commotion. Now, a few big sects in the Void Universe have sprung into full action to investigate into this matter. That''s because this man did not use his own abilities to kill the Earthly Immortal, but used a Heavenly Fairy Weapon instead!"


    "Does this mean that the big sects are afraid this guy will use the fairy weapon to kill the other Earthly Immortals, so they''re trying to look for him here?"


    "That''s right. Initially, we did not have any clues. But that guy used the energy from his Zhuyan bloodline while fighting with the Earthly Immortal. He exhibited extremely strong fighting capabilities. Hence, we are making use of this clue to find him. Since Your Excellency also has the Zhuyan bloodline, we decided to come to you!"


    "What an interesting reason! According to what you have just said, the whole Void Universe is investigating this matter. But you guys are from the Evil Alliance, so can you tell me if you''re representing the whole Void Universe or the Evil Alliance?"


    "Of course it is the Evil Alliance! Although this matter is such a big issue in the Void Universe now and everyone is investigating into this matter, we''re also doing it on our own, so-!"


    "Does this mean, after I deal with you, there''ll be other assholes?"


    "This...!" Zhou Bao''s sudden question caused Tie Yi to be at a loss for words. After thinking for a very long time, he finally answered, "Of course, no matter what''s the outcome of our investigations, there are bound to be people who don''t believe us. It is very likely that other influences may come and make trouble for Your Excellency!"


    "Then, as an exchange for me sparing your lives, tell me how I can prevent that from happening?"


    Zhou Bao''s voice echoed in Tie Yi''s ears; he was not sure what to do next. He was an Immortal, one of the few experts in the Evil Alliance. He was also the king among the practitioners. But today, in Heaven Realm World that had fallen to the extreme, Tie Yi encountered this extremely troublesome opponent. An opponent that appeared right from the start, to be actively leading them by their noses. After falling into the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, the three of them were then attacked by Zhou Bao''s poisonous pneuma big hand. After knowing that the three of them would definitely not gain any advantage here, their confidence was shaken and their Qi Power naturally became weaker than Zhou Bao''s.


    "This...!"


    However, Tie Yi was an elite character of the Evil Alliance after all. He thought for a while and came up with an answer that was the most advantageous for him. "This is not something that the three of us can promise. However, our Evil Alliance is one of the few big sects in the Void Universe. Besides, everyone knows that we''re here only to conduct investigations. If we manage to conclude that this has nothing to do with Your Excellency, then I think it will reduce some unnecessary trouble for you!"


    "The Evil Alliance does indeed have a high position in the Void Universe. Just like what you said, if you manage to prove that this whole situation has nothing to do with me, it will definitely reduce the amount of trouble!" Speaking of which, Zhou Bao paused, "Fine, since that''s the case, I''ll tell you directly. This thing has nothing to do with me, I have never even heard of Eastern Thunder World, is that enough?"


    "You!"


    "Yes, of course it is enough. We have investigated thoroughly and it indeed has nothing to do with Your Excellency. However, I do have a word of warning for you!"


    "What warning?"


    "There is no evidence. After we leave, Your Excellency had better find some solid proof to show that this has nothing to do with you!"


    "Then, do you have any good suggestions?"


    "If King Wuyang doesn''t mind, how about we discuss this face to face?"


    "Okay!!!" As he spoke, the space around the three people moved slightly and a straight path appeared beneath their feet. A huge magnificent palace appeared at the other end of the path.

 777 The Secret of Child-endowing Buddha

    There were no shortage of rumors going around at times like this, especially when things were undergoing massive changes.


    This was the current situation in the Void Universe now. It would be apt to describe this period as the ''autumn for many things'', whereby everything underwent changes, similar to how leaves changed their colors during autumn.


    Eastern Thunder World of the Easternmost Part of Eastern Land had been attacked by the Devils. Furthermore, the Controller of Eastern Thunder World, Eastern Thunder Sect, was on the brink of destruction. Basically, Eastern Thunder Sect did not exist anymore at this point in time.


    After their Earthly Immortal Patriarchs were killed, the remaining practitioners in Eastern Thunder Sect had all been rounded up and killed by the lucky surviving practitioners from Eastern Thunder World. Eastern Thunder Sect members were totally annihilated in the shortest time possible, from the Masters to the disciple of the lowest rank. At the same time, the Devil Tribulation that started from Eastern Thunder World was facing some obstacles in Easternmost Land. The countless number of Devil Tribe members managed to get a hold of Eastern Thunder World only because everything happened so quickly. While Eastern Thunder World put up as much resistance as they could, the other macro worlds in Easternmost Land were already fully prepared. Hence, the Devil Tribulation in Easternmost Land did not spread throughout. Instead, it was totally suppressed by the efforts of a few macro worlds.


    And now, in Easternmost Land, the thing that garnered the most attention was not news about the Devil Tribulation. It was about the fallen Patriarchs of Eastern Thunder Sect.


    The reason why Eastern Thunder Sect dared to sacrifice the blood of hundreds of practitioners without holding back, was because their Patriarchs had undergone the Earthly Immortal Tribulation very recently. They became true Earthly Immortals.


    Due to this, the news of the fallen Patriarchs, who had recently become Earthly Immortals, caused a great stir. The fight did not go unseen. It had been witnessed by many.


    According to what the Patriarchs from Eastern Thunder Sect said, the mysterious Taoist Cundi, whom no one had ever heard of, was a character who was half an Earthly Immortal. By using a powerful Heavenly Fairy Weapon, he had managed to murder the Earthly Immortals. This news spread like wildfire in the Void Universe and caused all the Earthly Immortals to fear for their lives. Hence, a secret investigation commenced. By using the only clue provided by this Taoist Cundi, which was the Real Body of Zhuyan, the investigation covered the whole of the Void Universe, including Heaven Realm World that had just gained its status. This was because there was someone there who had the Zhuyan bloodline Real Body, although everyone thought that it was an unlikely possibility. All the suspects were thoroughly investigated and it was then that trouble came knocking on Zhou Bao''s door.


    This problem had been dealt with promptly. The first to appear were three ambassadors from the Evil Alliance. They fought a big battle with Zhou Bao in Wuyang Region and secured a narrow victory. However, they fell victim to his Yin and Yang Dust Formation and suffered huge losses. The only thing they gained was Zhou Bao''s handy weapons, two small jade hammers. At the same time, this proved that Zhou Bao did indeed have the Zhuyan bloodline. However, this bloodline was not pure. It could not show that it had the power of an Earthly Immortal in the Eastern Thunder Sect''s big war. Henceforth, Zhou Bao was proven to be innocent.


    There were people who had their doubts but when the three guys from the Evil Alliance returned with Zhou Bao''s two small hammers, everyone believed them. Those who knew a bit about Heaven Realm World knew that these hammers were rarely shown publicly. He would only take them out when faced with strong opponents. They were his hidden ace weapons. By giving the three guys these two hammers, this showed that Zhou Bao had already done all he could but was still defeated. He only managed to scare off the three guys due to the power of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. At the same time, the Human Emperor of Heaven Realm World, Yan Yuntian, had been in a discussion with the Evil Alliance. The former gave in significantly, which once again proved the assertion made by the alliance. The whole chaotic situation was dissolved.


    "I did not think that you have such high endurance, to the point of giving up your handy weapons!"


    "They are a hindrance when I carry them around. It''s better to let the two idiots bring them back as that will stop me from always wanting to use them!" Zhou Bao smiled faintly. He seemed not to mind Child-endowing Buddha''s sarcasm. "Back to you. I heard that you changed your Dharma name to Guide Master. That''s interesting. Do you need me to talk to my father-in-law so that he''ll send you to clean the toilets?"


    "Let it remain as Guide. This job is not bad, at least I have the chance to understand the Void Universe. After so many years, even after so many things had happened, I still cannot recognize any of the important members from each macro world. It seems like the macro world has changed for sure!" Child-endowing seemed a little melancholic. He sighed and a faint fragrance of tea leaves wafted through the air. Suddenly, he seemed to have thought of something, "Taoist Cundi, this name is quite interesting. How did you think of it?"


    "Not much to tell. I came across this person named Cundi and felt that the name was not bad, so I stole it from him!" Zhou Bao laughed indifferently, suddenly realizing that it was indeed interesting. In this very small hut sat two people; one called Guide, the other Cundi. There seemed to be some kind of strange connection. "I say, if I were to change the name of Jilei Mountain to Mount Sumeru, what do you think?"


    "Mount Sumeru?" Child-endowing was taken aback. Even with his copious knowledge, he was not able to understand what Zhou Bao really meant. "Why do you want to change its name so suddenly? The name Jilei Mountain sounds quite good!"


    "Really, then forget it!" Zhou Bao smiled and did not elaborate any further. "How''s the relationship between Heaven Realm World and the Void Universe recently? I think after my father-in-law gave up some things he insisted on, it should be smoother right?"


    "How do I put it? Right now, the few big influences in the Void Universe have been contacted. The conditions have more or less been discussed too. But there''s the exception of the Holy Alliance!"


    "The Holy Alliance has lost a lot of their fleets. They are finally going to rebuild their reputation. Furthermore, they''re one of the biggest influences. It is perfectly normal for them to come in at the last minute!" Zhou Bao said, "I heard that all the big influences are going to establish themselves in Heaven Realm World soon!"


    "Not bad, but the majority of the macro worlds and influences are going to be established in the Sea Area. Only a few of the strongest influences such as the Evil Alliance, as well as the Holy Alliance in the future, may be able to establish themselves in the Seven-deity Regions!"


    "How about Sea Emperor, that bastard? How did he react?"


    "He did not have reacted in any way. The Sea Area does not care too much about such matters. Anyway, you know that the Sea Area is much stronger than the Seven-deity Regions in terms of power. We do not have to worry about them!"


    "The Sea Emperor is an old fox. Back in the olden days, the Vast Sea Emperor was also an Earthly Immortal. If we release this information, those influences should start behaving themselves!"


    "Are you sure? Vast Sea Emperor has a fearful reputation that could scare some people. But don''t forget, as a Great Ancient Emperor, he has many enemies. If we release this information, his enemies will come and find him. If he doesn''t show up, we''ll be in big trouble!"


    Child-endowing Buddha''s worries were understandable. As a Great Ancient Emperor as well as an expert among the Earthly Immortals, he would certainly have extremely strong enemies. By releasing the information about Vast Sea Emperor, it would indeed cause a small commotion. At the same time, it would incur huge problems.


    "The trouble is all due to him. Heavenly Court has disappeared for so many years, yet this guy is still controlling the Sea Area. Although on the surface he appears to be restricted to that endless spacetime, even Fate Creation Boy would not be able to understand the real reason behind this. Vast Sea Emperor will not let go completely. If his enemies really turn up and he chooses to let go, then we do not have to carry this burden for him; we can let go too!"


    "No way! If that''s the case, then Heaven Realm World..." Suddenly, Child-endowing Buddha seemed to realize something. He lifted his head abruptly, "You want to give up Heaven Realm World?"


    "No, of course not! But I have no need to take on the load of everything happening in the world on my own!" Zhou Bao gave a small smile, "I will do everything that I can, but if something is out of my control, I will choose to give it up. You know that I already own a macro world, why would I die for Heaven Realm World?"


    "Hmm, I think it will be a problem if you really do so!"


    "I know, of course, how troublesome this will be!" Zhou Bao''s expression changed as if he thought of something. He gave a small smile, "I can see that you are also a pawn left behind by some strong existence from antiquity times, right? You''re just an idle piece, and have never thought about how useful you would be, right?"


    "I know this too, but recently, I do have a sort of feeling!" Child-endowing Buddha did not recognize it, nor did he deny it. "Back in the days when I was sealed up in Small Thunder Temple, it was indeed strange. But because I was sealed much too early, I was unsure of what happened afterwards. Hence, I was never clear whether my sealing up had any purpose or not. Just that recently, when Heaven Realm World reconnected with the Void Universe. I suddenly realized that some matters can be inferred, which is the most troublesome part!"


    "The most troublesome?" Zhou Bao smiled, "So many macro worlds and influences are trying to establish themselves in Heaven Realm World and you are in charge of guiding them. I think this is what is arousing your suspicions?"


    "That''s right, I am in charge of guiding them to choose the land they want to establish in. Although the Void Universe has become foreign, there are still traces of the antiquity times in these strong macro worlds and influences. There were even some that had not changed since then! They''ve found the right person to do the guiding. I can help them settle in perfectly. Besides, I can ensure that everything is under my control!" Speaking of which, he paused momentarily. "This all originated from a secret I discovered in the antiquity times. However, I have never told anyone about it. I believe that although Fate Creation Boy is the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate belonging to Heaven Realm World, he too, does not know about this secret!"


    "This sounds strange, could this be your key to success in the future?"


    "Although it is not entirely correct, you''re not that far off. Give me 10,000 years and I''ll aim to steal a third of Heaven Realm World''s power, which will help me to succeed!"


    "It''s a pity that you''re running out of time!"

 778 Guesses

    Like what Child-endowing Buddha said, he was a Grand Demon from antiquity times and his cultivation was at the Immortal''s realm. Although he could not be called an emperor, he was one of the few Demon Kings. In the antiquity times, Demon kings like him were ranked just below the 99 Emperors and were influential characters who had great impact. However, he had been inexplicably sealed after a battle. In a flash, a million years had gone by. In the end, he was rescued by a teen who was not even 20 years old. For many years, this teen had kept him captive and Child-endowing Buddha had witnessed Zhou Bao rising step by step. He observed how Zhou Bao caused all sorts of trouble and obtained all his wonderful opportunities before he eventually reached the peak of the Void Universe. Although Zhou Bao was currently only at the Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint realm, his combat capability was strong enough to defeat everyone below the rank of an Earthly Immortal. If he used the Heavenly Fairy Weapon to help him, he could even kill Earthly Immortals. Not only was this kind of power shocking in this day and age, it was equally an eye-opener during antiquity times.


    Following the initial shock and relief, he found that things were not quite right after thinking through the situation. How could something like this happen in this world? Such coincidence and such fate! Even the Jade Emperors in the antiquity times would not have this kind of fate, let alone a common person.


    Then, what was the reason behind this? How could a common person have such a fate? Why was he involved with this common person, and eventually in the mess at Heaven Realm World?


    The irony was that initially he thought he was lucky to have gained such a huge advantage. Now, it seemed like he had been set up.


    After he realized that he had been set up, at this current stage, he felt fearful.


    "During the antiquity times, I discovered a huge secret of Heaven Realm World that''s very helpful to what I''m doing now!" Recalling this, Child-endowing Buddha''s gaze darkened a little. "If I had already been set up since that time, then this person is very scary. Perhaps, even the Jade Emperor could not do the same thing. Judging by your adventures in the past decade, your fate is really good, so much so that it scares me. It even seems like there''s a purpose behind this!"


    "There''s a purpose behind this? Do you think it is the Emperor of Azure Heaven?"


    "No, he''s incapable of doing so. He has given all his attention to Azure Heaven. Hence, this time around, perhaps even the Emperor of Azure Heaven may have been set up and may undergo a huge setback!"


    "Oh, is it really that scary?"


    "If there really is someone behind this, then that''s terrifying. The Emperor of Azure Heaven is an Earthly Immortal and one of the 99 Emperors. However, it is still hard for him to escape the fate of being set up!"


    "Then, among those that you know, is there anyone capable of doing this?"


    "None of them. Even the Jade Emperor''s works may not be as detailed as this. Perhaps, it could have been done by some ancient Divine King. Or maybe, the calculations were done by the mighty powers from primitive times. Don''t think that just because you''re full of glory and have some capabilities, the ancient Divine Kings and mighty powers from primitive times can''t reduce you to ashes. They could do that with just a swift hand motion!"


    Child-endowing Buddha paused for a while, as if he realized something. "Yes, yes, yes! Only the ancient Divine Kings and mighty powers from the primitive times have such skills! Don''t think too highly of yourself, you and I are just tiny pawns in this game. Your combat capability is just half a step away from an Earthly Immortal''s and you can kill an Earthly Immortal with that red gourd. But what about it if that''s the case? Hehe, the Earthly Immortals are also separated into ranks! They can give you so much in just a mere decade, which means that they can also snatch them all away in the shortest possible time. These kind of examples were not rare during antiquity times!"


    Zhou Bao closed his eyes. Child-endowing Buddha seemed to be exaggerating. Perhaps, part of what he said was true, but some were not, for sure. He thought carefully about all the things that he encountered throughout this journey of practice. He had walked each step on his own and did not rely on any external help. Perhaps some strange fate and people that he met were planned, but his comprehension of his fist intent had been done entirely on his own. But after thinking about it carefully, he suddenly realized that he was dripping in cold sweat. Come to think of it, it seemed like only the fist intent had been mastered on his own. Apart from that, it was possible that everything else had been set up. Be it Xue Wuya from the beginning or the many secret skills and Pure Yang Celestial Devices that he gained, or even the fairy weapons, as well as Azure Heaven and The Black Pearl... they seemed to have been planned by some mighty power. It was just that they were done so perfectly, even his fist intent.


    "No, I got my fist intent from trial and error, that cannot have been planned!"


    "Why, did you recall something? Are you scared now?"


    "Scared? Hmph! What''s there to be scared of? I''ll battle against incoming troops and use sandbags to block out floods. I, Zhou Bao, have never been afraid of anyone. So what if someone sets me up? Like what you said, people like us are just chess pieces, we can never change the game. At most, when things are falling apart, I''ll just leave! What''s there to be afraid of?"


    "You don''t really mean that. If everything is all part of a plan, you may think that you can leave, but by that time, maybe even a Supreme Fairy Weapon can''t deter the enemy! If you damage their chess piece, they will destroy you!"


    "Then do you have any good ideas?"


    "What ideas can I possibly have? I''m in the game as well. It''s hard to take control of the situation. As of now, we can only go according to the direction the chess pieces are being moved to. Perhaps, we may have a chance of survival at the end. There might even be a better chance! You need to understand, even though this is a game, it is an open one; one that enables us to play freely. We just need to accumulate our strength. There will always be a chance for us to escape, especially for you. If you can elevate your skills to above that of an Earthly Immortal, then we will have more say in the future!"


    "My combat capability is already comparable to that of an Earthly Immortal!" Zhou Bao said softly. He thought of the strength of the Patriarchs from Eastern Thunder Sect and added, "At least, I''ve just entered the Earthly Immortal Realm but have yet to stabilize it. I can try my best to fight even without that god-damned Heavenly Fairy Weapon!"


    "It''s not enough, not enough! Combat capabilities and phases are two different things. You have to reach the Earthly Immortal phase for things to work!"


    "Phase? I haven''t even gathered all of the Five Kinds of Qi; I''m still far from becoming an Earthly Immortal!"


    "Then do it quickly, break through the Earthly Immortal realm and reach the Immortal realm!" Child-endowing Buddha answered. "Don''t think about anything else. Work hard on elevating your capabilities. That is the root of all things. Without capabilities, you can forget about everything else!"


    "Of course, I know that. But do you think that''s an easy thing to accomplish? Even if I could adjust the speed of time in Azure Big World, I can''t reach the Earthly Immortal realm so quickly!" Zhou Bao said impatiently, "As for you, what secret did you discover during the antiquity times that caused people to set you up and dragging me in too!"


    Zhou Bao''s words almost caused Child-endowing Buddha to faint from anger. "What do you mean by dragging you in? There is no connection between the two of us; it''s just your bad moral standards!"


    "Ok fine, stop talking about these useless things. So what is that big secret?"


    "Heaven Realm World actually has a connection with the essence of the Void Universe. That is why it has always been the core of the universe since the Primordial Origin. But there''s some trouble now!"


    "The essence of the Void Universe? What does that mean?"


    "Heaven Realm World has a close connection with the essence of the Void Universe. There is a spatial gap that consists of many Space Nodes. These Space Nodes extends to a huge meridian in Heaven Realm World like branches of a tree. It spreads across the whole world. Hence, many places in the world that look safe are actually very dangerous!"


    "Dangerous? What''s the use of these Space Nodes?"


    "As long as I''m willing, I can cast anyone from Heaven Realm World into the unknown spacetime whenever I want to!" Child-endowing Buddha said softly, "I think this is also why I am in charge of guiding those macro worlds and influences!"


    Casting anyone from Heaven Realm World into the unknown spacetime whenever he wants to!


    Whatever could that mean?


    Zhou Bao did not understand. For a practitioner, it was not a scary thing to be cast away into some unknown spacetime. As long as he had the capability, he could come back anytime, especially for those that had practiced the Great Way of Heavens and Realms, like Zhou Bao!


    "Don''t think of it as a simple issue. This unknown spacetime is not the one in the Void Universe. It''s a spacetime outside of the universe, like the Devil Realm!"


    "What!"


    Zhou Bao stood up suddenly. "What in the world? Casting someone into the Devil Tribe suddenly? That''s basically killing them! Even Earthly Immortals will be tortured to death in that borderless Devil Realm!"


    "Yes, exactly, it''s about casting them outside of the Void Universe!" There was a strange expression on Child-endowing Buddha''s face. "Also, if I calculate the launch of the Space Node accurately, all practitioners below the Earthly Immortal Realm will definitely be sent away. As for the Earthly Immortals, if they do not take care, it may happen to them too!"


    "You''re in charge of helping all influences and macro worlds to establish themselves. I''m sure you''re perfectly clear whether or not those Space Nodes have to be calculated by you?"


    "Yes, after I woke up, I calculated all the important Space Nodes in Heaven Realm World. Hmm, don''t be fooled when you see Fate Creation Boy floating around in the depths of the endless spacetime in Taihua Mountain. Let me tell you, as long as I''m willing, I can send that Taihua Mountain to the Devil Realm anytime!"


    "I had no idea that you''re actually the controller of Heaven Realm World! I''m sorry for my lack of respect!"


    "Don''t mock me. I''m just getting everything off my chest. Small fights and quarrels are nothing. But if I want to do something big, I only have one chance!"


    "You''re actually intending to do it?"


    "Yes, this may be the reason why I''ve lived till now and will continue to live!" Child-endowing Buddha smiled.

 779 The Challenge and The Void Competition

    Zhou Bao thought that the Child-endowing Buddha was too pessimistic, even a little fatalistic. But thinking about it, if what he said was actually true, then the situation would be indeed depressingly fatal.


    "So, there''s nothing we can do now but let things go along?"


    "The change has already begun. It would be difficult to stop it. The best policy is to take advantage of the situation. If you insist on going your own way, something will definitely happen. So you should just give up the idea of going far away and wait until you are in the Earthly Immortal phase. Even if someone is driving a Heaven Realm World, they wouldn''t be able to stop you!"


    "At the end of the day, I am still too weak!" Zhou Bao gave a long sigh. "Which means we shouldn''t act without thinking, right?"


    "The torrent is unstoppable, you''ll just have to bear it!" The Child-endowing Buddha had no way out and was shaking his head. "But if you solve the problem this time, then things will definitely calm down a lot!"


    "Calm? Not necessarily, this time I am vulnerable. People will inevitably come to take advantage!" Saying this, Zhou Bao knocked the stone table lightly with his fingertips. "That Tieyi has Immortal-grade cultivation, and the others are Human Immortals. If I were defeated by them, many people would be confused."


    "That''s not quite right. If people go look at the fight, you can take your anger out on someone!" the Child-endowing Buddha laughed coldly.


    "Oh, that''s true! You can just banish people whenever you want, so if something happened in this Heaven Realm World, it wouldn''t go unnoticed by you, right? The last few days my eyelids have been twitching, maybe some people want to come and attack me again."


    Child-endowing Buddha was shocked that Zhou Bao had asked that. "Indeed, some people want to come and attack you!" He gave a bitter smile and pointed at Zhou Bao. "And more than a few will come. It appears several of the powers of South China will want to take advantage of this to establish power in the Heaven Realm World!"


    "How strong are they?"


    "Several people are about the same as the Tie Yi, some are even stronger."


    "When are they coming?"


    "They are not coming."


    "Huh?"


    "Their plan is to challenge all the major powers of the world," the Child-endowing Buddha said beaming. "Those guys have Heavenly Fairy Weapons, so they are very confident about their own strength. As you know, the Heaven Realm World is full of bad people and good people. If they want to gain an advantage, they will have to show their strength and make a name for themselves. This will decide how much they will profit from the Heaven Realm World in the future!"


    Zhou Bao looked surprised. "So, you mean they want to set up an arena in the Heaven Realm World?"


    "Even if they don''t, they will eventually when it comes to the division of profits. This is how they used to deal with conflicts over profits in antiquity times, and it''s already prevalent in the Void Universe. When there are friction and disputes among the powers, as long as it''s not a life-or-death feud, most will choose to deal with it in this way."


    "And their first target is me?"


    "Yes. You stand out in the Heaven Realm World. They want to beat you so that when it comes to dealing out the profits, they don''t have to think about the Heaven Realm World. They have already been there, so they are not very interested in it anymore. The only thing they are interested in is the passageway leading through to the Void Immortal Realm, so..."


    "So I ended up harmed the first time they saw me, and they want me to suffer again?"


    "Are you willing to suffer again?"


    "What do you think?" Zhou Bao said wryly. "If I don''t knock the crap out of them this time, then my name is not Zhou Bao."


    The Child-endowing Buddha laughed as if he had already known Zhou Bao would react this way. "Okay then! Right now they are choosing somewhere in the endless spacetime to set up the Void Competition. Once they are done, you will be their first challenge!"


    "Well, help them so that they can find somewhere a bit quicker, I cannot wait any longer!" Without thinking, Zhou Bao was rubbing his hands together, and the skeleton in his palms emitted a cracking sound like bursting beans. A slight chill completely enshrouded the small pavilion.


    The chill was not strong, but the Child-endowing Buddha was not used to it and he shuddered. "And you presumably want to kill them."


    "Hah, kill them? Why would I want to kill them? Wouldn''t that be letting them get away with it too easily? They will come around at just the right moment to establish their power. That will save me from any Tom, Dick or Harry running into my territory and yelling!"


    "Okay. Whatever you are thinking, just take it easy. Those South China guys have probably already spread the news. Their first opponent will be you. According to Void Universe custom, if you don''t come out to fight you will consider yourself defeated, which would be the most shameful thing in the Void Universe. So there''s no one who wouldn''t put up a fight."


    "Are you scared I won''t come out to fight?"


    "I''m scared you''ll lose."


    Zhou Bao burst into laughter.


    The Void Competition? What was that?


    A few days later, the news started spreading all around the Heaven Realm World, and also around every macro world of the Void Universe. The knowledge of the sects of the Heaven Realm World spread around the whole Void Universe: 37 practitioners of the six great powers of South China and nine macro worlds will join together to challenge King Wuyang Zhou Bao of the Heaven Realm World.


    Zhou Bao, King Wu Yang.


    The first master of martial arts in the Heaven Realm World who had once resisted the Purple River King Tie Yi of the Evil Alliance. Lintong Marquis Shi Jian and Wanli Marquis Gao Qiang were one against three, so making the three masters of the formation retreat was considered a great outcome in the Void Universe even though their weapons were seized. King Wuyang was a qualified term to use not only in the Heaven Realm World, but also in the Void Universe.


    But it was only an unofficial contest, not very serious and not very strict. Zhou Bao showed his strength but also revealed his weakness, and attracted the attention of those lying in wait for him, and so they issued invitations to a challenge.


    The seven great powers of South China and the nine macro worlds altogether had 37 practitioners uniting to challenge Zhou Bao. Of course, this did not mean that 37 people would go. Despite the fact that they challenged him, they couldn''t match Zhou Bao''s authority. Of course, Zhou Bao had to accept all of their invitations one at a time.


    In fact, this was in line with the rules. In the Void Universe, if a practitioner accepted several peoples'' challenges at the same time, of course, this would make others want to challenge him. So after one challenge had ended, another challenge could only begin after five years. This was the rule for challenging single practitioners in the Void Competition.


    These were the stated rules, however, practitioners did not usually comply with them, and some paid no attention to them whatsoever, but went straight over to kill. But even then, you had to wait until your opponent had completely recovered from the last challenge before you go to attack, otherwise, you could encounter all sorts of collective resistance in the Void Universe, and that would not be fun at all.


    The challenged party would generally decide who would be the first challenger accepted based on the grievances and power of the various partitioners. But this time, Zhou Bao had no grievances with the 37 challengers, and all of them were at Immortal level. Feng Wang''s strength and combat capability were no less than the Purple River King Tie Yi''s, and it was clear that this time, they had come prepared.


    But the Child-endowing Buddha and Zhou Bao were not clear on what their purpose was.


    The Heaven Realm World had not long re-integrated into the Void Universe, and it was unknown what the rules were that had evolved in the Void Universe for a hundred thousand years. Each one considered it very novel, and once again focused their attention on the Seven-deity Regions of the Wuyang Region.


    The last time Zhou Bao lost out in the hands of the three practitioners of the Alien World, his renowned fierce iron hammers were lost, which somewhat diminished his prestige in the Heaven Realm World. But these practitioners were also fine and understood that, although Zhou Bao had suffered defeat, they also could not have withstood him. They were Immortals and Human Immortals! The whole Heaven Realm World was turned upside down. There were several Human Immortals. That Zhou Bao suffered defeat when he was one against three didn''t mean a thing. Anyone else would have been killed very quickly.


    But this time that Zhou Bao accepted another challenge, the practitioners of the Heaven Realm World were new to this, and they were the ones who couldn''t help but to secretly fret, not Zhou Bao. No matter how arrogant this b*stard Zhou Bao was, no matter how vile his methods were, he still represented the great practitioners of the Heaven Realm World. You could say he was the only expert in the Heaven Realm World who could withstand the powers of the Void Universe. As he was a practitioner of the Heaven Realm World, nobody was hoping for him to lose.


    Therefore, everyone was immediately concerned when they heard that someone had challenged Zhou Bao.


    If one prospered, all prospered. If one was harmed, all were harmed.


    "This is a list of the 37 practitioners'' names. Haha, every name has the character for ''king''. Interesting!"


    The Divine Wind Palace, Human Emperor Palace.


    Zhou Bao sat boldly in his grand chair, leafing through a pile of challenge invitations with a faint smile. It was unclear what he was thinking.


    In the Human Emperor Palace, every respected practitioner had come. Even the masters of the Divine Wind Palace came, and they had not been seen for a long time. These practitioners were the elite of the Heaven Realm World, and this time, every one of them was concerned. They all had various types of disagreements with Zhou Bao, but as practitioners of the Heaven Realm World with such high status, how could they not know what this challenge would mean?


    "Zhou Bao, you know that we have only just joined the Void Universe, therefore we don''t have a lot of information about these 37 practitioners. At the moment, this is all we know. Have a look, and tell us how we should deal with them." The Human Emperor Yan Yuntian sighed hopelessly with a pained expression.


    It was hard to be a Human Emperor.


    Even harder if your macro world was declining.


    "Choose one at random." Zhou Bao leafed through them for a while, and eventually pushed the challenge invitations to one side. "Everything will be done according to the Void Universe rules."

 780 The Red Moon King

    In the endless Void Universe, there were countless worlds, powers, and practitioners. This last group needed some entertainment aside from cultivation. After all, as well as from moral cultivation, the way of practice emphasized the cultivation of the mind, which was invariably demanding and required about a thousand years. Anyone''s character could become somewhat distorted by this, which could be harmful to the person, and could even be detrimental to their cultivation, ironically.


    The Void Competition was a tool for all sorts of powers of the Void Universe to resolve their problems. It also allowed all the practitioners to vent their built up frustrations, and to remove the internal demons and afflictions that interfered in their way of practice. As time passed, a set of rules was developed, and its laws and significance grew until, finally, it came to resemble the sports matches of Zhou Bao''s previous life. They felt to be sacred and could not be broken. The hollow was endless, so almost every day a Void Competition occurred. Every competition attracted countless practitioners to observe and learn from what they saw. The rules were naturally very rigid.


    Only, they were closely guarded among the practitioners. Although there were many practitioners in the Void Universe, very few could reach the Immortal state. There were also very few who were considered Human Immortals rather than mere Immortals. Most practitioners were only cultivated to the Ghost Immortal state, and so most of the Void Competitions in the hollow involved disputes between ghost men. If a dispute broke out between two Human Immortals it would look like one of the national sports competitions of the previous world, in the sense that it would attract the whole world''s attention. If it were Immortals, haha, then it would be akin to a continental sports competition like the Asian Games, and it would attract the attention of most of the Void Universe. And that was to say nothing of a competition that involved the newly emerged Heaven Realm World, which would naturally draw even more viewers.


    At that time in South China, a lot of controversies were being caused by the several Immortals led by Red Moon King challenging King Wuyang of the Heaven Realm World. Soon, the place in the endless spacetime of the Heaven Realm World that was chosen for the Void Competition location was already packed with countless practitioners from the Heaven Realm World and other macro worlds as well. All powers of all different strengths came together to this one spot. They wanted to see the excitement and to witness the skills of both sides and try to take advantage of the opportunity to really explore for themselves. Zhou Bao did not like the Void Competition and considered it a monkey show. But seeing as he had been challenged according to the Void Universe rules, he had no choice but to go.


    This spacetime was vast and empty, and many suspended stones appeared inside it. These suspended stones were about 3 miles wide at their smallest, and the bigger ones were as much as 300 miles. The neat thing was that their surface was smooth, and made a natural arena with even a nice viewing area.


    By this time, the surface of the suspended stone was already packed with people, which had startled Zhou Bao at first. He never would have thought that there could have been so many practitioners in the Heaven Realm World.


    The Void Competition had its own rules, but Zhou Bao was obviously not prepared to follow them completely. As a Human Emperor of the Heaven Realm World, Yan Yuntian was also expected to come. In fact, he had come to preside over the competition. The largest suspended stone in the hollow was used as the arena. It was several thousand kilometers wide and was thus perfect for the practitioners to fight.


    Of all the surrounding suspended stones, the closest to the fighting stone represented the huge influences of the Heaven Realm World and the Void Universe.


    And on these huge hanging stones stood dozens of Immortal grade practitioners. These men were all kings of South China, and the leader of these was wearing a red robe. Although he looked very grand, he had a faint feeling of breaking through the heavens and earth.


    This was the Red Moon King who had provoked the battle.


    In a glance, Zhou Bao confirmed that this was Red Moon King, the guy who started the Void Competition.


    "Oh, I thought this Red Moon character would be a beautiful lady, turns out he was a dude. How disappointing!"


    This lazy voice coupled with his tired and indolent look really made Zhou Bao look contemptuous.


    The practitioners really had not expected Zhou Bao to turn up to battle with this attitude, and it really angered the Red Moon King.


    He was at peak Immortal Stage, exercising his powers in South China. No one dared provoke him except a few Earthly Immortals who kept themselves hidden, and here in the Heaven Realm World, he was one of the most relevant men of South China. He was an important man with high status. Actually, with that social position, he shouldn''t have challenged Zhou Bao in the first place, but South China had their own interests in this duel. However, The Red Moon king had not expected Zhou Bao''s arrogance. Zhou Bao had just met him, and he was already spurting arrogant and disrespectful nonsense.


    Because he was a famous practitioner in the Void Universe, he did not want to make a scene. He just looked Zhou Bao up and down coldly and said, "You are so arrogant, yet you are so inexperienced, boy."


    Zhou Bao shrugged and laughed. "Soon you will find out that I am not the experienced one!" Then before the Red Moon King could say anything, he turned to Yan Yuntian and asked, "Father-in-law, Your Excellency, can we begin? Or are there any more rules before I give him a beating?"


    Yan Yuntian was gloomy, but he was relieved to see Zhou Bao so full of self-confidence. He would not be this arrogant if he was not full of confidence. He said, "There are not so many rules in the Void Competition, but before it begins, you should choose an opponent."


    "Choose an opponent?" He laughed, "It was the Red Moon King who challenged me!"


    "Okay, the Red Moon King can come out to fight. Can all the other Royal Highnesses please vacate the arena?"


    37 practitioners challenged Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao''s greatest advantage was to be able to choose whoever''s challenge he wanted. All of these peoples'' information had already been shown to Zhou Bao before he arrived. All of the big players of the Heaven Realm World were hoping that Zhou Bao would choose an opponent with a slightly weak cultivation. They did not realize that Zhou Bao would not listen to them. He chose the Red Moon King, and all their effort was wasted.


    "Good, very good. As expected, he truly deserves to be called the first master of martial arts of the Heaven Realm World!"


    "The first master of martial arts. You''re so flattering. The first master of martial arts in the Heaven Realm World is not facing up to facts in this boundless spacetime. At most, he is a thug." He slowly walked up to the center of the suspended stone. "Red Moon King, stop speaking nonsense and start fighting!"


    "Okay!" The Red Moon King was not a man who liked idle chat either. As soon as Zhou Bao appeared his words deeply offended him, so he did not want to let him get away. "I hear you like to use fists. Luckily, I also like them. Let me see how powerful your fists are, then!"


    While speaking, he struck Zhou Bao right in the face with his own fist.


    "Come on!"


    Zhou Bou had not expected to meet someone who had a similar fist practice. His fist was quick and violent, with deep samadhi. The Red Moon King saw Zhou Bao''s eyes spark bright lights and felt a glint of victory. So, without hesitation, he punched him straight in the face again.


    Thump!


    Their fists met in the middle, and each opponent stepped back. But the 300-mile suspended stone underneath their feet was smashed to pieces with the first punch.


    The two men did not mind that their fists had smashed the suspended stone. But the two Taoists'' figures flashed, there was much commotion in one place.


    "Bang, bang, bang!"


    The sounds of the punches were continuous but became increasingly dull. In their first hit they shattered the suspended stone, and with their second hit, they shattered the entire space within thirty miles. Their third hit made the surrounding endless spacetime go out of phase, and it seemed like it could cause doomsday. But from the fourth hit onwards the punches got quieter. By the ninth hit, there was no sound at all, but the two men''s faces were more fierce and focused than ever. By the sixteenth punch it was like two normal people were hitting each other, and so each one stepped back.


    "Well, I would never have thought that in this hollow there would be someone who could spar with me for 16 hits!" The Red Moon King shouted. "Okay, one more strike, then!" As he was speaking, a strange Qi Power came billowing from his body.


    "Fist intent!"


    Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes, and a familiar and slightly strange feeling came to him. The strange thing was not that this Red Moon King knew fist intent, it was that his fist intent had a connection to his own fist intent. Zhou Bao was astonished.


    This was...


    As the Red Moon King struck, Zhou Bao''s eyes went blurry, and the surrounding space started fluctuating. A blood-red moon flashed before his very eyes and started to push down on him.


    Now, Zhou Bao was happy. It turned out the Red Moon King was practicing the Red Moon Fist Intent. Although he did not know much about this moon, he knew that in the macro world it was a celestial body of the endless spacetime like a satellite, nothing more. How could that match with his own shameless fist intent?


    In the last few days, Zhou Bao had been doing closed-door training. He linked up all the things he saw when the Earthly Immortal Patriarch of the Eastern Thunder Sect traveled in the Void Universe, and his fist intent had changed. He was eager to try it out and seeing the incoming attack from the red moon fist intent, he went to meet it. "Okay, Red Moon Fist Intent, break open for me!"


    Star!


    The celestial bodies in the universe changed endlessly, and there was a boundless wonder. It was not easy to learn from each of these changes, and there was not much time. Zhou Bao naturally chose the most familiar to ponder and secretly refine. The stars, planets, and satellites were all things Zhou Bao had learned about in elementary school in his previous life, and they were the celestial bodies he was most in touch with. Zhou Bao had previously absorbed a small planet and refined it into his fist intent, and now his planet fist intent was very strong. But he thought that he didn''t need his fist to deal with this Red Moon King. This moon was only a satellite. Could it be that he could not use a planet to deal with him?


    Not good!


    The Red Moon King was not a mediocre fighter, and his fist intent was complete. If he had encountered Zhou Bao in the past, they might not have been a match for each other. But now Zhou Bao''s fist intent was greatly improved. With his strike, a black sun suddenly exploded, covering up the rays of the Red Moon and violently engulfing it.

 781 Another Surprise Attack

    The Red Moon was newly formed, and the Black Sun was monstrous.


    The two fist intents met mid-air. Under the rays of the black sun, the Red Moon King''s tyrannical Red Moon Fist intent could not even make one strike, and it was engulfed by Zhou Bao''s Black Sun. The Red Moon King''s fist intent was linked to his spirit Dharma power and was refined to the Immortal state. It almost represented the Will of Heaven in the Immortal Self-universe. However, it was more terrifying and harder to fathom than a normal fist intent.


    But, in front of Zhou Bao''s Black Sun Fist Intent, everything turned empty.


    At the moment of collision, the red moon was swallowed up by the Black Sun Fist Intent, and the Red Moon King''s spirit, Dharma power, and even the Self-universe were heavily damaged. But Zhou Bao was not the type of guy to show mercy when justice was on his side. Originally he was forced to come to the arena even though he was not interested. But now in one hit he had defeated the guy who had forced him. He could not be lenient, and so he immediately struck him with two lightning-fast punches, hitting the Red Moon King hard.


    Boom, boom!


    A red light suddenly appeared.


    "Interesting, an Upper Grade fairy weapon. Burst open for me!"


    The Red Moon King and Zhou Bao were equally matched in fist power, but the Red Moon King had with him an Upper-Grade protective Taihao Fairy Weapon which could block 80 percent of the force from Zhou Bao''s two fists. But when it came to the third hit Zhou Bao was no longer polite and smashed the fairy weapon to pieces mercilessly. With the fourth hit, he wanted the Red Moon King to leave behind his dear life.


    "Please show some mercy!"


    By now, the onlookers had finally figured out what was going on, especially the practitioners of South China. Although there were many people displeased with the Red Moon King''s despotic rule, they could not just look on as he was beaten to death by Zhou Bao. The figures of several Taoists flashed and appeared on the arena, blocking Zhou Bao''s attack while shouting that they admitted defeat.


    Although he was not willing to admit defeat, at this stage there was no choice.


    The Red Moon King had lost.


    "Admit defeat?"


    Zhou Bao was already clear about the rules before he came to the Void Competition. When he heard that South China wanted to admit defeat, he did not continue fighting and quickly withdrew. He watched as the South China practitioners helped up the Red Moon King who had come to resemble a broken rag.


    "Is this the Red Moon King of South China? So it is!" Waiting for all the people to come off the suspended stone that acted as an arena.


    Zhou Bao''s voice was transmitted from inside the spacetime like rolling thunder tremoring in the spectators'' ears. The Black Sun had risen to the top of his head and emitted roaring flames, shrouding the entire spacetime. But the strange thing was that in the whole spacetime there was no sensation of scorching heat. In fact, it seemed the temperature was decreasing in the surrounding area.


    "So arrogant!"


    After a period of time, the astonished practitioners came around. A silhouette scuttled from among the South China practitioners, which at first seemed to be a just normal person, turned into a nine-headed supernatural animal. It reached a thousand feet high and pounced straight at Zhou Bao. "So, boy, I''m going to see what skills you have after all."


    The nine monstrous heads all started gnashing at Zhou Bao at the same time.


    It had lightning-fast power.


    "You, no!" Facing the nine monstrous heads coming straight for him, Zhou Bao shook his head, the Black Sun on his head shaking violently.


    Boom!


    The nine-headed monster, which had just been roaring, seemed to have suddenly run at great speed into a solid, formless wall and bounced back. A huge force erupted, lifting the thousand-foot monster halfway in the air before it fell back down, missing the suspended stone.


    "Hmph, it''s just a low-level Primordial Fierce Beast daring to act arrogantly in front of me. Now there are 35 practitioners left. Come together, otherwise, you will have no chance at all!" Zhou Bao roared. The shadow of a Primordial Demonic Ape appeared from behind him, clasping in both hands the Black Sun over his head.


    "Come on! Come together! You''ll be just in time to try out my newly comprehended fist intent!"


    A monstrous Qi power permeated the space all around, covering the spacetime.


    Every practitioner of every world, every influence, and every level of cultivation suddenly looked worried.


    Zhou Bao had in an instant captured all of his Qi power.


    Incredibly strong!


    At this point, Zhou Bao''s Real Body of Zhuyan appeared, hands cradling the Black Sun. It had an incredible Qi power which covered absolutely everything.


    "So strong!"


    "Didn''t you say that the Heaven Realm World has fallen? How could it still have such a powerful practitioner?"


    "A strong Qi power and powerful fist intent. What type of fist intent is this? It''s so powerful!"


    "Where did this guy come from? Looking at his Real Body of Zhuyan, it seems he is from the purest Zhuyan bloodline. Where did he come from?"


    In a moment, countless questions were ringing in the practitioners'' heads, but none of them had any real answers.


    It was most difficult for the South China practitioners. They had no way to decline Zhou Bao''s challenge, but they had no chance of success if they fought him one-on-one. What had just happened with the Red Moon King and Nine-headed King proved this. The Red Moon King was good enough face-to-face with Zhou Bao, but the Nine-headed King had been completely banished. They could not claim to have such power. None of the South China practitioners could be seen to have this kind of combat capability.


    Fortunately, Zhou Bao was arrogant and was ready to take on all of the 35 South China kings by himself. This gave them a great opportunity, and an excuse to attack all at once.


    Before Zhou Bao could shout once again, the 35 practitioners who had challenged him jumped towards him like monkeys. Each one just violently bombarded Zhou Bao with their own technique.


    "Come on!" Zhou Bao laughed, continuously punching with his two fists. This time, he was not hitting the practitioners, but punching into the hollow. Each punch took a very strange route. When the 35 Immortal level practitioners rushed onto the suspended stone arena they felt the surrounding space fill up with a strange force field.


    A gravitational field!


    Zhou Bao''s fist intent changed again as the gravitational field appeared. The Black Sun had emerged in its center, and around it revolved many things.


    Planets, satellites, comets, small planets, all sorts of strange celestial bodies merging into one place forming a disk-shaped system. The formations did not look normal, but it completely sealed the suspended stone arena up in a weird force field.


    A galaxy!


    A perfect galaxy in a perfect force field.


    After the 35 great practitioners of South China charged onto the suspended stone arena, they were completely caught up in this galaxy.


    The gravitational field really existed in any world. Most importantly, the gravitational field was part of the fundamental, ancient rules. It was not the practitioners Dharma power, the fairy weapon could destroy it at will. These 35 great practitioners were all South China kings, each one had their own special skills and methods. But being caught up in Zhou Bao''s fist intent was like being stuck in a boundless gravitational quagmire. It was extremely difficult to get away.


    But seeing the suspended stone arena flash momentarily with a soaring Sword Qi and a continuous shouting sound, the pneuma Dharma power came rising like a raging tide. Some of the practitioners with weak cultivations could not clearly see the situation in the suspended stone arena. The pneuma undulated so violently that it shook the qi and blood to boiling point, and they fainted.


    After some time, the arena on the suspended stone was calm again, and all of the practitioners stood dumbstruck looking at the fighting arena. The 35 Immortal level great practitioners all fell down on the stone hyperventilating, with no semblance of being Immortals. Meanwhile, King Wuyang Zhou Bao stood calm and composed. He was not panting, he just frowned as if thinking about something.


    The outcome was inevitable.


    However, Zhou Bao did not speak this time. His support, Yan Yuntian, also did not dare open his mouth. This was too strange; since when had Zhou Bao acquired so much power?


    Zhou Bao''s strength was well known in the Heaven Realm World. Before, everyone had thought he had the minimum strength of an Immortal, which meant that Zhou Bao would barely be a match for a more experienced Immortal. But what happened today showed everybody that this boy did not have the minimum strength of an Immortal, he was on his way to reaching the level of Earthly Immortal.


    His combat capability was a half step to Earthly Immortal!


    The Red Moon King had a grand reputation in South China as one of its strongest kings. He had made his name for several hundred thousand years. He was one of the experts of legend even though he was in South China. His power had already reached the peak of Immortal level. In recent years he had continuously been in closed-door training, getting to grips with the faintly discernible Way of Heaven, ready to attack the legendary Earthly Immortal state. A great practitioner of this caliber had been easily beaten by Zhou Bao, and after that, 35 Immortal great practitioners acting together had been even more easily defeated. This type of combat capability could only be compared with the legendary half step to Earthly Immortal level.


    A Half step to Earthly Immortal was infinitely close to being an Earthly Immortal, the only difference was that the practitioner had not crossed the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. His strength far surpassed that of an Immortal great practitioner. It was really incredible that this legendary state was within reach for Zhou Bao.


    As a result, some of the more imaginative people felt something was wrong. Since King Wuyang had this sort of power, how could he have suffered defeat at the hands of two insignificant Human Immortals and the Purple River King of the Evil Alliance?


    It was not possible. The Purple River King''s strength could only be ranked in the middle of the 37 Immortal great practitioners, perhaps even a little lower. How could they have seized a fairy weapon from Zhou Bao''s hand?


    This was a question, a really big question!


    A half step to Earthly Immortal, Zhuyan bloodline, this Zhou Bao almost killed the Earthly Immortal Patriarch Taoist Cundi at the Eastern Thunder World!


    "Boy, you will pay with your life!"


    When the thoughts of the crowd were flying, a huge hole suddenly split open in the spacetime, and a huge claw descended from the sky, coming straight to grab Zhou Bao!

 782 Battle at a Distance

    The Void Competition was incredibly sacred.


    However, sacred things were relative, and there were also exceptions.


    Now, Zhou Bao had already defeated all of the practitioners of South China. Although the Human Emperor Yan Yuntian had not announced Zhou Bao''s victory, even an idiot would have known who won.


    The winner was decided at the end of the battle. The battle in the hollow arena was over, and so no one could attack Zhou Bao unless he issued another challenge. But it seemed this giant claw in the sky did not care at all for this rule, and it was clear that it wanted to kill Zhou Bao right away. Otherwise, it would not have broken open the hollow so noiselessly and come so suddenly for him.


    This made Zhou Bao jump. But his fist intent had not disappeared. On the contrary, after he had beaten the 35 practitioners he started thinking deeply and realized the insufficiencies in his own punching skill. It was at this point that the huge claw suddenly came stretching out. Zhou Bao was surprised, but he did not take it seriously. He lifted his hand swiftly, and the disk-shaped galaxy suddenly turned over. He was now facing the claw.


    Whoosh!


    Once again, the overturned galaxy changed, and the ubiquitous gravity turned into a sharp sword able to cut everything. In the blink of an eye, the giant claw was torn to pieces.


    Everyone thought that the claw looked incredibly real, even its flesh and fur could be seen clearly. But it turned out to be a giant hand transformed by pneuma.


    This was the Innate Qi Catching Skill. Until now, no one had wanted to use this skill to turn their hand into such a monstrous being.


    Zhou Bao suddenly looked displeased. "An Earthly Immortal? Which Emperor is attacking me?"


    Zhou Bao shouted, holding back all of his fist intent. Its body was fluttering around the suspended stone arena like a butterfly among flowers. It seemed to be dodging something.


    "Boy, were you not so arrogant the last time you destroyed my incarnation? Why are you so polite this time?" An ancient voice came from outside the endless spacetime. "Last time, I, the Patriarch was in closed-door training, and you ran away from me. But I would like to see you try to run away this time!"


    "Destroyed your incarnation?" Zhou Bao''s expression went cold as he thought about when he was helping the two Taoists at the Fifth Manor get rid of an Earthly Immortal incarnation. He originally thought that the Earthly Immortal was unable to leave his territory. But, he had just likely sent an incarnation to report to him back then. And although the incarnation was very lifelike, it had still been no problem for a person like Zhou Bao.


    "So it turns out to be you, you old bastard. You are audacious coming out yourself to battle! Perhaps you don''t fear the Void Thunder Tribulation?" Zhou Bao asked, displeased.


    This was not the Eastern Thunder World, and so the Patriarch of the Eastern Thunder Sect could dare to come and deal with him. One of the most important reasons was that at that time he was in the Eastern Thunder World, the territory of the Eastern Thunder Sect of which he was the Patriarch. But now he was in the Heaven Realm World, which was not the territory of this Earthly Immortal. It was unknown how many thousands of miles this Heaven Realm World was from this Earthly Immortal''s territory. It was surprising he appeared so brazenly to fight. It seemed he was relying on it.


    "Hahaha! Are you afraid? The dealings of this emperor are none of your concern! Just be a good boy and die for me!" As he was speaking, a torrent of energy came falling from the sky, crushing to pieces the nameless spacetime. The surrounding practitioners started shouting angrily, brandishing their magic fairy weapons to protect themselves.


    "Good, good, good! Then let me see the Earthly Immortal''s move!" Zhou Bao shouted, blue halos appearing on his body.


    By this time, his Mysterious Icy Divine Light was fully operational. In an instant, Zhou Bao froze his space, and matter drifting freely in the endless spacetime was frozen in a boundless icy air. In a moment, thousands of miles of space had been completely turned into a world of ice crystals.


    "The Icy Divine Light! It turns out King Wuyang''s practice was the Frost Giant''s Icy Divine Light! No wonder he is so powerful, no wonder he has such stamina!"


    "Turns out it''s the Icy Divine Light! Haha, it looks like this was his bluff!"


    "The Frost Giant''s Icy Divine Light. Cool! What a man! The Heaven Realm World deserves to be called the first macro world. I''m surprised there is a man such as this where the Heavenly Court is. I''m surprised. Indeed! I''m surprised!"


    This was the first time that Zhou Bao had fully launched the Ice Soul Spirit''s Mysterious Divine Light. But his own Mysterious Divine Light was formless, and its effect was mostly internal. Therefore, even though he had used it, none of the bystanders could see what had happened. But his Icy Divine Light had an incredible power nonetheless and could be easily recognized.


    "The Icy Divine Light! Okay! Let me experience the legendary power of the Frost Giant!" The Earthly Immortal was very surprised, but his voice portrayed a sense of curiosity. This Earthly Immortal had lived for so long, and yet he had never seen such a rare power as this Icy Divine Light. This piqued his interest.


    "It''s not likely to reach the Frost Giant''s power, but you can experience the power of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan!" Zhou Bao smiled wryly. The Real Body of the Demonic Ape reappeared, and with it, a thick, red lightning ray came shooting out from the Void Universe.


    Boom!


    Zhou Bao met the lightning ray with his fist, smashing it to pieces.


    "I don''t care who you are, you''ll be at a great disadvantage attacking me from so many thousands of miles away. You won''t win!" Zhou Bao shouted. "If you want to defeat me, you will have to show your true abilities!"


    "Hahahaha, who do you think you are, making me show my true skill!" The Earthly Immortal''s voice came resounding once again. Zhou Bao felt that this voice was much closer now than it was before, and the pressure was much greater.


    In the broken spacetime, a baseless vortex could be seen with the naked eye. In a moment, it grew to a diameter a hundred miles wide.


    "Boy, you will see my true ability. My Space-time Vortex, take that!"


    The vortex rotated, and space and time were stirred into it and shredded to pieces. It came straight for Zhou Bao. He stood in front of the vortex with his thousand-foot Real Body of Zhuyan. Compared to that, he was not even an ant. He was as vulnerable as a sesame seed in a hurricane, watching it as he was about to be pulverized.


    "Come on!" Facing the vortex, Zhou Bao did not panic. He restrained the Mysterious Icy Divine Light throughout his body, and formed it into a mysterious force field, completely wrapping his body up and resisting the suction of the oncoming Space-time Vortex.


    "If you want to kill me, you''ll have to do more than this!" Watching the Space-time Vortex coming ever closer, Zhou Bao held out his fist to meet it.


    "Come on, black hole!"


    Black hole!


    Just like in Zhou Bao''s previous life, there were black holes in the Void Universe, many in fact. The Patriarch of the Eastern Thunder Sect once researched this mysterious celestial body while traveling the Void Universe. He had a greater than normal apprehension of it. He would be letting Zhou Bao off, by allowing him to directly integrate this apprehension into his fist intent punching skill. From this, Zhou Bao had his move: a black hole.


    At first, Zhou Bao had created a black hole the size of his fist. Facing the hundred-mile-wide vortex, not only did it not retreat, but it actually grew at a speed visible to the naked eye. As the black hole expanded, the Space-time Vortex shrunk.


    "Hmph. Why has you vortex not engulfed my black hole?" Zhou Bao sneered. By now, the black hole had matched the vortex in size, and the Qi power overpowered it as it engulfed everything.


    "I say, such a lame trick? It''s not even as good as your incarnation!"


    "Arrogant boy!" The Earthly Immortal was shocked to see Zhou Bao launch this strange black hole. He had not thought that he could have had such a strange move. But this time, he was not gasping in admiration.


    Boom!


    The Space-time Vortex operated by the Earthly Immortal exploded as it was engulfed by the black hole. All of the spacetime, all of the power, was absorbed into the black hole. Zhou Bao felt a strong rush coming from the black hole, pounding into his spirit Dharma power and all of his tendons and meridians.


    "Good strategy!"


    The black hole could actually engulf everything in the universe. But it was Zhou Bao who launched it, and so he could restrict it. The Space-time Vortex was swiftly absorbed in a way akin to a mouth swallowing a fat person. It would cause Zhou Bao some indigestion, and he was stuffed.


    Feeling the huge impact on his tendons and meridians, Zhou Bao realized something was wrong.


    Sure enough, while Zhou Bao was busy stuffing himself, the spacetime changed again.


    "You little brat, go to hell!"


    As the Earthly Immortal roared, an extremely fine flame appeared from the hollow, like a sword light rolled up, coming straight for Zhou Bao.


    The Pure Purple Heavenly Fire!


    Zhou Bao was taken aback. This flame was extremely thin and deep purple all over. It contained a blistering spirit. He was very familiar with it, it was the spirit of the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire. And it was not his own weak Pure Purple Heavenly Fire, but a real one of the nine kinds of Heavenly Fire.


    "Damn it!" Zhou Bao knew that with his current strength, he would be injured if not killed if burnt by that flame. He slapped his waist, and a yellow light came shining from it. It turned into a Skull Elixir Furnace, and it collided with the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire.


    "Furnace of Immortality, absorb it for me!"


    After he shouted, The Seven Apertures of the Skull Elixir Furnace shot rays of fiery light forming a huge hole in space. The hole swallowed up the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire.

 783 God Said, F*ck You

    Zhou Bao had every reason to feel depressed. He was a Human Immortal who had just achieved the Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint. Who had he provoked? There was always someone ready to do a sneak attack against him. If the instigators were ordinary people, he wouldn''t have been bothered at all. But unluckily, they were all Earthly Immortals. If it wasn''t for his good luck, he would have already died several times.


    These people had reached the Earthly Immortal Realm, but still, they were coward enough to launch sneak attacks against him. However, there was no use reasoning with them. He had only one option¡ªto put up a fight and risk his life.


    In fact, this was also a great opportunity for him.


    He had previously killed the Patriarch of the Eastern Thunder Sect using that strange red gourd, but it caused a huge uproar in the Void Universe and even affected the desolate West Wilds, causing him to suffer surprise attacks from others. So this time, he had made up his mind not to use the red gourd and instead fought this Earthly Immortal head-to-head with all his might. If he succeeded in repelling him this time, no one would probably come to bother him for quite a long time.


    Of course, he still needed to repel this Earthly Immortal first.


    The Furnace of Immortality swallowed the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire, and the Tusita Fire within the Furnace immediately poured in to wrap that wisp of Pure Purple Heavenly Fire and refine it.


    The Tusita Fire was a kind of simulated Heavenly Fire, so it would never be stronger than the authentic Pure Purple Heavenly Fire. However, Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit was in the furnace. After the furnace swallowed the Heavenly Fire, a shadow dressed in black went out of the furnace and pressed an Incantation Gesture down on it to suppress the surging Pure Purple Heavenly Fire. "Second Primordial Spirit, device spirit, and Heavenly Fairy Weapon!"


    "You have quite a discerning eye. This is my Second Primordial Spirit and also the device spirit of this fairy weapon!" Zhou Bao smiled coldly and his divine thoughts swept over the surrounding quickly. He then jumped up and swung a punch at the void. "It''s rather rude not to reciprocate, so you''d better give my means a try!"


    Zhou Bao''s punch traveled endless spacetimes and directly hit the body of his foe. The black sun above his head vanished from this spacetime as he threw the punch.


    "Star Explosion!"


    This punch simulated the explosion of stars in the void. Evolved from his fist intent, the black sun directly exploded near that Earthly Immortal, producing tremendous energy and severe turbulence.


    "Brat, I''m going to kill you~~!"


    Obviously, that Earthly Immortal had not expected Zhou Bao to invade his territory by tracking down him. He was caught off guard by this punch and retreated one step backward, completely shocked by Zhou Bao.


    "Hahahaha, Torrential Thunder Emperor, I guess you have never felt so humiliated in your life!"


    There was a macro world in the depths of the void. A black light beam suddenly flashed past the cloudless sky and then exploded. The huge impact swept through the entire macro world. Luckily, there were no living creatures there, otherwise, Zhou Bao would bear a great deal of bad karma.


    However, even so, this world was altered beyond recognition due to Zhou Bao''s punch.


    There were only two creatures¡ªone was livid and the other wore a sarcastic smile.


    "Shut up, Chen Chong, do you really think I''m unable to kill him?!"


    The Torrential Thunder Emperor was the one who had attacked Zhou Bao. He was an Earthly Immortal, qualified to call himself emperor. In antiquity times, only the 99 Emperors had that privilege. Now, however, the Heavenly Court no longer existed. Thus, if Earthly Immortals wanted, they could call themselves emperors. No one dared to object.


    The Torrential Thunder Emperor had suffered a loss at the hands of Zhou Bao earlier for he had lost an incarnation. Now, he attacked Zhou Bao himself but encountered his counterattack. Although he was not hurt, the world he dwelt in had been destroyed by Zhou Bao. Most important of all, he had made a show of himself in front of his friend this time. He would not just give up in this situation because he had never been in such an embarrassing situation since he had stepped into the Earthly Immortal Realm.


    "Hey, what are you going to do?!"


    Noticing that the Torrential Thunder Emperor looked quite furious and some strange purple light was flashing in his hands, the practitioner sitting across from him turned pale. "You have just used the Pure Purple Heavenly Fire. Do you want to destroy the Heaven Realm World with this?"


    "Hmm, so what?" The Torrential Thunder Emperor had been humiliated by Zhou Bao, so he decided to kill him no matter what. He now was an Earthly Immortal and could not exert all his might. After he had fought with Zhou Bao, his previous cognition of Zhou Bao''s combat capability had completely been overturned. Now, he had to use his fairy weapon if he wanted to kill that bastard.


    "You...!" Chen Chong glanced at the Torrential Thunder Emperor and knew that he would be unable to change his mind. So, he stopped persuading him to give up and just sighed. The Torrential Thunder Emperor was an Earthly Immortal and had privileges.


    "Brat, don''t you like making stars explode? I''ll blow the Heaven Realm World up and see what you can do!" The Torrential Thunder Emperor wore a cold smile and threw out the fairy weapon emanating purple light in his hand.


    That fairy weapon was a very small purple gourd. It looked like Zhou Bao''s red gourd but much smaller.


    The Torrential Thunder Emperor tossed the gourd up and it flew into the void. In an instant, it crossed endless spacetimes and reappeared outside of the spacetime around the Heaven Realm World.


    A small purple toad crawled out of the gourd and stared at the Heaven Realm World not far away, almost as if it was detecting something. All of a sudden, it targeted Zhou Bao in the depths of the spacetime and opened its mouth. Purple light was starting to gather in its throat.


    "Not good!" In the unknown spacetime, Zhou Bao was alarmed. His Furnace of Immortality lifted off, broke the space, and reappeared outside of that spacetime. Dressed in black, his Outer-body Incarnation¡ªthe Second Primordial Spirit, floated in the void.


    "What''s this? A fairy weapon?!" Although Zhou Bao was thinking, he did not dare to relax. His body shook and transformed into a huge Dragon Chimera, charging at the purple gourd with surging black fire around it.


    A divine thought went into Zhou Bao''s Sea of Consciousness. "Boy, it''s not gonna work. That is the Purple Thunder Devastating Bomb, your incarnation is unable to win it!"


    Zhou Bao''s expression slightly altered. "Purple Thunder Devastating Bomb? Is it powerful?!"


    The Ghost Child replied, "It can destroy the Heaven Realm World with a single attack. But it needs a lot of time to prepare. It seems that that guy doesn''t want to waste his time with you anymore and is trying to kill you in one fell swoop!"


    Zhou Bao looked grave and gave his body a shake. Later, his body appeared in the void too. Upon watching his Second Primordial Spirit rushing toward the purple gourd, he asked, "Is there any solution to this situation? Is it really as powerful as you said?!"


    Obviously, the Ghost Child was unhappy about the fact that Zhou Bao questioned his words. He snorted and said, "Humph, the Purple Thunder Gourd is one of the Seven World-devastating Treasures. It can destroy a world with a single blow!"


    Zhou Bao was stupefied. "Seven World-devastating Treasures?!" He knew this was not the right time for him to inquire about the ins and outs of them. Although he got a definite answer, he also felt the increasing pressure that the toad above the Purple Thunder Gourd brought him. He asked, "What should I do?!"


    "You cannot fight it head-to-head. Your Furnace of Immortality has just become a Heavenly Fairy Weapon and is no match for it. If it is bombarded by the toad, your Second Primordial Spirit will be destroyed!"


    Swish!!!!


    The Dragon Chimera flying toward the Purple Thunder Gourd suddenly stopped not too far from the gourd, leaving a gorgeous black line in the void. It went back to the Furnace of Immortality and the latter returned to Zhou Bao''s waist pocket.


    The purple thunder had taken shape, and the destructive power was almost formed in the toad''s mouth.


    It was really a critical moment!


    The Fate Creation Boy finally arrived!


    As soon as he appeared in front of Zhou Bao, he cast a stern glance at him. "Now everything becomes troublesome!"


    "Do you have any solution?"


    "We can use the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, but I need you to help me erase its influence, otherwise, it will pierce through the formation!"


    "Is it so powerful?!" On hearing that the Yin and Yang Dust Formation would be penetrated, Zhou Bao was shocked. However, it was not the time for him to ask more questions. The Fate Creation Boy launched the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and a column of light was shot out of the purple toad''s mouth. No, it should be a ray of light.


    It was too thin, merely the size of an egg. It looked like a purple light ray in the void. However, thin as it was, it emanated a destructive aura that sent a chill through Zhou Bao''s spine.


    Boom!


    The moment the Purple Thunder Devastating Bomb hit the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Zhou Bao''s face became unusually grave.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation of the Heaven Realm World had been set up by him and the Fate Creation Boy. Since it was connected to his mind, when the Purple Thunder Devastating Bomb hit it, Zhou Bao could feel that it was giving in. To be precise, it was afraid of that bomb.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation was an Ancient Miraculous Formation. If it was set up with abundant and top-grade materials, it could even have its own will, become the formation spirit, and finally turn into a formation map. However, although the Yin and Yang Dust Formation of the Heaven Realm World could not reach this level, it was fully prepared with good materials. Being well cared for by the Fate Creation Boy, though it had not become the formation spirit yet, it had its own will.


    That willpower was now scared in the face of the Purple Thunder Devastating Bomb!


    It felt like a lethal threat!


    Zhou Bao knew that he had to take action. He turned his palm over and a bronze scepter appeared on it. A torrent of magic formations connected this scepter with the Tree of Seven Wonders in his Dantian.


    "God said, everything is unreal!"


    A cyan light ray flashed atop the scepter. It blocked the Purple Thunder Devastating Bomb from the side. Nothing could exist wherever it swept through.


    "God said, all the power comes from a source¡ªthe God!"


    Another cyan light ray flashed and swept over the purple gourd.


    The purple gourd shook violently and the Purple Thunder Devastating Bomb was finally blocked.


    In a nameless macro world, the Torrential Thunder Emperor looked quite surprised. "The power of ancient deities. Interesting! But it is only a cheap trick!" While speaking, he made an Incantation Gesture and pressed it on the purple gourd from the other end of the void.


    Boom!


    All of a sudden, the purple light shone brightly.


    "God said, f*ck you!" Just as the Torrential Thunder Emperor pressed the Incantation Gesture on the purple gourd, Zhou Bao moved. He ignored the gourd and tore the void open along the direction where the Incantation Gesture came from without hesitation. The moment he got into the Space Passage, a huge ship¡ªThe Black Pearl, finally appeared.

 784 Fight with All Your Strength I

    After learning that this purple gourd was one of the Seven World-devastating Treasures, and realizing that the Yin and Yang Dust Formation of the Heaven Realm World could not resist this blow, Zhou Bao had no intention of warding it off. He planned to kill the Earthly Immortal that possessed this Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    "Don''t you wanna harm me? Fine, I''ll kill you first. Anyway, you will not be the first Earthly Immortal that I''ve killed! In this case, I will be ready to risk everything. Since you have taken out such a treasure, I guess there won''t be too many treasures left on you!"


    The Black Pearl passed through space and arrived at a place outside of the macro world where the Torrential Thunder Emperor dwelt. It stopped for a while and then rushed into that world without hesitation after Zhou Bao had ascertained the situation. "Damn it, I''m going to kill you!"


    The Black Pearl violently collided with the macro world, whose life was going to come to an end with Zhou Bao''s roar.


    Neither the Torrential Thunder Emperor nor Chen Chong sitting opposite him had thought that such a thing would suddenly happen.


    However, neither of them was weak¡ªone was an Earthly Immortal, and the other, though Zhou Bao did not know his cultivation, would at least be an Immortal even if he was not an Earthly Immortal.


    The two felt that something was wrong the moment the Black Pearl appeared in this void, but they did not have any good options when facing the Black Pearl.


    There was a macro world inside the Black Pearl, the Azure Big World, and it had the backing of a Heavenly Fairy Weapon¡ªthe Pool of Thunder Tribulation. But the macro world that they were in was going to be destroyed. There was no life in it and even the Fairy Weapon of Fate had lost its intelligence. It was merely the shelter of the Torrential Thunder Emperor. When the two worlds got close to each other, this poor macro world began to deform due to compression. The spacetime around it was shattered and its essence started to crack because it could not withstand the terrifying pressure.


    Both the Torrential Thunder Emperor and Chen Chong flew into a rage. "It''s a Supreme Fairy Weapon... this brat has a Supreme Fairy Weapon!" As the Torrential Thunder Emperor roared, some astonishment and anger were revealed in his voice.


    Chen Chong was stunned by Zhou Bao''s actions. "What the hell does he want to do? Does he want to destroy this macro world?!"


    All of a sudden, he understood all of it. He sighed as if he had realized something. "That''s good. This brat really has some good means. He is a man of courage!"


    "Damn it, I''m going to kill him!" the Torrential Thunder Emperor howled, but that would not help things at all. Although the Black Pearl was huge, it was just a drop in the ocean when compared to this macro world. Small as it was, it shattered the spacetime around this macro world when the two collided with each other. Then, it directly rushed into the core of this macro world and met with the Fairy Weapon of Fate of this world.


    Having lost its Spiritual Qi, the Fairy Weapon of Fate could not resist the impact brought on by the collision with this newly born Supreme Fairy Weapon. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation in the Black Pearl suddenly surged.


    "Good, good, good! A macro world that has not died yet. It''s wonderful. If I absorb this macro world, my strength will scale new heights!"


    Along with this roar, countless flashes of lightning stretched out from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and turned into numerous lightning chains, locking this macro world firmly.


    "Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom...!"


    When Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon rushed into the endless spacetime, the Torrential Thunder Emperor wanted to move this macro world away through his special connection with it. Although his strength was inferior to Jade Emperor''s, who could move the best world¡ªthe Heaven Realm World¡ªfrom the Central Pole Region to the Desolate Ancient Star Area in the West Wilds through his Divine Sense, it was still possible for him to move it a little bit to prevent it from being struck by that Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    Nevertheless, Zhou Bao did not give him the chance to do so. He controlled the Black Pearl, making it strike the Fairy Weapon of Fate nine times in a row. The Fairy Weapon of Fate broke into pieces and the macro world began to disintegrate. The remaining pneuma in this world was absorbed by the Pool of Thunder Tribulation through the lightning chains.


    Upon viewing this scene, the Torrential Thunder Emperor''s eyes became bloodshot and his body was giving off a kind of fierce spirit. "Zhou Bao, you''re digging your own grave. I must kill you! No one can save you! Not only you, but your family and your world will also be destroyed. I, the Torrential Thunder Emperor, must exterminate your entire family!"


    Zhou Bao ignored that macro world and turned the Black Pearl around. "Oh? Torrential Thunder Emperor? Is that your name? F*ck you, don''t bark at me! Let''s see if you can live through today!"


    "You''re courting death!" The Torrential Thunder Emperor reached out his hands toward Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon. He intended to fight that Supreme Fairy Weapon with his bare hands.


    "I think you might have forgotten one thing. The macro world that you took shelter in has been destroyed. Do you still dare to use so much power?!"


    Just like Zhou Bao had said, when the Torrential Thunder Emperor was in the void, some subtle changes appeared in the surrounding void as he exerted his power. Rules that were invisible to the naked eye transformed into numerous chains. They began to wrap around his body and disturb his strength at the same time.


    However, he seemed to have expected such a result and he sneered. "Do you think the rules of the void can really stop me?"


    While he was speaking, a figure emerged from the top of his head. This figure was firmly locked by the rules of the void, but he still struggled continuously in the void to fight against the rules. It successfully stopped the rules from interfering with the Torrential Thunder Emperor.


    "You are not the only one who has a Second Primordial Spirit or an Outer-body Incarnation!" The Torrential Thunder Emperor grinned. "Two hours... now I have two hours to make you suffer for your actions, you brat!"


    Two hours!


    By using his Second Primordial Spirit as bait to free himself from the rules of the void, the Torrential Thunder Emperor was then able to have two hours to exert all his might as an Earthly Immortal.


    Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes. He could not wait one hour, let alone two. In two hours, it would be too late for everything. The Heaven Realm World would be devastated by his Heavenly Fairy Weapon by then.


    He had to resolve this matter in the shortest time possible!


    He activated the Black Pearl, turned it around, and struck the Torrential Thunder Emperor fiercely.


    "Brat, do you think you can really challenge an Earthly Immortal with a Supreme Fairy Weapon?" The Torrential Thunder Emperor burst out laughing when he saw that the Black Pearl was charging at him. Eight shadows broke the void and appeared in front of him.


    These were his incarnations. Before, he had nine incarnations, and now only eight remained because Zhou Bao had killed one of them. However, the remaining eight incarnations were all at the peak of the Immortal Realm. Coupled with his cultivation, no one would think that Zhou Bao''s odds of success were very good if they fought each other head-to-head, even though Zhou Bao had a Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    "Go ahead!" Poker-faced, Zhou Bao sat in the Black Pearl and operated it with all his strength, rushing toward the incarnations without hesitation.


    "Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang...!"


    Eight loud bangs resounded. Under that impact, the eight incarnations directly exploded, without any power to even retaliate.


    "Oh!!!"


    The power of Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon was beyond the expectations of both the Torrential Thunder Emperor and Chen Chong. But it was not enough to bridge the gap between him and an Earthly Immortal.


    The moment he destroyed those eight incarnations, a swift and fierce sword light cut the Black Pearl.


    This blow left a deep crack on the Black Pearl. The fierce SwordQi penetrated this fairy weapon and dashed into the Azure Big World, leaving a trace in it.


    The sword of a world!


    A mighty sword attack!


    It was launched when the Earthly Immortal Torrential Thunder Emperor was operating his macro world.


    The difference between Earthly Immortals and Immortals was that the former had a complete macro world, and each one of them was equivalent to a Supreme Fairy Weapon. They could operate their macro world and launch a powerful attack with the help of that macro world. If you were attacked by it, you would have the feeling of being attacked by a macro world. Anyone who had not reached the Earthly Immortal Realm was unable to resist this attack.


    Fortunately, Zhou Bao had a complete Azure Big World. He withstood this attack with the help of his macro world; otherwise, his Real Body of Zhuyan would have been blown to pieces.


    The Torrential Thunder Emperor had his own macro world. He unfolded it and then a light-blue shadow appeared around him to protect him. Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon unfolded the Azure Big World as well. The power of this world sunk into the mysterious talismans on the Black Pearl like raindrops. A layer of green light was formed to protect the Black Pearl.


    The two macro worlds were so close together that they fought with each other, just like polarities repelling each other.


    The Torrential Thunder Emperor pulled a long face. A confrontation between two macro worlds should be a situation that would only occur in a fight between Earthly Immortals. Now, however, he was encountering such a situation when fighting Zhou Bao. This made him very dissatisfied and also very unhappy.


    Although he was an Earthly Immortal, he had never fought another Earthly Immortal in his life. Therefore, he was not accustomed to the pressure generated by two macro worlds.


    Zhou Bao, however, was much more relaxed. After all, it was the Black Pearl bearing the pressure, not him. Although the Black Pearl did not have a device spirit, there was the Pool of Thunder Tribulation inside it. The device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation had followed the Thunder Emperor and had rich experience in fighting. When the two macro worlds confronted each other, it instantly reacted to this situation.


    It first threw a Void-breaking Bomb out, and then drove the Black Pearl forward without hesitation, dashing toward the Torrential Thunder Emperor at a high speed.


    "Boom!!!"


    The Void-breaking Bomb hit the Torrential Thunder Emperor. Containing the power of a world, it made him stumble. But all this was not over. Countless lightning chains extended from the Black Pearl and were going to lock the Torrential Thunder Emperor.


    "Brat, you really have guts!" Seeing the incoming lightning chains, the Torrential Thunder Emperor did not dare to be careless. He operated the power of his world and turned it into a transparent barrier that was erected in front of him. Meanwhile, he opened his fists and a golden talisman appeared on his palms.


    "Cracking Divine Palm, break!"


    The Cracking Divine Palm hit the Black Pearl across space. It pierced through the protection of the Azure Big World and directly hit the Black Pearl. The huge ship shook violently and countless, fine cracks appeared on its surface.


    The Black Pearl was damaged, so naturally, Zhou Bao would not feel good. A mouthful of blood immediately gushed out from his throat. "Ghost Child, come on, kill him!"

 785 The Rotating Wheel King—Chen Chong II

    "Ghost Child, come on, kill him!"


    The Ghost Child did not refuse to do that. As a matter of fact, he had already felt Zhou Bao''s determination to kill this Earthly Immortal through his words¡ªno matter how many trump cards he would expose or how much it would cost him.


    A red gourd emerged from Zhou Bao''s body, and then a red thread shot out toward the Torrential Thunder Emperor.


    "This is not good!" Noticing that, Chen Chong, who had been watching them fight from a distance, suddenly became serious. He remembered something related to Zhou Bao as he saw that red thread. "That thing is really in his hands!"


    "Torrential Thunder Emperor, watch out!"


    The Torrential Thunder Emperor also noticed that thread. Although he was an Earthly Immortal who had put his whole heart into practicing, he still knew something about the widely spread matter that an Earthly Immortal of the Eastern Thunder Sect had been killed recently. As soon as he eyed this thread, his expression immediately changed. He moved, trying to avoid being hit by it.


    To his surprise, the lightning chains that extended from the Black Pearl broke through his shield and locked him firmly at this critical moment.


    "Break!" He suddenly activated the power of his macro world with all his strength, trying to free himself from the chains. In this very moment, the red thread was nailed in between his eyebrows. All his actions came to a standstill.


    A jet of red SwordQi rushed out of the red thread and pierced into the body of the Torrential Thunder Emperor.


    "It''s not so easy to kill me!" the Torrential Thunder Emperor roared. The power of his macro world surged and expanded, and a deep-blue crystal emerged from his midbrows to block the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi that was given off by the red gourd. Meanwhile, feeling that his life was being greatly threatened, the Torrential Thunder Emperor temporarily abandoned his intention of destroying the Heaven Realm World. He withdrew the purple gourd that he had just thrown out and attacked Zhou Bao to the best of his ability.


    This was what Zhou Bao wanted!


    Since the Heaven Realm World was out of danger, Zhou Bao''s mission was accomplished. However, he knew that all this was not over. He had revealed all of his trump cards, so if he did not kill the Torrential Thunder Emperor, then the entire Void Universe would soon be aware that he possessed a Heavenly Fairy Weapon that was able to slay Earthly Immortals and a Supreme Fairy Weapon. If that happened, he would never be able to enjoy a stable life again. Thus, he had no other option aside from immediately killing the Torrential Thunder Emperor and the guy who was watching them fight from a distance.


    Seeing that the Torrential Thunder Emperor had withstood the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi successfully, the Ghost Child curled his lip. "It''s indeed a lot more difficult to kill him than to kill someone who has recently become an Earthly Immortal. He actually could fight against my Immortal-slaying Sword Qi with the essence of his macro world!"


    Zhou Bao said impatiently, "Shut up, kill him as soon as possible!"


    "Alright!" The Ghost Child had no complaints about the matter this time. He was quite unhappy when he saw that the Torrential Thunder Emperor had withstood his Immortal-slaying Sword Qi. However, it did not matter. After all, he had nailed him with that red thread. If the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi did not work, he would give the Immortal-killing Sword Qi a try!


    Having being refined by the Furnace of Immortality, the Immortal-killing Sword Qi was not inferior to the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi. A snow-white stripe shot out of the red thread at a high speed. At the same time, the Torrential Thunder Emperor operated his purple gourd and was going to launch the Purple Thunder Devastating Bomb to attack the Black Pearl.


    However, he made a mistake. Although the Purple Thunder Devastating Bomb was quite powerful, it took a long time to charge it up. Before he was able to launch the bomb, the snow-white stripe had circled around his neck. With a clear sound, his head fell off his neck. The stripe then charged at his Second Primordial Spirit that was tied up by the rules of the void without stopping. While his Second Primordial Spirit watched, aghast, the stripe penetrated it and its life flowed away.


    "Immortal-killing Sword Qi... that damn Immortal-killing Sword Qi! Why have you obtained it!"


    In the distance, Chen Chong finally reacted to everything. He pointed at Zhou Bao and exclaimed in shock.


    "You don''t need to know that. Go to hell!" While speaking, Zhou Bao turned the Black Pearl around and was going to strike him.


    "You can''t kill me!"


    "You can''t kill him!"


    Hearing those two voices ring out at the same time, Zhou Bao stopped. If Chen Chong alone cried out, he would have just ignored him. However, the Ghost Child yelled as well, so he knew that there had to be something wrong.


    He looked at the Ghost Child while he pointed at Chen Chong not far away, saying, "You know him?!"


    "Of course. Otherwise, why would I stop you from killing him?" The Ghost Child glared at Zhou Bao and turned around. He said to Chen Chong, "Rotating Wheel King, it''s been a long time since we last met!"


    "Hehe, I don''t want to see you!" Chen Chong glanced at the red gourd and his heart continued to flutter with fear. "You are King Wuyang, right? Can you put this damn thing away first? I feel uncomfortable looking at it!"


    "Who are you then?"


    "I''m Chen Chong, the Rotating Wheel King, subordinate to Emperor Youming!" Chen Chong bowed with a smile. "King Wuyang, you are young and mighty. I really admire you!"


    "Ghost Child, why can''t I kill him?"


    "Of course you can''t. Nominally, this guy is one of the 10 kings that are subordinate to Emperor Youming; but in fact, his master is someone else. If you kill him, you will offend his master. And if you do that, you''d better abandon your wishful thinking of living a stable life in your lifetime. Am I right, Rotating Wheel King?"


    "Don''t speak so seriously. I''m just a pawn of my master!" The Rotating Wheel King laughed and added, "To my surprise, you have come back to life!"


    "I knew at the very start that I''d be unable to hide this matter from you. Your master is still stirring up trouble, and that really surprised me!"


    "I''m so flattered. But my master has never stirred up trouble, he''s just doing what he should do!"


    "I guess your master must be very depressed knowing that Zhou Bao has killed the Torrential Thunder Emperor. After all, he has lost an important chess piece in the Void Universe!"


    "That''s no big deal. Learning that you are assisting King Wuyang and that he has a Supreme Fairy Weapon... all this is worthwhile even if my master has lost another chess piece like the Torrential Thunder Emperor!"


    "Are you sure that I can''t kill him now?!" Hearing Chen Chong''s words, Zhou Bao was anxious to kill him.


    "Take it easy. His master won''t leak your secret to others!" The Ghost Child seemed to know what was going on in Zhou Bao''s mind and he added calmly, "His master is a man of great ambition and has made too many enemies. He is not in the void and has plotted against the Void Universe for quite a long time, but he has gained no benefit. Now that he knows your secret, how can he not take advantage of it?!"


    "If I kill him right here, we''ll save ourselves from all these troubles!"


    "It''s useless. His master already knows everything you''ve just done through him. If you kill him, not only will his master harm you, but your secret will also be leaked!"


    "You mean that we will be coerced by them? Damn it, I''m not afraid of my secret being leaked out. I don''t believe there is someone who would dare to profit from me in the Void Universe!" Zhou Bao did not yield an inch and the tone of his voice grew colder. Now, he was powerful enough and his strength had far surpassed a lot of people. He did not want to be coerced by anyone else. And coupled with that, he had just killed an Earthly Immortal and, thus, was extremely confident. Of course he was not willing to be kept on a leash.


    At this point, the Rotating Wheel King sensed Zhou Bao''s killing intent and his heart shuddered. He said, "King Wuyang, I have no intention of revealing your secret to anyone. I just want to make a deal with you!"


    "Do you think I will make a deal with a guy like you who has an unknown origin and purpose?!" Zhou Bao sneered, "I won''t make any deal with you. I won''t kill you today just for the Ghost Child''s sake. But if anything related to me is spread to other places and I hear about it, I will definitely kill you, unless you never appear in this Void Universe again. Otherwise, even your master won''t be able to protect you!" Without further ado, Zhou Bao reached out his hand and grabbed the Torrential Thunder Emperor''s head and disappeared from this void.


    "This¡ª!" Zhou Bao''s reaction went against the expectations of Chen Chong. He had done everything so quickly that Chen Chong was not even able to react to it.


    "No more this or that. Be careful when you say something about this guy!" the Ghost Child said to Chen Chong while glancing at him. He felt somewhat surprised by the way Zhou Bao had handled this matter, but fortunately, he had spared Chen Chong''s life and had done his master a favor.


    In the Suspended Stone Spacetime of the Heaven Realm World¡ª


    This time, accidents happened so frequently in the Void Competition. First, Zhou Bao exerted all his might and frightened the practitioners from South China out of their wits. Later, an Earthly Immortal attacked him secretly and he vanished all of a sudden. All this happened in a very short time. Due to these great changes, people did not have the chance to think carefully. As the presider, Yan Yuntian felt very anxious when Zhou Bao disappeared. He did not know whether he should announce the end of the Void Competition or continue waiting for Zhou Bao, who had created a miracle, to reappear once again.


    However, not everyone had high hopes that Zhou Bao would reappear. After all, every Earthly Immortal had an overwhelming power in this Void Universe. Except for the matter that happened the other day in the Eastern Thunder Sect of the Easternmost Land, no one had ever heard of someone who had gained advantages and was still alive after fighting an Earthly Immortal.


    Therefore, in an instant, the talents and representatives from other macro worlds and influences burst into an uproar. They gathered together to discuss how they should handle this matter. However, before they could draw a conclusion, this spacetime was broken open once again and Zhou Bao reappeared in front of them, holding in his hand a head with its eyes wide open.


    "Where does the Torrential Thunder Emperor come from? Come and claim it!" Zhou Bao said calmly and threw that head on the arena above the suspended stone.


    A strange silence pervaded this place.

 786 The Devil Realm, Void, and Change

    The Void Universe was extremely vast, and the same true for the area outside.


    There was a space outside of the Void Universe¡ªthe Devil Realm. The biggest differences between the Devil Realm and the Void Universe lay in its lack of complicated spacetimes within compared to the Void Universe, and the limited variety of pneuma. This space, filled with dense Evil Qi, had vast planets whose surfaces consisted entirely of swampy terrain. Overflowing with Evil Qi, the mire in these swamps bred countless Devil Eggs. These eggs hatched every minute, birthing new Devil Tribesmen. They varied in appearance, but most were Fierce Owls.


    Fierce Owls overpopulated this space. In the Void Universe, two vast planets were thousands of miles apart and separated by the void. However, in the Devil Realm, even if the space here was not jammed with Fierce Owls, most of it was occupied by them. They fought each other hand-to-hand and devoured each other. This became the theme of the Devil Realm.


    The center of the Devil Realm was a suspended mainland. It resembled somewhat like the suspended stone of the Suspended Stone Spacetime in the Heaven Realm World. However, it was much larger because no one saw the edge of this area.


    This mainland housed Devil Tribesmen in densely packed buildings. Of course, compared with those Fierce Owls outside, these Devil Tribesmen were individuals of great wisdom and power. Therefore, all kinds of buildings, magic formations, and the pneuma here proved to be the best among the entire Devil Realm.


    Four people sat around a small table with a crystal ball in an ordinary building on this mainland. A series of pictures flashed in it, from the moment Zhou Bao joined the Void Competition to the time he returned to the Suspended Stone Spacetime after he killed that Earthly Immortal.


    "What do you think of this one?"


    Looking frail, a middle-aged man flicked the crystal ball and the images disappeared. Then, he leaned back and murmured silently.


    "He''s very interesting. He possesses the bloodline of Zhuyan and has excellent combat capability. Brother Wuyan, this man really intrigues me."


    "I feel the same. But you are not allowed to take advantage of him now," the middle-aged man said. Except for being one of the seven ancestors of the Devil Tribe and the lord of this tribe, he owned many other strange titles.


    Thin and weak, his complexion was paler than normal skin. His long eyes looked cold and detached and his shoulders broad. He resembled a huge clothes-hanger from his back, although unharmoniously with his emaciated body.


    "I know what goes on in your mind!" His slender fingers gently tapped on the crystal ball in front of him as he added, "but you must be aware that the problem with the Void Universe is about the Void Immortal Realm. That is why the Heaven Realm World moved away in those days. The Void Immortal Realm is the foundation of the Void Universe. We are well aware of how many old monsters are there. If we don''t solve this problem, it will be no use killing all the living creatures in the Void Universe!"


    "Similarly, the key to enter the Void Immortal Realm lies in the Void Universe. The Heaven Realm World serves as the only entrance to the Void Immortal Realm. If we occupy the Heaven Realm World, we can enter the Void Immortal Realm through it!"


    "The Heaven Realm World is troublesome!" Zhao Wuyan nodded in agreement. "The Heaven Realm World has been declining over the past millions of years. Everyone witnesses that with their own eyes. But I always feel there is something wrong with the decay of the Heaven Realm World!"


    "You mean this is a trap?!"


    "Although it is nearly impossible, it is still possible!" said Zhao Wuyan. "I always feel the Necromancer''s Tribulation in those days in the Heaven Realm World occurred too abruptly!"


    "That''s because the Heaven Realm World was too indulgent with those necromancers!" Sitting beside Zhao Wuyan, a beautiful and elegant woman in black giggled and said, "We are very clear about what they had done at that time. Even we could not bear some of their evil deeds. Nevertheless, those great emperors never halted them, but instead, allowed this organization to bloat without restraint. Finally, they reaped what they sowed!"


    Zhao Wuyan nodded and said, "You''re right. Those necromancers were troublesome, but most of them have been eliminated by the various macro worlds. Now, necromancers are rarely seen in the Void Universe. Even if there exist necromancers, they will not be too unbridled and arrogant as the previous necromancers. They received the legacy from the previous necromancers, but they dedicated their hearts to serve their masters. Their numbers are limited and they will not conduct research recklessly as their predecessors did. On the contrary, they will directly apply the research results of their predecessors. Therefore, they rarely form cliques. They can neither threaten us nor the Void Universe."


    The woman sitting next to him smiled and said, "So what we have to worry about now are only the troublesome things left over by the necromancers from those days. We don''t need to take notice of the necromancers themselves. Brother Wuyan, as for the dilemma you fret, we don''t have any evidence that the Necromancer''s Tribulations tied to the decay of the Heaven Realm World. However, we can test it!"


    Zhao Wuyan nodded and replied, "Fine. You cause a big stir and see how the Heaven Realm World reacts. As for this guy, we''d better leave him alone for the time being. He is a variable and should play a role at the most critical time, but not now. Just let him do his best!"


    "Yes!"


    The other three people replied in unison and disappeared.


    After they vanished, Zhao Wuyan flicked the crystal ball once again and Zhou Bao''s appearance reappeared in it. However, it was no longer the scene in the Suspended Stone Spacetime where the Void Competition was held, but in the Human Emperor Palace. Zhou Bao sat on the chair right below the throne and accepted compliments from other people, with a bored expression on his face. Killing an Earthly Immortal, no matter when and where, was something that awed people.


    "Killing an Earthly Immortal in one fell swoop is indeed powerful. But, young man, you still have a long way to go. I will offer you the best opportunity. As to how far you can go in the future is your capability!" Zhao Wuyan sighed gently and flicked the crystal ball, dispelling the pictures.


    When the leaders of the Devil Realm discussed matters, the Heaven Realm World descended into chaos. King Wuyang Zhou Bao killed an Earthly Immortal in a head-on battle.


    That meant Zhou Bao possessed the combat capability of an Earthly Immortal or a Great Ancient Emperor. This alone could reverse the situation of the Heaven Realm World.


    No matter what means or power he used, he killed the Torrential Thunder Emperor, who launched a sneak attack against him. This matter changed the tune of various macro worlds and influences in the Void Universe about the Heaven Realm World. They revised their opinion of the Heaven Realm World from a moribund world to a world that suffered a sharp decline in strength but still had some immeasurable potential.


    Yes, immeasurable potential. In public, the Heaven Realm World possessed a powerful man like Zhou Bao who could kill an Earthly Immortal; in secret, they had the legendary Sea Emperor¡ªthe Vast Sea Emperor from antiquity times, who still had the power of an Earthly Immortal. Apart from these two people, ordinary people could not fathom what kind of people hiding in the depth of the endless spacetime of the Heaven Realm World.


    At any rate, by Zhou Bao defending the Heaven Realm World, its awkward situation improved drastically. At least anyone from another macro world no longer dared give Yan Yuntian a condescending attitude, as bold as brass. Only those macro worlds with Earthly Immortals backing them could straighten up when facing Yan Yuntian. Only the influences that had more than one Earthly Immortals could plot against the Heaven Realm World. However, they would never behave so arrogantly again. On the contrary, they treated the Heaven Realm World as an equal. The change of their attitude complicated this situation further.


    However, Zhou Bao paid no attention.


    But it did not mean the way things progressed did not concern him. In fact, he felt a growing sense of unease in recent days. It happened for some reasons. As he grew more powerful, he gradually developed a deeper understanding of the Way of Heaven and became more sensitive to some special things. To put it in a rather vulgar way, he was carried away by a whim.


    The higher one''s cultivation was, the more accurate his feeling was. Although he could not deduce the course of the incident by touching his fingertips like the powerful men in novels from his previous life, he still felt uneasy about all this.


    "It seems I am still not powerful enough, otherwise, I will not be so uneasy now!" Zhou Bao sighed secretly. He mulled over all the big things that occurred recently in his mind and focused on the Devil Tribulation he once worried about.


    Devil Tribulation!


    "Will the Devil Tribe truly attack the Heaven Realm World?"


    He did not stress about the Devil Tribulation too much. After all, it only bore little impact on him. With a Supreme Fairy Weapon, he was able to both attack and defend. He would not suffer heavy losses even if the Devil Tribe occupied the Heaven Realm World.


    "But why my unease? Is there anything I don''t know or haven''t anticipated?"


    Just as he scratched his head, a dim light flashed across the sky, passed through the protective formation of Jilei Mountain, and appeared in front of him.


    "Emperor Wuyang, you''re still so carefree!"


    Since he killed the Torrential Thunder Emperor, Zhou Bao received this new nickname. Although he was still named King Wuyang in the Seven-deity Regions, this new nickname spread widely.


    "Do not speak these useless things in my presence, Chief Wang. You''re influential and of great power, so you mustn''t visit me without an ulterior motive!"


    Wang She smiled. "You''re right, I do come for a reason. There''s something amiss with the Void Universe recently. Although the Devil Tribulation occurred in the Easternmost Land the last time had been suppressed, traces of the Devil Tribe are found in the Northernmost Sea!"


    "The Northernmost Sea?"


    "Yes. To be specific, it is the southern part of the Underworld Sea. Originally, that place was guarded by the Torrential Thunder Emperor. But since you killed him, it is now left without anyone defending it. Then, the Devil Tribe suddenly appeared. It will be somewhat troublesome to handle this matter, I''m afraid!"

 787 The Highest Jade Cave Heaven

    The Torrential Thunder Emperor was an Earthly Immortal from the Northernmost Sea and he enjoyed high status there. But this time, he attacked Zhou Bao just after the end of the Void Competition. Strictly speaking, he violated the rules of the Void Competition. If he really killed Zhou Bao, nothing would happen because no one would be willing to offend an Earthly Immortal due to such a trifle. Similarly, if Zhou Bao killed him, he should accept his bad luck. After all, it was impossible for people in the Northernmost Sea to offend Zhou Bao¡ªan arrogant and powerful upstart in the void.


    However, an Earthly Immortal reigned as an important force around an area. However, there remained only a few Earthly Immortals in the Northernmost Sea. Each enjoyed considerably high status and played a key role in stabilizing the situation.


    The void guarded by the Torrential Thunder Emperor was very stable in the beginning, but after he died, that area became unstable. The various macro worlds under his wing lost power and influence and were replaced by more powerful macro worlds and influences which the Earthly Immortals backed. And that was certain. But the Devil Tribulation represented the biggest problem in this area.


    The Devil Tribulation could be large or small. Some Devil Tribulations would be eliminated before they started the ball rolling. That was because they appeared in places with Earthly Immortals. No matter how many Fierce Owls and Devil Tribesmen existed, so long as they failed to reach the Earthly Immortal Realm, they would be wiped out in the shortest time possible. Even if there were Earthly Immortals in the Devil Tribe, having subjected to the rules of the void, these Earthly Immortals could never exert their true power. And finally, they would die with grievances in their hearts.


    Things shifted where there were no Earthly Immortals. By virtue of their quantity, the Devil Tribesmen gained a great advantage in a short time. If that was the case, then possibly they occupied a macro world and assimilated an Earthly Immortal there. Once succeeding in doing so, an ordinary Devil Tribulation evolved into a substantial Devil Tribulation. If things worsened¡ªmore than three Earthly Immortals assimilated into their tribe, the Void Universe faced a great calamity.


    Since the Void Universe''s birth, it experienced untold calamities. Although it stood towering like a giant up to now, its power was sapped by the calamities every time. Countless practitioners lost their lives, numerous macro worlds disappeared, and many influences disintegrated. In order to fend against the Devil Tribulation, the Heaven Realm World strived to develop necromancers in those days and thus led to the Necromancer''s Tribulation.


    Now, although nearly a million years had passed, the Devil Tribulation occurred several times during this period, large and small. Even two large Devil Tribulations took place during this period. The Heaven Realm World stood unaffected because it was located in a remote and desolate place. People in the entire Void Universe panicked at the mention of the Devil Tribulation.


    Originally, the Devil Tribulation occurred every few thousand years. Recently, however, it transpired at a high frequency. Before the Devil Tribulation in the Easternmost Land came to an end, another Devil Tribulation happened in the Northernmost Sea. Presently, the Devil Sect in the Void Universe conducted some strange actions and the sealed 99 Primordial Demons also made some unusual movements. All this indicated a Devil Tribulation powerful enough to sweep through the entire Void Universe was right around the corner. Neither anyone nor any macro world lowered their guard against such a Devil Tribulation. The same was true for the Heaven Realm World.


    "It''s really interesting. Although the Northernmost Sea is nearer to this place than the Easternmost Land is, it is still very far from us. Do you believe the Devil Tribesmen will spread here?"


    "I don''t mean that. But they are likely to occupy the Northernmost Sea. Originally, the Torrential Thunder Emperor protected that area. If he was still there, the Devil Tribe could not evolve into a large-scale group. However, he died. Without a powerful man''s protection, once there arrives a Primordial Demon at the Earthly Immortal Realm, the consequences would be unimaginable!"


    "You don''t wish me to go there, do you?" Zhou Bao pursed his lips. He understood the reason why Wang She came. "It''s really an interesting suggestion. Who dreamt it up, you or my father-in-law?"


    "It was put forward by several emissaries from the Northernmost Sea and some emissaries from other places in front of the Human Emperor. They thought since it''s you who killed the Torrential Thunder Emperor, although you have your reason to do that, you should still be responsible. Therefore, the Human Emperor sent me."


    "I should be responsible for that? Ask them to go to hell!" Zhou Bao almost jumped up. "Who said that? Let them speak such words again in front of me! I grind their bones!"


    Zhou Bao, not good-tempered, resented shouldering responsibility. He did kill the Torrential Thunder Emperor, but only in self-defense because he attacked him first. He refused to believe his actions were wrongful. As for the problem of the Northernmost Sea, that owed to their incapability. It was none of his business!


    "You''re right, but I don''t believe you should refuse!" Wang She shook his head and smiled. "Maybe this is their test!"


    "Test? Test who!" Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"


    "They are testing your attitude¡ªyour attitude toward the entire Void Universe, and the attitude of the Heaven Realm World as well!" Wang She smiled. "Of course, they are also testing if the Heaven Realm World possesses trump cards or not. If the Human Emperor agrees to send you to the Northernmost Sea, that means apart from you, there are still other Earthly Immortals in the Heaven Realm World. But if he doesn''t agree with that, that proves you are the only one he can rely on!"


    "No wonder that old guy agreed so straightforwardly!" Zhou Bao sneered. Although the others wanted to test Yan Yuntian, Yan Yuntian was simply not someone who allowed bullying. He immediately voiced support for that proposal and sent Wang She to search for Zhou Bao. In that case, he exhibited Zhou Bao was not the only one he relied on in their presence. Thus, the others were unsure what the real situation was.


    "I won''t go there. I don''t care what the situation is in the Northernmost Sea. It''s none of my business!" Zhou Bao waved his hand. "Is there nothing else?"


    "The Devil Sect in the Seven-deity Regions conducted some unusual movements recently. It seems they are plotting schemes!"


    When he heard the words "Devil Sect", Zhou Bao''s expression altered slightly. "Do you believe it is related to the Devil Tribe?"


    Wang She confirmed his guess. "Absolutely. The number of experts in the Devil Sect increased recently and its combat capability improved very rapidly. There are a few whose origin and strength I cannot even judge. I suspect this sect must collude with some demons in the void!"


    "Collude with the Devil Tribe in the void? What do they want to do?" Zhou Bao was shocked. All of a sudden, he remembered something. "Devil Tribulation, there was a Devil Tribulation in the Easternmost Land, also the Northernmost Sea. Do they intend to stir up a Devil Tribulation in the Heaven Realm World?"


    "That''s what I fear the most. We clearly understand the situation of the Heaven Realm World. If the Devil Tribulation really appears here, we cannot keep out the Devil Tribe unless you take actions. If they mean to cause a stir here, the first one they attack is you. After all, you are the best practitioner here!"


    "My strength has been thoroughly exposed this time!" Zhou Bao frowned. "They must have a lot of confidence in harming me. I am in trouble now!"


    "That''s true. I might be in trouble, too. Everyone is aware of our friendly intimacy."


    "How powerful is the Devil Sect in the Heaven Realm World currently?" Zhou Bao suddenly looked up and asked. A sliver of light flashed across his eyes. "There are at least eight Devil Tribesmen at the Immortal Realm in the nearby Star Area!" Wang She answered.


    "The Immortal Realm?" Zhou Bao pressed his forehead gently, as if he had a headache. "Hey, is there any way to ascertain the actual situation in the Devil Sect and wipe them out in one stroke?"


    A bright light flashed through Wang She''s eyes as he heard this. "You suggest we attack first to gain the upper hand?"


    "Yes, it''s better to strike now than to strike later. According to what you mentioned, they are actively making preparations and haven''t taken actions yet. In this case, we should exterminate them first. As long as the Devil Sect is annihilated, no matter what plot they have devised, they will vanish into thin air. What do you think?"


    "Right. We''d better take initiative and catch them off guard. But it''s not simple to make clear the real situation in the Devil Sect!"


    "The Child-endowing Buddha has recently been occupied by different dealings and has got in touch with many people. Do you think he has the information we need?"


    The Child-endowing Buddha was very busy but still joyful. Over the past few years, his strength improved and his status raised. He seemed to regain the feeling of being the Demon King in those days. When Zhou Bao passed on a message to him, he was busy dealing with a bunch of emissaries from the Strange Tale World¡ªa macro world from the Northernmost Sea. It had no Earthly Immortals to support it and lay close to the area where the Devil Tribulation occurred. Without the lips, the teeth felt the cold. Therefore, the Devil Tribulation concerned this world immensely. However, in addition to being fully prepared to defend it, people there could not dream up better measures. The Child-endowing Buddha offered words of comfort to them timely and arranged everything appropriately. Then, he bid them farewell.


    As soon as he left the place specially prepared for the various influences in the Void Universe to coexist, his expression changed. "This Zhou Bao really relishes causing me trouble. I''m so busy, I have no inclination to pay attention to the Devil Sect and bother about its disciples!" He was very unhappy. After assigning some tasks to his subordinates, he broke the space and headed straight toward the Wuyang Region. With his current strength, he was able to travel from the east to the west or from the south to the north in the Seven-deity Regions in the blink of an eye.


    However, this time, his time-tested space-crossing method failed. Just as he broke the space and stepped into its crack, the entire space reversed. When he realized something bad occurred, it was already too late. A unique spacetime appeared in front of him.


    He was dumbstruck with amazement as he looked at the familiar and strange scenery in front of him. "This is the Highest Jade Cave Heaven!!!"

 788 The Celestial Mystery Emperor and Zhou Baos Action

    Highest Jade Cave Heaven, one of the 33 Heavens!


    The Child-endowing Buddha actually intended to go to Zhou Bao''s Wuyang Region. But just as he departed and broke through the space, he found he had stepped into an eccentric micro world without explanation.


    He recognized this micro world. He''d visited once. It was the Highest Jade Cave Heaven.


    Many legends existed about the33 Heavens. Each of these heavens possessed special characteristics. In many respects, the 33 Heavens thrived without the macro worlds. Therefore, these magic micro worlds were governed by powerful figures, such as the Taiyuan Heaven, the Netherworld Heaven, the Azure Heaven, and the Highest Jade Cave Heaven.


    However, among the 33 micro worlds, the ones who added "Highest" to their names were few. To be precise, there subsisted only three micro worlds called the Highest, and their owners reigned as prominent figures among the 99 Emperors¡ªthe Jade Emperor owned the Highest Jade Pure Heaven, the Great Demon Emperor controlled the Highest Jade Brilliance Heaven, and the Celestial Mystery Emperor governed the Highest Jade Cave Heaven.


    Yes, here was the Highest Jade Cave Heaven, a micro world of the most unfathomable emperor ranking the fifth out of the 99 Emperors, the Celestial Mystery Emperor.


    In antiquity times, as a famous Demon King, the Child-endowing Buddha once entered this place. Now, when he revisited this heaven, his expression grew increasingly grim.


    "I pay my respects to Celestial Mystery Emperor!"


    The moment the Child-endowing Buddha appeared in the Highest Jade Cave Heaven, a shadow flew across his eyes and an emaciated old man around 60 years old emerged before him. This old man wore a bleached blue robe, which made him look quite austere, but the Child-endowing Buddha did not dare slight him.


    The old man chuckled and helped the Child-endowing Buddha stand up. "No need to be so polite, Green Dragon King. It''s been over 10,000 years since we last met. Today we have a reunion, so we truly were destined to meet again!"


    But the Child-endowing Buddha cursed in his mind. "Fu*k, who wants to meet you again?" Meanwhile, he forced a thrilled expression and said, "Never thought I would meet Emperor again in my remaining years. I, Green Dragon..." As if being too excited, right now, the Child-endowing Buddha seemed to have forgotten how to express his feelings in words.


    "He, he, Green Dragon King is a blessed man, you''ll live as long as you desire. Don''t say words like the ''your remaining years''!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor was quite satisfied to see Green Dragon King''s behavior. No matter whether his respect was fake or genuine, he showed sufficient reverence, and that was enough. After all, the Celestial Mystery Emperor still required some errands for the Green Dragon King. If the Green Dragon King displayed an uncooperative attitude in the first place, the Celestial Mystery Emperor would have a headache.


    After quite a while, the Child-endowing Buddha finally restrained himself and stood, "I wonder what order Emperor demands by summoning me here!"


    "This time is regarding a dire dilemma." Celestial Mystery Emperor said with a smile. "Follow me, I will explain to you in detail."


    Zhou Bao had no idea about the Child-endowing Buddha suddenly summoned by the Celestial Mystery Emperor who disappeared for 810,000 years. Right now, he was busy handling the Dark Sect.


    The Dark Sect was not in a very steady state recently. This hovered as a huge disturbance to the Heaven Realm World and even the entire Void Universe.


    But truthfully, all the big shots were tied up focusing on the Heaven Realm World. They tried to ease their tense relationship with the Heaven Realm World for the sake of reopening the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm. Accordingly, no one had more time to spare for the Dark Sect matter.


    Only Zhou Bao had leisure time to poke this hornets'' nest.


    Of course, that was all his father-in-law''s idea.


    When he heard the reason of Zhou Bao''s visit and his plans, Zhou Bao''s father-in-law wore an awkward expression and asked, "What did you say? You''re going to battle the Dark Sect? Are you sure a Devil Tribulation will happen to the Heaven Realm World?"


    From his view, Zhou Bao suffered imaginary fears. If it were before the Heaven Realm World contacted the Void Immortal Realm or just at the beginning of it, he might believe Zhou Bao''s words. But now, the Heaven Realm World became the principal focus of the Void Immortal Realm. Every macro world and every influence cast their eyes on the Heaven Realm World, for it was the only way, the only hope to reconnect with the Void Immortal Realm. Therefore, whether they were true friends or not, they would not allow the Heaven Realm World to fall into the Devil Tribe''s grasp. Despite the Devil Tribe''s unbridled power, could they really dare go against the entire Void Universe? To be honest, the Devil Tribe belonged only to the Devil Realm. No matter how many troops the Devil Tribe dispatched to the Void Universe, they merely exercised sovereignty over a part of the universe. Think about the Primordial Demons in antiquity times, they were pretty powerful, right? But what happened to them? They were all sealed! A total of 99 Primordial Demons! After that, the power of the Devil Realm decreased significantly.


    At present, the Heaven Realm World slumped immensely, but it still bore the weight of all the practitioners'' hope in the Void Universe. Attacking the Heaven Realm World equated to attacking the hope of all the practitioners in the Void Universe. In this case, the attack would provoke all the practitioners in the Void Universe. When that time came, the Devil Tribe was doomed regardless of how many troops they deployed.


    Hence, as the Human Emperor of the Heaven Realm World, the Human Emperor Yan Yuntian did not buy the story of Zhou Bao''s worries.


    However, no matter what, due to Zhou Bao''s special status, Yan Yuntian could not disgrace him too much. Thus, under Zhou Bao''s request, Yan Yuntian agreed to allow his men comb through all the files on the recent issues of the Heaven Realm World and the Dark Sect and relay them to Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao naturally noticed the impatience of his father-in-law. He did not proceed with persuasion. Now that he obtained the information he wanted, he would not expect more support.


    With Zhou Bao''s present strength and abundant backups, it only took him three days to wipe out the Dark Sect of the Heaven Realm World.


    The top 10 Dark Lords, the master of the Dark Sect, and the successors of Devil Fetuses all turned to dust under his iron punches. No one harbored a chance to retaliate in front of Zhou Bao, including Great Dark Lord Du, who traveled across the Sea Area with him years ago.


    After so many years, Great Dark Lord Du''s cultivation grew rapidly. He also owned the strength at the Level of True Immortality. But due to the mysterious skill he practiced, Great Dark Lord Du''s appearance grew more hideous and grotesque, his disposition also turned extremely peevish, even his mind was duller than it used to be. This change convinced Zhou Bao of his former assumption¡ªthere must be something fishy about this Dark Sect. Otherwise, how could Great Dark Lord Du, a powerful and composed ruler, turn out like this? It was a tremendous waste of talent.


    The Dark Sect greatly influenced the Seven-deity Regions, only inferior to those super sects. If the Dark Sect were ever an unimportant sect, back then, there would be no Dark Lord of the Dark Sect in the team that dared cross the Sea Area. But now, in three days, Zhou Bao wiped this influence from the Heaven Realm World. The speed of his strike and the relentlessness of his punches surpassed everyone''s expectations. Even for his father-in-law, the Human Emperor Yan Yuntian, who was tipped off by Zhou Bao before, this news proved quite astonishing.


    "This boy struck really fast! Since he acted so ruthlessly, it''s possible that he ascertained the actions of the Devil Tribe in advance!" Yan Yuntian felt a little alerted after learning Zhou Bao''s speedy strike. If the Devil Tribe launched another daring Devil Tribulation in the Heaven Realm World, such an attempt would be folly. As the Human Emperor of the Heaven Realm World, he attended to issues of all aspects. Now that Zhou Bao suddenly wiped out a huge influence, the Human Emperor could not leave the matter unquestioned. No matter what secret agenda the Dark Sect held, someone had to account for the massacre of the Dark Sect. Otherwise, with the strength to destroy the Dark Sect, if tomorrow Zhou Bao chose to eradicate the Divine Wind Palace or to take down all the other sects in the Heaven Realm World and unite this world, which was theoretically possible, what could the Human Emperor do to squash his ambitions? Just let the whole world go insane together with him?


    The macro worlds needed powerful men, whereas the powerful men also required restraint. Once they rebelled, catastrophes would follow.


    After hearing Zhou Bao''s abrupt raid on the Dark Sect, everyone wondered whether Zhou Bao had gone crazy during the last fight against the Earthly Immortal.


    Very soon, Zhou Bao announced his explanation, which left the public at a loss about whether to laugh or cry. He said the strike that Earthly Immortal from the Northernmost Sea launched against him devastated some men of the Dark Sect who colluded with the practitioners from the Northernmost Sea. In this way, he must confront that Earthly Immortal face-to-face. Now, that Earthly Immortal was dead, his time for revenge against the Dark Sect arrived.


    This explanation could not fool the public, because a man who had a mind to beat his dog would easily find a stick. Nevertheless, judging by this announcement, the people learned that Zhou Bao did not go mad. Regardless of the reason for wiping out the Dark Sect, as long as he still devised an explanation for it, he did not control his psyche. Then, there was nothing to worry about.


    "Alas, boy, you are indeed decisive. We merely made a primitive assumption, but a second later, you took action and rid us of the Dark Sect. Do you realize after discovering your heartless style, many people cannot sleep?"


    "Hah hah, those who can''t fall asleep must be guilty. Innocent ones will still sleep!" Zhou Bao sneered. "Now that the Dark Sect in the Heaven Realm World has met its end, we need not worry anymore. But outside the Heaven Realm World, the unusual movements of the Dark Sect become more and more frequent. I heard those practitioners from the Holy Alliance stationed in the Infinite Star Sea received multiple conflicts with the Dark Sect!"


    "Correct. The Dark Sect isn''t supposed to be so powerful. But mysteriously, the inhibition locking up Primordial Demon in the Infinite Star Sea loosened a bit, so the Primordial Demon has regained some of its power. He even produced several Devil Fetuses in a short spell and lured many disciples of the Dark Sect by some unknown means. Now, no influence remains in the Infinite Star Sea other than the troops of the Holy Alliance and the Dark Sect. This is truly surprising." Wang She said, pouring out all the information he acquired. "In my view, this time, the Dark Sect does want to break in using the Infinite Star Sea as a springboard!"


    "Then, should we take action?"


    "I''m afraid it''s too late."

 789 The Arrival of the Devil Tribulation

    Wang She had sharp instincts. If he said it was too late, it was too late.


    After Zhou Bao exterminated the Dark Sect in the Heaven Realm World, a Devil Tribulation suddenly broke out in the Infinite Star Sea. The wisest demon jailed in the Infinite Star Sea for numerous years broke free first and opened the door leading to the Devil Realm. Just like those Devil Tribulations occurred in the past, the moment this door cracked open, flocks of Fierce Owls flooded the Infinite Star Sea.


    When the Holy Alliance occupied the Infinite Star Sea, they immediately launched a redistribution of influences. No one in the Infinite Star Sea matched the Holy Alliance. Therefore, in the shortest period, all the original influences in the Infinite Star Sea underwent a purge, rendering the current Infinite Star Sea a temporary base of the Holy Alliance.


    After the Holy Alliance conquered the Infinite Star Sea, the only sect daring to contradict the Holy Alliance was the Dark Sect. Well, in fact, the most they mustered was hold a patch of land to themselves.


    However, as the Devil Tribulation went on, the Holy Alliance suddenly lost all its advantages. After all, the Holy Alliance merely stationed a fleet in the Infinite Star Sea, not their main force. Although the fleet acquired loads of Highest Heaven Celestial Device, when they caught the sight of those endless Fierce Owls, they retreated in time. This was a Devil Tribulation! A Devil Tribulation occurred in others'' territory. Why should they fight back for others?


    Hence, after one night, the Infinite Star Sea fell into enemy hands.


    But the Devil Tribe did not give the Heaven Realm World a chance to rest. After occupying the Infinite Star Sea, they repaired the Transmitting Formation and snuck into the Heaven Realm World.


    When a Devil Tribulation broke out, normally, the Devil Tribe hurtled to the Void Universe through a crack in the space or a passageway connecting the two worlds that suddenly appeared. However, the conditions for forming such a crack or passageway were quite demanding. The reason the Eastern Thunder World of the Easternmost Land suffered a Devil Tribulation was someone tampering with the Grand Transmitting Formation in that place. Meanwhile, the Dark Sect schemed this for many years, and the origins of a Devil Tribulation started.


    But the circumstances in the Infinite Star Sea proved different, for there lived a Primordial Demon. As this Primordial Demon broke the seal, he also opened the passageway connecting the Infinite Star Sea to the Devil Realm, allowing the Devil Tribe to pour in. Nevertheless, the situation of the Heaven Realm World changed, for the passageway to the Heaven Realm World remained unopened. Even though the Dark Sect thought about opening this passageway and attempted to implement it, before they completed their task, Zhou Bao intervened. Accordingly, their scheme on opening the passageway met a dead end.


    Now, to enter the Heaven Realm World, the only choice the Devil Tribe had was to use the Transmitting Formations in the Infinite Star Sea.


    But another problem emerged. These Transmitting Formations connecting the Infinite Star Sea with the Heaven Realm World had been destroyed before. Although repaired, for the sake of the security of the Heaven Realm World, they only led to the outskirts of the Heaven Realm World just like those leading to the Eastern Thunder World. When people arrived on the vast planets or meteorites outside the Heaven Realm World, if they wanted to further enter the Heaven Realm World, they had to use the Transmitting Formations on those vast planets or meteorites. And this was also the most common method adopted by all the macro worlds in the current Void Universe in order to secure their safety.


    As the Devil Tribulation broke out in the Infinite Star Sea, the Heaven Realm World instantly cut off all these Transmitting Formations on the outskirts. Then, if the Devil Tribe still intended to attack the Heaven Realm World, the only measure they could employ was to force their way in.


    However, this was unrealistic. The capacity of the Transmitting Formations in the Infinite Star Sea was limited. The Devil Tribe sent their troops in batches. It took a long time to transport them to the Desolate Ancient Star Area. Moreover, if batches of their forces turned up in the Heaven Realm World one after another, the Heaven Realm World and experts from other macro worlds had an opportunity to crush them one by one. Only idiots adopted this kind of strategy.


    The Devil Tribe was not so clueless to make such a mistake, especially when they still owned the think-tanker of the Devil Realm on their side. That wise Primordial Demon locked up in the Infinite Star Sea for several million years, kept producing Devil Fetuses ceaselessly and allowed them be snatched up by the mankind. Over these past numerous years, the Primordial Demon studied the essence of this Void Universe as well as seducing the living creatures in the Void Universe. This was how the Dark Sect formed.


    This time, the Devil Tribulation in the Heaven Realm World was prudently plotted. The Devil Tribe contemplated every detail so as to guarantee complete success.


    Thus, Marquis Wugu entered through the Transmitting Formation first.


    The Thunder Emperor sealed the Primordial Demon, Marquis Wugu, in the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. His power plummeted after the long-term suppression, but never lost his touch. After decades of Single-minded practice, his power recovered to the phase of Divine Immortal. Adding that he was a very sophisticated Primordial Demon, his ability to comprehend and apply the power far exceeded what the present practitioners imagined. Therefore, once he stepped out of the Transmitting Formation, Marquis Wugu quickly took control of the situation.


    Let''s inspect the Heaven Realm World. When he learned the news about the Devil Tribulation in the Infinite Star Sea, the Human Emperor was appalled. Then, he immediately cut off all the passageways and Transmitting Formations connecting the Heaven Realm World with the outside. At the same time, he also dispatched a large number of practitioners to form a tight dragnet at each Transmitting Formations leading to the Infinite Star Sea. However, all his effort was in vain, because Yan Yuntian overestimated his own strength and underestimated the Devil Tribe''s.


    Although there existed some influences from other macro worlds in the Heaven Realm World right now, since they still negotiated with the Heaven Realm World, those ambassadors from various realms in the Void Universe naturally refrained from helping the Heaven Realm World for free. Hence, they all took a wait-and-see approach and remained inactive.


    But this approach created a lot of trouble for the Heaven Realm World.


    Marquis Wugu opened fire. He struck ruthlessly, almost invincible when fighting against all the experts stationed in the Heaven Realm World, no matter whether they were Human Immortal Patriarchs of those super sects in the Seven-deity Regions or the Human Immortal with Demonic Cultivation. Among those who battled Marquis Wugu, only one out of ten managed to return alive. Thus, the power of the top level forces of the Heaven Realm World diminished considerably.


    However, no one believed the Heaven Realm World would be defeated so simply, because Zhou Bao, the top ranking expert in the Heaven Realm World who had killed an Earthly Immortal single-handedly, did not make a move. Plus, the surroundings of the Heaven Realm World were covered by the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, which was the most powerful killing formation of all time. If the Devil Tribe really invaded the Heaven Realm World, they would certainly sacrifice countless lives in handling the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and Zhou Bao''s attacks.


    Now, it was still hard to tell which side would gain supremacy.


    Yes, the result still hung in the air.


    "What did you say? Just wait a bit longer? What are you waiting for? Didn''t you know the Devil Tribulation was going to occur a long time ago? What are you thinking?" Seeing Zhou Bao''s composed face, Yan Yuntian almost started yelling. "Now the Devil Tribe is just outside the door of the Heaven Realm World. They''ve already encircled us. If you strike out now, you may have a chance to destroy them all. But if you wait a bit longer, even you will not be able to take them down!"


    "I told you that a Devil Tribulation would break out, but you didn''t listen. Now I''ve wiped out the Dark Sect in the Heaven Realm World, so the Devil Tribe has no way to crack an opening in Heaven Realm World again. With the Yin and Yang Dust Formation guarding us on the outside, I believe the Devil Tribe cannot break in without suffering great losses."


    "But¡ª"


    "Don''t worry, father-in-law, I''m very clear about the power of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Relax. These devious brats have no chance to break my formation. Even an Earthly Immortal can''t achieve that!" Zhou Bao waved his hands dismissively. "So, you don''t need to worry about this!"


    "Don''t worry? How can I not worry about this matter? I''m the Human Emperor. My fate is intertwined with the Heaven Realm World. If something happens to the Heaven Realm World, I''ll be doomed eternally. How can I sleep on this matter?"


    "You can just take a break, everything will be fine!" At the sight of the incensed Yan Yuntian, Zhou Bao sniggered. "And, stop sending out more combatants. You''re just sending them to die. I know how much strength the Heaven Realm World has. Even one Human Immortal is quite valuable to us. So, don''t send them to die. It''s futile!"


    "Then, how long shall we wait?"


    "It''s not about how much time we wait. Father-in-law, don''t you see? If the Yin and Yang Dust Formation fails, I won''t be able to block the devils out, either. This is a Devil Tribulation, not a common tribulation. Now, the key is not our Heaven Realm World but the whole Void Universe. The most crucial thing is whether we can persuade other macro worlds and other allies to back us up. So when we attack doesn''t matter one bit!" Zhou Bao stood up, staring at Yan Yuntian with a sense of helplessness. "Other supporters want to reopen the passageway of the Void Immortal Realm and gain some ancient treasures in the Heaven Realm World. Being our Human Emperor, you call the shots on such dealings. Please speed up the negotiation process. We alone cannot fend off the Devil Tribulation. Only by uniting other macro worlds and obtaining the help of other practitioners in the Void Universe can we hope to win!"


    "Do you have any idea about how much effort I''ve exerted to protect our Heaven Realm World?"


    "But do you understand that once the Heaven Realm World is lost, you won''t have the right to exert more? Put down the so-called profits for the moment, surviving is the crux of the matter!"


    "You¡ª"


    Yan Yuntian lifted a finger and pointed it at Zhou Bao, attempting to give a retort. But a second later, he let out a sigh reluctantly and took his departure with his head drooping.


    "You''re really a realistic guy. You even didn''t save any face for your father-in-law!" Wang She watched them as an aloof bystander. Seeing their conversation end like that, he taunted his partner.


    "Why do you mock me?" Zhou Bao asked with a smile. "What I said is correct! This is not a matter concerning only the Heaven Realm World. Now that others desire to gain some benefits from us, they certainly should pay a price. If they refuse to give us something in return, how can they take such huge profits from us?"


    "From what you said, I can tell that you''re relatively familiar with the passageway leading to the Void Immortal Realm, right?"


    "Well, only a little familiar. Let us discuss everything when the Child-endowing Buddha returns. By the way, what''s he been up to lately? I haven''t seen him for quite some time."

 790 The Choice of the Great Emperors

    Although Zhou Bao mentioned that he had not seen Child-endowing Buddha for a long time, he did not mean it literally. What he meant was that the last time when Zhou Bao was looking for Child-endowing Buddha to discuss something with him, he was surprised to find that Child-endowing Buddha''s spirit had disappeared from Heaven Realm World.


    He felt quite nonplussed about this. Considering Child-endowing Buddha''s current Divine Immortal combat capability and Human Immortal phase, if he entered the Void Universe, he would be more or less restricted by the rules of the Void Universe. Therefore, Child-endowing Buddha would not have left Heaven Realm World. Now that he was still in Heaven Realm World, where could he possibly have gone? Could it be the endless spacetime? Why would he do that?


    But then Child-endowing Buddha had always acted in a mysterious fashion. Despite knowing him for years, he still could not tell what Child-endowing Buddha''s true colors were. Based on the form he assumed when Zhou Bao first met him, Zhou Bao guessed that Child-endowing Buddha was a green fox. But as time passed, Zhou Bao gradually found that the Child-endowing Buddha did not resemble a fox at all. He always had this feeling that this guy was hiding something from him ever since they first met.


    But after working with this guy for so many years, Zhou Bao found his company delightful. And above all, now this guy was suddenly bestowed with the title "Guide Master", while Zhou Bao, on a whim, claimed to be "Taoist Cundi". Was this just a coincidence? No, Zhou Bao did not think so. He had a vague feeling that someone was directing the whole thing. As to where it would end or what kind of ending it would be, Zhou Bao really had no idea.


    Maybe it was due to their lasting alliance; now, once something occurred, Zhou Bao was used to going to Wang She and the Child-endowing Buddha for advice. But at this juncture when the Devil Tribulation reappeared, Child-endowing Buddha was nowhere in sight, which was a great surprise.


    "I wonder where he went. I haven''t heard from him recently. He is not at the Human Emperor Palace, either. He is responsible for managing the guiding work at the Human Emperor Palace. Now that he has disappeared, the Human Emperor Palace is also having a hard time. I heard that they''ve found a substitute, but the new guy is not doing a good job. As you know, at this critical moment, if the diplomatic envoy is incompetent, there will be big problems."


    "Humph, as the saying goes, if you don''t have the ability, you should not take the job. My father-in-law has dreamed of being the Human Emperor for his whole life. But now, see how exhausted he is!"


    "If he really pulls through this Devil Tribulation and overcomes this hardship, then his Way of the Emperor will probably advance by leaps and bounds. He might even have a chance to enter the Divine Immortal phase straightaway. You tell me, should he choose to suffer for this moment or not?" Wang She gave a cool smile, expressing his honest dissent. "Practitioners always rise to challenges. Since he has chosen the Way of the Emperor, he will certainly proceed in this way. No matter what kind of hardship he encounters, those will just be the stepping stones paving his way to his throne!"


    "Yeah, right, this is just the way of the practice he chose. Now that he''s decided to practice the Way of the Emperor, for him, this kind of situation is also a great opportunity!"


    "Opportunities usually come with risks. You should not look down on your father-in-law. At first, he was just an ordinary emperor in the Seven-deity Regions. But today he has made such a remarkable achievement, taking control of Heaven Realm World. Do you think this kind of accomplishment is something a mediocre man can achieve?"


    "It''s just that his responsibility is severely out of line with his capability, so I''m very concerned about his future!" Zhou Bao still clung to his old opinions of his father-in-law.


    While Zhou Bao and Wang She were discussing about Child-endowing Buddha, Child-endowing Buddha was also talking about them. Right now, the Guide Master was sitting in the Highest Jade Cave Heaven and had a miserable expression on his face. His hands were clasped, as if in prayer.


    "Green Dragon King, don''t be so tense. You''re also a Grand Demon. Back then, you were only one step away from being an Earthly Immortal. Now, so many years have passed, why are you still feeling so dejected?"


    "It''s true that I used to be a Grand Demon. But after being jailed for so many years, I have a deeper appreciation of the value of life and freedom, more than ever. Your Majesty, please forgive me for not being able to accede to your request!"


    "Green Dragon King, why are you being such a bigot? This matter does not involve only the safety of Heaven Realm World, but also the peace for the whole Void Universe. If you do this, you will be doing a great service to the world. Besides, this matter is not a danger to you at all. Why are you declining my offer?"


    "Your Majesty, you do have a point. However, I''m lacking in abilities and good luck; I''m afraid I can''t take on this important task. Your Majesty, please look for some other talent to do it!" As he spoke, Child-endowing Buddha cupped his hands in tribute, then released waves of spatial fluctuations from his body so as to break the space of the Highest Jade Cave Heaven. He then prepared to return to Heaven Realm World!


    "Why are you doing this?" Celestial Mystery Emperor smiled and made a flicking gesture, which instantly swept away all the spatial fluctuations around Child-endowing Buddha. "In Heaven Realm World, you''re the only one who was able to detect all the World Chakras, besides me. You know the Chakras of Heaven Realm World only too well. Thus, who else can be more suitable for this task than you?"


    "In this case, Your Majesty is forcing me into this, right?" As Child-endowing Buddha felt the spatial fluctuations dispersing, his body seemed to be constrained by a strong force. His expression altered in a second.


    "Green Dragon King, you''re a smart guy. You must already know that there is no room for negotiation with regards to this matter!"


    "Room for negotiation? Since the moment I saw the essence of the World Chakras, this matter seems to have been set. If that is the case, why did you, Celestial Mystery Emperor, keep me imprisoned for over a million years?"


    "If I hadn''t done so, how would I be able to deceive everybody?" Celestial Mystery Emperor beamed. "If I let you emerge in the Necromancer''s Tribulation, under that circumstance, who could guarantee your safety? Who could be certain that you would not employ the power of the Chakra in that tragic tribulation and disclose this matter? Therefore, concealing your existence was the best choice!"


    "Conceal my existence? Because of your one sentence, I had been jailed in that Small Thunder Temple for over a million years. And now, you''re asking me to work for you? You must be dreaming!" Child-endowing Buddha''s fury finally erupted. After being locked up inside a green lamp at a lonely basement for so many years, Child-endowing Buddha had already proven his resilience by having endured the ordeal. Now, not only did the culprit for his imprisonment not show any single bit of regret for his torture, but had the cheek to ask him to risk his life for him. What kind of person did he think the Green Dragon King was? Did he think the Green Dragon King was really such a fool? So easy to bully?


    At this moment, all the resentment that had been stifled for a million years suddenly erupted. Seeing how furious Child-endowing Buddha was, the face of the Celestial Mystery Emperor changed. When he lifted a finger and pointed it at Child-endowing Buddha, the hostile Qi rising out of Child-endowing Buddha suddenly froze. "Green Dragon King, you''d better not do this. Your imprisonment was not solely decided by me. Apart from me, Demon Emperor Hai Wuyan also agreed to this plan. He was the one who recommended you as the candidate. If you really want to seek revenge, you should look for him!"


    "Demon Emperor Hai Wuyan?" Child-endowing Buddha''s expression darkened abruptly. This Demon Emperor was the master of all the demons in antiquity times. Among the 99 Emperors, there were many Demonic Emperors. They were all obstinate guys, including the Emperor of Azure Heaven and Vast Sea Emperor. But even so, no one could deny the absolute supremacy of the Great Demon Emperor Hai Wuyan. The Emperor of Azure Heaven and Vast Sea Emperor were both subject to the rule of this Great Demon Emperor.


    In antiquity times, Child-endowing Buddha was the Green Dragon King; a top general under the command of another Demonic Emperor. Thus, he had socialized with the Emperor of Azure Heaven and Vast Sea Emperor and had also met the Great Demon Emperor in person. He had even entered the Demon Emperor Palace for business. Accordingly, he certainly was aware of the strength of this Great Demon Emperor and the potential threats he could impose. With just one glimpse of that kind of menacing power, anyone in the Demon tribe would be traumatized by his unforgettable influence. Therefore, once Celestial Mystery Emperor mentioned the Great Demon Emperor, Child-endowing Buddha instantly shuddered, and a picture of a towering figure flitted through his mind. At once, his hostility, resentment and determination for revenge vanished.


    "Why did he pick me?" After releasing all his hatred and grievance, Child-endowing Buddha heaved a sigh and asked bitterly, "Why me? I''m just a Grand Demon with nothing special. Why did he choose me?"


    "Do you think you are normal? No, you are not. Did it never occur to you that you may have some unique skills?"


    "If I did have any unique qualities, I would not have turned out like this!" Child-endowing Buddha answered, looking very crestfallen. "I''m just a normal green dragon. It even took me much longer to become more intelligent than those of my kind. I merely had some luck. Otherwise, I would have long been stripped apart and refined into various celestial devices. How can I have any special features?"


    "You might have known that your Demon tribe inherited the bloodline of Primordial Fierce Beasts. But when the bloodline was passed down to the Ancient Celestial Court, it became thinner and thinner. However, some members of the Demon tribe still possess the gifted powers you inherited from those Primordial Fierce Beasts. For example, your clan of green dragons are descendants of the Ghost Flood Dragons, which were a kind of Primordial Fierce Beasts. Just like other clans in the Demon tribe, you guys have lost almost all of your gifted powers. However, you''re an exception. Precisely because you''re the exception, you ended up being the Green Dragon King. And that was why we chose you!"


    "Ghost Flood Dragons?" Child-endowing Buddha had heard of the legends about Ghost Flood Dragons, which told of their bloodlines coming from this kind of Primordial Fierce Beast. But these legends were never verified. Furthermore, Ghost Flood Dragons were not very well known among all the Primordial Fierce Beasts. Their strength was just at the medium level and they had plenty of natural enemies, such as Dragon Chimeras, which had helped Zhou Bao to rise to power. Although the number of Ghost Flood Dragons exceeded that of the Dragon tribe, they still fell prey to the latter.


    "Gifted power? Are you referring to Ghost Flood Dragons'' Vein-searching Technique?"


    "Exactly. Ghost Flood Dragons are very special creatures among all the Primordial Fierce Beasts and so are normal Dragons. The Dragon tribe is weak in strength, but they own a great fate. When they die, their fate can integrate into the earth veins and transform into dragon veins. But Ghost Flood Dragons are different. They were born with a gift for detecting Chakras and that is the Vein-searching Technique. Since you have the bloodline of Ghost Flood Dragons as well as the Vein-searching Technique, you easily discovered the locations of the World Chakras. And only you can tell those World Chakras apart. Therefore, we picked you!"

 791 Divine Presence

    "World Chakras? What are they?"


    "They are the essence of the entire Void Universe. Through these World Chakras, you can even perceive the Universe Chakras. The reason that Heaven Realm World is the top macro world and owns the passageway leading to the Void Immortal Realm is that it shares the same main Chakra with the Void Immortal Realm. And that passageway is just a substantial form of the main Chakra!" At this point, Celestial Mystery Emperor burst out laughing. "Now, those juniors in the Void Immortal Realm are trying to repair that passageway. But is it going to be as simple as that? If they can''t find the location of the main Chakra, they''ll never be able to do it. Searching for the location of the main Chakra is not an easy job!"


    "No wonder recent negotiations between Heaven Realm World and other macro worlds have come to a stalemate and everyone seems to be unhappy. That explains it. These macro worlds are connecting with Heaven Realm World and all for the sake of the passageway. But it looks like that they haven''t found a way to open the passageway, and that''s why the situation is like this today!"


    "There is more than one person who is aware of this. Anyway, that passageway is not a real Chakra, and it existed in Heaven Realm World. If they can find a guy who used to travel through to the Void Immortal Realm via that passageway, they can pin down the location by deduction. However, the negotiations haven''t touched on this so far!"


    "Nothing in Heaven Realm escapes Your Majesty''s eyes!"


    "Humph, do you really think we''ll leave Heaven Realm alone?" Celestial Mystery Emperor sneered. "All the things we did is just for that moment. Whether you''re willing or not, whether you cling to your grievance or not, if you do this favor for us, the benefits lying in wait for you will great. But if you have other agendas in mind and screw this up on purpose, I assure you, you''ll regret being born to this world!"


    Child-endowing Buddha took a deep breath. There was a cold gleam in his eyes. Then, as if he had finally made up his mind, he nodded intently.


    Child-endowing Buddha gave in. He had no alternatives at all. Neither Celestial Mystery Emperor nor the Great Demon Emperor were people he could afford to offend. They both had the capability to make him regret this refusal for the rest of his life. He would be an idiot if he refused to obey them. However, letting himself be manipulated was not what he wanted, either. The plan of Celestial Mystery Emperor and the Great Demon Emperor might be very efficient and comprehensive, but the one who carried it out was likely to be the target and had to face the consequences. When these Emperors realized their goal and achieved their great cause, it was highly possible that his life would be sacrificed in order to quell the anger of the unlucky guys.


    For a guy practicing the Way of the Emperor, he was very familiar about this kind of operation. But Child-endowing Buddha did not want to be the victim.


    Nevertheless, in the Highest Jade Cave Heaven, he had no other choice but to give in. After he made a verbal promise, Celestial Mystery Emperor still did not trust him, so he made him swear the Great Vow of the Heart Demon before releasing him.


    Celestial Mystery Emperor really deserved his title. The way he forced Child-endowing Buddha to make the vow was perfect; it left no loopholes for Child-endowing Buddha to exploit.


    However, he missed one point: before Child-endowing Buddha entered Highest Jade Cave Heaven, he had inadvertently told the story about the World Chakras to Zhou Bao. Although he did not realize that what he saw was the World Chakras at that time, this did offer him a leeway, which was also an unpredictable element.


    Neither Celestial Mystery Emperor nor the Great Demon Emperor had ever thought that the Green Dragon King would disclose this vital issue to someone else. It was a known fact that if any practitioner discovered the secret about World Chakras, as long as he was in his right mind, he would certainly zip his mouth and keep this secret to himself forever.


    Since Celestial Mystery Emperor did not ask, Child-endowing Buddha naturally would not tell him that. Also, Child-endowing Buddha was clear that perhaps this was the only variate in this matter, and his life might simply depend on this variate.


    "In this way, Zhou Bao is really the variate. Maybe the schemes of these Emperors will finally come down on him!" Thinking of this, a miserable Child-endowing Buddha could not help but give a bitter smile. "Frankly, this boy may have a more tragic ending than I do!"


    After living in this world for so many years, experience told Child-endowing Buddha that the number of guys who were variates in tribulations but still had a decent ending or were still alive were lesser than the number of fingers one had. Even if some of them were still alive, they probably were not leading good lives. The best typical example was Vast Sea Emperor, one of the 99 Emperors in antiquity times. He was the variate of the tribulation in antiquity times, the Tribulation Taker. Although he was tough enough to power through that tribulation and obtained huge benefits like being promoted to the Earthly Immortal Karmic Rank as well as becoming an Emperor, how did he end up? During the Necromancer''s Tribulation, which initially did not concern him, he was supposed to be perfectly safe with his Emperor status and his dominating influence. However, he got involved as the Tribulation Taker. Even though he was not killed, he was trapped in the endless spacetime for over a million years, which was basically the same treatment that Child-endowing Buddha received.


    Therefore, as the matter in Heaven Realm World developed, some curious clues were now surfacing. Now, he decided to keep his distance from Zhou Bao, a probable Tribulation Taker. But to his surprise, before he could put it in practice, he had already been caught in the mess. It was obvious that Zhou Bao was a Tribulation Taker, whereas there usually were multiple Tribulation Takers. Based on the current situation, he was also one of the Tribulation Takers, and the most crucial one, too. Suddenly, his previous calculations were all in vain.


    Now that Child-endowing Buddha was a Tribulation Taker, he was well aware of taking on the tribulation and throwing away his secret agendas. In the Highest Jade Cave Heaven, those agendas he kept had all been spotted and discarded by Celestial Mystery Emperor. Despite his refusal, he could do nothing about this at all.


    Though he had a profound cultivation, when this type of situation happened, he still a bit lost. Thus, he was not quite himself the next few days.


    Being out of form like this was partly due to his bad mood. However, the other part of the reason was to give Zhou Bao a hint.


    The Great Vow of the Heart Demon that he swore under the order of the Celestial Mystery Emperor was unbreakable. Now, even if he wanted to say something to Zhou Bao, he could not do so. Therefore, he had to adopt some obscure way to transmit the information. And whether Zhou Bao could pick up his hints or not, that was beyond his control.


    Zhou Bao was not stupid. He knew how powerful Child-endowing Buddha was. For such a powerful figure, staying in low spirits was apparently unusual. After he questioned Child-endowing Buddha several times but failed to extract any useful information from him, Zhou Bao realized that this was very odd. Child-endowing Buddha had disappeared for many days without any good reason. Now that he was back, his attitude had also been quite strange. Zhou Bao guessed that something must have happened in the days when Child-endowing Buddha disappeared.


    "Hey, Guide Master, why are you so down recently?"


    "Not at all. I''m doing great!" Of course, Child-endowing Buddha could not say what Zhou Bao expected to hear. Thus, he said something which was the total opposite, "You really cannot imagine what my present feelings are like, right now!


    "Seems that you have problems but cannot voice it out!" Zhou Bao heaved a sigh. His guard was up. After all, if someone was able to force Child-endowing Buddha, an Old Demon, to keep his mouth shut, this guy must be extremely powerful and crafty.


    "You''re really a pain, Child-endowing Buddha! Giving such evasive replies at this crucial time!"


    "Enough, my business doesn''t concern you, never mind. Don''t ask more questions. This time my visit is concerning the matters about the Devil Tribulation and the passageway of the Void Immortal Realm!"


    "Don''t mention the Devil Tribulation. I can do nothing about it. Now, the outside of Heaven Realm World is full of Fierce Owls. If I hadn''t put the Yin and Yang Dust Formation there, our Heaven Realm World would have been flooded by these monsters already!" Zhou Bao paused for a second, then went on, "But you don''t need to be too worried. Though the number of these Fierce Owls is insanely large, they''re still far from shaking up the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Moreover, recently lots of Fierce Owls died in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, and the Evil Qi and the Bloody Qi inside flourished. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation transformed a portion of these Qi and infused it into its own structure, which rendered it a thorough killing formation. Even if the number of Fierce Owls increases a hundred times more, or they come with one or two Earthly Immortals, they have no chance to break my Yin and Yang Dust Formation!"


    "Really?" This time, Child-endowing Buddha was totally stunned. "Are you sure even an Earthly Immortal cannot break your Yin and Yang Dust Formation?"


    "Yes, I am. This Yin and Yang Dust Formation is originally a killing formation of antiquity times. It''s a killing formation! How can it work when it lacked murderous intent! But when I cast it out in the past, though it was powerful, it never gained enough murderous intent because there was no target for it to murder. However, now with so many members of the Devil Tribe rushing to be its dessert and pumping so much Bloody Qi and Evil Qi in it, it can exude the deadly power it had in antiquity times!"


    Zhou Bao and Fate Creation Boy had expected this result. But it never occurred to them that the actual effect would be that good. Right now, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation that enveloped Heaven Realm World was like a super Fierce Beast who had just woken up from its long nap and finally bared its teeth.


    Its teeth were frighteningly sharp!


    "In half a month, just half a month, as long as this situation continues, the murderous intent in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation will reach its full extent. When that time comes, even if a dozen Earthly Immortals were to launch their attacks simultaneously, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation will engulf them all!"


    Thinking of Fate Creation Boy''s thrilled expression when he had done the calculations, Zhou Bao could not help but smile. This was a convincing affirmation of the power of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    Killing a dozen Earthly Immortals was not the most amazing function this Yin and Yang Dust Formation had. As legend had it, this killing formation could trap Celestial Immortals and murder them. In fact, it had already achieved these. This Yin and Yang Dust Formation had various awe-inspiring types of reputation among the people.


    "It''s really the Yin and Yang Dust Formation! And the murderous intent in it has come into being! Very well! Very well!" Out of Heaven Realm World, two figures emerged quietly among all the Fierce Owls. But the Fierce Owls and other demons from the Devil Tribe in the surroundings did not pay any attention to these two. It was as if they were invisible.


    "We should stop. If the members of the Devil Tribe keep advancing, they will just become the fodder for this formation. When this formation matures, it will be a huge problem for both you and me!"


    "Well, are you scared?"


    "Humph, Wild Wind, don''t forget how Silver Moon Sage died back then. Didn''t this killing formation gain its fame at the cost of Silver Moon Sage''s life?"

 792 The Next a Hundred Million-Year Be

    "Silver Moon Sage? That dumbass! I wonder how he ever gained his Celestial Immortal Karmic Rank!"


    "Wild Wind, you''re not much better than him. Your strength is almost at the same level as his!" one of the two figures said. This man had a head full of unruly green hair and he was gazing at Heaven Realm World with an odd smile. "This time they did a really great job. Although the cost is a bit high, they''re just about to succeed. What a pity!"


    "Yes! What a pity!"


    "Well, it''s not too bad. This time, Zhao Wuyan has also been kept in the dark. Even though he became the Devil Sage, if he is not cautious enough, he might really suffer some losses. Shall we stoke up the fire and let this killing formation become mighty again?"


    "Zhao Wuyan is not Silver Moon Sage. And the Yin and Yang Dust Formation is not the same as it was in primitive times. It''s almost impossible for it to recover the glory it had in primitive times!" Wild Wind smiled faintly. "But now, on one side is the new Sage of the Devil Tribe, on the other side is the Yin and Yang Dust Formation that had slain Sages. Poisonous old bastard, your coming here is not just for stoking up the fire, right?"


    "Well, I''m here to see my successor!"


    "Your successor? That weird Tribulation Taker?"


    "Hee hee, in the present world, who else has the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast apart from him? No matter how he got it, as long as he knows how to use it, I''ll accept him as my successor!"


    "Don''t forget that he is a Tribulation Taker. Choosing him as your successor can be quite risky!"


    "Humph, he has the bloodline of Zhuyan as well as the poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast; he can''t be a guy who will die young!" The green-haired man sneered. "If he can come through this tribulation, he''ll complete his Great Ways. Then, there will be an extra Sage in my Nine-headed Fierce Beast bloodline!"


    "He already has the bloodline of Zhuyan. How can he have anything to do with you lot, the Nine-headed Fierce Beast?" Wild Wind jeered.


    The green-haired man shot a look at Wild Wind but did not speak. For a moment, the air was thick with tension.


    As if realizing that the atmosphere was becoming increasingly awkward, Wild Wind let out a chuckle and said, "Poisonous old bastard, take a guess as to how long before the Devil Tribe realizes that they should not feed more lives to the Yin and Yang Dust Formation?"


    "Humph, it''s been so many years, but the Devil Tribe hasn''t made any prominent progress. Look, they''re still coming in one after another! Do they really believe they can conquer the Void Universe simply by their large numbers?"


    "This is the tradition of the Devil Tribe. When they go on an expedition, Fierce Owls will always head it"


    "I forgot, you actually came from the Devil Tribe! With you, a Sage of the Devil Tribe, at my side, why should I worry about the tricks the Devil Tribe is going to play?"


    "I think very soon, the emperor of the Devil Tribe, an Earthly Immortal, will make his move!" Wild Wind smiled. As a previous member of the Devil Realm, he seemed content to stand aside and watch the Devil Tribe suffer. "Although the number of Fierce Owls the Devil Tribe have is incredibly huge, they will be depleted fast in this case. When the strength gap becomes such, their number doesn''t matter anymore. Look at the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and these Fierce Owls, I believe the Devil Tribe will soon discover that the quantity is unable to make up this gap!"


    "Are you saying your little disciple will realize that soon?" The green-haired poisonous old bastard gave a faint smile. "Isn''t he one of your smarter disciples?"


    "He is indeed my smartest disciple. And above all, he is a real Primordial Demon!" When he talked about his disciple, Wild Wind could not help beaming. "Though he once took the wrong path, he has learned his lesson and is back on the right track. My old friend, I''m confident that he will become the second Sage in the next hundred million years!"


    "Hahahaha, the second Sage over a hundred million years? Two Sages from your Devil Tribe? Do you really believe your Devil Tribe can reign over the Void Universe in the next hundred million years?"


    "You don''t believe me?"


    "No, I don''t!" The green-haired poisonous old bastard said. "I don''t believe it at all!"


    "If this is the case, why don''t we make a bet? What do you say?"


    "Bet on what?"


    "Bet on which tribe will take the leading role of the Void Universe in the next hundred million years. Will it be the Human Tribe, the Demon Tribe, the Devil Tribe, or any other alien races? If you win, I will support your tribe in its leading role, and vice versa!"


    "You''re too ambitious!" The green-haired poisonous old bastard scowled. "Which tribe will take the leading role in the next hundred million years is not something for you and me to decide!"


    "If we stand on the same side, the odds of winning will be much higher!" Wild Wind said confidently.


    The green-haired poisonous old bastard glanced at Wild Wind. Then, he thought about it for a moment and nodded, "OK, let''s do it. If you win, when your little disciple grows into a Celestial Immortal, I will support the Devil Tribe in its leading role of the Void Universe in the next a hundred million years. But if you lose, then¡ª"


    "I will support the Human Tribe, just like the last time!" Wild Wind gave an indifferent laugh, as if he did not care whether he would win or lose. "Even if the Devil Tribe is not the leading role, it will still prosper and produce more Sages of its own. But the Human Tribe, hee hee¡ª"


    "Yes, the Human Tribe differs from the Devil Tribe. If everybody did not protect the Human Tribe in the first place, the Human Tribe would have disappeared from the Void Universe much like so many of the other tribes. However, no one had foreseen that the Human Tribe could flourish till today. It even outshone the influence of the Devil Tribe. If not, the Devil Tribe would not have cowered in a corner for so long!" The green-haired man sniggered. "I know what those Sages of your Devil Tribe are thinking! They are desperate to use any means to make the Devil Tribe the leading role of the Void Universe. But they''re just too embarrassed to articulate it. Well, they should voice it out. Otherwise, how will we know?"


    "You¡ª" Wild Wind''s face turned sullen. Just when he was about to throw a tantrum, the green-haired poisonous old bastard vanished in an instant.


    "You poisonous old bastard, humph!" Seeing the poisonous old bastard disappear, Wild Wind let out a snarl and vanished as well.


    "Marquis Zhihai, we can''t continue like this. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation is fully functioning and is not lacking in Massacre Qi unlike before. If we attack it now, we''re simply offering more Massacre Qi to it. This killing formation of primitive times is already showing its true powers. If that''s the case, we will have a hard time to wrap this up!"


    "Well, Marquis Wugu, this is exactly what I want: to let the killing formation of primitive times show its true power. Only by this can we guarantee our own safety when taking over the entire Heaven Realm World. Otherwise, even if we take over the whole Heaven Realm World, we will hardly be able to fend off the hostile attacks of the whole Void Universe!"


    "But if this continues, you and I will have no chance to destroy this formation, let alone take over Heaven Realm World!"


    Among the endless troops belonging to the Devil Tribe outside Heaven Realm World, a colossal Highest Heaven Celestial Device with a weird shape was floating in the Void Universe. Its huge body was emitting boundless Devil Qi, shrouding this area with its overbearing pressure.


    On this Highest Heaven Celestial Device stood two Primordial Demons, both of whom had cultivation levels of an Earthly Immortal. One of them was Marquis Wugu, who had recently broken free from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. The other was Marquis Zhihai, who had been sealed in the Infinite Star Sea for countless years and kept producing a Devil Fetus every 10,000 years.


    At this point, Marquis Wugu no longer resembled the messy being he was when he fled from jail. Now, his 30 feet high body was emitting an intimidating air and each of the six golden horns on his head gleamed with dark gold shades. The dark cyan armor he was wearing encased his muscles snugly and his sanguine eyes were staring unblinkingly at Heaven Realm World. "The Yin and Yang Dust Formation has matured. Marquis Zhihai, what shall we do?"


    "I never considered the frontal attack. Since I learned that the Yin and Yang Dust Formation has appeared in Heaven Realm World, I didn''t expect that strategy would work. The reason why I let them charge at it for so many days is just to let them feed the Yin and Yang Dust Formation so it would boost its power!"


    Marquis Wugu was a little petrified. Gazing at Marquis Zhihai who was one head shorter than himself, Marquis Wugu said, "Brother, I''m not brainy like you. If you have something to say, say it in plain words. If you have no intention to attack the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, how will you conquer Heaven Realm World?"


    "You''ll soon find out!" A confident smile emerged on Marquis Zhihai''s handsome face. Then, he cast his eyes to Heaven Realm World and said, "Just wait and see!"


    "A fortress is easy to demolish from the inside. Now, Heaven Realm World is just like a perfect fortress. Since the Yin and Yang Dust Formation has fully matured, no matter how powerful the Devil Tribe is, they cannot break through our defense from the outside. If they''re determined to take down the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, they will have to start from the inside!"


    Right now, the Human Emperor Palace of Heaven Realm World was packed with important people from Heaven Realm World; these included all the leaders of the super sects and their Human Immortal Elders, as well as several Prime Ministers from the Sea Area. All the big shots were present except for Sea Emperor, that was to say, the Vast Sea Emperor.


    These men were the top-level elites of Heaven Realm World, the strongest combatants of all the practitioners. If they had gathered together like this a dozen years ago, they would have had no fear. But now, their faces were very glum as if they were deeply concerned about something.


    Zhou Bao was seated in the front row on the left side. He was talking in an unperturbed voice, as though he was relating someone else''s story. "A few days ago, I exterminated the Dark Sect in Heaven Realm World. That''s just because I am worried that this kind of thing might happen. But judging by the current circumstances, there must be some forces collaborating with the Devil Tribe from within other than the Dark Sect."

 793 Change of the Power

    "King Wuyang, perhaps you are worrying too much? The Yin and Yang Dust Formation was set up by Fate Creation Boy and you. Except for you, even though others may have the intention to destroy it, they won''t have that capability. Can one of you be the Devil Tribe''s informer?"


    Yu Taixuan, host of Divine Wind Palace, put this question to Zhou Bao. In recent years, his palace fame had decreased greatly. By contrast, Fate Creation Boy and Zhou Bao had an increasing influence in Heaven Realm World, which brought much support to Human Emperor Yan Yuntian. He had already controlled the Heaven Realm justice and dealt with the outside world on behalf of Heaven Realm. His status was higher while Divine Wind Palace''s position in Heaven Realm World had dropped drastically because Zhou Bao had created some problems there. Currently, it was equal to those sects. In terms of the strength, it was even lower than the previous super sects. However, thanks to the tribulation, Immortal Palace had greatly increased their strength. In this world, some Independent Practitioners in the Seven-deity Regions were strong. Most of them had an Individual Immortal cultivation and some even had a Cultivation of True Immortality. They were powerful and did not want to be restrained, so nobody had any control over them. With the exposition of Heaven Realm World, more and more problems were created, which made them upset. Hence, they wanted to find some backer. Among the influences here, only Immortal Palace suited their requirement. That explained why Immortal Palace had expanded quickly in recent years. Other influences were jealous when they saw this. However, they could do nothing to stop it. After all, Zhou Bao was also one of the Immortal Palace''s disciple.


    In the face of such a situation, Yu Taixuan could only protect Divine Wind Palace. Even though he hated Zhou Bao, he did not oppose him openly. Therefore, he just took this opportunity to aggravate him.


    However, at this moment, Zhou Bao did not want to start a dispute with him. He raised his head, looked at Yu Taixuan and nodded. "Yes. That''s also my question. The Yin and Yang Dust Formation was set up by Fate Creation Boy and me. If someone wants to destroy us from the inside, only we can do it. But Fate Creation Boy won''t let the Devil Tribulation claim Heaven Realm World. Of course, I won''t do it too!"


    Zhou Bao gave his reasons. Somehow, his words convinced Yu Taixu, so he was not questioned further.


    "For this reason, I feel strange. In the current Heaven Realm World, it''s not good to plot against myself or Fate Creation Boy, because it will not succeed. So, where is the trouble coming from? The Yin and Yang Dust Formation seems to be perfect. But it is known externally. Except for the both of us, nobody knows its formation map and key function, so you don''t think that there will be trouble. Perhaps, in this world, we are the only ones who have the formation map. How about the other macro worlds? Or other influences in the Void Universe? Do you simply believe there''s only one formation map?"


    "You mean, the emissaries from other macro worlds?"


    "The passageway to Void Immortal Realm is their common goal. However, different macro worlds have their individual profits. There is nothing wrong in cooperating with the Devil Tribe. You don''t need to feel strange!" Zhou Bao said indifferently.


    "What can we do? Do we need to arrest those emissaries from the Alien Realm?" At this moment, all the people realized that the emissaries who were regarded as distinguished guests, were not at the gathering. Obviously, Zhou Bao took this into consideration when he called for this conference.


    Zhou Bao shook his head. "Nope. Some of them are capable experts. Ordinary people can''t handle them!"


    What he said made others lower their heads. Among the alien emissaries, some were Human Immortal practitioners. To the declining Heaven Realm World, they had first class combat capability. Excluding several strong persons like Zhou Bao, Wang She and Child-endowing Buddha, only some people at the top levels at Sea Area were equipped to fight against those emissaries. Hence, Zhou Bao''s words made them fall silent.


    "Since we have this problem, I suppose you have a solution!" At this time, Yu Taixuan spoke again.


    "I don''t have any solution. The only way is to protect the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!" Zhou Bao sighed. "We invited you here because we want you to be careful when you deal with them. Don''t let yourself be used. Anyway, they have some power and they are strangers here. They''re not familiar with our world. They may need your help to achieve their goal!" Zhou Bao said.


    They were all intelligent people and instantly understood what Zhou Bao meant.


    Zhou Bao was indirectly giving them a reminder that they should not be used by the emissaries. After carefully thinking this through, there was indeed a possibility. Those aliens were influences from the Void Universe, so their resources were superior to the sects in Heaven Realm World. Someday, if an emissary was given some alluring deals which seemingly would not cause harm, maybe one would not be able to resist the temptation.


    Thinking about this, most of their faces turned ugly. Nobody could guarantee that they would be able to avoid the temptation. If those emissaries offered them good deals, they would probably help them to do some small tasks. Some people had already done this.


    "I knew it will be like that!" Seeing their expressions, Zhou Bao smiled bitterly in his heart. His warning had been too late. Those alien people had stayed for a long time in Heaven Realm World and had already established good relations. It was a little too late for him to sound the warning now.


    However, he could not attack those who had real powers in this world for such reasons. On one hand, he did not have the evidence. On the other hand, he did not have any reasons to do so.


    "Well then. This is all for now. I can do nothing much. Even if the devil tribe breaks the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, so what? We still have the winning cards in our hands. Then, we can let Child-endowing Buddha use his power and expel them to the Alien Realms. In this way, this power will be exposed. However, is it a deterrence to those alien guests?" Zhou Bao thought. His eyes were fixed on Child-endowing Buddha.


    "Em. What is he doing?"


    Child-endowing Buddha sat beside Bigwheel Temple''s abbot with a book of Buddhist sutras before him. He seemed absorbed in it as if he did not hear Zhou Bao''s words. And he did not propose any objections in this conference, which was most unusual. Usually, he would be the one to put forward objections to Zhou Bao in public. His behavior surprised many people today.


    Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes and glanced at Child-endowing Buddha. Then, he stood up. "Alright. That''s all. Goodbye!"


    "Wait!"


    He was stopped by the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven who had the same eyes as Zhou Bao. His development had been good. He was more famous than Youxian Temple for his increasing powers. His behavior was similar to that of a Grandmaster. Now, he rose to his feet. Watching Zhou Bao with complex eyes, he made Zhou Bao feel terrified. It was an unnerving experience for Zhou Bao to be stared at with such eyes.


    "Anything else?"


    "I don''t think we need to worry about the Devil Tribulation. We have the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. They can''t come in!" Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven said slowly. "If we open the passageway to Void Immortal Realm as soon as possible, all the problems will be solved. Can the Devil Tribe resist the Void Immortal Realm?"


    "Good idea!"


    "Right!"


    "If we can open this passageway, everything will be easy for us!"


    "Yes. Let''s find it quickly!"


    "Thus, those alien guys will not have time to plot against us!"


    Just a mere sentence was all it took for the people to start a deep discussion.


    "From what you said, you seem to know how to open the passageway?"


    Zhou Bao laughed coldly. Everyone knew about the passageway leading to Void Immortal Realm located in Heaven Realm World. However, in the past years, they failed to get any clues as to where its position was. Even some people of the antiquity times could not tell. The passageway was controlled by Jade Emperor and several of the strongest Emperors. Now Jade Emperor had disappeared. In the vast Heaven Realm, the only one who knew was Sea Emperor, Vast Sea Emperor. Nevertheless, he had also disappeared somewhere. Till now, nobody had any clue of his whereabouts. Now, Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven suddenly mentioned it, so nobody knew that he did think of it occasionally. Besides, Zhou Bao''s question also brought this to their attention.


    "I can''t say I know it very well. But I have some clues!" Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven smiled drily with his Fiery Eyes giving off a strange light. "My Fiery Eyes recently transmitted a strange feeling to me. It seems to have some connection with the passageway. It feels like I am the only one with Fiery Eyes in this world. If there are more, maybe we could have already located the passageway!" While speaking, he glanced at Yu Taixuan, revealing his killing intent and hostility.


    "It doesn''t matter. Give me one month and I will find its position!" He smiled drily. "Then, I will broadcast the news. But I have a condition!"


    "What condition?" Yu Taixuan was suddenly nervous. A foreboding feeling rose in his heart.


    "That is to destroy your Divine Wind Palace!" Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven raised his voice and said loudly. "Who will help me to kill the practitioners of Lord of Heaven Realm level in Divine Wind Palace? Then I will tell him the details!"

 794 A Lust for Benefits

    There was a tense atmosphere in the Human Emperor Palace.


    Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven had intentionally challenged Divine Wind Palace this time. He proposed a condition which the other sects found hard to refuse. The reason was that they all knew that if they turned down his condition, he would bargain with those who were from the Alien Realm. Those aliens would definitely accept all the conditions. After all, to them, Divine Wind Palace was just a good sect. They could demolish it in seconds.


    The air seemed to freeze in the palace.


    "How dare you!" At this moment, Yu Taixuan suddenly stood up and in an extremely angry tone, said, "I''ll kill you today!"


    In an instant, sets of lights mingled together. A giant shadow of a palace appeared and rushed towards Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven.


    "Good timing!" He shouted when he saw the shadow. His robe fluttered vigorously. A sanguine eyeball showed up above his head. It shot forth a sharp beam of light at the shadow.


    "Boom!!!"


    The red light clashed with the palace shadow and the impact shook Human Emperor Palace. Meanwhile, the energy exploded in all directions. However, those in the palace were all rulers of Heaven Realm World. They had overwhelming strength, so the battle between the two Human Immortals did not have any great effect on them.


    All of a sudden, everyone glowed with a colorful radiance, which resisted the aftermath resulting from the clash. Nevertheless, Yu Taixuan and Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven were still fighting at close quarters.


    Human Emperor Yan Yuntian had a severe expression on his face. After all, this was Human Emperor Palace, his palace. Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven and Yu Taixuan obviously did not respect him.


    "Stop! This is Human Emperor Palace, not your Divine Wind Palace nor your New Tang Kingdom. Stop!" He suddenly pounded the jade table before him and roared angrily.


    His power had increased drastically since he dominated Heaven Realm World. Besides, his cultivation had reached the Realm of Human Immortal. His Way of the Emperor was filled with force. When he wielded it, the power was very formidable. Soon, he made them step back.


    Bang!


    After his intervention, Yu Taixuan and Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven exchanged blows and then backed down to their seats.


    "I won''t change my condition. It''s up to you to handle it!" Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven made an obeisance by cupping his hands and shot a defiant look at Yu Taixuan. Then he turned into a streak of blood-red light and disappeared.


    The audience erupted.


    Everyone had kept quiet when the two Human Immortals were fighting. Now, they whispered among themselves after Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven left.


    He had changed the open deal into a secret one. After this convene, it would be very normal for some people to want to close a deal with him or assassinate the Lords of Heaven and Human Immortals in Divine Wind Palace. It was a certainty.


    The passageway to Void Immortal Realm!


    It was too tempting. Any sect could not refuse such a lucrative benefit.


    Neither Yan Yuntian or Zhou Bao raised any objections to his condition. What did it mean? Did it show their tacit consent?


    After a while, Yu Taixuan''s face turned pale. He left under the scrutiny of everyone there.


    With his departure, the convening was almost at an end. However, everyone who left, behaved strangely. They subconsciously glanced at the magnificent Divine Wind Palace.


    The Human Emperor Palace was now still in Divine Wind Palace''s independent space. Generally speaking, it was only a branch palace. However, with Yan Yuntian''s increasing power, the Human Emperor Palace had separated itself from Divine Wind Palace. With Zhou Bao and Fate Creation Boy''s help, his attack force and defensive power were much higher than the whole Divine Wind Palace.


    "Why didn''t you stop him?" All the others had left. Only Zhou Bao, who was still drinking his tea, sat beside Yan Yuntian.


    "Why didn''t you do it?" Zhou Bao asked him with a sly smile. "Do you think Divine Wind Palace is a threat to you? Or is it in your way?"


    "A sect like Divine Wind Palace shouldn''t exist in a world where there''s a Human Emperor!"


    "So like I said, that guy is helping you. Why should I stop him?"


    "I thought you would..."


    "Frankly speaking, Dad, I''m not interested in Heaven Realm World. Among everyone here, its development has the least connection with me. But you''re different. You''re the Human Emperor. Its rise and decline is closely connected with you. So, if you have any requirements, just tell me. Don''t play Emperor''s Intention before me. Don''t try to get hold of my secrets in some special ways. I don''t buy it!"


    Yan Yuntian was embarrassed and laughed wryly. "I mean, since he proposed a condition, we can begin to take action. Divine Wind Palace can''t defeat you now. You can kill the Earthly Immortal, let alone several Immortals in that palace. We''d better¡ª"


    "We''d better join forces and change its board into yours. This spacetime will also be yours, right?"


    "Isn''t that good?"


    "It''s good. But what can I gain from that?"


    "You can gain the passageway to Void Immortal Realm. You care about it more than me, right? Your strength has reached a bottleneck, so it''s hard to improve your Void Universe. If you want to advance, you have to enter the Void Immortal Realm. You can solve your difficulties when you''re there. Right?"


    "If I were you, I wouldn''t think so!" Zhou Bao stood up and gave him a glacial smile. "Your Excellency, don''t think you know what my needs are. Don''t think I didn''t know you two were just pretending. I don''t care who you want to cooperate with or who you want to kill. But I should remind you. Don''t partner with the Devil Tribe. You can''t afford the consequences!"


    "You think I will partner with them?"


    "I know all the influences, experts and practitioners here. I see that you will mostly likely partner with them. Why do you think I rounded up so many people here? It''s a warning to you. My father!" Zhou Bao sneered. "Oh, my father. I''ve just killed the spies who hid in the Human Emperor Palace. In future, if you want to employ guards, please examine their background first. Several remnants of the Dark Sect are your guards. Others will laugh at you if this news is spread around! "


    "This¡ª!" Yan Yuntian''s eyes narrowed. Zhou Bao suddenly vanished.


    "Hiss¡ª" In a few seconds after Zhou Bao''s departure, Yan Yuntian gasped. When Zhou Bao uttered his last sentence, Yan Yuntian felt an invincible murderous intent and weakened instantly. However, it was only now that he realized that his sweat had already soaked through his clothes.


    "How? How does he know that? I thought this thing was confidential. Nobody knows about it except me. How does he know?" He slowly dragged his rigid body to the golden chair. After he had taken several deep breaths, he gradually fell into a deep meditation. After a while, his body suddenly trembled and he had an astounded look on his face.


    "Who?" He suddenly stood up. Golden strength streamed from him and formed into nine dragons to protect him.


    He searched for a while but could not find any trace of anyone. When he felt confused, the nine dragons'' radiance suddenly dimmed.


    "What''s happening?" Yan Yuntian was so terrified that his face turned pale. His nine dragons were formed by his emperor Qi, so it was powerful. However, a mysterious force had just appeared unexpectedly and absorbed his fate, which sapped the dragons'' radiance.


    Fate!


    It was the most mystical thing in the world. How could it be so easily absorbed? In a moment, he thought of something. At once, his heart rate speeded up.


    In this world, if somebody could absorb one''s fate, there was only one possibility.


    Fate Creation Boy.


    He was the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate and also the Guardian for Fate Creator in this world. Only he was capable of absorbing one''s fate.


    In fact, in recent years, thanks to Zhou Bao and Fate Creation Boy''s help, his strength had increased. Fate Creation Boy had helped him gain the Human Emperor''s position. Thus, his fate increased greatly and he had reached the Realm of Human Immortal. But now, Fate Creation Boy suddenly absorbed half of his fate. Now, even if his fate was still much stronger than when he was a candidate, it was now at the lowest level of the Human Emperor''s position. His strength dropped sharply. It would be very difficult for him to advance further.


    "This time, for Zhou Bao''s sake, I am teaching you a small lesson. If you do it again, just quit your Human Emperor position!" The voice seeped deeply into Yan Yuntian''s Sea of Consciousness. A cold thought made him sweat profusely again.


    "Yes!"After a while, he opened his mouth.


    "You really have a lust for benefits. Don''t you know nothing can get past Fate Creation Boy in this Heaven Realm World!" Zhou Bao said scornfully. He had already returned to Wuyang Region and was sitting in a pavilion on Jilei Mountain.

 795 Different Targets

    Being blinded by greed for interests!


    That was Zhou Bao''s assessment of his father-in-law. As the candidate for the Human Emperor of Heaven Realm World, Yan Yuntian held great power in his hands, and his personal interests had long coincided with the interests of Heaven Realm World. Unbelievably, he was secretly in cahoots with the Dark Sect and intended to defect to them at the crucial moment. How silly of him to do so! Zhou Bao had discovered some hints about it when he fought against Dark Sect, but he didn''t pay much attention to it at that time. However, as time went on, Zhou Bao finally noticed something was very wrong.


    There was certainly no shortage of wise men in the Devil Tribe, so as the Yin and Yang Dust Formation slowly released its power, they must had realized that continuing with the Fierce Owl attacks was akin to a suicide mission. But they persisted with the attack strategy, which clearly indicated that there was something fishy going on.


    Generally speaking, the more powerful the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, the more adverse it was to the Devil Tribe, and additionally the Yin and Yang Dust Formation had absorbed the essence and blood of devils.


    Why was the Devil Tribe doing this?


    There could only be one explanation¡ªthey wanted the Yin and Yang Dust Formation to be more powerful, or they wouldn''t have sacrificed so many Fierce Owls. This suggested that these damned devils were confident of capturing Heaven Realm World, and could even prevent it from being destroyed, along with the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.


    Why was the Devil Tribe so confident when all they had were only several Earthly Immortals?


    There could only be one explanation: They had somebody working inside Heaven Realm World.


    Moreover, given the particularity of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, this inside man must have a very special status. Otherwise, it was impossible for the person to be in contact with the Yin and Yang Dust Formation or pose a threat to it.


    There were not many people who met the criteria, only three men and a half. Zhou Bao, Fate Creation Boy, Vast Sea Emperor, and Yan Yuntian who was the half.


    Combined with some information he received while trying to eliminate the Dark Sect, Zhou Bao was almost certain that the inside person was his father-in-law. To pressure Yan Yuntian, he summoned people to the Human Emperor Palace to discuss the matter, but he did not anticipate the incident that happened.


    "Divine Wind Palace''s heydays seem to be over!" Wang She sighed, fiddling with a wine glass. The practitioners of all other sects of the Seven-deity Regions did not have a good impression of Divine Wind Palace. Having witnessed its gradual decline from a dominant position, they sighed with emotion.


    Don''t worry. Even if Divine Wind Palace falls, the Man of Honor, Ji Zhongtang, will be fine! Child-endowing Buddha grinned. Like Zhou Bao, he was also a time traveler, so he didn''t share the same feelings about Divine Wind Palace as the other practitioners of the Seven-deity Regions.


    "Will Heaven Realm World be fine after settling the issue regarding your father-in-law?" Wang She asked, sipping his wine; at the same time, there was a hint of self-deprecation in his expression.


    "Are you kidding? Do you think Heaven Realm World still has a chance to get out of the shadow of the Devil Tribulation?" Zhou Bao smiled bitterly, adding, "Even if my father-in-law had not done that deal, someone else would have done it. If I''m right, he''s only the second decoy that the enemy used to catch our eye, and the first one is Dark Sect. I don''t fully understand Dark Sect''s methods, but I do know that Fate Creation Boy, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and I will not be able to stop the Devil Tribulation!"


    "What!"


    Child-endowing Buddha and Wang She were stunned. They did not expect Zhou Bao to be so diffident. As the most powerful man in Heaven Realm World, his thoughts would likely affect other people.


    Once people knew that he had such a pessimistic view, there would be widespread panic in Heaven Realm World.


    "Don''t look at me like that. It''s just a hunch, but unfortunately, my hunches about this sort of thing have always been quite accurate!" Zhou Bao''s eyes flickered over them, and he continued, "Therefore, I have decided to take good care of the affairs of Wuyang Region. I will bring those who are willing to leave, into Azure Big World and let them practice there!"


    "You''re saying you will tell them you have a Supreme Fairy Weapon?"


    "No, I''ll just take them into Azure Big World. I''m going to run it well and at least have my power existing in it!" Zhou Bao answered.


    Now Azure Big World was indeed thriving, but it was a world filled with evil beasts. Although Zhou Bao spent a lot of time there, these evil beasts were not peaceful by nature and fights happened periodically. He even secretly encouraged some of the new evil beasts to compete with the original ones of Azure Big World, thus creating a delicate balance. He didn''t know if the balance was true or false, but it was better than not doing anything.


    It was his Third Primordial Spirit that did it; he didn''t have to worry about it. He had practiced his Third Primordial Spirit with heterogeneous things; these included the Infinite Poison Banner containing the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast and it was invincible in Azure Big World. Added to the fact that he had the Jade Plate of Fate that was like a plug-in, the situation there had already stabilized. In addition, he had found a huge land area there, which was used as a habitat for the people who would be brought there. In other words, he had already carved out an escape route for his Wuyang Region.


    Given that the most powerful man of Heaven Realm World was so pessimistic about the situation, it was proof that it was quite bad now.


    "What have you found, Junior Leopard?"


    "Not that I''ve found anything, but I just have a horrible feeling. It''s akin to a whim!" Zhou Bao sighed, "I feel that no matter what we do in Heaven Realm World, no matter how hard we try, it will be in vain. After all, there is no way to avoid the Devil Tribulation, even with the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!"


    "How could that be?" Wang She said, aghast. He was aware about the hunch. It was a mysterious telepathic connection that was generated when one''s cultivation and strength had reached a certain level. And it was very accurate. But no one knew where it came from.


    He did not doubt Zhou Bao''s whim, but he could not accept what Zhou Bao said. "Is this really the end for Heaven Realm World?" he asked.


    "Maybe there''s a way!" Zhou Bao turned his eyes to Child-endowing Buddha.


    "Here it comes!" Child-endowing Buddha said in his heart, with a wry smile. He already had seen it coming, but when Zhou Bao pinned such hopes on him, he was helpless. "I can''t help. I can''t do anything about it. Junior Leopard, don''t push me!"


    "Eh?" Zhou Bao was startled. He had thought with the help of the Chakra''s power, it would be all right even if the Devil Tribulation struck. If the mysterious Chakra was as wonderful as what Child-endowing Buddha said, no matter how many devils came, they would be banished from Heaven Realm World by it.


    But Child-endowing Buddha''s response surprised him.


    Wang She was even more puzzled.


    "Hey, what are you talking about?"


    Not knowing what they were talking about made Wang She anxious.


    "He''ll explain it to you. I don''t know anything and I won''t say anything!" Child-endowing Buddha raised his head and gave Wang She an unintelligible reply. Then he turned into a golden light and left.


    "What''s wrong with him?"


    "It seems to be a little tricky!" Zhou Bao forced a smile and pondered over what Child-endowing Buddha had said for a long while before replying, "He seems to have run into an insurmountable problem!" Then he told Wang She about Child-endowing Buddha and the Chakra of Heaven Realm World.


    Wang She was dumbfounded by what he heard.


    "He is really amazing. But if that is the case, why did he..."


    "That''s why I said he seems to have run into an insurmountable problem!" Zhou Bao said, "When he first told me about it, he had a vague feeling that the whole thing seemed to have been a setup. He only entered the game unintentionally and was regarded as a backup, so he was imprisoned in the underground palace of Small Thunder Temple; He will be used by someone when the right time comes. And it looks like the time is now!"


    "Then why didn''t he just tell me?"


    "When he told me about this, it was just his guess. But by now he should have been sure of it and been in contact with somebody. I think he is not allowed to disclose what he knows!"


    "You mean those who set up the game have already appeared!"


    "Based on his reactions, yes!" Recalling Child-endowing Buddha''s helplessness and embarrassment, Zhou Bao couldn''t help laughing, "It may not be that bad. Their appearance could help us make some decisions!"


    "For example?"


    "For example, their target is likely to be the Devil Tribe!"


    "Then it''s in line with our target?"


    "How is that possible? The game has been set up since antiquity times, and more than a million years have passed. Are they targeting only the several Primordial Demons at the Earthly Immortal Realm and a bunch of ineffectual Fierce Owls that have been set upon Heaven Realm World?"


    "Do they have targets that are more powerful?"


    "For those of antiquity times, the coming Devil Tribulation is nothing. Their ultimate goal cannot be Marquis Wugu and Marquis Zhihai, but should be devils at a higher level. If I''m right, the fall of Heaven Realm World is part of their plan!"


    "Are you sure?" Wang She was surprised, but no longer shocked and was very furious.


    "Look, what''s the most tempting part of Heaven Realm World?" Zhou Bao asked, smiling. "The most important thing in Heaven Realm World should be what the Devil Tribe is plotting for. Clearly, it''s impossible for the two Primordial Demons to hog it by themselves. If they conquer Heaven Realm World, they will inevitably attract the big shots from the Devil Realm, even those who ruled the Devil Realm, like the Supreme of Demons, the Demon Emperor, or even the Sage of Dark Sect. By then, if Child-endowing Buddha starts the force of the Pulse, all these people will be caught!"

 796 The Calamity of Fiery Eyes

    It was a very simple yet vicious plan. All it took was patience.


    And those Earthly Immortals, like the Great Ancient Emperors, who had practiced for innumerable years, had all the time to wait.


    Wang She was silent and so was Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao''s plan was consistent with the plan in the general direction, but the ultimate goal was far from the same. It involved differences of the planners'' horizons. The planners who set up the game had a profound vision and planned it from the point of view of the entire Void Universe. It was like comparing whales against shrimps, Zhou Bao''s vision being the shrimp. His was a short term plan from the perspective of Heaven Realm World or even of his Wuyang Region. The gap between the costs of catching a whale and catching some shrimps was too great.


    The gap was so wide that the one who wanted to catch some shrimps, could not accept it.


    "What do we do now?"


    What can we do? Leave it to fate. Have you ever seen an egg hitting a stone? Now, were the eggs, and they''re the stones! Zhou Bao said grumpily, The ancient saying goes like this, The man who can grasp the facts of a situation is a paragon of men. When it comes to this sort of affairs, the only thing people like us can do is to try our best to keep ourselves and our families alive. I have called my two children to return home. My King Wuyang Palace is ready, and so are my people. We can enter Azure Big World at any time!


    "So the situation is irreversible?"


    "Yes, of course. Chief Wang, go back and get ready. Come away with me!"


    "You''re controlling a macro world!" After a moment''s reflection, Wang She suddenly looked up at Zhou Bao and said, "Your Azure Big World is lacking in people, right?"


    "What do you mean?" Zhou Bao had a sinking feeling in his gut.


    "I''ve been there. There is plenty of spiritual qi, much better than Heaven Realm World, though not equal to the Void Immortal Realm of legend. We might as well relocate all humans in the Seven-deity Regions there to make them stronger. What do you think?"


    "Are you kidding?" Zhou Bao felt it was hard for him. "I''m telling you, I''d rather have all the ordinary people from the Seven-deity Regions in Azure Big World than those sects. At best, I''ll take the practitioners from Immortal Palace. As for the other sects, hehe, ask them to find someone else!"


    "Well," Wang She nodded thoughtfully, seeming to understand what Zhou Bao was worried about. "I don''t care. I am a member of Immortal Palace anyway!"


    "Buddy, you''re not serious, are you? Do you know how much time and effort it will take to get so many people into Azure Big World? And we don''t know what Fate Creation Boy''s attitude will be. Do you think he will agree with me to do that? It''s a blatant attempt to cut the ground from under his feet. Do you think he''ll be civil to us?"


    "It''s not our fault. It''s because he can''t protect Heaven Realm World. Doesn''t he allow us to save people?" Wang She said, after brooding for a moment.


    "It''s not as simple as you think!" Zhou Bao waved his hand, and continued, "The Devil Tribulation is not a big deal for Fate Creation Boy. The one who occupies Heaven Realm World needs his cooperation, regardless if the occupiers are humans, demons or devils. Just as in antiquity times, no one killed him after the rise of the Heavenly Court because he is the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate of Heaven Realm World. Destroying him will bring irreparable losses to Heaven Realm, and thus it is better for them to cooperate with him."


    "Then he has no reason to stop us from moving people. He''s able to save himself, but he has no ability to protect human beings. As the Fate Creator of Heaven Realm World, doesn''t he want them to be saved?"


    Haha, what you said is justifiable and it makes sense! Zhou Bao said, applauding softly, Why don''t you say it to his face?


    "Do you think I will not dare to say it to his face?"


    "No, no!" Zhou Bao looked at the excitable Wang She with an odd look on his face. "You heard it, Fate Creation Boy. What do you think?"


    "What?" Wang She jumped to his feet, looked around and found Fate Creation Boy standing behind him, with a somber look on his face.


    Wang She''s expression changed. Since he and Child-endowing Buddha had undergone Thunder Tribulations outside Heaven Realm World, they were far less afraid of Fate Creation Boy than the native practitioners. Fate Creation Boy was less of a deterrent to them than the common practitioners. In addition, for Zhou Bao''s sake, Fate Creation Boy would not lose his temper instantly. He walked to the table and sat in the chair that Child-endowing Buddha had just vacated.


    "Are you so sure that the Yin and Yang Dust Formation can''t resist the invasion of the Devil Tribe?"


    "If it can, you won''t put on such a face!" Zhou Bao smiled but didn''t give him a straight answer. "We both know that the Yin and Yang Dust Formation will stop working sooner or later. What you care about is how to end your struggle with the Devil Tribe honorably and achieve your best interests, and what I care about is how to save myself. That makes the two of us!"


    "Yes, you''re right. But do you really think the Devil Tribe will be the victor?"


    "Of course not!" Zhou Bao laughed, "I just made that clear. It''s beyond my ability and all I can do is stay as far away as I can!"


    Hearing this, Fate Creation Boy heaved a sigh. He was very reluctant to admit it, but it was true. Things had gone far beyond his and Zhou Bao''s abilities.


    Relying on the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, their ace in the hole, they could have dealt with other macro worlds and tribes from the Void Universe. Unfortunately, the Devil Tribe came.


    If it was a normal Devil Tribulation, it would have been easier to deal with. However, it was obvious that some ancient mighties had intervened in this one, and they even had it all worked out. It was a game that had already been set up and would result in a catastrophe. Even Earthly Immortals couldn''t do anything about it.


    "I don''t care what you want to do. If you''re going to move humans out, I won''t object, and I''ll even help you out. But you know, this is not even close to the end yet!"


    "It''s not close to the end?" Zhou Bao laughed again, and said, "You mean¡ª"


    "Didn''t your distant relative set out to find the passage to the Void Immortal Realm? As long as we can open up the passage and communicate with the Immortal Realm before the Devil Tribe breaks through the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, we will have a chance to escape, even to take the initiative!" Speaking of which, he stared at Zhou Bao, saying, "You have the same eyes as he does, and you can do what he can!"


    "To communicate with the Immortal Realm?" Zhou Bao paused for a second, and a rather strange idea came to him.


    As Fate Creators, both Fate Creation Boy and Zhou Bao could enter the Void Immortal Realm, but their movements would be restricted. They were, so to speak, two unregistered Fate Creators there, who had not yet been fully recognized by the Void Immortal Realm, and whose sphere of action was confined to the remains of the ancient Sacred City of Fate.


    Once they had communicated with the Immortal Realm, they could enter the Immortal Realm through the passage and ask those ancient mighties for help.


    But would it be that simple?


    Zhou Bao didn''t think of this at first, but when Fate Creation Boy mentioned it, Zhou Bao suddenly stood up and shouted, "That''s a bad idea!"


    "Why?" Fate Creation Boy and Wang She were all taken aback by his response.


    "My distant relative you just mentioned is likely to be in trouble. I have to go and see him!"


    "Boom!!!"


    In the New Tang Kingdom of the Three Western Regions.


    There were dark clouds in the sky, and countless thunderbolts, each the size of a child''s arm, rained down from above, covering an area of more than 50 kilometers. The ground resembled a charred hell.


    "B*stard, b*stard!"


    The newly established Fiery Eyes Palace was already in ruins and all the new disciples had escaped. Ye Qingtian, the old subordinate of the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven, had suffered a great deal and his fairy weapon, the North Pole Frozen Wheel, had been turned into a piece of junk by the lightning strikes. Even the bloody robe of the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven had been ripped apart. His body was covered with black scars and his eyes were bloodshot and blazing with an angry light.


    "It''s you. It''s you! Hem, you are the ones behind the attempt to exterminate the Fiery Eyes Bloodline. And now you can''t help it, huh?" He bellowed, his voice filled with piercing hatred.


    "Alas, I was going to let you off the hook, but you''re courting death!" With a soft sigh, two figures emerged from the darkness. One of them was dressed in a magnificent robe and had a lofty air about him; he was Yu Taixuan, the current lord of Divine Wind Palace. The other one was a tall, thin man with a pale, clean shaven face. He was dressed in white and waves of cold energy emanated from his body.


    "Who the hell are you?" The Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven asked bitterly.


    "Humph, you''re dying. Is there any need to know?" Yu Taixuan sneered, suppressing his ecstasy. "The Fiery Eyes Bloodline is destined not to exist in this world. It will perish after all. Go to hell!"


    "Yu Taixuan, as lord of Divine Wind Palace, you''ve become someone''s pet now. You''ve really put your forefathers to shame!"


    "You''re seeking your doom!" The remark cut Yu Taixuan to the quick, and his face darkened. Then he moved forward, trying to attack the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven. The man beside him quickly grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back.


    "Hold your horses! A watched pot never boils!" he persuaded Yu Taixuan.

 797 The Jade Bell King Gao Qiang

    Thousands of years ago, the owners of the Fiery Eyes had been killed by Divine Wind Palace. It was said that these people would become incredibly powerful once their Fiery Eyes were revived. Feeling threatened, Divine Wind Palace, which was the absolute dominant power at that time, combined with the most powerful forces and eliminated these people. And to prevent future trouble, for thousands of years thereafter, Divine Wind Palace never stopped pursuing the people with the Fiery Eyes Bloodline.


    Zhou Bao believed in this explanation. As the saying goes, tear the weeds out by its roots, so that it can never grow again. Given the potential of the bloodline and the depth of their hatred, Divine Wind Palace continuously hunted down the owners of the bloodline in case they became powerful enough to seek revenge.


    But as the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven claimed in the Human Emperor Palace that he could find the passage to the Void Immortal Realm with his Fiery Eyes, those explanations became questionable.


    When he discussed the current situation with Child-endowing Buddha, Wang She and Fate Creation Boy, he suddenly realized that the main culprit for the extinction of the Fiery Eyes Bloodline might not be Divine Wind Palace. There could be someone behind the scenes, pushing for it. The reason was simple: to let the vanishing passage to the Immortal Realm disappear.


    With this in mind, he suddenly thought that the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven might be in trouble. No matter who was behind it or what their purpose was, the appearance of the passage to the Immortal Realm was absolutely against their interests, and they would undoubtedly get rid of the Fiery Eyes who was trying to find the passage.


    If it was in the past, Zhou Bao could do nothing about it, but now, it was not certain.


    If the eyes of the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven''s was able to find the passage to the Immortal Realm, then so could his Fiery Eyes. Zhou Bao thought if he was the one behind the scene, he would never let anyone who may influence his plan, get away. Therefore, Zhou Bao must be one of their targets, as well.


    After some analysis and discussion, Zhou Bao instinctively perceived the danger, and did not want to talk anymore. He immediately opened the space across the Sea Area and arrived in the New Tang Kingdom. No sooner had he put his head out than he knew he had come at the right time.


    The New Tang Kingdom was already in ruins and the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven was seriously injured by a mysterious thin, tall man dressed in white. When Zhou Bao broke open the space again, he heard Yu Taixuan say "The Fiery Eyes Bloodline is destined not to exist in this world. It will perish after all. Go to hell!"


    Then he saw the white-robed man holding back Yu Taixuan who was about to attack the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven.


    "You are excellent, but you have the wrong pair of eyes!" The white-robed man said in a lofty manner, looking at the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven, still holding on to Yu Taixuan. Zhou Bao noticed the man had an eerie silvery light around him that made his eyes uncomfortable.


    "The Heavenly Magic Eye is one of the most powerful Natal Powers of Innate Deities. It was a mistake for those necromancers to give it to ordinary human beings, and it needs to be corrected!" As the man said these words, his silver light became even more intense and the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven became paler and paler. Now, even a fool could realize that the silver light was specially used to restrain the Fiery Eyes. More than half of his strength lay in his eyes, so if they were fully restrained, he could not exert even half his strength.


    The man looked at the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven as if he was looking at a lamb about to be killed.


    "Stop struggling, and kill yourself!"


    "Humph, I''m right here. If you can, kill me!" Under the influence of the silver light, the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven had totally given up using his eyes; instead he raised the two swords in his hands.


    "It''s just a Lower Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. Do you think you can escape from me with that?" The man raised his right hand and attacked the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven with his palm. The Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven shouted, and met the attack head-on, and waved his swords.


    "He''s risking his life!" Looking at the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven, Zhou Bao felt a little flutter in his heart. Now the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven''s Fiery Eyes were completely suppressed by the silver light. The tall, thin man had reached the Immortal Realm, and the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven could not beat him even while using the Taihao Fairy Weapon.


    As expected, although the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven had tried his best to exert the power of the fairy weapons in his hand, the man''s palm had a mysterious force. When the man attacked him using his hand, he felt as if the hand had covered the whole heaven and earth; his pair of celestial swords could not withstand it, and lost its power duly. Furthermore, the blow sent him flying far away.


    "I''ll give you one more chance to kill yourself, or¡ª!" Before he could finish speaking, the man''s face changed, and he backed away sharply, asking, "Who are you?"


    "I can give you a chance to kill yourself now, otherwise it''s not that easy to die!" Zhou Bao emerged from the darkness, and turned to Yu Taixuan, adding, "Lord Yu, long time no see!"


    "Zhou Bao! King Wuyang, why are you here?" He was surprised to see Zhou Bao. Then he realized that his surroundings had changed. Looking up, he saw the sky was already covered by a pale blue canopy. "It''s...the Space Division Skill!"


    "Good eye. It is the Space Division Skill!" Zhou Bao said, casting a glance at Yu Taixuan, and then focused his attention on the man. "Sir, it''s a good move. You''re so powerful. Where are you from, please?"


    "You are Zhou Bao, King Wuyang?" The man''s face suddenly became severe. Zhou Bao had appeared out of nowhere. And although he seemed to have no momentum, his words gave the man great pressure. The man''s cultivation was at the Immortal state, and his combat capability far exceeded ordinary Immortals, but Zhou Bao''s record was too frightening. He had no chance of winning against a man who had killed an Earthly Immortal. What was more, he had not been aware of his appearance, approach and executing of the Space Division Skill at all, which indicated that Zhou Bao was much stronger than him.


    "I am Zhou Bao, and who are you? Which macro world are you from? How dare you create havoc in our Seven-deity Regions! Do you think we have no one to deal with you?"


    The man took a deep breath, met Zhou Bao''s furious eyes, and answered, "King Wuyang, I am also a man from Heaven Realm World. As for my background and why I want to kill him, you don''t need to know. This matter has nothing to do with you. Don''t meddle in it to avoid getting into trouble!"


    Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows, and said, "That''s funny. You''re a man from Heaven Realm World. You know, it''s been a long time since anyone dared to talk to me in this manner!"


    "That''s because you''re ignorant. Do not think that with some strength and a bit of a relationship with the Fairy Weapon of Fate, you are invincible in Heaven Realm. You''d better leave soon. If you delay my business, you might not be able to bear the consequences!"


    "Really?" Zhou Bao suddenly gave a weird laugh, "Jade Bell King Gao Qiang, you think I don''t know who you are?"


    The Jade Bell King Gao Qiang!!!


    The man was shocked to hear Zhou Bao say his name. "Why, why you¡ª!"


    He could not, of course, see Ghost Child coming out of the red gourd. At this time, the Ghost Child was standing on Zhou Bao''s head and was conveying the information he knew about the man through divine thoughts. "Not only do I know that you are Gao Qiang, the Jade Bell King of the Ancient Celestial Court, I also know that you are the right-hand man of the Celestial Mystery Emperor!"


    "Good, good, we seem to have underestimated you!" As Zhou Bao revealed his identity, Gao Qiang was silent for a few minutes before saying, "Now that you know who I am, are you still going to meddle in this?"


    Of course! Zhou Bao said coldly, Don''t think that by relying on the Celestial Mystery Emperor, you can do whatever you want. Do you know why I didn''t kill you immediately and instead spouted a lot of nonsense to you?


    "Why?" A sudden nervousness seized Gao Qiang.


    "It was because I wanted to see if the legendary Celestial Mystery Emperor was really so amazing that he could sense that you were in trouble and come over to save you. It has been ten breaths since I appeared and performed the Space Division Skill until now. With his power, if he had felt it, he would have arrived already, but there hasn''t been any action so far. It means I can kill you without any qualms!"


    "You¡ª!"


    "Shut up, go to hell!" While Gao Qiang was still in shock, Zhou Bao rushed to him and punched him in the chest. A flash of silver erupted from Gao Qiang and he was thrown upside down.


    "How dare you, Zhou Bao! You dare attack me. You''ll be sorry!" Gao Qiang roared, but did not retaliate. In a flash, a silver dagger appeared in his hand. The silver dagger reeked of an obscure spatial fluctuation. As soon as it appeared, the sky, divided by two boundaries, quivered.


    "Do you want to run away? No chance!" Knowing what Gao Qiang wanted to do, Zhou Bao certainly wouldn''t give him the chance. He flashed to Gao Qiang''s side, grabbed his collar from behind with one hand, and raised the other hand which were coiled into a fist and hit Gao Qiang hard on the head.


    Gao Qiang''s silver light emerged again, but did not block Zhou Bao''s fist. A strange tearing force emerged from Zhou Bao''s fist, splitting apart the silver light and his head to pieces.


    It was a black hole!


    Zhou Bao made a Black Hole Fist Intent with this punch.


    The great force did not stop even after it tore Gao Qiang''s head to pieces, but reduced his body, spirit, and everything else he owned to ashes. In the end, there was no trace left of him at all.


    "Well done! Now you have to make the rest disappear as well. In this way, there will be no evidence and even the Celestial Mystery Emperor will not know what had happened!" Ghost Child shouted, and his eyes were aglow with his diabolic thoughts.

 798 Not Time for a Showdown

    "Zhou Bao, how dare you! Are you crazy? You know he''s the Celestial Mystery¡ª!"


    Yu Taixuan felt like he was going crazy.


    Divine Wind Palace had been on the decline, just like the fall of Heaven Realm World. Since Zhou Bao''s rise, Divine Wind Palace had suffered a series of blows and had dropped from the first sect in the Seven-deity Regions. Although it was still the most powerful sect in the Seven-deity Regions, it was nowhere as powerful as before.


    As lord of Divine Wind Palace, he was unable to revitalize Divine Wind Palace and hated his inability to revive it. He could only lament at the lack of opportunity.


    During the last discussion that was held at Human Emperor Palace, the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven was openly hostile to Divine Wind Palace and had threatened them. Though no one responded in the palace, the blazing fire displayed in the eyes of the Elders and Leaders of those sects would have been enough to reduce him and Divine Wind Palace to ashes.


    At that moment he almost broke down. Divine Wind Palace could decline under his rule, but it must not be destroyed. When he returned to Divine Wind Palace, the first thing he did was to gather their influences together. He even planned to relocate the space where Divine Wind Palace was situated, following the example of the Jade Emperor. Just as he was going to carry out this plan, the Jade Bell King Gao Qiang found him, showed him his great strength and told him the truth about the destruction of the Fiery Eyes and the other truths hidden in its history.


    He was overjoyed to have some hope of the resurgence of Divine Wind Palace. This also encouraged him to lead Gao Qiang to kill the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven in the first place. Although Gao Qiang had not reached the Earthly Immortal Realm, as an old Immortal of the antiquity times, his combat capability could not be matched by ordinary Immortals, not to mention the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven who was several levels below him. Besides, he had the weapon which could overcome his Fiery Eyes. Therefore, after they arrived in the New Tang Kingdom, the arrogant Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven was powerless to resist his attacks. The fairy weapons and Dharma powers of the New Tang Kingdom were no match for his strength. Finally, he totally wiped out the power of the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven as easily as crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood.


    Just when he thought that success was inevitable and he would take back the head of the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven to display in Human Emperor Palace as a warning to those who had inordinate ambitions about Divine Wind Palace, Zhou Bao suddenly appeared.


    Even though Gao Qiang showed his absolute strength in front of Zhou Bao, Zhou Bao managed to overwhelm him. Gao Qiang, an Immortal who had been famous since antiquity times, was so vulnerable that he could not even escape. Finally, his spirit died under Zhou Bao''s fists attack.


    Yu Taixuan was horrified. He could not understand how Zhou Bao dared to kill Gao Qiang even after knowing his identity. Was he not afraid of the revenge of the Celestial Mystery Emperor?


    When Zhou Bao turned to look at him, his question disappeared.


    He saw the Fiery Eyes!!!


    Zhou Bao''s eyes glowed as red as fire, which explained everything.


    "I know he is the subordinate of the Celestial Mystery Emperor. I also know why they want to exterminate the Fiery Eyes Bloodline. What I want to know now is whether you want to die or live, Lord Yu?"


    "If I said I wanted to live, would you let me go?"


    "No!" Zhou Bao laughed, and turned his eyes to the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven. "Buddy, your hope reviving the Fiery Eyes Bloodline seems to have been dashed!" he said, watching him help a badly hurt Ye Qingtian up.


    "Humph!" The Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven gave him a cold snort, and said, "I didn''t expect you to help me!"


    "Something unexpected doesn''t mean it won''t happen!" Zhou Bao smiled, "Anyway, we share the same bloodline. Now that I know why this bloodline is taboo and as one of the bloodline inheritors, I had to do something, right?"


    "So, what are you going to do now? Destroy Divine Wind Palace or fight back?" The Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven asked. His knowledge of the matter was not as clear as Zhou Bao''s, and he only vaguely guessed that it had something to do with his eyes being able to find the passage to the Immortal Realm.


    "What I''m going to do is hide everything related to this, including you. Now, our opponent is the Celestial Mystery Emperor. He''ll find us if he is able to get any hint of it!" Zhou Bao said with a faint smile. Then he lifted his hand and the blue canopy in the sky released a dazzling brilliance. As soon as the Space Rampart opened completely, a current of strong spiritual qi swept over them.


    "Welcome to Azure Big World!"


    Welcome to Azure Big World!!


    When Zhou Bao uttered this sentence, the magical appearance of Azure Big World was revealed to the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven and others.


    "Is this your macro world? You''re an Earthly Immortal now?"


    "No, it was just a micro world I got. It evolved into a complete macro world by chance. And I''m the Fate Creator here. So, in a sense, you can think of me as an Earthly Immortal!"


    "You!" The Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven stood there dumbfounded for a moment, before heaving a sigh. He was at a loss for words when he heard Zhou Bao''s answer and about his good fortune.


    "Then what''s next?"


    "Look, I never thought I''d bring you here!" Zhou Bao said, "This is a large island in the heart of Azure Spirit Sea, a little larger than three Central Mainland Regions. In addition to this large island, there are 16 similar islands. There are no powerful evil beasts within tens of thousands of kilometers around these islands, which is very suitable for human survival!"


    "You mean you are going to move people from Heaven Realm World into your macro world?"


    "That will be the last resort!" Zhou Bao smiled again, "We cannot always stay in Heaven Realm World, while Azure Big World lacks people. We''d better plan for the future!"


    "In other words, you want us to stay here?"


    "We have no choice. Now I''m not able to fight the Celestial Mystery Emperor, let alone the powerful forces behind him. You know, they were probably the most powerful of the 99 Emperors, maybe even including the Jade Emperor. Thus, I can only bring you here to avoid any future trouble."


    "How long do we have to stay here?"


    "It could be a long time. You have to stay here until everything is settled!" Zhou Bao smiled bitterly, and added, "Rest assured. It''s a good place. The spiritual qi here is infinitely more abundant than that of Heaven Realm World. Resources are about a hundred times more sufficient than there. Your practice speed can be enhanced at a tremendous pace. Besides, as the Fate Creator here, I can help you when you go through the Thunder Tribulation. Believe me, your strength will grow very rapidly here. Take this as a closed-door training!"


    "Well, we have no choice!" After a moment''s reflection, the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven gave a gentle sigh. "Are there really no human beings here other than us?" he suddenly asked.


    "I have two friends who often come here to practice. You''ll know when they come! The Celestial Mystery Emperor, hehe, this trip is really worth it!"


    "Now, we know the Celestial Mystery Emperor is behind it, but there''s nothing we can do!" Back at Heaven Realm World, Zhou Bao looked a little tired. Wang She and Fate Creation Boy had not left yet. Fate Creation Boy momentarily paled when he heard Zhou Bao''s opening sentence.


    Zhou Bao noticed the change of expression in his face, but did not say anything. As the Fate Creator of Heaven Realm World, it was strange that he didn''t perceive what had happened to New Tang Kingdom. And few people could make this happen. Only when Zhou Bao launched the Space Division Skill and brought the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven and others to Azure Big World did he realize that there was something wrong with New Tang Kingdom. Then, he silently inferred and deduced in his mind, and knew that New Tang Kingdom had been destroyed. When he tried to continue, an obscure force suddenly appeared and blocked all his perceptions.


    "Celestial Mystery Skill, it''s the Celestial Mystery Emperor!" Fate Creation Boy''s face fell. His hands stretched out and an invisible force spread over him, giving forth a fierce flash of golden light over his head. At the same time, in the depths of the endless hollow, the Celestial Mystery Emperor, who had kept his eyes closed for a rest, suddenly jerked and opened his eyes.


    "What happened?"


    In this mysterious space, in addition to the Celestial Mystery Emperor, there were several experts from the antiquity times. They were all startled at the sight of the Celestial Mystery Emperor abruptly sitting up.


    "Fate Creation Boy, damn it, he tried to fight against me!"


    "Fate Creation Boy? How''s it going with Gao Qiang?"


    "His vitality is gone, and so is his spirit!"


    "That''s impossible. He is an Immortal, second only to the Earthly Immortal. No one can kill him except the Earthly Immortal!"


    "The one who can kill an Earthly Immortal could also kill him of course. Although Fate Creation Boy has shielded the Divine Design, it''s easy to know who the killer is with a little deduction. Within Heaven Realm World, only King Wuyang Zhou Bao has the strength and ability to do it!"


    "King Wuyang Zhou Bao? That weird Tribulation Taker?"


    "Yes, that''s him!"


    "Is there a way to remove this threat?"


    "It''s difficult!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor sighed, and looked up at those experts, saying, "If his combat capability has really reached the Earthly Immortal Realm, there''s nothing we can do about it. You know, when the Jade Emperor made that decision, we were already involved in it!"


    "We can do nothing about it, but someone else can. Don''t forget that there is someone left in Heaven Realm World. Besides, he can use their powers freely, although the usage is limited."


    "You mean Vast Sea Emperor?"

 799 Plan

    "Don''t think you can hide this from the Celestial Mystery Emperor just because I brought the person to the Azure Big World and cleaned up the mess!" Zhou Bao felt unassured because the matter did not involve him. Conversely, he pestered incessantly. He spoke in a way that seemed like only a spirit cudgel understood. "There are not many in the Heaven Realm World that can do things so swiftly. Soon, he should be able to guess that I was the one who has done it. However, without other clues, he will not have a reason to think that it was me. Then what shall we do next?!"


    "Since you know we can''t hide this from the Celestial Mystery Emperor, you must be mentally prepared to receive attacks!" The Fate Creation Boy spoke in a low voice, "His acts of revenge were always quick!"


    "Will he do it himself?"


    "Hmm, if he could, then there wouldn''t be so many troubles caused!" At this point in time, Fate Creation Boy thought of something and laughed sinisterly. "A guy like Celestial Mystery Emperor is the best at calculating, they hate anything that doesn''t go with their plan. His plans are always foolproof. No matter what''s the plan about, he''ll always find someone that won''t make mistakes. Similarly, this time around, when he sent Gao Qiang, the Jade Bell King out, your distant relative could not fight back one bit."


    "But he did not count on me!"


    "When he''s dealing with you, he won''t make the same mistake," The Fate Creation Boy wore a straight face as he replied, "There''s still me, I''ve messed up the Divine Design, he''ll know it''s done by me for sure."


    "That means we''re all in trouble now!"


    "That''s right, we are his next targets."


    "Since he can''t do it personally, how will he defeat us?!"


    "There is no lack of methods. Don''t assume that you''re the only one in the Heaven Realm World who possesses the capabilities of an Earthly Immortal!" Fate Creation Boy glanced at Zhou Bao and continued, "There are many mysterious spacetimes in the endless spacetime itself that I cannot fathom. In these spacetimes, there could be powerful Earthly Immortals from the antiquity times hidden. There could even be Emperors like the Vast Sea Emperor!"


    "The Heaven Realm World cannot withstand such turmoil!" Zhou Bao proclaimed after pondering the idea.


    With the big picture in mind, the Heaven Realm World will always remain a normal macro world no matter how amazing or strong it becomes. With the appearance of so many Earthly Immortals experts all at once, if a war erupted, the Heaven Realm World would be the first destroyed.


    "This is the part where I find it troublesome. They can find anyone but please, not the Vast Sea Emperor. That guy can''t leave the Heaven Realm World. If he attacks you, it will bring trouble to the world. Now that the world faces so many problems internally and externally, it cannot entertain you lot messing around!"


    "Do you think that that''s what I desire?" Zhou Bao laughed bitterly, "It''s inevitable now, even if I don''t wish it. Should I allow them to beat me up and not fight back? Besides, you too, know the purpose of the Celestial Mystery Emperor. They intend to let the Devil Tribe flood in. They can skip all the causing of troubles and just open the Yin and Yang Dust Formation directly to let them in and take over the Heaven Realm World. Are you willing? I am satisfied either way, because I''ll just escape with my family."


    "You!" After listening to Zhou Bao, Fate Creation Boy paused momentarily before sighed heavily. What Zhou Bao said was correct. He owned a Supreme Fairy Weapon and was the Dominator of a macro world. If he did not want to get involved in this mess, Fate Creation Boy really owned no means of stopping him. He sighed, "It''s pointless to talk about anything now. The best way is to find that passageway to the Immortal Realm as soon as possible. After that, we''ll contact the Immortal Realm. Then, we''ll have enough sources to negotiate with those Alien Worlds. After we contact the Immortal Realm, the group with Celestial Mystery Emperor will see their folly in attacking us."


    "You think it''s easy to contact the Immortal Realm?" Zhou Bao was helpless too. "I also heard about that guy, his Fiery Eyes can indeed detect the passageway. However, only subtly so. If we want the accurate position, that would take time. Now, it all depends on how much time the Celestial Mystery Emperor gives us."


    "We don''t have much time. If we can dream it, so can he. He will not grant us excessive time!"


    "Then we can only think of other ways."


    "What other ways?" Seeing Zhou Bao deep in thought, Fate Creation Boy sneered in agitation. "Perhaps you have a good idea?"


    "It cannot be called a good one, but it''s worth an attempt." After thinking about his idea again, Zhou Bao thought about Child-endowing Buddha. He recognized the secrets of the Chakra of the Heaven Realm World. This supposed passageway evolved from the main Chakra. Child-endowing Buddha definitely knew its exact location. However, he was definitely under some form of restriction and could not transmit any messages to others. Hence, Zhou Bao''s only option was another method, one to dig out this secret from Child-endowing Buddha.


    "I also have Fiery Eyes, let me try to connect with my distant relative and see if we can find the passageway quicker." Zhou Bao said.


    He also possessed Fiery Eye. By right, he sensed all things that the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven could. However, such was not the case. They had different attitudes toward their Fiery Eyes. 80% of the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven''s capabilities came from the help of his Fiery Eye. Hence, he researched it heavily and was extremely equipped with knowledge about it. He was also very resourceful with exploring the usage of his Fiery Eye. As for Zhou Bao, he only viewed his Fiery Eye as a tool to use when needed. Without any situation to utilize it in, he would just lay keep it dormant. But the number of contributions his Fiery Eye added to his capabilities was insignificant.


    When his capabilities were not so vast-ranging, there were still times he needed it to help him gain control over a situation. Now that he arrived in this realm, there was no need at all for the Fiery Eye to assist him. Hence, how could he possess the same magnitude of sense as the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven?


    Of course, it was sufficient for this to be known only to Zhou Bao. There was no need for others''s awareness, nor was it meaningful enough to be mentioned.


    After sending away Fate Creation Boy, Zhou Bao ordered a few things from Wang She. Technically, it could not be counted as ''ordered''. Instead, a plan on how to escape from the Heaven Realm World. There was an urgent shortage of manpower in the Azure Big World but Zhou Bao was willing to move some manpower away with him. However, this affected and complicated many other things. As a man with limited time to work with, Zhou Bao left the planning to Wang She, since the latter was very keen on this matter.


    Wang She grew accustomed to Zhou Bao''s irresponsible behavior as a leader. Without any rebuttal, he left Jilei Mountain.


    "Why are you here?! At this point in time, Child-endowing Buddha already recovered and resumed his normal job of welcoming people at the front of the Human Emperor Palace. However, the shadow of the person approaching him robbed his light-hearted spirit.


    "Why, Guide Master, do you not welcome me?" Zhou Bao''s body flashed past the entrance of the palace and a brainwave flashed over. "I know that it is not convenient now, but I have no other choice. Things have already unraveled like this and I can only depend on you."


    "Depend on me?!" Seeing Zhou Bao hide his body, Child-endowing Buddha then said, while communicating with Zhou Bao via divine thoughts, "Please don''t tell me you''re going to...!"


    "I am thinking of it, but you don''t have to tell me, I know that you seem to be in trouble too."


    "Not trouble, it''s big trouble!" Once the topic was brought up, Child-endowing Buddha''s blood rose. As a Great Ancient Demon and Green Dragon King, he was quite an influential character back in antiquity times. It was impossible for him not to be enraged after realizing the manipulation, but what could he gain from his anger? He was weaker than the opposite party. An Emperor and an Earthly Immortal, he was not the only one. For a plan this enormous required preparation for thousands of years, it was not something that Child-endowing Buddha''s insignificant status as the Green Dragon King solved. Do to mention it was because his capabilities depleted tremendously. Even if he restored all his powers from the antiquity times and leveled up, he would still be unable to fight those bastards that set him up. Now that Zhou Bao mentioned this, how could he not be frustrated?


    "Hence, you don''t have to say anything. Just listen to me. You don''t have to nod or shake your head too, just listen to me." Zhou Bao continued, "I know that you''ve been framed by others, it should be because of the Heaven Realm''s Chakra. Forget about other dealings, I have to find the passageway to the Immortal Realm as quick as possible. This passageway is the main vein of the Chakra. I think you should know the place. Quickly think of a way to tell me where it is. Also, I am aware you''re restricted by some sort of allegiance. I cannot help you, but I believe Fate Creation Boy can. If he is willing, even by just a minuscule amount, I trust we will reach our goals." After speaking, Zhou Bao''s divine thoughts disappeared without a trace.


    Zhou Bao''s divine thoughts vanished, but Child-endowing Buddha furrowed his brow. He wore a miserable expression again. "This damned bastard, why is he always finding me!"


    Three days later, Taihua Mountain.


    Zhou Bao and Child-endowing Buddha appeared in front of Fate Creation Boy with straight faces. Child-endowing Buddha spoke not a word and wore a miserable expression.


    "What is wrong?"


    "I want to know, if you make a Great Vow of the Heart Demon to the heavens in the Heaven Realm World, will you be able to break it?"


    "Breaking a vow...what has this to do with me?" Fate Creation Boy was lost. "The Great Vow of the Heart Demon is a vow promised to the heavens. However, it stems from the vower''s heart. It''s impossible to break."


    "I don''t want to break it, I just want to know if there is any way to avoid it." Zhou Bao continued, "Let me tell you, this affects whether we can find the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm. You are the Fate Creator of the Heaven Realm World, it shouldn''t be troublesome for you."


    "What do you mean by it affects whether you find the passageway?!" Fate Creation Boy asked in alarm.


    "This guy knows where the passageway is, but is restricted by the vow and cannot say where. This vow is very likely made in front of the Celestial Mystery Emperor, so I think you get my reasoning."


    Fate Creation Boy''s face straightened sternly.

 800 Secret Time Skill

    Even a practitioner feared things like the Great Vow of the Heart Demon. They might even consider it as a taboo. That was because this thing proved influential to their cultivation. If one accidentally went against their vow, the effects on their cultivation would be disastrous. Hence, the limited chances for a practitioner to desire pledging the vow. It only happened when forced to do so. After which, no sane person dared violate it.


    Hence, Child-endowing Buddha suffered!


    He knew nothing good came from being dragged here by Zhou Bao. But he did not expect Zhou Bao to be so direct, spilling all confidential information within a few breaths. He even pushed the burden to Fate Creation Boy!


    "You fella, you really know how to make things difficult for me!" After being silent for a while, Fate Creation Boy finally sighed. "I am not the crucial part in this matter, it''s he himself. I can only use my advantage as a Fate Creator to create a condition for him."


    "Condition? What condition!"


    "A condition unaffected by the vow. As I said, he plays a crucial role. The Great Vow of the Heart Demon is pledged to the heavens, but eventually, he must face his Internal Demons. If one forgets about having once broken the vow and never remember it again, then it is equivalent to never having violated it."


    "Who are you kidding!" Zhou Bao listened and instantly felt the whole situation too absurd. Was it possible to introduce amnesia at this point in time? They were all practitioners, and extremely strong ones at that. They all understood themselves, not only their bodies, but also their spirits. It was impossible for people with this level of cultivation to suffer from amnesia. Even if it did happen, they recover their memory in the future when their cultivation increased and they move to different phases. That spelled trouble. Think about it, remembering you had violated the Great Vow of the Heart Demon just when you were about to advance in rank, that was basically leading possession by the devil!


    Hence, both Zhou Bao and Child-endowing Buddha took the words of Fate Creation Boy as a jest. It would be a joke if they really took it seriously, but if it really became true, then why would the Great Vow of the Heart Demon be needed anymore?


    "I am not jesting with you all, I''m telling you seriously, the Great Vow of the Heart Demon is an extremely evil shit, only this method can save you!"


    "But it''s impossible to give him amnesia!" Zhou Bao explained, "Even if he loses his memory now, he''ll remember it soon enough. That doesn''t make any difference."


    "It''s easy to make him not remember, just don''t allow it."


    "Bullshit!" Zhou Bao was close to giving Fate Creation Boy a fatal kick. Such nonsense! He contradicted himself so much, he might as well not say anything.


    "I know what you meant." Zhou Bao couldn''t follow, but a spark lit up in Child-endowing Buddha''s eyes, "You mean to say, we should use the legendary secret skill?"


    "That''s right, we only need to have a location," Fate Creation Boy smiled faintly and his gaze softened. "Hence, you wouldn''t be giving much information away. Little time is needed as well. My capabilities are sufficient to use the secret skill once."


    "Hmm, that seems to be a way out. I actually forgot you are the Fate Creator and have the power to do those kinds of secret skills and also bring me to that place!" Child-endowing Buddha smiled, "Well then, let''s begin!"


    "What are you guys talking about?" Zhou Bao shrugged in complete confusion. Seeing the two communicate with such affection, he could not help but feel left out.


    "The Secret Time Skill, it is the only secret skill that can eliminate the influence of the Great Vow of the Heart Demon!" Fate Creation Boy sneered at Zhou Bao with despise towards his lack of knowledge. "However, the real Secret Time Skill can only be used in the Void Immortal Realm as it will affect the Heaven Realm World!"


    "Launching it in the Void Immortal Realm affects the Heaven Realm World?" Hearing the phrase ''Secret Time Skill'', Zhou Bao understood. As one raised in a world filled with Sci-Fi films in the past life, Zhou Bao naturally imagined what these two thought.


    "Is the Secret Time Skill really so effective? However, wouldn''t it be difficult to change the speed of time in the whole of Heaven Realm World?" Zhou Bao asked. He was the Fate Creator of the Azure Big World and also owned fairy weapons like the Wheel of Time. Thus, he possessed the power to control the speed of time passing in a macro world. However, this only meant he could increase or decrease the speed while time continued to flow in the same direction. He was unable to turn back time. In fact, he never heard of any tricks that could do so. Not even an Earthly Immortal accomplish such a feat.


    Because of the rarity of reversing time, it seemed like the Secret Time Skill Child-endowing Buddha and Fate Creation Boy discussed was exactly the kind that could turn back time.


    "Although the Secret Time Skill is formidable, it cannot occur throughout the entire Heaven Realm World. It can only flow time backward in a small area. The Taihua Mountain is my Taoist rite, I am in complete control of the time flow. Hence, I am prepared to do it there."


    Speaking of which, he lifted his head and glanced at Child-endowing Buddha, "You also know that time is needed to prepare for the Secret Time Skill, probably about two hours. In this two hours, you should stay at Taihua Mountain. After which, write down the address on the stone at the hut over there. That''s all you need to do, leave the rest to me!


    "I understand!" Child-endowing Buddha nodded helplessly. "This is the only way out now, I hope your Secret Time Skill works!"


    "Of course!" Fate Creation Boy answered confidently. Light beams started to swirl beside him and formed a big, antique door. This was the big door leading to the Void Immortal Realm. However, only one Fate Creator of a macro world could be qualified to contact the Immortal Realm through this entrance. "Come with me, if not, it might get troublesome!"


    "Trouble? What kind of trouble?"


    "After two hours, he will write down the address and I will make time flow backward in Taihua Mountain. Everything will return to two hours before. If you continue to stay here, you will lose your memory just like him!"


    "But if I''m not here, will another me appear?"


    "No, when all of trace of you disappear from Taihua Mountain, the Secret Time Skill will have no effect on you. By then, you only need to return here."


    "Okay, let''s go to the Void Immortal Realm." Zhou Bao nodded in agreement.


    "You guys are truly asking for it!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s unwilling expression, Child-endowing Buddha almost strangled him to death.


    The Void Immortal Realm was a place that all practitioners in the Void Universe yearned to go. As a dream destination for all practitioners, random people could not just travel there as they pleased. This guy was really asking for it, he was actually not willing to go!


    "Don''t look at me with those eyes, of course I''m willing to do it! But we''re going to the wreckage of the Sacred City of Fate. Or in other words, it''s a graveyard. I feel uncomfortable every time we go to that creepy place!" Zhou Bao followed behind Fate Creator Boy helplessly and stepped into the legendary Void Immortal Realm.


    "This creepy place is still the same as before! There''s not a trace lively spirits, it emanates death. I say, how do you Fate Creators think of making such a place?"


    "This was not thought of by us, its the power of the Sacred City of Fate!" Fate Creation Boy rolled his eyes at Zhou Bao and walked straight to the center of the city. "Origin, Fate, and Ending were the three sacred cities built during the era of the ancient deities. Nobody knows why they built them and neither does anyone know how strong these cities are. The debris of a holy city in your Supreme Fairy Weapon should have come from the Sacred City of Origin. Hence, your weapon possesses great potential. This Sacred City of Fate has a mysterious connection with all Fate Creators of macro worlds. Even those who have yet to become an Earthly Immortal can enter the Immortal Realm after becoming a Fate Creator. Although their activities are limited to this area, it greatly benefits them."


    "The Secret Time Skill needs to use a huge amount of Qi of Fate. The amount is fixed in every macro world. There are only enough Qi of Fate here in the Void Immortal Realm to support the carrying out of the Secret Time Skill." Fate Creation Boy explained to Zhou Bao, "Besides, this is the wreckage of the Sacred City of Fate, the Qi of Fate is the purest here!"


    "Okay, although I''m not the least interested in all these things regarding the Secret Time Skill, just do it soon! I actually want to use this opportunity to practice!" As he spoke, Zhou Bao''s mid-brows flashed and a green-black shadow rushed out. It transformed into a green-robed teen in the sacred city. This teen looked just like Zhou Bao, even their sinister laughs at their mid-brows were the same. This was Zhou Bao''s Third Primordial Spirit incarnation.


    Zhou Bao practiced the Divine Sense of the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations. Other than his body, he could also practice another three incarnations. The first one was the Dragon Chimera''s, it was a Second Primordial Spirit. For the second one, he prepared to practice the incarnation of the sword, which was a Third Primordial Spirit. For the last one, the incarnation carried all his strength except for his body, the Second and Third Primordial Spirits''. It was the Fourth Primordial Spirit.


    His second incarnation, the one belonging to the Dragon Chimera, was already infused into one with the Furnace of Immortality. The former was now the device spirit of the latter, helping it to become a Heavenly Fairy Weapon and increase its power tremendously. As for the third incarnation, Zhou Bao wanted to use it to practice his Primordial Sword Spirit. Zhou Bao owned the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi as well as the Immortal-killing Sword Qi. Both these Sword Qis may be in the Ghost Child''s control, but if he wanted, he could practice anytime. Once he succeeded in perfecting them, their powers increased tremendously. However, while he honed the Primordial Sword Spirit, he discovered the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast had strangely fallen out from his Fourth Primordial Spirit. He did not know why this happened.


    Hence, his Third Primordial Spirit was only left with two choices. One, he could practice the Primordial Sword Spirit and two, he could practice the Primordial Poison Spirit of the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast. He could not change his decision once made. This was because he could only practice three Outer-body Incarnations. Hence, no matter what he chose, there must be one strong Divine Sense that must be nullified. His heart ached, and after pondering about it for several days, he arrived at an amusing idea.

 801 Innate Fire-property Divine Body

    Except for the body, the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations only practiced three primordial spirits. Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit was already spent. For the third one, he chose the Primordial Poison Spirit. Hence, according to logic, the fourth one will be the Primordial Sword Spirit. Except for poison, sword, the Dragon Chimera and the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan, all substantial powers would be stripped from him.


    However, the Fourth Primordial Spirit proved harder to practice than the third. It was indeed extremely difficult to extract all the troublesome powers from the Fourth Primordial Spirit. Actually, this was also the most difficult martial ways to master among the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations. According to what the Ghost Child said, with Zhou Bao'' current phase, abilities and knowledge about powers, he would require at least hundreds or thousands of years to accomplish this. Zhou Bao did not want to wait for so many years, so he thought of an ingenious way to achieve it.


    "I will not use the Sword Qi to foster my primordial spirit. Instead, I will use the killing intent in your gourd to foster my Sword Qi. After that, I will infuse the murderous intent into my Fourth Primordial Spirit before using it to destroy the other troublesome powers completely. Didn''t you say that you are born out of the innate killing intent between heaven and earth during the Primordial Origin? It should be easier to accomplish all these if my Sword Qi is stained with your murderous intent, right?"


    This was what Zhou Bao asked the Ghost Child. The latter thought for a while and found that it made sense. However, since nobody did it before, he asked Zhou Bao to do everything carefully.


    Apparently, Zhou Bao did not plan to practice his Primordial Spirits of Three Separations at this moment. He practiced the way of the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations, but it was unclear why a strong Qi of Fate was running automatically after he entered the remains of the Sacred City of Fate. This led his Third Primordial Spirit to enter the Advanced Level. Furthermore, his SwordQi was about to infuse with the Fourth Primordial Spirit. Once that happened, the SwordQi would be contaminated with the troublesome spirits. It would become more difficult to extract the Qi of Fate from within. Hence, without much thought, he took out the red gourd. With a low rumble, a transparent Natal Sword, like a glaze crystal, rose slowly from behind his head. With a ''whoosh'', it entered the red gourd.


    "What are you doing?" Although Fate Creation Boy was a supreme of the Heaven Realm, he misunderstood what Zhou Bao''s strange actions were all about. He took a moment to process and a tint of confusion flashed across his eyes.


    "I am practicing the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations but I encountered some difficulties, which is why I''m trying to take a shortcut now." Zhou Bao did not elaborate on the details and only replied with a one-liner, "This has nothing to do with what''s going on now."


    "Seems like you''ve faced a dilemma while practicing, but you''ve solved the problem after your Primordial Spirits of Three Separations was agitated by the Qi of Fate! I must congratulate you!" Fate Creation Boy did not ask further after looking at Zhou Bao and the green-robed Third Primordial Spirit. This sudden overcoming of setbacks was not rare. Be it the antiquity times, the ancient times, or even the primitive times, these things happened often back then. Here, the Qi of Fate was thick. The density of all sorts of Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth lay below the Primordial Origin. It would be a joke if Zhou Bao''s problem went unsolved.


    "Okay, stop wasting any more time! I will execute the Secret Time Skill now," Fate Creation Boy said.


    "Didn''t you tell Child-endowing Buddha to write the address two hours later?"


    "Did you believe the Secret Time Skill an easy task? Without long preparations, we cannot accomplish it!" At this point, Fate Creation Boy pressed an incantation and his surrounding energy changed. Zhou Bao only felt the speed of time in his surrounding was affected by Fate Creation Boy''s actions. However, it was not making time go faster or slower, like what Zhou Bao did in the Azure Big World. It was also not reversing time either. Instead, it seemed like he added some unknown element and power into the river of time.


    "Don''t stand beside me! The Secret Time Skill is extremely troublesome, one small mistake leads to huge complications! It is better if you stand away from me!" Fate Creation Boy started to chase Zhou Bao away with an annoyed look on his face and his fingers flapping so quickly like a butterfly''s wings. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao pursed his lips helplessly and left Fate Creation Boy directly. He told him, sadly, "I will come and take a look after two hours."


    After leaving Fate Creation Boy, Zhou Bao focused all his attention on to the surrounding environment. It was still the same as the last time he was here: spacious, solitude, and filled with a smell of decay. Although the Qi of Fate and other spiritual qi were very dense, apparently, they were unattractive to the Fate Creators. Other than Zhou Bao and Fate Creation Boy, not a single Fate Creator from other macro worlds appeared. It seemed like no one else arrived after their trip here last time.


    "This is truly a strange place! Why would this Sacred City of Fate go to the Void Immortal Realm when there are so many benefits here? Could the legendary Ancient Sacred City have been in the Void Immortal Realm all along? Also, this place was always said to be a wreckage, but it''s still so complete! It''s not like my Supreme Fairy Weapon one bit, it cannot be broken."


    Zhou Bao walked to the tall and sturdy wall, knocking on it reluctantly. At first, nothing happened, but when he started to push some pieces off greedily, he got in trouble. He used his inner Dharma power to elevate himself, but before he could reach the top of the wall, a shapeless force appeared, pushing Zhou Bao over the wall. He fell heavily beside Fate Creation Boy.


    "Can you stop making my job more difficult, fellow? This is the Sacred City of Origin! Although its a wreckage, it''s still a complete system. Did you think that you''re the one who picked up that piece of debris, that it''s so easy to just take and go? Think about it, if the Sacred City of Fate is so run-down, would it have survived so many years? It would''ve already been knocked down into pieces and carried home by the Fate Creators! We won''t even get a chance to come!"


    "That''s true!" Zhou Bao stood up and touched his bottoms. Embarrassed, he said, "I won''t disturb you anymore, I''ll take a look over there." As he spoke, Zhou Bao walked to another wall and started to observe the talismans on it.


    "Hey, this is interesting."


    At first, he could not understand the talismans. But after staring at them for a long time, a mysterious thought emerged in his Sea of Consciousness.


    The Innate Deity!!!


    Yes, the Innate Deities! Back in those days, he found a set of remains in the space-time rift in the Innate Deity. It belonged to an Innate Deity. Using this set of bones, he refined his first Taihao Fairy Weapon, the Furnace of Immortality. At the same time, he also took in the strong divinity of the Innate Deity, as well as his vast amount of thoughts. However, the Innate Deity existed in the primitive times and was too far apart from the present day. Hence, he could not understand the message the Innate Deity left behind. Also, he could not ask anyone about such a thing. Even if he did, he would not be able to understand much. Even a Demon King from the antiquity times like Child-endowing Buddha was only dumb-founded at such information. He also asked the Ghost Child, who claimed to be a Heavenly Fairy Weapon from the Primordial Origin. However, he was also absolutely clueless. Later on, Zhou Bao learned that the Ghost Child''s body was indeed born during the Primordial Origin, but he spent took too long to evolve from a spiritual sense to a device spirit. During antiquity times, the Ghost Child lived a clueless life as a premature device spirit. Furthermore, others controlled him. How was he supposed to be able to understand a message passed on by an Innate Deity?


    Hence, after several attempts, Zhou Bao gave up on such an idea.


    However, today, he realized many talismans on the wall unintentionally matched with many of those from his memories. One by one, quaint, deep, generous and extremely pure talismans flashed across his eyes, matching those on the wall. Zhou Bao sensed an obvious tiny thought being shot out from the old wall. It sank into his Sea of Consciousness gradually.


    "Innate Fire-property Divine Body!" Zhou Bao''s eyes lit up and he started to comprehend the meaning behind these talismans. They were actually talking about a way of practice, the Innate Fire-property Divine Body.


    "Innate Fire-property Divine Body, the Second Primordial Spirit! F*ck, his is too good to be true!" Zhou Bao comprehended the way of practice carefully. The more he pondered about it, the more he felt like this way matched his Second Primordial Spirit. It was way stronger and powerful than those that he practiced before.


    The way of practice for the Second Primordial Spirit that he achieved first was to leave the spirit to the Dark Female Pearl. As his capabilities rose, celestial devices of the Dark Female Pearl''s rank no longer fully utilized the capabilities of his Second Primordial Spirit. Hence, Zhou Bao decided to leave it with the Furnace of Immortality to become its device spirit. Afterward, he attained another way of the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations. This way was much stronger and mysterious than the way of the Second Primordial Spirit''s. He could practice three primordial spirits with it. Most importantly, he no longer needed to leave his primordial spirit with a device. It stood alone. Although it did not have a body, it still unleashed the same power as if it had one. This was just like his Third Primordial Spirit, the green-robed teen, a pure Primordial Poison Spirit. When this primordial spirit fully comprehended the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast, it even incarnated into the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Dharma Laksana, beating all the current Earthly Immortals. Of course, this was just an assumption. God knows how long they would have to wait for that to happen.


    Today, the Innate Fire-property Divine Body he gained was a way used by the Innate Deities from the antiquity times to forge their physical body and divine body. From what Zhou Bao understood, it was similar to the method of leaving primordial spirits with the Dark Female Pearl. That was to say, the divine body that he gained at the end completely withstood his strong primordial spirits. For example, his Second Primordial Spirit was the Furnace of Immortality. But if he practiced this kind of Innate Fire-property Divine Body, he could even refine the skull of that Furnace of Immortality to become an Innate Deity! This prowess could not be compared to what it possessed now.


    It could be said this set of ways of Divine Sense totally catered to Zhou Bao''s current Second Primordial Spirit.

 802 Failing Star Reef

    "The basic level of the Innate Fire-property Divine Body was equivalent to an Earthly Immortal''s strength. Who would have known there exists such a mysterious way in this world! I cater to the Innate Deities!" Zhou Bao thought to himself, how could he hold back the temptation of the way anymore? He started to memorize the way immediately and practiced his Second Primordial Spirit. As for his body, it also comprehended this way and compared it to the ways used to change the physical body using the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill and Mysterious Divine Light. Just like that, he obsessed about it.


    After an unknown period of time, he heard a cry for help. This pulled Zhou Bao from the hole of comprehension. Looking back, he saw Fate Creation Boy wore a strange expression on his face as he looked forward. A transparent ball sat in front of him. It was completely made of pneuma. The image of Child-endowing Buddha on Taihua Mountain flashed in the ball. At this point in time, two hours passed, like water flowing through. Child-endowing Buddha wrote down the specific address of the passageway to the Immortal Realm on a piece of smooth bluestone. By right, Fate Creation Boy should have started the Secret Time Skill by now. However, he stared at the stone with a solemn look. Another glance at Child-endowing Buddha showed his darkened expression.


    "What the hell are you doing, Fate Creation Boy? Hurry and activate the Secret Time Skill and turn back time!" Reading the situation, Zhou Bao was taken aback and quickly reminded him. The Secret Time Skill indeed possessed powerful effects. But at the same time, it was like a double-edged sword. One mistake led to a failure, which would land them both in a huge grudge against Child-endowing Buddha.


    Fate Creation Boy realized what was going on and moved his fingers quickly, activating the Secret Time Skill. Mysterious black ripples formed in the transparent ball. In a split second, the ripples enveloped the whole of Taihua Mountain. A moment later, the black ripples disappeared and the image of Child-endowing Buddha appeared.


    However, this time around, Child-endowing Buddha no longer wore that dark expression. Instead, he looked confused. "Fate Creation Boy, Zhou Bao, what the hell? Do you think it''s fun to call me over and play this game of getting lost together?" It seemed like he already forgot what happened earlier.


    Zhou Bao and Child-endowing Buddha heaved a sigh of relief at the same time.


    "Okay, let''s go back! If not, he might grow suspicious!" Fate Creation Boy sighed softly with a tired expression on his face.


    "Ok!" Zhou Bao nodded his head. Although this time he gained an extremely huge benefit, which was the way to practice the Innate Fire-property Divine Body, meaning he could re-enter anytime so time was not a luxury. Besides, his Second Primordial Spirit, currently trapped in the Furnace of Immortality, comprehended the expression of the congenital fire spirit. Thus, he could leave this eerie place.


    When Zhou Bao and Fate Creation Boy appeared in front of Child-endowing Buddha, he was obviously annoyed from waiting.


    "What the hell are you two doing, suddenly disappearing and now re-appearing again? Is there some hideous conspiracy behind this!"


    "Conspiracy, haha. That''s too excessive. The both of us, as you know, are Fate Creators. We took a trip to the Void Immortal Realm just now!"


    "Void Immortal Realm!"


    "That''s right, the Void Immortal Realm. We wanted to test if you sense the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm!" Fate Creation Boy laughed, "Zhou Bao already informed me about how you can find the Chakra of the Heaven Realm World."


    Hearing this, Child-endowing Buddha''s face contorted uncomfortably. "Isn''t this the reason Zhou Bao came to me this time? Regardless, I don''t wish to discuss it."


    "I understand, you have been forced to undertake the Great Vow of the Heart Demon, so of course we won''t force you," Fate Creation Boy smiled and continued, "We just wanted to see if us entering the passageway to the Immortal Realm affected the Chakra!"


    "I did not sense the Chakra appearing, neither did it happen just now on Taihua Mountain." Child-endowing Buddha did not suspect what the duo said. After a moment of silence, he said, "Hence, by entering the Void Immortal Realm, you all will not use the Chakra''s power."


    "Since that''s the case, then forget it. We will not put you on the spot!" Fate Creation Boy grimaced in disappointment. He turned and said to Zhou Bao, "Now we can only place our hopes on you and your far-away relative."


    "That is the only way!" Zhou Bao smiled bitterly. "Hais, my far-away relative is simply a disgrace! But that''s okay, I also possess the Fiery Eye. As long as I find the correct method, it shouldn''t be hard to locate that passageway!"


    "Hmph! Don''t think of it so easily! If it''s really so simple to find, this passageway would have already been exposed back when the Fiery Eyes tribe were in full bloom! That relative of yours wouldn''t even have a chance to act!" Child-endowing Buddha sneered.


    "That''s true, if it really is that simple, it wouldn''t be called the passageway to the Immortal Realm!" Zhou Bao laughed, "Okay, let''s leave the topic here and see how to deal with the Devil Tribulation. Recently, my heart feels uneasy."


    "Falling Star Reef? Where is that?"


    Zhou Bao and Fate Creation Boy talked pretentiously with Child-endowing Buddha for half a day on Taihua Mountain. In the end, they did not arrive at any conclusions and parted ways. Child-endowing Buddha had some welcoming to do, so he returned first. Zhou Bao and Fate Creation Boy discussed the exact location of the passageway.


    However, when Fate Creation Boy mentioned the location, Zhou Bao was unclear and did not know as well.


    He deserved no blame seeing as the Heaven Realm World was enormous. He only traveled to the Seven-deity Regions and the neighboring Sea Areas. The furthest he visited was to seek the Thunder Emperor''s touring abode. The Sea Area, so vast and massive, only God knew how big it was. There existed a countless number of this reef and that reef, how would Zhou Bao have heard of it?


    "Falling Star Reef was where the Vast Sea Emperor was trapped!" Fate Creation Boy said in a sharp tone.


    "Weren''t you unable to find where he was trapped?" Zhou Bao raised an eyebrow, "Wasn''t he in the endless spacetime?"


    "Indeed, I do not know where he is now. However, when first crowned as the Sea Emperor, it was at the Falling Star Reef. Now, the place became the Sea Area''s territory. It was also the center of authority over the whole Sea Area. Only a few Demon tribes gained his trust could enter the Falling Star Reef. I''ve been there to explore several times and also met the Vast Sea Emperor. However, ever since he went missing, I couldn''t find any more clues when there. In the past, I did not comprehend the uniqueness of that place. However, I know now."


    "It''s too late," Zhou Bao smiled, "If you''ve known the truth about the place earlier, perhaps we could have opened the passageway to the Immortal Realm by now."


    "The problem now is the passageway is there and that''s where the Vast Sea Emperor exited. Obviously, he was trapped because he protected that passageway. If not, it was because he explored it. That means, we have to deal with him in order to discover the passageway. He is the Sea Emperor, a Vast Sea Emperor from the antiquity times. He''s not someone that a random Earthly Immortal can best so easily. If he really attacks us, we''ll be in dire straits!"


    "Isn''t he trapped? If he wants to fight back, wouldn''t he be restricted?"


    "You''re correct, there are indeed restrictions. However, the strictest one is unable to bar an Earthly Immortal completely. Look at Marquis Zhihai, the Primordial Demon of the Infinite Star Sea. He has been restricted for so many years, but yet he still produced so many Devil Fetuses, bringing chaos to the world. This is the same with the Vast Sea Emperor''s restrictions. Although he can''t roam freely, from his performance, I think he has at least the power for three strikes!"


    The power for three strikes!


    That was not referring to the simple strikes. Here, three strikes meant three powerful, full strikes.


    Who was the Vast Sea Emperor? He was one of the 99 Emperors from antiquity times, a famous Earthly Immortal since then. Forget about three strikes, just one strike from him proved enough to defeat a normal Earthly Immortal.


    Although Zhou Bao bested two Earthly Immortals before, one of them was inexperienced and never stabilized. The other an experienced one, but when compared to the Vast Sea Emperor from antiquity times, he lacked too much. Forget about a full strike, a simple one from the emperor could kill him easily.


    The Void Universe was so big, the Heaven Realm World in the antiquity times ruled heavens and realms. There were as many Earthly Immortals as there were clouds, and as many Immortals as there were rain. Why were these 99 people selected to be Emperors? Actually, that was the highest rank an Earthly Immortal could get, and it was based on their strengths.


    "Can you be sure the Vast Sea Emperor is on the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s side?"


    "I could not before, but now, I am sure of it!" Fate Creation Boy''s voice hardened with a tint of cold, depression. "How? Do you believe we should go to the Falling Star Reef?"


    "Actually, we still have many options. By releasing the address, I believe there will be many people fighting to help us explore the way."


    "We don''t have enough time. Once we disclose the news, the Celestial Mystery Emperor will send people immediately. Don''t forget, they are hidden in the Heaven Realm World. Besides, this is the Heaven Realm World''s problem, I require others'' assistance to solve my own problems!" Speaking till here, Fate Creation Boy squinted a little, reflecting an indescribable determination.


    "You''re right, the Heaven Realm World is yours. But we also don''t need to rely on others to solve our problem." Zhou Bao sensed Fate Creation Boy''s determination and smiled, "But I cannot flee, no?"


    "Hmph, you sure know your own circumstance well. You know the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and can use it to sneak into Falling Star Reef. With your current cultivation, although you cannot defeat the Vast Sea Emperor, with that skill, you cannot go unnoticed by him. Even the Celestial Mystery Emperor is a possible goal for you. Most importantly, you have the Fiery Eyes. I cannot explore there, but with those eyes, you should be able to sense something. You may even chance upon the passageway to the Immortal Realm!"

 803 Sea-overlooking Gate Tower

    Rocks flew across the sky and terrifying waves smacked the sea, creating a 1000-foot spray.


    This was what Su Dongpo used to describe the Red Cliff. The scene in front of Zhou Bao''s eyes was just like the one in the Red Cliff.


    The so-called wonders of the world on the Earth were practically everywhere in the Heaven Realm World. However, according to what Zhou Bao saw, the Falling Star Reef possessed the most identical view to what the line of poetry described.


    Falling Star Reef was located at the tip of the Sea Area, very far away from the Seven-deity Regions. Known to be a reef island, this gigantic reef island had a land size comparable to that of a mainland. At the same time, it fostered the civilization comparable to that of a mainland as well.


    Yes, the Falling Star Reef was indeed a gigantic nation of the Demon tribe. The Demon tribe lived there, but had a civilization comparable to that of Seven-deity Regions, even better than them. In the Falling Star Reef, one by one, cities rose from the ground. Countless Demon tribe members lived here, just like the ordinary humans in the Seven-deity Regions. However, there was something different about them, and the biggest difference being the most ordinary Demon tribe member living here possessed great strength. Level Seven was the standard for a human expert. But here, it was the bare minimum. None of the Demon tribe members achieved cultivation below Level Seven. Even the babies still being carried in swaddles possessed Level Seven energy. These babies included the legendary second generation of the Demon tribe.


    Three main types of the Demon tribe existed.


    One type evolved from a normal wild beast. After years of evolution, it awakened the bloodline in the body which came from the Primordial Fierce Beast. These Demon tribe members, referred to as the original Demon tribe, were incredibly powerful. Even the weakest among them possessed extremely high potential and developed endlessly. However, they had one big disadvantage, which was their years. They had a restriction on how many years they lived. The evolution already took up the majority of their lifespan. When their bloodline awakened in the process, they felt the memories from the antiquity times, as well as the incantation to practice, coming from the deepest part of their bloodline. Their improvements in cultivation granted them a few extra years to live. However, they were still restricted by the Divine Tribulation. The majority of them could not pass the tribulation. Hence, there existed very few of them, but were extremely powerful.


    The second type was the so-called second generation of the Demon tribe, born from combining two monsters. In plain words, they were just like the Human tribe. Once they opened their spiritual intelligence, two fused together and gave birth to the next generations. Like humans, these babies gained spiritual intelligence rather quickly. This was the second generation of the Demon tribe, and were unique ones in the Demon tribe because they did not need to waste a long time practicing, neither wait patiently for the bloodline in their body awaken. Also, they were never short of guidance in the process of practicing. They were the pride of the Demon tribe. However, while they owned many benefits, their potential could not be compared to the original Demon tribe. By losing the countless number of years of evolving and tempering, they were like a flower in a greenhouse. Very few of them lasted on this journey of cultivation.


    The third type was the lowliest of the Demon tribe, these minions of the tribe and possessed the weakest power levels, the highest number and the lowest potential. They were puny beings who transformed by the above two types. They were not smart and were weaker. Some of them failed to reach Level Seven, which made them equivalent to a fighter in the human race. There were even obstacles in their intelligence. This type could only be the cannon fodder.


    Cannon fodder were barred access to the Falling Star Reef.


    Hence, in the countless cities in Falling Star Reef, there were none of the lowliest Demon tribe members. Only the original and the second generation stayed.


    Fate Creation Boy was the Fate Creator of the Heaven Realm World, but Fate Creators were not almighty. There were some places in the Heaven Realm World that he could not control. Similarly, Zhou Bao knew about some places in the Azure Big World, but was powerless to act. The Falling Star Reef proved no different.


    Zhou Bao''s current capabilities were already comparable to an Earthly Immortal. When using his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, he became dust. There existed many Demon tribe members as well as masters of martial arts. However, even the Vast Sea Emperor himself was unable to spot Zhou Bao. Hence, he entered the Falling Star Reef easily and traveled to the place Fate Creation Boy told him about.


    This place, where rocks flew everywhere and fierce waves hit the shores, a place similar to the Red Cliff.


    This was the core of the Falling Star Reef and also the place where the Vast Sea Emperor first appeared. At the same time, it owned the tightest security in all of Falling Star Reef. There were protection guards everywhere forbidden skills could be used. Countless magic weapon formations strung together like a giant minefield, triggering one would detonate the whole thing. Touching a part of it caused the others to spring into action. There were also great forbidden skills and formations, despite being lower than the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. However, in the Heaven Realm World, these two reigned supreme.


    Zhou Bao was most surprised by the abundance of Immortals. In fact, even Earthly Immortals guarded the place!


    That''s right, Earthly Immortals. Additionally, there was not just one Earthly Immortal guarding the place.


    Hence, Zhou Bao treaded carefully once he discovered. He no longer sensed a glimmer of luck.


    "Damn it, seems like the Falling Star Reef is the main camp of the people with Celestial Mystery Emperor. All of a sudden, they put three Earthly Immortals to guard this run-down place, no wonder Fate Creation Boy knew nothing about this place! I think I better behave myself and go back right after investigating the matter. If not, I may die here." Zhou Bao warned himself in his head and sneaked into the core palace of the Falling Star Reef.


    After going around numerous inhibitions, Zhou Bao finally snuck into the palace. It was fine before he entered it. But upon entering, Zhou Bao was taken aback: the scene changed in front of his eyes.


    "Eh? A space Barrier? This is a micro world!"


    There were many strange spacetimes existing in the Falling Star Reef, but this was the first time he saw a micro world. However, his amazement diminished by the sight in front of him.


    Upon entering the micro world, he spotted a palace, a gigantic one completely built from pure blue crystals.


    This palace was so huge, it filled up the entire micro world. The foundation alone was about 10,000 feet tall. On that flight of stairs, each step was higher than ten feet. There were more than a 1,000 stairs in total, and leading up to the front door of the palace.


    But two giant beasts sat at the bottom of the stairs.


    "Primordial Fierce Beast!"


    Yes, Zhou Bao did not recognize these two Fierce Beasts, but his familiarity with their spirits was certain. This was the spirit of the Primordial Fierce Beast! His Real Body of Zhuyan also possessed this spirit.


    A blue crystal sat on the platform atop the stairs. There were nine Coiling Dragon Pillars on the platform shooting high up into the hollow. On top of every pillars, nine real dragons wrapped around them. On such a platform, 81 real dragons twirled around. This reminded him of the Dragon-taming Ruins he had once chanced upon by mistake. However, the dragons there were all dead, how could it be compared to 81 live ones?


    These real dragons agitated his Second Primordial Spirit, the Dragon Chimera. Dragons were favorite food.


    Of course, it was not time for lunch yet. He could not spare to engulf two dragons there and then.


    Not just ordinary dragons, these were real dragons and belonged to the Primordial Fierce Beast.


    In the present world where Primordial Fierce Beasts were almost extinct, just how much of a price could two Primordial Fierce Beasts and 81 real dragons amount to?


    When he neared the palace again, a light layer of rippled light, like the light reflected off water, flashed in front of him. Zhou Bao dared not be careless. He activated his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to the extreme and sensed every speck of dust. Carefully, he entered the rippled light. Luckily, he went unnoticed. However, that was about it.


    "It''s a trap, Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    Zhou Bao cried in his heart once entering the rippled light. He stepped out and started to scold Fate Creation Boy in his heart, "Fucker! How did you become a Fate Creator anyways? You didn''t even know that there''s a Supreme Fairy Weapon hidden in your own macro world!" Thinking of this, Zhou Bao jolted suddenly, "That''s not right. Since this Heaven Realm World concealed a Supreme Fairy weapon, then its possible in my Azure Big World too! Damn it, hiding one is easy, as long as the spirit of the macro world is covered. Besides, once activated, even a Fate Creator could do nothing about it! Oh right, if two macro worlds came close together, they repel each other. The Fate Creator is closely connected with their macro worlds. Once a repel force was activated, the Fate Creator would be affected too, leaving no time to react. Sinister, this is too sinister!" He shrugged coldly in his heart. How could he continue to explore whatever passageway for some realm? After thinking about it, he dared not proceed and backed out immediately, leaving the Falling Star Reef.


    Fate Creation Boy was very surprised at his sudden return.


    "You found it so soon?"


    "Bullshit! I found a huge inconvenience!" Zhou Bao said, his nostrils flaring.


    "Big trouble? What was it?"


    "There''s a Supreme Fairy Weapon hidden in the Falling Star Reef!"


    "That''s impossible, I''ve been there, it''s like a desolated Sea Area, there''s not a single soul. If the Vast Sea Emperor didn''t appear there before, I wouldn''t have even examined it!"


    "Then you must be fooled!" Zhou Bao said. He then told him what he saw at the Falling Star Reef while Fate Creation Boy stood there dumbfounded.


    "Impossible, that''s impossible. The blue palace is the Vast Sea Emperor''s Sea-overlooking Gate Tower? Damn it, wasn''t it destroyed by the Demon emperor Chi Yanchuang? Why does it still exist, how...!" As he scolded, his voice faded. Eventually, he stood there in silence with a blue face.


    Zhou Bao knew that he was defeated.

 804 Beginning the Tribulation

    "It seems I have to find some time to clean up my Azure Big World!"


    Traveling back from Taihua Mountain to his own territory, Zhou Bao''s mood grew heavy. His unexpected discovery at the Falling Star Reef, as well as his exploration in the Immortal Realm passageway, came to nothing. What a joke. There was a Supreme Fairy Weapon there. If people like the Celestial Mystery Emperor were not so stupid, then that passageway would certainly have been inside a Supreme Fairy Weapon and bounded in layers of protection. But Zhou Bao discovered that it had no effect. It would be the same as relying on the Alien World Earthly Immortals to attack the Falling Star Reef with force. It would cause huge problems for the Fate Creation Boy. Under this situation, it would be best to just prepare for changes and deal with them calmly when they occur.


    "There was one, then there were two Supreme Fairy Weapons. Even Fate Creation Boy had some limits: there were some places he could not find, not to mention the emperors of antiquity times able to hide freely from the fate creator. They did not leave and did not disappear, they just seemed to be looking at us like idiots!" Zhou Bao smiled wryly, but he knew that this speculation of his would not make any sense. Those Great Ancient Emperors really did hide, but they also had a huge limitation. They could not be so uncaring as in antiquity times.


    "Where is the problem actually occurring?" This was the problem Zhou Bao was most concerned about. In antiquity times this Heaven Realm World ruled the heavens and realms. They were masters like the clouds, strong like the rain. Most importantly, countless Earthly Immortals had already fought in the Heaven Realm World and had run into countless Supreme Fairy Weapons. At that time, how could the Heaven Realm World have supported such an undulating power? Now, Zhou Bao could remember clearly his own Supreme Fairy Weapon from that time. When the Black Pearl appeared in the Divine Wind Palace, the whole Heaven Realm World seemed to tremble as if in an epileptic seizure. If he had not have come and left so quickly, the Fate Creation Boy might have had to come to fight at all costs.


    Why was it this way? What changed the Heaven Realm World so much to make the first macro world of that time so fragile?


    "Maybe this all happened because the pneuma in the Heaven Realm World disappeared too fast?" Zhou Bao pondered. However, he did not get an accurate answer because everything seemed to be shrouded in some thick fog. Although he had uncovered one part of this fog, in the end, he was even more perplexed and did not know what to do next.


    Because of his plans with the Fate Creation Boy, everything would revolve around the Immortal Realm passageway. He just had to find it, and everything would be fine. But the problem was actually that they could not find the passageway, and even if they could they could not reach it. No wonder the Fate Creation Boy looked so dispirited.


    "It looks like the Fate Creation Boy is already rattled, so I should consider this matter myself!" As Zhou Bao thought of the expression the Fate Creation Boy had when he left, he felt a sense of urgency.


    "I have to move quickly, otherwise, if I wait until the Devil Tribe breaks through the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, then it would be too late to make a move!" Zhou Bao made his mind up firmly and got started. Orders were sent down, and the Wuyang Region became a refined machine, working at great speed.


    Of course, Zhou Bao would not be stupid enough to let people come straight into the Azure Big World, the Heaven Realm World would not be able to support it. Zhou Bao had a simple method. First, he would refine the endless spacetime surrounding the Heaven Realm World into a Highest Heaven Celestial Device. This device had one function: to transport people. On top of this Highest Heaven Celestial Device would be several gateways for people to enter. Finally, after receiving the device and leaving the Heaven Realm World he would place people into the Azure Big World. Of course, they would not be placed directly into the world, but into the world in the Highest Heaven Celestial Device, which had almost the same environment as the Heaven Realm World.


    He would place his most trusted people on there.


    That was his plan.


    However, the plan was difficult to implement because of several changes. When the Wuyang Region was gearing up to completely undermine the Heaven Realm World, some bad news emerged.


    "What? Traces of the Dark Sect have been found inside Great Jin? And maybe the Devil Tribe? How is this possible?"


    This pieces of news were given to Zhou Bao in the early morning. At first, he thought that this could not have been possible. He had rooted out the Dark Sect that very day. He did so quite thoroughly. Not only did he wipe out the Elder disciples in the Dark Sect of the Heaven Realm World, but he had also destroyed all of the Dark Sect''s cultivation methods. Because he had carried this out with the Fate Creation Boy''s help, he could not miss out any Elder disciples. Despite this, traces of the Dark sect emerged in Jin. How was this possible?


    Even if there was a hidden member of the Dark Sect he had not gotten rid of, he would not be foolish enough to become active now. Supposing he was active again, he would not choose Jin, right? In any case, Jin was right under Zhou Bao''s nose. The Jin Emperor was his uncle. Only someone impulsive and impatient would do this.


    "Maybe it was ¡ª!"


    Although Zhou Bao''s first feeling was that this news was impossible, his instinct told him that someone really had slipped through the net in the huge Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. They could only hide in a place that the Fate Creation Boy could not control, like the Falling Star Reef. This way, the situation would be controlled and they would start mobilizing. There were definitely hints telling Zhou Bao about this latest situation, and he came to the conclusion that this was a trap to lure him in.


    It was the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s band who were trying to lure him in!


    But why were they doing that? A group of men with that strength would come straight out to deal with him, this is how they dealt with the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven. Why would they lure him into Jin? Maybe it was something else?


    Zhou Bao seemed a little confused. "Maybe it''s to lure me away from my Wuyang Region so they can take it on? No. If they were going to sort this out like they did the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven, once the battle started, the Wuyang Region would cease to exist. Perhaps they had another purpose? Or perhaps they worried about making a move? Yes, that''s it!"


    Zhou Bao pondered for a while and gradually grasped the heart of the matter. They were unscrupulous in how they dealt with the Bloody-robed Lord of Heaven because he was too weak. They only had to send an Immortal to dispose of him. They had no room to turn themselves around. But Zhou Bao was not the same. He had actual combat capability, he got his reputation in exchange for the life of an Earthly Immortal. So, the person dealing with him would have to be someone at the Earthly Immortal level.


    But Earthly Immortals could not just undertake tasks whenever they wanted. They had taboos. It was very normal for them to have misgivings. And even if they had no misgivings at all, coming straight to Wuyang Region with their PK, it would be something they just couldn''t do.


    "So they want to lure me to a place where the Earthly Immortals can attack. Wait, let me think. That would be the coastal city, right by the ocean at the extreme south of Jin. Maybe it''s the Vast Sea Emperor that wants to deal with me?" Several clues came together, and Zhou Bao was pretty close to working it all out.


    "Haha. If the Great Ancient Emperor wanted to attack me, then that group of guys must really think highly of me!" Zhou Bao laughed to himself. "It seems that they are hiding some secret other than the Immortal Realm passageway in Falling Star Reef, and do not want anybody to find out. They must be hiding the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, hidden by a Supreme Fairy Weapon inside the Heaven Realm World. Damn, what are those guys actually up to?"


    Zhou Bao did not know what those guys were actually planning. However, he had to get involved with the Dark Sect in Jin, if nothing else because of the Anyuan Store. Many people were trapped there, and if he did nothing about it, some of his loyal subordinates might feel unfairly treated. But if he did something about it, he might very well come up against the Vast Sea Emperor.


    He was no normal Earthly Immortal, even if Zhou Bao had the power for three strikes he would be hard to withstand.


    "The Vast Sea Emperor, the power for three strikes!" Zhou Bao seemed to have been caught in a dilemma. He narrowed his eyes and thought for a while. He suddenly opened them again. "Hmph. So what if it was the Vast Sea Emperor? I would certainly be able to use the power for three strikes, but this is the Heaven Realm World. If I really used all my power, the Heaven Realm would be half destroyed. Those men probably don''t want the Heaven Realm to be half destroyed, which means I have an opportunity. Besides, they would want the Devil Tribe to enter the Heaven Realm World, right? Therefore, it would be best to take this opportunity, with good reason, to cause a problem in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, and put the Devil Tribe in there. This would save waiting for them to make a move and would save anything unexpected from happening!" In a moment Zhou Bao had already made his decision. "I really should take this opportunity and use the Vast Sea Emperor to see how powerful the great emperors of antiquity times are to deal with the big changes in the near future!"


    Zhou Bao had no clue what this big change was, but he was sure that it would not be the current Devil Tribulation. Heaven knows how many Devil Tribulations had occurred in the boundless hollow and infinite time of the Void Universe. The Void Universe was currently fine and every macro world was safe and stable. Right now there have been no changes from the Devil Tribulation. There were none before, and there won''t be any this time. Moreover, since the Fate Creation Boy had already started moving, he now wanted to retreat. Zhou Bao could not deal with the ending of the Heaven Realm World, and had no responsibility to do so. But just accepting things was not his style. He liked to actively fight. He did not know when the Celestial Mystery Emperor group wanted to place the Devil Tribe inside, but he was sure that it would not be now. Because of this, using them could quite possibly introduce some unknown variables!

 805 The Vast Seas First Strike

    Sea City of Jin!


    It was a city in the southernmost part of Jin and its biggest port city.


    It had a very well developed shipping industry which made it the most prosperous city in the south part of Jin.


    However, all this changed in a matter of a month. The Dark Sect destroyed by Zhou Bao had unexpectedly reappeared, wiping out every trace of this good city. Only a few had survived, and the place became a ghost town. When Zhou Bao arrived, because of the hot weather and his delay in getting there, the sky over the entire city was effused with a foul odor of rotting flesh.


    "Damn. What the hell happened? This should all have been cleared up. What is an emperor to do?" Zhou Bao could smell the stench even a few miles away. He frowned in disgust and started to complain to himself about his worthless brother-in-law.


    In any case, the Ocean City was in Jin territory. If this kind of thing had happened in his territory, as the Emperor of Jin, even if he had no power to resist, he was at least obliged to clean up the mess. Indeed, an emperor should not just ignore the situation.


    Zhou Bao firmly believed this, it did not matter to him that his brother-in-law was the emperor. He had already decided to run away. He still did not know how the Heaven Realm World would be in the future. Right now it was difficult for him to protect himself, and he was not in a relaxed enough frame of mind to go and deal with other people''s business.


    Zhou Bao stood in the sky above the Ocean City and completely dispelled the surrounding stench. Zhou Bao did not cover up his own tracks, but scanned the entire city with a playful look in his eyes. Suddenly, his eyes flashed, and he fixed his gaze on one place.


    "The spirit of the Devil Tribe. It is neither weak nor overly strong. The Human Immortal state!" In a moment Zhou Bao worked out the Devil Tribe''s cultivation. Without thinking about it, he patted the Furnace of Immortality on his waist.


    Whatever cultivation Zhou Bao had at this point, he entrusted the Furnace of Immortality with his Second Primordial Spirit. When Zhou Bao hit it, fire lights could be seen flying up from the mouth of the furnace, becoming a huge Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield in the sky, fiercely shrouding everything beneath it.


    Boom!


    That poor Devil Tribe. They had not even seen Zhou Bao''s figure clearly before they were killed by his Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield. The nine dragons shot flames and roared. The tribe did not have time to scream before they were turned into ashes.


    The Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield had long ago exceeded the category of Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique. The Primordial Fire Spirit was Zhou Bao''s Second Primordial Spirit, and he was now cultivating the Innate Fire-property Divine Body. When the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield was fully used, the whole thing would appear like a dark red jade carving with limitless power, already no less than that of a Taihao Fairy Weapon.


    The Devil Tribe Human Immortals were completely burned away by Zhou Bao''s technique. Zhou Bao, as if having something urgent to do, immediately split the hollow open beyond repair, as if he were going to leave.


    At the moment he broke open the hollow, a severely cold blue ray flashed on the horizon, then came striking him between the eyebrows.


    Alright!


    Zhou Bao gave a low roar. As soon as he appeared above the Ocean City, he was on the alert for something abnormal. To start with he was lucky, and got things done quickly which gave the Sea Emperor no time to react and leave. But now it seemed he was too optimistic.


    Since he could not get away, it was war. And Zhou Bao was not afraid to fight.


    Seeing the cold, blue ray striking him straight between the eyebrows, Zhou Bao just laughed coldly, and from his finger appeared a golden light.


    Bang!


    A huge sound rang, and an extreme, brutal power was dispersed on all sides. In a second, the Ocean City beneath his feet was blown to pieces. A huge pit, more than ten miles deep and hundreds of miles wide stretched across the ocean shore, and roaring ocean water came surging. After a moment, the entire pit was filled. Now, there was no more Ocean City in Jin.


    In the sky, a huge, simple seal floated above Zhou Bao''s head, emitting faint rays. Zhou Bao''s complexion was slightly more pale than before.


    "The Sea Emperor. Since you have come, you might as well show yourself. No matter what, you are an Ancient Mighty Expert, ruler of the Vast Sea. Why are you so reluctant to come out?"


    "So you have found out!"


    Zhou Bao lowered his voice. After a second he heard a faint sigh. "This is okay, too. Act stupid to save yourself from dying".


    "Yeah, right. You are the most respected of the Great Ancient Emperors. Of course, you know I am one of the legendary Tribulation Takers. My tribulations are not finished, why would I die?!" Zhou Bao smiled wryly. "As for you, the Vast Sea Emperor, you might be an Earthly Immortal, but you should be a little careful when in the middle of a tribulation. You shouldn''t be so eager to get ahead, otherwise... haha!"


    "You''re right. Unfortunately, I am already in the midst of a tribulation so it is impossible to get out. You might be a Tribulation Taker, but you are not the only in this world. And if you die today, then you wouldn''t be a Tribulation Taker anymore!"


    As he was speaking, the sea below came rushing, making countless thin ropes that wound around Zhou Bao''s feet.


    Zhou Bao frowned a little. The Flipping Sky Seal on his head covering everything, and started pounding straight at the ropes.


    Pop!


    If the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield already had the power of a Taihao Fairy Weapon, then now the power of Zhou Bao''s Flipping Sky Seal would have long exceeded that of a normal Taihao Fairy Weapon. The range of the seal suddenly increased to a hundred miles, like a huge shield. Not only did it block these thin ropes, but it also kept down the waters from the Ocean City. The sea water had no way of withstanding the immense pressure of the Flipping Sky Seal, and could only burst open under the ground, creating a pit several times the size of the 300-meter one already formed. In a second, dust was splattered everywhere, and the ground around the Ocean City rocked intensely as though a huge earthquake had occurred.


    This time, Zhou Bao did not care so much. He raised his finger. The face of the seemingly weightless Flipping Sky Seal that had reached a hundred miles, and shrank back to its original size, floating above Zhou Bao''s head.


    "Interesting, interesting. Every time I use this Flipping Sky Seal it seems that its power increases. But there are still a few clever tricks I have not grasped that I might use often in the future." Feeling the simple, original spirit rippling inside the Flipping Sky Seal, he vaguely felt it to very compatible with his Mysterious Divine Light. But he could not look into it right now. The strike of the Flipping Sky Seal split open countless ropes. But it would be underestimating the Great Ancient Emperor to think that this was the only trick he had.


    "Oh, so you actually managed to practice the Flipping Sky Seal to this level?" The Vast Sea Emperor was astonished to see the seal strike destroying the water ropes.


    Zhou Bao seemed to destroy them quite easily. In antiquity times they had such a fearsome reputation. They were his essence of water that took a thousand years of work to successfully refine. They were hard to deal with. The ropes would wind around the Earthly Immortals in the Sea Area, and it was difficult to escape. It was the best way of entangling enemies.


    He would not have thought that while confronting Zhou Bao, they would have been so easily broken by his Flipping Sky Seal.


    "I forgot, you have the Real Body of Zhuyan. The nature of the Mysterious Divine Light fits easily with the Flipping Sky Seal. I had miscalculated!"


    "Your miscalculation is yet to come!" Zhou Bao sneered, and he suddenly launched the Mysterious Icy Divine Light from within. He splayed his fingers, pressing violently downwards towards his feet.


    He pushed his palm down, and in a moment a frigid air was gushing everywhere. The space underneath Zhou Bao''s palm formed a huge blue crystal.


    The Icy Divine Light!


    As Zhou Bao was pressing down, he used the strength of the Icy Divine Light within himself, and in a moment, everything within a thousand miles froze over, and only a white mist could be seen along the city, reaching out towards the ocean. Everywhere it passed over, whether it was peaceful ocean or surging billows, the sea turned into ice, freezing right down to the bottom. It became Thousand-Year Dark Ice. This Icy Divine Light could not only freeze water, but also space. "Haha. Zhou Bao, you don''t need that! That''s not where I am, and I cannot appear. You cannot find me!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s actions, the Vast Sea Emperor laughed mischievously. "If it were really that easy to find me, then I would not have been stuck here for so many years!"


    "You''re already trapped, but you still have to wade this troublesome water! How silly!" Zhou Bao laughed. "Did I really think the Great Ancient Emperor was this unscrupulous?"


    "Okay, cut the crap. It seems you have good strength, and I have to deal with you carefully. If you don''t want to die, boy, you need to be careful!" His voice dropped, and a boom came from the ocean that was frozen for a thousand miles. Zhou Bao focused his gaze and was astounded. "Fine then, create a diversion!" The Flipping Sky Seal above him flashed fiercely.


    Boom!


    Before the Flipping Sky Seal flashed at its brightest, a blue ray appeared in the hollow, fiercely attacking the rays of the Flipping Sky Seal.


    Clap!


    The Flipping Sky Seal was smashed to pieces and Zhou Bao bore a tragic expression. Under the pull from the spirit of the Flipping Sky Seal, his tendons and meridians were heavily damaged and he was knocked backward.


    "Even if you are a Tribulation Taker, you are not invulnerable. Countless times in the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth a Tribulation Taker has died, boy. If you cannot get past me, then you will definitely die! As he was speaking, a huge finger suddenly appeared from the sky, pointing straight at Zhou Bao.


    "If you want to see me die, you''ll have to suffer it first!" Zhou Bao smiled as he careened backward. The Flipping Sky Seal might be broken, and he might be heavily injured, but he still had the Seven Wonderful Techniques, Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill, Dharma Power-restoring Skill, and the Immortal Body Technique, which he could use all at once. And there was also his body that had been refined in the Eight Nine Mysterious Skills and Mysterious Divine Light. While he was heavily injured, he only needed to make sure he did not suddenly die, and he could recover in a short amount of time. Seeing the finger in the sky pointing down, he just laughed while around him an immense Qi Power bubbled up. A Black Sun shadow emerged from his body, and struck the finger in the sky.


    Zhou Bao''s fist and the searing rays of the Black Sun collided violently with the blue finger. There was nothing fancy, just a pure contest of force.


    There was a loud bang.


    The blue finger was completely shattered by Zhou Bao''s strike, and Zhou Bao''s body was struck as if by a heavy hammer. When it was touched there was a sudden explosion under the surface of the ice, running all the way through the Thousand Year Dark Ice all the way to the bottom.

 806 Ending Up Worse Off

    Amazing! The Great Ancient Emperor really deserves his reputation!


    Although it was just one finger, the damage it caused Zhou Bao was immeasurable. If it were not for Zhou Bao''s physical condition, he would have already been shattered.


    But the finger did not disappear completely after it was smashed by Zhou Bao''s blow. It reformed in the space and pointed downwards following Zhou Bao wherever he went as if it were about to push down on Zhou Bao again.


    Crack crack crack!


    As he was falling, Zhou Bao stretched out his left hand to brace himself.


    "Stop!" he shouted. As he was falling to the ground like a meteor, he suddenly stopped. His left hand was stretched out and there flashed a golden ray. The Flipping Sky Seal assembled itself once again, and powerfully collided with the blue finger falling in the air.


    Boom!


    Another bang shook the heavens and completely took out the ice at the bottom of the sea. The Flipping Sky Seal was completely smashed once again, but this time the blue finger was completely disintegrated.


    Zhou Bao stopped falling and turned himself upright. His figure flashed underground, and he returned to the top of the Ocean City.


    He did not stay for long this time. He broke the hollow at once as if to escape.


    "Kid, you cannot leave!"


    The Vast Sea Emperor saw what Zhou Bao was doing, and could not help but laugh.


    Indeed, since Zhou Bao came to the sky above Ocean City, he could not leave. He was imprisoned but only had three strikes. In this place near the sea, he could influence the space with his power. This surrounding space was not constrained, but it was in a strange state, almost as if becoming water. Suddenly, Zhou Bao was drowning. He could exert his space Divine Sense, but the result was far from expected. He had wanted to break the space to the east, but after he did so he found he was in the west. If he wanted to go to the north, he found himself in the south. This was a lot more troublesome than being unable to break the space!


    After several attempts, Zhou Bao stopped and grew sullen. He brandished his Furnace of Immortality for solid protection. He did not look for the Vast Sea Emperor''s location, he had the Heavenly Fairy Weapon for protection. Zhou Bao believed it was the Great Ancient Emperor, and it would not be easy to deal with him.


    By now, he was not looking for the best move, he was just looking to avoid making mistakes.


    This turtle tactic was a little tricky for the Vast Sea Emperor, but it was no big deal.


    Heavenly Fairy Weapons were precious, but the Great Ancient Emperor also had one. If he really wanted to use it, it would waste all of his power to strike. This was not because it would use up all the Dharma power, it was precisely the opposite. The Heavenly Fairy Weapon had a device spirit, and so it did not use up Dharma power, and it was a lot easier than a Taihao Fairy Weapon. The problem was that his Heavenly Fairy Weapon, like him, was restricted to one place. If he wanted to use the Heavenly Fairy Weapon to break through the restriction and then recover it, he had to use up all his striking power at least.


    This was not worthwhile for the Vast Sea Emperor, so he hesitated a little.


    "Vast Sea Emperor, if you do not make another move and I break your surrounding space form, you will not be able to catch me!"


    "Zhou Bao, you asked for this!" After Zhou Bao spoke, the Vast Sea Emperor hesitated no more. His mission for today was to keep Zhou Bao in Ocean City and to keep him alive. If he did not, it would cause him a lot of unwanted trouble.


    So, he decided to make the next move with full force.


    A dim blue light, a majestic spirit, rose from the sea.


    Crack crack crack!


    Zhou Bao had turned the Icy Divine Light into Thousand-Year Dark Ice. The solid, frozen sea ice started to burst open. A faint mist started gushing out from where the ice burst open, and it dispersed an immense Qi power.


    Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes slightly and a strange smile appeared on the corners of his mouth. The Vast Sea Emperor''s fairy weapon must have quite a bit of Qi power.


    However, he seemed to have forgotten what Zhou Bao depended on when he was starting out.


    Qi Power, of course! For decades, Zhou Bao''s practice depended on Qi Power. His fist intent was a simulated universe, but who else could match his Qi Power?


    So Zhou Bao stayed calm, and the Furnace of Immortality rotated slowly above his head. The surrounding faint golden fire-light gave off a vapor, seemingly unreal. It seemed to drift peacefully, but it was actually ready to strike.


    Boom!


    After a short time, the ice that had long been shrouded in the white mist had completely burst open, creating an enormous explosion. An abnormally shaped Elixir Furnace had cracked it open.


    Wait, an Elixir Furnace?!


    Seeing the Elixir Furnace on the ice, Zhou Bao was perplexed. The Vast Sea Emperor''s Heavenly Fairy Weapon turned out to be an Elixir Furnace.


    This Elixir Furnace was nothing like Zhou Bao''s Furnace of Immortality. It was dark green all over, had three legs under it and two ears on top. It was like a standard traditional Chinese tripod stove.


    "Roar!"


    As Zhou Bao stood dumbstruck, the Elixir Furnace let out a huge roar. A large blue dragon came flying out.


    "That little bastard, soon you''ll die!"


    The blue dragon was a hundred feet long and had a bold and powerful form. It had awe-inspiring Qi Power. Everything within a hundred miles quaked as it bellowed in agitation. This was the device spirit of the Vast Sea Emperor''s Elixir Furnace.


    "This is what you get!" Seeing the blue dragon, Zhou Bao breathed a sigh of relief. The Furnace of Immortality above his head started expanding violently and crashed straight into the Elixir Furnace.


    The Blue Dragon device spirit did not think Zhou Bao would act so immediately and with such a violent method. Seeing it crash into the Elixir Furnace, he was not to be outdone, and with a growl met the attack.


    Boom!


    The two Elixir Furnaces collided together, and a huge boom shook the heavens. All of the clouds in the sky were shaken away, revealing a dark sky.


    "Nice. I enjoyed that, hahaha! I haven''t had such a thrill for a long time!"


    The two Elixir Furnaces swung apart again and were now more than a hundred feet apart. They were not damaged, but the Blue Dragon device spirit seemed invigorated. They seemed to be evenly matched. Just as he was about to praise his opponent and say how much he enjoyed it, there was a sudden change.


    A black light like a Haidinger''s brush suddenly jumped out of the Furnace of Immortality and pounced on the Blue Dragon.


    The Blue Dragon didn''t feel anything at first. It opened its mouth and sprayed a blue flame towards the black light.


    Poof!


    It hit the black light with no effect at all. It was unclear whether the black light absorbed it or something else. In a moment, the black light came right up to the Blue Dragon''s face.


    The Blue Dragon device spirit had only now realized and panic was rising in its heart. It was a panic rising from the depths of the blood and soul, an instinctual fear. It did not know what had happened, but it knew it could not go on like this, otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable.


    At this moment, time seemed to be slowing down. The black light watched straight ahead where it was about to pounce. The Blue Dragon device spirit rose up vigorously and roared. Its solid body finally swaying, it borrowed back into the dark cyan Elixir Furnace.


    Whoosh!


    The black light threw itself mercilessly into the Elixir Furnace.


    "Boy, you are dead!" Obviously, he did not imagine that this black light would go into his own Elixir Furnace. The Blue Dragon device spirit was not startled for long before it was overjoyed. This strange black light had caused him instinctual fear, but this did not mean it had no power to fight back. Inside the Elixir Furnace was its own domain, and here it was infinitely stronger. It did not matter what this black light was, in the Elixir Furnace it was placing itself at the dragon''s mercy.


    But would it really be as easy as he thought?


    Seeing the black light dive into the Elixir Furnace, Zhou Bao''s expression turned cold. The Furnace of Immortality started to give out a huge yellow light, which started to violently collide with the dark cyan Elixir Furnace. Then, the Flipping Sky Seal once again appeared in front of Zhou Bao, and with loud bangs started smashing into it.


    Bang, bang, bang!


    The continuous impacts caught the Blue Dragon off guard.


    There was no easy way of invoking the Elixir Furnace''s power. At this point, the black light started showing its true face.


    The Dragon Chimera!


    It was pitch black all over, and actually not that big. Whereas the Blue Dragon was more than a thousand feet long, this was only ten feet and looked quite weak. It was wrapped in a black flame. Gazing at the Blue Dragon device spirit with both eyes, it was filled with desire.


    Dragon, a real dragon!


    The Blue Dragon device spirit was actually made into a real dragon, which made the Dragon Chimera extremely happy. After so many years, it had finally encountered a real dragon, and a real dragon could satisfy its appetite.


    Roar!


    The Dragon Chimera roared and charged at the Blue Dragon device spirit. The Blue Dragon realized its situation was not ideal, but went to meet the attack anyway. As it had extra power inside the Elixir Furnace, it had a little extra confidence when it went to face the Dragon Chimera.


    Soon, the Blue Dragon and the Dragon Chimera were entangled. The Dragon Chimera was only one hundredth the size of the Blue Dragon device spirit, and their fighting power was not evenly matched. But it was clear the black fire around the Dragon Chimera severely harmed the Blue Dragon. Each time the Blue Dragon touched the black flame, part of it melted away. In a few moments, more than half of the Blue Dragon''s body had already melted away.


    The device spirit wanted to mobilize the power of the Elixir Furnace, but now the continuous impacts of the Flipping Sky Seal and the Furnace of Immortality outside were wearing the Elixir Furnace down, so that its power could not be mobilized.


    "Vast Sea Emperor, do you know what your biggest mistake was?" Zhou Bao''s laughter dissipated throughout the sky. "If you look, you''ll see I''m using a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, and you are using a Heavenly Fairy Weapon to fight me. You have forgotten that I have more than a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, but in this restrictive state you have set up, you can only use one. It doesn''t matter how powerful your fairy weapon is, it is nothing against two of them. Defeat is inevitable!"


    As he was speaking, Zhou Bao did not move. Strike after strike, he attacked the dark cyan Elixir Furnace. Meanwhile, a thought came into his Second Primordial Spirit. "No matter what you do, do it quickly. Before the Vast Sea Emperor launches his third strike, let me dispose of that damn device spirit!"


    "It''s almost done!" Inside the Elixir Furnace, the backing of the Elixir Furnace''s power was lost because of the innate restriction. Although the Blue Dragon device spirit had resisted attacks for a while, it was no match, and Zhou Bao''s Dragon Chimera completely engulfed it.


    Boom!


    Losing the device spirit of the Elixir Furnace from the attack of the Flipping Sky Seal, Furnace of Immortality, and Zhou Bao''s fist, it exploded. As it exploded, a flame shot out from within the Furnace of Immortality, engulfing the fragments of the Elixir Furnace until there was nothing left.


    "No¡ª!"


    Meanwhile, a roar shook the heavens. The ice that had stretched for a thousand miles burst completely open.

 807 The Third Strike – Dark Blue Rage and the Broken Dust Formation

    Although the Vast Sea Emperor was restricted in this nameless space, he was, after all, of world-shaking cultivation. He looked down on Zhou Bao, but now he thought he was quite a powerful Tribulation Taker. This cultivation was raised through taking tribulations, and every Tribulation Taker had their weak point. Their foundations were unstable, there''s no way he could stand up against an old-school Earthly Immortal. Although the Vast Sea Emperor only had the power for three strikes, this was more than enough for facing someone like Zhou Bao.


    But it was very clear that he had underestimated Zhou Bao''s power.


    With the first strike, he had been quite relaxed, and Zhou Bao easily countered it. With his second strike, he adopted the fairy weapon versus fairy weapon method to break through his Heavenly Fairy Weapon Furnace of Immortality defense. He thought they were at the same level, but his fairy weapon had long taken shape, and Zhou Bao''s Heavenly Fairy Weapon was clearly newly cultivated. There was no way he could contend against his Elixir Furnace, and so he had miscalculated the outcome.


    Zhou Bao''s Furnace of Immortality had a peculiar origin. It could not be compared with a normal Heavenly Fairy Weapon, and was not what an ordinary Heavenly Fairy Weapon could be imagined to be.


    In addition, the device spirit of one Elixir Furnace was a real dragon. The device spirit of the other was a Dragon Chimera. The Vast Sea Emperor''s Heavenly Fairy Weapon was completely overcome by Zhou Bao. Not only was it defeated, but Zhou Bao got off relatively unscathed from the fight. One Elixir Furnace engulfed the other, and one device spirit engulfed the other, making his Furnace of Immortality suddenly much more powerful.


    At this point, the Vast Sea Emperor knew that he could no longer regard Zhou Bao as any old schmuck, but as his greatest opponent. Meanwhile, he could only have the opportunity to seize back his fairy weapon if he killed him. And with the fairy weapon greatly increasing with power, he would not just stand back. He sought to kill Zhou Bao in a single strike.


    Blood flows for a thousand miles due to an emperor''s wrath.


    There was a loud boom, and Zhou Bao felt as if he had been run over by a heavy truck. All of his bones were instantly crushed under a tremendous force. His tendons and meridians were shattered to pieces, and even his internal Mysterious Icy Divine Light started to circulate extremely slowly.


    "Boy, you have succeeded in making me angry. Just die!"


    The darkness in the sky was replaced by deep blue, and the pressure of the heavens and earth exerted itself on Zhou Bao. The Flipping Sky Seal shattered under the force, and his Furnace of Immortality was unable to help him as it had just engulfed a Heavenly Fairy Weapon of its own class.


    Zhou Bao felt himself becoming a dead leaf. He had no strength to counter the crushing force of the heavens and earth. He even felt that his already crushed skeleton would be pushed into his brain.


    "I can''t. If it goes on like this, even if I don''t die I''ll be doomed forever."


    In a fit of anger, the Seven Wonderful Techniques was activated. The Immortal Body Technique urgently started to restore Zhou Bao. A strange curtain appeared in the dark blue heavens and earth. Zhou Bao''s body was crushed, reformed, crushed, and reformed again. In a very short time, it seemed as if a death cycle had formed. Zhou Bao was crushed and reformed countless times as the two opposing forces were in a deadlock.


    "Damn it. You know the Immortal Body Technique!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s situation, of course, the Vast Sea Emperor could see what method he was using. He swore angrily.


    Zhou Bao had unexpectedly practiced his Immortal Body Technique to almost its original state. And so the battle became a war of attrition, a real war of attrition. No matter how many times Zhou Bao was crushed, under the effect of the Immortal Body Technique, it was impossible to completely kill him. So the emperor could not complete his task. He had already lost a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, and this would cause him more trouble. No matter what, he could not accept this.


    Therefore, he had to kill this guy. Zhou Bao had to die. Only then he could finally reduce his losses and have a chance to escape from his dark confinement, and only then would his troubles be resolved.


    Considering this, he finally stopped holding back.


    "Boy, you can only blame yourself for getting into this trouble!" The Vast Sea Emperor did not want to hold back on Zhou Bao any longer. The dark blue sky changed again, and the enormous pressure began to vanish. Zhou Bou felt the pressure abate, and his body completely reformed. After that, there was no more pressure.


    "There''s no way this guy has used up all his power! He is a Great Ancient Emperor, it''s impossible he has so little endurance!"


    As he stopped in astonishment, a spirit surged upwards so strong that made him tremble.


    What was this?!


    Yes, what was it?


    This spirit was so mighty, it seemed it would split open the whole world!


    Yes, split open. It was the spirit that split open the heavens and earth.


    Zhou Bao could finally see the source of this spirit. He took a deep breath, and without thinking twice, retrieved his Furnace of Immortality that was still consuming his opponent''s energy. He activated his Great Way of Heavens and Realms, and with no concern about whether the surrounding space had unusual movements, he was transferred to another place. He forced the space open, he just wanted to get out of this damn place.


    But his attempt was futile.


    A huge dark blue axe appeared in the space. Under its shadow, a terrifying spirit pervaded within ten thousand miles. The axe came down, shaking the earth and heavens. It was the Heaven Realm World, not Zhou Bao, that would be split in half.


    The Dark Blue Rage!


    It was the Dark Blue Rage!


    The spirit of the axe had already spread throughout the Heaven Realm World, through both its surface and its boundless spacetime.


    The Celestial Mystery Emperors at cross-legged in an unremarkable space in the depths of the boundless spacetime. He was silently operating the Divine Design when he raised his eyebrows. "The Vast Sea has used the Dark Blue Rage. Could that guy really be in such difficulty?"


    "The Dark Blue Rage. The Vast Sea Emperor used the Dark Blue Rage! It seems he really wanted Zhou Bao dead and gone. Dammit, Celestial Mystery Emperor, could you really have the confidence to survive this Tribulation of Heaven?" On Taihua Mountain, the Fate Creation Boy grew gloomy. To his side, the Lord of Heaven Black Turtle looked anxious.


    "Are we just going to watch them kill Zhou Bao?"


    "Don''t you worry. Zhou Bao is a Tribulation Taker, he won''t be so easy to kill!"


    "Even if he is a Tribulation Taker, many have died taking tribulations! This time they are determined to kill Zhou Bao. Shouldn''t we do something?"


    "There''s nothing we can do. We are not their opponents!" The Fate Creation Boy shook his head reluctantly. "What do you think we could do to thwart the Vast Sea Emperor? Could you block his Dark Blue Rage? Could I?"


    "This...!" The Lord of Heaven Black Turtle frowned heavily. Indeed, the Dark Blue Rage was the Vast Sea Emperor''s final weapon. Neither he nor the Fate Creation Boy could stop it. In fact, with his strength, if it was the real spirit of the Dark Blue Rage he would be ripped to pieces.


    "Then we...!"


    "Wait. Wait patiently. Zhou Bao has performed countless miracles before. This time, he can only count on himself."


    Indeed, this time, Zhou Bao could only count on himself. It was better to rely on himself than on others. Facing his own violent downfall, Zhou Bao knew that he had to make a choice.


    "Now that things have reached this point, I can only look for myself!" Under the immense pressure, Zhou Bao formed one mantra after another with his hands. The forty-nine jade banners came flying out from under his sleeve, and beside him, a dense fog started to form.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation!


    But right now, Zhou Bao did not think that the Yin and Yang Dust Formation he had hastily formed could block the fierce attack of the Vast Sea Emperor. It had one purpose ¨C to connect with the formation that would protect and maintain the Heaven Realm World.


    He had deployed two Yin and Yang Dust Formations with his spirit. The small one was set up to connect to the Heaven Realm World.


    The fog around him immediately grew thick. Zhou Bao''s whole body faded slightly.


    The axe fell and cut savagely into the thick fog. The fog was instantly and neatly cut open. There was no resistance at all. However, just as the axe was about to come and cut Zhou Bao into pieces, a frenzied demon spirit emerged and formed a huge hand. It held up the axe blade, preventing it from falling.


    "That''s the¡ª!"


    "Yin and Yang Dust Formation!"


    "The real Yin and Yang Dust Formation!"


    "This is the Devil Tribe Demon Blood Spirit that has accumulated over the past few months. Dammit, he really is going to use the Yin and Yang Dust Formation to block the attack!"


    "He''s not going to use it. He has already used it!"


    By now, strong thoughts were passing throughout the Heaven Realm World. They communicated with each other, each with its own different mood. Some were astonished, some regretful, some surprised, some admiring, some angry, and some happy. Yet others were alarmed.


    A breach appeared in the sky above the Heaven Realm World, exposing the whole world to the hollow.


    Outside the Heaven Realm World, the thick fog started to billow turbulently. It started to weaken and dissipate. A hole appeared going all the way into the Heaven Realm World. Endless Fierce Owls were hissing excitedly all along the hole, swarming into the Heaven Realm World.


    "That damn bastard boy!" The Fate Creation Boy on Taihua Mountain suddenly stood up in alarm. But he soon sat back down.


    "Okay, okay, okay! This is okay. Whatever happens, happens. I see how you guys should be dealt with!"


    "Good man. You are really something!"


    After the surprise, there was silence. With the power of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, Zhou Bao had successfully blocked the strike from the dark blue axe. The dark blue color in the sky rapidly dissipated, leaving only the raging Vast Sea Emperor.


    The power for three strikes had passed, and the Heaven Realm Devil Tribulation was coming!

 809 Escaping â… 

    Zhou Bao was a vulgar man who had extremely bad tastes. In his previous life, he managed to hide this trait well and pretended to be a person who had good taste. In this present life, he did not deliberately hide it. He just had no chance to show it.


    In this power-oriented world, he pretended to be helpless and miserable during the first two decades of his life, but even so, he still felt excluded. Many big shots attacked him secretly. Although he fought back with all his strength, it was inevitable that he would always be someone''s target and focus. Perhaps this was the only disadvantage for all time travellers¡ªtheir moral standing was extremely bad.


    The feeling of being targeted against without any known reason was certainly not good. It was a given that Zhou Bao would surely retaliate. Now, for him, the Celestial Mystery Emperor was still a formidable giant. Trying to kill him was just a dream. Nevertheless, that did not mean that Zhou Bao was afraid of him. In fact, he feared no one.


    The worst he could do was to run away.


    He still retained the memories from his previous life from birth, so he had a different perspective of the world as compared with the people of this world.


    Due to this, he did not mind running away with a macro world. No matter how desolate his shelter was, it meant nothing to him. The earth in his previous life was also in a deserted corner of the universe, but everyone led good lives there. Heaven Realm World had lingered in the Desolate Ancient Star Area for many years and people there led good lives as well. If he had not opened the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm accidentally, there wouldn''t be so many people who knew its current position. In that case, what was he afraid of?


    He did not believe that the Celestial Mystery Emperor would be able to find him after he escaped with his Supreme Fairy Weapon. If that really happened, what could the Celestial Mystery Emperor do to him? As for whether the Star Area that he was going to dwell in was desolate or not, or whether it was difficult for him to get in contact with other macro worlds and influences in the Void Universe, that was something he would not take into consideration. After all, discussing about social contact with a homebody was simply a waste of time, right?


    Therefore, he was on cloud nine even as he was spewing out abuse. He did not care about his image but only felt a sense of ease. It was as if he had suddenly managed to cleanse his system after suffering from constipation for several days. Only one word was able to describe this feeling¡ªgreat!


    In the depths of Heaven Realm World, the Celestial Mystery Emperor was literally panting with rage at this point. There were queer facial expressions on the faces of the two men beside him. They wanted to laugh, but they had to refrain from doing so. Seeing the Celestial Mystery Emperor filled with fury and emitting lightning flashes from his fingertips, they grabbed both his arms in case he did something he should not be doing.


    "That bastard is unforgivable! I''ll never forgive him!" After they restrained him, they saw his lips quivering with rage. He said repeatedly, "I won''t forgive this bastard, I won''t!"


    "Don''t worry, this person has been involved in this tribulation and it''s impossible for him to get away. It''s not the right time to exact your revenge!"


    "Yes, we''d better focus on how to deal with the Devil Tribe at present. Although they can''t destroy the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, they have gathered so many Fierce Owls at the Falling Star Reef and made this place a key target. It doesn''t meet with your plans. You''re the one who made this plan and you are responsible for carrying it out. You must show up and do something!"


    After ranting for a long while, the Celestial Mystery Emperor finally calmed down. He said, "Summon the Spirit-suppressing King!"


    "Haha, I finally know why those shrews like shouting abuse in the street. This kind of thing is good for health. Hurling abuse at someone you don''t like, using vulgarities and trying your best to insult him allows you to vent your resentment and rage but also can make him die due to anger. Is there anything more self-serving and joyful than that?" Zhou Bao thought that there was no better thing than that in this world. It was delightful beyond words.


    "Good gracious! Where did you learn so many dirty words? Aren''t you afraid of soiling your tongue?" When Zhou Bao reappeared on Taihua Mountain, Fate Creation Boy already had no energy left to scold him. He stared at Zhou Bao as if he was observing a rare animal.


    "Of course I''m not. You guys have always had a holier-than-thou attitude, so you cannot truly enjoy a happy and carefree life!" Zhou Bao said with disdain. "Look, I feel like I''m going to break through to another phase. Everything is going so smoothly in my heart. Haha!"


    "I''m so glad to see that you''re so happy. But don''t forget that you have become a sworn enemy of the Celestial Mystery Emperor!"


    "Do I fear him?" Zhou Bao said scornfully. "He didn''t dare to come out even though I had thrown a stream of abuse at him. Do you think such a person can threaten me?"


    "He who lacks forbearance in small matters will spoil great plans!"


    "If we blindly tolerate others, we''ll become cowards. The Celestial Mystery Emperor has always plotted against others secretly, so he probably has forgotten how to attack others, I''m afraid!" Zhou Bao showed increasingly contempt for the Celestial Mystery Emperor. "No matter what kind of big things he is plotting to do, the timider he is, the slighter his chances of success will be!"


    "Boy, you are really good at judging others. Don''t forget that he was a Great Ancient Emperor and was one of the top five emperors among the 99 Emperors in the Ancient Celestial Court!" Lord of Heaven Black Turtle said coldly.


    "So what? That is merely an old story!" Zhou Bao laughed coldly. "Moreover, he is busy dealing with the Devil Tribe. Given his character, he would not bother me until the end of this Devil Tribulation. Do you really think that he will win when facing the Devil Tribe?"


    "There are indeed a lot of experts in the Devil Tribe. Besides, Marquis Wugu and Marquis Zhihai are their leaders. But don''t forget that there are numerous demons in Falling Star Reef too. Furthermore, they have the support of some emperors at the Earthly Immortal Realm, such as the Celestial Mystery Emperor, and they still possess a Supreme Fairy Weapon¡ªthe Sea-overlooking Gate Tower!"


    "If the Celestial Mystery Emperor can act at will, I wouldn''t be standing here alive!" Zhou Bao smiled cunningly. His intention was to test the tolerance of the Celestial Mystery Emperor by screaming abuse at him, but little did he expect that the Celestial Mystery Emperor would not take any action. Obviously, the emperors from antiquity times faced more restraints than he had imagined. They might be confined in some unknown spacetimes just like Vast Sea Emperor and demanding conditions were required if they wanted to attack others. In this way, Zhou Bao was immensely relieved.


    "Don''t think your petty tricks will deceive the Celestial Mystery Emperor!"


    "I don''t expect to deceive him, I just need to consider my own benefits!" said Zhou Bao. "The only thing those guys can rely on right now is the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, but don''t forget that it will be severely restricted in Heaven Realm World and cannot exert all its power. If it is able to exert all the power, Heaven Realm World will be in trouble!"


    Zhou Bao was not exaggerating. He was telling the truth. Once a Supreme Fairy Weapon was fully operational in Heaven Realm World, the two macro worlds would collide with each other. This would be a crushing blow to both the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower and Heaven Realm World. Therefore, once those guys were in the territory of Heaven Realm World, they would not act crazily. In this case, the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower would be less threatening. As for the Demon tribe in the Falling Star Reef, Zhou Bao did not think that they could resist the Devil Tribe for too long.


    "You think the Devil Tribe will win?"


    "I don''t care whether the Devil Tribe will win or lose, I am just putting everything ahead of schedule. Neither the Celestial Mystery Emperor nor other influences in the Void Universe are prepared for all this. So, they lack practice and time when dealing with these matters. The Devil Tribe seems to be getting ready, but in fact, they can no longer use our Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Even if they occupy the Falling Star Reef, they will face attacks from Heaven Realm World and various influences from the Void Universe. This is a tangled war and we are in troubled times. I guess no one will pay attention to me at this time!"


    "You are preparing for your departure!"


    "In fact, you can leave as well. You just need to take the Golden Book of Fate of Heaven Realm World with you!" Zhou Bao cast a meaningful glance at Fate Creation Boy and added, "You have to understand that Heaven Realm World is the focus. It''s closely connected with the Void Immortal Realm. It''s merely an accident that you can take control of it this time, but you cannot be the Fate Creator of such a macro world for long!"


    "Do you think I can get away from the turmoil once I depart from here?"


    "At least it can offer you more time to see things more clearly!" Zhou Bao sighed gently and continued, "It might be a good choice to abandon Heaven Realm World and leave this damn place!"


    "I won''t make such a choice unless I have no alternative. What''s more, your behavior has brought profound changes to this matter!"


    "Changes can be good and bad at different times!"


    "It is giving me more opportunities. I want to give it a try and I hope I can seize them!"


    "Then I wish you good luck!" Zhou Bao smiled. Since he failed to convince Fate Creation Boy to leave, he would not impose his opinions on him. Though Fate Creation Boy was a special person, he was not an essential part of his plan. "At any rate, I don''t want to get involved in this matter anymore!"


    "Do you think you will be able to escape from here?"


    "I''ve made up my mind to depart and it''s the best chance now!" Zhou Bao laughed. "By the way, I''ll take some people with me and I hope you won''t mind!"


    "Humph, you''d better take all the people in the Seven-deity Regions away!" Fate Creation Boy stated, after thinking for a moment.


    "No!" Although Zhou Bao was startled by his words, he quickly shook his head and refused to take up his proposal. "If you are willing to help me, I''ll take all the mortals away. I won''t take any practitioners except for the people from Immortal Palace and some of my friends. By the way, what the hell is Spiritual Treasure?"

 808 The Beginning of the Devil Tribulation & Fighting Wugu

    Zhou Bao was safe after the three blows, but he knew that the real trouble was just getting started.


    The giant axe cut through the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Having lost the protection of this formation, the Heaven Realm World was left undefended. A mass of Fierce Owls swarmed into this space from the sky.


    "Go back!" Just as Zhou Bao frowned at the Fierce Owls swarming in from the sky, a loud shout rang out. Then, he saw some golden light shining brightly in the sky. All the Fierce Owls that had appeared in the Heaven Realm World were instantly turned into ashes under the light.


    "The Golden Book of Fate?!"


    Zhou Bao was shocked to see that Fate Creation Boy had actually used the Golden Book of Fate to repel and kill a large number of Devil Tribesmen with the Power of Fate of the Heaven Realm World. However, being a Fate Creator as well, he knew very well that this kind of situation would not last long.


    "Zhou Bao, hurry up. Help me stop up that hole!"


    "There''s no use doing that. The axe has destroyed the Innate Qi Pure Talisman¡ªthe essence of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Even if we block up that hole, its power will only be one ten-thousandth of its original power, at most!" Zhou Bao cried out but did not slow down his movements. He rushed into the Fierce Owls in a few seconds and the Furnace of Immortality above his head rose up instantly. It spouted out seven streams of flame and started to burn the Fierce Owls around Zhou Bao. Since it was already a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, those Fierce Owls and low-level Devil Tribesmen were simply no match for it. After a few moments, it wiped out all of them. "We''d better find some other solution!"


    "Other solution? What? You bastard, how cruel and heartless you are!"


    "Come on, Fate Creation Boy, we both knew from the start that the Yin and Yang Dust Formation couldn''t protect your Heaven Realm World. In that case, why don''t I make good use of it to save my life?!" Zhou Bao did not feel guilty causing trouble for the Heaven Realm World; instead, he said these words forcefully with great confidence.


    "In this way, the Devil Tribe can do nothing even if they want to take advantage of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!"


    "You''re still quibbling over it now!"


    "You are talking nonsense. I didn''t quibble over that. However, you''re deceiving yourself all the time. Surrounded by aggressive and powerful enemies, do you really think that you can protect the Heaven Realm World?" Seeing that Fate Creation Boy lacked a clear understanding of the current situation, Zhou Bao wanted to give him the finger. "I''m telling you, our best choice is to shrink back and let them fight against each other. You should understand that no one has predicted that the Yin and Yang Dust Formation would be destroyed at this point except me!"


    This was the only initiative Zhou Bao could gain. The Devil Tribe outside had been waiting to break through the lines of defense of the Heaven Realm World the moment the Yin and Yang Dust Formation was filled with Evil Qi. They had aimed to make the formation their trump card and trump card. The emissaries in the Earthly Immortal Realm from the Alien World had been expecting to see the Heaven Realm World struggle to survive, and in this way, increase the bargaining chips. Hiding in the dark, the Celestial Mystery Emperor and other people had been waiting for the big shots of the Devil Tribe to come out from the Devil Realm and destroy the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. Then, they could kill all of them in one fell swoop when they gathered in the Heaven Realm World to find the passageway leading to the Immortal Realm.


    But now, because of Zhou Bao''s unexpected action, their wishful thinking fell through.


    Though it was a minor accident, it had a great influence on them.


    They were totally unprepared for it, but they had to lay their cards on the table as soon as possible. Otherwise, they would lose the initiative and would be unable to turn the tables in the future.


    "Zhou Bao, you bastard, how dare you to have done that!" In the endless spacetime, the Celestial Mystery Emperor smashed the table in front of him and stood up angrily, carrying an air of awe from head to toe. He had not been so angry in many years, but now, this guy named Zhou Bao had successfully incited his anger.


    "He must pay the price! I will make him pay a big price!" this Great Ancient Emperor roared. Nevertheless, he did not have any good means to fight back when facing such a situation.


    Zhou Bao did not know that the Celestial Mystery Emperor was swearing at him, but he knew that his action must have offended everyone.


    "F*ck you. Since you want me to die, I''ll show you that living is no better than dying and we''ll see if you dare to provoke me in the future!" There was a trace of triumph in his heart. The flame in the Furnace of Immortality burned more vigorously.


    "Hey, you idiots from the Devil Tribe, if you still don''t spring into action, I''ll refine all the Fierce Owls around here. Don''t be proud of your quantity. I''m telling you that no matter how many ants there are, they are unable to bite an elephant to death!"


    As if to confirm what he had said, the Furnace of Immortality suddenly shone brightly and expanded to around 10,000 feet wide. It created a strong suction that sucked all the Fierce Owls within a 500-kilometer radius into it.


    "Brat, how dare you be so arrogant and savage!" A loud shout resounded out and a jet-black claw fiercely grabbed at the Furnace of Immortality.


    "You really don''t know the immensity of heaven and earth!" Seeing the claw moving toward the furnace, Zhou Bao just sneered. He did not stop it but swung a punch into the void.


    "Pop!"


    "Bang!!"


    Two loud bangs rang out. The first sound rang out when the claw hit the furnace. The second sound resounded the moment that Zhou Bao hit the man hiding in the void hard, which sent him flying.


    "Haha, Marquis Wugu, it''s you! Today, we''ll settle the score!" Zhou Bao recognized his opponent¡ªMarquis Wugu from the Devil Tribe, who had escaped from the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. He was so delighted that he rushed toward him and fought him fiercely.


    Marquis Wugu was a Primordial Demon. Although he had been imprisoned for many years and his Dharma power had been greatly sapped, his strength now returned to the Earthly Immortal Realm after so many years of recovery. He managed to stabilize the situation quickly and started to fight Zhou Bao hand-to-hand, even though Zhou Bao had seized the initiative.


    Both of them left the Heaven Realm World and fought each other very fiercely in the Void Universe.


    As a Primordial Demon, Marquis Wugu had fought countless battles in his life and had a rich experience in fighting. Furthermore, the methods he had adopted to fight his enemies were extremely insidious. Although Zhou Bao did have strong fists and powerful strength, he was inferior to this age-old demon in every aspect. Even though he had gained the initiative at first, Marquis Wugu soon seized it from him. He then had only the strength to withstand his attacks, but had no power to retaliate.


    "Hahahaha, you damn brat, now you should know how powerful I am!" Holding the upper hand, Marquis Wugu was filled with joy. Since he had gotten out of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, Zhou Bao had caused him a lot of trouble. Now he had the opportunity to avenge himself, so he had every reason to be delighted.


    "Damn it, ginger really does get spicier with age! Apart from other aspects, his combat experience alone is many times better than mine. I can''t fight with him like this; otherwise, I''ll suffer losses!" Zhou Bao was caught off guard by Marquis Wugu. Although these attacks did not cause him any severe injury, the pain was real. This made him very unhappy, but he also realized that he could not fight this guy head-to-head.


    Thinking about this, he made a deceptive movement and withdrew himself from the fighting. After that, he raised his hand and took out the Flipping Sky Seal.


    "Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!"


    The moment he took out the seal, Marquis Wugu launched himself forward. He threw a series of punches at the seal but achieved little.


    "Marquis Wugu, I''m going to show you the power of my Flipping Sky Seal!" Zhou Bao shouted out loud and the seal fell from the sky. With a loud bang, it hit Marquis Wugu on the forehead.


    "Bang!!"


    There were sparks flying off in all directions from Marquis Wugu''s forehead. Although he was a Primordial Demon who had a very tough body, he was stunned and stupefied by this blow. He continually stepped back, and before he could come to his senses, Zhou Bao''s Flipping Sky Seal dropped from the sky again.


    "Bang, bang, bang...!"


    With a burst of sound of the beating of metal emanating, Marquis Wugu continually stepped back and his golden body gradually dimmed.


    However, he was simply not someone who could be easily harmed. After suffering a series of heavy blows, he took this opportunity to stand firmly on the ground. When the seal fell again, a mass of dark clouds rose above his head and prevented the seal from dropping down.


    "Brat, you''ve gone too far!" Marquis Wugu roared. Black fog permeated the air around him that gave off an extremely dangerous aura. Zhou Bao''s heart throbbed. He knew that something was wrong and wanted to withdraw the seal, but it was already too late. A cold light shot out of the fog and hit right at the seal.


    "Boom!!!"


    As if it had suffered a heavy blow, the seal turned around, and cracks appeared on its huge body. It then broke apart and scattered in the air. At this point, Zhou Bao finally made out the true colors of that cold light.


    It was a long pitch-black spear. Though it was very simple in style, it carried an air of coldness and horror.


    "Flipping Sky Seal, hehe, your Flipping Sky Seal is powerful, but unfortunately, it''s incomplete!" After taking out the long black spear, Marquis Wugu wore a rather gruesome smile and became much more confident. "I''ll show you the complete form of a Spiritual Treasure. It''s a blessing for you to die under my Spear of Annihilation!"


    "The complete form of a Spiritual Treasure?!"


    It was Zhou Bao''s first time to hear the name "Spiritual Treasure". And while he was looking distracted, the Spear of Annihilation already charged at him, carrying a subtle but terrifying aura of destruction.


    "Damn!"


    Zhou Bao vaguely felt that something was not quite right with this long spear and did not dare to fight it head-on. He tried to dodge it with several quick moves, but it seemed to have intelligence. It targeted him by identifying his spirit and then it went wherever he went. When he noticed that it had gotten closer, he felt a touch of coldness in his eyes. He faced the point of the spear, opened his mouth, and spat out a Wooden Fish as white as polished jade. It blocked the path of the spear successfully.

 811 Spiritual Treasure â…¡

    "What is Spiritual Treasure?"


    When Zhou Bao asked this question, Fate Creation Boy was stunned. He looked up and asked, "Don''t you know what that is?"


    "Of course I don''t, otherwise, why would I bother asking you?"


    "I thought you already knew!" said Fate Creation Boy. "I see you using the Flipping Sky Seal and the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield with great ease. All of them are Spiritual Treasures!"


    "What the hell is Spiritual Treasure?"


    "It''s something like your Flipping Sky Seal and Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield. When you practice a cultivation method to perfection, it will naturally be condensed into the shape of a magic weapon. This kind of thing is known as Spiritual Treasure. Unlike other celestial devices and fairy weapons, Spiritual Treasure is composed solely of the essence of the world and is more convenient to use. Furthermore, it''s original rather than artificial. Its grade mainly depends on the level of the cultivation method you have practiced. For example, although your Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield is powerful, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique is not a powerful cultivation method, therefore, it''s inferior to the Flipping Sky Seal. I guess you''re very clear about this point!"


    "Of course, the power of the Flipping Sky Seal is much stronger than that of the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield. However, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique is a kind of cultivation method, while the Flipping Sky Seal is just a secret skill and a way to exert strength. Is there really no difference between them?"


    "The differences are not so obvious. Haven''t you sensed that when the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique has been practiced to perfection and condensed into the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Shield, it is a secret skill as well? You didn''t notice that because it is plainer and simpler than the Flipping Sky Seal. Both the Flipping Sky Seal and the Infinite Trembling Contemplation are methods used especially for practicing Spiritual Treasures. Spiritual Treasures are made up of the essence of the world. You can also refine them with some treasures of heaven and earth and turn them into real magic weapons if you would like to. In this way, basically, they will have the power of Taihao Fairy Weapons. The only problem is that they''re not as convenient as real Spiritual Treasures and can be used only as common fairy weapons!"


    "Are there any other functions for the Spiritual Treasures apart from being used as fairy weapons?"


    "Of course, they can help you further comprehend the Law of Heaven and Earth and gradually improve your strength and cultivation phase!" Fate Creation Boy did not conceal anything from Zhou Bao. On the contrary, he told Zhou Bao everything he knew about Spiritual Treasures. To put it simply, Spiritual Treasures were magic weapons that had spiritual qi and originated from Primordial Origin. Some mighty people had evolved the cultivation methods of the first few Spiritual Treasures according to the magic weapons of heaven and earth. Later, after many years of development, Spiritual Treasures thrived in the later stages of the era of ancient deities and the early stages of the era of the Ancient Celestial Court. However, in the middle and later stages of antiquity times, powerful necromancers appeared and pursued the method of refining weapons. Since then, it gradually replaced the role of Spiritual Treasures. After antiquity times, the essence of the world gradually dissipated and all the practitioners'' strength was sharply reduced. So, ordinary practitioners were unable to condense pneuma into Spiritual Treasures, unlike Zhou Bao. Hence, the legend of Spiritual Treasures gradually disappeared, and only a few people knew about them.


    In the final analysis, the pneuma was to be blamed for all this. There would not have been so many problems if the essence of the world had not dissipated.


    After hearing the explanation of Fate Creation Boy, Zhou Bao had a preliminary understanding of Spiritual Treasures. Certainly, he could not believe everything Fate Creation Boy had just said.


    "Well, it seems that you''ve decided to leave!"


    "Sure. Do you think I''ll be so stupid to wait for death here?" Zhou Bao said with a wry smile. He was clearly elated and did things at will after giving vent to a stream of abuse. Nonetheless, he had really gone too far. He had provoked a lot of people through his reckless behavior. Thus, he chose to run away before they had the time to kill him. After all, he was not a masochist.


    "I can''t stop you from leaving. But I want you to meet someone before you go!"


    "Who?"


    "An old friend, the one who imparted the Infinite Realms Teleportation to you!"


    "Imparted the Infinite Realms Teleportation to me?" Zhou Bao''s eyes narrowed.


    "Apart from that, he also helped you to gain sudden enlightenment and further enhanced your strength. His only requirement for you was that you must bring him the Ranking of Demons and Immortals from the Sea Emperor!"


    "The Ranking of Demons and Immortals is in your hands!" Zhou Bao''s face suddenly grew solemn and he had a grim sense of foreboding.


    "It''s now useless in my hands!" Fate Creation Boy wore a forced smile. "It''s better to send it to the Emperor of Netherworld through your hands rather than wait for this bunch of people to snatch it after they have produced results. In this way, you two can form good karma with each other!"


    "Emperor of Netherworld, that man is Emperor of Netherworld!"


    "Of course. How could he obtain Netherworld Heaven if he wasn''t?" Fate Creation Boy smiled. A golden ray flashed across his fingertips and then the Ranking of Demons and Immortals appeared. "Take the Ranking of Demons and Immortals as well as this thing with you. He fell prey to someone''s plot and was severely injured. That''s why he needed to take a one-hundred-year sleep after helping you. You can wake him up with this object. Then, you can send the Ranking of Demons and Immortals to him. If he rewards you for it, you should ask for nothing but the Reincarnation Scroll!"


    "Reincarnation Scroll? What''s that?"


    "You''ll know when he gives it to you!" Fate Creation Boy wore a mysterious smile and stopped speaking.


    "Hmm, you guys really like to shroud yourself in mystery!" Zhou Bao''s lips curled. He put the Ranking of Demons and Immortals away and cupped his fists together to bid farewell to Fate Creation Boy. Then he broke through space and vanished from Taihua Mountain.


    "You just gave this guy the Ranking of Demons and Immortals?" Seeing that Zhou Bao had left, Lord of Heaven Black Turtle slowly walked up to Fate Creation Boy and gave him a querulous look. "You also asked him to get the Reincarnation Scroll. What on earth are you thinking about?"


    "We have been involved in this tribulation. Since he''s a talent who has great potential and the Tribulation Taker, I might as well give him some advice. It''s better than him messing around and getting us into trouble. Moreover, if he can get that, it''s not necessarily a bad thing for us!"


    "But it''s still too early. If he has really reached the Immortal Realm, perhaps that would be better!"


    "Do we still have that much time?!" Fate Creation Boy laughed bitterly. "You''re well aware of the current situation. We didn''t want to stir up trouble, but it has already come to us. Heaven Realm World will undergo a tribulation very soon. Though it might not be as devastating as the Necromancer''s Tribulation in those days, neither of us is the Jade Emperor from that time. We can only pin our hopes on this boy!"


    "If we gambled on the wrong man, we''ll be ruined!" Lord of Heaven Black Turtle sighed.


    "I think he will succeed!" Fate Creation Boy said with a smile.


    "I hope so!" Lord of Heaven Black Turtle said helplessly.


    In the endless spacetime of Heaven Realm World.


    Zhou Bao traveled through the endless spacetime like a sharp black arrow. Be it the surrounding Space Barriers, the space-time turbulence, or the space-time storms, they were simply nothing to him. All of them were crushed by the gale that his powerful body movements had produced.


    "Netherworld Heaven, why does it hide in the endless spacetime? The Emperor of Netherworld has also fallen into a deep sleep. What the hell had these Great Ancient Emperors encountered in that Necromancer''s Tribulation? Why do they have to exercise undue caution in taking actions? Some of them have even been imprisoned. Although they do have the ability to protect themselves, that''s all. What the hell is going on?"


    Zhou Bao could not understand this matter at all. Jade Emperor had divided the boundaries after antiquity times. If he were these emperors, he would be self-effacing and keep himself away from Jade Emperor. How could they have come to such a miserable end?


    With doubts in his heart, he moved at a quicker pace. Not knowing how long he had been flitting around in the endless spacetime, he finally stopped at a strange spacetime.


    This spacetime was very spacious and empty. The flow rate of time and space here was average. It was located between the cracks of several spacetimes. There was a speck of yellow dust moving up and down in its center.


    "Netherworld Heaven. Haha, turning a world into a speck of dust. What a powerful technique! The Emperor of Netherworld is really mighty!"


    Turning a world into a speck of dust could defeat 99% of practitioners in the Heaven Realm World. No one was able to break the inhibition of Netherworld Heaven unless they had stepped into the Earthly Immortal Realm.


    With Fate Creation Boy''s guidance and the Infinite Realms Teleportation that had been imparted by the Emperor of Netherworld, Zhou Bao had no problem entering Netherworld Heaven at all.


    Everything here was yellow, be it mountains, water, fog, and spiritual qi. There was nothing except for a few rivers flowing ceaselessly.


    Standing on an Underworld River and feeling the spiritual qi coming from the raging river, Zhou Bao exhaled slowly. This was where the Emperor of Netherworld had been sleeping. He raised his hand and then a green petal appeared in his palm. It was the object Fate Creation Boy gave him to awaken the sleeping Emperor of Netherworld.


    It was a lotus petal. Although Zhou Bao did not know its origin, he was aware that anything related to a Lotus was by no means an ordinary thing in this practicing world. There was not even a tiny bit of spiritual qi on this lotus petal, but it gave off a very strange aura which he had sensed before in a Heavenly Fairy Weapon¡ªthe red gourd.


    However, he had no intention of studying this thing now. For him, the most critical thing was to free the Emperor of Netherworld and obtain the Reincarnation Scroll.


    He did not know what the Reincarnation Scroll was either. But when he heard this name, his heart throbbed.


    Reincarnation? What was reincarnation?


    There was no concept of reincarnation in this world, but he came to this world with the memories from his previous life. It must have something to do with reincarnation. Maybe he could figure out how he had come to this world after he acquired the Reincarnation Scroll. Therefore, he threw the lotus petal into the river underfoot without hesitation.


    After it sunk into the waters, invisible ripples spread throughout the river.

 810 The Deal & Abuse

    Zhou Bao spat out a Wooden Fish that was giving off some scattered light. It was the size of a pigeon egg and translucent. It seemed to be carved from warm jade and was sending out a strange charm.


    The tip of the spear collided with the Wooden Fish and they both rebounded back due to the impact.


    "What''s this? It''s impossible!" Upon seeing that his Spear of Annihilation sprang back, Marquis Wugu was struck dumb. Then, he uttered a strange cry and his eyes were full of disbelief. The Spear of Annihilation had integrated with the Dharma of Annihilation that could eliminate everything except for something like the red gourd. Now, however, it had been bounced back by an inconspicuous Wooden Fish. It was really very weird. What was the origin of that Wooden Fish?


    Though Marquis Wugu was shocked, Zhou Bao did not stop his movements. After his Wooden Fish had warded off the Spear of Annihilation, he once again summoned the Flipping Sky Seal. The seal rolled in the void and fell from the sky.


    "Bang!!!"


    Marquis Wugu''s forehead had been hit hard by the seal again, but this time, he did not retreat. Instead, he withstood this attack with his body and activated the Spear of Annihilation, disregarding his injury. The spear struck the Wooden Fish fiercely. "I''d like to see how many blows you can bear!"


    "Oh?!" Zhou Bao sneered. The Wooden Fish trembled and gave off an invisible wave. The Spear of Annihilation hit the Wooden Fish, but the latter did not move one bit. However, their collision created an invisible ripple that moved outward in all directions.


    "Watch out, it''s the Infinite Trembling Contemplation!" At first, Marquis Wugu did not notice anything abnormal, but Marquis Zhihai, who had been watching the battle in the distance, did. Thus, his expression changed greatly. He grabbed Marquis Wugu and pulled him away from that place with a quick move. Right at that moment, the invisible ripple warded off the Spear of Annihilation and the Dharma on the spear disintegrated inch by inch. Furthermore, the spear itself turned into ashes in this weird vibration.


    "Infinite Trembling Contemplation! He has practiced the Infinite Trembling Contemplation successfully!" Marquis Wugu finally reacted to it. The words "Infinite Trembling Contemplation" awakened his old memories. His face darkened and he exclaimed, "Damn, how could he know how to practice the Infinite Trembling Contemplation?!"


    "He is a practitioner from the Heaven Realm World. Although the Heaven Realm World has been on the decline, there are still many cultivation methods preserved there. It''s no big deal for him to get this cultivation method!" said Marquis Zhihai. "Moreover, it seems that he doesn''t know how strange and powerful the Infinite Trembling Contemplation is; otherwise, he would have continually pursued you. How could you retreat so easily!"


    "That makes sense!" Marquis Wugu was puffing and his heart was still fluttering with fear. He looked at the Wooden Fish floating in the void and said, "Boy, how about we make a deal?"


    "I didn''t know the power of the Infinite Trembling Contemplation before, but now, I''m well aware of it. Do you think I''ll make a deal with you?!" Zhou Bao smiled and one of his fingertips flicked the Wooden Fish.


    "Buzz!!!"


    Another invisible ripple came into being and moved straight toward Marquis Wugu and Marquis Zhihai.


    "Boy, don''t be insatiable. Marquis Wugu was caught off guard just now, but now we know that you possess the Infinite Trembling Contemplation, so do you think you still have a chance to defeat us with this Spiritual Treasure?"


    "I don''t have that idea. However, you''re the protagonists of this Devil Tribulation. So, as a member of the Heaven Realm World, I cannot just watch this world be involved in the Devil Tribulation without doing anything!" Zhou Bao grinned. "In any event, I have to show my love for this world!"


    "What a crafty guy!" Marquis Wugu said when he saw Zhou Bao knock on the Wooden Fish continually with his fingertips. Many ripples were produced and they enveloped the Heaven Realm World. Any Devil Tribesman who entered the area protected by the ripples would be smashed by the strange ripples without exception.


    "Enough! Do think you can do whatever you want and harm us just because you have mastered some of the mysteries of the Infinite Trembling Contemplation?! This Spiritual Treasure, the Wooden Fish, is not a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. It will consume a lot of Dharma power, especially when you use the Infinite Trembling Contemplation. How many times can you knock on it?"


    Marquis Wugu''s words hit the nail on the head. Zhou Bao immediately stopped his movements and said, "You''re right, it indeed will exhaust me. However, I''m not going to make the deal that you mentioned before. Marquis Wugu, how about we make another deal?"


    "Do you think that makes any sense? Even if you can defeat Marquis Wugu, can you really stop our Devil Tribe from occupying the Heaven Realm World?!"


    "Of course I can. I know that the reason you have ambitions for the Heaven Realm World is that you want to obtain the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm. How about I tell you where the passageway is and you don''t attack the Human Tribe in the Seven-deity Regions?"


    "You know where the passageway is?!"


    "Of course!" Zhou Bao pursed his lips and grinned. "It''s in the Sea Area. As long as you agree with the proposal I just made, I''ll tell you its exact location immediately, lest these Fierce Owls run around like headless flies but still cannot find a clear target."


    "Zhou Bao, how dare you!"


    The moment the sound of his voice died away, Zhou Bao felt a thunder-like thought fall from the void and go directly into his mind. It shook his spirit severely.


    "F*ck you, do I fear you?!" Zhou Bao hurled abuse at the Celestial Mystery Emperor. "Do you want to kill me, you mother f*cker? If you have the guts, then do it! Let''s see what you can do to me!"


    While speaking, Zhou Bao suddenly looked up and spoke in a loud voice, from which a powerful and overwhelming thought was revealed. "Marquis Zhihai and Marquis Wugu, what do you think? I can immediately tell you where that damn place is, as long as you agree to my proposal!"


    "The Celestial Mystery Emperor? It turns out that he''s still alive!" Marquis Wugu and Marquis Zhihai heard Zhou Bao''s abuse clearly. They suddenly understood that Zhou Bao had an intense hatred for the Celestial Mystery Emperor. However, they could not abort the mission just because the Celestial Mystery Emperor meddled in it.


    "Fine, Zhou Bao, I promise you that so long as you tell us where the passageway is, the Devil Tribe will never attack the Seven-deity Regions!" While speaking, Marquis Zhihai acted. The Fierce Owls indulging in wanton massacre suddenly flew up like a gust of wind after Marquis Zhihai had finished speaking, as if they had received some messages.


    "The passageway is in the Falling Star Reef. It''s in the depths of the Sea Area. Besides the passageway, there are also many cities of the Demon Tribe there. That is completely a country of the Demon Tribe. You''d better be careful. I saw it with my own eyes that the Vast Sea Emperor''s Supreme Fairy Weapon, the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, is there!"


    "What? The Sea-overlooking Gate Tower!!"


    Marquis Zhihai exchanged glances with Marquis Wugu. Their expressions suddenly turned grave.


    That Supreme Fairy Weapon was not something that could be belittled. If the people there were cornered by them, they might use the Supreme Fairy Weapon to exert some forbidden power, and that would be really troublesome.


    "Boy, you didn''t lie to us, did you?"


    "Why would I lie to you?!" Zhou Bao laughed. "If you two don''t believe me, I can make a Great Vow of the Heart Demon to prove that I''m telling the truth!"


    "There''s no need to do that. After all, we have destroyed the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. We can just give it a try!" Marquis Wugu almost believed Zhou Bao after hearing his words. He caught the Heaven Realm World and tore the space open. Then, his black hand moved toward the location that Zhou Bao had just spoken of to grasp the Falling Star Reef.


    "Clap!!!"


    As soon as he touched it, he had a miserable expression and his face convulsed with pain. Upon seeing that, Zhou Bao managed to hold back his laughter. The Falling Star Reef was protected by a Supreme Fairy Weapon, so the moment Marquis Wugu put his hand into it, his hand was cut in two by a blue ray. Therefore, when he withdrew it, he found that it had been chopped off at the wrist.


    "He''s right. There''s indeed something wrong with that place. Even if it''s not a Supreme Fairy Weapon, it must be a powerful Highest Heaven Celestial Device. But given its quick reaction and mighty power, I guess that it probably is a Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    Marquis Zhihai glanced at Zhou Bao and said, "Then we don''t need to waste time here anymore. We''ll focus our attacks on the Falling Star Reef and see if there is a Supreme Fairy Weapon! Zhou Bao, our deal is done!"


    "Great!" Zhou Bao smiled and replied. He did not want to stay here anymore and directly returned to the Heaven Realm World. When he looked at the Fierce Owls in the sky swarming into a certain place in the Sea Area, he finally burst out laughing.


    "Zhou Bao, you''re digging your own grave!"


    A thunderous sound rang out above the sky before Zhou Bao''s laughter had died away. Then, a powerful Qi Power dropped from the sky and enveloped him.


    "Hahahaha, what mighty Qi Power! I''m so afraid of it!!!"


    The overwhelming Qi Power did not make Zhou Bao change his facial expression. On the contrary, he laughed even more rampantly. "Celestial Mystery Emperor, come out to fight me if you''re a man. Otherwise, don''t put on airs here. It''s no use barking like a dog. How dare you hide in your micro world and behave so arrogantly in front of me! Shame on you!"


    Zhou Bao''s voice was louder than that of the Celestial Mystery Emperor. Moreover, he seemed to have predicted that the Celestial Mystery Emperor would not show up to give him trouble at this time. Therefore, he had tried his best to throw abuse at the Celestial Mystery Emperor. Although the latter was one of the top five emperors from antiquity times and was formidable, he almost spat out blood due to Zhou Bao''s insulting words. His beard quivered as if he had Parkinson''s disease.


    "Brat, you bastard, I''ll kill you! I must kill you!" said the Celestial Mystery Emperor louder than before, as if he was taking an oath.


    "Come on, you mother f*cker!" Zhou Bao did not show any weakness. "Come out to kill me if you have the guts. Coward, I think you''d better go hide in your mother''s bosom and suck her breast. Idiot!"

 813 The Dharma Ending Tribulation

    "You really just turned the tables and ran away?"


    In the endless hollow, the Black Pearl, a Supreme Fairy Weapon, streaked through a cluster of stars and hurtled towards an unknown space. It had rushed out of numerous spaces and thrown loads of spacetimes into disorder. Now, it was more than 10,000 light years away from the Desolate Ancient Star Area.


    Zhou Bao was standing on the Black Pearl, gazing at the vast universe. His eyes were narrowed, as if he was lost in thought. Right now, the red gourd and its device spirit sneaked out and chatted with him.


    "Didn''t you say you were doing a closed-door training? Why are you here?"


    "Hee hee, with the help of the Wheel of Time in your Azure Heaven, a closed-door training did not take too long. Anyway, it''s you who amazed the world with a single brilliant feat. I reckon those old bastards must have been extremely annoyed with you!"


    "Seems that you know something about those old bastards!" Zhou Bao answered coolly.


    "I don''t. It is just a guess. Boy, don''t look at me like that. I''m not concealing anything from you. All the time I''m just guessing, what if I get it wrong?" Catching Zhou Bao''s eyes, Ghost Child could not help trembling in fear. Then, he said with a chuckle, "Honestly, Heaven Realm World merely bumped into one tribulation. I just didn''t expect that you would really choose to escape!"


    "I''m not a bold person!"


    "In this case, who do you think will win?"


    "They all have a chance. But it appears that those great emperors are subject to some restrictions!"


    "Of course they have restrictions. I would find it weird if they did not!" Ghost Child laughed. "Do you think back then the Jade Emperor just moved Heaven Realm World to the Desolate Ancient Star Area and left it as is? He exerted all his effort to set up tons of protective mechanisms for it. Otherwise, with his Sage-like cultivation, how did he become so exhausted and disappear!"


    "Sage-like cultivation? You mean a Celestial Immortal?"


    "Yes, those who managed to reach the Celestial Immortal Rank are all called Sages!"


    Ghost Child answered with a smile, "But such powerful existences like the Celestial Immortal are very rare, even in antiquity times. Thus, few people know about them!"


    "Then, that man from the Fifth Manor ought to have the power of a Sage, shouldn''t he?"


    "Are you talking about Zhen Yuanzi? Hee hee, he is a Taoist!"


    "A Taoist?" Zhou Bao was a bit shocked. But anyway, there were many Taoists in the world. Any practitioner could claim to be a Taoist or a monk. When Zhou Bao was in Eastern Thunder World, he also claimed to be Taoist Cundi.


    "A man at the level of the Celestial Immortal is called a Sage. This is a title passed down after the ancient deities fell apart. It was created in antiquity times to differentiate various phases and to show respect. However, some old Celestial Immortals did not like this title, such as the master of the Emperor Youming and the Emperor of Netherworld. He never calls himself a Sage. Instead, he likes to be addressed as Taoist Reincarnation. So does the one in the Fifth Manor. He claims to be Taoist Zhen Yuan instead of Immortal Zhen Yuan. You need to understand that Taoist is the title for Powerful Divines in primitive times. Well, in comparison, today''s Taoists are, hee hee¡ª" Fate Creation Boy cackled but did not finish his sentence.


    "Why didn''t you tell me earlier? I called myself Taoist when I was in Eastern Thunder World. Oh, if others ever learn who I am, they will certainly laugh their heads off!"


    "Not a lot of people know what the title really means. Nowadays, loads of men claim to be Taoists. You''re not the only ignorant one!"


    At this, Zhou Bao''s face burned with embarrassment. He blushed and decided to let the matter of titles go, so he steered the discussion to a new topic. "You just mentioned Taoist Reincarnation. I happen to have a Reincarnation Scroll. The Emperor of Netherworld gave it to me as a gift!"


    "Emperor of Netherworld gave you the first volume of the Reincarnation Scroll?" Ghost Child''s expression altered abruptly. When Zhou Bao entered Netherworld Heaven, Ghost Child was doing a closed-door training in Azure Heaven, so he had no idea about this. "He also gifted you his Netherworld Heaven, didn''t he? No, no, he just left it to you, didn''t he?"


    "Right. How did you know that?"


    "How did I know? It''s only natural. Now that he has given you the Reincarnation Scroll, how could he not leave the Netherworld Heaven to you? His Netherworld Heaven was formed by practicing the first volume of this Reincarnation Scroll. When you''re able to comprehend the Reincarnation Scroll, you can use the Netherworld Heaven to improve your power and cultivation. This will be a huge benefit for you!"


    "But why did he give me such a huge benefit?" Zhou Bao was initially happy with this. But soon he felt alarmed. As the saying goes, no decent man would give a windfall to anyone for no good reason. Zhou Bao had only met the Emperor of Netherworld twice. Even though he had obtained the Ranking of Demons and Immortals and given it to the Emperor of Netherworld, he did not reckon he deserved such a generous gift in return.


    "If he didn''t leave them to you, he would have left it to someone else. If he refused to give up such a little thing, how could he accomplish the Celestial Immortals'' Great Way?"Ghost Child said, but his eyes were displaying signs of jealousy. "In a hundred years or less, we''ll definitely have another Sage in the Void Universe, the Netherworld Sage!"


    "What? Are you saying he is going to be a Celestial Immortal?"


    "Right. That''s why he left these two things to you. If he is unwilling to give them up, how can he gain more? I think this insight dawned on him. Even if you weren''t there to receive his gifts, there would be others. You were just lucky to meet him at the right time!"


    "Lucky? I actually think this is fate!" Now, Zhou Bao was just a Human Immortal, way inferior to a Celestial Immortal. Of course, he could not understand why realizing the Celestial Immortal''s Way was relevant to giving up the Reincarnation Scroll and Netherworld Heaven. Knowing the Emperor of Netherworld was not playing any tricks on him was enough for him.


    "The Reincarnation Scroll he gave is not the first volume. To be more accurate, it is the Yellow Springs Scroll. When you become a Divine Immortal, you''ll be able to grasp its meaning. But be careful, since the Yellow Springs Scroll is in your hands, maybe Emperor Youming will come to pick a fight with you!"


    "He and Emperor of Netherworld are fellow apprentices of one master?"


    "What he has is the You Ming Scroll of the Reincarnation Scroll. Either of the two volumes will be able to help the practitioner comprehend the Celestial Immortal''s Way. Emperor of Netherworld is a good example. However, Emperor Youming is different from him. Emperor of Netherworld can step into the Celestial Immortal Realm with merely half of the Reincarnation Scroll, but Emperor Youming may not be able to do so. Therefore, Emperor Youming is certainly eyeing the Netherworld Scroll!"


    "His coveting my Netherworld Scroll is his problem. Now, I''m far away from Heaven Realm World. I won''t get involved in these matters anymore. So, what else is he going to do to me?"


    "Don''t think of it this way. Reincarnation does exist in this world. Everything will come around one day. You really think you have escaped the troubles in Heaven Realm World? No, you just delayed them. Someday, these troubles will still find you. What''s more, you''re also a Tribulation Taker. If you can just run away so easily, what the hell do we need the Dharma of the Void Universe for?"


    "Stop exaggerating and scaring me!"


    "I''m not exaggerating, I''m telling you the truth. Being a Tribulation Taker, it''s natural to want to run away. Buying more time is also a good strategy. But if you really believe you can escape your destiny, you''re just being stupid" Ghost Child could not help but blurt out curses.


    "Then, you tell me, what''s the best move I should take?"


    "Practice, practice, and practice, until you become an Earthly Immortal or a Celestial Immortal. With your present combat capability, if you advance to the phase of the Earthly Immortal, you''ll enjoy more freedom. If you are lucky enough to get to the Celestial Immortal Realm, you''ll be able to move out of the Void Universe and create a new world. At that time, no matter how powerful the Way of Heaven is in the Void Universe is, it can no longer have any impact on you!"


    "Create a new world? But I''ve already got my¡ª"


    "Don''t compare this with those macro worlds and micro worlds. In the Void Universe, all the macro worlds and micro worlds are subject to the Dharma of the Void Universe. Even though its impact is minimal in Heaven Realm World, it is still restricted by the existing arrangements. Otherwise, Heaven Realm World wouldn''t have suffered the tribulation. The so-called creation of a new world refers to the kind of world like the Devil Realm, which is independent of the Void Universe. Note that the Devil Realm was actually built by several Sage-ranking Primordial Demons years ago! " Speaking of this, Ghost Child paused. Then, he went on, "And what do you think was the reason why all the mighty practitioners in primitive times have disappeared? They''re not dead. In fact, they''ve all progressed to the Celestial Immortal Realm, broken away from the restrictions of the Void Universe, and started a new, free life!"


    As he was speaking, Zhou Bao could tell Ghost Child was absolutely envious of those Celestial Immortals.


    Compared to the Earthly Immortals'' Great Way, the Celestial Immortal''s Great Way was more appealing. Although being an Earthly Immortal meant one could have his own world and live as long as the existence of heaven and earth, Ghost Child, a creature born since the Primordial Origin, knew perfectly well that a life as long as the existence of heaven and earth was not limitless. The heaven and earth here only referred to the Void Universe. When the Void Universe ended one day, the lives of these Earthly Immortals and Emperors would also come to an end. Only those who had entered the Celestial Immortal Realm and created a new world for themselves could have a chance to stay safe. Despite this chance being slim, having a chance to survive was always better than just waiting for death like the Earthly Immortals.


    For a device spirit like Ghost Child, it did not have a living limit at all. Adding that he already had very impressive strength, the Earthly Immortals'' way was naturally not appealing to him. What they want to pursue was the Celestial Immortal''s Way. But unfortunately, despite his strength, a device spirit was never able to catch up with other creatures on the road of practicing. Thus, he could only moan about his sorrows.


    "This is really surprising!" After Ghost Child have given him all the details, Zhou Bao drew a deep breath. Living as long as the existence of heaven and earth still had its limits. If a man really wanted to live an endless life, he had to break through the Celestial Immortal Realm and create a new world. This was not good news for a guy who was extremely afraid of death like Zhou Bao.


    "It appears that the only way I can lead a better and longer life is through industrious practicing to elevate my strength to its utmost limit !"


    Surviving was the initial impetus Zhou Bao had since the first day of his practicing as well as the ultimate drive. Now, with his current accomplishments in martial practicing, he had learned its wonders and had a taste of the limitless longevity. No matter what, Zhou Bao would not give up practicing!


    "To keep surviving is not an easy task!" Staring at Zhou Bao, something seemed to have occurred to Ghost Child and he started chuckling. "Boy, you call yourself a Tribulation Taker all the time, but do you know what kind of tribulation you''re going to take? Listen, it''s highly possible that your tribulation is the last tribulation of the Void Universe¡ªthe Dharma Ending Tribulation. So, how could it be easy for you to survive!"

 812 Netherworld Heaven & Reincarnation Scroll â…¢

    The surging Underworld River suddenly slowed down.


    A quiet aura emanated from the river as it stopped flowing after a few breaths.


    Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes as he sensed the excitement exuding from the river.


    Yes, excitement. At this moment, the river seemed to have been given a sudden new lease of life and it sent out a feeling of unparalleled excitement throughout Netherworld Heaven.


    "Kid, it''s you. You managed to get the Fetal Lotus Petal and woke me up at this point. This is another result that I didn''t expect. It seems that the Divine Design is truly messed up!" A figure suddenly appeared in front of Zhou Bao. It was the Emperor of Netherworld, who looked like a little old man. But there was a sliver of light in his eyes which was not there when they first met. It was this bit of light that made him looked very different.


    "Junior Zhou Bao, paying my respects to Emperor of Netherworld!"


    Facing this Great Ancient Emperor, Zhou Bao did not dare to cold-shoulder him. He saluted him respectfully and added, "I''ve been entrusted by Fate Creation Boy to help you, my senior, to get out of trouble!"


    "So, Fate Creation Boy is the one who gave you this Fetal Lotus Petal?"


    "Yes!"


    "This damn guy! He has never revealed to me that he possessed such a good thing and made me suffer for so many years. Why would he have mercy on me now and willing to let me use it this time?"


    "Haha, I''m afraid that''s because he has been driven into a corner!" While speaking, Zhou Bao handed over the Ranking of Demons and Immortals to the Emperor of Netherworld. At the same time, he shot out a divine thought to tell him everything that had happened in Heaven Realm World in recent years, excluding his own secrets, of course.


    "Oh, everything has come to this point!" The Emperor of Netherworld was struck dumb after he received the messages from Zhou Bao. He did not react to it at first, but soon, he burst out laughing. "Good, good, good, this is really beyond my expectation. Those guys have been planning and preparing for so many years, but you messed it all up in the end. Hahahaha, good, very good!"


    "Although I''m not a man of remarkable ability, I have a bad temper. The thing I cannot stand is seeing those holier-than-thou guys plot against each other. Therefore, I directly overturned the table and made them forage under the table!" Zhou Bao smiled widely. "Senior, I wonder whether you have any objection to the proposal of Fate Creation Boy?"


    "Reincarnation Scroll?" The Emperor of Netherworld turned solemn. When Zhou Bao mentioned it, the cheerful smile on his face was gone. On the contrary, he seemed lost in thought. "You can have it if you want. After all, it''s useless to me and you have sent me the Ranking of Demons and Immortals. However, you must think carefully before you make up your mind. The Reincarnation Scroll is extremely weird. It''s a bit of understanding that my master Taoist Reincarnation gained after he had comprehended the Fate. You haven''t reached the Immortal Realm yet and it''s of no use in your hands!"


    "Maybe it will be useful in the future?"


    "Haha, it makes sense. Fine, I''ll give it to you. But you must not regret it in the future!" The Emperor of Netherworld laughed heartily. He stretched out one of his fingers and a green ray shot toward Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao stretched out his hand to catch it but received nothing in the physical sense. He received an odd message which was like the one he had obtained when he gained the remains of the Innate Deity. He could not figure anything out because it was buried in the depths of his memory.


    "The Reincarnation Scroll has two volumes in total. I have volume 1 and my senior brother¡ªEmperor Youming, has volume 2. If you want to get the entire scroll, try to find him!"


    "Are you kidding?" Zhou Bao smiled wryly. "I need to find Emperor Youming even when I don''t know how to use this thing?"


    "That''s not something I should bother about. You gave me the Ranking of Demons and Immortals and I gave you the Reincarnation Scroll, so we are even. By the way, are you interested in my Netherworld Heaven? If you are, I''ll send it to you as well!" The Emperor of Netherworld laughed, but Zhou Bao was quite taken aback by what he said.


    "You''ll send me Netherworld Heaven? Emperor, this joke is not funny at all!"


    "I''m not joking with you, I''m serious!" The Emperor of Netherworld burst into peals of laughter. "Netherworld Heaven has been with me for so many years and has become an obstacle for my further development. I will give it to you so that I have the opportunity to move forward. It''s worthwhile!"


    "This...!"


    Zhou Bao did not expect to get so many benefits from the Emperor of Netherworld. However, since he brought it up, Zhou Bao had an idea. "Emperor, this Netherworld Heaven is one of the 33 Heavens from antiquity times and has many wonderful uses. Are you really willing to give it to me?"


    "So what?" The Emperor of Netherworld wore a mysterious smile. "I mean what I say!"


    While laughing, the Emperor of Netherworld vanished from Netherworld Heaven. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao felt some extremely strange changes had taken place throughout Netherworld Heaven. It sent out some mysterious information and tried to establish contact with Zhou Bao''s divine thoughts. Subconsciously, Zhou Bao scattered his divine thoughts to connect with this mysterious thought.


    As soon as his divine thoughts touched the mysterious thought emanating from Netherworld Heaven, he felt a powerful force blowing up in his Sea of Consciousness with a loud deep sound. At that moment, his body left Netherworld Heaven and appeared in the endless spacetime. Netherworld Heaven, however, turned into a speck of yellow dust and shot between his brows. Some ancient messages were transmitted to his Sea of Consciousness through Netherworld Heaven. All these messages were about Netherworld Heaven. In a short span of time, Zhou Bao felt that he had mastered Netherworld Heaven completely.


    "It''s really interesting. No matter what your purpose is, at least for now, I want to thank you!" Zhou Bao no longer thought about the purpose of the Emperor of Netherworld sending him Netherworld Heaven, but decided to try to test his idea; to combine Netherworld Heaven with Azure Big World and integrate this micro world into the Azure Big World.


    "To be able to search for someone from Azure Heaven to the Underworld. Hehe, maybe I have a chance to realize it!"


    The two worlds were completely different; one was a macro world and the other was a micro world. But to Zhou Bao''s disappointment, no matter how hard he tried, this Netherworld Heaven only revolved around the micro worlds near Azure Heaven. It could not really be integrated into Azure Big World.


    After repeated tries, Zhou Bao sighed deeply. "Forget about it, I cannot waste any more time here. I''d better leave before some accidents should happen!"


    Zhou Bao was determined to get away from Heaven Realm World. Moreover, he had the support of Fate Creation Boy. Therefore, he feared nothing when he did all this. With the help of Fate Creation Boy, he opened his macro world and managed to accommodate almost all the Human Tribe in the Seven-deity Regions together with the various sects there, except for the super-large sects such as Divine Wind Palace of course, in just 10 days. He only revealed the whereabouts of his macro world to Immortal Palace and let the people from this sect decide whether they wished to enter it or not.


    By the time the other big sects recovered from the shock, they discovered that there was already a scene of desolation in the Seven-deity Regions.


    "Shameless bastard! How can Zhou Bao do that! How dare he do that?"


    The Human Emperor Palace of Heaven Realm World was in a total mess. Human Emperor Yan Yuntian sat upright and pulled a long face. He did not know what he should say right now. Why was this happening? He had just become the Human Emperor for a short time, but his son-in-law greatly undermined his power by taking away all the people in Heaven Realm World, neck and crop. Without any humankind, he was not a real Human Emperor. Although Fate Creation Boy was still supporting him, his title as the Human Emperor was merely for show only.


    "It''s no use fretting over these things now!" Yan Yuntian waved his hands in despair when he saw this mess. "In fact, what Zhou Bao has done is not necessarily a bad thing. At least, in this case, we don''t need to worry that the Devil Tribulation might take place in the Seven-deity Regions. As for us, I think we can survive this Devil Tribulation!"


    "Your majesty, I don''t agree with you. How can we survive? Even if we survive, what will be left in our sects?" An Elder from Divine Wind Palace squeaked. "Without mankind, our sects will have no disciples. Neither our inheritance nor Uniform Dao will exist. Don''t you realize that?"


    "Yes, your son-in-law really did a ''good'' job! The Devil Tribulation and Alien World failed to terminate our inheritance, but he uprooted our foundation in one fell swoop. Good, very good. As the Human Emperor, you are closing your eyes to it. Are you still qualified to be the Human Emperor?"


    "No, I''m not. Even if I''m qualified to be the Human Emperor, I feel ashamed to hold this post!" Yan Yuntian sighed when he looked at the scene. He slowly stood up from the Human Emperor''s throne and continued, "As the Human Emperor, I''m obliged to take the responsibility. I feel ashamed to be the Human Emperor. From now on, I''ll leave office and will no longer be responsible for the affairs of Heaven Realm World. Please do as you please, everybody!" Yan Yuntian turned into a flash of light and vanished from the Human Emperor Palace after his voice died away, leaving all the Elders and leaders from various sects where they were.


    "What, what''s going on here?"


    The Human Emperor suddenly gave up his post, so the Human Emperor Palace was in utter chaos once again. However, no one cared about this at this moment. The Elders and leaders of these sects no longer had an air of authority about them. There were extreme terror and helplessness written all over their faces. They did not know what they should do to cope with the current situation.


    Child-endowing Buddha holding prayer beads and wearing a helpless smile, said, "Alas, this bastard not only turned the table over but also took all the dishes away from the kitchen. By doing so, he can cook a meal in his own kitchen and make a fresh start. What an irresponsible guy!" He eyed Wang She from the corner of his eyes. Though poker-faced, there was a smile within the depths of Wang She''s eyes.


    Zhou Bao had thoroughly messed up other''s plans and prevented them from benefiting from Heaven Realm World!

 814 The Central Star Area

    "Dharma Ending Tribulation? What does that mean?" Zhou Bao asked, his heart racing. He was very sensitive about the phrase "Dharma Ending" because the era of his previous life was called Dharma Ending Age.


    "The so-called Dharma Ending Tribulation is actually the beginning of the Dharma Ending Age!" Since the conversation had gone so far, Ghost Child did not want to conceal this from Zhou Bao. "The Dharma Ending Tribulation and the Dharma Ending Age are legendary items. I heard about them in some ancient legends when I was young. The Dharma Ending Tribulation is the second last tribulation the Void Universe must endure, which is also the most horrible tribulation for all practitioners. When this tribulation ends, there will be no man, demon, beast or devil practicing martial skills in the micro or macro worlds of the Void Universe. Only common people will be left. All the spiritual Qi that facilitates the progress of cultivation will also disperse and the one replacing it will be the Qi that maintains the survival of living creatures. The age after the Dharma Ending Tribulation is called the Dharma Ending Age. This is a long and solitary age, which will last to the advent of the last tribulation¡ªthe World-ending Tribulation!"


    "Dharma Ending Tribulation...Dharma Ending Age...an age solely belonging to common people...and World-ending Tribulation!" Zhou Bao blinked, feeling a little excited. But then, he heaved a sigh and said, "So that is what it is. I see. Seems that I have to work harder and practice!"


    "That''s for sure. But where do you want to go now? You can''t just drift in the Void Universe without a clear destination, can you?"


    "Drift around? Well, that''s my plan in the first place. But after hearing what you just said, I understand that time and tide waits for no man." Zhou Bao said gently. "You''re an ancient being, so you must have good knowledge about this Void Universe. I guess you know many places suitable for practicing. Although Azure Heaven has sufficient spiritual Qi, I''ve noticed that it cannot give me much help anymore!"


    "Of course it can''t help you now. You''ve refined it into your macro world, so the spiritual Qi inside is actually integrated in your body. How can you practice with it then?"


    After listening to Zhou Bao, Ghost Child was half annoyed and half amused. Then, he said, "There are many places suitable for practicing, but they''ve all been taken up. The best place to go to is the Central Star Area, which used to be occupied by Heaven Realm World back then. In that area, there is abundant spiritual Qi and lots of open-air Dharma. You know, the Dharma has been exposed outside the hollow and you can see its wonders with bare eyes. This open-air Dharma is extremely helpful in accomplishing the Earthly Immortals'' Way. That''s why Heaven Realm World produced so many Earthly Immortals during those years. Now, the area is occupied by the Holy Alliance. If you want to encroach it, please don''t bother trying. Apart from the Central Star Area, there are some other Star Areas. But they''ve all probably been taken up by now. I don''t think there is any place left! In addition to those areas, the rest of the places are just too dangerous. If you go in, it''s just like sending a sheep to a tiger!"


    "Then, what you''re saying is¡ª"


    "Don''t you have another identity? Why not take this opportunity and check out the Central Star Area. Your cultivation has progressed in a rather odd fashion. Though your combat capability is incredibly strong, your phase is not high enough. You haven''t even reached the phase of the Five Qis Collecting in Mind, nor have you fully accomplished the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations, let alone advancing to the Divine Immortal Realm!"


    "Well, this isn''t what I want it to be, either. But the technique of the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations is much harder to practice than I imagined!"


    "If it were easy to practice, it wouldn''t have become the current Primordial Spirits of Three Separations. You have completed your Second Primordial Spirit, and your Third Primordial Spirit is about to take shape; now it all depends on your Fourth Primordial Spirit. If you can finish your Fourth Primordial Spirit and integrate it to your body, you will be able to absorb and refine four of the Five Kinds of Qi at the same time. That way, your practice will speed up significantly. And that is why I asked you to practice this Divine Sense!"


    "Absorbing and refining four of the Five Kinds of Qi at the same time? Why do I need to do so? I can just take time to refine them one by one!"


    "Are you an idiot? Take time? In terms of the Five Qis in the Chest, the two most critical points are the balance and the purity. If you can draw four of the Five Kinds of Qi simultaneously, you can bring the balance of the four kinds of Qi to the utmost!"


    "Then, is it possible to refine the Five Kinds of Qi at the same time?"


    "Yes, you can do it as long as you accomplish your Fifth Primordial Spirit. It''s just that the Fifth Primordial Spirit is legendary. I don''t know how to do it, and no one else knows either!"


    "So, it''s impossible to achieve?"


    "Right. Balancing the Qi is pretty tricky. When you proceed to the practice of the Fourth Primordial Spirit and extraction of the Five Kinds of Qi, you''ll understand how important this Primordial Spirits of Three Separations is in collecting the Five Qis in the Chest, as well as how many benefits it will bring to your future practice!"


    "Hearing you speak so highly of this Primordial Spirits of Three Separations, if I don''t go all out to practice it, I''ll feel guilty for letting you down!" Zhou Bao pondered over this for a moment, then, he asked, "You stayed in the Central Star Area before, so you''re certainly familiar with that place, right?"


    "You want to go to the Central Star Area?"


    "Yes. Other places are just boring. Anyway, I''m good at concealing myself. And few people actually know me in a place like the Central Star Area¡ª"


    "You''re seriously wrong if you really think so. The communicating methods in the Void Universe are quite adequate. Based on your past behavior in Heaven Realm World, I reckon all the influences and worlds in the Void Universe are already very familiar with your image and disposition. If you appear in the Central Star Area with your actual identity, you''ll definitely be exposed in an instant!"


    "Then, I won''t use my real identity. How about I present myself as Taoist Cundi?"


    "Taoist Cundi?" Ghost Child seemed confounded for a second, then, he yelled, "Taoist? You still dare to call yourself a Taoist?"


    "Whatever! I''ll just claim to be Cundi!" Zhou Bao replied calmly.


    "Based on what you did in Eastern Thunder World and the investigations those huge influences carried out, they can easily find out that you, Taoist Cundi, are probably the Zhou Bao in Heaven Realm World. Guys practicing martial arts are not used to relying on evidence. Where their interests are concerned, they would rather kill one thousand innocent targets in case they miss the real culprit. Therefore¡ª"


    "Therefore I can''t even use the name Cundi, can I?" Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes slightly and went on, "No matter what, they have no solid evidence. But they know Cundi is a practitioner who has the bloodline of Zhuyan and can kill an Earthly Immortal. Even if they''re suspicious, they won''t be silly enough to attack me by force, will they?"


    "Well, you do have a point. No one can ignore your Earthly Immortal-like combat capability. Anyway, you''ve defeated and killed an Earthly Immortal before. If they do get suspicious, they won''t dare to act rashly. All the things I did can probably allay their suspicions. This might be a great strategy. Well, are you truly determined to go to the Central Star Area?"


    "Now that the place is good for my practice, I certainly can''t let go of this opportunity. After all, when the tribulation comes, it''s impossible to evade it, right?" Zhou Bao smiled. Following Ghost Child''s directions, he urged his Supreme Fairy Weapon, the Black Pearl, to reverse and flew directly towards the Central Star Area.


    The Central Star Area, an ancient area quietly suspended in the Void Universe.


    This Star Area was quite vast and included more than 10 different macro worlds. These macro worlds had been uprooted from their original spots and placed here by some mighty practitioners after Heaven Realm World was removed by Jade Emperor. Of course, none of these mighty practitioners were as powerful as Jade Emperor. This was the result of their combined efforts, which was also the primitive form of the Holy Alliance that appeared after the Heavenly Court disappeared.


    The Holy Alliance was an enormous association in the Void Universe and its fame was widely known throughout the Void Universe. With dozens of Earthly Immortals in charge, though its influence was not on par with that of the Heavenly Court, its reputation and prestige ranked only second to the Heavenly Court.


    Now, Zhou Bao was in the Central Star Area. Of course, he had no way to step into the core of the Central Star Area when he just landed. The core of the Central Star Area was heavily guarded. No one could set foot on it except for those at the top levels. Even an Earthly Immortal could not break in by force. Like the Yin and Yang Dust Formation Heaven Realm World had, the central area of the Holy Alliance also had powerful and complicated formations. Besides, there was a crowd of Earthly Immortals on perpetual standby to repel any intruders. If you tried to force your way in, you would certainly be reduced to ashes.


    "Never thought this so-called Holy Alliance could place such a heavy defense in the central area, and..."


    "Say no more! What are you thinking? Even if you break in, what can you do? Are you going to stay calm and do your practice under such a tight defense?" Ghost Child said, his voice revealing a trace of disdain. "I think you''d better stay on the outskirts of the Holy Alliance. The macro and micro worlds here are pretty great. You can find a place to practice the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations and achieve the Five Qis Collecting in Mind. This will work as well. What do you say?"


    "That''s the only choice I have!" Zhou Bao sighed gently, pushing all the other agendas to the back of his mind.


    There were plenty of treasures in the Central Star Area, but the Holy Alliance did not have these treasures all to themselves. In fact, they did not have the capability to do so. After all, the Holy Alliance did not have the strength to rule the heavens and realms as the Ancient Celestial Court did. Therefore, they only took half of the treasures at the Central Star Area and shared the other half with the rest of the influences and macro and micro worlds; the Holy Alliance also acted as a proxy in the management of some of the treasures.


    The specific rules about this sharing had long been agreed upon. Although it was the Holy Alliance that ruled the Central Star Area, most of the area were open to the rest of the influences and macro and micro worlds. Even any Independent Practitioner could make use of a stretch of land there, as long as he could pay for it.


    The payment here was not made in gold or silver. Instead, the currency used in this place was in the form of all sorts of treasures in the world, including fairy weapons and celestial devices. And the most commonly used currency was Spiritual Stones.


    If you had some Spiritual Stones or very valuable weapons or devices, you would be able to rent a room in the Central Star Area and practice. When your lease expired, you had to renew it. If you wanted to buy a land, it was impossible, because the Holy Alliance only rented the land instead of selling it.


    Ghost Child encouraged Zhou Bao to rent a patch of land in the Central Star Area to practice. After giving this some thought, Zhou Bao felt that this was a very safe plan. By doing so, he could have an opportunity to explore this Central Star Area and penetrate into the mainstream parties of the Void Immortal Realm.

 815 Collecting the Five Kinds of Qi

    The Central Star Area was actually the central zone of the Central Pole Region. When Zhou Bao arrived at the area, he instantly understood why so many influences had their minds set on this place. For all his life, he had never expected that there could be a place in the Void Universe where the essence of the world was so rich. Although the essence of the world in the hollow was not as thick as that in his Azure Big World, it was at least 10 times denser than that in Heaven Realm World. If he practiced in this area, even if he only stayed in the hollow, the speed of his progress would be 10 times faster than in Heaven Realm World. And this was only one of the advantages.


    From time to time, among the rich essence of this world, talismans would flash before him one after another. Since they usually appeared and disappeared in a blink of an eye, these talismans were quite unfathomable to him. Even for a powerful man like Zhou Bao, these talismans were highly precious. He could vaguely detect the trails leading to the Great Way of Heaven and Earth from these talismans. Though only a handful of people could really reach the end of these trails, Zhou Bao was still able to have a clearer view of the future roads he would be taking by observing these trails.


    This was the Central Pole Region, this was the Central Star Area.


    After staying on the borders of the Central Star Area for a whole month, Zhou Bao finally acclimatized himself to the environment. He would either be tempted by the talismans of Law of Heaven and Earth that suddenly leaped out, or be obsessed with some wonders that unexpectedly dawned on him.


    "Practicing in this place is much better than in Heaven Realm World. It''s even better than in Azure Big World in some aspects!" Right now, Zhou Bao had rented a small meteorite in the Central Star Area under the name Taoist Cundi.


    Although this meteorite was not large, it was still several hundred miles wide. In fact, meteorites in the essence of the world were different from those in the other parts of the Void Universe. Since the entire Central Star Area was soaked in the rich essence of the world, these meteorites had almost transformed totally to normal vast planets after being bathed in the essence and pneuma for such a long time. They floated in the hollow and some even had lives.


    Of course, this did not mean that the lives on these meteorites were very tough and strong. They did not have any spiritual intelligence. They were artificially fostered to decorate the meteorites in order to attract tenants.


    Meteorites with such mediocre qualities abounded in the Central Star Area and there were always plenty of tenants.


    In recent years, Zhou Bao had killed a lot of people, including Emperors at the level of the Earthly Immortal. He had gained many spoils of war. Therefore, when he arrived in the Central Star Area, he exchanged several Taihao Fairy Weapons that he rarely used for a great number of Spiritual Stones and rented a meteorite here to do his closed-door training and shut himself out of the outside world.


    He was not aware that the Taihao Fairy Weapons he sold had created a great uproar in the Central Star Area. Since there were too many buyers scrambling for these weapons, the market was in a mess. In the end, the Holy Alliance stepped in and straightened it out.


    However, Zhou Bao did not know this, nor did he care. He was quietly polishing his Dharma power and improving his cultivation on the meteorite. Meanwhile, he was also trying to perfect his Fourth Primordial Spirit, the Primordial Sword Spirit.


    "Whoosh!"


    Three years had passed since Zhou Bao started his closed-door training. Now, on the meteorite, three figures suddenly appeared in front of Zhou Bao, who was sitting on the ground, cross-legged. These three figures were the three primordial spirits Zhou Bao had managed to produce by practicing. The one in black was his Primordial Fire Spirit, the incarnation of the Dragon Chimera; the young man in a green robe was his Primordial Poison Spirit; the third was the newly produced Primordial Sword Spirit, who wore a very eye-catching red robe.


    The color of the robe made his third primordial spirit really conspicuous, but Zhou Bao liked it. He had read about sword masters in snow-white robes in many martial art novels during his previous life. He found this image too common, perhaps too dull, so he deliberately made his Primordial Sword Spirit wear a bright red robe, which was highly appealing to the eyes.


    "Hey, you''ve practiced for several years at this place already. Now that the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations is already completed, isn''t it time to collect the Five Kinds of Qi?" The speaker was the Primordial Sword Spirit. Though his appearance was a replica of Zhou Bao, he looked a bit more devious.


    "Yes, yes. But you don''t have to collect the exact Five Kinds of Qi. Maybe you can change one kind into the Poison Qi or the Sword Qi!" The primordial spirit in green also voiced his advice. He was the Primordial Poison Spirit, who looked very mild and did not oppose the proposal of the Primordial Sword Spirit at all.


    "Fine, stop talking! The Five Kinds of Qi are the fundamental Qi of heaven and earth. Though a single type of the Five Kinds of Qi may not be as good as your Sword Qi or Poison Qi, the Five Kinds of Qi are correlated and can form a reincarnation circle which runs without any breaks and serves myriads of wonderful functions. Thus, they are much more useful than an independent Sword Qi or Poison Qi and even more stable. If not, it''s because the balance of the Five Kinds of Qi is not perfect yet. Well, you guys just stay put and stop messing with me!" Zhou Bao looked a little helpless.


    The three primordial spirits were copies of Zhou Bao, which were consistent with his physical body. However, they all had their individual features. If you regarded his body as a synthesis, then, each of these primordial spirits was someone who inherited a portion of his characteristics, so their tempers and characters were not exactly alike.


    This difference often caused a headache for Zhou Bao. Sometimes, he even wanted to give these primordial spirits a good beating.


    "Is the reincarnation of the Five Kinds of Qi relevant to your Reincarnation Scroll?"


    "No idea, I can''t understand the Reincarnation Scroll!" Zhou Bao snapped, rolling his eyes at the Primordial Poison Spirit. "Well, now let''s start gathering the Five Kinds of Qi. This place has so much spiritual Qi, no less than Azure Big World. But above all, there are many Law of Heaven and Earth flashing past, which is something Azure Heaven doesn''t have, and this is why I couldn''t do the practice in Azure Heaven!" Speaking of this, a trace of a bitter smile appeared on his face.


    "I say it''s because you don''t want to be disturbed by those guys in Azure Big World!" The Primordial Fire Spirit said in a cold voice. "Now there are a thousand things waiting to be done in Azure Big World. You transferred so many human beings to that bleak place, how can you be so willing to just leave them there?"


    "Humph, didn''t I put the Human Emperor in as well? What else should I do?" Zhou Bao said, his eyes sweeping across the three primordial spirits. "Don''t you feel the same way as I do? I did ask you to go there, but none of you were willing to go!"


    "So that''s why I suggested to you to produce the Fifth Primordial Spirit and let him manage mundane issues. But you didn''t agree!"


    "The Fifth Primordial Spirit? Hee hee, I''m not that stupid!" Zhou Bao cackled.


    The Primordial Spirit Way would reach its limit when the practitioner had produced four primordial spirits. If he practiced the Fifth Primordial Spirit, some mysterious changes would happen and turn the Fifth Primordial Spirit into an independent personality, which would detach from its own body and grow into a separate figure.


    This was the biggest taboo in practicing the Primordial Spirit Way.


    In fact, precisely because of this potential danger, practitioners had to be extremely cautious. Accordingly, they invented various smart ways to achieve the Primordial Spirit Way, and the supreme one was the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations.


    The Primordial Spirits of Three Separations could help you produce three primordial spirits safely.


    The most inferior one was the way to practice by using only the Second Primordial Spirit. Even so, it was quite precious, for the Second Primordial Spirit could provide you an extra chance of survival as well as double your present combat capability.


    As for the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations, which was a way to produce three primordial spirits without incurring any risks, even Earthly Immortals would fight frantically for it, let alone normal practitioners.


    "Well, let''s put the Fifth Primordial Spirit aside and start collecting the Five Kinds of Qi first. Remember, in this collecting activity, we need to maintain the balance and purity. What matters most is that the Five Kinds of Qi must contain the same Law of Heaven and Earth. When we finish, I''ll be able to grasp a complete Law of Heaven and Earth as well, which will significantly speed up the progress of advancing to the Divine Immortal Realm. When I become competent enough, I can go through the Earthly Immortal Tribulation at any time I want. After that, I''ll be a true Earthly Immortal. My strength will soar, and I won''t need to worry about that ridiculous Celestial Mystery Emperor and his lot. When that day comes, we''ll blaze out way back to Heaven Realm World and do them in!"


    "Em, good thinking, but it''s just a dream!" After hearing Zhou Bao out, the Primordial Sword Spirit had a dismissive look on his face and even started to whistle. He ignored Zhou Bao''s ambitious speech and just sat down cross-legged to gather and refine one of the Five kinds of Qi, the Gold Qi. Then, the other two primordial spirits followed suit, and the Primordial Fire Spirit began to deal with the Fire Qi while the Primordial Poison Spirit chose to work on the Wood Qi.


    All of a sudden, the Primordial Sword Spirit lifted one hand and made a grab in the air. Instantly, a damaged talisman was in his hand and was tossed directly in the Gold Qi he was refining.


    "Crap!" Zhou Bao''s eyes widened. That talisman seemed quite simple, but it annoyed Zhou Bao. "Law of Power! You picked the Law of Power!"


    "Isn''t it good for you? You''re already practicing the Extreme Realm of Force and the Vacuum-shattering Way. If you can integrate the Law of Power into your body, it will do a lot of good for you, won''t it?" The Primordial Sword Spirit smiled, did not say any more.


    "Yeah, you''re right. For me, it''s a good thing!" Zhou Bao was resigned. He reached out and grabbed a fragment of the Law of Power talisman as well. Then, he sealed it in the Water Qi he was just refining.


    The Law of Power!


    Indeed, it was the goal of Zhou Bao''s practice, but it never occurred to him that he could refine the Law of Power at this early stage.


    The Law of Power was the most basic law in the Void Universe or all the Void Universes at large. It was as basic as the Law of Space and the Law of Time. However, in comparison with these two laws, people were more familiar with the Law of Power and found it easier to apply. All sorts of living creatures were able to use this law and they had to, for it was the most fundamental condition of their lives. Nevertheless, laws would not always remain the same as they were constantly evolving. The process and the results of the evolution were changing at all time as well. Due to this reason, the Law of Power had been changing and evolving since the Primordial Origin. Up to today, it had become so incredibly complicated that no man could learn it thoroughly by himself. Even an Earthly Immortal or a Celestial Immortal could not fully grasp this Law of Power, let alone Zhou Bao.


    Hence, once he infused the fundamental Law of Power into his Five Kinds of Qi, the road of his future practice would become endless.

 816 The Human Immortal Tribulation

    Zhou Bao had considered the idea of infusing the Law of Power into his Five Kinds of Qi, but he had not made up his mind yet. To his surprise, this time the Primordial Sword Spirit made the decision for him.


    The Primordial Sword Spirit was one of his Primordial Spirits of Three Separations. He seemed to be an independent person, but in fact, he only inherited a part of Zhou Bao''s personality. Thus, he was a little bigoted, always acted on a whim instead of thinking through the best possible consequences of his actions and was like a man with a complete personality. Because of his impulsive action, Zhou Bao had to place a gamble on the Law of Power.


    Seeing that Zhou Bao had added the Law of Power into his Qi, the other two primordial spirits naturally did not hesitate any more. They both grabbed a Law of Power and integrated it into their own Qi.


    They spent a long period refining the Qi in this way. When they opened their eyes again, they found that each of them was holding a fine string of Qi, which was one of the Five Kinds of Qi they had refined.


    After the refining of the four out of the Five Kinds of Qi was successful, Zhou Bao heaved a sigh of relief. However, there was more work to be done. Due to the mental connections among Zhou Bao and his three primordial spirits, the balance of the four of the Five Kinds of Qi they collected and refined was perfect. But now, they had to refine the fifth kind of Qi, the Earth Qi, all at the same time. Only by doing so could they guarantee that the Earth Qi they extracted was consistent with the previous four kinds of Qi.


    For Zhou Bao, everything was right on track. When the fifth kind of Qi was successfully refined, another five days had lapsed.


    "It''s done!" Staring at the five jets of radiance emitted by the Five Kinds of Qi as well as the Law of Power glistening among them, Zhou Bao suddenly opened his mouth and inhaled all the five jets of radiance at one go. Meanwhile, the five damaged pieces of the Law of Power also combined into one, forming a simple but complete talisman.


    Yes, it was complete!


    This was the law that Zhou Bao needed, a complete talisman of the fundamental Law of Power, which was highly variable and had boundless potential. But unfortunately, right now, this law was useless to him and it did not enhance his power at all, because his current power was already too strong and exceeded the utmost power limit of a normal practitioner. He could break the most fundamental Law of Power.


    Well, at least it''s not bad, we didn''t throw in any lame laws!" However, he had no idea that to the other practitioners, the Law of Power was the lamest.


    "Boom!"


    The moment when Zhou Bao gathered together all the Five Qis in the Chest, a clap of thunder sounded.


    A tribulation was coming!


    The Divine Immortal did not need to endure any tribulation, so they were also called Carefree Immortals. But Zhou Bao was not a Divine Immortal. He was a Human Immortal, who had to undergo some tribulations. Thus, when the Five Qis in the Chest assembled together, a connection with the Void Universe was made, which naturally triggered the Human Immortal Tribulation.


    Zhou Bao wanted to get up when he heard the clap of thunder, but suddenly his body stiffened. At the same time, all three of his primordial spirits sensed something. The Primordial Poison Spirit and the Primordial Sword Spirit instantly turned into two streams of light and zoomed into the spot between his eyebrows; meanwhile the Primordial Fire Spirit transformed into a stream of fire and dashed into the Furnace of Immortality.


    Zhou Bao''s body became rigid. He felt a cold draught of air rising from his feet, spreading all over his body and then it disappeared.


    "Creak, creak, creak!"


    An unknown period of time passed and Zhou Bao''s paralyzed body moved only slightly during this period.


    Gradually, he regained his normal flexibility.


    Was this a tribulation? A tribulation of the Human Immortal?


    The inexplicable cold air appeared so abruptly that Zhou Bao was overwhelmed by it. By the time he realized what had happened, it had already vanished.


    If an ordinary Earthly Immortal had encountered this air, he would have become a large chunk of ice and even his spirit would have been frozen. But Zhou Bao was different. His body contained the Mysterious Icy Divine Light which he had practiced for so long. This time the Ice Tribulation which might have killed most Human Immortals in a split second, merely made his body a little rigid. For Zhou Bao, it had been just a piece of cake.


    Why did the Ice Tribulation come? Doesn''t this clearly show that they''re going to go easy on me?" Zhou Bao murmured in his mind. But before he could think this over, he was alerted by a clap of black Heavenly Thunder which suddenly descended from the hollow.


    "Boom!"


    A jet of light flashed behind Zhou Bao''s head, and the Flipping Sky Seal instantly emerged over him. The black thunderbolt hit the Flipping Sky Seal and the latter crumbled. Instead of backing off, the streak of thunderbolt hurtled down and crashed into Zhou Bao''s fists.


    "Cool!" Zhou Bao bawled out loudly and immediately took three steps back. But surprisingly, as he retreated, the meteorite he rented was quietly reduced to ashes and dispersed in the pneuma torrents of the Central Star Area.


    "What happened?"


    "What''s going on there?"


    "A meteorite crumbled!"


    "Look! Someone is going through a tribulation. It might be the Human Immortal Tribulation!"


    "Human Immortal Tribulation? How astonishing! He even blasted a meteorite!"


    Although the meteorite Zhou Bao rented was located on the border of the Central Star Area, there were a lot of meteorites in its vicinity. Practitioners living on these meteorites seldom intervened in each other''s business. But when they saw a nearby meteorite suddenly reduced into dust, they naturally wanted to find out what had happened. Besides, the meteorite had an owner and was registered as the property of the Holy Alliance. Now that it had exploded unexpectedly, it would certainly draw the attention of the Holy Alliance.


    "What the hell is this? They claim to be the top one influence in the Void Universe. How could they rent out such a defective place!"


    The strike from the thunderbolt had caused the collapse of the meteorite. It left Zhou Bao exposed in the Void Universe and this made Zhou Bao feel very flustered


    Nevertheless, he should have thought about it first. After all, he was way different from the others. Usually when a normal practitioner was about to undergo a tribulation, he would do the following in order to trigger the tribulation safely. He would surround himself in layers of formations, activate piles of celestial devices and fairy weapons, have his natal magic weapon ready, place heaps of elixirs before and behind himself and gather dozens of friends to be his protectors. Now, Zhou Bao simply incurred the tribulation by sitting on the meteorite and assembling the Five Qis in the Chest. Due to his immense strength, it was no wonder that his tribulation was so powerful.


    In this practice-friendly Central Star Area there were many experts as well as practitioners enduring tribulations; therefore a meteorite crumbling during a severe tribulation was not something they had never heard of. For all practitioners, undergoing tribulations was always an unavoidable topic. After all, watching others go through their tribulations could help one acquire some experience. Plus, this kind of opportunity was not very common.


    But who would be so foolish as to allow others to watch him go through his tribulations?


    Well, right now, it was true that a fool was struggling through his tribulations right under the spotlight.


    "Five Qis Collecting in Mind! Yes, this is the sign of the Five Qis Collecting in Mind! This man has collected the Five Kinds of Qi. No wonder his Human Immortal Tribulation came so brutally and even destroyed the meteorite. But judging by his current situation, he isn''t prepared for this. There is not a single formation¡ª"


    The onlooker could not continue with his comments. The surroundings were also immersed in total silence.


    More and more people gathered around the place, while the range of the tribulation extended farther and farther.


    The number of Heavenly Thunders was increasing and the affected area was expanding as well.


    Much to everyone''s surprise, the mysterious Taoist started to throw one punch after another at the Heavenly Thunders. Each of his punches was powerful enough to destroy a Heavenly Thunder that could kill a Heavenly Thunder or even a Divine Immortal.


    Among the hundreds of practitioners watching this deluge of thunderbolts, no one dared to guarantee that he could escape this kind of tribulation unscathed. Nor could anyone promise they could carry on after 10 strikes of the thunderbolts. However, this Taoist destroyed several hundred strikes in a short period. Judging by his expression, this seemed to be an easy job for him. After that, he rushed straight towards the thickest part of the Heavenly Thunders.


    This was not something an ordinary Human Immortal or Divine Immortal could possibly achieve.


    Who on earth is this man? An Earthly Immortal? Why did an Earthly Immortal come here to go through the Human Immortal Tribulation?"


    Nearly all the onlookers were wondering about this at the same time.


    Some practitioners of some large influences or macro worlds, who were stationed in the Central Star Area for certain special purposes, had already started to investigate the identity of this Taoist. They were all hoping to get to get to know him better.


    In the Void Universe, strength was the eternal evidence of identity.


    "Bang, bang, bang!"


    After a series of intensive bombardment from the thunderbolts, they finally began to die down. They scattered and gradually disappeared. Just when everybody reckoned that this tribulation was over, fire suddenly erupted from the tough Taoist''s body. This fire appeared in an instant and rapidly melted the Taoist''s body, leaving only a shining golden skeleton behind.


    "Yin Fire Tribulation! How could there be an extra Yin Fire Tribulation after the Thunder Tribulation?" The crowd was appalled. How could this happen in real life?


    The Human Immortal Tribulation was something that all Human Immortals were supposed to endure. However, under normal circumstances, each Human Immortal only needed to go through one Human Immortal Tribulation, either the Thunder Tribulation, the Ice Tribulation, or the Yin Fire Tribulation. How did this man have two tribulations in succession? Even a Divine Immortal could not survive this, let alone a Human Immortal!


    At this point, something even more peculiar occurred. The flesh of this Taoist regrew out of the Yin Fire and this Yin Fire Tribulation did not seem to have done much harm to his body. In the end, when the Taoist had fully recovered, the Yin Fire could no longer burn any piece of his attire.


    "Is this really the Human Immortal Tribulation? Interesting! So amazing! But how could other Human Immortals survive this kind of Human Immortal Tribulation?" Zhou Bao also found that his Human Immortal Tribulation very unusual. Although it did not bother Zhou Bao much, if an ordinary Human Immortal had encountered such a tribulation, he would not even have known how he died in the end.


    Even as he was puzzling about this, something altered in the surrounding Void Universe again, and a burst of energy suddenly pierced through the Void Universe and charged right at the spot between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows.


    "Brat, go to hell!"

 817 A Fierce Fight Against an Earthly Immortal I

    Sneak attack! It was a sneak attack again! Launched by an Earthly Immortal!


    Facing such a sneak attack, Zhou Bao was utterly indignant, because this was the third time he had to deal with a sneak raid from an Earthly Immortal.


    Was this the typical attacking style of Earthly Immortals? Did they just prefer to stay in the dark and target others furtively?


    Being attacked like this yet again, Zhou Bao refused to tolerate these kinds of nasty moves. His body wriggled and evaded the light, and suddenly a huge black hand rose to the sky and grabbed at the Void Universe.


    This huge hand instantly ripped up layers of spaces and went straight for the unknown opponent.


    "How audacious!"


    A growl sounded from the depths of the Void Universe.


    The opponent clearly didn''t expect that Zhou Bao would be so daring nor have the guts to mess around with an Earthly Immortal.


    The growl then transformed into something substantial¡ªa huge tornado, which swept towards the black hand. Meanwhile, the light that charged at the place between Zhou Bao''s eyebrows flashed and leaped towards him once again.


    "Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle! Taihao Fairy Weapon Red Thunder Shuttle! It''s Emperor Hulong of Seven Mysteries World! What background does this guy have on earth? Even an Earthly Immortal emperor is after him!"


    Based on the appearance of the Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle and the growl, the onlookers figured out the identity of the one who made the first strike and these rendered them speechless.


    The Seven Mysteries World was a powerful influence of the Holy Alliance. Emperor Hulong was one of the top nine Earthly Immortals of the Seven Mysteries World, who had not appeared in public for thousands of years. Today, he turned up unexpectedly and even launched a surprise attack at Zhou Bao, which was rather bewildering.


    "Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle? How can you just send a simple Taihao Fairy Weapon to fight against me?" Seeing the Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle hurtling towards him again, Zhou Bao merely gave a sneer. With a wave of his hand, a jet of purple light gleamed and dashed right into the Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle.


    "Clank!"


    A loud clank could be heard from the Void Universe, telling Zhou Bao that the purple light had hit the Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle. The Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle suddenly froze in the air, its brightness dimmed rapidly and it lost the power to advance forwards. At the same time, the practitioners who were watching the battle noticed to their surprise that the strange Taoist was holding a purple bamboo stick.


    It was the gentle point of this bamboo stick that broke Emperor Hulong''s Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle just now.


    Well, the battle was not over. The Taoist was apparently not satisfied with simply defeating the Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle, so he pointed the purple bamboo stick at it again.


    "Crack!"


    The pointing gesture immediately reduced the Taihao Fairy Weapon, the Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle, into dust!


    After the purple bamboo stick had destroyed the Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle, it relentlessly flung itself towards the Void Universe once Zhou Bao brandished it.


    It pierced through the Void Universe and joined the black hand, flying in the direction of the unknown enemy.


    A red light appeared and both the black huge hand and the purple bamboo stick hit the red light at the same time.


    "Whir!"


    In the depths of the Void Universe, boundless storms surged suddenly as if the place had turned into a tumultuous ocean. The three types of power produced by the three objects shattered the space into pieces. These three kinds of power were totally different. One of them was the power of Zhou Bao''s black hand. This was a poisonous hand, containing the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast. It corroded the entire space in which the rampant storms were wreaking havoc. The power of the purple bamboo stick was even eerier. It penetrated through layers of spaces and left a small hole in each of the solid walls of all those spaces as if they were made of thin paper.


    These two kinds of power were Zhou Bao''s power. However, both the space-corroding power and the space-piercing power were blocked by the red light.


    The red light rose and solidified the space that was raging violently, into a block of ice.


    When the black hand touched it, the invincible corroding effect did not work. The space that was frozen by the red light only had a thin layer melted by the effect.


    The purple bamboo stick, which had penetrated spaces and destroyed anything that came to it, only managed to create a tiny hole on the surface of the space frozen by the red light.


    "Brat, you are courting death!"


    It seemed that Emperor Hulong had gained the upper hand, but he also suffered a great loss because his Taihao Fairy Weapon, the Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle, was destroyed by Zhou Bao. As one of the top nine emperors of the Seven Mysteries World and a prestigious Earthly Immortal, he had not experienced such a loss for thousands of years. Now, with Zhou Bao breaking his fairy weapon and persistently penetrating spaces to launch more attacks on him, his fury was thoroughly ignited.


    Wild storms immediately broke out in the depths of the Void Universe. Immense pressure broke through the space and bore down on the area.


    "Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang¡ª"


    Under the overbearing pressure, the pneuma in the surrounding space exploded. All the meteorites and caves that had been rented out were blasted into fine powder in an instant. Layers of space collapsed and were carried into the pressure, which bore down upon Zhou Bao.


    But Zhou Bao cracked a grin. Facing the intimidating power of an Earthly Immortal, he did not show any traces of fear. This Emperor Hulong was pretty good, but his force was far below that of Vast Sea Emperor. Given that Zhou Bao had successfully fended off the Dark Blue Rage of Vast Sea Emperor, how could he be afraid of this Earthly Immortal called Hulong.


    "Great move! However, with just Qi Power, how can you hurt me?" The purple light flashed in Zhou Bao''s hand, and the purple bamboo stick emerged again. "Emperor Hulong, I''m an Earthly Immortal. I can''t strike in the Void Universe. But now you sneak-attacked me; if I don''t teach you a lesson, you must think I''m someone you can easily bully!"


    Zhou Bao snarled loudly. He rotated his purple bamboo stick and pointed it at the almost substantialized pressure.


    "Pop!"


    A soft noise could be heard and the huge pressure broke up.


    This pressure was formed by the concentrated Spiritual Strength of Emperor Hulong, who had expected it to give Zhou Bao a hard blow. Of course, the Spiritual Strength was not so easy to break down. After Zhou Bao hit it, a violent spiritual storm sprang up and swept across the area. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao wheeled around and zoomed rapidly into layers of spaces to find the Real Body of the Emperor Hulong.


    "Arrogant! This is outrageously arrogant!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s reaction, Emperor Hulong was furious. The Earthly Immortal was not allowed to strike in the Void Universe. That was why he had chosen to take on Zhou Bao with the previous means. But to his surprise, Zhou Bao easily dissolved his attacks and even flew into the spaces to chase his Real Body. Was Zhou Bao really seeking his death?


    Emperor Hulong was both appalled and irritated. However, Zhou Bao throwing himself into these layers of spaces gave him a good opportunity. Due to the restriction of the Void Universe, previously, he was unable to cast or fully utilize his powers. But now, he could even cast out his macro world and wrap Zhou Bao in. If so, Zhou Bao would become a chunk of meat to be sliced by him. That was why he said Zhou Bao was too arrogant.


    Was Zhou Bao really being too arrogant?


    Well, only Zhou Bao knew the answer. After his phase rose to the level of the Five Qis Collecting in Mind, his strength had increased significantly. Given that he had successfully pulled through several tribulations just moments ago, his confidence had received a tremendous boost as well. Based on these factors, Zhou Bao believed his combat capability was definitely at the level of the Earthly Immortal. Before, he could barely reach this notch. But now, he was fully qualified to claim that his combat capability was as strong as an Earthly Immortal''s. In fact, he was just looking for someone to try out this powerful combat capability that he had newly acquired. Surprisingly, Emperor Hulong came to him on his own accord. Such being the case, he would be silly if he did not test his new powers!


    Zhou Bao was highly confident about his strength, but this did not mean he was arrogant. On the contrary, he was quite cautious. The reason why he struck out in such a high-profile fashion was just that he was very familiar with the combating style of Earthly Immortals.


    "I''m still new here. Just let the fight with this Emperor Hulong or whatsoever be an opportunity to display my power!" Zhou Bao thought. In an instant, he already traveled to the depths of spacetime.


    "Emperor Hulong, stop hiding! Come out!" As he growled, he made one step forward. "You can''t fool me! I''ll find you!"


    "Boom!"


    In a nameless spacetime located in the depths of the Void Universe, a space that was originally in a secret place suddenly started trembling. In this space, a sturdy man with a long beard and straight hair abruptly altered his expression and widened his eyes. Then, an enormous foot stepped right into this mysterious space from the Void Universe. As it landed, this space instantly fell apart.


    "Emperor Hulong, come out and battle with me!"


    As the growl rang, another enormous foot stepped in and aimed straight for his head.


    "Brat, how dare you!"


    Yes, how daring of him! Stepping on the head of an Earthly Immortal emperor. What a crazy action! It was an utter provocation to an Earthly Immortal emperor! If this time the Emperor Hulong failed to beat Zhou Bao, in the days ahead, he would no longer have other Earthly Immortals'' respect.


    "You dare to attack me, well, now I dare to kill you!" Zhou Bao bellowed in an extremely cold voice. Then, he stamped hard without any hesitation.


    "Boom!"


    He dropped his foot, but did not hit anything. As the boom sounded, the space where Emperor Hulong was hiding disintegrated.


    "Whoosh!"


    Almost at the same time, strong gusts of wind whirled around the surrounding spaces. A blast of fierce killing intent materialized and zoomed at Zhou Bao like a huge awl.


    The Sky-piercing Awl!


    As the Sky-piercing Awl rotated madly, the space turned into a maelstrom of high waves, storms, thunderbolts, raging fire, as well as freezing ice.


    In a split second, the place where Zhou Bao was standing resembled hell. Numerous streams of power converged and united. Besides those terrifying powers, there was another kind of odd and obscure spatial fluctuation in this area.


    Zhou Bao merely sneered. Watching all the powers closing on him like iron walls, he wielded the glowing, purple bamboo and thrust it out randomly!


    "No matter where you came from, there is only one destination for me!"


    "Clank!"


    This thrust came so fast and so unexpected that even Emperor Hulong did not have time to react. In the next second, the tip of this purple bamboo stick pressed precisely against the spot between the eyebrows of Emperor Hulong.

 818 A Fierce Fight Against an Earthly Immortal II

    Tinkle!


    The fresh tinkling sound took Emperor Hulong by surprise!


    The instant Zhou Bao''s attack hit the space between the eyebrows of Emperor Hulong, it turned into a strong and sharp Sword Qi, which stabbed strongly at its target. Colorful brilliance suddenly radiated from Emperor Hulong.


    "Bang!"


    The colorful brilliance blocked the Sword Qi, but Emperor Hulong''s expression altered drastically and he stumbled backwards helplessly. The colorful jade between his eyebrows was smashed into pieces by Zhou Bao''s attack.


    By now, Zhou Bao had already slipped into the space where Emperor Hulong was, like a fish swimming in water. The purple bamboo stick in his hand did not stop its attacks. It squirted a jet of black and red Sword Qi, which hurtled towards Emperor Hulong.


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!


    "Whoosh!"


    When Emperor Hulong saw Zhou Bao charging at him, he forced himself to concentrate and his angry face turned very grim. Anyway, he was an Earthly Immortal and a prestigious Earthly Immortal at that. Although he had somehow misjudged Zhou Bao''s strength, now that Zhou Bao was fighting back relentlessly, he had no choice but to regard Zhou Bao as a serious enemy and continue to fight.


    "Great timing!" Seeing the Sword Qi rushing at him, Emperor Hulong did not panic. Being an Earthly Immortal, he naturally could find something to counterattack. He raised his right hand and a small round-shaped, ancient-looking mirror appeared on his palm and faced the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi.


    The Sword Blade Storm!


    Although Zhou Bao did not know what the small mirror was, he was prepared for this. In a fraction of a second, the supple Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi transformed into innumerable tiny swords. Just before they were about to collide with the mirror, they parted ways and charged at Emperor Hulong from both sides.


    "Humph!" Facing such a sudden change, Emperor Hulong did not even blink his eyes. On the road to becoming an Earthly Immortal, he had endured numerous fights and survived numerous plights. Now, this little trick was not worth his attention. The ancient-looking mirror in his hand suddenly emitted a white light which engulfed him in its blazing radiance.


    "Something went wrong!" Zhou Bao thought, his heart thumping. Sure enough, when the Sword Blade Storm hit the white light, no collision occurred. Instead, the Sword Blade Storm winced, and then, steered back and soared towards Zhou Bao.


    "I know it''s a trick!" At this point, Zhou Bao felt that he had lost control over the Sword Qi of his Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. The white light had mysterious powers and it severed the connection between himself and the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi. As the Sword Blade Storm fired back, Emperor Hulong shifted his mirror to another direction and a jet of light shot straight at Zhou Bao.


    "Good for me!" Facing both the Sword Blade Storm and light, Zhou Bao did not avoid them at all. He wielded the purple bamboo stick and swiveled it in different directions from time to time and the Sword Blade Storm was easily dismissed. Meanwhile, the light from the mirror had also dispersed. But due to its great power, Zhou Bao staggered backwards under the forceful impact.


    "You do know some tricks. However, it''s far from enough to beat me!" Seeing how easily Zhou Bao fended off his attacks, Emperor Hulong was a bit surprised. But that was not just a fluke, which showed that he needed to take this guy seriously.


    Once he got serious, the opponent would no longer have any chance to snatch a victory.


    This time, Emperor Hulong really got down to business. He stretched his fingers and appeared to be pressing down hard on Zhou Bao.


    "Good!"


    Zhou Bao bellowed and once again held up his purple bamboo stick and thrust it at his hand.


    "Boom!"


    Before Emperor Hulong''s right hand landed upon him, a sense of numbness struck Zhou Bao and he nearly lost his grip on his purple bamboo stick, which seemed about to fly out of his hand. He felt like he had collided with a mountain with an ordinary body and fell back in horror.


    "Let go!" When Emperor Hulong saw that Zhou Bao was still holding on to the purple bamboo stick after taking this blow, he was quite taken aback. But soon, he sped up the pressure of his palm and let out a howl, aiming to force Zhou Bao to let go of his hold. This purple bamboo stick really impressed him. It had easily broken his Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle, so it must not be inferior to the Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle.


    After all, he needed something to replace the broken Ingenious Red Thunder Shuttle.


    When he heard the howl, Zhou Bao also shouted out his curses. His lean body suddenly grew tall and muscular; the Mysterious Icy Divine Light inside him rapidly poured into the purple bamboo stick, which stabbed at Emperor Hulong''s palm.


    "Boom!"


    Storms stirred up and the space fell apart!


    Zhou Bao and Emperor Hulong both stepped backwards at the same time. Of course, it was Zhou Bao who suffered more harm. Under the enormous power of Emperor Hulong, dozens of Zhou Bao''s bones were broken and his tendons and meridians were also badly injured. After being thrown thousands of miles away, he finally managed to stabilize his body. Then, he launched the Seven Wonderful Techniques and healed all his injuries. Very soon, he regained his vigor.


    Emperor Hulong only took three steps backwards, but his expression was dark¡ªhis palm was prickling. The stab really hurt him.


    Emperor Hulong, who had not been wounded for thousands of years, experienced the feeling of pain for the first time.


    "Brilliant, brilliant move!"


    At this moment, even Emperor Hulong himself could not help but give his praises. That a young man who had just gathered the Five Qis in the Chest and undergone the Earthly Immortal Tribulation could possess such a combat capability and injure an Earthly Immortal emperor. This overturned his previous assumption.


    "If this kind of guy becomes a real Earthly Immortal, then, how could we still have a foothold in the Void Universe?"


    Even those great emperors of the Ancient Celestial Court with high rankings did not have such outstanding strength when they were still Human Immortals, did they?"


    Realizing this, Emperor Hulong''s eyes grew ferocious as a wolf''s. A chilling killing intent instantly spread all over the space.


    "This killing intent is very dense! Seems that today we won''t settle this until one of us murders the other!" Zhou Bao sneered and hoisted the purple bamboo stick. Almost simultaneously, his body glowed with a red-hot intensity and two figures, one green and one red jumped out and stood on either side of Zhou Bao. They were his Third and Fourth Primordial Spirits.


    "The way of primordial spirit separation?" At the sight of the young men in green and in red, Emperor Hulong''s eyes brightened. "Good, very good. Never thought you also accomplished the practice of two primordial spirits, which is only one step away from mastering the legendary Primordial Spirits of Three Separations! Good, as long as I take you down, the way of primordial spirit separation will be mine!"


    Overjoyed, Emperor Hulong also released a jet of light from his body and a black-clothed man emerged next to him.


    It was his Second Primordial Spirit!


    Emperor Hulong also knew about the way of primordial spirit separation, but he had not learned the fancy art of Primordial Spirits of Three Separations. He only achieved his Second Primordial Spirit, but this was scary enough. Since he was an Earthly Immortal, now with his Second Primordial Spirit, his combat capability was doubled. Even though Zhou Bao was amazingly powerful and could duel with an Earthly Immortal as a Human Immortal, would he able to fight against two Earthly Immortals at the same time?


    If it was in the past, Zhou Bao certainly could not do that. But now...


    Zhou Bao grinned, "You two, go get rid of his Second Primordial Spirit; I''ll handle him myself!"


    The Primordial Poison Spirit and the Primordial Sword Spirit did not reply but both rushed towards Emperor Hulong''s black-robed primordial spirit as Zhou Bao ordered.


    "Well, Emperor Hulong, the warmup is over. Now, let''s battle seriously!"


    Warm up!


    The previous fierce fight was just a warmup! When these two were dueling earlier, they had already shattered numerous spacetimes and attracted a lot of attention. Of course, those who were qualified to watch this battle were all emperors at the level of Earthly Immortal. Those practitioners with lower rankings, even if they were Divine Immortals, had no way to observe the details of their battle.


    Right now, both of them sensed over thirty jets of divine thoughts sweeping across the spacetime, which took Zhou Bao by surprise.


    The Central Star Area was truly a prosperous area. A simple fight here could draw the attention of so many Earthly Immortals, while in Heaven Realm World with only a handful of Human Immortals and few Earthly Immortals, there was no way to detect the many divine thoughts of Earthly Immortals.


    "You, a little Human Immortal, can never defeat me!" When he heard Zhou Bao''s words, Emperor Hulong burst out laughing. Deep down, Emperor Hulong was a very combative man. Now, suddenly bumping into a difficult opponent, his long-lost lust for violence was awakened. As he reached out, a golden spear materialized in his hand.


    This spear was about 30 feet long and made of an unknown golden metal. Several ancient patterns were inscribed on it. Apart from these, there were no other decorations at all.


    "Brat, now that you want to fight, I''ll fight seriously! Let''s me see how many moves you can take!" Emperor Hulong snarled. He heaved the spear in mid-air and space-time storms suddenly surged, accompanied by continuous wind and thunder. "Watch out for my Wind and Thunder of Six Directions!"


    In an instant, the entire spacetime was carried into Space Storms. The golden spear hid in the storms for a moment, and then, being surrounded by wild wind and thunder, turned into a golden dragon, which lunged at Zhou Bao.


    "Dragon, it''s a dragon!" When he saw the golden dragon transformed from the spear, a dismissive smile flitted through Zhou Bao''s eyes.


    Dragons were Primordial Fierce Beasts. But in terms of strength, they were the weakest group among all the Primordial Fierce Beasts. Dragons were not very good at battling. Instead, they were valued for their special nature¡ªthey were auspicious beasts. Accordingly, auspicious beasts were meant to represent luck, so how could they be involved in the fighting and killing?


    Thus, Zhou Bao did not fear this golden dragon. He leaped up abruptly and soared right at the dragon, wielding his purple bamboo stick, accompanied by complicated gestures.


    The stick spun, rotated and blazed a path through the vile wind and deafening thunder. It then charged in the direction of the golden dragon.


    "Wham, wham, wham!"


    The stick collided with the spear as the wind and thunder roared ferociously!


    Zhou Bao shuttled through the endless Space Storms like a fish, while the purple bamboo stick was struggling with the golden spear. Radiance dazzled the crowds as the wind and thunder prevailed at the place. For a moment, Zhou Bao was tied with Emperor Hulong.

 819 A Fierce Fight Against an Earthly Immortal III

    "Bastard, bastard, bastard!"


    Emperor Hulong swore at Zhou Bao repeatedly in his mind. The combat capability of this kid was a bit too strong, and he did not save him any face.


    The purple bamboo stick was tangling with the golden spear. These two finally met their match in a contest.


    This kind of situation was nothing to Zhou Bao, while Emperor Hulong felt that he was already severely humiliated. He, an Earthly Immortal, was dueling with a Human Immortal. But after battling for so long, he had lost a Taihao Fairy Weapon and still was tied with the opponent. Above all, he even cast out his Second Primordial Spirit, but still did not get the upper hand. Could he be more disgraced than this? Was there anything more embarrassing than this?


    No, there was not.


    Being dragged into an arduous battle by a Human Immortal!


    Earthly Immortals of the Holy Alliance had never been so embarrassed like this!


    Up to now, Emperor Hulong had fully realized that it was impossible to defeat this devil-like Human Immortal before him with normal methods. To fight a quick battle, he had to employ thunderbolt skills and perform his ace cards.


    However, though his ace cards were highly powerful, if he used them to take on a Human Immortal, it would look like that he used a sledgehammer on a gnat. On top of it all, now that this battle had drawn a lot of attention, more and more Earthly Immortals'' divine thoughts had projected to this place, once he used those powerful Divine Senses, he would expose his ace cards to the public, which was very detrimental to him.


    Therefore, he hesitated for a moment.


    Combats between masters of martial arts always depended on momentary opportunities. Hesitating at this point actually gave the other side a great opportunity. Zhou Bao was an experienced expert on close quarter combats, so he certainly would not let this great opportunity slip by. The purple bamboo stick wagged a little and then pointed into the gap where the golden spear was not protecting as Emperor Hulong was hesitating for a second.


    A jet of sharp Sword Qi shot out, hit Emperor Hulong''s left eye straightaway.


    "Ah!"


    Emperor Hulong let out a howl in shock. This Sword Qi shot right into his left eye. Despite the fact that he was an Earthly Immortal, facing such sharp Sword Qi, he still failed to save his pupil.


    He quickly backed off, clapping a hand on his left eye. Golden blood trickled down through the gaps of his fingers, while the Sword Qi as sharp as a knife were frantically destroy all the vigor of his left eye.


    "No!"


    He snarled, lifted his right hand abruptly. A stream of wild power flooded out from his body.


    "Crap!"


    Zhou Bao knew he had pushed the Earthly Immortal too hard. He had disgraced this Earthly Immortal so severely that this guy had nothing to lose now.


    After being hit by Zhou Bao so unexpectedly, Emperor Hulong really had nothing to lose now. Golden bangles soared out from his body and assembled over his head.


    "What''s that? Interlocked bangles?" Staring at these golden bangles, Zhou Bao obviously went petrified for a second. These were, of course, not just interlocked bangles. They formed a large formation over the head of Emperor, which looked like a Taihao Fairy Weapon, but the pressure it sent forth was much overwhelming than ordinary Taihao Fairy Weapons or even Upper Graded Taihao Fairy Weapon.


    "Is this a Heavenly Fairy Weapon?" Zhou Bao thought, a little alarmed by this scenario.


    But after a few seconds, his vigilance turned into confusion.


    "Crack, crack, crack!"


    When the bangles assembled, Zhou Bao finally realized that they were not golden bangles at all. They were golden gears, holding on each other like an inside structure of a huge machine, which looked quite eerie.


    Then, a bit horror was added to Zhou Bao''s astonishment, because the huge machine suspending in midair started to function.


    "Rumbling, rumbling, rumbling¡ª"


    The noise it made sounded just like the sound of the most ancient steam engine. As this huge machine was running, Zhou Bao found it helplessly that the nearby spacetime slipped into the control range of this ancient steam engine, everything in this spacetime was pulled towards the functioning huge gears other than Emperor Hulong himself.


    Zhou Bao and his two primordial spirits were no exception.


    "Brat, how dare you cost one of my eyes! You cost an eye of mine, I''ll have your body smashed to pieces! Don''t even consider fleeing, because there is no way you can escape. Let''s just enjoy this!" Emperor Hulong burst into a fit of wild laughter, as if Zhou Bao had already become the meat on his cutting board.


    "What fu*king fairy weapon it is? How could it be so brutal!"


    Zhou Bao cursed in his mind.


    Brutal, this was really brutal.


    Zhou Bao already felt the power of this machine. In this spacetime controlled by it, no divine thoughts could flee out, let alone one''s body. The divine thoughts sent by Earthly Immortals from various spacetimes just now were all ripped into pieces by this harsh machine. Since the divine thoughts of Earthly Immortals ended like this, how about one''s body?


    Well, one''s flesh naturally could not tear up the space and escape from being shredded by this machine.


    Everything in surrounding space combined into one and was fed to the machine.


    There was no chance to escape.


    "Rumbling, rumbling, rumbling¡ª"


    The machine roared, gradually pulled Zhou Bao over from afar. Now, like a fish can stuck to a transmission band, Zhou Bao was carried into that machine motionlessly, waiting to be ground.


    "Is this some space freezing technique?"


    Being an expert on the Great Way of Heavens and Realms, Zhou Bao quickly found the root of his forced motionlessness.


    The space had been frozen. Of course, not simply being frozen. in fact, when these golden gears appeared, the whole space was combined into one with that huge machine. Even if Zhou Bao performed the Infinite Realms Teleportation, he would still teleport himself into these big gears and be ground due to the weird spatial rules here.


    "You jerkass, dare to force me to employ my Celestial Punishment Palace. Brat, I''ll let you know the consequence of pissing off me, Emperor Hulong! I''ll crush your bones and grind your spirit, make you a nutrient for my Celestial Punishment Palace!"


    Emperor Hulong growled with fury. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao discovered that there was a vague giant figure standing over the Celestial Punishment Palace.


    "Is this an Incomplete Heavenly Fairy Weapon?" Zhou Bao thought, his heart pounded.


    It dawned on him that this Celestial Punishment Palace was an Upper Graded Taihao Fairy Weapon, powerful enough to breed the device spirit. But the device spirit had just taken shape, if it had a bit more time, it would certainly become a Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    That meant, at present, it was not a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. This guy played some trick and let the Celestial Punishment Palace displayed a more intimidating power than a normal Celestial Punishment Palace.


    Zhou Bao''s Furnace of Immortality was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, but he did not think this Furnace of Immortality could handle the Celestial Punishment Palace. The material of the Celestial Punishment Palace was very strange, and there were some mysterious talismans on the golden gears. It was exactly these talismans that merged the Celestial Punishment Palace and the surrounding space and made it highly firm, almost impossible to break up. Zhou Bao believed that even if he launched his Furnace of Immortality to attack the Celestial Punishment Palace, it would make no difference.


    "Er, the Celestial Punishment Palace! No, this is not the Celestial Punishment Palace, it''s just a replica!"


    When Zhou Bao was about to stake everything on the last attempt and launch the Black Pearl so as to break this eccentric fairy weapon, Ghost Child sensed something and stuck out his head from the red gourd. "Surely it''s a replica. If it were a real one, I would not have been able to rise up. If so, I would have been shredded by the Celestial Punishment Palace!" Ghost Child laughed.


    A replica! With the power close to that of a Heavenly Fairy Weapon! Then, what about the real one? How powerful could it be on earth?


    This thought fleeted across Zhou Bao''s mind. Then, he asked, "You know what it is, so you must also know the way to break it, right?"


    "Of course, if it were a real Celestial Punishment Palace, it would be a bit tricky. Well, now, it''s just a fake one!" Ghost Child said with confidence. "See that device spirit? It hasn''t matured yet, so it''s still tightly attached to the Celestial Punishment Palace. If you destroy it, this Celestial Punishment Palace will basically be ruined!"


    "I see!" In a flash of inspiration, Zhou Bao suddenly understood what he should do.


    For a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, what was its scariest feature?


    Of course it was the device spirit!


    Without the device spirit, it could only be called as a Taihao Fairy Weapon. Only when a weapon had a device spirit could it be qualified to be a Heavenly Fairy Weapon and perform its greatest power. Thus, normally, when a man was dealing with a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, he would never be so stupid to upset its device spirit. However, this Celestial Punishment Palace was different. Its device spirit had not fully grown up. Though it already had the body of the Steel Giant, it did not possess any spiritual intelligence, which was precisely the vulnerable spot of this Incomplete Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    "Boy, you''d better heed this. Though I don''t know the background of this guy, considering that he successfully created a replica of the Celestial Punishment Palace, it''s highly possible that he has obtained the producing method of this fairy weapon. If you kill him, you can take away this producing method or this replica together. Hee, hee, three devices of Heavenly Punishment¡ªCelestial Punishment Palace, Immortal-decapitating Stand, and Deity-constraining Prison. These three devices were released to the public from the Sacred City of Fate when the Heavenly Court was just established. Later, they fell to the hand of Sage Tianfa, and then were passed down to his disciple Emperor Xingtian. This is how he got this title. Since the establishment of the Heavenly Court, Emperor Xingtian had taken control of all the heavenly punishment and enjoyed great prestige. Although his ranking does not belong to the top five, no one dare to belittle him. Further, with the three Heavenly Punishment Devices at hand, even if he bumps into a man with a Supreme Fairy Weapon, he is still able to put up a fight."


    "It''s a pity that this is merely a replica!" After hearing Ghost Child''s account, Zhou Bao knew where to draw the line. Following Ghost Child''s directions, he wriggled forward and crossed the strongly fortified space. With a quick shift, he appeared in front of the Steel Giant. The purple bamboo stick in his hand was shining in a vicious purple, which directly pointed at the waist of that Steel Giant and stabbed out.


    "No way!" Gazing at this scenario in total shock, Emperor Hulong was stupefied.

 820 To Snatch Treasure and to Infiltrate the Seven Mysteries World

    Rumble, rumble¡ª


    The purple bamboo stick really touched the Steel Giant, and then something strange happened. The seemingly mighty Steel Giant started to crumble.


    The Celestial Punishment Palace seemed to have suffered a blow, too. The golden gear hanging over the Emperor Hulong stopped turning, and the surrounding space immediately loosened and returned to its original state.


    "How is this possible? How could this happen?"


    Dozens of divine thoughts swept in at once, sending out waves of wonder.


    The Celestial Punishment Palace of the Emperor Hulong was broken.


    "Look out!"


    A divine thought suddenly appeared and warned the Emperor Hulong, but it was too late. A large golden seal emerged above his head, dashing at him with tremendous breath of destruction.


    Boom!!!


    The huge golden seal hit his forehead, causing the Emperor Hulong to stagger.


    He felt dizzy. And before he could respond, he saw Zhou Bao''s fingers in the shape of a dustpan hurtling towards the Celestial Punishment Palace.


    "That''s lousy!" He was astounded. He moved and wanted to stop Zhou Bao, but suddenly there was a flash of red light, and a sharp sword light was pointing at between his eyebrows.


    "Get out!!!"


    With a wrathful cry, he raised his hand and caused a Space Storm, trying to break up the sword light, but the result was a complete shock to everyone. The Space Storm did not do any harm to the Sword Qi. Passing through the endless Space Storm, the Sword Qi quickly pierced his chest.


    "Ah¡ª"


    "Puff¡ª"


    With a groan of pain, the Emperor Hulong retreated swiftly. In the process of retreating, he went deathly pale, and stared fiercely at Zhou Bao with the remaining right eye.


    At this time, Zhou Bao had pressed the gear of the Celestial Punishment Palace. And the moment he pressed the gear, the Ghost Child stirred, and two fine rays of light shot out of his eyes, cutting the link between the incomplete Heavenly Fairy Weapon and the Emperor Hulong. Subsequently, the palace grew smaller with the visible speed of the naked eye, and finally became a mass of golden light into Zhou Bao''s palm.


    "Boy, you¡ª!"


    Shocked and furious, the Emperor Hulong planned to recklessly launch his macro world to trap Zhou Bao. However, when he tried to start it, he was startled to find that the damage done to him by the Sword Qi was quite unexpected. If he was now desperate to start the macro world, he might be able to beat Zhou Bao, but his body would collapse immediately. The physical collapse of an Earthly Immortal was very serious, which meant that the Earthly Immortal''s body could no longer bear the power of a macro world, and that his macro world that he had worked so hard to create would collapse as well. In addition, this Earthly Immortal would at least lower a state in cultivation and become an Immortal. Worst of all, he would never be able to recreate a macro world, and the Immortal Realm was the culmination of his cultivation.


    This was what made him most scruple!


    "What exactly is that Sword Qi? It''s so sharp!"


    The Emperor Hulong immediately decided to give up the incomplete Heavenly Fairy Weapon Celestial Punishment Palace in astonishment. Then he slipped into layers of space in a flash, and vanished without a trace. Almost at the same time, his Second Primordial Spirit, who had been fighting with the Primordial Poison Spirit of Zhou Bao, also disappeared.


    The fierce battle that shocked numerous Earthly Immortals came to an end out of the blue. Zhou Bao stood alone in the space for a while, and did not understand what was going on.


    "How quickly he escaped!" After a few minutes, he sighed a little, "He really knows how to choose. He deserves to be an Earthly Immortal!"


    The last Sword Qi was the Immortal-killing Sword Qi. Weak as it was, it could annihilate an Immortal and make an Earthly Immortal lost the combat capability even though it was not enough to kill an Earthly Immortal.


    Hulong had run away!!!


    Zhou Bao was not alone in seeing his escape. Those Earthly Immortals, who watched the battle in the dark, began to communicate through their divine thoughts as soon as he fled. They speculated on the cause of his withdrawal. Either he was mad, or he was really under a mortal threat or he saw a mortal threat. Otherwise he would not run away or even give up his incomplete Heavenly Fairy Weapon Celestial Punishment Palace.


    They suddenly thought of the Celestial Punishment Palace!


    When Hulong had the Celestial Punishment Palace, no one could snatch it. Now it had just changed hands, and its new owner was only a Human Immortal. Besides, the Human Immortal had just had a fight with an Earthly Immortal. Though he seemed to have won, God knew how much power he had left.


    All of a sudden, all the divine thoughts were itching for action.


    The whole space seemed to be stirred by this strange power.


    Now was the best chance. If they missed this opportunity, no one would like to bother him when he recovered all his combat capability, even if he was only a Human Immortal.


    Buzzing!!!


    In a twinkling, dozens of divine thoughts interwove together and formed a strong web that encircled the space.


    "Would it be so easy to take advantage of me?" Aware of the feverish divine thoughts around him, Zhou Bao sneered. Then, his Primordial Poison Spirit became a black big hand and melted the net of the divine thoughts out a big hole, and he changed into the dust and momentarily disappeared within the range of those Earthly Immortals'' feeling.


    "Eh?!"


    "What''s this?"


    "What a strong poison!"


    "Damn it, it''s the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast. It can even melt divine thoughts!"


    "What? The Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast? Damn it, he''s just a Human Immortal. How could he have something so insidious?"


    For a moment, the dozens of divine thoughts got confused, and then all the divine thoughts in this space were cut off.


    "It''s the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast. He has actually refined the Primordial Poison Spirit with it. No wonder he could compete with an Emperor. It explains the matter! I see!"


    Most of the Earthly Immortals seemed to know what was going on all at once.


    "The Nine-headed Fierce Beast is one of the Six Royals; the Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast is known as the most toxic things through the ages. With such powerful Second Primordial Spirit, he was indeed qualified to fight the Emperor. That Sword Qi just now should also contain a little bit of Elixir of Nine-headed Fierce Beast to cause him to flee."


    These were only the guesses of these Earthly Immortals, who had no idea about the truth.


    Crack!!!


    A violent storm suddenly swept through a peaceful hollow in the Central Star Area. Then spaces began to crack, and a figure emerged from the crack.


    "Here is where that guy disappeared?!"


    This figure was Zhou Bao. The center of this hollow was a macro world surrounded by a layer of gray space, named Seven Mysteries World.


    It was one of the core macro worlds of the Holy Alliance. Not only was this world bustling, but the hollow it was in was also bustling. As a result of a variety of inhibitions in the surrounding hollow, the sudden appearance of Zhou Bao immediately triggered a red alert to the Seven Mysteries World.


    "Who are you? How dare you crash the Seven Mysteries World!" Just as Zhou Bao appeared, he heard a voice snapping at him, and then several people appeared in front of him.


    "Seven Mysteries World?" Taking a look at these people, who were Human Immortals dressed in rich clothes, Zhou Bao ignored them. After a flash, he passed through the layers of inhibition, and entered this macro world directly. What was most embarrassing to these Human Immortals was that they did not realize how he had left, and that no one had found any trace of him since he entered the Seven Mysteries World.


    You heard right, no one found Zhou Bao now in the Seven Mysteries World. It was because he had launched his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, and disguised as an ordinary Taoist at the Ghost Immortal Realm. Now he was wandering in the streets of a big city in the Seven Mysteries World.


    The Seven Mysteries World had the ideal position and great power. All the people here were practitioners, and there was no ordinary person.


    This was quite normal, as the spiritual qi and pneuma here were extremely abundant. It would be a great pity to live here without becoming a practitioner. As for the ordinary people, they lived in the hundreds of vast planets around the Seven Mysteries World. Those vast planets were poor in pneuma, but they were sufficient for the ordinary people to live, and even enabled them to live a good life, at least much better than lives in the Heaven Realm World. Moreover, there were many sects of practice on these vast planets, and these sects were closely related to the sects in the Seven Mysteries World. To put it bluntly, those vast planets and sects were the base for adding talents to the Seven Mysteries World, as well as the foundation for its enduring prosperity.


    The Ghost Immortal Realm was the lowest standard of living in the Seven Mysteries World. In other words, without the power of Ghost Immortals, one could not come to the Seven Mysteries World. In this case, the Ghost Immortal was the largest group of practitioners there.


    Having restrained his cultivation, Zhou Bao now was a Ghost Immortal heaving undergone Six Tribulations, which was one of the most ordinary people. Moreover, his dress was so common in this macro world that no one had noticed him, let alone found out what was wrong with him.


    "Seven Mysteries World, Emperor Hulong, he really is one of the Earthly Immortal of this macro world. However, I had no conflict with this macro world. Why did he target me?"

 821 Zhou Ning

    The Seven Mysteries World was made up entirely of practitioners. It was different from any world Zhou Bao visited before. in fact, this world surprised him.


    It was a highly developed civilized society, totally different from the Heaven Realm World and the world of science and technology of his previous life.


    Walking in the street, Zhou Bao looked at the surrounding tall buildings in amazement. The people here did not have closed-door training as often as practitioners in the Heaven Realm World. They all had careers. Some people ran shops, and some setup stalls. Most surprising of all, the weakest of these citizens selling by the roadside was a Lord of Heaven, which was such an eye-opener to Zhou Bao.


    "It''s a pity that there is no urban management. Otherwise, it would be interesting to see them cause chaos every time they come!"


    Zhou Bao thought to himself. Unexpectedly, while he contemplated it, the street suddenly became noisy.


    "Law enforcers are coming! Come on, go!"


    Just thinking about chaos, he witnessed a scene of it. Those Lords of Heaven pushed the trolley or carried a basket to run around in a panic, leaving Zhou Bao dumbfounded.


    Only then did he discover that on this street, or in the whole Seven Mysteries World, there existed a complete set of forbidden air formations, which differed from what he saw previously. It appeared sophisticated because it didn''t completely ban practitioners from flying. As a matter of fact, there were practitioners flying in the sky or riding on their magic weapons now and then. And these flight routes were all fixed, similar to the transportation system in his previous life. In addition, it was clear the transportation system in this macro world was more efficient than that in his previous life, which was often jammed.


    Some of those vendors also flew, but due to the fixed traffic, they were more likely to be caught by law enforcers in air.


    Within a minute, the busy street emptied. The regular storefronts and pedestrians on the street seemed accustomed to it. After a tumult, they resumed their business, as if they not affected by what happened.


    "God, it''s an interesting place! Vendors of Ghost Immortals were chased around by the urban management. That''s something new!"


    Of course, this matter intrigued him, but his curiosity did not last long. He continued walking down the street, and after a little while, something else caught his eye.


    "Is it the news on a TV?"


    In front of a building thousands of feet high, an optical screen hung hundreds of feet in length. In the screen, a woman practitioner in flamboyantly colorful garb said something with a smile. After listening carefully to what she said, Zhou Bao''s jaw dropped because she broadcasted the news.


    You got that right. The news was broadcast on the screen.


    The news covered what happened in the Seven Mysteries World recently. Occasionally, there was news about some other macro worlds in the Holy Alliance. It was just like the international news and domestic news in Zhou Bao''s previous life. He had not seen the news for a long time, so he stood in front of the huge building and watched it with great enjoyment.


    After a few minutes, he learned more about the Seven Mysteries World. At least he discovered several Elders of some sects broke through from the Human Immortal Realm to the Immortal Realm, and that there were two well-known families united by marriage, further cementing their partnership. He even saw the latest news about the Heaven Realm World.


    Since he took almost all the people of the Heaven Realm World away, the situation there took a mighty big turn for the worse.


    Because of a pact with him and a loss of interest in the nearly empty Seven-deity Regions, the Devil Tribe focused on attacking the Falling Star Reef.


    But some people were more interested in the Seven-deity Regions.


    The two fleets of the Holy Alliance, which had been in the Infinite Star Sea, must be excited. Once Zhou Bao left the Heaven Realm World and the Yin and Yang Dust Formation crumbled, they entered the Heaven Realm World. Those sects remaining in the Seven-deity Regions were almost completely shattered in the face of them. Several super sects all defected to different forces and became subservient. Some defected to the Jade Dragon World, some to the Celestial Pool World. And the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple defected to the Pure Land World, which was not affiliated with the Holy Alliance. This proved a good choice because buddhist practice was popular in the Pure Land World.


    In addition, the Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain still existed, but was covered by a strong prohibition so that no one could enter. As these powers from Alien Worlds feared this mysterious place, they did not attack Longevity Mountain. The mysterious, loosely organized Immortal Palace suddenly disappeared after Zhou Bao left. No one knew where they were now or what happened to them.


    The Heaven Realm World plunged into a state of tripartite confrontation. Various forces and worlds from the Void Universe occupied The Seven-deity Regions. They each controlled their own territory. The Devil Tribe fought the Demon tribe for dominance in the Sea Area.


    Although the number of devils was large, after countless years of development, the demon population in the Heaven Realm World ballooned to an enormous amount. Together with the secret support of the Great Ancient Emperors like the Celestial Mystery Emperor, and the protection of the Supreme Fairy Weapons like the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, the Demon tribe held the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, although they were losing to the Devil Tribe.


    The most wonderful thing was the news of a series of introduction to the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, accompanied by pictures, which stunned Zhou Bao.


    In addition to the news, there were also newspapers. Of course, the newspapers here differed from those in Zhou Bao''s previous life.


    The newspapers here were pieces of Jade Talismans, containing huge amounts of information of various kinds. Similar to the newspapers in his previous life, there were various Jade Talisman shops, and different Jade Talisman prices varied, but all were cheap.


    A piece of Low Grade Spiritual Stone could buy two or three pieces of Jade Talismans. For a few Low Grade Spiritual Stones, Zhou Bao realized what went on in the Seven Mysteries World recently.


    "It''s really a convenient world, just like the world of my previous life. It''s more civilized than the Heaven Realm World. Was the Heavenly Court like this in the past? If that were the case, the Heaven Realm World would have been far behind in the past nearly a million years." Zhou Bao thought. He who fell behind lost. Having witnessed this cold, hard fact, he was confused about the Azure Big World''s future.


    Relatively speaking, the Seven Mysteries World was a very open world with developed civilization. Most of the information here moved transparently, including information about the Emperor Hulong.


    The Emperor Hulong was seriously injured in the sneak attack, but Zhou Bao was alarmed. He entered the Seven Mysteries World to see why Hulong attacked him. To his surprise, without investigation, he soon found the reason in a new piece of Jade Talisman.


    "Damn it, he decided we are the same person just because Cundi and I both have the Real Body of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan. That''s too arbitrary! He would rather kill the wrong person than let a suspicious one go. It''s worth learning." Zhou Bao muttered to himself.


    The fact that Zhou Bao took almost all humans in the Seven-deity Regions shocked not only the Heaven Realm World, but also the forces and macro worlds in the entire Void Universe.


    Since the Holy Alliance''s monitoring network spread over the Central Star Area, Zhou Bao was noticed as soon as he appeared in the Holy Alliance. He dressed and addressed exactly as he had been in the Eastern Thunder World, and combined with his time away from the Heaven Realm World, these men in the Void Universe were more certain of the identity of Cundi.


    And the Emperor Hulong was only the first to feel him out.


    "Fortunately, I fought back hard and showed them my powerful strength, or they might have come together to deal with me!" Thinking about this, Zhou Bao was glad.


    This was the law of the world. People bullied the weak and feared the strong. If Zhou Bao displayed a hint of weakness, he would have been killed by the practitioners of the Seven Mysteries World. His powerful counterattack not only repelled the Emperor Hulong, but also captured his incomplete Heavenly Fairy Weapon Celestial Punishment Palace. This had a very powerful deterrent effect, so the several Emperors of Earthly Immortals in the Seven Mysteries World did not despise him anymore, nor did they dare act rashly again.


    "Excuse me?" While Zhou Bao still quietly congratulated himself, a man dressed in fine garb approached him.


    "Eh?" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows and turned to the man before smiling, "You''re?"


    "My name is Zhou Ning. At the command of my teacher Emperor Baiqi, I am here to invite you to Mist Dragon House."

 822 Sacred Fire Bead

    The Emperor Baiqi!


    He was one of the nine Emperors of Earthly Immortals and supreme rulers of the Seven Mysteries World. And his relationship with the Emperor Hulong was not amicable, as Zhou Bao learned from the news and newspapers.


    In fact, since there were nine Emperors, six forces controlled by six Emperors in the macro world and the other three Emperors, as old as they were, remained in the background to reconcile the contradictions between the six.


    The Emperor Baiqi and the Emperor Hulong both entered the Earthly Immortal Realm at the end of antiquity times. As a result of the relationship between the two men, their forces did tit for tat for many years, which was a secret known in the Seven Mysteries World. Now the Emperor Hulong suffered heavy losses in fighting with Zhou Bao, and his enemy, Emperor Baiqi, showed Zhou Bao kindness. Not a bad thing for Zhou Bao. But how did the Emperor Baiqi discover him in the first place, when he moved undetectable?


    "About 400,000 years ago, the Seven Mysteries World set up a magic formation to monitor every corner here, so as soon as you appeared in this macro world, the Emperor knew."


    "Is there monitoring?" Zhou Bao paused for a moment before he smiled. It seemed that the rulers of civilized societies all possessed this quirk.


    "Since I''m here, I may as well stay and make the best of it. Lead the way," Zhou Bao said, following Zhou Ning.


    The position of Emperor Baiqi in the Seven Mysteries World ranked extremely high, and his residence certainly was magnificent. Not that he liked it, but as a ruler of a macro world, living in a thatched house was impossible. He was not one of those Earthly Immortals hidden in the depths of the Seven Mysteries World after all.


    Zhou Ning acted humble in front of Zhou Bao. But as a trusted subordinate of the Emperor Baiqi, he held a very high position in the Seven Mysteries World, only second to those Emperors, and was so privileged that he didn''t need to obey the rules at all. Besides, he even controlled some of the magic formations of inhibition, without subject to the restrictions. Thus, he broke through the space with a swift palm thrust, passed several layers of space with Zhou Bao and entered the infinite space.


    This infinite space''s inferiority to that of the Heaven Realm World showed. Much less complication, but very average in its construction. Zhou Ning''s familiarity with this place soon brought Zhou Bao to the destination.


    "Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain!"


    Standing in a space like a fairyland, Zhou Bao froze, because what he saw was not Mist Dragon House, but Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain.


    This mysterious sect disappeared in the Heaven Realm World according to the news of the Seven Mysteries World and appeared in the infinite space of the Seven Mysteries World, far away from the Heaven Realm World. For a while, Zhou Bao stared in awe.


    "It''s been a long time since I last saw you, King Wuyang!"


    "Taoist Qing Feng?"


    A figure appeared before him and greeted him with a warm smile.


    "Yes, I''m Qing Feng!" Qing Feng said, his joyous smile like a crescent moon. "Thank you for helping us solve a formidable enemy!"


    "A formidable enemy? He he, to you, he''s just a buffoon, not a formidable enemy at all." Zhou Bao said hurriedly.


    The Torrential Thunder Emperor harbored a hatred for Fifth Manor, and Zhou Bao helped with it. But Fifth Manor was so powerful that they didn''t need any help. They asked him for assistance, perhaps just to make a good connection with him. Zhou Bao dare not take the credit.


    "Last time I left in a hurry, and didn''t visit you. Please forgive me!"


    "Haha, surely you jest. What you did was unexpected, but it prevented the Seven-deity Regions from plunging the people into misery and suffering. You really did a great job!" Qing Feng thought what Zhou Bao had done was funny. "The best part was that you fooled all the people who were plotting in the dark!"


    Zhou Bao forced a smile. He would not have done so if it not been for the emergency. After all, those people plotting in the dark were not pushovers.


    Qing Feng gripped his stomach and laughed. "Oh, that''s all. Otherwise, my junior brother and Ming Yue will kick me to death!"


    "It turned out that the Emperor Baiqi was the junior brother of Qing Feng and Ming Yue, the disciple of Zhen Yuanzi. That explains it." Zhou Bao thought to himself.


    The Mist Dragon House was one of the holy places of the Seven Mysteries World. Few people knew that it was actually an ancient tree. The Emperor Baiqi constructed the tree into a grand palace with some Divine Sense. Now, due to the Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain here, the ancient tree had been hidden inside Fifth Manor, in a different yard from the withered ginseng fruit tree. In Zhou Bao''s eyes, a very strange occurrence.


    "I was originally an old pine in Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain. Under the guidance of my master, I practiced, and achieved what I have now!"


    Hearing the explanation of the Emperor Baiqi, Zhou Bao furrowed brow lowered, as did his suspicions.


    The Emperor Baiqi was thin, wearing a dark blue robe. His face wrinkled and weathered, but he was tall with straight posture, looking like an ancient pine. Next to him stood Zhou Bao''s acquaintance, Taoist Ming Yue.


    "Pay respect to Your Majesty!"


    "King Wuyang, long time no see! When did you become so polite?" Ming Yue smiled, "You weren''t like this before."


    "I can''t be lucky all the time. I''d better be respectful in case of offense. After all, I have to think about the whole macro world now." Zhou Bao grinned, which made the three men laugh.


    After catching up, they entered Fifth Manor, and took their seats according to their identities. After serving tea, Zhou Ning took his leave, leaving only Zhou Bao, the Emperor Baiqi, Qing Feng and Ming Yue in the room.


    "I take the liberty of asking you to come this time for me and Ming Yue!" Qing Feng stated their purpose directly.


    "For you two?" Zhou Bao looked up at them with a puzzled expression on his face. "They are both Zhen Yuanzi''s disciples. If they get into trouble, they can ask their master for help. What do they want me to do?"


    "Has my strength and function completely surpassed their master''s?"


    "Why don''t they come to me instead of the Immortal Zhen Yuan? What''s goes on here?"


    Seeing Zhou Bao''s perplexed expression, they, as people who have lived for countless years, immediately understood what raced through Zhou Bao''s thoughts. Then Ming Yue smiled and said, "It''s actually pretty simple. Qing Feng and I are the only disciples of our master who haven''t stepped into the Earthly Immortal Realm, and it has been delayed for millions of years. We are a disgrace to our master."


    Even the usually thick-skinned Ming Yue could not help blushing at the mention of this. It was indeed surprising they had not broken through to the Earthly Immortal Realm for millions of years, with an incomparable teacher and a group of powerful senior brothers, not to mention a wonderful practicing place.


    With these favorable conditions, no matter how difficult the Earthly Immortal Realm seemed, it took an ordinary person with poor aptitudes tens of thousands of years at most to prevail. But the two of them wasted millions of years at this state. What was the concept of millions of years? How on earth could they live so long?


    "Oh, it''s a shame," Qing Feng sighed, "Ming Yue and I have a strange history. We excelled in the early stages, but we are stuck in the Earthly Immortal Tribulation."


    "Earthly Immortal Tribulation?"


    "Yes, Earthly Immortal Tribulation. In fact, our cultivation has long been to the Full Closure of the Immortal Realm. Unfortunately, we have not been able to undergo tribulations, so we have to ask for your help."


    "I do not quite understand."


    "Both of us are reincarnated persons. We lived in ancient deity times in previous lives and done many evils. In the practice of this life, the master aided us in the previous Tribulations, but he cannot assist us in the Earthly Immortal Tribulation, and we are unable to undergo it by ourselves, so we have been in this state for countless years."


    "So, how can I help?"


    "The Celestial Punishment Palace!" Ming Yue said, "We know that you defeated Emperor Hulong and seized his incomplete Heavenly Fairy Weapon Celestial Punishment Palace. Our hopes of ridding our tribulations are on it!"


    "Celestial Punishment Palace," Zhou Bao said, sighing in relief. The incomplete Heavenly Fairy Weapon proved powerful, but it was neither essential nor indispensable to him. Since they needed it, he felt comfortable to give it to them. But soon, he dismissed the idea. Although he owned numerous fairy weapons and celestial devices, he was not generous enough to hand over the incomplete Heavenly Fairy Weapon for free. It took a lot of effort for him to get it. How could he simply donate it? What was more, there were many suspicious things about their claims, and he could not trust them yet.


    "Maybe they really need the Celestial Punishment Palace to get rid of the tribulations, but my Celestial Punishment Palace was just a replica. Have they not attempted to seize it within so many years in the Immortal Realm? Besides, in antiquity times, the Punishing Emperor controlled the Celestial Punishment Palace, and it was a set of three fairy weapons. Why didn''t they inquire at that time, but wait so many years to use my fake one. It''s too bizarre." Moreover, he also couldn''t understand what he possessed that deserved such attention of Fifth Manor.


    "I know it sounds absurd, but assure you it''s true. We have no other choice!"


    "Oh, never mind. I just got it. If you want to use it, it''s no problem!" After a little thought, Zhou Bao took out the Celestial Punishment Palace and handed to them. The original appearance of the Celestial Punishment Palace, a palm-sized golden gear, flashed a streak of murderous intent.

 823 Ways to Undergo the Tribulation

    As Qing Feng and Ming Yue looked at the Celestial Punishment Palace with radiant faces, the Emperor Baiqi kept silent. Seeing Zhou Bao place the Celestial Punishment Palace in his palm, he knew he waited for the price.


    "You may rest assured, King Wuyang! We practitioners emphasize Karma. We won''t obtain your Celestial Punishment Palace for free. This Sacred Fire Bead is a rare, ancient treasure produced from the essence of fire. It contains a piece of the Sky-burning Golden Flame which is one of the nine kinds of Heavenly Fire, and which matches your Heavenly Fairy Weapon. It''s not inferior to a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. What do you think?"


    "Sacred Fire Bead and Sky-burning Golden Flame?" Zhou Bao said in astonishment, closely staring at the pigeon egg size of the golden red sacred bead in the Emperor Baiqi''s hand.


    The entire Sacred Fire Bead presented golden red, looking like blazing fire held together at a single point, and in the center of the flame, a golden flame of solidification.


    As the fire burned, a warm breath filled the air.


    Sensing the warmth, the Furnace of Immortality on his waist became unsteady, and the Tusita Fire inside beated as the Ancient Black Flame danced gaily, as if craving something.


    "What a bunch of tough guys!"


    Zhou Bao sighed in his heart. Then he smiled broadly and accepted it without hesitation. "Thank you, Your Majesty!" He took over the Sacred Fire Bead, and at the same time handed over the Celestial Punishment Palace to the Emperor Baiqi.


    Seeing Zhou Bao so readily hand over the Celestial Punishment Palace, Qing Feng and Ming Yue exchanged greatly relieved looks.


    "Well, senior brothers, I''ve given it to you, and fulfilled my job."


    The Emperor Baiqi said with a smile and sighed in relief before putting the Celestial Punishment Palace into Ming Yue''s hand.


    "Thank you, junior brother. Thank you, King Wuyang!" Both of them beamed.


    "Having looked forward to it for so many years, I did not expect to obtain it so easily. I am humbled," Qing Feng sighed, his voice full of gratitude.


    Ming Yue was soberer than Qing Feng. Recovering from his ecstasy, he asked quietly, "King Wuyang, what are your plans for the future?"


    "Oh, I still want to return to the Heaven Realm, but now the Heaven Realm World is a mess. God knows how this is going to end. I will walk around and practice in the Void Universe and make a decision after it''s completely settled."


    To walk around in the Void Universe!


    A good idea indeed. As the saying went, it was better to travel ten thousand miles than to read ten thousand books. With his current cultivation, it was difficult for him to make further advance. To improve the cultivation required not only the enhancement of Dharma power, but also the elevation of the state of the mind. And the state of the mind could not be enhanced with closed-door training, which took a long time to experience and temper. To walk around was an excellent choice to improve his state of mind.


    But Qing Feng and Ming Yue both frowned.


    "King Wuyang, that''s a good idea in normal times, but I''m afraid it''s not a good idea currently."


    Looking at their strange expressions, Zhou Bao shivered in his heart. Then he smiled and asked, "Oh, it''s not a good idea now? How so?"


    "Things are different now!" Qing Feng smiled bitterly, "You''re a genius. But it cannot explain the fact that you''ve obtained such a considerable achievement in such a short period of time. The only reasonable explanation is that you are a Tribulation Taker!"


    "So what?"


    "The Tribulation Taker cannot escape. I think you''re well aware that it''s not an ordinary tribulation this time. So you are trying to run away, aren''t you?"


    "Yes, I''m just trying to run away," Zhou Bao nodded. There was nothing to be ashamed of by running away.


    "You can''t escape it. The Void Universe appears large, but sometimes it seems small. Even if you ran to the edge of it, you still had to undergo the tribulation, not to mention you cannot run very far!" Qing Feng shook his head, and continued, "The only way to get rid of the tribulation is to endure it. You aren''t free of it if you don''t undergo it!"


    "Really?"


    "We don''t have to dream such things up. This tribulation isn''t related to Fifth Manor. When we successfully undergo the Earthly Immortal Tribulation and accomplish the Earthly Immortals'' Great Way, Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain will leave this Void Universe and no longer interfere in affairs of this Void Universe. We''re telling you this to pay you back." Qing Feng faintly said, "It''s truly troublesome for you to run away before the tribulation comes. Before the tribulation, the Tribulation Taker will have great luck to gain major benefits, which is the key to rid yourself of the tribulation. If you leave now, these benefits and great luck may disappear. You''ll be in big trouble when you face the tribulation!"


    "There is such a thing?" Zhou Bao paused for a moment. He had never heard of it.


    "These are all the things that we''ve learned after so many tribulations. A Tribulation Taker who desires to rid himself of the tribulation must obey the destiny. No one going against the destiny, or tries to escape by playing petty tricks, meets a good end!"


    "You mean... I have to go back to the Heaven Realm World?"


    "Not necessarily. No one knows when the tribulation will arrive. This is a delicate moment. The Heaven Realm World is the key to this tribulation. But both the Holy Alliance and the Central Star Area will be swept up in the tribulation, and so will the practitioners here. So, you can undergo the tribulation here too. Now the battle for the Heaven Realm World is in full swing. It''s a good idea to step back and watch it," the Emperor Baiqi said, "You can stay in the Seven Mysteries World as long as you want."


    "Ah?" Zhou Bao looked up at him, not understanding the meaning of his last sentence.


    "You don''t have to be oversensitive, King Wuyang. When my senior brothers achieve the Earthly Immortal''s Great Way, I will leave the Void Universe with them and meet together with other senior and junior brothers. By then I''ll have nothing to do with the Seven Mysteries World. Besides, I can''t take people with me when I leave, and none of my disciples are qualified to inherit everything I have here. Once I am gone, my power will inevitably be usurped by others. It''s better to leave them all to you than to leave them to Hulong!"


    Looking at the Emperor Baiqi, Zhou Bao blinked fiercely. He thought of the Emperor of Netherworld. Although their reasons were different, the Emperor of Netherworld gave Zhou Bao his Netherworld Heaven and Reincarnation Scroll after a few words just like what Emperor Baiqi did now.


    "Now he wants to give me his power in the Seven Mysteries World. What exactly are these guys plotting?"


    Zhou Bao''s experience bowed compared to theirs, so he couldn''t guess what they meant. However, he knew the reasons they left so many things to him were not as simple as they let on.


    ''One said he could not use this thing; the other said he didn''t need that thing."


    "You can collect it or keep it as a souvenir. Why do you have to give it away?"


    "Don''t be suspicious, King Wuyang. We really mean no harm!"


    "I know you mean no harm, but you''re always so secretive. Tell me about the Tribulation Taker."


    "No one knows all about the Tribulation Taker. But from the Primordial Origin to the present day, numerous tribulations and chaos between heavens and earth shaped the order and spectacle of the current Void Universe. After so many tribulations, we have accumulated some experience to go through the tribulation."


    "Some experience to go through the tribulation?" Zhou Bao said, stroking his chin in intrigue.


    ''Yes, from countless tribulations over countless years. The most effective way to go through the tribulation between heaven and earth is to hide. Finding an unoccupied, perfectly safe place to hide and wait for the tribulation to pass is arguably the most effective way, but it''s not easy to do it. There are many temptations before tribulations. It is almost impossible to hide if you cannot resist this temptation and get caught up in Karma. Even if you think you are hiding well, you may be involved in something because of a very accidental factor and eventually die in a tribulation. Another way is to take the initiative to undergo tribulations. Then you have to be prepared for the tribulation. In addition, you need to have extremely strong calculation ability and confidence, so that you can easily go through the tribulation. In fact, the most effective way to take the initiative is to find a Tribulation Taker. The Tribulation Taker is the most special group in tribulations. Their most striking feature is that they gain numerous benefits before the tribulation and rise in an extremely short time. It takes the Tribulation Taker only a few hundred years, decades years, even several years to complete the practice that would take ordinary people thousands of years to complete, just like you!"


    "Yes, just like me." After listening to the Emperor Baiqi, Zhou Bao already determined he was a Tribulation Taker. After all, he could not get so many benefits for nothing.


    "If you are with a Tribulation Taker and have a good relationship with the person, you will be affected by the person''s fortune, which is very helpful to go through your tribulation. And there is another way: to be the mortal enemy of the Tribulation Taker. In this way, you can kill the person, inherit the person''s fortune, or even become a Tribulation Taker and obtain great benefits. Moreover, it is easier for such people to rid themselves of the tribulation than for ordinary Tribulation Takers. Relative to the obtained fortune and benefits, the risk is almost negligible. We chose the first one, while Hulong chose the second one."


    "Hulong desires to be a Tribulation Taker? Why?"


    "Fortune and misfortune depend on each other. The Tribulation Taker faces a tribulation, but isn''t it a chance?"

 824 Cundis Fate

    "Does he also want to step into the Celestial Immortal''s Way?" After hearing what Emperor Baiqi had to say, Zhou Bao smiled and sneered.


    "Every Earthly Immortal''s dream is to step into the Celestial Immortal''s Way. However, as compared to the Earthly Immortal''s Way, this would entail more instability. The majority of those who faced the directionless Celestial Immortal''s Way will be confused. However, if one becomes a Tribulation Taker, then everything will become much simpler! Tribulation Takers have better fates and their fate will become stronger when they are nearing the tribulation. They are also more likely to satisfy the criteria of entering into the Celestial Immortal''s Way. Hulong is after this idea!"


    "So that is no wonder why he carried out a sneak attack, because he has a plan like this!" Zhou Bao thought to himself. He lifted his head all of a sudden and asked, "Both of you are rivals and are in the Seven Mysteries World together, should you not know where his nest is hidden?!"


    "What are you going to do?"


    Upon hearing Zhou Bao''s question, Emperor Baiqi furrowed his brows, as if he understood what Zhou Bao was thinking.


    "One cannot always receive but also must reciprocate by giving. Since he wants to rob my fate to become a Tribulation Taker, he would surely want to make some sacrifice in return. Should I then let him fight for nothing as such?!"


    "Fight for nothing? You have defeated and robbed him of his place in the Celestial Punishment Palace and he has suffered a great loss already!"


    "Why should we settle our score like that? I have no hatred against him and for him to launch a sudden attack against me, I have to retaliate of course!" Zhou Bao laughed sinisterly. "As for the Celestial Punishment Palace, that was because he wasn''t capable of protecting it, it has nothing to do with me!"


    "That makes sense, but this is not easy. This is the world of the Seven Mysteries and he is one of the Controllers of this world. If I fight with him, it''s counted as an internal battle, which does not matter. But if you attack him, then you will be viewed as one who is against the world of the Seven Mysteries! By then, at least three Emperors will attack you altogether. Do you have confidence to handle them?!"


    "Eh?!" Zhou Bao''s expression turned stiff. "It is not too late for a gentleman to take revenge 10 years late. You guys at the world of the Seven Mysteries can''t protect that darned fella forever right?!"


    "Why don''t you consider my suggestion? As long as you agree with it, then your fight with Emperor Hulong will be considered as an internal battle. Then, that three antiques can''t interfere!"


    "Let me think about it again!" Zhou Bao was very hesitant towards this suggestion. For the other practitioners, it will be a god-sent opportunity for a strong ruler in this world to willingly give his seat away. But for Zhou Bao, he did not have the urge to accept it. If he did, he would be tied onto the cart heading for the battle in the world of the Seven Mysteries. In this ghostly world, people toughen up when facing strong opponents and soften when facing weaker ones. However, not only did this place not have a Fate Creator, it even got itself entangled in this dispute happening inside the Holy Alliance. If he accepted it, more trouble might come his way afterward. Besides, he was looking for a Tribulation Taker by the name of Lao Shenzi. He couldn''t even finish his task, how would he have the energy to care about the things happening in the other worlds?


    "I have accepted Your Honour''s goodwill. However, I''m not suited to do this kind of things. I think I''ll pass!" Zhou Bao stood up as he spoke. "Seniors Qing Feng and Ming Yue have now gained a place in the Celestial Punishment Palace, I will not interrupt anymore. I am taking my leave!"


    "That''s fine!" Emperor Baiqi glanced at Zhou Bao and smiled. He did not insist on his stance and watched Zhou Bao leave the Fifth Manor. He thought in silence for a while and turned towards Qing Feng and Ming Yue and asked, "How?!"


    "Interesting guy!" Qing Feng smiled," There''s a possibility of passing the Dharma Ending Tribulation this time!"


    "He might even become a Celestial Immortal!" Ming Yue mentioned this at a corner.


    "Celestial Immortal? No way, he is just a - !"


    "Tribulation Taker, who knows what the future holds?!" Qing Feng smiled, "As for the two of us, we are not even certified as Earthly Immortals yet. In this upcoming tribulation, we do not even have the most basic self-protecting ability. What a joke!"


    "Yes, yes, let''s train in a closed-door environment first. After we finished training, perhaps, the Dharma Ending Tribulation has already passed, hehe!" Ming Yue let out a laugh and threw the Celestial Punishment Palace up into the air. A golden light flashed past and the both of them disappeared with it.


    On the other hand, after leaving this endless spacetime, Zhou Bao left the world of the Seven Mysteries immediately.


    He only came here to track Emperor Hulong. Now, he realized that he could not fight the world on his own. Zhou Bao also gained a Sacred Fire Bead and he would not want to delay his time here of course. He needed to find a place to refine the Sacred Fire Bead. The power of the Sky-burning Golden Flame was not weaker than his own Ancient Black Flame. After refining it, the power of his Furnace of Immortality would definitely increase greatly!


    However, Zhou Bao was not willing to leave the Central Star Area. One reason was that Zhou Bao found this place quite interesting. Another reason was that as news traveled fast here, he could get some updates about the Heaven Realm World anytime. Emperor Baiqi said something right; no matter what, Zhou Bao was a Tribulation Taker. There were some situations where running away was not the best solution. Since the Central Star Area would be entangled in this tribulation, his stay here would be viewed from the perspective of one watching the situation silently rather than running away from it.


    After leaving the world of the Seven Mysteries, Zhou Bao found a hollow outside another world where there was ample spiritual qi. He rented the place and started his closed-door training. At this point in time, he was not afraid of exposing his identity. Since others already knew that Cundi was Zhou Bao, and vice versa, there was no reason not be open about it and to carry out activities in the Void Universe as Taoist Cundi.


    Why should he use the name Cundi?


    In the beginning, after hearing the name, Zhou Bao had an evil prank in mind. But as the tribulation neared and as his cultivation increased, the more he felt that he made the right decision when he was in the Eastern Thunder World.


    Fate!!!


    This was a matter of fate!


    It was an unfathomable fate. Also, there seemed to be an unclear relationship between the present world and the fairytale world from the legendary sayings from Zhou Bao''s previous life.


    You could say that they were irrelevant. The system of practice and civilization here were vastly different from the one in his previous life.


    You could also say that they were relevant. Putting other things aside, the fact that Immortal Zhen Yuan from the Fifth Manor on Longevity Mountain and the presence of a ginseng fruit tree in the manor were both well-known could not be just pure coincidence!


    If that was a coincidence, then what about the Flipping Sky Seal and the Jade Emperor? What about the Immortal-killing Sword Qi and the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi?


    All these pointed towards an unclear relationship between his present and previous life. He could not pinpoint the relationship now, but he could use it to increase his fate.


    For example, his name.


    In a world like this, which was full of gods and ghosts, know that names could affect fates. If not, why would people have their fortune told when naming themselves? In the past, Zhou Bao did not pay any attention to it. But now, after Zhou Bao snatched Cundi''s Taoist name, he found out that, eerily, he was getting the hang of using the Seven Wonderful Techniques. Amongst other things, he was seeing great improvement in the most basic critical hit rate and it developed to the extent that he could strike continuously if he wanted to! Could this be another coincidence?


    He was practicing the Seven Wonderful Techniques, which were secret skills. At the end of his practice, it would give him a Spiritual Treasure. What kind? It was the small tree bud growing in his Dantian! What is that?


    Was that even a question? It was the legendary Tree of Seven Wonders!


    Taoist Cundi and the Tree of Seven Wonders complement each other the best!


    Was this not the work of his name and his fate?


    "I wonder what will happen if I were to change my name to Hongjun!" Time and again, Zhou Bao would have this idea in mind. However, before it could develop into something more concrete, Zhou Bao destroyed the thought.


    In the world filled with gods and ghosts, fate was limited. The name Hongjun will bring too much trouble upon himself. With Zhou Bao''s little fate, he could not bear it.


    The name Cundi was taken from an ordinary practitioner. This practitioner was not highly cultivated, nor did he had a fate like Zhou Bao''s. For sure he could not bear this name, which was why Zhou Bao took it for himself. For Zhou Bao, this name was enough. If he wanted more, that would be too greedy.


    Hence, he immediately erased the temptation of changing his name to Hongjun.


    The Central Star Area was always so busy. Be it in the world or within a hollow, there existed a dark flow behind such a busy environment.


    When Zhou Bao started his closed-door training to refine the Sacred Fire Bead, this dark flow started to form.


    In this nameless spacetime within this world, numerous divine thoughts intersected with each other, as if they were discussing something.


    "Zhou Bao is Taoist Cundi?! Are you sure of it?!"


    "Of course, I have checked! I even made some sacrifices to do that!"


    "Not bad, Hulong made some sacrifices this time, but we are now sure of Zhou Bao''s identity!"


    "Taoist Cundi once appeared in the Eastern Thunder World. Was he always in the Heaven Realm World? They are so far apart and so, how did he end up there? And how did he return to the Heaven Realm World so quickly?!"


    "Supreme Fairy Weapon, this fella must have possessed a Supreme Fairy Weapon. Only a Supreme Fairy Weapon could enable him to travel across the Void Universe in such a short period of time!"


    "Tsk tsk, a Supreme Fairy Weapon...he''s a Tribulation Taker alright! Not only is he equipped with such combat capabilities, he also has a big weapon in his hands! No wonder he''s so arrogant!"


    "What if we kill this kid and take his fate and the Supreme Fairy Weapon? Hehe, he just swept humankind off the surface of the Heaven Realm World, I bet he has already placed them into this world in his Supreme Fairy Weapon! Although the Heaven Realm World did not fall, it did entail a number of secrets. If only we could get our hands on this bunch of humans...!"


    "Hmm, that makes sense -!"

 825 Killing and Fleeing

    Bit by bit, a golden flame appeared in front of Zhou Bao and burned above the Furnace of Immortality.


    The Sacred Fire Bead was completely destroyed by him and the Ignis Essence that formed in the Sacred Fire Bead went easy on the Tusita Flame. This bit of the Sacred Fire Bead was the only bit that Zhou Bao did not attain. The Sky-burning Golden Flame was one of the nine kinds of Heavenly Fire. Zhou Bao would not do anything unless he was absolutely sure.


    For each and every kind of Heavenly Fire, it was no way less significant than the existence of an ordinary Heavenly Fairy Weapon. Once it was refined, a tiny bit of flame could burn down everything. It was very useful when facing enemies. To be honest, the Sky-burning Golden Flame was one of the very few flames in the Void Universe that could burn an Earthly Immortal''s body completely. The other flames, no matter how insidious, no matter how powerful, could at most only injure their bodies. Only the Sky-burning Golden Flame and the Purple Dazzling Heavenly Fire could completely destroy an Earthly Immortal''s body.


    The properties of each of the nine kinds of Heavenly Fire were all different. For example, the Ancient Black Flame was mainly good at engulfing, digesting and absorbing. In terms of the flame level, it was weaker than the Sky-burning Golden Flame. When fully executed, it could only cause serious injuries to Earthly Immortals, and could not burn the Earthly Immortal''s life essence completely. This explanation does not serve to degrade the Ancient Black Flame, it was just to illustrate the difference in the flames'' properties. For example, the Primitive Dragon Chimera, which was born from the Ancient Black Flame, has the strongest presence among the Primordial Fierce Beasts, making it one of the Six Royals. On the other hand, the Primordial Fierce Beast born of the Sky-burning Golden Flame was uncomparably strong but was one level weaker than the Six Royals.


    This time around, Zhou Bao gained the Sky-burning Golden Flame, which was another addition to his collection of big weapons used to defeat Earthly Immortals. As long as he could refine and use it properly, his Second Primordial Spirit would gain the power to kill an Earthly Immortal on its own.


    Of course, refining the Sky-burning Golden Flame will not just take a day or two. It required his Primordial Fire Spirit to use a watermill method to slowly acquire the golden flame as its own.


    "Eh, this god-damned golden flame, it is not easy to acquire it!" Feeling the heat from the Sky-burning Golden Flame, Zhou Bao sighed softly. After which, he inserted this golden flame into the Furnace of Immortality and handed the task of refinement to his Second Primordial Spirit. He calmed himself down and started his closed-door training.


    The closed-door training this time around was to stabilize his Five Qis that is in the Collecting in Mind phase he had just reached. He was unlucky to run into the Earthly Immortals'' sneak attack right after he underwent the Human Immortal Tribulation. There was no time and energy for him to stabilize his phase. Now that he had left the Seven Mysteries World, he saw that he had nothing to do. Since he had gained the Sky-burning Golden Flame, he decided to stabilize his phase first before doing something else.


    But it was a pity that someone did not want him to execute his good idea. Before a few days had passed since he calmed down, a warning emerged in his heart.


    Being carried away by a whim and feeling warnings - these were connections with the mysterious fate in the mortal world, produced after one''s cultivation reached a certain standard. Using these connections, cultivators could avoid evil, time and again without fail.


    Once the warning emerged, Zhou Bao opened his eyes.


    "Damn it, which blind person is trying to find trouble with me!"


    Before he finished thinking about that, Zhou Bao heard a loud boom. A strong force emerged out of nowhere, blasting the meteorite he was hiding in into pieces.


    "Earthly Immortals, not just one of them!" The huge power induced fear into him. Radiance was flashing irregularly around him, which led him to understand that his opponent was setting a formation.


    There was not just one Earthly Immortal setting a formation!


    Zhou Bao may feel unhappy, but he was not dumb. Without thinking, he took out his Furnace of Immortality. A white flame essence shot out of it and aimed straight towards the strongest spot in the radiance.


    Boom!


    His flame essence did not hit the target. Instead, it was defeated by a cyan-colored ripple. A small effort was all it took for a long starry river to descend from above him and suppress him.


    "Zhou Bao, go to hell!"


    There were multiple layers of destroyed and compressed space below the vast power. The angry roar was filled with hatred. It belonged to the defeated leader, Emperor Hulong.


    Emperor Hulong!


    "Hmm, there''s a way to heaven but you do not want to walk. There is no door to hell but you insist on coming. Since you''re here, then do not leave!" A stiff thought flashed passed Zhou Bao''s expression. Looking at the long starry river descending from the skies, a sword light rushed into the sky, instantly splitting the river into two.


    "Kid, you better stay still!" After the sword split open the river, Zhou Bao did not have time to make any more moves and then heard a sinister thought ringing through his Sea of Consciousness.


    "Not good!" Fear had struck him and his body immediately sprang into action. However, he was still too late. A sinister spirit struck the side of his body, causing him to stumble.


    "What a strong force!" Zhou Bao felt the strong cold force in the sinister spirit''s strength. It caused his ever strong and indestructible body to be badly injured. A sense of weakness started to spread all over his body.


    "Poison?!" Zhou Bao was alarmed. He activated the Immortal Body Technique and Dharma Power-restoring Skill from the Seven Wonderful Techniques immediately. At the same time, a green light shot out from his mid-brows. It evolved into a green-robed teen. That sword light that split open the starry river also evolved into a red-clothed teen. Together with the green-robed teen, they stood at two sides of Zhou Bao. The Furnace of Immortality was lifted high above Zhou Bao''s head by Zhou Bao himself. It emitted a layer of golden light, which enveloped Zhou Bao and his two primordial spirits.


    "Where did this powerful spirit come from? Why are you not in good terms with this poor Taoist?!"


    "Hum, Zhou Bao, stop pretending to be Taoist Cundi! You killed my Celestial Pool World''s Young Realm Master, and yet you still dare to come to the Holy Alliance! Do you really not know how death feels like?!"


    "Celestial Pool World? You''re the Earthly Immortal from the Celestial Pool World?"


    "There''s also my Jade Dragon World!" Another voice rang in the hollow. Soon later, four shadows appeared and surrounded Zhou Bao. They trapped Zhou Bao tightly within the circle they had formed. At the same time, the hollow was completely frozen, not by Divine Sense, but by a strong fairy weapon.


    Zhou Bao''s expression turned ugly. "There is something you do not know about me. I am indeed Zhou Bao, but I also have a Taoist name called Cundi. I''ve never tried hiding anything. Cundi is Zhou Bao, Zhou Bao is Cundi!"


    When Zhou Bao said this firmly, a strange force emerged from the depths of his Sea of Consciousness. It spread across his whole body instantly. The mysterious leaf that had just sprouted in his Dantian also shooked and became greener, as suddenly looked like it was full of strength.


    All these happened in an instant and within the thoughts that were found in Zhou Bao''s body. The four Earthly Immortals who surrounded him did not discover it at all. A faint smile grew on Zhou Bao''s face.


    "I only wanted to use it to defend myself, but it ended up becoming my real name unexpectedly. This real name even increased my fate! Now, I''ve totally become Cundi, and Cundi has become me!" Zhou Bao felt his fate among the spirits and gods increasing. How could he not like it? This was the first time in his entire life that he had felt the strong existence of fate.


    "Be it the Jade Dragon World or the Celestial Pool World, you two young masters from the two macro worlds do not understand the importance of timing and influence. You two decided to do things on your own! Killing and helping them to escape was the right thing to do, in case you two bring greater disasters to the macro worlds. Not only are you guys not grateful, but you''re also even using it as an excuse to kill me! This is beyond acceptable!" In a split second, Zhou Bao''s expression was full of sympathy and compassion.


    "Idiot!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s unspoken expression, the two Earthly Immortals were furious. They felt he was just an insignificant Human Immortal that had some strange encounters, who was a real Tribulation Taker and was barely able to fight Earthly Immortals. Essentially, they saw him only as a small Human Immortal. They were furious in the way which he dared to speak to them in a manner that showed he was not afraid of dying!


    "Fine, fine, fine. Zhou Bao from Yunzhou, I want to see what kind of support you have, so much so that you can behave so arrogantly in front of us!"


    "I am not trying to be arrogant. I do not ever pick on others if they do not offend me. But now that you have offended me, I will naturally not let you go. You would like to kill me? Let me see if you will still be alive to do that!" Zhou Bao let out a long laugh and fixed his gaze on Emperor Hulong who was standing on the west side. His Qi Power increased tremendously. "Hulong, go and die!"


    "Not good!" Seeing Zhou Bao rushing towards him, Hulong was scared. He was already defeated by Zhou Bao once and had was scarred by it. To think of it, as there were already four Earthly Immortals fighting against a trapped Zhou Bao now, what was there to be scared of?


    His considerations came to an end here. He straightened his back and was going to accept Zhou Bao''s attack head-on.


    "Die!"


    Seeing that Hulong was not avoiding, a cruel smile appeared at the corners of Zhou Bao''s mouth. A strong Qi Power then emitted from his body, "Come out, Black Pearl!"


    "Boom!"


    The space vibrated and the color of the sky changed!


    A huge dark golden fairy weapon appeared out of nowhere. In that instant, it caused the space, which was constrained by an unknown fairy weapon, to vibrate so much that it shattered into pieces.


    "Careful, it''s a Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    The four Earthly Immortals were frightened. Although they guessed that Zhou Bao could own a Supreme Fairy Weapon, they did not expect that he would use it right from the start of their fight.


    Zhou Bao did not care a single bit that he had exposed his hidden weapon. This led them to feel that they were insufficiently prepared for this fight.


    "No¡ª!"


    Emperor Hulong, who was aiming toward Zhou Bao, was taken aback. Initially, he wanted to fight Zhou Bao head-on, but suddenly he found himself facing a Supreme Fairy Weapon instead. Even an Earthly Immortal would not have any sort of advantage in such a situation. It could even be said that all they could do was run. He wanted to run too, but it was too late.


    The Black Pearl was just too fast for him to even react.


    "Boom!!!"


    The huge ship knocked onto him directly. Also taking into account of the lighting speed of that knock, Emperor Hulong''s body was crushed immediately.


    But that was just about it.


    He was an Earthly Immortal, an incomparable one, one that refined his own macro world. Being knocked did not cause him to die immediately. There was even a chance of recovery. However, Zhou Bao was unwilling to give him this chance. At the same instant that the ship knocked onto him, the Furnace of Immortality flew out and shot out a flame essence towards the crushed body.


    Although not fully-refined, the Sky-burning Golden Flame managed to remove all the energy Emperor Hulong had left to fight back. Emperor Hulong''s body was burned completely in an instant, along with his primordial spirit.


    "Boom!"


    Another loud boom sound was heard. Zhou Bao did not bother about the other three Earthly Immortals. After killing Emperor Hulong, the Black Pearl evolved into a dark golden ray of light immediately. It flew across the sky and floated away.

 826 Laying the Cards on the Table

    Zhou Bao is also no fool and highly skilled in combat. He has the ability to defeat and kill an ordinary Earthly Immortal. However, he could do nothing when faced with four well-prepared Earthly Immortals. He could only risk his life to give himself a glimmer of hope to survive. To be able to kill Emperor Hulong, it would be down to pure luck.


    Emperor Hulong was one of the nine Earthly Immortals in the Seven Mysteries World. Since then, however, there probably would only be eight Earthly Immortals in the Seven Mysteries World left.


    Although Zhou Bao had a good relationship with Emperor Baiqi, he was destined to be an enemy of the Seven Mysteries World after this incident.


    "I am able to conquer any part of the world and afraid of nobody!" Zhou Bao used his Supreme Fairy Weapon¡ªthe Black Pearl¡ªto break out of the encirclement set up by the three Earthly Immortals and countless spaces to leave the Central Star Area in just several breaths.


    "Damn it! We actually let him escape!" The three Earthly Immortals immediately felt ashamed. Zhou Bao was besieged by four of them, but he managed to escape with great ease and also killed one of them. If the news of this incident were to spread, they would certainly lose face.


    "We cannot do anything about it. This guy is really too sharp. As soon as he discerned that the situation was unfavorable, he immediately wielded his Supreme Fairy Weapon without masking his intentions. His attacks were malicious and insidious. Although Hu Long had fought him once, he is unable to fully uncover his strength. And this is the Tribulation Taker. What do both of you think?"


    "Well, we have all reached the Earthly Immortal Realm and led a stable life for too long. We are no longer suitable to face such a fierce fight anymore!" An Earthly Immortal let out a sigh. Since they became Earthly Immortals, they have focused on meaningful things such as comprehending the mysteries of the universe and have not concerned themselves with things such as fighting for a long time. Even if there was any dispute or difference on ideas between them, they would settle these problems through negotiation. The fight between Earthly Immortals would not necessarily happen for hundreds of thousands of years. Nonetheless, Zhou Bao had killed three Earthly Immortals in a row within just a few months. He certainly had a rich experience in battles.


    Since they had suffered a great loss, they knew for certain that it was time to give up. In fact, they could do nothing because Zhou Bao was too fast for them to catch up with.


    The Black Pearl moved at such a great speed that ordinary, and even mighty Earthly Immortals were simply unable to catch up with it. The Supreme Fairy Weapon is not an ordinary weapon and if its speed could be matched and it could be destroyed so easily, it would not be worthy of its name.


    Hu Long and the other three Earthly Immortals had speculated that Zhou Bao might have the Supreme Fairy Weapon. However, being self-conceited and arrogant, they did not think that he was really able to use it well. They thought that he could only bring out part of its full potential at best and that four of them together with three Heavenly Fairy Weapons were sufficient to restrain the Supreme Fairy Weapon. Nevertheless, they did not expect that this Supreme Fairy Weapon was refined by Zhou Bao himself. He could even realize its full potential without scruple and bring out 120% of its potential if he wanted to.


    Of course, if they had known it before, they would never have been so stupid to come here and besiege him.


    "It''s really troublesome. My identity as Cundi has been thoroughly exposed. I cannot stay in the Holy Alliance anymore. Do I have to change my identity and get another name? Forget it, fate is a weird thing. If I get another name and the two names exercise restraint on each other''s fate, I might be in much more serious trouble !"


    The idea of giving himself another name perished the moment he thought of it. Now he was certain that the name "Cundi" had brought him a visible and tangible fate. It was impossible for him to abandon this kind of fate in order to get a new name. It would make no difference even if he changed his name to Honored Lord of the Origin or the Grand Supreme Elderly Lord (that is, two formidable Taoists). Most importantly, perhaps the fate that the name "Cundi" had brought to him would disappear, or both kinds of fate would overcome each other. As a result, he would not even know how he would die.


    A prudent person would never make such a stupid mistake.


    "Fine, I''d rather keep the name ''Cundi''. Apart from the Central Star Area, there are still many other places that I can go in the Void Universe. Even though this name has spread throughout the Void Universe and everyone knows that I possess a Supreme Fairy Weapon, do they really have the nerve to snatch it? I don''t think so!"


    Presently, Zhou Bao was full of confidence.


    Why was he so confident?


    It was solely because he had killed three Earthly Immortals.


    His current reputation and confidence were brought upon with the lives of the three Earthly Immortals.


    Since antiquity times and even during this period, in addition to the top-ranked supreme emperors among the 99 Emperors, no one had ever heard of anyone who could kill three Earthly Immortals in a very short span of time.


    Was there anyone else who was able to kill three Earthly Immortals at the Human Immortal Realm?


    No. No one had ever heard of that.


    Zhou Bao knew that after this battle, his name would inevitably spread throughout the Void Universe. Be it the ones who knew him or those who did not, they would weigh in the depths of their hearts whether it was a wise choice to oppose him when they heard of his name. If they did not have a deep hatred towards him and could clam themselves down, they know better than to provoke him.


    Sometimes, a ferocious name was an advantage as it would deter others from provoking you.


    However, he could not walk away from this problem.


    Just as what Emperor Baiqi had said, he was the Tribulation Taker and was unable to escape from it. In this case, he could do nothing but brace himself to face such a situation.


    "Whether this tribulation likens to the legendary Dharma Ending Tribulation or not, the key lies in the Heaven Realm World. The reason that all of this had taken place is that the Devil Realm and the various macro or micro worlds in the Void Universe are searching for the passageway leading to the Void Immortal Realm. Therefore, as it stands, the Heaven Realm World is the key. Presently, the situation involving the tripartite confrontation in the Heaven Realm World has emerged as a war of attrition. Both the Holy Alliance and other influences in the Void Universe had begun to send more troops into the Heaven Realm World. With Marquis Zhihai leading a large group of Devil Tribesmen, the ordinary practitioners are simply no match for them. Without the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower to protect the Falling Star Reef, it might be broken through. The existence of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower deters the Devil Tribe and other worlds. They would not dare to provoke the Falling Star Reef but can only attempt to wear down its military strength. However, all these parties are not fools and should not be trifled with. Under these circumstances, they may probably reach a compromise!"


    At the thought of this, Zhou Bao felt that he had a slight headache. He was not afraid of them fighting each other. What he feared was that they might reach a compromise and come to a covert agreement. In such a scenario, he might become a victim.


    After all, it was he who messed up the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s plans. If the latter desperately wanted to open the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm and let the other two parties cause trouble, he would have brought upon serious trouble for himself.


    "It''s impossible!" Standing beside and seeing Zhou Bao''s worry on his face, the Ghost Child looked blank at first but soon laughed and said, "The Celestial Mystery Emperor''s party is waiting to entrap the Devil Tribe. They would not compromise until the big cheeses of the Devil Tribe appear. Even if these heavyweights show up, the two sides must put up a desperate fight!"


    "Are you sure?!"


    "Their purpose is to, of course, lure the few Devil Emperors from the Devil Tribe who are most likely to step into the Celestial Immortal''s Way into the Heaven Realm World. They will then banish them to the Alien Universe. Even if these Devil Emperors do not die here, it will be extremely hard for them to find a way back into the Void Universe!"


    "The Alien Universe? The one that is outside of the Void Universe?!" Zhou Bao nodded his head. "They have been thinking this idea?! How can I forget that? However, there are different ways to seduce them here. This can also be settled through negotiation. It is not a bad idea to lure those powerful Devil Emperors here!"


    "Not everyone is as treacherous as you are!" Upon hearing Zhou Bao''s words, the Ghost Child looked helpless. "Even if they are, those Devil Emperors will not be tricked so easily!"


    "If the purpose of the Devil Tribe is to find the passageway of the Void Immortal Realm, they will take the bait so easily. Do they really believe that they can occupy the Void Immortal Realm with the help of the two Earthly Immortals¡ªMarquis Wugu and Marquis Zhihai¡ªtogether with a pack of Fierce Owls? Will the Old Weirdos who have immersed themselves in the single-minded practice in the Void Immortal Realm let them run amok?"


    "You mean...!" The Ghost Child was shocked after Zhou Bao reminded him. He seemed to realize something and looked at the latter in astonishment.


    "Since the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s party wanted to banish the big shots in the Devil Tribe, they will wait for them. They are not afraid that the passageway of the Void Immortal Realm will be discovered. Rather, they are afraid that this incident will occur when they are not well-prepared. That is why they are using the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower to resist the Devil Tribe. Once ready, they will let the Devil Tribe enter the Heaven Realm World!"


    "What sort of preparations will they make then?"


    "I don''t know, but don''t forget that the Child-endowing Buddha is still in the Heaven Realm World. He is the descendant of the Primordial Fierce Beast¡ªGhost Flood Dragon. Thus, he can control the Chakra of the Void Universe. I guess when the time is right, the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower will be defeated and the Celestial Mystery Emperor will target me. He will use this Supreme Fairy Weapon to pursue my Black Pearl. Apart from this Supreme Fairy Weapon, other Supreme Fairy Weapons may join in the fray and by then, a fierce battle will ensue!"


    "You are thinking to ruin their plan?"


    "Sure, now that we are enemies, I would not show any mercy!" Zhou Bao''s face darkened. "Do you think I am very kind-hearted?"


    "What are you going to do?"


    "I''ll divulge their plan and tell every one of Celestial Mystery Emperor''s plot. I will, of course, polish their plan; the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s purpose is not only the Devil Tribe but also other influences in the Void Universe. He plans to use the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm as bait to wipe out the elites from the Devil Realm and the various influences in the Void Universe so that he can restore the glory of the Heaven Realm World in antiquity times. Moreover, he prepares to re-establish the Heavenly Court!" Zhou Bao stressed every word he said in a sinister way.

 827 The Countermeasure

    "The Celestial Mystery Emperor is going to reestablish the Heavenly Court!"


    "The passageway to the Void Immortal Realm is a trap!!"


    "They possess a descendant of the Primordial Fierce Beasts¡ªGhost Flood Dragon, who is able to use the power of the World Chakra to banish practitioners to the Alien Universe!"


    "They plan to attack all the macro worlds and let the Heaven Realm World return to the Central Star Area so that they can restore its past glory!"


    These rumors seemed true and false at the same time!!


    They spread all over the Void Universe in a very short time!!!


    Although this was a world of practitioners, it was also a world that had newspapers and magazines. It didn''t matter if the earth-shattering rumors that Zhou Bao had exposed were real or not, as long as they could catch the eye of others, that would be enough. By virtue of such a convenient medium and the experience on how rumors spread online in his previous life, the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s plot spread across the universe overnight.


    Of course, all the messages would be generous in describing how treacherous, sinister, scheming, cunning, cruel, and ambitious the Celestial Mystery Emperor was, some even revealed that he wanted to be the Jade Emperor after this was all finally over.


    All of a sudden, rumors were everywhere. Under the influence of these rumors, the Devil Tribe, as well as the Void Universe, changed their deployment of forces in the Heaven Realm World remarkably, especially the Devil Tribe¡ªthey stopped attacking the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. This was something that had never happened since they had started the battle.


    "Damn it, how did the news go around? How could anyone else know about this? How could they know?!"


    In the depths of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, the Celestial Mystery Emperor totally forgot himself and went ballistic once again. He was enveloped by a kind of raging spirit. The overwhelming coercion emanating by an Earthly Immortal annihilated everything within a 500-meter radius, except for a few Great Ancient Emperors at the Earthly Immortal Realm too.


    However, these Earthly Immortals did not plan to persuade him or piss him off at this very moment. Originally, everything went very well. Although Zhou Bao had revealed the exact location of the passageway leading to the Void Immortal Realm, the Celestial Mystery Emperor had planned all this very carefully and had taken every conceivable possibility into account, so he had already prepared for this. He put the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower in the passageway and anyone who wanted to pass through there must destroy the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. However, protected by several emperors, this Supreme Fairy Weapon was simply not so vulnerable, otherwise, it would be unworthy of the name. Hence, they could still make preparations for their plan with an easy mind. They were going to pretend that the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower was damaged and they were defeated, then wait until everything was ready. That way, they could lure the several powerful Devil Emperors to show up. Originally, everything went smoothly and they deceived Marquis Zhihai successfully. Moreover, their plan was about to be completed.


    Nevertheless, something went horribly wrong at this moment. There was someone who had spilled the beans about their plan and also added highly colored details to it. The instigator not only asserted that they also targeted other influences in the Void Universe but also depicted him as an ambitious schemer. As a result, his reputation in the Void Universe was totally ruined this time. Worst of all, he knew that in a certain aspect, these rumors hit the nail on the head of his ambition and revealed the evil thought that had been hidden in the depths of his heart as well.


    "Who is it?!"


    "Who knows me so well? Who knows so well about our plan? Who the hell is it?!"


    The Celestial Mystery Emperor was now on the verge of madness. If he hadn''t had any sense, he would have rushed out in desperation to find the rumormonger.


    Nonetheless, he knew it was not the right time to do that. Neither his employment had completed nor his plan had fallen flat.


    After all, rumors were just rumors. There was no hard evidence to support them. And sometimes they could be taken advantage of too. It depended on the means of different people.


    After venting his anger, the Celestial Mystery Emperor heaved a sigh of relief. Suddenly, he looked back and said, "We can''t stop due to something like this. Up to now, our plan has been carried out smoothly. We cannot fail due to the lack of a final effort!"


    "But our plan has been disclosed and the Devil Tribe has stopped attacking!"


    "Humph, they are not sure whether these rumors are true or false. What''s more, their purpose is to obtain the passageway. So, they will not give up so easily before they have achieved this goal!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor sneered. "Everyone will check the truth of these rumors, but the rumormonger will not let them find out the truth easily. And this is our opportunity. Try to make everyone think that these rumors came from the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. In other words, we must let them believe that these rumors might have been spread by ourselves. In this case, they''ll think these rumors are dirty tricks that we designed to deal with the current crisis. Only in this way can we minimize our losses and continue to carry out our plan!"


    "Yeah, it makes sense. We''ll do it right away!" An Earthly Immortal bowed and then left after glancing at the Celestial Mystery Emperor. Although they were both Great Ancient Emperors, there was still a significant gap between them.


    "Your Highness, this matter has always been a secret, but why has it been given away? Do we need to investigate it?" asked another Earthly Immortal.


    "No need to do that. I already know who the rumormonger is!"


    "Oh? Who is it?" That Earthly Immortal was very curious. Soon after the rumors were spread, the Celestial Mystery Emperor knew who the rumormonger was without investigating it. This was too weird. Was it possible that he could still deduce the Divine Design accurately when the Divine Design was in such a mess and a tribulation was around the corner?


    "Zhou Bao, it must be Zhou Bao!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor ground his teeth. "We all ignored him before and thought he was just a common Tribulation Taker who could be used by us, little did we expect that we would fall into a trap laid by him!"


    "Zhou Bao? No way! Even if he is the Tribulation Taker and has the strength equivalent to that of an Earthly Immortal, how could he know such a secret?"


    "Don''t forget that he is very close to the Fate Creation Boy. The Fate Creation Boy also wants to take advantage of him, so he must have told him a lot of secrets. So, it''s not surprising that Zhou Bao knew the truth about the World Chakra. Our plan is very simple at the macro level and it can be inferred easily even if he didn''t know that much about it. Furthermore, these rumors revealed our purpose rather than the details of our plan. In addition to that, he has added highly colored details to it. Isn''t this his old trick? Think about how the passageway of the Void Immortal Realm was exposed last time!"


    "Fair enough, but it seems that even the Fate Creation Boy doesn''t know anything about the World Chakra, right?"


    "Humm, how do you know that? Will you believe him if he says that he doesn''t know that? He is the Fate Creator of the Heaven Realm World. Although he has been a puppet since he had spiritual intelligence, he has possessed the Golden Book of Fate and known the real secrets of the Heaven Realm World. Hence, it''s not surprising that he knows something about this. Perhaps he has been feigning ignorance. We really thought too little of him!"


    "Then shall we...!"


    "No, we cannot make a rash act. It''s no use harming him. All these things were done by Zhou Bao. It won''t be of much use even if you bring him here. More importantly, we have to deal with the current rumors. We might even get into some trouble if we harm the Fate Creator of the Heaven Realm World at this point!"


    "Trouble?"


    "Afterall, he is the Fate Creator and controls the Heaven Realm World. Whether he is a puppet or not, he carries the fate of a macro world. If we injure him and he resists, the fate of the Heaven Realm World will flow away. In that case, it will go against our plan. Therefore, don''t raise any new issues now, understand?"


    "Fine!" That emperor nodded in agreement. "You mean we can only maintain the status quo?"


    "Yes, that''s what I mean. Humm, even if they knew our purpose, can they resist the temptation of the passageway? Marquis Zhihai just goes around the motions to give himself a breathing spell. He will take this opportunity to adjust his plan as well. Don''t worry, it won''t be long before they attack us again!"


    "Do we just stop here because of the rumors that we don''t even know if they are actually true?" Just as what the Celestial Mystery Emperor had said, the Devil Tribe was busy discussing about this matter in their camp. Marquis Wugu had a short fuse, though he had been imprisoned for millions of years, his temper remained as bad as ever. "These are just rumors. Maybe they are being released by the Celestial Mystery Emperor in order to scare us away. Who will be responsible for stopping the attack and losing the opportunity for combat because of them?"


    "Hehe, Marquis Wugu, you''re even more eloquent now after being imprisoned for so many years!" A shrill voice rang out near him. "Why don''t you consider that these rumors are true? If that''s the case, we''ll be banished to the Alien Universe unless we''re careful enough. At that time, we might never come back and have to live there for millions of years!"


    "Marquis Qingxi, you''ve just become a Marquis recently. I don''t mind that you''re here to gain military credits, but remember, you have no say here!" Marquis Wugu gave the shrill-voiced upstart a cold stare, from which some disdain was revealed. "Marquis Zhihai, you''re in charge of the things here, what do you think?"


    "We cannot treat them lightly no matter the rumors are true or false!" said Marquis Zhihai. "However, I stopped attacking not just because of these rumors. I think there''s no point in waging such a war of attrition!"


    "What do you mean?!"


    "Whether these rumors are true or false, it has nothing to do with us. We can just take them as true. They''re not well-prepared either, otherwise, they wouldn''t have blocked us here for so long!"


    "Since they are not ready, what are we waiting for?!"


    "It''s no use waging a war of attrition. Even if we attack them again, will we able to break through the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower before they make full preparations for their plan?" Marquis Zhihai glanced at Marquis Wugu and continued, "Don''t worry, haste makes waste. Tomorrow, at best the day after tomorrow, the Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea will arrive here together with the Endless Blood Sea!"

 828 The Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror

    Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea and the Endless Blood Sea!!


    The expressions of all the high-level Devil Tribesmen changed suddenly upon hearing these words and fear was revealed on the faces of these fierce-looking guys.


    "What? Did you summon the seven lunatics? Are you out of your mind?" Though he was an Earthly Immortal, Marquis Wugu looked terrible the moment he heard these precarious words. There were many species in the Devil Tribe. Fierce Owls, for example, were the lowest-level species in the Devil Tribe and were only treated as cannon fodder. However, the Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea were seven Primordial Demons born in the Ancestral Blood Sea and also the rulers of that sea. The strength of every one of them was not inferior to that of Marquis Wugu and Marquis Zhihai.


    The Endless Blood Sea, however, was a Supreme Fairy Weapon that they had refined using the Ancestral Blood Sea.


    The problem was that although they were formidable, they were bad-tempered and bloodthirsty too. Only a few people in the Devil Realm were willing to make contact with them.


    "I''m not crazy, I just want to capture the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower in the shortest time possible!" said Marquis Zhihai. "The Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea together with the power of the Endless Blood Sea are enough to break through the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower!"


    "Two Supreme Fairy Weapons will collide with each other in the Heaven Realm World!"


    "The safety of the Heaven Realm World has nothing to do with us. It''s doesn''t matter whether the Celestial Mystery Emperor is hatching a plot against us or not. We can just crush the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower with absolute power. At that time, no matter what his plot is, it''s destined to be a wasted effort. What do you think?"


    "You''re right. No matter what plot they have, we only need to crush it with raw strength and destroy everything!" Marquis Wugu said grimly. But soon, he seemed to have thought of something else. "I''ll go to the front line right now and take charge of attacking the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower!"


    "Don''t be in such a rush!"


    "I don''t want to meet the seven monsters!" While speaking, Marquis Wugu disappeared in front of all the Devil Tribesmen.


    "This guy ran away so swiftly! Nevertheless, you cannot go anywhere because the Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea will arrive here very soon. If they find that there are only a few people welcoming them, they probably will stir up trouble!" With several sentences, Marquis Zhihai succeeded in making other restless Devil Marquises stay where they were. None of them dared to find any excuse to leave.


    "The Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea and the Endless Blood Sea! A supreme Fairy Weapon, these people did actually send for a Supreme Fairy Weapon!" Zhou Bao had secretly returned to the Heaven Realm World at that moment. Now that he had spread the rumors, he surely wanted to see how it worked. He packed up the Black Pearl and activated the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. Then, he turned into a speck of dust and sneaked into the Devil Realm without anyone noticing.


    But he didn''t expect that he would hear such a message as soon as he sneaked into the den of the Devil Tribe.


    "Boy, stop pretending to be astonished. Since you''re the rumormonger, you should have foreseen such a result. No one in this world is a fool!" The Ghost Child said with disdain when he saw Zhou Bao''s expression. "Since you''ve given away the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s secret, others will certainly make full preparations to avoid the case you''ve said from happening. The best way to deal with it is to attack the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower and seize the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm when the other side is not well-prepared!"


    "I don''t think it will be that easy!"


    "Of course it won''t be so easy. The Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea are the backbone of the Devil Tribe, so the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower will be broken through if they really come here. Nonetheless, the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s party cannot be trifled with either. They probably will ask your friend to activate the World Chakra when they cannot resist the attacks. Neither side will gain in that war!"


    "That''s exactly what I want to ask you!" Zhou Bao opened his mouth suddenly. "Do you think the Child-endowing Buddha will die after he activates the Chakra?"


    "If he has a thorough understanding of the power of the Ghost Flood Dragon, that is merely a heavy blow to him. However, if he doesn''t comprehend it thoroughly, he may lose his life this time!"


    "It hasn''t been too long after he has been aware of this matter. He won''t be able to comprehend it so easily and quickly!" Zhou Bao knitted his brows. "You know that he was forced to make the Great Vow of the Heart Demon. I joined hands with the Fate Creation Boy to hoodwink the Celestial Mystery Emperor last time and I wonder whether he knows the truth or not now!"


    "Whether he knows it or not since the information leaked, he will investigate it given his character. But you guys did it flawlessly and I guess he probably can perceive nothing!" The Ghost Child said with an easy mind. "Furthermore, even if he knows, your friend will be alright. After all, the emperor is now badly in need of your friend''s power!"


    "Alas, this bunch of bastards! What I despise most is people who are always scheming and plotting. Hey, if I control the Child-endowing Buddha, what will the consequences be?"


    "Why did this idea come to you?!"


    "Didn''t he make the Great Vow of the Heart Demon? It''s not gonna work if I just tell him that he mustn''t operate the World Chakra, so it''s better to take actions and control him directly. I won''t release him until there is an outcome of the war between the Celestial Mystery Emperor and the Devil Tribe. As long as I don''t tell him that in advance, I don''t think he will violate the Great Vow of the Heart Demon. What''s your opinion?"


    "I must say it''s a good idea. But the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s party are already on their toes. Do you think you can control him?" The Ghost Child smiled coldly. "If you can think of it, so must the Celestial Mystery Emperor. Do you think he will allow the Child-endowing Buddha to run around at such a crucial moment?"


    "Thus, I must make a detailed plan for this matter. Since everyone has one, I should have it too, right? The Devil Realm and other influences from the Void Universe aim for the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm, while the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s party aim to eliminate the elites from the Devil Tribe, however, their final goal is to have exclusive control over the passageway. Ironically, these guys have the same purpose!"


    "Then what are you going to do?"


    "Anyway, I am already at open war with the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s party and our conflicts are irreconcilable. In that case, I''d better just ruin their plan totally!" Some maliciousness was revealed in Zhou Bao''s eyes. "The key to my plan is the Child-endowing Buddha. If I can control him, their plan will definitely fall through. When the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower is broken through, no matter who the passageway ends up belonging, it will not fall in the hands of the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s party. Just let them weep bitterly!"


    "Did you really decide to do that?" Before his voice died away, the Ghost Child knew that he had asked a meaningless question. Zhou Bao had broken through layers of spaces and appeared in a special spacetime located in the endless spacetime of the Heaven Realm World.


    Taihua Mountain!


    This place had gotten bleaker compared with the last time he had been there.


    It was desolate and dreary.


    "Fate Creation Boy, can''t you tell the current situation? Hurry up, hand over the Golden Book of Fate to me! Otherwise, don''t blame me for erasing your spiritual sense and making you return to chaos!" A triumphant voice resounded throughout the spacetime. It carried an air of disdain.


    "Who is it?" Zhou Bao appeared on Taihua Mountain without making any noise. Upon hearing this voice, he frowned and thought, "They finally go for the Fate Creation Boy. What a coincidence!"


    "Nu Tiancong, you''re just a henchman. How dare you bark here? You want the Golden Book of Fate?! No problem. But you''re not qualified to obtain it. Send the Celestial Mystery Emperor here to talk to me!"


    "Hahahaha, you are just a device spirit. Don''t regard yourself as the Fate Creator just because you have possessed the Golden Book of Fate for some time. Do you think you and that old turtle can resist me?" A golden figure flashed past and appeared on Taihua Mountain. With another quick move, he shot a golden ray right toward Lord of Heaven Black Turtle.


    "Boom!!!"


    Black Turtle''s body flew back as quickly as an arrow leaves a bow and his face turned pale. However, this blow luckily failed to hurt his foundation.


    Howl!!


    Black Turtle roared and then a powerful bloodline from ancient times appeared on him. Invisible waves surged up and moved in all directions.


    "This is...!" The guy named Nu Tiancong frowned and looked somewhat surprised. "I didn''t expect you to risk your life so quickly!"


    Yes, Black Turtle was putting up a desperate fight!


    The muscles all over his body expanded and bursts of destructive aura emanated from his body. His body got larger and larger. Within a breath, he turned into a 1,000-foot tall turtle.


    His strength also kept growing with his changes. When he was a human-shaped creature, his cultivation was only at the Lord of Heaven Realm. Now, however, the power inside his body started to rocket up.


    The phase of Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit in Acupoint, Five Qis Collecting in Mind, and Human Immortal Realm!


    When he stepped into the phase of Five Qis Collecting in Mind, his spirit suddenly came to a standstill. Later, it increased again and immediately broke through the Human Immortal Realm and reached the Immortal Realm!


    Just as he entered the Immortal Realm, Zhou Bao saw clearly that some fine cracks appeared on the back of the turtle.


    After that, his spirit soared again and finally, his cultivation remained at the peak of the Immortal Realm!!!


    "A secret skill of demonization. Haha, you old turtle, it turns out that you''ve always hidden your strength. Nonetheless, it''s no big deal. Even if you''re an Earthly Immortal, I''ll kill you today!" Nu Tiancong said maliciously. Some golden light flashed past and a simple but old mirror appeared in his palm. There was a vague figure standing above the mirror.


    Fairy weapon, it was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon!


    Nu Tiancong was merely an Immortal who had not reached the peak of the Immortal Realm yet. However, he had no fear when facing Lord of Heaven Black Turtle. What he relied on was the mirror he held.


    It was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon named Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror!!!


    The moment he saw that mirror, Zhou Bao felt that the branches of the Tree of Seven Wonders in his Dantian started shaking violently.

 829 The Yin and Yang Transformation Skill & the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique

    Seeing that Lord of Heaven Black Turtle was going to fight him desperately, Nu Tiancong activated his Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror, sneering.


    "His Majesty does have an incredible foresight. The Fate Creation Boy has planned and prepared for so many years in secret, so it''s impossible for him to have no trump card. I just didn''t expect that his ace in the hole was this old turtle. Within just hundreds of thousands of years, he has helped this Demonic Immortal (the turtle) enter the Immortal Ream from the Ghost Immortal Realm and the Demonic Immortal is just one tiny step away from stepping into the legendary Earthly Immortal Realm. I think that this turtle probably even has a powerful secret skill that enables him to have the combat capability of that of an Earthly Immortal in a short period of time."


    "But so what?"


    "No matter what they are scheming and how cautious they are, it''s useless in front of the absolute power."


    "I don''t have the absolute power, but I''ve brought it with me!"


    Roar!!!


    When facing the Heavenly Fairy Weapon, Lord of Heaven Black Turtle acted without hesitation. Though his body looked bulky and clumsy, he was very agile. With a quick move, he suddenly came up to Nu Tiancong and opened his large mouth to bite him.


    "How dare you display your slight skill before an expert?!" Nu Tiancong smiled coldly and the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror shook. Then, a red ray shot out of the mirror and hit the Black Turtle directly.


    Boom!!!


    The Black Turtle failed to bite Nu Tiancong and his huge body was downed by that red ray as if he had suffered a severe blow. Meanwhile, the shadow of a golden turtle shell emerged and barely blocked the red ray.


    "Haha, natal magic weapon. I forgot that turtles are skilled in defense. However, your defense is just so vulnerable in front of my Heavenly Fairy Weapon!"


    Boom!!!


    Nu Tiancong erupted into laughter and the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror shone more brightly. The light immediately shattered the golden turtle shell and hit straight on the Black Turtle''s body.


    Howl!!!


    The Black Turtle wailed and his body shrank under the light.


    "Hahahaha, idiot, how dare you oppose His Majesty?! Now, you''ve known the consequences, right? It''s no use regretting it. Go to the hell!" Nu Tiancong burst out peals of laughter and operated the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror, wanting to kill the Black Turtle relying on the power of the mirror.


    "You''re the one who is going to die!"


    Just as Nu Tiancong felt triumphant, a sinister voice resounded throughout this spacetime.


    "Who is it?" Alarmed by this voice, Nu Tiancong felt a terrifying spirit rising up from his heart.


    He had a grim sense of foreboding!


    As an Immortal, Nu Tiancong had a spiritual mind that was able to foresee what was going to happen. This time, however, it had failed to warn him earlier.


    Snake-like Breath Holding Skill!!!


    It was the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill!


    Among the Seven Wonderful Techniques, only the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill could slow the operation of an Immortal''s spiritual mind for a few seconds. It was this short moment that deprived him of his life.


    A thin cyan ray suddenly emerged in this spacetime and then exploded as if it was the snuff of a candlewick.


    "The Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and Jade Original Power Gang, it''s Wang She!" The moment this cyan ray flashed past, Zhou Bao knew the identity of the sneak attacker. The cyan lightning pierced Nu Tiancong''s back as it made its appearance.


    "You...!" Nu Tiancong''s body froze and he looked at the hole in his chest in disbelief. When he shifted his sight to Wang She, who was coming out from the darkness, he breathed for his last time. The light on the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror dimmed.


    "How dare you!"


    An angry shout emanated from the void. Then, a giant hand broke through spaces and went for the mirror.


    Just when this hand showed itself, the overwhelming pressure of an Earthly Immortal swept through the entire spacetime. Be it the Black Turtle, Wang She, or the Fate Creation Boy, they simply could not resist it, not to mention to collect the mirror.


    That hand, obviously, was not interested in them. It only had interest in the mirror.


    "His Majesty, His Majesty, save me! Kill these rebels, kill them!"


    A small and almost transparent figure emerged from Nu Tiancong''s body. Looking ferocious, it shouted at the hand with a voice full of resentment.


    "Rubbish. You failed to fulfill the task even with a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. What can you do? Go to hell!"


    obviously, the Emperor was annoyed by Ni Tiancong because he had lost his fairy weapon. The Emperor angrily waved his hand and Nu Tiancong''s spirit fell apart due to his powerful blow.


    "He''s indeed useless, but you''re no better than him!" Just as that hand was about to grasp the mirror, a sharp sword light broke through spaces to stab it.


    "How audacious you are!" This attack was completely unexpected of the Emperor. He twisted his middle finger, trying to flick the SwordQi away. Unfortunately, things went contrary to his wishes.


    His finger was hurt, but the SwordQi survived intact.


    "Since your Real Body cannot show up, then, this fairy weapon will belong to me!" Zhou Bao turned up in this spacetime and stretched out his hand to grab the mirror before that broken hand could seize it. After that, he threw a punch at that hand and added, "As for you, you''d better drop dead!"


    Boom!!!


    This punch struck the giant hand hard and the whole spacetime collapsed.


    "Zhou Bao, how dare you show up!!!!" The earsplitting angry roar resounded throughout this spacetime.


    "Go to the hell!" Zhou Bao turned back and swung another heavy punch at the void.


    Boom!!!


    The space immediately collapsed and the shadow of that hand vanished into the depths of the void. Golden blood sprayed in all directions¡ªthat Great Ancient Emperor''s palm was badly wounded by Zhou Bao.


    "Great Ancient Emperors, hehe, all of you are cowards who like concealing your whereabouts. If you really have the guts, just come out and fight me, otherwise, hide your tails carefully. I swear I''ll kill whoever comes out!" Zhou Bao''s roar spread throughout the world and an eerie silence fell upon the entire Heaven Realm World.


    "Ugh, this guy is too vulgar. How could he speak like that!" In the headquarters of the Devil Tribe, Marquis Zhihai was dumbstruck. He wore a helpless smile and continued, "How ill-mannered he is!"


    "Hahahaha, interesting, I like him. I guess those old bastards have been enraged almost to death because of him!"


    "You''re exaggerating. However, no matter who took actions this time, he must have suffered a great loss!" Marquis Zhihai smiled. "The voice came from the spacetime of the Fate Creation Boy. It seems that someone attacked him first and was retaliated by Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao is really worthy of being the Tribulation Taker and the trouble he has stirred up is by no means small. If I''m right, he''s also the one who spread the rumors. Such a Tribulation Taker is a big headache for those hypocrites!"


    "It''s a pity that this guy is too arrogant. That kind of people never lives too long!" Marquis Wugu sneered. "So, don''t have high hopes for him!"


    "Oh? Do you really think he cannot live too long?"


    "He has offended too many people. Even if he''s the Tribulation Taker, saving his life will be quite an ordeal for him!"


    "Just wait and see. Maybe this guy will surprise us. Nevertheless, this matter helped me confirm one thing; the rumors might be true!"


    "Just because that this guy might be the rumormonger?"


    "There is a real possibility that this guy is the rumormonger. If so, chances are that the rumors are true!" Marquis Zhihai smiled. "Our priority now is to take actions quicker than them!"


    "Don''t always keep your eyes on the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s party. Don''t forget that the influences from the Void Universe...!"


    "They are not worth mentioning because they are just a bunch of speculators. And they will retreat when the Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea arrive here!" Marquis Zhihai waved his hand and said in disdain. "Without the command of the Heaven Realm World, the current Void Universe is in a state of disunity!"


    "But...!"


    "No more buts. Wugu, when did you start thinking like everyone else?"


    "Damn you!" Marquis Wugu cast a glance at Marquis Zhihai. Seeing that he was full of confidence, he knew that he had made up his mind.


    After Zhou Bao had defeated that Earthly Immortal and snatched the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror on Taihua Mountain, he directly executed the Space Division Skill to separate this spacetime from the endless spacetime of the Heaven Realm World. Then, he operated the Great Way of Heavens and Realms and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to wrap the entire spacetime up. In the blink of an eye, the surroundings disappeared from the endless spacetime. After several seconds, more than 10 mighty divine thoughts swept across the endless spacetime with an immense amount of pressure. Then, it fell into utter chaos. But in any case, people who came there could not find Taihua Mountain anymore. They could do nothing but roar at the mountain that disappeared without a trace.


    "Hehe, do this bunch of guys really think that the Heaven Realm World is still the previous one where everything could be settled as long as they roared?" On Taihua Mountain, Zhou Bao was appreciating the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror in his hand. Upon hearing the Emperors'' roar, a strange smile crept over his mouth.


    "I owe a great deal to you again!" The Fate Creation Boy found a place for the Black Turtle, who was severely injured, to stay, and then, he sighed gently. "To my surprise, they couldn''t even wait any longer!"


    "In my opinion, you''re too naive. Why do you insist on burdening yourself with the Fairy Weapon of Fate? Why don''t you cut off contact with it and stand aloof from the struggle?" Zhou Bao shook his head. "Well, I know that I cannot persuade you to give it up, so I won''t mention this matter anymore!"


    "That''s right. Didn''t you run away? Why have you come back?"


    "Alas, it''s the will of Heaven. How can I escape?" While speaking, Zhou Bao showed the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror to the Fate Creation Boy and continued, "There seems to be something wrong with this mirror. Although it''s a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, it''s device spirit seems to be a fool!"


    "Of course it is. This mirror was damaged in antiquity times, although it has been recovered to some extent, the spiritual intelligence of its device spirit is inferior to that of a three-year-old child. Thus, strictly speaking, it''s merely an incomplete Heavenly Fairy Weapon!" The Fate Creation Boy took the mirror and added, "However, I guess you''ll be interested in the Divine Sense on it!"


    "What''s that?!"


    "It''s the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill. The second best among the Seven Wonderful Techniques!" The Fate Creation Boy smiled. "If you master the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique, you''ll have all the Seven Wonderful Techniques in your pocket!"

 830 The Mystery of the Seven Wonderful Techniques â… 

    "The Yin and Yang Transformation Skill and the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique?"


    Zhou Bao''s eyes narrowed. If he had been only interested in the Seven Wonderful Techniques before, then now, after naming himself Taoist Cundi and snatching this name''s fate by force, he was determined to obtain these techniques. Since he had acquired five of them, he was well aware of the benefits that this set of secret skills could bring him. However, he did not have a clue about the remaining two techniques and had never even heard their names before. Therefore, he froze the moment that he heard them.


    "Do you mean that one of the Seven Wonderful Techniques that I haven''t learned is on this mirror?"


    "Yes, the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill!" Fate Creation Boy looked at Zhou Bao with an unfathomable expression, as if he was observing a rare animal. "So long as I control the device spirit of that mirror, I can attain the inheritance of this wonderful technique!"


    "How do you know that?"


    "That''s because it was forged in the Heaven Realm World. Although I''m not powerful, such a thing simply could not be concealed from me, and there was no need to do that at that time. That device spirit and I were very close in those days. I didn''t expect that it would be so miserable today."


    The following words went without saying. Fate Creation Boy and the Octupole Heaven and Earth Mirror were device spirits in nature. In antiquity times or even earlier times, Heavenly Fairy Weapons enjoyed considerable individual autonomy. Many Heavenly Fairy Weapons were ownerless and controlled completely by their device spirit. And there was not a big difference in the relationship between device spirits and that of common people. Thus, it was perfectly normal for them to strike up a close friendship with each other. As the device spirit of the Fairy Weapon of Fate, Fate Creation Boy building good relationships with other Heavenly Fairy Weapons was acceptable. In that case, it was normal for him to learn about the secrets of those device spirits.


    "It seems that I''ve made a killing this time!"


    "Of course you did. You''ve bagged six wonderful techniques. Such a thing has never happened since primitive times!"


    "No way! I didn''t think it was difficult to get the Seven Wonderful Techniques!"


    "Humph, the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and the Heavenly Jade Technique have long been spread in the Void Universe. And although they are marvelous, it''s still possible to learn them. Nevertheless, the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill, and the Immortal Body Technique are top secret skills in those influences and sects. In ordinary times, it''s impossible for anyone to secure them. Hence, it''s a blessing to those who procure a single one of them. How can they attain all of them in one go like you and be able to achieve the phase of the Gathering of Three Flowers? As for the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill..." At this point, Fate Creation Boy glanced at Zhou Bao with an unfathomable expression. "Since primitive times, only the Octupole Heaven and Earth Mirror and I have known the whereabouts of this technique. After the tribulation occurred in primitive times, the mirror was severely injured and it''s just recovered a little bit since then. It''s easy for other people to control it, but if they wish to garner its inheritance, an extremely special technique is required to totally awaken its device spirit. And I''m the only one who is aware of that. Therefore, it''s not due to your good luck, but your destiny that this wonderful technique should fall into your hands!"


    "It''s destined to be? Well then, do you know the whereabouts of the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique?"


    "Hard to say."


    "What do you mean?"


    "It doesn''t exist in the Void Universe because it has been brought to the Void Immortal Realm by mighty experts from primitive times. If you crave it, you can only search for it in the Void Immortal Realm!"


    "The Void Immortal Realm?" Zhou Bao thought for a while and scrapped the idea of seeking it right now. "Then, what can I do to refine this device spirit now?"


    "It''s very simple..." Fate Creation Boy did not hide anything from Zhou Bao and immediately told him the technique of refining the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror. Zhou Bao, however, did not stand on ceremony. He accepted it without question. Given his character, he was very anxious to sit down and comprehend it immediately. However, this was clearly not the right time.


    Obviously, Fate Creation Boy had anticipated Zhou Bao''s return. He just had not expected that this day would come so soon and so coincidentally.


    "What? You want to get the Child-endowing Buddha out of the Heaven Realm World?"


    As soon as they sat down, Zhou Bao declared his plan, which startled both Fate Creation Boy and Wang She. Wang She stared at him and asked, "Since when are you on intimate terms with each other?"


    "That doesn''t matter. The issue is that he is the key. As long as we get him out, the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s party will surely be defeated!" Zhou Bao added, "I always thought that they could pose the greatest threat to us. So it''s not necessarily a bad thing to eliminate them by the hands of the Devil Tribe!"


    "Even you were able to figure out the significance of the Child-endowing Buddha. Do you think the Celestial Mystery Emperor cannot dope that out given his character? Perhaps he has already laid traps for you!" Wang She said with disdain, "You idiot, if you really desire to help him out, then don''t disclose the news in advance! Now that it has leaked, stop making such a muddle-headed attempt. Even if the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s party doesn''t expect us to save the Child-endowing Buddha, they will be on their guard and have probably protected him very well lest the Devil Tribe assassinate him. He may not be able to come out, not to mention let us save him!"


    What Wang She said was reasonable. Zhou Bao always handled affairs in a disorderly manner. If he had helped the Child-endowing Buddha out before he spread the news, then it would have been a piece of cake. That was because the Child-endowing Buddha still enjoyed personal freedom and was able to make his appearance now and then in the Heaven Realm World at that time. But what about now? Since Zhou Bao gave away the news, as a person involved, the Child-endowing Buddha vanished from everyone''s sight and never showed up again. Apparently, someone had protected him out of the fear that he might have an accident.


    "He once lived in the green lamp and the lamp has been refined by me. Although I terminated the contract with him, I can still make out his general location through the lamp!" That lamp was a highest-level Pure Yang Celestial Device, but Zhou Bao had taken away the Tusita Fire in it. As a result, its power had decreased dramatically. It did not do anything well, be it offense or defense; therefore, Zhou Bao always kept it in a corner of his collection. If it did not have a special connection with the Child-endowing Buddha, he would have given it away.


    "That doesn''t work either. What if it''s a trap?" Wang She still disagreed with Zhou Bao. Fate Creation Boy and Lord of Heaven Black were lost in thought. They seemed to have concluded that they would get into trouble if they sought the Child-endowing Buddha.


    "Why are you sure that he will be used as bait?"


    "Just put this matter aside. You might as well refine the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror and practice the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill. We''ll make a decision given the result of your practice!" said Fate Creation Boy.


    "What?" Zhou Bao asked in bewilderment. "What does this have to do with the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill? Don''t tell me that I can defeat the Celestial Mystery Emperor after I have practiced this technique?"


    "Well, that depends!" answered Fate Creation Boy. "The five wonderful techniques you''ve practiced earlier are all about the skill of applying power. This technique, however, contains the skill of practice apart from that. You''ll know that at first glance. You will probably enter the Immortal Realm directly after practicing it!"


    "Enter the Immortal Realm directly? Are you kidding me?" Zhou Bao just considered it a joke. Nonetheless, he soon realized that Fate Creation Boy was not joking from his expression. His heart throbbed and he added, "Is it really that effective?"


    "Just give it a shot!"


    "Fine, I''ll try it!"


    "The fate of heaven and earth enables the Yin and Yang to transform. Yin turns into Yang, and Yang turns into Yin..." The incantation of the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill lingered in Zhou Bao''s heart. He was astounded by it. Although he was practicing, his astonishment was obvious from the look on his face. "How could there be such a weird technique and such an effective cultivation method in this world?"


    Except for shock, he could not think of another word to express his feelings.


    The Yin and Yang Transformation Skill was totally different from the other five wonderful techniques. This was a technique used especially for practicing Qi, but it was terrifying.


    And that was because it divided all the pneuma in the world into only two categories¡ªYin and Yang. Regardless of what kind of Spiritual Qi, pneuma, Devil Qi, or Evil Qi you needed while practicing, they would all be classified into those two categories. The word "transformation" meant that it was able to turn Yin into Yang, and vice versa. It sounded complicated, but it was indeed simple. When one exerted this technique while practicing, they did not need to choose which essence of the world they were going to absorb, they just had to breathe. All kinds of pneuma around the world¡ªbe it Evil Qi, Spiritual Qi, poisonous gas, or air¡ªcould be transformed into the Dharma power they needed through it. And that was its terrifying place.


    Ordinary people struggled to search for the beneficial Spiritual Qi among every kind of pneuma while practicing. Furthermore, they exhaled the harmful part within the heterogeneous Spiritual Qi. This was the so-called "inhale and exhale". Even the lowest-level cultivation methods could make use of nothing more than 20% of the pneuma at most. Higher-level cultivation methods were more demanding on the essence of the world and only a thousandth of the pneuma was useful. Therefore, the practice of practitioners had an extremely high requirement on the essence of the world. The density of the essence of the world was essential to practitioners. Without pneuma, practitioners would no longer exist. Limited pneuma would result in practitioners being restricted, and this was the elementary knowledge of the practice. The Yin and Yang Transformation Skill, however, violated this principle.

 831 The Mystery of the Seven Wonderful Techniques â…¡

    When practitioners reached the realm Zhou Bao was in, their requirements of the essence of the world grew increasingly demanding. Zhou Bao, however, needed to pay more attention to comprehend the phase that he reached and to temper the pneuma inside his body. Thanks to his Primordial Spirits of Three Separations, he was able to gather Five Qis in the Chest. But the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations would not do him any good if he wanted to step into the Immortal Realm. What he needed to do was store an immense amount of pneuma inside his body and turn it into the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. After that, he had to connect his Sea of Consciousness through the power of the Mysterious Icy Divine Light and integrate it into his Divine Awareness. Nevertheless, that was not the end. He still needed to temper it with the Divine Tribulation. Only then could he enter the Immortal Realm.


    And after reaching that realm, his Dharma power and Divine Awareness would be an integral whole, without any leakage of spirit. The micro world he refined would really be integrated into his body. He would then be independent of the world and become a free and unfettered Immortal.


    If he really wanted to achieve that goal, the key was that he had to possess abundant Dharma power that was able to integrate his spirit into it. Although his Mysterious Divine Light was powerful and he had the Real Dragon''s Nine Acupoints, and in addition to that, his Dharma power was many times denser than that of ordinary people, all of that was just not enough. Now, however, with the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill, he was capable of solving every problem.


    This skill not only enabled his Dharma power to increase by leaps and bounds in a short period of time, but it also enabled him to completely refine the remaining Golden Real Essence Energy of the Innate Deity inside his body.


    Yes, refine it completely.


    His Eight Nine Mysterious Skill and Mysterious Divine Light could refine the original energy in the world as well, but they proved far less effective. The Golden Real Essence Energy surging in his body was like a mighty river, as well as ice that had formed for 10,000 years. He had only refined a small part of it over so many years. Now, the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill caused the pneuma around the world to be at his disposal, and also he was able to assimilate the Golden Real Essence Energy in the shortest time possible.


    "Fate Creation Boy really didn''t deceive me. It won''t take me a long time to transform all the Golden Real Essence Energy into Dharma power and trigger the Immortal Tribulation!"


    The more Zhou Bao deciphered the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill, the more fantastic he thought it was. What mattered most was that not everyone was able to learn this skill. Even if it were to be spread, only people who were proficient in five wonderful techniques, like Zhou Bao, could appreciate some of its mysteries, especially the method of exerting power and refining pneuma. And although its approach was different than that of the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, they achieved an equally satisfactory outcome.


    During the refinement, the device spirit of the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror, who had been asleep for untold years, was slowly waking up.


    Although this device spirit was familiar with Fate Creation Boy, they looked incompatible with each other because he was an old man with one foot in the grave and needed to catch his breath after saying a few words. But he was not to blame for that. Having been asleep for so many years, he could only vaguely hear Zhou Bao''s voice but could not speak coherently. If Zhou Bao had not refined the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror and obtained the essential information about it, he probably would not have been able to acquire the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill.


    However, this device spirit having a problem did not mean that the power of the mirror had been greatly weakened. As a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, aside from possessing the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill, this mirror only had two functions¡ªdefense and offense, with a white light that protected its owner and a red light that attacked enemies.


    Simple as it was, it was extremely effective. Zhou Bao really thought he had picked up a treasure.


    "How about your practice?"


    On Taihua Mountain, Zhou Bao sat cross-legged on the floor and refined the Octupole Yin and Yang Mirror in front of these people.


    Seeing that he had suddenly opened his eyes, Wang She was anxious to ask him.


    "It''s highly successful. This mirror is really extraordinary!" Zhou Bao smiled and suddenly took a deep breath.


    With Zhou Bao at the center, a huge vortex formed in the sky above Taihua Mountain immediately, as if the sky had collapsed.


    "What is he doing?" seeing Zhou Bao''s actions, Wang She asked in confusion.


    "The Yin and Yang Transformation Skill transforms Yin and Yang, and the essence of the world is at his disposal!" Fate Creation Boy smiled. "The first step of this skill is to turn the essence of the world into Yin and Yang Qi and the second step is to reverse Yin and Yang; if you need Yin Qi, then turn all the Yang Qi into Yin Qi, and vice versa. Furthermore, it costs him nearly nothing. This is an extremely weird skill. It can store up a good deal of Dharma power in the shortest time possible without any future trouble!"


    "What? How is that possible? How can there be such a skill that violates the laws of nature?" Exclaiming in one voice, Wang She and Lord of Heaven Black Turtle were taken back, especially Lord of Heaven Black Turtle. He had practiced for hundreds of thousands of years and naturally understood the dangers of practice and the pain of transforming pneuma. But what did Fate Creation Boy mean?


    To put it bluntly, this skill saved its owner from exhaling impurities. The only thing he needed to do was inhale. If he was capable of absorbing all the pneuma in a macro world, then the pneuma would become his Dharma power. It was just so unbelievable! How could there be such a good thing and such an excellent skill in this world? The two of them had extreme greed written all over their faces.


    "Humph, don''t covet this skill. If you want to practice it, you must master the other five wonderful techniques aside from the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique. That''s because its subtleties are on the other five techniques and not a single one can be omitted. Therefore, only Zhou Bao is able to practice that in this world. As for the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique, it''s based on the other six techniques!"


    "It sounds like you''re complimenting me, but why do I feel there is something wrong?"


    "There''s nothing wrong with that. Originally, the Seven Wonderful Techniques were specially prepared for Tribulation Takers, but not every Tribulation Taker is qualified to learn them!" Fate Creation Boy laughed. "Say, Junior Leopard, why have I thought so highly of you all these years? I''ve been helping you in the darkness since you were a punk. I didn''t even fall out with you even though you took away almost all of the humans in my Heaven Realm World, and I still allow you to do whatever you want. Do you know why?"


    "Is it because of the Seven Wonderful Techniques?"


    "Yes, you''re right!" Fate Creation Boy chortled with delight. "I''ve helped you because I discovered that you mysteriously attained the Heavenly Jade Technique and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill!"


    "Is there anything special in those two techniques?"


    "The Seven Wonderful Techniques, as the name implies, consist of seven skills. But in fact, they can be divided into three parts. The first part consists of the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and the Heavenly Jade Technique. They seem to be independent but supplement each other in reality. They are the two most widespread skills, and the rumor that several wonderful techniques used together will produce an amazing effect is spread by it. The second part consists of the Dharma Power-restoring Skill, the Immortal Body Technique, and the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill. When they coordinate with each other and are practiced to perfection, the practitioner can come back to life again and is immortal. Now that you''re skilled in them, I guess you might have noticed that. They supplement each other and when they are executed at the same time, they can enhance the effect of other skills and enable the practitioner to be brought back to life on the spot. The third part consists of the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique and the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill. They contain Great Ways and are the two most mysterious and profound skills. The deeper you can comprehend them, the greater you will benefit. You''ll soon realize this. The Yin and Yang Transformation Skill alone helps you enter the Immortal Ream without much effort. And if you are lucky enough to acquire both of them, you can reach the Earthly Immortal Realm easily and probably will even achieve the Celestial Immortal''s Way!"


    "You''re exaggerating, right?"


    Zhou Bao was astounded. He was aware of how marvelous the Seven Wonderful Techniques were. They probably could help him step into the Earthly Immortal Realm, but to achieve Celestial Immortal''s Way and earn the title "Sage" were simply something that he was unable to imagine.


    The gap between an Earthly Immortal and a Celestial Immortal was like the gap between an ordinary person and an Earthly Immortal. Only one out of a hundred billion people was able to become a Celestial Immortal. Since the Primordial Origin, only 10 people had earned the title "Sage". The so-called Celestial Immortals, even in the era of ancient deities, were like the Creation Deity. They would not show their strength easily.


    Of course, Zhou Bao knew a Celestial Immortal¡ªImmortal Zhen Yuan. He even saw the legendary ginseng fruit tree. But that did not mean he would believe that he had seen the real person. The one he met and chatted with, at best, was a wisp of Immortal Zhen Yuan''s spirit.


    Upon hearing that the Seven Wonderful Techniques could assist him in entering the Celestial Immortal Realm, he was struck dumb and did not know what to say.


    "What? You don''t believe me?"


    "If they are really so marvelous, how could I obtain them? Perhaps they have already been grabbed by those Earthly Immortals!"


    "That''s Because I''m the only one who knows this secret in the Void Universe. Even those Celestial Immortals don''t know that!" The Fate Creation Boy said with a mysterious smile. "The information about the Seven Wonderful Techniques exists in my brand left by the mighty person who created the Heaven Realm World. He is also the creator of the Seven Wonderful Techniques!"


    "The mighty person who created the Heaven Realm World?" Zhou Bao froze. Creating a macro world was the symbol of an Earthly Immortal. That is to say, any Earthly Immortal was able to create a macro world. Although macro worlds were different, just like the Heaven Realm World and his Azure Big World, at least he did not think that the Dharma of the Azure Big World was as perfect and balanced as that of the Heaven Realm World. No matter how perfect the Heaven Realm World was, it was merely created by an Earthly Immortal. Although there were Earthly Immortals who had cultivation that was very close to that of Celestial Immortals and were known as mighty people as well, that did not mean anything. How could an Earthly Immortal say that the techniques he created could help others become Celestial Immortals?


    "The Heaven Realm World is the first macro world in this Void Universe and is also the most perfect one. Other macro worlds were created based upon it!"

 832 The Immortal Tribulation

    "Don''t tell me the macro worlds in this Void Universe were created by that old guy?" Zhou Bao asked stunned.


    "Actually, not really. But he has created five macro worlds in the Void Universe, including the Heaven Realm World. As well as creating the five main worlds in the north, east, south, west, and center, he has also sorted out the Chakras in the Void Universe. What''s more, he has also created the legendary Void Immortal Realm!"


    "He''s the creator of the Void Immortal Realm?!" The Fate Creation Boy and the others all gaped in astonishment. The creator of the Void Immortal Realm? Was there anyone in this world more awesome than him?


    "Are you sure?" After gaping for a while, Zhou Bao came back around and looked fiercely at the Fate Creation Boy. "The person you said created the Seven Wonderful Techniques is the creator of the Void Immortal Realm. Who is he?"


    "I don''t know. It''s just some information in my creation brand, which includes the successor of the Seven Wonderful Techniques."


    "What?!" Everyone''s ears pricked up.


    "The Seven Wonderful Techniques can only be fully learned ahead of the Dharma Ending Tribulation. And those who learn all Seven Wonderful Techniques are the most important takers of the Dharma Ending Tribulation, as they open up new eras and epochs. You attracted my attention because when you were young you acquired the Heavenly Jade Technique, and what was more, you also had the Fiery Eyes bloodline. By the time you had acquired the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, you were destined to learn the three other Wonderful Techniques, which made me more and more certain you were the one that guy was talking about!"


    "So that''s the reason you want to help me, it''s not because my moral standing is not that good, right?"


    "Everyone has their own explanation for Your Excellency''s moral standing. It''s not for me to judge!" The Fate Creation Boy was speechless, "As I see it, you passed every lucky chance to learn the first six of the Seven Wonderful Techniques, including this Yin and Yang Transformation Skill."


    The Yin and Yang Transformation Skill!


    Zhou Bao was now using the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill, and in a moment, the surrounding essence of the world came billowing, and he channeled it all into his body. He could transform with this skill all that energy into the purest pneuma that he needed, and it could be assimilated by his Mysterious Icy Divine Light.


    Meanwhile, he had been continuously amassing golden original energy, and his Yin and Yang Transformation Skill could drive its extraction. This could be transformed very quickly into the pure essence of Dharma power, which he could channel into his Dantian.


    The nine Dantians on his body had all converged into one huge Dantian. It was incarnated as a huge stretch of ocean, with Dharma power rolling like river currents, all being channeled inwards. The Dantian could absorb everything.


    Meanwhile, Zhou Bao had stopped talking with the Fate Creation Boy and sat there dumbfounded. He could already clearly feel the Dharma power inside his body growing. He had just crossed the Human Immortal Tribulation and reached the state of Five Qis Collecting in Mind. At this moment, his Dharma power was increasing so fast that it felt like he was in a dream.


    All of a sudden the state of Five Qis Collecting in Mind was consolidated, and Zhou Bao shot straight to peak Human Immortal level. In a moment, he had reached the Full Closure state of Human Immortal. After this, his Dharma power continued to soar until he started to come up against the bottleneck between the Human Immortal and Immortal states. The rules between the heaven and earth were also stirred up and began to brew up a huge force: the Divine Tribulation!


    This was the first step into becoming a full Immortal. The Dharma power and spirit fused together and received the hammer form characteristic of the Divine Tribulation. As he entered into the Immortal state, the micro world he refined could accept the hammer form to achieve the holy trinity. Zhou Bao did not need to go through this step though.


    "Boom!"


    There was a flash of purple lightning in the sky, breaking open the spacetime surrounding Taihua Mountain.


    "What''s going on?"


    "What happened?"


    "How is the Divine Design so disordered?"


    "Why is the whole world full of thunderbolt spirit?"


    "How is this possible? How can the Heavenly Thunder in the hollow break straight into the Heaven Realm World?"


    ...


    This time, Zhou Bao''s Immortal Tribulation had activated a really strange Thunder Tribulation. Even though this piece of spacetime had been concealed in his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, it was still within the Heaven Realm World territory. Therefore, his Divine Tribulation was limited by the rules of the Heaven Realm World. However, in the endless spacetime of that concealed world, he actually forcibly provoked the Thunder Tribulation straight from inside the Void Universe.


    This had never been seen before!


    If the Emperors of antiquity times wanted to cross the Void Thunder Tribulation, they could leave the Heaven Realm World. No one did it like Zhou Bao, who triggered the Void Thunder Tribulation from directly within the Heaven Realm World.


    What was more, quite a few had triggered the Void Thunder Tribulation before. This was just the fearsome deterrent force which made any living creature under the Ghost Immortal state lose all courage. Even though they had some kind of Immortal rank, those less than Human Immortals entering the Ghost Immortal realm would all be terrified of this celestial might. Under the celestial might, they could not move and so could not carry out any action. This prevented all kinds of fighting methods, and so they quietly waited for this strange Divine Tribulation to pass.


    "Damn! It seems this time I''ve made it too big!" Naturally, the tribulation taker Zhou Bao sensed right away that this was no ordinary Divine Tribulation. His heart clenched, and he did not know what to say. The Fate Creation Boy also looked very worried. There was no way he could protect his Taihua Mountain from this type of hollow Divine Tribulation.


    "We''ll go now. If there''s a problem, we''ll sort it out after you''ve crossed the tribulation," the Fate Creation Boy said, heaving a long sigh.


    "I think that''s the only way." Zhou Bao smiled wryly, not daring to say anything else. The Dharma power was circulating inside his body, and he started focusing his attention on the coming tribulation.


    By now, in an unremarkable part of spacetime in the Heaven Realm World, the Celestial Mystery Emperor and his men were also standing speechless. After they had lost the Octupole Heaven and Earth Mirror, they had been continuously searching for the whereabouts of the Taihua Mountain spacetime. They did not want something like the Heavenly Fairy Weapon to fall into the hands of the Fate Creation Boy and his men. But no matter where they searched, they could not find it. Just as they started to get angry, the Taihua Mountain spacetime suddenly appeared in everybody''s telepathic connection. This would have been a great opportunity for them, but in this situation, not even Earthly Immortal Emperors of antiquity times would dare enter the Taihua Mountain spacetime. They did not even want to go near.


    "What kind of tribulation is this, an Immortal Tribulation? Is it too much, triggering a Divine Tribulation right in the hollow of a macro world?"


    They were familiar with this type of tribulation, after all, they had practiced for it step by step and had seen others cross it. But triggering and crossing a tribulation with this much activity was unheard of.


    "It must be an Immortal Tribulation, Zhou Bao''s Immortal Tribulation. He is not a normal Tribulation Taker!"


    "That can''t be true! Through all of history, no Tribulation Taker has ever elicited a tribulation like this!" A Great Ancient Emperor frowned with an expression of disbelief.


    "This is an extraordinary tribulation. Of course, any tribulation taken by Zhou Bao would be extraordinary!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor seemed a little helpless. "It seems the rumors were true, this is one of the legendary Dharma Ending Tribulations, and it is the penultimate tribulation of the Void Universe. Don''t worry about what this Tribulation Taker is doing, let him do it! But it is only an Immortal Tribulation. Wait until we get there, and we will unite at all costs to seize His Majesty''s fate and cross this tribulation together!"


    Zhou Bao did not know that the Celestial Mystery Emperor and his men were still plotting. His thoughts were muddled. The huge Dharma power had surged into his Sea of Consciousness and had started to split into four. Not only did it blend into his Real Body of Zhuyan and primordial spirit, but it gushed into his Second, Third, and Fourth Primordial Spirits. His spirit shook under the immense flow of this Dharma power, and he started to look visibly confused. A magical sensation spread through his whole body.


    Now, in the sky, it looked like a thick layer of clouds was being pushed mercilessly aside by a formless, giant hand. The first stage of the tribulation had begun.

 833 The Great Fusion Technique and the Air-frozen Bead

    Four golden fireballs appeared out of thin air.


    Each one had a radius of several thousand feet, trailing a hundred-mile-long flaming tail. By now the rules had a strange effect on Zhou Bao''s Primordial Spirits of Three Separations. It was completely exposed, as well as Zhou Bao''s body and his Real Body of Zhuyan.


    "Hmph. Is this what you call a tribulation?"


    The others thought they would not be able to withstand the fireballs. He sneered when they appeared in front of him, and his Real Body of Zhuyan leaped. He sprang up and struck the fireball before it hit the ground. There was a boom, and the fireball was shattered to pieces.


    But these three Outer-body Incarnations were completely different to Zhou Bao''s method. The Furnace of Immortality hovered above the Primordial Fire Spirit. It seemed very interested in the fireballs that came attacking. A beam of golden light came sweeping across, effortlessly absorbing the descending fireballs.


    The Primordial Poison Spirit! The teen in the green robe snickered as it turned into a green mist. It came for the fireballs, and a hissing sound spread through the sky. The golden fireballs turned into thick, green pus, falling from the sky onto Taihua Mountain. Each drop of pus left a huge pit on the mountain.


    His Veneration of the Primordial Sword Spirit brandished the SwordQi in his usual straightforward manner. He cut the flying fireballs into pieces and they fell like fireworks.


    His Veneration of the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations dealt effortlessly with four other fireballs. But then his expression suddenly grew anxious.


    Why did he have such a serious expression?


    These four fireballs looked like pathfinders. After they were extinguished, more fireballs appeared in the sky. They were smaller than the first four, but much more numerous. They filled the sky and fell like rain. But instead of falling just downwards, they identified four targets and smashed into them with loud bangs.


    "F*ck you!"


    It was like a swarm of ants biting an elephant. Despite Zhou Bao''s strength, the fireballs that filled the sky were a danger to him. Unlike the first fireballs that he effortlessly split apart, each one of these contained the full striking power of an ordinary Immortal. Zhou Bao might have had the combat capability of an Earthly Immortal, but this did not mean that he could be besieged by countless Immortals and escape unscathed. There were at least several hundred thousand fireballs in the sky. Any Earthly Immortal would dodge the attack of this many Immortals at once. However, Zhou Bao did not dodge, as this was his Immortal Tribulation.


    Boom! Rumble!


    The sky turned into a sea of fire as it was filled with golden fireballs.


    Flames stretched out into this sea of fire, attacking his Primordial Spirits of Three Separations.


    Four flames reached out through the sky like hands. They violently exploded and condensed into one, their heat completely melting the surrounding space.


    "Come on!"


    Zhou Bao shouted, and the Furnace of Immortality on top of his head emitted rays extending a hundred thousand feet. They spread out over a huge area, and among them, a golden flame appeared and caught the four approaching flames.


    "The Great Fusion Technique!"


    Zhou Bao pointed at his Furnace of Immortality above him. A glorious golden light talisman was released from the skull of the furnace, forming a golden vortex.


    It roared as it whirled.


    A terrifying sound of fire and wind resounded along the space and the fire in the sky seemed to be drawn to something. The fire came rushing towards the golden vortex.


    The Great Fusion Technique!


    This was one of the Natal Powers of the Evil Fire Kylin.


    As Zhou Bao was gathering and taking away most of the living creatures of the Heaven Realm World, he did not forget to bring this kylin into his Azure Big World. He had even personally chosen an underground fire vein for it to practice in.


    This Evil Fire Kylin was one of his Primordial Fierce Beasts. But it was really young, so it was not that strong.


    Placing it in such a desolate world as the Azure Big World was basically sending it to its death. Without Zhou Bao''s protection, it would not survive long.


    However, it was also one of the Primordial Fierce Beasts and his Natal Power, the Great Fusion Technique, was extremely profound and had limitless room for improvement. However, this improvement was only theoretical - for limitless improvement it needed infinite fire veins. Zhou Bao could not draw light from the fire veins of the Azure Big World to practice a Divine Sense, could he?


    So this Divine Sense had become almost worthless. Although it was powerful, it was nowhere near enough to use against the opponents Zhou Bao now faced. So he never paid attention to this Divine Sense.


    Only now, crossing the tribulation and seeing fireballs as far as the eye could see, he felt that casting this worthless Divine Sense had had a strange effect. The Great Fusion Technique seemed to be attracting all the fireballs and was absorbing their power. This boundless celestial power was reduced to nothing in no time at all.


    "The Great Fusion Technique is the Evil Fire Kylin''s technique. Is it not the Evil Fire Kylin''s Natal Power? How could he know this technique?"


    This unintentional action made the great emperors of all influences paying attention to the tribulation look very surprised.


    "From primitive times, the Evil Fire Kylins were reduced to nothing by the Natal Power. Since the end of the ancient deities period, there were no Evil Fire Kylins that could cross the Immortal Tribulation. I did not expect that we would now see the Evil Fire Kylins'' Great Fusion Technique again!"


    The Divine Sense of the Great Fusion Technique was renowned in primitive times because it could absorb the tribulation fire for its own use. Not only could it allow practitioners to effortlessly cross the first Immortal Tribulation, but it could also limitlessly increase its own power to become a powerful Divine Sense. Unfortunately, the Evil Fire Kylins were killed off. After millions of years, very few practitioners had been able to consider this move, and most people had forgotten about this Divine Sense.


    "This young fellow is going through such a strong Immortal Tribulation. I don''t know how much destructive power he will have once he has refined his Great Fusion Technique!" Marquis Wugu watched the colors in the sky become brighter and brighter, transforming into a huge sun-like Great Fusion Technique talisman. "He could inflict heavy losses on an Earthly Immortal with that Divine Sense."


    "You''re right. Without a rare treasure for protection, an Earthly Immortal can be greatly harmed!" Marquis Zhihai was distressed. "If the Sky-burning Golden Flame could be used to refine this Divine Sense, haha, he could catch them off guard and even kill an Earthly Immortal instantly!"


    Marquis Wugu shuddered as he spoke. With a lingering fear, he glanced at Zhou Bao crossing the tribulation. He suddenly shouted, "Dammit, how is the tribulation fire not decreasing? Haha, this young fellow''s accumulation is really formidable, but I fear he might not be able to get out of the next tribulation!"


    "Yes. The tribulation fire is only the first obstacle. Judging by the fierceness of it, I fear that even us old Earthly Immortals would find the next obstacles hard!"


    "Either way, we haven''t seen an event like this for millions of years. Look!"


    The sea of fire in the sky looked endless. The vortex formed by the Great Fusion Technique grew ever bigger before it finally formed a world-sized vortex with a diameter of thousands of miles.


    The surrounding space had long ago melted away, and this piece of spacetime was already in a completely boundless hollow.


    After five days and five nights, the sea of fire finally weakened. But Zhou Bao looked completely worn out.


    "This is really difficult, but it''s only an Immortal Tribulation. How can it be this big? It might even be as strong as an Earthly Immortal Tribulation!" The tribulation fire was only the first obstacle, and the smallest one too. You could only imagine how terrible the rest of the tribulation would be.


    "I fear this tribulation may already be like an Earthly Immortal Tribulation. Actually, the rest of this tribulation might exceed a normal Earthly Immortal Tribulation. Young fellow, be careful!"


    The spacetime around Taihua Mountain completely melted away, and the Fate Creation Boy and the others had long been far, far away. Each one of them was speechless as they looked at the sea of fire filling the sky.


    "He is getting carried away!" In the depths of the distant hollow, Wang She smiled wryly. "Just one tribulation can make so much commotion!"


    "There''s no way. This tribulation taker, he''s not like ordinary people!"


    Some onlookers were shocked, some were worried, some delighted in the calamity. Some onlookers were even happy.


    "Hahahahaha! Well done! Fantastic! Such a powerful Immortal Tribulation! Amazing! Young man, do you know what this is? This is like a Celestial Immortal scene, a real Celestial Immortal scene! You really have the potential to become a Celestial Immortal, you really do!"


    The Ghost Child was dancing with endless excitement in the mouth of the red gourd, watching the firelights dancing all over the sky.


    Yes, it was indeed a Celestial Immortal scene, and he truly had Celestial Immortal potential.


    It was not near a Celestial Immortal''s Way, it might be approaching an Earthly Immortal''s Way, but still it was no regular tribulation.


    For Zhou Bao, this tribulation fire was a little too much.


    "Young fellow, you need to be careful! After the tribulation fire is the tribulation wind!"


    "Tribulation wind? I''m already prepared!" As he was done speaking, dozens of pidgeon egg-sized beads appeared around Zhou Bao.


    "Air-frozen Beads?" This Ghost Child knew a lot from his long experience. "How did you refine so many Air-frozen Beads?"


    Zhou Bao had known the technique for refining Air-frozen Beads for a long time. When he was a young practitioner he had refined these beads to enter the Azure Heaven and fight the Essential Qi Tide. However, at that time his cultivation was still too weak, and could just about refine a Pure Yang Celestial level Air-frozen Bead.


    After that, his cultivation improved drastically and he advanced through the phases. He had committed so many bad deeds and plundered so many resources including many fairy weapons. With the support from these weapons, he heard that this future tribulation would involve this tribulation wind, and so he started churning out Air-frozen Beads. These 38 beads were his own making, and each one was a Taihao Fairy grade weapon.


    As soon as these 38 cyan beads appeared, the band of Earthly Immortals quietly contemplating the tremendous deed Zhou Bao was trying to accomplish all gasped in shock. "They''re so big!"

 834 Fully Prepared – The Yin and Yang Dust Formation

    The Air-frozen Beads!!!


    So many Air-frozen Beads! It was unbelievable that he had refined so many into fairy grade weapons!


    For a while, everyone stood dumbstruck, including the Celestial Mystery Emperor and the several Great Ancient Emperors. They did not know what to say.


    "Hahahaha! This young guy is more qualified to understand the Divine Design than you! Look at what he''s planning! Hahahaha! I think there''s a chance he might complete the tribulation wind stage!"


    "Ah!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor was surprised. He watched Zhou Bao in silence as extremely fierce brilliant rays shot out. "This time he''s going too far. If he''s not killed, it will cause endless trouble. I think he could be a great threat to us in the future."


    "Yes, this guy is too big of a threat!" Beside the Celestial Mystery Emperor was a man in dark emperors'' clothing. He looked serious. "He is fated to pass the tribulation and is calm in mind. He knows how to turn luck to his advantage in every way. I fear he might already be crossing the Immortal Tribulation. Once he reaches Immortal level, with this limitless Tribulation Taker''s luck he could even pass the Earthly Immortal Tribulation before the Dharma Ending Tribulation. And then it would be too late!"


    "Think about it, You Ming. Even if he had endless luck, he could not just cross the Earthly Immortal Tribulation in a few years. Do you not think that maybe through the ages, countless practitioners have spent their lives trying that with no success for a reason?"


    "Hmph. Don''t you think that compared to him we  have spent our lives in vain?" You Ming laughed bitterly. This guy in a dark imperial robe was the Emperor You Ming of the 99 Emperors of antiquity times, senior brother of the Emperor of Netherworld, Great Disciple of the Taoist Reincarnation.


    "You are wrong, You Ming. Compared to him, we have only spent most of our lives in vain," the Celestial Mystery Emperor said nonchalantly.


    The Great Ancient Emperors gradually became gloomy as they watched Zhou Bao.


    "I really can''t work this guy out!"


    The Ghost Child watched Zhou Bao for a long time before he finally let out a sigh. He said nothing.


    38 Air-frozen Beads were slowly rotating around Zhou Bao as the tribulation fire in the sky was gradually dying down. But Zhou Bao clearly felt that although the fire was nearly out, it was a harbinger of something even more fierce.


    The wind! It was provoking the wind!


    And the wind fanned the fire. In the sea of fire, a cool wind came from nowhere. The stronger the wind became, the more it stirred the flames, roaring as it swept through them.


    But the Great Fusion Technique was still in effect. The wind was drawn into the technique, and for some reason added to the technique''s power.


    "Be careful, the wind tribulation is about to start. Although you have many Air-frozen Beads, and they are fairy weapons, they are far from enough for you to face this Tribulation of Heaven and Earth!" When the fire began to die away, the Fate Creation Biy started to pay attention.


    Zhou Bao was already incredibly focused. This tribulation fire had been so crazy, and the tribulation wind would be even crazier than that. Although all of Zhou Bao''s 38 Air-frozen Beads were fairy weapons, they were not that well refined. Only one of them was an Upper-Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, ten of them were Medium-Grade, and the rest were all just Lower-Grade. They would be enough for the tribulation wind of other practitioners, but they for sure weren''t enough for Zhou Bao''s.


    The last flame died away, and the hollow became completely dark.


    It was very strange to see the hollow going even darker because it was already extremely black. There was only a yellow light flashing from the nearby Heaven Realm World. Would you not say it was strange that it grew even darker in the pitch black surroundings where Zhou Bao was crossing his tribulation?


    Bang! Bang! Bang!


    There were three consecutive explosions. Three of Zhou Bao''s Air-frozen Beads suddenly burst into pieces.


    Zhou Bao took a deep breath, and the other 35 beads began to quickly rotate in different directions. Meanwhile, forty-nine jade colored banners flew out from Zhou Bao''s sleeve and spread to form the Yin and Yang Dust Formation Flag. It took endless material to cover the Yin and Yang Dust Formation of the Heaven Realm World. The Fate Creation Boy spent almost all of the belongings he had collected over many years. Zhou Bao, who set the formation, was obviously not so honest. He still had some bad habits from his time as a civil servant in his previous life. He had a lot of material stuffed up his sleeve, and it was enough to cover the whole formation. Zhou Bao had already experienced the power of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation in his previous Human Immortal Tribulation, and it was very effective. The formation he had set then was still inferior, unlike now when the 49 banners were all Taihao Fairy Weapons just like the Air-frozen Beads. The Innate Qi Pure Talisman was still in Zhou Bao''s Azure Big World. It was refined with Taiqing Spirit, and it was flawless.


    Once laid, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation blocked the onlookers'' view. Only a thick fog could be seen where Zhou Bao once was. Soon after, they could not receive any telepathic connection either.


    It''s the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!


    In fact, when Zhou Bao released the 49 jade-colored flags, everyone knew what was going to happen.


    The Yin and Yang Dust Formation would be laid ¨C one of the killing formations of primitive times, an immensely strong one.


    How strong actually was it?


    You would know if you had seen how long it had kept the Devil Tribe out.


    It was a large-scale type of formation, but not a completed one. However, Zhou Bao''s was. It was made up of formation flags that were all fairy weapons.


    With the Yin and Yang Dust Formation protecting Zhou Bao, the united Earthly Immortals lying in wait could not kill him. They could not even enter the formation.


    What type of primitive killing formation would be so easy to breach?


    "This guy must have known for a long time he was going to cross the Immortal Tribulation, he is so thoroughly prepared!"


    The Fate Creation Boy looked at the thick fog with a strange expression, with an indescribable feeling in his heart.


    Not only was this young fellow lucky, but he also had a deeply profound mind!


    "Such preparation is not just enough for crossing an Immortal Tribulation, but it could even withstand a thing or two in an Earthly Immortal Tribulation!"


    Someone sighed with lament.


    This was exactly right. Even in an Earthly Immortal Tribulation, it was not easy for a tribulation taker to take out dozens of fairy weapons as they pleased.


    But this clearly was not Zhou Bao''s entire collection.


    "Yes. It could even withstand a thing or two in an Earthly Immortal Tribulation!" A normal Earthly Immortal Tribulation could essentially be crossed with a Yin and Yang Dust Formation for protection.


    However, this time it turned out to be somewhat optimistic.


    The 35 fairy weapon Air-frozen Beads and the complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation seemed on the verge of collapse under the tribulation wind.


    "F*ck! This tribulation is so intense!"


    The blackness condensed into a crystalline tribulation wind. At first, Zhou Bao was still confident as he struggled against this wind coming from the Void Universe, but one day and one night later, all his confidence vanished.


    After just 24 hours, only four of the Air-frozen Beads remained, and his complete Yin and Yang Dust Formation also seemed to have borne the brunt of the immense wind.


    Just like the Great Fusion Technique could absorb tribulation fire, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation could at any time absorb and use the strength of the tribulation wind. Therefore, the formation''s defensive power would grow stronger and stronger.


    However, there was a limit to how much power could be absorbed from the tribulation wind and transformed. At first, the formation was fine, and its power greatly increased. However, as time went by, the tribulation wind grew more and more fierce, and it had exceeded the limits of the formation''s protective power. A few times, the wind burst a formation eye. Luckily, Zhou Bao had his Air-frozen Beads, otherwise, the formation would have been damaged.


    "Time and strength ¨C both are key!"


    Zhou Bao squinted. He found the Yin and Yang Dust Formation''s weakness after that first day. It was not that it could not absorb enough tribulation wind, there was just too much wind. It was almost unceasing, and it just grew stronger. The formation was marvelous, but it needed more time, then it could absorb all the tribulation wind.


    That was the conclusion Zhou Bao reached after losing 31 Air-frozen Beads.


    "Come out, Wheel of Time!" After he finally understood what was happening Zhou Bao took the Wheel of Time out from the Azure Big World without hesitation.


    The Wheel of Time was perhaps comparable to the Jade Plate of Fate fairy weapon because it diluted one of the strongest Dharmas in the Azure Big World. In fact, the Time Dharma Power controlled time, and the Wheel of Time had yet to surpass the Jade Plate of Fate.


    Zhou Bao released this fairy weapon to control the amount of time the tribulation wind spent inside the formation. It seemed to be very effective.


    "What''s going on here?"


    Although the onlookers could not tell what was going on in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, they could all tell what was happening to the wind outside the formation. After a day, the wind was completely consumed by the formation. Even though they could not see the formation itself, they could see a vast sphere of tribulation wind growing even more massive.


    "This tribulation is so intense, so terrifying. How could he survive up to now? Is the Yin and Yang Dust Formation really that powerful?"


    On the third day, everyone wondered as they watched the sphere of tribulation wind gradually shrink.

 835 Wang Shes Unexpected Arrival and the Taoist Snake Inheritance

    Was the Yin and Yang Dust Formation really that strong?


    This was the question on everybody''s minds.


    But for Zhou Bao, this was not a question but a fact.


    With enough time given, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation had unlimited power.


    Seeing how effective this strategy was, Zhou Bao was certain that from now on things would not be easy. Although he was fully prepared, he was not at all confident facing a Divine Tribulation that could get completely out of his control. This was because on the seventh day he already felt that he was not able to operate the Wheel of Time well. That was the first time he felt this way since the Wheel of Time came into being.


    His Veneration of the Three Primordial Spirits grew sullen. He cooperated with the spirits to operate the Wheel of Time, and carefully adjusted the proportions between different stretches of time. Now, he had figured out the best laws and the optimum rate of time flow. However, he found he could not support it either with his Dharma power nor with his own body strength.


    "It can''t go on like this. I have already taken out everything I have facing the tribulation wind, which was many times stronger than the tribulation fire. And this tribulation thunder will certainly be many times stronger than the tribulation wind! Maybe I will really have to take out The Black Pearl?"


    The Black Pearl, a Supreme Fairy Weapon, was his final card. But heaven knows if it was able to stand up to the shameless Divine Tribulation. For the last Human Immortal Tribulation, he only relied upon a half-destroyed Yin and Yang Dust Formation and opened up the passageway in the Immortal Realm. But in this tribulation, no matter what was happening with the Void Universe, everything happened in a piece of hollow close to the Heaven Realm World. It was strictly limited to a small area, and there was little he could do. The Divine Tribulation''s amassed power would be all directed at him.


    "Zhou Bao, don''t overthink things! You just need to be diligent crossing this tribulation wind, then you won''t have to worry about the coming tribulation thunder!"


    "Wang She?" Zhou Bao looked shocked, but deep down he was worried. "How is this possible?"


    Yes, how was this possible?


    Wang She''s divine thoughts came through unimpeded by the tribulation wind, the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and the operation of the Wheel of Time.


    This really was incredible. He knew the extent of Wang She''s strength. Thanks to the last Void Thunder Tribulation, he reached the Human Immortal state with the Child-endowing Buddha. He had the combat capability of an Immortal, but no more. No matter what his fate was, or how much he advanced, someone in the Immortal or Earthly Immortal state had no way of projecting their divine thoughts into this dense formation.


    But the proof was right in front of him. Somehow, Wang She had managed to cast his divine thoughts into the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, and was able to communicate with Zhou Bao, unaffected by the Wheel of Time.


    "All you need to do is try your best to get through the wind. I have a way to help you through the tribulation thunder."


    "Are you kidding me?!" Zhou Bao was astounded. "Is that Wang She?"


    Indeed, Zhou Bao had many questions about this strange situation. If that guy was not Wang She, but someone like the Celestial Mystery Emperor coming to kill him, then they would have used some marvelous Heavenly Fairy Weapon to convince him to pass the tribulation wind using all his power. Then he would be struck dead in the tribulation thunder. How pitiful would that be?


    "Boy, he''s not tricking you! The coming tribulation thunder is actually of great use to him!" As Zhou Bao hesitated in bewilderment, the Ghost Child gave him a boost of encouragement. However, this Ghost Child looked just as perplexed as Zhou Bao.


    "How do you know the tribulation thunder is useful to him? What''s actually going on?" Zhou Bao was full of suspicion. It seemed he was being kept in the dark.


    "Nothing. If I guess right, then this guy inherited the Taoist Snake!"


    "The Taoist Snake?"


    "It is an ancient Celestial Immortal device. Okay, whatever it is you want to ask, wait until you have crossed the Immortal Tribulation!" The Ghost Child seemed a little impatient as if he was thinking about something.


    "Wang She, the Taoist Snake, ancient Celestial Immortal? What is this all about?!" Zhou Bao felt his brain completely saturated, but he was greatly relieved to hear the Ghost Child. He also became much more relaxed while operating the Wheel of Time and Yin and Yang Dust Formation. He had gotten through the surging tribulation wind unscathed. After ten days it had completely dissipated, leaving only a trace that had made its way into the only remaining Air-frozen Bead.


    Just has Wang She said, the tribulation thunder was no threat at all to him. Just as the tribulation wind was about to disappear, a golden bead suddenly appeared within the Yin and Yang Dust Formation. The tribulation thunder was comparable to an Earthly Immortal Tribulation, and it was completely absorbed by the bead. In the end, only the remaining part of its essence was released. This essence merged with the essence of the tribulation wind in the Air-frozen Bead, and with the essence of the tribulation fire in the Great Fusion Technique, tempering Zhou Bao''s body and spirit. The whole thing took ten days.


    Zhou Bao had reached Immortal cultivation. After ten days he put away the formation and left the hollow with a satisfied smile. The onlookers had raised eyebrows.


    But this was just how he looked from the outside. Actually, after he came out of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation, the Fate Creation Boy who was engrossed in watching the commotion from afar, Wang She and Black Turtle were all using the Great Way of Heavens and Realms to break open layers of space and disappear from everyone''s divine thoughts. They appeared once more in a very secluded part of the hollow.


    "Boy, why are you bringing us here? To kill us and take our treasure?" Wang She laughed.


    "I am not capable of that. I just want to get to somewhere the onlookers cannot see!" Zhou Bao laughed wryly. "Now, let''s discuss how we can get the Child-endowing Buddha out, shall we?"


    Wang She looked pained as he saw Zhou Bao look at him. "Don''t look at me, Zhou Bao. I can only help you because of the Rolling Thunder Beads. They might be Heavenly Fairy Weapons, but they can inflict heavy damage. They don''t even have device spirits, they only have a small trace of divine thoughts left. Your tribulation thunder has just helped them produce device spirits, and it will take a long time for them to grow up."


    "No way. Then how could your divine thoughts penetrate the Yin and Yang Dust Formation?"


    "I''m not sure. It was the effect of the Rolling Thunder Beads." Wang She smiled, seeming even more uncomfortable. "To this day I am still not sure how to use that thing. If you ask me, I can''t explain it. We need time to work out how to save the Child-endowing Buddha. You have reached Immortal cultivation, and your combat capability has increased a great deal. So this can''t be so difficult, right?"


    "It isn''t easy even with Immortal cultivation! Don''t forget, they are all Great Ancient Emperors!" Zhou Bao was speechless as he listened. He could hear from Wang She''s voice that he had inherited some kind of collection. But it was just a damaged Heavenly Fairy Weapon which would not increase his strength very quickly. A damaged Heavenly Fairy Weapon could have some really wonderful effects, but it would not have much use in the current situation.


    "We can''t delay in saving the Child-endowing Buddha any longer, but there are also many risks in acting hastily. We could very easily fall into a trap. We need to consider carefully what we are going to do." The Fate Creation Boy pondered for a moment.


    "It''s no use. This needs to be done sooner than later. Moreover, we don''t have any news about the Child-endowing Buddha''s whereabouts. We can only go and look for him ourselves. If we take too long the Celestial Mystery Emperor could get his way, and the Devil Tribe could win, neither of which is in our interest. They only gain an advantage if both sides win, and the more damaged they end up, the better. They only have one way of reaching their goal, and that is to let the Child-endowing Buddha go."


    Because right now the Child-endowing Buddha was like a big killing machine. Just like the atomic bombs of his later life, it could only be deployed once, and once it had been set, the whole world could not withstand it.


    But the current situation was just as Wang She said. They could not wait any longer, otherwise, things could easily worsen. The Celestial Mystery Emperor and the Devil Tribe were thinking of the best way to deal with this. By the time both sides responded, the outcome and who wins might already have been decided, and all their calculating would have come to nothing.


    Zhou Bao clenched his teeth. "Forget about it! I''ll go and explore the situation first. Anyway, I have never been to the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. Last time I went, I couldn''t sneak in. But now with my Immortal Karmic Rank, if I want to get in there, no one can stop me!"


    "The Sea-overlooking Gate Tower is the Vast Sea Emperor''s Supreme Fairy Weapon. It is quite mysterious, and not at all easy to get into. Are you sure you will be fine?"


    "I think I should be fine, right?" This time Zhou Bao had reached the Immortal realm, had condensed the Five Qis in the Chest, and his Three Flowers above the Head were refined by the tribulation wind, fire, and thunder until they were sparkling and translucent. "If I activate my Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, I should be able to kill an Earthly Immortal!"


    To kill an Earthly Immortal meant that, with his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, Zhou Bao could get right up to an Earthly Immortal without being detected and kill him in one hit. Maybe he was capable, but when it came to it, he would not be so confident about it as he was now.


    "Since you are so confident, I won''t stop you. But be careful. If it doesn''t work, the most important thing is to get out." Because of his Seven Wonderful Techniques, the Fate Creation Boy put all of his hopes on Zhou Bao. Of course, he did not want him to have any accidents due to some recklessness.


    "I know!" Zhou Bao smiled. He was no fool. After opening the limitless space, he appeared right outside the Falling Star Reef. Almost the second he appeared, a river of blood started rolling down in the sky!

 836 The Opponents Smart Plot and the Countermeasure

    Bloody rays prevailed the sky. In an instant, the world above the Falling Star Reef was dyed scarlet.


    The smell of blood descended from the sky to the ground, and then rose up and permeated the sky once again.


    Bloody rays broke through clouds and reached the earth, covering the land. The pneuma here also became increasingly richer. A scarlet membrane was gradually taking shape between heaven and earth. It kept growing thicker and more sanguinary as it killed and absorbed all the living creatures around it.


    "What the hell is that? It is so strange and vicious!"


    Zhou Bao, who had transformed into a particle, suddenly gave a shudder. The sea of blood in the sky was about to assimilate everything, including tiny particles.


    "Thank god I''ve reached the Divine Immortal Realm and can integrate my primordial spirit with my body, otherwise, this damn thing would have discovered me. If I blow my cover before I step into the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, I''ll be so humiliated!"


    Zhou Bao was starting to care about saving face. He had promised the Fate Creation Boy and the others that he would try to rescue the Child-endowing Buddha. If he got caught before he even entered the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, he would be severely disgraced.


    "Looks like the Devil Tribe has launched another attack!"


    Indeed, the Devil Tribe had started attacking. Overwhelming Devil Qi poured out from the scarlet light. Seven jets of domineering Qi Power swept the scene, immediately outshining the blue light that surrounded the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower.


    "Rumble, rumble, rumble!"


    The scarlet light shone like lightning. The blue light enveloping the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower seemed eager to shine, but before its power erupted, it was eclipsed by the overbearing scarlet light. Now, it could only struggle to defend.


    "Supreme Fairy Weapon! Another Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    Only a Supreme Fairy Weapon could suppress another Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    It took Zhou Bao by surprise that the Devil Tribe had suddenly launched a Supreme Fairy Weapon. In a split second, he understood their plot.


    "The Devil Tribe, hee hee, they''re crafty. They know that whoever strikes first gains the advantage. They launched a raid against the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower when the Celestial Mystery Emperor and his men were utterly unprepared. If they succeed, no matter what the Celestial Mystery Emperor has in mind, it won''t work. Well, I should take this great opportunity to sneak in and try to get the Child-endowing Buddha out!"


    With his mind made up Zhou Bao flew towards the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower right away.


    The Sea-overlooking Gate Tower was a Supreme Fairy Weapon with a perfect defensive function. At present, under the repression of the scarlet light, its defensive blue light was particularly dense, even a real particle could not slip in, not to mention Zhou Bao.


    But Zhou Bao was not worried, he didn''t need to be. All he had to do was wait for the opportunity.


    Given that the Devil Tribe had already employed a Supreme Fairy Weapon, they seemed anxious to finish the war. The confrontation between the two Supreme Fairy Weapons would not last long. Although the scarlet light had taken the upper hand, considering the fact that the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower was also a Supreme Fairy Weapon, it might take several hundred years for them to destroy it. If that happened, it would be too late. Zhou Bao was sure that a change would occur very soon.


    In fact, he did not wait long to see it coming. After a brief entanglement with the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, seven jets of ferocious Evil Qi broke out from the blood sea.


    It was actually seven figures rushing out from the blood sea. Their feet were soaked in blood, their heads were glowing with bloody light, and each one had enough Qi Power to suffocate an entire macro world. They were the Devil Tribe''s seven Earthly Immortals. When they appeared at the same time, they could dominate the Heaven Realm World merely with their Qi Power. Moreover, what emerged along with them was not just their Qi Power.


    "Boom!"


    A bloody wheel of light flashed by like a bolt of lightning. It streaked through the Void Universe and instantly hit the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower with a thunderous bang.


    Layers of space burst open. Outside the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, the layer of blue light, which had become as compact as crystal, cracked under the blow.


    What a great opportunity!


    As the crack emerged, without hesitation Zhou Bao performed the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and slipped into the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower through the crack.


    "Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!"


    A series of bombarding noises rang out behind him. However, Zhou Bao paid no attention, because he had already snuck into the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower.


    "How odd! Isn''t the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower a Supreme Fairy Weapon? Why doesn''t it have a macro world?" The moment he stepped into the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, Zhou Bao felt something was wrong. The Gate Tower before him was undoubtedly magnificent, and even more spectacular than any palace he had ever seen, but it did not have the air of a Supreme Fairy Weapon. It looked like a normal palace.


    "Like I told you a long time ago, the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower is a broken Supreme Fairy Weapon. Did you expect it to have the grandeur of a real Supreme Fairy Weapon? The Blood Sea is also damaged. Among the Supreme Fairy Weapons on the scene, your Black Pearl is the only complete one and it is also the most powerful one. But what you see now is not the whole Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, it''s just the part that is revealed on the ground. Just like your Black Pearl. Imagine, if you released the Black Pearl and some enemy snuck in, would the intruder find the Big Azure World without effort?"


    "That would be impossible!"


    Yes, it was impossible. He had hidden the Big Azure World in the center of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation. Without his permission, even if the intruder was an Earthly Immortal, he would not be able to detect any trace of the Big Azure World.


    "The Celestial Mystery Emperor must have hidden the Child-endowing Buddha in the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower''s macro world. We¡ª"


    "The spirit of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower is a bit odd too. Interesting, this is really interesting!" As they were flying through the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, Ghost Child seemed to have sensed something and started shouting.


    "What''s the matter now? Are you going crazy?" Zhou Bao snapped.


    "I''m not going crazy. I just sensed a very familiar spirit!" Ghost Child cackled. "It appears that the situation is much more complex than we expected!"


    "Complex? What do you mean?"


    "I caught a trace of destructive spirit. This is the precise spirit that can destroy a macro world. If I guessed it right, the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower''s macro world is coming to an end. Hee hee, a broken Supreme Fairy Weapon and a dying macro world, well, there is no better trap than this. I''m afraid this trap is going to cost the Devil Tribe an arm and a leg!"


    "What?! The macro world is about to die? If the Supreme Fairy Weapon disappears, what are we going to do with the Heaven Realm World?"


    "Relax. The Heaven Realm World is different from other macro worlds. It was the first world established in the Void Universe, and it''s the only world that is connected with the Immortal Realm. How could it be destroyed so easily? If it gets destroyed, Taoist Jin will not live up to his reputation!"


    "Taoist Jin?"


    "He is the mighty man who created the Seven Wonderful Techniques. Also, he is one of the most ancient and mysterious Celestial Immortals!" Ghost Child explained. "Nevertheless, if the two macro worlds explode inside the Heaven Realm World at the same time, the Heaven Realm World will probably return to its original state!"


    "What?! Two macro worlds exploding at the same time?"


    "After all I told you, you still don''t get it? The Sea-overlooking Gate Tower''s macro world is dying. Another Supreme Fairy Weapon is attacking it, which means two strange macro worlds have appeared in one macro world. When these two Supreme Fairy Weapons have both concealed their macro world, it''s not a big deal, they won''t impact the Heaven Realm World, just like your hidden Big Azure World. But when they start firing at each other, their spirits will be directed to one place. If one explodes, well, it will certainly affect the most fundamental Dharma of the Heaven Realm World, which will in turn influence the most fundamental Dharma of the other Supreme Fairy Weapon''s macro world. As their spirits intertwine, in the end, the other Supreme Fairy Weapon''s macro world will burst open. This whole war is just a trap. The Celestial Mystery Emperor really deserves his title. The World Chakra is merely one of his means. He has made a backup plan, and that is the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. No wonder the Fate Creation Boy was unaware of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower despite the fact it has existed in the Heaven Realm World for so many years. Turns out that they''ve long prepared to sacrifice the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. Hee hee, they can also ruin the Devil Tribe''s Supreme Fairy Weapon in the process. Not bad!"


    "Isn''t my Black Pearl going to go down with them?" Ghost Child was taking pleasure in other''s misfortune; Zhou Bao was not delighted at all.


    "That won''t happen. You just need to get out of the Heaven Realm World in time!" Ghost Child assured him. "And this could be a lucky chance for you!"


    "Lucky chance?"


    "You have to be a fool if you don''t grab the chance to extract the source power when two macro worlds explode simultaneously near a Supreme Fairy Weapon. Though the life of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower''s macro world is about to expire, its source power is quite sophisticated. Not to mention, the Devil Tribe''s Supreme Fairy Weapon. Oh no! The Celestial Mystery Emperor must have been coveting this opportunity too! Damn it, are they considering refining another Supreme Fairy Weapon?" As he spoke, one more possibility occurred to Ghost Child.


    "The Celestial Mystery Emperor is so good at plotting and calculating, he won''t miss this. The Heaven Realm World is their home field, so they already have a huge advantage. Plus, they''ve been preparing for so many years. If their plans could really be disrupted by a few rumors, the Celestial Mystery Emperor wouldn''t have been named the Celestial Mystery Emperor!" Zhou Bao sneered. He never underestimated the Celestial Mystery Emperor. He was a wise emperor who had enjoyed great prestige since antiquity times. How could he be ruined over a few rumors? Zhou Bao just wanted to cause a little trouble for him with the rumors. He never expected his little trick could shake the foundation of the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s influence or cause a huge blow to his plans.

 837 A Successful Rescue!

    The Celestial Mystery Emperor''s plan was grand and meticulous. Although each step was closely linked to the next one, the links were not designed as simply as one might assume. Even if one of the links broke, his plan would not be hindered. Otherwise, he would not be called the Celestial Mystery Emperor. His plan was constituted by several complementary but independent steps. If one went wrong, another one would replace it and keep the whole chain intact. This was his style. This was the means and power he would use.


    The rumors Zhou Bao spread had ruined one of the steps, but soon another one substituted it. Or one could say there was no substitution at all because the situation pushed him to quickly proceed to the next step.


    "If I sabotage another step in his plan by making the Black Pearl absorb all the essence of the two exploded macro worlds, will I trigger the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s third step?"


    "I don''t know. But I believe only a dumbass would let go of a profit, let alone such a huge one!" Ghost Child said.


    "You do have a point. Okay, should we get out of here now or not?"


    "We still have time. Although the seven devils are pretty powerful, they still need a lot of time to break through the defense of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower and force its macro world to implode. This should be enough time for us to find the Child-endowing Buddha!"


    "First, we should pin down the location of the macro world that is about to blast!"


    "I can find it!" Ghost Child shouted. "This place is soaked in deadly spirit. I''m highly sensitive to this kind of spirit. It won''t be hard to find him if we follow the spirit!"


    "I hope so!" Zhou Bao muttered to himself. Following Ghost Child''s directions, he zigzagged through the labyrinth-like Tower for quite a while before finally reaching his destination.


    This was the only place where you could find living creatures.


    The living creatures here were actually Grand Demons in the Lord of Heaven Realm. They were subordinates of the Sea Emperor, who had domineered the Sea Area for thousands of years. Also, these Grand Demons were important figures in the Sea Area Demon tribe''s power structure.


    These Grand Demons were so powerful that they could shake the entire Sea Area with a random stomp. But none of them looked happy now. In fact, they were maintaining a wondrous magic formation, and at the center of this magic formation was a drop of water.


    This glittering and translucent droplet looked quite normal, but in Zhou Bao''s eyes, it was a precious treasure that made his eyes light up with lust.


    "This must be it. The Sea-overlooking Gate Tower''s macro world must be that droplet, right?" Zhou Bao asked with excitement.


    "Right, it''s the drop of water. This is the macro world of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower¡ªthe Sea Emperor World!" Ghost Child answered. "It''s a dying macro world, which is very tricky!"


    "I don''t have that much time to think!" As he spoke, a loud bang spread from the hall, causing it to tremble. Apparently, the Devil Tribe had launched another fierce attack outside. The Grand Demons'' expressions altered, their attention shifted to the bombarding noise momentarily. At this precise moment, Zhou Bao dashed into the Sea Emperor World.


    The Sea Emperor World was a dying macro world approaching its ultimate ending. Zhou Bao had felt it from the outside. When he entered the Sea Emperor World, this feeling became stronger. All the Dharma seemed to have come to an end. Although Zhou Bao was only in this world for a few seconds, he felt that he had aged several years.


    "Holy crap, how twisted is this! By the way, since the Sea Emperor World is the Vast Sea Emperor''s territory, he is supposed to be the Fate Creator. We sneak in like this, he must have noticed, right?"


    "Notice what fu*k!" Ghost Child cursed dismissively. "The Sea Emperor World has no Fate Creator. It is a dying macro world. Even if it had a Fate Creator, he must have fled to start his reincarnation or revive in a new guise. He will cut off all the connections with this macro world or risk perishing together with it. The Vast Sea Emperor is just the controller. I''m certain he won''t be patrolling this World because the dying Qi here could impact him."


    "In other words, we can do anything we want here, right?"


    "Yes, we can. But since it has already declined to this extent, it is too fragile to take a blow. If you continue much longer, you might ruin it. We''d better go and find the Child-endowing Buddha first! Are you sure he is really here?"


    "He has to be here! I''ve sensed his spirit!"


    In fact, Zhou Bao could have done a thorough search with his sweeping divine thoughts. However, given that the Sea Emperor World was on the verge of collapsing; the endless spacetime around it was seriously broken, and rich death Qi implying that death was about to descend permeated every corner; Zhou Bao''s divine thoughts could not penetrate that far away. But thanks to the green lamp he carried, which had accompanied the Child-endowing Buddha for more than a million years and possessed an inseparable connection with him, Zhou Bao could vaguely sense the Child-endowing Buddha''s current whereabouts.


    Although the whole world was filled with thick dying Qi which divine thoughts could not penetrate through, Zhou Bao had a general idea of the Child-endowing Buddha''s location in mind. He went in that direction and found him quickly.


    He was sitting cross-legged on an isolated island in a vast sea with a bitter look on his face. A buddhist halo was shining behind his head, which surprisingly neutralized the dying Qi in his vicinity.


    "Yo-ho, aren''t you the Guide Taoist? Outside has been turned upside down, but you''re still enjoying yourself here!" At the sight of the sullen-faced Child-endowing Buddha, Zhou Bao revealed himself with a smile.


    "It''s you! How did you get in?" The Child-endowing Buddha was taken aback. He knew what kind of this place was. This was the Sea Emperor World, a macro world late in its life and about to die. He was sitting in the deepest place of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. If a man wanted to enter, he had to first sneak into the Supreme Fairy Weapon. The Sea-overlooking Gate Tower had turned on all its defensive functions since it was at war with the Devil Tribe. Even a mosquito could not get in, let alone a human being. Yet Zhou Bao had simply slipped in.


    "You think the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower can block me?" Zhou Bao laughed softly. "The war outside is in full play, the Devil Tribe has employed a Supreme Fairy Weapon to fight against the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. It seems that they want a quick fight. The Sea-overlooking Gate Tower is already showing its weakness; it was quite easy to break in!"


    "That explains it. Hee hee, it appears that the Devil Tribe still walked into the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s trap!"


    "Or maybe not. If we hadn''t come, the Devil Tribe might have suffered, but now, we''re here, aren''t we?"


    "You''re going to help the Devil Tribe?!"


    "I''m not going to help anyone. Let both sides suffer!" Zhou Bao said coldly. "So tell me, is there any treasure here?"


    "What damn treasure? It was you who released that rumor, am I right?"


    "Yeah, it was me. But I reckon it''s not just a simple rumor, is it?"


    "Of course not. Otherwise, the Celestial Mystery Emperor would not have allowed me to enter!" The Child-endowing Buddha paused for a second and went on. "Based on the current situation, even if I stay here, my safety is no longer guaranteed!"


    "Stop saying rubbish! Do you want to get out or not? If you do, I''ll take you out. If not, I''ll beat you up and then take you out!"


    "Fine, let''s go. If we don''t go now, we might not get another chance!" The Child-endowing Buddha forced a smile. Although he was a Grand Demon with a combat ability at the level of a Divine Immortal, when facing the Celestial Mystery Emperor, a mastermind of antiquity times, he was still too weak to strike back. That''s why he was trapped here. If he said he was willing to be trapped, he would be lying.


    "Are you sure it won''t cause further problems if you just walk away like this?" Zhou Bao asked. He knew that although the Child-endowing Buddha was forced to stay here, it was not impossible for him to break out with his own strength. However, he hadn''t done so, which meant he must have some secret sorrow that he was reluctant to discuss.


    "Humph, do you think you can leave so easily? Even if I get out of this damn place, I''ll still be in the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. This is a Supreme Fairy Weapon! How can we get out?" The Child-endowing Buddha replied scathingly. There was definitely a trace of resentment in his tone.


    "You''re full of complaints. Are you going to strike when you''re out?"


    "Don''t count on it. One of the articles in my Great Vow of the Heart Demon is to turn on the World Chakra when I receive the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s orders. So, I can''t just do whatever I want. Anyway, how could the Celestial Mystery Emperor have forgotten to prevent my disobedience?"


    "So, even if you get out, you''re still under the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s control?"


    "Not necessarily. If I go somewhere that I can''t receive the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s order, I will have nothing to do with the World Chakra!" The Child-endowing Buddha sniggered. "The rumor broke out so unexpectedly that even the Celestial Mystery Emperor did not foresee it. Thus, he merely ordered me to stay quietly in the Sea Emperor World for a while!"


    "This time, he truly misjudged the situation!"


    "Whatever! He can''t make me do the Great Vow of the Heart Demon again!" The Child-endowing Buddha gave a cold laugh, obviously loathing the Great Vow of the Heart Demon he had been forced to make. "Humph, just wait and see. Someday, I''ll force the Celestial Mystery Emperor into a Great Vow of the Heart Demon and lock him in a micro world with no means to break out!"


    "Well, you''re quite ambitious. But for now, we''d better get out first. This damn place has too much dying Qi, I feel like I''m an old man now!" Zhou Bao laughed. He transported the Child-endowing Buddha into the Black Pearl and left the Sea Emperor World at the highest speed. They did this very furtively, so no one noticed the Child-endowing Buddha''s disappearance.


    The outside of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower was thoroughly enveloped by the Falling Star Reef, and half of it had already fallen apart. The seven Earthly Immortals from the Devil Tribe were roaring frantically as they fired at the remains of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower furiously.


    "Crap, hurry up, the Celestial Mystery Emperor just discovered that I disappeared!" Zhou Bao wanted to watch where the war was going for a bit longer, but the Child-endowing Buddha''s divine thought fluttered over from the Black Pearl.

 838 The Detonation

    "Damn it, they''re going to detonate the Sea Emperor World!" When he first sensed the Child-endowing Buddha''s divine thought Zhou Bao was petrified. But soon, he realized what was happening.


    "Yes, I''m sure this is it!"


    As the attack of the Devil Tribe raged on, seven Earthly Immortals had rushed to the outside of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. There would be no better time to blow up the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower and the Sea Emperor World. When that happened, the Celestial Mystery Emperor would have to get the Child-endowing Buddha out, for he was still confined in the Sea Emperor World. But to his surprise, the Child-endowing Buddha had disappeared!


    Yes, the Child-endowing Buddha had disappeared from inside the Supreme Fairy Weapon, the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, right under the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s nose!


    "Damn it! Does this guy want to die? Dare to disobey us at this juncture!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor roared furiously in a nameless space. Jets of ferocious divine thoughts swept the Sea Emperor World, attempting to find out where the Child-endowing Buddha had gone.


    "Leave him alone. Let''s detonate the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower first. We''ll sort the issue with him out later!" Emperor Youming suggested with composure.


    The situation had gone this far. It was too late to investigate the cause. There were more important things to do. He could not let his rage ruin his big plan.


    "Humph, we''ll let him off the hook for the moment. Once we get rid of the Devil Tribe, we can take time to settle all the problems with him. Hee hee, with the Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea, the main force of the Blood Prison, and the Endless Blood Sea, we''ll sap all the Devil Tribe''s vitality!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor said maliciously. It was as if he was going to unleash all his anger toward the Child-endowing Buddha onto the Devil Tribe. "Tell the Vast Sea to blow up the Sea Emperor World at once!"


    "We finally made it!" Zhou Bao yelled. The mission of rescuing the Child-endowing Buddha had gone quite smoothly. But in light of what was about to occur, Zhou Bao immediately left the Heaven Realm World to tip the Fate Creation Boy off about the possible plan the Celestial Mystery Emperor might carry out.


    Unlike the carefree Zhou Bao and his lot, the Fate Creation Boy was the Fate Creator of the Heaven Realm World. His achievement and reputation all relied on the Heaven Realm World. Thus, when he first heard that the Celestial Mystery Emperor might detonate two Supreme Fairy Weapons in the Heaven Realm World, he passed out on the spot. When he woke up, he lost control. If Zhou Bao and the Child-endowing Buddha had not dragged him back, he would have gone to the Celestial Mystery Emperor and put up a desperate fight.


    "It''s too late to get desperate!" Zhou Bao shouted, clutching the Fate Creation Boy with all his force. "I need to know if the Heaven Realm World will be destroyed if two macro worlds explode within it at the same time!"


    "No, but it will go back to its original state!" The Fate Creation Boy answered through gritted teeth. "And there will be problems with the Golden Book of Fate. I''ll lose control of it!"


    "Isn''t this what you want?! You''re the device spirit of the Golden Book of Fate, so you''re subject to its restrictions. If you lose control of the Golden Book of Fate, you can break free from its restrictions!"


    "If that happens, I won''t be the Fate Creator of the Heaven Realm World anymore. I''ll just be a wandering ghost who can''t use the power of the Heaven Realm World. I''ll be no better off than an ordinary ghost!" The Fate Creation Boy said. He was in a panic.


    "There is nothing wrong with being a wandering ghost!" Zhou Bao comforted him. "You can regard this as an opportunity to start over. With your knowledge and experience, I believe you''ll recover everything you lost in no time!"


    "Fine, stop consoling me. I don''t have time for that!" After a while, the Fate Creation Boy regained his calm. Realizing the whole thing was already beyond retrieve, he cut off the connection between himself and the Golden Book of Fate. In that instant, his body became blurry. As he had predicted, when he lost control of the Golden Book of Fate, more than half of his power also left. He could no longer summon the winds and command the rain as he had before. However, when he discarded the power that he had relied on, he also liberated himself from the Heaven Realm World. If the Heaven Realm World was attacked and returned to its original state, his spirit and power would not be affected, nor would his future be subject to any negative impact.


    But, was he really willing to swallow his anger and accept this?


    "If they''re going to detonate a macro world and let it go down in flames with the Devil Tribe''s Supreme Fairy Weapon, judging by the character of the Celestial Mystery Emperor, he must intend to profit from this. The most likely thing he will do is refine another Supreme Fairy Weapon with the essential Dharma from the two Supreme Fairy Weapon''s macro worlds!"


    "That''s our presumption, too. So, we are prepared for it!" Zhou Bao told the Fate Creation Boy honestly. Instantly he launched the Black Pearl. "Let''s see if we can gain any benefit out of this opportunity!"


    "You definitely can. Your Big Azure World is the perfect means to extract the essential Dharma of the two macro worlds from the explosion. And don''t worry about their Supreme Fairy Weapon. The Celestial Mystery Emperor hasn''t finished refining it, so you can even absorb their Supreme Fairy Weapon as well!"


    "How do you know that?"


    "Of course I know!" The Fate Creation Boy replied. "Since antiquity times, the Celestial Mystery Emperor has been refining the Divine Design Palace, a Supreme Fairy Weapon. But due to its complexity and his demanding attitude, he hasn''t fully finished. Now, I''m afraid he plans to perfect his Divine Design Palace with the essential Dharma from the two macro worlds!"


    "Divine Design Palace? Is it very powerful?"


    "The Divine Design Palace is formed purely from the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s own power. It is not a fierce Supreme Fairy Weapon, but it is good at calculating. If he actually succeeds, he will be able to foresee everything in the world by calculation and deduction!"


    "He''s been refining it since antiquity times? Isn''t that too long?"


    "Do you really think everyone can obtain a fragment of the Ancient Sacred City as easily as you?" The Fate Creation Boy snapped.


    "Yeah, yeah, not everyone has good luck like me!" At the sight of the Fate Creation Boy''s sour face, Zhou Bao could only give a bitter smile. "Well, if the Divine Design Palace is not good at fighting, I suppose it can''t beat my Black Pearl, right?"


    "Your Black Pearl has the power and luck of the Ancient Sacred City, it is extremely mighty. Once the Divine Design Palace appears, you just need to send the Black Pearl out to crash into it. Crash that son of a bitch, then, everything will be fine!"


    Seized by fury, the Fate Creation Boy could not help but swear, which was a little surprising to Zhou Bao.


    But the Fate Creation Boy''s suggestion was quite constructive. "Right, just crash into it. When an incomplete non-aggressive Supreme Fairy Weapon encounters the combative Black Pearl, it will certainly crumble!"


    Just when they had decided their course of action, a puff of extremely horrible spirit floated in from afar. Everyone stopped talking and cast their eyes on the distant Heaven Realm World.


    From afar, the Heaven Realm World resembled a golden crystal ball. It was very beautiful. Gazing at it from where they stood, the Heaven Realm World was the size of a football, a golden football. However, something was wrong with this golden football. A black hole had emerged on its originally glittering surface. At first, it was the size of a nail. But in just a few seconds, it had expanded and covered a third of its surface. Then, another black hole appeared. Several strong spirits which had permeated the Heaven Realm World suddenly disappeared.


    Or maybe the power of these spirits had just weakened to the extent that it was almost the same as disappearing.


    A spot of light suddenly appeared on the outskirts of the Heaven Realm World. It looked very mysterious.


    "It''s the Divine Design Palace!" Detecting its spirit, the Fate Creation Boy started grinding his teeth in anger. "Opportunity! Now there is an opportunity! He is going to absorb the essence of the two macro worlds. Quick, crash him!"


    "Patience, patience! We cannot be reckless. I need to see it clearly!" Zhou Bao was eager to give the Divine Design Palace a fierce blow, but he knew he had to be patient.


    Since the Celestial Mystery Emperor had made so many preparations in refining his Supreme Fairy Weapon from antiquity times to today, he must have attached great importance to it. Now, as the war was coming to its last stage, it was also the most crucial stage. There was no way he could be less than cautious. If he was, he had to be out of his mind. Accordingly, recklessly letting his Black Pearl collide with the fairy weapon could be very dangerous.


    Zhou Bao did not act recklessly. Instead, he once again performed the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and snuck up to the fairy weapon.


    "Surely there is something fishy!" When he arrived near the bright spot, Zhou Bao felt the mysterious spirit become thicker and thicker. The surrounding space structure was also increasingly odd.


    "This looks like a formation!" Seeing the odd and messy space, Zhou Bao congratulated himself for his vigilance. If he had actually sent the Black Pearl out without thinking, his Black Pearl might have gotten stuck in this spatial swamp.


    But even if it was stranded in the swamp, the powerful Black Pearl would still be able to force its way out and break this strange space.


    "No, I can''t let the Black Pearl crash into the Supreme Fairy Weapon. Who knows how many traps are around it!" Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes and made up his mind. Instead of focusing on the Divine Design Palace, he slipped into the spatial swamp and let out the Black Pearl, ordering it to charge at the Heaven Realm World at full capacity.


    "What''s that?"


    "A Supreme Fairy Weapon!"


    "What Supreme Fairy Weapon is this? How did it get in? Why didn''t we notice it?"


    The appearance of the Black Pearl immediately drew the attention of the whole world. After all, a complete Supreme Fairy Weapon would always cause a sensation. Besides, Zhou Bao''s Black Pearl was designed according to the aircraft carrier the Protoss in Starcraft. It was completely black and looked very luxurious.


    "Now that the Divine Design Palace is prepared for outside attacks, I will leave it there. After all, it''s more important to absorb the two macro worlds'' essential Dharma!"

 839 Absorbing the Dharmas and Accomplishing the Reincarnation

    The Black Pearl rushed straight into the Heaven Realm World. It went so fast that no one had time to react.


    At this point, the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower had exploded completely. The Endless Blood Sea had gone out of control under the impact of destructive power and the Blood Sea World had started seething. The Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea were busy trying to save their own lives, so none of them had time to suppress the Blood Sea World. The destructive power quickly spread out, and soon engulfed the Blood Sea World as well.


    Death prevailed here. However, the power of revival still existed. As numerous Dharmas fluttered away and dying Qi permeated the world, only the essential Dharmas remained.


    The essential Dharmas were the rarest and the most precious kind. They only revealed themselves when a macro world was destroyed. If a normal micro world absorbed the essential Dharmas, it would evolve rapidly into a macro world. If a macro world absorbed them, it would further consolidate its original essential Dharmas and its power would be enhanced.


    Macro worlds were divided into different groups according to their rankings. Otherwise, the Heaven Realm World could not have ruled heavens and realms years ago. In the Void Immortal Realm, there were five macro worlds that were the strongest, which were precisely the five main worlds. These main worlds had been created during the Primordial Origin by the mighty Taoist Jin, the creator of the Void Immortal Realm. And the Heaven Realm World was the core of the five main worlds, the most powerful main world.


    It had the most powerful Dharma, the fiercest strength, and the longest longevity.


    Apart from the most sturdy essential Dharmas, the five main worlds also had unique and mysterious Dharmas. Take the Heaven Realm World for example. The Heaven Realm World had the center of the Void Chakra and the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm. As for the other four, though what they had was not the same, they all had their unique advantages. It was just that after the primitive times, the other four worlds had disappeared, leaving only the Heaven Realm World. Therefore, news about the other four worlds was rare.


    Everyone knew that there were countless macro worlds in the Void Universe. Despite their varied merits and shortcomings, essentially there was no difference. But the five main worlds were distinctly different.


    The method of strengthening one macro world by absorbing the essential Dharmas of other macro worlds had long been verified.


    The Celestial Mystery Emperor''s Divine Design Palace was not a Supreme Fairy Weapon, because its macro world was not complete. This did not mean that the Celestial Mystery Emperor was not a real Earthly Immortal and had no power to build a complete macro world. Rather, it was due to the fact that the macro world of the Divine Design Palace was totally different from the macro world the Celestial Mystery Emperor had produced. Being an Earthly Immortal, he had his own macro world, but that was linked to his life. Though the macro world of a Supreme Fairy Weapon was important, to be honest, it was just a supplementary tool, not like the macro world the Earthly Immortal had refined himself. The two actually focused on different points. Hence, the Celestial Mystery Emperor would never substitute the macro world he had refined for the macro world of the Divine Design Palace.


    The Celestial Mystery Emperor''s Divine Design Palace was not perfect. In fact, it was severely flawed. But he did not want to remedy it with his own macro world. Thus, since antiquity times, his Divine Design Palace had remained as a top-level Highest Heaven Celestial Device and never made to be a Supreme Fairy Weapon. The Celestial Mystery Emperor had also taken a long time to refine and strengthen his Divine Design Palace, which had now become incredibly steady and powerful. It was just waiting for a chance to absorb the essential Dharmas of other macro worlds and notch up, to become a Supreme Fairy Weapon that was second only to the Supreme Fairy Weapon of the Sacred City of Ancient Times.


    It was not easy to find the essential Dharmas of other macro worlds. Although all Earthly Immortals had their own macro worlds, they were deeply connected to the Earthly Immortals'' bodies, thereby all the essential Dharmas had evolved to become a part of their flesh. Even if someone killed an Earthly Immortal, he still could not obtain his essential Dharmas easily. The Celestial Mystery Emperor was more than capable of killing a normal Earthly Immortal, but he did not have the ability to extract the essential Dharmas of the victim''s macro world. It wasn''t just him. Even the Jade Emperor, one of the 99 Emperors of antiquity times, who was only a half step away from being a Celestial Immortal, did not possess such an ability.


    In spite of the large number of macro worlds in the Void Universe, the Celestial Mystery Emperor dared not to defy nature and detonate any other macro world. After all, most vast planets with slightly mild environments in the Void Universe carried life. There were often thousands of living creatures dwelling within a macro world. These living creatures might not be powerful, and some of these macro worlds might only have one Human Immortal, but he still didn''t have the guts to detonate them. Destroying other worlds would bring him boundless karma. He was an Earthly Immortal who still clung to the dream of stepping into the Celestial Immortal''s Way. If he triggered more karma, his Celestial Immortal Tribulation would be ten times more difficult. This was the reason why several ancient Earthly Immortals who hoped to achieve the Celestial Immortal Rank went into hiding like cowards. They all feared being contaminated by karma. Some of the other Earthly Immortals had already been contaminated. They were immersed in dissolving the karma and had no time for mundane issues.


    Now that the two paths were both blocked, in order to perfect the macro world of the Divine Design Palace and turn it into a real Supreme Fairy Weapon, the only option was to sacrifice another Supreme Fairy Weapon. Although many Supreme Fairy Weapons'' macro worlds also had living creatures, these living creatures were utterly different from those in the macro worlds of the Void Universe. Accordingly, the karma they would incur was not the same. What was more important was that technically the macro world of the Supreme Fairy Weapon belonged to the owner of that Supreme Fairy Weapon, it was the property of the owner. In contrast, the macro worlds of the Void Universe only had one Fate Creator or one controller at most. They did not have a real owner. But with a Supreme Fairy Weapon''s macro world, as long as the owner agreed, or the owner was his foe, his murdering the owner and destroying the macro world would be reasonable. It would not involve too much karma.


    This was why the Celestial Mystery Emperor shifted his eyes to the macro world of a Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    The violent confrontation between the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower and the Endless Blood Sea finally detonated the macro world inside the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. If everything had developed exactly in accordance with his plan, he would not have needed the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower to explode. Its macro world would have soon come to an end and become his anyway. He was just implementing his plan a little earlier.


    He assumed that when two Supreme Fairy Weapons were about to turn to ashes together, no one would dare to stand near them. The explosion would seriously harm an Earthly Immortal if not kill him. But to his shock, another Supreme Fairy Weapon suddenly rushed in.


    "Zhou Bao! It''s Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon!" At the sight of the streamlined Supreme Fairy Weapon shooting into the ruins of the two macro worlds, the Celestial Mystery Emperor finally lost his grip.


    "Bastard, I''ll kill you! Kill you for good! I''ll extract your soul and refine it for 10 million years, no, 100 million years¡ª"


    Black and green ripples issued from the Black Pearl. The power that had blown up the two macro worlds concentrated in one spot and the essential Dharmas, looking like specks of starlight, were all absorbed into the Black Pearl.


    Once the essential Dharmas of the two macro worlds were absorbed, mysterious changes started to happen to the Big Azure World. The azure-colored clouds began to rage like boiling water. The Azure Spirit Sea was surging as well. Essential Dharmas plunged in one after another, and the originally jade-like sea gradually turned bright blue. The Azure Spirit Sea had contained a bit of peerless spiritual qi in the first place, but there was not much vitality inside. Only a few powerful evil beasts had been living there. However, when the essential Dharmas were sucked in, life began to prosper. The buds of life burgeoned. And if time allowed, this place would breed many living creatures.


    Equally, in the endless spacetime surrounding the Big Azure World, an odd micro world began to slide to the depths of the underground of the Big Azure World where it stayed under the impact of a mysterious tractive force. It slowly connected with the main part of the macro world and merged into it. When this spacetime connected with the Big Azure World, a mystique gateway emerged. Immediately after its appearance, a wonderful change occurred in the Big Azure World¡ªinnumerable specks of dark and bright radiance glistened, rose up, and in the end, fluttered through this gateway, thus entering the mysterious yellow spacetime behind it.


    Netherworld Heaven. The spacetime behind this gateway was the Netherworld Heaven.


    The innumerable specks of radiance grew into illusory shadows in the Big Azure World. Some of them were in the form of human beings, some were the figures of beasts, and some were even shaped like plants. But they were just shadows, and a part of them was evidently not very stable. It was as if they would disperse in the wind at any time. Every time the shadows were about to fall apart, a large amount of yellow spiritual qi would assemble over them and put their pieces together again.


    All of a sudden, as if sensing something, the Netherworld Heaven gave a hard shudder, and a huge vortex appeared in the yellow sky. At first, this vortex was earthy yellow, but after a while, a bloody spot appeared at its center. At first, the bloody spot was not conspicuous. As time went by, it grew more and more scarlet. In the end, it expanded to the whole vortex and rendered the vortex scarlet.


    A blast sounded. A bloody river ran out from the vortex and flooded into a yellow river in the Netherworld, dyeing it red.


    "Boom, boom, boom¡ª"


    After the bloody river poured down, several large fragments fell into the vortex. These fragments looked like foils of gold or pieces of jade and carried a rich blood-like smell. They plunged into the bloody river, causing splashes of scarlet.


    The splashes landed on some of the illusory shadows, incurring instant mutations. The shadows sprouted real flesh and grew into various living creatures.


    Meanwhile, in the bloody river, the huge fragments that had fallen down also began to assemble and regroup. Bounded by a mysterious but powerful Dharma, they formed an enormous bloody roulette, which slowly surfaced from the bloody river.

 840 The Way of Reincarnation

    "Reincarnation! This is reincarnation!"


    The Big Azure World was evolving. As the Fate Creator of the Big Azure World, Zhou Bao felt the world was changing according to the Way of Heaven. Well, what on earth was reincarnation?


    What was reincarnation?


    Whether there was really a thing such as reincarnation in this world had always been a suspending question for Zhou Bao. He had imagined the concept. He had also doubted it. But today, this concept became unprecedentedly clear to him.


    When the Emperor of the Netherworld handed him the Reincarnation Scroll, Zhou Bao had not understood this mysterious scroll at all. However, after watching the evolution of the Big Azure World, Zhou Bao finally had the chance to see what it was.


    "It turns out that reincarnation is such a simple concept. It''s the same as I imagined. But it''s more perfect, more comprehensive!" Zhou Bao exclaimed, as he gained more insight into reincarnation.


    With this experience, he attained a thorough understanding of reincarnation. In fact, reincarnation simply meant keeping balance.


    When a creature died, it did not actually disappear. Instead, its flesh was turned to ashes to nurture other creatures. To some extent, it was reborn in other forms. Its spirit would wander about in the world and transform into the purest energy, being distributed everywhere and becoming nutrients for other creatures. This sounded like the conservation of energy, a widely known law in his previous life. This was reincarnation.


    However, there was a problem with this kind of reincarnation.


    This problem had occurred in almost every macro world''s evolution. It was the declining power of living creatures.


    In the age of the Primordial Origin and primitive times, living creatures were strong and tough. Many were capable of brewing storms and catching the moon at birth. But as time passed, the number of living creatures in the world grew larger and larger, and their power became feebler and feebler. If you explored the cause, you would find that this was because the power of the most ancient and tough living creatures was widely dispersed when the creatures died. Their spirit dissolved as well. In this way, after thousands of years'' evolution, the world turned out to be the way it was now. Although more and more living creatures were born into the world, they could no longer possess the amazing power their ancestors in the Primordial Origin and primitive times had.


    The flesh was no longer complete. It was the same with the spirit, the inheritance of power, and the bloodline. When everything was incomplete, the Void Universe was bound to head for one era¡ªthe Dharma Ending Age!


    Since remote times, many powerful and insightful men had foreseen this. They had put great effort into avoiding such a destiny. The most sensational one was the Necromancer''s Tribulation in antiquity times. Frankly speaking, the necromancers had been trying to recover the glory of primitive times, to reproduce the power of the deities, demons, and beasts that had lived in primitive times. But unfortunately, they screwed up. Not only did they fail to achieve their grand course, they also accelerated the advent of the Dharma Ending Age, nearly destroying the world in the process.


    Apart from the necromancers in antiquity times, according to history, there were loads of men who had exerted their effort and found perfect solutions. One of these men was the Taoist Reincarnation, an ancient Celestial Immortal who had invented the Way of Reincarnation.


    The Netherworld Heaven and the You Ming Heaven were both his masterpieces.


    These two micro worlds could reserve all the spirits of living creatures, as many as possible. When they reincarnated, they would be combined into the newly bred lives and spirits. In this way, at least the power of spirit would not subside significantly as time went by.


    However, even though he was an ancient Celestial Immortal with nearly endless power and longevity, his ambition of building up a reincarnation system in the whole Void Universe had been but a mere wild dream.


    The most he could do was build up a reincarnation system in a macro world. And that was all.


    But such a system had not given the Taoist Reincarnation a single bit of a sense of achievement. And this reincarnation system in an independent macro world could not fix the root of the problem. Therefore, he had passed the Way of Reincarnation to his two disciples¡ªthe Emperor of the Netherworld and Emperor Youming.


    "The Netherworld Heaven can use some improvement. Even though it has absorbed the power of the Bloody River World and produced the Reincarnation Roulette, it is unable to form a complete Reincarnation System. I still need the power of the You Ming World and the other volume of the Reincarnation Scroll to perfect this system!"


    Zhou Bao made this decision in his mind.


    He was not the Taoist Reincarnation, he was merely a Divine Immortal. He did not have the mightiness of the Taoist Reincarnation or his ambition. He only wanted to do this for the sake of his Big Azure World. If the Big Azure World could have a Reincarnation System, it would be elevated to a rank second only to the five main worlds. Upgrading the Big Azure World would also promote the rank of his Black Pearl as well as boost its power.


    Actually, this was an unexpected benefit for Zhou Bao, who at first merely intended to absorb some essential Dharmas and notch up the power of his Black Pearl.


    "This time, it can be said that I''ve truly offended the Celestial Mystery Emperor!"


    In the vortex created from the blast of the two macro worlds, Zhou Bao could still hear the ferocious howls and enraged divine thoughts of the Celestial Mystery Emperor very clearly. He involuntarily withdrew his head and cackled, "Celestial Mystery Emperor, do you really believe you can calculate the Divine Design?" "The emperor must have been out of his mind to name himself in such an arrogant way. He will certainly pay for it!" Zhou Bao muttered in a sarcastic tone. Then, he directed the Big Azure World to absorb the power of the essential Dharmas from the two macro worlds. It was rapidly absorbing the power in a more and more unbridled fashion, when an accident happened.


    "Divine Design Palace? You still expect to have a share of my benefits?" When he caught the sight of something red rushing in, Zhou Bao knew it was the Divine Design Palace and gave a sneer. He suddenly urged the Black Pearl to head for the Divine Design Palace and crash into it.


    "Brat, how dare you!"


    A growl suddenly sounded. The Celestial Mystery Emperor had finally made his strike. He''d gone for Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon straightaway.


    Apricot yellow radiance poured in and instantly suppressed the explosion of the two macro worlds. In the radiance, Zhou Bao could vaguely see a flag. It sent out 10,000 golden lotuses, which hoisted the Black Pearl.


    "What the hell is that?" Zhou Bao was stunned. He knew the power of the Black Pearl very well. It was a Supreme Fairy Weapon and had absorbed several essential Dharmas, so its power was supposed to be incredible. But just when it was about to demonstrate its power, it had been subdued by an unknown fairy weapon. How humiliated he was. Even the Black Pearl itself seemed like it was being provoked. It issued a blast of a dark green light, immediately crumbling the golden lotuses in front of it.


    "Be careful, that''s the Apricot Color Flag, a complete Heavenly Fairy Weapon! It''s not easy to tackle!" Ghost Child recognized the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s Heavenly Fairy Weapon and kindly informed Zhou Bao.


    The Apricot Color Flag, a name he was already familiar with, was a legendary top grade defensive fairy weapon.


    "Apricot Color Flag, a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, the top defensive fairy weapon. Let''s see whether you can defend against my Black Pearl!"


    "Boom!"


    Innumerable golden lotuses floating in the sky were blasted into dust. The Black Pearl was already approaching the Apricot Color Flag.


    "Swish!"


    The Apricot Color Flag did not flinch. Instead, it cast a jet of golden light and blocked the Black Pearl. Although this all happened in a split second, it was enough to see which side was winning.


    An enormous golden lotus bloomed out of thin air and wrapped around the Black Pearl.


    "This is¡ª"


    "The Center Apricot Color Flag is the real core of the Central Star Area. Do you really believe you can break it just like that? If it was not for the small fragment of the Ancient Sacred City inside your Supreme Fairy Weapon, it would have long been sealed by the Apricot Color Flag!"


    "So what?" Zhou Bao gave a cold grin. He continued urging the Black Pearl to power up. A jet of black light burst out from the Black Pearl.


    "Taste my Void-breaking Bomb!"


    Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang...


    It was as if the Black Pearl had turned into an invincible warship, throwing bombs from every corner. They landed on the huge golden lotus that was enveloping it and forced the flower to shake something fierce.


    "How could you be so audacious!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor was not cowed at all. The Apricot Color Flag suddenly enveloped the huge golden lotus and jets of strange flames erupted from it. These flames were bright yellow and lotus-shaped. They leaped onto the Black Pearl like living creatures and started licking at the ship.


    "Extreme Jade Flowing Flame! One of the nine types of Heavenly Fire! He is going to refine your Black Pearl!" Ghost Child shrieked immediately, astonished by the scene before him.


    "One of the nine types of Heavenly Fire? He wants to refine my Black Pearl with this thing? How naive!" Zhou Bao sneered. The body of the Black Pearl trembled abruptly. If we put it in a nice way, the ship was stretched out like a tiger about to show its real power; but if we described it in a less decent way, the ship looked like a dog trying to shake water off its body.


    The ship trembled and the huge golden lotus was shaken into pieces, leaving an unblocked path to the Apricot Color Flag.


    "A Heavenly Fairy Weapon? Fu*k you! Black Pearl, crash!" Zhou Bao roared. "Celestial Mystery Emperor, do you dare to come out?"


    "Boom!"


    The Black Pearl collided into the Apricot Color Flag.


    "Er?"


    Inside the Divine Design Palace, the Celestial Mystery Emperor suddenly shuddered. Despite his sturdy body, he could not help but step back slightly under the impact of the quake. "Damn it. It is a Supreme Fairy Weapon. But it has just been refined and should not possess its full power. How could it make such an attack?"


    Staring at the grim-faced Celestial Mystery Emperor, Emperor Youming gave a wry smile. "Why did he use the Supreme Fairy Weapon like that? Ordering it to collide into its opponent!"


    In everyone''s mind, a Supreme Fairy Weapon was always an impressive fighting fortress with inexhaustible energy and power. In the blink of an eye, it could launch numerous attacks. Also, it was equipped with peerlessly powerful defense. However, no one had ever seen a Supreme Fairy Weapon like the Black Pearl, which seldom resorted to attacking means like the Void-breaking Bomb or other intricate techniques. It prevailed with its pure power like a wild bull.


    But they did not know this was exactly Zhou Bao''s style.


    What Zhou Bao practiced was the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill. His goal was to achieve the Extreme Realm of Force and Crushing Vacuum Ability. You could see this not only in his personal combat style but also in the way his Supreme Fairy Weapon had developed.


    For Zhou Bao''s Black Pearl, no matter what kind of strange weapons or defensive formation the opponent employed, they were all in vain. The sole attack it would launch was to crash into its target!

 841 The Upcoming Opening of the Passageway to the Immortal Realm

    Regardless of how many moves the opponent used, Zhou Bao ''s Black Pearl would respond with only one move¡ªcrushing the enemy to death!


    The Celestial Mystery Emperor knew Zhou Bao had great luck and even carried around several precious treasures, including a Supreme Fairy Weapon. But he never really believed he had to treat Zhou Bao seriously.


    He had a Supreme Fairy Weapon, so what?


    It was just a bluff. Being a Great Ancient Emperor, a highly prestigious Earthly Immortal, and the strategist of the Heavenly Court, the Celestial Mystery Emperor had seen all sorts of treasures.


    Thus, a Supreme Fairy Weapon merely could deter some low-leveled Earthly Immortals who had not seen the world. How could it be a big deal?


    When the Celestial Mystery Emperor was doing his flawless calculation, could he have failed to consider the influence of the Supreme Fairy Weapon?


    No, he could not have made such a mistake.


    He must have calculated it as well. But he might have misjudged the power of Zhou Bao''s Supreme Fairy Weapon.


    In his calculation, even a complete Supreme Fairy Weapon would not be too powerful, at least not superior to his Apricot Color Flag. One was a Supreme Fairy Weapon that had just been refined, the other one was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon that the ancient and mysterious Celestial Immortal Taoist Jin, the creator of the Void Immortal Realm, had used in stabilizing the Central Star Area. With one glance, anyone would know which one would prevail. How could anything go wrong?


    Unfortunately, he did not know that many things beyond his calculation would be happening right now.


    Maybe the Black Pearl on its own could not defeat the Apricot Color Flag, but when it integrated with a fragment of the Ancient Sacred City, absorbed the essential Dharmas of two macro worlds, and produced the Reincarnation Roulette, the Black Pearl reached a phase second only to that of the Ancient Sacred City. Indeed, it was new and not mature enough yet, but its potential was indisputable, and its power should never have been underestimated. Although the Apricot Color Flag was the highest-class Heavenly Fairy Weapon, it was still difficult for it to repress the Black Pearl. Above all, this Heavenly Fairy Weapon did not belong to the Celestial Mystery Emperor, because he had not finished the refining. Thus, the Heavenly Fairy Weapon was merely cooperating with the Celestial Mystery Emperor. It would never sacrifice itself to defeat the Black Pearl for him.


    What was more, every time when the Celestial Mystery Emperor urged the Apricot Colour Flag to fight, he had to pay a price. Today, being caught off guard, he paid a huge price.


    After the Black Pearl''s surprise attack, the connection between him and the Apricot Color Flag was almost cut off. When the device spirit of the Apricot Color Flag saw the aggressive Black Pearl, it was so shocked it let out a yell "What an aggressive bull!". After that, the Apricot Color Flag lifted the barrier and unfolded itself, allowing the Black Pearl to regain its freedom.


    This result also amazed Zhou Bao. Only Ghost Child was inured to the unusual scene. "Fine, let''s go, you''ve already got your benefits. If you don''t leave now, I''m afraid those Great Emperors will join hands to attack you!"


    Zhou Bao was a smart guy. Of course, he knew he should not be too greedy. Now that he had gained great benefit, it was time to take off.


    Hence, after getting rid of the Apricot Colour Flag, he urgently prompted the Black Pearl to depart. It then turned into a jet of pitch dark light and soared out of sight, leaving the Celestial Mystery Emperor roar with wrath and his Divine Awareness plague that space.


    "Hee hee, now, the Celestial Mystery Emperor might kick the bucket for being angry with me!"


    "He won''t. Though he is easily angered, I tell you, his anger will only last a few minutes. Soon, he''ll calm down and try to find a way to deal with you!" Ghost Child said. "You have to be careful. After this incident, I think the Celestial Mystery Emperor is going to place all his attention on you. Trouble is around the corner!"


    "Relax, I won''t give him a chance!"


    "I don''t know why you''re so confident. In antiquity times, no one he targeted had a decent ending!"


    "Then, let me see whether you can escape unscathed from the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s plot or not!"


    "Humph, he has done such an intricate calculation, I''ll just stay out of his calculation. If he targets me, I will just kill him before he is able to do so. Isn''t that the best option?" Zhou Bao thought about this for a moment and a vicious smile flitted across his face. "His plan has been thoroughly thwarted. He and the Devil Tribe both suffered. He won''t have any spare time to attend to me. Such being the case, why don''t I attend to him first?"


    "You''re going to make a move?"


    "After losing the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, the passageway to the Void Immortal Realm already lost its protection. Losing the Child-endowing Buddha also cost them the base for their calculation. Although the Devil Tribe lost a Supreme Fairy Weapon, technically, they didn''t suffer much. As long as they have more resources to replenish the current ones, everything will become simple. They can totally destroy the Heaven Realm World with their large numbers. Do you think I''ll give the Celestial Mystery Emperor and his lot any chance to turn things around?"


    "Right, it won''t be easy for the Celestial Mystery Emperor to turn things around. But if you say they''ve received a crushing defeat, that isn''t true!" Ghost Child said with composure. "They had one plan ruined. It''s not a big deal. Worst case scenario, they will retreat and remain dormant. Moreover, do you believe the Void Immortal Realm passageway will fall straight into the hands of the Devil Tribe now that the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower has been destroyed? And the Devil Tribe will fully control the passageway leading to the Void Immortal Realm?"


    "I don''t know. But no matter what, go to have a look won''t hurt!" Zhou Bao smiled. He scooped the upgraded Black Pearl and wheeled around, flying in the direction of the Heaven Realm World.


    "Kid, you''re really bold!" Ghost Child could not help but voice his praise. Zhou Bao had just upset the Celestial Mystery Emperor, yet he still dared to go back to the Heaven Realm World.


    "I''m not bold. I merely made a correct assessment of the situation. I know it won''t be dangerous to return to the Heaven Realm World at the moment. Don''t forget that I have the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to conceal myself!"


    The Celestial Mystery Emperor had no idea that Zhou Bao had been at a high level of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. But this did not hinder him from doing an accurate prediction of Zhou Bao''s next move. Sure enough, as Ghost Child assumed, the Celestial Mystery Emperor let go of his rage in no time and recovered his composure. Now, he had perfectly calmed down, not wearing a trace of his furious look.


    "That brat certainly hasn''t left for good. His absence is temporary. He''ll definitely be back in the next three days!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor paused for a second, and then he continued, "He is likely planning to profit from the sufferings of both us and the Devil Tribe. And he has the ability to do so too!"


    After losing to Zhou Bao once, he had to admit that Zhou Bao was tricky to tackle and a powerful match.


    "It''s bound to happen. But if he underestimates you, he will certainly die a tragical death!" Emperor Youming said, pondering over the situation. "Plus, our power is also beyond his expectation. I don''t think he will dare to make a reckless strike!"


    "Of course he won''t. He will do it when we and the Devil Tribe both suffer a great loss and the situation becomes clear!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor said in a cold voice, his eyes glinting with resentment. "All he has got are just those means and tricks. Previously I failed to take him seriously. And that is my fault. But now, he has pissed me off and ruined my big plan, I naturally won''t go easy on him. How long do you reckon he can stay alive?"


    "Then what should we do?" Seeing the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s chilling expression, Emperor Youming was alarmed.


    "Humph, first fix the problem here, and then, deal with that brat. The Immortal Realm passageway is the most critical issue. We can''t let that brat ruin our entire mission. Although the Devil Tribe lost the Endless Blood Sea, we also lost the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. Just watch. Soon, the Devil Tribe will break in like a flood!"


    "You''re really going to give up the passageway?"


    "Not giving it up, just leave it here for the moment. The passageway is not easy to take. Even if the Devil Tribe occupies it, do they have the ability to master it? How about Marquis Zhihai? Humph, no matter how sharp he is, I bet he''ll feel helpless in front of the passageway. Unless the Devil Tribe dispatch another mighty guy with the same rank as the Devil''s Emperor to enter the Heaven Realm World, they have no way to peep into the passageway''s secrets. This actually suits me well. Humph. Those guys, they really think that I can no longer operate the World Chakra after I lost the Child-endowing Buddha, don''t they?" "If I could not operate the World Chakra, how could I have concealed the passageway of the Void Immortal Realm for so long?"


    "The Sea-overlooking Gate Tower is gone. It''s time to launch a full attack!" In the Devil Tribe, Marquis Wugu bellowed, his face red with excitement, his scarlet eyes glistening with fierceness.


    A huge loss! The Devil Tribe had suffered a huge loss! The Endless Blood Sea had been destroyed. Their Supreme Fairy Weapon had been destroyed. How could he report this to the Master of the Blood Prison when he went back?


    Thank god the Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea were just badly wounded instead of being fatally injured. This was the only fortunate thing out of the whole misery. This battle truly disgraced the Blood Prison. As the Blood Prison master, Marquis Wugu also had to take the blame. If he could not redeem his faults by making new achievements, even if he went back to the Devil Tribe, he would not be able to live a quiet life. At least, it was certain that he would not be able to appear before the Devil Tribe''s Blood Prison clan.


    "Launch the full attack!" Marquis Zhihai sighed. "Since the war has developed to this extent, it''s already turned into a competition of determination. Let''s see who is more determined, us or the Celestial Mystery Emperor. Go to the Devil Realm at once and ask our Emperor to bring the Marquis Flood Dragon here. He has the bloodline of the Ghost Flood Dragon, a Primordial Fierce Beast. He can sense the changing state of the World Chakra. With him here, we''ll have one more guarantee. And we''ll be less likely to be tricked by Marquis Zhihai!"


    "This¡ª" Marquis Xuewu looked a bit dispirited. This defeat was a burning shame for him. He was really eager to get back to his enemy. But among the Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea, he was the most severely injured. If he went back to the Void Universe, Master of Blood Prison would not allow him to go back to the battlefield of the Void Universe. If so, he would lose a chance to redeem his fault. But he did not have the guts to disobey Marquis Zhihai''s order. After hesitating for a moment, he agreed reluctantly. "Marquis Flood Dragon is one of the Underworld Devil Clan, a very competent talent under the leadership of the Master of the Underworld Devil Clan. It''s not easy to require him to come here!"


    "I''m not asking you to summon him. I just need you to tell His Majesty the current situation. He''ll dispatch the Marquis Flood Dragon here. The Underworld Devil Clan Master certainly wouldn''t say no to His Majesty, would he?" Marquis Zhihai added, "As for you, don''t worry! You''ll have many opportunities to earn more merits and offset your mistakes in the future!"

 843 Succeeding with One Strike and the Unusual Movements of the Immortal Realm

    "The Devil Tribe is pretty cautious. They haven''t come here to usurp the passageway of the Immortal Realm directly!"


    "Humph, they''re also afraid of the unusual movements of the World Chakra. As soon as they can find a guy who is able to sense the World Chakra, they''ll rush in at once!"


    Inside the white palace in the depths of the Forest of Mysteries, the Celestial Mystery Emperor and Emperor Youming were monitoring the Falling Star Reef without blinking. They did not spot any obvious invasion from the Devil Tribe, and they both felt a bit disappointed.


    "This Marquis Zhihai is not easy to tackle, either!"


    "Not easy to tackle, so what? If they target the passageway, they will bite at the bait. We just need to be patient!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor said slowly. "Actually it is Zhou Bao we should be paying more attention to. His Supreme Fairy Weapon is much trickier to handle than we expected. It''s very powerful. And now, it''s absorbed the essential Dharma of two macro worlds. This guy''s fate is too strong. And he chose to go against us out in the open. If we don''t dampen his overweening attitude, he''s going to be big trouble for us!"


    "Right. We''ll be in deep trouble if we allow him to act wildly. It''s just that...the Emperor of the Azure Heaven¡ª"


    "When did we start considering his opinion before taking action?" The Celestial Mystery Emperor suddenly looked back, his face dark and unpleasant. "He does his business, we do ours. We always stay out of his affairs, and he stays out of ours. When he fails to control the situation on his side, he shouldn''t expect us to fix his¡ª"


    Before he finished the sentence, his expression altered.


    "Crap!" Standing next to him, the Emperor Youming shivered abruptly. A sudden ghastly and bloodcurdling air gripped the whole palace.


    However, it was too late to react.


    The Celestial Mystery Emperor''s face was frozen. His cramping muscles, his frightened expression, and his significant look startled Emperor Youming. He had worked with the Celestial Mystery Emperor for thousands of years, but this was the first time he had seen the Celestial Mystery Emperor reveal such an expression. He did not know why but this expression made his hair stand on end.


    All these thoughts occurred in a split second. Although it happened all of a sudden, the two Great Ancient Emperors had been through all kinds of crises. They quickly realized what was going on.


    "Who is it? How dare you are!" The Celestial Mystery Emperor''s frozen face quickly recovered its usual composure. The terror was replaced by overbearing killing intent.


    "Hehe, how rich your murderous intent is! What''s it feel like to be stabbed in the arsehole? You''re truly a Great Ancient Emperor. Even endured the pain of the Poisonous Hitching Post!" Zhou Bao''s voice rang out. A fine light emerged quietly, immediately landing between the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s eyebrows.


    "Holy crap!"


    The Celestial Mystery Emperor felt his body stiffen. When he wanted to take action, he was shocked to find that he couldn''t move.


    A jet of powerful Sword Qi condensed into a dot and zoomed at the spot right between his eyebrows.


    Crap!


    Emperor Youming knew something bad had occurred. He reacted quickly, but Zhou Bao was faster, and his strike was more atrocious and relentless.


    In an instant, the Immortal-killing Sword Qi and the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi cracked the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s head open. At the same time, the huge body of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan appeared and advanced on Emperor Youming.


    He launched the Mysterious Icy Divine Light, the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill, the Heavenly Jade Technique, and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill simultaneously.


    Strong force froze the surrounding gruesome air that had permeated this place.


    The icy blue air almost froze the entire palace.


    "Nine Turns of Youming, Parade of Ghost Troops!"


    Emperor Youming made a strike. Immediately, the space was filled with dreadful wails and howls. Several ghosts emerged and threw themselves at Zhuyan like mad, trying to stop Zhou Bao.


    But it was too late!


    Zhuyan''s colossal body suddenly contracted and disappeared. The red gourd Zhou Bao had launched also vanished. Shape Sword Qi shattered the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s body as well as his spirit. It even rendered the macro world the Celestial Mystery Emperor had refined into pieces.


    When Emperor Youming reappeared beside the Celestial Mystery Emperor, his body was already lifeless. It turned into specks of light and vanished from sight.


    "No way! It''s impossible!"


    Despite his rich experience on the battlefield and knowledge of eccentric things beyond Zhou Bao''s imagination, now, facing such a scenario, he was blinking his eyes in shock, unconvinced of what had just happened. His spirit scanned the place like a radar, attempting to discover a sign of the Celestial Mystery Emperor. If he discovered just a trace of the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s Original Spirit, he could manage to revive him.


    But the cold hard facts let him down. All of the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s spirit had gone. His spirit had truly disappeared before Emperor Youming, disappeared into the chilling Sword Qi.


    "Impossible! This is utterly impossible!" Emperor Youming bellowed. He launched his Youming Heaven.


    "Swish!"


    Influenced by the Youming Heaven, the whole Forest of Mysteries darkened. But his efforts were futile.


    "Haha, Netherworld Heaven, what a great device! Never thought this thing could have such a function!" Zhou Bao had already cracked the space and disappeared in the endless spacetime. "If it was not for the Netherworld Heaven, I might have actually let the Celestial Mystery Emperor get away!"


    "If you hadn''t possessed the Netherworld Heaven, I wouldn''t have agreed to let you assassinate the Celestial Mystery Emperor!" Ghost Child cackled, sticking out his tongue to lick the corners of his mouth as if he was still longing for more. "The Celestial Mystery Emperor, a Great Ancient Emperor! He was indeed a sophisticated Earthly Immortal. He was very tasty! Thanks to your Reincarnation Roulette extracting his spirit out at the crucial moment, I finally had a hearty meal!"


    "I didn''t know you like eating practitioners'' spirits!" Zhou Bao murmured, giving him a bizarre look.


    "Just one of my little hobbies. You got a problem with it?"


    "No!" Zhou Bao said indifferently. "But it never occurred to me that we could do the Celestial Mystery Emperor in so smoothly. I thought we were merely giving him a heavy blow!"


    "The way of assassination requires the assassin to hit the target with only one strike. Since you chose to assassinate him, you had to succeed without leaving any potential trouble!" Ghost Child said. "You did very well. But now, you''ve thoroughly messed things up!"


    "Really? I messed things up?" Zhou Bao asked, his expression altered. "You seem to be implying something!"


    "No, I''m not. I just hope you can murder more Emperors in the future. Their spirits are really helpful for strengthening my power!" Ghost Child yelled. "The spirit of a Great Ancient Emperor is extremely conducive to my recovering!"


    "Fine, got it!" Zhou Bao agreed. "But it''s not that easy to kill a Great Ancient Emperor. Though we made it just now, I still feel like we''re in a dream!"


    "You''re not dreaming, the Celestial Mystery Emperor is truly dead!" Ghost Child leaped out of the gourd and fluttered in front of Zhou Bao. He said with a big grin, "Do you know what his death means?"


    "What does it mean?"


    "It means that their fate is declining. The fate of the Great Ancient Emperors is declining. Haha, you know what, their fate has started declining!"


    "No¡ª" An indignant growl spread out from the Forest of Mysteries, causing the Old Chinese Parasol to shake with fear.


    Emperor Youming''s expression was incredibly cold and enraged. But hiding behind all the chill and fury was a trace of undetectable panic.


    Yes, it was panic. He was overwhelmed by panic.


    The Celestial Mystery Emperor had died. He had died so simply, died right in front of Emperor Youming. Everything seemed like a dream now.


    Although the 99 Emperors in antiquity times had powered through countless tribulations, bumped into innumerable hardships, faced myriads of enemies, they had all survived. They had seen all sorts of crises, dueled against all kinds of opponents who were way more vicious, powerful, and crazier than Zhou Bao. They had seen it all, endured all disasters, and survived all the wounds, but there was never a time that one of them had been killed.


    But, how about now?


    Emperor Youming felt streams of cold sweat trickling down; chilling air penetrated into his heart.


    "Fate, fate, is, is it true that our fate is on the wane now? Is it true that our era is about to end?" Looking at the hollow around him, terror burst out from the depths of his heart.


    Void Immortal Realm


    Compared with all the other macro worlds, this place was more mysterious. It was full of pneuma and Dharmas, as though all the abstruse secrets of the Void Universe had assembled here.


    In this dark place within the Immortal Realm, Dharmas prone to the dark had formed an abyss. Mystic shadows haunted in the depths of the abyss. Suddenly, a loud sigh sounded from the abyss and spread far away.


    "It''s finally about to begin, isn''t it?"


    "Ghost Yin, stop moaning. It''s no use. You already have someone to inherit all your assets, don''t you? Even if you die, you''ll die with no regrets!"


    "Ghost Snake, shut up!" A figure in the abyss snapped. "The passageway is just about to open again, but it seems that our successor is still unprepared. He is so weak. Once he gets involves in this, he will die before knowing what''s killing him!"


    "Hee hee, you don''t have to worry about him. He is very close to that boy with a tough fate. He is getting luckier and luckier. Perhaps, when the passageway opens, he''ll be able to handle everything by himself!"


    "Humph, even if he can handle the Human World by himself, even though he is close to that boy, so what? That boy killed the Celestial Mystery Emperor, and this murder will certainly draw the attention of alert people. I believe, his name will soon be added to the to-kill list, right?"


    "Ghost Yin, you should know with his fate, he won''t be impacted even if he is on the target list!"


    "I''m worried about your successor. Recent days have been quite eventful. If he keeps following that boy, he might get into trouble that''s not his own!"


    "He won''t be my successor, nor will he be qualified to be one if he never endures a bloody storm. The Dharma Ending Tribulation is his last practice. If he passes, he''ll become the next Taoist Snake!"


    "Then, I wish you good luck!" Another shadow in the abyss said. "Now, I''m going to arrange the work of hunting that boy down!" As his words faded, a jet of terrifying willpower swept across the hollow and reached the Void Universe.

 842 An Old Chinese Parasol, The Forest of Mysteries & An Ongoing Assassination

    Yes, there were loads of opportunities to earn more merits!


    This was Marquis Zhihai''s judgment. Though they had lost a Supreme Fairy Weapon, in exchange, they managed to destroy the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. However, perhaps they should not have been so optimistic.


    On the surface, they had won. This win came too quickly, it was too expected, and they were a bit overwhelmed. Now, before their main reinforcement and mighty combatants were able to back them up, they had to face the passageway of the Void Immortal Realm.


    What should they do?


    The Devil Tribe was actually prepared to fight a lasting battle with the Celestial Mystery Emperor and his lot. The Endless Blood Sea was supposed to tangle with the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower for a long time. Then, when the main force of the Devil Realm arrived, they would be able to take the passageway of the Void Immortal Realm.


    But now a problem, a big problem had emerged. They had taken down the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower too fast. Now that the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower was destroyed, all the forces from the Celestial Mystery Emperor were gone. It could be said that the passageway was already open to them.


    When things developed to this stage, the situation became more dangerous, because no one could guarantee that the Celestial Mystery Emperor was not playing tricks on them. After all, they were unable to see where the World Chakra was heading, let alone its unusual movements.


    This was why Marquis Zhihai wanted the Marquis Flood Dragon. The Marquis Flood Dragon had the bloodline of the Ghost Flood Dragon, so it would sense the World Chakra.


    "This is the passageway of the Void Immortal Realm!"


    While the Devil Tribe was still hesitating, Zhou Bao had already snuck into the depths of the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower, that was to say the depths of the Falling Star Reef. Although the Falling Star Reef, and even the whole Heaven Realm World, had been demolished, and was covered in a kind of dismal air, this was nothing for an expert as powerful as Zhou Bao.


    "Right. This is the passageway connecting the Void Universe with the Immortal Realm!" A sigh of amazement sounded in his ears. A non-characteristic solemn expression appeared on Ghost Child''s face. He gazed at the nearby gateway with all his concentration.


    This was the gateway, the magnificent gateway.


    It was 30 meters high and seemed to have been molded with pure gold. There were several ancient patterns engraved on its surface. These patterns were neither abstruse nor powerful. They did not contain any special meaning. They were just there for decoration.


    Aside from that, the gateway was no different from a normal gateway.


    However, a mysterious cloud was floating behind it. Even Zhou Bao could not see through it. What on earth was behind the cloud?


    Since he could not see or touch whatever was behind the gateway, Zhou Bao just stood before it, wondering whether he should go in or not.


    "There is no defensive mechanism here!"


    "Of course there is no defensive mechanism. The Sea-overlooking Gate Tower is gone, so continuing to fight against the Devil Tribe is meaningless. Letting go of this gateway was a smart move on the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s part," Ghost Child explained.


    "But the current issue is that even without any defensive mechanism, the Devil Tribe still hasn''t invaded!"


    "The Devil Tribe has some scruples. The power of the World Chakra is not easy to handle. They''re also afraid of being banished to an alien world!" Ghost Child said sharply. "If I were them, I would try to find someone with the bloodline of the Ghost Flood Dragon who can sense the unusual movements of the Chakra. Then, I would consider going into the passageway. Anyway, the Falling Star Reef is in their hands now. They don''t need to rush and take more risks. Well, as for you, are you going to go in or not?"


    "Why do I need to go in? I''ve been to the Immortal Realm, there is nothing too impressive there!" Zhou Bao glanced at the legendary gate of the Immortal Realm, and paused for a second. Then, he laughed, "Do you have any clue where the Celestial Mystery Emperor might be hiding?"


    "Humph, there are only a few places in the Heaven Realm World that are beyond the Fate Creation Boy''s monitor range. Among them, only a handful can sustain the simultaneous explosion of two Supreme Fairy Weapons!" Ghost Child said. "You really want to make a strike against the Celestial Mystery Emperor?"


    "Our relationship has been so tense that there is no way around it. He started all this. Of course I''m going to pay him back!" Zhou Bao said, his eyes glimmering with resolution. "If I allow this guy, who''s famous for calculating and scheming in antiquity times to stay alive, it will be a disaster. Before he makes more plans to deal with me, I''ll kill him. This is the best choice!"


    "If that''s the case, then, come with me!" Judging by Zhou Bao''s tone, Ghost Child knew that he had made up his mind. Thus, he would say no more. Zhou Bao leaped up, broke through the space, and entered the endless spacetime.


    The Heaven Realm World and the endless spacetime were completely ruined.


    Under the devastating blast of two Supreme Fairy Weapon, the Heaven Realm World had been almost fatally wounded. Although it did not fall apart instantly, almost all of the surrounding endless spacetime was shattered into dust. It had formed into a raging space-time storm.


    This kind of space-time storm would last for thousands of years before it evolved into a new spacetime. For the next thousand years, the endless spacetime would take the form of the present violent storm.


    In this space-time storm, only a few special spacetimes existed. Most of these spacetimes were in the depths of the storm. They looked to be more concealed than they used to be, but in fact, it was much easier to find them.


    After all, in the past, you had to search through numerous spacetimes to find the right one. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But now, with the majority of it gone, which had actually turned into dust, the one you needed to find appeared to be more conspicuous.


    Zhou Bao transformed into a speck of dust and leaped into the huge space-time storm. Not affected by the deadly storm, he shuttled through the storm at will, looking for the special spacetimes that had not been destroyed.


    "Look! Over there seems a bit different!"


    A spot of blue light was glistening in the depths of the endless storm. It looked like a beautiful sapphire.


    "Don''t go there. That''s where the Vast Sea Emperor is being imprisoned. That''s also his territory!" Ghost Child recognized the spot with just a glimpse of the blue spacetime. "The Vast Sea Emperor has launched a strike against you, but he was forced into it. Even if you want revenge, now is not a good time!"


    "All this time you knew where the Vast Sea Emperor was?"


    "No, I only realized this when I saw it just now!" Ghost Child said. "Go ahead. If I guessed right, that damned place is not far!"


    "What kind of place it is?"


    "You''ll understand when you see it!"


    Since Ghost Child intended to keep Zhou Bao in suspense, Zhou Bao could do nothing about it. But soon, he realized what Ghost Child was talking about. He saw an old and withered tree standing in the deepest part of the space-time storm, where the storm was the utmost violent.


    The old tree stood rooted in place. Its color was a bit dull, only a few leaves were still green. The trunk was not large, but the storm had no impact on it.


    "This..."


    "This is the Old Chinese Parasol. It''s also called the Fixing Root Tree. Taoist Jin planted it here before he created the five main worlds. Each of its leaves represents a powerful spacetime. All the spacetimes in the Heaven Realm World were developed from the leaves of this ancient tree. Only a few still cling to it. These are the most resilient spacetimes."


    "The Fate Creation Boy doesn''t know this?"


    "The Old Chinese Parasol is not related that closely to the Heaven Realm World. Although the Heaven Realm World was created based on the Old Chinese Parasol, the two don''t actually share any connection. When the leaves fall, they''ll turn into spacetimes and no longer connect to the tree itself. So, it''s only reasonable that Fate Creation Boy doesn''t know this!"


    "Well, I just find this a little weird!"


    "Many people find this weird! There are many secrets in the Void Universe. Most of the answers can only be retrieved in the Void Immortal Realm!" Ghost Child gave a light smile. "Now, you''re getting closer to the answers!"


    "But I feel I''m getting further and further from the answers! The more I know, the more questions I have. How troublesome!" Zhou Bao gave a wry smile and stopped asking. He followed Ghost Child''s direction and went behind one of the leaves.


    "Boom!"


    Zhou Bao broke through the spacetime. The seemingly ordinary leaf became unusual.


    Blue sky, clouds, and pneuma!


    Everything that was supposed to be in the Heaven Realm World was here, including human beings.


    "Damn it, this place is flourishing much better than the Heaven Realm World!"


    "Its power is also much stronger than that of the Heaven Realm World!" Ghost Child was also taken aback by the glorious scene. "Seems that they have brought a talented practitioner they believe merits their training into this spacetime!"


    The size of this spacetime was just slightly smaller than the Heaven Realm World, and the essence of the world here was much richer. There were many living creatures and practitioners in this world. Cities spread out in this spacetime. The sky above a large city was shining; it looked like some practitioners were flying by riding the Qi. Some of them had reached the peak of the Human Immortal Level, just one level below Zhou Bao''s.


    "Don''t feel weird about this. The pneuma here is really good. However, there is also a huge flaw in the rule of this spacetime. Becoming a Human Immortal is the upper limit for all practitioners. No matter how much of a genius you are, or how lucky you get, you cannot break this restriction!"


    After familiarizing himself with the rule of this spacetime using telepathy, Zhou Bao''s expression altered a bit. "You''re right, the rule here is flawed. This place will never release the Divine Immortal Tribulation. Without the Divine Immortal Tribulation, no one can become a Divine Immortal. A Human Immortal is the most powerful combatant in this spacetime. Okay, where could the Celestial Mystery Emperor be hiding?"


    "Every spacetime has its crucial area. And this spacetime is no exception. With your present spiritual mind, you can''t be baffled by this!"


    "Yeah, you have a point!" Zhou Bao concentrated his mind for a second and successfully cracked the space. He stepped through the crack and arrived in a mysterious place.


    "Is it here? Is this where the Celestial Mystery Emperor and his lot are hiding?!"


    In the depths of this spacetime was a mystic forest, which had been enveloped by mist for years. Except for the living creatures that had always lived in this forest, even a Human Immortal with top-level combat capability could not access it. Accordingly, this forest was called Forest of Mysteries.


    "Old Chinese Parasol, Forest of Mysteries, hiding in such a damn place. No wonder it''s so hard to find it!"


    Zhou Bao went into the Forest of Mysteries and finally spotted his target¡ªa snow-white palace.

 844 Entering the Immortal Realm

    Zhou Bao''s expression had not shown a flick of arrogance when he defeated and killed the Celestial Mystery Emperor. On the contrary, he was under the impression that he was following a dimly discernible track in an unseen world. But now, he finally started to see what kind of track he was following¡ªit was the track of his destiny. After assassinating the Celestial Mystery Emperor, this track was becoming increasingly clear.


    Suddenly, something occurred to him, and he asked abruptly, "You said Wang She obtained the heritage of Taoist Snake. Well, who on earth is this Taoist Snake?"


    "Taoist Snake is one of the Celestial Immortals who has been living since primitive times. In this world, he is one of the 10 most ancient Celestial Immortals. That''s all I know. The 10 most ancient Celestial Immortals always keep themselves distant from the public, so I, a fairy weapon that was produced during the Primordial Origin, only have a vague idea of who they are. But it''s only a vague idea. If you want more information, my hands are tied!"


    "Wang She can inherit his heritage? Seems like he got really lucky!"


    "Haven''t you obtained the heritage of Taoist Reincarnation? That''s equally wonderful!"


    "You mentioned that there were 10 most ancient Celestial Immortals. But specifically, who are they?"


    "Taoist Zhen Yuan is one of them, you already know him. As to the rest, I only know there are Taoist Snake, Taoist Jin, and Taoist Reincarnation. The identities of the other six are beyond my knowledge. But you don''t have to be so curious. Once the passageway opens and you enter the real Void Immortal Realm, you''ll have a chance to learn about them!"


    "Are you saying they''re in the Void Immortal Realm?"


    "Very likely. Since primitive times, the 10 Taoists have never revealed themselves. The most probable place for them to live would naturally be the Void Immortal Realm. Of course, it''s also possible that they''ve created a new world in the Void Universe and are staying there!"


    "Then, will the 10 Taoists interfere with this Immortal Realm issue?"


    "Maybe they will, maybe not. No one knows!" Ghost Child answered with a note of helplessness. "I''m just an old fairy weapon. What I know about them really consists of only a few remnants of fuzzy memories!"


    "These old guys disappeared in the primitive times and no one ever heard of them since then. However, today, they exposed their traces one after another, and this is what concerns me most!"


    "The Dharma Ending Tribulation is around the corner. These old Celestial Immortals are probably affected by it, so they''ve begun to reveal their traces. Or perhaps they''ve been making arrangements to avoid the inevitable Dharma Ending Tribulation and World-ending Tribulation since antiquity times or even primitive times. And now, since it''s about to occur, they''re all going into action!"


    "These guys'' actions are not something we can speculate. You cannot ignore or offend them by relying on your strong fate. These Celestial Immortals have long been free of the restriction of fate. No matter how great your fate is, they can crush you with just one finger. But compared to the Dharma Ending Tribulation, what they really care about is supposed to be the World-ending Tribulation. Even if they make moves during the Dharma Ending Tribulation, it only means that they''re taking action in advance for the sake of the following arrangements to tackle the World-ending Tribulation. All you need to do is stay out of their way!"


    "Then, tell me, is it possible that the Celestial Mystery Emperor is one of the guys they sent to carry out their actions in advance? Don''t forget that Emperor Youming is a disciple of Taoist Reincarnation. If the Celestial Mystery Emperor is some Taoist''s¡ª"


    "No way!" Ghost Child denied Zhou Bao''s presumption resolutely.


    "Why?"


    "If he truly had these Taoists as his backup, you would not have been able to kill him. Further, the reason you got rid of the Celestial Mystery Emperor was not your power, but the fact that you just comprehended the power of reincarnation. It''s because of the power of the Reincarnation Roulette that you managed to finish him thoroughly. This also shows that the Celestial Mystery Emperor was not backed by these ancient Celestial Immortals. Otherwise, you could not have grasped the power of the Reincarnation Roulette, nor could you have killed him with that power!"


    "Really?"


    "Of course! Do you think these Celestial Immortals would just stab each other in the back for entertainment?" Ghost Child laughed coldly. "You got the Reincarnation Scroll and achieved the Reincarnation Roulette in the Big Azure World, you''ve inherited a part of the teachings of Taoist Reincarnation. The other guys won''t target you recklessly!"


    "So can I really lay aside all my anxiety and sleep with an easy mind?"


    "You''re a Tribulation Taker. These Taoists never pick on Tribulation Takers. You only need to take heed of the Great Ancient Emperors!" After pondering over the question for a while, Ghost Child answered with assurance. "Each of the 99 Emperors in antiquity times was born as nature requires. Only after pulling through numerous difficulties and tests did they become Emperors. But when antiquity times ended, these Emperors'' fates basically came to an end. That''s why they went into hiding. They spent 810,000 years in hiding so as to prepare for the upcoming Dharma Ending Tribulation. As the Dharma Ending Tribulation is drawing nearer, their arrangements are also in place, so they thought it might be safe to stick their heads out from hiding. But the moment they did, the Celestial Mystery Emperor was killed by you. It''s fate! The death of the Celestial Mystery Emperor further demonstrates that their fate is coming to an end. In the future, if they don''t have a sure-fire way, they will never dare to make a move, especially when they come across a guy with strong fate like you!"


    "That''s great. I was worried that these guys would create endless trouble for me!"


    "They won''t. Only a fool would go against a guy with great fate when his own fate is going downhill. Taking warning from the Celestial Mystery Emperor''s failure, no one will dare to provoke you. You should take this opportunity to go to the Immortal Realm and assemble your power. It would be ideal if you could obtain the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique. Then, if you integrate your Seven Wonderful Techniques and go through the Earthly Immortal Tribulation, you''ll be more confident to face the Dharma Ending Tribulation!"


    "Should I go to the Immortal Realm now?"


    "Yes, go now. The gate of the Immortal Realm is open. If you miss it and let the Devil Realm arrive first, it''ll be too late. Since the Celestial Mystery Emperor died, the immortals have lost their backbone. They can no longer baffle the Devil Tribe. This time, the Devil Tribe is bound to win. Once they take full control of the gate of the Immortal Realm, it''ll be very difficult to get in!"


    "Such being the case, I will pay a visit to the Immortal Realm!" Zhou Bao gave this a thought and made his decision. Without hesitation, he launched the Black Pearl, penetrated layers of spaces, and returned to the Falling Star Reef.


    The situation in the Falling Star Reef had reversed. Numerous members from the Devil Tribe had flooded in and formed a huge devious formation to stabilize the messy pneuma. Under the leadership of Marquis Zhihai, Earthly Immortals from the Devil Tribe were standing in front of the gate of the Immortal Realm, gazing at the ancient gateway.


    "This, this is the gate of the Immortal Realm, the passageway connecting the Heaven Realm World with the Void Immortal Realm!" Marquis Wugu let out a soft sigh. "Never thought our Devil Tribe would one day stand in front of it!"


    "Yes! The Gate of the Immortal Realm, it''s the real gate of the Immortal Realm! Hahaha, Marquis Zhihai, this time we truly made a great contribution. We managed to take over the gate of the Immortal Realm, we¡ª"


    "Don''t get carried away. Although we have the gate of the Immortal Realm, that doesn''t mean we have nothing to worry about. There are many powerful guys hiding in the Immortal Realm. If we jump in rashly, who knows what we''ll bump into. We can''t cross this gate until His Majesty arrives. Until then, we will guard the gate carefully. Assemble all the forces here. The Void Universe is not like the Heaven Realm World!"


    "Relax, Marquis Zhihai, we know what we''re doing. In the present Void Universe, there are 17 passageways leading to the Devil Realm. Except for the four largest ones that were used for restraining the four main worlds, our members have already traveled to the Desolate Ancient Star Area through other passageways. The Desolate Ancient Star Area is our territory now. If anyone, even an Earthly Immortal Emperor wants to break in, he will pay a huge price. Even if they use a Supreme Fairy Weapon, they have no way of getting here without alerting us."


    "Are you really sure of this?"


    "Of course!" The one speaking was Marquis Bloody Hand, one of the Seven Marquises of the Blood Sea. He had been badly injured when the Endless Blood Sea went down with the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower. But thanks to his Earthly Immortal strength, he had recovered quickly. Now, all he thought about was how to make amends for his failure. When he found out they had the passageway in hand, he was overwhelmed with excitement.


    "This is not as simple as you imagined. There is a lot I''m not sure of. But I''m certain that if Zhou Bao wants to get in, no one can stop him!"


    "Zhou Bao? The kid that just went through the Immortal Tribulation? The Tribulation Taker? No way, we can outnumber..."


    Before he could complete his sentence, the gate of the Immortal Realm, which had remained quiet all this time, suddenly trembled violently. A cloud of mysterious pneuma behind the gate curled and split apart, unveiling the unfathomable space behind the pneuma. But this momentary abnormality already told them everything.


    "Someone just crossed the gate!"


    "Who?"


    "Could it be Zhou Bao?" When the crowd of Earthly Immortals started panicking, Marquis Zhihai silenced the restless crowd. He said thoughtfully, "The Tribulation Taker; he killed the Celestial Mystery Emperor; he already got in!"


    "Then we¡ª"


    "Don''t try to stop him. Don''t make any undue move. Everything will be decided when His Majesty gets here!" Marquis Zhihai shouted. "Everything is under the control of His Majesty!"


    Yes, everything was under the control of the Devil Emperor.


    Marquis Zhihai had no idea about how strong the Devil Emperor was, but when the Celestial Mystery Emperor passed away, the Devil Emperor had immediately disclosed this news to him. At that time, the Devil Emperor had been far away from the location of the Celestial Mystery Emperor. But he still learned about the murder almost simultaneously, which meant his power was way superior to a normal Earthly Immortal''s. Later, a thrilling idea occurred to Marquis Zhihai, but he could not ascertain it or tell anyone else about it. Thus, he kept it deep in mind and strictly acted on the Devil Emperor''s orders.


    "What''s the matter? How could this happen?"


    At this precise moment, Marquis Bloody Hand and Marquis Wugu both let out a shriek of shock, because the gate of the Immortal Realm showed another unusual movement. It appeared that someone else had just walked across the gate and entered the Immortal Realm.


    "How is this possible? Who are these guys?"


    "They''re probably Tribulation Takers. The Dharma Ending Tribulation is about to happen. Do you still think there is only one Tribulation Taker in the Void Universe?" Marquis Zhihai smiled and turned to look at the mysterious gateway. "Everything is under His Majesty''s control. The Void Universe has five main worlds in it, so, there should be at least five Tribulation Takers. Zhou Bao is just one of them!"

 845 Assassination and the Welcoming Ceremony of the Immortal Realm

    The Immortal Realm was a very mysterious place for practitioners who had never had a chance to visit it. It was a hopeful and legendary world. But for Zhou Bao, it was not that mysterious. After flying through the Immortal Realm for a while, he suddenly came to a halt. His expression turned curious.


    It was not hard to pass through the gate and penetrate the cloud of pneuma behind it. He had done it in just a second. The first thing he had seen was a mountain, a huge, towering mountain. There were actually several of them, each about 300 kilometers high. Zhou Bao looked like a tiny bug fluttering among the endless mountains.


    The Immortal Realm was extremely vast and boundless, way beyond his imagination.


    In the Heaven Realm World, Zhou Bao could reach anywhere he wanted in a split second. However, subject to a more powerful Law of Space here, the Great Way of Heavens and Realms did not work anymore, perhaps it was prohibited in this world. And when he performed the Three Realms Division Technique, the effect he could produce was similar to when he had just learned the special technique, or sometimes even worse, because in this world he often headed in the wrong direction by mistake.


    It reminded him of the Law of Heaven and Earth in the Eastern Thunder World, the Easternmost Land.


    Compared to the stringent law in the Eastern Thunder World, the law in the Immortal Realm was more precise, or maybe more well-conceived. Among all the well-conceived rules, there were many things that appealed to Zhou Bao, such as the Dharmas.


    His whole life, Zhou Bao had only once caught a few glimpses of some exposed Dharmas in the Central Star Area. But in the Immortal Realm, such Dharmas were everywhere. Here, these wonders were as abundant and cheap as cabbages. They were randomly piled up in this world.


    The clouds in the sky, the water on the ground, and most ordinary things were full of Dharmas. All the secrets about how the clouds, waters, and mountains were formed, why the Law of Space could not function here, and anything you could think of was simply lying before you. You did not need to exert effort to research or comprehend anything. You could grasp all the secrets in the world simply by sitting on the ground and watching.


    "Impressive, this is very impressive! Taoist Jin is capable of anything! He has conjured such an amazing world! If I were to practice here, I wouldn''t need anything else, even cultivation methods are of no use. All I need to do is sit here, inhale the essence of the world, and watch the Dharmas. In less than 10 years, I could reach the Realm of Human Immortal. If I manage to further understand the meanings of the Dharmas, I''ll become a Divine Immortal, or an Earthly Immortal. I wonder what kind of tribulation I''ll come across here!"


    Tribulation was quite possibly the only effective restriction limiting the growth of practitioners in the Immortal Realm.


    In this world, achieving the Earthly Immortal Rank was not difficult. But refining the Earthly Immortal''s own macro world was the limit. If you wanted to go further and become a Celestial Immortal, well, that depended on pure luck.


    "This world has put the Earthly Immortal into mass production!" After observing his surroundings for a while, Zhou Bao came to a conclusion about the Immortal Realm.


    Yes, it put the Earthly Immortal into mass production. In Zhou Bao''s eyes, this was the greatest function of the Immortal Realm. Perhaps it was Taoist Jin''s ultimate goal. But what did he need so many Earthly Immortals for?


    A small question sounded in his ears.


    But soon this small voice faded. After all, Zhou Bao had just arrived in the Immortal Realm. It was merely wishful thinking for him to guess the Immortal Realm creator''s true purpose.


    "Ghost Child, this is the Immortal Realm. Judging from the environment, it shouldn''t be a problem for me to practice here and become an Earthly Immortal, right?"


    "Of course not. If you have enough time and the right opportunity, it''s even possible for you to achieve¡ªmurderous intent!"


    "What?" Zhou Bao was startled. His heart pounded faster for no reason. "What''s going on? I''ve just arrived in the Immortal Realm, but no sooner had I warmed my seat than a murderous intent emerged. Where did it come from?"


    A puff of freezing air crept up and rounded on his neck. He subconsciously shifted aside, but it was a bit too late. He felt a chill in his neck, and golden red blood splashed out. A shot of surreptitious Sword Qi had cut open the skin on his neck and slid in, instantly cracking the tendons and meridians inside.


    "Crap!"


    Zhou Bao''s eyes lit up, and the Mysterious Icy Divine Light started functioning at once. It crashed head-on into the invading Sword Qi.


    "Clank, Clank, Clank!"


    After one move from the Sword Qi, the Mysterious Icy Divine Light collapsed unexpectedly.


    "This is impossible!" Sensing what had happened inside his body, Zhou Bao was appalled. The radiance around him flashed consecutively as he launched the Three Realms Division. He kept shifting from the left to the right in order to avoid the Sword Qi chasing after him. Inside his body, his Dantian was working frantically, issuing tons of Dharma power to fend off the sharp Sword Qi.


    "Clank, Clank, Clank!"


    But the Sword Qi pressed forward with indomitable will. The Mysterious Icy Divine Light disintegrated layer by layer under its attack. It merely delayed the advancing Sword Qi for a few seconds.


    In those few seconds, Zhou Bao finally caught a glimpse of the shadow of the man who was attacking him and a piece of his light yellow sleeve. Obviously, his opponent knew a special technique similar to the Three Realms Division. He had been hiding in layers of space while he tracked Zhou Bao and tried to kill him.


    "Fu*k, today, I''m just like the fisherman who got bit by the fish!" Zhou Bao was quite upset. The attack occurred too fast, and he suddenly found himself at a loss for what to do. Before he figured it out, the bud that had sprouted from the Seven Wonderful Tree in his Dantian seemed to have detected the abnormality and began to release colorful light. This colorful light did not wander about inside his body. Instead, it blended into the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. With this extra support, the Mysterious Icy Divine Light finally forced the Sword Qi to pull back, allowing Zhou Bao a momentary sense of relief.


    Yes, he finally felt relief.


    From the appearance of the murderous intent until now, only a few seconds had passed. Zhou Bao had been busy evading the Sword Qi and fighting against it without a break. But now, with the help of the colorful light, he finally had a short break and recovered from his shock.


    He took a deep breath and his eyes started glistening with coldness. He lifted his hand. A huge pitch-black hand made up of pneuma appeared out of nowhere. It swooped down upon the yellow figure.


    "What?!"


    It was apparent that the opponent was taken aback by Zhou Bao''s quick counterattack. In fact, he hadn''t expected Zhou Bao would even have a chance to strike back.


    The spatial technique the opponent employed aimed to hunt Zhou Bao down rather than shun him. Nor did it ever occur to him that he would need to shun in the first place. But when Zhou Bao was running away from his attack with the Three Realms Division, Zhou Bao also learned the exact track of the space movement. Accordingly, when Zhou Bao struck back, he instantly pinned down his opponent''s whereabouts and threw out his poisonous hand, catching him off guard.


    Zhou Bao had nourished his poisonous hand for years. In addition to the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast, he also used several other poisons to facilitate the improvement of his hand. Although the poisons might not have been as powerful as the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast, when they were mixed together, the effect was amazing. The yellow figure did not notice the hand in time and was gripped right away. He let out a grunt and suddenly revealed himself. At almost the same time, Zhou Bao managed to force out the Sword Qi that had invaded his body.


    "Fu*k, dare to give me a surprise attack! You''re courting death!" Zhou Bao cursed. He had no intention of letting the attacker off the hook with merely one counterstrike. He leaped up and charged at the yellow figure like a wild tiger. His mind was racing. The Flipping Sky Seal appeared above his head. It glowed with blinding golden light and shot towards his opponent.


    "Boom!"


    How unlucky this man was! First, he was caught by the poisonous hand. Even if he had incredible power, he would not have remained intact, because the Nine-headed Fierce Beast was one of the Six Royals among the Primordial Fierce Beasts, carrying unparallel poison. This kind of poison could kill any of the remaining Six Royals, let alone this yellow figure.


    Despite the opponent''s high cultivation and great talent, when he bumped into such an unbridled man as Zhou Bao and such an unbridled toxin as the Elixir Poison, he had to admit defeat.


    However, what surprised Zhou Bao was that the opponent was not killed by the poisonous hand or the Flipping Sky Seal. On the contrary, as this guy took a blow from the Flipping Sky Seal, a jet of sharp Sword Qi burst out from his body. It dispersed the poisonous hand, broke through the space, and vanished. It was so fast that even Zhou Bao was rendered dumbstruck by it.


    "Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi! It''s the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi! Damn it, he has the heritage of the Sword Qi!"


    Ghost Child had remained quiet until this moment. He shouted out the origin of the Sword Qi. Ghost Child was utterly thrilled at the sight of it, as if seeing a beautiful naked woman.


    "Catch him, hurry up! Snatch up his Sword Qi! If you can, I''ll be able to collect three kinds of Sword Qi. My power will be boosted considerably!"


    "Catch him? Catch him yourself!"


    Zhou Bao snapped. Although he had just forced the Sword Qi out and launched a counterattack, some of the damage the Sword Qi had done to his body was still there. It had hurt him too deep. Usually, when the Immortal Body Technique, the Mysterious Divine Light, and the Eight Nine Mysterious Skill worked simultaneously, Zhou Bao, who had the bloodline of the Fierce Beast Zhuyan and had reached a high level in martial arts, would heal immediately. But this time, after being attacked by the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi, his injuries did not recover his vigor as fast as they normally did. Zhou Bao did not fully recover until the Mysterious Divine Light had wound around his body nine times. It took half an hour to rid himself of the impact of the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi. During this time, Zhou Bao was extremely cautious. It turned out that it was smart to keep his guard up. In fact, as he was healing, he felt at least two jets of murderous intent. But at the sight of his vigilant face, these men did not make a strike but instantly concealed their spirits.


    "What the hell is going on?"


    "Alas, what a successor of Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi! The Dharma Ending Tribulation. The five main worlds. Little friend, you are not the only Tribulation Taker!"

 846 Reentering the Fifth Manor

    "The Dharma Ending Tribulation will take place in all the worlds. Boy, you''re not the only Tribulation Taker!"


    This statement revealed the truth.


    Zhou Bao was not the only Tribulation Taker in the universe. Taoist Jin had created the worlds in all the directions of the Void Universe. There were five main worlds in the north, south, east, west and center. Even though each main world had only one protagonist, there were five protagonists in total and Zhou Bao was just one of them. He had never met another Tribulation Taker before, for these worlds were so far apart that the Tribulation Takers had no chance to come across. But now they were in a different position.


    They were now in the Immortal Realm. Although it was vast, they inevitably ran into each other and clashed.


    "You mean that there are five Tribulation Takers in the five main worlds created by Taoist Jin, and I''m just one of them?"


    "Yes, you''re a smart man!"


    "The guy who attacked me just now is one of the five Tribulation Takers. Why did he attack me?"


    "For fate, young man. A Tribulation Taker can rob another Tribulation Taker of his good fortune by killing him. Young man, think back to how lucky you have been from birth to the beginning of your practice to now. What would happen if a man who had the same good fortune as you had seized yours? What if he seizes two Tribulation Takers, or even three Tribulation Takers?"


    "Why?" Zhou Bao asked, startled. It was a scary idea, one that could drive a person mad. A Tribulation Taker was the equivalent of a lucky protagonist. Zhou Bao reflected on his experiences over the years and imagined what might have happened if his luck had doubled, tripled, quadrupled, or even quintupled. He would have become a Celestial Immortal, not to mention an Earthly Immortal. At the thought of this, his killing intent raged. His eyes were full of blood, roaming about, as if trying to find and kill a Tribulation Taker.


    "You can''t plan everything, and it''s hard to fathom a person''s mind!"


    The Ghost Child gave a sigh before earnestly explaining, "The human mind is unfathomable. Even the Way of Heaven and providence can''t take full control of it. The so-called providence and Way of Heaven have to do more than control the development trend. It''s not easy to make everything develop in a certain way. The Way of Heaven cannot control everything. The human mind is changing all the time. So, every time there''s a tribulation there are different Tribulation Takers. They are all blessed with great fate and represent the different directions that the Way of Heaven allows. And in the end, only the strongest among them can get all the good fortune between heaven and earth and become the real Tribulation Taker!"


    "In the same way, the general trend of the Way of Heaven is under control!"


    "Yes, the Way of Heaven isn''t omnipotent. All it can do is set up corresponding Tribulation Takers under the most favorable possibilities. Incredibly lucky Tribulation Takers will eventually take the general trend of events to its most desired direction. That''s the real reason Tribulation Takers come into being!"


    "The five Tribulation Takers are meant to kill each other, and the damn providence wins anyway!"


    "You win some, you lose some. You get some, you return some. This is the most basic law of heaven and earth. If you don''t understand or accept it, you''ve failed!"


    "I''m one of the five Tribulation Takers, and so is that guy who attacked me. Then there are three other Tribulation Takers. With their fate, they should have arrived in the Immortal Realm. Are we going to fight here?"


    "Not really, you don''t necessarily have to fight each other. You can work together as well!" He paused before adding, "Just like the Jade Emperor, he was one of the last Tribulation Takers in the antiquity times. He cooperated with the other two Tribulation Takers and created a golden age, the antiquity times!"


    "Cooperation or confrontation. Unfortunately, I don''t know any other Tribulation Takers. Otherwise, I could cooperate with them." Zhou Bao smiled but oozed strong murderous intent. "But I''ll definitely kill that bastard!"


    "Whether you kill him or not, you are new in the Void Immortal Realm. There are rules here, and you can''t be as presumptuous as you were in the Human World. Young man, you''d better keep your head down. Now that you and the inheritor of the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi have come, the other three should arrive soon, too. If you fight in the Void Immortal Realm, I can guarantee that your halo will soon be gone!"


    "I''m not that stupid!"


    He was certainly not that stupid. He knew where he was now.


    He was in the Void Immortal Realm!


    To practitioners, the Void Immortal Realm was the top of the world in legend. As a newcomer in such a fantastic world, Zhou Bao was certainly not going to mess with things he shouldn''t. But that didn''t mean he would swallow insults in meek submission.


    "I''ve just come to this place and I don''t know anything about it. What should I do now?" After pondering for a moment, Zhou Bao looked around at the towering mountains, speechless. He could not hang around in the Immortal Realm. He had to have a purpose. Part of the reason why he had come so quickly to the Void Immortal Realm was that he had been egged on by the Ghost Child, so he asked him for advice.


    The Ghost Child seemed to have been prepared for this, but just as he was about to say something, the space around Zhou Bao created another weird wave.


    "How are you, King Wuyang?"


    "Huh!!??"


    Zhou Bao paused for a while at the sight of the newcomer, and then laughed, "I''m fine, Taoist Qing Feng!"


    It was Qing Feng!


    He was one of the two Taoist Attendants left at the Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain.


    But now he was different. He no longer looked like a Taoist Attendant. To be exact, he had grown up and become a handsome young man in his twenties.


    Zhou Bao certainly did not think of him as a handsome young man in his twenties. He smiled at him and responded politely.


    Clearly, Qing Feng had ascended into the Earthly Immortal Realm.


    And the Celestial Punishment Palace that Zhou Bao had given him was the reason for that, so Qing Feng owed him a big favor.


    However, favors were the most realistic but also the least reliable. Without the ability to repay, a favor was just a favor.


    "It''s only been a few days since we last met, and you''ve broken through to the Earthly Immortals'' Great Way. Congratulations!!!"


    "Thank you for your help, King Wuyang!" Qing Feng smiled, "Since you are new to the Immortal Realm, there are probably many things you don''t understand. How about we go to the Fifth Manor?!"


    "Sure!" Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows and said, "King Wuyang was just an amusing title in the Human World. Now my Taoist name is Cundi. Just call me Cundi!"


    "Cundi!" Qing Feng smiled, "Okay, I''ll call you Taoist Cundi!"


    Soon they arrived in the Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain.


    It still seemed familiar to Zhou Bao.


    He was distinctly familiar with it.


    It looked the same as it had been in the Heaven Realm World. Everything on the mountain; the trees, streams and waterfalls, looked exactly the same.


    The only change was probably its position. It was in the Void Immortal Realm, not in the Heaven Realm World anymore.


    As soon as they reached the gate, they saw Ming Yue standing on the stone steps. He bowed to Zhou Bao with a look of gratitude. After all, they owed Zhou Bao a great favor. Even if the favor did not need to be returned, they would be courteous to him.


    "Now that the Fifth Manor is in the Immortal Realm, has the ginseng fruit tree recovered?" Zhou Bao wondered to himself.


    But the reality fell short of his expectations.


    As in the Heaven Realm World, only Qing Feng and Ming Yue stayed in the Fifth Manor. Their senior and junior brothers, including the Emperor Baiqi of the Seven Mysteries World, were absent. And the withered ginseng fruit tree, though it had sprung to life, had only a few leaves, never mind fruit.


    "Haha, the ginseng fruit tree has withered since the beginning of the antiquity times and lacked the nourishment of the essence in the Heaven Realm World. It has come to life in the Immortal Realm, but it will take another ten thousand years or so to taste its fruit!" Seeing Zhou Bao''s slightly disappointed face, Qing Feng laughed.


    "Ten thousand years or so?!!"


    Ten thousand years was nothing to an Earthly Immortal, almost equal to the average person''s nap. But in the current situation, for Zhou Bao, 10,000 years would be too late. He had to give up on the ginseng fruit.


    Qing Feng and Ming Yue showed him around the Fifth Manor, and they chatted and laughed from time to time. Nearly an hour later, having visited the entire Manor, they hadn''t gotten to the point yet.


    At last they entered a quiet yard, sat down, and chatted a bit before he got to the point.


    "Taoist Cundi, do you have any plans in the Immortal Realm?"


    "Plans? No. I just happened to come here. As for the plan, I need your advice, seniors!"

 847 The Three Greatest Forces in the Immortal Realm, Jade Emperor Sage

    @@


    There were three great forces that were the strongest in the Immortal Realm, and the Jade Emperor Sage controlled the strongest one.


    In the Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain


    Zhou Bao spent a whole hour chatting idly in the yard with the two new Earthly Immortals, Qing Feng and Ming Yue.


    As they spoke, Zhou Bao heard many hints. Why did he think they were hinting?


    Their words were vague, and yet they revealed some information about the Void Immortal Realm. They seemed to want to give him advice, but, they could only hint at him in a roundabout, chatty way.


    "The Void Immortal Realm doesn''t seem that calm either!" Zhou Bao thought. After their conversation, he confirmed that the Ghost Child was right. There really were five Tribulation Takers in the universe, and the other four would have similar luck and strength.


    For example, the guy who attacked him had inherited the Immortal-eliminating Sword, which was incredibly lethal. If Zhou Bao''s S@@

 Chapter 848 - The Young Master of the Sword School

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    The Jade Emperor, the head of the ancient 99 Emperors, had completed the Way of the Emperor, and become a Celestial Immortal. This was totally exceeding Zhou Bao¡¯s expectations.


    ¡°You must have never known that the Jade Emperor finally came to the Void Immortal Realm, became a Celestial Immortal, and established the Jade Emperor Palace!¡± Qing Feng suddenly laughed. ¡°Actually, we were also surprised when we first heard the news. But that¡¯s the truth. The Jade Emperor did succeed. Though he was the last of the three Celestial Immortals to succeed, he is the strongest. In less than a million years, he developed the Jade Emperor Palace into the third largest power in the Immortal Realm. That was not easy!¡±


    ¡°Could the Jade Emperor Sage be behind the Celestial Mystery Emperor making trouble in the Human World?¡±


    ¡°Of course. Unlike other Celestial Immortals, what he practices is the Way of the Emperor. Amongst the 3,000 Great Ways, it¡¯s the most connected to living creatures in the Void Universe. Even if he has become a Celestial Immortal, he cannot abandon his foundation. And his cultivation and strength are inextricably linked with his foundation, like the deities in ancient deities times.¡±


    ¡°Like the deities?!¡± Zhou Bao smiled helplessly, ¡°So I offended a Celestial Immortal before I even entered the Void Immortal Realm?!¡±


    ¡°Yes. The Jade Emperor Palace has issued an order to hunt down and kill you. That¡¯s why we brought you here the minute you showed up!¡± Ming Yue said, ¡°No matter how bold the Jade Emperor Sage may be, he would not dare to offend our Fifth Manor. As long as you stay here, you¡¯ll be all right!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll be safe in hiding, of course, but that¡¯s not realistic!¡± Zhou Bao sighed. ¡°I¡¯m just a nobody. The Jade Emperor Sage isn¡¯t going to kill me himself, is he?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a Tribulation Taker, you¡¯re not a nobody! Just as you¡¯re a Tribulation Taker, he won¡¯t kill you himself. But his subordinates won¡¯t let you off the hook!¡±


    ¡°Are there any formidable figures among his subordinates?¡±


    ¡°Well, the most powerful characters of the ancient 99 Emperors are all under him except for the Thunder Emperor and the Emperor of Moon Temple. The Celestial Mystery Emperor, Emperor Youming, Emperor Zichen and Emperor Highest Heaven who were all killed by you were his main team!¡±


    ¡°They are all pretty tough nuts!¡± Zhou Bao felt his chin, musing for a second, before adding, ¡°But I was surprised that I could kill the Celestial Mystery Emperor.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t let it go to your head!¡± Qing Feng shot back, waving his hand repeatedly. ¡°It was sheer luck that you killed the Celestial Mystery Emperor. The Great Ancient Emperors¡¯ luck has almost run out in the Human World, and your luck is in full swing. Besides, he wasn¡¯t guarding you, so you killed him by a fluke. But in the Immortal Realm, even if their time has passed, their good fortune won¡¯t be lost. That is to say, they are as lucky now as they were in antiquity times. You have good luck as a Tribulation Taker, but you don¡¯t have an advantage over them. What¡¯s more, there are many Supreme Fairy Weapons!¡±


    ¡°So basically, I¡¯d better keep a low profile in the Void Immortal Realm, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, you get the idea. This is the Immortal Realm after all. With the passage now open, it¡¯s probably not as peaceful as it used to be. All three forces are likely to take the opportunity to expand their influence. As the tribulation approaches, the Celestial Immortals who have Karma are sure to be planning for their own future. If they cannot use this opportunity to get rid of their Karma, they will have a lot of trouble in the future opening up their Taoist rites in the Extraterritorial Area.¡±


    ¡°Gale Sage, Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage and Jade Emperor Sage!¡± Zhou Bao mumbled. ¡°So, the Immortal Realm won¡¯t be calm either. But no matter how messy things get here, some things are unavoidable!¡±


    ¡°That depends on what you want to do!¡± Qing Feng smiled. ¡°You¡¯re welcome to stay in the Fifth Manor until the situation becomes clearer.¡±


    Zhou Bao waved his hands and said, ¡°Fish can only be caught in troubled waters. I had no sooner arrived in the Immortal Realm than I encountered an assassination. The assassin knows the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi. He must be one of the Tribulation Takers as well! Can you help me find out more about the other four Tribulation Takers, especially the power of the assassin?¡±


    After a little thought, Ming Yue answered, ¡°This is easy. There are five Tribulation Takers. You are all important men. Your information is all available! Although during the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth, Tribulation Takers are linked with the fate of the Void Universe, and no one can conjecture anything about them, it doesn¡¯t mean that no one knows your information. Tribulation Takers are born into tribulations. They generally have amazing fate, and what they have done is amazing too, just like you. In fact, when you became a Ghost Immortal, people began to speculate that you are a Tribulation Taker. From then on, people were searching for your information. The same goes for other Tribulation Takers. Your information can¡¯t be hidden, but people can¡¯t be sure of your cards.¡±


    ¡°Good. How soon can I get their information?¡±


    ¡°Ten days. Stay here ten days, and we will get their information and give it to you!¡±


    ¡°Okay!¡± Zhou Bao did not mind waiting 10 days. If you knew the enemy and yourself, you could fight a hundred battles and win them all. Since a Tribulation Taker could engulf other Tribulation Takers¡¯ good fortune by killing them, they were doomed to be unable to live in peace. Even if Zhou Bao didn¡¯t intend to kill the others, he had to watch out for them. What was more, he was fascinated by other Tribulation Takers¡¯ good fortune. He was regretting not catching the man who attacked him. If he had known this at the time, he would have done everything he could to catch him and devour his good fortune. That would have given him a considerable advantage in the struggle with other Tribulation Takers.


    This was not his illusion, but an inevitable choice in the face of reality.


    There were five Tribulation Takers. If he snatched one Tribulation Taker¡¯s good fortune, his fortune would double. Then among the four Tribulation Takers, he would have twice as much good fortune as the others. He would have had an overwhelming advantage.


    What a pity!!!


    His best chance had passed, and now he could only lurk and watch for the right time to take action. And in this unfamiliar world, full of Earthly Immortals, it was the safest and most favorable decision for him to hide in the Fifth Manor.


    While Zhou Bao was waiting in the Fifth Manor for information about other Tribulation Takers, a man with a gloomy face sat cross-legged in another part of the Immortal Realm, trying to force the poison out of his body.


    ¡°Damn it, damn it! What is this poison? It¡¯s so poisonous! Even my Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi cannot remove it!¡±


    He was the one who had attacked Zhou Bao when Zhou Bao first arrived in the Immortal Realm. His light yellow magnificent robe had been so badly corroded by Zhou Bao¡¯s Elixir Poison that it looked like a beggar¡¯s ragged robe. Most horrible of all, his body showed all kinds of colors. This was a major symptom of the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast.


    But he was no ordinary man. He had attained perfection in the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi, and almost formed the body of the sword spirit. He had not been poisoned to death and could even force most of the poison out bit by bit with his Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi.


    ¡°Young master is badly hurt. Is Zhou Bao really that formidable?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Zhou Bao is the Tribulation Taker of the Heaven Realm World. His cultivation is unfathomable. Our young master attacked him unaware, didn¡¯t gain the upper hand, and almost got caught by him!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah. The poison in the young master is the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast. It has something to do with the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage in the Chaotic Poisonous Sea!¡±


    ¡°What? The Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage? That Tribulation Taker is under the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage? No wonder! He¡¯s in trouble now!¡±


    ¡°I agree with you. Why did we go for a young master in the Human World, a Tribulation Taker? Now, here comes a stronger guy, and he¡¯s in big trouble!¡±


    ¡°Hehe, this is good. He has been on his high horse ever since he was brought here from the Human World by the master of the Sword School. Because of the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi he has inherited, he thinks himself the next master of the Sword School. Now that he has offended the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage, he might not get much benefit, even if he really has inherited the Four Immortal-killing Swords!¡±


    Several practitioners whose cultivation was at the peak of the Human Immortal and even the Immortal Realm were on the alert. They were all dressed like the young master in a light yellow robe, armed with fairy weapon swords. The sword of the weakest practitioner was a Lower Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. It could destroy a common macro world in the Void Universe. But here he could only be on the alert from the periphery.


    It was clear, however, that these practitioners had no due respect for their young master. On the contrary, in the exchange of ideas, they showed a great deal of disdain in their communication through divine thoughts. They even gloated over the failure of his raid, as if hoping such a thing would happen again.


    ¡°Junior brothers, hold your tongues! The fact that the Tribulation Taker of the Heaven Realm World could manipulate the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast with skill is a big deal. We¡¯d better report it to the master!¡±

 Chapter 849 - The Tribulation Takers

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    According to Qing Feng and Ming Yue, there were three major forces in the Immortal Realm: the Gale Sage in the Eye of Storm, the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage in the Chaotic Poisonous Sea and the Jade Emperor Sage in the Jade Emperor Palace.


    They were the only three forces under the control of Sages in the Void Immortal Realm, so they were the three most powerful forces.


    In addition to the three forces, there were many sects here. Although these sects were not as powerful as the three forces, they dominated specific areas.


    The Immortal Realm was too big to be ruled by the three most powerful forces. In fact, these three forces¡¯ territories were not large. The Gale Sage occupied only the Eye of Storm, the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage occupied the Chaotic Poisonous Sea, and the Jade Emperor Palace occupied a larger scope than theirs, but his territory was only as large as one Divine Region of the previous Seven-deity Regions in the Heaven Realm World.


    It was not that they did not want to expand their forces. Even if the Gale Sage and the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage didn¡¯t have the desire to extend, the Jade Emperor Sage, whose Way of the Emperor was already complete, certainly did.


    But there was nothing they could do. The situation in the Immortal Realm was too complicated. There were many untouchable people here. And some of them were old Celestial Immortals who were practicing in seclusion instead of opening up Taoist rites in the Extraterritorial Area. If they offended a Celestial Immortal when expanding their forces, they would be in big trouble. The sects here were numerous, but most of them were local forces that were not particularly powerful.


    The Sword School was one of the numerous local forces and was more powerful than other forces. This school had more than ten Emperors at the Earthly Immortal Realm. It was not as powerful as the three forces under the control of Celestial Immortals, but it was one of the strongest forces in its territory and was well known throughout the Immortal Realm.


    Now, with the impending Dharma Ending Tribulation, the master of the Sword School and its Elders were getting nervous. They were Earthly Immortals who could only live as long as heaven and earth, and they would perish with heaven and earth, unless they were incredibly lucky.


    Thus, they were planning ahead and trying to find opportunities to break through the status quo.


    This was also the reason there were so many forces in the Immortal Realm. Earthly Immortals had always held themselves aloof from the world, but now faced with the Darma Ending Tribulation, they felt the crisis. They wanted to break through and find opportunity. So they did a lot of preparation. In fact, they didn¡¯t really have big ambitions, they just wanted to go on living.


    The Sword School had paid a heavy price. Before the passage to the Immortal Realm was opened, they had forcibly taken one of the Tribulation Takers from the Human World to the Immortal Realm, and worked hard to cultivate him with the intention of killing the other Tribulation Takers. This would monopolize their great fortune, and finally help them out of this and even future Dharma Ending Tribulations.


    In fact, there was another school doing the same thing.


    But the sect underestimated Zhou Bao¡¯s strength. As a result, the sect had failed and was badly damaged by him as soon as the passage opened.


    The Sword School disciples surrounding the cold-faced man were communicating through their divine thoughts. Their discussion could not be easily revealed, but he could tell what they were thinking from their expressions.


    The scorn and gloating on their faces was undisguised.


    ¡°Humph, you damn men, do you think that the Tribulation Taker is easy to deal with? Even if I failed this time, I am one of the Tribulation Takers. I have the opportunity and good luck. Are you in a position to laugh at me?¡± He sneered in his heart as he cleared the last bit of poison from his body. ¡°Zhou Bao is very hard to deal with. I didn¡¯t expect him to be so formidable, and he has the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast. It seems that I underestimated him!¡±


    He regretted attacking Zhou Bao so rashly. He had thought Zhou Bao was just a Tribulation Taker from a declining main world. Even if he had good luck, he would not be strong, at least not stronger than him. Unexpectedly, Zhou Bao was so strong that he had hurt him badly.


    ¡°Young master, Master just sent word for you to return now!¡±


    ¡°Now?!¡± The young master of the Sword School was startled. Since being brought here from the Void Universe, he had been identified to as the young master of Sword School. Although he knew it was because of his identity as a Tribulation Taker, after seeing its powerful strength, he was very loyal to the sect. And he never thought anything would happen to the sect.


    But the appearance of the messenger clearly indicated that something had happened to the Sword School. He couldn¡¯t help worrying.


    The Sword School did have a huge problem, but for the time being it had nothing to do with Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao had been patiently waiting for several days in the Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain. Finally, he got the information he wanted about the Tribulation Takers from the Void Universe.


    Tribulation Takers were born as a result of a Tribulation of Heaven and Earth and blessed with incredibly good fortune. Now that they were in the tribulation, they couldn¡¯t figure out that they were Tribulation Takers. But there had been all kinds of tribulations since the Primordial Origin, and the Tribulation Takers¡¯ characteristics were basically the same. Once the tribulation was coming, they would soon be found out. This time was no exception.


    In addition to the Heaven Realm World, there were four main worlds in the Void Universe, each of which had one Tribulation Taker.


    The four Tribulation Takers, or the four men who were most likely to be the Tribulation Takers were Man Yujun, Huang Lei, Kong Ti and Ying Hu.


    Each of them had his own destiny in the Void Universe and unparalleled combat capabilities. And their combat gains were not any weaker than Zhou Bao¡¯s.


    ¡°Man Yujun is the one who has inherited the Immortal-eliminating Sword. He was taken to the Immortal Realm by the Sword School 10 years ago and became the school¡¯s young master. He was invincible with his Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi.¡±


    ¡°Man Yujun? Sword School? Ten years ago?¡± Zhou Bao raised his brows. ¡°Can people here take people to the Immortal Realm at will? Don¡¯t they need the passage?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but there is a heavy price to pay!¡± Ming Yue answered, ¡°Only ancient schools with profound foundations can do it. And there¡¯s a high probability of failure, because very few people are willing to do it!¡±


    ¡°Why did the Sword School do this?¡±


    ¡°To handle the tribulation. In addition to the Sword School, there are many other ancient sects that have taken various measures to deal with the Dharma Ending Tribulation. For example, although our master has opened up his own Taoist rite in the Extraterritorial Area, he still left us to make good relations with you for good karma.¡± Qing Feng smiled. ¡°It¡¯s just that different sects do it differently!


    ¡°How strong are they?¡±


    ¡°Tribulation Takers are all very strong. Man Yujun should be at the peak of the Immortal, and may step into the Earthly Immortal Realm at any time. He is the weakest of the four. The other three have broken through to the Earthly Immortal Realm, and have their own means, not as easy to compete against as Man Yujun!¡±


    ¡°The other three are all Earthly Immortals?!¡± Zhou Bao was shocked. Suddenly he had three more enemies of the Emperor Realm. It was impossible to cheer him up.


    ¡°Huang Lei and Ying Hu are very mysterious. We didn¡¯t collect any information about them except that they are Earthly Immortals. If we¡¯re right, their information is being hidden by one or two powerful forces. We have more information about Kong Ti, and he needs to be taken seriously.¡±


    ¡°Why does he need to be taken seriously?¡±


    ¡°Because he knows Congenital Five-colored Divine Light!¡± Ming Yue replied. ¡°Different from the Seven Wonderful Techniques you have practiced, he has mastered the full Congenital Five-colored Divine Light. It gives him the ability to brush and destroy all things in the world!¡±


    ¡°The Congenital Five-colored Divine Light is that amazing?!¡± Zhou Bao was so shocked that he almost jumped up. He didn¡¯t expect that Kong Ti owned the Congenital Five-colored Divine Light. In this way, he seemed to be Zhou Bao¡¯s nemesis.


    But he soon regained his composure.* ¡°I don¡¯t have to be afraid. He has the Congenital Five-colored Divine Light. I have the Tree of Seven Wonders. Others are afraid of it, but I¡¯m not!¡±*


    The Congenital Five-colored Divine Light was really a Divine Sense. If he fought with Kong Ti, he would have to fight against his Congenital Five-colored Divine Light with the Seven Wonderful Techniques.


    ¡°I have to get the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique as soon as possible. The complete Seven Wonderful Techniques can defeat the Congenital Five-colored Divine Light. But my Seven Wonderful Techniques are incomplete, so I may not be able to win against him now.¡± With this in mind, he became more and more eager to find the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique.


    ¡°Have they all reached the Immortal Realm?¡±


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s for sure!¡± Qing Feng said lightly. ¡°In addition, Man Yujun, Ying Hu and Huang Lei are supposed to have turned to powerful forces, which are probably two of the three strongest forces. But we don¡¯t know about Kong Ti. He¡¯s the most mysterious of the five of you. Everyone knows that he knows the Congenital Five-colored Divine Light, but only knew this about him.¡±


    ¡°He really is mysterious!¡± Zhou Bao frowned slightly. ¡°One more thing, why did they come to the Immortal Realm?¡±


    ¡°What about you? Why did you come here?¡± Qing Feng shot back, instead of answering him.

 Chapter 850 - Coincidence

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    Why was there a need to come to the Immortal Realm?


    This was a question, but could not be considered as one.


    Based on Zhou Bao¡¯s character, it did not matter to him whether he was at the Immortal Realm or not. Even if he was not there, he had unlimited combat capability, a Supreme Fairy Weapon and his Azure Big World. He could survive well in the Void Universe. Thinking about it, there seemed to be no one there who could do anything to him.


    But this was just in a normal situation.


    What was considered a normal situation?


    A normal situation is one without any tribulation happening. Right now, the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth was taking place. As a Tribulation Taker, even if he had an unlimited fate, what good would run away from the troublesome Tribulation of Heaven and Earth do for him?


    When it came to the World-ending Tribulation, he could not run away. He had to face it eventually.


    Furthermore, as a Tribulation Taker, by running away from a tribulation, his fate that was interconnected with the tribulation would then disappear. Previously Zhou Bao used to think that it was no big deal, but thinking about it, didn¡¯t Celestial Mystery Emperor, the well-known Emperor from antiquity times, die in Zhou Bao¡¯s hands due to this exact reason?


    After running away from the tribulation this time, perhaps, he might die in the hands of another person who had great luck, just like what happened to the Celestial Mystery Emperor. This was something that Zhou Bao would never be able to accept.


    Hence, the only thing he should do was to deal with the problem. The only way for him to improve was by facing the tribulation directly and break through it. The Immortal Realm happened to be the best battlefield to do so.


    The Void Immortal Realm was an Alien World created by ancient Taoist Jins who were Celestial Immortals. The Realm was the most magical world in the whole Void Universe and it was also the core of the universe. This was where all tribulations ended, which was why Zhou Bao came to the Immortal Realm.


    Of course, this was also the reason why the other four Tribulation Takers were also at the Immortal Realm.


    It was a rhetorical question.


    Zhou Bao was a little embarrassed. He had inadvertently asked a stupid question.


    ¡°Fine, since we now know the background of these four people, my future actions can be carried out more smoothly. Thank you, seniors, for taking care of me during the past few days. I have already prolonged my stay here in the Fifth Manor, so it is time for me to leave.¡±


    ¡°Seems like you¡¯ve made up your mind!¡± Seeing that Zhou Bao was determined to leave, both Qing Feng and Ming Yue did not stop him. ¡°Take this, it might be useful in the future!¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Zhou Bao trembled slightly and received the item from Ming Yue. It was a light golden talisman.


    ¡°This is the sky-escaping Talisman. It has a mysterious connection to the Fifth Manor on Longevity Mountain. If you come across a life-or-death situation that you¡¯re unable to resolve, activate this Talisman and you¡¯ll immediately return to the Fifth Manor! No matter where you are in the Immortal Realm, no matter what inhibition you¡¯re facing, you can come back immediately. But you can only use this once!¡±


    ¡°Thank you very much!¡± Zhou Bao thanked them repeatedly.


    There was no need to talk about the value of this item. This thing was equivalent to a spare life. No matter what danger he would be facing, as long as he activated the Talisman, he could escape from it. Although he could only use it once, it was still a huge favor!


    This was a favor that Zhou Bao could not reciprocate at the moment. Hence, he could only keep this goodwill in mind. At the same time, he was also a little suspicious about how well the Fifth Manor took care of him.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to suspect anything. We don¡¯t know why, but the master has asked us to give all these to you. The master has high expectations of you, but the reason behind it is not clear to us disciples.¡±


    After he left Fifth Manor, Zhou Bao felt a little lost. What did it mean when Taoist Zhen Yuan was said to have high expectations of him? Had he discovered something about Zhou Bao¡¯s background?


    These were all questions that had no answers. There was no way he could run to Taoist Zhen Yuan in the Extraterritorial Area to ask about this matter.


    The Immortal Realm was vast. After leaving Fifth Manor, Zhou Bao was lost for a moment. Luckily, before he left, Qing Feng and Ming Yue had explained to him in detail about the Void Immortal Realm. Hence, he was able to find his way and not end up running around aimlessly like a headless fly.


    The Fifth Manor was located in a sanctum in the Immortal Realm. It occupied a vast piece of land that had a radius of hundreds of millions of miles. In this territory, there was no other influence other than the Fifth Manor. The vast piece of land was controlled by Qing Feng and Ming Yue.


    ¡°Walk towards the east for 680 million miles and you¡¯ll find the Red Flame River. There should be a bigger town opposite the river. Damn it, why is this place so big?¡± Zhou Bao grumbled to himself. 680 million miles was not far when one was in the Void Universe. He only had to break through the space and he would be there immediately. But here, in this part of the Immortal Realm, he could not do that. The only thing he could do was to refine his Supreme Fairy Weapon, the Black Pearl, and head towards the west.


    Red Flame City!!!


    In the Immortal Realm, it was considered a small town on the outskirts, close to the Red Flame River.


    The Red Flame River was a big red river. The Original Spirit and Dharma of the flame filled the river. Many flame spirit creatures lived there. These spirit creatures had immense capabilities which made them comparable to a Human Immortal. Some had even reached the Immortal Realm. The ruler of the whole river was a spirit creature that had reached the Earthly Immortal realm. It was the Red Fire Emperor.


    Red Flame City was under the rule of the Red Fire Emperor.


    Red Flame City, the small city at the outskirts, was, strictly speaking, just a trading venue. The Immortal Realm had rich resources; be it human practitioners, monster practitioners or even demon practitioners and Devil Practitioners, they all needed many resources. Countless resources had to be compiled so they could be accumulated into a mighty power.


    Hence, there were trade markets in the Immortal Realm. People came and went and traded with whatever they had. Red Flame City was controlled by the spirit creatures living in the Red Flame River. They traded in all kinds of precious treasures from the Immortal Realm to gain resources for practice purposes.


    Since Zhou Bao was looking for clues to the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique, the duo from the Fifth Manor suggested that he go to Red Flame City to take a look. Perhaps, he would be able to find some clues related to this Divine Sense.


    Of course, they did not expect Zhou Bao to find the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique in Red Flame City. As for Zhou Bao, he wanted to take this opportunity to understand the Immortal Realm. Hence, he took their advice and went to the city nearest to the Fifth Manor.


    Because of the special environment, it was super easy to practice in the Immortal Realm. Hence, there were all sorts of practitioners. They were everywhere and had their share of influence, be it the Demonic Cultivation or the Devil Practitioner. Due to the lack of a unified management, the ones who were the majority took up all the favored spots and assumed the role of the local bully. Since the resources would never run out, there was no need to fight and snatch. Hence, it was much more peaceful when compared to the Void Universe. Each tribe was able to co-exist peacefully. Besides, they were all practitioners and were all seeking longevity and peace. Why would they risk their lives to fight with others over nothing? It was not worth fighting and using one¡¯s life as a sacrifice.


    In Red Flame City, there were many flame spirit creatures. These creatures had spiritual intelligence and were as complex as humans. They had been doing business in Red Flame City for a long time, and knew all the ropes to it, which left Zhou Bao bewildered.


    For a human practitioner like Zhou Bao, he had seen too many spirit creatures in Red Flame City. It was a small town on the outskirts but was also a place where many human practitioners came to visit. Many practitioners at the Immortal realm, be it the human practitioners, Demonic Cultivators, Devil Practitioners or the strange practitioners evolved from some strange species, liked to explore the Immortal Realm. They were there to seek all kinds of rare treasures and useful items. This served as a sort of preparation for them when they entered the Earthly Immortals¡¯ Great Way. Hence, it was nothing strange to see one or two more human practitioners in Red Flame City.


    Zhou Bao¡¯s clothing was very ordinary; he had on his usual cyan robe. There was nothing exceptional in his attire or attitude. Nobody would notice him even if he did not blend into the crowd.


    The city was centered around the spirit creatures of the Red Flame River. These spirit creatures were the same as humans but they had red-colored skin. There were also faint markings on their bare red skin. These were not engravings or tattoos; they were born with it. Other than these two factors, they were very similar to humans.


    After walking past a few stalls, Zhou Bao¡¯s eyebrows were slightly furrowed. If he brought these things to the Human World and the Void Universe, they would be considered rare treasures and countless practitioners would fight for them. Zhou Bao was jealous and wanted them, but the problem was, he had no money.


    Money!


    Of course, in the Void Immortal Realm, money was not used. Here, they used another type of hard currency, called the Zhu Huang Elixir.


    The Zhu Huang Elixir was a type of Immortal Elixir. It had great effects and could greatly increase the Dharma power of a practitioner without any side effects. Hence, this was used as a hard currency in the Void Immortal Realm. People used the Zhu Huang Elixir to mark their prices when trading and selling. Of course, they could also use items to exchange for another. However, Zhou Bao was a country bumpkin who had just arrived from the Human World to the Void Immortal Realm. Even if he had anything of value, it would only be of value back in the Human World; how could anything compare to the resources in the Immortal Realm? Hence, after taking a tour around the market in Red Flame City, Zhou Bao did not make any purchases, despite eyeing many things.


    Unknowingly, Zhou Bao had spent half a day browsing in the market and at the end of it, he had a strange look on his face.


    ¡°Damn it, this whole money thing is making my life difficult! Do I have to find a job to earn money after coming to the Immortal Realm?!¡± Thinking of this, Zhou Bao could not help but laugh at the situation.


    ¡°Junior Leopard, why are you here too?¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s expression changed. He turned around swiftly and froze. ¡°Chief Wang, what are you doing here?¡±


    Both Wang She and Zhou Bao were shocked. From Zhou Bao¡¯s point-of-view, Wang She should be in Heaven Realm World at this point in time.


    ¡°Seems like this world is really small!¡± As if he understood why Zhou Bao was shocked, Wang She could not help but laugh bitterly.


    ¡°The Celestial Immortal remains!¡±

 Chapter 851 - Local Bully Wang She

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    Zhou Bao never thought that he would run into someone that he knew in Red Flame City.


    Obviously, Wang She had the same thought.


    ¡°What a coincidence, meeting an old friend from the same hometown?¡±


    ¡°I think so, but your sudden appearance startled me!¡± Wang She said in surprise.


    ¡°Bullshit!¡± Zhou Bao furrowed his eyebrows. ¡°You knew that I was going to the Immortal Realm, but what are you doing here?¡±


    ¡°I inherited some secret skills of Divine Sense from Taoist Snake, as well as other items that were left behind. These items are all in the Immortal Realm, which is why I¡¯m here!¡±


    ¡°You came through the passageway?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, right behind you guys!¡±


    ¡°After us?¡±


    ¡°The Devil Tribe defeated the Sea-overlooking Gate Tower and exposed the passageway to the Immortal Realm. Although they did lock it intentionally, they could not hide it from them. Besides, the Devil Tribe had other priorities in mind. They only needed to get hold of the passageway. They are not too bothered about people sneaking in. If I am not wrong, there¡¯ll be more strangers sneaking into the Immortal Realm!¡±


    ¡°Sneaking into the Immortal Realm?¡± Zhou Bao was flustered. ¡°The Devil Tribe really doesn¡¯t care about that?¡±


    ¡°Of course not, they¡¯re not too strict about it. As long as you have the ability to hide from them, then they¡¯ll not care!¡± Wang She said, ¡°The Devil Tribe does have strong powers in Heaven Realm World, but they¡¯re not infinitely strong! Many old experts are still hidden in the Void Universe and they¡¯re of the Earthly Immortal Realm. They might not be comparable to people like Marquis Wugu and Marquis Zhihai, but they all have their unique tricks. Perhaps they could launch a sneak attack, but there¡¯s a possibility of them sneaking into the Immortal Realm.¡±


    Zhou Bao listened and laughed.


    Before coming to the Immortal Realm, Zhou Bao could not understand why the Earthly Immortals would want to sneak into the Immortal Realm. But now that he was here and had a good look around, he understood why. Only idiots would not want to come.


    It was the Immortal Realm! Apart from the endless spiritual qi that filled the air here, even the Dharma esoteric located everywhere was enough to drive the Earthly Immortals crazy.


    ¡°So you followed us here?¡±


    ¡°I received the message from Taoist Snake¡¯s willpower. Coincidentally, I also know the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, which was how I entered the Immortal Realm. I didn¡¯t expect to run into you so quickly! Oh right, what are you doing in Red Flame City?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m looking for the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique!¡± Zhou Bao had nothing to hide from Wang She.


    ¡°You actually came all the way here to find the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique?¡± Wang She could not believe Zhou Bao¡¯s answer. His eyes widened. ¡°This is the Red Flame River, the Red Flame City, it was only built in the past 100,000 years, how could this city have the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique?¡±


    ¡°How would you know that?¡±


    ¡°Of course I do!¡± Wang She rolled his eyes. ¡°Taoist Snake has a much larger influence in the Immortal Realm than I thought, and it is definitely more than what you think too!¡± Speaking of which, he seemed to have thought of something and smiled bitterly. ¡°But you can never imagine what kind of influence Taoist Snake has here!¡±


    ¡°What, snake?¡±


    Although Red Flame City was a bit run-down, it was still a city after all. Like a sparrow, it may be small; but it had everything, or at least the facilities to help one to nourish himself.


    There were many tribes in the Immortal Realm, but they were mostly human practitioners. Hence, they had the biggest influence here. Therefore, despite it being a small city, there were still food for the Human Tribe found in small restaurants, although it was a bit pricier.


    ¡°I would never have thought that Taoist Snake could control all the snakes in the Immortal Realm and get his information through them!


    ¡°That¡¯s right, I have inherited all of it, which means I¡¯m taking over the business here in Immortal Realm. Although I¡¯m only taking over a part of it, I know much more about the Immortal Realm than you practitioners who have recently arrived.¡±


    Taoist Snake was an old Celestial Immortal. Legend had it that when the earth was first formed, Taoist Snake evolved from the first snake in the Primordial Origin. Hence, it was able to control all the snakes on earth for its own use and use them to gather all the information across the earth.


    Taoist Snake had accumulated a vast fortune and gained many connections. As his only successor, Wang She would obviously enjoy the best in Immortal Realm. No one would dare to offend him.


    ¡°Damn it, after listening to what you said, why do I feel like you¡¯re the Tribulation Taker instead? You have a huge fate!¡± Zhou Bao felt helpless and jealous.


    ¡°Let it be! You¡¯re the Tribulation Taker, how can we be the same!¡± Wang She said softly, ¡°Although I have control over a portion of Taoist Snake¡¯s power, it is far from enough. I can only understand a part of the Immortal Realm. The Heaven and Earth Secret Technique last appeared 8.4 million years ago, are you sure you want to look for it?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right! I still have to find it even if its last appearance was 84 million years ago!¡± Zhou Bao sighed.


    ¡°Hehe, I forgot, you¡¯re the Tribulation Taker and have great luck. Others may not be able to find it, but perhaps you could do it easily!¡± Wang She seemed to think of something and smiled, ¡°The last news about it was from the Rock Cliff Sect, but it has been destroyed five million years ago. There are only its ruins left but you can try your luck there!¡± Speaking of which, he seemed to have noticed something. ¡°What a coincidence! The ruins of Rock Cliff Sect is reopening soon, many small sects and small tribes are going there to explore, perhaps they¡¯ll discover something. If you¡¯re interested, I can help you get there!¡±


    ¡°The ruins of Rock Cliff Sect?¡±


    Seeing Zhou Bao¡¯s confused expression, Wang She put on a helpless expression. He raised his right hand and pointed to Zhou Bao¡¯s mid-brow with his index finger. Following this, a mystic divine thought shot out of it.


    ¡°So that¡¯s what it is!¡±


    A high cultivation solved many things. There was plenty of information that could be transmitted via divine thoughts instead of saying it out bit by bit. It was fast, efficient and best of all, was confidential.


    Zhou Bao had a better understanding of the Immortal Realm through this divine thought.


    When he was in the Fifth Manor, Qing Feng and Ming Yue had explained to Zhou Bao about some of the trends in Immortal Realm. However, the two had been away for a prolonged period of time and had entered the Immortal Realm only recently. Hence, they had limited knowledge about it. They only knew about Jade Emperor Palace, Storm Eyes and Chaotic Poisonous Sea, the three main influences. It was just like how primary school kids knew about America and Russia only. Furthermore, their explanations were not very clear. Wang She may have just arrived at the Immortal Realm, but he had inherited the biggest information system in the entire Immortal Realm. His knowledge far exceeded that of the two stay-home males. The two only knew that apart from the three big influences, there were also some middle and small influences. However, they were not very clear about their capabilities, general distribution, differences, similarities and so on.


    But Wang She knew and so did Zhou Bao now.


    The Rock Cliff Sect was a middle-sized school in the Immortal Realm. There were initially more than 10 Elders in there and their cultivation were all at the Earthly Immortal Realm.


    A school that had more than 10 Earthly Immortals was considered a middle-sized influence in the Immortal Realm; it could dominate a place.


    However, this sect was destroyed five million years ago. Legend had it that they offended a Celestial Immortal, which resulted in its demise.


    Despite it being at the brink of destruction, as a middle-sized school, the 10 plus Earthly Immortal Elders had already practiced their own macro worlds. After dying in the hands of the Celestial Immortal, these macro worlds self-destructed and fell on the site where the Rock Cliff Sect used to be. They formed another dimension and kept the whole sect and all its treasures there.


    Actually, there were many schools and places like these in the Immortal Realm. For countless years, how many schools were formed and how many schools faced extinction? There were many such ruins and most of them had sunk deep down in the river of time. Only a small part of them, like the Rock Cliff Sect, could, for certain reasons, create a small opening in the alter dimension and let people in to explore.


    The remains of Rock Cliff Sect were discovered more than three million years ago, which was more than one million years after its demise. The entrance would open once every 50,000 to 60,000 years. During that time, people could enter it to explore. However, it did not stay open for long, so they had to get out before the time was up. If not, they would be trapped inside for a few thousand years. Hence, explorers were usually not satisfied during their search each time, due to the time constraint.


    In the case of other ruins, an Earthly Immortal would have opened the Space Passageway to the ruins quickly, eliminating the worries of others.


    However, there was something special about the ruins of Rock Cliff Sect. Firstly, this alter dimension was composed of the debris of the macro worlds created by the 10 Earthly Immortals. It withheld the horrifying strength the Earthly Immortals had when they died. Secondly, there was a Celestial Immortal brand on it, left behind by the Celestial Immortal who broke into the Earthly Immortals¡¯ macro worlds. No matter which one, these two reasons were more than enough to prevent an ordinary Earthly Immortal from opening the passageway easily. Without more than 10 of them, it would be impossible.


    But where could one find 10 Earthly Immortals to join forces?


    In an Earthly Immortal¡¯s perspective, the Rock Cliff Sect was just a middle-sized school. Also, when the school was in its heyday, they never heard of any Heavenly Fairy Weapon that was of interest to them. The only Heavenly Fairy Weapon used to compress fate had long been destroyed by the Celestial Immortal. Besides, there was the risk of being destroyed by the brand when opening the passageway.


    These were enough to put off any Earthly Immortal. Since it was not worth the risk, no one would be willing to do. Hence, the ruins of Rock Cliff Sect became insignificant. It ended up being a place for the small sects and influences to explore for treasures or train their disciples.


    It was now time for the ruins to be opened again. Many practitioners gathered around there, ready to enter the ruins and explore.


    ¡°News of the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique last appeared more than eight million years ago in the Rock Cliff Sect. That would mean that there are higher chances of finding it there!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, there are higher chances of finding it there!¡± Wang She smiled.

 Chapter 852 - Attack

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    An old Chinese saying goes like this: a powerful dragon cannot crush a snake in its old haunts.


    Zhou Bao could not be counted as a ¡®powerful dragon¡¯ in the Immortal Realm. However, Wang She was an accurate representation of a local bully.


    With Wang She¡¯s help, Zhou Bao would be able to get through the Transmitting Formation quickly and arrive at the place near the ruins of Rock Cliff Sect. He could then enter the ruins and search for the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique. This was a pleasant surprise for Zhou Bao.


    Okay, we should start moving, things like this cannot be delayed! I will go to the ruins of Rock Cliff Sect now. There should be a Transmitting Formation here in Red Flame City right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, of course! Although it is slightly run-down, it should be able to send you over to the larger cities. You can make use of those larger cities to get to the ruins!¡±. Wang She then withdrew a crystal card from his body.


    ¡°You¡¯ve just reached the Immortal Realm and have nothing. There should be enough Zhu Huang Elixirs in this crystal card to let you splurge on some stuff!¡±


    ¡°Crystal card?¡± Zhou Bao took the crystal card that resembled a credit card. He laughed, ¡°Thanks!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t mention it!¡± Wang She nodded his head slightly. ¡°You¡¯re the Tribulation Taker, perhaps I may need your help to avoid the tribulation in the future!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve inherited the Uniform Dao from Taoist Snake, shouldn¡¯t it be easy for you to avoid the tribulation?!¡± Zhou Bao smiled. After asking for the location of the Transmitting Formation in Red Flame City, he got into position, ready to leave. At that exact moment when he was about to take off, a red light flashed from the Red Flame River. In the next instant, red light was splashed across the skies, enveloping the earth beneath it.


    ¡°Who is it?¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s gaze shivered. He evolved into a straight sword light and shot for the canopy.


    Pssst! He broke through the red canopy that stretched across the sky.


    ¡°Interesting!¡±


    A gasp came from the Red Flame River. The red light that shone across the sky caused the surrounding space to compress and assimilate. It formed into a mountain range in mid-air, one that was completely made of red crystals. It fell violently onto the ground.


    ¡°Good timing!¡± By now, Zhou Bao was basically sure of who he was fighting against. His Mysterious Icy Divine Light had been activated and unlimited cold Qi poured from his body. It turned everything around Zhou Bao into deep blue fine powder.


    Boom boom boom!


    The Icy Divine Light and red crystal mountain collided with each other.


    The red crystal mountain emitted several loud noises and collapsed in mid-air.


    A giant red wave rolled up in the Red Flame River and turned into a giant God and Demon Statue. It roared, ¡°Icy Divine Light?¡±


    Roar!!!


    The God and Demon roared violently and a red flame spewed forth from his mouth. The flame turned into numerous supernatural animals that were either Gods or Demons. They flew towards Zhou Bao as if to attack him.


    ¡°What a cheap trick!¡± Seeing the scene unfolding before his eyes, Zhou Bao started laughing. He lifted his hand and pointed. A dark golden big seal emerged from his fingertip and expanded. It pounced on the approaching supernatural animals.


    Boom!


    The heavens and earth shook!


    The power of this seal was beyond expectation. It caused the surrounding space to fold inwards.


    The power of the Flipping Sky Seal was incomparable. In the Void Universe, smashing a space was as easy as smashing a block of tofu. One could just do it randomly. However, this was not the Void Universe, it was the Immortal Realm.


    The Law of Heaven and Earth was extremely strict. The strength of the space was stronger than that of the Void Universe by a million times. If the strength of the space in the Void Universe was akin to a block of tofu, then that in the Immortal Realm would be a rigid crystal solid made of diamond. Forget about hitting this solid, even getting it to vibrate temporarily would require an immense effort.


    The Earthly Immortals in the Immortal Realm could not rip up the space and walk around like they were in the Void Universe, even if they might be proficient in using the Great Way of Heavens and Realms.


    The Flipping Sky Seal caused the space to fold in, taking others by surprise. An important point to take note was that in the Immortal realm, the spaces were interconnected. Once a part folded in, it would affect the whole space in Red Flame City instantly.


    Whoosh!!!


    The heavens and earth shook as if the earth dragon was awakening. Due to the connection between the spaces, Red Flame City was almost overturned.


    The practitioners from each tribe in Red Flame City flew upwards to avoid the disaster. Those with higher cultivation had it better, but those with lower cultivation had to put up with all the tremors and were greatly affected.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care who or what you are, as long as you attack me first, I¡¯ll not go easy on you!¡± Zhou Bao shouted and recalled the Flipping Sky Seal. He then smashed it into the Red Flame River with all his might..


    Zhou Bao was incomparably strong in his attack. The opposite party was not keen on intercepting the attack of the Flipping Sky Seal, which could smash through the space. Instead, Zhou Bao¡¯s opponent sent up a fire cloud from the Red Flame River. It surged for a while in the air before heading for the Flipping Sky Seal.


    Whoosh!!!


    The Flipping Sky Seal fell right onto the fire cloud as if landing on a fluffy marshmallow. Since it was so soft, there was no effect at all. Things did not just stop there. The fire cloud started rolling and encased the Flipping Sky Seal before throwing it into the Red Flame River.


    ¡°The Flipping Sky Seal is now being treated as a fairy weapon instead! Change of plans, Flipping Sky Seal, explode that shit!¡±


    Zhou Bao could see that the fire cloud was a fairy weapon, but he also realized that it treated and acquired his Flipping Sky Seal as a fairy weapon. He could not help but laugh. The Flipping Sky Seal was where his Dharma power was concentrated, so it was not a fairy weapon of any sort. Of course, it was still under Zhou Bao¡¯s control. Taking advantage of this, he immediately caused it to explode.


    The Flipping Sky Seal was indeed not a fairy weapon. Its power was even weaker than a Taihao Fairy Weapon. When it exploded though, the destruction it caused was beyond even Zhou Bao¡¯s expectations, much less everyone else¡¯s.


    With a loud boom, all the visible parts of the Red Flame River flipped over. A mushroom cloud sprouted above the Red Flame River. It shot up to 10,000 feet high and its strong impact formed a shapeless mass. When this force spread towards all corners, it seared everything above ground level, turning them into fine powder. Red Flame City was also leveled.


    ¡°Hey, could you give some warning before you unleash some big moves?¡±


    There were many practitioners in Red Flame City and among them were some that had the cultivation of an Immortal. The practitioners who survived the explosion had at least the cultivation of a Human Immortal.


    However, being a Human Immortal was the basic requirement to survive. Only Immortals avoided getting hurt. Wang She was one of them.


    He was not injured, but had some dust on his face. With a flash, he appeared beside Zhou Bao and started to complain.


    ¡°Don¡¯t rush, the real leader has yet to say anything!¡± Zhou Bao smiled. Indeed, the real leader of Red Flame River had yet to appear. However, Zhou Bao¡¯s extremely sensitive spiritual mind could sense a monstrous anger brewing in the Red Flame River at the moment. It could explode anytime.


    ¡°Shit, shit! Kid, you¡¯re so dead, I¡¯m going to kill you! No, I¡¯m going to rip your soul out of your body and burn it with the fire from my hands for 10,000 years! No, you have to be burned for 100,000 years, 1,000,000 years! I will let you suffer pain and torture forever!¡± An angry howl was finally heard after a moment. Following which, the whole Red Flame River coiled up like a long red dragon and headed for Zhou Bao.


    ¡°It¡¯s an Upper Grade Taihao Fairy Weapon, we¡¯re missing the device spirit!¡±


    Facing his enemy with his monstrous powers, Zhou Bao merely narrowed his eyes and immediately saw through him. ¡°Turning the whole Red Flame River into your fairy weapon! That¡¯s a good method! But you will never defeat me merely by using these things!¡±


    He pounced on the Red Flame River swiftly. Without using any fairy weapons, he gave it a good punch.


    ¡°Boom!!!¡±


    The giant river split into two. The Icy Divine Light in his fist froze the burning river that was full of Dharma.


    Bang, bang, bang!


    Ear-piercing explosions rang in the air once again. It caused the frozen Red Flame River to splinter into numerous ice cubes.


    Zhou Bao had no intention of taking it easy. He packed in successive punches and a series of loud bangs could be heard, causing the once-surging Red Flame River to collapse totally.


    However, things were not as simple as they seemed. The Red Flame River had indeed been smashed into pieces, but suddenly a big golden web fell from the sky. The scariest part about this was that an odd-shaped spider was sitting on top of this web and controlling it. The web was headed for Zhou Bao.


    At this exact moment, Zhou Bao was dealing with the Red Flame River. Although he caused the river to scatter, the golden Dharma flowing in the river created some trouble for. It distracted him so much so that he did not notice anything wrong when the web first appeared. When he finally noticed something, the web had already dropped.


    Heavenly Fairy Weapon, Locust Tree Spider Web!


    ¡°Well done, Red Flame Emperor! As the Crown Prince, I will speak about your good work in front of my Father!¡±

 Chapter 853 - Jade Emperor Crown Prince Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    ¡°Crown Prince? Where did this idiot come from?¡±


    Zhou Bao felt his heart skip a beat. In that instant, he recalled what Wang She once told him. Looking at the falling web, he started spinning at a very high speed, like a huge top. At the precise moment when the web landed on him, his body managed to coil itself around the web.


    ¡°Psst!!!¡±


    The odd-shaped spider was taken aback by this and let out a weird shriek. It plunged all its eight claws into the spinning Zhou Bao.


    ¡°Boom!¡± The eight sharp claws made a screeching noise as if they were scratching against gold stones. Small sparks were seen flying out. However, these did not break Zhou Bao¡¯s defense.


    ¡°Zhou Bao, Tribulation Taker of Heaven Realm World. You own the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan bloodline but started your family by relying on Dragon Chimera the Primordial Fierce Beast. You inherited from Zhuyan and own the Icy Divine Light, which you refined into the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. Of course, your expertise is your punching skills. You managed to practice one that had immensely strong Qi Power. Its power could be compared to that of a Taihao Fairy Weapon, or even exceeding it. Many signs show that you know many kinds of Seven Wonderful Techniques and could even have acquired four of them! You have the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and have discovered the secrets behind them. This is why you have such powerful punches!¡±


    ¡°You know quite a lot!¡±


    Zhou Bao heard the voice of his opponent before he even met him. But that was not important. This guy was exposing all of Zhou Bao¡¯s ace cards and background. This pissed him off a little. ¡°But you missed out something!¡±


    ¡°You own a Supreme Fairy Weapon and have even refined Azure Heaven into a macro world in a Supreme Fairy Weapon!¡± The voice continued, ¡°And as for yourself, you have become the Fate Creator of Azure Big World and could enter the old ruins of the Sacred City of Fate easily. Am I right?¡±


    ¡°Seems like there isn¡¯t anything that you don¡¯t know!¡± Zhou Bao was still spinning at a very fast speed. His fight with the spider was also getting more intense. He could tell that this spider was the device spirit of the big web. It had an eerie Divine Sense. Using the spider web, it got into an untangled mess with Zhou Bao in a split instant. This was because Zhou Bao needed to defend himself against the one who was talking to him. Hence, 70% of his attention was diverted and he did not pay too much attention to the web.


    ¡°Hehe, you indeed live up to the name of a Crown Prince! You know quite a lot and you¡¯re much stronger than me! I don¡¯t even know which Jade Emperor you¡¯re serving!¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    The Jade Emperor Crown Prince obviously did not expect Zhou Bao to pinpoint his identity so quickly.


    ¡°Seems like I¡¯ve still under-estimated you. You just entered the Immortal Realm but you already know about my background! That¡¯s not easy. But we should stop now. Locust Tree Spider Web, strangle!¡±


    ¡°You have such high expectations!¡±


    After hearing his opponent say ¡°strangle¡±, Zhou Bao felt extremely sharp Sword Qis shooting forth from the spider web.


    He was still spinning at a high speed. With the spider web sticking to him, there was nowhere for him to hide from the Sword Qis. However, Zhou Bao did not intend to avoid it at all. He activated the Immortal Body Technique forcefully and withstood the cuts caused by the Sword Qis. At the same time, a half-black half-red Sword Qi shot out from his mid-brows. It aimed straight for the Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    ¡°Boom!!!¡±


    With a loud bang, Zhou Bao managed to cut a hole in the Locust Tree Spider Web and escaped through the hole at lightning speed. After which, he activated the Three Realms Division continuously five times to get away from it. At the third time, a black lotus appeared out of nowhere, enveloping the big web instantly. The petals closed together and turned into a black dot before disappearing.


    It all happened so quickly. If Zhou Bao had got out a bit later, he would have been trapped in the black lotus by now.


    Zhou Bao¡¯s reaction was obviously beyond the Crown Prince¡¯s expectation. Hence, he was a bit too slow in his actions. The time gap was the key factor that allowed Zhou Bao to escape his constraint.


    Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword !!!


    The Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was not what it used to be like anymore. Back then, Zhou Bao went through so much to find the Yin and Yang Evil Qi and refine it into an extremely strong power. That was more than a decade ago. These powers were useless now. However, back then, Zhou Bao already owned Azure Big World and a Supreme Fairy Weapon. Zhou Bao had already found another Evil Qi from Azure Big World and the Void Universe. This Evil Qi was much stronger and had a better quality. It was used to refine this Sword Qi. He also acquired the ways to Immortal-killing Sword Qi and Immortal-slaying Sword Qi from Ghost Child. He integrated these two into the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Perhaps by now, this sword could not live up to its name anymore, since there was no more Yin and Yang. It comprised mostly a weird combination of Immortal-killing Sword Qi and Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi. This Sword Qi combination¡¯s power far exceeded that of the original Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword Qi. But it was lacking in a way: there was too little Sword Qi. The two new Sword Qis were not like the original Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. It could not produce Sword Qi with pure Dharma power. It needed time to carefully refine and nourish it. It also needed extreme patience and comprehension skills. Hence, ever since Zhou Bao acquired this Sword Qi, he kept it in the Fiery Eyes between his mid-brows to nourish it. He had never used it before; this was the first time and it had proved to be very useful.


    The Jade Emperor Crown Prince and Red Flame Emperor had a good understanding of Zhou Bao¡¯s skills, but had never expected him to produce an eerie Sword Qi at this moment. According to the information they gathered, the power of Zhou Bao¡¯s Sword Qi could not flow at all. The cultivation of the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword was below that of a Human Immortal. It may be useful for a while, but once his cultivation bypassed that of a Human Immortal¡¯s realm, the power of this Sword Qi decreased tremendously due to reasons associated with the cultivation method. No matter how high the quality of a Sword Qi, the power would still be limited. They did not expect that Zhou Bao could bypass the limit on the Evil Qi so soon and directly use two overbearing Sword Qis as essence. Zhou Bao could now break a Heavenly Fairy Weapon with just one strike.


    Of course, the end results could not be seen yet. After the black lotus appeared, divine thoughts from Ghost Child were sent through again. ¡°Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy!!! Kid, you have to be extra careful! Don¡¯t get sealed! If not, you¡¯ll have much difficulty escaping from it even with a Supreme Fairy Weapon!!!¡±


    ¡°Is this Divine Sense really that powerful?¡±


    ¡°Of course it is! This is one of the strongest Divine Sense used for sealing purposes ever since the Primordial Origin. The Sacred City of Termination, one of the three holy cities from the past, was once sealed for 1,400,000 years before it escaped! Kid, your Supreme Fairy Weapon is like a speck of dust compared to it. If you¡¯re sealed, no one can save you!¡±


    ¡°How could it be that powerful?¡± Zhou Bao was taken aback. Even the Sacred City of Termination was sealed for more than a 1,000,000 years! What was happening?


    Just as Zhou Bao was communicating with Ghost Child¡¯s divine thoughts, another black lotus appeared beneath him. He spared no time for consideration and immediately executed the Three Realms Division once more. He barely managed to escape from danger again.


    ¡°Shit!!!¡± Zhou Bao managed to escape the seal twice. The Jade Emperor Crown Prince was not pleased. Although the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy was incomparably strong, it could only be used three times. He had already wasted two chances. Zhou Bao was super cunning and if he failed again, he would have lost the chance of capturing Zhou Bao.


    ¡°Red Flame Emperor!¡± Zhou Bao growled as the scattered Red Flame River re-constructed itself again. A red world descended from the skies.


    This was the macro world that the Red Flame Emperor refined, the Red Flame macro world.


    At this moment, the Red Flame Emperor did not hold back anymore. He directly cast out his macro world. He did not expect to suppress Zhou Bao, he only wished to restrict Zhou Bao¡¯s actions so that Jade Emperor Crown Prince could successfully seal Zhou Bao up using the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy.


    Of course, Zhou Bao would not give him the chance to do so. In fact, Zhou Bao had already sensed a great deal of danger. How would he dare to remain in such a dangerous place in the Immortal Realm for so long? Around the same moment when the Red Flame macro world descended, Zhou Bao cast out his Black Pearl. He activated his Supreme Fairy Weapon and bumped into the macro world violently.


    A macro world against another!


    The two macro worlds had a huge repulsion almost at the same time. Both did not give way to the other. Destruction was bound to happen.


    The Red Flame Emperor did not expect Zhou Bao to use a Supreme Fairy Weapon to defeat the macro world. Such forms of opposition were used to bring both parties down, even in the Earthly Immortal Realm. They had barely dealt with each other and Zhou Bao was already risking his life.


    As the saying goes, rude people are afraid of reckless people and reckless people are afraid of those who dare to fight with their lives.


    Zhou Bao sensed that the situation was getting a bit out of hand. He did not have much confidence. In addition, with the threat of the mysterious Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy, he did not want to stay here any second longer. He wanted a fast battle, which was why he made this decision.


    The collision between the two macro worlds created a much more destructive effect than what the Flipping Sky Seal did when it smashed into the space. Under the effects of such a collision, the sturdy structure of the space in the Immortal Realm was shattered immediately. It even collapsed.


    The Red Flame Emperor let out a loud roar; the Red Flame macro world that he had refined for so many years was breaking into pieces.


    ¡°Impossible, how is this possible? Your macro world has ¡­ !¡±


    The Red Flame Emperor only managed to let out a gasp of shock before he was sent flying into the air.


    At the same time, the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy appeared again!


    ¡°It is time!¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s gaze flickered violently almost simultaneously with the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy¡¯s re-appearance. Numerous thunderbolts flew out from the Black Pearl and evolved into thunder dragons, pouncing towards a certain part of the hollow. ¡°Damn it, you¡¯re playing the game for too long. Show up!¡±

 Chapter 854 - The Killing Tribulations and Seizing Control of Fate

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    The Immortal Realm, Mowen Valley!


    A brute dressed in golden attire was livid with rage. Endless bolts of lightning wrapped around him as he stared fiercely at several people in front of him. ¡°Who are you people and why are you attacking me?¡± A brute dressed in golden attire was livid with rage. Endless bolts of lightning wrapped around him as he stared fiercely at several people in front of him. ¡°Who are you people and why are you attacking me?¡±


    ¡°Huang Lei is a Tribulation Taker of the Northernmost Sea macro world. He acquired all of my Northern Dao from the Three Devil Deities and inherited one of the Creation Deities of remote antiquity, the Strength of Calmness. I doubt he inherited the Hell Divine Palace of the Three Devil Deities. He had the power to break into the Earthly Immortal realm three years ago. Is what the Divine Prince said correct?¡± The young man standing in front of Huang Lei, dressed in brocade clothing said nonchalantly, ¡°Of course, you are a tribulation taker. You must have adventures that ordinary people do not know about, and you must have some special methods. Am I right?¡±


    ¡°Who are you people?¡±


    Huang Lei felt like he was going crazy. As the Tribulation Taker of the Northernmost Sea macro world, you could say his life had been smooth sailing all this while. He had never encountered any great dangers before. He just went on one adventure after another and his power increased quickly. No matter what difficulties and obstacles he encountered, he was always able to turn them to his own advantage. He seemed to live by the maxim ¡°calamity is always followed by good luck¡±. But this time he was filled with a panic he had never experienced before.


    Heaven Realm World had been rediscovered and the passageway to the Immortal Realm was once again clear. The Void Universe attracted all the attention in the Immortal Realm. Many Earthly Immortals from the Northernmost Sea had tried to get into the legendary Immortal Realm through the passageway to enhance their own strength, but unfortunately, very few could successfully hide from the Devil Tribe¡¯s watchful eyes. Huang Lei was one of them.


    Originally, he thought that he was lucky enough to get numerous and better chances in the Immortal Realm than in the Void Universe and that he would acquire additional strength there. But he hadn¡¯t considered that once inside he would gain great benefits from the nearby seemingly limitless Dharma. However, he had no time to absorb it. Then he encountered the self-proclaimed Crown Prince who wanted to kill him.


    But Huang Lei was not afraid. In the Void Universe, he had run into countless men who had wanted to kill him. But with his boundless luck he always managed to escape, unharmed but shaken. But this time was different.


    ¡°Getting ten Earthly Immortals to come and kill me. Isn¡¯t that a bit of an overkill?¡±


    ¡°Overkill?¡± The guy in the brocade clothing was the leader. He closed his folding fan and a mocking smile flashed across his handsome face. ¡°There¡¯s no other way. Who made you a Tribulation Taker? And the main Tribulation Taker of the Dharma Ending Tribulations at that? Your luck is so profound that we would not have come for you unless we were absolutely prepared for everything.¡±


    ¡°What would you gain from killing me?¡± Huang Lei looked even more resentful as he listened to this so-called Crown Prince.


    ¡°If we kill you, we can seize your fate and we will then become the new Tribulation Takers instead of you. What do you think, is it worth it?¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Huang Lei looked angry. ¡°Seize my fate, become the new Tribulation Takers? How is that possible?¡±


    ¡°How is it not possible?¡± The young man in brocade clothing smiled. ¡°This Tribulation Taker¡¯s luck is indeed profound, but do you really think it is a type of amulet? Not only are you able to take tribulation after tribulation and come out alive, but you can also withstand the tribulation difficulties. Only if you get through these difficulties can you be considered a true Tribulation Taker, otherwise, you are just a lucky man!¡±


    ¡°Very well, then!¡± Huang Lei finally understood, but it was a little too late. Dozens of spirits appeared around him. Each one approaching him looked to be at least Earthly Immortal-level Emperors.


    ¡°So, who actually are you? You seem able to mobilize so many Earthly Immortals. Even in the Immortal Realm, it would not be possible to send out so many.¡±


    ¡°I am the Second Crown Prince, the Jade Emperor!¡± The guy raised his head with a lofty expression. ¡°By order of the Jade Emperor Sage, I have come to remove Tribulation Takers!¡±


    ¡°Kill the Tribulation Taker and seize his fate!¡±


    The Immortal Realm and the Red Flame River!


    Zhou Bao was high up in space, his cyan robe flapping violently in the wind. In front of him was a thunder pool about ten feet wide with thunder water churning furiously inside. Several thunder dragons surged under the surface. In the water, there was a net billowing up and down with the movement of the water. There were also two figures emitting a scattered light which stopped the thunder water from corroding. Above the pool were two device spirits. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation spirit was about a hundred feet tall and in its hand, it clutched an abnormally shaped spider. This spider was the device spirit of the Locust Tree Spider Web.


    The Locust Tree Spider Web, a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, had no power to hit back against the might of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and was tightly suppressed by the device spirit. But the Jade Emperor Crown Prince owned the Red Flame River. The Red Flame emperor had already turned into the two figures in the Thunder Pool.


    ¡°How can The Thunder Emperor¡¯s Pool of Thunder Tribulation be in your hands? How are you able to refine the Pool of Thunder Tribulation? Dammit! Dammit! It¡¯s not possible! How could this happen?¡± The Jade Emperor Crown Prince panted with rage in the Thunder Pool. His face was no longer handsome and had a sinister look on it. At first, he had been confident in coming to deal with Zhou Bao. Although Zhou Bao was a Tribulation Taker with lots of skills, with the fairy weapon the Jade Emperor Sage had given him and the help of the Red Flame Emperor, the Crown Prince thought he could easily suppress him and prevent him from reaching the Earthly Immortal Realm. But he had not foreseen that things could get as ugly as they were now.


    It was really bad. There were countless strategies he had not fully used, especially the several strategies to restrain Zhou Bao. But now he was suppressed by the Pool of Thunder Tribulation that Zhou Bao had suddenly used on him. So he was sullen, very sullen.


    ¡°Whatever you call it, it¡¯s useless!¡± Zhou Bao looked coldly at the unruly Crown Prince in the pool. He played out his fingers and made a grab for him. The thunder water suddenly surged and the Crown Prince and the Red Flame Emperor¡¯s protective scattered light were visibly dimmer, particularly the Red Flame Emperor¡¯s.


    ¡°What are you going to do?¡±


    He was struck by an overwhelming sense of panic. ¡°You dare to kill me!¡±


    ¡°So what if I kill you?¡± Zhou Bao laughed sinisterly. The device spirit above the Pool of Thunder Tribulation let out a low roar and stuffed the Locust Tree Spider Web into its mouth. It squeaked loudly as it chewed. As it swallowed, the large net in the Thunder Pool was split apart by the water and turned into pure energy which the pool absorbed.


    ¡°No¡ª!¡± The Red Flame Emperor bellowed in rage. The scattered light which had weakened until it was barely discernible, exploded violently.


    ¡°It¡¯s simply preposterous to want to detonate a macro world under the suppression of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation!¡± When he realized his opponent¡¯s plan, Zhou Bao laughed sinisterly. The several thunder dragons in the Thunder Pool wound themselves around Red Flame Emperor, opened their fearsome mouths and ripped him apart. The Earthly Immortal Red Flame Emperor was ripped to shreds and even his fairy weapon and macro world were liquidated by the thunder.


    Roar!!!!


    An Earthly Immortal was gone. The power of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation rose by a level. As a device spirit, it was obviously very happy. It looked upwards and emitted a long hiss as Ghost Child watched enviously.


    ¡°This guy is worth it. An Earthly Immortal that can refine this type of Thunder Pool? An Earthly Immortal with a macro world, infinite resources and a magic weapon? How could you let him off so lightly?¡±


    ¡°I already have enough things. Resources, a magic weapon and even a macro world would be no use to me now.¡± Zhou Bao smiled. ¡°They were all used to increase the Thunder Pool¡¯s power, which is hardly in my interest!¡±


    ¡°Then why don¡¯t you send a few Earthly Immortals for me to refine?¡±


    ¡°Hmph. If I kill this Jade Emperor Crown Prince, do you think you won¡¯t get many Earthly Immortals to refine?¡± Zhou Bao snorted and spoke sternly.


    ¡°What, are you really going to kill the Jade Emperor Crown Prince? He¡¯s the Jade Emperor Sage¡¯s son, a Celestial Immortal! Do you really think you want to offend him?¡±


    ¡°Since he¡¯s come to kill me, he would naturally be aware of the possibility of being killed by me, no matter who his father is!¡± Zhou Bao said without a care. He had never had a good impression of this Crown Prince¡¯s party, even less now that the Crown Prince wanted to kill him.


    ¡°You had better let me go. Do you still dare to hurt me? I am a Jade Emperor Crown Prince. If you hurt me, my father will never let you go, you¡ª!¡± Seeing the Red Flame Emperor refined by the Thunder Pool, the Crown Prince who had until now been unconcerned, had finally started to panic.


    ¡°Of course, I won¡¯t hurt you, I only want to kill you. If you tell me the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy incantation, I will make you very happy. Otherwise, I will put your primordial spirit into the Elixir Furnace and you will be tortured day and night in the refining fires!¡± Zhuo Bao said in a completely calm tone. The only thing the Jade Emperor had that he coveted was the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy. This was a unique Primordial Origin Divine Sense passed onto him. His prestige was almost at the Seven Wonderful Techniques. The only shortfall was that his capabilities were too narrow, with only a Divine Sense specifically used to seal.


    And right now Zhou Bao lacked this sealing Divine Sense and a Divine Sense of such a high level had suddenly appeared. Of course, he would have thought up every possible means of seizing it from the Jade Emperor.


    ¡°You are crazy, really crazy. You dare to tell me that you will kill me! I am a Jade Emperor Crown Prince, the most respected person of the Immortal Realm. You actually dare to kill me!¡± The Crown Prince was so stunned by what Zhou Bao said that he could not speak coherently.

 Chapter 855 - Starting to Face the Rock Cliff Sect

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    The Rock Cliff Sect!


    This sect that had originated from a place high up in the mountain disappeared millions of years ago.


    In the Immortal Realm, a mountain had to be at least ten million feet in height to be considered high.


    The top of this mountain seemed to have been flattened by an immense force. It collapsed and the place had a desolate air about it.


    At the foot of Rock Cliff Sect mountain lay a small town.


    After the ruins of the Rock Cliff Sect were discovered in this small town, it was gradually rebuilt. It was not very big but had already outgrown Red Flame City in size.


    It was nearing the day that the Rock Cliff Sect ruins were to be opened. For the past million years the site opening times were very irregular. Sometimes it only opened once in tens of thousands of years and other times it opened every several thousands of years. If it had been placed in the Void Universe, the opening date would never be confirmed. But this was not the Void Universe, it was the Void Immortal Realm.


    There were many similar ruins in the Void Immortal Realm. Furthermore, in a compromise between the great powers, where the top-level took into consideration the honing of the skills of the bottom level practitioners, the opening day of the ruins was not kept secret. So on each opening day, the small village at the foot of the Rock Cliff Sect would welcome countless explorers and practitioners seeking opportunities.


    Practitioners streamed in endlessly, seeking treasures. Naturally, Zhou Bao had plenty of opportunities too and he swaggered into Rock Cliff City along with the procession of practitioners.


    After he had successfully obtained the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy from the Crown Prince, he beheaded him. He had not been given the slightest chance. This had greatly offended the Jade Emperor Sage and Jade Emperor Palace was coming for him in the Immortal Realm. But he was not in the least worried.


    After the so-called Jade Emperor Crown Prince had killed and robbed the tribulation takers, they were fated to never be able to resolve their conflict with Jade Emperor Palace.


    Tribulation takers could not be randomly killed and if they were killed, their fates could not be plundered so casually. These Jade Emperor Crown Princes were not tribulation takers, so they did not have the ability to carry out the tasks. But they had a great leader who gave them the ability, although this ability was not perfect compared to those who were true tribulation takers. They could only steal half of the tribulation takers¡¯ fates, but this was already considered a large amount. These were virtually man-made tribulation takers; it was not clear whether the methods they had taken for themselves were better than those of the sword schools. But it was enough to demonstrate the Jade Emperor Sage¡¯s tyranny.


    Tyranny!


    This was a common characteristic of the Way of the Emperors¡¯ practice. Once they had everything they required in hand, they turned them into pawns for their own use; all living things in the universe were made to crawl under their feet. These living things could only obey their commands respectfully before finally being enslaved.


    Yes, they enslaved all living things!


    The highest and most sought-after state of the Way of the Emperor was enslavement, the enslavement of all things!


    This state and way of thinking was completely contrary to practice. But if one day they were able to practice to a prestigious level, this was enough to fill the practitioners with glory and satisfaction. It was said that this feeling of satisfaction surpassed everything else, including the feeling of unlimited ascension through the phases.


    This was what disgusted Zhou Bao the most.


    Zhou Bao sought to practice in completely the opposite way of the Way of the Emperor. He sought complete freedom so that no-one or nothing had any way of restricting him. Everything he did was for this goal.


    Freedom and enslavement!


    These were completely contrary propositions and he was fated to oppose those practitioners of the Way of the Emperor.


    Of course, his old father in law did not care about the cultivation of the Way of the Emperor.


    There was too much difference between the levels. Yan Yuntian had, at best, the ability of a ruler of a country. Although his power had some scope, it was not enough. Thinking about it, for several years he was the Human Emperor of Heaven Realm and during this time the situation in Heaven Realm World had worsened. If it were not for Fate Creation Boy and his son-in-law propping it up in the background, he would not have maintained his power there. If this type of person practiced the Way of the Emperor, he would definitely not be bullied.


    Now, Zhou Bao walked the Immortal Realm not in his own body, but using a sword incarnation.


    After meeting with Jade Emperor Crown Prince, Zhou Bao realized that Jade Emperor Palace was totally ready to seize the tribulation takers¡¯ fates. They had dug out every bit of information about the Human World tribulation takers. If he did not move quickly, then all the people he was related to would be taken into Azure Big World. This Jade Emperor Palace could even use his family members to blackmail him with. The Emperor would use any means on hand.


    Right now Zhou Bao did not have anything to worry about, but he also did not want to be stuck in the Immortal Realm. Wherever he went there were people looking for him and he felt this was not good. This was why he walked the Immortal Realm using a sword incarnation.


    After all, the Jade Emperor Palace knew that he had the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations and that he had cultivated three incarnations. But they would never have thought that he had infused the Immortal-killing Sword Qi with the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi and cultivated a new Yin and Yang Heavenly Natal Sword. He only depended on his sword incarnation and his combat capability would be no less than that of an average Earthly Immortal. He might even have the chance to behead an Earthly Immortal.


    Therefore, it was probably safe to walk the Immortal Realm in a sword incarnation.


    His speculation proved to be correct. He did not run into any problems for several months. On the contrary, he went through several transmissions. Walking around the Immortal Realm he gained a deeper understanding of things, including Jade Emperor Palace.


    The Jade Emperor Sage oversaw Jade Emperor Palace. It was one of the three biggest powers in the Immortal Realm and the most tyrannical. Of course, others could not understand this tyranny, after all, the Jade Emperor Sage had practiced the Way of the Emperor. The characteristics of this Way could not be concealed from the Immortal Realm practitioners.


    However, this did not mean that Jade Emperor Palace could do as they pleased across the Immortal Realm, as the realm was too big. Jade Emperor Palace and the Chaotic Poisonous Sea were in the eye of a storm. The three big powers had a limited scope of influence and outside of that, they did not dare commit the same kind of offenses they did in their local areas. Maybe Celestial Immortals were already not part of the great powers, they only had Earthly Immortal overseers. But there were many ancient sects that were passed down, and they had connections to the Celestial Immortals using Taoist rites in the Extraterritorial Areas. There was one sect left behind from the Taoist rites in the Immortal Realm. Provoking them was equivalent to provoking the Celestial Immortals behind them. Jade Emperor Palace would not be willing to do that. So the three great powers in the Immortal Realm were at most only a part of the biggest influences. They did not have the absolute power of rule.


    In the Immortal Realm, there was no force with true ruling powers.


    Over the past month, Zhou Bao felt that the most amazing thing was the news of Jade Emperor Palace¡¯s killing and robbing of tribulation takers, which by now had been made known to everyone


    But the Zhou Bao and other tribulation takers were also gaining fame in the Immortal Realm. Not only were their names spreading across the realm, but also their basic information and Divine Senses, making them moderately famous in the Immortal Realm.


    This was the reason why Zhou Bao had to disguise himself.


    Otherwise, he would definitely be recognized while he was there.


    The news of the other tribulation takers had, of course, also reached him. He was severely disappointed to learn that among the five Tribulation Takers, two of them had been hunted down and killed by the Jade Emperor.


    The Northernmost Sea macro world Tribulation Taker Huang Lei had died at the hands of Jade Emperors¡¯ Second Crown Prince. His magic weapons, Divine Sense and half of his fate had been seized and the Second Crown Prince immediately became the most powerful Crown Prince in the palace. They secretly replaced traces of the Jade Emperor Sage¡¯s position. The only other comparable person was the Ninth Princess who beheaded Ying Hu, the other tribulation taker.


    Yes, Ninth Princess, not Crown Prince.


    The Jade Emperor¡¯s Ninth Princess successfully beheaded Ying Hu, tribulation taker of the West Wilds macro world. She plundered all his magic weapons, his Divine Sense, half of his fate and her power in Jade Emperor Palace rose abruptly.


    The third tribulation taker had once launched a sneak attack on his own Man Yujun and had returned to his sword school to do closed-door training and never came out. Any observant person would know that he was keeping low but few knew that he had suffered a sneak attack by Zhou Bao and his pneuma had been damaged.


    Another tribulation taker, Kong Ti of the South China macro world, was like Zhou Bao. He had killed a Jade Emperor Crown Prince, and along with Zhou Bao, was placed at the very top of Jade Emperor Palace¡¯s wanted list.


    However, also like Zhou Bao, after he killed the Fifth Crown Prince, he went into hiding and disappeared without a trace. It was as if he had vanished from the Immortal Realm; no one knew where he had gone. There were no clues as to where to find him.


    ¡°Haha, if the Jade Emperor Palace lost Your Excellency, they would not see how Wang She could gain a foothold in the Immortal Realm in such a short time. He would take over the Taoist Snake intelligence network. Compared to me, he is truly blessed!¡±


    Wang She was really blessed. Now, the news had almost spread throughout the Immortal Realm, disseminated by him through the intelligence network. You could see from this just how effective the intelligence network established by the Taoist Snake was. In such a short time it had spread the news through half the Immortal Realm and caused a great stir.


    ¡°Fellow Taoist!¡± A practitioner dressed in white, walked up to Zhou Bao as he stood at the gate of the Rock Cliff City looking at the wanted list suspended in midair at Jade Emperor Palace. ¡°Fellow Taoist, have you come for the remnants of the Rock Cliff Sect?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I have come for the remnants of the Rock Cliff Sect. Have you as well, Your Excellency?¡± Zhou Bao glanced at the practitioner in white, feeling a small wave of excitement. This person had just broken through to the Immortal state, but he harbored such a strong potential that it made Zhou Bao feel uneasy.

 Chapter 856 - The Contract and the Two-Man Team

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    ¡°I am an independent practitioner who came here to find the Divine Fate at the Rock Cliff Sect. But there are many dangers among the remnants of the Rock Cliff Sect, so I respectfully ask if my brother would want to accompany me and work with me to find the divine fate?¡±


    Work together to find the Divine Fate.


    This kind of situation was almost unimaginable in the Void Universe. The practitioners in the Void Universe did not trust one another as it was common for them to steal from and kill one another. This was because the resources were scarce, so everybody fought and stole.


    However, it was different in the Immortal Realm. There were far more resources available here than in the Void Universe and the practitioners had not really explored the entire realm.


    Zhou Bao now knew that the Void Immortal Realm had been created by an ancient Celestial Immortal Taoist Jin. However, this magical world was not merely created out of thin air and sufficient materials had to be sourced for its creation. The Taoist Jin understood this very well and during the Primordial Origin in the original space where the heavens were formed, the Void Immortal Realm arose.


    Huge, ancient and full of magic.


    Practitioners did not have the same sense of urgency when they practiced here, unlike those in the Void Universe. The atmosphere was much more relaxed than that in the Human World. Everyone was on cordial terms and had good relationships with each other.


    Furthermore, since primitive times, countless powers had existed in the Void Immortal Realm, which meant there were countless ruins and almost every day a new one opened. Each one had a gargantuan Divine Fate. Because the territory here was so big, all the rules and the Dharma were very strict, so it was not that noticeable.


    It was because of these endless resources that the relationships between the practitioners were so relaxed. Even though not everybody knew each other, they had plenty of opportunities to cooperate.


    After countless years, many unwritten rules had come into being in the Immortal Realm. In the eyes of practitioners coming from the Human world, people such as the man in front of Zhou Bao were a little odd. They either had an evil plan in mind or was simply courting death.


    However, Zhou Bao knew from previous information passed to him by Wang She that this behavior was the norm in the Immortal Realm.


    It was different in the Human World and its countless hidden rules. If someone came up to you, it was a certainty that it was not done at the spur of the moment. They would have certainly come thoroughly prepared and would already have a contract in their hand. Zhou Bao only needed to sign this temporary cooperation contract and the cooperation would be acknowledged and protected by the whole Immortal Realm.


    Yes, that¡¯s right, protected!


    This was a very clear agreement on the rights and obligations of both parties, a contract as detailed as it could ever be. Anything you could think of was spelled out in the contract and in a fair way for both parties. Zhou Bao had seen this type of agreement before where Wang She was, so he did not look at it much. He thought about it for a second and agreed.


    The best way for him to hide his identity as a tribulation taker was to assimilate with the Immortal Realm practitioners. There were hordes of independent practitioners here, so blending in with them was like being a drop of water in the ocean. So long as Zhou Bao was careful, it would be very difficult to find him.


    After he signed the contract, Zhou Bao was now that practitioner¡¯s teammate. This time, Zhou Bao did not use the Taoist Cundi name. The Void Immortal Realm understood the Human World far more than the people of the Human World could imagine, and so it was no longer a secret that he was Taoist Cundi.


    ¡°With my poor Taoist bodhi, I¡¯m afraid I don¡¯t know what my brother¡¯s honorable name is?¡±


    ¡°Haha, it¡¯s not an honorable name. I am also an independent practitioner, Wang Shang!¡± This Wang Shang laughed mischievously. Having signed the contract with Zhou Bao, the two of them were teammates at least until the Rock Cliff Sect remnants were finished. What was more, they were teammates who could trust each other.


    ¡°This contract is interesting. It contains some mystical powers. Although they are very minute, they are different from that of the current system of powers. They are somewhat similar to the powers of the era of the ancient deities. Wang She had also mentioned that this type of contract had been passed down from the ancient deities. It seems that the powers of the ancient deities were quite strange!¡±


    Rock Cliff City was different from the cities of the Immortal Realm passageways. Inside it were many fragments of space. Therefore, when these ruins were opened, it did not seem at all crowded, despite that countless practitioners had come to encounter the Divine Fate.


    Coincidentally, the Rock Cliff Sect remnants were just opening as Zhou Bao and Wang Shang entered the city.


    This so-called opening of the relics was actually a fluctuation produced by the space of the relics, creating countless passageways to the main space of the Immortal Realm. Some of these passageways were like black holes, some were just a beam of light, and quite a few even burst open directly on the mountainside.


    Zhou Bao and Wang Shang did not hesitate. They exchanged a look and stepped into one of the passageways.


    At first it was dark. Then suddenly it became bright and they both gasped when they saw the scene before them.


    Before them was a broken world, or rather, fragments of a broken world.


    The Dharma had been completely shattered and the space was very disorderly.


    Mountains, water, trees, and even corpses, were partially hanging in the air.


    Because the Dharma had changed totally, some strange living creatures had appeared inside this broken world. Zhou Bao and Wang Shang paid no attention to these. As peculiar as they were, they had no powers. They were just abnormal creatures and were of no value at all.


    ¡°Our goal is the treasure left behind by the Rock Cliff Sect Elders in their own macro worlds. This treasure should be at the center of the worlds. In that era, every Earthly Immortal liked to build a palace in the center of his macro world. They liked to control everything and so in these palaces there may be many inhibitions. Even Earthly Immortals can be easily trapped. I have heard that Earthly Immortals are also among those explorers that have died there.¡±


    ¡°Well, we¡¯d better be careful, then!¡± Zhou Bao nodded in agreement.


    The remains of the Rock Cliff Sect were situated in a very strange place. Because the Rock Cliff Sect had been destroyed, dozens of Earthly Immortal Elders had been wiped out by the Celestial Immortals. The macro worlds refined by Earthly Immortals were not isolated. These ten macro worlds were blended into one by the force of the Celestial Immortal Dharma power. Therefore, the Law of Space in these macro worlds was very strange and very hard to fathom.


    By now, countless practitioners had also entered these ruins. Like Zhou Bao and Wang Shang, they were very cautious. Many monks had disappeared after they entered.


    ¡°They all seemed worried and in a hurry!¡±


    ¡°Yes, that is to be expected. The Rock Cliff Sect Relics had been discovered so long ago and had opened so many times, that there are no longer any secrets left. If they wanted to find something useful, they have to just go for it before someone else takes it!¡± Wang Shang smiled. ¡°So many sects have inheritances connected to these relics, so there is a very clear objective for many people!¡±


    ¡°My brother, you seem very familiar with these remnants. It appears you have your own objective?¡± Zhou Bao probed.


    ¡°Of course. My goal is to find a Heavenly Fairy Weapon left behind by the chief First Elder of the Rock Cliff Sect. I also know where the Sun and Moon Wheel is!¡± Wang Shang said, smiling. He was not bothered in the least about revealing his objective. Zhou Bao would not be able to fight with him over it, because that eventuality was addressed in the contract and Zhou Bao would not go against it.


    ¡°My goal is not to find any treasure but to find the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique. I heard that this incantation last appeared in the Immortal Realm, in the Rock Cliff Sect. I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯ll be able to find it.¡±


    ¡°The Heaven and Earth Secret Technique of the Seven Wonderful Techniques?¡± Wang Shang was surprised. ¡°What are you going to do with that incantation? You are not a tribulation taker!¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m not a tribulation taker. But I could kill one!¡± Zhou Bao suddenly gave a sinister smile. ¡°In other words, there is no rule that says only tribulation takers can practice this incantation!¡±


    ¡°Do you want to learn the practice of the Jade Emperor Palace?¡± Wang Shang¡¯s frown grew. ¡°That¡¯s almost impossible! Each one of those tribulation takers has a very good fate. Even the Jade Emperor Palace has only succeeded in killing two and they still lost two Crown Princes. The fate of the tribulation takers is very curious.¡±


    ¡°So long as I am fully prepared, there is no chance!¡± Zhou Bao said readily as if he was really set on killing a tribulation taker. ¡°As long as the Immortal Realm has a complete Heaven and Earth Secret Technique and Zhou Bao practices his Seven Wonderful Techniques to the maximum, then he will inevitably find this Way. I will first capture this Way and gain authority to use it. Do you think I am one of those mindless Crown Princes? You may think that I am a Celestial Immortal successor. It is so arrogant not to make any preparations but to go and cause trouble with the tribulation takers.¡±


    ¡°Whether you are like one of those Crown Princes or not, you¡¯d better take it easy. Since ancient times, most of those who have done right by the tribulation takers did not gain from it. Most of them just became stepping stones!¡± Wang Shang advised him with every good intention.


    ¡°If you don¡¯t try, how would you know?¡± Zhou Bao smiled. ¡°Maybe those tribulation takers can become my stepping stone to the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re crazy!¡± At this point, Wang Shang regretted teaming up with this guy without first being clear about his situation. This guy might have been powerful, but he was also insane in wanting to cause trouble with the tribulation takers. Maybe he really did consider himself a Jade Emperor Crown Prince? Assuming he was, then it was still uncertain if he could defeat a tribulation taker.


    ¡°Okay then. We¡¯ll cooperate. Go and find your Sun and Moon Wheel and I¡¯ll go and find my Heaven and Earth Secret Technique. Let¡¯s not waste any more time!¡± Having gained no result, Zhou Bao ended their conversation.

 Chapter 857 - The Jade Emperor’s Way to Success

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    The relics of the Rock Cliff Sect!


    Countless figures appeared and disappeared in the vast and wild space, leaving only faint traces behind.


    Wang Shang was numb and confused. He watched the guy in front of him, the practitioner who claimed to be the Bodhi Taoist. Right now, a transparent Natal Sword was hanging upside down above his head. The Sword Qi flying around cleared every potential threat around him.


    Anything blocking his way was smashed to pieces by his Sword Qi. Be it waves, storms, energies, rays, poison gases, or monsters, mountains, rivers and cliffs.


    Then, a passage directly leading to the core of the macro world was created.


    A passage paved by Zhou Bao¡¯s SwordQi.


    This was sheer arrogance and rampage.


    His drastic action shocked not only Wang Shang, but the other practitioners in the Rock Cliff Sect as well.


    But under such circumstances, they dared not say anything.


    In fact, seeing this, Wang Shang felt so much regret that he wanted to slap himself. How could he have ever thought at the beginning, that this murderer looked rather kind!


    The Immortal-killing Sword Qi and the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi!!!


    Who on earth was he?


    No wonder he was so tough and confident when saying that he would kill the Tribulation Taker and loot their fate. He had the power indeed.


    In the Northernmost Sea macro world, Man Yujun, who joined the Sword School, became a Tribulation Taker only because he had inherited the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi. The guy standing in front of him possessed two of the Four Immortal-killing Sword Qis. He should be as powerful as those Tribulation Takers.


    Even at such moment, Wang Shang had no doubt about Zhou Bao¡¯s identity. After all, the information about the five Tribulation Takers was not a secret in the Void Immortal Realm. The only Tribulation Taker related to the inheritance of the Four Immortal-killing Sword Qi was Man Yujun. Clearly, the one standing in front was not him.


    As the Sword Qi grew more and more mature, Zhou Bao sped up his work. Finally, the Sword Qi turned into a rapid streamer and flew toward the heart of this macro world, fending off all attacks.


    Wang Shang was shocked at the beginning. But now, after just a second of hesitation, he followed Zhou Bao and flew forward with top speed.


    Some practitioners also tried to take a ride. They followed the two, but soon began to regret.


    The residual Sword Qi, with just a small amount, was powerful enough to make them suffer. those practitioners who were at most Immortals. After a while, when the last practitioner came out in panic after losing all his magic weapons, no one dared to take advantage anymore.


    ¡°Damn it! He¡¯ll have a head start this time. But it doesn¡¯t matter. The relics in the Rock Cliff Sect are inexhaustible. There will be some left for us!¡± No one could catch up with Zhou Bao and Wang Shang, yet no one was willing to give up.


    ¡°Impressive! Really impressive! With two Immortal-killing Sword Qis, no wonder you boasted about killing the other Tribulation Takers.¡± After flying with Zhou Bao for some time, Wang Shang felt no malice from his partner. He caught up with him and asked, ¡°There¡¯s also a guy in the Human World that has inherited the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi. Why do you target at Zhou Bao, the one with the Seven Wonderful Techniques, instead of him?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll spare Man Yujun for some other day. I have two Sword Qis. He will surely come to me!¡± Zhou Bao smiled wickedly. ¡°The Tribulation Takers are arrogant, overbearing and blindly confident. Don¡¯t you believe that he will come?¡±


    ¡°I understand. You are seeking the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique for the same purpose. When you kill the two, you can harvest the Tribulation Taker¡¯s fate. In that case, you won¡¯t fall behind the Crown Princes of the Jade Emperor.¡±


    ¡°Exactly. Both the prince and the princess have killed a Tribulation Taker and looted his fate. If I can take down Zhou Bao and Man Yujun, my fate will surpass theirs even if they kill one more Tribulation Taker!¡±


    ¡°In that case, they will turn on you!¡± Wang Shang suddenly said, ¡°You will have to face the Crown Prince of the Jade Emperor then!¡±


    ¡°Hump! Do you think they will dare to do that!¡± Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows and smiled indifferently. ¡°They are merely new Celestial Immortals who practice the annoying Way of the Emperor. Do they really think they are unequaled in strength?¡±


    He spoke with so much confidence that Wang Shang was stunned for a second and thought instantly that this guy must have some important connections.


    Of course he must know someone with important connections. There must be some Celestial Immortals backing him up. Otherwise, he would show some respect!


    Celestial Immortals!!!


    There were only three Celestial Immortals in the entire Immortal Realm.


    However, it didn¡¯t mean that there was no practitioners related to other Celestial Immortals in the Immortal Realm. The others had left to open new Taoist rites outside the Void Universe. But the practitioners related to them might have entered the Void Immortal Realm.


    There were plenty of such practitioners. The ancient Earthly Immortals hiding in the deep spacetime still maintained contact with those Celestial Immortals. Some successors of Celestial Immortals had also come here to look for lucky opportunities.


    For the Celestial Immortals, the Immortal Realm no longer had any value. But for the Earthly Immortals, as well as the Immortals wishing to become Earthly Immortals one day, this place was an absolute sanctum.


    The successors of Celestial Immortals wouldn¡¯t necessarily become Earthly Immortals one day. The best examples were Qing Feng and Ming Yue, the disciples of Taoist Zhen Yuan. They had been waiting for a long time already and only recently became Earthly Immortals, not to mention the others.


    What Zhou Bao said and did had convinced Wang Shang that he was a practitioner related to some Celestial Immortals. Such practitioners were not to be tangled with because that would only bring endless trouble.


    The prince and princess of the Jade Emperor Sage were such ones. The Bodhi Taoist in front of him might be one, too.


    At the thought of this, Wang Shang¡¯s eyes narrowed.


    ¡°You must be someone with great power, because even Celestial Immortals are nothing in your eyes!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re wrong. I¡¯m nobody. How can I think nothing of Celestial Immortals? I just can¡¯t bear the sight of those psychos who practice the Way of the Emperor!¡± Speaking of this, Zhou Bao realized something and asked, ¡°How could this be? Practicing the Way of the Emperor is a disaster for other practitioners. How could the Jade Emperor Sage be so lucky to be able to achieve that?¡±


    This was true. The key for practicing the Way of the Emperor was to enslave everyone. Only through this could one achieve the Basic level. It was possible for ordinary Emperors on earth. But even if the Jade Emperor overawed thousands of Realms when he was a practitioner, he couldn¡¯t enslave the masses like the ordinary emperors did. How on earth did he complete the Way of the Emperor and become a Celestial Immortal?


    Wang Shang grew suspicious as soon as he heard Zhou Bao¡¯s question. ¡°It seems that you are really from the Extraterritorial Area. You have no idea of this at all!¡±


    ¡°Why do you say that?¡±


    ¡°How the Jade Emperor Sage completed the Way of the Emperor is not a secret. Anyone who has been in the Immortal Realm for a long time should know it. Now that you don¡¯t, you must have come from other Areas!¡±


    ¡°I really don¡¯t know!¡± Zhou Bao was surprised and began to have some doubts. This was not right. If everyone knew it, then Wang She should know it, too. He had no reason to conceal this from Zhou Bao if he did. Could there be any unspeakable secrets?


    Seeing that Zhou Bao had not the faintest idea about it, Wang Shang had more doubts about his background. He was almost certain that the guy was a successor of a Celestial Immortal from Extraterritorial Area. Otherwise, being a man with such powers, he should have known the Jade Emperor¡¯s secret if he had been in the Immortal Realm for some time.


    ¡°It¡¯s nothing important. At that time, the Jade Emperor Sage was the emperor of Heaven Realm World, the biggest macro world in the Human World. He ruled the heavens and the realms, but lacked the ability to enslave all the practitioners. No one expected he would have another approach to complete his Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way. He took a shortcut.¡±


    ¡°A shortcut! Are you kidding me! Is there a shortcut to the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way?¡± Zhou Bao was stupefied. He had never heard such things. If there was a shortcut in this, then there must be shortcuts for everything else in the world!


    ¡°That¡¯s right. He took the shortcut. But no one knows the details except him. We only know that he took advantage of the Necromancer¡¯s Tribulation eight hundred and ten thousand years ago and completed the Celestial Immortal¡¯s way. As to how he achieved this, no one knows!¡±


    ¡°Taking advantage of the Necromancer¡¯s Tribulation and becoming a Celestial Immortal!¡± Zhou Bao frowned and then suddenly cursed, ¡°This bastard, he will pay for this someday!¡±


    Wang Shang smiled reluctantly. He had long passed the age of being hot-blooded. Seeing Zhou Bao¡¯s reaction, he shook his head and said, ¡°Fellow Taoist Bodhi, you are too young. The journey of practicing is long and tedious. If you do not have the right mental state, it¡¯ll be so hard to reach the end. What the Jade Emperor Sage did and sought is just what we would have done and sought too!¡±

 Chapter 858 - I’m Also a Rookie

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    ¡°What the Jade Emperor sought is just what we are seeking for too!!¡± After hearing Wang Shang¡¯s words, Zhou Bao calmed down.


    The practitioners¡¯ goal was to achieve higher levels in practice. The ultimate purpose of practicing was to have a free and eternal life.


    What was the purpose of practicing the skills in power and killing?


    For self-protection.


    In fact, practice was a simple thing. To achieve certain results in practice, everyone would make the same choice, even though it included playing dirty tricks.


    To sacrifice a fellow Taoist for one¡¯s own survival.


    This was true in any world.


    ¡°Interesting! Why should I be so indignant? I¡¯m not a good guy. How could I ask for justice for those bastards? Perhaps when I encounter such things in the future, I would be even more terrible and greedier!¡±


    With the protection from Zhou Bao¡¯s Sword Qi, they moved at a much quicker pace than the other practitioners and soon left them far behind.


    ¡°This is the Central Divine Palace. At that time, the ancient Earthly Immortals, influenced by the ancient deities, started building Divine Palaces in their macro worlds. They enjoyed the feeling of being Creation Deities.¡± Wang Shang explained.


    For the practitioners in the Immortal Realm, it was not difficult to discover the ancient relics. In fact, it was rather simple and effortless. Once they found the right direction, the only thing to do was to keep moving straight towards the center of the macro world.


    Even though this broken world had been shattered into numerous pieces, it was still an easy task for Zhou Bao and Wang Shang to find its center.


    In fact, they located the center from the outset. With the Sword Qi as the protector, they reached the destination without much effort.


    Looking at the desolation and ruined grounds, Zhou Bao frowned. He never thought the Central Divine Palace would look like such a wasteland.


    Huge stones more than one thousand feet high were scattered around. Marks left by unknown forces could be seen everywhere on the ground. They were still there after so many years and were clear evidences of the brutal war in those days.


    Ancient spirits lingered around those marks; raging storms roamed between layers of spatial faults.


    The Divine Palace had long been destroyed. The majesty of the building was conceivable through the broken pieces left behind, but treasures once inside the palace had completely vanished. There was only traces of a battle field, without any valuables left.


    Zhou Bao and Wang Shang¡¯s strong Divine Awareness was greatly interfered within this palace. The battle spirit left by the Ancient Mighty Experts and Earthly Immortals was not easy to break.


    ¡°It seems to have been ransacked thoroughly, but we¡¯d better search again!¡±


    The two were a little discouraged by the sight. But they had traveled a long distance and didn¡¯t want to return empty handed.


    ¡°Taoist Wang, you are very knowledgeable. This Divine Palace looks worthless. But I believe you must know some of its secrets!¡±


    ¡°You really flatter me. I¡¯m not like what you think. Only that some elders in my school have entered this relic and know something about it. This place looks like ruins without any living creatures. But there¡¯re some secrets hidden inside.¡±


    ¡°Sure enough. I think so too. If there¡¯re only ruins, how could it attract so many practitioners? No one is that foolish. Why would they try so hard to get here if there¡¯s nothing for them?¡±


    ¡°The entrance to this relic is linked to another macro world. It belonged to Emperor Wanfeng of the Rock Cliff Sect, who was worshipped in the Central Divine Palace. Emperor Wanfeng was not among the most powerful in the Rock Cliff Sect, but he had a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, the Celestial Treasured Wheel. This wheel was said to be built by an ancient Celestial Immortal and contained numerous secrets about space. The Rock Cliff Sect was destroyed by Celestial Immortals. But at the last moment, some elders of the sect hid their treasures inside the Celestial Treasured Wheel. Those treasures were regarded as the inheritance of this sect. At last, the wheel disappeared in the Central Divine Palace, which is not a secret in the Immortal Realm. For many years, numerous practitioners have come here in search of the wheel but without any results. However, every time the relic was opened, the wheel would be stimulated and ejected things like magic weapons, elixirs or fragments of space. What you can collect totally depends on your luck!¡±


    ¡°Is that true? Are you saying the Celestial Treasured Wheel has not ejected anything yet?¡±


    ¡°No. It already did. The things are probably hidden between the spatial faults. We need to search very carefully!¡± Wang Shang was a little upset. He had never dreamed of getting any treasures in the Central Divine Palace. He knew he was just an Independent Practitioner who had inherited something before. People stronger than him were everywhere in the relic. He just came here to take his chance and get some benefits if possible. He never thought he could reach the palace ahead of all the others. There were countless inhibitions and dangers in this broken world. Other practitioners, even the strongest ones, could only reach here three days later. Only the guy beside him was unstoppable with his Immortal-killing and Immortal-slaying Sword Qis.


    Three days. This was the shortest possible time for practitioners to reach the Central Divine Palace in the past.


    ¡°Alas! Had I known about it, I would have paid big money for some inside information about the Central Divine Palace and the Celestial Treasured Wheel!¡± Wang Shang smiled bitterly.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Zhou Bao was confused.


    ¡°I¡¯m not powerful enough. Also I never dreamed I could get here and so quickly at that! The information I have is something that is shared by everyone. As for any secret details about the palace, I only have a general idea!¡±


    ¡°That is to say you don¡¯t know everything?¡± Zhou Bao also looked frustrated. Did he choose the wrong guy? He thought he met one with a clear mind, but he turned out to be only a rookie.


    ¡°Hehe. Well, fellow Taoist Bodhi, I¡¯m so sorry. I didn¡¯t know you are so powerful!¡± Wang Shang was also depressed. As an Independent Practitioner, he had his own purpose in searching for this relic. The Central Divine Palace was only a dream to him. But now, he was brought to the palace by Zhou Bao only because of what he had said. Now that they were here, they would certainly spend some time searching. God knew if he had enough time to look for what he originally wanted.


    ¡°Forget about it! Since you don¡¯t know, let¡¯s search high and low!¡± Zhou Bao soon recovered from his frustration and was clearly aware of the situation. He had the ability to discover the secrets even without any help. Moreover, Wang Shang was not completely clueless.


    Zhou Bao brought out the Sword Qi again and cleared all the obstacles between the Central Divine Palace and themselves. This time, Wang Shang didn¡¯t hesitate at all. He followed Zhou Bao into the ruins of the Divine Palace.


    ¡°This is a real Central Divine Palace. Being targeted by so many attacks, it has become totally lifeless. Yet the strong and freaky Dharma ceaselessly absorbs any life stepping on the land!¡± Zhou Bao said quietly.


    ¡°The Dharma is indeed strong. Practitioners below Human Immortals will be sucked dry immediately. Even Immortals might not survive!¡±


    ¡°Immortals might not survive. Yet you are safe and sound!¡±


    ¡°So are you!¡±


    They looked at each other and smiled.


    The ruins did not cover a large area, no more than five thousand square meters. It would not take too much time and effort to scan the entire wasteland even without any divine thoughts.


    ¡°There¡¯s something!¡± They both stopped beside a huge broken stone. The stone was broken, but the breakage looked different from the others. The exquisite pattern was spread out in a design that looked like beautiful flowers. Within these flowers, there were some slight spatial fluctuation, which was almost undetectable.


    ¡°This is a hidden spatial fault created during the war. But we don¡¯t know what kind of unknown space it is linked to!¡± After a moment of telepathic connection, Wang Shang confirmed the fact. He sounded both expectant and disappointed.


    After all, during the war that destroyed the Rock Cliff Sect, the Celestial Immortals¡¯ attack contained huge spatial forces. It was not surprising that the places being struck still contained some spatial forces. There were many spatial faults within this wasteland.


    ¡°This is different from other spatial faults!¡± Zhou Bao suddenly said, ¡°There¡¯s a slight gravity in the spatial fluctuation!¡± While speaking, he turned his hand over and a blue bead appeared in his palm. Strange things then happened! As soon as the bead showed up, a stream of light flashed over the crack and shone directly on it. Then, the blue bead disappeared.


    ¡°This is the place we are looking for!¡±

 Chapter 859 - The Treasure-snatching Rock

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    Zhou Bao didn¡¯t know that Wang Shang was not as knowledgeable as he looked. They were both rookies, rushing to this place without any preparation.


    ¡°What exactly is this? How could it suck in treasures?¡± Right now, Wang Shang was stunned by what he saw. What happened? A spatial fault with fluctuations suddenly became a mysterious space that absorbed magic weapons.


    It was normal for him to feel surprised. In this world, everyone was sensitive about such taboo things, which made them envious yet afraid.


    ¡°It¡¯s not about the spatial fault, but the thing in it!¡± Zhou Bao said calmly, ¡°The Rock Cliff Sect seems to have other Heavenly Fairy Weapons besides the Celestial Treasured Wheel!¡±


    Before he even finished speaking, Zhou Bao transformed into a green light and shot into the spatial fault.


    ¡°What?¡± Wang Shang didn¡¯t expect him to take such quick actions. When he realized what had happened, Zhou Bao was already inside the spatial fault. He sighed helplessly, turned into a streamer and went in as well.


    ¡°This, this, this, this, this¡ª!¡±


    It was a vast hollow inside the spatial fault. The first floor was already an endless space. However, it was not much of a surprise for Wang Shang. This was the Law of Space. Anyone with a little knowledge of it could open a vast space. The only problem was that this space was far too fragile and was as delicate as a bubble. Some spatial fault was like an empty hollow. That was the most it could be, because with the weight of just one more dust speck, the hollow would collapse. It was a matter of space tolerance.


    Space tolerance!!!


    It was one of the most basic Laws of Space. The object was to the container what the energy was to the space. Within the space, the Law of Space would convert everything into energy, including practitioners.


    Once the energy exceeded the maximum amount for the space, it would be rejected, suppressed and attacked. In some micro worlds, this was called soaring.


    Once the energy exceeded the maximum amount, collapse was inevitable.


    This was why macro worlds, micro worlds, fairylands and blessed places had different names in order to tell the distinction between them.


    A spatial fault like this was not even a micro world. It was a fairyland at most. Normally, a fairyland could only bear the energy of ten Taihao Fairy Weapons. But now, only at the first floor, there were more than ten Taihao Fairy Weapons in front of them. Actually, there were hundreds of them.


    Hundreds of Taihao Fairy Weapons were floating about in the hollow.


    This was an extremely amazing scene even in the Immortal Realm.


    ¡°The Blade of Shadows, the Taixu Sword, the Invisible Needle, the Razor-edged Spear¡ª¡ª!¡± Names of these fairy weapons came out from Wang Shang¡¯s mouth one after another. He seemed to be quite familiar with them and babbled away excitedly.


    ¡°Taoist Wang, you really know a lot about the Rock Cliff Sect!¡±


    ¡°Yes, of course. Damn it! Do you know what this place is? Do you know why there are so many fairy weapons? Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!¡±


    Wang Shang was overwhelmed by excitement at that moment. It was not excitement, but pure ecstasy. He was like a forty-eight-year-old virgin seeing a naked beauty for the first time.


    ¡°The Treasure-snatching Rock! It¡¯s really the Treasure-snatching Rock! The legend is true. The Rock Cliff Sect was attacked by the Celestial Immortals because it had the Treasure-snatching Rock. I always thought it was purely a rumor. But it turned out to be true!¡±


    ¡°The Treasure-snatching Rock?¡± Zhou Bao was tempted. This was another familiar name. But before he realized it, strange things started happening.


    Several radiant lights flashed through Wang Shang¡¯s body, each representing a fairy weapon. These weapons were not to be used for attacks this time but were sucked away into the hollow by some unknown force.


    Meanwhile, Zhou Bao¡¯s Sea of Consciousness was trembling. The Supreme Fairy Weapon of the Black Pearl, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation used for suppressing Azure Big World, the Furnace of Immortality on his waist, the red gourd and all the other fairy weapons and magic weapons he collected through the years were drawn to the unknown force and seemed to want to leave him.


    Zhou Bao was astonished. He quickly focused his mind and used every effort to resist. However, it was like beating the air. The force was too strong and there was no way to suppress it.


    At last, he only managed to keep the Furnace of Immortality, the Black Pearl, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and the red gourd. The other fairy weapons were all sucked away by the Treasure-snatching Rock into the deep hollow.


    ¡°You, you, you, you¡ª!¡± While Zhou Bao was frustrated, Wang Shang¡¯s face was full of astonishment. He pointed at Zhou Bao as if he was seeing a monster.


    He was a monster!


    As an Independent Practitioner, Wang Shang was very self-conscious. Compared with other Independent Practitioners in the Immortal Realm, he felt relatively rich as he had a Taihao Fairy Weapon. Sometimes, he even felt superior.


    But what did he just see?


    It was unbelievable.


    The Taoist Bodhi, who claimed to be an Independent Practitioner, had hundreds of lights flashing on him.


    Yes, hundreds of lights. These lights represented the fairy weapons and magic weapons under the influence of the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    Hundreds of Taihao Fairy Weapons! At that moment, hundreds of Taihao Fairy Weapons were reflected on Zhou Bao¡¯s body. These lights melted into a flood and rushed into the unknown hollow.


    Who was he? With so many treasures? Supreme Pure Yang Celestial Devices were not rare in the Immortal Realms. But it was not normal for a single person to own so many of them!


    Besides, what could one do with so many celestial devices and fairy weapons? For a practitioner, one or two supreme fairy weapons was enough. Too many of them would not do one any good, unless it was to establish a new sect and the weapons were to be distributed to the disciples.


    Was this guy planning to establish a new sect in the Immortal Realm?


    Suddenly, he looked at Zhou Bao with different eyes.


    ¡°What exactly is the Treasure-snatching Rock? It¡¯s much better than the treasure money and much stronger than the Five-colored Divine Light. What on earth is this object?¡± Zhou Bao was not in the mood to care about what Wang Shang thought of him. He felt terrible right now. Just like what Wang Shang had guessed, these weapons were promised to the practitioners in Azure Big World a long time ago.


    After years of recovery, the Azure Big World had changed into a world no smaller than the Seven-deity Regions at that time. Many people related to Zhou Bao had received weapons from him, with his son and daughter obtaining the most. The strange Treasure-snatching Rock didn¡¯t take away the Black Pearl, but the force permeated into the Azure Big World and took away all the weapons in there. Not a single one was left. Of course, Zhou Bao was mad at this. But what annoyed him more was that even though he managed to retain his four most valuable weapons, they would be affected by the Treasure-snatching Rock so long as he stayed in this hollow. This fact shocked him greatly! What kind of treasure was it? It had the power to affect Heavenly Fairy Weapons! Wang Shang seemed to know something about it.


    ¡°Taoist Wang, what exactly is the Treasure-snatching Rock?¡±


    ¡°The Treasure-snatching Rock is just a legend. It is said to be the natal magic weapon of Taoist Jin, the creator of the Immortal Realm, and the king of Heavenly Fairy Weapons. All the other Heavenly Fairy Weapons must submit to it!¡±


    ¡°The king of all Heavenly Fairy Weapons? Ghost Child, is this true?!¡± Zhou Bao focused his eyes. His divine thoughts immediately showed up and began to communicate with the device spirit of the red gourd.


    ¡°Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Isn¡¯t there enough trouble! What do you have in mind communicating with me at a time like this! Leave me alone! Go away!¡±


    As soon as his divine thoughts connected, Ghost Child fiercely retracted into the red gourd, as if it had seen a ghost.


    ¡°Really impressive!¡± The moment the Ghost Child retracted its head, Zhou Bao clearly felt the mysterious force. Numerous invisible hands were grasping at the opening of the red gourd and Ghost Child clearly had a narrow escape.


    It resisted with all its strength and was in a stalemate with the force.


    ¡°The little thing cannot be counted on!¡± Under this situation, Zhou Bao knew he could get nothing from it, so he turned to Wang Shang and asked, ¡°What do you mean by the king of Heavenly Fairy Weapons?¡±


    ¡°It means the head of all Heavenly Fairy Weapons, the very first one. Even the Supreme Fairy Weapons cannot be compared to it. No! It was unparalleled among fairy weapons, except the three Sacred Cities!¡±


    ¡°The three Sacred Cities? The Sacred City of Origin, Fate and Termination? Haven¡¯t they been destroyed already?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. The three Sacred Cities have been destroyed. So, no weapons could be compared to the Treasure-snatching Rock at present. Whoever gets the Treasure-snatching Rock will have the power to challenge Celestial Immortals!¡± He spoke with great enthusiasm.


    ¡°Do you want to subdue it?¡±


    ¡°It is impossible! Are you out of your mind? How can we have the strength to tame the Treasure-snatching Rock?¡±

 Chapter 860 - The Willpower of the Celestial Immortal & the Five-colored Divine Light

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    Was there really such a good thing in this world?


    Zhou Bao had just wanted to search for the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique, but after arriving at one of the most inconspicuous remains in the Immortal Realm, the Rock Cliff Sect, he encountered the king of Heavenly Fairy Weapons¡ªthe legendary Treasure-snatching Rock!


    It was exposed above the ruins of the Rock Cliff Sect. Many mighty people had stepped onto these ruins over the years, so why had they failed to discover it?


    Could it be possible that it was waiting for him, its destined owner, to fetch it?


    That was impossible!


    Not by a long shot!


    Although he had a good opinion of himself, he did not think that everything in this world belonged to him. This treasure did have a mysterious origin. There were indeed some people with great luck in the Immortal Realm during the previous tribulations, so how could they have missed such an obvious treasure?


    Either it was not here before, or this was a plot. At worst, both speculations were possible.


    Therefore, noticing that there was a fever of excitement in Wang Shang¡¯s eyes, Zhou Bao thought he was really ridiculous. Did he really think he would be able to acquire the treasure just because he had a clue about it?


    This man really belittled his strength!


    Wang Shang burst out laughing as if he sensed the change of expression in Zhou Bao¡¯s eyes. He said, ¡°Fellow Taoist Bodhi, don¡¯t drool over the Treasure-snatching Rock. We are not so lucky to be able to attain such a precious and unique treasure!¡±


    ¡°If that¡¯s the case, then why are you so excited?¡± Zhou Bao froze as he heard Wang Shang¡¯s words. What he meant was very obvious, which was that he did not covet the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    ¡°As its name implies, we can snatch the treasures within. Look, there are so many ownerless fairy weapons and we can take as many as we wish. So why wouldn¡¯t I get excited about that?¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Presently, Zhou Bao was stupefied. Fairy weapons were indeed everywhere in this space and there was more than one floating around him. But could he seize them?


    He never expected that he could take the fairy weapons in this space at will. The moment he entered, the Treasure-snatching Rock had robbed him of almost all his fairy weapons. As a result, he feared it a lot. Now, however, Wang Shang told him that he could take the fairy weapons here as he pleased¡ªhe certainly did not believe that.


    ¡°That¡¯s the characteristic of the Treasure-snatching Rock!¡± said Wang Shang. ¡°It¡¯s the king of Heavenly Fairy Weapons. Its striking advantage is that it can restore all the magic weapons in this world to their previous condition. So long as there is a defective magic weapon, it will be absorbed and nourished by it and then evolve into the most perfect state. Hey, do you know that this is just its outermost layer? The deeper in we go, the more precious the treasures are. Heavenly Fairy Weapons are everywhere in its core¡­¡±


    Before Wang Shang had finished speaking, Zhou Bao moved.


    After Wang Shang told him the characteristics of the Treasure-snatching Rock, Zhou Bao exerted his full strength without thinking. He raised his hand, and a giant hand that was made of SwordQi appeared out of thin air. In the blink of an eye, it captured the greater part of the fairy weapons in sight and threw them into the Azure Big World.


    ¡°As expected, they are not high-grade fairy weapons, but they are flawless and unrestricted!¡±


    Zhou Bao figured out the truth of Wang Shang¡¯s words with a single move. These fairy weapons, both in terms of material quality and function, were impeccable. Besides, he could take whatever he wanted.


    ¡°The Innate Qi Catching Skill! Fellow Taoist Bodhi, you¡¯re truly extraordinary given that you have collected so many Taihao Fairy Weapons in one go!¡± Wang Shang¡¯s face twisted as he saw Zhou Bao¡¯s action. Nonetheless, he showed no sign of discontent because he was not as capable as Zhou Bao, even though the fairy weapons here could be taken at will.


    Although Zhou Bao had suddenly taken away most of the fairy weapons, he was unable to take the rest of them.


    The reason being that he was merely an Immortal. Though he possessed a micro world, it could only sustain limited pressure. The higher the grade of fairy weapons, the greater the pressure on space. Thus, so many Taihao Fairy Weapons were sufficient to suppress his micro world. Moreover, he aimed for Heavenly Fairy Weapons rather than ordinary Taihao Fairy Weapons. As long as he could secure one Lowest-grade Heavenly Fairy Weapon, he would not have come here in vain.


    Evidently, Zhou Bao also lost interest in the Taihao Fairy Weapons here.


    ¡°Then, as you wish, let¡¯s see if we can obtain some Heavenly Fairy Weapons!¡± While speaking, Zhou Bao flew toward the depths of this space.


    The depths of the void was still the void!


    As they went deeper into the void, the floating fairy weapons became fewer and fewer, but their grades became higher and higher. The original Lower-grade Taihao Fairy Weapons were gradually upgraded and were similar to Medium-grade ones. But that was all. There was not a real Medium-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon in the endless void.


    As they went further, Zhou Bao was surprised to find that the fairy weapons were gradually disappearing.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on here?¡±


    ¡°Nothing. We just need to track down the entrance to the next space!¡± Wang Shang¡¯s mind went blank at first, but he soon realized what had happened. ¡°This seems to be the first layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock!¡±


    ¡°The first layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock?¡± Zhou Bao immediately understood that there had to be several layers in the space of the Treasure-snatching Rock, and the first layer mainly consisted of some Pure Yang Celestial Devices and Lower-grade Taihao Fairy Weapons. If they desired Medium-grade Taihao Fairy Weapons and more precious treasures, they were required to enter the next layer. However, neither he nor Wang Shang knew how to get to the next layer.


    ¡°Wait¡­!¡± Zhou Bao closed his eyes and sent out a divine thought.


    Just now, the Treasure-snatching Rock had grabbed all the fairy weapons he had refined, among which, some were Medium-grade and Upper-grade Taihao Fairy Weapons, especially the Bronze Scepter. It had been evolved into a bamboo stick and nearly became an Upper-grade Taihao Fairy Weapon. Zhou Bao had a strong telepathic connection to it, and even though they were separated by the Space Seal, he could still feel it.


    He meditated for a while and then suddenly opened his eyes. ¡°This way!¡± Then, he flew toward a certain place in the void.


    Wang Shang followed him without hesitation.


    There was no end in sight. Except for the floating fairy weapons, the scenery was the same everywhere. But now that they had a target, everything became much easier. The two combed the place that Zhou Bao had sensed with their divine thoughts and soon found something strange in this space.


    ¡°This should be a passageway. It¡¯s much stronger than the Space Passage that we entered to get here. We cannot pass through it as easily as before!¡± A touch of seriousness flashed through Wang Shang¡¯s eyes. He sensed that there was a powerful restriction on the entrance to the second layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s space. In other words, it was more a complete and impregnable Law of Space than a restriction. There was only a small crack on it, but not everyone could catch it.


    ¡°Fellow Taoist Bodhi, look¡­¡±


    Feeling that he could do nothing facing this crack, Wang Shang turned his eyes to Zhou Bao.


    ¡°I can get into it, but¡­¡± Under these circumstances, Zhou Bao did not want to bring Wang Shang with him anymore. He did not fear him but just did not want to expose his strength in front of him. Powerful Immortals could enter the crack, but having the strength of an Earthly Immortal was a must if one wanted to bring someone with him because he would have to utilize his macro world.


    Therefore, he faced Wang Shang with some hesitation. Right at this moment, the first layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock trembled and a powerful willpower arrived at once.


    ¡°This is¡­!¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s heart throbbed and he quaked with fear. Wang Shang was in a worse condition. Pale-faced, he looked blank and his eyes were bloodshot.


    ¡°Crack, crack¡­!¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s bones were completely suppressed by the strong willpower and a burst of shrill noises rang out. He was sure that his body would fall apart in 10 seconds. The body of a powerful Immortal could be shattered by this willpower.


    How mighty could this willpower be?


    Who the hell possessed such a terrifying power?


    Wang Shang was unable to bear the power anymore, but Zhou Bao was no better than him. This willpower firmly locked him and he could not resist it at all.


    ¡°Ding!¡±


    Just when Zhou Bao was desperate with fear, a melodious sound resounded from the depths of a remote spacetime and crumbled this willpower in an instant.


    ¡°Humph!¡± Influenced by the sound of the bell, the willpower let out a cold snort and disappeared without a trace.


    ¡°Haha, Jade Emperor Sage suffered a small loss this time!¡± At this point, another two willpowers communicated with each other without making any sound in the Heaven Realm. ¡°Did he believe that he had an opportunity as long as the Treasure-snatching Rock opened?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be complacent so soon. Don¡¯t forget that he takes the initiative. He already possesses two Tribulation Takers!¡±


    ¡°They are just two fakes!¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll see the truth in the Treasure-snatching Rock!¡±


    ¡°Agreed. Haha, let¡¯s see who will have the last laugh!¡±


    In the space of the Treasure-snatching Rock!


    After the sound of the bell tore apart the formidable willpower, Zhou Bao felt that a heavy load had been removed from his body.


    However, he was not relieved.


    ¡°What on earth is this power? Is it the power of a Celestial Immortal? Yes, a Celestial Immortal! Only a Celestial Immortal can possess such horrific willpower! Nevertheless, why did it land here? Could it be that the Celestial Immortal discovered the Treasure-snatching Rock as well? If so, why didn¡¯t he snatch it? Wait, he did intend to wrest it, but he was unable to do so. The Treasure-snatching Rock is the king of Heavenly Fairy Weapons, so it must have a device spirit whose power probably is not inferior to that of a Celestial Immortal. Perhaps¡­¡±


    Just as he was pondering the question, a colorful ray dropped from the sky and hit that crack firmly.

 Chapter 861 - Kong Ti

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    The colorful light descended at a high speed.


    It brushed right against the entrance to the second layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    All of a sudden, the space around that entrance collapsed and a straight passageway emerged before them.


    However, neither of them moved a muscle. Zhou Bao did not move for some reason, while Wang Shang did not dare to do so because he knew that there was only one person in this world who possessed this unique Divine Sense¡ªthe Five-colored Divine Light. It was Kong Ti, one of the five Tribulation Takers from the Human World.


    In the Heaven Realm, he knew the secrets in this world very well, so he was well aware of a truth: Do not set oneself against any Tribulation Taker casually because that was something in which the losses outweighed the gains.


    Tribulation Takers were protagonists who had great luck in this world, thus, not everyone was able to oppose or provoke them. Though he was a man of fate, he was merely a nobody compared with them, especially those who were going to cross the Dharma Ending Tribulation.


    Hence, he did not rush into the passageway as soon as possible. He was waiting for Kong Ti. If he went in after Kong Ti, Kong Ti would have no reason to stop him. This was the recognized rule of the Immortal Realm.


    However, Zhou Bao was totally different. He was a Tribulation Taker as well. Although he kept his identity concealed, he was not afraid of Kong Ti.


    He did not move because the Five-colored Divine Light had groundlessly aroused a feeling of hatred in him. This feeling was not obvious, but due to his keen spiritual mind, it had nowhere to hide.


    ¡°Why do I harbor this feeling? Though both Kong Ti and I are Tribulation Takers, we don¡¯t know each other. Even if I were to murder him for his treasures, I would not resent him!¡± Zhou Bao was surprised to find himself having this feeling; however, neither did he dwell on it nor did he have time to do so.


    That was because another colorful ray fell from the sky and immediately brushed against Wang Shang.


    Although Wang Shang¡¯s strength was praiseworthy among Immortals, he did not have any room at all to fight back under the Five-colored Divine Light.


    This time, the Five-colored Divine Light brushed not only against Wang Shang alone. It targeted Zhou Bao after it wrapped Wang Shang up.


    Yes, Zhou Bao was also Kong Ti¡¯s target. Kong Ti was going to hunt for treasures in the Treasure-snatching Rock, so he surely would not allow two Immortals to stand at its entrance.


    Either drive them away or subdue them¡ªthat was his only way to ensure his safety.


    Nonetheless, Zhou Bao was not Wang Shang. As soon as he noticed the colorful ray, he executed the Immortal-killing Sword Qi.


    ¡°Hiss!¡±


    The moment the Immortal-killing Sword Qi touched the Five-colored Divine Light, it turned into countless tiny SwordQi streaks. That was Zhou Bao¡¯s satisfying work¡ªthe blade storm.


    The SwordQi transformed into a storm that instantly engulfed and minced the Five-colored Divine Light.


    ¡°What?¡±


    This time, it was Kong Ti¡¯s turn, who was hiding in the dark, to be astonished.


    ¡°Are you Man Yujun, who is known as the young god of swords? This is not the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi! You acquired the Immortal-killing Sword Qi, right?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t behave in the manner of an expert, just come out and talk to me!¡± Zhou Bao sneered and waved his hand. Then, a giant sword hacked into the void forcefully.


    ¡°Swish!¡±


    Another jet of Five-colored Divine Light, hundreds of times more dazzling than the previous one, emerged from the void and caught the giant sword firmly. Later, a thin figure dressed in gorgeous, colorful silk fabrics came out of the light.


    ¡°Honorable Brother Man, I¡¯m Kong Ti!¡±


    There was a touch of arrogance on Kong Ti¡¯s face. On the contrary, Zhou Bao, who Kong Ti had mistaken for Man Yujun, maintained basic etiquette.


    ¡°Fellow Taoist Kong, you¡¯ve barked up the wrong tree. I¡¯m Bodhi, not Man Yujun!¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± There was a look of surprise on Kong Ti¡¯s face. He did not expect that the man in front of him was not Man Yujun. If so, why did he possess the Immortal-killing Sword Qi?


    Although Man Yujun did not understand the Immortal-killing Sword Qi, Kong Ti believed that Man Yujun, being a Tribulation Taker, would certainly succeed in practicing the Four Immortal-killing Swords, just as what he had achieved in the Five-colored Divine Light.


    This was the confidence of a Tribulation Taker. In other words, it was a superstition.


    ¡°Of course I am not Man Yujun. That man just attained the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi. One day, I will kill him and seize his Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi together with his fate!¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Kong Ti¡¯s eyes narrowed and a hint of faint killing intent emanated from his body. Although he was not Zhou Bao¡¯s target, as Tribulation Takers, without a doubt, he and Man Yujun shared their hatred of Zhou Bao facing such a kind of thing. Tribulation Takers ought to and were eager to kill those bastards who murdered other Tribulation Takers in order to capture their fate. For that reason, Kong Ti eliminated the Crown Prince of Jade Emperor without hesitation and Zhou Bao seriously injured the Crown Prince of Jade Emperor, more or less.


    ¡°Stop giving off your murderous intent. You are not my target. Besides, I¡¯m not interested in your Five-colored Divine Light!¡± Zhou Bao said with a faint smile. ¡°If you are full of energy, you might as well go down and explore the Treasure-snatching Rock with me. Maybe you¡¯ll reap unexpected rewards!¡±


    ¡°Humph!¡± Kong Ti let out a cold snort and entered the second layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock without even glancing at Zhou Bao. He paid not the slightest attention to the Taihao Fairy Weapons in the first layer.


    ¡°Wait!¡±


    Just as Kong Ti prepared to go into the second layer, Zhou Bao laughed coldly and his Immortal-killing Sword Qi transformed into a sword net, covering the entrance tightly. ¡°Fellow Taoist Kong, you¡¯ve probably forgotten one thing.¡±


    ¡°And what¡¯s that?¡± Kong Ti¡¯s murderous intent grew stronger. He turned back and continued, ¡°Are you interested in my fate, Fellow Taoist Bodhi?¡±


    ¡°Nope, I¡¯m not so greedy. Nevertheless, you have dragged my friend into your divine light. Please release him!¡±


    ¡°Humph!¡± Kong Ti sneered and after some cyan light flashed past, Wang Shang was thrown into the void. As soon as he released Wang Shang, Zhou Bao withdrew his sword net. Kong Ti ignored Zhou Bao and went into the second layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock directly.


    ¡°Thank you for saving me, Fellow Taoist Bodhi!¡± Wang Shang¡¯s body became flaccid after he walked out of the Five-colored Divine Light; however, he still managed to salute Zhou Bao. ¡°No words can express my thanks to your great kindness. Just ask me to do whatever I am able to in the future, I¡­¡±


    ¡°Well then, Fellow Taoist Wang, no need to say that. We¡¯ll meet again if that is destined!¡±


    That indeed was the case.


    Although Wang Shang had gotten free of the Five-colored Divine Light, he had been severely injured, and shortly later, he was incapable of entering the second or third layer. Furthermore, Kong Ti had already gone into the second layer and that was something he was afraid of. He did not want to provoke this powerful man anymore. In any case, there were numerous Taihao Fairy Weapons waiting for him to collect in the first layer. It would be a fruitful trip to the ruins of the Rock Cliff Sect if he took these fairy weapons back.


    After bidding farewell to Wang Shang, Zhou Bao went into the second layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock. The moment he walked into the void of the second layer, he saw nothing except for the colorful light all over the sky.


    Just as Wang Shang had witnessed him collect the better part of the Taihao Fairy Weapons in the first layer in one fell swoop, he watched Kong Ti bag all the Medium-grade Taihao Fairy Weapons in the second layer in one go with his Five-colored Divine Light.


    ¡°Brother Kong, please hold your horses!¡± said Zhou Bao with a grave expression on his face. His Immortal-killing Sword Qi transformed into a sword net and enveloped the colorful light that was charging at the purple bamboo stick.


    ¡°Brother Kong, I¡¯m really sorry. That¡¯s one of my personal belongings. It has just been absorbed by the Treasure-snatching Rock and it¡¯s time to return it to its original owner!¡±


    Kong Ti just quietly stood where he was after he saw the sword net wrap up his Five-colored Divine Light. He stared at Zhou Bao coldly as if he intended to see through him. Zhou Bao, however, did not care about that at all. He put away his purple bamboo stick, smiling innocently.


    ¡°Brother Kong, though the Medium-grade Taihao Fairy Weapons here are picture perfect, I assume you do not think much of them. What, are you preparing to establish a new sect in the Immortal Realm?¡±


    Just as Wang Shang had questioned Zhou Bao¡¯s behavior, Zhou Bao speculated that the reason Kong Ti was gathering so many Taihao Fairy Weapons was that he planned to establish a new sect in the Immortal Realm and bestow those fairy weapons to his disciples.


    ¡°You don¡¯t need to worry about it!¡± Kong Ti replied coldly. ¡°We are not so familiar!¡±


    ¡°Yes, you¡¯re right!¡± Zhou Bao snickered at Kong Ti, who looked indifferent.


    Kong Ti was quite arrogant. In fact, Zhou Bao had to recognize that if he had not executed his superb Immortal-killing Sword Qi, Kong Ti would have attacked him.


    Now, however, Kong Ti hesitated after he saw the terrifying strength that Zhou Bao had displayed. For him, fighting an unknown, formidable practitioner was not necessarily a thing from which he could reap benefits. If he were to be killed by the other man, that man would inherit his fate and Divine Sense. And for him, that was something in which the losses outweighed the gains. However, Zhou Bao believed that if he himself really were Man Yujun, Kong Ti surely would have taken the initiative to attack him or try to prevent him from entering the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    Tribulation Takers killing each other involved huge benefits.


    ¡°Anyway, I¡¯m not interested in anything in the second layer except for my bamboo stick. You can stroll around here as you please. I will take a look at the third layer!¡± Zhou Bao moved while speaking. A sharp, stripe-like SwordQi pierced the void and forcefully tore open the space of this layer. The passageway to the third layer appeared, and without hesitation, Zhou Bao went into it with a quick move. Kong Ti¡¯s face darkened and he followed after Zhou Bao, disregarding the remaining Taihao Fairy Weapons in the second layer.

 Chapter 862 - Fighting the Second Crown Prince of Jade Emperor (â… )

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    In Zhou Bao¡¯s imagination, the third layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock was supposed to be the void where Upper-grade Taihao Fairy Weapons floated everywhere. However, he was shocked by the scene in front of him.


    Because what he saw was a space full of liquid rather than the void.


    Yes, water¡­ extremely ordinary water. Untold light spots floated in the water, each one representing a Taihao Fairy Weapon.


    Zhou Bao¡¯s expression turned strange. There were not only Upper-grade and Highest-grade Taihao Fairy Weapons here, but also some fairy weapons whose grades were infinitely close to that of Heavenly Fairy Weapons. To his surprise, some even produced device spirits. Though they had no spiritual intelligence, these device spirits were the dominators of this world. They drifted in the water and continually swallowed other light spots. Then they integrated the power of those light spots into their body and their strength grew little by little.


    All of this reminded Zhou Bao of the most primitive part of the earth in his previous life.


    Life was born and grew in a vast ocean.


    Taihao Fairy Weapons whose grades were very close to that of Heavenly Fairy Weapons, like the most primitive life forms on earth, gradually acquired spiritual intelligence. Once succeeding in doing so, they became Heavenly Fairy Weapons.


    As for the Taihao Fairy Weapons that were swallowed up by the device spirits, they could only blame themselves for their inadequacy. They were turned into nutrients of Heavenly Fairy Weapons by the water.


    In other words, this world was a hotbed of Heavenly Fairy Weapons.


    Under these circumstances, neither Zhou Bao nor Kong Ti would be so silly as to catch the Taihao Fairy Weapons. Only God knew whether the device spirit of the Treasure-snatching Rock was keeping a close eye on the situation here. If they acted rashly and pissed it off, they would have to reap what they sowed. And given that it had shattered the formidable willpower of a Celestial Immortal simply with the sound of a bell, its power obviously far exceeded theirs.


    They almost did not communicate at all with each other in this space. After figuring out the situation here, they immediately put their minds on how to get into the fourth layer. But because their divine thoughts were greatly disturbed here, they were unable to sweep around to quickly find the unusual places nearby like they could in the outer layers.


    Such being the case, they had no other choice but to search for the entrance to the fourth layer silently and slowly with their divine thoughts.


    ¡°Hahahaha, I didn¡¯t expect anyone else to enter here earlier than me. Kong Ti, I can¡¯t believe you are here too. Well, that¡¯s great. Let me kill you and seize your fate and Divine Sense!¡±


    Just as they were looking for the entrance to the fourth layer, a voice full of arrogance rang out. Shortly afterward, sparks flew out in all directions and crimson thunderbolts filled the entire space in a flash.


    ¡°Damn it!¡± Zhou Bao cursed.


    Being a world full of water, the current here moved unimpeded. In merely an instant, it pervaded the entire third layer.


    Even the Taihao Fairy Weapons floating in this layer were severely damaged by the scarlet lightning. Their light dimmed, leaving only the slightest glimmer of light. And for Zhou Bao and Kong Ti, their situation was much worse.


    Protected by the Five-colored Divine Light, Kong Ti barely survived the scarlet lightning. Zhou Bao, unlike Kong Ti, was afraid of thunderbolts, although he possessed a Heavenly Fairy Weapon¡ªthe Pool of Thunder Tribulation.


    What was this place?


    It was known as the Treasure-snatching Rock. So, before anyone could grab any treasures from here, their own treasures would be taken away first. And if he were to take out the Pool of Thunder Tribulation and get it snatched by the Treasure-snatching Rock, he would have gone out for wool and come home shorn.


    Therefore, without confidence, Zhou Bao had to fight head-on. He neither possessed the Five-colored Divine Light nor was he willing to expose his identity, so the only thing he could do was shield his body with sword light.


    Suddenly, the scarlet lightning struck the Immortal-killing Sword Qi and the entire world was immediately turned upside down.


    ¡°Huh? Immortal-killing Sword Qi! You are the young god of swords, Man Yujun? How can that be possible?¡±


    ¡°Of course I am not Man Yujun!¡± Zhou Bao looked extremely displeased. Why did everyone mistake him for Man Yujun when they saw him? Was that bastard the only one qualified to obtain the Four Immortal-killing Swords Qi in this world?


    Zhou Bao was annoyed by this kind of feeling and point of view.


    It was as if someone had suddenly said that the toy in his hand did not belong to him but to somebody else. Furthermore, the supposed owner bore a grudge against him. How could he not have been annoyed by that?


    Hence, he said rudely, ¡°Second Crown Prince of Jade Emperor, you robbed and killed a Tribulation Taker named Huang Lei from the Northernmost Sea World and obtained half of his fate and all of his Divine Senses. I thought you were extraordinary. Now, however, after seeing you in person, I find you just so ordinary!¡±


    ¡°Who are you, brat? How dare you talk to me like that?!¡± A man dressed in deluxe brocades emerged, and giant red bolts of lightning circled around him. ¡°Since you are digging your own grave, I will grant your death wish. You shall never be born again! Crimson Thunder, exterminate everything!¡±


    As the voice full of violence resounded, the crimson thunderbolts pressed down on Zhou Bao with all their might.


    ¡°Do you think I¡¯m afraid of you?!¡± Zhou Bao refused to show weakness facing the Crimson Thunder, but he did not treat it lightly. A transparent Natal Sword rose up behind his head. As it appeared, its raging SwordQi pierced the space of this layer and then shot at the Second Crown Prince.


    ¡°What? Immortal-slaying Sword Qi! You have acquired two kinds of SwordQi?¡± Seeing the two different kinds of frightening SwordQi coming from the same source, not to mention the Second Crown Prince, even Kong Ti was stunned. They thought that Zhou Bao was just a lucky man who had inherited the Immortal-killing Sword Qi and was destined to be Man Yujun¡¯s stepping stone. Nevertheless, after Zhou Bao displayed two kinds of SwordQi and evolved the Natal Sword, their thoughts changed. It appeared that Man Yujun would become Zhou Bao¡¯s stepping stone!


    ¡°Second Crown Prince, let me kill you and wrest from you everything that you acquired from Huang Lei!¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s SwordQi transformed into a raging starry river that rushed toward the Second Crown Prince.


    ¡°Oh no!¡± Watching the river surge toward him, the Second Crown Prince¡¯s face darkened. The Four Immortal-killing Swords were known for their ferocity. Man Yujun earned the title ¡°Tribulation Taker ¡± just because he had attained a kind of SwordQi. Nonetheless, the man before him had inherited two kinds of SwordQi and successfully practiced the Natal Sword. Man Yujun was inferior to him from these aspects. However, this was neither the time to feel surprised nor the time to dig into the ins and outs of this matter. Noticing the SwordQi, the Second Crown Prince immediately put a small transparent shield in front of him. Meanwhile, the red thunderbolts flashing around him turned into a long scarlet knife that chopped Zhou Bao¡¯s SwordQi.


    ¡°The Treasure-snatching Rock cannot influence his Heavenly Fairy Weapon!¡± When Zhou Bao saw the small shield, a strange light flashed through his eyes. This was the space of the Treasure-snatching Rock rather than just an ordinary place. Because the Second Crown Prince had the guts to take out his fairy weapon, that meant it was at least a Heavenly Fairy Weapon itself. Moreover, its device spirit was extraordinarily potent. Otherwise, it would not be able to resist the willpower of the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    Everything happened in the twinkling of an eye. The SwordQi collided with the scarlet knife and stirred up the space.


    Neither Zhou Bao nor the Second Crown Prince were nobodies. After the violent collision, the Second Crown Prince¡¯s knife, formed by thunderbolts, failed to block Zhou Bao¡¯s Sword Qi and instantly fell apart.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    The SwordQi hacked at the circular transparent shield.


    A dazzling white ray arose from the shield and blocked Zhou Bao¡¯s blow.


    The power of the combined blow of the Immortal-killing Sword Qi and the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi was indeed immeasurable. It even penetrated the space of the Treasure-snatching Rock. However, this inconspicuous shield warded it off.


    ¡°What a good treasure!¡± With a quick move, Zhou Bao came up to the Second Crown Prince. His fingers turned into five streaks of fierce SwordQi that grasped the Second Crown Prince¡¯s head.


    He did all this without any hesitation.


    Swiftness and mercilessness were the characteristics of his attacks. He neither offered the Second Crown Prince a chance to fight back nor did he have any qualms about his identity.


    ¡°Sizzle¡­!¡±


    The transparent shield protected the Second Crown Prince with an egg-shaped cover made out of white light. The five streaks of SwordQi fell from the sky and scratched the cover, sending out bursts of unpleasant noises.


    ¡°Crack, crack, crack¡­!¡±


    ¡°What? That¡¯s impossible!¡± The Second Crown Prince was astonished to see the egg-shaped cover break inch by inch under the powerful attack. He was well aware of the defensive power of his Heavenly Fairy Weapon and was confident that he could escape an Earthly Immortal¡¯s clutches even if the latter attacked him with all his strength. So, how about now? He failed to resist Zhou Bao¡¯s attack!

 Chapter 863 - Success & Escape (â…¡)

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    Cracks gradually appeared on the transparent cover. As Zhou Bao attacked continually, the cracks became bigger and bigger. Moreover, these cracks were transferred to the circular shield. And at such a close distance, Zhou Bao clearly saw the true face of the shield. It was not a perfect circle. To be precise, it was a turtle shell that cracked under Zhou Bao¡¯s attacks. The moment the cracks swept over the shield, a small jade turtle suddenly could be seen.


    ¡°Roar!¡±


    The jade turtle suddenly opened its mouth and let out a sound that did not match its size. It was like a thunderbolt coming out of a clear sky. Suddenly, Zhou Bao¡¯s attacks came to a standstill. Within this short moment, the cracks on the shield began to be repaired.


    Without thinking, Zhou Bao knew that the jade turtle had to be the device spirit of this shield. He was greatly relieved because he had managed to drive the device spirit out of the shield by force. Although the small shield had already begun to be repaired, he figured out the limitations of the shield through his several attacks.


    Even if this shield could block his attack once or twice, could it succeed in doing so many times?


    Like a violent storm, Zhou Bao¡¯s fierce attacks left no room for the Second Crown Prince to breath, let alone counterattack.


    After Zhou Bao started the ball rolling, the only thing the Second Crown Prince could do was resist desperately.


    After a few seconds, the SwordQi still raged as before and a vacuum formed in this space. So many cracks cropped up on the transparent shield that even the jade turtle was unable to patch them quickly.


    ¡°Stop, stop! Can we talk about this? Let¡¯s talk!¡± At this point, the Second Crown Prince could no longer maintain his reserved manner and cried out loud. If he did not do so, he might die under Zhou Bao¡¯s SwordQi.


    ¡°Save your breath! I need your fate and Divine Sense. Go to hell, brat!¡±


    The Second Crown Prince wanted to negotiate with Zhou Bao, while the latter had no desire to do so. Zhou Bao stretched out his five fingers and the Immortal-killing Sword Qi intertwined with the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi. Then, a visible black-and-white SwordQi formed. It tore off the shield together with the circular cover.


    ¡°Nooo!¡±


    The moment the cover was torn open, the Second Crown Prince let out a cry of despair. Meanwhile, the jade turtle dissipated under Zhou Bao¡¯s SwordQi.


    A colorful ray swept toward Zhou Bao at the same time. Furthermore, strange ripples appeared in the surrounding space. The shield and its device spirit were rolled up by an unknown power and vanished from this space.


    ¡°Kong Ti, I¡¯m waiting for you!¡±


    Zhou Bao paid no attention to that shield. It was a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, just like his red gourd. Thus, it was able to resist the power of the Treasure-snatching Rock in this space when it was intact. But what if it was damaged?


    It almost exploded due to Zhou Bao¡¯s attacks. Under these circumstances, it even had a problem protecting itself, let alone warding off the Treasure-snatching Rock. Without a doubt, it would be controlled by the unknown power of the Treasure-snatching Rock. Zhou Bao, however, had no intention to wrestle with the Treasure-snatching Rock for it. In his eyes, Huang Lei¡¯s fate and Divine Sense were what mattered.


    They were the things he had to obtain.


    Similarly, they were items that another Tribulation Taker, Kong Ti, was hell-bent on acquiring. He did not interfere in the fight between Zhou Bao and the Second Crown Prince, but that did not mean he did not intend to benefit from them.


    As expected, when Zhou Bao tore the shield apart and was about to kill the Second Crown Prince, his Five-colored Divine Light moved toward Zhou Bao.


    ¡°Kong Ti, if you want the fate, just take it yourself. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s good to seize the spoils of war of others!¡±


    Though Kong Ti did not understand the meaning of ¡°seize the spoils of war of others¡±, he could easily speculate about it given Zhou Bao¡¯s tone. ¡°Humph, just blame yourself for being stupid!¡± Kong Ti sneered. Half of Huang Lei¡¯s fate was on the Second Crown Prince, so he would not give ground anyway. His Five-colored Divine Light shone brightly and enveloped Zhou Bao and the Second Crown Prince tightly. However, he did not think much about the Second Crown Prince, the focus of his attacks was Zhou Bao.


    ¡°Considering your strength, you are not qualified to steal my possessions!¡±


    The black-and-white SwordQi transformed into a big net. It not only kept out the Five-colored Divine Light, but it also wrapped up the Second Crown Prince, who was prepared to escape.


    Rationally speaking, the Second Crown Prince was by no means weak. Otherwise, killing Huang Lei would not have been as easy as winking for him. Although many Earthly Immortals assisted him during the process, if he had not possessed a certain strength, he could not have succeeded in doing so.


    But the problem was that they were now in the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s space, where most of the fairy weapons were unable to exert their power. The Second Crown Prince deserved to be called a man of bountiful treasures. But the majority of his fairy weapons malfunctioned here. The only useful weapon that was able to withstand the power of the Treasure-snatching Rock was his circular shield. Nevertheless, it was unfortunate that it had been taken away by the Treasure-snatching Rock because it could not bear Zhou Bao¡¯s fierce attacks and resist the power of the Treasure-snatching Rock at the same time.


    Although the Second Crown Price was powerful, there was still a gap between his strength and that of Zhou Bao and Kong Ti. He got to know the secret of the Treasure-snatching Rock by accident and came here by virtue of the force of the Jade Emperor Palace. It never occurred to him that he would encounter two Tribulation Takers at once, let alone that these two were so formidable. With his strength, he had no chance of escaping.


    ¡°You cannot kill me! I am the Crown Prince of Jade Emperor! If you do so, you will be the sworn enemy of the Jade Emperor Palace!¡±


    The power and pressure emanating from the fight between Zhou Bao¡¯s SwordQi and Kong Ti¡¯s Five-colored Divine Light far exceeded the Second Crown Prince¡¯s imagination. In the twinkling of an eye, they displayed a power that proved utterly irresistible to him. He then was frightened by them. Evidently, the two men in front of him were reckless; however, as a noble Crown Prince, he did not dare risk his life. As a result, he begged for mercy without hesitation.


    Nonetheless, Zhou Bao and Kong Ti were never softhearted people. In their eyes, the Second Crown Prince was a fat lamb from whom they could profit. Wait until their fight was over, the winner would gather his spoils of war¡ªthe Second Crown Prince.


    Therefore, no matter how the Second Crown Prince cried and how he emphasized his identity, status, and the force he represented, they seemed totally unconcerned about it. The SwordQi rushed into the sky and the divine light followed suit. The two fought each other in the world of the Treasure-snatching Rock and neither could gain the upper hand. It appeared that an outcome would not be reached in a short period.


    ¡°I know a big secret about the Treasure-snatching Rock and I¡¯ll tell you if you let me go. It¡¯s much better than killing me. You¡¯ll obtain great benefits and¡­!¡±


    ¡°Swish!¡± A colorful ray and a streak of SwordQi struck the Second Crown Prince almost at the same time. His left arm was chopped off by the SwordQi, and because of the Five-colored Divine Light, his right arm turned into a chunk of wood, without a shred of vitality.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    The Five-colored Divine Light and the SwordQi knocked into each other again.


    Kong Ti no longer concealed his strength. His Five-colored Divine Light rotated and evolved a macro world in the embryo stage. It was a world of multicolor, but numerous black holes were vaguely visible within it. The colorful light emitted a powerful gravitation that enabled potent vortexes to take shape. The vortexes tried to crush Zhou Bao¡¯s SwordQi, but the latter just remain unharmed. Instead, the SwordQi dissipated those rays. It even went deep into that macro world and was ready to mince the black holes.


    ¡°Things cannot go this way. This is the space of the Treasure-snatching Rock rather than some other place. Only God knows what will happen if I don¡¯t stop the fight as soon as possible!¡± After a few seconds, Zhou Bao felt that if things kept going like this, it would not be a good thing for either Kong Ti or him. ¡°Kong Ti, you¡¯d better be sensible; otherwise, don¡¯t blame me for being cruel!¡±


    ¡°Hahahaha, you are really skilled at boasting about your strength. I¡¯d like to see how cruel you will be!¡± Kong Ti had absolute confidence in his Five-colored Divine Light. Since it was a Divine Sense that was good at both defense and offense, Kong Ti had the confidence to escape with it even if he were to be struck by the Four Immortal-killing Swords, let alone two streaks of SwordQi.


    ¡°Since you refuse to come to your senses, I will be kind and send you to your grave!¡± Zhou Bao shouted and sword light surged upward behind his head. With a clear sound, he broke the space of this layer, and the sharp SwordQi scattered. Following a strange path, it formed a formidable force that destroyed the better part of the Five-colored Divine Light.


    In an instant, the colorful light dimmed. However, the SwordQi still shot out in all directions with good momentum.


    ¡°Damn!¡± Kong Ti perceived that his Five-colored Divine Light had suffered injuries. Although it did not collapse, his mind was stirred up and his heart throbbed. He immediately operated his Dharma power to restore it to its previous condition. As a result, it again shone brightly.


    ¡°Huh? There¡¯s something wrong!¡± The fierce attacks in Kong Ti¡¯s imagination did not appear.* ¡°No, I fell into a trap!¡±*


    He had fallen for Zhou Bao¡¯s trick!


    Just as he felt terribly uneasy and hurried to operate his Dharma power, Zhou Bao had already withdrawn his SwordQi and tightened the sword net. He then executed the Three Realms Division and disappeared from this place. All Kong Ti saw was Zhou Bao¡¯s last shadow. When he realized what had happened and wanted to catch up to Zhou Bao, it was too late!


    Zhou Bao entered the next layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock at top speed. As soon as he entered it, the Space Passage that his SwordQi had pierced closed. Almost at the same time, the Five-colored Divine Light tore open the passage again, but Zhou Bao had already disappeared without a trace.

 Chapter 864 - The Fourth Layer & the Truth about His Previous Life

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    In the fourth layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    Like the first two layers, there was an endless void. But one thing was different; there were no fairy weapons floating everywhere.


    Planets were the theme of the scenery here.


    Everything here was exactly the same as the universe in Zhou Bao¡¯s memory.


    A huge fireball, which turned out to be a star after observation, was blazing in the distance. After tearing open the third layer, Zhou Bao appeared on a vast planet, where dead silence reigned everywhere. No air or gravity existed here, and what he saw were countless strangely shaped rocks revolving around a vast planet far away.


    Just when he was lost in thought, a colorful ray flashed past in the distance. He narrowed his eyes and directly executed the Infinite Realms Teleportation in this space. He again split the space open and arrived at another unknown void.


    ¡°Interesting! The stability of the space inside the Treasure-snatching Rock is just like that of the Human World!¡± With the aid of the Infinite Realms Teleportation, he had arrived here extremely quickly, but he did not expect the Law of Space here to be so fragile. Carelessly, he found himself in a strange void.


    However, he did not care about that. In the end, this was just one layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock. And since it was so vulnerable, breaking this space was as easy as pie for him. However, when he swept around and made out his surroundings, he was taken aback.


    ¡°This is¡­ the universe¡­ the Milky Way galaxy?¡±


    He saw a huge silver plate revolving slowly in the depths of the void. It was a galaxy made up of untold stars and its shape resembled the Milky Way galaxy from his memory!


    Yes, it was the Milky Way galaxy!


    Presently, Zhou Bao was already an Immortal. Furthermore, with the assistance of the Fiery Eyes, his eyesight was unimaginably keen. But at this moment, he still could not believe what he had seen. After rubbing his eyes, he confirmed that it was indeed the Milky Way galaxy he had seen in his previous life.


    The flat, silver plate was thick in the middle and thin at the ends. Its four spiral arms were clear and distinct. The two companion galaxies not far away also matched up with the knowledge he had learned from his previous life.


    ¡°The Carina¨CSagittarius Arm, Orion Arm, Perseus Arm, Near 3 kpc Arm, Large Magellanic Cloud, and Small Magellanic Cloud! Damn, have I entered into a magic matrix? Is it a magic matrix set up by a powerful Celestial Immortal?¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s heart throbbed and his spirit shook violently without any known reason. An unspeakable impulse rose from the depths of his spirit.


    ¡°What the hell is going on here? Is everything I see real? This is the universe where I lived in my previous life, this is¡­!¡±


    At this moment, Zhou Bao stopped thinking because he felt a strong willpower emerge from the Milky Way galaxy. Though it was not overwhelming, it was very strange, as if it had a strong suction. Zhou Bao was very familiar with it. The moment that it showed up, his spirit stopped being agitated. His body, however, flew involuntarily toward its cradle. At this point, he seemed to have lost consciousness. He crossed through spaces by tearing them open and reappeared in another galaxy.


    The solar system!


    Yes, this was the solar system, in which fixed stars and planets could be seen everywhere. Most important of all, he saw Earth!


    ¡°Earth!!!¡± He looked at the blue planet in front of him and the familiar space junk blankly, as if he was dreaming.


    ¡°Is this real?¡± he muttered to himself.


    ¡°Yes, it is!¡± Before his voice had trailed off, someone else chimed in.


    ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡±


    Zhou Bao was alarmed to find someone else approaching him without being noticed. His divine thoughts surged out and swept around, but he discovered nothing.


    ¡°Don¡¯t search for me with your divine thoughts, it¡¯s useless!¡± The familiar willpower appeared once again. Zhou Bao tracked down its source¡ªthe fiery sun in front of him.


    ¡°You are¡­!¡± Staring at the sun, Zhou Bao was petrified.


    ¡°I am the sun!¡±


    ¡°F*ck!¡±


    When the willpower passed the answer on to him, Zhou Bao blurted out such a word. Hence, the willpower was choked with rage and could not utter a word. Nonetheless, Zhou Bao did not care that much. With a quick move, he entered the blue planet and reappeared in front of a high-end residential neighborhood.


    ¡°What on earth is going on here?¡±


    It was just at the time people got off work. Before he went into the residential neighborhood, he saw a familiar figure appear in front of the building¡¯s gate. His expression altered suddenly.


    He saw the man clearly. Without a doubt, it was Wang Bo¡ªanother one of himself in his previous life.


    ¡°How is this possible? Aren¡¯t I already dead? How am I still alive, how¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you understand? You think that everyone else can reincarnate, don¡¯t you?¡± Just when Zhou Bao was scratching his head, the willpower descended again. ¡°Creatures and souls here are extremely fragile. How can they be reborn casually?¡±


    ¡°What happened?¡± Zhou Bao transformed into a flash of silver lightning and once again appeared in the outer space above Earth.


    His face darkened. When he saw Wang Bo just now, his old memories became aroused from the depths of his spirit. But soon afterward, they fell dormant, leaving only an emptiness in his heart.


    ¡°Can you figure all this out?¡±


    ¡°Who am I?¡± Zhou Bao said in a gravelly voice.


    ¡°To be precise, you are a wisp of consciousness!¡±


    ¡°A device spirit? The essence of consciousness?¡±


    ¡°There are five layers in total in the Treasure-snatching Rock and this is the fourth layer!¡±


    ¡°So what?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve seen the first two layers and witnessed the power of the Treasure-snatching Rock. What idea can you dream up?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to bother thinking about that. I just want to know the truth. Why is Wang Bo still alive? If that¡¯s true, who am I? The essence of consciousness? A device spirit? I have no memory of it at all. I don¡¯t remember which Heavenly Fairy Weapon I come from. I have reached the Immortal Realm and I possess combat capability equivalent to that of an Earthly Immortal. If I really am the reincarnation of the device spirit of a Heavenly Fairy Weapon, I definitely could remember that. But I cannot recall anything. It¡¯s impossible!¡±


    ¡°Really? But the truth is the exact opposite of what you think. You can¡¯t remember it because you were reborn in the Human World due to an accident before you could become a device spirit. It seemed like an accident from the start, but now it appears to be a scheme designed by someone on purpose!¡±


    ¡°Can you make it clearer?¡±


    ¡°Haha, you will understand as long as you devote your attention to observing and thinking about all this. This is the space of the Treasure-snatching Rock, and the device spirits of Heavenly Fairy Weapons grow in the third layer. However, they just gain elementary spiritual sense¡ªthe essence of consciousness. And this layer aims to put the essence of consciousness into the spirits of real living creatures. In this way, these creatures can grow up very quickly. Then, the essence of consciousness will be separated from their spirits!¡±


    ¡°And finally load it into the Heavenly Fairy Weapons?¡± Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes. ¡°It sounds like a quick fix!¡±


    ¡°Of course. This is the significance of the fourth layer. It allows spirits to grow rapidly and become appropriate device spirits!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me everyone outside has a device spirit attached to them!¡±


    ¡°Of course not. Every once in a while, the third and fourth layer connect to each other. And then the essence of consciousness enters the fourth layer and attaches to the spirit of a living creature randomly until it¡¯s fully grown up¡­¡±


    ¡°How long does this process take?¡±


    ¡°It depends on the life expectancy of the living creature it attaches to. Whether long and short, we never interfere in it!¡±


    ¡°You mean this universe is merely a layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock?¡±


    ¡°Yes. But it¡¯s not necessarily right for you!¡± The willpower seemed to have understood Zhou Bao¡¯s concern. ¡°Your fist intent simulated this universe; maybe the first, second, third, or the fifth layer. Thus, there is not much room for improvement. However, the fourth layer simulated the Dharma and rules of the universe from the last era. Therefore, you gained a great advantage!¡±


    ¡°A great advantage?¡±


    ¡°Yes. The last era has long gone and disappeared since Primordial Origin. This universe represents a new era. Strictly speaking, the fourth layer is merely a shadow. Wang Bo did exist, though in the last era. It¡¯s like a documentary. The fourth layer resembles an eternal documentary that records the scene of the last Dharma Ending Age. I believe you can tell that they are not real!¡±


    ¡°Yes, I can!¡± Zhou Bao sighed. Indeed, he had just felt that everything on this earth seemed so real, but in fact, it was only virtual. In his eyes, Wang Bo was just a thought of his spirit. Even his body was fake!


    ¡°But why did this happen to me?¡±


    ¡°I told you that I thought it was an accident, but now it turns out that I was wrong. I am unaware of the details of the situation. This is the trick of the Treasure-snatching Rock. If you wish to know the truth, go and find its device spirit. It¡¯s in the fifth layer, which is also the last layer. But I don¡¯t think it¡¯ll be easy for you to see him!¡±

 Chapter 865 - I Need Your Help

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    So this was the previous life. My previous life. Not the life of Wang Bo, but instead just a single thought bred in this Treasure-snatching Rock. A life supposed to be devoted to the device spirit of a Heavenly Fairy Weapon.


    After finding out the cause and effect of his previous life, Zhou Bao hung his head in bewilderment for a while. He was curious to know why he was involved in an accident, which led him to reincarnate into the Human World and become a Tribulation Taker. But for now, his confusion negated the excitement to enter the fifth layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    ¡°Why do you appear beaten down already?¡± Seeing Zhou Bao at a loss, the willpower washed over him again.


    ¡°Beaten down? Me?¡± Zhou Bao asked, squinting in confusion at this question, which he did not understand one bit. ¡°I understood all that happened in my previous life and am now a little absent-minded, but that doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m beaten down.¡±


    ¡°Really? Don¡¯t you feel that you¡¯re just a thought bred in the Treasure-snatching Rock? You¡¯re not Wang Bo¡¯s Real Body? And even if you are, it was just a projection of thought! Don¡¯t you find this discouraging?¡±


    ¡°Hahahahahaha!!!¡± After listening to what it said, Zhou Bao laughed hysterically. ¡°Sad? What is there to be sad about? I am who I am! So what if I¡¯m just the consciousness of an essence or a reflection? Everything I hold now, including my cultivation, was all gained from my own hard work! Although great luck plays an important role in the matter, nobody can deny that everything was done through my hands! So what if I was a shit bug!¡±


    ¡°Well said. The fate of a hero is never decided at birth, even if you¡¯re a shit bug, you can also become a Celestial Immortal! Hahahahahaha!¡± Zhou Bao finished speaking and an incomparably powerful willpower appeared in the Treasure-snatching Rock. ¡°You¡¯re not too shabby!¡±


    ¡°Who is this?¡± Zhou Bao tilted his head, feeling like a monkey in a zoo for all to watch. His embarrassment was quite unwelcomed.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get angry, kid! We¡¯re just a bunch of old guys dying from boredom for staying in the same space for so long. We¡¯re curious about this new-comer, that¡¯s all!¡±


    ¡°Based on your combined strength, shouldn¡¯t it be easy to leave the space of the Treasure-snatching Rock?¡±


    ¡°Leave? Why would we desire that? This is our home, this is where we were born and this is where we will be annihilated eventually! Why would we want to go elsewhere?¡± The passion of that willpower projected from above the sun burned like fire. However, Zhou Bao¡¯s confusion and amusement piqued around this point. The same feeling he felt just now when they asked if he was sad about his birth.


    Yeah!


    Why leave?


    They should continue to stay on earth and live a good life, just like Wang Bo¡¯s regrets in Zhou Bao¡¯s previous life. Why should they dream about an unrealistic feat such as leaving this place?


    Life for them was not something imaginary, nor was it a fairytale. These beings were all device spirits, and perhaps among them some ancient ones. If they left, they might be captured and refined by some powerful practitioners. Practitioners priced the device spirits of a Heavenly Fairy Weapon absurdly high. To them, these device spirits were hard-to-find supplements.


    However, the space in the Treasure-snatching Rock was home to these device spirits. Even if an Earthly Immortal entered here, he would leave with grief and regrets instead, and his fairy weapons would be affected by the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    ¡°Then you all must be the device spirits in the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s space!¡±


    ¡°Not necessarily. We all have our own bodies. In the reflection of this universe, each star is a Heavenly Fairy Weapon. On each living planet, there exist countless device spirits in incubation!¡±


    ¡°You expect me to believe such a far fetched tale? Just how many Heavenly Fairy Weapons reside here?¡±


    ¡°As many as you can imagine!¡± The thought seemed willing to tell Zhou Bao everything. ¡°Young man, don¡¯t assume that the Heavenly Fairy Weapon is a powerful tool. Even the top player is underwhelming. The Treasure-snatching Rock experienced countless eras of destruction, what can it not handle? There were countless collisions between magic weapons and fairy weapons, heaven-and-earth destructions and inheritance of willpower. Those with some skills immigrated to the Extraterritorial Area. Whatever belongings they left behind are all here!¡± Zhou Bao understood this problem was related to secretive unknown factors. Although he wished to be enlightened more, he decided it best not to bring it up after some consideration.


    ¡°Then why did I reincarnate into the Human World?¡±


    ¡°I should not be the one answering this question, nor am I capable of doing so. Initially, I did, in fact, thought that you were an accident. But come to think of it, the whole situation cannot be explained using the term ¡®accident¡¯. This is especially because you have actually managed to become a Tribulation Taker in the Human World and even returned to the space in Treasure-snatching Rock. This cannot be a coincidence!¡±


    ¡°If it¡¯s not a coincidence, then what is it?¡±


    ¡°Once more, I cannot answer you. If that is what you desire, go search for the one who caused your plight.¡±


    ¡°And who may that be?¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t the slightest clue.¡±


    ¡°Come on! Although this is just a reflection of the universe from the previous era, you are situated in the core star of this galaxy. If I¡¯m guessing correctly, you¡¯re in charge of controlling this galaxy!¡±


    ¡°I indeed control this galaxy, but he has been set up by someone and tampered with!¡± Another willpower coursed through Zhou Bao. ¡°The space in Treasure-snatching Rock may seem like a well-hidden secret, but in the eyes of the Celestial Immortal Sages, this is nowhere a secret. Although they cannot control the Treasure-snatching Rock, they can cause some changes in this space through other methods. An ordinary Celestial Immortal Sage only affects one or two layers of the space with the real body of Treasure-snatching Rock agreeing to it. If they attempt to bypass the permission to do so, they will be banned from the Rock. However, there are some stronger Celestial Immortal Sages that can affect up to three layers. Although there aren¡¯t many, and said Sages are all ancient. Even the Treasure-snatching Rock cannot control nor stop whatever they wish to do.¡±


    ¡°That is to say, some ancient mighty Celestial Immortal set his eyes on me, an essence of a willpower belonging to a device spirit who gained spiritual intelligence? And he then sent me to reincarnate in the Human World and become a Tribulation Taker?¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s face contorted in confusion. He did not believe what the willpower said.


    And who could blame him? Why on earth would anyone do such things to Zhou Bao?


    Even if there were Celestial Immortal Sages who lived for eons and had nothing to pass the time, why would they choose Zhou Bao? Why choose him among the countless planets and reflections of thoughts in this layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock?


    Was this all coincidence?


    No.


    After so many years of practice, Zhou Bao managed to understand a very important truth. In this world, love and hate existed for good reasons. There was a reason for everything and one thing certainly resulted in another. It was impossible for pure coincidence to occur.


    ¡°The answer you¡¯re looking for is inside this space, but only the Treasure-snatching Rock can provide answers. But I don¡¯t think it will be willing to divulge any Otherwise, it would have informed us already.¡± The thought sent from above the sun sighed softly.


    ¡°Then why did I enter the space in the Treasure-snatching Rock this time around? Do not tell me that this is a coincidence too!¡± Zhou Bao sneered.


    ¡°No, of course not! We know you¡¯re searching for the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique, the last technique of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. This is why the Treasure-snatching Rock appeared to you and invited you in. Otherwise, did you think that brat, Wang Shang, could have discovered it!¡±


    ¡°You all possess the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique?¡±


    ¡°No, but we do know where the incantation resides.¡±


    ¡°Where?¡±


    ¡°It is carved on the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s real body. If you want it, enter the fifth layer of space. Although the Rock will deny you the details, it won¡¯t put you on the spot over it either.¡±


    ¡°I am still a little confused.¡±


    And indeed he was. Although he needed to be in the space of the Treasure-snatching Rock, this did not mean that the device spirits should assist him selflessly.


    Things like this should never happen.


    ¡°Of course, we have our conditions!¡± Just when Zhou Bao experienced a difficult time believing them, another willpower reached out. ¡°We require your help!¡±


    ¡°Hahahahahaha!¡± Zhou Bao broke into laughter. ¡°Are you all putting on an act? You bunch of old spirits have already lived here for so many years, even centuries! And yet you still need my assistance!¡±


    ¡°Of course we do! You¡¯re the last Tribulation Taker in this era, so naturally we require it!¡±


    ¡°What kind of assistance?¡±


    ¡°Stop the Jade Emperor Sage from stealing the Treasure-snatching Rock!¡±


    ¡°What!¡± Zhou Bao thought he heard them wrong.


    ¡°The Jade Emperor Sage desires to steal the Treasure-snatching Rock? Wasn¡¯t he vanquished and in full retreat? Besides, the Treasure-snatching Rock is still the king of Heavenly Fairy Weapons. Its powers are certainly not beneath that of the Jade Emperor Sage. How-¡±


    ¡°During the Dharma Ending Tribulation, the Treasure-snatching Rock will enter a period of deterioration. And as for us, we will sleep deeply. During then, the Treasure-snatching Rock is most vulnerable!¡±


    ¡°But how am I supposed to accomplish that!¡± For a Heavenly Fairy Weapon like the Treasure-snatching Rock that endured so many eras, it would definitely recognize many ancient Celestial Immortals. At the very least, it would be able to recognize Taoist Jin, the creator of the Immortal Realm. If not, he would not have traveled to the Immortal Realm. Hence, he would definitely not be foolhardy enough to relate himself with such an obvious abnormal matter. ¡°I¡¯m not even an Earthly Immortal yet, how am I supposed to fight the Jade Emperor Sage?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not something I can help you with.¡± That willpower replied plainly. ¡°I¡¯ll bring you to the fifth layer and the Treasure-snatching Rock will solve your dilemma.¡±

 Chapter 866 - Own Way

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    The fifth layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock!


    A palace, one that Zhou Bao was familiar with yet still found foreign.


    The Purple Heaven Palace!


    It was The Purple Heaven Palace!


    When Zhou Bao stood in front of the ancient yet majestic palace, his gaze lit up with amazement.


    The Purple Heaven Palace, this was The Purple Heaven Palace!


    This was The legendary Purple Heaven Palace, where all myths originated!


    Standing in front of the old palace¡¯s door, Zhou Bao closed his eyes sightly, as if wanting to feel the legendary Great Ways. However, not only did he feel none, a cold wind greeted him instead.


    ¡°Hey, don¡¯t stand in front of the door, the wind blows through there!¡±


    The wind blows through here!


    Zhou Bao¡¯s heart froze, immediately realizing what was wrong. He was a practitioner who practiced all the ways to the Immortal Realm and possessed immunity to warm and cold weather. So why did the small gust chill him?


    In that instant, he understood what occurred. He raised his head and looked up at the ancient palace with a suspicious gaze.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be nervous or afraid. This is the Purple Heaven Palace, the starting and ending point of all things. All living creatures that come here will return to their essence form. Even the Celestial Immortals lose all their powers here, so it¡¯s only naturally for you to too!¡±


    ¡°Return to their essence form?¡± A sharp sensation tugged at Zhou Bao¡¯s heart and a divine thought formed from beginning to end. Zhou Bao ascertained what went on. The fifth layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock was actually a virtual space, and so was the Purple Heaven Palace. Seemingly, only his thought reached the fifth layer, but his real body remained in the fourth.


    For a practitioner of Zhou Bao¡¯s level, even a thought possessed endless power. However, he was helpless when standing in front of the Purple Heaven Palace. The Palace instantiated this thought of his into a body, but that was about it. A body of an ordinary human.


    Under such circumstances, Zhou Bao fretted not. He too, knew that worrying prove meaningless. He also thought of the famous line, ¡°As long as you come into my territory, even a dragon will kneel before me!¡±


    Dragons were plentiful in this world. On the other hand, Celestial Immortals stood at the tip of the pyramid of existence. But even they knelt in front of the Purple Heaven Palace.


    ¡°I understand you have many questions, but come in first.¡±


    Zhou Bao nodded and walked into the Purple Heave Palace slowly.


    Initially, he was still keen on finding out just what this legendary place stood for. Strangely enough, once he stepped into the Palace, his soul wandered off. When he finally regained consciousness, he already walked into the Palace.


    ¡°Welcome back! I couldn¡¯t even name you when before you left.¡± The voice said, both soft and gentle. A sense of happiness, as if a lost son returning home permeated from the voice.


    A grey-clothed Taoist stood the center of the big hall. He looked at Zhou Bao with a big smile and loving gaze. However, all Zhou Bao¡¯s hairs stood up because of this ¡®loving¡¯ gaze.


    It had been years since Zhou Bao last felt something like this, and he did not like it. Although the unlikelihood that this man gave him his first thought, that was about all. If it really happened, then, of course, it could be faked as well. Zhou Bao was no longer the rookie defined by others. If it really was the case, then Zhou Bao mind not giving the Treasure-snatching Rock a little push. But he would never treat it as his parents. Relationships are meant to develop with time. Zhou Bao doubted the Treasure-snatching Rock had much influence over him.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes slightly as a response to the old Taoist¡¯s loving gaze. ¡°Names are just a code name, I have more than one now.¡±


    ¡°Not bad, other than the original one, the rest are all not bad.¡± The Taoist in grey smiled and something appeared between his lines.


    ¡°Stop trying to make me curious! Since you know all about me, then you¡¯ll naturally know what my other names mean!¡±


    ¡°Yes, Cundi and Bodhi, they¡¯re such ancient names. I almost forgot about them. Why not choose other names? For example¡­¡±


    ¡°Hongjun?¡± Zhou Bao looked at this Taoist in grey who was dressed like Hongjun the Taoist. ¡°I¡¯m not so full of myself yet, I still have basic respect. But as for you, senior¡­¡±


    ¡°What is there to fear? That old Taoist has been deep-sleeping for several centuries, God knows if he will ever wake up.¡± After hearing Zhou Bao¡¯s words, the grey-clothed Taoist understood what Zhou Bao said. He blew his mustache and continued speaking, unbothered. ¡°But as for you, I have never thought that you would progress this far! It has only been a few years since you were born and you¡¯re already on the same level as some of the strongest Heavenly Fairy Weapons, truly a surprise!¡±


    ¡°Was it an accident, or on purpose?¡± Since he was already here, Zhou Bao pressed sternly for his answer. ¡°I want to know the truth!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know the truth either.¡± The Taoist in grey, or rather, the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s device spirit, was very helpless. ¡°Although you were bred in the Treasure-snatching Rock, there exists many strong characters that can cause huge changes in the space here. I am incapable of stopping this. If not, I wouldn¡¯t have thought of asking for your help.¡±


    ¡°Old monsters like you have lived for countless eras, and now you need my help? If that¡¯s the case, then I suspect you are the one that put me in this situation!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have that ability. If not, I wouldn¡¯t be trapped in this god-damned Immortal Realm.¡± The Taoist in grey heard what Zhou Bao said and immediately denied. ¡°The power of a Celestial Immortal is enough to send you from the Treasure-snatching Rock to incarnate in the human world. But to achieve what you¡¯ve completed thus far, to nurse you to become a Tribulation Taker and the strongest and luckiest one at that, now, that¡¯s not something an ordinary Celestial Immortal can achieve. It will require a capability that is almost the same as Taoist Jin¡¯s. Only ancient Celestial Immortals ever achieve that. You¡¯re their chess piece, not mine.¡±


    ¡°Well then, do you have their clues?¡±


    ¡°None whatsoever. God knows which old man got bored and selected you.¡± As the Taoist in grey spoke, a nearly undetectable strange flash appeared in the deepest part of his eyes. This strange glow Zhou Bao usually caught, but now, Zhou Bao was just an Original Spirit in its essence form. He lost all his powers and could not detect it.


    The old man denied the whole thing and Zhou Bao lost his expectations of gaining some clues from this sly fox. He sighed, ¡°Fine, since you don¡¯t know, then there¡¯s nothing we can do. Surely you didn¡¯t bring me here to meet the Jade Emperor Sage.¡±


    ¡°The Jade Emperor Sage successfully practiced the Advanced Level of the Way of the Emperor. I would never jest with you about such matters!¡± The Taoist in grey was stern for a change.


    ¡°The Way of the Emperor reached the Advanced Level? What logic is this!¡±


    ¡°This is my logic, and also one of the simplest ones passed down for numerous eras.¡± The Taoist in grey continued, ¡°Numerous eras ago, a mighty character who successfully practiced the Way of the Emperor stirred up a huge calamity here. Not only did he rule the main universe, but he also destroyed numerous Celestial Immortal territories in the Extraterritorial Area. He was eventually defeated by a group of united Celestial Immortals. Since then, the Way of the Emperor has become a forbidden power. For many eras, there hasn¡¯t been a character like the Jade Emperor Sage who could practice the Way of the Emperor until the Celestial Heaven Realm. However, this is also the tolerance limit of the group of ancient Celestial Immortals.¡±


    ¡°Then what else must I do?¡±


    ¡°What I¡¯m saying is it¡¯s reaching their tolerance limit; it¡¯s not there yet.¡± The Taoist in grey laughed bitterly. ¡°They¡¯re all waiting, waiting for a suitable reason. Occupying the Treasure-snatching Rock is their best excuse. But, I¡¯m going to be extremely unlucky.¡±


    ¡°If my guess is correct, then you must be the device spirit of the Treasure-snatching Rock. Even if he gained the Rock, he wouldn¡¯t destroy it, no?¡±


    ¡°He will not destroy it, but he will destroy me, the device spirit! He will then create a new one to control the Rock in all forms and manners!¡±


    ¡°This is actually quite alike the Emperor¡¯s character.¡± The corners of Zhou Bao¡¯s mouth twitched a little. He understood what the elder was concerned about. ¡°But how can you be so sure I can assist you? My combat capability is indeed not mediocre, seeing as I can defeat most of the Earthly Immortals. But a Celestial Immortal and Earthly Immortal should never be compared.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re too full of yourself. Your combat capability is indeed above proficient, but its impossible for you to defeat most of the Earthly Immortals. Maybe yes, if they¡¯re ordinary Earthly Immortal, but you¡¯ll never defeat those that have entered the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way! It is already difficult enough to escape from their hands!¡±


    The Taoist in grey deflated Zhou Bao¡¯s confidence without holding back. ¡°Don¡¯t think that your Supreme Fairy Weapon is so powerful. All Earthly Immortals who enter the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way own one just like yours. These Supreme Fairy Weapons have the debris of the three ancient holy cities integrated into them, their powers are comparable to your Black Pearl!¡±


    ¡°Since that¡¯s the case, why do you still want me to fight the Celestial Immortals?¡±


    ¡°We still have time, not an excessive amount but enough to help you become an Earthly Immortal!¡± The Taoist in grey looked at Zhou Bao as he spoke, ¡°There¡¯s also the foundation of the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique and the Seven Wonderful Techniques. The man whom you stole the Taoist name from used this Seven Wonderful Techniques to become a Sage!¡±


    ¡°Seven Wonderful Techniques?¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s eyes bulged. ¡°I heard that this technique is carved on top of the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s real body!¡±


    ¡°Based on your power, you¡¯ll be unable to see the real body. However, we can tell you what this technique is all about!¡± As he spoke, a willpower coursed through Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit. ¡°However, while the Seven Wonderful Techniques may be strong enough to help you become an Earthly Immortal using the least amount of time, you¡¯ll still have to rely on your own way to enter the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way.¡±

 Chapter 867 -

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    Insisting on one¡¯s own way.


    Instinctively, Zhou Bao felt there was a deeper meaning to what the Taoist in grey said. However, he could not figure it out at that moment.


    ¡°One¡¯s own way? What is my way?¡±


    ¡°Extreme Realm of Force, Vacuum-shattering! This is my way!¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s thoughts raced all over the place. All along, his target was these two. But all along, he rarely used his own way while fighting enemies. His punching skills, be it the Four Immortal-killing Swords, Furnace of Immortality or the Seven Wonderful Techniques, proved all very useful. When used together, they defeated any adversary with ease. Most importantly, his never lacked enthusiasm about fighting, nor was he the kind of muscle men in the comics who loved fighting. Hence, whenever he felt like a lack of energy or that the fight might deplete a huge amount of his stamina, he backed out at that instant. This was the same as him giving up on everything when fighting against the devil tribe and the whole Void Universe when in the Heaven Realm World. He did such things all along.


    And because of that, he never put forth his best when practicing the Extreme Realm of Force and the Vacuum-shattering Way. Since he left his true potential untapped, his progression stunted.


    ¡°Then what is he talking about now? On one hand, he wants me to insist on my own way, but on the other he passed the last technique of the Seven Wonderful Techniques on. Does he not know that after I perfect it, I will be unable to use my own powers when facing enemies?¡±


    Zhou Bao found him suspicious, but did not show so with his body language. ¡°This is the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique? It is indeed powerful, but it will prove more difficult to practice successfully as compared to the previous six.¡±


    ¡°The Seven Wonderful Techniques each have their own charms. When combined together, their powers exceed many expectations. If I were you, I would choose a place to concentrate on single-minded practice and only come out when I¡¯m at least nearing the Earthly Immortal¡¯s way. You¡¯ve killed one of the Jade Emperor Sage and captivated the other. Now, the Emperor targets you!¡±


    ¡°So this is why you desire working with me? One is the Heavenly Fairy Weapon the Jade Emperor Sage eyes and the other is the murderer of the Emperor¡¯s son. The enemy of an enemy is my friend.¡±


    ¡°You can say this is the foundation of our partnership!¡±The Taoist in grey smiled faintly. ¡°You are a Tribulation Taker. As long as you¡¯re careful and not interfere with everything, no one in the Immortal Realm can manipulate you, not even the Jade Emperor Sage himself! He is now focused on the upcoming Dharma Ending Tribulation and attaining my real body, which is why he would not have the resources to come after you. This is the best chance for you to hone your newfound skills!¡±


    ¡°Then, last question. When will the Dharma Ending Tribulation be here?¡±


    ¡°Nobody knows. Before the tribulation arrives, there will be all sorts of signs. For example, Tribulation Takers like you who have an obvious strange fate will appear. Some Divine Sense masters may also sense changes in heaven and earth. This is similar to a strong person suddenly becoming weak and feeble. These are all signs that can help others to prepare. However, humans are unable to predict when exactly the tribulation will come. Even ancient Celestial Immortals like Taoist Jin could not predict it. Tribulations always come at the most unexpected times. The Necromancer¡¯s Tribulation last time took everyone by surprise. Nobody knew that a bunch of mediocre necromancers could cause such astronomical chaos!¡±


    ¡°The Necromancer¡¯s Tribulation is the human world¡¯s affair, you also know about that?¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s interest piqued.


    ¡°For men like myself that have lived for several eras, not all tribulations affect us. However, we are immensely interested in all of them and will even take time to study them to derive their regularity. This is a habit and caution, and has aided us to live for a few eras more!¡±


    ¡°Those who don¡¯t die despite old age are all thieves. This saying should be applicable to what you just said, no?¡± Zhou Bao laughed. ¡°Since that¡¯s the case, I¡¯ll take my leave. Nothing can be certain before the Dharma Ending Tribulation. I have to find a place and focus on practicing.¡±


    The Taoist in grey did not request Zhou Bao to stay. He brought his oversized sleeves close to him and sent Zhou Bao out of the imaginary Purple Heaven Palace.


    ¡°Is this the young man that you have high expectations of?¡± After Zhou Bao left, a shadow appeared behind the Taoist in grey. ¡°He seems interesting, but not at all outstanding.¡±


    ¡°He is not the one. The thing I eye is his Seven Wonderful Techniques. I am interested in this name he thought of. His ability to finish practicing the Techniques, which will grant him the ability to suppress strong Earthly Immortals enable him to enter the path towards the heavens and become a Celestial Immortal!¡±


    ¡°Even if he becomes a Celestial Immortal, what then? Don¡¯t tell me it was because he was bred in the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s space by you! Although that much is true, he does not have this awareness. He will not stand at your side just because of this relationship!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need him to stand at my side, all I need him to do is to aid me when he has undergone the Dharma Ending Tribulation!¡± The Taoist in grey laughed. ¡°Based on his typical character, realizing my goal proves elementary!¡±


    ¡°That is indeed true. But what do you mean by insisting on one¡¯s own way? Even if he does so, he may not necessarily break through the Earthly Immortal¡¯s Realm and arrive at the Celestial Immortal Realm. But if he manages to perfect the Seven Wonderful Techniques, it will be no problem for him to enter the Earthly Immortal Realm at least!¡±


    ¡°Really? I said that?¡± The Taoist in grey rolled his eyes. ¡°Perhaps what you said makes sense. But no matter what, he was born in the Treasure-snatching Rock, from which he left. It¡¯s all good if he can walk a good path on his own, what do you say?¡±


    ¡°The way to heaven¡­how is that an easy path to walk? Old man, I¡¯ve been hiding in the Treasure-snatching Rock for so many years and have seen so many Heavenly Fairy Weapons born and destroyed. The number of people who cross over to the path of the Earthly Immortals are a rarity, let alone that of the way to heaven!¡±


    ¡°The Dharma Ending Tribulation of this era is coming. All willpowers are focused on creating the strongest Sage of this era, the Omnipotent Sage. However, before the position is secured, anyone stands a chance to seize it. As the Tribulation Taker for the Dharma Ending Tribulation, he deserves this chance!¡±


    ¡°This is exactly why I¡¯m worried. He practiced the Seven Wonderful Techniques and has a chance to become the Omnipotent Sage. Brother, if you see it, so can I!¡±


    ¡°The result depends on his fate. If it¡¯s not present at that moment, then both of us are blameless!¡± The Taoist in grey squinted his eyes. ¡°Let¡¯s see how far he can go.¡±


    ¡°The Seven Wonderful Techniques and Heaven and Earth Secret Technique are indeed amazing!¡±


    Zhou Bao appeared out of nowhere in the fourth layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock, which was in the hollow beyond the projection of the earth.


    As of now, Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit already returned to his sword¡¯s incarnation. He blinked his eyes and tried to recollect the mystery of the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique that flowed in his heart. After an unknown period of time, he then inhaled deeply. He lifted his head and stared at the blazing sun before scanning the unnamed existence in the hollow. ¡°Sir¡¯s, I¡¯m done here and I¡¯ll be taking my leave!¡± As he spoke, his body flashed and broke through the fourth layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock. In the next instant, he ripped open the third layer. After breaking through that, he transformed into a streak of light and left the ruins of Rock Cliff Sect. Just as he exited, the bunch of practitioners who first entered Rock Cliff Sect arrived. They did not even notice the streak of light that he transformed into.


    Zhou Bao anxiety and agitation rose. This was because after he attained the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique, he subtly understood something from it. Hence, he could not wait to find a place to practice the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique and to grasp this earth-controlling Divine Sense.


    At that moment, the Seven Wonderful Techniques were all he pondered. He knew once he perfected the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique, his powers would increase tremendously. Even if he failed to become an Earthly Immortal, his combat capability would be sufficient for him to battle well-known, Earthly Immortals.


    All he thought about was how to increase his combat capability and practice the Seven Wonderful Techniques. He already forgot the Taoist in grey¡¯s advice about insisting on his own way.


    ¡°Kill the Jade Emperor¡¯s second Crown Prince first and steal his fate and the inheritance from Huang Lei the Tribulation Taker of the Northernmost Sea macro world. Then, practice the Seven Wonderful Techniques and venture to Sword Master to vanquish the little sword spirit, Man Yujun. Collect all three Immortal-killing Sword Qis. And if I still have time, I¡¯ll find the fourth one. If I practiced the Four Immortal-killing Swords too, I have nothing to fear even when facing a Celestial Immortal!¡±


    Zhou Bao thought to himself confidently. Right now, the most important thing was to search for a safe place to practice. He was considered unfamiliar to the Immortal Realm and its people. If he desired information, he could look for Wang She. But if he wanted to find a safe place, Wang She proved an untrustworthy person to rely on. There is only one safe place, and that was Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain.


    Hence, he did not think much about it and soared straight towards the direction of the Fifth Manor. At the same time, he never stopped tearing the space.


    After traveling a whole day nonstop, he finally reached Longevity Mountain. However, he was taken aback the minute he arrived. That was because the Fifth Manor was missing.


    The Fifth Manor was really missing. After Zhou Bao entered the Longevity Mountain with no obstructions in his way, he realized that the mountain range where it was originally located was missing. Only an empty peak remained, with not the slightest trace of spirit.


    Zhou Bao¡¯s frown curved upwards, crinkling in excitement. Eventually though, it sank into a bitter smile. ¡°Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain, Qing Feng, and Ming Yue¡­ no, it should be Immortal Zhen Yuan¡­.seems like things are not as simple as I imagined.¡±


    Outside the territory in the Taoist rite of Fifth Manor, Taoist Zhen Yuan grinned. ¡°Kid, it¡¯s just the Seven Wonderful Techniques, what¡¯s there to worry about? Worrying does not pay for meals. I think you should calm down before we talk about anything else.¡±

 Chapter 868 - Sky-walking Emperor, Father and Son

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    Zhou Bao did not expect the Fifth Manor to be absent at such an important time. But come to think of it, it was not hard to understand why they did so. Zhou Bao himself seemingly sunk in this Dharma Ending Tribulation saga. He could not control how the Fifth Manor thought.


    ¡°Seems like I have to find another place.¡± Zhou Bao said, sighing to himself. Zhou Bao felt the Fifth Manor on Longevity Mountain to be the safest place in the whole Immortal Realm. But now, it seemed like his plan failed.


    Since he could not expect the Fifth Manor to be of assistance anymore, he placed his hopes on the other side ¨C Wang She.


    He refused to roam around in the Void Immortal Realm as he was unfamiliar. If he happened to intrude into the wrong place, he would be in deep trouble.


    Hence, after leaving Longevity Mountain, the first thing he did was to seek out Wang She.


    ¡°You¡¯ve attained the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique and want to find a place to practice? The Fifth Manor is missing?¡±


    Wang She felt overloaded with information. ¡°You killed two Crown Princes!¡±


    ¡°No! Only one! The other one has been constrained by me!¡± Zhou Bao did not try to hide anything. ¡°I used the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy to seal him. This is not the Treasure-snatching Rock, I worried once I freed him, the Jade Emperor Sage would sense his spirit and locate him!¡±


    ¡°Of course such would be the case! Did you believe you¡¯re still in the human world? How daring of you! According to what I know, the Jade Emperor Palace acts crazy recently. Almost half of the Earthly Immortals left the palace to find and kill you. You¡¯re currently the number one target of the palace!¡±


    ¡°The number one target of the palace!¡± A sensation tugged at Zhou Bao¡¯s heart, but instantly subsided. He laughed, ¡°This Immortal Realm is not run by him, do his words even count?¡±


    ¡°Although the Immortal Realm is not run by the palace, the Jade Emperor is one of the three remaining Celestial Immortals in the Immortal Realm. He holds much greater influence than the area of control the palace possesses. Many influences in the Immortal Realm listen to what he says. Even if they don¡¯t, he has ways to make them do so. Hence, don¡¯t believe the Immortal Realm is big! There aren¡¯t many places you can hide. If I were you, I would either go to Eye of the Storm or Chaotic Poisonous Sea. In the Immortal Realm, only these two have the capabilities to keep you safe. If you want to practice in peace, you can only do so in these two¡¯s territories. However-¡±


    ¡°However what?¡±


    ¡°However, their territories are not good places. Be it Eye of the Storm or Chaotic Poisonous Sea, they¡¯re known for being places of chaos. Even Earthly Immortals would be unwilling to journey to those places!¡±


    ¡°Perhaps there¡¯s another place that I can go.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t think about going to the ruins of the Sacred City of Fate! That place is like a holy city to those from the human world, especially for the Fate Creators. But for the Emperors in the Immortal Realm who are also Earthly Immortals, it¡¯s not much. You have to understand, all Earthly Immortals can refine their own macro world and become the Fate Creators of it. There is no obstruction between them and the ruins of the Sacred City of Fate. It is merely a land of ruins to them, which is why no one ventures there. If you went there, I can promise that that place will be flooded with Earthly Immortals within three days. Even the Jade Emperor Sage himself would come for you. You¡¯ll have no chance of escape!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s to say, I¡¯m only left with Eye of the Storm and Chaotic Poisonous Sea to choose from.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right! You can only choose from those two, but you have another problem to ponder.¡±


    ¡°And that is?¡±


    ¡°Escape from the chasing and killing! Be it the Eye of the Storm or the Chaotic Poisonous Sea, they¡¯re both 10,000 miles away from here. It is too far. Under the law of space of the Immortal Realm, you cannot rip open spaces to forward. You also cannot use your Supreme Fairy Weapon. I promise you, once you draw it, the Jade Emperor Sage will notice. Hence, your only choice is to hide your body and proceed slowly. You won¡¯t be able to travel quickly. Even if things progress smoothly, you¡¯ll need at least two to three years to arrive at your destination. Can you wait that long?¡±


    ¡°You surely jest!¡± Zhou Bao almost jumped from the news. He just attained the last technique of the Seven Wonderful Techniques and was so eager to find a place to practice it. Now, Wang She informed him it took two to three years to reach a safe place. This was too much for Zhou Bao to handle.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t there a Transmitting Formation in the Immortal Realm?¡± Zhou Bao asked. ¡°I can use the Transmitting Formation to get there!¡±


    ¡°These are two individual places, the Transmitting Formation cannot get you there!¡± Wang She said lightly. ¡°Eye of the Storm and Chaotic Poisonous Sea are not connected to the outside world. If you want to go there, you must do so on foot!¡±


    ¡°It can¡¯t be that troublesome!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, that¡¯s the Celestial Immortals¡¯ territory, did you think it¡¯d be so easy to gain entrance?¡±


    ¡°There must be a quicker way on earth!¡±


    ¡°Yes there is! I know a person who can assist you reach those two places in no time. However, it is not easy to communicate with them!¡±


    ¡°Forget about that! Who is he? Where is he located?¡±


    ¡°The Sky-walking Emperor is a strong practitioner who had entered the Earthly Immortal¡¯s Way for tens of thousands of years. He already practiced the Great Way of Heavens and Realms of the 3,000 Great Ways until perfection. He can still find the weak points of the law of space in a spacetime like the Immortal Realm¡¯s. Although he cannot journey to the two places whenever he wished, just like in the human world, it is still not a difficult feat for him. He can help you to save ten times the duration of the distance.¡±


    ¡°Ten times! That means, even if the Sky-walking Emperor agrees to help me, I¡¯ll still need two to three months to arrive at my destination!¡±


    ¡°This is the only way. Besides, you have to get moving soon in order to stop the people from Jade Emperor Palace from finding him first. If not, you¡¯ll be in a dire situation!¡±


    ¡°Where is this Sky-walking Emperor?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll bring you there.¡±


    Immortal Realm, Jade Emperor Palace.


    In the dark crowd of palaces, divine Qi surged everywhere. The fairy fighters rushed through the palace in an orderly manner. A small quiet hut was located in the deep corners of the seemingly endless palace. Two middle-aged men sat across each other in the hut. One of them had a contemplative expression on his face. His gaze was full of energy and hid a sense of omnipotence. The other man emitted a sinister energy from his entire body. Him sitting there warped everything like a black hole, capturing the light and heat from his surroundings, as if he was going to devour all things in the world.


    The two of them sat like that quietly. After a period of time, the contemplative middle-aged man sighed. ¡°I will kill that Zhou Bao!¡±


    ¡°Just because he killed your two sons?¡± The middle-aged man emitting dark energy said, lifting his head slightly. A sinister smile spread across his emotionless face. ¡°Don¡¯t forget, it was your son who wanted to kill him first in order to steal his fate, and become a Tribulation Taker.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the point of saying all this to one who is not even an Earthly Immortal?!¡± The contemplative man said coldly. ¡°Besides, this is not the reason why I wanted to kill him. As a Tribulation Taker, his fate is too strong. Now that he also gained Huang Lei¡¯s fate, he might become uncontrollable if left unchecked.¡±


    ¡°Uncontrollable? You people who practice the Way of the Emperor all like to be in complete control. You lot go after those that you cannot make subservient. I almost forgot about this.¡± The other man seemed to have thought of something and his sinister smile intensified. ¡°Too bad, Jade Emperor Sage. You will never gain total control. You used to be able to control the whole of the human world. But now, we are in the Immortal Realm. You can only control your mini scale territory. You can never gain total control over the other two sage¡¯s territory, as well as over the vast Immortal Realm.¡±


    ¡°What if I can, but you just cannot see it?¡± Jade Emperor Sage smiled. ¡°I have already spread word of the news. Other than those two territories, does Zhou Bao have any other place to hide? See? This means I control the majority of the Immortal Realm? There are various measures to achieve the same purpose.¡±


    ¡°Back then, you used this method to enter the Celestial Immortal Realm. Hmmm, control¡­ measures¡­ these things I do not understand. It is your credit for understanding the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way. But this time around, why do you need me? Is this Zhou Bao really worth such drastic measures?¡±


    ¡°He is indeed worth it. He is the Tribulation Taker with the brightest fate and strongest capabilities. I believe he has already acquired all of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. As long as he practices them successfully, he will be difficult to handle even if he doesn¡¯t step into the Earthly Immortal¡¯s Realm. I¡¯m unable to take action now, but you don¡¯t have many options.¡±


    ¡°Zhou Bao and I don¡¯t have anything against each other, so it seems futile for us to engage in combat. Also, you¡¯ve said so yourself, he possesses an incredibly powerful fate. Men like him are not easy to defeat. If I happen to have bad fate and end up in his hands, all my years of cultivation would go to waste.¡±


    ¡°Are you trying to negotiate with me?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m rejecting you!¡± The emotionless middle-aged man stood up. ¡°I will not fight Zhou Bao!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you desire his fate and his Seven Wonderful Techniques? By seizing them, you¡¯ll have the chance of stepping into the Celestial Immortal Realm! You can even become the Omnipotent Sage of this era! Don¡¯t you want that?¡±


    ¡°This must be your trickery, Jade Emperor Sage! You¡¯re enticing me with what others own. You do not wish for me to become the Omnipotent Sage, you merely desire an Omnipotent Sage you can manipulate!¡± The emotionless middle-aged man laughed coldly. ¡°Just like how you controlled that bunch of necromancers back then!¡±


    Jade Emperor burst into laughter. ¡°Are you so fearful of me, brat? So much so that you don¡¯t even want me to hear me out and would leave with such haste?¡±

 Chapter 869 - Everyone Has Their Own Scheme

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    ¡°Haha, you¡¯re right. Actually, I am very afraid of you, father Emperor. I have very much feared you over these years. You are a Celestial Immortal and I am just an Earthly Immortal. But do you know what I am most afraid of? I¡¯m afraid you will use me, but I will continue to help you, just like my two stupid brothers!¡±


    ¡°As stupid as they are, they are still your brothers. I am not using them, I am just giving them an opportunity, just like you gave me an opportunity previously.¡±


    ¡°I would rather not have this opportunity!¡± The cold and distant man¡¯s expression grew colder. ¡°Anyway, I cannot help you. If you want to rule an Omnipotent Sage, or even create one, then do it yourself!¡± His body started to condense slowly and form a black hole, growing smaller and smaller until it became a little black dot, which disappeared right in front of the Jade Emperor Sage¡¯s face.


    ¡°This guy!¡± A spark of anger flashed in the Sage Emperor¡¯s eyes seeing the cold, distant middle-aged man disappear like that. But he seemed to be pondering on something, and the anger completely disappeared. Instead, a strange smile appeared on his face.


    ¡°You might not want to become an Omnipotent Sage under my control, but you certainly want to become a Celestial Immortal. Zhou Bao has the strongest fate of all Tribulation Takers and is the most likely to succeed. My son, it is in your nature to not let him get away with it. But if you get involved, a lot of things will not be within your control.


    ¡°But you poisonous Old Bastard, the situation has progressed! It seems we might have to get involved a bit earlier!¡±


    In the depths of the Immortal Realm was an endless ocean and it was clear as glass. The translucent ocean sparkled, and sprayed and splashed about. The water droplets were like small diamond pearls. No one thought that the diamond pearl-like water could have been one of the strongest poisons in the universe.


    This was the Chaotic Poisonous Sea, one of the most dangerous places in the Void Universe, is also one of the three great Celestial Immortals of the Immortal Realm and the location of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage¡¯s Taoist rite. It was a prohibited territory for almost every single living creature in the Void Universe.


    In the depths of the Chaotic Poisonous Sea was a completely barren island. This small island was shrouded in endless black fog, and there was not a single building. In fact, there was not even a living creature found in there most of the time.


    Now all there was were two guys lying on their backs on a big reef, chatting idly.


    ¡°Haha. It¡¯s far too early to intervene. This guy has still not reached his limits, why should we intervene? With his situation and combat capability, Yu An probably ranks among the top ten Earthly Immortal Emperors in the world. Defeating him is easy, but taking advantage of him or killing him will be very difficult!¡±


    ¡°Very difficult does not mean it is impossible! As you know, the Dharma Ending Tribulation is just about to arrive, and the Jade Emperor Sage is more desperate than ever to get the Treasure-snatching Rock. If one day he should get hold of it, he would soon meet his end. But do not forget, we are the only two Celestial Immortals in the Void Immortal Realm right now. If we take action against the Jade Emperor Palace, then we need to make the first move. Leading the way is not easy. We could be wiped out by that crazy Way of the Emperor practitioner if we make one mistake. Are you still willing to press ahead?¡±


    ¡°Haha, but he needs to get the Treasure-snatching Rock first. Do you think the Treasure-snatching Rock will sit around and wait? Zhou Bao has just come out from it!¡±


    ¡°If the Treasure-snatching Rock doesn¡¯t sit around and wait, why should we?¡±


    He sighed. ¡°Old Poisonous Bastard! It seems like the Treasure-snatching Rock is our main obstacle, but actually, we share the same plight with that rock and the only difference is the sequence of events. If the Jade Emperor Sage obtains the rock, his fate and his strength will evolve to a completely new state. It¡¯s completely possible he will surpass my Eye of the Storm and your Chaotic Poisonous Sea. And he¡¯s no fool! We would destroy him as soon as he attacks us, and he fears he would pay a high price for it. Although you and I are Celestial Immortals, if the power in the tribulation is enough to completely destroy¡ª¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°I am saying, lure Zhou Bao directly into the Eye of the Storm or the Chaotic Poisonous Sea. He owes the Treasure-snatching Rock a favor. When he starts his tribulation, it would be a perfect time for him to return the favor, and cause trouble for the Jade Emperor Sage!¡±


    ¡°Do you think that after he has succeeded at the Earthly Immortal level, he will be able to cause trouble for the Jade Emperor Sage? The emperor is desperate for the rock!¡±


    ¡°He might even be able to scupper the emperor¡¯s plans!¡± The Gale Sage smiled. And we¡¯ll think of our own ways to cause him trouble too!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not a bad plan, but I cannot endorse it!¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡±


    ¡°Do you think the Jade Emperor Sage has not prepared for our attack? Zhou Bao killed his son. No matter what the reason, seeking revenge for his son would be considered to be just and honorable. If we do not intervene and instead let Zhou Bao get involved himself, the Jade Emperor Sage would have no reason to attack us. But if we make the move, it would give him an excuse!¡±


    ¡°Does it matter whether or not it is an excuse? Do you really fear the Jade Emperor Sage that much?¡±


    ¡°Haha, do you think I would be afraid of that bastard?¡± The Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage burst out laughing. I just do not want the original plan to be altered. It depends on Zhou Bao¡¯s luck whether he can break into our territory while avoiding the Jade Emperor Palace¡¯s war path. For the time being, we would not intervene. But if he can get out of this tribulation, we can help him and get some good karma. What do you think?¡±


    ¡°He is your favored successor, you said so yourself! I have no reason to be against it. Anyway, if he dies, you will lose more than me!¡± the Gale Sage said wryly. He put his arms behind his head and gazed at the black fog filling the sky. ¡°I say, Poisonous Old Bastard, you have many days left in the Immortal Realm. After this tribulation is over, I assume you will go to an Extraterritorial Area to perform your own Taoist rite, right?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s up? Are you after my Poisonous Sea?¡±


    ¡°It looks pretty bad on the outside, but it is a good location for a Taoist rite. Anyway, giving me the Chaotic Poisonous Sea is better than me staying in this Void Immortal Realm for ten million years or more!¡±


    ¡°That is optimistic! If Zhou Bao can cross this tribulation, I will give the Chaotic Poisonous Sea to him. As for you, you should return to your Eye of the Storm like a good boy!¡±


    ¡°So are you not afraid that I will go behind your back and kill off Zhou Bao?¡±


    ¡°If you killed Zhou Bao, then I would find someone else to inherit my Chaotic Poisonous Sea. I would not give it to you, so forget about it!¡± The Gale Sage was unconcerned. ¡°Besides, you have reached a crucial moment. How could you wish to treat Tribulation Takers as wantonly as the Jade Emperor Sage? You would not do something so stupid!¡±


    ¡°You know as well that I have reached a crucial moment?¡±


    ¡°Do you even need to ask?¡± The Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage laughed. ¡°Right now I can feel the universe being filled with a deathly stillness. Why would you do such a stupid thing and destroy your fate just as the Dharma Ending Tribulation is about to arrive?¡±


    ¡°You understand clearly, Poisonous Old Bastard. Yes, I would not destroy my fate just before the great tribulation is about to begin. You do not know how many old freaks will be watching this tribulation, how many old guys will drop dead, and how many will use this tribulation to be reborn. Poisonous Old Bastard, you are really optimistic about this Zhou Bao, are you? And are you perhaps preparing to be reborn in a future era?¡±


    ¡°Haha, do you really reckon I am thinking that far ahead? I am still very young. If you were to kill me, you would not wait for several eras!¡± The Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage roared with laughter. ¡°But you have reminded me, I really need to get this sorted out before the next era. If not, and I drop dead, then I will miss an opportunity to be reborn. You also need to think carefully and prepare!¡±


    ¡°Are you cursing me?¡±


    ¡°No, you are cursing me!¡±


    ¡°Hahahaha¡ª!¡±


    It was not that clear whether Zhou Bao had become one of the three great Celestial Immortals of the Immortal Realm. He was now worried about finding the Sky-walking Emperor!


    The Sky-walking Emperor was not the most famous person in the realm. He had a slight reputation that is only confined within a small group. The most annoying thing was that he enjoyed strolling around the realm most, and could use this opportunity to temper his Great Way of Heavens and Realms. It would not be easy for a guy like Zhou Bao to find him.


    However, he had Wang She¡¯s help. At the moment, Wang She controlled the most perfect and powerful intelligence network in the realm. If he wanted to, he could find the Sky-walking Emperor wherever he was.


    ¡°Junior Leopard, the Sky-walking Emperor has stopped for a rest in the Fallen Leaf Lake. You should go straight in there. If he leaves before you get there, it would be very difficult for you to find him again!¡±


    Where is the Fallen Leaf Lake?


    ¡°It is very far from here. But I do know the nearest Transmitting Formation that can get you there!¡± said Wang She.


    Wang She stopped after he and Zhou Bao went through a Transmitting Formation and entered a market in the Immortal Realm. ¡°Head west for 1,200 miles, and you will find the lake. It should not be too far for you, right?¡±


    ¡°Of course not!¡± Zhou Bao nodded, knowing that Wang She did not want to leave any trace for others to follow. He flew off in the direction in which Wang She had pointed.


    1,200 miles was not far for Zhou Bao. Although it was similar here to the Immortal Realm, he needed to be careful. He got there in less than an hour. The thing was, he had not expected that once he entered the Fallen Leaf Lake, he would have entered a pitch black part of space.


    ¡°Welcome to the Fallen Leaf Lake, Tribulation Takers of the mortal world! I am Yu An, The Jade Emperor¡¯s Great Crown Prince!¡±

 Chapter 870 - The Battle of Emperor An

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    ¡°Welcome to the Fallen Leaf Lake, Tribulation Takers of the mortal world! I am Yu An, The Jade Emperor¡¯s Great Crown Prince!¡±


    A voice came through in the midst of darkness. Although the voice was not loud, it carried a heavy emotion with it.


    ¡°Yu An, The Jade Emperor¡¯s Great Crown Prince?¡± Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes when he saw the cold and distant man appear in front of him. The intent to kill arose inside him. And in this darkness, there was a similar feeling, though not entirely, that reassembles the presence of the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy. It had some of its characteristics, but it felt more effective and convenient. Only Zhou Bao could feel that this forbidden effect was far less effective than that of the Canopy. But it would be extremely easy to break it open, which relieved him greatly.


    Another man came out with the cold and distant man, only this one seemed worn out, as if he had been heavily injured. His eyes were tightly shut, the muscles on his face twitching. He had clearly been suffering a lot.


    ¡°The Sky-walking Emperor? You¡¯ve got hold of the Sky-walking Emperor?!¡±


    ¡°You killed my two brothers and have no status in the Void Immortal Realm. You will only be safe once you arrive at the territory of the other two sages. If you want to get there as quick as possible, you must find a sky-walker. I had not expected that your information to be so informative, to arrive so quickly, and that you would move so quickly! It seems you had some hidden strength to rely on in the Immortal Realm. He almost could not catch up!¡±


    ¡°So what if he catches up? Let him go!¡± Since he knew of the enmity between the two sides, Zhou Bao stopped speaking nonsense. He splayed his fingers, and his Immortal-killing Sword and the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi shot straight out at Yu An, blasting him in the process.


    ¡°The Sword Qi? Haha, come on!¡± A glimmer of surprise flashed through Yu An¡¯s eyes. ¡°No wonder you go through the Immortal Realm with faith and a fake name! Your Sword Qi is as good as a Sword School Tribulation Taker¡¯s! Not bad, not bad!¡±


    He did not move an inch. He just let the Sword Qi hit him.


    Whoosh!


    Zhou Bao¡¯s Sword Qi struck Yu An with full force, but it was ineffective. The sharp Sword Qi did not cause any harm to Yu An¡¯s fate. Yu An¡¯s body was like a black hole, engulfing everything. Zhou Bao felt that it was completely dissolved as soon as his Sword Qi hit him.


    That¡¯s not your real body! Zhou Bao scowled and came right up to Yu An. His Immortal-killing Sword Qi and Immortal-slaying Sword Qi formed a tempest enveloping him.


    ¡°Yes. As you can see, this is not my real body!¡± Yu An was completely unaffected by Zhou Bao¡¯s attack. He just laughed quietly. The sword blades erupted with the power to split space and time, but had no effect on him whatsoever. His body was like an illusion, lightly warping. The storm of blades was swallowed up completely.


    ¡°I refined this incarnation in the Void Universe, and it is made up of 99 black holes. As powerful as your Sword Qi is, it would not be easy for it to break open my incarnation!¡± Seeing Zhou Bao dodging his strikes, he laughed mischievously. ¡°You have not even cultivated the Earthly Immortal state! You will never break open my incarnation!¡±


    ¡°Is that right? Zhou Bao did not believe it. Your 81 black holes might be refined with mysterious characteristics, but do you really think you can absorb all my attacks? Yin and Yang Immortal-killing Heavenly Sword, shatter it for me!¡±


    He roared, and the Black and White Sword Qis intertwined to form a black and white striped snake-like stream of Qi, viciously ripping Yu An apart.


    ¡°It is not possible!¡±


    Yu An grimaced in pain as his body was torn to shreds. He roared. Previously immovable as a mountain, he had now stepped back. A divine light shot out from his dull eyes, warped by his shredded incarnation. A thin, black smoke reassembled. But choked by the Black and White Sword Qis, his newly recondensed body soon dissipated. After dissipating and recondensing for a while, his body was finally unable to recover.


    Zhou Bao¡¯s Sword Qi grew more and more powerful.


    The Yin and Yang Immortal-killing Heavenly Sword!


    This sword was a combination of the Immortal-killing Sword Qi and the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi, in accordance to the principle of the Yin and Yang incarnation cycle in the Seven Wonderful Techniques. This resulted in the creation of an even stronger Sword Qi.


    The Four Immortal-killing Swords had matchless powers, and each had its own characteristics. They emitted a red light in all directions. The Immortal-eliminating Sword had the ability to change itself infinitely.


    There was nothing as sharp as the Immortal-killing Sword Qi. Its purpose was to slaughter Immortals, and it had some of the strongest power to kill in the universe. The Immortal-trapping Sword had a Sword Qi that could enshroud the whole universe. Any number of opponents could come under its attack. The Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi obtained by Man Yujun, was focused on changes. Once he obtained his Qi, he invented all the sword tricks of the universe, and this is why he became known as the Small Sword God.


    The infusion of the Four Immortal-killing Swords was not a case of one plus one equals two, it was more than the sum of their parts. According to legend, when the four Sword Qis are infused, they have the power to form a Void Universe. The first killing formation that originated from ancient eras was the Immortal-killing Sword Formation.


    Although Zhou Bao¡¯s current Yin and Yang Immortal-killing Heavenly Sword was not as powerful as an Immortal-killing Sword Formation, it was enough to tear apart a certain person¡¯s black hole incarnation, with power to spare.


    The Sword Qi struck several times, and Yu An¡¯s body was cut violently to shreds. He was formless again, and the surrounding dark, shredded space turned back to normal.


    ¡°Good, very good, young man. You are stronger than I had imagined. I am surprised you could infuse those two Sword Qis. That Full Jade Monarch is nowhere near as good as you!¡±


    The black hole incarnation dissipated, and Yu An¡¯s voice became more impassioned. Zhou Bao had still not clearly seen the Fallen Leaf Lake¡¯s surroundings, and he still had not the time to catch hold of the Sky-walking Emperor. The sky darkened, and the surrounding space once again changed.


    ¡°Damn it! For you mortal world dwellers, even moving a little can stir space!¡±


    By now, Zhou Bao could only respect this The Crown Prince Jade Emperor¡¯s power. He was strong, too strong.


    In front of him, the Void Immortal Realm space laws seemed to have weakened considerably. Zhou Bao appeared to be using the Yin and Yang Sword Qi more carelessly, waving it in a random fashion. This time it would not be so easy.


    His Yin and Yang Immortal-killing Heavenly Sword was powerful, but it was not a true Immortal-killing Sword Formation. It had been powerful enough to shred the black hole incarnation. However, this time he was not facing a black hole formation, he was facing the Immortal Realm instead.


    That is right. Zhou Bao felt like his Sword Qi was up against the whole Void Immortal Realm. As he waved his sword, he encountered a strong resistance. Finally, the Sword Qi seemed to hit a layer that was something as hard as a diamond, and it shattered into tiny pieces.


    ¡°This is not possible!¡±


    This time, it was Zhou Bao that said it.


    It was really impossible. How could his Sword Qi be smashed into pieces so easily?


    ¡°Impossible? Your Sword Qi is actually very powerful. No one else would be able to smash it. But unfortunately, this time you ran into me!¡± Yu An¡¯s laughter rang in Zhou Bao¡¯s ears. ¡°A back hole incarnation is not the only thing I can cultivate!¡±


    ¡°Boy, go quickly. You cannot defeat this guy!¡± The Ghost Child stirred and spoke for the first time since entering the Treasure-snatching Rock. He transmitted a thought into Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit. ¡°Yu An is one of the ten strongest Earthly Immortals in the universe. Emperor An¡¯s combat capability is as good to that of a Celestial Immortal. In early antiquity times, he roamed the land with no opponents. You are no match for him!¡±


    ¡°Emperor An?!¡± Zhou Bao was shocked and refused to believe it. But he did not dare to be careless. He spun around, and the Primordial Sword behind him emitted a thousand meter long light. So this had nothing to do with the Sky-Walking Emperor? The sword light shimmered fiercely and cut open the dark space.


    ¡°You really are too naive! If you had cultivated the Four Immortal-killing Natal Sword, I would not have been able to keep you down. But you have only cultivated these two Sword Qis, and your Seven Wonderful Techniques did not matter much. I am afraid it would not be so easy for you to get out from under my nose!¡±


    As his voice rang, the space around Zhou Bao increased in pressure. After a moment, Zhou Bao felt like amber sealed inside a black diamond. It was hard for him to budge. A pale red light flashed from between his eyebrows and dispersed a bizarre red cloud.


    Sizzle!


    As it dispersed, it eroded the black, diamond-like space. Zhou Bao recovered and regained his form. ¡°Well done, Ghost Child!¡±


    He shouted, and shot a black light from between his eyebrows, forming a black warship. This was his Supreme Fairy Weapon, the Black Pearl.


    Boom!


    As soon as the Black Pearl appeared, it crashed violently into the surrounding black space.


    A huge boom resounded, and the black space started to crack.


    ¡°Huh!?¡±


    Everything had happened in such a short moment. Emperor An had not at all imagined that Zhou Bao, who he himself had sealed into place, would be able to escape. A moment of Separated Po was all that Zhou Bao needed. The Black Pearl collided a second time, and as everything shook, the surrounding space was smashed to pieces. Then the entire ship turned into a streamer, streaking across the sky and disappearing without a trace.


    ¡°An interesting fairy weapon!¡± Seeing Zhou Bao disappear in a flash, Yu An reappeared and looked puzzled. ¡°Interesting. I am surprised he has that gourd, and he seems to have tamed that device spirit! Why did no one tell me about this? Or has someone been hiding this from me?¡±

 Chapter 871 - The Dark Mountains

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    It was a life or death situation!


    Zhou Bao was fleeing for his life!


    The Jade Emperor Crown Prince, Emperor Yu An, was much stronger than he had imagined. If it had not been for Zhou Bao¡¯s quick decision in activating his Supreme Fairy Weapon the Black Pearl, he might have been left behind at the most crucial moment when Ghost Child discharged the strange red cloud.


    Although the danger was over for the moment, Zhou Bao did not dare lower his guard yet.


    The Black Pearl was very fast, perhaps faster than anything else in the mortal world. But this was not the mortal world, it was the Immortal Realm, which was a totally different world. In just a few short days, Zhou Bao had encountered two opponents who were stronger than he was. Compared to the Treasure-snatching Rock, he thought the several Earthly Immortals he encountered previously in the mortal world were scum at best.


    They were both Earthly Immortals, how could there be such a big difference in their strengths?


    Zhou Bao was confident he could kill those Earthly Immortals, no matter how strong they were. But facing the dark pressurizing force from Yu An, his courage to fight had all but disappeared.


    ¡°Is this the type of strength the strongest Earthly Immortals possess? I have no way of blocking it!¡± He felt overwhelmed. He drove the Black Pearl toward the direction of the Chaotic Poisonous Sea. Previously he had wanted to ask the Sky-walking Emperor for help due to his Black Pearl being a Supreme Fairy Weapon. When it was launched, it was noisy and its force was too great. If he were to use it at full force, it would disturb some of the strongest Immortals. If he were to startle some of those guys, it would create even more problems for himself. But now, the gloom that the Emperor An had left him in was too much for him to bear. Due to his desperation to save his life, he sought to escape, using all his powers.


    Boom!


    Just as Zhou Bao calmed himself down, the Black Pearl, which had been hurtling at full speed, stopped dead in its tracks, or rather, it collided with something hard. It was like a car traveling at high speed and suddenly hitting a solid wall.


    A huge boom sounded and Zhou Bao, who had been relying on his strongest card, the Supreme Fairy Weapon, was flung from the vessel due to the impact of the collision.


    He had collided with a huge Space Rampart, was sent flying and started falling through space.


    ¡°What is this thing? Maybe the Jade Emperor Sage placed it there himself!¡± His Black Pearl had been severely damaged by the strike. This could not have been done by a normal Earthly Immortal.


    After he was sent flying by the collision, he finally saw what was in his way.


    It was a mountain!


    A black peak, suspended in mid-air, was blocking his path.


    ¡°What¡¯s up with this mountain? How come I did not see it in front of me?¡± After he steadied the Black Pearl, Zhou Bao scowled darkly. He had not noticed such a large thing appearing in mid-air. It was almost impossible for that to happen.


    Were his opponent¡¯s tricks really that unfathomable?


    ¡°It¡¯s the Dark Mountains, Emperor An¡¯s Supreme Fairy Weapon. The Dark Mountains were apparently refined from a fragment of the Sacred City of Termination. They had incredible powers and carried an aura of endless destruction. At that time the emperor had depended on the Dark Mountains to fight battles all around Heaven Realm and established a fearsome reputation!¡±


    ¡°D*mn, the Jade Emperor Sage commanding such a strong Earthly Immortal? Why didn¡¯t you tell me about this?¡±


    ¡°How would I know? Even before the Necromancer Tribulation happened, this Emperor An fell out with the Jade Emperor and they almost came to blows. Who knew when they were reconciled?¡±


    ¡°But I¡¯m not on friendly terms with that old b*stard. I am not here for him!¡± A tyrannical voice broke in and interrupted Zhou Bao and Ghost Child¡¯s conversation. ¡°Boy, your strength is not bad. After you have reached the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique, your combat capability might even catch up with mine. But if you do not overcome today¡¯s obstacle, you will have nothing!¡±


    Even as he spoke, the Dark Mountains in the sky started to shake violently before disappearing. When they reappeared on top of the heavily damaged Black Pearl, they exerted a Thousand-Ton Thunder Force, pressing downwards.


    The Flipping Sky Seal!


    At that moment, Zhou Bao felt like he was locked in by the seal. But these Dark Mountains were more powerful than the Sky Flipping Seal. Their dark, all-consuming aura had already taken shape.


    Zhou Bao clearly knew that his Black Pearl would not be able to withstand the grinding pressure of the Dark Mountains. In fact, even under this pressure, he could feel his Supreme Fairy Weapon starting to shake. The fragments of the Sacred City of Fate inside the Black Pearl felt like they were coming off.


    ¡°The Sacred City of Fate fragments? I didn¡¯t think you had a piece of the mortal world. Haha, it¡¯s such a nice surprise! If my Dark Mountains can absorb a piece, then they¡¯ll increase in power for sure. It will really help me to reach illumination. Your Tribulation Taker secrets and fate, my friend, are the reasons I have come to kill you!¡±


    Of course, Zhou Bao felt hopeless. While he was in the hands of the Emperor An, his fighting methods were completely ineffective. But he was not the passive type of person, who would just close his eyes and await his death. If this guy wanted his life, he would at least have to pay an equal price. His character was such that even if he couldn¡¯t kill his opponent, he would at least tear off a piece of his flesh.


    Zhou Bao was totally desperate now. He stretched his body and screamed with all his might. Three lights flashed from between his eyebrows and formed three human figures.


    The Primordial Spirits of Three Separations!


    His body turned into a towering Primordial Demonic Ape. He clenched his fists and the brutal, all-encompassing Qi Power gathered into a massive shape. An unimaginable fist intent emerged, creating all sorts of Void Universe changes and wonders after the Dharma Ending Age. Finally, the changes and wonders formed a torrent of fist intent, streaming into Zhou Bao¡¯s fists.


    Ugh!


    Zhou Bao strained under the pressure and punched ceaselessly at the Dark Mountains above him. At the same time, his three primordial spirits separated out to deal the final blow.


    The Yin and Yang Immortal-killing Heavenly Sword shot outwards, moving with Zhou Bao¡¯s fist. The Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast turned into a giant hand, pushing fiercely upwards. With it the Furnace of Immortality countered the attack, spraying a space-melting flame.


    This still didn¡¯t work. Inside the damaged Black Pearl, the Pool of Thunder Tribulation manifested itself. In the pool, a spirit device that looked like a thunderbolt giant gave a low roar and the boundless thunder wrapped around his body, meeting the attack of the Dark Mountains.


    The Black Pearl had been severely damaged and by now Zhou Bao was also desperate. He drew strength from within Azure Big World and emitted faint black rays to meet the attack.


    Life and death are ordained by fate, as is wealth and honor. Since he was already in this situation, he would fight for his life!


    And he fought with all his might!


    With the Primordial Demonic Ape¡¯s roar, Zhou Bao felt his spirit ascend to a higher level. In a moment he felt he had limitless power and the knowledge of this poured into his spirit. It was as if he could see way back into the past, back to primitive times. The Demonic Ape Zhuyan¡¯s family had dominated the golden ages. He saw endless battle scenes, techniques as well as the countless lessons and experiences. It all poured into his soul in one second. Now he would never forget it; it was permanently etched onto his soul.


    If he had gained such an advantage in normal times, it really would have perked him up. This time, it was different and he had misgivings about this. His entire mind was suppressed by the Dark Mountains in the sky.


    Boom!


    The Dark Mountains pushed down and Zhou Bao inhibited the full force of the attack; this merely made the Dark Mountains shake a little. Then, the mountains pushed down harder than before.


    The Dark Mountains shook, but Zhou Bao could not feel it. All he could feel was the sense of powerlessness, as Mount Tai pressed down on him.


    ¡°An interesting guy! He actually has some good techniques!¡± Although he had all the advantages, Emperor Yu An did not look relaxed at all. The Dark Mountains shook with each of Zhou Bao¡¯s strikes. In fact, the terrible force had already damaged the foundation of the Supreme Fairy Weapon. But it was only a slight damage. His expression did not expose the fact that he was feeling under pressure from Yu An. Steeped in desperation, Zhou Bao had not yet realized that Yu An was also in trouble.


    ¡°Damnit! This boy is releasing quite a lot of power! I don¡¯t believe he could damage the foundations of the Dark Mountains! Even if I were to take his Sacred City of Fate fragments away from him, it wouldn¡¯t make up for this loss! Hmph, only this boy¡¯s fate and bloodline would satisfy me. Otherwise, I will make his spirit burn until the end of this era and have him suffer endless misery to quell my hatred!¡±


    The Dark Mountains were damaged and Emperor An¡¯s resentment filled the sky. This was his personal fairy weapon. The Dark Mountains were not just any ordinary worldly possession; they were a part of Yu An¡¯s own identity. Now his body was fundamentally harmed. Zhou Bao really must have some object that defied the natural order, otherwise, it would have been very difficult to repair the damage. But if Zhou Bao really did have such an object, then he would not have ended up in this situation.


    ¡°You have been able to block my damages, you must have acquired the Seven Wonderful Techniques! Boy, go to hell!¡± A severe look flashed across Yu An¡¯s face. He looked at Zhou Bao withstanding the pressure of the Dark Mountains, looking like he still wanted to fight. He laughed coldly, splayed out his hand and smacked it down onto the Dark Mountains. ¡°Boy, don¡¯t try to fight back, it will be in vain, just die!¡±


    The Dark Mountains transformed into a black stream of light and shot straight down into the Immortal Realm.


    ¡°It¡¯s over!¡± Feeling the tremendous power from the Dark Mountains, Zhou Bao felt completely helpless.

 Chapter 872 - The Underworld Sages Doubts

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    Boom!


    The Dark Mountains transformed into a stream of light and shot straight into the Immortal Realm. It had only to reach its target and the sturdy ground of the Immortal Realm, along with the Dark Mountains, would ground Zhou Bao into fine powder. Neither his Primordial Spirits of Three Separations, Supreme Fairy Weapon or even his spirit could get away. Being such a high-level Earthly Immortal, once Emperor An were to use all his powers, Zhou Bao would have no chance at all.


    Just when Zhou Bao and Yu An thought he would be done for, an ochre airstream suddenly appeared. The surface of the Immortal Realm was hard like pure steel. The moment Zhou Bao touched it, the surface suddenly softened into an immeasurably thick sponge. It completely absorbed the formidable attack descending from the sky. Zhou Bao was overjoyed and immediately took advantage of the opportunity to use the Infinite Realms Teleportation divine sense. Using all his powers, he split open the space in the Immortal Realm. As he did so, a huge gravitational force came from the fissure. It sucked him in and he disappeared inside.


    Boom!


    Everything in the Immortal Realm had just returned to normal. The ground burst open, leaving a huge bottomless pit, thousands of miles wide.


    ¡°Who could it be?¡±


    The moment when Zhou Bao split open the space, Yu An was all set to stop him. However, a miraculous force suddenly appeared in mid-air beside him, blocking the emperor¡¯s actions. Yu An felt as if he was punching into emptiness, using his full strength to no effect. He wanted to follow Zhou Bao, but he had disappeared without a trace.


    ¡°It must be a Celestial Immortal. Only a Celestial Immortal could have this kind of divine sense. Effortlessly lifting and saving somebody like that. Only a Celestial Immortal could be so relaxed when facing my attack!¡± He thought with enmity in his heart. All he could feel was a deep resentment smoldering in his chest, with no way to let it out.


    He left empty-handed. He had lost everything while trying to grab more in greed. In his attempt to get hold of Zhou Bao, his Dark Mountains were fundamentally damaged. At the last moment, someone had beat him to it. How could he ever live with this?


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage, nor was it the Gale Sage. Right now, neither of them could do anything!¡±


    Beaten to it. Naturally, he was unhappy and of course he wanted to find out who had saved Zhou Bao. But deep down, he knew that the three Celestial Immortals of the Immortal Realm could not have done it; he was certain that they could not have blocked him. There was no way that halfway through his battle with Zhou Bao, a Celestial Immortal would suddenly pop up.


    ¡°Maybe this is the legendary luck of the Tribulation Takers? Alarming even a Celestial Immortal!¡±


    Fate was something that could not be seen or felt, but it certainly existed in this world. It was something nobody could deny. However, under normal laws, it would not affect Celestial Immortals. In other words, fate only affected those at the Earthly Immortal level and below. But Celestial Immortals had the power of creation deities, independently setting up Taoist rites in Extraterrestrial Areas. They had the power to re-open universes and so decided other peoples¡¯ fates. How could they be affected by fate themselves?


    Only, if it wasn¡¯t the effect of fate, how could the Celestial Immortal have suddenly appeared? This was the Immortal Realm, where there were only three Celestial Immortals. Who were Celestial Immortals, anyway? They were the supreme practitioners of the Void Universe, of the highest rank. Reaching the Celestial Immortal level was the pinnacle of one¡¯s cultivation.


    Even if this era was destroyed, Celestial Immortals would remain.


    So they were not the usual practitioners and did not just come and go.


    Besides the Three Great Celestial Immortals, Heaven Realm had a few others in hiding. But these Celestial Immortals were not able to come out and they definitely could not intervene.


    This was only the Dharma Ending Tribulation. It was completely meaningless to the ancient Celestial Immortals hiding in the depths of spacetime. Since they could not get involved, it must have been a Celestial Immortal from the outside the Immortal Realm. So, who was it then?


    Yu An frowned indignantly. At first, he thought it was Taoist Zhen Yuan, but then he changed his mind. Taoist Zhen Yuan clearly did not want to get involved in this tribulation. He even carried the Fifth Manor of Longevity Mountain away. This made it clear what his attitude was like. Who else could it have been, then?


    Were there any other Celestial Immortals Zhou Bao was in touch with? Could it have been the Treasure Snatching Rock?


    It could not have been. The Treasure Snatching Rock was not strong enough. Its device spirit was slightly stronger than his own and only because it had the home advantage. It also seemed to have some connection to the Immortal Realm and nobody there had anything to do with Zhou Bao for a while. Making someone travel thousands of miles just to pull off a rescue mission for Zhou Bao? That was highly impossible!


    Apart from Taoist Zhen Yuan and the Treasure Snatching Rock, who else could it have been?


    Who else could it have been?


    Yu An could think of no-one else.


    The Immortal Realm was a sanctum, a special place for normal practitioners, but it meant nothing to Celestial Immortals. Here, there was only the Taoist Jin¡¯s Taoist location of yesteryears. In other people¡¯s Taoist rite practice, the life of a normal Celestial Immortal was a huge disgrace. This was because the Taoist Jin was an ancient Celestial Immortal and his power was too valiant and too mysterious. Therefore, the less experienced Celestial Immortals were perfectly happy to live in seclusion in the Immortal Realm.


    As much as he tried, Yu An could not think of who it could have been. But Zhou Bao knew who it was as soon as he felt the power. It was the Emperor of the Netherworld, or rather The Underworld Sage, as he was now known.


    After the space was ripped open, a powerful force guided Zhou Bao. He did not resist, because if the Emperor of the Netherworld was really going to harm him, it would have been useless to resist. He was a Celestial Immortal! Emperor An, himself an Earthly Immortal, could not have withstood it and a Celestial Immortal was many times more powerful than an Earthly Immortal.


    There was another place apart from where the space had been ripped open.


    The Netherworld Heaven!


    Zhou Bao was shocked. He was very familiar with this part of the universe. Is this not the Netherworld Heaven? But did this Netherworld Heaven not merge with Azure Big World? Perhaps he had reached Azure Big World?


    ¡°This is an Extraterrestrial Area where I have performed a new Taoist rite. It is not the real Netherworld Heaven!¡± Seeming to understand Zhou Bao¡¯s thoughts, The Underworld Sage¡¯s voice faintly resounded all around. The water of the Underworld River surged, condensing into a Taoist figure ¨C The Underworld Sage.


    ¡°Zhou Bao, I didn¡¯t think we would meet so soon!¡±


    ¡°The honorable Underworld Sage!¡± Zhou Bao could not afford to be disrespectful to the Underworld Sage. Although the Underworld Sage did not have a trace of a practitioner¡¯s deterring force, deep down, Zhou Bao accepted the mighty pressure.


    A Celestial Immortal!


    The Void Universe was a supreme entity in the Extraterrestrial Area. There was nothing above it. He had met two people like this before, one was Taoist Zhen Yuan, and the other was the Underworld Sage.


    It felt completely different meeting these two people. There was no pressure felt when meeting them, but instead there existed an irrepressible feeling of not being able to fight back.


    This was a Celestial Immortal.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t think we would meet so soon!¡± The Underworld Sage smiled, which embarrassed Zhou Bao. Every time he met the Underworld Sage, he would have to accept his grace. He knew that the Underworld Sage must have his own intentions, but before he made them clear, Zhou Bao would always owe him this favor.


    ¡°It¡¯s really shameful, that due to my meager power I am causing trouble and giving the Honorable Sage cause to laugh at me!¡± Zhou Bao said somewhat awkwardly.


    ¡°Haha. It¡¯s nothing really. You¡¯re young! If you don¡¯t cause trouble, how will you move forward?¡± The Underworld Sage nodded, ¡°It¡¯s just that this time, I didn¡¯t expect to get involved with your problems!¡±


    ¡°Since the Sage has performed a Taoist rite in the Extraterrestrial Area and suddenly appeared in the Immortal Realm, then something terrible must have happened!¡± Of course, Zhou Bao did not expect the Underworld Sage to appear in the Immortal Realm specifically to rescue him. Just as the Underworld Sage said, he appeared because something happened in the Immortal Realm. He just happened to be passing through and saved him.


    ¡°It¡¯s great that you are here! I just finished my task and was on my way back and happened to run into you while you were in trouble. Isn¡¯t it such a coincidence?¡±


    ¡°I know.¡±


    ¡°Usually, a Tribulation Taker¡¯s fate does not affect me. After I was done, I was about to go for a wander around the Immortal Realm. Then I returned to my Taoist rite. I wanted to go for a quiet ramble. I am a Celestial Immortal, and if I want to go for a quiet wander, then even the Jade Emperor Sage and his men would not be able to stop me. They couldn¡¯t find me, even if they wanted to. But then I ran into you, which I find very strange!¡±


    Having said that, Zhou Bao also felt it was strange as well. A Celestial Immortal, who was supposed to have absolute power over fate, apparently didn¡¯t. This explained their fear. It was as he just said, if he wanted to go for a quiet wander, then he would not have run into anything in the Immortal Realm that would make him worried. Currently he was not really that worried, it was like Mars colliding with the Earth, there wasn¡¯t any firestorm!


    How could this make him feel calm? His absolute power over fate seemed to have been lost. This is something even another Celestial Immortal would have found difficult to achieve. But when he thought about it, Zhou Bao realized that he himself did not have that skill. His strongest card had been damaged in battle with Emperor An. So, what else was there that could make a Celestial Immortal lose his power over fate?


    Fate, it was fate!


    Although he did not kill the Jade Emperor¡¯s Second Crown Prince himself, he had imprisoned him in the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy. You could say it became infused with half of Huang Lei¡¯s fate. He himself was a Tribulation Taker and having a Tribulation Taker¡¯s entire fate, as well as Huang Lei¡¯s fate, took him far above the standard of a normal Tribulation Taker¡¯s fate. Influencing a Celestial Immortal and having him come and save him was not just a thing of the past.


    But was this really the case?

 Chapter 873 - The Chaotic Poisonous Sea

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    The Emperor of Netherworld was confused right now. But what happened had already happened. Although it was something unexpected, he could do nothing about it.


    ¡°Forget it. This is the end of it. Your fate is strong enough to affect Celestial Immortals like me. Even though I¡¯m a new one, it still proves that your fate is really extraordinary. At the same time, we can see that this Dharma Ending Tribulation will be extremely horrible like never before!¡±


    Zhou Bao¡¯s expression changed. Although a Tribulation Taker had his own fate, he was still only a Tribulation Taker. If the tribulation was too strong, he would be the first to suffer.


    Seeing Zhou Bao growing a little depressed, the Emperor of Netherworld sighed and said, ¡°This has become very complicated. The Dharma Ending Tribulation is coming. Brat, since you are in the Immortal Realm, you¡¯d better buckle down and be careful!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to cause trouble. But since it has already happened and Jade Emperor Palace now sees me as a mortal enemy, I have a request to ask and I hope you don¡¯t mind!¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t mind. You want to go to the Chaotic Poisonous Sea or the Eye of the Storm, don¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but¡ª!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll send you there. I¡¯ve already offended Jade Emperor Palace and I don¡¯t mind doing it again. Anyway, I¡¯m leaving the Void Immortal Realm soon. Hehe! There are so many problems here. Had I known this, I wouldn¡¯t have come here in the first place!¡± Before he had finished speaking and with no warning at all, the space around Zhou Bao began to shake violently. The surroundings changed completely within seconds.


    ¡°This is it. The old bastard¡¯s Chaotic Poisonous Sea. But I should remind you that this is his territory and you need to behave yourself. You¡¯ve already offended Jade Emperor Palace and you don¡¯t want to offend this one, as well!¡±


    ¡°How can I do that?¡± Zhou Bao smiled bitterly. ¡°I don¡¯t have the nerve to offend Celestial Immortals anymore!¡±


    A Celestial Immortal was not someone to be trifled with. Zhou Bao had a profound understanding about it. Even a top Earthly Immortal, like Emperor An, was not to be offended by someone like him.


    Were it not for the Emperor of Netherworld, he would have been a dead man already. How would he ever dare to offend other Celestial Immortals again?


    The Emperor of Netherworld flashed a quick smile. He didn¡¯t want to interfere anymore. He was a Celestial Immortal, whose strength and vision was far beyond that of Zhou Bao. If Zhou Bao had killed all the Tribulation Takers and taken their fates, he might have the ability to affect Celestial Immortals. But the fact was that he didn¡¯t finish off the Second Crown Prince of the Jade Emperor, let alone loot his fate. Even if he looted his fate, it only counted for half, which was nothing in the eyes of Celestial Immortals. He would not get anywhere, neither would he be a threat to them.


    Since it was not fate, it must be man-made.


    Someone didn¡¯t want Zhou Bao to die and didn¡¯t want his identity revealed either. He secretly influenced the fate with his own power and quietly changed the life of a Celestial Immortal. This was no ordinary means. Only legendary ancient Celestial Immortals, such as Taoist Jin and Taoist Reincarnation, were capable of doing this.


    The Emperor of Netherworld was a Celestial Immortal now. He had nothing more to ask for in his life and would not encounter any other danger. The Reincarnation Scroll had been sent out and there were no unfinished things for him. Would such a figure be willing to be involved in this dubious matter?


    Of course not. He wouldn¡¯t even warn Zhou Bao on this matter. He was kind enough to send Zhou Bao into the Chaotic Poisonous Sea.


    Certainly, Zhou Bao was not aware of this. Even if he was, he wouldn¡¯t be able to get any information from a Celestial Immortal. Instead, he kept thanking the Emperor of Netherworld.


    The Chaotic Poisonous Sea was one of the three great influences in the Immortal Realm. The Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage, one of the three powerful Celestial Immortals, had been practicing here. All practitioners, including some ancient Earthly Immortals, knew that this Celestial Immortal had been hiding in the Chaotic Poisonous Sea. But since the antiquity times, even in the ancient times, he had never shown up in the Immortal Realm. No one had ever seen him.


    Even though he had disappeared from the public, no one dared to explore the Chaotic Poisonous Sea. This was an empty barren land. The water in the sea was strong enough to poison Earthly Immortals. Besides, who knew if the old guy was in a closed-door training?


    Through millions of years, practitioners in the Immortal Realm never came close to this place, unless it was really necessary.


    Thus, the Chaotic Poisonous Sea was desolated. There was no other sound in this place except the sound of the sea.


    Even Zhou Bao couldn¡¯t withstand such an environment. But he had his strategy. In fact, this was why he chose this place instead of the Eye of the Storm.


    The Eye of the Storm was the Gale Sage¡¯s territory. But many practitioners and influences there had close contact with the Immortal Realm. It was easy to be found out if he went there. The Chaotic Poisonous Sea, on the contrary, was forbidden ground for practitioners. Zhou Bao had the Primordial Poison Spirit, whose core was the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast. It was so natural for the Poison Spirit to be in this poisonous sea, like a duck in the water. As to his body and the other two primordial spirits, they hid inside the Supreme Fairy Weapon, the Black Pearl, to recuperate and build up their strength. He had to do this, because he had been severely wounded and was in desperate need of rest, even though he looked rather energetic while talking to the Emperor of Netherworld.


    ¡°Hiss!¡±


    The Primordial Poison Spirit dressed in a green robe was like a fish in the water. It drew a long breath in the poisonous sea, like a whale inhaling water. The black poison gas around it formed into a black tornado and streamed into its mouth.


    The toxin, poisonous enough to kill Earthly Immortals, was nutrition for him and helped to heal his body quickly.


    He didn¡¯t stop for six hours.


    ¡°Impressive! Impressive! The Chaotic Poisonous Sea is really a wonderful place, a sanctum for me. If I can practice in here, perhaps my Primordial Poison Spirit may enter the Earthly Immortal realm before my body does. Maybe it could even stop the damn Emperor An. It¡¯s a pity that I don¡¯t have that much time.¡±


    After six hours, the large amount of poison gas inhaled was enough to heal his Primordial Poison Spirit. The recovered primordial spirit was even stronger than before. But his other injured spirits didn¡¯t heal.


    After that, his eyes began to wander, his divine thoughts scanning thousands of miles around. Knowing that there was no living creatures at all, he felt relieved.


    Of course, he knew if the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage was here, there would be no way to hide. He had thought it through and didn¡¯t plan to hide. If this Celestial Immortal really intended to make a move on him, he had no chance to resist at all. It was useless to think too much.


    It was natural for him to think that a Celestial Immortal would not bother to deal with him. Just as the Emperor of Netherworld, these Celestial Immortals, when facing with the Dharma Ending Tribulation, would choose to hide and wait until the tribulation was over, unless they had some other ulterior intentions.


    The Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage had been silent for so long. He didn¡¯t meddle with ordinary tribulations, neither would he get involved in one of the greatest tribulations of this era.


    Zhou Bao was very stupid and innocent, at least in the eyes of Celestial Immortals. But since he was only taking a rest in the Chaotic Poisonous Sea, the Sage certainly wouldn¡¯t bother him, because it was not the right time.


    Zhou Bao was totally helpless under the attack of Emperor An. He was extremely lucky to have survived. After ensuring that he was completely safe here, he brought out the severely damaged Black Pearl.


    The Black Pearl contained fragments of the Sacred City of Fate, thus the poison gas from the sea couldn¡¯t harm it. Of course, this was only on the banks. When it was in the water, even the fragments of the Sacred City couldn¡¯t survive. The Chaotic Poisonous Sea was a part of a Supreme Fairy Weapon belonging to the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage. It contained the fragments of the Sacred City of Termination. But this was only a legend. Rumors about a Celestial Immortal, who had disappeared since the remote antiquity, were not that easy to figure out.


    Later, Zhou Bao started to repair the Black Pearl, which had a narrow escape this time. Luckily, the essence of the Thunder Pool and the Azure Big World were not hurt. Ten days later, the Black Pearl¡¯s pneuma recovered after some repair and refinement work. But it still needed some time to recover fully.


    Zhou Bao didn¡¯t expect it to recover so soon. He only wanted the Black Pearl to regain its basic functions. The Black Pearl and his Great Way of Heavens and Realms could isolate space. In the special environment of the Chaotic Poisonous Sea, he felt free to let out the second prince of the Jade Emperor and take all his Divine Sense and fate.


    This was part of his plan.


    Once inside the Black Pearl, his Primordial Poison Spirit turned over its hand. A black lotus appeared in its palm, the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy. Under Zhou Bao¡¯s control, the black lotus began to bloom. The moment it blossomed, a golden flash shot out from the lotus and rushed outwards.


    ¡°Running away? It¡¯s not that easy!¡± Seeing that the prince wanted to flee, the primordial spirit laughed coldly. It turned over its hand, and the poison gas pressed upon the prince.

 Chapter 874 - The Crimson Thunder

    Chapter 874 The Crimson Thunder


    Amid the thick black smoke, the second Crown Prince of the Jade Emperor was extremely exasperated.


    Of course he was! He had been captured by Zhou Bao at the Treasure-snatching Rock and imprisoned in the Dark Garbha-mandala Canopy. There was no light, no sound, no airflow and no distinction of time and space, only complete darkness. He was able to withstand such an environment only because he was an Immortal. Otherwise, he would have gone stark raving mad.


    ¡°Crown Prince! It¡¯s good that you¡¯re still alive!¡±


    ¡°Zhou Bao, how dare you!¡± At the sound of Zhou Bao¡¯s voice, the prince¡¯s eyes glowed with rage and his divine thoughts shot out. But it couldn¡¯t penetrate the dark poison gas around him. ¡°Release me immediately! Get on your knees and be my slave. I¡¯ll ask my father to forgive you. Or, I¡¯ll¡ª!¡±


    ¡°Smack!!!¡±


    Zhou Bao slapped him hard. ¡°Idiot! How could you be so presumptuous even after being caught! Seems like the Jade Emperor Sage did not teach his son any manners!¡±


    ¡°You¡ª!¡±


    Zhou Bao shook his head, thinking that the prince was hopeless. He then stretched out his fingers and suddenly grabbed the prince¡¯s forehead.


    ¡°I am not interested in you. It¡¯s only because you killed Huang Lei and I¡¯m very interested in his fate!¡± Zhou Bao didn¡¯t want to talk too much. He instantly performed the Soul Searching. Streams of poison gas penetrated the prince¡¯s body and began to corrode it, even though it was as tough as steel.


    ¡°Zhou Bao, you¡ª!¡±


    If Zhou Bao performed only one type of Soul Searching, the prince might be able to hold on for a while. But Zhou Bao used the Elixir Poison of the Nine-headed Fierce Beast to corrode his body first and then searched his soul. The prince was overwhelmed and unable to resist.


    He was completely at Zhou Bao¡¯s disposal and was later refined.


    ¡°Zhou Bao! I curse you. You won¡¯t die in peace! Even if I die, I¡¯ll curse you for thousands of years. You will be executed by my father! Anyone related to you will be killed! I¡ª!¡±


    Zhou Bao tuned out his ranting and narrowed his eyes intently. He started The Soul Searching. Huge amounts of memory were extracted. Even though some of it was not complete, it was enough for Zhou Bao to uncover the secrets of Jade Emperor Palace.


    As the son of the Jade Emperor Sage, the second Crown Prince had an unfathomable cultivation. He had lived for so long and was a famous expert since antiquity times. The Soul Searching took almost twelve hours since his memory was so extensive and rich. Due to the erosion from the Elixir Poison, the prince¡¯s body withered to a skeletal state. After he died, his body was discarded.


    Zhou Bao was not happy at all with the memory and Divine Sense of the prince. His expression turned grave.


    The prince knew too much, which was a shock to him. He realized that he had underestimated the power of Jade Emperor Palace. The so-called Jade Emperor Palace was literally another Heavenly Court of the Heaven Realm in the antiquity times. Most experts and practitioners of the Heavenly Court survived the Necromancer¡¯s Tribulation and followed the Jade Emperor Sage to the Immortal Realm. They secured a place for themselves and created the family of Jade Emperor Palace.


    However, the prince had no idea of the emperor¡¯s strength. He didn¡¯t have any desire to know, because in his eyes, his father was too powerful and invincible.


    Besides Jade Emperor Sage, there were three more people in Jade Emperor Palace that the prince dared not offend. They were among the ten most powerful Earthly Immortals along with Emperor An and were only half a step away from being Celestial Immortals.


    Emperor An, who beat the hell out of Zhou Bao, was not among the three. In the prince¡¯s memory, his brother Yu An couldn¡¯t get along with his father and the two were like enemies. He was a big problem for the emperor. But since he was too strong, the emperor could do nothing about him.Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click for visiting.


    ¡°The Emperor of Moon Temple, the Thunder Emperor and Tai Sui are among the ten greatest Emperors of antiquity times. They are the strongest Earthly Immortals in Jade Emperor Palace. Each of them is almost as powerful as a Celestial Immortal. The deadliest one to me is the Thunder Emperor. I took his Pool of Thunder Tribulation. In front of him, I¡¯ll be totally vulnerable!¡± The thought seemed to remind him of something. He waved his hand and brought out the Thunder Tribulation. The weapon had been severely hurt in the fight against Yu An and its device spirit looked rather depressed now. Under Zhou Bao¡¯s control, the Thunder Tribulation shrank into the size of a palm. The device spirit was trying hard to withdraw its thunderbolt.


    ¡°Zhou Bao, why are you calling me out at such a time? Don¡¯t you know that I¡¯m recovering my strength? Emperor An gave me a hard blow. It will take about one hundred, no, one thousand years for me to recover. Don¡¯t count on me to help you again!¡± Zhou Bao had refined the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, but he was not powerful enough to rein in its device spirit. He could eliminate the device spirit by force, but in that case, the power of the Thunder Tribulation would drop to that of a Taihao Fairy Weapon. This wouldn¡¯t benefit him at all. The device spirit knew this and treated Zhou Bao coldly. It only provided some help when it was a matter of life or death, for example, when facing Emperor An. If it didn¡¯t, it would be destroyed as well.


    ¡°Don¡¯t complain now. Look! What is this?¡±


    While speaking, Zhou Bao put out his index finger. Ten centimeters away from his finger point, a trace of a crimson thunderbolt appeared out of nowhere. It grew bigger and bigger. The thunderbolts intertwined with each other and expanded. At last, a thunder ball the size of a basketball was formed. This crimson thunder ball spun slowly in the hollow. Deep inside the ball, endless thunderbolts repeatedly appeared, evolved and disappeared.


    ¡°The Crimson Thunder belonged to the Three Devil Deities of the hell. How did you get it?¡± The device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation was shocked at the sight of it. Thunderbolts were known to be the most horrible natural phenomenon in the world. All the tribulations started and ended with thunderbolts. Therefore, any Divine Sense related to thunderbolts had infinite power. Three divine thunders were especially powerful. One of them was the Purple Heaven Thunder, also called the tribulation thunder. The tribulations for the evolution and promotion of all living creatures generated from the Purple Heaven Thunder. It was studied and practiced by the Thunder Emperor in the Heavenly Court. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation had also been refined and evolved from it. The other two supreme thunderbolts were the Crimson Thunder controlled by the Three Devil Deities of the hell in the remote antiquity and the black Thunder of Fate, which was said to have started the Primordial Origin.


    The Thunder of Fate was untraceable. It was one of the causes for the evolution of the Primordial Origin and was not something that practitioners could control. The Crimson Thunder was different. The Three Devil Deities, who had long surpassed the Celestial Immortal phase, were the most powerful rulers in the era of ancient deities. They were said to have been conceived from the Crimson Thunder and thus held the secrets of the thunder, which were lost with their decline.


    No one knew the reason for their decline. It was one of the biggest mysteries in this era.


    No one expected that Huang Lei, from the Northernmost Sea macro world, could inherit this from the Three Devil Deities and obtained the Crimson Thunder, which was now in Zhou Bao¡¯s hand.


    For others, the Crimson Thunder was only a powerful Divine Sense, a sort of bluff. But for the device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, whose origin was a trace of Purple Heaven Thunder, it was more than that. If it obtained the Crimson Thunder and comprehended the two supreme thunderbolts, its phase and power would be significantly improved. It would have the power to challenge Celestial Immortals. The moment it comprehended the Crimson Thunder, it would step into the Celestial Immortal realm.


    How could it bypass such a good opportunity?


    So, he became agitated.


    But Zhou Bao remained calm. He looked at the impatient device spirit and laughed. ¡°I fought for it. Do you want it?¡±


    ¡°I¡ª!¡± The device spirit stopped the sentence just in time. He stared at Zhou Bao and asked, ¡°You want to control me with the Crimson Thunder?!¡±


    ¡°No matter where you come from, you¡¯re a Heavenly Fairy Weapon refined by me. However, obviously you¡¯re not conscious of that, which upsets me very much. Your attitude makes me anxious. I¡¯m not sure if you will turn against me in front of the Thunder Emperor. Do you think I should give the Crimson Thunder to you?¡±


    ¡°What do you want me to do then?¡±


    ¡°I need a totally loyal Heavenly Fairy Weapon. No matter how powerful it is, I wouldn¡¯t have to worry. On the contrary, the more powerful it grows, the more beneficial it will be to me. Especially when its original owner shows up, I want it to help me wholeheartedly. It¡¯s that simple. Can you do that?¡±


    ¡°I cannot guarantee that, because I was created by the Thunder Emperor. Even if I were to betray him, I don¡¯t know what he will do to me. Even if I have the Crimson Thunder, I won¡¯t be his match, let alone help you against him!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want you to help me against the Thunder Emperor. I want you to handle someone else. We need a new contract!!¡±

 Chapter 875 - The Seven Wonderful Techniques and Deva“s Five Decrepit Phenomena

    Chapter 875 The Seven Wonderful Techniques and Deva¡°s Five Decrepit Phenomena


    The device spirit of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation signed the contract without any second thoughts.


    Yes, a new contract with Zhou Bao.


    In order to have absolute control over the Heavenly Fairy Weapon, it was not enough to merely refine the weapon. The surrender of the device spirit was also necessary. But this couldn¡¯t be achieved only through a contract. It also had something to do with the spirit. The device spirit had its own spiritual intelligence and could not be forced. Therefore, the contract could only be signed when it was willing to. That was what Zhou Bao was doing right now.


    The contract didn¡¯t guarantee absolute submission from the device spirit. What Zhou Bao could do now was to make sure they signed an equal contract, which would protect his interests. Even when they met the Thunder Emperor, the real creator of the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, the device spirit wouldn¡¯t change sides.


    This was enough!


    Before entering the Treasure-snatching Rock, Zhou Bao valued the Pool of Thunder Tribulation very much. But now, after seeing so many powerful Heavenly Fairy Weapons at the Treasure-snatching Rock, he had become more discerning. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation was just above average when compared to those weapons. He gave the Crimson Thunder to it only to improve its strength. Besides, it was a relief for him to restrain it with the ten-thousand-year contract.


    For the Pool of Thunder Tribulation, ten thousand years was only a short period during its long life. It was worthwhile to exchange it for the opportunity of advancement within such a short time.


    Similarly, Zhou Bao believed he was the Tribulation Taker of the Dharma Ending Tribulation. Everything was meaningless if he couldn¡¯t survive the tribulation. But if he did, there was nothing to regret and worry even if the Pool of Thunder Tribulation combined the two supreme thunderbolts. At that time, he would have become a Celestial Immortal.


    Both of them were happy with the new contract. It satisfied their needs.


    Zhou Bao released the Pool of Thunder Tribulation back into Azure Big World so that it could gradually comprehend the Crimson Thunder. He then took back the Supreme Fairy Weapon and the Primordial Poison Spirit, showed up in his real body, and stood silently beside the Chaotic Poisonous Sea.


    Vast black poisonous gas swirled around, as if trying to swallow him up.


    His real body had been severely hurt during the fight with Emperor An. It was not a good thing for him to be in the most insidious place among the Void Universe.Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click for visiting.


    This was true. In the beginning, it was not a good thing. With the permeation of the poisonous gas into his body, his skin started to wither. Patterns resembling cracks in china plates appeared on his skin. They extended and expanded. More exquisite patterns evolved from the old ones and continued to spread all over his body. After a short while, the cracks began to peel off. Fragments of skin drifted in the air, looking as if it would turn into dust at any moment.


    Such a phenomenon was not common now. But initially when the Immortal Realm began, it happened frequently. Some bold Earthly Immortals came here to look for treasures. They were poisoned to death and their bodies turned into dust. That was how the Chaotic Poisonous Sea became famous.


    It seemed that Zhou Bao would be repeating the tragedy that affected those powerful and ancient Earthly Immortals.


    But that was not the case.


    When his skin was about to detach from his body, the third eye between his eyebrows suddenly opened.


    In a flash, a dazzling red light shot out from the eye and covered his entire body.


    His lost breath reappeared and became lengthier than before. He sucked in all the poisonous gas around him with just one inhalation, like what his Primordial Poison Spirit had done, but with less ease. He inhaled for one hour and then began to exhale, releasing all the gas he had taken in. But it was much thinner than before.


    Yes, much thinner. Most of the gas had been refined by his body.


    Meanwhile, his body began to recover. The fine cracks gradually disappeared and his withered body filled out again. The poisonous gas, although still eroding his body, was not as intense as before. The damage incurred was also less.


    The Yin and Yang Transformation Skill! Right enough! It could transform all the spiritual Qi and pneuma into the most basic Yin and Yang pneuma. The poisonous gas in the Chaotic Poisonous Sea, a kind of essence of the world, could also be transformed. Due to the gas being too toxic, the transformation process was slow and difficult.


    It was not easy for Zhou Bao to do that based on his cultivation of the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill. That was why his body almost collapsed at the beginning. But he got what he paid for. At least, he could practice in this deathly place from now on. With the improvement of his Transformation Skill, all the poisonous gas here would become his source of pneuma. The stronger the gas was, the faster his improvement would be. Gradually, the Chaotic Poisonous Sea would certainly become his sanctum of practice and not a death spot.


    ¡°The Yin and Yang Transformation Skill and the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique complement each other like the Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, but are more profound than the latter. I know the practice way of the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique, but I cannot comprehend it in such a short time. Just now, when I was performing the Yin and Yang Transformation Skill, I might have figured out some secrets about it. If I continue practicing here, I will surely comprehend the power of the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique very soon. At that time, my Seven Wonderful Techniques would reach the Advanced Level and I won¡¯t need to be afraid of anyone!¡± Zhou Bao secretly planned all this. Now, his Seven Wonderful Techniques was complete. Although he couldn¡¯t comprehend all the secrets of the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique in such a short time, he now had a more profound understanding about the other skills of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. The secrets about this ancient and mystery technique was gradually revealed.


    The Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and the Heavenly Jade Technique both required strength. The key to this kind of skill lay in the gathering and release of strength. In fact, just as all the pneuma could be transformed into Yin and Yang, all the mysterious skills and techniques also evolved from the gathering and release of strength. The Dharma Power-restoring Skill, the Immortal Body Technique and the Red Centipede Mind-concentrating Skill were combinations of Qi, essence and spirit, which were gathered by immortals. Essence referred to the body of practitioners, which was the base for everything. Qi was not the pneuma, but the energy of the body after transforming the pneuma for one¡¯s own use. Spirit referred to the spirit of the soul. Those three were the foundation of practitioners and the origin of all lives. The Ying and Yang Transformation Skill and the Heaven and Earth Celestial Tactic required control of all the energy outside the body. The former transformed everything for one¡¯s own use, while the latter, as its name suggested, integrated everything in the world.


    After a profound comprehension of the three skills, he would become a Celestial Immortal. He could even go further by surviving the destruction of eras and becoming an ancient Celestial Immortal like Taoist Jin. Only then, would he have complete freedom and eternal life.


    While practicing the Seven Wonderful Techniques, the seed formed in his Dantian was the seed of the Tree of Seven Wonders. This was not only a weapon, but also the result of evolvement of all the Great Ways in the world.


    The Tree of Seven Wonders was a result from the evolvement of the Seven Wonderful Techniques in the Dantian. All the Great Ways, strength and techniques formed into a tree in the end. It was the Seven Wonderful Techniques in human¡¯s Dantian, but became the World Tree after evolvement in the universe!!


    The World Tree was the foundation for the existence of universe. Every new era started when the Thunder of Fate split the World Tree and ended when all the things in the universe turned into dust and evolved into a World Tree again.


    Each era repeated the same procedure.


    The Seven Wonderful Techniques could evolve into a World Tree. In fact, it was the projection of the World Tree. That was why it was invincible and indefectible.


    Any technique or Divine Sense was rendered useless in front of the Tree of Seven Wonders and would be destroyed by its light. It was also the nemesis of all fairy weapons and magic weapons. In front of it, they were unable to release their power, and could only wait to be smashed.


    Of course, this was the ideal situation. Only a complete Tree of Seven Wonders could possess such power. What Zhou Bao had refined in his Dantian was only a young seedling. It had some powers but was far in comparison from the Tree of Seven Wonders and the World Tree. This time, Zhou Bao¡¯s biggest goal for practicing in the Chaotic Poisonous Sea was to help the seedling evolve to gain better combat capability so as to prepare for the coming Dharma Ending Tribulation.


    The Tree of Seven Wonders turned all power into its original state. It protected people from being destroyed, a feature especially important in the Dharma Ending Tribulation.


    In the Dharma Ending Tribulation, all practitioners with a power beyond the ability of ordinary people would face tribulation. Practitioners with stronger powers would face bigger tribulations. Those with Dharma powers would also have to endure the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena. This was how the Dharma Ending Tribulation got its name.

 Chapter 876 - The Beginning of the Five Decrepit Phenomena and the Omen of the Dharma Ending

    Chapter 876: The Beginning of the Five Decrepit Phenomena and the Omen of the Dharma Ending


    Translator: Transn  Editor: Transn@


    A new Earthly Immortal would never have a lower status in small sects of the Eye of the Storm and often became the backbone of the sect; some even became the successors of the sect¡¯s power. After all, Earthly Immortals could no longer be measured by their Dharma powers. Besides, Red Tiger was obviously a practitioner with great potential. Even if he could not break through to the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way and become a Sage in the future, he would at least become an outstanding Earthly Immortal like Emperor An, the Emperor of Moon Temple and the Tai Sui.


    This was what his sect expected of him and he had full confidence in himself.


    All this, however, seemed to be turning into a dream only, for the new Red Tiger Emperor had recently felt that his Dharma power seemed to have undergone a strange, indescribable change. Though he did not become weak, he discovered some portions of his power withering away. He did not like it as it felt a bit devastating.


    Initially he took for granted that it was a natural response to his Dharma power ascent after he became an Earthly Immortal, so instead of caring about the change, he even felt a bit smug about it.


    But when he finished the closed-door training, he suddenly felt a strong sense of weakness that caught him off guard. At first, he thought that it was someone plotting against him, but he soon dismissed the speculation, because he found that the sense of weakness was not caused by external forces, but came from the depths of his body. He turned pale with fear. After careful examination of his body, he still could not find the cause. This sense of weakness was similar to the exhaustion he felt after a fight. But before long, the sensation faded and he regained his strength as if nothing had happened.


    It would be great if nothing had happened. But as a formidable Earthly Immortal with a keen spiritual mind, he knew that the sense of weakness was not just an illusion, but something that had really happened.


    ¡°Why did that happen? Am I under a curse?¡± He thought seriously about it. Only curses could explain the strange things that had been happening and the weird magic that could have caused it. ¡°The man who put the curse on me without my noticing it must be very insidious, thus I am unable to remove the curse. I have to go back to the sect and ask the First Elder to help me!¡±


    ¡°Has the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena already begun?¡± a man in the Eye of the Storm of the Immortal Realm asked.


    That was the Taoist rite of the Gale Sage, one of the three Celestial Immortals. Like the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage, the Gale Sage was not a man willing to take charge of affairs either. As he drew boundaries with other forces, he was completely indifferent to what was happening in his territory, unless he was treated with disrespect. However, no one in the universe dared to be disrespectful to a Celestial Immortal.


    Although the Gale Sage had no interest in managing affairs, he was a man who followed the rules perfectly. Any practitioner could live in the Eye of the Storm so long as he did not violate the rules made millions of years ago.


    Therefore, there were plenty of practitioners in this territory, and some of them were mighty Earthly Immortals with unfathomable cultivation. These Earthly Immortals, like the Earthly Immortals in other parts of the Immortal Realm, usually practiced in their own Immortal¡¯s Caves. Their closed-door training could last for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years in order to understand the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way.


    Of course, there were some new Earthly Immortals. They, compared to other Earthly Immortals, were somewhat ostentatious. After years of hard work, they finally became Earthly Immortals, who were able to create their own macro worlds. Besides, they even could live as long as heaven and earth and thus they wanted to celebrate. As a result, some new practitioners enjoyed a period of great elation.


    Red Tiger was one these new practitioners. He came from a small sect in the Eye of the Storm. It only took him about a hundred years to break through to the Earthly Immortal Realm because of his great talent and the advantage of the Immortal Realm environment.


    Even if practitioners in the Immortal Realm abided by the rules daily and use a huge amount of essence, to become an Earthly Immortal within a hundred years was still an extremely amazing feat and many ordinary people could not achieve this.


    But Red Tiger did it. What was more shocking was that he did not use any prepared fairy weapons when undergoing his Earthly Immortal Tribulation. Instead, he had an insight during the tribulation and got over it safely. As a result, he became not only an Earthly Immortal, but also ten times more powerful than the common one. He was extremely proud of these achievements. Sometimes, he even thought that he was much better than those Tribulation Takers and that he should have become a real Tribulation Taker.


    That was just in his imagination. It was too dangerous to be a Tribulation Taker. Thus, he preferred to practice in the Eye of the Storm.


    The strange feeling came and went quickly, but it scared Red Tiger. He immediately went back to his sect as quickly as he could to ask for help.


    What he did not know was that there were practitioners who had encountered the same sense of weakness as he had and they pervaded every part of the Immortal Realm and the Human Realm. There were practitioners who felt something was wrong with their bodies, but didn¡¯t know why, just like Red Tiger.


    This was the omen of the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena.


    What Red Tiger didn¡¯t know too, was that the strange feeling that happened to him had alarmed the most powerful man, one of the three Celestial Immortals in the Immortal Realm, the Gale Sage.


    The Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena have already appeared in some practitioners, but no one knows what they mean except those mighty Earthly Immortals. Some Earthly Immortals with shallower cultivation think they are able to live as long as heaven and earth, but they don¡¯t know that if Earthly Immortals could not survive the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena, they would die as well. I wonder when the news will be announced. When the time comes, the Immortal Realm is sure to be a mess. I would like to see how Jade Emperor Sage responds!¡±


    His great power and influence that he obtained in a short time in the Immortal Realm was closely related to the Way of the Emperor he practiced. Otherwise, a new Celestial Immortal could not have gathered so many Earthly Immortals and Immortals in less than one million years, established the Jade Emperor Palace and even able to stand up to the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage and the Gale Sage as an equal.


    His great power came from the powerful leadership and demagogic power he acquired after he practiced the Way of the Emperor. As the Dharma Ending Tribulation drew near, the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena occurred, leaving almost all practitioners to face nightmares. Only the Earthly Immortals who had the most superior power, or who had some special means like Zhou Bao, could survive. Moreover, people like the Gale Sage and the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage, who had built a nest for countless years, could help their righthand men avoid the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena. As for Jade Emperor Sage, since he had been a Celestial Immortal less than a million years, his nest could not help his men. This meant that his force was bound to be greatly weakened during the Dharma Ending Tribulation, with only a few of the so-called most powerful Earthly Immortals remaining at most. Actually, no matter how strong an Earthly Immortal was, the Earthly Immortal was still a nobody in the eyes of a Celestial Immortal.


    A practitioner was either a Celestial Immortal or a nobody!!


    ¡°Well, Jade Emperor Sage, I don¡¯t care how you became a Celestial Immortal, or whose good fortune you stole. Now that the way you have been practicing is the Way of the Emperor, you are destined to be the enemy of all Celestial Immortals. The Dharma Ending Tribulation is just your first hurdle as a Celestial Immortal. If you can¡¯t get through it, you¡¯ll be unable to make waves again even if you live to the next era!¡± Gale Sage thought and a trace of a wry smile played across his lips. ¡°And who knows if Zhou Bao could tide over this Dharma Ending Tribulation! Nine-headed Fierce Beast is such an idiot that he thinks Zhou Bao will become an Omnipotent Sage. Haha, that¡¯s funny!¡±


    In any era, Celestial Immortals were the best and no living creatures were above them. It could be said that the Celestial Immortal was the end point of the practitioner.


    However, this end point was also a starting point!!


    Only when one became a Celestial Immortal and owned the Celestial Immortal Karmic Rank, could one get through the World-ending Tribulation, even stay out of it and witness the glorious moment when the World Tree regrew. Only the Celestial Immortal had the chance to see practitioners under the Celestial Immortal struggle to survive in the tribulation, see the world tree regrow and the Thunder of Fate splitting. Witnessing the birth of all life in the Primordial Origin was not privy to all but the Celestial Immortals.


    The World-ending Tribulation was a good proof that all living creatures under the Earthly Immortal were nobodies. Theoretically, Earthly Immortals could also survive the tribulation, but that required tremendous good fortune. Moreover, even if the Earthly Immortals could survive the tribulation, they would not be as safe and sound as the Celestial Immortals. At the very least, they would be hit hard, hide at the start of a new era and recover their strength after years of cultivation. Earthly Immortals with bad luck could only leave behind a few pieces of their souls and then experience reincarnation in time. If they failed to retrieve their lost memories in the new era and break through to the Earthly Immortal Realm, they would be totally annihilated in the next World-ending Tribulation.


    In each era there would be a special Celestial Immortal, who was the last Celestial Immortal in the era. It was said that this Celestial Immortal had the final fortune of the era, and was the terminator of the era, known as ¡°Omnipotent Sage!!¡±

 Chapter 877 - The Source of the Dharma Ending

    Chapter 877: The Source of the Dharma Ending


    Translator: Transn  Editor: Transn@


    To practitioners, the Dharma Ending Tribulation was the most horrible tribulation of an era, even more horrible than the World-ending Tribulation.


    The reason was that the Dharma Ending Tribulation affected only practitioners who possessed the Dharma power. Although the World-ending Tribulation signaled the annihilation of an era, those practitioners who could detach themselves from the tribulation had already done so. For those who did not have the ability to detach themselves from the Dharma Ending Tribulation, they would have died already. There might have been a few practitioners who were not detached from the Dharma Ending Tribulation but somehow escaped the tribulation and were barely alive.


    An era was equivalent to a life of the World Tree. Every living creature took nourishment from this tree. Ordinary creatures, like insects that lived on trees, were oblivious to the tree¡¯s changes. Thus, even if the tree began to wither, they would not be affected by it. Of all creatures, the practitioners received the most nutrients. Unlike ordinary creatures, they had become inseparable from the tree through long cultivation and became part of it, like the leaves and branches of the tree. The tree provided them with most of its nutrients, so when the tree was dying, they would also die along with the tree. This was their destiny. Celestial Immortals were the best amongst practitioners. They were like the fruit of this tree. Especially those old Celestial Immortals who had already become seeds that were not part of the tree. They no longer needed to have anything to do with the tree and were able to blossom into a tree themselves. Therefore, the tree¡¯s death was irrelevant to them.


    In this case, the Earthly Immortal¡¯s situation was somewhat different. Some of them had the chance to become seeds and some had turned into seeds already, but they still needed the tree¡¯s support. Without the support, the immature fruit would die, but the mature fruit may survive.


    The Dharma Ending Tribulation was somewhat like the decay of the whole tree. It was a long, brutal and desperate process. All practitioners except Celestial Immortals could only try to seek some glimmer of hope during these moments of despair.


    Those who found a way out were the lucky ones; the other practitioners would die with the tree.


    Therefore, for almost all practitioners, the Dharma Ending Tribulation was synonymous with doomsday.


    What was happening to Red Tiger would happen to countless practitioners. And that was just the beginning.


    In fact, the beginning had already set off a certain amount of some panic and unrest.


    Zhou Bao could feel the panic and unrest, but it was not in the Immortal Realm but in Azure Big World. Azure Big World was already a complete macro world. Theoretically, it was a fruit on the World Tree. The problem was that it was not yet ripe. As a result, when the tree began to fall, the fruit would follow suit. Some of the most powerful practitioners in Azure Big World were already showing signs of the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena.


    Azure Big World was his. The most powerful and distinguished Earthly Immortals were of course the people closest to him. After sensing that the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena had appeared on them, Zhou Bao promptly cast the sapling of the Tree of Seven Wonders in his Dantian into Azure Big World. Overnight, a great tree rose from the depths of Azure Spirit Sea, emitting a colorful light, which gradually integrated into the essence of the world and soon spread to every corner. The decline of Azure Big World halted and Zhou Bao heaved a sigh of relief.


    After getting the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique and while trying to practice it, Zhou Bao finally had a clear understanding of the universe. He knew that the Tree of Seven Wonders was a projection of the World Tree, which explained why it had such a frightening function. The Five-colored Divine Light that evolved from the World Tree could only brush and destroy things belonging to the five elements, while the Seven Wonderful Techniques was better; it could break all the laws and stop the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena.


    But it didn¡¯t bring Zhou Bao any joy. Instead, his doubts grew. No one, except him, had ever practiced all the Seven Wonderful Techniques in this era. He wondered if it meant that he was the true Tribulation Taker and the Omnipotent Sage who carried the ultimate fortune of the era.


    It was the Omnipotent Sage!!!


    In every era there were some Celestial Immortals. Some eras had hundreds of Celestial Immortals and some had only a few. In one era, there were two very special Celestial Immortals. One was the first Celestial Immortal of this era and was called the Primeval Sage presenting the end of the era, and the other was the last Celestial Immortal of this era and was called the Omnipotent Sage, representing the end of the era. Moreover, there was another kind of Celestial Immortal, who was so rare that they did not necessarily appear for countless eras. Such a Celestial Immortal was known as the Sage Pangu.


    The Sage Pangu existed only in legends, while the Primeval Sage and the Omnipotent Sage actually existed in each era. The two special Celestial Immortals were the best among Celestial Immortals. As soon as they became Celestial Immortals, they could be compared to some old Celestial Immortals. Even Taoist Jin, Taoist Reincarnation and Taoist Zhen Yuan who were strong and matchless, would not dare to provoke them.


    Zhou Bao really wanted to be a Celestial Immortal. Depending on how things worked out, he might well be the true Omnipotent Sage of this era.


    After all, most of the practitioners would die out in this era after the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena.


    Only Celestial Immortals could survive the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena unscathed. But they didn¡¯t affect the common people. It didn¡¯t mean anything to them. Those practitioners who were powerful or lucky enough to make it through the Dharma Ending Tribulation, would have a closed-door training and use the time to improve their cultivation. Thus, they did not care about common people.


    Before the Dharma Ending Tribulation, some practitioners needed the help of the common people to find and collect resources, because extra resources could enhance their training speed in a way. But after the tribulation, the connection between practitioners and common people would cease. This tribulation was not only the tribulation of the practitioners, but also of all the treasures. After this tribulation, there would be no more treasures of heaven and earth. All the treasures, the spiritual qi and pneuma of spiritual beings would turn into ordinary items, which were useless to practitioners. Even the essence of the world would become ordinary air that could only sustain ordinary creatures, just like the air in Zhou Bao¡¯s previous life. In this way, common people had no value to practitioners and no practitioners would bother about them.


    Only the practitioners who had not yet become Celestial Immortals and could survive the Dharma Ending Tribulation by some means, could be the Omnipotent Sage. The most likely person, then, was one of those Tribulation Takers, because the so-called Tribulation Taker was a practitioner who would not be affected by the Dharma Ending Tribulation and had the potential to become a Celestial Immortal, such as Zhou Bao who had the Seven Wonderful Techniques, Kong Ti who owned the Five-colored Divine Light, and Man Yujun who could cut off the Dharma Ending Qi with his Immortal-killing Sword Qi.


    Only such people had the potential to become the Omnipotent Sage.


    In fact, there may also be Earthly Immortals who had been in hiding. They were usually survivors from the last era or even from the era before. They only lacked the chance to become Celestial Immortals. They had extremely profound accumulation and had crossed the Dharma Ending Tribulation and the World-ending Tribulation. Thus, the two tribulations of the new era would not be too big a problem for them. For example, Tai Sui who was under Jade Emperor Sage had passed four times, lived through fours eras and possessed unpredictable strength.


    Such practitioners may also become Celestial Immortals.


    To become the Omnipotent Sage required a large amount of good fortune. Individual efforts could only ensure that one became a Celestial Immortal, but one could not control others unless one killed all practitioners who had the potential to become Celestial Immortals, after becoming a Celestial Immortal.


    Maybe the Jade Emperor Sage had planned it that way in the first place, but this plan had failed. The Underworld Sage suddenly became a Celestial Immortal as well after him.


    Jade Emperor Sage had lost his chance. If no practitioner became a Celestial Immortal from now until the World-ending Tribulation, then the Underworld Sage would be the Omnipotent Sage of the era.


    But after a few encounters with him, the Underworld Sage gave Zhou Bao the impression that he did not seem interested in becoming the Omnipotent Sage.


    What were the benefits of becoming the Omnipotent Sage?


    Zhou Bao did not know much about that. All he knew was that the Omnipotent Sage would gain the final good fortune of an era and had a great advantage in strength improvement, which was comparable with that of those old Celestial Immortals.


    A thought flashed through Zhou Bao¡¯s mind, ¡°Maybe the Underworld Sage isn¡¯t trying to help me, but is cultivating my skills so that I can kill other people, who would become Celestial Immortals, for him and then he will kill me when I become a Celestial Immortal. In this way, he will naturally become the Omnipotent Sage!!¡± It was a big possibility for Zhou Bao. He didn¡¯t believe that the Underworld Sage was helping him for no apparent reason.


    Now, I must practice hard to become a Celestial Immortal as soon as possible. It doesn¡¯t matter if I¡¯m going to be the Omnipotent Sage. As long as I become a Celestial Immortal, I can truly be free between heaven and earth!¡±

 Chapter 878 - The Revenge

    Chapter 878 The Revenge


    At some point, a chilly and harsh atmosphere pervaded heaven and earth.


    People in the Immortal Realm, the Human Realm, including the macro world of Earthly Immortals and the micro world of Human Immortals could not avoid this pervasive feeling.


    Some practitioners with spiritual sensitive spiritual minds and strong background knew what was going on as soon as they sensed it.


    The Dharma Ending Tribulation was on its way!


    Practitioners¡¯ greatest tribulation in this era was finally here!!!


    In the Immortal Realm


    The Sword School on Sword School Mountain!


    Sword School Mountain was named after the Sword School and its original name had long been forgotten. The Sword School had ruled the area spanning millions of kilometers in every direction around the mountain, since it was first built 19 million years ago.


    This mountain was also suffused with an atmosphere that was as chilly and harsh as autumn air. Different from other places, the most central Taoist rite of the Sword School was covered by a layer of Sword Qi for some time. This Qi shattered the surrounding harsh air, so that the covered area was completely unaffected.


    Senior brother, the smell of the Dharma Ending Tribulation is getting stronger. We have Immortal-trapping Sword Qi surrounding the mountain, but this is not a long-term solution!¡±


    The place covered by the Sword Qi was a huge peak, on which sat a palace which looked like a sword. It was not a large palace that could hold more than 10,000 people but at the moment, there were more than 10,000 people crowding round it.


    ¡°We can¡¯t do anything about it. We can only wait for Man Yujun to fully comprehend the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi and develop the sword light that could protect our school with two strands of Sword Qi,¡± said an Earthly Immortal with immense sword intent, standing in the middle of the palace.


    The Sword Qi that he exuded was pretty strong and he was the one who was controlling the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi around the palace.


    ¡°Unfortunately, I¡¯m not a Tribulation Taker. I can¡¯t fully understand the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi. Otherwise, I will be able to protect the stronger disciples in the palace as well as the other disciples that I can¡¯t save for now!¡±


    ¡°Senior brother, don¡¯t belittle yourself! Without you, we Sword School will probably disappear in the Dharma Ending Tribulation. It is good that so many stronger disciples can survive. Besides, we have a Tribulation Taker, Man Yujun. I believe that as long there is sufficient time, he will be able to master the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi and create a glorious future for our Sword School!¡±


    While they were talking, a great explosion suddenly shook the palace and a strand of red Sword Qi soared into the sky. With the appearance of this Sword Qi, the Sword Qi around the Sword School seemed to be further strengthened, expanding rapidly. As it expanded, the color of the Sword Qi slowly turned red.


    ¡°It¡¯s the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi! He¡¯s done it! Man Yujun has mastered it!¡±


    ¡°Yes, he did it. It¡¯s good that he was able to master the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi so quickly. He is indeed worthy of being a Tribulation Taker!¡± the Earthly Immortal with sword intent, delightedly praised Man Yujun.


    A joyous yell could be heard from behind the peak and immediately echoed across the space.


    ¡°Haaa, this is the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi! I made it! I made it! Zhou Bao, the day we meet again will be your last day!¡±


    He had been on a roll and had been beaten only once by Zhou Bao. Besides, as a Tribulation Taker, he had already regarded Zhou Bao as his greatest enemy. Now that he had just mastered the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi, he had to let out his anger.Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click for visiting.


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯d like to know how a loser like you, are going to kill me!¡±


    No one expected such a sudden reply.


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°How dare you break into the Sword School!!¡±


    This abrupt reply did not frighten the elite of the Sword School, especially their powerful Master who was an Earthly Immortal. The Master immediately emitted a mass of Sword Qi that was full of killing intent. The infinite Sword Qi filled the entire space in an instant.


    ¡°Good!!¡±


    The Sword Qi rained down on Zhou Bao. The attack seemed indiscriminate, but it carefully avoided all the practitioners of the Sword School in the palace. The sheer force of control was breath taking. Zhou Bao could not help applauding the Master.


    ¡°You deserve to be a senior Earthly Immortal. I can¡¯t compete with you on that alone!¡± Zhou Bao said. His path of practice was completely opposite from that of those senior Earthly Immortals, so he did not have any particularly deep accumulation and such exquisite power control.


    In the past, Zhou Bao feared Earthly Immortals who had such cultivation and strength. Ever since he had been beaten by Yu An, his complacency had gone and he was still a little afraid of these powerful and senior ones.


    But now he was no longer afraid, for the Dharma Ending Tribulation had begun. In theory, the Dharma Ending Tribulation would at most influence the Earthly Immortals¡¯ macro world, with little effect on them. But the Master was more than just an ordinary Earthly Immortal, he was also the ruler of the Sword School. The whole Sword School was under his care. In the Sword School, it was only Man Yujun who had just fully understood the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi and only he who could urge the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi to protect these elites.


    ¡°You are Zhou Bao. How dare you break into our Sword School!¡± With a sudden flash, Man Yujun appeared in the hall and a strand of red Sword Qi immediately shot out of his hand and headed towards one direction.


    It was the place where Zhou Bao had been hiding.


    After launching his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill and entering the Sword School, Zhou Bao had remained hidden in the hall, waiting for his chance. It was the tenth day. He had no idea that Man Yujun had been focused on practicing the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi in the depths of this space, but he did not want to miss this opportunity. Ten days was enough for him to know this space intimately. Therefore, facing Man Yujun¡¯s attack, he did not panic, but shot a Sword Qi back to resist the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi.


    ¡°Well, haven¡¯t you understood the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi? That¡¯s not how the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi works. You¡¯d better use your Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi!¡± Zhou Bao said sarcastically. Having defused the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi, he did not continue to attack, but went straight through the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi that protected the palace and left the core of the Sword School.


    ¡°The Immortal-trapping Sword Qi is awesome! I¡¯ll let you off the hook this time. The next time we meet, I won¡¯t let you off so easily!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not that easy to escape!¡±Man Yujun shouted. Zhou Bao meant ¡°I did not expect that you could master the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi. A wise man knows when to retreat. I¡¯ll leave and our enmity will be settled next time!¡± That was not a very clever trick. On hearing what he said, Man Yujun who was overly ambitious, immediately went after him.


    The Master of the Sword School tried to stop him. His face changed as he shot a series of sword techniques to prop up the almost collapsing Sword Qi that had been protecting the palace.


    By the time the Sword Qi was steady, Man Yujun had already gone.


    ¡°Damn it, Yujun shouldn¡¯t be so impulsive!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, senior brother. He has mastered the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi. Even if he cannot defeat Zhou Bao, he can at least defend himself!¡±


    The Master nodded, but he was still very worried about Man Yujun. This was because when Zhou Bao left, he easily broke through the protective Sword Qi of the Sword School, which showed that he was very familiar with the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi.


    In that case, he may have been trying to lure the enemy.


    The speculation made the Master panic. He wanted to caution his favorite disciple, but it was too late.


    ¡°Forget it. Let him be. A little loss can cool his temperament!¡± In his mind, he agreed with his junior brother¡¯s view that even if Zhou Bao could defeat Man Yujun, he would not be able to catch him. After all, Man Yujun had fully mastered the two pieces of the Immortal-killing Sword Qi. Moreover, his unique talent for swordsmanship had been undoubtedly revealed in the Sword School and he had already practiced the core technique of the school. With such strength, even the Master could hardly kill him.


    He didn¡¯t know that Zhou Bao had come here with the intention to kill Man Yujun and seize his good fortune and power.


    After gathering all the techniques of the Seven Wonderful Techniques, Zhou Bao had gained some understanding of the mystery between heaven and earth. He knew that both the Four Immortal-killing Swords and the Seven Wonderful Techniques could make people immune to the Dharma Ending Tribulation. In fact, the Five-colored Divine Light and the Crimson Thunder could achieve the same effect. That was why the five of them had been called Tribulation Takers. Not being Celestial Immortals, they would not be affected by the Dharma Ending Tribulation with their peerless Divine Sense and could even take advantage of it to gain strength. These Divine Senses seemed to have been created specifically for this tribulation. And the people who could get them were the Tribulation Takers who were born in response to heaven and earth.


    Boom!!!


    A mountain, thousands of kilometers away from the Sword School, was flattened by several strands of Sword Qi.


    ¡°Man Yujun, your Sword Qi is powerful, but it¡¯s useless if you can¡¯t hit me with it!¡± Zhou Bao said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t think this will provoke me, Zhou Bao!¡± Man Yujun was facing off with Zhou Bao and his fanaticism had turned into calmness. ¡°You¡¯ve drawn me out. Do you think you can win?¡±


    ¡°Win? Haha, no, I¡¯m here to kill you, but not to compete with you!¡± As he spoke, he waved his hands and an egg-shaped canopy dropped from the sky.


    It was the Space Division Skill!


    ¡°I haven¡¯t used this skill in a long time. If it were not for this Dharma Ending Tribulation, I wouldn¡¯t have had the chance to use it in the Immortal Realm. No one will bother us anymore now, Man Yujun. Actually, the reason for me to come to you is not as complicated as you think. I just want to take revenge on you for having attacked me!¡±

 Chapter 879 - Burning the Good Fortune

    All in all, what Zhou Bao really wanted was revenge.


    Zhou Bao was a gentle person by nature. He basically insisted on the principle that he would not provoke anyone who did not provoke him. He also believed that if someone did provoke him, he would retaliate ten times over.


    Man Yujun attempted to assassinate him when he did not even know who he was. Though he escaped unscathed and managed to defeat Man Yujun, he kept the incident in his heart.


    Since Man Yujun was the one who attacked him first, he would not let him off so easily. Revenge was what he was after. As for the two kinds of Sword Qi and the good fortune of a Tribulation Taker, they were secondary to his thoughts of revenge.


    ¡°Now that we both have two kinds of Sword Qi, let¡¯s try and see who has a better understanding of them today!¡±


    In Zhou Bao¡¯s eyes, Man Yujun was the one who brought the treasure to him. He did not expect that he would get another Sword Qi. In this way, if he killed him, not only would he get his good fortune, but could also collect the Four Immortal-killing Swords at the same time. Then, it would be possible for him to plan for a big killing formation like the Immortal-killing Sword Formation. In this way, he was more confident of getting through the Dharma Ending Tribulation.


    ¡°Good, if you didn¡¯t come to me, I would have gone to you for your Sword Qi!¡± Man Yujun replied. He raised his eyebrows. In an instant, numerous strands of Sword Qi in the air formed a sword net to engulf Zhou Bao.


    ¡°That¡¯s such a cheap trick!¡± Zhou Bao sneered. Then he raised his right hand and created a sword net as well.


    Bump, bump, bump¡ª


    When the Sword Qi smashed into each other, sounds of metal colliding in the air could be heard. Countless sparks sputtered and each one contained a strand of extremely sharp Sword Qi that broke the surrounding space.


    During the fight, Zhou Bao¡¯s eyes suddenly narrowed. ¡°The Law of Space in the Immortal Realm is so rigid that I could hardly break the space. However, due to the impact of the Dharma Ending Tribulation, the rigorous space force is declining and the space here is getting fragile, then what about the space in the Human World?¡± He wondered.


    Perhaps now any Human Immortal could rip up the space in the Human World and travel in the Void Universe at will. The infinite spaces around every macro world may have been chaotic or didn¡¯t work already. This meant that the last barriers of every macro world in the Human World would disappear eventually.


    Then the universe would really be in total chaos.


    But this was not the time for him to worry about it. Even if the universe was in chaos it would not affect him. All he had to do now was kill the guy he was fighting with.


    The two sword nets neutralized each other¡¯s power in the air. Zhou Bao sneered, but Man Yujun¡¯s face darkened. He was clearly at a disadvantage right now.


    When his net was destroyed, Zhou Bao¡¯s net released a layer of invisible dark force that almost caused him some harm.


    ¡°Damn it, Zhou Bao, go to hell!¡± Man Yujun yelled.


    The first time he fought with Zhou Bao, he knew he could not beat him. Now with his Immortal-trapping Sword Qi, he still could not beat him. This made this battle extremely difficult for him.


    The Immortal-trapping Sword Qi and Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi were his unique skills, but neither could hurt Zhou Bao. And from the situation right now, Zhou Bao had combined the Immortal-killing Sword Qi and the Immortal-slaying Sword Qi. It seemed too that his understanding of the sword intent was better than Man Yujun. If the fight continued, Man Yujun would lose.


    ¡°Humph, if only I had enough time to merge my two Sword Qi. Then I would not be weaker than him. The Dharma Ending Tribulation has just begun, and I¡¯ll have the time and opportunity!¡± Man Junyu thought.


    Now, he was sorely tempted to retreat.Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click for visiting.


    But it was too late!


    As soon as a strand of Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi was about to cut the surrounding egg-shaped canopy, Zhou Bao knew instantly what Man Yujun intended to do. He certainly would not allow him to escape. With a sneer, a large dark hand appeared and attacked Man Yujun, the moment the canopy was cut off by the Sword Qi.


    Man Yujun¡¯s blow was not as effective as he wanted it to be; it left only a gap in the canopy.


    ¡°Break!!¡± Seeing the large black hand coming towards him, Man Yujun paled. Then myriads of fine, red Sword Qi lights flashed, shooting straight into the sky at the hand.


    He had launched his Immortal-trapping Sword Qi!!!


    All the places affected by this kind of Sword Qi had flashing red lights on them.


    The Immortal-killing Sword Qi was known for its sharpness and the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi was famous for its quantity. This could create a terrible ocean of Sword Qi, sweeping every inch of space and annihilating everything in its path.


    To his surprise, once the red Immortal-trapping Sword Qi attacked the large black hand, the hand only trembled for a second and restabilized.


    Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle¡ª


    A sizzling noise that sounded like cold water pouring over a hot iron could be heard in the space. The red sword light, which was as dense as the rain, was eliminated in a short span of time.


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible!¡± Man Yujun¡¯s face changed incredulously. The Immortal-trapping Sword Qi and the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi were his ace cards. He was confident that he could escape from any danger with them. If Zhou Bao had eliminated his Sword Qi with the Immortal-killing Sword Qi or Immortal-slaying Sword Qi, he was able to accept the fact, but he had used a large black hand instead. This meant that Zhou Bao could defeat him even without the Immortal-killing Sword Qi or his Seven Wonderful Techniques. The gap between them was much bigger than he imagined.


    ¡°Damn it!!¡± Man Yujun had to go all out now. He let out a growl and started the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi and the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi at the same time. In this life and death situation, these two kinds of Sword Qi unexpectedly cooperated so perfectly that they seemed to merge into one.


    Bang!!!


    With a loud noise, the large black hand was hacked to pieces by the two kinds of Sword Qi and the space between the Space of Segmented Realms was torn. Man Junyu rushed to the Sword Gate, as if his body had integrated with the Sword Qi.


    ¡°The Sword Gate can¡¯t save you!¡± Zhou Bao said, squinting. In the interim, three flashes of lights shot out between his eyebrows. He, his incarnation of poison and his incarnation of fire came out and immediately blocked Man Yujun¡¯s way.


    ¡°You¡¯re desperate. Anyway, I won¡¯t let you off today. Give up now!¡± Zhou Bao turned into a giant ape about 100 thousand feet tall and hit him with his fist, which carried a formidable fist strength.


    ¡°Break, break, break¡ª!¡±


    At this critical life and death moment, Man Yujun¡¯s good fortune of a Tribulation Taker finally erupted. The two kinds of Sword Qi that showed signs of merging quickly gathered in an instant. With that, he rose and turned into a towering sword.


    Bang!!!


    Heaven and earth also changed!


    The collision of the sword and the fist shattered the space within hundreds of kilometers. Zhou Bao¡¯s fist was crushed, Man Yujun¡¯s face was pale and blood spouted from his mouth. Man Yujun gave Zhou Bao a fierce look and began to attack again.


    ¡°Good, but it¡¯s not powerful enough. Go to hell!¡± The moment when Man Yujun rose, a Skull Elixir Furnace appeared above his head. The furnace grew bigger and blocked off an area measuring dozens of kilometers wide. A powerful force was produced and seemed to redirect the path of his escape. He fell into the furnace as if he had hurled himself willingly into it.


    Whirring!!!


    The moment he entered the furnace, various flames ignited in the topaz-like elixir furnace. It was Zhou Bao¡¯s incarnation of fire that fanned the Tusita Fire inside, exerting the power that simulated the Nine Heavenly Fire and trying to refine him in the furnace.


    ¡°I won¡¯t die, Zhou Bao! You can¡¯t kill me because I¡¯m the last Tribulation Taker! I¡¯ll be the Omnipotent Sage!¡± Man Yujun gave an unyielding roar in the furnace. He executed his sharp Sword Qi impetuously and tried to destroy the Furnace of Immortality from the inside.


    ¡°His comprehension of the two kinds of Sword Qi has increased!¡± Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows. In the Furnace of Immortality with endless Heavenly Fire, Man Yujun¡¯s understanding of the swordsmanship was further enhanced at that moment. He thoroughly integrated the two kinds of Sword Qi, which not only blocked out the Heavenly Fire, but also posed a huge threat to the Furnace of Immortality.


    ¡°It¡¯s not good. He¡¯s burning up his good fortune and trying to use it all up now. You must stop him, or, he will grow stronger and even surpass you!¡± Ghost Child warned Zhou Bao loudly.


    ¡°How could that be?¡± Zhou Bao was startled. He did not even know that good fortune could be burned.


    Now his Furnace of Immortality was starting to weaken from the internal attack. The deep integration of the two kinds of Sword Qi produced an overwhelming killing intent, as if a Fierce Beast from the primitive times, was going to destroy everything before it.


    Man Yujun¡¯s good fortune burned up completely and out came a power that frightened Zhou Bao.


    With a whirring sound, Zhou Bao¡¯s Primordial Fire Spirit went into the Furnace of Immortality and stabilized it before it broke. His Primordial Sword Spirit changed into a strand of Sword Qi and went into the furnace as well.


    Zhou Bao looked very solemn. He held on to a colorful jade branch, which was sending out colorful lights. Then he appeared in front of the Furnace of Immortality. A few seconds later, the furnace cracked completely with a loud sound and three rays of lights flashed from it. The first ray of light was his Primordial Fire Spirit that which had been badly injured and looked pale. It then fled in between Zhou Bao¡¯s eyebrows. Then it was his Primordial Sword Spirit which was fighting against Man Yujun and was at a disadvantageous position, barely able to stop him. Then as Zhou Bao¡¯s gaze fixed on a point, the jade branch in his hand immediately glowed brightly and hurled itself towards Man Yujun.

 Chapter 880 - Challenge the Earthly Immortal Tribulation

    Chapter 880: Challenge the Earthly Immortal Tribulation


    Translator: Transn  Editor: Transn


    ¡°Clap!¡±


    A crisp voice sounded. Within a short distance, in this instance, the Tree of Seven Wonders crashed on Man Yujun¡¯s head like an iron hammer falling to a watermelon.


    All of a sudden, things that are muddled in red and white splashed everywhere. A SwordQi rushed towards the sky from his blood-red brain. But it was very different from the previous two SwordQi because it revealed the breath of the Natal Sword.


    ¡°Natal Sword?¡± Seeing that SwordQi, Zhou Bao curled up his lip and showed a cold smile. His Primordial Sword Spirit emerged and turned into a transparent Natal Sword which hit itself towards the SwordQi.


    Woosh!


    The SwordQi and the Natal Sword converged. Then, Man Yujun¡¯s SwordQi was fought back. It was broken up again after it had just been condensed into a Natal Sword form. Fortunately, it did not dissipate.


    ¡°Zhou Bao, you can¡¯t kill me!¡±


    An eerie thing happened once more. The collapsing SwordQi started to fire with purple flame. Almost simultaneously, Zhou Bao felt something strange happening above his head. He raised his head and his eyes popped out.


    ¡°Divine Tribulation?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not an ordinary one. It¡¯s Earthly Immortal Tribulation. He triggered it!¡± Ghost Child gave a quick response. He suddenly shouted when he saw the tribulation cloud.


    ¡°What? He triggered Earthly Immortal Tribulation? How could he do it?¡± Zhou Bao was outrightly astounded. To him, even though Man Yujun¡¯s had ability, he was however only at an Immortal level. He was still far from being an Earthly Immortal of Emperor.


    It was not easy to be a competent Earthly Immortal, who was only a legend to practitioners and immortals. Taking Qing Feng and Ming Yue as examples, they only made a step forward in recent years through their past practice. Although capable Tribulation Takers like Zhou Bao could defeat Earthly Immortals and even kill them using formidable skills, they could not reach the Earthly Immortal realm.


    Zhou Bao knew clearly about himself. He understood that even he had to take the step to do it himself, he had to spend at least hundreds of years practicing and developing a solid foundation before he can find the chance to feel his bottleneck and overcome it.


    Man Yujun was no match for Zhou Bao in terms of combat capability in the realm. But now, he unexpectedly wanted to face the Earthly Immortal Tribulation that appears in front of him and still do so with a wild strike of his own. Is this possible?


    ¡°Hahahaha, Zhou Bao, you can¡¯t kill me! You can¡¯t make it! I am the Tribulation Taker, a real Tribulation Taker. I am the real person of God¡¯s will and the Omnipotent Sage in this era!¡±


    ¡°Idiot!¡± said Zhou Bao, gazing at the Natal Sword which had been condensed again as if he saw a fool. ¡°Don¡¯t say whether you can get through it. Even if you succeed, you won¡¯t defeat me!¡±


    ¡°Buddy, he¡¯s doing the final struggle. Stop speaking nonsense to him and just kill him. He¡¯s not useful anymore!¡±


    ¡°Final struggle?¡±


    ¡°Yes. His fate has come to a limit. Even though he had survived the Earthly Immortal Tribulation and became an Earthly Immortal, he has no more space to develop himself!¡±


    ¡°He will fail! That doesn¡¯t upset me!¡± Zhou Bao closed his eyes slightly and gave a cruel smile. ¡°Only now, I have a strange sort of feeling!¡±


    ¡°A strange feeling?¡±


    ¡°Since he has used up his fate, I can¡¯t get his fate after I kill him, right?¡±


    ¡°Maybe so!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not reasonable. The rule in the world is in conservation. People are paid accordingly. I should get the Tribulation Taker¡¯s fate if I kill him. Will I get much more fate when I pay more energy? Now that he has burned his fate, why can¡¯t I get his fate after I kill him?¡±


    ¡°What do you want to say?¡±


    ¡°Earthly Immortal Tribulation. Perhaps I can benefit from it even though I can¡¯t get his fate!¡±


    ¡°You are¡ª!¡± Ghost Child was shocked and thought of a possible idea.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to undergo the tribulation. I will get my Earthly Immortal status with the help of his Earthly Immortal Tribulation!¡± Seeing the tribulation dropping from the sky, Zhou Bao¡¯s eyes flashed a strange light. ¡°I¡¯m already the Immortal. Although I¡¯m not at my peak, I¡¯ve got a way leading to the Earthly Immortal. What I need is only the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. According to my cultivation, I have no idea when I can start it. However, now that he wants to start it here and he has fired his fate to form it, I can take this opportunity to start my tribulation. Does this work?¡±


    ¡°Not bad. It¡¯s a good idea, but nobody has tried it!¡± After his consideration, Ghost Child agreed with Zhou Bao. Just as what he had said, nobody had ever tried this way, so he was not sure whether it would work.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care whether it works or not. Just give it a try!¡± Zhou Bao pursed his lips. No matter whether he could make a success, he had a feeling that this tribulation would bring great benefits to him. Once he had succeeded, his strength would drastically increase even though he fails to become an Earthly Immortal. Moreover, someday should he face a strong Earthly Immortal like Yu An, he would not act as weakly as before. At least, escaping would not be a problem. Therefore, such a thought arose within him.


    It seemed that a long conversation happened between Zhou Bao and Ghost Child. In fact, they talked to each other via divine thoughts, which only took place in an instant. At this very moment, the Earthly Immortal Tribulation arrived.


    ¡°Boom, boom, boom¡ª!¡±


    The thunder deafened the ear with its roar. The surrounding space strangely became viscous, which made Zhou Bao feel that he got stuck in the mud. Perhaps he could not clearly express his current state. To be exact, he had a feeling that he had suddenly fallen into a porridge-like world where he was walking. The most troublesome thing was that this world was teamed with inhibitions trying to seal his power.


    That was the feature of Earthly Immortal Tribulation and also the most terrible one. People were not allowed to wield their whole power when they were experiencing this tribulation. Nevertheless, this tribulation was not aimed only at Zhou Bao, so the effect of this power was restricted and not absolute on him. At the same time, Man Yujun was in a much more miserable situation after he had been severely hurt by Zhou Bao. He had only a little bit of Natal Sword with him. The tribulation Dharma that he was suffering was hundreds of times stronger than what Zhou Bao had done. His face immediately turned extremely pale.


    As the Tribulation Taker, both Zhou Bao and Man Yujun had not experienced too many difficulties and they were very confident individuals. They had not encountered any real danger. In other words, they had never been in life-threatening situations, so they did not know the feeling that life was vanishing. Every Tribulation Taker lacked such a feeling. The truth is that in the timeless span across history, when he had such a feeling, it was time for him to die, just like Man Yujun right now.


    ¡°It¡¯s impossible. I won¡¯t die. I¡¯m the real Tribulation Taker, the final taker for the Dharma Ending Tribulation. How could I be killed by Zhou Bao. Natal Sword, break up the Divine Tribulation. Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!¡±


    He cried hysterically. The Natal Sword gave off a little Light of Heaven and Earth. With the light, it condensed totally and transformed into a sword light which smashed the bounds around him.Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting.


    ¡°It¡¯s the Qi of heaven and earth, Qi of Merit. He¡¯s finished!¡± Seeing the Qi of heaven and earth fired towards Man Yujun¡¯s Natal Sword, Ghost Child was not surprised. His words revealed his cold indifference.


    Indeed, Man Yujun was totally unconcerned. Having just run out of his fate to trigger the Earthly Immortal tribulation and also the Merit Qi of heaven and earth, he had now come to his end. He had no chance to revert back to his previous state. Now, it was Zhou Bao¡¯s time.


    Zhou Bao immediately shot back!


    He did not want to wait any longer and just wanted to get through this tribulation as soon as possible. Besides, he wanted a complete tribulation. The more tribulations he underwent, the more benefits he would get. That was known to the world. The difference between that one person who underwent it and that two persons who did it was obvious. How could Zhou Bao be willing to let Man Yujun ruin his plan and share his benefits?


    A light suddenly flashed before them. The Tree of Seven Wonders in Zhou Bao hands were send off radiance which covered him. The Law of Heaven and Earth which had just fettered him also disappeared in a second. They were hardly anything to that radiance.


    Whilst the radiance flashed, Zhou Bao rushed towards and hit the Natal Sword, which had just been successfully formed and condensed.


    ¡°Clap!¡±


    The Natal Sword, having just formed, was cracked again. Man Yujun had no more energy to fight back. The broken Natal Sword crumbled into countless dust and then transformed into Man Yujun¡¯s appearance with a sad and bitter face.


    ¡°Zhou Bao, I curse you¡­I curse you to die a violent death, I curse you¡ª!¡±


    ¡°Noise!¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s eyes were cold. His Tree of Seven Wonders stroked at him again. Man Yujun, who had been condensed by dust, completely disappeared and died. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao¡¯s other hand had formed a fist and punched upwards.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    His fist just hit a falling golden planet that had fallen from the sky.


    The loud booming noise shattered the space around him. His face changed and his body suddenly convulsed. He felt that his qi and blood was flowing wildly. The metallic planet also crushed into pieces.


    ¡°Shit! It¡¯s so fierce!¡± He was also astonished when he felt his qi and blood surging. It was merely the beginning, but it was so ferocious. He could not imagine the force of the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. Certainly, that was not Zhou Bao¡¯s main worry. He had already killed Man Yujun but he did not know whether his tribulation would also disappear.


    The fact proved that it would not. After he cracked the first metallic planet, the Divine Tribulations appeared one by one as if they were crazy. However, they did not drop to the ground. They stayed in the sky and were condensing. Their force was much more powerful than the one when he underwent the Immortal Tribulation. As the thunder and light were condensing, the destructive spirit had fallen off. And the metallic planets, metallic hills and even the metallic sea crash slammed down.


    At this moment, Zhou Bao did not dare to catch them. Instead, he used his Tree of Seven Wonders, shimmering and raging in the sea of tribulation, like a small boat.

 Chapter 881 - Insight From the Tribulation

    Chapter 881: Insight From the Tribulation


    Translator: Transn  Editor: Transn


    To all the practitioners, the Earthly Immortal Tribulation was not something fabulous. Once they smoothly underwent it, they would have a wonderful life. Otherwise, they had to face death in their remaining years.


    However, every successful practitioner desired for this tribulation.


    The reason was that the triumphant experience meant they would be immortal and eternal.


    Although the Immortal were experts who shared the same life with the world and they almost had an infinite lifespan, their life would come to an end with the end of an era when the world is destroyed. There is even no need to wait for this to happen because when the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena begin to play a part in earthly affairs, many immortals would not be able to carry on with their lives.


    The Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena was only a sign that the practitioner grew old. The Dharma Ending Age showed that they have aged. Hence, the Dharma Ending Tribulation was the tribulation that they were most afraid of.


    Zhou Bao had the Immortal cultivation and his accumulation was not strong enough to let him challenge the Earthly Immortal Tribulation and even to trigger it. Nonetheless, he was lucky this time. A Tribulation Taker had fired everything and launched the great Earthly Immortal Tribulation. Zhou Bao wanted to take this opportunity to attain the highest level in one leap and become an Earthly Immortal himself.


    Without mentioning about the probability of success for this scheme, it should be noted that ordinary people were not equipped with such resourcefulness and confidence.


    Ghost Child was silent now. His concern was not about the thunderbolts in the sky. He was mostly worried about the numerous metallic planets dropping down.


    Why were they called the metallic planets instead of the metallic globes?


    It was because they were very big. Even the smallest one had a diameter of 5,000 km. Nobody knew their weight. Such globes could be regarded as planets. Many planets floating in the hollow also had a similar size.


    Those metallic globes were incredibly heavy and absolutely powerful, so Zhou Bao did not dare to attack them. After a smash with his fist, he prepared to fight the Tree of Seven Wonders.


    Till now, he had not understood the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique totally, but he was successful in practicing the other six wonderful techniques. The Tree of Seven Wonders in his hand was not a sprout long before. Now it was a ten-inch long purple bamboo stick, giving off colorful light wrapping Zhou Bao and preventing him from being upset by the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena. What was more, the Divine Tribulation seemed not to work before the Seven Wonderful Techniques. Besides, with the use of it, Zhou Bao began to doubt the way it was chosen. Was the Extreme Realm of Force, crushing vacuum, really amongst the top 3,000 Great Ways? Could it surely surpass the Seven Wonderful Techniques in a complete state? Based on the current situation, the metallic globes fell down continuously. Each one brought a power equalling to that of Zhou Bao¡¯s fist. Some bigger ones caused a great impact which equaled Zhou Bao¡¯s all-out combat effectiveness. Facing such a powerful force, the Tree of Seven Wonders just stroked one time and released its whole force. Sometimes, it hit back the metallic planets which then collided with the falling planets and shattered.


    ¡°Seven Wonderful Techniques. Tree of Seven Wonders. They are indeed the reflection of the World Tree. It possessed such an overwhelming power before I finish practicing the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique. If I could have understood it totally, then¡ª! Gradually, Zhou Bao¡¯s eyes became blurry.Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting.


    ¡°Not good! The damned guy seems to be used!¡± Ghost Child hid somewhere because he was afraid of the Earthly Immortal Tribulation¡¯s power. As he was the red gourd¡¯s device spirit; the red gourd had been refined by Zhou Bao. In this way, they connected with each other with their mind. When Zhou Bao started to doubt himself, Ghost Child felt that things had gone wrong. ¡°Hey guy, what¡¯re you doing? Why are you in a daze? Don¡¯t be killed by the falling planets!¡± As he roared, a divine thought turned into a needle and suddenly stabbed Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit.


    ¡°Hiss¡ª¡± Taken aback by surprise, Zhou Bao gasped deeply. He felt a terrible force falling unto him before he realized what had happened.


    ¡°Oh no!¡± The Tree of Seven Wonders picked itself up fiercely.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    This time round, he was not as lucky as before. Even the Tree of Seven Wonders almost flew from his hands after it had been shaken by the great power.


    ¡°What¡¯s this?¡±


    A metallic planet knocked him away. But it was very different from what he had seen. This one was wrapped by golden lightning and big beams with crack sound. It also revealed a destructive fate. Seeing that with his eyes, Zhou Bao felt very nervous internally.


    Was it the tribulation?


    From the very beginning, he suffered the physical attack from the Earthly Immortal Tribulation while now he was synchronously experiencing the thunderbolt and lightning attack. Moreover, the physical attack was seemingly stronger.


    More and more such metallic planets emerged. Except for those big thunderbolts and lightning, they were also larger. Even the power of the Seven Wonderful Techniques could not stand it slowly. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao dodged in a quicker speed.


    ¡°What happened just now?¡± As he moved, he asked Ghost Child gloomily.


    ¡°Internal Demons. You questioned your way, so your heart was interrupted by them. Now you¡¯ve recovered, but you may take a long time to destroy it. Hehe. You are in big trouble!¡±


    ¡°In big trouble? So what if I need a long time. It¡¯s just a matter of time. And I have so much time!¡±


    ¡°No. It¡¯s not the case. Buddy. The Internal Demons from the Earthly Immortal Tribulation are different from others. They don¡¯t intend to kill you. Of course, if you can¡¯t bear them, it just shows your incapability. Its biggest function is to sow the seed of Internal Demons. The seed then hides deep in your soul in the future. Someday, when you are in the tribulation, it will work. You¡¯ve already got it. The seed is in your soul now. You will face trouble if you want to be a Celestial Immortal!¡±


    ¡°Shit! I haven¡¯t become an Earthly Immortal. Why do I want to be a Celestial Immortal?¡± Zhou Bao scolded himself with a low voice and kept moving in the river of metallic planets. He mainly evaded and warded off the dropping tribulations with his Tree of Seven Wonders under confident circumstances.


    ¡°How many metallic planets are there?¡± Slowly, they blunted Zhou Bao. He did not know how long it had been. It seemed that the metallic planets would not stop, which made him despair. He could almost revive because of his perfect practice of several techniques, like the Qi restoration of Dharma Power-restoring Skill, the return of Red Centipede Peace, the recovery of Immortal Body Technique and the strong resilience of


    Primordial Demonic Ape bloodline and Mysterious Divine Light. Without them, he could have turned into fine powder.


    ¡°It must be wrong. How could it be? The Earthly Immortal Tribulation is so violent at its beginning. How can an ordinary Immortal survive it? Even the Earthly Immortals are destroyed by it.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not the common Earthly Immortal Tribulation. This one appeared after a Tribulation Taker has burned his fate out, his Merit and Qi of heaven and earth and even his life. Do you suppose it is same with the common ones? It¡¯s just a beginning. Huh? Are you regretting it now?¡±


    ¡°Regreting? I¡¯m not!¡± Zhou Bao laughed and suddenly raised his Tree of Seven Wonders. It immediately radiated scattered lights. The tribulations disappeared where the colorful brilliance went as if they met their nemesis.


    ¡°Em? What¡¯s going on?¡± Zhou Bao was shocked by it, showing an eccentric expression.


    ¡°What¡¯s up?¡±


    ¡°Somehow I have a little bit understanding of the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique!¡± said Zhou Bao, his puzzled expression disappearing. He did not frequently wield the Tree of Seven Wonders as what he had done and just created mysterious traces in the air as if he found the right way to play it. All the Divine Tribulations vanished as they approached the traces. He was confident in them because he had no obstruction. The torrent of metallic planet were followed by the giant woods. The tribulation thunders, which were contained in the Heavenly Fire, the abstruse water, the thick earth, the spring-like wind and the tribulation cloud, were so powerful subsequently that they could destroy a macro world. They were also falling. However, Zhou Bao did not care about them. His ancient thoughts of primitive times came to him from the hollow. They were all the implications of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. They reminded Zhou Bao of the situation when he had once met the Innate Deity¡¯s remains when he was in the Taiyuan Heaven. At that time, he gained great benefits. His first fairy weapon, Furnace of Immortality, was also achieved. He also got the message from the ancient thoughts. There was only one difference. He did not understand the message given by the Innate Deity then. However, this time, he could comprehend the message from the hollow after he had operated the Seven Wonderful Techniques, which helped him further grasp the use of Seven Wonderful Techniques and made it better. His purple bamboo stick had become more flawless and gorgeous. The colorful radiance had nearly condensed into substance. He had ruined half of this tribulation¡¯s spirit. Ghost Child, who had great experience, was struck dumb with astonishment. How could it be? How did it happen? It was the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. It was rarely seen and too abnormal.


    Indeed, it was unusual! Did somebody go through it in this way?


    He was bewildered. But by now, Zhou Bao seemed to have been immersed in a fantastic state, so the tribulation did not cause any harm or effect on him.


    Judging by Zhou Bao¡¯s behavior, he looked liked he was in a state of enlightenment and was being influenced by Internal Demons at the same time. This time, Ghost Child did not dare to pierce him. Obviously, if he disturbed Zhou Bao¡¯s wonderful state, Zhou Bao would not be nice to him as before.

 Chapter 882 - Intense Atmosphere & The Axe of Fate

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    ¡°It seems that something is really wrong!¡±


    After Zhou Bao killed Man Yujun, he had to deal instantly with the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. At the very moment of Man Yujun¡¯s disappearance, Zhou Bao¡¯s Primordial Sword Spirit emerged and devoured Man Yujun¡¯s Divine Sense: the Immortal-eliminating Sword Qi and the Immortal-trapping Sword Qi.


    The absorption of the two Sword Qi meant that he had gained the Seven Wonderful Techniques as well as the Four Immortal-killing Swords. If he could have a better understanding of the latter skills and build up an Immortal-killing formation, then the Seven Wonderful Techniques would not even be its equal. However, currently it was just a dream to him. He expected the two Sword Qis to disappear in a short time. Besides, his body attracted the Earthly Immortal Tribulation¡¯s attention at a very early stage and became the focus of an attack. Therefore, his Primordial Sword Spirit absorbed the Sword Qi easily. After it had absorbed them, he felt a strong thought staying in the hollow where his body was also in the process of absorbing the thought. Meanwhile, two primordial spirits among his Primordial Spirits of Three Separations were taking in the same thought. Hence, aside from his body, both his Primordial Fire Spirit and Primordial Poison Spirit greatly benefited from it. His insight on the force and the law of Heaven and Earth increased to a whole new level. He even had a feeling that he now had the ability to battle against Dark Emperor Yu¡¯an. He could escape from him and resist him for a time, if he was given an advantageous situation. Now, the benefits he received were just from the start of the tribulation. Once he survived this tribulation, his strength would increase greatly and he would quickly become the strongest person among the Earth Immortals. At least, he was a counterpart of Dark Emperor Yu¡¯an. In this world, only the troop in the Jade Palace had the strength of similar level, so he did not need to be so cautious.


    It was a good thing for him. His thought also felt the presence of the Primordial Sword Spirit and knew that it was one of the Zhou Bao¡¯s Primordial Spirits of Three Separations. But the Primordial Sword Spirit had already digested two Sword Qis. The Four Immortal-killing Swords were now a complete collection and ignored the thought. His thought seemed to have realized it and did not go along with the Primordial Sword Spirit. For this reason, the Primordial Sword Spirit was clearly aware of the body¡¯s state. Zhou Bao had seemingly obtained a big advantage. However, why did he feel that the situation was very similar to what he had experienced when Man Yujun was burning his own fate, Merit and Qi of heaven and earth?


    It felt like he was now undergoing a more dangerous situation.


    However, this situation was a bit different. Man Yujun fired everything while Zhou Bao was just faced with a thought. His fate and merit were not affected and he had obtained great benefits from it. In other words, he encountered an unusual stroke of luck.


    Good luck was on his side. But why did the Primordial Sword Spirit feel so uneasy?


    It was a feeling of uneasiness and was totally unsettling.


    He had no idea where the uneasiness came from. It was just an intuition popping up from the bottom of his heart.


    At this time, the most powerful tribulation arrived. Clouds of bright red light flickered in the air. They were surging and moving. A blood red thunderbolt gave way to a wild storm and blocked out the radiance emitted by the Tree of Seven Wonders. The Primordial Sword Spirit suddenly transformed into a Sword Qi and shot towards his body.


    Whoosh!


    The violent Sword Qi broke up the blood red thunderbolt storm and created a giant gap in the hollow where endless pneuma was swirling around.


    ¡°What¡¯s this pneuma?¡± Now, Zhou Bao¡¯s body was alerted to what his insight had been trying to tell him. He felt the pneuma spewing from the spacetime gap. The pneuma was different from what he had encountered before; it seemed to possess some magical powers. Once his body came into contact with it, it was absorbed totally and rapidly into his system; He could feel the strength seeping into his body.


    His body was a rarity among the practitioners. Even he himself believed that he would not have any more space for progress if he became an Earthly Immortal. After all, his body strength had already been intensified to its maximum potential. But the current situation seemed to prove him wrong. The mysterious pneuma from the hollow gap refreshed his body and made it stronger. Moreover, his power increased from the pneuma incorporation. The strangest thing was that this pneuma had penetrated his Black Pearl and entered Azure Big World along with the Black Pearl.


    Yes. They went to Azure Big World.


    It had been protected by the Tree of Seven Wonders all this time, so the Dharma Ending Tribulation and Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena did not have any influence on the practitioners there; they could not enter that world.


    ¡°Qi of Creation. That¡¯s Qi of Creation!¡± Ghost Child suddenly showed up as if he was about to receive an incredible advantage. His red gourd also emerged. They rushed to the spacetime gap and ran into the Qi of Creation.


    Qi of Creation?


    Zhou Bao was astonished and then slowly relaxed. He knew about the Qi of Creation, too. It was a pneuma which appeared after the ending of the Earthly Immortal Tribulation and was one of the oldest pneuma. The reason that the Earthly Immortals had their fame was that they were remolded after the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. Consequently, they had the ability to create things. They could evolve their micro worlds into big ones and became the masters to escape from the fetters of the Law of Heaven and Earth. Compared with the Immortals, they existed in an utterly different life form.


    The quantity of the Qi of Creation depended on the level of the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. Some weaker Earthly Immortals only gained a small portion of it and would spend a long time improving their macro worlds. When their macro worlds reached a perfect state, they were then qualified to be Celestial Immortals. Some stronger Earthly Immortals had already had great accumulation before they met the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. Hence, they absorbed a lot of Qi of Creation and even completed their macro worlds instantly. They were already qualified to become an Earthly Immortal.


    However, every Earthly Immortal found it very difficult to become a Celestial Immortal even if they owned a perfect macro world. There was a small possibility that only one in a million Earthly Immortals could succeed.


    In fact, many mighty Earthly Immortals could trigger the Celestial Immortal Tribulation. But it was useless because one thunderbolt from the Celestial Immortal Tribulation could destroy the Earthly Immortal. The two tribulations were totally different things.


    Many powerful practitioners stopped after they had achieved the Earthly Immortal status, for the Celestial Immortal Tribulation was too violent. Ordinary practitioners could not get over it. There were some famous great practitioners and Earthly Immortals who had lost their lives in the Celestial Immortal Tribulation. They had been struck to death by the first thunderbolt.


    That explained why there were more Earthly Immortals but lesser Celestial Immortals. Among the Earthly Immortals in the whole Immortal Realm, there were only three well-known Celestial Immortals.


    However, apart from those ancient Earthly Immortals in the legend, no one else had received so much Qi of Creation as Zhou Bao.


    The Sages who were Celestial Immortals merely transformed their bodies and macro worlds with the Qi of Creation as they were obtaining the Earthly Immortal position. Nevertheless, the Primordial Sword Spirit had just shredded the hollow, which brought out the Qi of Creation and engulfed Zhou Bao.


    He recovered when his body, his macro world and his two primordial spirits could not harbor any more Qi of Creation.


    At the same time, he had a feeling that his spirit had also changed slightly in this Divine Tribulation.


    Seeing the hollow gap closing, Zhou Bao raised his fist. With a woosh, the space around him ripped apart and his spirit was released. Everything within an area of a hundred miles could not hide from it. What was more, he could feel a heavy sense of failure in the surrounding essence of the world.


    That spirit filled every single piece of pneuma and even integrated with the original source of the essence of the world. In other words, the Qi of Decay came from the essence of the world and was part of it. Besides, practitioners were affected by the decay of the whole world essence and then passed on such Qi of Decay. Under the constant external and internal attacks, even the Immortals could not bear it and they died in the end. Also, some Earthly Immortals could not resist it. Only some magic weapons of the Divine Sense with special functions, including the Seven Wonderful Techniques, Four Immortal-killing Swords, Crimson Thunder, were able to stand up to the Qi of Decay because of their strong powers. That was the reason why Zhou Bao and several people were called the Tribulation Takers of the Dharma Ending Tribulation. While other practitioners were caught in the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena, they could plunder and engulf with the help of their Supreme Powers and fate. Thus, they made rapid progress.


    ¡°Earthly Immortal. Tribulation Taker¡ª!¡± Zhou Bao gently closed his eyes. He could not absorb any more Qi of Creation, but his spirit and body continued gaining strength and was now entering a mystical realm. The red gourd suspended before he absorbed much more than he did. The gap was slowly closing. The red gourd produced an eccentric power field forming a circle around the gap. It gathered lots of Qi of Creation.


    ¡°Damned Ghost Child! Isn¡¯t he afraid he will burst with all the Qi he is absorbing?¡± Zhou Bao was jealous. Suddenly, a light flashed.


    ¡°Who?¡± Zhou Bao had gone through the Earthly Immortal Tribulation and absorbed the Qi of Creation, which made his spirit as sensitive as that of an Earthly Immortal. When the person disappeared, the Seven Wonderful Techniques in his hand flew to the light.


    ¡°Dang!¡± A loud crack sounded. Its colorful brilliance faded. As the purple bamboo stick bumped against the dull light, a small section of the stick was cut off. Zhou Bao felt an overwhelming power coming at him. He was struck violently and stepped back.


    ¡°Be careful! It¡¯s the Axe of Fate, the instantiation of the World Tree¡¯s Thunder of Fate. He controls the Thunder of Fate!¡± Ghost Child¡¯s voice sounded in Zhou Bao¡¯s heart.

 Chapter 883 - Beating Back Fate, the Azure Heavens Attack

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    The Axe of Fate was formed from the Thunder of Fate. When the heavens and earth first began, the Thunder of Fate split open the World Tree. Then everything became chaotic. Because of this, the Axe of Fate was the nemesis of the World Tree and the Tree of Seven Wonders.


    Zhou Bao used the Tree of Seven Wonders to block the attack of the Axe of Fate. Of course, they were not evenly matched. It was like smashing an egg against a rock. Zhou Bao¡¯s power was increasing and had far exceeded that of the party mounting the secret attack. Therefore, when his Tree of Seven Wonders was cut down by the axe, people were sent flying, but were not seriously injured. They just suffered a big misfortune when they weren¡¯t paying attention.


    As the cryptic axe light came into view, the attackers revealed themselves.


    ¡°A woman!¡±


    The attacker was female, an incredibly beautiful lady emitting a respectable spirit from head to toe. She wore a pale yellow imperial maid¡¯s dress and in her hand, she held a small, moon-white axe. She went for Zhou Bao in a split second, hacking away at him with the axe.


    ¡°This girl is so fierce!¡± Seeing the axe coming at him, Zhou Bao bared his teeth. He knew right away who the attacker was: the Jade Emperor Princess. The same Jade Emperor Princess who killed the Tribulation Taker Ying Hu who had the Thunder of Fate Tribulation Divine Sense; but it now seemed that this Jade Emperor Princess had taken it.


    ¡°Little girl, none of your brothers could kill you. Are you going to kill me with just that axe? Well, then I¡¯ll use this opportunity to kill you instead, seize the axe and then go and sort out your brothers!¡± As he was speaking, Zhou Bao retrieved his Tree of Seven Wonders that had been drifting through space.


    Within moments, it appeared in front of the Jade Emperor Princess¡¯ face and raised a fist.


    The Jade Emperor¡¯s omnipotent energy and Snake-like Breath Holding Skill matched the perfect insight of the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique¡¯s addition and the New Jin Earthly Immortal Realm. This fist was said to have the most perfect strike and did not make any sound when it moved. Strangely, it seemed to appear out of nowhere and then disappeared again.


    The Jade Emperor Princess was shocked. She did not consider that after Zhou Bao¡¯s advance to the Earthly Immortal level, he was able to move so quickly and attack so viciously. Seeing the oncoming attack, she instinctively moved the axe to block off the attack.


    Boom!


    A huge boom resounded, but Zhou Bao stayed where he was. However, the Jade Emperor Princess was sent flying. In this first contest between the two, it turned out that one of them was now at a disadvantage. Zhou Bao naturally could not waste this opportunity. He went straight after her and activated his punching skill. He launched a series of attacks that the Jade Emperor Princess had no way of countering.


    ¡°Wham, wham, wham¡ª!¡±


    Zhou Bao¡¯s fist continuously hit the moon-white axe and with every hit, the surrounding hollow was repeatedly smashed too. The Jade Emperor Princess retreated step by step and ended up being at the losing end. She showed no signs of giving up; all the power she had came from the moon-white axe in her hand.


    ¡°Roar¡ª!¡± Zhou Bao attacked with a huge bellow that resounded all around the Immortal Realm. His body underwent strange changes as his joints and muscles started expanding. A terrible spirit emanated from his body and in seconds he had turned into a formidable ape, with a thousand feet tall body. The Jade Emperor Princess looked like a speck of dust under this ginormous ape. Facing the towering ape, she had nothing else to fall back on and went pale. Before she could think about what to do next, Zhou Bao reached for her with his enormous hand.


    His hand blocked out the entire sky as it descended, as if the heavens were falling. In the approaching doomsday, he did not need a technique, nor Dharma power. All he needed was to push his enormous hand down with all his strength.


    The sky changed color!


    Of course, the Jade Emperor Princess would not just hang around awaiting her death. Seeing Zhou Bao¡¯s hand coming down and the entire sky turning into a giant millstone coming to crush her, she grunted delicately and chopped at the hollow with the moon-white Axe of Fate. She cut a hole in the giant millstone and knew that even if she were to use the Axe of Fate, she could not inflict any harm on Zhou Bao, let alone gain anything from this battle.


    But she wanted to go. Zhou Bao might let her have her wish, but that did not necessarily mean he would leave her behind in the imperial harem. But the empress¡¯ Axe of Fate was the nemesis of the Tree of Seven Wonders and he was increasingly unable to let the Tree of Seven Wonders go. Leaving such a dangerous weapon in the hands of an enemy would not be good for him; in fact, it would be a walking time-bomb. So, even if he could not capture this Jade Emperor Princess today, he would have to get hold of her Axe of Fate.


    Thinking about this, he made a tight fist with his other hand, ready to smash to pieces the hollow that had been ripped up by the axe.


    Seeing the storm of fists raining down, the Empress grimaced. She did not move the axe in her hand, but suddenly a cold, fierce golden light appeared from her body.


    Resplendent rays of golden light shone over everything, enveloping Zhou Bao¡¯s towering Real Body of Zhuyan. An incredibly dignified spirit came bursting out from this light and emitted a willpower that called upon all present to show respect to it. Zhou Bao could not keep a complete hold of himself under the effect of this willpower and his enormous body trembled slightly, tenaciously withstanding the desire to serve it.


    ¡°It¡¯s the Celestial Immortal Willpower!¡± In a second, the red gourd had breathed in the last of the Qi of Creation and now standing beside Zhou Bao, it enshrouded him with a burst of red light ¡°No wonder she could kill Ying Hu. She must have with her a Celestial Immortal talisman! She has the Celestial Immortal striking power. Quick, get out of here!¡±


    ¡°A Celestial Immortal talisman, Celestial Immortal striking power?¡± Zhou Bao focused for a second. In his current situation and with his current strength, he was confident he could take a strike from a Celestial Immortal. But he was no fool. Even if he could withstand the power, he would inevitably be seriously injured. All he could do was try to survive. Facing the Jade Emperor Princess yielding her Axe of Fate, how would this not be asking for trouble? So, whether he wanted it or not, with the protection of the red gourd, he would not bother with the Axe of Fate for the moment. He steadied his enormous body and burst open the Immortal Realm sky. As his body flashed, it brought with it a gust of Wild Wind before it disappeared into the Immortal Realm. As he disappeared, in a split second, the golden light from the Jade Emperor Princess¡¯ body condensed into a small point and swept over where he had just stood, tearing a hole in the Immortal Realm hollow.


    ¡°Zhou Bao, I cannot let you go!¡± The Jade Emperor Princess was ashen-faced, as the talisman glistening with golden light dimmed all of a sudden. It was the talisman her father had given her. It could be used three times in total, each time exerting the power of a Celestial Immortal. She had used it once on Ying Hu and had just used it a second time when she split open the space. Now, her talisman was left with the power for only one more strike.


    However, used in the right place, this talisman would save her life at a crucial moment. But the strike did not hurt Zhou Bao at all and the Princess could not come to terms with it.


    She did not critically injure Zhou Bao, which for her, was a waste of a strike. Now, there was only one chance left and she had to be more careful about how she would use it.


    ¡°Hmph! Zhou Bao, next time we meet, will be the day you die!¡± She directed her poisonous curse at the slowly closing gap where Zhou Bao had disappeared.


    ¡°That little lady is very vicious! She absolutely must not end up in my hands, otherwise I will make her do 180 poses before I destroy her!¡± After he had managed to escape from such a dangerous situation, Zhou Bao cursed her soundly.


    ¡°Boy, don¡¯t be too hard on yourself. You have achieved the Earthly Immortal rank and you managed to escape from the attack of a Celestial Immortal and acquired the other two Immortal-killing Sword Qis. D*mnit, your luck is really great!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right. It was a bit dangerous, but I gained a lot!¡± Thinking about his gains cheered him up. It was quite natural for him to obtain the two Sword Qis, but achieving the Earthly Immortal rank was just a happy accident. That was to say nothing of how he inexplicably comprehended the deepest Heaven and Earth Secret Techniques in the Seven Wonderful Techniques when he reached Earthly Immortal rank, which greatly increased the techniques¡¯ power. It had endless clever uses and could even effortlessly block the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. In the future, all he needed to do was avoid running into the Axe of Fate that was specialized in restraining him and he would have nothing to fear.


    Additionally, after he achieved Earthly Immortal status, he could strut around the Immortal Realm without having to worry about Emperor An attacking him. With his accumulation, he would not be as strong as the top ten Earthly Immortals, but it wouldn¡¯t be too far off, either. Should they ever be caught unawares, he could even take advantage and cause them great harm.


    Zhou Bao was confident in this because of his strength and because of his several fairy weapons.


    The Qi of Creation had a great effect on fairy weapons as well as people. His Furnace of Immortality, his red gourd and his Supreme Fairy Weapon the Black Pearl, had all gained massive advantages, particularly Azure Big World in the Black Pearl. It became exceptionally perfect after it was influenced by the Qi of Creation. The Netherworld Heaven had been combined with Azure Big World, and in Azure Big World he had a complete reincarnation system which had even spawned the netherworld. Of course, Zhou Bao controlled this netherworld. The Pool of Thunder Tribulation had received the Crimson Thunder and the Qi of Fate, so it had a formidable power. After an Earthly Immortal Tribulation and a Qi of Creation, it could increase Zhou Bao¡¯s power several times over. After today he could also be called an Emperor and he would be one of the strongest. If this had been in Heaven Realm World of antiquity times, he would have been as famous as the strongest emperors, like the Emperor of Moon Temple and the Thunder Emperor. He would have had supreme glory. But at the beginning of the Dharma Ending Tribulation, all this influence and all this glory would be completely meaningless. He needed strength and lucky chances to get through the tribulation, like the practitioners with the protection of the Tree of Seven Wonders and Crimson Thunder right now in Azure Big World!


    ¡°Um, I seem to have some problems!¡± Just when Zhou Bao thought about Azure Big World, his mind made a connection with it. In that moment, there was a strange voice and a bizarre spiritual force penetrating his spirit from inside Azure Big World.


    A sorrowful voice echoed in his soul. ¡°Be a good boy and go to hell!¡±

 Chapter 884 - The Start of Things to Come and the Azure Heavens Battle

    Chapter 884: The Start of Things to Come and the Azure Heavens Battle


    Translator: Transn  Editor: Transn


    Zhou Bao had killed Man Yujun, stolen his Sword Qi, undergone the Earthly Immortal Tribulation and then was ambushed. Now he was still recovering from the attack by the Celestial Immortals. He had gained a lot of benefits from this series of events, but it had been a huge drain on his mind. Currently this was his least inspired moment and he was at his most vulnerable stage. Suddenly a blast of willpower appeared and Zhou Bao was caught somewhat unprepared to withstand it. Within this brief moment, when he was caught unawares, his spirit was dragged into a spiritual space time.


    ¡°Azure Big World?¡± Zhou Bao was certain about his location.


    ¡°That¡¯s right. This is Azure Big World!¡± The spirit that had just attacked Zhou Bao responded so quickly that it surprised him. ¡°I never imagined your spirit would be so strong!¡±


    ¡°Pfft, strong? It¡¯s not my spirit!¡± Zhou Bao wanted to roll his eyes, but with his spirit the way it was, he could not. ¡°If I guess correctly, you must be the Emperor of Azure Heaven. You seem like you want to continue waiting. But I have suddenly reached the Earthly Immortal rank and you cannot wait any longer. You want to attack me now, am I correct?¡±


    The Emperor of Azure Heaven¡¯s spirit went silent. A dim figure appeared inside this mysterious space. This silhouette wore a gorgeous jade-green imperial robe and had an incredibly elegant face. It looked totally flawless, but then again, practitioners were by nature, good-looking. Even if they weren¡¯t initially good looking, as time passed and their cultivation grew day by day, their faces would also gradually change. The men would grow more handsome and the women more beautiful. But Zhou Bao had never met a guy as elegant as this.


    He looked like a typical drag queen.


    Especially when he was wearing that imperial robe ¨C it was unclear whether it was a man¡¯s robe or a woman¡¯s robe.


    ¡°I say, feminine one, are you male or female?¡±


    Zhou Bao blurted his question out tactlessly.


    The Emperor of Azure Heaven was visibly shocked. Zhou Bao had given him too many surprises today. To start with, he caught him off guard and attacked him when he was not ready. Then with this first utterance, Zhou Bao had unmasked his intentions and even revealed that he had long been aware of his existence. He prevented him from giving vague information, which took him a bit by surprise. Anyway, the first time round he had been thoroughly prepared. He had been waiting for this day ever since the antiquity times were destroyed. He was an Earthly Immortal who had prepared for nearly a million years and was now ready to get into action. How could his preparations have been undermined by Zhou Bao in a single utterance?


    But his second utterance indeed shocked the Emperor. No matter what, he did not expect Zhou Bao to blurt out this question so tactlessly. He had practiced for countless years. In antiquity times he had achieved the Earthly Immortal rank and was one of the renowned 99 Emperors of the Heaven Realm. No one was a match for him. How could someone be so daring as to ask such a question to his face? He did not know how to react.


    That was what Zhou Bao wanted. After he asked the question, his entire spirit condensed into a slender needle and viciously stabbed at the Emperor of Azure Heaven¡¯s silhouette.


    He stabbed him when he was in a distracted state. Zhou Bao knew this first prick could not critically injure his opponent; he had been preparing for this for such a long time already.


    Of course, everything went according to Zhou Bao¡¯s plan. His attack made the Emperor raise an eyebrow and that was all. After that, the Emperor had another surprise ¨C Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit disappeared and his spiritual mind could not even sense any trace of the existence of Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit.


    ¡°Such an unlucky guy. Although you have roused my spirit¡¯s attention, I have the Extreme Realm of Force practice.¡± After the crushing vacuum, under the effect of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan and the Mysterious Divine Light, Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit had long fused with his physical body. The Emperor of Azure Heaven had only gotten one divine thought out of Zhou Bao. Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit was tempered through the Qi of Creation and although it had given him great advantages, it also left him very tired and he had let slip a divine thought. This did not cause serious harm and he formed it into a needle of consciousness. But after this needle pricked the Emperor, it disappeared, never to be seen again.


    Meanwhile, Zhou Bao had entered Azure Big World.


    Azure Big World had evolved from Azure Heaven, which belonged to the Emperor of Azure Heaven. Its essence had been refined by Zhou Bao and had experienced the Earthly Immortal Tribulation. After reaching the Earthly Immortal rank, Zhou Bao¡¯s strength was on par with the Emperor of Azure Heaven and it was better for the Emperor not to come out. As soon as the Emperor appeared in the mystical darkness, Zhou Bao could vaguely work out his intentions.


    ¡°It¡¯s a good plan. Unfortunately, you didn¡¯t consider that I could have practiced the Extreme Realm of Force; You didn¡¯t think that I would have the Zhuyan bloodline. My spirit and physical bodies have fused together with my three primordial spirits, so you could not extract my spirit with your power alone. And now you have ended up in this situation, and pose no threat to me whatsoever!¡±


    The first thing that Zhou Bao did after appearing in Azure Big World was to slam his hand on the Wheel of Time and stop time there. After this trick, like the Sea Spirit Tree, the Tree of Seven Wonders produced some mysterious changes. The colorful light that had enshrouded the whole world started to retract to half its size. It still protected several of the important continents of Azure Big World, but the Azure Spirit Sea was no longer protected.


    Originally, when Zhou Bao transferred the population of Heaven Realm World to Azure Big World, he used techniques that had allowed them to develop freely. But in Azure Big World, no-one, no matter how high their cultivation, was brave enough to provoke the people close to Zhou Bao. Now the Emperor of Azure Heaven had been forced out. Before he had been in hiding, so as not to alert Zhou Bao and he could not do anything in Azure Big World.


    But now that he was able to, it was already too late.


    It was a case of forestalling problems. Although Zhou Bao had control over Azure Big World, he had no worries about the human tribes or even the demon tribes he was bringing into Heaven Realm World. But he did not trust all the living creatures and demons that had originally inhabited Azure Big World. It was thus necessary for the living spaces of the imported living creatures and the original living creatures to be strictly separated. Heaven Realm World had sufficient space for the creatures¡¯ activities and Azure Big World was big enough so that they would not get agitated. Now it seemed to have been a wrong decision.


    When the Qi of Decay was blocked out by the Tree of Seven Wonders and disappeared into its rays, it came streaming into Azure Big World. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao had almost stopped the flow of time there, so the speed of the Qi of Decay¡¯s flow slowed down too.


    But it did not disappear.


    The Qi of Decay could even erode time. Under the rays of the Tree of Seven Wonders that Zhou Bao controlled, the Qi of Decay filled every undefended corner of Azure Big World. When Zhou Bao pushed the Wheel of Time again, Azure Big World changed completely.


    The Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena covered the entire world at extreme speed. This was a huge threat to the planet¡¯s original demonic cultivations, the mighty living creatures. Meanwhile, Zhou Bao appeared in the depths of Azure Spirit Sea.


    ¡°He must be in this d*mned place. Haha, he really knows how to hide!¡±


    In the depths of Azure Spirit Sea was a huge trench. It was so deep that you could not see the bottom. Standing beside the trench, it looked like a normal trench. However, there were several layers of spacetime hidden in its depths.


    The innumerable spacetime formed a sheet that interacted with the endless spacetime of Azure Big World. It was in this spacetime that the Emperor of Azure Heaven¡¯s spirit hid.


    ¡°Emperor of Azure Heaven, you must have had things arranged like this for a million years or more. I think you were fully prepared, but you could not have thought that I, Zhou Bao, have practiced the Vacuum-shattering Way. You could not have thought that I, Zhou Bao, have the Zhuyan bloodline. So, you lost!¡± As he was speaking, a large hand appeared and smashed the endless spacetime. It collapsed and from inside, the hand drew out a piece of spacetime about the size of an egg.


    ¡°Stop! Mercy!¡± Just as Zhou Bao started, a huge shadow of a whale loomed and it crashed into Zhou Bao with all its might. Unfortunately for the shadow, a layer of incredibly strange space appeared beside Zhou Bao, like a formless black hole. No matter how much the whale shadow tried, using all sorts of methods, it could not reach Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao was not bothered about the whale shadow. This demonic cultivation was one of the ones that existed in antiquity times when he imported beings into Azure Heaven. It was quite powerful and it had some connection with Child-endowing Buddha. When he first encountered it, Zhou Bao was threatened by its power. But now that his power had far exceeded its own and Zhou Bao was in full control of Azure Big World, attacking Zhou Bao there would be just a pure fantasy.


    But Zhou Bao did not want to attack it, because now the Qi of Decay had started to influence most of Azure Big World. Although this was a mighty demonic cultivation, it could not escape the wrath of the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena. Rather than kill him there and then, he would torment him to death in the Dharma Ending Tribulation.

 Chapter 885 - The Plan Comes to Nothing, Deciphering the News

    Chapter 885: The Plan Comes to Nothing, Deciphering the News


    Translator: Transn  Editor: Transn


    Zhou Bao laughed coldly as he single-handedly took that unremarkable piece of space into his hand and looked at the demonic cultivation clan which was unsuccessfully attacking full on. In a moment, he disappeared into the depths of Azure Spirit Sea.


    An incredibly thick Qi of Decay gushed forth violently and after a few seconds, this mighty demonic cultivation could not maintain its actual body anymore. Its enormous figure started to corrode and numerous cracks appeared. It started shrinking slowly and as it did, it transformed into a huge brute. The brute started to age at a remarkable speed and turned into a withered old man. A twinge of fear flitted across his turbid gaze as he stared blankly about him. It was at this moment that he lost his life.


    The Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena. This powerful figure had reached peak Immortal demonic cultivation and in a short time had experienced the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena. It then died. It had no way of withstanding the Dharma Ending Tribulation and the Five Decrepit Phenomena.


    The processes had been accelerated on this demonic cultivation¡¯s body.


    ¡°Okay, okay, okay!¡± the Emperor of Azure Heaven¡¯s spirit repeated in the mysterious spacetime. ¡°I really could not imagine that I have been preparing for so long and made such big arrangements, only for it all to turn into a joke!¡±


    ¡°You have certainly made good arrangements. This spacetime can infinitely increase the strength of your spirit. It is very difficult to come by, but unfortunately, my spirit is not the same as any normal spirit. It is quite unique. Emperor of Azure Heaven, you are not a Celestial Immortal. You could not have known that my spirit has been infused with my physical body; these miscalculations are normal!¡± Zhou Bao laughed mischievously, his real body entering the mysterious spacetime.


    ¡°You¡¯re right. My plans were meticulous, you could even say it was fool proof. No matter what your strength is, all you need to do is to connect your spirit to Azure Heaven and I¡¯ll be able to absorb your Primary Spirit into this spacetime. With my million-year-old arrangement in this spacetime, you could not escape even if you were an Earthly Immortal. It would destroy and engulf your soul and you would become a true Tribulation Taker and cross this Dharma Ending Tribulation to become an Omnipotent Sage. With all my careful planning, I never would have thought that if something unforeseen should happen, the whole thing would be over!¡± The Emperor¡¯s spirit was expressionless, but from its movements, Zhou Bao could clearly sense a trace of helplessness.


    That¡¯s right, it was true helplessness.


    A million years of making arrangements and in the end, it had all turned into a joke. An Earthly Immortal Emperor could also be downhearted. What was more, he paid for this joke with this life. Zhou Bao could not let him survive for much longer, even if he existed only spiritually.


    ¡°Since primitive times, the Zhuyan bloodline had been eradicated and the Extreme Realm of Force and Vacuum-shattering Way has not really been practiced since the Primordial Origin. The possibility of both residing in one person¡¯s body is extremely small. It is normal that you did not plan for this and you are unlucky to have encountered it!¡± Zhou Bao smiled. ¡°I¡¯m just wondering how you could have planned for this, a Dharma Ending Tribulation Taker getting your Azure Heaven?


    ¡°Does this still need planning? Back then I transformed Azure Heaven and evolved it into a macro world in order to get it to the minimum standard of a macro world, at least at the time of the Dharma Ending Tribulation. The fact is that Azure Heaven is one of the 33 Heavens and has wonderful features. You must know that a guy with such great luck, might not be a Tribulation Taker? ¡°Even though the one who first obtained Azure Heaven was not a Tribulation Taker, the last owner of Azure Heaven was certainly one. That is why I launched an attack. It was not how you imagined. Seeing you practice at the Earthly Immortal rank, I feared I could not contain you. As you know, even though you practice at the Earthly Immortal rank, when your soul entered this part of spacetime, it could not be my opponent. I set the attack time for the start of the Dharma Ending Tribulation and when there was a sign that the tribulation was starting, I was all ready to attack. Unfortunately, although you had obtained Azure Big World, you were not overly reliant on it, which made it difficult for me to understand your true strength. If that weren¡¯t the case, things wouldn¡¯t be as bad as they are now.¡±


    ¡°If this is true, then all I can say is that you¡¯ve been a little negligent. Azure Big World is a good thing, but it¡¯s not as valuable as a Tribulation taker¡¯s trump card. Therefore, Azure Big World might not necessarily have been obtained by a Tribulation Taker; it just happened that way this time, that¡¯s all.¡±


    ¡°Just happened that way?¡± He chuckled. ¡°If what you say is true and it just happened that way, then I took the wrong course!¡± The Emperor sighed lightly. Disheartened, his spirit started to collapse.


    ¡°Do you want to die? It won¡¯t be that easy!¡± Zhou Bao laughed wryly, his large hand reaching out for the Emperor of Azure Heaven¡¯s spirit. But he was too late. Even though he ranked among the top ten Earthly Immortals in terms of strength, he was powerless to stop an old school Earthly Immortal who adamantly courted death. As he reached out his hand, the Emperor¡¯s spirit had already dissipated.


    The Great Ancient Emperor also commanded proper respect. He couldn¡¯t resign himself to dying at the hands of someone else and he did not want his spirit to be engulfed alive by someone else, either.


    Zhou Bao had moved quickly, but it was still too slow. He had only managed to grab the last trace of the Emperor of Azure Heaven¡¯s spirit.


    ¡°Oh! That¡¯s¡­ interesting?¡±


    Zhou Bao was quite disappointed and when this trace of the Emperor¡¯s spirit disappeared, he had a strange expression on his face.


    ¡°The Emperor of Deities, the one true god of the 3,000 Emperors of the Ways!¡±


    There were no important messages in this divine thought. The Emperor of Azure Heaven was truly old and had practiced since the ancient deities¡¯ era. He was proficient in the writings and knowledge of the era and this knowledge was contained in the divine thought. This knowledge had already been passed through remote antiquity and so it would not be so useful for Zhou Bao if he obtained it. Of course, this was if Zhou Bao did not have the Taiyuan Heaven Way of that era.


    At that time in the 33 Heavens Taiyuan Heaven, Zhou Bao had received an Innate Deity skeleton. He used the skull to refine his first fairy weapon and it was the Second Primordial Spirit that his Furnace of Immortality now relied upon. Zhou Bao also obtained a huge amount of Golden Dharma Power, as well as a lot of information he did not understand. This information had always been stored in the depths of his spirit, but he did not know what it represented because he did not understand the writing on the Innate Deity talisman. Today, when he absorbed this piece of the Emperor of the Azure Heaven¡¯s spirit, he received the remote antiquity divine tribes¡¯ writings and knowledge. He could then immediately understand the vast information from the Innate Deity skeleton.


    This information did not cover the divine tribes¡¯ cultivation method as he had previously imagined, nor their secret skills. It was just various basic knowledge of the divine tribes and some of their elementary ways of strength. Most importantly, it contained some truths about the Innate Deity and Primordial Demon era universes that had been lost previously.


    The Way of the Emperor!


    It was the Way of the Emperor of the 3,000 Great Ways which led to the primitive times era ending, as well as the destruction of remote antiquity.


    This information revealed to Zhou Bao the lost secrets of remote antiquity, and confirmed for him that the White Jade Sage¡¯s days would soon come to an end. This was because, even if he was the Celestial Immortal you least wanted to provoke, a Celestial Immortal achieving great results practicing the Way of the Emperor needed to be gotten rid of quickly.


    Practicing the Way of the Emperor, even in the Celestial Immortal Realm with sage status, it was still impossible to stop the Way of the Emperor from attracting those seeking power. Inevitably every Celestial Immortal will come up against it and would do anything they could to wipe out anyone who was a threat to their dreams of becoming the supreme force of the realm, the sole ruler of the earth and the heavens.


    The sole ruler of the earth and the heavens!


    This was the ultimate dream of all those practicing the Way of the Emperor; it was the path they would inevitably walk. In primitive times, there were several Way of the Emperor Practitioners who roused the primordial demons, Innate Deities and Primordial Fierce Beasts of that time from their peace. Countless wars ensued, bringing about the end of the primitive times era. In the ancient deities¡¯ period, the Lord of Light practiced the Way of the Emperor, and he basically turned most of the living creatures of the universe into his believers and used this immense power to start attacking other deities. Finally, this developed into the War of Deities, which led to many divine tribes uniting to suppress the Sacred City of Fate¡¯s Lord of Light. The clash of the Three Sacred Cities of remote antiquity caused the ancient deities to fall dormant and the power of all the remote antiquity deities slowly waned. The large families of antiquity times were gradually starting to arise.


    But when this Innate Deity was badly injured at the end of the primitive times, he retreated to Taiyuan Heaven. From an outsider¡¯s point of view, the whole ancient deities period rose and fell, but he could not have thought that in the final moments of the ancient deities¡¯ period, the final showdown between the Sacred City of Fate and Sacred City of Termination would happen near Taiyuan Heaven. When both were nearly destroyed, he had been severely injured and did not have the power to stop the destructive force of the two Sacred Cities. Finally, he died and all that was left in Taiyuan Heaven were his skeleton and a small amount of divine thoughts.


    ¡°This was the mystery of the disappearance of remote antiquity and primitive times, including the antiquity times, when three huge eras were destroyed in the Way of the Emperor. I don¡¯t know whether, during the Dharma Ending Tribulation, the Way of the Emperor will once again exert its great spiritual power!¡± Zhou Bao suddenly laughed as he thought about this. During the Necromancer¡¯s Tribulation, Jade Emperor Sage was still not a Celestial Immortal. At that time, he used the Necromancer¡¯s Tribulation to make the leap into the Celestial Immortal Realm. But he had practiced the Celestial Immortal Way for less than a million years and so he paled in comparison to the old-school Celestial Immortals. His Way of the Emperor was inadequate and right when the Dharma Ending Tribulation started, if he could not steal all of the tribulation takers¡¯ luck, it was not certain he would be able to push into a new realm with his Way of the Emperor and contend with the old-school Celestial Immortals. But if he succeeded, he could annihilate them.


    ¡°It seems that this Jade Emperor Sage must surely have a very strong trump card if he is so confident to take on so many ancient Celestial Immortals!¡±

 Chapter 886 - Inside the Treasure-snatching Rock and the Six Kingdoms

    Chapter 886 Inside the Treasure-snatching Rock and the Six Kingdoms


    Zhou Bao actually felt quite good right now. Having become an Earthly, he had taken complete control over Azure Big World and wiped out any hidden dangers. You could say that now, when compared to the other Tribulation Takers, he had a huge advantage.


    Of the five great Tribulation Takers, three were dead and two of those had their luck stolen by another. Now, only Kong Ti was left and another half: the Jade Emperor Princess.


    But by now these two were not a threat to him.


    ¡°The Dharma Ending Tribulation has arrived and this era should enter it slowly. First, I¡¯m going to the space inside the Treasure-snatching Rock. If I guess correctly, the Jade Emperor Sage should be planning on getting inside the rock. The Treasure Snatching Rock is nicknamed the King of Heavenly Fairy Weapons, because it has a superiority that cannot be matched by the other fairy weapons. It has been in the Immortal Realm for so many years that everybody knows about it. If nothing else, the three Celestial Immortals must have known too. However, I don¡¯t know why, but they did not attack. Perhaps they had too many misgivings!¡±


    Zhou Bao left the Treasure-snatching Rock to find a safe place to practice the Heaven and Earth Secret Technique, so he could go and find the Sky-walking Emperor. In the end, he ended up being ambushed by Yu An and was nearly beaten half to death. After he escaped, strange things started happening. When he was facing the Earthly Immortal Tribulation, he gained an insight into all the Heaven and Earth Secret Techniques. This meant that he did not need to find a secret place to practice. He was inspired; it was as if he had realized something. While his body flashed, layers upon layers of spacetime opened up. In a second, he had reached the Rock Cliff Sect and the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    ¡°Interesting. My guess was correct. Every single one of these guys has started their attacks!¡±


    Once he was an Earthly Immortal, the more he sent his feelings into the universe, the denser the Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena spirit became. The space in the Immortal Realm had once been completely solid, but now it was becoming ragged. Zhou Bao thought that there were lots of loopholes, making the rips in the space possible. But after a short instant of the space being ripped, Zhou Bao seemed to have sensed the presence of the human world. Pieces of space fell away in front of him like bits of tissue. With the loopholes that appeared under the effect of the Qi of Decay, the space slowly opened. Within a truly short time, he reached the Rock Cliff Sect. But by now, the ruins of the sect had turned into one huge battlefield. Countless practitioners were battling with each other; lots of magic weapons and fairy weapons were flying around. They seemed to be fighting over something and Zhou Bao could immediately see what it was ¨C they were fighting over gaining entry to the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    Zhou Bao did not join them, he just went straight into the rock. The other practitioners took a lot of time to get into the rock, because they had to get through countless battles to open the entrance and win the right to enter. For Zhou Bao there was no such thing as needing time to open the rock and enter.


    But like him, other practitioners with the Earthly Immortal rank like him, also did not exist.


    ¡°Oh? Emperor Yu An!¡±


    Having just entered the first layer of the rock, Zhou Bao felt the endless energetic gas attacking. He used his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to check the surroundings carefully. This guy actually replayed the storyline of the Six Kingdoms opera inside the first layer of the rock. Isn¡¯t it amazing?


    ¡°Yu An, I¡¯m surprised you¡¯ve dared to come out! I heard that your dad made you go and kill that Tribulation Taker Zhou Bao. I can¡¯t believe you scared him away, there really was no point!¡±


    ¡°Hahahaha. Whoever says there¡¯s no point must be a match for his father. Jade Emperor Sage, hahahaha, he actually thought that killing several Tribulation Takers would be enough to stop others becoming Earthly Immortals in the Dharma Ending Tribulation. Looking for the Omnipotent Sage¡¯s luck to withstand other Earthly Immortals, he did not think that the Emperor of Netherworld could also have comprehended the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way and become a Celestial Immortal. Even if this could allow Jade Emperor Sage to wipe out all of the Tribulation Takers, it would only end up helping the others!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, helping the others. Now, Jade Emperor Sage could certainly not attain the Omnipotent Sage status. The other sages would probably attack. I heard that recently, the Eye of the Storm and the Chaotic Poisonous Sea have both changed¡ª!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, there was a massive change. I¡¯m afraid those two Earthly Immortals will attack. The Jade Emperor¡¯s good days will soon come to an end.¡±Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting.


    ¡­


    The divine thoughts inside the first layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock were having a similar discussion. Only the ancient, mighty practitioners were able to freely enter the rock. Although these practitioners had not reached the Earthly Immortal rank, each of them had their own fearsome special skills and a lot of secret information that no one else knew. Each one had their own special methods, therefore many things that were secrets to other people meant nothing at all to them. At most, they would be considered gossip.


    Emperor Yu An stood with a sober expression in the first layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock. He emitted an extremely gloomy spirit from head to toe, which seemed to freeze all the space around him.


    Bad news travels faster than good news. He didn¡¯t realize that these guys knew about the brief event that had just happened. And he really had not considered that the Emperor of Netherworld could have practiced the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way, achieved sage status and helped Zhou Bao out. If he had known earlier, then he would not have gotten involved with the Zhou Bao situation. But seeing as he had already gotten involved, there was no way of getting uninvolved again. The Emperor of Netherworld Sage could help Zhou Bao once, but he might not necessarily be able to help him a second or a third time. What was more, he had also received the news that the Emperor of Netherworld Sage had left the Immortal Realm and had gone to the Extraterritorial Area to practice his Taoist rites. Clearly, he could not return to this Dharma Ending Tribulation, or even back to this era. This meant that he still had a chance to deal with Zhou Bao.


    This was why it was so urgent to deal with him. It was not that he hated him so much. But because he almost killed Zhou Bao, Zhou Bao had a great hatred for him.


    If it were someone else, he would just forget about it. But Zhou Bao was different; he was a Tribulation Taker. Since ancient times, any guy dealing with a Tribulation Taker would have one of two results, kill the Tribulation Taker or be killed by him. The annoying thing was that Tribulation Takers were not only tough, but they grew very quickly. After experiencing a life or death situation, they would grow like crazy and able to deal a severe blow to the experts who had once suppressed them. This was the law of Tribulation Takers since time immemorial and it was an unchanging truth. He attacked Zhou Bao once, but did not kill him. So, according to the unchanging truth, he would soon find himself in an unfortunate situation. The best solution would be to kill Zhou Bao before he grew completely. This was why he had come to the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    Zhou Bao left the Treasure-snatching Rock. Inside the rock, he had been nurturing a Genuine Spirit reincarnation. Entering the Human World and becoming a Tribulation Taker, he had an unbreakable karma with the rock. When the Dharma Ending Tribulation began, many ancient immortals tried to get hold of the Treasure-snatching Rock, but Zhou Bao was so deeply involved with the rock that he would certainly not sit back and let anybody take it. He was certain to return and if he wanted to redeem a favor from the rock, then this would be his chance.


    But he had not considered that inside the rock there would be so many ancient Earthly Immortals. Several of them had roughly the same strength as him. The rest were weaker and easier to defeat, but killing them was difficult. They were all difficult characters to deal with.


    ¡°Hmph. That guy¡¯s business has nothing to do with me. The reason I want to kill Zhou Bao is that he killed my brother!¡±


    ¡°Hehehehe, really? Nothing to do with that guy? Why do you sound so unsure?¡± A wave of cold laughter resounded through the spacetime. ¡°Since you are going to cause trouble with Zhou Bao, are you not involved with the rock¡¯s business? If you¡¯re not, then sure. I¡¯m afraid you¡¯re kidding yourself.


    ¡°Ying the Rat, if you have the guts, come out and say it. What do you call this, talking nonsense while hiding away in your secret, dark place?¡±


    He chuckled. ¡°Are you not called Emperor An ¨C ¡®the Dark Emperor¡¯? How is it the ¡®Dark Emperor¡¯ has not gotten hold of me, the rat, in my dark hiding place?¡± The gloating voice continued to float through the air, never revealing the ultimate meaning.

 Chapter 887 - The Moon Temple!

    Chapter 887  The Moon Temple!


    The hidden shadow did not seem to pay attention to what Yu An said. It just let out a cold, mischievous laugh. The noise disappeared soon after. Emperor Yu An was clearly unable to do anything about the laughing shadow and could only groan in annoyance.


    ¡°It seems that the Treasure-snatching Rock is really a hidden talent!¡± Zhou Bao was secretly watching all of this. He thought to himself, ¡°These old-school Earthly Immortals have hidden for countless years in single-minded practice in the Immortal Realm. I did not think that every single one of them would now appear and come into the Treasure-snatching Rock. This rock really deserves to be called the first Heavenly Fairy Weapon. Now that the Dharma Ending Tribulation has just begun, it has attracted all this attention. It seems that in this Dharma Ending Tribulation, the rock has a special role. Although I have come out from this rock, it has never been a factor that has gotten me to this point. Maybe I am also the rock¡¯s chess piece. But this chess piece has enough power and if it¡¯s going to attack me, then I will have to protect myself.¡±


    Zhou Bao became wary of the Treasure-snatching Rock, and of course, he did everything with more care. But in the first layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock, a thousand incredibly strong Earthly Immortals were confronting one another and after quite a long time, a leisurely sigh was finally heard. ¡°It¡¯s getting late. How long are these people prepared to wait here?¡± The Dharma Ending Tribulation has already started. The longer we wait, the more dangerous it gets; everyone must be very clear about that. I am waiting for the Earthly Immortals. We have a way of surviving the destruction of the universe and the changing of eras. But with each era we pass through, a little bit of our essential power disappears. Maybe one day the Celestial Immortals will be spooked out of their minds and with every Dharma Ending Tribulation there is an opportunity. Now, the opportunity is right in front of us and everybody wants to grab it. Inevitably, we can only depend on our own skills. The outermost layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock will be of no importance to us whatsoever, no matter how great our skills. It will be better for everyone to enter together and if someone attacks then we all join forces to defend ourselves. Who¡¯s with me?¡±


    ¡°Hear, hear!¡± After he had spoken, the group of Earthly Immortals cheered and nodded their heads. Then they all disappeared into the first layer.


    ¡°Who is this guy? He can really get the crowd going!¡± Zhou Bao muttered to himself. He did not hesitate and followed the crowd into the second layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock and then to the third layer.


    To the Earthly Immortals, the Treasure-snatching Rock seemed almost harmless and they barely took any defensive measures.


    The group of Earthly Immortals soon congregated at the center of the rock.


    ¡°You came so quickly!¡± The Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s device spirit seemed to have been waiting for them for a while. ¡°Emperor of Moon Temple, Emperor An and the other gentlemen, you have all come very quickly!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s no use being slow, Treasure-snatching Rock, this era¡¯s Dharma Ending Tribulation has already started and you have kept that object for so long. Can you hand it over?¡±


    A faint figure appeared in the space at the center of the rock. It wore a moon-white traditional man¡¯s gown. The androgenous Great Ancient Emperor looked delicate and pretty. He brought with him a trail of an unbelievably cold spirit when he appeared, which soon became the focal point of the space in the rock.


    ¡°Emperor of Moon Temple. Haha, you were once the first emperor, but as it turned out, the Jade Emperor entered the sage realm before you! I think you haven¡¯t come to terms with it!¡±


    ¡°The Jade Emperor has his own Way and I have mine!¡± The Emperor of Moon Temple retorted and frowned slightly. ¡°He might have succeeded, but he has not traveled far along his road. So don¡¯t worry about me!¡±


    ¡°Okay then. But there is one thing. So many of you have come rushing here, who am I supposed to give the object to?¡± the rock¡¯s device spirit said carelessly, as a strange, ominous light flashed from it.


    A gloomy voice resounded. ¡°Don¡¯t use these ancient, childish tricks. What should be fought over will be fought over, but this is before you hand it over. And if you don¡¯t hand it over, then you can fight for it after you kill me!¡±


    ¡°Ying the Rat, it seems you have lived too long. Not only does Yu An want to kill you, but so do I!¡± The device spirit said nonchalantly. After the voice stopped speaking, the entire space suddenly started to ripple, like a stone hitting water. Several Taoist figures emerged from the ripples.


    This was the space inside the Treasure-snatching Rock. While you were inside, no matter how many secret skills you harbored, it was impossible to avoid being heard and seen by the rock.


    ¡°You are just a damned rat. Die!¡±


    After the figures appeared, Yu An moved. A huge shadow formed and viciously bombarded the faint figures.


    ¡°Yu An, you b*stard!¡± the Taoist figure shouted. Its body flashed quickly and like a real rat in a sewer, he dodged left and right to avoid Yu An¡¯s attack. He was not able to completely evade the attack, but managed to weaken the strikes of the attack until it was reduced to nothing. He was still cloaked in a gray light, which seemed to be a kind of defensive fairy weapon. It was very likely a Heavenly Fairy Weapon and blocked most of Yu An¡¯s strikes.


    With his odd body movements and fairy weapon, he could block almost every single one of Yu An¡¯s strikes. But the strikes that got through left him splattered with blood and he wailed and screamed in anger and pain.


    ¡°Oily rat! I can¡¯t believe the number of strikes you are able to block!¡± Yu An was the ¡°Dark Emperor¡±. He raised his hands. The strangest thing was that this Earthly Immortal was hidden in the dark and with his strange body movements he could control everything while undercover. As long as he was not detected by Yu An, he was fine. If he was, then he would be completely under his control. Although he had a Heavenly Fairy Weapon for protection and bizarre body movements, his shadow was becoming more and more visible. His figure started floating slightly.


    The other Earthly Immortals in the Treasure-snatching Rock did not make a sound; they watched in silence at the two men arguing. They had no intention of getting involved at all.


    ¡°Yu An, your girly highness, you shouldn¡¯t bully others! I¡¯m telling you, even if you were able to kill me today, I would be sure to rip a piece out of you and make sure you don¡¯t get what you want. Even in this era, you have no way of attaining sage status and you want to become an Omnipotent Sage?¡± The shadow¡¯s hysterical screaming made Yu An raise his eyebrows slightly. ¡°Are you threatening me?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t think that you¡¯re some kind of big shot. Maybe killing me will help you gain face?¡±


    ¡°You are asking for it!¡± Yu An roared and just as he launched his Killer Thunderbolt, a clean, cold spirit appeared.


    ¡°Yu An, did you not hear what I just said?¡± The Emperor of Moon Temple¡¯s crisp voice echoed through the space and the surrounding spirit suddenly turned icy cold.Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.webnovel.com for visiting.


    Finally, a bitter smile appeared on Yu An¡¯s expressionless face. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t dare!¡± His murderous intent and explosive rage melted away like snow in spring. ¡°Whatever you say! Since the Treasure-snatching Rock won¡¯t do anything unless forced to, why don¡¯t you sort him out first?¡±


    The Emperor of Moon Temple nodded and looked at the surrounding Earthly Immortals. They were all deathly afraid.


    A Heaven Realm emperor of yesteryear, the Jade Emperor controlled everything, but the 99 Emperors were not united and their great power was divided. The Jade Emperor could not control some of the mightier emperors. Just like Luo Yi of the Sui dynasty, they obeyed certain orders, but not orders from the Emperor, particularly the Thunder Emperor and the Emperor of Moon Temple.


    The Thunder Emperor controlled the Thunder Tribulation and was a very particular character. The Emperor of Moon Temple had a very mysterious origin. Although the Jade Emperor had now reached sage status, he had to give them some degree of face. Emperor Yu An never deserted anybody; he had a great cultivation and was an arrogant character. But in front of the Emperor of Moon Temple, he was clearly the underdog.


    ¡°Treasure-snatching Rock, hand the object over. This time you don¡¯t have a chance!¡± Suppressing Yu An, the Emperor of Moon Temple¡¯s clear, cold pupils gazed steadily at the rock. But this time, there was no longer the same peace as before. As he spoke again, an incredibly clear, cold spirit started to spread throughout the space inside the rock. This clear, cold spirit was very strange. To start with it was just like a cold wind, but in a moment, it had become an azure light that froze everything.


    The Icy Divine Light!


    Zhou Bao gasped from his hiding place in the dark. It was the Icy Divine Light.


    Zhou Bao¡¯s Icy Divine Light had only half the power when compared to that of the Emperor of Moon Temple. To start with, it caressed the face like a crisp breeze, but by the time you felt the slight chill, the heavens and earth would already have been totally frozen. There were only Earthly Immortal Emperors inside the Treasure-snatching Rock now and they were all top level. They weren¡¯t a match for Emperor Yu An and the Emperor of Moon Temple, but they weren¡¯t far off, either. But in this light, most of them were frozen until they were blue in the face and had no choice but to use their own macro worlds and draw energy from them in order to stay conscious.


    The Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s expression also started to look strained. After the Emperor of Moon Temple produced the Icy Divine Light, he disappeared on the spot. The rock disappeared soon after.


    Whoosh!


    A strong hiss was heard in the space and the Emperor of Moon Temple and the Treasure-snatching Rock appeared right in front of the tight gathering of Earthly Immortals. Then shortly after, he flew into three or four of the Earthly Immortal Emperors. But none of them dared move, because the Emperor of Moon Temple¡¯s was pointing his slender fingers at the rock¡¯s forehead.


    ¡°You¡¯re not going anywhere. Take out the object!¡±


    ¡°Emperor of Moon Temple, do you really think that this era is your chance?¡± The rock was overruled by the emperor, but it did not panic at all. In fact, it had a mocking smile on its face. ¡°You are too optimistic! You did not consider who you were offending back in the day and you think you can get away after just 16 eras?Well, can you?¡±


    ¡°What are you saying?¡± The Emperor of Moon Temple¡¯s pretty face suddenly turned sinister.


    ¡°Do you think I really don¡¯t know what you are up to?¡± The rock laughed coldly. ¡°Forget about it. Even if I gave you that object, you still could not obtain the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way, because your path was blocked sixteen eras ago!¡±

 Chapter 888 - The Celestial Immortal Remains

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    ¡°Shut your mouth!¡± Anger flashed across his elegant face and a blue ray pulsed from his fingertip, going straight through the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s device spirit.


    ¡°There¡¯s no point in killing me!¡±


    Under the blue divine light, the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s device spirit grew dim and then disappeared. ¡°The object is in this layer of space. If you want it, go and find it yourself!¡±


    The voice grew weaker and disappeared into space along with his body.


    ¡°Moon Temple, you don¡¯t need to fight anymore, it¡¯s no use. This guy has no conscience. He said before that he¡¯ll block your road to illumination. No-one can stop him, even the Dao Ancestor himself couldn¡¯t come to your aid!¡±


    After the Treasure-snatching Rock disappeared, a weak divine thought entered Emperor of Moon Temple¡¯s spirit.


    ¡°How do you know all this? Where did you come from?¡±


    He laughed mischievously. ¡°Where do you think I came from? I was produced by the petty guy, like the thing you¡¯re after. Do you think you actually have a chance of getting it?¡±


    The Emperor of Moon Temple fell silent and went pale. Nobody at the scene said a word. His body just disappeared into the space inside the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    Emperor An was quite surprised to see the emperor suddenly disappear. He wanted to go after him, but seeing the third layer of the Treasure-snatching Rock was already in a complete mess, in the end, he left it.


    All of the Earthly Immortal emperors by now had lost any nuances of dignity and started digging frantically in the third layer for the mysterious object.


    ¡°What actually is this thing that is making the Earthly Immortals so crazy?¡± Zhou Bao had used his Snake-like Breath Holding Skill to hide inside the third layer, so he was not worried about being discovered. With his power, even if the Jade Emperor Sage came in person, he wouldn¡¯t be discovered.


    ¡°What about the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s device spirit? He said if there was a problem he would come and find me, but now even if he were here himself, none of them would have time to help me!¡±


    ¡°Not necessarily, boy!¡±


    He did not come to any conclusion. A thought suddenly broke into his consciousness.


    ¡°Treasure-snatching Rock?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry! I can¡¯t see your inner thoughts except when you think of something involving me, only then can I react!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not dead?¡±


    ¡°I am the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s device spirit. If the Treasure-snatching Rock is not dead, then neither am I!¡± the thought said weakly. But within the fluctuations in his thoughts, Zhou Bao could clearly feel one that was decidedly weak.


    ¡°Even if you¡¯re not dead, you must be hurt after the Emperor of Moon Temple¡¯s attack! It¡¯s utterly impossible that you¡¯ve even materialized!¡±


    ¡°Moon Temple need not think that he is powerful. He was even considered the prime Celestial Immortal, even more powerful than the Thunder Emperor. But he cannot complete the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way that had been ordained several eras ago.¡±


    ¡°Several eras ago? Has he really lived that long?¡±


    ¡°What is the use of living that long when you are forever unable to take that important step? The longer he lives, the unhappier he gets. He¡¯s gone crazy!¡± The Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s voice grew gloomy. ¡°It¡¯s the other person you need to look out for.¡±


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°Jade Emperor Sage. He¡¯s caused huge problems for me as well.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me he¡¯s already arrived?¡±


    ¡°Yes. He¡¯s here. He¡¯s completed the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way, but he used cheap tricks to achieve it. So he needs to improve.¡±


    ¡°What is this object that everyone is fighting over?¡±


    ¡°The Celestial Immortal remains!¡±


    Zhou Bao was stunned. ¡°What, Celestial Immortal remains? Celestial Immortals can die as well?¡±


    ¡°Celestial Immortals used to battle before as well. Even if you were considered a Celestial Immortal, if you messed with the wrong person, you could die!¡± There was a sense of hopelessness in the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s voice. ¡°The Celestial Immortal remains were left over from people over twenty eras ago; their cause of death is unknown. They were refined by my owner and placed into the Treasure-snatching Rock to become its core driving force. How else do you think I¡¯m so full of spirit? This was the way the Celestial Immortals made many fairy weapons.¡±


    ¡°Celestial Immortals could also die, so they too were not completely safe!¡±


    Zhou Bao thought to himself and decided that from now on he would keep a very low profile. Even if he reached the Celestial Immortal status, he couldn¡¯t go around carelessly provoking people.


    And he was overconfident; an Earthly Immortal thinking about what would happen after reaching Celestial Immortal status.


    ¡°Currently I have an Earthly Immortal cultivation. I don¡¯t take anyone who call themselves an Earthly Immortal seriously, but I am in no way a match for a Celestial Immortal!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve never let you have a genuine fight against a Celestial Immortal, it¡¯s not realistic. I just want you to seize the Celestial Immortal remains at the appropriate time!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s different. Since Jade Emperor Sage has gotten involved, wouldn¡¯t it be exceptionally difficult to seize the remains from him?¡±


    ¡°He might be a Celestial Immortal, but he is far from being the only one in the Immortal Realm. The other two can¡¯t fight directly against him, but they can slow him down!¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because he practices the Way of the Emperor!¡± the Treasure-snatching Rock said. ¡°Although it¡¯s strictly forbidden for Celestial Immortals to fight among themselves, those practicing the Way of the Emperor can get away with it by using secret methods.¡±


    Zhou Bao understood. He had obtained part of the Emperor of Azure Heaven¡¯s memory. When he broke open the messages of the Innate Deity remains of the Taiyuan Heaven, he discovered some of the Way of the Emperor¡¯s secrets.


    The Way of the Emperor was one of the 3,000 Great Ways and had enough power to achieve a Celestial Immortal status. But after he proved his status, he did not calmly let things take their own course like the other Great Ways. Instead, he went crazy and wanted to control everything. This caused great trouble for the other Celestial Immortals as it turned out this could endanger their lives. This was strongly frowned upon.


    Because of this, they had a right to be fearful. Those Celestial Immortals sages performing their Taoist rites in Extraterrestrial Areas perhaps did not have the time or were not in the right frame of mind to deal with this. But the two Sages that remained in the Immortal Realm could not just sit back and watch.


    In recent years when Jade Emperor Sage reached Celestial Immortal status, Jade Emperor Palace¡¯s influence expanded quickly within the Immortal Realm. But the Immortal Realm was too big, about as big as Heaven Realm World. Needless to say, these two had already run into Jade Emperor Sage.


    Because of the size of the Immortal Realm, the Chaotic Poisonous Sea and the Eye of the Storm coexisted peacefully with the Jade Emperor Palace. But this did not mean that Gale Sage and Nine-Headed Fierce Beast Sage could just sit idly and watch as Jade Emperor Sage grew in power and tried to make amends for his past misfortune. They could not just go straight ahead and attack the Jade Emperor Sage. Firstly, it would be against the rules and secondly, it would let the Celestial Immortals off too easily, whether they won or not. These two guys did not have the best characters, so of course, they would not be stupid enough to stop the disaster coming for the other Celestial Immortals. They would certainly deal with the Jade Emperor Sage, but they would not go into open conflict with him. At most, they would sabotage Jade Emperor Sage to slow him down. It would be left to luck to decide what the final results would be.


    The Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s device spirit placed its hope on the possibility that the two sages could slow Jade Emperor Sage down.


    Zhou Bao raised his eyebrows slightly and said, ¡°Maybe you are relying entirely on this? If so, then you wait for the orders with regards to the Celestial Immortal¡¯s remains; don¡¯t think about asking me to fight Jade Emperor Sage!¡±


    Zhou Bao sounded so resolute about this that the device spirit was shocked. ¡°Of course I¡¯m not relying on it completely and I won¡¯t make you go and fight the Jade Emperor Sage directly. All I want you to do is bring the Celestial Immortal remains out of the Treasure-snatching rock. After all, I have been good to you and Gale Sage and Nine-Headed Fierce Beast Sage will also help you in secret!¡±


    ¡°Still so charitable?¡± Zhou Bao rolled his eyes. He did not believe the Treasure-snatching rock at all.


    ¡°Why would I not be charitable?¡± The device spirit¡¯s divine thoughts by now seemed very fleeting. ¡°Those remains have already existed inside the Treasure-snatching rock for sixteen whole eras! I have observed and examined the Celestial Immortal¡¯s secrets in great detail. They¡¯re of no use to me. For me, the most important thing now is to be able to get rid of the Treasure-snatching rock¡¯s body and to get through the reincarnation tribulation.¡±


    ¡°What? You want to be reincarnated?¡± Zhou Bao knew immediately what the device spirit meant. ¡°Are you crazy? This is the Dharma Ending Tribulation! If you are reincarnated, then you won¡¯t reach the Earthly Immortal state! Wait until this era is destroyed until you¡­!¡±


    ¡°After I¡¯ve gotten away, I can be led by my master to the Extraterrestrial Area!¡± The Treasure-snatching rock seemed to understand what Zhou Bao was saying and smiled slightly. ¡°My experience during these 16 eras is just a process that I have tempered with. You shouldn¡¯t consider me the king of Heavenly Fairy Weapons. I have been the mightiest for several eras, but in fact, I just have the background of a simple rock, unintentionally and magically transformed by my owner. Only with great luck have I managed to achieve this success. Because of my low background, practice for me was very hard and it needed more than ten years of refinement before I had a real chance for the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way. In this era, I have evolved universes and my primordial spirit has been thoroughly refined without a single shortcoming. Next, I will be able to return to the command of my master!¡±


    ¡°I see.¡± Zhou Bao was speechless. The respect he had for this Treasure-snatching rock¡¯s master was continuous like a torrential river. Transforming a simple rock into a Celestial Immortal, what kind of power and cultivation was this?


    ¡°Since your master is so remarkable, then you don¡¯t need to be worried about Jade Emperor Sage, right?¡±


    ¡°Nonsense. If my master and I help each other, what kind of refinement is that? Supposing I become a Celestial Immortal in the future, I will be looked down upon by the several guys under my master¡¯s command,¡± the Treasure-snatching Rock said. ¡°Okay, then. I don¡¯t have anything else to say to you! I have just been shot at by that scoundrel Moon Temple. My spirit is having some problems and I need to go and find a place to recover. The Celestial Immortal remains are inside the Treasure-snatching Rock. If you have originally come from the Treasure-snatching rock, and your spirit has received the benefits from the Celestial Immortal remains, then it would not be difficult to seek them out! But it¡¯s got nothing to do with me!¡± The Treasure-snatching Rock stopped projecting its thoughts and disappeared from sight.


    ¡°The Celestial Immortal remains!¡±

 Chapter 889 - The Discovery

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    Zhou Bao inhaled lightly, and focused his willpower. He was at the absolute pinnacle of his Earthly Immortal cultivation and had cultivated his Primordial Spirits of Three Separations. He was a Tribulation Taker, had great luck and on top of that, also had the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s origin. All of these were advantages others did not have and so he believed that he could escape from the clutches of Celestial Immortals like Jade Emperor Sage or even snatch food from the jaws of the tiger and gain something from the situation.


    ¡°Maybe after I get through this, I will reach the peak of my luck!¡± He exclaimed to himself. Ghost Child had warned him that recently his luck had been plentiful and adding oil to fire would be disadvantageous. This was not a good sign and it made him extra cautious.


    Zhou Bao keenly understood that even though he was a Tribulation Taker, his luck would not last forever. Having been around Heaven Realm World for so many years with his everlasting luck, he had endless advantages. He was truly self-cultivated. He had cultivated himself to the Earthly Immortal Karmic Rank and even had the chance to obtain the legendary Celestial Immortal status, which was considered the status of the special entity of the Omnipotent Sage.


    All of this was like a dream.


    But all dreams must come to an end and soon it will be time to wake up.


    His luck was essential, but heaven¡¯s endless blessings would eventually end one day.


    Luck was not limitless.


    Otherwise, Celestial Immortals would not die.


    Zhou Bao knew he was a Tribulation Taker with amazing luck. But he also knew that with the arrival of the Dharma Ending Tribulation, his great luck would soon come to an end.


    Breaking into the Earthly Immortal realm, he had been able to sense the mysterious luck of the spirit world. He could sense his own luck burning by its own will, as if he had suddenly added a pile of fuel to his bonfire. The more it burned the more it prospered. Now, he was quickly reaching its peak.


    Adding oil to fire to make it burn brightly.


    But what will happen after the raging fire had burnt up all his luck?


    Zhou Bao did not want to think about it. He just wanted to find the Celestial Immortal remains before his luck burnt out completely. In other words, he wanted to find Jade Emperor Sage while his luck was still blazing, no matter what would come of it. With this amazing luck, he knew that he could emerge from an encounter with Jade Emperor Sage unscathed. He understood deep down that this was his only way to escape from his subordinates in one piece.


    This was a rare and precious opportunity and it was the only opportunity.


    The interior of the Treasure-snatching Rock was like a shrunken universe. It was difficult even for an Earthly Immortal Emperor to find anything they wanted inside.


    Zhou Bao listened to what the Treasure-snatching Rock device spirit had to say. While he was extending his spiritual mind as best as he could, he tried to pick up the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s telepathic spirit, while also looking out for the Celestial Immortal remains¡¯ spirit.


    The master of the Treasure-snatching Rock did not know which mighty power had sealed the Celestial Immortal remains into it. Through several eras, the remains had become an integral part of the rock.


    You could even say the Treasure-snatching Rock was king of Heavenly Fairy Weapons, because the remains provided it with a continuous supply of energy, meaning this fairy weapon had the eternal spirit of a Celestial Immortal as well.


    Yes, eternity!


    A Celestial Immortal was relative to what was innate in a living creature, the prime characteristic of everything material and spiritual¡ªeternity!


    The Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s device spirit had to break through the binds of its own immortal characteristics and attain the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way. However, Zhou Bao was the opposite. He needed to find the Celestial Immortal Remains and gain insight into its eternal spirit and even absorb it to attain the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way.


    In a certain sense, this was a shortcut, like the one Jade Emperor Sage took to complete his Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way. But Zhou Bao had an advantage Jade Emperor Sage did not, because his essence was the soul produced by the Treasure-snatching Rock. From its birth, it had been influenced by the Celestial Immortal remains, which was unimaginable for normal people. Even though this really enabled him to understand the concept of the Celestial Immortal¡¯s immortality, it was similar to those Celestial Immortals that died.


    For them, it was a shortcut.


    And he too, was seeking this shortcut!


    The divine thoughts rippled, pervading the whole space quicker than Zhou Bao had expected.


    And in a moment, his divine thoughts vaguely filled the space inside the Treasure-snatching Rock. The shape of the space inside the rock could be felt inside his spirit.


    It was egg-shaped!


    At first, these words appeared in his mind.


    Then, in a moment, he sensed an excellent place within the egg-shaped space.


    Countless Earthly Immortals were still looking for this elusive place. Around it, unintelligible divine thoughts were fluctuating.


    ¡°Not good!¡±


    Zhou Bao¡¯s divine thoughts had just come into contact with the fluctuating divine thoughts and he cried out. It had exposed the remains¡¯ long-concealed true form.


    They¡¯re over there! The Celestial Immortal remains are over there!¡± he shouted, pointing in their direction. A strange strength came shooting out from his fingers, breaking open the space directly.


    Zhou Bao startled almost all the people in the space.


    ¡°Zhou Bao! Good guy! You dare to show yourself!¡±


    Emperor An cried out when he saw Zhou Bao. He spread out his right hand, grabbing fiercely for Zhou Bao.


    ¡°Yu An, don¡¯t take yourself so seriously!¡± Seeing Yu An reaching for him, Zhou Bao just laughed. Before reaching the Earthly Immortal level, he feared this Yu An. But now, having gone through the Earthly Immortal Tribulation, he and Yu An were now on equal levels. How could he still fear him?


    He punched Yu An¡¯s outstretched hand.


    Boom!


    Their hands collided. Yu An was totally astonished and he quickly withdrew.


    Zhou Bao stood still. People were very surprised that he had gained the upper hand.


    They did not know that not long ago, Zhou Bao had been almost wiped out by Emperor An. But the emperor had run amok in the universe for more than a million years. Where else would he have run into this type of situation, except under the hands of a Celestial Immortal? Where else would he have endured such hardship?


    Yu An¡¯s expression darkened totally. This had surprised other people, but it was an absolute shock for him.


    It was only recently that this guy had fled from him in total defeat. But in such a short time he had become so powerful!


    Even if he did cross the Earthly Immortal Tribulation to become an Earthly Immortal, there was no way he could have such a strong combat capability!


    But the truth presented itself right before his eyes. Zhou Bao¡¯s combat capability had grown to an inconceivable level.


    It defied all logic!


    Zhou Bao was not inclined to talk logic with him, because he had just sensed his own luck burning fiercely as if there was something on fire inside his body.


    ¡°Roar!¡±


    He roared fiercely and his body started to undergo a huge change. In a moment, he had become the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan.


    ¡°Go and die, Yu An!¡± he bellowed. His mountain-like fist shrouded the entire space surrounding Yu An.


    An all-destroying force tangled with an incredibly frigid cold spirit, tearing apart everything else.


    The space emitted a terrifying hissing sound, as it had been frozen completely by the Icy Divine Light and pounded into dust by Zhou Bao¡¯s fist.


    The space originally had an extremely strong self-regenerating capability. But Zhou Bao had punched a huge cavity into it and destroyed that capability.


    A complete vacuum was left in the space of the Treasure-snatching Rock and the Earthly Immortal Emperors on the scene did not know where this vacuum led to. Their hearts were heavy.


    Under the force of Zhou Bao¡¯s blow, Yu An was beaten until his body was curled up like a prawn.


    ¡°You¡­!¡± After the punishing attack, a black light flickered intermittently around Yu An. He was not done yet.


    That¡¯s right. Zhou Bao¡¯s fist had the power capable of breaking space into dust and suppressing its regenerating force, but he had not inflicted any serious damages on Yu An. He had a stunned expression on his face.


    Zhou Bao narrowed his eyes. From that strike, Yu An did not feel right; his body felt quite strange.


    ¡°Boy, you think you can kill me with your Real Body of Zhuyan? Well, you can¡¯t kill me, but I¡¯ll kill you!¡±


    Yu An should by now have been seriously injured, but he started grinning. ¡°The Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan is very fierce!¡±


    Zhou Bao did not reply; he did not have the inclination to do so. He still had not managed to retract his fist from Yu An¡¯s body. After he hit him, it was as if his body had turned into a huge black hole, steadily sucking in Zhou Bao¡¯s fist.


    ¡°You¡ª! Have you gone crazy?¡± Seeming to realize something, Zhou Bao screamed and used all his power with the hope of getting back his fist. But he could not.


    Zhou Bao looked very somber now. He did not know what Yu An was up to, but he knew that he was in trouble.


    In deep trouble.


    Yu An¡¯s body started to disintegrate and turned into a fine mist. Within the mist appeared a boundless suction force, which sucked in Zhou Bao¡¯s entire Dharma power.


    The worst thing that could happen in this world was that all sorts of strange actions and methods could be used to absorb somebody¡¯s Dharma power and even use it for their own Way. Zhou Bao had a very unique Dharma power. The Mysterious Divine Light was infused with his physical body to create an exceptional Way. Furthermore, it had been absorbed with so much difficulty that the two blended together would form the most toxic poison on par with that in the Chaotic Poisonous Sea.


    Zhou Bao had never thought that anyone would have the guts to try to absorb his Dharma power.


    But now he had run into someone who did. This guy was valiant and really did have the guts.


    He felt his Dharma power flow away from him as if he was a breached dam.

 Chapter 890 - Face to Face with the Celestial Immortal

    Chapter 890: Face to Face with the Celestial Immortal


    Translator: Transn  Editor: Transn


    ¡°Plotting against me?¡±


    By now, outside the Treasure-snatching Rock, Jade Emperor Sage looked thin and pallid. His bright yellow Imperial Robe was somewhat tattered as if it had been torn apart by a thousand shrews. His expression was very odd. He looked excited and pleasantly surprised, but mainly he looked worried about the outcome. Such an expression would be quite normal on a common person; however, on a Celestial Immortal¡¯s face it looked very strange and was even frightening. This was because even when the eras ended and the whole universe was destroyed, a Celestial Immortal would never look like this.


    But now, Jade Emperor Sage¡¯s expression was so intense. There were two other Celestial Immortals standing close behind him. The two looked to be in a far better condition than he, but their expressions were worse.


    ¡°Jade Emperor, we¡¯re surprised you are willing to release the Three Daoist Abilities!¡±


    Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage, a Celestial Immortal with a pale gray complexion, said this, while glaring at Jade Emperor Sage. He looked helpless and a little rueful.


    ¡°You have to lose something in order to gain something in return!¡± Jade Emperor Sage smiled. ¡°I gave up three incarnations and in return, two people agreed not to interfere. It was worth it!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right. We won¡¯t meddle any longer. But you don¡¯t have any room for maneuver!¡± Gale Sage replied.


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t have any room for maneuver. As you know, I have practiced the Way of the Emperor. Even though I have achieved the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way, it would not go far and only if I can move forward. But you won¡¯t give me the chance! Sooner or later I will have to face my opponents and take a gamble. If I win, then¡­¡±


    Jade Emperor Sage laughed mischievously and said no more.


    Gale Sage and Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage looked at each other. Gale Sage said, ¡°Fine. Let¡¯s see if your luck is good enough to get you through this. If you lose, then we won¡¯t mention it. If you win, then neither of us need worry about it.¡±


    Having spoken, both he and Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage disappeared simultaneously.


    ¡°Phew!¡± Jade Emperor Sage let out a long breath. Although it could be said that he already passed the test, with the two old-school Celestial Immortals facing him, he couldn¡¯t deny that he felt the pressure. Supposing one of them became confused and attacked, his countless years as a practitioner would have gone to waste. Thankfully, the two Celestial Immortals were the type who kept their promises and abided by the rules. They would not make things difficult for him.


    The Celestial Immortal level divine thoughts fluctuated slightly and Jade Emperor Sage immediately understood the Treasure-snatching Rock¡¯s situation. This time, it was Yu An who plotted against Zhou Bao and all of his Dharma power had been sucked in by the mysterious fog.


    Ah, luck!


    Jade Emperor Sage was not the slightest bit surprised about this, because this script was written by him. He focused all his attention on the cloud surrounding Zhou Bao like the thick golden mist of the pinnacle cultivation of an Earthly Immortal.


    It was his luck!


    His luck was extremely strong by now and was blazing away fiercely.


    ¡°Roar¡ª!¡± Zhou Bao let out a massive roar and the white hair covering his Real Body of Zhuyan from head to foot, exploded. ¡°Infinite Trembling Contemplation, break it open!¡±


    At this moment, Zhou Bao activated all of his Dharma power and used his Infinite Trembling Contemplation.


    Within seconds, a piercing buzzing sound filled the space.


    In a few moments, Zhou Bao¡¯s Dharma power had been shaken millions of times over and the black fog created by Yu An was unable to suck in any more. Zhou Bao took this moment to take a step backwards and in the blink of an eye, he escaped from Yu An¡¯s control.


    After being freed from the restraint of the black mist, Zhou Bao panted heavily. Although his encounter with Yu An was brief, he had managed to absorb more than a third of his Dharma Power and his body was considerably weakened.


    But he also knew that this was not the time to relax. By now, there were countless eyes watching him and as a Tribulation Taker, he was extremely valuable. One false move and he could be dead inside the Treasure-snatching Rock. There was no space for negotiation.


    Although his body was weakened, he had a stronger Qi Power than before. The Real Body of Zhuyan had also become incredibly aggressive. ¡°Yu An, plotting against me is not as easy as you think!¡±


    By now Yu An had evolved completely into a mass of black fog which warped continuously. As mentioned before, Zhou Bao¡¯s Dharma power could not be absorbed that easily. Yu An had used some mysterious powers to absorb a third of Zhou Bao¡¯s Dharma power, but it was almost impossible to ingest it. The black fog exuded an ice-blue vapor, freezing the space into chunks of ice. This was the Icy Divine Light and the Mysterious Divine Light inside the vapor became indigestible pneuma that could not even be expelled.


    Seemingly understanding Yu An¡¯s predicament, a cruel smile flashed over Zhou Bao¡¯s space. ¡°Yu An, it seems like you¡¯ve reached the end of your luck! Today, it will truly be over!¡± As he was speaking, the rays of the Tree of Seven Wonders burst forth and infused with Zhou Bao¡¯s body. He transformed into a colorful light which shot straight at Yu An.


    All of the Earthly Immortals inside the Treasure-snatching Rock gasped. Zhou Bao¡¯s colorful light did not leak the tiniest bit of spirit, but the gas coming in gave them an indescribable, oppressive feeling. The Earthly Immortal realm¡¯s spirit consciousness told them that these colorful rays could be deadly if they touched the body, let alone subject to a full attack.


    ¡°Is Yu An done for?¡±


    This thought flashed through the minds of nearly all Earthly Immortals. The colorful lights ruthlessly struck the black fog and in a short while, the immensely thick fog scattered from the strike.


    Poof!


    It was as if a large stone had been dropped into a bonfire; clouds of ashes flew everywhere. The black fog dispersed rapidly, greatly surprising the Earthly Immortals inside the Treasure-snatching Rock. Every single one of their bodies started flickering and they scrambled to take shelter from this black fog. Who knew whether this black fog could also engulf all of their Dharma power?


    ¡°Whoosh!¡± A bolt of lightning split the space inside the Treasure-snatching Rock and turned into a huge lightning axe, which hacked violently away at the colorful light.


    Boom!


    The lightning axe and colorful light collided, creating destructive ripples which scattered in all directions. The space inside the Treasure-snatching Rock could not hold up under the collision of the two powers and shake.


    In this collision, Zhou Bao¡¯s colorful light dimmed completely, before finally forming a glorious, cryptic Tree of Seven Wonders. Zhou Bao¡¯s own body was forced out.


    ¡°The Jade Emperor princess!¡±


    She chuckled. ¡°Zhou Bao, I said I was going to teach you a good lesson, but I never thought it would happen so quickly!¡±


    After the Jade Emperor princess appeared, Zhou Bao was filled with an ominous premonition. At that moment, he decided to run for it.


    But sadly, he couldn¡¯t run.


    A silver chain reached out into the hollow and coiled around Zhou Bao, binding him tightly.


    ¡°Roar!¡± Zhou Bao roared and the Real Body of Zhuyan inflated. He wanted to get out of these chains, but he was totally helpless, even with the strength of the Real Body of Zhuyan.


    ¡°You should stop trying, Zhou Bao!¡± A faint voice came through the space inside the rock and all the unusual movements inside the rock stopped. Everything came to a standstill.


    ¡°The respected Jade Emperor Sage!¡±


    Once the bright yellow light appeared, half of the Earthly Immortals in the crowd bowed in respect and the other half left the Treasure-snatching Rock without saying a word.


    It was the Celestial Immortal!


    The Celestial Immortal¡¯s might could never be blocked by an Earthly Immortal. Even the most confident Earthly Immortal would not be stupid enough to try.


    Jade Emperor Sage revealed himself in the Treasure-snatching Rock and looked at Zhou Bao, eyes fixated on his body.


    ¡°Your luck is still burning in your body. Now that you¡¯ve reached this stage, I¡¯m very curious to see whether your luck can help you get through this tribulation.¡±


    Luck was an extremely mysterious and respected thing for most practitioners. But reaching peak Earthly Immortal level, there is nothing mysterious about it anymore. Even some of the stronger Earthly Immortals could consciously influence luck and for Celestial Immortals it was completely natural. Jade Emperor Sage of yesteryear used his luck to successfully force an attack on the Celestial Immortal Realm. Therefore, it was completely useless and ill-advised to rely on luck when facing a Celestial Immortal.


    But both strong Earthly Immortals and Celestial Immortals have a limited influence on their luck. At most they could guide it. For someone with great luck like Zhou Bao, even if he were a Celestial Immortal, he could not control it completely. But this was a special situation. Jade Emperor Sage had been waiting all along for this moment, so he could not just let Zhou Bao carry on doing as he wished. He could not let him get away with disrupting his carefully laid out plans.


    ¡°What are you actually going to do?¡± Zhou Bao asked, looking aghast, at the emperor. Although he was constrained by the silver chains, he could still feel distinctly that his own strength was not deteriorating. On the contrary, through the chains came a formidable pneuma fluctuation which was absorbed by his Mysterious Icy Divine Light. This hugely increased his power.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± Zhu Bao had never felt as good as he did at this moment. He felt as if he could quickly break through the Earthly Immortal Realm and achieve Celestial Immortal status.


    It was a beautiful feeling, but it did not reflect reality. While it was transmitting the mighty pneuma, the chain¡¯s binds grew stronger and stronger until finally, he was completely immobile. It was then that he realized that he was like a pig in a pen, being fattened up so he could be killed and eaten. But he had no way of escaping. He had heard all about the mightiness of Celestial Immortals. It was only now when he was facing one, that he realized he had always insultingly underestimated them.


    The might of Celestial Immortals was unimaginable; it flew in the face of reason and could not be resisted.


    ¡°What am I going to do? For millions of years, ever since I¡¯ve attained Celestial Immortal status, I¡¯ve been waiting for this day. I¡¯ve been waiting for you, Tribulation Taker, to appear inside this rock, waited until this moment when the Cundi Remains appeared.¡± Now, Jade Emperor Sage felt he had nothing to hide and could clearly state his intentions.


    ¡°Cundi?¡± Zhou Bao was shocked. He pondered for a moment and seemed to come to some realization. But before he could think any more about it, his luck burst into fire. Right at that moment he could clearly feel that inside the Treasure-snatching Rock there was a mysterious place that corresponded with his spirit, or more precisely, with his Seven Wonderful Techniques.


    ¡°It¡¯s the¡ª!¡±


    ¡°Has it finally appeared? The Cundi Remains? It has been quiet inside this Treasure-snatching Rock for countless eras. Can I finally feel a hope of their resurrection?¡±


    Zhou Bao stood there shocked. His mind was focused totally on the two words ¡°Cundi Remains¡±. It was a huge surprise that this rock contained the Cundi Remains. Only, it was uncertain whether they pertained to the very same Cundi himself. Ever since he knew where his conscious essence came from, Zhou Bao doubted all the myths from his previous life. Maybe, these myths were passed on from the various legends about Celestial and Earthly Immortals that had become mixed up, like the Ancestor of Earthly Immortals¡¯ Zhen Yuan or this Cundi.


    Similarly, at this moment, Zhou Bao felt an extreme sense of failure. Maybe everything he had experienced had been planned by other people. It was only now, inside the Treasure-snatching Rock that the conclusion of the mighty Celestial Immortals would be decided. No matter how it ended, he was only a chess piece in the mighty Celestial Immortals¡¯ game, that was all. And just one chess piece at that!


    Unless he could become a Celestial Immortal himself!


    But did he have a chance?


    At that moment, Zhou Bao felt almost completely disheartened. Before, he had prosperous luck and no-one could match him. Although he had experienced setbacks on his path, he had always forged ahead. He had two trump cards in his hand, so that even in the worst situation he could leave a trail of blood.


    But now, facing the Celestial Immortal Jade Emperor, he felt that no matter what method he used, he could not get away. Facing a Celestial Immortal, all of his trump cards seemed too flimsy.

 Chapter 891 - The Truth (I)

    Chapter 891: The Truth (I)


    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    Just as Zhou Bao was feeling helpless and was even considering giving up the fight, a huge pressure broke out inside the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    Whoosh!


    It was like a storm whipping up on a plain. Jade Emperor Sage hesitated a little under the pressure. How could Zhou Bao, even in his desperation, give up on a chance such as this? He fled. He did not use his Great Way of Heavens and Realms, but his own power. He gathered all his Dharma power and used the power from the pressure to break away from the grasp of Jade Emperor Sage.


    ¡°You were able to get out?¡± The emperor was somewhat surprised that Zhou Bao had escaped from his grasp. But Zhou Bao soon felt relieved. A weak pressure emanated from his body, neutralizing the pressure in the hollow that had risen so suddenly.


    ¡°Go on then, leave! There¡¯s nothing you can do here, anyway!¡± Jade Emperor Sage said in his high and mighty voice. The surrounding Earthly Immortals looked at each other in dismay. After experiencing the unique pressure, they had unanimously decided to make the right choice ¨C to leave.


    As much as Zhou Bao wanted to leave, he could not.


    He found he could not even lift a finger, due to the pressure. But at the same time, he felt very comfortable; the pressure felt very familiar to him. It was as if it was his own pressure.


    A strange, gentle force permeated through the pressure and into his body. It restored and cleansed his battle-scarred body. At that moment, Zhou Bao was alarmed to find that his luck was starting to explode wildly.


    Yes, explode. Before, his luck was burning, but by now the golden-yellow luck spirit had been burnt up. It was now exploding, engulfing his body and he felt his strength increase limitlessly. His Dharma power started to surge with a hurricane-like force.


    A destructive thought came from his spirit and in a moment, countless ancient thoughts and messages came gushing forth like water from a burst dam, filling his spirit. There were so many messages and they came so quickly that he could not absorb them all at once. The spirit was broken up by the onslaught of thoughts and his mind went totally blank. The next moment, his mind cleared but now, there was slightly more of a cold feeling. A feeling of scorn came through the depths of this cold feeling.


    ¡°Boy, what are you going to do?¡±


    Using his own body strength, Zhou Bao felt as if he were waking up from a long sleep and he looked at the Jade Emperor Sage with total scorn. ¡°You are very ambitious, but you don¡¯t have the strength to match it!¡±


    ¡°Taoist Cundi!¡± The emperor narrowed his eyes slightly and felt the earth-shattering pressure. He took a deep breath. Destroying the Celestial Immortal in the long river of time, you were very mighty. But don¡¯t forget that you currently have only an Earthly Immortal¡¯s Body. Even though it is at peak Earthly Immortal, you will never be able to overcome the gap to get to my level!¡±


    ¡°Then what are you going to do about this gap?¡± While he was speaking, Zhou Bao, or rather, Taoist Cundi, winked. He looked at the sage with great interest. ¡°You have gotten to this realm purely through the Way of the Emperor, which is not easy. It¡¯s a miracle that you have not been hacked to death!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not dead yet, but it¡¯s your turn to die! Now you¡¯re occupying Zhou Bao¡¯s body, you cannot stop me!¡± The sage laughed coldly and waved his hand. An axe with lightning entwined around it appeared in his hand and he hacked violently at Taoist Cundi.


    ¡°Stupid!¡± When Taoist Cundi saw the axe coming for him, he opened his mouth wide and swallowed it like a whale swallowing water. Everything changed color and the decaying spirit that filled the heavens and earth was swallowed up into his body. As the lightning axe came slicing through the air, the vast Qi of Decay created a gray wall around Taoist Cundi. The axe bounced off the wall, as if it was made of leather. The power capable of splitting open the heavens and earth dissipated through the gray and gloomy spirit, but did not harm Taoist Cundi at all.


    But as Taoist Cundi absorbed everything, the world outside the Treasure-snatching Rock changed dramatically. The Deva¡¯s Five Decrepit Phenomena spirit started to gather and formed a million mile long, unbroken funnel in the Immortal Realm. This funnel served as the entrance to the Treasure-snatching Rock and the immeasurable Qi of Decay came pouring into it. It collected around Taoist Cundi, forming a dense, gray fog which gave him secure protection.


    Outside the gray fog, Jade Emperor Sage¡¯s expression turned sinister. He never imagined that this could have happened. The axe, made up of condensed Thunder of Fate, could not be so easily overcome. It was able to chop down the World Tree with no difficulty. He even once inferred that this axe¡¯s power was under his own control. This Axe of Fate could simply hack him to death, hack a Celestial Immortal to death and even make him lose any chance of resurrection. That was how much power it had.


    He did not count on the axe hacking Cundi to death, but only intended it to injure him severely. But his axe which he had so much confidence in, had disappointed him and even gave him cause for alarm. The Taoist Cundi Remains that he had imagined did not appear. On the contrary, the first thing Taoist Cundi did was to occupy Zhou Bao¡¯s body. Perhaps now, Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit had already been completely destroyed by this ancient Celestial Immortal.


    It could not be this way, right?


    Zhou Bao had such prosperous luck, that logically speaking, he should have been the one who had obtained the Cundi Remains to achieve Omnipotent Sage status. But when his luck was at peak combustion, he had killed him and seized his fate and the Cundi Remains; this raised his power by a level.


    But now, it seemed like everything had been displaced. The Cundi Remains did not reveal itself and Zhou Bao¡¯s body was occupied by Cundi¡¯s spirit. But was Cundi not dead already? Why was its spirit so strong?


    This went totally against his plans.


    It now seemed as if he ended up as a part of someone else¡¯s plans and that someone else was a mystical, ancient Celestial Immortal. This was not good.


    But Zhou Bao was even worse off.


    His spirit had been completely inhibited and had started to become assimilated with that of Cundi. There was no way of fighting this process, the difference between their levels was too great.


    What happened, how did it turn out this way?


    Zhou Bao seemed to have no chance of fighting this enormous pressure. His spirit was forced back into the Sea of Consciousness and he then found that his Sea of Consciousness was churning and surging.


    Originally it was he that controlled his Sea of Consciousness, but now he was completely inhabited by an immense spirit that far exceeded his imagination. His spirit was nothing in comparison, a droplet compared to an entire ocean.


    But it was very clear that, right now, this immeasurable ocean wanted to completely assimilate him. In fact, this water droplet was succeeding.


    He had cultivated his Primordial Spirits of Three Separations: the Primordial Poison Spirit, the Primordial Sword Spirit and the Primordial Fire Spirit.


    His Primordial Poison Spirit had been completely refined and the Primordial Fire Spirit was made into the Furnace of Immortality¡¯s device spirit. But now, it was completely engulfed along with the extremely mysterious relationship between those spirits. All that was left was his Veneration Spirit and the Primordial Sword Spirit. In fact, his Sword Spirit had been engulfed as well, but it had received an inheritance from the Four Immortal-killing Swords and so was much more valiant than the other two primordial spirits. There remained a light inside that had not been extinguished.


    Not bad, not bad! Well done for surviving up to now, boy! You are worthy to be called my biggest Separated Hun thought through all these eras! Nice!¡±


    A huge spirit fluctuating like rolling thunder was produced in Zhou Bao¡¯s Sea of Consciousness.


    Separated Hun thought!


    Zhou Bao felt inspired and a message entered his consciousness from the immeasurable spirit.


    It wasn¡¯t a long message, but it was absolutely shocking.


    ¡°It¡¯s unbelievable. The source of my spirit is only a tiny Separated Po thought belonging to this Taoist Cundi! Absolutely everything else is just a contingency for Taoist Cundi to regenerate and hide!¡±


    Not just him, but also all of the device spirits in the Treasure-snatching Rock were created from the fragmented Separated Po thoughts from Taoist Cundi¡¯s death!


    A thousand eras ago, Taoist Cundi planned for his downfall after meeting a strong enemy. His spirit would be dispersed and turned into countless scattered thoughts spread throughout the universe. It seemed this Taoist Cundi already had a premonition about his decline. At the moment of his death, he made the Treasure-snatching Rock absorb the greater part of himself. His corpse would also be secretly absorbed. A single, tiny one of these fragmented thoughts was the source of Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit. Inside the Treasure-snatching Rock, these fragmented thoughts slowly evolved into tiny points of individual consciousness, just like the Zhou Bao we saw now.


    During these thousand long eras, the Treasure-snatching Rock released some of these independent consciousnesses and they traveled throughout the universe. Some of these completely disappeared and even more returned to the rock before their lives were terminated. Then, those consciousnesses that constituted the prime essence of Taoist Cundi would be absorbed by the rock and many of those were even Earthly Immortal entities.


    It was a very long and mysterious process that took place over a thousand eras. Five eras ago, Cundi started to regain his essential consciousness and the first thing he did was to disperse the Seven Wonderful Techniques.

 Chapter 892 - The Truth (II)

    Chapter 892: The Truth (II)


    Translator: Transn  Editor: Transn


    Taoist Cundi was one of the most mysterious and ancient Celestial Immortals. His death was seriously against the natural order of things. It was futile to think he could be resurrected. For a living being at Cundi¡¯s level, resurrection not only involved re-awakening of the spirit, but also required a recovery of the physical body. Only then could he achieve true immortality and restore himself to his peak form. If he could not, then he would not have the same level of strength when fighting with his enemies, even if he was fully resurrected. So he went into hiding.


    While preparing for his resurrection, Cundi wanted to restore a part of the strength he had before. This decision that made him feel somewhat desperate, but he had never thought that he only needed to wait five eras for this opportunity to arrive.


    Zhou Bao was originally an unremarkable Separated Po thought who grew into a Tribulation Taker. He had unintentionally learned two of the Seven Wonderful Techniques and had ambitions of becoming an Omnipotent Sage of the era. The Omnipotent Sage was the last Celestial Immortal of each era, collecting luck throughout the era. With an Omipotent Sage¡¯s luck, he could restore part of his strength, at least more than enough to protect himself. Therefore, when he secretly led Zhou Bao, he used his luck and made him collect the Seven Wonderful Techniques and enter the Immortal Realm. Finally, when he went deeper into the Treasure-snatching Rock, he was swallowed up.


    All of this had gone according to his plan. He did not care in the slightest about Jade Emperor Sage; he was just a minor Celestial Immortal. In Zhou Bao¡¯s eyes, he was an undefeatable tyrant, but for Taoist Cundi he was no threat at all.


    In this era, he became a Celestial Immortal and had taken shortcuts to get there., He was weak, and could be easily snuffed out between two fingers, so of course, what was needed now was for his body strength to meet the necessary requirements.


    ¡°This is really a useless object. It absorbed all of the spawn of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan and practiced the Seven Wonderful Techniques. Up to now, the body has not been strong enough to inherit one-thousandth of my spirit. If it can¡¯t even do that, is it worth all the bother?¡±


    The conflict with Jade Emperor Sage was turning red hot. He did not take Jade Emperor seriously, but because he was occupying Zhou Bao¡¯s physical body, he had not reached the Celestial Immortal realm yet. Although he had an extremely strong spirit, he had no way of defeating the emperor. By now, Jade Emperor had really gone all out to fight for his last chance of victory. The Axe of Fate in his hands grew even more violent in its attacks.


    ¡°Axe of Fate, Thunder of Fate, do you think you are a venerable Dao Ancestor?¡± Cundi laughed coldly, raising his fist to intercept the Axe of Fate.


    Bang!!!


    His fist and the axe were both blasted to pieces.


    ¡°You b*stard. That¡¯s my body!¡± In the Sea of Consciousness, Zhou Bao roared fiercely. Although he could not control his body, he could still see and feel it clearly. The fist and the Axe of Fate, or rather, Heavenly Jade Technique and the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill, united and produced an explosive attack that caused harm to both parties.


    It ended in mutual destruction. The Real Zhuyan Body, Seven Wonderful Techniques and the Mysterious Divine Light could not recover their pure, destructive superiority. It was a complete annihilation. Everything disappeared and not a trace remained.


    ¡°That damn guy! I didn¡¯t think I had given him a way out at all! He¡¯s only using my physical body to sort out all the problems before his resurrection.¡± In a moment, Zhou Bao understood Taoist Cundi¡¯s intentions.


    He really did not need Zhou Bao¡¯s body; he did not need it to come back to life. It was only an expendable tool to protect his real body. Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit was his nourishment, although it was insufficient to fill him up. But Zhou Bao had to admit that his own existence was in its very nature, a tragedy.


    A tragedy scripted by someone else.


    It was as if Cundi wanted to make him understand this, in order to destroy his rebelliousness.


    He laughed mischievously. ¡°I really did not think that my history was this bizarre. These legendary masters really did blow hot and cold in their strategies!¡± At times like this when Zhou Bao was despondent, his Primordial Sword Spirit, which had almost been completely obliterated, would send him some weak messages.


    ¡°Go to the damned great master!¡± Zhou Bao cursed. He was selfish and extremely rebellious by nature. At the bottom of his heart, he was still Zhou Bao, no matter what his history was. Even if he was reincarnated from the lowliest bug in the world, so what?


    In this world, who were the lowliest and who were the noblest?


    If Cundi wanted to use this against Zhou Bao to destroy his willpower, he chose the wrong method. Perhaps this was the only miscalculation in the plans of the mighty, ancient Celestial Immortal? There was no way he would have thought that this would be the deadliest part.


    ¡°Up to now, you still have the energy to have regrets. I think this must be a way for you to think of getting away!¡± The communication between Zhou Bao and the Primordial Sword¡¯s Spirit fluctuated and it was difficult to understand each other.


    ¡°This is not the right time!¡± the Primordial Sword Spirit said. ¡°Even if you could escape right now, you will be at a dead end when Cundi reveals his real body!¡±


    ¡°Is Cundi¡¯s corpse really here?¡±


    ¡°Of course. It was he that cultivated you and used you as a substitute to survive the final tribulation!¡± the Primordial Sword Spirit said. ¡°You must understand clearly that you should not harbor any thoughts of getting away purely by a fluke. You should prepare to fight for your life!¡±


    ¡°Fight for my life? But how? Look at me!¡± Zhou Bao laughed bitterly. Now he was really feeling wretched, having lost control over his body. Most importantly, it was in a crisis. From that attack just a second ago, he knew that his body was far below the level that was needed to fight a Celestial Immortal. But Cundi wanted to use his body to withstand the coming tribulation. He knew that his body would not be able to hold out much longer before he collapsed completely. The best ending for Zhou Bao would be to reincarnate from the last remaining speck of light within. But the problem was that the Dharma Ending Tribulation was already underway, could his last remaining speck of light get out of this Treasure-snatching Rock? And if that worked, could it be successfully reincarnated? There were so many unknowns and assuming he succeeded, would this light have some use in the Dharma Ending World?


    ¡°Luck, you still have luck! Your great luck has not disappeared yet!¡± the Primordial Sword Spirit said. ¡°And this is the moment when your luck is at its strongest! Cundi would not give up your body so easily now. He could even take advantage of your immense luck to push your body into the Celestial Immortal realm and make you take the next tribulation!¡±


    ¡°So what? My body has already been completely taken over by him. Achieving the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way would be letting him have it easy!¡±


    ¡°No, achieving the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way is different. The Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way is not something you can just achieve with a Celestial Immortal¡¯s body, you need to place your primordial spirit in a vacuum. Here, you have a great advantage!


    ¡°I have an advantage?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. Cundi is an ancient Celestial Immortal and he has already placed his primordial spirit in a vacuum and he has put it in the most essential part of the nine layers. Therefore, no matter how many times he dies, he has a chance of coming back to life. Normal Celestial Immortals don¡¯t. Even if they place their primordial spirit in a vacuum, they can only place it in the first or second layer. They are at their weakest when an era is destroyed, so when the Dharma Ending Tribulation arrives, these Celestial Immortals can only go into hiding. Only those ancient Celestial Immortals can place their primordial spirits in the depths of the vacuum where they will be unaffected by the tribulation. They can survive a thousand tribulations, just like Cundi. With all the great luck you have collected through this era, when the tribulation starts you have a chance to be promoted to the Celestial Immortal realm. Once you achieve the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way, you will certainly be the last Celestial Immortals of this era, the legendary Omnipotent Sage, the treasure of this era. This is because your primordial spirit can be placed in the third layer of the vacuum, due to your luck of this era. There, it won¡¯t be affected by the Tribulation of Heaven and Earth. And the deeper you place your primordial spirit, the deeper the understanding you will gain of the vacuum and the stronger you will be. This is the so-called Truth of the Omnipotent Sage. Every era has its lucky beings. Of the two people that enjoy good luck, one is the Primordial Sage and the other is the Omnipotent Sage. One represents the start and the other represents the end.¡±


    ¡°Interesting! How do you know all this?¡± Zhou Bao was truly astonished. He did not know any of these deep secrets of the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way. The Primordial Sword Spirit was just a part of the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations he practiced, how could he have known all this?


    Ever since he entered the space inside the Treasure-snatching Rock, the Primordial Sword Spirit¡¯s behavior had been very strange. Not only had it not been destroyed by Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit, but it was still teaching itself, which was indeed very strange. Zhou Bao felt a clear sense of independence coming from within the Primordial Sword Spirit, which completely complemented the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations¡¯ nature.


    ¡°I inherited the Four Immortal-killing Swords, of course I know about it!¡± the Primordial Sword Spirit explained. ¡°The Four Immortal-killing Swords¡¯s master was one of the driving forces behind Cundi¡¯s demise in the old days, so of course I can¡¯t just look on when Cundi is successfully resurrected. This inheritance is a contingency left over by the Four Immortal-killing Swords. The swords were used for countless eras to thwart Cundi¡¯s attempts at resurrection. But this time, Cundi had really prepared well. It was not possible to use a remaining speck of Original Spirit inside the swords to wipe him out. We could only rouse him and use your luck to see if we could complete the final attack on him.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Zhou Bao had an impression about who the Four Immortal-killing Swords¡¯s master could have been. But thinking about his own past, who knew whether the fairy tales from his own ¡°previous life¡± were true or not. Even if they were, he would not have had much to do with the master. After all, his origin could only be traced back to a piece of Cundi¡¯s soul. There was still a grudge between him and the Four Immortal-killing Swords, therefore, he could not place all his hopes on him. In the end, he had to rely on himself.


    ¡°Well then? What should I do?¡±


    ¡°Wait. Wait until Jade Emperor Sage is dead. Wait until your luck is burning at its most brilliant!¡±

 Chapter 893 - Jade Emperor’s Death & Becoming a Celestial Immortal

    Chapter 893: Jade Emperor¡¯s Death & Becoming a Celestial Immortal


    Translator: Transn  Editor: Transn


    ¡°Will Jade Emperor die?¡±


    Although Cundi was suppressing Jade Emperor Sage currently, in Zhou Bao¡¯s opinion, Jade Emperor Sage was merely at a disadvantage. At any rate, he was a Celestial Immortal who could not be defeated easily.


    ¡°Humph, nothing is impossible. He could only earn the title ¡®Celestial Immortal¡¯ by resorting to some trickery. Since he has only put his primordial spirit in the first layer of the vacuum, he is the weakest among the Celestial Immortals. Given Cundi¡¯s strength, he can exterminate his primordial spirit as easy as pie by relying on the Dharma Ending Tribulation. However, Cundi feared him and didn¡¯t kill him earlier because he practiced the most disgusting Way of the Emperor!¡±


    ¡°Is there something special about the Way of the Emperor?¡±


    ¡°Nothing. Except for dominance, it just relates to fate. After all, even a mortal requires a great deal of fate if he is able to be an emperor. If Cundi had not been injured, he could have seized the fate in one strike no matter how powerful it was. However, his spirit has just recovered and he is going to face the attacks from his old foe. Therefore, Jade Emperor Sage¡¯s fate is essential to him. He has to kill him and snatch his fate!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think it will work even if he possesses his fate!¡± Zhou Bao was confused. ¡°His opponent is so powerful that he badly injured him when he was in his prime. Can¡¯t he hurt him again now that he has just recovered?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I¡¯m not quite clear about that. Cundi and his foe are considered the oldest Celestial Immortals and their level surpasses the Celestial Immortal Realm. Thus, they are not allowed to take actions casually. Otherwise, they might influence the balance of heaven and earth, the entire void, and even many eras. Given the identity of Cundi¡¯s enemy, even if he intended to hit Cundi while he is down, he would choose to do so secretly. What¡¯s more, he has enemies as well!¡±


    Just as Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirit was communicating with the Primordial Sword Spirit, a sliver of ruthlessness flashed through Cundi¡¯s eyes. Jade Emperor Sage was like a spent arrow and had exhausted all his skills. He had integrated himself into his Supreme Fairy Weapon and was 100,000 feet tall. The Thunder Axe of Fate behind him exerted its full strength and transformed into a long-handled axe. He held onto it to desperately fend off Cundi. Furthermore, he had activated his overwhelming Qi Power to perfection. But his eyes were full of regret.


    He regretted coming to the Treasure-snatching Rock and stirring up trouble.


    Now, however, it was late.


    ¡°Alright, brat. I¡¯m fed up with fooling around. It¡¯s time for you to pay the price!¡± When Cundi saw that Jade Emperor Sage¡¯s fate was burning to the climax, a splendid and colorful light emanated from his left hand. A glittering and translucent Tree of Seven Wonders emerged from the light. When he wielded it in the air, seven rays hit Jade Emperor Sage. The latter¡¯s huge body collapsed and his fate turned into wisps of Qi of heaven and earth. Most of the Qi was absorbed by the Tree of Seven Wonders and a small part of it entered Cundi¡¯s body through the tree to nourish his spirit.


    ¡°Hurry up. Absorb the Qi of heaven and earth!¡±


    Cundi had not summoned his physical body yet; the body he occupied now belonged to Zhou Bao. Although his powerful spirit completely controlled this body, he failed to exterminate Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit. Worst of all, Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirit was still intact. He just managed to drive it into a corner. As a result, when the Qi of heaven and earth dropped into his spirit, Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit absorbed some of it as well.


    ¡°The Qi of heaven and earth is so scant that it is simply useless to me!¡± Although Zhou Bao had absorbed a lot Qi of heaven and earth, he still could not relax. On the contrary, he thought the Qi he had absorbed was far from sufficient.


    ¡°Haste makes waste. No matter how much you have absorbed, it still provides nutrients to you!¡± The Primordial Sword Spirit was not in so much of a hurry. ¡°Jade Emperor Sage is doomed to die. Cundi¡¯s Real Body will appear after absorbing Jade Emperor Sage¡¯s fate. This is the most critical time regarding whether you can gain profit through risk and win yourself a sliver of hope!¡±


    ¡°A slim chance of survival? That¡¯s easier said than done. How can I regain control over my physical body when Cundi¡¯s spirit is so strong?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not difficult. Jade Emperor Sage proves to be a prelude to Cundi. You definitely will find a great opportunity when his real enemy arrives!¡±


    ¡°His real enemy?¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirit was absorbing the Qi of heaven and earth as he was avoiding the pursuit of Cundi¡¯s spirit. Meanwhile, he pondered who Cundi¡¯s real enemy was.


    ¡°Since you are here, then just come out. He really belittled me by sending small potatoes like you guys here to make a mess!¡± Taoist Cundi eliminated Jade Emperor Sage in one go and swept around the void, shouting out loud.


    ¡°Haha, we don¡¯t dare do that. We are just responsible for monitoring Jade Emperor. What he did has nothing to do with us!¡± The two figures¡ªNine-headed Fierce Beast Sage and Gale Sage¡ªcame out of the void. Although they were already Celestial Immortals, they feared Taoist Cundi immensely. They covered themselves in the strange light, trying hard to avoid contacting Taoist Cundi.


    ¡°Hmph, don¡¯t think that I don¡¯t know who¡¯s your master. You do have some special abilities given that you are able to leave the brand of your primordial spirit in the second layer of the vacuum. Nonetheless, it¡¯s just a cheap trick in my eyes!¡±


    ¡°Agreed. Our strength is not worth mentioning, senior!¡± Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage grinned and glanced at Cundi thoughtfully. ¡®We have the self-knowledge that we are unable to interfere in your affairs. Since Jade Emperor has died, our task has been accomplished. Please excuse us for taking our leave now!¡± While speaking, the two tore apart the void and left the space of the Treasure-snatching Rock.


    A trace of hesitation flashed through Cundi¡¯s eyes, but he did nothing in the end. Although these two Celestial Immortals were nobodies in his eyes, he was no longer the previous Cundi. Regardless of any other aspects, his body did not reach the Celestial Immortal Realm. He even underwent a great deal of physical labor when killing Jade Emperor Sage, who managed to put his primordial spirit in the first layer of the vacuum. If he were to concentrate on killing these sages, who had placed their primordial spirit in the second layer of the vacuum, the loss would outweigh the gain even if he succeeded in doing so.


    His current priority was to advance his body to the Celestial Immortal Realm!


    Celestial Immortal!


    ¡°Hiss¡­!¡±


    A sound similar to whales drinking water resounded throughout the void of the Treasure-snatching Rock. The Tree of Seven Wonders floated above Cundi¡¯s head and the colorful light shed down. An immense amount of pneuma surged around the light and formed a huge vortex.


    ¡°Be careful! He is going to become a Celestial Immortal!¡±


    Although Cundi made such a mess, Zhou Bao did not know what he wanted to do at first. However, the Primordial Sword Spirit warned him. ¡°He will not allow you, an independent consciousness, to continue to exist!¡±


    ¡°What should I do?¡±


    Zhou Bao was shocked. At about the same time, something bad occurred to the world of his spirit. Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit surged like torrential waves, coming straight toward his primordial spirit.


    ¡°I have accomplished my mission, the rest is up to you!¡± Primordial Sword Spirit said these words, from which a sense of relief was revealed. Enveloped by a stream of Qi of heaven and earth, it charged at Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit.


    Zhou Bao was petrified because just as the Primordial Sword Spirit rushed out, a stream of Qi of heaven and earth circled around him. The fluctuations emanated by the Primordial Sword Spirit resembled those of his Primary Primordial Spirit, and the Primordial Sword Spirit seemed like another Primary Primordial Spirit. The real Primary Primordial Spirit was wrapped up by the Qi of heaven and earth and was entirely isolated from all fluctuations. It did not appear to exist.


    All of a sudden, Zhou Bao understood the intention of the Primordial Sword Spirit.


    In the raging waves of the world of Cundi¡¯s spirit, the Primordial Sword Spirit looked like a drop of water and was swallowed immediately.


    Zhou Bao was not touched by all this.


    Although he had evolved the Primordial Sword Spirit while practicing the Primordial Spirits of Three Separations, since he inherited the Four Immortal-killing Swords, it became more and more independent and acted as the spokesperson of an unknown big shot. Though it seemed to do everything for the sake of his benefits, it still regarded him as a chess piece. In a word, he was merely a part of the scheme of that big shot.


    Being tricked by others annoyed him. But under the current circumstances, he had no other choice but to accept their arrangement. When the Primordial Sword Spirit dashed out, it left the last message to him¡ªa strange but simple sword technique. It was not as abstruse as the Four Immortal-killing Swords. Its only function was to enable him to escape from the clutches of Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit at the crucial moment.


    Zhou Bao was anxious to survive. So, he was willing to become another¡¯s chess piece.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    After swallowing the Primordial Sword Spirit, Cundi¡¯s spirit calmed down as if it had no worries. It stretched and filled the entire Sea of Consciousness. Protected by the Qi of heaven and earth, Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit transformed into a drop of water and integrated into Cundi¡¯s spirit.


    Ordinarily, Cundi would have noticed that something was wrong. Now, however, he was focused on advancing Zhou Bao¡¯s body to the Celestial Immortal Realm. Confused by the Primordial Sword Spirit, he mistook it as Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirit. And thus, he failed to discover the Primary Primordial Spirit as soon as possible.


    However, Zhou Bao knew that he was not safe. If he really could hide here for a lifetime like a rat in the gutter, he would not mind lowering his head. The fact was that things went contrary to his wishes. If he did not earn the title ¡°Omnipotent Sage¡± and become a real Celestial Immortal, he could not survive. Only in this way could he completely detach from the connection with Cundi. In this case, his Primary Primordial Spirit and his body had to reach the Celestial Immortal Realm at the same time and he was required to recapture his body.


    This was his last hope to survive and also the most difficult task of his life.


    To fight for the control over his body with an ancient Celestial Immortal!


    This was by no means a joke!


    The space of the Treasure-snatching Rock began to fall apart!


    It was the first time that a Celestial Immortal had been born in the Treasure-snatching Rock after so many eras. Moreover, this man was the last Celestial Immortal of this era¡ªthe Omnipotent Sage.

 Chapter 894 - The Ultimate Tribulation (I)

    Chapter 894: The Ultimate Tribulation (I)


    Translator: Transn  Editor: Transn


    This was the final Celestial Immortal Tribulation of the era. There was no way the Treasure-snatching Rock could stop a tribulation this intense. A rumble of purple Heavenly Thunder lured in the depths, violently bombarding the Treasure-snatching Rock. Then, the rock exploded.


    A huge storm erupted in the Immortal Realm, wreaking pure havoc. This storm came so suddenly and was so terrible that most of the Earthly Immortals were absolutely astonished. The tribulation was not coming on account of the Immortal Realm, it had a specific objective.


    ¡°Celestial Immortal Tribulation, Dharma Ending world, this is the Celestial Immortal Tribulation of the Omnipotent Sage!¡± In the depths of the Immortal Realm, after countless years, an ancient Celestial Immortal opened his eyes.


    ¡°The final Celestial Immortal Tribulation of the era has finally arrived! The Omnipotent Sage is about to arise, and the Dharma Ending era is going to start, haha¡ª¡ª!¡±


    The ancient Earthly Immortal laughed mockingly at himself for some time before sighing lightly. After all, this would not be his era.


    In that very moment, in the endless, hidden spacetime, many ancient Earthly Immortals were sighing in the same manner. In every era, a Celestial Immortal arose. In addition to the special Celestial Immortals such as the Primeval Sage and the Omnipotent Sage, there were other, more ordinary Celestial Immortals such as the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage and the Gale Sage. They had more or less all risen from among the ancient Earthly Immortals. In a short era such as this, as long as there was a small minority of practitioners from eras of great luck like the Jade Emperor Sage had been, they had an opportunity to become Celestial Immortals.


    These ancient Earthly Immortals had been through many eras ¡ª countless years. They could not insist on Primeval Sage or Omnipotent Sage status. A Celestial Immortal Karmic Rank was fine. They had the time and patience for it.


    However, they knew that once the Omnipotent Sage arose, the pneuma and fate of the era would completely disappear and condense into the Omnipotent Sage¡¯s body. Therefore, in the Dharma Ending Age, there would be no new astonishing talent, nor would one with amazing luck emerge, either. Even the most ancient and mightiest Earthly Immortals had to conceal themselves in the secret, desolate spacetime, even hide away in extraterritorial areas, dragging out their feeble existences as they awaited the end of the era, so that they could painfully seek out an opportunity in the new era.


    ¡°We have missed this era. All we can do is continue to wait for the new one!¡± Such is how the Earthly Immortals mulled over their loss. They were disappointed, they sighed, and most of all, they were jealous.


    ¡°Hmph. Every single one of these guys is as slick as a ghost. It is not easy to take their power and use it!¡± the Gale Sage said blandly. He was at the brink of the Immortal Realm.


    ¡°That¡¯s not necessarily the case. If this guy really does give out benefits, then these guys will certainly not refuse!¡± the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage said. ¡°There will always be those who cannot resist the temptation. Those old bastards might have planned thoroughly, but the temptation of the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way is really too much!¡±


    ¡°Who do you think will attack?¡± the Gale Sage asked.


    ¡°The strongest one!¡± the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage said without a moment¡¯s thought. ¡°Because his strength has reached the critical point. He must be really grateful for this opportunity!¡±


    ¡°So he¡¯ll be completely out of place, like a tiger on a plain bullied by dogs?¡± There was a glint of a strange expression on the Gale Sage¡¯s face. ¡°When has an Earthly Immortal ever had the guts to get involved in the affairs of a Celestial Immortal?¡±


    ¡°Has he still not become a Celestial Immortal himself?¡± The Nine-headed Fierce Beast broke out in laughter.


    The golden shadow of a whip suddenly appeared and then disappeared. It seemed very peculiar.


    ¡°Sure enough, it¡¯s Jiang Shang!¡± The Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage reacted as expected. ¡°He couldn¡¯t resist!¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s resisted for the past 30 years. No one would be able to resist that long! Now he¡¯s taking his chances. Maybe he¡¯ll achieve Primeval Sage status in the next era!¡±


    ¡°Primeval Sage status? No way. He already reached his limit when he achieved Celestial Immortal status. Remember, the Primeval Sage and the Omnipotent Sage of each era are the Dominator¡¯s most powerful competitors. He¡¯s the one who committed the crime, he would never let him succeed!¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re just entrusting the nobodies in the second layer of the vacuum with the primordial spirit. Who said anything about the Dominators?¡± Gale Sage said indifferently. ¡°But you¡¯re right. They would never give Jiang Shang a chance to become a Primeval Sage.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s wait and see who the winner actually is.¡± The Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage gave a slight sigh. ¡°As one of the nine greatest Dominators that ever lived, Cundi is probably pretty depressed about how things have ended!¡±


    ¡°Without a doubt!¡± The Gale Sage raised his eyebrows. ¡°Look, the God-striking Whip has been cracked!¡±


    From above, the God-striking Whip looked like a one-meter long bamboo whip. Its slightly yellowed appearance made it look like it had been cut from moso bamboo. It only needed to be cut lightly with a sharp object, and it could be broken in two.


    But the unremarkable looking bamboo whip did not shatter when it landed in the middle of the violent Celestial Immortal Tribulation. Rather, it landed like a fish in water, swimming freely with the current.


    The Celestial Immortal Tribulation!


    It was difficult to say what this tribulation actually involved.


    In the tribulation ocean, all types of Heavenly Thunder; Crimson Thunder, Thunder of Fate, and Abyss Thunder were interwoven into one. Flames flickered within the Heavenly Thunder. Heavenly Fire, Earth Fire, and Mysterious Fire, all burned together to create a vast sea of fire that intertwined with the thunder, acting as one to turn everything into nothingness.


    There was an all-encompassing liquid light. It was pure black, but it concealed within itself a multitude of colors. Swept up by the similarly black Wild Wind, it started to permeate the Immortal Realm.


    A faint layer of dust appeared indistinctly. Although the ochre hued dust was not thick, it felt more dangerous than the thunder, fire, wind, and water combined.


    He sucked in the air between his teeth and spoke. ¡°Tribulation dust has just appeared. Just as we expected, it looks like the Omnipotent Sage¡¯s tribulation will be unusual!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right. You lack moral decency, and when you encountered the Celestial Immortal Tribulation, the tribulation dust was the last thing to appear. This tribulation is formidable, the dust has already appeared. I don¡¯t know if this guy will be able to withstand it!¡±


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t easy for the others either. But don¡¯t forget, he is one of the nine ancient dominators. Naturally he has a way of navigating a tribulation this bad!¡± The Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage had full confidence in Taoist Cundi, and with good reason.


    Cundi sat completely still and cross-legged on a plain, facing the Celestial Immortal Tribulation. The auspicious lights hanging down from the Tree of Seven Wonders atop his head protected his whole body. The formidable tribulation had no way of shaking the auspicious lights.


    If it were only a Divine Tribulation, things would be simple.


    ¡°The Tree of Seven Wonders has remained untouched for thousands of tribulations. Even the Omnipotent Sage¡¯s Celestial Immortal Tribulation cannot shake it. Today we widen our scope!¡± The Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage and the Gale Sage both sighed to themselves.


    But the thing they cared about most was whether the God-striking Whip, the one that looked like dried up bamboo, could really be as effective as legend said.


    Could the Tree of Seven Wonders, allegedly unbroken for thousands of tribulations, stand the test of the whip? After all, this whip¡¯s power had been a thing of legends for hundreds of millions of years.


    Whack!


    The Celestial Immortal Tribulation was underway. The God-striking Whip crashed down onto the Tree of Seven Wonders. The auspicious lights it emitted reacted immediately and started to undulate.


    ¡°Huh?¡± Cundi raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised. But he was not flustered. The whip let out a piercing purple light that eroded the auspicious lights. ¡°Hmph. Jiang Ziya, you are but a worthless Earthly Immortal, a lowly creature. And yet you dare to attack me?¡±


    The auspicious lights let out a great radiance to counteract the attack of the God-striking Whip. They were by no means less powerful.


    This damaged the God-striking Whip badly, and its purple rays dimmed abruptly. The whip, which had passed through the whole tribulation undamaged, started to show tiny cracks. The whip¡¯s master was in the depths of the Immortal Realm spacetime. He suddenly trembled, and then exploded into blood fog as far as the eye could see. All that was left was a bloody chunk of flesh about the size of a fist. The flesh began to wriggle, and before long it had completely transformed back into a human figure.


    ¡°Nice, nice! Luckily, I was already prepared. Otherwise, I might have died for real, haha. By the way, your counterattack was so fierce it seemed conspicuous, as if to make up for your weakness. You¡¯ve spent all your force, now!¡± He ground his teeth fiercely until they bled and beat his chest furiously. His face suddenly turned pale, and he spat out a thick mouthful of flesh and blood. The auspicious lights dimmed, and the retreating God-striking Whip appeared to have just received some mighty backup power, as if it had swallowed a huge recovery pill. Purple light burst out and pressed down on the Qi Power of the auspicious light. It turned into a purple stream and shot straight into the auspicious light. The rays died out. The whip had beaten its way straight through to the Seven Wonderful Techniques themselves.


    Boom!


    Of course, the Tree of Seven Wonders was not to be trifled with so easily. The moment the purple light hit its core, a light a hundred times more glaring than that of the whip burst out. Under its intense glare, the whip shattered.


    But in that same moment, the God-striking Whip had struck a hole into the Tree of Seven Wonders, and the Celestial Immortal tribulation came gushing into the hole. The Tree of Seven Wonders began to shake.


    Cundi grasped hold of the tree and yelled, ¡°Come on!¡±


    The auspicious light reappeared, and forcefully expelled all of the tribulation. Cundi¡¯s cheeks were trembling.


    ¡°It¡¯s absolutely ridiculous that the Highest Grade Celestial Devil would come up with such a plan!¡±

 Chapter 895 - The Ultimate Tribulation (II)

    Chapter 895: The Ultimate Tribulation (II)


    Translator: Transn  Editor: Transn


    What¡¯s happening here?


    Zhou Bao looked around his Sea of Consciousness, completely dumbstruck. He saw several of his Primary Primordial Spirits fluttering about. Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit roared, whipping up huge frenzied waves, engulfing everything.


    ¡°A Highest Grade Celestial Devil? Do you think that releasing a Highest Grade Celestial Devil would help in dealing with me? I have already devoured all of the boy¡¯s primordial spirit.¡±


    Cundi frantically attacked the countless Primary Primordial Spirits that were suddenly appearing in the Sea of Consciousness. Meanwhile, an immensely powerful thought split off noiselessly from one of Cundi¡¯s spirits and transmitted itself into Zhou Bao¡¯s spirit.


    ¡°This is the¡ª¡ª!¡±


    This message was even more powerful than the one he had received when the Primordial Sword Spirit disappeared, and more real.


    Boom!


    A huge sound rang throughout the Sea of Consciousness. Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit once again turned into a raging ocean. In a short time, it had engulfed thousands of Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirits. But what happened next made him hesitate.


    Because the remaining ¡°spirits¡± had begun to cross the Divine Tribulation!


    These ¡°Primary Primordial Spirits¡± had been transformed from Highest Grade Celestial Devils and were not Zhou Bao¡¯s true primordial spirits. They¡¯d invaded the Sea of Consciousness to confuse Cundi and were meaningless in the Celestial Immortal Tribulation because they could not become Celestial Immortals. If these ¡°Primary Primordial Spirits¡± really were Highest Grade Celestial Devils, then Cundi would not have anything to worry about. But what if they actually were Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirits?


    That would be a problem!


    Attacking these ¡°Primary Primordial Spirits¡± took little effort. But if Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirits had not actually been annihilated, then his attack would cause a chain reaction. He could seal up the tribulation with his Tree of Seven Wonders, and because his primordial spirit had already far exceeded the Celestial Immortal level, even though he had been in a deep sleep for countless eras, he could sleep for several thousand more. His primordial spirit was also at the Celestial Immortal level. Zhou Bao only needed for his physical body to ascend to the Celestial Immortal realm.


    But the God-striking Whip had just made a hole in the Tree of Seven Wonders, and the power of the Divine Tribulation had leaked in. Although he had patched it up in time, if Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirit was really there and reacted to the tribulation, then even the Tree of Seven Wonders could not stop his primordial spirits from ascending to the Celestial Immortal realm.


    As long as he was still alive, he could probably stop him, but for now he was powerless.


    The most vexing thing was that he could have just let Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirits ascend to the Celestial Immortal realm and forgotten about it, because he was the last Celestial Immortal of the era, the Omnipotent Sage. If he were to let Zhou Bao succeed, then his own primordial spirit would truly have no way of being able to stop him from ascending to Omnipotent Sage status.


    But these were not Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirits, right?


    The primordial spirits in the Sea of Consciousness could certainly react to the Celestial Immortal Tribulation, but it was hard to keep them out of harm¡¯s way. At this critical moment, he did not need to be dealing with Zhou Bao¡¯s half-living half-dead primordial spirits. They were only pawns, after all. There was a stronger opponent waiting for them. Although this opponent only had one opportunity to attack, this attack would be earth-shattering.


    ¡°A worthless Omnipotent Sage, that¡¯s all you are. Even if I let you ascend, so what?¡± He pondered for a moment, then made a decision. ¡°First I need to deal with this guy¡¯s attack. Even if you do achieve Omnipotent Sage status and place your primordial spirit in the third layer of the vacuum, I will still be able to exterminate you!¡±


    ¡°Why is it so quiet all of a sudden?¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirits finally floated out from the depths of his Sea of Consciousness. They were inconspicuous among the multitude of ¡°Primary Primordial Spirits¡±. They had barely appeared when they felt the terrible force from the tribulation.


    ¡°This is the Celestial Immortal Tribulation. Of course, I have no way of crossing at my level!¡± The Celestial Immortal Tribulation had only seeped slightly into his Sea of Consciousness. It was simply not at the same scale. As it entered the huge sea, it was dispersed by countless Highest Grade Celestial Devils. Despite this, his Primary Primordial Spirits had no way of supporting it.


    The fact of the matter was that Zhou Bao had only ascended to the Earthly Immortal realm recently, and he did not even have a proper insight into its foundation. How could it have been possible to suddenly ascend to the Celestial Immortal realm?


    The Dharma Ending Tribulation was an opportunity, but it was a distant one. In fact, although he, Kong Ti, and the others were known as Tribulation Takers, they could not all achieve Omnipotent Sage status. Even if he defeated all of them, it was not possible.


    The biggest likelihood was in the Dharma Ending Tribulation. All of his luck belonged to the Underworld Sage, who had not long before proven himself a strong man at the Celestial Immortal level. In fact, during most of the eras, Omnipotent Sages had been created before the Dharma Ending Tribulations. They made use of the tribulation¡¯s power to absorb some of the luck of the era and placed their primordial spirit in the fourth layer of the vacuum. This was the most orthodox origin of the Omnipotent Sage.


    But this was a special situation.


    The Celestial Immortal Tribulation had dissipated and weakened inside his Sea of Consciousness. Although it had given him immense power, it was not fatal. He was extremely surprised to discover that he seemed to have a hope of crossing it. If he crossed the tribulation, he could leave his soul in the fourth layer of the vacuum, and then he would be a true Omnipotent Sage.


    Thinking about this cheered him up. A cryptic light flashed through his Primary Primordial Spirit, and turned into a Tree of Seven Wonders, sending out rays of auspicious light. Just like the Tree of Seven Wonders above Cundi, it blocked the surrounding tribulation.


    ¡°Hmph. Of course, there was something I hadn¡¯t considered!¡± The second it turned into a Tree of Seven Wonders, Cundi¡¯s primordial spirits bellowed violently. A Highest Grade Celestial Devil might have had a broad Divine Sense, but what about the Tree of Seven Wonders? That was Cundi¡¯s most guarded secret. As long as Cundi had his meticulously placed primordial spirit fragments, he could practice. These Highest Grade Celestial Devils might have been the highest grade of Heavenly Devils, but they had no way of learning the Tree of Seven Wonders¡¯ skills. So, as soon as Zhou Bao produced the tree, he had exposed himself as a target. Cundi¡¯s primordial spirits immediately found which direction to go. They had churned, and instead of going for the other ¡°Primary Primordial Spirits¡±, they went straight for the Tree of Seven Wonders and surrounded it. But that was all they did. Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit was not like before when it could immediately engulf things, rather it confronted the tree.


    This was not because of his good intentions, rather he had some misgivings. Zhou Bao¡¯s primordial spirits were crossing the tribulation, they would have to endure the trials of the tribulation. Zhou Bao would not be one of the Celestial Immortals lying in wait to cause him trouble, unaffected by tribulation and allowing him to go all out. He was not like that. He could trigger the Celestial Immortal Tribulation in his Sea of Consciousness, and attack him himself at the same time as the tribulation. Adding to that the band of men eyeing him like a tiger watching its prey, he would have some difficulty in dealing with it all. Cundi could not act rashly, he could only wait and see what happened.


    Zhou Bao was relieved to see that Cundi had some misgivings. In fact, he had been forced into a corner by the sudden tribulation. There was no way out of it. He might as well go for it and start crossing the Celestial Immortal Tribulation.


    ¡°Time to make you proud!¡± In the Immortal Realm, Cundi gave a cold snort of laughter as he watched from the depths of the hollow.


    The Celestial Immortal Tribulation had created a huge hole between the heavens and earth and the Immortal Realm. The gloomy hollow was visible to the naked eye. It was both terrifying and awe-inspiring.


    That¡¯s right, terrifying and awe-inspiring.


    The Immortal Realm practitioners were not seeing the hollow for the first time. In fact, most of them had traveled through it before. But they had never seen it like it was now. They felt its horror. Inside the awe-inspiring emptiness that was the hollow lurked a completely unconcealed killing intent.


    The killing intent of the Celestial Immortal Tribulation and the Dharma Ending Tribulation paled in comparison to what they were now experiencing.


    All of a sudden, a dazzling beautiful multi-hued radiance erupted from the hollow and streaked downwards.


    A chilling light emanated from Cundi¡¯s eyes. ¡°Is this your first attack? Well, come on then!¡± The Tree of Seven Wonders in his hands shuddered, and thousands of golden lotuses emerged to face the Five-colored Divine Light.


    Papapapapapapa!


    Thousands of golden lotuses could not withstand the Five-colored Divine Light and exploded. More than half were wiped out clean. The rest could barely withstand the attack.


    ¡°Cundi, you have deteriorated considerably!¡± A fierce voice could be heard in the hollow. ¡°Even if I let you come fully back to life, do you think you could still have the same power you had before?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not necessarily that mighty!¡± Cundi laughed coldly. ¡°Even under layers of restraints, this is the most power you can release. You can¡¯t deal even with me. Why bother pretending you¡¯re so powerful?¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Let¡¯s see whether you can actually cross this tribulation!¡± The voice in the hollow grew faint, and everything turned quiet again.


    The Tree of Seven Wonders was damaged, but not entirely. Cundi remained unharmed, but he seemed intent on maintaining the status quo. He was waiting for the tribulation to pass.


    Of course, he understood that things would not go that smoothly. The attack of the Five-colored Divine Light was just the beginning. The next attack would be even more fierce.


    The calm in the hollow did not last long. As expected, there was a change. A white jade Ruyi Scepter appeared from a gap in the hollow and crashed straight onto Cundi¡¯s Tree of Seven Wonders.


    He grimaced as the Tree of Seven Wonders in his hand swayed from one side to another, the lotuses flashing. They did not appear to be actively attacking the Five-colored Divine Light. Instead, they took a defensive stance.


    All that could be seen was the 30 centimeter long white jade Ruyi Scepter. There was no scattered light, and it did not have much power, either. It crashed downwards, unimpeded by the multitude of golden lotuses. Every golden lotus that it crashed into was being smashed to pieces, until Cundi began to rustle the Tree of Seven Wonders in desperation.


    Boom!


    The Ruyi Scepter was sent flying, but it was not damaged in the slightest. Unfortunately, he was not able to keep the tree completely stable, and it took another beating from the Ruyi Scepter.


    The perfectly integrated Qi Power was immediately bogged down. A fine, cryptic sword light flashed lightly on Cundi¡¯s forehead. A short time later, Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirits, which were in the process of crossing the Celestial Immortal Tribulation, seemed to be reacting to something. They moved violently. The tiny Primary Primordial Spirits suddenly expanded in size. Seeing this, Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit began to undulate as if it were about to engulf them. But suddenly a sword light flashed through the Sea of Consciousness. In one blow it split Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit right open.

 Chapter 896 - The Ultimate Tribulation (III)

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    Roar!!!


    Cundi¡¯s huge primordial spirit roared with rage, but soon began to shrink under the sword light. It turned into a small speck in the vast Sea of Consciousness. The speck twisted and transformed into a Taoist in cyan robes.


    The Taoist had a handsome but strange face and displayed a trace of anger. He shouted, ¡°Good! Excellent! You made a move so quickly. You must have confidence in this guy. I want to see how he can turn the tables!¡±


    The sword lights scattered into the Sea of Consciousness, and a faint voice resounded. ¡°Cundi, don¡¯t be so irritated. I have only one chance to intervene, just like them. Since I¡¯ve had my chance, I won¡¯t interfere anymore!¡±


    ¡°Humph!¡±


    At this moment, as if provoked by something, Zhou Bao¡¯s Primary Primordial Spirit began to expand violently. It swelled from a droplet to a basin of water, and then a pool. Ten breaths later, his Primary Primordial Spirit had turned into a vast sea, just like what had happened to Cundi before. However, he had nothing to be proud of. His sea of primordial spirit filled almost his entire Sea of Consciousness, but it kept a great distance from Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit, avoiding it as if it was some kind of plague.


    ¡°Brat, how did you pass the Celestial Immortal Tribulation!¡± Cundi¡¯s face turned ugly. The Celestial Immortal Tribulation in the Sea of Consciousness was not severe. But for Earthly Immortals like Zhou Bao, the tribulation for the Omnipotent Sage was large enough to kill them thousands of times.


    Zhou Bao had no time to care about Cundi, because his primordial spirit was being led by another mysterious force. He could sense through his spiritual mind that everything around him had changed. His perception suddenly broke through the constraint of the Sea of Consciousness and rushed out of his body. He perceived that this tribulation in the Immortal Realm was only a short glimpse in history. His perception stretched out longer and longer, and a distant world unfolded in his spiritual mind.


    Space flashed through, and time flew by!


    This was the essence of nature, and the origin and end of everything.


    This was the vacuum!!!


    After the Celestial Immortal Tribulation, Celestial Immortals could store their primordial spirits in the vacuum to keep themselves alive for eternity. Take Cundi for example. He had been set up to sleep for so many eras, but still had numerous chances to rise again.


    There were nine levels in the vacuum. Ordinary Celestial Immortals could only store their spirits in the first three levels. When their strength improved, their spirits could be stored in higher levels. However, it took countless eras to move into a higher level. Some Celestial Immortals, like the Jade Emperor Sage, were marvelous in this era, but had congenital shortages. He could only store the spirit¡¯s imprint in the first level where there was no possibility of improvement. That was why he planned to take advantage of Cundi¡¯s remains.


    Unfortunately for him, the Jade Emperor Sage was born in this era. He inherited precious gifts but had limited his mind within this era and overestimated his strength, which ultimately led to his death.


    Zhou Bao¡¯s perception was at the first level now. He could feel ancient thoughts and spirits flashing through. These thoughts and spirits were the primordial spirit¡¯s imprints the Celestial Immortals in this level had stored.


    Meanwhile, he detected a strange but familiar spirit from the energy breaking away from the first level.


    ¡°The Dharma Ending Tribulation. This is the spirit of the Dharma Ending Tribulation!¡± Suddenly, he realized something. This energy was just the beginning of the Dharma Ending Tribulation in the hollow.


    ¡°Vacuum, hollow, vacuum and hollow! I get it! The vacuum is the essence and end of everything; it will never change or disappear. The hollow is derived from and limited by the vacuum. Every change of era in the hollow happens because the vacuum is peeling off energy.


    ¡°Shit! The era in the hollow is being destroyed because the vacuum is shitting!!!¡± He was mumbling in his heart when suddenly his perception was pushed into a stranger area by a huge unknown force.


    This was the second level of the vacuum.


    He didn¡¯t realize until now what he had sensed in the first level.


    All of nature¡¯s Dharmas were stored in the first level. His perception, which had only lingered there for a few seconds, perceived them all and projected them into the imprint of his primordial spirit. There were so many of them, that processing all the information required a lot more time, which he didn¡¯t have at the moment.


    He was at the second level of vacuum.


    Compared with the first level, which had been filled with Dharmas, the second level looked more like a huge cage. Numerous evil spirits and ferocious ghosts were locked inside with no one to control them. The minute his spiritual mind touched the second level, it was detected by the spirits and ghosts. An ocean of souls came rushing toward him.


    Zhou Bao was caught off guard. The ghosts jumped on him, hitting him in the face. They went through his spiritual mind without bringing any harm. After that, they continued to wander in the vacuum, leaving only an impression on his primordial spirit. Then, a tremendous suction drew him into the third level.


    The third level was empty. There were only a few vague and almost undetectable spirit shadows that had been stored by ancient Celestial Immortals.


    When his spiritual mind entered the third level of the vacuum, a feeling of hollowness and containment arose. It seemed that one small thought was enough to contain the entire hollow.


    This was¡ª¡ª


    Zhou Bao felt complete tranquility in his heart. This vacuum was rather familiar to him; it was the home of his soul.


    ¡°This is the third level of the vacuum, also called the Elysium. It was secretly created by Cundi and several other Dominators who knows how many eras ago. They even opened a secret channel to guide the strong Earthly Immortals and potential new experts they subdued in the hollow. You were created from the fragments of Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit. That¡¯s why this land is familiar to you. But don¡¯t be deceived by this feeling!¡±


    Just when his primordial spirit was losing its mind, a thought came to him from deep within the vacuum. He recovered his consciousness and his spiritual mind stirred. With help from a strange force, he passed the third level and entered complete darkness.


    The fourth level of vacuum, the Dark Vacuum!!


    The moment his perception reached the fourth level, he felt his spiritual mind tremble. But after that, he was suddenly enlightened. An enormous energy was reserved in this dark vacuum, and his perception immediately integrated into it.


    Boom!!!


    The second his perception integrated with the energy, his primordial spirit exploded. A mysterious imprint broke away and fused with the Dark Vacuum. When he came to his senses again, he was in the Sea of Consciousness. But this time, it was totally different.


    When his primordial spirit successfully entered the fourth level, the one in his Sea of Consciousness went through tremendous changes.


    Not long ago, his primordial spirit had increased greatly in size because of the Celestial Immortal Tribulation. Now that it was stored in the fourth level of the vacuum, the nature of his primordial spirit had changed. It evolved into the color of complete darkness, as if it had assimilated to the Dark Vacuum.


    The dark ocean of primordial spirit was frightening. For the first time, the momentum of Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit was overwhelmed.


    He hadn¡¯t made a move on his enemy, but the dark spirit was beginning to erode his entire Sea of Consciousness. A faint sword light gradually formed within the dark spirit and, all of a sudden, sliced toward Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit.


    ¡°The Six-spirit Dark Sword! Damn it! How could he teach you this sword technique!¡± Cundi¡¯s primordial spirit turned pale. With a furious shout, he rushed out of Zhou Bao¡¯s Sea of Consciousness and disappeared.


    At the same time, Zhou Bao¡¯s physical body was undergoing the Celestial Immortal Tribulation. He lost the protection of the Seven Wonderful Techniques. He was drawn into the wild Celestial Immortal Tribulation at once.


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    The Wild Wind and Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage had been watching from a distance the whole time. They were shocked when Zhou Bao was swallowed by the Divine Tribulation. But a second later, a colorful radiance shone again. A Tree of Seven Wonders appeared in the same place and continued to grow until it became a giant tree.


    Colorful auspicious lights hung from this Tree of Seven Wonders, bigger and brighter than Cundi¡¯s. It radiated with splendor and pushed the Celestial Immortal Tribulation away without difficulty.


    The horrible Celestial Immortal Tribulation was dimmed. It began to fade away under the threat of the radiance from the Tree of Seven Wonders. A giant figure appeared.


    The figure was more than three hundred thousand meters high. Its horrible spirit suffocated the entire Immortal Realm. The immortals and practitioners with weak cultivations lost all their morale. Even the Nine-headed Fierce Beast and the Wild Wind frowned at the sight, with horror and shock in their eyes.


    The Omnipotent Sage!!


    This was the Omnipotent Sage!!


    Sure enough, this was totally different!


    This was the Omnipotent Sage, the last Celestial Immortal of this era.


    There wouldn¡¯t be any new Celestial Immortals in this era. Even if someone had fate twice the size of Zhou Bao¡¯s and his aptitude was a hundred times higher, he wouldn¡¯t become a Celestial Immortal. Because all the energy of this era had been exhausted in the Celestial Immortal Tribulation. There would never be another tribulation in this era.

 Chapter 897 (END) - Achieved Eternity (Ending)

    Translator: Transn Editor: Transn


    ¡°Congratulations to my Fellow Taoist for becoming the Omnipotent Sage!¡± Looking up at the huge figure towering above in the sky, the Nine-headed Fierce Beast Sage beamed with pride. He saluted Zhou Bao by cupping his fists together in front of his chest.


    ¡°I really appreciate you for taking good care of me, senior!¡± Zhou Bao smiled and returned his salute. His immense body began to shrink to normal size. He came up to the two Celestial Immortals and turned back to look at the severely devastated Immortal Realm. ¡°However, the matter is not over yet. My becoming the Omnipotent Sage is something of a fluke. In other words, I am merely cannon fodder!¡±


    ¡°Hehe, we are all cannon fodder to the Dominators who think they are superior to us. The only difference is that as Celestial Immortals, we only need to be treated as cannon fodder once; if we survive, everything will be just fine, but if we fail, we have to bear the consequences!¡±


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s all we can do!¡± Zhou Bao said helplessly. He fixed his eyes once again on the Immortal Realm that was gradually recovering. ¡°I wonder, what the hell did Cundi do back then to arouse such widespread indignation and discontent, that even after so many eras, the big shots still refuse to let him go!¡±


    The two Sages shook their heads in unison. ¡°Both of us became Celestial Immortals during this era, so we don¡¯t know much about this ancient matter. We¡¯ve completed our mission. Please forgive us for taking our leave first!¡±


    Zhou Bao nodded his head. He understood that they did not want to get involved. They were far from fools and were very clear about the fact that the battle between Dominators, which had lasted for countless eras, was not something they could interfere in.


    Zhou Bao wanted to withdraw from the battle as well, but he had no way out!


    He was a variable, the Omnipotent Sage of this era. But it was not because of his strong willpower, his ample fate, or his kindheartedness that he was so successful. It was because he had evolved from Cundi¡¯s Separated Hun, he had cultivated the Seven Wonderful Techniques and robbed Cundi of his name. He had become the Dominators¡¯ trump card and the most suitable person to harm Cundi.


    Therefore, the Dominator with the deepest hatred toward Cundi would not hesitate to support him at any cost. With his assistance, Zhou Bao had mastered the Four Immortal-killing Swords and the Six-spirit Dark Sword, crossed the Celestial Immortal Tribulation, and become the Omnipotent Sage. With the Dominator backing him, he accomplished all this smoothly. However, there was no such thing as a free lunch. He had to pay a huge price for getting such a great benefit.


    He only had to do one thing: be the hatchet man and slay Cundi.


    Why had the Dominators made him the hatchet man?


    It was very simple. Restricted by their own rules, the Dominators were unable to act at will. Given Cundi¡¯s current condition, it was by no means certain that they could kill him in one go. They could only find a hatchet man and give him their utmost to enhance his strength so that he would be qualified to fight against Cundi.


    Even though Zhou Bao had earned himself the title ¡°Omnipotent Sage¡±, he was still inferior to the ancient Dominator Cundi, both in strength and experience. Nonetheless, Cundi was in distress. As the old saying goes, even a tiger will be bullied by a dog when it¡¯s in a difficult position. Even if Cundi was likened to a dragon and Zhou Bao a shrimp, the latter definitely had the ability to make him suffer.


    Zhou Bao raised his hand, and the Tree of Seven Wonders appeared in it, with all its radiance restrained. He frowned slightly. The Tree of Seven Wonders was giving him a totally different feeling.


    ¡°Show yourself, Cundi. There is no point in playing tricks at this point!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a cocky brat!¡± No sooner had the voice trailed off than a fist suddenly emerged from the void, slamming toward Zhou Bao¡¯s face.


    Zhou Bao wielded the Tree of Seven Wonders and a cluster of White Lotuses rose, forming into a shield in front of him.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    The fist shattered the shield and hit Zhou Bao in the face.


    Zhou Bao flew backward as if he had been hit head-on by a mac truck.


    ¡°How dare you attack me using the Tree of Seven Wonders! I assume you must be tired of living!¡± There was a touch of sarcasm and anger in Cundi¡¯s voice.


    Cundi had reason to be angry. Zhou Bao was merely a fragment of his Separated Hun. And yet, Zhou Bao not only opposed him but also fought him using his greatest pride, the Tree of Seven Wonders. How could Cundi restrain his anger in this scenario?


    ¡°I won¡¯t let you die so easily, brat. I will engrave your primordial spirit on the edge of the ninth layer of the vacuum and make you suffer an eternity!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s probably the reason why so many people want to kill you!¡± Zhou Bao stabilized himself and said indifferently, ¡°Your breath really stinks!¡±


    ¡°You are digging your own grave!¡± Cundi finally appeared before him like a gust of chilly wind. He gathered all the surrounding power into his Tree of Seven Wonders and brandished it downward.


    ¡°Crack¡­!¡±


    A sound similar to beads falling on a jade dish resounded throughout the world. Zhou Bao¡¯s glittering Tree of Seven Wonders was crushed by the power Cundi¡¯s Tree of Seven Wonders released.


    Zhou Bao flew backward once again. He felt a sharp pain all over his body. He even felt like his spirit was going to be utterly destroyed from this blow. The blood inside his body was squeezed out under the great pressure, turning into a golden blood fog that spread in the void.


    There was a huge gap between them in strength!


    With just a single blow, Cundi had destroyed Zhou Bao¡¯s newly-built confidence from becoming the Omnipotent Sage.


    ¡°Hmph, Omnipotent Sage! Even if you¡¯ve earned this title, you only obtained the fate of this era. Even though you¡¯ve placed your primordial spirit in the fourth layer of the vacuum, you are just a junior amidst all Celestial Immortals. Do you really believe you can fight against me?¡±


    ¡°Cough, cough, cough¡ª!¡±


    Zhou Bao was overcome by a terrible coughing fit. He was astounded by the fact that he was severely injured.


    Before becoming a Celestial Immortal, he had been able to resurrect on site. Now that he had achieved the Karmic Rank of the Omnipotent Sage, he was capable of recovering instantly even if he was crushed to powder under someone else¡¯ attacks.


    However, one single blow from Cundi and all this no longer worked. Zhou Bao suffered serious injuries and could only recover very slowly.


    Fortunately, he was a Celestial Immortal, the Omnipotent Sage to boot. He finally realized what had happened.


    ¡°You sealed time and caused it to stop elapsing!¡± Zhou Bao shot Cundi an incredulous look. ¡°No, it¡¯s not that simple. You sealed the essence of time!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re insightful, but it¡¯s useless!¡± Cundi said coldly. Showing no emotion, he wielded the Tree of Seven Wonders once again and added, ¡°Brat, even though you put your primordial spirit into the vacuum, your body will dissipate, and you will fall into a deep sleep after this attack, just like I did. But don¡¯t worry, I promise you, I¡¯ll never give you an opportunity to wake up. You¡¯ll sleep forever!¡±


    Cundi swung the Tree of Seven Wonders downward once again.


    Zhou Bao took a deep breath. Just as the Tree of Seven Wonders was about to hit him, a huge black shadow emerged in front of him and charged at the Tree of Seven Wonders!


    It was the Black Pearl!


    It was his Supreme Fairy Weapon. When he became a Celestial Immortal, it had also undergone the Divine Tribulation and gained tremendous benefits. Even so, it still could not resist the attack from the Tree of Seven Wonders.


    It turned into nothingness together with the Azure Big World inside it before it could buy Zhou Bao any time.


    All that was left was a fragment!


    The fragment of the Ancient Sacred City!


    Nevertheless, it also came to the same end as the Black Pearl did after a millionth of a second!


    But this span of time was enough.


    Zou Bao disappeared almost instantaneously.


    ¡°What a cheap trick!¡± Cundi frowned slightly. His Tree of Seven Wonders swept across the surroundings and the space was torn open. Traversing in the countless spacetimes, Zhou Bao found himself exposed once again.


    ¡°F*ck!¡± Zhou Bao cursed. He saw Cundi with the Tree of Seven Wonders in his hand and had an idea.


    Nothing was worth mentioning in front of absolute power; even tricks were like jokes.


    The most horrible thing about Cundi¡¯s Real Body was his method of attack. Simple as it was, with a wave of the hand, the Tree of Seven Wonders eliminated everything in its path.


    Any resistance was futile and ridiculous under the light of the tree.


    Zhou Bao possessed a Tree of Seven Wonders too. However, because he was so young and his success had been a fluke, it would take him several eras of practice if he wished to reach Cundi¡¯s level. He was far behind Cundi in terms of strength!


    He had no choice but to try his best to escape Cundi¡¯s strike.


    Nonetheless, this proved to be futile as well.


    Zhou Bao was in a state of sheer despair as he noticed that the Tree of Seven Wonders was moving downward above his head. Surprisingly, out of nowhere, a giant golden staff broke the sealed spacetime and hit the Tree of Seven Wonders violently.


    ¡°Bang!¡±


    Mighty as Cundi was, he failed to hit Zhou Bao and his Tree of Seven Wonders sunk as well after this blow. Furthermore, apparently, he was severely hurt.


    His ruddy cheeks turned pale. Furiously, he roared, ¡°Naughty ape, how dare you!¡±


    ¡°Hahaha¡­!¡± The giant staff disappeared now that its mission had been completed, leaving only roars of laughter echoing throughout the spacetime. ¡°What do you think? I already did it!¡±


    Before the voice died away, a giant golden ape appeared in the spacetime.


    Cundi¡¯s face darkened. ¡°How dare you neglect the rules and fight me with your incarnation!¡±


    ¡°I am just a junior who has pinned my primordial spirit in the seventh layer of the vacuum. How dare I ignore the rules made by Dominators like you? I¡¯ve finished with my attacks and my incarnation did not come for you!¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± Cundi¡¯s expression changed. He sneered and swung the Tree of Seven Wonders toward the incarnation with a sudden wave of his hand. ¡°You want to help him? Can you do that?¡±


    ¡°That will depend on his luck!¡± The incarnation did not dodge the attack. As the Tree of Seven Wonders brushed across its body, a great deal of dazzling golden light enshrouded it. The light shone for an instant and then turned into an abstruse piece of Star Map. But that was all. The map vanished when the Tree of Seven Wonders shook gently.


    ¡°This ape evolved from my Separated Hun 300 eras ago, just like you did. I had high hopes for it, but unfortunately, I failed to occupy its body in the end. I wonder if you will be as lucky as it was!¡± After exterminating the incarnation, Cundi did not spring into action immediately. He sighed with emotion as if recalling something.


    Over the countless eras as he was in a state of sleep, he had tried many times to make use of the loopholes in the Dominators¡¯ rules and wake himself up, using a variety of methods. But alas, what really worked, and what was likely to bring him back to life, was the method he was adopting now. Unfortunately, even so, it was still impossible for him to completely escape the Dominators¡¯ plots. He had suffered defeat on the verge of victory the first few times. What he regretted most was the giant golden ape who had appeared just now. It had been the first time he was able to create a powerful and perfect Celestial Immortal using this method. However, he failed at the last moment. He could not occupy the giant ape¡¯s body and incurred violent resistance, just like the situation he was facing now. Finally, the ape had separated itself from him and he had once again fallen into a deep sleep.


    He had learned his lesson. Using a living Real Body and his primordial spirit, he planned to suppress Zhou Bao and annihilate him. Only in this way would he have an opportunity to succeed in occupying Zhou Bao¡¯s body.


    Yes, occupy!


    Although he appeared mighty and arrogant, he had bitterness buried deep within his heart. His body was indeed immeasurably powerful, and it enabled him to fight Dominators with all his strength. Yet it had long lost its vitality and its current state would not last long. His current condition could be likened not so much to resurrection as to the sudden movement of a corpse.


    So he was eager to kill Zhou Bao and take over his body. After that, he planned to absorb all the essence of his body. This was the best and also the most reasonable solution.


    Both he and Zhou Bao were very clear about this point.


    But all this meant nothing to Zhou Bao because as Cundi¡¯s Real Body made an appearance, he found himself simply unable to resist against him at all. He was completely at a disadvantage and couldn¡¯t even fight back.


    ¡°I¡¯d like to see who else dares to intervene in this matter!¡± Cundi looked at Zhou Bao, a sorry figure, with a mocking smile flashing across his face. ¡°My body, though temporarily revived, can maintain this status for one hour. You are the ¡®Omnipotent Sage¡¯, can you survive my attacks for even three seconds?¡±


    Zhou Bao panted heavily. He had to admit that what Cundi said was true. Even though he had earned the title ¡°Omnipotent Sage¡±, he was not certain that he was still alive then. However, this was by no means unsolvable.


    The solution lied in the incarnation of the giant ape.


    When he saw that Cundi had easily destroyed the incarnation, Zhou Bao knew that it was not here to cause Cundi trouble. It was here for him.


    He realized something when the Star Map appeared after the incarnation broke apart.


    Nonetheless, it was far from enough.


    If Zhou Bao had not had his previous experience; someone had secretly implanted a thought in his Sea of Consciousness, perhaps he would have been desperate now.


    Now, however, he knew he still had a chance. Although the odds were slim, he still had a certain power to fight against Cundi. After all, he had gathered all the fate of this era.


    ¡°I was able to do it before, I can certainly do it now!¡± he thought. He took a deep breath and his mind entered into a state that was absent of joy or sorrow. He looked extremely calm. A clear picture of the Star Map that had appeared as the giant ape vanished showed itself in his spirit. A detached Qi Power began to ferment within his body.


    ¡°Hmm?!¡± Cundi was terror-stricken. He had not thought much of Zhou Bao before, but now, the Qi Power Zhou Bao was emanating suddenly sent a chill through him.


    ¡°Is it fist intent?¡±


    Zhou Bao had abandoned the Tree of Seven Wonders and was focusing his attention on activating his Internal Qi and Real Essence.


    When he earned himself the title ¡°Omnipotent Sage¡±, his body, spirit, and Internal Qi had been tempered by the Celestial Immortal Tribulation. As a result, both their quantity and quality had been greatly enhanced.


    This was surely a qualitative improvement because all three aspects had been improved by leaps and bounds. There was a striking difference between how he was before and how he was now.


    After becoming the Omnipotent Sage, he had been fighting Cundi with his own Tree of Seven Wonders. This was the first time he fully activated his Real Essence and Internal Qi. These two things had already fused into one whole under the Divine Tribulation. The Divine Power of the Innate Deity, the Mysterious Divine Light of the Demonic Ape, and the Icy Divine Light had all condensed into a strand of black Real Essence, revolving inside his body. Under Zhou Bao¡¯s operation, it began to expand at an amazing speed. Behind him, a black star was forming. The huge pressure it produced began to suppress Cundi.


    Cundi¡¯s expression changed. ¡°Brat, it¡¯s too late to gain insight now!¡± He wielded his Tree of Seven Wonders toward Zhou Bao, leaving Zhou Bao no opportunity to change his fate.


    Unexpectedly, his Tree of Seven Wonders was blocked when it was just one meter away from Zhou Bao. An ochre barrier appeared out of nowhere and stopped it from moving forward.


    Cundi¡¯s expression changed drastically. ¡°Zhen Yuanzi, do you want to oppose me as well?¡±


    ¡°Taoist Brother, you¡¯re overacting. I have a special bond with this Fellow Taoist. I am here to settle all this today!¡± A deadpan voice came from the depths of the void.


    ¡°Great! So may I ask when will you finish doing that?¡± Cundi shouted furiously.


    ¡°30 minutes is enough!¡±


    ¡°Then I will wait!¡± Cundi said resentfully. He glared at Zhou Bao who was protected by the ochre barrier, adding, ¡°Do you really think he can turn the tables after such a short period?¡± He struck the ochre barrier violently with his Tree of Seven Wonders again. The barrier shook but did not collapse.


    ¡°I meant what I said!¡± Zhen Yuanzi said. ¡°With your current strength, you need that much time to break the barrier. If you just wait here quietly, I will withdraw it in 30 minutes. Why bother wasting your strength?¡±


    ¡°Hmph!¡± Cundi let out a cold snort and withdrew his Tree of Seven Wonders.


    He had not yet returned to his heyday. Moreover, unlike the giant ape, Zhen Yuanzi was one of the Dominators. The two were on par even when he was in perfect condition. Everything proved that it was impossible for him to destroy Zhen Yuanzi¡¯s barrier in his current state. Thus, he simply took his Tree of Seven Wonders back and fixed his eyes on Zhou Bao.


    Zhou Bao was caught in a state of wonder.


    The mystic psywave that his Sea of Consciousness had received contained extremely simple content; it was about the apperception of practicing the Extreme Realm of Force and Vacuum-shattering Way. The owner of the psywave transmitted everything he knew to him without reservation. But obviously, that was not enough. He had fallen into the traps of the Seven Wonderful Techniques over the years and he had attached more importance to these techniques than comprehending the Extreme Realm of Force. The result was that he was unable to understand the information.


    Even with the stranger¡¯s aid, he still could not comprehend the message in the psywave in such a short period. Luckily, the incarnation of the giant ape suddenly appeared, leaving behind a Star Map. He was suddenly enlightened.


    The Star Map was somewhat similar to the fist intent he had created by simulating the universe when he was faced with a life-or-death crisis in his boyhood. He had a sudden flash of inspiration back then and it came suddenly but naturally. Not knowing where the impulse came from, he immediately abandoned everything he had learned. The only thing he did was activate his Real Essence and Internal Qi and gather them into his fists. As his spirit and thoughts became concentrated, his long-lost fist intent began to move outward in all directions. The ethereal simulated universe began to have weight. The galaxies, void, and Black Sun no longer existed. Everything was compressed into a black star.


    Dark, dense, deep, and restrained!


    The black star seemed to have condensed the whole universe into one point, a point in which the essence of the entire universe was contained. A terrifying Qi Power began to pervade the air.


    ¡°Damn!¡± The strange Qi Power penetrated the ochre barrier and gave Cundi a familiar feeling. It was this feeling that gave him the most unpleasant associations. He had been quite certain that he could occupy the giant ape¡¯s body several eras ago. But the giant ape had given off a similar spirit at the most critical moment, causing him to fail on the verge of success.* ¡°Will history repeat itself now?¡±* Cundi wondered in terror.


    ¡°Impossible! That is not going to happen!¡±


    At the thought of this, Cundi had a ferocious look in his eyes and his Tree of Seven Wonders shone brightly. He hit the barrier violently.


    This time, the barrier failed to block the Tree of Seven Wonders. The tree exploded as it emanated a dazzling light, and so did the ochre barrier.


    Cundi¡¯s phantom-like figure charged at Zhou Bao the moment the barrier collapsed. His palms became claws and came grasping at Zhou Bao¡¯s midbrow with astounding speed. Black light flashed around his fingertips. It seemed that he planned to kill Zhou Bao in one go.


    ¡°Crushing Claw!¡±


    A gloomy cold atmosphere shrouded the entire space. Zhou Bao, however, was powering himself up. His fist intent, which had just drifted in all directions, began to gather together.


    ¡°This time around, Zhen Yuanzi cannot save you. Even if his Real Body shows up!¡± Cundi¡¯s expression became grim and ferocious.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need anyone to save me now!¡± Zhou Bao sighed gently. He knew the moment of truth was right around the corner. Although he had failed to condense his fist intent, he perceived that powerful as Cundi¡¯s Crushing Claw was, it was like a spent bullet after destroying the ochre barrier. After all, it was Zhen Yuanzi who had built it. Zhen Yuanzi had said that he would stop Cundi from harming Zhou Bao for 30 minutes, and surely he would work hard on this. Although Cundi destroyed the barrier, Zhou Bao believed that he must have paid a price for it.


    Therefore, Zhou Bao believed that he still had the strength to put up the last fight.


    ¡°Boom!!!¡±


    Zhou Bao¡¯s fist smashed into the Crushing Claw head-on. As expected, he was knocked back. A devastating erosive force crept over his right fist in the blink of an eye, revealing his bone.


    As a Celestial Immortal, his body was extremely tough, but it was still a miserable sight!


    However, it was this blow that inspired his confidence. He knew that Cundi intended to kill him through this blow, but he managed to resist it.


    Potent as it was, this blow was not fatal. The erosion of a hand was no big deal for a Celestial Immortal.


    ¡°Cundi, although I hate to say it, I have to say that you really miscalculated this time!¡± Zhou Bao swung his left fist toward Cundi¡¯s face with great force.


    Cundi¡¯s expression changed sharply. He was very clear about the power of the Crushing Claw. Although Zhou Bao was the Omnipotent Sage, he should not have been able to withstand it. Nevertheless, things had gone contrary to his expectations. Zhou Bao not only blocked his attack but also had the strength to fight back. It was ridiculous beyond belief. However, he soon discovered that Zhou Bao was covered with a thin layer of yellow light.


    ¡°Earth Membrane, it¡¯s the Earth Membrane! Zhen Yuanzi, how audacious you are!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I told you that you cannot take action until the set time is over. Since you don¡¯t want to wait, I have to resort to other measures!¡± Zhen Yuanzi sneered. ¡°Cundi, although you are also a Dominator, you have been asleep for such a long time that you lost your confidence. You can¡¯t wait another moment. You should go back to sleep, so as not to bring shame on us Dominators!¡±


    ¡°Shut up!¡± Zhen Yuanzi successfully triggered Cundi¡¯s wrath with his sarcasm. At this point, Zhou Bao¡¯s fist was already touching Cundi¡¯s face.


    ¡°Bam!¡±


    Zhou Bao flew backward more than 30 meters amidst a loud bang. Cundi, influenced by the impact of the collision, retreated several steps as well.


    Zhou Bao growled. He regained his balance by contracting and stretching his body in mid-air. His fist intent was raging, and it emitted a pressure that permeated the air.


    ¡°Cundi, here comes another punch!¡± Zhou Bao roared. His fist intent had already materialized. As he swung the punch, the black star slammed into Cundi with great force.


    Cundi looked terribly uneasy as he felt the power of this punch. But he did not retreat. Instead, his hands danced, and the power of the Crushing Claw formed a huge net in front of him that moved toward Zhou Bao¡¯s fist intent.


    As the fist and the net touched, the surrounding space was instantly smashed into fine powder. Zhou Bao¡¯s fist left a hole in the net and hit Cundi in the face hard. At the same time, Cundi¡¯s Crushing Claw targeted Zhou Bao. Flesh and blood flew in all directions. Because Zhou Bao had hit Cundi in the face, Cundi was in a daze. Although Zhou Bao was protected by the Earth Membrane, he was badly mutilated under Cundi¡¯s Crushing Claw. The flesh and blood on the smaller parts of his body had been completely removed by the claw, leaving only ghastly bones.


    Zhou Bao did not retreat. Instead, he took one step forward.


    Zhou Bao had a ferocious look on his face; he bared his teeth. Cundi had a slight lapse of concentration after being hit by his fist. Void of flesh, Zhou Bao¡¯s left hand suddenly grasped Cundi¡¯s neck. Cundi¡¯s Real Body was not that strong or tall. Zhou Bao, on the other hand, had a body that contained the bloodline of the Primordial Demonic Ape Zhuyan. With his tall and robust body, he easily caught hold of Cundi¡¯s neck. He raised his left fist and bombarded Cundi in the head with punches raining down.


    ¡°Hit, hit, hit¡­!¡±


    Zhou Bao struck Cundi in the head more than a thousand times. The Celestial Immortals hiding in the dark were dumbstruck as they witnessed this bizarre scene, never mind the two people concerned.


    ¡°Bastard, go to the hell!¡± Cundi finally came to his senses. He let out a roar and smashed Zhou Bao¡¯s left hand by scratching it wildly. As soon as he shook off Zhou Bao¡¯s hand, he retreated at high speed.


    ¡°I¡¯m gonna kill you! I¡¯m gonna kill you!¡± Cundi was clearly exasperated by what Zhou Bao had done. He pointed his finger at Zhou Bao and spouted roars of malicious screams.


    ¡°You can¡¯t!¡± Zhou Bao said leisurely. His broken arm began to recover, and his flesh and blood regenerated. He looked at Cundi with a gleam of enlightenment in his eyes. ¡°You are too impatient. If you had the Tree of Seven Wonders in your hand now, there is nothing I could do to harm you. It¡¯s a pity you destroyed your Tree of Seven Wonders and chose the Crushing Claw to kill me. I have to admit that in terms of pure lethality, the Crushing Claw is probably more effective. But if you failed to kill me on your first strike, there¡¯s no chance for you to achieve your aim. Hehe, you have lost the Tree of Seven Wonders that has both functions of defense and offense. If you want to get it back, you need at least the time it takes to burn three Incense Sticks. What¡¯s worse is that a new Tree of Seven Wonders would have a different kind of power and it cannot be compared to the one you were accustomed to. So what are you fighting me with? Your old and broken body? If I¡¯m not wrong, you can¡¯t use this dead body much longer. That¡¯s why you¡¯re in such a hurry to occupy mine, right?¡±


    Zhou Bao showed a strong sense of confidence through his words. By now, 30 minutes had passed. The ochre Earth Membrane around Zhou Bao also disappeared. However, his fist was much more potent. The black star was at least three times smaller than when it had first formed. Nonetheless, it was more compact and carried an air of instability.


    The spirit of instability was not obvious at first, but as Zhou Bao moved closer and closer to Cundi step by step, the spirit began to spread in all directions. Cundi¡¯s expression changed sharply the moment he sensed it.


    ¡°It¡¯s the impulse of the vacuum!¡± He stared at Zhou Bao with a look of resolution in his eyes.


    Unlike anyone else, he was well aware that the impulse of the vacuum was an omen of the Vacuum-crushing Realm. Such a sign would only appear when one¡¯s strength had reached the verge of the Vacuum-crushing Realm. Without a doubt, Zhou Bao seemed to have comprehended something when they were fighting, and he was about to reach the Extreme Realm of Force and the Vacuum-crushing Realm. This was by no means good news for him. Once Zhou Bao gained insight into the Vacuum-crushing Realm, he would be deprived of any opportunity. This was his last chance.


    ¡°So, let¡¯s bring an end to all this!¡±


    Cundi¡¯s body began to burn. The dim flame burned increasingly strong. ¡°I¡¯ve been waiting for this opportunity for so many eras, there¡¯s no way I can let it slip away. Since everything has gotten to this point, let¡¯s make it happen with a single blow!¡±


    ¡°Make it happen with a single blow?¡± Zhou Bao¡¯s pupils contracted. Looking at Cundi¡¯s burning body, he took a deep breath and slowly raised his right fist. ¡°Deal!¡±


    He threw his right fist outward!


    At the same time, the black star exploded with great momentum. Cundi¡¯s body was transformed into a sea of dim flames, moving toward Zhou Bao¡¯s fist.


    It was a duel between dark flames and the shattered black star!


    The void was smashed into pieces!


    At first, the void around the place where they collided collapsed. But the damaged area quickly expanded to somewhere far away that was invisible to the naked eye. The impact of this collision even shattered the boundary between the Immortal Realm and the Mortal Realm. Countless macro worlds were annihilated and untold civilizations perished in the collision.


    Sigh after sigh rang out in the Extraterritorial Area. The clash between Zhou Bao and Cundi caused far more damage to this era than the Dharma Ending Tribulation had.


    The Dharma Ending Tribulation had still left a legacy behind. Zhou Bao and Cundi exterminated legacies, civilizations, living creatures, and even the cause-and-effect transmigration.


    However, for Celestial Immortals, the birth and death of an era were like flowers blossoming and falling. Although the damage the two caused was considerably more severe, they just thought it was somewhat pitiful.


    And that was all.


    Zhou Bao stood at the center of the damaged void in a sorry fashion. He was encircled by black flames from head to toe. The flames had destroyed the better part of his body. Apart from the left half of his skull and his left hand, only his skeleton remained. The parts below his waist were burnt to ashes by the black flames. Even so, he was still smiling, grinning from ear to ear. The black flames were about to stop burning. Though there were still flames on his body, they did not pose any great threat to him. He had finally withstood this attack.


    Cundi suffered heavy losses. He had even sacrificed the body that he had kept hidden for numerous eras. He had still failed at the last minute.


    Of course, Zhou Bao understood that Cundi had only fallen asleep again. Maybe in an era or maybe hundreds of eras later, he would wake up again. At that time, in that era, there might be another person, lucky or unlucky, following Zhou Bao¡¯s footsteps in the fight against Cundi. ¡°And what will I do then?¡± Zhou Bao wondered to himself.


    His broken body was gradually restored. He seemed to recall something funny and grinned widely, thinking, ¡°Maybe I will choose to help him like the ape and the Celestial Immortals did. The giant golden ape had been secretly helping me since we began fighting.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps it¡¯s me who is going to help him by then?¡± Zhou Bao smiled gently as he looked about the disordered and broken void. With a lift of his finger, he restored the void to its previous condition. Even the shattered passageway between the Immortal Ream and the Mortal Realm was restored again. If it were not for the macro worlds, planets, and civilizations that had long since disappeared, no one would have noticed that a great war had just taken place.


    Only then did Zhou Bao have the opportunity to carefully experience how mighty Celestial Immortals were, especially special Celestial Immortals like him.


    ¡°Is this how it feels to become a Celestial Immortal? Interesting. It seems that I am omnipotent, but also greatly restricted!¡± He closed his eyes and focused on thinking, feeling, and comprehending. Not knowing how long had passed, he finally opened his eyes. He murmured as if he had realized something, ¡°Celestial Immortals are indeed the most powerful beings, but they suffer the most restrictions as well. The Vacuum-crushing Realm is merely the first step for Celestial Immortals. Ordinary practitioners can achieve the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way once they comprehend the essence of Vacuum-crushing. However, it¡¯s a pity that they can only pin their primordial spirit in the second layer of the vacuum, at most. The road ahead of them is still very long!¡±


    Zhou Bao lifted his foot and stepped into the void. As he took one more step, his figure disappeared from the void and reappeared in a mysterious place!


    ¡°Welcome to you, young Omnipotent Sage!¡±


    As soon as he set foot in this place, several spiritual thoughts were passed onto him showing their owners¡¯ welcome. Among them, there were two thoughts that he was very familiar with; one came from Zhen Yuanzi, and the other from the Netherworld Sage, who had achieved the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Way before he did in this era.


    ¡°Paying respects to seniors!¡± With a smile on his face, Zhou Bao spread his divine thoughts outward as a way of greeting his seniors.


    ¡°Just ignore these old guys, they don¡¯t have time to pay heed to you!¡± The Netherworld Sage appeared in front of Zhou Bao together with this friendly divine thought. ¡°Again, it¡¯s me who is going to pick you up this time. Congratulations on becoming the Omnipotent Sage!¡±


    ¡°Thank you for your continuous help, senior!¡± Zhou Bao bowed low in front of the Netherworld Sage.


    ¡°No need to exchange courtesies!¡± He looked at Zhou Bao with a weird smile. ¡°You¡¯ve placed your primordial spirit in the fourth layer of the vacuum, so I see you have more room for improvement in the future than me. It¡¯s even possible for you to place your primordial spirit in the seventh layer but only if Cundi doesn¡¯t revive again!¡±


    Zhou Bao smiled bitterly. ¡°To be honest, I¡¯m just one of his Separated Huns. Although I have become a Celestial Immortal, I¡¯m still far behind him in terms of real strength!¡±


    ¡°Of course. He is one of the ancient Dominators and you are merely a Sage who has newly achieved the Celestial Immortal¡¯s Karmic Rank. How can you compare with him!¡± The Netherworld Sage added with a smile, ¡°However, he is always the target of hatred for everyone; otherwise, he would not have been killed back then. He is the only one who has been killed among all the Dominators. And so many eras have passed, and yet he cannot regain his power. All this indicates the will of the majority of the Dominators. So, you don¡¯t have to worry about it!¡±


    ¡°I have nothing to worry about. For me, the coming eras will be quiet and peaceful days. There will be no one causing me trouble or fighting against me. Looking idly in front of the courtyard the flower blossoms and falls. Haha, that is the life that immortals should live!¡±


    He had an infinite lifespan and had managed to suppress his most troublesome opponent. There would be countless eras filled with wonderful things waiting for him. How could he restrain himself from being delighted?


    At the thought of all this, Zhou Bao beamed widely and finally burst into roars of prolonged laughter!